Patience

The following quote from Mark Dever's little book, "What is a Healthy Church?" stood out to me:

"Will healthy churches grow in size? They often do, because they present an attractive witness to the gospel. But we should not assume they must. Sometimes God has other purposes, such as calling his people to patience." (pg. 100)

Patience. When you are faithful to your calling as a pastor and your church isn't experiencing numerical growth, God is calling you to patience. When you are discouraged because needed changes aren't happening quickly enough, God is calling you to patience.

"God is working for eternity, and He has been working from eternity. He's not in a hurry, and we shouldn't be either." ("The Deliberate Church, pg. 39)

Timothy, fan the flame

So far at the Gospel Coalition, taking place in Chicago, Tim Keller preached on discerning, exposing, and destroying idols by the ministry of the gospel and John Piper preached on Paul's exhortation to Timothy, "Fan the flame of the gift of God" from II Timothy 1:1-12.

If I could I would sit at my computer for the rest of the evening and watch these key-note messages live on-line. I felt they were very good for me to hear, particularly Piper's, which seemed especially targeted to young, timid pastors who are discouraged by the difficulty and hardship of gospel ministry.

"If you are in the ministry for an easy, secure, comfortable...life, get out of the ministry! Its a hard road to follow Jesus."

I must do what it takes to keep faning the white-hot flame of the gift of God, which is the unashamed courage to speak openly of Christ and willingly suffer for the gospel. Doing what it takes means keep listening to and receiving the Word of God which is God's means of grace to me as a pastor.

"I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace which is able to build you up..." (Acts 20:32)