Rick Warren's Online Community for Pastors and Church Leaders
For ten years of my life I was a preaching pastor at a church I helped plant with my good buddy Rick Long (Grace Church of Arvada.) This weekend I’ve been preaching all three services at my old stomping grounds and it’s got me reminiscing. With this in mind here are 10 things I miss about being a pastor:
1. Working the foyer …
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I was already long into my ministry when I realized I was a full-blown introvert. I’m a classic case — become de-energized in big groups, re-fuel by being away from people.
I think there are a lot of misconceptions about introverts in ministry. I don’t think it’s impossible to be an introvert and also a really good pastor. In …
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Core Values – The ideals and values we hold, that are non-negotiable, that serve as filters for all of efforts to accomplish our mission. (My working definition)
The story of Jehu in 2 Kings 10 came in front of me recently, and reading it again, several things really struck me.
Jehu...found Jehonadab…coming to meet him. He …
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In last week’s post about an autopsy of a deceased church, one of the characteristics was the members had “more and more arguments about what they wanted.” This selfishness both created and sustained one thing no church can tolerate very long and survive: disunity.
It is very common for pastors and church members to desire …
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“With him we are sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel.” (2 Corinthians 8:18)
Most of us who serve all of our lives in ministry will not be asked to speak at a conference or write a book or give a radio interview. For the majority of us, our ministries are a long obscurity among …
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Sometimes someone comes to Grace Hills from a larger church because they’re “looking for something smaller.” My reply is always the same. “You’re welcome here, but I hope we let you down.” It’s not that we’ve set out to be a “big” church or a megachurch. But we also haven’t set out on this journey merely to settle at …
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Dear Pastor-Elder,
How are you doing?
If I may, I’d like to share three pastoral leadership insights with you that are making me a better pastor-elder, thus is making Transformation Church more effective in advancing God’s Kingdom on earth. Maybe my experiences will help you too? For goodness sakes, we need each other, …
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Pastor, you’ve got a sleeping giant in your church. If you awake that sleeping giant, it’ll change your church, your community and the world. This sleeping giant in your church is your unengaged lay people.
If 10 percent of your church does most of the work, you have nine entire churches your size sitting on the sidelines each …
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“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.”—George Washington Carver
It’s easy to tell whether a person is giving an excuse. Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, or a leader, we’ve all heard excuses from other people that don’t quite add up.
While determining the validity …
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Today marks the release of the movie, Home Run, the touching tale of a baseball player who has seen success on the diamond and failure in his personal life due to his difficult family experiences and his addiction to alcohol. We love the movie because of its message of hope and its open reference to Celebrate Recovery, a ministry born in …
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