A Prod from a member of my church

I Received an email from a member of Twynholm Baptist Church today which I take as a gentle prod to start blogging a little more regularly and faithfully.
He included a link from the Desiring God website (a great website with loads of good resources).

The link was called "Why Pastors Should Blog."

Abraham Piper, who wrote the post, gives 5 reasons.
1. To Write
2. To Teach
3. To recommend
4. To interact
5. To develop an eye for what is meaningful
6. To be known (by your own congregation).

There is a good discussion off the back of his post here

As someone who has been a sporadic blogger, I am fairly convinced by the arguments in favour.
However, I'd add a couple of cautions.

1) Blogging must be for the sake of building more meaningful face-to-face contact rather than replacing it.
2) Blogging must flow out of the preparation for other teaching rather than displacing it.
3) Blogging cannot be thoughtless or rushed if it is to be edifying, and the pastor must always ask whether he is fulfilling other responsibilities.

That having been said, I take the prod well from the member of the congregation who sent me the link, and shall seek to use this blog to more faithfully serve members of Twynholm.

Sermons now available online

So, the Twynholm website is really shaping together now, and sermons are available for download
and podcast here

Induction service

Pictures from my induction service are available here

New Church Website

Our new website at http://www.twynholm.org/ is now up. It is still a work in progress (pretty much just a homepage at the moment.) some of the other content that will appear there is available at http://wordpress.twynholm.org/

I think the new site looks rather good... Well done Leigh and Jeffrey!

A church where people have come to faith

One of the hugely encouraging things about the church I now serve is the large proportion of the congregation who came to faith through the ministry of the church.
I have started meeting with members of the congregation and interviewing them in a similar kind of way to how I would interview someone applying for membership.
The first four I interviewed, all in their 20's/30's were all saved at Twynholm. Emma through door to door evangelism. Leigh, now her husband, through Emma's witness. Marcos through door to door evangelism. Faye, now Marcos's wife through friends in the youth group at Twynholm.
My guess is that about half of the membership came to faith here. I pray that the Lord would continue to use us to bring many more to faith.

A month to observe before taking the pulpit

My family and I arrived at Twynholm Baptist Church at the beginning of June. The church here very kindly gave me a month to sit in the pews and observe before taking up the pulpit this coming Sunday.
Here are some reflections on why this month has been such a good thing which I would encourage every church to give an incoming pastor.

1) It has been hugely useful for me to sit in on services, elders meetings, prayers meetings etc and see a snapshot of what the church looks like before starting to lead things myself. This enables me to understand the church a great deal better, and I trust will give me more sensitivity and wisdom now I come to lead.
2) It has given a useful message to the congregation that I am a member of the church before I am its pastor, and I sit under the preaching of the word before I preach.
3) It has given me time to build relationships.
4) It has given me time to observe and reflect, so that any changes I do encourage will be thought out rather than just happen because I had to do something in a hurry.
5) It has been encouraging for my family that it has been possible to create some time in the diary to help with the set up of the home - my wife has not been left to carry furniture by herself but could call on my help without feeling she was interrupting sermon prep time. Encouraging the incoming pastor's family is extremely helpful for a church!
6) It's given me some time to read some of the church records and documents to get a little more clear picture of the history of the church than I had before I started.

But after a month, I am glad to have the privilege of beginning to preach here this Sunday. I'm starting off, as so many new pastors have, by preaching through Mark's gospel. This week's sermon is Mark 1:1-13 "The divine king", and Praise the Lord it's yet early on Friday night, and I think I have my outline...