One Last Revival?

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I’ve been thinking about and praying for a revival. For years. Specifically, and more so even lately, I’ve been praying and hoping for a Josiah revival.

What’s a Josiah revival? It’s a last ditch kind of revival … one more mighty move of God before judgment falls. And fall it most certainly will.

Consider the sin of Sodom. Usually, we equate the sin of Sodom with overt and aggressive homosexuality. Yet those were only the final symptoms of their sin. God Himself describes what they in Sodom had done:

“Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. {50} And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit.” (Ezekiel 16:49-50)

First, Sodom was proud. Pride is a reflection of self-sufficiency, that somehow we have accomplished or gained what we have on our own. President Abraham Lincoln ascribed this meaning of pride to the United States, mired at the time in a brutal Civil War which would ultimately take the lives of as many as 750,000 Americans. In his 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation, Lincoln wrote of the untold blessings that our nation had received. After citing what he called the choicest bounties of heaven, he mourned:

“…We have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.” 

That is precisely what Sodom had done. They were a successful city-state, rich with agricultural and commercial success, wealthy and prosperous. But they thought they’d done these things themselves. They were proud, fat, and with much discretionary time on their hands. Their work week was short, they were materially satisfied, and so they turned their attention to pleasure and the lusts of the flesh. And because the flesh can never be satisfied, they devolved further and further from Divinely ordained sexual relations between a husband and wife. They ended up with total sexual confusion and perverted expression of their sexuality.

We (in the United States) are much like Sodom. Our lust and will to live without truth and accountability to the God who made us has led us to unimaginable national sin.

At the top of the list of our national sins has been the holocaust of abortion. This holocaust has claimed the lives of at least 54,000,000 innocents since 1973. How large is this number? It represents 1,367 million babies per year that have died. That number is far greater than ALL casualties of war from every war in which the U.S. has been involved since 1775.

President Lincoln believed that the Civil War was God’s just judgment for the sin of slavery. A former professor of mine once queried our class, “If the blood atonement for the sin of slavery was the Civil War, what do you suppose will be the blood atonement for the sin of abortion?”

It is evident to many that judgment is on its way (remember the Billy Graham quote, “If God does not judge America, He owes an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah”?).

But … perhaps … there can be one last mighty move of God prior to that judgment falling. A Josiah revival.

Josiah was the grandson of Manasseh, and the son of Amon. Manasseh reigned in Judah for fifty-five years, and Amon for two. The spiritual wickedness that accumulated in those years is unimaginable. Even though Manasseh repented and was forgiven, the damage had already been done. The LORD spoke through Jeremiah to say that judgment was inevitable, and that it would be horrible.

Then the LORD said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My mind would not be favorable toward this people. Cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth. {2} And it shall be, if they say to you, ‘Where should we go?’ then you shall tell them, Thus says the LORD: “Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.”’ {3} And I will appoint over them four forms of destruction,” says the LORD: “the sword to slay, the dogs to drag, the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. {4} I will hand them over to trouble, to all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem.”

After Manasseh and Amon, Josiah became king when only 8 years old. Somehow, by the sovereign grace of God, he was cut out of a completely different bolt of cloth. At age 16 he began to seek the God of his father David, and at age 20 he began to aggressively purge idolatry from Judah and Jerusalem. And at 26 he was exposed to the Word of God through Hilkiah the priest and Shaphan the scribe.

What happened then was amazing and incredible. Covenants were made, purging and repentance continued, Passover was observed, the Word of God spread. All told, Judah experienced the effect of Josiah’s reign from the time he was twenty to the time he died at thirty-nine.  The land which had been so full of sins and idolatry of every kind was now a nation under God. Such a drastic change could only be produced by God Himself, using His Word and anointed leadership.

After Josiah died, they lived once again with no fear of the LORD. It was only a matter of time before the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity.

A Josiah revival.

One last time when someone … when many some ones … begin to seek God with all their hearts.

One last time when idolatry and sin is purged.

One last time when the Word of God is discovered, preached, taught, believed, and obeyed.

One last time before the inevitable judgment of God falls upon America.

Can we pray for revival? Should we hope for revival? Is it possible that one last Josiah revival will come?

Circumcision Saturday – What are your thoughts?

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I received this question after teaching of about the Sign of the Covenant. An interesting way to look at it.

What do you think?

Please tell me is you think i’m pressing the bible text with these thoughts. I think the Holy Spirit was impressing upon me that 1) Abraham was, in circumcision, making himself a living sacrifice in that in response to God’s directive he and his chosen people were offering themselves to the covenant promise wholeheartedly. They were self-purifying before there was a sacrificial system, but using their personal body as a foreshadowing of what Jesus would later do. Abraham was preparing himself to beget God’s chosen seed in Isaac. And he and his household were in faith and deed commiting an act in belief that set them apart as God’s chosen. I realize that Jesus was the first and only man to offer His body to God to show personal dedication to the will of God, and the initiation of the New Covanant started as a response to that (Heb. 5,10,16-20, esp. 20). Do you think circumcision could be an OT foreshadowing of Jesus offering His body to establish God’s chosen people?

Big Church, Small Church = Same Church

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As many of you know, I am a blogging veteran. It dawned on me recently that I have been blogging for over 10 years at this point. But is also interesting is that I find myself interacting on them less and less (although ironically, this article is on a blog). Why? Well because I have little bandwidth these days for incessant arguments. When I think about some of the most common arguments about church on blogs (whether ministry-minded blogs like CrossConnection or other Christian blogs), it is the church size preference argument. Most of the arguing, as I have thought about it, is actually from people who prefer smaller churches and then vilify larger churches. Although I don’t know of any larger church pastor starting a blog argument over church size, it is far to common to hear a mega church pastor speak down about a smaller church. I once stood in horror as a large church pastor asked a faithful brother of a smaller church, “How is your little work going?”. The work of God in salvation and in His people is never little. It is always huge.

But, for me, I feel that I have a unique vantage point on this because of how the Lord has led me. I have been involved pastorally in 4 churches (3 as the church-planter and senior pastor). The three churches I planted were turned over to other pastors with less than 100 people. Now I pastor a very large church. Here’s what I have learned. Simply stated, the church is the church. Whether large or small, the church is the people of God together in community. Every church is flawed in some way, yet being grown up into her head, Jesus. All churches have budget problems, building (or lack thereof) issues, committed members and folks who just come and go. On every level, the church is the church.

This was brought into stark focus for me recently as someone asked me how it was to teach at a large church. I said simply, it’s exactly the same, just more people hear the message at one time. I haven’t changed, the only difference is that now, if I look to the left or the right when I’m teaching, I’ll see myself amplified on jumbo screens (a terrifying sight). I still study the same, deliver it the same, pray that God uses it the same. After service, just like in a smaller body, some folks head for the doors and other folks want to spend time and talk. There are all the same people issues. In any church, large or small, most people have 10 truly close friends. That doesn’t change. A large church is not any less intimate than a smaller church. Why? Because intimacy is a heart issue not a size issue. Again, it’s all the same church.

So why do I write this? Well maybe it is my hope that people will be okay with simply stating their preference for church size and dynamics instead of seeking to justify the preference by vilifying the other side. I also say this because as a church planter and smaller church pastor, I also tried to vilify larger churches. It don’t think I did it maliciously. I did it naively. But my experience has taught me that the church is the church, no matter how many people are gathered together. We are all one big family in Jesus. I, for one, am grateful for that.

The ‘One Another’

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Nehemiah 4:19

“Then I said to the nobles, the rulers, and the rest of the people, “The work is great and extensive, and we are separated far from one another on the wall.”

There is the very tangible reality in our daily lives that we are separated far from one another “on the wall”.

There is no doubt that the “work” we are involved in as the Body of Christ is vast and extensive from our point of view. As we look at the “walls” that lie in disrepair and comprehend that its “breaches are many” (Isaiah 22:9), we begin to understand the scope of all that has been done, and begin to understand the reach that still has to be accomplished in our own communities, to the ends of the globe.

What greater thing is there than pouring our very lives that have been redeemed from the slimy pit and have now been washed clean, purged from the stains of our guilty consciences and shot-out lives, into the great and eternal “work” that we have been called to and given gifts by His Spirit which enable us to engage ourselves in this work effectively and profitably for the renown of Jesus’ name.

There are those that each of us know and love and care for in the Body of Christ that are fighting and laboring and toiling, expending spiritual and physical blood, sweat, and tears in this “work”. They are the ones that fill the seats on Wednesdays and Sundays, falling asleep, nodding off during our sermons, not making it to the discipleship classes, the home fellowship or mid-week study all the time, “‘cuz I’m just plumb wore out”.

They are the ones who are directly involved in the “front lines” work of the ministry. They are the ones forging ahead day in and day out into the vast hordes of men and women, young and old who don’t believe. And it is at those moments that we feel so separate from one another in the work that God has set before us to do.

And here in Nehemiah 4:16 we see the position of the leaders in the “impossible” work in Jerusalem…namely repairing the breaches, rebuilding the wall. The leaders are positioned squarely behind the “frontline”. Yes, they are also directly involved in the work themselves, fighting, laboring and toiling alongside.

But they are also functioning “behind the scenes”, watching, directing, re-directing, encouraging, equipping, etc.

With this picture in mind, one thought stands out. There is the necessity that we must teach, by our lives and by our words, that in the work of the Lord and in the service of the Lord, in desiring to accomplish the task that is before us, there is a needed balance, with which we will be able to be most effective in our watching and in our working.

We, as pastors, have been separated from “waiting on tables”, so to speak, and strive to be constant in our giving of ourselves, our entire lives, to the ministry of the word and to prayer. Our desire, our goal, our calling, if you will, is to excel in being the leaders that God has gifted us to be so that you might be the best equipped, as you each are laboring and toiling on the front lines, rebuilding the walls.

It is the Body working together, every part functioning in the role and giftings that the Lord has given each of us.

Ephesians 4:11-16

We have been given the grand opportunity to glorify God in coming alongside one another in this Great and Extensive work that He has called us to, gifted us for, and given leaders in His Body as He has seen fit to equip us for the work He has prepared beforehand for us to walk in.

1 Corinthians 12:27

“Now you are the body of Christ (corporately) , and members individually.”

The U.S. military…a useful analogy

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I’m sure I’m not the only pastor and/or teacher of the scripture that is constantly on the lookout for a good analogy or illustration that can help bring clarity to one or more of the truths contained in God’s word.

In my search for just the right analogy to describe the Christian life in general, especially in the way it contrasts with the way everyone else is living life, God has given me one that both believers and unbelievers have told me is the most understandable they’ve ever heard.  I’d like to pass it on to those of you who read this blog to see if it might be useful to you.

Before I continue though, please know that this analogy is most effective for those in a culture and a country that has a governmental and military structure somewhat similar to what is found in the U.S.A.

Here it is:  The all volunteer military– it’s characteristics and it’s members interaction with the government and other citizens not in the military.  This is what I mean:

1.  A person must choose to become a part of it, just as a person must make a conscious choice to surrender to Jesus as Lord and Savior.

2.  To choose to join, by necessity you must also choose to turn away from pretty much everything else that has been a priority in your life, which includes the right to do the work you want to do, the place you want to live, and many other things that you no longer have control over….because you’ve chosen to surrender to an authority higher than yourself.  Easy to make the connection to the follower of Jesus here, right?  Repentance.

3.  But, you don’t stop being a citizen of the U.S.A. or being governed by it’s laws and you’re still subject to the punishment that is the result of disobeying those laws.  Sort of like the dual citizenship and the responsibilities that go along with each citizenship that was clearly expressed by Jesus in response to whether taxes should be paid, and by Paul in Romans 13 and Phil 3:20….for example

4.  Instead, you not only must remain a good citizen of the U.S.A., you must also live obediently to the new government that you have chosen to live under.  That new government is called the Uniform Code of Military Justice, (UCMJ).  Certain actions will be a violation of the laws of both governments.  But other actions that you are free to do as a U.S.A. citizen without violating the law, are actually violations of the laws of the UCMJ and you will be held to that higher standard and punished if you violate them.  The followers of Jesus, although free to do things that the culture or the government doesn’t consider unlawful, nevertheless don’t participate in those things because they are living with an accountability to a higher law.  And when a follower of Jesus violates the principles of the kingdom, other members of the kingdom hold him accountable.

5.  Those who are not a part of the U.S. military, are free to choose what the ultimate goal of their life is.  Those in the military are not.  Everyone in the U.S. military shares one common, ultimate goal:  to obey the commander-in-chief as he makes decisions that have the best interests of the whole country in mind.  That obedience will at times require the individual soldier to surrender life itself for a cause greater than his own interests.  For the follower of Jesus, He is the commander-in-chief and His goal of glorifying God through self-less love does at times require His follower to give up his/her life too.

6.  Every person that voluntarily joins the U.S. Military is required to go through a basic training.  For Americans, basic training exists to destroy the individualism and independence that are at the top of our cultural mountain.  Individual identity in the military, although recognized, is subjugated to finding your identity as part of a group/community.  For a soldier to think and act independently and to place individual needs/wants above what is best for the group, cannot be tolerated.  To tolerate such behavior is to potentially cost the lives of others.  As followers of Jesus, we enter the kingdom as individuals, but we are actually newly born into a “body” that has many parts with many functions and all are interconnected.  We have a crucial role to fill, but never in a manner that is disconnected from other members of the body and the body itself.

7.  Although some war situations will cause a U.S. military member to only interact with other members of the military, that is generally only for short periods of time.  But at some point it will always be the case that every member of the military will have to interact daily with civilians–those not living under the UCMJ.  And regardless of how contrary civilians live in contrast with the standards of the UCMJ, the military person will willingly give up his life, if necessary, for those living so opposite of the standards he lives with.  The follower of Jesus won’t just die for other believers, he will be willing to die for those who hate Jesus and hate him because he loves Jesus.

Although there are other angles that can be extracted I think these are sufficient for now.

Let’s be thankful for the U.S. military…in perhaps more ways than we have in the past.

 

 

 

Organic vs. Artificial

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I was a little disturbed this week to find that my favorite cereal had genetic soybean in it instead of all natural soy. It was even more disturbing to find that the cereal company that I thought was grass roots was in fact a concoction of the conglomerate Kellog. When we find out something isn’t real but instead artificial it leaves us with bad taste in our mouth, kind of like Pepsi Next, all the bad stuff diet plus none of the taste of the real thing. But I digress.

Churches can be artificial as well. They have the appearance of being real but in fact they are full of artificial fillers. I don’t want to make this post about the personality of the church but about how our churches grow. Does your church grow organically or artificially? What I mean by that is does your church grow by transfer growth or by salvations and baptisms?

I have been convicted of this lately because to be honest my church is around 85% transfer growth. I understand that and for awhile have accepted that but something has been growing inside of me for more organic growth in our church. I want to see our church grow by reaching the unchurched and dechurched. Our staff has been in conversations about this since the beginning of the year on how best to do that.

On one hand a big demographic in our area are single ladies in their 60’s & 70’s who golf twice a week at the country club. On the other hand our little Village is packed full of families barely squeaking by financially and exhausted from running their kids all over kingdom come for sports activities that are a big part of the reason they are so strapped. So how do you reach them when they would rather sleep in on Sunday then drag the family to church?

I don’t have any answers for you in this post but instead I hope to open up a discussion on how churches can be more organic in their communities. Let’s be honest people who are saved and disciple in your church have a tendency to stay longer, be more patient, and less demanding. We are taking steps to reach the lost and hurting in our area. We are not sure how that will end up looking but I know we are at the stage of wanting to try more.

Pronouncing Blessing – A Lost Art?

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For about the last five years, I have ended nearly every worship gathering that I have had the pleasure of leading by doing a Benediction.

May the LORD bless you and keep you
May the LORD cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you
May the LORD lift His countenance upon you and give you peace.

And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
And the love of God
And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
Be with us all now and forevermore.

This benediction is simply the Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6:24-26 with 2 Corinthians 13:14 added to the end of it. I have always enjoyed putting these two Scriptures together as the Blessing of Numbers 6 is focused on the Yahweh, the true and living God. Those capital letters show that LORD is God’s personal name, in the Hebrew, YHWH. By adding 2 Corinthians 13:14 to it, we get the full Biblical revelation of who YHWH is: Father, Son and Spirit, the blessed and glorious triune God.

It is simply the speaking forth of two Scriptures. But for some reason there is tremendous power and comfort in hearing the God’s blessing proclaimed on and over a group of people. In many ways, this speaking of blessing is a lost art in post-liturgical Protestantism, as this practice is often not the norm. We often forget that words are creative (both in Genesis 1 and James 2). Yes, we believe in the priesthood of all believers, but there is also something powerful and special when the pastor of a congregation will stand in the midst of the assembly and pronounce God’s blessing.

It is my hope and prayer that we will all grab hold of the tremendous opportunity to pronounce blessing upon people. I pray that pastors would bless their congregations publicly and often in Jesus’ name. Would to God that husbands will share the benediction with their wives and vice versa. Would to God that parents would share it with their children. Would to God that brothers would bless their sisters and vice versa. That employers would bless their employees and the employees would return suit. That blessing would be proclaimed across party lines, denominational lines, socio-economic lines, across international boundaries and unto the ends of the earth.

BIBLICAL INSTRUCTION: Monologue or Dialogue?

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Natural Extremists

We are prone to extremes.  One issue we tend to go to one extreme or the other on in the church is that of biblical learning.  On the one hand, there are those who are committed to preaching the Bible in the form of monologue.  When they think of Christians learning the Bible, they envision a lone preacher standing before a crowd, delivering a studied and crafted sermon in the power of the Holy Spirit, spitting presuppositions and propositional truth.

On the other hand, there are those who are committed to learning the Bible through sharing and dialogue.  When they think of Christians learning the Bible they picture a group of friends sitting down together to share how the Bible impacts them personally.  They see themselves sitting with friends over lattes in a coffee shop, or over dinner in a home, informally discussing what a portion of scripture means to each person in the group.   They value the contributions and interpretations of each person who is present.

I’ve seen some people who are so committed to teaching and preaching the Bible in monologue, that they are skeptical of any kind of sharing context where multiple people contribute opinions and perspectives on the meaning or relevance of the Bible.  Still I’ve seen other people who are so committed to the truth that “God can and wants to speak through all believers” come to a place where there is no room in their thinking for monologue preaching, or designated pastors who serve as primary Bible communicators for a specific community of believers.

Both/And

My contention is that both extremes are wrong, and that this is one of many areas Christians need to have a Both/And way of thinking.  I believe the reasons the monologue crowd values their preferred method are generally biblical, and that the reasons the dialogue crowd values their preferred method are generally biblical as well.  I believe that helpful leaders will help those entrusted to them by God to see the value and place of both monologue and dialogue in growing the church in the knowledge of God through His Word.

A Small Case for Monologue

1 Corinthians 12:29- “Are all apostles?  Are all prophets?  Are all teachers?”  These are rhetorical questions in context.  The apostle Paul is arguing for the unity of the body through the diversity of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Because we all have different gifts, we all need each other.  God has designed the body to be dependent upon Him by being codependent upon what He’s doing in each other.  Not all have a Spirit-given gifting to teach God’s truth in the same way, or at the same level.

Ephesians 4:11-12: “And He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”  Each of the gifts described here are Bible communicating gifts at their core.  Apostles preach the gospel and plant churches.  Evangelists major in preaching the gospel and equipping Christians to do effectively do the same.  Prophets have a teaching ministry that is trans-movement/denomination, and a ministry which applies biblical truth to timely issues under the spontaneous leading and enablement of the Holy Spirit.  Pastors and teachers give biblical counsel and didactic instruction of the Word to God’s people.  But four times we are told that only “some” are given by God to perform these functions in the ways these men do.  Only “some” are to build the body in these particular ways.

1 Timothy 3:2 tells us that an overseer must be “able to teach.”  This is not a requirement for deacons.  This implies a unique teaching ministry for those called to serve as the governing body of the church.  We can add to this verse 1 Timothy 5:17-18: “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine.  For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘the laborer is worthy of his wages.’”  The Bible is to be our method for determining how to think about these issues.  That’s why Paul built his case from “Scripture.”  And what Scripture demands, according to Paul, is that some of the governing leadership work hard at teaching the Bible more than any other Christian or leader in the church.  Their job is so important that they are to be paid to fulfill that role as they do it well.

We could go on, but these texts amply demonstrate that God intends there to be monologue-style Bible preaching and teaching in the church.  He has not gifted all to teach the same way.  He does not gift all to deduce the meaning of Scripture the same way.  Specifically, men who are called to be the leader of the leaders in the church are Spirit-gifted to preach the Word, and be the doctrine-setting authority in the local church.

A Small Case for Dialogue

But I’m not just for monologue in the church, but for dialogue as well, and so is the Bible.

Colossians 3:16- “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”  This exhortation was given to all the members of the Colossian church.  They were all to play a part in “teaching and admonishing one another.”

Hebrews 10:24-25: “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”  If there are a couple verses that support the idea of believers encouraging each other in small group community over lattes, these are them.  Considerately stirring each other up to love God and people, and serve God people as we “gather,” is the job of “us” as believers, not just “me” as a pastor.

Conclusion

Preaching the word in monologue is biblical and necessary.  If a Spirit-gifted man isn’t at the helm, preaching the Bible faithfully in collaboration with other Spirit-given leaders in the local church community, heresy abounds, and the church becomes a pool of ignorance.  Men who are specifically called to fill such a “leader of the leaders” function are not allowed to function in their gift.  Frankly, some need to repent of their radical commitment to the autonomy of the individual in the church.  Some would reduce the church to a leaderless weak state in the name of all believers being “equal” and “usable by God.”  We are all equal.  God does use us all.  But the question is how does God use us?  For some, they are called to be primary teachers and preachers in the church in ways others are not.  Let them do their job for the health of the church and the glory of God.

Additionally, God really can and does speak through every believer.  God wants to display how He has changed His kids through sharing in dialogue in small group type contexts and house churches.   The Holy Spirit wants to manifest Himself, and His edifying work, through every Christian.  This means that while pastors need to uncompromisingly engage in the monologue preaching of God’s Word with authority, they also need to help the local church develop contexts of dialogue and sharing.  We need to get over our need to control everything that is thought and said, and remember that Jesus is the real senior pastor of His people.  To be sure, you are His instrument in a unique way when it comes to teaching His truth.  But the goal of your ministry is to enable the body to do “the work of the ministry” which includes “teaching and admonishing one another” without you standing over peoples shoulder all the time.  As pastor James Macdonald said recently, “The biblical picture isn’t that the pastor ministers to the body, but that the body ministers to the body.”

So, pastors, lets preach the Word like crazy, and take no guff for doing our God-given job.  But let’s also make sure we don’t quench what the Holy Spirit wants to do by not developing and encouraging contexts of sharing, where each member of the body of Christ can have a voice and be used.  I don’t do this perfectly, but I’m working on it.  Join me.

Connecting thru Culture

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“And as you go, preach, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.””

 

Last night, I took my three oldest boys to the California Center for the Arts for a performance of the 1st Marine Division Band. We arrived a little early, and at 6pm there was a performance by a local Jr. High Drum Corps…and then a High School Drum Corps. Big difference in tightness, dress and performance…

There was a half an hour break before the main performance. Jonathan (6) was nodding off, the air seemed to be turned to a comfortable 80 degrees…

Then the Marines took the stage.

What a great time and an amazing performance of a wide range of Musical arrangements. Very adept, very emotional, very powerful. And I may be partial for a couple of reasons.

1) I was, and will always be, a Marine, serving in Alpha Co.,  1st Battalion, 7th Marines of the 1st Marine Division. (Okay…I’m WAY partial)!

2) I THOROUGHLY enjoy live music, especially classical, period music, orchestras, etc.

All that being said, The boys had a great time, and the performance (particularly the Drum Corps section that was highlighted during the performance of “Shiloh March” was especially incredible) was great. But I had some passing thoughts as I sat there in the midst of the audience that I thought I would share.

Let me begin by saying this; when the Lord gives you a vision of His desire for you and how you could represent Him as His ambassador here on the earth, in the community you have been planted in, all the things you are doing will come to be filtered through that vision, for that season, because you desire to be well-pleasing to Him who gave us that vision. And as we desire to walk in those things that He has prepared beforehand, we are directed by Him (Psalm 37:23, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and He delights in his way”). The result? He will place us in the paths of those He desires to touch, to speak to, to share a seat with, to speak a kind word to, and as we do this, He is glorified. And one of the real kickers is that it’s all while I am THOROUGHLY taking pleasure in something that would seem to some as “Non-Spiritual”. And yet when Jesus sent out the disciples, He instructed them to be of this mindset; “Wherever you go, what ever you do, know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that My kingdom is effectual and within the grasp of all those that you will come into contact with as My Ambassador.

Case in Point: After the performance, I was standing near one of the exits on the Mezzanine Level with Jonathan, while waiting for my other two boys to return from the bathroom. And who comes walking right by us? The Commanding General of the 1st Marine Division in a plain suit, no uniform. I approached him, stuck out my hand, confirmed whether he was the C.G. or not, told him that I served in 1/7 …upon which hearing, he looked me in the eyes, thanked me for my service, which thanks I returned saying “No…thank YOU sir, for your service.” and we parted.

 

This morning, I couldn’t help but lift up the man, his heart, his life, his great responsibilities as a husband, as a son, as a Commanding General…and prayed that the kingdom of God was exposed to this man last night, once again, whether he is a believer (as there are many High-ranking believers in the USMC), or whether He has heard the gospel many times and not responded…God knows. And I know that the kingdom of God was at hand last night when I shook his hand, as I chatted with the elderly woman who sat next to me and my boys, as we shook hands with a Sergeant thanking him for his service to our country, and thanked a Staff Sergeant.

I also had the passing thought as I looked across the demographics of the almost packed house that most in attendance were Baby Boomers and Builders. Nary a Millennial in sight. And I wondered…will there be a resurgence of live music performances in the future, of this particular type (not just Rock, Trip-Hop and Hardcore shows…ok, jazz sessions, too, Daniel F. 🙂 because of the over-saturation of technology communication and entertainment today? I love the instant gratification of digital downloads or Spotify-ing any kind of artist or music at any time…but there is a whole separate world of sound and community and experience when the Marine Band comes to town, or a world renowned cellist shows up to perform select Bach cello suites…and the Kingdom of God is at hand.

How are you connecting with your community, with leaders, with citizens, with gas station attendants, or library clerks? How do you “preach” saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand?”

 

Senior Pastors AND Missionaries: Unique stresses Unique needs

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In a few weeks I’ll be transitioning my church in Phoenix over to a younger man that in many ways is a better fit for the neighborhood where our church building sits.  My wife and I will then relocate to the San Diego area which will make it possible for me to be nearby my mom and dad as my dad’s health is failing fast.  We will also be living near our two daughters and 3 of our grandchildren, which is really the icing on the cake of Grace that God is serving us once yet again.

Ministry-wise, I’ll be rejoining Shepherd’s Staff Mission Facilitators full-time and serving as the Director of Church Relations and Missionary Care.  Although I’ve been consistently involved in pastoral-type care of missionaries and encouraging and training church leaders to care for their missionaries since my return from the mission field in 1993, having the opportunity to concentrate on doing so in a full time capacity is extremely exciting.  And needless to say, the machinery of my mind has been humming at warp speed as I think and pray about the needs and the possibilities that are ahead.

With that as a backdrop and at the risk of being misunderstood, I’d like to use the following questions and a few observations to provoke everyone, but ESPECIALLY Senior Pastors regarding ministry to missionaries:

Why do “Senior Pastors” conferences exist?

Why does the “Senior Pastor List Server” exist?

Why do a large percentage of Senior Pastors have as board members of their local church, Senior Pastors that are pastoring in other cities or even in other states?

Why, when a Senior Pastor needs wisdom and seeks out counsel regarding an aspect of leadership or a major challenge within their church, does he usually make a call to someone else who is now or has been a Senior Pastor at some time in the past?

Why does a Senior Pastor usually let loose with a little chuckle and a grin when one of his Assistant Pastors has filled in for him during the week and on a Sunday morning, and then says that he “knows what it’s like to be a Senior Pastor now”?

Obviously, the underlying answer to all of the above questions is that being a Senior Pastor is a unique calling that brings with it unique challenges and stresses that it’s hard for someone who hasn’t been a Senior Pastor to understand or relate to.  No Senior Pastor that I’m aware of is ashamed of being convinced of that in any way, nor should they be.

And even though we’re open to God using other brothers and sisters to speak into many areas of our lives, when it comes to ministry issues or family issues that are tightly connected to ministry, we know that usually only someone else who is or has been a Senior Pastor will really be able to grasp what we are dealing with and perhaps give us some good Godly counsel.

If the questions and observations that I’ve written above have any credence, (and I believe they do), then I believe what I’m about to write is worthy of at least some consideration.  Here then, are a few more questions:

Is there anything uniquely challenging or stressful about a person receiving and sharing the vision God has given them to represent Him in a different country to people of a different language and with radically different culture?

Is there anything uniquely challenging or stressful about having to trust that God will provide the money to do that through churches or brothers and sisters in Jesus that you may or may not have relationship with?

Is there anything uniquely challenging or stressful about liquidating pretty much every one of your belongings in order to fulfill the vision that God has given you?

Is there anything uniquely challenging or stressful about disconnecting yourself, your wife, and your children from anything or anyone that is familiar and then resettling them in a foreign country?

Is there anything uniquely challenging or stressful about the reality that once you begin living in this other country that if you or your family members need things like medical care or dental care, it is difficult to obtain and is probably of a different quality than what you’ve had access to in the U.S.?

And finally….

Is there anything uniquely challenging or stressful about learning to live in a completely new culture and environment and learning a new language at the same time your trying to help your family adjust AND engaging in the “ministry” that you’re convinced God called you to?

Here’s where I’m going with this:

If we can justify specialized ministry for ourselves as Senior Pastors and encourage and even make it possible for other Senior Pastors to do the same, then might it not also be possible that missionaries also deserve some type of specialized ministry and that we should encourage and make it possible for them to obtain it, especially if they are members of our church that we have commissioned and sent to the mission field?

Having been both a missionary AND a Senior Pastor at the same time overseas, and a Senior Pastor of two different churches in the U.S., I can tell you by experience that the unique challenges and stresses of being a Senior Pastor in the U.S., as real as they are, do not compare with the unique challenges and stresses of living and ministering in a cross-cultural environment outside of the U.S!

If you’re tracking with what I’m saying, (and even if you’re not), and especially if you’re a Senior Pastor, here are a few things you might consider doing:

1.  Begin viewing the missionaries you know with the same level of regard for their unique situation as you do your own unique situation as a Senior Pastor.

2.  Increase your personal inventory of understanding of what missionaries experience by doing some specific reading about the subject and pray about having your church leadership do the same.

3.  Whenever possible, set up a meeting with someone who has lived on the foreign mission field and ask them to share with you the unique challenges and stresses they faced or are facing.

4.  Encourage, and possibly even pay for your missionaries or other missionaries you know to attend missions conferences.

5.  Even more importantly, encourage or pay for a missionary to attend one of the many specialized missionary retreats that take place in various parts of our country and around the world.

I could go on and on with things to consider but I’ll leave it alone for now.

The bottom-line is that if we unashamedly recognize the unique challenges and stresses involved with being a Senior Pastor and we seize what’s available to assist and encourage ourselves, shouldn’t we seriously consider encouraging and maybe even empowering missionaries to do the same?