God Uses Unhealthy Churches
“That church is going to die.” I’ve heard that prophecy spoken over churches countless times. Interestingly, this doomsday prediction has been pronounced by people from almost opposite extremes of the “healthy church” discussion, each time about a church that differed from their convictions or preferences.
An elderly pastor who is used to traditional ways of worship looks at a new church plant, with their worship band and blue-jeaned leaders, and pronounces with certainty that this trend won’t last. “The old ways of doing church and worship have lasted for hundreds of years, and will still be here when this fad is long gone.”
The stylishly bearded member of the ten-year-old megachurch looks at the steepled little building on the corner in his neighborhood—where a small congregation has been faithfully meeting for over five decades—and feels certain it will be boarded up or turned into a vintage coffee shop quicker than you can say, “What happened to hymnbooks?”
Sadly, there is some validity to the pessimism that each feels toward the other. But thankfully, it is also true that God is in the business—and always has been—of using flawed Christians in less-than-perfect churches to fulfill his kingdom-wide, generation-spanning purposes.
I was reminded of this marvelous reality even as I recently wrote a book on “how to grow a biblically beautiful church.” Jesus is not only glorified in the Excellent Wife, or the Competent to Counsel pastor, or Radical family outreach, or the impeccably Centered church. Jesus is glorified in Christians and in churches—all over the globe and in every generation—who struggle to parent well, pastor well, evangelize well, or organize well.
In other words, Jesus can be glorified in you and me, and in the pitifully inadequate, sometimes myopic, church we attend.
God Uses Unhealthy Christians
The Bible staunchly resists our consistent temptation to make superheroes out of any of its main characters—except, of course, Jesus. Abraham, the father of the faithful, lacked faith. David, the great king of Israel, was a crummy leader to some of his most loyal subjects. Peter, the bold apostle, caved to social pressure more than once.
Not surprisingly, then, we find similarly imperfect people among the prominent influencers of Christianity. The great theologian Augustine was a severe opponent to other Christian believers who did not agree with his ecclesiology. The famous reformer Martin Luther would compromise some of his own convictions for the sake of expediency. Arguably the best apologist of the 20th century (and a personal favorite of mine), C.S. Lewis also argued for the extra-biblical concept of a Purgatory as part of the believer’s afterlife: “Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they?” This, in my view, is a significant error.
Think back over your own experience as a Christian. Of the people who have impacted your spiritual life the most—including perhaps your parents, various pastors, godly mentors, even radio or television preachers—haven’t you also noticed areas of weakness in their lives? Don’t they all have some obvious blind spots in their own understanding or behavior? (By the way, if you can’t think of any, that doesn’t mean the person is perfect—it means you know them imperfectly).
The fact is, God has always used flawed people to fulfill his perfect purposes. God uses weak people to show his own strength. God uses people who embrace some degree of doctrinal and practical error, or else he couldn’t use anyone at all.
God Uses Unhealthy Churches
When it comes to churches, just as with individuals, the Bible is strikingly short on perfect roll models. The churches of Galatia were tempted by legalism, the church at Ephesus lost their original passion, the Christians to whom Jude wrote were inundated with false teachers, and … where do we even begin with the church at Corinth?
I could not help but notice the omnipresence of imperfect churches as I researched my recent book about church health. The book is essentially an unpacking of Titus 2. And do you know what Paul is warning Titus about in the first chapter of this letter? You guessed it: false teachers, who are “empty talkers and deceivers.”
But that’s not all. The very fact that Paul gives such clear and helpful instruction to Titus in the second chapter of the letter clearly stems from the fact that in some of these areas Titus—and the church he was leading—were falling short of the ideal. Did Titus himself ever perfectly follow all the useful counsel Paul provides him in Titus 2? I’m guessing not.
Having been a pastor for over 15 years myself, and knowing something of human nature, I’m fairly confident that Titus’ church—even at its best—had some unhealthy Christians in it, and had a number of unhealthy areas where they still needed further teaching or prodding.
In our hypercritical era of sound bites and social media, I sometimes wonder if even a perfect person, or a very mature church, would meet our standards. Would we criticize Jesus because, even though he did reach out to paralytics and prostitutes in his own community, he did not do enough to battle the sex trafficking that was happening in his day in the Far East? Although Jesus himself had no word of rebuke for the church in Philadelphia (“I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name”), would we be satisfied that they had “merely” kept God’s Word and not denied his name? Or would we wonder why they weren’t more committed to picketing Caesar’s palace?
As glaring as the actual errors in the early churches are to our critical eyes today, it is equally plain that God used them. Paul did not give up on them; that’s why we have many of the letters that make up the New Testament. Jesus didn’t immediately reject them; instead he warns and offers correction to them, plainly desiring for them to continue flourishing for years to come.
In the mean time, these are the very congregations through which Jesus established his Church. Members of these churches would disciple the next (second ever!) generation of Christians. Martyrs from these churches would testify to the truth of the risen Savior. Missionaries from these churches would carry the Christian gospel to new continents. God uses churches who embrace some degree of doctrinal and practical error, or else he couldn’t use any of them.
Why Does It Matter If Your Church Is Healthy?
If God uses unhealthy churches, made up at least in part of unhealthy Christians, why then do we have a proliferation of books on church health these days? Does it really matter if you have the nine marks (or twelve marks, or five marks, depending on who you are reading) of a healthy church?
I suppose I can only answer with certainty for myself, since I am publishing a book on how to grow a biblically beautiful church. But I suspect that I speak for most of the other godly pastors and authors who have addressed this subject in recent years. My goal in unpacking Titus 2 for the church today is not to shame every Christian into feeling discouraged about how fall their particular congregation is falling short. Nor is it to spur church leaders to redouble their already exhausting labors in order to fend off every possible criticism that may be tweeted against them.
My hope is that pastors and church leaders, in particular, will receive this book in whatever way is appropriate to their specific situation—perhaps as an encouragement to their faithful labors in the church, or maybe as a helpful corrective if they see some areas where they have gone off-message from what Paul so helpfully describes for us.
By carefully studying and spiritually rooting ourselves in Titus 2 as a helpful model for the local church, my desire is for this book to provoke further conversations regarding how we as individual Christians can grow more like Christ, and how our particular churches can improve our intentionality regarding the Gospel. Although my book is aimed chiefly at pastors and church leaders (reflecting the tone of Titus 2), it is also accessible and relevant to every Christian because the local church is relevant to every Christian.
Why then write about church health? For the same reason Paul wrote his letter to Titus. Not to set up an impossible standard of flawless well-roundedness, but to encourage faithfulness in the essentials, thoughtful consideration of weaknesses, and joyful effort for the sake of Jesus. Recognizing all the while that every church, like every Christian, must ultimately look to Christ to find the perfection for which we long.
Taken from Adorned: How to Grow a Biblically Beautiful Church by Justin Huffman, © 2018, DayOne Publications.
Justin Huffman has pastored in the States for over 15 years, authored the “Daily Devotion” app (iTunes/Android) which now has over half a million downloads, and recently published a book with Day One: Grow: the Command to Ever-Expanding Joy. He has also written articles for For the Church, Servants of Grace, and Fathom Magazine. He blogs at justinhuffman.org.
Leadership Lessons from Slaves
Their people’s pleas hung in the air as the cracking whips ripped open old wounds. Shiphrah and Puah could imagine the thick crimson streams rolling down their loved ones’ backs as they labored to build one of Pharaoh’s prized cities. Fear spread like a contagion through Israelite camps as the king of Egypt became increasingly agitated and ruthless toward God’s people.
The Israelites, as we find them in Exodus 1, are beaten down, anxious, and exhausted. Their future looked bleak, and the prospect of freedom was growing dimmer. Every day. Surely they wondered, Who will save us?
God often provides redemption and relief to his people through his people. While Moses would eventually lead God’s people out of Egypt, two unlikely leaders preceded him. Shiphrah and Puah, two female slaves, allowed the fear of the Lord to rule in their hearts over the fear of man. Their story holds leadership lessons for the church today.
The Fear of the Lord and the Fear of Our Flesh
The first lesson we can learn from Shiphrah and Puah is about fear. As a byproduct of the king’s own fear, Shiphrah and Puah are ordered to “observe them [the Hebrew women] as they deliver” (Exodus 1:16). The Hebrew girls were permitted to live, and the Hebrew boys were to be killed.
What enabled Shiphrah and Puah to defy the king of Egypt? Exodus 1:17 says they “feared the Lord.” That’s astonishing given how much there was to fear around them. The stakes for their civil disobedience were as high as it gets: disobeying Pharaoh was a capital offense.
They weren’t exempt from the common emotions that accompany tense life situations. It wasn’t that there was nothing to fear, but their fear of the Egyptian king paled in comparison to the fear of their true King.
Leaders inevitably face situations that cause a spike in blood pressure. Congregants grumble about change, a wayward child wanders from the faith, people complain about leadership style, budgets miss the mark. When we’re in the thicket of moments like these, the concerns are very real and sometimes overpowering.
The fear of our flesh woos us to focus our thoughts on what we fear. Our hearts tempt us to ruminate on what we can't control, and we begin to live in the “what ifs” of life. “What if my children never become Christians?” “What if all my congregants leave or stop giving?” “What if the men and women I lead don’t like me?”
Staying in this place too long can lead to sin. The king of Egypt’s fear that the Hebrews would continue to grow and threaten his power and kingdom led him to try to exterminate them (Exodus 1:8-10).
Ironically, he feared the wrong people and person. He would later see he should have feared the Lord and the two Hebrew midwives that God used to save his people. In attempting to control the Israelites by killing their sons, he overlooked the two female slaves who led to his fall.
Shiphrah and Puah turned from evil at great risk to their lives. Proverbs 16:6 says “one turns from evil by the fear of the Lord.” The way one obeys God, especially when we are living in the “what ifs” of life, is by fearing the Lord. We need a greater fear.
The Fear of the Lord and the Command to “Fear Not”
The most frequent command in the Bible is to “fear not”, but what do we do as leaders when it seems like all we can do is fear? When we’re fixed on our problems, it produces fear and paranoia. It becomes hard to see beyond our circumstances and the stress that comes with leadership.
There’s another fear which produces wonder and awe in God. This fear leads to faith in God. When we see the command to “fear not,” it’s the command not to fear that which may be fearful. What could happen in our lives is scary, but there must be a refocusing and recalibrating of our fears.
We must be reminded to stand in awe of a God who is awesome in the correct sense of the word. This awe-inspiring fear leads to faith. Rightly-placed fear reminds us that God sees, hears, and acts for his people.
As Shiphrah and Puah spared the male children, they did so with the fear of the Lord in mind. While their fear of Yahweh was likely intermingled with fear of the Egyptian king who could kill them, their gaze was on the all-powerful King who can destroy both soul and body (Matthew 10:28).
In the command to fear not, there is a tender Father calling his children to come back to him in our fretting, but there is also an omnipotent King reminding us of who he is.
When we feel like we’ll be crushed beneath the waves of anxiety and we can’t stay afloat amidst the expectations of those we lead, we must remind ourselves to not fear that which is fearful, but to fear God. As God’s people, our hope does not lie in ourselves, our friends, or our government. Our hope—and our fear—are in the Lord. Fear not the world; fear God.
The Fear of the Lord and God’s Reward
The fear of the Lord is powerful and leads us to do remarkable things. God rewards this obedience.
As a result of Shiphrah and Puah’s leadership and obedience, Exodus 1:20-21 says, “God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous. Since the midwives feared God, He gave them families.”
God rewarded the Hebrew midwives with families. He gave them the very thing they were protecting, and the very thing Pharaoh sought to destroy. Shiphrah and Puah did not obey God to get a reward—they obeyed God because he was their ultimate reward. They obeyed God because they feared him, and they received a reward for their faith.
God’s reward for Shiphrah and Puah is also tied to God’s greater promise for his people. Exodus 1:20 says, “So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous” (emphasis mine). Previously, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be numerous (Gen. 15:5). In Exodus 1:7, we see God’s fulfillment of this promise to his people as “the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous.”
God Always Makes a Way
In Exodus 1:20-21, we’re reminded that God’s promises to his people will not and cannot be thwarted by the plans of man (Ps. 2:1-4; Prov. 19:21). God made a way for his people to multiply despite being enslaved, and he proves his faithfulness in Shiphrah and Puah’s reward and the continued multiplication of his people.
Through the leadership of two female slaves that feared the Lord more than man, we learn this leadership principle: the fear of the Lord allows spiritual leaders to remain faithful to God even when it is costly.
God’s promise to his people was fulfilled from the garden, to the Nile, to the cross. As we look to Jesus, we see the true leader that feared the Lord until the point of death on a cross.
As we lead God’s people, remember that God has kept his word throughout all time. He will continue in his faithfulness until he brings us safely home.
SharDavia “Shar” Walker lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Paul. She serves on staff with Campus Outreach, an interdenominational college ministry, and enjoys sharing her faith and discipling college women to be Christian leaders. Shar is a writer and a speaker and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Christian Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
The Big God Behind Your 'Small' Ministry
It was a big day in Jerusalem. The temple built by Solomon, but destroyed by the Babylonians, was being rebuilt. It was a day of great celebration for the Israelites. The Jews had suffered for decades because of their disobedience (see 1 Kings 9:6-9). They endured exile and captivity, besiegement and destruction. However, Ezra tells the story of a new day, when the people gathered together to celebrate the laying of the foundation on the second temple.
They celebrated the Lord’s mercy with trumpets and cymbals. They sang and thanked him. They shouted with great shouts to praise his name.
Though many shouted for joy, there were others who “wept with a loud voice” (Ezra 3:12). They wept because they were disappointed. These older saints wept because they remembered the former splendor of the first temple, and the meager foundation of the second was underwhelming.
WHEN YOUR DAYS SEEM SMALL
Haven’t we all been underwhelmed by the work of our own hands at some point? We have a vision of what our ministry or family or career should look like that is so much grander than the current view.
On this day when people were disappointed with the lack of splendor, the prophet, Zechariah said, “Whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice” (Zech. 4:10).
Most of us will spend our whole lives living in days of small things. How do we navigate this space between what we see and what we want to see? How can we cultivate hearts that don’t despise these days, but rejoice in them?
Consider the following ways to be encouraged when you’re unimpressed with what God has entrusted to you.
See the Tree In the Seed
We’re attracted to the spectacular. Our eyes are drawn to all things bigger, brighter, and better, so we limit our scope of success to these ideals.
When we do, we overlook the significance of small things. The thing is, small is valuable when God defines the terms.
When Jesus spoke to a crowd that needed food, he didn’t despise Andrew’s suggestion of a boy’s lunch of five loaves and two fish (John 6:9). He used something small to glorify himself in a big way.
God is not disappointed by small. He uses the small things to accomplish his purposes.
Do you feel what you have to work with is small? Listen to Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (Matt. 13:31-32).
In God’s economy, the tiniest seed becomes a tree. The smallest of things becomes significant because of its role in the kingdom. The final product is not determined by its beginning.
Richard Sibbes writes in The Bruised Reed, “See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings.” God’s grand plan for our redemption began with a fragile newborn in a manger.
Do we see great things in little beginnings?
Find the Glory in the Mundane
We have great expectations, especially when it comes to our place in the world. It’s no surprise, then, that changing diapers and mowing the lawn and paying the taxes all just seems so . . . boring.
But we must strive to see God’s work like he does. We must value what he values.
We want to be sensational; God wants us to be faithful. The desire to have maximum impact in our culture is not a bad one. But devaluing ministry that has a smaller reach contradicts God’s values.
Consider Eunice and Lois (2 Timothy 1:5), the mother and grandmother of Timothy, apprentice to Paul and early church leader. These two women are not known for wowing crowds and signing books. We know them because they poured into a young Timothy. By worldly standards, their ministry was small. But we have the benefit of seeing the great value of their investment in one person.
We value productivity but are often underwhelmed with progress; God values productivity and progress. God’s salvific work in our lives is a miracle, and we should praise him for it. God’s sanctifying work of transforming us into his perfect image happens by degrees (see 2 Cor. 3:18) but is no less miraculous. Sanctification is often small, mundane, and untweetable. Nevertheless, it is a miracle, and we should praise the Lord for it.
What about you? Are you disappointed at the footprint of your kingdom work? Are you envious of someone else who seems to have more influence than you do? Remember, any impact you have on the advancement of his kingdom is a work of grace. Praise him for his work in big and small things.
Trust God in the Tension
The celebrity culture we’ve created adds to the pressure not only to succeed, but to succeed publicly and grandly. We have no tolerance for the unimpressive. We’ve given others the power to validate our success, but that validation was never ours to give away.
In the tension between our vision and our reality, we must trust God to accomplish all that he desires for his glory. We trust him to make his name great in our smallness.
The gap between our vision and our reality is not to be despised. God doesn’t look at small things disapprovingly. On a day when the rich were making it rain in the temple offering box, a poor widow gave two copper coins. Jesus told his disciples that she gave more than all the rich people gave that day, because she gave all she had to live on (Luke 21:1-3).
What seems humbling, meager, and unimpressive to us may look glorious to God. Oh, to see what he sees! We can’t judge his work by our standards. When the people were unimpressed with the splendor of the temple, Haggai encouraged them by telling them to be strong and to work, for God was with them (Hag. 2:4).
Underwhelmed saint, heed Haggai’s words and keep striving in your kingdom labors, for God is with you. Desire to be faithful, not sensational.
WHEN GOD HAS HIS SAY
“Perhaps you are frustrated by the gap that still remains between your vision and your accomplishment,” Os Guinness writes in The Call. “You have had your say. Others may have had their say. But make no judgments and draw no conclusions until the scaffolding of history is stripped away and you see what it means for God to have had his say.”
God will have the final say. And it will sound like this: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”
As we long for this day, let’s rejoice in the day of small things.
Christy Britton is a wife and homeschool mom of four biological sons. She is an orphan advocate for 127 Worldwide. She and her husband are covenant members at Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, NC. She loves reading, discipleship, Cajun food, spending time in Africa, hospitality, and LSU football. She writes for several blogs, including her own, www.beneedywell.com.
Pastor, Here's How to Be Built to Last
Pastors are not quitters. Or at least, they don’t plan to be.
Yet about 250 pastors leave their pulpits a month. Most pastors don’t plan on quitting, but they also don’t plan not to.
Unless pastors are built to last, they might find themselves burned out and beleaguered long before they planned on stepping down.
THREE PICTURES OF PASTORAL ENDURANCE
An aging and soon-to-be executed Apostle Paul once wrote to Timothy, his young protégé, to paint a picture of a pastor that’s built to last:
Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. — 2 Tim. 2:3-6
Paul challenges the young pastor to endure for the sake of the gospel. Paul knew that Timothy was going to face great resistance to much of what he had been commissioned to do. He knew Timothy would suffer for proclaiming his faith and telling people that Jesus was the only way to heaven.
So Paul gives Timothy three illustrations to help flesh out the kind of endurance he’s talking about. Paul paints pastors using the analogies of the dedicated soldier, the disciplined athlete, and the hardworking farmer. Each of these illustrations tells us something about what it takes to be the kind of pastor that’s built to last.
A DEDICATED SOLDIER
In the first example of the dedicated soldier, Paul tells us that pastors are not simply participants in a religion, but soldiers in a battle. In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul wrote, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
To be a Christ-follower—and even more so a pastor—we must realize that we are engaged in a spiritual battle against very real forces with very real consequences. Realizing the nature of the battles we’re in forces us to focus on what matters most. This is what Paul means when he says, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him” (2 Tim. 2:4).
“We confuse doing good things for doing God things.”
Imagine being in one of those hellish foxholes during World War 1 that you’ve probably seen depicted in a movie. If you found yourself in that environment, you wouldn’t be wondering what’s for dinner that night; you wouldn’t be browsing Amazon for a new pair of shoes. No, all that would matter is winning the battle.
Too often we get distracted from what matters most. We confuse doing good things for doing God things.
Pastor, are you distracted from the mission? Do you think more about what you’ll eat, wear, or do than how you can live for Jesus and his church? Do you ever ask God what he thinks about major decisions like where you’ll live or work? Do you have so many activities scheduled that you can’t make time for serving the poor or investing in someone’s life?
If you want to finish well, remember that your aim is to please your Father.
A DISCIPLINED ATHLETE
Paul’s second illustration is a disciplined athlete. He said, “An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” We all know that, don’t we?
A golfer can’t move their ball wherever he or she wants and still win a tournament. Runners win by staying on the track.
If you want to win as an athlete, you have to play according to the rules. To do that takes discipline—and lots of it.
Michael Phelps didn’t win his gold medals by swimming a couple times a week. He trained for years and years, multiple times a day, to be the athlete he became. That takes an enormous amount of discipline.
And that’s Paul’s lesson for us here. If we’re going to become pastors who are built to last, we have to become people of discipline. We have to become disciplined to grow in godliness. As Paul told Timothy in his first letter (1 Tim. 4:7), we must train for godliness.
If you were to write out everything you do in a normal week to grow in godliness, would it reflect someone who is serious about following Jesus? This isn’t about a certain number of events that makes you become more like Jesus—that’s not how it works.
“Most of us are distracted from doing the things of God because we haven’t disciplined ourselves to do them.”
But at the same time, our schedule really does reflect our values and beliefs. Our schedule reveals what we think is most important.
Most of us are distracted from doing the things of God because we haven’t disciplined ourselves to do them. We miss reading the Bible in the morning because we stay up too late watching Netflix for another hour and we have to sleep in to get enough rest. We aren’t investing in the lives of others because we’ve involved ourselves and our children in so many activities that we don’t have any time to give to others.
There are, of course, life circumstances that are out of our control, but that’s not the case with everything. There are plenty of activities and events we give our time to that keep us from doing the work God has for us.
This is why the practices of following Jesus have traditionally been called “spiritual disciplines,” because it takes discipline to follow Christ.
A pastor that is built to last, trains himself in godliness. He disciplines his heart, mind, body, and soul for the work of building up the body of Christ.
A HARD-WORKING FARMER
Paul’s third illustration is of a hard-working farmer: “It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.” Farmers have to put their hands to the plow and do the hard work that’s demanded by their crops and allowed by the weather.
There is little or no glory in the hard work of plowing, planting, and patiently waiting. It doesn’t earn a man acclaim. It’s simply the hard, diligent work that’s required if he wants to enjoy the harvest.
If the farmer doesn’t plow, he doesn’t reap. If he doesn’t reap, he doesn’t survive.
So much of the work of ministry is like this. We spend time reading another chapter, preparing sermons, or going over a budget. We put in hard work and sometimes long hours to partner with God in the work he wants to do through us. And sometimes this work is tiring.
“Though the work is hard, we press on because of the promise that we will reap eternal life with Christ.”
That’s why Paul wrote to the Galatian church, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9). Though the work is hard, we press on because of the promise that we will reap eternal life with Christ.
But we cannot go on like hard-working farmers without community or we will grow weary. We were made for community, and one of the primary reasons for that community is so that we can encourage one another to keep pressing on. As Hebrews 10:24 puts it, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.”
Put your hand to the plow and do the hard work of ministry. But don’t draw back from the people in your church. Share your life with them and draw strength and encouragement from them where it can be found.
GIVE YOURSELF UP TO CHRIST
Unless we are dedicated to Christ, disciplined in Christ, and hard-working for Christ, we will not be able to endure for the gospel; we will not be built to last.
John Newton, a pastor who was himself built to last, once wrote a letter encouraging other pastors to endure in the ministry. Newton wrote,
“In the school of Christ, you will have to learn some lessons which are not very pleasant to flesh and blood. You must learn to labor, to run, to fight, to wrestle—and many other hard exercises—some of which will try your strength, and others your patience.”
It’s often said that pastors must have the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the skin of a rhinoceros. While there is certainly some truth to that statement, what pastors truly must have to endure in ministry is a profound understanding of grace. Grace sustains us through the ups-and-downs of ministry.
Newton writes,
“But do not be discouraged—you have a wonderful and a gracious Master, who does not only give instructions—but power and ability! He engages that His grace shall be sufficient, at all times and in all circumstances, for those who simply give themselves up to His teaching and His service.”
Pastor, if you want to be built to last—like an orderly soldier, tenacious athlete, or hard-working farmer—give yourself up to Christ and his teaching. Do the work of ministry and draw on the grace of Jesus.
Fight for Unity
Sometimes the smallest things can make a big impact. Like a Coke bottle. You may remember the 1980 South African comedy classic, The Gods Must Be Crazy, which begins when a pilot, flying over the Kalahari, finishes a glass bottle of Coke and tosses it from the window of his small plane. A rural San sees this strange object fall from the sky and receives it as a useful gift from “the gods.” His people begin to use it as a beneficial tool for their various tasks.
But eventually, conflict enters their Edenic existence, disrupting the harmonious life of the tribe, and they begin to fight over this otherwise innocuous Coke bottle. At one point, the bottle becomes a weapon. Finally, Xi—the main character, and leader of the tribe—decides the gods must be crazy for sending this “gift,” and sets out to return it to them by carrying it to the end of the Earth and tossing it over the edge.
I think of that movie when I read through the Book of Acts and come across passages like this one:
“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common … There was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:32, 34a).
However novel it might be, the film depicts this tribe living in a similar, idyllic way: a group of people living communally—in unity—with no basic sense of private property. When their unity becomes threatened by the intrusion of a foreign object from the “civilized world,” their leader decisively upholds the tribe’s unity as infinitely more valuable than this strange item. Their leader goes to great pains to remove the source of disunity and conflict, so there can once again be peace.
A Picture of Spirit-filled Unity
In the biblical story, this kind of unity is only possible because of the presence of the Holy Spirit among the first Christians: “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:31). Their profound unity is described as their being “of one heart and soul” (v. 32).
One wonders if this kind of unity reflects a rather simple and idealistic wish-dream, but knowing Jesus himself prayed for this kind of unity (John 17:21-24) speaks volumes of its viability. Paul commands his churches to protect unity as they live out the Gospel (Eph. 4:1-6), and explains the necessity of humility for such an enterprise:
“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:1-8).
To have “one mind” with one another is to have the “the same mind” as Christ. It’s another way of saying believers should be “of one heart and one soul.”
Unity Expressed Through Generosity
The unity of the church in Acts 4 is distinctly expressed through generosity, which takes shape in a physical way through a detachment from things:
“… And no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (4:32-35).
Unity has economic implications. As God pours grace on them (v. 33), they allow this grace to flow through them to others. This radical generosity was a key factor as both a cause and a result of the church’s unity.
The Opposite of Unity-Building Generosity
The narrative of Acts 4 continues by drawing attention to an example of this kind of unity-forming generosity: “Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet” (Acts 4:36-37).
Barnabas was not the only disciple showing this kind of generosity (see v. 34-35), but he became the poster-boy of what generosity-shaped unity looked like.
The story of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), which comes immediately on the heels of Barnabas’ story, should be read in concert with it. This unfortunate couple, who attempt to copy the generous actions of others, make a fatal error through greed and deceit, undercutting the church’s unity.
Peter prophetically calls attention to the fundamental cause of this deceit—a collaboration between this couple and Satan: “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?” (Acts 5:3)
Satan’s Divisive Work
Our adversary, who exists to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10) despises the unity of the church—an object lesson of his own demise (Eph. 3:1-10). Wherever there is division, broken relationships, strife, bitterness, or discord, Satan is at work. If he can’t destroy the church from outside (through persecution), he’ll attempt it from the inside (through division). In this case, Satan knew the way to destroy unity was through greed.
When Ananias and Sapphira chose to sin, it didn’t just have an effect on them. It wasn’t a private affair. As much as they thought otherwise, they couldn’t keep their sin hidden. Their greed, deceit, envy, and pride—if left uncovered—would have acted like cancer in the body of Christ, destroying the unity Jesus died for and the Spirit was producing.
The Grace of Judgment
We have a picture of a community living in selfless, sacrificial, generous, loving unity. In the midst of this, Ananias and Sapphira conspire in a way that opposes and threatens this all-important unity. And Jesus will have none of it.
Judgment will be rendered on those who threaten the unity of Jesus’ church by pursuing their own ends, living the exact opposite of unity and humility. God hates it when his church is threatened. In his eyes, the unity of the church is a matter of life and death. Like a jealous, protective husband who will fight, defend, sacrifice, and even kill to protect his wife, Jesus has died for and will protect his own bride, the church.
Jesus loves his church too much to allow selfish people to ruin it and go unpunished. Let’s take this as a warning: creating and perpetuating disunity in the church has dire consequences. When we don’t believe the unity of the church is a big deal, we end up using it for our own ends: we go to be entertained; we refuse to commit and engage in relationship; we hold grudges; we gossip; we leave when something doesn’t meet our expectations or feed our preferences.
All these kinds of selfishness eat away at Christ’s church, and God will bring judgment on those who threaten its unity (see 1 Cor. 11:27-32).
Three Ways to Fight for Unity
- Seek Christ’s mind of humility. Assess your own relationships in the church and discern whether you are part of the problem or part of the solution. Are you selfishly vying for your own way and your own preferences? Or are you learning to lay down your own agenda and your own desires, submitting them to Christ for the good of his body? The call for us is a call to unity—to oneness—that requires humility, patience, gentleness, bearing with one another, putting others’ needs above our own, and pursuing peace.
- Move towards others, not away from them. Unity is the hard and difficult road because it necessitates moving into conflict when we don’t really want to. It’s easier to avoid people we disagree with, or who have hurt us. Sometimes it’s easier to leave a church than stay and seek peace. When Jesus foresaw conflict in the church, he offered a road of reconciliation that revolved around relationship, not isolation (Matt. 18:15-20). To fight for unity is to pursue reconciliation when we have wronged someone else, and to be impatient with things that cause disunity.
- Be a peacemaker. Walk with others to make peace where conflict exists within the church. Instead of insulating or avoiding, take on the church’s problems and conflicts as our own. As children of God, we are to imitate our Father in peacemaking: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt 5:9). Jesus was our example of this: who, for the sake of his church, went to the greatest lengths to fight for our unity. As our leader, he went beyond the ends of the Earth to get rid of the source of our conflict. He took our sin on himself and has eliminated it forever. This is the gospel we live by, and as such, is the gospel we are to lead with as “ambassadors of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:14-21) who fight for the unity of the church.
Mike Phay serves as Lead Pastor at FBC Prineville (Oregon) and as a Staff Writer at Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He has been married to Keri for over 20 years, and they have five amazing kids. You can follow him on Twitter (@mikephay) or check out his blog.
The Saints: Ordinary Means for Extraordinary Ends
I went to a funeral today. It was for the man who taught me the Lord’s prayer. Mr. Taylor graduated to heaven at the age of ninety-six. He spent more than thirty-five years—over one-third of his life—teaching Sunday School.
When I was nine years old, my mom started taking us to church. She would drop me off in the church basement for class with the other children. They all came from intact Dutch families. Mine was neither intact nor Dutch.
A sticker chart hung on the wall, just inside the classroom door. Mr. Taylor would greet me there with a hug every Sunday, turn to the sticker chart and say, “Well, Jennie, are you ready to tell me what you’ve learned?” And I would rehearse my progress in the Lord’s prayer from Matthew 6:9-13.
He listened with pride twinkling in his eyes. Each sticker earned was progress towards a Sunday School prize. After our Bible recitation, he taught us a Bible story. Mr. Taylor was the first to introduce me to Abraham, Joseph, Moses, the disciples, and Paul.
Every year, on my birthday, Mr. Taylor would call me. Upon answering, he did not say hello but dove right in, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Jennie, happy birthday to you!” Then, “Have a great day today. Goodbye!” He called all the kids—and many adults—in our church every year. He was the kind of person that made sure to call you on your birthday.
And that’s all I really knew of Mr. Taylor until his funeral.
Long Obedience over Coffee and Bagels
In the memorial service, I learned that Mr. Taylor didn’t become a Christian until his 40s or 50s. As a believer, he had coffee and a bagel with our pastor every week. And every week, they’d talk about the Bible. Mr. Taylor loved the Bible. He read it, memorized it, cherished it.
Not only did Mr. Taylor have a deep faith, but he was faithful. The pastor reminisced how he never missed a Sunday. Though his wife never accompanied him to church, he was always, always there. Though he was in poor health—even when I first met him thirty years ago—he never missed a week. Though his hearing failed, he had to walk with a cane, and his strength was clearly waning—he was faithful in his obedience to God.
I agree with the eulogy—Mr. Taylor heard, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” (Matt. 25:23) when he met Jesus. He is a striking example of a long obedience in the same direction. He never grew weary of doing good (Gal. 6:9).
Ordinary Faithfulness
What a normal guy, I thought throughout the service. He was a World War II veteran, a dad, a husband. He was simply faithful—to God and to his church—and the Lord ministered to others through him.
What if we—as ordinary Christ-followers—followed in his footsteps? What if we, who are normal and unexceptional, simply pursued faithfulness? Here are some ways we might apply the fruit of Mr. Taylor’s life to our own.
Your theology doesn’t need to be fully developed to serve the church
The pastor performing the memorial service chuckled that Mr. Taylor would often get fixated on a doctrinal issue and have a hard time conforming his ideas to the truth. Though he was late to the faith, he gave himself over to the body of Christ. Despite being a work in progress, he readily invested in kids. The pastor and elders allowed Mr. Taylor to serve the church in a capacity that he could steward well. He had a passion for teaching children and the church supplied the tools and curriculum for him to do that. Neither the church leadership nor Mr. Taylor insisted on him having everything figured out before he served the body. Theology matters, but it need not be perfected before you can serve.
Give yourself over to discipleship
Knowing he was indeed a work in progress, Mr. Taylor committed himself to be shaped by the Word of God, the people of God, and the Spirit of God. The pastor said he especially loved the Beatitudes and Psalm 23 and committed them to memory. He would wake up at night and read his Bible or pray for people in the church. He never skipped his weekly bagel and coffee with the pastor. Though he was old enough to be the pastor’s father, he submitted himself to his pastor’s spiritual leadership. He was ready and available to engage in discipleship, even with someone substantially younger than him. Giving yourself over to discipleship has no universal age or experience requirement.
Fix your eyes on Jesus
Mr. Taylor was a sweet example of a man who pressed on toward the goal to win the prize for which God had called him heavenward in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14). The pastor’s eulogy implied that he had a regrettable past. And I saw with my own childhood eyes that though he had a wife whom he adored, she did not accompany him to church. His difficult past and present circumstances did not prevent him from pursuing Christ daily and worshiping with others weekly. Neither should we allow our past or present situations to rob our affections for Jesus.
Be a bridge for newcomers
As a child of divorce and a home where Christ was not honored in my early years, crossing the threshold of a church felt strange to me. I had a dad at home that questioned Christianity and mocked religion in general. Those repeating the Lord’s prayer with me in Sunday School had dads in suits and moms with Bibles under the arms. Yet Mr. Taylor always greeted me with a hug and eager anticipation to hear my progress in memorizing Scripture. I was different, but he didn’t treat me like I was different. A smile and a greeting to newcomers goes a lot farther than you might think.
Small acts of kindness leave a great impact
We all chuckled when the pastor reminisced about how Mr. Taylor called almost everyone in the church on our birthdays and serenaded us over the phone. He gave us each the same small gift—a phone call that showed he knew us, remembered us, and celebrated us. When I looked around the sanctuary and saw a hundred bobbing heads, it was clear that this small act shaped the culture of the entire church. Christ-like kindness may feel small but can have a sweeping effect.
Spiritually parent others
My Sunday School leader was the spiritual father of hundreds. I know many of those in Sunday School with me are now missionaries and ministers, teachers and police officers, engineers and salesmen, moms and dads. We each carry with us the memory and imprint of a man who didn’t rest until we each had Matthew 6:9-13 memorized. Mr. Taylor’s thirty-five-year investment in children’s Sunday School bear’s a rich legacy: there are hundreds of us who know the model prayer of our Savior because of the faithful plodding of our Sunday School teacher.
Ordinary Means for Extraordinary Ends
Our good and gracious God redeems, inhabits, and glorifies himself through normal people, just like Mr. Taylor. The Apostle Paul said, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (1 Cor. 4:7-9). Mr. Taylor’s kindness and habits and love of the Bible and the God who wrote it revealed Christ to me, the hope of glory (Col.1:27). The simple, unsophisticated ministry of this very normal man, led me to know and love Jesus.
Mr. Taylor didn’t have formal Biblical training or a Christian pedigree. He didn’t have a fancy church or a state-of-the-art kids’ ministry. He had a sticker chart, a flannel graph, a patient and persevering personality, and a warmth towards children. Mostly, he had a desire that we know the Lord! He was God’s very ordinary means for extraordinary ends: making us kids alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:5).
Jen Oshman is a wife and mom to four daughters and has served as a missionary for 17 years on three continents. She currently resides in Colorado where she and her husband serve with Pioneers International, and she encourages her church-planting husband at Redemption Parker. Her passion is leading women to a deeper faith and fostering a biblical worldview. She writes at www.jenoshman.com.
4 Ways to Become A Role Player in Your Church
Anyone who plays or follows sports knows that it takes an entire team to win. Winning teams usually have star players and role players. A team is usually built around one or more stars, relied on to carry the squad. Role players have lesser-known yet still significant roles. They don’t receive all the credit, take all the blame or provide the most influence.
But each role player is vital to the overall success of a team. If they fail to execute their responsibilities, it makes everyone’s job harder. We often don’t realize that role players strengthen the team dynamic, not the stars. Stars have a significant impact, but without an excellent supporting cast willing to follow, sacrifice, and carry out necessary tasks for the benefit of the team, that team will either remain stagnant or eventually crumble into a rebuilding state.
Sports fans also know there’s no greater competitive experience than when your team is firing on all cylinders because everyone is doing their job. If you watched the recent demolition in the 2018 NBA Finals as the Golden State Warriors swept the Cleveland Cavaliers, you understand this illustration very well, but I digress.
A HEALTHY CHURCH
It’s no different in the church. While some may lead out front, and others help make it possible, everyone is necessary. There’s no better feeling than when your church is in sync and everyone is doing their part to make disciples. A church like this is healthy.
“Healthy" doesn't refer to numerical growth, increased staff positions, the number of ministries, even the longevity of a church. All those things are good and can be the fruit of faithful service, but they are not God-promised signs of success.
God's path to success for his church is based more on subtraction than addition. The words of Christ teach us that to gain we must lose; and to live, we must die (Matthew 16:24-26).
This means our churches should forsake worldly passions and pursue Christ. A healthy church progressively reflects the character of God through a constant dying to self so his name may be magnified.
Every church should desire to be healthy in this manner. Mark Dever draws a picture of a healthy church; “I like the word healthy because it communicates the idea of a body that’s living and growing as it should. It may have its share of problems. It’s not been perfected yet. But it’s on the way. It’s doing what it should do because God’s Word is guiding it.”
So even if it’s unpopular, uncomfortable or tedious, continue in steadfast pursuit of what Scripture calls us to in Ephesians 4:11-16, which is to equip the saints, and build up the body of Christ, until we all attain unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God. Now the question is, “Isn’t building up the church the pastor’s job?” Yes, but the job isn’t theirs alone. Every member is called to take part in building up their particular body. Members are meant to serve in ways that supplement the pastor’s role and make his work a joy and not burdensome.
Here are four ways to become a good role player in your church.
1. DEVELOP A PRAYING SPIRIT
We should pray for church leaders and members, always interceding on their behalf. Paul urges the church in Ephesians 6:18 to at all times make prayers and petitions for all the saints. Often, our default reaction is to criticize or complain about what goes on in the church, regardless of it is right or wrong, big or small. I’ve struggled with this more often than I can say.
However, I was convicted by the words of Puritan preacher John Bunyan, who said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” Words, thoughts, and works will all be in vain if we don’t first seek the Lord for wisdom.
How much do our critical spirits or excessive complaints build up the church? If we reprogram ourselves to pray instead of criticizing, I believe our attitudes toward the object of our critique will change. Excessive grumbling and objection only lead to quarrels and factions.
Remember what James 4:1-3 says: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
We must be gracious and patient with leaders and other believers. We're in this walk of sanctification together. Pray with your brothers and sisters. Pray for your leaders. Let’s guard our hearts against selfish motives, discouraging words, and critical attitudes by striving to pray for one another instead of preying on one another.
2. PARTICIPATE IN CYCLES OF DISCIPLESHIP
Members should disciple one another, walking alongside each other, teaching and showing each other how to walk faithfully with the Lord. Titus 2:2-8 speaks of older men teaching younger men, and older women teaching younger women. The mature need to invest in the less mature. The Christian life is a life of discipleship, from every angle.
I was oblivious to the concept of discipleship during my younger days in the church. No one ever approached me about reading the Bible together or going through a Christian book. The shallow depth of my Christian relationships was reached between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Sundays.
I had a tough and lonely walk for some years. But years down the road, the Lord placed some godly men in my life willing to teach me how to be a godly man. And it was from that experience that I learned what true discipleship is.
It’s imperative that members do their part by intentionally seeking out others known for their wisdom and maturity, asking him or her to spend some time discipling them. Or seek out a younger, less mature Christian, maybe someone on the fence about membership, and similarly engage them.
Studying the Bible together is a great starting point, but as the relationship builds, begin to step it up a notch and ask tough questions regarding personal holiness, practice confession and repentance, and pray for each other. These practices will eventually lead to mutual Christian accountability (Proverbs 27:17) and a stronger walk with the Lord. As each Christian is built up, so is their church.
3. PRACTICE EVANGELISM
In many churches, stagnant growth is often a mystery or a blemish. Despite faithful preaching of the Word and a pastor living above reproach, some churches remain stuck or are on the decline. The causes can’t always be determined, but one diagnosis often is lack of evangelism by members. The sermon is not, and should not be, the only means of evangelism going on. Every member should be involved in personal evangelism. Scripture mandates that every Christian be equipped for the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:12). Pastors are responsible to equip the saints. If they do the training, members are responsible for receiving that training and putting it into practice.
4. CELEBRATE EACH OTHER
Individually and collectively, public adoration for the faithful living and gospel witness of members should regularly happen. Our churches should thank God for members showing hospitality in their homes, doing mission work, sharing the gospel at their jobs or with their neighbors, serving in children's ministry, and starting ministries or small groups.
Don't be afraid to publicly affirm, with wisdom, the Christian maturity that particular members are displaying, for the blessing they have been to the body. 2 Thessalonians 1:3-4 says, "We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.”
Cultivating the practice of celebrating the work of God in the lives of members will help us think more of others than ourselves and give glory to God.
PLAY YOUR ROLE
Church members who pray, disciple, evangelize and celebrate are blessings to their bodies and pastors. There are other ways to faithfully serve your local church, but for those unsure where to begin, let these four areas be your starting blocks to becoming an excellent role player. This will help strengthen your church and make for a great team win for the Kingdom of God.
No matter what your role is, if you play it well, you will help build up your church until it reaches its full potential.
Joseph Dicks was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, and is a master of divinity student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an assistant campus missionary with the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He is married to Melanie, and is a member of Mosaic Church Lexington. Follow Joseph on Twitter.
Pastoring Your Home On Purpose
Many pastors fail at being the pastor of their family. We may be ashamed to admit it, but often when we pontificate from the pulpit about how parents shouldn’t outsource the discipleship of their children to the church, we aren’t even discipling our own children. Before you feel a heavy hand of condemnation, let me remind you that no man wakes up one day and instantly becomes the pastor of his home. It takes years of experience—and many awkward face-plants—to grow into that role. From my limited experience as a father and husband, here are a few simple habits that will get you on the trajectory to being a healthy “pastor-dad.”
PRAY FOR AND WITH YOUR FAMILY
It should be the most natural thing for a man to pray for his family, but it isn’t. It takes intentionality. My wife is a praying woman, and her prayer life pushes me to have a healthier prayer life of my own. It is now part of my daily routine to pray for Rebekah and my boys. If you develop the habit of privately praying for your family, then publicly praying for them will come naturally. Your family needs to hear you pray for them. Your children need to hear their father praying for their salvation.
TURN OFF THE TV, PUT DOWN THE PHONE, AND ENGAGE
I’ve gone through periods when I struggled to come home from the office and simply be pastor-dad, not Pastor Dayton. Our culture calls us to take pride in maintaining a slammed schedule, but our culture also celebrates and encourages a million other things that starve our spiritual vitality and destroy our families. Don’t come home from a long day and shut down. When you are with your family, turn off the TV unless you are watching it together. You also don’t need to be checking sports scores or your email on your phone. I know it’s hard, since many of us have rewired our brains to “need” to check our phones every few minutes. But it can wait.
TALK ABOUT JESUS WITH YOUR FAMILY
What you talk about most often is what your kids think is most important to Dad. If you can’t remember the last time you had a meaningful exchange with your family about the person and work of Jesus, then your kids have no idea that Jesus matters to you. You don’t have to drop theology bombs on their little minds. Just talk to them about Jesus.
READ SCRIPTURE WITH YOUR KIDS EVERY NIGHT
There is no easier way to make sure you talk about Jesus than to read the book that’s by Jesus and about Jesus. There are a number of great resources for families, and most of them can be used in increments of ten or fifteen minutes. For instance, if you have small children you can use resources such as The Gospel Project Bible or The Jesus Storybook Bible. Reading a chapter or two takes no time at all.
The next day, come home from the office and ask your kids what they remember about the previous night’s family devotion. Ask them how they applied the gospel truth from last night during their day. Tell them how you applied that truth to your heart and life. It’s simple; it just takes intentionality.
PRACTICE DISCIPLINE THAT REVEALS THE GOSPEL
The vast majority of parenting advice from our culture is horrible. Why? Our nation has become post-Christian and is quickly moving toward being anti-Christian. Even for many who believe in God, the default worldview has become something akin to what sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton have called “moralistic therapeutic deism.”[1] “Moralistic” means someone thinks God just wants them to be a good person; “therapeutic” means they think God wants them to be happy (according to their own definition of happiness); and “deism” is a way of saying God isn’t personally involved in their life.
You do not want to tell your kids that Jesus matters and then parent them through a filter that encourages moralism. That duality is how you create little religious hearts that try to earn God’s favor by being good. This may be the most difficult aspect of being a father and a pastor. We face all kinds of real and perceived pressure to have children who behave properly, who obey, who do not become the stereotype of the wild and crazy pastor’s kids. Our default wiring, with its natural inclination toward religion, will cause us to apply this pressure when disciplining our children, and in doing so will turn them into legalists.
If you believe the gospel, you will not be shocked by your child’s sinfulness. You do not need to lament that your eighteen-month-old is a viper in a diaper the first time he disobeys, but you should remember that Scripture says we are sinners by nature. When we respond to our children’s sin with shock, we communicate to them: “Do better, try harder, make yourself righteous.” Our goal as fathers must not be mere behavior modification. Our aim is to see our children repent and believe the gospel. Therefore, do not respond to their sin in a way that simply calls for a change in behavior; respond in a way that calls for heartfelt repentance.
The moments when we discipline our children are of incredible value for pointing them to Jesus. I’ve found that asking my oldest son a few pointed questions keeps me calm and helps draw his attention to the Perfect Father in Heaven. I ask my son, “Who am I?” He says, “Daddy.” That’s right! “Do I love you, son?” He replies, “Yes!” I then tell him, “Because I love you, just as you are, please obey me.” Sometimes it makes a huge difference. Many times, he doesn’t get it. However, I’m trying to lay gospel groundwork, and that doesn’t happen overnight.
PASTOR YOUR HOME ON PURPOSE
None of this is hard. It just requires intentionality, yet we are often far too passive. This passivity is hurting your family. Begin implementing these basics habits now!
As you pursue being the pastor of your home, you will fail. It’s OK! We all fail, but we cannot allow failure to become defeat. The stakes are too high and your family is far too valuable.
[1] This term is from their book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Content taken from Lies Pastors Believe: Seven Ways to Elevate Yourself, Subvert the Gospel, and Undermine the Church by Dayton Hartman, ©2017. Used by permission of Lexham Press, Bellingham, Washington, LexhamPress.com.
Dayton Hartman holds a Ph.D. in Church and Dogma History from North-West University (Potchefstroom) and an MA from Liberty University. He serves as Lead Pastor of Redeemer Church in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Additionally, he is an Adjunct Professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, NC) and Columbia International University (Columbia, SC). Learn more at his website.
Believer, Your Leaders Needs Your Prayers
I saw him stretched out on the floor behind the curtain, his face touching the concrete. The worship music blasted through the speakers while the few congregants sang in response. His sermon was ready, but he wondered what difference it made. The church wasn’t growing. He wasn’t paid. He faced pressure from his friends, his staff, and himself.
Can God do anything through me? he wondered.
Gospel ministry is a glorious weight, and every leader needs help holding it up. Paul, recounting the opposition and sufferings he faced, made a desperate plea to the Corinthians: “You must help us by prayer” (2 Cor. 1:11).
It's hard to ask for prayers from the concrete floor, but your ministry leaders have been there. Some might be there now.
They might not ask, so I’m asking on their behalf: Brothers and sisters, pray for your leaders.
THE LORD’S WORK IN THE LORD’S WAY
Francis Schaeffer opens the fourth chapter of No Little People with these lyrics from a song sung during his seminary graduation:
From ivied walls above the town
The prophet’s school is looking down.
And listening to the human din
From marts and streets and homes of men:
As Jesus viewed with yearning deep,
Jerusalem from Olive’s steep,
O, crucified and risen Lord,
Give tongues of fire to preach thy Word.
It’s fitting for a seminary graduation. Leaders want a burning desire to fuel the Word of God coming from their mouths. But it doesn't take long to realize inner desire isn’t enough. The flesh is no help at all (John 6:63). Only the Holy Spirit can spur you on and sustain you at the same time.
The Spirit’s leading of Jesus during his earthly ministry was the model for how he guides all God’s leaders along the same path: suffering, rejection, crucifixion, resurrection.
You must march through the valley of the shadow of death to find the green pastures beside still waters, the place all leaders want to take their people. It’s here, on resurrection’s path, that ministry makes its mark.
Schaeffer understood the difficulty: “Because the world is hard, confronting it without God’s power is an overwhelming prospect. But tongues of fire are not to be had simply for the asking. The New Testament teaches that certain conditions must exist. In short, they come down to this: we must do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way.”
With your expectations, conversations, and suggestions, are you helping your leaders do it God’s way? Or is the pressure to perform so high that they’re tempted to take shortcuts to appease the crowd?
Doing the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way is a treacherous road. Relying on God alone isn’t more comfortable for your leaders than it is for you—but the church depends on their faithfulness.
A PRAYING CHURCH
Who is sufficient for these things? Not peddlers of God’s word, that’s for sure. Trusting one’s ministry to God alone is for sincere men and women who have been commissioned by God, in whose sight they speak in Christ (2 Cor. 2:17). It's a high calling—and a difficult one.
But difficulty and glory are not enemies of God. Jesus said of Paul, "I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). It was foolishness to the world, even as it was the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:25). Paul’s response was not gloom but joy (Phil. 4:10–13).
But Paul knew Christianity was not his personal religion. It was Jesus’ kingdom movement, calling Jew and Gentile alike into a new family. In a family, everyone’s needs are shared. To fight the good fight, Paul knew he needed his family’s help. He needed a praying church.
To do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way, every leader needs a praying church. I've never met a leader that is too encouraged. Gospel leaders do not assume they are sufficient on their own.
It's likely no one is more discouraged about the state of your church than your leaders. You don't have to tell them everything that's wrong. They know and feel much of it already.
The church must realize it fights on spiritual ground. Maybe your leader needs practical tips—but not before they need your prayers. No ministry is more needed, and no ministry more overlooked, than the ministry of prayer.
A SPIRITUAL BATTLE
“Imagine,” Schaeffer said, “the Devil or a demon entering your room right now. You have a sword by your side; so when you see him you rush at him and stab him. But the sword passes straight through and doesn’t faze him! The most awesome modern weapon you could think of could not destroy him. Whenever we do the Lord’s work in the flesh, our strokes ‘pass right through’ because we do not battle earthly forces; the battle is spiritual and requires spiritual weapons.”
The flesh, the world, and the devil conspire against every leader. They need an army of holy warriors who pray with gospel defiance against the enemy, declaring that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4).
We cannot take a sword to a demon fight, but that doesn’t mean we have to rely on our fists. Scripture tells us we can put on the armor of God himself (Eph. 6:14-17). The individual Christian must put it on, but it must be used for the good of those who lead.
The key that upholds it all is prayer: “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18). A personal prayer life keeps God’s armor on the body.
To that end, Paul says, “Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak” (Eph 6:18-20) .
God’s armor is not just for solo missions. It is for the front-line battle as we stand firm in one Spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the sake of the gospel (Phil. 1:27).
When you pray for your leaders, you are playing no small part in the story of redemption. God uses good soldiers, and he knows every one by name (John 10:3).
MOMENT-BY-MOMENT RELATIONSHIP
Like all Christians, every leader needs a moment-by-moment relationship with God. In our day of professionalized ministry, many assume closeness with God is a given. But talking about God is not the same as walking with God, and the closer you are to ministry, the wider the trap grows. The enemy loves a church leader who treats God as a theory.
Paul fought against theorizing God. He knew the gospel was of first importance (1 Cor. 15:3). Knowing Jesus and him crucified mattered above all (1 Cor. 2:2), walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him was the only life worth living (Col. 1:10).
He also knew to endure to the end, he needed the prayers of his people. So when he wrote to his churches, he asked for prayer to stay faithful (Eph. 6:20), to be delivered (Rom. 15:31, 2 Thess. 3:2), to bear fruit (Col. 4:3, 2 Thess. 3:1).
What Paul wanted most—what every gospel-centered leader wants most—is to serve the Lord with gladness, resist temptation, and do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way. If Paul needed the prayers of his people, don’t your local church leaders need yours?
You can put your leader on the floor, or you can lift them up. Which will you choose?
“Brothers and sisters,” Paul pleaded, “pray for us” (1 Thess. 5:25). Your leaders plead the same.
David McLemore is the Director of Teaching Ministries at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He also works for a large healthcare corporation where he manages an application development department. He is married to Sarah, and they have three sons.
The Essence of a Gospel-Soaked, Faithful Teacher
How did we get to a place where Christians turn against Christians in the name of political power? How did we get to a place where we demonize one another by oversimplifying our beliefs and convictions?
How did we get here? By quarreling over words and secondary matters to the neglect of what matters most; by not faithfully teaching and demonstrating those things which matter most. Without faithful teachers, God’s people have few, if any, guardrails against worldly pursuits and thinking.
But what does it look like to be a faithful teacher of God’s Word? In 2 Timothy 2, Paul paints three compelling pictures of a faithful teacher for his young protégé, Timothy: the unashamed worker, the clean vessel, and the Lord’s servant. Taken together, these three pictures convey the essence of a gospel-soaked, faithful teacher.
THE UNASHAMED WORKER
The first picture Paul gives Timothy of a faithful worker is a sharp contrast between a good and bad workman:
"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness." – 2 Tim. 2:15-16
The good workman does his best to present himself as one approved. He is diligent about the work of teaching. He reads good books, takes classes, and disciplines himself to learn God’s Word. The good workman is humble. He knows he needs his instruction just as much as those he teaches. The good workman is careful to ensure he is presenting the Bible’s truths clearly and accurately. He knows the more clearly he presents God’s Word, the more powerful it is.
The bad workman, on the other hand, gets lost in endless controversies, inevitably entangling others in their foolishness. Their talk spreads like gangrene, infecting people everywhere it goes. Quarreling over such things as secondary or tertiary matters creates divisions and hurts the people you teach.
Don’t get tangled up in the parts of the Bible that are unclear when there is so much that is clear. Be like the good workman: present yourself as one approved, with no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
THE CLEAN VESSEL
Next, Paul explains that a faithful teacher is like a clean vessel:
"Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work."– 2 Tim. 2:20-21
“Vessels” refers to containers that would be found in one’s home in Paul’s day, like Tupperware in ours. Some vessels would have been used for honorable things, like eating, whereas others would have been used for dishonorable things, like washing feet.
We have a Tupperware cabinet in my kitchen (you know, the cabinet where every container falls out every time you open it). One of the “vessels” in that cabinet is a yellow, plastic bowl we use for thawing raw meat. I wash the bowl every time we use it, but even though I cleaned it, I’m not about to eat out of it. Why? Because that would be gross. That bowl is used for a dirty, or dishonorable, task.
In the same way, people are used for either honorable or dishonorable tasks. Without Christ, each of us was a vessel for dishonorable use—we were far from God and probably cared little for others. We were slaves to sin and set ourselves apart for dishonorable use.
But in Christ we have been made clean through the blood he spilled on the cross. Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension justify us in the sight of God once our faith is in him. We have been cleansed, made holy, and are now set apart for honorable use.
Honorable vessels are “useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” As believers, we are useful to God in the sense that we are equipped to do good works here and now for people made in the image of God in a way that brings him glory (Eph. 2:10).
The words Paul uses—“honorable” and “set apart”—indicate that his clean vessel picture is about holiness. Paul wants to remind Timothy, and us, that holiness matters.
Holiness has fallen on hard times, though. We want to be accepted, so we wink at the number of drinks we have when we’re out with friends. We’re loose with our tongues, or we’re quick to laugh at a crude joke. But each time we participate in sin, we’re making dirty what Christ has made clean; making dishonorable what God has set aside as honorable.
Believer, pursue holiness and set yourself apart as useful to the Lord Jesus Christ.
THE LORD’S SERVANT
Paul’s third picture of a faithful teacher is the Lord’s servant:
"So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will."– 2 Tim. 2:22-26
Paul first tells Timothy to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” This is related to holiness, and it relays the Bible’s most basic instruction for how to deal with sin: to flee from it. As fast as you can.
Most of us have an overinflated sense of how strong we are. We think we can stand up to temptation and beat sin through sheer strength or willpower. But we can’t—that’s why Jesus had to die for us.
The Lord’s servant is not prideful. He knows he needs the grace of Jesus and the power of his Spirit to stand up to temptation. Sin and its consequences are scary enough to the Lord’s servant that he wisely runs the other direction. Instead of running to temptation, he should run to righteousness, faith, love, and peace. These are the fruit of the Spirit—attributes he will cultivate in us as we pursue them alongside him.
The Lord’s servant should also be gentle. In contrast to the devil’s quarrelsome servant, the Lord’s servant should be “kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.” Think of your relationship with the people you lead: are you kind to them? Patient with them? Do you endure their questions and hardships? Are you gentle in your conversations and sensitive to their struggles?
The world is filled with impatient, prideful, power-hungry leaders. God’s Kingdom should house leaders who are just the opposite. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t correct people when necessary—Paul clearly states that Timothy should be correcting his opponents. But he should be doing so in gentleness, because “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
Be patient with your flock. Be kind to them. Love them. And if they have strayed, instruct them in gentleness, and perhaps they will come to their senses and find their way back to the truth.
JESUS IS THE FAITHFUL TEACHER
Faithful teachers should be like a good workman, a clean vessel, and a servant of the Lord. And if, like me, you feel woefully inadequate to be all of these things, then take heart, because you don’t have to be.
You don’t have to be the perfect workman, the cleanest vessel, or the greatest servant because Jesus is.
Jesus is the perfect workman who never shrank back from declaring the truth and correcting false teaching. He never mishandled the Word of truth. He never quarreled over inessentials and never tired of telling his people of God’s goodness and their need for salvation.
Jesus is the clean vessel who presented himself pure and blameless before the Father. He was an honorable vessel his entire life but willingly gave himself up to dishonorable treatment on our behalf. He was willing to be dishonored so that we could become honorable through him.
Jesus is the Lord’s servant who was perfectly pure, never sinning though tempted in every way as we are. He was focused, never straying from his mission to bring the gospel to bear on all mankind through his sacrificial death on the cross. He was gentle, treating the lowliest of men and women with the highest amount of dignity. He patiently corrected, continuously endured.
Jesus is the faithful Teacher. He is the only leader who can do all of these things. And it is only by looking to him and relying on him that we will become the faithful leaders he means for us to be.
Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of three, and the Managing Web Editor at GCD. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing check out his website, or follow him on Twitter.
What if Pastors Stopped Sharing the Gospel?
What if, at a major continental conference, we asked every pastor in North America not to lead another person to Christ for the remainder of their ministry? If someone wanted to enter the Christian faith at their church, the pastor would redirect them to his people. It would no longer be the pastor’s responsibility to reach or attract unbelievers. If anyone was going to come to Christ, it would require direct participation from the individuals within the church body.
This is obviously a hypothetical situation for the purpose of illustration. But consider it for just a moment: if pastors stopped sharing the gospel and bringing people to Christ, what would happen to the church? With pastors pulling back, would church growth come to a screeching halt?
A CHURCH IN DECLINE
Plateaued and declining churches outnumber growing ones four to five in North America,[1] and denominations are reporting that high percentages of their churches are reaching few. America’s largest denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, reported in 2016 that 47 percent of their churches baptized two or less.[2]
You might think that reducing the pastor’s mission scope could have nose-dive level repercussions. Pastors are, after all, the main communicators of the gospel in our churches today. They also tend to be the most educated and socially adept people in God’s assembly (not that they don’t have some relational quirks and awkward tendencies). For those two factors alone, the mission of the church could substantially suffer if pastors were to stop sharing the gospel. But could it be that we'd see something surprising occur within the body of Christ?
What if across the wide spectrum of the Church, a mood of solemnity took place? A spontaneous-heart-and-knee-drop holy moment, where the church body in every region rises from its seats, comes to God’s altar, and with contrite and repentant hearts cries out, “Lord, we sense your Spirit in this. You are calling us to fulfill the very thing written in your Word. Lord Jesus, as your body, with our pastors now stepping down, we are ready to step up—to bear responsibility for bringing the gospel to the whole world! And we are willing to learn from our pastors all that is necessary to do that task more effectively.”
Seeing this heartfelt outpouring, pastors, too, all over the land might drop to their knees, exclaiming: “Lord, you have entrusted me with your people. I have been given the highest call to be their shepherd, but also the leader of your army. So Lord, make me a powerful equipper. Use me to unleash through them your symphonic gospel. May we see revival like the church has not seen since its first-century inception!”
Can you imagine this? I can.
BACK TO REALITY
Before you get too overwhelmed, there will be no such conference. No pastor has to stop living on mission; they can continue to be God’s messenger and minister of the gospel, uniquely called and qualified.
What I hope you get from this hypothetical scene of gospel-less pastors is a sense of how “pastor-centric” our congregations are. I believe the average church is far too dependent upon their leaders. From consultations with various church leaders, it seems to me that the lack of belief in church member’s mission abilities, coupled with inadequate training, is hindering the church’s potential impact at such a scale that it is unprecedented. Right now, North America has more unsaved people outside the immediate “joining circle” of the church (won’t attend with a simple invitation) than ever before. And our culture is continuing its plunge into pluralism.
A recent LifeWay study revealed that only 6 percent of churches are growing at the population rate of their communities.[3] Another survey from Christ Together found that 73 percent of respondents (all of whom were believers) were ineffectual with any non-believer.[4] The way churches are set up, with the pastor being the prime conduit of the gospel and a high ratio of church members being unengaged and ill-equipped for their gospel disseminating role, is not going to cut it any longer. Major cultural sectors will remain unreached unless God’s people rise into a new level of missional prowess.
I submit we have entered a new mission-necessitating era for the church’s growth. Yet even with the plateaued or declining numbers in so many congregations, many pastors are trying to do mostly the same “come and see” attractional devices to draw outsiders to check out their churches, when what is happening culturally has rendered this singular strategy insufficient.
MOBILIZING MEMBERS FOR MISSION
I played four years of college football and will always be a huge NFL fan. Though I am not part of the New England Patriot’s bandwagon, one day I listened to an interview with Patriot players who mentioned what their hoodied master, legendary coach Bill Belichick, required of them: “Do your job! Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing. We need you to do your job, each one of you, and on every single play. Fulfill your responsibility, and we’ll compete at the highest level.”
What if the church adopted a similar playbook? What if pastors truly embraced their role as given in Ephesians 4:11–17? What if pastors heard the call to “Do your job! Equip the saints. Stop stepping on their mission responsibility. Do what Christ is calling you to do and expect them to do their roles.”
It was Paul, under the Spirit’s inspiration, who was first to see this divine architecture in its most nascent form. God’s infinite wisdom conveyed the eternal plan for how his church would redeem the whole world. In Ephesians 4, Paul discloses a simple top-down-and-out structure designed to create the highest level of mobilization. It is so simple it’s easy to miss: God has given gifts to equip the members for his ever-expanding work.[5]
GETTING EPHESIANS 4 RIGHT
Despite specific instructions from this Ephesians 4 passage, teaching pastors still do the bulk of the mission enterprise. Too often, a church is measured by its preaching prowess, not the messaging exploits of her people. Too often the pulpit leads others to Jesus, not the people. Too often it is church staff, not the men and women in the pews, who are baptizing. Why do we settle for roles that diverge from Scripture, as well as the equipping example of Christ, who raised twelve everyman types to lead his movement?
I long to see pastors switch their metrics and begin measuring themselves by their equipping effectiveness and their people’s mission fruit. To get there, we would have to stop reinforcing a dependency upon leadership and a sequestering of viable mission skills, and instead devote ourselves to creating solid structures for achieving the member’s empowerment.
I am not proposing a restriction on pastoral proclamation, of course. But I am proposing a focused effort to train and mobilize the men and women in our churches to be the primary agents of gospel proclamation. If we make this shift, we will find ourselves closer to God’s ecclesial design, we will unleash the potential of our movement, and we will see a resurgence of the people’s “acts” that made Christ’s name famous in the first place.
Gary Comer is the author of six books, including the newly released, ReMission: Rethinking How Church Leaders Create Movement. He founded Soul Whisperer Ministries, an organization dedicated to helping churches develop missionally. Gary is a motivational speaker, faith-sharing skills trainer, community group campaign catalyst, discipleship path designer, and development consultant. His ministry is also international, involved in training leaders in the United Kingdom, Kenya, Egypt, and India. Connect with Gary at soulwhispererministry.com, or on Twitter/Instagram at @gcomerministry.
[1] Jared C. Wilson, The Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto against the Status Quo (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 35.
[2] Kevin Ezell, Southern Baptist Life, 2016.
[3] Rebecca Barnes and Linda Lowery, “7 Startling Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America,” Church Leaders, April 10, 2018. Available at: https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html/2
[4] Ryan Kozey, “Your Church on Mission: What’s It Going to Take?” (presentation at Southwest Church Planting Forum, October 29, 2014).
[5] Read JR Woodward’s Creating a Missional Culture for insight into the five top equipping gifts.
Don't Let the Fire Go Out
Editor’s note: This month at GCD you will be seeing articles from our team of Staff Writers and other contributors on a handful of topics that Jonathan Edwards introduced in his own Resolutions. The aim of this series is to help you see how a gospel-formed resolution can help you flourish in your love for Christ and for others next year. Click here to see all articles in this series.
I could feel my eyes glazing over as she talked about how sick her dog was.
She was devastated, and I was really tired. I could feel my mind pulsing with each and every heartbeat. I was empty and dry, and at this point, any expectations of conversation would be like wringing out a dry towel. I knew my weariness was getting in the way of my attention at this benefit dinner.
I was still standing in this fancy dress and uncomfortable shoes only because I knew it was expected of me. On the inside, I was calculating every single moment in a process until I could leave and be in the comfort of my own home. I had nothing left.
When my car finally pulled into the driveway, I escaped to the haven of my room and turned on my floor fan, letting the cool air kiss my face. I turned on music to fill the empty space in my head. The air and lyrics filled my dry lungs with breath. Over the past few months, my eyes had become tired, drifting from the secure place of Jesus, and refocusing on my responsibilities. I was not dried out by momentary exhaustion, but exhaustion of the heart.
Can you identify with this kind of exhaustion? It’s when your own health and well-being becomes secondary to everything else. It’s the feeling that we have to sprint to even keep up, and breathing itself becomes a task.
The words “spirit” and “breath” are known to be interchangeable in Scripture. That’s fitting, because when we’re spending ourselves beyond our limit, typically we are not depending on the work of the Spirit. We’re short of breath and feel the need to anxiously count each one we take. We are limited when we’re not relying on the endless supply of the Spirit.
GIVE ME OIL
Throughout Exodus, God intricately instructs his people on how the tabernacle should be built. Every word has meaning, and every meaning has great purpose in pointing to Jesus.
One piece of furniture you’re probably familiar with is the golden lampstand (Ex. 25:31). I have heard about the lampstand, read about it, and seen photos of it. However, I was completely unaware of how much spiritual significance went into it.
When God talks about the creation of this beautiful source of light, he makes it clear that candles aren’t sufficient. Candles are wax, and wax burns itself. At the end of the day, a candle will burn its wax down until there is nothing left. The flame will go out.
In instructions found later in the Old Testament, God says “do not let the fire go out” countless times (Lev. 6:9-13). The symbolic flame found in this intimate meeting place was never to lose its light. It had to burn continuously.
Therefore, God asks for an oil-burning lampstand. An oil-burning flame doesn’t burn itself, but burns from an external source. An endless supply of anointed oil.
Similar to our source found in the Holy Spirit, God’s Word through this lamp echoes his everlasting sustenance given by the Spirit. His supply is our supply, and it is sustained only by intimate connection to his original source.
FUEL FOR YOUR STORY
God’s work in you is extraordinarily important. He created you with intention and detail. The working together of your history, your gifting, and his purpose becomes a beautiful thing called your story. It’s one of the most powerful tools used for salvation (Rev. 12:11) because it draws people in to listen to the sound of God’s marvelous grace.
However, we have to know how to steward these things. Our history typically holds some degree of brokenness and requires our willingness to stop, search, and be restored from past hurt or anger. Our gifting requires discipleship as we walk into situations and relationships where we’re asked to use these gifts to help someone else. Last, God’s fulfilled purpose requires both our patience and our trust. We have to walk willingly on a journey that is uncomfortable and unpredictable.
If you don’t lean into the strength and power of God for each of these things, you will burn out. Without the filling of the Holy Spirit, you are susceptible to resent your past, neglect your gifting, and ultimately miss God’s true purpose for you. You’ll lean into your own self-sufficient energy and burn yourself down. You’ll lose the brightness of your light, perhaps causing you and those around you to stumble.
3 WAYS TO CONNECT TO THE SOURCE
We don’t have to run ourselves into the ground, though. We can remember the source of our light through prayer, through biblical accountability, and the psalms.
We have to press into prayer, constantly checking our hearts. Is the gospel informing the way you live? Are you worried about things beyond your control? Does your life have margin for rest? Praying these questions and listening for God’s guidance can lead us towards deeper dependence on God, and less dependence on ourselves.
Biblical accountability is simply living along with people who can lovingly speak the truth when we need to hear it. If we’re walking in sin, it’s usually seen and felt by the people closest to us. Sin is easy enough to notice, whether it is rebellion, codependency, or self-sufficiency. But we need people around us who are willing to tell us they see it.
The Psalms have a way of speaking gentle conviction to our hearts, often saying the very things only our hearts know. The poetic crying out for rescue reminds us of our own need. I recognize what’s happening inside of me most when I read the Psalms.
We are called to have a light that burns in the darkest place, and that flame should continuously burn. If we are the fuel to the light we give off, we will burn down like candles and our light will go out. This makes us helpless to others and all ministry opportunities.
However, our flames will not lose their light if we are burning the inner fuel of the Spirit of God. This oil doesn’t run dry, and it radiates the most magnificent light.
Chelsea Vaughn (@chelsea725) is currently living in Nashville but has spent time in Texas, Thailand, and Australia. Obviously, travel is a passion, along with hours in the kitchen or across the table from good friends. She does freelance writing, editing, and speaking for various organizations and non-profits. She hopes to spend her life using her gift for communication to reach culture and communities with the love of Jesus.
Endure Today for the Joy of Tomorrow
Seth Godin recently wrote:
“For the creator who seeks to make something new, something better, something important, everywhere you look is something unsatisfying.
The dissatisfaction is fuel. Knowing you can improve it, realizing that you can and will make things better—the side effect is that today isn't what it could be.
You can't ignore the dissatisfaction, can't pretend the situation doesn't exist, not if you want to improve things.
Living in dissatisfaction today is the price we pay for the obligation to improve things tomorrow.”
But there’s a problem, isn’t there? If living in dissatisfaction today is the price we pay for the obligation to improve things tomorrow, how many “tomorrow’s" do we have to face before improvement comes? Improvement hardly ever comes on our own timetable.
Just walking through the halls of our churches, it’s easy to grow discouraged over the things we want to change. Each Thursday when I plan my following week, it seems I never have enough time to work on the growing list of “long-term vision” items I want to pray through and work towards.
THE SLOW MARCH TOWARD THE FUTURE
Take solace in the reality that we aren’t alone in our slow march towards the future. Growing takes time.
A technology curator recently said, when commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the iPhone:
“Anything that is going to become a billion dollar industry in the next 10 years is already 10 years old. . . . That completely changes how we should approach innovation. There is no invention out of the blue, but prospecting, mining, refining and then goldsmithing to create something that's worth more than its weight in gold.”
We forget what existence was like before the iPhone, and, even then, we probably take its advent for granted. Think about your everyday usage of a smartphone. Whether you’re scrolling through a feed, posting a photo, or using an app, so much of your daily life has been shaped by this invention. Even though we live in the world shaped by the iPhone, we rarely stop to think about the decades of research, innovation, and failure that had to occur to make the iPhone’s world-changing release possible.
Just like the iPhone and other innovations, our churches won’t change overnight. Yet we so often think this is how change will (or should) happen. This leads us to make some unwise decisions. For example, we see things as we want them to be instead of as they are, and expect our people to do the same; we think our people will receive change with joy; we think we’ll refine and processes and introduce new procedures with instantaneous success.
Why do we expect these kinds of results with so little time and friction? We are so unwilling to be dissatisfied that we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking that change will be easy and painless.
The real issue is our endurance and perseverance; our inability to live in dissatisfaction today so we can see satisfaction tomorrow. Instead of seeing dissatisfaction as fuel for a change we pray is coming, we see it as a frustration that warrants complaining.
So how do we endure? How do we continue to recast the vision, continue to garner support, and stay positive through it all? We look to Jesus.
JESUS’ ENDURANCE AND TENACITY
In Jesus, we find a model of endurance and tenacity. One of the most striking examples of this is found in John’s account of Jesus before Pilate. Jesus appears so resolute, so firm. There’s not even a hint of doubt or uncertainty.
John 18:33-35 explains,
“So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?’ Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?’”
Jesus’ answers are so tenacious that he threatens to put Pilate on the defensive. Jesus is steadfast in his resolve to endure the cross. What fuels his steadfastness and resolve?
John 18:36-37 continues,
“Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.’ Then Pilate said to him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king.’”
Here we see the key to Jesus’ endurance and tenacity: Jesus kept his eyes on the Kingdom and the will of the Father instead of the present opposition. In his exchange with Pontius Pilate, Jesus stands firm. He sternly responds, declaring the audacious claims of his other-worldly kingdom. Knowing the cost. Knowing Pilate’s defense. Knowing the coming verdict from the crowd.
Yet he does so with joy.
ENDURANCE TODAY LEADS TO JOY TOMORROW
Hebrews 12:2 tells us we are “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
When we look to Jesus, we see he was resolute before Pilate—before the cross—for the joy set before him. Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was to come.
What was the content of that joy? After verse 2, we read “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Heb. 12:3). The joy set before Jesus—the joy for which he endured hostility and the cross—was that you and I might not grow weary or fainthearted.
Jesus’ joy in enduring the cross is an example encouraging us to endure: “Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed” (Heb. 12:12-13).
Jesus was pleased to endure the cross to lift our drooping hands, strengthen our weak knees, and make our paths straight.
THE PLEASURE OF ENDURANCE
Jesus was pleased to endure the cross to strengthen our hands for the work of ministry—so work with patience, with fervor, with tenacity, and with perspective.
Jesus was pleased to endure the cross to strengthen our knees to continue praying—so pray with patience, with intensity, and with great expectation
Jesus was pleased to endure the cross to make the paths of our feet straight—so establish plans, processes, and procedures within your church, and trust the Lord to bear fruit.
Hebrews 2:13-14 appears to allude to Isaiah 35:3-4: “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.’”
Trust that as you work, as you pray, and as you plan, the Lord will respond with graciousness and favor.
What was the joy set before Jesus? The joy for which he endured the cross? Our perseverance. Our ability to endure. Our ability to press on; not growing faint or weary; not having drooping hands or weak knees or walking crooked paths.
Jesus’ willingly endured the cross for the joy of helping us endure and persevere, work patiently, wait for his timing, and seeing us live beyond worldly satisfaction.
Chris DiVietro is husband to Liz and daddy to Aletheia, Judah, and Evangeline. Chris is senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Reading, Pa and has a PhD in Organizational Leadership. Chris is happy to be back living in the north after five hot years in South Carolina.
Practice What He Preached: Imitating the Goodness of Jesus
Have you ever wondered what made Jesus so effective in reaching out and helping others? Granted, he knew the Scriptures backwards and forwards and applied God’s Word perfectly to each person’s situation. But what made people willing to listen to him in the first place? How did they know they could trust him, that he had their best interests at heart?
The people Jesus encountered had countless religious teachers and counselors available to them, yet you don’t see the multitudes swarming to them for advice or help. There was something about Jesus that, even as he maintained an uncompromising standard, drew people to him in droves. Publicans, prostitutes, even some of the Pharisees—sinners of every description flocked to Jesus for help and spiritual healing.
It was the goodness of Jesus, as much as anything else, that made his ministry so effective.
GOOD MINISTRY
Jesus’ popularity was clearly due in part to the wisdom with which he spoke. The multitudes were constantly marveling at the authority and understanding so clearly displayed in his teaching. Yet even this does not explain what made untouchable, despicable sinners huddle up with Jesus at the dinner table and converse so eagerly with him.
The goodness of Jesus was at least as much of a draw for people as the content of his message. They could see—anyone could see—that Jesus lived a very different life than the pompous Pharisees and Sadducees. This man practiced what he preached.
It was also clear, from his actions as well as his words, that Jesus had a genuine, consistent, and intense compassion for the pain of those around him. This man wept with those who were weeping, went to those who were lame, waited for those who were blind, and sought out those who were overlooked.
Scripture makes it plain that goodness is one of the absolute essentials for real ministry. Whether in private or in public, whether declaring the gospel from the pulpit or sharing it in the break room—any ministry must flow out of good living, good motives, and good counsel in order to be Christ-honoring and personally useful.
This is the unmistakable implication of Paul’s words to the Romans: “I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another” (Rom. 15:14, emphasis added).
The confidence Paul expressed in the church’s ability to instruct and edify one another was grounded, first of all, in the goodness that was displayed in their lives.
GOOD LIVING
We cannot help others draw closer to God if we are not ourselves maintaining a close walk with God. As elementary as this may sound, it is widely ignored in many modern approaches to church organization and growth. People who have experienced little, or no, sanctification themselves are put in positions of leadership in Sunday School classes, small groups, or even public preaching.
Several years ago, I actually had a preacher sit across from me and tell me he was unrepentant for some well-known sexual sins in his life because he felt he could not possibly minister effectively if he did not understand the sinners among whom he labored. He said if he was living in sin himself he would be able to reach out to and help other sinners.
Apparently, this man did not consider the best example of ministry in the whole Bible—Jesus Christ himself. According to this man’s criteria, Jesus could not have had a useful ministry because he rubbed shoulders with sinners his whole life without ever sinning.
Of course, this is ridiculous, because Jesus’ life is to be our model. Any other philosophy of ministry results in one drowning man or woman trying to save another. Neither will be helped.
The Bible makes it clear that personal virtue, or goodness, is necessary for even Scriptural knowledge to be useful. Peter exhorts us that the first thing we need to add to our God-given faith is personal virtue—and then, to that virtue, we are to add knowledge (2 Pet. 1:5).
Paul expressed his desire that the church at Colossae be filled with knowledge so that they might “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” (Col. 1:9-10). Knowledge and goodness go hand in hand.
Paul’s language of “goodness”—especially being filled with goodness—might sound strange to those who feel they are great sinners and unworthy of the least of God’s mercy. But God’s mercy is exactly where this goodness comes from.
Paul tells us in Galatians that goodness is a fruit of the Spirit ( Gal. 5:22), and, again in Ephesians, that the fruit of the Spirit is “is found in all that is good and right and true” (Eph. 5:9).
Sanctification and growth in godliness is not something we can aspire to on our own, yet it is clearly expected of us and should be displayed in us. Paul shared his prayer request with the church at Philippi, that they would be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:11).
The fruits of godliness, including good living, can only come by Jesus Christ, but they are expected from us in order that God might receive praise and glory through us.
GOOD MOTIVES
However, the idea of goodness carries with it more than just right living. Even the Pharisees could put on a show of “good works.” Goodness also carries with it the idea of right motives. In other words, the person who is trying to encourage, admonish, or advise another must be clearly doing so out of a desire for that person’s good.
This seemingly obvious criterion is broken daily in households all over the world. Husbands hurl instructions or expectations at their wives or children and wonder why they are not well-received in the midst of their tirade. Wives criticize and belittle their husbands, then are surprised when they do not see any change in behavior.
The problem is that knowledge without genuine love—without good motives—is utterly unprofitable (1 Cor. 8:1). We cannot realistically expect to help anyone if our advice and counsel are not flowing from a deep, Christ-centered love and desire for the other’s good.
One of the pastors under whom I grew up used to remind us as up-and-coming leaders in the church that people will listen to you only if they already know that you love them. However, if they do know you love them, they will follow you almost anywhere and receive almost any criticism. How many young ministers need to remember this maxim!
Our goal, then, with any counsel we give, should be the good of the person to whom we are speaking and, ultimately, the glory of God. Our goal for each other, in other words, should be the same goal God has for us. As Paul prayed in 2 Thessalonians 1:11, our hope for each other should be that God will “fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power,” in each of us.
GOOD COUNSEL
Despite living a godly life and desiring the good of someone, many saints have failed to actually share helpful counsel when it was needed. This is because good counsel does not always feel or sound good to the listener. Since every one of us struggles with a people-pleasing nature to some extent, we sometimes hesitate to share what we know needs to be said simply because we know it will not be easy or pleasant to hear.
Goodness sometimes requires that we be stern, share unwelcome advice, or even “wound” a loved one for their own good. The writer of Proverbs, however, reminds us that “faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Prov. 27:6).
As much as we may be tempted at times just to say, “Everything is going to be alright,” or “things will get better soon,” this is simply not always the case. Sometimes drastic, personal change is needed before things can turn around for the better.
If a person doesn’t stop spending more than he or she makes, they will not get out of debt; if a couple continues to fight and wrangle over every little thing, their marriage will not improve; if parents do not correct their child, their relationship with the child will only get worse.
Goodness, then, does not always look like a warm and fuzzy hug or an encouraging slap on the back (though it might include these). Goodness is a personal investment in the glory of God, which overflows in a desire to help others draw closer to God, no matter what challenges we may have to face to achieve this end.
Personal goodness, coupled with an intimate knowledge of God’s good word, equips us to help the many hurting people that need the goodness of God so desperately in their lives.
Truly good ministry must flow out of good living, good motives, and good counsel in order to be Christ-honoring and personally useful.
Justin Huffman has pastored in the States for over 15 years, authored the “Daily Devotion” app (iTunes/Android) which now has over half a million downloads, and recently published a book with Day One: Grow: the Command to Ever-Expanding Joy. He has also written articles for For the Church, Servants of Grace, and Fathom Magazine. He blogs at justinhuffman.org.
Lead with Your Ears
“The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.” —Rachel Naomi Remen
Research suggests the average person listens at a 25 percent rate of efficiency, which means most of us aren’t very good listeners.
One reason for our attention deficit is that the media we’re immersed in—especially social media and the ubiquitous smartphone—is shaping us. The more immersed we are, the shorter our attention spans become.
As a result, we are more attuned to the visual rather than the aural. Smartphones lure us into believing we can relationally “multitask”—we think we can give a portion of our attention to virtual relationships through our screens, while simultaneously acting like we’re truly listening to the flesh-and-blood person right in front of us. Even when not actively engaged with a screen, our attention and minds are often drawn to our devices and away from whatever, or whomever, is in front of us.
We live in and are increasingly being shaped by an age of distraction that makes listening a lost art. Which means a good listener is one of the rarest and most beautiful things in the world today.
LISTENING IS AN ACT OF LOVE
In one of the earliest Christian writings, Jesus’ half-brother James makes listening to others a priority: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19).
James directs his readers to open their ears rather than their mouths. “Be quick to hear,” he says (emphasis mine). This quickness is not an indication of speed, but of priority. In other words: listening is of primary importance, so it should be done first. There should be a sense of urgency to our listening, and it should consistently be our intuitive, default, automatic posture toward others.
The research cited above suggests this is not the case for most of us. How about with you?
Are you a good listener? Where does your mind go as people speak with you in conversation? Are you more interested in hearing or being heard? Do you attend to those in your presence, or are you constantly distracted by the ever-present virtual world on your smartphone? Do you respond to those who are angry at or critical of you with a “soft answer,” or with a reflection of their anger?
Our first response to others should always be with our ears rather than with our mouths. In the command “be quick to hear,” James is essentially calling us to “lead with our ears.”
There is no better way to misjudge or misunderstand someone than by failing to listen to them. This failure to listen often leads to, as James warns against, a quick tongue and a sharp temper. But listening is an act of love in which the other person’s interests are put in front of one’s own.
Listening is an essential part of what psychologist and spiritual director David Benner calls “soul hospitality”—the creation of space and safety for someone to be themselves, to be welcomed, to be loved, and to share their innermost self.
As with the hospitality of an open home or an open table, soul hospitality requires at least two things: reception and attentive presence.
RECEPTION
The ear is an organ of reception. It does not produce anything but simply receives. This is the perfect organ for providing hospitality because it gives deference to the speaker, offering space for them to be heard. Benner writes, “the essence of hospitality is taking another person into my space, into my life.”
It is intuitive to think of hospitality as generosity—as giving something of substance to someone—and listening tends to follow this general pattern. In this model, listening becomes a necessary but over-rated launching pad for response formulation.
In these cases, most conversational energy is given over to what will be said next, rather than what’s being said now. The posture taken by the purported listener is therefore not one of reception but of provision. It is a position of power rather than humility.
But soul hospitality, which includes true listening, “is more demanding than giving advice, money or some other form of help,” Benner goes on to say. It is an act of humility.
The assumption for the truly hospitable listener is that the other person has much more to give. The most appropriate posture to take, then, is one of reception. And reception’s proper response? Gratitude.
Providing hospitality while also being the one to show gratitude is counter-intuitive. Yet truly hospitable people are often the most grateful people, blessed beyond measure at the grace-filled presence of their guests.
For this reason, reception is not equivalent to consumption. It is not a receiving into the self for the sake of the self. It is not self-centered at all. As an act of love, reception is focused on and for the other.
ATTENTIVE PRESENCE
Leading with an open ear, although it implies reception does not equate to passivity. It includes the giving of a gift: the gift of attentive presence.
Like reception, attentive presence is another act of love and humility. Benner again: “To be present to you means that I must be prepared, temporarily, to be absent to me.” To be “absent to me” is to set aside thoughts, responsibilities, text messages, emails, and a plethora of other distractions that play tug-of-war with our attention.
If hospitality implies space-making, then attentive presence requires boundary-setting and the removal of distractions for a time, creating an opportunity to be present and attentive to the person whose image-of-God-bearing soul has been entrusted to the listener in this sacred space and time.
The command to listen is not easy. It takes something from us, especially when it is met with sin or anger. It is difficult to attentively listen when what is being spoken is emotion-laden and dripping with hostility. Attentive presence requires the difficult work of self-differentiation from attack, blame, or anger in order to truly listen. The natural response to emotionally furious assaults is often tantamount to an explosive chemical reaction.
But God would call us instead to the attentive, humble, loving response of the open ear—not only when it’s pleasant and congenial, but, even more importantly, when it’s inconvenient, tense, and downright difficult.
FIRST, LISTEN TO GOD
To serve others by leading with an open ear is to quickly recognize our great need for God. When shortfalls, inadequacy, and inability are easily recognized, we must make haste to run to his grace.
To have any hope of being receptive and attentively present to others, we must begin with attentiveness to God’s voice. As James goes on to say: “Therefore . . . receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).
First, we must listen to God, which takes place when we prayerfully and humbly attend to his voice. To become familiar with God’s voice is to listen to how he has chosen to speak to us in the Scriptures. As we listen to God, we will find ourselves crying out to the One who is quick to hear: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry” (Psalm 40:1).
God is quick to listen and will attend to the poor and needy sinner who comes to him asking for grace in their time of need.
You cannot become someone who is quick to hear unless you first call upon the One who inclines his ear to you. Truly it is from him that we learn to listen.
Mike Phay serve as Lead Pastor at FBC Prineville (Oregon) and as an Affiliate Professor at Kilns College in Bend, OR. He has been married to Keri for 20 years and they have five amazing kids (Emma, Caleb, Halle, Maggie, and Daisy). He loves books and coffee, preferably at the same time.
The Wastefulness of God
EFFECTIVE. EFFICIENT. PRACTICAL. It is remarkable how often one hears these words in the world of Church, Inc. Their frequency may reflect our desire to be wise stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us, or they may reflect the influence of a culture that strives for control and values ROI (return on investment) above all else. I suspect both motivations are at play.
Scripture rightly warns us to be careful with money. It is a tempting master broadcasting a siren promise of omnipotence—the power to control one’s life and circumstances. We have all heard the heartbreaking stories of pastors lured into wealth’s maelstrom. We have also heard the stories of ministries that simply mismanaged their finances and slowly, quietly disappeared beneath a tide of debt. Regularly telling these tales of woe keeps church leaders vigilant. They provoke us to be effective, efficient, and practical. But might these values carry a hidden danger, perhaps even more perilous than wealth?
When efficiency becomes an unquestioned value within Church, Inc., we risk embracing the ungodly ethic of utilitarianism. Rather than seeing people as inherently valuable regardless of their usefulness, we begin to wonder how we might extract more money, volunteer energy, missional output, or influence from them. Our goal as pastors shifts from serving and equipping to extracting and using. Rather than asking how we might love someone, we wonder how we might leverage them, and we can hide these ungodly motivations from others (and even from ourselves) by appealing to the universally celebrated virtue of stewardship. After all, isn’t it poor stewardship to have a CEO sitting in the pews every week and not utilize his wealth and leadership capacity for the church? And would a good steward invest the church’s resources into young adults who are too transient to become leaders and too poor to give back?
We condemn our culture for devaluing human life it deems useless—the unborn, the elderly, the mentally disabled, the immigrant, the poor, etc.—yet the same utilitarian values of efficiency and practicality that fuel these societal sins are no less common within the church. As ministers of the gospel of Christ, we must stand boldly against the popular belief that everything and everyone exists to be useful. We must remember that in His grace God has created some things not to be used, but simply to behold. After all, the Lord not only created a garden for the man and woman with every tree that was useful for food, but also every tree that was beautiful to the eye (Gen. 2:9). Sometimes we are the most like God when we are being the most impractical.
The graceful, “wasteful” nature of God was revealed shortly before Jesus’ death. While reclining at a table, a woman poured a very expensive ask of oil upon His feet. When His disciples saw this, they were appalled. Like many church leaders today, they could only see through the lens of practicality. “This ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor,” said Judas, and the disciples rebuked the woman.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus shot back. “Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”
For those who believe that the beautiful must submit to the practical, it is impossible to view the woman’s action as anything but wasteful. The disciples saw the spilled oil as a lost opportunity. To them the oil was only a commodity to be utilized and exchanged for a measurable outcome. What they interpreted as a waste, however, Jesus saw as priceless. He recognized the spilled oil as beautiful, impractical worship. True worship can never be wasteful because it seeks no return on investment. True worship is never a transaction. It is always a gift—an extravagant, “wasteful” gift.
Perhaps our captivity to efficiency, like that of the disciples, explains the dismissive posture many pastors have toward the arts. Sure, we appreciate beautiful architecture, music, and paintings if they serve the practical goal of communicating a biblical truth or drawing people through the church’s doors. But art for art’s sake? How could that possibly glorify Christ? Why would that be a wise investment?
Artists who cultivate beauty in the world remind us that the most precious things are often the least useful. Artists provoke us to see the world differently—not simply as a bundle of resources to be used, but as a gift to be received. Therefore, the creative arts serve as a model of God’s grace, and how the church affirms and celebrates the vocations of artists is likely to inform its vision of God. As Andy Crouch said, “If we have a utilitarian attitude toward art, if we require it to justify itself in terms of its usefulness to our ends, it is very likely that we will end up with the same attitude toward worship, and ultimately toward God.”
To combat the utilitarianism of our culture, and to foster a right vision of God, perhaps the church needs to learn to be more wasteful rather than less. Maybe there is a time for the voices of practicality to remain silent as the artists prophetically call us back to extravagant worship, to behold God rather than to use Him. And maybe it is good to embrace the impracticality of having young children, the mentally handicapped, and other “useless” people in our worship gatherings as a way of valuing what the world discards, detoxifying such ungodly values from our own souls.
And perhaps the church should spend money on what the world deems impractical and wasteful. When the voices of the world cry out in protest against the church, as they inevitably will, maybe the voice of Jesus will speak in defense of His precious, often useless bride: “Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”
Taken from Immeasurable: Reflections on the Soul of Ministry in the Age of Church, Inc. by Skye Jethani (©2017). Published by Moody Publishers. Used by permission.
Skye Jethani is an author, speaker, consultant and ordained pastor. He also serves as the co-host of the popular Phil Vischer Podcast, a weekly show that blends astute cultural and theological insights with comical conversation. Skye has authored three books, The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity, WITH: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God, and Futureville. Skye and his wife Amanda have three children: Zoe, Isaac, and Lucy and reside in Wheaton, IL.
What Coaching Soccer Taught Me About Leading Small Groups
When my oldest son decided to play soccer, I was a little nervous. I wanted to be involved in his life, but I grew up playing football. All I knew about soccer was that you couldn’t use your hands, and the weirder your hair, the better you probably were. When the county soccer league sent out an email to parents asking for volunteers to help coach, I felt more than underqualified. But I said yes because I wanted to meet a need and be involved. When I went to the first coaches meeting, I had a realization—small group leaders at church must feel the same way I do right now. Pastors and ministry leaders live in ministry 24/7, and it’s easy for us to forget what it feels like to step into leading ministry for the first time. We have a desire to see our churches multiply disciples, but it’s easy to forget the perspective of those we’ve asked to fulfill the mission. They’re scared, nervous, unsure what exactly they signed up for, or how they’re going to do it. They feel the same way I did in that coaches meeting—nervous, unsure, unqualified, wanting to meet a need but also wondering if they’re enough.
I left that meeting knowing more about coaching soccer, but I also left having learned about how to mature followers of Christ. Here are three lessons coaching youth soccer taught me about equipping small group leaders.
THEY NEED A CLEAR JOB DESCRIPTION
When I walked into that coaches meeting, I knew I would need to be at practice and show up to games, but that was about it. The Director of Coaching walked us through a very clear and well done packet that outlined what we were expected to do throughout the season. Everything from calling parents, getting cones, balls and nets, scheduling practice times, sample practice outlines, age appropriate expectations, drills and rules, etc. I knew what I was expected to do, and how they wanted me to do it.
Small group leaders need the same. What exactly do we want them to do? What is a win? If we want mature leaders, we need to put them in a position where they understand what they are supposed to be doing beyond a weekly list of questions to ask the people in their group.
Some leaders will have an expectation that they’re supposed to show up to group and preach a sermon or teach a lesson. Others will think their job as a group leader is to set out great snacks and provide a clean house. Others may see their group as an opportunity to promote their theological or political agenda. Still others may have absolutely no idea, but they are willing to show up and fill a need.
Small group leaders will not mature if they do not have a clear understanding of what you are asking them to do. There is no silver bullet job description to mature your small group leaders understanding of their mission, however. It will be largely dependent on your context, strategy, and philosophy of groups. If you don’t help your people to understand what you’re asking of them, they will drift into the assumptions they bring with them.
THEY NEED EFFECTIVE TRAINING
In the coaches meeting, I found out I could take a coaching certification course online through USA Soccer at my own pace and get an “f” license, and the program would pay for it. So I did. And I learned a ton! The video sessions were five to ten minutes long, easy to understand for a beginner, and came with a quiz afterwards. I moved from knowing that you can’t use your hands and off sides is bad, to understanding how USA Soccer believes soccer players develop. I learned skills to grow and mature players, drills and exercises to employ at practice, and how I could avoid harmful mistakes.
The soccer program invested in formal training for their coaches. It made me exponentially better at developing my team because I had high level, professional training. Churches can talk about training and developing leaders, but if we do not make training effective, accessible, and attractive, we won’t see it bear any fruit. They gave us a coaches meeting, but also provided engaging and accessible on-going development opportunities.
I was learning and growing as a coach every week. Are we giving our leaders the same opportunities to mature and grow in their leadership? Are there online resources you can equip them with? Is there space in your budget to provide them with equipping opportunities at conferences, or with coaching or online courses? Is there a local ministry or seminary that can provide resources or training to your leaders?
Any level of formal training we can provide our leaders will mature their faith and ministry. It doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or require a large chunk of our time. With all the digital options at our fingertips, we can cheaply and effectively train and equip our small group leaders. They almost all desire more training, we just have to show them where to find it.
THEY NEED COMMUNITY
Leadership is lonely. Anyone in ministry has learned that very quickly. They need a community of leaders and mentors to lean on when small group life gets discouraging, when they’re criticized, when they make a mistake, or when they feel unsure or lonely. Aside from the great information our soccer league gave us at the coaches meeting, we also walked away with a sense of community. We had a director of coaching who was available to help us build a practice plan, and as a go-to with questions about player development. We had a commissioner we could go to with problems like angry, disruptive parents, referee issues, or conflicts with other coaches.
Where can your first-time small group leader go for help when a group member confesses an affair, is dealing with addiction, has significant conflict with another person in the group, or the church? If our leaders are isolated as they shepherd a group, then hurt, conflict, and difficulty will overwhelm them and make it much more difficult for them to lead their group into a healthy obedience to Jesus Christ.
One of the greatest challenges church leaders face in maturing small group leaders is in seeing the ministry from the perspective of a person who has never done it before. We can’t assume maturity and confidence of the people leading a group. Anyone in church leadership would say mature and effective small group leaders are a cornerstone of the church blossoming into the body of Christ and multiplying disciples, but if we are not intentional about understanding and equipping our leaders, they will not mature into the leaders their groups need them to be.
Coaching soccer is a weird place to learn about maturing small group leaders, but it has radically changed and challenged the way I view leadership development in my church, and I hope it will for you too.
Nick Strobel lives in Terre Haute, Indiana and serves as the Discpleship Pastor at Marlyand Community Church. He and his wife Kayleigh have two boys Ethan and Sawyer, love Jesus, old houses and animals. Follow Nick on Twitter for church stuff, Stars hockey and West Wing quotes.
A Better Way to Find Leaders in the Church
With the fall of celebrity pastors becoming a normal part of life, many of us are wondering what's happening. Why is it that these men can build something so significant for the kingdom of God, yet fall into adultery, alcoholism, or narcissism? Their falls come at no small cost. As Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel have written,
"We live in the era of celebrity pastors whose platforms of influence stretch far beyond the walls of their local congregation, and who shake the earth when they fall off their pedestals."
In the wake of these collapses, we sound the alarm for more accountability and stronger community, and rightly so. None of these efforts appear to be working, though, as we see pastors and church leaders making the same mistakes time and time again. These events should drive us to reflect deeply on what is happening, and about how we find leaders in the church.
What if we're missing what's really going on? What if we're asking the wrong questions? And what if the fall of our pastors has at least as much to do with us as it does with them?
Goggin and Strobel suggest that's exactly what's happening. They go further to say that we as the Church need to take the log out of our own eye and start to see what's really going on. So what is going on?
AN INVERTED POWER STRUCTURE
Here again, Goggin and Strobel are provocative and insightful when they suggest,
"[T]he church has embraced a form of power that is antithetical to the way of Jesus, and her pastors stand on the front line of this destructive reality."
They go on to explain that the Church and her people have believed the same lie as Adam and Eve in the garden, that "dependence upon God is a place of scarcity and hindrance, while autonomy is a place of flourishing and fulfillment." Our culture and our church-culture in America lift up self-reliance and autonomy as cardinal virtues. These are prime examples of what it means to be successful, driven, and American.
Therefore, when pastors and leaders display these characteristics their vision and mission go forward unquestioned. The bolder, more powerful they seem, the more impervious to spiritual failure they seem, and the more they're praised. When their leadership results in “success,” they’re exalted for these character traits. But when they fall we scorn them for those very same traits.
As Goggin and Strobel write, it's time for the Church to see that,
“[T]he very narcissism, lust, and greed that has caused church leaders to fall is the same narcissism, lust, and greed that drove their ministries to 'succeed.”
They're talking about the fruit of the flesh here (Gal. 5:19-21). What they don't say is that these pastors simultaneously display many of the gifts of the Spirit. How can they display the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the flesh at the same time?
CONFUSING SPIRITUAL GIFTS WITH SPIRITUAL FRUIT
I took a seminary class with Nik and Ruth Ripken where we talked mostly about the persecuted church, and their research findings (read this if you're unfamiliar with their story). As Nik started unpacking their findings related to leader selection in the church, he noted that some of those being persecuted experience the same problems with pastors that fall, either away from the faith or into moral failure.
But not all those in persecution experience this, and those that don't select their leaders much differently than we do in America. In the United States, we appoint leaders based on giftedness—speaking ability, charisma, knowledge, etc. But those believers thriving in persecution appoint leaders based on godliness. These believers choose leaders based on the fruit of the Spirit, not the gifts of the Spirit.
The problem with selecting leaders based on giftedness is that the presence and power of gifts don't guarantee godliness—but we assume they do. The danger in apparent giftedness is that it can fool us as to what's really going on in someone's heart.
Of course, if we were paying attention to the fruit of the Spirit in our leaders lives then we wouldn't be fooled. If we were looking closely, we would see that while some of our small group leaders or pastors appear to have the gift of leadership or teaching, they're also marked by lust, greed, narcissism, or arrogance. But in many cases we just don't see it. Why?
We confuse the gifts of the Spirit with the fruit of the Spirit. We assume that giftedness follows godliness. We assume their eloquence is preceded by gentleness, so we miss that they're abrasive in meetings. We assume their passion is preceded by joy, so we miss their inability to care what others have to say.
This blindness is misguided, though. Spiritual gifts don't qualify you for ministry, they simply tell you what to do. Spiritual fruit qualifies you for ministry. And the lack of that fruit disqualifies you.
A BETTER WAY TO FIND LEADERS IN THE CHURCH
There is a better, more biblical way to find leaders. A way that doesn't leave us stunned when our pastors fall because we were unable or unwilling to see what was really going on. Leaders found this way won't be without sin, and surely some of them will fall (even Jesus had Judas), but there will be less of them that pull the rug out from under the church and damage her witness. So how do we do it?
When looking for leaders, we must realize that it is a person's relationship with God that determines their Kingdom-effectiveness. We must prioritize the fruit of the Spirit over the gifts of the Spirit. We should look for those who are marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And if we don't see real evidence of the Spirit in their lives, we shouldn't let them near a leadership role—particularly a pastoral one.
Jesus kept his twelve disciples close for three years as he observed the fruit of their lives and ministry. Only at the end did he finally cut them loose, saying, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn. 15:15). Paul did the same with Timothy. Barnabas did the same with Paul.
Leaders in the Bible were commissioned after they had been tested and proven to display the fruit of the Spirit as they applied the gifts of the Spirit. They were surely gifted, but those gifts were preceded by their fruit. Once their lives gave sufficient evidence of the work of the Spirit, then they were ready to enter into leadership.
This is why 1 Timothy and Titus list qualities like being "sober-minded" and "self-controlled." The only thing listed in 1 Timothy 3:2-7 considered a gift or skill is being "able to teach." The rest are character traits that flow out of a life marked by the fruit of the Spirit.
A better way to find leaders in the Church is to look for leaders whose gifts are nested in their fruit. Leaders who display the fruit of the Spirit as they exercise the gifts of the Spirit. But to do it, we'll have to crucify our desire to build our kingdom, and instead focus on building his.
Grayson Pope is a husband and father of three, as well the Managing Web Editor at GCD. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship and has earned a MACS at The Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. For more of his writing check out his website, or follow him on Twitter.
Trusting Jesus to Grow the Church
In 2004, the Lilly Endowment one of the world’s largest philanthropic foundations invested money into an initiative to answer this question: “What does it take to sustain pastors in such a way that they will flourish in ministry over the long haul?” This initiative (“Sustaining Pastoral Excellence”) was birthed out of statistical data showing a rise in pastors burning out and leaving ministry more rapidly than ever before and a belief that the local church was too important for this to continue.
Covenant Theological Seminary, which was given grant money to help address this question, started the Center for Ministry Leadership, to explore how pastors survive and thrive in ministry. Over a five-year span the center held summits where they brought in seasoned pastors and spouses to draw upon their experience, talk about various struggles, successes, concerns, and brainstorm ideas.
One of the primary conclusions the Center came to was:
“Every disciple – and every pastor – must have a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ and nurture that relationship in a regular and consistent manner. The dangers of not doing so are many, yet, for various reasons busy pastors often ignore or circumvent the process.”
This conclusion shouldn’t surprise us: think about Paul’s parting instructions to the Ephesian elders:
“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” – Acts 20:28
The order is clear. Paul tells them to first pay careful attention to themselves then care for the flock. Yet, as the center concluded, most pastors get this out of whack at one time or another or worse get it out of whack continually. This is especially true in the nascent stages of church planting, when it feels like every aspect of the success of the plant depends on the work you put in. But as many pastors can attest to the results for establishing a practice of reverse priorities will lead to devastating results.
Listen to some of the comments from pastors who participated in the program:
“The sad fact is, for most of us in ministry, work for Christ comes before our relationship with Christ.”
“Our hearts are often thirsty for a word from God, but who has time?”
“I feel like Frodo. In the Fellowship of the Ring, he’s talking to Gandalf and says, ‘I feel like butter spread over too much bread.’ I just feel like I’m tired and running on fumes.”
“My relationships and ministry are presently taking place from a place of drought. No wonder I am tired, on edge, angry and restless.”
“I feel like a guy who is driving over the speed limit on a narrow mountain road without barriers. It’s only by the grace of God that I haven’t driven off”
Think about Acts 20:28 again and take a moment to list out some of the reasons why you don’t pay careful attention to yourself before taking care of the flock?
There are many reasons: We don’t know how, we’re lazy, we’re too busy, we have unrepentant sin, it’s hard to invest time, and so on. I remember that all of these “excuses” were at play early on in my own church planting experience. Although I knew I needed to rely on the Lord, I tended to only do this in areas related to my achievement rather than my affections or allegiance. In fact, as I’ve coached pastors over the years, I’ve found that this is one of the most common reasons we head down this path. Because we have an incessant driven-ness to succeed combined with a belief that it all depends on us, we often fail to pay attention to self.
Ambition and achievement isn’t always a bad thing. In John 15, we read that Jesus mentions “bearing fruit” seven times in a span of seventeen verses. It is good to accomplish much, to be fruitful and effective. This is clear from the passage. But it’s also clear fruit bearing must flow from abiding in Christ.
Peter Scazzero writes in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (p. 32):
“Work for God that is not nourished by a deep interior life with God will eventually be contaminated by other things such as ego, power, needing approval of and from others, and buying into the wrong ideas of success and the mistaken belief that we can’t fail.”
If we forget or ignore our identity in Christ and pursue achievement out of our own effort and ability, our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls will be unable to support the weight of this and we will crash.
Archibald Hart who is a psychologist writes, “Most ministers don’t burn out because they forget they are ministers. They burn out because they forget they are people.”
If we’re going to be faithful and fruitful disciples of Jesus who are able to effectively care for the church God is calling us to lead then we are going to need to live out of a relationship with Jesus that is nurtured on a consistent and ongoing basis. This practice needs to start at the beginning of your church planting journey or else you will develop destructive habits that will be difficult to overcome.
Consider the Apostle Paul’s words in Colossians 2:6-7, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
Think about how you entered God’s Kingdom. It wasn’t through self-dependence, reliance, or righteousness. Rather entrance into the kingdom came through humility, admitting our inability to save ourselves from sin’s punishment and enslavement, through trust in Jesus alone as the Savior who can forgive and reconcile us to the Father and through submission to him as Lord, living under his rule, care, and will.
Although we entered God’s kingdom by relying on Jesus, we often move on from there and live as if we need him + something else or we just live as if we no longer need him at all and place our trust in other things altogether. But Paul is reminding us that this is a foolish way to live this life. Instead our lives should be characterized by ongoing humility, trust, and submission. This is the way we are to walk.
Paul’s adds to his instruction with four additional statements in verse 7.
First he says we are “rooted in him.” For a tree to flourish the roots need to be firmly planted in soil that can produce healthy and growth. Paul is saying that is exactly what has occurred with us. We’ve been rooted and planted in Christ.
I like how Sam Storms describes this in The Hope of Glory: “God has graciously seeded my soul into the soil of Christ’s unchanging and unconquerable grace.”
Second, he reminds us “we are being built up in him.” Have you ever walked by a property that has an unfinished building with a foundation but no structure? It’s obvious from all the weeds and trash that overruns the property that the owner was unable to finish the project.
This doesn’t happen to those rooted in Christ. At times, we might look a little trashy and overrun with weeds but God is not finished with us and is building us up brick by brick; grace upon grace. He is finishing the work he started.
The third statement he makes is that “we are established in the faith.” As God once opened up our eyes to the truth of the gospel so that we’d see it and receive it by faith, he is continuing to show it and confirm it to us. There are days we are on shaky ground; our faith is wavering, we have doubts, anxiety, and questions about our leadership or the viability of the church. Yet God is working in and on us to strengthen us in the faith.
Notice how Paul says God goes about doing this: “just as you were taught”. The way he roots us in Christ through the gospel is the same way he builds us up in Christ and establishes us more firmly in the faith.
In a sermon on this passage, Ligon Duncan stated:
“All growth and progress in the Christian life must be consistent w/its beginning. If we began the Christian life by professing Christ as Lord, our living of the Christian life must be consistent with that profession. If Christ is the object of our faith, if He is the one who saves us, then surely it is Christ who must be the sphere of our spiritual growth and development.”
As we walk, we need to continually immerse ourselves in the depths of the gospel, remembering our identity and the security, hope, and riches that accompany being united to Christ. We need to walk with others who remind us of the message we probably just preached. We need to daily address doubts, fears, dreams, accomplishments, efforts, and idolatries by running to Jesus and living a life of ongoing humble, trust, and submission.
Finally, and this is by no means an afterthought for Paul, he writes that we should be “abounding in thanksgiving.” All of this is and continues to be his work of grace in our lives. He has given us every reason to overflow with affection and worship and the interesting thing is that as we “abound in thanksgiving” recalling his gracious way with us, this practice increases our affection and allegiance to him.
If you are embarking on the church planting journey put this walk into practice immediately. Failing to pay attention to yourself before you care for the flock might be sustainable for a moment, but it will eventually lead to a disengaged pastor who is at risk of derailing their life and ministry. And if you are a pastor who has failed in this area, it’s not too late to correct the course. Just as you received Christ Jesus the Lord start walking in him.
—
Jason Roberts is the founding Pastor of Crosscurrent Church, an Acts 29 church in Virginia Beach, VA. Fourteen years ago while working for Spanish River Church in Boca Raton, FL, God began to lay the church planting calling on his heart and after some time of investigation and holy arm twisting, he packed up the family, moved back to “the Beach” and planted in the fall of 2002. For the past eight years, he has also given considerable time to coaching and training church planters and pastors. This past fall he transitioned into the corporate world where he now works as an Executive Coach for CACI, International, coaching senior and mid-level managers at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. He still lives in Virginia Beach, with his wife of 23 years, Aimee and his five children.
Killing Social Glory-Seeking Hearts
“We didn’t seek glory from people.” Or did we?
One of the darkest dangers of the Christian life is the pursuit of praise. We want people to affirm and recognize us for who we are, what we have accomplished, and the results of our efforts. Perhaps rightly so.Our culture at large gives renown and praise to celebrities for who they are, what they have accomplished and the things they have produced. We taught that if you want your life to matter, you have to have people pay attention.
Our culture at large gives renown and praise to celebrities for who they are, what they have accomplished, and the things they have produced. We taught that if you want your life to matter, you have to have people pay attention.
Disciples devour and dwell on the things of God found in the Scriptures. We pray. We kill sin in our lives. We serve others.
Consider the incessant reality of social media today. Masked as a vehicle with which to share your life with your “friends” these channels have become self-glorifying platforms in which we project ideal versions of ourselves for the world to like, favorite, and adore.
Forbes Magazine reported a recent study from the University of Houston that found that the “highlight reels” of social media were linked to higher rates of depression among users. Our social comparison of each other creates a culture in which everyone seeks to be the celebrity.
Even think about the videos that have gone viral across social media platforms. We call it “transparency,” but it is a kind of voyeurism and narcissism that causes a couple to share live on video everything from their kids spilling milk at breakfast to a heated argument, to the sad realization that she has just had a miscarriage. All of this to get clicks, likes, shares, and a social platform of celebrity.
We are seeking glory from people!
So how do we overcome this sort of glory seeking? Paul, writing to the Thessalonian church in one of his first letters sought to demonstrate this sort of challenge that he himself faced, and the remedy for that sort of glory seeking.
In a high charged socially-aware and omnipresent world today, we have to think through how to defuse our social-glory-seeking-selves. Paul gives us three remedies to the illness of social-glory-seeking.
We Live in Gentleness Among the World
In the context of Paul’s ministry he is speaking of the way in which he and his missionary team conducted themselves among the new believers there in Thessalonica. The paradigm he uses is that of a mother and her small infant child. He describes his relationship with the people there as, “gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thess 2:7).
Set in opposition to the glory-seeking orators and thinkers of Paul’s day he postured himself as someone who would hardly be celebrated or recognized in the world—a nursing mother.
Most mothers I know don’t get a lot of platform and social praise for the labor they do in raising children. Gentle mothers aren’t usually lifted up in our culture as the kinds of people that we should aspire to be. They aren’t the paragons of society, influence, and renown. Yet this posture should be the very first posture if we are to kill a social-glory-seeking virus among us.
You can’t build a platform or make much of yourself when you’re busy being present with people and listening to them. Pastors and ministry leaders who embody this don’t get to Instagram and selfie their every counseling conversation, tear-filled pleading for repentance, broken-hearted funerals, and hours of labor alone in a study listening to and pondering over the Word of God.
These kinds of leaders often do most of their work without Twitter announcing to the world their efforts, or a live-stream, webinar conversation with empowered leaders and entrepreneurial dynamos. The social-glory-seekers get those. This kind of leader humbly, gently works among his people feeding, shepherding, and loving them.
We Yearn For The Good of Others
Paul says that a second remedy to the heart illness of social-glory-seeking is the compassionate longing for the good of others. He describes his ministry this way, “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you…” (1 Thess 2:8).
Paul’s affectionate desire was a deep yearning and ambition for the good of that church. He truly loved them. The context of his ministry there and the conflict, persecution, and strife that befell him as he ministered to the Thessalonians knit their hearts together. As they went through the deep waters of adversity and struggle, they were bound up together in love and compassion.
This affliction-born affection radically changed the perspective of the relationship. We often like to envision Paul’s missionary journeys as being some sort of multi-city tour where he would book a venue, have a big entertaining gathering, amass a crowd, preach the gospel, and see hundreds if not thousands get saved.
He stuck around for a few days with a discipleship class, and then off to the next town to raise up the next evangelistic crusade power-assembly. How wrong we would be. His visit to Thessalonica was anything but that. Acts 17 paints the picture of civil discourse in the Jewish synagogue turned into a violent mob and a harrowing late-night escape to the next town. Nothing self-aggrandizing in this ministry but a beating from jealous religious zealots.
But this affliction-soaked ministry birthed deep love and concern for the good of others. Ministers that care only for the glory of the platform don’t worry themselves with the street-level stuff.
Seeking glory from people means working to make sure that people affirm and like you, not that you care about them. Paul saw the hostility and the rage against the new Christians firsthand in this city, and it moved him to compassion for those people and that city. Social-glory-seeking would count Paul’s work as a loss and a failure. He saw it as a means to love.
- Pastor, do you care for the good of those in your church?
- Do you yearn for the fruit of the Spirit to be prevalent among the flock of God?
- Have you shown up unannounced at the home of a friend who is living in folly to try and wake them out of their stupor?
- Do you pray with the lonely, elderly, sick, and shut-in? Or do you only care about the “wins” (blasphemous term!) of ministry and celebrate the numbers of success; attendance records and fiscal prosperity?
- Are you intertwined in the affliction of ministry or just the successes?
- Or are you busy retweeting the rave reviews of your books, declaring where you’re speaking on the tour next, and the fiscal perks of your work?
Killing the social-glory-seeking heart that is present among the ministerial ranks requires an affectionate yearning and care for the good of others.
We Share Our Lives, Not Just Our Message
No one will say that proclaiming the gospel isn’t necessary, or even important. However, an insidious trap has been set by our enemy. In a social-glory-seeking world we’ve been deceived to believe that our message of the gospel is a product with which we can dispense to the world, build a platform around, and amass a pop following of glory with.
But if we’re not seeking glory from people, why do we act like the stage is the pinnacle place of ministry in the world today?
Paul’s remedy is very different. “We were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess 2:8). For Paul, living in community was essential to defeating the monster of the glory-seeking me.
Sharing lives, not just messages required that people knew him, and that he made himself known. The believers at Thessalonica became part of Paul’s life. He had friends, he had meals with them, he shared everyday stuff of life.
Social-glory-seeking however creates false barriers. It puts out only the best and brightest of our lives for everyone to see. We may feel that we are “sharing our lives” but it’s never our failures, never our sins, never our weaknesses or losses. It’s always our wins. Does anyone really know us?
To kill this kind of glory seeking requires an imbeded-life together. We have to be known; we have to be sharing of ourselves—our joys, our worries, our frustrations, our aspirations, our true selves with others. I worry for leaders and pastors who are not in community life with people in their church.
They don’t express hospitality to the church; they don’t attend or participate in normal small groups; they create bubbles and barriers of protection and circles of trust that isolate them from the crowds, unless everyone see their faults and weaknesses.
Killing Social-Glory-Seeking
I am convinced that the postures of gentleness, affection, and imbeded-life together will keep us from seeking the glory that comes from people. We won’t have time to get caught up in seeking praise.
Instead what will result, especially among pastors and leaders, is hard work that engages the lives of the people in a community and church and the effective advance of the gospel at the street level.
These attitudes will produce a church life that is ripe for revival and gospel-advance. It will bring a contagious movement of the Spirit of God that will produce fruit for generations to come.
It won’t end with a celebrity parade or self-sticked spiking of the ball to tell everyone how great you are. It will conclude with honor, praise, power and glory to the King of all Kings—Jesus.
“For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything” (1 Thessalonians 1:8).
Reflections
- Pastor, do you care for the good of those in your church?
- How has social media contributed negatively to your spiritual health? Positively?
- In what ways have you sought glory from others?
- How do you overcome the social glory-seeking?
—
Jeremy Writebol (@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over fourteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He is the pastor of Woodside Bible Church’s Plymouth, MI campus.