The Peril of Solipsism

Solipsism is the belief that nothing exists outside of your self. If you, while reading this article, believe that this article and everything around you are figments of your imagination, you are solipsistic.

Sounds strange? No, it is very real.

Engine Charlie Wilson, former CEO of GM, once said, “What is good for GM is good for America!” Engine Charlie was indulging in solipsistic thinking on behalf of GM.

Grades in school may be another example of solipsism. The purpose of school is learning. We create a surrogate indicator of learning: grades. Then we collude with each other to pretend that grades are an accurate indicator that learning has or has not taken place. We no longer even question the legitimacy of grades....

The Seven Habits of the Highly Ineffective Pastor

What would an ineffective pastor look like? Here are seven habits of highly ineffective pastors and how you can avoid them.

1. Be reactive. Effective people are proactive. They take responsibility for their lives and aren't swayed by their physical or social environments. Being proactive means responding by choices and values, not by emotions or circumstances.....

Guard The Gates - Part 5

I hope that this little series has been provoking to your thinking. I hope that the ministers who are reading will delve into Bunyan’s The Holy War and discover that there are some fantastic sermon nuggets and Bible study thoughts that can be derived from it. Before progressing along with the Ear-Gate analogy, I think that giving a setting of what took place after the capture of Mansoul can contribute to the interest factor of this allegory....

Guard the Gates - Part 1

It is imperative that a minister guards the gates of his mind. He is constantly under the assault and duress of the devil and because of this, our mind must be worked on very diligently to prevent the capture of it. Don’t be surprised at the tares, which may loom among the wheat because this is the way it has to be. In fact Paul cautioned the ever-vigilant servant when he expressed the fact that there must be heresies to grow like clover in a pasture. The reason is for the church to be approved by God (1 Cor. 11:19)....

The Role of a Mentor

As common as the word mentor is in society, and in the business culture in general, when it comes to many religious organizations and the individuals that comprise them, mentoris often still a mysterious term. Confusion and misperceptions abound, and yet mentoring has been around since the dawn of man.

Just the mention of the word mentor causes an insecure leader or pastor to manifest jealousy, others to cry out that "I already have mentors in my life", and a few to simply confess they still do not know why they would even need a mentor.

Nonetheless the reality remains the same . . . the leadership actions of most leaders validate their need of a mentor. Every new endeavor of life often brings to the leader a need for mentoring. In essence, business training seminars and workshops is a multi-billion dollar industry because it is mentoring in real life to those desiring to improve and advance in their skills and knowledge....

Pastoral Transitions (When Asked to Leave)

Making a change in pastoral ministry is challenging for any pastor and his family, even when they have chosen the time to make that transition. However, a staff pastor and family who are released from their present ministry and must make a transition to a new place of ministry face a different situation. Thus the question, “How should a minister respond, act, and live if he is asked to leave his pastoral ministry?”

Ministers have been released from staff ministry positions for various reasons: decreased church income, downsizing of pastoral staff, the phasing out of a particular ministry position or consolidating church ministries. Regardless of the reason(s) for ministry release, this type of transition can be traumatic to the pastor and his family. Because of the emotional, financial, spiritual, and family issues, this topic must be addressed to help ministers and their families who have been asked to transition from their church ministry. Having been through this type of transition myself as a staff pastor in the past due to pastoral change and staff downsizing, I share some insights that will help edify and support the minister and his family who are in transition....

Your Life and Ministry Is A Balancing Act

Balance in life does not come naturally.  For many of us, our lives are lived in extremes.  Incredible things happen when ministry and life are lived at their fullest. The problem however, is that when one area of our life is lived at an extreme, the others become out of balance. 

Spending larger amounts of time in one area causes the other areas of our life to become anemic.  Few vocations understand this more than the ministry.  Our dedication to God and commitment to His church often cause us to have an imbalanced allocation of energy and time resources.   Sadly, our families are too often the benefactors of the lessor of the imbalance.

Someone once said, “Time waits for no one!”  How true!  We really do only have one life and one chance at making the moments of every single day of that life count.  Moments that are divided between our jobs, families and ministries.  Moments that we will never get back.  Moments that turn hours into days.  Days into years and years into lifetimes.....

The Little Red Shirt

In the nightstand next to my bedside is a plastic baggie. Folded neatly inside is a small remnant of what remains of a little red shirt. The shirt was an integral part of two events that changed my life profoundly. One event was by tragedy, and the other by the delivering power of the Holy Ghost. Before this article is completed I hope to use that little red shirt to answer the following question for you, “What do you do with the things that the Holy Ghost hasn’t fixed?”

I must begin by exposing my soul to you the reader. My life has been deeply imprinted by a number of personal tragedies, only several of which I will mention herein. At the age of 19 months I was admitted to the hospital after a lengthy illness. The night I was admitted I died. My father fell across my bed weeping and calling upon the name of the Lord. God heard His prayer and restored life into my body, but I remainedcurled up in a fetal position, dark circles under my eyes, and the eyes were rolled back so that only the white was showing. My hands and feet were drawn and curled up. I lost 8 ½ pounds of body weight in a little over five hours! The transformation was remarkable and horrendous. My mother went home to rest that night because she was expecting her next child, leaving my father at my bedside. My death and transformation occurred after her departure. She could not recognize me when she returned to the hospital after going home for only a few hours. She actually thought I was someone else’s baby....

Think Positively

Psalm 118:24 reads, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  The writer of this Psalm understood that if he was going to be a happy person, he was going to have to encourage himself.  Who knows what all this person was dealing with at that moment of his life?  The day he penned these words may well have been the worst day of his life.  His determination however was that he was not going to allow his circumstances to determine his outlook on life. 

Only you can decide for you if you are going to be a positive and happy person.  There is much in the world to worry and be sad about, but that does not mean that you have to live a sad or worried existence.  Others may try to encourage you, but ultimately you are the one who has to make the determination that you are going to be happy.....