Topic Archives: Church & Ministry

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). We must preach Christ crucified. This is not limited to pastors and missionaries.1 It is clear that disciple-making, including the task of evangelizing, is part and parcel of our sanctification. We are commanded to […]

1. Where do you place the importance of preaching in the grand scheme of church life? As far as I can see from the Word of God, preaching must be central to the life of the church. This can be seen from the way the church started in the New Testament. As soon as the […]

At the beginning of the final paper at the September 2009 London Conference on John Calvin in the John Owen Centre, Joel Beeke revealed that this was his tenth Calvin conference of the year. He had 10 points in what he introduced as a pep talk, an encouragement to believe in preaching. It was a […]

An extract from Chapter 6 of Paul D. Wolfe’s book, My God Is True: Lessons Learned Along Cancer’s Dark Road,1 pp. 96-101. One . . . aspect of the church’s life that we ought to consider in connection to suffering [is that] the Lord uses faithful preaching to shape the hearts and minds of his […]

Events in 1732 made Ebenezer Erskine consider the time ‘a day of trouble’. Twenty years had passed since Parliament had reimposed patronage on the Church of Scotland. This meant that the right to nominate a minister for a vacant congregation lay with, normally, a local landowner. Now the 1732 General Assembly had agreed, in the […]

You have been called as minister in this congregation and you have been ordained in pursuance of that call. There are many functions which devolve upon you in that particular capacity, but I want to draw your attention particularly to two of these functions because I believe they are the two main functions which devolve […]

For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you. (1 Thessalonians 1:8). Many church leaders tell us that open air evangelism in the form of preaching or door-to-door evangelism is outdated, that it no longer works because people are post-modern, because people no longer care about heaven and hell, and that promising or […]

GD: Hello Garry Williams and welcome to Exiled Preacher. Please tell us a little about yourself. GW: I became a Christian aged 17 through studying RS A Level, which I took by ‘chance’ as my third subject, on a whim really. But we studied John’s Gospel verse by verse and the Reformation, so I came […]

God created man in his own image. (Genesis 1:27) On the sixth day of creation, after making cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts, Elohim, in a marvellous intra-Triune council decided to create man in his own image. The word ‘image’ in Hebrew literally means to cut from a stone, much like what Michelangelo did when […]

One of the effects of conversion is a new desire for the public worship of God. In regeneration, the Holy Spirit joins the soul to Christ, and through Christ the soul is united to all other believers, as members of the same body. The soul now finds itself drawn to the place where prayer is […]

At the annual assembly of the Association of Evangelical Churches in Wales, Ian Parry, pastor of the Bay Church in Cardiff, delivered a paper on the above subject and then led a seminar in a discussion of it. The following is a summary of what he said. 1) We need to UNDERSTAND our traditions. Where […]

Over the years I’ve done a lot of it. I can’t count the books, the articles and the various other items that I have composed. I always had a penchant for writing. In my first pastorate, I bought a Miller printing press; in order to bring it inside, I had to partially knock out a […]

In his masterful commentary on Second Corinthians, James Denney warned against ministers of the gospel becoming diplomatists and strategists, rather than heralds. This warning, issued by Denney in 1894, needs more than ever to be heeded and acted upon by Christ’s ministers today. Over the past twenty or so years, there has been a pressing […]

Summary of a 10-minute address at the Banner of Truth Leicester Ministers’ Conference, 2009. Acts 9:1 ‘Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter.’ Acts 9:3 ‘Suddenly a light from heaven.’ What drama in the Early Church! The chief antagonist is on the warpath. His theme as he engages on his latest crusade is described as […]

The form of worship acceptable to God has been commanded by him in the Scriptures. Without his prior word of institution for an action offered to him in worship, what we bring is offered in vain. From the beginning of the world, there have been certain solemn actions which he invests with the significance of […]