Healthy relationships are vital to healthy ministry. Church-planting pastors who don’t cultivate healthy relationships won’t build healthy churches.
As Paul wrote to churches in the New Testament, he constantly emphasized how the gospel ought to shape the relationships among God’s people.
- In Ephesians 4, he instructs people to be humble, gentle, and bear with one another in love.
- In Colossians 3, he exhorts believers to forgive one another as the Lord has forgiven us.
- In Romans 13, we’re told to love one another with brotherly affection, and to outdo one another in showing honor.
- In Philippians 2, we’re told to count others more significant than ourselves as we follow Jesus together.
So Paul is clear: The church is to be marked by healthy relationships. If this is what the New Testament calls churches to, then pastors need to be exemplary in this area. And that’s why we believe church planters need to be men who cultivate healthy relationships.
But what does this actually look like? To help us think about healthy relationships in church planting, I’m excited to have my friend Lucas Parks with me today.
Listen to this episode of Churches Planting Churches.
Related:
Free eBook by Tim Keller: ‘The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness’
Imagine a life where you don’t feel inadequate, easily offended, desperate to prove yourself, or endlessly preoccupied with how you look to others. Imagine relishing, not resenting, the success of others. Living this way isn’t far-fetched. It’s actually guaranteed to believers, as they learn to receive God’s approval, rather than striving to earn it.
In Tim Keller’s short ebook, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path To True Christian Joy, he explains how to overcome the toxic tendencies of our age一not by diluting biblical truth or denying our differences一but by rooting our identity in Christ.
TGC is offering this Keller resource for free, so you can discover the “blessed rest” that only self-forgetfulness brings.
