When A Man Wears A Dress

We've been to a few places and to a few different churches.

I think, generally, you can say that when a man is wearing a dress there is something wrong.

Whether it's a football club review or a night club or a church, the man in the dress indicates that something has gone wrong somewhere.

At the football club fundraiser a man in a dress indicates that the level of humour is not going to rise above the juxtaposition of coconut bras and beer bellies.  Competence or ability may be lacking here.

At the night club a man in a dress quickly reveals that morals have been abandoned here.  Right thinking or clear understanding may be lacking here.

At church, a man in a dress may indicate both are lacking.

The Disciple Making Pastor - Foreword

This book starts in an overblown way, but this doesn’t diminish the importance of the book’s topic.

“It is no secret that the organised church is in trouble” is a generalisation and an overstatement.

Coleman writes in his foreword, “...ecclesiastical programs and membership promotions have been mistaken for fulfilling the great commission”

My immediate reaction is that this is an overstatement but...

• When we can’t explain why we have to have a youth group (or Sunday School) but we just know we have to...
• When we are glad to see someone coming to church, as if that is enough, or as if it’s a substitute for faithful living instead of just a component of faithful living...

We are already or in danger of replacing programs for living faith.

The Disciple Making Pastor - My Intro

There are lots of ways a pastor is like a shepherd. One that is less obvious is that in both occupations there is always work left undone.

A better lambing rate. Less damage from wolves. Just getting that fence done after all these years. Somehow we never seem to get a new fence put in because we are always chasing lost sheep and patching the old fence.

Perhaps the greatest regret of my time in Ariah Park is that I feel as if I never quite got to the meaty end of making disciples.

Now this feeling has been tempered by a new awareness as we were leaving of how much people have grown (it’s easy to be frustrated if you only measure people’s progress against where you want them to be, it’s easier to be encouraged if you look at how far God has brought them)

Nonetheless there remains a conviction that while preaching is paramount (any New Testament book will impress you with the importance of proclamation in the Church) the gospel must be preached in a one-on-one fashion also. The pastors job is to preach the gospel into the lives of the congregation both from the pulpit and from the lounge chair (or tractor cab or office chair)

So over the next few months I intend to read and reflect on Bill Hull’s The Disciple Making Pastor.