In a sin-broken world that doesn't function as God intended there are reasons for every pastor to be afraid. It would be silly and unwise not to be. But you must guard your heart against being ruled by fear. So let's take an honest look at fear and pastoral ministry.

I’m ashamed to admit it out loud. But the truth is, when I read reports of bullying, I dismissed some of it (not all of it) to over-reactive, over-litigious parents and hyper-sensitive children. Things changed, however, when one of my own children was forced to deal with unwanted, repeated bullying behavior. At a Christian homeschool hybrid, no less. That's when I started realizing bullying was serious, and bullying behavior was happening in our Christian churches (and schools), among both children and adults.

You're probably wondering what a horrific chain of events in State College, PA, has to do with the local church. For starters, this isn't isolated to a college campus, city, state, or nation. This story could easily have been about your church, the one down the street, or one around the globe. When people trust institutions (schools, colleges, churches, mission agencies, etc.) that trust must be protected. Yet, not all churches see how prevalent such incidents are.

As a pastor of a larger church, I read with interest your recent posts discussing whether a megachurch pastor is really a “pastor.” I appreciated your response stressing the presence of multiple pastors in a congregation. However, I wonder if there isn’t an underlying question that needs to be brought to the surface. Namely, what is the nature of pastoral ministry? What does it mean to “shepherd” a local congregation?

Tim Stevens from Granger Community Church was asked a question recently that earlier generations of pastors never faced: "Why go to a church service when you can watch online?" Stevens responds to the question with five reasons to physically go to church. In one of his points he reminds us that church isn't just about being "fed."

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to keep its current definition of marriage "between a woman and a man" by narrowly defeating a proposal to change the wording to "between two people" at its 220th General Assembly Friday evening.

As the battle over gay marriage heats up in this election year, one evangelical Christian writer is calling for a truce, fearing that the outspoken opposition to gay marriage among some church leaders could alienate an entire generation of religious youth. “Evangelicals have been so submitted to these culture wars for so long, so that’s hard to give up,” evangelical writer and speaker Rachel Held Evans, 31, told msnbc.com. But “the majority of young Christians really, really, really want to stop with the political emphasis.”

A busy church does not always equal diligent or faithful. Here are 10 reasons to under-program a church:

Your church probably has a website—and chances are you think it’s pretty crummy. I meet very few pastors and church leaders who are happy with their websites. It’s often because they have no idea what a church’s website is for.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) won on Friday a permanent injunction in the 17-year legal battle involving the Bronx Household of Faith and the NYC Board of Education. Religious groups will now be allowed to meet freely for worship services in public school facilities.