Why We Shouldn’t Neglect to Meet Together

Have you ever thought of this simply stunning statement by God as a reason why we are to gather together in corporate worship?

It is not good that the man should be alone. (Genesis 2:18)

What’s so incredible about this is that God said it before the fall, when Adam’s heart was undimmed by the dark night of sin and he enjoyed unbroken fellowship with his Creator.

What was not good about Adam’s experience? He had unimpeded communion with God. He had no God-shaped hole in his heart. Wouldn’t this have been truer for Adam than Asaph: “there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25)? Wouldn’t this have been truer for Adam than Chris Tomlin: “All of you is more than enough for all of me”?

Was God not enough for Adam?

I think we often simply assume that Adam’s being alone was not good for Adam. By God’s design, that was certainly true. But that wasn’t the only or ultimate thing that was true. Adam’s being alone wasn’t good for God. The ultimate point was not that all of God wasn’t enough for all of Adam. It was that all of Adam wasn’t enough for all of God. One human would not enjoy God as much as many humans together.    Continue at Jon Bloom

The Lonely Pastor: Nine Observations

The conversation took place just yesterday. A young man told me his dad, a pastor, recently committed suicide. He talked about the pain his father experienced in ministry as well as the intense loneliness.

Though suicide is not an inevitable outcome, I do know the number of pastors experiencing loneliness is high—very high. I hurt for these pastors, and I want to help in any way I can. Perhaps my nine observations can be a starting point for a healthy discussion on this important matter.

Three Causes . . .

The three most common causes of loneliness shared with me by pastors are insightful:

1.     Church members do not want to get too close to a pastor. Actually it works both ways. The pastor is seen as the spiritual leader of the church. For many, it’s hard to get close to someone who holds a perceived lofty position.

2.     The pastor is accustomed to giving instead of receiving. In healthy relationships, both parties give and sacrifice. The pastor is accustomed to giving and ministering. Sometimes it’s hard to be on the receiving end.   Continue at Thom Rainer

9 Struggles of Being a Pastor’s Wife that Every Pastor Must Know

 Ministry is a way of life that requires us to constantly pour ourselves out for others, giving sacrificially of our time, resources, and emotions. It is a life that demands selflessness as we serve others. And if we are not careful it can leave us empty, discouraged and broken. ~Cara Croft (68)

We pastors would be wise to read that last line again. They are wise words given to us by Cara Croft, co-author along with her husband Pastor Brian of the important new book The Pastor’s Family: Shepherding Your Family Through the Challenges of Pastoral Ministry (you can pre-order the book HERE). It is the field manual we’ve been waiting for to help us shepherd our family with the same care and gusto as shepherding our churches.

Thabiti and Kristie Anyabwile say that ”Pastors and their families need a book like this…that speaks to the various demands and expectations they face and provides gospel-centered, family-focused guidance.” And smack-dab in the middle is an entire section of the demands,  expectations, and struggles your wife faces.

Do you know what your wife struggles with while being a pastor’s wife? Because if you are ignorant of the real struggles that your helpmate endures while standing alongside you in ministry, she will be left “empty, discouraged, and broken.”

I’ve let Brian do most of the talking the past two week (HERE and HERE) so I thought I’d let Cara share. Cara has helpfully identified (at least) 9 struggles, which we’d be wise to memorize and meditate upon for the sake of serving our helpmates while they faithfully serves with us in ministry.

If you’re a pastor’s wife, what are the struggles you’ve encountered while supporting and serving with your husband? Consider sharing your story in the comment section below.    Continue at Jeremy Bouma

Facebook Makes Us Miserable

Just about everyone has joined Facebook. And just about everyone has since considered giving it up. There are all kinds of studies today telling us how much time Facebook is sucking—700 billion minutes between the lot of us every month. That’s a lot of time. But when you divide it 500 million ways it doesn’t seem quite so bad. That’s not why most of us have considered giving it up. 

There are studies telling us how Facebook is invading our privacy and selling our personal details to advertisers. That’s annoying, but not reason enough to quit.

The reason so many of us have considered giving up on Facebook is that it makes us miserable. A recent paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin looks at a series of studies involving how people evaluate moods—their own and those of others. The study itself is not as interesting as the implications. What the study found is that people tend to underestimate how dejected other people feel and that this in turn increases a person’s own sense of unhappiness. Put otherwise, we all believe that others have better lives than we do and this makes us feel bad about ourselves. That’s strangely significant.  Continue at Tim Challies

Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation

A dark room that reeks of the musty smell that accompanies rot. Alone here, your mind wanders nowhere yet everywhere at the same time. A feeling of dread, loneliness or something wriggles through your bones. A sucking feeling in your gut tips you off that you are hungry but you are not sure. It might just be anxiety. All of this happened because of a keen experience of separation from God. A sort of spiritual anxiety. The Puritans described this feeling with the phrase, “the dark night of the soul.” They knew well about the malady of spiritual depression.

Spiritual stagnation is a problem that will bombard everyone at one point or another. Depression, fears and anxiety gush out, because we feel “separated” from God, from grace. We feel alone, sinful, dirty and unloved—or perhaps unloving.

Part of reason spiritual depression occurs, I am convinced, is because we have a wrong view of Biblical Change. We go to God and ask for ways to overcome our problems, our worries. We look to ourselves and our problems and then to God’s word for helps to our problems. Being lost in our issues, we seek help from God.

Not to throw out the baby with the bath water, one should admit a mixture of good and bad rises in this recipe. The good comes when we seek God in our distress. The bad comes about when we try to find the right “trick” to overcome spiritual depression. These tricks are sometimes hidden under the guise of “practicality” or “practical helps” in Scripture.

Sometimes, however, reading the Bible in order to attain “practical” helps or seeking only what is “practical” (a very popular word these days) becomes an Achilles heal for spiritual athletes. That which promises hope results in further disappointment. These aids crush the runner’s sternum causing a desperate gasps for air instead of the promised jolt of energy so-called practicality promises.   Continue at Wyatt Graham

10 Simple Ways to Encourage your Pastor

Truth: “Hey preacher man, good sermon!” is nice…but come on, we can do better than that, right?

We can do better than the shoulder squeeze with the solemn look in the eye. Better than the slow head nod of approval. Especially when we remember that our pastor spends hours each week pouring out their heart on stage, ministering to and in our communities, and shepherding hard-heads like us.

The work of a pastor is often lonely, difficult work…we need your encouragement.

Encouragement isn’t that difficult, but it takes being intentional.

10 Ways to encourage your pastor:

 

1. Appreciate the work they do throughout the week, not just on Sunday. You know that being a pastor is more than a Sunday gig, right? We don’t love that you-only-work-one-day-a-week ribbing, by the way.

2. Take notes on Sunday. This is a great way to encourage your pastor…at least act like you’re going to work diligently to remember and apply their teaching.   Continue at Ben Reed

My Halloween Theory

It has been fascinating to witness the rise of Halloween in recent years. What was at one time a day for kids to spend a couple of hours going door-to-door to collect candy and coins has morphed into a true holiday where kids and adults alike celebrate. Recent trips to costume stores show that the shelf space given to adult costumes now outweighs the space given to children’s costumes. I actually wonder if the trajectory of the holiday is such that the children will soon be forgotten altogether.

It’s fascinating to me—and more than a little repulsive—that on Halloween you can walk into a legitimate, professional workplace—a bank or real estate office where millions of dollars change hands every day—and find women dressed in ill-fitting, sexy costumes. You can find men dressed like skeletons or superheroes. Just for one day we can all act in ways that any other days would get us fired (or institutionalized). 

I’ve often wondered why it is that Halloween has transformed from what it was to what it is today. Along the way I’ve developed a theory. It may seem a little far-fetched, but hear me out and let me know what you think. First I’ll give two background factors or forces, and then get to the heart of my theory.   Keep Reading>>>

IMAGE

Mr. Right or Mr. Right In Front of You?

Sometimes, being single is not easy.


There is so much pressure to pair up and live happily ever after.

The world views singleness as a problem. On every TV channel, there are ads targeting the single crowd telling them that they would be happier in a relationship. An array of romantic comedies and emotional tales of true love leave single girls pulling out their hair and screaming, “Where is the one?!!” Continue Reading>>>

Single and Lonely?