From the Foreword by Brian Croft: Kyle McClellan has gone into a church "with guns blazing" and he was quickly fired. He has experienced the disappointment of unmet expectations and left because of this. He has pastored a destructive church that chewed him up and spat him out. He has felt the pull of the bigger and better church trying to woo him away. He has faced the burnout and fatigue that many pastors experience that causes them to bail. Read this book. Learn from him. Receive the essential lessons from a wise, broken man who has lived it, possesses the scars from it, owns the T-shirt and yet by the grace of God still stands.
Endorsements
... You will wince at Kyle's mistakes, grow wiser through his insights, and find fresh hope that a pastor can be used by God despite all of his faults and foibles.
Colin Adams Pastor, Greenview Evangelical Church, Glasgow
With a humorous tone, a humble posture, and a pastor's heart, Kyle McClellan shares where he got punched in the mouth so we'd know when to duck.
Gavin Johnson Lead Pastor, City Light Church, Omaha, Nebraska
Kyle is not afraid to lay out his game film for all to see here in this book. I am sure that each chapter was hard to write and brought up memories that were hard to relive. But I am certain that through his honesty and the lessons that he has personally learned through his mistakes, many pastors are going to be helped. If you're in ministry, or thinking about entering the ministry, I think that this would be a helpful book for you. At just 100 pages, it's an easy read, but one that may help you avoid some of the mistakes that Kyle made, and the heartache (for you and your people) associated with them.
Zack Ford, Youth Pastor, Grace Bible Church
The more I work with pastors all around the world, the more I am finding that those who have terrible experiences pastoring a church often leave the ministry altogether. The hurt and pain is just too much. Such is not the case for my dear friend, Kyle McClellan, who wrote this book. Kyle shares some of the lessons he learned in those painful years with a raw transparency that is refreshing and engaging to read.
Brian Croft Pastor, Auburndale Baptist Church, Louisville, Kentucky and Founder, Practical Shepherding
Read this book and be encouraged that God uses your mistakes while making you wiser in the process.
Mark Green President, White Horse Inn
... short, easy to read, with seven lessons that Kyle McClellan learned from four pastorates that lasted a total of just ten years ... writes with the maturity of a godly pastor who recognises where he (and sometimes where the churches he served) went wrong. Worth a read.
Evangelicals Now
An intriguing book. The story of a man who both burned and was burned by several churches in the early years of his ministry. The lessons he learned along the way will be a great help to seminarians and pastors alike.
Mez McConnell Pastor, Niddrie Community Church and Ministry Director of 20Schemes
... Young ministers ought to read the book as a warning and an opportunity. Older ministers need to read the book as a call to humble mentoring of the next generation.
Paul R House Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School of Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama
Learn from Kyle's missteps, but even more, embrace the God of grace to whom he gives testimony.
Sean Michael Lucas Senior Pastor, Independent Presbyterian Church, Memphis, Tennessee
The greatest strength of this book is its honesty: McClellan's confession is no half-hearted exercise in false humility, no exercise in serving up facile platitudes. In a clear and everywhere colorful fashion, he blames no one but himself for his decade of sojourning in pastoral ministry. Presently McCellan serves as pastor of Grace Church (PCA), a church he founded in his hometown of Fremont, Nebraska. He is learning to apply seven valuable and hard-won lessons he learned during his first decade of ministry. These lessons make up the heart of the book and show he's indeed learned hard-to-come-by virtues of humility and wisdom-all while smoldering in the cauldron of ministerial affliction caused to a great degree, he says, by ministerial malpractice. Brutally honest and insightful.
The Gospel Coalition
Mea Culpa delivers a raw view of truth and through that truth, a pathway to contentment, peace and forgiveness through the power of God. Read it and then live it.
Kyle McClellan is the founding pastor of Grace Church (PCA) in his hometown of Fremont, Nebraska. He is an occasional contributor to Practical Shepherding, an organization committed to equipping pastors in practical matters of pastoral ministry.
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