Some Thoughts on the Ordination of Gospel Ministers

“And it is certainly useful that by (the laying on of hands) the dignity of the ministry should be commended to the people, and he who is ordained, reminded that he is no longer his own, but is bound in service to God and the Church.” – John Calvin.

In just a couple of days, a dear friend and colleague of mine, Greg Gunn, will be the subject of one of the most ancient rites in the Christian Church, the laying on of hands in the service of ordination. 

This was practiced not only in the New Testament (1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6; Acts 6:6) but also the Old Testament as well (Genesis 48:14; Numbers 27:23). I have to tell you, as the one giving the ordination sermon on this coming Lord's Day, this terrifies me. Not because I don't trust and respect Greg, but because of the weight of the responsibility for all who are ordained. 

The ordination of a minister of the Gospel in a Reformed church is an event of great moment. In our Presbyterian tradition, this implies that a man has spent the equivalent of seven years in formal training and education. He has passed his written exams (equivalent in difficulty to the bar exam in the legal profession). He has been examined on his views and knowledge by the ministerial committee and gone before the entire Presbytery for a terrifying public examination. Imagine if in order to get your current job you had to stand on your feet for an hour or so and take questions from a field of 20 or more men more qualified and experienced than yourself! 

There are some churches and traditions where the guy who is called “pastor” on the marquee is simply the guy with the largest Bible and the cleanest shirt. Today anyone can declare themselves “pastor” or “minister” or “apostle” just by garnering a small following. Many take on the mantle and yoke of ministry flippantly and completely unprepared. But Biblical ordination should prevent that from happening. 

Let me ask you this: would you submit your body to surgery performed by a man who studied medicine in a lazy boy on Saturday mornings? Would you have a man defend you in a court of law who is a mere amateur in jurisprudence? Would you get into an airplane flown by a weekend hobbyist? How much more so, then, should our souls be put under the care and authority of a man who has been tried and tested first! Men should be trained, examined, and proven to have a high level of competency, and then ordained. 

That day is Sunday for Gregory C. Gunn, who has become a dear friend and colleague of mine. 

The promises made in this service are no less serious than marriage vows. In some sense, Greg will be publicly “marrying” the service of God. And the bond that will be forged in that moment will be no more breakable, no more escapable, than the divine merging of two persons in holy matrimony.

Yes, like a wedding there will be vows: promises made to be faithful to the Word of God; promises that the ordinand will remain faithful to the gospel and declare it with every last ounce of strength that he has. The pastor being set apart for ministry that day, as Calvin notes, is reminded through the laying on of hands that “he is no longer his own, but is bound in service to God and the Church.”

The great reformed Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon once warned his students, “The first sign of the heavenly calling is an intense, all-absorbing desire for the work. In order to a true call to the ministry there must be an irresistible, overwhelming craving and raging thirst for telling others what God has done to our own souls…Do not enter the ministry if you can help it.”

Those of us who have taken the ordination vows have neither time nor leisure to entertain any other dream, or pursue another calling. We are not playing around here. We are not "playing church." This is blood-serious. We respond to the Gospel call with an urgency that requires the whole of us. As an ordained minister of the Gospel, we must preach the Word with every pulse, muscle fiber, brain-wave, and hiccup of our being.

And so I am both terrified and overjoyed at the thought of the elders laying hands upon one of my dear friends. These praying hands will place him in the tradition of thousands of years of men who have devoted their lives to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament. Many of them died in the line of duty as pastors, evangelists, and missionaries.

The magnitude of the commitment is almost too much to bear; which is probably why the symbol of the placing of hands upon the candidate’s head and shoulders persists to this day: he needs many people--praying believers--to hold him up, keep him standing, prevent him from falling on his face. 

Left standing alone, the weight of the duty of the pastorate would certainly crush us.

--Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.  

Seven Reasons You are a Better Evangelist than Your Pastor

I suppose that most people feel that their pastor is far more equipped to share the gospel with unbelievers than they are. Honestly, I'm not so sure. Since I was asked to speak on this very topic recently, here are at least seven reasons that you are probably a better witness than your friendly neighborhood clergyman.

1. ‘Show Me the Money’: Like it or not, people often see the worst motives in others, even pastors and ministers. Some people think pastors are “hucksters” and “salesman” looking to push their product, raise money, and pass the plate!  Enough examples of public leadership failures exist to confirm those negative suspicions. You however are unpaid and therefore a much more credible witness.

2. The ‘Scary Black Robe’ Factor: Stereotypes often win out. Many unbelievers think of pastors as strange, alien people—something like Jedi Knights from Star Wars. The robe and clerical collar don’t help much. For this reason pastors are often perceived as unapproachable, mysterious, and even intimidating. You however are a "normal" person. (Well, most of you anyway).

3. The ‘Dilbert’ Dynamic: Because pastors spend most of their time crafting sermons in the study, working in the church, planning meetings, fellowshipping among believers, or visiting hospitals, ministers simply do not have as many “contacts” with unbelievers in the workplace. You however live as a missionary in the cubicle and know dozens of unbelievers personally. 

4. Jargon: Your pastor is a trained theologian and probably can’t help but think in theological constructs, even when he tries to resist it. Put him in a room with an unbeliever for more than five minutes, and a lecture on “Views of the Doctrine of Justification at the Time of the Reformation” is likely to break out. You however can speak from the heart because you can communicate very well without the hindrance of technical terminology.

5. Life Change: Before your pastor joined your church, he likely came from one of two places: the seminary (How weird does that sound to the unbeliever! Might as well be Mars!) or else a previous church. You however have people in your life that have seen the change in you since you came to faith in Jesus Christ, and are therefore viewed as an authentic living testimony of grace.

6. The Umbrella Affect: Whenever a pastor starts talking, many people automatically put up a “sermon umbrella” and brace themselves. They think to themselves, “Oh boy, here comes something religious. Maybe I can remain inert long enough for him to think I’m dead, and he’ll just go away.” His words roll off the unbeliever’s protective umbrella and fall harmlessly to the floor. You however have the potential of uttering something truly unexpected and therefore refreshing and invigorating to their dry soul.

7. The Bubble Boy: Your pastor probably feels a lot of pressure to make others think that he and his family are as close to perfect as possible. (I know I put a lot of that pressure on myself). Even though that “angelic aura” is obviously false, sometimes pastors do a pretty good job of convincing others that they are hyper-spiritual people who just came down from Mt. Sinai. You however can live free of pressures of perfection. In so doing, you can show unbelievers that Christians have real problems, real struggles, real difficulties—and real hope in Jesus Christ. 

So, my friends, go share your faith! You are probably far more effective than you think. 

--Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville Florida. 

The Legacy of George Whitefield (Part One)

(The following multi-part series is from a lecture the author gave to the Annuttaliga Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, January 20, 2014, in which I was asked to speak on the topic of "Religion at the Time of the American Revolution"). 

My Own Admiration for George Whitefield

            Let me admit rather candidly at the outset that I am an enthusiastic admirer of the man about whom I am going to speak today. Thus, I cannot even pretend to be unbiased in this presentation His legacy and writing have influenced this small town local church pastor greatly, even though Whitefield’s ministry and my own could not be more different. He was an Anglican (Church of England) ordained priest and international itinerant evangelist, and I am a Presbyterian, largely duty-bound to my local church, in small town Brooksville which I love. 

Impossible to Understand the Religious Landscape at the Time of the Revolution without Whitefield 

At the same time, I believe I have chosen my subject matter well for a discussion on religion at the time of the Revolution: George Whitefield was simply the most significant figure during this era, by far—on either sides of the Atlantic—and let me add that he was a contemporary of both Jonathan Edwards in America (considered America’s greatest theologian) and John and Charles Wesley in England (the founders of the Methodist and Wesleyan denominations). And yet I will hold firmly that Whitefield was more influential than all three! Let me share why I believe this to be so.  

The Astonishing Reports and Facts

 First, it is estimated that George Whitefield preached to 80% of the population of the American Colonies during the mid 1700’s in live audience. This is absolutely astonishing in a day that did not enjoy any of the modern communication equipment we have today (microphones, TV, radio, or internet). This means that Whitefield spoke live—in person—to four-fifths of the entire population alive in America in his day! Unfathomable! In his evangelistic travels, Whitefield preached at every major city on the Atlantic Seaboard, and all this in an age when most major land travel was done by horse and carriage. No person could possibly rival George Whitefield as the single most dominant religious figure in the mid 1700’s, because no one else was as heard as often and broadly as he.

            Whitefield preached some 18,000 sermons during his lifetime of 34 years of itinerant evangelism (only 57 sermons are extant). One thousand sermons per year, some years! This would result in 20 sermons per week! (By comparison, I give two or three). John Piper says that he preached some weeks for 40 – 60 hours, and was literally preaching to audiences more than he slept![1]

            Because of his incredible fame—he is said to be America’s first true celebrity—Whitefield often spoke to thousands of persons at a time. A crowd of 8-12 thousand gathered in the open fields was not uncommon. At least once, 20,000 persons were gathered to hear him speak in an open air setting.  

            Benjamin Franklin, scoffing at those numbers, went to hear him himself and concluded that his vocal projection could easily encompass as many as 30,000 persons, even more than reported![2]

            Piper gives this instance, “In Philadelphia … on Wednesday, April 6, he preached on Society Hill twice in the morning to about 6,000, and in the evening to near 8,000. On Thursday, he spoke to ‘upwards of ten thousand,’ and it was reported at one of these events the words, “‘He opened His mouth and taught them saying,’ were distinctly heard at Gloucester point, a distance of two miles by water down the Delaware River.”[3] He was, we might say, a human boom box!

            In order to perform these incredible feats that press the human imagination, God must have given him an extraordinary power of human voice projection and control as well as his powers of persuasive rhetoric (more on that later). Thousands of persons would have traced their spiritual lineage to him as multitudes were converted under his preaching. Whitefield, however, would have always credited God with every conversion as he believed it was impossible for any man to convert anyone. Along with the aforementioned Edwards and the Wesley brothers, it was Whitefield who was principally the driving force (from a mortal perspective) behind the revivals that today are known as the First Great Awakening.

What Has Been Said about Rev. Whitefield

Allow me to share some quotes from his contemporaries as well as his biographers: Probably the most accurate summary of his life was quipped by one of his biographers, Arnold Dallimore, “His whole life may be said to have been consumed in the delivery of one continuous, or scarcely interrupted sermon.”[4] He was quite literally almost always preaching!

            John Piper, in his memorable lecture to the 2009 Desiring God Conference for Pastors said, “[Whitefield] was a phenomenon not just of his age, but in the entire 2000-year history of Christian preaching. There has been nothing like the combination of his preaching pace and geographic extent and auditory scope and attention-holding effect and converting power.”[5]

            Biographer J.C. Ryle said, “I believe that the direct good which he did to immortal souls was enormous. I will go further—I believe it is incalculable. Credible witnesses in England, Scotland, and America have placed on record their conviction that he was the means of converting thousands of people.”[6]

            Benjamin Franklin, who cannot in any way be described as sharing the evangelical convictions of Whitefield, nevertheless greatly enjoyed his preaching. “Every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned, and well-placed, that without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse: a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music.”[7] At first a skeptic, Ben Franklin later confessed, "There is hardly another minister of the Gospel alive who can so bring to life the truth and relevancy of the Scriptures." He added on another occasion, "Almost he persuadeth me to believe!"[8]

            Sarah Edwards, whose own husband Jonathan was also a pastor and instrumental in the Great Awakening said of Whitefield without any apparent jealousy, “He is a born orator. You have already heard of his deep-toned, yet clear and melodious voice. O it is perfect music to listen to that alone! . . . You remember that David Hume thought it worth going 20 miles to hear him speak; and Garrick [an actor who envied Whitefield’s gifts] said, ‘He could move men to tears . . . in pronouncing the word Mesopotamia.’.”[9]

-Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville Fl, and is the author of several books including, Hold Fast the Faith: A Devotional Commentary on the Westminster Confession of 1647. 

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[1] John Piper, “I Will Not be a Velvet-Mouthed Preacher: The Life and Ministry of George Whitefield” (Desiring God 2009 Conference for Pastors). Cited from, http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/i-will-not-be-a-velvet-mouthed-preacher (accessed December 17, 2013).

[2] Mark Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), 93.

[3] John Piper, “I Will Not Be a Velvet-Mouthed Preacher.”

 

[4] John Piper, “I Will Not Be a Velvet-Mouthed Preacher.”

[5] John Piper, “I Will Not Be a Velvet-Mouthed Preacher.”

[6] Quoted in, John Piper, “I Will Not Be a Velvet-Mouthed Preacher.”

[7] Quoted in, John Piper, “I Will Not Be a Velvet-Mouthed Preacher.”

[8] Stephen Mansfield, Forgotten Founding Father: The Heroic Legacy of George Whitefield, (Nashville, TN, 2001), 253.

[9] Quoted in, John Piper, “I Will Not Be a Velvet-Mouthed Preacher.”

The Local Church Pastor as Resident Theologian

It is practically impossible to be a pastor today.

At once, it is expected of a man to be a preacher, a psychologist, a marriage and family therapist, a community organizer, and a church activities coordinator. Added to those titles we might suggest also: social media expert, financial administrator, organizational manager, and head of staff.

Among all those just listed, the role of preacher is the only one I can defend aptly in Scripture (2 Timothy 4:1-2). The other duties, while seemingly necessary from time to time, (and certainly expected from our people) are tangential at best to our calling as local church pastors.

It's time we return to our biblical mandate.

Nevertheless, I want to add an important duty to those given above to the job description of the pastor. One often neglected by evangelical church leadership today: that of resident theologian. The Apostles of the New Testament--and especially Paul in the Pastoral Epistles--are jealous to see local church pastors (or elders) steeped in the richness of Biblical doctrine, functioning in their local churches as healthy and robust theologians.

Consider some words of exhortation from Paul,

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed (1 Timothy 4:6). 

He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it (Titus 1:9).

 But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). 

Notice Paul's emphasis on doctrine. Never more than today should the weighty role of "resident theologian" be necessarily placed back upon the shoulders of local church pastors. Never more than today is it incumbent upon us to return our people to the depths of truth contained in Christian orthodoxy!

I see at least three reasons for this:

1) We live in an age of biblical illiteracy. Like it our not, many of our people (not all) are simply not drinking deeply enough from the Scriptures anymore. If some of the folks in the pews today are even doing daily devotions at all, it likely comes from the "self-help" or self-esteem oriented formats so dreadfully common among Christian publishers today.

Most devotional material is presented as "life application" or "principles for better living." Rarely are the laity mining the Bible for the richer truths of the Christian faith. Christology, pneumatology, soteriology--these are foreign concepts to most of the popular devotional materials in today's Christian literature.

2) Many of our people today (again, not all) are largely disconnected from the theological treasures of the Christian heritage that we have inherited from our forefathers. Not only are many Christians not reading their Bibles, but they struggle mightily to comb through even a page of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, or Edwards.

Although the refreshing waters of biblical theology from previous generations are more available today through electronic, digital, and other means, they are unfortunately more neglected than ever before as well. The pastor serves--functionally speaking--as the local church's sole bridge to the abundant blessings of Christian history.

(I don't mean to be unnecessarily negative about all lay people; many are more diligent in their studies than their pastors! I am, however, concerned with the general direction of the evangelical church today). 

3) Finally, the questions that our people are asking are not going away. The people in our pews are still asking deep questions regarding the purpose of our existence, the mysteries of God's being, and the meaning in our sin and suffering. These perplexities have not dissipated.

The nature of mankind, the inner disturbances of the soul, our wranglings about guilt (especially in the area of sexual ethics) are not easily answered apart from a robust biblical doctrine. Our people will eventually go somewhere when the deeper questions of the human experience arise. Let us hope that they can come to us rather than to the secular culture to have those questions answered.

Pastors, we have an incredible job description before us. Humanly speaking, the expectations upon us are massively unrealistic. We will simply never be able to accomplish all that is expected from us. To be all that people want us to be.

But please--don't neglect your role--as resident theologian.


--Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. He is the author of Hold Fast the Faith: A Devotional Commentary on the Westminster Confession of 1647.

Book Review:: William Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry

Overview: This work is likely one of the best books that I have read by a pastor or theologian from the Methodist/Wesleyan tradition in quite some time. Willimon holds a very solid and historical understanding of the person and office of the ordained pastor. Throughout, Willimon attempts to yoke modern pastors to our ancestors and forbearers in the faith by connecting pastoral work to our ancient moorings. He does this especially through his use of the book of Acts and the early ministry of the apostles. Willimon seemingly is little impressed with modern evaluations of ministry by “success” and “growth,” in deference to a higher view of ministry as the role of leading, guiding, and shepherding the baptized. Willimon’s appreciation for the church as the called-out resistance and counter-cultural movement in a world of darkness was deeply moving at points. In particular, I appreciated the Bishop’s use of quotations and historical anecdotes from the Early Fathers, and the Reformers.

Critique: Although Willimon surprised me by quoting from several of the Reformers (Calvin and Luther) as well as even the Westminster Confession of faith, some of his more liberal United Methodism showed forth in his constant references and applications to female pastors. The Bishop went well out of his way to include female ministers and priests in most discussions, but did little to justify his view of gender and ordination. For this reason, Willimon might deserve some “push back” for not defending the controversial position of open ordination. This might be surprising, since he so clearly labors to connect modern pastoral work with that of the ancients and Reformers.

Application: Willimon opened my eyes to a broader understanding of baptism as a delineating mark upon the minister’s role of leading the covenant people of God. Although he does not give a full-fledged theology of baptism as a sign and seal of faith (I’m not sure he would even use those terms), he did find occasion to draw baptism into almost every pastoral discussion on the love, labor, and responsibility of the ordained person to tend especially to those who have openly identified with Christ by the covenantal sign of water. I found his incessant references to baptism refreshing, and it reminded me to speak more often of baptism’s ongoing significance for the Christian life.

Best Quote: “The church itself forms a culture that is counter to the world’s ways of doing things. The church does not simply reach out to and speak to the dominant culture, it seeks to disrupt that culture by rescuing some from it, then to inculcate people into the new culture called the church” (p. 209). 

-Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida

The Dangers and Delights of Christian Biography

The Dangers and Delights of Reading Christian Biography

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us (Philippians 3:17).

***

Be imitators of me as I am of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).

***

Dr. John Piper chose the above text from Philippians 3:17 when he gave the first ever “Charles Haddon Spurgeon” lecture at the Nicole Institute of Baptist Studies on the campus of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. I was there to hear the lecture in person. His point was that just as Paul faithfully imitated Christ, and others likewise imitated Paul, so too we ought to continue that long chain of men and women who for generations have trailed after our glorious and Risen Lord.

For seventy minutes I sat in awe listening to one of my favorite living preachers waxing eloquent about one of my favorite dead preachers. This was pure joy to me, because for nearly twenty years I have been consumed with reading the biographies of famous Christians who have gone before me. Curiously and by some divine “coincidence,” I had just read the same biography on Spurgeon from which Piper apparently crafted his manuscript for that electric evening.

I cannot estimate how valuable to my soul these types of biographies have been over the decades, especially as a local church pastor.

During some years, I have chosen one particular man as my focal point and read as much as I possibly could both by and about him. I have especially focused on those from my own theological tradition whose perspective is often close to mine. I went through a Jonathan Edwards phase first, then a year or so in John Calvin, then a Francis Schaeffer period. Spliced in between these times I have grown close to other dead men as well: the Reformers and Puritans always foremost among them.

Strangely, these now-glorified saints have become my “friends.” Sometimes, particularly during seasons of mild depression and apparent ministry defeats, they have become closer to me than my actual friends. Perhaps some others reading these lines will share that strange trans-generational experience.

It is during these dark times that we find one of the most delightful serendipities of reading Christian biographies: we find that the exact same struggles that we have endured are not so terribly unique after all. There is no temptation—either of body or mind—that has not been experienced by another brother come before me. There is no malady of frame or soul that God has not called another believer to trudge through, long before I came along. The ability of previous generations to endure through suffering actually has the strange power of pulling me along through the midst of my own battles.

Too, I find that my unquenchable passion to be in the presence of the Holy One has been shared by a unique breed of men and women in whose footprints I now walk. When I read in 1999 of Hudson Taylor’s passion for the lost souls of China, I found a man who shared—and greatly excelled—the angst I felt for those who don’t know Jesus. Like him, I felt willing to cross land and sea to share the Gospel with even one unreached individual. Hudson Taylor lived and died for the lost!  

When I visited A.W. Tozer’s grave in Akron not far from where I grew up, and just a stone’s throw from my in-law’s home, I felt that I shared the same longing to delight in God’s presence as the man whose several books I had lately enjoyed.

Who would not be moved by the accounts of Edwards’ fiery preaching in the Great Awakening, or be taken up in the Luther’s joyous fear of declaring “Here I stand!” at the Diet of Worms? How could I avoid Calvin’s tender pastoral spirit “rubbing off” on me as he wrote tearful letters to men soon to be martyred for the faith in Reformation-era France? How could I not be stirred within when I read one of Spurgeon’s echoing sermons, still just as alive today as the day his voice dominated the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London? How could I not savor my English Bible more when I learned of all that William Tyndale endured to smuggle New Testaments into England in bales of hay? I wept at 1:00am when I read of Dietrich Bonheoffer’s martyrdom just weeks before the Second World War ended in a Flossenberg prison camp.  

But here is where I find the great danger: the more I try to be like these men, hoping to see the shape of my own life in their ever-lengthening shadows, the more I know I can never measure up.

I find that my very pursuit of “imitation” can be my greatest frustration. Have you ever tried to photocopy another photocopy before? The more generations away from the original we get, the worse the quality of the print becomes. In the same way, some of the biographies that we read tend to make the error of “hagiography,” they no longer produce accurate representations of the man and instead make them into saints: halo, wings, and all.

I must become content—even pleased, if I can be so bold—with the person God has made me to be.

“Hagiography” (literally: saint writings) is the spurious genre of trying to make another man into a complete saint. In the biography of Spurgeon I mentioned above, for instance, the author studiously avoided almost any critique of the man himself. In an almost forced confession to create the veneer of “objectivity,” the author finally admitted that Spurgeon (gasp!) smoked cigars! That was the only fault he could find!

And so as a reader, I am nearly driven to despair. Reading the account of a hero whose ministry only grew—all the time—made me wonder if there wasn’t something seriously wrong with me. My own ministry wasn’t growing at all. By the time we get more than a hundred years away from an historical figure, the more perfect his biographers seem to cast him. His weaknesses are glossed over, especially those which his wife and children probably knew best.  

Yes Calvin and Luther et. al. were geniuses in their times and greatly used of God in their unique age. But if I try to replicate the extraordinary acts of these men and women, I will find myself increasingly frustrated. These men, after all, were extraordinary, not because they were miniature “christs” themselves, but because God in His mercy saw fit to use them extraordinarily.  

It is simply not fair to compare ourselves with the all-time “greats,” or to expect that the unusual outpourings of God’s Holy Spirit ought to become usual in our day.

Yes, there are times when God’s Kingdom advances in very marked ways. The wheat grows quickly after the thunderstorms, but it also grows during more temperate weather as well. Even if more slowly. God is glorified as much by the ordinary, trudging, faithful ox in the field as He is by the brilliant lightning bolts that lead the storm.

To expect to have the computer-like mind of a John Calvin or the preaching unction of a Charles Spurgeon, or the audacity of Martin Luther is simply not a fair. True, we will continue to hope and pray for God to raise up such men that can shake our own generation out of its complacency, but to expect every faithful man and woman to change the world alone is not realistic.  

More realistic (and more Biblical) is to expect God to smack the world out of its lethargy by a thousand thousands of ordinary, unknown, average believers who are sincerely pursing the glory of Christ in their own day and generation.

God grant us to be among their number. Amen. 

...

The preceding essay is from Matthew Everhard's forthcoming book, Unknown: the World-Changing Power of Ordinary Christians. Matthew is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Pray for Your Pastor (Especially on Mondays!)

As a pastor, I have become especially dependent on the prayers of God's people, especially those within my own congregation. Without the sustaining grace of our Lord, and the intercessory prayers of fellow believers, our pastoral labors would grow heavy indeed.

I am not sure how most pastors feel, but judging from some anecdotal conversations I have shared with other pastors recently, we are especially vulnerable to battles of the soul on Mondays.  (For what it is worth, I also tend to feel acute spiritual warfare on Saturday evenings as well).

There may be a few reasons to increase your prayers for your pastor on this day especially:

1) First, pastors are subject to intense spiritual warfare--regardless of the day--by the very nature of our work. There is nothing the enemy would like more than to discredit the Gospel by discrediting the Church. The easiest way to do that is to cause pastors to fail, quit, grow jaded, or fall lame. Church members need to know that their pastors are liable to the same--if not more intense--battles of spiritual warfare as the common Christian. The fact that we are ordained does not protect us from the trials and tribulations of the heart and soul that our people in the pews face. This can and does include depression, doubt, and anxiety.

2) Nevertheless, Mondays seem to be particularly hard because it is the day of "coming down from the mountain top." After preaching with body, heart, and soul on the Lord's Day, we must come down exhausted to the harsh realities of the "real world." School resumes for children, home repairs can no longer be ignored, cars need oil changes etc. A spouse's health concern is still there. After being in the presence of God so manifestly in sermon and sacrament, the normal grind hits again with a reverberating thud.

3) We are our own worst critics. We usually agonize over our sermons in our heads long after we preached them. Often we are harder on ourselves than even our worst detractors. Jokes that failed, points that were botched, or even a theological doctrine that was stated inarticulately can be deeply vexing. While the Word of God is infallible, the sermon is not. No one knows this better than us. Often our inability to preach better is a emotional frustration.  As one wise minister once said, however, "We surely could have preached better sermons, but we could not have preached a better Gospel!"

4) The criticisms of others ring in our ears. Since Sunday is the day that pastors are in contact with the most parishioners at one time, we tend to hear more criticisms that day also. Most are not meant to hurt us. Some are. While the Holy Spirit (and no little adrenaline!) gets us through the pastor's longest day, Mondays are left to mull over our peoples' concerns. While some critiques are very legitimate, others come across as disparaging. Either way, we tend to feel the soreness of the impact of those comments the next day.

5) The numbers come in. Attendance data and giving trends tend to make their way to our attention early in the week. Some weeks the numbers are an encouragement. As unhealthy as it may be to evaluate ourselves by numbers alone, often the only grades we receive are flat-line statistics. Giving and attendance may not be the best gauges of our church's spiritual health, but they do affect the pastor's heart.

6) Our labors of preparation start all over again. Since most pastors prepare all week long for their sermons, and deliver them on Sundays, the progress begins all over again as soon as the final 'amen' rings from the choir. Unlike other jobs where progress is demarcated by goals achieved and projects completed, the labor of preaching never ends. Sure, some sermons burst into full color like fireworks.  Other sermons fizzle on delivery. Either way, even the best sermons fade as the last echo dies in the sanctuary. On Mondays, we must begin preparations all over again with a blank sheet of paper.

7) The Lord conceals most of our fruit from us. This is for our good, lest we become prideful. I think that if God showed us how our people were growing under our ministries, we would be tempted to think we had done something wonderful. God would be robbed of His glory by human pride. Most often, pastors are not fully cognizant of the results of their labors. A sermon that really 'lands' with full force is not often readily apparent to our awareness. Like the agricultural metaphors of the parables of Scripture, most real spiritual growth is slow, imperceptible to the naked eye. And yet God is good to ensure the harvest!

So please, pray for your pastors. We need you. Especially on Mondays!

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Book Review: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Preaching and Preachers. 40th Anniversary Edition.

Preaching & Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is simply stated one of the best texts on the duty and glory of preaching the Word of God that I have ever read. I must confess right out of the gate that I was predisposed to like this text. My own mentor and dear friend, Dr. Wilfred Bellamy (the former Coordinator of the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church) was himself raised under the teaching ministry of  Lloyd-Jones. Thus, Lloyd-Jones' unusual manner of up-lifting the office of the preacher and the blood-bought ardor of declaring God's Word is "in my genes," as it were. 

Overall Analysis
As a general summary, this 340-page work features all of the main subject headings with which a preacher must come to terms. Lloyd-Jones has very candid and often practical advice on virtually every aspect of the sermon: from preparation in the study, to the written manuscript, to the delivery of the sermon with voice and body, to the preacher's living relationship with the congregation. But far and away, the strength of this book is the unusually high role of preaching that DMLJ assigns to the God-ordained ordinance of Gospel preaching.

He says famously, "To me the work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called" (p. 17).  From cover to cover, DMLJ does not back down from the statement. Those who labor in the study and pulpit as their life's work will find their strivings constantly affirmed as they seek to proclaim the glory of the Gospel to a dying world. In that sense, those who take their work of preaching with eternal regard will find their hearts strengthened to persevere in their labors.

Lloyd-Jones disdained the idea that a pastor has "more important" things to do than preach. The CEO leadership  model, the professional counselor model, and the entertainment-based story teller model must all die a hard death according to Lloyd-Jones. And he slays them relentlessly throughout. The true power of Christian ministry, according to The Dr. is in the pulpit of a man with Bible open who has been ordained of God to announce the Gospel with authority. "It is preaching alone that can convey the Truth to people, and bring them to the realization of their need, and to the only satisfaction for their need" (p. 50).

If anyone has heard Lloyd-Jones preach (thank goodness 4,000 of his messages have been recorded and are now available on digital formatting; see p. 343) he will quickly realize that The Dr. himself held a pulpit ministry based seriously and zealously on proclaiming Biblical doctrine. Long can a listener wait for a joke or personal illustration in his own sermons. They will not come. Lloyd-Jones approached the sacred desk several times weekly during his pastorate at Westminster Chapel ready to declare the revealed will of God without compromise and with death-knell seriousness.

Controversial Statements
I don't think many readers today will make it through this text without disagreeing with DMLJ somewhere. More still will close the book with broken toes! Among the many practices that Lloyd-Jones would like to see piled on the trash heap of history are: the praise band (he saw entertainment-oriented worship coming a mile away), "worship leaders" which he viewed to be taking up too much of the preacher's time, lay preachers (because they are not ordained to do the work but instead are hobbyists), personal testimonies, recorded or videotaped sermons (ironic since thousands are blessed by his sermons still today), and even homiletics classes where preachers learn "techniques" to improve their delivery. The latter, he regarded as a "prostitution" of the calling and "an abomination" (p. 130). Obviously, there is much room to disagree!

Spoiler Alert: If you are Hawaiian shirt-wearing, stool-sitting, coffee-sipping preacher who weekly walks onto the platform to have a "conversation" or "dialogue" with the congregation, you will find yourself kicking against the goads in every chapter. After only a few pages, one gets the idea that Lloyd-Jones would disdain most of today's practices of video introductions, power-point presentations, movie-clips, and the endless barrage of personal anecdotes. At one point, Lloyd-Jones even tells preachers to leave their endearing stories about their children at home!

Unction
Perhaps the last chapter of the book is the best. Here, The Dr. discusses one of his hallmark doctrines, the unction (or anointing) of the preacher. Lloyd-Jones has a doctrine of the filling of the Holy Spirit that is slightly unusual for a Calvinist. He views the filling of the Spirit not as a general spirit-led life of fruit-bearing, but rather a dramatic anointing of the Holy Ghost especially available to preachers as they declare the Law and Gospel of Christ. In my reading of this work, he does not seem to strongly distinguish the "baptism" of the Spirit from the "filling" of the Spirit.

To defend this position, Lloyd-Jones does a careful study of the New Testament usage of the phrase "filled with the Spirit" and demonstrates that it does not appear to describe the daily walk of a faithful Christian (as most would have it), but rather the unusual moments of Holy Ghost fire that fall upon a man while testifying to Christ crucified and raised again. 

Here, he pleads with preachers to plead for themselves in asking the Holy Spirit to endow their ministries with power. "Do you always look for and seek this unction, this anointing before preaching? Has this been your greatest concern? There is no more thorough and revealing a test to apply to a preacher" (p. 322).  And again he writes, "I maintain that all of us who are preachers should be seeking this power every time we preach" (p. 339).

Essays
This 40th anniversary edition of Preaching & Preachers comes newly supplemented with six essays from some of today's most well-known preachers. Among them are Kevin DeYoung (editor), John Piper, and Ligon Duncan. These are short 3-page essays, mostly laudatory, which generally showed an appreciation for Lloyd-Jones' legacy. The contribution of the inclusion of these essays was minimal in my view, other than to give the reader a mental break from The Dr's relentless attack on wimpy preachers!

Some Minor Criticisms
Personally, this reviewer finds little fault with this work and generally appreciates the tenor and tone of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' up-building of the work of the anointed pulpiteer, as well as his excoriation of the  "professional."

The only concern that I had with this book is that Lloyd-Jones found very little room to compliment or affirm hardly one of his own contemporaries. Although he shares a number of interesting anecdotes related to his observations of preachers (many of these quite amusing) I did notice that most of his positive examples were of his own ministry. I found the tendency to use his own ministry as the north-star example of good preaching a bit tiring. On the other hand, he did compliment many ministers such as Whitefield and Spurgeon--it is just that all whom he seemed to appreciate are long dead!

Any time Lloyd-Jones begins an anecdote, "One time I heard a preacher..." you can be sure a counter-example is forthcoming. To listen to Lloyd-Jones discuss his contemporaries, one gets the idea that no one else was doing what he was doing in his own day and age.

Legacy
All told, this reader (himself an ordained man of the Book) found this work to be one of the most affirming works on the nature and worth of expository preaching. Preaching is "logic on fire....preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire!" he shouts. "What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence" (p. 110).

The average preacher who often wonders if he is making any difference in this world--a question that we all struggle with from time to time--will find himself greatly affirmed by hearing the now-gone voice of a man who believed Gospel preaching is the most important work in the world.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Please consider following on Twitter @matt_everhard