No trick photography was involved. Just a sure-handed pastor with amazingly quick reflexes.

Enjoy.

Our people learn as much from our lives as they do from our words. Surely this is why Paul admonishes the young pastor, Timothy,  “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16). Both sound doctrine and sound living are required for a fruitful ministry.

In “A Sermon to Ministers and Other Tried Believers” Charles Spurgeon makes this very point. His text is 1 Peter 5:7, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” The following extract from that message is particularly directed to pastors. As those who are entrusted with the responsibility to preach God’s Word to God’s people, we must never forget that we are also responsible to apply that Word to our own lives first.

Let me add, that you ministers ought to cast all your care upon God, because it will be such a good example for your hearers. Our people learn much from our conduct, and if they see us fretting, they will be certain to do the same. You preach faith, do you not? How sad it will be for you to be convicted of unbelief! Our own words may condemn us if we are anxious. Once when I was unduly depressed, my good wife said to me, “I have a book here which I should like to read to you.” It did me good to hear her read, but I felt myself rebuked by every word. I half suspected what was coming when she said, “That is your own, recollect.” She had been giving the doctor some of his own medicine. What a many things you have said, my brethren, that will condemn you if you do not trust God! Is it, after all, mere talk? Did you mean what you said, and is it true? Or have you merely been repeating official dogmas in which you have no personal confidence? Is the providence of God a myth, or a living, bright reality? “Here,” said a quack in the market-place, “is a medicine that will cure coughs, colds, consumptions [the fellow coughed horribly at this point]. It is of such efficacy that it would almost restore the dead. [Here he coughed again.] Nobody need remain a sufferer—he has only to buy a box of these pills”—[here the quack’s own cough prevented him from speaking]. Ah! laugh on, laugh on, brethren, only mind that nobody laughs at you for doubting while you extol faith. We must show in ourselves that faith in our God is a healing medicine, or men will not believe us; we shall make Christ himself seem to be a pretender, unless we practically prove that we have been healed by him. Let your people see in you what comes of trusting Christ; let them see what cheerfulness, what hopefulness, what buoyancy of heart come to those who trust Christ, and cast all their care upon him.

Taken from The Sword and Trowel: 1881 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1881), 164-65.

The result is that most pastors are not at their fighting best on Mondays. I have probably resigned my pastorate a hundred times in my mind…on Mondays. Fortunately, it only takes a little experience to recognize this pattern and to guard against putting too much stock in Monday-morning contemplations of life-decisions.

But trying to decide whether to stay or to leave at other times can be just as emotionally and spiritually taxing on a pastor–especially during times of conflict in the church. When the conflict in any way centers on him, the trial is compounded all-the-more. It is not unusual from time-to-time for there to be people in the church who want the pastor to leave. Perhaps as a result of a difference of opinion or a doctrinal disagreement, although too often the reasons are not nearly that noble.

While no one can authoritatively say that it is never right for a pastor to leave a church as a result of opposition, my own opinion is that too many pastors tend to leave too quickly when tensions arise in among the congregation. I understand the temptation and even the rationale that often enters into the pastor’s thinking. “I don’t want the church to be split.” “I don’t want to be the cause of such fighting.” “If I leave, then fewer people will be hurt.” These and other motives can be humble and testimony to great love for the people.

However, if the issues at stake are not moral or doctrinal—that is, if the pastor is not guilty of violating his pastoral vows—then the fact that the Lord called him to serve the church for that particular time should also weigh heavily on any decision that he might take. In fact, I believe that it is extremely valuable, if not essential, for a pastor to accept a call to serve a church with a willingness and desire to spend his life in that place. This is not to say that the Lord will never move him to another place, but such an attitude will always put the burden of proof on the move. And controversy in and of itself, is rarely a sufficient reason for a pastor to move on.

When Paul told to the Corinthians that he was planning to stay in Ephesus a while, he explained it like this: “for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Corinthians 16:9). He gave them two reasons. He had a wide open door for ministry there. And he had many adversaries there. It seems that Paul was of the mind that God’s ministers should be willing to “ride toward the sound of the guns.”

Again, I do not want to suggest that a man should never leave his church nor that he should never leave during times of controversy. But the burden of proof should be on side that says, “go.”

I love the spirit that Charles Spurgeon had about this in his own life and ministry. He once expressed his intentions stay to his church during a worship service at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

I do not think that anything but death would get me to go away from this spot. I hardly agree with ministers, when they get beaten, showing the white feather, and resigning their charge. I feel that I am captain of a vessel; and if there should be a Jonah in the ship, I shall, as gently and in as Christian a spirit as possible, pitch him out; I shall not think, because Jonah is there, that therefore I ought to leave, but I will stand by the ship in ill weather as well as in sunshine.

I love his pastoral resolve. No doubt it comforted the church as much as it troubled the would-be “Jonahs” among the congregation. Such determination is essential for persevering in pastoral ministry. And often it is only by persevering through severe trials that divine blessings come to rest on a pastor’s labors.

Are denominations worth it? That depends on what your definition of “it” is. It is obviously valuable to cooperate for common causes that are germane to their mission. The New Testament points to the financial cooperation of churches in Macedonia, Achaia and Galatia (1 Cor. 16:1; 2 Cor. 8:1-7), the doctrinal cooperation between the churches in Jerusalem and Antioch (Acts 15:1-35), and the missionary cooperation referenced in2 Corinthians 8:19. So cooperation among local churches is obviously biblical and can be beneficial in many practical ways.

However, such cooperation is not dependent on any particular denominational structure. That has never been truer than in our present day of instant and multi-faceted communication. The emergence of so many affinity networks among churches over the last ten years is a testimony to that.

A denomination of churches, such as the Southern Baptist Convention to which my church belongs, is not a church and thus lacks ecclesial authority. But it can still be “worth it” to the extent that it helpfully assist churches by providing avenues for cooperative ventures in a wide variety of ministry opportunities.

I am amazed that God called me into pastoral ministry and I am grateful for the immense privilege of serving a loving, patient church. But as Thabiti’s prose and Newton’s poetry make plain, there is an unavoidable mixture of contradicting emotions that pound a pastor’s heart day in and day out, regardless of how wonderful the church he serves is. Yet, every pastor that I know and respect would not have it any other way.

Paul’s description of his inner life as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10) captured my attention when I was a young pastor. Through the years I have become convinced that learning, like Paul, to feel that way is essential to emotional health. I believe that is true for every Christian, but it is especially important for pastors to learn how to feel this way. Otherwise, we cannot fulfill our calling to preach the unsearchable riches of the joy-inducing Christ in the midst of this sin-corrupted and sorrow-inducing, broken world. If we don’t learn to feel both at the same time, it is doubtful that our ministry will ever approach the kind of authenticity that it requires.

A Minister’s Burden

What contradictions meet
In ministers’ employ!
It is a bitter sweet,
A sorrow full of joy:
No other post affords a place
For equal honor or disgrace.

Who can describe the pain
Which faithful preachers feel,
Constrained to speak in vain,
To hearts as hard as steel?
Or who can tell the pleasures felt,
When stubborn hearts begin to melt?

The Savior’s dying love,
The soul’s amazing worth,
Their utmost efforts move,
And draw their bowels forth;
They pray and strive, the rest departs,
Till Christ be formed in sinners’ hearts.

If some small hope appears,
They still are not content,
But with a jealous fear,
They watch for the event:
Too oft they find their hopes deceived.
Then how their inmost souls are grieved!

But when their pains succeed,
And from the tender blade
The ripening ears proceed,
Their toils are overpaid:
No harvest-joy can equal theirs,
To find the fruit of all their cares.

On what has now been sown,
Thy blessing, Lord, bestow;
The power is Thine alone,
To make it spring and grow:
Do Thou the gracious harvest raise,
And Thou alone shalt have the praise.

Michael has been blogging from the early days of the discipline art activity and so much of what he has written and made available online remains imminently relevant today. Following is a post he published June 4, 2007. It deals with the important issue of friendship, mentoring and community. Pastors who are committed to the priority of preaching in the church should especially take note. Preaching is absolutely essential. But preaching alone is insufficient for the growth and development of a healthy church.

Michael originally entitled this post, Reformed Preachers Whistling Dixie?

I am constantly amazed that far too many good preachers who love the doctrines of grace and who are assiduous in their reading of the Scriptures fail to notice one critical aspect about ministry in the New Covenant: it is intimately linked to bulding community and relationships. There is, I suspect, among some of these brothers, a mistaken view of what constituted faithful ministry in the past—among the Reformers, for example, or the Puritans.

Those brothers in the faith from those bygone eras are seen as great expositors and nothing more. Now, there is no doubt that they were preeminentely preachers. And there is no doubt that the Word was central in their ministries. But, without friendships (is not Calvin the great model of friendship here with his passionate friendships with Farel and Viret? Or the spiritual brotherhood among the Puritans, a logical result of which was Baptist ecclesiology) and mentoring relationships (look at the remarkable Baxter in Kidderminister) the Word does not have a context in which to bear fruit.

When I first read the life of that quintessential Reformed loner, A.W. Pink, I thanked God for his great insights into the Word in a day when Reformed truth was not in high demand. But I was horrified (and I do not say that word lightly) by his isolationism and lack of concern for friendship and fellowship. Surely, the love of the truth should lead to a walking in the light with fellow lovers!

Or to put all of this more colloquially: if we think we are being faithful to the New Testament and are not passionately concerned about building Christian community, we are whistling Dixie!

During my MDiv studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Dr. Packer delivered to the students and faculty three lectures on biblical inerrancy. By that time, I was already largely convinced, but his presentations—as well as the regrettable response by many of my professors—helped confirm in my mind the trustworthiness and authority of the written Word of God.

A few years later, when researching covenant theology for my PhD dissertation, Dr. Packer graciously loaned me his personal copy of Witsius’ Economy of the Covenants, which, in 1988, simply could not be found. His encouragement and counsel helped steer my research in ways that never would have happened otherwise.

He also preached in the church I now serve during a time when we were undergoing biblical renewal as I was trying to lead the congregation to embrace the full authority of God’s Word regarding its teachings on the gospel and the nature of the church. His message and personal ministry were very helpful.

So, I thank God for J.I. Packer and his long, useful ministry of preaching, teaching and writing. I look forward to his new book, due to be released next month by Crossway, called, Weakness is the Way.

Here is a moving promotional video that gives a glimpse into the life and heart of this dear, humble, useful servant of our Lord.