A call for prayers

If you run across this post, please pray for our friend Cherish Cantazarro. Her husband died unexpectedly this weekend; they have five children and Cherish is 9 months pregnant with their 6th. As you can imagine her life has been turned upside down. God is providing her with an awesome amount of strength right now, but I know she would appreciate the prayers of others. Thanks.

continuing....

So, my good friend Dan Dalzell reminded me after my last post that sometimes having a paid staff is a necessity. And I must say that I'll admit that's true for many -- if not most -- churches. We visited a church a few weeks ago while out of town for a visit that has quite a large staff; they also have extremely professional drama and media programs, and an extensive children's program. It's true that the more a church wants to do, the more paid staff they'll need in order to do those things well. But I think what frustrates me lately, is that so often in those (often smaller) churches with only one or two paid ministers, the leadership and/or congregation have unrealistic expections of those ministers (like Dan said, they're only people, just like the rest of us). Sadly, this often leads to what I think are very un-Godly attitudes and actions toward those ministers. I appreciate Dan unwittingly encouraging me to clarify this...I guess the answer to my frustrations lies more in encouraging a change in attitude toward and treatment of paid, full-time ministers.