I’ve heard pastors jokingly say that they would love ministry more if they didn’t have to deal with people. There are days when I understand that perspective, but I also know that most of us have to learn to be patient with church members.
BCM leaders have a time of worship during the Baptist Collegiate Network Leadership Summit at First Baptist Collierville, Tenn.
Baptist college and university work has been a mission of Southern Baptists for over 100 years. Whether you know it as the Baptist Young People’s Union, Baptist Student Union (BSU) or Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) the mission is still important and critical to the future of Baptists and your church.
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Since we planted Redeemer in 2008, we have reached many young people—which means we have had lots of young leaders. Roughly half our Sunday attendance is in college or just out of college.
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According to the 2022 Greatest Needs of Pastors study, more than 3 in 4 pastors (77%) say developing leaders and volunteers and fostering connections with unchurched people (76%) are ministry needs they face. The Greatest Needs of Pastors study also revealed young pastors (age 18 to 44) and pastors of the largest churches often struggle to develop relationships with unchurched people.
For many pastors, time spent in formal seminary training is one of the most joyful seasons of life. Most seminary students are in their twenties or early thirties, learning God’s Word and how to walk by faith in all spheres of life. Toward that end I offer here six steps for maximizing the seminary experience.
On August 25, 1974 a pastor in southwestern Ohio baptized me as a new believer. A 12-year-old classmate had shared the Gospel with me almost a year earlier, and God’s Spirit worked on my heart for all the intervening months. One week prior to my baptism, God made me His child when I gave my life to Him the best way I knew how as a 13-year-old.
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — Historically, email has been the go-to tool for church communication. But if you’re on staff at a church, you’ve likely started to realize communicating through email isn’t working as well as it used to.
Wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have destabilized entire regions. Extreme weather conditions have upset crop yields in Africa. Economic instability has raised operational costs for farmers around the world.
All effective leaders are both analysts and catalysts to a degree, but most tend to lean one way or the other. The analyst is more like a prophet, warning about the status quo. The catalyst is more of an inventor designing something novel. How can you balance both?
I’ve seen it a lot – church members who get angry at someone and then stay that way. I’ve seen people refuse to talk to each other at church, as if their silence is a godly adult reaction to disagreement. My heart breaks when I see such reactions because I’ve seen bitterness consume people for years.
Most U.S. adults believe human beings came about because of divine intervention, but there’s disagreement over what that involvement looked like.
I wish I could say that every pastor I know – and I know a lot of them – never struggles with consistency and faithfulness in spiritual disciplines like Bible study, prayer, fasting, etc. That’s not the case, though. In fact, I know so many who struggle that I’ve begun to take notes about some of the reasons they struggle.
Several years ago, I decided to become a real church member. Let me explain. For over 30 years, I was the preacher each Sunday at whatever church I attended. I preached as the pastor, the interim pastor, or guest preacher. I never viewed the church on Sunday mornings from the pews or the chairs. I […]
The prevalence of technology buttressed by expressive individualism (America’s dominant worldview right now) enhances and intensifies social isolation. These two forces working together are a deadly combination.
