Topic Archives: Church & Ministry

We can be creatures of extremes. Sometimes our reading of church history pushes us toward one or the other end of a certain spectrum. We absolutise the light or the darkness. It was never, to paraphrase Dickens, the best of times and the worst of times. To us, it was either the best or the […]

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born in Kelvedon, a village in the county of Essex in the east of England, on 19 June, 1834. He went to be with Christ from Mentone, France, on the evening of Sunday 31 January, 1892. During his lifetime he became perhaps the greatest preacher in the English-speaking world, of his […]

How would you answer these questions: How can we most glorify God on the earth? How can we experience most of his presence? How can we see him most clearly revealed? How can we get the maximum possible spiritual benefits from the Lord? How can we do the most good to our fellow believers? What […]

Church and danger. Up until recently it would not occur to British Christians to put these two words together. We associate church with many things, but not danger. Yes, there is the threat of child abuse by wicked clergymen, and there is always risk associated with listening to false doctrine, but in terms of simple […]

What is success in missions? Are churches today helping or hurting the work of missionaries? How important is the local church in missions? Why are some missionaries failing? What is the state of missions today? In the video below, Chad Vegas and Brooks Buser of Radius International work through all of these questions, and they […]

The following is C. H. Spurgeon‘s commendation of the writings of Thomas Manton. * * * While commenting upon the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, I was brought into most intimate communion with Thomas Manton, who has discoursed upon that marvellous portion of Scripture with great fullness and power. I have come to know him […]

9 And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 10 And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall […]

Beloved Brother, I write to you, August 5, 1836, in the seventieth year of my age, and in the fiftieth of my ministry, after conversing much with ministerial brethren, earnestly desiring to see our associational union brought into action by representatives of the churches, with a view to promote a determination — 1. To bear […]

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was called at the age of 24 to be assistant to Dr Isaac Chauncey, the pastor of the Independent chapel in Mark Lane, London, in 1698. The congregation was composed in part of Cromwellian aristocrats and businessmen. The members of the church were probably far removed from the material and spiritual needs […]

The man in the pulpit is much more likely to be ill than the man in the pew. As an ordinary mortal and private Christian he is as susceptible to illness as the next man. But a few minutes’ reflection on his work and calling will reveal that what is a possibility in most people […]

Charles H. Spurgeon, in his work, Lectures to my Students, speaks of the minister who preached so well and lived so badly. When he was in the pulpit, everybody said he ought never to come out again. And when he was out of it, they all declared he ought never to enter it again. Then […]

The purpose of this article is not to provide answers, but to raise certain questions, in the hope that readers will themselves give sustained thought to these things. Having been in the ministry only a few years it is possible to recall vividly one impression that was mine as I entered my first pastorate. Deep […]

We shall always, I trust, as a church, cultivate an anxious desire for the conversion of all who come within our gates, yea, and of all who dwell around us. Never, I hope, will you wish the pastor to preach so that you shall be fed, careless as to whether sinners are saved or not; […]

It was sometime in the year that the Lord mercifully saved both of us, that my father said to me, ‘If a person really understood the gospel, I don’t see how he could reject it.’ His point was that if we could just make the gospel absolutely clear, everyone would perforce accept it. Our pastor […]

When is a Church not a Church? Such a theological conundrum presupposes that the inner reality may be lost while the outer shape remains, rather like a nut which when cracked open proves to have no kernel inside. In fact the Bible goes further and asserts that what looks like the Church may indeed be […]

This article is part of an address delivered at the opening session of Stepney College, London and later elaborated into a small book published under the above title in 1843. * * * The necessity of eminent holiness in the ministerial character may be admitted, and yet its importance not duly felt. In theory it […]

The practice of calling sinners to open response by the act of coming to the front of a congregation at the close of a service was introduced by C. G. Finney in the 1820’s in the United States. Finney coined the phrase ‘the anxious seat’, and substituted a new term ‘submitting to Christ’ to the […]

A Christian journal recently gave a detailed account of an effort made to bring young people under the influence of the Gospel. A typical ‘Cellar Club’ was hired, and in an atmosphere of dimmed lights, soft drinks, cigarette smoke and ‘Christian beat music’, hundreds of teenagers were given an opportunity to talk to young believers […]

The present is a time not for ease or pleasure, but for earnest and prayerful work. A terrible crisis unquestionably has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evangelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject the gospel of Christ. By the equivocal use of traditional phrases, by the representation of differences […]

The world today is looking for a note of optimism. The dark clouds of war hover ominously over the inter­national scene. Political confusion, economic un­certainty, and social unrest produce anxiety and fear in various parts of the world. Amid all our scientific and technological progress, the twentieth-century man seems disillusioned with the promises of peace […]

In the report of the Archbishop’s Committee on Evangelism, published in 1945 under the title: Towards the Conversion of England, the work of evangelism is conveniently defined as follows: ‘so to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, that men shall come to put their trust in God through Him, to accept […]

The following is abridged from a pamphlet by James Begg (1803-1883), The Art of Preaching, printed in 1863, twenty years after more than 400 ministers had left the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. While in the context in which Begg wrote there were no doubt peculiar historical circumstances affecting the […]

‘Then shall the Kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. . . at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh….. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour […]

‘And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.’ –Revelation 20:15 Can there be any more sobering reality than what we read in the verse noted above? And should you not, my dear friend, contemplate your own eternal existence after your earthly demise? […]

I was recently speaking with an evangelist friend of mine who said that he has a friend working in a very poor, developing nation, who is assisting the poor and malnourished children of that nation by providing them a food which helps them overcome the ravages of malnutrition. My friend asked, “Well, that’s good, of […]