The Pastor's Perspective

  Have you ever worked tirelessly behind the scenes to build something up, only to watch someone else step into the spotlight and receive all the credit and applause ?      When our efforts are overshadowed, our natural human instinct is to feel a sting of envy, resentment, or quiet frustration . Thoughts of sabotage may pop up in our mind or we just may just want to give up doing what we are doing altogether. We instinctively want to guard our platform, protect our reputation, and hold tightly to our influence . Lets face it it hurts when we put in all the work only to see someone else take all the credit.      In our spiritual lives, this subtle obsession with personal recognition is the single greatest obstacle to building God's Kingdom . We live in a culture obsessed with self-promotion, personal branding, and accumulating "followers." As a pastor I see it every day as I look at certain churches, at some celebrity preachers ministries and if I am b...

  Have you ever caught yourself going through the motions of something that was supposed to be deeply meaningful?      Perhaps you sat through a conversation nodding along while your mind was miles away, or completed a project at work simply to check a box off your list. Maybe you found yourself at work but focusing on something completely different than the task at hand.       This human tendency to drift into routine doesn't just affect our daily chores; it can subtly poison our spiritual lives as well . We can easily wake up on a Sunday morning, put on our best clothes, sing all the songs, listen to the sermon, and yet leave the church building without ever having truly engaged our hearts with God . In fact we can go to church for months and even years without really connecting with God.       Research continually reveals how easy it is for religious habits to lose their personal, transformative power. According to data from...