Some people seem to be naturally wired to take risks. Others seem more naturally cautious and risk-averse. Is courage just a personality trait? The scriptures often call us to boldness and to take up difficult work, so how can we find the courage to take risks, and when does our risk-taking reflect a lack of wisdom? In Today's conversation, Pastor Jim explores the topic of courage and who he thinks about taking risks. 

The ministry is about people, but there are also plenty of administrative responsibilities in leading a church. For many pastors, the balance between relationships and administration can feel constantly out of balance. Ignore administration, and the organization falls apart; ignore people, and you're failing to do the real work of the ministry. In today's episode, pastor Jim explores how to evaluate that balance and how pastors should think about being faithful to the work of both relationships and administration. 

We live in the information age. The internet is full of voices, advice, and increasingly theological teaching and commentary. Every day, we're forced to evaluate what is true and who is worth listening to. In our conversation today, Pastor Jim explores the necessity of believers learning to recognize false teaching and why, as leaders, it's one of our primary jobs. 

While you may have a job at a church, our families are also a part of the church community. Sometimes churches can have expectations of the whole ministry family. And sometimes growing up in the pastor's home can come with both benefits and challenges. In our conversation, Pastor Jim and I explore how we've navigated raising a family while serving in ministry. How do we serve both our families and the church toward loving Christ? 

As we continue taking you’re listener questions, today we have a question about the role of prophets and apostles in the modern church. From the New Apostolic Reformation to online YouTubers who claim to be prophets, there seems to be a growing interest in apostleship and prophecy. In our discussion, pastor Jim and I explore what the Bible has to say about these roles, their function as offices in the church, and how Christians can discern the proper use of these gifts. 

Today, we have a question from a listener about the experience of loss in ministry. It doesn't take long serving in ministry to face disappointment and loss. As a pastor, we are asked to lead through death but also through conflict, division, and transitions. The loss can add up. Pastor Jim shares how he has experienced seasons of loss and how we can sustain our hope and optimism in the midst of sadness. 

While Pastor Jim spends most of his time preaching the Bible and leading a church, he still keeps up with his love of science. In today's episode, we talk about what advancements in science have him excited and how he continues to find the integration of faith and science strong. It was a fun conversation to explore deep into one of Pastor Jim's favorite topics and hopefully inspire future Christian scientists and students. It might be a great episode to pass on to a friend or child with similar interests.  

We're continuing our study, taking questions from listeners, and today we have a question about staying healthy for ministry. Pastor Jim and I look at the topic of health, fitness, and pursuing longevity. We discuss how we have both failed and succeeded, and why Christians should think more about the body and recognize how the Christian faith leads to physical responsibility. 

Is it possible to be both humble and confident, or does confidence lead to pride? In today's episode, we continue answering listener questions as we discuss the relationship between humility and confidence. If you've listened to previous episodes, you know that humility is often a topic of our conversations, but this conversation looks at how leaders and believers can be confident while also being people of genuine humility. We hope the conversation helps you investigate you're own life and helps you grow in both humility and confidence. 

In today's episode, we're answering a question about God's will and how we should think about God's will when we face loss, suffering, and challenges. If God is sovereign, does that mean that everything that happens is his will? How can we trust God when things don't seem to be going our way? As we discuss, it's a familiar theological question, but it's also one of the most personal. It's a chance for Pastor Jim to reflect both personally and pastorally. 

Over the last few weeks, we have been answering questions about the Holy Spirit. Though leadership is often a discussed topic in the church, we rarely talk about how to lead a church in the things of the Spirit. In today's conversation, we're talking about spiritual leadership and learning to discern the work of the Spirit in our services and churches. 

In today's episode, we answer a listener's question about the proper function and purpose of the gifts of the Spirit. It's not surprising that there is often confusion and misuse of the Spirit's gifts. It also happened in the earliest churches, but Pastor Jim will help us better understand what the gifts are, why things sometimes go wrong, and why they are still a gift to the church. 

Today, we have a listener's question about the meaning of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Pastor Jim and I explore how the Bible presents this baptism, why it's often misunderstood, and how believers today should seek the baptism of the Spirit. While it's a lot to cover in one conversation, we hope it might be helpful in inspiring your own study of scripture as well. 

In today's episode, we're discussing questions about women in ministry. While we've talked about this question before, we hope this episode will pull together all of the various biblical passages and cultural questions, offering clarity on what the Bible really says about men, women, and church leadership. 

Today we're discussing another listener's question. "How do you know when you're ready to be a lead pastor?" Pastoring requires a lot of responsibility and experience. Pastor Jim and I discuss our own transitions and what Pastor Jim has observed in others as they make that transition. We hope it offers some practical help to anyone seeking guidance on their next calling in ministry. 

The world around us is changing fast. Christians aren't called to live isolated from the world. We're supposed to be in the world but different from it. In our conversation today, Pastor Jim and I are exploring how to recognize the changing trends of culture and how, as Christians and pastors, we should engage the cultural questions of our day. 

We're in a short series answering listener questions. Today, we have a question about preparing a sermon. Pastor Jim and I explore how we go about studying a passage, preparing a sermon, and how new tools like AI are helping us study. We hope it's a helpful conversation for any preacher, teacher, or believer who is trying to study and better understand God's word. 

As part of our current series answering listener questions, we discuss how churches and pastors should think about power and authority. Authority is a hot topic in our culture and is often misused in our churches. We ask what scripture has to say about power and how we can handle it with wisdom and discernment in our churches and ministries. 

As we continue our series answering your questions, today we're talking preaching. One of the challenges of preaching can be finding your own voice. It's easy to sound like the preachers you listen to. In our conversation today, Pastor Jim discusses how to find your own voice and how long it takes to really feel comfortable in the pulpit. We hope it's a helpful conversation for anyone who finds themselves preaching regularly.

For many, transitions are a part of a lifetime of ministry, but how do you know when what you're feeling is your own restlessness vs a genuine call from God? In today's conversation, we're going to explore how to recognize God's call to a new place of ministry. Pastor Jim shares lessons he's learned from several of his transitions and offers advice for how to navigate your own. 

We're starting a new series answering listener questions. Special thanks to those who submitted questions. In today's episode, we talk about how we became Assemblies of God credential holders and what keeps us in the AG. We'll discuss some of the strengths of our movement and the challenges we face moving forward. 

In today's episode, we're wrapping up our conversations through the book A Sharp Compassion. If Jesus was willing to risk offending people, should we seek to offend people like Jesus did? How should we think about hard words and hard conversations? And does Jesus offer us wisdom for knowing when to risk offense? We'll explore how Christians and ministers should think about their own words of offense. 

As we continue our look at the book A Sharp Compassion, we unpack what it really means to follow Jesus. We've talked about how insecurity and imitation of this world draw us into offense, but in our conversation today, we'll discover how by imitating Jesus, we are freed from offense. We hope this conversation helps you focus your own life on following Jesus and being healed from insecurity and offense. 

In our conversation on A Sharp Compassion, we have been looking at what we've called the mechanism of offense, the complex series of emotions and desires that lead from insecurity to offense. In today's episode, we're looking at the final step of that process: accusation. We'll explore how insecurity moves us to accusation and how this spirit of accusation has consumed our modern culture. 

Over the past few episodes, we've been talking about the mechanism of offense. How insecurity creates idols and leads us into imitation. That imitation leaves us more insecure and desperate for affirmation. In today's episode, we're taking a look at why our culture is so desperate for affirmation and the temptation the church faces to offer grace as a cheap form of affirmation. We're continuing our conversation on the book A Sharp Compassion.