From a sermon on Acts 2 by Bob Thune of Coram Deo in Omana, NE.

1. Gospel dis-inculturation (the gospel confronts the attitudes and beliefs inherited from culture)
2. Biblical and theological depth
3. Rich community
4. Joyful, reverent worship
5. Missional flow

Being in a college town means there should always be a desire to reach the next generation, the college students, with the gospel. If you want to hear how to do that, listen to this sermon by Kevin DeYoung. Kevin is a “pretty big deal” in the evangelical world, writing books and speaking at conferences. He’s also the pastor of a local church, in his case University Reformed Church in East Lansing, MI. What Kevin shares in this sermon is a model every church should follow to engage the next generation with the gospel. We should

• Grab them with passion
• Win them with love
• Hold them with holiness
• Challenge them with truth
• Amaze them with God

This is a challenge to us at Grace as we look towards a new chapter at our church with the recent hire of Tyson Lemke. We need to understand that while a Senior Pastor will lead us, he cannot do the work of ministry for us. We individually need to be committed to making and sending disciples and planting churches. This is the model of engagement and connection that the Bible teaches and one that we ignore to our peril and sin.

This post by Aaron Menikoff about the recent death of a longtime member of his previous church is touching, and especially appropriate for my church. I’m praying that we find people who similarly “love (the) church enough to allow it to change in ways that kept it alive and kept it preaching the gospel”

GCR refers to the Great Commission Resurgence, the Southern Baptist task force that is attempting to influence a huge denomination to be more missional and have more kingdom impact. Nathan Akin recently wrote about how the church he attends is a model GCR church. Here are some highlights.

First, my church strives after the glory of God in all things with a strong emphasis on the Scriptures and Gospel-Centrality.

This works itself out in a commitment to expository preaching

In addition, this has led us to a focus on discipleship

First, there is a membership process; this comes directly out of our belief in the Baptist distinctive of “Regenerate Church Membership.”

Next, members are integrated into a small group, which is the primary means of discipleship and community in our church.

Finally, in the context of Gospel-Centrality, there is a focus on being as diverse as the community around us.

Second, our church is adamant about the primacy of the local church

Shepherd’s Training

The elders invite these men that they have identified into the 2-year program; it is not open to everyone. He is then paired with an Elder or leader in the church, along with one other trainee. This leader focuses on personal development and maturity with him. In addition, there is a focus on accountability and the character necessary for an elder. He meets with this Elder/leader every other week to go through these things and to work through memorizing the Pastoral Epistles. In addition, he also meets every other week with all those in the program and all the trainers. Each “semester” during the 2-year cycle focuses on a different aspect of pastoral ministry and leadership. The every other week meeting focuses on the portion of the Pastoral Epistles that was to be memorized that week. One of the Elders then leads through an exposition of that passage and the other elders add thoughts on the passage as well. Next, all the trainees are required to read a book for the week, examples of books read are Baxter’s “The Reformed Pastor,” Dever’s “Nine Marks of a Healthy Church,” Spurgeon’s “Lectures to My Students,” and Bonheoffer’s “Life Together.” Each week, two of the trainees deliver an oral book review of the book for that week and then ask questions of the book that the elders answer and discuss. Finally, the night ends with one of the elders lecturing on an area of pastoral ministry and then discussion of that topic among the elders and trainees. The topics range from “why we employ small groups” to “regenerate church membership.” In addition, during the semester the trainees write two position papers on topics of interest in pastoral ministries. The topics of these papers are things like, view of spiritual gifts in ministry, use of alcohol in ministry, view of divorce and remarriage, and view of church government. Finally, each trainee is to work on a ministry project in some area of church life.  The goal is to lead to the training of future elders and church planters through life on life training. This is the best way to evaluate whether a man possess the qualifications of an Elder and if they are ready to take on a role such as that.

Finally, in the focus of church primacy, my home church does church planting and missions “in house.”

This focus on the primacy of the local church does not mean that my church does not seek to be aided by the convention structures, but it means that they do not farm out missions’ work or church planting to an outside organization.

Finally, how does my church focus on missional living?

First, there is a focus on the small groups being missional. They are all to carry out community projects in our “We Love North Raleigh” campaign

Second, as has been mentioned, we focus on missional living through church planting

In addition, the church has worked hard at overseas and cross-cultural missions

Having never made pastoral visits before, and having never been visited by a pastor, it’s kind of a black box with lots of unknowns. David Murray’s overview of a “normal” pastoral visit is really helpful.

First, I prepare for visitation with prayer. I take a few minutes or so to pray for the family I am about to visit. During that time I make sure I know the names of both the adults and the children, I remind myself of what each is doing in their lives, and I make a mental note of any special needs or concerns that we had previously talked about.

Second, for the first 15 minutes or so of the visit, I try to chat to the family about what’s going on in their lives: how’s the job, the kids, school, etc. If there was some important local or national issue we might talk about that as well. Obviously, this sometimes stretches quite a bit beyond 15 minutes. And sometimes it is difficult to change the topic to something more “spiritual.” However, I like to “break the ice” in this way. I don’t think this is pragmatic or manipulative. As a pastor, I am interested in the spiritual welfare of my flock above everything else; but I am also interested in every area of their lives. I enjoy hearing about their vacations, their jobs, their schools, their friends, etc. I enjoy seeing and savoring the different personalities and characters. Often, issues arise in these conversations which we could never have predicted, taking us into the Scriptures in a very natural way (I’m always looking for opportunities to relate God’s Word to the person’s world). Usually it just helps everyone to relax a bit and makes it easier to move into more directly “spiritual” issues. I agree with the old saying, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Sometimes I find it helpful to share a bit from my own life and family. I try to show that I have a normal family life with all its joys, worries, and sorrows. Obviously you have to be careful here. You don’t want to “let it all hang out,” and you don’t want to spend too much time talking about yourself. However, some people find it easier to open up if the pastor himself is prepared to do so.

Third, the main aim of a pastoral visit is to have a conversation about spiritual matters. Sometimes that’s very easy, as mature Christians especially will be used to pastoral visits and will probably have some spiritual questions to ask, or some spiritual topics they want to talk about. But, for the sake of this post, let’s assume that you are visiting people who are not used to spiritual conversation. How do you guide the conversation to produce a profitable discussion? Until now, I’ve never sat down and thought about what questions I ask people. But I’ve tried below to list some questions that have been helpful. It’s important to ask these questions in a friendly and natural way, rather than in an accusatory or “clipboard” way. Sometimes I find it easier to direct some of these questions to the children initially, as they often talk much more freely about spiritual matters.

• Is there anything you would like me to pray for?
• What have you been reading in your Bible? Anything that’s helped you or puzzled you?
• What do you find difficult about reading the Bible?
• What do you feel burdened about in prayer?
• Is there anything you would like to hear a sermon on? Any verses you would like explained?
• Are there any sermons that you’ve found helpful… confusing… challenging?
• What did you think about the sermon on…?
• Would you say you are going forward spiritually, or backwards?
• Are you reading any good Christian books? Is there anything you want to share from it?
• Have you found any verses that are helping you to live life and prepare for eternity?
• What gifts do you think the Lord has given you? Do you feel the church is making most use of your gifts?
• How would you describe yourself: Unsaved, saved and sure of it, or not sure?
• Do you think much about death and life after death? Do you feel prepared for that? How are you preparing?
• What is your hope of heaven? What reason will you give for being admitted there?
• What do you think of Jesus Christ?
• What would you most like to change in your life?
• What is your greatest fear?
• Are you facing any difficult challenges?
• Is there any one thing that stops you from following Christ?
• Children, what have you been learning in Sunday School?
• Do you have any questions for me?

Maybe only one question will be required to start a profitable conversation. The ultimate aim is to find out where people are spiritually, and how you can help them either to be saved, to be sanctified, or to be of more service to the church.

Fourth, finishing the visit can sometimes be difficult, especially with older and lonely people who have lots of time on their hands. You need to keep good track of the time (with unnoticed glances at a watch or clock), especially if you have another visit arranged. I usually let people know when I arrive that I have to be somewhere else at a certain time. That helps to focus the visit a bit, and also avoids people thinking you are bored with them, when you eventually have to draw the visit to a close. You can always arrange to return, if necessary.

And even if you don’t have anywhere else to go, don’t overstay your welcome. If you start to detect cues that it’s time for you to go (people obviously looking at watches, some members of the family disappearing, longer silences, etc), then go!

But not without prayer and reading of the Bible.

During the course of the conversation you should be making mental notes of matters for prayer. And in the concluding prayer, try to gather up these various pieces of information and pray about each of them – even trivial matters raised by young children. Also, try to pick a relevant chapter of Scripture to read, a chapter that speaks to their needs. Try to show how prayer and Bible reading should impact ordinary life. Maybe ask the children questions about the passage?

Fifth, pray about the visit in the car on the way home or when you get home. Maybe take notes about anything you should follow up on with a note in your diary to phone again in a few weeks. Also, maybe think about how a sermon might be able to help that family.

Here is how Brian Croft pastors his congregation by praying for and contacting each of them intentionally at least one time a month

I created a prayer guide with each member of the church broken into a 28 day chart in alphabetical order.  This is to represent the first 28 days of each month.  On day 1, I pray for those 5-6 people or families.  Then, I try to make some kind of personal contact with them that day in the form of a home visit, email, hand written card, phone call, facebook note, or text message to let them know I prayed for them on that day.  Lastly, I ask in that moment of personal contact if there is anything I can do to serve them.  For those I haven’t seen recently, I will usually call or go see them to get an update on how they are doing in general.

I repeat the same process for day 2, then day 3…all the way to day 28.  If I am faithful and consistent in this process (which I never do perfectly) I would have prayed and made contact with all those who have been entrusted in my care in one month.  Any extra days of the month I do the same thing with our missionaries and others we have sent into ministry from our church.

This became such a fruitful system to keep up with all our folks that I took it to our other pastors/elders and they began to do it also.  It became such a fruitful system for each of us as pastors that we made a chart for our members and encouraged them to pray for each other in the same way as a prayer guide for our church.  Several of the members have even adopted the model of the pastors to contact folks that day they pray for them.   It has been amazing the fruit that has come from many of our members taken this task to pray for one another seriously.

On our women’s retreat last month, one of our dear ladies in the church led our ladies in a project to take that chart and transfer it to index cards that can sit on their table a home in the form of a flip calendar.  Each morning, you just flip to the next day and you see who you are to be praying for that day.  Since putting this on the table in our home, our children now make an assertive effort to pray for those appointed for that day.

I read the Jesus Storybook Bible to Malachi each night. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day. As I read it, and think about its theme of “Every Story Whispers His Name,” I reflect on all of the sermons I’ve heard that don’t have Jesus at the center. They may talk about Him and the cross, but the application of sermon still becomes all about me instead of being all about Him. For instance, I recently listened to a sermon about the feeding of the five thousand and the main point of the sermon was “watch Jesus take your little and turn it into a lot.” I respectively don’t think that’s the point of the story. I think it’s about Jesus being the bread of life. I think it’s about Jesus being all sustaining. I think it’s about Jesus rewriting the rules about what it means to be a King. I think it’s about Jesus doing miracles that demonstrate His divinity. All those points make much of Jesus and none of them make much of me or make it in any way about me and what I’ve given. It’s all about what HE has DONE. This blog post by Jared Wilson says the same thing in a much more eloquent way than I ever could:

You’ve probably heard this Sunday School humor tidbit:

Sunday School teacher holds up a picture and asks the class, “What is this?”

Little Johnny answers, tentatively, “Well, it looks like a squirrel, but I know the answer is ‘Jesus’.”

I can laugh at the Little Johnny and the Squirrel story, but I think it’s true too. The best teaching and preaching always makes the answer “Jesus.”

Not every biblical text is explicitly about Jesus of course. But no matter what it looks like, we can show that the answer is Jesus.

How?

Here’s how I approach biblical texts in the mode of gospel-centrality:

If I’m looking at an exhortation/command/Law, I ask what precipitates it. Sometimes you have to draw in the gospel reminder if it’s not immediately in the text or context. For instance: Leviticus is chock-full of commands, but this book comes after Exodus, after the Israelites are set free from Egyptian bondage and are in the wilderness. So I remind myself and my church that obedience is a response to God’s freedom, not the leverage for God’s freedom. In other words, we don’t obey to be set free; we obey *because* we’ve been set free. In the same way Jesus announces the blessings of the kingdom coming in the Beatitudes, and then proceeds to tell us what life in the kingdom looks like (the rest of the Sermon on the Mount). Pronouncement precedes exhortation; being precedes doing.

This is easier to do in Paul’s letters, because Paul is always connecting commands to gospel pronouncements, couching what we do in “what we are.” One has to try really hard to divorce Paul’s exhortations from Paul’s gospel proclamations. A lot of preachers do it, but you really have to put the blinders on. It gets harder in the Old Testament, but even in some of the hard core hellfire and brimstone passages of the Minor Prophets, there are plenty of little gospel pronouncements. (Malachi’s burning furnace and threat of God smearing dung on our faces comes after he explicitly reminds us “I have loved you.”)

If the text I’m looking at is a story of some kind, the most important thing I try to do is use it to point to Jesus as the hero of history. So David and Goliath becomes not about our having courage in the face of adversity but about Jesus defeating sin/death/Satan on our behalf. We aren’t David in that story; we are the scared Israelites.

A good template for gospel-centered biblical storytelling is Ferguson’s “Jesus is the true and better __________.”

This is extremely important. And once we make it our routine practice, it will get easier to see the gospel springs running beneath the hard soil of God’s harder words. Once we train our eyes to see it, we will see the gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected as the theme of all of Scripture, not just the New Testament, and not just the parts in the New Testament that are “easy.”

Eventually we can look at any text and say, “Well, it looks like a squirrel — and maybe it is a squirrel — but we know the answer is Jesus.”

While the subheading for the recent Christianity Today interview with Francis Chan is horrible (Francis Chan says we should stop trying to make people love Jesus, and learn to rely on prayer, elders, and the Holy Spirit instead. Really, he advocated that) the interview is amazing. Chan is consistently one of the most Holy Spirit-aware, Bible-integrating speakers that I listen to. He’s consistently comparing his life and the life of his church against what he reads in God’s Word and there’s little, if any, of his interpretation that I can argue with. Here are some questions and answers from the interview

Q: So the example of the elders and leadership is more important, even in a large church, than having the right programs or preaching?

Absolutely. That is 100 percent true. There are a lot of churches with leaders that aren’t living out their faith together, and they don’t have trust. Instead they’re trying to bring transformation by creating programs. That’s why you often hear of people who say, “I love church but once I got into the leadership, the inner workings, I was so disillusioned.” That’s a terrible indictment.

Q: How can we know if our ministry is being empowered by the Spirit?

Churches that are built through our effort rather than the Spirit’s will quickly collapse when we stop pushing and prodding people along.

Now we should push, prod, and persuade men, but I’ve learned to spend a lot more time praying and asking the Spirit to move and begging God to send forth laborers.

The more you look at Scripture, the more you realize that nothing happens unless God is behind it. Jesus is building his church. I just want to be a part of that. I’ll keep doing my work, but the fruit is up to him. We can only pray, “Please, please, please let us see your Spirit at work. May it be like a mighty wind that moves us.”

Q: Cornerstone is a megachurch by definition. Is the size of the church evidence that a “wave” of the Spirit is happening?

A large gathering where everyone is singing really loud is nice, but it’s not an indication that the Spirit is at work. We don’t see that biblically. If that’s success, then we’d be spending more money on better musicians and better worship leaders. But that’s not how our elder board measures success.

In God’s eyes success is people loving each other deeply, caring for one another, digging deep in each other’s lives, sharing their possessions, and sharing the gospel in their communities. Are they fully devoted followers of Jesus? Is there transformation happening? Do they see themselves as part of something bigger than themselves—a body with a mission larger than the individual?

Our job is not to keep as many people as possible. Our job is to make sure that we’re setting a biblical pattern.

Q: But you have had people get upset and leave.

Yeah, and it’s hard. But Jesus really didn’t have a problem with turning people off if they weren’t ready for the commitment. What I see in Scripture is that’s it’s all or nothing. We are called to die to ourselves; it’s complete death, surrender.

I tell people, “It’s great that you’re checking us out and learning, and I pray that you’ll come to understand that God is good and nothing compares to him. I hope at that point you’ll give your life to Jesus and follow him.”

The commitment to follow Jesus is like marriage. It’s a lifelong commitment for better or for worse. And if someone is not ready to make that commitment, then they shouldn’t get married.

Q: How do you respond when someone walks away because they’re not ready for the commitment?

We always have to check our own hearts and make sure we communicated with them in love. Early on when people first started to leave, there wasn’t a lot of love or compassion. We sort of considered it a victory that people walked away. There was some arrogance in us, and that breaks my heart. Even now it’s always hard when a person leaves. And so we rally around each other, encourage one another, and remind each other that this is going to happen but we’ve got to keep teaching it.

Q: Do you ever get accused of being pharisaical for calling people to such a high commitment?

Oh, absolutely. The comment I get is that we’re becoming a cult because we call people to make a commitment. We define cults as communities overly committed to a belief system. By that definition Jesus would have been leading a cult. So today Mormons are willing to ride their bikes around town, Jehovah’s Witnesses will knock on doors, but as Christians we don’t have to do anything. We’ve been taught a watered-down version of following Jesus for so long that people think it’s Christianity, but it’s not biblical.

I have to be honest and say there were so many times I wanted to quit, because it is really painful when friends leave and your loudest fans become your loudest critics. It does get lonely. And it’s hard when leaders who are with you start getting attacked. I get very defensive of my leaders because I love these guys. I don’t want people to think it’s easy to lead the church into greater depth and commitment. It stinks at times. But when you look back to the Word, you realize this is the way it’s got to be, and you have peace.

“We’ve been taught a watered-down version of following Jesus for so long that people think it’s Christianity, but it’s not biblical.” That line is hitting me hard right now. Am I really willing to follow Christ, knowing that it will require complete surrender to Him? Am I really willing to commit, come what may? I feel like some recent events (the twins, financial questions, etc) have put me in a position of needing to wholly depend on Christ and be completely committed. I’m not scared of what is to come. In face I’m really excited that God has called me to Himself through Chris tand that my whole life is an opportunity to give Him His due praise and glory.

From Thom Rainer, president and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources and senior pastor of four churches.

There are no “do overs” in life and ministry. But there are always opportunities to learn, correct, and improve. So I decided to share with you seven of the key mistakes I made as a senior pastor.

1. I would spend more time in the Word and in prayer
2. I would give my family more time
3. I would spend more time sharing my faith
4. I would love the community where I lived more
5. I would lead the church to focus more on the nations
6. I would focus on critics less
7. I would accept the reality that I can’t be omnipresent

These are good words of warning as I look to plant a church.

From Thom Rainer, President and CEO of Lifeway Resources

Once inside the doors however, what is it that keeps (visitors) coming back for more?

Doctrinal Integrity

Research among previously unchurched individuals revealed a surprising desire to know and understand doctrine.  Knowledge however, is not enough.  It is vital to them that the church they attend be uncompromising in its stand.  People need to know that the church stands for something.

Passion

The leaders whose churches are reaching the unchurched are passionate about preaching.  The pastor connects with the congregation to the extent that individuals feel the message has been tailor- made just for them.  The pastors of effective churches overwhelmingly listed preaching as their most exciting and challenging task.

It is important to understand that this passion, which is exhibited, is not a personality trait.  It can be found in both quiet leaders and gregarious leaders.  Passionate preaching is the result of being completely devoted to and excited about the work and ministry that God has called them to do.

The passion from the pulpit carries over into evangelism as well.  In many thriving churches the driving force behind obedience to the Great Commission is the passion that the senior pastor maintains for the lost.

Relevance

Effective churches are relevant churches.  The pastor holds fast to the biblical integrity of his text, yet he does so with knowledge of the life situations in his congregation.  A church in a farming community will relate differently than a church in the inner city.  Churches must find ways to become relevant in their respective communities.

Some hear the word ‘relevant’ and think it somehow means that Scripture is being altered.  It is not necessary that tension exist between biblical integrity and relevancy.  There is nothing more relevant to a lost world than the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  The goal is simply to relate the unchanging gospel to the continually changing culture around us.

These are especially important points to remember as we look to plant and as we long to see Grace Bible grow and flourish.