Terry Pruitt's Blog

Talking to a friend, we were discussing mentorship and training. I'm on my second internship for ministry that is formal. I have been mentored a number of times in less formal settings and in other formal settings. I see a lot of mentorships fail to meet the development goals. Often they get side tracked. Often people are recruited to be a mentor, but they don't know what to do. They know what a teacher does, but what does a mentor do? So they try to teach and often what they teach are procedures to do a job. In that way people mistake On the Job Training (OJT) for mentoring someone. OJT involves doing tasks that are supervised. A good OJT method is "I do, we do, you do." What that means is that first someone watches the trainer do the task. They talk about it. There is healthy discussion about the task. Then the trainer and the trainee do it together. Lastly the trainer watches the trainee do it. This is good OJT. OJT is training. Mentoring on the ot...

May 28th and we have been eating from our garden a few weeks. It has not been unusual for me to plant the garden after May. Because one does not harvest before he plants, I have never had May crops before. Spring gardening has been fun and I hope I never go back to planting in June. The blackberry (not BlackBerry) hedge is blooming. We have been eating the lettuce and trying to give it away. We have made a couple salads for church. My wife like broccoli but I have never been successful at growing it. Maybe it was the late planting cycles. They seem to like the cool spring. We have peaches starting to form. Our peaches are usually best in a pie and not great slicing peaches. I'm looking forward to cinnamon peach cobbler.

Love is valuing someone from the heart. It is recognizing what is special in the other person. Philia love is valuing a friend. Eros is valuing someone with whom you have a romantic relationship or desire to have a romantic relationship. Agape love is valuing someone but there is no apparent benefit to loving the other person, you just see why he or she is special, nifty, and cool. When people talk about unconditional love I think what they mean is love without transactional benefit. Friendship often involves mutual benefit. Romance often assumes mutual benefit. Love that comes from our heavenly Father did not look for a benefit. He sent his One and Only Son into the world when we were his enemies. Love is not merely being polite to someone. It certainly isn't being mean either, but polite is just shy of love. Love goes beyond just treating someone fairly. Love is not merely not being at war with someone. Apathy does not communicate love, it may communicate hate...

Listening to a speaker this past Thursday at a worship service, I noticed a strange dichotomy articulated. It was the concept that emotions are unreliable and that the Word of God is reliable. The man took the Scripture as factual but saw emotions as unreliable. I would define emotions as responses to one's value judgments. Those value judgments may be misguided or be an accurate assessment of the facts. Certainly one's emotions may be manipulated by others or ourselves. Emotions may also be influenced by one's health and environmental factors. Interactions with others influence one's emotions also. When the Scripture commands one to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might", it includes the emotions. An emotionless response to the Word of God would mean that one would fail to embrace the value judgments discussed therein. Worship is meant to engage the whole person. That does not mean one should eng...

This morning I was studying Isaiah 7, reading about the prophet asking the unbelieving king to find faith and if he lacked faith that God was willing to give him a miraculous sign. For years I have listened to message that I must pull myself up by my own boot straps, that it all depended upon me for success. If I failed, it would be because I did not try hard enough, I did not work enough, that I was a failure. Indeed, I should work hard. Certainly, I should not give a half effort. Surely, I must try, try again. However, I heard the ancient prophet say to Ahaz, and also whisper to me, "If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.’” As someone else paraphrased it, "Trust or bust." Ahaz was thinking that he was a clever politician, that he knew what to do. His solution to threats from his northern neighbors was to seek refuge in one of the superpowers of the day. He did not trust so in the end, he was busted. The kingdom was not ripped from his fam...

I'm not sure. What I mean by that is that the issue is not cut and dry. It depends what you consider the essence of the NIV to be. Some helpful links come from the NIV Bible Update website and Zondervan's blog . These sites explain how they are updating the NIV version of the Bible. I believe the question comes down to whether the updates will cause the same issues to resurface that the TNIV brought. I am in a wait and see attitude.

1. There is but one only1 living and true God,2 who is infinite in being and perfection,3 a most pure spirit,4 invisible,5 without body, parts,6 or passions;7 immutable,8 immense,9 eternal,10 incomprehensible,11 almighty,12 most wise,13 most holy,14 most free,15 most absolute,16 working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will,17 for His own glory;18 most loving,19 gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin,20 the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him;21 and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments;22 hating all sin,23 and who will by no means clear the guilty.24 See also: WLC 7 | WSC 4 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Deut. 6:4; 1 Cor. 8:4,6. 2 1 Thess. 1:9; Jer. 10:10. 3 Job 11:7,8,9; Job 26:14. 4 John 4:24. 5 1 Tim. 1:17. 6 Deut. 4:15,16; John 4:24; Luke 24:39. 7 Acts 14:11,15. 8 James 1:17; Mal. 3:6. 9 1 Kings 8:27...

Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth." Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." Then the LORD said to him, "Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." ...

I make goals for the year, as you may know, I don't really prefer to do resolutions for the New Year. As a part of spiritual growth work out plan, I have made it a goal to listen to the Daily Audio Bible . It is not my intention to listen to it everyday. I think that would be too lofty of a goal since I am going to be reading the Bible for myself too. So if I can get some DAB in two or three times a week, I think that would be great. I encourage you to consider checking out this resource. Five Reason the DAB is Cool! 1. Brian reads from the heart. 2. You get a new version of the English Bible each week. 3. Hearing it read gives you a different perspective from reading it from the page. 4. It is prayerfully pursued. 5. It really is about being a part of the Christian family. You can get to DAB via their website, iTunes, and many other ways. Check them out.

Frequently Asked Questions About Baptism Salvation Is The Gift Of God Q: Do you have to be baptized to be saved? A: The question is not simply about baptism, but the scriptural teaching regarding ceremonial righteousness. Christians might think of this question in terms of baptism, but more broadly it is a question about ceremonial righteousness. The scripture has a lot of teaching about ceremonial righteousness that must be applied to both Old Testament ceremonies and to New Testament ceremonies. Is a New Testament ceremonial washing more able to save than an Old Testament ceremonial washing? Absolutely not. A male in the Old Testament was considered unclean until he was circumcised. The Old Testament had numerous ceremonies and while the New Testament introduces just a few. Just because the New Testament has fewer ceremonies, one must not treat them as if they are something other than ceremonies. Jewish Christians of the first century would have keep the Old Testament ceremonial law ...

Ever notice that ministry is one of those jobs that has many competing models for what the core duties are? It seems even people otherwise unconcerned with church feel they have a pretty good idea what the pastor's work week should look like. In one of my classes we were asked to talk about somebody who had mentored us. I thought about a retired pastor in my home church in Missouri, Brother Fike. He gave me a fairly simple model of ministry. Preach the Word and care for the flock. The more I read and hear other models I think I keep coming back to this simple model. Some of the other models have been propsed to me and sometimes led me off the path of shepherding those under my care. Other Models Pastor as CEO - This one is appealing since you get to have the dignity of a leader in the business community. You get to read all those leadership books and attend those seminars that business leaders do. Also, people in your congregation know how to relate to the role. Unfor...

"The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoying Him forever". - The Westminster Confession "The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever". - John Piper "Where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead". - John Piper We worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship. "Public worship will not excuse us from secret worship." - Matthew Henry Worship: To exalted God. "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him". - John Piper "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve" - Matthew 4:10 Worship is being preoccupied with the worth of God. "The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are not worthy of Him". - A.W. Tozer

Worship is simply recognizing how awesome God is. He is wonderful. When we sit in a public worship service, we are taking time to recognize how awesome God is. When the Scripture tells us to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, it means that we recognize just how awesome God is with all our being. I hear from time to time that love is a decision. Well, it might be true that one might see the worth of someone and say, "I'm making a decision to recognize how neat that person really is." Usually though true love actually recognizes the worth of the person for the person for himself and a complex decision cycle simply is not needed. Some people are a struggle to love, because their value is clouded by sin. Regardless, they are valuable. Worship is a special recognition that God is worthy of all our honor, and praise, and loyalty. To worship him is to love him. The Christian church often performs worship services without love being a huge compo...

One of the spiritual disciplines is self-examination. This discipline designed to promote spiritual growth by making one aware of his or her sins, confess those sins, and repent of those sins. Making the Christian aware of sin is difficult because we have blind spots. The Christian may not see certain sins due to a hardening of the heart. Another reason one might find sins difficult to observe is that the Christian has properly repented of the sins of his youth and grown to feel that sinning for the most part except for small sins was mostly indicative of those sins of his or her youth. As a child or a youth one commonly has a different set of temptations than an adult. The adult Christian who has moved beyond childhood temptations or youth temptations may feel that there is relatively little wrong in his life. The secret though is that at the new maturity level, there is a new set of temptations. Having recently gone through a season of my life that was marked by religious pri...

Reposting this from my website. By Terry L. Pruitt Introduction An anachronism is something or an idea that is placed outside its time. In recent years, re-enactors of medieval history have developed an organization called the Society for Creative Anachronisms. This society purposely creates hand made items and events (i.e. jousts) from another time. At other times people stumble in writing a story and place an anachronism in it unintentionally. Some classical scholars believe that some of the cultural items written in Homer's Odyssey are anachronisms. One history scholar claims to find it difficult to enjoy the mystery books and subsequent television series Brother Cadfael because of the anachronistic use of the scientific methods, especially forensic science, which would have been out of character and world view of a medieval monastery. Examples of unintentional anachronisms abound. At one Bible conference the speaker constantly referred to his trip to Israel, and then made the m...

This is a continuation of posting from my website that is going away. Some of the issues addressed in this post are a little dated at this point, but much of it still stands. A Story About An Emerging Future July 12, 2004 By Terry L. Pruitt Introduction: Predicting The Future Of The Church Futurology is a study of current trends in technology or society and how those trends will play out. Writer's like Alvin and Heidi Toffler in Future Shock and Power Shift take an academic look at the possibilities of what is the logical conclusions to certain trends that currently exist. The trend is usually predicted to continue when it comes to technology and social change. Some futurologists would predict that technology like the bar code and scanner system in grocery stores will expand to be included in you future kitchen so that the grocery list can be automated. You could keep an accurate inventory of your refrigerator and cupboard contents in a object-oriented database w...