pastors | Craig T. Owens

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Links & Quotes

May 13, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Some interesting reading (and watching) from today:

The Center for Reproductive Rights is trying to force the U.N. to use anti-torture treaties to silence the Church, arguing that the pro-life message “tortures women”! Huh? Check out this post—UN To Criminalize The Pro-Life Movement?—and sign the ACLJ petition to stop this.

[VIDEO] Nick Vujicic and John Maxwell talk about making today bigger than yesterday.

A word to pastors: “The prophet must hear the message clearly and deliver it faithfully, and that is indeed a grave responsibility; but it is to God alone, not to men.” —A.W. Tozer

“If I am not today all that I hope to be, yet I see Jesus, and that assures me that I shall one day be like Him.” —Charles Spurgeon

A good reminder about Martin Luther King, Jr’s Letter From A Birmingham Jail in this post: When Waiting Doesn’t Work.

“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote that the answer to objectionable speech ’is more speech, not enforced silence.’ This seems a most reasonable proposition. If you are offended by someone’s position, you can counter it with your own arguments and expose their error for the world to see and reject. It is a concept that has served our Republic well in the fight for liberty and freedom.” Read more in We Need More First Amendment Freedom.

The so-called global warming “science” is becoming more and more philosophy and conjecture. The title of the article in the esteemed Nature is Key West Antarctic Glaciers Retreating Unstoppably, but the text of the article is very un-scientific and vague. Please read the article for yourself and note phrases like these (emphasis added):

Radar observations suggest…
…would raise sea levels by 1.2 meters if they melted…
…glaciers are likely to disappear…
…melting over the next century will probably cause…
And my favorite: “Global sea levels are currently rising about 3 millimetres per year. Most of that comes from the thermal expansion of the warming oceans; some also comes from melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica.” To which I ask: how do we know this isn’t a part of the normal warming and cooling cycle?

7 Quotes From “The Ministry Of God’s Word”

May 2, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

The Ministry Of God’s Word by Watchman Nee is a MUST READ for all pastors, preachers and evangelists. You can read my book review by clicking here. Over the next few Fridays, I’m going to share some powerful quotes from this book.

“In incarnation … the Word instead was dressed in Man; therefore it had human feeling, thought and opinion, though it remained God’s Word. … In this do we find a great principle of the Bible: that it is possible for the Word of God to be unimpaired by man’s feeling. The presence of human feeling does not necessarily ruin God’s Word; it does so only when such feeling is inadequate. Herein lies a tremendous problem. The great principle is that human elements must not be of such a nature as to hinder God’s Word.”

“God will work in man until his human elements do not damage God’s Word. … The Holy Spirit so operates in man, so controls and disciplines him, that the latter’s own elements can exist without impairing God’s Word; on the contrary, they fulfill it.”

“To be the one who delivers God’s Word we must be pruned and refined. God has to lay aside those whose human makeup contains many uncleannesses, fleshly things, and matters condemned by God. Others He has to bypass because they have never been broken before God, or their thoughts are not straightforward, or their lives are undisciplined, their necks stiff, their emotions untamed, or they have a controversy with God.”

“We need to be daily disciplined. Any defect in us will defile the Word and destroy its power. … The greatest difficulty we confront in preaching the Word is not whether the subject is proper or the phraseology correct, but whether the man is right.”

“God chooses men to be His ministers in order that His Word may carry a human flavor.”

“The Bible is not a collection of devotional articles; it is men performing or living out the Word of God.”

“God puts His Word in us that we may meditate on it, feel after it, be afflicted by it, or rejoice in it, before the Word is released by us. … Thus the ministry of the Word is not the mere delivery of sermons we memorize. We must allow the Word to come to us, to drill and to grind us, until it flows out with—yes, our personal elements in it—and yet not spoiled or corrupted in the least. The Lord wishes to use us as a channel of living water.”

Posted in Pastoring. Tags: Bible, discipline, evangelist, feeling, God's Word, Holy Spirit, Incarnation, Jesus Christ, pastors, preaching, purity, quotes, Watchman Nee. Leave a Comment »

Pray To Preach Fruitfully

April 25, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

“To pray successfully is the first lesson the preacher must learn if he is to preach fruitfully; yet prayer is the hardest thing he will ever be called upon to do and, being human, it is the one act he will be tempted to do less frequently than any other. He must set his heart to conquer by prayer, and that will mean that he must first conquer his own flesh, for it is the flesh that hinders prayer always. Almost anything associated with the ministry may be learned with an average amount of intelligent application. It is not hard to preach or manage church affairs or pay a social call; weddings and funerals may be conducted smoothly with a little help from Emily Post and the Minister’s Manual. Sermon making can be learned as easily as shoemaking—introduction, conclusion and all. And so with the whole work of the ministry as it is carried on in the average church today. But prayer—that is another matter. There Mrs. Post is helpless and the Minister’s Manual can offer no assistance. There the lonely man of God must wrestle it out alone, sometimes in fasting and tears and weariness untold. There every man must be an original, for true prayer cannot be imitated nor can it be learned from someone else.” —A.W. Tozer

My dear pastor, are you praying enough?

Posted in Pastoring. Tags: A.W. Tozer, fasting, funeral, loneliness, ministry, pastors, prayer, preaching, wedding. Leave a Comment »

Links & Quotes

April 24, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Some great reading I found today.

A good reminder for pastors … “Let your preaching and teaching be motivated by love—for God and for those you instruct; and let your preaching and teaching equip others to love. The goal of preaching and teaching is not merely information transfer—learning more, or gaining more head knowledge about this or that passage or doctrine. The goal is love.” —T.M. Moore

“According to the Bible, we have because we ask, or we have not because we ask not. It does not take much wisdom to discover our next move. Is it not to pray, and pray again and again till the answer comes? God waits to be invited to display His power on behalf of His people. The world situation is such that nothing less than God can straighten it out. Let us not fail the world and disappoint God by failing to pray.” —A.W. Tozer

A story about a young man with autism that made me mad, and then made me laugh with joy: Movies With Max.

“Eternal life is worth a life’s battle. To escape the hurt of the second death is a thing worth struggling for throughout a lifetime.” —Charles Spurgeon

“The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven.” —C.S. Lewis

A great mini-biographical sketch on J.C. Ryle: Fighting For Truth Decay.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: A.W. Tozer, autism, Bible, biblical truth, biography, C.S. Lewis, Charles Spurgeon, disability, eternal life, God's power, Heaven, J.C. Ryle, love, pastors, prayer, preaching, quotes, spiritual warfare, T.M. Moore. Leave a Comment »

Links & Quotes

April 16, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Some cool reading I came across today.

“We simply can’t change ourselves. Only the Spirit of God can conform us to the glorious image of Christ.” —David Wilkerson

“Oh, that today my clothes may be vestments, my meals sacraments, my house a temple, my table an alter, my speech incense, and myself a priest!” —Charles Spurgeon

I like this: 8 Things Healthy Couples Don’t Do.

“Sound biblical and theological learning is useful for building the church when it is delivered with patience and gentleness by a loving shepherd.” —T.M. Moore

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Bible, change, Charles Spurgeon, Christian, church, David Wilkerson, emotionally available, encouragement, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, pastors, quotes, relationships, shepherds, T.M. Moore, words. Leave a Comment »

Links & Quotes

April 10, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Some great reading from today.

“All of the advertising we can do will never equal the interest and participation in the things of God resulting from the gracious answers to the prayers of faith generated by the Holy Spirit.” —A.W. Tozer

“The state of the times extremely requires a fullness of the divine Spirit in ministers, and we ought to give ourselves no rest till we have obtained it. And in order to [do] this, I should think ministers, above all persons, ought to be much in secret prayer and fasting, and also much in praying and fasting one with another. It seems to me it would be becoming the circumstances of the present day, if ministers in a neighborhood would often meet together and spend days in fasting and fervent prayer among themselves, earnestly seeking for those extraordinary supplies of divine grace from heaven, that we need at this day.” —Jonathan Edwards

Why is the media not in an uproar over this?! Pakistani Girls Forced to Renounce Christianity And Marry Muslims

“There is a bond: He takes it and crosses it all out and hands it back to you, and says, ‘There is a full discharge, I have blotted it all out.’ So does the Lord deal with penitents. He has a book in which all your debts are written; but with the blood of Christ He crosses out the handwriting of ordinances which is there written against you. The bond is destroyed, and He will not demand payment for it again. The devil will sometimes insinuate to the contrary, as he did to Martin Luther. ‘Bring me the catalogue of my sins,’ said Luther; and he brought a scroll black and long. ‘Is that all?’ said Luther. ‘No,’ said the devil; and he brought yet another. ‘And now,’ said the heroic saint of God, ‘write at the foot of the scroll: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin.”’ That is a full discharge.” —Charles Spurgeon

Funny, but instructional, from Ken Davis: Five Super Powers Of Effective Leaders!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: A.W. Tozer, Charles Spurgeon, Christianity, church, devil, exploited children, fasting, forgiveness, Islam, Jesus Christ, Jonathan Edwards, Ken Davis, leadership, Martin Luther, pastors, persecution, prayer, quotes, sin. Leave a Comment »

Links & Quotes

April 5, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Some links to some interesting reading and quotes I found this weekend.

Eric Metaxas shares some interesting archeological finds: Make No Camel Bones About It.

“No man has any moral right to go before the people who has not first been long before the Lord. No man has any right to speak to men about God who has not first spoken to God about men. And the prophet of God should spend more time in the secret place praying than he spends in the public place preaching.” —A.W. Tozer

A couple of family men (not!): Sports radio hosts blast player for taking paternity leave. UPDATE: I was glad to see that one of these guys, Boomer Esiason, apologized for these remarks. Good job, Boomer!

Helpful post for parents: How To Notice Changes In Our Kids.

“How many have we in our churches of crab tree Christians, who have mixed such a vast amount of vinegar, and such a tremendous quantity of gall in their constitutions, that they can scarcely speak one good word to you; they imagine it impossible to defend religion except by passionate ebullitions; they cannot speak for their dishonored Master without being angry with their opponent; God if anything is away, whether it be in the house, the church, or anywhere else, they conceive it to be their duty to set their faces like a flint, and to defy everybody. They are like isolated icebergs; no one cares to go near them. They float about on the sea of forgetfulness, until at last they are melted and gone; and though, good souls, we shall be happy enough to meet them in heaven, we are heartily glad to get rid of them from the earth. They were always so unamiable in disposition, that we would rather live an eternity with them in heaven, than five minutes on earth. Be ye not thus, my brethren. Imitate Christ in your loving spirits; speak kindly, act kindly, and do kindly, that men may say of you, ‘He has been with Jesus.’” —Charles Spurgeon

Rush Limbaugh’s take on the resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich.

“To be a Christian it is necessary that he serve his generation as well as his God.” —A.W. Tozer

“God’s presence is not the same as the feeling of God’s presence and He may be doing most for us when we think He is doing least.” —C.S. Lewis

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: A.W. Tozer, archeology, baseball, Bible, Boomer Esiason, C.S. Lewis, Charles Spurgeon, children, Christian, Dad, Eric Metaxas, father, God's presence, hypocrites, Jesus Christ, kids, parenting, pastors, politics, prayer, preaching, quotes, Rush Limbaugh, sports. Leave a Comment »

Links & Quotes

March 24, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

These are links to articles and quotes I found interesting today.

“Before the judgment seat of Christ my service will be judged not by how much I have done but by how much I could have done.” —A.W. Tozer

Medical science tells us what the nose knows.

Great advice on handling people who are mean: “But I mustn’t encourage you to go on thinking about her: that, after all, is almost the greatest evil nasty people can do us—to become an obsession, to haunt our minds. A brief prayer for them, and then away to other subjects, is the thing, if one can only stick to it.” —C.S. Lewis

“Some stumble because they do not see the stone in the way: divine grace enables us to perceive it and so to avoid it. … Oh, for grace to walk this day without a single stumble! It is not enough that we do not actually fall; our cry should be that we may not make the smallest slip with our feet but may at the last adore Him ‘Who is able to keep us from stumbling.’” —Charles Spurgeon

I like this: 4 Ways You Should Pray For Your Pastors.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: A.W. Tozer, C.S. Lewis, Charles Spurgeon, forgiveness, grace, medical science, pastors, potential, prayer, quotes, relationships, smell. Leave a Comment »

The Ministry Of God’s Word (book review)

March 21, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

The Ministry Of God's Word

As a pastor I am frequently in awe that God would use me to share His Word with His people. At times it can feel almost overwhelming. Reading Watchman Nee’s teaching to pastors in The Ministry Of God’s Word I feel equal parts heaviness and encouragement.

The heaviness comes from the even deeper realization that Nee brings to pastors of their awesome responsibility before God to be the messengers of His Word. Nee makes it clear that if a pastor’s heart or mind is not as tuned in as possible, the message will be diminished in its delivery.

The encouragement comes from the realization of how much the Holy Spirit wants to help a preacher get his heart, mind, spirit, memory, and even vocabulary in a place that can be used greatly by God.

Pastors, this is not an easy-to-read book. Not because of the vocabulary, but because of the deepness of the subject matter. You will find yourself confronted at every page. But as you persevere through Nee’s challenging message, you will feel God’s Spirit moving to equip you for even great ministry of God’s Word.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t say thank you to my son Harrison for giving this book to me as a gift. Thank you, son!

Posted in Pastoring. Tags: book review, education, God's Word, Holy Spirit, lifelong learner, pastors, preaching, training, Watchman Nee. 2 Comments »

Loving The Pastor’s Wife

March 14, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Dave Bruskas has a wonderful post on the Resurgence website (please read the full article by clicking here) called 4 Ways A Pastor Can Love His Wife Well.

Here’s one of the best quotes—

“A pastor’s first flock is his home, and his favorite first flock member is his wife.”

Think of it this way: Marriage is a picture of the relationship Christ wants to have with the Church. So He is described as loving her unconditionally, giving everything up for her, making her His sole focus. So the way you can love your wife best is to love her like Jesus loves His bride.

So, my dear pastor:

Don’t expend all your energy on others so that you don’t have any energy left when you get home.
Don’t use your most creative forms of communication for your Sunday sermons, and give your wife your leftovers.
Don’t get all “talked out” with parishioners so that you’re too tired to talk when you get home.

Your ministry to your wife pleases God. Only when that relationship is working can God bless your other ministry efforts.