Leadership/Ministry Training (Page 15)
Superiority Complex? Try Service and Love
By Andy Constable There can be a temptation when coming to work in schemes to simply see the social problems that many schemes face. People from the outside see the drugs, crime, dysfunctional families and young teenage mothers. These stereotypes fuel a superiority complex where the ‘well-meaning’ Christian thinks that they are coming to release these ‘poor people’ from…
Recommended Reading List
A great reading list for pastors here. I will be producing one myself shortly.
Handling Dangerous People In Your Church
A thoughtful post here from The ordinary Pastor. I am not sure I would so gracious as he in handling this type of individual.
The Importance of Training Leaders
by Andy Constable When I wanted to start working in ‘poorer’ areas I genuinely thought that it would be a case of going in, sharing the gospel, praying and everything would change. Although these are the fundamentals of any gospel work I was naive about the culture, the work of the local church and the pressures involved working in a scheme. The heart was good but I…
Missional Lifestyle v Pulpit Monologue: FIGHT!
‘Expository preaching’ can appear to be a dirty word in some church planting circles. Likewise, for many the ‘Sunday gathering’ is relegated to an afterthought in the pursuit of authentic ‘missional community’. There is talk that ‘Pulpit Preaching’…
How to plant a church?
I read this article on a blog here recently and found it to be quite stimulating. OK, the ‘huddle‘ language doesn’t quite fly contextually for our situation but I get the point. Have a look at it and see what you think. It is basically the same thing as the ‘Trellis & The Vine’ stuff but I like the fact that this guy is trying to work it…
On being a school chaplain
It’s been nearly 3 years since I first got into the local high school. Since those early days, my job as Niddrie Community Church’s youth worker has involved an increasing amount of time and energy spent there. Last month, I was invited to consider becoming the school’s chaplain, an official position within the school community that would give Ellis and…
Do Short Term Mission Trips Do More Harm Than Good?
Many years ago in Brazil we had a team come over from the UK to do some short term ‘missions’ work (defined in this article as 1-2 week trips run by local churches). What that meant in reality was that 10 young people came over to see our project, run a couple of holiday clubs, do some…
Getting bogged down in your church
A great little article here from the Acts 29 Network on some of this issues that church planters face.
Are You Running on Empty (2)?
Yesterday we looked at the issue of stress and burnout. We looked at some of the ways in which over tiredness can affect us and those around us. Today, I would like to offer some practical tips to help us. Rest is such a hard thing to achieve in our frenetic culture. Finding things to do for the sheer pleasure of doing them is difficult. I read a report recently that…