The Church Militant Is the Church Missional
In Matthew 16:18, Jesus responds to Peter’s affirmation of Jesus’s messiahship with the programmatic statement: “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The reader shouldn’t miss Jesus’s mixed metaphor—the church is like a building project and like a military operation. One should also note that neither metaphor conveys a passive or defensive posture. Both metaphors, on the contrary, denote the ideas of growth, advance, completion, and victory. Read more
Worship for Dummies: The Regulative Principle Made Simple
God created man for worship. Jesus declared that the Father is seeking worshippers who will worship Him “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24). Not surprisingly, the Shorter Catechism begins by affirming, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” But this raises the question, “How should God be worshiped?” To be more precise, “What kind of worship pleases God?” The answer is vital. Thankfully, it’s not that complicated. Even a child may understand. Read more 
Making Disciples: Purposing Reproduction and Practicing Replication
Pastor Bob Selph of Grace Baptist Church in Taylors SC gave two lectures on the subject of “making disciples” for our course on Church Ministry. In the first lecture entitled “Purposing Reproduction,” Bob discusses the biblical basis and importance of discipleship as a vital facet of the church’s ministry. He focuses on the practical ways in which the pastor and church members may disciple one another in his second lecture entitled ”Practicing Replication.” If you’re a church leader and are seeking to equip the saints for works of ministry as well as training future gospel laborers, I heartily commend these lectures. Read more
Communication That Connects: Our Preaching, Bible Version, Confession, Branding, and Songs
In the previous installments of this series, I’ve addressed the importance, definition, and biblical support for accommodating our gospel communication to make it intelligible to the people we’re trying to reach.1 Below I’d like to highlight five different areas in which we should seek to apply this principle of accommodation to the way we communicate biblical truth in church ministry. Read more
What If Your Church Isn’t Big?
Christians should not despise quantitative church growth. Quite the opposite. We should desire it. Part of our commission as a church is to “make disciples.” And it normally takes disciples to make disciples. In other words, we cannot view human resources and financial resources as totally irrelevant. If our church is to impact our community for the gospel, to minister to the poor, to train gospel laborers, to see new churches planted, and to send out missionaries, we should long and labor for healthy church growth of the numerical kind.1 Read more
- See my articles “Who’s Afraid of Church Growth?” and “Contextualization & Church Ministry: Does It Matter?“ [↩]
Our Church’s Journey in Evangelism – Gary Hendrix
Our recent module on church ministry included an emphasis on evangelistic outreach. We invited Pastor Gary Hendrix, who has over 30 years of pastoral experience, to address the topic and to share with our students his church’s journey in evangelism. In this lecture Pastor Hendrix emphasizes the importance of pastors training and mobilizing their people to engage the lost with the gospel in ways that are appropriate to their gifts, maturity, and the providential opportunities God has placed before them. If you want your church ministry to cultivate an outward focus, I highly recommend the free video message below. Read more
The Three Dimensional Church – Ted Christman
Reformed Baptist Seminary invited Pastor Ted Christian to serve as one of five lecturers for its recent module on Church Ministry. In the lecture below Ted explains how the church’s vision, mission, and strategy are grounded in its identity. Moreover, he argues that the church’s identity also constrains a three dimensional focus that is upward (worshiping God), inward (building up one another), and outward (ministering to the lost). Read more
2013 Summer Module: Doctrine of the Church
Grace Baptist Church of Taylors, South Carolina will host RBS’s 2013 summer module on The Doctrine of the Church on the week of August 24 thru 30. Pastor Gregory Nichols (M.Div.), who serves as a professor of systematic theology for RBS, will deliver 30 lectures in which he will expound universal church principles as well as local church polity. Read more
Communication That Connects: Making the Gospel Intelligible
A few years ago I had the opportunity to present the ministry of Reformed Baptist Seminary to a local church. I opened up for questions at the end of the presentation, and one brother asked how the seminary assesses a man’s preaching and teaching ability. I told him that we require our divinity students to preach and/or teach at least four times in the presence of one or more of their pastors, and we ask their pastor(s) to give them constructive feedback on the content, structure, and presentation of the message. Read more
Contextualization & Church Ministry: Seven Ingredients
I would define biblical accommodation as a self-conscious and self-denying accommodation of the gospel messenger and the gospel message in biblically informed ways in order to enhance the gospel’s intelligibility and to remove any unnecessary obstacles that may prevent the target audience from hearing, understanding and/or receiving the gospel. Below I explain and expound the seven elements that make up this definition. Read more
