Regeneration

Here's a poem by 17^th-century Welsh poet Henry Vaughan with a few notes.

Award, and still in bonds, one day

I stole abroad,

It was high-spring, and all the way

Primros'd, and hung with shade;

Yet, was it frost within,

And surly winds

Blasted my infant buds, and sin

Like clouds eclips'd my mind.

Storm'd thus; I straight perceiv'd my spring

Mere stage, and show,

My walk a monstrous, mountain's thing

Rough-cast with rocks, and snow;

And as a pilgrim's eye

Far from relief,

Measures the melancholy sky

Then drops, and rains for grief,

So sigh'd I upwards still, at last

'Twixt steps, and falls

I reach'd the pinnacle, where plac'd

I found a pair of scales,

I took them up and laid

In th'one late pains,

The other smoke, and pleasures weigh'd

But prov'd the heavier grains;

With that, some cried, Away; straight I

Obey'd, and led

Full east, a fair, fresh field could spy

Some call'd it Jacob's Bed;

A virgin-soil, which no

Rude feet ere trod,

Where (since he slept there,) only go

Prophets, and friends of God.

Here, I repos'd; but scarce well set,

A grove descried

Of stately height, whose branches met

And mixed on every side;

I entered, and once in

(Amaz'd to see't,)

Found all was chang'd, and a new spring

Did all my senses greet;

The unthrift sun shot vital gold

A thousand pieces,

And heaven its azure did unfold

Checker'd with snowy fleeces,

The air was all in spice

And every bush

A garland wore; thus fed my eyes

But all the ear lay hush.

Only a little fountain lent

Some use for ears,

And on the dumb shades language spent

The music of her tears;

I drew her near, and found

The cistern full

Of diverse stones, some bright, and round

Others ill'shap'd, and dull.

The first (pray mark,) as quick as light

Danc'd through the flood,

But, th'last more heavy than the night

Nail'd to the center stood;

I wonder'd much, but tir'd

At last with thought,

My restless eye that still desir'd

As strange an object brought;

It was a bank of flowers, where I descried

(Though 'twas mid'day,)

Some fast asleep, others broad-eyed

And taking in the ray,

Here musing long, I heard

A rushing wind

Which still increas'd, but whence it stirr'd

No where I could not find;

I turn'd me round, and to each shade

Dispatch'd an eye,

To see, if any leaf had made

Least motion, or reply,

But while I listening sought

My mind to ease

By knowing, where 'twas, or where not,

It whispered: Where I please.

Lord, then said I, On me one breath,

And let me die before my death!

Enjoy.



Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Rest After Struggle

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "I wouldn't give a fig for the kind of simplicity which exists on this side of complexity, but I would give the whole world for the simplicity that exists on the other side of complexity."

I've thought a lot about my changing views about the role of pastor. I've wondered what I would do differently if I could start all over.

• I'd focus more on people and less on tasks.
  
• I'd resist the pressure to have all the answers.
  
• I'd be more "wasteful" of my time.
  
• I'd learn to enjoy the present and not mortgage it for "someday."
  
• I'd let go of the dream to "make something of myself."
  
• I'd enjoy life more.
  
• I'd worry less about what other people think of me.
  
• I'd be more open to see God working in unconventional ways and in odd places.
  
• I'd be less of a lecturer and more of a poet.
  

The problem is that I'd probably make the same mistakes all over again.

In fact, I wonder if it's possible to get to the proper kind of rest without going through the struggle.

Jacob had to struggle with God before he could quit playing the trickster and receive his blessing as "Israel" (Genesis 32:22–31).

• It is only after we try and fail that we are we ready to listen to a different way.
  
• It is only when we recognize that we are sinners that we are ready to accept a Savior.
  
• It is only when we exhaust all the other options that we are ready to rest in God's grace.
  

One cannot be a poet without experience. It seems that we don't know how to live until we die.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Break the Habit

Len Hjalmarson suggests that churches are fixated on the wrong things. (HT: Brad Brisco). Actually, his point is much stronger than that. He's saying the things we spend all our time and energy on are of no importance.

Here are the things we must let go of:

1. The number of people who come to our church.
   
2. How "relevant" our style of worship is.
   
3. How many new people walk through the doors of our church.
   
4. The size of our building, staff or budget.
   
5. What any other church in the world is doing.

Instead, here are some suggestions for things that really do matter:

1. Actively looking for evidence of God's kingdom wherever that might show up.
   
2. Simple, honest worship.
   
3. Making friends with people who have no interest in our church.
   
4. Giving away money to people who need it.
   
5. "Go[ing] on a unique, unreproducible journey with a group of people and rejoice with other groups of people who do the same."
   

Of course, this would require enormous courage, and a fair amount of faith. We would actually have to start trusting God and seeking his kingdom above all else. We would have to live as if we really believed Matthew 6:33.

That'll never work. Let's just stick to business as usual.

Pastor Rod
"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Just Enough Time

The official song of our culture is "I Need More Time."

We live under the delusion that our problems would all be solved if we just had more hours in each day. There's just not enough time to get everything done. If only we had just a little more time.

But as Parkinson's Law tell us, "Work expands so as to full the time available for its completion."

However, work is not the only thing that expands. If we had more time, we would tend to fill it in the same way that we do the 24 hours we get every day.

We see this dynamic in computer storage capacity. In the past 30 years hard drive capacity has increased by about a factor of 1,000,000:1. But instead of having abundant free space, we've filled up our drives with music, videos and mega-pixel photos. John Dvorak may be an early adopter, but he voices a complaint that we can all indentify with: "I filled a terabyte drive with crap; now I need another terabyte drive."

Besides being metaphysically impossible, manufacturing more time is not the solution.

Enter the GTD cult.

Since we can't have more time, we must get more out of the time we have.

What was once known as time management has now become an entire industry. We have planning notebooks, software, blogs, newsletters and clothing to help us make the most efficient use of the 86,400 seconds that slip through our fingers every day.

Now we are not just overwhelmed with stuff to do, but we also feel guilty because we are not productive enough. We feel the angst of opportunity cost for all the things we should do that we never get to.

This problem is especially bad for pastors and other church leaders. Our "opportunity cost" has eternal consequences.

It's no wonder then that 1500 pastors leave the ministry each month and 50% of all pastors say that they would leave but have no other way of making a living.

So what's the solution?

Clergy renewal centers call us to pay more attention to our own spiritual development:

More than anything, God has called pastors to have an intimate relationship with Him. That must come before the ministry, that must come before the congregation, and that must even come before the family. As you can plainly see from the statistics above, we literally cannot survive in the ministry without taking the time to be with the Lord.

If we, as ministers, don't have an intimate relationship with the Lord, how can we expect to have anything to minister to others? Our congregations don't need yesterday's warmed over breadcrumbs. They need the fresh meat and manna for today. But, you know what? We need that too.

Unfortunately, we pastors tend to hear this as just another thing we should do, another thing that we can't get to. So we try to do more devotional activities and schedule time for retreats. But these good intentions go the way of our diet and exercise plans. Before we know it, we're just as busy as ever—and even more guilt ridden.

There are several things that contribute to this culture of perpetual busyness and constant stress.

Most Protestant congregations have unrealistic expectations for their pastors.

Pastors can NEVER do everything right. If we visit the hospital then we either stay too long or not long enough. When we preach we either are too shallow or too hard to understand. When we are at the office we either need to be in deep study AND also be available for every phone call, e-mail and every random person that happens to drop by. When we walk through the crowd we spend too much time with some people and not enough time with others.

And denominational officials try to "get the most out of" those under their direction.

Abused pastors tend to perceive the denominational office as having a "fire the coach" strategy.

Many of these beaten up pastors (and their abused families) just play the game of "churchical chairs," moving on to a new field every two to three years, only to find the same battles, just with new faces. Tragically, many just give up and walk away from the call that God once placed so vividly upon their lives.

But the main source of stress and pressure is the mindset of the pastors themselves.

Many pastors have a Messiah complex. They have the notion that everything depends upon them. They talk about grace, but they have no experience of grace.

Our culture canonizes workaholics. And ministry workaholics are raised to an even higher level. Overwork is seen as dedication, commitment and sacrifice.

But at the heart of this obsession is ego.

Buried deep in the psyche of many leaders is a Superman mentality—the idea that somehow there are a few of us that can function beyond normal human limitations and save the world. Or at least our little corner of the world. This is a grandiosity that we indulge to our own peril.

Dallas Willard suggests that church leaders need to let go of the illusion that everything depends upon them and to "release the world and [their] fate" to God's care and keeping. But this may be the most difficult challenge these leaders face.

For leaders, a decision to release the world and our fate to God runs contrary to everything within and around us.

Consequently, one of the greatest blessings a pastor can experience is failure.

If we are not very successful in ministry, in whatever way we measure success, then God does not have a hard time getting us out of the way. . . . The burdens of office may have become so heavy that we welcome being bumped aside by Jesus.
Andrew Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, p. 25

Once we resign as Messiah, the true Messiah can take over.

Ministry is no longer about us and our skills. It is now about the real presence of Jesus Christ.
Andrew Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, p. 16

If we feel that we have too much to do, it is a sign that we are not trusting God.

• It is not our job to save people.
  
• It is not our job to change the world.
  
• It is not our job to build the Church.
  

So how do we break the grip of this ego-centered, compulsive, workaholic approach to ministry?

Here's a hint: Exodus 20:10.

The Sabbath for the Israelites had one overriding purpose, to continually remind the people that their future was in the hands of God. They were not allowed to be productive for one entire day every week. They were forced to do nothing.

I'm not advocating the keeping of a literal Sabbath. For many people (e.g. the Pharisees) the keeping of a Sabbath quickly turns into a legalistic obligation.

One of the great dangers in the process of spiritual formation is that self-denial and death to self will be taken as but one more technique or "job" for those who wish to save their life (soul).
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 67

Sabbath-keeping is just one example of the kind of spiritual discipline that reminds us that God is in control and we are not.

Another spiritual discipline that addresses the problem of "grandiosity" is solitude.

Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on your shoulders after all. You will find yourself, and God will find you in new ways. Joy and peace will begin to bubble up within you and arrive from things and events around you.
Dallas Willard, The Great Omission, p. 36

Ironically, the cure for the feeling of not having enough time is to set aside time to do nothing.

Once we assume our proper place in ministry, we begin to realize that we have just as much time as we need. Eventually, we learn to live with the relaxed urgency of Jesus.

Jesus was willing to adjust his personal schedule to give time to anyone who began to follow him. He was accessible, adaptable, and capable of showing love and attention.
Arthur Glasser, Announcing the Kingdom, p. 210

If we give up the job of trying fix everything, then we can take the time to be present to the people around us. And we have all the time we need to be loving and caring to those that God sends across our path. We don't have to solve their problems. We just need to be with them and do what we can with the resources that God makes available to us.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Sour Grapes

In the classic Aesop tale, the fox, unable to obtain a juicy bunch of grapes, convinces himself that he really didn't want them in the first place.

To many, my incessant nattering about the false idol of success will appear to be little more than the whining of a jealous pastor who secretly wants to trade places with a mega-church pastor with a book contract. There is probably nothing that I could do to dispel that perception (except to turn down the offer of a book contract, which I probably wouldn't do).

Let me suggest the possibility that there is really something else going on here.

Pastors are increasingly seen as administrators who must manage by objective, and church growth is thought to be the result of human engineering. We even measure our spirituality by the work we do. This "spirit of human management" is one of the "powers" that we must challenge if we are to recapture a biblical vision of the church and of society.

Paul Hiebert, "The Gospel in Our Culture," in George Hunsberger, The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America, p. 145

The church is being held captive by "the powers" against which we fight (Ephesians 6:2). Contrary to folk interpretation, the armor of God does need protection in the back--to defend against "friendly fire."

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

What is the gospel?

Gospel is one of those words that we think we understand, until we're asked to explain it.

Most people see the gospel as information about how to go to heaven after death.

Some would define the gospel as

the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that provides full and free deliverance from the power and penalty of sin according to the grace of God alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Others would say it this way:

Believe in God. Repent. Be transformed by the teachings of Jesus. Love God. Jesus' death and resurrection shows that we too will be resurrected if we listen to Jesus.

In any case, we have been too individualistic in our understanding of the gospel. It's all about me. Even those who say that it's all about God, turn it into a private, personal matter.

But a close reading of the New Testament would seem to indicate that the gospel is bigger than that. It's about more than just getting signed up for heaven.

Lesslie Newbigin gives us some helpful clues about the nature of the gospel in his posthumous book, Signs amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History:

I think we have used the word "gospel" without giving as much attention as we need to the question of what exactly we mean by that world. We don't mean Christianity. Christianity is what generations of us have made of the gospel, and we know we have often made a mess of it (p. 113).

The gospel tells the story of what happened when the true light came into the world, the only light, the light that shines on every human being, the light in which things are seen as they are and reality is distinguished from illusion. Those who were confident that they see turn out to be blind, and those who knew that they were blind receive their sight. The light shows up the illusions of human wisdom and godliness and political shrewdness. It overturns human confidence that we can know how and where God is at work in the world. It invites us to believe that the victory of God is achieved in the rejection and shame and suffering of the cross (p. 108).

The specific responsibility which has been given to the church and to nobody else is the responsibility to bear witness to the reality of Jesus' victory (p. 115).

Whatever else we do for people—to come to know Jesus, to love Him, to serve Him, to honor Him, to obey Him—that is the greatest thing that we can do for anyone and it is the specific thing entrusted to us. It must be the center of our missions (p. 115).

The announcing of the good news about the Kingdom is empty verbiage if there is nothing happening to make the news credible (p. 99).

Here are some things we can say about what the gospel and what it is not.

• The gospel is not about organized religion or about a private, personal faith.
  
• The gospel is not just about the eternal destinies of individuals.
  
• The gospel is not about recruiting church members.
  

• The gospel cannot be reduced to a simple transaction.
  
• The gospel cannot be reduced to a theory of the atonement.
  
• The gospel cannot be reduced to moral reform.
  

• The gospel is good news for all people everywhere.
  
• The gospel is both now and "not yet."
  
• The gospel is the occasion for great joy.
  

We need to recapture that joy, or, better yet, let the good news capture our hearts and produce its characteristic joy.

Isn't it remarkable that according to the New Testament the whole thing begins with an enormous explosion of joy? The disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God! It seems to me, the resurrection of Jesus was a kind of nuclear explosion which sent out a radioactive cloud, not lethal but life-giving, and that the mission of the church is simply the continuing communication of that joy—joy in the Lord (p. 121).

May we once again experience the gospel as good news.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Stating the Obvious[ly Wrong]

In the command known as the Great Commission, Jesus said, "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Of course, we all know exactly what Jesus meant:

• "Making disciples" means to seek the conversion of individuals.
  
• The goal is to increase the number of Christians.
  
• In order to be baptized, these individuals must repent, which means they must turn away from their sins.
  
• The responsibility of the Church (and individual believers) is to bring unbelievers to a point of decision after presenting them with basic information about the content of the gospel.
  
• After an individual is converted, then he or she learns the commands of Jesus and is encouraged to model his morality.
  
• While both of these steps are important, the most important is conversion because it allows people to get into heaven.
  
• A significant part of this Commission requires us to go (or send others) to other countries.
  
• "All nations" refers to the countries of the world.
  

The problem is that each of these "obvious" facts is wrong.

But our understanding of this Commission has become ingrained in our church culture, and no one asks anymore what it means. Furthermore, many of these assumptions actually get in the way of the Church fulfilling its true mission.

If one regards it as the primary purpose of mission to increase the number of Christians and treats such increase as the criterion of success, without posing all the time the more radical questions which the gospel puts to the common assumptions of our culture, if the dominical call to "repent" is translated as "turn away from your sins" and there is no understanding of that radical overturning of the world's ideas of sin and righteousness and judgment, then there can be rapid church growth; but the very success of the burgeoning congregations may actually incapacitate them for a radical encounter with the culture into which they fit so comfortably. If religion is an affair for the private life, it can flourish in a society governed by other assumptions, taking the characteristic form which we know so well—a series of voluntary societies made up of people who share the same religious tastes. In that form Christianity can flourish, but it cannot challenge the beliefs that control public life. It has been co-opted into the culture.

Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, p. 91.

Besides, the advancement of the kingdom is not the Church's mission. It is God's mission:

Mission, then, is not essentially a human activity undertaken by the church and its leaders out of obligation to the Great Commission, gratitude for what God has done for us, and the desperate plight of the world. It is God's own mission in which we are invited to participate.

Stephen Seamands, Ministry in the Image of God, p. 161

So what is the mission of the Church?

The Christian mission is thus to act out in the whole life of the whole world the confession that Jesus is Lord of all.

Leslie Newbigin, The Open Secret, p. 17

This requires deep knowledge of God and more than a passing familiarity with the culture in which a particular congregation finds itself. It is God's embassy in a particular community.

The business of the church is to tell and to embody a story, the story of God's mighty acts in creation and redemption and of God's promises concerning what will be in the end. The church affirms the truth of this story by celebrating it, interpreting it, and enacting it in the life of the contemporary world. It has no other way of affirming its truth. If it supposes that its truth can be authenticated by reference to some allegedly more reliable truth claim, such as those offered by the philosophy of religion, then it has implicitly denied the truth by which it lives.

Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence, p. 76

So what do you think? Do you still agree with some of the "obvious facts"? Are there other "obvious facts" that you'd like to debunk?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Mission of the Triune God

In an unpublished essay at www.Newbigin.net, Lesslie Newbigin writes:

We are not engaged in an enterprise of our own choosing or devising. We are invited to participate in an activity of God which is the central meaning of creation itself. We are invited to become, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, participants in the Son's loving obedience to the Father. All things have been created that they may be summed up in Christ the Son. All history is directed towards that end. All creation has this as its goal. The Spirit of God, who is also the Spirit of the Son, is given as the foretaste of that consummation, as the witness to it, and as the guide of the Church on the road towards it. The Church is not promised success; it is promised the peace of Christ in the midst of tribulation, and the witness of the Spirit given out of the Church's weakness and ignorance. For the future it has Christ's promise: it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. And for the present it has His assurance: Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Each branch of the Church has its own idea of what that mission should be. But these ideas quickly become proprietary and "parochial." Furthermore, organizational survival replaces this mission in practice.

The power to accomplish this mission does not come from the wealth, power or influence of the Church. It comes from the Holy Spirit. And this power works through the "weakness and ignorance" of the Church.
Christ won his victory through apparent defeat. If we are serious about following in the way of the cross, we will trust in him rather than in our own success.

Pastor Rod
"Helping You Beecome The Person God Created You to Be"

Christian Political Action

As followers of Jesus Christ, what should be our role in politics?

Jesus called us to be in the world but to avoid becoming part of it. The way of Christ is the way of the cross—victory through weakness. The accumulation of earthly power seems contradictory to Christian discipleship.

Yet we are called to participate in the advancement of God's kingdom, seeing his will done on earth as it already is in heaven.

In a series of lectures in Bangalore, India, given in 1941, Lesslie Newbigin asserted

I do not see how the Christian can avoid concerning himself with politics. Love to men, and the fundamental obligation to seek everywhere to create true fellowship, cannot be made effective except over a very small range of life, without invoking political means. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, p. 53

He reminded the audience that the kingdom cannot be produced by human effort. It can only come by God acting in history. But we have been given the privilege of participating in that kingdom.

While political participation is necessary, it is not without its difficulties.

Politics never allows us to choose exactly our own way, but compels us to decide between a very small number of politically possible alternatives. This means, therefore, that Christians taking part in politics always find themselves working with people who are not Christians and [who] do not share their motives or their ultimate aims. It is this that creates the extreme tension which is always involved in Christian political action. That tension cannot be avoided. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, pp. 53–54

This means that we can never align ourselves with a political party, or even a political candidate.

We must never lose sight of our true goal. We are not seeking to establish a human-centered utopia. All those efforts seem to end in tragedy and exploitation. Our true goal is the perfect community of the New Jerusalem.

Our goal is the holy city, the New Jerusalem, a perfect fellowship in which God reigns in every heart, and His children rejoice together in His love and joy. To that we look forward with sure hope, and for its sake we offer up to God all that we do in response to His invitation to love our neighbor as we ourselves have been loved. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, p. 55

At the same time, we realize that the goal will never be accomplished by us. This true community always remains just out of our grasp. In fact, the forces of evil seem to grow in strength at the same time that God's kingdom spreads.

And though we know that we must grow old and die, that our labors, even if they succeed for a time, will in the end be buried in the dust of time, and that along with the painfully won achievements of goodness, there are mounting seemingly irresistible forces of evil, yet we are not dismayed. We do not need to take refuge in any comfortable illusions. We know that these things must be. But we know that as surely as Christ was raised from the dead, so surely shall there be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, p. 55

But this does not lead us to despair and passivity. On the contrary, we act with hope and purpose.

A Christian is one who, through Christ, has been reconciled with God who is the King. God's rule is operative in his heart, through gratitude to Christ. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. His gratitude impels him to acts of love towards men, but he also acts in hope—hope of the final completion of God's Kingdom in a perfected fellowship. Even though his actions may all seem to be failures as far as visible effectiveness is concerned, he commits them to God as his thank offering. In the sure hope that they will not be lost. And by faith, the substance of things hoped for, he now possesses in his heart a foretaste of the joy of that perfected Kingdom in which God's purposes shall be complete. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, pp. 52–53

Christianity is not a private, personal thing. It is public and universal. It is good news for all people everywhere. At is very core, Christianity is political. The claim, "Jesus is Lord," has distinct political implications. As followers of Christ, we participate in his war against the "powers."

But we must never forget that it is God's kingdom and his mission.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"