Rick Warren's Online Community for Pastors and Church Leaders
Dr. Joe Buchanan is the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church in Metropolis, Illinois and an Assistant Professor at Liberty University's School of Religion. Prior to coming to Metropolis, Joe served in Richmond, VA and Colliers, WVa. He and his wife Grace have two children, Matthew 18 and Sara 9.
My heroes in the ministry are those men who have stayed at the task of ministry for decades. Several years ago, I met a man who had Pastored the same church over 40 years. His name was Erastus but everyone simply referred to him as Brother Rastus. One day, I asked him how he had managed to stay at one church for such a long time and …
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Easter will be here in just fourteen days and this is one the greatest seasons for growth in the life of the church. The weeks leading up to Easter give us an opportunity for our own spiritual growth and renewal plus they offer us an unparalleled opportunity for inviting unchurched people to come to church. Let me share with you three …
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There is a tendency among Pastors to think that if we just work a little harder or put in a little more time and effort into it we will get better results. This philosophy reminds me of a friend of mine who got his truck stuck in the mud one day while we were out fishing. Rather than coming up with a way to help the tires gain more …
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A few months ago one of my former students called me to talk about the church that had just called him to be their Pastor. This young man had just graduated from Bible college and had served as the part-time youth Pastor of a church near the campus of the school he attended for the past two years. The church that called him was a …
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There are few professions with the burn-out and drop out rate as high as that of the Pastorate. A few weeks ago, I was in Jacksonville, FL at a Pastors conference talking with a group of about a dozen other Pastors. Someone in the group shared that a good friend of his had just left the ministry due to the constant pressure and …
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The new year is right around the corner, have you planned your preaching schedule for 2013 yet? Here are some tips to help you plan for your preaching for all of next year:
1. Spend time fasting, praying and preparing yourself spiritually to hear from God- the amount of time and the way you do this will depend on the individual. …
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Last year on Christmas morning in front of a packed auditorium of church members and visitors, I had a ministry meltdown. The truth of the matter is that the breakdown had been coming for almost a year and during the previous two days I had been showing signs of a problem, but simply didn’t realize what was happening. Up to this …
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