Discover the Difference
In just a few days we will be having our first class for the Shepherd’s College. We’ll be meeting Monday evening at 7 eastern time. You can read about our program here. You can get a taste of it by coming to Monday’s meeting. You can do that either by coming to our meeting place, at Cedarville Community Church, 12828 Main Street, Cedarville, IN 46765 or by emailing us at hellorcjr@gmail.com to let us know you’d like a Zoom invite.
What will it be like? It will be a conversation among men, those with ministry experience, men new to ministry and those aspiring to ministry. We will talk about the struggles, the battles, in our own spiritual lives as well as in the lives of those under our care. We will talk about the means of grace, those tools that God has blessed us with to equip us, and others, for ministry. We will pray. We will open our Bibles and find there not fodder for arguments but food for sustenance.
The Shepherd’s College is an old way of preparing for gospel ministry, aided for those far from us by a new way of conversing across great distances. The center, however, isn’t the technology but the conversation. We believe conversation is education, that education is discipleship. We believe that the truth that one can spend three years studying in a seminary without realizing that the Bible says nothing whatsoever about seminaries isn’t a ringing endorsement of seminaries. We believe in an educated clergy, yes. But, back to the beginning, we believe conversation is education and education is discipleship.
Read through I Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9. These lists describing the qualifications of an elder include the ability to teach. Every other quality, however, is a question of character. Every other quality is a quality that every godly man ought to aspire to. Every other quality is one that is not best served by abstract studies performed in ivory towers. Every other quality is one not best passed along by learned presentations. These qualities are learned and taught in and through shared life, in the midst of the sheepfold, where there is precious little ease and comfort. Where there is a great deal of hunger and need.
Come and join us for a test drive. If you find the investment of time and energy to be of value, we can talk about signing you up. We are prepared to partner with local churches as well as individuals. If ever the church were in need to men equipped with valiant hearts, it is now. We’re looking for a few bad men, men who by His grace cling to His grace and want nothing more than to tell other bad men where they can be redeemed.