Written by K. Scott Oliphint |
Thursday, March 9, 2023
As Christian apologetics seeks for connections between Christianity and those who would oppose it, so also can persuasion engage in confrontation between opposing views. The two topics, then, far from being mutually exclusive, sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron. As a matter of fact, as we will see, these two topics substantially and significantly overlap, or at least they should.

Almost immediately after my conversion to Christ, I was eager to tell people what had happened to me so they might have the same experience. I became a volunteer leader in an evangelistic ministry, and it was not long before I had the opportunity to communicate to others the joy and reality of my own conversion. I wanted both to commend and defend the Christian faith. One occasion from those early days sticks out in my memory—a conversation with a man who had become a good friend.
I remember my almost desperate desire that this man be converted. I wanted to tell him all I had learned and to defend its truth if needed. I sat down with him one day and began to explain the gospel to him. I talked about God as our Creator. I explained how sin had entered our world through Adam. I gave him examples of sin’s effects in almost every aspect of the world today.
Then I recounted to him the story of Christmas and told him the good news of the cross of Christ, his resurrection, and ascension. I then told him that, like the Philippian jailer, all that was required on our part was to believe in Christ and we would be saved. I flooded him with as much information as I could muster.
As a young and inexperienced Christian, I was greatly encouraged that throughout the discussion, he was nodding in agreement with everything I said. I was ready to defend it all, but he had no real objections. It all seemed to be so seamless and easy. I don’t recall that he had even a single question for me.
When I had said everything I knew to say, I asked him if he was ready to make a commitment and to believe in Christ. He answered with a single word: “No.”
I was stunned. I asked him, given what I had said, why he wasn’t ready to make a commitment. His response still rings in my ears: “Nothing you have said indicates that I need this. I can’t see the need for a commitment.” His response devastated me, though I tried not to show it.
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Written by Jesse T. Jackson |
Thursday, September 23, 2021
A professor from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Christopher B. James, gave his thoughts as to why he believes the trend of pastors leaving ministry is occurring. James said, “In addition to being a hard job with mediocre pay, many pastors don’t think it’s worth it to try to maintain dying churches and are curious what Christian life & leadership might look like outside the clergy role. It’s part of a wider unraveling and reconfiguration of church.” White replied to Prof. James, “I think you’re on to something.”

High numbers of pastors leaving ministry are an an exodus that’s concerning to pastors‘ coach and co-founder Dan White Jr. of The KINEO Center, a place focused on offering healing for tired and traumatized leaders. On May 3, 2021, White posted on Twitter that he knows 28 pastor friends who have resigned this year, most of whom are leaving pastoral ministry altogether. White coaches approximately 70 to 80 pastors a year in his circle of about 500 or so.
Why Are Pastors Leaving Ministry?
White, a former pastor himself, asked “What is occurring?”
It doesn’t seem to be in any particular denomination as White shared that his friends come from a mix of denominations including Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Anglican, Methodist, Mennonite, and Christian Reformed. Only nine of them were Evangelical pastors and just 10 out of the 28 he mentioned were bi-vocational.
“I’ve been coaching for about 10 years, never seen this kind of disruption.”- Dan White Jr.
White replied to a follower’s question about the average age and lifestyle of those he has seen transitioning out of pastoral ministry, saying in his experience they’ve been between the ages of 35 to 50. Some have served as many as 25 years in the pastoral ministry. “I do think it’s some kind of inner crisis with ‘what are my desires, really?’ coupled with a pain threshold ‘the attacks and loss are just too much; I’m miserable,’” he wrote.
He revealed that about half the 28 pastors he referred to were “People of Color” when someone asked if the majority of those who have left the ministry were African American pastors. He also stated that all of the 28 left by their choice; they weren’t forced out or fired.
A professor from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Christopher B. James, gave his thoughts as to why he believes the trend of pastors leaving ministry is occurring. James said, “In addition to being a hard job with mediocre pay, many pastors don’t think it’s worth it to try to maintain dying churches and are curious what Christian life & leadership might look like outside the clergy role. It’s part of a wider unraveling and reconfiguration of church.” White replied to Prof. James, “I think you’re on to something.”
The active Twitter thread contains a handful of pastors currently in ministry and some who have left the ministry. One pastor told White, “As a minister struggling with whether to stay in parish ministry, I’m so hurt by all the replies that blame clergy for quitting. I’ve given my life to the Church, asked my family to sacrifice & ended up with my a** kicked. American church is broken.”
A former pastor of 30 years also wrote, “I’m one of those. After 30 years I felt God was calling me out of paid ministry into the marketplace. I’m convinced that many, many pastors have lost the ability to speak the same language of those outside of the church.”
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Just because our prayers begin with “Our Father” and end with “in Jesus’s name” doesn’t mean all the words in the middle flow easily. Sometimes, even those awake to the wonder of prayer face discouraging difficulties: internal struggle, outward resistance, perhaps even a sense of divine silence. And while such difficulties can reflect something wrong within — a heart overgrown with worldly cares (Luke 8:14) or hiding unconfessed sin (Psalm 66:18) — Jesus’s teaching on prayer is striking for its realism.

Most mornings, it seems, I forget how to pray. Or I at least seem to forget what prayer really is — what’s really happening in these quiet moments before an open Bible and a hearing God. I may stumble through my thanksgivings and petitions, but apart from some daily remembering, my prayers, like hapless pilgrims in a Bunyan allegory, tend to fall into the slough of distraction, or get locked in the castle of discouragement, or fall asleep on the enchanted ground.
In his book on prayer, Tim Keller writes of the need to “take ourselves in hand and wake ourselves up to the magnitude of what is going to happen” as we pray (Prayer, 127). Before unthinkingly mumbling “Heavenly Father” or “Lord,” pause, take your soul in hand, and remember the wonder of prayer.
And one of the best ways we can remember is by listening to what Jesus himself says about prayer. So much of our Lord’s teaching on prayer is designed to help us “always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). In the Gospels, Jesus comes to pray-ers like us — discouraged, distracted, willing in spirit but weak in flesh — and he gives us a heart to pray. Of the many reminders we could mention, consider four representative lessons.
1. We come to a Father.
Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven . . .” (Matthew 6:9)
Michael Reeves notes how prone we can be to treat prayer “as an abstract activity, a ‘thing to do,’” rather than remembering “the one to whom [we’re] praying” (Enjoy Your Prayer Life, 30). Prayer easily becomes impersonal: “to pray” is to run down a list of names, sit or kneel in such and such place for so long, drive in the old familiar ruts of phrases said ten thousand times. But most fundamentally, prayer is not an abstract activity or a habit or even a spiritual discipline; prayer is a personal response to a personal God — a God whom Jesus told us to call Father.
The wonder of this word often escapes us; it would not have escaped the disciples. They had never called God Father before, except in the broadest sense (Exodus 4:22–23; Hosea 11:1). To address God as “our Father in heaven,” to mimic Jesus’s own affectionate “Abba” — this was astoundingly, wonderfully new. When those who trust in Jesus come to pray, we come to a Father.
And what a Father he is. He knows our inmost thought and need, yet still he loves to hear us unburden our souls before him (Matthew 6:8, 32). His ear always open, his eye always upon us, he turns our ordinary rooms and closets into sanctuaries of communion (Matthew 6:6). He’s the archetype and fountain of all fatherly generosity, distributing good gifts with both hands (Matthew 7:9–11).
But perhaps the most heart-awakening words Jesus spoke about the Father are those in John 16:27: “The Father himself loves you.” “Here is something to say to ourselves every day,” Sinclair Ferguson writes of these five words. “They are simple words, but life-changing, peace-giving, poise-creating” — and, we might add, prayer-inspiring (Lessons from the Upper Room, 174).
2. Jesus perfects our prayers.
Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. (John 16:23)
Throughout his ministry, Jesus showed supreme patience with requests that others would have silenced. When the crowds hushed the blind and shouting Bartimaeus, Jesus called him over (Mark 10:47–49).
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