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The Preacher as Pastor By Murray Capill

Now I'd like to introduce our speaker to you. I think probably the best way is if, Murray, if you didn't mind coming up here, that'd be a good idea, I think, because we have met briefly, but I don't really, we don't really know each other that well.
We're both involved in a kind of, well I'm involved in a kind of cooperative church planting ministry in Hobart with the Presbyterian and the Reformed denominations. We have a charter of cooperation, my name's David Jones by the way, sorry, and we've got a cooperative arrangement in Tasmania where we actually help each other to start new congregations, and so it's, I've found that a great privilege to be involved with the Reformed Church, and I know Murray in New Zealand has been, before coming to Australia, in a kind of Presbyterian Reformed congregation, that's right, isn't it? Yeah, so you've come to, you've got a family, you've got a wife and five children, alright?
That's correct. Got that bit right? Yes. And yeah, and you've settled at Geelong, you've been there about four years? No, about two and a half. Two and a half years. Nearly three. We came in May 2001.
And you're, tell us what you're doing there. I split my time between two roles, part-time lecturing at the Reformed Theological College there, in subjects in the area of practical theology, and then the rest of my time pastoring part-time at the Christian Reformed Church of South Barwon. Thanks, and you've just written a book, and some people I think are probably aware of that. Can you tell us, I mean I've got halfway through it, so I'd probably bet if you tell us why you wrote the book rather than me trying to summarise what I've learnt from it so far. Tell us what the book's about and why you wrote it. There's lots, so many books on preaching. This is quite a different sort of book I think. Yeah. Well I sought to undertake some study of Richard Baxter's preaching. Baxter of course is known chiefly for his pastoral ministry, but I wanted to look at his preaching and in a sense of the interface between his pastoral and his preaching work, which is also what I want to speak on today and tomorrow. And it really began as a personal study, wanting to learn more of what it was to preach experimentally and to preach pastorally, and that grew. I undertook it as part of studies from Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and the end product has been summarised into this book. Yeah. Not published by the banner.
It doesn't sound, it doesn't read like a thesis at all. It's very readable. Yeah. So can you tell us the title of the book and Christian Focus published it, I think, do they? Yes, Christian Focus under the mentor imprint. It's called Preaching the Spiritual Bigot. Good. Now how much does it cost in Australia? Well I think in Coorong it's about about $17. Now you've also brought up some magazines which are free, and they're on the table there. This is the Australian Journal for Christian Scholarship, and people can take these. Yeah, this is a journal which the College in Geelong produces annually, and this particular edition from the end of last year focuses on Israel, the biblical teaching, the place of Israel, and so there are some interesting articles in there. And these are free copies, so if you don't receive that magazine or you're interested in looking at this one, please help yourself. There should be one for at least every couple who have come. Please help yourselves. Thank you. Okay, well if you'd like to stay there we can hand over to you. I don't think, are there any newcomers here? Didn't see anybody come in. They've still got a minute to arrive to the old time, but we were sticking to the new time, so the next session will be starting promptly at quarter to 11, I think. And I will hand over to you now.
Thank you.
Well, I do consider it a great privilege and an honor to have been invited to
speak here today and tomorrow. I heard recently the definition of an expert, an
ordinary fellow a long way from home, and I thought that was rather good and it
very much describes my own claim to expertise. I'm an ordinary fellow, not as
far from home as Stuart, so I don't have to speak as long or as profoundly, but
I say an ordinary fellow, I'm engaged in much the same work that many of you are.
Each week I preach, each week I engage in pastoral work, and I want to explore this
area of the interface between our preaching work and our pastoral work.
What is the relationship between the two? And to begin today particularly with the
work of the preacher as a pastor and tomorrow to consider the reverse, the
pastor as a preacher. In his classic work on the Christian ministry, Charles
Bridges writes these words, let us not think that all our work is done in the
study and the pulpit. Preaching, that great lever of the ministry, derives much
of its power from connection with pastoral work, and its too frequent
disjunction from it is a main cause of our inefficiency. And it's really that
point that I want us to ponder and take seriously this morning. When preaching
is disjoined from pastoral ministry, it will weaken and make more ineffective
our preaching ministry. Preaching divorced from pastoral ministry will be
weakened. In other words, the preacher must be a pastor. Preaching as a calling
doesn't stand alone. A man is not called exclusively to be a preacher. Preacher
fits under the wider umbrella of our call to shepherd the flock of God. And I
think it's the shepherding motif which is the dominant motif in Scripture to
describe the work of Christian ministry. We're called to care for the flock, to
lead the flock, to guide the flock, to provide, to protect, to nurture, to love.
Preaching is one chief and key, perhaps the primary and central tool in that
work of shepherding. But it's not the sole tool. If preaching's divorced from
that wider shepherding work, then it tends to become an end in itself. And
when it tends to become an end in itself, it often becomes a performance. We become
more interested in how good our preaching is, than in how useful it is
to the hearts and lives of the people we're preaching to. And our people become
more interested in how good our preaching is, than in how useful it is
to their hearts and lives. They learn to applaud our fine pulpit efforts. And you
get that sickening comment afterwards, a nice sermon. I don't want to preach nice
sermons. Or if they haven't learned to applaud our fine pulpit efforts, they
loathe our pulpit efforts. But either way, they've become sermon connoisseurs. And
they sit there to listen and evaluate, and they learn to love the sound of fine
preaching. They love spiritual rhetoric and oratory. They love the power of good
preaching. But that power is never allowed to penetrate their hearts. I
think that will invariably happen if they see us as preachers only. Because
then we stand to perform. It's much less likely to happen if they see our
preaching is but another facet, albeit a central and prime facet, but another
facet of a wider ministry that we have to them. And if they see us in the
pulpit as taking on another part of our pastoral ministry to them. Now there are
all sorts of factors, of course, which lead to this divorce of preaching and
pastoral ministry. A few things come to mind. For one thing, busyness is perhaps
the most obvious thing which leads to a divorce between the two. We find that
pastoral life is ridiculously busy. And we can just go from a flurry of meetings
and activities and administrative matters and programs and problems
alongside our sermon preparation. And the sheer busyness of life squeezes out
intentional, spiritually focused pastoral ministry. Another thing which may cause
this divorce of preaching from pastoring is placing an overly heavy weight upon
the preaching ministry. If I might call it a blind love for preaching to the
exclusion of all else. Is it possible to place too much emphasis on a preaching
ministry? I think it is. If I might use this as an illustration, I love my
wife. I want to care for her, I want to be faithful to her, I want to spend time
with her, I want to give her things, I want to help her, I want to have a
deepening and growing relationship with her. Is it possible though for me to love
my wife too much? Well in a sense you say no, you can never love your wife too much.
And yet my love of her could be disproportionate to other
responsibilities that the Lord's laid on me in my life. And if I spend all my
time with her and neglect other responsibilities, and if I spend every
last cent on her and neglect other responsibilities, then that which is good
and right has lost proportion and has become bad. And that can happen for those of us
who love dearly the preaching of God's Word. Yes we want to hold to the absolute
centrality of the preaching ministry, but not to the exclusion of other ministries
that we're called to. I think there's a third thing which will lead to a divorce
of the preaching ministry from pastoral work, and that is any market driven
concept of church life. If our church buys into the market mentality of
Christianity, then it will inevitably lead to a downgrading of pastoral work.
Of course churches which are market driven don't always look like they've
downgraded pastoral work because they are very people focused. In fact in the
worst cases they're much more people focused than they are gospel focused.
There's a lot of attention given to people, there's a lot of time invested in
people, there's a great concern to see that people are well provided for and
comfortable and and their needs are being met. So it looks like it's very
busy pastorally, but it may not be pastoring people so much as pandering to
people. That's not true pastoral ministry. So what I want to do this morning is
propose three rather simple propositions concerning this relationship of pastoral
ministry to the preaching ministry, and with each of these propositions I'll try
and suggest some of the biblical basis for it. It will be much more suggestive
than exhaustive. I'll try and give some historical perspective on it from the
writings of Baxter with the understanding that Baxter was a great
preacher, a preacher who was mightily used of God in Kidderminster, and yet a
man who majored on his pastoral ministry and saw that the two were inseparable. So
I want to introduce some of the thoughts and ideas of Richard Baxter in this area.
And then the third thing I want to do for each of these propositions is just
consider some of the thoughts we need to process in terms of contemporary
application of each proposition, not thinking that we can simply import a
model which worked in the 17th century into the 21st century. We need to
rethink for our own day how to apply biblical principles. Well the first
proposition I put to you is this, that to be effective a preaching ministry needs
to be undergirded by a network of pastoral relationships. To be effective a
preaching ministry needs to be undergirded by a network of pastoral
relationships. I think it's abundantly clear from Paul's relationship to the
churches that he wrote to that he always wanted to write to them on the basis of
pastoral dynamic, pastoral relationship, and he's at pains at the beginning of
most of his epistles to establish some sense of rapport, some sense of personal
dynamic and relationship with the people to whom he writes. You think again of the
verses we read just before at the beginning of Philippians. I thank my God
every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you I always pray
with joy. Speaks of their partnership in the gospel, speaks of his confidence
about their spiritual progress, and then says it's right for me to feel this way
about all of you since I have you in my heart. But whether I'm in chains or
defending confirming the gospel all of you share in God's grace with me. God
can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
That's the language of a love letter isn't it? It's warm, it's personal, it's
deeply affectionate. To the Thessalonians Paul writes in a similar
vein, we always thank God for all of you chapter 1 verse 2 mentioning you in our
prayers we continually remember for our God and father your work produced by
faith your labor prompted by love your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord
Jesus and at the end of chapter 2 listen to this sense of longing and affection
brothers when we were torn away from you for a short time in person not in
thought out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you but we
wanted to come to you certainly I Paul did again and again that Satan stopped
us for what is our hope our joy or the crown in which we will glory in the
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ when he comes is it not you indeed you are
our glory and crown that's the manner of with which he speaks to the people he's
going to expound the word to even to churches where he had no prior personal
relationship he seeks to establish a rapport of love and closeness there are
two churches that Paul wrote to that he'd not met in person the church of
Colossae and in Rome but to those churches you find again evidence that he
seeks to build a bridge to them he seeks to address them out of assuring them of
love and warmth and care to the Colossians he writes the same way that
he writes to the church as he knows we always thank God for you when we pray
for you because we've heard of your faith and your love verse 7 of chapter
1 he says you learned it from Epaphras our dear fellow servant who was a
faithful minister of Christ who also told us of your love in the spirit and
you think of the end of Romans Romans chapter 16 Paul cites that great network
of relationships that bind him to the people in Rome although he's not yet
been there there are all these connections that give to him a sense of
affinity with them and love for them and he can communicate that he's a part of
that fellowship of believers I think it's clear that when Paul was about to
exhort and teach and rebuke and encourage he wanted to do so on the
basis of strong close affectionate pastoral relationship and that is always
necessary in a preaching ministry if people are to hear us gladly they need
to know that they hear from someone who cares for them they need to know that
they're not just a bottom on a pew a number on a roll they need to know that
that we have their best interests at heart that we love the church and we
will sacrifice ourselves gladly for her they need to know that when we plead
with them we plead with them as one who loves them in the pulpit they they
mustn't sense that we're now just turning on theatrics that we're
performing that we're merely filling an hour on a Sunday morning or fulfilling a
duty or a tradition when they hear us preach they ought to hear from someone
whom they know from the rest of our ministry loves them and cares for them
and nurtures them and wants to invest in their lives for the glory of God a
preacher cannot afford to be known as someone distant cold remote but isn't
that a danger for those of us who love preaching the most we want to study the
word we want to be diligent in our sermon preparation we want to be
secluded enough to have time to think and to pray and to meditate we want to
read copiously if we can and those very passions that we have surrounding the
preaching ministry can become obstacles to the ministry because we're seen as
bookish we're seen as distant we're seen as too busy for people and it undermines
the preaching ministry but what do Baxter have to say about these things
it's very clear from his ministry in Kidderminster that he saw these two
roles the preacher and the pastor as inseparable and he was not prepared to
sacrifice pastoral ministry for the sake of pulpit excellence in fact he
deliberately says the opposite he will in a sense sacrifice some of the finery
and the excellence of pulpit work so that he can sustain a massive pastoral
work and he particularly emphasized this thing that I've highlighted from
Paul's writings the need for conveying a sense of love and affection and
closeness to our people listen to this he says the whole of our ministry must
be carried on and tender love to our people we must let them see that nothing
pleases us but what profit of them and that what do with them good doth ask
good and that nothing troubles us more than their hurt we must feel toward our
people as a father toward his children yea the tenderest love of a mother must
not surpass ours another place he says I never knew much good done to souls by
any pastors but such as preached and lived in the power of love working by
clear convincing light and both managed by a holy lively seriousness speak as
loud as you will and make as great stir as you will it will be all in vain to
win men's love to God and goodness till their hearts be touched with his love
and amiableness which usually must be done by the instrumentality of the
preachers love and I think that's a tremendously important comment he's
saying people won't invariably respond to the gospel until they sense something
of the love of God for them but he's going further he's saying people won't
sense something of the love of God for them usually unless that is somehow
conveyed through the instrumentality of the preacher if we're cold and distant
and remote and unapproachable how will we ever convey the love and the grace of
a God who came in the flesh and laid down his life for sinners again to quote
from Baxter he says if ministers were content to purchase an interest in the
affections of their people at the dearest rates to their own flesh and
would condescend to them and be familiar and affectionate and prudent in their
carriage and abound according to ability and good works they might do much more
with their people and ordinarily they do labor therefore for some competent
interest in the estimation and affection of your people and then you may the
better prevail with them well for Baxter that wasn't mere theory most of
you I'm sure know some of the details of his ministry and how he invested two
days a week in visitation in his parish with his assistant taking some eight
families a day sixteen families fifteen sixteen families a week and that way
endeavoring to visit in person the 800 families in his parish not just those
who went to church but all the people in the area as he went to them he sought
always to begin by establishing that relationship of love by conveying to
them just genuine interest in them he gave books to the poorer members he gave
away a lot of his own salary stipend he sought to encourage and to comfort he
even passed on his medical remedies and potions he was plagued with ill health
and he seems almost to have been the local doctor in Kidderminster he wanted
his people to know that he loved them in fact he went so far to say as to say
that if a minister had lost the affection of his people it may be
necessary for him to leave that work he felt that it would be almost futile to
try and preach a minister to a people who no longer loved you and no longer
respected you a people who no longer felt your affection for them and wouldn't
we confirm by our experience it's an awful lot easier to take tough words
from someone you know loves you but if someone is constantly upsetting you and
being difficult and awkward and you sense no real love and rapport from them
when they come and criticize you it's so hard to take it as we exhort people as
we admonish people as we challenge people and encourage people needs to be
on the basis of a warm affectionate pastoral relationship but what of
contemporary application Baxter for all his diligence knew the weaknesses of his
own methods and he grieved over it for all the diligence of his work he was
only seeing those families once a year and what can you achieve in the life of
a person when you bump into them once a year no matter how intentional and
loving and and pointed you might be in that annual meeting you're so limited in
what you can achieve and we don't have to have 800 families to feel exactly the
same thing so often we feel that we're busy though we seek to be diligent of
pastoral work yet it's woefully inadequate I want to put it to you that
it will be woefully inadequate if the dynamics of our church are that we alone
are the pastor trying to create this relationship of love and affection to
our people if the dynamics of the church are that you have this man at the center
who is the preacher and he passed as individually each member of the flock
in the dynamics of love and affection and warmth and community and fellowship
will be inadequate inevitably so and that's why I deliberately use this phrase
that the preaching ministry must be undergirded by a network of pastoral
relationships and the pastor himself must be an integral part of that network
he's not the network but he's an integral part of it let me explain what
I mean for one part in this network of pastoral relationships there is to be a
plurality of godly leaders and I think this is if I can be so bold as to
criticize Richard Baxter I think it's one of the glaring weaknesses of his
model that there's really no mention of a plurality of godly leaders of other
men alongside him elders if you like equipped and trained to be part of that
pastoral ministry he did have co-workers assistance but there was no body of
leaders alongside him by contrast if you look at the Ministry of Paul you see
constantly mention of fellow workers and co-workers Paul is almost never alone
there are always other workers around him Silas's and Timothy's and Titus's
women who ministered alongside him part of the preacher's work as he invests in
pastoral ministry is to equip and train a body of godly leaders alongside him
who share in this pastoral ministry and there ought to be no great disparity
between the pastoral giftedness of those other leaders and that of the preacher
they're all called to be shepherds of the flock of God but even that expanding
the ministry to a body of godly leaders even that is not sufficient in this
network of pastoral relationships in addition to that there are other members
in the body of Christ who are to be active and pastoring other people and
building these relationships spiritual relationships in the life of the church
think for example of the role given in Titus chapter 2 to older women
ministering pastoring younger women I think of the charge given to Timothy to
invest in other men who would be able to invest in other men there will be those
who have particular gifts in the life of the church gifts of mercy gifts of
encouragement gifts of giving gifts which need to be employed in the fabric
in the life of the church to create this community of love and affection and
then not only that there's more to the network that is the charge laid on every
single member of the body of Christ every saint in the communion of saints
to be one another ring you know all the one another phrases of the New Testament
so many of them love one another to carry one another's burdens to teach and
admonish one another to be devoted to one another to be patient with one
another bearing with each other in love to encourage one another to pray for
one another all those aspects of one another ring our dimensions of pastoral
ministry the entire fabric of the church community is to be a network of pastoral
relationships and it seems to me that it's the calling of the preacher pastor
to help cultivate and develop and equip and train people so that the church is
marked by this dynamic fellowship between believers this is no cop-out for
the pastor I'm not trying to say that he can now withdraw to study and leave all
the pastoral work to a host of other people no this is harder in a sense it's
the work of investing in people it's the work of trusting other people it's the
work of being engaged in a network of relationships and then when we come to
preach the word to the flock we come to people who are knitted together and to
us through this network of pastoral relationships and they know that we're
not just standing up as someone almost unknown and detached from them but we're
an integral part of that dynamic fellowship of believers that's what must
undergird an effective preaching ministry the second proposition that I
want to make is this not only must the preaching ministry be undergirded by a
network of pastoral relationships but it must be informed by a variety of
pastoral involvements it must be informed by a variety of pastoral
involvements the fact is from the pulpit we learn almost nothing about our people
we see them in a condition which is most unusual they're dressed very nicely
they're sitting very still they're singing very heartily and they're
nodding and some of them not this way some of them not this way some of them
not this way but for most of the week that's not how they are for most of the
week they're not sitting and they're not singing maybe not that tidy they're
very different creatures the rest of the time and it's how they are the rest of
the time that we must preach to we must preach to their lives not when they're
nice neat tidy Sunday Christians but we preach to their lives as they are
through the week when they're struggling when they're frustrated when they're
angry when they're grieved when they're broken when they're worldly and greedy
when their consciences are burdened and when their consciences are seared we're
to preach to them as they are in the realities of life now we know enough of
human nature to know a lot about the realities of life but there's something
different about knowing human nature in general terms and knowing people
individually there's something different about our general knowledge of the
realities and the harshness and the difficulty the burdens of life and
actually getting alongside people and feeling their depth of sorrow or burden
or difficulty Paul said besides everything else that's besides stonings
and floggings and shipwreck and persecution besides all that here's the
biggie I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches and then he
individualizes it who is weak and I don't feel weak who doesn't fall into
sin and I do not inwardly burn our knowledge of people is to be a real and
personal and an intimate even a painful knowledge I think it's clear from Paul's
ministry that it was on that basis of real knowledge of real people in real
situations that he brought his proclamation Paul doesn't impart truth
for the sake of truth he doesn't give knowledge for the sake of knowledge he
applied truth and knowledge gospel remedies to the hearts and lives of
people and churches he wasn't just shooting in the air and hoping that it
might possibly hit someone now time and time again he writes occasional lettuce
to specific occasions and circumstances you know those I scarcely need to give
examples so I'll just allude to a few you think of his exposition of
justification by faith in Galatians that's not just a discourse on
justification by faith it's a passionate plea an anguished plea to people who
seem to be abandoning the freedom and wonder and excellence and sufficiency of
the gospel you think of his great Christological statement in Philippians
2 that's not just abstract Christology it's very pointed Christology
addressing the need for a life of unity through Christ like humility in the
fellowship of the church you think about his teaching on the Lord's Supper in 1st
Corinthians he's not writing a theological tract on the sacraments he's
addressing pastoral issues in the life of that church you think of all the
instructions and encouragements that he gives to Timothy he's not writing a
handbook on pastoral ministry he's speaking to a young pastor in Ephesus
where Paul knows certain people and certain issues and certain problems and
he gives Timothy specific guidance in that regard he knew these churches he
knew their burdens their problems their difficulties and he brings gospel truth
gospel remedies to bear we might cringe today at the amount of felt needs
preaching around but I think we should also cringe when preaching addresses no
real needs at all when preaching is just a proclamation of truth for truth's sake
whether people get it whether they apply it in the lives whether they really
understand it whether it comes home to their heart in a piercing way or not
it's almost secondary that's not true preaching so our pastoral relationship
must inform the way in which we proclaim biblical truth if it doesn't our
preaching will be increasingly bookish and academic it'll be stilted and dry
and irrelevant it won't touch hearts and lives well Baxter again was
passionate really about this whole area he was passionate about being with
people and his constant pastoral interaction with people informed and
shaped his preaching ministry and Baxter as with I think most of the Puritans
thought in terms of spiritual categories of people in the life of the church when
he thought of his pastoral work he thought of the different kinds of soul
condition represented amongst the people and he pastored those many different
conditions of soul his highest priority was the unconverted and that very fact I
find so challenging because we have this tendency to put pastoral work and
evangelistic work in two different baskets regard them as two different
things and we say one person has these pastoral gifts another person has
evangelistic gifts and yet there is a tremendously close interface between the
two and Baxter regarded his foremost pastoral ministry to those who would
otherwise be lost they didn't hear the gospel and that concern for the lost in
person one-to-one individually must shape how we preach to them to the lost
from the pulpit if we don't know how to engage with a non-christian one-to-one
what makes us think that we're going to be effective evangelistic preachers what
makes us think that it's going to be easier to present the gospel to reason
the gospel to persuade people on mass than it is one-to-one as we engage with
people and we understand their mindset and we hear their objections and we try
and reason with them and as we see the Lord work in their hearts open them to
the gospel as we pass to the unconverted those chosen of the Lord but not yet in
the flock we also gain skill and how to preach an evangelistic message his
second category was those that needs of personal counseling those with problems
and he wasn't thinking of counseling in the modern term but he was thinking of
those who had had unresolved consciences in their life those who had burdens those
who had concerns and he was to bring biblical counsel biblical wisdom to bear
on those problems that range of problems and issues in people's lives was to
inform the way that he also addressed problems and concerns from the pulpit
his third category were the converted but amongst the converted he divides it
up because he knows that not all saints are in the same position so there are
the spiritually weak there are those struggling with particular sins in their
lives there are those who are backsliding and there are those who are
strong pastoral involvement with that range of conditions of souls amongst the
Saints will help sensitize us to the kind of applications and exhortations
that we need to be bringing from the pulpit well he had other categories
ministry the family ministry to the sick ministry to those living offensively and
impenitently ministry to those requiring church discipline clearly his pastoral
exposure was broad wide and that's what I want to plead for for ourselves as
well is our preaching informed by a variety of pastoral involvements I think
it should be but if we're thinking now in terms of a network of pastoral
relationships we are not perhaps trying to pastor comprehensively every single
individual in the church but I put it to you we should pastor
representative Lee we should pastor in a number of different situations people in
different conditions of soul if we only passed one or two kinds of person then
our preaching will narrow and focus because of that it's unhealthy if we
only passed of people in crisis and that very easily can become the situation the
minister is the expert and so he gets all the problem cases he gets all the
difficult ones and because we've got all the difficult ones it means we perhaps
don't spend much time with those who actually strong in the faith or we don't
spend much of any time with the unconverted we're too busy sorting out
problems in the lives of the Saints to spend any time with the unsaved or we
may find that either we're totally engaged in disciplinary problems or
we're never engaged in disciplinary problems it will be unhealthy in our
preaching ministry if our exposure has been narrowed down to just one or two
conditions of soul but isn't it the tendency that we become narrow in our
pastoral work we do lots of visiting of the sick perhaps but little time
discipling men little time building up the strong to greater strength I think
that will make our preaching somewhat jaundiced if we're too narrow preaching
is to be informed by a range of pastoral involvements and as you prepare
your message you think about them and you pray for them and you seek a word
that will be a message to many different people in different situations of life
my third proposition is this to be effective a preaching ministry also
needs to be reinforced by a range of pastoral ministries undergirded by this
network of relationships informed by a variety of pastoral exposure and now
reinforced by a range of pastoral ministries from what I've just said
about a pastoral work informing our ministry we could begin to think that we
just engage in in pastoral work so as to gain more ammunition for the pulpit but
of course that would be a gross misrepresentation of the case we are to
pass to people individually because preaching cannot do all preaching as I
said at the beginning it's not the whole of pastoral ministry and if we try to
make it the whole of pastoral ministry then I think many Saints will fail to
grow and mature as they ought many non-christians may not be brought to
that point of absolute commitment and dependence to Christ much fruit will
wither on the vine I think that proposition is born out in the life of
the early church if you think again of Paul's letters they don't only proclaim
publicly a message but very often they plead for some kind of follow-up
ministry in the life of the church think for example of the Philippian Church
again is that great statement in chapter 2 about unity and about calling the
church to be of one heart and one mind through Christ likeness through having
the mind of Christ in them but then in chapter 4 Paul pleads for help to be
given to two women who are struggling over some point that divides them so the
public preaching the public proclamation in the letter itself was to be
supplemented by some other work afterwards you think of the letter to
Timothy Timothy is to appoint elders in every church he's told what kind of men
they are to be but in to Timothy chapter 2 verse 2 he's told to take what Paul
entrusted to him and entrusted to reliable men who would entrust it to
others and in that verse there are four generations of Christians mentioned I
think that was a work that was beyond a pulpit ministry in addition to his
command to preach the word he was also to invest in these reliable men or you
think of Paul again preaching on the relationship between Gentiles and the
law he doesn't only open that wonderfully in the book of Galatians but
he says he took Peter on face-to-face it was a time to engage in very direct
pastoral involvement very often in the book of Acts you find that there's a
public proclamation of the gospel there's a sequel where people come back
to dialogue and interact on what was preached well Baxter certainly
reinforced this point that the preaching ministry cannot do all but
there are other ministries which must reinforce the public preaching of the
word listen to this it is too common for men to think that the work of the
ministry is nothing but to preach and to baptize and to administer the Lord's
Supper and to visit the sick it hath oft grieved my heart to observe some eminent
able preachers how little they do for the saving of souls save only in the
pulpit and how little purpose much of their labor is by this neglect they have
hundreds of people that they never spoke a word to personally for their salvation
and if we may judge by their practice they consider it not as their duty
that burdened him and it burdened him partly because he knew that when you do
go and visit people individually you might find out just how little of your
preaching is actually got inside them he says you sit down with individuals
and you find that though they've listened to you preaching the gospel for
years they scarcely understand it of course God mightily uses the preaching
of the Word of God publicly for the conversion of sinners for the
edification of saints but he doesn't only use the public preaching of his
word he uses private ministry of the word as well personal ministry of the
word and so that's why Baxter's approach was to catechize in the first place to
go and ask questions and seek from them answers just to ascertain where they
were actually at and what they understood and what they knew and then
when he knew where they are at he would seek to take them further individually
to quote Baxter again he says a minister is not to be merely a public preacher
but to be known as a counselor for their souls as the physician is for their
bodies and the lawyer for their estates so that each man who is in doubts and
straits may bring his case to him for resolution Baxter didn't expect
preaching to do everything what about us do we expect preaching to do too
much I fear there's an assumption certainly the churches of which I've
been apart and you can tell me whether this rings any bells for you or not I
fear there's an assumption that if we preach and teach truth we proclaim the
gospel and we proclaim sound doctrine we assume that people will know how to
implement that in their lives and as a false assumption they may not know how
to implement it in their lives they may be stirred up to pray but they really
don't know how to pray because no one's taught them to pray they may be stirred
up to serve but they don't really don't know where to serve or how to serve
because no one's come alongside them and trained them and nurtured them and
opened up little opportunities for them one talent opportunities it needs to be
a ministry of discipleship nurturing training people it needs to be a
ministry of evangelism following up the preached word the hearts and lives of
individuals who are grappling with the gospel message there needs to be a
ministry of counseling and averted commas dealing with the problems and the
burdens and the conscience issues in people's lives
seems to me some churches have relatively woeful preaching ministries
and yet you still see some genuine fruit there because of their faithfulness
and discipleship work and evangelism and care of people and other churches have
fantastic preaching ministries and you wonder why there's so little fruit and I
put it to you it may be because we've neglected these other ministries which
must reinforce the faithful public proclamation of the gospel Peter Adam I
think puts the case rather well in this paragraph he says those of us who are
committed to preaching need to be committed to a wider ministry of the
word as well we need to see preaching as part of that ministry of the word
otherwise we will try to make preaching do what it cannot easily achieve not
only will God's people suffer because they do not receive on the ministries of
the word but our preaching will suffer as we force it into an alien mold our
ministry may be pulpit centered but it should not be pulpit restricted for such
a ministry of the word will suffer severe limitations and that really is
the burden of what I wanted to say this morning the preaching ministry must be
central but if it is to be effective needs to be undergirded by a network of
pastoral relationships needs to be informed by a range of pastoral
involvements and it needs to be reinforced by a variety of pastoral
ministries thank you
we have have some time and maybe a good opportunity to just have a bit of a
question time and perhaps a bit of discussion on what's been presented to
us I've certainly found it very very helpful so I think Murray's I've just
asked him and he's graciously said he'd be prepared to field some questions so
has anyone got any any question that you'd like to
Tom what are you Arthur right oh good yeah Murray Bruce
Murray some of us may be involved in itinerant preaching different churches
when there's vacancies and things like that so you are not with the
congregation for a great length of time spasmodically at best any words there to
in that ministering context so all that pastoral context well two thoughts and I
hope they're not contradictory thoughts though they're different parts of the
equation I think pastoral ministry in a pastoral context should be the preaching
norm not itinerant ministry but having said that there is obviously a wonderful
place for an itinerant preaching ministry if the preacher himself is
still earth in some of these pastoral realities and assuming that he's someone
who engages with people that he understands the unsaved mind and he's
part of a church and part of a network then he will bring to bear a deep
understanding of people and of heart realities and of life which will make as
preaching pastoral but I think you wouldn't want people to be bred on a
diet of itinerant preaching alone it's a wonderful booster shot I just loved the
booster shot last night a wonderful encouragement and it comes from a wealth
of pastoral engagement and involvement I would think and an understanding of us
as preachers and pastors and those engaged in ministry so there's a
tremendous relevance to that but you wouldn't want your people living
exclusively on a diet of the latest preacher going through town because that
will be unhealthy for them as well
you
Murray other than Richard Baxter who historically would you say would be good
examples of people who were effective pastor preachers I might handle this to
Ian Murray perhaps in a moment the the Puritans across the board it seems to me
had this as their strength but they were not just preachers that I think they
made their impact in in England through the pulpit the press and pastoral
ministry and those three combined made them such a powerful force in the nation
but that pastoral ministry was an integral part of it so the many of the
Puritans have a strong pastoral strand but but I'd love to ask if Ian would
flesh out some some particulars I scarcely dare to talk about Church
history no no just a very quick word I do think it's true as a general rule
that the most eminent preachers have been real pastors and one thing that
grieves me a lot is the idea that some people think that Martin Lloyd-Jones was
a preacher and that he didn't engage with individuals it's completely wrong
he spent hours every week within a month he would have seen a few hundred people
but chain Andrew Boner read their diaries very much connected with people
and I think that is a general rule there are a few exceptions of men who stand
out as preachers and who weren't strong pastorally they are the exceptions and
we shouldn't try to emulate them my heart absolutely resonates with what
said this morning it is a great weakness across our reformed world that preaching
has been put in an isolated position and it's weakened the preaching I'm so glad
you said every word you said
you said quite a few things there that I agree with everything you said but the
word mentoring I think you covered it with a lot of other words but we don't
sort of hear very much about it today we certainly don't see very much of it but
I believe it was something which was very important and was done quite
dramatically to use that phrase in years gone by could you comment somewhat on
that please thank you well I do think mentoring is one of those areas which
has become almost trendy again in the church and suddenly hear a lot of talk
in the wider evangelical Church about mentoring and coaching and much of that
I think is very very healthy I find myself at the moment preferring to just
use the word discipleship to cover a range of that and there and some works
are all sorts of fine nuances as to the difference between discipling and
mentoring and coaching and and so on but I think that that broad emphasis on one
to one or small group ministry of a more mature Christian training and nurturing
holding accountable encouraging sharing fellow spiritual fellowship with a
younger believer or maybe not even where there's a disparity between the
relative maturity of two believers but we're we're to establish Christians are
encouraging and discipling each other in that way that to me is is what I'm
indicating is really a missing link in the model which I've often seen an
operation in Reformed churches and I think it's a link which I feel
increasingly burden to put back into place the fact that that's happening in
the wider church scene is something which we can maybe be glad about so long
as it's gospel focused and not just pandering to people just stretching just
to mention that getting books into Africa to pastors and Asia and there's
there seems to be no doubt that the books by Derek prime are having a very
deep influence on pastors in other countries and we have found this from
letters that have come back from pastors and of course he has just
written the let's study to Corinthians in the banner series and he's just the
man to do it and we also have just reprinted for Africa and Asia his book
pastors and teachers which is also done by Christian focus so I wouldn't mention
him as being a real pastor of pastors and a thoroughly reform that's very
helpful to hear that that response thank you yeah I got one more question and
thanks you know you you mentioned you want to involve a network of the
believers in the pastoring ministry and you're all as a pastor obviously would
facilitate that would you go around you know you have a particular parishioner
is in need and you know some older believer have a particular skill would
you suggest you would actually suggest that to the older members say go see him
or her
absolutely I think that's part of what I'm saying is instead of trying to do it
all ourselves we're trying to facilitate a network of past relationships and so
to help older men minister to younger men and older women to younger women and
just to see someone who needs discipling and see someone else in the church who
could take up that discipleship role I think that's exactly what we should be
doing as pastors so in a sense we start to think a bit more strategically about
how we're going to meet pastoral needs rather than just wear ourselves thin by
trying to visit everyone and it can end up either as a social visit or an annual
inspection and both those are dangers I think if we're pastoring quite
superficially mentoring is when you spoke about investing in people and
trusting people and mentoring is a sort of proactive form of pastoral work
isn't it really it's that's a really I think that's in our sort of circles
that's quite a risky thing to make room for people so that their gifts are
developed and then to give them or give them freedom to actually operate
have you found that a to be the case oh yeah look if I could speak from my own
experience for a moment when I moved from New Zealand two and a half years
ago I made a transition from full-time pastoral ministry to to part-time I'm
officially 40% with the church that I pastor and that created a whole new set
of dynamics that were very different it was more impossible than ever to visit
comprehensively and so there been a number of things we've had to do to make
that situation workable and a key part of it is to invest in other people and
to trust other people and to delegate genuine responsibility to them and make
the pastoral ministry very much a team ministry approach and in delegating to
other people you do have to delegate to people who you don't necessarily think
are just right just perfect but then you're faced with the reality that I
wasn't going to be just right either and we can be too self-confident I think and
feel that unless we do it as the preacher is not going to be done
properly and that is a huge limitation to God working through the giftedness of
many people in his body so the mentoring the discipling the delegating pastoral
ministry to others is an act of faith in God as well