DEACON - CANDIDATE INFORMATION PACKET - Ryan Fields

To what extent would these ethical and social issues occupy your preaching and teaching? The church would not be faithful to the particular cultural moment in which the Lord sovereignly placed it if it ignored these pressing social and ethical issues. Therefore, it is vitally important that the pastor teach God's people a biblical worldview that helps them understand and respond to these complex issues from a biblical vantage point and preach the Word of God in such a way that shows God's people how the Bible really does speak to these things. In my mind this is best done by having these issues "in mind" in preparing sermons on particular biblical texts rather than preaching topical sermons that take on one issue at a time. I believe that such topical emphasis is better done in a Sunday school context where there can be more nuance and dialogue than a sermon allows. I also hold that it is very important that preaching never becomes beholden to the particular cultural issues of the day; we will always be confronted with various ethical and social issues, but the best way to prepare the church to engage them well is to see that the church is growing into the full maturity of Christ, able to respond to any issue in a way that is faithful, wise, and winsome. What place does world evangelism have in your overall pulpit ministry? I believe the church’s role in global missions, in sum, is to think globally while being present locally. The Great Commission, a call to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19) with the guarantee that members from every tribe, tongue, people and nation will be among the redeemed (Rev. 5:9), means that all Christians must to some degree be globally minded, and therefore that the local churches in which they gather must be globally engaged. This will differ based on giftings and resources, but minimally it should involve a commitment to praying, giving and going as the Lord calls. Local churches might seek to raise up homegrown missionaries which can then be sent and supported in locations all over the world. They might seek to dedicate a portion of their annual budget to global mission endeavors. They might seek to partner with parachurch organizations that have a strategic focus in relationship to the broader mission (e.g. Bible translation, theological/pastoral training for impoverished segments of the globe, child sponsorship, famine relief efforts, etc.). But all the while these churches will recognize that they are called to be on mission in the particular locale in which they are placed: they think beyond themselves globally but they do not neglect the mission they have been given locally. In an increasingly globalizing world, global and local mission intersect more than they ever have before; by befriending and sharing the gospel with an international student in the US, for example, local mission turns out to be global mission at the same time. World evangelism is just one emphasis that the senior pastor should give, but it is an important one, and therefore it should certainly show up in pulpit ministry, especially because part of what the preached Word should do is to train God's people in righteousness so that they are thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). How would you plan to deal with church growth and the formation of daughter churches? I tend to think of church growth in terms of "depth" rather than "breadth," meaning that I believe church growth has more to do with growth in Christ than growth in numbers. This is not to say that numerical growth should be ignored; it should be strived for because this

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