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Helps for Pulpit Committees (Introduction)

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Helps for Pulpit Committees
by Pastor/Missionary David Cox

Introduction

Hello, I suppose you are reading this because your church is without a pastor or is looking for a new pastor, and you have some kind of interest or obligation in finding the new pastor. This work is to help you get your head screwed on straight about the process and concisely help you. Here I will try to be brief, but the subject matter needs to be studied intensively before the process begins, and if the process is already in progress, the members of the Pulpit Committee need to really study this material to guide them into a man which honors God and is God’s will for your church.

You should separate (1) what has happened in the past in your church, from (2) what is the new minister coming into your church. Do not project what problems you had with past ministers into your new pastor, nor should you ignore what you should have learned from those bad experiences.

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The Minister’s Riches Rejection Part 2

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Worldliness is our Enemy

We must remember that when Satan fell, dragging a third of the heavenly host with him, and when he succeeded in getting Adam and Eve to sin, he contaminated the world. This contamination extends to God having to remake the world one day.

1John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 1John 2:17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

It is pretty clear that the Bible puts worldliness (being an active enthusiast of the world system) is dynamically opposed to being a Christian. God directly commands us to be different than the world system, to stand out and apart from that world system.

This is the problem with so many neo-evangelical Christians, they are trying so hard to merge their Christianity to be a part of the world, and the world a part of their Christianity. They want the two things (the world and Christian faith) to be one. That is impossible.




In the context here, God advises us that the world is set as our enemy, because the world rejects God, because the king of this world, Satan, has rejected God. There can be no truce. There can be no cordial working together of the two. You are for one or the other. To be for one places you as an enemy of the other.

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Are Bus Ministries Biblical?

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I would like to examine the typical bus ministry in a local church. My desire is to get a “biblical” philosophy on how to use a bus in a local church and to attack some unbiblical things that I see greatly abusing God’s work in relationship to this. What we want to do is to develop a general ministry philosophy on how to do a bus ministry. In my defense, I will say that I have never had my own bus ministry, but I was placed in charge of one that had about 200 children coming in, and I oversaw what was already set up.

Clarification: I do not believe it is a sin to use a bus, van, or individual cars to pick up people and bring them to church. This is not the issue here. Many churches have buses that run to pick up whole families, and individual adults (elderly, or poor) and in these, children are brought in with these adults. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that kind of thing. I think it is the healthy, wholesome kind of ministry that any church that can do it, and needs to do it, should do it. That ministry is not what I am directing this article against. I think that kind of bus use is tremendous, and I would encourage churches to take that option if they feel lead of the Lord to do so.

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