5 Guidelines for Pastoral Counseling
These counseling principles come out of my experience in pastoring a small church. My prayer is that they will help you gain time in your week for preparing and planning.
Real guidance for pastors navigating the challenges of everyday ministry.
Leading a small or midsize church comes with unique pressures. From burnout and soul care to church strategy and team development, our articles and podcast guides address the issues church leaders face every week.
These counseling principles come out of my experience in pastoring a small church. My prayer is that they will help you gain time in your week for preparing and planning.
Here are three lessons we learned about how “soaking the beans” can help a team grow their individual and collective EQ and achieve outstanding results.
Here are 5 crucial action for the pastor struggling with porn to take. Because as we all know, porn use is an ever-growing problem, and it’s one that church leaders are not immune to…
It’s one thing to cast vision. You can build a great team around new ideas and strategies. People will even verbally support you at the beginning. However, once you begin to implement the necessary changes is when your courage as a leader will be challenged.
The reality is that small churches are the backbone of the Church in America. 95% of churches in the U.S. are under 500 in average attendance. And around 87% of churches are under 200 in average attendance.
As Easter quickly approaches and candy collection, chocolate bunnies, and Family Eggstravaganzas fill churches across the country, this can easily become an overwhelming time for church leaders.
As we work with small and mid-size churches across the country, we love to share the stories of those we partner with. We recently caught up with Bobby Lewis, Lead Pastor of RiverPoint Church in Pelham, AL, who we sponsored through our grant funds for leadership coaching.
What is it like to pastor a small church? Here are 6 honest words the pastors in our network used to describe the role of leading a small church…
The natural reaction for a pastor after being burned is to go inward and just do it all ourselves. We may even be convinced that the only way to get things done right is to do them on our own.
Sometimes the biggest shift that happens in a church begins within the leader. That’s what happened for Jason Allison, Lead Pastor of Terra Nova Community Church in Delaware, OH, this past year.
Worship teams are an essential aspect of nearly every church, and have become an integral part of most church services. So here are some ideas to help a pastor or worship leader develop a healthy worship team in a smaller church:
Every church will go through painful experiences at some point. Moral failure, loss, division, and the list goes on. As pastors, our ability to process the event and lead our congregation through the pain is crucial.

Discouraged. It’s how every leader has felt at one point or another when we want to be somewhere we’re not. Dale navigated his own experiences of disappointment in himself and uncovered key truths about leadership in ministry that can anchor and guide us today.
Dale Sellers of 95Network believes this trend is largely due to discouragement among our pastors. Many church leaders begin ministry with dreams of making an eternal impact. But years of striving, stress, and strain have left them feeling defeated, disillusioned, and stalled.
Thankfully, there is hope that ministry can turn around for the discouraged pastor. As a former minister who’s been in the trenches, Dale Sellers reveals that:
In STALLED, you will discover your sweet spot and realize you are closer to being “there” than you know.
All episodes will be posted here on the website, and are also available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Hosted by Caralee Culpepper and Dale Sellers, our executive director, and a former small church pastor, our 95Network podcast is a wealth of information specifically for small-church pastors—delivered in a candid, kind, and concise way. We cover pressing topics in modern ministry, annual trends, and more.
“If you got a pulse, he’s got a purpose for you.” Retirement isn’t the end of ministry; it’s a new season with fresh opportunities to serve, mentor, and impact the kingdom.
Self-awareness protects leaders from self-deception. Honest feedback is a guardrail for character and culture.
Build discipleship around practice, not just information. People grow through doing, feedback, and repetition in relationships.
Prayer is the engine, not the accessory. Easter effectiveness is not primarily about production, but about God’s presence.
Less Is More—With Intentionality. Doing less with your whole heart is better than doing more and being worn out. Fewer tactics executed with great intentionality will be more effective than an overwhelming production.
Have the Conversation Before There’s a Problem. You can’t wait for something negative to happen before talking to volunteers. Schedule regular check-ins not just about their area of service but about their lives.
The personal God gets personal with us. Biblical counseling explores the active, desiring heart beneath behavior and connects it to Christ’s finished work and the Spirit’s present ministry.
America’s churches are over-inspired and under-trained. People hear great messages but don’t know how to actually do ministry. The solution is creating workshop environments where people learn by doing, not just listening.
With a possible 160,000 churches facing pastoral transitions in the next decade, there’s a critical shortage of developed leaders ready to step into these roles.
Advanced preparation eliminates urgency. It will also free up a great deal of time for you once you’ve paid the dues to get started.
We regularly share practical insights for pastors leading small and midsize churches. If you’d like our latest articles, podcast episodes, and resources delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for the 95Network newsletter.
