Startling Statistics About Pastors

This past week I ran across some statistics that stopped me dead in my tracks. As someone who grew up as a pastor's kid and has been in full-time pastoral ministry for 11 years, these facts hit close to home. I share them not to bring discouragement to you or disrepute to pastors. Instead, my prayer is that they will spur you on to pray for the Church and its leadership. In fact, will you pause and pray after reading this blog entry? My hope is that we will never forget the incredible spiritual battle that wages against us.

• 80% of pastors believe pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families. Many pastor’s children do not attend church now because of what the church has done to their parents.
• 90% of pastors feel they are inadequately trained to cope with the demands of ministry.
• 80% of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
• 85% of pastors said their greatest struggle is dealing with problem people such as disgruntled members, elders, deacons, worship leaders, worship teams, board members, and associate pastors.
• 90% said the ministry was completely different than what they thought it would be before they began.
• 80% of pastors’ wives wish their spouse would choose another profession.
• 70% of pastors constantly fight depression.
• More than 1500 pastors leave the ministry every month.

Statistics cited from Phil Pike's blog post called Pastors -- Wimps or Endangered Species?

Amazing Grace...

Every once in a while, I run across something that just about blows my socks off. The following video is definitely in that category. Hang on to your seat!

FYI...it takes Victor Wooten a minute or so to get to Amazing Grace. You'll know it when you hear it. BTW, I posted a couple more great music videos on the bottom right of the blog...

Have a great week and keep on worshiping!

Meat and Vegetables

Last night we were sitting at the dinner table and Trevor brought up his Kindergarten teacher and her pregnancy. It sounded as if the class had been proposing different theories that day as to how the doctors could tell the gender of the baby. There was one in particular that really stuck with Trevor and he was convinced of its truth: boys eat meat and girls eat vegetables.

Well, after we chuckled a bit, we explained to him how an ultrasound worked (in 5 yr. old terms). He listened intently, but you could tell he really liked the meat and vegetables explanation much better. Oh, to be 5 again!!!

Trevor's limited perspective on biology got me thinking about what we must sound like sometimes to God. Have you ever told God how you think a plan should come together or somehow believed that you had His ways all figured out? Our vision is pretty narrow compared to our Creator.

The other day I was reading Ps. 8. and I was struck by the fact that God set the heavens in place with his fingers! That's pretty amazing. What's even more amazing? It also says that in spite of his greatness, he is mindful of us. He cares so much about us and shows incredible patience even when we don't quite have all of our facts right.

Isn't it good to know that God loves us in spite of ourselves? What a great God we serve!

Worship to Internet Radio

In case you haven't noticed, radio is moving to the internet. The other day, my brother recommended a station to me called Pandora Radio. Pandora was created as a result of The Music Genome Project. Basically, a group of music technologists set out to capture the unique identity (genes) of songs from tens of thousands of artists. Their analysis led them to hundreds of musical attributes. They used this information to categorize the songs according to their similar "genes".

Now that you have the explanation, give it a try. Go to www.pandora.com, type in your favorite artist, and see how it customizes a radio station to fit your taste. My hope is that this will be yet another tool to help you worship the Lord during your week.