Month: March 2013

A Special Request for All of My Friends and Fellow Bloggers

by joebuchanan, posted in Cultivating A Gospel Shaped Attitude

Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 4.21.03 PMToday I have two major pieces of news to announce and a special favor to ask all of my friends.  Let me begin by giving you the news.

First, I am proud to announce that on May 5th, I will be launching the sale of my new book “Cultivating A Gospel-Shaped Attitude.” Throughout the process of writing and publishing this book, I have been convinced that God is going to use it in a tremendous way.  The book is going to be available through several retail outlets but I am encouraging everyone to buy it through Amazon.com.  I will send you more information about prices and how to buy the book as the launch date gets close.

Second, I am even more excited to share with you that during the entire month of May 100% of the profits from the sale of the book will be donated to our mission fund at First Baptist Church, Metropolis.  After May, I will continue to give 25% of the profits to this missionary work in Haiti but we have a special opportunity to make an impact on the lostness in Haiti during the month of May.   My prayer is that over during the month we will sell 5,000 copies of this book, which would help to raise over $10,000 for our mission’s efforts in Haiti.  But I need your help!  Let me give you three ways that you can help:

1.) Pray –  In fact, if you don’t do anything else please pray for this book and offer to be used to touch people’s lives.  Throughout the process of writing the book, God spoke to my heart and helped me to grow in my spiritual life.  I am certain that it is going to be a blessing to all who read it.  But the proceeds from the sale of this book are going to help make an even farther-reaching impact on the people in Haiti.  Pray for God to use these funds to spread the gospel, plant churches and change lives in the country of Haiti.

2.) Bloggers needed to review the book  If you are a blogger, I am willing to send you a free PDF copy of the book in advance if you will commit to doing the following 3 things for me:

A.) Write a review of the book on your blog during the week of May 5th-12th.  The review can be positive or negative, but I want you to be honest and fair.  In order to make the greatest impact I am asking you to please hold off publishing your review until May 5th.

B.) Please share with your readers the link on Amazon where they can buy the book.  This is not live yet, but I will send it to you in an email once the book goes live on Amazon.

C.) Please include in your review that during the month of May, 100% of the profits from this book will be used to fund missions work in Haiti.

If you are a blogger and interested in helping me spread the word about the book please send an email to joe@metrofbc.com and I will send you the PDF files containing the book.  Please be sure to include the web address for your blog so that I can verify it.

3.) Help me spread the news– You can start helping me to spread the news right now by simply by sharing this post on your Facebook or Twitter accounts.  But then I am going to really need your help is during the week of May 5th-12th. During that week I need you to help me spread the word about the release of this book as far as possible.  Please take a moment to follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/joe.buchanan.73744) so that you will receive updates.  During the week of the release I ask that you help me to share the news about this release to all of your friends and followers.

This book has been one of the most enjoyable projects in my life and I am hoping that it will be a huge success but more importantly I want it to make an impact on the lostness in Haiti.  I hope that you will help.

If you are interested in reading a short excerpt from the book click on the link below:

 

Related articles

The Consequences of Pastoral Sin: Part 1

by joebuchanan, posted in Pastoral Ministry
Bathsheba Goes to King David
Bathsheba Goes to King David (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Over the past several days I have posted a series of articles dealing with the problem of unconfessed sin in the life of the Pastor.  Over the next couple of days I would like to share with you some of the consequences of Pastoral sin.  This is of particular importance because the Bible shows us that sin in the life of a leader can have greater consequences.

 

Sin in the Life of a Leader Can Have Greater Consequences

 

We all know the story from 2 Samuel 11-12 of how King David fell into sin with Bathsheba.  One of the haunting verses in that episode occurs when Nathan the Prophet confronts David with his sin and says, “because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.”⁠1  The phrase that I want to draw special attention to is when God says, “by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.”  I doubt that it ever crossed David’s mind that in committing his sin with Bathsheba that he might embolden God’s enemies and give them occasion to blaspheme the name of the Lord, but that is what his sin ultimately accomplished.

 

As Pastors we have to accept the fact that our lives are on constant display for others to see.  This is a natural part of being a leader and anyone who isn’t ready to accept it should get out of the ministry.  We are God’s representatives before the church and when we fall into sin it comes with enormous consequences.  I have observed at least three major consequences that occur when Pastors fall into sin:

 

1.) When a Pastor is Caught in Sin it Causes the Congregation to Question the Integrity of their Next Pastor

 

Jim and his wife Nell were so excited when Good News Baptist Church extended the call for him to come to be their new Pastor.  Jim was fresh out of seminary and anxious to get started in his first Pastorate.  For the first few months, Jim and Nell were in their proverbial honeymoon period with the church and they could not have asked for a better reception.  The people of Good News were excited by the new energy and enthusiasm that Jim and his wife brought to the church.  But as the months went by Jim started to notice that things were beginning to cool off.  He had come up with a list of several ideas that he wanted to implement to help the church grow but was meeting with some resistance.  Some of the members whom he had counted as close friends were now starting to distance themselves and he started to sense that something was wrong.

 

Jim did not know it when he was called but a Pastor a little more than ten years earlier the church had caught their Pastor in a sexual affair with one of the women in the church.  Rather than deal with it openly the church decided to cover it up and try to deal with it as quietly as possible.  Unfortunately for Jim, this meant that the church had not dealt with the matter Biblically and in the vacuum of silence the people had never come to any closure or resolution.  The church appeared on the surface to be fine but for over a decade just underneath the surface a putrefying abscess had grown and was eating away at the soul of the church. One of it’s chief effects was to create a deep-seated mistrust of Pastors among the congregation.

 

That deep mistrust came to the surface one night during a business meeting when Jim recommended to the church that they start looking into hiring a secretary to help him with some of the administrative tasks.  Good News Baptist Church has never had a paid secretary before and Jim explained how now that the church was growing it was important to try to free up some of his time from administrative duties.  As Jim explained how the time he was spending putting together and printing the weekly newsletter and bulletins could be better used in ministry activities he noticed a change come over the room.  Suddenly, Brother Richard Johnson, one of Jim’s of closest friends and a loyal deacon was on his feet.

 

“Brother Jim,” Richard almost shouted, “I am against this motion and want to urge everyone here to vote against it.”  Shocked by this statement Jim said, “But Richard if we are going to grow we need to be able to free up some of my time, so that I can be dedicated to the work of ministry rather than so many administrative tasks.”  Jim thought that this would bring some clarity to the issue, but in truth the statement only served to enrage Richard even more.  “Pastor,” shouted Richard, “this is a waste of money and you know it! I’ve been a member of this church for twenty years and every Pastor we’ve ever had printed the bulletins and newsletters and I don’t see any reason why you can’t do the same.”  Then Richard dropped the bombshell, “Just because you are too lazy to do your job doesn’t mean that we need to pay someone else to do it for you!”

 

Those words cut through Jim and Nell like a knife.  They considered Richard to be a friend and were shocked that he could make such a hurtful statement.  Jim humbly withdrew his motion and closed the business meeting in prayer.  As he and Nell laid in bed that night praying about what had just happened, Jim began to realize that something deeper was going on.  He didn’t know what it was then, but he knew that something  besides money must be driving his friend to act so rudely.

 

The next day Jim called Richard and they went to have lunch.  Jim began the conversation by saying, “Richard, I’m confused about what happened last night.  Did I do something to offend you or to hurt you?”  As the two men talked Richard eventually opened up and told Jim about the situation with their previous Pastor.  “When Pastor Daniel got caught having an affair it just tore me apart.” Said Richard, “ He and I had been good friends, he was the one who lead me to the Lord and baptized me.  To discover that he was a fraud was one of the hardest things I’ve ever dealt with.”  Richard did not realize it but along with many other members of the church, he had become mistrustful of Pastors in general because of their experience.

 

Come back tomorrow to learn about the second consequence of Pastoral sin.

 

 

 

anImage_21.tiff

 

1 New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. 1995 (2 Sa 12:14). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

 

Related articles