Pastoral Ministry Is War

Paul Tripp's answer to the question, "Why is the ministry life of many pastors shockingly short?"

Perhaps we have forgotten that pastoral ministry is war and that you will never live successfully in the pastorate if you live with a peacetime mentality. Permit me to explain. The fundamental battle of pastoral ministry is not with the shifting values of the surrounding culture. It is not the struggle with resistant people who don't seem to esteem the gospel. It is not the fight for the success of the ministries of the church. And it is not the constant struggle of resources and personnel to accomplish the mission. No, the war of the pastorate is a deeply personal war. It is fought on the ground of the pastor's heart. It is a war of values, allegiances, and motivations. It is about subtle desires and foundational dreams. This war is the greatest threat to every pastor. Yet it is a war that we often naively ignore or quickly forget in the busyness of local-church ministry.

--Paul Tripp, Dangerous Calling

Pray for Your Pastors

The image above gives you a pretty good idea of what most pastors feel like on Monday mornings - either weary or discouraged (or both).  So take a moment right now to stop and pray for your pastor(s) on this Monday morning (if you are a pastor, pray this for your friends and colleagues in ministry).  Pray that today:

1. They would have quality time in the Word and prayer
2. They would be refreshed and renewed by God 
3. They would be assured and affirmed in their calling 
4. They would be reminded of the joys and privileges of pastoral ministry 
5. They would have the time to read something that will feed their minds and nurture their souls
6. They would have a conversation that is edifying and encouraging 
7. They would enjoy the evening with their families 

Now, one more thing: send them an email or a text message (or whatever means of communication you prefer) to encourage them, thank them, and let them know you are praying for them this morning.

Seeing More and More of My Own Insufficiency

An excerpt of a letter from William Carey to his father, which left me saying, "I can relate!": 

I see more and more of my own insufficiency for the great work I am called to. The truths of God are amazingly profound, the souls of men infinitely precious, my own ignorance very great. . . .

--Faithful Witness: The Life and Mission of William Carey, Timothy George

Shepherds Feeding the Sheep or Clowns Entertaining the Goats?

Charles Spurgeon spoke these prophetic words in the 1800s.  It's sad how true they have become in our own day.

A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.

Doing Ministry Under Difficult Circumstances

Since this is the week leading up to Reformation Day, all posts will have to do with the Reformation.

After Luther's refusal to recant at the Diet of Worms in 1521 (and after already being condemned as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church), Emperor Charles V placed him under a ban, known as the Edict of Worms. In that edict, the emperor decreed the following:

We enjoin you all not to take the aforementioned Martin Luther into your houses, not to receive him at court, to give him neither food nor drink, not to hide him, to afford him no help, following, support, encouragement, either clandestinely or publicly, through words or works. Where you can get him, seize him and overpower him, you should capture him and send him to us under tightest security.

How would you like to do ministry under those circumstances?

Though Luther was whisked away and placed in hiding after the Diet of Worms (translating the New Testament into German during that time), he eventually returned to Wittenberg in 1522 to continue teaching, preaching, and pastoring - living every day under that ban. Few, if any of us, have to labor under such difficult circumstances. Still, let us be challenged by Luther's perseverance, and let us strive to be faithful amidst our own hardships.

A Reminder to Pastors

"A good shepherd is one who sees what the Owner sees and does what the Owner does. He is a follower before he is a leader. He is a leader because he is a follower. The shepherds whom God judges in the Bible are those who forget that the people in their care are not their own."

--Timothy Laniak, Shepherds After My Own Heart

We Teach No New Thing

When the Roman Catholic Church accused the Reformers of teaching novelties and inventing new doctrines, Martin Luther's reply was simply this:

We teach no new thing, but we repeat and establish old things, which the apostles and all godly teachers have taught before us.

Oh, that more pastors today would be content with restoration rather than innovation!

Pastors - You Wrong Yourself Greatly By Not Reading

“What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear, to this day, is lack of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher who read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep; there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian. Oh begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercise. You may acquire the taste which you have not; what is tedious at first will afterward be pleasant. Whether you like it or not, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a petty, superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all the children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you, and in particular yours.”

--John Wesley, writing to a younger minister, quoted in D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, Letters Along The Way

HT: Ray Ortlund

Pastors Must Possess Both Maternal and Paternal Qualities

From John MacArthur's chapter, "The Pastor as Leader," in For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper:

Every true leader and shepherd of God's flock must possess both maternal and paternal qualities....He is at once tender and loving like a nursing mother, as well as firm and courageous like a confident father.

But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children (1 Thessalonians 2:7).

For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

Young Pastors and Old Saints

I am so thankful that I have the privilege of pastoring an inter-generational congregation, because it affords me such a variety of situations in which I can see God's grace at work. But as a young pastor in particular, I am grateful for the older saints in our church. And here are just ten reasons why:

1. They teach me what faithfulness in marriage looks like.
2. They teach me what godly wisdom sounds like.
3. They teach me that perseverance and endurance are worth the costs.
4. They teach me the intersection of divine grace and personal history.
5. They teach me why family really matters.
6. They teach me all the complex joys of simplicity.
7. They teach me to value the dying art of conversation.
   
8. They teach me church history and practical theology of a different sort than I could ever learn in a textbook.
9. They teach me that a decade is a short amount of time.
10. They teach me how to face suffering and death with hope.

If you're a young pastor, go spend time with some of your older saints. You'll be amazed at the lessons you'll learn. If you're an aspiring young pastor, I encourage you to consider churches that are inter-generational and will afford you opportunities to sit with dying saints. And if you're an older saint, then take the opportunity to teach the generations behind you the lessons you've learned during your lifetime.

Pastors: Sheep Feeders or Goat Entertainers?

Strong yet wise counsel for pastors from William Still:

The pastor is called to feed the sheep, even if the sheep do not want to be fed. He is certainly not to become an entertainer of goats. Let goats entertain goats, and let them do it in goatland. You will certainly not turn goats into sheep by pandering to their goatishness. Do we really believe that the Word of God, by His Spirit, changes, as well as maddens men? If we do, to be evangelists and pastors, feeders of sheep, we must be men of the Word of God.

--William Still, The Work of the Pastor

Congregations Gone Wild

An interesting op-ed from the New York Times about the consumerist desires of so many American congregations (and how they affect pastors).

HT: Tim Challies

Bunyan's Picture of a True Gospel Pastor

From John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Christian has just arrived at the house of the Interpreter):

So [the Interpreter] commanded His servant to light the candle and then asked Christian to follow Him to a private room that, when the manservant opened the door, revealed a picture of a very grave person hanging on the wall. This is what the man in the picture looked like: he had eyes lifted up to Heaven, the best of books in his hand, the law of truth written upon his lips, the world behind his back. He stood as if pleading with men, and a crown of gold hung over his head.

Then said Christian, "What does this mean?"

"The man in this picture represents one of a thousand: he can conceive children, travail in birth with children, and nurse them himself when they are born. You see him with his eyes lifted up to Heaven, the best of books in his hand and the law of truth written on his lips. All this is to show you that his work is to know and unfold dark things to sinners. You see him pleading with men, the world cast behind him, and a crown hanging over his head to show you that by rejecting and despising the things of this present world for the love that he has for his Master's service, he is sure to have glory as his reward in the world to come. I have shown you this picture first because the man whom it represents is the only man authorized by the Lord of the place where you are going to be your guide in all the difficult places you will encounter on the way. So pay attention to what I have shown you, and keep this picture foremost in your mind, so that if you meet with someone who doesn't resemble this picture's likeness but who pretends to lead you in the right way, you will not follow him down to destruction."

The Necessity of Praying and Preaching

John Angell James provides a sobering reminder to pastors of our deep need for prayer:

A deep, practical conviction of the need of the Spirit, would make us men of prayer, would send us to our closets, and keep us there! Here perhaps is the cause why we have not more success in our ministry, and are not more frequently and more heartily gladdened by the conversion of souls to God; we seek to be men of the pulpit merely, and are not sufficiently men of the closet.

...[W]e do not pray as if we believed we were sent to save souls from eternal death, and that we could not be successful in a single instance without the grace of God! Who of us can read the diaries of such men as Doddridge, Brainerd, Payson, and Martyn, and very many others, and not stand reproved for our lamentable deficiency in the exercise of earnest prayer?

...A praying ministry must be an earnest one - and an earnest ministry a praying one!

...The eternal destinies of our hearers hang not only upon our sermons but upon our prayers; we carry out the purposes of our mission, not only in the pulpit - but in the closet; and may never expect to be successful ministers of the New Covenant - but by this two-fold importunity in first beseeching sinners to be reconciled to God, and then beseeching God to pour out his Spirit upon them - thus we honor his wisdom in the use of the means he has appointed, and then his power by confessing our dependence upon his grace.

--Taken from An Earnest Ministry, John Angell James

A Prayer for Pastors

Phil Ryken offers a sobering and helpful prayer for pastors on the Ref21 blog.

This prayer is Part 9 of a series of posts on a litany written by Dr. George Ridding. For Parts 1-8 see below.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8

Ezra and Pastoral Ministry

"For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel." (Ezra 7:10)

In Ezra's ministry, he set his heart to do three things:

1. Study the Word
2. Obey the Word
3. Teach the Word

We would do well to emulate him in our own ministries!

B.B. Warfield on "The Religious Life of Theological Students"

Third Millenium Ministries has re-printed an excellent article by B.B. Warfield on "The Reilgious Life of Theological Students" (first delivered as an address at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1911). It is lengthy, but it is well worth the time of all seminary students and pastors (and even undergraduate theological students desiring to attend seminary). Here is a brief excerpt:

A minister must be both learned and religious. It is not a matter of choosing between the two. He must study, but he must study as in the presence of God and not in a secular spirit. He must recognize the privilege of pursuing his studies in the environment where God and salvation from sin are the air he breathes. He must also take advantage of every opportunity for corporate worship, particularly while he trains in the Theological Seminary. Christ Himself leads in setting the example of the importance of participating in corporate expressions of the religious life of the community. Ministerial work without taking time to pray is a tragic mistake. The two must combine if the servant of God is to give a pure, clear, and strong message.

Read the whole thing here.

Mosaic Taskmasters

The "Quodlibet" section of Touchstone is always full of little gems. I particularly appreciated this one by Peter J. Leithart in the September/October 2009 issue. It is an excellent reminder to those of us who labor in pastoral ministry.

Surprisingly, Jesus begins his litany of woe (Matthew 23) by commending the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. They sit in the seat of Moses, and Jesus' disciples are to "do and observe" what they say.

They may sit in Moses' seat, but they are not Mosaic in their conduct. Moses came to break the yoke of oppression and free slaves, but the scribes and Pharisees "tie up heavy loads and lay them on men's shoulders" and refuse to lift a finger to help. Despite their teaching, they are more Pharaoh than Moses.

These are sobering words for pastors. We, too, "sit in the seat of Moses," but we are capable of turning the gospel of freedom into an instrument of oppression. We must beware the hypocrisy of announcing "Let my people go" with our lips while saying "bricks without straw" with our lives.

I know I have said it several times before on this blog, but I can't say it enough. I encourage you to subscribe to Touchstone if you don't already. To do so, click here.

The Value of Reading Old Books

Here is wise counsel that ministers should heed from Guy Waters in his interview with Martin Downes in Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church.

"...[T]he minister should resolve to study good books - the best books. I am amazed when I survey the Internet at both the wealth and poverty of information available there. The web is a dangerous place for someone who is not cultivating the biblical duty of discernment. It is not the 'go-to' place for most ministers to advance their theological education after Seminary. The minister should be devouring Calvin, Turretin, the British Puritans, the Dutch 'Second Reformation' Divines, the Scottish and American Presbyterians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and their modern heirs. The minister should read recent books, but read them with discernment. Most recent books are untested. Reading the older writers appreciatively allows us both to remain in the 'old paths' and to read recent literature without uncritical enthusiasm towards the contemporary."

-- Guy Waters

Making the Most of Mondays

Peter Mead offers some helpful counsel on how preachers can make the most of Mondays. Read his thoughts here.