Tag: Ministry

Our Tomorrows

We are beginning a season of ministry transition. By the end of this school year I will have taught pastoral studies at Faith Baptist Bible College for 9 years. It has been the opportunity of a lifetime.

As I look back over the seasons of life God has led us through, I have profound thankfulness for each one. My college and seminary years, serving as a youth pastor for four years, pastor of one church for nine years, then pastor of another church for twelve years – each stage has been laid out in front of us by God’s clear leading, and in each we have grown in new ways and served as God’s instrument enabled by His wisdom and strength. My years as a professor and program chair of pastoral studies are no exception. The “works that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10) include our time in the Bible college setting, and we give thanks to Him.

I can’t put into words the privilege it has been for me to invest these years of my life into helping equip a new generation of pastors. The young men I work with are eager to learn, to mature, and to serve in Christ’s church-building work. I thank God for each one of them, and I’m filled with hope for the fruit they will bring to churches in the years ahead.   Our school has entered a new era of leadership, commitment to mission, and effectiveness. The growing student body is warm-hearted toward the Lord and passionate about devoting their lives to serve Christ. We have been blessed to work with colleagues whose theological precision and depth has matured our thinking and whose sincere heart for the Lord has truly encouraged us in our walk with Him.

The church plant Faith and I joined about a year ago is experiencing phenomenal growth. As the gospel is preached and spread in the community, people are believing, being saved and baptized, and added to the church. Praise God! The lead pastor and three other elders are running hard to keep up with the growth. There is an immediate need for additional pastoral leadership to help shepherd the flock, equip leaders, and develop corporate structure.

As a result of extensive prayer and fasting, deliberation, and a unanimous decision together, the elders asked me to consider becoming the full-time Pastor of Ministry Development. After a process of prayer and fasting, meditation on scripture, numerous conversations with my wife, and consultation with counselors, I concluded I should be open to God’s leading toward this new ministry.

We will proceed through a confirmation process culminating in a congregational vote in December. Assuming all goes positively (I have no Plan B), I will finish teaching at the end of the 2024-25 school year. I’ll begin the pastoral role part-time in January of 2025 and transition to full-time with the church in July. My wife Faith will step back from full-time teaching to serve along with me in the church but may continue as an adjunct professor.

I spent last weekend attending the 50th anniversary celebration of a church my parents and I helped start. As I stood with the congregation of this now thriving ministry, within a few miles of the two homes where I lived as a 9- to 15-year-old boy, and raised my voice with a few other founding members and a whole new generation of Christ-followers, I was overcome by the realization of God’s goodness in my life. These words of one of the hymns we sang intersected so profoundly with my experience this very week:

May zealous youth and cautious age
Determine not the steps we choose
Great Shepherd, guide us through each day
Oh, how we want to follow You
Come Living Way, our way make clear
Let perfect love drive out our fear
Be Thou our vision, now and here
And all of our tomorrows1

“Cautious age” caught my attention. At a time of life when I might remain in a safe and comfortable place vocationally and soon start gliding toward something like retirement, my heart needs to remain open to whatever new assignment the Great Shepherd, my Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:1-4), has for me.

If this new role is His plan for my tomorrows, I am ready, trusting, taking the steps He puts in front of me. What a joyous adventure to serve our Lord, our Savior, our Shepherd-King.

  1. All Of Our Tomorrows, Sovereign Grace Music ↩︎

New Books

Photo by Janson A. on Pexels.com

One new book was just published and another is on the way!

When I started teaching college pastoral classes, I developed the concept of a series of steps leading toward ministry. It started as a chart and grew into a booklet that my pastoral students read. That material has been adapted for this little book, because I think it can help young men who are curious about, interested in, or seriously considering pastoral ministry. It can also be used by pastors, youth pastors, and parents to help young men who are thinking about ministry. Take a look at Pathway to Pastoral Ministry: First Steps for Young Men.

A few years ago I was asked to speak at a conference on the topic, “The Healthy Pastor.” My study for that presentation awakened awareness and concern for pastors’ personal lives. Too many pastors burn, bail, or crash out. That started me researching and writing on the need for pastors to pay attention to their personal health. The manuscript is complete and the publishing process is underway. The Healthy Pastor: Stewarding Your Personal Life for Long-Term Ministry should be published in early 2025.

There’s also good news about my first book, The Thriving Church: The True Measure of Growth (2019). The first printing sold out, and JourneyForth has a second printing planned! I am always blessed to hear of churches and individuals benefiting from this resource. The truths in Ephesians 4:1-16 guide church members and pastors to cultivate a growing church.

My passion to write is still burning! I have more books in my head and look forward to getting them on paper. My college is encouraging faculty to write and facilitating the process through Faith Publications. This has opened a new era of publishing and extended the influence of Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary.

Thanks to all who support, encourage, and read!

Lessons in Ministry Love

Ernest Thompson Seton was an adventurer, artist, and writer who recorded his journey to northern Canada in his book The Arctic Prairies. He tells the story of an Algonquin woman whose village starved to death in winter. She and her infant son, the only survivors set out from the camp, hoping to reach another village where there might be food. Along the way she discovered a cache of supplies in a hollow tree, including a small bone fish hook. She had nothing to use for bait so she used her knife to slice a strip of flesh from her leg, baited her hook with it, and caught a fish. They ate, and she used pieces from the fish to catch more, and so they survived the winter.

A mother’s love compels her to do whatever is necessary for the good of her child. Genuine ministry is compelled by love. When we love others we will do them good, even at great personal cost. The model for our love is not a mother, but Jesus.

In John 13 we find Jesus teaching His disciples lessons in ministry love. Notice how John sets the scene in verse 1. Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. John summed up the disciples’ experience with Jesus this way: “He loved His own.” Then he added another word of eyewitness testimony:  “He loved them to the end.”

This prepositional phrase, “unto the end,” can designate time, meaning up to the point of his death, or his departure for heaven. He loved them to the end of His ministry in their presence.

The Greek phrase eis telos can also indicate completeness, to the full extent, or even extreme. Several translations reflect this meaning with the phrase, “to the uttermost.” He loved them completely. He showed them the full extent of His love. He loved them to the extreme.

This may be one of those instances where human language struggles to capture the fullness of divine truth, and one word or phrase contains nuances of meaning.

Jesus loved His disciples while He was with them; loved them to the very last hour of His natural life; loved them to such a degree He died on the cross in their behalf; loved them as He was dying, loved them until He was dead; loved them with His whole person and every ounce of His being; loved them after He rose from the dead, and loved them until He ascended to heaven, and as we now know, that was just the beginning, because neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Loving them to the uttermost led to the cross. But there were thousands of instances before that when Jesus showed them His love. And there was one, just before the cross, that John wanted to be sure to include. He recounted an event so deeply impressed on the minds and hearts of these disciples they would never forget it. After Jesus and the disciples had finished what we call The Last Supper, Jesus washed His disciples’ feet. Love elevated Him to the cross in the place of supreme sacrifice. But love also put Him on the floor in a position of servitude.

Jesus did this not only to show love to His disciples, but to teach His disciples how to love. There are lessons here for us as well. Love is produced in us by the Holy Spirit. But Jesus gave us a model to follow.

The Divine Servant teaches us lessons in ministry love.

This is the introduction to a sermon I preached at the Refresh Pastors Conference in 2019. You can listen to the full message here.