Our 35 years in pastoral ministry (all at one church, in a suburb north of Boston) spanned all our child-rearing and launching years, from the first newborn to the last wedding. Looking back, we are not plagued by regrets that we shortchanged our kids in order to serve our congregation. However, to fact-check that impression, …
By Jere & Brenda Vincent, Family Builders Ministry The Advent season is often one of the busiest and most demanding times for ministry families. Between services, events, meetings, and the daily pastoral responsibilities, it’s easy for pastoral families to find themselves physically present yet emotionally or spiritually drained. We know firsthand that in the bustle, it …
Letting a fallen sinner lead is always difficult – and sometimes no easier when he’s your husband AND the pastor of your church. It’s often confusing and frustrating for us, as pastors’ wives, to know how to support our husbands when we question a decision he has made. We sometimes struggle to know who is …
In the two previous installments of this series on Alpha ministry in the local church, I’ve looked at Alpha as an evangelism tool and as a discipleship tool. Now, let’s consider Alpha as a community-building tool. Once a church grows beyond “family size,” in which Sunday morning attendance ranges from 3 to 75, it often …
I’m not sure I could overstate how much Alpha has impacted the revitalization of our church. In the more than 25 years that we have continuously offered the Alpha course, hundreds of people from all walks of life have taken it and entered the Kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ. We have mostly …
We typically describe a pastor’s relationship to his people in leadership terms, such as shepherd or overseer, and rightly so, but leadership authority Ronald A. Heifetz offers us a new description. He claims that leading institutional change is a process of “disappointing people at a rate they can absorb.” This is a profound observation. In …
Why are Christians willing to suffer for the sake of others? Why do they choose to sacrifice for those they don’t even know? Why do they take the initiative to risk their lives in order to serve the lowly and marginalized of society? Time and time again, they choose to personally absorb the hurt and …
