When Church Leaders Get Gossiped About
Great advice.
How Do We Deal With “Problem People” in Our Churches?
A bit of advice on dealing with those who are mentally struggling. I really like his six bullet points at the beginning.
Five Truths About Eternal Security
Oh, what a precious doctrine this is.
I remember stumbling over this text at one point early on. Bill Mounce provides a great answer.
Well that looked fun:
Day 31: That we would persevere in prayer
May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, –Romans 15:5
You did it! I’ve ended every thirty-one day challenge with an exhortation to keep on praying. I pray your soul has been nourished for these thirty-one days and I’m confident the Lord has heard the prayers of His saints. And so today I want to pray that we would continue praying for our churches. As you keep going I pray that the God of endurance and encouragement would cause you to endure in love for your church. May Christ be glorified as you continue to minister to your church through praying for her.
Lord, thank you for all those that have prayed for their church. I pray that they would continue. Help me to continue praying for our church as well. Cause us to endure in this great endeavor. May Christ be glorified through us. Transform our churches, our homes, our communities, and our world for His name. May our time of prayer ever remind our souls of our utter dependence upon You. Amen.
“I don’t want to eat the king’s food.”
“You can’t do that. If you don’t eat the king’s food then you’re not going to look nearly as healthy as the other people your age. And doing that is going to get my head lopped off. If you want to be healthy you’ve got to eat the king’s food.”
“How about you give us ten days, I’ll pick my menu without any of the king’s food and you feed your guys the king’s food and we’ll see who looks better?”
And Daniel and his men looked healthy and continued to find favor with the Lord. Whenever the king would enquire of these young men he’d find them “ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters”.
Eventually we see that the King ends up praising Daniel’s God as the true God.
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“We want to reach this community for Jesus”, says Podunk Baptist Church.
The seasoned pastor at Podunk responds: “Me too, but we all know how difficult it will be to reach this community. They aren’t the kind who are just going to show up on a Sunday morning and be interested in the sermon. They can barely read. Most of them are drunks and/or drug addicts. If we’re going to reach them then we’ll need something to hook them. If we don’t, then our church isn’t going to grow, and if I’m being honest I know that means I’ll lose my job and be seen as an ineffective pastor.”
“Very well, then,” the church decides, “we’ll mix a bit of the king’s food with our gospel presentation. We’ll figure out what they want and give it to them and then once we’ve got their attention we will tell them about Jesus. We’ll devote our entire summer to reaching this community and at the end our time we’ll see how effective our mission has been.”
But Podunk and her pastor didn’t look much healthier. In fact she looked much worse. Bedraggled, discouraged, and starting to bubble over with bitterness and anger. It became apparent that after only a bit of time that this community really only wanted the king’s food and not the King’s gospel.
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So, pastor do you, as Daniel did, trust that God’s Word and God’s methods are best? Or do you think you need to add a bit of the king’s food to your diet in order to maintain an appearance of health?
You don’t need the king’s food. We serve the lion of the tribe of Judah. Uncage Him, he’ll do the work.
A great many learned men are defending the gospel; no doubt it is a very proper and right thing to do, yet I always notice that, when there are most books of that kind, it is because the gospel itself is not being preached. Suppose a number of persons were to take it into their heads that they had to defend a lion, a full-grown king of beasts! There he is in the cage, and here come all the soldiers of the army to fight for him. Well, I should suggest to them, if they would not object, and feel that it was humbling to them, that they should kindly stand back, and open the door, and let the lion out! I believe that would be the best way of defending him, for he would take care of himself; and the best “apology” for the gospel is to let the gospel out. Never mind about defending Deuteronomy or the whole of the Pentateuch; preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. Let the Lion out, and see who will dare to approach him. The Lion of the tribe of Judah will soon drive away all his adversaries. –Charles Spurgeon
Go gospel or go home!
Good Behavior Matters After All
I’ve always appreciated the work of Christopher J.H. Wright.
Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage
Josh Buice does a great job outlining a difficult topic.
“What is CCS”, you ask? David Roseberry explains
I believe there are implications here to consider for pastors and counselors.
I don’t watch Ellen but this looks like a pretty funny thing she does:
