Tags
How many churches have deacons these days? How many have regular prayer meetings? How many discipline members who are living in sin? Carl Robbins, a by-the-book sort of pastor (I mean that as a compliment), provides practical instructions on how to wisely implement these Biblical, yet neglected practices in your church.
I rarely post on this blog as there is so much good content on the web. However, these sermons are exceptional, and their content rare, so I want to share them with as many people as I can.
Instruction on Leading Prayer In Your Church – Being a charismatic for nearly twenty years, I’ve been in my fair share of prayer meetings and have listened to tens of messages on prayer. The unique thing about Robbins’ message is that he finds a balance between teaching the Church how to pray – usually people just start praying without being taught how – and getting the entire church to actually pray.
Instruction on How To Wisely Exercise Church Discipline – The classic Protestant marks of the true church are that it preaches the word faithfully, administers the sacraments rightly, and exercises church discipline. The last bit is hard and is offensive to our cultural sensibilities, so it gets neglected. Still faithful leaders exercise discipline. Robbins tells us how.
Why The Church Needs Deacons, What They Do, and How to Pick Them – Biblical church government includes elders and deacons. Without deacons, the elders will have to be the deacons and won’t have time to be great pastors. Robbins offers us a good primer.
A note about being “by-the-book”: Many non-denominational types improvise church life based on what’s popular in their circles and what seems best to them. Think about what it takes to improvise well in life. For example, for a jazz musician to be able to improvise a solo in concert they first need to know musical scales. If they tried to skip the hard work of learning scales and ear training their solos would be disconnected, random notes, not beautiful melodies. Learning the basics of leading a church – including prayer, deacons and discipline – is important before you start to innovate. It’s very unlikely that your spontaneous ideas will be an improvement on the combined wisdom of the church through the ages. First, learn what the Bible says and how the Church has applied it. Then you will know enough to adjust these concepts for your local setting.