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Contents

Assistant Editor’s Note

Bobby Jamieson

A VISION FOR APOSTOLIC PASTORS

Wanted: Apostolic Pastors

This pastor longs for more pastors who would, like the apostles, strategize to help other pastors and churches.

By Mark Dever

The Great Commission is Bigger than Your Church

The great commission is bigger than your local church. How should that shape your priorities and posture as a pastor?

By Bobby Jamieson

Pray for Revival—in the Other Guy’s Church

Our love for Jesus never shines brighter than when we rejoice in the progress of the gospel—in others’ churches.

By Andy Johnson

STORIES OF APOSTOLIC PASTORING

The Birth of a Gospel Partnership: Evangelium21

Here’s how a group of likeminded pastors came together to promote gospel growth in German churches. First step? Invite John Piper to dinner.

By Matthias Lohmann

The Story of Sojourn Network

How can a church raise up and sustain pastors who are faithful over the long haul? That’s a question Sojourn Network is trying to answer.

By Daniel Montgomery

Coming Together: the Pastoral Fellowship for Practical Theology

From the four corners of Louisville, a growing number of pastors have been gathering for fellowship, teaching, and prayer. Here’s their story, and some of the unexpected fruits they’ve seen.

By Brian Croft

FRUITS OF APOSTOLIC PASTORING

Rescued from Isolation: the Columbia Baptist Minister’s Association

A young pastor found relief from self-imposed isolation through a new local association of ministers. Here’s how.

By Justin Runyan

Baptists Reading Together and the Birth of Modern Missions

A small group of Baptists who read, talked, and prayed together sparked a renewal that led to the birth of the modern missions movement. What might God do through similar means today?

By Michael A.G. Haykin

Closer than a Brother: Why I Belong to Acts 29

Pastors need to care for each other. Here’s how that care found one pastor when he needed it most.

By Robert Greene

Don’t Pull the Plug on Your Association Yet

The local Baptist association is dead. Or at least on life support. This story of turning one around provides great reasons not to pull the plug just yet.

By Matthew Spandler-Davison

MISCELLANEOUS BOOK REVIEWS

Book Review: Dallas and the Spitfire

By Ted Kluck and Dallas Janche

Reviewed by Bobby Jamieson

Book Review: The Measure of Our Success

By Shawn Lovejoy

Reviewed by Jeramie Rinne

Book Review: Redeeming Church Conflicts

By Tara Barthel and David Edling

Reviewed by Matt Smethurst

Book Review: Turning to God

By David Wells

Reviewed by Shane Walker

Audio

Revitalizing a Church with Andy Davis

Andy Davis, a pastor in North Carolina, recounts the stirring story of his church’s revitalization.

Posted on May 1, 2012 *Listen online Now »

Biblical Theology with Greg Beale

Greg Beale gives a crash course on the discipline of biblical theology, assesses recent works on it, and explains what he’s written and why.

Posted on April 1, 2012 *Listen online Now »

* This audio might not be supported by your particular device

Bobby Jamieson

Assistant Editor’s Note

9Marks is on the lookout for apostolic pastors. Know any?

Here’s what we have in mind: pastors who care deeply about the progress of the gospel beyond their local churches. Pastors who encourage, disciple, and partner with other pastors. Pastors who lead their congregations to link arms with other likeminded local churches for evangelism, church planting, and more. By “apostolic,” we don’t mean someone who is personally commissioned by Jesus to bear witness to the resurrection (Acts 1:21-22). Instead, we mean someone who shares some of the apostles’ priorities and concerns, even though he doesn’t share their office.

We love pastors like this, and we want to see many more of them raised up. So in this issue of the 9Marks Journal we want to help pastors catch a vision of the good that can come when they begin to feel an apostle-like concern for other pastors and churches (2 Cor. 11:28).

Apostolic pastor Mark Dever starts us off by exhorting pastors to dream beyond the four walls of their churches. My piece attempts to provide a broad biblical basis for the pastoral priorities we’re advocating in this issue. And Andy Johnson’s article asks how you’d feel if revival came—to somebody else’s church.

The articles by Matthias Lohmann, Daniel Montgomery, and Brian Croft provide glimpses of apostolic pastoring in action. I hope you’ll be encouraged and challenged by their examples.

Next we sample some of the fruits of apostolic pastoring. Baptists used to have a powerful tool for this called an “association.” You might be surprised by the good that’s come from this tool in the past, which Michael Haykin’s piece on Andrew Fuller and friends illustrates. And according to Matthew Spandler-Davison, this rusted old tool can be cleaned up and made useful again. Or, if need be, start a new one. If you do, you just might rescue a young pastor like Justin Runyan from what he calls miserable, self-imposed isolation. Finally, Robert Greene tells about the sustaining brotherhood he found in the network of pastors he belongs to, even before he joined.

Here’s the bottom line: Jesus hasn’t called our churches to fulfill the great commission alone. So look up, look out, and see what encouragement and unexpected fruit God may have in store for you as you work to bless other pastors and churches.

By Mark Dever

Wanted: Apostolic Pastors

I was in a meeting not too long ago in which a pastor said that he was going to lead his church to be the first church in history that fulfilled the great commission.

That’s a breathtaking claim.

And it reminded me of many other such vision-casting mission statements. One of the most famous slogans has to be the watchword of the Student Volunteer Movement, from over a century ago—“The evangelization of the world in this generation!” That stirring call was used by God to send thousands of evangelical Christians from the English-speaking world around the globe to share the gospel in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

But I have to be honest—I’ve always thought that famous slogan was a mixed bag. I love the call to the evangelization of the world! That stirs my heart, and I mean to be giving my life to that work. But the second half feels vaguely manipulative. I can imagine young people especially getting excited by the unique way their generation will do what all others have failed to do. (Maybe like one church doing what all other churches have failed to do?)

HOW APOSTOLIC ARE WE?

I want to tread carefully here. Evangelization is vital. Yet I cannot fail to notice the difference between the nineteenth-century “watchword” and Christ’s own great commission. Jesus mentioned not the apostles’ generation only, but instead promised to be with them until the very end of the age (Matt. 28:20). Such a world-wide, age-long charge should encourage us to be humble before the crushing omnipotence required for such a task. This humility should drive us to utter reliance upon God even as we give ourselves fully. And, of course, it’s this utter reliance upon God that gives us the very boldness we need to undertake and continue in this great task.

“How apostolic are we in our work as pastors? Do you actively work to partner with other local churches to fulfill the great commission? Or do you act as if your church can take the gospel to the ends of the earth all by yourselves?”

I also notice how none of the apostles turned to the others and said in naïve exuberance—“I’m going to do this myself! I’m going to take the gospel to all nations, and I’ll do it all by myself!” The disciples became Christ-sent messengers, heralding the gospel to all. And they worked together, one going to one place, another to another (cf. Gal. 2:9). They encouraged and helped one another in their common work.

How apostolic are we in our work as pastors? Do you actively work to partner with other local churches to fulfill the great commission? Or do you act as if your church can take the gospel to the ends of the earth all by yourselves?

DREAM BIG—BIGGER THAN THE FOUR WALLS OF YOUR CHURCH

I love being a pastor and I love pastors. I thank God for pastors and try to work to serve them as he gives me opportunity.

Perhaps it’s because of this very love that sometimes I also find myself saddened by pastors. How many times have pastors made remarks that seem to show that their dreams and hopes begin and end at the doors of their own church? While there is sometimes admirable contentment and humility in this, I fear that other times it is self-absorption and small-mindedness.

Some pastors’ hopes seem to be otherwise distorted—like pastors who root for their denominations like fans do for their sports teams! I remember one pastor telling me with excitement what percentage of people in his state were members of his denomination, trends of growth, and an array of other denominational statistics. When I asked him about percentages of people in his state who claimed to be evangelical Christians—that is, they claim to believe the same gospel we do—he had no idea. He seemed not to have thought of the question before.

Brother pastors, how is it that we can be more concerned about who is in our denomination than about who is in Christ’s kingdom? Do we think more in terms of swelling the number of those in our congregation, or of those in the church of God, whichever local congregation they may be a member of?

I long for God to raise up more pastors who care more about conversions than the numerical growth of their own congregations.

I long for God to raise up more pastors who will work to develop a culture of care for and cooperation with other churches.

I long for God to raise up pastors who pray for revival for years, and who are not disappointed when God answers their prayers at another local church.

HOW CAN WE BE “APOSTOLIC PASTORS”?

How can we be such “apostolic pastors”—pastors who work with not only their own congregation in view, but with the non-Christians in their neighborhood and their city in view, loving all true gospel work?

And how can we lead our congregations to enlarge their vision and be excited for gospel work in our areas?

• Pray privately for other local pastors and congregations.

• Set an example for our churches by publicly praying for God’s blessing on other Bible-believing and Bible-preaching churches in our area.

• Encourage ministers of other evangelical denominations to preach from time to time in our pulpits. As occasion may arise, accept invitations to preach in theirs.

• Invite a fellow pastor to your church’s prayer meeting. Interview him about the work in his congregation, and pray for him and his church.

• Discipline yourself to speak well of other churches. If a warning must be given, speak with great care.

• Be willing to encourage members who live a distance from your church to join likeminded congregations closer to their home.

There is so much you can do!

STRATEGIZE TO HELP OTHER PASTORS

Whatever form it may take, strategize to help other pastors. Gather them. Pray with them. Give them books. Let them know that, as best you can be, you’re there for them.

Look especially for those pastors who will themselves work to bless other pastors. This is a kind of pastoral version of 2 Timothy 2:2, training faithful pastors who will in turn train other faithful pastors. And as God raises up such a company of godly ministers of his Word in your area and mine, may the lost be saved, churches be built, and God’s name be honored.

In every generation, that’s how the great commission has been, is being, and will be fulfilled.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark Dever is the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church and is the author of The Church: The Gospel Made Visible (B&H, 2012), and Preach: Theology Meets Practice (B&H, 2012).

By Bobby Jamieson

The Great Commission is Bigger than Your Church

The great commission is bigger than your local church. How should that shape your priorities and posture as a pastor?

THE GREAT COMMISSION IS BIGGER THAN YOUR CHURCH

Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Trinity, and teaching them to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:19). And he promised to be with them to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). This charge is global in scope. Therefore, the great commission necessarily involves more than one local church.

After all, a church in Uganda can’t do much to make disciples of native Argentineans. Of course, they can send missionaries to Argentina, but then those missionaries will evangelize, disciple, plant a church, and the whole process starts over.

Because each of our churches is engaged in a mission that is bigger than any of them, we should proactively partner with other churches in order to fulfill it. Many churches’ denominational ties aim at this kind of partnership. But I’d like to suggest that the great commission should form in us, and in pastors in particular, a more pervasive posture of partnering with other churches to fulfill the great commission.

In other words, pastor, don’t consider your denominational affiliation or the money you give to missions to be your only, or even primary, means of fulfilling the great commission beyond the confines of your church. Instead, I’d argue that Scripture would also have you cultivate a posture of building partnerships with other pastors and churches in order to promote the gospel in your region and around the world.

MUTUAL CARE, MODELING, AND THE GREAT COMMISSION

In a variety of ways, this is just what we see the churches of the New Testament doing.

Mutual Care between Jerusalem and Antioch—and Beyond

First, it’s clear that the apostles desired to promote unity, harmony, and like-mindedness between local churches. For instance, when the church in Antioch saw a “great number” of Greeks come to faith (Acts 11:21), the apostles sent Barnabas to go and see what the Lord was doing (v. 22) and to strengthen these new believers in the grace of God (vv. 23-24).

The apostles in Jerusalem wanted to know what was happening in Antioch. They wanted to ensure that the churches in Jerusalem and Antioch were on the same theological page. And they wanted to help ensure that these new believers were growing strong in the faith. So, they sent one of their best men to minister to them.

As a result of this partnership between Jerusalem and Antioch, the church in Antioch learned in advance about the famine and hardship that were going to come upon the believers in Judaea (Acts 11:27-28). So, when the time came, they sent aid to them by Barnabas and Saul (vv. 29-30). The church in Antioch supplied what the church in Jerusalem lacked—in this case, money to survive a famine.

A similar motivation drove Paul to devote so much effort to securing an offering for the Judean church from Gentile churches throughout the Mediterranean (Rom. 15:26-28; 1 Cor. 16:1-4; 2 Cor. 8:1-15). Paul reasoned that if these Gentile believers have come to share in the Jewish believers’ spiritual blessings, they “ought also to be of service to them in material blessings” (Rom. 15:27).

Although this particular theological rationale may not apply to most churches today, our churches still have ample reason to care for other churches’ needs, since we all belong to the same body (Eph. 1:22). And if we should be concerned for our sister churches’ material good, how much more should we do what we can to promote their spiritual health?

So, the apostles cared for the church in Antioch, the church in Antioch cared for the saints in Jerusalem, and Paul led churches around the Mediterranean to provide for the needs of the church in Jerusalem as well. And although the apostles are no longer around, I’d suggest that the priorities reflected in these passages should be found in pastors and churches today.

Pastors should lead their churches to care for other churches, and to strive for unity, partnership, and like-mindedness between local churches. Further, they should lead churches to partner with other churches not only when there are needs to be cared for, as we see in Acts 11 and Romans 15, but also when there are opportunities to advance the gospel. Pastors should take an interest in the spiritual health of other churches, and in what healthy churches working together can accomplish for the sake of the gospel.

My concern here is not so much with the fact that these churches cared for each other in physical ways, but with the spirit of unity and cooperation which that care demonstrated. These churches understood themselves to be playing on the same team. They knew they were working for a common cause. They knew that God’s kingdom, and the mandate to spread the reach of that kingdom through disciple-making, was far bigger than their local church.

Local Churches as Models for Other Local Churches

Another way we see local churches helping other local churches to fulfill the great commission in the New Testament is that some churches serve as godly examples for other churches. Just as individual Christians grow in grace, in part, through imitating godly examples (1 Cor. 4:17, 11:1; Phil. 3:17), so also entire local churches serve as models for other churches.

Consider, for instance, what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 1:6-8:

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.

Paul rejoiced not only in the Thessalonians’ faith and their boldness in evangelism, but in the fact that these things had come to serve as examples for the believers throughout the surrounding regions (cf. Rom. 1:8, 16:19). Paul celebrates this church’s role as a model for other churches, just as the Thessalonians themselves had become imitators of Paul, the Lord, and “the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea” (1 Thess. 2:14).

Just as Paul can say to the Corinthians, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1), so also local churches today—at least mature, healthy ones—should be able to say the same to other churches. So what is your church doing to help other churches fulfill the great commission by walking in your footsteps?

And if your church is weak in certain areas, seek out pastors and churches who can serve as models to you. There’s no shame in seeking to grow wise by walking with the wise (Prov. 13:20).

An Apostolic Posture Not Limited to the Apostles

These are just a few of the ways that the earliest churches bore witness to their understanding that the great commission is bigger than any local church. For example, they also sent out, supported, and received Christian workers who ministered outside the “four walls” of their churches (Acts 13:1-3; Phil. 4:10-20; 3 Jn. 5-8).

In all these ways and more the earliest Christians demonstrated a great commission-prompted posture of not only taking the gospel to the nations, but also of caring for and partnering with other churches toward that same end.

In other words, the apostolic posture of concern for all the churches (2 Cor. 11:28) wasn’t limited to the apostles. Instead, churches sought each other’s good in order to advance the gospel.

PART OF YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION

Among Christians today, pastors bear a special responsibility for embodying this kind of the-great-commission-is-bigger-than-my-church posture. If pastors don’t strive to help other churches, not many in their churches will. But if pastors build partnerships with other churches, that opens up countless opportunities for the members of those churches to work together.

In other words, pastors are responsible for equipping their churches to fulfill the great commission (Eph. 4:11-16). So pastors should consider it to be part of their job description to support, care for, and build partnerships with other pastors and churches for the sake of making disciples of all nations.

WHY YOU SHOULD INVEST IN YOUR FELLOW PASTORS

One of the primary ways this posture should play out is in concern for fellow pastors. Why? Because one of the best ways to invest in the progress of the gospel in your community and beyond is to invest in your fellow pastors.

Consider your own needs as a pastor. How often have you wondered how other faithful pastors handled a particularly thorny issue you were facing? How often have you felt isolated, burdened, and discouraged in your work? How often have you felt like there was no one you could talk to?

If your answer to any of these questions is “Often enough,” then you know from experience that pastoral ministry can be discouraging, isolating, and confusing. And you know either from experience or from lack of experience that fellowship with other pastors can provide crucial help for your ministry.

Proverbs says “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety,” and, “By wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory” (Prov. 11:14, 24:6).

A pastor’s primary counselors in ministry should be his fellow elders, but many pastors lack such co-laborers. Who then are the brothers he can turn to in the day of adversity (Prov. 17:17)?

Often, fellow pastors will provide the most helpful, encouraging, and enlightening friendship for a pastor. Pastors know each other’s struggles. They’re able to say “I’ve been there”—maybe even “I’m there right now.” And older, more seasoned pastors in particular can offer unparalleled counsel and encouragement to a struggling brother in the ministry. Yet too few pastors seek or give this kind of relational care.

If a faithful brother across town is on the verge of burnout, or is about to split his church through youthful impatience, how does that serve the great commission? If you care about the progress of the gospel and not merely the prosperity of your own church, you should strive to befriend and encourage fellow pastors in your area.

“If you care about the progress of the gospel and not merely the prosperity of your own church, you should strive to befriend and encourage fellow pastors in your area.”

Don’t isolate yourself from other pastors’ encouragement, and don’t leave them isolated from yours. Instead, may your earnest counsel gladden your brother pastors’ hearts (Prov. 27:9).

A FEW PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

So, pastors should have a burden to spread the gospel and make disciples through partnering with other churches. And one of the most direct ways to do this is to befriend, care for, encourage, and disciple fellow pastors.

What then are some specific ways these partnerships and pastoral friendships can help to advance the gospel? This Journal is packed with practical examples, so I’ll just quickly mention a few here to fuel godly imagination.

1. Local Evangelism

Churches can work together to host public evangelistic events, reach out to specific neighborhoods, and more. Often, an evangelistic effort that one church alone couldn’t support could be pulled off fairly easily if three or four churches worked together. And the picture of different churches working together highlights the unifying power of the gospel.

2. Global Evangelism

American churches of many denominations have long partnered together to send missionaries overseas. For some denominations, this kind of partnership is one of their primary reasons for existing. Yet partnering for missions should consist in far more than mailing in a check each year.

What if your church and a couple other likeminded congregations are each able to send one individual or couple onto the mission field in the next couple years? And what if, instead of hurling them out individually into uncharted territory, you sent them out as a team? Your church alone might not be able to send a whole team of missionaries, but if you partner with other likeminded churches, that might just become a reality.

3. Church Membership and Discipline

Church discipline doesn’t work so well if the excommunicated individual can simply walk down the street and join another evangelical church with no questions asked. I believe that churches should be independent, so they’re not irrevocably bound by another church’s act. But it’s plain that our churches would be healthier overall if we worked together to maintain a pure witness to the gospel.

So, for example, if a prospective member at your church has left another solid evangelical church in your town, find out why. Follow up with the leadership of that church. Make sure that the person isn’t fleeing discipline or leaving a mess in their wake.

Obviously, these kinds of situations can get complicated quickly, but that’s just the point. Your church should be working together with other churches to ensure, to the best of your limited and fallen ability, that your church is representing Christ well to the world and faithfully protecting his name.

4. Pastor Training and Placement

Partnering with other churches multiplies your ability to raise up pastors in your local church. For instance, at least one church here in Louisville invites other local pastors to come teach their pastoral interns in order to offer a different perspective and complement their pastoral strengths.

Or consider pastoral placement. The more local pastors you befriend, and the more churches your church is on good terms with, the more you’ll be able to help connect godly pastoral candidates with churches that need them. And if you’ve got a reputation for godly leadership and selfless care for others, then a recommendation from you might go a long way toward helping another church find a man who will lead them well.

5. Church Planting and Church Revitalization

It doesn’t take a big church to plant churches. It might just take three small churches getting together to pool resources and leadership. If there are other likeminded churches in your area, why not partner with them to plant churches? What if you’ve got twenty members who live a half hour away in an under-served town, another church has a godly, qualified leader looking to plant, and a third church has some extra money in their missions budget?

And generally church revitalizations will only happen through churches partnering together for the sake of the great commission. One church has to be willing to give, another to receive.

“The great commission should form in pastors a posture of seeking out the gospel growth of other pastors and churches. And it should form in pastors a desire to advance the progress of the gospel through and together with other likeminded pastors and churches.”

LOOK OUTWARD

The great commission calls us to take the gospel to those who have never heard it. It calls us to go to the nations. In other words, it calls us to look, and move, outward. In a similar way, the great commission should form in pastors a posture of seeking out the gospel growth of other pastors and churches. And it should form in pastors a desire to advance the progress of the gospel through and together with other likeminded pastors and churches.

Pastors aren’t called to shepherd other people’s churches, but they can help strengthen them. And they can help to spread the gospel more broadly and deeply by working together with them. And, while I don’t think the Bible puts any pastors in formal oversight over others, pastors need counselors as much as anybody—and fellow pastors are the best candidates for that job.

So, pastor, what can you do to partner with other pastors for fellowship, encouragement, and disciple-making? What can you do to link arms with other local churches to fulfill the great commission in your city and around the world? How does your ministry reflect the fact that the great commission is far bigger than your local church?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bobby Jamieson is assistant editor for 9Marks, author of the 9Marks Healthy Church Study Guides (Crossway, 2012), an MDiv student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a member of Third Avenue Baptist Church.

By Andy Johnson

Pray for Revival—In the Other Guy’s Church

What if you spent years faithfully and earnestly praying for revival to come to your community, and then one day, seemingly out of the blue, God dramatically answered your prayers?

All across your city, every day people begin crowding into the church to hear the gospel from God’s Word. On the streets, in their workplaces, in classrooms and homes all over town, previously timid church members are faithfully declaring the gospel and fruit is coming fast. Lives are transformed, marriages are saved, and most of all, one after another God’s enemies are laying down the weapons of their rebellion and are taking refuge in his glorious and merciful Son.

What if all this happened in your own town, right in front of your eyes, in that other guy’s church, just a few blocks down the street from yours?

I suspect we all know what we ought to say in response, but the words of praise and joy are likely to get caught in the backs of our throats.

This has happened before. In 1839 Robert Murray M’Cheyne learned that a great revival had broken out in his church under a guest preacher while he was away on a months-long mission trip. When the Spirit of God seems to bless the ministry of others rather than our own, some pretty important things about the real nature of our loves become glaringly visible.

“DIOTREPHES, WHO LOVES TO BE FIRST”

Of course, this battle between envy and rejoicing is nothing new. The Apostle John writes about the issue in his third letter (3 John). There, in verses five to eleven, he introduces us to two men: Gaius and Diotrephes.

Gaius loves to welcome and support faithful missionaries sent out from other churches because he loves Jesus (vv. 5-8).

Diotrephes, well…not so much. Diotrephes refuses to welcome these workers from other churches for one simple reason: John tells us plainly that Diotrephes “loves to be first” (v. 9). He has no desire to see gospel work done unless he does it. He will rejoice in no fruit unless it’s his fruit. He will tolerate no competition. Diotrephes’ actions and attitudes are, John’s bluntly says, simply “evil” (v. 11).

Evil—that’s a strong word. And frankly what frightens me most about Diotrephes is that we’re not told of any lack of doctrinal orthodoxy to justify that label. There is no mention of heresy or inadequate views of Christ. For all we know, Diotrephes’ theology looked just right on paper. But his competitive spirit exposed his supposed love for the gospel as merely love for his own group, his own ministry—ultimately love for himself. Just like any other pagan.

THE NOT-SO-SUBTLE POINT

So here comes the not-so-subtle point of this article: Do not be like Diotrephes! Instead, imitate what is good, meaning the gospel-exalting, non-competitive spirit of Gaius.

But why is this such a big deal? Because not only your heart but the very worth of the gospel in the eyes of the world is at stake.

Listen, you can talk all day about how you praise God for the blessings of gospel prosperity in your church—and you should, to some extent. And yet there will always be a lingering scent of self-interest; it’s your church, after all.

But what if you genuinely praise God for the gospel prosperity in some other church, whether in another country or even (gulp) right across town? What if you demonstrate the same delight to see Jesus’ work held up and delighted in as a result of someone else’s ministry? If you do, that shows that you love Jesus and his gospel and his glory—not just your group, your club, your ministry, your church.

“But what if you genuinely praise God for the gospel prosperity in some other church, whether in another country or even (gulp) right across town? What if you demonstrate the same delight to see Jesus’ work held up and delighted in as a result of someone else’s ministry?”

That’s why it’s so important that we cultivate an attitude like Gaius’ in our hearts and in our church members’ hearts. Our love for Jesus and for his glory may never shine brighter than when we rejoice in the progress of the gospel even when there isn’t the slightest chance of us getting any of the credit.

HOW TO CULTIVATE THE SPIRIT OF GAIUS

How can you cultivate this kind of spirit in your church and in your own heart? Here are a few ways.

1. Pray and Read

First, pray and read. Start by reflecting on passages like 3 John that show the unique glory of what we might call a “disinterested delight” in the prosperity of the gospel. And pray that God would grow in you a heart that loves to encourage gospel progress, wherever it happens and whoever it happens through. Why? Because you love to see Jesus glorified.

2. Model and Teach

Second, model and teach. Show your church what this looks like by regularly praying for other faithful churches, by name, in public, from your pulpit, on Sunday morning. Praise God openly for the prosperity he may be giving to other churches that preach the same gospel, even right there in your own town. And pray for Christians and gospel work in other places around the world, too. Teach your people by this that the kingdom of God is much, much bigger than your local church.

3. Support and Celebrate

Third, support and celebrate. And, like faithful Gaius, go all the way and take money you could really use for your own church and give it away. Give it to bless other churches and to support faithful workers who have been sent out for the sake of the name (3 John 7). Again, when your church sends its money to bless and support external gospel work it’s like a megaphone announcing, “We love Jesus and his glory, not just our own group and our ministry.”

Certainly you have to keep some money to responsibly care for your own congregation. I understand that. But do you really need all the money God gives you? Really? Might it not be wonderfully liberating and gospel-clarifying to write a check that declares your church is free, through the grace of God, from the bondage of exclusive self-interest? True churches are not in competition with each other for dollars, or members, or glory. After all, all the money, all the people, and all the glory belong to God.

MAY WE PRAISE GOD FOR OTHER CHURCHES’ SUCCESS—AND MEAN IT

God has a big plan for his whole world, and God will accomplish his work in the world. He will save his children, and secure them in the faith, and grow them in holiness.

Sometimes he may do that through us. Sometimes he may do it through the church down the street. May we grow in our love for the glory of Christ so that either way we can say “Praise God,” and really mean it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Andy Johnson is an associate pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC.

By Matthias Lohmann

The Birth of a Gospel Partnership: Evangelium21

What can a kingdom-minded pastor do to promote gospel growth beyond his own church?

This was a question I asked myself as I returned to my home country Germany to serve as pastor of a local church. After nearly ten years at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, which brought close exposure to the work of 9Marks, T4G, and the Gospel Coalition, I asked myself if some of what is happening on a large scale through these ministries could be brought to my local ministry context in Germany.

I knew of a number of men in ministry in many churches of various denominations who sensed that the gospel was being increasingly sidelined. Some of them felt very alone in their desire and efforts to promote gospel-centered ministry, and many of them lacked good resources.

Do you find yourself in a similar ministry context? If so, I hope that what God has allowed us to experience in Germany in the last three years will give you some ideas about how you might cooperate with other church leaders in your region to promote gospel growth.

THE BIRTH OF A GOSPEL PARTNERSHIP

As I got to know a good number of likeminded men in German-speaking Europe, we all desired the opportunity to exchange questions, experiences, and ideas with likeminded brothers. As we talked, we quickly realized our shared desire that this should not be limited to a small circle of friends. God began to grow a vision in our hearts and minds to develop this private friendship into a more public gospel partnership effort.

“What can a kingdom-minded pastor do to promote gospel growth beyond his own church?”

We had three specific goals in mind:

1. We wanted to provide a venue for generally likeminded men in ministry to come together, encourage each other, and share ideas and resources.

2. We hoped this could also be an opportunity to bring in others who might not yet see the importance of gospel-centered ministry as clearly but who are looking for guidance and help in their work.

3. Finally, we prayed that God would use this effort to help a wider audience to get a clearer sense of what the gospel is and what Christianity is all about.

As we planned our first meeting, God provided unexpected help in the person of John Piper, who had already agreed to speak at a conference in Germany. He graciously agreed to join our group for a dinner where he shared about some of his experiences with the Gospel Coalition.

Not surprisingly, with John Piper as dinner guest nearly all the men we had hoped to gather for our first brainstorming meeting came. The dinner with John Piper was inspirational, yet we all agreed that the greatest joy and encouragement for all of us was to meet each other and to discover that we all had very similar hopes and desires.

Over the course of nearly the next two years we met a number of times, talked theology, and ended up writing a confessional statement. Our confessional statement was heavily influenced by the Gospel Coalition’s, but was adapted to fit the German context and our shared convictions.

In late 2010 we formalized our group and adopted our confessional statement. We chose the name ‘Evangelium21’: “Evangelium” is the German word for gospel and “21” indicates that we want to promote the same old gospel in the 21st century. Following the example of the Gospel Coalition, we decided that we will be very slow to introduce new people into the core group in order to maintain the vision and the atmosphere of close friendship. Yet we also created a website and invited those who would like to join the effort to sign the confessional statement and thus to become a member of the “Evangelium21 network.”

GOING PUBLIC

In the summer of 2011, we then went public with a first conference that we hosted in cooperation with 9Marks. Matt Schmucker joined us as main speaker and gave us further inspiration and guidance. It was a small beginning, with 280 registered participants and nearly 400 people in attendance for the evening sessions, yet it was a hugely encouraging time.

The conference received some coverage in Christian magazines, which put our name out there. Over time, other likeminded people have gotten in touch with us, so that the movement is slowly growing. Our second conference will be held on May 13-15, 2012, and we are delighted that D.A. Carson and John Piper have agreed to come to Germany and serve as the main speakers. We will focus on the doctrine of the Word of God. We hope this conference will further raise our profile and will help us to have a greater impact in promoting gospel-centered thinking.

Not all is moving forward as hoped. We greatly desire to be able to write and translate good material that could promote gospel-centered thinking and ministry. But since we are all busy with full-time occupations, there is little time to do this. Yet God has graciously provided some donors and we are hoping to be able to hire someone on an hourly basis to help write and translate good material that will be sent to everyone interested and that will also go on our website.

THE JOY OF LINKING ARMS

One of the greatest joys for us is that we have been able to link arms with several other groups that operate in small theological niches or local areas. By going public, we have been able to connect with individuals and groups we otherwise would not have known about.

A completely unexpected positive side-effect of our efforts is that we have gotten in touch with a small group in French-speaking Europe that is hoping to form a similar gospel partnership, possibly even using the same name in French: “Evangile21.”

We don’t know what will come out of our small efforts. This is in God’s hands, so we are praying that he might be pleased to use this small effort to bring gospel growth to German-speaking Europe.

We hope that our experience might inspire pastors like you to think strategically about how God might use you and your friends in ministry to encourage and promote gospel growth in your region.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Matthias Lohmann is the pastor of an evangelical church in downtown Munich, Germany and is the initiator and one of the leaders of the German gospel partnership Evangelium21 [www.evangelium21.net]. Matthias spent nearly 10 years as a member of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, during which, in addition to working in business, he studied at the Washington, DC campus of Reformed Theological Seminary.

By Daniel Montgomery

The Story of Sojourn Network

A few years ago, I took a step back to reflect on nearly twelve years of church planting experience. It had become apparent to me that there is a vacuum in local churches when it comes to raising, training, and sending men to begin new works.

Sojourn was indebted to the Acts 29 Church Planting Network for the brotherhood, passion, and vision it imparted to us. At the same time, though, the pace of the network seemed too fast. We loved the growth and evangelical breadth of Acts 29, but we wanted tighter DNA and shared vision with our partner churches. We wanted to have relationships based on affinity, not simply proximity.

We had also been greatly influenced by Sovereign Grace churches. They had (and still have) the shared DNA we longed for, but their pace seemed just the opposite of Acts 29, often requiring years of a man’s life before he could be sent out.

Sojourn Network was birthed from a desire for a middle way between these two ends of the spectrum.

SOJOURN NETWORK: A LOCAL CHURCH PLANTING CHURCHES

Planting a church does not begin with a podcast or feeling “inspired” at a conference. It begins with a calling.

We believe that a “calling” consists of desire, opportunity, and affirmation. At Sojourn, we have plenty of men who come to us high off a conference or book saying they want to plant a church and they have their destination picked out. What is often missing, though, is the affirmation of a local church.

Many networks and denominations rush through an informal assessment process with only a few hours of shared life, while others require years with no end in sight. Again, our desire is to find middle ground. For us, affirmation comes as a man is rooted in a local church, is relating submissively to godly authorities, and is being raised up to lead within that local church.

SOJOURN’S CHURCH PLANTING RESIDENCY

This desire for a middle ground is what has motivated Sojourn Network to require a 6-12 month residency for all potential lead pastors. This residency program is a strategic cornerstone for our church planting efforts and is guided by the following four principles:

1. Training. “Train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:7).

From seminary to conferences and books, excellent teaching tools abound, and we encourage many of our candidates to utilize those tools. Yet there is a fundamental difference between teaching and training. Teaching emphasizes content and understanding, whereas training emphasizes character and competency. Though of course there is a degree of teaching in all training.

However, many of the church’s teaching tools offer very little training. Knowing truth is valuable (teaching), but not nearly as valuable as embracing the truth (godly character) and then putting that truth into action (competency). Our goal is to provide exceptional teaching to our residents while training them to be competent leaders within God’s church.

2. Immersion. “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess. 2:8).

We believe that in terms of training church leaders, more is caught than taught. There is a place for formal instruction, and it is an important place. At the end of the day, though, the best way to develop a man is by surrounding him with other men that are further along in their journey. No book or classroom can teach you the same way that praying, struggling, and laboring through the difficulties of ministry alongside other men can.

Our residency therefore focuses on immersing a man into the culture and systems of a healthy church in order to teach him how a healthy church functions.

3. Relating to Authority. “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” (Heb. 13:17).

We believe that you need to learn how to follow before you can ever truly lead. Many men can wax eloquently about the virtues of a plurality of elders, but they have never submitted to their local pastors. So, we want our churches to be led by men who learned how to submit before they were ever asked to lead.

“ We want our churches to be led by men who learned how to submit before they were ever asked to lead.”

An interview is simply inadequate to determine how a man relates to authority. You can ask as many questions as you want, but you will not really know how a man relates to authority until you see him under authority. And seeing how he handles being under authority is one of the best indexes of how he will handle having authority.

4. Prescription. “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Cor. 9:22).

We believe that the most effective growth happens as proven, capable men examine potential pastors’ strengths and weaknesses and then offer targeted, specific prescriptions. We do not believe in cookie cutter, assembly-line church plants. Each man has a unique gift set and a unique calling and the church is responsible for raising up these men, not some imaginary “ideal” man. Our churches are not one-size-fits-all; neither should be our training for church planters.

A WORTHY INVESTMENT

Many see a 6-12 month residency program as too time-consuming or impractical. But Sojourn Network is not simply trying to birth new churches. Instead, we are looking to birth and grow churches that leave legacies led by pastors who run strong for 30 or 40 years. In light of that, we think the time involved in a residency program is a worthy investment.

WHAT SOJOURN NETWORK DOES WITH AND FOR ITS PASTORS

One reason this residency program is worth the relational and financial investment it demands is that it exponentially increases the impact of ongoing assessment, ongoing coaching, and ongoing theological training, which are other components of what the Sojourn Network seeks to provide for its pastors.

Here, then, is how Sojourn Network seeks to partner with and serve its pastors in an ongoing way.

Ongoing Pastoral Assessment

Many networks and movements have initial assessment processes to determine whether or not an applicant has the potential to begin a new work. A key difference with Sojourn Network is that there is also ongoing assessment from other pastors within the network.

We are interested in more than whether or not a man is healthy and strong enough to start a church. We want to know if he is healthy and strong enough to have church planters trained under him.

This is what makes our assessment process unique: it is an ongoing process involving likeminded men who are further along and have a vested interest in the planter’s success.

Pastoral Coaching

This leads to another practical benefit of Sojourn Network: pastoral coaching.

Being a pastor can be flat out lonely. Not only that, most of us feel inadequate for the task God has given us.

Often, after a short time in the residency program, it becomes apparent that a man needs to take a step back. There needs to be room for older, wiser men to speak directly to our residents, planters, and existing pastors. So, Sojourn Network provides external pastoral coaches to walk alongside our pastors.

The benefit of this is difficult to overstate. As we have drawn near to our pastors and planters, we have begun to see that our guys are running too hard and are stretched too thin. In our church planting we are often filled with a spirit of rush, as opposed to a spirit of renewal. Eventually the rush catches up with us and the dreaded “burnout” sets in. In the midst of this rush, men shift from living out of their calling to living out of their sinful compulsions. Our coaches step into those situations and often recommend sabbaticals or other forms of rest.

The point is that our coaches, some with 40 years of pastoral experience, go to great lengths to care for the souls of our pastors. We do not simply want our pastors to start churches, we want them to have healthy souls.

Practical, Ongoing Theological Training

Finally, the practical, ongoing theological training we offer is essential.

Sustaining gospel ministry requires broad and deep theological training. As opposed to handing off the local church’s responsibility to train its people to seminaries, we find it more beneficial to leverage the resources and expertise of multiple churches within the network to train our men.

To that end, we have developed Sojourn Pastors’ School to train leaders within our church. We are also pioneering a new model with Southern Seminary in which our students are trained by pastors within Sojourn and can complete 1/3 of a Master of Divinity degree this way.

We believe that rigorous theological and pastoral training throughout one’s life is essential to effective long-term ministry. It is Sojourn Network’s desire to pioneer new avenues of training, new partnerships, and new methods to best prepare our leaders.

NOT JUST FOR THE PLANTER’S SAKE, BUT FOR THE MISSION OF GOD

A residency program focused on a man being rooted in the local church, raised up by the local church, and sent out by the local church is not just for the man’s sake. It is also for the sake of the ongoing mission of God.

We want to be like Paul who, when giving reports of God’s grace to other churches, had his joy amplified because of the deep affection and partnership he had with those churches. We want to leave a legacy of healthy churches for our children and grandchildren. Our prayer is that our residency program will result in more and better men being raised up to pastor more and better churches, all so that countless men and women would experience the redeeming love of Jesus.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Daniel Montgomery is the founder and lead pastor of Sojourn Community Church. He is the author, with Mike Cosper, of Faithmapping (Crossway, forthcoming 2013).

By Brian Croft

Coming Together: The Pastoral Fellowship for Practical Theology

Discouragement seems to be an epidemic among pastors today. This stems from many factors, one of the most common of which is loneliness. Pastors are notorious for isolating themselves in their churches and ministries. As a result, they are continually tempted to think they are the only ones who face the pressures and demands of the ministry.

The antidote to much of this discouragement can be found in deliberate and purposeful fellowship with other pastors. Not just any pastors, but likeminded pastors. Fostering this kind of fellowship was our aim when a pastor friend and I started a pastoral fellowship about two years ago, which we now call the Pastoral Fellowship for Practical Theology. In this article I will explain how we started this fellowship, who we intend to bring together, what we hope to accomplish, what our meetings consist of, and what fruit we’ve seen so far.

HOW WE STARTED A PASTORAL FELLOWSHIP

Very early in my ministry I was taught the importance of fellowship with other pastors. So when Jim, one of my dear pastor friends, approached me about getting a pastors’ fellowship started, I was very interested. We knew this would be a good idea for several reasons, but one that leaped to our minds was the fact that Jim and I each had our own network of pastors we knew but the other did not. So Jim and I agreed for us each to include one more pastor we knew well and trusted, and who we thought might be interested in meeting together to discuss the possibilities.

With the other two men we agreed to include, we began to meet once a month to get to know each other, fellowship together, pray for one another, and discuss whether a pastor’s fellowship was a wise and likely fruitful venture. Not only did we agree it would be a fruitful opportunity to meet and encourage other pastors, but we realized the four of us each strategically pastored in the four corners of the city, and each of us knew likeminded pastors the others did not. Thus began the leadership team that would launch the Pastoral Fellowship for Practical Theology.

WHO WE INTEND TO BRING TOGETHER

As we began to discuss who to invite, we realized we had to form a template that would allow us to rally pastors who are likeminded in what we consider essential areas of agreement without being too ridged, thus alienating pastors in need unnecessarily. We came to agree on these four main tenants to determine those who would be invited:

• A commitment to the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ.

• A commitment to expositional preaching as the steady diet of a congregation.

• A commitment to the centrality of the local church.

• A commitment to the call of the pastor to shepherd the souls of his people as one who will give an account.

Although members of our group hold various positions regarding polity, baptism, and reformed theology, we decided that disagreements over these issues could coexist with enough likemindedness to make the fellowship meaningful. We also limited the invitation list to full-time and bi-vocational pastors, lay elders, and associate pastors, because we knew that the inclusion of pastoral interns and pastors-in-training might limit transparency. This is a parameter we still follow. We now have over 50 pastors involved in this fellowship with approximately 30-35 who attend each meeting.

WHAT WE HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH

Our main purpose is wrapped up in our name: the Pastoral Fellowship for Practical Theology. Our goal is to gather a group of likeminded pastors together for the sake of fellowship and encouragement by means of teaching and discussing matters of pastoral theology.

In other words, we want to wrestle together through the messy trench work that marks every faithful pastor’s ministry and the theological commitments which ground that work. Pastors need to know they are not alone as they try to care for difficult people, counsel deeply hurt people, struggle through preaching every week, resolve conflicts with leaders, battle personal sins, and attempt to love a wife and shepherd children through these pressures. And all pastors can afford to dig deeper theological foundations about issues that directly inform the work of pastoral ministry.

“Pastors need to know they are not alone as they try to care for difficult people, counsel deeply hurt people, struggle through preaching every week, resolve conflicts with leaders, battle personal sins, and attempt to love a wife and shepherd children through these pressures.”

Over the past two years, I and the three other pastors who started this fellowship have been deeply encouraged by how this purpose, by God’s grace, has borne much fruit. More on that below.

WHAT OUR MEETINGS CONSIST OF

What do we do in our times together? Here’s what a typical meeting looks like.

We meet once every two months, taking summers off. Each meeting lasts from 12 pm to 2 pm. We provide lunch and hand out at least one free book. After we eat, we head to another room for a time of teaching, discussion, and prayer.

The four of us usually share the load as one will teach, one will lead the discussion, and then one will lead a prayer time that focuses on the topic discussed. When providence has allowed, we have also brought in special guest speakers who happened to be in town that week to address the pastors.

Jim and his church have graciously assumed the role of host and provider of the lunch. I typically have handled the book giveaway by contacting generous organizations (like 9Marks!) and publishers who desire to serve pastors by providing free books. There have been times the other three pastors’ churches have contributed a bit to offset any cost this time brings, but overall, there is minimal cost in comparison to the benefit we all receive from this time.

UNEXPECTED FRUITS

These times together have borne some unexpected fruits. I will mention two.

First, although the four pastors who started this fellowship hoped for increased affections for the others through this time, we would all confess how surprisingly deep our love for the others has grown. On the off months when our fellowship does not meet, the four of us have breakfast together to minister to each other. Without exception, the Lord meets us by his Spirit in very sweet and unexpected ways each time the four of us meet.

The second surprise is how far some pastors travel for our meeting and how many have connected with other pastors they had no idea were near them. As a result, they have begun meeting regularly. The way this time has multiplied other spin-off groups has been a huge encouragement to us and an unexpected joy.

PASTORS NEED EACH OTHER

Through our group, all of us have been reminded of something very important: pastors are discouraged and they need each other. We may pastor individual churches, but we are all called to the same under-shepherding task and we will answer to the same Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4). The more we can lock arms and spur one another on to be steadfast until the Chief Shepherd appears, the better off every pastor will be on that day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Brian Croft is the senior pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church and is the author, most recently, of A Faith that Endures: Meditations on Hebrews 11 (DayOne, 2011).

By Justin Runyan

Rescued from Isolation: the Columbia Baptist Minister’s Association

Pastor, I’ve got good news for you: you are not alone! By God’s grace there are other pastors just like you on the other side of town, and profound blessings await if you simply make a habit of meeting together for lunch.

That obvious truth is easy to overlook. I certainly ignored it for too long.

PASTORAL FELLOWSHIP: RELIEF FROM MY SELF-INFLICTED MISERY

When I arrived at my church in Maryland fresh out of seminary, I disregarded my great need for pastoral fellowship. All I needed to do, I thought, was learn about my church, capture the vision, and begin the work of revitalizing this small Baptist church. I convinced myself I didn’t have time to meet with other pastors. I was so eager, and so foolish.

It didn’t take long before my youthful enthusiasm crumbled before the enormity of the task. The more I learned about my church, the larger the problems loomed. In response, I intensified my isolation, focusing even more intently on my church. My great zeal had crippling consequences. I cut myself off from the wisdom and sustaining fellowship of other pastors.

“The more I learned about my church, the larger the problems loomed. In response, I intensified my isolation, focusing even more intently on my church…I cut myself off from the wisdom and sustaining fellowship of other pastors.”

That summer I traveled alone to Louisville, Kentucky for the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. I arrived frustrated, confused, and thoroughly discouraged. Yet God had mercy on my self-inflicted misery. At that convention, I briefly met Mark Dever while he was passing out books in the lobby. Unknown to me at the time, that little encounter would unlock the nourishing grace of regular pastoral support.

Months before our meeting, Mark had started to envision bringing together Southern Baptist pastors in the Washington, DC area for mutual encouragement. Seeing the scarcity of theologically grounded fellowship, Mark set out to build a network of likeminded pastors. His goal was to fill this crucial void with ministry-enriching fellowship.

So, once Mark discovered I was a new pastor in the DC area, he immediately plugged me into this newly formed network of pastors. Shortly thereafter I found myself, along with a dozen other men, eating Subway sandwiches in Mark’s study. The Columbia Baptist Minister’s Association (CBMA) had officially begun.

THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF THE CBMA

Since its beginning in August of 2009, the CBMA has been meeting regularly to provide encouragement and support. The meetings are informal in nature, but edifying in tone. Here are the details.

• We gather in Mark’s study at 11:30and eat Subway sandwiches for lunch.

• We begin each meeting by introducing ourselves and giving updates on our ministries.

• We ask questions, give insights, and share prayer requests.

• We discuss pressing issues within our churches and broader evangelicalism in general.

• Occasionally we read a book and discuss it together.

• Each meeting lasts between 2-3 hours.

• We try to meet monthly.

Since its inception, the CBMA has been a continual source of encouragement for me and for the other pastors involved. We’ve shared ministry struggles and ministry successes. We’ve seen new pastors join—the group has doubled in size. And we’ve forged a little community in the fragmented world of DC ministry.

SIX BENEFITS OF MY TIME IN THE CBMA

Looking back on my time so far within the CBMA, I see many enriching benefits of this fellowship. Let me highlight six:

1. The Fuel of Pastoral Fellowship

Pastoral ministry is isolating and lonely. It is also often difficult and slow. This dangerous combination can easily lead to debilitating discouragement. The CBMA has provided me with a community of likeminded pastors whom I can turn to for support. Fellowshipping with them fuels my strength to persevere.

2. The Wisdom of a Longer Perspective

Few things destabilize a pastor’s ministry like impatience. Through the fellowship of the CBMA, I am routinely reminded of the decades-long perspective pastors must have.

Occasionally after attending a CBMA meeting I have had to press pause on a plan my impatient heart was about to unleash upon my church. By hearing updates from other pastors who are committed to long-term growth, I am repeatedly reminded that our goal is not a fast ministry, but a faithful one.

3. The Joy of a Broader Perspective

The CBMA has enabled me to broaden my perspective beyond my church. By regularly meeting with local pastors, I’ve been able to lead my church to love other local churches. We’ve begun to regularly pray for the ministries of other area churches. Additionally, we’ve been able to financially support two local church plants within this past year. Without this broader perspective I would have been blind to the ways my church can joyfully serve other churches.

4. The Encouragement of Other Pastors’ Struggles

I know it sounds cruel, but it is often encouraging to know that there are other pastors who are laboring slowly in difficult fields. Fellowshipping with them reminds me that my ministry is not an anomaly. Going to the CBMA and routinely hearing other pastors’ struggles has encouraged me to press on during the tough times, just as they are.

“I know it sounds cruel, but it is often encouraging to know that there are other pastors who are laboring slowly in difficult fields. Fellowshipping with them reminds me that my ministry is not an anomaly.”

5. The Hope of Other Pastors’ Successes

It is often difficult to detect the fruit of your own ministry. So, seeing God’s grace shine through other pastors’ ministries enlarges my hope. Through the CBMA, I can clearly see the fruit of God’s grace in other pastors’ successes. Seeing God’s faithfulness in their ministries helps me to rejoice in his faithfulness to mine, even when that faithfulness appears hidden.

6. The Clarity of Theological Conversations

Listening to the dialogue at the CBMA meetings has helped teach me how to think rightly about pastoral ministry. I have never been involved in a healthy church, so leading a church to health has been a journey filled with uncertainty and missteps. Yet spending time in the CBMA has been a grace-saturated journey of refinement and clarification. I am a different pastor—a better pastor—because of the fellowship of the CBMA.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

So brothers, rejoice because you are not alone. There are other pastors in your area who are just like you. Having enjoyed the benefits of regular pastoral fellowship, I encourage you to do the same. You will be a better pastor because of it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Justin Runyan is the pastor of Burtonsville Baptist Church in Burtonsville, Maryland.

By Michael A.G. Haykin

Baptists Reading Together and the Birth of Modern Missions

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, English Baptists experienced a dramatic and much-needed revival that resulted in the birth of the modern missions movement. What fueled this? One important factor was a handful of pastors’ regular practice of meeting together to read, talk, and pray.

This article tells the story of how the Northamptonshire Association’s meetings promoted truth-fueled revival in the hope that pastors today would walk in these brothers’ footsteps.

HOW ANDREW FULLER PROMOTED BIBLICAL TRUTH

In the fall of 1799, William Wales Horne (1773–1826), the minister of the Baptist cause in Great Yarmouth, east Norfolk, England, gave two addresses that were later published together as a pamphlet entitled The Faith of the Gospel Vindicated (1800). Part of the pamphlet attacked the idea that “Evangelical faith…[is] the duty of the unconverted.” As Horne went on to argue,

…if faith is the work of the Spirit, and at the same time the duty of the creature, it consequently follows, that it is the duty of a man dead in sin, to give himself the Spirit of God! A sentiment equally as absurd as presumptuous! and to be detested by all sincere advocates for the glory of free grace![1]

In other words, Horne appeared to be denying that the gospel should be freely offered to all people.[2]

Andrew Fuller (1754–1815), minister of the Baptist work in Kettering, Northamptonshire, was that day’s most ardent defender of the biblical truth that faith is indeed the duty of all to whom the gospel comes. So it is not surprising that when this pamphlet fell into Fuller’s hands, he fired off a small piece that has been transmitted under the title “Remarks on Two Sermons by W.W. Horne of Yarmouth.”[3] Among other things, Fuller was distressed that Horne had used the pulpit to launch an attack on those, like him, who held to the free offer of the gospel. As Fuller said:

It is not by converting the pulpit into a stage of strife, nor by availing ourselves of the silence which decency imposes upon an audience to pour forth personal invective, that truth is promoted…It is by reading, by calm and serious reflection, by humble prayer, and by a free and friendly communication of our thoughts to one another in private conversation, that truth makes progress.[4]

In these occasional remarks, Fuller reveals an important aspect of his thinking about how to promote biblical truth. It was to be through reflective reading and meditation on what has been read, and through prayer and personal conversations. All of these means mentioned were part of Fuller’s own way of appropriating truth, though note especially the final one: “free and friendly communication of our thoughts to one another in private conversation.”

THE POWER OF FRIENDS READING TOGETHER

Fuller was blessed to be part of a close-knit circle of friends that included William Carey the missionary (1761–1834), John Sutcliff of Olney (1754–1815), and John Ryland, Jr. (1753–1825), Fuller’s biographer and the Principal of Bristol Baptist Academy.[5] And he knew from personal experience how vital it was to sit down with such men and talk through issues.

In fact, such discussions were one of the things that took place when Fuller and other ministers of the Northamptonshire Association met regularly for prayer and fellowship. For example, John Ryland notes in his diary that he and the above-mentioned friends spent January 21, 1788, together, as he explains:

Brethren, Fuller, Sutcliff, Carey, and I, kept this day as a private fast in my study: read the Epistles to Timothy and Titus; Booth’s Charge to Hopkins; Blackerby’s Life, in Gillies; and Rogers of Dedham’s Sixty Memorials for a Godly Life: and each prayed twice—Carey with singular enlargement and pungency. Our chief design was to implore a revival of the power of godliness in our own souls, in our churches, and in the church at large.[6]

Here, we have these friends praying and reading Scripture together, as well as a number of classic pastoral works. Presumably they discussed the content of what they read and in this way sought to inflame their hearts and strengthen their wills in God’s service.

I have no idea how often this sort of day together took place, but we do have a significant amount of other material (journals and correspondence from these men) that mentions books and sermons that were being read, appreciated, and recommended. In particular, there is abundant evidence that the works of John Owen (1616–1683) and Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), the “greatest Christian theologian of the eighteenth century,”[7] were being carefully read and discussed by these friends.[8] Reflecting on and discussing Scripture and Christian literature thus deeply shaped the lives of these Christian brothers.

THE FRUITS: REVIVAL AND MISSIONS

Fuller and this circle of men were central to the revitalization of the English Baptists at the close of the eighteenth century. It was the writings of Fuller and his mentor Robert Hall, Sr. (d.1791) that played a key role in blowing away much of the hyper-Calvinism—similar to what William Horne advocated above—which bedeviled far too many English Baptist communities.[9]

Hard on the heels of the publication of these works in the 1780s and the initiation of monthly one-hour prayer meetings for revival in 1784, there was a noticeable surge of church planting, conversions, and the physical expansion of church buildings to accommodate the crowds now coming to the hear the gospel, trends which continued to bear fruit for decades.

In 1810, for example, Fuller noted in a letter to William Carey: “I preached a sermon to the youth last Lord’s Day from 1 Thess 2:19. I think we must have had nearly one thousand. They came from all quarters. My heart’s desire and prayer for them is that they may be saved.” Fuller was still rejoicing when he wrote to Ryland on December 28: “I hope the Lord is at work among our young people. Our Monday and Friday night meetings are much thronged.” A couple months later Fuller told Ryland: “The Friday evening discourses are now, and have been for nearly a year, much thronged, because they have been mostly addressed to persons under some concern about their salvation.” And what was happening in Fuller’s church was happening in Baptist causes throughout the length and breadth of England and Wales.[10]

And then it was out of this circle of friends that William Carey was sent to India and the modern missionary movement in the English-speaking world began. As missiologist Harry R. Boer put it, “Fuller’s insistence on the duty of all men everywhere to believe the gospel…played a determinative role in the crystallization of Carey’s missionary vision.”[11] Fuller himself described their sending Carey to India as lowering him into a deep gold-mine to extract “gold”—precious Indian souls—for God. And Fuller and his close friends Sutcliff and Ryland pledged themselves to “hold the ropes” as long as Carey lived.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THESE BROTHERS

It’s easy to see how the way these eighteenth-century Baptists lived together—in reading, prayer, and conversation—had an enormous impact for good in English Baptist churches, in the larger sphere of evangelicalism, and in the world at large.

“We can certainly learn from these eighteenth-century brothers to take time to cultivate rich, deep friendships that are also marked by prayer and reading together, and that fine art of conversation.”

We can certainly learn from these eighteenth-century brothers to take time to cultivate rich, deep friendships that are also marked by prayer and reading together, and that fine art of conversation. And who knows what God might do through such circles of friends today.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Michael A.G. Haykin is Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and is the author of The Christian Lover: The Sweetness of Love and Marriage in the Letters of Believers (Reformation Trust, 2009) and Rediscovering the Church Fathers (Crossway, 2011).

By Robert Greene

Closer than a Brother: Why I Belong to Acts 29

Why do I belong to Acts 29? Three words: Tyler, Jason, and Chris. But I get 1000 words for this article, so I’ll explain. 

On August 1, 2010 the New York Times posted an article that started like this:

The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.[12]

While this statement is disturbing, it’s not surprising. Church leaders carry unique burdens and pressures and often find themselves isolated, without close relationships.

I was no exception.

CARING FOR PASTORS TAKES INTENTIONALITY

Seven years ago, I sat alone in a steakhouse in Dallas reflecting on my day of sessions at an Acts 29 Boot Camp. I wasn’t yet a church planter, but a staff pastor at my local church. I was there hoping God might use this time to give me wisdom for navigating the role in which I was serving.

Shortly after I sat down, a herd of men arrived. What happened next changed the course of my life.

One of the men, a speaker from the Boot Camp, recognized me from the day’s events, got up, walked over, introduced himself, and invited me to join them. For the next three hours these pastors lovingly grilled me about theology, the church I served, my family, and my soul. They were confrontational. They were encouraging. They were honest.

Sitting across from me was Tyler. His home was in North Carolina, mine in Virginia. He could have easily left dinner and our paths would never have crossed again. Instead, he cared about me and the position I was in as a pastor. The next night Tyler invited me to dinner along with a smaller herd of pastors, where again everything about life and ministry was on the table.

I left Dallas sharpened and encouraged. I left knowing I had met a brother.

Over the next two years, Tyler invited me to his church for quarterly luncheons for pastors in the region. I happily made the three hour drive. Each time, he invited me to stay for the Acts 29 pastors’ dinner and discussions. It was at these dinners that I met Jason and Chris, both Acts 29 pastors in Virginia. Both made a sincere effort to get to know me. It made no sense—I felt like the slow kid getting picked first in the pickup game. I had nothing to offer them: I wasn’t a church planter, and I didn’t even have plan for planting. But they weren’t concerned with how I might serve them or the network; they were concerned with being brothers.

CARING FOR PASTORS TAKES PERSONAL SACRIFICE

In the spring of 2007, I found myself again sitting across the table from Tyler. This time, my wife and I had made the three-hour drive to visit his church one morning. Tyler greeted us, changed his afternoon plans and graciously invited us to lunch. You see, he wasn’t expecting us.

Ten days earlier we had buried our newborn son.

Tyler sat with us. He asked the hard questions. He listened to the hard details of his death. He grieved with us. He reminded us of God’s strength in our weakness.

Days later, Tyler, Jason, and Chris, along with their families, were meeting for a strategic planning retreat at the beach. They invited us to join, hoping the time away would bring us rest and comfort.

Now, take a second to think about that. Was this an obligatory response to our intense grief? No. These men were not obligated to care for me or my family. I wasn’t serving in their churches or their network. They had a planned working retreat for the three men and their families to connect as friends. And they invited me, my wife, and our toddler to invade it—to intrude on this precious, coveted time.

Sure, they considered that our presence, especially given our mourning, would change the dynamic of their weekend. But they considered the personal sacrifice worth it as they expressed love for their brother in need.

So, we crashed their beach house, my family met their families, and we shared meals and stories. We heard about the significant trials and suffering that had unfolded in their lives and were encouraged by their perseverance and unwavering hope in the gospel. We played on the beach, soaked in the sun, and tasted the love of God through the love of these friends.

I left the shores of North Carolina tangibly reminded that “a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity” (Prov. 17:17).

Eventually, I did plant a church in the Acts 29 network. I did so with the encouragement and insight of Tyler, Jason, and Chris and other Acts 29 brothers. By God’s grace, we’re four years in, and healthy.

But I didn’t stumble into planting a healthy church. I could have easily found myself fitting into the New York Times clergy findings. It’s an obvious reality: church leaders aren’t finishing the race well. They’re sidelining themselves at an alarming rate, failing to watch their life and doctrine closely.

CHRISTIANS—ESPECIALLY PASTORS—SHOULD CARE FOR PASTORS

As Christians, our responsibility to care for pastors isn’t optional. And fellow pastors are able to do this in unique ways.

Pastors and church leaders are meant to have brothers who encourage us and help us in our work. Brothers who help us see the closely-clinging sin we can so easily overlook; brothers who encourage us to look to Jesus, the perfecter of our faith, as we run our race with endurance.

THE PRIORITY OF BROTHERHOOD IN ACTS 29

Acts 29 prioritizes brotherhood. It’s a loud drumbeat in the network. I’d need another 1000 words to adequately cover the ways in which Acts 29 works towards this end. Here are just a few things pastors benefit from:

• an expense-paid annual network retreat with their wives for rest, encouragement, and relationship-building;

• gospel coach training and strategic coaching relationships;

• and an active online community where brothers are a click away, along with years of insightful interactions, from pragmatic to personal.

Caring is hard to capture in systems descriptions; it’s more easily captured in moments. It sounds like the voice of a pastor on the other end of the phone recently telling me, “Hey Robert, there’s a pastor who just lost his son. Here’s his number. He needs to hear from a brother who’s walked through this.”

“Because of our love for the church, our responsibility to care for each other as pastors isn’t optional. We need to be bold, honest, intentional and sacrificial with each other.”

Because of our love for the church, our responsibility to care for each other as pastors isn’t optional. We need to be bold, honest, intentional and sacrificial with each other. And Acts 29 has proven to be a helpful aid in this for me and many other pastors.

BY WHATEVER MEANS, ENCOURAGE EACH OTHER

But this kind of intentional care is certainly not network- or denomination-dependent. By whatever means, we pastors must encourage one another to connect the riches of the gospel to the realities of life as a pastor. Together, by God’s grace, let’s strive finish well to the glory of God and the good of the families and churches he has called us to serve.1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Robert Greene is one of the pastors of Redemption Hill Church in Richmond, Virginia.

By Matthew Spandler-Davison

Don’t Pull the Plug on Your Association Yet

Many say the local Baptist association is dead. It may have once the bedrock of Baptist cooperation, but why submit yourself to another mind-numbing meeting about irrelevant committees? Let’s pull the plug. It is time to end the misery.

Not so fast! I just left a meeting in which I was developing a plan for a church plant in an area of our county that has no gospel witness. We strategized together about training pastors in the Philippines. We discussed church revitalization in Scotland.

“Let’s pull the plug. It is time to end the misery.”

Was this a strategy session with my elders? No, it was a meeting of the Nelson Baptist Association.

You will be forgiven for having a hard time believing me. I have sat through many association meetings over the years. I have been as frustrated as you have been. I have been tempted to throw my hands up in the air and disengage. But I am glad I did not. Here’s why.

HOW WE TURNED AROUND OUR LOCAL ASSOCIATION

The Nelson Baptist Association has forty-three churches from three counties in central Kentucky. I came to this area ten years ago and was struck by the lack of health in many churches. It was messy stuff. There was suspicion, distrust, and theological apathy. Yet the association today is a long way from that. How did this turnaround happen for us so quickly?

1. A group of pastors has committed to each other.

In and through this local Baptist association, a group of pastors have established strong relationships with each other. Pastors are praying, encouraging, exhorting, and, on occasion, rebuking one another. Pastors are fighting alongside each other, not against each other.

2. We recognized the need for change.

Increasingly, there was dissatisfaction with the way things were. Funding was dwindling, attendance at meetings was pitiful, and the association was struggling to come to terms with what its purpose was.

3. We’ve been blessed with renewed leadership.

Our association has a new Director of Missions who is an energetic, kind-hearted, well-respected man. He is a bridge-builder, but is not afraid to contend for the faith. And he is willing to come alongside pastors and invite them to be a part of the process of change.

HOW WE WORK TOGETHER

Today, the Nelson Baptist Association is a partnership of churches that is committed to planting new churches, working together in our community, resourcing churches to go to the nations, and seeking to strengthen church health. We pursue these goals through appointing and funding three teams of pastors and church members.

1. The Church Planting and Missions Team

In just two years we have funded six church plants, worked together to revitalize a struggling church, awarded numerous scholarships for pastors to go on mission, and developed partnerships to train pastors overseas.

2. The Church and Leadership Development Team

This team has hosted a spiritual disciplines conference with Dr. Donald Whitney. It has hosted a pastor’s forum with Brian Croft. It is planning a leadership conference on “The Leader as Shepherd.” And it is developing a systematic theology curriculum for local churches.

3. The Community Ministry Team

This team has coordinated much of the work that our churches do in the area of biblical counseling, disaster relief, and benevolence ministries.

As a result of these changes, the churches and pastors in our association have come to regard it as having great purpose and value. Funding has increased. Meetings are well attended. Pastors are establishing relationships. The annual meeting is a time of worship with expositional preaching and testimonies from our work together. Around 700 now typically attend.

CAN’T FIX YOUR ASSOCIATION? WHY NOT START A NEW ONE?

You might look at your own association and conclude there is no way you can move things in a better direction, and that might be true.

But if that’s the case, why not start your own? Four, five or more churches associating together in an informal partnership for the purpose of church planting, missions, and leadership training can only be a good thing. It is modeled in Scripture, and it is worth the energy to do it. And it starts with pastors of local churches partnering together for the gospel.

The local Baptist association is not dead. In terms of making a local impact for the gospel, it has been a vital tool for us here. Do not be too quick to give up on it. It can be a powerful gospel partnership in your local context.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Matthew Spandler-Davison is the pastor of Bardstown Christian Fellowship in Bardstown, Kentucky.

Book Review: Dallas and the Spitfire

Reviewed by Bobby Jamieson

Ted Kluck and Dallas Janche, Dallas and the Spitfire: An Old Car, an Ex-Con, and an Unlikely Friendship. Bethany House, 2012. 192 pages. $14.99

It’s easy for “discipleship” and “discipling” to be mere buzzwords, labels we slap on things to make them sound spiritual. And if our churches move beyond buzzwords and try to create a culture of one-on-one discipling, it’s easy to turn even that into just one more program. Weekly meeting at Starbucks—check. Reading the Bible or a Christian book together—check. Talking about the same two or three struggles with sin every week—check.

What many churches and church leaders need, then, is a vision of discipling. They need to be gripped by what can happen when one Christian pours himself into another Christian’s life in the context of the local church. They need to see the beauty and power of discipling in all the messy, gritty details of life.

And lives don’t get much messier or grittier than Dallas Janche’s. That’s one reason why Ted Kluck and Dallas Janche’s new book Dallas and the Spitfire: An Old Car, an Ex-Con, and an Unlikely Friendship presents such a compelling vision of one-on-one discipling in the local church.

HOW WOULD YOU DISCIPLE AN EX-CON?

Ted Kluck, the book’s main author, is a thirty-four-year-old writer, church member, and suburban dad. But he has also played semi-professional football and written a book on Mike Tyson—in other words, he’s mixed with some rough characters. So he was tapped to disciple Dallas Janche, a twenty-one-year-old former drug addict who had spent the past five years in and out of prison, and who had recently become a Christian through the efforts of the Lansing City Rescue Mission.

The book begins in a coffee shop in East Lansing, Michigan where Ted and Dallas first meet. Pretty quickly, Ted writes, “it occurs to me that neither Dallas nor I are really the latte-sipping types,” which means they’ll need something to do together besides drink coffee, share their feelings, and read a book or two (14). So they decide to restore a vintage European sports car together, eventually settling on a 1974 Triumph Spitfire.

The rest of the book is the story of how Ted and Dallas worked together over the next year not just to restore the car, but to help Dallas grow in conformity to the image of Christ. Ted tells the bulk of the story, while Dallas supplies occasional interludes that reflect on his past and process his present struggles to grow as a Christian.

A STORY SO GOOD IT COULD TELL ITSELF

The story that unfolds is so good it could tell itself, and that’s about what reading the book felt like. I couldn’t put it down.

Yet thankfully the story doesn’t have to tell itself: the two authors are more than up to the task, and a large part of what makes the book so gripping is the writing. Ted’s style is an unlikely mix of poignant description, relentless sarcasm, and gutsy, tender transparency. Dallas’s contributions are honest, earnest, and a little rough around the edges, just as you’d expect from a very young but clearly very gifted Christian.

A COMPELLING VISION OF DISCIPLING

But what makes this story so edifying, and so immediately relevant to pastors and churches, is that it paints a compelling picture of the power of one-on-one discipling. Here are three prominent features of this picture.

First, this book shows that all Christians should disciple and be discipled. Ted is very aware of his failures, even to the point of being reluctant to disciple Dallas in the first place. He doesn’t think of himself as prime discipler material. But that’s just the point. Ted and Dallas’s story shows that it’s not just pastors and super-Christians who should disciple others—it’s all of us.

And when Ted is on the ropes, he seeks counsel and encouragement from fellow Christians, including his own father. The takeaway? We all need people to help us grow as Christians. Disciplers need to be discipled too.

Second, Ted and Dallas’s relationship models the kind of mutual openness that enables discipling relationships to thrive. The instruction, of course, primarily flows from Ted to Dallas. But Ted leads, in part, by allowing Dallas to see how he applies the gospel to his own failures and struggles.

This mutual openness helps Ted speak biblical truth into every area of Dallas’s life, from relationships with women to conflicts with college administrators to the use and abuse of Christian freedom. Biblical discipling, as Ted and Dallas’s story shows, is about applying God’s Word to every realm of life. And to do that we have to risk being open with each other.

Third, Ted and his family wonderfully model sacrificial care for Dallas. In very short order, they open up their home to him and basically become his family.

Obviously, Dallas had more significant needs than your average twenty-one-year-old. But the lesson still stands: biblical discipling involves caring for others’ needs in tangible ways. It requires us to back up words with actions, to model what we teach.

This kind of discipleship is costly. It cost Ted and his family time, money, and sleepless nights. And sometimes, as Ted discovered, we pay those costs from the wrong account. At one point Ted reflects, “It’s been weird this year…at times I’ve felt so focused on Dallas that I sometimes forget I have my own kids who love me and need me” (138). As a good discipler, even Ted’s reflections on his failures draw helpful lessons for others in his shoes.

“In my experience, a vision for personal discipling in the church is more easily caught than taught. Reading Dallas and the Spitfire is a great way to catch it, and to help others catch it too.”

In all these ways and many more, Dallas and the Spitfire casts an inspiring, hope-giving vision of biblical discipling. Pastors, this would be a great book to work through with your elders, or to give to your small group leaders. In my experience, a vision for personal discipling in the church is more easily caught than taught. Reading Dallas and the Spitfire is a great way to catch it, and to help others catch it too.

HOPE FOR THE ORDINARY

Of course, Ted and Dallas aren’t intending to set up their relationship as some kind of one-size-fits-all model. This isn’t a handbook, it’s a story—an extraordinary story.

And because this is an extraordinary story, most discipling relationships will differ substantially from this one. They may not be as demanding or all-encompassing. Often, they will not result in as deep a friendship. And most of them probably won’t involve restoring an old car. But again, that’s exactly the point. Discipling is about transferring truth through relationship, and each discipling relationship will look different. Yet there will also be fundamental similarities, like biblical teaching, sacrificial love, and life lived together.

By telling an extraordinary story, Dallas and the Spitfire gives hope for the ordinary. Not every Christian will help a recovering addict get back on his feet, but every Christian should help others grow in their likeness to Christ.

And even when that work of discipling is less intense, it is no less meaningful. Whether you’re restoring an old car with an ex-con or, dare I say it, meeting over coffee and a Christian book, the same God works powerfully through his Word and Spirit to conform us to Christ.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bobby Jamieson is assistant editor for 9Marks, is the author of the 9Marks Healthy Church Study Guides (Crossway), is a MDiv student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and is a member of Third Avenue Baptist Church.

Book Review: The Measure of Our Success

Reviewed by Jeramie Rinne

Shawn Lovejoy, The Measure of Our Success: An Impassioned Plea to Pastors. Baker Books, 2012. 176 pages. $14.99

Shawn Lovejoy loves fellow pastors and desperately wants them to thrive in ministry. But, as he explains in his book The Measure of Our Success, he fears far too many pastors feel discouragement and discontentment instead. The reason for this malaise? Pastors are using the wrong metrics for gauging successful ministry.

A VIEW FROM THE TRENCHES

Lovejoy’s insights emerge predominantly from his own failures and successes in ministry, as well as from observing pastors and church planters within his ministry networks. He knows how pastors think. As a result, Lovejoy’s assessments are simultaneously piercing and disarming. He calls out our unspoken and unhealthy concepts of success, but also shares his own story of facing those faulty metrics.

I found myself repeatedly convicted by this book. Lovejoy’s own story of near burnout (Ch. 3) and his lifestyle changes to foster personal vitality (Ch. 4) were particularly engaging. Shawn has practical wisdom to share, much of it from the school of hard-knocks. The author is perhaps at his best in these moments of autobiographically-driven exhortation and encouragement.

RIGHT AND WRONG MEASURES OF MINSITRY SUCCESS

So what are the wrong measures of ministry success? According to the author, they include things like approval from people, numerical growth, busyness in church work, and fame (Ch 1). Pastors become unhealthy when they compare their ministries to others, and as a result either copy those ministries or condemn them (Ch 2). None of these observations are ground-breaking, and yet they are everyday temptations that pastors face. Lovejoy’s diagnoses hit home again and again.

Lovejoy proposes different ways of weighing our ministries. In one the most powerful chapters (Ch. 5), Lovejoy calls pastors to recover the “most forgotten metric”: love. He notes how easily we see people as means for accomplishing our church’s goals. “We must stop using people to get ministry done. People are our ministry” (85). Amen!

He also sees successful ministry as “prophetic” (Ch. 7). Prophetic ministry challenges the status quo and should expect criticism and rejection. If we measure success by people’s approval, we will never confront problems in the church.

According to Lovejoy, successful ministry is marked by perseverance through desert experiences (Ch. 8), and a focus on building churches through conversion growth and not sheep-swapping (Ch. 9). The book ends with a call to keep Jesus, not the church, central (Ch. 11) and in a signature Lovejoy flourish he tenders his “resignation” as leader of the church, and gives the reigns publicly to Christ (Ch. 12). Successful ministry happens when pastors acknowledge Jesus as ruler of his church.

THE LIMITS OF EXPERIENCE

It has been said that our greatest strengths are sometimes our greatest weaknesses. So the author’s engaging use of personal experience also ended up hampering the book in several ways.

Therapeutic Overtones

Not surprisingly, the focus on personal experience trends the book toward therapeutic concerns. From the outset the author asks: “Why? Why are so many pastors and ministry leaders failing? Why are they so vulnerable? Why are they so unfulfilled? Lonely? Insecure? Discouraged? Depressed? Burned out?” (15).

This concern for emotional health dogs the book, subtly implying that successful ministry means, in part, that pastors feel energized. The author speaks about the “love language” of affirmation and addresses the role of fathers in shaping our need for affirmation (19). He urges pastors to restructure their schedules to nurture spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and relational vitality (Ch. 4), and to fight through doubts and desires to quit (Ch. 8). Again, much of this comes from his own experiences.

To be sure, pastors should carefully steward their own lives and energies. But the book tended to be long on therapy and short on theology. There was little theological reflection on the relationship between pastoral ministry and God’s glory, the nature of the church, or even the gospel itself. It seems strange to read a book about measuring success in ministry, and find such a lack of clear biblical thinking on topics that would seem basic to the thesis.

Pragmatic Ecclesiology

This need for theological reflection becomes acute in Lovejoy’s views of the church.

He argues for healthy teams as a key measure of success (“Everything rises and falls on our team leadership culture”; 95), but does not evaluate the role and nature of elders, the one church leadership “team” actually commanded in Scripture.

He describes the church as a “hospital for sinners” (142) and then opines, “Generally speaking, many of our churches are designed to meet the needs of the people who already know God and ignore the needs of those who are far from him” (143). This is certainly a timely word addressing complacency and indifference in our congregations. But is that really all the New Testament says about the nature and purpose of the local church, that it must be centered on conversion growth?

Again, the author’s personal narrative of church planting drives his focus: “I wanted to create a safe place where I could welcome my unchurched friends, a place where they would be accepted as they were and allowed some time to know God before being challenged to change” (143).

When it comes to preaching, Lovejoy reacts against “going deeper” and even goes so far as to say, “Jesus focused more on life application than on Bible exposition” (147). I’m currently preaching through the Gospel of John and have found there a theologically weighty Jesus. Jesus gave both pithy commands and lengthy discourses on the deep things of God. And what about the preaching of Paul and the other apostles? Are profound theology and motivating application really enemies?

Lovejoy’s thinking on the church struck me as somewhat imbalanced, trending toward the pragmatic, and often guilty of false dichotomies.

Scripture Deficit

It pains me to write this, but perhaps the book’s greatest flaw is its use of the Bible. Not only are biblical texts sparse, but when they do appear the author too often handles them in a sloppy, facile manner.

For example, he sees David’s donning and rejecting Saul’s armor (1 Sam. 17:38-40) as a model of being secure in your own unique ministry calling and not needing to mimic someone else’s ministry (37-39). This again smacks of pop-psychological preoccupation with self-affirmation.

The fact that Paul had ministry relationships and Jesus worked with disciples provides a flimsy springboard for his chapter on healthy teams (Ch. 6), a chapter that brims with the ideas and techniques of modern leadership theory.

Lovejoy also makes a simplistic connection between biblical prophets and the role of the pastor as prophet within his organization (Ch. 7) without any careful thought on the Bible’s teaching about either office. Do pastors really get a vision from God for their church and then challenge the status quo and ignore criticism, just like Old Testament prophets (110-116)?

And was Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness really a moral lesson on how to deal with the temptation to quit church ministry (125-126)?

Finally, I must again note the almost complete absence of commentary on biblical texts that directly address pastors/elders and their ministry in the local church.

THE WAY FORWARD

On a positive note, I believe the author sows the seeds for his own way forward in chapter 10: “Do we need something new? A call for reformation.”

“Biblical reformation is more than just an appreciation for the past. It is a commitment to the sufficiency of Scripture to save sinners, sanctify saints, and to shape the church.”

Biblical reformation is more than just an appreciation for the past. It is a commitment to the sufficiency of Scripture to save sinners, sanctify saints, and to shape the church. Reformation does not just involve important general principles like loving each other and keeping Jesus central, but also specific practices like expository preaching, biblical church polity, and Word-centered evangelism.

As a fellow pastor who has trod many of these same paths of pragmatic and therapeutic ministry, I would encourage my brother Shawn to join me in discovering this old path, the way of biblical reformation, and there find a richer definition of success: gospel faithfulness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeramie Rinne is the pastor of South Shore Baptist Church in Hingham, Massachusetts.

Book Review: Redeeming Church Conflicts

Reviewed by Matt Smethurst

Tara Barthel and David Edling, Redeeming Church Conflicts: Turning Crisis into Compassion and Care. Baker, 2012. 256 pages. $16.99

Conflict isn’t far from your church. I don’t simply mean that it’s in that congregation down the street—I mean it’s coming to yours.

AN EXCELLENT PRIMER ON CHURCH CONFLICT

Tara Barthel and David Edling have written an excellent primer on church conflict titled Redeeming Church Conflicts: Turning Crisis into Compassion and Care. With years of experience in conflict mediation through Peacemaker Ministries, they are well qualified to speak to this issue.

The book is structured around the “Acts 15 Model for Redeeming Church Conflicts”—a four-stage rubric based on the flow of Luke’s narrative: Perspective (15:2-4), Discernment (15:5-7a), Leadership (15:7-35), and Biblical Response (15:11, 16-18). Real-life case studies are interspersed throughout the book, and each chapter concludes with lists of “Questions for Reflection” and “Recommended Resources for Further Study.” Barthel and Edling suggest we have much to learn from Luke’s account of the meeting in Jerusalem “to redeem the early church’s first major conflict” (78).

SEVERAL STRENGTHS

The strengths of Redeeming Church Conflicts are many. Here are five that particularly stood out to me:

1. The Primacy of God’s Word

In their endeavor to make sense of church conflicts, Barthel and Edling unfailingly gravitate to the Bible. It’s evident that Scripture isn’t simply their confessional authority, but their functional authority, too. They trust it deeply.

Apart from a tenacious loyalty to God’s word, individuals and churches have little hope for meaningful resolution. Danger abounds when Christians in conflicted churches begin to act in accordance with their emotions “rather than being guided and ruled by God’s Word” (25).

2. The Centrality of the Gospel

Gospel amnesia is a sure harbinger of trouble, distorting our focus and leading us to let circumstances outweigh Calvary. Far from being some token gospel-centered nod, Barthel and Edling repeatedly insist that conflicted churches can have hope for restoration only when the gospel is “recaptured and thrust to the forefront” (79).

In fact, after decades of experience the authors can write: “We are unaware of any church that has successfully resolved its churchwide conflicts without first going back to the basics of what the gospel message is, its implications for faith and life, and God’s statement of purpose and mission for his church” (79-80). God has indeed loved and forgiven us far more than we’ll ever be called to love and forgive another. The ultimate foundation for all biblical responses to church conflict, then, is gospel grace.

3. The Necessity of Humility

Reconciliation is elusive apart from humility. Conflict, on the other hand, will endure as long as those involved remain curved in on themselves. Genuine humility calls us to put our trust in God rather than in our own shifty hearts (Prov. 3:5-6).

Sin appears deceptively small in its crouched state (Gen. 4:7), and pride is no exception. But it’s lethal among God’s people:

Pride drives us to overlook our own sin while, for the sake of winning, we quickly look for and find the faults of others. Pride motivates us to guard the reputation of the church to outsiders, even a false reputation, more than we guard the relationships already within the church. Pride skews our focus to numeric growth in attendance and financial donations, rather than to the maturing of faithful, involved members of the church. (48)

It’s easy to let one’s guard down around family. As brothers and sisters in the church, however, we must realize that “no issue at the center of a conflict outweighs God’s call to put relationships in Christ above all other considerations” (200). Only humility can lead one to think like this.

4. The Context of Eternity

Conflicts flourish as eternal vision fades. We must strive, then, to examine our conflicts through the lens of eternity. Otherwise, as Ed Welch puts it, God becomes small as people become big.

Throughout the book, Barthel and Edling pull back the curtain of eternity and urge us to reorient our perspective accordingly.

Apart from right worship, we will love something or someone more than God as temporal concerns triumph over the unseen concerns of faith. Apart from right worship, we will willingly sacrifice other people on the altar of desires—money, property, worship styles, ministry leaders, “winning this fight,” “being right,” or “getting my way.” Only right worship can effectively foster deep and lasting heart and attitude changes that prioritize the value of eternal grace. (176)

Zooming out from our immediate issues enables us to see the eternal reality of our relationships. Consider your future with that difficult brother or sister: before long, you’ll be worshiping a common Savior in perfect unity. So why would you pour fuel on the fire of conflict now?

An eternal perspective is essential for helping us to live out our identity in Christ and to treat others in accordance with theirs.

5. The Preciousness of God’s Glory

According to Barthel and Edling, “How can I please and honor the Lord in my church’s present conflicts?” (175) is the question of supreme importance. And they are exactly right.

I wonder how many church conflicts arise out of a fundamental misunderstanding regarding what a church is. Infighting, for example, begins to make little sense once we grasp that the church is an earthly body designed to display heavenly unity. Indeed, the purpose of the church is to showcase God’s glory to a watching world. His character is at stake, then, even in the smallest of skirmishes.

Ultimately, church conflicts are about Jesus. His reputation in the world rests largely with us. We ought to be exceedingly slow, then, to fight with those whom he has forgiven and war with those whom he has welcomed.

A COUPLE MINOR QUIBBLES

The strengths of Redeeming Church Conflicts far outweigh its shortcomings. Nevertheless, I have a couple minor misgivings that are perhaps worth noting.

First, the authors assert that Acts 15 stands as “a paradigmatic and normative model for the church today” (21). Well, okay, but that chapter’s major players happen to be authoritative apostles whose office and role don’t parallel my pastor or yours. As inspired Scripture, Acts 15 is immensely profitable; I’m just not convinced it’s a prescriptive, step-by-step model for handling church conflict, as Barthel and Edling argue (20-21).

Second, Barthel and Edling appear to assume that congregational and elder-led models of polity are mutually exclusive (14, 74). This, I think, is a false and unfortunate dichotomy. Congregationalism in the context of elder leadership is both viable and biblical.

DON’T WAIT UNTIL YOU’RE IN A CONFLICT—READ AND BENEFIT NOW

Barthel and Edling have done the church a vital service in applying biblical counseling principles to the realm of congregational conflict. Don’t wait until you find yourself in a relational mess to consult this helpful resource; read and benefit now.

As the authors remind us, the “call to redeem our church conflicts will continue until the day the Lord returns and makes us perfect” (221). Indeed. Come, Lord Jesus!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Matt Smethurst is an MDiv student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and an assistant editor for The Gospel Coalition. He and his wife Maghan have one child and live in Louisville, Kentucky, where they are members of Third Avenue Baptist Church.

Book Review: Turning to God

Reviewed by Shane Walker

David Wells, Turning to God: Reclaiming Christian Conversion as Unique, Necessary, and Supernatural. Baker, 2012 (reprint). 192 pages. $13.99

She’s about eight years old, slightly taller than your desk, an explosion of curls, precocious. She appears suddenly, without her parents, between church services. She’d like to know how to become a Christian. Several days later, another visitor approaches you. This time it’s the polite fiancé of a deacon’s daughter. He tells you about his relief when the campus minister told him that Buddhism was compatible with Christianity, and that the fruit of the Spirit looks like smoking a little less pot.

It might be tempting to think that these two situations are too disparate to even connect in a paragraph, but they converge around the same question: What it is that happens when sinners turn to God?

Or we could put it like this: How can pastors help little girls and confused Baptist-Buddhists to repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?

CONTENDING FOR SOMETHING FUNDAMENTAL

David Wells provides solid answers to these questions in his book Turning to God: Reclaiming Christian Conversion as Unique, Necessary, and Supernatural. The title frames the definition of conversion and informs us that this is a sober work. This book is contending for something basic to Christianity—because without true conversion there is no salvation.

Turning to God is fundamental to Christianity. So the fact that Wells wrote in response to the ecumenical mishmash of the late eighties doesn’t date the book or undermine its usefulness for pastors. Wells’ concerns—shallow evangelism, Western materialism, and false beliefs—are still with us today.

DEFINITIONS AND DEEP STRUCTURES

Wells is a patient and careful writer, and he begins by defining his terms from Scripture, exposing some “deep structures” of his thought, and highlighting the necessity of turning to God. Here is a survey of his labors for the gospel.

Conversion

Wells summarizes conversion this way: “From God’s perspective, all humanity is separated from him because of sin…To be in sin is to be estranged from God, and that estrangement may be overcome only by belief in Christ’s reconciling work. Spiritually speaking, there are only two categories: one is either saved or lost, a believer or a nonbeliever, in Christ’s kingdom or in the kingdom of darkness” (30). Conversion, then, is turning away from sin and trusting in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

The Bible

The way that we can share God’s perspective, Wells explains, is through believing the Bible. God’s Word decides what conversion is. Psychology, sociology, and philosophy may provide us with descriptive insights, but the Bible defines the reality of conversion and life.

In the Bible, God tells us who he is and who we are. He is the holy God, and we are perverse rebels. We have turned against him, and God must turn us back. Wells writes, “This is summed up by Jeremiah 31:18, which can be translated: ‘Turn me back and I will be turned’” (32).

The Mindsets

Building on his analysis of the Bible’s claims about God and human existence, Wells argues that there are “three basic [worldview] mindsets: bounded, fuzzy, and relational” (82). Bounded thinking separates cars from bicycles, even though both are modes of wheeled transportation. In fuzzy thinking, a bicycle is essentially becoming a motorcycle that develops into a car; differences exist on a continuum without demarcation. And relational thinking sees people not so much in terms of ideas or particular qualities but rather in terms of affinities of connection.

Wells allows that the Bible’s worldview includes relational aspects, but he goes on to add, “Bounded categories are said to be characteristic of Western thinking, but as it turns out, Western thinking in this way is also Christian…God himself…will ultimately preserve the distinction between truth and error” (83). And he concludes, “The cultural approach to knowledge that has the least affinity with the biblical position is the fuzzy set, characteristic of much of Eastern thought” (83).

Further, what needs to occur in order for someone to turn to God can be defined by the categories of insider and outsider. Insiders are those who share a “substantial set of beliefs” with Christians “before coming to Christ” (29). Children who grow up in the church but who have not repented and believed are the main insiders of our day.

Regarding “outsiders,” Wells writes, “‘Outsiders conversion’ refers to people who have little or no prior knowledge of Christianity and who may need to repudiate a large set of beliefs and practices before Christian conversion is possible” (29). Here he is speaking of Western secularists, and of practicing Buddhists, Hindus, Muslim, and Jews.

RECLAIMING CONVERSION

Unfortunately, there are threats to a biblical understanding of conversion from both insiders and outsiders.

From Insiders

One contemporary insider challenge comes from those who want to accept a conversion that does not involve a wholehearted turning to God. Conversion is defined not as the death of self and faith in Christ but rather as merely making a decision for God. The options are presented and the product is “bought.” And yet the product is often not the full biblical gospel, but some shiny gospel-like bauble that increases self-regard but not love for God.

The other insider threat is the decline into “fuzzy set” thinking. When this happens, Christianity devolves into psychological phenomena and emotional comfort, not reconciliation with the holy God through Christ.

From Outsiders

Fuzzy set thinking also creates potential threats to the conversion of “outsiders” by underestimating the differences between Christianity and current forms of Judaism and Islam. Wells argues from the book of Hebrews that the similarities between the great monotheistic faiths actually create “the greatest danger of incomplete and ultimately ineffectual conversion” (124). The temptation of syncretism and compromise is heightened, not lessened, by the similarities between these religions. This is especially the case for new converts, given the cultural pressures to remain as Muslim or Jewish as possible.

Buddhism and Hinduism offer further challenges: the cultural bias toward “fuzzy set” thinking and conceptualizing “God or the Ultimate [as] beyond knowledge and definition” (129) creates an almost reflexive rejection of the Bible’s exclusive claims. Great patience and thoughtfulness is needed to present the God of the Bible in Eastern contexts, for the truth must be accepted or there is no salvation.

Turning to God was written prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, so much of the author’s discussion of Western materialism addresses Marxism. Some of this section may seem dated, yet because materialism still exists in both theoretical forms such as Marxism and practical forms that merely deny or ignore God, his discussion remains extremely pertinent.

Practical materialism won the Cold War, but it still excludes the possibility of God. The maw of modernity has spewed out “the narcissistic person who has become his or her own world, is self-enclosed, and neither dares nor desires to escape the confinements of the inner domain” (150). This new man is only sold or given things for his pleasure—“more and more colorful ‘experiences’ in food, clothes, journeys, sex, sport culture, and religion” (150).

Hence we must meet the outsider extraordinaire. For people like these to be drawn away from the glowing screen, the ear buds, the immediate and constant gratification, they must be introduced to “God as Another—the one who is Outside, whom we meet not as one of our experiences but as other than our experiences” (151). And if moderns are truly converted, they are given back their “full humanity” (152), because they return to the God who made them.

The journey of the spiritual but not religious narcissist, the faithless pew warmer, the Eastern mystic, the careful but Christless monotheist terminates “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thess. 1:9). All of them remain turned away from God. And unless the church fearfully and carefully proclaims turning to God as unique, necessary, and supernatural, the destiny of all is to “suffer the punishment of eternal destruction.”

RECOMMENDED TO ALL, ESPECIALLY PASTORS

We pastors live in a world where little girls, Baptist-Buddhists, and many more who are unknowing and confused all need the gospel. To help them turn to God requires careful thinking before they appear in our office, at the door, or meet us for coffee. In Turning to God, David Wells skillfully delineates the Bible’s teaching on conversion and teaches us how to connect the gospel to the basic mindsets of our day. I highly recommend this book to all, especially pastors.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Shane Walker is the lead pastor of Andover Baptist Church in Linthicum, Maryland.

[1]The Faith of the Gospel Vindicated: Being the Substance of Two Sermons, Delivered Extempore at the Baptist Meeting, Great Yarmouth, Oct. 27, 1799 (Yarmouth, 1800), 33. The Faith of the Gospel Vindicated: Being the Substance of Two Sermons, Delivered Extempore at the Baptist Meeting, Great Yarmouth, Oct. 27, 1799 (Yarmouth, 1800), 33.

[2]Faith of the Gospel Vindicated, 26–27. Elsewhere, Horne claimed to be a defender of “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, as covenant blessings, the free gifts of Jehovah, and of the operation of the Holy Spirit in the souls of the redeemed, against the duty faith men, or Semi-arminians” (Biblical Criticisms and Illustrations of Experimental Godliness, The Solutions to Critical Questions in Theology [London: W. Day, 1825], vi).

[3]The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (1845 ed.; repr. Harrisonburg, Virginia: Sprinkle Publications, 1988), III, 578–585. Horne subsequently replied to Fuller with his A Scriptural Defence of the Truth, As it is in Jesus (Nottingham: J. Plumbe, 1801) and sarcastically referred to him as “a great master in Baptist Israel.”

[4] “Remarks on Two Sermons by W.W. Horne of Yarmouth” (Complete Works, III, 582).

[5] On these friendships, see Michael A.G. Haykin, One heart and One Soul: John Sutcliff of Olney, His Friends, and His Times (Darlington, Co. Durham: Evangelical Press, 1994).

[6] Cited J.E. Ryland, “Memoir” in Pastoral Memorials (London: B.J. Holdsworth, 1826), I, 17, note. The works Ryland mentions are Abraham Booth’s (1734–1806) classic ministerial charge to Thomas Hopkins (1759–1787)—Pastoral Cautions (1785; see The Works of Abraham Booth, eds. Michael A.G. Haykin with Alison E. Haykin [Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist Press, 2006], I, 57–84); the life of the Puritan Richard Blackerby (1574–1648) as it was published in John Gillies’ Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel, and Eminent Instruments Employed in Promoting It (1754); and Sixty Memorials of a Godly Life, frequently assigned to John Rogers of Dedham (d.1636), a fiery Puritan preacher.

[7] Miklós Vetö, “Book Reviews: America’s Theologian. A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards. By Robert W. Jenson”, Church History, 58 (1989), 522.

[8] See, for example, two recent studies of Fuller’s reading of Owen and Edwards: Carl Trueman, “John Owen and Andrew Fuller”, Eusebeia, 9 (2008), 53–69, and Chris Chun, “‘Sense of the Heart’: Jonathan Edwards’ Legacy in the Writings of Andrew Fuller,” Eusebeia, 9 (2008), 117–134.

[9] See Robert Hall, Sr., Help to Zion’s Travellers (1781) and Andrew Fuller, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation (1785)

[10] The preceding extracts from the letters of Andrew Fuller are all cited by Doyle L. Young, “The Place of Andrew Fuller in the Developing Modern Missions Movement” (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1981), 232.

[11] Harry R. Boer, Pentecost and Missions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 24.

[12] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/nyregion/02burnout.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all