2009 Conference
The Reformed Pastor
November 20-21, 2009
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There is no higher calling in life than to be a shepherd of God’s people.
When many a modern day pastor has become an entertainer, comedian, esteem builder and/or CEO, it is time to call on the church to go back to the Scriptures and be reminded of the qualifications and roles God has established for the high office of pastor.
In his book “Working the Angles”, Eugene Peterson writes: "American pastors are abandoning their posts, left and right, and at an alarming rate. They are not leaving their churches and getting other jobs. Congregations still pay their salaries. Their names remain on the church stationary and they continue to appear in pulpits on Sundays. But they are abandoning their posts, their calling. They have gone whoring after other gods. They talk of images and statistics. They drop names. They discuss influence and status. Matters of God and the soul and Scripture are not grist for their mills. The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeeper’s concerns—how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customers will lay out more money. The strategies of the fast-food franchise occupy the waking minds of these entrepreneurs; while asleep they dream of the kind of success that will get the attention of journalists…What they do with their time under the guise of pastoral ministry hasn’t the remotest connection with what the church’s pastors have done for most of twenty centuries."
When we speak of the term “Reformed” pastor we speak of a pastor whose life, teaching and ministry conforms to the Word of God alone as the only standard for faith and practice. In this conference we will plumb God’s Word and church history to discover what a “Reformed” pastor looks like and his vital importance to the local church today.
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CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON - "LECTURES TO MY STUDENTS" 1875
The Character of a Preacher called by God
Whatever his natural gifts, whatever his mental powers may be, a pastor is out of the court for spiritual work if he has no spiritual life; and it is his duty to cease the ministerial office till he has received power from on high, an anointing that cannot be purchased with money or degrees.
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2 Tim 1:13-14
Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
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