Gospel.com Blog

Why would you want to outline the Bible? Does the very thought give you unpleasant flashbacks to high school grammar class?

Well, for pastors and teachers, choosing a Biblical topic or passage and creating an outline of it can be an excellent way to organize your thoughts and the Bible’s teachings. Into Thy Word has a thorough article explaining how to outline Scripture, complete with full examples of different types of outline. Outlining is a practice that will be most helpful to pastors, teachers, and writers, but could also be useful to anybody who wants to delve deeply into a specific passage of the Bible. And if you’re not a pastor, learning to outline will give you a glimpse at the in-depth study and preparation that goes into the writing of a sermon.

Have you ever served with a group of people–a church committee, a website design group, a leadership team–that was tasked with planning out a major project? If you have, you know that it’s sometimes hard to keep everyone focused and friendly while you try to navigate everyone’s individual ideas and opinions. A new essay over at StudentSoul.org offers some concrete suggestions for making sure your group gets along well during the planning process.

The article is written with InterVarsity groups in mind, but is perfectly applicable to any sort of committee planning process. Whether the group in question is the church council or the youth group leadership team, see if these tips can help make committee meetings more productive and less painful.

If you’re a church leader or pastor, you almost certainly believe in the importance of prayer. But do you make the time to act on that belief? In a new Online Pulpit column, Joan Tyvoll observes that many pastors today want to be spending more of their time in prayer, but can hardly find the time to do it amidst all the responsibilities of church leadership.

But busy or not, you can’t afford to let something so crucial to the Christian life as prayer get scheduled out of your life. Fortunately Tyvoll isn’t just here to lay down a guilt trip–she lays out some practical tips for making prayer an important part of your life and ministry. And while her advice is pointed primarily at church leaders, it’s useful guidance for anyone who wants to deepen their prayer life.

Are you fascinated by the spiritual themes that lie beneath the surface of even the most unlikely of movies? David Bruce of Hollywood Jesus has for years been pointing out the spirituality of popular films, and he’s recently put together a useful new resource for church leaders who share his interest. He’s created free, downloadable PowerPoint presentations that chart the spiritual themes in major films. The first two films to get the full PowerPoint treatment are TMNT and Reign Over Me. They’re a great way to generate discussion with a youth group or Bible study–and they’re free, so if they sound like something you could use in your ministry, go check ‘em out!

Long gone are the days when ministers stayed in one place for a career. While no one ever wants to move from one church to the next, it is a pressing reality for ministry professionals. Brian Ford, associate director of Interim Youth Ministries, gives solid advice for minimizing the damage to the church when transitions happen in his article Making the Transition from One Ministry to the Next.

Although church leaders are expected to be especially scrupulous about ethics and morality, the lure of sexual temptation can be difficult to resist–especially for church leaders who also happen to be single. Brian McClincey, a passionate youth pastor from Pennsylvania, writes about the sexual temptation of being single and serving the local church in full-time ministry. In Sex and the Single Pastor, Brian defines strategies for being successfully single in ministry, finding fulfillment in emotional intimacy, and building a network of accountability.

A couple noteworthy new items at the InterVarsity Press site:

First, Craig Evans’ new book Fabricating Jesus is out, and examines the strange allure today of scholarly “reinterpretations” of Jesus. In a short interview with the author, Evans discusses the problem and offers some ideas that might explain why scholars seem to be so drawn to revisionism of Jesus. The interview and a few other items are available on the book’s website.

Secondly, a new Online Pulpit column is up: New Kids on the Block, with some practical suggestions for making your church a friendly and welcoming place for newcomers and visitors.

Pastors–do your sermons inspire your congregations, making the words and teachings of the Bible come alive to listeners? Of course, while pastors are the primary “public speakers” of the church, there are many occasions when a typical churchgoer might be called on to make a public speech–addressing a church committee or leading a Bible study group, for instance. Regardless of your role, does your public speaking communicate a message in a compelling and Christlike manner?

Richard Bewes writes about how to speak effectively in public at his Pocket Bible Thoughts site, and he’s got a lot of good insights into what makes for a good speech. He lays out a lot of good advice for communicating well in public–which involves not only practising to be a more technically proficient speaker, but also understanding how to best let Christ speak through your words. (For more about Christianity and public speaking, see also this interview with Quentin Schultze on the subject at ThinkChristian.)

Pastors, have you ever wondered if it’s time to pack up, leave your congregation, and go in search of a new church ministry? Few pastors remain at a single church throughout their entire leadership ministry. When your ministry isn’t going well, it might be easy to decide to move on–but how would you know when it’s time to leave a successful ministry?

Those are the questions raised in the latest Online Pulpit column, which is about how church leaders can recognize when they should (or shouldn’t) move on to a different church congregation.

Pastoral burnout is a topic we’ve noted several times here at the Buzz, and if the number of articles about it are any indication, it remains a serious problem. But a piece by Dave Kraft at the Navigators website looks at the issue from a different angle, and asks church leaders “How healthy are you?”

He’s not just talking about spiritual health–he’s challenging leaders and ministers to consider whether the everyday lifestyle they lead contributes to their ministry… or is just setting them up for a physical and emotional crash. Are you leading a well-paced, focused life–or are you exhausting yourself with a brutal ministry schedule and an ever-increasing burden of stress? Read Kraft’s advice for healthy leadership and see if it applies to your own ministry.