By Steve Horn And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God. (1 Samuel 23:16 NIV) When I accepted the position of Executive Director for Louisiana Baptists, I made this promise: Pastors will be encouraged. Churches are essential to our work, and spiritually healthy pastors are essential to healthy churches. I have been a pastor of four churches. Each church was a different size and had different strengths and weaknesses, but all required hard work. I want to encourage pastors through public ministry to them and private friendship with them to be all that God has called them to be. This will be my daily prayer, daily goal, and daily evaluation. Years ago, I heard the Christian motivation speaker Zig Ziglar speak. The only thing I remember him saying is, “Who motivates the motivator?” We could adjust the words slightly to say, “Who encourages the encourager?” Who preaches to the preacher?” “Who ministers to the minister?” “Who counsels the counselor?” “Who pastors the pastor?” Your pastor needs all of this. We all need a Jonathan to come alongside of us to help us find strength in God. My friend Scott, at the time a doctoral student at New Orleans Baptist Theological … [Read more...]

By Waylon Bailey I am fascinated with Chick-fil-A. I like the food, the service, the planning to redo their drive up lane, and their business model. What I like best is the commitment of the family to make their business Christ honoring. Recently, I read an article by Jessica Mouser in ChurchLeaders.com about Chick-fil-A (CFA) and the commitment and faithfulness of the founder of the company and his family. While an article about the Cathy family could go in a number of directions (people seem to be fascinated that they don’t open on Sunday), this particular article had to do with the family meeting in 2000 where the children of founder Truett Cathy met with their parents and entered into a covenant. Dan Cathy and his siblings, Bubba and Trudy, promised their parents they would keep Chick-fil-A true to its principles. Specifically, they promised their parents they would never open Chick-fil-A on Sundays, they would continue the companies’ charitable work, and that they would be constant in their commitment to Jesus Christ. “Business Insider” gives the covenant in this way, “We will be faithful to Christ’s lordship in our lives. As committed Christians we will live a life of selfless devotion to His calling in our … [Read more...]