I love being the Pastor of Bethel Baptist Church. This past Sunday marked three years that my family and I have been serving here and as I said from the pulpit last night, God has blessed us so far beyond what we deserve! We’ve come to love and know the people here and we’ve built a trust-relationship with them. They appreciate the Word of God and they show appreciation for their leadership. I am so humbled by them!
Yesterday was an awesome day. We closed out our Sunday School class called Marriage Matters and I think all the couples were challenged to deepen our love for each other. We had a great attendance as both morning services felt fairly full and Sunday evening was a great crowd as well. The music in all three services was probably the best I’ve experienced since coming here.
Before church a boy named Wesley came with his Mom to tell me about how he’d asked Jesus to be his Savior on Thursday night and that he was ready to be baptized. When I asked when, his Mom said, “aren’t you baptizing today?” So yes, we baptized two in water much warmer than the week before when a valve issue caused our baptistery to be 53 degrees.
As an added bonus, I ate “chicken over the coals” at the historic AQ Chicken House in Springdale. By day’s end, everyone kept talking about how they had really felt the presence of the Spirit of God in our services. I pondered the fact that we use that term sometimes without explaining it. We believe that the Holy Spirit takes up residence and lives personally in the heart of every believer, so when we gather together in corporate worship and we are all mutually submissive to God and to each other, His presence may be felt in a very real way by believers. It is this powerful presence of God that makes the difference in a winning Sunday and a normal one.
I thank God for all the winning Sundays we’ve had at Bethel, and I look forward to experiencing more of them for the years to come!
Day two of the Pastor’s Oasis has been pretty great already and it’s not quite over - we have a nice banquet ahead of us tonight. This morning, Dr. Ronnie Floyd addressed Pastors while Maggie Chandler addressed the wives. He talked us through the major points of his book, Ten Things Every Minister Ought to Know.
All ten principles are very practical and applicable, but the thoughts that stuck with me the most were…
- The power of one hour - spend one hour reading, praying, and journaling. Do it faithfully in the first hour of every day.
- As your staff makes decisions, ask these four questions:
- What is best for the church?
- What is best for the office of the Pastor?
- What is best for the particular ministry in question?
- What is best for the staff member at the center of the decision?
- Along those same lines, it’s absolutely imperative that the Pastor have full hiring and firing authority.
- Think bigger. None of us are ever thinking big enough because we always think in terms of what we can accomplish given all physical realities.
You can read Dr. Floyd’s blog at www.ronniefloyd.com.
I’m challenged to increase my prayer time, journal more faithfully, and dream BIG things for God’s kingdom!
I wasn’t sure what to expect this morning when Ronnie Floyd was scheduled to speak at Pastor’s Oasis here in Branson. I’ve seen Dr. Floyd on television and hear his name around Northwest Arkansas regularly. He’s a very interesting guy in a setting such as this - extremely honest and straightforward… and helpful!
Every time you hear someone speak or teach, you should have some “take-aways.” These are the brief statements we could write on a legal pad that we want to integrate into our lives. Most of what Dr. Floyd shared are not new, but they are renewed in my heart…
- Your family is more important than ministry success - don’t sacrifice your family on the altar of success in ministry - no church is worth it.
- At the same time, love the church and the ministry God has given you, and be positive about it around your kids. You wouldn’t be here (at Pastor’s Oasis) if it weren’t for your your ministry.
- Don’t argue in front of your kids.
- Have prayer together as a couple every day - it’s a time when you become vulnerable and therefore closer.
- Work really hard, but have some time when work is off limits.
- Football is important. Well, it’s very important to Ronnie Floyd.
I’m so thankful to be here in this awesome place. Every time we’ve come, God has ministered to us, and He is this year already. We’re lakeside in beautiful weather and a nice room with plenty of free time to date each other between the great sessions. I couldn’t ask for a better “oasis.”
Paul addressed the issue of sincerity in preaching on several occasions throughout the New Testament. One such instance is 2 Corinthians 2:17, “For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.” As I have reflected on this verse, it’s given me some comfort to know that the issues that plague modern Christianity also faced the apostles. I’ve also found an important principle in preaching - sincerity.
There are false teachers, hucksters, and impostors in pulpits across the land today. There were in Paul’s day too. It’s nothing new and it will only worsen as we approach the day of Jesus’ return. But the contrast to this trend is a new trend of sincerity in the pulpit. Preaching has been defined by D. Martin-Lloyd Jones as “the communication of God’s truth through human personality.” So we preachers get to represent God’s truth through our very personality. The prayer, “hide me behind thy cross, O Lord,” doesn’t reflect an accurate understanding of what preaching is all about. God has calledme to represent Him as only I can, and for you to do the same.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Hey fellow Pastors, I’ve been writing my own blog since 2005. I’ve recently passed the 300 article mark and consisently receive a good number of visits via various search engines and other incoming links. It’s been a fun way to reflect on life, Scripture, culture, family, and everything in between. Here’s a link to a great article on John Piper’s blog on why every Pastor ought to have a blog.
The easiest way to get started is with a blogger blog, though I’d highly recommend WordPress as the ultimate blogging platform. You can use the free, hosted solution at WordPress.com or I’d be happy to host your blog for you (and handle some backend issues like email, upgrades, etc.) for a minimal hosting charge - just contact me if you’re interested.
Just a note. I googled (amazing how that word became a verb) for “pastoral blog” and I was #6. For “pastor blog” I was #30 and for “pastors blog” I came in at #27. Most people who read this may not understand or care about the significance, but to me, it’s pretty cool to come up in the top 30 Google results for those search terms. Just thought I’d share.
Today, I caught this headline online…
A Prestonwood Baptist Church minister arrested for soliciting a minor online has resigned from the church, Pastor Jack Graham told his congregation Saturday evening.
I appreciate Pastor Graham - he’s a hero to me, and my heart aches for him, his church, and the family of this fallen Pastor. I’ve watched Satan wreak havoc on Pastors across America, especially in the area of sexuality. It’s terrible to see the carnage left behind. No doubt, some will question the very credibility of Christianity based on the actions of men like this staff Pastor.
I would ask that you pray for your Pastor, and for church staff everywhere, who are the special targets of Satan, as leaders among God’s flock. We absolutely must wage war on Satan to restore dignity and integrity to the pulpit in the face of a culture that is always sliding into deeper immorality. We need a counter-cultural revolution in this world gone made on the influence of Satan and his minions.
As I prepared my message a couple of weeks ago on this topic, “No Lone Rangers Allowed,” my Ministry Assistant emailed me to see if I was sure I wanted the title to go into the bulletin as I had sent it to her, which was “No Lone Rangers Aloud.” What’s funny is, it proved the sermon title true. Had I been a lone ranger leader, I would have looked rather silly. That’s why there are no lone rangers aloud… I mean, allowed! WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
When everybody else goes to work on Mondays and Thursdays, I’m reviewing what happened the day or evening before at Bethel’s services. I’m thinking about feedback I was offered (intentionally or otherwise), things I observed, lives I saw impacted, and news I heard. These past couple of weeks have been quite memorable in this regard.
A couple of Sundays ago, we broke our standing Sunday School record with 152, we topped 200 in worship twice, and on opening night of Awana, we had 113 involved in children’s and youth ministries, plus the adults in the auditorium Bible study. We saw a young man saved, welcomed a couple into our membership, and met a lot of new faces, including 38 visitors in one Sunday alone!
Numbers, in and of themselves, aren’t worth much unless they demonstrate a trend. I believe that the trend at Bethel right now is that people are hungry for the Word. That’s the feedback I’ve been listening to more than any. Everybody, from the radically lost to the securely saved, seems to be searching for a word from the Lord.
God has blessed the outset of our Journey Through the Word. We’ve had a large number of people checking in on the series through the web site. Audio sermon downloads are increasing weekly and people seem to be bringing Bibles and taking notes. All of this is so encouraging to me.
I don’t talk much about “church growth.” I don’t set many numerical goals. We don’t even do much “marketing” of Bethel (the exception of course, being word-of-mouth advertising and a decent web presence). But God is blessing. Lives are being touched and changed by the Word of God, and that’s worth celebrating!
