Well, I thought I had found some brothers in Christ on this site, but considering that you like Dark themes, I cannot in good conscience be in fellowship with such a man. EVERYONE knows that light themes are loved by God and that dark themes have the stench of brimstone around them. I will pray for your error brother and that you will see the “light”

JKK

I very much enjoyed your post. Thanks.

Wales is definitely a promotion. I haven’t been to Wales, but I spent some time in Shropshire (where my grandfather was born) and it is beautiful country. The people there were very friendly and gracious.

Keith Price

Because of this one post I’ve subscribed to your blog, Bill, thanks for putting time into it.

Regarding the Redoable theme: I like it. I like dark themes that are done well and this is one of the few dark themes that I think it good.

P.S.S My name is J, not Kent. Kent is my middle name and I usually include it to add heft to my first name which is only the letter J! This is a very common mistake that I have dealt with since Kindergarten. I am not sure what my father was thinking when he gave me just a letter for a name. Then again, I am not sure what I was thinking when I named my daughter just the letter K.

I kinda like the JKK that some posters were using to signify me. I have started to sign my blog post with that…

I will certainly read that post and that online book. My background has lead me to act unconventionally without even knowing it sometimes. When I was younger, I was just too dumb and inexperienced to realize that there are large sections of the Bible that do not apply to real life (please note sarcasm..)

James,

thank you for your words of encouragement! I have just 3 days left until I evac to KY and the pressure is really on the family now. They are all acting really funny and it is going to take a while to get back to some normality. Is this the same James that left me a comment on my blog? If so, yes, I am going to be a chaplain and I am excited about being able to minister outside of the constraints of the local church.

To all,

The tone of this blog and its comments is really fantastic! It is honest and transparent without being overly negative or overly nicey nice. It is so hard to have conversations with other pastors and Christians without experiencing nothing but platitudes and party line answers. You really can question the establishment without being too bitter. keep up the good blogging Bill and Co.

P.S. I am not sure I like the new theme. Dark backgrounds have always bugged me.

There have been too many times lately in which I thought I could do more ministry if I was was not a pastor and that is a horrible thought to have. If this is the case, something is seriously wrong. What is the answer?

In all seriousness, Kent, you CAN “do more ministry” not being a pastor. We’ve really been fed a dump truck load of “bulldust” (a phrase frequently used by an Australian friend of mine) regarding the definition of ministry. I know you just resigned your church and plan to attend Southern Seminary in September, but perhaps you should do some serious study of the New Testament without the rose-colored glasses of a “professional ministry” mindset. Did you read my previous post on “Rethinking ‘full-time ministry’ in the light of 1 Corinthians 7″?

Better yet, read the Jake Colsen book, “So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore.” You can read it completely online (yep, it’s free!) and it will turn you inside out. It messes with your head and your heart and it helps put things in perspective regarding all those years of being programmed by our modern way of “doing church.”

Like you and Ben G, I must say that a parsonage is a bad idea. As you point out, it is possible for a pastor to lose both his job and his home at the same time. Also, if a pastor lives in a parsonage through all of his years of pastoral ministry then he builds up zero equity and has no resources for a place to live when he retires. There are many, many retired pastors facing that difficulty now.

Personally, I would like to see congregations use their parsonages to house missionaries on furlough and support their pastors with “private” housing. I realize a lot of small congregations don’t feel as though they can afford to do so, so I imagine that brings us back around to bi-vocational ministry. Bi-voc. ministry is on the rise and will continue to be so in the years ahead, IMO. It takes a lot of pressure off of a man and seems to take some “power” away from congregations (or certain members) who hold the “job” (and “parsonage”) over the head of the pastor as a means of leverage. Of course, being bi-voc. presents problems of its own. Nonetheless, if I were twenty years younger and beginning all over again, I’d go bi-vocational.