I’ll get back to the pastor’s devotional life tomorrow. Today, given the much mentioned birthday of John Calvin, I thought I should link you to the following:

Calvin & the Preaching of the Word

by Peter Adam

Peter Adam listens carefully to Calvin’s preaching to appreciate the genius and complexity of what he was trying to accomplish in the pulpit. As always, Peter is simultaneously witty, profound, and challenging as he opens up this aspect of the Reformer’s ministry.

This talk was originally given at Trinity Theological College in Perth, Australia in June 2009. Our thanks to Trinity and to Peter for allowing us to publish this excellent talk here.

Click here to download the talk in mp3 format

There are also a host of other talks on Calvin that I haven’t seen much linkage to on the blogosphere, here.

When a pastor has a close personal walk with His Saviour…

…he becomes known as a godly Christian first and foremost, and only secondarily as a capable pastor or preacher

…he blesses the congregation by the vitality of his prayers

…he preaches a Saviour he knows

…he becomes a ‘worthy’ example to the flock

…he strengthens the faith of his family who see that he loves Jesus as much in the home as he does in the holy-pulpit

…he bears the weight of the ministry by bringing its burdens to Jesus

The penny is finally dropping for me that the minister’s devotional life really, really is his number one priority. On the subject, John Tindall has some excellent discussion starter questions about pastor’s personal walk with the Lord. I’m planning to write my thoughts on each of them shortly.

•  What benefits overflow to families and congregations when a minister is walking closely with the Lord?

•  What other aspects are there to our devotional life? What part should retreats or fasting have, for example?

•  Should we keep a spiritual journal?

•  What are the obstacles to having quality time with God? How do we overcome these obstacles?

•  In spiritual oversight, who pastors the pastor?

•  What should we be praying for? How should we divide up our prayer time?

•  How do we keep our reading of Scripture fresh?

•  John Wesley used to say that he thought very little of a man who did not pray for four hours every day. Discuss.

•  Are there devotional Christian books that should be read by every minister?

•  How can we encourage one another to read good books?

•  How important is it to vary our reading?

•  How can we help one another when we are feeling spiritually barren?

The arrival of summer brings summer vacations. And this leads to the pastor’s dilemma: what to preach on when church is not consistently assembled.

Should the pastor continue his expositional series throughout the summer months or not? Some pastors find it profitable to postpone lengthy, momentum-building, expositional series during the summer months. I agree. From my pastoral experience I have found it wise to pause and wait until the church gathers together in the fall to resume.

Read the whole of CJ Mahaney’s helpful article here.

“Building a Healthy Church” was the last sermon-series I’ll participate in at Charlotte Chapel.  As much as I hope other people benefitted from the studies in 1 Timothy, I personally profited from them a great deal. The Apostle Paul’s sagely words should be relevant to many readers of this blog, of course. 1 Timothy is a charge given to a young-ish man concerning the conduct and creed of the church he pastors (1 Tim 3:14-16; 6:11ff)!

Title	Preacher	Passage
Opening 1 Timothy	Colin Adams		1 Tim 1:1-2
The doctrine driven church	Colin Adams		1 Tim 1:3-11
A matter of life or death	Peter Grainger		1 Tim 1:12-20
Gospel-Centred Praying	Peter Grainger		1 Tim 2:1-7
Worship and Witness	Peter Grainger		1 Tim 2:8-15
The Noble task	Colin Adams		1 Tim 3:1-7
Godly Servants	Rodney Stout		1 Tim 3:8-13
The Heart of 1 Timothy	Colin Adams		1 Tim 3:14-16
Whom Do I Serve?	Tim Bridges		1 Tim 4:1-10
A Pastor’s Priorities	Peter Grainger		1 Tim 4:11-16
A Caring Community	Colin Adams		1 Tim 5:1-16
Leading Questions	Colin Adams		1 Tim 5:17-25
Work and Wealth	Colin Adams		1 Tim 6:1-10
A Personal Challenge	Colin Adams		1 Tim 6:11-21

Quite regularly I hear people say that “Northern Ireland is a Christian country.”  But even if you accept the premise (is there really such a thing as a ‘Christian country?’) one would surely have to say that Northern Ireland is less Christian than it used to be. Consider the results of a survey carried out in 2007 on behalf of the Evangelical Alliance of Northern Ireland:

Then in 2008, a BBC online survey found the following results concerning Northern Ireland:

• 73% believe in a god/deity/higher power
• 64% believe there is a link between declining church attendance and declining morals in today’s society
• 81% believe that society is moving away from religion
• 71% feel that churches could offer more for young people
• About half (51%) say religions are out of touch with society and need to change with the times
• 21% agree that shops shouldn’t be open on a Sunday
• 61% say sport should be played on a Sunday
• 50% would like churches to develop more online resources

These surveys indicate what few seem to realise: secularism is on the rise in Northern Ireland.

Like the rest of the Europe it has become a mission-field once more.

So we just finished preaching through the book of Nehemiah.   “Restoring the Ruins” was a timely series of expositions, not least for a church who are about to begin a new phase of ‘building’ with their pastor-elect, Paul Rees. For those who might be interested in doing a series on Nehemiah, here is how we did it:

		Nehemiah – Man of Prayer	Peter Grainger	Neh 1:1-11
		Planning Permission	Colin Adams	Neh 2:1-10
		Let us rebuild	Colin Adams	Neh 2:11-20
		Building together	Peter Grainger	Neh 3:1-32
		Battle-ready	Colin Adams	Neh 4:1-23
		The enemy within	Peter Grainger	Neh 5:1-19
		Distractions and Diversions	Rodney Stout	Neh 6:1-14
		The End… and a Beginning	Colin Adams	Neh 6:15 – 7:73
		Bring out the book!	Colin Adams	Neh 7:73 – 8:18
		Corporate Confession	Peter Grainger	Neh 9:1-37
		Time to Commit	Colin Adams	Neh 9:38 – 10:39
		The Holy City	Peter Grainger	Neh 11:1 – 12:26
		Reason to rejoice	Peter Grainger	Neh 12:27-47
		A return to the ruins	Colin Adams	Neh 13:1-14

In a spring 2006 chapel service, President Paige Patterson presented the “perfect expository sermon.” It was just one example of Patterson’s attempts to teach a new generation of preachers how the Word of God should be proclaimed.

The perfect sermon, Patterson said, is a dry sponge.

Read the rest.

Suppose your body was ridden with a life-threatening disease. Would you not want an immediate diagnosis? And say the diagnosis was made in quick time, wouldn’t you desperately desire a prescription for the problem?

Well Greg Dutcher (pastor of Christ Fellowship Church in Maryland) is convinced that such a malady exists in your soul and mine. In his inaugural book “You are the Treasure That I seek (but there’s a lot of cool stuff out there, Lord)”,  Dutcher exposes this spiritual cancer. It is idolatry.

The meat of the volume is a fairly slender cut – only 101 pages – but the fare is rich. The 10 chapters unfold in a logical sequence: chapters 1 to 8 are mainly diagnostic, while chapters 9 and 10 provide the remedy. The former seeks to expose the universality and subtlety of idolatry, and is something of a sustained meditation concerning where idols lurk in our lives. The latter (9 & 10) covers both defensive and offensive strategies in the battle against idolatry: negatively, how to flee idolatry;  positively, how to treasure Christ.

While coming earlier in the book, in many ways chapter 4 (”the Cross of Christ – Safety in the Ashes)  falls into the category of remedy also, since it takes us to the cross where Jesus died for our idols and made it so that “idolatry cannot condemn us eternally anymore.” (p 43)

There are also two lengthy appendixes at the end of the book – Idolatry Case Studies and A First Aid Kit for Idolators. Both of these add further practical value to the short volume. The only thing I couldn’t understand was why (apart from their length) they were not found in the main body of the book. Minus these appendixes, the criticism might have been leveled that there was ‘lots on the problem’  but relatively ‘little on the solution’. They are, then, a significant addition.

The brevity of the book’s chapters and its use of every-day life illustrations, make Dutcher’s diagnostic accessible to the average person in the pew, even to those who read relatively little. His style of writing is crisp, clear and keeps the attention. His definition of idolatry, for example, is typically succinct and memorable: “An idol is a lousy substitute for God.” (p31)

One could, however, also imagine this book in the hand of an unbeliever: especially one who struggles to understand what Christian’s mean by sin. Tim Keller has shown in recent years that speaking of sin in terms of idolatry is something that connects with many secular young people today, for example.

I, for one, will be recommending Dutcher’s book to Christians I know. This is not only a nicely written volume, it is a much needed one. Dutcher may be right when he says: “The idolatry syndrome has enjoyed almost invisible status in most Christian communities today.” (p80)

The subtlety and stealth of idolatry struck a chord with me even while reading “You are the treasure that I seek.” When I began reading, I confess to thinking: this may well be a profitable book for other people. I mean, surely pastors are beyond struggles with idolatry.

But then Dutcher relayed a conversation that sounded all too familiar :

“Laying his Bible on the dashboard, the pastor starts the ignition and pulls out of the church parking lot. ‘Your sermon was great today, honey. Did you get any feedback?’ asks his wife. The minister cocks his head slightly, as if retrieving the answer takes a good deal of effort. After a few moments of searching (after all, the people’s comments were the furtherest thing from his mind) he responds, ‘Yes, I think one or two people thought it was helpful. Praise the Lord.” (p12)

OK, idolatry is everyone’s problem.

Here.

What I wrote to the church:

“It is with great pleasure that I commend the new website of Ballymoney Baptist Church to our members and friends. The website represents, at least in part, the ‘outward face’ of our church, and in our technological age it is a valuable gateway through which people can discover more about our church – and more importantly – about our Saviour.

I trust you will soon realise that the new website has become more of a resource for church members, with the addition of update news, sermons and other resources. I pray that it will soon become a ‘front-page’ that will encourage you in your Christian walk.

Many thanks go to Andrew Wallace and Dave McClean who have put in long hours to produce what is an excellently-finished site.

Happy browsing!

Colin Adams”