Another great devotion on Christ

Monday's devotion – 1 Corinthians 1:18-22 – Only the good news of Jesus has power. We preach only Christ, and that message has power to demolish strongholds. Preach Jesus!!!

Thank you short course student!

We need to get the foundation in place – which is Christ!
And then we can look at all the other issues in the Bible and our lives, building on this strong foundation.

The cross is the foundation of everything

Recently Jiroy preached on 2 Corinthians 2:5-17, about welcoming back a repentant sinner. Paul was concerned for the man, and for the cross of Christ, and for the church of Corinth.

I really liked Jiroy's emphasis on the cross as the basis for everything else. We need to look at everything through the cross of Christ, or make the cross the basis for our thinking about everything else. The solution to every problem in the church is found in Christ.

That is the point of this blog. Jesus died and rose again. He is Lord and Saviour. We must build everything on him. The good news of Jesus must be the centre of everything we do. Christian ministry means applying the good news of Jesus to all the different issues that people face, and helping them to stand firm in Jesus and grow mature in him.

Ps Christopher on church decline

Ps Christopher made some helpful comments on the decline of the PCV.

1. We are not doing enough pastoral work. The early missionaries did a lot of catechizing and training in the faith, but we don't do these things much any more.

2. Many people responded to the Gospel for the wrong reasons. They responded because the community did, or because they wanted physical things, or for other wrong reasons. But they were not really Christian. We can even think of the decline now as a refining or pruning process. People are leaving, but they were never really part of the invisible church.

I agree with these ideas. Both points help us understand why the PCV is spiritually weak today and the road ahead. We must do more pastoral work, faithfully preaching and teaching God's Word. And we must help people truly believe in Christ. We do not only want them to come to church on Sunday. We want them truly saved, with Christ as Saviour and Lord.

Any thoughts?

Training 2 – Our goals

We need to have clear goals in ministry. What are we trying to achieve? Why are we working? These goals will affect the way we do our ministry and how we train leaders. There are many Bible passages that show these goals.

Colossians 1:28-29 says:

"We proclaim Christ, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this, striving with His strength that works powerfully in me."

Our goal is for people to become mature in Christ. This means that they believe in Jesus and are mature in him.

Ephesians 4:13 says:

"...until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ's fulness."

This also says that we want people to be in Christ, and for them to be united and mature in him. Verses 14-16 say that when we are mature like this we will not be led astray by false teaching. And the body of Christ will grow as each part does its work in love.

So three of our goals in ministry are:

1. People believe in Jesus and have fellowship with him.
2. People are mature in knowledge and holiness.
3. People are building the body of Christ in love.

So how should we do our ministry so that we can reach these goals?

Training 1 - Train others, so they train others

I am going to start with some pictures to show how training does happen and could happen.

First Way

Pastor teaches other people.

When the pastor stops, there is no more teaching. The church will die quickly.

Second Way

College trains pastors to teach other people.

Train pastors at church institutions. These pastors do most of the work. The training is expensive, so we only train a few pastors. We try to train enough pastors to replace those who retire.

Third Way

Pastor trains others to train others to train others...

The pastor teaches people, but he also trains them to teach others. So people in villages are trained to teach others. Teaching is handed on from one generation to the next. This is much cheaper and many people are trained.

In the PCV we mostly use the second way. I will try to show in these posts that the third way can help us.

Pastors should train people in villages, and these people can then train others. Many, many people can be trained. We then send some of these people to colleges to get more training. But most people will be trained in the village. Every pastor is a trainer and every Christian is being taught to build the body of Christ.