Faithful and Fractured: An Interview on the Clergy Health Crisis (Part II)
The first part of the interview posted earlier this week. Jackson: Jason, you poignantly note, “We go into ministry because we want to be part of Jesus’s saving lives and of his coming kingdom, which will renew all things. And then we can’t see how our jobs have anything to do with those things. Fill out these forms. Go to these meetings. Get gossiped about. Where’s the drama we sought? The life-changing, earth-restoring avalanche of...
Faithful and Fractured: An Interview on the Clergy Health Crisis (Part I)
Book titles often interest me; few arrest me. Such was the case this past fall when Baker Academic’s catalog arrived at my home and I saw this title: Faithful and Fractured: Responding to the Clergy Health Crisis (Baker Academic, 2018). It was co-authored by a medical researcher and a pastor-theologian. I knew it was a book I had to get. Having read it, I now see that it is a book that not just pastors need to read, but it is one that...
First Aid for Emotional Hurts: An Interview with Eddie Moody
“People need the Lord. At the end of broken dreams, He’s the open door,” sings Steve Green. Indeed, people need the Lord because they are broken. They need to be mended and comforted. This is the tone and approach Eddie Moody takes in the opening chapter of First Aid for Emotional Hurts: A Biblical Approach to Helping People through Difficult Times, revised and expanded (Nashville: Randall House, 2018). Believers are tasked with the...
Evil, Hope, and the End of the World: An Interview with Michael Zeigler
The Reverend Dr. Michael Zeigler is the pastor of Epiphany Lutheran Church in St. Louis and is an adjunct instructor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary. Michael has become a good friend over the last few years. He is a great model of how one should wed sincere pastoral concern to significant theological reflection. He sat down with me recently to discuss the published form of his doctoral dissertation, Christian Hope Among...
Words of Wisdom from Pastors with Tenure (Part 1)
A 2011 Lifeway Research poll found that the average tenure for pastors in a local church is 3.6 years. Some have suggested that the number may be higher. Nevertheless, pastors who stay at a given church for ten, twenty, thirty, or more years are a rare occurrence. Yet the pastors that we tend to admire the most are those who have stayed at and labored in a single local church for an extended period of time. Furthermore, some...
The ERLC, Marriage, and Ministry: A Conversation with Ray Ortlund, Jr.
On Tuesday, January 17, 2017, I had the opportunity to attend an Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Leadership luncheon in Nashville, Tennessee. Approximately sixty-five local leaders sat around tables, discussing life, marriage, ministry, politics, and more. Chuy’s catered. The guest of honor was Ray Ortlund, whom ERLC president Russell Moore interviewed on the topic of marriage. Before the interview began, Moore introduced...
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