Ministry News

M21 Network Coaching Call With Jim Garlow

Details

Monday, 02 August 2010 15:53

Dear Ministry Today Report Subscriber,

Our next coaching conference call is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 3, at 4 p.m. (EST). The call will be with Jim Garlow (pictured below), senior pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego and a member of Ministry21 Network. He founded and led the California Pastors’ Rapid Response Team, a group of several thousand networked pastors that is committed to the sacredness of life, the sanctity of marriage, as well as religious, personal and economic freedoms.

Jim will introduce you to A Call to Pray & Act for Life, Marriage and Religious Freedom, a national call to pray and fast for our nation from Sept. 12-Oct. 30.

Jim is also an author, communicator, commentator, historian and cultural observer, and he heard daily on more than 800 radio outlets nationwide in his one-minute historical commentary called The Garlow Perspective. In addition, he airs a 30-minute broadcast called The Garlow Perspective Special. He has done more than 750 radio, TV and print interviews—national and local--covering a wide range of topics: historical, theological, marriage and family issues and cultural trends.

We hope you can join us for the call, which is open to the first 1,000 callers. These are your call instructions: Dial-in number: 712-432-1001, access code: 499539600#.

God bless you!

Steve Strang

Publisher & Founder

Leaders Learn Why Every Pastor Should Write a Book

On July 27, more than 150 people attended our first live webinar: "Why Every Pastor Should Write a Book." If you weren't able to join us, you can hear what was shared at: http://ministry21network.com/index.php/resources/video. Steve Strang, founder and CEO of Strang Communications, opens the webinar by explaining the potential of leaving a legacy through your writing, what is important to write about, and some of the costs you are likely to encounter if you venture into the publishing world.

Debbie Marrie, imprint editor for Strang Book Group, gives basic how-to's of writing nonfiction and submitting your work to a publisher, followed by Allen Quain, manager of our Creation House imprint, who explains why it makes sense in the new economy to co-publish if you are a new author. The webinar ends with a question-and-answer session. If after listening to the webinar, you have any additional questions about book publishing, please e-mail them to Allen Quain at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

What the World Expects From Leaders

By Jack Hayford

Several years ago, journalist Diane Sawyer and ABC’s investigative troops mounted an assault on purported violations of ethical and economic propriety by television ministers. Should we be listening to what the world’s media has to say? Whatever you may feel about that report—and others like it—in my thinking, my spiritual leader-mind has to draw at least one conclusion: The world expects something of us it doesn’t feel it’s always getting.

Sure, I agree that the “prince of the power of the air” does attack kingdom enterprises, and I have no doubt the devil delights when a jaundiced journalist bashes a spiritual leader. I have no judgment to make—only a judicious decision for my own part: listen. Somewhere above the scorning commentary and mocking laughter emanating from the world there just might be a message for us—if we’ll listen for the whispered lessons from the Holy Spirit.

I’m not about to commend a pagan culture for its acidic attitudes toward God, Jesus, the Bible and the church. But I think it’s escapist to attempt to write off all that’s taken place regarding media ministries as simply “an attack.”

On the one hand, I agree with the proposition that Jim Bakker’s sentencing (even when reduced) appears horribly unjust when compared with the vastly shorter terms of punishment given Ivan Boesky and Charles Keating for their convictions of financial scandal. But on the other hand, beneath the surface of it all—however brutal or unforgiving its demeanor—I think I hear a society declaring its disappointment more than its disdain.

“We’d like to believe in your God,” the world cries. “But when you claim faith and still disregard His standards, you not only reinforce our doubts, but you also justify our holding you to the moral requirements of the God you claim to serve.” I’ve been gestating on feelings about this for a long time, and I have deep and serious thoughts about what God may be saying to me through such things.

Pure Motives

First as a pastor (and quite besides the fact that I also host a television ministry with a budget to meet), I think I’m -hearing the rumbles of an honest question being expressed about church fund-raising—one as likely to be asked by my own congregation as by the unconverted. Fundamentally, it goes something like this: “If you are so sure your God provides, why would you ever compromise in a mood or by a method that suggests your appeal is to assure a ministry’s survival?