“As with people of any other humanitarian profession, sometimes the motivation to enter pastoral ministry is to obtain the appreciation, attention and acceptance that a person needs, but this is not provided by other sources. Sometimes it’s the unconscious desire to dominate others. and really become a little pope, which is an easy goal to achieve if someone cares about immature people. Many pastors unconsciously gain great satisfaction in being able to direct and correct people. Many pastors, after judarutoexam, discovered that part of their original motivations was the need to be infallible, and the situation of the church often reinforced this pathology. Another very important motivation among some pastors is the presence of a reserve of repressed and unrecognized anger and hostility. In this case, the shepherd is likely to become a preacher whose favorite and most frequent message refers to the fire of hell and sulfur, and he himself will not be aware of the great sat ishation he receives by roasting his flock in the flames of hell?(Basil Jackson) [1]
Replace the word pastor with the word “Christian”?There is no doubt that our type of ministry attracts all kinds of eccentric people with all kinds of different intentions. If you work in the suburbs, it’s always worth asking: what’s my real motivation here?
Consider Jesus’ own words to the disciples in Matthew 10: 37-39
He who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; He who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and come after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it; anyone, however, loses their life because of me, will find her. ?
Thomas Doolitle was a Puritan pastor, converted at the age of 17 under the ministry of Richard Baxter, who later became his assistant pastor and guardian of Matthew Henry. He wrote a famous text entitled “Reasons to Love Jesus,” in which he describes 28 Reasons Why Christ Should Be the Source and Goal of Our Eternal Love, asks us to:
“CAN YOU FIND A MORE EXCELLENT GOAL FOR YOUR LOVE THAN JESUS?If you’re looking for all the creation, would you find someone or something like him?Could they be riches, pleasures, or other relationships comparable to Jesus, which you must love supremely?Shouldn’t the greatest good be the best goal of your love?Can you love the lower things and not love the greater good?Isn’t all the good of creatures like a drop of the sea, like a candle relative to the sun, like a grain of sand compared to a mountain?compared to the good of Jesus? If David was worth ten thousand men, isn’t Jesus, the Lord of David, better than the whole world?(Thomas Doolittle 1630-1707) [ 2]
If we want to serve the Lord Jesus Christ on the periphery, we must do so because we love Jesus above all. If we are unable to put Jesus above all things in our lives, then we will not succeed, because the sacrifices necessary to do the work on the periphery are enormous. God’s glory in Christ must be our ultimate goal. We must have our roots firmly rooted in the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Any reason other than this, though commendable, is safe to cause problems in the future. Moving to a community that needs to love people?He won’t support us when someone deliberately set fire to our car, tries to rob us, throws dog faeces at our window, and throws urine bottles at the church.
Remember, we love God because he first loved us and we love people because he first loved us. When we sit back, holding our heads and wondering why we are still here (and if we stay long enough, we will do this), it is through this love of God that we can persevere. A periphery is not a place to come and raise our self-esteem. It is so easy to make an idol of our ministry and of those in need, when in reality it is Jesus who demands all of our attention and affection.
The most important question you should answer when interviewing someone for this ministry is not “How qualified are you?”Rather, “Do you love Jesus Christ deeply?” Can we read and apply Matthew 10 without trying to soften it?Does our family know this is true? Jesus asks us to value every precious thing in our lives and be willing to give it up. Many people, hearing “prepared,” will raise their hands and say “yes, I’m ready,” but only until the time comes H. Many of us would say we’re ready to offer even our little one. Isaac at the altar of God. However, the reality is that many of us even suffer from offering our cars or a room in our homes or any other material irrelevant out of love and devotion to the Almighty God.
Leave everything you have, sell your precious possessions, make your parents sick, your good church, your friends and move with your family to a community in need to carry a message that no one wants to hear and work on hard and hard ground, with little or no visible fruit. What does Matthew 10 look like now? Before we even reach this prayer, many of you are already ashamed of the radical, exaggerated, fundamentalist and literal tone of the last paragraph, but do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it is an apartment for all, however, regardless of their lifestyle and culture, Matthew 10 is a universal principle: loving Jesus will lead us on difficult paths, both geographically (for some) and spiritually (for all who take this seriously). We, especially in the West, are the “rich young man”, so many of us shake our heads and leave sad and /or irritated by this kind of teaching.
“And he that has left home, brothers, sisters, or father, mother, children, or fields by name shall receive several more times, and inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).
Grades:
[1] Basil Jackson, “Psychology, Psychiatry and Pastor: Part II: Mature in the Pastor and parishioner”, Bibliotheca Sacra 135 (April 1975), 111-12. (own translation) [2] (own translation)
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Our mission is to build healthy, gospel-focused churches for Scotland’s poorest communities.
Our long-term desire is to see housing developments in Scotland transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ through the revitalization and establishment of churches that preach the gospel, ultimately led by a future generation of Aboriginal church leaders.
To this end, we will begin the work of church planting and revitalization by recruiting, training, supporting and sending church planters, workers, ministerial apprentices and short-term trainees to be part of the ‘church planting teams in Scottish developments’.
We believe that building healthy churches that preach the gospel in Scotland’s poorest communities will result in an authentic, sustainable and long-term renovation of Scottish developments.
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