The Episcopalian, Sam Shoemaker, defined the role of the pastor even more specifically as the playing coach, someone who, while trying to bring out the best in others, coaches from the hub of activity. He is extremely important, but he doesn’t do all the running and blocking and passing and play-calling.

When this philosophy and its implications are understood, we see the local church operating with the kind of precision maneuvers of a modern football team, where each man is alive to his exact function, yet there is great opportunity for spontaneity. If someone is sick in the church, there is no need to inform the chairman of the hospital visitation committee. Each member, aware of his unique gifts, knows when he should move to carry out his role. The same is true when an appeal is made for teachers, finances, flowers, etc.

As we move forward in this attitude, all those feelings so common  to us before—”Do I have to?” “I did it last year.” “Get Someone else.”—begin to disappear. The man whose giving has for years kept the church solvent does not despair that he has led no one to the Lord, if this is not his gift. Nor does he begrudge being told of a financial need if contributing is one of his major roles.

It is now no, longer enough for me, as a pastor, to feel satisfied with a solitary display of my gift. My ministry must include assisting each one in our congregation to find expression for his particular gift or gifts, either within the framework of the organized church or beyond it.

My prayer time exemplifies this new attitude. My requests regarding members include a desire for wisdom to help each discover his spiritual potential and possible areas of service. Some need no help. Others, so accustomed to pew-sitting, present a greater challenge.

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Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about? Or, what will you preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon? David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions. We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

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A friend in her fifties recently commented that years ago it was natural to assume that when a person made an initial commitment to Christ, miracles would happen. He or she would be delivered from drink, broken relationships would be restored, personal affairs would untangle. “We expected these things to happen naturally at conversion,” she pondered, “and they did.”

I wonder if we have so intellectualized our theology that we can no longer believe. Maybe we have become too desensitized to care. At any rate, in eliminating the activity of God’s Spirit in the message we proclaim, we have stripped the message of its power.

Have we forgotten that an essential truth of Christianity is that we no longer need to live with defeat? Have we forgotten that the Christian is supposed to be different in power from the world around him? Do so many of us no longer believe in the miraculous change of a life style that we have hindered its occurrence?

Not only did God forgive us the ills that blocked us from Him, He imparted His Holy Spirit to dwell within us to help us. So much is this the case that Paul calls our bodies “temples of the Holy Spirit.” Through this indwelling each of us has also been given a gift or gifts by the Holy Spirit with which to serve Christ as a part of His church. These gifts must now be explained clearly before returning to the discussion of how God speaks to and through the church.

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Pastor, when “sermon prep day” rolls around each week, do you face the task of preparing another sermon with a frown on your face? If so, you’re not alone. Many pastors literally dread preparing their Sunday sermon. There just doesn’t seem to be an easy solution. The good news: David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help, whether you need to create a Topical Sermon, an Advent Sermon, a Christmas Sermon, an Easter Sermon, a Sermon Series, or any other Sunday Sermon. For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

For so many of us, the Christmas celebration can be a mile wide and an inch deep. We tire ourselves with an ever-growing list of gifts to buy, activities to complete, and traditions to uphold. And through a maze of cards and calls, outreach and entertainment, we struggle to connect with others in meaningful ways. Our intentions are sincere, but often trivial. When we look back on the season, we’re often left feeling like our holidays somehow lost the Christ in Christmas, and only touched the surface.

Every pastor needs resources to help him or her find appropriate Sermons for Advent and Sermons for Christmas. With Christmas Sermon resources from Mainstay Ministries, you can help your congregation season their Christmas traditions with the flavor of Christ. More than simply helping them to remember that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” you can encourage people to focus on Christ in the very traditions that have become part of our celebration of Christmas: decorating our homes, conveying Christmas greetings, giving and receiving gifts, gathering with family and friends, entering the new year with goals. Click here to see a list of special Christmas Sermon Packages available.

Looking forward to Christmas? Looking for key Sermon Ideas? Wondering what to preach throughout the Christmas Season? Searching for help in preparing for your Sermons on Christmas Day? In addition to the above special offer, Mainstay Ministries has many valuable resources filled with Christmas Sermon Ideas to help you plan for your Christmas preaching and for such Sunday Sermons, including resources for the following: Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermon, Advent Sermon Series, Advent Sunday Sermons, Christmas Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermon, and Christmas Sermon Series. Connect with us on-line by clicking here.

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As a youngster I can remember listening avidly to the Lone Ranger series over the radio. The program invariably ended with someone asking, to the accompaniment of distantly fading hoof beats, “Who is that masked rider, anyway?”

My response to that question was always an incredulous “How could anyone not know? After all, how many men disguised by a black mask ride a great white stallion, shoot silver bullets, and travel with a faithful Indian companion?”

The same response rises within me now when I see the ignorance behind so many questions about the person of the Holy Spirit. His work and characteristics are so obvious in Scripture, how is it that we don’t know who He is?

One day, a young man wandered into our offices. Disheveled and dirty, he had been mercilessly beaten the night before by an acquaintance, and his face was an assortment of welts and bruises. After a period of conversation, I felt that he was not posturing for a handout, but had truly reached the point of no exit. Someone had told him that the people at Circle Church were Christians, and he was grabbing feebly for some faint straw of hope.

As his story unfolded—abandonment by parents, a history of street affairs, alcoholism—I responded with the message of a relationship to God in Christ Jesus. Carefully I explained the role of the Holy Spirit and made a point of remarking that God was willing now to make his body—as misused and neglected as it had become—a home for His Spirit. We then shared in one of those thrilling moments of conversion when a man casts himself upon the mercies of his Creator and knows without hesitation that an encounter has occurred.

A job was located along with temporary housing. In an effort not to abandon this young man to a shaky future alone, the staff welcomed him to shadow us as we carried out our various responsibilities. In one of these moments he confided this thought, which is such a pathetic thermometer of our problem: “You know, I had always heard that God wanted to forgive my sins and save me from hell, but no one ever told me about the Holy Spirit and how He can empower an individual to live a meaningful life.”

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Whether you need to create a Topical Sermon, an Advent Sermon, a Christmas Sermon, an Easter Sermon, a Sermon Series, or any other Sunday Sermon, David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

For so many of us, the Christmas celebration can be a mile wide and an inch deep. We tire ourselves with an ever-growing list of gifts to buy, activities to complete, and traditions to uphold. And through a maze of cards and calls, outreach and entertainment, we struggle to connect with others in meaningful ways. Our intentions are sincere, but often trivial. When we look back on the season, we’re often left feeling like our holidays somehow lost the Christ in Christmas, and only touched the surface.

Every pastor needs resources to help him or her find appropriate Sermons for Advent and Sermons for Christmas. With Christmas Sermon resources from Mainstay Ministries, you can help your congregation season their Christmas traditions with the flavor of Christ. More than simply helping them to remember that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” you can encourage people to focus on Christ in the very traditions that have become part of our celebration of Christmas: decorating our homes, conveying Christmas greetings, giving and receiving gifts, gathering with family and friends, entering the new year with goals. Click here to see a list of special Christmas Sermon Packages available.

Looking forward to Christmas? Looking for key Sermon Ideas? Wondering what to preach throughout the Christmas Season? Searching for help in preparing for your Sermons on Christmas Day? In addition to the above special offer, Mainstay Ministries has many valuable resources filled with Christmas Sermon Ideas to help you plan for your Christmas preaching and for such Sunday Sermons, including resources for the following: Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermon, Advent Sermon Series, Advent Sunday Sermons, Christmas Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermon, and Christmas Sermon Series. Connect with us on-line by clicking here.

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