Eric Mason: Holy Spirit Empowered Ministry

Being a part of Fellowship Associates you get to meet some guys that are doing an amazing job of reaching the mission field in which they are called. Eric Mason a former Fellowship Associates resident and current pastor of Epiphany Fellowship in Philadelphia is one of the best. Here is a great message from him on Holy Spirit Empowered Ministry. Great Stuff.

Just click the link here Holy Spirit Empowered Ministry. The video is hosted on The Resurgence.

Commissioning/Ordination At Fellowship

A few weeks ago Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock Commissioned/Ordained me to plant “The Well” in Boulder, CO.  I thought I would share the video from that service with anyone out there interested.

Been away

Hello everyone. I am so sorry that my blogging has not been very frequent. Between having a 7 month old and planting a new church I have not had a lot of time to blog.

The problem I have with blogging is that I’m not really sure what to talk about. So I want to throw it out there. Coming from a pastor who is planting a church in Boulder what would be beneficial for you to hear me blog about?

Leave a message and let me know. Thanks everyone.

Update 9/8/10: Video from Matt Chandler

Check out this video update from Matt Chandler.  I love this dude and recommend reading the blog put out by the pastors of the village whenever you can.

Update 9/8/10: Video from Matt Chandler.

Just Got Rocked

I was just reading, and in the book “Total Church” by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis there is a section that just convicted me so deeply I thought I would share it with you all.
“Many of my “minister” friends speak of church as something from which they must seek solace. They protect their day off and guard the privacy of their home. They feel the loneliness of ministry, looking outside the local church for people who will pastor them and events that will refresh them. For us church is where we find solace. The Christian community pastors and refreshes me through the word of God. Someone put it to us like this: “If I were to say I needed a weekly day off from my wife and children, people would say I had a dysfunctional marriage. So why, if I say I need a day off from church, do people not ask whether I have a dysfunctional church family?”

Deeply convicted me, so I thought I would share it with you my church family in hopes of correction my dysfunctionalness.

I was just reading, and in the book “Total Church” by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis there is a section that just convicted me so deeply I thought I would share it with you all.
“Many of my “minister” friends speak of church as something from which they must seek solace. They protect their day off and guard the privacy of their home. They feel the loneliness of ministry, looking outside the local church for people who will pastor them and events that will refresh them. For us church is where we find solace. The Christian community pastors and refreshes me through the word of God. Someone put it to us like this: “If I were to say I needed a weekly day off from my wife and children, people would say I had a dysfunctional marriage. So why, if I say I need a day off from church, do people not ask whether I have a dysfunctional church family?”

Deeply convicted me, so I thought I would share it with you my church family in hopes of correction my dysfunctionalness.

Understanding the Call

One of the more amusing things that I get to do from time to time is try and explain to my non-church going family is that yes you can be a pastor and be married, or yes you can be a pastor without going to seminary. I try and explain to them that being a pastor is not a occupation that you choose it is a calling that God puts on your life.

In trying to explain this calling to others it has forced me to dig deeper into what the calling of a pastor is.  I am not going to go into all the qualifications of a pastor if you want to study that more a good resource is Vintage Church by Mark Driscoll.  Just a disclaimer the biblical qualifications are more important than anything I can say I fully believe in the qualifications set forth in 1Timothy 3:2-7 and Titus 1.

Here is what I am learning about the call of a pastor that we do not hear about much in our current days.  If you can help being a pastor or working in ministry then do it, because if you can help it or choose not to do it then you are not called.  Those who are called must be in ministry or they feel like they will die.  Charles Spurgeon in his book Counsel for Christian Workers speaks about this at length.  Spurgeon in this book states that the language in the bible for being thrust into ministry in the Greek is that same term that we use for a person having a demon cast out of them.  He latter states that for men to enter ministry it is going to take a massive thrust from God for them to enter.

If you are called you are thrust into ministry and there is no other option for you.  If that is not crazy enough once you are thrust into ministry you must be willing to get over your fear of man and fear God.  To proclaim the Gospel boldly is no easy task and it should not be that is why we need more men who are willing to take off their suit jackets, cut off their sleeves and get down in the dirt and do the work that God has called us to.

I will close with this. Spurgeon said it best, and I paraphrase, the job of a pastor is to use his sickle and cut down the sin and call people to repentance.  To separate the sin from the man and put it to death.  When that is done you bundle the ones who have been cut down and put them together in a Gospel community and the job is not done until they have gone and been placed in the store house (heaven).

This job is not for those who think they might be called it is for men who have been thrust into their position by the mighty hand of God. My prayer for myself and these men is that we will boldly proclaim the name of Jesus for his fame.

Godly Leadership

For the past several months I have been involved in a process of getting our church approved to become a church planting church by the Acts 29 Network.  Last night I found out that we did not get approved.  Most of the time when you find out that you did not get approved for something that you applied for you get upset, but not this time.

This process has been one of the most edifying experiences our church has gone through.  It is no secret to those of you who attend Bethany that there have been tons of changes around here and for a good part of it we (Pastor & Elders) have been just trying to do what God has placed on our hearts.  The Acts 29 asessment process has been a catalyst to the leadership changes that are taking place at Bethany.  Mainly biblical eldership has moved to the forefront of how the church will be run in the future.  This has a been a great thing for this church.  Since Acts 29 has got us thinking this way we have become much more intentional in how one becomes a leader in the  church.  Primarlaly we are making sure that any elders/pastors meet the 1 Tim. 3:2-7 & Titus 1:6-9 qualifications.

This may seem silly to some, but as we have studied deeper the call to local church to have qualified men leading it is of utmost importance.

We did not get accepted by the Acts 29 network because or leadership is not where it needs to be and that is fine.  Thanks to the Acts 29 Network we are closer than we have ever been to having Godly Leadership guiding the church.  We plan on reapplying to the network in the future, but for now we are going to work on being the church that God has called us to be. I am excited to be part of a church that takes the Gospel, Jesus, the mission, and Godly leadership very seriously.