By Chris Walker To the Exhausted Pastors Working Through COVID-19, Hello, dear brothers and sisters. I too have been a local church pastor during this season. We’ve really been through something, haven’t we, you and I? It’s one of those things that no one can truly understand unless they’ve sat in our chair. Unless you’ve sat in the chair, pastoring is a difficult role to understand, and can be a difficult role for us to explain to others. But those... Read more
For those of us who consider Easter the most central and essential part of the Christian calendar, the decision to suspend Sunday services one year ago was the strangest of Lenten resolutions. Personally, I had attended church every Easter of my life—except once. A few years earlier I took my family rafting on Easter morning. Skipping church wasn’t entirely premeditated. We were driving from New York to California for my oldest daughter’s college graduation and happened to land in Tennessee’s... Read more
March 11 marked not only the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic but also the tenth anniversary of a tsunami that devastated a coastal region of Japan. Read more
It is possible in spite of great grief, sorrow, loss, discouragement, confusion, pain and broken relationships, to learn how to live in the peace of Jesus and return to peace when ambushed by the anxieties and the brokenness of this life. All of us battle anxiety. All of us struggle to live in the peace of Christ. All of us struggle to remain in perfect peace. However, the Prince of Peace, Jesus, can restore peace to you regardless of how... Read more
In the coming year, 10 million Americans will think about taking their own life. More than 5 Americans will intentionally kill themselves in the coming hour. That adds up to 130 people per day; 3,900 per month; 47,000 per year; nearly half a million in the coming decade. It has long been known that faith plays a protective role when it comes to suicide. Those who believe in God are between four and six times less likely to commit suicide... Read more
How do you and I work out the peace of God in our lives that is already working inside of us? The anxiety you feel right now is an opportunity for God to show you how His peace can still come out of you and overcome the anxiety you feel. His presence of peace in you is greater than the anxiety coming from the circumstances around you. Certainly keep asking God to change your circumstances, but my experience is, God... Read more
Given all the unrest and vitriol on social media, there are many well-meaning people, especially in the believing community, that are “heading for the hills.” Whether people are deleting their accounts altogether or opting to join new platforms over more established online mainstays, there is a mass exodus taking place in the virtual world, or, at the very least, certain sectors of it. Some are retreating for personal reasons, citing mental health and concerns about the stress and anxiety as... Read more
The two of us are long time friends who chat regularly. In recent months, our conversations have focused on what it means to be content during this season of isolation and restriction. Over the course of our lives, contentment has often flowed easily. We have both been fortunate to have loving families, deep friendships, fruitful ministries, and adventures galore. But at other times, contentment has proven to be frustratingly elusive. Almost nigh impossible. Besides the general aches and pains of... Read more
I read recently an article from Life Way Research that said we now live in a day and age in the United States where one-third of all evangelical Christians do not believe Jesus is God. That is staggering to consider! Especially since Jesus Himself said in the Bible. John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father except by me. Peter declared in John 6:66, “…where else can we go (Jesus) for you... Read more
We now pay millions to Christian leaders who have fallen morally but refuse to admit they’re wrong. We are sadly sinking to a new low. I am a 1993 Pastoral Major graduate of Liberty University. I attended Liberty with many of my pastor friends in the early 1990’s. I met my wife there and we have been in full-time ministry for the past 23 ½ years at Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs with the Southern Baptist Convention. It has been... Read more
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