A pastor who has served the same nondenominational church for 30 years has owned up to big mistakes he made when people told him they were leaving his church, and listed nine things leaders can do when someone informs them of such a decision.

Mark Altrogge, a non-vocational pastor who has served Saving Grace Church in Indiana, Pennsylvania, for three decades, shared in a post on The Blazing Center Tuesday that one of his worst failures years ago was when he tried to convince a construction worker to take a job at McDonald’s and stay at his church, rather than move his family to Houston where there were better job opportunities.

“How stupid was that?” Altrogge asked himself, noting that the man moved to Texas anyway.

A year later he met with him again and asked for “forgiveness for my arrogance,” but soon realized he has made numerous mistakes in his responses to similar situations.

The pastor said his experience has taught him a number of important lessons about how pastors should react to people leaving their church.

On top of his list was asking to meet with and listen to people who say they are leaving because they have been offended.

“Why are we so slow to do this? People have left our church because they were…

NASHVILLE — Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California said that revival in America will never happen unless the Church is willing to address and fight racial prejudice, which he referred to as the most “common sin” in the world.

There’s a theme in Scripture that the Church often ignores, Warren said during a sermon delivered Tuesday at the National Religious Broadcasters’ 75th annual convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and that is that God wants His children to get along.

“We’re not real good at that one,” he said. “Friends, we’re failing at unity. The Church is more divided, more polarized, there are more tribes, and more splattered, more fractured, than ever before.”

Warren shared how throughout his life and ministry, his “mentor,” evangelist Billy Graham, insisted there be unity.

“Not only did Billy Graham insist all of his crusades be integrated with every kind of ethnic background, he also sat everyone at the table. He took Catholics and Orthodox and fundamentals and evangelicals and Calvinists and charismatics, and he put them all on the stage,” Warren said. “God has…

Just under two days since the passing of Pastor David T. Demola, beloved founder of the 10,000-member Faith Fellowship Ministries World Outreach Center in Sayreville, New Jersey, on Tuesday, church officials announced they will host a celebration service in his honor on March 5.

“Monday, March 5th – From 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm there will be a viewing open to everybody in the church’s sanctuary,” church officials announced via the church’s Facebook page Wednesday.

“Immediately following, at 7:00 pm, we will have a Life Celebration Service, which will be open to all, as we pay tribute to this Warrior of the Faith for his years of dedicated service. It would be a tremendous blessing to Pastor Diane and the family to see FFM filled to the rafters to honor this great man of God. She has asked that all monetary gifts be directed to FFM and earmarked for IPMC, FITS, and other areas dear to Pastor Dave’s heart.”

The church was shuttered Wednesday and all activities canceled out of respect for the Demola family as they grieved the loss of a man celebrated as a preaching giant. A midweek…