Page 105 - Pastoral Ministries -Student Textbook

1. Your Personal Relationship with The Lord.

• Growing and maturing.
• Stay fresh, take time to do it.
• You can do the work of God, but not be doing the will of God.
• Spiritual force comes from within; from the hidden life of God in the soul.
• The soul’s secret power with God thus gives public power with men, and the mightiest influences of the
pulpit often flow from a hidden spring in the solitude of the closet.
• You are not prepared to face the demands, expectations, opportunities and negativism inherent in
ministry if you do not have a vital relationship with the Lord.
• You can’t lead someone where you have not been.
• “Deep sermons cannot be preached by shallow people. Profound sermons only come from people who
enjoy a profound relationship with God. Like it or not, the condition of our personal relationship with
God will control our public ministry for God.” J. Kent Edwards

2. Spend Time with Your Wife and Family.

• Date weekly
• Dialogue daily
• Depart quarterly
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• Your 1 line of ministry is your family
• Fail here, you fail in your calling.
• “Be a good Christian in the home first.”
• Put the “Big Rocks” on your yearly calendar

“Time, communication, daily discipleship, and a giving, caring atmosphere are the hallmarks of a good home life.
When we lose sight of these basics and let them slide, families begin to unravel, and eventually the very fabric of
our social structure starts to come apart.” William Mitchell in Winning In The Land Of Giants

• Wife’s greatest ministry is her husband and her home.
• Bob Pierce-founder of World Vision, Daughter, Marilee Pierce Dunbar, wrote Days of Glory, Seasons of
Night.

Pierce neglected his family, often gone 10 months at a time. Loss his marriage, one of three daughters
committed suicide, Pierce died alone. Beware of carelessness.

• Don’t take care of everyone else’s family and lose your own.

3. Be an Encourager.

“Be kind and compassionate to one another…” Ephesians 4:32

• Firmness and principled convictions need not be brutal.
• Velvet covered brick–kind and sensitive–that is the velvet; principles that can never change-the brick.
• Write notes of encouragement.
• Send texts, emails of encouragement.

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