"I have a fear that the church in the West will disqualify itself from being a missionary-sending region..."

"I have a fear that the church in the West will disqualify itself from being a missionary-sending region by portraying to its membership a Christianity that is a nice religion but that lacks a radical edge. In my visits to the West, the most common response I hear to sermons I have preached is something to the effect: “I enjoyed that sermon.” Sermons should disturb, convict, and motivate to radical and costly obedience. I have wondered whether people’s desired result from sermons is to enjoy themselves rather than to be changed into radical disciples who will turn the world upside down. If this is so, the church has assimilated the postmodern mood that considers inner feelings more important than commitment to principles. A minor feature of wor­ship—bringing enjoyment—has become a primary feature. Such a church may grow numerically, but it would not be able to produce the type of mis­sionaries that the world needs—men and women who will pay the price of identification with the people they serve and endure the frustrations that involves." (Ajith Fernando, 23)

Note: I would balance his comment about sermons by including the fact that at least some sermons should encourage and comfort people as well.

"Our greatest qualification for the ministry is the mercy of God." Ajith Fernando

the pastor's heavy heart

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabitianyabwile/2013/04/24/the-pastors-heavy-happy-heart/

Christian, contextualization means identifying with unbelievers, not accommodating to nominal Christians.

A church built on consumerism will inevitably focus more on meeting demand than making disciples.

"Are you building the church or building your career?" Mark Dever to pastors

From a message called "Centrality of the Church in Disciple-Making" given at the 2013 Desiring God Pastors Conference

"Technique is a terrible substitute for the presense of God." Darren Patrick

pastors should always be writing

Pastor Peter Schemm published a recent article in the Themelios Journal that encourages pastors to practice writing as a private spiritual discipline. He lays out six benefits of consistent writing (specifically for pastors but they apply to Christians in general):

1. Writing helps to deepen the mind.
2. Writing helps to clarify and refine your thinking.
3. Writing helps us to find a suitable pace of life.
4. Writing well requires quiet and solitude, both necessary in developing a healthy soul.
5. Writing (i.e. copying) Scripture helps us to meditate on Scripture.
6. Writing our prayers helps to make our prayer lives more meaningful.

I love writing as a way of communing with God. Unfortunately, it requires a discipline and quietness that I struggle to maintain.

Your inadequacy is one of God's favorite tools in accomplishing His purposes (Exodus 3; Jeremiah 1; 2 Cor. 12).

the delicate and dangerous balance between people and programs

"...ministry without heart, even well-financed ministry, is not ministry in God's eyes. A ministry can possess the best equipment, the finest quality of buildings, and the largest mailing list, and still not be doing God's work with quality if people do not remain more important. Excellence defined by standards of appearance is not excellence in God's eyes. I have seen organizations lose effectiveness in their testimony because they developed a reputation for caring more about programs and buildings than people. I have also been in ministries, especially in poorer countries of the world, where the buildings and facilities leave much to be desired, but heart is in the ministry so that people are cared for as a matter of priority. Throwing money at a ministry and paying others to do the church's work while making it look nice is not ministry in God's sight."

- Darrell Bock, The NIV Application Commentary on Luke, p.225

"The pastor who is always available will be of no use when he is available." H.B. Charles, Jr.

Needed wisdom from the blog of Pastor H.B. Charles, Jr.

your brain needs reflection

Here's an important post (important for me at least) that reminded me of the need to spend more time in reflection. Here's a quote that captures the essence of it:

"It’s when we engage our brains’ 'looking in' mode [i.e. reflecting]...that we make meaning out of the mass of experiences and information we encounter when we’re 'looking out.' [i.e. interacting with the world around us]."

Very important discipline for pastors (and Christians in general) to cultivate.

Your Ministry Is Not Your Identity - Paul Tripp

One day I'll probably write my own post on the subject, but it is so easy as a pastor to unknowingly allow allow the locus of your identity to be transferred from Christ to ministry. Paul Tripp writes a great post describing his own experience with that challenge. Important read.

what sermon prep really looks like

This post by Kevin DeYoung about sermon preparation is almost unbearably real lol. Glad I'm not the only one.

"somewhere along the way we have succumbed to the temptation to displace the foolishness of the cross with the wisdom of strategic planning"

A friend of mine sent me this quote today. Such a good reminder, based on 1 Corinthians 1:18, to trust God's power and wisdom over our own:


"At the moment, books are pouring off the presses telling us how to plan for success, how 'vision' consists in clearly articulated 'ministry goals,' how the knowledge of detailed profiles of our communities constitutes the key to successful outreach. I am not for a moment suggesting that there is nothing to be learned from such studies. But after a while one may perhaps be excused for marveling how many churches were planted by Paul and Whitefield and Wesley and Stanway and Judson without enjoying these advantages. Of course all of us need to understand the people to whom we minister, and all of us can benefit from small doses of such literature. But massive doses sooner or later dilute the gospel. Ever so subtly, we start to think that success more critically depends on thoughtful sociological analysis than on the gospel; Barna becomes more important than the Bible. We depend on plans, programs, vision statements—but somewhere along the way we have succumbed to the temptation to displace the foolishness of the cross with the wisdom of strategic planning. Again, I insist, my position is not a thinly veiled plea for obscurantism, for seat-of-the-pants ministry that plans nothing. Rather, I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed from the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights that take on far too much weight. Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed from idolatry." (D.A. Carson in The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.26)


This may seem to be lifting up a false dichotomy between gospel ministry and strategic planning. I don't think that's what D.A. Carson is doing. This is obviously a quote out of a book, from a publisher, and marketed to consumers. There was certainly some strategy in there. But I think the operative words are trust and depend. We should use the wisdom God has given us in strategic planning and demographic research, but at the end of the day we have to trust that the gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). Strategic planning done well will get us to the people who need the gospel but then we must rely on the gospel itself to do its work.

Confessions of a Gay Christian - Some Thoughts

I just read an article published in Relevant Magazine and I think it's an important article for Christians to read because it articulates a very painful struggle for some of the people in our churches. Here are several applications I took from it and I think Christians, especially Christian men, need to consider:

1. "Gay jokes" are unwise, insensitive, and unacceptable. If you struggle with this, I'd encourage you to study and meditate on Ephesians 4:29, James 3:9-12, and Matthew 12:33-37.
2. Christians tempted with same-sex attraction need the Church to be a community marked by humility, compassion, and truth. Humility = I'm not better than you. Compassion = I am drawn to you in love not repelled by you in disgust. Truth = Love is not synonymous with unbiblical compromise.
3. Christian men shouldn't be afraid of gay men. (I'm sure this applies to women also but seems to be predominant among men).
4. Parents, we MUST teach, emphasize, and model passion for the Gospel and not just the "rules" of Christianity. D.A. Carson says, and I agree, that people don't usually remember what you teach; they remember what you're passionate about.
5. Parents, we should create an environment where our children can doubt, ask questions, and seek truth. They will do that with or without your guidance.
6. Pastors, we can't just preach against homosexuality in the abstract, we must disciple people dealing with it.
7. Pastors, we need to equip the men in our churches to put off the homophobia of secular masculine culture, and put on the grace-and-truth-filled character of Jesus.
8. Christians who stay faithful to the biblical view of sexuality will be increasingly treated with disgust, "moral" indignation, and hostility. And yet, out of love for people and faith in God, we cannot cave in to societal pressure (2 Timothy 3; 1 Peter 4:12-19). Quite frankly, this is a hard one for me because many racists made the same argument for upholding New World slavery and, later, Jim Crow segregation. Bigotry has often been defended by appeals to purity. However, we must hold fast to truth, knowing that biblical truth, truth inspired by the Holy Spirit, is always accompanied by humility not self-righteousness, service not oppression. The wisdom of God has a distinctly humble quality to it (James 3:17). So while we will be treated like bigots, our lives must prove that to be a false accusation (1 Peter 2:12).
   
   

"If you teach people that the Bible is all about them, don’t be surprised when they think that the church is all about them." Dr. David Prince

praying for preaching

"It is of no use for me to preach to the people, my dear Christian brothers and sisters, unless you pray for them. It is of no use holding special services for the quickening of the spiritually dead unless the Holy Spirit is brought to them by our prayers. It may be that you who pray have more to do with the blessed results than we who preach." (Charles Spurgeon from a sermon in 1868 called Prayer-Meetings)

we need to get back to biblical discipleship

"We have programmed everything to death in our Church. We have rallied it, principalized it, best practiced it. We've gotten so confused...Whatever is the latest, greatest thing becomes a surrogate for discipleship. We need to get back to biblical discipleship, getting guys connected with Jesus and staying with Him." Crawford Loritts, Desiring God 2012 Pastors Conference

God accomplishes things through our prayers

2 Corinthians 1:8-11 is an amazing passage that shows the power of prayer. The New American Standard Bible captures the flow accurately because the end of verse 10 is the beginning of one sentence that goes through the end of verse 11.

Crazy that Paul trusts God to deliver him and his ministry partners from persecution (v10) but says that the church participates in that by helping with their prayers (v11)!!!

Sometimes I really do underestimate the effectiveness of prayer. But the Bible is so clear that prayer is a means through which God accomplishes his purposes.

May we be people who wholeheartedly and maybe even illogically believe in the God to whom we pray!

Here is a great sermon answering the question "Why pray if God knows everything and has planned everything?" One of the most clear and concise messages I've heard on the subject.