Philips Brooks on Knowing Your Congregation

“Philips Brooks presented three rules to students, introducing them with due solemnity:

‘I beg you to remember them and apply them with all the wisdom that God gives you. First. Have as few congregations as you can. Second. Know your congregation as thoroughly as you can. Third. Know your congregation so largely and deeply that in knowing it you shall know humanity.’ ”

(Geoff Thomas, “Find a Place to Settle,” 362, in Thomas Ascol, Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry; Thomas is quoting from Philip Brooks, Lectures on Preaching, 190)

Practical Shepherding, new blog

Brian Croft, pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church, Louisville, KY, is a faithful pastor whom I am blessed to call a friend. He has written two very helpful books on pastoral ministry (Visit the Sick, & Test, Train, Affirm, and Send into Ministry: Recovering the Local Church’s Responsibility to the External Call), so I am pleased that he has launched a blog dedicated to specific issues in pastoral ministry. It is titled Practical Shepherding. Some of his current posts deal with helping a wife who is hurt by her husband’s use of pornography, ministering to widows, and identifying men in your church who are called for ministry. This is useful material for pastors and I encourage you to give it a look.

Testimony

I have often commented here on the importance of pastors being involved in the lives of their people. Here is a comment from a student paper in my pastoral ministry class affirming this truth.

“My best memory of my pastor is not a great sermon that he preached, but the fact that he invited me into his home on Thanksgiving when he found out my step-dad was in the hospital and my family wasn’t having a Thanksgiving dinner. I feel like I learned more from that than I have from a message he preached, and through him doing that I’m more prone to listen to his messages and believe him on Sundays.”

“Strive to Be Ordinary”

In my Pastoral Ministry class today B. J. Maxwell, pastor of Unity Baptist in Millington, TN, gave a lecture titled, “Strive to Be Ordinary.” It was an excellent exhortation to pursue faithful ministry to people rather than the trappings of success. I attempted to record it but was unsuccessful. The manuscript should be available soon, and I will link to it.

Maxwell began by rooting pastoral ministry in a proper understanding of the church. Is it a business to keep profitable? A team to be coached? A brand to be marketed? Or God's redeemed and sojourning people who need shepherding on their journey home? Because the church is a unique entity, pastoral ministry is a one-of-a-kind service. It cannot be approached or defined by categories of this world.

He described pastoral ministry as helping people to die well.

The heart of the presentation was “five rungs for climbing down the ladder toward ordinariness.”

1. Get acquainted with suffering

2. Develop a theology or vocabulary of encouragement. Learn how to encourage God’s people with the gospel.

3. Focus largely on micro-ministry before macro-ministry (i.e. needs of specific people before structural or programmatic issues)

4. Think in terms of decades and generations rather than weeks and years.

“Work today not with an eye to impressing the state paper, but with an eye to shaping your grandchildren.”

5. Recover simple personal discipleship

UPDATE: The manuscript is now available here. Highly recommended!

Shepherding Conference Update

As I previously mentioned the conference “Pastoral Ministry: Shepherding God’s Flock” is coming up Tuesday and Wednesday of next week in the St. Louis area. The schedule has been adjusted, however. Dr. John Thornbury who was to speak has had to have heart surgery, and, therefore, will not be able to participate. I am told he is recovering well, and we will miss the opportunity to hear from him. Dr. Phil Newton, pastor of Southwoods Baptist Church in the Memphis area, will now be joining us.

The revised schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, February 23, 2010
12:00 Registration
1:30 “Pastoral Ministry” Dr. Phil Newton
3:00 Break
3:30 "Oversight of Souls: The Heart of Pastoral Ministry" Part 1 Dr. Ray Van Neste
5:00 Dinner
6:30 “Gospel Saturated Preaching” Dr. Tom Ascol
Q & A Panel Discussion after Tuesday Evening session

Wednesday, February 24, 2010
9:00 "Oversight of Souls: The Heart of Pastoral Ministry" Part 2 Dr. Ray Van Neste
10:00 Break
10:30 “Pastoral Ministry” Dr. Phil Newton
Noon Lunch
1:30 “Gospel Shaped Ministry” Dr. Tom Ascol
3:00 Break
3:30 “Shepherding a Rebellious People” Dr. Ray Van Neste
5:00 Dinner
6:30 “Jesus Christ: The Pastor’s Message” Dr. Tom Ascol

Conference: “Shepherding God’s Flock”

I have the privilege of ministering alongside John Thornbury, Tom Ascol and Joseph Braden February 23-24 at a conference with the theme, “Pastoral Ministry: Shepherding God’s Flock.” I am particularly excited about the conference theme, which is the theme of this blog. These other men bring years of faithful experience in the pastorate.

The Schedule is as follows:
Tuesday, February 23
12 noon- Registration
1:30 p.m. Joseph Braden -“Our Shepherd God”
3:30 p.m. John Thornbury- “The World’s Greatest J ob”
5:00 p.m. Dinner
6:30 p.m. Tom Ascol- “Gospel Saturated Preaching”

Wednesday, February 24
9:00 a.m. Ray Van Neste- "Oversight of Souls: The Heart of Pastoral Ministry”
10:30 a.m. John Thornbury- “Pastoral Pitfalls"
12 noon- Lunch
1:30 p.m. Tom Ascol- “Gospel Shaped Ministry”
3:30 p.m. Ray Van Neste- “Shepherding a Rebellious People”
5:00 p.m. Dinner
6:30 p.m. John Thornbury- “Jesus Christ, the Pastor’s Message”

Just for clarity (especially for my own church members) my address, “Shepherding a Rebellious People,” is not autobiographical but is a study of Moses as a pastoral example. :)

The conference is the 2010 Southern Baptist Founders’ Conference Midwest and will meet at First Baptist Church, St. Peters, Missouri. Information on registration, housing, etc. can be found here.

Paul and Pastoral Love

Yesterday Lee Tankersley preached a great message on Galatians 4:12-20 and how the gospel develops a deep love between members of the church. Before the sermon ever began, I was gripped simply by the reading of this text, and the heart for the Galatians which Paul exhibits. It is so important in this, perhaps the harshest of Paul’s letters, to see this pastoral love expressed.

There is a place for speaking the hard word. Rebuke is necessary and a true example of love. However, if you think rebuke and “calling out” is cool, you are missing the heart of God- and are currently in danger of harming the church. In fact this is a sign of immaturity. Mature leadership speaks the hard word, when necessary, from a heart broken for the people and yearning for their growth and obedience.

This text is worth meditating on often:

12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of the blessing you felt? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Let us go and do likewise.

Patristics and Pastoral Preaching

In his volume on Jeremiah and Lamentationsin the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Dean Wenthe makes this comment:

“It should also be noted that for all their imaginative and intellectual capacities, the Fahters remained pastors. Their use of the sacred Scriptures was not the abstract debate of the academy but the concrete pastoral care and nurture of the church. Hence, their use of the Old and New Testaments is shaped by churchly needs. Homiies, catechesis, apologetic and liturgy are prominent. Even the few commentaries are deeply pastoral in that their exposition addresses the church’s life.” (xix-xx)

I think this serves not only as a description of these leaders of the past but also as the goal for us today. May the same be said of us. I don’t know if anyone else is like me, but I remember thinking early on in my training that this deep connection to actual church life was a limitation of people’s work- they were not able to step back and analyze more objectively. I now see the folly of my thinking, and this description is what I have in mind when I talk about “pastoral preaching” and the way in which oversight impacts preaching.

Hezekiah Harvey on Care of Souls

Here is another quote I used in my paper calling for a renewed emphasis on oversight of souls. This one is from the book on pastoral ministry by Hezekiah Harvey, prominent Baptist pastor and theologian in the 19th centruy Northeast US.

The care of souls is the radical idea of the pastor’s office. he is a shepherd to whom a flock has been committed to guide, to fee, to defend; and the divine command enjoins: ‘Take heed to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers’ (Acts 20:28). he is to be the personal religious guide, the confidential Christian friend, of his charge. Our Lord, in his description of the Good Shepherd, said, ‘The sheep hear his voice; and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before the, and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice’ (John 10: 3-4) Each member of his flock is a soul entrusted to his care by the Lord; and if true to his trust, he is one of those who ‘watch for souls as they must give account.’ Paul, when in Ephesus, taught not only publicly, but ‘from house to house;’ and in his farewell charge to the elders of that city he said, ‘Watch, and remember that, by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every man night and day with tears’ (Acts 20:31).
- Hezekiah Harvey, The Pastor: His Qualifications and Duties (Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1879), 78.

P. H. Mell the Pastor

Here is another quote I used in my recent paper arguing for the centrality of the oversight of souls. This one concerns P. H. Mell, a pastor who also served as President of the SBC multiple times.

“ ‘Very much of his power as a preacher lay in the way he had of getting close to his people. His custom was to visit all of them, and so anxious were they not to miss the expected pleasure that he made engagements ahead often as far as three months. The humblest householder was glad to entertain ‘Brother Mell,’ and the same ease of manner characterized him whether he sat at the bountiful board of the rich, or broth the plain bread and partook of the cup of milk from the pine table of the poorest. . . . If a poor man was harassed with debt, broken hearted over a willful child, or bowed down with bereavement, he never felt his load to be quite so heavy after he had talked it over with ‘Brother Mell’.”

(reminiscences of Mrs. D.B. Fitzgerald about Patrick Hues Mell, in P.H. Mell, Jr. The Life of Patrick Hues Mell [Harrisonburg, VA: Gano Books, 1991.], 61-62)

Keller on Overseeing Souls

Justin Wainscot just pointed me to a recent post by Tim Keller on our theme here. In the post Keller mentions that he fears too many think that expository preaching is a “magic bullet” that will make everything else in a church go right. If you know Tim Keller you know that he is not demeaning preaching. But he goes on to say that too many want only to preach but not to engage the daily lives of their people. He rightly points to Calvin as an example of depth of preaching combined with real interaction with his people.

The entire post (which is brief) is worth reading. Here is his closing:

If you put in too much time in your study on your sermon you put in too little time being out with people as a shepherd and a leader. Ironically, this will make you a poorer preacher. It is only through doing people-work that you become the preacher you need to be--someone who knows sin, how the heart works, what people's struggles are, and so on. Pastoral care and leadership (along with private prayer) are to a great degree sermon preparation. More accurately, it is preparing the preacher, not just the sermon. Through pastoral care and leadership you grow from being a Bible commentator into a flesh and blood preacher. (emphasis added)

Piper on Overseeing Souls

Justin Taylor today posted on John Piper moving to the pastorate 30 years ago. In that post he cited an excerpt which John piper’s dad sent to him advising him on the realities of the pastorate. There is much wisdom here and it affirms the argument often made here of the importance of involvement n the lives of your people. The full excerpt cited by Justin is well worth reading, but here is an excerpt of the excerpt.

"Now I want you to remember a few things about the pastorate. Being a pastor today involves more than merely teaching and preaching. You’ll be the comforter of the fatherless and the widow. You’ll counsel constantly with those whose homes and hearts are broken. You’ll have to handle divorce problems and a thousand marital situations. You’ll have to exhort and advise young people involved in sordid and illicit sex, with drugs and violence. You’ll have to visit the hospitals, the shut-ins, the elderly. A mountain of problems will be laid on your shoulders and at your doorstep."

"Just ask yourself, son, if you are prepared not only to preach and teach, but also to weep over men’s souls, to care for the sick and dying, and to bear the burdens carried today by the saints of God."

HT: Chad Davis

P.S. Justin's photo of Piper 30 years ago is well worht seeing. :)

Cura Animi

I am currently refreshing my Latin by working back through a grammar with a friend. It has been a delight. Today in the exercises for translation was this sentence:

Pauci viri de cura animi cogitabant.

Which means, “Few men were thinking about the care of the soul.”

Given the concern of this blog and the paper I gave this last week, it felt providential. The Latin source being summarized probably had something a bit different in mind, but I think it is true today in the church that too few people are giving serious attention to the care of souls.

Conference Completed

I was away from blogging most of last week with my duties at our “Southern Baptists, Evangelicals and the Future of Denominationalism” conference. I was very pleased with the way things came together. I think ti was an important conversation about the future of the SBC with implications for broader evangelicalism.

Several bloggers gave summaries including:
Trevin Wax
Steve Weaver
Micah Fries
Baptist 21

Also audio of all the sessions are now available.

My paper was an exposition of the central thesis of this blog: that the oversight of souls is the heart of pastoral ministry. In the context of this conference I argued that the future of any broader church movement (any denomination or ‘evangelicalism’) is dependent on the health of specific local churches, and the health of churches will depend on (among other things) faithful pastoral ministry. Yet, this vision of caring for souls, it seems to me, is not a common idea in the church today. I am calling for a recovery of this vision, arguing that is the command of Scripture and the testimony of the church through the ages.

The Oversight of Souls: Pastoral Ministry in Southern Baptist and Evangelical Life

This week Union will be hosting the “Southern Baptists, Evangelicals and the Future of Denominationalism” conference which I have mentioned here previously. As part of that conference I will be giving a paper under the title of this post. My aim will be to argue that the oversight of souls is the heart of pastoral ministry. As part fo that argument I have been gathering quotes from pastors voer the centuries that exemplify this goal.

One great source is the letters of Samuel Rutherford (available in complete text on Google Books). Letter 225 is particularly powerful as he writes to his beloved church while he is away from them in exile in Aberdeen. Here are two excerpts from that letter:




This is the heart of a pastor.

Erskine on Knowing Your Flock

Just this week I came across this quote from John Erskine. He is discussing various challenges of pastoral ministry and urges his readers to know their flocks. This is just one more piece of the long chain through the history of the church of understanding pastoral ministry as involving personal knowledge of one’s people.

“Sermons, like arrows shot at a venture, seldom hit the mark when we do not know the character of our hearers; and, in many instances, our knowledge of their character must be imperfect if we contract no familiarity with them. Yet this, however desirable, is next to impossible in a numerous charge, or in a charge almost continually shifting its inhabitants.” (191-192)

- John Erskine, “Difficulties of the Pastoral Office,” in John Brown, compiler, The Christian Pastor's Manual(1826. Reprint. Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 2003)

Maxwell on Ministry to Widow(er)s

My friend and fellow pastor, B J Maxwell, has written a wonderful and powerful exhortation on ministering to those who have lost a spouse titled, Cry for Her Now (or Thoughts on Ministry to Widow(er)s). He rightly notes the biblical mandate for this ministry (and how we might tend to avoid it) and then gives wise counsel on how to do this well.

This article is full of wisdom well-put. I cannot adequately summarize it here but will simply cite one paragraph to give you a feel for it.

Lesson: Learn to be a better husband from men who aren’t anymore. There is great benefit from the flood of new marriage books on the market. Slick covers depicting Tintselesque couples helping suburban families navigate the American dream. Read them, learn from them, practice them. But then go sit down with a Christian man who served his wife faithfully for decades but now sleeps alone. Watch him cry. Listen to him laugh. See his pictures. Enjoy his stories (again!). Imitate his faith. Make sure the thought of your wife makes you cry now so that you can cry without regret later.

I encourage you to take time to read the entire post and reflect on it.

Pastoral Reflections from the Farm

A friend who is preparing to serve as a pastor recently sent me some of his reflections on pastoral ministry drawn from his work on his farm. I thought I would pass them on.

As I told you, I have cows, goats, sheep, donkeys, and yes, dogs and cats on our farm. The sheep have taught me so much. It seems that the more time you spend with them the more they trust. They are the most frightened of the farm animals. A beautiful Barbado Blackbelly ram took seven months to be able to pet and even now he will not come to me if others are present. Sheep are without question the dirtiest of the livestock. They have a film over them and they have glands that secrete a waxy substance. Goats are quite beautiful and sleek, very curious, and always the first to greet you to see if you have a treat. A few weeks ago I went down to the pasture to check on all the livestock before Sunday worship and I did so without a feed bucket. The goats greeted me and did not follow for I visibly had nothing for them. I proceeded further and came upon the cows who stared intently but also found no reason to follow. As I approached the sheep and spoke to them they recognized it was me and they stood together and stared like the other livestock but as I begin to walk back to the gate they followed. As we passed the cows they too followed and the goats as well. What an example of the Church, if we follow faithfully, if our shepherds lead faithfully; will not others follow also? Shall we not do all these things for the sake of the elect? Will not the Lord of all the earth do what seems right to him? He is faithful and will not deny himself. Oh, that we endure that others may obtain Christ!

Other items of interest: sheep are prone to intestinal worms and must be medicated much more than goats and cows, the more they are handled the more they trust but after some time of neglect they grow more like but not exactly like the goats and cows in action. Sheep are very easy to herd for the most part especially in comparison to goats. Goats must be led by some trinket which usually is sweet feed in the trough. Goats are fun and lively and run all over the pasture while sheep remain close together. Sheep love to graze especially together while goats love the brush and exotic- whatever around the pasture edges. Sheep when being fed with goats will come to the trough last; they will wait until the goats have hoarded first. A goat mother will leave her little one to feed but a sheep will not and when doing so will not go far. Lambs are tender at birth and more susceptible to death while generally goat kids are hearty. Goats respond to sight while sheep respond more to sound.

Charge to New Pastors of Grace Church

As I mentioned in the previous post, we had the privilege of launching a new church, ordaining two new pastors, installing a third to serve with them this past weekend.

I had the opportunity to give the charge to these men, and thought I would share it with you as well. I love ordinations where I have full confidence in the men being ordained, and it is a struggle to know which text to take up in addressing the situation since there are so many great texts. So, here I sought primarily to bring together many of the key texts using as much as possible the direct words of Scripture to charge them with their task.

It is always a challenge to me to revisit these texts. Perhaps it will be edifying to you as well.


Gentlemen, I do not come today to tell you of your duties, thinking you do not already know them. If we did not think you knew your duties and were equipped and desirous of fulfilling them we would not be here today. We are convinced of your gifting, calling, and willingness. It is still fitting, however, at this significant point for me to charge you with these duties before God, this church whom you will serve and this church who sends you forth.

So, I do charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. But you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)

Indeed, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:16)

So I exhort you, elders, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. (1 Peter 5:1-4)

Keep watch over their souls, as ones who will have to give an account. (Heb 13:17)

And you may rightly say with Paul, “Who is adequate for these things?” (2 Cor 2:16)
But also lay hold of the confidence Paul has saying with him, “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor 3:4-6) You are ministers of the glorious New Covenant of Christ! Unworthy, you say? Of course you are! So revel in the wonder and amazement of the call of God, and in gratitude to such grace fulfill your calling caring only for the approval of this Great God!

So having this ministry by the mercy of God, do not lose heart. But renounce disgraceful, underhanded ways. Refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth commend yourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if your gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what you proclaim is not yourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with yourselves as servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in your hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 4:1-6)

And men, remember the Psalm that says, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity” (Psalm 133:1). To cite a lesser source, you must indeed all hang together or you will all hang separately. In many ways the security and health of this new church depends on the depth, power and health of your friendship. And friendship is not a word I use lightly. With some people you can afford simply to get along or merely to have a good working relationship. Not so here. You must love one another deeply as men who go to war together. For you truly do so, and you must have complete confidence in the one who has your back. Labor to develop and maintain this sort of relationship between you. In so doing you guard the flock, build the kingdom and protect your own souls.

Lastly love your people, this congregation, deeply, fiercely, tenderly- as Christ the Great Shepherd does. Grow to say of these people as Paul did of the Thessalonians:
“For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.” (2 Thess 2:19-20)
Then your people may say of you as they did of Baxter, “We take all things well from one who always and wholly loves us.”
Imitate your Lord who said:“I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” (John 10:11-13)

Pastoral Inefficiency

I have recently read Julia Duin’s Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do about It and I hope to post some thoughts from it. For now, I wanted to post this quote from Eugene Peterson. As usual, when talking about pastoral ministry, he is so good!

In a day when hard-edged efficiency is the buzz word, really living with, walking alongside people falls on hard times. The real life of human beings is messy, and we will not be able to minister in those lives if bottom-line efficiency is our high priority. Efficiency is a good tool but is harmful as a “greatest good.” Duin documents the dissatisfaction of church members who feel like their pastors run a well-oiled machine but do not know or shepherd them as individuals. In that context she references Peterson:

“It’s the job of pastors, he added, to know about their sheep and not dump the job on a subordinate. ‘People deserve to have their name known,’ he said. ‘They deserve to have somebody who is a spiritual guide and a preacher and pastor to them and who has had a cup of coffee in the kitchen. The is so much alienation, so much loneliness around us. Classically, that is what a pastor does. We’ve lost that. Of course some people think I’m out to lunch because we don’t do that in America. We do something big and influential and cost-efficient. Well, a pastoral life is not cost-efficient, I’ll tell you. You don’t spend three hours in a nursing home and come away feeling like you’ve been cost-efficient’” (p. 126).

Amen.