Ministry in Times of Crisis (A Sermon Series)

Written by Phil A. Newton

Every day my local newspaper delivers news of crises. In India a fire kills scores and injures hundreds. Monsoons hit Bangladesh, wiping out entire villages. A Midwest tornado levels several square miles of homes, businesses, schools, and churches and kills dozens of unsuspecting people. As a group of Christians

Redefining Church Membership

Real life means real crises. How are believers to respond? The Christian response to crisis begins with God! The One who created us and redeemed us also sustains us throughout life—including times of crisis. Growth in grace and opportunity for ministry follow Christians in the wake of crises. For example, William Carey, the father of modern missions, left us a legacy of faithfulness to God. What he accomplished in terms of establishing missionary work in India, developing modern missionary methods, and translating Scripture or portions of it into more than a dozen languages can rarely be paralleled.

But Carey knew the agony of crisis. He was forsaken by his fellow missionaries, persecuted by nationals, suffered the loss of a child, lived with his wife’s insanity, and later endured cruel rumors back in England that affected his financial support. He worked for years on major translation projects, only to see the whole work burned in a printing house blaze. He struggled with the political turmoil between Britain and his adopted homeland of India. Yet in every crisis he found refuge in the Lord who redeemed him, and he was able to give comfort and ministry to others as well.[1] The challenge every church faces is twofold: to learn to rest in Christ during crises and to minister to others going through crises in the name of Christ.

The approach in the following four sermons is to help us think biblically about a Christian response to crisis.

Phil Newton is pastor of South Woods Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. This material was adapted from the Winter 2002-2003 issue of Proclaim! magazine.

[1] See Timothy George, Faithful Witness (Birmingham: New Hope, 1991) for an excellent biographical study on Carey. John Piper has a two-volume series that demonstrates how Christians in church history have addressed suffering and crises in their own lives: The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God’s Triumphant Grace in the Lives of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000) and The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001).