Sunday, July 31, 2011

The Minister's Job

The pastor is to be a scholar and a preacher. He must preserve his time and energies for the main tasks of the ministry of the word and sacrament. Preaching requires imagination, reading, study and prayer and these are not possible when exhausted. To do his actual job, he will sometimes have to neglect being a social worker and therapist and budget manager and CEO and a million other things that some people want him to be. The Pastor must be to some extent in another zone since he must bring a word from elserwhere.


Great little You-Tube clip of Walter Bruggerman saying this - HT Revd Dr Michael McLenahan.

Be King of Your Life!

We often say - I have said it myself often - that sin is wanting to be king of my own life. True. In a way. Sin is really wanting to be king of my own life, without submitting to Chrsit. In a sense it's right to be king of your life: to be consciously in control of it, to rule and govern it with purposes in mind. The key thing is that we must submit to Jesus as the King of Kings. Jesus is the High King, and you are to be the king of your life under him. Without Christ, you are inevitably a rebel king, an illegitimate and incompetent ruler, a tyrant and a usurper. It is right and honourable to rule your life under Jesus.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

You are invited

to an evening of traditional music in celebration of Mrs Lloyd's birthday: Tues 18th Oct, 7:30pm, Warblrton Parish Church

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Giving (my 10%)

This post is intended for those who think of themselves as committed members of the church. If that's not you, I'm sure you could find something better to do.

Allow me to make one or two points about Christian giving:

Planned giving is normally better than unplanned giving and if you can Gift Aid anything you give, the tax man will give an extra 25% at no cost to you. It would be mad (throwing money away) not to gift aid if you can, don't you think?

As the Vicar, I've no desire to know what any parishoner gives, either in cash terms or as a proportion of their income. We treat such things in the strictest need to know confidence and I have nothing to do with it.

It would be good, at least once a year, to review your giving to the church. Has your income changed? Should your giving change?

You will know that under the Older Covenant God's people were commanded to give 10% of their income to the church.

The beauty of this tithe principle is that it is fair and proportional. Everyone gives what they can, according to what they get. In absolute terms, some will give very little; some will give a lot.

Of course, no one can force you to give. And nor would we want to. We want you to give happily and cheerfully. It is a wonderful honour that God should allow us to contribute to his work. All that we have is his and he has an absolute right to all that we have and are. But even if we tithe, God leaves us with 90% of what he has entrusted to us.

It is hard to believe that God's New Covenant people would want to be any less generous than the people of Israel were commanded to be.

Many of us would hardly notice 10% of our income given to the church by standing order each month.

If every committed Christian tithed it would transform church finances. 10 wage earners ought to more or less cover the Pastor's salary on their own.

It maybe that you feel you can't afford 10% of your income. Perhaps your income has fallen and your mortgage has risen, for example. For myself, I don't think you should feel obliged to immediately sell your house so that you can give 10% of your income. It might be sensible to give less for the next 5 years and make up the difference when your circumstances improve.

Some of us may be asset rich and cash flow poor. We may wish to consider a legacy in our wills.

Thoughts? Do you agree? How would this go down in a letter to those on the Electoral Roll?

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Saturday, July 16, 2011

The authority of Jesus

Alliteration's aidful art:

In Mark chapter 1 we see:

The authority of Jesus’ sermon: authority over the scribes.
Authority over Satan.
Authority over sickness.

I would have liked an "s" for the call of the first disciples too. Jesus' authority over sinners is not especially the point being made there. Jesus' authority over sailors is rather silly! A parishoner suggested Jesus' authority to call students (since disciples means learners).

In chapter 2 we see Jesus’ authority over sin.
Then we see his authority over the Sabbath.
In chapter 4 we see Jesus’ authority over the storm and the sea.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Reaching the human heart

I bet this'll be a good conference.

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Christian school governors

I'm told that Christian school governors (or potential governors) will find helpful stuff at the Transforming Governing site.