As I've worked with and coached preachers over the years, and in my own ministry, I've found that church leadership and preaching is tough work - it's not for the faint of heart.

New challenges are always surfacing; the joys are elating and the lows can be devastating.

At the same time, to remain sharp in my preaching and leadership, I need ongoing training.

I know I'm not the only one! We all need continual training, but many pastors only have their seminary training to fall back on (if they went).

Unfortunately, seminary often isn't adequate to deal with the rigors of day-to-day ministry. And while it's no doubt valuable, it's not designed to help pastors continue growing throughout their ministry careers.

All pastors need three vital things to continue growing throughout their ministries:

1. Ongoing, practical training

2. Personalized coaching

3. A community of like-minded pastors

But so few pastors actually have these three vital resources in an ongoing, intentional way.

In...

If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, preaching is a waste of time, but if he did rise from the dead, it's among the most important things we could ever do.

Every preacher is susceptible to pitfalls. We have to intentionally navigate around them to ensure that we stay healthy.

In this bonus episode, I want to jump into the first of three pitfalls and then invite you to join in on The Preacher's Journey Workshop which is a FREE workshop this week at Preaching Donkey. 

The ministry landscape is always changing and we must be prepared for those changes. What we relied on to work yesterday might not work tomorrow.

This is why I love Carey Nieuwhof's blog post on five preaching trends that will shape the future. In this episode, we'll examine each of the five trends and see what we can discover and apply to our preaching and leadership.

The ministry landscape is always changing and we must be prepared for those changes. What we relied on to work yesterday might not work tomorrow.

This is why I love Carey Nieuwhof's blog post on five preaching trends that will shape the future. In this episode, we'll examine each of the five trends and see what we can discover and apply to our preaching and leadership.

In this video, we'll explore how to make sure that our communication is leading toward next steps. To do this we have to be careful that we are using the right language in our calls to action.

Equipping our people with the tools they need to understand and defend their faith is an ongoing task we have as pastors.

Many people in our churches do not know how to their faith stands up to skeptics. Sadly, this can result in Christians who do not know how to respond when their children reject the faith because they can't reconcile it with post-modern thought.

On this week's episode of the Preaching Donkey Podcast, apologist Lori Morrow joins me to discuss her ministry to women which seeks to help them live out and speak about their Christian convictions with confidence and courage, so they no longer have to feel frustrated or intimidated by the influence of our increasingly secular society.

There is so much packed into this interview, and I know you're going to benefit from it.

Pastor Steward-Allen Clark has made headlines the last few weeks following a sermon he gave in February which included a lot of offensive, inflammatory statements about women.

He has since stepped away on leave from his position at his church and is seeking counseling.

Much has already been said about this issue, but I want to focus on two fatal flaws within his preaching that we should learn from and avoid in our own preaching.

I'll show you what he said and focus on what I believe are the two most important things we can learn from it as pastors and preachers.

"Church People" is a new movie releasing this week which centers on a pastor who is relying on outlandish means to reach people and his youth pastor who is doing everything he can to get the church back to the simplicity of the gospel.

I had the opportunity to sit down with the director of the film, Christopher Shawn Shaw, and lead actor, Thor Ramsey, to discuss the making of the film, the impact they hope it has, and the Christian movie industry as a whole.

I think you'll enjoy this (very different) episode of the Preaching Donkey Podcast!

See my reaction to the trailer here: https://youtu.be/UD2UOuiktLI

Learn more about the movie: https://churchpeoplefilm.com/

I love preaching multiple services! There are so many strategic benefits to multiplying the number of times you meet on a Sunday morning or weekend. For one thing, that sermon improves with every subsequent service! ;)

However, some churches have multiple DIFFERENT services a week, and some on the same day!

In fact, this is the way I grew up... Sunday morning was a service that had a different sermon than Sunday night which was different than the sermon on Wednesday night.

This meant the preacher was preparing and delivering three DIFFERENT sermons every single week.

This might be you! If it is, I know it's a challenge (to say the least) to find the time to prepare three quality sermons a week.

In this video, I want to offer a few ways to approach this that might help you... especially if you feel overwhelmed by all the sermon prep you're doing every week!