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Recent Reads

I love to read. By God’s grace I am a pretty fast reader; I usually read a couple books each week. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.

HTSHearing the Spirit: Knowing the Father through the Son by Christopher Ash. Good Mr. Ash is rapidly becoming one of my favorite contemporary authors. There is insightful interpretation, historical sensibility, cultural understanding, and wit to boot in all his work. Hearing the Spirit finds Ash employing all his skill to answer the age old question of, “How does God speak?” Or as he would prefer it, “What is the relationship between the Spirit and the Word?” Appropriately, most of the book expounds the relevant truth from John’s gospel on matters of the Trinity and the word of God. Ash’s answer to the question of the Spirit’s work can be traced as follows :

  • Jesus is the awesome revelation of the Father and He revealed the Father through words. (chapter 1)
  • In a very real sense the ministry of Jesus’ was a failure – for a time. He made the Father known and yet nobody saw the Father. Until the cross, when sin was paid for, the Spirit could not be poured out and the Father known through the words of Jesus. (chapter 2)
  • In the Bible’s words we have the authentic, faithful, and complete testimony of Jesus and His words, and therefore we have the revelation of the Father. The father is made known by Jesus, and Jesus is attested by the Bible. (chapters 3-4)
  • The Bible is a complete testimony to Christ and therefore has an intelligible and stable meaning. (chapter 5)
  • The objective, historical testimony of Jesus and the subjective testimony to Jesus of the Spirit are complementary and inseparable. (chapter 6)
  • The Spirit’s ministry today is to graciously bring conviction that the objective testimony is true. (chapter 7)

Along the way Ash offers great clarity on mystical approaches to Christianity, the source of powerful preaching, the nature of living by faith, not by sight, and why Christians have a divine obligation to be skeptical (let the reader understand). An excellent and timely work!

TGOGThe Grace of Godliness: An Introduction to Doctrine and Piety in the Canons of Dort by Matthew Barrett.  Barrett says, “While the number of volumes on John Calvin, the Heidelberg Catechism or the Westminster Confession, are legion, the same cannot be said concerning the Canons of Dort. . . . As far as I know, no book exists in English on Dort’s emphasis on piety. And yet, the topic of piety and godliness is one that saturates the canon.” Oh how right Dr. Barrett is. The Canons of Dort are not only, for my mind, as good as any other historic creed or confession at clearly delineating the gospel, they also represent a watermark of Reformed piety. If you can get a right understanding of God’s sovereign gospel then you will be well on your way toward holiness, humility, assurance, and reverent worship. The Canons of Dort will aid such godliness and Barrett’s book is a perfect introduction that classic document of Reformed faith and practice.

SFStrange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship by John MacArthur. As I watched last October’s Strange Fire Conference create no small amount of evangelical hullabaloo, I knew I’d eventually have to read the book. Well, this week I finally did. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. For several decades MacArthur has been the most visible, and popular, opponent of Charismatic and Pentecostal excess. The uniqueness of Strange Fire, and I suspect the reason it struck such a chord, is that it has firm clarity directed at the growing continuationist crowd. MacArthur’s exegesis of the relevant texts is typically lucid and confident, and his grasp of the historical flow of charismatic theology is compelling and strong. No matter where you fall on the continuum of spiritual gifts, this book would be well worth your time.

WAFWhat a Friend We Have in Jesus: Spirituality in the Evangelical Tradition by Ian Randall. Alistair McGrath once called evangelicalism “the slumbering giant in the world of spirituality.” In What a Friend We Have in Jesus Ian Randall, Director of Research at Spurgeon’s College in London, sets out to document what evangelical spirituality is and how it came about. Spanning the time between the Great Awakening and the closing of the 20th century Randall effectively shows the unity and diversity found in evangelicalism’s emphasis on the cross, conversion, personal sanctification, and world missions. The work is an overview so Randall has to assume some level of knowledge with people and places, but I found the work informative, clear, and full of interesting tidbits about evangelicalism’s spiritual practice.

TUSThe Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva. Before he was a best-selling thriller writer and the mastermind behind the widely successful Gabriel Allon thriller novels, Daniel Silva was a television producer at CNN. While overseeing shows like Crossfire and Capital Gang, Silva was quietly penning a debut novel that would be such a resounding hit the budding author would pursue writing full-time. The Unlikely Spy was that debut novel. This thriller is set in the throws and intrigue of the Double-Cross system which was enshrouded the truth of the Allies’ D-Day landing in, as Churchill famously said, “a bodyguard of lies.” Although the book doesn’t shine any new light on MI6, the Abwher, or war-time deception, the plot moves quickly and characters are believably developed. A fun read that, at times, seems strikingly similar to Follet’s Eye of the Needle.

Click here to find other entries in the Recent Reads series.

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How to Use Your Church’s Confession

Confessions of Faith

Few church documents are more important that a church’s Confession of Faith (Statement of Faith is the more common contemporary moniker). Yet, at least in my experience, few documents are as little used as the congregation’s “pattern of sound words.”

In 2012 Carl Trueman did the entire church a great favor by publishing The Creedal Imperative. If you need any convincing of why a local church needs a confession, stop reading this post and go read his book. It’s that persuasive.

For me, as one already convinced of creedalism, the best part of the book was the final chapter where Trueman discusses why a confession of faith is useful. He gives eight reasons. Let me briefly mention them here, with any helpful elaboration, and then consider how a church can uses their confession.

8 REASONS WHY A CONFESSION OF FAITH IS USEFUL

  1. Delimits the power of the church.Church officers cannot just preach whatever they want. A confession “describes the message the church is to preach, and it limits the church’s power to what is contained in the document.”
  2. Offers succinct and thorough summaries of the faith.
  3. Allows for appropriate discrimination between members and office-bearers.“The bar for full communicant church membership is quite low: a simply but publicly coherent profession of faith in the line of Romans 10:9-10 is sufficient.” Yet, what biblical and theological competency is required of office-bearers? The simplest way to codify it would be to say they must fully subscribe (some denominations allow for exceptions) to the church’s confession of faith and be able to teach such truth.
  4. Reflects the ministerial authority of the church.
  5. Represents the maximum doctrinal competence that can be expected from a congregation. A confession “represents the church’s doctrinal and pedagogical aspirations.”
  6. Relativizes the present. Confessions are immune, in a good way, to the passing fads and tastes of the present. “Yes, the present is where we all live and breathe, eat and drink; but the creeds and confessions of the church connect us to the past and indicate that our identity is rooted in that past. This is in line with the thrust of biblical teaching.” Timothy was not to be innovative, rather he was to hold fast to the patter of sound words given to him by Paul.
  7. Helps to define one church in relation to another. A confession “serves transparency because it allows those outside to see what a particular church represents. . . . When someone visits the congregation, it is useful for congregants to be able to point them to a succinct summary of the church’s position on key doctrinal topics.
  8. Maintains corporate unity.A church is united insofar as it defines and agrees upon what is biblically true. A confession of faith is thus a document that fuels unity.

3 WAYS TO USE YOUR CHURCH’S CONFESSION

If a confession of faith is beneficial in all these ways, how then can a church use the confession in a way that brings doctrinal continuity and convictional harmony? Here are three ideas:

Use the confession in your church’s gathered worship.This is something I hope to continually do more of at IDC, but there is no reason why a church can’t regularly confess – through a corporate reading – some portion its confession of faith. It could be an article that has a direct link to the sermon, a clear expounding of a truth you are about to sing, or maybe it doesn’t have any clear link other than being a fantastic way to proclaim unity in Christ.

Use the confession in discipling relationships.A few of our elders have gone through the 1689 London Baptist Confession with different men in the church and been met with a great response. Many different churches I know of will use something like Grudem’s Christian Beliefs to train there members in systematic theology, but why not use the church’s confession of faith? A good and accurate confession is like a succinctly packed systematic. And all our members need resources succinctly packed with biblical truth.

Use the confession in elder and deacon meetings.We use the confession in all our office-bearer training, but we are growing in our consistent use of the documents in our actual meetings. It seems wise, for example, to consistently read a portion of the confession at your elders’ meeting and reflect together upon its truth. This further cements the doctrinal foundations in church leadership and helps fuel unified understanding of what the church confesses.

Confessions have a unique ability to promote clarity and unity in a local church. So why don’t you dust yours off and wield it to help build a vibrant witness to the world.

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Redux: All Creatures of Our God and King

“All Creatures of our God and King” is one of my favorite hymns. I love St. Francis’ channeling of Psalms 148-150 to produce expansive doxologies, even calling death to praise God!

The rarely sung sixth verse says,

And thou most kind and gentle Death,
Waiting to hush our latest breath,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
And Christ our Lord the way hath trod.
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Allelujah! Allelujah! Allelujah!

Now, that is good.

I have, however, always longed for new verses that more explicitly proclaimed God’s glory in Christ. Enter our Sovereign Grace friends “West Coast Revival”.

Last year the Baird brothers adapted St. Francis’ classic by adding two verses; verse three proclaims the gospel and verse four announces Christ’s return in glory. The next time your church does “All Creatures” consider using the following four verses. They’re fresh, true, and oh so necessary for the soul to sing.

VERSE 1
All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing
O praise Him! Allelujah!
Thou, burning sun with golden beam
Thou, silver moon with softer gleam
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Allelujah! Allelujah! Allelujah!

VERSE 2
Let all things their Creator bless
And worship Him in humbleness
O praise Him! Allelujah!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son
And praise the Spirit, Three-in-One
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Allelujah! Allelujah! Allelujah!

VERSE 3
All the redeemed washed by His blood
Come and rejoice in His great love
O praise Him! Allelujah!
Christ has defeated every sin
Cast all your burdens now on Him
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Allelujah! Allelujah! Allelujah!

VERSE 4
He shall return in pow’r to reign
Heaven and earth will join to say
O praise Him! Allelujah!
Then who shall fall on bended knee?
All creatures of our God and King
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Allelujah! Allelujah! Allelujah!

© 2013 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP) from All That Thrills My Soul
Lyrics by St. Francis of Assisi (Verses 1 & 2) and Jonathan Baird and Ryan Baird (Verses 3,4), Music by William Henry Draper, Adapted by Jonathan Baird and Ryan Baird

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Deacon Training at IDC

Training Deacons

Few things stir my creativity in and vision for ministry as seeing how other faithful churches go about the work of ministry.

One area of perennial interest to me is in the area of training elders and deacons. So much of a church’s longevity in sound doctrine, holiness, and love is wrapped up in her leaders’ growth and perseverance in those three pivot points of biblical leadership. I am always challenged by how others church go about the process.

For this reason, I have written in the past (here, here, and here) about elder training at IDC. I hope it may be of some help in honing your own church’s process.

Today, and over the next few months, I want to invite you in to our deacon training process.

BE PATIENTLY URGENT

When IDC was planted at the beginning of 2013 the one thing I was most eager to do was train and appoint elders. The Spirit, through Titus 1:5, had placed a driving ambition to see qualified men installed as shepherds at our little church. At the same time, the Spirit, through 1 Timothy 5:22, said that I ought not be too quick to ordain men to the office. So I worked within a paradox that I’ve come to love: the paradox of being patiently urgent. That’s my way of synthesizing Paul’s instruction to Titus and Timothy.

After sixteen months of urgent patience our congregation affirmed two men as elders. Right after their installation I felt another spike of eagerness pointed towards training and affirming deacons.

APPROACHING DEACON CANDIDATES

So we immediately set about the work of identifying men currently doing the work of a deacon in our church. After about six weeks of discussion and prayer we settled on a group of men we wanted to approach about going through deacon training. We found these men to not only be qualified for the office, but they also were consistently serving over and beyond normal obedience in church ministry.

The first order of business was to discuss with the respective man’s wife whether or not there was anything in his life that would give her pause in relation to him serving in the office. This step clearly isn’t mandated in Scripture, but we think it a wise initial step for a variety of different reasons. Once that conversation took place and we felt led to move on, we approached each brother in Christ with our desire to see him be a deacon candidate. We gave him about a month to pray and discuss the issue further before he had to give us the “yea” or “nay.”

By God’s grace we formally introduced four men as deacon candidates at our Family Meeting (think members’ meeting) this passed weekend. Now it’s time to train ’em and formally assess ’em.

DEACON TRAINING MATERIAL

If you’ve ever looked at resources on church officers you know that there is a ton on elders, but very little on deacons. I’m sure this probably is a reflection of Scripture, after all there is a lot more the Bible has to say about elders than it has to say about deacons. But that still means a pastor needs to be a bit more creative in the resources he uses for deacon training. Here’s what we settled on at for deacon training at IDC:

THEOLOGY

ECCLESIOLOGY

DIACONAL MINISTRY

DEACON TRAINING SCHEDULE

With these five sources as our primary resources we settled on a training schedule that would span two months and have five extended training meetings. At these meetings the candidates will discuss some portion of the training material, consider practical ministry questions, and apply Scripture to the work of a deacon. Here’s how we’ve broken up the content for these meetings:

  1. Monday, August 18th
    1. Bible and Theology Exam
    2. Theological Focus: NHCF #1-3
    3. Ecclesiology Focus: Chapters 2 & 9 in What is the Mission of the Church? and Introduction in The Deliberate Church
    4. Diaconal Ministry Focus: Chapters 1-2 in Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons
    5. Give candidates Deacon Questionnaire.
  1. Saturday, September 6th
    1. Theological Focus: NHCF #4-6
    2. Ecclesiology Focus: Chapter 1 in A Display of God’s Glory and Chapters 6-7 in The Deliberate Church
    3. Diaconal Ministry Focus: Chapter 3 in Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons
  1. Saturday, September 20th
    1. Theological Focus: NHCF #7-9
    2. Ecclesiology Focus: Chapter 2 in A Display of God’s Glory and Chapter 11 in The Deliberate Church
    3. Diaconal Ministry Focus: Chapter 4 in Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons
  1. Saturday, September 27th
    1. Theological Focus: NHCF #10-14
    2. Ecclesiology Focus: Chapter 3 in A Display of God’s Glory and Conclusion in The Deliberate Church
    3. Diaconal Ministry Focus: Chapter 5 in Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons
  1. Monday, October 6th
    1. Theological Focus: NHCF #15-18
    2. Ecclesiology Focus: Chapter 4 in A Display of God’s Glory
    3. Diaconal Ministry Focus: Chapter 6 in Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons
       * Deacon Questionnaire Due October 5

After the completion of the training and a final conversation with each candidate, Lord willing, we will formally nominate all or some subset of these brothers at our Family Meeting in October. After a two-month period of formal observation and assessment from the congregation our hope is to affirm and install those nominees in December.

I am eager to see what the Lord will do through the process and what adjustments we will make along the way.

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An “Upcoming Sermons” Card

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The “Upcoming Sermons” card from our most recent Gathering Guide.

One of my favorite things we do at IDC is put an “Upcoming Sermons” card in our weekly Gathering Guide (think church bulletin).

The card is quite simple: it lists the next six sermons to come at IDC, complete with the sermon text and scheduled preacher.

A HELP FOR DILIGENT PREPARATION

Part of faithful shepherding includes discipling church members in what it means to diligently prepare for the service of gathered worship. I have been so helped on this point by Q&A #90 from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which says:

Q. 90. How is the word to be read and heard, that it may become effectual to salvation?
A. That the word may become effectual to salvation, we must attend thereunto with diligence, preparation and prayer; receive it with faith and love, lay it up in our hearts, and practice it in our lives.

What life would come into our churches if the majority of our members were diligently preparing and praying to receive God’s word with faith and love! Not only preparing to receive God’s word, but to respond to it with humility and repentance.

An Upcoming Sermons card might just be one of the easiest means to consistently encourage such preparation in the life of your congregation.

THE VALUE OF KNOWING WHAT’S COMING

We encourage our church members to tear off the card every couple of weeks, put it in their Bible, and do three things with it.

#1: Read the upcoming week’s sermon text. By reading the upcoming sermon’s text church members arrive to the worship gathering with unique awareness of the passage that will be preached. Some will come with questions, others with an eagerness to understand the truth better, and some members’ familiarity will cause them to cry out with delight when a new wrinkle of meaning comes through the sermon. In many ways, by reading the text a few times prior to the sermon a church member is equipped to engage the preacher in that glorious “silent dialogue” of preaching. Reading the text ramps up the meter of eagerness and excitement.

#2: Pray for hearts to hear and respond in faith. Preaching is a two-sided event; the preacher must be faithful in his heralding of truth, and the member must be faithful in his hearing the truth. None of us dare presume that we can merely show up without prayerful preparation and hear well. God is often kind to empower faithful hearing in spite of one’s neglect to prepare, but we cannot assume He will do so. Like soil must be tilled for planting, so too must our souls be plowed through prayer to receive God’s word.

#3: Pray for the man who will preach. Moses needed Aaron and Hur to strengthen his hands in the midst of battle. Church members can play such a role of assisting their often weary preachers through prayer. The apostle Paul regularly asked the churches to pray for his preaching, that doors would be opened and that he would preach clearly and boldly. Behind every powerful preacher lies a praying congregation.

Now, I recognize that all three of these things can happen without the help of an “Upcoming Sermons” card. But I do think this resource has unique potential to catalyze your church body unto diligent preparation.

Why don’t you try it out this week?

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The Book is Alive!

Light Em Up

This weekend preachers all over the world will expound the word of God to lift up the Word of God. The book is living and active, so let God’s preachers today be alive in the Spirit.

Christopher Ash, in his book Hearing the Spirit: Knowing the Father Through the Son, channels his inner Machen to give us this wonderful exhortation to fuel faith in God’s word:

Let us never slip into speaking of the Bible as a dead book. Back in 1923 J. Gresham Machen wrote, “Let it be said that dependence upon a book is a dead or artificial thing. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was founded upon the authority of the Bible, yet it set the world aflame. Dependence upon a word of man would be slavish, but dependence upon God’s word is life.” Elsewhere he speaks of “a so-called ‘dead orthodoxy’ that is pulsating with life in every word. In such orthodoxy there is life enough to set the whole world aglow with Christian love.”

God’s not dead and so His word is alive. Now go ascend to the sacred desk and set the world afire in love for Christ.

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3 Books Every Pastor Should Read: On the Doctrine of God

Books are some of the best friends a pastor can have. How to know which friends to have is quite difficult, for as the inspired Preacher said, “Of making many books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12). Every so often I recommend three books for pastors on a given topic, hoping the suggestions might hone your book budget.

A consultant once asked RC Sproul, “What is the most important thing you can teach to non-Christians that they don’t know they need to know?” He answered, “That’s easy, the truth about God. They know that God is (Rom. 1), but not who God is.” The consultant then asked, “Ok, what about Christians?” Sproul said, “Well that’s easy too; they need to know who God is. I think the single most important thing we need is an awakening to the character of God.”

The Ligonier man speaks well here. At some level, every theological fallacy is rooted in a false understanding of God. Therefore, a pastor needs to regularly refuel and reteach his soul in the truths about God. One great way to do this is by reading books on the doctrine of God. Here are some mighty fine places to start.

0851512550The Doctrine of God by Herman Bavinck. Magisterial is the operative word here. Bavinck dares to ascend to heights of opening-line grandeur by starting off with the simple statement of, “Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics.” The old Dutchman knows the doctrine of God is foundation for all Christian theology and he proceeds to expound an incomprehensibly glorious God. This one needs to be read slowly and deeply, for you will not want to miss any part of this treasure trove of truth.

9780830816507mKnowing God by JI Packer. I continue to be amazed at the stunning success of this work. In 2006, Christianity Today voted this title one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals. It has sold well north of one million copies. All that for a popular presentation of the classically Reformed understanding of God. Amazing! Read to know your God better and delight in Him supremely. If you read one book on this list, I’d make it this one.

0875522637mThe Doctrine of God by John Frame. His tri-perspectivalism may drive you crazy, but don’t let his novel method overshadow what is a fantastic accomplishment. Frame has an uncanny ability to bring clarity to the most complex issues of theology and philosophy. “I seek here above all,” he writes, “to present what Scripture says about God, applying that teaching . . . to the questions of our time.” His main contention is “God is Lord of the covenant” and all our understanding of His will and ways flow out of that center. Lucid in exposition, competent in various views, and rich in pastoral application; you’ll want this one on your shelf.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The Doctrine of God by Gerald Bray. Bray’s volume is one of the better entries in IVP’s “Contours of Christian Theology” series.

The Holiness of God by RC Sproul. Our worship and gospel hangs on the holiness of God. Few have done more to emphasize this central quality than Sproul. A justifiable classic.

Check out my past suggestions in the “3 Books Every Pastor Should Read” series here.

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Helping Your Church to Pray

A Praying Church

What is the most common ministry priority that a pastor neglects? Last week wise Mr. Croft answered, “More than any other aspect of a pastor’s calling, prayer is the most difficult to maintain.”

It surely is no stretch to say the same thing is the true of most churches. The most neglected ordinary posture of Christian obedience has to be prayer, doesn’t it? Thabiti Anyabwile once wrote, “I can’t think of a single Christian I’ve met who did not believe that prayer is important, and not only important but a vital part of the Christian life. . . . But despite its universally accepted status, prayer remains for many Christians a difficult task, a duty without joy and sometimes seemingly without effect. Christians may waver between the poles of neglect and frustration when it comes to prayer.”

I want to think today about that first pole of prayer on which so many churches and their members stand: the pole of neglect.

A HOUSE OF PRAYER

We planted IDC with four distinct things we wanted to be true of our church. Things that would be palpably present in our life together, so much so a guest would quickly recognize them. One of those things is that we would be a praying church. Why? First, a rich prayer life would point towards growing dependence on and obedience to God. Additionally, it would also reflect the clear biblical distinction that God’s people are a praying people and His house is one of prayer.

Such sentiment is all fine and dandy, and even can sound compelling on a website, but if it isn’t a reality it’s all empty hope. So we had to consider what things could we do to see prayer permeate the life of our body. What things would help us veer away from neglecting prayer?

Here are nine ways we are trying to answer that question. I hope some of them will stir you up to consider the place of prayer in your church.

9 WAYS TO PROMOTE PRAYER IN A LOCAL CHURCH

Be a praying pastor.In many ways, it all starts here. Praying churches must have a praying pastor. Just as the holiness of the church will rarely exceed the holiness of their pastor, so too will the prayer life of the church have a clear link to the pastor’s prayer life.

Be praying elders.Every installed elder is called to the ministry of word and prayer, so the collective elder body ought to a be band of praying brothers. One way we try to encourage this at IDC is to have one elders’ meeting each month be largely dedicated to praying for individual church members and pressing issues. If a church member was a fly on the wall in our elders meetings I would want him or her to say, “Wow, they pray a lot.”

Teach on prayer. Christlikeness is caught and taught, and prayer seems to be a discipline most consistently caught. But we still must teach on it. We need to give our members biblical categories to understanding what they are catching with the soul’s glove. One thing I’ve done is set aside a week each year to preach on prayer. Sure, that’s not a lot, but oh how I trust it will bear fruit in the long run. Furthermore, the pulpit isn’t the only vehicle for teaching on prayer. Which leads to the fourth point.

Infuse your corporate gatherings with prayer. Do you pray, and pray often, in your church’s weekly worship gathering? Let your gatherings abound in prayer, and prayers of all kinds: praise, confession, petition, and thanksgiving. In addition to shorter times for prayers of praise, confession, and illumination we have an extended time each week for a pastoral prayer. I stand up in front of the congregation and pray for 6-7 minutes, asking the Lord to meet us in our need and send His gospel to the ends of the earth. I always preface that time of prayer by explaining (teaching) why we would do such an odd thing – odd according to our culture at least. Guests regularly say they were struck by how much we pray in our gatherings. Make no mistake, some of them don’t like it all that much. But that’s ok, we are a peculiar praying people.

Have a monthly prayer meeting. The prayer meeting has fallen on hard times, but I long to see it return to prominent place in the American church. On the third Monday night of each month our church gathers to pray for an hour and fifteen minutes, and oh how I wish you could see the Spirit breathe life into our midst through these meetings. We are careful not to let this just become yet another church gathering that occupies our people’s time. So we encourage small groups to consider taking a break from their normal meeting time to join with us for prayer night. For those families with young children who have difficulty staying up for the prayer night, we simply encourage one of the spouses to come for prayer.

Pray regularly in discipleship gatherings. In one-on-one discipling relationships, as well as in men’s and women’s gatherings, we want prayer to have a regular place. This helps us be faithful to the biblical exhortations to cultivate a ceaselessly praying spirit.

Encourage your church members to pray through a membership directory.We give our members an old-school pictorial directory and exhort them to pray through the entire directory once a month. Not only will such prayer aid the church’s unity, it will also discipline members in the work of intercessory prayer.

Have a dedicated time to pray for the preacher and the sermon.Now, this practice is brand new, only a week old in fact. Last week I was reading Spurgeon’s An All-Round Ministry where the Prince recounted a conversation with another pastor on the matter of encouraging his church in prayer. This pastor said,

I cannot get the people to pray. The bulk of them have not been in the habit of taking public part in the prayers, and it seems impossible to get them to do so. What shall I do?

Spurgeon replied,

‘It may help you if you call in your church-officers on Sunday mornings, before the service, and ask them to pray for you, as my deacons and elders do for me. My officers know what a trembling creature I am; and when I ask them to seek strength for me, they do so with loving hearts.’ Don’t you think that such exercises tend to train men in the art of public prayer? Besides, men are likely to hear better when they have prayed for the preacher. Oh, to get around us a band of men whose hearts the Lord has touched! If we have a holy people about us, we shall be the better able to preach. Tell me not of a marble pulpit; this is a golden pulpit.

I read that, emailed it to our elders, and we decided to start setting aside a fifteen-minute period before the corporate gathering to pray for the night’s preaching. I then invited a group of people we thought would be interested and able in joining the endeavor. Over fifteen people gathered (a great number for the size of our church) to pray, and how wonderful it was! I hope to see this grow and set our church aflame through the word and prayer.

ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL

We are by no means perfect in any of these areas, nor in our aim to be a praying church. But we are trying. And these eight areas have already brought tangible fruit in our church’s life of prayer. So take whatever might fit your church body, apply it with faith and love, and labor to be a praying church.

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A Forgotten Friend in Sermon Preparation

Meditation & Preparation

Martin Luther once gave three rules for studying theology in the right way: “Oratio, meditatio, tentatio.”

For we Latin-illiterate people, he says “prayer, meditation, and trial” are three keys which unlock the depths of theology. What I want to briefly consider, and commend, today is the role meditation can play in your sermon preparation.

BEAT IMPORTUNATELY ON THE TEXT

Have you ever sat down to prepare a sermon on a given text and the unsearchable riches seem hidden behind an insurmountable wall? Luther definitely did.

In his Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Writings Luther recounted his great gospel discovery from the book of Romans. He wrote,

Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteous wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and trouble conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” There I began to understand [that] the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith.

The great apostle’s teaching was veiled to Luther and so he “beat importunately” by “meditating day and night”, which in turn led him “to understand.”

DON’T NEGLECT THIS KEY

Earlier this week I was preparing to preach on 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 and, wow, was I in a rut. It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand the point Paul is making about Christian generosity. Rather, I had yet to land into the deep end of his typically – and gloriously – dense logic. I needed to understand the relationship between certain words and phrases. I felt as though I wasn’t getting through.

Sure, the sermon outline and manuscript were workable, but something was missing. And it was a depth of understanding.

So, I set the manuscript aside, prayed, and then spent thirty minutes drilling the text into my mind through memorization. I normally make a point to memorize the text, but for whatever reason, I plowed right through the initial stages of preparation without saturating my soul in the passage. Oh, how I needed to remedy a surface level understanding of the text!

And so it was some time later in the morning, after extended meditatio, that the surface unfolded to the deeps. The key of memorization unlocked the door to inspired apostolic treasure.

Dear brother in ministry, don’t neglect this key of meditation through memorization. It just might be the weapon you need to round out your arsenal for sermon preparation.

The Gospel is preached in the ears of all—it only comes with power to some. The power that is in the Gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher, otherwise men would be the converters of souls. Nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning, otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of man. . . .

We might preach till our tongues rotted, till we should exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless there were the mysterious power of the Holy Spirit going with it, changing the will of man! O Sirs! We might as well preach to stone walls as preach to humanity unless the Holy Spirit is with the Word to give it power to convert the soul! – Spurgeon