Resources by Charlie Wingard
FATHER OF LIGHT and fountain of all goodness, be helpful unto us in time of our affliction: and when we are in greatest danger, hide not thy face from us; yea, whatsoever thing fall unto us, strengthen our hearts, that we may have a continual hope of all the good things, which thou hast promised to us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN. – Prayers on the Psalms from the Scottish Psalter of 1595 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2010), 58.
Read MoreCritical to leadership is knowing the difference between determination and obstinacy. Often no more than a razor’s edge separates the two. Richard Brookhiser explains: “A weakness is the absence of a good quality; a flaw is the presence of a bad one. Everyone has flaws, and no one is ever rid of them all. . . . “[T]here are projects, or strategies, that should not be carried through, because they are mistaken or hopeless. Obstinacy is persisting beyond all reason. . . . “Obstinacy is the brother of determination. There is no easy way to tell them apart; in the heat of the moment, they can look and feel the same. But when the moment lengthens and lengthens, it becomes time…
Read MoreRTS has veteran pastors with many years of experience who offer beneficial counsel to men preparing for ministry. Today Dr. Bill Barcley spent time with my preaching class fielding questions on the preparation and delivery of sermons. Bill is an adjunct professor of New Testament at RTS Charlotte and senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Presbyterian Church. In the 1990s, Dr. Barcley, Dr. Miles Van Pelt, and I served together on the church staff of First Presbyterian Church in Ipswich, Massachusetts.
Read More“The idea that freedom is merely the ability to act upon one’s whims is surely very thin and hardly begins to capture the complexities of human existence; a man whose appetite is his law strikes us not as liberated but enslaved. And when such a narrowly conceived freedom is made the touchstone of public policy, a dissolution of society is bound to follow. No culture that makes publicly sanctioned self-indulgence its highest good can long survive: a radical egotism is bound to ensue, in which any limitations upon personal behavior are experienced as infringements of basic rights. Distinctions between the important and the trivial, between the freedom to criticize received ideas and the freedom to take LSD, are precisely…
Read MoreI am grateful to Dr. Bill Wymond, Minister of Music and Worship at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, who today in my Theology of Worship class gave his first of three lectures on church music and hymnody. His learning, enthusiasm, and experience make his instruction a valuable resource to men preparing to lead God’s people in worship.
Read MoreYesterday I finished reading Bruce Gordon’s masterful biography of John Calvin. The highest praise I can give Calvin is that it compares positively with my two favorite biographies, Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo: A Biography and George Marsden’s Jonathan Edwards: A Life. Calvin was a towering figure of his age. But above all Calvin was a pastor, his heart attuned to the realities of life in God’s persecuted church. Gordon observes that “Resignation to fate and delusions of perfection were equally abhorrent to Calvin. God’s providence is an excuse for neither inaction nor wickedness; it encourages joy among the faithful, and fortifies them to face the hardships of the world, but it is not an inoculation. The Gospel teaches God’s everlasting kindness…
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