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The past year has been an interesting one for pastors in North America. A series of colossal moral failures from famous pastors is matched only by the rash of recent pastoral suicides. The heartbreak on one side and the outrage on the other leaves many pastors simultaneously sympathetic and disappointed. In that dark valley, pastors, …
Continue reading "Learning to Minister: John Chrysostom’s On the Priesthood"
This past weekend at Eastbrook Church, I continued our series "Ephesians: A Crash Course in Basic Christianity," by looking at Ephesians 4:1-16 with the message: "A Crash Course in Church Growth." The message aims to recalibrate our understanding of what church growth is all about by focusing on the direction of growth outlined by the …
Continue reading "A Crash Course in Church Growth (Ephesians 4:1-16)"
In reading J. I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness some time ago, I came across this moving quotation from Richard Baxter about the need for pastors to attend to their own lives in ministry. Baxter was an interesting figure, best known for his writing of that classic of pastoral practice, The Reformed Pastor. Just a quick …
I have been a Senior Pastor of a large, non-denominational, evangelical church for the past ten years, and been in pastoral ministry for nearly twenty years now. Maybe, like me, you realize there is something happening in the life of the North American Church that could best be described as a crisis of pastoral leadership. …
Continue reading "Notes on the Crisis of Pastoral Leadership in the North American Church"
In his book Working the Angles, Eugene Peterson outlines three essential acts of pastoral ministry: prayer, reading Scripture, and spiritual direction. These three acts are, to use a metaphor from mathematics, a holy trigonometry of three inner angles that shape outer, visible acts of ministry: preaching, teaching, and administration. I turn now, in my journey …
Matthew Erickson 