Is Pastor Appreciation Month Necessary?
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Is Pastor Appreciation Month Necessary?

“The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching” (1 Timothy 5:17). October is pastor appreciation month, dubbed so in 1994 by Focus on the Family to promote a specific time for the Church to financially support their ministry. Pastors have...

Want to Fight Loneliness? Raise Your Hand.
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Want to Fight Loneliness? Raise Your Hand.

Be honest, when you think of ministry, does the word “volunteer” come to mind? Or do you cringe, wondering what unwanted task you’re going to get sucked into doing? “I’ll pray about it.” We’ve all heard it before and have probably even said it in response to a request that we’re just not thrilled to...

A Faithful Man in All Contexts
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A Faithful Man in All Contexts

Battle Briefing | October 2023 Recently, I have been amazed at how the issue of biblical manhood that we are championing is heating up in the world around us. Every day, I see Manhood in the Media in a new book, movie, or article on a critical issue or through churches reaching out for help....

Isolation or Intentionality: Which Will You Choose?
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Isolation or Intentionality: Which Will You Choose?

Part 4 in the Loneliness Series Guys, loneliness in men needs to be on our radar. We’ve been talking about loneliness in this series because the epidemic is serious enough for a report by the U.S. Surgeon General. We need to recognize that we’ll see men around us suffering in this way, and we personally...

Lonely Leaders
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Lonely Leaders

Part 3 of the Loneliness Series On top of the recent U.S. Surgeon General’s report on the loneliness epidemic, Barna has revealed that pastors feel lonelier than ever. Because of this, more pastors have considered quitting their jobs in 2022 compared to a year earlier, citing stress and loneliness. Do you relate? “While feelings of...

The Relationship Talk
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The Relationship Talk

Part 1 of the Loneliness Series We’ve talked about loneliness before, and I’d like to think the issue was isolated to the pandemic. Unfortunately, it’s just not the case.   We don’t love to talk about relationships, do we guys? We are conscious of how we use that word, steering intentionally away from it sometimes. We’ve...

Be the Church the Next Generation is Looking For
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Be the Church the Next Generation is Looking For

Part 4 of the Worldview Series When was the last time you had a good sit-down talk with someone about ecclesiology?  As we Build Up Our Grads, finding a great church will play a vital role in their Christian walk and growth, so they need to be equipped with a great theology on church and...

We Are Uniquely Positioned
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We Are Uniquely Positioned

Battle Briefing | July 2023 The close relationship between the role of fathers and Christianity in America has been exposed in the recent Nationwide Study on Faith & Relationships by Communio.org, a nonprofit organization that consults with churches regarding the nation’s family and faith crisis.  “The collapse of resident fathers through the collapse of marriage...

Bible vs. TikTok
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Bible vs. TikTok

Part 2 of the Worldview Series In the war of Bible vs. Social Media, who is winning?   The U.S. Surgeon General published a 2023 advisory on the harms of social media. In Social Media and Youth Mental Health, they report “an urgent public health issue” and a “significant” health challenge that “requires the nation’s immediate...

Build Up Your Grads
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Build Up Your Grads

Part 1 of the Worldview Series Rooted and Built Up “More than half of all Christian teens and twentysomethings leave active involvement in church,” according to David Kinnaman, author of You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church . . . and Rethinking Faith. It’s a devastating statistic, but we can be encouraged that...