Ministry

Martin Luther on Pastoral Study

Kirk E. Miller

Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. … They do not pray; they do not study; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture. …

[T]he [pastoral] call is: Watch, study, attend to reading. In truth, you cannot read too much in Scripture; and what you read you cannot read too carefully, and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live too well.

Therefore, dear sirs and brethren, pastors and preachers, pray, read, study, be diligent. Truly, this evil, shameful time is not the season for being lazy, for sleeping and snoring. Use the gift that has been entrusted to you, and reveal the mystery of Christ.

–Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, comp. Ewald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), entry no. 3547, 1110.

The Church for Mission vs. the Church for Consumption

Kirk E. Miller

The following is an excerpt from my sermon The Church: Myths and Misconceptions (Part 1) delivered at South City Church, 7.30.17.

The Biblical reason we join and are a part of a church isn’t because a particular church offers the “goods and services” we want and like — making the church into something like a business, and us into its customers or consumers. The church is a people, a community. And the reason we join and are a part of this church community is for the sake of advancing our collective Christian mission — together.

When we become consumers, church becomes about “what I get out of it.” And when that happens, what determines “how I chose to do church” (or, as we might say, where I choose to “go to church” — as if church is something you “go to”) is what suits my preferences, what I like, or what meets my perceived needs.

In such a model, the church becomes a place where I come to be served. The pastors and the staff are the ones who do the ministry (rather than everyone). “It’s their job. They’re the ministers,” we say. “My job is to receive and be served.”

Continue reading →

Serious Church: Taking the Christian Life Seriously through the Church’s Practice of Discipline (Matthew 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13)

Kirk E. Miller

Serious Church: Taking the Christian Life Seriously through the Church’s Practice of Discipline (Matthew 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13)
South City Church
July 9, 2017

Podcast link.

This sermon is a part of a series on the foundational principles of South City Church’s philosophy of ministry. See all content from this series.

On Organic, Relational Evangelism (David Doran Jr.) and Cynical Critics (D.L. Moody)

Kirk E. Miller

I … say Amen to relationships…. [But] I must admit I’m growing skeptical of the only — organic — witness. … I wonder how much we actually get to the Good News. … People are not saved by relationships but by the Gospel. So it’d be fair to ask- have I shared the Gospel…? Proclamation and relationship can’t be separated but relationships can’t [be allowed to] lull us to sleep making us think we’re evangelists without ever sharing the good news.

~ David Michael Doran Jr., church-planting pastor at Resurrection Church (Lincoln Park, MI)

It is clear you don’t like my way of doing evangelism. You raise some good points. Frankly, I sometimes do not like my way of doing evangelism. But I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.

~ D.L. Moody (said to one of his critics)