Ministry

According to the Word of God!

“Let the pastors boldly dare all things by the word of God, of which they are constituted administrators.  Let them constrain all the power, glory, and excellence of the world to give place to and to obey the divine majesty of the word.  Let then enjoin everyone by it, from the highest to the lowest.  …

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Servants of God, Not Ourselves

“A Christian minister is a person who is “not his own” (1Cor. 6:19); he is the servant of God, and therefore ought to be wholly devoted to him.  By entering on that sacred office he solemnly undertakes to be always engaged as much as possible in the Lord’s work, and not to choose his own …

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Success or Service?

    This past week, I preached at my church’s “Traditions” worship service on Sunday evening geared toward our older generation.  I was thrilled to see about a dozen younger faces attend this service for the first time.  One couple in particular sat on the front row.  They looked “young and hip” (especially for this service where …

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The Ministry of Influence

“Not all ministry in the church is verbal; not all ministry is prominent.  But all Christians are called upon to set a standard of talk and life that influences a new generation of converts in a godly and Christ-honoring way.” -D.A. Carson, Basic for Believers: An Exposition of Philippians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 94.

Crash Test Your Church

In the Video below, you will see a crash test between a 2009 Chevy Malibu and a 1959 Chevy Bel-Air.  The head to head test was created and performed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to highlight the advances that have been made in vehicle safety over the past fifty years.  Practical wisdom would …

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Friday is for Family

Balancing the responsibilities of family and ministry can be very difficult to say the least. Pastor and professor, Hershael York, recently wrote a great article about this very subject entitled “Pastoral Margins: finding balance in ministry and life.” Dr. York writes, “Though the complexity of life guarantees that ministers will always feel some tension between …

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Monday Musings

Even in little things the minister should take care that his life is consistent with his ministry.  He should be especially careful never to fall short of his word.  This should be pushed even to scrupulosity; we cannot be too careful; truth must not only be in us, but shine from us. -C.H. Spurgeon, Lectures …

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Monday Musings

“The more the truth is turned away from, so much the more proclaim it.  God will see to the issue.  ‘So we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.’  Such is the faith of which we are speaking, as of such importance in our ministry.” -Charles P. McIlvaine, Preaching Christ: An …

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Monday Musings

“There will be very few people who are honest enough to say, ‘I don’t like your message, I don’t like to submit to this God.  Yes, what you’re saying is in the Bible.  But I reject the Bible because I don’t want God’s authority over my life.’  A thoroughly honest person like that is more …

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“Advice to a Son in the Ministry” By Basil Manly, Jr.

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As I look back upon it [his life] it seems to me a great catalogue of short-comings. Much that I had planned, I have never attempted-much that I attempted has only partially succeeded. With dying Grotius, I feel much like exclaiming-“Eheu, vitam perdidi laborious, nihil agenda” (I have spent my life laboriously doing nothing). As far as I can, I would like to guard you against my mistakes.

One of my besetting sins has been procrastination. This has not been purely a result of indolence, but often of indecision, and like many other faults, it has connected itself with a virtue, or at least assumed its semblance, i.e., the prudence which does nothing rashly, and decides nothing before time. Hence, often while hesitating, new information has come to me, which turned the scale of decision, and without which I might have decided wrongly. But on the other hand, sometimes while hesitating the golden moment for action has passed, and I have found myself like the dilatory rustic, who is just too late for the train, gazing at the departing opportunity, open mouthed and astonished.-I have decided to fix for myself the rule always to do the day’s work in a day; and when my work is of a sort that it can be measured off, and ascertained to be done, I can observe the rule pretty well. But much of my work is of a sort which knows no limit or completion. . . . The right apportionment of time, when either one of half dozen things that claim one’s attention is sufficient to absorb it all-is often a problem of no small difficulty.

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