Considering Ministry?

...examine your own heart, your motives, very carefully. Very few ministers serve large, thriving churches. If that is your vision of what is ahead discount it. God may open up such formidable doors of opportunity; but you cannot count on it, and it must form no part of your decision. The overwhelming majority of pastors serve relatively small and unprepossessing churches. Many of them are called on to do what no amount of money could ever reimburse them for - officiating at the funeral of the town drunk whose intoxicated live-in girlfriend shrieks and mutters throughout the sparesly attended funeral service; burying a child dead of cancer at the age of nine months; presiding over a church broken up by angry and powerful members who show nothing of forebearance or grace (or even good sense). Out of the heat of these and countless other impossibily difficult circumstances, a heart for ministry (in the old sense of that word) is confirmed.

Read through Paul's epistles rather rapidly in three or four sittings and observe that it was his relations with Christians that gave him the greatest pain. Should you end up in vocational ministry, your experience will not be any different. By all means, talk to the leaders of your church and work through the Biblical passages on elders, pastors and overseers; but above all seek the Lord's face in prayer. You need not demand a kind of Damacus-road experience - few enjoy so immediate an experience of call. But if you know nothing of Spirit-prompted compulsion and a servant heart that has, as far as you know, counted the cost, I beg of you to relinquish all aspirations to pastoral ministry.

DA Carson & John D Woodbridge
Letters Along the Way, (Crossway 1993), p136

Pollokshaws Demolition (20 July 08)

Bringing down strongholds..

Another great clip that I couldn't embed can be found: HERE

Examining the Emergent Church

A must-read this summer...

Why We're Not Emergent (by two guys who should be),
Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck (Moody Publishers, 2008)

You may not have heard much about the 'Emergent Church' - but you will increasingly hear its views coming through in conversations about what Christianity & Church should look like in the C21. So getting up to speed on the thinking behind the EC and its theology is increasingly important for thinking Christians and church leaders.

The book is written by two '20/30 somethings' who write alternate chapters. DeYoung is a pastor who theologically analyses the writings and beliefs of the EC 'movement' (or 'conversation' as EC's prefer to call it). These chapters give a good solidly biblical assessment of the EC.

Kluck writes from 'street level' reflecting on the EC as he encounters it as an ordinary church member (going to EC churches, conferences and reading its popular books). His chapters are refreshingly written (he is a sports journalist by profession), full of telling observations and laced with a dry wit.

The book is a much easier read than Don Carson's 'Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church' - so if you found that heavy weather don't be put off reading this. It was one of those books I found myself sneaking off to read - it was genuinely enjoyable.

The title obviously gives away where it’s going - but its strength is in its fairness. It's not a rant or a snide dig at the EC - it acknowledges its strengths and its challenges. It steers away from being partisan and tribal. So whatever your views on the EC (or even if you don't have any yet) - this is a subject you need to know about and this, to quote Mark Dever's review, is 'a book we've been waiting for'.

Full List of Posts: July 2008 - July 2009

The Blue Parakeet
Leadership - Corinthian or Christian?
Evangelicals & Secularists United!
In the beginning...
Hope for Ordinary Joes
A Hill Worth Fighting On?
Words Fail Me
for attaining wisdom...(5)
Wayne's World
Character
for attaining wisdom...(4)
Praise Gathering '09
Piper on Preaching
for attaining wisdom...(3)
for attaining wisdom...(2)
for attaining wisdom...(1)
Humble Arrogance
Godly Fear
Thought Life
Harvest Church Plant
Easter Sunday - The Emotions
Easter Sunday - The Time
Easter Sunday - The Stone
Stretching preaching
Keller debate with atheist Norman Bacrac
Contains strong gospel content
The 'Jesus Test'
Harvest Bible Church
Right Relationships
Blood, toil, tears and sweat
6 O'Clock Theology Shop
Commander-in- Chief
Oh how He loves us.
New Cornhill Evening Classes
A Word from Ezra & Nehemiah
Christmas Gift
Taking Liberties
The Shack - a review
Be Gentle
SNAG 2008/09 - Faith or Fantasy
Day 5: Parched - Overwhelmed - Misjudged?
Day 4: Parched - Overwhelmed - Misjudged?
Day 3: Parched - Overwhelmed - Misjudged?
Day 2: Parched - Overwhelmed - Misjudged?
Parched - Overwhelmed - Misjudged?
Having a Laugh..
Tim Keller at Google
Lakeland's Legacy
Mind Games
On 'Mars Hill' Edinburgh
Considering Ministry?
Pollokshaws Demolition (20 July 08)
Examining the Emergent Church
Relevant Church

Relevant Church

Church seeks to change historic beliefs in order to be more reflective of modern society....

Confessions of a Failed Atheist

Interesting....

"Do your fear death yourself?' 'Yeah. I think most people do. It's a cliche but you fear what's going to come afterwards, even though I don't think anything will come afterwards. Fear is probably the wrong word but I don't want to die."

Interview with John Humphrys in The Times Magazine, 14 June 2008.

John Humphrys has recently written a book called In God We Doubt: Confessions of a Failed Atheist (Hodder).

Honouring God with Empty Hands

Further to the post below (Paul's All or Nothing Gospel, June 08) - Miroslav Volf puts it this way...

"To want to earn benefits from God or to receive them as payback is to say three wrong things at once: (1) God is a negotiator God; (2) we can give something to God in exchange for something we want; and (3) we are agents independent of God who can relate to God any way we find to our liking. None of these things is true, however. God is not a negotiator but a pure giver. We can give nothing to God but have received eveything from God. Finally, we are not independent of God but are living on a given breath. To fail to recognise these things is to live blindly and to claim God's gifts as our own achievements. To recognise these truths is to understand ourselves as who we truly are, fundamentally receivers.

And that brings us to faith. Faith is not something we give to God. In that case, faith would be a work, and a silly kind of work because it would be work we do even though it doesn't benefit anyone. But exactly the opposite is true. To have faith in God is to be 'without works' before God (Romans 4:5). Faith is the way we as receivers relate appropriately to God as the giver. It is empty hands held open for God to fill. That's why, as Luther put it, faith 'honours God', it tells the truth about God and our relation to the divine Giver and ascribes to God what is due. In contrast, good works offered to God dishonour God; they tell a lie about God and our relation to the divine Giver, and they take away God's due."

M Volf, Free of Charge, (Zondervan, 2005), p43