Welcome to Faithful and Fruitful, your go-to source for pastoral and practical leadership resources.

I’m Luke Simmons — I’ve been in full-time pastoral ministry since 2004 and I’ve got the scars to prove it. After all those years, I’ve remained joyful in ministry, my family loves the church, and I still delight in helping people meet, know, and follow Jesus. I want the same for you.

Too often in ministry, we feel alone and uncertain about how to lead forward. We know we love God and his people, but need help building an effective long-term ministry.

Sometimes we need an experienced coach who can answer questions, offer suggestions, cheer us on, and be confident on our behalf. That’s why I’m here.

God has graciously allowed me to serve as a church planter, lead pastor, preacher, and leadership coach (read my full bio here). I love learning and when things I’ve learned get to help other leaders… oh baby, that’s the good stuff.

Why Faithful and Fruitful?

Our resources and training experiences are designed to help you be both faithful (doggedly committed to honoring God) and fruitful (continually producing good results).

We reject two mindsets:

1

Consistent ineffectiveness justified by thinking that our fruitlessness proves that we must be doing something right in God’s eyes.

2

The grow-at-all-costs, ends-justifies-the-means approach that gradually drifts away from biblical conviction and often destroys people in the process.

The Faithful and Fruitful approach to ministry is not just the most biblical vision of ministry, but it’s also a lot more fun.

The Five Tools of Faithful and Fruitful Ministry

I played baseball through college and frequently heard about the “five tools” that scouts were looking for in prospects: running, throwing, fielding, hitting, and hitting with power.

Very few players are ever considered “five tool players” — they’re the ones making hundreds of millions of dollars. But most big-leaguers are at least three-tool players. (I was a 1½ tool player… which is partly why I’m now a pastor).

This baseball background got me thinking, “What are the five tools of a faithful and fruitful pastoral ministry?” Here they are:

Spiritual Vitality

Having a real thing going with God that fuels your life and ministry.

Relational Health

Reading the room, caring for people, navigating conflict, and being emotionally self-aware.

Communication

Preaching, teaching, writing, and leveraging digital media to instruct and lead.

Leadership

Moving people from here to there with clarity, strategy, and vision.

Empowering

Mobilizing and maximizing the gifts of those around you to be more effective together.

All of our resources are designed to help hungry pastors grow in these five tools. To assess yourself in these five areas, download this free Personal Ministry Assessment.

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