Greatheart's Table

Since this post is being released on July 4, I have the Beatles floating around in my head:“You say you want a revolution – we all want to change the world.” I want to give some thought to that. We do want to change the world. But if we are honest, we realize how naïve […]

Welcome to Greatheart’s Table. I’m honored you would join me here. I remember reading about British pastor David Martyn Lloyd-Jones reading something like the complete works of John Owen while he was “on holiday” as they say. I certainly don’t spend my vacation time doing that. Or haven’t. Maybe I should. I don’t know. Am […]

Recent days have been hard and have driven much conversation and introspection. Many are asking, as I do in this post, what is wrong, particularly what is wrong with the church. In my experience such considerations fail to take seriously Paul’s caution in 1 Corinthians 13. We can be a church with all our theological […]

I mentioned in an earlier episode that I’m no great theologian. In fact, even though my only published book is a book of theology, I would reserve the title ‘theologian’ for others with greater credentials and stature. However, in this post I’d like to posit an attribute of God that no one ever talks about. […]

A man once told me that the parish to which he was being called was a good place for someone who wanted to be lazy. I have a hard time processing that. I suppose I don’t know enough lazy pastors. Most of those I know work very hard and besides the damage to their bodies […]

Hi! Welcome to May around Greatheart’s Table. I suppose the question I want to raise in this episode and the next is something like this: “If Christ is risen, why do I feel so dead?” Perhaps you have not framed it quite that way, but if you are like most pastors I know, you’ve felt […]

Welcome to Greatheart’s Table, a podcast for pastors and those who love them. As you know I have a particular affinity for the smaller church, not because a small church is necessarily better, but because it and its pastors are often unnecessarily maligned. That said, we should all take to heart the inherent dangers of […]

Some of you may be new listeners wondering why the name “Greatheart’s Table.” Our namesake is Mr. Greatheart, a guide for pilgrims in part two of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. He is Bunyan’s image of a pastor. Greatheart’s Table is thus to be a place for like-minded pastors to gather for conversation and encouragement. It’s best […]

I have had several conversations over the past couple of days regarding pastoral loneliness, the isolation of a pastor’s heart, and the matters that pastors find it hard to confess. Pastors are isolated, and are pressured to be perfect. We are to have no cracks, no weakness, no vulnerability, and we buy this narrative. But, […]