By Brian Croft

My wife and I promised each of our children when they turned 13 years old, they would get to take a special trip with one of us. My son with me and each of my daughters with my wife. The purpose of these trips is to first have fun and enjoy each other’s company, which is why they each get to pick the destination (must be within a day’s drive) and determine much of the agenda.

It is a common scenario. You move to a new area. You get settled at your new residence and job. You get the kids settled in school. Where you settle in a local church often times becomes a longer, more drawn out task. After checking out all the churches you desire to visit, here are 4 questions to ask yourself as you narrow the search to make a decision.

“Then came a mother’s prayer, and some of the words of that prayer we shall never forget, even when our hair is grey.  I remember, on one occasion, her praying thus: “Now, Lord if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear a swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold of Christ.”- Charles Spurgeon 

How do you teach a group of 4-6 year old kids what a pastor is and does? This is something any pastor should be able to do, so pastor, how would you go about this? This article represents my efforts to explain a pastor’s task in the form of props I brought with me to class for the kids to see, touch, and ask questions.

Aspiring pastors are usually chomping at the bit to become pastors. Rightly so. Because of this, those aspiring to pastoral ministry often times dream to the future to one day serve in that capacity and miss some very significant ways he can serve his wife now that he cannot once he becomes the pastor preaching every week. Here are a few of those ways:

Grief is a good thing and all who have experienced this kind of loss needs to grieve.  However, how do you help a 5-year-old girl experience grief that is good and helpful?

A while back The Gospel Coalition published an article that I wrote, where I tried to answer the challenging question: “Is My Child a Christian?”  As you can imagine, it has created quite a buzz. Here is an excerpt of the full article. There is also a link to the full article on Gospel Coalition.

Based on the emails, notes, and phone calls I continue to get, trust me…your pastor needs encouragement.  He needs to know that what he does week in and week out means something to God as well as those for whom he labors.

Marriage is hard enough, but add ministry into the mix and you have a recipe for a potential mess.  My work with pastors and their families cause me to see a lot of the messiness that exists in pastors’ homes.  There’s plenty of the same mess in my own home.  The combined stress of marriage in ministry is a unique situation that demands an intentionality to keep a marriage or ministry from imploding.