Pastoral Leadership

A good relationship with a wise mentor is like having personal access to a goldmine. It’s an opportunity anyone would be foolish to not take advantage of!

“I feel like I’m about to die if I stay there.” Bobby Roberson told his friend and mentor, Dr. Harold Sightler.

Sinful compromise is not hard to discern and avoid. Those who are careful to please the Lord will recognize such compromise when they ask certain questions about the issues at hand and the changes that are being made by many.

Leading fundamentalist churches across the country today are changing what they believe and teach. In many cases, these changes amount to compromise with evil.

Many of the issues Christians face in their lives and in their churches boil down to a choice between faith and doubt, between believing God and deciding not to believe what He has said.

My dad finished preaching a service in a revival meeting one night and was “complimented” by a dear older lady. “Brother Ouellette, that was a good sermon,” she said. “There wasn’t no doctrine or nothin’ in it.”

Diet books and weight loss plans abound in the land of plenty. More than half of the population is looking for a quick fix on how to shed a few pounds.

Growth continued until when we were four and a half years old we left a Baptist denomination, and we were sued for everything we owned.

An old proverb states, “For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider was lost, for want of a rider the battle was lost, for want of the battle the kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

Baptist preachers have always known that beliefs matter. The challenge has been in convincing the congregations of the same. The pastor spends hours in study searching the Scriptures. He cross references verses.

Many pastors asked me what planning and preparation were involved before I started Hermosillo Baptist Church, and I thank God for those questions. A vision without a strategic plan will be just another dream.

The nation was in a free fall heading for destruction. Not a single drop of rain had fallen for three and a half years.

Some years ago, I stood in a long line at the pharmacy in a Target store. The young lady behind the counter was exceptionally friendly, cheerful, and helpful, and she kept her customers in a good mood during a long wait.

When Pastor James Bing of Fort Meyers, Florida, was asked to pray at a presidential event, he did the unthinkable.

Bob McQueon, a former congressman from Ohio who is also a Christian, tells this story about taking his son to McDonalds.

I often hear pastors say, “My people just will not come out for mission conferences.”

A little over four years ago a dear Korean lady, Mrs. Lee, visited our church for the first time. She knew the Lord, but her husband did not.

Excellence may become the forgotten attribute in our casual-obsessed culture. We seem to be mired in a mundane malaise of mediocrity.

Sermon outline: This is an abbreviated outline with the complete sermon downloadable at the bottom of the post.

A church plant is an awesome adventure, an important calling, a needed endeavor, and much more. However, for all the things church planting is, there are many things that it’s not.