Fighting Against Mission Fatigue

Over the last month, in communities and organizations across the spectrum of the gospel-centered missional movement, I have come across a growing number of people on the cusp of burnout. Many were close friends, few were acquaintances, and at least one of them was me. Tired, worn out souls exhausted from community and mission. They are faithful people; well trained, well supported, and well resourced. What’s worse, their exhaustion with the mission usually coincides with financial, marital, and familial stress.

Causes of Mission Fatigue

So, what is going on? As a child of this movement, I have often been at a loss. I thought we had it covered? We are supposed to center our lives on the gospel and then live intentional and communal lives empowered by the Spirit, making disciples of Jesus. If this was the plan, why does it keep spitting out exhausted and discouraged people? It wasn’t until I personally stared this burnout in the face and searched my soul that I discovered why the gospel mission has become the exhausted mission.

1. Looking for the Wrong Fruit

We are looking for fruit. We desire fruitful lives. In my own journey, as the months and years continued to pass by without a rapid multiplication of communities with baptisms and new churches formed, I grew exhausted and discouraged. We must be doing something wrong! I must be doing something wrong! Eventually, I simply thought that I had wasted years of my life. I was fruitless. Many of the people I talk to experiencing missional exhaustion have the same experience. Interestingly, the fruit that is expected from us in the Scriptures, not in our heads, is not new churches, converts, or communities. Rather, God wants to produce love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control in us (Gal 5:22-25).

God wants to produce love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control in us.

On the other side, this is what the Spirit does through us: performs miracles, brings people to repentance and faith, produces new life, gives gifts, baptizes, and appoints elders, among other things. Leaders experience discouragement when we measure the wrong things. When you strive to produce things that the Spirit is in charge of, you work harder than you ought and place responsibility on yourself that you could never carry. This is a sure recipe for exhaustion.

However, when we pause and reflect on the fruit of the Spirit born in us, we are encouraged because we see things the way we are. When I stopped to see the things the Spirit had done in me, I realized my life wasn’t fruitless. In fact, it had been very fruitful. Over the years God had given me love for people I didn’t even know at the beginning. God had given me peace in my heart and marriage. God had created, seemingly out of nothing, a contentment with small budgets and his presence. The reality was, God had been working in me. Ironically, it was that fruit in me that God used to produce fruit in others.

2. Living with an Urgency of Ego

Leaders who are striving for success and ‘great stories’ expect them to happen immediately. This is one of the oldest tricks the enemy uses to destroy mission: get them to think we can make a name for themselves. The urgency to have a thriving missional community or life that produces results that are celebrated is exhausting. It is tiring trying to be an expert and gain the affections of ‘missional’ peers. Self-serving mission leads to burnout 100% of the time. If the urgency of ego isn’t for self-gain, it is for another’s. I have also witnessed people crushed by the burden of proving themselves to their leaders’ apparent expectations, which many cases, didn’t exist.

3. Living with an Urgency of Ideal

This is a slightly different urgency. This is where the goal is to do exactly what we read in the ‘book’ or saw at the conference. We expect and strive to do things by the book. The books are helpful and so are the conference speakers. What becomes exhausting is a newfound legalism—modelism. When you have a problem or get stuck, you are turning to the expert’s blog, book, twitter feed, and videos. These can be helpful, no doubt. But in the end, the mission is too difficult to look for strength and endurance in a model that can’t offer either.

The mission is too difficult to look for strength and endurance in a model that can’t offer either.

4. Agenda-filled Relationships

When every relationship you have comes with an ‘intentional’ and strategic plan to make them a disciples of Jesus, you run out of steam quickly—because you don’t have any relationships. Every holiday, season, sporting event, and errand has become ‘intentional’ in all the wrong ways. Agenda-driven intentionality is: “What can I do for God in these things?” Or worse: “How can I move this person one step closer to buying into my belief system?”   To be clear, I am all for intentionality and I completely agree that God is using us and can use us all the time. However, I would add God also wants to do something in us at all times. Gospel intentionality, the opposite of agenda-driven intentionality, asks regularly: “What is God doing, where is he, what is he saying?” Or, better yet: “What can I do to see him clearly in all of life?” The gospel means we are reconciled with Christ. Our redemption is to life with him. Our commission is with him.

We often forget this in our rush to live intentional and missional lives. We aren’t trying to figure out how to make disciples all the time. Rather, we are trying experience Jesus in every part of life. Discipleship is inviting people to experience the reconciliation and redemption of Jesus in their lives, too. In this way, be a normal person who experiences the supernatural presence of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.

5. Lack of Patience

We often expect to see fully-formed disciples after a few months or even a few years. When we don’t, we throw our hands up and say, “This doesn’t work, what else can I try?” Imagine you move into a street where your house is the only one that believes Jesus is King and Savior of the world, and even you struggle to believe it in almost every area of life. However, you buckle down and go for it. After a few years, you have made great relationships with neighbors and have spoken the gospel in several ways and at several moments. You have wrestled with some of your idols, too. Your marriage went through a very difficult time, but you are starting to see restoration. You praise God for all your new friends, opportunities, and growth. But you feel that you have failed. You haven’t baptized anyone. You should stop what you are doing.

6. Bad Math

If you attempt to do more than you are called or asked of by Jesus, you will be tired. There is a simple equation found in the book Margin by Richard Swenson: Your Load (or what you are called to do) - Your Power = Margin.

Your load is what you are called to do, what is being asked of you, what you have taken on as your responsibility.  Your power is your capacity, gifts, time, strength, and finance at your disposal to do it. Margin is either sanity or chaos, under- or over-utilization. It is a simple equation: if you are committed beyond your power, you will be exhausted. If you do far less than you have power to do, you will be bored. Too often, we assume the role of saving the planet or at the least our community. We accept great and worthwhile roles and responsibilities followed by a belief that we are omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. If you don’t believe you are those things, you have believed the laws of time, finances, and energy don’t apply to you. You press on with a packed schedule and slim bank account. The Spirit is powerful and works in remarkable ways. The Spirit does not call you to more than he will supply the power. Jesus calls us to more than we can do on our own, but he doesn’t call us to more than he will empower.

Simple prayers and questions: What is Jesus giving me power for? What is Jesus asking me to do?

7. Mission-Centered

Finally, at the end of the day, we are not gospel-centered, we are mission-centered. The noblest idol in all of Christianity is mission. We approve when people worship it, celebrate it, and lay their life down for it. The idol of converts is as powerful as it is subtle. It is easy to drift. Here lies the problem: mission doesn’t give power, energy, grace, or redemption. Reconciliation of the gospel makes us ambassadors for the Reconciler, not mini-reconcilers. This is the end result of all the things mentioned above.

We have drifted from gospel-centered life to a mission-centered life. When this happens, we make disciples of the mission instead of disciples of Jesus.

Fighting Fatigue

We are susceptible to mission fatigue. The question is, what are we supposed to do about it?

1. Repent

If you are believing and living any of the things above, you are worshiping false gods, telling God you are a better missionary than the Spirit and a better savior than Jesus. You’ve made the mission of God your god. Turn from those things and toward the true God:

• The God who is great, so do you don’t have to be in control of the mission.

• The God who is good, so you don’t have to look to the mission for personal satisfaction.

• The God who is glorious, so you don’t have to look for significance in the mission.

• The God who is gracious, so you don’t have to prove yourself in the mission.*

This is the God who invites you to join him on his mission. The God who is infinitely careful of you. What practices remind you of that truth?

2. Live in the Urgency of Spirit

God is patient. Somehow we think that the Spirit is frantic and urgent, but he is actually patient and powerful. Consider the lame man healed by the Spirit in Acts 3. This man had to have been passed by Jesus multiple times in his life. Somehow God waited to heal the man much later. Or consider the decades of patience as the gospel slowly moved into Europe and only after a dream appeared to Paul after days of being denied by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a yes man. The Holy Spirit waits, says no, prepares, and works over time as much as he works in an instance.

3. Seek Rhythms of Rest

Finally, learn to rest regularly. First, learn what rest means. Rest does not mean doing nothing. Rest also doesn’t mean doing chores around the house. Rest also doesn’t mean ‘family time.’ All of those things may be components of rest for you. However, rest truly means to marvel at all the God has done and is doing. The first day in the life of a human was not building, organizing, it was resting in the goodness God had created. It was only after that day of resting in God and what he had done did we go to work doing the things he commanded them to do. We live on mission from a starting point of rest. We don’t rest from the mission, we get on mission because we rest.

We don’t rest from the mission, we get on mission because we rest.

This means that you learn how to remember and worship the goodness of God. Make space within your life to focus on resting in God’s work. You will do this daily. You will do this weekly. You will do this monthly, seasonally, and annually. These are patterns throughout the Old Testament with sabbaths, festivals, and jubilees. In each of these, people stopped trying to make things happen. They left their fields, their military posts, their labor, etc. The point was always to remember and celebrate the things that God had done to redeem them and form them into a people. It is good wisdom for us to do the same. What does this look like? My example:

• Daily, I take a 15-minute walk through my neighborhood praying and reflecting on what God had done the day before. Asking him on that day, “Help me see you and step into the things you call me into.”

• Weekly, I take a day where I intentionally focus on what God is doing and has done. I remember the gift of him. For me, I journal, write, read, and spend time with my family. We remind me of grace. We also spend time with friends and neighbors on this day. However, the point of this day is to celebrate and worship who God is and what he has done.

• Monthly, I get out of town or at the minimum my neighborhood. I read, write, and mostly pray. I’ve found a monastery an hour and a half away and the drive alone is worth it. Also, at different times in our marriage, my wife and I have been able to spend a night out of our context once a month. This is an amazing practice everyone should try. As we leave, we pray and ask God to bless our time. While we are away we reflect on the past month.

• Annually, I take a real vacation, even if it is a stay-cation. During this week or so, do what is relaxing and enjoyable to you. Hike, ski, swim, sun bath, read, whatever is enjoyable. Eat good food and listen to good music. Reflect and worship God for what he has done and pray for the things you hope God will do in the next year.

As you do all of these enjoyable things of rest, take time to reflect on these questions:

• What were the low-lights and hard things last year?

• What were the high-lights and clear blessings last year? (Oddly, these answers end up being the same as the hard things.)

• What did we see God doing last year?

• What do we hope to see happen this next year?

• What fruit do we pray to see this next year?

• What are our fears with this next year?

• How is God good, great, glorious, and gracious?

The Best Way to Spend Your Life

I want to leave you with an appeal. Do not leave a life on mission because you have made it your life. There is a way to be on mission and for your life to be about Jesus. In fact, this is the only sustainable way. As you press into seeing Jesus present, involved, and relevant at your dinner table, at work, in the garden, and with your friends, you will be on mission. The gospel is the only agent of perseverance. This is one thrilling life of repentance, faith, and fruit.

Jesus is worth it! You will find Jesus on the mission, but don’t substitute the mission for Jesus.

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Brad Watson serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities in Portland, Oregon and is the co-author of Raised? Doubting the Resurrection. His greatest passion is to encourage and equip leaders for the mission of making disciples. He is Mirela’s husband and Norah’s dad. Check out his website and follow him on Twitter: @BradAWatson.

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*Adapted from Tim Chester's 4G's.

Leading the Misfits and the Moles

Let’s face it, leading is very difficult. Why? Because you are effectively trying to herd cats. It can get crazy. You have to deal with different maturity levels, different backgrounds, different demographics, and even different motives and aspirations. When I first started leading, I figured that everyone desired to be a leader someday, and that they had the same goals as the one that they were following. Wow, after years of extensive study (by that I mean, after years of tearing my hair out and cussing people out under my breath), I have found that when we look at Jesus and how he led and who he led, we find some very interesting groups of people, and he definitely interacted very differently with each group. Now, anytime you write something like this, you have to generalize and you have to characterize. Don’t take this article as the end all or as a way to then characterize automatically everyone you are leading. This is meant as simply a summation of what I read in the Scriptures and what I have found in leading others on God’s mission.

So, who do we find as we look at the life and ministry of Jesus? We find these types of people:

1. Masses
2. Misfits
3. Managers
4. Moles
5. Apprentices (yeah, I know, it’s not an M word…)

The Masses

When we see Jesus leading, we see that many followed him. Crowds upon crowds of people would follow him around to see what they could get out of him. Jesus would say some pretty rough things to them, whether it was to eat his flesh or drink his blood to the harsh words he spoke to rich young ruler and the Canaanite woman seeking to have her daughter healed. He would teach them the ways of his Father and he definitely showed them what it looked like to be one of his disciples, but you’ll notice that none of them were in his close realm of friendship or discipleship. These people didn’t help make the plans for the next journey or “get a vote” on what or where to go next. These people are curious, and Jesus allowed them to be.

Many times we want to please the masses, thinking that is the way to draw more people in. Jesus didn’t do this. Jesus would teach and be on his way, and then out of the masses those that took him serious would then follow him or come to him in private and Jesus would then engage even further with them. Think of Zacchaeus. You know, the wee little man? He was part of the masses, but Jesus saw something in his faith of climbing the tree to just get a glimpse of Jesus that caused Jesus to go deeper with him in relationship (Luke 19:1-10). Know that in the masses, there may be many who will go deeper, but do not try and conform your vision or message to convert all of them to the ways of Jesus… not even Jesus did that.

Many times we want to please the masses, thinking that is the way to draw more people in. Jesus didn’t do this.

The Misfits

The misfits are people who don’t fit into the mold as others do. In many ways, you are not sure what to do with them, but they keep showing up and they keep following in the ways of Jesus. Jesus had many of these in his time. He had the demon possessed man that he sent the Legion of demons into the pigs and told him to go back to his town to tell them what happened (Mark 5:1-20). He had the blind man in John 9 that had enough faith to go and tell what happened to the religious leaders. And of course, Zacchaeus would also fit into this category.

Know that you will run into these types all the time. They don’t fit the normal mold that you are used to leading. It could be their personality type, or it could be their beliefs. We’ve had many people in our missional communities over the years that didn’t fully believe in all the “tenants of Christianity,” but followed in the ways of Jesus more closely than any Christian I had come across. Don’t discourage these people, but foster them and help them grow in that understanding of who God is and what he’s done. The misfits were ones that Jesus took great care of and desired them to know his Father. For too long, we’ve been uncomfortable with leading these types of people, but know that God desires them among his flock, even if they believe that karma is legit and unicorns are real.

The misfits were ones that Jesus took great care of and desired them to know his Father.

The Managers

I believe that Jesus had at least nine managers among him. They did what they were told, followed Jesus where he was going and loved Jesus until the end (besides one). These were the nine apostles apart from Peter, James and John. Now, I can’t tell you exactly why these nine were different than the three.  But, we definitely see that Jesus’ relationship with the three - Peter, James and John - was quite different than the nine (which will be explained further in the article). Jesus entrusted the nine with a ton, but probably knew that their leadership capabilities were more than likely going to be in a smaller setting and done with very little vision or initiative. He needed to do a lot of hand-holding with their leadership, but he knew that if he laid out the plans and purpose, they would be very good with following through. Whether it was feeding the crowds or coming alongside him even after some tough conversations and teachings. They weren’t going anywhere, they loved him deeply.

We all lead these types of people. They are great at running tasks, small groups, or missional communities. But, to try and get them to take that next step of visionary leadership and leading leaders is just too much for them. For too long, we’ve been trying to make managers a leader among leaders. We then get frustrated when they don’t come through, or things become stagnant in their growth or in their groups. But, this is how God has made them and where their capacity lies. This is a huge step for you as a leader, to know the difference between a manager and an apprentice. Who is going to merely carry out an assignment and who is going to catalyze an assignment? Big difference. This will not only help managers function in the ways that God has made them, which will in turn be freeing for them, but it will stop your frustration with why they can’t get to that next level.

The Moles

Some moles are wolves, but not all of them, so I won’t use that term to classify a whole “class” of people. The moles seem to be going along just fine for the most part. But, they usually don’t speak up, or they don’t buy into the vision and end up being like rocks in your shoe. Jesus had moles all around him. He had some that were wolves and some that were merely going to slow down his mission to show off his Father. Think of it:

Jesus had the rich young ruler that didn’t want to fully follow him, so Jesus let him go instead of trying to convince him to stay (Mark 10:17-27).

Jesus had one who asked to go and bury his father and yet another that asked to go say goodbye to his family (Luke 9:57-62).

Not only this, but Jesus also had moles that were wolves. Of course, there was Judas. There were also the Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes who were asking questions to try and throw him and his disciples off their plan to make disciples.

The point is that moles will never follow you where you are going. They always have excuses or bring up questions that sound legit if you took each one by themselves, but when added up, only equal a stagnant self-focused individual that will never actually follow your leadership.

They need to be let go. You have to prune these branches. Too many allow these types of people hang around and call it “grace,” when in reality it’s bad leadership and is holding back the misfits, the masses, and the managers from actually following you as you follow Jesus and his mission. Jesus only allowed Judas to stick around because he had a specific plan in place for him, but with all other moles, he sharply addresses and moves on without them.

Now, don’t automatically label someone as a mole, but when someone’s actions have a pattern of this type of behavior, the worst thing you can do is keep them around as they only hinder you and everyone else from fulfilling the mission.

Just look at Jesus. He knew men’s hearts, so he could make this judgment far quicker than we can. But he wouldn’t even allow these types of people to be close to him or his disciples. That says a lot.

The Apprentices

The apprentices are a little different than the rest. They not only get the mission and vision, but they can see and lead five steps down the line. Jesus had three of these: Peter, James and John. These three were the ones that were going to lead the charge when Jesus was gone. They were virtually taking the place of Jesus. You’ll notice that they aren’t perfect; Peter says many things we cringe at, and James and John desire to destroy people with fire from heaven (Luke 9:54). Jesus doesn’t use this against them, but finds them to be men of zeal and passion for him and his mission. He sees them, not as merely managers, but as ones that will take his place. He spends extra time with them to teach them and guide them in his ways, even taking them up to see his transfiguration. These were men who he was training in all of his ways, allowing them to speak into situations and aid the people so that they could understand what he was about.

We have the same in our communities. They are humble and want to learn and want to lead without titles. They have great ideas and seem to always see down the road and how things will affect people in ways we haven’t thought about. These are the people we need to spend the most time with. These are the future leaders that will continue to lead, not in a way a manager will, but will lead with big vision and lead the charge, instead of just taking orders. Dig deep with these people as much as possible. Spend time with them that others won’t get to with you, not because you are picking favorites, but because you know that they are going to be a leader or leaders and need that extra time to understand what it looks like.

Under your wing, these leaders will be the ones who continue to properly handle the masses, the misfits, the managers, the moles, and the new apprentices long after you’re gone. In my opinion, this is the best way to multiply leaders and, ultimately, to multiply disciples. And that’s what we’re here for, right?

Conclusion

What you’ll see about Jesus is that he allowed every one of these types of people to hear and observe his message and life. He didn’t leave people out, but he also didn’t treat them all the same. He used wisdom to understand who to let “in” and who to let go, who to dig deeper with and who to keep at a distance. It wasn’t because Jesus was a jerk, it was because Jesus had a mission.

What you’ll see about Jesus is that he allowed every one of these types of people to hear and observe his message and life.

The same is said for us. Jesus left us with his mission to make disciples. Knowing where people are on their journey will help you identify how to lead them and who to offer more of your time. This doesn’t mean that if someone is a misfit or a manager that someday they won’t be an apprentice; treat it as though it could happen and pray for the Spirit’s leading. It also doesn’t mean that God won’t change the heart of the mole. Saul became Paul.

I hope here to offer my experience, and to aid your understanding in who you are leading and how Jesus led. Let this be just a taster of your study and understanding of leading others in their journey of following Jesus.

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Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade. Seth is an investment portfolio manager, serving as President of McBee Advisors, Inc. He is also a MC leader/trainer/coach and executive team member of the GCM Collective. Seth currently lives in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Stacy and their three children: Caleb, Coleman, and Madelynn. He is also the artist and co-author of the wildly popular (and free!) eBook, Be The Church: Discipleship & Mission Made Simple. Twitter: @sdmcbee.

Getting in the Right Circles

Chances are, you sat around with a circle of friends yesterday evening watching (or not watching) the Super Bowl. Yeah, the first half was brutal. A first-play safety, two interceptions, the scoreless Broncos, and a couple of awful double commercials (Ford, a-hem). Some of the better commercials were gripping stories, like the Maserati commercial, which opens with gigantic crashing wave, followed by a terrifying twister, and then an ominous shadow eclipsing the grandeur of a rock-hard mountain face, all narrated in nubile innocence, hauntingly announcing “our lumbering giants.” The advertisement is so epic that the moment the car is revealed you feel used, manipulated, flat-out marketed. The story pulls at our fears, stirs our emotions, and even pricks hope for rescue from our giants, only to be offered the salvation of machinery. Many of us have rejected such silly notions, that human ingenuity and leaps in technology can bring about a societal utopia. Truth be told, we’d rather listen to the stories of our friends. At least their stories are true, even if they are mundane. Real community is built on real stories, not pipedream commercials or the failing hope of modernism. Or is it?

Circle of Friends

Today, what’s often passed off as community is nothing more than a circle of friends. A circle of friends is an insular, self-affirming circle of homogeneity where everyone’s alike. We share similar styles, food preferences, and values. We laugh at the same jokes, discuss the same movies, visit the same haunts. All of this is fairly innocent, but also indicting.

Media critic and documentarian Adam Curtis has suggested that since the explosion of information and celebrity culture, we now determine reality based on our own experiences with our circle of friends. Sure, we don’t fall for Maserati ads, but we do fall for our friends. These circles of friends become closed off to other perspectives and see the world through their own cult of connectivity. Today, our peers possess more authority than government, history, reason, or God.

Today, our peers possess more authority than government, history, reason, or God.

For example, what we do on the weekends is often the result of friendship influences, not deep values. Our views on sexuality, politics, and even theology are sometimes shaped more by our circle than by a transcendent authority. If you’re Christian, you may consume immoral media or refuse to sacrifice your time and money for others because, well, your circle of Christian friends has settled for this. Comfort is the norm.

Is our morality, our commitment, our service, our very identity shaped more by our circle of friends than by the kingdom of Christ? We say we follow Jesus, but often hide behind our friends. It’s hard to break free from the circle of friends. There’s a lot of social pressure. And if we don’t have a bigger story to shape our lives, a more universal narrative to reorder our world, then why not go with the ones we trust and admire? Why not fall in line with their mediocre spirituality, their comfortable ethic, and their tolerant morality? So we dig in locally, disbelieving universal stories, and create our own narrow-minded versions of reality. We base our discipleship on our friends' discipleship, our holiness on others’ holiness, our missional boldness on others’ boldness. The circle of friends isn’t as innocent as it seems.

Encircling Jesus

Jesus, on the other hand, doesn’t create a circle of friends; he creates a kingdom community. His disciples are from all kinds of vocations—fishing, accounting, and so on. They come from different places, and have different accents, but the one thing that holds them together is Jesus and his gospel message. He doesn't merely attract a community; he creates a new family. He calls his disciples out of their families and into a new family: “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:33-35). Jesus creates a new family that conforms to his will, not a circle ensnared in the will and whim of friends.

A circle forms around Jesus, not around one another. Jesus forms not a circle of friends, but a circle of family, who together follow his lead. We must pause to reflect—do we bear the family resemblance? Where are we ensnared? Will we let go and follow Jesus?

When the disciples followed Jesus, they began to take on his characteristics. In the gospel of Luke, they follow his pattern of ministry: 1) Proclaim the kingdom message 2) Perform a healing 3) Perform an exorcism. First, the twelve disciples (Luke 9), and then the seventy (Luke 10). We need to exorcise our cultural demons and receive the healing power of the gospel. Paul repeatedly calls for conformity to Christ, while admonishing us to put off worldly conformity (Rom 12:1-3).

Come After Me

What compelled the early disciples to leave their families and follow Jesus? It is rather odd, radical, that they left everything behind to follow him. What was Jesus’s hook? “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men” (1:17). The translation of “follow” is unfortunate. Jesus doesn’t say, “Follow me”; instead, he says, “Come after me.” There’s another Greek word for follow, which appears in Mark 8:34, where Jesus says: “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me” (8:34). But the word translated “follow” in 1:17 actually means “after, back, or behind.” You see, Jesus isn’t saying follow me; he’s saying, “Get behind me,” “Come after me.”

Jesus isn’t saying follow me; he’s saying, “Get behind me,” “Come after me.”

What’s the difference? When we think of following someone, it puts the emphasis on us. We click the button to follow someone on Twitter. We make the effort to follow an athlete’s career. If you follow a band, you’ll spend effort and money reading their interviews, watching videos, going to shows, and buying their merchandise. We follow. But Jesus says come after ME. Where does he put the emphasis? Not on our following but on his leading. Jesus says come after me, get behind me; I’ll pioneer, go ahead, make a way. Don't start by following Jesus, but by coming after him.

So you see, we need more than a new community, and even more than a new family; we need a new person to come after. We need to follow in the wake of someone who is great enough to chart the course for true humanity, while also able to leave behind waves of grace for our every failure. Instead of leaping out in front of Jesus in our own strength, or encircling our friends in weakness, we need to come after Jesus.

When we encircle Christ, and allow his gospel story to re-narrate our lives, we gain the hope of true purpose and transformation. When we return authority to Jesus, and retrieve it from our circle of friends, we will find flourishing and faith, change and peace, grace and godliness. His death-resurrection narrative delivers on its epic waves to defeat the lumbering giants of sin and even death. Jesus rises from the dead to create a new, countercultural community that bears a family resemblance.

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*I am indebted to Mark Sayers for drawing my attention to the work of Adam Curtis.

** View the Maserati commercial.

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Jonathan K. Dodson (M.Div, Th.M) is happy husband to Robie, and proud father to Owen, Ellie, and Rosamund. He is also the lead pastor of City Life Church and author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship & Raised? Finding Jesus by Doubting the Resurrection. He enjoys listening to M. Ward, watching sci-fi, and following Jesus. He blogs at jonathandodson.org.

When People Can't Listen

Frustration was brewing toward the Coleman family. Again and again and again Pastor Seth and the elders of the church had met with the family to encourage, counsel, and challenge them. Being the good "gospel-centered" church that they were, they demonstrated the glory of God and his goodness to them. They opened the Word of truth to them and called them to faith and obedience. They did everything "right" and by the book. Law, gospel, grace, and glory were all there in parts of their counseling. But the response of the Coleman's hearts hadn't changed. There might have been some momentary transitions in behavior, but they were really just momentary. For Pastor Seth, it was really aggravating. As the high-energy pastor/planter that he was, seeing movement in people's lives was his gift. It drove him batty to see lives stalled out and not listening. Often he would be tempted to dismiss these kinds of slow-moving sheep as unspiritual or immature or even un-saved. He found their lack of faith in his gospel disturbing. It gnawed at his mind that week after week, he would counsel the good news to them and yet they never moved forward in it. His theological system even told him that if they don't respond to the gospel it's because they were blind and dead to it. So he had to pray for their salvation. His conclusion was they were spiritually dead unbelievers that thought they were the people of God.

Unfortunately, for a guy who sees everything in black and white, he was missing something between the lines. The degrees and hues of trouble within their hearts and minds were invisible to a counselor who only saw in two variations - right and wrong. Spiritual temperatures were only gauged on the grounds of "hot" or "cold," and lukewarm people made him want to vomit. The unbelief of the Coleman's was so obvious that doing anything other than serving them notice seemed to be, in Seth's mind, a cop-out and passive failure to lead them. He couldn't see why they didn't get it.

Why Won't They Listen?

I'm often like my fictional friend, Pastor Seth. Often in Christian leadership and discipleship, I am stuck with the challenge of people who just don't get it. I spend time counseling and encouraging them. I point them again and again to the Word of God and the good news of Jesus, but they just won't respond. The answers and responses are as obvious to me as 2 + 2 = 4. I see their sin, I see the right response in the Word of God. I call them to repentance and faith and acceptance in Christ. I encourage them to move forward in him. And yet these people look up at me with dejected eyes agreeing that there is a rightness in what I'm saying, but a depression falls over them that indicates they just can't do what I'm challenging them towards. I'm quick to write them off as just not listening carefully enough, not believing well enough, not trusting deep enough, or worst of all, just being insolent, rebellious scum.

But I don't think that's always the case, at least not any more. Recently, I stumbled upon a verse in my personal Bible reading that shocked me. As I was plodding along in Exodus, I noticed that God was about to do something great. The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt. Because of their numbers and growing influence, the Pharaoh had enslaved and brought the Israelites into forced labor. He had murdered their infant boys. He had stripped all their wealth, prosperity, and laughter. Day by day, their lives were crushed by blow after blow.

And yet God had spared a son. He had raised him up as a leader and had given him a calling to take the captives out of their slavery. God had promised everything: deliverance, restoration, even his presence. He had confirmed it with signs and wonders. God was at work and doing powerful things. Who wouldn't believe? Who wouldn't be ready to charge the hill with God at the front and overcome the wicked Egyptians and their powerful slavery? The right leader seeing the right things would motivate this crowd the right way and they would respond in faith and obedience. Right?!

Exodus 6:9 tells us a different story:

“Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.”

Moses told them all of the great promises of God. He spoke to them about the power and glory of God. He told them of the love of God and his grace and kindness toward them. Yet in a poignant word about their hearts, we find that they didn't listen. More to the point, it seems that they couldn't listen. Their bodies, minds, hearts and souls had been so beat and trodden upon that any sort of good news was impossible to them. Their spirits were broken and their slavery was harsh.

The Seed of Pastoral Frustration

The old adage says, "Don't judge someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes." Maybe for pastoral counseling, that wisdom should be applied as well. It's probable that Moses felt deeply frustrated with Israel at this point. Instead of rallying an army to move forward and lay hold of the promises of God, he was faced with a bruised and beaten crowd of despairing people. His frustration caused him to question his gifting and call. "If these people won't listen to me God, what makes you think Pharaoh will?" (Ex. 6:12). I'm willing to bet that one of the first seeds of frustration between Moses and Israel was planted here.

In discipleship, we're frustrated too. Our words aren't heard. Our counsel not headed. Our sermons not considered and acted upon. The build up of frustration can form a mountain of bitterness and disappointment with the people of God we're trying to serve. Instead of gentle and compassionate shepherds, we become ranchers with sticks to beat our people out of anger. "These people just won't listen."

Could this verse be a rebuke and a challenge to us in leadership to see God's faltering people differently? Instead of letting frustration grow towards God's people because they won't listen, this verse needs to be a reminder to us of the deep hurt within their lives. It's quite possible that they won't listen because they can't listen. They can't listen because their burdens are too great.

Leading Sheep That Won't Listen

How do we lead these sorts of people? How do we rightly recognize their broken spirit and great burdens and love them well? Three pastoral clues are found in the rest of this story in Exodus that help me understand how to lead these broken sheep.

1. Be patient with them. This is, in a large sense, where the people fade into the background of the story. There are no thunderbolts hurled at them. Moses doesn't set up a platform and start a three-day preaching marathon against them and their unbelief. The movement of the story leaves the people here and focuses on God and his activity. It's as if God takes them off the stage, leads them them to the front row of the theater, gives them seats to rest in, and then he powerfully steps up again and goes to work against their oppressors. The action is a great measure of rescue and relief to them. If anything, it is a display of God's patience and kindness towards Israel.

People with broken spirits and heavy burdens don't need to hear "steps to take" or "just obey more" or "be faithful." They need rest. The burdened and weary need to hear Jesus's words from Matthew 11:28 about rest. They need patience. Remember, it's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance (Rom. 2:4). As Scotty W. Smith once tweeted, "If God uses kindness to lead US to repentance, why do we use harshness, shame, guilt, threat, anger and fear on one another?"¹ Why aren't we patient with those who are crushed?

Give them rest. Don't badger them about their weights. Let them come and be. Love them, encourage them, bless them. Let them have a front row seat to God's power and activity. Let them sit and watch the gospel unfold. Don't require works or action. Let them see and hear and experience a powerful Savior who rescues us from all our oppressors.

2. Be present with them. People with broken spirit's and heavy burdens don't merely want to be told they have those things and then left alone to figure it out. They need encouragement, help, and friendship that only comes from being with them. Often we don't understand the lives of the people we are trying to lead because we haven't lived with them in it. The nuances of why they do this or that isn't understood because the day-to-day experience of where those nuances dwell aren't understood or even known. Yes, I am saying that not everything is as black and white as you want to make it. Their failure to respond in faith to the good news might not be because they are hardened sinners, reprobate, and rebellious towards God. It might be because they have been abused, oppressed, and bullied around and as a result their spirit is broken. Their sins might come from the reality of the sins committed against them. It doesn't make it right, but your approach seems just like the approach the bullies and abusers have already afflicted them with.

Do you know that about your people? If we are going to lead them well, especially these sheep that don't listen we have to know their lives. We must live with the pained compassion of Christ that saw the sheep scattered and felt sorry and pity for them (Matt. 9:36).

As God powerfully acted to liberate and redeem Israel, he never failed to demonstrate his presence with them. In the midst of his work, he kept his promise to them, even at the most terrifying of times. Israel saw a powerfully present God who was for them. Shepherding people calls us to be present in the lives of those who don't listen. Do you know your people?

3. Be petitioning for them. Moses's role in this liberation wasn't as great as we like to think it was. He went and told Pharaoh what God had told him, raised his staff, and God everything else. In fact Moses's predominate activity in the unfolding of the plagues on Egypt didn't look like activity at all. He was God's messenger to Pharaoh and the people. Welcome to pastoral ministry.

As we lead people, our primary responsibility is to tell them what God says. Our primary responsibility for them is to be leaders who pray. Moses's leadership was bound up in his prayer for Israel. In fact, it's when Moses started acting, instead of praying, that he got in trouble.

If we find ourselves frustrated by people who won't listen, could it be because we've failed to petition our Father for them? Instead of telling them what to do, judging them for failure to do it, and then running them off to find some more "responsive people," we ought to consider long, engaged seasons of prayer. Does our Heavenly Father not possess all authority in heaven and earth? Does he not have the ability to raise up and lower powers and authorities. Can he not shatter the bounds of sin and death? Did he not send the Son of God and the Spirit of God to be our constant and faithful advocate and intercessor? Yes, yes, and yes!

Perhaps our people's failure to listen is because the leaders have been trying to do God's work instead of doing the work God gave them to do. Maybe our people won't listen because we haven't cared by praying for them. Maybe we've altered the life of ministry to be a drive for personal platform and greatness instead of the humble work of praying passionately for our people. We, as leaders, are all about the "preach!" and little about the "prayer."

Broken in Spirit

Jesus reminds us that the blessed ones are those who are broken in spirit (Matt. 5:2). They are the people who have trouble listening because the weight of the world, their sin, and their struggles in upon them. They mourn because they can't change their ways. They hunger and thirst for what is righteous and good, and yet it seems just out of their grasp because they aren't consistent enough, aren't powerful enough, aren't free enough. They are the meek that won't make a church or ministry impressive or relevant or powerful. They won't have anything to build you a larger platform.

Will you extend mercy to them? Will you care for them? Will you shepherd the people who won't listen because of their broken spirit and heavy burdens?

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Jeremy Writebol(@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over thirteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He lives and works in Plymouth, MI as the Campus Pastor of Woodside Bible Church.

The Prideful Pursuit of Humility

These days, I have a constant, repetitive prayer to God. One that asks for God to remove my pride and my self-doubt. It’s a prayer for humility, something I feel more in need of now than ever before. Pride and self-doubt are really two sides of the same coin. One believes that we know better than God does, the other believes that he isn’t good or powerful enough to change us. Neither makes much of God, effectively bringing him down below us. The prideful and the self-doubters both believe they’re better than God, they just show it in different ways.

Pride and Self-Doubt

Pride is more of an obvious manifestation of a lack of humility. It’s easy to spot most of the time. Some of those who struggle with pride link their own lives to their success. And when they don’t succeed, it probably wasn’t their fault. When things go well, pride points the finger inward; when they don’t go well, the finger points outward. Their eyes are horizontal, not vertical.

Self-doubt is a cloaked version of humility’s lack. It’s not so easy to identify, as cynicism can sometimes be seen as merely a need for gentle encouragement. We shouldn’t forego being gentle, but a rebuke is also needed for self-doubters. We self-doubters understand well our failures but struggle to see God as more gracious, loving, and forgiving. Essentially, God isn’t enough to change us. He doesn’t have enough power or goodness. Unlike the prideful, a self-doubter struggles to accept any form of praise. When things go well, their finger points outward, when they don’t, the finger points inward. Again, like the prideful, their eyes are locked horizontally.

Sometimes the prideful are looked up to because of their confidence, albeit broken. Sometimes the self-doubter is looked up to because of their humility, albeit broken. But both really are living lives out of themselves. Neither has “considered the lilies of the field” and looked up to God as provider. One thinks man primarily provides, one denies provision altogether. None asks with the author of Psalm 26, “Test me, O Lord, and try me; examine my heart and mind.” One doesn’t examine enough; one examines, but without God.

True humility asks the God of the universe to gaze into ourselves with his unflinching eye, that he might examine us and illuminate our shortcomings. Of course he can do this (and does) on his own without our requests, but there’s something important about that desire coming from us. In our request for God to examine us, there is an implicit acceptance of our faults, the drive to not stay the same, and the belief that God in his goodness can do something about it.

When confronted with the desire for real humility, we tend to fall into two categories: the anxious and the accepted. The stem of anxiety comes from knowing we’re not where we should be, but thinking we can get there on our own. It’s a prideful chase of humility. Our eyes are locked towards others or ourselves, never looking up to where our hope comes from.

The stem of acceptance comes from knowing that we are God’s beloved children. In Matthew 3:17, Christ is baptized and God declares, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” This same declaration is now directed to those who have faith in Jesus. How can this be? Having faith in Christ means our lives are woven into his. his life becomes our life. his goodness becomes our goodness. Romans 6:4 tells us that Christ’s death and his new life become our own. This means it is only by the power of Christ that we can participate in anything like humility. The gospel puts that which is wrong in us to death and brings that which is good to life.

Doing and Being

Our doing comes from our being; what we do arises from who we are. And if you are a disciple of Christ, you are, first and foremost, the radically accepted son or daughter of the King. You have flaws and shortcomings, baggage and sins. He has welcome arms. You have brokenness, hurt, pain and unfulfilled desires. He has a loving embrace.

It is only because of our acceptance with our Father that we can be obedient. Our obedience is our acceptance lived out. And one of the bi-products of this kind of life is humility. It’s tricky: searching for humility first attracts pride. But searching after God himself will attract humility. Christ himself embodied this example. Paul teaches us about the Incarnation in Philippians 2:8 and says he “humbled himself.” How did Christ do this? By “becoming obedient.” Christ, knowing his acceptance in the Trinity, knowing the Father’s love towards him, submitted his own body in obedience, in turn bringing about humility. If there was anyone on this earth who could have looked within and mustered their own humility outside of the Father, it would have been Christ. But he was obedient to the Father and that’s where Christ’s humility shines.

More than merely our example, Christ himself is our means for humility. The Philippians 2:8 passage says that Christ’s obedience led to his death, “even death on a cross.” Christ’s death on the cross was an act for us. Because Christ died, our pride can die. Not because we’re good enough, but because Christ has put an end to it. Because Christ died, our self-doubt can die. Not because we’re self-effacing, but because Christ looked our sins in the face and took them on, putting them to death. And now, being accepted by our Creator, we can live the new life that Christ rose again for. He walks in resurrection life so that we can. We don’t have to be primarily prideful or self-doubting (though we’re not perfect… yet), but we can live in the freedom of being an accepted son or daughter of our loving Father.

The Courageous Servant

Our new freedom takes on the character of a courageous servant. Psalm 116:16 says, “O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds.” We are not kings, we are servants, not slavishly serving ourselves, but freed to serve the King. Our identity as such does not afford pride. But we servants aren’t weak, either. Psalm 31:24 exhorts us to “be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD!” We are servants and we are rooted in a strength outside ourselves. This is a vertical orientation.

Both the prideful and the self-doubter need to take courage by waiting on the Lord. If you are tempted to overshadow your inadequacies with pride, take courage. The life you now live is marked by our acceptance by the Father. Run to him, confess, and ask him to change you. If you are tempted to believe that God isn’t good enough to change you, run to him, confess, and ask him to change you. This is what waiting on the Lord looks like. This is the obedient life and true humility. We are saved from pointing the finger inward, saved from pointing the finger outward, freed to live with our hands outstretched heavenward, to our loving Father.

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Greg Willson is the Church Planting Resident at Riverside Community Church. He likes creating music, and writes about art and the church at gregwillson.com. Follow him on Twitter: @gregoriousdubs.

6 Tips for Shepherding Your Small Group

Growing up in church, I have been in my fair share of small groups. Some good, some not so good. I’ve been in youth groups, college groups, groups that have met at homes, groups that have met informally, and groups in which I was the youngest by several decades. However, with all that time spent in small groups, I had spent very little time leading one. Last year, I became a small group leader at my local church, shepherding middle school guys on a weekly basis. While I wasn’t totally foreign to teaching middle school guys in a church setting, I certainly wasn’t a veteran either. Almost immediately, I had these great ideas about what my small group would look like and how great it would be. Needless to say, when my romanticized vision of small groups met with reality, it looked much different than I anticipated. In the process of trying to re-create a more realistic picture of small groups, Jesus taught me (and keeps reminding me of) several key lessons that I as a leader needed to hear.

1. Be Patient

I have lost track of how many times I wish the kids I taught would grow in grace and understanding faster or, for some of my kids, I wish they would trust in Jesus sooner rather than later. As small group leaders, we can subtly develop a Messiah complex of sorts. “If I just use this curriculum. If I just do things this way. If we just read this book or if I can be this sort of leader, then the group will change."

Whatever challenges you face, never stop reminding yourself, as Zac Eswine confesses in Sensing Jesus, “I am not the Christ.”[1] We were never intended to “be Jesus” to anyone, including our small group. You can’t carry that weight. You weren’t meant to. As much as we pour into our groups, as many seeds that get planted, we can never lose sight that God gives the growth (1 Cor. 3:6-7). We should testify to the good news of the gospel and trust God that it will produce fruit in its ordained time. When Paul writes that God, “who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6), do you trust that it applies to your small group?

2. Don’t Be Afraid of Big Words

One of the qualms that I have with American Christianity, particularly in student ministry, is that we are afraid our people can’t handle big, theological words or concepts. They have minds as well as hearts, so engage both. When we don’t, not only is this insulting, it also (in the long run) is unhelpful. It shapes disciples who are a foot wide, but an inch deep, so to speak. Shallow teaching leads to shallow theology which leads to shallow worship. Our people need more than that. They need a deep gospel because in life they will face deep and complex problems, namely, the curse of sin that affects everything.

In Romans 1:16, Paul writes that the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” In the gospel, the power of God works mightily, not just in saving, but in sustaining and maturing. Salvation isn’t just concerned with our justification, but also our sanctification and glorification. If we define salvation this way (which I think is the way the Bible would define it), and the gospel is the power of God for salvation, then we can be confident that as we lead our small groups and teach them biblical truth, that the Holy Spirit, in his wisdom, will bring change in our people’s hearts, not us. We are free to challenge those we lead with words they may not know and teach them what they do mean, knowing that the Holy Spirit will do his work.

Trevin Wax, in his excellent little book Gospel-Centered Teaching makes a helpful point in this regard:

“As a group leader, you want to provide a feast and let people draw the sustenance they need. But we may have to ‘cut up the meat’ for new believers and make sure that the truth is accessible. They key is to put the biblical ingredients together and provide the meal. Fill up the plate! Don’t be afraid to challenge people, just make sure you are continually thinking of ways to drive the point home.”[2]

Later, Wax further elaborates on this point, especially as it relates to children:

“Small kids need big words. Not because they understand everything all at once but because, over time, God uses the inspired words of His Book to convict kids of sin and convince them to repent and believe in Christ.”[3]

Regardless of the ages of people in your small group, give them meat and trust God to sharpen their teeth as they digest its riches.

3. Be Consistent and Committed

In their book Lead Small, Reggie Joiner and Tom Shefchunas discuss the importance of being a consistent small group leader “Show up consistently…You cannot lead a small group without trust. You cannot build a community without trust. And the first step to gaining the trust of your [group] is making sure they know you will show up.”[4] We need to fight against the human tendency, especially in Western contexts, to be autonomous. It can be suffocating, spiritually and emotionally, to have members be nothing more than one person in a sea of faces. “Everybody needs someone who knows their name, and what’s happening in their lives.”[5] This goes for the small group leader as well. When you are consistent and committed to leading a small group, not only does that give you an opportunity to really know your people, it also gives them an opportunity to know you.

4. Show Them Jesus

The greatest need your small group has is to have you point them to Jesus. More specifically, they need you to point them to Christ’s finished work on the cross as a substitute for sinners. They need a big view of Jesus. All the programs and events we can schedule as small group leaders won’t provide what they need that Christ alone has made provision for. They need to believe in Jesus as their Prophet, Priest, and King. Your people need to know the difference between “do this and live” and “it is finished.” In the midst of a law-driven church culture and a society that says your identity is wrapped up in your behavior, they need to hear the hope of the cross and resurrection, that “those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29-30).

Unfortunately, many of your small group members, specifically those who have already been born again, may live with a low-level guilt because they think somehow they haven’t done enough for God to be pleased with and they are scared he hates them. Give them some hope, some grace. Point them to the Living Word seen in the written Word. Show them all the promises that are already theirs in Christ. A small group who delights in Christ’s finished work for his people and is addicted to grace will be transformative and a place where people connect in genuine, honest community.

5. Help Them Love the Church

As of late, it has been “trendy” to hate on the Church. With the influence of postmodernism and various elements of the “emerging church” conversation still lingering about, we need to lead our people in seeing with new eyes the centrality of the local church in the life of a Christian. With all the problems in the Church (and yes, there are many), the Bride of Christ is Jesus’ chosen means by which he carries out his mission. In a Twitter post on December 30, Juan Sanchez, preaching pastor of High Pointe Austin, quotes D.A. Carson on the Church, saying, “It was inconceivable in the New Testament for someone to say I'm a Christian, but I'm not part of a church.”[6]

Jesus is gathering for himself a ransomed people, not just a bunch of isolated individuals. Your small group needs to see community in the local church as a place where Jesus is made much of, sin is fought against and joy is fought for, and people come from various backgrounds and seasons of life to do life as one family. They need the Church more than they know. Help them see that for themselves.

6. Don’t Be Discouraged

After reading all this, you might be thinking to yourself, “Chris, I can’t do this. If this is what it takes to be a small group leader, I won’t make the cut.” Let me provide a word of encouragement. First off, I by no means what to say, “This is the standard of being a small group leader.” Some of you reading this may have been small groups leaders longer than I have been alive, so I by no means what to suggest that I have formulated the perfect model for small group leadership. To be honest, I don’t think there is one. There are too many variables to consider to try and formulate a one-size fits all model for effective small groups.

Secondly, more than effective models, your people need a Substitute and they have one in Christ. And so do you. The gospel promises you that because Christ was strong for you, you can be weak.[7] You don’t have to have all the answers and can point to Christ, who is their Wisdom (1 Cor. 2). Jesus desires that you use your gifts and passions of leading and teaching people as a human being, not as the Messiah. The gospel announces that all the you need is yours in Christ. There is one thing you need to be an effective small group leader: a heart that has been awakened by the glorious gospel of grace. All the things you need to be equipped in this task, Christ will provide. In your weakness, Christ has not left you. As a small group leader and as a child of God, your identity is not wrapped up in your inadequacies and failures. Your identity is wrapped up in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, which causes your Heavenly Father to look upon you and say, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”

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Chris Crane serves as Middle School Small Group Leader at Lake Highlands Baptist Church in Dallas, TX. He holds a B.A. in Biblical Studies from Dallas Baptist University and is currently pursuing a Th.M. at Dallas Seminary. He writes at chriscrane.net. You can follow him on Twitter: @cmcrane87.

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[1] Zach Eswine, Sensing Jesus: Life and Ministry as a Human Being (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2013), 20

[2] Trevin Wax, Gospel-Centered Teaching (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2013), 69

[3] Ibid., 73

[4] Reggie Joiner and Tom Shefchunas, Lead Small (Cumming, GA: Orange, 2012), 29

[5] Ibid., 29

[6] Juan Sanchez, Twitter post, December 30, 2013, 8:46 a.m., http://www.twitter.com/manorjuan

[7] I first heard this expression from Tullian Tchividjian’s very helpful book Jesus + Nothing = Everything (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2011).

Why Patience Is Vital

We all know how disappointing life can be. Maybe you never thought you’d still be single at age 35, or still stuck in an entry-level position, or still battling depression. Or maybe you never thought…fill in the blank. All of us have something that goes in that blank. We all know what it’s like to feel that things haven’t worked out quite the way we expected. What do you do about it? The Christian answer involves being dissatisfied with it. Paul tells us to “wait eagerly” and “strain towards” what is ahead of us (Rom. 8:23; Phil. 3:13): the perfect New Creation, where there are no disappointments. We’re not to act like this is all there is; that way lies despair.

But it’s dangerous to tell ourselves (and call each other) to be more restless. Why? Because the wrong kind of restlessness tells us that to be content in the present, we must be content with the present. If we’re not content in the present, we need to change our present.

This kind of restlessness doesn’t trust God’s timing. It wants heaven now. But those who seek heaven on earth make it hell for everyone else. Parents who demand perfection crush their children. Employees who trample on anything and anyone to reach the top create toxic workplaces. Worse, when we’re content with nothing less than heaven now, we’re bound to disobey God in order to grab it. Attempting to walk into happiness, we stay far from God, or walk away from God. And that’s (eternal) disaster.

We need to combine our restlessness with patience. Restlessness with patience is Christian maturity. Restlessness without patience is disaster.

Our Patience Problem

We live in an age that lacks patience! We’re bombarded with the message that we can, should, must have everything now. So we hate to wait. After all, if this life is all there is, there’s not much time to get everything done, to experience all we want to.

And the problem is that while we want fast, God likes slow. He really likes slow; and he often makes his people wait. God promised Abraham a son twenty-five years before Isaac was born. The nation of Israel waited hundreds of years in Egypt before being delivered, and thousands of years before receiving the promised Messiah-King. So we need to get used to waiting. We get help in the book of James:

Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. (James 5: 7-8)

Have It All, and Have It Now?

James’ call to be patient for Jesus’ return is a big challenge for most of us. Our general impatience in life often translates into an unhealthy impatience for the new creation—unhealthy, because it’s shot through with lack of trust in God’s timing.

There’s a supposedly Christian movement that promises health and wealth in this life to followers of Jesus. If you have enough faith, God will give you houses, money, and cars. Here’s an example of the message, quoted in December 2009’s issue of the Atlantic: “We declare financial blessings! Financial miracles this week, NOW NOW NOW! … More work! Better work! The best finances!”

Who wouldn’t love this prosperity gospel? It shouts: Don’t wait for the new creation. Seize it all now.

And I have to confess that I fall for it. I have opposed this gospel and sought to persuade others of its dangers; and yet I often construct my own mini-versions of it. My mini-prosperity gospels arise when I cultivate false expectations of what this present world can and should offer. When I begin a new day, my usual assumption is that things will go well for me. There will be ample food for breakfast, and enough hot water for my shower. My car will start. The people I meet during the day will understand and appreciate me. My neighbors will be friendly and will lend me their tools. My children will be well-behaved in the evening, be in bed on time, and will sleep well. When I’m on vacation, my expectations are ratcheted up even higher— I’ve waited and worked for this little slice of heaven on earth, and no one had better take it from me.

I can tell when my expectations are too high—when I’m trying to seize it all now—by noticing my reaction when something deviates from the plan. Am I annoyed at car trouble? Impatient with inefficiency? Grumpy when hungry? If something goes wrong, do I feel cheated? Am I angry with God, as though he hasn’t delivered what he promised?

If the answer to these questions is “Yes,” then I’m not being patient enough. I’m not trusting God’s timing. I’m trying to enjoy all his promised future in the present. I’m expecting perfection from an imperfect world. So I need to hear James’ call for patience. If James were a prosperity preacher, he would say to his economically deprived readers: Believe and you will receive! Have it now! But he doesn’t say that. Instead, he twice urges patience for the return of Jesus. Full deliverance and blessing will come—in the future. We wait patiently until then.

Being Patient

What does this mean in practice? Well, picture the man who always wished he could go to university. Two years ago, he was offered a scholarship, but he’s married with four kids now, and he knew pursuing a degree would require neglecting his family and mean he was never in church. He said no to the scholarship. That hurt, but he’s okay with it. He knows he’ll have forever to study God’s words and works in the new creation, and he doesn’t need to seize it all now.

Or imagine the woman who longed to be married, but somehow it never happened. There was a time in her late 30s when she hit it off with a guy she met at the gym. Everything went well for the first couple months, and then one night he pushed to have sex. When she said she wouldn’t do that, he distanced himself, taking her dreams of marriage with him. That hurt, and still does, but she’s okay with it. She knows she’ll have forever to enjoy an intimate relationship with God and his people, and she doesn’t need to seize it all now.

Patient trust in God and his timing makes us resilient and hopeful when life is hard. It’s essential to avoiding disaster. It prevents us walking away from Christ; it means we won’t try to seize it all now, and lose it all in the future. How can we be patient? By remembering the true gospel, which tells us that our future is glorious, and certain, and whispers: Wait for the new creation patiently. You’ll have it all then.

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Stephen Witmer (PhD, University of Cambridge) is Pastor of Pepperell Christian Fellowship in Massachusetts, and teaches at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. This blog is an excerpt from his new book, Eternity Changes Everything: How to live now in the light of your future (The Good Book Company, 2014), which will launch at the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors in early February and is available for pre-order now. Follow him on Twitter: @stephenwitmer1.

Joining Jesus in Restoring Culture

What do we mean when we talk about “culture”? In Culture Making, Andy Crouch defines culture this way: “Culture is what we make of the world. Culture is, first of all, the name for our relentless, restless human effort to take the world as it is given to us and make something else.” All of us make something of the world. And our contributions actually communicate quite a bit about what’s important to us. What we make of the world either gives people a surprising vision of the Kingdom of God or reinforces their spiritual numbness as citizens of the dominion of darkness. This is the essence of Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.

Now that we are citizens of a better Kingdom that is breaking into the world, Jesus invites us to participate with him in what he is “making of the world” via the Kingdom of God.

During a flight to Denver, a man named Ben and I talked for a couple of hours. He shared how he used to be a Christian but now isn’t sure how to categorize his spirituality. As the conversation continued, we began to speak about the role of the Christian church in the world today.

“I think Christianity is primarily characterized by fear. Churches are shrinking away from culture out of fear.” Ben stated.

I replied, “That’s a fair assessment. That’s certainly not how it should be.”

Then I began to share good news about Jesus with him. What followed was one of the most mutually encouraging Jesus-driven conversations I’ve ever experienced. I introduced Jesus as the restorer of culture.

A Robust Redemption

Jesus is our atonement. Jesus is our substitute, our propitiatory sacrifice, and our expiation. Jesus is our example. Jesus is our ransom. Jesus is our reconciliation. Jesus is our redemption. Jesus is our triumph and victor. Yes, he is all these things. But Jesus is also the restorer of culture.

What makes the atonement so beautiful is that, like a well-cut diamond, there are so many angles from which we can view its brilliance. But without that last facet, virtually all of our understanding of the atonement can become  individualized. Jesus is not merely redeeming us; he is redeeming all things.

As Mouw points out in When the Kings Come Marching In, there is more to the atonement. The redemptive ministry of Jesus is bigger and extends into culture.

I believe Jesus is good news for children who are victims of violence. Jesus speaks a word to citizens who live under murderous, corrupt governments. Jesus offers hope to those in sexual slavery. And his message is more than just, “Repent. Believe. Be baptized.” Jesus also says to them, “I am your restorer. This is not the way things are supposed to be, but my Kingdom is here and my Kingdom is coming.”

Ultimately, we will proclaim an atonement that covers our perception of the scope of sin. So if we believe that sin is only individual, we will preach redemption that covers only the individual. However, as we begin to see that sin also reaches into every area of creation, we uncover the need for an atonement that is larger in scope. And thankfully the atonement is big enough to cover both individual and systemic sin.

 What Ought to Be

Genesis 1:28 gives a command that scholars have dubbed “The Creational Mandate” or “The Cultural Mandate.” God says, “Adam and Eve, check out the good creation I’ve made! Now go cultivate, subdue, tame, innovate, and make.” To play off Crouch’s understanding, God is saying, “Go make something of the world that reflects my sovereign rule over it.” When sin soiled the good that God made (Gen. 3), things were fractured. Perfect culture became distorted culture.

But God is the ultimate creative maker. He has made us in his image so that we also would also creatively “make” in such a way that points people to his invisible rule. He has redeemed the fallen world in order to help us flourish once again. What we make of the world should inevitably point to a picture of this human flourishing.

We believe that Jesus will return again to set up his Kingdom here on earth (Rev. 11:15). At that point God will abolish sin, injustice, pain, oppression, and disease. As citizens of God’s Kingdom, we are to use our talents, skills, and passions to give people a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God is like. We live now in the reality of what will be. That means we have the joyful opportunity to join God in the renewal of all things. Each one of us has an opportunity to help the world taste the Kingdom by being a “restorer” and introducing people to Jesus and his ways.

If this seems strange or foreign to you, here’s the essential building block for this conversation: God’s Kingdom is what ought to be. The brokenness of our world is what ought not to be. Jesus’s ministry as prophet, priest, and king is about nothing less than initiating – and eventually consummating – what ought to be.

Participating in Restoring Culture

The world is messy. There is division, destruction, hatred, greed, slander, debauchery, and plenty of other types brokenness. It is all around us. How does understanding God's desire for culture translate practically? Here are a few points for consideration and action.

1. What is? Like a fish in water, it can be difficult to consciously observe the water we swim in. Yet Jesus and his disciples seemed to be good at observing people, places, and patterns that everyone else was gazing right past. In the community you inhabit, what are the norms of life? What’s good and enjoyable? What’s broken or perverted?

2. What ought to be? Disciples of Jesus are driven by a vision of a different kingdom. We know how God created things to be, how they were before the first sin. So ask the Spirit for some creative imagination and ponder: “What would this community look like if the Kingdom of God broke in? If Jesus was ruling here, what would be different?”

3. How can I participate? What do you sense the Spirit asking you (and/or your church community) to create? Who or what is he asking you to confront? What specific actions and strategies will you enact to see the Kingdom of God break in?

Wherever you happen to find yourself right now, the surrounding culture is a landscape ravaged and twisted by sin, yet still bearing glimmers of Eden. And God is inviting you to participate with him in the renewal and restoration of all things. Under the leadership of Jesus, he invites you to make his invisible Kingdom visible. By the power of the Spirit, he invites you to abandon fear and imagine what ought to be and then pray, innovate, confront, create, redeem, and restore.

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Sean Post resides with His wife and son in Maple Valley, WA. He serves as Academic Dean for Adelphia Bible School  - a one-year Bible and mission immersion experience for young adults. Sean is also a leadership coach, doctoral student, book-lover, and a has-been basketballer. Twitter: @Sean_Post

Psalm 139 and Infinite Intimacy

We often find in ourselves a host of desires. Whether it is acceptance, relationship, popularity, or success, we cannot deny that there are innate longings within us compelling our thoughts and actions. We find ourselves subject to emotional despair or satisfaction depending upon whether or not these desires are met. One of these desires (that God has inherently blessed us with) is for intimacy, to experience closeness and to be known. Typically, we think of intimacy in regards to romantic relationships, however, when reading through Psalm 139, it reveals that God is quite intimate with his creation. He is very near and close to us and possesses a vastly intimate knowledge of us. He knows us beyond measure and in ways that we cannot even begin to fathom. Psalm 139 shows us four beautiful aspects of God’s intimacy with us.

1. Indescribable Intimacy (vv. 1-6)

The first stanza of Psalm 139 defines how vast God’s knowledge of us truly is. We find that there is nothing we can do that would come as a surprise to him. When I was a kid, I remember trying to do something so unprecedented and absurd that even God would be taken by surprise. I would sit in my room, knowing that the God who presides over the entire universe was watching me, and then, I would try to fake him out with some ridiculous action. Of course, I looked quite foolish doing this as is easy enough to imagine, but then, the thought would come to my mind that God even knew I was going to do whatever eccentric act I could come up with before I even did it. In trying to fool God, I only found myself looking foolish.

“Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” (Ps. 139:4)

Looking at this passage, I still have to ask myself today, “Am I trying to fake God out?” I no longer pull the ridiculous stunts of my youth, but do I still try to do things without God finding out about them? Do any of us do this? Psalm 139 tells us that before God, we are laid open like a book for him to read. Beyond that, God is the author of that book (Ps. 139:2-3). He is the ultimate expert on the subject of you, and he comprehends our deepest thoughts, emotions, and motives. Furthermore, we cannot even begin to know how much God truly knows us, it is beyond our understanding. His knowledge of us is so pervasive and infinite that it invades our very existence and penetrates through us on an emotional, physical, biological, and atomic level. His knowledge of us is infinitely superior to our own understanding of ourselves. The only response is to stand in awe and wonder and like David, humbly admit that “such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (Ps. 139:6).

2. Inescapable Intimacy (vv. 7-12)

“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” (Ps. 139:7)

Here, David is not looking for a place to escape from God. His questions are hypothetical and allude to the fact that we cannot hide from God’s presence. To do so is to act in utter futility. The overwhelming vastness of his nature extends beyond the farthest reaches of the cosmos and covers the depth and vastness of the ocean (Ps. 139:8-9). As Alpha and Omega, God’s presence exists beyond time and space; it extends to eternity past as well as eternity future. For believers in Christ, it is beyond absurd to ever think we can escape from the presence of God; his Holy Spirit dwells within us. His intimate nature with us is invasive, permeating our very spirit and soul, and transforming us from the inside out in order that we may be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29).

The truth of the matter is that there is no place (past, present, or future) within the entire universe we could find ourselves where God’s presence could not be. If such a place were to exist, why would we even want to go there? God’s presence expunges the darkness of this world to shed a light that cannot be extinguished. (Ps. 139:11-12) A light that guides us, exuding from a perfect and Holy Father who contemplates our thoughts and desires. Within the infiniteness of his knowledge of us, we should find ourselves completely driven to dwell within this presence, as it is in this intimate presence that we are understood perfectly and completely.

3. Inward Intimacy (vv. 13-16)

God’s intimate knowledge of us extends and manifests itself even to our own physical creation. This stanza reveals God’s activity in creating us as we are. “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13). This verse shows that God’s process is hands on, and not a distant or arbitrary process. As a child grows and bones form, tissue develops, tendons attach to bone, and the synapses of the brain form, God is present and active in every aspect of the physical creation of a human being, or any other creation for that matter. God has created us in an intimate manner revealing his care and concern for the things he creates. This intimacy, care, and concern even existed long before our physical creation:

“Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” (Ps. 139:16)

Before anyone’s physical creation, God in his sovereignty knew not only the process of our creation, but also every day that would follow. From the time of eternity past, and exceeding eternally into the future, God has known every subtle intricacy of you and your entire existence. Every cell of your being he knew of forever ago, and he brought them all together and fashioned them to intimately form who you are. He knew every nanosecond of your life before you ever took a breath. He also knew every personality trait you would have as well. Your quirks, mannerisms, and idiosyncrasies; he knew of them all and how they would affect who you are as a person. The things that make you sad or happy, he knows. Whatever stresses you out, your pet peeves, and your greatest delights, he is perfectly aware of them all. He has unequivocally known us beyond measure and it is a demonstration of his infinite love for us.

4. Joyful Intimacy (vv. 17-24)

 David’s closing words of the Psalm result in praise, a call for justice, an alignment of thought with God, and a prayer for God to continue searching him for any wrong that may be in his heart. Seeing how intimately God knows us should compel us to burst out with rejoicing for who he is. Instead, we often feel inadequate about ourselves and question some of God’s decisions. The Psalm also teaches us that we are not illegitimate children in God’s eyes, but that we all possess value as works of a magnificent Creator. When we see the Creator’s creation being wasted away or destroyed, we should cry out to God who is capable, and will one day, restore all things.

Being made in the image of God and bearing his intimate fingerprints amidst every aspect of ourselves, we should seek to align our heart’s concerns and desires in accordance with his. Finally, we should realize that we are not yet a finished product. Though made in God’s image and by his hands, we still are marred by the affects of sin and should cry out to God to search us and convict us in the areas of our lives where we fall short. His conviction leads to repentance and thus, leads to our joy.

With Confidence

God’s intimate nature with us should lead us to humility, patience, and trust. If God has created us as the Psalmist proclaims, then we are created by a God of understanding who is intimately aware and concerned of all our desires. He is not ignorant of any part of our lives; he is in the details, presiding over us and watching over us. Like David we pray, “Lead me in the way everlasting” with great trust (Ps. 139:24). God has gone through immeasurable lengths to know us, even to the extent of becoming like us as man in person of Jesus, and that should fill us with an immense hope. We can take the words of Christ, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow” (Matt. 6:34) to heart, knowing that God is sovereignly watching over us in every facet of our lives, from the inside out.

In light of Psalm 139, the “what if's” of life seem to melt away when we survey them trusting in God’s absolute omniscience. With confidence, we can look to Psalm 139 and discover that our lives have meaning and value to God, and we can place faith in the Almighty who knows us with an infinite intimacy.

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Mark Hampton is currently a student at Criswell College and serves at Metrocrest Community Church where he plays a role in music, media, and missions. Along with school and work, he is a Hindi student and travels to India each year for ministry and language learningYou can follow him on Twitter: @markismoving.

Gospel Amnesia in the Local Church

A few years ago, I watched one of my dear friends start maturing and growing spiritually. There seemed to be a tangible difference in the way she served her family and in the way she related to her husband. This was not an act; the Lord was working in my friend's life. Instead of rejoicing with her and seeking to learn from her, I became envious. I told myself that it was okay, that we are allowed as Christians to “covet” someone else's sanctification because it would drive us to try hard and do better and become more spiritually mature ourselves. This was at the height of my gospel amnesia years, and I had “moved on” from the gospel and was busy growing and becoming “more sanctified” with all those “right things” I was doing. Except that I wasn't growing, my heart was becoming darkened with envy. I actually envied my friend's spiritual growth; I wanted it for myself, and not in addition to her, but instead of her! Is that not sick with sin? How very Cain-like of me. If that's not gospel amnesia, I'm not sure what is. It grieves me deeply when I think about how sick my heart was that I would resent the work of the Holy Spirit in my friend's life. This went on for almost an entire year until one day I couldn't take the conviction from the Sprit any longer. This sin was crushing me. I called my friend and admitted everything. Of course she forgave me. It's not like my poor friend hadn't noticed that I had been irritable with her for almost a year, but she waited patiently for me to come talk to her. She was very longsuffering, way more than I had ever been with her, to my shame.

This type of sin is real in the local church and it needs to be brought into the light. As long as we keep our “little” sins hidden in the dark we have no hope of overcoming and standing victorious over them. The entire time I was being eaten by envy over my friend's spiritual growth, my longsuffering friend had been praying for me. She saw that I was in bondage. I will dare to say that gospel amnesia is that—bondage.

SPIRITUAL COVETEOUSNESS & SPIRITUAL PRIDE

Have you ever felt ashamed or guilty because you can't seem to keep up with someone else's sanctification? On the other side: have you ever let words slip from your lips (e.g. how many times a week you do family worship, what books you are reading, which parenting and education method you are using, etc.) to show how far along your family is on the sanctification spectrum? In other words, have you ever “preached Christ” out of envy, rivalry, or selfish ambition (Philippians 1:15–17)? I certainly have.

Spiritual covetousness and spiritual pride are real, and can do damage to relationships and to a church body. These are subtle sins. Nourished by the fertile soil of a gospel amnesic church culture, they creep into hearts under the guise of the call to “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24). They manifest themselves in a myriad of ways across countless personalities. How does this type of thing happen? How do we get to a point in the local body where we resent the work of the Holy Spirit in someone else's life, or sling around our spiritual pride provoking our brethren? How do we forget that it was he who said, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion?”

The answer is: gospel amnesia. We forget the gospel and the cross at the heart of the gospel. We forget the work of Christ.

The local church is a messy place; a place full of sinners in need of their savior every day. You and I are part of this organism. Hence, if we personally have gospel amnesia, we can imagine how that could exponentiate within the local body. Here too we have to ask ourselves: What has become the center of our local church? What excites those in the pews around us?

SINS IN THE LOCAL CHURCH

There is sin in every church, because every church, no matter how small or how selective, is made up of fallen humans.

Gospel amnesia flourishes in a local church where there is a disconnect between doctrine and culture. An obvious case would be a church where there is no gospel preaching. Another would be a church that is obligation-heavy and gospel-light. Yet another is where there is a fair amount of gospel doctrine with little or no gospel action.

Ray Ortlund, Jr. asks in his sermon Justification versus Self–Justification, “What kind of dark church culture can a mentality of self-justification (gospel amnesia) create?” (I am substituting 'gospel amnesia' knowing that the gospel is more than just the doctrine of justification.) Here are some of his answers: Selfish ambition, manipulative power of exclusion, a sense of grievance toward some, a redefining of what it takes to be an acceptable Christian (a “Jesus + Something” mentality), biting, devouring, insecurity, anxiety, fear and anger. I would add suspicion, warring over secondary matters, verbal or non-verbal pressure to adhere to unstated rules, a culture of affectation, preoccupation with outward behavior, and a lack of humility and transparency. A church rife with gospel amnesia can trumpet all day long that they hold to the gospel, but if the fruit of church culture shows otherwise, they have effectively de-gospeled the gospel. (My deep gratitude to Pastor Ray Ortlund, Jr. whose sermon helped me to crystalize some of these thoughts. His phrase “de-gospel the gospel” had me taking notes feverishly while driving and listening.)

When members of a church are blinded by gospel amnesia, dealing with sin in the congregation is hampered by a lack of grace and a gospel-centered rebuke and restoration process. How can a people tackle difficulties in their relationships and in their body life when they have forgotten the gospel, Jesus has been marginalized, and the center has become many things, none of which is the gospel and cross work of Christ!?

The friend I mentioned has long since forgiven me. Although we went through more hard times, the Lord has always brought us back together. I will say this: The only reason our relationship survived such heavy sinning was due purely to the cross of Jesus. When the two of us grabbed hold of the gospel again, when we started understanding the grace of God and when we became more comfortable with our identities being in Christ, that is when our friendship truly deepened, and love—Jesus' love—covered a multitude of sins.

What has become the center of your life in your local church?

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Luma Simms (@lumasimms) is a wife and mother of five delightful children. She studied physics and law before Christ led her to become a writer, blogger, and Bible study teacher. She blogs regularly at Gospel Grace.

[This is an excerpt from Gospel Amnesia, Luma's book that is updated and now available in paperback. Buy it HERE.]

Bringing Young and Old Together

It appears to me that there is a growing chasm between generations in local churches. Churches are becoming more and more generationally homogenous. If you entered a church on Sunday, you might easily label the church as either a baby boomer, generation X, or millennial church. Obviously, this is a broad observation. There are churches that do well at being generationally varied. But I don't think enough attention has been drawn to how uniform many churches are and how dangerous this is to discipleship and spiritual growth. Let me first share my own experience.

Generational Gaps

I’ve attended four churches in my Christian journey. Each of them had a generational makeup that defined them. Likewise, I’ve interacted with a handful of other churches from which I’ve built this experience.

Two churches that I attended had a strong constituency of young families. One was a baby boomer church; the other was a generation X church. In both, the singles and college ministry was a ghost town. In one of them, there was not a grey hair in the crowd, merely families with children through teens.

I attended the first as a college and single. I was the anomaly of the church. In order to find gospel community with people from my generation, I traveled through several college ministries or singles ministries for four years. I did what I could to build community within the church, but there were many barriers that prevented this. One of which was the lack of urgency that the older generations felt to remedy the situation.

In the second, my wife and I were married with children and I served the church as a pastor. I shepherded the teen generation and was at max capacity. I didn’t have time to pour into my own generation and build community. This generation remained fragmented with no voice or leadership; it had a tough time finding a place in the church.

The third church was a dying church with an aged congregation. Then it relaunched. After relaunch it was mostly constituted of college and single students. As I have watched this church progress, I have seen it turn the corner and develop more heterogeneity. But I can tell that this church has been intentional. My wife and I attended this church between the two churches I shared about above. We felt very connected to our own generation, but were hungry to have more mature saints to pour into our lives.

Then there are the churches I hear whispered about. “Did you hear that such and such church closed their doors?” These churches after decades of loyal saints serving could not afford to maintain their facilities. They atrophied. They lacked younger families, singles, and college-aged adults to sustain gospel ministry momentum. These church facilities become community centers, pubs, or small businesses. As I’ve traveled the Chicagoland area during the past few months, I have encountered the truth of this. What were once beautiful bastions of Christianity have been converted into businesses.

Thankfully, there are churches that have a healthy cross-section of generations present. The fourth church, which I attend now, represents this healthy cross-section. In this church, not one generation sticks out from another.

Why the Divide?

One reason that a church is generationally uniform is because it started that way and stayed that way.

For example, if the plaid, bearded, hipster, millennial church planting conferences that I’ve gone to during the last year is any indication of the uniformity within past generations, I might be onto something. These bearded, plaid-bearing men are a type that I am a part; I’m pointing the finger at myself here. We love to gather together with others just like us to learn how to minister those who are - shocker - just like us.

If churches strive to be generationally mixed, it is important to start that way. They cannot be started with young people who are reacting to the stagnancy of older generational churches. It is not outlandish to claim that younger generations of the church become frustrated with how older generational churches function. The reasons for frustration vary. It could involve theological, philosophical, or cultural generational preferences.

But these preferences have planted certain kinds of generational churches. Some may question if a generation can have theological preferences. But I guarantee there is a young, restless, and Reformed millennial generation that has “left behind” the generations before it.

Likewise, generation X made a pivotal shift philosophically. This generation became seeker sensitive. This generation valued church growth that emphasized programs. The generation before it resisted this shift. The one coming after has seen its foibles and is running away from it as well.

Finally, the baby boomer generation withstood all of these changes. They maintained the culture that it had before generation X. It resisted the philosophical shift. A segment of this generation is delighted with the Reformed part of the young, restless and Reformed millennials. Another segment feels more threatened than ever by how this generation embraces certain aspects of culture. They dress more relaxed, have tattoos, imbibe in alcohol, and smoke pipes and cigars. This generation navigates media in a redemptive mode. All of this frightens the older generations.

Unfortunately, these fears build gospel blockades rather than bridges. From one generation’s frustration, another generation of church dies; the younger generation abandons ship and starts a younger-aged church. This has been going on for decades now. Thus, we can recognize when a church began in the mid 20th-century, the 70's and 80's, or the 90's and 2000's. You can see the predominant life-stage represented within the church as easily as you can date the architecture of the building.

Here is a major caveat. Do not read this article and think that this guy is against church planting. On the contrary, I am a church-planting intern. I wholeheartedly believe that church planting is biblical. Paul traveled the Mediterranean region starting local churches and installing men that he mentored into elder roles in those churches.

In America, there is a great need of new churches because of gospel poverty. This is not a slam against church planting. It is a caution against a certain kind of church planting; the kind of church planting that does not possess a healthy cross-section of generations. New church plants should intentionally be generationally varied. We should be alarmed when visiting a church plant and the assembly is nearly all college students - regardless of how well-meaning, doctrinally sound, and genuine the community is. Likewise, be concerned if a church plant only has young families.

Listen church planters. Develop a core group that is generationally diversified and you have hope.

Building Gospel Bridges

So how does a church plant or established church build generational bridges and develop a healthy cross-section of generations? How do they take down the gospel blockades? The only way to bridge this growing chasm between these generations is through the gospel. Here are three gospel-bridges a church can build towards having an inter-generational church.

1. Construct Inter-Generational Gospel Communities

If Colossians 3:18-4.1 and Ephesians 5:25-6.9 are examples of household codes, Titus 2:1-10 is a church code. It is a code of how multiple generations and people from varied life situations relate with one another within the church in light of the gospel. Older men, younger men, older women, and younger women should all be present in the body.

Verse 11 explicitly mentions that the gospel is “for all people.” This is not incidental. The gospel saves and unites all people in gospel community. Is this what your gospel communities look like? Have you considered creating Sunday school classes or community groups that are intentionally generationally varied?

I know this is a risky task. How can these generations with such divergent views and lifestyles function in harmonious gospel communities? They do so by the gospel. The gospel has to be the number one undergirding principle in which the community submits. We have to submit to our theology first and then build our philosophy and culture around it. That philosophy and culture should value diversity and respect authority.

Inter-generational gospel communities will add a deeper dimension to your communities. Older men and women will provide wisdom and biblical guidance in the study of Scripture. Younger men and women will infuse the gospel community with vigor and zeal to be intentional to serve both the church and the surrounding community.

2. Promote Inter-Generational Gospel Discipleship

Titus 2:3-4 indicates how older women train younger women. Does your church offer discipleship groups for younger women to learn from older women?

Likewise, similar discipleship groups could be offered for men. The book of Proverbs sets this standard. Proverbs 1:8 indicates that this book is written from the standpoint of a father to a son on living skillfully. Obviously this is the ideal. A mother should instruct her daughter and a father should instruct his son in the ways of each gender.

But guess what? Your church has first generation Christians in it. Those Christians need spiritual fathers and mothers to mentor and lead them through Scripture. My wife and I are an example of this. We are grateful for the men and women who have come alongside us during our eight years of marriage to mentor us towards the gospel and godliness.

Does your church offer inter-generational gospel discipleship? Is this a bridge your church employs to help men and women grow in the gospel and godliness?

3. Make Disciples of Multiple Generations

The gospel is for every generation. In 1 John 2, there is a gospel refreshment course for fathers, young men, and children. John says that he writes to remind them of the sin they’ve been rescued from, the enemy they’ve overcome, and the God whom they know. The gospel refreshes these generations that exist harmoniously within the church.

This is the same gospel that should be preached to multiple generations. Is your church taking intentional steps to preach this gospel to multiple generations?

There are intentional steps that a church may take to make disciples of multiple generations. Serving these people in their natural environment is an excellent way to build a gospel bridge.

To reach mature generations, do outreach to an assisted living community. Maybe there is a person there with gospel interest that needs a ride to church on Sunday. To reach young families, college-aged, and singles with the gospel, look for outreach opportunities at elementary schools, colleges, or local businesses. Help paint a school. Adopt a fraternity or sorority. Offer to do landscaping for a local business.

Allow these service bridges to become gospel bridges. As you serve these people, you are earning the opportunity to share the gospel with them. You welcome them to cross the bridge from their natural environment into your church environment. Through these relationships you make disciples of multiple generations.

Together in the Gospel

The Church has a long way to go to reconcile the generational divide within her. When generations fail to interact with one another and listen to one another, it only widens the divide. When younger generations act as exiles or evacuate from one church to start new, younger, and hipster churches, it only aggravates the situation. Young and old have to come together to build gospel bridges because the gospel reconciles all people..

Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” We could apply that to young and old, as well. Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17 anticipates this. These two Scriptures give a snapshot of the Church in the last days. It will constitute of sons and daughters and young and old. All of these generations will function together to bring attention to the gospel.

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Joey Cochran served as an Associate Pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma for four years before transitioning to be the Church Planting Intern at Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois under the supervision of Pastor Joe Thorn. Joey is a graduate of Dallas Seminary. Joey blogs at jtcochran.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @joeycochran.

2014: The Year I Quit

My New Year’s resolution is to quit. Quitting is usually seen as failure, as giving up.  This is ironic because the Christian life is all about quitting. It is about giving up on yourself before you can even start. I had to give up to become a ministry leader. I never wanted this role. I was wounded by pastors in the past and never wanted to do anything close to leading a ministry. Growing up, I only went to church when there wasn’t a good football game on television or I wasn’t playing soccer. I never really wanted to “go to church” let alone “be the  Church.”

Then Jesus stepped in. Jesus saved me in my mid-20’s and immediately called me to tell others about  him and to start living life as part of his church. Surprisingly, I loved both. I had to give up (quit) my way of life to live out his ways and t  It ended up being amazing. I was on fire for the Lord. My faith was increasing daily. Everything I gave up only made me feel like I had more. I confessed stuff I had hidden for years, and I quit trying to make up for my hidden junk with charity.

I finally decided to receive his forgiveness and healing. I realized that Jesus knew all my failures, sin, insecurities, and doubts  yet he still loved me. I felt like I could fly and I couldn’t help tell everyone about it. This made me quit even more. At the time, I had a job that stole a lot of time from my wife and church family - it was weekends and nights, demanding and sporadic. I quit. And God immediately provided a better job, with better hours, with better pay. My faith soared.

Trying Harder

My journey into church planting wasn’t me “not giving up,” it was me giving up on my career dreams, my addictions, and my view of the church and church leadership. I had to be a quitter to get into ministry.

I have now been an elder of a church plant for four years  and somewhere along the way I stopped “quitting” and started  trying too hard. I don’t even know when this started happening, but I know it did. .

Maybe it was one of the many leadership assessments, where instead of me feeling thankful for outside support and perspective, I started believing the lie and feeling the pressure to prove myself. Sure I may be young and inexperienced but I will show you that I earned this.

Maybe it was the several times I have had close friends leave the church for one reason or another, or  maybe because some of them beat me up a bit on the way out. I will show them for leaving. I will try harder, I won’t give up, they are wrong about me. I will succeed and show them how great I am.

Maybe it happens every year when I get my network’s survey asking how many baptisms our church had. Instead of rejoicing in all the people God is saving across the country (the reason for the survey in the first place), I start wondering if I did good enough. We had 8 baptisms. Is that good enough? Two of them went back on drugs and left and another two got divorced and left and another moved in with their boyfriend and said they will never talk to me again. Do those still count?

Or maybe it is the constant question,  “How many people are in your church? How many on Sundays?” Do I give them last month’s numbers that were the highest ever? Or this month’s numbers that were the lowest of the year? And why were this month’s so low? What could I do to change that? Maybe if I study more, nail down the perfect church structure, go to the right conferences this year, speak at a conference, podcast more, podcast less, get our  Twitter account more followers, pray harder, get more people praying harder, preach on this, teach on that, then I will be a success!

Maybe it was when I started having kids and getting less sleep and trying to pretend that I got this whole parent thing down. These kids won’t listen. They won’t sleep. They won’t stop making messes. They won’t stop filling diapers. I just want them to go to bed on time so I can watch “one,” just “one” episode of The Office on Netflix, then I will be happy. Truly happy.

Maybe it was when I adopted a beautiful baby girl and found out that adoption is hard and it revealed the evil in my heart..  I found out that on my own I didn’t love her the same as my biological son; I wanted to treat her like a step-daughter instead of as my daughter. I understand the gospel. I understand adoption. Why is this so hard? Maybe I don’t understand at all. Maybe I still believe I am a step-son of God and  trying to prove myself to him. I am adopted. I am loved. I get to adopt and I get to love my daughter as my own just as the Father loves me as his own.

Maybe it is trying to hide the amount that I still lust, still want control, still feel more comfortable when there is more money in my savings account, still over-eat, still hold grudges, still have pride, still am selfish, and still want my own kingdom. What is wrong with me? Shouldn’t I be better than this by now? Maybe I am hopeless case. Maybe I have reached my righteousness ceiling. Maybe God gave me as much freedom from sin as he can and now the rest is up to me. I can’t be a pastor. I got to hide this mess so I can pretend that I can help people with their mess. I guess I will just minimize all of this and try harder on my own.

Maybe it was when I learned how to “dress my sin up” with more acceptable language. “I am struggling a bit with this, I am growing in that, I gave in to a little temptation, the Lord is calling me to live more comfortably.” I checked out my friends wife, I ignored my kid to check a sports score on the phone, I am bitter against at least ten l people who I am supposed to love as brothers and sisters, I’d rather watch my football team lose than share the gospel with an unbelieving friend. I am selfish and still often believe that being selfish is the best way to live.

Finally Quitting

I quit. I’m not getting anywhere on my own. .Paul grew more and more aware of his sinfulness as he matured and led, and I am growing more and more aware of my achievements and how to minimize  my sin.

Truth is that I am still a mess, but he still knows all  of my mess and still chooses to love, bless, protect, and care for me. He still gives me a purpose and a life worth living. Truth is that my sin does not define me; his love defines me. I am a beloved son of God the Father. I am a saint. I am a living stone amongst living stones that make up the dwelling place of God. I am alive in Christ. I am holy. And I don’t have to try and prove  any of this. I get to just trust that this is who I am. I am not my sin or my failures. I am his righteousness and his victory! And when I trust who I am in Christ, I begin to live like I am who he says I am. This is how I discovered the power over life-long sin, addictions, and pain that lead me into a life of ministry in the first place. But I often forget this and once again start trying too hard.

I quit. The problem isn’t with church surveys, with kids, with people leaving, with temptation - the problem is with my heart. A heart that trusts who God is and what he has done is going to be secure in Christ. A heart that is trying to prove itself will try harder to gain God or people’s acceptance. I want to quit trying and start trusting who God has made me to be! I want to live freely in his grace!

I quit. I want Jesus to lead his church, lead my family and lead me!  I want my ministry to be his ministry, to be about his reputation, and about God the Father’s approval that Jesus earned for his followers. I want this to be the light burden and easy yoke that Jesus promised.

The truth is that it is only  grace that I am in ministry. It is only grace that anyone would marry me, that God would give me three kids, that I could have the privilege of adopting, that anyone would dare follow me as I follow Christ, that anyone would listen to me as I to teach about Jesus. It is all a gift that I don’t deserve. It is all grace! Forgetting this and trying to prove that I earned it, only leads to a cycle of trying to prove something that can never be proven. It is impossible, exhausting, and foolish to try and prove that I deserve what I don’t deserve.

So, this is my letter of resignation. I want to be the biggest quitter alive. I surrender. I can’t do any of this and I want the world to know it. I need Jesus. I need his forgiveness. I need him to send the Spirit. I need him to save my friends, family and neighbors. I need him to reveal himself to San Diego. I need him more now than ever. And he is here. He is with me. He forgives me. He blesses me. He is filled with joy when he thinks about me.

He loves me. And he loves you, too.

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Jake Chambers (@JakeJayChambers) is the husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to Ezra, Roseanna, and Jaya. Jake is passionate about seeing the gospel both transform lives and create communities that love Jesus, the city, and the lost. He currently serves Red Door Church in San Diego through leading, preaching, equipping, and pastoring.

3 Reasons to Read Poetry

Most school days, my 10-year-old son and I play on the Playstation when he gets home. A few days ago, we finished the first of three games. As soon as we had a few seconds between games, I ran to my home office to work on something and ran back when the game began. I did the same after the second game. Thinking about it later, I wondered what was so important that I couldn’t hang with my son for those few seconds. I couldn’t remember. Something in me felt like I couldn’t sit. I had to find something to do. I had to speed up. Isn’t that what TV, the Internet, smart phones, and iPads do? These extensions of work and non-work busyness bury us. We’ve all experienced the person who can’t stop looking at their phone in the middle of a conversation or who made us think they were talking to us while actually on Bluetooth with someone else. We’ve done this to others, too. We are always looking for something to fill the space. We are in a hurry even at times when we have no reason to be.

Living as disciples of Christ with the distractions and attractions of the modern world isn’t easy. We need the disciplines of the Christian life to slow us down and reorganize our lives and hearts around the Savior. When the speed of culture and life is overwhelming and I need to slow down, I turn to the poetic warmth of the Psalms. Poetry holds a special place for us as followers of Jesus because God put in the hearts of our Scriptures’ songs and poems. Poetry holds a special place because central to our personal and corporate meeting times is songs and poems. We even call Jesus the Son of David, and David is the most prolific writer of biblical poetry.

Christians should make biblical poetry a central part of our lives because it retunes our hearts. We can resonate with those who suffered, were threatened, scared, in despair, and who through it all learned to praise the sovereign God. Christians should also make reading and enjoying cultural poetry a part of life. In a busy world, it does a couple of specific things that are very good for us.

1. The Importance and Power of Words

Poetry is packed tight with meaning. The poet places each word with great intent. We live in a time where we take pride in how much content we can consume. As we read poetry, we force ourselves to see the purpose and place of each word. Poetry reminds us how to be selective, to use words for a greater impact.

Consider your life, family, church, and city. What would be different if God’s people were more choice in their words? Read for yourself, see how much can be said in such a tight space. And then go and make the most of what you say.

2. Slowing Down

I’ve already hit on this one, but it’s an important point and one of the greatest blessings of poetry. It slows us down.

As a kid, I loved golf and played almost every day of every summer. I remember when I was old enough to start driving golf carts. The electric ones were fun enough, but nothing like the gas carts. They zipped around the course and I felt the wind in my hair. Then one day I rented a gas golf cart with a governor, which is a device used to regulate the speed of the cart. What a massive disappointment, but what an important tool to keep me from driving off a bridge at a high rate of speed. Slowing down kept me in the game and not in the hospital.

Your life, at the pace you are going, may very well be too fast for the next bridge. Slow down. Poetry is a wonderful governor that helps to regulate the speed of our lives. Notice the rhymes, the meter, the cadence of a poem. Regulate your mental breathing. Allow poetry to judge you, to question your pace, and consider an alternate path. Life is lived better in a rhythm.

Try it. Pick a poem, take some time, and read it deliberately. See if it doesn’t relax you a bit by slowing you down. Then ponder how living as a poet might change you and the people around you.

3. Seeing and Feeling

In a busy world, we need to see and feel what our neighbors see and feel that we may better share the gospel with them. One of the great evangelistic helps of any age is to know the art that influences the world we intend to reach. Ezra Pound said that “[Poets are] the antennae of the race.” Paul must have know that since he quoted them in an apologetic/evangelistic opportunity (Acts 17).

Poetry is more than a tool in our hands to connect culture and gospel; it helps us reach our neighbor’s heart. One of the things I love most about poetry is it connects us to the emotional pulse around us.

When my mom died a few years ago, I spent time with my dad. We were waiting for a meeting so he could order a gravestone. We waited at local restaurant bar for a bit. He knew the bartender a little and the bartender knew what happened to my mom and asked for permission to recite a poem for us. Reluctant, but desiring not to be rude, my dad said that he could. It was remarkable. I can’t remember a line of the poem, but I can remember how it spoke of both the pain of loss and of a coming peace in a way that “I’m so sorry” could never do.

Poems are made to do things like that. You just have to slow down and stare into the words as you would a painting or a night under the stars.

Is there anyone or anything we need to see more clearly than God and neighbor? We see our neighbors often, but do we really see them? Do we know their lives, their longings, their hearts, or their pains? Poetry opens up these doors. Poetry makes us aware of the world and people around us. It tells us to spend time in their shoes, considering their worlds and their struggles and dream. And poetry can help with that by both instructing us and opening our eyes that we would see them truly.

Where To Start

So let’s say you are willing to give it a whirl. How do you start? Well, you need poetry and time. Here are some helpful resources.

John Piper has written a number of notable poems available in various forms. Also, check out solid websites like Poetry Foundation, Poets.org, and Poetry.com. There’s a lot of free poetry online as well as essays on poetry and a number of other resources you might find helpful. Maybe one of the simplest ways to get started enjoying poetry is to grab an app for your phone or tablet. My favorite is the Poetry Mobile app from Poetry Foundation, though you may want to look up Pocket Poetry and Poetry Daily apps that send poem a day. I highly encourage you to check The Writer’s Almanac podcast with Garrison Keillor. It’s excellent whether or not you are a writer. Along with nuggets and tidbits from history he reads a short poem every day.

You might want to check out a few books. Good Poems is a nice compilation. Your public library probably has a decent selection. I highly recommend you find some living poets you can follow. Some of my favorites are Dana Gioia, Wendell Berry, and Billy Collins. Search YouTube for Billy Collins’s animated poetry. If those don’t get you interested in poetry, I don’t know what will.

Let me close with Billy Collins’s poem, “Introduction to Poetry.” Sense how he encourages you to approach poetry:

I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide

 or press an ear against its hive.

 I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

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Steve McCoy is pastor of Doxa Fellowship and blogs regularly at SteveKMcCoy.com. Follow him on Twitter: @stevekmccoy.

Top 10 Articles of 2013

As 2013 comes to an end, here are the 10 most-read articles of the past year. Thank you to all of you who allow us the blessing of serving you!

1. 5 Things Mistaken for Evangelism - Mark Dever

2. The Introverted Evangelist - Seth McBee

3. 9 Myths of Discipleship - Zachary Lee

4. Spiritual Warfare Prayer - Winfield Bevins

5. How Kids Learn to Follow Jesus - Seth McBee

6. 5 Lies That Kill Obedience - Brad Watson

7. 7 Ways to Keep Your Missional Community from Multiplying - Seth McBee

8. Why I'm Tired of Church Planting - Seth McBee

9. 6 Lessons I Learned as a Rookie Pastor - R.D. McClenagan

10. How Jesus Made Disciples - Winfield Bevins

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Brandon Smith (@BrandonSmith85) is Director of GCD, Associate Editor at The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, and Director of Communications at Criswell College. He is proud to be Christa’s husband and Harper Grace’s daddy.

God in Middle-Earth, Part 4: Sacrifice

We've seen how Tolkien understood God's sovereignty as a pillar for living in the midst of suffering and evil. Also, he emphasizes the necessity of friendship, fellowship, and food. The lack of these things especially the suspicion of friends allows evil to rot one of our greatest supports for Christian living. Last week, we examined s valuing of strength in weakness and finding your place in the one true story. Our final point today will examine the virtue of sacrifice.

Sacrificial Lives

To live like free peoples of Middle-earth, you must be willing to sacrifice yourself for others.

Sacrifice is crucial to Christian living and crucial in living like free peoples of Middle-earth. Without it, we die in our unredeemed state. In Tolkien’s tale of the One Ring, the quest would have failed many times without sacrifice made at key moments. To understand this fully, we must understand eucatastrophe--a term Tolkien coined in a lecture he gave “On Fairy Stories.”

But the ‘consolation’ of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it. At least I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite — I will call it Eucatastrophe. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function.

The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous ‘turn’ (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially ‘escapist’, nor ‘fugitive’. In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the ‘turn’ comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.

Tolkien saw the death and resurrection of Jesus as the greatest eucatastrophe in history. These great moments of sacrifice hold within them the seed for the greatest possible “joyous ‘turn.’” So to talk about sacrifice within Middle-earth we must consider also how those events provide “the joy of deliverance.” On the most basic level, Frodo and Sam’s decision to take the Ring to Mount Doom is sacrifice in its purest - especially after they abandon the fellowship and trek into the unknown. As far as their eyes could see, they would not return from Mount Doom. The success of their quest was questionable at best. And even if they did succeed, how would they return from Mount Doom to Hobbiton? Each step they take towards Mordor sacrifices their life. That journey binds Tolkien’s entire story together.

The Ultimate Eucatastrophe

Next (and one of my favorite passages from The Lord of the Rings), Gandalf sacrifices himself in Moria for the fellowship. His words ring in my ear:

You cannot pass . . . . I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.

Without hope of living, Gandalf takes his stand on the bridge and sends the fellowship out of the mines. I may even go so far as to say this is one of my favorite passages from any book. It’s right up there with Aslan’s resurrection. After the fellowship flees Moria, they enter Lothlorien where they rest, recover, and finally move on. Galadriel sees Boromir’s desire for the Ring. She may be able to see his desire so clearly because she herself has thought of wielding the Ring for good (although in her interaction with Frodo she ultimately passes the test by rejecting the Ring). Boromir’s desire intensifies as the fellowship leaves Lothlorien and must choose whether they will follow him to Minas Tirith or accompany Frodo into Mordor. Frodo is torn because he doesn’t want to bind his friends with the hopelessness of journeying into Mordor. Boromir breaks and tries to possess the Ring by force. Frodo flees. Sam finds him and they go off together. But Boromir sacrifices himself to save Merry and Pippin in the end and dies honorably. Even in one of the most conflicted characters, sacrifice is seen as the ultimate virtue.

All of the moments of sacrifice above are in their own right eucatastrophe--good coming from evil. After Gandalf’s struggle against the Balrog, Gandalf returns as the white and displaces Saruman. After Boromir’s betrayal and sacrifice, Frodo and Sam leave for Mordor and the fellowship splits capturing Orthanc (Saruman’s tower) and recruit Rohan to help Minas Tirith. These potential disasters, these sacrifices are ultimately moments of great good looking back.

So if Tolkien understands Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection as the ultimate eucatastrophe and sacrifice is celebrated throughout Middle-earth, how ought we live? If we are to live like a free peoples of Middle-earth, we must daily sacrifice for our families, neighbors, and God. We must do so not to save ourselves. These sacrifices aren’t made self-righteously. Sacrifice is never a functional savior. Sacrifice is a joyful response to the greatest sacrifice made on our behalf. It’s an overflow from the fountain filled with blood that’s washed us white as snow.

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

God in Middle-Earth, Part 3: Strength in Weakness

So far we’ve looked at how Christian living can be strengthened by following Tolkien’s vision for living like free peoples of Middle-earth by understanding God’s sovereignty over all affairs good and bad and also the value of friendship, fellowship, and food. Now we will look at how Tolkien’s portrait of weakness and strength provide wisdom for finding our place in the one big story.

Weakness as Strength

To live like free peoples of Middle-earth, you must understand weakness as strength.

If you read The Silmarillion (Tolkien’s longer history of Middle-earth’s first and second age), you will find many great deeds by elves, men, and dwarves. These are tales of gods, kings, warriors--Beowulf-like feats of bravery. Hobbits are nearly unknown in these tales. In The Two Towers, Sam and Frodo are trying to enter Mordor and discussing the great tales (the kind found in The Silmarillion) and their place within those tales. It’s a longer passage, but I want to quote it in full because it’s so brilliant.

“I don’t like ahere at all,’ said Frodo, ‘step or stone, breath or bone. Earth, air and water all seem accursed. But so our path is laid.’

‘Yes, that’s so,’ said Sam. ‘And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same – like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?’

‘I wonder,’ said Frodo. ‘But I don’t know. And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.” . . . .

“And then we can have some rest and some sleep,’ said Sam. He laughed grimly. ‘And I mean just that, Mr. Frodo. I mean plain ordinary rest, and sleep, and waking up to a morning’s work “in the garden. I’m afraid that’s all I’m hoping for all the time. All the big important plans are not for my sort. Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We’re in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: ‘‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring!’’ And they’ll say: ‘‘Yes, that’s one of my favourite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn’t he, dad?’’ ‘‘Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that’s saying a lot.’’ ’

‘It’s saying a lot too much,’ said Frodo, and he laughed, a long clear laugh from his heart. Such a sound had not been heard in those places since Sauron came to Middle-earth. To Sam suddenly it seemed as if all the stones were listening and the tall rocks leaning over them. But Frodo did not heed them; he laughed again. ‘Why, Sam,’ he said, ‘to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you’ve left out one of the “chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. ‘‘I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?’’ ’

‘Now, Mr. Frodo,’ said Sam, ‘you shouldn’t make fun. I was serious.’

‘So was I,’ said Frodo, ‘and so I am. We’re going on a bit too fast. You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: ‘‘Shut the book now, dad; we don’t want to read any more.’’ ” “Maybe,’ said Sam, ‘but I wouldn’t be one to say that. Things done and over and made into part of the great tales are different. Why, even Gollum might be good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway. And he used to like tales himself once, by his own account. I wonder if he thinks he’s the hero or the villain?

‘Gollum!’ he called. ‘Would you like to be the hero – now where’s he got to again?” The Two Towers, “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol”

What we see in this passage and through out The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is that weakness is strength and strength is weakness. For instance, Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, and Aragorn are all fearful to touch the One Ring. They fear their strength when connected with the ring will turn them into new dark lords. Boromir nearly went mad because of the Ring. Imagine if he would’ve weilded it. But here you have these lowly hobbits possessing the Ring with evil only slowly affecting them primarily because they are weak (in the best possible way) and good-hearted.

That turn is what buys the fellowship enough time to start their journey towards Mordor without being immediately captured by Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. He cannot fathom strength in weakness. And neither can Saruman for that matter. He chides Gandalf for being so closely entrenched in the lives of hobbits. He cannot fathom the hardiness of hobbits, but Gandalf all along sees something there. There is more to mine out of the contrast of Gandalf and Saruman. One lives among ordinary people. One holes him self in a tower and amasses riches for himself. One is sacrificing for others. One is setting up his own kingdom. One embodies weakness. One embodies selfish strength.

Ordinary, Faithful Lives

Isn't that all of us in this Christian life? We do not seek out adventures. We are commanded to live ordinary lives and be faithful in our sphere of influence. We are to raise families, fellowship with other believes, hear the word, eat the body and blood of Jesus Christ boot straps fortitude. We battle with love, sacrifice, and weakness. Those are our weapons.

Paul gets at all of this when he admonishes the Corinthians:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:18-31)

If you wish to live like a free peoples of Middle-earth, embrace weakness as strength. Embrace ordinary living. Embrace your place in the story. All while understanding God is in control. All while enjoying friends, fellowship, and food. All while living freely.

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

God in Middle-Earth, Part 2: Friendship, Fellowship, & Food

With my original post in this series, I introduced my objective which is trying to grasp a Christian vision for living from Tolkien’s Middle-earth. My first point examined the doctrine of sovereignty in Tolkien’s writings. That theme is overarching across all of Middle-earth and required a discussion a bit longer than these next few points. After writing out each point, I’ve decided to serialize them over the next three Wednesdays. Our final two points will touch on the importance of weakness and sacrifice. Today we will look at the value of friendship, fellowship, and food.

Friendship, Fellowship, Food

To live like free peoples of Middle-earth, you must value friendship, fellowship, and food.

This point may be the most self-evident. The Hobbit starts with the unlikely friendship of Biblo and Gandalf. This friendship binds this story together. Without it, you do not have Gandalf’s counsel of Frodo and the ring may have fallen into the hands of Sauron. It’s also interesting that to the wise the friendship of the hobbits and Gandalf seemed foolish. Saruman didn’t understand the value of hobbits and involving himself with those he considered of lesser value (more on this next week).

After that friendship, the dwarves “befriend” Bilbo. They are unwelcomed friends at first soon enjoy table fellowship. The party is feasting, eating, and singing. They are rehearsing their history and the shared history of Middle-earth during these times of table fellowship. You see this same routine as they sit around the table of Beorn the shape-shifter after they are saved by the eagles from the frying pan.

From there, the party enters Mirkwood and the hand of fellowship is not extended by the wood elves. They capture and imprison the dwarves and later siege the Lonely Mountain asking for a split of the treasure. I want to end with this passage

“Bilbo knelt on one knee filled with sorrow. “Farewell, King under the Mountain!” he said. “This is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad that I have shared in your perils—that has been more than any Baggins deserves.”

“No!” said Thorin. “There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!” The Hobbit, “The Return Journey”

The elves of Mirkwood and the men of Dale camp outside of the lonely mountain asking for part of the treasure recovered. Biblo betrays the dwarves from Thorin’s perspective by providing the elves and men leverage. He gives them the Arkenstone the treasure that Thorin longed for most. Thorin sends messengers for his family, Dain from the Iron Hills, to come to his aid. It’s lack of friendship and fellowship (among other things) that almost cost these free peoples of Middle-earth their lives. News comes that orcs riding wargs are coming and Gandalf finally brings the free peoples together. However, although the alliance defeats the orc army with the help of the eagles, Thorin is slain and repeats the words above to Biblo on his death bed. The important part is, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

This same theme is carried over to The Lord of the Rings (I’ll be briefer here). The book starts with a farewell party for Biblo. He disappears leaving Frodo everything and lives with Elrond at the last homely house. From the start, Frodo’s journey is uncertain, but is unexpectedly bolstered by the friendship of Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Fatty. They have been spying on him and plan to accompany him from Hobbiton to Rivendell. In another twist, they are adamant about joining the fellowship of the ring. As the name of first book in The Lord of the Rings suggests fellowship is central to the ring-bearer’s quest. That quest is almost destroyed by the lust of Boromir, but is saved by his final act of friendship and sacrifice.

In the second book, The Two Towers, friendship is again central. The friendship of Glóin the dwarf and Legolas the elf and also the deep bond between Glóin and the lady of Galadriel (although in book one). Also, the friendship of Aragorn (and the kingdoms of men, in general) and the men of Rohan is established. The unlikely friendship of Merry and Pippin and the ents. And most importantly the friendship of Frodo and Sam which is contrasted with the weird relationship of Frodo and Gollom. It’s the relationship of Sam and Frodo which really carries the theme of friendship through out the entire trilogy. It’s also the reunited friendship of the free peoples of Middle-earth which makes the defeat of Sauron possible.

Generation to Generation

This truth that friendship is absolutely necessary is one that is also through out Scripture. Not only that, the importance of fellowship around the table and the rehearsal of our common story of the gospel is central to Christian discipleship. That kind of rehearsal of common history is paramount in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

It’s the suspicion of friends which causes damage in Middle-earth and it’s friendship’s restored and a remembering of friendship’s pasts which saves the day. We must value friendship, fellowship, and food as Christian. It has been and always will be central to the handing down of the gospel from generation to generation.

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

God in Middle-Earth, Part 1: Sovereignty

At this year’s Desiring God National Conference, Joe Rigney, Assistant Professor of Theology and Christian Worldview at Bethlehem College and Seminar, gave an interesting talk about Narnian Discipleship and has since released a book titled Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis’s Chronicle. This prompted some thinking on my part. I love C. S. Lewis and Narnia, but my first love is his fellow Don at Oxford University J. R. R. Tolkien and his Middle-earth. Granted, C. S. Lewis’s Narnian books provide an easier garden bed for making observation about something like Christian discipleship. But Tolkien doesn’t write about Middle-earth in a vacuum. His world is distinctively Christian. It operates and is controlled by a god who very much resembles the Christian God of the Bible. The values, morals, and sins are very much our values, morals, and sins.

So what can we learn from Tolkien’s Middle-earth? First, I must say these observation aren’t drawn as an allegory. Tolkien despised allegory. His Middle-earth was more subtly Christian. He mined the depths of his Christian worldview for truths big enough to create another world. Those are the truths we will examine today. Those truths allow us to talk about living like free peoples of Middle-earth and connecting that in with Christian discipleship.

The Sovereign Theme

To live like free peoples of Middle-earth, you must understand God is sovereign and governing the affairs of this world, including evil.

The theme of sovereignty is huge in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I’m reading through these novels with a fresh set of eyes this year, and realizing even more how much sovereignty and providence play in the affairs that we find in Tolkien’s major works. Consider only the tale of the One Ring. In the second age, the free peoples were laying siege to Mordor and Isildur cut the One Ring from Sauron’s hand. Against the wishes of Elrond and Círdan, the fallen elf lord Gil-galad’s lieutenants, Isildur kept the ring as a family heirloom. Evil befall Isildur on his journey home when a band of orcs waylaid him and the One Ring was consider lost in the great river Anduin.

Long after these events, a hobbit like creature Sméagol (you may know him as Gollum) possessed the ring by treachery. He was cast out of his community for using the ring for evil purposes. He kept it hidden and safe for many years until Bilbo encountered him by chance during the tale that began in The Hobbit. He carried it to the Lonely Mountain and then back home to Hobbiton where it stayed for many years. It was finally discovered that this ring was the One Ring and Gandalf the wizard encouraged Biblo to pass it along to his heir Frodo. That it was freely given is a crucial element to the tale because none had done so before Biblo.

What’s so amazing in all of this (and we will return to this later) is that creatures so homely, unknown, and small are able to possess the ring for so long without being destroyed. Even gollum as evil as he is has held up well by all accounts and in The Lord of the Rings shows glimpses of good in the sometimes humorous dialogue when journeying with Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom. This kind of “luck” in the Ring’s lineage is nothing short of miraculous. Tolkien describes the Ring as having a will bent towards Sauron, but there seems to be something else at work ordering even the evil intent of the Ring. This providence draws the Ring into the hands of hobbits who are unexpectedly hardy and good-hearted.

His Good Purpose

Also, The Lord of the Rings reads much like Esther in the Old Testament. No explicit mention of God but His hand present in every thing that occurs. You have bread crumbs of providence, sovereignty, and governance through out The Lord of the Rings. Here are a few examples drawn from The Fellowship of the Ring and its major chapter concerning the lore of the One Ring.

[Gandalf says,] “Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.’ [Frodo replies,] ‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black. The Enemy is fast becoming very strong. His plans are far from ripe, I think, but they are ripening. We shall be hard put to it. We should be very hard put to it, even if it were not for this dreadful chance.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 2 “The Shadow of the Past”

[Gandalf says,] “Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 2 “The Shadow of the Past”

[Gandalf says,] “And he [Gollum] is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 2 “The Shadow of the Past” (also, Gandalf emphasizes this later in chapter 11, “But he may play a part yet that neither he nor Sauron have forseen”)

“I do really wish to destroy it!’ cried Frodo. ‘Or, well, to have it destroyed. I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?’ ‘Such questions cannot be answered,’ said Gandalf. ‘You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.’ ‘But I have so little of any of these things!” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 2 “The Shadow of the Past”

[Gildor the elf says to Frodo after providing him critical advice concerning leaving Hobbiton immediately without waiting for Gandalf,] “The Elves have their own labours and their own sorrows, and they are little concerned with the ways of hobbits, or of any other creatures upon earth. Our paths cross theirs seldom, by chance or purpose. In this meeting there may be more than chance; but the purpose is not clear to me, and I fear to say too much.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 3 “Three is Company”

“Tom sat on a while beside them in silence, while each of them tried to muster the courage to ask one of the many questions he had meant to ask at supper. Sleep gathered on their eyelids. At last Frodo spoke: ‘Did you hear me calling, Master, or was it just chance that brought you at that moment?’ Tom stirred like a man shaken out of a pleasant dream. ‘Eh, what?’ said he. ‘Did I hear you calling? Nay, I did not hear: I was busy singing. Just chance brought me then, if chance you call it. It was no plan of mine, though I was waiting for you.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 7 “In the House of Tom Bombadil”

“You have done well to come,’ said Elrond. ‘You will hear today all that you need in order to understand the purposes of the Enemy. There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it. But you do not stand alone. You will learn that your trouble is but part of the trouble of all the western world. The Ring! What shall we do with the Ring, the least of rings, the trifle that Sauron fancies? That is the doom that we must deem. ‘That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.” . . . “He is Aragorn son of Arathorn,’ said Elrond; ‘and he is descended through many fathers from Isildur Elendil’s son of Minas Ithil. He is the Chief of the Dúnedain in the North, and few are now left of that folk.’ ‘Then it belongs to you, and not to me at all!’ cried Frodo in amazement, springing to his feet, as if he expected the Ring to be demanded at once. ‘It does not belong to either of us,’ said Aragorn; ‘but it has been ordained that you should hold it for a while.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 11 “The Council of Elrond”

So you can see especially as it regards the lore of the One Ring, sovereignty and providence are critical for understanding what’s happening. Tolkien does as masterful job as anyone at describing what God working all things together for good looks like. That’s our first point. If you wish to live like free people in Middle-earth than you must realize everything is orchestrated by God for the good purpose of His will (if you want to see Tolkien flesh this out even more, read The Silmarillion’s opening chapters).

So evil intended by the Sauron is turned to good in the end. So as we navigate this dark world and the “Shadow takes another shape,” we must acknowledge there’s much about God’s orchestrated will we don’t understand. We must humbly acknowledge just because we cannot in our finite understanding see any good purpose amidst the pain, suffering, and evil, we mustn’t assume God has none.

Tolkien coined the term eucatastrophe which describes the good that comes from a seeming tragedy. The Christian faith hinges on an eucatastrophe. The ultimate evil killing Jesus Christ is ordained by God, but completed by the evil intent and purpose of men according to Peter in Acts 2. Surely looking on his disciples could see no good reason for the death of the Messiah, but oh how wrong they were. That one act of evil and suffering released a deluge of good on the world covering it to the highest mountains.

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

How to Balance Developing Leaders & Equipping Believers

  Sometimes the maturing process in Scripture refers to preparing people for church leadership roles. Paul seemed to have this in mind when he admonished Timothy to entrust the  “pattern of sound teaching” to faithful men who could transfer this truth to another generation of believers (2 Tim. 1:11-2:2). In other places, the Scriptures refer to church leaders as elders, spiritual shepherds, or overseers entrusted with the care and nurture of others (2 Pet. 5:1-3; Eph. 4:11-16). But growth to maturity is for every believer, not just the appointed leaders of the church. Our zeal to equip should extend to all believers (Col. 1:28-29).

In fact, growth to maturity should include both equipping leaders and assisting believers not yet ready for leadership roles. Leadership in the church differs from leadership in other settings. Of course, some important gifts and skills (charisma, initiative, communication, commanding presence, etc.) carry over into the church. God uses these abilities along with other gifts when He calls people into leadership. But the defining qualities for leaders in the church are character-driven, and godly character comes from equipping as a mature disciple (2 Tim. 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-9).

Regardless of their leadership ability, younger believers should not be appointed to leadership roles until they are spiritually mature enough for the challenge (1 Tim. 3:6, 10). On the other hand, mature Christians who may not possess natural leadership ability can function effectively in some leadership roles.

Part of Jesus’ approach to help believers mature was the gradual development of leaders. At the right time, a leadership role can serve as a critical part of spiritual development. Growth occurs when believers trust and obey God and assume responsibility for others whether through an official church office or not. In fact, a leadership role may be as simple as the casual but definite task of a friend who works hard to encourage others.

A Proper Perspective

Three men digging a ditch on a scorching summer afternoon were approached by a passerby, who asked, “What are you guys doing?”

The first, already weary from exertion, responded impatiently, “What does it look like? We’re digging a hole!”

The second added some information: “We’re building a foundation pad. This hole’s going to be filled with concrete.”

The third man, who had been whistling happily while he labored, laid his shovel aside and wiped his forehead. He then explained how this particular hole would help them place one of the massive flying buttresses needed to support an entire wall of stained glass windows for a new cathedral. After describing in great detail the planned building process, he added, “See that rubbish pile? If things go according to plan, on Christmas Eve five years from now, my family and I will worship together at the altar in that same spot.”

All three men were working hard at the same task. But their attitudes varied markedly with their perspectives. The man who could see the unseen had the best attitude and the most energy. Proper perspective enables us to survey a situation and see beyond what’s happening to its significance and to develop strategies for what should happen next. Perspective provides hope when times are tough.  And tough times are when hope emerges in mature people.

The root causes of our current crisis of maturity are complex, but as Christians, we must shoulder some of the responsibility. Though individual believers and some faith communities have found ways to grow and develop, the Church at large has lost much of the capacity to live in the world as salt and light. We haven’t made growth toward spiritual maturity a primary goal the way Scripture commands (Matt. 28:18-20; Col. 1:27-29).

In essence, the maturation processes in the Church have either collapsed or been neglected. When maturation processes collapse, mature leaders fail to emerge. Without mature leaders, families suffer, churches neglect priorities, businesses fail, and in time, cultures crumble.

We’re again at a pivot-point. Will this be our greatest catastrophe or our finest hour? It depends on our perspective of God and His Kingdom. Without a vision for maturity, it might be easy to lose hope and become weary. Are we digging ditches, or are we building something wonderful to the glory of God?

A Reason to Hope

There’s growing evidence of an emerging movement that will help us recapture a much-needed emphasis on maturity. Younger  believers are searching for a more robust, biblical understanding of the gospel. A new generation of church leaders insists that the good news involves more than justification. It also includes growth to maturity. These leaders urge us to appreciate and apply the grace that forgives at every stage of the maturation process. This  gospel-centered discipleship embraces a grace-driven process that encourages humility, produces relational honesty, and leads to maturity. Stressing the need for authentic community, spiritual growth, and good works, this process encourages believers to grow up.

John Burke sums up the need for an authentic maturity by saying:

Our generation longs for something authentic. They are searching for “the real thing,” though they don’t really know what “the real thing” is. Because this generation has endured so much “me-ism” and letdown from those they were supposed to follow and trust, they want to see a genuine faith that works for less-than-perfect people before they are willing to trust. They want to know this God-thing is more than talk, talk, talk. They desperately want permission to be who they are with the hope of becoming more. They aren’t willing to pretend, because hypocrisy repulses them. But most have yet to realize that every person is a hypocrite to some degree – the only question is whether we realize it and are honest about it.[1]

Jonathan Dodson says,

The disciples of Jesus were always attached to other disciples. They lived in authentic community. They confessed their sins and struggles alongside their successes – questioning their Savior and casting out demons. They continually came back to Jesus as their Master and eventually as their Redeemer. As the disciples grew in maturity, they did not grow beyond the need for their Redeemer. They returned to Him for forgiveness. As they began to multiply, the communities they formed did not graduate from the gospel that forgave and saved them. Instead, churches formed around their common need for Jesus. The gospel of Jesus became the unifying center of the church. As a result, the communities that formed preached Jesus, not only to those outside the church but also to one another inside the church.[2]

These men are right. The gospel Christ offers both justifies and sanctifies. May God strengthen their hands and increase their influence, and do the same of others like them. May He use them to drive back Satan and usher into the church a new season of Christ-like maturity.

God is not unaware of or indifferent to the current crisis. In the past, He’s sometimes hidden His prophets in caves, keeping them safe until a day of restoration dawns. He’s sovereign over the nations (Psalm 2), Lord of His church, and ready to defend the honor of His name and renew His people. Throughout history, whenever it seemed as if the people of God were defeated, the troubles they faced became the catalyst for fresh hope, renewal, and victory.

Sometimes refocusing perspective and building character requires hardship and defeat. Romans 8:28-29 affirms this as it reminds us, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.”

Helping people mature is not easy. Growing disciples face many obstacles, including the enemy, who hates the idea of mature believers. But satanic opposition, though real, is only one of the problems. As this chapter has shown, we seem to have lost our way or developed corporate amnesia regarding the process and priority of helping people mature. Lacking a clear strategy about how to help people grow, we opt for hit-or-miss tactics or repeat traditional approaches only because they’re familiar.

The way is difficult and at times hard to understand. Discovering and implementing a process that produces maturity requires humility, courage, and faith. But the outcome is worth it, both now and for eternity.

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[1] John Burke, “No Perfect People Allowed”  (Grand Rapids, MI:

Zondervan, 2005), p. 69-70.

[2] Jonathan Dodson, “Gospel Centered Discipleship” (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), p. 17.

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Robert D. (Bob) Dukes is the President and Executive Director of Worldwide Discipleship Association (WDA), headquartered in Fayetteville, Georgia.

[This is an excerpt from Bob's forthcoming book from WDA, Maturity Matters: A Biblical Framework for Disciple Building.]

What Can Protestants Learn From Mary?

  In Luke chapter 1, the angel Gabriel greets Mary: “O favored one, the Lord is with you!” He then continues with: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

It is rare for us Protestants to linger long over Mary, the mother of Jesus. Whether in reading or meditating over Scripture, we quickly pass over her.

For those of us working to keep the gospel at center, taking a longer look at Mary's place in our theology and practical living could yield much fruit. After all, part of internalizing the gospel is understanding how God brought it forth through real flesh and blood people. The incarnation happened because God favored a woman and chose her to be a real live mother to his Son!

Mary Was Favored by the Lord

We may not fully comprehend how it is that God “favors” someone, but we cannot deny that the words came out of the angel Gabriel: “O favored one,” and “for you have found favor with God.” God the Father loved Mary, the young lady, living in Nazareth. Out of all the women in the history of the world, he chose her to be the mother of his Son.

This particular word, favored, used here in Luke 1:28 (KJV says “highly favoured”), is used in only one other place in the Bible, and that is in Ephesians 1:6. It means to bestow favor upon, to freely give, or to show kindness to, endued with grace. The Latin Vulgate translates it into “full of grace” which has given some the impression that Mary inherently had this special grace. But that is not the case. Mary was given a special grace from God. In the wise and secret council of God he determined that out of all the women in the history of mankind, that he would give a special endowment of favor to Mary—a poor, young, virgin girl from the lineage of David.

Matthew Henry says of Mary: “We have here an account given of the mother of our Lord, of whom he was to be born, whom, though we are not to pray to, yet we ought to praise God for.”

My question is: If Mary found favor with God, why does she not find favor with us? Why not give honor where honor is due, as Scripture teaches (Rom. 13:7)?

Giving Appropriate Honor to Mary

I believe we can honor Mary because of what God did through her. Just as we look highly upon the Apostle Paul and learn from him, we can look at the life of Mary and learn from her.

Later in the first chapter of Luke, after her encounter with her cousin Elizabeth, Mary sings a song of praise to God, which we refer to as the Magnificat. Although the song extols the character and virtue of God, it tells us some things about Mary herself:

And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, In remembrance of his mercy. As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

Her humble acquiescence alone puts me to shame. How many of us if we were told by an angel that God would do something in our life that will bring raised eyebrows, possibly lose a spouse, ruin our reputation, and cause us grief, would submit with such grace and humility?

Learning from Mary

We Christians will, without hesitation, give honor to church fathers and theologians, authors and pastors whom we find to be “full of grace” in their own ways. We “magnify” them by reading them, learning from them, telling others about them, quoting them, appreciating them.... They have “found favor” with us. So again, I ask, if Mary found favor with God, why not with us?

Mary didn't huddle down in sinful fear at was going to happen to her; her soul magnified God and her spirit rejoiced in God her Savior. She is not puffed up because she has been so especially blessed. Her soul lifts up God and her spirit finds joy in the one and only person who can give lasting and true joy—God her Savior. Furthermore, we see that she understood her salvation was from God.

She confesses she is of a lowly estate, she's not being proud of her poverty, nor puffed up in the redemption offered to her. She gives honor to God because he is the one that has done a mighty thing for her. Although she is not afraid to speak of her blessed position and the grace that was given to her, there is no arrogance or false humility in her words.

Mary knows her theology; she is versed in the words of the Old Testament Scriptures. Her words testify that she was a young woman who had invested time in learning. She may have been young and poor, but she wasn't uneducated.

Studying the words of Mary we also see that she was a woman of faith. Her understanding of the Scriptures was not just academic, Mary had internalized her knowledge of God. Her knowledge came out in a devoted and fervent faith. And we see the fruit (outward manifestation) by the way she questioned the angel—without doubt and faithlessness; We see it by her submission to God in verse 38 of Luke chapter one. And we see it in faith filled words in her song.

This small article is but a stone skimming. There is a lot of depth to Mary and her life if we but put in the effort to study. God gave a special grace to Mary—I think we would be wise to learn from her.

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Luma Simms (@lumasimms) is a wife and mother of five delightful children. She studied physics and law before Christ led her to become a writer, blogger, and Bible study teacher. She is the author of Gospel Amnesia: Forgetting the Goodness of the News. She blogs regularly at Gospel Grace.