Inspiring Ministry & Church Development Articles

What Does It Really Mean to Take the Lord’s Name in Vain?

The What So what exactly is forbidden by the third commandment? The word vain (as it’s rendered in the ESV) can mean “empty,” “nothing,” “worthless,” or “to no good purpose.” We are forbidden, therefore, from ...

12 Practical Ways to Be on Mission This Halloween

Jeff Vanderstelt

A Unique Opportunity for Mission Halloween offers a great opportunity for many to engage in new relationships with those around us or to revisit some old relationships with new missional intentionality. Rega...

Church Leader: It Shouldn’t Be Lonely at the Top

Drew Hunter

Pastors and leaders spend a lot of time with people—leading meetings, grabbing coffee, responding to messages. And yet with all this connection, they are often socially isolated, with their interior lives large...

So What? Who Cares?

Phillip Hamm

Nearly half a million people run marathons annually. That's equivalent to everybody in Toledo, Ohio, running 26.2 miles every year. What's interesting is more than 50 percent of the runners are running marathon...

All for the King

Lewis Allen

Q. Will we pray ourselves into a glad submission to God? A. Our preaching will never satisfy us. It isn’t meant to. Let’s give our hearts to God. ——— Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the...

An Open Letter to the Church on the Issue of Infertility

Matthew Arbo

Dear Church, There are some in your community who are struggling. Those among you may be struggling in different ways and to different degrees. Infertility is more common than you may realize. You very likel...

One Way To Make Sure You’re Preaching a Sermon, Not Leading a Bible Study

Tim Challies

I love Bible studies. I love sermons. Both have their place and both can be tremendously beneficial in the life of the church and the spiritual diet of the believer. But I’ve observed that some sermons are actu...

Five Reasons to Study the Bible

Tamra Hernandez

One fundamental reason for a follower of Jesus to study the Bible is that Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, studied the Bible. Jesus' education, like that of other Jewish boys growing up in first-century Israel,...

The Best Way to Study the Bible: ”Prepare the Way”

Tamra Hernandez

As in cake-baking, 5K-running, baby-birthing, and home-building, so in Bible-studying - preparation is indispensable. Study methods abound, but using any of them effectively requires preparation. Instead of hun...

Stories

Phillip Hamm

I hadn’t preached much, and I didn’t preach well. Unfortunately, I was unware of this, but it was crystal clear to the people in attendance at that small country church. At first it was just yawns. Then I notic...