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Dear Congregation:

As I leave on vacation for this week, returning for some rest and rejuvenation to my family in Illinois, God has led me to share some thoughts with you.

God has given us many promises. He has given us promises individually, as his beloved children; he has given us promises collectively as First Baptist Church; he has given us promises as his people, the People of God, through the Scriptures, through the work of the Spirit, and through the mouth of Jesus himself. The first promise I want to remind you of is that God is not slow in keeping his promises. (2 Peter 3:9) He always does what he says he will do. Moreover, he always shows up in the right way at the right time in the right measure. It is up to us to believe this promise so that we may receive from his other promises.

The second promise I want to remind you of is that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58) Because of this promise, he exhorts us in the same verse to “stand firm and let nothing move you, and excel in the work of the Lord.” In many parts of our lives, it seems that the work we do does not pay off. For one reason or another, we are unable to receive blessing from our daily work. Nevertheless, God promises that as we work for him, in his name, and do so with the excellence that comes from working for God with a heart fixed on him, we know that our work is worthwhile.

The third promise I want to remind you of is that of the cross and the resurrection. Jesus promises his disciples that “in this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33) His next sentence is, “but take heart, for I have conquered the world.” He also reminds us that it is our life – not just our job or duty, but our life itself – as disciples to carry our cross as we follow Jesus, putting to death everything in us that is not of him. As daunting as this sounds, his promise to those who go to the cross with Jesus is that those who do will share in the resurrection with Jesus. It is this resurrection that makes our work worthwhile.

The fourth promise I want to remind you of is that God is in the business of restoring broken relationships. It is for this reason that I am writing to you on this day: from evening on Wednesday, 8 October to the evening of Thursday, 9 October, it is the day known to the Old Testament People as Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. (See Leviticus 16:1 – 34.) It was on this day that the people formally repented and sacrifices were made to restore the relationship between the People and God. This was also the day to be reconciled one to another. As followers of Jesus Christ, we know that he has atoned for our sins, and the sins committed against us, and we can be right with him. Let us take this time to renew our repentance and be reconciled. Offer the olive branch. Bury the hatchet. Burn the list of sins committed against you and forgive. This is the Call of God.

I want to encourage you in light of these promises. Many of you are exhausted. Life in general and life at First Baptist have been difficult. Things have not gone as we have wanted. Many of us face chaos at home or work, in our neighborhoods or in our extended families. Economics are hard. This applies both to us personally and to the church.

These promises stand in stark contrast to what we see as our “everyday realities.” In fact, they look so different from what we live in day-in and day-out that they seem quite unbelievable. The world does not seem conquered. We have more broken relationships than we can count. We struggle to make ends meet. Reality and promise look like they live in two different worlds.

But God has something more for us. We must always remember that God’s reality is the only real reality. His perspective is the way of seeing things that puts everything in its proper place.

I believe that God has made some very specific promises to First Baptist Church. I pray that we all may accept them and live in light of them, no matter how things appear.

First, God has promised that if we do God’s will, we will become a healthy, thriving congregation, a missional congregation capable of being the presence of Jesus himself in our community for its transformation and redemption. This is a big promise. It does require our obedience, and our single-hearted devotion to doing everything God has invited us to do, but it is a big promise.

Second, God has promised that he will raise up leaders to help coordinate and guide his people to do what he has called us to do. Some of those leaders may be you. Others may come from elsewhere. But he will do this.

Third, God has promised that our congregation will be re-populated, and that soon. Let us prepare ourselves for this reality.

Fourth, God has promised to pour out financial abundance upon our congregation and people, in whatever measure we are faithful with what he has given us. And he plans to do so soon. As long as we are able to demonstrate wisdom and generosity, God will provide for us with more resources to do more for the work of his Kingdom. But if we choose to hoard and to keep our resources to ourselves, we will be in want and need. This is what we call “Kingdom Economics.” Kingdom Economics is where the blessing of God comes through following his Call and applying his wisdom. It is often the reverse to all other Economic systems. If God is inviting you to be wisely generous, it will likely challenge your understanding of how God is providing for you. But he will do it.

Fifth, God intends to restore damaged and broken relationships all around us – including many of those broken during the last five to ten years around First Baptist. He desires to bring us all deep healing for our hurts and forgiveness for our sins. Let us take this time to set ourselves right with others.

Sixth, God is showing us that we are a part of something he is doing that is much bigger than just us. He has not taken us this far to leave us to fail now. He has called others around us to support us and to walk alongside of us.

When I return to you on 19 October, I will be preaching on Exodus 33:12 – 23. I hope that by that time most of you will have read this letter and that passage in Exodus. I hope that by then you will have taken to heart God’s promises – both the specific and the general – and will have set yourself to prayer, repentance and study of the Scriptures toward what God is, in fact, doing with us, and how he intends to get it done. I hope that some among you will take the initiative to invite others to new or renewed involvement in this Body of Believers by offering them this letter as encouragement, and by offering the invitation to join us for worship, or join you in prayer and Bible Reading together.

For the passage from Exodus speaks of Moses’ desire not to move forward unless he was assured God was with him and the people. He asked God to show him his glory. And God did so. We are about to see God’s glory, if we allow God to give us eyes to see it. Let us prepare ourselves in this time for wholeheartedly asking for and receiving God’s glory.

Will you join me in seeking God’s glory and his presence together?

Grace and Peace –

+Pastor Matt

I’ve been writing here recently on the subject of call and vocation.  I firmly believe that our call or vocation flows from discipleship to Jesus Christ.  That is why the terms “call” and “vocation” do not solely or primarily apply to those doing “ministry” in a professional or other ecclesial sense.  Call is a disciple’s life. 

Often, people I am discipling or counseling are flustered when I propose that we should seek the will of God and expect an answer.  Nevertheless, I must continue to propose that the entirety of a disciple’s life is subject to the will of God.  There is nothing that can be set aside.  By becoming disciples of Jesus Christ, we have submitted ourselves to a long, deep obedience to Jesus in order that we may be children of our Father in Heaven.  This obedience is long, because it will last the rest of our lives.  It is deep, because it touches every fiber of our being.  It touches every place where we have to make a choice. 

At first, this might seem overwhelming to disciples who realize that they do not know what God’s will is or how his character works.  Nevertheless, over time, through being discipled and mentored and through the discipleship norms of the called community - the church - a disciple discovers how to discern and do the will of God.  As maturity develops, certain things become a given.  Other things are still battled out day to day. 

One of the first habits of this kind of discipleship that may develop is the perpetual, momentary inquiry as to what God desires us to do with the next moment or the next several moments.  Surprisingly, even when we have a relatively structured day, we have a lot of moments in which God may speak.  We have a lot of moments in which he can guide us into something we never would have expected.  This could occur in conversation, in thought, and in action.  Often, this is strengthened by mini-pauses between events, so that we may listen to God’s “well done!” and discern further direction.

There is no escaping this long, deep obedience, once we have committed to discipleship.  God will not allow any part of our life to escape transformation.  And this is to our benefit.  For we must always remember that any untransformed, unredeemed part of our life will not survive the transition to the New Heavens and the New Earth.  God found it good, right, suitable and excellent to put that part of us there in the first place, and now he still finds it good, right, suitable and excellent to be transformed into something that we will have for eternity. 

Thus, such submission to transformation - as unpleasant as it may be - is worth the effort, the pain, and the difficulty - in order to have something that will last.  So let us away with the survival mode tactics of what I can get away with and still be in the will of God, or it hurts too much so I’ll wait, and dive in!  We will find the reward worth the struggle - and more.

As I continue in congregational leadership, I have become convinced that there is much more that God wants to do than we ever allow him to do.  God really wants to heal the sick.  God really wants to cast out demons.  God really wants to change lives and bring people abundant life.  God really wants to pour out his Spirit - in the supernatural kinds of ways that we see in the New Testament and elsewhere.  God really wants to even raise the dead. 

And yet, we don’t pray anywhere near enough for this to take place.  Moreover, oftentimes, the prayers that we pray are weakened by the expectations of failure or, perhaps worse yet, survival rations of God’s Spirit.  Sadly, we often don’t expect God to respond.  Especially not immediately. 

What if the Church - and yes, our local congregation, too - were to pray 24-7 as a habit: not just in a few places, mind you, but as a habit for congregational life?  What if we were to expect the miraculous?  What if we were to expect God’s will to actually be done in our lives?  What if we were to invite the full giftedness of the Holy Spirit to come down upon us - to give us what we need for ministry, and to form God’s character in us? 

If?  Then: then we would see God transforming our communities organically through the work of the Spirit-filled church.  Then we would see the message of Christ connected to the lives of many people who otherwise would see this as just so much more talk.  Then we would see radical revival.  Are we ready for this?

Then let us pray: not just for the extravagant, but for the mundane.  Let us pray expecting that God will speak to us.  Let us pray, knowing that he hears us.  Let us pray, knowing that he desires to grant us Abundant Life.  Let us pray - knowing that God desires the church to grow as we do his work.  And let us do so together, as much as possible. 

God, move your Spirit upon us.  Cleanse us from our sins.  Heal our bodies, souls and minds.  Grant us emotional healing.  Provide for our needs.  We want to give you glory, honor and praise.  Pour out your Spirit and let your Kingdom come. 

Amen!

The subject of Vocation, or Call, has generated some very good reflections in the comments over the last week or so.  I find it a bit difficult to respond to comments that are almost as long as the post (if not longer), since there’s so many rabbit trails to go down!  :)  Therefore, I propose an alternative solution: I’ll try posting more on vocation and call and deal with as specific a topic in each post as I can manage.  Then, we can generate genuine discussion through rather briefer comments. 

Now, that said…

One of the issues that seems to be the most pointed in the comments is the question of discernment: how do we differentiate our will from God’s?  If we desire to do something, is this a desire from God, “from the flesh”, or somehow a mixture of the two? 

When our will is the primary factor, experience tells me that we will pursue something even while doors are closing to the pursuit one after the other.  All the while, the open door (often one we don’t necessarily desire) stands open, until we, either crowded back toward the open door by all the other closures, or finally letting our will submit to God’s, end up going through the door that was open in the first place.  For me, one of the best examples was the pursuit of Graduate School until I finally submitted to the call to pastoral leadership in a local congregation.

In the meantime, the frustrations mount that the ends we are pursuing do not turn out as we like.  We may even try to dive in to the wrong thing just to get the tension over with.  (Yeah, tried that, too.)  In the end, though, as we start listening to God, we begin to discover (if we allow it) what it is inside us that drives us in such a stubborn direction.  And it’s rarely on the surface.  And it’s often rather difficult to disclose to others, if not impossible.  And yet God heals it as we pursue what he really desires. 

By contrast, when God’s will is dominant, it’s much more like a learning experience.  God’s will and his purpose may not be clear - any more than algebra may be or have been for us.  Ultimately, though, like higher math, if we are willing to discover and learn, the will and the purpose becomes clearer and the applications start to make sense.  In such a learning experience, there will be trial and error.  Sometimes we will have to work backward to the point where we messed something up (such as a vain attempt to divide by zero) and re-work the whole issue.  We will discover as we grow that there is more we didn’t know, and become content with what God is doing. 

Usually, need or pain triggers one response; faith based in the goodness of God, the other.  And we tend to mix the two, don’t we?  I painted as stark a contrast as I could for emphasis. 

What sorts of discernment issues grow out of this contrast?

Today, I read a letter to the editor in the local paper written by someone in our congregation.  The article is here.  I responded in the comments section on the paper’s website. 

It seems that residents of Warren and the Mahoning Valley do not feel good about their/our community, on the whole.  With the rust-belt economics and issues of crime and social dysfunctions, it seems that few have a positive outlook on the area.  Survival and holding on to what little is left seems to be the name of the game for many people.  Hope seems to be in short supply.  Community-bashing seems to take the place of positive social action. 

Nevertheless, in her article, Ms. Fishel offers us a contrasting perspective that I welcome.  She seems to suggest that if we spend less time being mad or sad (or even scared) about how things are, and choose to take positive steps toward good leadership in government, education, family and business, then we may be able to turn things around.  She herself seems willing to be a part of the solution.  This is very commendable.  But I think there is a bit more.

God wants to bring his people abundant life - even here and now.  As we engage ourselves in following in his ways, we will find ourselves truly breaking out of being “part of the problem” and becoming “part of the solution.”  For until God directs our lives, we end up dealing with all the same issues and power structures the last group of well-meaning folks dealt with, until we get back to where we started.  Only lives transformed by the power of God have the potential to really make substantive changes in the core issues at work here. 

I would encourage members of our community to enagage in walking the neighborhoods and praying for them.  It gives a very different perspective than when we stay in our cars and off certain streets.  And people come to God through it.  As they do, we see neighborhoods become alive again.  Shall we begin?

I’ve just been listening to a lecture given by N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham (Episcopus Dunelm), on Jesus’ knowlege of his own identity.  Vocation has been on my heart of late; not only in the missiological necessities but in its relationship to our true identity. 

Wright manages to do something that I have rarely seen among true scholars - and even among many who merely bear the name “teacher” - including myself: he is able, through his deep scholarship and understanding, to lead us, not into an academic exstasy, but into true worship and discipleship.  Even amidst the fluency of many languages - Greek and Hebrew being the most obvious here - Wright leads us to a deep understanding of Jesus which inspires true relationship with God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rather than footnotes.

I have long held that Christian scholarship and education, rightly practiced, is a true vocation in and of itself.  As such, it can be, for the scholar/educator, an act of worship, a source of true joy, and a vector for others to be drawn up into worship.  Nevertheless, my experience has been that many scholars take so much pride in questions and deconstruction, in academic debates and frank scoffing that rarely has scholarship led me to worship.  The exceptions, of course, are many of my truly Christian professors from Seminary, and a few other scholars whom I have met in books.  In these cases even the footnotes were the adornment of the priestly uniform as we act as the kingdom of priests serving God for the world’s renewal.

As a teaching preacher, I must remember that this mature expression of scholarship need not work itself into a frenzy to bring out passion, but instead speaks so lovingly of the God whom it has come to know academically that, even where we differ or do not understand, we still resonate with to the glory of God. 

Ah, that one day I may become like that.

Today, I observed a subtle shift that has been going on in my outlook on preaching - what needs to be preached, what must be heard - has come to some fruition.  Today, I had the “not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom…” passage from Matthew 7:21 - 29.  While through the past I have heard and focused on the warning aspects of the passage, today, we focused on the reassurance and confidence aspects of it.

Yes, even in such a passage there is hope and good news.  That was the focus today.  Previously, I think we needed to hear the warning more.  Now, the encouragement. 

This is a very good sign that we are moving toward congregational health.  What do you think?

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…