Jack Hayford on Pastoral Leadership, Etc.

While I was working at my laptop earlier today, I saw an interview on TBN between Matt Crouch and Jack Hayford that every pastor and church leader needs to watch. Pastor Jack says some great and very needful things about pastoral leadership, genuine ministry, and church growth. Click here to watch the program online from the TBN archives.

Black Pentecostal Voting Patterns - Eugene Rivers (NBC)

I just stumbled onto this interesting clip from the NBC Nightly News of an interview with Rev. Eugene Rivers regarding the way many African American Pentecostals vote for liberal candidates in contrast to their Causasian counterparts. I wish I could have seen the rest of this interview, dated December 18th. Thanks to Carl Thomas of http://www.revivalblog.com/ for pointing the way to this.



Over at the futureag blog, there is some interesting conversation going on in response to River's statements.

Here are a series of videos from BET that tell the life story of this unusual man...parts IV & V are specially good, but after you watch them, you will probably want to watch the others...!

Elusive Excellence

Thanks to Skye Jethani for pointing the way to an article on the perils of pursuing perfection in ministry by Daniel Schantz entitled, Recovering from Excellence. Schantz writes,

To aim for excellence seems like a good thing, but it harbors some subtle dangers...The term excellence is often spoken by church leaders in condescending tones, as if to say, “Others may be content with being average slobs, but not us. We must have only the best.” This can be a slap in the face to members who don’t have the capacity or means to be excellent—the “good,” the “fair,” the “poor.” Can only good-looking, gifted singers serve on the worship team? Must church buildings resemble palaces in order to be useful? Do all preachers have to be Madison Avenue models, professional comedians, celebrities, best-selling authors, and able to speak five languages? The gospel was targeted to the poor, not just to the exceptional.

His words brought to mind a conversation I had once with a friend who pastors a congregation in the same area as one of America's most famous churches, one that I happen to admire, by the way. He recounted how a person with significant musical talent had begun attending the church he serves after having been told by the leadership at the other congregation that they would never be allowed to participate in its music ministry. The reason given? Their minor physical deformity did not fit the image they needed to project from their platform in order to appeal to seekers. Somehow that doesn't sound much like Jesus to me. What do you think?

Pastors and Politics

The Out of Ur blog by Leadership Journal has an informative post entitled Politics from the Pulpit, reviewing the legal limits imposed upon American pastors expressing their opinions regarding the political issues and candidates.