If we’re honest, for most of us, it isn’t the Hollywood sins that choke out our faith; it’s all the worries of life. All the distractions and noise around us simply box the Spirit of God right out of our day.

A lack of physical intimacy in marriage boosts fleshly desires and opens us up to temptation in significant ways.​​ Here are some ways to guard against it.

This week's links include resources on a single ladies catechism, being related to a slave owner, poetry and evangelism, and SBC institutions. 

Our relationships will ebb and flow, as will our affection for the church. But the solution is not always looking for a better fit.

Discipline yourself not to feel the need to overwhelm in every sermon. It’s difficult to do, but we must get over the temptation to feed God’s people everything we have each week.

Christians, proclaming the gospel is an urgent matter. Let us look at our lives to see what’s keeping us from allowing it to be so.

This week's links include resources on struggling to obey God, worship essentials, advice on discussing gender roles, and rethinking unreached peoples. 

If Christ is to be followed, He must be well-known, to the point that the disciple can discern His voice, predict His next move, and go His direction at all times.

Activity does not always mean productivity and just because you meet doesn’t mean you're accomplishing anything of value​.

The Enemy has held this ground for a long time, and he won’t give it up easily. Fortunately, he doesn’t get to decide who wins in the end.

This week's links include resources on prayer, sexual assault, short term mission trips, "arriving" in ministry, and healthy conversations about race. 

Recommit to and pursue your New Year’s resolutions looking through the lenses of God’s constant, abundant, tender, firm, and loving presence and strength.

This week's links include resources on single pastors, praying for your parents, God and the workplace, discontentment, and Old Testament Violence. 

You may or may not have reason for self-pity today. If you do, there is good reason to fight that impulse.

I don’t think we can accomplish the goal of discipleship in the 21st century without demonstrating that we are willing to invite others into our mess, to hopefully show them that our mess is a Christ-centered and redemptive mess.

The poor in our cities are not going to be won by a group of timid men and women in a committee meeting; they will be won by those who dream big and trust in the absolute sovereignty of God to get things done.

If you’ll do these things, you’ll continue to grow as a leader in health and effectiveness, and your organization will grow right along with you.​

This lay ministry is an extraordinary happening. No longer do people need a special—though temporary—anointing to offer a prophetic word of direction and wisdom.​

Why are older folks drawn to these kinds of shows? And what do those connections mean for ministry to older folks?

This week's links include resources include being slow to speak, atypical women, misunderstanding the Trinity, materialism, compensating your pastor, and being a second wife. 

When we talk about multiplication, we mean that churches have a process to discover, develop, and deploy church planting teams from the inside. ​​

When you stand behind the sacred desk to preach, be a voice, not an echo.

Community is a costly business, but someone must pay the cost. Why not you? Why not me?

This week's links include resources on being freed from pride, Lottie Moon and singleness, being brought close, and the recent Houston Chronicle report. 

As a denomination, my tribe has a history that is a mixed bag when it comes to how churches get planted and the effectiveness of those plants. I believe we are turning a corner with our approach.

In the spirit of Hebrews 11, reading good biographies summons forth a veritable chorus of cheers, encouraging us to lay aside every encumbrance and sin that so easily entangles us and to run with endurance the race set before us.

The womb should be more like a blossoming garden than a cold cell at Auschwitz. Those who use this law as occasion for murderous convenience will not go unnoticed by the Lord.

This week's links include resources on ease as the new vice, attractive qualities in a leader, what Christ will never say to us, and congregational singing. 

This week's links include resources on self-control and the leader, churches at a tipping point, pain and planting churches, and being in the margins. 

This is the lesson for us who want to do good, but don’t want to get our hands dirty.

This week's links include resources on myths about complementarianism, practicing the doctrine of justification, engaging emotion in preaching, and liturgies for youth.

We cannot make someone experience conviction—that’s the work of the Holy Spirit. But we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit not only by proclaiming the gospel, but also by simply reading the Bible.

My dad often told me, “The debt we owe to the past is to leave the future indebted to us.” Here are 11 things I learned from my dad and grandfather that have sustained me for the last 65 years in ministry.

This week's links include resources on loving a prodigal child, on losing mom and the church, union with Christ, foster care, and men serving in kids ministry.

Real friends are candid and give counsel, but their love keeps it from being reckless. Real friends are careful with one another. They don’t want to push you away; they want to bring you nearer to themselves and to Jesus.

When we become Christians, we move from an “I” to a “We.” Therefore, the local church is a single, spiritual entity – an entity that ought to think and act corporately.

The wise pastor will become familiar with New Testament hyperlinks to the Old Testament and learn to move between anchor texts and their targets so as to rightly divide the Word of truth.​

Every now and again some well-meaning brother or sister will say to me, "This one's different. You gotta see it. It's not like the others." And then it is. It painfully, painfully is. 

This week's links include resources on protecting teens from pornography, living to die, disappointment in ministry, and how to live post-Advent. 

For most of us, "missions" isn’t at the forefront of Christmas considerations. Perhaps it should be.

Pastoring is a challenge no matter the size of the community, but having the right set of tools can make the job a little easier.