Here are a few of my favorite photos from this year’s VBS Summer Camp. We had 47 kids this year, and when adding all youth volunteers, summer missionaries, and adult workers, we had a total of 73 people involved in the program. What a joyous week of ministry. We are all exhausted, but praising God for His sustaining grace and for the many gospel seeds that were planted.

Tonight was our second time doing a “Family Fun Night” to close out VBS, and we had a great time. A total of 101 attended! Once again, the slide show was a huge hit, and the kids did an amazing job singing all their songs, remembering motions, and reciting verses. We were able to make a few adjustments to last year’s program that allowed things to run a little more smoothly. One of my favorite improvements was that the summer missionaries helped “patrol” the bounce house so that I was better able to mingle with all the parents. (Delegation is so important!) Also, we gave out award certificates to all the kids this year, and that went over really well. Everyone got a certificate for participating, and then we handed out two special awards for each class: The Golden Rule award, and the Listening award.

This month marks the three-year anniversary of my role as full-time pastor of our church. These have been some of the most wonderful years of my life, because my wife and I have finally been able to fulfill our calling and devote ourselves entirely to the church, using all the gifts and training God has given to us.

This morning, I feel the need just to jot down a few thoughts on a young man’s first years of ministry, including some things to do and things to avoid:

1. Be loving. It is often said that people “don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” This has been proven again and again. Most laypeople could care less about my seminary degree, and even less about my GPA or the number of commentaries on my shelf. They simply yearn for a shepherd who is going to know, love, pray with, talk with, and visit them. Sometimes, it takes a card of encouragement, a home visit, a hospital visit, or even the funeral of a loved one to win the affection and trust of some of your members.
2. Keep learning. Seminary is a wonderful “seed bed” for developing theologically-minded pastors, but your learning has only just begun by the time you graduate. Then begins the “school of hard knocks.” I have found my knowledge and awareness have increased dramatically since seminary through books, blogs, conferences, online sermons, and the people I talk with. Pulling out old college and seminary syllabi and textbooks has also been invaluable. I have learned to appreciate the history of my church and my denomination, highlighting its strengths rather than complaining about its weaknesses. Learning can be very exciting, because now it has immediate application in your ministry.
3. Form partnerships. I have made great efforts to cultivate relationships with other pastors in our area, both those in the SBC and other evangelical denominations. I participate in the local ministerial, and do my best to attend pastors luncheons, associational meetings, and state conventions. I want to be known as a team player, not a lone ranger pastor. I believe this is a great way to support the larger Body of Christ, encourage one another in gospel ministry, and model Christian unity to our congregations.
4. Change carefully. All change is not bad. Sometimes, a church is waiting eagerly for their new pastor to cast a vision and make some changes, wondering, “What’s taking him so long?” But other times, the church can feel like, “He has no idea how important this is. How dare he change this!” I have tried to make changes in a slow and gracious manner. The bigger the change, the more prayer, discussion, and research has preceded it. I have used our deacon meetings and church council as sounding boards to throw out ideas — sometimes very bold ones — and then try to discern if a change would be wise or foolish. However, I did make some early mistakes on trying to make a couple of bold changes too quickly. At the time, I thought the people were ready, but I later discovered that there was still a lot of grassroots resistance that undermined the unity of our church. When major changes are involved, be very patient and almost resist change. Even if you know it is a good change, don’t just assume it is right thing and the right time to do it. Much prayer and teaching is necessary before that change is made.
5. Be forbearing. This is a tough one, and I want to be very careful in how I explain this. In the early years, a pastor must learn to be tolerant of certain sins in the church. We as young pastors have the zeal of Phineas and want to crush all disobedience and get people on fire for God. But a new pastor is just going to have to hold his nose at some things that stink, and learn to minister in spite of certain programs, people, and even doctrinal beliefs in the church that he knows are wrong. In most churches, where church discipline has not been taught, and where a context of loving leadership has yet not been developed, it is just too early to rebuke and exercise church discipline, except in very gross cases of immorality or heretical teaching. Know your people, choose carefully the hills you are willing to die on, and let love cover a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8). Remember that Christ did not unleash all His teaching and rebuke to His disciples at once, but spent three years with them, and even then He said there was more to say, but they were not yet ready to bear it (John 16:12).
6. Start discipling. As soon as possible, I identified some men and started discipling them. We cannot afford to wait in “entrusting these things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). After researching what some other churches are doing, I developed a discipleship program and started assigning books to read, Scriptures to memorize, and/or lectures to listen to and discuss. Our group has been a mix of current deacon/leaders and potential future leaders. This has been a special time of sharpening and is crucial for the long-range health of our church. Identifying and training new leaders should start as soon as possible, even if it begins one-on-one with one other man in the church.

These first three years of ministry have included many joys and trials, exciting testimonies and painful lessons. Our church is not yet where I would like us to be, but we also are not where we were. I believe God has allowed us to make some progress toward maturity in Christ, and I pray this will momentum will build in the years ahead.

Like farming, ministry can be very difficult and labor-intensive early in the season, with heavy plowing and sowing and minimal results. But as we continue to serve the Lord and depend upon Him for results, I believe He will bless His Word and bring a great harvest for His glory.

As I said several months ago, the mission of our church is to “to make disciples of Jesus Christ who love God and love people, by reaching and teaching everyone.“

I have already examined the overarching mission of the church (to make disciples) and have seen what a disciple should be (one who loves God and loves people). Now it’s time to consider the process by which a disciple is made.

Matthew 28:19-20 breaks discipleship down into two stages. First, Jesus tells the apostles to preach and evangelize, which culminates in some hearers believing and new converts being “baptized.” Second, the apostles were to train these new disciples through a life-long process of “teaching them to obey.” This two-step process that Jesus outlined two thousand years ago still continues in His church today. At First Southern Baptist, we call these two steps “reaching and teaching.”

For the sake of strategic planning in the church, I’ve found Peter Bolt’s little book Mission Minded (available through Matthias Media) to be extremely helpful. He breaks down evangelism (reaching) and edification (teaching) into several sub categories. Let’s look just at the “reaching” phase today.

Bolt observes that most non-Christians naturally progress through four phases in evangelism:

• Raising Awareness. This is the very first an unbeliever hears about Jesus, the Bible, the gospel, or a particular church. At this point, there’s no personal contact. A church may raise awareness in their community by having a church building, church sign, website, door hangers, an ad in the paper, sending out mailers, etc.
• Initial Contact. For the first time, an unbeliever now meets a real person. He no longer associate Christianity merely with a church building, a book, media reports, or a local advertisement, but with a flesh-and-blood person he has actually met. Churches can facilitate contact by being friendly to their neighbors and co-workers, canvassing a neighborhood with surveys, hosting a booth at a local fair, doing service projects, joining local clubs and organizations, etc.
• Pre-evangelism. The unbeliever is now getting to know his Christian friend better and a stronger relationship is forming. Deeper issues may start to be discussed like family problems, fears, hopes, dreams, and spiritual beliefs. The Christian may start to drop seeds and respond to some of the common objections or confusing aspects of Christianity. At this point, the Christian is trying to show the love of Christ and “earn the right” to share his faith in a spirit of love and trust.
• Evangelism. The ultimate goal of steps 1-3 is to get us to the point where the unbeliever actually hears the good news. If this never happens, then the person has never truly been evangelized. All the good deeds and acts of social justice in the world are impotent to rescue a soul from hell. Only the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16-17). Evangelism may happen in one event, or over a series of conversations. But e need to know, explain, and biblically support the basic gospel outline: God is the loving and holy creator of the universe; man has rebelled against God and become separated from Him; Jesus, God’s Son became a man to rescue us; He lived perfectly and then died in our place, rising again on the third day; He now calls us to turn from our sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the only proper response, and the only way to eternal life.

Obviously, there’s no “formula” to saving the lost. There are times when steps 1-3 happen almost instantaneously, or when steps 2-3 can be bypassed altogether. Most importantly, we recognize that while man plants and waters, only God gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). And so our church humbly uses this ministry model, while praying and relying completely on God to do His miraculous work of changing hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.

Compassion International in Colorado Springs made an exciting announcement on Wednesday:

Compassion International, a leading child development and sponsorship organization, reached a major milestone today as they celebrate the sponsorship of their 1 millionth child, an 8-year-old boy from the country of Togo in West Africa.

The newly sponsored child lives with his father outside Togo’s capital city of Lomé. Togo, a country whose population is seriously affected by the devastation of AIDS, is the most recent country to join the growing list of nations where Compassion works.

The child’s sponsor is from South Korea, the country in which Compassion began its mission 57 years earlier. The sponsor is most recently noted for a gold medal she won at last year’s Beijing Olympics.

Each sponsorship typically includes education, spiritual instruction, a nourishing meal, and basic health care. This millionth sponsorship was specially timed to coincide with the one million mark. But while every sponsorship may not be quite so glamorous, every single one is still a heartwarming story of love and compassion in the name of Jesus Christ. May God bless Compassion International and enable them to reach another million children in the years to come.

Tim Keller was recently interviewed by Towers Online, the news service for Southern Seminary. I really appreciated his warning about the idolatry of success in ministry.

Question: What safeguards should 20-something pastors have in place to avoid the idolatry of ministry fame and the attitude of big numbers equals success?

Tim Keller: If you know it is a danger, that is a very important start. Additionally, when you find yourself unusually discouraged because things aren’t growing or people aren’t listening to you — you have to catch yourself. You have to realize “This is an inordinate amount of discouragement, which reveals the idolatry of justification by ministry.” Meaning, you say you believe in justification by grace, but you feel like and are acting like you believe in justification by ministry. You have to recognize you are making something of an idol out of ministry. When you do experience inordinate discouragement because things aren’t going well, you need to say, “It’s okay to be discouraged but not to be this discouraged. This is discouragement that leads to idolatry,” and you repent.

Additionally, idols create a fantasy world. You may think that you are just thinking about ministry strategy, but it could be you’re fantasizing about success. So be careful about doing too much daydreaming about success, what you would like to see happen. Because it’s really a kind of pornography. You’re actually thinking about a beautiful church and people acclaiming you: be careful about fantasizing too much about ministry success and dreaming about it and thinking about what it’s going to look like.