An open letter to College and denominational leaders

To whom it may concern

I certainly hope that the following list does concern you in the position that a variety of denominations, committees and such like have set you apart for. At a seminar at a recent Christian gathering the 50 people in attendance were asked what their top ten priorities would be for a minister in a Scottish church. This is what that list contained.

1. Leadership skills
2. Developing Abilities
3. Recognising Abilities
4. Knowledge of denominational principles
5. Good communicator
6. People focused
7. Knowledge of church structure
8. Practical work experience
9. Management skills
10. Active participant in the community

This letter is a plea for you to address the present expectations in denominational life and seek a transformation in the expectations and practice of pastoral ministry. The list above demonstrates a malaise that goes far deeper than perhaps you might even have expected and that is understandable. If this list does not perturb you in the least, then I ask you to examine God's Word to understand afresh the high calling of the pastorate and the humbling spiritual standard that comprise the contents of Biblical pastoral ministry. R. C. Sproul comments that 'one of the problems we have in the church today is the theological crisis of liberal theology that has captured many of the mainline denominations where the ministers no longer teach from the content of scripture at all. How does this happen historically? It is axiomatic that as the seminaries go, so go the pastors; and as the apstors go, so go the congregations. If you want a reformation, you have to look seriously at what the seminaries are teaching.'

So here is my plea

1. For a return to preparation for Bible Ministry with an unstinting focus on the authority and sufficiency of scripture. In order that the pastor might be prepared for both the preaching and pastoral contexts having been encouraged that it is a good thing to rely confidently on God's Word.
2. For a return to helping those training for pastoral ministry to gain clarity on matters of doctrine. This can only happen if the institutions themselves adopt a position of doctrinal clarity by way of confessional basis. Nothing breeds doctrinal uncertainty like uncertainty about those who are teaching you- be they professors or pastors.
3. For a return to encouraging pastors to Biblical preaching as the standard. For a nurturing of convictions that are less to do with cleverness and more to do with Biblical clarity. The place of Biblical proclamation must be re-established otherwise our worship and witness become more a cult of pastoral personality than rebirth and renewal by Word and Spirit.
4. For a return to apologetics that is thoroughly and unashamedly committed to the exclusivity of Christ. For the preparation of pastors for evangelism rather than an over-arching and woolly theology of mission. If we train evangelists the theology of mission will take care of itself.
5. For a return to highlighting and encouraging Christian character by clear engagement with a Biblical doctrine of sin and sanctification. We need a call upon pastors to frequent humble repentance moved by Godly sorrow written deep on their rather than a professional and clinical approach written down only on paper.
6. For a return to teaching that catches inspires awe at the majesty, sovereignty and Lordship of God.
7. For a return to clear teaching on the theology of the church. The privelege of being pastor and part of the local church, the importance of church discipline and a clear theology of the Lord's Day. If pastors do not grasp these things then how can we expect our churches to be healthy.
8. For a deparure from the view that everything that is contained in training must be academically viable. This will not always be possible and we should probably rejoice in that. Academic rigour is sometimes a good thing but we need to discern what we must apportion higher value to.
9. For a departure from secular institutions setting (even partially) the standard whereby they determine how and what (even partially) future pastors will learn.
10. For an absolute departure from the professionalisation of the pastorate.

In the country where I live and minister these were once the standard and the church flourished, now they are not the standard and the church is ailing. This is not a call that exists out of context but that is based upon the belief and longing that if we might return to these, Biblical, principles and apply them to the ministry context that we find ourselves in their is fruit- for God honours faithfulness with fruitfulness.

In Him

Scott Hamilton

(I invite those who might agree with this to undersign on the comments section).

10 Quotes for the contemporary pastor

Further to my earlier post I thought it would be good to hear from some wiser minds than mine. I have tried to link the quotes according to my response to the initial list of desirable pastoral qualities. the question, to paraphrase Ravenhill is not are you challenged- but are you changed!

1. 'A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God's power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God's wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.' Jonathan Edwards

2. "It is not so much great talents that God blesses, as great likeness to Christ." R. M. McCheyne

3. 'A heart full of grace is better than a head full of notions.' Thomas Goodwin

4. "The state of the pulpit may always be taken as an index of that of the church. Whenever the pulpit is evangelical, the piety of the people is in some degree healthy; a perversion of the pulpit is surely followed by spiritual apostasy in the church." R. L Dabney

5. "The man who is called by God is a man who realizes what he is called to do, and he so realizes the awefulness of the task that he shrinks from it. Nothing but this overwhelming sense of being called, and of compulsion, should ever lead anyone to preach." D. M. Lloyd-Jones

6. Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty! John Calvin

7. "In preaching (or spiritual training of any sort) there is the need for an experience of the power of the truth in our won souls; if it does not dwell in power in us, it will not pass in power from us." John Owen

8."Tell me in the light of the cross, isn't it a scandal that you and I live today as we do."Alan Redpath

9."Nothing will give such power to our sermons, as when they are the sermons of many prayers. The best sermons are lost, except they be watered by prayer. It is easy to bring to our people the product of our own study; but the blessing belongs to the message delivered to them, as from the mouth of God." Charles Bridges

10. "'Not called!' did you say?'Not heard the call,' I think you should say.Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face -- whose mercy you have professed to obey and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.' William Booth

“Some people do not like to hear much of repentance; but I think it is so necessary that if I should die in the pulpit, I would desire to die preaching repentance, and if out of the pulpit I would desire to die practicing it.”Matthew Henry

Concerns regarding the Scottish Pastors top 10

Yesterday's post created a bit of interest and a couple of comments that are worth checking out and add to as people see fit. I thought it would be a helpful exercise to outline why this list concerns me as a young pastor starting out but convinced we need to take a much bigger view. I would also like to direct you to an article on John Brand's blog, posted yesterday which also speaks to this subject. Find it at http://stewardofthesecretthings.com/2007/11/07/222-and-spurgeon/

1. Given the basis of this blog (promoting the urgent need for doctrinal clarity and communication in the local church) it is probably no surprise that there is concern that there is no sense of the need for doctrinal clarity in pastors. It should not be assumed because the level of doctrinal illitercay in the present age has its origins in the pastorate; it is because pastors don't know and value doctrine that people in Scottish churches do not know and value doctrine.
2. The loss of any sense of the pastor being given to holiness as being of any sort of importance. McCheyne, a fine Scottish pastor, said that his own personal holiness was of great importance to those who he had been given to care for. I struggle to see what has changed that would make this no longer a priority.
3. That this could in some sense be used denominationally as a mandate for the form and content of the training of pastors. Already there is a sense of the professionalisation of the pastorate being reflected in the training institutions and this list, if seen as a request from the churches will pose significant difficulties if adopted as the perceived wisdom. I urge us to rethink the idea that we always have to give people what they want, we need to be giving God what He wants and it is not professional counsellors, who know how to organise committees and tell good jokes during their clever communication.
4. That pastors would take this as a mandate to enact the most popular models of ministry that exist at that moment in history, with only secondary reference to the scriptures preferring instead the models of the world, without thought to discipleship and resting on the laurels of statistics and success (and that in purely human terms).
5. That prayer should not even be hinted at is disastrous and speaks widely of the malaise that there is in regard to prayer in this nation. How busy are prayer meetings? How many pray in their own time?- and yet is it that pastors are not setting an example? I suspect so.
6. That pastors would take this as an affirmation of the course that their ministry has taken, rather than being filled with godly sorrow and asking that God, by His Spirit, would transform them and transform their ministries. And that being willing to ask that the Lord would spare them a second time for caring for His church such is the mess they have made first time around.

Here are some alternatives juxtaposed to the original list.

1. Leadership skills- Humility is the far greater need

2. Developing Abilities- Developing people's love for God

3. Recognising Abilities- Recognising inabilities apart from God and His grace

4. Knowledge of denominational principles- Commitment to and knowledge of doctrine and Biblical truth

5. Good communicator- Faithful preacher of God's Word

6. People focused- Captivated by God and His awesome majesty

7. Knowledge of church structure- Knowledge of the Gospel

8. Practical work experience- Practical holiness

9. Management skills- Given to Prayer

10. Active participant in the community- Does the work of an evangelist

Top 10 Priorities that Scottish Churches look for in their pastors

A reason why the church in this country is at such a low ebb has come to my inbox today. At a seminar at a recent Christian gathering the 50 people in attendance were asked what their top ten priorities would be for a minister in a Scottish church. The final list is below, I'm not sure if they are ranked by importance, but looking at the list I'm not sure that it makes much of a difference.

1. Leadership skills
2. Developing Abilities
3. Recognising Abilities
4. Knowledge of denominational principles
5. Good communicator
6. People focused
7. Knowledge of church structure
8. Practical work experience
9. Management skills
10. Active participant in the community

No place for..... well you tell me what you think is missing.

Boice on Knowing God

'there is a God who has created all things and who himself gives his creation meaning. Further, we can know him. This is an exciting and satisfying possibility. It is exciting because it involves the possibility of contact between the individual and God, however insignificant the individual may appear in his or her own eyes or in the eyes of others. It is satisfying because it is knowledge not of an idea or thing but of a supremely personal Being, and because it issues in a profound change of conduct.

This is what the Bible means when it says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7). And, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Prov. 9:10).

Here, however, we must be clear about what we mean when we speak of “knowing God,” for many common uses of the word know are inadequate to convey the biblical understanding. There is a use of the word know by which we mean “awareness.” In this sense we say that we know where somebody lives or that we know that certain events are transpiring somewhere in the world. It is a kind of knowledge, but it does not involve us personally. It has little bearing on our lives. This is not what the Bible means when it speaks of knowing God.

Another use of the word know means “knowing about” something or someone. It is knowledge by description. For instance, we may say that we know New York City or London or Moscow. By that we mean that we are aware of the geographic layout of the city, we know the names of the streets, where the major stores are and other facts. We may have gained our knowledge of the city by actually living there. But it is also possible that we may have gained our knowledge by reading books. In the religious realm this type of knowledge would apply to theology which, although important, is not the whole or even the heart of religion. The Bible tells us much about God that we should know. (In fact, much of what follows in this book is directed to our need for such knowledge.) But this is not enough. Even the greatest theologians can be confused and can find life meaningless.

True knowledge of God is also more than knowledge by experience. To go back to the earlier example, it would be possible for someone who has lived in a particular city to say, “But my knowledge is not book knowledge. I have actually lived there. I have walked the streets, shopped in the stores, attended the theaters. I have experienced the city. I really know it.” To this we would have to reply that the knowledge involved is certainly a step beyond anything we have talked about thus far, but still it is not the full idea of knowledge in the Christian sense.
Suppose, for instance, that a person should go out into a starlit field in the cool of a summer evening and gaze up into the twinkling heavens and come away with the claim that in that field he has come to know God. What do we say to such a person? The Christian does not have to deny the validity of that experience, up to a point. It is certainly a richer knowledge than mere awareness of God (“There is a God”) or mere knowledge about him (“God is powerful and is the Creator of all that we see and know”). Still, the Christian insists, this is less than what the Bible means by true knowledge. For when the Bible speaks of knowing God it means being made alive by God in a new sense (being “born again”), conversing with God (so that he becomes more than some great “Something” out there, so that he becomes a friend), and being profoundly changed in the process.

All this is leading us, step by step, to a better understanding of the word knowledge. But still another qualification is needed. According to the Bible even when the highest possible meaning is given to the word know, knowing God is still not merely knowing God. For it is never knowing God in isolation. It is always knowing God in his relationship to us. Consequently, according to the Bible, knowledge of God takes place only where there is also knowledge of ourselves in our deep spiritual need and where there is an accompanying acceptance of God’s gracious provision for our need through the work of Christ and the application of that work to us by God’s Spirit. Knowledge of God takes place in the context of Christian piety, worship and devotion. The Bible teaches that this knowledge of God takes place (where it does take place), not so much because we search after God — because we do not — but because God reveals himself to us in Christ and in the Scriptures.

J. I. Packer writes of this knowledge, “Knowing God involves, first, listening to God’s word and receiving it as the Holy Spirit interprets it, in application to oneself; second, noting God’s nature and character, as His word and works reveal it; third, accepting His invitations, and doing what He commands; fourth, recognising, and rejoicing in, the love that He has shown in thus approaching one and drawing one into this divine fellowship.”

Read the entire article at:
www.the-highway.com/articleSept01.html

Praising God for Who He is.

In beginning to think about who God is I thought it would be good to draw people's attention to a resource that will help them to praise God from His Word. With the help of
http://www.monergism.com/ I came across the following resource available at www.godsquad.com/pdfs/00000062217.pdf which is a list of the attributes of God with scripture texts to guide our meditation on His greatness and aid us in our praise of Him (and you can print it and put it somewhere prominent to help you reflect on His greatness. It occurs to me that this is an important first step in our worship of God because all too often we miss the point and praise Him because of what he has done for us first (which risks making it all about us) rather than praising Him for who He is. This is the true basis of worship and actually produces a deeper and fuller understanding of the true extent of what He has done for us.

Resolve08 announcement

The theme for Resolve08 will be the Doctrine of the Word of God. The working titles for the material on the three evenings will be as follows:

What God says cannot be ignored- Scripture is our authority
What God says should not be confused- Scripture has and gives clarity
What God says tells us all we need to Know- Scripture is both necessary and sufficient

The conference will, Lord-willing, run from October 7-9 with meetings beginning at 7:30pm. Further announcements will follow in due course. In the meantime, starting tomorrow there we will begin a series of articles examining the topic for Resolve07 the doctrine of God.