Many books focus on how to grow a church and "succeed" as a pastor, but few help clergy cope with the daily pressures they face in juggling the demands of ministry, family, and personal ambitions. David Horner overturns the notion that pastors must accept disobedience in some aspects of life to thrive in others. Examining his thirty years of pastoral ministry, Horner mines seven key challenges that pastors must face well in order to restore and maintain a healthy balance. Church leaders and those who love them will find this book a practical and biblical guide that reinvigorates their calling.
With 30 years of experience behind him, David Horner knows the pitfalls of a life in ministry. In 7 Challenges Pastors Face, Horner shows you how to - balance the demands of your calling - sharpen your vision - grow a team - cultivate humility Developing a well-balanced approach to responsibilities and passions will equip you to thrive in the face of the many challenges of ministry. This book can show you the way.
Pastoral ministry is more challenging than ever with unique, complicated burdens and expectations some have not experienced in previous generations. Because of this, the number of pastors who start with a great zeal for the work, quickly crash and burn and are left with a battered faith and family. This book seeks to identify those unique challenges, diagnose the problem, propose a biblical solution, and then guide the pastor and his family to embrace these challenges while shepherding the family through them.
Advice on how to care for pastors' kids and allow them to find their own faith and identity. Pastors' kids are often burdened by others' expectations, but there is a wonderful solution, both at home and in the church: grace. In this revised, refreshed version of Barnabas Piper's best-known book, the author candidly shares his own experiences as son of pastor and bestselling author John Piper, offering a challenge to our churches and to the families at their very heart: how to care for pastors' kids and allow them to find their own faith and identity. Foreword by John Piper.
More and more pulpits are occupied by motivational speakers rather than preachers. Church congregations are not being given a comprehensive, biblical understanding of the faith. Drawing on his own experience as a pastor in Zambia, Conrad Mbewe tackles issues such as the content of pastoral preaching, how pastoral preaching relates to church life, finding the time to prepare pastoral sermons, and dealing with discouragement. Throughout the book, it is clear that the author’s conviction is to see preachers grow strong churches, to build a people for God.
Division. Disobedience. Legalism. These are just a few of the many problems that plague churches today, just as they plagued the Corinthian church in the first century. That's why, out of his great love and concern for this young church, Paul addressed these issues boldly, offering the Christians at Corinth much-needed admonition, instruction, and encouragement. If you have ever witnessed a church split or a denominational dispute, you know firsthand that the same sort of struggles impact our churches today. In Twelve Challenges Churches Face, pastor Mark Dever-a leading authority on the subject of church health-tackles this and eleven other major challenges we must fight to overcome. These twelve challenges, if left unchecked, can cripple a church and stifle its ministry to a needy world. But if individuals and churches immerse themselves in God's Word and heed Paul's instruction, God will heal even the sickest church and transform it into a powerful vehicle for proclaiming the gospel of Christ.
Pastors are tasked with the incredibly demanding job of caring for the spiritual, emotional, and, at times‚ physical needs of their people. While seminary is helpful preparation for many of the challenges pastors face, there’s far more to pastoral ministry than what can be covered in the classroom. Designed as a reference guide for nearly every situation a pastor will face, this comprehensive book by seasoned pastors Kent Hughes and Doug O’Donnell is packed full of biblical wisdom and practical guidance related to the reality of pastoral ministry in the trenches. From officiating weddings to conducting funerals to visiting the sick, this book will equip pastors and church leaders with the knowledge they need to effectively minister to their flocks, both within the walls of the church and beyond.
Describing the difficulties of balancing a career and family life, The Pastor’s Family: The Challenges of Family Life and Pastoral Responsibilities is a personal narrative that discusses the all-too-familiar practice of neglecting your family for your job. Pastors will learn the importance of balancing time and attention between their families and religious careers by exploring the problems caused by one pastor’s prolonged absence from home. Containing research and first-hand experiences, The Pastor’s Family calls for a change in ministry policies that will enable pastors to devote as much time to their families as they do to their congregations.Containing stories and anecdotes from the author, his wife, and his two children, this book offers suggestions on how to improve the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of a pastor’s family. The information and insight provided by The Pastor’s Family will also help pastors’wives realize that they are not alone in their demanding roles and will help church policymakers discover the need to improve relations between the congregation and the pastor’s family. With the hope that the universal problems of pastors’families will be revealed, the author shares with you methods that have helped bring him and his family closer together, including: understanding the expectations of the stereotypical “superpastor” and learning how to set boundaries between family life and career realizing that a pastor’s family is subject to the same problems and challenges other families face and helping your family deal with this pressure learning the various definitions of codependency and how this can attribute to the neglect of your family discussing the history of abuse of pastors’families through the Bible and famous religious figures recognizing the discrimination of a pastor’s wife and her sufferings, such as coping with her husband’s various psychological challenges and being expected to always help her husband with his career discovering how conflicts can provoke communication, release emotions, identify and clarify problems, and permit individualization understanding why people feel a loss of power or personal rejection when their requests are not grantedEmphasizing the practice of setting boundaries, The Pastor’s Family examines ways to promote assertiveness through self-talk and self-differentiation that will help you defeat codependent behavior. This will teach you that it is all right to say “no”-- that it is all right to do things for yourself. From The Pastor’s Family, you will learn how to correct the ideology that makes many pastors feel they must honor every parishioner request, despite the effect it will have on his family. Through stories of hardship and personal revelations, this book will help you realize the need for church policy reforms that will allow pastors to be looked upon as humans who have familiesbesides their parishioners.
Drawing on a lifetime of pastoral experience, The Care of Souls is a beautifully written treasury of proven wisdom which pastors will find themselves turning to again and again. Harold Senkbeil helps remind pastors of the essential calling of the ministry: preaching and living out the Word of God while orienting others in the same direction. And he offers practical and fruitful adviceâ€"born out of his five decades as a pastorâ€"that will benefit both new pastors and those with years in the pulpit. In a time when many churches have lost sight of the real purpose of the church, The Care of Souls invites a new generation of pastors to form the godly habits and practical wisdom needed to minister to the hearts and souls of those committed to their care.
