10 Key Priorities For Pastoral Ministry:

TEN KEY PRIORITIES THAT ARE AT THE HEART OF EVERY PASTOR'S MINISTRY:

1. Guard the truth: A pastor must be committed to the word of God and the apostles' teachings and be willing to preach, teach and defend them when they are contrary to the culture.
2. Preach the word: A pastor must faithfully preach the whole counsel of God's word, carefully explaining the meaning of the text and applying it to the lives of those under his care.
3. Pray for the flock: A pastor should be an intercessor, bringing the needs of his church before God and modeling prayer both publicly and privately.
4. Set an example: A pastor is an example to his flock and should always be aware that others are looking to him as a model. While a pastor should model righteous behavior, he must also model confession and repentance, acknowledging he is also a sinner and teaching his people how to apply the gospel to life.
5. Visit the sick: Pastors should visit those who are sick and in need of care and encouragement, and they must train others in the congregation to help care for those in need.
6. Comfort the grieving: In the face of death, a pastor should grieve with those who grieve and should sensitively remind those who are grieving of the hope and encouragement of the gospel. This involves preaching gospel-focused meassages at funerals and graveside services.
7. Care for widows: This much-neglected biblical teaching calls for pastors to be responsible for the widows of the church and to find creative ways to model care for widows by involving their families and other members of the church in caring for these specifcal women. 
8. Confront sin: Pastors need to confront sin and lead the church in the exercise of discipline in the hope of repentance and restoration.
9. Encourage the weaker sheep: Though we can be tempted to easily dismiss people who are slow to change, God calls pastors to model patience and persevering hope by working with those who are difficult, despairing and challenging.
10. Identify and train leaders: It is the primary responsiblitiy of pastors to identify, train and affirm leaders in the church. Every pastor should have a plan for doing this in his local church and should be actively seeking out the next generation of leaders.

Brian Croft, "The Pastor's Ministry"

Divine Sovereignty:

The sovereignty of God is not a secondary doctrine that is relegated to an obscure corner in the Bible. Rather, this truth is the very bedrock doctrine of all Scripture. This is the Mount Everest of biblical teaching, the towering truth that transcends all theology. From its opening verse, the Bible asserts in no uncertain terms that God is and that God reigns. In other words, He is God—not merely in name, but in full reality. God does as He pleases, when He pleases, where He pleases, how He pleases, and with whom He pleases in saving undeserving sinners. All other doctrines of the Christian faith must be brought into alignment with this keystone truth.

The sovereignty of God is the free exercise of His supreme authority in executing and administrating His eternal purposes. God must be sovereign if He is to be truly God. A god who is not sovereign is not God at all. Such is an imposter, an idol, a mere caricature formed in man’s fallen imagination. A god who is less than fully sovereign is not worthy of our worship, much less our witness. But the Bible proclaims for all to hear that “the Lord reigns” (Ps. 93:1). God is exactly who Scripture declares He is. He is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, whose supreme authority is over all. This is the main premise of Scripture.

Nowhere is God’s sovereignty more clearly demonstrated than in His salvation of the lost. God is free to bestow His saving mercy on whom He pleases. God says, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Ex. 33:19b; Rom. 9:15). He is not obligated to extend His grace to any undeserving sinner. If He were to choose to save none, He would remain perfectly just. He might determine to save a few and still be absolutely holy. Or He could choose to save all. But God is sovereign, and that means He is entirely free to bestow His grace however He will—whether on none, few, or all.

From beginning to end, salvation is of God and, ultimately, for God. The apostle Paul writes, “From him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36). In this comprehensive verse, God is declared to be the divine source, the determinative means, and the designated end of all things. This is most true in salvation. According to this text, every aspect of the operation of saving grace is God-initiated, God-directed, and God-glorifying. Every dimension of salvation is from Him, through Him, and to Him. This is to say, salvation originates from His sovereign will, proceeds through His sovereign activity, and leads to His sovereign glory.

Christ Puts A Comma, Where The World Puts A Period:

There are some words or phrases that just don’t go together.  “Jumbo Shrimp,” “New Antiques,” “kind of pregnant,” or “sort of married” are some that come to my mind. Other phrases can become part of our standard English, like “virtual reality” or “Icy Hot.” In the English language, we call them “oxymorons,” a funny sounding word in and of itself. That word has a Greek origin, and could be translated as “pointedly foolish” and refers to a statement that makes a self-contradiction.

We all slip up in our speech at times, but the Bible often uses these pointed phrases to drive home a point. The Bible often takes words that don’t go together, and puts them together to grab our attention and help us see the point more clearly. For example, Paul writes “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live” in Galatians 2:20. The Gospels tell of the “Virgin birth” and Jesus says that “the first shall be last.” All of these phrases, even when brought into English, catch our ear and make us stop and examine them more closely to see just what is being claimed.​

Another of these phrases can be found in the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew 9, a synagogue official comes to Jesus because his daughter has passed away. This man's life has been interrupted in the worst possible way. Somehow, he heard of this man Jesus who was teaching, healing, and performing all sorts of miracles. In desperation, he comes to him and pours out his heart.

"While He was saying these things to them, a synagogue official came and bowed down before Him, and said, 'My daughter has just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.'" (Matthew 9:18)

As he pours out his heart, he puts together two words that should never go together. “My daughter has died, but…” Those last two words don't fit together. Death is always the final word in any situation. As long as there is no death, there is still hope for a recovery, for a miracle, for a healing. But death is the end of the sentence. Death is a period. There is no hope after death. But, for this synagogue official, there is.  ​

“...died, but...”

He believed that with Christ, death was no longer the end. Those words that didn’t belong together could now live in harmony because of this man Jesus. He did things that should not be done, things that defied nature and all common sense. He put a comma where there had only been a period before. Death was not the end of hope when Christ was there. 

Christ came to her house and brought her back to life. A period was now just a comma, a pause, a dark night before the sun rose in the morning. As far as we know, this was just a temporary pause. She went on, lived her life, and died again someday. After all, physical death still comes for all of us. 

If we are in Christ, though, physical death is not the end. If we are in Christ, our fellowship may end with our loved ones, but death marks the beginning of an eternity of fellowship with Jesus. Even for those that are left behind after the death of a loved one, we know that it is only a temporary parting if they are in the Lord. We will see them again on the other side of the river. Our parting is not eternal, but temporary. 

Of all the words that don't go together in the Bible, this is the one that gets everyone’s attention. We all know that death comes for all of us one day, and that there is no escape. There is no way to avoid death, of course, but praise God that through Christ Jesus, there is only a comma there and not a period. Sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

This is the good news of the gospel. Words that didn’t make sense together make sense now because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Christ puts a comma where the world tells us to put a period. Because of our new life in Christ, we know that even though trials come, we can make it through. Even the worst the world can offer cannot stand before the power of a risen Christ. 

Porn is NOT harmless, It is cruel:

There’s a myth that porn is harmless. “It’s just a few consenting adults, doing what they want with their own bodies,” the thinking goes.

But this simply isn’t true. In reality, pornography is deeply involved in the exploitation of women and children, and it’s destructive to its consumers. Porn is much more than an individual decision—it’s part of a system that preys on women and children, and its viewers are participating in, contributing to, and being shaped by that destructive, enslaving system.

1. Porn fuels the sex trade.
Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery, and it’s the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world. Sex trafficking is one of the most profitable forms of trafficking and involves many kinds of sexual exploitation, such as prostitution, pornography, bride trafficking, and the commercial sexual abuse of children. According to the United Nations, sex trafficking brings in an estimated $32 billion a year worldwide. In the United States, sex trafficking brings in $9.5 billion annually. Those numbers are incredible.

The primary way porn fuels the sex trade is by building the demand. After all, the sex trade consists of supply and demand. The supply is women and children either forced into exploitation at home or lured away from their homes with promises of jobs, travel, and a better life. The average age of girls who enter street prostitution is between 12 and 14—even younger in some developing countries. Traffickers coerce women and children through a variety of recruitment techniques to enter the commercial sex industry in strip clubs, street-based prostitution, and escort services. Thousands of children and women are victimized in this way each year.

The trafficking industry wouldn’t exist without demand. According to researcher Andrea Bertone, the demand consists of men who feed a “patriarchal world system” that preys on women and children.

2. Porn shapes sexual desires.
Pornography shapes the appetites of men, women, and children to accept and even enjoy the exploitation of women. As Robert Jensen observes:

There are a few basic themes in pornography: (1) All women at all times want sex from all men; (2) women enjoy all the sexual acts that men perform or demand, and; (3) any woman who does not at first realize this can be easily turned with a little force.

It’s important to note that porn isn’t just a “men’s issue,” as 28 percent of people admitting to internet sexual addiction are women. Approximately 9 out of 10 children between the ages of 8 and 16 have viewed porn on the internet. The average age of first internet exposure to porn is 11, and in most cases is unintentional. The largest consumer of internet pornography is 12- to 17-year-old boys.

Porn teaches its consumers that women exist for the pleasure of men and that their purpose is to be degraded and dehumanized for men’s excitement—and that they like it, even if they pretend not to. But this is part of the lie: Countless women in porn are there against their will and are being exploited. According to Jensen, “There is evidence that force and coercion are sometimes used to secure women’s participation . . . that psychological and physical damage is common and that heavy alcohol and drug use are routine.”

3. Porn exploits child sexual abuse victims.
Mary Anne Layden, director of the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania, reports that most women involved in the sex industry are adult survivors of sexual abuse. Research indicates that the number is between 60 percent to 80 percent.

Simply put, most women in the porn industry are adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and porn perpetuates their exploitation. Additionally, 20 percent of all internet pornography involves children.

4. Porn supports ‘rape culture.’
The physical, emotional, and psychological damage to the women and children in porn is heartbreaking, but equally insidious is porn’s effect on men and society by normalizing the degradation and dehumanization of women. Jensen explains, “As pornography has become more acceptable, both legally and culturally, the level of brutality toward, and degradation of, women has intensified.”

The prevalence of porn means people are becoming desensitized to it, and are seeking out ever harsher, more violent, and degrading images. Even the porn industry is shocked by how much violence the fans want. As one pornography director put it, “People just want it harder, harder, and harder . . . what are you gonna do next?”

Robin Morgan’s phrase “pornography is the theory, rape is the practice” captures the link between the production and consumption of pornography and violence against women and children. The point isn’t that porn causes all viewers to sexually abuse others, but that it creates what some researches call “rape culture” by normalizing, legitimizing, and condoning violence against women and children.

5. Porn hijacks children’s sexuality.
Gail Dines, author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, explains the implications of porn: “We are now bringing up a generation of boys on cruel, violent porn. . . . Given what we know about how images affect people, this is going to have a profound influence on their sexuality, behavior and attitudes toward women.”

Mary Anne Layden argues: “There is evidence that the prevalence of pornography in the lives of many children and adolescents is far more significant than most adults realize, that pornography is deforming the healthy sexual development of these young viewers, and that it is used to exploit children and adolescents.”

6. Porn limits men.
While porn is not just a “men’s issue,” it remains a pervasively male problem. William Struthers, a bio-psychologist, explains the effects on men: “Men seem to be wired in such a way that pornography hijacks the proper functioning of their brains and has a long-lasting effect on their thoughts and lives.”

Porn limits male self-expression and has proven to be psychologically detrimental to some viewers. Frequent pornographic stimulus changes the neurological makeup in the brain—it actually rewires the viewer’s brain.

Everyone in the supply chain, from production to consumption, is participating in the economic juggernaut that is the porn industry, whether they realize it or not. And many of them are unaware of the harm being done to themselves and others. This industry fuels the global sex trade, builds the demand for exploitation, severely distorts sexuality, exploits abuse victims, and normalizes the degradation of women and children.

That’s why porn is much more than a private, individual decision.

No Time To Lose:

Time is not something we instinctively grasp.

When we were young, we had little concept of time. Our parents and those in authority over us made decisions that kept us on time. They made sure we got up on time, ate at the right time, spent time on the right things, and went to bed on time. As we grew up, we those who were older advise us that one day, when we get older, we’ll see that time flies.

At some point, we shifted from having others in charge of our time to being in charge of it ourselves. Your life is governed by time. You are the one responsible for it. And, perhaps you are even responsible for other people’s time.

And now, as you pause and look over your shoulder, haven’t these last few years flown by?

Time is dominant, but it’s also vital. Which is interesting because of the way many of us use our time. We often lack a sense of the value of time. We thoughtlessly say things like, I have some time to kill, or I have some free time. If we are not careful, we can let minutes, hours, and days pass by without much thought to how we are spending our time.

Are you familiar with the term infinity pool? It’s a term some productivity experts have given to our streams of information and entertainment. Never before have we had some opportunities to be tantalized with new and engaging information or entertainment—and it’s seemingly endless.

It’s infinite.

Getting to the end of the social media feed is impossible. The news is intent to keep on refreshing. Those on television keep on talking. Before you finish your current show, Netflix has another cued up. Not to be outdone, YouTube has another video in the on-deck circle before the current batter is retired.

The pool is infinite.

We often mindlessly dive into these infinity pools. And, when we do climb back up the ladder and come out? An hour later? Maybe two? Perhaps even more. Where did the time go?

But what if our time is not infinite? What if it is limited?

And, what if it is not our own? What if we’re accountable to someone else for what we do with our time?

What if our time is like our money? Don Whitney observed, “If people threw away their money as thoughtlessly as they throw away their time, we would think them insane.” He’s right.

Time is the quiet oxygen that allows us to breathe in the joys of life. We need it. It’s precious.

The Bible has a lot to say about time. It presents time as a gift. And like every other gift, it comes from God. And, as a result, it must be stewarded. This means we have a job to do and will be held accountable for how we have used our gifts; how well we have done our jobs. The biblical concept of stewardship leads us from squandering God’s gifts to a place of faithful stewardship.

The apostle Paul writes to the Ephesian church and he calls them to live a life of holiness or godliness. He says that they must imitate Christ (5:1) by walking in a way (or living in a way) that honors God. Then he says, down in verses 15 and 16, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16). “Making the best use of time” is, more literally, “redeeming the time.” This is a term that refers to purchasing or buying back. Why must we buy back time?

Because time is precious.

Many people value having a lot of money. But it can’t be more valuable than time; for what use is money if you have no time to enjoy it? Time is the quiet oxygen that allows us to breathe in the joys of life. We need it. It’s precious.

Many people value having a lot of money. But it can’t be more valuable than time; for what use is money if you have no time to enjoy it?

Time’s also valuable because it is limited. Any resource increases in value when there is less of it and a corresponding spike in demand. Think of your time. You have less of it today than you did on Friday. It is evaporating quickly from you. How valuable is what remains?

This is where the concept of stewardship comes in. In short, Paul is saying, “Don’t waste your time.” You mustn’t squander this gift of time. It must be liberated from uselessness and set toward the pursuit the highest end.

In Ephesians 4-6 we have all different types of relationships and responsibilities laid out. We have husbands, wives, children, parents, workers, bosses, church members, and regular citizens. It’s the whole gamut of life. God has called each of us into a sphere and given us responsibilities. He has given us sufficient time. And he has instructed us in his Word.

In another passage, we learn that God has numbered our days (Ps. 139:16). That is, we have a finite amount of time allocated to each of us. We can’t take away from them, but neither can you add to them. Our time is limited by God’s divine sanction. In another passage, we are instructed to number our days (Ps. 90:12).

Many are familiar with Jonathan Edwards’s resolutions. He embraced this concept of stewardship, particularly of time. And as a young man, he wrote, with resolve to never to lose one moment of time but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

He longed to hear, like the humble servant in Jesus’s parable:

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matt. 25:21)

As Christians who desire to live faithfully, we must be intentional. We must live with intentionality rather than passivity, laziness, and a lack of discipline. We would do well to realize that time is a gift to be stewarded rather than squandered.

The Joyful Calling of Being A Parent:

Julia and I used to be in that interesting stage of life commonly called “Married-With-No-Kids.”

Sure, some couples make the choice to immediately start having kids after they get married. And some start the adoption process early into their marriage. But from what I’ve seen, a lot of married Christian couples wait anywhere between one to six years before pressing questions about children enter the picture. My wife and I waited around five years before we had our first daughter. Most of the couple friends around our age waited about the same time.

Putting it off longer

What I’ve noticed more recently, however, are the increasing number of couples who wait longer before having kids. And many decide against having children altogether. These decisions are considered for various reasons as couples ask these kinds of questions:

• Kids will ruin our social life. Why would we want that?
• Should I have to quit my job or significantly cut back on my time at work just to take care of a screaming baby all day?
• Why should we sacrifice our freedom and income for children?
• Isn’t it better to save more money and give more money away with all that we’ll earn and keep by not having kids?
• When I see parents out in public with their kids, it stresses me out. Who needs that kind of pressure in their lives?

And on and on it can go. I know I’ve asked these kinds of questions in the past. There are tons of Christians with strong opinions on both sides of this conversation/argument who enjoy chiming in with their two cents. So I wanted to contribute to that in a healthy way that is biblical and hopefully God-honoring.

Here are a few things to consider as you and your spouse begin to ask the question, “Should we have kids … and when?”

1. God gave people a command to be fruitful and multiply.

Genesis 1:28 says, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.’” Now, this doesn’t mean absolutely everyone should marry or everyone should have kids. But God did plan from the beginning that this should be the norm.

The Lord is wise and good. So if we are going to opt out of the norm of filling the earth by having children, we should be really sure that in the end we can give a good account to God. It’s not enough to just say, “It wasn’t my preference,” or something like that. God’s plan is to fill the earth with image-bearers of his glory, and it is a glorious thing to participate in that.

2. The most joyful experiences of your life will come as a parent.

I have two daughters and a son. I like to say that being the dad of three kids is kind of like when you were a kid jumping with a group of other children on a trampoline. Eventually you’re going to fall down and the other kids are going to keep jumping, knocking you around, stepping on your hands, and causing you all sorts of confusion. It’s chaotic and painful and crazy…but hey, you’re on a trampoline with other people, so it’s also fantastic.

I have never laughed more in my life than when I’m with my kids. The most powerful memories of my life are from beautiful moments with my children. When they do something, understand something, say something, or act out something in a way that surprises and delights me. And right now, they’re only toodlers! I still have many years of surprises ahead of me with them. What a God-given joy it is to be a parent.

3. God uses children to grow our character.

Psalm 127:3 promises us, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.” Despite the fact that your future kids might break your heart in many ways, this Scripture is still true.

God doesn’t promise us lives of parental ease and comfort. He promises good reward. And sometimes rewards come only through the medium of sorrow and suffering. To be a parent is to sacrificially suffer, because to authentically love is to sacrificially suffer. When you love someone, you give of yourself so that they might benefit. That, by definition, is sacrificial.

Many of us look at parents with screaming kids in the cereal aisle and think, I’m glad I’m not that parent. In reality though, when God ushers parental self-sacrifice into our lives so that we might be part of shepherding the soul of a child, He is ushering in his grace. It’s tough to see selfish, whiney children as grace, but they are.

There are no shortcuts on the road to character. God uses parenthood to graciously grow our character. To say “no” to God’s instruments of sanctification just because it looks scary–or publicly humiliating when you’d rather just pick out your Cheerios– is to reject one of God’s greatest potential methods of molding you into the image of Christ.

The gospel is about sacrifice (Christ’s sacrifice and suffering for our benefit). The gospel’s message is the greatest message of love ever communicated. To parent is to understand sacrifice and suffering in a way that identifies with Christ on a whole new level—one that rewards us both now and on into eternity.

4. You have no idea how having children will increase your intimacy in marriage.

Matthew 19:19 says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And Ephesians 5: 28-30 doubles down on this principle by saying, “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.”

In other words, husbands, when you are loving your wife, you are loving yourself. You two are one flesh. She is you. John Piper once said, “When she becomes joyful in motherhood, this joy will be your joy, because she is you. Her joy is your joy. What a fatherly pleasure it is to see a woman become a mother. If you want overflowing joy, then make your body, that is your wife, a joyful mother of children.”

I have seen joy in the life of my wife unlike any other time than in the joy of raising our kids. Sure, the lows are low, but man, the highs are unlike any other high I’ve ever seen in the lives of both my wife and myself. What a gift it is to me to see the gift my children are to my wife. She is a mother because of what God did through her and I together. It has been such a delight to love her as myself by giving her the gift of motherhood.

*  *  *

There are many more thoughts I could share that could add to this list. But for now, I think we’ll stop here. And again, not everyone is called to marriage or having kids. So don’t think this is blanketed exhortation to absolutely everyone.

However, what I’ve both personally experienced and witnessed in others is that having children by birth, adoption, fostering, or marrying someone with kids is welcoming the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ into our lives in a way that nothing else can compare.

The calling of having kids is to enter into the joy of your Master, and not only refine your soul, but sanctify your life, grow in depth of character, and identify with Christ unlike ever before.

Why I Hand Out Gospel Tracts?"

In writing to the Corinthian believers, Paul explains the lengths to which he would go to share the gospel: “To the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). If Paul meant “by all means,” he no doubt would have used gospel tracts as a means to reach the lost. Never underestimate the power of a good gospel tract. After George Whitefield read one called “The Life of God in the Soul of a Man,” he said, “God showed me I must be born again or be damned.” He went on to pray, “Lord, if I am not a Christian, or if I am not a real one, for Jesus Christ’s sake show me what Christianity is, that I may not be damned at last!” Then his journal tells us “from that moment…did I know that I must become a new creature.”

According to Billy Graham, “Nothing surpasses a tract for sowing the seed of the Good News.” A Christian book relates the true story of a diver who saw a piece of paper clutched in the shell of an oyster. The man grabbed it, found that it was a gospel tract and said, “I can’t hold out any longer. His mercy is so great that He has caused His Word to follow me even to the bottom of the ocean.” God used a tract to save the man.

Why should a Christian use tracts? Simply because God uses them. He used a tract to save the great missionary Hudson Taylor, as well as innumerable others. That fact alone should be enough incentive for a Christian to always use tracts to reach the lost, but there are even more reasons why we should use them. Here are a few:

• Tracts can provide an opening for us to share our faith. We can watch people’s reaction as we give them tracts, and see if they are open to listening to spiritual things.
• They can do the witnessing for us. If we are too timid to speak to people about the things of God, we can at least give them tracts, or leave tracts lying around so that others will pick them up.
• They speak to the individuals when they are ready. They don’t read it until they want to.
• They can find their way into people’s homes when we can’t.
• They don’t get into arguments; they just state their case.

Dr. Oswald J. Smith said, “The only way to carry out the Great Commission will be by the means of the printed page.” Charles Spurgeon stated, “When preaching and private talk are not available, you need to have a tract ready…Get good striking tracts, or none at all. But a touching gospel tract may be the seed of eternal life. Therefore, do not go out without your tracts.”

“Did You Get One of These?”

If you want people to accept a tract from you, try to greet them before offering it to them. If you can get them to respond to a warm “Good morning,” or “How are you doing?” that will almost always break the ice and they will take it. After the greeting, don’t ask, “Would you like this?” They will probably respond, “What is it?” Instead, say, “Did you get one of these?” That will stir their curiosity and make them feel as though they are missing out on something. So they are.

Perhaps you almost pass out at the thought of passing out a tract. Don’t worry; you are not alone. We all battle fear. The answer to fear is found in the prayer closet. Ask God to give you a compassion that will swallow your fears. Meditate on the fate of the ungodly. Give Hell some deep thought. Confront what it is that makes you fearful.

Do you like roller coasters? Some Christians want to try bungee-jumping or skydiving. Isn’t it strange? We are prepared to risk our lives for the love of fear—and yet we are willing to let a sinner go to Hell for fear of giving out a tract. Ask yourself how many piles of bloodied stones you can find where Christians have been stoned to death for preaching the gospel. How much singed soil can you find where they have been burned at the stake? Part of our fear is a fear of rejection. We are fearful of looking foolish. That’s a subtle form of pride. The other part of our battle with fear comes directly from the enemy. He knows that fear paralyzes. We must resist the devil and his lies. If God is with us, nothing can be against us.

If you have never given out tracts, why not begin today? Leave them in a shopping cart, or put them in your bills when you pay them. Then each night as you shut your eyes to sleep, you will have something special to pray about—that God will use the tracts you put somewhere. You will also have a deep sense of satisfaction that you played a small part in carrying out the Great Commission to reach this dying world with the gospel of everlasting life. Don’t waste your life. Do something for the kingdom of God while you are able to. Always remember: treat every day as though it were your last—one day you will be right.

You can find a wide assortment of unique gospel tracts on our website. These tracts are so compelling that people will ask you for more.

10 Things That Happen When You Go to Church Weekly:

There are many benefits of going to church each week. From finding inspiration to diving deeper into the Bible and discovering a like-minded community, there’s a great deal of positivity that can come when you decide to go to church every Sunday.

We live in a world in which chaos and responsibilities might distract us from making time for God, but here are some reasons why church attendance really matters:

Church Leaves You Inspired to Start the Week

For many Americans, daily life is chaotic. With so many decisions happening in life, in business, with children and other responsibilities, going to church offers the power to center us all on what really matters.

When we take time to go to church each week, we’re setting ourselves up to be inspired for the week ahead. We’re setting aside time to not only show that God is important in our lives, but to use Sunday as a springboard to head into the week with a renewed mindset.

Going to Church Weekly Helps Grow Your Understanding

Life is complicated and many Christians struggle to make time to read the Bible and properly focus on God. But when you go to church each week you end up making a commitment that can help grow your understanding about faith, God and the Bible.

This understanding about life’s most important elements makes going to church each week a valuable “must” for every individual and family.

Going to Church Weekly Helps You Learn the Bible

Pastors generally work through Bible books and themes each week. These biblical studies offer those who go to church each week a deep dive into scripture, with preachers relating verses and chapters back to congregants’ lives.

One of the biggest benefits of going to church each week is the ability to learn more about the Bible and its application to our lives.

You Gain Community When You Go to Church Weekly

One of the larger benefits of weekly church attendance is the fact that Christians gain community with one another. Going to church each week opens the door to important friendships, relationships and fellowship.

The Bible makes it clear that it’s important for Christians to spend time with and to love one another. You gain community when you go to church every Sunday.

Going to Church Keeps You Accountable

One of the related benefits to going to church each week is the general notion that it keeps you accountable. With life getting so chaotic for so many, church is time when we can center ourselves and really focus on what matters.

From praise and worship to sitting down to listen to a pastor break down gospel truths, there’s a true benefit to going to church and holding oneself accountable to embracing faith and ensuring that important messages permeate our hearts and souls.

Weekly Church Attendance Gives Chances for Weekly Connections

In addition to going to church on Sundays, being plugged into a local house of worship also gives you the chance to engage in Bible studies, small groups and other efforts that can help you learn during the week.

If you go to church on Sundays, there’s a good chance you’re opening the door to other weekly opportunities to learn and grow.

You Can Serve When You Go to Church Weekly

Most churches offer volunteer opportunities within the congregation. These opportunities to serve the local church might involve helping out with events, running Bible studies or other opportunities to serve and care for fellow Christians.

Going to church each week offers these opportunities to serve, which collectively help bolster believers’ faith. If you’re looking to enrich your community experience, the decision to go to church every Sunday will surely help make that happen.

You Get Perspective When You Go to Church Each Week

One of the most unspoken benefits of going to church each week is gaining perspective about issues facing the Christian church more broadly. But in addition to being clued into those dynamics, believers are also given a lens into the trials, tribulations and victories of fellow-church members.

Through sharing and prayer requests, there’s a sense of commonality that is experienced as well as a strong sense of community that comes from learning about what fellow Christians are going through in life.

Going to Church Opens the Door to Missions Activities

In addition to serving in your local house of worship, going to church every week also offers the chance to engage in missions activities both in the U.S. and abroad. This form of service allows us to have a deeper connection with the world around us and with living out our faith.

If you go to church every week, mission opportunities surely abound.

Your Prayer Life Can Grow When You Go to Church

And last but not least: Going to church can help grow your prayer life. Churches typically spend a great deal of time praying together and turning to God for guidance. From paying attention to weekly prayer requests to taking part in church prayer, there’s a lot about invocations that can be learned when you go to church each week.

Considering that prayer is such an essential component of the Christian faith, going to church each week can truly benefit one’s understanding of the Almighty.

These are just 10 of the reasons why going to church can truly help grow your faith.

How To Teach Students to Study The Bible:

Parents contact me frequently to ask what devotionals or young adult Bible studies I would recommend they do with their teens. As our kids enter the teen years, our responsibility as parents is to help them develop good habits of interacting with the Bible. Finding an approach that is age-appropriate and manageable is key. My encouragement is to simply read the Bible with your teen in a way that models and trains Bible literacy—no special teen resource required.

Your teen will be exposed to devotional content and topical studies at every turn, and they likely don’t need a resource targeted specifically at their demographic. Most teens are missing basic tools to help them read and learn the Bible on their own. By guiding them in some basic study methods, you can position them to use devotional and topical material with far better discernment and far greater benefit, as those types of resources assume a firsthand knowledge of the Bible many teens have not yet developed.

Here is a simple approach that you can adapt to fit the age of your teen.

1. Pick a book of the Bible to read and discuss together.

If you have never studied together, start with a shorter book like Jonah or James. If at all possible, tackle longer books like Genesis or Hebrews while you still have the opportunity to guide and shape their study method. The goal is to give your teen exposure to the value of studying an entire book from start to finish, as opposed to only studying topically or devotionally. If your church is doing a sermon series through an entire book of the Bible, you could align your discussions with the preaching schedule to add another layer to what you’re learning.

2. Get a copy of your selected book of the Bible that has room for taking notes.

You can create this by copying one chapter at a time from Bible Gateway into a document. Set the margins to wide and the spacing to 1.5 so you have room to write. Or, you can purchase great ESV Scripture Journals if you want something ready-made, usable, and attractive. Get a copy for you and for your child.

3. Set a schedule to meet once a week for a 10-15-minute discussion.

Use a reading plan to help you break the text into readable increments. Most reading plans are set up for daily reading through the entire Bible over a specific period of time. Simply adapt the daily portions into weekly ones for the book of your choosing. For example, this ESV reading plan covers the book of James in eight days, but you could cover it in eight weeks using the same text divisions. Create a schedule for your discussion times that notes dates and passages to be discussed. A schedule for James might look like this:

Week Discuss:
1 Intro questions
2 James 1
3 James 2:1–13
4 James 2:14–26
5 James 3:1–12
6 James 3:13–18
7 James 4:1–10
8 James 4:11–5:12
9 James 5:13–20

4. Get a bird’s-eye view.

For your first discussion time, ask your teen to come with answers to the following questions about the book you’ve chosen:

• Who wrote the book?
• To whom was it written?
• When was it written?
• In what literary style was it written?
• What are the central themes of the book?
• A good study Bible can provide these answers, or an online resource like Bible Gateway. 
• I also highly recommend the Bible Project’s “Explore” series, which gives overviews to books of the Bible. 

As you read together through the book you’ve chosen, help your teen think about how the answers to these questions shape their understanding of the book’s message.

5. Prepare for discussion.

Each week before you meet to discuss the text, both you and your teen prepare by doing the following:

• Read the week’s passage from start to finish.
• In the margin of the copy of the text:
• Write (or make a drawing of) the main idea of the passage.
• Write a one- to two-sentence summary of what you read.
• Find one attribute of God that the passage is teaching. (Here is a list of attributes that can help your teen practice reading the Bible with a Godward focus.)
• Write two things you observe in the margin.
• Write two questions you have about what you’ve read.

6. Meet to discuss.

Go over what each of you has noted in your copy of the text during your personal study time. Compare your answers, observations, and questions. Look for answers to your questions in an accessible commentary or study Bible. You could also track down answers after you meet together and discuss them the following week.

Then, explore the following questions together:

• How does this passage fit into the book as a whole? How does it flow from the previous section of the text?
• How does this passage minister to its original audience?
• How does it minister to us today?
• Is there a sin to confess?
• Is there cause for thanksgiving or praise to God?
• Is there a promise or truth to trust in?
• Is there an attitude to change or a motive to examine?
• Is there a command to obey or an example to imitate?
• Is there an error to confront or avoid?

(Note that you have a rich opportunity to practice and model vulnerability with your teen in these questions.)

7. Pray together.

Finally, ask the Holy Spirit to help you apply what you have learned.

The teen years are pivotal discipleship years for our kids. In these years they feel a restlessness to enter into mature adulthood but often an accompanying lack of clarity about how to do so. Give them adult-sized tools for navigating their Bibles, and help them learn how to use them. Encourage them to use devotional and topical materials as supplements to, but not substitutes for, direct study of the Bible itself. Model good habits of Bible reading. And most of all, savor the shared learning that results when a parent and a teen sit down to open the Word together.

Tough Question: Does God hate?

It might seem a contradiction that a God who is love can also hate. Yet that’s exactly what Bible says is true: God is love (1 John 4:8), and God hates (Hosea 9:15). God’s nature is love—He always does what is best for others—and He hates what is contrary to His nature—He hates what is contrary to love.

No one should be surprised to learn that God does hate some things. He created us with the capacity to both love and hate, and we acknowledge that hatred is sometimes justified—we naturally hate things that destroy what we love. This is part of our being created in the image of God. The fact that we are all tainted with sin means that our love and hatred are sometimes misplaced, but the existence of the sin nature does not negate our God-given ability to love and hate. It is no contradiction for a human being to be able to love and hate, and neither is it a contradiction for God to be able to love and hate.

When the Bible does speak of God’s hatred, the object of His hatred is sin and wickedness. Among the things God hates are idolatry (Deuteronomy 12:31; 16:22), child sacrifice, sexual perversion (Leviticus 20:1–23), and those who do evil (Psalm 5:4–6; 11:5). Proverbs 6:16–19 lists seven things the Lord hates: pride, lying, murder, evil plots, those who love evil, false witnesses, and troublemakers. Notice that this passage does not include just things that God hates; it includes people as well. The reason is simple: sin cannot be separated from the sinner except by the forgiveness available in Christ alone. God hates lying, yes, but lying always involves a person—a liar—who chooses to lie. God cannot judge the lie without also judging the liar.

The Bible clearly teaches that God loves the people of the world (John 3:16). God spared wicked Nineveh, bringing them to repentance (Jonah 3). God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:32). He is patient to an extreme, “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). This is all proof of love—God wants what is best for His creation. At the same time, Psalm 5:5 says about God, “You hate all evildoers” (ESV). Psalm 11:5 is even harsher: “The wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion.”

Before a person repents and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the enemy of God (Colossians 1:21). Yet, even before he is saved, he is loved by God (Romans 5:8)—i.e., God sacrificed His only begotten Son on his behalf. The question then becomes, what happens to someone who spurns God’s love, refuses to repent, and stubbornly clings to his sin? Answer: God will judge him, because God must judge sin, and that means judging the sinner. These are the “wicked” whom God hates—those who persist in their sin and rebellion, even in the face of the grace and mercy of God in Christ.

David writes, “You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you” (Psalm 5:4, ESV, emphasis added). By contrast, those who take refuge in God will “be glad” and “ever sing for joy” (verse 11). In fact, both Psalm 5 and Psalm 11 draw a stark contrast between the righteous (those who take refuge in God) and the wicked (those who rebel against God). The righteous and the wicked make different choices and have different destinies—one will see the ultimate expression of God’s love, and the other will know the ultimate expression of God’s hatred.

We cannot love with a perfect love, nor can we hate with a perfect hatred. But God can both love and hate perfectly, because He is God. God can hate without sinful intent. He can hate the sinner in a perfectly holy way and still lovingly forgive the sinner at the moment of repentance and faith (Malachi 1:3; Revelation 2:6; 2 Peter 3:9).

In His love for all, God has sent His Son to be the Savior. The wicked, who are still unforgiven, God hates “for their many sins, for they have rebelled” (Psalm 5:10). But—and this is important to understand—God desires that the wicked repent of their sin and find refuge in Christ. At the moment of saving faith, the wicked sinner is removed from the kingdom of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of love (see Colossians 1:13). All enmity is dissolved, all sin is removed, and all things are made new (see 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Will We Be A Precautious or Prevailing Church:

What kind of church do you think Christians want to be a part of? What kind of church do you want to pastor? A precautious church or a prevailing church?

Randy Pope, in his book The Prevailing Church, describes a precautious church as one that’s “free from failure only because of its unwillingness to attempt great accomplishments for the sake of God and His kingdom.”

“In times that require boldness,” Pope adds, “a precautious church is afraid of its own shadow. Such a church lives by the unspoken motto, ‘We’ve got everything to lose and nothing to gain.’”

In other words, a precautious church is one that lacks vision, power, and life. Because of its unwillingness to engage in its God-given mission, a precautious church is already defeated.

A prevailing church, on the other hand, is one that’s in the heat of the spiritual battle for the souls of men, women, and children against the spiritual forces of darkness (Ephesians 6:12). A prevailing church is willing to risk all for the glory of Christ and the advancement of His kingdom.

Here are some of the differences between a prevailing church and a precautious church:

• A prevailing church is composed of Christians who understand there’s a real spiritual struggle (Ephesians 6:12), whereas a precautious church is composed of Christians who underestimate the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:11).
• A prevailing church is composed of Christians who equip themselves for this spiritual battle with the armor of God (Ephesians 6:11, 13), whereas a precautious church equips herself for peacetime comforts.
• A prevailing church is composed of Christians who courageously engage in spiritual battle (Ephesians 6:12), whereas a precautious church is made up of Christians who cowardly evade spiritual battle, or any other conflict for that matter.
• A prevailing church actually prevails against the kingdom of darkness and its forces (Ephesians 6:13), whereas, a precautious church perishes in the face of battle.

What will it take to be a prevailing church in your community? The answer is clear: prevailing Christians.

A prevailing church is composed of prevailing Christians who’ve put on the armor of God and are willing to do battle with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

Precautious churches, on the other hand, are made up of precautious Christians who are interested in mere survival: no engagement, no risk, no change, so, no victory!

May the Lord grant us the grace to be strengthened with the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, and armed with the Word of God.

May we be a part of a church full of prevailing Christians who understand the spiritual struggle, equip themselves with the armor of God, engage in the spiritual battle, and prevail against the spiritual forces of darkness.

Tough Question: Why Does God Allow People To Be Disabled/Handicapped?:

Tough Question: "Why does God allow people to be disabled / handicapped?"

The Lord is God of the physically healthy and the mentally strong, but He is also the God of the physically disabled and the mentally handicapped. He is sovereign over the fragile and feeble as well as over the adroit and mighty. The Bible teaches that every person conceived in this world is a unique creation of God (see Psalm 139:16), and that includes the disabled and the handicapped.

A natural question is why God allows some people to be born disabled or handicapped or why He allows accidents that bring about a disability or handicap later in life. This issue falls under the umbrella of a theological/philosophical debate known as “the problem of evil” or “the problem of pain.” If God is both good and omnipotent, why does He allow bad things to happen? What is the point of someone losing his sight or being forced to walk with a prosthesis? How can we reconcile God’s goodness and perfection with the fact that so much of His creation is broken and wounded?

Before we proceed, we should acknowledge that we are all disabled or handicapped in some way. The need for eyeglasses indicates impaired or “handicapped” vision. Dental braces are a sign of imperfect teeth. Diabetes, arthritis, rosacea, a “trick” knee—these can all be considered disabilities to some extent. The whole human race lives with the reality of imperfection. Everyone experiences less-than-ideal conditions. We are all broken in some way. The handicaps we live with are simply a matter of degree.

When a person is disabled or handicapped, to whatever degree, it is a symptom of original sin, when evil came into the world. Sin entered the world as a result of man’s disobedience to God, and that sin brought with it sickness, imperfection, and disease (see Romans 5:12). The world was blemished. One reason God allows people to be disabled or handicapped is that such conditions are the natural result of mankind’s rebellion against God. We live in a world of cause and effect, and it is a fallen world. Jesus said that “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). This is not to say that every disability is the direct result of personal sin (Jesus countered that idea in John 9:1–3), but, generally speaking, the existence of handicaps and disabilities can be traced back to the existence of sin.

Another basic reason that God allows some people to be disabled or handicapped is that God will glorify Himself. When the disciples wondered about the man born blind, Jesus told them, “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). When the same disciples later wondered about Lazarus’ sickness, Jesus told them, “It is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). In both instances, God was glorified through the disability—in the case of the man born blind, the temple rulers had incontrovertible proof of Jesus’ power to heal; in the case of Lazarus, “many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him” (John 11:45).

Another reason why God allows disabilities or handicaps is that we must learn to trust in Him rather than in ourselves. When the Lord God called Moses in the wilderness, Moses was reluctant at first to heed the call. In fact, he tried to use his disability to excuse himself from service: “Moses said to the Lord, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent. . . . I am slow of speech and tongue’” (Exodus 4:10). But God knew all about Moses’ problem: “The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say’” (Exodus 4:11–12). In this amazing passage, we see that all human ability—and disability—is part of God’s plan and that God will help His obedient servants. He doesn’t call the equipped so much as He equips the called.

Joni Eareckson Tada suffered a diving accident as a teenager, and for the past four (almost five) decades she has lived as a quadriplegic. In her booklet Hope . . . the Best of Things, Joni imagines meeting Jesus in heaven and speaking to Him about her wheelchair: “The weaker I was in that thing [my wheelchair], the harder I leaned on you. And the harder I leaned on you, the stronger I discovered you to be. It never would have happened had you not given me the bruising of the blessing of that wheelchair” (Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 2008). How can she speak of her “bruising” as a “blessing”? Only by the grace of God. With that sentiment, Joni echoes the apostle Paul who accepted Christ’s sufficient grace for his thorn in the flesh with these words: “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

Another reason why God allows some to be disabled or handicapped is that, in His overarching plan, He has chosen the weak things of this world for a special purpose: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Corinthians 1:27–29).

God doesn’t need human might or skill or fitness to accomplish His work. He can use disability and handicap just as well. He can use children: “Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger” (Psalm 8:2). He can use anyone. Remembering this truth can help handicapped believers to maintain focus on who God is. It’s easy to “curl up in a ball” and have pity parties when life makes no sense, but Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

In a sense, when Jesus came into this world, He became voluntarily disabled. He handicapped Himself as He left the perfection of heaven to live among the sinners on earth. He laid aside His glory to wrap Himself in inglorious humanity. At the Incarnation, Jesus took on human flesh in all its frailty and vulnerability. “He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). The Son of God took part in our human condition and suffered on our behalf. And that is why “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15); rather, we have an Intercessor who understands our weakness, relates to our disability, and identifies with our pain.

God promises that disabilities and handicaps are temporary. Those conditions are part of this fallen world, not the world to come. God’s children—those who by faith in Christ are made children of God (John 1:12) —have a bright and glorious future. When Jesus came the first time, He gave us a taste of good things yet to come: “People brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them” (Matthew 4:24). When Jesus comes the second time, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy” (Isaiah 35:5–6).

Joni’s wheelchair-bound perspective is enlightening: “Maybe the truly handicapped people are the ones that don’t need God as much” (The God I Love: A Lifetime of Walking with Jesus, Zondervan Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2003). The position of weakness, disability, and handicap—the position of having to trust God in this world—is a position of honor and blessing indeed.

CREW April Newsletter:

UPCOMING EVENTS:

1) Glow N Dark Easter Egg Hunt: Friday, April 12th 7:00-9:00 pm at Stanleyville

2) Avengers: Endgame, Friday, April 26th. Cost: $10. We will be dressing up as characters in the movie and attending as a CREW. Students need to sign up or let me know before Wednesday, April 10th due to the fact that I need to pre-order tickets.

3) Journey Camp: June 17-21st. Cost: $150. The deadline to sign up is the end of April.

4) We will be doing a series on dating in April and May. We will be exploring a reasonable and biblical approach to guy/girl relationships. This series will help students protect their heart as they journey through the dangerous minefields of young emotions and early attractions. Each lesson will help students understand biblical principles that will ultimately lead students to a 'wonderful someday.'

5) Be on the lookout for a seven day Easter devotional written for students which examines a day by day account of Jesus's last week on Earth.

Dear Parents,

On Sunday, Pastor Eddie announced that he will be retiring from FBC Stanleyville effective June 30th. I know several parents have emailed and called about the future of our church and CREW student ministry. I want to assure you that moving forward into the future your son or daughter will continue to be my number one focus and priority. I may take on more responsibility; however, I will not waver in my commitment to your child. Sunday morning (March 30th) before church Julia and I were talking about how much we love CREW students and our church.

I love this church and I love the students in the CREW and I will not allow any of them to fall through the cracks. Have no fear; God is still good, God is still in control and I am still committed to reaching, teaching and releasing 7th-12th grade students.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out.

Reaching, Teaching and Releasing,

T Welch