This week the blog is sponsored by Acts 29 and is written by Matthew Spandler-Davison. Matthew is the vice president for global outreach for Acts 29 and manages Acts 29’s Church in Hard Places initiative. He is also a church planter and pastor of Redeemer Fellowship Church in Bardstown, Kentucky. Charles Spurgeon, the known Baptist preacher in Victorian England once said, “One night alone in prayer might make us new men, changed from poverty of soul to spiritual wealth, from trembling to triumphing.” There is a powerful truth conveyed in this statement, that even in our hardest times and in the hardest places, we can trust that God is always at work. Few of us would claim to be comfortable in the hard moments of life, let alone the hard places. And yet, this is the day-to-day reality of many pastors and Christians. Much of our world lives in the midst of real suffering, conflict, or a mixture of the two. One billion people live on less than $1USD a day. Over three billion people live in isolated and remote places that are often cut off from resources. Today there are over 50 countries where the risk of persecution for Christians is either “extreme” or “very high.” There are places where life is hard in every nation and in every city. In the United States; for example, over 32 million people live under the poverty line, and cities like Detroit, Memphis, and Philadelphia have high crime rates. The hardship in these contexts is real—and yet … Continue reading Pastoring in Hard Places—Why We Must Run Toward Difficult Places