Minister's Toolbox

Can demons influence sermons? What are the doctrines of demons? Probably not what you imagined. Today we look at Paul's warnings to those who teach scripture. On the podcast, I mentioned that you could get a copy of my recent book, When a Good Church Goes Bad that includes a free audio series and workbook.

The vast majority of Christians are gravely misinformed about demons or the demonic realm. Jesus dealt with and taught extensively about dealing with demons as a regular part of Christian ministry. His followers continued this practice as a normal part of doing ministry in their generation. Jesus was mocked because a normal part of his ministry involved casting demons out of people. The religious leaders of his day, similar to those of our day, tried to belittle him as a crude attention-seeker claiming that he was empowered by the devils he sought to cast out. As ministers, we need to get a revelation about how all this impacts our current ministry. I talk about practical applications during the podcast. During today's show, I talked about a study guide designed to help members of your church discover their ministry as it relates to supporting your church. You can get it here. I mentioned last week's download that you can receive here. I also mentioned additional recommended resources here.

Ministers generally don’t talk about the demonic realm very much. Truth is, most prefer to ignore demons altogether because they are afraid their educated constituents or congregants will think they belong in the looney bin. I think most present-day ministers take a passive approach to the whole subject of demonology. We think that if we just ignore demons, they will ignore us. Paul tells us that we are not in a battle against other humans. In fact, if we get into a battle with other humans, we are out of our assigned realm. During the podcast, I share some practical thoughts on addressing demonic activity. I mentioned a free download during the program. You can download it here. I also mentioned MileIQ. You can find out more here. You can get a copy of C.S. Lewis' book, Screwtape Letters here.

In Luke 9:2, Jesus sent the twelve out to evangelize telling them to preach the gospel and heal the sick. Lest you think this was strictly a calling given only to the apostles, Luke 10:9 tells us he sent out 72 other followers with the same mission and command. There is a whole slew of books out about how to do things with the Dummy label. Writing for dummies; Car mechanics for dummies and so forth. The idea behind these best-selling books is to convince readers that with a little help, they too can start to write, fix their own cars…etc. One of the challenges in ministry is that for the most part, we know more about scripture than anyone in our congregations. It is always good to reexamine our beliefs in light of scripture. Romans 10:17 informs us that faith comes by hearing the word of God. Faith to be healed comes from connecting with what scripture teaches about healing. I give some practical guidance about the ministry of healing sick people in the podcast. During the podcast, I invited you to download a

Pastors are called to the bedsides of people who are sick as a regular part of their ministry. Hospitals are opportunities for genuine ministry and leaders should not take this ministry lightly. There seems to be an absence of training for ministers about how to do hospital visitation. You are God’s representative to the person who is ill. While other professionals bring medical options, the family brings support and sympathy. You are the person tasked with bringing the Kingdom of God to bear on an individual situation. Most people I know are uncomfortable around sick people. They don’t what to say or they start to act funny. BONUS: I mention the free download you can get here. BONUS: I also mention my book, When A Good Church Goes Bad. Read the first three chapters here by clicking, Synopsis. Purchase the book here or listen on Audiobook through their free 30-day trial here. Then search for When A Good Church Goes Bad. 

I’ve got to tell you that of all pastoral responsibilities, expectations, and duties, praying for the sick was my least favorite thing to do as a young pastor. Theologically, my beliefs about healing were all over the map. The New Testament, on the other hand, is pretty aggressive on the subject. Jesus and his followers throughout Acts of the Apostles prayed for the sick and experienced extraordinary results. When I look around today, there is little evidence of physical healing taking place in churches irrespective of denominational background. [ctt_author author="1547" name="Casey Sabella" template="2" link="dRHt4" via="yes" nofollow="yes"]I realized that I did not have a clear, biblical view of praying for sick people. [/ctt_author] Leaders cannot pray the prayer of faith unless they believe God wants to heal the patient. The pastor or minister often plays a vital role in healing. If all you do when you visit the sick in hospitals is make people comfortable to die, that is nice, but not what James had in m

What is a loser’s limp? It is any excuse you use currently to avoid conflict. Perhaps you need to have a discussion with your church board about your salary. Perhaps there is a deacon who is failing to fulfill their responsibilities. Maybe it is a member of your worship team who is engaging in questionable behavior. Many times,  We often hope that the problem will just solve itself. Essentially and perhaps unknowingly, we develop a loser’s limp. During the podcast, I share some clear steps to overcoming this crippling habit. For more reading on this subject, click here.

What is something that just about every minister knows is absolutely essential but finds 100 ways not to do? That is the subject of today's show. Pastors want to do it but don’t. Why is that? 90% of churches throughout the world average out at 85 members. Some build a theology out of this phenomenon and actually teach that God wants small churches. We pastors do church work really well. We preach and teach. Pastors administrate and make decisions, counsel, strategize and do a hundred other things. Your church needs to develop new leaders, but most of the time it is not a lack of potential leaders but something else. We offer a special download with additional content here.  

Every church leader pastors or shepherds the people of God. We call church leaders ministers, “reverend,” “priest” and “bishop,” but the most common title of identification is pastor. As you already know, the term pastor is used only once in the New Testament. We find it in Ephesians 4:11-16. Pastor is listed among 5 ministry gifts Jesus imparted to his church after the resurrection. They are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.   What if you really struggle with loving people when they exhibit un-Christlike behaviors? During the podcast, I address this and several other issues along with 3 tips that will help you improve. During the show I mention a book entitled, The Minister as Shepherd. The author wrote this book more than a hundred years ago containing insights about past I also mentioned a link you can access to learn more about body language. 

People in your church swing a hammer, go to executive meetings or manage children during the bulk of their working hours. They create houses, fix problems or train children. What do you do? Your assigned task is to communicate with God and then tell people what you’ve heard. People actually get up on their day off, come to our facility, sing a few songs and then settle in to see what God said to you. On top of that, they donate money to ensure you will do it again week after week after week.   With that as a backdrop, you would think that every church in the world would be packed with people seeking God, wouldn’t you? Yet, by and large, the opposite is true. During the podcast I lay out 3 ways leaders may be hindering their churches. Here is a download of the main points we touched on today with some additional content.  I mention MileIQ that helps you take accurate mileage effortlessly to save money at tax time. 

Here are 4 easy tweaks to help you create better teaching and preaching

One of the titles given to Christ in Isaiah chapter nine is Wonderful Counselor. What sort of counsel do you give? Does counseling work, and is it an effective use of your time? Whether it works or not depends largely on two factors. First, the ground rules for the session. Second, the willingness of the counselee to be accountable. Some of Jesus’s counsel was very short and oftentimes abrupt. Telling a potential follower, “let the dead bury the dead” is pretty direct.  During the podcast, we examine the strengths and weaknesses of modern day counseling and help you decided its importance to your individual ministry. These are the links for Bob Newhart, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Celebrate Recovery. We also are giving away a free download outlining guidelines for counseling here.  Don't forget to visit our transcripts link if you'd like a written copy.

At first glance, it seems kind of absurd to think of accountability in a negative way, but there are pitfalls that can limit your effectiveness as a church leader. Accountability is high on the priority list of Heaven. Jesus warned his followers that every word spoken on earth would be recorded and accountable on the Day of Judgment. Sometimes, it becomes necessary for the good for the church to remove a pastor who refuses to answer questions over a period of time about things that matter to the church. You as a leader are accountable first to God. I talk about biblical accountability and how false accountability nearly destroyed my ministry. I put together a free download you can download it here.

 It is very easy to measure ministry success by the numbers. Membership increases by 20% each year, you are successful. If they decline, you are not. Biblically these measuring sticks are completely inaccurate. According to John’s gospel, Jesus had a congregation of 5012 which everyone deemed successful. He preached one sermon and 5000 left. Churches today that are business, as usual, will be out of business tomorrow. Howard Johnsons became satisfied with its style, its menus its service and its identity. They kept on with business as usual until they went out of business. Many churches follow the same pattern. During the podcast, I discuss the nuts and bolts of ministry success from God's point of view. I also offer a free download here.

I participate in a weekly meeting of pastors in our region called, Gatekeepers. Every week, we get together for a no agenda meeting incorporating sharing, prayer and mutual encouragement. One of the pastors this past week spoke about a sermon he preached recently on the subject finishing well.  It is difficult to find pastors or leaders who make it to sixty and are still filled with passion and drive to do ministry. If you take an honest look around you, it is difficult to find older ministers who are finishing well. During the podcast, I share the basics of how to stay passionate about ministry. I put them into a downloadable PDF file that you can access here. I also promised my free eBook on how pastors should use social media. Al Elsdon is referenced during the podcast. You can hear an amazing testimony of his WWII experiences here.   We also offer a free download here. 

Diet is Latin for the general assembly of Worms, a city in Germany. In 1521, Martin Luther, (a Catholic priest and professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg) was called to give account. His bold and thoroughly unexpected stand against corruption in the church offended the hierarchy at the highest levels. Few of us grapple with issues that will impact the future of the world. Still, we grapple with issues that threaten the purity, direction, and effectiveness of our own churches.   We can easily fall into the habit of trying to please people. To keep people happy, we compromise our standards a little at a time. During the podcast, I offer ideas on how to deal with disagreeable people. On the show today, I mention a great link for you history buffs about what happened at the Diet of Worms. Listen here.  

You have more material than most professional authors. You spend multiple hours per week writing sermons to bless your congregations. Each sermon is potentially a chapter for one or more books. You can write, design and publish a book in a matter of days with the simple tools of today’s technology. During today's podcast I share the simple steps you can take to publish it at little or no cost. Thousands of new authors give up after receiving a boatload of rejection letters. With Amazon, those days are gone. You can write your book in Microsoft Word and download it to Amazon. In moments, you will have a formatted book ready to publish. In addition to a paperback and Kindle, you can also create an audiobook for free as well.  Since we are talking today about writing books, I would be remiss to not mention my first book entitled, When A Good Church Goes Bad. It contains both my testimony and help for anyone who has been hurt by their church experience. It is a great book for people in your church who have taken

Change is at the heart of what we do as church leaders, but you remember I said this is a bit ironic. The irony is, that by and large, church leaders are typically people who don’t change at all! What if you were an alien from another planet who visited your church. What would you see and experience? Would the report you give to your superiors reflect New Testament Christianity? Principles must remain unchanged, but methods ARE changeable to intersect with the culture we want to reach. We can easily get stuck on doing things because they have always been done that way. During the podcast, I look at some things to examine in your ministry that may need an update. Getting stuck in traditions you prefer rather than traditions scripture teaches is the fastest way to get old as a minister and old as a church.  Winston Churchill said, “To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often.” On today's show, I spoke about my book, When A Good Church Goes Bad. You can learn more about it here. If you prefer Kindl

I am always amazed, particularly at national restaurant chains and how they operate. Millions are spent to get a franchise, build a building and open for business. Before you walk in the door, literally millions have been invested by seemingly astute businessmen. What amazes me in many of these establishments is first: the employees. In many fast food places, you can see dirty floors. You can see into the kitchen and notice sweating workers with shirts unbuttoned handling food.  All that money and you will never return because someone did not think it was important to clean the floor or train the staff to present themselves properly. During the podcast, I contrast restaurants with local churches.  What happens when your guest uses the bathroom and finds a dirty floor and the most inexpensive toilet paper? We spend sometimes hours crafting the best sermon, but if your guests or members either cannot hear you or the sound is distorted, what happens next? I also share how you can order my new book When A Good Ch

If I asked pastors what their most important ministry is, many would say family. A great answer, but wrong. Your most important ministry is to the Lord.  Now before you roll your eyes and think, “O brother, that is obvious,” listen to the podcast and allow me to explain myself. This is crucial to your present and future ministry.  David ministered to the Lord. That single dynamic caused scripture to identify him as a man after God’s own heart. Time and time again, we see him in battle, pulling away from the army and inquiring of God. During the podcast, I mentioned that you could order my new book, When A Good Church Goes Bad on Kindle. Click here to order.