There are very few callings that are more laden with minefields than a young pastor called to serve an older church. But if it’s done well it can be extremely rewarding, for both the young pastor and the older church.
5 Essential Lessons For Young Pastors Leading Older Churches Read More »
Small churches have a tendency to keep us humble, sometimes involuntarily. But that humility is something we should never outgrow, no matter how big the church or ministry becomes.
9 Small Church Leadership Traits No Pastor Should Ever Outgrow Read More »
When times are normal, leaders inspire change. When times are disruptive, leaders provide stability.
How To Pivot Your Pastoral Leadership In Uncertain Times Read More »
Church members aren’t looking for super-pastors, they want basic pastoral competence, honesty and leadership. That’s what they ought to expect.
Congregations Don’t Want a Hero, They Want a Pastor Read More »
Trusting each other doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put proper financial checks and balances in place.
Small Church Finances: 2 Security Lessons I Learned The Hard Way Read More »
Money isn’t the goal of ministry. But it is a tool – and an important one. When we manage our money well, we can do better ministry with it.
Small Church Finances: 4 Budgeting Lessons I Learned The Hard Way Read More »
Intentional mentoring is a great way to expand your church’s capacity for effective ministry and fulfill our mandate to make disciples and equip God’s people.
Recruiting Volunteers In a Small Church Read More »
Small churches have a serious advantage when it comes to discipleship. If we’ll use the right tools.
The Discipleship Mandate: Bring Mentoring Back Read More »
Since every pastor will lead a small church for at least some time in their ministry, shouldn’t we learn how to do it well?
The Three Undeniable Realities Of Pastoral Ministry Read More »
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
When I wrote my last post, Uh, Pastor… Being Right Is Not an Excuse to Be Mean, I ended it with those words from the Spider-Man comics.
It is perhaps the most famous quote from superhero comics and movies (thanks to Stan Lee and Peter Parker’s uncle Ben).
Because I used that quote, I was tempted to make it the title of my post and use a photo of Spider-Man to accompany it.
Here’s why I didn’t.
The Sign On the Front Door Matters
There’s an old, true saying in leadership circles:
What you win them with is what you win them to.
I didn’t choose to attract readers to my last post with a Spider-Man quote and photo because I wasn’t interested in attracting them to Spider-Man or superheroes.
When people were done reading that post, I wanted my readers to be thinking about how pastors need to be careful with our words, so that’s what I put in the title and accompanying photo.
In today’s post, I want you to walk away thinking about how we need to be careful about how we use words and images from popular culture, so I put that in the title. And I used a photo of a little dog in an ill-fitting Spider-Man suit because I think it illustrates the point of this post well – there are some ideas that might seem cute at the time, but they don’t fit like they should.
Provide an Alternative, Not More of the Same
I have no problem using references from pop culture to illustrate truth – I used a Spider-Man quote in my last post, after all. And I’ve made multiple references to pop culture in previous posts (including quoting Keith Richards, Reality TV shows and The Big Bang Theory sitcom, among others). But I’m beginning to tire of the tendency among pastors and Christian bloggers to link so much of our speaking and writing directly from the popular culture.
Movies In Church: Use Pop Culture, But Don’t Let It Use You Read More »
