Tag Archives: Church

“You Probably Don’t Know Their Names” by Paul S. Williams

Good thoughts by Paul S. Williams on ministers who, without fame or grand recognition, serve their congregations:

Nowadays we are so fixated on celebrity ministers that we have eyes for little else. But there are so many more who look so much like Jesus. We do not see them because we are not paying attention. We are too busy attending to the voice of ambition, seeking the successful and famous.

What’s nice to remember is that this does represent the majority of those who work in pastoral/church ministry both here and throughout the world.  Many of them work “real jobs” other than church work.  They have never written a book.  They have never been invited to speak at a conference.  They are likely not sources for the wide array of highly touted  models claiming to have the keys to “ministry effectiveness”.

Read the rest of the article here.

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I Don’t Go To Church Anymore (Again)

I Don’t Go To Church Anymore (Again)

Thirteen years ago Amy and I made the decision to resign from paid ministry in the local church.  During the previous decade, I had worked at three congregations (one for only a year, another for eight, and the last for a little over a year).  One was a small family congregation, the second was a growing suburban congregation, and the last was a large “mega-church”.

The decision to leave professional ministry wasn’t easy.  Since giving my life to Christ, I had always felt a “call to ministry”.  I  loved the relational work of  sharing lives, learning together, and working out what it means to follow Jesus with other people.  I, like most who feel strongly about such a call, assumed that following it meant paid ministry in a church, as a missionary, or in a para-church organization.   However, I now felt for the first time that God was calling me out of professional ministry.  I wasn’t sure what it meant, or what I would do, but I was certain that resigning was what I was supposed to do.  So, in a huge leap of faith, without another job,  and in major change in my previously assumed direction in life, I resigned.

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Life Sep 24, 2013