Joe Pursch

Christless Christianity by Michael Horton (A masterful exposure of the questionable directions that some are taking in Gospel Preaching in the American church today)

Living the Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney (Strengthened my confidence to continue to drive a pathway to the golden milestone of the Cross in all of my preaching)

Expository Preaching Methods by F.B. Meyer (Gained good insights into how to preach doctrine in listenable ways from this 1910 work by an English pulpit master)

New Testament Christianity by J.B. Phillips (Though we wouldn’t agree in some ways theologically, Phillips delivered a great exploration of the dynamic of faith in the early church vs. our own)

He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Post Modern World by Al Mohler (Best defense out there of the phrase “The only kind of Biblical preaching is expository”. The “meaning of the method” is powerfully explained for the modern pastor trying to find his voice in the slip stream of narrative-driven teaching styles out there.)

This Little Church Had None by Gary Gilley (Everyone involved in evangelical leadership ought to pick this one up. This is a brief but clear critique of the latest trends in the Emergent Church and other “pragmatically-reduced” versions of the Gospel being promoted in ministry today. )

Conquer Your Fear, Share Your Faith by Ray Comfort (An everyman’s exposition of the dynamics of how true conviction rises in lost people only when we honestly and boldly reveal their sin before we comfort them with mercy.  I read this to increase my courage in sharing the offense of the cross.)

Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin (Groundbreaking stuff from the editor of Fortune on how to really achieve dominant performance; gave me a focused process to use in getting better as a communicator/influencer in my second half of ministry.)

The Yankee Years by Joe Torre (Great stories and principles on developing talent and teamwork. I’ve applied it this year in motivating and directing others. )

John Adams by David McCullough (I’ve worked through this one most of the year. Like many of  McCullough’s works, it is an observation on how the true character of a leader develops, against the backdrop of human error and frailty that popular history too often obscures.)

People ask me what I think of  The Purpose Driven Church…and I tell them I am more caught up in being a Purpose Driven Pastor, focused as Paul was in Romans 15 on developing and delivering obedient disciples to the King. John Piper put this ambition into words beautifully for me:

“To watch a people grow in radical obedience to Jesus, and to watch them fall out of love with the world and into love with Christ, and to see them seek the kingdom first and let material things go, to see them become bold in their witness, and compassionate toward the poor, and respectful toward ethnic diversity, and devoted to sexual purity, and committed to world missions, and a wartime lifestyle that maximizes resources for the global cause of magnifying Christ—to see this happen in our ministry through Jesus Christ is the greatest thing that can happen to a pastor.”

John Piper in A Pastor’s Offering

Romans 15:17-18

17 In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. 18 For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience – by word and deed.

I saw some of the scroll fragments on display last year and was awestruck, and now this… inerrancy’s most compelling apologetic goes digital! The complete Washington Post article is here.

The technology giant and Israel announced Tuesday that they are teaming up to give researchers and the public the first comprehensive and searchable database of the scrolls – a 2,000-year-old collection of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek documents that shed light on Judaism during biblical times and the origins of Christianity. For years, experts have complained that access to the scrolls has been too limited.

Once the images are up, anyone will be able to peruse exact copies of the original scrolls as well as an English translation of the text on their computer – for free. Officials said the collection, expected to be available within months, will feature sections that have been made more legible thanks to high-tech infrared technology.

“We are putting together the past and the future in order to enable all of us to share it,” said Pnina Shor, an official with Israel’s Antiquities Authority.

Hello, I’m Joe Pursch, and this is a Transforming Moment. Have you ever had a near brush with death, maybe by just avoiding an accident or not getting on an airline flight that ended in disaster, or maybe even experiencing unexplained healing? Well, don’t discount the possibility that a merciful God gave you that experience to get your attention. He did so for some of the great saints of God over the ages. John Bunyan, for example, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, was a soldier at the siege of Leicester England when he traded sentry duty with a friend, only to see that friend shot and killed by a sniper within minutes. The experience hastened Bunyan’s conversion to Christ. John Wesley was trapped in a burning house as a six year old boy and was saved at the last moment by a neighbor who climbed into the window and hauled little John from the flames. Wesley never forgot the experience, and eventually had a picture drawn of it that he kept till he died. (You can see it rendered above) At the bottom he had written the Bible verse ‘Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?” Wesley always felt God preserved his life so that he could complete a great work. Why do you think God preserved you? I’m Joe Pursch. For more, go to transforming moments.com.

Listen to the broadcast audio here: Transforming Moments Death Moments

Hello, I’m Joe Pursch, and this is a Transforming Moment. Recently I told you the story of how William Wilberforce, the great reformer of slavery in England, launched out on his mission because of his dramatic conversion to Christ at age twenty six. You’ve perhaps seen his story recounted in the film titled “Amazing Grace”. What you didn’t see in the film, however, was the fact that Wilberforce was physically quite deformed. He was a small, misshapen hunchback, so small in fact that as a boy his schoolmates often made him get up on a table in the school lunchroom and perform tricks. But Wilberforce decided to make people forget all about his deformity by learning to speak with passion about what he believed. In fact, more than once as he argued in Parliament for the freedom of the slaves, he leaped up on a table in front of his fellow politicians just like he had been forced up on a table as a schoolboy; only this time he stood and spoke with such passion about human dignity that his dwarfed body melted away, and for a moment, people simply saw a giant. Have you got a God-delivered message to give? Then go preach it like the giant God made you to be, no matter what! I’m Joe Pursch, and this has been a Transforming Moment.

Listen to the broadcast audio here: Transforming Moments Wilberforces Challenge

I’ve been interacting with some church leaders recently about my philosophy of ministry when it comes to music. My response to them has been that the form of worship songs is not nearly as important as the source and focus of the songs. In other words, I find that it is more important to ask if the songs have been birthed from the truths of Scripture (vs the ephemeral experience of the writer) and have they sent our soul’s focus heavenward when they’re all done. I’ve sung some modern choruses that can actually pass this test, and some golden oldies that actually fail it. (And vice versa of course.)  It seems that the age or syncopation of the song is not the issue, but the Biblical sensitivity and passion of the songwriter.

Happily, the surge of interest in worship songs that take us into the deep assurances of God’s Word is creating a search for such gifted poets in the church. One such artist is actually a duo: The Gettys.  Recently I attended a leadership conference which featured a simple acoustic performance by Keith and Kristyn Getty, a performance that was simply… well, worshipful. The high point was not when the artists themselves amazed us with their vocal talent by hitting the high notes of their signature song, but it came instead when they invited the entire audience of several thousand to worship with them, following the words on the screen and entering the presence of the King together. For a few moments, we got it all right: our source was Biblical truth and our soul focus was on Christ’s ineffable worth.

So what we’ve got to be is more discriminating about the songs we use in worship, looking for songs that emerge from the hands of people who, like the Gettys, are well gifted both in the theology of the cross and the swelling musical needs of the modern heart. Such worship authors are few and far between these days, as in all days. Indeed, one of the bigger problems in Christian music today is that we have so much of it, with every piece claiming to be worth our use in worship simply because it’s about Christ.

Pulpit great  J.C. Ryle made the same observation over a century ago :

“Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church of Christ. I believe the last day alone will show the world the real amount of good they have done. They suit all, both rich and poor. There is an elevating, stirring, soothing, spiritualizing, effect about a thoroughly good hymn, which nothing else can produce. It sticks in men’s memories when texts are forgotten. It trains men for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations. Preaching and praying shall one day cease for ever; but praise shall never die. The makers of good ballads are said to sway national opinion. The writers of good hymns, in like manner, are those who leave the deepest marks on the face of the Church.

But really good hymns are exceedingly rare. There are only a few men in any age who can write them. You may name hundreds of first-rate preachers for one first-rate writer of hymns. Hundreds of so-called hymns fill up our collections of congregational psalmody, which are really not hymns at all. They are very sound, very scriptural, very proper, very correct, very tolerably rhymed; but they are not real, live, genuine hymns. There is no life about them. At best they are tame, pointless, weak, and milk-and-watery.”

Or how about this…The Heidelberg Catechism in rap. See what I mean? Solid.

Rapper-Pastor Curtis Allen brings it.

Hello, I’m Joe Pursch, and this is a Transforming Moment. The shadows were long when the man returned to his house in London in 1849, concluding another long day of labor to support his wife and their ten children. His life was always full of obligations, and even though lately he had become quite successful and to a degree even famous, he still slumped wearily into his chair in the candlelight. And then he opened the pages of a manuscript and taking a pen, he wrote out a few new pages of a book he was writing especially for his children. It was entitled “The Life of Our Lord Jesus”, and was a simplified form of the Gospel, just for children.  The man wanted to present it to his children as a Christmas gift that year, and he looked forward to reading it aloud with them circled around his chair at the fireside. Of course, he was already famous for another Christmas Story he had published a few years before, but on this night Charles Dickens, the most famous author in England, peered at the Bible before him and wrote out the story of Jesus, beginning with these words, “My Dear children, everyone ought to know about Him!” I’m Joe Pursch, and this has been a Transforming Moment.

Listen to the broadcast audio here: Transforming Moments Dickens

I’m so blessed by the success of Grace Bible’s RISE Worship outreach nights. Birthed in the hearts of some of our university students, we have now seen four worship events draw students and their friends from all over Sacramento and also from the Bay Area. It’s been a thrill to see the venue also serve as a training platform for several of our grad students who are pursuing full-time ministry futures; they are discovering the joy and challenge of evangelistic preaching by speaking to this audience, which grows in number at each event.

Our student leaders have put together a Facebook fan page for RISE with loads of video and testimonies. Check it out at RISE Worship Events.

Please pray for me as I speak at the upcoming Annual Gala For Life at the Hyatt Regency Grand Hotel in Sacramento September 24th. In my remarks I’ll be dramatizing the great battle for innocent life being waged in America today.

You’ll also hear and meet some of the wonderful young women and adorable new babies that the Alternatives Pregnancy Centers of Sacramento have  welcomed into new life this past year, both physically and spiritually.

Great seats are still available. Tickets and more info can be accessed at www.alternatives pc.org