Protestant churches follow American culture much like the man with the broom and shovel follows the horses in a parade. Liberal Protestants can be counted on to fit their ever shrinking theology into latest intellectual fashions. Evangelicals, while largely oblivious to the intellectual fashions of the past 150 years, can be reliably counted on to package the Gospel in the latest pop culture fashions, so that it’s hard to tell in some churches whether you’re worshiping or att

Pastor, if you think you’re essential to your church’s health, growth, and success, you may well have an inflated sense of your own importance. I’m not saying that to be insulting, mind you, but I know from 20 some odd years in pastoral ministry that being “essential” is the unexamined motive that keeps many of us on the ministry merry-go-round, where we go round and round doing all the right leadership things, while failing to notice that we haven’t really gone anywhere—wher