This was the question at our men’s group tonight. How do we reach ____? fill in the blank. It was a good discussion. We decided to pray the prayer Jesus invites us to pray in Matthew 9 – “Lord, send workers into your harvest field!” for two weeks and see what God is saying.
Pray with us!
After a few conversations recently, I am again reminded of the nature of God’s call on our lives. When God calls us, he does not “need” us. His motivation is blessing. He desires to bless us. So he calls us. The things to which he calls us are the vectors and the means by which he blesses us – even now. When we run from God’s call, thinking he is asking too much, we run from God’s blessing. God cannot bless us as much or as fully if we disobey rather than obey.
This runs alongside the call-burnout issue. We think we have to do so much – this activity, that activity… we end up so hyperactive, we don’t know what to do with space and silence except that all the stuff we’ve packed away comes to the surface. So then we blame God about how tired we are (since he has called us) or what we’re going through (because it hurts) and then don’t want to listen to what happens in the silence and so run harder and further.
And all God wanted was for us to do what he called us to do: no more, no less. A long time ago I decided to follow God’s call – wherever that led. I decided to let God do as much as he possibly could. And it has led me to some very surprising places. Not the least of which is Warren, Ohio. It’s been a tough call, so far. Crazier by far than anything I’d imagined.
But God’s blessing has been greater than anything I’d imagined, either. And it isn’t over yet – not by any stretch. This week, I’m preaching on Isaiah 49:8 – 16. In that passage, God’s people feel overwhelmed, abandoned by God and unable to fulfill their calling. Yet, even so, God chooses to bless them. They’ve been failures as his covenant people. Yet, he chooses to give them something greater than they had to begin with. He even wants to bless the journey back from exile into the land of promise. He’s not just blessing the land, he blesses the journey too.
No, we have not been forgotten. We will not be forgotten. But we must pursue the call to receive the blessing. We must pursue the call of God and no other calls. This is the Word of the Lord; Thanks be to God!
So I’ve continued my work of prayer this week, seeking God’s vision and direction (while not neglecting my other pastoral duties). It seems like I’ve been interacting with God at a very deep level regarding some issues we’ve been experiencing in our Congregation. And the conversations I’m having reinforce what I’ve been praying for.
I think we as followers of Jesus tend to under-play extended periods of prayer as valid for Christians – espeicially “professional church leaders.”
I’m realizing it needs to be more balanced, now. Definitely more time for prayer – in solitude and in groups. No doubt about it.
Now… how to get that to take hold congregation-wide…
As our congregation has transitioned from a high-conflict situation coupled with a systems-wide change situation to a point of stability and growth, I have noticed a change in the use of my time.
Initially, I was working hyperactively, firefighting (in a sense), working long hours, high stress, etc. This was also a time of managing out-of-bounds conflict and strategizing the change in church systems that needed to happen to bring us to health.
As the conflict moved to the back burner, the hours-per-week slowly came down into the “reasonable and customary” needed to really be sustainable life. Nevertheless, I was still working on the systems stuff.
At the moment, we are working on developing new bylaws for the church which will ultimately change the way we govern ourselves and make our systems more Biblical and give us accountable flexability within visionary leadership. As this transition occurs, we are working to come to leadership consensus as we begin to teach the concepts of such new governance to the congregation at large.
Now, I believe we have come to a place of quiet re-grouping, a place that can be bathed in prayer – because now there is time to do that. I think we will find a happy medium in this, such that we can now structure prayer into ministry from the beginning, rather than trying to use it to fight through things later. I think this is a very positive transition, one which I feel will flow throughout the congregation and bring true healing and Kingdom transformation – and therefore, growth.
Stay tuned as we continue this process, and please pray for us!
Saturday, twelve guys from the church got together and cleaned up the outside of the building. They worked from about 9 until about 2, with a lunch break, and got a lot done. There’s still more to do, but things look really good around there right now.
Among other things, we had to plant a new Rhododendron in place of one that died. The stump extraction was taken care of by these guys, who were the only ones willing to pose for a picture all day:
Today, I finished the re-formatting of a discipleship unit I did back in January-February 2007 on evangelism called Acts 29. Now, it is chapter 3 of the Vital Faith curriculum. Chapter 3 (Acts 29) takes the approach that we have all been written into the Great Story of God – the one described by creation, fall, incarnation and participation – and as we tell the Good News, we tell others about how we participate in the Story and how they may as well. It helps us boil down the contents of the faith to “news” that can be proclaimed, and helps us over the hurdles about talking to others about our faith.
Of course, this is totally dependent on two factors: being in close proximity to non-Christians, and living a genuinely Christian lifestyle. The Vital Faith curriculum here, as elsewhere, assumes a level of community spirituality in order to fill in the gaps.
I began work on Chapter 4 today, and I am about 3/8 of the way through. Grace and Peace.
Late last week, I completed the second chapter of my discipleship curriculum draft and passed it on to the curious onlookers. Chapters 1 and 2 are intended to be preparation for baptism in our congregation – an outline of the basics of Christian faith and the lifestyle of a disciple. Today, I began re-formatting an existing part of the curriculum dealing with evangelism and outreach based on finding points of connection with God’s “Great Story” – creation, fall, incarnation, participation. That re-formatting should be finished soon.
Chapter 4 will be on learning how to pray via the Lord’s Prayer
Chapter 5 will be on discerning and practicing Spiritual Gifts
Chapter 6 will be on discovering and practicing Spiritual Disciplines.
All told, there will be ten chapters in this first edition. Please pray as I continue in its development.
Tonight, our leadership team completed its first reading of the new proposed bylaws (constitution) for the church. Needless to say, there were some concerns and discussion. Nevertheless, it seems the primary concerns were twofold: first, that we were going to need to really work hard to deal with the new concepts of how we run things that have been presented by the proposal, and second, that those who really want to do the business of discipleship and not worry about the structures so much don’t get dragged in to the middle of some big discussion.
We will look at this again soon.
Holy Spirit, come down upon us!
Bless us with your presence.
Help us to proclaim your Word in the language people understand.
Give us the grace to use your gifts to your purpose.
Give us wisdom to live according to your ways.
Guide us through the life of discipleship.
Amen.
Food for thought from TheHeresy.com. (via tallgrassworship, via dyingchuch)
If the church were a business we would measure our profit and if we weren’t making enough we would change. If we were a hospital we would measure how many of the sick and injured become healthier. If we were a vocational training institute we would measure how many people get jobs and keep them in their area of training.
Now imagine a school that measured how much people enjoyed the classes, how great the day care was, how inspiring the teacher was, the levels of enrolment and the amount of funding they had but only passively cared about the success of their graduates in the workplace. That my friends describes most of the church in North America today.
We need to change what we measure and how we measure our success.
· Do people have a proper understanding of the gospel?
· Do they love the people that can offer them nothing in return?
· Are people willing to sacrifice for others?
· Are people becoming more like Christ in their values and behaviour?
· Do they have life and freedom?
If we considered these things, we would realize the state we are in and we would change. As long as we measure things based on our own personal satisfaction or by the markers of organizational success we will miss the point.
Full post here.
In our days of congregational conflict, we experienced the conflict in terms of the “customer satisfaction” paradigm. The irony is that the dissatisfaction came from the fact that we had begun to measure the “success of graduates” sorts of things and found ourselves not only lacking, but almost utter failures. From this distorted sense of purpose flowed our lack of success in the proclamation of the Gospel.
Now, with the conflict largely resolved, we find ourselves having success in bringing the life of the Good News to bear in our lives and in the community around us. Having focused on “success of graduates” has allowed us to find that “customer satisfaction” comes along for the ride – but only to a point. Disciples, eventually, have to come to value discipline – which, of course, from time to time, involves correction. As long as correction is considered part of a satisfying experience, it’s all good. If not, well… then we’re back to where we were.
Whatever comes, though, it is essential that we measure the right things. And I have hope that as a culture of discipleship develops in our congregation, even discipline and correction will be welcome.