The Barnabas Blog

Every year about this time, the boys and I ride a 100K (62.5 miles) for Sheaves for Christ. This is a program that helps assist missionaries with vehicles. It also provides the opportunity for college-aged young men and women to gain scholarships to Bible colleges and the Urshan Graduate School of Theology. It also helps with a diversity of other youth programs that not only affect the nation but the world at large. In addition to this, it also provides the ability to start new churches in target areas within the US . We are on a countdown because we will be riding on September 9, 2006. We have been riding quite a bit this year already but we have stepped up our “training” in the last few weeks. Yesterday, we round 15 miles in 94 degree weather. It was a few hours after a major thunderstorm and so the humidity was at 74%. Needless to say, it was quite hot and humid! Justin, Nathan, and I need all the help that we can get ...

I am going to pick back up my reading list for pastors and ministers. Previously, I have mentioned some tools for personal growth and then a reading list by E. E. Jolley . This post will draw your attention to some very good tools that are specifically related to sermon preparation. In my estimation, the most challenging thing about preaching is that it is very weekly. Because preaching is very weekly, if one is not careful the preaching can be delivered very weakly. As one elder minister told me one time, “Sunday comes around pretty regular.” This is precisely what makes preaching so demanding. We have to take into consideration schedules that sometimes become filled uncontrollable circumstances and demands. I feel at times that a minister’s schedule is something that the enemy will use to try to dictate and control the amount of time we spend in the Word. Most ministers who are willing to be honest, feel that there are times when the preached Word literally cleare...

Summer is winding down and although we will still have several weeks of warm weather, school has started back thus ending “summer.” While most of us enjoy those somewhat lazy days of summer that come with school being out, the older that I get the more that I realize that sometimes the summer season can cause a loss of focus. When school starts back, many churches begin to see their attendance creeping back up because, for the most part, all of the traveling days are over. The routine of the schedule actually gives great stability to order in life. I can remember that during the summer vacation, Mark and I would always go and spend a couple of weeks with my grandparents over in Andalusia , Alabama . We would spend a week at the beginning of the summer and one more at the end of the summer just before school started back again. My grandparents lived on a farm although when we went because of their age, they no longer active...