Posted in Church, Pastoral Ministry, tagged Christianity, Preaching on 3 June, 2008 | 1 Comment »
When it comes to dealing with discouragement in pastoral ministry, I am no physician of the soul. No, I am the patient who has merely begun to receive help from the Great Physician of the soul. And in these posts on becoming a more gentle, joyful, loving pastor, I have simply tried to speak as [...]
Posted in Church, Pastoral Ministry, tagged Preaching on 30 May, 2008 | 7 Comments »
It has been said that the role of the preacher is to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. We reformed types tend to be quite good at the first half of that statement. Our “discerning eye” can spot complacency a mile away, and many of us are ready to bring the hammer down [...]
Posted in Church, Pastoral Ministry, tagged Christianity on 27 May, 2008 | 6 Comments »
Demolition. That’s what characterized my Memorial Day.
Our church recently suffered some serious flooding in the basement, and I spent a good part of yesterday helping to rip up carpet and tear down drywall. As I was doing this demo work to the physical church building in which I minister, I couldn’t help but think [...]
Posted in Church, The Gospel, tagged The Lord's Supper, Communion on 31 January, 2008 | 7 Comments »
This Lord’s Day our church will be receiving the Lord’s Supper together. I would be interested to know from any readers how your church goes about doing this. Do you practice it weekly, monthly, quarterly? What place does it have in your service? Is the whole service geared around it? Is a special devotion given [...]
Posted in Church, Pastoral Ministry, The Gospel, Theology, tagged Christianity, Discipleship, Great Commission, Missions on 28 January, 2008 | 2 Comments »
As a church we have been spending some time thinking about the implications of the Great Commission. What has become increasingly clear is that the Great Commission is not one aspect of the Christian life or one department of the church, but is a summary statement of everything the church of Jesus Christ is to [...]
Posted in Church, Pastoral Ministry, The Bible, The Christian Life, tagged Christianity on 22 January, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Christians are in the “growth” business. We are often concerned about our own spiritual growth, and those of us who pastor have a particular interest in the growth of others. But when we look at the progress being made in our own lives or the lives of our people, sometimes the only we thing we [...]
Posted in Church on 9 January, 2008 | No Comments »
My friend, fellow blogger, and fellow SBTS graduate Jon Cyrus is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Prospect, KY, which was just featured in Towers. Click here to give it a look. The write up is on page eight, and despite the names listed below the picture, Jon is the one of the left.
Posted in Church, Pastoral Ministry, The Christian Life, The Gospel, tagged Christianity, Death, Dying, Eternal Life, Funerals on 18 December, 2007 | 1 Comment »
You may have noticed the new photo above. It was taken inside of New Bethel Methodist Church. If you were able to look out the windows on the right, you would see the church cemetery where my father is buried. Just a few weeks ago on a Lord’s Day afternoon, I was able to make [...]
Posted in Church, Pastoral Ministry, The Gospel, tagged Andrew Bonar, Christianity, Grace, Preaching, Robert Murray M'Cheyne on 17 December, 2007 | No Comments »
A tender tone and compassionate heart were of supreme importance to Robert Murray M’Cheyne in preaching the promises of the gospel. His biographer, Andrew Bonar, says that M’Cheyne would frequently examine himself and grieve over any tendency to be too harsh with his people.
For example, on June 15, 1836, M’Cheyne recorded in his journal, “Large [...]
Posted in Christianity and Culture, Church, The Gospel, tagged Apologetics, Cults, Evangelism, Missions on 5 December, 2007 | No Comments »
In today’s post I want to turn your attention to a very important ministry that is aimed at equipping the church in Africa to stand against the growing influence of cults and other aberrant teachings. The Africa Center for Apologetics and Research is seeking to provide African Christians with the evangelistic and apologetic resources and [...]
