What keeps a pastor from quitting?

What keeps a congregation from giving up on its shepherd?

Well, today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall gets honest about the real pressures of ministry,

the lingering conflicts, the opposition that of ministry, the lingering conflicts, the opposition

that never sleeps, the slow erosion of joy. Then he opens 2nd Thessalonians 3 and

points to something stronger than all of it, the faithfulness of God and the things he uses

to hold pastors and churches together. From his eight-part series called Steadfast Christianity,

Chuck titled today's message,

chords that hold pastors and flocks together.

This is a day of tremendous opportunity, and that's not meant to be a cheerleading statement. It's true.

This is a day in which there is great spiritual hunger. Amos's words are right. There is a famine in the land, and it's a famine for the Word of God.

There's a famine for love and compassion mixed with the teaching of the word of God.

It seemed like it's an either-or thing. You either get good teaching or you get a lot of love.

You either get an overwhelming sense of compassion in this place while you starve, or you get big

doses of food dropped on you like truckloads

and you don't feel like anybody cares after the instruction is over.

We need balance.

You know, our Lord promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church.

And that's true.

In fact, Paul writing to Timothy in the last letter he ever wrote, Second Timothy, said these words in Chapter 4,

words that have become rather familiar to some of us.

Verse two, preach the word, be ready in season and be ready out of season.

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