Kenneth Crawford

She lifted her weary head from the pillow and listened, tilting her head to one side, sending her thin gray hair flowing across the pillow. Another blizzard shook the old parsonage. Alice Green, a Presbyterian pastor, had seen a few blizzards…

I stood by the door, shaking hands and forcing a smile while pushing down a growing knot in the pit of my stomach. It had bombed. About twenty minutes into my sermon, the light dawned on me. I not only had nothing to say but also had emphatically…

One morning, I awoke well before sunrise, rushed out the door, and was at my seven o’clock Rotary meeting on time. By eight-thirty, I was involved in discussing fundraising techniques at the office. By nine o’clock, I had switched to a counseling…

When I began pastoral ministry, I met Todd,¹ a crusty old pastor, close to retirement, who had an overdose of the saints of Israel. I think they called it “church member fatigue.” His view of life and the ministry had become somewhat…

I have had moments of discouragement when I was convinced that my labor has been in vain, and I know every pastor has experienced it:

• Standing by the bedside of the dying, knowing that the only thing you have to offer…

However hard to say it, I admit, “I don’t know how to lead.” After 27 years of pastoral, conference, departmental, and now administrative experience, I still don’t know how to lead. At first, I fought against this stark realization,…

Irise before dawn, stop at the kitchen, drink two large glasses of water, put several pieces of wood on the embers of last night’s fire, and then settle in my chair for devotional time.

I am here to meet with…

Let me be honest. For years, somewhere in the crevices of my heart, lay buried a secret desire to be a leader, to try my hand at church administration— perhaps because of the high pedestal on which I pictured leadership, or maybe I just wanted…