Pastoral Ministry

A Little Understanding – The Footings

People often ask, “Why does life suck?” For those who find the language offensive, please forgive me, but it wouldn’t be a quote if I tried to soften it. Pastors may use more carefully chosen words, replacing the offensive ones and reworking the question this way: “Why is everything a struggle at my church?” I would never go as far as to say the solution to life sucking or a struggling church is Proverbs 3:5-6, but I can say the solution to navigating through these times is not in your hands, your strength, or how you understand things. The solution lies in letting God take over, and He will plot the course. He will carry the weight. “He will make your paths straight.”

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Peace

As we continue the Advent series we find ourselves with the same dilemma as we did with Hope. The biblical definition of peace, like hope, does not match the world’s definition. We find in the prophesies of Isaiah a difficult passage about the coming Messiah. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. Isaiah 9:6-7a (NIV). I personally do not doubt that Jesus was the one Isaiah was referring to but I believe that you can put up a good argument that peace was not and still has not been realized through His arrival. As a matter of fact, things actually became less peaceful once He established a following during and after His life on earth. Even Jesus said…

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They Told Me I need To Write A Blog, I’m Glad I Did!

It was August of this year that I penned a blog of lament called They Told Me I Need To Write A Blog. I felt like giving up. I had no job and, because I am a Transitional Pastor, the odds were not in favor of me getting a job; pastors aren’t leaving churches during the uncertainty of COVID. I was ready to give up. I had started blogging because I needed to get noticed if I was going to find a publisher for my book. That’s what I was told so that’s what I did. Blogging ended up being more than just a way to get noticed. I fell in love with writing my blog but even more, I loved the friendships I formed in the blogging community. The book was why I started blogging and, as tough as it was to accept, maybe blogging, not the publishing of the book was why God inspired me to write it in the first place…

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Value vs Worth

Far be it from me to attempt to analyze the intricacies of the language I have attempted to master from the day I first recognized that those noises coming from people’s mouths meant something. This is not a doctoral thesis or a peer reviewed submission to some publication only read by elite English scholars. This is just my take on the rather confusing construction of the language I call my mother tongue.

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Now Available

I am excited to announce that my book, BLUEPRINT- for the Christ Follower and Collective of Christ Followers will be available next week – if you are sick of the “How-To” Christian books that look at how to decorate and landscape so that your life as a Christ follower and your collective of Christ followers (church) looks good, if you are looking for a book that helps you create a structurally sound spiritual life and church, Blueprint is for you!

Capitalism Contaminates Christian Culture Creating Congregational Confusion

Read the whole post, I beg you! I know, I know, starting out a post with begging isn’t a great look, but I had to do it. As soon as you say anything about capitalism that could in any way appear negative, you are branded a communist, socialist, Satanist, the Antichrist and possibly a Democrat. I am a Canadian so you the last one isn’t true, we don’t have that political party in my country. If you succumb to my begging and read the whole post you will find out that maybe, just maybe, my view on capitalism and the church isn’t that far off.

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