Tag Archives: men’s ministry

Read or Get Out

July 15, 2010 By in Books Tags: , , 1 Comment

Another Oxford Club meeting for men lies just around the corner a week from Saturday. I just finished reading chapter 13, The Leader and Reading, in Oswald Sanders’ Spiritual Leadership.

In it the author cites the example of John Wesley as a model for leaders who wish to lead well.

John Wesley had a passion for reading and most of it was done on horseback. He rode sometimes ninety and often fifty miles in a day. He read deeply on a wide range of subjects. It was his habit to travel with a volume of science or history or medicine propped on the pommel of his saddle, and in that way he got through thousands of volumes. After his Greek New Testament, three great books took complete possession of Wesley’s mind and heart during his Oxford days. ‘It was about this time that he began the earnest study of “The Imitation of Christ,” “Holy Living and Dying” and “The Serious Call.” These three books became very much his spiritual guides.’ He told the younger ministers of the Wesleyan societies either to read or to get out of the ministry!

Apparently Wesley’s students had little doubt as to just where he stood on the importance of reading to the life of the pastor!

While I don’t recommend imitating Wesley’s example in a modern day version of reading while driving, there is something to be said about mastering some books thoroughly as opposed to reading widely alone.

Charles Spurgeon apparently agreed:

…master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and re-read them, masticate them, and digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times, and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed, … Little learning and much pride come of hasty reading. In reading let your motto be “much, not many.”

C.H. Spurgeon, To Workers with Slender Apparatus, (Sword and Trowel, December 1873)

Brothers, I invite you to join us next Saturday, July 24, at 7 AM, at the church office, for discussion and prayer around these and other provocative thoughts concerning the leader and his time and his reading.

Reflections on Prayer and Leadership from Oxford Club

July 6, 2010 By in prayer Tags: , , 2 Comments

Saturday morning of last week our men gave their early morning to a vigorous discussion centered in chapter 11 of Oswald Sanders’ book Spiritual Leadership. The title of the chapter is Prayer and Leadership.

Every one of us resonated with the opening quote in the chapter:

If I wished to humble anyone, I should question him about his prayers. I know nothing to compare with this topic for its sorrowful self-confessions.

One of the questions in the study guide for the day asked us to consider what obstacles conspire to keep us from praying. We came up with an imposing list of things that war against the call of Scripture to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17).

Among them were:

  • a misunderstanding of the Reformed faith (if God ordains everything why pray?)
  • laziness
  • busyness
  • sleepiness
  • lack of a plan to pray
  • lack of trial or difficulty in one’s life that compels one to pray
  • idolatry – worshiping the gift over the Giver
  • unbelief
  • pride
  • self-sufficiency
  • lack of biblical training and education
  • distractions
  • spiritual warfare
  • unconfessed sin
  • isolation (limiting our praying to only a private discipline)

We discovered no lack of impediments to the challenge to live as men of prayer as we seek to lead in whatever spheres of responsibility God has called us to steward.

While we worked to identify obstacles we also sought to list various helps for overcoming those things. Among the more helpful hints we shared these (I’ve added some others):

  • put prayer into the schedule
  • join a prayer group
  • go to bed earlier
  • utilize lists (like the directory/prayer list as one of our elders reminded/exhorted us on Sunday)
  • pray on the spot with people who share a request
  • pray Scripture back to God
  • use the Lord’s prayer (Matt. 6:9-13) as a template or pattern
  • repent of unbelief and pride
  • get an accountable partner for prayer
  • read some good books on prayer (like D. A. Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation – available on our resource table on Sundays)
  • memorize Eph. 6:10-20
  • keep short accounts with God
  • change postures (go for prayer walks if you can’t stay awake on your knees by the bed)

Sanders says that a spiritual leader should outpace the rest of the church, above all in prayer. None of us disagreed with that proposition. But if John 15:5 is true, that apart from Him we can do nothing, should we not, leader and follower alike, seek to excel in prayer as a means of grace?

The answer, of course, is yes.

Friday Men's Night Out at PC's Place

April 21, 2010 By in Events Tags: , 9 Comments

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. Time to try it.

Nancy left for NC today to visit her ailing Mom for a week. I’ve got Friday night open. I’m wondering if any of the OGC brothers care to join me for some grub and a night of fellowship.

I’ve got a ton of venison burger in the freezer so I am willing to grill as many quarter-pounders as necessary. If Bambi doesn’t suit your palate, bring your own meat to grill and we’ll throw it on the fire.

Also, bring your own beverage of choice. I’ll throw in the sides, unless this gets too out of control. Then I will have to start making assignments.

Thing is I need to know who’s coming so shoot me an email at revheff@gmail.com so I can plan accordingly.

Probably shouldn’t do a blog post without throwing in some Scripture, so here is my biblical justification.

First Corinthians 16:13 – Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

Come prepared to share some little known truth about yourself and get ready to pray for and be prayed for.

Pass the word!

Who knows, maybe this will become a tradition.

Oxford Club for Men – New Book Study

April 8, 2010 By in Books Tags: , , 2 Comments

This Saturday at 7 AM at the church office (see events section of this site) we will begin a new discussion study. So many men indicated a desire for prayer for growth in their leadership abilities in the home, on the job, and at the church, that we decided to utilize J. Oswald Sanders classic Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence for Every Believer (Moody, 2007, updated edition) to help equip us better in this important area. Copies are available at the resource table on Sunday mornings or you can order from Amazon here.

Here is a sample of some of the chapter headings from the table of contents:

  • The Master’s Master Principle
  • Can You Become a Leader?
  • Essential Qualities of Leadership
  • The Leader and Time
  • Improving Leadership
  • Tests of Leadership
  • The Art of Delegation
  • Reproducing Leaders
  • Perils of Leadership
  • The Leader Nehemiah

In the chapter headed An Honorable Ambition, Sanders writes:

True greatness, true leadership, is found in giving yourself in service to others, not in coaxing or inducing others to serve you. True service is never without cost. Often it comes with a bitter cup of challenges and a painful baptism of suffering. For genuine godly leadership weighs carefully Jesus’ question: “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38b). The real spiritual leader is focused on the service he and she can render to God and other people, not on the residuals and perks of high office or holy title. We must aim to put more into life than we take out (pp. 13-14).

We will utilize the study guide on pp. 184-186 for our discussion this Saturday.

Don’t forget to bring your own breakfast and a friend!

Adoption – Not a Fairy Tale

November 19, 2009 By in Books Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

John Owen, the Puritan divine, called the biblical doctrine of adoption “our fountain privilege.” J. I. Packer calls it the highest privilege the gospel affords to those who believe.

The London Baptist 1689 Confession of Faith defines adoption this way:

FOR the sake of His only Son, Jesus Christ, God has been pleased to make all justified persons sharers in the grace of adoption, by means of which they are numbered with, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of children of God. Furthermore, God’s name is put upon them, they receive the spirit of adoption, and they are enabled to come boldly to the throne of grace and to cry ‘Abba, Father’. They are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by God as by a Father.He never casts them off, but, as they remain sealed to the day of redemption, they inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation (Chap. 12).

Knowing GodIn Packer’s book Knowing God, he writes of what he calls deep insights from the Epistles of the New Testament that adoption gives us. First on the list is that our adoption shows us the greatness of God’s love. Indeed, the apostle John declares in 1 John 3:1, See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

The implications of this are staggering. More from Packer:

God receives us as sons, and loves us with the same steadfast affection with which he eternally loves his beloved only-begotten. There are no distinctions of affection in the divine family. We are all loved just as fully as Jesus is loved. It is like a fairy story–the reigning monarch adopts waifs and strays to make princes of them. But, praise God, it is not a fairy story: it is hard and solid fact, founded on the bedrock of free and sovereign grace. This, and nothing less than this, is what adoption means. No wonder John cries, “Behold what manner of love!” When once you understand adoption, your heart will cry the same (IVP, 1993, p. 216).

Men, do you want to understand adoption better? This Saturday at 7 AM at the church office Oxford Club meets. Bring your own breakfast and join in the discussion of chapter nineteen, Sons of God, in J. I. Packer’s Knowing God. May we all understand this precious doctrine better and actually believe that this is true: We are all loved just as fully as Jesus is loved!