Is Marriage Worse for Women Than Men?
I’m going to ask an indelicate question this week. Forgive me, but it is homecoming weekend. Many of us here on campus we’ll see again what we see every year: marriage seems to treat many of our men graduates far better then the women. While it is not true in all cases, it is true
In Praise of Mediocrity
I hesitate to speak up about this. After all, who wants to be a spokesperson for mediocrity? It is a much better career move to write something about the Search for Excellence as Peters and Waterman did in the late 1980s. Or, in today’s world, it is better to speak of going from Good to
Downsizing
Downsizing will be the coming decade’s biggest trend. Large companies have been doing it for a decade. Government claims to be doing it now. Families and individuals are next. Not that families will start laying off unproductive teenagers or closing outdated houses, but that people will change their value system in the coming decade and
The Weather Preacher
The role of the TV weatherman has changed drastically in the last 25 years. I’ve seen three distinct stages: The serious scholar-meteorologist. In the early 70’s the weatherman (and they were men then) were nerdy-looking scientists with meteorological degrees who studied the National Weather Service isobars and frontal systems, then made a practical application of
Blue Monday
Most pastors know what you’re talking about when you say “Blue Monday.” They’ve had them—maybe often. Blue Monday is more than a Monday morning hangover. It’s closer to a feeling of failure—wanting to give up and walk away. Usually by the middle of the week the gloom lifts and you are back to your old
My Students Plan to Change Your Church
This week I opened each of my courses by handing out slips of paper asking students to answer one question: What is the most important change you want to make in the church when you get on staff? I did this before saying anything else. I just compiled their responses. Of course this is not
Making Family Traditions
Christians have done an admirable job of cooperative training of our children. We have banded together to organize Sunday schools, Vacation Bible Schools, midweek clubs, membership classes, camps, and Bible clubs. However, in our keenness to adopt the schooling model for Christian education, we often overlook the great value of non-formal means of passing on
It Takes Guts!
Many of you write to me each week about things besides the issues I raise in this column. In reading your email I often remark to myself, ‘Boy, ministry today takes guts.’ How do you do it? Some of you make bungee jumping look easy. Sure, there are plenty of pastors making big compromises and
Is Pastoring Harder Today?
There seem to be a lot of churches anxious to dump their pastor this year. And an almost-equal number of pastors confess to being ‘half-burned out’ and are looking for a way of escape. Perhaps I’m hearing about the worst cases, but it sure looks like pastoring is tougher than it was 40 years ago.
Worship Music and the Senior Pastor
QUESTION: If you were a senior pastor would you have anything to say about the songs and chorus selection of the worship team? ANSWER: You bet! I’d have lots to say. In fact I believe the senior pastor should be the final judge of which songs we sing and which we don’t. Not just to
Five Great Waves – Movements Among Evangelicals
I’ve lived through five great waves of movements among evangelicals and they are generally divided into decades. By movement I mean a fresh emphasis or direction taken by a significant number of evangelicals. I don’t think of them as “fads” though each one has had a faddish side to it. I have a hunch that
Nine Lessons We Learn From Failure
I’ve had plenty of success in my ‘career’ in ministry. Probably too much for my own good. But I’ve had a few whopping failures too, the most recent being a six-year attempt to resurrect my denomination’s Sunday schools. However, all failure is not loss. Even failures can be successful, if we learn from them. What