How to Care for Your Pastor: A Guide for Small Churches, by Kent Philpott. Webster, NY: Evangelical Press, 2008, xiii + 128 pages, $13.99, paper. Disappointment is a routine part of pastoral life and is especially acute in small churches where personal and financial resources are few and prospects for growth slim. Many pastors wonder if anyone in the congregation really cares about them. Pay is often meagre; expressions of concern for the pastor and his family’s well-being come infrequently or not at all. In some churches little energy is spent caring for anyone in the church. The hurt can be deep. Pastors would like to articulate their hurts to the church, but do not—they do not want to…
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Today my RTS office is in an attic. 46 years ago my bedroom was. On the evening of April 8, 1974, I sat at my desk doing homework. The radio was on, the volume low, and the Braves-Dodgers game in the background. In the second and the fourth inning, I turned up the volume when one of my boyhood heroes, “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron, came to the plate. And it was in the fourth inning that he smashed his record setting 715th homer off Dodger Al Downing. Braves’ announcer Milo Hamilton called the historic shot. Of the hundreds of Braves games I listened to as a boy, that was by far the most memorable. I recorded the home run on my…
Read MoreThe Pastor’s Soul: The Call and Care of an Undershepherd, by Brian Croft and Jim Savastio. Welwyn Garden City, UK: EP Books, 2018, 160 pages, $11.99, paper. The good pastor lovingly looks after God’s sheep; it’s his duty, and he stands accountable to the Lord for those entrusted to his care. He finds satisfaction in his work as he becomes involved in the lives of his people. At times he rejoices with them—at other times, he weeps. He instructs the disciple, admonishes the erring, comforts the suffering, counsels the perplexed, and offers gospel hope to the despairing. Since God is for his elect people, the faithful pastor is for them, too. But even the most faithful pastor is in trouble…
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Dr. John V. Fesko will present a six-week series on “The Christian and Technology” at First Presbyterian Church of Yazoo City. Dinner is served at 6:00, followed by Dr. Fesko at 6:30. Schedule 1/29: Screens 2/5: Social Media 2/12: The Automobile 2/19: The Book 2/26: Unfettered Access to Evil 3/4: Virtual Reality About the Speaker Dr. Fesko is Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson. He was ordained to the ministry in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1998 as a church planter, served as a pastor, Academic Dean and Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California. He and his family moved to the Jackson area last summer. Dr. Fesko and his wife, Anneke, have three…
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A Labor of Love: Puritan Pastoral Priorities, by J. Stephen Yuille, Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2013, x + 136 pages, $15.00, paper. Faithful ministers experience bouts of discouragement, some of them long and intensely painful. Our hearts go out to them: hard work and steadfast prayer have yielded little in the way of visible fruit. Their discouragement can be so severe that they lose sight of the nobility of their work—they are men sent by God to care for his blood-bought church. A second danger may come from the opposite direction: times of growth in God’s church produce pride. If ministers are not careful, they end up claiming for themselves the glory that belongs to God alone. Both…
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Albert N. Martin, Pastoral Theology, Volume 1: The Man of God: His Calling and Godly Life. Montville, NJ: Trinity Pulpit Press, 2018. $42.95, clothbound. More than a century ago James Stalker warned: I believe the question, what is to be the type and the tone of the ministry in any generation, is decided in the theological seminaries. What the students are there, the ministers of the country will be by-and-by. . . The state of feeling in a theological seminary ought to be such, that any man living a life inconsistent with his future profession should feel thoroughly uncomfortable, and have the conviction driven in upon his conscience every day, that the ministry is no place for him (Yale…
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When I finish a book, I add it to my annual “books read” list. My 2019 list is at the end of this post. I don’t have a detailed reading plan – I select books based on interest and recommendations, as well as a desire to improve my cultural awareness. I also use commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and systematic theologies as I prepare two weekly sermons and lectures. Since I seldom read these cover-to-cover, few are found in my lists. 2019 Reading Highlights What follows are some of my 2019 reading highlights. Several of my comments come from booknotes I wrote earlier in the year. Every year, I read a few substantial volumes in theology. This year I chose Wilhelmus…
Read MoreAt the outset of a difficult topic – pastoral laziness – I want to be clear that my purpose is to encourage both pastors and their congregations. Where conflict arises over the minister’s work ethic, I believe most of the time there is a path forward to strengthen the bonds of affection that should exist between a pastor and his congregation. That said, here are some hard words: Apart from heretical doctrine or immorality, one of the most serious charges that can be levelled against a pastor is sloth. In the judgment of his congregation, he fails to take his cues from the “hard-working farmer,” one of Paul’s models for pastoral ministry (2 Timothy 2:6), and seems unfamiliar with Solomon’s…
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Look closely at the photograph to the right of this WWII veteran – a carrier-based Helldiver torpedo bomber manned by a 20-year-old pilot and 17-year-old tail gunner, Joe Neves. Now 92, he is the last surviving WWII veteran to serve with the Navy’s famed Tophatters squadron. Mr. Neves found out about the bombing of Pearl Harbor as he exited a movie theatre in New York City on December 7, 1941. Determined to fight for his country, he had to wait three years until he was 17 and old enough to enlist. I was honored to meet and speak with him last week. He gave me a signed copy of an artist’s rendering of his plane. He told me to…
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Albert N. Martin, The Man of God: His Calling and Godly Life. Trinity Pulpit Press, 2018. More than a century ago James Stalker warned: I believe the question, what is to be the type and the tone of the ministry in any generation, is decided in the theological seminaries. What the students are there, the ministers of the country will be by-and-by. . . The state of feeling in a theological seminary ought to be such, that any man living a life inconsistent with his future profession should feel thoroughly uncomfortable, and have the conviction driven in upon his conscience every day, that the ministry is no place for him. (Yale Preaching Lectures, 1891) If theological students are to live…
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