Image: Daryn Stumbaugh | Unsplash

Ambition is complicated. When related to material things it sounds like greed, so we often take the idea of "bigger and more" in our lives and boil it all down to sin. We sit in the back like my friend Jamie, who aches to dream, but says, "It always seems easier to sit on the back row and kill my dreams than to fight the sin that may be attached to those dreams." ...

In the last few years, we have seen a remarkable shift in church culture's attitude regarding the LGBT community. Churches are wanting to be open and welcoming to these folks. In my opinion, the struggle churches and Christians have is not with "loving the sinner," as it's been said, but with how far that love goes without compromising Scripture.

The greatest tension in the ...

They met at a professional conference. Valerie was a young pastor, and Charlie was a recent college graduate interning with a campus ministry organization. He mentioned that he was discerning a call to ministry, so Valerie engaged him in a conversation about his vocation. He asked her some questions about seminary. And then he invited her out for ice cream after the conference. ...

How many women do you know who are serving in the church, on the board of their children's Christian school, at the local mission serving food, sponsoring prayer meetings—doing mighty kingdom work for the Lord—all while neglecting their husbands, who are at home waiting to make love? Yes, make love—the anomaly of countless marriages.

I know of several women who epitomize this ...

Image:

One of the oft-overlooked components of successful leadership is the thoughtful establishment of clear expectations and boundaries regarding our availability to those we lead. After 20 years, I have come to understand that the more intentionality we bring to this, the better off we—and our volunteers—will be.

Why We Need Boundaries

Successful leaders routinely rise ...

During college, Rachel Quan's spiritual journey was shaped by the book Celebration of Discipline, Richard J. Foster's formative work on the spiritual life. Today Quan serves Renovaré USA—founded by Foster in 1988—as its executive director, bringing with her a wealth of experience from a rich career in church, parachurch, nonprofit, and business leadership. GFL recently spoke ...

Image:

There has never been a time when the message of the gospel could be spread more widely around the globe than today, through the avenue of social media. I'm a mom of two small boys who uses social media to spread messages of hope. From my laptop in my living room, I can write an encouraging blog post that can go to endless lengths I will never know of, just with the click ...

Flipping through TV channels, we can see shows like The Housewives of Wherever, depicting women as backbiting, gossiping liars with a proclivity toward physical altercations. Now more than ever, women in church leadership have an opportunity to model healthy female relationships worth imitating.

Debbie Altman is one such woman. She works in a world that can be filled with ...

"I see a blind spot in your article."

Dan, a friend who pastors a church in Rochester, New York, wrote in response to my "Get Thee a Sisterhood" articles posted in March. (Click here to read Part 1, and here to read Part 2.)

"I do affirm the articles' primary points: the dangers of isolation, that the distinctive demands of pastoral ministry require support from those who ...

It doesn't take a doctor to confirm that males and females have different needs. What is true in nature is also true in ministry.

Ministers, whether clergy or lay, need ministerial network groups, as discussed in my previous post. Female ministers, I say based on personal experience, particularly need to be in contact with other sisters of the cloth and call.

Yes, we have ...