Feeling a call to full-time ministry?

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I heard of a talk a few years ago where the speaker asked everyone in full-time ministry to raise their hand. A handful of pastors, youth workers, worship leaders and so on waved their hand in the air. At this point the speaker said: ‘All of you should have raised your hand, because you’re all in full-time ministry!’

Easy enough for him to say, he was in full-time ministry.

I get what he meant though; just because you go to a secular workplace, look after the kids or go to school rather than get paid to pray, read the Bible and have cups of tea with nice old ladies doesn’t mean your work isn’t ‘ministry’. (That is what pastors do all day, isn’t it?)

The problem is that designing a spreadsheet that shows profit and loss for some random department doesn’t feel a lot like ministry; praying for people sounds a lot more similar to Jesus than working on the help desk. No worries though, rest assured that because you earn more than the comparable position in the church, you can afford to give more to support the church; that’s your real ministry.

Which is a bit sucky, really.

As a guy who works full-time in a secular organisation, am I allowed to say that being in full-time ministry means working hard, being kind to coworkers, gracefully applauding others’ efforts and even missing out on promotions for the sake of others? And that really matters to Jesus?

God is looking for faithfulness, not just fruitfulness.

What Protestant pastors believe about evolution

LifeWay carries out a lot of interesting research, and this particularly struck me as interesting. A random sample of 1,000 Protestant pastors in the USA were asked about their beliefs when it came to evolution/creation, the literal existence of Adam and Eve, and the age of the earth. Here’s the summary graphic:

Perhaps I’m cynical but I’d have expected far more to lean towards evolution! The most surprising fact for me, however, comes in the detail:

…younger pastors are the least likely age bracket to strongly disagree that the earth is 6,000 years old…24 percent age 18-44 strongly disagree

So, this post-modern, liberal, cynical younger generation of pastors are actually more likely to believe in a ‘young earth’ – who’da thunk it?!

What size church is best

Image by jcoterhals via Flickr

A friend told me recently about some article he was reading which went into detail about what church size is the best one – the conclusion he came to was that regardless of size, the local church should comprise one member due to its unity in the Spirit. I agree with the concepts although the way the author got there seems to me a bit cheesy I’m sure I’m often guilty of the same crime…

Anyhow I’ve been listening to the excellent seminars available from the TOAM conference and really enjoyed Steve Tibbert’s session on church structures and programmes. Something he said stood out to me – he referenced a paper by Tim Keller, so I looked it up.

Keller suggests that the size of a local church can actually make far more difference than we may think; we may be affected more by the size of a church than by its doctrine. Moving to a smaller or larger church could therefore have more of an impact on us spiritually than moving to a local church of another denomination if it was a similar size.

Anyway, Keller’s article can be found here for your joy, and if you like that there are plenty more over here.

A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards (audio)

This book has been designed to address situations that happen too often in local churches. Maybe the church leader is a bit of an authoritarian. Perhaps a church member thinks he should have more authority than he currently does. Perhaps the church leader is taking the church in the wrong direction. Gene Edwards takes the biblical accounts of Saul, David and Absalom to see how we should react.

The book is written in a dramatic way, which really draws the reader in. It’s not a detailed exposition of Scripture but some quite detailed Bible knowledge is required to understand what’s going on. The language is fluid, dynamic, and personal. It jumps from storytelling to dialogue to direct engagement with the reader. I loved the style.

In terms of content I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like it. Edwards is unashamed to directly address local church issues; if you are in a church and your senior pastor  is doing things you disapprove of, how should you react? What if he starts to personally attack you? And what if you are the leader and you have someone in your congregation who is looking to split the church? Gene Edwards is not scared to tackle real issues, and he’s not scared to radically pursue biblical standards.

Audio is a great medium for this book. The narrator is perfect for it, and the style of the book lends itself very well to an audio version.

I’d recommend this book to every church leader, and anyone who’s a Christian and involved in leadership to any extent. This book is excellent and will highlight areas for improvement in your character, together with appropriate responses.

I got this audiobook for free from christianaudio.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.

My sermon

I preached on Sunday on Nehemiah 1 – hope you enjoyed it if you were there as much as I did (afterwards – I was nervous as anything before)!

Anyway, just thought I’d point out that it’s on the internet for your joy now so you can download the notes and the audio right here!

You can also find the links on my website.

Welcome to my blog!

So apparently I’m now a blogger…how did this happen?

I am a reader of many blogs but through various links I discovered John Piper’s 6 reasons pastors should blog article. I believe that I have been called by God to be a pastor and so, therefore, felt stirred to give myself a good foundation now!

I hope that I actually write some interesting thoughts and that this blog helps people (like me) who read blogs for help!

Anyway, that’s plenty for a first post. Because I’m new at this I’ll probably write another in about ten minutes, I’m just that excited about it…we’ll see.