pastoring « Daniel Darling, Author, Pastor, Speaker

Jan

2012

Pastors, Love the Ones You’re With – The Gospel Coalition Blog

Category: Church Life, Leadership
2066No Comments2012-01-17+16%3A14%3A14Daniel+Darling

The Gospel Coalition graciously posted another of my articles. This one is about a new lesson I learned from a familiar passage:

I’ve read 1 Peter 5:1 many times. As a young pastor, I’m paying more attention to its straightforward directives for my calling as a shepherd.

But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that the simple, often overlooked phrase “among you” leaped off the page and into my mind.

Why did Peter add this prepositional phrase? We know he wasn’t meeting an editor’s quota. And unlike so much of my writing, the inspired Word of God doesn’t contain throwaway phrases. No filler here.

So this means the phrase has significance. Peter could have easily said, “Shepherd the flock of God.” But he didn’t, because there is a lesson in that seemingly innocuous string of words.

via Pastors, Love the Ones You’re With – The Gospel Coalition Blog.

Sep

2011

Are Pre-Packaged Sermon Series a Good Idea for Pastors?

Category: Church Life, Preaching
17612 Comments2011-09-19+08%3A43%3A46Daniel+Darling

Pastoring in this age is a great blessing, because of the volume and variety of resources at our disposal. I have hundreds of books and commentaries on my computer thanks to Wordsearch software. Then I have a library full of books and a number of key websites I visit. That’s not to mention the study Bibles I own. You can be a marginally intelligent guy like me and still craft a good sermon.

One of the resources that I find most helpful are downloadable sermons. Several ministries offer these, including Preaching Today from Christianity Today, Sermon Central, and Rick Warren’s Pastors.com. Personally I enjoy Preaching Today and then I use Ray Pritchard’s Keep Believing website to read his sermons and I frequent the archive of Ray Stedman, the late, great expository preacher. I also podcast several prominent pastors, first to feed my own soul and second to learn about the great texts of Scripture from great expositors.

Here’s the thing, though. I read and listen to these sermons as commentaries, to get ideas of how to structure and shape a sermon on a particular text and to get another man’s “take” on a particularly difficult passage. But I think it’s a miscarriage of my duty if I simply preached someone else’s sermon. I think most pastors would agree to this.

Which brings me to the idea of pre-packaged sermon kits. I’m seeing more and more of this from some more prominent pastors. Two examples that come to mind are Andy Stanley from Northpoint Church in Atlanta and Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill in Seattle. Both are terrific pastors whom God has blessed with great ministry.

What these guys (and other prominent pastors) are offering are complete reproducible and preachable sermon series. They come complete with slick graphics, which include printable art work for posters, handouts, banners, etc. They are quite nice. But my question is this. Should a pastor of a local church, who has been called and ordained by God and chosen by the congregation to lead, should he preach the work of someone else on Sunday?

This is tricky question. On the one hand, all preachers’ work is the product of others. The old joke says that if you preach someone else’s sermon, it’s plagiarism. If you quote more than one preacher, it’s study. Our preaching is built upon the wise men who have gone before.

But that sermon should still be the product of our own study, right? I’m having a hard time imagining me doing a series at Gages Lake and saying, “Okay, we’re going to preach Andy Stanley’s “Guardrails” series this month.” The people might wonder, “Why are we paying him?” And isn’t it my job to study the Word and preach what God has specifically laid out for those particular people in that audience?

Jun

2010

Friday Five Interview: Ray Pritchard

It is my privilege to interview a pastor whose ministry I have long admired. I discovered Dr. Ray Pritchard while I was on staff and editing a Christian publication and was delighted to excerpt some of his books. I began following his blog. He began blogging way before blogging pastors were cool.

Dr. Ray was the senior pastor of Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, IL for many years and is the author of numerous, best-selling books, including An Anchor for the Soul, which is distributed around the world and translated in many languages. Ray is frequently interviewed on radio stations across the country and is a prolific speaker at conferences around the world, including Word of Life. Dr. Ray now is the full-time director of Keep Believing Ministries which equips pastors and church leaders around the world with a resource-rich website, Ray’s books, and a speaking ministry that takes him around the globe.

I have personally benefited from Dr. Pritchard’s ministry. He has been a rich source of wisdom and advice on pastoral ministry, writing, and life. I consider him a great friend. I also regularly peruse his archive of sermons and blog posts for insight into my own preaching.

Jun

2010

Friday Five Interview – Charles Stone

Several years ago, when I was working for a Christian organization and the editor of their monthly devotional magazine, I had the chance to meet Charles Stone, Senior Pastor of Ginger Creek Community Church. Actually I “met” him via email. We had the opportunity to print an excerpt from his then-new book, Daughters Gone Wild, Dad’s Gone Crazy. This was a great book that chronicled the journey he took with his daughter who rebelled for a time but then came back to the faith.

Since then, we’ve become friends. Charles graciously endorsed Teen People of the Bible. We’ve also ran into each other at writer’s conferences, etc. I highly recommend his blog: charlesstone.net.

Well, now Charles is out with a brand-new book, 5 Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them. It is a revealing look at pastoral burnout. I’m nearly finished with the book and I can say that it has challenged me and has educated me on the rigors of ministry. I highly recommend it for both pastors, board members, and lay people.