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‘Let no one who is not eager for truth and peace enter here’ (Plato)

Articles on this site express varying points of view, to encourage mature thinking on serious issues. The assumption is that you will want to study a controversial topic from various angles before you arrive at a conclusion, rather than simply believe what someone told you when you were impressionable! (So some stuff here is ‘hot’. Proceed at your own risk!). See the Statement of Faith for John Mark Ministries' theological stance.

Pastors’ Wives: How to Encourage them

By and others ⋅ December 15, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

6 Ways To Serve Your Pastor’s Wife On Sunday March 19, 2013 In many churches, the most thankless job is that of the pastor’s wife. Though the pastor alone is paid, the pastor’s wife is often still saddled with a host of responsibilities and expectations. She is expected to be a model wife, nurturing mother, […]

The Pope and the Future of the Catholic Church: a very important article…

By and others ⋅ December 12, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

What Pope Francis means for the Church in the modern world Frank BrennanABC RELIGION AND ETHICS13 NOV 2013 POPE FRANCIS IS NOT WATERING DOWN THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH. RATHER, HE ADMITS HONESTLY THAT WE HOLD IN TENSION DEFINITIVE TEACHINGS AND PASTORAL YEARNINGS, HELD TOGETHER BY MERCY AND FORGIVENESS.CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Note from Rowland: This is ‘in house […]

PERFECTIONISM AND MINISTRY

By and others ⋅ September 27, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Alan E. Craddock, Driven to Despair: Perfectionism and Ministry, Mosaic Press, 2013. Perfectionism isn’t funny. When I put the words perfection humor into Google I had a hard time finding anything humorous. Instead: “Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order” (Anne Wilson Schaef). “The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets […]

Review: Alexander Shaia, The Hidden Power of the Gospels

By and others ⋅ August 3, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Alexander Shaia (with Michelle Gaugy), The Hidden Power of the Gospels: Four Questions, Four Paths, One Journey, Harper One, 2010. Now here’s an interesting ‘take’ on the Gospels. Shaia’s approach doesn’t win the approval of some (most?) New Testament scholars. But the names of the people whose endorsements appear on the back cover (Brian McLaren, […]

Pastors Can Be Friends with Church Members (and 4 Other Radical Ideas)

By and others ⋅ July 1, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

  Pastors Can Be Friends with Church Members (and 4 Other Radical Ideas)   Victor Hugo wrote, “One can resist the invasion of armies; one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.” If that were true in the 1870s, how much more accurate is it now! We are an influenced people. Television, radio, newspaper, the Internet […]

Good Leaders Cause Trouble

By and others ⋅ March 23, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Paul R Smith: Leading Change and Causing Trouble (2011) What institutions do best is defend themselves against change. Churches do it particularly well because they think they are defending God. “Come weal or woe, we want our status quo.” What can we expect of our religious leaders in moving our churches into higher levels? Often, […]

Burnout: another high profile pastor succumbs

By and others ⋅ January 9, 2013 ⋅ One comment

Myers Park Baptist pastor’s leave speaks to common crisis Myers Park Baptist leader among many who burn out amid challenges By Tim Funk [email protected] Posted: Monday, Jan. 07, 2013 Rev. Steve Shoemaker delivers a sermon at Charlotte’s Myers Park Baptist. Robert Lahser – [email protected] On Sunday, the congregation at Myers Park Baptist Church heard about […]

Pastors Suffer Fools

By and others ⋅ January 8, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion The University of Chicago Divinity School Sightings  1/7/2013 Pastors Suffer Fools — Martin E. Marty Sightings is supposed to be about “public religion.” So what are pastors, ministers, priests, rabbis doing here this week? David Brooks mentioned them Friday in his New York Times column; that is a pretty public […]

Dom Helder Camara: one of my three top (male) heroes

By and others ⋅ January 7, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

          DOM HELDER CAMARA My top three (male) heroes are Jesus of Nazareth, Dom Helder Camara, and Francis of Assisi, in that order… (He’s one of three 20th/21st century Catholic Archbishops I admire, each of whom chose slightly different routes in opposing violent regimes. The other two: Pope Francis, and Archbishop […]

1200 pastors/priests migrated to Australia in the last 10 years…

By and others ⋅ November 10, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

Talked yesterday with the premier statistician for religious matters in Australia – Rev. Dr Philip Hughes (Director Christian Research Association). –> Fact (gleaned from last census):  c. 1200 Christian ministers/priests have migrated to Australia during the last 10 years: 208 were Catholic priests (top country-of-origin India) 170 Presbyterians (109 of them from Korea) 164 Pentecostals […]

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