Militants kill 36 Christian quarry workers in Kenya; More Pastors Embrace Talk of Mental Ills...more

How Pastors Are Passing the Leadership Baton
Every pastor is an interim pastor.

That statement may sound harsh or abrupt, but it’s becoming a catchphrase. Saddleback’s Rick Warren commented about the quote on Instagram, noting that it’s something his dad—also a pastor—said repeatedly. As William Vanderbloemen and I explain in Next: Pastoral Succession That Works (Baker Books), a day will come for every church leader when a successor takes his place.

And based on our research, the smartest churches address succession head-on. A church that doesn’t handle it well faces significant losses, sometimes to the point of no return. Crystal Cathedral is now bankrupt due in part to succession issues. The same is true of many once-prominent churches, like Earl Paul’s Chapel Hill Harvester Church, that are now gone. An outstanding long-term pastorate offers no guarantee that a church will survive, let alone thrive...

Al-Shabaab militants kill 36 Christian quarry workers in Kenya ...Militants from the Somalia-based al-Shabaab terror group have killed 36 mainly Christian quarry workers, intensifying security fears in much of Kenya’s north.

Witnesses said the attackers surrounded the camp in a remote district near the Somali border shortly after midnight on Tuesday, roused the sleeping workers and ordered those who could not prove they were Muslims to lie on the ground before spraying them with bullets.

It was the second such massacre in recent weeks. On 22 November, al-Shabaab militants stopped passengers on a Nairobi-bound bus and killed the 28 Kenyans who could not recite the Muslim statement of faith known as the Shahada....

More Pastors Embrace Talk of Mental Ills
...In a study by Matthew Stanford, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, 71 percent of Baptist pastors said they were unable to recognize mental illness. In another study, he found that while 55 of 70 seminaries offered pastoral counseling electives, directors said that students were often unable to fit them into their schedules.

People have knocked on the parsonage door of Eagle Springs Baptist Church at all hours to speak with Mr. Brogli about depression, domestic violence, self-injury, hoarding, drug and alcohol addiction, and bipolar disorder...