by Bret Capranica | Sep 10, 2009 | MiniPost
Thom Rainer on the personality traits of effective leaders. Seven Personality Traits of Effective Leaders – thomrainer.com.
by Bret Capranica | Sep 9, 2009 | MiniPost
Stephen Jones is one of my favorite pastors – thoughtful, Christ-centered, and one of the most faithful of pastors. Here’s his new blog. Life Under the Sun.
by Bret Capranica | Sep 8, 2009 | MiniPost
How should we assess those who want to be church planters? Mike Mckinley had some great suggestions. I love how simple and Bible driven they are. via Church Matters: The 9Marks...
by Bret Capranica | Aug 26, 2009 | Featured Articles, Pastoral Ministry, Southern Baptist Issues
Much has been said and written about the recent Great Commission Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. Some of the key leaders of our denomination have prayed for, planned for, spoken to, written about, advocated, and lobbied for this present movement. I respect and trust many of the men who have so far provided GCR leadership. I have no doubt in my mind that without some significant changes in approaches and emphasis, the SBC is in for some difficult days ahead; some suggest extinction. I am no influential voice within the SBC. I am an ordinary SBC pastor. My church is not significant and we have many weak areas of ministry. My thoughts are limited. Obviously, I have not been in any back room discussions or present for any significant open discussions about the details of where the GCR plans to take us. But, like any and every Southern Baptist, I have a few thoughts. For the sake of my own conscience, to stimulate my own thinking a bit more, and to conduct this discussion within my own circles, I offer the following thoughts. What Concerns Me About the Future of the SBC. Character. I met Adrian Rodgers once. He was gracious to conduct an informal question and answer session while at The Master’s Seminary in the late 90’s. I had an opportunity to ask a question of the one who was the first president of the Conservative Resurgence and the first SBC president I sat under (1988). I asked Dr. Rodgers, “What do you see as the most pressing issue facing the future of the SBC?” He didn’t even pause to consider it. He quickly...
by Bret Capranica | Aug 11, 2009 | Featured Articles, Pastoral Ministry, Prayer
Here again are a few notes I took while on a recent planning retreat from John Piper’s Brothers We Are Not Professionals. This time on how ministry itself can quickly become an enemy to our primary priorities, namely, prayer: Chapter 9 – Brothers, Beware of Sacred Substitutes 59 – Ministry is its own worst enemy. It is not destroyed by the big, bad wolf of the world. It destroys itself. 60 – Charles Spurgeon put it like this: “Those incessant knocks at our door, and perpetual visits from idle persons, are so many buckets of cold water thrown upon our devout zeal. We must by some means secure uninterrupted meditation, or we shall lose power.” Without extended and consecrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers up and bears no fruit. Without extended, concentrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers. And when the ministry of the Word declines, faith (Rom. 10:17; Gal 3:2, 5) and holiness (John 17:7) decline. Activity may continue, but life and power and fruitfulness fade away. Therefore, whatever opposes prayer opposes the whole work of ministry. 61 – But the apostles would not yield to the temptation. This must mean that prayer demanded a large part of their uninterrupted time. If they had thought of prayer as something you do while washing dishes or cooking (or driving a car between hospitals), they would not have seen table-serving as a threat to prayer. Prayer was a time-consuming labor during which other duties had to be set aside. 62 – So the apostles were saying: No Matter how urgent the pressures upon us to spend our time...
