Growing up I never was really good at catching fish! Perhaps I lacked the patience required. Perhaps it was because I grew up in the city away from easy access to rivers and lakes. Whatever the reason, when I put a line and hook in the water, I did not catch fish. Until I met my wife. She grew up right beside a river. She knew how to fish. And she...
A challenge in full-time gospel work is to free up time. There is just so much that can and needs to be done. As we seek to grow healthy churches and plant new churches, as a denomination our GROW strategy includes encouraging full time ordained ministers to re-evaluate their timetable and responsibilities to free up time (for example, at least one day a fortnight) to review existing initiatives and develop new initiatives in the local...
A battle rages for the souls of people. The person of prayer will recognize that the forces of hell will do everything to keep men in bondage to their sins. The person of prayer understands that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). The man or woman of prayer...
One of the best advice I ever received as a young pastor was the importance of 'to-do lists". I received this advice in the early days of planting a new congregation. Life was busy and I found it difficult to get all the tasks of ministry done. Marty was an aspiring realtor, with a young family, and the housing market was booming. He was well familiar with hectic schedules and busy days....
“The mark of good leaders is that they’re always learning and thus growing spiritually, intellectually, experientially, and emotionally.” So writes Aubrey Malphurs in his book Building Leaders (Baker Books: 2004). He goes on to say that “leadership development is never ending, because leaders are learners and if they ever stop learning, they stop leading.” In the CRCA we are committed to seeing leadership development across our denomination, in our churches, and among our pastors. The third...
