Lazy Preaching

This thought came to me a few minutes ago:

Lazy preaching is the result of 1 of 2 things, and probably both: The preacher doesn't care too much about God. The preacher doesn't care too much about those who listen to him.

Church Growth is Important

It seems there are two extremes in our culture. One extreme is to think that it's most important to fill your pews/seats during every service with as many people as possible and to do whatever you have to in order to accomplish this. I'm referring to those who are less concerned with the Biblical definition of the church, and more concerned with how big they can get.

The other extreme, however, are those who do not find it all that important to grow. They say things like, "the church is for the gathering of the believers and so we do not expect to be very big because we're not going to be like the other churches who are compromising everything to reach people." I've fallen victim to this way of thinking on many occasions.

However, I believe these are both extremes. We should genuinely want the church to grow. We should long to see the church gatherings full and overflowing. However, we don't want the gathering of people to grow just to grow. We should long for the church (those who are believers in Christ) to grow. We should long to see many people come to faith in Christ and to grow in Christlikeness until the day they are made perfect before God.

So how do we do this? In my daily Bible reading today, I read Acts 6. At the beginning of Acts 6 Luke writes about the fact that the apostles needed other men to serve the people because they were going to continue to focus on the ministry of the Word (verse 4). The key to church growth is found in verse 7, "And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith." So my answer is this: the way we grow, and long to grow, is through the ministry of the word of God. If you lose that in the pursuit of church growth, then you've lost being the church. Keep the Word of God central to all you do and long and strive for others to see Christ through the ministry of the Word!

What are you Reading?

I'm always looking for the best books to read. Presently I'm working my way through the ESV Bible, Whiter than Snow, Holiness Day by Day, The Pursuit of Holiness, and Calvin's Institutes. I would certainly recommend if you do not read anything else, read the Bible. It's by far the most important thing you'll ever read. However, if you have time, I would recommend every book I just mentioned. Once I finish them, I'll post some reasons why, but so far they are all great and very beneficial. What are you presently reading and would you recommend it/them to others?

Friday's Question

I thought it would be good to try to get some thoughts from you, so I've decided to ask a question every Friday about your week. This week's question is:

What have you learned about God this week?

Given the fact that many people have just started a new Bible reading schedule, that would be particularly helpful. I'm looking forward to your answers.

Jim Elliot

Justin Childers is pastor of Christ Baptist Church of Wilson, NC and also a great blogger. He has posted a video today and some great quotes about the death of Jim Elliot and the other missionaries killed while taking the gospel to an unknown people. Take 10 minutes to watch the video. It's well worth your time.

Search and See...and India

For those of you who do not know Wil Owens and his ministry in missions, you're missing out. I've been privileged to go to India with Wil twice. I've worked with a ministry in South India on both occasions, and went to Northern India during one of those trips as well. Wil's ministry, Search and See Ministries, is constantly raising money for others around the world. This year's project is focused on Kenya. Today Wil posted an update on the Christmas Project for 2008. Check it out and check out more about how you can help serve those in other places of the world.

Your Faith will be Tested!

I had the privilege of beginning a preaching series through the book of James yesterday with our church. I began by preaching James 1:1-4 and it was perhaps the most excitement I'd had preaching a sermon. It was one of those times when I felt it was exactly the right text for our church. However, it had nothing to do with me. In fact, in preparing for the sermon I realized how I had not obeyed the command of verse 2 in my life, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds." That seems like an absurd command if you don't read the next two verses. Even after you do read them, it sounds better, but it's still just about impossible I think. The next two verses say, "for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

I believe the trials talked about here are both great and small. They range from the smallest testing of our faith to the persecution that many believers face all over the world. So my question for our church was, "how do we do this?" The connection, I think, is found in verse 3 and verse 5 (which I preached last night). In verse three it says that they "know" a fact about the testing of their faith. In verse 5 it talks about asking God for wisdom (living out that knowledge). So the connection is that since you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and that leads to perfection and completion in the trial, we should ask God for wisdom to live through the trial in such a way that we can count it as joy.

Having just gone through one of the most difficult trials of my life, I realized how unbelievably unprepared I was for it. So my challenge to all of us is that we prepare now for the trials that WILL come. No one is exempt from this. Trials are coming. The only way to count them as joy is to know that God is working through the trial to accomplish a great work in us. The only way to persevere is to know that God is completing something in the believer through the trial.

One more final thought about this (and there are many more that could be said), this is not something that can happen isolated away from the church. I do not know of anyone who can meet trial after trial and ALWAYS count them all as joy. We need each other. We need to be lifted up in prayer by our brothers and sisters. We need to be encouraged to remember that God is working through that test of faith to strengthen us and conform us to the image of Christ. This is one of the many tasks that can only happen well when the church sees the importance of it.

By the way, thank you to those few friends in my life who pointed me in the right direction during the trial. I was blind to my sinful reactions. I confess them before God and thank you for holding me to a higher standard.

The Holy Walk

Jerry Bridges:

Our reactions to circumstances are a part of our walk of holiness. Holiness is not a series of do's and don'ts, but conformity to the character of God and obedience to the will of God. Accepting with contentment whatever circumstances God allows for me is very much a part of a holy walk.

Taken from pages 68-69 of The Pursuit of Holiness

Dependence

I've been thinking much lately about my dependence upon the Lord. It's commonplace for Christians to say they are absolutely dependent upon God for all things. I've said it. I want to say I believe it. However, this thought has constantly ran through my mind over the past couple of weeks:

Your prayer life will display if you really believe you are dependent upon Him for all things.

What I mean is this. If we truly believed that we were dependent upon Him for everything, would our prayer life not be much better?

Why Read the Bible?

I didn't put on my reading list the other day that I was also going to read the Bible this year. I assumed that was without question, but why would it be? After all, often times in the past I have began to read the Bible only to not finish and then start back up the next year. Of course, I'm not alone in this, I hear of this happening all the time. Last year I even decided not to read through the Bible in a year because I wanted to focus on reading and meditating on specific passages. They may have worked for some, but it didn't for me. I read less than any other year I think (though I really don't know). This year I'm using a Bible reading plan that several others are using. That made me ask this question, "Why read the Bible through in a year?"

There are probably several answers I could give such as: to become like Christ, to grow in holiness, to honor God, to show my absolute dependence upon Him for everything, to know more of God, to be a better husband, father, pastor, man, Christian, and the list goes on. However, my main reason is because the Bible is God's revelation of Himself to man. If we want to know God, we must know Him through the avenue that He has given us. We must read the Bible because in the Bible we see God!

From a pastoral standpoint, one of the things I've noticed most in the few churches I've served in is that most people do not even have the basic, overall view of the Bible. They know many things that have been told them (which we all do), but often times have never read the deeps trues that are found in the Scriptures (particularly the Old Testament). So with that being said, we need to capture a good overview of the Bible by reading through it each year (or more) so that we will better know God and be able to better worship Him in Spirit and truth. I plead with you my readers, read the Word of God this year!