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1. Sing: I need to get back to this. It can be embarrassing when you’re overheard, at least it is if you sound like me, but trust me, it’ll do you good.
2. In your devotional reading look for a verse or two you can lift and pray directly. Praying scripture populates our devotions with the patterns of God’s own thought revealed.
3. Use applicatory grids to help you screw the truth down into your conscience and make you pray. Here are two:
Philippians 4:8, “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things”. Ask ‘what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy in the truth this text communicates?’
Another grid is 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” How does it teach me? Where does the truth rebuke me? Where, in my thinking or living, do I stand corrected by this text? How does the truth of this text train me for a life of growing daily righteousness? And how, in each of these ways does the message of this text equip me for service?
4. Look for the gospel connection. What is the connection between this text and the redemptive obedience of Christ? How does it push me back to the cross?
5. Cultivate the habit of a running conversation with God throughout the day. Live your day in the context of communion with the Lord. ‘Praying always’
6. Cultivate the habit of thankfulness and don’t wait till your ‘quiet time’ to express it.
7. Confess sin when you become aware of it.
Recently my dear friend James Eglinton, who is currently in Paris for some intensive langauge study, wrote about his experience as an international student and how the church ought to respond to their needs…
“more than ever before I see the necessity of city churches having good international student programmes. I am not complaining of loneliness or wanting sympathy or anything like that. Pas de tout! I mean, I am in a stunning city doing something I love for a month. Life is good.
That said; being an international student, even for a very short time, has nonetheless helped me see afresh that for many international students, life is profoundly lonely and tiring. Your head hurts because you are doing everything in another language. You arrive not knowing anyone else. Making friends with locals is very difficult: in huge cities, the locals generally are not interested in you (there is no novelty in meeting yet another Chinese/American/British/African student for the average Parisien). Yesterday I spoke to a Chinese student who has been in Paris for two years (and who speaks really good French) who does not have a single French friend. He has no local friends, he is an only child, his parents are in China… life is really hard for these guys.
Thankfully, I have already made some great friends through the church – but if it wasn’t for the church, I probably would be in the same boat as the Chinese guy: yet another stranger in a strange land.
International students need friends, warmth, kindness and Christ. We, national Christians, have more reason to fill that need than anyone else. So, when my time here is finished, I will go back to St Columba’s with renewed zeal to make our World Wide Welcome programme take off in the next academic year.” Read the whole post here.
I have been singing the psalms now for 12 years and have just moved from the pastorate in a church that sings them exclusively, for a church in the PCA. Like most, I had come originally from a predominantly hymn-singing church background and I struggled with psalm singing at first. Part of the problem was a love of the grand old hymns on which my faith had largely been nurtured since coming to faith, part was the unfamiliarity of the psalm words and tunes, but there was something more profound going on too.
When you sing the psalms you step into a world that breathes another air than the world of even the finest hymnody. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday as part of our family holiday I visited North Berwick, near Dunbar, within sight of the infamous Covenanter prison, the Bass Rock. Two of the most famous incarcerated on the Rock were John Blackadder, who died for his faith there, and Alexander Peden, known as Peden the Prophet.
Blackadder was born in 1615 and was ordained to the parish of Troqueer in 1652 and ejected from his pulpit in 1662. Although he and his family faced constant persecution, harassment and arrest, originally Blackadder refrained from field preaching. However, as the brutality of the Dragoons grew, he finally gave himself to preaching the gospel of a free, sovereign, salvation at very opportunity for around 20 years. Under his leadership the covenanting church organised, even establishing a sort of church court to help maintain discipline. Read the rest of this entry »
So after almost five years of life and ministry in London my family and I have departed London City Presbyterian Church, for a short time of vacation with family in Scotland before moving on to serve at Main Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus Mississippi.
Here are some lessons I hope I have begun to learn through my time in London:
1. In ministry in a local church, always prioritise spiritual change over structural or organisational change. Without the former who can bear the latter?
2. The gospel really is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. Ministers can’t save anyone. Grasping this truth is the only thing that keeps me climbing the pulpit steps.
3. Churches turn corners spiritually when they pray together. If they don’t, generally speaking, they won’t.
4. Ministry never clashes with family time unless ministers let it. It is vital to keep on plugging away at getting the balance right.
5. In Britain in general, and in the Free Church of Scotland in particular, we suffer from ADD (Affirmation Deficit Disorder). I hope that it has been good for my pride to serve in a context where affirmation does not come easily.
6. While single sermons can have great power to effect change, nothing compares to the drip feed effect of sustained exposure to the teaching of whole books of scripture over a period of years. A huge change in my thinking after 5 years in London has been to expect, as the ordinary pattern, incremental spiritual growth in people through a steady diet of gospel truth over the long haul, rather than cataclysmic life transformation through a single sermon.
7. Being a pastor is not an inoculation against spiritual decline in my own soul.
8. It is vital that I guard against becoming a sermon factory, churning out a manuscript in time for the Sunday deadline. The nurture of my own soul is almost as important to the welfare of my family and my flock as it is to myself.
