church on Pressure to Succeed

Why did Moses strike the rock? He was a man of faith, whose life had been characterized by trust in God (see, for example, the description of Moses in (Heb 11:24-29). So why did he fall into unbelief ...

The defining problem driving people out is …just how American life works in the 21st century. Contemporary American life simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is d...

Success is a shining city, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We dream of it as children, we strive for it through our adult lives, and we suffer melancholy in old age if we have not reached it....

We pastors don't drive fancy cars or rake in the dough (most of us, anyway). But there is still a temptation to a skewed version of "holy success" that we need to watch out for, the idea...

A Leadership Coach’s Perspective I make it a habit to study what’s happening in churches across the country. I get the honor of coaching some incredible pastors, so I need to stay fresh. Any time I’m...

Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.

Seeing crowds of people coming together to seek Jesus gives me great joy. . . . But does this business, this busyness, mean I’m a successful pastor? Maybe it does, but maybe it doesn’t. It may indicat...

Culture is like gravity. We never talk about it, except in physics classes. We don’t include gravity in our weekly planning processes. No one gets up thinking about how gravity will affect their day. ...

"Not Against Flesh and Blood..." There is an unspoken battle that every pastor faces—a battle not against flesh and blood , nor merely against the seen forces of ministry challenges, but...

Success is a Long Obedience, Not a Quick Climb Let me start with this: I am predisposed to believing that the ideal church size is relatively small.  Eugene Peterson has often been quoted as saying h...

Statistics show that 80 percent of new pastors leave the ministry within five years. A friend once remarked, “If they were able to pastor churches without people, they might last ten years.” Most past...

Churches, seminaries, and nonprofit organizations are notorious for saying they need change and then resisting the very leader they called to bring it. One of my consulting clients told me that he cal...

Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes.

The Difference a Coach Makes Back in the days when Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls (and Los Angeles Lakers) were dominating the NBA, the joke was that all the coach needed to do was “roll out the basket...

An old joke can sum up the failure nicely: It’s said that Thomas Aquinas was once brought into a great city where he was to meet the pope. He saw huge churches, clerics in ornate garb, and great armie...

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Most people entering ministry- are idealistic about their own and others’ capacities to act and to influence others. Our wishful thinking compels us to expect all the adults involved in our ministries...

A Multi-faceted Church Who loses by the church and parachurch’s lack of unity and cooperation? Absolutely everyone : congregations, ministry organizations, ministry leaders, individual believers . ....

For years Kyle and I [Jamin Goggin] had no trouble looking critically upon others in their quest for power. We bemoaned the rock-star pastors who were in the spotlight, whose churches appeared to be m...

Churches, seminaries, and nonprofit organizations are notorious for saying they need change and then resisting the very leader they called to bring it. One of my consulting clients told me that he cal...

The problem is not recognizing the importance of the individual. The problem is the glorification of the individual. When the individual self is glorified over the greater good of the community, right...

What Are We Waiting For? Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sang, “Every day you get one more yard, you take it on faith, you take it to the heart, the waiting is the hardest part.” Waiting in love, in...

Pop psychology is wrong when it tells you to look inside yourself and find your value. The magazines are wrong when they suggest you are only as good as you are thin, muscular, pimple-free, or perfume...

The waters are rising, but so am I. I am not going under, but over.

When we see how God is able to show his power in our weakness, not in spite of our weakness but because of it, we are no longer ashamed or afraid. When we see the expansive task at hand and instead of...

In an institutionalized church, the good has become the enemy of the best, and activity has choked out productivity.

Our churches struggle with being evangelistically effective because they are locked into a self-affirming subculture while the larger culture continues to move in other directions.

Comeback leaders know that our Lord considers commitment to Him and His desires an indispensable ingredient to growing spiritually and numerically.

Churches want to hear nice, optimistic messages, free of the mention of sin or a call for repentance. Churches want nice, lean programs, directed at nice, clean families, leading to growth without sac...

When in conflict we should demonstrate that our public witness is more important than winning a political battle. This means that if our side has to do something unloving or corrupt to win, then it’s ...