Posts Tagged ‘Pastoral Ministry’

In hindsight, my first sermon was an absolute train wreck. Even now, I pray it was not recorded and that it does not someday surface in my life. My feeble attempt to preach was earnest, but the finished product was no doubt laughable.

Looking back, there are a few tips I wish I had been given as a beginning preacher. Let me share eight of them with you: Read more

How does a pastor most healthily balance ministerial service with family time? This tension is felt by all who serve the church, and resides just under the surface in many congregations. Sadly, many men leave the ministry due to erring one way or the other in what is often a delicate balance. Read more

Gospel ministers, myself included, tend to identify most readily with Paul’s exhortation to “preach the Word.” The Scriptural emphasis on preaching, and the romance of God’s call to preach, prompts most pastors to conceptualize themselves fundamentally as a preacher, and their most urgent responsibility, to preach.

While not minimizing the Apostle’s exhortation to preach the Word, a different one of Paul’s charges has held my attention most recently—“do the work of an evangelist.” Doing the work of an evangelist is a charge every pastor must hold fast, and every church must expect of its ministers. This is especially true in my own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. Read more

A good friend who’d completed his Ph.D. a few years before I completed mine gave me advice that was, in hindsight, absolutely essential. He told me, “Whatever you do, pick a topic to write your dissertation on that absolutely captivates you; that will animate you day in and day out until you complete your dissertation.”

That advice is good for those entering doctoral work, but it is even better for those contemplating ministry. Unless you have a singular, overarching passion that will pull you forward in ministry, it may be best not to pursue it. That passion must be for the gospel and the Great Commission. Read more

For pastors, preaching and teaching God’s Word has a way of stripping us all bare; it exposes us and puts our gifting on public display. You can’t finesse your way through a sermon with polished appearance, warm people skills, or seminary credentials alone. In the moment of truth, your ability—or lack thereof—to teach and preach God’s Word reveals much about your calling.

This is the way it should be because the one called to the ministry is called to a ministry of the Word. God sets him apart to teach and preach His Word. This clarifying stipulation both challenges and reassures us. Those whom God has truly called; he has truly gifted for the task. Every pastor must be gifted to teach the Word; and every qualified pastor is. Read more