Executing faithful church ministry boils down to just a few essentials—a high view of God, the absolute authority of Scripture, sound doctrine, personal holiness, and a biblical view of spiritual authority. Those are essentials to any biblical philosophy of ministry.
But the modern love affair with pragmatism leads to compromise on every point. Every. Single. Point.
So, for the next…however long it takes…we want to turn your attention to a truly Christ-centered, gospel-centered, Word-centered approach to ministry. Here are some of the main points we want to address:
the purpose of the church, the proper place of evangelism and church planting
the role of preaching in the church’s purpose, a profile of truly biblical preaching
the true qualifications for leadership in the church
the “promotion” of Christianity, or what’s the proper way to attract unbelievers to the church?
We want to help you avoid ministers and ministries that are more about franchising and brand propagation than they are about biblical fidelity. There’s a way that seems right to men—opinions about the church’s purpose, biblical preaching, church leadership—and we want to help you avoid the inevitable outcome of that way.
We want to help you identify and embrace faithful ministers and ministries. Take heart, there are many faithful who have not bowed the knee to Baal. They are too humble to promote themselves, and too busy to care. For them, ministry is not about drawing a crowd or building a fan base. Their single-minded aspiration is to live quiet, godly lives of faithful service in loving devotion to Christ, and to teach others to do the same.
We want you to embrace ministers and ministries like that, while shunning the other. We want you to be an encouragement to local church pastors who are qualified, hard-working, and concerned about faithfulness to the written Word of God, the Spirit’s book of ministry. We want you to attend, support, and serve in those kinds of churches. As you do, you’ll be part of Christ’s work to build His church, which is of eternal significance. That’s our prayer for you.
Biblical manliness is about authentic character. It’s not about bravado, and it’s not about boyishness. Going out into the woods with a bunch of other men, putting on war paint, making animal noises, telling scary stories around a...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
I don't watch much television, and when I do I generally avoid the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). For many years TBN has been dominated by faith-healers, full-time fund-raisers, and self-proclaimed prophets spewing heresy. I wrote about the...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
This concludes our series on the critical relationship between biblical inerrancyand expository preaching. OUR CHALLENGE One of the most powerful and effective preachers ever to live was Scotland's Robert Murray McCheyne. In the memoirs of...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Former NASDAQ chairman Bernie Madoff ran a ponzi-scheme swindle for nearly 20 years, and he bilked an estimated $18 billion from Wall-Street investors. When the scam finally came to light it unleashed a shockwave of outrage around the world. It...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
THE LEGACY OF LIBERALISM A Recent Example Dr. Robert Bratcher was chief translator of the American Bible Society's Good News for Modern Man. A former Southern Baptist missionary, he was invited to speak at the Christian Life Commission of the...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
5. How did the preacher's message begin? The message began as a true word from God and was given as truth because God's purpose was to transmit truth. It was ordered by God as truth and was delivered by God's Spirit in cooperation with holy men...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
INERRANCY, EXEGESIS AND EXPOSITION Postulates and Propositions Let me propose five logically sequential postulates that introduce and undergird my main propositions. These five ideas also establish the true biblical basis for the doctrine of...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
