Category: The Pastor – What’s Happening In Our Hearts, Minds And Spirits?

How to manage your stress books are two-bob-a-dozen. It’s a big business saving one and all from crashing and burning. Stress is “in,” centre stage, the flavour of the month, lapping up all the publicity it can get. But what help is there for those inundated by joy, swamped by the good feeling that life […]

Forget the Sunday afternoon door knockers with their magazines, or the mantra chanters, or those who hunt in their suits and ties. When it comes to the cults, they are small fry. We have already been sucked in, comprehensively seduced by a cult that has wrought enormous devastation personally and collectively. Not too many books […]

We’ve all met the hyperactive pastor, the one who claims…. To read three books a week minimum (why get out of bed in the morning?) Listens to half a dozen podcasts every other day (do they ever talk to their partner or kids?) Reads all their magazines. And spends a daily happy hour on the […]

Some pastors get high on people. Others are totally absorbed in getting things done. A few respond to needs before they occur and are so far ahead they have planned the funeral service for the child they have just dedicated. Now not all of us are spiritual Ferraris but we do tend to measure our […]

Pastoral leadership is becoming more difficult by the day.  To receive a call from God to be a sheep dog for His flock – or at least a small part of it – is one thing; to fulfil that role half well is another.  The sheer weight of the task is often deeply burdensome. The […]

Many congregations have their own collection of rising stars. May be a tradie, a teacher to be, a young lawyer or two. Some apprentices on the go. Add in a keen young footballer eyeing the draft , a young accountant or a budding IT nerd. Within a year or two at most there’s a pretty […]

How would you like to have a dollar for each time you have sung, “This is the day that the Lord has made…”? You could probably retire with a beach house, a convertible and a healthy parcel of shares. Hopefully there will also have been some high-level rejoicing and gladness (if the actual words had […]

There’s not too much doubt about it. Painful as it may be to say it, some pastors are not the most organised people in this world. Now this is not meant to be an unkind swipe at dedicated people who give themselves tirelessly to others. It is an observation, a conclusion arising from the hunch […]

“Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”[1] How often over the centuries has this remarkable promise of Jesus encouraged the faithful of all generations and cultures? How many times have seemingly very ordinary opportunities for fellowship been transformed by the thought that the Lord of the Church is […]

In our present day church culture which tends to be preoccupied with creating strategies for success, there is a need to ponder those moments when it appears that God has moved out of range. Instead of a miracle every day or at least a deep sense of the Lord’s Presence, a day dawns when there […]

Yes, there’s no doubt about it. The Lord is out of town. On leave. It must be another seventh day for Him. Taking a well earned package in some celestial resort. It comes as no surprise. He has had His hands full lately: troubled people, communities, nations. Why do you think He is on LSL, […]

It’s a long haul from the cradle to the grave. There’s much to learn, no end of mistakes to make, endless twists in the road and constant change. We recall our youthful, energetic, forays designed to bring in the Kingdom overnight. The world had fewer shades of grey then; the solutions were obvious; the possibilities […]