Horrible things happen when you hold on to something longer than you should. Think about when you had roommates. Maybe roommates are a reality for you right now. If so, this will be especially timely for you. 

When you have roommates, few things pose a greater risk to your well-being than “mystery milk” in the fridge. Mystery milk is that carton that sits in the way-back of the refrigerator, typically behind the OJ, purple stuff, soda, and Sunny D.  No one ever seems certain where the mystery milk came from or how long it’s been sitting there. 

Now, when you’re young and poor, you don’t so much go by the expiration date as you do by the smell and consistency of your milk. This system, while effective, is admittedly risky, right? As a result, any consumption of milk when you live with roommates requires the universally agreed-upon test. This test has two steps:

I have an app addiction. Anytime I come across an interesting app, I have to download it. Sure, I tend to only use said app for roughly 13 seconds before burying it in a folder somewhere deep within the recesses of my phone, but that’s beside the point. The genius of the “app explosion” is that there is an app for virtually everything you can imagine - money management, tracking calories, reading blogs, tracking tasks - you name it, and "there’s an app for that". 

I think the book of Psalms has a lot in common with the App Store.

As a culture we have a strong affection for fast food and for good reason - fast food tastes great. I’ve heard health-conscious people smugly say, “Fast food tastes disgusting.” That is incorrect. Fast food is disgusting because of what it’s made out of, but it tastes amazing! That’s one of the main reasons our waist lines are growing faster than Justin Bieber’s rap sheet.  

While fast food tastes great in the moment, it takes a serious toll later on. You feel physically awful after you eat it. No one can claim ignorance - we all know fast food is essentially poison for our bodies. But there’s also an emotional toll. Maybe you’re familiar with what I would call “fast food guilt?” It’s the guilt that sets in immediately after eating something you know is bad for you - Big Mac, double quarter pounder with cheese, or in my case, a dozen donuts from Spunky Dunkers. Fast food tastes great in the moment, but takes a toll later on.  

This is why sin is like fast food.

Happiness is the preeminent pursuit in our culture. Everyone wants to be happy. We all want to be content and satisfied. We all want to add value and experience meaning. We all want to be happy. Happiness is even hardwired into the very fabric of our country.

When Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, he penned the following,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

More than maybe any point in history, we believe that we deserve to be happy and thus spend our lives pursuing it. In truth, happiness is not a right or something we deserve, but a gift given by God. Contrary to what we hear, God’s chief end is not our happiness, but His own glory (Isaiah 48:9-11). However, in God’s grace, he desires his people to experience the happiness he created us for. 

But here’s the problem…

I am terrified of snakes. Not just dangerous snakes, poisonous snakes, or large snakes. I hate all snakes. Before you write this off as a mere phobia, at least part of this fear is founded in the fact that some snakes are legitimately dangerous. The Humane Society reports that hundreds of people have been attacked and at least 12 people have been killed by pet pythons since 1990.  

Here's one sad example. In June of 2010 a Nebraska man took his 9 foot long, 25 pound red-tailed boa constrictor out to show his friend. Tragically, this man’s python attacked and killed him just as he took it from its cage. Can you imagine this? He had undoubtedly done this countless times before. He had raised this snake, handled it, and fed it, but on this day it turned on him and killed him.

There’s an important lesson in this:

The battlefield of church planting is littered with burned out bodies. Long hours, immense stress, and constant pressure have caused more than one well-intentioned church planter to wave the white flag. 

Even if they don’t quit, church planters struggle to manage the war within. 

Church planting is difficult work. It takes an tremendous amount of spiritual, physical, emotional, and relational energy to build something from nothing. These first five years of getting Redemption up and off the ground have been some of the most personally taxing of my life. The difficultly is often a direct result of the spiritual war being waged, in which we stand on the front lines. 

Yet, much of the pain planters experience is self-inflicted and unnecessary. Church planting demands a unique wiring - you have to be one part called and one part crazy. I wish I could say that it was only the clear call of God that drove me and others like me, but I’d be lying. Often times there are drivers just below the surface impacting church planters. 

Pastoral ministry can be lonely work for a number of reasons. 

Some pastors don’t know how to have meaningful relationships. Others live under the crushing weight of a misplaced Messiah complex that keeps them from connecting with others. Often times church planters, or pastors in new churches are simply isolated and don’t truly know anyone.  

Pastors preach the importance of community, but often fail to participate in it. The reality is, every pastor, just like ever other person, needs the right people in their life, in order to pursue health and endure for the long haul. While every pastor would benefit from a deep well of diverse relationships, here are three I believe to be critical… 

Another Easter has come and gone. If you work in ministry like I do, then you’re likely still feeling the effects of last weekend. At Redemption, we invested 120 hours of prayer, sent out 600 hand-written invites, held a church-wide prayer meeting, shot daily video devotionals, remembered Good Friday and celebrated Easter Sunday with record attendance. 

As a result, I’m tired, our staff is tired, and our teams are tired. Our hearts are full, but our tanks are empty. 

You may not be in ministry full time, but we all have certain days or seasons in which we have to invest far more energy than normal. Maybe you’re planning a wedding, a party, a graduation, or other event. There is often an immense letdown after whatever it is that you’ve invested so much in. 

How we steward these seasons is critical. If you ignore the fatigue, try to push through, or run on fumes, you will do great damage to your body, mind, emotions and soul. You have to replenish. Here are six ways to refill your tank after Easter (or any other big day)… 

Leadership resources are legion in our culture, and for good reason - leadership is vital. We all need to be led and we all lead. Books, blogs, conferences, and podcasts are filled with practical instruction on the defining marks of effective leadership. Things like courage, competency, care, communication, and creativity are all essential to leadership. 

Sadly, I rarely read, or hear anything about what I would argue, is the most important and attractive mark of effective leadership:

The first pastor who really taught me about preaching once told me, “If you open strong, close strong, and hit your transitions, your sermon will take care of itself.” While it’s a bit more complicated than that, he was largely correct. Many sermons fall apart before they even start, crash and burn because of an inability to “land the plane”, or lack clarity due to confusion in transition.

While I hope to write on each of these sermon elements, I want to start with the importance of a strong sermon introduction. So what makes for an effective sermon illustration? In a sentence:

This should come as no shock to you, but it’s increasingly difficult to be a Bible-believing Christian in our culture. There is constant pressure to compromise our faith. More and more Christians are being labeled as “bigots” for even voicing convictions contrary to the cultural norm.

Gone are the days when our culture held to at least some standard of Biblical morality. Gone are the days when when your faith may not lead to conflict. Gone are the days when being a Bible-believing Christian was socially acceptable. 

This pressure leaves us with two options: We can compromise our faith, or we can contend for it. Jude 3 calls all Christians to... 

I don’t love confrontational conversations. When I have one coming down the chute it occupies a huge sum of mind-share. I worry about it going poorly. I worry about being misunderstood. I worry about my heart being unclear. I worry about hurting the person.  

In short, I’m not a fan of conflict. I actually don’t know any sane person who is. Regardless of my discomfort, conflict remains a part of relationship in a fallen world. If you’re going to relate with someone, a time will come when you have to confront them about something. It may be something they said or did that hurt you. It may be a blind spot in their lives that is a problem. The context will change, but the inevitability of conflict will not. 

Confronting someone is not easy and should not be taken lightly. It can easily go south if not taken seriously and prepared for properly. One redeeming factor in my discomfort with confrontation is that I’ve developed a process for confrontation that I've found helpful. If you have one of these uncomfortable but important conversations in your future, here’s how I have a confrontational conversation:

Pastors always have plenty to do.

There is always another meeting to attend, sermon to write, class to teach, decision to make, counsel to give, etc.  If we are not careful, our calendars can quickly fill to the point of being unrealistic. This is one reason so many pastors burn out. 

What most pastors are not honest about, or maybe even in touch with, is what truly drives our over-busyness. Too many pastors don’t trust the God we preach. We betray our disbelief when we try to be saviors instead of the stewards God has called us to be. In his book The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene H. Peterson cuts to the heart of this over-busyness problem:

“The word  'busy' is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective 'busy' set as a modifier to 'pastor' should sound to our ears like 'adulterous' to characterize a wife or 'embezzling' to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront.” (P.27)

Having a fruitful life and full schedule is a good thing. We should work hard and spend ourselves making Jesus known. But busy to the point of burnout is a problem. It’s a problem for the pastor and it’s a problem for the church.

Busyness becomes a problem when what we CAN do crowds out what we MUST do. We can do all kinds of things, but there are at least three things that must be prioritized in the pastor’s life…

Preachers aren’t the only people who need to pray prior to the preaching of God’s word. Every Christian should spend time in prayer before sitting under a sermon. If your pastor is a faithful Bible teacher then each week you have the opportunity to hear God speak in a heart-altering, life-changing manner. This should be taken seriously and prepared for properly. 

If you want the most out of the next sermon you listen to, here are five prayer requests for those listening to preaching:

Prayer is the most effective and often neglected tool in the preparation of a sermon. It should go without saying (though sadly it cannot), that the preparation of a sermon requires meditating on the text, reading commentary, studying cultural background, and the hard work of illustrating and applying God’s word in a way that’s helpful. 

However, no amount of study will make up for a lack of supplication. Ingenuity won’t cover up the obvious absence of intercession for the church body. Rhetorical power is a sorry substitute for prayer-soaked proclamation. 

The preacher preps the sermon, but prayer preps the preacher. 

People should have a sense that their preacher has been much with God and prayer is an indispensable means of doing just that. But what should we as preachers be praying for? Here are 5 prayer requests for preachers: