Why “Do Church”?

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Martyn Lloyd-Jones on what the church is for:

The primary task of the Church is not to educate man, is not to heal him physically or psychologically…. I will go further; it is not even to make him good. These are things that accompany salvation; and when the Church performs her true task she does incidentally educate men and give them knowledge and information…she does make them good and better than they were. But my point is that those are not her primary objectives. Her primary purpose is not any of these; it is rather to put man into the right relationship with God, to reconcile man to God. (Preaching & Preachers, 30)

Praying for your minister

Pray -

1. That your minister would know and love the living God, would have a saving interest in Christ, being purchased by His blood, and thus would be bound to the Lord by the indissoluble bond of the Holy Spirit.

2. That your minister would know, embrace and ever more deeply understand the Gospel and be shaped by it in life and ministry.

3. That your minister would be useful servant of the Lord, that he would know and love God’s word, God’s people, and God’s kingdom; that he would be used to build it up and so that it prevails even against Hell’s gates.

4. That your minister would study, practice and teach the Word of the Lord, by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

5. That your minister would love to pray, because he loves to commune with his God, and that he would be a man of prayer, characteristically.

6. That your minister would be ever dependent upon and filled with the Spirit; and that he would possess true Spiritual wisdom.

7. That your minister would be holy unto the Lord. That his tongue and heart would be wholly God’s.

8. That your minister would be kept from pride, and especially spiritual pride. That the Lord himself would be gracious to slay pride in him, and that your pastor would endeavor to always be putting pride to death, by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

9. That God would give your minister guidance as to where to focus his efforts in ministry.

10. That He would protect your minister from himself, from the enemy of his soul, and from all earthly enemies.

11. That no decision which your minister ever makes or desire that your minister ever pursues would restrict his ability to pour his whole soul into the Gospel ministry.

12.That many would be converted and many built up under your minister’s ministry, to God’s glory alone.

13. That the Lord would bless your minister’s wife, with holiness and happiness, Gospel assurance and Gospel rest.

14. That God would make your minister a decent husband and father.

15. That your minister would be a good friend to his wife, and love her self-sacrificially,

16. That your minister would be a good daddy to his children. That they would love God, their parents and the church.

17. That your minister would be a testimony in the home so that his wife might be able to respect him when he is in the pulpit, and so that your minister will be able to feed her soul, along with the rest of the congregation

J. Ligon Duncan III (born 1960) is a Reformed theologian, professor, author, and minister of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). He is currently the senior minister of the historic First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi

Learning to love – church style

Love requires both a subject and an object, thus love is a corporate learning experience. We grow in love by engagement with other people, not in isolation from them.

Christians cannot develop love by sitting at home alone on the couch watching TV preachers or by attending a weekly, one-hour church service. It is only through participation in “the household of God,” the local church (1 Tim, 3:15), with all of its weaknesses and faults, that love is taught, modeled, learned, tested, practiced, and matured. By dealing with difficult people, facing painful conflicts, forgiving hurts and injustices, reconciling estranged relationships, and helping needy members, our love is tested and matures.

One simply cannot grow in love without the stresses and strains of life together in the household of God, the local church. The local church truly is “a spiritual workshop for the development of agape love” and “one of the very best laboratories in which individual believers may discover their real spiritual emptiness and begin to grow in agape love.” If you are not a participating member of a local church, then you are not in God’s school of love.

From Love or Die by Alexander Strauch