#pastoralleaders Archives » GProCommission

August 7, 2020

Testing, Testing, Testing…

Testing, Testing, Testing… Global PAN(DEM)IC and a Sound Faith Introduction Dr. Ramesh Richard Technical assistants attach a microphone to my face or jacket to ready me for another talk. “Say something. We need a sound check.” Earlier in my speaking career I used to count up or down for sound checks. On occasions I have quoted Scripture, mimicking my dad, who ascended Martin Luther’s pulpit in Wittenberg, recited aloud, “The just shall live by faith,” and quickly alighted. These days, I resort to a dry three-peat: “Testing, testing, testing.” A global contagion has unnerved the collective human psyche. […]

January 21, 2020

Say No to Saying Yes in Your Ministry

Reshared with kind permission from Breeze Church. Welcome to 2020! I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m living in a sci-fi movie. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 1900s but the year 2020 feels like hover-boards, vacations to the moon, and robot butlers. Anyway, a question for you: Do you have any goals for 2020? Maybe you’re a resolutions person, or perhaps you have goals in mind for your church or ministry. Perhaps God has placed something on your heart to run after in 2020. Recently, I spent some time in the book of Nehemiah. […]

September 5, 2019

5 Preaching Trends That Will Shape the Future

Continued from PART 1 here. 4. PREACHING TO THE HEART/AFFECTIONS (MARK) One of Jonathan Edwards’ great fears during the awakening that happened around his preaching was that the conversions of thousands of people to Christ weren’t real. That they were surface level, even counterfeit. His desire was that the gospel would change someone from the inside-out vs. the outside-in (through Religious Guilt or Cognitive Teaching, etc.,). He knew what Augustine said was true: that we are what we love, that the most powerful part about us wasn’t our thinking, but our feeling, our gut, and that true and effective preaching […]

July 25, 2019

Preaching for Encounters with the Risen Christ (Part II)

Cont’d from part one of reshared with kind permission from Leadership Resources Intl. To listen to the podcast go here. KH: You’ve written before that preaching Christ must arise out of the Word and should lead us to the table, creating a worshipful experience encountering Christ there, at church. What do you mean by this, and why do you think it’s such an important idea? CS: I got that out of the Church of England liturgy, going all the way back to Thomas Cranmer and the way in which the origin of worship in the Church of England was set out. […]

July 23, 2019

What does it mean to preach Christ? (Part I)

Reshared with kind permission from Leadership Resource International. LRI’s Kevin Halloran sat down with his pastor, Colin S. Smith, to talk about what it means to preach Christ. Listen to the audio or read the transcript below. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:23, “We preach Christ crucified,” and a few verses later, he said he was determined to “know nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). But what does this mean? And how can a preacher faithfully preach Christ? Pastor Colin Smith With me is my pastor, Colin Smith, of the Orchard Evangelical […]

April 16, 2019

How to Grow as a Leader as Your Church Grows

There has been a lot written about church growth barriers, what they are, how to break them and get past them. The reality, though, is a church will only grow as much as the leader grows. Every church experiences barriers at different points, but they are usually around the same size: 60, 100, 200, 400, 800, etc. While barriers can happen at other times, these are usually the ones discussed. I was talking to someone the other day about how things change at different times in a church, and it got me thinking about the barriers and what changes at […]

July 10, 2018

How to Prepare to Preach When You Have No Time

Guest post from Kevin Halloran of Leadership Resources. According to an unscientific poll, Thom Rainer found that approximately 70% of pastors spend 10 to 18 hours in sermon preparation before preaching. What about the pastors without 10–18 hours? Many pastors (especially bi-vocational pastors and church planters) have to balance the rigors of a full-time job, family responsibilities, and shepherding the flock into their work week, and an extra 10 hours isn’t possible. And what if someone dies? Last-minute funeral sermons don’t prepare themselves during already busy weeks. What is one to do? This is a question we think about regularly, usually in regard […]

May 29, 2018

21 Skills of Great Preachers

Reposting with kind permission of Josh Reich. After listening to preachers of many different denominations and having been a preacher for over sixty years, I find the following observations by Keith Drury to be particularly cogent. According to him, these are the twenty-one skills of great preachers: The one thing most of us would rather do than preach is hear another great preacher. I mean a “Great” preacher. I’ve learned plenty from hearing the best preachers, especially in a live setting. For most of my life, when sitting under a great preacher, I’ve taken dual sets of notes, including content […]

April 10, 2018

Empowering Unlikely Leaders

In this episode, Drs. Darrell L. Bock and Gerald McDermott discuss empowering leaders with speech impediments. Timecodes: 00:15 McDermott’s book Famous Stutterers 09:17 Moses’s case of stuttering 16:48 Aristotle’s and Demosthenes’s cases of stuttering 21:58 Joshua Chamberlain’s case of stuttering 24:34 King George’s case of stuttering 28:54 McDermott’s own experience of stuttering 33:55 Cause of and cure for stuttering 40:14 Marilyn Monroe’s and Annie Glenn’s cases of stuttering Darrell Bock: Welcome to The Table, where we discuss issues of God and culture. My name is Darrell Bock, executive director for cultural engagement at the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. […]

December 11, 2017

What One Question Can Move Your Meetings From “We Met – We Talked” To “We Met – We Decided!”?

Tired of meetings that don’t end in “We have decided…?” Read more… (shared with kind permission from Bob Tiede ) How often are you in meetings that have a topic(s) but no clear purpose that you are aware of? You Meet – You Talk – then the meeting ends and as you walk out the door, you scratch your head and ask yourself, “Was anything decided?” Frustrating, isn’t it? Did you know that you can change this? You can! Just by asking “One Simple Question!” But first: How would you score your “Current Meeting Effectiveness” for the meetings you lead? How […]