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This week I listened online to a message from some friends of mine I hadn’t seen for a while. They were launching into a series on the ten plagues. Seriously. Nothing like a challenge... Anyway, it got me thinking more about the book of Exodus. The story of Israel being freed from Egypt by the power of God is a dynamic messianic metaphor. The title Exodus is from the Latin meaning simply the way out. For Christians, the deliverance of the Hebrews from centuries of oppression

At one time I had my Christian life neatly prioritized. It was: first, God. Second, family. And third, work…specifically, my work as a pastor. And then I prioritized those categories into sub-categories. For instance, under Family it would be: Wife. Then Kids. Then Blood-line Family; Extended Family; Some Relatives in Kentucky; Lucy, the Family Dog; Some Of The Other Relatives in Kentucky; my wife’s Uncle Frank in Northern Ohio, and so on. The problem with that is that all

In an earlier post, I explored a bare-bones chronological overview for thinking about leadership succession as it related to senior or lead pastors. In this post, let’s consider 4 basic types of leadership transitions. I’ve observed that churches typically follow one of four types of transitions. Of course there are hybrids, but they generally fall into these four patterns: An Internal Candidate with a multi-year transition. The current lead pastor is not needing to quickly t

Leadership is crucial, but not all leaders are the same. Over the last few decades there has been an emphasis on church leadership, with no shortage of books, websites, and conferences devoted to effective leadership. Bible colleges and seminaries are no longer only offering theological and pastoral training, but catching up with the need to equip students with higher leadership and management skills. But as the pendulum swings toward that arc, you can be guaranteed it will e