God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
Committees are necessary. Even more important is vision and the ability to move the congregation toward the goals of the church. But when push comes to shove, it's the ministry of the Word that gives us our greatest impact. A church can usually put up with weak administration if it has effective preaching. But there's nothing quite as pathetic as people coming to church and returning home without any spiritual food.
We must be saints before we die, if we are to be saints afterwards in glory. The favorite idea of many, that dying men need nothing except absolution and forgiveness of sins to fit them for their great change, is a profound delusion. We need the work of the Holy Spirit as well as the work of Christ; we need renewal of the heart as well as the atoning blood; we need to be sanctified as well as to be justified.
