Stopping to Think

  In an article that is very worth your tim e, Jared Wilson talks about the fact that pastors are paid to sit and stare out the window-or, in other words, to think, pray, and meditate on Scripture. This seems counterintuitive to many parishioners, and to many pastors as well. One of the reasons, Wilson argues, is because we have mislabeled the "pastor's study" as the "pastor's office." He then gives the following quote from Eugene Peterson to that effect: “A misnaming replaces ‘pastor’s study’ with ‘office,’ thereby further secularizing perceptions of pastoral work. How many pastors no longer come to their desks as places for learning but as operation centers for organizing projects? The change of vocabulary is not harmless. Words have ways of shaping us. If we walk into a room labeled ‘office’ often enough we end up doing office work. First we change the word, then the word changes us.” The whole article from Wilson is worth your time. What are you expectin...

Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson by D.A. Carson My rating: 5 of 5 stars As a bivocational, small-town church planter, this was hugely encouraging. Tom Carson, and many men like him over the centuries, labored in relative obscurity. Often having little observable success. But God sees their labors, and as the writer to the Hebrews says, he is not so unjust as to forget them. So keep reading your Bible, ministering to people with that Bible, and trust that the Lord who sent you will work. Be faithful to the end. May the Lord raise up more men like this in our day. View all my reviews