Acts Forum: The Sanctity of Life

As a follow-up to the post from January 31st on Cultivating A Culture of Life, we would like to make available a message delivered by Dr. Mark Liederbach. This message was delivered as a part of the Acts Forum teaching ministry at Providence Baptist Church. Dr. Liederbach is an associate professor of Christian Ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

The message can be listened to or downloaded at the
Providence Baptist Church Acts Forum audio download site.

A Must Read For Men In Ministry

Coming soon to a bookstore near you is a must read for all men in ministry. The book is entitled, A Practical Guide For Life And Ministry. The author, David Horner, brings to this work 30 years of ministry experience. The things that he shares in this book reflect the character and integrity of a man who has overcome the pitfalls of vocational ministry by resting completely in God's sovereign grace. I say this without hesitation because this author is also my pastor.

I have sat under David's teaching for over 10 years. His clarity of focus, his passion for the Gospel and for the sufficiency of Scripture, and his love for his family has been a model that has inspired me greatly. God has his hand on David's ministry and you only stand to benefit from reading and applying the wisdom that you will find in this book.

A Practical Guide For Life And Ministry will be available in early March. A brief synopsis of the book can be found at the Baker Books website. It is also available for pre-order from Amazon. More information can be found about David and his teaching ministry at the Providence Baptist Church website.

Churches Live or Die By The Family

It may not come as a shock to many of you, but according to Professor W. Bradford Wilcox at the University of Virginia the success of the church is inseparably tied to the success of the traditional family. The research of Professor Wilcox was featured in Dr. Al Mohler's blog today. The entry can be found by clicking here.

According to Professor Wilcox,

Currently, men are 57 percent less likely to attend church regularly if they are not married with children, compared to men who are married with children. Women are 41 percent less likely to attend church regularly if they are single and childless. Marriage does more than bind a man to one woman; it also ties a man to a local congregation.

If anything this research should be a wake-up call for the church. What are we doing to create an environment that builds strong families. When I examine the weekly schedules of some churches, I have to scratch my head and just wonder what are they thinking. I will never understand how we have been sold on the bill of goods that in order to minister to families we have to separate them, throw activities at them, and condition students to depend on pastors instead of parents for discipleship. Shameful.

I hope that you will take the opportunity to read this article and think about the ramifications. Look at how your church treats its families. Especially take note of how your church treats the families of its pastors. If we wonder why our families in the pews are broken its because the families of many of our pastors are just as broken. We expect our pastors to live at church and minister to our families to the neglect of their own. Pastors, if you are reading this, don't let another week slip by without challenging your families to return to a biblical model. Set the example by arranging your schedule to center around your family first. The family you save may be your own and according to Dr. Mohler and Professor Wilcox you may be saving your church to boot.

Some Numbers To Think About

I know that I’ve railed against the use of numbers in evaluating ministry. I stand by what I’ve said and I still believe that many pastors are practicing a cult of numbers. Just listen to a couple of pastors talk and time them to see how long it takes for one to ask the other, “Whatcha running?” There are some numbers, however, that are useful in measuring your success. In fact, if these numbers are bad then you can mark it down that you are headed for a train-wreck in your ministry.

The numbers that I am referring to are numbers like:

The number of hours you spend each week loving your wife as Christ loved the church

The number of hours of undivided attention you give your children each week

The number of times you sit the family down together for a meal and talk and have fun

The number of times a week you and your family spend time reading the Bible and praying together

The number of times you pray for your wife and children each week

It is tragic to see a pastor grow a ministry where scores of people are filling the pews only to find out that his family has been ignored and neglected. Yet for all the warnings, I see and hear of pastors every week who know their staff and their deacons better than they know their children. God have mercy!

Not everyone is intended to have children. In fact some people choose not to. That decision is between them and the Lord. If, however, you have chosen to have children, and make no mistake they are a blessing (Psalm 127:4-5). Then you had better love on them, disciple them (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), and raise them to honor God (Proverbs 22:6). Sometimes this means doing things you don’t like to do or want to do. Some times it may mean going home instead of going on visitation, or not having a lock-in with your youth so that you can stay up late with your children instead.

All of you know of the great work of Dr. James Dobson. His ministry spans generations and reaches around the globe. What you might not be aware of is how he almost never came to be. When he was a junior in high school, his dad was an evangelist whose star was on the rise. His dad would spend days on the road speaking at churches, conferences, and other public gatherings. One day he got a letter from his wife telling him that James Jr. was out of control. She told him that he had become too much for her to handle and that he needed to come home right away. James Sr. had a choice to make. In a matter of days, he came home, he put his house up for sale, and he moved his family to a town where he took a church so that he could be at home to see his son through the last two years of high school.

After James Jr. graduated, James Sr. tried to pick up where he left off two years earlier. In that time many of the older pastors that were familiar with James Sr.’s ministry had retired. He received very few invitations to come and speak. The decision to come home had cost him his ministry but the result was a son who had straightened out his life and who would later start a ministry of his own called Focus On The Family. Do you think James Dobson Jr. may have been led to do this because of the example of his dad? Chew on that bone for a while.

You can do the math, but rest assured that when we stand before God He’s not going to ask us how many hours we spent at church this week.