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Ministry

Why is it so Hard to Reform Baptist Denominations?

Baptist denominations in North America appear to be navigating through some very choppy waters at the moment. Some of the concerns have to do with doctrine, others have to do with practice, but all of them are complicated by polity. One of the challenges with Baptist denominational polity is that the people on the governing boards and committees are often chosen on the basis of representative criteria, which means they tend to represent the problems and divisions plaguing the fellowship in roughly the same proportion as the general constituency. This leaves the leadership group doubly disinclined to pursue reform. A: Because...

Paul Carter

Be the Predictable Pastor

Reuben Bredenhof

Be ready in season and out of season. (2 Tim. 4:2) People don’t aspire to predictability. We value spontaneity and freshness above being conventional or routine. Yet a minister of the gospel should be this for his people: the predictable pastor. That is not the same as saying the pastor is boring or uninteresting or that he never does things on the spur of the moment. But it is saying that he is consistent. His ministry will be marked by a reliability that speaks of his deep devotion to Christ and to Christ’s flock. When Paul exhorted Timothy to preach...

Is A Pastor the Same Thing as an Elder?

Paul Carter

If you move about between evangelical churches of a “baptistic” and “congregational” strain, you are likely to encounter a variety of practices and norms with respect to the use and definition of the terms “pastor” and “elder”. In some churches, the terms are synonymous: pastors are elders and elders are pastors. In other churches, the elders are volunteer leaders, while the pastors are leaders who are paid. In some churches, there are several elders and one Lead Pastor. In other churches, there are several pastors, only one of whom is considered an elder. Further examples of unique usage could no...

Sharing Without Shipwrecks

Andrew VanderPloeg

Shipwrecks. Mobs. Imprisonment. When we think about evangelism, naturally, the Apostle Paul comes to mind. The apostle was a committed missionary whose journeys stretched across the Roman world, from Antioch to Philippi to Ephesus. His experience of sharing the gospel was harrowing. He faced hostile crowds (Acts 14), cold prison floors (Acts 16), and literal shipwrecks (Acts 27). For good reason, his life should inspire and instruct us, but we should not expect that sharing our faith will inevitably lead to disaster. Still, reluctance to share the gospel remains widespread. And one of the biggest reasons for that is that...

Where the Gospel Still Costs Everything

Steve Lambert

A few years ago, two Brazilian women showed up at the church I pastor and asked to look at our archives because they were writing a book about a missionary who was sent out by our church in the 1930s. This young woman, named Ernestine Horne, sailed to Brazil in 1934. The next year, she started a training school for women that has since grown into a global ministry called Betel Brasileiro. The small training school for women grew into a Bible college and seminary for training pastors and missionaries. They have trained thousands of students in more than twenty...

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