Pastoral Success
Last February I wrote How Do You Measure Success as a Pastor? . I had been blogging less than a month and I’m not sure anyone actually read it. In light of the recent posts on church conflict and now that there are a few semi-regular readers, I would like to ask again, how does [...]
Identity and History
My first day on the field as an interim pastor and I reached for the phone to begin making calls. The first call was to set an appointment to meet with my immediate predecessor (who had been there six months before starting a new church in town). Then a call to the pastor who was [...]
Conflict Starts at the Beginning
I’ve been thinking about conflicted congregations lately. For the past seven years I’ve served three churches as an Intentional Interim pastor and one church as a Transitional pastor. Each with only a few weeks off in between. Two of the four churches had just experienced a church split, one was on the verge of splitting, [...]
Congregational Conflict
Tod Bolsinger is in the middle of a series on church conflict. In Church Musings Tod introduces the series by relating his personal acquaintance with five congregations in conflict. In Whose Church is it anyway: Part 2 Tod makes the argument that the church does not belong to the pastor: “It’s your church. The church [...]
Conflict and Unity
When division occurs in a congregation there is often a rallying cry for unity. Too many people appear to believe that unity can be demanded of church members. Colossians 3:12-17 Therefore, God’s chosen ones, holy and loved, put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another and forgiving one another if anyone [...]
Church Conflict
Tod Bolsinger (It Takes a Church) has started a series of posts on congregations in conflict. Since this is a topic of particular interest to me, I’ve been reading carefully, anticipating the next installment. So far it has been an excellent read. “I realized that I was now praying for the peace and unity of [...]
Books about Fathers and Daughters
A search on the major search engines for “Fathers and Daughters” didn’t really yield much useful information. Most of it was for single fathers. Helpful, but not really what I was looking for. What wasn’t for single fathers seemed to be a lot of psycho-babble. Not even useful. A google site search of James Dobson’s [...]
Okay… Now what?
You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside [...]
Why did (she) leave me?
I saw a client this week: male, late 20′s, divorced about a year ago. He came in to see me after his wife moved out. I think his initial hope was that she would see how serious he was about making changes in his life and come back. It didn’t work. To his credit, he [...]
Marriages Restored : Is Your Marriage at Risk for an Affair
Ben (or Ann; or Ben and Ann) at Marriages Restored review NOT ‘Just Friends’ by Shirly Glass and offer a tool to assess your marriage. They (he?, she?) warn us that the quiz is not a predictor of infidelity; simply another way of thinking about your marriage. All marriages are at risk for affairs; not [...]
