Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Course Seven Week 1 Tyler's Topics

12 comments:

Tyler Owens said...

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

Tyler Owens said...

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.

Dr. Randy Carney said...

Hi, Tyler,

Welcome back!

roger said...

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!!!

Tyler Owens said...

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.

Tyler Owens said...

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.

sremery said...

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.

roger said...

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!!!

Tyler Owens said...

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.

Tyler Owens said...

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.

Dr. Randy Carney said...

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.

Tyler Owens said...

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.