Topic Archives: Church Leadership

The cleverness of the clever I will set aside. (1 Corinthians 1:19) In a church world enamoured with technology, strategy, personality, and hyper-contextualization we would do well to take seriously Paul’s marvellous declaration in 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16. Paul, without question, was a massive intellect, one of the brightest men to ever live, yet he tells […]

And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number. (Acts 5:14) Roland Allen, in his book, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church 2, puts forth a clear distinction between the way the apostolic church grew and how our churches in the west grow. The church […]

Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory, honour, and power, for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created. (Revelation 4:11.) We are to rejoice in the Lord always. We are to consider everything joy when we encounter various trials. We are to have […]

Martin Holdt, well known as an evangelical and reformed leader in his native South Africa and around the world, went to be with his Lord suddenly on 31 December 2011. This tribute by his son, Jonathan, Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Lyttleton, Pretoria, was given at the Memorial Service for his father on 6 […]

Can women be ordained to Christian ministry? Should they be bishops or hold office as pastor/teachers in the 21st century? These and many other related questions, are being asked and acted upon in an increasingly fluid, controversial, and divisive atmosphere within the professing Christian Church. A fresh appreciation in the light of contemporary church disorder […]

There’s more to the ministry than preaching! We have to shepherd our people – all of them – as well. A. Biblical foundations [1] What it means ‘to shepherd’Two key verses are Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:2, both of which are found in direct addresses to elders. We are to look after the sheep. […]

Do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5) . . . speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) . . . through love serve one another (Galatians 5:13). The year 1735 was a remarkable one in the western world.1 In January, while her husband Jonathan was off preaching in other places, the Spirit of […]

I have been constrained to consider the crucial importance of humility in the life of the Christian leader. My friend James has been urging on me the value of meditating on the life of Brownlow North, a major evangelist in northern England, Scotland, and Ireland during 1858 and afterwards1. North was the great torchbearer of […]

I gave this paper on Monday November 23, 2009, in Bala at the first conference to be held in Wales specifically for ministers who had been in the pastorate for under five years. I am not sure that there are important differences between ministers who have been in the ministry five years and those who […]

On Saturday evening, December 27th, 2008, Grace and Truth Christian Congregation in Rishon LeTsion, Israel, bid their pastor adieu as Baruch Maoz ended his term of service as Pastor of the church. Representatives from the churches in Israel were invited to attend. Following are his parting words. He had addressed the church earlier that day. […]

Southern Baptists inherited the most compelling aspects of all the Baptist Calvinists that preceded them. James P. Boyce summarized this well. He encouraged every preacher to get theological education in some way, even if it could not be at the Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina. If no other means were available, he advised, ‘work at […]

Most church denominations today ordain women as pastors, elders, and deacons. The Presbyterian Church in America, the denomination to which I belong, is not one of them, and for this reason we, and a few other like minded ones, are increasingly held in disdain by people both within and without the professing church. Those denominations […]

WHY DO WE DO CONTINUE IN OUR MINISTRIES? “The ministerial work must be carried on purely for God and the salvation of souls, not for any private ends of our own. A wrong end makes all the work bad as from us, how good whatsoever it may be in its own nature. It is not […]

DON’T STOP PREACHING Where are the preachers of the gospel in our land today? There are plenty of performers, but where are the proclaimers? From two different sources this week we received exhortations about continuing to believe in preaching. I was struck with these words of Phil Eveson, the Principal of the London Theological Seminary, […]

Towards the end of his life the great 18th-century Baptist preacher John Gill became rather weak and unwell. It was suggested to him by his deacons that he might benefit from the help of an assistant pastor. He did not take kindly to the suggestion. ‘I’ve read plenty in the Bible’, he is reported to […]