Ministry Today

Steve Murrell: 5 Characteristics of Good Leaders

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Written by Steve Murrell

While reading my Bible recently, I scribbled some notes in my journal. Then I thought that both leaders who read this blog might find these thoughts helpful. So I’m transforming them into this blog, if I can read my own handwriting.

In Deuteronomy 17 God is giving his people guidelines for picking good leaders. Here’s my summary of those guidelines.

1. Calling. “Be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses.” (Verse 15) We should not appoint a person to a leadership position unless and until God appoints and anoints them. In other words, divine calling is essential for good leadership.

Heal Your Servant: Pastors Deserve Grace Too

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Written by David Vigil/Heal Your Servant

In any city on this globe, a young man finds his way to an altar, committing his life to Christ. His genuine salvation develops into a deep heart desire to become a servant to both God and humanity.

After a season he feels divinely directed to a wonderful bible college, he later graduates and is on his way to answer the cry of a lost and dying world. Blessed with a beautiful wife, he works his way up the ministry ranks finding himself with his own pastorate.

Courageously, he takes on all of the challenges presented to him and soon, with no one to really talk to, he is encompassed by a nagging sense of isolation and insulation. As a leader, he can’t be totally candid with anyone. He loves serving others, but people begin to see him as super human.

Our adversary is ever so cunning.

David Lamb: Is God Really ‘Angry, Sexist and Racist’?

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Written by Kellie Kotraba/RNS

Evangelical theologian David Lamb tackles some of the Bible’s most troubling passages in his book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? His answer: yes and no.

The book has received mixed reviews in the Christian blogosphere, but Lamb was well-received when he recently spoke at a church here. Religion News Service sat down with Lamb, an Old Testament scholar at Biblical Seminary in Hatfield, Pa., to find out how believers’ long-held views of a wrathful Old Testament God might waver with his findings.

Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

What To Do When a Leader Falls

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Written by Larry Stockstill

I was on an airplane between Louisville, Ky., and Dallas, trying to relax between speaking engagements, in the first week of October 2006. As I looked at the Arkansas countryside below, an inward voice suddenly spoke to me: “I am about to shake this nation.”

Within weeks the shaking began. My phone rang on a Thursday morning in November. A serious media firestorm was erupting at a church in Colorado, and one of my dear pastor friends was at the center of the controversy.

The church I have pastored for 25 years (Bethany World Prayer Center in Baton Rouge, La.) had helped plant that church 21 years earlier, and I had served as an overseer from the beginning. I knew I had to respond immediately. Within hours I found myself in an office in Colorado, surrounded by media and confused church members.

10 Stupid Things Ministers Should Never Do

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Written by J. Lee Grady

If you aspire to ministry, don’t be stupid. Decide now to avoid these obvious pitfalls.

I had the privilege of sharing a pulpit with Dr. Mary Ann Brown two times. She was bold, prophetic and painfully blunt. People who hate women preachers hated her even more because of her no-nonsense sermons—always delivered in her Texas twang. She would get her audience laughing and then skewer them with a hot blade of truth.

When this spiritual giant died last month at age 73, I remembered the last words she said to me when we were together at a conference in Chicago in 2011. After lamenting the fact that so many ministers in the United States were failing, Mary Ann locked eyes with me and said with stern, motherly authority: “Lee, please don’t ever get stupid.”

I knew exactly what she meant—and I’ve pondered her words often, especially since her death. I don’t want to be stupid; I want to finish well. So how can we avoid spiritual stupidity? We can start by avoiding these 10 mistakes that have become common in our movement during the past decade. If you are a minister, or if you aspire to be one, please decide now that you will never copy these behaviors.

For Righteousness’ Sake, Christians Must Not Compromise on Homosexuality

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Written by Janet Boynes

There is strength in numbers, but in the past election the numbers weren’t on the side of those who care about Christian values. The lack of unity in the church has caused us to lose ground in the fight to keep the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.

This election saw residents of Minnesota, Maryland, Maine, and Washington all vote their approval of same-sex marriage. Statistics suggest that even many self-identified Christians joined in this approval, while other believers either didn’t vote or chose to remain silent on the issue in the run-up to the ballots.

Where is the wisdom in all of this? If the Bible says that the “fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10), then it is clear that as a nation we have lost the fear of God.