The Penny Drops late on a Friday night...

On Weekends when I'm preaching I don't allow myself to go to sleep on Friday night until I have an outline for the sermon. Some weeks this works OK... (Last week I had an outline and had written and introduction). Some weeks I really struggle to find a sermon in a text.
This coming Sunday I'm preaching on the whole of Mark 6. Through my devotional time in the text, and most of my study of it today, I could see how I could preach 3, 4 or even 6 sermons on Mark 6. I couldn't really see how I could preach one coherent message.
There are stacks of Old Testament allusions in Mark 6. (Including, I think, Exodus 12, 16, 18, 33, 34, Numbers 12, 1 Sam 16, 1 Kings 19, Esther 1, 5, 7, Job 9, Psalm 77)
So, I've gone with a uniting theme of Exodus.
My exegetical outline is

1-13 A prophet like Moses

1-6 Opposed by his own: House

7-13 An urgency like the Exodus

14-29 An enemy like Pharoah & the King of Babylon.

30-44 A Man who is the Lord

30-44 A provider like the Lord

45-52An encounter with the Lord

53-56 A land like Canaan.

My homiletic outline is:

1) The urgency of Jesus’ message (1-13)

2) The powerlessness of Jesus’ enemies (14-29)

3) The sufficiency of Jesus’ provision (30-56)

a. Food

b. Himself

c. Rest

This sermon will dv complete the first block of 6. having never preached for 6 consecutive Sudnays before, I am glad that the sermon finished with rest, and that we are taking some holiday straight afterwards. And so to bed...

Wordling check on expository sermons.

Bloggers at the moment seem to be fascinated by Wordles.

I thought this might be a good way to do a rough check on an expository sermon as to whether the sermon hits the same themes as the text....

Here's the wordle of my sermon from Mark 4:35-5:43 on Sunday



Here's the wordle of the ESV text that I preached from:

Mmmn, had I made death bigger than Jesus in the sermon, when it doesn't even appear on the wordle of the text? I don't think so! I think that the whole text is about Jesus authority over the realm of death, and so many of the other words on the text world (unclean, tombs, afraid, shackles, chains, disease, demon-possessed, dead, blood) are about death, our fear of it and the shadow it casts.

Wordles are interesting, but if we just look for the biggest words, we might fail to see the whole atmosphere that is created by a text with groups of words that are associated with one big theme. The word at the centre of the theme doesn't appear in this text until the very end - the death of Jairus' daughter.

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.

Great quote from Spurgeon for a new pastor

Young pastor, preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace... by not gossiping with your people. So says Spurgeon (HT: DG):
It is the extreme of unwisdom for a young man fresh from college, or from another charge, to suffer himself to be earwigged by a clique, and to be bribed by kindness and flattery to become a partisan, and so to ruin himself with one-half of his people. Know nothing of parties and cliques, but be the pastor of all the flock, and care for all alike. Blessed are the peacemakers, and one sure way of peacemaking is to let the fire of contention alone. Neither fan it, nor stir it, nor add fuel to it, but let it go out of itself. Begin your ministry with one blind eye and one deaf ear.

(HT: Thabiti)

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...

How to choose a church

Here's a great little list of priorities in looking for a new church from Mark Dever's book, "What is a healthy church"

How To Find A Good Church

1. Pray.

2. Seek counsel from a godly pastor (or from elders).

3. Keep your priorities straight.
• The gospel must be truly affirmed, clearly preached, and faithfully lived out. A serious lack in any of these expressions of the gospel
is very dangerous.
• The preaching must be faithful to Scripture, personally challenging, and central to the congregation’s life. You will only grow spiritually
where Scripture is treated as the highest authority.
• Also very important is to consider how the church regulates baptism, the Lord’s Supper, church membership, church discipline, and
who has the final say in decision making.
• In short, read chapters 5 to 13 in this book!

4. Ask yourself diagnostic questions such as:
• Would I want to find a spouse who has been brought up under this church’s teaching?
• What picture of Christianity will my children see in this church—something distinct or something a lot like the world?
• Would I be happy to invite non-Christians to this church? That is, would they clearly hear the gospel and see lives consistent with
it? Does the church have a heart for welcoming and reaching non-Christians?
• Is this church a place where I can minister and serve?

5. Consider geography. Would the church’s physical proximity to your home encourage or discourage frequent involvement and service? If
you’re moving to a new area, try to locate a good church home before you buy a house.

___________

Get the whole book here.

HT: New Attitude

Great post on cooperation over on the 9Marks blog

Mark Dever was speaking earlier this week at the Acts 29 conference up in Chicago.

I think he's spoken pretty boldly and wisely here:

Our differences are enough to separate some of my friends—your brothers and sisters in Christ—from you. And perhaps to separate them from me, now that I’m publicly speaking to you. And I don’t want to minimize either the sincerity or the seriousness of some of their concerns (things like: humor, worldliness, pragmatism, authority).

But I perceive some things in common which outweigh our differences—which the Lord Jesus shall soon enough compose between us, either by our maturing, or by His bringing us home. I long to work with those, and count it a privilege to work with those whom My Savior has purchased with His blood, and with whom I share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I perceive that we have in common the knowledge that God is glorified in sinners being reconciled to Him through Christ. This is not taught by other religions, nor clearly by the ancient Christian churches of the East, or by Rome, by liberal Protestant churches, by Mormons, the churches of Christ, or by groups of self-righteous, legalistic, moralistic Christians. And not only do we together affirm the exclusivity of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone—we agree on the sovereignty of God in life and salvation, the regenerate nature of church members, the importance of church membership and discipline, the baptism of believers alone, the priorities of expositional preaching, and evangelism, the importance of authority and a growing appreciation for the significance of complementarianism. These are not slight matters. And they only fire my desire to encourage you and cheer you on, until you cross that finish line that the Lord lays down for us.

For more great (and highly amusing) posts about the conference on the blog read here,
here and here.