Topic Archives: Church Leadership

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 […]

The Willow Creek Church is in a suburb of Chicago, one of the ten most wealthy and powerful cities in the world. It is a booming educational, medical, cultural, legal and economic centre with a hinterland of 6 million people. It is the ‘Bible button’ of the Mid-West, the city of Moody Bible College, Wheaton […]

The Proclamation Trust exists to encourage and help preachers to teach the Bible better and more clearly. In addition to the ‘Cornhill Training Scheme’ and ‘Evangelical Ministers Assembly (EMA)’ held each June, the Proclamation Trust also runs a series of residential study conferences for preachers and teachers of the Word. The Conference for younger ministers […]

One of the off-the-shelf suggestions for church growth is to ‘open the front door and close the back door’ meaning that welcoming and retaining new people will fill the pews. The subheads under that strategy include meeting people’s needs, providing the music they like, activities for children, etc. But Dr Mark Dever, a pastor and […]

[The local pastor often wonders what is happening in the other churches of his community. David Marshall is the pastor of Hamilton Reformed Baptist Church in New Zealand. Recently he needed to take a break from the rigours of pastoral ministry and so was granted a month’s leave. It was not convenient to go away […]

The Reformed churches in Liverpool have a monthly officers meeting on Fridays in the winter, and I was invited in February, at the last minute withdrawal of Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, to speak to them on the subject of worship for 35 minutes to be followed by discussion. There were about 25-30 […]