A Reformed Pastor's Toolkit

Rick Warren has a minister's toolkit (Click here: Pastors.com | Encouraging pastors and church leaders), so here is one of my own.

Tool # 1 -- The Word of God rightly divided and proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit.  This will create faith!

Tool # 2 -- The Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.  These will confirm and strengthen faith!

Tool # 3-- A biblically based, God-honoring liturgy. This will keep our focus on Christ, not ourselves.

Tool # 4 -- A pulpit.  Symbols are important!  This will demonstrate that we respect the Word of God.

And when I say "pulpit", I mean a big wooden pulpit (below), not some cheesy plexiglas one

Tool # 5 -- A Pastor's Study.  This is a place to prepare to preach and to pray, and a place to shepherd God's flock by applying the preached word to struggling sinners.

Tool # 6 -- Uplifting music from God's own songbook!  Let's sing the songs God gave us!

Tool # 7 -- Prostitutes and Tax Collectors.  You need people to whom to preach, and we all are tax-collectors and prostitutes at heart (or else we are Pharisees cf. Luke 18:9-14).

   

Did I miss anything?  What's in your ministry toolbox?

Comments

[Tim Etherington]

Kim, you are a genius! Truely, the best of both worlds.

[Jeff Dalbey]

Is this for real?? Pure drivel as much as Warren's stuff, which I don't even want to take the time to look at. I agree with #1,2,3 and 7, but the rest is just as much about exalting self as contemporary worship music is blamed for doing the same. I would rather see the character of a man likened to Jesus in the way that he showed us by his own life, rather than hiding behind an extravagent pulpit or his little library where he can make the seminary students and "struggling sinners" oodle over the mere appearance of spiritual stregnth and domination.

[Jeff Dalbey]

Enjoying reading your book on Amillennialism right now though. Thanks.

[Jeff Dalbey]

Oh, and lastly...I've been blown away by a gifted pastor speaking in a hawaiian shirt or t-shirt even. I say gifted, because his giftedness to speak with such power and conviction into a person's heart was not granted to him because of his threads, or even how many books he read to prepare. But, because I believe his heart was prepared first, and if you were there for any kind of need spiritually, you wouldn't have even been thinking about the clothes he was wearing. Perhaps the need for these unrequired Biblical symbols, litury and clothing are for the carnal and reprobate to somehow stir them to conviction of their sin and reflect on God's holiness, just as much as other Christian camps inadvertantly are accused of manipulating the sheep and the goats. The whole debate over this reminds me a little of how the Pharisees whined and bickered over the ministry styles of John the Baptist and our that of our Lord. Nothing is going to please you. A heart transformed by the grace of God is able to see past these things, pull some good out of each of the different styles, but not to tear each other apart, nor be so exclusive. Let a good dialogue rest on more weightier matters affecting the church than the meaning of a pulpit. Sure it has meaning, but who can say whether it has more significance than a leader who stands up in front up church to speak in a hawaiian shirt behind nothing. Our Lord says nothing on the subject.

[Charlotte]

Tim,I was concerned about your statement above in you response to kim's response. "The songs, hymns and spiritual songs must present Biblical truth in contemporary terms." Of course Christians want to present the truth of the gospel in clear terms to people! However, this is not the first time I've heard the statement about truth being presented in contemporary terms. I've seen it used to justify putting just about anything into the worship service. You cannot present TRUTH in contemporary terms if you mean by that the culture of entertainment,which is at the heart idolatrous.
Ken Myers in All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes, Christians and Popular Culture Dealt with this in some detail. One statement he made was
"This book could have been a lot more relaxed(and perhaps a lot more fun) if the church in America was as alert to the problems of the sensibility of popular culture as the church in Corinth was to the significance of idol worship. But instead, while critical of some of its content, the church has a virtually uncritical attitude toward the form of popular culture. In fact, the church has adopted those forms without much resistance, in the alleged interest of promoting its message. But the message has thereby suffered, and so have its members...Our God is too small because our culture is too small. Popular culture's forms are not capable of sustaining the Christian conviction of a holy, judging God who demands repentance and promises the joy of obedience." It's because of great concern over the gospel being destorted that people keep posting the comment, "style is not neutral" I don't believe our only choices are dry dead churches and pop culture churches. Please visit Christ Reformed Church to see this. We are not perfect. We are the congregation described above in the toolkit. We are not stuffy. Please do not misunderstand. If you'll forgive another quote from Ken Myers, "Having resisted the idolatry encouraged by popular culture(the self-centered obsession with the new, the immediate, th sensuous, and the spectacular), we can enjoy all cultural activities more fully, at least those capable of being enjoyed..."
Also there are points to consider about divorcing form from content. "Any attempt to deal with content without simultaneously dealing with form is diembodied. It's gnostic."
Leonard Payton
You know this when you see a kid say sweetly to a dog, "Bad, Bad dog!" and the dog wags its tail!
Michael Horton has talked about another angle. There are theological problems when we wish to create Christian versions of everything.
Just some thoughts to add to the conversation.
Kim are you really wearing a Hawaian shirt under your robe? Then can we have back the after church water fights?

[Charlotte]

More quotes:
The church is never more irrelevent than when she's seeking to be relevent
Michael Horton
Do you remember Marshal McLuhan? He said "The Medium is the message" he also said "we become what we behold" and "we worship what we invent" also "It's a bit of a shock to be reminded that the medium is the message."
Does anyone remember who said,"Religion has become entertainment and entertainment has become religion."?
To chew on these things see Kim's book list under 'Christianity and Contemporary Culture' to which I'd like to add a secular movie Broadcast News-why does the culture see that style isn't neutral and the church is slow?
Also Mars Hill Audio Journal which you can subscribe to in CD or cassette.

[Tim Etherington]

Hi Charlotte. I was not advocating goofyness but speaking to the people in the pews before us. We don't need to preach in Greek to be faithful, that is the same error that Rome comitted by having the Mass in Latin. Form over all else. I know you're not advocating that either.

My point is not that style is insignificant. That was my point about the AWANA circle in the brand new worship center. Style is significant, it communicates also.

My beef is when it is "my" style that is the right one and all else is folly. Does preaching in robes make you more faithful to the gospel than a man preaching in a shirt and tie? Does the robes communicate that the preacher is more sincere than tie guy? What if you were to try that in a culture that only corrupt judges wore robes? What does that communicate to the congregation?

I hope you can see what I'm saying. Within the cultural context it is presented, style matters. To attempt to make one style *the* style is wrong.

I'm all for the Regulative Principle of Worship, but am whole-heartedly against the Worship of the Regulative Principle.

BTW, I visited a CRC and thought it was boring. The music was beautiful and largely unsingable by the congregation.