How to Lose a Pastor in 365 Days
Hebrews 13:7 says, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” If he is a man of faith who you want to be your pastor, then honor him by living for the Lord and imitating his faith. Make it a joy for him to shepherd you, not a burden. Keeping a pastor requires work on the part of a church.
I have just celebrated my sixteenth anniversary as the pastor of Malvern Hill Baptist Church. Often, as I reflect on my time at Malvern Hill, I offer advice or suggestions to pastors who desire a long tenure. Today, however, I am writing to churches who might desire to keep a good pastor.
For a man to remain at a church for long tenure, he must have a strong sense of calling, work ethic, an occasional thick skin, and a short memory of offenses.
But, there are things a church can (and must) do if it desires to keep a pastor. I know from experience that a church can make it a joy for a pastor to lead. If you are a church member reading this, you can bless your pastor.
Church, outside of God and his Word, your pastor is your greatest resource–especially if you have a good one.
If you like your pastor, here are several things you can and should be doing to care well for him and to make sure you are not looking for a new pastor in the near future.
- Pray for your pastor. Seriously. Pray for him, he is in an odd job. It is not the hardest job in the world, but it is challenging and it is unlike any other job in the world. He carries the burdens of many people and tries to balance that out with the burdens of his own family. Pray for him and tell him how you have prayed for him.
- Care for his family. When you call a pastor (or hire him if you prefer that term), you did not also hire his wife as a counselor or pianist or floor sweeper. Allow the pastor’s family to be church members. Do not place expectations on them you wouldn’t place on other Christians. Care for the pastor’s family so that they desire to be in the church. For example, when I took a sabbatical several years ago, my kids protested, “You can go somewhere else, but we want to go to our church.” And they did. Every Sunday for several weeks I attended another church, but Angela and the kids went to Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill is family and it is home.
- Protect him. Don’t talk behind his back and don’t allow others to either. Ephesians 4:29 commands us, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
- Talk to him, not about him. His job is different than yours. He spends a lot of time alone, praying, writing, staring out his window, visiting. If you have questions about how his time is being spent or whether or not he is doing his job, go ask him. But, rest assured, he works more than “one hour per week.”
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Contending Against Wokeness
We contend against wokeness not just for the sake of the church but also for the sake of the world. True justice, true unity, true reconciliation, true authority, is found in the Word of God. It is the Word of God that renews the world. In its patterns for justice, unity, reconcialition, authority, you find the life that flows from the gospel: the good news that Jesus saves from sin and misery by grace.
I want to encourage my readers to read a book entitled “Christianity & Wokeness” by Owen Strachan. I just finished the book a couple weeks ago and it helped me to put together a lot of what I have seen in online discussions, in academia, and even in the Church over the course of the last 12 years since I began college and travel. I am told that Voddie Baucham’s book “Fault Lines” is also sound.
It is important for modern day Christians to be aware of wokeness and a Biblical response to it (which is why the above books were written). Wokeness is defined in our culture as being “awake” to the injustice that is going on around us. It is connected with social justice movements and debates over race and ethnicity. The teachings of Marxism play an important role in wokeness.
I will attempt a definition of “wokeness” here from what I have read and observed. Wokeness defines truth by feeling more than fact. Wokeness places a core sense of identity in external things like nationality and race. Wokeness defines justice, less by a set of rules and regulations external to oneself, but defines it more by the local culture and the feelings of the person who has observed an injustice. Wokeness rejects authority. Particularly God’s authority and the order that He has set in place for creation in Genesis.
Having grown up in a church where I went to worship shoulder to shoulder with Christians from Africa and Asia, I sometimes struggled to understand some of the racist or maybe sometimes ignorant comments I heard from other professing Christians. Christians should condemn racism, Christians should be compassionate, Christians should be generous in every way. And yet, the flip-side is almost as bad or worse, where some Christians start to feel guilty for having a “white” church even when the local geographical area is culturally European in background. Just because you are white and you attend a church that is 99% or more white, that doesn’t make you a racist.
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The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Space
If the human instinct is to build a kingdom upon those who are strong and mighty, impressive and successful, God’s instinct is to build a kingdom upon those who are weak and lowly, who are meek and merciful.
Back in the 1950s, humanity entered into a great age of space exploration as the United States and the Soviet Union battled to be first to the moon. It seems to me that we are now entering into a second great age of space exploration as billionaires battle it out to see who can be first to establish a permanent outpost in space.
We don’t need to push our minds too hard to imagine a scenario in which one of these billionaires announces he is establishing a new nation somewhere beyond earth. We might imagine him making an announcement and saying, “This world is falling apart, the earth is collapsing under the weight of war and epidemic and pollution, so we are going to start over. We are putting out the call to help create Humanity 2.0. Join me as I found the Kingdom of Space.”
The billionaire who is founding this state might explain something like this: “This new nation will be better and greater than any nation or any civilization in the whole history of mankind. Because we are going to recreate humanity, we need to ensure we bring along only the best of the best—only the sharpest minds, only the most impressive personalities, only the most beautiful bodies, only the most accomplished individuals. We need the wise, the winsome, the winners, the well-to-do so together we can fulfill our potential and become all humanity can be. Come to me all who are mighty and self-sufficient. Bring in the rich and the beautiful, the impressive and the accomplished.”
Jesus, too, has founded a kingdom—the kingdom of heaven—and his kingdom could hardly be more different. It’s a kingdom where the call goes out to the low instead of the high. Its king says “come to me all who are weary and heavy laden,” and “bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.” But even that’s not enough. He sends his emissaries to the halfway houses and drop-in centers and group homes and says, “Bring them all in!” If the human instinct is to build a kingdom upon those who are strong and mighty, impressive and successful, God’s instinct is to build a kingdom upon those who are weak and lowly, who are meek and merciful.
Keeping these two perspectives in mind, let me present you with two different visions for humanity. Let’s imagine now that our billionaire is ready to blast off to begin his Kingdom of Space. He has chosen the cream of the human crop to accompany him, and now together they are parading toward the great ship will that take them to their new nation.
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5 Days Per Week Bible Reading Program for 2024
Written by O. Palmer Robertson |
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Many people find that first thing in the morning is their best time for reading God’s Word. But that doesn’t work for everyone, or for every season of life. The more important thing is not when you read but that you read. Use lunchtime, break time or bedtime depending on what works best for you. In any case, develop a consistent habit of reading God’s holy, inspired, infallible and inerrant Word, so that it becomes part of the rhythm of your life, for the rest of your life.5 Days per week Bible Reading Program
Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:2
Most Christians would agree that it would be a great blessing and very desirable to read the whole Bible through every year. But saying is easier than doing. How many of us have begun on January 1 full of good intentions, and by January 18 we have given up? There are many reasons why we fail, but we should not forget that we are all involved in high stakes spiritual warfare. Satan does not want believers to regularly be listening to, and being transformed by, the living word of the living God. The Bible reading plan that follows is offered to you as an encouragement not to give up, but to try again.5 days per week
Unlike many Bible-in-a-year reading plans, this one schedules only five days per week rather than seven. So, although each day’s readings are a little longer, it provides a way of catching up for those who fall behind in their readings. Or if you get ahead, you can take time out for a deeper study of some part of scripture without getting behind.
A Redemptive-historical approach.
Instead of reading the Old Testament from beginning to end in the order in which the books appear in our Bibles, these readings are arranged in such a way that the reader can follow the unfolding story of God’s redemption of his people.
Chronological order
The readings are arranged as much as possible in chronological order. For example, parallel readings in Kings and Chronicles are read alongside one another. The prophets are slotted into the reading of the historical books according to the time in history when the prophet was ministering (as far as we can determine). Some of the chapters in Jeremiah and Daniel are read out of biblical order so that they follow a more chronological order.
One Gospel each quarter
Instead of reading all four gospels one after the other, each quarter includes one of the gospels, in the order they were most likely written: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.
New Testament phases of revelation
The New Testament readings are arranged in the following order:
Quarter 1: Mark and early apostolic witnesses: Acts 1-12, James, Hebrews, 1 Peter, Acts 13-28. These books record the actions and writings of the apostles as the early church was first being established, initially with Jewish converts and then increasingly with believers from all the other nations. In coordination with Acts 1-12, James appears to have been written early in the life of the church, while Hebrews seems to have been written while the temple in Jerusalem was still standing (i.e. before AD 70 when the temple was destroyed). According to tradition, 1 Peter was written from Rome before his martyrdom in the AD 60s. Acts 13-28 provides the background for Paul’s early letters.
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