Topic Archives: Church & Ministry

‘…and He gave some as evangelists.’ , Ephesians 4:11 My friend, William Hatcher, once said to me, ‘A company can have a nice, new beautiful building with the latest equipment to make the company profitable. It can have a great research and development department. It can train its employees very well, and position them strategically […]

‘Do the work of an evangelist.’ , 2 Timothy 4:5 In my many travels around Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in the United States, one thing is now very clear to me-I almost never see an evangelist on the staff of these churches. To be sure, on rare occasion the Senior Pastor is an evangelist and […]

2017 has witnessed some large sale commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Conference organizers and publishing houses have worked hard to ensure that the long lasting implications of Luther’s ‘breakthrough’ are not lost on our own generation of believers, and for this we are much in their debt. The story less told, […]

In the first part of our discussion on Worship we were concerned to make the distinction between what would generally be called the body of worship and the heart of worship. We used another illustration of hardware and software to press that distinction. We have thus far identified two key issues which make for the […]

Content is at the heart of worship. It is a sad thing to hear people in worship mindlessly repeat things. Most worship services will differ little from the chanting and frenzied episodes of oriental mysticism or African ‘spirit-ism’. Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle writes, ‘If I am asked to define worship in one word, […]

We were in Uganda two months ago and happened to attend the only church we believed to be reformed. We had this impression because friends of ours had in previous years come to this church and found it to be not too bad. We were rather disappointed when we went in to find that it […]

Regular exposition of the Scriptures in one church fellowship places certain unique demands on the preacher. Remaining fresh while remaining faithful, and preaching consistently without preaching predictably can be significant challenges. A perennial problem for any settled preaching ministry, however, is that of remaining Christ-centered and gospel focused in our ministry of the Word, while […]

Many of us can recall the intense light and surprising warmth conveyed to our hearts when we first read the exemplary history of the Reformers and the Reformation Martyrs, along with their expositions of Scripture. Their brave and strong standing fast in the faith (1 Cor. 16:13) reached across the centuries and led us to new heights in serving […]

In the mid-twentieth century, those Christians who were willing to call themselves ‘Reformed’ or ‘Calvinistic’ were relatively few in number. Liberalism had done its work in the large  mainline denominations to discredit ‘Reformation’ doctrine. Evangelicalism had fallen so low that many dismissed theology altogether by saying that doctrine only divides. ‘Calvinist’ was a slur to denigrate a Christian and to advise […]

‘And He gave some as evangelists.’ , Ephesians 4:11  There is a plethora of good Bible teachers and preachers in the Reformed denominations of our day, and for this we ought to be thankful. We tend to attract men who love the Bible and theology and who, consequently, are gifted in communicating both. However it […]

At the 2017 Shepherd’s Conference, in Sun Valley, California, the Banner of Truth hosted a student event for Master’s Seminary Students. We sat down with Iain Murray and John MacArthur to discuss reading in the ministry, asking them if they could share their accumulated wisdom after reading and writing for decades. Here are some of […]

Malta is a Mediterranean island situated 60 miles south of Sicily. Its population is 420,000, almost half of whom live in the capital, Valletta, and the numbers have been swollen in recent years by a stream of refugees from North Africa. Its official language is Maltese but many of the people speak English. It became independent […]

Steve Lawson describes some of the early struggles of his ministry, and how God used The Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain H. Murray to encourage and help him. For one week only, get The Forgotten Spurgeon for just $11. The Forgotten Spurgeon

Ian Hamilton discusses his first time reading John G. Paton’s Autobiography as a young Christian, and the ‘seismic impact’ it had on his Christian walk.

One sometimes meets Christians who use scriptural words and thoughts with no more feeling than if they were licking stamps. They seem to belong to a religious world whose citizens live always north of the Arctic circle of emotion. Their spiritual affections are buried beneath yards of ice and snow. When they venture to talk about […]

The members of First Church (not the real name of the church) consistently made false accusations against one another. They would regularly throw verbal mud at one another. At times, they would even form alliances and fight against one another. Some of their claims were silly. One elder accused a teenager of rebelliously going to […]

Some of us who are advanced in years can lay claim to  remembering life in a God-centred church and, to a certain extent, in a God-centred nation. The influence of  three centuries of the Shorter Catechism being memorized in the home, the church and the school had left its mark. The opening question: ‘What is […]

‘. . . I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.’ , 1 Corinthians 9:16 Even a cursory reading of the Acts of the Apostles clearly shows the zeal the Apostle Paul had for preaching the gospel. The man was relentless. He went far, fast, and furious with the […]

Our dear friends and supporters of our ministry in this Northern Siberian city of Nizhnivartovsk, After six years of slow and painstaking labour, because we had to do most of the work ourselves, we completed our wooden church in 2014. We came here in 1991 on the first evangelistic mission to Siberia within living memory, […]

‘. . .teaching you publicly and from house to house’ , Acts 20.20 I know what many church pundits are saying, ‘Intentional, “drive by” evangelism does not work any more. People are too secular for this kind of thing. What we need to do is to develop relationships with people by joining a local workout […]

Let me introduce a contemporary church situation in England, and go back a time (a few hundred years in fact) to give it its origin, a contrast, and a perspective. I must take you back to William Bridge who is about as anonymous a Puritan preacher as you can find. Bare facts are the following, that […]

‘Why do you go to church twice on a Sunday? Isn’t once enough?’ In many churches the Sunday evening service is disappearing. There are two main reasons for this. First, demands from employers have increased enormously over the last 30 years. Weekends have become precious. Two Sunday services are seen as taking up too much […]

“What hath God wrought?” -Numbers 23:23 Wouldn’t you love to see two hundred and twenty-five people join your church by profession of faith in an eighteen month period? Wouldn’t you love to see a vast number of college students repent and believe the gospel, being transformed in life, thought, and deed, being used of God […]

I’m not too keen on the title of this book, though I understand the context in which it was chosen, but I do love the author unequivocally. Elly Achok Olare and his brother Barnabas are two wonderful men, former students of mine whom I taught in the Pastors’ Theological Course in Nairobi, Kenya. I think of […]

This question can be embarrassing, can’t it? Why do you worship on Sunday? Doesn’t the Bible say that the seventh day is the time God consecrated for his people? Where does the Bible say that Christians should sanctify the first day of the week, rather than the seventh day? It’s a good question, you will […]