11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. (Eph. 4:11-14 ESV)
Building from my last post I wanted to just bring to attention a ministry that
is focused on the equipping of the saints and doing what the apostle Paul is exhorting the Ephesian church to do. Specifically in church leadership.
Shepherd’s Fellowship is a ministry of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Ca. You may have heard of this church. If not you’ve no doubt heard of their senior pastor John MacArthur. Grace Community Church (GCC) and John MacArthur have been focused on equipping the saints for over 40 years. One of the tools they have been using, to the glory of God, is Shepherd’s Fellowship. Through this ministry you also have Shepherd’s Conference which is a church leadership conference GCC hosts every spring, and Resolved Conference, a cutting edge conference for college students and career singles. I can speak from experience for the Shepherd’s Conference. I’ve been twice. A few years ago Shepherd’s Fellowship began publishing a website designed for church pastors and leaders. The website is dedicated to providing resources for those who are called to this leadership responsibility. On the website you find the ministry tag-line:
The Shepherds’ Fellowship is an association of churches rallying around the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, the importance of expository preaching, and the centrality of a biblical philosophy of ministry.
The fellowship serves as both a resource and an encouragement for pastors and Christian leaders around the globe.
Just recently I noticed on the website under “Resources” a nice tool that provides preachers and teachers a step-by-step guide for putting together expository sermons1 . The tool is called “Sermon Builder“. It walks you through the five phases of sermon development. These phases are Introduction, Preparation, Precision, Production, and Presentation. If you are new to preparing sermons or would just like some guidance in doing so you can’t go wrong here. This ministry is dedicated and focused on encouraging church leaders to be Christ-centered and gospel-centered. To be the best God-ordained preachers and teachers you were called out for. The sermon builder would be a great resource for you.
1Expository sermons are sermons that expound on the particular meaning of a text or passage of scripture.
caught my eye. The headline read “Sinner In Love”, but it was the subheading that really caught my attention. It read “Church to expose Florida woman for ‘Immoral’ relations with boyfriend.” The story is about a woman who is involved in the process of church discipline. You know, the type of discipline hardly ever observed in the local church today. Except for the more faithful churches, this kind of discipline is deemed too harsh in most evangelical churches. God’s word teaches Christians to be holy as He is holy. God also teaches us in 1 Corinthians 7 that we should
Yoga, I found a little video of Doug Pagitt introducing his church. I use that term church loosely of course. I remember someone at Shepherd’s Conference asking John MacArthur if he was offended by a local church with the same name as the one he pastors, Grace Community Church? His response was “I don’t care so much that they use the same name what I do care about is that they use the term church.” This would be the case here. Please watch the video at the link below, and comment it you like.
Upon This Rawk 