Matthew | March 31, 2011
This post might be controversial. This post might be wrong. This post might be different, as it is a reflection on the nature of teaching and preaching the word of God. There always seems to be concerned in the church for respect for the weaker Christian (the one that needs milk, and those who need meat). On [...]
Matthew | March 29, 2011
Well, an elder was in my office yesterday, and we got talking about lectureships. Of course this elder is highly connected in the church, and he goes to various lectureships each year. He was talking about how the numbers are down in some of the lectureships across the brotherhood. He made the comment “it is [...]
Matthew | March 28, 2011
Well, I did a post on reasons to leave a congregation, so now to be balanced I should do a post on reasons to stay. Probably, most ministers jump ship to quickly. Sometimes, the minister does not have a choice, but this day and age is slowly stopping more and more. Most elderships want the [...]
Matthew | March 25, 2011
Ministers will talk a lot about criticism. And yes, there is a lot of this in ministry, and especially in some contexts, but the overall communication in a congregation for the minister is positive. Preachers get praised a lot more than get criticized. It starts early, and the members are trained to praise the preacher. Even [...]
Matthew | March 23, 2011
Sometimes the preacher is fired. Sometimes the preacher fires the congregation. When it is the case that the preacher is ready to leave, there are some signs before he should go. No minister wants to be the two year jumper, but sometimes it happens. Sometimes it is the preacher who would not be happy even [...]
Matthew | March 22, 2011
The conversations about Christianity are changing. The days of talking about the name of the church, about baptism, about the Lord’s Supper, about the nature of the church, and about faith have changed. Not that these conversations are not important, but people are not even here any longer. Some people might be, but much of [...]
Matthew | March 21, 2011
No regular reading of this blog will be shocked that I wanted to read “Endgame.” This is a biography about Bobby Fischer. He was an amazing chess player from a young age. He was the youngest grandmaster ever, until modern times. Now young people can gain chess knowledge quicker with computers and playing on the [...]
Matthew | March 18, 2011
I teach a Bible class every Wednesday night at church. Most preachers do. I just finished up a class on Spiritual warfare, and developed a ton of Powerpoints on this topic. I used two major texts for this class. If there are any preachers that are looking for a class on this topic, I would [...]
Matthew | March 17, 2011
Not everyone comes to ministry from the same perspective. Some people come better prepared, with a long history of spiritual maturity in the family, or a long history of spiritual development, but some come with little background or understanding of ministry. It is not where you start but where you stop that is important. Ministry [...]
Matthew | March 16, 2011
Paula Harrington is a Christian woman who has the gift of encouragement. I have never personally met this Christian mother, wife, and disciple of Christ, but from her ministry through the World Wide Web, she has blessed thousands, as well as blessed me. Therefore, it was a tremendous honor to participate in a book blogging [...]
