Jesus Fame

This afternoon I will head over the mountains to Salem, OR. to stay with Steve Hopkins of CC Salem.

Steve and I will be taking part in a three day class called a “Preaching Practicum” at Western Seminary in Portland, OR.

The class will taught by Art Arzurdia an instructor at Western who also heads up a fellowship of pastors called
The Spurgeon Fellowship, that meets at Western.

There will be 8 pastors involved in this practicum. Each pastor has been given a text in the book of Ruth to teach during the practicum. My text is 1:1-5. I hate going first!

After each pastor teaches he will be critiqued by Art and the other pastors. Along with this there will be formal instruction.

I will let you know how it goes

Yesterday I taught the second of a 4 part series on the cross called “The Result of the Cross”

To illustrate my fourth and final point and to conclude the message I told a story about a pastor named Mike Nelson as told by my good friend Jeff Stewart.

Here is the story… Continue reading

My wife and I were having lunch today at a place called “Baldy’s BBQ” in Bend. On the wall they have a sign that reads,

“I liked you better before I knew you so well.”

First I got a good laugh out of it…then it got me thinking. Continue reading

About a month ago I wrote a post called “Application=Revelation” in which I coined the term “metroneck”

That term really had nothing to do with the post but it became the main topic of the thread.

There were many great descriptions of what best defines a metroneck but here are my top five.

In order of time posted…

 1. While watching the Daytona 500 you get the sudden urge to take a bubble bath (Chad Carpenter)

2. You spend part of your girlfriends welfare check on a male manicure (Jeff Stewart)

3. Diesel is both the fuel in your truck and the brand name of your jeans (James)

4. You religiously recycle all your Hamm’s beer cans (Phil)

5. You brush your tooth three times a day (Ryan Couch)

The top vote getter gets a prize to be decided upon later…like a mullet wig or something.
 

With the “retirement” of Brett Favre (we’ll see in September) today I started thinking…

 Is it appropriate for pastors to retire? Of course for many of us our example is Pastor Chuck Smith who is 80 years old and still going strong. His philosophy is, “why should I retire? I’m not tired.”

Many pastors are not in a position financially to retire at traditional retirement age. But is that really healthy? To have men pastoring churches who are tired, out of vision, and dreaming of sandy beaches and Pina Coladas (virgin of course) filling the pulpits of our churches?

Is there an age where it might be better for a pastor to step down or to step back. Like the Levitical priests would it better for pastors at a certain age to focus on training young men for the ministry instead of actually serving as a pastor?

I don’t think pastors should ever retire from ministry (serving others). Like this former Lutheran pastor here in Prineville who golfs 300+ rounds of golf a year. However maybe there are some areas of ministry that seasoned men would do well to transition into at a certain age.

What say you?