A Needed Group

So, I havent read much yet but I have gotten through the 2nd chapter :). The second chapter really captured the initial reasoning for my pursuit of a place of leadership in the church, and possibly a pastoral ministry. The title of the chapter is "The Search for Leaders" and the first sentence states a reality that rocked me a year and 1/2 ago. That reality is Spiritual leaders, or God fearing pastors, are in short supply. The reality around us is that many pastors in pulpits today are unable to feed their sheep and in many instances are leading congregations, assuming to be children of God, down the highway to Hell. When I woke up to this reality, I saw that w/in my four years at Master's I had learned and studied the Bible enough to teach it, and if I had all this training would I be rebuked on Judgment day for not using it. After tossing around the idea I saw that any knowledge and gift in proclaiming truth needs to be pursued to the fullest since there is a short supply of Spiritual Leaders, whether that is from behind the pulpit, or leading a Bible study, or any other ministry at the local church. Since the demand is soooo high for qualified men to Lead the church may we all pursue this calling/desire till we sweat blood. Let us not take this lightly rather, let us be full of passion and ferver to grow this desire we have to be used as a leader, by the Lord God Almighty, for His good pleasure. Those were some thoughts I had after reading the first two chapters.

Fight On!!

For Our Next Meeting

Hey guys, our next meeting is March 19th and make sure you come ready to:

1. Discuss chs 1-10 of Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders (you can buy it at the Compass bookstore).
2. Choose a short passage from the New Testament letters to study (and eventually preach on).
3. Spend time over the next month looking at your favorite evangelism and apologetics websites and bring some of the best sites and ideas you've seen.

Thanks men! If I can serve you men in any way please don't hesitate to contact me.

Who Changes Who?

I haven't gotten my Sanders book yet, so Scripture will have to do for this post (there's a concept). Something jumped out at me while dwelling on the Pastorals this past week. I think...actually I know, that I and others can put way too much emphasis on self while trying to reconcile broken parties or even "win" souls to Christ without trusting God to do His work. Especially when training to be in ministry, we can fall into this sin of pride and take the full responsibility for some person's response to the Gospel when it seems like they are not "getting it", e.g., repenting. 2 Timothy 24-26 addresses this head on when God through Paul tells us to teach and correct people's errors with patience and gentleness so, "...perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth..." (v.25b, emphasis mine). As Ken Sande put it in The Peacemaker, we actually cross the line when we try to change someone else's mind. We must teach, correct, reproof, rebuke, pray and that's all. God and God alone has the power to actually change the mind, not us (cf. 1 Cor. 3:7).

Spiritual Leadership by Sanders

Just so you know, we do sell this book in the Compass bookstore.

Got my Sanders book

I ordered my book but I will be out of the country this upcoming week. I'll get started on the reading when I get back into town next weekend. If I have any ministry calling related thoughts, I'll definitely post them.

-Jeremy

PIT Tonight!!!!!!

See you men tonight @ 8:30pm, after Compass Night, in the CBC Conference Room in the 140 building.

"Open Doors" vs. "Door busting"

guys,

I was in a class earlier today and we were talking about 'how you know that you are called to ministry'.... what a coincidence! Either way, I think a lot of things from the spurgeon reading came up, so I won't tread that ground right now. We can talk about it Thursday.

One thing that stood out to me as something that we did not discuss was this: "Providential Events" (what I called 'open doors' in the title); do they play into our calling? If you think it is something that is involved in your calling, can you think of any scriptural support? Or do you think that the church has stressed this part of being 'called' too much?

Do you think this is a legitimate part of being called? Or should we just plow ahead and fight obstacles without GT1's [God things--clear acts of God, as p mike would say] ("door busting")...

ybiC

-eric

Why A 1 in 1000 Blog???

Hello men! I am so looking forward to what God's going to do in and through our Pastors' In Training (PIT) small group. I was telling one of you yesterday that I wish we could meet once a week instead of once a month because I love interacting with all of you and because there's so much to cover in so little time.

With that in mind, I wanted to start this blog. It will give us the opportunity to interact with our readings and each other in between meetings. My goal was for all of us to post things here that we found interesting or challenging or that we think will benefit everyone else in PIT. After you post it here, everyone can read it, comment on it and grow from the exchange.

Because many of you may not have blogged before I wanted to make this process easy for you. If you've responded to the invitation to be a part of this blog (if not, how did you find this and check your email from a few weeks ago):

1. Log into your google account
2. Bookmark "1n1000.blogspot.com"
   
3. Bookmark this page (http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26983637) and label it something like "Posting to 1 in 1000"
4. Type what you want to tell us about in the space provided
   
5. Hit "Publish Post" when finished
   

It's that easy! I check every other day or so to see what you found interesting from your reading in Spurgeon and Sanders and have only seen my original post from last week so start posting ASAP.

I look forward to reading your blogs!!!

Defining True Leadership

Since we're reading this book together, I wanted to get the ball rolling with a quote from chap 1:

"True greatness, true leadership, is found in giving yourself in service to others, not in coaxing or inducing others to serve you. ... the true spiritual leader is focused on the service he and she can render to God and other people.... We must aim to put more into life than we take out" (15).

Tell me, what passages of Scripture does this quote remind you of? Also, does this describe your heart's desire when it comes to spiritual leadership?