For the past fifteen years, I have been involved in bi-vocational ministry. I work full-time as a ministry professor at Milligan University. I also work as a “part-time” minister at Crossroads Christian Church in Gray, TN. For the past five years, I have been the lead minister at the church.
Over the past year and half, sermon-planning has taken a backseat to wrestling with weekly changes, complaints about Covid responses, and a general loss of motivation. Many of us feel the need to get back into the groove of creating fabulous messages that contribute to the culture God is shaping…
“It’s Frederick Buechner’s fault,” I tell myself on Sunday morning. I’m getting ready to return to my home church to speak. I’m trying to figure out who is to blame for this strange emotional position I find myself in: I’m going to be in the same room where I’ve delivered my…
One month into the COVID pandemic, I experienced leadership paralysis. It was not just that the operations of our ministry had to be relocated to digital forms – as a college ministry who works with digital natives, we were well positioned and nimble enough in our…
A Review of We Aren’t Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry Mark Elsdon Paperback: Eerdmans, 2021 Reviewed by C. Christopher Smith Here at Englewood Christian Church on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis, one of our favorite stories from the Gospels is the so-called “feeding of the…
When I accepted my position at Westwood Christian Church in June of 2020, I was nervous. I had never been a lead pastor before and almost no one has done this kind of work in the midst of a pandemic before. Leading a church is hard enough. Doing so in…
