Saturday, May 14, 2011

5 Mistakes Pastors Make

At a recent Southern promotional talk by Al Mohler at The Masters Seminary in Sun Valley California, I received a free Southern Seminary Magazine Vol 79, No 2 - entitled: Teaching About Jesus Through the Old Testament. This morning as I sprawled around in bed contemplating getting up, I decided to have a gander. I was surprised to see the amount of work they contribute herein. It's similar to SGF's Barnabas' magazine actually. It's got a compilation of contributors from Southern - in particular in this issue Schriener, Moore, and Mohler (of course) - some promotions for the seminary, current mission work, book reviews, yada yada yada. What really caught my eye was these 5 thoughts on page 20 by Professor H. W. York about common pastoral mistakes in teaching. Leading to potential divisive doctrines to their congregations he warns of:

1 - Uncontrolled emotion. A pastor cannot afford to let his congregation sense either fear or anger in him.

2 - Treating disagreement as unwelcome. If a pastor affirms loving and gracious disagreement, then he will seldom have to deal with the kind that is mean-spirited.

3 - Preaching a system rather than a text. When a pastor shows truth in the Scriptures, it's hard for people to disagree with it unless they are willing to deny the truth of the Bible itself.

4 - Avoidance of Biblical Tensions. Any pastor who presents only one side of an argument will never convince thinking people, to the contrary, will open himself to their equally simplistic rebuttals and denials.

5 - A failure to love. A pastor must never forget that God sent him to love the people, not merely to [inspire] them with Biblical facts.

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