Though procedures vary on serving the Lord’s Supper here is a very basic way until the pastor and church develop other alternatives. More elaborate instruction can be found in Robert Anderson’s The Effective Pastor: A Practical Guide to the Ministry. I discuss the meaning of the Lord’s Supper at Different Views on Baptism, Part Four: Transubstantiation. [...]
Archive for April, 2010
How to Observe the Lord’s Supper
Posted: April 29, 2010 in Church Ministries, Pastoral TheologyTags: Lord's Supper, Robert Anderson's Effective Pastor: A Practical Guide to the Ministry
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Sermon on Habakkuk: How to Handle What Life Throws at You! Part 3
Posted: April 29, 2010 in SermonsTags: Habakkuk, Habakkuk 3, James Dobson, John Wesley, National Day of Prayer, Revivals in America
When we open this book, it is like cracking open the door to Habakkuk’s prayer closet and hearing him pour out his frustrations, bitterness, and disappointments to God. Habakkuk shows us by example how to handle the difficulties life throws at us. In 1968, an airliner was flying into New York City which was normally [...]
Sermon: A Theology of Food
Posted: April 27, 2010 in SermonsTags: Jesus feeding the multitudes, Theology of Food
Our church eats together a lot, which is fine by me. We just enjoyed a Fish Fry last evening to raise money for a mission’s trip. The Bible says much about eating. Eating food is discussed in the first chapter of Genesis (1:29) and also in the last chapter of Revelation (22:1, 2). Eating in [...]
Sermon Illustration: You find what you are looking for
Posted: April 20, 2010 in Sermon IllustrationsTags: Sermon Illustration, Steve Gookier
I heard a preacher quote Steve Goodier: “Both the hummingbird and the vulture fly over our nation’s deserts. All vultrues see is rotting meat, because that is what they look for. They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. [...]
The Crisis of Revival, Part 2
Posted: April 20, 2010 in Sermon IllustrationsTags: Billy Sunday, Charles FInney, D. L. Moody, The Fulton Street Revival
The Charles Finney Revival The connection between crises and revivals continues to be observed when the two revivals, the Frontier and the Second Great Awakening, were followed by another crisis in America, the War of 1812. The War of 1812 was followed by the Charles Finney Revival between 1830 and 1860. This revival was also called the New [...]
The Importance of Doctrinal Statements: Part 4 “The Baptist Distinctives”
Posted: April 19, 2010 in Doctrinal Statements, Pastoral TheologyTags: Baptist Distinctives
The late Dr. Colon Smith, in a Baptist Bulletin article, thought the acrostic B-A-P-T-I-S-T is harmful in teaching the Baptist distinctives rather than helpful. For example, Dr. Smith asks, “Where is the “C” for congregational rule in the acrostic?” Dr. Smith tells of a church that changed its form of government from congregational to elder rule. [...]
The Crisis of Revival: Part 1
Posted: April 18, 2010 in Sermon IllustrationsTags: George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, The First Great Awakening, The Great Reformation, The Half-Way Covenant, The Second Great Awakening, The War of Independence
Revivals in America have had an uncanny connection to crises. America was born in revival in the 1600′s as a result of those who had come from the crisis/revival that had taken place in Europe in the 1500′s known as the Great Reformation. America remained unpopulated by the providence of God, so the persecuted saints [...]
“The Church Business Meeting” for Dummies
Posted: April 13, 2010 in Church Ministries, Pastoral TheologyTags: Robert's Rules of Order, The Church Business Meeting
It is almost 7:00 p.m. and you are about to chair your church’s business meeting. You ask yourself, “Self, what if someone wants to amend the original motion, how will I handle it?” “Self, what if the discussion gets a little out of hand and I need to table the motion in order to do some [...]
Recovering a Regenerate Church Membership, Part 1
Posted: April 10, 2010 in Pastoral Theology, The ChurchTags: Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology, John Piper, John S. Hammett, Mark Dever, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Convention, What is a Healthy Church?
John Hammett asks this painful question for most of our churches to confront: “How can regenerate church membership become a reality in a church with a membership of six hundred but an average attendance of two hundred, and where half of the four hundred absentees have been absent so long that only a few senior [...]
