Here are the most important lessons God has taught me in these first ten years of pastoral ministry.
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Pastoral Leadership
Have you ever stood before your congregation, wondering if your preaching truly resonates, glorifies God, and effectively impacts hearts? Biblical preaching isn't merely about delivering a message; it's about clearly and passionately explaining the unsearchable riches of Christ, ensuring God alone is glorified.
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Expository Bible preaching is a method of preaching that focuses on explaining and applying a specific passage of Scripture, verse by verse, in its original context. This approach aims to faithfully communicate the intended meaning of the biblical text, allowing the structure and content of the passage to shape the sermon’s main points and subpoints. By systematically working through books of the Bible, expository preaching ensures that the full counsel of God is proclaimed, helping congregations to understand and apply the entirety of Scripture to their lives.
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Nothing compares to the privilege of serving in the house of the Lord! My heart echoes David’s: “For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Psalm 84:10).
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Forty years ago today, I was ordained into the gospel ministry. As I look back over the past four decades, I say with the apostle Paul, “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry” (1 Timothy 1:12).
Aside from my salvation and my family, there has been no greater joy in life than to serve Christ as a preacher of the gospel.
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This month I will celebrate my fortieth year being ordained as a Baptist pastor. No one could have prepared me for the changes that were ahead in the church and ministerial landscape over this forty-year period.
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When most of us think of ministry work, we think of shepherding people, leading souls to Jesus, and teaching and preaching God’s Word. Yet for these essential roles to be successfully fulfilled, there is an unglamorous, easily-neglected side of local church ministry—the administrative side of managing projects and processes. It’s the daily grind, and, frankly, it doesn’t come naturally for many ministry leaders. But local church ministry benefits from intentional strategies and processes.
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One of the great privileges of the pastor is to shepherd church members through difficult seasons. What can you do as a pastor to help and encourage?
One of the great privileges of the pastor is to shepherd church members through difficult seasons. What can you do as a pastor to help and encourage?
1. Point them to the Lord. We can and should pray for people. We can and should encourage them. We can and should share biblical truth with them. But their primary relationship is not with us but with the Lord. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3).
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I am nearing my ninetieth birthday. I made public my call to preach on Thanksgiving night of 1954. A few days after that I preached my first sermon in the prayer meeting service of the Black Oak Baptist Church in Gary, Indiana.
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Recently, as the Lord saw fit to have me walk down this road once again, I began to write down some of the things that God has been teaching me about the process
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We are tempted to think that the time in which we live is the worst time in the history of civilization. That’s nonsense. The Bible speaks of a time when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25). What is new, however, is the way in which Christians have succumbed to social pressure during such a time. I believe some Christians’ lack of indignation at what we see in our world today is not a sign of their spirituality but of their indifference.
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Have You Strayed from Your Message?
Sometimes in preaching it seems that the Scripture text has as much to do with the sermon as the National Anthem has to do with a football game—it gets everything started, but you never hear from it again.
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Maturity Does Not Happen Automatically
It’s true for people, and it’s true and for churches: the passing of time does not guarantee the development of maturity. When it comes to church growth, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of measuring only numeric growth or decline.
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7 Thoughts on Leadership in Time of Crisis
Times of crisis are the most difficult times to lead. The leader faces all of the same pressures and difficulties that everyone else does. On top of that, he carries the weight of the organization and the people within it upon his shoulders.
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Thirty-four years ago this summer, the Lord brought our family to Lancaster, California. On our first Sunday night service, I preached a message from Philippians 1:27 which not only set the direction of our church for these past thirty-four years, but also became our theme verse.
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These next few weeks are going to hold changes for all of us as our communities work through the challenges posed by COVID-19.
In the midst of these uncharted times, we who know Christ, can still proactively practice faith. And even when our world is turned upside down, we can trust that God is in control and that He is working.
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In recent days, we have been wisely encouraged by medical professionals to practice social distancing to help avoid the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19.
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Revival Preaching Is Biblical
With the rise of interest in real, scriptural revival has come concern in some quarters that seeking and preaching revival might do us harm. Some voices express the fear that a revival emphasis will bring disappointment that will hurt faith.
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An echo chamber is a lousy place to serve. Isolating ourselves to hear only an echo of our own opinions keeps us from growth. This is because part of the process of growth is for our thinking to be challenged.
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Ministry Is All about Relationships
You cannot be a recluse and be effective as a pastor. If you are called to a shepherding role of ministry, you must be actively engaged in healthy relationship building you want to be eternally effective. Ministry, and life for that matter, is all about relationships.
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