Don’t we need pastors to equip the saints?

As a former pastor, I viewed my preaching ministry through the lens of Ephesians 4 (below) and seriously believed that my twice-a-week sermons fulfilled, to a large extent, the discipleship mandate found in the Great Commission. I invested an enormous amount of energy and time out of my weekly schedule to study a passage of [...]

Pastor, what does God really want you to do?

From my earliest childhood, I remember always thinking that God was especially pleased when young men and women “surrendered to full-time Christian service.” Since I was raised in a right-wing conservative evangelical culture, for me that meant becoming a pastor or a missionary; and no matter how much one might be well-suited to be a [...]

Why Nehemiah 8 does not support expository preaching

My good friends—many of them evangelical pastors—when asked for a biblical defense of expository preaching (aka exegetical preaching or verse-by-verse preaching), point to the example of Ezra’s public reading of the Law of Moses in Nehemiah 8:1–18. But they fail to acknowledge is:

The uniqueness of the occasion — It was a time of celebration! The [...]

Ordained clergy seeking federal bail-out?

If George Barna’s predictions are true, many professional ministers may find themselves unemployed within the next ten to fifteen years as their congregations literally disappear into thin air. Research indicates that significant numbers of committed Christians are leaving institutional churches (IC) in favor of a less structured faith journey. Barna calls it a Revolution in [...]

Reasons why the church would be better off without clergy

Interesting title, isn’t it? I ran across an obscure article entitled Church Without Clergy by Christian Smith. He lists four problems with the clergy as a profession in the church:

God doesn’t intend such a profession to exist. There is simply and unequivocally no biblical mandate or justification for the profession of clergy as we know [...]

A foot in both worlds

It’s Sunday morning. Not too many years ago—when we had a houseful of children—I can remember the youngest one asking, “Are we going to church today?” The oldest quickly replied, “Have we ever NOT gone to church on Sunday? Don’t be silly!” At the time, I never really thought about the significance of those six [...]