I found this on www.EvangelismTeam.com, I thought that it was interesting as I will be approaching my Pastor concerning this very topic. Its a bit long, but way worth the read!

THE WAY OF THE MASTER

How to Approach Your Pastor – Introduction

To my fellow brethren in Christ, who desire to see Jesus Christ be the only boast of this generation:

My name is Matt Johnson, and I have put the following thoughts together for you to help you relate to your pastor as you consider asking him to look into the teaching of The Way of the Master. As a pastor myself, I know how many requests we pastors get from our congregation. I know the tremendous pressure a pastor sometimes feels to minister effectively to his people. I also know the incredible joy he feels to see one of his own flock being on fire for God, and ready to go out and reach the world for Christ. And if you are the one who is on fire for God, then you should know that you are a great encouragement to your pastor. You are an answer to his prayers; you are an encouragement to his weary bones. So be encouraged, and be emboldened as you bring this material to him!

When I was first exposed to this material as a pastor, I went through a season of searching the Scriptures to see if these things were true. To make a long story short, I found this teaching not only Biblical, but extremely effective in raising up the much needed laborers we pastors so often plead for. In my relatively small congregation in Georgia, we went from the average 2 to 3 percent of the congregation who could say that they had witnessed to someone in the past few months, to about 15 to 20 percent after introducing them to the teaching. Many souls were soundly saved. Many others have been set on fire to such a degree that they have expressed a call into the Gospel ministry. Others have been drawn to deeper levels of discipleship than they have even known before. In summary, this teaching revolutionized the faith of my congregation, and forever changed my own life and ministry. To God be the glory!

In the following pages, you will find some practical tips on how to relate to your pastor, from one who is a fellow pastor himself. You will find exhortation and guidance on how to be effective as you approach him. You will also find a collection of time-tested quotes from well-known ministers and theologians that you can give him that lend credibility to the principles found in The Way of the Master.

We would love to partner with you in prayer as you move forward to take this to your pastor. Send us an email at prayer@wayofthemaster.com and let us know your plans. We would be honored to pray for you and your pastor by name during this time. We will also be willing to help you in any way we can, to encourage you and equip you to be used of God to lead your church to go, and seek and save that which is lost.

Yours as a fellow laborer in Christ,

Matt Johnson

THE WAY OF THE MASTER

How to Approach Your Pastor

Ok, you’ve heard the teaching. You’ve been set on fire for God like never before. You see the urgency of getting the truth of this teaching to the church. You have found what has been missing in the modern Christian message. You desperately want to see your own church grab onto this truth, so you are feeling called to approach your pastor. Sound like you?

You are not alone. You are now part of what has become literally thousands of other believers around the world who have been awakened by the Biblical teaching of Hell’s Best Kept Secret. God is using this teaching in a mighty way, as He has done for more than 2000 years, and you are a tool in His hand by which He desires to see the nations come to true, Biblical repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

To be willing and obedient to what God is calling you to do is one thing, but to actually do it is another. If you are reading this, you are seriously considering what the next step should be. That is the purpose of this letter; to guide you in taking this teaching to those who can most effectively get it to the most people possible. And that would begin with your pastor. Thank you for your willingness to speak your heart to him. God will honor your obedience. Following are our recommendations as to how you can approach your pastor with this teaching.

To begin with, you should hold your pastor in high honor. The Bible says, “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine." 1 Timothy 5:17. So you should not only give honor to him, you should give double honor. In other words, respect your pastor very highly. His work is very important to God, and he should be given the utmost respect as you consider bringing this to his attention.

One note of caution here. We encourage you to hold him in high honor before you take the teaching to him. You may feel that he is a fine pastor, and for you, this is not a problem. But some may be taking this to a pastor for whom you have little respect, or with whom you disagree. If this is the case, now would not be an appropriate time to bring this before him. God has placed him in spiritual authority over you, and the Scripture says to esteem him highly in love, without regard to your opinion of him or of his ministry: For the Scripture says, "And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves." 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13. To esteem your pastor is the right thing to do, and will prevent any root of bitterness or preconceived ideas of rejection from affecting your attitude and presentation. Honor him, and you will be starting out on the right foot.

You should also pray for your pastor. Pray for him like nobody’s business! Throughout Scripture, we are encouraged and commanded to pray for those in authority over us, and especially our pastors. And let me encourage you to pray not only for the time when you meet with him, but pray that God would bless him and his family, that God’s richest mercies would be found near to him, and that the anointing of God would fall upon his ministry and on his study and preaching. Your prayers for him should be heartfelt, deep, and urgent prayers. Pray especially for his spiritual protection. Satan hates this teaching, and nothing would please him more than to get this teaching in your pastor’s hands and then for him to stumble into immorality, and blemish both the name of Christ and the truth of the teaching.

Lift him up in prayer often, and fervently. And you should be doing this well before any meeting with him. Through prayer, you not only prepare his heart to receive you, but you are also preparing your heart to receive him and his words. Read this exhortation from Charles Spurgeon on prayer, and then get to it!

“Stones are not broken, except by an earnest use of the hammer; and the stonebreaker usually goes down on his knees. Use the hammer of diligence, and let the knee of prayer be exercised, too, and there is not a stony doctrine in Revelation which is useful for you to understand, which will not fly into shivers under the exercise of prayer and faith. . . . You may force your way through anything with the leverage of prayers. Thoughts and reasonings may be like the steel wedges which may open a way into truth; but prayer is the lever, the price which forces open the iron chest of sacred mystery, that we may get the treasure that is hidden therein for those who can force their way to reach it. The kingdom of heaven still suffereth violence, and the violent taketh it by force. Take care that ye work away with the mighty implement of prayer, and nothing can stand against you.”

Next, be prepared for this teaching to not be received immediately with joy and thanksgiving by him. Any pastor who is worth his salt will not quickly jump into a teaching without thoroughly looking into it and being as the Bereans of Acts 17, who “searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). Remember, for most pastors, this teaching is quite a radical departure from the modern message. But truth is truth, whether it falls in line with a modern message or not. If he will be willing to search the Scriptures, he will soon see the truth and the great implications of the teaching.

It is also important to note that pastors are often extremely busy, and inundated with all sorts of materials, curriculum, and there’s always the next new Bible study, Church-wide campaign, and evangelism method to look at. Remember that if he has been in ministry for very long, he has likely seen the various evangelism programs come and go. He may think The Way of the Master as just another one of those “programs” that will pass like the last fad in Christian life. Of course, The Way of the Master is not an evangelism program, but a Biblical concept, that will not go away. In fact, it’s not new at all, but has been used in the Church for the past 2000 years or so, with the exception of the last century. So be patient with him.

Here’s a few practical suggestions for you as you prepare for the meeting:

Don’t overload him with material. We recommend that you give him the book, “The Way of the Master”, which contains “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” in audio CD format included in the back cover. You may also want to get a copy of “True and False Conversions” to him as well. These two teachings tend to grip pastors the most. “Hell’s Best Kept Secret will give him the heart of the Biblical teaching of Law before grace, and “True and False Conversions” will further help him to understand how the lack of the use of the Law in evangelism is the major root cause of the current “fall away rate” in modern Christianity.
We also recommend that you give him a written copy of your testimony of how this teaching has impacted your life. It is important to write it down because it may be weeks or even months before he looks into it. A personal, written letter from you to him will remind him of how important this is to you, and how sincerely you desire his approval. Also, at the end of this letter are some “Time Tested Quotes” from great men of the faith that you can copy and attach to the end of your testimony letter.
Don’t try to get any firm commitment in your first meeting. Try to get him to simply commit to look into it. Ask him to commit to listen to the CDs and read your testimony. If he is intrigued, then he will likely read the book as well. It’s important that you tell him that you need to know his thoughts on the teaching.
After the meeting, don’t bug him or pressure him. From time to time, just remind him that you are praying for him, not only as he looks into the teaching, but that you are praying that God would richly bless him, his family, and his ministry.

After the meeting, what do you do if he doesn’t agree with the teaching, or thinks that it just doesn’t fit with the current direction of the church? Or what if he is completely satisfied with the current evangelism methods and programs of the church? Ask him if he would allow you to teach the material in a small Bible study group. Believe us, if you do that, people will get on fire. And a pastor’s greatest dream is to see his people on fire for God and fervent in evangelism. Nothing pleases him more than to see a saint out in the harvest field! This may take time, but keep pressing on. It’s worth it!

Thank you again in Jesus’ name for your zeal and desire to see the lost soundly saved. And thank you for your desire to take this to your pastor. We would like to pray for you as you follow God in obedience, so send us an email so we can partner with you and your church in prayer.

May God bless you in your obedience!

TIME TESTED QUOTES:

John Wycliffe, the Bible translator "The highest service to which a man may obtain on earth is to preach the law of God."

Martin Luther "Satan, the god of all dissension stirs up daily new sects. And last of all which of all others I should never have foreseen or once suspected, he has raised up a sect such as teach that men should not be terrified by the law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ."

"The first duty of the Gospel preacher is to declare God's Law and show the nature of sin."

"...we would not see nor realize it (what a distressing and horrible fall in which we lie), if it were not for the Law, and we would have to remain forever lost, if we were not again helped out of it through Christ. Therefore the Law and the Gospel are given to the end that we may learn to know both how guilty we are and to what we should again return."

In a sermon published way back in 1537, Martin Luther spoke of the Law being used as a schoolmaster the bring sinners to Christ. Listen to his words of warning: "This now is the Christian teaching and preaching, which God be praised, we know and possess, and it is not necessary at present to develop it further, but only to offer the admonition that it be maintained in Christendom with all diligence. For Satan has attacked it hard and strong from the beginning until the present, and gladly would he completely extinguish it and tread it underfoot."

John Wesley In writing to a young evangelist instructed, "Preach 90 percent law and 10 percent grace."

"While he cries out, O what love have I to thy Law! all the day long is my study in it. He sees daily, in that divine mirror, more and more of his own sinfulness. He sees more and more clearly, that he is fullness a sinner in all things -- that neither his heart nor his ways are right before God, and that every moment sends him to Christ. Therefore I cannot spare the Law one moment, no more than I can spare Christ, seeing I now want it as much to keep me to Christ, as I ever wanted it to bring me to Him. Otherwise this 'evil heart of unbelief' would immediately 'depart from the living God.' Indeed each is continually sending me to the other--the Law to Christ, and Christ to the Law."

John Newton, who wrote "Amazing Grace" "Ignorance of the nature and design of the Law is at the bottom of most religious mistakes."

Charles Spurgeon "I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the Law." Then he warns, "Lower the Law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt; this is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than a gain; for it lessens the likelihood of his conviction and conversion. I say you have deprived the gospel of its ablest auxiliary [its most powerful weapon] when you have set aside the Law. You have taken away from it the schoolmaster that is to bring men to Christ . . . They will never accept grace till they tremble before a just and holy Law. Therefore the Law serves a most necessary purpose, and it must not be removed from its place."

"The Law cuts into the core of the evil, it reveals the seat of the malady, and informs us that the leprosy lies deep within."

"They must be slain by the law before they can be made alive by the gospel."

Jonathan Edwards "The only way we can know whether we are sinning is by knowing His Moral Law."

"They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. John iii. 18. 'He that believeth not is condemned already.' So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is, John viii. 23. 'Ye are from beneath.' And thither be is bound; it is the place that justice, and God's word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assign to him."

George Whitefield "First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the Law of God."

John Wesley "...it is the ordinary method of the Spirit of God to convict sinners by the Law. It is this which, being set home on the conscience, generally breaketh the rocks in pieces. It is more especially this part of the Word of God which is quick and powerful, full of life and energy and sharper than any two-edged sword."

"It remains only to show...the uses of the Law. And the first use of it, without question, is to convince the world of sin. By this is the sinner discovered to himself. All his fig-leaves are torn away, and he sees that he is 'wretched and poor and miserable, blind and naked.' The Law flashes conviction on every side. He feels himself a mere sinner. He has nothing to pay. His 'mouth is stopped' and he stands 'guilty before God.' To slay the sinner is then the first use of the Law, to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts and convince him that he is dead while he lives; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead to God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins."

"Before I can preach love, mercy and grace I must preach sin, law and judgment."

"The second use {of the Law} is to bring him unto Life, unto Christ that he may live. It is true, in performing both these offices, it acts the part of a severe school master. It drives us by force, rather than draws us by love. And yet love is the spring of all. It is the spirit of love which, by this painful means, tears away our confidence in the flesh, which leaves us no broken reed whereon to trust, and so constrains the sinner, stripped of all to cry out in the bitterness of his soul or groan in the depth of his heart, 'I give up every plea beside, Lord I am damned but thou hast died.'"

C. S. Lewis "When we merely say that we are bad, the 'wrath' of God seems a barbarous doctrine; as soon as we perceive our bad-ness, it appears inevitable, a mere corollary from God's goodness..."

J. I. Packer "Unless we see our shortcomings in the light of the Law and holiness of God, we do not see them as sin at all."

John Bunyan "The man who does not know the nature of the Law, cannot know the nature of sin."

A. W. Pink "Just as the world was not ready for the New Testament before it received the Old, just as the Jews were not prepared for the ministry of Christ until John the Baptist had gone before Him with his claimant call to repentance, so the unsaved are in no condition today for the Gospel till the Law be applied to their hearts, for 'by the Law is the knowledge of sin.' It is a waste of time to sow seed on ground which has never been ploughed or spaded! To present the vicarious sacrifice of Christ to those whose dominant passion is to take fill of sin, is to give that which is holy to the dogs."

Augustine "The Law is not in fault, but our evil and wicked nature; even as a heap of lime is still and quiet until water be poured thereon, but then it begins to smoke and burn, not from the fault of the water, but from the nature and kind of the lime which will not endure it."

Matthew Henry "Herein is the Law of God above all other laws, that it is a spiritual law. Other laws may forbid compassing and imagining, which are treason in the heart, but cannot take cognizance thereof, unless there be some overt act; but the Law of God takes notice of the iniquity regarded in the heart, though it go no further."

D. L. Moody "Ask Paul why [the Law] was given. Here is his answer, 'That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God' (Romans 3:19). The Law stops every man's mouth. I can always tell a man who is near the kingdom of God; his mouth is stopped. This, then, is why God gives us the Law—to show us ourselves in our true colors."

"The law can only chase a man to Calvary, no further."

J. C. Ryle "People will never set their faces decidedly towards heaven, and live like pilgrims, until they really feel that they are in danger of hell ... Let us expound and beat out the Ten Commandments, and show the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of their requirements. This is the way of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. We cannot do better than follow His plan. We may depend on it, men will never come to Jesus, and stay with Jesus, and live for Jesus, unless they really know why they are to come, and what is their need. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those who the Spirit has convinced of sin. Without thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world."

A. B. Earle "I have found by long experience that the severest threatenings of the Law of God have a prominent place in leading men to Christ. They must see themselves lost before they will cry for mercy. They will not escape from danger until they see it."

A. W. Tozer "No one can know the true grace of God who has not first known the fear of God."

Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones "A gospel which merely says, 'Come to Jesus,' and offers Him as a friend, and offers a marvelous new life, without convincing of sin, is not New Testament evangelism. (The essence of evangelism is to start by preaching the Law; and it is because the Law has not been preached that we have had so much superficial evangelism.) True evangelism... must always start by preaching the law."

"The trouble with people who are not seeking for a Savior, and for salvation, is that they do not understand the nature of sin. It is the peculiar function of the Law to bring such an understanding to a man's mind and conscience. That is why great evangelical preachers 300 years ago in the time of the puritans, and 200 years ago in the time of Whitefield and others, always engaged in what they called a preliminary law work."

John R. Stott "We cannot come to Christ to be justified until we have first been to Moses, to be condemned. But once we have gone to Moses, and acknowledged our sin, guilt and condemnation, we must not stay there. We must let Moses send us to Christ."

John MacArthur "God's grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers until the Law is preached and man's corrupt nature is exposed. It is impossible for a person to fully realize his need for God's grace until he sees how terribly he has failed the standards of God's Law."

C'ya!