Recent Articles

“God, who supplies seed for the sower and bread to eat, will also supply you with all the seed you need and will make it grow and produce a rich harvest from your generosity. He will always make you rich enough to be generous at all times, so that many will thank God for your gifts which they receive from us. For this service you perform not only meets the needs of God’s people, but also produces an outpouring of gratitude to God.” (2 Corinthians 9:10–12 (GNT)Pastor, the needs in front of you may look larger than the resources in your hands. There are people to care for, leaders to develop, ministries to support, and a community to reach. It can be easy to look at what you have and think, “This isn’t enough.”But what God gives to you, he wants to give through you.Paul says God supplies seed to the sower. He gives you the seed and stays involved in the outcome. In other words, he supplies what you need, makes it grow, and uses it to produce a harvest.This promise starts with God’s supply, not abundance in your hands.Some of the most important things you give in ministry may seem ordinary: time to listen, a word of encouragement, a faithful prayer, or your full attention. When you offer those things to God, he can use them to meet someone’s need.Don’t wait until you think you have more. Offer God what he has already placed in your hands.When you do that, God promises to use it. You will grow spiritually. He will meet needs through you. And people will thank God for what they receive.Pastor, you don’t have to supply every need. God is the supplier. Your part is to faithfully give what he puts in your hands.

A lot of ministry is done haphazardly.Not because pastors and ministry leaders don’t care. Usually it’s the opposite. They care deeply, so they keep trying to meet needs, support volunteers, continue programs, and respond to whatever is in front of them.But ministry is too important to run on “I’ll give it my best shot.”You’re dealing with changed lives. You’re helping people grow toward maturity, serve in ministry, and live on mission. That kind of work deserves more than scattered effort and inherited assumptions.The Bible says, “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33 KJV). God brings order. God arranges the parts of the body. God gives gifts, roles, purposes, and direction.So before you add energy to the church—or to any ministry inside it—define it.Every ministry in your church needs a clear purpose. If you lead the whole church, help each ministry know its assignment. If you lead one ministry, clarify what God has entrusted to you.Ask what business you are inThe first question every ministry needs to answer is this: What is our mission?Or to say it another way: What business are we in?At Saddleback, our business was disciple development. We wanted to attract and win members, develop them to Christlike maturity, and mobilize them for meaningful ministry in the church and a life mission in the world. Our product was changed lives.That gave us a filter. It helped us know what fit and what didn’t. It helped us say yes to the right things and no to the wrong things.That is the kind of clarity every ministry in your church needs.A children’s ministry is not just in the childcare business. A small group ministry is not just in the meeting-scheduling business. A worship ministry is not just in the music business. A greeter ministry is not just in the handshake business.Each ministry needs to know what it is trying to produce in people.If you can’t state the mission clearly, you can’t lead it clearly. And if the leader is unclear, the volunteers will be unclear too.Decide what is none of your businessThe second question is just as important: What is none of our business?Most churches are better at adding than subtracting. A need appears, so a program gets added. A person has an idea, so an event gets added. A tradition begins, and 10 years later no one remembers why it started, but everyone feels guilty about stopping it.That is how ministry clutter grows.A clear ministry does not only know what it does; it knows what it does not do.You do not have to meet every need in the same way. You do not have to keep every program alive forever. You do not have to say yes to every good idea. A good idea can still be the wrong assignment for your church in this season.Before your church adds something this fall—or before your ministry adds one more event, meeting, or responsibility—ask, “Is this ours to do?” If the answer is no, you may be protecting the assignment God actually called you to lead.Focus saves energyFocus is not a small issue in ministry. It is one way you steward the strength God gives you.If you fire a shotgun, the pellets scatter everywhere. But if you focus energy like a laser, it has power. The more you focus on what you are trying to do, the less energy it takes.That is true in life. It is especially true in ministry.A scattered ministry wears people out because nobody knows what matters most. A focused ministry gives people confidence because the assignment is clear.Pastor, you do not have unlimited time this fall. Your volunteers do not have unlimited energy. Your church cannot carry every program at full speed.So define every ministry before you accelerate it.Tie every ministry to a purposeEvery ministry needs to connect to a purpose.Is the ministry helping you evangelize the community? Is it helping you exalt Christ in worship? Is it encouraging the congregation through care and fellowship? Is it edifying believers toward maturity? Is it equipping people for service?If a ministry does not clearly connect to one of the purposes of the church (worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and mission), it will drift. It may still be busy. It may still have meetings. It may still have people who love it. But activity alone does not make a ministry healthy.The body of Christ is not random.Paul wrote, “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12 NIV). Later in the same passage he says, “God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be” (1 Corinthians 12:18 NIV).That word arranged matters. God does not throw the body together. He arranges it.Your church needs that same kind of ordered thinking. The question is not just, “Do we have ministries?” The question is, “Does every ministry know its purpose, and are these ministries arranged around God’s purposes?”When every ministry knows its purpose, people stop competing and start contributing.Start with definition, then moveThe goal is not a busier church. The goal is changed lives. The goal is people growing to maturity, serving in ministry, and living on mission.That will not happen through haphazard activity.So before you restart the program, schedule the meeting, print the calendar, or recruit another volunteer, ask the defining questions for every ministry in your church: What is this ministry for? What is it not for? What purpose of the church does it support? What kind of person are we trying to help people become?Then move forward.Acceleration without clarification creates clutter. But when you define the ministry first, speed has somewhere to go.

Pastor, ministry can pull your life into pieces.You can feel the pull to be one person in the pulpit, another in a meeting, another at home, and another when you’re tired, criticized, or alone. Jesus calls you back to wholeness.If you’re going to live like Jesus, you’ve got to adopt the values he had—values like integrity and humility.Most people think integrity means being honest. And telling the truth is part of integrity, but integrity means more than that. Integrity comes from the word integral, meaning “wholeness” or “all together.”In mathematics, an integer is a whole number, one complete unit. In the same way, an integrated life is a whole life. It’s the opposite of a compartmentalized life.Integrity means you don’t act one way with your congregation, another way with your staff, another way with your family, and another way when no one can see you. It means what people see in public is connected to who you are in private.Jesus said, “If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant” (Luke 11:36 NLT).When you lead with integrity, you bring light into dark places, not because you’re perfect, but because you’re not hiding in the dark. You let God bring every part of your life under his care.Jesus didn’t just call his people to be light. He also called them to be salt. The Living Bible paraphrase says, “You are the world’s seasoning, to make it tolerable. If you lose your flavor, what will happen to the world?” (Matthew 5:13).Pastor, your church doesn’t need a flawless leader. It needs a faithful one. Your people need to see a life held together by Jesus, rooted in him, steady because of him.Jesus lived with integrity. He consistently brought salt and light into the world. He also lived with humility.Humility is not false modesty. It is not denying your gifts or pretending you don’t have influence. Humility is dependence—dependence on God.Jesus said, “God blesses those who . . . realize their need for him” (Matthew 5:3 NLT). That’s humility.When you don’t depend on God, you try to control what only God can control. But when you depend on God, you hold your ministry with an open hand. You don’t have to carry every outcome, fix every person, or manage every opinion.That kind of humility gives you peace, because you’re relying on God, not yourself.When you live with integrity and depend on God in humility, people notice. You’re not trying to draw attention to yourself. You’re giving them a life that points beyond itself.Ask God for an undivided heart this week. Let him fill the dark corners with light. Lead with integrity. Walk in humility. And when people see the difference, point them to Jesus.

“Sink your roots in him and build on him. Be strengthened by the faith that you were taught, and overflow with thanksgiving.” Colossians 2:7 (GW)Pastor, gratitude may not be your first response when attendance disappoints, a leader steps away, or a prayer still goes unanswered. Yet those are the moments when gratitude can strengthen your faith.It’s easy to thank God when Sunday goes well and the church is growing. But when you thank him in hard times, your roots go deeper.Habakkuk knew what it was like to watch everything go wrong. He said, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Habakkuk 3:17–18 NIV).Habakkuk didn’t ignore what he had lost. He chose to root his joy in God instead of his circumstances.When ministry is hard, you can still be grateful that the Lord is your Savior. You’re not alone. He hasn’t abandoned you. He is bigger than the problem in front of you, and he will see you through.Don’t spend this Monday looking only at what was lost or what went wrong. Look at what’s left—and thank God for it.Before you make your next ministry list, pause and name what you can thank God for today. As gratitude takes root, your faith will grow stronger.