Four newbies will be journaling for their first year, giving insights to discipling students, as well as being on a church staff, creating relationships with parents, and much more.

Our own Cam Potts, Student Pastor at LaGrange Baptist Church, (pictured) is one of the featured bloggers!  Check it out.

Do you feel the pressures of home life? Come join us for Parent Chat on Sept. 7, at 6:45 PM, as we hear how God’s grace frees us in the midst of these pressures. We’ll have an assortment of desserts and coffee as Pastor Tony leads us. If you have a child in SEEDS (1st – 6th grade) we encourage you to start the evening with your child in the SEEDS room and we’ll dismiss you to Parent Chat at 6:45. Mark your calendars. Invite your friends!

The family ministry movement in our day is an awakening for sure. I believe it is a gracious move of God in our country to bring us back to His way of living. We, as churches, should implement effective strategies to equip families and minister to them in their brokenness. Never should this effort become an obstacle or an idol that hinders the Gospel. Family ministry done well will propagate the  Gospel throughout the generations and it will reach out to hurting and broken people at their deepest point of need. Give people the Gospel they are crying out for and use family ministry as one strategy to do just that.

• Listen to Brian’s interview with Tony Kummer about the topic of family ministry

Sorry about the pun. But I love this video by the folks from Chick-Fil-A. The church can learn a lot from these guys and their focus on serving with kindness and treating people with honor and dignity. My friend, Micah Childs, owner-operator of a store in Louisville, pointed it out to me.

What is the Church? is Sojourn’s second children’s book, written by Mandy Groce and Bill Bell.   What Is The Church? was written to teach preschool children that the church is not a building. It is a people that God has called together and made alive by faith.  Unlike other books on the church, this book does not answer the question by first telling about the activities that the church does (gathering, preaching, communion, baptism, counseling, discipline)–although those things are essential marks of the church and they should not be ignored.  Instead, this book begins with who God’s people are–recognizing that the church’s activity results from its identity.  When we call children to be a part of the church, we are calling them to be a part of a gospel people.  And, as a gospel people, the church is a believing family, a community of missionaries, servants, learners, and worshipers.  At Sojourn, we call our people to stop going to church and to start being the church. Once God’s people know who they are, we can challenge them to be who they are.  In other words, we call them to live as the people that God has made them to be.

We are pleased to announce that the book will soon be published by Christian Focus Publications.  The projected date for publication is July 2011.  You can pre-order now at their website.

• Are people open about their sin or is there a culture of pretending?
• Is community life messy or sanitized?
• Are broken people attracted to your community?
• Is conflict out in the open or is it suppressed?
• Are forgiveness and reconciliation actively pursued?
• Do you constantly return to the cross in your conversation, prayers and praise?

There are many reasons why [pastors] can expect criticism:

A pastor can expect criticism because of his own sin, which will inevitably be present in his heart and service, no matter how mature or well meaning he is (James 3:2).

A pastor can expect criticism because there are limitations to his gifting, meaning there will always be weaknesses in his leadership.

A pastor can expect criticism because we often preach below-average sermons. (After one sermon, a guy asked me, “So where do you work during the week?” My sermon apparently gave him the impression that preaching wasn’t my vocation.)

A pastor can expect criticism because people can be proud and ungrateful.

A pastor can expect criticism because, well, it is a sinful and fallen world.

But we as pastors often forget one more important reason:

A pastor can expect criticism because it is part of God’s sanctification process—a tool that he uses to reveal idols and accelerate the pastor’s growth in humility.

God enlists many to serve us to this end.

Puritan Richard Baxter got this. In his book to pastors, The Reformed Pastor, he wrote,

Because there are many eyes upon you, therefore there will be many observers of your falls. If other men may sin without observation, so cannot you. And you should thankfully consider how great a mercy this is, that you have so many eyes to watch over you, and so many ready to tell you of your faults, and so have greater helps than others, at least for the restraining of your sin. Though they may do it with a malicious mind, yet you have the advantage by it.*

Read the rest of this humbling post …