This week the blog is sponsored by The Gospel Coalition. You’re Not Crazy is a practical guide designed to help weary leaders renew their love for ministry by equipping them to build a gospel-centered culture into every aspect of their churches. They remind us that while we’re quick to assert what the gospel says, we’re often too slow to admit what the gospel should do for our churches: reflect Christ’s beauty through a godly, grace-filled culture. Visit the TGC store to purchase this encouraging guide that will help church leaders like you to build a culture of honesty, honor, Christ-filled preaching, and gentle leadership in your church. 

Like many people, I use an app to keep track of my health. I make notes of my sleep quality, weight, exercise, and (if I’m really being diligent) my caloric intake. I can see all this at a glance and measure the trends from week to week. It’s been useful. I live with Crohn’s disease, and these metrics give me a basic sense of how I’m doing. The trouble is, of course, all those metrics I need to track for Crohn’s could be going well but I could still be seriously unwell. After all, there’s more than one way to be sick.
The same is true of our churches. I’ve had the great privilege of being in theologically careful churches the whole of my Christian life. I don’t take this for granted. At each of these churches, the Bible’s authority drove our ministries and teaching. In each case, the congregations were encouraged to listen to preaching with their Bibles open and to make certain what was taught lined up with what is in the text. Teachers were always open to correction, and I continue to rejoice in the blessing of the many years I sat under their faithful exposition.
But there’s more than one way to be unhealthy. In 1 Timothy 5:8, Paul wrote, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives . . . he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” In that line, Paul makes a declaration I missed for many years. I’d always seen denying the faith as a theological failure, but here we see it’s also possible to deny the faith by what we do (or fail to do). It’s possible for someone who has never strayed theologically to deny the faith practically by failing to embody it.
We humans are culture-creators. How we are with each other always takes on a particular relational dynamic, shared personality, or noticeable tone. It’s true of friendship groups, workplaces, families, and churches. We shape one another in many complex ways, and a resulting culture always emerges. The question is, How fully does a church’s culture align with its doctrine? That’s why Ray Ortlund and I wrote the book You’re Not Crazy: Gospel Sanity for Weary Churches.
We’re longing for the beauty of Christ to shape every aspect of our churches—not only the content of our teaching but also the quality and flavor of our relationships. We believe that the culture of our churches, empowered by the doctrine of our churches, can make the presence of the risen Jesus a felt reality in this generation. Our hope is that this book can be the app that helps you track and improve your church’s cultural health, that it will be a catalyst for faithfulness so that the truth of Christ shapes your creeds and sermons and the beauty of Christ adorns your life together. When this is true, we believe our churches will be a prophetic presence in today’s world.
Find out more about You’re Not Crazy: Gospel Sanity for Weary Churches in the TGC store.

For those called to ministry, Spurgeon College and Midwestern Seminary offer a dual-degree program that allows students to earn their Bachelor of Arts and Master’s degree (MDiv; MA, Biblical Counseling; or MA, Christian Education) in 5 years. Learn more about Accelerate here.

On the last day, we will be held accountable for how we have utilized the resources and gifts our Lord provides us—money, time, talents, relationships, and more. Disciples of Jesus are called by our Lord to leverage our resources and gifts with diligence, wisdom, and risk-taking faith in order to expand His kingdom and showcase His glory. As we do, we are spurred on by the hope of hearing our Master tell us on that last day, “Well done, good and faithful servant… Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt 25:21, ESV).
For those aspiring to church leadership, this call to accountability and stewardship should transform how we train for ministry. Many sensing a call toward church leadership recognize the value of a Bible college or seminary education. While aspiring leaders have many different options for theological education in front of them, there are certain principles that every aspiring leader should seek to live out during their season of theological training and formation. Here are four God-given resources that aspiring church leaders should focus on leveraging during their season of ministry training.
Leverage Your Mind
Speaking to a group of seminarians in 1911, Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield exhorted, “Say what you will, do what you will, the ministry is a ‘learned profession’; and the man without learning, no matter with what other gifts he may be endowed, is unfit for its duties.”[1] Amid all the opportunities and responsibilities that one’s season in Bible college or seminary may bring, it is vital that aspiring leaders remember their special vocation as a student. Bible college and seminary are special seasons to develop the habits, disciplines, instincts, and foundational convictions of a lifelong student of God’s Word. In a seminary setting, your hope is to learn an immense amount about God, His Word, and His people in a short amount of time. This is 3 to 5 years of training meant to equip you for the next 30 to 50 years of service. In that short period of time, you cannot learn everything you will need to know about souls and Scripture. But you can develop the foundational habits of study that will shape you for decades of service to God’s people.
Even as you study (and study… and study some more), it is important that you remember the ultimate goal of your study. Warfield warns against pitting your study against your devotional life: “Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must [turn] from your books in order to turn to God? If learning and devotion are as antagonistic as that, then the intellectual life is in itself accursed and there can be no question of a religious life for a student, even of theology.” The truth is that what we don’t know about God, we cannot worship Him for. And the goal of theological training is not degrees, it is doxology. As aspiring ministry leaders leverage their minds, they must recognize that they do so not for human applause or any temporal gain, but so that they can know, delight in, and serve the God of their salvation.
Leverage Your Relationships
Aspiring ministry leaders should not only be concerned with what course of study they are committing themselves to, but also what type of community they are committing themselves to. Perhaps the most impactful aspect of residential study in particular is the number of deep relationships that students develop with fellow classmates and faculty members. It behooves those training for ministry to find a school and a program where fellow learners and mentors can become lifelong partners in ministry.
Leverage Your Time
The Apostle Paul exhorts believers in Ephesians 5:16 to make “the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” This is not a law-fueled burden to maximize every waking moment by the standards of modern “productivity” or “efficiency.” Instead, it is a call for believers to prayerfully and prudently use their one non-renewable resource. Aspiring leaders, then, should seek out theological training pathways that avoid redundancy and accelerate the attainment of key competencies in Biblical exegesis, theology, preaching/teaching, counseling, evangelism, and more.
Leverage Your Finances
Jesus’ words in Luke 14:28 are binding for those looking to commit to formal ministry training: “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?” Aspiring leaders should look to find affordable programs, and work to avoid large amounts of debt. As you leave your season of training and embark on a lifetime of ministry, financial freedom and well-formed habits of frugality will allow you to serve the church with greater effectiveness and joy.
Accelerate Your Ministry Training
Over the past years, I have had the privilege of watching these principles of stewardship play out in the lives of students as I have led the Accelerate program at Spurgeon College & Midwestern Seminary. Accelerate is a dual-degree program that allows students to earn both their bachelor’s and master’s degrees in just five years. These students—both on-campus in Kansas City and around the globe—have chosen a path of academic and spiritual formation that allows them to leverage their mind, relationships, time, and finances with wisdom and intentionality. Whatever path an aspiring ministry leader might pursue, the calling remains the same for everyone. Leverage everything that’s been given to you for the glory of God and the good of others! And do so with the hope of that last day in mind, when you will hear your Lord welcome you into an eternity of joy in His presence.
[1] B.B. Warfield, The Religious Life of Theological Students

It can be difficult to make sense of our trials as we endure them. But the Bible always assures us that our difficulties are never purposeless but always in some way purposeful. God is always using them to accomplish something good. This is the theme of this short devotional reflection from my friend Paul Tautges (and drawn from his new book Remade).

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The simple gold ring on my left hand is priceless to me. It is my most valuable piece of jewelry because it symbolizes God’s gracious gift of a faithful wife. Originally, it belonged to another man, my wife’s great-grandfather, but was given to my wife by her grandmother when we got engaged. Karen took it to a local jeweler to get it resized so she could place it on my finger on our wedding day. Yet, as valuable as the gold used to make this ring may be, there is something else that is more precious and valued: faith that is tested by fire and proven to be genuine.
Commentator Kenneth Wuest explains the apostle’s illustration of an ancient goldsmith, who
refines the crude gold ore in his crucible. The pure metal is mixed with much foreign material from which it must be separated. The only way to bring about this separation is to reduce the ore to liquid form. The impurities rise to the surface and are then skimmed off. But intense heat is needed to liquefy this ore. So the goldsmith puts his crucible in the fire, reduces the ore to a liquid state and skims off the impurities. When he can see the reflection of his face clearly mirrored in the surface of the liquid, he knows that the contents are pure gold. The smelting process has done its work.
In the same way, the divine Goldsmith turns up the thermostat of our lives to sanctify us. He heats up the smelting furnace of affliction to reveal imperfections in our hearts so they can be skimmed off by our confession and repentance. Today’s Scripture reading makes it clear that God does does this not to defeat us but to prove the “genuineness” of our faith.
This was the case with Job, an Old Testament hero of the faith. God brought Job to the devil’s attention: “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” (Job 1:8). Satan is not coequal with God. He is a finite creature who is accountable to the Creator. Even though the devil meant his attacks for evil, God meant them for good.
Job understood the process Peter describes. The furnace was turned up to very hot when God permitted Satan to attack Job’s family, health, financial security, and reputation. When Satan’s tsunami came ashore, Job fell in broken, submissive worship (1:20). When blistering heat revealed Job’s pride, Job confessed and repented (see Job 38-39). On the other side of his tragedy and trauma, Job spoke well of God: “When he has tried me, I shall come out [of the smelting pot] as gold” (23:10). Through it all, Job’s faith was tested and proven genuine; his suffering accomplished its intended purposes.
Be encouraged! God is up to something good amid your pain. As the refiner’s fire removes impurities to bring out the beauty of gold, so God uses trials to refine and bring out the beauty of your faith. The Father looks to the heart that clings to him while faith is being refined and sees the image of his Son being revealed. In this, he is pleased and glorified.
(For similar devotional reflections, consider Paul’s book Remade).