Resources on Pastoral Ministry
I am thrilled about the forthcoming publication of Francis J.Grimké’s “Meditations on Preaching” by Log College Press. In the third volume of his collected works, Grimké (1852-1937) spoke frankly about the minister’s moral character: A minister who is but poorly equipped intellectually, educationally, but who is of good moral character, and of real piety, is greatly to be preferred to the man, however well equipped intellectually and educationally, but who is of questionable character, whose ways are crooked. The one may have to be tolerated, the other should never be: the ministry of the one may result in good, of the other only harm can come. Such a minister discredits the gospel, and becomes an obstacle in the way of…
Read MoreJohn Johnson lectures on pastoral leadership in African American churches. His presentation is full of informative history and practical exhortations to loving and courageous pastoral leadership. Pastor Johnson has served St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Starkville, Mississippi for 17 years. On Easter he preaches his first sermon as the newly elected pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, Texas.
Read More“To love to preach is one thing, to love those to whom we preach quite another.” – Richard Cecil, quoted in D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 105.
Read More“Upon graduation from Columbia Seminary, ministerial students received from Dr. William S. Plumer their diploma along with a small Bible and these words: ‘By this Book you shall live, by this Book you shall preach, and by this Book you shall be judged at the last day.’” – David B. Calhoun, Our Southern Zion: Old Columbia Seminary (1828-1927), (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2012), 207.
Read More“Every minister of the gospel ought to be a close student, and a diligent learner to the end of life.” – Samuel Miller, Thoughts on Public Prayer. 1849 (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1985), 274.
Read More“True piety consists in a sincere feeling which loves God as Father as much as it fears and reverences him as Lord, embraces his righteousness, and dreads offending him worse than death.” How is piety obtained? “Piety is always built on knowledge of the true God and knowledge requires instruction.” “That which can educate a man’s piety demands sane doctrine.” – Quoted in David B. Calhoun, Knowing God and Ourselves: Reading Calvin’s Institutes Devotionally (Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, 2016), 16-17.
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