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Clergy Mail

This category contains 14 posts

Disclaimer

‘Let no one who is not eager for truth and peace enter here’ (Plato)

Articles on this site express varying points of view, to encourage mature thinking on serious issues. The assumption is that you will want to study a controversial topic from various angles before you arrive at a conclusion, rather than simply believe what someone told you when you were impressionable! (So some stuff here is ‘hot’. Proceed at your own risk!). See the Statement of Faith for John Mark Ministries' theological stance.

How Pastors Fail

By Bob Smietana Religion News Service (RNS) Sometimes being a pastor is a real pain. But few pastors want to admit it. J.R. Briggs in trying to change that. That’s why Briggs, a blogger and pastor of the Renew Community in Lansdale, Pa., is organizing the Epic Fail Pastors Conference. Scheduled for April 15-16 at […]

There’s an Elephant in the Room: Pastoral Ministry

by Robert Griffith “I had no idea just how irrelevant the church has become …” Those words rang in my ears long after the phone call ended. I had been talking to a Bible College buddy of mine who had recently resigned from Pastoral Ministry after nearly 20 years.  I wish I could say his […]

Those Magnificent Young Men and Their Pastoring Machines

Our wayback machine today takes us to the first year of Internet Monk.com, where you’ll find a lengthy essay called “Those Magnificent Young Men and Their Pastoring Machines.” (Excuse the spelling errors. No proofreading in the old days.) It’s my original rant about what was happening to the practice of the pastorate at the time. I […]

Remember The Poor 1/5

I have wept in the night For the shortness of sight That to somebody’s need made me blind; But I never have yet Felt a tinge of regret For being a little too kind. (Anonymous) Christianity is about a God who lovingly gives himself to us, who delights in giving gifts (Luke 11:9-13), and invites […]

Remember The Poor 2/5

Remember the poor 2/5 ‘They [the Jerusalem church leaders] asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do’ (Galatians 2:10) (These notes of sermons/studies originally commissioned by World Vision are not copyright. They may be adapted by preachers or small group leaders and used with or […]

A Response on Homosexuality

Here’s a submission from one (predominantly ‘conservative evangelical’) church to a ‘Homosexuality Taskforce’ set up by the Baptist Union of Victoria (Australia), passed unanimously (!) at a church meeting last night. It is brief, probably too brief, and leaves lots of complex questions unaddressed. However, it may provide a helpful starting-point for other groups debating […]

Remember The Poor 3/5

Remember the poor 3/5 ‘They [the Jerusalem church leaders] asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do’ (Galatians 2:10) (These notes of sermons/studies originally commissioned by World Vision are not copyright. They may be adapted by preachers or small group leaders and used with or […]

Remember The Poor 4/5

Remember the poor 4/5 ‘They [the Jerusalem church leaders] asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do’ (Galatians 2:10) (These notes of sermons/studies originally commissioned by World Vision are not copyright. They may be adapted by preachers or small group leaders and used with or […]

Remember The Poor 5/5

Remember the poor 5/5 ‘They [the Jerusalem church leaders] asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do’ (Galatians 2:10) (These notes of sermons/studies originally commissioned by World Vision are not copyright. They may be adapted by preachers or small group leaders and used with or […]

Thoughts

Hell is an endless church service without God; heaven is God within an endless church service (Martin Marty) ‘I’d rather be accused of too much grace than of too much law’ God sees us as we can be but loves us as we are ‘Wherever I go, there I am’; ‘On this spot, in 1832, […]