VBS & Youth Involvement - Seeking Your Counsel

Men,

An outreach opportunity for our church seems to be opening up in the tourist town of Red River, New Mexico. There is a community center there that allows for churches to do Vacation Bible Schools during summer time in the morning. One of our members made a contact there and we might have an opportunity to conduct a VBS as well as preach for a worship service on a Sunday.

Here's where I need your help. We need manpower to conduct a VBS obviously. Our youth ministry is young, physically and spiritually I would say. I think that some of our youth are believers but think some are not. What are your thoughts on youth involvement with this sort of thing? Do I open it up for all to come? Do I let those whom I am concerned about spiritually to serve in some sort of capacity? What do you think philosophically about unsaved youth (who probably think they are) helping out with a spiritual endeavor like this? I go back and forth.

I would love to hear your input.

For Christ,

Kyle

10 Major Failures of Young Men in their First Term of Ministry

At TMS, Dr. Montoya gave us some great wisdom in helping prepare us for pastoral ministry. I found some old notes I took from one of his pastor ministry classes. Here is a list of 10 Major Failures of Young Men in their First Term of Ministry.

1.      Division over non-essentials

2.      Unable to work with the elder/deacon board or church board

3.      The lack of ministerial ethics

a.       Keep their word

b.      Stay with what you say you are going to do

4.      Laziness or a poor work ethic

a.       1 Tim. 3:1- a fine work he desires to do

5.      Poor home life, marriage, children

a.       Be transparent, don’t hide this

6.      No attention to key issues

a.       The 80/20 principle

b.      It is more important to put gas in the plane than to clean out the trash from the cabin

7.      A low view of the local church

8.      Lack of numerical and spiritual growth

a.       There needs to be growth in your church.

b.      This reflects abilities and skills

9.      Poor people skills- inability to get along with people

a.       You are into family in the church

10.  Failure to articulate the vision of the church

a.       You are of all things a motivator

·         This has to do with being a good churchman.

·         This implies that we have a good understanding of practical theology

·         Take ecclesiology as seriously as any other –ology

May we take heed to our training and honor the Lord and His sheep in our ministries! May our "first term" of ministry be a wisdom filled and long lasting one!

-Pastor Andrew

If any man lacks wisdom...Let him read Proverbs

"If any man lacks wisdom" James encourages us to "ask of God". But by this, he does not mean to say that we are free to neglect God inspired wisdom already revealed in His Word.

Here are some recommended resources for a practical lifetime study of the book of Proverbs, recommended to our church by Lance Quinn:

The Wisdom of Proverbs, Job & Ecclesiastes: An Introduction to Wisdom Literature by Derek Kidner, (InterVarsity Press, 1985, 175 pages; the section on "Proverbs" is in chapters 2&3, pp. 18-55; and with a comparison and contrast of Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes in chapter 8, pp. 116-124; Kidner also has an excellent but much too brief commentary on the book of Proverbs in the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary series, [TOTC] volume 17 reprinted in 2008, 189 pgs.)

How to Read Proverbs by Tremper Longman III, (InterVarsity Press, 2002, 174 pgs.)

Practicing Proverbs: Wise Living for Foolish Times by Richard Mayhue, (Christian Focus Publishers, 2003, 239 pgs.)

Opening Up Proverbs by Jim Newheiser, (Day One Publications, 2008, 189 pgs.)

Handbook on the Wisdom Books and Psalms by Daniel J. Estes, (Baker, 2005, 448 pgs.; with the section on "Proverbs," pp. 213-269)

Proverbs by John Kitchen, (A Mentor Commentary by Christian Focus Publications, 2006, 790 pgs.)

Lance just completed a verse by verse exposition of Proverbs, which took him over 8 years. I would recommend his One Message Overview of Proverbs which can be found at www.bclr.org

I found it extremely helpful. Here are 6 summaries of the book of Proverbs, taken from that message:

1. Hear, My Son: Listening to Lady Wisdom versus Madam Folly (Proverbs 1-9)
2. Short Sayings for a Long Life (Proverbs 10:1-22:16)
3. Admonitions and Warnings for the Purpose of Godliness (Proverbs 22:17-24:34)
4. Comparisons and Contrasts between the Righteous and the Unrighteous (Proverbs 25:1-29:27)
5. Agur's Approach to Knowing God and the World (Proverbs 30)
6. King Lemuel's Advice for Leadership and Ladies (Proverbs 31)

In Christ Alone,
George

Be Gracious Already!!!!!!!!!

The title is more meant for me than anything else, of which, is a contradictory imperative.

One of the most influential paragraphs in my theological and exegetical development is: "It was indeed unfortunate that our Christian 'thinkings,' ... did not teach and preach with a clear grasp of presuppositions. Had they done this, they would not have been taken by surprise...The really foolish thing is that even now, many Christians still do not know what is happening. And this is because they are still not being taught the importance of thinking in terms of presuppositions, especially concerning truth." (Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who is There, 7).

A second influential one, of less impact because I have re-interpreted some of its original intent is: "Younger scholars, with their orthodox theological commitment and philosophical sophistication, are in a position to avoid the theological errors into which philosophically untrained biblical scholars too often fall...Unless either philosophers become biblical exegetes in our schools or those who we now call biblical exegetes take to the pursuit of philosophy seriously and adequately, and there is a conjunction these two things, biblical exegesis and philosophical intelligence, there can be no cessation of theological troubles for our schools, nor I fancy for the Christian Church either." (Norman Geisler, "Beware of Philosophy" JETS 42, no. 1 (March 1999): 18-9).

Yes there is an appeal for preachers and teachers to teach and critique adversarial positions through means of evaluating presuppositions. Yet, the appeal to understand philosophy is only from observing the embracing of Enlightenment philosophy by the Evangelical world. But moreover, how tragic is it for the preacher/teacher not to use and embrace argumentation and well constructed logic in our explanation of Scripture. Too many Christian exegetes, teachers, theologians, etc. embrace great conclusions with faulty logic.

But the problem presents itself when we, as the shepherds, begin to apply these same criterion to the members of our church. The longer you hear a member of your church (assuming a bible believing Christian) talk and discuss issues, the more you begin to evaluate their presuppositions and faulty logic to conclude: rarely do church members think biblically.

In my ministry, we are currently teaching through the book of Job. One principle arises rather quickly is the tragic counsel his friends offer. They are more righteous, the longer they stay quiet (Job 2.11-13). Furthermore, the Proverbs are filled with communication principles of "timely spoken words."

All of this to ask a simple question: When hearing the travesty of experiences Church members are in or in hearing them talk about everyday life, the amount of wrong biblical thinking manifests itself. What are the principles you men use to evaluate these situations and speak up or stay silent without being the "Theological-Police" yet maintaining healthy-biblical thinking?

My presuppositions: (1) If they are not under my direct preaching ministry, love on them and pray for on opportunity to speak. (2) If they are under my direct preaching ministry, act slow in responding and see if they are growing spiritually, fighting sin, and know the gospel. (3) Attempt to assess if they are legitimately asking a question and wanting a response or if they just want to talk to you. (4) Unless something is just plain heretical, remain silent if they are growing spiritually. (5) If they are elders and other teachers, speak up about quicker and keep the dialogue open.

Rick Holland - Discipling Children

Thought this was helpful: http://approachingdamascus.com/2011/01/31/some-thoughts-on-parenting-and-discipleship/

George Mueller on Starting the Day

I have been blessed recently listening to the audio book Desiring God by John Piper. In his chapter on the importance of Scripture, he quoted George Mueller's practice of getting his heart happy in the Lord by diving into the Word each morning.

"I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished...I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion with the Lord."

Memorize...the Whole Book

Since the beginning of the year, a friend from church and I have been challenging one another to memorize Scripture. We aren’t simply memorizing individual verses or passages though, instead we are challenging each other to memorize the entire book of Philippians. Our goal is to memorize Philippians by Resurrection Sunday (April 24, 2011). We got the idea through Justin Taylor’s blog about a program called Partnering to Remember. They provide you with a printout of Philippians in the ESV, which you paste in a small moleskine booklet and memorize the book in 16 weeks.

We have all memorized verses or longer passages of Scripture, but have you ever attempted to memorize a whole book? This is a first for me. So far, we are 17 verses in and it is going great and not as hard as I thought it would be. 

I want to encourage you all to memorize Scripture. But also I encourage you to memorize entire books. Last night I read a chapter from the book Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry on memorizing Scripture. In the chapter, Pastor Andy Davis gives helpful reasons why we as pastors must memorize Scripture and then he lays out 5 reasons why we ought to memorize extended passages and even entire books of the Bible. Below is a summary of his 5 reasons taken from pages 92-95.

1. It honors the testimony that Scripture gives itself, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful…” (2 Tim. 3:16) and “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
2. It enables you more readily to grasp the central thought.
3. You will be less likely to take verses out of context.
4. Your joy will increase, as will your awe at the miraculous infinity of truth in the Scripture, as you continue to discover new truths.
5. It lends itself to the best style of preaching- expository preaching. You can expound verse after verse that you have already meditated on deeply.

He also reminds us of the great value of Scripture memorization for: 

• Evangelism
• Counseling
• Your prayer life
• Stewardship of time

I pray that your mind would be saturated with Christ and His truth as you seek to guard your soul and shepherd God’s people. 

Pastor Andrew