"I Pray the Spirit of Holiness on You"

I love hospitals!  Perhaps that is a strange confession to make but I spent almost 30 years of my life working in four hospitals.  The bulk of those years were spent in Flowers Hospital here in Dothan.  There is another hospital here in Dothan which a few of the old-timers remember as General Hospital, which became Southeast Alabama Medical Center, and has now morphed into Southeast Health.  I worked in their emergency department for a brief period on a PRN (as needed) basis in the late ‘80’s.  When I was in Houston attending Texas Bible College, I worked for a year at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital/Texas Heart Institute in a very busy CVICU.  It was there that the famed Dr. Denton Cooley carved out an international reputation as one of the world’s premier cardiovascular surgeons.  He had some excellent partners who did not have international notoriety but were very skilled in their craft as well.  People from all over the nation and the world came to Texas Heart Institute for their surgeries and transplants. 

A Story Behind this Barnabas Letter from September 12, 1995

I am reposting a Barnabas Letter that I wrote over thirty years ago.  Recently when I was trying to track down some Bible study notes, I found a treasure.  It was a three-ring binder that was full of letters that I had written to others and that had been written to me.  A long time ago, we used to write letters to each other and frankly I do miss some of those days.  I can remember the first prominent minister that I wrote a letter to.  It was to T.F. Tenney, the long-time district superintendent of Louisiana.  I had heard him preach in 1994 at our UPCI General Conference and in that message, he had mentioned that he wrote letters to young preachers and so I wrote to him one after I got back home.  I found that letter along with several others that he had written to me that had the Louisiana district letterhead on it. Two of those letters were personal letters and five others were ones that he had written to other young men. 

The Crucial Impact of Some Early Teachers

Lately the seriousness of approaching my seventh decade of life has been profitable and sobering.  I think that one of the specific marks of aging is that you can look back and see with greater clarity and insight as to why you are walking the present path you are on.  I have had some excellent teachers who have contributed greatly to my life.  Some of the early teachers from middle school and high school years deserve another day of recollection to honor them.  But my thoughts have been with three of them in the range of 1985-86 when I was in RN school.  It is almost shocking when December of 2026 arrives that I graduated from RN school forty years ago.  I am in a different place now than what I anticipated on that night that I shook that hand of Dr. Nathan Hodges at that commencement ceremony.  But I can acknowledge clearly that the Lord has directed everything in my life to this point and I am in belief that He will continue to do the same until I reach the finish line. 

The three teachers that my reminiscing recalled were all biology teachers at Wallace Community College in Dothan.  Back then everything was on a quarter system, not a semester structure as it is now.   It was the winter quarter of 1985 and I was barely eighteen years old.  That time stamp allowed me to be dropped into the first of two required quarters of Anatomy and Physiology.  The teacher of A&P showed up late that January morning, I think it may have been 15-20 minutes or so before he arrived.  I had heard about him by reputation but had not seen him until that morning.  He was a tall burly guy named Gerald Bryant.  He shows up in a beaded and fringed-sleeved deer skin jacket, a red checked flannel shirt, blue Levi’s, and some of the craziest looking boots that came just below his knees.  He had his Levi’s tucked into them and he looked more equipped for a mountain hike than to teach an A&P class.  Long-haired with a massive Duck Dynasty beard thirty years before Robertson boys ever showed up.  It was a little shocking for me due to my very sheltered upbringing at home and the classes at Rehobeth High School. 

Death from a Thousand Tiny Cuts

I was sitting across from a good friend of mine, Pastor Ben Weeks, in Sonny’s BBQ in Thomasville, Georgia, when he dropped a spiritual MOAB on me.  The picture that his words had painted were clear, obvious, direct, and almost shocking to me.  So much so that I could hardly even say anything for a good 30 seconds or a minute, the missile had pegged me right where I lived on that day.  I can remember the conversation leading up to the moment that day.  My world had been marked by some personal major health issues, an incredibly challenging building program filled with trouble, and the general hectic pace of moving through church life and my own private spiritual world.  It was on that day he told me a parable of sorts that continues to resonate even now despite the fact that it has been more than two years ago.  It had been a day of shoptalk for two Spirit-filled preachers about the need for revival, the hunger for conversions and spiritual growth among those who we were seeking to pastor, and the necessary disciplines of personal spiritual progress.  He had mentioned some sermons he had recently listened to and some that he had preached.  He also had spent some time with a couple of notable elders among us and shared with me some of their wisdom that he had gleaned.  We also talked about one of our favorite subjects as well; books—both secular and spiritual—and about the craft, the art, the work, and the discipline of preaching and sermon preparation.  What he and I both have discovered long ago about preaching is that it is more a work of the soul than of the actual preaching event itself.  (If you are wondering how I could remember these details from two and half years ago, it is not a good memory but a good journal and fountain pen) There are demands that are made on the life of every preacher from the mental, the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual zones of our lives.  

Book Recommendation - Text Driven Preaching: God's Word at the Heart of Every Sermon - Daniel L. Akin et al

I have long grown accustomed to the understanding that very few people really understand what is involved in truly good preaching.  Not motivational, encouraging, self-help ‘grab yourself by the bootstraps’ and just do it preaching but heart-felt, Scripturally-driven, Holy-Spirit anointed preaching.  It is this kind of preaching that not only will the preacher know that he has been on fire for God but the hearers of that message will realize that it is far more than just a time block that has been filled with religious routine.  But the challenge from getting to from a simple biblical text to that point of powerfully speaking for God has a lot of hindrances, snares, and traps that every preacher will at some point find in his sermon preparation.  Because I have now been preaching for almost thirty years, I find one of those ways that I can improve is to read books about preaching. 

Book Recommendation--A Guide to Expository Ministry--Dan Dumas, Editor

One of the genres of books that I enjoy as a preacher is the group that deals with act and art of preaching itself.  If you have read this blog for any length of time, you have discovered that I have recommended a lion’s share of books about preaching—most have been to do with expository preaching.  It is good for preachers to continue to read books that will sharpen their skills as a preacher.  Because I believe that preaching—both the delivery by the preacher and the listening by the hearer—is an act of worship, I believe a preacher should do everything within his power to get better at preaching.  One of the ways that we can get better is to read books about preaching.

Last week, a friend of mine, Wayne Naylor, sent me a book, A Guide to Expository Ministry which has been edited by Dan Dumas.  It is a little over a hundred pages in length and it is packed with very good advice.  However, the advice in this book comes from a bit of a different angle in that it addresses the expositor in the first half and the listener in the second half.  I believe that churches that trend toward expository, verse-by-verse preaching goes a long way to creating something that takes place in the pews.  What takes place in the pews is a heightened awareness of the power of Scripture.  So Dumas and his covey of writers are working the angles of both the preacher’s responsibility and the saint’s duty as well. 

The Need for Pastor Theologians

There is something that takes place when you began to move beyond that middle point of life.  You tend to look back in retrospect at time and opportunity that was squandered.  You look forward with much more concern about the great values and virtues of a spiritual life than what was in those early years of youthful inexperience.  Age uniquely brings a sobriety, a seriousness, a focus, and at times even a sense of grimness to the mind.  This is especially true for a Christian pastor, or in my thoughts, it should be.  One of those areas of my own personal calling and ministry that I am looking back to are the countless times that I said, “I am an assistant pastor, preacher, minister not a theologian.”  Increasingly as my preaching style has drastically changed from my earlier years from topical preaching to much more expository preaching, I have been greatly convicted by the Spirit of God and my interaction with the Word of God that pastors need to be

What Is Good Preaching?

 I have just recently come home from the UPCI General Conference held in Indianapolis, Indiana.  A couple of the Thursday morning seminars provoked my thoughts for this blog.  The first was by Raymond Woodward, “Why I Call Myself a Teacher,” and the second one was by Jerry Jones, “Preaching and Revival.”  Both of the sessions highlighted the matter of preaching and its crucial importance for our churches and our world.  I was again drawn back to the fact that even though there are a wide diversity of demands made on pastor/teachers and evangelists in our day, we can ill afford to let our preaching slip way down the list of our priorities.  There is absolutely nothing that is as important as good preaching in our churches.  But that gives rise to a very good question—what is good preaching?

Book Recommendation: Unashamed Workmen: How Expositors Prepare and Preach - Rhett Dodson

Increasingly I am much encouraged by some of the conversations that I am having with various Pentecostal pastors around the nation.  It is becoming more and more common that I am finding men who are paying the price with discipline and diligence to really dig into the Word so that their preaching has taken a different direction.  This direction change is coming because of the challenges that we are facing in our culture and the deep moral depravity that is assaulting the church.  We also have to contend more and more with the onward advancement of various world religions that are making inroads to the United States.  Our preaching has to change to meet those challenges for we can no longer afford to simply preach to the moment so that people get out of their seats and flutter about for a little while to satisfy some shallow emotional need they need to feel better about. 

Isn't That Something?

I have been revisiting some of my journal scribblings from the last four years or so and have found a variety of thoughts I had written down.  Some of those scribblings had to do with little mental or spiritual stimulations that I thought I would put on this blog.  This post comes about from three different entries that I have merged together.  The first one was from Eugene Peterson’s very fine memoir, The Pastor and the other two were blog entries that Thom Rainer had written which dealt with pastoral ministry.  Peterson’s angle was that pastors have fallen into the trap of being turned into church growth gurus and it has cost them the priority of their own spiritual life of prayer, personal Bible reading/study (you would be shocked how many pastors don’t read the Bible on a regular basis), and the practice of spiritual disciplines which include the previous two and a host of others.  His fear was that pastors are being turned into executive automatons who can drive cattle about on a range but have lost the art of leading sheep through still pastures.  Rainer wrote about the dilemmas pastors face in the church which contribute to great dilemmas in the soul of the pastor.  The best way to describe it would be to say that the little foxes have gained an entrance and they are spoiling a harvest. 

Only 30%

Several weeks ago I had a very thought provoking discussion with my brother about Pentecostal preaching.  In 1992 my parents gave Mark a new Thompson Chain reference Bible for Christmas.  It wasn’t too long after that he began to use this Bible as his primary Bible as his everyday carry.  He used it for devotional matters, he used it at Texas Bible College in the classroom, and he also used it to preach.  One of the other things he did with this Bible was underline every sermon he heard during a twenty-year period.  After retiring this Bible in 2012, he discovered something very interesting about this Bible.  He went back and looked at all of the Scriptures that he had underlined when he was listening to preachers.  He noted that during that twenty-year time period that he had heard approximately 3,500 messages.  This came from a variety of places.  Obviously the bulk of these came from the local churches where he had attended during that twenty-year time period.  There were other unique places where he had listened to preaching.  He had been in multiple chapel services at TBC, he had gone to several of the larger Pentecostal churches in the Houston area, and he had been to various conferences although he had not attended as many as I have through the years. 

On Pastoral Criticism--Part 1

There is one occupational hazard of a calling into the ministry, especially that of being a pastor, that seems to hurt more and grate at ministers more than any other—having to endure criticism.  It is one of the necessary pieces of territory that comes with holding a public place in ministry.  Even though it is painful to endure and it is understood that we have to deal with it, it has the capacity to create overwhelming waves of discouragement and free-falls into the abyss of despair.  No matter how faithful a man may be or how diligent he is in his work ethic, criticism is coming to a local church near you.  If you are district official, it is coming to district near you and there is nothing we can do to make us protected from it.

There will be waves of criticism that seem to come from every direction at times and then there will be periods when all seems to be at rest and you walk through life and ministry without a peep so to speak.  After having been involved in ministry for almost 30 years, I have come to realize that there is a fringe that every church has that is always buzzing about something.  Early in my ministry, I was very concerned about this fringe of the “mixed multitude” and what they were saying and doing.  However as the years have passed, I have come to believe what the Proverbs recommends, “Answer not a folly according to his folly” (Proverbs 26:4).  The best course is to leave them alone and let your only form of protest be the excellence of your work.  Let your work, your life, and your ethics stand in the face of criticism.  

A Conversation with UPCI Assistant General Superintendent (Eastern Zone) Paul Mooney

Yesterday, I shared with you the conversation that I enjoyed with the UPCI General Superintendent, David Bernard.  This blog is going to cover the gist of several conversations that I had with UPCI Assistant General Superintendent (Eastern Zone) Paul Mooney.

I have known Brother Mooney for quite a number of years.  I suppose the first time I officially met him was around 2004 or so at an Alabama District Men’s Conference.  Since that time he has preached at several camp meetings in Alabama in addition to a district conference.  He is one of the most uniquely brilliant men I have ever met!  He has a very gifted mind and you find that to be very obvious when you begin to interact with him because all of the times you spend with him there isn’t an ounce of wasted energy or time.  He also serves dual role as the pastor at the historic CalvaryTabernacle in Indianapolis and as the president of Indiana Bible College.  If ever there was an ardent supporter of apostolic doctrine and identity in this generation, he certainly falls into that category.

Apt to Teach - Part 2

I have a few more thoughts to add to the idea of this challenge that comes with being “apt to teach.”  As I revisited this passage again in 1 Timothy 3, it is important to point out that this is the only skill or practice that Paul notes is specific to the church.  He very well could and must be a teacher to his family but the overarching purpose of being apt to teach is that he provides instruction to the church.  We also must give consideration to the idea that all of the character traits that Paul lists; blameless, husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, not given to wine, no striker (not violent), not greedy of filthy lucre, patient, not a brawler, covetous, ruling his own house well, having his children in subjection, not a novice, and having a good report of those that are around him; that all of these matters will have a great impact on his ability to teach.  If these matters are compromised, his public ministry of teaching will be publically ignored and privately mocked and scorned.  This matter of character in apostolic ministry has far more reaching boundaries than most of us who are in public ministry grasp and understand.  You cannot separate your life and practice from your doctrine. 

Apt To Teach - Part 1

Last year as I floundered through writing out the Pastoral Epistles in a journal with a fountain pen (all in the great hopes that my cursive handwriting would improve), I found an intriguing quality that was listed by Paul.  He instructed that a man who was desired the work of a bishop (KJV), overseer and bondservant (ESV), servant (ESV), and superintendent and overseer (Amplified) be “apt to teach”.  I was particularly struck by this phrase as I wrote the words from Weymouth.  He translated 1 Timothy 3:2 as “with a gift for teaching” and in 2 Timothy 2:24 as “a skillful teacher.”  The Amplified Bible also had a remarkable rendering also for in 1 Timothy 3:2 it is “a capable and qualified teacher” and 2 Timothy 2:24 it was “he must be a skilled and suitable teacher.”

I am certain that all students have at one point had a teacher or two or three who really stood out from the rest of the mix as someone who pushed your life in a direction of excellence.  I personally have had some who did that very thing for me as I have navigated through my years of education.  I have been incredibly blessed to have taken part in a wide range of education both in the classroom and clinical setting.  What I have realized is that of all the teachers that I ran across there were just handful who could fall into the category of being an excellent teacher.  It is apparent that Paul fell into the category of exceptional.  You can see his excellence coming through in a variety of ways when you read the account in Acts and scattered throughout his epistles.

Continuing Education for Ministers--Fundamentals of Expository Preaching

Here is another very good resource for our continuing education for minister’s series.  If you have been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you are very much aware that a lot of time and attention has been given to preaching.  The reason for this is because I believe it is the highest priority that a pastor can devote his time to.  Obviously after you have been preaching for a while, you can get into a rut in the preparation process and there are a wealth of resources on the internet to help us to be better preachers.   

You also know that I always put a disclaimer out when I recommend books and other resources—keep the meat and toss the bones.  Such is true for this same series of videos.  There are close to fifteen hours of instruction here and you can treat it as if you are attending class.  I encourage you to do this!  Take notes and develop the principles so that you can become clear voice for God. 

Continuing Education for Ministers--Preaching the Psalms by Steven J. Lawson

Because continuing education is a part of what a minister ought to do, I have been attempting to put up some resources that have been useful for me. In the fall of 2012, I attended the Expositors Conference that was hosted by Steven Lawson in Mobile, Alabama. At that conference a very nice “grab-bag” of books were given to those who attended. I think the cost was $75 but just what was in the bag alone was worth more than what the registration fee was. A number of Christian book publishers were represented that had focused their publishing on matters of preaching and other resources to help preachers. The commentaries and the books on preaching were incredibly priced. One of the books that I bought was “Preaching the Psalms: Unlocking the Unsearchable Riches of David’s Treasury.” I had little idea that this book was going to be as good as it was.

Continuing Education for Ministers--The Mechanics of Preaching

I am presently in the midst of doing a series of blogs that is encouraging the continuing education aspect of the minister.  This next resource is one that I have immensely benefited from.  I am not sure how I found it but the content is actually a seminary level class that on the mechanics of preaching.  It has almost 15 hours of classroom instruction by Steven Lawson.  I can vouch for the content as I have worked through more than half of the lectures and used them as if I were in the classroom.  There are aspects of homiletics with an emphasis on expository preaching in these lectures.  Lawson also gives several examples of how to work through a passage and then shows the actual sermon notes he used to preach from.   

Continuing Education for Ministers--Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology

I am working on a series of blog posts that deal with the necessity of continuing education for ministers.  The first post was along the lines of the necessity of and reason for continuing education.  While I believe that prayer and ministry of the Word are the major priorities of the minister most of these resources will be tailored toward areas of helping us to get better with that.  I need to always add the necessary disclaimer and say that just because I am pointing to these resources, it does not mean that I am entirely endorsing the content.  However, I can say that in my own experience it was reading and studying things I did not agree with that either helped me to shore up my own beliefs or helped me to change according to what the Scriptures were clearly promoting as doctrine. 

I recently read an article written by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  The title was “The Pastor as Theologian” and he noted the great decline in theological acumen when theology was turned into an academic discipline to be taught only in seminaries.  “Every pastor is called to be a theologian.  This may come as a surprise to some pastors who see theology as an academic discipline taken during seminary rather than as an ongoing and central part of the pastoral calling.  Nevertheless, the health of the church depends upon its pastors functioning as faithful theologians—teaching, preaching, defending and applying the great doctrines of the faith.”  Mohler made it clear in his article that the pastoral calling meant that we are to give our minds, hearts, and tongues to the great quest of knowing Scripture and then clearly teaching it to those who are under our care (2 Tim. 1:13-14; 2:2; 4:2-4).  A pastor is to guard and protect the flock and this calls for a clear and well-defined preaching of the Scriptures.  The only way for a man to do this with freshness, clarity, and authority is for him to become immersed in the theology of the Scriptures.