This Week on Trans·formed (9/15)

Featured Articles on Trans·formed This Week

The Gospel as Center (Book Review). Gospel-centered. It’s everywhere. Not quite as ubiquitous as air, but it feels like it sometimes. We even use it at Western Seminary to describe the core of our mission: Gospel-Centered Transformation. But what does it mean? And what difference does it really make for life and ministry today? Is it just a slogan? Or does it matter? What does it mean to be gospel-centered?

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Three Good Reasons to Start a Church. Over and over again during my years of service with the NC Baptists, I would get push back from pastors of established churches who puzzled, “Why would we start new churches when so many of our established churches have declining members?  It would be better to reach people with the churches we have.”  That’s an understandable sentiment when you serve a church that is failing to grow and you don’t know why (especially when there is a church planter with hat in hand asking for help).

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It Was a Moment I Will Never Forget. As if on cue, everyone turned to me. It was a moment I will never forget. I had a story to tell—a miraculous one that still stuns me with God’s unexpected goodness (adopting a daughter). It wasn’t the story they wanted to hear. Not only did their sudden interest in me evaporate, I felt discredited as a woman. I had nothing to contribute to their conversation, which they resumed without me. I have since learned to excuse myself when women start sharing their delivery room experiences.

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Other Posts of Interest from around the Web

• The Identity of a Pastor. If you can’t define who you are, someone else will do it for you, and the best way to define who you are is to understand whose you are. Everyone faces this same identity crisis and Pastors are no exception.

• Pastors are Hurting. Not all the news about pastors is discouraging. Pastors feel privileged to be called to their places of ministry. They have a deep love for those they shepherd. Most of them could not conceive of doing anything else. But please hear me: Many pastors are hurting.

• Carefully Plan How You Will Pass the Torch. In some cases, if something happens to the pastor, small group leader, youth pastor, or the worship leader, the church can scrape by for a few weeks but they have no plans for the future. The sad thing about this is that this poor planning could wreck the systems, programs and ministry of the church.

• Is Bigger Really Better? The Statistics Actually Say “No!” There are millions of people in smaller congregations across the country who live with a feeling that they are failures because their church isn’t as big as the megaplex congregation down the street. This is sad and should not be the case.

• The Ten Commandments for Grandparents. My fifth and sixth grandchildren are due in the next week and three weeks respectively. As an “experienced” granddad of three years, here are ten commandments that Rad Rad (my name to my grandchildren) tries to follow.