On a previous post, I highlighted the four most important elements to any funeral service. Though those four elements are clear, it can still be a challenge to know how to apply those four elements into a funeral service. Thus, here is one of the ways I try to accomplish this task by using the [...]
Archive for June, 2010
How do I apply the most important elements to a funeral?
Posted in Funerals on June 30, 2010 | 3 Comments »
What is a common temptation in caring for sick and suffering people?
Posted in Discipleship, Hospital Visitation, Training for Ministry on June 28, 2010 | 5 Comments »
There are many dangers and harmful temptations in this noble work. The one that men seem to be most tempted by is our propensity to try and solve, not listen in those moments with a suffering saint. Most of us have learned this painful lesson from the gift of marriage. Marriage is a wonderful gift from God that teaches [...]
What essentials need to be in every funeral service?
Posted in Funerals on June 23, 2010 | 8 Comments »
Recently I was asked to do a Q & A with the pastoral interns and some of the staff at Clifton Baptist Church to discuss the logistics of funerals. As many of you know, there are all kinds of details that we would list as important and essential. Yet, in our conversation, I narrowed those down to [...]
How do I best utilize my time as a pastor?
Posted in Discipleship, Training for Ministry on June 21, 2010 | 3 Comments »
An excellent use of our time is when we can combine the tasks that we need to be regularly engaging in for faithfulness in ministry as well as wisdom in living a healthy life. Every pastor will have different variations to list, but here are a few of mine: Jogging/leadership development - I meet with a brother [...]
How can I eliminate a common distraction when ministering to people face to face?
Posted in Hospital Visitation, Training for Ministry on June 16, 2010 | 10 Comments »
Well, I hope you are sitting down. This is going to be profound. Ready? Be aware of the status of your breath. That’s it? Come on! This may seem irrelevant, but remember how you felt the last time you spoke with someone whose breath took your breath away? Consider how distracting and unpleasant it was. [...]
What is a typical week for our pastoral interns?
Posted in Training for Ministry on June 14, 2010 | 2 Comments »
At the request of several of you, here is a follow-up post that explains a typical week for a pastoral intern at our church. An important detail to mention is that we have a maximum of 2 pastoral interns every four months because that is the most I feel I can appropriately work with at a time [...]
What do I hope a pastoral intern will experience in our church?
Posted in Training for Ministry on June 9, 2010 | 10 Comments »
Our hope for those who participate in our four-month pastoral internship we offer at our church is to experience all kinds of different facets of pastoral ministry. It is designed to be a crash course in pastoral ministry and by the end of it have a better understanding of the calling and daily life of a pastor and whether their [...]
What does it practically look like to “test” a brother’s call into ministry?
Posted in Training for Ministry on June 7, 2010 | 8 Comments »
A practical definition of testing is the placing of an individual into different real life circumstances to see how they handle them. The best way to test men for the office of pastor is to evaluate them in those life circumstances by the qualifications for this office clearly mapped out for us in Scripture (1 [...]
How can I make sure I am regularly shepherding everyone in a large church setting?
Posted in Discipleship, Oversight of Souls on June 2, 2010 | 9 Comments »
On the last post, I discussed a system to pray and contact every member of the church in one month. This is based on the shepherding efforts of a smaller church, so naturally I can anticipate the question, “That’s great, but what about those of us at a large church?” Well, the quick answer to [...]
