The title of my course is Pastoral Ministry. The instructor is Mr. Terry Forrest. I will be watching three DVDs a week. The title of my book is PASTORAL MINISTRY. The author is John MacArthur. I will be reading three chapters a week.
The first DVD is an intro more thatn anything. We were referenced to Matthew 9:35-38. It was about the importance of preaching. The teacher also said that there is a shortage of pastor, but not of preachers. This was an interesting point.
Hey Tyler, I don't anything about Terry Forrest, but I know that John MacArthur is a gifted writer and I'm sure you will get a lot of info from his writings. The question is ,should every preacher eventully pastor? Would this fulfill his calling? God Bless!!!
I don't think that every man called to preach is also called to be a pastor. Some men are called to be evangelists. Still, I like the instructors thoughts in the first DVD. There is a shortage of pastors, but not preachers.
My name is Tyler Owens. I attend Grange Hall Freewill Baptist Church. I answered the call to preach about a year and a half ago. I have a wonderful wife, Audra, and a beautiful nine-year old daughter named Chloe. I really love this course and what it has done for me.
Speaking in the position of just starting, I view pastoring as the hardest to do. To be a good one you have to be able to control a lot of things. I can sit and think that "you have to do this, or you have to do that", but the end answer is you have to be fully devoted to God. I'm not wanting to sound like my pastor is the greatest in the world, but I cant help but to set the bar as him. It helped me to fight the urge to answer the call. But thru him I have seen a little of what it takes to be a pastor. Right now I couldnt say at all if I'm to be a pastor or not, I'm trying to tackle this day first, but I have dreams or visions, I wouldnt necessarily call them goals, but similar.
I think Sean was right about the difficulty in pastoring, you would have to juggle a lot of time, feelings, and difficult situations within the congregation. Is the pastoral job description the same today as when Paul pastored? Thanks also for the encouragment on the book I'm reading. God Bless everyone and have good services tomorrow!!!
The nest DVD talked about the differences between the two major types of thinking in the church today. We have the traditional church and the "new age" way. The instructor calls the new way "neo-charismatic" and market driven. The new age church is need based, man centered, consumer driven, and culturally defined. The traditional church is redemptive centered, God focused, Biblically defined, and Scripturally prioritized. The does not mean contemporay vs. traditional in music style, but rather the way of thinking.
There are also three problems that are occuring in today's church.(according to the instructor) The number of people responding or not responding to the Gospel. The focus and level of commitment. There is also a lack of Biblical direction. This is what the new movement is becoming.
I do think the call to preach is more general than the call to pastor. It's kind of like this: "All preachers are (or of necessity will have to be) preachers, but not all preachers are pastors.+
Someone with the call to preach can fulfill that calling as an evangelist, or as a missionary, or even as a lay preacher (although most who are called to preach will go into some more specific type of ministry, but not necessarily pastoring--although again probably the majority will).
People with ministries that relate to special types of topics may fulfill their call by preaching specifically in those areas. These venues may often take the forms of seminars.
"All prunes are plums, but not all plums are prunes," is an old saying. I think that is how it is with preaching. When you have the call to preach, you will have to have some type of opportunity to proclaim God's Word in order to be fulfilled. However, pastoring involves so many others things, it may not even be wise for some preachers to attempt to pastor.
In the book of Acts, we have the example of a Godly deacon, Phillip, who preached a great revival. We really are not told even what all of the disciples ended up doing. Paul's writings tell us the most about pastoring as God began to organize things in that first century of Christianity.
That's my take on it. We probably mostly shared out of our own opinions because the Bible does not seem to fully answer the questions on this topic for us.
One thing that the instructor said in one of the DVDs is really interesting to me. He said "be the kind of pastor that a parent doesn't have to apologize for". In other words, don't do anything that would make you look foolish. I hope and pray that I can be that knid of pastor someday.
You will notice some posts below that relate to various topics of discussion by our online community of preachers.
One of the purposes of Preachers' Meeting is to provide a place for young ministers or those recently called to preach to interact around the principles in a course of study recommended by our local group of preachers in the Southern Illinois area.
We invite you to look in on our conversations. If you would like to add comments as a guest, you are welcome to do so. If this looks interesting to you, you may join us as we start a new session. You can look in the side bar (or sometimes it is moved to right below this post) to see the weekly requirements. We start new courses every 8 or 9 weeks. As already mentioned, you are welcome to comment as a guest before that time.
Below these posts, you will see the word, "comments." Just click on it, and you will see a box on the right side of the screen where you may add your comments.
Look around. Enjoy yourself, and come back often!
Weekly Requirements
Here is a review of the general requirements for each week.
You have three assignments each week
(1) Make at least two initial posts in your posting area. The first one will be the name of the course, and the names (or numbers of the DVD's) of the chapters or lectures you will be covering during the week. The second one will be a comment on one of those chapters. You will receive one point for getting the first post in on Tuesday or Wednesday. You will also get a point for getting at least one more initial post in.
(2) Go to your fellow student's posting areas, and ask them a question or make comments about their intial posts. You will recieve one point for completing this assignment before 12:00 a.m. on Friday morning (that would be before midnight on Thursday).
(3) Answer the questions asked.
(4) On Fridays, I will also give directions for making remaining posts during the week. Be sure and read those, and take them into account when making at least one of your remaining posts.
In all, we want to make at least nine posts during the week. You will receive points for that as follows:
9 or more posts - 12 points
6-8 posts - 10 points
3-5 posts - 6 points
1-2 posts - 3 points
You will have the extra points you had accumulated by getting things in on time. Those are bonus points that will be used only to move your grade closer to 100 if you need them. They will be awarded each week if needed to move your grade up to 12 for the week. If you do not need them for that week, they will be carried over to the next week(s). Remember the posts that count for points will be at least three sentences long.
Thoughts on Application
Roger gave some good thoughts on application:
"Chapter 75, titled: 'Apply Within' is a lesson in application. The writer explains why it is sometimes difficult applying a sermon to real life situations. I will list some of the reasons application is not applied to our lives.
"First it is "hard work", it is hard to find application to every situation in the congregation,
"second, is wrong assumptions, assuming the audience is able to apply any and all biblical truths is totally a wrong assumption,
"third, is fear, fear of being to deep or to simplistic in the text and failing at application, and then there is training or lack thereof,
"many preachers know the text, and the history and the order of things but are totally untrained in application. One gentleman said it this way," how can you be a good football player when you can pass the ball, or when you can kick the ball, or when you can run with the ball but you don't know the rules of the game."
If you live in the souther Illinois area, we would like to invite you to a Couples' Marriage Enrichment Seminar on Saturday, February 27. It starts at 6:00 p.m and will run to 9:00 p.m.
After the welcome, there will be a dinner. Then there will be an opening session, followed by two breakout sessions, then a short closing.
The Keynote Speaker is Dr. Randy Carney (That's me :)!) and Roger and Janet Dutton will be speaking during the breakout sessions (That's Roger, who is commenting on this blog during this term!). Randy and Rhonda (my wife!) Carney will also have a breakout session discussing "Keys to Marital Bliss."
The Keynote Address will be on the topic of "The Way to a Successful Marriage: The Shocking and Surprising Truth."
Roger and Janet will be talking about "Hope for Restoring your marriage."
The cost is $15.00 per couple and that includes a dinner and all seminar materials. A nursery and childcare will be available. (Please indicate that you need these services when you register.) A book table with resources from Handfuls on Purpose Christian Bookstore will be available.
The seminar is for couples of all ages, ranging from newlyweds to marriage veterans!
To register, call 618-627-2228 to let the church know how may will be attending. Payment can be made at the event. (Make checks to TFBC.) For more information, call the church at 618-627-2228.
The Greatest Love
Since Valentine's Day falls on Sunday this year, I imagine there will be a ton of sermons going out on the topic of love.
Paul talked about love and respect in marriage (Ephesians 5), but he was really saying that that was an illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church.
Christ
Left Heaven to come to this earth.
He
Overcame adversity while here. He even conquered death!
He
Valued mankind so much that He gave Himself on the cross.
He desires fellowship with us. He reconciled the world to Himself, so that people could have an
Intimate realtionship with Him.
He meets all of our
Needs.
He is the supreme example of
Giving.
Do you see the word, LOVING, there? That is what He is--our LOVING Savior! Because of that, we should love one another.
Course 11 Week 4
Scroll down to the week 4 area to begin commenting.
Dealing with the Closed American Mind
One of the chapters Roger is reading is entitled, (something like) "Dealing with the Closed American Mind." I don't know if it is mentioned in the chapter, but I suspect that if you tak about something where a person has a felt need, you can gain their hearing somewhat.
What are your thoughts?
You may scroll down and comment in the week 3 comments area. Visitors are welcome to comment also.
Connecting with Postmoderns
This is something most preachers do every Sunday. If you have young unchurched visitors in your church, you will be trying to reach postmoderns. Even some of your church youth are more influenced by postmodernism than by their previous Sunday school teaching.
Here is my reply to one of Roger's posts:
"Roger, what tips stand out to you for commecting with postmoderns? I think the term modern referred to an age in history that related to new thoughts in science, etc. (If I am off base, refresh my memory.) Post modern refers to the time following that era. Connecting with postmoderns is something you have to do, whether you realize it or not, almost every time you preach."
I will post some of his answers here if he sees the question in time.
Preaching--Proclamation of God's Word
Preaching, by one definition, is the proclamation of God's Word. As such, a person, can take the Scriptural passage and find some of its main points and emphasize those points.
While I believe we should learn all we can about the grammatical construction of the words of Scripture, and that we should learn all we can about the historical setting for when those words were originally spoken; the nice thing about proclaiming the Word is that you can just take what the text says and emphasize it. Then the Word will not return void.
People with all different types of backgrounds have been called to preach throughout the centuries. Some very "unlearned" (as the world would put it) men have had great results by simply taking the main ideas of Scripture and simply emphasizing them. As long as we do not twist the meaning, this simply shows the amazing power of the Word of God.
New Format
I am going to try putting my comments for each day in this left sidebar. The comments areas for the remaining weeks are displayed to the right. That is where you will place your comments for each week.
12 comments:
The title of my course is Pastoral Ministry. The instructor is Mr. Terry Forrest. I will be watching three DVDs a week. The title of my book is PASTORAL MINISTRY. The author is John MacArthur. I will be reading three chapters a week.
1. Rediscovering Pastoral Ministry
2. What Is a Pastor to Be and Do?
3. Pastoral Ministry in History
The first DVD is an intro more thatn anything. We were referenced to Matthew 9:35-38. It was about the importance of preaching. The teacher also said that there is a shortage of pastor, but not of preachers. This was an interesting point.
Hi, Tyler,
Welcome back!
Hey Tyler, I don't anything about Terry Forrest, but I know that John MacArthur is a gifted writer and I'm sure you will get a lot of info from his writings. The question is ,should every preacher eventully pastor? Would this fulfill his calling? God Bless!!!
I don't think that every man called to preach is also called to be a pastor. Some men are called to be evangelists. Still, I like the instructors thoughts in the first DVD. There is a shortage of pastors, but not preachers.
My name is Tyler Owens. I attend Grange Hall Freewill Baptist Church. I answered the call to preach about a year and a half ago. I have a wonderful wife, Audra, and a beautiful nine-year old daughter named Chloe. I really love this course and what it has done for me.
Speaking in the position of just starting, I view pastoring as the hardest to do. To be a good one you have to be able to control a lot of things. I can sit and think that "you have to do this, or you have to do that", but the end answer is you have to be fully devoted to God. I'm not wanting to sound like my pastor is the greatest in the world, but I cant help but to set the bar as him. It helped me to fight the urge to answer the call. But thru him I have seen a little of what it takes to be a pastor. Right now I couldnt say at all if I'm to be a pastor or not, I'm trying to tackle this day first, but I have dreams or visions, I wouldnt necessarily call them goals, but similar.
I think Sean was right about the difficulty in pastoring, you would have to juggle a lot of time, feelings, and difficult situations within the congregation. Is the pastoral job description the same today as when Paul pastored? Thanks also for the encouragment on the book I'm reading. God Bless everyone and have good services tomorrow!!!
The nest DVD talked about the differences between the two major types of thinking in the church today. We have the traditional church and the "new age" way. The instructor calls the new way "neo-charismatic" and market driven. The new age church is need based, man centered, consumer driven, and culturally defined. The traditional church is redemptive centered, God focused, Biblically defined, and Scripturally prioritized. The does not mean contemporay vs. traditional in music style, but rather the way of thinking.
There are also three problems that are occuring in today's church.(according to the instructor) The number of people responding or not responding to the Gospel. The focus and level of commitment. There is also a lack of Biblical direction. This is what the new movement is becoming.
I do think the call to preach is more general than the call to pastor. It's kind of like this: "All preachers are (or of necessity will have to be) preachers, but not all preachers are pastors.+
Someone with the call to preach can fulfill that calling as an evangelist, or as a missionary, or even as a lay preacher (although most who are called to preach will go into some more specific type of ministry, but not necessarily pastoring--although again probably the majority will).
People with ministries that relate to special types of topics may fulfill their call by preaching specifically in those areas. These venues may often take the forms of seminars.
"All prunes are plums, but not all plums are prunes," is an old saying. I think that is how it is with preaching. When you have the call to preach, you will have to have some type of opportunity to proclaim God's Word in order to be fulfilled. However, pastoring involves so many others things, it may not even be wise for some preachers to attempt to pastor.
In the book of Acts, we have the example of a Godly deacon, Phillip, who preached a great revival. We really are not told even what all of the disciples ended up doing. Paul's writings tell us the most about pastoring as God began to organize things in that first century of Christianity.
That's my take on it. We probably mostly shared out of our own opinions because the Bible does not seem to fully answer the questions on this topic for us.
One thing that the instructor said in one of the DVDs is really interesting to me. He said "be the kind of pastor that a parent doesn't have to apologize for". In other words, don't do anything that would make you look foolish. I hope and pray that I can be that knid of pastor someday.
Post a Comment