So Father in heaven, in this room full of pastors, I pray that you would restore weary souls and restore to us the joy of our salvation.

And restore to us the joy of pastoral ministry.

Father, would you lift drooping hands and strengthen weak knees and make straight paths for our feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but healed.

Heal us now through your word for the calling to which you have given.

mundane and spectacular as it is.

In Jesus, name we pray.

Amen.

So, Amen.

So they tell me that it was about 275 or so, and about 70 students.

So if there are about 200 plus pastors in this room and if Barna's recent survey is accurate,

then 85 of you approximately considered quitting in the last 12 months.

This past March, Barna's survey on pastoral confidence and vocational satisfaction reported, blown away by this, that 41% of the pastors they queried had thought about walking away in the last year.

Amazing.

That was down 1% from their 2022 study and it was up 13% from 2021.

But we don't need numbers from Barna to know as pastors these have been some tough times

to endure in pastoral ministry. These have been hard times for pastors in recent years and in such times,

Philippians is a great pick for a pastor's conference.

So thankful for Phoenix Seminary for doing that.

In particular, I love this pairing of the epistle of joy with the theme of endurance.

Now I would have expected joy, meditations from Philippians but it's endurance it's good

Paul wrote while enduring incarceration as Tony mentioned and he wrote to a people who are enduring internal opposition and external opposition in Philippi. And yet, Philippians is known for radiating with joy.

More than any other New Testament letter. And I think more than any other book in the Bible in terms of explicit mentions in such short space of rejoicing and joy and gladness.

...