Chris Atkins | June 20, 2018 |
Blog Thriving Clergy
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (the Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20). God has created human...
Joshua McNall | June 15, 2018 |
Blog Featured Blog
Several years ago, there was a mediocre movie made by M. Night Shyamalan, called The Happening. It was a horror-thriller sort of film, involving hundreds of senseless murders. Yet the twist in The Happening was that the linked-together killings were committed not by a...
Donna Whitten | June 14, 2018 |
Blog Featured Blog
I opened the door to a familiar place. Although it’s dark, I know it so well I make my way to the windows instinctively. Pulling back the curtains, the sun streams into the room highlighting a million dancing dust particles taking flight. I grab the sheets covering...
Dr. Virginia Holeman | June 6, 2018 |
Thriving Clergy
Neuroscientists affirm that we are “wired for connection” from birth. Infant brains develop best when caretakers are in sync—attuned—with babies’ physical, emotional, and relational needs. Obviously, no caretaker is in sync 100 percent of the time; caregivers provide...
Beth Churchill | May 31, 2018 |
Featured Blog Voices
Have you ever felt paralyzed by the injustice of this world? I have. There are days when I just want to stand up and scream with the inequality all around me. As I listen to people sharing their struggles, I often feel powerless to make a difference. It sometimes...
Dave Higle | May 23, 2018 |
Blog Thriving Clergy
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” –Galileo Maintaining intellectual health is often a neglected part of pastoral well-being. Yet, Jesus included loving...
Kim Gladden | May 17, 2018 |
Discipleship
Shalom Liddick | May 16, 2018 |
Blog Featured Blog
Often, when I hear God, I look at my life and allow his Holy Spirit to search me, then bring confession and repentance to him. I have to say lately, God has been speaking to me on the issue of worship. And I know why. My people, he says, have made me different from I...
Jo Anne Lyon | May 16, 2018 |
Blog Voices
I am frequently asked the question, “How were you called to ministry?” Most people ask that and expect the St. Paul experience—a light from heaven, thrown off my horse, blind and now I see. They also want a short, sweet and definitive response. Frankly, I dread that...
Emily Hines | May 14, 2018 |
Blog
Light energy, water, chloroplasts, and time – these are the inner workings of cells that cause most plant life to grow, from the grass in North American backyards to the amazing rainforests of the Amazon. So, too, are there inner workings of a call to ministry; a...
Ian Swyers | May 13, 2018 |
Blog Featured Blog
L.B. Cowman was a missionary to China in the early 1900s. Her missionary service was cut short when her husband became very ill, causing them to return to the United States. She cared for him for more than six years before he died. In her devotional book, Streams in...
Dr. Virginia Holeman | May 9, 2018 |
Blog
How do you feel about the person you are with when you are all alone? This is when your capacity for self-loathing or self-liking reveals itself. The odds are good that you may experience either attitude about your “self” at one time or another. As a pastor, how you...
Gaby Garver | May 9, 2018 |
Blog
Abby Powell realized she wasn’t the typical Oklahoma Wesleyan student one day in an intercultural studies class, when asked to fill out a 10-question quiz about emotional “baggage” she carried. Each question answered “yes” indicated some wound or negative experience...
Jewell Johnson | May 8, 2018 |
Culture Daily Devotionals
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. (James 5:1) JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, an American industrialist and philanthropist, became the world’s richest man and the first American worth more than a billion dollars. At one...
Elyse Gaverick | May 7, 2018 |
Blog Vision
Whether in an office at Houghton College or a board room at Fillmore Wesleyan Church, Dr. Marcus Dean lives a life in service to the local church. Dr. Marcus Dean’s life has been spent in two worlds that don’t always play nicely with one another – the academy and the...
Ed Rotz | May 4, 2018 |
Blog Featured Blog Voices
Jesus likened the relationship of those who follow him to that of a relationship between a branch and a vine. Branches do not live independently of the vine. An organic union exists whereby the vine nurtures, supports and facilitates the growth of the branch....
Gaby Garver | May 1, 2018 |
Blog
When it comes to living life with a pastor, Marietta Williams has seen more than most. From church planting to district leadership, Williams is a veteran of title-less yet nevertheless full-time ministry. The leader of Pastor’s Spouse Connection, Williams is...
Ron McClung | April 25, 2018 |
Blog Featured Blog
The telephone rang at 7:00 a.m. and the staff hurried to Mamie Eisenhower’s bedroom. When they knocked and entered, they discovered big black spots all over the sheets, covers, pink dust-ruffle, headboard, everything. To be exact, they were “dabs and blotches and...
Bob Haymond | April 24, 2018 |
Blog Thriving Clergy
One of the hardest things for some pastors to think about is preparing for retirement. There are so many aspects to think about, it can boggle the mind. Yet, it is one of the most important life events many of us will ever experience from both a personal and...
Gaby Garver | April 24, 2018 |
Blog
Jordan Rife has long recognized her passion to work with people, but she hadn’t been looking for her niche where she found it: in the local church, as a worship leader. Growing up in a church that didn’t affirm women as ordained pastors, Rife didn’t imagine she’d soon...
Joel Liechty | April 13, 2018 |
Voices
FLAME–a program that provides brings ministry training to lay and clergy–will become a program of Kingswood Extended. Kingswood Extended provides local churches and districts new ways to provide discipleship and ministry preparation, extending the ministry...
Zach Derr | April 13, 2018 |
Blog Featured Blog Voices
You have probably heard or read this somewhere before now: “walk with God,” or “walking with/in the Spirit.” There are plenty of resources that thoroughly describe what this means. Even more, there is an abundance of voices that list steps on how to do this in your...
Dan Reiland | April 12, 2018 |
Blog Featured Blog Voices
All great leaders are good managers, but not all great managers are good leaders. This is not an article that lifts up leaders and devalues managers. Management is an essential function, and managers are highly valued members of the team. There are differences,...
Dave Higle | April 10, 2018 |
Blog Thriving Clergy
As Wesleyan pastors, we all know the scriptural truth that loving God and loving others is the central hallmark of the Christian spiritual life. But do we truly embrace this as the ultimate outcome of what it means to be Spirit-filled? As David Benner states, “If...
