White Horse Ministries

Hometown Happenings 0701

Education

Hernando County Utilities Department will hold a Rain Barrel Workshop at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Utilities Department, 21030 Cortez Blvd., Brooksville. The workshop will be presented by John Korycki of the Hernando County Florida Yards & Neighborhoods Program. Each participant will receive a completed rain barrel, along with instructions on its proper use, placement and decoration. Using rain barrels in a landscape helps to reduce dependence on irrigation and supplements rainfall when it is dry. The cost of the class is $30 per completed barrel. Preregistration is required and will be received on a first-come, first-served basis. The program is only open to residents of Hernando County. To register or for information, call (352) 540-6230.

State clubs

Illinois Club of Spring Hill will meet at 1 p.m. July 1 in the fellowship hall of Forest Oaks Lutheran Church, 8555 Forest Oaks Blvd., Spring Hill. Instead of a speaker, the annual red, white and blue potluck luncheon including desserts will be featured. Members are requested to bring the entrée for which they signed up for the buffet table plus own soft drinks and place settings. The object of the club is to promote fellowship, social and fraternal activities for former residents of Illinois. In addition to monthly meetings, activities include eating out at a local restaurant each month and group travel opportunities. Annual dues are $12 per person. All former Illinois residents and their partners are invited to join the club or to come as a guest prior to making a decision to join. For information, call Pat Godfrey at (352) 597-0346.

Wisconsin Club will hold its social night at 4 p.m. July 20 at Kally K's Restaurant, 3383 Commercial Way, Spring Hill. The club also offers travel opportunities. On July 29, a group will attend the Show Palace presentation of the Neil Sedaka musical, "Breaking Up is Hard to Do." Annual dues are $10 per person, and either spouse having lived in Wisconsin qualifies membership for both. For information or to book a trip, call Carolee at (352) 666-2974.

Botanical

Orchid Lovers of Spring Hill will meet at 1 p.m. July 16 at the Partner's Club, behind Oak Hill Hospital, 11375 Cortez Blvd., Brooksville. Bill Nunez will speak on orchid breeding and flasking. Complimentary refreshments will be served. Guests are welcome to attend. For information, call Linda Roderick at (352) 597-3736.

Buttonwood Bonsai Club will meet at 9:30 a.m. July 9 at The Key Training Center, 130 Heights St., Inverness. Jim Van Landingham will be the featured demonstrator. He is on the Bonsai Societies of Florida's list of speakers. Van Landingham is well known as a teacher and demonstrator throughout Florida and at state and national conventions. Meetings are open to the public, and visitors are welcome. For information, call Jim Stephens at (352) 848-0102 or Clay Gratz at (352) 563-2156.

Succession: Ministers or Ministry? - White Horse Inn Blog

There have been some interesting discussions lately on the blogs about “pastoral succession.” Don Carson discusses this issue with Tim Keller and John Piper at The Gospel Coalition site. Anyone in the middle of this process—or anticipating it—will benefit from their sage advice. Over at Reformation 21, Carl Trueman offered some wise thoughts of his own on the conversation.

Eventually, every church has to think through the connection between faith and practice when it comes time to call a new pastor. I’d like to tweak the conversation a little bit by raising the question of paradigms.  Are we looking for a certain kind of minister or, first and foremost, for a certain kind of ministry?  Is our “job description” determined by the charisma, style, accomplishments—and genuine gifts—of the minister or by the qualifications that Paul lays out in the pastoral epistles?

On one hand, pastoral succession can be a time of crisis.  Sometimes the crisis results from poor leadership.  The natural assets that make someone a great leader in business, entertainment, or politics may also become liabilities in ministry.  In the church, poor leadership doesn’t necessarily mean a failure to instill the confidence of others; it can actually be just such confidence that weighs a minister down and makes it really hard on the next guy.  In the church at least, poor leadership means creating a situation in which the minister, not the ministry, becomes the means of grace.

On the other hand, pastoral succession problems can also indicate a healthy church.  In my circles, we care about who follows famously faithful pastors, but we should care as much about who follows a faithful pastor down the street.  We care about “succession” because we care about God’s covenant faithfulness “to a thousand generations.”

Healthy churches may hit some rough water in the interim between pastors.  Even when the ministry has been faithful over many years, alas, the fruit of the flesh that the apostles diagnosed in their own church plants blossoms from a conquered but sturdy weed.  After years of keeping everyone’s eye on the Word, loss of godly leadership can often disintegrate quickly into squabbles over secondary issues.

However, when discussing pastoral succession, we have to beware of following a paradigm of leadership that is not consistent with our place in redemptive history.  Born in the “Jesus Movement” of the 1970s, one non-denominational denomination with which many of us southern Californians are familiar adopted the “Moses Leadership” model, which places all the power in the church in the hands of the pastor, who (like Moses) was directly accountable to God. Understandably, this rather “papal” form of government raises questions of succession to a new level.

Behold a White Horse

Cincinnati Magazine

England Under Seven Administrations: The Canning and Goderich ministries. The Wellington ministry

The earthen vessel and Christian record & review

Uffington White Horse and its landscape, investigations at White Horse Hill, Uffington, 1989-95, and Tower Hill, Ashbury, 1993-4