“There have always been people with mental and relational health problems in the church,” writes Dr. Jared Pingleton. “Unfortunately, we just haven’t done a very good job helping pastors to know how to recognize and minister effectively to these pronounced and realistic needs.”
How can churches improve their ministries in this critical area? And why should they?
Those are the questions I ask Dr. Pingleton in this episode of the Influence Podcast. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.
Dr. Pingleton is a licensed clinical psychologist and an ordained Assemblies of God minister. In addition to his private practice and preaching ministry, he serves as director of Mental Health Care and Ministry for The American Association of Christian Counselors. His new book is Mental Health Ministry: The Struggle Is Real, published by Trilogy Christian Publishing.
-----
This episode of the Influence Podcast is brought to you by My Healthy Church, distributors of Bible Engagement Project.
Bible Engagement Project gives churches access to a library of kids curriculum and small group resources all in one subscription.
Visit BibleEngagementProject.com to download sample lessons.“Many transition specialists, denominational leaders, and local churches are starting to question whether the traditional method of pastoral selection is effective,” writes Gene Roncone in Mentored Succession. “The model of bringing in outsiders with no understanding of the church culture, community, and congregation seems to be creating a continual cycle of short-term pastorates.”
Is there a better way for churches to plan for pastoral succession?
That’s the question I ask Gene Roncone in this episode of the Influence Podcast. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.
Gene Roncone is district superintendent of the Rocky Mountain Ministry Network of the Assemblies of God, a position he has held since 2019. An ordained AG minister with decades of pastoral experience, he has authored two resources on pastoral succession: Mentored Succession: A Smarter Way for Pastoral Transition and Rise Up: A Practical and Comprehensive Reference for Pastoral Successions and Transitions. Both resources can be downloaded free from GeneRoncone.org/AGSPE.
-----
This episode of the Influence Podcast is brought to you by My Healthy Church, distributors of Bible Engagement Project.
Bible Engagement Project gives churches access to a library of kids curriculum and small group resources all in one subscription.
Visit BibleEngagementProject.com to download sample lessons.
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction,” wrote the atheist Richard Dawkins. He went on to describe God as “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Dawkins, who is frequently wrong but never in doubt, isn’t the only person to perceive problems with God in the Old Testament. The second-century heretic Marcion was so struck by the difference between the Old Testament and New Testament that he believed they taught about different gods altogether. He went on to delete the Old Testament from the biblical canon, along with any New Testament book he perceived as being too friendly with the Old Testament.
So, how do we reconcile the portrayals of God in the two testaments of Christian Scripture? That’s the question I pose to Paul Copan in this episode of the Influence Podcast. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.
Paul Copan is the Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida. He is the author of numerous books dealing with questions in philosophy, ethics, and apologetics. His most recent book is, Is God a Vindictive Bully? published by Baker Academic.
-----
This episode of the Influence Podcast is brought to you by My Healthy Church, distributors of Bible Engagement Project.
Bible Engagement Project gives churches access to a library of kids curriculum and small group resources all in one subscription.
Visit BibleEngagementProject.com to download sample lessons.