How Does God Use His Word in Our Lives?

Trudy and Tony were referred to you from another church. You’ve never met them before today. They’ve come to you after already having seen a divorce attorney. Trudy tells you that she is “100% motivated to be in counseling” and “desperately wanting to see our marriage saved.” Tony is meeting with you because he feels it’s his obligation to “make one more attempt to save this marriage.” What do Trudy and Tony need from you first? Do they need truth—scriptural insight about sacrificial love applied to their marital relationship? Or, do they need love—to connect with you and to build a relationship with you so that they are ready to hear truth from you?

Which is most important in biblical counseling? Is the ministry of the Word primary and loving relationships secondary? Or, is the relationship central and you need to wait to share truth until you’ve established a trusting relationship?

Are these even the right questions? Does Scripture divide truth from relationship in ministry? Does the Bible rank truth and love? Wouldn’t that be somewhat like asking, “Which counselor is least effective, the one who ignores the greatest commandment to love God and others, or the one who ignores commands to counsel from the Word?”

The Bible never pits truth against love. It never lays them out on a gradation or ranking system.The Bible presents equal couplets: truth/love, Scripture/soul, Bible/relationship, and truth/grace.   

Just the UPS Delivery Man?

And yet we’re forced to ponder these questions about truth and love every time we minister to others. I was forced to ponder the issue again recently when I listened to an excellent closing session at a biblical counseling conference. The message was biblical, relevant, and powerful. The wise, godly speaker wrapped the entire message around the theme that the power in our ministry comes solely from the power inherent in God’s Word.

His concluding illustration put an exclamation point on his theme as he shared about the Christmas present he purchased for his daughter. The gift arrived two days before Christmas, delivered by the UPS guy. The speaker’s daughter, hearing the UPS truck pull into the driveway, bolted to the door to meet the delivery man. She snatched the package from his hands and raced to place it under the tree, not the least bit focused on the UPS delivery guy. The speaker concluded with the phrase, “We’re just the UPS delivery guy. The real gift, the great present is the Word that we deliver. We’re just the UPS delivery guy!”

I joined the crowd in “Amening!” I loved the illustration. I got the theme—the power is in the Word of God!

More Than Just the UPS Delivery Guy

But later that evening, I started asking myself: Is that the complete biblical picture? Don’t we always say that God calls us to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15), to make our love abound in knowledge and depth of insight (Phil. 1:9-11), and to share not only the gospel but our very own souls (1 Thess. 2:8)? Does the Bible really teach that only the message matters, or does it teach that the messenger’s character and relationship to the hearer also matter greatly?

Once these questions started whirring through my mind, I couldn’t sleep. Thinking about sharing Scripture and our soul, I turned to 1 Thessalonians 2. As I read those twenty verses, five biblical portraits of the biblical counselor emerged from the pages. I saw then what I share with you now:

Biblical counseling involves gospel conversations where we engage in soul-to-soul relationships as brothers, mothers, fathers, children, and mentors who relate Christ’s gospel story to our friends’ daily stories.

God calls us to love well and wisely. That’s why, in biblical counseling, we must weave together in our ministries what is always united in God’s Word—truth and love, which is comprehensive biblical wisdom and compassionate Christlike care. Biblical counseling is not either/or: either be a brilliant but uncaring soul physician, or be a loving but unwise spiritual friend. God calls us to be wise and loving biblical counselors.

We are more than just the UPS delivery guy. According to 1 Thessalonians 2, God calls us to share his Word with the love of a brother, mother, father, child, and mentor. This is vital to our ministries today, just as it was vital to Paul’s ministry in Thessalonica. Based upon 1 Thessalonians 2:2-3, 5-6, commentator Leon Morris notes that:

It is clear from the epistle that Paul had been accused of insincerity. His enemies said that he was more concerned to make money out of his converts than to present true teaching. The accusation would be made easier in virtue of the well-known fact that itinerant preachers concerned only to feather their own nests were common in those days. Paul was being represented as nothing more than another of this class of preaching vagrants.

Morris goes on to explain that in Paul’s day:

Holy men of all creeds and countries, popular philosophers, magicians, astrologers, crack-pots, and cranks; the sincere and the spurious, the righteous and the rogue, swindlers and saints, jostled and clamored for the attention of the credulous and the skeptical.

The Message and the Messenger

That’s why the unity of Scripture and soul and truth and relationship was so vital to Paul. In writing to the Thessalonians, Paul is saying, “You doubt my credentials? Then be a good Berean who examines the message and the messenger—what I say, who I am, and how I relate to you.” It’s the identical message that Paul sends to every young minister anywhere. If you want to validate your ministry, then “watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16, emphasis mine).

Paul writes 1 Thessalonians 2 to affirm his ministry as from God and to affirm the nature of all ministry from God by modeling the sharing of Scripture and soul, by embodying truth in love. It is God’s plan to use his Word powerfully when we share it truthfully and lovingly—like a brother, mother, father, child, and mentor.

The Rest of the Story: Ministering to Trudy and Tony 

What Trudy and Tony need from you is truth and love. They need scriptural insight about sacrificial love applied to their relationship in the context of a family relationship where you share Scripture and your soul as a brother, mother, father, child, and mentor.

What does that mean? What does that look like? In my next two posts for Gospel-Centered Discipleship, we’ll explore in greater detail Paul’s practical teaching from 1 Thessalonians about 5 Portraits of Gospel-Centered Counseling.

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Dr. Robert W. Kellemen: Bob is the Vice President for Institutional Development and Chair of the Biblical Counseling Department at Crossroads Bible College, the Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries, and served for five years as the founding Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. For seventeen years Bob served as the founding Chairman of and Professor in the MA in Christian Counseling and Discipleship department at Capital Bible Seminary. Bob pastored for 15 years and has trained pastors and counselors for three decades. Bob earned his BA in Pastoral Ministry from Baptist Bible College (PA), his Th.M. in Theology and Biblical Counseling from Grace Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. in Counselor Education from Kent State University. Bob and his wife, Shirley, have been married for thirty-five years; they have two adult children, Josh and Marie, one daughter-in-law, Andi, and three granddaughters: Naomi, Penelope, and Phoebe. Dr. Kellemen is the author of thirteen books including Gospel-Centered Counseling and Gospel Conversations.

Father, Forgive Them

Under the scorching heat of the desert, Jesus uttered the first words past his dry, cracked, and bleeding lips, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34). That must have puzzled those standing at the foot of the cross. His body had writhed in agony after being beaten throughout the night, only to be nailed to a rugged, splintered, and wooden cross the next morning. What Father could have stood idly by while his perfect and innocent Son was being crucified alongside criminals? Who is this Son, who cries out to such a Father? Who is this Man who in the midst of being crucified pleads for the forgiveness of his torturers? His cry from the cross is as much a conviction as it is a comfort.

The Conviction

There is no indemnity for us from the crimes committed against Jesus at the cross. We are all complicit. Scripture says that we have all sinned and that our sins must be punished. It is our hands driving in the nails and our fingers pressing down the thorns into his brow. We have unjustly tried, convicted and sentenced him to death. We are spitting upon, mocking and reviling him. When he’d made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem days ago, we cheered, “Hail! Hail!” (Lk.19:37-38) Today we shout, “Nail! Nail!” Humanity proved its total depravity at that cross. Filled with self-righteous bloodlust, we were thrilled to kill the man who had healed our sick, raised our dead, fed our multitudes, and forgave our sins. Yet he pled for our forgiveness. “Father, forgive them” (Lk. 23:34).

But Jesus does not only die by our hands, he also died for us. “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed,” (Is. 53:5). Jesus was not the only victim on that cross. Those who put faith in him become victims because his death was vicarious. He died instead of us. He wasn’t just taking our punches at the cross; he was also taking our sins and bearing the punishment due us. As we murdered him, we witnessed our desperate need of his sacrifice. We didn’t know that we were crying out for blood at that cross because we needed it for our salvation—“for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34).

The Comfort

Death, hell, and the devil all surrounded the Lord Jesus Christ at the cross. The powers of darkness reveled as, “He breathed his last,” (Lk. 23:46b). They had won. Humanity and all of creation would forever remain under their dominion.

But Jesus was not only victim, but willing sacrifice—working out the eternal plan of the Trinity (Eph 1:1-10). The first word he’d cried out was, “Father” (v. 34) and he had said earlier, “My Father is working until now, and I [too] am working” (Jn. 5:17). Jesus was triumphing through the cross the whole time! It looked like the devil was winning, but God was working. “He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets,” (Col. 2:15, MSG). What a fool's parade God made of death, hell, and the grave at Calvary. If they had only known, they wouldn’t have showed up for work that day!

The wickedness of man had peaked at the cross—“but where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more” (Rom. 5:20). We bristle against this sharp rebuke, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). The wickedness of lawless men paved a path of redemption for those who would repent and believe this scandalous gospel. Paul describes this truth as “a secret and hidden wisdom of God” that if the rulers of his age had understood it “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,” (1 Cor. 2:7-8). We didn’t know that we were killing God and that through our wickedness God had planned to secure our redemption! But God offers comfort at the cross! Jesus proclaimed a cure as surely as he pronounced conviction.

The Collide

Conviction and comfort both collide in joy as I marvel at Christ’s words. Psalm 85:10 says, “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.”

We didn’t know that God had set the scene for the most cosmic kiss of the ages: justice and mercy! The force of this kiss shook the gates of hell and rang all of heaven’s bells. Angels longed to look into these things. How could God the Father be completely just to his own character while completely merciful towards rebellious sinners? He did it by the same means the devil used Judas to betray Jesus, the Son—with a kiss (Mk. 14:44).

The righteous requirement of death for our sins by God was met by the merciful provision of God’s own Son as a sacrifice in our place. Justice and mercy kissed at Calvary. Our ignorance of our sinfulness was no excuse. But our ignorance of God’s plan was our rescue! Who would have ever have imagined such a harmonious union? They converged to adorn God’s divine wisdom for rebels who “know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34). “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” (Lk. 23:34). But you knew, O God. You knew.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” – Romans 11:33

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Kileeo Rashad is based in Philadelphia, PA, where he serves his local church in many capacities; speaker, preacher, deacon, and hospitality director. He is currently working on a debut writing project which will address breaking silence on sexual brokenness within the church. Kileeo is also the founder of Restoring the Breaches, a ministry that aims to help churches and individuals facilitate gospel-centered conversations around sexuality.

Overcoming Discouragement in Ministry

Once a month, I have the great privilege of meeting with a number of extremely wise and godly ministers alongside of whom I minister in the PCA. We either discuss a topic or share with one another certain things that are going on in life or ministry. Recently, we shared with one another the ways in which we have learned to deal with discouragement in ministry. Here are a few takeaways from our time together:

1. We must remember that we need to be sanctified

Just as we often say that marriage helps us recognize our need for sanctification in areas that we might not otherwise see, so too in pastoral ministry. When the hardships and trials come, we must remember that we need to be sanctified in certain areas of our lives that we might not see, were the trials and challenges not there. For instance, pastors might not realize sinful anger that remains in their hearts until some unjust action takes place in the church and that anger begins to well up within. Pastors may not recognize their need to listen better or communicate better until some issue arises that helps them see their own sinful deficiencies. God may have placed this trial or challenge in your ministry to sanctify you as a pastor.
 We must remember that we need to grow in wisdom. Just as we need sanctification, pastors need wisdom. A faithful pastor will want to grow as a wise shepherd of the flock. Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom above everything else because he wanted to pastor God’s people with great skill (1 Kings 3:6-9). I have, many times, gone to older and wiser men for counsel as I face trials and challenges in ministry; and, I hope that, to some degree, I am growing in wisdom as I press through one challenge and head into another. The experience gleaned from both successes and failures often brings with it a greater measure of wisdom. We learn this from the book of Ecclesiastes. There were things that Solomon learned from the experiences of life. Often the trials and challenges of ministry serve as the vehicle by which God grows ministers in wisdom.

2. We must remember that we are insufficient for ministry

The Apostle Paul repeatedly told the members of the church in Corinth that ministers are insufficient, in and of themselves, for ministry (2 Cor. 2:16; 3:5: 12:9). This was necessary because there were certain “super apostles” who cast aspersions on the Apostle Paul were boasting as if they were sufficient. When trials and challenges come, ministers feel their own insufficiency. In the midst of challenges with congregants, ministers remember that they cannot change the hearts of the people to whom God has sent them to shepherd. In many cases, the only course of action in a particular trial is go to the throne of grace and plead with the Lord to bring whatever we are facing to a felicitous end.
4. We must remember our calling to ministry. When Timothy began to retreat from ministry, or act in fear, the Apostle Paul charged him to remember his ordination to ministry. In fact, he did it twice. In 1 Timothy 1:6, he wrote, “This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare;” and in 2 Tim. 1:18 he told Timothy, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” Remembering that God has set us apart to pastor His people helps fan the flame of our zeal for ministry. This is essential for ministers to remember when the discouragements come in ministry. Knowing that God has called you into ministry enables you to keep going when things get tough.

3. We must remember that the particular church to which we have been called needs us to be faithful pastors

It has become almost cliche for ministers in Reformed churches to say things like, “Don’t think that God needs you for ministry. He can replace you with anyone He wants.” While this is absolutely true, it is just as right to say, “While God does not need you for ministry, the church to which you have been called does!” The Apostle Paul told the church in Philippi, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account” (Phil. 1:22-24). This is one of the keys to contentment in ministry in whatever church in which you serve. Pastors must remember, when they faced ministry challenges, that the Lord has called them–and not another–to minister in just the right church, in just the right town at just the right time.
6. We must remember that we have been called to suffer. There is a solidarity that pastors have with the Lord Jesus, the Apostles and other faithful ministers who have suffered before them. The Apostles strengthened the members of the early church with the following words: “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). We should not be surprised when trials and challenges come because God has promised that we will suffer. In one of his most astonishing statement, the Apostle Paul, told the church in Colosse, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col. 1:24). In 2 Corinthians 1:6-7, Paul wrote, “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”
7. We must remember that we are in ministry to bring glory to Christ. The ultimate encouragement to help ministers press through the discouragements they experience when they face trials and challenges is that we were created, redeemed and called into ministry in order to bring glory to Christ http://buff.ly/1X7M2Mq The cry of the ministers heart must ever be, “He must increase, I must decrease.” The ministries to which we have been called by God are not for our own glory. So often the discouragements that ministers feel are on account of a wrong view of ministry. A wise pastor once told me, “Too often, we think that we will be happy if we can get people to do what is right rather than simply being happy that we are doing what is right in order to bring glory to God. We do so while we recognize that only Jesus can bring about change in the lives of the members of the church or peace in whatever trial or challenge that we face.” We exist to bring glory to God through exalting the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Rev. Nicholas T. Batzig is the organizing pastor of New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond Hill, Ga. Nick grew up on St. Simons Island, Ga. In 2001 he moved to Greenville, SC where he met his wife Anna, and attended Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He writes regularly at Feeding on Christ and other online publications. Follow him on Twitter: @Nick_Batzig

Originally published at Feeding on Christ. Used with permission.

Growing in Our Love for Christ Together

“Save us, O Lord our God,

and gather us from among the nations,

that we may give thanks to your holy name

and glory in your praise.”

— Psalm 106:47

Missional communities exist to grow in love for God.Missional communities are groups of people that learn to follow Jesus. These communities consist of  disciples, meaning people are being renewed by the gospel through  abiding in Christ. Missional communities are environments to pursue knowing God and the power of his resurrection with others and for others.

“Love the Lord your God”

“And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” — Mark 12:28-31

This is the golden rule or greatest commandment: to love. This is what we were created for and this is the cornerstone of all Christian and Jewish ethics. As Paul writes, "If I don’t have love, I have nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

Love is the only complete reaction to the gospel and expression of the gospel. It was love that motivated God to save us (Jn. 3:16) and love that motivated God’s rich mercy towards us (Eph. 2:4). It is love that we receive in the gospel and it is love that we give because of the gospel. As God pours his love out to his people, the only natural response is holistic love and devotion for him. This is the worship our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies were created to give. God is the one we were meant to direct that love towards.

God demands our affections because he is the only one sufficient to receive them. We are commanded to shift our entire being from love of self to love of God. The gospel requires we relinquish all other idols and masters and give ourselves to Jesus as the one true God.

Growing in Our Love Through Listening

The beginning of Jesus’ answer is not “Love God” but “Hear! The Lord Your God is One.” This timeless command starts with a proper orientation of who God is and of listening to who he is.

A missional community pursues growth in its love for God first by beholding God with wonder, awe, reverence, and need. A missional community focuses on hearing and remembering who God is. The beginning of loving God is a desperate attempt to wade through doubts to discover God himself.

Reading the Scriptures Together

A community will not grow in love for God if it refuses to open, read, and ingest the Word of God. It cannot be a footnote or a side-bar. A community that has any ambition to be more than a dinner club, must come humbly to the Bible as the necessary source of understanding who God is. We grow in our devotion to God by putting ourselves under what he has already spoken and revealed.

The Scriptures carry divine authority. Unlike anything that can be said or spoken, the Bible carries weight. The Spirit works through Scripture like lightening through steel to electrify our faith. It is fundamental to forging conviction and worship.

Ways to Begin Reading the Bible as a Community

• Read one of the Gospels together, asking questions about what is challenging and appealing about Jesus. Who is he and what is he doing? How are people responding to him? How do we respond to him?
• Read through a letter in the New Testament asking four simple questions: Who is God? What is he saying about himself, his work, and his people? What passage do we need to meditate on, remember, and believe.
• Memorize a Psalm together.
• Have a shared reading plan.
• Get into small groups of two’s or three’s to do more study and in-depth discussion on the Scriptures.
• Follow the Christian Calendar (Advent, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, etc.) using the themes and Scriptures as a guide.
• Follow a simple curriculum. NT Wright’s  “For Everyone” series and John Stott’s guides are excellent.

Praying Together

Paul Miller writes: “Prayer is a moment of incarnation – God with us.” But it doesn’t feel that way. Communal prayer is awkward. We don’t know what to do, and we don’t know what to say. We don’t know how honest to be. Furthermore, our prayers are not about God or his presence with us but about us. We typically pray with ourselves and our current felt needs as the focal point. We do this because we are the focal point! To grow in our love for God our prayers must center on God. Our gaze has to move from ourselves to the one who holds all things together. This is the only way to begin a praying life.  Then, when we bring our concerns to God, we are able to acknowledge his presence in the details of our lives and his power to love us in them.

Take a quick survey of Paul’s prayers and you will find overwhelming evidence that Paul doesn’t pray for sick grandparents, stress free trips to the super-market, acceptance into good colleges, or even good jobs. Paul was praying for increased love, greater understanding of God’s love for us, power, thanksgiving for belief, changed hearts, power to defeat sin, joy, peace, and prophecy—among other things. Paul was praying in light of the gospel and for the gospel to advance in and through the church. These are inspiring prayers and they are unifying prayers because Paul’s gaze was not toward the earth but toward heaven. Paul was praying for heaven to break into our everyday struggles, not for the struggles.

Ways to Begin Praying as a Community

• “Pray the Bible”—Read a passage of scripture together, lead people to pray different phrases in their own words or respond to the passage in prayer.
• Lectio Divina (Divine Reading)—an ancient Benedictine prayer format using the Bible. Calls for the group to reflect and meditate on the passage, respond in prayer, then rest in silence.

Tips for Praying in Community

• Have everyone pray short prayers (the sermon-prayer is no fun).
• Have everyone pray in their own voice (no spiritual whispers, please).
• Allow for silence (It’s okay if no one is talking. God is present).
• When people bring up their struggles and concerns about life, regardless of the degree, ask if you can pray for that as a group and do it together. Offer the details of life to God. Pray for God’s grace, love, and mercy to be known in the trial.

Growing in Our Love for God Through Confession

Confession is the act of “saying the same thing as God” or naming reality. We grow in our love for God by being honest about who we are and how we live. We lower the facade and tell the truth: “We are not a peaceful community,” “I don’t like serving the poor,” or “I don’t believe God is concerned or cares for me.”

This is how we bring our true selves before God. In fact, Jesus was not too welcoming to the self-righteous and the hiding. Jesus says that he came for the sick in need of a doctor. The only pre-requisite for joining Jesus’ entourage was to be honest with who you were: a human tainted by sin. Jesus ate with sinners. Jesus forgave sinners.

Ironically, Christian communities have become hiding places for sinners to pretend they don’t need Christ. But we cannot grow in our love for God (with all our hearts, minds, strength), until we tell the truth about our hearts, minds, and strength. This is the beginning of transformation.

Confession is not just about speaking about how bad we or our circumstances are, but about speaking to God about how good God is in our circumstances. Confession is also about saying the truth about God—who he is and what he has done.

King David was the confession expert. He offered God his true feelings of fear, anger, resentment, disappointment, and doubt to God while simultaneously speaking of God’s great works, kindness, and power. Our language of God as a “Rock” and “Refuge” comes directly from David’s confessions and songs. God was his Rock because David confessed his life was on shaking soil and in need saving and God was the only one who could save him. God was David’s refuge because David confessed he couldn’t find rest anywhere else in the world—despite his trying. The Psalms show us how to worship God in “spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4:24).

Ways to Practice Confession as a Missional Community

Read a Psalm of confession together (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, and 130) and guide your community through each stanza or verse. For example, in Psalm 6.

• Part 1 (vs. 1-3): What causes restlessness in you? What troubles you?
• Part 2 (vs 4-5): What deliverance/salvation do you need from God?
• Part 3 (vs. 6-7): What grieves you? What makes your soul tired?
• Part 4 (vs.8-10): Repeat these verses out loud.  God has heard, God hears. God hears our request. God accepts our prayers; he longs to hear them. How has God conquered the enemy and put them to shame? How has God defeated sin? How have you experienced his steadfast love?

Growing in Our Love Through Repentance and Faith

When you consider who God is and who you really are, you will be confronted by your sin and God’s forgiveness. As you press into his glorious grace and taste his kindness, you will hear the call of Jesus in Mark 1:14-15. When Jesus preached the gospel he demanded a response—repent and believe:

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”

When Jesus said “repent” he was saying to turn away not only from sin, but to turn from the lies that sin deceives us with, and to turn towards something truer and better, to turn to Jesus and his true promises. You cannot separate repentance from faith. To repent is reorient your faith. To have faith in Jesus requires a drastic change of direction.

You trust Jesus’ incarnation, his kingdom, and his purposes. As a disciple, you exchange your agenda for his. You let go of your imaginary kingdom for his tangible reign. N.T. Wright describes repentance and belief this way in The Challenge of Jesus, “[Jesus] was telling his hearers to give up their agendas and to trust him for his way of being Israel, his way of bringing the kingdom, his kingdom-agenda.”

Take the deceptive promise of pride, for example. Pride says: “Find and cherish compliments and then you will be confident.” But the gospel says, “Instead of trusting in compliments for confidence, believe that your sufficiency comes from God in Christ.” 2 Corinthians 3:4-6:

“Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent.” 

The gospel says: “Your confidence comes, not from your sufficiency, but from God who has made you sufficient in Jesus.” Faith in the person of Jesus, who he is and what he has accomplished for us, is true saving, changing faith.

Ways to Grow in Repentance and Faith Together 

• As a community, have regular times to reflect together. Ask: Where have we we, as a group, put our trust in things that are not Jesus? Where are we experiencing God’s kindness? Do you think we are drawing nearer to God or running away from God?
• Another way to have this communal discussion is to ask questions along the lines of motive for obedience: Are we doing it as a performance (religion)? Are we doing it to follow the rules or model (legalism)? Are we becoming obedience because we see God’ love more clearly (sanctification)?

The Mission Is to Be Reconciled to God

You might associate missional community with local involvement, justice, and neighborhood evangelism. You’re likely attracted to books like this because you want to live out the cause of Christ in a tangible way. However, you are God’s mission. Christ came to save you, and for you to be reconciled to God. This is the substance of living the gospel.

Many leaders and missional communities forget they are supposed to enjoy God, know his love, and grow in loving him. We forget that we are God’s mission and on God’s mission. You and your community were created to live the gospel in unity with God. To taste the grace of God through repentance and faith. To worship God through confession. To know the depth of God’s love by listening to God.

“Mission is an acted out doxology. That is its deepest secret. Its purpose is that God may be glorified.” — Lesslie Newbigin

Never forget that one of the primary goals of your missional community is to increasingly grow towards Christ.

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Brad Watson (@bradawatson) serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities where he develops and teaches leaders how to form communities that love God and serve the city. Brad is the author of Raised?, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities, and Sent Together: How the Gospel Sends Leaders to Start Missional Communities. He lives in southeast Portland with his wife and their two daughters. You can read more from Brad at www.bradawatson.com.

Adapted from Sent Together: How the Gospel Sends Leaders to Start Missional Communities

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9 Ways to Pursue Spirit-Led Leadership

Leadership is a tough concept to grasp, especially for those that are in or aspire to leadership positions. There are endless perspectives, books, commentaries, and motivational content on how to become a “better” leader. Much of the information is helpful yet it’s insufficient if your aim is to get beyond worldly wisdom. For Christians, Jesus promises much more—to be personally and practically lead by the Spirit as you lead in your homes and workplaces. Acts 1:5 says, “For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Acts presents this beautiful pattern of conversions where the eventual result is being sealed with the Spirit. Look at Acts 2 where the Spirit is poured out at Pentecost. The power of the Spirit in that setting was astonishing, amazing, and bewildering (Acts 2: 6-7). To the onlooker, the role of the Spirit is incredible because the disciples are able to do things that they could never do relying on their own power. As a young Christian, I had to work this out and learn what it meant to have been baptized by the Spirit. Personally and practically, Spirit-led leadership is important. I’m a husband, my wife and I have 4 young children, and I’m the CEO of a fast-growing company with 50+ employees. The truth is, by my own strength, I’m insufficient and under qualified. Yet God has called me to these things, and it’s in these things that I submit to him on a daily basis. Spirit-led leadership is not a one-time concept you just grasp. It’s a daily fight that requires diligence, prayer, and seeking the Lord’s will for all of your life.

As a leader, there’s no shortage of issues to work through. I’d argue that leaders are making hundreds of influential decisions on an annual basis. Often times, if you’re leading, your decisions are affecting many. Whether you call it your conscience or not, you will often know what “feels” right in certain situations. In every tough decision that I have to make, there’s usually a very clear answer as to what’s right and good. It’s not often an easy decision, yet there is a right decision to be made. This requires the leader to be mindful and receptive to what the Spirit is doing in their hearts and minds. In Ed Welch's book, Addictions, A Banquet in the Grave, he speaks of this attentiveness. He gives the analogy that a soldier can hear a twig snap because they’re so alert and aware of what’s happening around them. That’s what Spirit-led leadership is like. It demands we stay alert.

In my study of the Old Testament, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. Leaders succeed because the Lord allows their success. Typically, failure results from disregarding godly wisdom and counsel because of pride and/or idol worship. Build in time to study 2 Chronicles and you’ll get a front row seat into leadership successes and failures. Brothers and sisters, this is not an obscure pattern that we should overlook. Whether in your homes or workplaces, allow others to speak into your life. Let your guard down and allow the Spirit to work through other godly influences in your life. What’s the worst thing that can happen? They’ll find out that you’re a sinner? For the sinner, there’s grace. There’s a Father that loves us so much, that he sent his Son to be the propitiation of our sins. We are washed by the blood of the Lamb and that’s good news to the aspiring leader!

In an effort to share how leadership failures have shaped my wife and I, I wanted to share nine stories and situations that we had to work through. I really struggled to get through these situations, so I’m calling you to learn from my mistakes and the pattern of repentance.

1. Pray through decisions and be attentive to what the Spirit is imprinting on your heart and mind during prayer.

Remember, prayer does not always move the hands of God. It often shapes us and changes our hearts so that our will aligns with his. I’ve also learned to commit huge decisions to prayer for a period of time then to make a decision at the end of that period. I’ve worked with so many ineffective leaders because they’re indecisive. Pray and fast for a period of time then make your decision. I found myself paralyzed by indecisiveness until our CFO started encouraging us to set deadlines for decision making. This came after periods of time where I was not making tough decisions that I had to make.

2. Invite godly leaders and mentors into your life.

The unexamined life is not worth living said Socrates. Godly leaders invite counsel and feedback. They’re also rooted enough in their identity in Christ that the feedback shapes them into more effective leaders rather than defeating and discouraging them. One of my most trusted advisors is our CFO. He’s an elder in the church and provides invaluable counsel and leadership to us. I also have a Gospel Coach. These are men that constantly carry the burden of leadership with my wife and I. I am incredibly thankful for them even when I hate what they have to say! My natural inclination as a sinner is to remove these influences so that I can have my way. I did that for a while yet it doesn’t works if you want to have an impact for the Kingdom.

3. Leaders shape and influence other leaders.

Model repentance to those that you’re entrusted to lead. We need godly influences and role models. While you’re doing this, remember that God does not need you. That’s right, you’re invited to participate by the King, but you’re a dime a dozen. Stay humble my friends.

4. Serve well.

Never settle for allowing others to serve you, especially if they're entrusted to you and you're responsible for leading them well. Practically, get off the sofa and love your wife by doing the dishes, starting the laundry, or making dinner. Make time for that employee that really needs you to affirm them in their work. Never believe the lie that you’re so busy that you’re unable to create space for depth in relationships, especially for those that you’ve been entrusted to serve. Three years ago my employees were constantly telling everyone how busy I was because I was not making time for them. I was lazy and undisciplined in my schedule, which made it appear like I was busier than I was. Be disciplined in your schedule and serve those that God has entrusted to your care. That’s what a good shepherd does. If you need help with your schedule, find tools that other godly leaders have used. There’s a gamut of good resources available.

5. As Jesus did, retreat and take time to meditate in silence.

Often God speaks mightily when you’re quiet and receptive to what he’s communicating. I used to believe the lie that I needed to “do” more and sitting around was not acceptable. What I failed to remember was God’s established rhythm for rest and solitude. Find sacred time and space to pray and meditate but keep yourself from becoming legalistic. Good leaders are flexible and can adapt well when unexpected things come your way because they will.

6. When there seems to be two choices or decisions and you’re not sure which one to make, consider this: God is a good Father that loves to give good gifts.

Maybe he’s giving you the choice. Maybe it’s like taking your kiddos to the toy store and saying “Which one do you want, you could have either?” My Gospel Coach and I worked through this exact scenario just this month. That’s what he said to us verbatim. There’s two really good choices and both honor the Lord. The question really is, what do we want? This goes back to making decisions and not allowing yourself to become indecisive.

7. Be ready to make tough decisions when the Spirit leads.

I remember three years ago when we had an attorney advise us against paying drive time to our staff (they drive to their clients). Legal counsel was “That’s not necessary, you’re protected under the law against having to pay them.” Godly counsel was different. Wisdom says, “Pay your employees for their time, even if you’re not legally obligated. The result will be fruitful because you’ll rightly communicate to your employees that you value them and their time.” That decision affected my wife and I personally because we knew those resources would come directly off what we were paid. Be ready to make tough decisions and know that the Lord honors those that walk upright in heart.

8. Allow yourself to fail.

Failure is feedback and serves as a learning experience. We’re shaped in part by the consequences in our lives. Certain actions and decisions are strengthened by the success that follows, while others are informative due to failure. Learn from failure and document what God is teaching you through those experiences.

9. Think sustainability and listen to the Spirit’s prompting to slow down and reevaluate your pace.

I felt the Spirit calling us to steward our time better, yet ignored it until it became really unhealthy in our lives. If you’re going to be effective, you need to maintain a sustainable pace. I’ve failed miserably at this and have learned so much as a result. Once more, it took godly counsel and wisdom to redeem our chaotic lives and schedules. I can accomplish more today than I did before, yet I maintain a healthier pace, one that allows for rest, leisure, and ample time for the most important, not just the urgent things. Lastly, sustainability involves having established boundaries. Dr. Henry Cloud has a book called The One Life Solution. This was the most influential read in my life as a husband, father, and CEO. I’d highly recommend it if you’re struggling with sustaining as a leader because of boundary issues.

Spirit-led leadership is attainable. It’s not perfect nor is it easy. It’s what we’re called to as leaders, whether you’re leading in your home or workplace or in any other context for that matter. We know the Lord works mightily in those who hunger and thirst for him, so let’s be leaders who wholeheartedly seek the Lord.

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Rob Fattal serves as CEO and BCBA in high-touch boutique firms providing educational services to children. He started his career as a credentialed teacher and served in both the public school system and at the university level. He and his wife have 4 kiddos of their own and have led and coached MCs and MC leaders. Ultimately, they love the church and hope to serve it well.

4 Lessons for Making Disciples from Jan Hus

Editor: In our Family History Series we are seeking to understand how Christians of the past have pursued making disciples. We want to connect the church’s current efforts to make, mature, and multiply disciples to its historical roots as well as encourage the church to learn from her rich past. So far in our series:

• 4 Simple Ways Fred Elliot Discipled His Children
• 4 Lessons from St. Patrick for Making Disciples the Irish Way
• 3 Counter-Cultural Lessons from Elisabeth Elliot
• 2 Principles for Living Free from J. R. R. Tolkien
• 4 Convictions for Boldness from John Knox
• 3 Essentials of Discipleship According to Herman Bavinck
• 4 Gifts to the Church from Mechthild of Magdeburg
• 3 Lessons from John L. Girardeau for Crossing Divides

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Yesterday I meandered through Prague with my friend Nuno. Nuno used to be a student of my father’s in Lisbon, Portugal, and we now oddly find ourselves sharing a few days together in Prague, his adopted city. Prague is everything I thought it would be: craftsmanship in every detail of the city—the rails, the sewer caps, the windows, the roofs, the palaces, and the cathedrals. We walked through cramped cathedrals with thousands of others who could barely get enough space to take photos. We walked over the Charles Bridge, passed snake handlers, beggars, artists, and tourists rubbing statues for good luck and blessings. We escaped the crowds when we went to the cemetery of the Jews and the oldest standing synagogue in Europe. It was preserved, unlike the jewish people in Prague, during world War II because Hitler wanted it to be a museum or monument to the extinct race. On our walk, I learned the mixed history of this city. It was central in trading, the arts, and religion. Now it’s central in human sex trading, the arts, and atheism—the brand of atheism that refuses to even think about God.

Then we stepped into a nondescript building donated and built by a shopkeeper where the Bible was to be preached in Czech. I found this fact both inspiring and disappointing, what were all the other cathedrals for?

An old Czech woman walked us into the vast silent chapel where, 700 years ago commoners, business owners, nobleman, and university students pilled in by the thousands to hear the gospel in their language, many for the first time. They say it seats 3,000 people. Historians note it was normal for upwards of 5,000 to gather there. To the side of the pulpit where Jan Hus preached the gospel is a deep, ancient well. Literally. On the walls you can see slight remnants of hymns etched in stone where people sang the gospel in their language. The room itself was powerful. More powerful than the massive gothic cathedrals crammed with tourists, because of the significance of what happened in that space and in the souls of thousands hundreds of years ago.

My friend Nuno and I, who hope to give our lives to seeing everyone in our cities experience the deep well and life found in Christ, sat quietly meditating on the reality that we wouldn't be where we are in life without the ministry and discipleship of Jan Hus.

Jan Hus was a Czech priest and a professor at the Prague University which was established by Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor. Hus was given the privilege of being the preacher of the Chapel of Bethlehem where he was charged with delivering sermons in the language of the people. This is what Jan Hus did and the impact was astounding. It’s amazing how such a simple act can have massive global, historical implications and how at the time it was seen as a small charitable work of an entrepreneur.

As Hus preached the gospel, people responded. As he declared the gift and mercy of Christ, his convictions hardened against the system which kept people from receiving that. Jan Hus stood as a sign post in one of the Church’s major forks in the road. Would the church be given to the lives of everyday people? Would she include them or would she be kept exclusively for the ruling class? Hus, emboldened by the fruit of the gospel, knew instinctively that it should be given to the people. He worked to have the Bible and his works published into Czech and allowed every believer to take part in communion—to drink the cup and eat the bread for themselves.

Jan Hus came into the reformation movement after Wycliff and before Luther and Calvin. On my tour through his small apartment attached to the chapel, I saw a piece of art that depicted Wycliff lighting a spark with stones, Hus lighting a candle, and Luther carrying a torch. Hus stands firmly as a major player in our family history. Luther would say later that he was Hus’ “disciple” despite the time and place that separated them.

In the fall of 1414, Hus was called to attend the counsel of Constance and speak before the rulers of Europe and the Catholic Church about his beliefs and teachings. He was granted safe passage, but once he arrived and shared his beliefs they demanded he recant his teachings and his reformation ways. Hus was soon put into prison to await a trial. At the trial, he refused to recant unless they could prove his error through the Scriptures. In the summer of 1415, he was condemned a heretic and sentenced to death. He was burned publicly at the stake in the center of town and in the shadow of the cathedral. Dying, he sang hymns to God as worship before breathing his last as flames blew in his face.

Here are just four lessons on gospel-centered discipleship I learned from Jan Hus in the old city of Prague:

1. Unleash the Artists to worship God through their work in the Cities

“I entreat all artisans faithfully to follow their craft and take delight in it.”

This is so evident through out the city. The wealth that flowed through Prague and the vision of Charles IV attracted  hundreds of artists to build temples, bridges, theaters, clocks, statues, and palaces. Jan Hus continued to press the creative tradition and took it further. Ultimately God commissions the artisans to create beauty in the world, notnobility or bishops .

2. We want to be pastors for respect and admiration, but instead we lose our lives and it is sweet

“I was anxious to take the holy orders to have a life of comfort and the admiration of the people.” 

Hus’ desire to become a priest was rooted in his desire for comfort and respect. He saw the life of a priest accurately in that time. Instead of the life he envisioned, he found the gospel to be everything his heart desired. As a pastor, his life models mine. Honestly, my heart often seeks admiration from people through my vocation. I don’t simply just want to be liked but revered. Hus’ life and writing teach me to be honest about that while pursuing the greater calling which is to give your life away and find the deepest life possible in the gospel.

Hus stood in front of kings, emperors, and a pope knowing he could have their affection by recanting his beliefs. Yet, he sang hymns to God amidst flames in death. He found God to be more worthy of worship than himself. Then, he found God more worthy of worship than his peers.

3. The Gospel is For Everyone

During Hus’ lifetime, many church leaders were separating people into categories—who is important and who is not. For them, the church existed for the wealthy and powerful more than the people. The church played the role of power broker and power keeper more than a place for everyone to know the love of God and to love one-another.

This is our family history, too. We cozy up to the influential and use the uneducated, the burdened, the insignificant as collateral damage in kingdom building. Many times we are more like the Catholic church of 700 years ago than we would like to admit. We prefer to imagine ourselves and our family history beginning with Jan Hus; however, all of it is our history. And some of it ought to be a caution to us as we build kingdoms, seek the influential, and disregard the un-cool. This problem isn’t new—Jesus critiqued the Pharisees, Paul fought Jewish leaders to include Gentiles, and James rebuked the church for keeping special seats for the “important.”

Jan Hus teaches us that the gospel is for everyone and for every aspect of life. The gospel is grace, mercy, and faith—not power, money, and control.

4. Proclaim and Die for the the Gospel alone 

“I hope, by God's grace, that I am truly a Christian, not deviating from the faith, and that I would rather suffer the penalty of a terrible death than wish to affirm anything outside of the faith or transgress the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I love how Hus describes his reasons for persevering to death. He would not let go of what he knew and believed to be central to his faith. He died for refusing to give up anything central. He didn’t die for the fringe, he didn’t stir up conflict, and he didn't try to start a revolution.

He was fixated on making the gospel clear, understood, and experiential. He wouldn’t recant that. He couldn’t stop preaching the gospel. Because to stop proclaiming the gospel andto stop inviting people to the communion table would make his life in Christ void.

The gospel of free salvation and mercy in Jesus was controversial and it still is. As we make disciples this has to be our focus, too. We have to put all our efforts into making the gospel central and clear.  As we make disciples in community and in our cities, we need to create a space for the gospel itself to be controversial. Step into conflicts about those things that without you would not be a Christian.

Conclusion

We are in the midst of many conflicts, disagreements, and issues in our culture. I pray that we are fighting with the gospel in mind and for the gospel. I pray our hope in talking about sexuality is rooted in the gift of God’s love in Jesus. I pray that our discussions about racial reconciliation are directly sourced in the reconciliation of God to man in Christ. I pray that our motivations in government are founded on God’s love for all men and women. Above all, I pray that we are motivated and empowered by the Spirit of God to make the gospel plain and clear to everyone around us.

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Brad Watson (@bradawatson) serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities where he develops and teaches leaders how to form communities that love God and serve the city. Brad is the author of Raised?, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities, and Sent Together: How the Gospel Sends Leaders to Start Missional Communities. He lives in southeast Portland with his wife and their two daughters. You can read more from Brad at www.bradawatson.com.

Fulfilling the Law of Christ Through Biblical Counseling

“Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” —Galatians 6:2 (HCSB)

The mental health community recognizes September as National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. As a biblical counselor and former police officer who responded frequently to calls for service involving human tragedy (i.e., suicide, domestic violence, child abuse, rape, etc.), I’m reminded of the urgent need for spiritual hope in our communities and of the church’s role in providing the hope that so many desperately need.

Over the course of my law enforcement career, followed now by several years of pastoral and counseling ministry, I have grown increasingly convinced of the power of the gospel to not only save us in eternity, but to redeem us in this lifetime, including our disordered thoughts and troubled emotions.

When we acknowledge this, we are not denying the role of appropriate medical care—to be human is to possess both a body and a soul. Neither are we making outlandish declarations about the cure of organic mental illness through prayer and the reading of Scripture alone. But to deny the gospel’s power to restore the mind is to suggest that for most of human history, that is, until the advent of psychoanalysis and psychotropic drugs, that we were without any tangible hope for the restoration of our minds or the alleviation of emotional suffering.

A History of Care

“Counseling belongs in and to the church of God.”

This mantra of the greater biblical counseling movement raises eyebrows in an age that dismisses the authority and sufficiency of Scripture while uncritically assuming the efficacy of secular mental health care. This phenomenon exists despite serious questions about secular treatment methodologies based on research outcomes that cannot always be reproduced and counseling theories that do not otherwise align with Scripture.[1]

Through the effective use of media and its dominance in academic and medical arenas, secular psychology has a firm grip on societal mental health structures. Accordingly, mainline and evangelical churches have too often surrendered control of counseling to those who adhere to theories established by Freud, Jung, Rogers, Skinner, et al. The result is that today’s most common approaches to counseling reflect a societal shift away from a biblical worldview while embracing a medical model of mental health care that more often than not establishes a pathology for nearly every problematic behavior and emotion.

Dr. David Powlison observed that following the Civil War, “Professional jurisdiction over Americans’ problems in living gradually passed form the religious pastorate to various medical and quasi-medical professions: psychiatry, neurology, social work, and clinical psychology. . . .  Psychiatry and psychotherapy displaced the cure of souls.”[2] While the debate concerning the church’s ongoing embrace of biblically questionable counseling theories continues, what is clear from Scripture and church history is the church’s responsibility to provide biblically faithful, clinically-informed counsel in the context of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20).

A Biblical Foundation for the Care of Souls

Galatians 6:2 is one important verse that urges the church to re-engage in the counseling task. Paul instructs the church, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” To understand this verse and apply it properly, we need to consider what “burdens” Paul had in mind. Were these burdens primarily physical (i.e. food, shelter, and clothing), or more holistic? Further, we need to consider what Paul meant by the “law of Christ,” because for Paul, its fulfillment was the desired outcome.

Although a few scholars find that 6:2 is independent of 6:1 because of the absence of a connecting article in the Greek text (as happens at 6:3), Paul’s point does not arise in a vacuum. Restoring a “brother” who has fallen into some type of “wrongdoing” is accomplished in part when burdens are shared. How then do we practically observe this passage? For many people, a season of intentional and systematic counseling of God’s word is central to their discipleship.[3]

It was in this context that Paul called upon the church to “bear one another’s burdens” and in so doing “fulfill the law of Christ”—a law that, according to Paul, transcends the law of Moses (3:2-3). To this point, Bruce wrote, “The ‘law of Christ’ is for Paul the whole tradition of Jesus’ ethical teaching, confirmed by His character and conduct and reproduced within His people by the power of the Spirit.”[4]

This law of Christ was nothing less than the command of Jesus for believers to love one another and their neighborsas they love themselves (Jn. 13:34; Matt. 22:39).

With the call to love one’s neighbor in view, the command to “carry one another’s burdens” takes on clearer meaning and may be applied more holistically to the whole man. Carrying one another’s burdens certainly includes meeting physical needs, but it does not end there. The spiritual and emotional concerns of those who suffer fall within the scope of Paul’s intent and may be properly addressed through biblical counsel.

Rapa agrees in his commentary on 6:2 that sin is, at a minimum, included in Paul’s admonition. He wrote, “Joining together to restore one who has sinned or to prevent others from being ‘caught in a sin’ in the first place is a way that believers may ‘serve one another in love’ (5:13; cf. Ro 15:1-3).”[5] Moo, on the other hand, takes an expanded view of “burdens” in 6:2 to include “all those problems that afflict our brothers and sisters”(emphasis added).[6] In light of Christ’s command to love, Moo’s interpretation should be preferred.

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all those who believe and by it sinners and sufferers experience transformation rather than conformity to the patterns of the world (Rom. 1:16; 12:2). Paul understands, however, that people live in the context of a world marred by sin and

‘[‘ therefore will go on experiencing the varied effects of the fall, both physical and non-physical (Gen. 3). For this reason he calls upon his audience to fulfill the law of Christ by carrying one another’s burdens in whatever form they may come (i.e. sin and suffering).

Tim Lane and Paul Tripp wrote,

“Kind people look for ways to do good. Patient and faithful people don’t run away when people mess up. Loving people serve even when sinned against. Gentle people help a struggler bear his burden. Galatians 5 and 6 are filled with hope.”[7]

As with Moo, Lane and Tripp see Christ-like love as the source of hope in 6:2 along with a call to enter into the suffering of others across the full spectrum of human struggle. This is the essence of biblical soul care and why the church must re-consider its obligation to provide intentional forms of counsel.

The Stakes Are High

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, in 2013 there were approximately 43.8 million adults aged eighteen and over in the United States with some form of diagnosable mental illness.[8] That statistic excludes children, which would only serve to increase the extraordinary figure.

While the definition of what constitutes “mental illness” is not a settled debate, that people struggle with a multitude of problematic behaviors and emotions that help fuel significant societal concerns is evident even if the source of those troubles are also debated (i.e. biological or spiritual). Whatever the cause of one person’s mental, behavioral, or emotional trouble, the gospel is everyone’s preeminent need and those needs are often properly addressed through a word-based counseling ministry.

With significant numbers of those diagnosed or diagnosable being found within the church at large, the issue of mental health and mental illness is one that affects the mission of making disciples. This ought to communicate to the church an area of immediate gospel-need and missional opportunity, yet many people, both inside and outside of the church, perceive the church to be less than responsive. This communicates to some a casual indifference to emotional suffering or even an unbelief in the sufficiency of the word of God to actually transform the mind (Rom. 12:2). The church can and must do better.

Paul’s command to bear one another’s burdens is founded upon the law of Christ, which calls us to love one another. As we’ve seen in our survey of Gal. 6:2 and the surrounding verses, the burdens Paul demands we carry run deep and the law of Christ that calls us to love our neighbor is necessarily wide.

The church has historically responded well to the physical suffering of others through such things as food pantries, clothing closets, and soup kitchens. The past one-hundred years or so have not been equally distinguished by soul care through counseling. With the advent of quality training programs available at both the academic and lay levels, inadequate preparation is no longer an reasonable excuse to ignore this critical ministry concern.

Whether that counsel is provided for through a lay ministry, pastoral position, or some other arrangement such as a para-church ministry is a separate matter for the local church to decide. My hope is to persuade Christians that counseling ministry is not an something the church should outsource to the state, rather it fits squarely within the command of Paul in Galatians 6:2 to fulfill the law of Christ by carrying the burdens of one another, whether physical or spiritual-emotional.

The church must recall that if it does not love people with the gospel in this way, that the secular world waits with a “gospel” of its own—and its “gospel” cannot save. Paul states this more positively in Rom. 15:14, where he writes, “I am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.”

[1] A.D.P. Efferson, “How Many Laws Are Based On Psychology's Bad Science?,” The Federalist, September 8, 2015, accessed September 14, 2015, http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/08/how-many-laws-are-based-on-psychologys-bad-science/.

[2] David Powlison, The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2010), 22.

[3] John Strelan, “Burden-Bearing and the Law of Christ: A Re-Examination of Galatians 6,” Journal of Biblical Literature 94, no. 2 (June 1975): 266, ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost.

[4] F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians (The New International Greek Testament Commentary), Reprint ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013), 261.

[5] Robert Rapa, ed., Romans - Galatians (The Expositor's Bible Commentary), Revised ed., ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 634.

[6] Douglas J. Moo, Galatians (Baker Exegetical Commentary On the New Testament) (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 376.

[7] Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp, How People Change, 2nd ed. (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2008), 214.

[8] “Any Mental Illness (AMI) Among Adults,” National Institute of Mental Health, accessed September 6, 2015, http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-mental-illness-ami-among-adults.shtml.

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Josh Waulk is the Founder and Executive Director of Baylight Counseling, a nonprofit biblical counseling ministry in Clearwater, Florida. He is married with four children, three of whom are adopted. Josh earned the MABC and is now pursuing the D.Min. in biblical counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is ACBC certified.

5 Ways to Discern a Shared Call to Ministry

When my wife and I first met, I didn’t know what I wanted to do after college. In fact, I was failing out of college. Now eleven years later, my wife is a pastor’s wife and any other children that we may have in addition to our daughter will each be a pastor’s kid. There was a whole host of things that happened in those eleven years, but one event made me say, “I think God is calling me to ministry.” I felt the internal call like many before me. Soon after that, I was looking into seminary and committing myself to four years of work. At times, seminary nearly made me want to commit myself. Prior to this, my wife and I had conversations about this call—what it meant and what it would mean. We talked about how it would change our lives, but we didn’t fully comprehend how. We can both attest to how God’s calling shapes us. It changes who we are, how we live, and how we maneuver through life. We essentially filter life through God’s calling on our lives. For example, if we are called to be a parent, we process decisions through that parental calling. This is a bit of what happens to the family of those called to ministry. Everything filters through that calling. My wife’s overall calling to Christ, to be my wife, and to be our daughter’s mother is also mingled with my calling to vocational ministry. My daughter will not be able to do certain things and will live a certain kind of life because of my calling. That’s why the call is a shared one.

A Shared Call

Much of what can be read in regards to assessing a call to ministry focuses on the individual person being primarily called into ministry, which makes some sense. However, other people are affected by a man’s call. I asked my wife several times, “Do you feel called to be a pastor’s wife?” That question was usually a part of the larger conversations and prayers regarding what God was leading me towards. Many who assess church planters will say to pay attention to the planter’s wife because she will tell the truth about calling and readiness. If that’s true, God calls not just the man, but his family as well.

Many pastors whose wives didn’t share the call could explain the importance of that shared call. For the pastor’s wife who doesn’t feel called to ministry, the pressures of ministry would only be expanded. Two people united in the covenant of marriage cannot successfully go in two, entirely different directions in terms of their service to Christ—at least not in separate directions that are not mutually supportive.

For children, I could not ask my daughter if she felt called to be a pastor’s kid. She was just born one. Nevertheless, my call will alter the rest of her life. Her walk with Christ and conversion will be vastly different than her mother’s or mine. Her call to be a pastor’s kid came through the sovereign will of God forming her and bringing her to us. The same could be said about all of us who consider ourselves to be partakers of the shed blood of Jesus. None of us, before we were saved, contemplated feeling called to be disciples of Jesus. Yet we were called. In the same way, no Christian should sit down to decide whether they are called to share the gospel, because every Christian is called to share the gospel in light of the Great Commission. Therefore, callings are entirely about God’s design and less about our feelings. Our feelings may reflect God’s design, but they are not sovereign over that design. Thus, we can see how children can also be a part of this shared, family calling.

In what can be considered an effort to speak to the ramifications of this shared call, the Apostle Paul exhorts the unmarried to stay unmarried and encourages marriage if one cannot exercise self-control (1 Cor. 7:8-9). Later in that chapter, he explains why he encourages the unmarried to stay unmarried, “The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided,” (1 Cor. 7:32b-34a). Paul says taking a wife and a family adds refinement to one’s calling. A married man cannot do certain things, because he has a responsibility to his wife and children. The Church has a husband and he died for her so we don’t have to. God as Father and as bridegroom exemplifies for us the importance that he places on those two responsibilities. In other words, God is concerned about husbands and fathers being about the business of being husbands and fathers. Thus, a pastor who is a husband and a father, as he works out his primary calling as a proper disciple of Christ, is first a husband and a father, before he is a pastor.

Additionally, it seems that Paul affirms this refinement of calling that comes through having a family. One could call it a limitation, but that could be misunderstood as a negative thing. Everyone who is trying to discern what God is calling them to is asking God for limitation of that calling or for God to set aside the things to which they are not called so that they might be limited to the thing to which they are called. Therefore, I think it is safe to deduce from Paul’s words as well that there is a collective or family calling that is placed on a couple and their children.

In light of this, it is crucial that those seeking to be in ministry or even those in ministry discuss the following with your wives:

1. Does your wife feel called to be a pastor’s wife? It can be helpful to look at other couples in ministry and examine their lives, their responsibilities, and their ministries. It can also be helpful to talk to those couples about what it is like being in ministry, both the good and the bad.
2. How will this impact your future or current kids? If you have kids already, how will this impact their lives? Will they be able to adjust to this new life? Perhaps it may be appropriate if they are old enough to process it, to ask what their thoughts are about this change. If you don’t have kids yet, in what ways can you start to pray and prepare to be raising PK’s?
3. Is your wife’s support simply an affirmation that she supports whatever you want to do or does she feel a shared passion for people and seeing them grow in Christ? There is a huge difference between the two. If the answer is the first, then it could mean that she will end up at least frustrated or possibly even resentful. To some degree, she should probably share in your passion for people and their growth in Christ.
4. Will you both be able to accept the change in financial means from what you either lived with before or what you expected to be living with? This can be challenging when switching from “secular” employment to vocational ministry. It could also be a challenge if you had an expectation for your financial life that is different from the life of vocational ministry.
5. Is your family ready to open itself up to a congregation? It is crucial to a healthy Christian life to be known by our brothers and sisters in Christ. However, in pastoral ministry, the pastor’s life as well as his family’s lives are on display for the congregation. This can be played out through opening your home in hospitality to those in the congregation or just the visibility of the little conversations with your wife, the outbursts of your kids, and the like.

In recognizing the shared calling that a life in ministry is, we can do well for our families and our ministries to keep these things frequently in our prayers and conversations. This gets to the root of the health of our souls when we talk about how on board our wives and children are with what God has called us to. It is near impossible or at least just incredibly challenging to be effective without a shared sense of calling in our marriages and families. If we take the time in our preparation for ministry to pray and talk through these things, God will bless that. Even if we find ourselves having been in ministry for some time, we would do well to begin or continue to pray and talk through these things. May God bless you in your service to him, whatever and wherever that is!

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Nick Abraham (DMin student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) lives in Navarre, OH with his wife and daughter. He serves as an Associate Pastor at Alpine Bible Church in Sugarcreek, OH. He is a contributor to Make, Mature, Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus and blogs at Like Living Stones.

Delegating Authority for Mission

The floor was remarkably dirty. And with the closet door opening and electrical outlet plugged, I was ready to rectify the situation. The colloquialism for all aboard in the Torrey House is everyone on the couch and our more agile child deftly made her escape from harm’s way. Judah is less deft and his poor legs could not get him to the couch’s safety. Without looking I started the vacuum and heard the emanation of cries from my little son. It is funny how things that should not be scary can be terrifying.

As I began to clean up the mess, the terror in Judah’s voice was matched by facial expressions and leg stomping tension. His eyes locked onto the vacuum moving seemingly on its own in conquest of the floor. His gaze was set. It took a stern “Judah!” to snap him out of his gaze and set his eyes upon me. Trying to be brief, I simply say “trust dad.” This is a little different from “trust me” but I’ll get to the importance of this distinction after a brief Biblical excurse.

Immediately upon seeing Judah’s face and hearing my words the text of Jesus walking on water struck me afresh (Matthew 14; Mark 6; John 6). Many people have latched onto Matthew’s version of the story because of the added details concerned with Peter,

24 but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. 25 And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” 28 And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:24-33)

More ink than could ever be necessary has been spilt on Peter’s behavior in this passage. Ranging from “getting out of the boat,” “keep your eyes on Jesus,” to “keep the faith,” pastors wax moralistically about the only character to which church members can seemingly relate. However, that focus loses sight of what actually occurrs in the text. In this text, Christ is relating to Peter. He does this by establishing his authority over the water, passing it to Peter, and doing it all merely with His voice (an important emphasis of Matthew’s marking Jesus as the new Moses).

In Judah’s case, my stern rebuke was meant to drive his attention from the vacuum to my hand which was guiding the vacuum. I was in control of the vacuum and no harm would come to him. In Peter’s case Christ had spoken peace to everyone in the boat. Peter seeking proof of the person before him requested from Christ a thing only Jesus could deliver—control of the water. Peter had faith in Christ. He had it before he stepped out of the boat and he had it when he asked Christ to save him. So why does Christ say that Peter doubts? Peter’s doubt was with respect to what Christ has bestowed upon him. Peter’s lack of faith was a smudge on Christ’s authority to delegate authority (something that gets addressed with finality in the Great Commission).

Judah responded much the same way as Peter. He looked at me and heard my words. He saw my hand pushing the vacuum. And then he ran away as fast as possible in fear of the vacuum attacking him in its conquest of the floor. Judah had misunderstood that when I said “trust dad” I was communicating to him assured protection and implied authority. Peter knew the identity of Jesus but was unconvinced about his ability to relate His authority.

The book of Matthew does not leave Peter here however. Throughout the Gospel Jesus is committed to delegating His authority. It is in Matthew’s gospel that the infamous “on this rock I will build my church” (Matt 16:13-20) is stated to Peter. Though debated across many lines, Christ here bestows upon Peter the authority and ability to accomplish the spread of the gospel in the book of Acts (not a permanent “vicar of Christ” role). Yet, Christ is not done with delegating the authority of His church. In the Great Commission Christ echoes 2 Chronicles 36:23 (the conclusion of the Jewish Scriptures) in delegating authority to his disciples over the entire earth. This authority has trickled down throughout the church age. The delegation of Christ’s authority remains with Christians today. Like Judah and Peter, the church is called to acknowledge the authority it has been given. This is the way we relate to Peter walking on the water of Galilee. We go out on mission with authority.

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Joshua Torrey is a New Mexico boy in an Austin, TX world. He is husband to Alaina and father to Kenzie & Judah and spends his free time studying for the edification of his household. These studies include the intricacies of hockey, football, curling, beer, and theology. You can follow him @benNuwn and read his theological musings and running commentary of the Scriptures at The Torrey Gazette.

Women in the Local Church: A Conversation

Today we are hosting a conversation with Lore Ferguson, writer and speaker. This conversation centers on how the local church can make, mature, and multiply stronger women disciples.

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Gospel-Centered Discipleship: There are many opinions about what Christian women need most in and from the church. In your opinion, what's the greatest need for women from the church?

Lore Ferguson: What women need most is the same as what men need most—to understand and see the power and effects of the gospel made clear in their lives. I think we often think of the men as the gospel proclaimers and the women as the gospel enactors. Men teach and preach, women serve and build. Even if we wouldn’t draw such clear distinctions with our words, it is the way the local church seems to function. In the same way the gospel is for all people, though, the effects of the gospel are for all people all the way through.

GCD: Pastors have not always honored or considered the needs of women in the church. How can pastors grow in their understanding of the needs and meeting the needs of women in the church?

Lore: Ask us! Whenever my pastor is asked by another man how to lead his wife, my pastor says, “I know how to lead my wife. You ask your wife how to lead her!” It’s the same with us. Keep an open dialogue with the women in your local church (not just the wives of your pastors/elders). Many pastors seem to have similar personalities and marry women with similar personalities/giftings, which enables them to minister well to women of the same personalities. But the local church is made up of every personality and gifting. Ask women—aside from your wives—how you can serve them and help them flourish.

GCD:

What are the biggest hurts for women in our churches that we are overlooking and missing?

Lore: Every woman is different, so my answer here might not be helpful in the sense that it might reflect more what’s going on in my heart than in the average woman’s heart. I think there seems to be a universal desire for us to be loved and cherished as an essential part of the body. This includes being heard and not having to fight for a voice, but recognized as someone who has an equal and distinct voice (the essence of complementarianism). We understand the distinct part, and feel that often, but we don’t feel the equal part quite as much.

GCD: As a follow up to that, I’ve heard from women that they desire a voice on the front end of the decision process as opposed to hearing about it after the fact and being asked for feedback. How would you recommend pastors change their approach in decision making to include a broader range of voices and specifically women?

Lore: If the approach is that they’re asking women’s input after the decision, or the only women they’re asking on the front end are their wives, I’d just say invite more women into the front end fact-finding mission. I regularly have men from my church seek me out for thoughts on how we minister to women in different contexts. In no way do I assume I’m part of the final decision making process, but I hope and pray my words are considered as a part of the water that ship sails on. As I say further down, a woman’s role is to help, but sometimes we’re better helpers on the front end of things.

GCD: One of the biggest conversations in the church has to do with women's roles and opportunity in the church. Many women feel there isn't a role for them in the church, yet when someone reads how Paul praises women's involvement in the church, we can't help but ask—How did we get here? Why is our experience of church seemingly different than Paul's?

Lore: There seems to be a lot of fear in some complementarian churches. Fear of the messiness of life on life, fear of sexual brokenness, or fear of being seen as a place where the women wear the pants (whatever that means). What that results in is the staff can become a Good Ole Boys Club instead of a place where we see, value, employ, and utilize the gifts of women in an equal measure. I don’t mean women are given equal authority—eldership in the local church is clearly for men, but the disparity in staffing and investment in women does not reflect the equality we say we believe.

GCD: From the outsider's eye, there seems to be a rise in women bloggers, women's books, ministries, and bible studies. How have these helped in empowering women? In discipling women? And what are the dangers of these in relation to discipleship in the church?

Lore: In regard to empowering women, the internet/publishing world has empowered every voice, so I don’t know that we’re moved the conversation that far forward as a whole. For every woman who speaks out, there’s another voice speaking against her. I’m not sure the quantity has helped the quality. I do think that all the voices might have harmed the discipleship of women because it’s taken discipleship out of the local context and made it global. Women are getting their theology, encouragement, teaching, etc. from blogs and books in an unprecedented way. Meanwhile face to face engagement within the local church has suffered.

GCD: In this conversation, there seem to be polar extremes of complementarianism and egalitarianism. Have those terms clouded the conversation or helped the conversation in empowering women?

Lore: They’ve done both. Whenever we have terminology for something, it helps make the conversation more clear. The problem is when our experience differs from the actual definition, and I think the complementarianism/egalitarianism debate is a cesspool for disparate experiences and definitions. We’re talking past one another most of the time instead of really sitting down and understanding culture, context, history, and how the Bible speaks to all people for all situations.

GCD: Women on staff at complementarian churches are the minority and, when they are, they are rarely in roles beyond children and women. How can complementarian churches seek to empower women better in staff roles?

Lore: Hire them! The benefit of elder led churches is you have men whose responsibilities include shepherding and discipling men. We would think it was foolish if that wasn’t a qualification for an elder, but we don’t have women in those official roles (or if we do, they’re in charge of “women’s ministry” which is a fuzzy, unhelpful term). We need women whose job it is to disciple and shepherd women. Not necessarily lead women’s events, organize meals, or teach VBS or kids church. We need women who will walk faithfully with women in discipline, holiness, Bible study, teaching, etc. One thing to note is that I’m speaking from the context of larger more urban churches with more resources, you’re going to be able to hire more women. In a smaller church where hiring more women isn’t possible for various reasons, it should just be on the minds of the leaders there that they’re going to need an extra measure of intentionality in making sure their women are shephered and are discipling.

GCD: I've heard many women express a lack of discipleship while they watch men experience it. How does this happen? How is it fixed?

Lore: I don’t think the lack of discipleship is a distinctly female issue. Discipleship is going to be hard no matter our context or gender, otherwise we wouldn’t have needed to be told to do it so emphatically by Christ. Men experience a lack of discipleship too, but I think what happens is, especially in complementarian contexts, men are more visible, so we see the resources being poured into them in a more visible way. If there is a lack though, this is how it happens: many women only know how to contextualize the gospel in one situation or life-season, i.e., their marriage or home. The result of that is you have single women and empty-nest women who don’t have specific people within the sphere of their influence with whom they’re walking in discipleship. But it secondly happens when the local church doesn’t prioritize the discipleship of women. It’s fixed by prioritizing it in your staffing and ministry paradigm.

GCD: How have you heard gifted, godly, and strong women express their desire to serve the church and their elders?

Lore: In every way and every day. Women were uniquely designed to be helpers, so we see possibility in every situation. We’re not just helpers in the sense that we come alongside what’s already happening, though, we’re also helpers in the sense that we see things men just don’t see. That’s actually a beautiful thing! We don’t want to do the same thing as the men do, or overtake their God-given roles. We do desire to play our equal and distinct part though.

GCD: There seems to be an unnecessary awkwardness in male and female relationships. Many fear inappropriate relationships. How does the gospel free us from this fear and empower our relationships?

Lore: All through the New Testament Paul uses shockingly inclusive language to refer to the church, familial language. It’s not shocking to us because we’ve used it for two thousand years, but to the early church, calling one another brother and sister and father and son without the blood bond would have been shocking. In the western church we’re very accustomed to holding the opposite gender at arms length—which actually provides more room for fear than if we drew our brothers and sisters close and engaged in the messiness of family. There is righteous wisdom when it comes to avoiding sin, or the appearance of evil, but there’s also so much we miss out on when we hold our brothers and sisters away from us and don’t engage their distinctiveness from us. The gospel is marked by hospitality, by being drawn close to God (who is the most holy of us all!). By drawing us near, He is saying, “Your soiled self doesn’t sully me. I will engage that and cover it and love you all the more through it.” I say embrace that awkwardness, press through it, hug generously, listen fearlessly, counsel wisely, and live as though you’ll give an account for every action. My lead pastor does this better than almost any man I know. He simply isn’t afraid of women and always draws near to us. As much as he’s able and it’s appropriate, he closes the gap.

GCD: What levels of leadership and responsibility can a woman have in the church without encroaching on a pastoral role?

Lore: This is a tough one partially because I think it does depend on the pastor(s). If you have strong and humble men leading, men who will listen and lead well, a woman has a lot of freedom within those bounds. But if you have timid and/or young immature men leading, there’s going to need to be more restraint by the women. As far as biblically and theologically, that’s an issue for the local church elders to navigate.

GCD: A misconception seems to exist that complementarian and strong, gifted, and godly women don't go together. In this misconception, egalitarianism seems to draw the strong women. How can complementarianism strengthen women?

Lore: By majoring on the majors. We believe that women are equal and distinct, but too often we only feel our distinctiveness, our otherness. If we believe women are equal, then we have to begin to treat them as such. And—forgive me for encouraging men to be like Sarah—but we have to do it without fearing what is frightening (I Pt. 3:6). It will be messy or difficult—but so is gardening, child-rearing, and building a house, and we know we don’t do those things in vain.

GCD: Men can be taught, encouraged, and impacted by the gifts and lives of women. This seems lost in opportunities given to them to teach class, lead mixed small groups, and even in everyday church relationships. How do we move away from this gap?

Lore: Again, I think it needs to be reflected in staffing/ministry paradigm. We don’t need wide here; we need deep. By that, I mean we don’t need a huge women’s ministry. We don’t need more conferences or retreats, etc. We need to staff women who will go deep with few, disciple them in a long-suffering, difficult way, so those they disciple are empowered to do the work of the ministry. The more we are building healthy, discipled women, the more confident those women will be in engaging men in right and biblical ways, and the more happy they’ll be to submit to God’s good design for them as equal, distinct image bearers.

GCD: Paul highlights many women as “partners” with him in the gospel. It is safe to say that women don't often feel that way. What would a great partnership look like to build the church without compromising a complementarian approach?

Lore: If complementarian churches would gather and staff an equal amount of women as men, I think they’d be surprised at how effective the ministry of their local church would be. We seem to assume a church with strong leadership means a church with more men on staff, but staff isn’t eldership. Our elders/pastors ought to be men, but we should have a clearly reflected equality throughout the rest of our ministerial staff. In the same way as a marriage in which there is a clear partnership is effective, the local church that reflects this equality would thrive. And I don’t mean it would thrive in the sense that it would grow leaps and bounds (though I think it would), but their people would thrive under the firm, godly, nurturing, gentle, wise unification of their male and female leaders.

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Lore Ferguson is a writer whose deepest desire is to adorn the gospel in everything she says and does. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas, and is a covenant member at The Village Church. Lore writes regularly at Sayable.net, and you can follow her on Twitter @loreferguson.

Confessions of a Recovering Missionary Hipster

We had just moved from a place far, far away. Our life was anything but ordinary, or at least, so it seemed. Temperatures didn't get above the 0 degree mark in the winter, and most people in America (particularly people in American churches) that we talked with thought we were either crazy or some sort of modern day super hero. The accolades were nice, honestly. I was pretty good with the humble response.

"It's a calling"

"We're just being obedient"

But the fact remained, it was an unusual life and I more or less liked it.

The Unconventional Life

The word hipster has been rebirthed in the past few years. Hipster used to refer to someone who was into jazz music. Now (at least from what can I gather from today's kids), a hipster is someone who is intentionally unconventional and aloof from the popular and the ordinary. I think the modern idea mostly involves odd beards and indie music. I'm not 100% on that though. It does seem that the term still has a a lot to do with music. Apparently, a hipster (as defined by this generation) can't listen to the same music everyone else does. As soon as a band gets too popular, they're finished in the hipster community. Sell-outs. Mumford and Sons used to be a hipster band, until they won a Grammy. I used to boast to my kids that I was listening to U2 in the early 80's when they were still an underground, post-punk band from Ireland that no one had ever heard of. Unimpressed, I was promptly dubbed a U2-hipster and we moved on. The things we learn from the kids these days.

Hear what I'm saying. I loved my work in Ulaanbaatar. College students crammed into my living room every week, sharing the Kingdom of Jesus with young people who had never heard about Jesus in that way before, late night discussions with young men about life, family, girls, and the future: I lived for this. I still miss the work, and deeply, deeply miss the Mongolian people who had become such a part of my unconventional life in Central Asia.

We’re the Missionary Hipsters

Unconventional. That's an American living someplace other than America. There's something strangely appealing about unconventional. To me, the original U2 hipster, anyway. Dealing with time zones and talking about travel plans and concerning one's self with language and culture and lamenting the lack of peanut butter. There's something appealing to the human ego about that. Any expatriated person would admit it, in an honest moment. There's an embraced identity. We're not the norm or the ordinary. We're the missionary hipsters.

Last year was the year our life as Americans abroad ceased. We are no longer recognized as missionaries. It was a tough year at many levels, and the culmination of difficulty and displacement hit me one morning last summer. We had moved back to America and were house-sitting for a friend. I was taking my coffee on the front porch early, before the South Carolina summer sun could gain too much heat and intensity. I watched home after home come to life that day. Little white sedans leaving cookie cutter houses going to 9-5 jobs somewhere in Greenville. I had this sinking feeling that this was now my life. Normal. Ordinary. American.

I didn't want that. I liked my life before.

Wait . . . I take that sentence back. I liked my identity before.

Grace in the Ordinary

That moment of sinking into a sea of ordinariness was over six months ago. I've learned something really important since then. Grace is the water that makes up this sea. In reality, Grace is demonstrated in the ordinary much more than it ever is in what we call extraordinary. I'm finding it astounding, really.

I shouldn't be surprised. The Bible gives illustrious examples of grace in the everyday. From an ordinary man like Abraham and an ordinary public speaker like Moses to an ordinary young lady like Mary and an ordinary fisherman like Peter. There is remarkable beauty in the things we see every day, no matter where one lives. I'm learning to look for it, to see it and to celebrate it. The best stories, the one's that carry real meaning and have real impact, are the one's that celebrate ordinary people doing ordinary things, demonstrating amazing grace and beauty. It's there. It's really there.

I am seeing that now.

Small white sedans and cookie-cutter suburban houses contain a thousand flashes of grace and when looked at from just the right angle, breath-taking beauty is there.

My eyes are now wide-open to this. I'm looking. The great thing is that I don't have to look far to see.

I still miss my old life and ministry—and painfully miss my Mongolian friends and colleagues. But, I no longer want to be aloof from the ordinary. I don't need to be unconventional. Embracing the everyday and the stuff of earth and life is a better way to live. God is in the ordinary. Grace is in the ordinary. Our lives are a series of simple stories with simple beginnings that a sovereign, wise and good God is moving toward a glorious end.

That's not ordinary or cookie-cutter at all. That's magnificent.

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Bernie Anderson and his wife Renee’ have been married for 25 years, and have two grown children. After serving in the pastorate for 13 years, the Andersons moved to Mongolia, where they served college students and did leadership development for 8 years. Currently they are living in South Carolina and Bernie works with World Relief, as a director for church partnership. Bernie regularly blogs, posts photographs and tweets at branderson.me and @mongolman.

Originally posted Branderson.me. Used with permission.

The Legacy of a Disciple-Maker

Ode to a Mentor

My mentor’s name is David. We met at a local pastor’s gathering where he took voluntary interest in me. I needed a mentor and he wanted to make disciples by caring for the next generation of pastors. For the next year and a half, David poured into me. He taught me the importance of sharing life stories, hunting one other’s sin, and giving each other grace.

1. We shared life stories together.

One of the first things David and I did at our monthly meetings was share our life stories. David wanted to model life-on-life discipleship, and the best way to start this was by retelling our histories. This meant we shared big events, little events, and even those embarrassing moments we didn’t want anyone to know about in a stream of consciousness. It lasted ninety minutes to two hours. The who listened asked three questions at the end:

• What did you hear as David told his story?
• Is there any place where your story intersects with David’s story?
• What would you like to tell David in light of his story?

I remember David encouraging the pattern of shepherding leadership in my life. That meant a lot to me as I was approaching pastoral ministry. I encouraged his fatherly discipling of many men throughout his pastorate. It did not take long to become true for my relationship with him as well. Over the coming months we continued to talk about pastoral ministry, family, and God together. For as much as we shared life together, I wish we had shared even more.

2. We hunted each other’s sin.

Sharing our life stories with each other provided an opportunity to confess many of the ways we’ve failed. We were open about our sins so that we could hold each other accountable in our sin patterns going forward. This included anything from asking each other the blunt questions to searching out each other’s motivations. The purpose was always to help bring healing.

As we were beginning this fight against sin together, David pulled Timothy Keller’s book The Meaning of Marriage off the shelf. He read a quote about granting each other a “hunting license” to hunt out sin in each other’s life. There were only a handful of people he’d given this license too, and now I was one of them. He, of course, claimed a hunting license for my life.

David didn’t use his license often, and I only used mine once jokingly on him, but I was glad he had it. Instead of causing me to hide my sins when I was around him, it helped me open up so that he could shine some light on my darkness. This light was a mixture of first admonishment followed by grace.

3. We gave each other grace.

What I admire most about David’s discipleship of me was his continual reminder of my need for God’s grace. He helped me not only understand the gospel, but relish the grace within the gospel. I am a sinner and that’s just how it is for now. But my great savior Christ Jesus has come to save me because he absolutely loves me. He has gone so far as to trade his spotless record for mine, so that now God sees me as he sees his Son. Holy. Righteous. Clean. What better news is there than this?

David was especially good at making grace practical to my everyday. Instead of wallowing in my sin, he taught me to release my guilt as I prayed Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” When I shared with him how I wanted to be more satisfied and joyful in Christ, he pointed me to the book Pure Pleasure by Gary Thomas. There I began to learn all the ways God has provided for his people’s joy.

My mentor lived a life of grace. When he was diagnosed with stage four cancer, nothing about that grace-filled life changed. He went much quicker than expected, but I got to write him a letter before he passed. In that letter it was my turn to remind my mentor of his need for God’s grace. His wife shared through mass-email that she had been reading letters to David from all the men he had mentored throughout the years. He would just listen and say, “My boy, that's my boy.” I don’t cry often, but I cried when I read this. Even at the end, my mentor loved his sons.

My mentor’s legacy of discipleship lives on.

I’ve tried to take the model David gave me for mentoring, and use it as a framework for discipling others. Already I’ve experienced the blessings of sharing life stories, the responsibility of having a hunting license, and the joy of giving the gospel grace. I’ve seen others grow in ways David must have seen me grow. I want to be the type of mentor David was to me. He loved me and was an enormous example of Jesus to me. He is now present with the Lord, but the impact of his discipleship lives on. Praise God for mentors.

—

Jonathan M. Romig (M.Div., Gordon-Conwell) is the associate pastor at Immanuel Church in Chelmsford Massachusetts (CCCC). He blogs at PastorRomig.blogspot.com and recently finished teaching New City Catechism to his adult Sunday school class and self-published his first ebook How To Give A Christian Wedding Toast.

3 Ways to Grow Leaders

It was one of the best days I'd ever had in ministry. I was walking on clouds. All of my hard work, hours of leading, giving, investing, listening, coaching, and directing came to fruition. There was a wash of relief over me. I didn't lay awake at night wondering how things would succeed or what would happen. Quite the opposite in fact, I knew things would be fine. They would be better than fine actually. I was so happy and excited I don't think you could pull the smile from off of my face. No, it wasn't the day I graduated from seminary. It wasn't the day I started a new ministry or planted a church or launched a regional training center. It wasn't even the day my first book was published.

It was the day I quit my job.

Now, lest you think I was quitting a position that was emotionally horrific and destructive it was quite the opposite. I was quitting a fantastic position. For several years I had been working with a large church as the junior high pastor. Week-in and week-out I had the joy of teaching these students the Bible, loving them and their families, doing fun and crazy student ministry things, going on mission trips, and enjoying the grace of God in watch teens grow up in the Lord. It was a great job at a great church. So why was I so happy to quit?

I was happy to quit because I realized there were strong, capable, gifted, godly leaders developed who could continue the work pastoring those junior high students and their families without me. I was thrilled because the intern I worked long and hard with was ready and able to step into my role and move the mission forward without the ministry missing a step. I could move on to doing other things that would allow the church to cover new ground and grow in new ways while not neglecting the shepherding work that had already been established.

I learned that "growing a garden" is one of the most enjoyable and fruitful things that you can do in planting a church. In fact, I might be so bold as to say that unless you are working to train up and develop leaders in your church plant you probably aren't being faithful to the biblical calling you have as a planter.

Paul exhorts Timothy, "What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2).

For church-planting ministry there has to be an eye towards growing a garden of faithful leaders who will be able to pass on what they have been taught so that the stream of gospel growth goes forward. Leadership training and development is one of the greatest joys in ministry. It's also one of the most essential works of the ministry.

What does that look like in the context of a church plant? Let me suggest a practical ways to develop leaders within your context.

1. Sow For What You Want To Reap

I want to warn you about assuming this point or placing it on the back burner of how you develop leaders. Whether we intend it or not sometimes the thing we long to develop in others is the thing that is missed most. They get caught up in our technique, our style, our delivery, and sometimes our appearance. By our practice alone the people that we are developing can assume that what they see externally is the focal point of what we want to develop in them.

But developing leaders is more than just replicating clones of ourselves who do ministry like we do ministry or who give sermons the way we give sermons. The development of leaders is the development of a culture, and to develop a culture we have to think with the end in mind.

My hope is that you want to develop a gospel culture in a place. I hope that your leadership development is fundamentally about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ for us. That his good news of liberation from sin, Satan, and death by mean of his life, death, and resurrection stand at the core of what you do. I long to see people that would come and encounter the grace and love and hope and transformation of Christ through the work of church planting.

If that's the goal then you must begin sowing that sort of culture in the leadership that you seek to develop. They must know, see, and experience a gospel-saturated leader. Their development must be means of development in the gospel. It should not be a development merely in technique or style but in the reality of what it means to be a dead person brought to life by the grace of Jesus.

Sure it's possible to develop leaders that will emulate your style or approach or technique. Just be sure that you will reap the kind of leaders that you sow for. If you want theological strong, gospel-saturated, wise, missionary-minded leaders, then sow for that.

2. Water Frequently

Leadership development is never done in a vacuum. You can't just toss a text book at a guy and say, "Read up on this and then we will plop you in ministry here." He might assimilate information, but he won't grow as a leader.

Developing leaders requires investment on your part. You have to nourish and help them as if you were watering your garden on a regular basis. It requires life-on-life relationship. Where will the struggle as a leader? Having them read a book and then regurgitating the information back to you won't cut it. You have to see them in the field. What's their predominate gifting? You won't know unless you're laboring alongside them. Where are they anxious, struggling or worried? You can't know that if you aren't with them.

All of this to say you, as the planting leader, have to be the one to nourish them as well. Don't leave this work up to others. Come along side those you long to develop, give them access far beyond what you would give others, let them see the way you've walked through the hardship of ministry and family and life. Nourish them with encouragement, affirmation, and involvement. Give them roles that are just above their head and then cheer them on when they succeed. As a leader do all you can to nourish and water the leaders you are hoping to develop.

3. Give Up Control

So much of growing a garden is out of the gardeners control. They can sow, water, weed, fertilize, and cultivate. But that doesn't automatically mean that growth will happen. Growth is in the hands of God.

So it is with leadership development. You can spend years pouring into others and never see the development that you desired in their life. On the other hand, you can put in a few weeks and find someone ready to take your job already in hand.

The point I want to make is that you have to give up the control-complex that often surrounds church planting.

Leadership development requires losing control of the timeline. It means that you have to be patient with people, continue to pour in the nourishment of God's Word and wise counsel, but it will take time. A two-year program might not be long enough to develop some leaders. Matter of fact a four-year program might not do it either. The point is sometimes you have to give up controlling the "when" of leadership development.

It also means you have to give up control of the role that you hold firmly in your hands. If you've developed leaders well there will be others that will be better suited for some (if not all) of the tasks you have. Give up control of those tasks. If God gives growth to another leader who is a superior preacher, let the man preach! If a better counselor, administrator, servant, or even entrepreneurial church-planter arises from your garden then give up control of them and deploy them further for the sake of the gospel.

Survival Is About Development

Surviving in church planting isn't about getting off the launch pad. It's about getting a church to the next generation. It's about the hand-off of what has been entrusted to you being entrusted to faithful leaders who will in turn hand-off the gospel to faithful leaders. Church planting isn't successful if it doesn't endure past the first generation. This is why leadership development is so essential. It's also why leadership development is so enjoyable.

As I have watched over the years nothing is more enjoyable and exciting to me in ministry than seeing the people I've spent time grow into the leadership roles I've held. It's let me grow into new spaces, and it's allowed the gospel to move forward in the church in new and vibrant ways. Go and grow a garden!

—

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.

Used with permission from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s publication The Church Planting Survival Guide. For more information visit www.mbts.edu or to obtain a copy contact The Center for Church Planting at 800-944-MBTS (6287).

Being a Non-Conventional Intern

Most guys who finish seminary either intern or land their first ministry position in pastoral ministry; that or they continue cleaning pools, painting, or selling insurance. Either way there is this natural progression forward in pastoral ministry: seminary graduate, intern, youth pastor, associate pastor, then senior pastor. Sure enough, some people fill multiple roles at the same time—like seminary student and pastor. But for the most part this is the progression. Not for me. I’m a non-conventional intern. I graduated with my Th.M. from Dallas Seminary in 2009, then entered my first pastorate in Tulsa as a High School Pastor. After four years, I departed as an associate pastor and have been a church planting intern with Joe Thorn at Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois for the past year.

I remember one of the first times I shared this story with another pastor. They asked: “Aren’t you taking a step back?” Well, yes, and at the same time, no.

I’m kind of a trendsetter—a trend that no doubt others will adopt as well and already are adopting. Still, I imagine many probably wonder what’s wrong with me. Could you not get another position in pastoral ministry? Actually, I did. I had a number of churches asking me to candidate, some of them pretty notable too. I almost accepted an offer from one to be an associate pastor, but God drew us to Chicago, and we’re still discerning exactly why.

Many pastors will discover that if they wish to get involved in church planting then they will likely step back and serve in an internship and/or a residency first. It’s becoming a normal expectation for guys, wishing to church plant. This is wise, as I’m discovering, because it helps assess fit for this unique ministry.

Why should an experienced pastor be willing to intern? What should an experienced pastor expect from an internship? And how does an experienced pastor handle this transition? Let’s take these questions head on.

Why should an experienced pastor be willing to intern?

The benefits are numerous, beyond what I’m giving here, but here are three of the most significant benefits.

First, accepting an internship role builds in much needed rest. Every experienced pastor needs a sabbatical. And too few have ever experienced one. An internship is a great way for you to get a quasi-sabbatical. Let me tell you: being an intern is a breeze compared to being a pastor. I devote about twenty to twenty-five hours a week to my “official” responsibilities. The rest of my time is devoted to study, writing, and prayer. If need be, I would work, but the Lord keeps providing other avenues for our family’s provision. Because of this, I do what I can to honor that provision and serve the church “unofficially” as well. But still, an internship is like a part-time sabbatical, and you need one of those if you’ve never had one. If you’re like me, you were putting in sixty and sometimes eighty-hour weeks. You might also have been managing major anxiety issues like I was. This is a great way to get the rest your body and soul need.

Second, it offers you time for healing. Not everyone needs this, but I did. I experienced some amount of pain coming out of my last pastorate. It has taken time to rebuild confidence and process some of my feelings, expectations, and to learn more about my weaknesses that needed sharpening and skills that needed developing. My internship has offered time to rebuild that confidence, get fresh perspective from new friends and colleagues, and learn more about myself.

Third, it offers you time for personal development. You need fresh eyes on you telling you how you need to grow and what you need to learn. An internship gives you the opportunity to have godly men you respect and love sharpen you. At least that’s been the outcome for me. It’s given me ample time to study. I’ve been pushed to read a systematic theology and numerous other books on prayer, preaching, shepherding, and more. In turn, I’m given more time to pray, opportunities to preach, and people to shepherd. All of this will profit you.

What Should An Experienced Pastor Expect From An Internship?

I’m learning more and more that much of life is managing expectations, and my expectations need to match others’ expectations for me.

If you’re someone who preached every week in a pastorate, well, that’s just not going to happen in an internship. I’ve had half a dozen preaching opportunities during the last year. Of course, for others this may seem like a windfall. Nonetheless, you have to be ready and willing to accept that you won’t be filling the pulpit as much. That takes humility and patience, especially if you are set on fire by God to preach the Word.

People will also look at you different than when you were a pastor. Some of that has to do with your own public relations campaign at church. My elders haven’t broadcasted my pastoral experience. That’s actually a good thing for me, because being a pastoral staff member at a mega church is more like being a program director than a shepherd. Yes, I sure did shepherd a lot, but, tragically, most of my time was devoted to administration and events. Ask me how to manage thirty small group leaders and put together an event, and I have you covered. Ask me to counsel an addict or a marriage on the cusp of divorce, and you’ll find me hemming and hawing—all the more reason to be an intern.

If you think an internship is going to be one extensive hangout with the pastor—in my case a smoke—or that you are going to get to do everything with that pastor, then you may be disappointed. That’s not to say that I don’t spend a good chunk of time being coached by Joe. I do, but there will also be times where I won’t see him much because we have different rhythms and responsibilities in ministry.

There are couples that need to meet privately with him. He also needs private study time. At times I study parallel with Joe or do research for him, but I don’t expect him to hold my hand. That’s part of the benefit he gets from having an intern; he has someone to share the ministry load.

Furthermore, the lead pastor is not the only person you’ll learn from. I’ve learned a lot and enjoyed spending time with our associate pastor as much as I have cherished time with Joe. Likewise, one of our lay pastors/elders has been a constant source of encouragement and learning.

How Should An Experienced Pastor Handle This Transition?

First, you should handle the transition with humility (Ph. 2:5-8). A pastor who is willing to step back and put himself in such a teachable position must possess an attitude that says, “I care about protecting the reputation of Christ.” Having local eldership functioning as covering and accountability is a necessary precaution for testing, training, and affirming a church planter. The last thing we need is puffed up entrepreneurs creating the next big public relations nightmare for Jesus and the church.

Second, you must keep in mind the priority of providing for your family. Internships don’t pay a lot. I’ve got a wife and three kids, so I can only keep this up as long as the Lord provides the funds to do so. Likewise, there is an end in sight. You can’t be a perpetual intern like Ryan on The Office. There’s been times where I’ve stepped back and examined whether I need to work part-time or pursue full-time employment during my internship. So far I am 2/3s through and God has faithfully provided along the way, with a little help from freelance writing and editing here and there. Regardless, a man’s first priority is to care for his family. If you’re not managing your household, then you shouldn’t be managing God’s (1Tim. 3:4).

Third, remain teachable (Pr. 19:20). Your covering will call you to repent of sin, or at least you better hope they do. You’re not going to commit to a year of intern ministry without revealing a little bit of the indwelling sin you wrestle with. You’ll also need to ask lots of questions and earnestly ask for feedback. Being teachable means being tactical. As you receive instruction, you need to determine how to best deploy it so it bears fruit in your future ministry.

Being a church planting intern is a rewarding experience. If you’re someone who feels called to church planting, but you’re hesitant because being an intern or resident might be “taking a step back,” I encourage you to check your heart. It may say more about you than the role.

—

Joey Cochran, a ThM graduate of Dallas Seminary, is the church planting intern at Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois under the supervision of pastor Joe Thorn. You can follow him at jtcochran.com or @joeycochran.

Flee Youthful Passions, Pursue Christ

A GREAT HOUSE

Blowing on the gospel embers of young Timothy’s heart, the Apostle Paul fans into flame the grace-producing calling on the Ephesus disciple-maker. After laying down gospel thundering truths—the Word that is not bound (2:9), the Jesus who is not dead (2:8), the truth of the gospel that must be guarded (1:14), and the grace of God that strengthens (2:1)—Paul exhorts Timothy to “[cleanse] himself from what is dishonorable.”

“Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work” (2 Tim. 2:20-21).

No one wants to be the dishonorable vessel in God’s house, right? In essence Paul is saying, “Your leadership ceiling is capped by your character.” This logic is incontrovertible with the number of texts claiming that discipleship is both a sharing of our doctrine and our lives:

“So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess. 2:8).

“Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16).

“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice” (Matt. 23:2-3).

So how does Paul want us to cleanse ourselves? How do we move from the cardboard toilet paper roll in God’s house to the fine china?

THE TWO “YOOTS”

“So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22).

The church I pastor is full of twenty-somethings. We are 75% single! Although I’m on the wrong side of thirty now, I am still young in this wonderful vocation called “pastor” (Timothy was around 36 or so when Paul wrote this letter to him).

Youth carries a sidearm called “passion.” This is a good thing. It’s easier to redirect passion than to have to ignite it. Paul postulates a portrait of two youths for us: one pursues youthful passions and the other pursues Christ-likeness. He wants Timothy to flee the one and pursue the other—this is how he “cleanses himself.”

It is putting off the old self and putting on the new; it is mortification and vivification; it is Matt Chandler’s “what stirs your affections for Jesus and what robs you of your affections for Jesus?”

What are these “youthful passions” we must flee from?

UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. SKEPTICISM. LUST. DEBATE.

1. Flee unrighteousness; pursue righteousness

Our generation, specifically those of us that grew up in the church, railed against some of the legalistic teachings where Christianity had less to do with enjoying and worshiping God and more to do with obeying all the rules—even some that were made up. What happens, typically, is the pendulum swings too far and all of a sudden we are on the other side where there are no rules. Any church or authority that tells me I can’t do something gets labeled “fundamentalist” and we just go to the next one or leave the church altogether.

So now alcohol use, sex outside of marriage, what we do, where we go, and what kind of entertainment we enjoy have little to no boundaries even though biblically some lines are drawn.

The disciple and disciple-maker pursues righteousness in both our teaching and our lives, whether its in season or out.

2. Flee skepticism; pursue faith

We are easily skeptical of authority, of church, of anything institutional although it is God who created these institutions. Whereas doubt is a natural effect of a pursuit of truth—of a sincere faith—skepticism is the youthful passion of someone who just doesn’t want to commit to anything or submit to anything other than their own desires.

Where biblical love “believes all things [and] hopes all things” (1 Cor 13:7), youthful passion judges all things and scoffs at all things. Under the guise of pursuing truth the skeptic is skeptical; always blurred by the periphery and never fixing faithful eyes on Jesus—the Author and Perfector and object of our faith (Heb 12:2).

3. Flee lust; pursue love

Not necessarily sexual lust, but idealized relationships. We get on social media and see how great everyone’s marriage is, or boyfriend is, or church community is, and never hear about any of the problems. We think our relationships should look that way. Our kids should always be smiling and “super cute”; our spouse should always look “date night ready”; our small group should always be “so much fun!”

We lust after what we don’t have and covet everyone else’s experiences.

Youthful lust is transient, flakey, and surface-level; ready to move on when it takes some work, but the pursuit of biblical love is committed, raw, gritty, rock-solid, immovable. Lust takes, love gives. Lust is impatient and passive; love is patient and kind (1 Cor 13:4), long-suffering with one another as we all follow Jesus.

4. Flee debate; pursue peace

This becomes the natural outflow of the previous three. If we are relativistic on moral issues and never concerning ourselves with obedience, and if we aren’t pursuing a sincere faith but easily skeptical, then we have things we can debate.

Rules are in place to foster peace, but if there are no rules than you don’t have peace. If we aren’t unified in our humble, faithful pursuit of Jesus together, but always questioning one another’s motives, there is division, not peace.

The youthful passion of debate rages, especially in the church, but “he himself is our peace” (Eph 2:14), and he makes both those far from God and those near, one new peaceful people. Iron sharpening iron is one thing; humble communication and confrontation sharpens, it makes mature disciples. However, continual and perpetual divisive debate flowing out of a lustful, skeptical heart is just a dishonorable vessel in the church that should be stuck in the junk drawer somewhere never to be brought out.

Do you want to be the gold honorable vessel in God’s house? Remember then, again—the Word is not bound (2 Tim 2:9), Jesus is not dead (2:8), the truth of the Gospel must be guarded (1:14)—and the grace of God strengthens (2:1)! Flee youthful passions, and pursue your Christ.

—

Jim Essian planted The Paradox Church in 2011 and serves as Lead Pastor. The Paradox is an Acts 29 Network church in Downtown Fort Worth, TX. Jim played eight years of professional baseball in the Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Detroit Tigers organizations prior to planting a church. Jim and his wife, Heather, have two girls, Harper and Hollis.

Sacrificing for Our Idols

IDOLATRY: AGAIN

In his early years, Theodore Roosevelt traveled to Europe with his family. On one trip, they went hunting for a few days, but Roosevelt couldn’t hit a thing. He later wrote:

One day they read aloud an advertisement in huge letters on a distant billboard, and I then realized that something was the matter, for not only was I unable to read the sign but I could not even see the letters. I spoke of this to my father, and soon afterwards got my first pair of spectacles, which literally opened an entirely new world to me. I had no idea how beautiful the world was until I got those spectacles. I had been a clumsy and awkward little boy, and while much of my clumsiness and awkwardness was doubtless due to general characteristics, a good deal of it was due to the fact that I could not see and yet was wholly ignorant that I was not seeing¹

Idols make us blind. They not only make us blind, but also make us blind to our blindness. As many have noted, idolatry often turns good things into god things, where we seek ultimate satisfaction or security. I am not saying that every pastor who reads this is, right now, committing idolatry. I am saying, alongside men like Calvin, who said that our hearts are idol-making factories, that ministry idols can be and are a regular temptation for those in vocational ministry.

Colossians 3:1–10 is a great passage of Scripture to give us new “spectacles” to understand what is going on inside our hearts. To the extent that Christ is not supreme and preeminent in our hearts and lives, and to the extent that we are not seeking the things that are above, something else will be preeminent and our hearts will seek things here below. This is why it is so crucial for ministry leaders not only to feed others with the glory of Christ and the wonder of grace, but also to nourish their own souls at the feet of him who is the fountain of life. This is one of the reasons why Paul says that covetousness is idolatry (3:5). We are seeking life and fullness in someone or something other than God.

Keep this in mind: covetousness always says “more!” and never says “enough!” However, when the gospel of Christ and the glory of God capture our hearts, and when we see the supremacy of Christ and rest in his sufficiency, hearts that are content in the gospel will always say “enough!” and never say “more!”

Because I struggle with this idolatry in my heart, and I venture you do too, I am often tempted and often succumb to thinking like this: “I know I have Jesus, but I’d be happier if more people were sitting in the pews, if more people were grateful for what I do, if more people gave so we could have a larger budget or build a larger building, so that I could have more of a reputation and be known and admired by more people.” More. More. More. During the times when I am not sinking my heart deep into the “It is finished” of the gospel, I long for more, am never satisfied, and never say “enough.” What is the “I’d be happier if . . .” of your heart? Seriously. Take a moment and reflect on that question.

Reflection is important because ministry leaders make such enormous sacrifices for their idols, whatever they may be. All idols demand that we sacrifice in order that they will bless us, so in order to experience the blessing of recognition, power, comfort, control, acceptance, or any other idol, we sacrifice our health, our families, our relationships, and even our own walk with Christ. This is why, I believe, when we are pursuing the idols that promise more and always deliver less, we will be filled with the anger and lying and bad-mouthing of others that Paul describes in verses 8–9.

The consequences of this idol worship are that, deep down, leaders may be filled with anger or constant disappointment with others because they are not able to deliver what the leader is looking for. The consequences for the leader are a dry and hard heart toward the Lord and often wrecked health and strained relationships with other leaders, with other people in the congregation or ministry, and even with his own wife and children. Idols subtly bring death into practically every sphere of life.

If the idols we are pursuing are blessing us, we will feel alive and successful—and prideful. If the idols we are pursuing are cursing us, we will feel despair and death. In the moments (and there have been way too many) when I have thought about leaving the ministry, the Lord has usually been quick to point out that I have been building my own kingdom and pursuing false gods. The disappointment and discouragement that I have felt has been more about my reputation being hurt and my selfish kingdom being crushed than about genuinely feeling I wasn’t called to ministry. I have realized that I have needed to repent for acting like some kind of Pharaoh and forcing the lambs under my watch and care to work hard to build Clay Werner’s kingdom, rather than prayerfully advance God’s. It’s as if God has been saying, “Clay, let my people go!”

Here’s what I want to say: when you realize that your internal idolatry is driving your heart and ministry, you don’t change by mere willpower. Moving forward isn’t about sin management, but about worship realignment. Deep down, at your core, Christ must become more satisfying than anything and everything else. Thankfully, the Spirit is eager and willing to help reveal Christ to your heart in such a way that you’ll treasure Christ above all things and endure even when the kingdom of God around you seems so weak and slow.²

THE KINGDOM OF GOD REMAINS FOREVER

Kingdoms come and kingdoms go, but the kingdom of God will remain forever. The danger of ministry is that pursuing our own kingdom can be easily disguised by using language from the kingdom of God.³ Too often, leaders themselves are blind to the reality that they are making ministry “their world” rather than a place of nourishment for God’s people and equipping for God’s mission. However, once the little kingdom is forsaken and repented of, the kingdom of God that is invisible yet inevitable, seemingly insignificant but yet incomprehensible in its power and breadth, will provide the deepest joy and the greatest security, especially as the eyes of our hearts remain fixed on its King.

^{1. Quoted by Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Random House, 2001), 34 (emphasis added).↩ 2. Some helpful material for diagnosing idolatry are David Powlison’s “X-Ray Questions” in Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition through the Lens of Scripture (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2003), 129–44; Dan B. Allender and Tremper Longman, The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions about God (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994). I have also found John Owen’s books Communion with God, Meditations on the Glory of Christ, and On Being Spiritually Minded very helpful in cultivating a heart of worship and adoration.↩ 3. See Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More: Living for Something Bigger Than You (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2007), 72–82.↩} —

Clay Werner (MDiv, Westminster Seminary in California) is senior pastor at Lexington Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Lexington, South Carolina, where he lives with his wife, Liz, and their five children.

From On the Brink: Grace for the Burned-Out Pastor by Clay Werner. Used by permission of P&R Publishing, http://www.prpbooks.com/.

Pursuing Accountability in Community

We are commanded to grow in our faith and to look more Christlike as time goes on. However, this command was never meant to be something we just did by ourselves. The Bible constantly expects that we will be a part of a local community and that there will be people who know us and walk with us in our Christian life. In fact, churches where people merely attend and do not belong, where they sit in a big service, but nobody knows their struggles and issues is not really doing what the church was made to do. Discipleship is a community event. You are one part of the body—not the whole thing. With that in mind, here are some helpful tips on how to do accountability and confession within a Bible study, home group, or other Christian community.

1. Make Accountability a Priority

We are commanded in James 5:16 to "confess your sins, one to another." Without accountability people will not be able to work through their sins and their spiritual growth will be hindered. The church is not merely for Bible studies, but also times for community, worship, confession, and prayer. The easiest way to make accountability a priority is to set aside time for it as you meet together in groups. Meeting together should be done often (Heb. 10:25). You may not need to have a time for accountability every time you meet, but it needs to be done regularly.

2. Break up men and women

It is fine to hear Scripture taught, worship, and pray for each other together. When it comes to accountability, it is best to split up men and women. Not only is this extremely wise (you don't want woman who struggles with lust confessing to the man that struggles with lust, for example). It also allows for greater freedom with confession. The man who struggles with pornography will not confess that to a group of women. The woman who struggles with weight and body image issues will not confess that to a group of men. This allows people a level of comfort in dealing with their struggles that is good and appropriate.

3. Lead from the front

Your group will confess as much as the leader is willing to confess. If you want them to be honest and to lay their issues on the table, you have to start by doing the same in your life. When someone sees that a leader struggles with sin and is open and honest about it they feel freed up to do the same.

4. Request more mature disciples to participate

All through out Scripture the more mature are encouraged to lead younger Christians, so before you meet, call a few people who are mature disciples in the group. Ask them if they would be willing to confess sins and share how God has worked in their life when they repented of sin in this way. So, when you confess, you have a few other people who are willing to show how God works through accountability and repentance.

5. Give direction on how to do it

Let people in the group know that the accountability time is not just for personal prayer requests or for "how they are doing" but a time to be honest of where they are at spiritually and to be encouraged by other brothers and sisters in Christ. Also, let people know not to gossip about other people's issues. However, there are times to tell other people of something that is confessed. For example, a husband who has cheated on a wife and has never told her will eventually have to have his wife let in on this.

6. Overwhelm people with grace

Once someone has confessed their sin, there is a temptation to wallow in shame. Overwhelm them with grace! Encourage them in the gospel and in how much Christ loves them. In fact, I think this is the most important part of accountability. The focus is not on how bad we are, but it is on how much we have been forgiven. It's not about our failures, but about Christ's victories!

7. Follow up

After accountability you may have to meet with people to follow up. Some people may need to get into a recovery program or get plugged in with a counselor. Other people might have tried to make the time all about them and will need to be asked to try to be more considerate of the other people trying to confess as well.

Accountability is not easy, especially if you are new to it. Also, taking the first step to begin accountability can be tough. It is countercultural to express where you fail and struggle. However, the Spirit uses our weakness (Rom. 8:26, 1 Cor. 1:25, 2 Cor. 11:30, Rom. 5:6) to glorify Christ—so guide your community as they mature as disciples and rest in the mercy of the gospel. —

Zach Lee is Associate Home Groups Minister at The Village Church and is married to Katy.  Follow him on Twitter: @zacharytlee.

Multiplying Disciples in Bivocational Ministry

Bivocational ministry is a life many pastors find themselves in these days. Of course, it is not a new phenomenon among pastors. In the area that I live, there are many small rural churches that have been around for many years. Back when these churches were planted the pastors were bivocational, often farming besides preaching. For those pastors, being bivocational was not a choice instead of full-time vocational ministry, it was the norm and more or less required of those called to ministry. Today, there are still many pastors required to be bivocational because they live in a rural area, are church planters, or are pastoring a smaller church that couldn’t fully support them otherwise. Being bivocational is not the lesser calling. To be bivocational does not mean playing in the minors until God decides to send them up to the big leagues of full-time vocational ministry. I will confess that I held this view, though I would not have explicitly said it. Depending on what the “other” job is for bivocational pastors, it can be very easy to feel discontent and weighed down by the seemingly unimportant duties of what we incorrectly deem as our “secular” work. That’s good! Now we know how our entire congregation feels much of the time. When we view bivocational ministry as a lesser calling, we both belittle God’s explicit call on our lives and idolize full-time vocational ministry as something that will fix all our problems.

Work is hard, regardless of what it is that we do. We know this from our own experiences and because of the curse God spoke to Adam (Gen. 3:17-19). I have been bivocational for about seven years and I have friends that are also bivocational and friends that are in full-time vocational ministry. They all say that their work is hard. They all say there are days and seasons where they would like their situations to be different. Within the context of the hard work that all Christians do, pastor or not, we are still to be about the work of being a disciple of Jesus in, through, and by our vocations. A primary way that we do the work of being a disciple of Jesus is to make other disciples (Matt. 28:16-20). The New Testament gives many examples of disciples of Jesus that not only make new disciples, but make new disciples who make new disciples who make new disciples and on and on. The spread that took place stemming from the original twelve disciples is one example. There is a clear picture of multiplication that happens.

This process of multiplication can take place in the ministries of bivocational pastors both in their church work as well as in the supplemental work that they do. For bivocational pastors there are some distinct challenges and some real blessings that come from the work of multiplying disciples in both contexts in which they live and work.

Time

Full-time pastors have more margin in their schedules to be able to devote to meetings with people and, therefore, do the work of discipleship. Or do they? Do bivocational pastors really not have any time to disciple people? If you are bivocational, should you only look to preach and teach and leave the rest of the work to someone that has more time?

I think it comes back to redeeming the time that we have. We all have margin in our daily schedules; the challenge is whether we use it and how we use it. Everyone eats lunch, so there is anywhere from a half hour to an hour that could be used to meet with someone or make a phone call. Depending on what time work starts, other people in the congregation probably have to go to work too, so getting up a little earlier before work to meet is an option. Using the time in our commute to and from work for a phone call can be beneficial as well. These are all scenarios a bivocational pastor can use to connect with someone from his congregation in the midst of his work schedule. However, there is also a large pool of people at his workplace that need to and can be discipled.

The effort needed to disciple at work is less than one might think. A great example of how this is done is parenting. Parenting children is discipleship. The life of the parent is lived out with and in front of the children. The discipleship that occurs in parenting does not only consist of sitting down with the child to talk about their walk with Christ, although that happens.

Discipleship in parenting happens while the parent and the child are folding clothes, working in the yard, and so on. The same can be said for discipling coworkers. The little conversations on the way to a meeting, during a break or downtime, at the coffee pot are the primary avenues for discipling coworkers.

Reaching the multiplication stage at work requires a bit more organization and intentionality. This means setting some time aside to meet with fellow believers at work. I meet with a group of guys to do this very thing every other week at lunch. As one would do in the church, there should be an awareness of leaders and/or other strong Christians to develop. Once those folks are identified, then the process of making them into the second generation of disciples in that place begins. In Acts 14:23, Paul and Barnabas appoint elders in the churches on their way to Antioch in Syria and the same principle stands at work. We are not Paul and Barnabas and we are not appointing elders, but a similar work needs to take place for multiplication to happen. The development of leaders and the passing on of the responsibility for making disciples must take place so that disciples can be multiplied.

Purpose

A pitfall for many in bivocational ministry can be denying that they are bivocational. We can spend so much time pretending that our supplemental work is only temporary and that very soon God is going to give us that full-time gig. Our time in bivocational ministry may be our life’s calling or it may be only for a season. In any season of waiting on the Lord, there is work to be done while we wait. The sooner we realize we are indeed where we are for a purpose—and God sovereignly plans that purpose—the sooner we can be effective.

I look at God’s sovereign purpose in the time spent in bivocational ministry as a development of my gifts and laying down of my rights. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul talks about all the rights that he has as an Apostle and a minister of the gospel. He immediately says that he does not take up those rights, but essentially lays them down for the sake of the gospel. “Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ,” (1 Corinthians 9:12b).

Like Paul, we who are bivocational (Paul was too by the way) are ministers of the gospel, who have the right to be taken care of through the ministering of the gospel. There is at least a partial surrender of those rights, whether it is by our volition or not, when we are bivocational. There was power that came from Paul’s laying down of his rights. There was an identification that Paul could have with others because he set aside these rights. “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings,” (1 Cor. 9:22b-23). One of the evident purposes of God in the calling to bivocational ministry is the ability to identify with those to whom we minister. There is both purpose and blessing in this identification, which serves as a foundation for the multiplication of disciples in our contexts.

Humility

The reality is that if we are bivocational we are probably not speaking at conferences, writing best-selling books, and garnering thousands of Twitter followers. Of course, our mistaken definitions of “making it” in ministry in relation to any of these measures are far different from God’s. The ministry work that is done bivocationally is probably mostly done in the shadows of public view. Ministering bivocationally can be humbling. You may be a church planter that celebrates when there are more than thirty people that show up for a Sunday service. Your greatest joy in ministry for a week may be a good conversation you have with a coworker. This is all very, very good for our souls.

The pitfall of parts of our Christian subculture is an issue, not only for our congregation, but for all those in ministry. There is the fanboy culture of authors, speakers, and podcasts. There are those that many have deemed celebrity pastor. When we are working in the trenches of bivocational ministry, we need not covet fame and fortune in ministry. Our placement in bivocational ministry may be a protection from our own prideful selves. It may be a season that God uses to refine us and humble us. It may be a time where we learn how to celebrate all the small ways that God works. Some of us simply may not have been able or may not ever be able to handle the platform of full-time ministry. God may be protecting us and those to whom we minister from what we would become on that platform. He may at the same time be preparing us.

Humility is one of the most attractive things about Jesus. Think about it, “He is God and he did what?!” You probably know Philippians 2:5-11, but I will remind you. “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,” (Phil. 2:5). The mind that Paul is talking about is that of humility, which he goes on to describe in the verses following. When we exhibit Christlike humility, people see the grandeur and beauty of Jesus. We could say that Jesus makes and multiplies disciples through us by showing himself in us. As God teaches us humility in bivocational ministry, people start to see glimpses of Christlikeness in us. The humility that God is teaching us is for our good and his glory. His glory is then magnified by the disciples that are made and multiplied through our lives and ministries.

Thankfully, God does not put us anywhere that he does not intend to put us. If we find ourselves in bivocational ministry, we can be encouraged that it is God who has put us there. It is not the B team and this is not our lot because of some shortcoming that we have. It is the particular vocation that the God of the universe has prepared us for and placed us in for such a time as this. We have the responsibility of multiplying ourselves as disciples of Jesus Christ wherever we are. We have been given time to be redeemed and used for the kingdom. God has a Spirit-powered, Christ-exalting purpose for our vocations. In light of all this, we cannot help but seek humility in our hearts and in our actions as we embrace the challenges and receive the blessings of serving Christ.

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Nick Abraham (DMin student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) lives in Navarre, OH with his wife and daughter. He serves as an Associate Pastor at Alpine Bible Church in Sugarcreek, OH. He is a contributor to Make, Mature, Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus and blogs at Like Living Stones.

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Pastoring

There are two common dangers in pastoral ministry and Paul is alert to both of them. They are what we might call over-pastoring and under-pastoring. Over-pastoring is what happens when a leader or leaders exercise too much control in the life of the church. They are quick to suppress any dissent and may even end up bullying people. They often personalize issues. Suggestions for change or criticism are responded to in a personal way with counter-accusations. The unconscious aim of such leaders is personal control rather than the maturity of the congregation. This is why Paul says an elder must not be “over-bearing, not quick-tempered” (1:7).

Under-pastoring is what happens when a leader or leaders exercise too little leadership within a congregation. They avoid confrontation, so they fail to correct false teachers or challenge ungodly living. They may be good at encouraging people, but weak at rebuking those in error If the aim of those who over-pastor is personal control, the aim of leaders who under-pastor is personal comfort. They want a quiet life. But Paul says an elder must “refute those who oppose” the gospel (v. 9) and tells Titus that “rebellious people . . . must be silenced” (v 10-11).

You may not be in leadership. But, as we shall see in Titus 2, we are all called to pastor one another in the church. So we can all have a tendency to over-pastor or under-pastor.

If you think you have a tendency toward over-pastoring or under-pastoring, then the key is not simply to modify your style. The key is to “hold firm to the trustworthy message as it has been taught” (v 9). This is why holding firmly to the gospel is so important.

Why Under- or Over-Pastor?

What is it that drives someone to over-pastor? Proverbs 4:23 says: “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (NLT). In others words, what shapes our behavior is the thoughts and desires of our hearts (Marks 7:20-23). Our behavior goes wrong when our thinking about God and desires for God are misaligned. People over-pastor because they want to feel they are in control, or they are trying to prove themselves through their ministry. They have not embraced the truth that God is great and he is in control; or they have not embraced the truth that God is gracious and their identity is found in Christ. They may believe these truths in theory, but they do not hold them firmly in their hearts—and this is revealed in moments of pressure.

What is it that drives someone to under-pastor? People under-pastor because they fear the rejection of other people or crave their approval or they want to be liked (what the Bible calls the “fear of man,” Proverbs 29:25). Or they may under-pastor because they want a comfortable life, so they avoid the hard things involved in leadership. They have not embraced the truth that God is the glorious One, who should be feared. Their fear of man is not being eclipses by the fear of God. Or they have not embraced the truth that the God is good. True and lasting joy is found in him—even in the midst of hard situations.

Leaders need to disciple themselves with the gospel before they can disciples others. That does not mean they need to be perfect—progress rather than perfection is what is required (1 Timothy 4:15). But leaders do need to apply the gospel to their own hearts—otherwise they will be like the hypocrites of whom Jesus warns, who try to take specks out of people’s eyes when they have planks in their own eyes (Matthew 7:1-5).

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Tim Chester (PhD, University of Wales) is pastor of the Crowded House in Sheffield, United Kingdom, and director of the Porterbrook Institute, which provides integrated theological and missional training for church leaders. Chester also coauthored Total Church (Re:Lit), Everyday Church (Re:Lit), and has written more than a dozen books.

Excerpt taken from Tim Chester, Titus for You, The Good Book Company, ©2014. Used by permission. http://www.thegoodbook.com/

Moving Beyond Dad Issues

Father’s Day—some are grateful it’s just one day. There are many fathers who have heaped unbearable burdens upon their children with unrealistic demands. To you, this day reminds you of failure, not measuring up, not being who dad wanted you to be. For others, dad subtracted meaning from your life. Your dad just cut out on you, left mom for another woman, a career mistress, or never entered your life at all.

How do you respond to your father while edging out on the ice of fatherhood yourself?

Others see Father’s Day as an opportunity to honor someone they’re grateful for every day. Dad reminds you of warm approval, strong godly character, firm discipline, and vibrant faith. You don’t know how good you got it but you know it’s good. Fathers possess incredible power over their children, for good or for ill, and a new generation of Christian fathers are emerging with very poor role models. Is it possible to redeem your patriarchal past? How do you respond to your father while edging out on the ice of fatherhood yourself?

What to Do with a Not So Great Dad

St. Augustine had great mom and a not so great dad. Throughout his Confessions, (a Western classic every Christian should read), Augustine reflects on his mother’s prayerful faithfulness and his dad’s worldliness. In a passage in Book 2, he extols his father for providing for his education in literature and rhetoric. He notes that his father took great pains to secure the necessary finances. It is hard to imagine the Western Church without an educated Augustine. His books, ideas, and turns of phrase have been admired by many, believer and non.

Augustine shows us how to honor our fathers, even when they were less than honorable. Even if your father was absent and just cut a check for child support, at least he did that. Instead of ripping cynically on his absent dad, Augustine shows us how to carry out the Christian principle of “honor your father” by searching for anything positive and honoring him for that.

But what about his Dad’s absence, or worse, his very real, damaging presence?

Augustine describes his father’s neglect: “father took no pains as to how I was growing up before you [God], or as to how chaste I was, as long as I was cultivated in speech, even though I was a desert, uncultivated for you, O God, who are the one true and good Lord of that field which is my heart.”

Though he received a financial deposit, Augustine was raised in spiritual poverty by his father. His father approved winkingly over his sexual exploits, a badge of manhood. He sent his son in the wrong direction. Dad held the career high—a rhetorician—and Christ low. Augustine repeatedly reflects on his struggle with mistresses and sexual temptation remarking that he was “in love with love.”

Moving Beyond Dad Issues

Until he was conquered by a holy love: “You love, but are not inflamed with passion; you are jealous, yet free from care . . . who will help me, so that you will come into my heart and inebriate it, to the end that I may forget my evils and embrace you, my one good?”

The prison of his father’s neglect was redeemed by the heavenly Father’s attentive concern. Evils were slowly blotted out from his memory in the presence of the one, true Good. The way we move beyond our Dad issues isn’t to bury them, but to carry them to the Redeemer.

When I was preparing to become a father for the first time, I asked a good father friend for advice. He said, “Be a good dad by being a good son.” He was saying that fatherhood is less about technique and more about identity.

The more a man settles into the perfect love of God, the more his fathering becomes an approximation of the perfect Father. The more rooted you are in God’s approval, the more inclined you are to give it to your kids. The more you are aware of the holiness of God, the more you will call your children into his holiness—cultivating their soul. The more you are aware of God’s unfathomable grace, the more quick you will be to extend it to your children.

Dad, you have an opportunity to cultivate the soul of the next generation. You can point them to the “one true and good Lord of that field which is their heart.” You don’t have to be enough for them because God already is enough. Cultivate your soul and act like your heavenly Father toward your kids. Teach them the gospel, repent quickly, and be present—no perfection required—Jesus has that covered.

Be a good son, and you’ll be a good dad.

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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Unbelievable Gospel, and Raised? He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

Originally published at jonathandodson.org “How to Be a Good Dad (& What to Do with a Bad Dad)”