Church planters are courageous people. Having planted a church myself, I know. Scary stuff. But how do you know when you are ready to launch? Here are five indicators.

Preaching is more than self-help plus Bible verses. Preaching is offering people transformation through God’s power.

In the final post on helping pastors to take a sabbatical, I relate what I did on sabbatical and how it helped me.

When a pastor plans for a sabbatical you need to decide where to go and how long to go. I share my decision making process in this post.

Stress isn’t always obvious to you. Others see what you don’t see. Stress not only exists when life is crazy. It can happen when times are good. Pastors and CEO’s need to understand the weight they carry.

Pastors need a sabbatical after times of intense church work. But they are often hesitant to ask for it. Here’s why sabbaticals are so important.

Our failures often define us. But God looks past our failures to see who we can be. Let God be the one who decides your identity.

Regrets from past failures and losses and paralyze you. They take over your mind. So it’s important to reframe your loss.

If you’ve experienced a personal setback and landed in a bad place, God can use that place to prepare you for your comeback.

We often get stuck in a wilderness (exile) after experiencing a setback in life. But sometimes we stay stuck because we have a low view of God. We think scarcity rather than abundance.

When you’ve been hurt, it’s easy to think that your offender is in control. Your only defense is anger and resentment. But forgiveness can set you free from your past.

Experiencing a loss can devastate you, sending you into a cycle of despair. But if you can reframe your loss, you might break free and get your life back.

If you want to make a comeback from your setback you will need to stop playing the victim. It’s time to make choices that make you the hero of your story.

Is it possible to find peace in the middle of life’s chaos? Jesus said he can give us a peace like that but it will require that you give up control.

Sometimes our anxiety turns prayer into obsessive venting sessions. But we would be wise to sit in silence to see if we can hear what God is trying to tell us.

When bad things happen, the natural response is to deny it, or strike out against it, or try to make a deal. These are all stages of grief. It’s important to work through the grief cycle so you can claim your new life.

The first step in recovering from loss (exile) is to give your loss a name. Name it. Identify your loss so you can do something about it.

In this post I explore a meditation by Richard Rohr on how failure can help us get it right and how perfection can be our enemy.

Richard Rohr speaks about there being two halves to life. In order to successfully enter the second half it requires a stripping of much of what you’ve worked hard to achieve. This post is part of a series taken from the book, Return from Exile.

When we experience a setback we often fear the worsts case scenario… losing everything. But Richard Rohr helps us to see that losing everything can bring freedom.