Priority Pastor

Symptoms of a Contagious Follower of Jesus

June 6, 2019June 6, 2019 by Daren

A couple of weeks ago I spoke on the DNA of a Christ follower trait, the trait of being evangelistic. Someone who indeed proclaims the Good News. This is obviously a key trait. It is an important part of being like Jesus joining with him in his seeking and saving of the lost.

^ Listen to the audio above ^

And to make the point of course I used Luke 15 where Jesus tells the story: lost sheep, lost coin, lost son. And makes the point how important lost people are to God and how important they ought to be to us. And I kind of use the concept of being a contagious Christian which is a phrase based on a course in evangelism of course called “Contagious Christian.”.

The idea being that you kind of have this disease that is passed on and transmitted to others and so I used, as my main point, symptoms of a contagious Christian. The kind of follower of Jesus who passes on the disease, the good disease.

Slaves Who Think They’re Free

June 1, 2019May 2, 2019 by Daren

Here’s a transcript of the above podcast episode:

Welcome to Piority Pastor my name is Daren Wride. I just came across a quote that was actually mentioned by a person in a podcast I listened to just the other day. A quote from Harriet Tubman, who was a lady who born into the slavery back in 1822 and escaped to freedom and then helped rescue many others from slavery. Just a fascinating individual.

I read up on her a bit after I came across this quote. Even the intro in Wikipedia is fascinating and she’s obviously an incredibly amazing woman. The quote that this fellow mentioned in this podcast was a quote from Harriet Tubman where she said “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”

Read moreSlaves Who Think They’re Free

Memo to Lead Pastors

June 1, 2019April 19, 2019 by Daren

I’m a lead pastor. I have many friends who are lead pastors. And there’s something I just need to get off my chest.

Here’s an episode from my podcast (with the edited transcription below) “Memo to Lead Pastors.”

Hi this is Daren Wride and welcome to Priority Pastor.

I’ve got today just a quick memo to lead pastors, senior pastors, in some cases that might be executive pastors. It’s anyone who has staff that answers to them in a paid role.

And the memo is simply this. Don’t be a jerk. Just don’t. Don’t Be a Jerk.

A Simple Way to Improve Your Speaking

February 21, 2019February 23, 2019 by Daren

Shorter, MOre Focused, Communication

I recently started a mentoring relationship with a young pastor.

We’ll call this fella Benji because that is in fact the name of his dog. So I’m sure he’ll be good with me referring to him as Benji. He must like the name.

Benji is a wonderful fella. He’s got solid character, a great Christian heritage with grandparents and parents in ministry. And he’s a natural, comfortable, up-front kind of speaker. He’s also a musician. He’s got lots of skills and abilities. Most importantly of course is the fact that he’s got character as well, that he’s a solid follower of Jesus Christ. That makes it easy and makes pouring into him worthwhile.

A few weeks ago he preached a sermon, and as I do whatever I’m working with someone, I evaluated his sermon. I took several pages of notes as he preached.

When I meet with someone to evaluate their sermon I don’t dump the whole load on them. I say “I’m just going to make a few observations but then I’m going to boil it down to one thing to work on for next time.”

Addressing Spiritual Challenges

February 21, 2019February 21, 2019 by Daren

Discerning and Addressing Spiritual Challenges Part 2

Once you become aware that there is a spiritual component to a challenge you are facing, how do you then address it?

The short answer is “Prayer.”

My wife is an intercessor and the foundation of her praying is scripture. She is constantly in the Word looking for ideas and direction on how to pray for me, our children and grandchildren, the church, friends who don’t know Jesus, and whatever else she is led to pray about.

If you are a pastor or praying for a pastor, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus are like an extended prayer list.

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