I grew up as a pastor’s kid and learned some pretty important lessons that churches need to know about pastors and their families.

There seems a resilient misconception that pastors are less prone than the rest of us to things like exhaustion, temptation, frustration, and loneliness. I’ve seen that the opposite is actually closer to the truth. A pastor is especially vulnerable to all these things because of the constant emotional vigilance of his calling. Most of us are grateful, even unconsciously, that our spiritual lives and our vocations don’t overlap to the degree that they do in the pastorate.

If I had one piece of advice for all evangelical churches, it would be: Generously grant rest to your pastor. If everything falls apart when he’s not there, that’s not a reason to limit his rest, it’s a reason to seriously rethink the culture of the church. A pastor who feels like he has to choose between stewarding his mind, body, and family, and making sure the church functions well, is a pastor who is on a path to burnout (or worse).

Two seemingly omnipresent misconceptions: Kids will be fine if they’re in church regularly, but requiring them to come with you will foment rebellion. Both ideas are intuitive to different kinds of people in evangelical churches, but both are wrong.

My brother in law likes to say that evangelicals often think the gospel is something you catch like a cold. If you’re around infected churchgoers, eventually you’ll come down with salvation. I don’t need to go into detail about all the stories I could tell of how this cliche was proven false, sometimes with grave consequences. Youth ministry is as good a substitute for home discipleship as going to the ER is a good substitute for diet and exercise. If there’s no prayer, bible reading, or parent-child discipleship going on in your home, and everything “seems” OK, that’s cause to be alarmed.

On the other hand, I’ve seen so many parents sheepishly acknowledge that they didn’t require their 14 year old to get out of bed for church because they were nervous such requirements would turn him against church. This might be more true if human maturity and development stopped at 16. But it doesn’t, and it turns out that when the teenage years are in the rear view, it’s still pretty easy for most folks to remember what their parents did and didn’t think was important in their home.

This is one thing that my Dad has said he wished he’d done differently with me and my siblings. Seasoned saints are more equipped to handle the frustrating parts of church government, business, or discipline than teens are. You can’t hit a button and make your child resent the local church, but you can overwhelm with its blemishes before he is able to see the beauty.

Here’s a very practical tip for pastors with kids: Think of your kid seeing business meeting fights and hearing moral failures similarly to how you think about them seeing conflicts in your marriage. You won’t be able to keep them out of the know on every tense or sinful moment with your spouse, but when they are witnesses to it, most couples will talk to them instead of assuming they’re processing it correctly. Apply that same logic to the dark side of church life. Keep your PKs out of the ecclesiological trenches as long as possible, but when they must see it, help them respond.

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What are your church’s priorities? Do your priorities have anything to do with small groups in 2020? For many churches big priorities point to big events – weekend worship services, conferences, and outreach events. While all osf these things have their place, do they deserve all of the attention they get? Imagine if small groups and disciple-making were front and center for once instead of lingering on the backburner somewhere.

Jesus commanded us to “go and make disciples.” Disciples aren’t made overnight. Discipleship is not a process or a program. Making disciples requires a person. After all, disciples make disciples. If disciples could be mass produced then services and seminars would be adequate to do the job. Clearly, they don’t.

What if everything in your church revolved around small groups instead? When our church in California reached a place where 125% of our weekly worship attendance was connected into groups, priorities shifted for our staff. As far as discipleship went, the tail was no longer wagging the dog.

How can small groups rise to the top? First, you don’t have to tear everything else down to raise the value to groups and disciple-making. This is not a matter of demolishing a church’s ministry to rebuild it. No one can afford to do that. This is more the scenario of re-engineering the airplane while it’s flying. It requires more nuance. By recognizing the opportunities and creating the right alliances, your church could dominate with small groups in 2020.

Why are the senior pastors so invested in the weekend service? First, pastors put their hearts and souls into creating a sermon. If you’ve preached, you know that time and energy it takes. One pastor said that it was like having a term paper due every week.

Another reason pastors are invested in worship services is because a large portion of the church attend. It’s a good feeling to speak to a packed house. Over the years, I’ve spoken to as few as 11 people and as many as 5,000 in a single day. The bigger, the better, right?

Lastly, preaching a sermon produces immediate results. Pastors tell jokes, and they get a laugh. They hit a point hard, and they get a response. Some will shout, “Amen!” Others might become very quiet. Then, in many churches at the end of the service there is a response at the altar. While approval is not the goal, a response is certainly reassuring.

While there are other reasons for pastors to devote themselves to worship services, think about these three things: (1) pouring their hearts and souls into teaching, (2) reaching many people, and (3) receiving a response. Small groups can do this too and even at a larger scale. By putting the pastors teaching on video, an audience larger than the weekend service will be reached. All of the hard work of sermon prep doesn’t end up in a file folder, it lives on in living rooms and breakrooms and board rooms around town.

Getting the response is up to the small group pastor. Collect stories of what God is doing in groups. Let the pastor know the impact the video teaching in groups is making. If senior pastors could reach larger audiences every week wouldn’t they be interested. Your small groups will connect your congregation, but will also include many people from the community who have never darkened the door of your church. In fact, according to Rick Warren, there is a trend of people coming to a small group first, then attending a weekend service with their groups. By partnering with senior pastors, their goals will be reach and so will yours.

Do marriage conferences improve marriages? They could. They also might accelerate conflict. Do sermons make disciples. I’ve already answered that here. Do men’s retreat make better men? They could, but as Randy Phillips, the former president of Promise Keepers says, “The failure of Promise Keepers was not offering a next step after the conferences.” Essentially Promise Keepers became promise breakers. While services and events are not the be-all end-all of life change, they can be a start. They can inspire commitment, but it’s not over and done. As Marcus Buckingham said, “The problem with people is they are just never done.”

Change is difficult. People fall into patterns of behavior that they’ve learned over the years. Marriages fall into patterns. Work relationships fall into patterns. We commonly refer to this as getting into a rut. It’s hard to get out. Change is difficult.

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Ed Stetzer is executive director of the Billy Graham Center, serves as a dean at Wheaton College, and publishes church leadership resources through Mission Group. The Exchange team helped with this article.

Right now, it seems the world is on fire.

And, ironically, that’s why we need to get some time with Jesus.

Spiritual disciplines matter all the time, but we need to be reminded of that in tumultuous times.

Spiritual Disciplines

Over the past three decades the topic of spiritual disciplines has experienced something of a renewal. Writers like Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Don Whitney, and others have shown believers the importance of, to use Whitney’s phrase, disciplining ourselves for the pursuit of godliness. Walking with Christ in the practice of spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, worship, and service helps believers in all seasons, including times of certainty.

The coronavirus has provided plenty of uncertainty just now.

However, it is circumstances like this that remind us that we need to lean in to God in times like these.

Ironically, I wrote about spiritual disciplines as an aid to help us deal with stressful times in my book Christians in an Age of Outrage [1]. While I was talking there about how to focus on those practices that help to focus us on Christ can direct us to a godly response to outrage, I believe they are even more useful as we daily watch the news updates on COV-19.

Followers of Christ are frequently called disciples in the New Testament. The terms discipline and discipleship come from the same root, right? A person can be disciplined and not be a disciple of Jesus, but can one be a disciple of Jesus and be undisciplined?

The coronavirus offers the Christian community both an opportunity and an inventory. It provides places where we can serve the Lord and others, and it will test the depth of our discipleship. Will we surrender to fear, or will we trust the Lord and serve others?

I want to suggest three primary disciplines to help us live godly lives in this particularly tense time. I want to categorize these three in terms of inputs, outputs, and necessities.

First, we input truth through Scripture.

In a world of information overload and too many choices (168 kinds of cereal at the local supermarket, for example), amid a sea of fake news and clickbait, how do we discern truth and avoid overreacting to the information we want and need?

We lash ourselves to the Bible.

We need to return again and again to the Word of God to reorient our worldview. We do need to be aware of the best wisdom on the coronavirus and be wise in our personal response and as local churches. But we start with Scripture and we look to it for hope and wisdom. Like a car badly out of alignment, if we are careless with the information we consume, we will inevitably end up in a ditch of being swayed by worry.

Bible reading, memorization, meditation, and study keep our gaze on the path the Lord has set before us and helps us to pull against the currents to stay attuned to him.

In a world that doesn’t always regard believers in noble ways and in a time of uncertain days, immersing in biblical content reminds us of our identity. We aren’t as likely to place our security in the markets, the white house, the courts, or our circumstances when we are daily reminded our security is in a God who is both sovereign and who can be trusted.

Source: Christianity Today

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Welcome to the How to Stay the Coronavirus Plague podcast #1. My name is Daniel Whyte III, president of Gospel Light Society International.

Leviticus 26:21 says, “And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.”

Matthew Henry said, “Even their disobedience would not have been their destruction if they had not been obstinate and impenitent in it, notwithstanding the methods God took to reclaim them. Their contempt of God’s word would not have brought them to ruin, if they had not added to that a contempt of his rod, which should have brought them to repentance. Three ways this is expressed: If you will not learn obedience by the things which you suffer, but be as deaf to the loud alarms of God’s judgments as you have been to the close reasonings of his word and the secret whispers of your own consciences, you are obstinate indeed.” All sinners walk contrary to God, to his truths, laws, and counsels; but those especially that are incorrigible under his judgments. The design of the rod is to humble them, and soften them, and bring them to repentance; but, instead of this, their hearts are more hardened and exasperated against God, and in their distress they trespass yet more against him. This is walking contrary to God. Some read it, “If you walk at all adventures with me, carelessly and presumptuously, as if you heeded not either what you do, whether it be right or wrong, or what God does with you, whether it be for you or against you, blundering on in wilful ignorance.” If you will not be reformed by these things. God’s design in punishing is to reform, by giving men sensible convictions of the evil of sin, and obliging them to seek unto him for relief: this is the primary intention; but those that will not be reformed by the judgments of God must expect to be ruined by them. Those have a great deal to answer for that have been long and often under God’s correcting hand, and yet go on frowardly in a sinful way; sick and in pain, and yet not reformed; crossed and impoverished, and yet not reformed; broken with breach upon breach, yet not returning to the Lord.”

Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, “The heavens will not be filled with those who never made mistakes but with those who recognized that they were off course and who corrected their ways to get back in the light of gospel truth.”

Here are some news stories about the coronavirus:

According to Daily Mail doctors are warning there are 500,000 already infected in the U.S. and that we just do not know it yet because so few people have been tested.

According to Fox News The Trump administration will extend its European travel ban to include the U.K. and Ireland as part of continuing efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Hill Italian officials said 250 people have died from the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, marking a record number of deaths from the illness within such a timespan.

According to the New York Times Spain imposed a nationwide lockdown to fight coronavirus. A day after an emergency was declared, government officials put in place sweeping restrictions on the public.

According to the New York Post France is imposing a shutdown of all restaurants, cafes, theaters and nonessential shops, and encouraging its citizens to stay home as much as possible, in an attempt to stop the rapid spread of the new coronavirus.

According to the New York Times, New York reported its first coronavirus death on Saturday, when a 82-year-old woman died in Manhattan, according to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The woman, who was not identified, had emphysema, an underlying medical condition, something the governor said contributed to her death.

According to the Washington Post, Three people who visited Mar-a-Lago last weekend have tested positive for the virus. The first was the Brazilian president’s spokesman. The latest is a Brazilian ambassador who sat at President Trump’s table during a dinner.

According to WSBTV, Gov. Brian Kemp has declared a public health emergency amid the coronavirus outbreak and the virus spreading in Georgia. As of Saturday morning, there are now 64 cases of COvid-19 in Georgia, Kemp announced. This is the largest increase within a 24-hour period to date.

Here is how we can stay the plague:

The solution is not going to come from the president or politicians or physicians. It will come from pastors, preachers, and parishioners confessing and repenting of their sins and also praying for people and witnessing to people.

1 Corinthians 11:31 says “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.”

2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

1 Peter 4:17 says, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”

Revelation 2:21 says “And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.”

Revelation 2:4 says, “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.”

I believe that one of the things that God is allowing to happen through this plague is to bring families back together because families are the biggest problem in our society and if you have broken families you have broken churches and a broken community but for many families being cooped up in the house together is going to be rough because many husbands and wives, fathers and mothers are selfish and really don’t want to be in the house all the time with the family and depending on the age of the children they may not want to be either and this can lead to an explosive situation that can potentially be deadly and by the grace of God i will share with you some things as I have done this and we have done family life, ministry life, and business life in the home together.

Abigail Van Buren said “If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money.”

Albert Einstein said “Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life.”

George Burns said, “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
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Jeannie Fulbright said “Homeschooling is not a race to the finish line; it’s a journey of a million small discoveries on the path that God has marked out for you.”

Someone said “There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.”

Dr. Laura Schlessinger said “Home-schooled students are able to successfully adapt emotionally, interpersonally, and academically to their first, and most challenging, semester in college. That is probably because, having had the consistent teaching and support of a family and a community, they have developed strengths and convictions that provide a bridge over the troubled waters of a multitude of challenges and temptations.”

Ephesians 5:22-6:20 says:

22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.

2 Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;

3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

19 And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,

20 For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Here is what you can do to stay safe from the plague according to the CDC.:

1.Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
2.Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
3.Stay home when you are sick.
4.Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
5.Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe.
6 Wash your hands often with soap and water.

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Now, if you are with us today and you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, allow me to show you how you can place your faith and trust in Him for Salvation from sin and Hell.

First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”

Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 18:8: “Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Now that is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.
Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and today I choose to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I trust Jesus Christ as my Savior and I choose to follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.

If you believed in your heart that Jesus Christ died on the Cross, was buried, and rose again, allow me to say, congratulations on doing the most important thing in life and that is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour! For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

If you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior today, please email me at [email protected] and let us know. There is some free material that we want to send you. If you have a prayer request, please e-mail that to us as well, and we will pray for you until you tell us to stop.

God loves you. We love you. And may God bless you.

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World Mission is taking a trip to Nepal this year with hopes of reaching neighboring India with the Gospel.’

Greg Kelley says, “We’re actually gathering all of our leaders in that area, which not only is our Nepal leaders, but also all of our leaders from India, bringing them together. Because in our opinion, that is ground zero of where the unreached are in the world today. The highest concentration of unreached people in the world [live] in that section of India bordering Nepal.”

The gathering leaders are looking at the people groups involved, most of which are Hindu. Kelley says, “You can’t really separate Nepal from India, because a lot of the issues in Nepal are solely influenced by the ‘Big Brother,’ which is India, and their influence that they have on these anti-conversion laws and their constitution.”

In fact, Kelley says India was involved in an embargo on Nepal in 2015 just because Nepal was considering more religious freedom. India has a vice grip on Nepal, so World Mission sees them as a package.

We have reported before on Nepal’s anti-conversion laws. Read more here.

SOURCE: Mission Network News, Kevin Zeller

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If you promise to provide free Christian evangelistic literature to anyone who asks, people are going to take notice. For 58 years, World Missionary Press has done just that, but with such a helpful mindset comes challenges of supply and demand.

Right now, Helen Williams, Freight Shipment Coordinator for World Missionary Press, says 115 million Scripture booklets are on backorder. Right now, they can only produce six and a half million every month; that means that even without any new orders, it would take over a year and a half to catch up to current orders.

Some of these ordered booklets have already been produced, but printing isn’t enough to call a shipment “finished.” According to Williams, “Some of them have been produced [and] are sitting in the warehouse waiting to be shipped, and that waiting is just on logistics of getting a boat, getting a booking, [and] getting all the paperwork ready.”

With so many logistics keeping booklets from reaching World Missionary Press distributor partners, on-the-ground locals sometimes have to make by without the resources they need. That’s especially a problem for some partners who rely heavily on these resources because they don’t have the training to pursue other evangelistic projects.

“When they have to send out these evangelists with either not a full box or just a minimal amount, that limits their effectiveness,” Williams says. “It’s a little discouraging for them.

SOURCE: Mission Network News, Alex Anhalt

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