Featured I miss my old pastors ministry

1. Very disciplined guy - Up at 6AM every morning
2. Rejoiced in what he called being a Pentecostal Holiness country preacher
3. Revivals - At least one every two months - All with unique and good evangelists
4. Would let the Holy Spirit have his way in service
5. Take time to pray for the sick at church and in the hospitals. Carried a bottle of anointing oil with him
6. Was a friendly guy and would come visit you
7. Loved God and very Christlike.
8. A great, loving, and supportive family man as well

I am so tired these days of the preachers from the theological cemetery (oops! I meant seminary!) who think you are a privileged guy if they have time of day to stoop down from their perch of greatness to say hi!

 

I wish our denomination would have produced more like him! I do not think denominations are a bad thing, they are not at all, though, like restaurant franchises where you can expect the same treatment every store!

 

My old pastor was a Pentecostal Holiness preacher who only criticized one denomination.... Pentecostal Holiness! I never heard him say a word against any other denomination.

 

If they are Christlike in their ways.... Nothing! Most common everyday like people are just after simple friendship and for many seminary trained preachers, a virtue looked over!

 

In old Methodist times these were called Exhorters, and Bob Jones did a movie on one by the name of Robert Sheffey, whom GC Rankin described as....

The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.

He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.

He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.

It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.

At the close of that year in casting up my accounts I found that I had received three hundred and ninety dollars for my year's work, and the most of this had been contributed in everything except money. It required about the amount of cash contributed to pay my associate and the Presiding Elder. I got the chickens, the eggs, the butter, the ribs and backbones, the corn, the meat, and the Presiding Elder and Brother Stradley had helped us to eat our part of the quarterage. Well, we kept open house and had a royal time, even if we did not get much ready cash. We lived and had money enough to get a good suit of clothes and to pay our way to conference. What more does a young Methodist preacher need or want? We were satisfied and happy, and these experiences are not to be counted as unimportant assets in the life and work of a Methodist circuit rider. -The Life of George Clark Rankin

 

"Dear Lord, a chill wind seems to imprison our hearts; and the brothers and sisters sit about as rotting tree stumps; and even the mouths of Thy servants who have spoken seem cold with formality and aloofness. These brethren who call themselves preachers and who by divine calling should let Thy lovingkindness shine from them like the light of the sun do not know what the trouble is. I think I know what the trouble is. Thou are not with us. We have not invited Thee. They will not like Thy servant Robert Sheffey for asking you this at so late an hour, but, Lord, come quickly, like a descending dove. Forgive them, Lord, for their stiff shirt collars and brand-new suits make it hard for them to look down from the pulpit to see if anyone stands at the altar. Forgive them, Lord, they are small potatoes, and very few in the hill …" - Robert Sheffey, annoyed with the seminary trained preachers at a religious conference

 

It is nice when a divine nature accompanies the ministry...

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. - 2 Peter 1:4

 

It is important, for the sake of spirituality, that we divide the man into three parts… Physical, Spiritual, and Intellectual. If E = mc2 then we can divide and conclude that...

Mass (m) = Energy (E/c2) And there are three varieties...

Natural E/c2 - All mass is basically cooled plasma, the sun is the visible form of E/c2
Mental E/c2 - Our thinking can produce creativeness, light, and good things
Spiritual E/c2 - E (motivation, warmth, love) / c2 (faith, hope, charity, joy)

The Natural E/c2 in the form of mass produces a gravity that attracts other objects
The Intellectual E/c2 produces a gravity that draws us to study
The Spiritual E/c2 also has a gravity that draws and makes religion attractive

So... Spirituality in itself is nonsense. Therefore it can be missed on the intellectual level. And, keeping in mind the religious folk in Jesus time were astute mentally, but the spiritual man was equivelent to dead mens bones.

I believe the Spirit can absorb just as the mind, and can become very evil... Yet still retain it's mental correctness.