9Marks has just released its latest edition of the eJournal. This edition focuses on lay elders and raises some very helpful discussion on the relationship (sometimes delicate) between staff and lay elders. See here. You can find part 1 of this issue here.

Here’s an introductory note from Jonathan Leeman:

You don’t become a “band of brothers” just by showing up. You need to face battle together, as well as work through all the disagreements and sins that arise along the way. My friend Matt Schmucker often observes that more apologizing happens during our elder meeting bathroom breaks than at any other time he knows. It is a consecrated commode.

An elder’s first priority is the sheep, but shepherds who don’t know how to love one another compromise their ability to serve the sheep.

A good word there! Check out the table of contents:

Elder Relationships

Building Unity and Friendship Among Elders
By Bob Johnson

• How elders relate to each other will impact how they relate to the flock, for good or ill. Here are a few ideas for helping elders build deep friendships and sturdy unity. Read more >

When to Intrude, When to Defer
By Michael Lawrence

• When and how should lay elders push back on decisions of staff elders? Consider first what “hat” the staff elder is wearing. Read more >

The Curse of the Rubber Stamp
By Greg Gilbert

• How can elder boards avoid the vicious cycle of lay elders feeling pressured to rubber stamp staff elders’ decisions, then resenting them, then opposing them? Read more >

Balancing Relationships Between Staff and Non-staff Elders
By Walter Price

• Balanced counsel on the balance between elders from a seasoned senior pastor. Read more >

Elder Meetings

Elder Meeting Attitudes
By Jonathan Leeman

• Fear of man can lead elders to say too little or too much. Here are nine tips for setting your heart right and speaking well to your fellow elders. Read more >

Family Size: Lessons for Large and Small Elder Boards
By Eric Bancroft

• Like families, elder board dynamics vary with size. Here is some counsel for larger and smaller elder boards from a pastor who has served on both. Read more >

The Contents and Purposes of the “Elder Packet”
By Matt Schmucker and Nick Roark

• If lay elders aren’t informed of issues before the elders meet, they can feel neglected, pressured, and out-of-the-loop. A little bit of prep work before hand can go a long way. Read more >

The Bi-vocational Elder

The Math Doesn’t Work: Why the Future of Church Planting is Bi-Vocational
By Jimmy Scroggins and Steve Wright

• Countless church plants fail for lack of funds. So instead of throwing a Hail Mary, why not explore a new model instead? Read more >

There’s a new 9Marks ejournal available focusing on making disciples in the local church.  From Leeman’s introduction to the issue:

Discipling is not a program. It is not a podcast preacher. It is not a one-size-fits-all information transfer.

It is life-on-life loving in word and deed.

Jesus told us to make disciples, which means it is a basic part of the Christian life. But we are not always sure how to get a handle on it, or what it looks like.

If you are a pastor or elder, you should be leading the way in discipling younger individuals in the faith. Your instruction and example should be helping to cultivate a culture of discipleship in your church. Does that sound intimidating? If it does, are you sure you are called to be an elder?

The contents:

Pastors Who Make Disciples

The Heart of a Disciple-Making Pastor
By Bobby Jamieson
What is the essential quality of a disciple-making pastor? Rejoicing in others’ ministry. Read more >

Discipling: More than a Podcast Preacher
By Jonathan Dodson
Podcast sermons can never replace in-person spiritual fathers. Here’s how to recover a relationally mediated gospel. Read more >

Elders—The Church’s Lead Disciple-Makers
By Jeramie Rinne
The goal of shepherding is the maturity of the members. Therefore, elders should be the church’s lead disciple-makers. Read more >

How Can Pastors Raise Up Leaders?
By Bobby Jamieson
Here are thirteen ways you can help to raise up other leaders in your congregation. Read more >

Basics of Discipling

Discipleship According to the Scriptures
By Garrett Kell
Disciples are called to follow Christ, and following him means helping others follow him. Read more >

Discipling When You Need to Be Discipled
By Erin Wheeler
Ever feel like you have no business playing teacher because you’re still a student? The gospel reminds us that God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. Read more >

Discipleship and the Paradoxes of Growth
By Garrett Kell
As Christians, we live by dying and rest by striving. But how do these paradoxes practically play out in discipleship? Read more >

A Discipler’s Daily Itinerary
By Jonathan Leeman
It is not always easy to figure out where discipling fits into the busy week. But here is a sample of what a day might look like. Read more >

Fruits of Discipling in the Church

Six Benefits of Evangelism for Discipleship
By Brian Parks
Here are six ways that treating evangelism as a necessary part of discipleship helps to grow mature disciples. Read more >

A Sacred Trust: Reflections on Discipling Women
By Jani Ortlund
What better legacy could you leave than generations of women who have learned to love Christ more?Read more >

Member Handout: Plugging Into Discipling Relationships
Here is a sample church handout for teaching new members how to purse discipling relationships in the church.Read more >
Book Reviews

Book Review: Godly Conversation
Reviewed by Bobby Jamieson
Caricatures of the Puritans are like social media platforms: they seem to multiply and spread so quickly that it’s hard to keep track of them all. One common slur on these seventeenth-century saints is that they were dour, hard-bitten individualists for whom the pinnacle of spiritual maturity was spending a week straight praying in private with no sleep, no food, and no human contact.Read more >

Book Review: Gospel Coach: Shepherding Leaders to Glorify God
Reviewed by Bob Buchanan
Gospel-hyphenated book titles seem to be everywhere these days. I am thankful that the gospel is getting attention for more than “entry-level Christianity.” It is good to remind believers that, as Tim Keller puts it, a Christian never gets beyond the gospel. Yet it takes more than a title to center a book on the gospel.    Read more >

Book Review: There’s Hope for Your Church
Reviewed by Zach Schlegel
No church is perfect. Well, not yet anyway. Christ laid down his life for the church and will one day present her holy and blameless. But this side of heaven, churches are filled with sinners fighting for holiness. So whether a pastor hopes to plant a church, revitalize, or has served in the same place for decades, reform is always on the agenda. How can a pastor lead his congregation to reach more people with the gospel? Grow in holiness? Resolve divisions and disputes? Train up future leaders?Read more >

It’s about that time again.  Summer is winding down and the Fall school and conference season are upon us already!  Conferences are no replacement for the local church, and I don’t think a Christian should try to live their spiritual lives on the highs that come from them.  Having said that, though, a solid conference experience filled with the word of God and good fellowship can provide a spiritual retreat or tune up if used well.  In His grace, the Lord has provided me these opportunities to preach, learn, and fellowship this Fall.  I hope to see you at one of these gatherings.

From the conference website:

CONVERSION
What is God’s role?
What is our role?
How does it happen?
What does it look like?

These are tough questions. The trouble is, too many churches have stopped asking them. They have lost sight of how important a right understanding of Conversion is. All sorts of bad consequences result.

Yet how beautiful is the picture of a church of genuinely converted people?

The fourth 9Marks at Southeastern conference will explore why a healthy church is one that truly understands the idea of Conversion. It embraces God’s role in salvation as well as our role in turning away from sin and turning to Christ, the object and center of our faith.

Speakers include Daniel Akin, Thabiti Anyabwile, Alistair Begg, Matt Chandler, Mark Dever, and David Platt.

 While I’m in Raleigh for the 9Marks conference, I’ll also spend the Lord’s Day with Matt Schoolfield and the saints at Fellowship Raleigh. Looking forward to breaking bread together with them.

From the conference website: Does “membership” in a local church matter? Should I be committed to placing my name on a “church roll”? If so, what should that commitment look like? What are the responsibilities that pastors have to their flocks, and don’t they have those same responsibilities to “everyone”?

In the 21st century, many pastors are afraid to ask for commitment from the local body. Committed church membership is an assault on the individualistic, self-centered ideas of our culture. The local church is predominantly viewed as simply a place to meet “my felt needs”; and when those felt needs are no longer met, it is appropriate and right for the believer to “move on”. But is that really the idea behind church membership?

On October 26 – 28, 2012, the Semper Reformanda conference will answer many of these questions as we address the idea of church membership from a Biblical standpoint. Featuring keynotes from Thabiti Anyabwile, Dr. Voddie Baucham, and Dr. Michael Horton, we will look at the history of church membership, church membership in its current form, and address why people need the local body.

Breakout sessions will include topics for pastors, other leaders in the local church, and families. Topics will include: What’s the Difference? Covenant Theology from a Baptist and Presbyterian Perspective; The Church: Why Bother?; Poverty, Charity, and the Church, and many more..

November 5-7, 2013
John Reed Miller Lectures on Preaching

It will be a great joy and privilege to visit with the faculty and students at RTS-Jackson to deliver the John Reed Miller Lectures on Preaching. You can find an archive of former lecturers here.  It will be great to labor with my man Reddit Andrews, the new Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at RTS-Jackson.

  2012 Miami Pastors’ Conference
  November 9-10, 2012
  Theme: Worldliness

I’m so excited that Pastor Ken Jones of Glendale MBC are planning a relaunching the Miami Pastors’ Conference.  Once an annual event, it was one of the few conferences to attract a predominantly African American and Reformed attendance.  And anyone who knows the saints at Glendale know the wonderful hospitality the church family extends.  I hate to be common, but I hope they’re frying fish again on Saturday!  You’ll want to check this conference out!  You can find save-the-date information here.

Faith Baptist Church (Tortola, British Virgin Islands)
November 18-22, 2013

It’s an honor to join Pastor Cecil Parillon and the saints at Faith Baptist Church for a week of preaching. Lord willing, I’ll also have the opportunity to catch up with some dear former members now relocated to BVI, Richard and Carla Lake.

The latest 9Marks e-Journal focuses on Mercy Ministry in the Church.  You can check the issue out here.  You’ll find quite a number of helpful articles thinking about the issue both from a theological and a practitioner’s perspective.

Here’s the table of contents:

ARTICLES

The “Regulated Free Market” Approach to Mercy Ministry

When it comes to mercy ministry in the church, both the programmed and the organic approaches have their limitations. Here is a third way.

By Jamie Dunlop

How Do Word and Deed Ministry Fit Together for a Church?

Churches know they are responsible for word ministry. But are they responsible for deed ministry? How do word and deed ministry relate?

By Timothy Keller

Obligation, Stewardship, and the Poor

It’s easy (and biblical) to insist that Christians should “do something about the poor.” But how can we sort out whom we should help, and how much?

By Kevin DeYoung  

How Mercy Serves Evangelism in the Church

Here are five ways mercy ministry serves and supports a church’s gospel proclamation.

By Mike McKinley

We Need to Be Careful, but We also Need to Care    

Theological nuance is important, but it should never mask disobedience.

By Mike McKinley

PRACTICAL COUNSEL

How to Have Gospel Conversations with Torn Up People

How can you talk to someone with whom you seem to have nothing in common? By seeing their life and yours through the lens of the Bible’s grand narrative.

By John Lauber

Church Mercy Ministry as Integrated Auxiliary

If a mercy ministry in your church grows to the point where it needs some real structure, consider making it an “integrated auxiliary.”

By Jamie Dunlop

How to Start a Mercy Ministry in your Church

If you want your church to help poor people, decide how you are going to help, find people to serve, and tell them about Jesus as you do.

By Layla Wilder

COMPELLING EXAMPLES

Loving the Unlovely and Unwanted

This is the story of one urban church’s efforts to serve its community through both mercy and pointing to the source of mercy.

By David Apple

Adopting a School

Here’s how the Summit Church learned to love their neighbors, and what that did for their witness to their community.

By J.D. Greear

Facing Up to Sex Trafficking

Should Christians pass off victims of sex trafficking to non-Christian counselors? Send them to someone else’s church? What? What should pastors know about this world and what can they do?

By Justin Holcomb

AUDIO

Race, the Cross, and the Church

John Piper addresses racism, the gospel, obstacles to reconciliation, and white guilt in this discussion of his recent book Bloodlines.

Posted on July 1, 2012

The Power and Importance of Polity with Hunter Powell

Jonathan Leeman asks Hunter Powell and Mark Dever about authority in the church. What authority does the congregation have? What about the elders? And what did the congregationlists at the Westminster Assembly have to say about it?

Posted on June 1, 2012

You can listen here.  From the 9Marks website:

Greg Beale gives a crash course on the discipline of biblical theology, assesses recent works on it, and explains what he’s written and why.

The new 9Marks Journal is out.  In anticipation of T4G’s theme this year, “The Underestimated Gospel“, they’ve focused on “The Underestimated Doctrine of Conversion.”  Looks like there is some good stuff here.

While I’m mentioning 9Marks… in late January I had the privilege of sitting down with Mark Dever and Matt Schmucker to talk about finding and training elders and deacons.  I love those men and enjoy talking about these things (anything) with them.

Just found this brief review of 9Marks Ministries in 2010. There is much to give God praise for because of the fruit produced through all those working together in 9Marks. I’m very grateful to be a part of the team, and I hope you may join the team, too, with your prayers, relationships, and financial support. If you’re a frequent visitor to this blog, you probably already love the local church. If you love the local church, you’ll find kindred brethren at 9Marks.

9Marks: Christmas 2010 from 9Marks on Vimeo.

Just thought I’d share something of an update on my conference and speaking travels over the last few days.  I left Grand Cayman last Thursday en route to the IX Marks at Southeastern conference on biblical theology.  The conference began on Thursday with sessions from Mark Dever (overview of the Bible), myself (exposition of Romans 9 on election), and David Platt (a powerful sermon on Isaiah 6 and 53).  Day two featured and masterful biblical theological treatment of Philippians 2 by Danny Akin and a survey of the church of Ephesus and the need to live in the good of the gospel by Matt Chandler. (I don’t think the Akin and Chandler videos are up yet)  The conference grew from about 330 folks last year to slightly over 800 this year.  The attendance was encouraging, but the conference still has a small, southern, cozy feel.

During the conference I had opportunity to catch up with Stephen Ryan, a former staff member at FBC now studying at Southeastern and serving at North Wake Church.  I also had the privilege of meeting two dear friends from the years we lived in Raleigh, Clyde and Linwood.  Add to that edifying conversations with Jonathan Leeman and Matt Schmucker, I’d have to say the first couple days of the trip were much needed balm for the soul.  The time in the word at the conference and the fellowship with the saints was simply refreshing.

Saturday I flew from Raleigh to New York to spend the Lord’s Day with Pastor Ed Moore, his family, and the saints at North Shore Baptist Church in Queens.  If you live in the New York area, let me say you won’t likely find a warmer, joyful, free, and zealous congregation of God’s people than the saints at North Shore.  I felt like I was back in Cayman with their excellent singing and praise, with the diversity of the congregation, their attentiveness to the word and love for the Savior.  The church is actively planting other churches in the area and living for the Lord in wonderful ways.  I preached at their two morning services from Matthew 19:13-30.  The Lord seemed to bless His word.

Following the two morning services, we packed up the Moore’s minivan and drove about 3 hours south to Ocean City, New Jersey for the Ocean City Bible Conference, where I had the privilege of opening the conference with a sermon on Hebrews 1.  So, Sunday was full day of preaching and teaching!  But the Lord blessed it all.  The Ocean City Bible Conference is hosted by Pastor Kevin O’Brien and the saints at Ocean City Bible Church.  What a wonderfully warm and engaged family conference.  Located three blocks from the Jersey shore and boardwalk, it’s an ideal place for a family Bible conference.  Many of the people here are on their family vacations.  And being located in an alcohol-free city, it’s just a wholesome and enriching atmosphere.  Ocean City Baptist Church is a church made for preaching and singing.  It’s rounded sanctuary and ceiling makes everyone feel close to each other and causes the voice to fill the place.  We’ve been led in very lively praise to God and the Lord seems to be blessing his word.  After preaching Hebrews 1 last night, I followed with Hebrews 7 this morning.  Kevin O’Brien preached a great sermon this morning on the ways our evangelism can become man-centered.  If you’re in the New Jersey area next year, you might not want to miss this awesome conference opportunity.

As for my diet, I’ve been doing pretty good.  Yesterday was the only day I got off course.  My hosts here in Ocean City really wanted me to go to a place with great Philly steak and cheese sandwiches.  I couldn’t politely refuse, could I?  So, I had more bread than I was supposed to.  But the steak and cheese was great!  Praise God we’re not justified by our diets!

Later tonight we hear from Phil Johnson.  I’m looking forward to continuing under the word as this brother ministers.  Tomorrow, Lord willing, I finish my duties here with a sermon on Hebrews 8.  Then it’s hearing more from Phil Johnson, Paul Tripp, and Fred Zaspel, whose new book on Warfield’s theology is on here at the conference.  I hurriedly got my copy.

I’m enjoying the ministry the Lord has given thus far.  A few folks from church have even emailed to say they were praying.  “Thank you” for the note and to all those who’ve prayed.  The Lord is answering.  Things are going well, but I look forward to seeing Kristie, the kids, and the family back at FBC.

Sinclair Ferguson quoting Thomas Brooks in the latest edition of the 9Marks eJournal on hell:

Oh, but this word eternity, eternity, eternity; this word everlasting, everlasting, everlasting; this word forever, forever, forever, will even break the hearts of the damned in ten thousand pieces…Impenitent sinners in Hell shall have end without end, death without death, night without day, mourning without mirth, sorrow without solace, and bondage without liberty. The damned shall live as long in Hell as God himself shall live in heaven.

Makes me want to weep… and preach.

That’s the subject of the latest edition of the 9Marks eJournal.