Sheep and Goats??

My devotional today asks all sorts of questions ! Are you a sheep or are you a goat? Who is he talking about in V34 His brothers yes! His brothers the Jews? or Gentile believers ?


31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, (NIV)

Justice and Mercy. Mat 23:23

In my devotional reading today, we see Jesus in conversation with the pharisees. He tells them quite plainly that they have neglected the important matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness. In Mat 5:17 we see Jesus stating that he has not come to abolish the law but to fiulfil it. The pharisees in their strict obedience to the Law were trying to create the right social conditions in which the Messiah would come, they were looking to purify society(v25). The prophets of old had said many times that the people were neglecting mercy. (e.g. Amos 2:7)

In other words, lets get on with the business of justice, mercy and faithfulness in Jesus name and by doing so we will have oil in our Jars Mat 25:4. The Kingdom of God is among us.

prayer request

Prayer Request
Rev Mark Taylor, minister of Wick Baptist Church, was admitted to hospital this week with a suspected heart attack. He was transferred from Caithness General Hospital in Wick to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary where doctors decided that Mark had not had a heart attack, but has inflammation of fluid sacks around the heart which can be stress related. He could be transferred back to Wick as soon as today possibly.

Mark with his wife Claire and children Danielle, Joel, Isaac and Eli had just moved to Wick from Cromer in Norfolk in August of this year. This is Mark's first full time pastorate having graduated from Spurgeon's College in London this year. The news of Mark's illness has come as a great shock to the church as it has to his family. Please pray for Mark that he may make a full recovery. Pray for Claire and the children at this time also.

Received an email from the Baptist Union of Scotland yesterday requesting that we announce an event in Glasgow for those interested in pastoral ministry. It seems there is a dire shortage of pastors in BUS churches. Why is this? This should be the most desirable of work. Work of the highest calling. The ultimate vocation
Does the BUS not consider that perhaps the form of leadership in Baptist churches might be unscriptural, that congregational government might be part of the problem. Where in scripture do the shepherds hand over the decision making process to the sheep? Before there can be any improvement in numbers of men coming into ministry perhaps they had better look at this problem. This is where a lot of problems surface, a lot of personalities clash where the focus is off Christ and on the problem whatever it is, where egos are massaged and groups form..... in the church meetings.

This problem of indiscipline runs right through Baptist life and yes you can have peaceful meetings, once those that have had enough have left to wander and only those that agree with one another are left. Then everybody is so anxious to agree with one another because they are the only one's left that they make bad decisions.

Elders should make decisions pertaining to the spiritual life of the Church. The BUS should produce clear guidelines as to what constitutes good scripturaly informed church government, so that the average life of a pastor in office extends beyond the current four years. Then pastors might not face burn out. Pastors should free to pastor the congregation, supported by a team of worshipful Elders and which is..in turn supported by some cracking good Deacons. Incidentally looking through the bible I see Elders/Pastors, I see Deacons, I see a treasurer ( Judas ) but I don't see a secretary, yet this role is second only to the Pastor in Baptist thinking.

Come to think of it I don't see a vacancy committee in scripture either! Can six people drive a car at the same time?

There seems to be a lot of debate about the role of Elders in the Church and how they relate to the Pastor. It was reported in in May 2006 that the senior pastor(Sam Shaw) at Germantown Baptist Church might have a few problems on his hands. Sam along with others want to elect elders, problem being that others don't. Lets go over to Sam to see how things have progressed .............. er! he's not there any more.



Sam wanted a more biblical model of church leadership, of shared responsibility the church, membership was 9000 a mega church. "Another reason for wanting to update our CBL has been to address the need for a broader base of spiritual leadership and oversight. The model of church leadership portrayed in the New Testament is a plurality of elders who meet demanding, biblical qualifications before they are appointed to direct the affairs of the church" Was this to much to ask ? Was it a question of status ?



Bad leadership is divided leadership, and divided leadership cannot function as leadership in God's church so what happens.... Sam goes, was Sam wrong? I don't thinks so ? "a house that is divided against itself will not stand" and God will not allow that to happen to His church.



Traditionally , Baptists adhere to strict democratic governance with every member eligible to vote on important church decisions. However the imagery we see in the bible is quite often one of shepherd and sheep. Shepherds lead.. sheep follow.. and goats go wherever they want to they certainly don't like the idea of shepherds and call for fredom of the individual. Some think that the business meeting where decisions are made provides repeated opportunities for persons to exercise their carnality. The opposite could also be true.


In a world that is constantly at odds with itself. The church needs to be a place of peace, a place where we can come before God and worsip Him as Lord and thank Him with praise and adoration for his Son, then go and tell the world, so they can join in and be about their Fathers business

I'm kind of new to this blogging thing and I'm not sure how it will develop or if it will develop at all. I am inspired to blog by my fellow bloggers at HTC and hope I can find enough time to work out what to say that may be found relevent in our postmodern church era, post christian society.

How do you view the elders in your church? do you have elders? do you think they meet the criteria laid out in scripture. I know an elder whose sole job in office is to open up the building and lock up after everyone has gone home, while the Pastor/minister runs around like a headless chicken trying to do several jobs at once.

I've read several books telling me that corporate eldership without a pastor is the best way, the biblical way and yet I'm not convinced. Someone always has to take a lead, to dream Gods dreams, to realise a vision and to lead the flock of God , that's why God raises up certain men, at certain times in certain places.

Being an Elder I think a lot about eldership matters and find that most of the time I am quite out of my depth with modern day issues that are no longer swept under any carpets but exposed for all the world to see and even celebrated . I am convinced that a good solid unified eldership within a church is the key to successful church government and reforming of society. A good eldership can be a blessing to any Pastor/Elder not a hurdle to be overcome supporting him in his work. A poor eldership will shorten the life of a Pastor and fragment the congregation. (scatter the sheep)

There is much to write about eldership, the role it has to play in the smooth functioning of the church I believe that if the church can ask society to follow Jesus we have to be a group of people that are organised as an example of how society should be, of course we won't manage to do that being imperfect sinners but as a people saved by the grace and mercy of God we owe it to our Lord our, our church our communities to lead the way through prayers to God that will raise up strong elderships within our churches, elderships that will recognise that within them there will be one who can be trusted to lead, not his way, but Gods way. Let us be a blessing to one another our communities and God whom we serve.

In future posts I hope to look at the role of elder the, relationship/difference between elder and deacon the relationship between elder and pastor and most importantly how the eldership can serve the flock of God efectively.