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.

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

Pastors Need An Assistant

The world of church planting can be fast-paced and stressful. Pastors have sermons to prepare and preach, worship bands to assemble and practice, community groups to launch and maintain, weddings and funerals to perform. There are emails, letters, and phone calls to return, initiate, and ignore; books to order and then find time to read; children's ministry volunteers to rope in; youth activities to manage; and the list goes on and on.

With all of these duties, and more, on a pastor's plate—especially a lead planting pastor who may be wearing all of those hats with varying degrees of success—it makes sense to look into outsourcing his mind.

An assistant is the perfect way to farm out much of the work that weighs on a pastor's mind at 3am. Yet "How?" seems to be a common question. How can a pastor truly leverage an assistant to maintain peace of mind, remain focused on the macro vision for the church/ministry, and still feel like he is working and deserving the big bucks his church is paying him? Below are several main areas of outsourcing that will help a pastor maintain sanity and accomplish what God has given him to do (Acts 6).

Outsource Your Energy Drains

Energy Drain #1: Letters
With an assistant, the tasks that you know you have to do, but hate doing, can be outsourced. Depending on the ministry you oversee, there are always small tasks that inspire loathing when they come due. Addressing letters in this day of email can be truly frustrating. For a pastor it takes time that extends beyond the simple act of thinking of someone and writing them a letter, sending a gift, or paying a bill. It has now become an act of locating the recipient's address, finding an envelope that fits the contents, and then scrounging around the office for stamps. What could have been 10 minutes of caring thought has turned into 45 minutes spent crushing several fruits of the Spirit.

Energy Drain #2: Email
Email can also drain a pastor's energy. I have discussed email techniques with several pastoral assistants and the mode for delivery varies. Some assistants gather email correspondence for the pastor they assist and send one large email daily. The pastor can then simply reply below each message and hit "send" back to his assistant. The assistant can then sort through and send out the return emails, work on any action items that were created, as well as see some of the larger picture the pastor oversees.

I have heard of one faithfully followed author and ministry leader who does not "do" email. Instead he has his assistant fax him all of the day's email. He replies with return messages and action items in pen and faxes it back to his assistant.

Energy Drain #3: Setting Up Meetings
Communication with entire department personnel can be time-intensive. A pastor needs each of the major stakeholders present at meetings. He knows that as he begins calling each person, what is intended as a quick interaction can easily turn into an impromptu counseling session, an off-topic (though important) side meeting, or a general tail-chase as schedules seemingly refuse to coincide. An assistant can be given this task to coordinate schedules, set aside time for the counseling appointment, and gather an agenda for the necessary side meeting, all while the pastor is focusing on different important tasks.

By outsourcing this simple task the pastor can then enter into each appointment and task in the correct frame of mind. Trying to schedule his own meeting and being blindsided by an over-the-phone meeting or a counseling conversation can be exhausting. This isn't to say that a counseling appointment scheduled by his assistant won't be exhausting, but it would be a set time he is aware of and can prepare for appropriately.

Leverage An Assistant Wisely

Other tasks a pastor can easily put on an assistant's plate include mail sorting, filing, and corporate credit card reconciliation. Some of these tasks may seem ridiculous to some of you, but the point isn't that you should hire an assistant so you don't have to lick a stamp again, but that the assistant can do the things that drain your energy in whatever shape those may come.

Oftentimes pastoral assistants serve as an extra set of eyes for their pastor. They can do a variety of tiny things that are not in themselves urgent, but vitally important, and they can build systems to keep stuff from falling through the cracks as urgent tasks overtake important tasks.

I asked several pastoral assistants at Mars Hill Church other ways they specifically serve their pastors, and here is a quick breakdown:

• One pastor at Mars Hill regularly rattles off several ideas that he is suddenly hit with and asks his assistant to remind him to "think" about these mental downloads later. As he is heading into a meeting, to keep from either being distracted by the plans forming in his head or completely forgetting altogether, he trusts his assistant to note his thoughts and remind him of them later.
• Another pastor leans on his assistant to make sure that he is demonstrably thanking the people the Lord has brought into his ministry. He frequently receives reminders from his assistant like, "There were over 25 people here last week rebuilding the stage and installing lighting rigs well into the morning hours. If you'd like, I can organize a thank you party at your house early next month." He knows that thanking people can easily be forgotten or that the planning for a thank you type event, though totally necessary, requires time and skills he may not have himself. By bringing on this assistant he can leverage another person to accomplish his desires for the ministry.

To be continued.

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.

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Tim Chester and Steve Timmis present a vision for churches centered on gospel community. Find out more.

Lots of pastors and teachers today agree with everything orthodox, but what plays on Sundays? Michael Horton says to get serious about knowing what you believe and why you believe it.

In this interview series, Mars Hill PR Director Nick Bogardus interviews Dr. Michael Horton. For more information and resources from Dr. Horton, check out White Horse Inn.