Proclaimer Blog
Look inside first
I’m greatly enjoying Andrew Cornes speaking on 1 Corinthians 1 at our preachers’ conference. Andrew is an experienced preacher/pastor and is recently retired. What I love about him is his honesty talking about his long experiences of ministry, both in terms of what was going on in his church, but – just as importantly – what was going on in his own heart.
This is useful stuff. For sure, looking back he could see lots of external causes of division and difficulty. And it’s always easy to point the finger at others. But, said Andrew honestly, we have to look inward too. And very often it is our own pride which is the chief issue. Moreover, it is not disconnected to the difficulties in the church. For if our pride is making us awkward or negative or critical, is it any wonder that such attitudes are prevalent in our churches?
In other words, what preachers need to hear time and time again is that we need to look internally before we start blaming externally. I think I read something similar in the Bible somewhere. 1 Timothy 4:16 anyone?