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Pastors who try to reap the dividends of authority without making the investment of credibility will quickly find themselves in a leadership deficit.

The pastor’s inner spiritual life is critical to the spiritual development of his people.

Editors note: Dan Dumas has written a new book, Live Smart: Preparing for the Future God Wants for You (Bethany House). SBTS Blog editor Jeff Robinson corresponded with him on how he hopes to minister to the local church through his new work.   In Live Smart, you trace out 14 principles from Scripture that…

I have a confession to make: I am a terrible evangelist. I do try, but I can’t seem to have much success or consistency. I often find myself hiding behind the excuse that “I’m an introvert.” But the real problem is that I am just not loving my neighbor as myself. The task is made…

Not all missionary organizations are created equal. In fact, while the Great Commission is surprisingly succinct as founding documents go, it has germinated a host of extremely diverse ministries and methods. Today, hundreds of international sending agencies exist ranging from those committed to curbing sex trafficking to promoting the gift of prophecy, all in the…

As Christians who exult in the evangel, the good news of God’s redeeming love for sinners, we rightly cherish above all else the cross of Jesus Christ. Good Friday services are among the most glorious of our annual gatherings as we reflect upon that sacrifice. We delight to read and pray and sing and preach…

Frugality is perhaps one of the most prevalent characteristics found in college students, young seminarians, and millennials. Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, rising prices for college tuition as well as growing concern for market validity have given millennials ample incentives to become frugal. Of course, we would affirm that frugality is a good…

If crisis does not lead to greater investment in community it will simply lead to deeper crisis. Often our inclination is to let crisis drive us towards isolation, but it is only within community that we can find real hope and help. So, crisis can become the entry point for many people into discipleship. Pastors,…

I couldn’t believe we were here. We’d flown in and out of Washington DC’s Reagan Airport more times than I could count, but never with Arkansas as the destination. In the past, God had called us to take what I had considered big leaps of faith by asking us to go places and do things…

The numbers are staggering. Experts estimate that approximately 1,000 local churches close their doors every year. What is even more disheartening about this statistic is that number only reflects Southern Baptist Churches — my denomination. Imagine how that number grows if you added the number of closing local churches from other established denominations, which some assert…

I have often said that I grew up a proficient sinner. My context encouraged it, and I was gladly spurred on by peers. I grew up in Maine, where cultural Christianity died a long time ago. It wasn’t until I was a 21-year old in the Navy when I first turned from that sin and…

How did star pupil and popular professor Crawford Howell Toy embrace heresy and leave the Christian faith?

I do not want the congregation to see God’s Word as beyond their grasp, that advanced degrees are necessary to engage the things of God deeply. I want to convince them that any Spirit-filled Christian can fully comprehend, apply, and delight in the truths of Scripture.

I have been there, and I know it’s not fun, but in retrospect I think I learned more about honoring Christ with my life during that time than at any other.

I cannot remember when hymns were not deeply embedded in my mental framework. How soon I began to go to “big-church” I do not recall, but the singing always made a deep impression on me and the language upon which I first began to meditate consisted of phrases in the musical repertoire: Holy, holy, holy…

My daughter, Laurelen, graduated from a small, classical Christian high school. The school enjoys a commencement tradition in which the parents hand the diploma to their child, but only after speaking a few words of encouragement (usually accompanied with some nostalgia) to him or her. The graduate responds with some brief, prepared remarks of his…

What a sad thought, that theology is only for the professional theologians. May we who prize theology stress its place in the church and show how practical it is, for in so doing we will save both ourselves and those around us.

If you cannot laugh at yourself, and laugh at yourself with others, you have a theological problem—you do not take God seriously enough. There is a reciprocal relationship between taking God seriously, and taking yourself less seriously. When people take themselves too seriously, they naturally become self-referential and touchy. They tend to be on the…