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The Christmas season can be one of the most painful periods of the year for many people. Sure, it’s full of joy and celebration, but it’s also full of heartache.It can be tough, even for pastors. If you lost someone this year, that empty space at the table will look much bigger during this season. Or painful Christmas experiences from your past may still linger and weigh you down.Add that to all the busyness of the Christmas season in our churches, and you’re not alone if you find ministry particularly tough this time of year.But never forget—God never wastes a hurt. God will often turn your deepest struggles, even during the Christmas season, into profound opportunities to serve and help others who are struggling.But you’ll have to be open and honest about that pain—and that’s tough.Paul regularly turned pain in his life into ministry opportunities. He once wrote, “[God] comforts us when we are in trouble, so that we can share that same comfort with others in trouble” (2 Corinthians 1:4 CEV).God has a purpose for our pain. It trains us for ministry in a way seminary or Bible college simply can’t.You have congregants hurting right now. Some people you shepherd have lost a spouse or a child this year. This Christmas they’ll have a person missing from the holiday table. It’ll be the toughest Christmas of their life. And they may never open up about this experience to anyone. Others are facing their first Christmas sober. It’s taking every bit of strength they have to avoid their drug of choice.Pastor, God can use your struggles to bring them hope—whether that’s through your preaching, sitting with someone at the hospital, or sharing a cup of coffee.But you must be open and honest, even when it’s scary. Your authenticity encourages the people you lead to be open and honest about their own struggles.Here are some ways you can let God use your pain to help others this Christmas.Share how God got your attention through pain. Pain is often a wakeup call. C.S. Lewis once said, “God whispers to us in our pleasure, but he shouts to us in our pain.” Pain is God’s megaphone. The parable of the prodigal son shows us this. Everything was going great in the prodigal son’s life until suddenly they weren’t. The Bible says when pain came, the prodigal son “came to his senses” (Luke 15:17 CEV).I’m guessing you’ve had times in your past when you came to your senses after experiencing pain. When you share those experiences, you help people’s eyes to be opened to what God is trying to say to them. Share what God taught you with the pain.Pain is one of the best teachers. God uses it to help us grow up in our faith. Our pain teaches us to depend upon God, to trust his Word, and to see how much we need others.In Psalm 119, David describes how God used pain to help him trust and obey God’s Word. He writes, “I used to wander off until you disciplined me; but now I closely follow your word” (Psalm 119:67 NLT). You have people in your church who need to hear that story from your life. They need to know what God taught you in those dark days— because they need to apply those lessons to their own lives.Share how God brought good out of your pain.God brings good out of pain all the time, but you rarely can see it while you’re in the middle of the pain. But once you realize it, this new perspective will change everything.As much as anyone who ever lived, Paul realized that not every situation he faced had a happy ending on this side of eternity. He knew pain and loneliness in his ministry (2 Corinthians 11:24-28), but he also knew God used his suffering for good. People came to faith in Jesus because of his time in prison (Philippians 1:12). In Romans 8:28, he writes from experience, “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (NLT).Again, you usually can’t see this while you’re in the middle of the painful season, but you can from the other side.Be ready to talk about how God has brought good out of your pain. If you experienced that Christmas season when you were out of money, describe to those you’re shepherding what it was like when God met your needs. Show them what you learned about God during those lonely seasons of your life. They need to hear how God showed up in your pain. Share how Jesus gave you hope in the middle of your pain.When people are in pain, they need hope to cope. Whether that pain is in their family, their finances, their work, or somewhere else, they need to know they won’t be alone.God never promises us a life free of pain. But he does promise to always be there for us. We never have to go through pain by ourselves.That’s the hope of the gospel. More people will be open to hearing the hope of the gospel during this season than at any other time of the year.When you meet people in pain this Christmas, help them see how the baby in the manger became the crucified Lord who gives us hope in our pain. We’ve all been through painful seasons in our lives. Don’t waste that pain. Let it help others this Christmas season.

Pastor, you need a shepherd.  Yes, God has called you to shepherd others. The very term of pastor literally means shepherd.  But you’re not just called to shepherd others. God wants you to be shepherded, too. You have a world of worries in your lap. You have a congregation to lead and a family to care for. Every week, people entrust you with their pain.  You need someone you can trust to calm your worries. You need other people in your life to whom you can unload your struggles. But more than anything else, you need to let Jesus shepherd you.A shepherd feeds, leads, and meets needs. That’s the good shepherd Jesus describes in Psalm 23— and the ultimate antidote to the worries you face in ministry.  King David starts the most famous chapter in the Bible with these words: “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing” (Psalm 23:1 NIV). That’s the shepherd all of us need. Worries inevitably come when we put our security in something other than God. Even as we preach the opposite, we can do this all the time as pastors. We trust in the growth of our church, in the kind words of our congregation, and in the regularities of our routines. But all of those can be taken away from us. You can’t lose your relationship with God. Paul reminds us of the basis of his provision in Philippians 4:19: “My God will richly fill your every need in a glorious way through Christ Jesus” (GWT). God’s provision doesn’t depend on anything you’ve done. It doesn’t depend upon your magnetic personality, your preaching prowess, or your relationship with your congregants.  Because of what Jesus did for you on the cross, you don’t have to do good or be good to receive the goodness of God.  So, what does God’s provision as your shepherd mean for you as a pastor? God doesn’t want you to worry about anything. Let that sink in for a minute. You don’t need to worry about anything. If you have any doubt about that, Jesus gives us five reasons why we don’t need to worry in the Sermon on the Mount. Worry is unreasonable. Jesus says our worry makes no sense. “So I tell you, don’t worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes” (Matthew 6:25 NCV).Jesus reminds us we usually worry about the wrong things—issues that won’t matter in a year, much less for eternity and issues that we can’t change anyway. Worry is unnatural. “Look at the birds in the air. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns” (Matthew 5:25 NCV). Human beings are the only thing God created that worries. Animals don’t worry. Trees don’t worry. Rocks don’t worry. Only Christians who are rebelling against God worry. God didn’t create us to worry. Worry is unhelpful. “You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it” (Matthew 6:27 NCV). Worry doesn’t work. It won’t make your preaching better. It won’t bring any new people to your church. It certainly won’t add any more time to your life. In fact, it may shorten your life.  Worry is unnecessary. “God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God will clothe you” (Matthew 6:30 NCV). You can be sure God will take care of you because he has promised to do so. The Lord is your shepherd. He feeds, leads, and he meets needs. Those promises are just as relevant to you as they are to the people you shepherd.  Worry is unbelief. “Only people who don’t know God are always worrying about such things. Your Father in heaven knows that you need all of these” (Matthew 6:32 NCV). Every time you worry, you’re acting like an unbeliever. When you do that, you’re showing a poor testimony toward nonbelievers and those you’re leading in the church.  You don't have to go the rest of your life being a worrywart. Anything you can learn, you can also unlearn. That includes worrying. But it starts with this. Ask Jesus—every morning— to be your shepherd. Expect him to do what he has promised—to feed, lead, and meet your needs. Paul knew what it was like to have needs (2 Corinthians 11:27-28). But Paul writes in Philippians, “At the moment I have all I need—more than I need! … It is [God] who will supply all your needs from his riches in glory because of what Christ Jesus has done for us.” (Philippians 4:18-19 TLB). The same God who met all of Paul’s needs will meet yours as well. 

For the past eight years, Purpose Driven has partnered with the West African country of Côte D’Ivoire to help train pastors, churches, and denominations in Healthy Church principles. Over 3,500 pastors and denominational leaders have been reached in that time, and this year, Pastor Ryan Nunez had the opportunity to make the trip and teach alongside Pastor Marc Zando. Here's what Ryan had to say about the transformative trip! "On this latest trip, June 21-30, we had two primary objectives: hold a one-day, large-scale Healthy Church Conference in Abidjan and launch a PEACE Center in the city of Biankouma. We began the trip by traveling north to Biankouma to equip local pastors and volunteers for a new PEACE Center that is being launched. The center's focus is to begin meeting the needs and building relationships with the Tura tribe, an unreached people group located in the region in and around Biankouma. The PEACE Center will be launching with a medical clinic, adult education programs, savings groups, entrepreneurship classes, early childhood education, and a home for girls seeking educational opportunities not found in their remote villages. Our focus was to train the leaders and volunteers of these programs." "When we reached Biankouma, we found that the region's pastors were significantly interested in attending the one-day Healthy Church Conference in Abidjan. However, it would be a 10-hour drive for them to attend. We decided to host an additional conference in the region on Thursday, June 27, and hosted 150 pastors and denominational leaders. We were able to bus them to Man, a central location, from five surrounding village centers for the day of training. On Saturday, June 29, we held the Healthy Church Conference in Abidjan with over 450 local pastors, denominational leaders, and church network leaders in attendance. The day served as an introduction to the Healthy Church principles and a connection to the network of pastors, coaches, and model churches who can help further train these pastors and organizations." "In all, we were able to connect and introduce the Healthy Church principles to about 600 pastors. The ongoing training, equipping, and coaching will be done by the PD/PEACE initiative directed by a steering team of 20 church presidents and denominational leaders. A great success story is Pastor Raymond Abokan. He was part of our initial coaching group eight years ago. He has been applying the Healthy Church principles to his church and has seen significant impact in both growth and mobilization. When we met Raymond, his church had about 20 members meeting in a small building on his property. His church now runs several hundred people and has planted two additional churches he is overseeing in his area. Raymond serves as a Healthy Church model and mentor for dozens of other pastors in his region." We'd sincerely like to thank Pastor Nunez for his report, and the Healthy Churches community will continue to support Pastors and church leaders who are effectively spreading God's word all over the world.

Remember the day you graduated from college or seminary?If you're like most people, you probably thought, "I have completed my education!"But that's just not true, particularly for leaders. You can't lead in today's world if you think you've completed your education the day you stopped your formal time in school. Ministry requires a lifelong learning process. Proverbs 19:8 says, "Do yourself a favor and learn all you can; then remember what you learn and you will prosper" (GNT). Continual growth and learning are the best ways to care for yourself as a leader. If you're not learning, you're not leading. Scientists say that around our mid-30s, we often stop acquiring new skills. When was the last time you learned something new? It's disheartening to see leaders who stopped learning years ago and have since grown dull.Being a Christian leader means embracing a lifelong learning process. The term "disciple" literally means "learner." Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me" (Matthew 11:29 NIV). Our job as leaders is to be disciple-makers. We can’t do that if we’re unwilling to keep learning.Developing a lifetime pattern of learning is all about attitude. Lifetime learners look at life differently than others. If you want to stay mentally sharp for a lifetime, you need three key attitudes.1. Openness: “Intelligent people are always ready to learn. Their ears are open for knowledge” (Proverbs 18:18 NLT). It's easy to drift into a closed mind as we age. Years ago, I ran across this list of "excuses for a closed mind." If you regularly repeat some of these phrases, you probably need to work on being more open.— We tried that before.— Our place is different.— It costs too much.— We don't have the time.— We've never done it that way before.— That's not our problem.— You're right, but . . .— We're not ready for that.— It isn't in the budget.— You can't teach an old dog new tricks.— Let's form a committee.— It's impossible.— We've always done it that way.Growing leaders simply don't think like that. They are always on the lookout for new ideas. And they can learn from anyone—younger leaders, older leaders, non-leaders, educated leaders, and uneducated leaders.Be open to saying, "I can learn from anybody, any place, any time." That kind of attitude will help you prepare for any challenge you'll face in ministry.2. Humility: "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom" (Proverbs 11:2 NIV). To be a mentally sharp leader, you need to humbly acknowledge that you don't know everything.If you think you've got it all together and can't learn anything more, you'll struggle to grow. Pride is a stumbling block to learning.Winston Churchill once said, "I love to learn, but I hate to be taught." We all struggle with ego, and we must learn to keep it in check if we want to grow.When my son Joshua was young, his favorite question was always, "Why?" Children learn so much because they're not afraid to ask questions. They are humble and inquisitive. Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3 NIV).Too often, leaders avoid asking questions because they are afraid they'll appear ignorant. But asking questions actually has the opposite effect. To grow, maintain an attitude of humility. Accept that you don't know everything and be willing to learn.3. Enthusiasm: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters" (Colossians 3:23 NIV). Think back to the classes you learned the most from in high school. They likely were the ones you were most enthusiastic about.Enthusiasm accelerates learning. When you wake up each day, ask God to teach you something new. Be eager to learn from life's experiences.As a leader, you need to be a lifelong learner if you want to be all that God has called you to become. Develop attitudes of openness, humility, and enthusiasm, and you will never stop learning.