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Latest Leadership Content

Spiritual Depression
It’s a dark cave. Spiritual depression affects almost everyone at times, and we often have no idea how to find a way back into the light. Without question, one of the significant passages in the Bible that helps us understand this issue is the story of one of God’s great prophets in 1 Kings 19.

The Tragic Results of Jealousy
It’s a deadly disease. Jealousy has caused untold misery in relationships. We find it in families, churches, businesses, government. Wherever two people are, there is the possibility of jealousy.

Webinar: Defining Discipleship in a Socially Distanced World
How would you rate YOUR CHURCH’S process for making disciples? Excellent? Good? Fair? Poor? Non-Existent? In the webinar Life Action recently co-hosted with Thom Rainer, we discovered that most pastors (almost all of those...

Moving from Fear to Faith
I awoke in fear this morning. So much ahead, so much at stake at our church. As a leader, if you are going to worry, the places where the greatest FAITH is needed are always the places where the greatest FEAR is a possibility. And it was all over me this morning. I didn’t invite it in, I just woke up to fears swarming like a hornets’ nest in my mind.

Do You Have the Most Important Thing?
We spend our lives trying to gain certain things, and we are full of momentary joy when we get them. Our first car, our first job, our first home. Reputation, prestige, influence. The list is long. But, is it possible to have all those things and not have the most important thing? Here’s what the apostle Paul said:

Something You Should Really Fear
As a leader, the greatest way to help others to a revived life is to live there yourself. This does not happen automatically. In fact, the pull of the world, flesh, and devil is so strong that we can easily slide into sin and find ourselves in deep need of personal reviving.

Thirty Questions That Lead to Personal Revival
As a leader, the greatest way to help others to a revived life is to live there yourself. This does not happen automatically. In fact, the pull of the world, flesh, and devil is so strong that we can easily slide into sin and find ourselves in deep need of personal reviving.

Believing God When It’s Hard
It is difficulty that pushes us to Christ, that causes us to believe, that makes us desperate to find the only One who can help us in our problems. Without such suffering, we would go on our way never thinking about God. Secure in our sinful depravity and self-reliance, we would assume that all is right with the world.

The Importance of “All”
To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it (1 Corinthians 9:22-23 NASB).

Eight Reasons to Abstain from Sexual Immorality (in Any Form)
It’s been a problem since the beginning of time. The rise of Internet availability has made it incredibly more accessible, but lust has always been one of Satan’s most powerful tools to mar the image of God in us. Paul was intense about this because he understood the nature of the human mind and the deadliness of this particular sin. He always tells us to abstain, flee, run, get away by any and every means. Why?

Creating Environments for Encountering God
Everything flows from the presence of the Lord. Everything. If you have Him, you have everything you need. Without Him—His life, presence, provision, and power—you have nothing of importance. Our greatest concern as pastors should be simply this: Are we personally encountering God daily?

The Boldness We Need
The rapid spread of the church in the New Testament can only be attributed to two things: the gracious, miraculous activity of the Holy Spirit, and the bold witness of His followers. If God had not moved, nothing would have happened. If believers had not shared the gospel, the movement would have stalled.

Sacred Anointing
In His sovereignty, God has ordained preaching as a primary means of transforming lives. He has graciously given us creation, His Word, and most dramatically, Himself, in the person of His Son, so that we might know Him. By these three means God sufficiently reveals Himself.

The Testing of God
It would seem that the propensity of God to test His children is unloving. But in reality, it is one of the greatest demonstrations of His love for us. God is not out to always give us the most comfortable life. If He was, we would grow soft, unusable, and inherently self-absorbed.

What Happens When God Comes
It is one of the ways of God. Periodically in history, He opens the windows of heaven and comes down with His manifest presence. We call these moments revival as they affect the church, and spiritual awakening, as they impact people without Christ. Spiritual results happen at an accelerated pace and with stunning results. These outpourings bring a course correction to nations, and most importantly, they glorify God.

The Cycle of Revival
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love” (Robert Robinson, 1758). The hymn writer captured in a sentence what is universally true of man. Our humanity is weak, the devil is strong, and the world pulls us relentlessly away from God. Even those who have come into a relationship with Christ still wander at times.

How to Advance the Work of God During a Confusing Pandemic
Every pastor and spiritual leader I know is experiencing waves of discouragement and confusion during this COVID-19 pandemic. Leaders lead. They want to move the ball forward and get things done. Spiritual leaders want to see the kingdom advance. No true man or woman of God wants to just survive. To get by. To merely tread water. To see the work of God slowed or even stopped.

How Do We Respond to a Broken Nation?
It is a tragic thing to watch a nation digress. The youngest of those who live in our nation today cannot possibly remember anything different. But many of us can. We remember a nation, not long ago, where …

The God Who Meets With Us
One of the great mysteries of God is that He meets with us. This has happened since the beginning of time, as God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day in the Garden He had created for them. Until they chose to go their own way, they enjoyed unhindered, intimate communion with Him.

The Divine Pronoun
We are most often the central subject of our thoughts and conversation. This preoccupation indicates a self-observed life, which is our greatest problem. Worried about what people think of who we are, what we look like, and what we’ve done, we unconsciously place the “I” in the forefront.