Pastoral Support Quotes

Friends know the patterns of our souls.

God promises to strongly support us when we are weak, so there is no better place for us to be than right smack-dab in the middle of whatever weakness we are beset with, if we are in the middle of it in Christ.

According to a recent survey by the National Association of Church Business Administration, the average pastor in 2012 makes an annual salary of $28,000. One in five has to work a second job to support his family.

So here is what I see when we reclaim the church ladies: a woman loved and free is beautiful. She is laughing with her sisters, and together they are telling their stories, revealing their scars and their wounds, the places where they don't have it figured out. They are nurturers, creating a haven where the young, the broken, the tenderhearted, and the at-risk can flourish. These women are dancing and worshiping, hands high, faces tipped toward heaven, tears streaming. They are celebrating all shapes and sizes, talking frankly and respectfully about sexuality and body image, promising to stop calling themselves fat. They are saving babies tossed in rubbish heaps, rescuing child soldiers, supporting mamas trying to make ends meet halfway around the world, thinking of justice when they buy their daily coffee. They are fighting sex trafficking. They are pastoring and counseling. They are choosing life consistently, building hope, doing the hard work of transformation in themselves. They are shaking off the silence of shame and throwing open the prison doors of physical and sexual abuse, addictions, eating disorders, and suicidal depression. Poverty and despair are being unlocked - these women know there are many hands helping turn that key. There isn't much complaining about husbands and chores, cattiness, or jealousy when a woman knows she is loved for her true self. She is lit up with something bigger than what the world offers, refusing to be intimidated into silence or despair.

Around 400 A.D., Saint Augustine, a prominent Roman bishop, described a pastor's job: Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low-spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, litigants pacified, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved.

From my father I heard only these words: "But you were born for such a day as this." He closed the book and my mother joined him in embracing me. They prayed over me and they gave me a blessing. And some blessings, like the one my conservative Christian parents gave to their soon-to-be-Lutheran pastor daughter who had put them through hell, are the kind of blessings that stay with you for the rest of your life. The kind you can't speak of without crying all over again.

First, Paul is anxious that everyone who professes Christian faith should allow the gospel to transform the whole of their lives, so that the outward signs of the faith express a living reality that comes from the deepest parts of the personality. Second, he is also anxious that each Christian, and especially every teacher of the faith, should know how to build up the community in mutual love and support, rather than, by the wrong sort of teaching or behaviour, tearing it apart.

Some of the leaders of the backlash said their name was an acronym for “Taxed Enough Already.” Maybe this was true at first. But the Tea Party was soon infused with paranoia that had nothing to do with taxes. While the ugliness caught Washington observers by surprise, anyone who had spent time in a battleground state recognized it instantly. Back in Ohio, volunteers had been told to check boxes corresponding to a voter’s most important issue: economy, environment, health care. But what box were you supposed to check when a voter’s concern was that Obama was a secret Muslim? Or a terrorist? Or a communist? Or the actual, literal Antichrist? How could you convince a voter whose pastor told them your candidate would bring about the biblical end of days? Other people were just plain racist. Outside an unemployment center in Canton, a skinny white man with stringy hair and a ratty T-shirt told me he would never, ever support my candidate. When I asked why, he took two fingers and tapped them against the veiny underside of his forearm. At first I didn’t understand. “You won’t vote for Obama because you’re a heroin addict?” It took me at least ten seconds to realize he was gesturing to the color of his skin.

Others are more knowledgeable about the situation than I am. I must go along with their decisions. It is my place to be supportive, not to confront. My faith demands that I be obedient and loyal. These people are so nice, especially to me. Their motives must be pure. Perhaps I don’t really know the pastor well enough to discern whether he is right or wrong. Since they are closer to the situation, I will go along with them. He must be “special” with special needs. Who am I to rock the boat? I must be a faithful follower and not allow others to hurt the ministry.

An Act for establishing religious Freedom. Section 1 Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time; That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical; That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry, That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right, That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it; That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

My family, all these people, the black community…they were both perpetrators and victims. They believed and spread the narrative that Jim Crow segregation was a Republican thing, and that rich white men were the lone and total group Republicans actually cared about. I, along with everyone else I knew, had been robbed of the right to find out what we truly believed. I had been denied that opportunity by my own family, neighbors, friends, teachers, and even pastors. What’s more, we had been encouraged to act in a particular way because of these lies, offering Democrats our votes and support. The Democrats had effectively influenced the black community for decades using this narrative. And they still are.

Before drawing any affirmative conclusions let us first note the absence of the concept of imitation as a general pastoral or moral guideline. There is in the New Testament no Franciscan glorification of barefoot itinerancy. Even when Paul argues the case for celibacy, it does not occur to him to appeal to the example of Jesus. Even when Paul explains his own predilection for self-support there is no appeal to Jesus' years of village artisan. Even when the Apostle argues strongly the case for his teaching authority, there is no appeal to the rabbinic ministry of Jesus. Jesus' trade as a carpenter, his association with fishermen, and his choice of illustrations from the life of the sower and the shepherd have through Christian history given momentum to the romantic glorification of the handcrafts and the rural life; but there is none of this in the New Testament, which testifies throughout to the life and mission of a church going intentionally into the cities in full knowledge of the conflicts which awaited here there. That the concept of imitation is not applied by the New Testament at some of those points where Franciscan and romantic devotion has tried most piously to apply it, is all the more demonstration of how fundamental the thought of participation in the suffering of Christ is when the New Testament church sees it as guiding and explaining her attitude to the powers of the world. Only at one point, only on one subject - but then consistently, universally - is Jesus our example: in his cross.

Trusting in God's Direction When I served as a denominational leader in Vancouver, one of our churches believed God was leading it to begin three new mission churches for different language groups. At that time, the church had only seventeen members. Human reason would have immediately ruled out such a large assignment for a small church. They were hoping to receive financial support from our denomination's Home Mission Board to pay the mission pastors' salaries. One pastor was already in the process of relocating to Vancouver when we unexpectedly received word that the mission board would be unable to fund any new work in our area for the next three years. The church didn't have the funds to do what God had called it to do. When they sought my counsel, I suggested that they first go back to the Lord and clarify what God had said to them. If this was merely something they wanted to do for God, God would not be obligated to provide for them. After they sought the Lord, they returned and said, “We still believe God is calling us to start all three new churches.” At this point, they had to walk by faith and trust God to provide for what He was clearly leading them to do. A few months later, the church received some surprising news. Six years earlier, I had led a series of meetings in a church in California. An elderly woman had approached me and said she wanted to will part of her estate for use in mission work in our city. The associational office had just received a letter from an attorney in California informing them that they would be receiving a substantial check from that dear woman's estate. The association could now provide the funds needed by the sponsoring church. The amount was sufficient to firmly establish all three churches this faithful congregation had launched. Did God know what He was doing when He told a seventeen-member church to begin three new congregations? Yes. He already knew the funds would not be available from the missions agency, and He was also aware of the generosity of an elderly saint in California. None of these details caught God by surprise. That small church in Vancouver had known in their minds that God could provide. But through this experience they developed a deeper trust in their all knowing God. Whenever God directs you, you will never have to question His will. He knows what He is going to do.

Sand burns outside their windows in every direction. Compass needles spin in their twinned minds: everywhere they look, they are greeted by horizon, deep gulps of blue. People think of the green pastoral when they think of lovers in nature. Those English poets used the vales and streams to douse their lusts into verse. But the desert offers something that no forest brook or valley ever can: distance. A cloudless rooming house for couples. Skies that will host any visitors’ dreams with the bald hospitality of pure space. In terms of an ecology that can support two lovers in hot pursuit of each other, this is the place; everywhere you look, you’ll find monuments to fevered longing. Craters beg for rain all year long. Moths haunt the succulents, winging sticky pollen from flower to flower.

Pastor Max Lucado of San Antonio, Texas, said in an editorial for the Washington Post in February 2016 that he was “chagrined” by Trump’s antics. He ridiculed a war hero. He made a mockery of a reporter’s menstrual cycle. He made fun of a disabled reporter. He referred to a former first lady, Barbara Bush, as “mommy” and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail. He routinely calls people “stupid” and “dummy.” One writer catalogued 64 occasions that he called someone “loser.” These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded and presented.18 Lucado went on to question how Christians could support a man doing these things as a candidate for president, much less as someone who repeatedly attempted to capture evangelical audiences by portraying himself as similarly committed to Christian values. He continued, “If a public personality calls on Christ one day and calls someone a ‘bimbo’ the next, is something not awry? And to do so, not once, but repeatedly, unrepentantly and unapologetically? We stand against bullying in schools. Shouldn’t we do the same in presidential politics?” Rolling Stone reported on several evangelical leaders pushing against a Trump nomination, including North Carolina radio host and evangelical Dr. Michael Brown, who wrote an open letter to Jerry Falwell Jr., blasting his endorsement of Donald Trump. Brown wrote, “As an evangelical follower of Jesus, the contrast is between putting nationalism first or the kingdom of God first. From my vantage point, you and other evangelicals seem to have put nationalism first, and that is what deeply concerns me.”19 John Stemberger, president and general counsel for Florida Family Action, lamented to CNN, “The really puzzling thing is that Donald Trump defies every stereotype of a candidate you would typically expect Christians to vote for.” He wondered, “Should evangelical Christians choose to elect a man I believe would be the most immoral and ungodly person ever to be president of the United States?”20 A

Innovation and disruption are ideas that originated in the arena of business but which have since been applied to arenas whose values and goals are remote from the values and goals of business. People aren’t disk drives. Public schools, colleges and universities, churches, museums, and many hospitals, all of which have been subjected to disruptive innovation, have revenues and expenses and infrastructures, but they aren’t industries in the same way that manufacturers of hard-disk drives or truck engines or drygoods are industries. Journalism isn’t an industry in that sense, either. Doctors have obligations to their patients, teachers to their students, pastors to their congregations, curators to the public, and journalists to their readers--obligations that lie outside the realm of earnings, and are fundamentally different from the obligations that a business executive has to employees, partners, and investors. Historically, institutions like museums, hospitals, schools, and universities have been supported by patronage, donations made by individuals or funding from church or state. The press has generally supported itself by charging subscribers and selling advertising. (Underwriting by corporations and foundations is a funding source of more recent vintage.) Charging for admission, membership, subscriptions and, for some, earning profits are similarities these institutions have with businesses. Still, that doesn’t make them industries, which turn things into commodities and sell them for gain.

After that preacher told me to quit thinking, I began thinking harder. I did my research. Turns out, the memo he was trying to pass me—“A good Christian bases her faith on disapproving of gays and abortion”—started being issued only forty years ago. In the 1970s, a few rich, powerful, white, (outwardly) straight men got worried about losing their right to continue racially segregating their private Christian schools and maintaining their tax-exempt status. Those men began to feel their money and power being threatened by the civil rights movement. In order to regain control, they needed to identify an issue that would be emotional and galvanizing enough to unite and politically activate their evangelical followers for the first time. They decided to focus on abortion. Before then—a full six years after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision—the prevailing evangelical position was that life began with the baby’s first breath, at birth. Most evangelical leaders had been indifferent to the Court’s decision in Roe, and some were cited as supporting the ruling. Not anymore. They wrote a new memo using freshly feigned outrage and rhetoric calling for “a holy war…to lead the nation back to the moral stance that made America great.” They sponsored a meeting of 15,000 pastors—called The Religious Roundtable—to train pastors on how to convince their congregations to vote for antichoice, antigay candidates. This is how they disseminated the memo down to evangelical ministers, who passed it down to pews across America. The memo read, To be aligned with Jesus, to have family values, to be moral, one must be against abortion and gay people and vote for the candidate that is antiabortion and antigay.

Not long ago I was in Istanbul, Turkey. While there I toured the Topkapi Palace—the former royal palace of the Ottoman sultans and center of the Ottoman Empire. Among the many artifacts collected throughout the centuries and on display was an item I found quite remarkable—the sword of the prophet Muhammad. There, under protective glass and illuminated by high-tech lighting, was the fourteen-hundred-year-old sword of the founder of Islam. As I looked at the sword with its curved handle and jeweled scabbard, I thought how significant it is that no one will ever visit a museum and be shown a weapon that belonged to Jesus. Jesus brings freedom to the world in a way different from Pharaoh, Alexander, Caesar, Muhammad, Napoleon, and Patton. Jesus sets us free not by killing enemies but by being killed by enemies and forgiving them … by whom I mean us. Forgiveness and cosuffering love is the truth that sets us free—free from the false freedom inflicted by swords ancient and modern. Muhammad could fight a war in the name of freedom to liberate his followers from Meccan oppression, but Jesus had a radically different understanding of freedom. And lest this sound like crass Christian triumphalism, my real question is this: Do we Christians secretly wish that Jesus were more like Muhammad? It’s not an idle question. The moment the church took to the Crusades in order to fight Muslims, it had already surrendered its vision of Jesus to the model of Muhammad. Muhammad may have thought freedom could be found at the end of a sword, but Jesus never did. So are Christians who most enthusiastically support US-led wars against Muslim nations actually trying to turn Jesus into some version of Muhammad? It’s a serious question.

I remember that as I sat there, my initial reaction was: flummoxed. Pray to God to heal a baby’s defective heart? Really? But doesn’t God, being omniscient, already know that this baby’s heart is defective? And doesn’t God, being omnipotent, already have the ability to heal the baby’s heart if he wants to? Isn’t the defective heart thus part of God’s plan? What good is prayer, then? Do these people really think that God will alter his will if they only pray hard enough? And if they don’t pray hard enough, he’ll let the baby die? What kind of a God is that? Such coldly skeptical thoughts percolated through my fifteen-year-old brain. But they soon fizzled out. As I sat there looking at the crying couple, listening to the murmur of prayers all around me, my initial skepticism was soon supplanted by a sober appreciation and empathetic recognition of what I was witnessing and experiencing. Here was an entire body of people all expressing their love and sympathy for a young couple with a dying baby. Here were hundreds of people caringly, genuinely, warmly pouring out their hearts to this poor unfortunate man, woman, and child. The love and sadness in the gathering were palpable, and I “got” it. I could see the intangible benefit of such a communal act. There was that poor couple at the front of the church, crying, while everyone around them was showering them with support and hope. While I didn’t buy the literal words of the pastor, I surely understood their deeper significance: they were making these suffering people feel a bit better. And while I didn’t think the congregation’s prayers would realistically count for a hill of beans toward actually curing that baby, I was still able to see that it was a serenely beneficial act nonetheless, for it offered hope and solace to these unlucky parents, as well as to everyone else present there in that church who was feeling sadness for them, or for themselves and their own personal misfortunes. So while I sat there, absolutely convinced that there exists no God who heals defective baby hearts, I also sat there equally convinced that this mass prayer session was a deeply good thing. Or if not a deeply good thing, then at least a deeply understandable thing. I felt so sad for that young couple that day. I could not, and still cannot, fathom the pain of having a new baby who, after only a few months of life, begins to die.

propose that we consider our farmers on a spectrum, let’s say, of agrarianism. On one end of the spectrum we have farmers like James, interested in producing the finest foodstuffs that they can, given the soil, the climate, the water, the budget, and their talent. They observe how efficacious or not their efforts are proving, and they adapt accordingly. Variety is one of the keys to this technique, eschewing the corporate monocultures for a revolving set of plants and animals, again, to mimic what was already happening on the land before we showed up with our earth-shaving machinery. It’s tough as hell, and in many cases impossible, to farm this way and earn enough profit to keep your bills paid and your family fed, but these farmers do exist. On the other end of the spectrum is full-speed-ahead robo-farming, in which the farmer is following the instructions of the corporation to produce not food but commodities in such a way that the corporation sits poised to make the maximum financial profit. Now, this is the part that has always fascinated me about us as a population: This kind of farmer is doing all they can to make their factory quota for the company, of grain, or meat, or what have you, despite their soil, climate, water, budget, or talent. It only stands to reason that this methodology is the very definition of unsustainable. Clearly, this is an oversimplification of an issue that requires as much of my refrain (nuance!) as any other human endeavor, but the broad strokes are hard to refute. The first farmer is doing their best to work with nature. The second farmer is doing their best despite nature. In order for the second farmer to prosper, they must defeat nature. A great example of this is the factory farming of beef/pork/chicken/eggs/turkey/salmon/etc. The manufacturers of these products have done everything they can to take the process out of nature entirely and hide it in a shed, where every step of the production has been engineered to make a profit; to excel at quantity. I know you’re a little bit ahead of me here, but I’ll go ahead and ask the obvious question: What of quality? If you’re willing to degrade these many lives with impunity—the lives of the animals themselves, the workers “growing” them, the neighbors having to suffer the voluminous poisons being pumped into the ecosystem/watershed, and the humans consuming your products—then what are you about? Can that even be considered farming? Again, I’m asking this of us. Of you and me, because what I have just described is the way a lot of our food is produced right now, in the system that we all support with our dollars. How did we get here, in both the US and the UK? How can we change our national stance toward agriculture to accommodate more middle-size farmers and less factory farms? How would Aldo Leopold feel about it?

A similar theological—and particularly ecclesiological—logic shapes the Durham Declaration, a manifesto against abortion addressed specifically to the United Methodist Church by a group of United Methodist pastors and theologians. The declaration is addressed not to legislators or the public media but to the community of the faithful. It concludes with a series of pledges, including the following: We pledge, with Cod’s help, to become a church that hospitably provides safe refuge for the so-called “unwanted child” and mother. We will joyfully welcome and generously support—with prayer, friendship, and material resources—both child and mother. This support includes strong encouragement for the biological father to be a father, in deed, to his child.27 No one can make such a pledge lightly. A church that seriously attempted to live out such a commitment would quickly find itself extended to the limits of its resources, and its members would be called upon to make serious personal sacrifices. In other words, it would find itself living as the church envisioned by the New Testament. William H. Willimon tells the story of a group of ministers debating the morality of abortion. One of the ministers argues that abortion is justified in some cases because young teenage girls cannot possibly be expected to raise children by themselves. But a black minister, the pastor of a large African American congregation, takes the other side of the question. “We have young girls who have this happen to them. I have a fourteen year old in my congregation who had a baby last month. We’re going to baptize the child next Sunday,” he added. “Do you really think that she is capable of raising a little baby?” another minister asked. “Of course not,” he replied. No fourteen year old is capable of raising a baby. For that matter, not many thirty year olds are qualified. A baby’s too difficult for any one person to raise by herself.” “So what do you do with babies?” they asked. “Well, we baptize them so that we all raise them together. In the case of that fourteen year old, we have given her baby to a retired couple who have enough time and enough wisdom to raise children. They can then raise the mama along with her baby. That’s the way we do it.”28 Only a church living such a life of disciplined service has the possibility of witnessing credibly to the state against abortion. Here we see the gospel fully embodied in a community that has been so formed by Scripture that the three focal images employed throughout this study can be brought to bear also on our “reading” of the church’s action. Community: the congregation’s assumption of responsibility for a pregnant teenager. Cross: the young girl’s endurance of shame and the physical difficulty of pregnancy, along with the retired couple’s sacrifice of their peace and freedom for the sake of a helpless child. New creation: the promise of baptism, a sign that the destructive power of the world is broken and that this child receives the grace of God and hope for the future.29 There, in microcosm, is the ethic of the New Testament. When the community of God’s people is living in responsive obedience to God’s Word, we will find, again and again, such grace-filled homologies between the story of Scripture and its performance in our midst.

They saw in their hearts a developed South Korea and asked God for a strategy to bring that about. He showed them that if they rallied Westerners to finance one child each through education, then this education would become a foundation for the future greatness of the country. They used this prophetic word to start one of the greatest humanitarian organizations for children in history: Compassion International. (How many readers, I wonder, have supported a child by sending money to a Compassion International child sponsorship project.) The first generation of Compassion International kids that graduated college had a knack for building, and they helped lay Korea’s foundation in government (one was even one of the first Supreme Court justices), education (many became teachers right away), religion (many became Christian pastors and leaders), and industry (many started businesses). It was such a pivotal movement that it is still referred to by many of the South Korean government leaders I have met. South Korea began its greater development into what it is today because God invested a vision of its future to Christians, organizations, and other groups. He gave them the faith to help Korea become what it is today.

When I went to Amherst, I valued my pastoral role as dean as part of a complex web of responsibilities to faculty, students, and the long-term integrity of the institution. I had not foreseen that the stereotype of nurturance would be used as a weapon. It is a double-sided blade that is turned only against women: my colleagues were equally ready to condemn faculty women for being too nurturant, and for not being nurturant enough. I also had not anticipated the extra burdens that went with meeting the expectation of nurturance. The president, for instance, had a wife, several secretaries, and a personal assistant, yet he still demanded a disproportionate amount of caretaking. Although he wouldn’t ask me to bring him cups of coffee or perform personal errands, he would ask me to support his morale, cover for him when he was unprepared, prevent his impulsive actions, and listen to him let off steam or think out loud for hours at a time. These were tasks he automatically expected of women, but he also demanded them, to a lesser degree, from the men around him. Yet he appeared to have no sense that he had some caretaking responsibility for his staff, who used to end up in my office, expecting me to nurse them back to self-respect. It took a lot of us to care for the president and keep him in good running order, at the cost of neglecting other responsibilities. Some of his need was a legitimate balance to the strains of his position; some of it was a habit of being indulged that made me wish parents could rear their children without such a core of neediness and without the expectation that others could be used to fill it.

United States and transformed the vision of the healing processes in their local churches. Pastoral care specialists in many countries have likewise transformed the theories and practices of pastoral theology in the United States. Pastoral theology, care, and counseling is a ministry practice and academic discipline arising from reflection on the church’s ministries of care for persons, families and communities. Caring ministries are rooted in practices of the Christian church that emphasize healing, supportive community, and spiritual liberation in everyday life. Those of us who identify as pastoral theologians and caregivers seek resources that have practical value for sustaining people when their personal lives, their families and their culture face times of crisis. Pastoral Theology has a prophetic function as it gives public voice to the suffering needs of persons and families and develops a sustained critique of ideologies, institutions, and religious beliefs that oppress human persons and families.

United States and transformed the vision of the healing processes in their local churches. Pastoral care specialists in many countries have likewise transformed the theories and practices of pastoral theology in the United States. Pastoral theology, care, and counseling is a ministry practice and academic discipline arising from reflection on the church’s ministries of care for persons, families and communities. Caring ministries are rooted in practices of the Christian church that emphasize healing, supportive community, and spiritual liberation in everyday life. Those of us who identify as pastoral theologians and caregivers seek resources that have practical value for sustaining people when their personal lives, their families and their culture face times of crisis. Pastoral Theology has a prophetic function as it gives public voice to the suffering needs of persons and families and develops a sustained critique of ideologies, institutions, and religious beliefs that oppress human persons and families. Accountability of the Authors

for the next week we endured what can only be described as verbal abuse from anti-equality Christians. Truly, not all of those opposing marriage equality were mean spirited. Some were nice enough, and went so far as to offer us water and snacks. Too many others, though, were just plain unkind, and too few of the good Christians who stood nearby did anything to rein them in. The most harrowing moment for me came when a prominent ex-gay activist pointed at my clergy collar and yelled, “You’re not fooling anyone with that thing!” He yelled that I was not a real pastor, and that I had simply bought a clergy shirt to try to deceive others. When I replied that I was an ordained minister he looked incredulous and told me to read the Bible. (I let him know that I’d read it cover to cover, in English and the original Hebrew and Greek.) Fuming, he told me I was going to hell. Before I could respond Heidi grabbed my shoulder and guided me away. The incident left me shaken, not so much for me, but for Christians everywhere. Too often progressive Christians have ceded the public proclamation of Christian values to conservatives and fundamentalists. If you asked the youth and young adults who were with us in that hallway that week what Christians thought of them, they would likely have believed that the vast majority of Christians hated them. That was true, even with Heidi, myself, and a moderate number of other supportive clergy visible and engaged. This is probably not all that surprising to you if you are a progressive Christian. If you’re anything like me, you roll your eyes in frustration every time a right-wing extremist clergy person claims to offer the “Christian perspective” on an issue. Or,

Feelings aren’t facts. You don’t have to believe everything you tell yourself!”13 Rick Warren, Pastor and Author

He was taught its iniquity both by experience and observation, having been himself taxed and seized as a prisoner to coerce payment, to support a minister on whom he never attended, and indeed at a time when he was pastor, and regularly officiated to another church.

A common tendency among us today is to remain disengaged, uncommitted to other people. Life is already too busy, too hectic, so it is easier to rely on and support a pastoral staff and stay in the bleachers. To correct this is the leadership challenge of the day. If our leaders cater to this weakness, we will continue to turn inward, serving ourselves and increasing our isolation from the unbelievers around us. But if they lead, equip, and empower us, we can fulfill God’s purpose for our presence in the world.

One of the most horrifying practical applications of these liberal principles is the laying of the Church open to all errors, particularly the most monstrous error ever thought up by Satan - communism. Communism now has official access to the Vatican and its world revolution is made markedly easier by the official non-resistance of the Church, nay, by her regular support of the revolution, despite the despairing warnings of cardinals who have been through communist jails. The refusal by this pastoral Council to issue any official condemnation of communism alone suffices to disgrace it for all time, when one remembers the tens of millions of martyrs, of people having their personalities scientifically destroyed in psychiatric hospitals, serving as guinea pigs for all sorts of experiments. And the pastoral Council which brought together 2,350 Bishops said not a word, in spite of the 450 signatures of Fathers demanding a condemnation, which I myself took to Mgr. Felici, secretary of the Council, together with Mgr. Sigaud, Archbishop of Diamantina.

Shepherds are not perfect men. Though God sets the bar for pastoral ministry necessarily high, he uses the poles of grace to support that bar.

I soon perceived she was so much attached to her false system, had defended it so long, and had so much pride and false philosophy embarked for its support, that no direct demonstrations addressed. to the intellect would probably avail to hatter it down. But her system, had not saved her. That was her weak point. It had not led her to peace. It had not satisfied her heart,—a heart still wanting something, and roaming, like Noah's dove on weary wing, over a world of waters,—no rock to rest upon. So

Creating a culture of discipleship is not first about creating programs, classes, groups, or other kinds of structural fixes within the church’s life. Certainly, mentoring programs may connect older and wiser Christians with younger and less mature ones. Small groups may build more intimate relationships with other believers. Age-graded Sunday school classes may offer specific instruction for various life situations. Support groups may care for members in certain life stages (newly married, new parents) or struggles (divorce, depression). All of these can be helpful structures. But a culture of discipleship can thrive without them.

FORGIVE ME, FOR I HAVE SINNED . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . . Romans 3:23 Every single human being has sinned and will sin again. Darn it. I’m right there at the top having to acknowledge mine. Double darn. I was baptized Catholic as a baby, part of a big, loyal Irish Catholic family led by our patriarch, Grandpa Clem Sheeran. Later, when I became of age to make the conscious decision to publicly testify of my walk with Christ, I was baptized in the icy waters of Little Beaver Lake. When Pastor Riley dunked me under the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I was then lifted out of the water and . . . I was still the same Sarah Heath. Yes, I’d just testified to joining the “righteousness of Christ Jesus,” but I still lived in the fallen world, a world overrun by sin, which is easy to see just by looking at the news, or in the mirror. No one is perfect, and in case we forget that, this verse bluntly reminds us we all need the mercy of God in the midst of our mess. And friends, with all due respect, we are a mess. Consider the example of our elected national leaders supporting a treaty with Iran that lifts sanctions against this enemy nation instead of punishing its evil acts—while still fully acknowledging that it’s the top sponsor of worldwide Islamic terrorism and is hell-bent on destroying both America and Israel. Yes, we are a mess. Lord have mercy. And what about us? It may be a hard-to-accept truth, but fallen man’s nature puts us all in the same boat until we ask for the life-saving newness God offers. Accepting it is the only way to clean up the mess. It’s an important step to honestly admit that we try to excuse things in our own lives because they don’t seem as bad when compared to what someone else has done. But we’ve got to call those things what they are: sin. Only then can we repent and be forgiven. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, examine your conscience, confess your sins, and rest in the comfort of the Lord’s forgiveness.

boss who assured me at a staff barbecue that he supported “women pastors” but seemed uncomfortable with my insistence that feminism at its best wasn’t just about supporting women in power but relinquishing the power of privilege. When I pointed out that his position as the male senior pastor over a few female

Should churches exert any influence in politics? Should pastors preach about political questions? Is there only one “Christian” position on political issues? Does the Bible teach anything about how people should vote? I think there are some clear answers to these questions, but we have to recognize at the outset that dozens of other books and articles have already given their own answers to such questions. These books range from saying that the Bible gives outright support for many liberal Democratic positions to saying that the Bible supports conservative Republican positions.1 Some books argue that Christians have simply become far too entangled in political activities, while another important book argues that Christians have a biblical mandate to be involved in politics.2 Another widely influential book gives many real-life examples of remarkable Christian influence on laws and governments.3 One book that has received wide consideration in the United Kingdom proposes a rethinking of major political questions in light of the Bible’s priority of personal relationships.4 There have been a few recent books by theologians and biblical scholars dealing at a more theoretical level with the question of Christian perspectives on politics.5 In this book I start out by explaining what seem to me to be five clearly wrong (and harmful) views about Christians and politics: (1) “government should compel religion,” (2) “government should exclude religion,” (3) “all government is evil and demonic,” (4) “the church should do evangelism, not politics,” and (5) “the church should do politics, not evangelism.” As an alternative, I argue for what I think to be the correct view: (6) “significant Christian influence on government.

If your feeding on the Word of God is only happening when the pastor preaches, then you will suffer from malnourishment. When people become so focused on teaching lessons rather than teaching students, churches can become places where lessons are delivered, but no real change comes about. When members are taught how to budget and manage their money wisely they are more capable of supporting the church’s ministries. When individuals take on leadership roles, they need to be accountable, not only to God, but also to others at the church. The success or failure of your ministry depends on this. So many people would have a better opinion of Christians if they felt that the believers did not have a “holier than thou” attitude. Attract unbelievers; be honest and open. If you have experienced tough problems, and you know that God made a way for you, don’t keep this good news to yourself. Share your testimony; it just might change someone’s life. People like to know that others care about them. You may never know how much a kind word, a discussion, a visit, a brief note, a birthday card or some much needed friendship can influence someone who is not used to thoughtful gestures. It is hard to motivate people to act if they do not see the person leading them setting the proper example. Whenever only one person is responsible for making all of the major decisions for an organization, problems can arise; this is true of churches as well.

Abortion is one of the most commonly performed medical procedures in the United States, and it is tragic that many women who have abortions are all too often mischaracterized and stigmatized, their exercise of moral agency sullied. Their judgment is publicly and forcefully second-guessed by those in politics and religion who have no business entering the deliberation. The reality is that women demonstrate forethought and care; talk to them the way clergy do and witness their sense of responsibility. Women take abortion as seriously as any of us takes any health-care procedure. They understand the life-altering obligations of parenthood and family life. They worry over their ability to provide for a child, the impact on work, school, the children they already have, or caring for other dependents. Perhaps the woman is unable to be a single parent or is having problems with a husband or partner or other kids.2 Maybe her contraception failed her. Maybe when it came to having sex she didn’t have much choice. Maybe this pregnancy will threaten her health, making adoption an untenable option. Or perhaps a wanted pregnancy takes a bad turn and she decides on abortion. It’s pretty complicated. It’s her business to decide on the outcome of her pregnancy—not ours to intervene, to blame, or to punish. Clergy know about moral agency through pastoral work. Women and families invite us into their lives to listen, reflect, offer sympathy, prayer, or comfort. But when it comes to giving advice, we recognize that we are not the ones to live with the outcome; the patient faces the consequences. The woman bears the medical risk of a pregnancy and has to live with the results. Her determination of the medical, spiritual, and ethical dimensions holds sway. The status of her fetus, when she thinks life begins, and all the other complications are hers alone to consider. Many women know right away when a pregnancy must end or continue. Some need to think about it. Whatever a woman decides, she needs to be able to get good quality medical care and emotional and spiritual support as she works toward the outcome she seeks; she figures it out. That’s all part of “moral agency.” No one is denying that her fetus has a moral standing. We are affirming that her moral standing is higher; she comes first. Her deliberations, her considerations have priority. The patient must be the one to arrive at a conclusion and act upon it. As a rabbi, I tell people what the Jewish tradition says and describe the variety of options within the faith. They study, deliberate, conclude, and act. I cannot force them to think or do differently.

The procedure followed in this egalitarian claim troubles me more than most of the other claims that I consider in this book. When no explanations or disclaimers are made alerting readers to the uniform lack of support from scholarly specialists for such an interpretation, this wild speculation (or so it seems to me, after reading these other articles) is taken as truth by unsuspecting readers. Cindy Jacobs, for example, simply trusts Kroeger’s interpretation of this fresco as truthful, and counts it as evidence for women’s participation in high positions of governing authority in the early church.6 Thousands of readers of Jacobs’s book will also take it as true, thinking that since it has a footnote to a journal on church history, there must be scholarly support for the idea. And so something that is a figment of Catherine Kroeger’s imagination, something that no scholar in the field has ever advocated, is widely accepted as fact. The requirements of truthfulness should hold us to higher standards than this. Kroeger’s article therefore uses apparently untruthful claims based on obscure material outside the Bible in order to turn people away from being obedient to the Bible in what it says about restricting the office of pastor and elder to men. And turning people away from obeying the Bible is another step on the path toward liberalism.

Payment or financial support provided to ministers, pastors, church conferences, and religious organizations should be considered gifts.

and just driving by, Kate would not have realized that the smaller of the two churches held services only every other week because it was unable to support a full-time pastor. It

The Safavids were either of Kurdish or Turkish origin. In the late thirteenth century, a member of the Safavid family founded a Sunni Sufi religious brotherhood in Azerbaijan, the Turkish-speaking region of northwestern Iran. The brotherhood attracted an ardent following among the Turkish pastoral tribes of the area, and by the late fifteenth century its influence had expanded into Anatolia and Syria. The heads of the brotherhood led the tribes in a series of expeditions against the Christians of the Caucasus, thereby acquiring temporal power as well as enhancing their reputations as servants of Islam. Their Turkish followers were known as Qizilbash, the Redheaded Ones, after the red headgear they wore to identify themselves as supporters of the Safavid brotherhood.

p. 371 – 372 Living in a paradise of magnificent meadows and forests abundant with wild game, berries, and nuts, the Utes were self-supporting and could have existed entirely without the provisions doled out to them by their agents at Los Pinos and White River. In 1875 agent F. F. Bond at Los Pinos replied to a request for a census of his Utes: “A count is quite impossible. You might as well try to count a swarm of bees when on the wing. They travel all over the country like the deer which they hunt.” Agent E. H. Danforth at White River estimated that about nine hundred Utes used his agency as a headquarters, but he admitted that he had no luck in inducing them to settle down in the valley around the agency. At both places, the Utes humoured their agents by keeping small beef herds and planting a few rows of corn, potatoes, and turnips, but there was no real need for any of these pursuits. The beginning of the end of freedom upon their own reservation came in the spring of 1878, when a new agent reported for duty at White River. The agent’s name was Nathan C. Meeker, former poet, novelist, newspaper correspondent, and organizer of cooperative agrarian colonies. Most of Meeker’s ventures failed, and although he sought the agency position because he needed the money, he was possessed of a missionary fervor and sincerely believed that it was his duty as a member of a superior race to “elevate and enlighten” the Utes. As he phrased it, he was determined to bring them out of savagery through the pastoral stage to the barbaric, and finally to “the enlightened, scientific, and religious stage.” Meeker was confident he could accomplish all this in “five, ten, or twenty years.” In his humourless and overbearing way, Meeker set out systematically to destroy everything the Utes cherished, to make them over into his image, as he believed he had been made in God’s image.

Evangelical zeal also permeated into the youth culture, as seen in the explosion of youth-oriented organizations like Young Life (1941), Youth for Christ (1946), Fellowship of Christian Athletes (1954), and Student Venture (1966). In response to the immediate popularity of these organizations and the supportive desire to see young people reached with the gospel, churches began their own version of “youth ministry.” Youth ministry quickly became a church-norm, especially in the United States, even developing into its own culture with rock bands, skits, and inspirational talks by the newly-formed category—the Youth Pastor. Some today are calling for this culture of youth ministry to give up their gimmicks and return to a biblical model of means of grace ministry.

In short, we need to learn how to participate from a platform of servanthood rather than power. Let me illustrate. In my fifteen years as a global outreach pastor, I observed two types of North American ministries doing global ministry. The first ministry came together, often in North America, and prayerfully asked God for vision for (as a random example) Argentina and how they should initiate their work in Argentina. After developing their vision, they would go to Argentina to recruit Argentine Christians to join their vision. The recruitment would go something like this: "Jorge, this is our vision for Argentina. Would you join us and help us fulfill our vision-what we believe to be God's vision-for Argentina?" Often Jorge would say yes, especially if the North American mission came fully funded and offered him a decent salary. The second ministry might also develop a burden for a specific country (let's stick with Argentina), but when they went and visited Jorge, their approach was different. They would say, "Jorge, we believe that God has given us a burden for Argentina, but we're here to serve. What is your vision for Argentina? And is there anything in our experiences or resources that you could use to fulfill your vision for your country?" Both ministry approaches could have some success, but the former kept the North Americans on the platform of leadership, often dictating the strategy and funding the vision to the point that local leaders became dependent and failed to look for local, indigenous sources of support. This approach could work, especially if it was well funded. But for leaders like Jorge, it was an outsider's plan imposed on his country. After the funding was gone, these ministries often faltered.

A plurality of elders and a focus on mutual submission between them has several benefits. In addition to accountability, it brings balance and allows for multiple gifts to be expressed and utilized for equipping the body. It embodies the New Testament approach and models unity and mutual submission to the church as a whole. When attacks, accusations, discouraging communications and criticism come from people within a congregation, they can be deflected, carried and dealt with by several elders, rather than one pastor trying to handle all of them. Finally, it can provide a supportive space for future leaders, elders and pastors to be developed within a church structure.

Abortion is one of the most commonly performed medical procedures in the United States, and it is tragic that many women who have abortions are all too often mischaracterized and stigmatized, their exercise of moral agency sullied. Their judgment is publicly and forcefully second-guessed by those in politics and religion who have no business entering the deliberation. The reality is that women demonstrate forethought and care; talk to them the way clergy do and witness their sense of responsibility. Women take abortion as seriously as any of us takes any health-care procedure. They understand the life-altering obligations of parenthood and family life. They worry over their ability to provide for a child, the impact on work, school, the children they already have, or caring for other dependents. Perhaps the woman is unable to be a single parent or is having problems with a husband or partner or other kids.2 Maybe her contraception failed her. Maybe when it came to having sex she didn’t have much choice. Maybe this pregnancy will threaten her health, making adoption an untenable option. Or perhaps a wanted pregnancy takes a bad turn and she decides on abortion. It’s pretty complicated. It’s her business to decide on the outcome of her pregnancy—not ours to intervene, to blame, or to punish. Clergy know about moral agency through pastoral work. Women and families invite us into their lives to listen, reflect, offer sympathy, prayer, or comfort. But when it comes to giving advice, we recognize that we are not the ones to live with the outcome; the patient faces the consequences. The woman bears the medical risk of a pregnancy and has to live with the results. Her determination of the medical, spiritual, and ethical dimensions holds sway. The status of her fetus, when she thinks life begins, and all the other complications are hers alone to consider. Many women know right away when a pregnancy must end or continue. Some need to think about it. Whatever a woman decides, she needs to be able to get good quality medical care and emotional and spiritual support as she works toward the outcome she seeks; she figures it out. That’s all part of “moral agency.” No one is denying that her fetus has a moral standing. We are affirming that her moral standing is higher; she comes first. Her deliberations, her considerations have priority. The patient must be the one to arrive at a conclusion and act upon it. As a rabbi, I tell people what the Jewish tradition says and describe the variety of options within the faith. They study, deliberate, conclude, and act. I cannot force them to think or do differently. People come to their decisions in their own way. People who believe the decision is up to the woman are typically called “pro-choice.” “Choice” echoes what is called “moral agency,” “conscience,” “informed will,” or “personal autonomy”—spiritually or religiously. I favor the term “informed will” because it captures the idea that we learn and decide: First, inform the will. Then exercise conscience. In Reform Judaism, for instance, an individual demonstrates “informed will” in approaching and deciding about traditional dietary rules—in a fluid process of study of traditional teaching, consideration of the personal significance of that teaching, arriving at a conclusion, and taking action. Unitarian Universalists tell me that the search for truth and meaning leads to the exercise of conscience. We witness moral agency when a member of a faith community interprets faith teachings in light of historical religious understandings and personal conscience. I know that some religious people don’t do

Evangelicals simply cannot be identified immediately with the political right. Non- Anglican Protestants in Britain were long aligned with the political Left, and Australia’s left-wing parties have also enjoyed a measure of evangelical support. Canada’s major left-wing political organization, the New Democratic Party, came to prominence under the leadership of a Baptist pastor, Tommy Douglas.

Today there will be pastors and leaders who lose their heart and their way in the middle of the hardships of ministry, and many of them will lose their way because they are not warned, encouraged, confronted, supported, and loved by a group of leaders who function as a community of grace.

What that means is this: Every time we take some of our disposable income and buy one of these Bibles, after being coerced by one of our friends, or by a pastoral associate, or by some advertising material we received in the mail, or by some spam internet solicitation, we are supporting the National Council of Churches because they own the copyright.*

Spiritual abuse is allowed to continue because willing supporters protect and enable that pastor.

We cannot change our past or how people will act. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.”41 Chuck Swindoll, Pastor and Author

One recent example of my fear of ambiguity was the instance with the beaten slave. Completely aware I was bluffing, I insisted that Ken Lar misinterpreted the Bible verse he quoted, but again, I was bluffing. I thought that that Bible verse was ambiguous. It could have actually been used to justify slavery, but I always thought that God was a pacifist, so I tried to comfort myself with the theory that God was forced to accommodate slavery because the world had gone corrupt, but then again, that verse described slaves’ submission as a way that helps them “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior,” so there is still a possibility that God would actually approve slavery. But still, the passage describes slaves to be faithful and to not steal and argue, which have been commands for Paul’s followers, who were not slaves. The passage could have been encouraging slaves to try to follow the path of God the way free people do. Still, if I recall correctly, in Leviticus it mentioned that the Israelites, right after being released from slavery in Egypt, were allowed to buy slaves from nations surrounding them, and it even said that the slaves could be the Israelites’ PROPERTY!!!! But then, I have heard of many African American pastors who use the Bible to support equality. But could it all be a scam? Who knows? That was ambiguity in its biblical form. There was even more ambiguity associated with that incident, because after thinking about that controversial passage, I wondered whether or not I was screwing my chances in Heaven for thinking like that. The Bible says that you shouldn’t lie, and by thinking like that, I was being honest with myself, but people died for blaspheming God, and if thinking those thoughts was considered blaspheming God, then who knows?

For further study and encouragement: Luke 17:7–10 October 11 God is not satisfied with you being a witness to his work of grace. He’s called you to be an instrument of that grace to others. The position God has chosen for us in the work of his kingdom is an amazing thing. All of his children have a mind-boggling calling. Sadly, many of them don’t understand their position, and because they don’t, they are quite comfortable being consumers and quite timid when it comes to being instruments. So many people who attend evangelical churches on Sunday have little life commitment to the work of those churches. Most pastors would be thrilled if the vast majority of their people were every-Sunday attenders and committed to financially supporting the

As a consequence, not only are the main ideas of a passage referenced in the sermon, but the ways those ideas are developed and supported by the biblical author also guide the thought of pastor and people.

The church is called 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) not because she supports and gives authority to the truth (since the truth is rather the foundation upon which the church is built, Eph. 2:20), but because it stands before the church as a pillar and makes itself conspicuous to all. Therefore it is called a pillar, not in an architectural sense (as pillars are used for the support of buildings), but in a forensic and political sense (as the edicts of the emperor and the decrees and laws of the magistrates were usually posted against pillars before the court houses and praetoria and before the gates of the basilica so that all might be informed of them, as noted by Pliny, Natural History, lib. 6, c. 28+ and Josephus,? AJ 1.70–71 [Loeb, 4:32–33]). So the church is the pillar of the truth both by reason of promulgating and making it known (because she is bound to promulgate the law of God, and heavenly truth is attached to it so that it may become known to all) and by reason of guarding it. For she ought not only to set it forth, but also to vindicate and defend it. Therefore she is called not only a pillar, but also a stay by which the truth when known may be vindicated and preserved pure and entire against all corruptions. But she is not called a foundation, in the sense of giving to the truth itself its own substructure and firmness. (2) Whatever is called the pillar and stay of the truth is not therefore infallible; for so the ancients called those who, either in the splendor of their doctrine or in the holiness of their lives or in unshaken constancy, excelled others and confirmed the doctrines of the gospel and the Christian faith by precept and example; as Eusebius says the believers in Lyons call Attalus the Martyr (Ecclesiastical History 5.1 [FC 19:276]); Basil distinguishes the orthodox bishops who opposed the Arian heresy by this name (Letter 243; and Gregory Nazianzus so calls Athanasius. In the same sense, judges in a pure and uncorrupted republic are called the pillars and stays of the laws. (3) This passage teaches the duty of the church, but not its infallible prerogative (i.e., what she is bound to do in the promulgation and defending of the truth against the corruptions of its enemies, but not what she can always do). In Mal. 2:7, the 'priest’s lips' are said to 'keep knowledge' because he is bound to do it (although he does not always do it as v. 8 shows). (4) Whatever is here ascribed to the church belongs to the particular church at Ephesus to which, however, the papists are not willing to give the prerogative of infallibility. Again, it treats of the collective church of believers in which Timothy was to labor and exercise his ministry, not as the church representative of the pastors, much less of the pope (in whom alone they think infallibility resides). (5) Paul alludes here both to the use of pillars in the temples of the Gentiles (to which were attached either images of the gods or the laws and moral precepts; yea, even oracles, as Pausanius and Athenaeus testify) that he may oppose these pillars of falsehood and error (on which nothing but fictions and the images of false gods were exhibited) to that mystical pillar of truth on which the true image of the invisible God is set forth (Col. 1:15) and the heavenly oracles of God made to appear; and to that remarkable pillar which Solomon caused to be erected in the temple (2 Ch. 6:13; 2 K. 11:14; 23:3) which kings ascended like a scaffold as often as they either addressed the people or performed any solemn service, and was therefore called by the Jews the 'royal pillar.' Thus truth sits like a queen upon the church; not that she may derive her authority from it (as Solomon did not get his from that pillar), but that on her, truth may be set forth and preserved.

The church is called 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) not because she supports and gives authority to the truth (since the truth is rather the foundation upon which the church is built, Eph. 2:20), but because it stands before the church as a pillar and makes itself conspicuous to all. Therefore it is called a pillar, not in an architectural sense (as pillars are used for the support of buildings), but in a forensic and political sense (as the edicts of the emperor and the decrees and laws of the magistrates were usually posted against pillars before the court houses and praetoria and before the gates of the basilica so that all might be informed of them, as noted by Pliny, Natural History, lib. 6, c. 28+ and Josephus,? AJ 1.70–71 [Loeb, 4:32–33]). So the church is the pillar of the truth both by reason of promulgating and making it known (because she is bound to promulgate the law of God, and heavenly truth is attached to it so that it may become known to all) and by reason of guarding it. For she ought not only to set it forth, but also to vindicate and defend it. Therefore she is called not only a pillar, but also a stay by which the truth when known may be vindicated and preserved pure and entire against all corruptions. But she is not called a foundation, in the sense of giving to the truth itself its own substructure and firmness. (2) Whatever is called the pillar and stay of the truth is not therefore infallible; for so the ancients called those who, either in the splendor of their doctrine or in the holiness of their lives or in unshaken constancy, excelled others and confirmed the doctrines of the gospel and the Christian faith by precept and example; as Eusebius says the believers in Lyons call Attalus the Martyr (Ecclesiastical History 5.1 [FC 19:276]); Basil distinguishes the orthodox bishops who opposed the Arian heresy by this name (hoi styloi kai to hedraiōma tēs alētheias, Letter 243 [70] [FC 28:188; PG 32.908]); and Gregory Nazianzus so calls Athanasius. In the same sense, judges in a pure and uncorrupted republic are called the pillars and stays of the laws. (3) This passage teaches the duty of the church, but not its infallible prerogative (i.e., what she is bound to do in the promulgation and defending of the truth against the corruptions of its enemies, but not what she can always do). In Mal. 2:7, the 'priest’s lips' are said to 'keep knowledge' because he is bound to do it (although he does not always do it as v. 8 shows). (4) Whatever is here ascribed to the church belongs to the particular church at Ephesus to which, however, the papists are not willing to give the prerogative of infallibility. Again, it treats of the collective church of believers in which Timothy was to labor and exercise his ministry, not as the church representative of the pastors, much less of the pope (in whom alone they think infallibility resides). (5) Paul alludes here both to the use of pillars in the temples of the Gentiles (to which were attached either images of the gods or the laws and moral precepts; yea, even oracles, as Pausanius and Athenaeus testify) that he may oppose these pillars of falsehood and error (on which nothing but fictions and the images of false gods were exhibited) to that mystical pillar of truth on which the true image of the invisible God is set forth (Col. 1:15) and the heavenly oracles of God made to appear; and to that remarkable pillar which Solomon caused to be erected in the temple (2 Ch. 6:13; 2 K. 11:14; 23:3) which kings ascended like a scaffold as often as they either addressed the people or performed any solemn service, and was therefore called by the Jews the 'royal pillar.' Thus truth sits like a queen upon the church; not that she may derive her authority from it (as Solomon did not get his from that pillar), but that on her, truth may be set forth and preserved.

The church is called 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) not because she supports and gives authority to the truth (since the truth is rather the foundation upon which the church is built, Eph. 2:20), but because it stands before the church as a pillar and makes itself conspicuous to all. Therefore it is called a pillar, not in an architectural sense (as pillars are used for the support of buildings), but in a forensic and political sense (as the edicts of the emperor and the decrees and laws of the magistrates were usually posted against pillars before the court houses and praetoria and before the gates of the basilica so that all might be informed of them, as noted by Pliny, Natural History, lib. 6, c. 28+ and Josephus,? AJ 1.70–71 [Loeb, 4:32–33]). So the church is the pillar of the truth both by reason of promulgating and making it known (because she is bound to promulgate the law of God, and heavenly truth is attached to it so that it may become known to all) and by reason of guarding it. For she ought not only to set it forth, but also to vindicate and defend it. Therefore she is called not only a pillar, but also a stay by which the truth when known may be vindicated and preserved pure and entire against all corruptions. But she is not called a foundation, in the sense of giving to the truth itself its own substructure and firmness. (2) Whatever is called the pillar and stay of the truth is not therefore infallible; for so the ancients called those who, either in the splendor of their doctrine or in the holiness of their lives or in unshaken constancy, excelled others and confirmed the doctrines of the gospel and the Christian faith by precept and example; as Eusebius says the believers in Lyons call Attalus the Martyr (Ecclesiastical History 5.1 [FC 19:276]); Basil distinguishes the orthodox bishops who opposed the Arian heresy by this name (Letter 243 [70] [FC 28:188; PG 32.908]); and Gregory Nazianzus so calls Athanasius. In the same sense, judges in a pure and uncorrupted republic are called the pillars and stays of the laws. (3) This passage teaches the duty of the church, but not its infallible prerogative (i.e., what she is bound to do in the promulgation and defending of the truth against the corruptions of its enemies, but not what she can always do). In Mal. 2:7, the 'priest’s lips' are said to 'keep knowledge' because he is bound to do it (although he does not always do it as v. 8 shows). (4) Whatever is here ascribed to the church belongs to the particular church at Ephesus to which, however, the papists are not willing to give the prerogative of infallibility. Again, it treats of the collective church of believers in which Timothy was to labor and exercise his ministry, not as the church representative of the pastors, much less of the pope (in whom alone they think infallibility resides). (5) Paul alludes here both to the use of pillars in the temples of the Gentiles (to which were attached either images of the gods or the laws and moral precepts; yea, even oracles, as Pausanius and Athenaeus testify) that he may oppose these pillars of falsehood and error (on which nothing but fictions and the images of false gods were exhibited) to that mystical pillar of truth on which the true image of the invisible God is set forth (Col. 1:15) and the heavenly oracles of God made to appear; and to that remarkable pillar which Solomon caused to be erected in the temple (2 Ch. 6:13; 2 K. 11:14; 23:3) which kings ascended like a scaffold as often as they either addressed the people or performed any solemn service, and was therefore called by the Jews the 'royal pillar.' Thus truth sits like a queen upon the church; not that she may derive her authority from it (as Solomon did not get his from that pillar), but that on her, truth may be set forth and preserved.

the commitment which a man and a woman make before witnesses to remain faithful to one another, both as sexual partners and in mutual support, until death do them part.

I felt, since Bible college, that the only place I could lead a revitalization would be in Birmingham. Why? I knew revitalization would mean a lot of challenges. I knew I was not some amazing rugged hero with vast experience who could accomplish change alone. I felt weak and unimpressive, and facing up to my own limitations and weakness meant that leading a revitalization would require more than just me and my young family. So we needed the generous support of faithful people with us and the support of faithful pastors around us. Birmingham was the only place I thought we had this, and we had it there in abundance! We were able to gather a first-class team of families to join with us to kick-start the revitalization. The benefit of collaborative church planting and the thriving movement of church planting in Birmingham was that all these people already knew what was expected; they’d seen it done. And churches were willing to be generous in giving us their best. Another benefit is the ongoing partnership between churches. Just because we took a group of families a year and three months ago does not in any sense mean the job is done. Ongoing needs arise at different stages of our journey, and the churches around us get this. They are in constant contact to pray and offer real practical support.

Generosity takes many forms. Barnaby Pain, a church planter with 2020birmingham who is one year into a church revitalization project, makes this clear. He emailed the following to me (John) recently, when I asked him to reflect on why he planted with 2020birmingham. I felt, since Bible college, that the only place I could lead a revitalization would be in Birmingham. Why? I knew revitalization would mean a lot of challenges. I knew I was not some amazing rugged hero with vast experience who could accomplish change alone. I felt weak and unimpressive, and facing up to my own limitations and weakness meant that leading a revitalization would require more than just me and my young family. So we needed the generous support of faithful people with us and the support of faithful pastors around us. Birmingham was the only place I thought we had this, and we had it there in abundance! We were able to gather a first-class team of families to join with us to kick-start the revitalization. The benefit of collaborative church planting and the thriving movement of church planting in Birmingham was that all these people already knew what was expected; they’d seen it done. And churches were willing to be generous in giving us their best. Another benefit is the ongoing partnership between churches. Just because we took a group of families a year and three months ago does not in any sense mean the job is done. Ongoing needs arise at different stages of our journey, and the churches around us get this. They are in constant contact to pray and offer real practical support.

But there’s a bigger issue when it comes to accountability: most elder boards or leadership boards are not composed of the type of leaders who will stand up to narcissistic bully pastors. Narcissists are remarkably good at forming alliances, building a network of supporters, and laying the groundwork for a future alienation of perceived enemies. They often groom their supporters through flattery, promises, and other forms of ingratiation.35 Most elder boards aren’t prepared for this level of coordinated manipulation.

Pastor Greg Locke is the founder of Global Vision Bible Church and the founder of Locke Media. He receives a modest salary and is passionate about using the gifts of the church to support missionaries and the local community.

Hydoski and a few others supported Harris’s view, even as another point kept being brought up: legal advice from the insurance company. If Harris apologized, “we admit liability,” putting the church’s financial standing, ability to secure loans, maintain property, and pastors’ retirement accounts at risk if Covenant Life was found liable.

But as evangelical support for Trump proved to be more than a passing fancy, evangelical leaders confronted the limits of their own influence. This was true on a national level, with the old guard discovering that their endorsements of Rubio or Cruz didn’t seem to be quelling the surge of support for Trump, and on the local level, as pastors realized the limits of their power even within their own congregations. “It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” wrote evangelical activist Randy Brinson. “It’s like this total reversal of the shepherd and the flock,” with congregants threatening to leave their churches if their pastors opposed Trump.9

In view of our still bleeding past, and of our ever-threatening future, union is our great need. Union is also, let me tell you, the foremost wish of the Church and of all its pastors of every degree. The Church does not ask us to either give up the remembrance of past glories or the sentiments of fidelity and gratitude that are an honour to every man. But when the will of a people has been definitely expressed, when the form of government, as Leo XIII recently stated, is in no way contrary to the principles on which alone civilized and Christian nations can exist, when the unreserved acceptance of this form of government is necessary to preserve a people from danger, the time has come to declare the ordeal over, to end our dissensions, and to sacrifice all that conscience and honour allow us to sacrifice for the safety of our country. Without this patriotic acceptance of the situation nothing can avail either to maintain peace and order, to save the world from the social danger, or to preserve even the religion of which we are the ministers. It would be folly to attempt to support the columns of an edifice without going inside it, if only to prevent those who would destroy everything from accomplishing their mad design. It would be still greater folly to attack the building from without, as some are even now doing, in spite of recent scandals: disclosing our ambitions and hatreds to observant enemies, and instilling into the heart of France the discouragement that precedes the final catastrophe.

Then, in the horribly dead-silent room, a lone fly made a pinging noise against the stained glass window. Its high-pitched buzzing filled the voiceless room while the dumb insect buried itself in a corner. Pastor James Edwards first sermon

The most surprising supporter of the treaties outside the Senate was the Oscar-winning actor John Wayne, a conservative Republican and icon of cowboy integrity. Wayne’s first wife was Panamanian, and his next two were also Latinas, and he and Torrijos had become fishing buddies. He let Bob Pastor—Carter’s top aide on the issue—ghostwrite dozens of letters and articles in support of the treaties, many of which pointed out that “General Torrijos has never followed the Marxist line.” Wayne contacted every senator and, as he told the president, “all the people who write me hysterical letters.” When Wayne saw Reagan’s fund-raising letter attacking the treaties, he privately scolded his old friend: “Dear Ronnie,” he wrote. “I’ll show you point by God damn point in the treaty where you are misinforming people. This is not my point of view against your point of view. These are facts.”VII

Much like GM and GE, Kodak had a fair employment policy in place by the 1960s and had laid out is own Plan for Progress, which included a commitment to “hold discussions with the employment interviewers in the various division to remind them: that “such things as race, creed, color, or national origin” are neither to “help nor hinder in getting a job at Kodak.” Yet for blacks trying to work and move up at the company, these assurances didn’t mesh with their own experiences. Some of this was a consequence of blacks being poorly educated, especially those who had relocated to Rochester from the rural South. In the company’s eyes, the simply weren’t qualified. “We don’t grow many peanuts in Eastman Kodak,” Monroe Dill, Kodak’s industrial relations director said in 1963, adding that the company would start to recruit more from all-black colleges so as to not keep “discriminating by omission.” But there was also plenty of discrimination by commission, as individual Kodak managers used their discretion to hire whomever they liked and cast off whomever they didn’t. “They would say it blatant, like, 'We don't have any colored jobs,"" recalled Clarence Ingram, who served as general manager of the Rochester Business Opportunities Corporation, an entity formed after the '64 riots to support minority businesses. "They would tell you that." Apparently, they told a lot of blacks that. In 1964, only about 600 African Americans worked for Kodak in Rochester. less than 2 percent of the 33,000 employees based there. Determined to remedy this was FIGHT, which was led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt Florence, the thirty-one-year-old pastor of the Reynolds Street Church of Christ, a stocky, hard-charging, charismatic man, who called Malcolm X a friend. On September 2, 1966, a delegation of sixteen from FIGHT walked into Kodak's executive suite. Florence, sporting a Black Power button in his lapel, said he wanted to see "the top man." Before he knew it, the minister and his retinue were sitting in front of three top men: Kodak chairman Albert Chapman, president William Vaughn, and executive vice president Louis Eilers. Florence told them about the harshness of life in Rochester's black ghetto and said he wanted Kodak to start a training program for people who normally wouldn't be recruited into the company. Florence braced himself, expecting Kodak to resist. But Vaughn listened carefully and then asked Florence to submit a more specific proposal. Two weeks later, he did. Calling FIGHT " the only mass based organization of poor people and near poor people in the Rochester area," Florence requested that Kodak train 500 to 600 men and women over eighteen months. FIGHT also wanted direct involvement in the process; the group would "recruit and counsel trainees and offer advice, consultation, and assistance.

The once anticlerical Mussolini, who had written a youthful novel called The Cardinal’s Mistress and, at twenty-one, in a debate with a Swiss pastor, had given God—if He existed—five minutes to strike him dead, had submitted in 1925 to a belated church marriage to his longtime common-law companion Rachele Guidi and to the baptism of their children. In elections on March 24, 1929, the Church’s explicit support helped produce a vote of 98 percent in favor of the Fascist list of candidates (there were no others) for parliament.90 Fascism paid a high price in the long term for the Church’s aid to consensus: as the hare of Fascist dynamism wore itself out, the tortoise of Catholic parish life and culture plodded along to become the basis of Christian democratic rule in Italy after 1945.

Furthermore, as evangelical pastor and Republican candidate for Congress in 2018 Robb Ryerse says: “To vote for him because he sees the political expediency of supporting restrictions on abortion [Trump supported abortion before he ran for president] is a Faustian deal with the devil that is ultimately more likely to exact greater cost than reward.

The day after Republicans used Black votes to regain the House in the 1906 midterm elections, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the dishonorable discharge (and loss of pensions) of 167 Black soldiers in the 25th Infantry Regiment, a Black unit that had been a huge source of Black pride. A dozen or so members of the regiment had been falsely accused of murdering a bartender and wounding a police officer in the horrifically racist town of Brownsville, Texas, on August 13, 1906. Overnight, the most popular US president in Black communities since Abraham Lincoln became the most unpopular. “Once enshrined in our hearts as Moses,” shouted out a Harlem pastor, the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Roosevelt was “now enshrouded in our scorn as Judas.” In the final days of 1906, it was hard to find an African American who was not spitting ire at the Roosevelt administration. Roosevelt’s efforts to regain Black support with new Black federal appointments failed. Sounding the indignation of the observant press, the New York Times reported that “not a particle of evidence” had been given to prove the men were guilty. Roosevelt was defiant in his Annual Message to Congress on December 3, 1906 (defiant in his crude attempts to gain southern White voters). He warned “respectable colored people… not to harbor criminals,” meaning the criminals of Brownsville. And then he turned to lynchings: “The greatest existing cause of lynching is the perpetration, especially by black men, of the hideous crime of rape.

Habits aren’t everything. As pastor and author Darryl Dash writes, “It’s possible to build great habits and completely miss the point, which is ongoing spiritual growth and intimacy with God.”32 Rather, as Dash goes on to explain, habits are a means to an end. “The point [of habits], in the end, is our pursuit of God. We need habits that support that pursuit. We won’t pursue God without them. They are ways of putting ourselves in the path of God’s grace.”33

GRATITUDE & APPRECIATION The time is 22.50 UK time Monday the 7th September 2020 and I have just remembered that it would be the first night of my first conference ever of the vision God has laid in my heart for so many years ‘Indelible Marks of Jesus Christ’ which is based on Hebrews 13:7 NLT, ‘Remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and follow the example of their faith’. I also would like to express my deep gratitude and sincere appreciation to the people who were willing to help and support me for the vision to take off. To Pastor Lindiwe Ncedo, leadership and the church as a whole, my spiritual home ‘Victory Vineyard Ministries, King Williams Town, South Africa. Thank you so much for welcoming, loving and supporting me every time I come home with a mission that needs to be accomplished. It means a lot to me and I will always be grateful for your love and support. To Apostle Oscar Nkosi and Prophetess Busi Nkosi, thank you for your obedience, help and support you have given me. God has used you both tremendously in my life and I was able to take a first step towards the vision God has given me. I really honour and appreciate your spirit of humility and your kindness. May God bless you and keep you both. To Prophet Andre Louw, thank you so much servant of the Most High God your support and the willingness to be a part of laying the foundation of this vision God has blessed me with. I’m really grateful to be surrounded by people like you. May God bless you beyond your imagination. To Pastor Polela: Wow, we have come a long way nkokheli yam; God has used you so much in my life, you understood my pain and your prayers really helped me to navigate through life. Thank you for your love, help and support. May God bless you beyond any known measure. To my East London family, where I would be without you guys: Bishop Nomtha Taki, Apostle Daniel Reed and Pastor Romeo Bosman. You guys rock, thank you so much for your love, help and support and so grateful for your willingness to set up the solid foundation for this vision. May God bless you for more abundantly than all you can even ask or think. To my son Pastor Pumlani Releni, thank you so much for your help and support young man, it means a lot to me. May God bless you always. To my dear sister in Christ Nosipho Soya, thank so much for being there for me when I needed a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen and I’m grateful for your love, help and support. May God bless you beyond your imagination. I am really blessed and grateful to have people like you in my life and I love you all!!!!

Not all evangelicals jumped on the anti-Muslim bandwagon. In 2007, nearly 300 Christian leaders signed the “Yale Letter,” a call for Christians and Muslims to work together for peace. Published in the New York Times, the letter was signed by several prominent evangelical leaders, including megachurch pastors Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, Christianity Today editor David Neff, emerging church leader Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis of Sojourners, and Rich Mouw, president of evangelical Fuller Seminary. Notably, Leith Anderson, president of the NAE, and Richard Cizik, the NAE’s chief lobbyist, also signed the letter. 15 Other evangelical leaders, however, voiced strenuous opposition. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, found no need to apologize for the War on Terror or to confess any sins “against our Muslim neighbors.” It was all quite confounding to him: “For whom are we apologizing and for what are we apologizing?” Dobson’s Citizen magazine criticized the Yale Letter for claiming that the two faiths shared a deity, and for showing weakness and endangering Christians. Apologizing for past violence against Muslims would make Christians in Muslim countries more vulnerable to violence, he reasoned. Focus on the Family urged like-minded critics to register their displeasure with the NAE and included the NAE’s PO box for their convenience. Dobson and other conservative evangelicals pressured the NAE to oust Cizik that year, both for his attempts at Muslim-Christian dialogue and for his activism on global warming. This was easily accomplished the next year, when Cizik came out in support of same-sex civil unions. 16

Many evangelical leaders shared this bewilderment. Not a few remained skeptical of reports of evangelical support. “I haven’t talked to a pastor yet who is supporting Donald Trump,” insisted Russell Moore. “I think what’s happening right now is that we’re in the reality TV phase of the presidential campaign where people are looking to send a message rather than hand over the nuclear codes to a person.” Trump knew how to get attention, and he knew how to tap into anger and resentment. Evangelicals were just sending a message. 8

This painting depicts a joyful young woman playing a guitar. The girl is positioned off-centre and her right elbow is cut out of the picture, demonstrating Vermeer’s boldness in the composition. The sitter turns to her right with a smile, as though looking into the eyes of a companion; whilst enjoying the sound of her music. The painting on the wall depicts a pastoral landscape in the style of Adriaen van de Velde, suggesting a mood of serenity. This is another painting by Vermeer which was later stolen; this time from Kenwood House on 23 February 1974 by supporters of the IRA. Fortunately ten weeks later, it was recovered in a churchyard in Smithfield, London.

As the monastic movement grew, new opportunities emerged for scholars to create dense networks of mutual support within the monastic communities.21

The Church does not create the truth, the Church supports the truth. And the Church is also described as a pillar, lifting up the truth so that all might see and honor it.

The pastors and professors who gave their enthusiastic support to Hitler all were marked by a particularly intense nationalism. Furthermore, this nationalism justified in their minds any number of compromised values.

It is rather to note that for the majority, arguments are not the main basis of action. When a given way of thinking or acting is part of an overall imaginative vision, it will be assumed as self-evident. Arguments, such as they are, will be marshaled to support the previously held vision, and challenges to it will tend either to be ignored or ridiculed and shouted down.

had asked something hard of the American people—to place their faith in a young and untested newcomer; not just a Black man, but someone whose very name evoked a life story that seemed unfamiliar. Repeatedly I’d given them cause not to support me. There’d been uneven debate performances, unconventional positions, clumsy gaffes, and a pastor who’d cursed the United States of America. And I’d faced an opponent who’d proven both her readiness and her mettle.

Thanks to their enthusiastic support, one or two were soon invited to join the board of elders, which they gradually packed with their co-conspirators. They then tried to modify the church bylaws to place the pastor, who had started the church, under the direction of the board. The pastor managed to rally enough support to defeat their efforts and force them to resign from the board, but when the defeated infiltrators left the church, they took nearly a third of the membership with them. Later, he learned that the same group of individuals had previously tried to pull the same stunt at two other churches, and were actively engaged in their fourth attempt.

They learn to hide. It’s the age-old story. When pastors and churches deny the impact of emotional abuse, they retraumatize the victim. When we defer to suspicion of a victim and support of a potential abuser, we run the risk of doing irreparable harm.

In other words, we as pastors do not have the right or authority to stand before the people of God and call them to vote for a certain candidate, take a certain position, support a certain policy, or participate in a certain activity unless we can show clearly in God’s Word that every Christian should believe or act in that way. In other words, we are responsible to God for promoting the Christian position, not our political conviction.

This particular church has something of a fascinating history. According to a booklet published in 1961 to celebrate its history, the church traces its roots to 1811, and was the first Methodist church in the state capital. The following year, it had seventy-six members, more than half of whom were black—this at a time when slavery was still alive and well in North Carolina. In the 1850s, white worshippers who attended the church decided African American slaves needed their own place of worship, and that’s how the church down the road, St. Paul’s, came to be. Then in the 1860s, this church’s pastor took leave to serve in the Confederate army, with the support of his flock.

Nietzsche's 'On the Genealogy of Morality' and especially its third essay 'What do ascetic ideals mean' is to my mind, not only an abstract discussion of an issue but also a memoir, a description of his family's home ambiance and pedagogical practices. In one section, describing the defeatist, self-righteous outlook on life, Nietzsche has the word 'poison' appear four times. Going into details of glances and sighs typical locutions, makes the reader almost visualize Nietzsche's windowed mother and unmarried aunts, economically dependent on the goodwill of his grandmother, using their weakness to tyrannize the child, trying to make him a well-behaved, disciplined, adult-like boy — 'the little pastor', as he was called by his school friends. 'They wander around among us like personifications of reproach, like warnings to us — as if health, success, strength, pride, and a feeling of power were already inherently depraved things, for which people must atone some day, atone bitterly. How they thirst to be hangmen! Among them there are plenty of people disguised as judges seeking revenge. They always have the word 'Justice' in their mouths, like poisonous saliva, with their mouths always pursed, always ready to spit at anything which does not look discontented and goes on its way in good spirits. [ . . .] The sick woman, in particular: no one outdoes her in refined ways to rule others, to exert pressure, to tyrannize.' The mother-poison connection is also supported by a passage, mentioned before in trying to solve Nietzsche's riddle 'as my own father I am already dead, as my own mother I still live and grow old'. In it, he described the horrible treatment he received from his sister and mother, who were described as canaille (rabble), hellish machine and a poisonous viper. What is the nature of poisoning? It consists of exposing a victim, imperceptibly, to a harmful material, sometimes camouflaged as beneficial (when mixed with food or drink), without the possibility of resisting or avoiding it, resulting in diminished strength, health, and energy, or even death. In fact, the psychologist Alice Miller used the term 'poisonous pedagogy' to describe emotionally damaging child-raising practices, intended to manipulate the character of children though force, deception, and hypocrisy. Nietzsche was sensitized to such poison in his childhood and could smell it anytime he felt pressure to conform, or experienced disrespect for his separateness and individuality.

These series of events placed the conference pastors into two distinct camps: pastors who sided with the ERF and sought more tension, and pastors who supported same-sex marriages and sought less tension-a large additional group included those who did not commit to either side. Once again, when the clergy's congregations were compared, the evangelical clergy showed growth in giving, attendance, and even membership, for pastors who had served in a congregation three years or longer. But the most dramatic changes were in congregations served by clergy seeking less tension with the culture. Congregations with "officiant" pastors showed sharp drops for all of the measures (Finke and Stark, 2001).

If we are going to be successful in supportive ministry, we need to learn to work with the unique leadership style and personality of the pastor for whom we work. Every leadership style had its own strengths and weaknesses, and every personality has its own flaws and imperfections - no matter what type it is. Therefore, we need to exercise long-suffering patience and tolerance, not just for the pastor for whom we work, but also for the other people with whom we work. Keep in mind that you're not the only one having to "get along"; your boss and coworkers have to get along with you and your imperfections!

The pastor discovered that people felt welcomed and supported when they first visited the church and continued to feel a sense of belonging in worship. But when they tried to become part of Sunday school classes, men’s organizations, choirs, and Bible studies, they found the groups cliquish, uninterested in welcoming new people. Even after months of trying, they felt at the margins in these smaller groups and ministries.

Still, there were some glimmers of hope. Luc’s fellow pastors were becoming a great support. They had no problem with caring for so many people. To the contrary, they were thrilled. In a wonderful answer to prayer, Chrétien and Émile and their wives brought over bushels of fruit and vegetables to help feed everyone. They brought fresh clothes so the group didn’t have to wear the same things day after day. One morning, Émile showed up with new identity papers for each person and a plan to move most of them in with other families, including his own, to lighten the burden and not draw so much attention to Luc and Claire, lest the authorities start asking questions.

For a pastor’s wife, especially one in the American evangelical tradition, the very nature of her husband’s calling presumes her supportive and unpaid labor.

When I teach leadership principles, I ask individuals to identify the top distractions that steal time from their productivity. Then, for each distraction, I have them write a plan to help them set boundaries and implement it. I always have enthusiastic individuals reporting back to me, amazed at how this little exercise not only increased productivity but also improved their sense of discipline and self-management. all going wrong. I love this quote from Pastor Joel’s book You Can, You Will: Every day we get to choose our attitudes. We can determine to be happy and look on the bright side—expecting good things and believing we will accomplish our dreams—or we can elect to be negative by focusing on our problems, dwelling on what didn’t work out, and living worried and discouraged. These are the choices we all can make. Nobody can force you to have a certain attitude. Life will go so much better if you simply decide to be positive. When you wake up, choose to be happy. That is the fourth undeniable quality of a winner. Choose to be grateful for the day. Choose to look on the bright side. Choose to focus on the possibilities. Focus On: Being Consistent and Dependable. Getting Your Mind Right. Not Hesitating. Focus On: Knowledge Passion 1. Release your feelings: Our instincts can make it easy to hold everything inside, but sprezzatura doesn’t mean you can never show vulnerability. Always make sure you have support, whether it’s from a friend, mentor, pastor, or counselor. 2. Let go of ego: Sometimes you might worry that no one else is cut out for a certain task, but that feeling can often come from a place of arrogance. Don’t be afraid to delegate or share the workload with other individuals on your team. 3. Prioritize your attention: Don’t get distracted by the environment around you. We can’t always control what’s going on in our presence, so be intentional with your focus by concentrating on what demands your attention.

The silence of the biblical text about women married to ‘ministering husbands’ cannot be read as either support for or rejection of the pastor’s wife role. But the silence of the biblical text still creates an awkward situation. Given the amount of emphasis placed on ‘biblical’ womanhood in complementarian spaces (what women did or didn't do in the biblical text dictates what women should or shouldn't do in the modern church), it strikes me as odd that a role with such tenuous biblical evidence has become the primary role highlighted for women. Simply put, Peter's wife isn't there. And that is my point.

Women are valued in patriarchal societies for how they relate to and support men. They are typically not valued apart from their connection to men. Doesn't that sound like the pastor's wife role?

In the 1990s, the number of books written for pastors’ wives began to increase significantly (more than two-thirds of the books we examined were published after 1989). We also find in the 1990s an increase in clearly articulated expectations of male headship and female submission (what I have characterized as submission language). By the early 2000s, it is fair to say that books published for the evangelical pastor's wife role largely support complementaian teachings.