Click through to the Resurgence if you can't see the video.

In this interview, Acts 29 Director Scott Thomas shares some great wisdom on the top 5 qualities for a successful church planter, some wisdom for those considering planting, and his “one thing” for church planters.

This one is a “can’t miss.” Tweet it up.

Be sure to check out Pastor Scott's recent post Am I a Church Planter? on the new Acts 29 site for more on the qualities of a successful church planter.

For more from Dustin Neeley, check out Church Planting for the Rest of Us.

Acts 29 Network

A network of churches planting churches for the glory of Jesus. Get more info.

I'll be in Austin at the SXSW Interactive Festival this week to learn from some of the most talented web, design, and marketing folks on the planet.

I'll be with a few guys from Desiring God and the Gospel Coalition.

We are there to meet people, learn, and work together to help each others ministries. So please, if you're there and you see me come say 'hi'—I love to meet Resurgence folks whenever I can. (I'm the guy in the picture)

Please pray that God would use the wisdom, knowledge, and experience of these people so that the Resurgence will be able to train more missional leaders.

Remember—if you see me come say hi.

Mike's Social Networks:

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Hormones series: Click | View Series

The human body produces many chemical messengers and hormones are just one classification. Due to the comprehensive nature of this topic we will scale down and focus on 10 important hormones. Without a healthy balance of these hormones healthy body function is impossible and expedited aging results.

1. Cholesterol

All hormones are made from cholesterol. Cholesterol is the main indicator of internal stress. If cholesterol is high, the stress burden in the body is also high. High levels of cholesterol can cause serious disease like heart attack and stroke. Cholesterol that is too low is not healthy and can indicate loss of vitality. Aging of the body increases when cholesterol is out of balance.

2. Thyroid Hormones

Thyroid hormones control the body’s thermostat (heat) and metabolic rate. When this hormone is out of balance various things like depression, anxiety, dry skin, slow digestion, and fatigue result. Low thyroid can affect cholesterol metabolism and contribute to high cholesterol.

3. Cortisol

Cortisol is produced by the adrenal glands and regulates the body’s ability to adapt to stress. When this hormone is too high or low, resistance to stress is impaired and metabolism and immunity usually decline as a result. This hormone is known as the main regulatory hormone which keeps the body’s clock on time.

4. DHEA

This is involved in regulating stress, immunity, metabolism, and hormone production. It is considered the regulating hormone of stress adaptation. Decreased levels will result in decreased energy and resistance to stress.

5. Insulin

Insulin regulates sugar metabolism and cellular metabolism. If this hormone is not working appropriately diabetes, high and low blood sugar is the result. This can predispose to other diseases like obesity, heart attack and stroke. Insulin uptake and use is improved by good diet and daily exercise.

6. Glucagon

Glucagon regulates sugar metabolism and metabolic controls. If this hormone does not work, it impairs insulin, predisposing one to diabetes and other metabolic challenges. Glucagon and insulin must work together to keep a vital internal balance. Glucagon is also known to assist in liver health and detoxification.

7. Estrogen

Estrogen is the hormone of reproduction and cellular integrity and metabolism. Every cell of the human body needs estrogen, but too much can predispose to hormonal related cancer. It is important for women to be on a balanced hormone program that is individualized and enhances hormonal performance and minimizes cancer risk.

8. Progesterone

This hormone is important in many processes of the body. It is the hormone of reproduction, cellular integrity, immunity, and stress adaptation. It is known that progesterone influences the immune system in a favorable way. It also enhances bone building and expedites metabolism making it a useful hormone in weight loss.

9. Testosterone

Testosterone is the hormone of reproduction, cellular integrity, and metabolism. When this hormone is low energy, libido, memory, and stress adaptation are also low. This is a vital hormone for men and women and needs be maintained. Loss of this hormone profoundly affects health and increases the aging factor.

10. Vitamin D

Vitamin D is a cofactor hormone that regulates other hormones and metabolic activity. We know this to be a vitamin, but scientific research demonstrates that it is a hormone that is a key regulator of protective activity. Vitamin D protects against cancer, memory loss, and bone loss, and it is used in virtually every biochemical process of the body. It is essential that adequate levels are maintained. Low Vitamin D results in serious risk of disease and loss of health.

It is essential for these hormones be in proper balance. The easiest way to know if they are in balance is to have a simple blood, saliva, or urine test. Remember these 10 hormones—they are essential in minimizing stress, enhancing immunity, decreasing the aging factor, and increasing overall wellness!

Porn Again Christian

Pastor Mark Driscoll's frank discussion on pornography and masturbation is available as a free e-book. Find out more.

Why Your Pastor Should Outsource His Mind series: Click | View Series

The last post showed why a pastor should outsource his mind by hiring an assistant. This post will offer some guidance on how to choose a good pastoral assistant.

Basic Requirements for an Assistant

If outsourced properly, your assistant should have at a minimum two basic giftings: adaptability and discernment. These may be the counter to your weaknesses, allowing for a fuller response to the needs of your ministry, or they may be enhancements to the collection of talents and gifts the Lord has given you.

1. Adaptability To Change

Church plants are static in only one area—change. At Mars Hill we have found the only constant in our work here in Seattle (and now Albuquerque) to be never-ending, always-fluctuating change. For assistants, the ability to take the changes that are sure to come and approach them with a correct heart and mind is a priceless gift.

An assistant’s job is to build systems to catch as much work from the pastor he serves and to carry out the tasks quickly and efficiently. As the work in the ministry changes, those systems are made obsolete. A correct approach to this inevitability is to simply start from scratch and build new systems if the ones that were created weeks or months ago are now outdated.

An incorrect approach is to stubbornly hold onto old systems, now defunct, simply because they are how things have been done. God brings new things into our ministries to test and shape us; to respond to the new issues in the same manner as the old is a foolish way of doing his work and will result in frustrated pastors, assistants, and church members.

2. Discernment

An assistant should know who needs to have contact with the pastor served. A proper understanding and sometimes a Spirit-directed knowledge of who is truly in need of the pastor's time is crucial.

It is easy for an assistant to read over hundreds of emails and letters and to file each request in its appropriate box: “He needs to read the website,” “She needs to take the membership class,” “They need marital counseling and the pastor I serve doesn't have that responsibility,” “He needs a half-hour phone conversation,” “A simple form email will suffice for these people,” “This guy is Satan and ‘delete’ will work just fine.” The workday continues in this vein because, hey, the systems were built for efficiency and strength of the ministry, so let's use them.

In this routine and task-completion mode, discernment is indispensable as the Spirit nudges an assistant toward a particular email that could easily be handled personally by the assistant or directed to another staff person, but is truly meant for the pastor. I have seen this many times at Mars Hill. God has brought many men forward to carry the counseling load for our people and relieve Pastor Mark of this role, so he can focus on the pulpit and future of the church. Yet when I served as his assistant, there were emails that came into his inbox that I knew could easily and quickly be directed to someone else, but the Spirit led me to pass them on to Pastor Mark instead. The fruit that comes from these instances is great and simply confirms that discernment is needed.

Before You Pick Your Assistant

Read A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard. This title has been highly recommended reading for assistants at Mars Hill Church. "A Message to Garcia" shows a great example of the type of person each pastor should pursue as his assistant.

Remember that the job description is written by you. This article is general because the tasks that Mars Hill assistants carry out are specific and tailored to each pastor. For some, the qualifications and job description include budgeting, tech support, and scheduling; for others editing, research, proofreading, and inventory; for others still, project management. The point is that for each pastor a specifically tailored assistant was found and is now leveraged to make the ministry more efficient and sane so that the gospel can go out.

If you do not yet have an assistant I would recommend that you squeeze your budget like you haven't before and hire one. The benefits we see at Mars Hill are great. As a member of this church it is good to know that the pastors are working in their giftings and that there are men and women in place to enhance their ministries. These people were hired based on the strengths and weaknesses of each pastor, so the resulting assistants vary in skill, experience, and gifts. There is no cookie-cutter model, so trust and pray that the Lord will bring you the help you need in just the right way.

Know that we pray for you and your churches constantly and love being a part of the greater movement God is working out in our country and world.

Assistants: Listen Up

Listen to Humble Service: The Ministry of Timothy. This Mars Hill sermon deals with the topic from a scriptural standpoint and gives a reference point for those seeking to be an assistant.

Pastor AJ Hamilton is the Executive Pastor for Mars Hill Church’s Albuquerque campus. You can watch his amazing testimony and read his previous Resurgence posts here.

Pastor Mark

Get the latest content from Mark Driscoll, the preaching pastor at Mars Hill Church. See More.

Pastors are called to love, serve, and lead through the opportunities that lay in front of us. With so many paths to choose—and with opposition at every turn—every day becomes a complicated exercise in wisdom and discernment.


Go Ask God


Overwhelmed with the never-ending list of things I could do, I find myself often praying Solomon’s words in 1 Kings 3:8–10:

And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?

And also James 1:5: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives 
generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”


Be Desperate


If a ministry leader—or any Christian, for that matter—doesn’t find themselves in desperate 
need of God’s wisdom and discernment, I’d be really concerned. No human can wade through the opportunities in front of him or her without God’s wisdom. When we try, that’s usually when our proud hearts fall.

What Would Jesus Not Do?

When reading the Gospels I’m stunned at Jesus’ ability to listen to the Holy Spirit and wisely and perfectly say “no” to some needs and “yes” to others.

For instance, in Luke 4:42-44, Jesus clearly understands his call and the need to continue moving and preaching throughout all of Judea. He could have stayed there in Capernaum, set up shop, and spent the rest of his ministry helping and healing those who came to him. But he didn’t. Through wisdom he said “no” despite a long line of needy people pursuing him.

How desperately we need the same attentive heart to the Holy Spirit’s leading and the wisdom to say no when that’s the right answer, even though it may ruffle some feathers.

Jamie Munson is the Lead Pastor of Mars Hill Church. You can connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.

Religion Saves

Pastor Mark answers the top nine most-asked questions in Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions. Find out more.

Are you building the Kingdom of God or are you building your own Empire?

The Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church, saying he had received reports of divisions among them. “What I mean is that each one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor. 1:12-13)

Followers Want a Hero to Worship

While Paul specifically addresses the factions and quarrels roiling the Corinthian church, implicit in the “I follow Apollos” and “I follow Cephas” charge is the tendency of some people to derive identity, sustenance, and life itself from obeisance to a leader. Following well is what followers should do, and giving honor to one’s teachers is biblical, but what is godly about hero worship?

Leaders can’t help that sin manifests itself through some people putting mere images of God on pedestals. It’s not the sin of good leaders but the sin of the idolatrous followers that pedestalizes mere humans.

That’s all on the demand-side.

Our Empire or Christ’s Kingdom?

The supply-side of the same problem is the temptation that leaders experience to create personal or corporate Empires. The Empire can be the organization or the part of an organization that one leads, or the Empire can literally be a cult of personality that a leader creates and fosters. While the supply-side problem of Empire-building occurs in any arena of human endeavor, this problem looks particularly grotesque when we recognize our imperial labors done in the name of Christ’s Kingdom.

But how could we not pervert the calling of Christ’s Kingdom? We sin. Our hearts are idol factories (Calvin, Institutes, 1.11.8). We pervert everything else we touch, so how would we not, at least in part, turn Christ’s Kingdom into personal Empire? If the telos of our call is to glorify God by building his Kingdom, the means for obeying that call can become, unwittingly, means of disobedience.

Hijacking God’s Gifts for Empire-Building

As Pastor Mark Driscoll taught in his message at the Advance 09 conference, the essence of idolatry is this: take a good thing, make it an ultimate thing, and that’s a bad thing. Our various specific callings within the call to build the Kingdom are good things that require all sorts of specific actions to fulfill the callings. Your special talent and mine? Perverting those good actions, hijacking the means intended for the Kingdom and diverting them into means of Empire.

Repent, Believe, Obey

I spend a lot of time trying to build an Empire, Docent, in the name of the Kingdom of God. My failures in this regard prove that one doesn’t have to have a reputation or lead a large organization. All that is required is a heart that longs for significance found anywhere but in Jesus. So I repent, believe the gospel, and seek by the Spirit’s power to follow Christ again in Kingdom-building. Over and over I repeat this three-fold gospel rhythm of repent, believe, obey.

With renewed recognition of the gospel, knowing that Jesus has already redeemed your sin of Empire-building, and has already made you righteous—knowing that you’re not under condemnation—would you ask yourself this question? Better yet, ask your spouse, your close friends, your colleagues to ask you this question:

Are you doing what you’re doing for your Empire or for the Kingdom of God?

Pastor Dad

Every dad is a pastor. The important thing is that he cares for his flock well. Pastor Mark Driscoll's new eBook offers spiritual insights on fatherhood. Get it here.