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“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.

"The LORD, who is always thinking about us, will bless us.” Psalm 115:12 (GW)Pastor, you spend your whole week paying attention to everyone else. You notice the family that slipped out early. You notice the volunteer who seemed discouraged, the member in the hospital, the email you still haven't answered. You carry a hundred details no one else even sees.But here's something easy to forget on a Monday morning: While you're paying attention to everyone else, God is paying attention to you.You are always on God's mind. He is never not thinking about you. He's thinking about you right now.The Bible says this over and over. Psalm 115:12 says, "The LORD, who is always thinking about us, will bless us" (GW). And the Living Bible paraphrase says, "Let him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you" (1 Peter 5:7).Whatever concerns you concerns God. The board meeting weighing on you. The number you're afraid to look at. The person you can't seem to reach. There is nothing you carry that God isn't already carrying with you, because you are always on his mind.And because you're always on his mind, he's always looking out for you. That means you can trust his plan—not just for your church, but for you.Think about what it means that God is mindful of you. That word means he's alert. He's attentive. He's aware. When nobody else is paying attention to the shepherd, to you, God is. He notices everything. Jesus said, "What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered" (Matthew 10:29-30 NLT).You've counted a lot of things this week. God has counted the hairs on your head.So before you pour yourself out again, let that settle in. You are seen. You are known. You are not carrying this alone.Pastor, you spend yourself taking care of everyone else. This week, let God take care of you.

Every August the same stress lands in a pastor's inbox. The nursery is short. The parking team needs bodies. Someone has to run kids' check-in before the fall ministry campaign launch, and the list of empty slots is a lot longer than the list of people who've said yes.So we do what feels natural. We stand up and beg. We print the sign-up sheet, announce the gaps, and hope enough hands go up to keep the machine running one more season.I understand the instinct. But after years of leading a church, I became convinced that this is exactly the wrong place to start.Don't start with the empty slotMost churches recruit the same way. We look at the org chart, find the holes, and go hunting for warm bodies to fill them: We need more Sunday school workers, so go get some. We're down three greeters; who's available?I call that the institutional approach, and it treats people like interchangeable parts. The program comes first, and the person exists to keep it running.Here's the problem: When you start with the slot, you'll always be short, and the people you talk into serving rarely last. They said yes to plug a gap, not to answer a calling. By spring they're burned out, and you're back to begging.Start with the person insteadAt Saddleback we flipped the question. Instead of asking, "How do we fill this slot?" we asked, "How has God made this person?"We interviewed people for ministry based on what we called their SHAPE (spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, and experiences). Paul put it this way: "Try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities by the light of the faith that God has given you" (Romans 12:3 PHILLIPS).That was the step I got most excited about, because almost nobody was doing it. We weren't there to plug a program; we were there to help a person discover what God had already built them to do.Make that one shift, and everything about recruiting changes. Now you're looking at a room full of ministers who simply need help finding where they fit.A gift is never for the one who holds itWhen you help people find their SHAPE, you're not just solving a staffing problem; you're handing them a purpose."Each one, as a good manager of God's different gifts, must use for the good of others the special gift he has received from God" (1 Peter 4:10 GNT). Notice who the gift is for. It isn't for you; it's for the other person.That's why someone serving in their SHAPE almost never burns out the way a slot-filler does. Doing the very thing God wired you to do fills you up even as it pours out to everyone around you.The ministries you'd never have plannedThere's a payoff I didn't expect. Give people room to serve out of their SHAPE, and they'll start ministries you never would have dreamed up.I'll tell you the truth: I didn't start most of Saddleback's ministries. They were launched by people in our church who felt called by God to meet a need they saw. My job, and my staff's job, was to help those leaders succeed.If I had only recruited people into the slots I could see, we would have missed most of what God wanted to do. Your church is no different. The person you're about to guilt into the nursery may be carrying a ministry you can't even picture yet.Keep the real goal in front of youIn a busy season it's easy to forget why we do any of this. The point was never to keep the programs staffed. The goal is to develop disciples, and the programs are just tools that help us do it.So before you print the sign-up sheet this fall, ask a different question. Don’t ask, “Who can fill this?” Instead, ask, “Who has God already shaped for this, and how do I help them find it?” Fill your slots with people who were made for them, and you won't just survive the fall. You'll build something that outlasts the season.

“Stupid people always think they are right. Wise people listen to advice.” (Proverbs 12:15 (GNT)Every week you help people see what they can’t see on their own. From the pulpit, in a counseling appointment, over coffee, in a hospital hallway, you name the blind spots other people miss. It’s part of your calling. But here’s a quiet question worth sitting with this morning: Who does that for you?We all have blind spots. There are things in each of us that need correcting, and we just can’t see them. Sometimes we don’t look closely enough. Sometimes, if we’re honest, we’d rather not look at all. We settle into habits that feel comfortable, and comfortable is usually where growth quietly stalls. That’s true for the people in your church. It’s true for you and me too.God never meant for us to grow alone. He puts people around us who care enough to be honest with us. For a pastor, though, those people can be hard to come by. You’re the one everyone else leans on, so it starts to feel easier, even safer, to keep a little distance. Trouble is, distance is right where blind spots like to hide.So let me just ask: Is there anyone who will level with you? Not someone who just says what you want to hear, but a friend who thinks enough of you to say the hard thing kindly. If nobody has that kind of access to you, chances are you’re carrying mistakes you can’t even see yet.Pride is what makes this so hard. It puts us on the defensive and quietly talks us into believing we’ve got nothing left to learn. It builds walls, holds people at arm’s length, and then leaves us wondering why God feels distant, when part of how he speaks is through the very people we’re keeping out. Humility goes the other way. It leaves the door open and says, “Go ahead. Tell me the truth. I can take it.”God wants to speak through you. He also wants to speak to you. One of those takes courage. The other takes humility. You need both to go the distance in ministry.Maybe a face already came to mind while you were reading. A friend, a fellow pastor, your spouse, someone who’s earned the right to be honest with you. This week, give that person the opportunity to speak truth to you. Ask them, “What do you see in me that I might be missing?” And then, as hard as it is, just listen.When you’re willing to ask and humble enough to really hear it, God can use those words to breathe life back into you, the same way he’s used yours for so many other people.