Seedplots

A friend of my challenged me to read this book together with him.  I accepted his challenge and am glad I did.  As I read through these chapters I’m trying to summarize the results of my reading.

Christian Ministry is what might be called an unheralded classic.  It’s not talked about a lot, but many well known Christian leaders read it regularly and are challenged and helped by it.

About the Author

Charles Bridges (1794-1869), was a clergyman in the Church of England. Other published works by Bridges include commentaries on Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Psalm 119.

Bridges writes out of his personal experience as a pastor.  He aims to encourage fellow pastors who have encountered difficulties in ministry.  His thesis is that discouragements in ministry,

Properly sustained and carefully improved, become our most fruitful sources of eventual encouragement.

This book grew out of a letter written to a friend on the subject of “ministerial inefficiency”.  The letter was later expanded and published in a magazine and then developed into a pamphlet.  This pamphlet was then expanded further still into this book.  It was first published in 1829.  It was further enlarged and expanded and printed as a second edition.  A third edition, enlarged further still, was published a year later.

In a later edition, Bridges wrote that his book emerged from his concern over what he saw around him.  There has never been a time, he believed, when godly Christian leadership was more needed.  Therefore, he concluded, it has never been more important to emphasize the Scriptural standard for Christian Ministry.  His book attempted to address this need.

While written over 150 years ago, Bridges book is still helpful today.  Its rooting in a different day and age is, in fact, one of its strengths, along with its rooting both in Scripture, and years of faith experience in local church ministry.