This is a brief excerpt from my current book, 5 Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them-help for frustrated pastors.

Sometime in your ministry, someone  probably has taken an intentional punch at you. I don’t mean they punched you in the face, but they’ve likely taken a swipe at your leadership, preaching, or vision. It hurts. I believe the higher we go in leadership, the more punches we’ll have to absorb. Abraham Lincoln, arguably our country’s greatest president, took many punches, and his words carry a timely message for us.

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how—the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what’s said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

I might add to this thought what a close friend once told me. “Even when church problems aren’t your fault, take the high road of grace and integrity as you respond to them.”