This book looks interesting. Just read an interview with the authors in which they say the following:

“For some years now, the church in North America has been terribly confused on this issue of relevancy. We thought that relevancy meant being like the surrounding culture, having a style and an outreach that would be very familiar and comfortable to those outside the church. The pursuit of relevancy sought to reduce the barriers that would keep people from coming to church. In many ways, we have been successful in this, and ironically, this is part of what has plunged us into our current state of irrelevancy… We are in grave danger of being simply ignored.”

“Increased attendance, when it is a byproduct of an authentic work of God, is a wonderful thing to be desired and celebrated. But it is an unhelpful and inappropriate thing to have as a goal.” Faithfulness to the pursuit of developing an authentic expression of a transformed and redemptive community should be our goal.”

Order your copy here (Amazon.com|.ca)

You shouldn’t be overly reliant on the church community and its leaders to feed you spiritually, right? Isn’t this what Willow Creek’s REVEAL study taught us? Three things…

First, look at John 21. In the conversation between Jesus and Peter, Jesus says three things: “feed my lambs”, “tend my sheep” and “feed my sheep”. He doesn’t tell Peter to teach people to feed themselves and then get out of the way of the ones that catch on. Of course as believers we should know how to study the scriptures, how to pray, etc., but we should never expect to stop being fed.

Second, some comments about “self-feeders” from David Fitch in a post from a while back about Willow’s REVEAL study results:

On p. 64 REVEAL says that Willow sought to “meet the needs of its people” too much. This creates an unhealthy dependence. The solution the report provides for the problem is that the church needs to teach its people more spiritual practices. At first glance, this appears encouraging. Perhaps Willow has have been listening to those who have been asking serious questions about consumerism and business practices in American church.

But then REVEAL goes on to say that as we grow more mature in Christ, we need to teach people to become “self-feeders.” In the words of Bill Hybels (in the video), we need to provide coaching, “customized personal spiritual growth plans.” As “you go to a health club and you get a personal trainer … to figure out how to care for your health … we need to provide coaches for personal spiritual growth.” Here the language might have changed, but the strategy remains the same. We’ve seen the problem, let’s provide a program to meet the individual (customized) need. Here the Christian life is seen as a personal individualist pursuit for some goods that are frankly seen as self-beneficial. Spiritual growth has now become a goal in itself.

If Willow creek follows this course, I predict it will be spending more money on why the mature Christians are leaving their church in another ten years. Because Christian growth has everything to do with community. It cannot be achieved independently of the spiritual disciplines within community including confession, truth speaking in love, worship, working out one’s salvation in fear and trembling and above all prayer. None of these practices can be personalized. These are corporate disciplines, just not achievable in corporate bodies that are extremely large.

Furthermore, this kind of spiritual formation occurs only in and through participation in Mission, the journeying together as a people infiltrating and witnessing to the life and ministry of Christ incarnationally in the world. “Personal spiritual growth plans” sounds way too individualized to avoid becoming another form of self-indulgence. True spiritual growth takes on the suffering and hurting and lostness of the world in the ministry of salvation. One cannot undergo such a journey if its goal is personal spiritual growth versus the Mission of God.

Eph 4 is a lesson on spiritual growth. It happens within the formation of the Body of Christ. Here the organic “Body” of Christ works for the edification of our spiritual growth “until we all grow to the full stature of Christ”(Eph 4:13 – read the whole chapter).

Spiritual growth cannot happen as a “self feeder,” it is the outworking of the Body of Christ as we participate in His Mission. The solution proposed here is disastrous for not only the spiritual growth of Willow creekers but for the furtherance of the Mission of Christ.

Third, some thoughts from Darrin Patrick in an article from Leadership last year:

In my research I found that churches often lean in one of two directions. Some believe that people should be “self-feeders.” The church’s responsibility is to create impressive worship services with practical teaching, and maybe connect members into relational groups. From there, however, the people are expected to do the rest. Their spiritual growth is in their own hands.

On the other side are churches who are “spoon-feeders.” They place a high value on biblical teaching and exposition. The sermons are deep and these churches imply that if you just come and listen, you’ll grow in your faith…

There are problems on both extremes. We should not expect the church to do everything, but we cannot undervalue the role of the church either. Gospel preaching and Bible exposition are vital, but equipping believers to take responsibility for their own growth is also important.

A group of young adults from my church recently performed this drama. Seeing it live was significantly more powerful, but you’ll get the idea from this video of the performance.

Thabiti Anyabwile responding to the assertion that the traditional sermon is the culprit in “crippling discipleship.”

I think that assertion errs in at least two ways:

1. It assumes that the primary or perhaps exclusive way of making disciples is the Sunday morning sermon.
Wherever that’s being assumed, it seems to me to be wholly in error. Preaching is necessary to but not sufficient for making disciples. It takes the entire body with every member every day to make solid disciples.

The reason we have spiritually immature believers (which we’ll always have in some measure) and burned out pastors isn’t because the pastor preaches every Sunday (which most pastors enjoy doing). The reason we have immature believers and burned out disciples is because so many Christians are not opening their lives, inviting others in, and making spiritual deposits in intentional disciple-making relationships.

The problem isn’t that we have preachers; the problem is that every disciple is not themselves making disciples as our Lord commands.

2. The assertion errs because it makes preaching to believers unnecessary when the NT makes it necessary.
Paul explicitly commands Timothy to “preach the word” in the gathered assembly. What word is that? Likely the OT, which Paul says elsewhere was written for our instruction and example. Insofar as Timothy is to “preach the word,” he’s doing some form of exposition in the assembly. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

That was found in the comments section of a post called “Who’s Doing the Talking in Our Church Gatherings?” The entire post and about 2/3 of the comments are worth reading here.

Leading change as a leader in any organization is both exhausting and exhilarating. Ideas often polarize – at least ideas that you intend to act upon – and the proportion of “seed-changers” to “sea-changers” involved will determine the degree of the polarization.

What is a Seed-changer?
Seed-changers won’t require you to have a clearly defined strategy before they allow you to embark on the process of change. Sure, they like to know what the eventual goal is, but the process of getting there can be one that involves uncertainly. Drop an idea on a group of seed-changers and it will take root in as many different ways as there are heads in the room. Uncertainty, as well as ambiguity, is a draw rather than a repellent.

Seed-changers immediately take an idea and dream about “what could be”, but because seed-changers accept the principles of seed growth – namely, that you know what type of plant will grow but not much about its size or shape – they can accept an end product that doesn’t look exactly like what they first pictured in their heads.

Seed-changers love the fact that there’s something beneath the surface that they haven’t seen yet. They love that soon they’ll see a small green chute emerge from the soil and that they’ll have an opportunity to tend it and contribute to its health.

What is a Sea-changer?
“Sea-change” is a poetic term meaning the gradual transformation of something in which the form is retained but the substance is replaced. There are two keys to understanding people who are sea-changers.

First, a transformation must be gradual.
If it’s not gradual sea-changers feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them. They find uncertainty and ambiguity alarming. They prefer to know at the beginning more or less how the story will end.

Second, the existing form must be preserved.
Almost anything can be changed on the inside as long as the external facade remains in one piece. Sea-changers are uncomfortable with ambiguity and so it is very important to them that the fundamental elements of their existing structure remain intact. You can change things bit by bit, but it needs to happen in the context of the appearance of safety, certainty, and stability.

Managing Change
If you attempt seed change on sea-changers the reaction will be one of distress.

If you attempt sea change on seed-changers the reaction will be one of disinterest.

Choose your change strategy carefully.

Via John Dyer: The Table Project is one of many new socially oriented web platforms being released for churches… Take a look at the promo video and then let’s discuss. (watch)

I say – doomed. Noble, but doomed. That’s not to say that nobody will sign up, but within a relatively short period they’ll lose interest. Some will continue to use it but most will acknowledge the fact that nobody wants another social network they feel obligated to check in with every day, especially when they’d be checking in with the same people they’re already checking in with every day on Facebook.

It would be like talking to the same person on two phones, one on each ear. “Let’s talk about life in general in the left one, but churchy, intimate stuff on the right one, ok?” It’s like a “secular” song recut with Christian lyrics – we all know which song it is and we insert the original words over your substitutes and, eventually, we acknowledge that the original is better than your recut and we go back to listening to it. It’s like asking the person you meet you for coffee every week to meet with you twice every week because there’s a new Christian coffee shop in town.

In the same way, we all know that The Table Project is Facebook with a different face. We can also see that it might be better than Facebook in a some ways, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s an existing song with Christianized lyrics (a good/bad example of that here).

Conclusions
I’d like to be wrong on this one because it does look like a noble idea. So I, like John Dyer, wish them the best, but I’ll wager two things:

(1) Nobody who is already on Facebook will abandon Facebook for this so it will consume more of their time, not less.

More time online means less time offline, which means a decrease in face-to-face interaction. The creators of The Table admit as much in a blog post on their site (read): “To be clear, we are not trying to compete with or replace Facebook. We act as a compliment to global networks such as Facebook.” In other words, “We want people to keep social networking elsewhere but also on our site.” How is that compatible with the goal of increasing local human connection?

(2) Very few people who are not currently engaged in social media will suddenly become engaged just because there is a Christian alternative.

The whole idea of The Table is to cause a transference of behavior from an existing network to another network. It needs to leverage people’s behavior on Facebook and to exploit their familiarity with it in order to engage them in the same behavior in a “safer” space. The problem is that if you’re not already assimilated into social media culture, The Table is every bit as foreign and foreboding as Facebook.

What do you think? Are my conclusions plausible or ridiculous?

An excellent piece here by Brandon O’Brien from CT Online. First, his premise:

Many ministers have surrendered their judgment about what constitutes “the authentic church experience” to expectations shaped by experts. These experts write books, speak at conferences, and typically lead large and influential congregations.

Because of their success, we imagine them to be great pioneers who are part of something we have never seen—the “real” church experience. Over time, the experts have done for church what postcards and PBS specials have done for the Grand Canyon: they’ve made it difficult for us to appreciate our own experience apart from theirs. We have lost the ability to see and experience and appreciate ministry for ourselves. All we can see is the disparity between what our churches are and what they are “supposed” to be.

Next, some thoughts I’ve been grappling with these last few months (see “Some Thoughts on Prospects and Pastoral Ambition” and “Seasons of Attack the Lure of Adultery“):

When I accepted my first post as pastor, I was entirely seduced by the experts’ description of ministry success. The arc goes something like this: at some point in your life you sense a clear call from God to enter the ministry. It makes a better story if this happens after years of success in a lucrative secular career [MK: ouch - guilty as charged] or a period of profound and sinful rebellion.

After some sort of preparation—whether in seminary or careful perusal of church planting materials—you take a position in a small church. Over the next several years, your ministry grows. You see people reconcile with God; lives are changed. You feel confident you are squarely within God’s will. You’ve found your calling. You may move from church to church—usually to increasingly larger, more vibrant congregations—or your church plant grows rapidly.

Soon your peers recognize your success and a publisher asks you to write a book about your story. You share it at conferences. You have arrived.

O’Brien also draws attention to the following, which we all seem to conveniently ignore when we’re in the throes of adoration while attending one of the many “come listen to large church pastor tell you how it’s done” conferences out there:

According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, 94 percent of churches in America have 500 attendees or fewer each week. Only 6 percent—19,000 churches—have more than 500 attendees. Megachurches (regular attendance over 2,000) make up less than one half of one percent of churches in America.

The narrative of success may be the one people write books about, but it is not the typical one. We have allowed the ministry experience of 6 percent of pastors to become the standard by which the remaining 94 percent of us judge ourselves.

Excellent closer here:

An important part of following Jesus is learning to see the truth of things behind appearances. In Christ, the foolish things of the world confound the wise; in Christ the powerless supplant the powerful; in Christ, the eternal purposes of God were fulfilled in the death of the Messiah. If our ministries are to reflect the values of Jesus, we should be skeptical when we are more “successful” than Jesus was.

Read the rest of the article here. Brandon O’Brien is associate editor of Leadership and author of The Strategically Small Church(Bethany House, 2010)

Yes, what you’ve heard is true: Philip Yancey will, later this year, be speaking to a group called the GCN (Gay Christan Network).

Yancey notes (here) that various people have been hammering him for agreeing to speak to such a group. And so it’s important that we understand the nature of this engagement.

To that end GCN’s Executive Director, Justin Lee wrote an open letter about Yancey, the entirety of which you should read here.

Here are some highlights:

When I was a teenager, I discovered to my horror that I was attracted to guys instead of girls. I was a deeply committed Christian growing up Southern Baptist, and I was firmly opposed to homosexuality in any form. Nevertheless, when I turned to my pastor, church, and Christian friends for prayer and support, they all turned their backs on me, condemning me for my temptations even though I hadn’t acted on them.

GCN began when I met other Christians who were in the same boat. All of us were struggling to figure out how to live holy lives with our same-sex attractions, and all of us had felt the church’s rejection. Some of us ultimately decided to commit ourselves to lifelong celibacy, while others of us decided to pursue monogamous relationships. In spite of our theological disagreements with one another, we all wanted to serve Christ, and we all longed for a Christian community that would hear our stories.

***

I invited Philip Yancey because I respect him as a Christian. I’ve always been impressed at how well he balances our need to live moral, holy lives as Christians with our need to have grace toward those who do things we disapprove of. I did not invite him because of any views he might or might not hold on gays; I invited him because this is a group of people who desperately need to hear not only that God loves them, but that other Christians do, too.

***

Last year, we had a keynote delivered by Baptist minister and author Tony Campolo. Dr. Campolo believes that gay relationships are sinful, and he said so during his keynote address. He also received a standing ovation at the end—from an audience including some people in the very relationships he had just condemned. Why? Did they think he was supporting their decisions? Not at all. They applauded him because he was one of the very few Christians who would dare to reach out to them in love and say, “Even though I don’t agree with you, I love you. I hear your stories of pain, and I want to count you as my friends.” That message was powerful. It changed lives.

Read the rest here.

A Caveat
In the comments section of yesterday’s post (Pastoring and The Honeymoon Period), PJ pointed out that marriage is not the perfect metaphor for describing the relationship between pastor and congregation. I agree to the extent that Jesus is the bridegroom and the church is his bride – not the pastor’s. But the analogy of a honeymoon period works insofar as the relationship is, like marriage, a covenant between two parties.

So I’ll continue with the marriage metaphor with the caveat that I’m not talking about taking the place of Jesus in the lives of the people in a church.

I ended yesterday saying that in a pastor-congregation relationship, whether a decision is made to continue or to part ways, there is probably some accumulated baggage.

Baggage
Baggage is looking at someone (or a group of people) and knowing things about them that wish you didn’t. Baggage is also them looking back at you and knowing things about you that they wish weren’t true. Once this is the case, you’re done dating.

Despite all of the above, an absence of baggage should not be the ultimate determining factor in the decision to continue or part ways. It’s not like a probation period for either the pastor or the congregation. It’s not a “Behave well during this time and we’ll reward you with our presence” arrangement.

No, baggage is part of community; until you have some, you don’t have community; once you have some, you have the potential for community and the beginnings of a healthy relationship.

Baggage should not determine the future of a relationship. But the way baggage is handled will. Sin – which is what leads to baggage – in any relationship needs to be confronted, confessed, repented of, and then forgiven.

Forgiveness, as all of you who are married will know, is the foundation of marriage.

Tomorrow: Seasons of Attack the Lure of Adultery

So Derek Webb did this interview with Huffington Post this week. You can read it here.

Frank Turk responds with an “Open Letter to Derek Webb” here.

Read them both – or don’t. Your call. I did and I kinda wish I hadn’t.

I just find critical “open letters” so pretentious to begin with. A sort of “Hey choir, listen up – I’m about to preach!”

Here I go: [In Frank Turk's words] Derek Webb is someone who does “not want to be held morally and philosophically culpable for the trash [he] flatulently expel[s] into the common conversation.” AMEN BROTHER – PREACH IT!

Not to put too fine a point on it… and I’m not putting Derek Webb on a level with the great Reformers, but the things Turk says were said to them as well:

“Are you really more-qualified to make moral, political and social pronouncements than anyone else — than pastors and qualified teacher of the Bible?”

“Is it really at all reasonable let alone generous or spiritually-mature to denigrate pastors?”

I don’t see anything in Webb’s actual words in the interview that indicates he believes his “moral pronouncement trumps, for example, John Piper.” (Turk’s words again)

(And while we’re naming people’s fixations and idolatries, John Piper is a good one to start with – and I say that as an admirer of Piper BTW. I love him – he’s just not my pope, and I don’t think he wants to be anyone else’s either.)

If Webb wanted to be a big star, as Turk accuses him of aspiring to be, he wouldn’t put himself on a career path where he’s lambasted from both sides. He was already established in the CCM market and could be making a much nicer living there.

Turk makes inferences about what Webb is saying and nails him to the wall for it, all in the form of an “open letter”.

It’s bad form and it’s a blatant shout out to his own army of sycophants.

Webb’s response (via Twitter): “An ‘open letter’ from a blogger i don’t know is no more a moral imperative than it is any form of accountability. i have nothing to clarify.”

I’m looking to do some collaborative sermon prep with you all.

I’m studying Ephesians in preparation for the launch of a new sermon series this week. Part of goal of the series is to communicate clearly about the goals of the many transitions we are making as a church.

I’m working with the metaphor of “a house on wheels” using a picture I took yesterday as a starting point (see below). We are trying to move a group of about 500 people out of the old one-focus paradigm of “if you build it they will come” to a new paradigm of both gathering for corporate worship but also scattering as witnesses being important as well.

Help me develop the ideas and applications if you’re interested. Comment below. Email me. @ me on Twitter. Facebook me. Whatever works…

My cousin Shane and his wife are in China teaching English. They sent this update yesterday that describes a bit about church life in China.

This morning i went to church! Darla had been wanting to go and i told her i’d go with her, she had an address through a friend of a friend. This is actually the 3rd or 4th week that we’d been looking for the place and we finally found it!

It started at 11:30 and we got there just as it was starting. It was mostly Chinese people and a few foreigners, but it was all in English!  It started with singing “This is the Day”, then a sermon by a guest speaker, a lady from Ghana, another song (“What a Friend I’ve got in Jesus”), some announcements, the offering, blessing, and that was it. It was maybe an hour long all together?

After the service we met a few other foreigners, who were wondering why we were going home already. We were a little confused, and after asking them they said that the REAL English service doesn’t start until 2. We asked a few more questions and learn the following things: There was always a Foreigners service at the church, but for government reasons the Chinese weren’t allowed to attend, it was foreigners only. They were really upset about that, and they decided to start a weekly English service for anyone, with Chinese pastors and Chinese worship leaders. So the one that Darla and i attended is for everyone, and the afternoon service is only for foreigners.

Next week or the week after we’ll probably go to that one. There are a lot of Africans in Wuhan and the service is mostly led by them, so i’m really curious about it and looking forward to it. We also met two guys from Sweden and an older lady from Texas who work a little outside of Wuhan in a primary school run by Christians.

So it was a productive morning! We found not one but TWO English church services, and met other Christians to boot. This year will be completely different from the last one :)

Internal of External Focus?
For some churches, making an effort to be more “externally focused” means, “We’ve been too internally focused and we need balance.” This is probably an accurate diagnosis for most churches and, if followed with a balanced correction, a good way forward.

For other churches, making an effort to be more “externally focused” means, “We’ve been too internally focused so now we’re going to stop that and be externally focused.” Again, it’s probably an accurate diagnosis but it’s a bad way to make a correction. One end of the pendulum is not better than the other, no matter how long you’ve been stuck at one end.

It’s not about one or the other – it’s about both.

The Law of Christ
Everyone has burdens and in Galatians 6:2 Paul tells us that by helping each other along we “fulfill the law of Christ”. What is the “Law of Christ”? In John 13:34-35 Jesus says:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other!

Love As Evangelism
So when Paul later says that we are to do good to all, especially those in our community of faith he’s not saying, “Don’t worry about the people outside.” He’s saying that loving each other is one way to be a witness to a watching world. Loving each other can be an evangelistic act!

We need to be demonstrating our love for each other both within the community of faith and in more public places where it can be seen by the broader community.

The “How-To” Part
One way to do this is to reduce church-based activities in order to increase members’ involvement in the community outside the church. But this alone will not ensure loving activity.

Asking the following question might help: What activities are people encouraged to attend “at church” that could easily take place somewhere else and be just as – or more – effective?

- Could we do the 30-hr Famine event at the local high school and invite all students there to take part?

- Could the College and Career group meet in a public park to learn and discuss and pray?

- Could the new believer class be taught in town somewhere with an open invitation?

- Could the Cradle Roll team welcome new babies and provide support to single mothers who don’t attend our church?

- Could the Father-Son Camp and Mother-Daughter Camp integrate the Big Brothers/Big Sisters organization into it somehow?

- Could we have our hymn sing nights at a nursing home among the house-bound residents rather than require them to come to the church building?

- Could our marriage and parenting seminars be offered in a public space and opened to all?

- Could the baseball teams play in the city league rather than the church league?

What else can you add to the above list?

These guidelines will be helpful for anyone who frequently makes presentations, but especially for pastors.

As pastors, we often find ourselves in the position of proposing or spearheading change. Usually a part of those efforts is a document and a verbal presentation.

Let’s just say it out loud, ok? We pastors can be an academically nerdy bunch. Most of us read a lot and spend large amounts of time putting our thoughts on paper. And then we often forget that the majority of the people we’re speaking to have no experience in our environment.

To overcome this hurdle I suggest four things:

1. Keep It Short
Invariably, when presenting a substantial document to a group of people, the length will be seen as overwhelming. You can assure them that it’s NOT overwhelming and that the first draft was WAY longer, but most of them will still look at it and say “wow, that’s long…”

2. Hand Out Copies In Advance
If possible, get the document into the hands of those who need to see it a few days before your presentation. This will ease the tension in the room on presentation day since they’ll have had a opportunity to look at the document and (hopefully) attain a level of comfort with it.

3. Include a Glossary Page
Comb your document for words that are common in the theological circles you run in and include them on the glossary page. If you are oblivious to which words these are, ask someone outside your circle to read your document and circle them. They’ll know.

Mention the location of the glossary page both when you distribute the document and at the outset of your presentation so people know they can flip to it at any time.

4. Establish Terminological Handles
Do introduce new words and concepts but then be consistent about using them.

Expanding the thinking and word knowledge base of others is a good thing, but giving people too much at one sitting is counterproductive. You might appreciate the interchangeability and nuances of certain words but the effect on others is usually confusion.

By defining new words and concepts in broader terms now you will be able to expand on them as understanding deepens after a time of consistent usage. As Seth Godin says: “Take complicated overall answers and make them simple steps instead. Teach complexity over time, simply.”

*(Bonus point for not saying, “These are the terminological handles for which comprehension is required as I commence with my presentation…” unless you’re including all of those words in your glossary)

5. Presentation is a Team Sport
Ensure that there is adequate time for verbal presentation of the document and time for questions as you go – not just at the end.

People can easily and quickly feel intimidated by anything that has an overly academic ring to it. This is something that needs to be remedied to an extent on their part with more education (self and/or formal education) but in the meantime anything you can do to sound less academic will win you a more favorable hearing.

You don’t want to lose “the meat”, but the meat has to be chewable.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post called “What If Pastor Can’t Preach?” in which I explored the idea that a lead pastor doesn’t necessarily need to be a great preacher. That started a good discussion worth reading  in the comments section.

Yesterday someone left the following question there:

I came to this looking for insight on how to address our Pastor’s mediocre sermon writing and sub-par speaking skills. I love my pastor like a brother, but he clearly is not gifted for the puplit. In our small, struggling to survive congregation where he is the only one preaching, we have few returning visitors. Rambling thoughts, awkward phrasing & pacing, constant ums, and the tendency to jam new concepts into the sermon at the last minute challenge even the most attentive listeners.

Though exceptional in small groups due to his in-depth scriptural knowledge, few newcomers stick around long enough to see that side of him.

I no longer invite friends to church as each and every one has decided to “continue their search elsewhere.” He is extremely defensive about his sermons and no longer approachable on the subject.

Now what?

Darryl Dash responded:

If what you’re saying is true, it merits an open and honest conversation with the pastor. I’ve been in his place, and it’s tough in the short term but worth it. If you do love him like a brother it won’t be an attack that leaves him flattened. The good news is that poor preachers can improve. They may never be great, but they can become decent.

If the pastor is not willing to receive honest feedback, that’s a separate and probably more serious issue. It has to be done safely and with the right people, but we all need to be willing to hear feedback from others.

Well done.

I read Darryl’s blog regularly. If you’re interested in practical observations about pastoring and local church life you should too. His blog is here.

About a year ago I was quite enamored with my prospects for success. I had recently become a pastor; my site traffic was picking up; I had landed a gig writing a column for a national Christian newspaper. To what heights could I ascend? A book deal? A speaking tour?

It was all very exciting.

Somewhere in the last 6-8 months there has been a reversal. I’m still excited about the possibilities, but my heart and hopes have turned from my own prospects to the prospects of the people in my care.

I know that God has called some into “one-to-many” (?) ministries like mass evangelism, book writing, and speaking tours. I may be one of them, and if that’s the case, I’ll gladly follow the call. But more recently I’ve experienced a greater sense of contentment in realizing that the opposite suits me fine as well: to be known by a limited number of people, to not be a sought-after author/speaker, to have nobody outside of my own church or town recognize my name.

I’ll stay right where I am for the rest of my life if that’s where God wants me.

Too many have fallen into the trap of thinking that “bigger is better” and that visibility equals significance. I was almost one of them.

But significance is found only in obedience and faithfulness and our identity is found only in Christ. So bigger is only better if it’s God’s doing and not ours.

As a pastor, ambition is one of the biggest idols to deal with. Between the temptation to encourage sycophants and struggling to fend off attacks, sometimes it’s easier to seek to accomplish more as evidence of your calling rather than resting in God and leaving it to him. (see “Making An Idol of Ambition“)

But I have been experiencing contentment, and discovering this contentment has something to do with he fact that we’re pursuing “strategic division” (?) at my church. Well over 500 people call the church I’m serving at their home church and I probably don’t even know 250 of their names.

Ministering in a “one-to-many”(?) environment can frustrating. It can be disjointing and can force a level of dis-traction that is unhealthy. At some point you resign yourself to the fact that you never WILL know the names of everyone who goes to your church.

But we’re already seeing the benefits of strategic division. On Saturday nights I look around and I know everyone, and when there is someone I don’t know I actually notice.

That’s a good experience, and it feels a whole lot more like “church” than sitting with – or serving – hundreds of people I don’t know.

Stott:

“The persecution of the true church, of Christian believers who trace their spiritual descent from Abraham, is not always by the world, who are strangers unrelated to us, but by our half-brothers, religious people, the nominal church.

It has always been so. The Lord Jesus was bitterly opposed, rejected, mocked and condemned by His own nation. The fiercest opponents of the apostle Paul, who dogged his footsteps and stirred up strife against him, were the official church, the Jews. The monolithic structure of the medieval papacy persecuted all Protestant minorities with ruthless, unremitting ferocity.

And the greatest enemies of the evangelical faith today are not unbelievers, who when they hear the gospel often embrace it, but the church, the establishment, the hierarchy.”

- John R. W. Stott – “Only One Way: The Message of Galatians”

More Stott here and here.

Highlights from an interview with Kevin DeYoung, the full text of which can be found here:

What is justice and what does it mean to do justice?

Doing justice means giving people their due. On the one hand that means restraining and punishing wrongdoers. On the other hand it means giving people what we owe them as beings in the image of God… Doing justice, then, includes everything from law enforcement to being generous to the poor.

Any cautions you would give to Christians who are eager to transform the world or make the shalom of the city their church’s mission?

I believe that making disciples and doing justice relate (not exactly) but somewhat in the same way that faith and works relate to one another.

We would say that faith alone is the basis for salvation, and yet true faith will always result in good works. We must not “load in” works as if they are an equal with faith as a salvation-base, but neither can we “detach” works and say that they are optional for a believer.

Similarly, I would say that the first thing I need to tell people when they come to church is “believe in Jesus,” not “do justice.” Why? Because first, believing in Jesus meets a more radical need and second, because if they don’t believe in Jesus they won’t have that gospel-motivation to do justice that I talk about in the book.

So there’s a priority there. On the other hand, for a church to not constantly disciple its people to “do justice” would be utterly wrong, because it is an important part of God’s will. I’m calling for an ‘asymmetrical balance’ here.

It seems to me that some churches try to “load in” doing justice as if it is equally important as believing in Jesus, but others, in fear of falling into the social gospel, do not preach or disciple their people to do justice at all. Both are wrong. A Biblical church should be highly evangelistic yet known for its commitment to the poor of the city.

Basking in the glow of solitary-communal activity… LIVE from North Point church:

Before I was a pastor I wouldn’t have known where to purchase cocaine. Now, access is just a phone call away.

(For the record, there has been no accessing of this substance on my part.)

What I’ve discovered since becoming a pastor a couple of years ago is that there is more of a drug culture, even in our small towns, than we think. This has led me into some dark places to be with the kinds of people that it turns out Jesus was keen on reaching out to.

They’ve brought their friends to meet me too. These meetings – the initial ones and the subsequent ones – never have fairy tale endings. The friends I’ve met, even the ones who have decided to follow Jesus, still struggle with their addictions. They struggle with their addictions, with their ongoing social strife, with the poor start they were given in life, and with their inability to avoid a daily existence involving the worst kinds of drama.

You know, all of the stuff that most of the rest of us don’t need to worry about.

Walking with someone through all of this is frustrating, draining, and difficult… but it’s not boring, I can tell you that, and it is ultimately rewarding.

Sick Physicians
It’s the sick, Jesus tells us that are in need of the physician. Unfortunately too many physicians are happy to gather together weekly for mutual affirmation while ignoring the sick.

Many of these physicians are just as sick in other ways, but it’s really hard to tell that when you’re surrounded by a bunch of other people with the same sickness. More mutual affirmation…

We Need Each Other
The sick and the healthy – we need each other. Those who are sick with addictions need those who are not and those who are sick with pride need those who have none.

I was in a meeting on Saturday night when a thought occurred to me. I was sitting with three very good friends talking about where the ideal place would be to plant a church amongst the homeless, drug addicted, and sex-trade workers.

What’s important at the outset, we all agreed, is to let people know that WE are not there to change THEM. We are there to change WITH them, since WE are not complete in our perfection.

When you meet someone who struggles with addiction, they are changed but you are too. Sometimes, you change more than they do!

Connections
Do you have the right connections to make a call right now and have the ability to purchase cocaine? If not, you probably don’t know enough of the types of people Jesus did.

I can help you find these people if you’re interested. Let me know.

(Of course there are a couple of cautions to throw in here. Don’t do this if you’ve struggled with this type of substance abuse in the past. Don’t walk into an area of weakness and tempt yourself beyond your limits, etc.)

But for most of the rest of you, you really need someone you can look in the face and say:

“I’m not here to change you; I’m here to change WITH you.”