Books

The way the world measures effectiveness must not become the way the church does. The scorecard that the church has used for decades has become broken.

Many scholars describe the civil rights movement as a political movement with religious dressing—useful for the movement’s purposes but not central to the message. But the work of historian David L. Chappell, based on testimonies by civil rights activists and leaders, contradicts this. Their accounts indicate that “it was, for them, primarily a religious event.”

No matter what I did, every attempt ended without any signs that a youth ministry would get off the ground. I was at a complete loss.

Prepare your heart by preparing your mind, body and soul. Read the Word, remember the Word, recite the Word, and live out the Word.

Hope—the future state of time that our minds long to occupy—must begin with a relationally grounded, material experience with Jesus mediated through the Spirit, the Scriptures, and, often most powerfully, his body.

Refrain from allowing the distractions of ministry to overwhelm your sense of servanthood by sometimes being served by others.

The next time your heart struggles to recognize God’s gifts in your life, take a moment to consider three areas of God’s generosity: relational, physical, and spiritual.

We can probably all think of examples of people who get “stuck” because they can’t imagine living out a different storyline.