Real guidance for pastors navigating the challenges of everyday ministry.
Leading a small or midsize church comes with unique pressures. From burnout and soul care to church strategy and team development, our articles and podcast guides address the issues church leaders face every week.
There is often too little effort made to understand a new believer’s background. That can lead us to be critical of their lack of follow-through—when we never clearly communicated expectations in the first place. Judging someone’s lack of follow-through against expectations they were never told about will absolutely create confusion.
Healthy transitions don’t happen accidentally. Succession works best when it’s intentional, slow enough to grieve and celebrate, and supported by objective outside help.
Doing ministry from Jesus means your leadership flows from intimacy, obedience, and dependence on the Holy Spirit. Doing ministry for Jesus often places the pressure on your own performance, strategy, and ability to produce results.
If you’re leading a small church, you already know the tension: you need rest, but you also feel responsible for everything from pastoral care to building maintenance.
Equipping can’t be reduced to a weekly performance; it requires presence, relationship, modeling, and shared life.
If the stress of not knowing what to do, or even knowing that you’ve made some wrong decisions in your leadership lately, is weighing you down, then it’s time for you to take a long walk with Jesus. Tell Him how you’re feeling about your life and ministry. He won’t be shocked by your admission.
Prayer isn’t the warm-up—it’s the engine. Ministry strength doesn’t come from personal drive; it comes from dependence on Jesus and consistent prayer.
If the stress of not knowing what to do, or even knowing that you’ve made some wrong decisions in your leadership lately, is weighing you down, then it’s time for you to take a long walk with Jesus. Tell Him how you’re feeling about your life and ministry. He won’t be shocked by your admission.
“The objective is to hand it off when it’s healthy. You want to hand the church off when it’s going well… A lot of us wait till it starts back down the curve to begin to do that.”
Start by filtering communication through vision and your discipleship path. Then shift from “information” to “inspiration” by consistently answering “why this matters” and clearly naming one next step.
Self-awareness protects leaders from self-deception. Honest feedback is a guardrail for character and culture.
Discouraged. It’s how every leader has felt at one point or another when we want to be somewhere we’re not. Dale navigated his own experiences of disappointment in himself and uncovered key truths about leadership in ministry that can anchor and guide us today.
Dale Sellers of 95Network believes this trend is largely due to discouragement among our pastors. Many church leaders begin ministry with dreams of making an eternal impact. But years of striving, stress, and strain have left them feeling defeated, disillusioned, and stalled.
Thankfully, there is hope that ministry can turn around for the discouraged pastor. As a former minister who’s been in the trenches, Dale Sellers reveals that:
In STALLED, you will discover your sweet spot and realize you are closer to being “there” than you know.
All episodes will be posted here on the website, and are also available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Hosted by Caralee Culpepper and Dale Sellers, our executive director, and a former small church pastor, our 95Network podcast is a wealth of information specifically for small-church pastors—delivered in a candid, kind, and concise way. We cover pressing topics in modern ministry, annual trends, and more.
Most pastors aren’t refusing rest—they’re trapped by systems. Without a plan (and a bench), even a short break can feel impossible.
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Equipping can’t be reduced to a weekly performance; it requires presence, relationship, modeling, and shared life.
“If you got a pulse, he’s got a purpose for you.” Retirement isn’t the end of ministry; it’s a new season with fresh opportunities to serve, mentor, and impact the kingdom.
Self-awareness protects leaders from self-deception. Honest feedback is a guardrail for character and culture.
Build discipleship around practice, not just information. People grow through doing, feedback, and repetition in relationships.
Prayer is the engine, not the accessory. Easter effectiveness is not primarily about production, but about God’s presence.
Start with alignment, not content. Kevin begins sermon prep by praying, seeking God’s direction, and dealing with “known sin” to remove spiritual and emotional friction.
Less Is More—With Intentionality. Doing less with your whole heart is better than doing more and being worn out. Fewer tactics executed with great intentionality will be more effective than an overwhelming production.
Have the Conversation Before There’s a Problem. You can’t wait for something negative to happen before talking to volunteers. Schedule regular check-ins not just about their area of service but about their lives.
The personal God gets personal with us. Biblical counseling explores the active, desiring heart beneath behavior and connects it to Christ’s finished work and the Spirit’s present ministry.
Listen to Dale on The Stetzer ChurchLeader Podcast w/ Ed Stetzer discussing his book:
Get the 4 day Stalled devotional plan through YouVersion.
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