word | spirit | world | church
Lots of churches in the worlds I’m familiar with don’t have good succession plans for their current employed elders. There are a number of churches I’m familiar with where the paid pastors are nearing retirement and they haven’t been able to develop someone within the church to replace them. Many would not even be familiar… Continue reading Financing elders
The challenge I didn’t describe in my previous piece of developing leaders, and especially those nearest to my own heart—Ephesians 4 teachers, doctors of the church, pastor-theologians, or whatever you want to call them—was the challenge of recognising them. How do you recognise those that you should invest time and energy into and ‘develop’ in… Continue reading Recognising Leaders
I suspect that many churches feel that developing ‘teachers’ is straightforward, as its essentially the same as developing ‘shepherds.’ There’s something to that, the two are grammatically linked in Ephesians 4 in a way that the other three gifts aren’t. Except, I think it’s tricky. Developing any of these gifts has a challenge to it… Continue reading How do we develop Ephesians 4 teachers
Or, why World Book Day doesn’t need to be celebrated in church. To be fair, I’m not sure anyone was doing this. I did walk home from a friend’s house late the night before World Book Day and see a harassed looking mother earnestly spray painting a child’s white t-shirt, presumably for some part in… Continue reading The Church Calendar Again
You work for five minutes in a business environment and you’ll end up talking about metrics. You will have a key measure of success and it will drive your behaviours. That measure will determine what you’re aiming for because it will determine what good looks like. You’ll do your best to achieve it. It’s the… Continue reading What is Success?
We’re here to make disciples. Much popular preaching in the section of Matthew 28 that we’re taken to calling ‘the Great Commission’ gets my goat. It can amount to an exhortation to get the punters in by any means necessary as though the most important thing we’re doing is introducing new people to Jesus. Here’s… Continue reading We’re not here to make converts
In the last few months lots of people have left X/Twitter. Most of this is driven by their distaste for the new American administration and Elon Musk’s role in it. I like Twitter. I’ve made friends there. It’s one of the two primary routes that people have discovered my writing, which I’m thankful for. It’s… Continue reading Changing Ecosystems
There are two church leadership offices described in the Bible, the elder and the deacon. Deacons provide material (or operational) support to elders, and the only character qualification that’s distinctive between the two offices is that elders need to be able to ‘teach.’ That tells you something about the distinct thing that elders do. However,… Continue reading Pastor vs Elder vs Bishop
Jesus’ parable of the four soils (Matthew 13) shows an unexpected truth about the way the kingdom of God grows: most things we try aren’t successful. Did you catch that? There are four soils and one is good; the sower’s job is to sow the seed. The quarter, or so, that falls on good soil… Continue reading Hit and Miss
This is a guest post from Aaron Stead, responding to my post about a Theological Vision for Ministry, which was inspired by the book Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls. Aaron is studying for an MTh with Union School of Theology. Some time ago I was talking to a vicar who after 50 years… Continue reading Against Executive Pastors
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