Every post, newest first.
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CNN Says the Church Is Collapsing in America – Here’s What They Missed
A CNN article titled “A ‘tsunami’ of church closings is poised to remake America” has circulated across my…
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Your Wife Isn’t Just Another Church Member
When I think about the last decade-plus of pastoring a church, one thing that is still hard to…
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Should a Pastor Use AI? Where I Draw the Line
On Monday, a fellow pastor and I spent almost an hour talking about AI. He was wrestling with…
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Is Meekness Missing in Your Life and Ministry?
If I’m honest, meekness was never a quality I aspired to as a young leader. Vision, confidence, competency…
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What Pastors Feel When Someone Leaves the Church
One pastoral ministry challenge that doesn’t get talked about enough is how to respond when people leave your…
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Stop Throwing Sand: Preaching Clearer Sermons
When I look back now at some of my early sermons, I’m embarrassed at how unorganized and all…
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Two Contents, Two Realities: What Francis Schaeffer Taught Me About Ministry That Matters
Many have asked me where the name of this site came from – Why ‘Ministry that Matters’? There…
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Consolation and Desolation: Lessons from John 6
Consolation and desolation aren’t just seasons we pass through. Understanding them is critical to how we grow as…
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Six Preaching Principles Every Pastor Needs
I recently got to participate in a workshop on preaching for church planters in training. I was one…
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The Unique Burden Pastors Carry
A few weeks ago on the Redeemer Network Podcast, I sat down with two pastors from our network,…
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Where Does Your Identity Come From?
Imagine I handed you an index card and asked you to answer one question in a single sentence:…
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Cultivating a Prayerful Ministry
I am convinced that there is a lot of prayerless (or prayer-lite) ministry going on in churches all…
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Understanding Christian Growth: 5 Essentials
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of students at Redeemer about spiritual growth. I…
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Five Qualities of a Healthy Church Planter
Over the last fifteen years, I’ve spent a lot of time in rooms full of church planters; some…
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18 Questions About Heaven Answered
It’s been a fun Summer of learning and growing at Redeemer. We have offered several different Redeemer Equip…
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Understanding Lent: A Season of Repentance, Reflection, and Renewal
The season of Lent begins today (February 18th). Like Advent, Lent is a season in the historic church…
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Finding Hope in Suffering: Discipleship Through Pain
I recently asked a pastor friend of mine how things were going in his church. He paused and…
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Ministry is Hard: 10 Keys to Enduring in Ministry
In a recent episode of the Redeemer Network Podcast, I had the privilege of sitting down with two…
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What Is Advent?
Advent, a four-week journey leading to Christmas, invites reflection on God’s faithfulness, celebrates Jesus as the light in…
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Complementarianism: Restrictive or Reflective?
Over the years, churches have wrestled with what it means to faithfully live out a complementarian view of…
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Avoiding Political Idolatry: A Pastoral Word on Christian Nationalism Concerns
Recently, a church member reached out for guidance about a conference she had been invited to that blended…
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Living a Missional Lifestyle: The Four Be’s
Over the years, I have used many different tools to learn (and teach others) to share the gospel.…
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Is Hell Real? Exploring Two Views on Judgment
“Dad, is Hell real?” That jarring question came flying from the back seat of my pickup truck recently.…
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Faithful Work (Part 2): You Need A Better Story
We spend most of our waking hours either at work or thinking about work. Yet, many followers of…
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Faithful Work (Part 1): Connecting Your Job to God’s Purpose
We spend most of our waking hours either at work or thinking about work. Yet, many followers of…
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Gen Z is Coming Back to Church: 7 Lessons Learned
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve heard people discussing the growing openness toward religion, particularly Christianity, among 18-28-year-olds…
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A Church That Cares (Part 3): From Concept to Culture
Series: The Whole Church Caring for the Whole Person In the last two posts, I’ve shared why I…
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A Church That Cares (Part 2): Building a Culture of Care
If the church is going to be a caring place, we must first understand why we care and what kind of care…
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A Church That Cares (Part 1): Why Pastoral Care Can’t Be Pastor-Centered
Series: The Whole Church Caring for the Whole Person “Who really cares for the people in your church?”…
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3 Ways to Use AI to Improve Your Preaching
There’s no way around it — AI is a powerful tool. It’s finding its way into nearly every…
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Evangelism, the Gospel, and Renewal Pt. 5
Conclusion: Renewal In MeOver the last year, God has used my reading on the Gospel and studying of…
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Evangelism, the Gospel, and Renewal Pt. 4
Learning from Renewals PastIn Psalm 126:1-3, the Psalmist recalls a moment of renewal in Israel’s history and writes,…
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Evangelism, the Gospel, and Renewal Pt. 3
Recovering the Gospel and Rethinking Evangelism in my ContextHow am I trying to work all of this out…
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Evangelism, the Gospel, and Renewal Pt. 2
Recovering the Gospel: A Biblical, Historical, Salvific MessageTo begin our recovery of the gospel, we must start from…
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Evangelism, The Gospel, and Renewal Pt. 1
In January of 2021, God burdened my heart to begin to seek spiritual renewal in my life and…
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The 3 Types of Leaders In Your Church
In my last post I shared some of my learning on developing leaders. One of the keys to…
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3 Steps to Developing Leaders
As I talk with leaders and church planters there is reoccuring topic that always keeps coming up…developing leaders.…
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Mistakes to Avoid When Coaching Church Leaders
Last week I posted about the role of coaching church leaders, specifically missional community leaders and church planters.…
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The Role of Coaching in the Church
Proverbs 20:5 tells us “the purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of…
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Ideas for Loving Your Neighbors on Halloween
Halloween is just a few days away. As you are making your plans and prepping costumes for your…
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Making Disciples: Push vs Pull
Equipping the saints for the work of the ministry is hard. One of the things that makes it…
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Understanding Mission: Seasons of Mission
As we plant missional communities we want every MC to be a family that understands that mission is…
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Understanding Mission: Reactive and Proactive
Reactive and Proactive Mission Not only is it important to understand that we are joining God in an…
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Understanding Mission: An Ancient Work
In my last post, I shared the importance of clearly defining the mission of God with the people…
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Understanding Mission: What is it?
One of the things that I have learned over the last few years of leading and planting missional…
