THIS IS PART ONE OF A TWO PART GUEST SERIES BY DR. ZACHARY SIKORA, PSY.D. HE'S A GODLY MAN, MY DEAR FRIEND & A GIFTED PSYCHOLOGIST. 

In a context where suffering and hurt should be welcomed, the Christian church has largely dealt with those suffering with mental health problems like modern day lepers: excluded from the camp and stigmatized. 

With suicide, depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions making the front pages and lead stories of our media outlets, society is ripening to the idea that psychological malady is universal and in need of attention. The Christian church needs to follow. 

Jesus Christ directly called those who labor and are heavy laden to seek him for rest. As followers of Christ, it is therefore the responsibility of Christians to care for these souls and the Church’s obligation to cultivate an environment that welcomes this process. However, it must first be understood the missteps that have led the Church to separate themselves from this calling.

Here are three overarching mistakes that have led the Christian church to make outcasts of those with mental health problems.

The Old Testament book of Ruth is all about life, loss and the loving providence of God. It’s the story of two women, Naomi and Ruth, surrounded by loss and disappointment, and the one true God who is always at work in the ups and downs of their lives. 

I taught through this powerful short story at Redemption this fall (Click for sermon summaries - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four). In each chapter I found myself walking away with the same three realities rattling around in my heart and I wanted to share them here…

I don’t know what Christmas morning is like in your house, but with three little kids (all under the age of six) in our house, it’s about two clicks past chaos. I think last year we opened every gift and were well into our first mental breakdown by 7am. 

To be honest, the chaos is part of what makes Christmas with little kids fun. Any parent who loves their children finds great joy in waking up early with their kids and watching them tear through presents. I love experiencing this through the eyes of my children each year. 

What I think has been lacking in my home these past few years has NOT been fun, but intentionality. 

Christmas morning is a crucial spiritual formation opportunity to be capitalized on with my family. I want to be flexible and have fun, but this year I also want to manage Christmas morning with more intentionality. Here’s what I’ll be doing:

God’s primary proving ground for a pastor is not his work in the pulpit, but his home. This means that a man qualifies and disqualifies himself in the home before he ever does in the church. No amount of ministry fruitfulness will justify our failure to love and lead the families God has given us. 

Yes, pastoral ministry comes with a unique brand of difficulty. The hours are long, the work is hard, and the results are often unseen. But, we cannot let this serve as an excuse for being lousy dads. We can do better. We have a heavenly Father who willingly sacrificed His own Son, so that through faith, we could be saved and faithfully father our own sons and daughters.  By God’s grace and through the Spirit’s strength, here are seven ways for good pastors to be great dads… 

As a preacher, I'm regularly asked how long it takes me to write a sermon. My go-to answer is, "It depends on how much I've prayed." I see a direct correlation between the quality of my preparation/preaching and the quality of my praying. 

For many pastors, myself included, prayer can be the easiest aspect of sermon prep to skip. This, however, is a grave error. The preacher preps the sermon, but prayer preps the preacher. Prayer is what prepares our hearts to proclaim God's Word. Prayer is what gives preaching power in the pulpit.

My dad was not a pastor, but I had enough friends who had a pastor for a dad to know that it’s not easy. This is a critical issue for me as parent of three kids and a pastor of a young church. I want them to love Jesus. I want them to love me. I want them to love the Church. You may not attend my church, but if you read my blog, you most likely attend some church. So, here are five ways you can help love your pastor’s kids.

A.W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” I’ve always loved that quote. It emphasizes the importance of sound doctrine. It reminds us that we can’t simply make up our own God, but must worship and serve the one true God as He’s revealed Himself in His Word. 

Yet, as important as our thoughts about God are, God’s thoughts about us are exponentially more important.

Some sermons are simply too long. There are a very few preachers in this world who can preach for more than 40 minutes without losing every listener in the room. If you read my blog, my hunch is, you’re not one of those preachers. 

Sadly, in certain tribes, like the one I’m a part of, lengthy sermons are often looked at with admiration. I’ve heard pastors brag about preaching for over an hour expecting a high-five, or some sort of spiritual chest bump, but all I keep thinking is, “I get bored talking to you after 30 minutes, I can’t imagine listening to you preach for an hour!” 

BIG IDEA | Nobody just wakes up weary one day. We wind up weary after an extended time of neglecting the means God has given us to draw our strength from Him.

Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Despite the clarity of this verse, “weary” is the way I’d describe many of the Christians I know. Understand, when I say “weary” I don’t mean “tired.” A nap will take care of tired. Weariness is a soul fatigue that impacts every facet of life.

The good news is, nobody simply wakes up weary one day. We wind up weary after an extended time of neglecting the means God has given us to draw our strength from Him. In essence, weariness is what happens when we try to be God. 

I’ve written previously on how to get through a season of weariness, but it’s equally important that we identify the behaviors that cause the weariness in the first place. Here are seven ways to wind up weary:

Each day you and I are bombarded by content.  

Text messages, tweets, email, voice mail, advertising, meetings, books, blogs, seminars, sermons - it is never ending. One of the dangers in this constant consumption of information is an inability to effectively internalize anything. Because there is so much to process, you can end up with nothing. 

There is great wisdom in intentionally limiting what we consume, but much of it is simply inevitable. We need a better way to capture, process, and file away information. 

One approach I've found especially helpful is to concentrate on capturing "the one thing."

Big Idea:

God's caring control is constant.

For full sermon audio, listen here: http://rdmp.tn/DG5

Have you ever looked at a situation in your own life – or the state of the world in general – and wondered, “Is God truly in control of all this? Does He have power over all things, all people, in all places, at all times? Is God really sovereign?”

The Bible's answer to these questions is an overwhelming and emphatic, “Yes”:

Big Idea:

God is always good and ever-worthy of our worship

 For full sermon audio, listen

Is God good?

This question about God’s character and capability plagues more people than any other. Almost daily we hear someone asking the question, “How could a good God allow such suffering in this world?” Perhaps we have asked it ourselves. How indeed?

We live in a world that is filled with physical, mental, emotional, political, and relational suffering. If we’re honest, we’ve all wondered how God could be good and yet allow these things to happen. Why does He not intervene?

Every preacher knows the discouragement of looking out on an obviously disengaged audience - glassy stares, confused looks, slowly closing eyes just moments from a nap - it's awful. While some of the responsibility lands in the laps of our listeners, most of the responsibility is ours as preachers.

Our job is to "rightly handle the word of truth" (2 Tim.2:15). That's the command the apostle Paul gave young Timothy - a green, insecure, uncertain pastor in a jacked up situation. 

I am part of a tribe that takes this task seriously. We preach the Word week in and week out. We don't play games with God's Word. But, if we're not careful we can make the mistake of believing that faithful preaching means nothing more than mere accuracy. I believe Paul's encouragement to Timothy begs more than accuracy alone.

Here are seven reasons people might hate our preaching (even if it's Biblically accurate)…

Big Idea:

God is intimately involved in the lives of His people.

For full sermon audio, listen here...   

“Is God with me?”

This seemingly simple question is deeply theological. If we’re honest, we’ve all asked it at one time or another. No matter who we are, we’ve gone through seasons of life when God feels distant, unresponsive, even absent. Even when we read our Bibles faithfully and pray earnestly, we can find ourselves wondering, where is God? Is He with me? Is He involved in my life? 

When we feel this way, it’s crucial that we allow God’s Word – not our circumstances, experiences, and thoughts – to shape our belief about God. 

Consider these two characteristics that give us a Biblical concept of God:

Big Idea |

The cross serves as the clearest display of Christ’s love for me.

For full sermon audio, listen here...   

There is no more destructive doubt we can have than to wonder whether or not God really loves us. Confident faith in God’s love is the very basis of our relationship with Him. When we doubt His love, instead of having the relationship God wants to have with us, we have one marked by shame, avoidance, and defensiveness. 

There are two primary reasons we struggle to believe God could love us: 

• The things you've done. Conceiving of God’s love may be difficult because of sexual sin, substance abuse, or just selfish pursuits that mark your life, past or present.

• The things done to you. You may feel unworthy of God’s love because of past  abuse, abandonment, or betrayal. You may feel dirty, used, or unlovable.

Big Idea |

Jesus knows, engages, and dispels the doubts of His people.

For full sermon audio, listen here...

One thing we all have in common, whether we are Christians or non-Christians is this: Every one of us has doubts about God. Even if we don’t doubt His existence we do question His character and His capability. We wonder:  Is God who He says He is? Can He do everything He claims? 

See, it's never a question of whether we doubt, it’s a question of how we deal with our doubt. As Christians, we have to confront our doubt with the Word of God in order to strengthen our faith.  

Big Idea |  “You should pursue vocational ministry because you’re called by God, not compelled by circumstance and emotion.”

“How do I confirm if God’s calling me into full-time vocational ministry?” 

This is a question I’m being asked more and more. Young people, old people, rich people, poor people, successful and established people - I’m encountering a growing number of people considering a call to full-time vocational ministry - vocational, meaning “paid".

Every Christian is called to “full-time” ministry. There is never a season, time, or circumstance in which a follower of Christ is not to minister the good news of Jesus to those around them. Baristas and bartenders, students and stay-at-home moms, business people and bankers, those in construction and childcare, medical providers and machinists - all of us are to always minister to those God providentially places in our lives. 

Because every Christian is called to full-time ministry, I always want to know why it is an individual feels called to ministry vocationally. You may think, “Who cares? They want to serve Jesus, so what does it matter why they want to?” Well, it matters a lot. The truth is, there are a great many BAD reasons to pursue vocational ministry - Here are the five most common I hear

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