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02-Sep-2010

Posted by : David

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The Art of Work

Category : Leadership

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paintingRecently I have been reading a couple books on how people are redefining work that has helped me tremendously as pastor.  Their main thesis is this:

Approach work like an artist.

Essentially this means that work should be approached with a sense of freedom, creativity, and mastery.

Freedom

Pastors generally enjoy a great deal of freedom in their schedule.  But for many of us this can lead to a great deal of confusion.  Having too many options can lead to paralysis.

But an artist approaches freedom, not as something to indulge, but as a way to feed the creative process.   They have the end in mind.  A painter is not always painting, a writer not always writing, but they always have their canvas or manuscript in mind in everything they do.

Creativity

What is creativity?  It is first a way of seeing; then uniquely delivering the content of what you see.  It is a pastoral priority to be aware.  We have to be aware of God and aware of the people in your context.  This is not a task — it is a lifestyle, a way of being.  Creativity requires open eyes and open ears — that is what an artist knows.

Mastery

The artist is obsessed with mastery.  The can never have the perfect manuscript, the perfect canvas, the perfect song.  But they are driven to get as close as possible.  The pastor will never have the perfect sermon, or perfect obedience from their people.  In their work, second only to Christ, mastery is their ambition.  “How can I be more clear, more fervent?”  “How can I connect better?” “How can I spur this body of people on towards love and good deeds?”

For too long I have not thought of pastors fundamentally as creators.  But pastors are artists;  artists with God’s word, and their magnum opus is their people.

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31-Aug-2010

Posted by : David

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“Why I’m Better Than You”

Category : apologetics

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Go up to anyone and ask them this question, “Do you think you are better than me?” And the automatic answer from most everyone will be an emphatic, “no!”

But our hearts tell a different story.  We just don’t want to be different than others, we want to be better than others. We establish our self-image not on the basis of who we we are, but where we rank:

  1. We rank ourselves by how many people know us and like us (popularity).
  2. We rank ourselves by our perceived intelligence.
  3. We rank ourselves on ability to be open and loving.
  4. We rank ourselves on our political ideology
  5. We rank ourselves by assuring ourselves that we are not like the people who hurt us.

A biblical author calls this “the boastful pride of life.”  We find a way to position ourselves.  Is it any wonder we have such conflict and fear?

If you have to be seen as morally superior in any area, then you will fight when others are not recognizing your positional worth, that “you are not like other men.”

Fear arises when you will not be able to maintain your rank or achieve your desired position.  That is why the inability to even live up to our own standard is so devastating.  We are afraid that we will be seen as “mere men.”

And don’t you see that religion can be just another avenue to boast? We think if we return to God’s ways and values, then God will reward us with security and  a way to feel good about ourselves.

But Christianity is different — it is much more honest. It states that we are too evil to think that we can turn to God’s values and earn His pleasure.  But the gospel is not just more honest, it is good; although we are more evil than any dared believed, we are accepted, not because of our position, but because of Jesus’ position with God that He gives to us as a free gift.

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30-Aug-2010

Posted by : David

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Self-control

Category : Christian Life

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Self-control is beige, boring.  But without it we have nothing.

Two reasons:

1. Self-control is the foundation of health

2. Self-control is the foundation of love

First without self-control we don’t have health — physically, psychologically, relationally, spiritually:

  • If you can’t control how much you eat or lack of exercise than you are going to be compromised physically.
  • If you can’t control your ego than you are going to have massive psychological sickness.  If you always feel like you deserve better than you are either going to be mean and condescending or depressed and full of self-pity.
  • If you can’t control your temper than you will destroy relationships; if you can’t control your self-pity than you will always be a zombie around people.
  • If you don’t renew your mind through consistent Scripture reading and prayer, then you always be at the mercy of temptation and the lying world system.

And that all makes sense; but the real tragedy of lack of self-control is the loss of love:

  • Physical Life :: Have you ever thought that you need to stay healthy for others and not just for you?  Imagine eating right and exercising so you can give your maximum to your family and workplace.
  • Relational Life :: Imagine reigning in your temper and self-pity so that you can accentuate others instead of making them bow to your wishes.
  • Psychological/Emotional Life :: Imagine knowing that you are not the center of the universe so you can clearly see and act upon what others need.
  • Spiritual Life :: If our minds and souls are not being renewed daily, then we can’t see others like God sees others, love like God loves, forgive like God forgives; in short, we fall short of the gospel.

That is why we are constantly exhorted to control ourselves; not just so our life will work, but that we will have firm foundation to do good to others no matter our feelings or circumstance.

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26-Aug-2010

Posted by : David

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Letting People Be Sinners

Category : Christian Life

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This is one of the greatest marks of maturity and belief in the gospel:

When you let people be sinners.

Think of how often we decry people when they don’t measure up to our standard. Think of how often we are surprised when people don’t act like saints towards us, but sinners; how indignant we become when someone slights us or ignores us or generally acts in a bad way.

Why do we expect such goodness to flow to us from others, and are left disallusioned we they are not?

Is it not that we assume that people should treat us as our righteousness demands? People should know our good intentions and respond accordingly!

It is no secret. We don’t judge ourselves based on what we have done, but on our potential. Or we ignore our actions and judge ourselves on our intentions.

But other people don’t judge this way. They judge us on our actions, or better put, how they perceive our actions. And, of course, that is how we judge others.

And that explains a great deal of the mess we are in — and something has to give. And that something is desire to be seen the way you want to be seen, respected like you want to be respected. This is not an appeal to be a doormat, but to give up self.

People aren’t going to regard us the way we want to be regarded, and to demand that from others is to take the place of deity; we want our will to be done. But we can’t love people like that — particularly the people who hurt us.

And consider Jesus for a moment, the man who had every right to demand that he be regarded for who he really was, layed that right down, so he could serve us, even letting that kill him.

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24-Aug-2010

Posted by : David

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Christianity was Atheism

Category : Christian Life, church

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When Christianity arrived in the Roman empire it was called atheism.  It was the non-religion.  There was no temple.  There were no sacrifices, no performance, no ritual to appease God or the gods.

Christianity was altogether a puzzle to the onlookers outside of the church.

But, the devil had his people ready to fight this “non-religion.”  And the way the devil fought was to make Christianity religious.  Jesus could still be important, as long as it was “Jesus and” — Jesus and keeping the law, Jesus and certain customs and rituals.

This means that Christianity’s greatest threat was not external, but internal.  It was not towards abuse of freedom, but to made a slave again to works.  Jesus’ work was not forsaken, just added to.

Are we free from this threat because the Jewish nature (keeping the law) has disappeared from our churches?  Should we read Galatians, Romans, Timothy and Titus, as mere history lessons?  No, we need to see how “Jesus and” creeps into our churches.

It may not be Jesus and circumcision anymore (thank God!), but here are four ways that “Jesus and” threatens our churches:

1.  Jesus and correct doctrine. What pleases God is not just Jesus’ work, but doctrinal exactness.  Certainly we need to strive for correct doctrine, but not so that “we can be seen to be right.”  The goal of correct doctrine is love (1 Timothy 1:3-5).

2. Jesus and the “correct” church.  — You please God, in this view, by Jesus — and being a part of a church that gets everything right.  They preach right, disciple right, church “services” are right, everybody dresses right, etc.

3. Jesus and spiritual experience — Jesus is important, but you also need an extra spiritual experience, a second blessing, to really know that God is with you and empowering you.

4. Jesus and keeping His commands — This is the predominant threat.  Obedience is seen as keeping you in the faith (we obey to preserve our salvation), not to express our salvation.

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23-Aug-2010

Posted by : David

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The Problem with Purity

Category : Christian Life

We define purity as an absense of impurities; something free from that which defiles. If someone is said to be sexually pure, it is because of something they have not done. If a person is said to have a pure heart than they have an absense of alterior motives.

But the Bible doesn’t define purity as just an absense of something, but the presense of something, namely love — the love that God has. That is why the apostle Paul gives us the statement, “To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure.”

What does that mean? When people love like God loves they do good even to those who are not like them, especially the unrighteous. Jesus says that God loving His enemies and doing good to them is the essence of God’s perfection. God’s perfection is not his absense of sin, it is his goodness and love to the righteous and the unrighteous:

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust…therefore you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:44-45, 48).

When we love like God loves we do not marginalize others based on anything about them that could “defile”us. Certainly we must be wise in our dealing with those who don’t trust Jesus, but we do not withold good because they are “unclean.” No unbeliever, no “sinner,” is outside of our love, concern, and generosity.

But if purity is all about staying away then we will find that nothing is pure, because love of God can not penetrate that heart.

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19-Aug-2010

Posted by : David

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Jesus’ greatest enemy was a purity movement

Category : bible

Jesus’ greatest enemy was a purity movement.

The Pharisee’s, a sect of Jewish leaders and teachers, main goal was to purify Israel of its sin so that God would deliver Israel from Rome. In the law they saw the fundamental promise: “if you obey you will be blessed and dwell in the land.” And so they took it upon themselves to be obedient and to enforce obedience across their small country.
The problem was they thought they were the obedient ones.
They were meticulous in their following the law, but they missed actually the grand intent of the law. It was not only to be pure and blameless, it was to be loving and good. That is why Jesus would say that they “strained a gnat, but swallowed a camel.” They neglected mercy and justice to their fellow countrymen.
But we ought not to just think that these men were more evil than any of us. They just had it in their mind that they were worthy of being blessed and they tried to root out any people that would withhold the blessing from the nation i.e. prostitutes, tax collectors, and “sinners.”
And that is the problem with all purity movements, whether they be doctrinal, methodological, or moral. The leaders see themselves as part of the solution and are the referee’s of their culture, sitting in judgment of those who, in their minds, are withholding blessing from their nation. And so they have to be merciless, they have to be judgmental, because their fundamental question is “what must we do to be blessed?” not “what must we do to love?”
*Originally published on March 16, 2010

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17-Aug-2010

Posted by : David

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Why the Bible Should Come With a Warning Label

Category : Christian Life, bible

Two opposite errors exist in approaching the Bible.  One is not to read it.  The other is to know it so well that you miss Jesus.  John chronicles that latter error when he quotes Jesus in his gospel (5:39-40):

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

Are you surprised to believe that this error exists?  We constantly talk about reading and studying the Bible as an unqualified good.  But clearly HOW we read the Bible is just as important as reading it.

So how can you know that you might be reading the Bible, looking for life, but missing Jesus completely?  A few thoughts:

1.  You read the Bible to reinforce what you believe, not challenge what you believe. You imagine yourself as the type of person who believes the things you read about.

2.  The things you read are especially applicable for people you know, but not for you.

3.  You imagine yourself as the hero of the story, not the person or people who are unbelieving. You will frequently ask in your heart, “How could these people be so unbelieving?”?  For instance when you read the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert you might say, “How could those Israelites grumble about food and drink when they just saw God part the Red Sea?”  But are we completely blind to how we grumble at work or home when there is a fear of losing something?

4. You love the attention garnered from your knowledge of the Bible, but give little thought to how you have applied what you have read.

Maybe the Bible should come with a warning label: Beware: reading this book incorrectly will make you twice as fit for Hell then when you began.

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16-Aug-2010

Posted by : David

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Projection

Category : Leadership

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Do you remember the old slide projectors? They basically have light that shines through a negative, that gets focused by a lens that projects onto a screen.

If you lead an organization or want to lead an organization you must not only be the lens. Because people will want to you to focus their picture of what the organization should look like. They have the light (their motivation) and the negative (their picture of what the organization should be), but the leader has to bring their picture into focus. But if you don’t bring their picture of the organization into focus, then great trouble ensues.

This has been happening in the church from the beginning. Many “insiders” in the new churches wanted people to believe in Jesus and also follow Jewish customs. But the Apostles went to great pains to squash this. Following Jesus didn’t mean trusting Christ and being Jewish. Following Jesus was trusting Christ, period.

Leaders are marked by God to give “the negative,” and the body of believers, with the leaders, act as the lens so the picture of God’s mission for the local church can be clearly seen. And the leaders must protect the local church from anyone changing “the negative.” If “the picture of what should be” is up for grabs then chaos and confusion reign.

This is not to say that changes can’t be made; if the picture is always blurry then the negative might be out of focus.  But if there is sharp focus at times, but not other times, then the processes and people needs to be refocused.  And a clear presentation from the local church is absolutely essential; because the two most precious things in all the world are at stake: the glory of God and eternal joy of humanity.

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11-Aug-2010

Posted by : David

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Why Men Stay Pastors

Category : Leadership, church

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Yesterday I wrote (somewhat cynically) about why men become pastors. Alot of us become pastors for less than holy reasons. But the main question pastors need to ask is, “Why should I stay a pastor?”

When you start dating someone usually you don’t say, “I really like her because of what I can be for her.” No, we usually like the qualities about the other person that directly benefit us.

But when you get married you are making a commitment to do what is best for your spouse, for the rest of your life. You are not making a commitment to “the marriage,” you are making a commitment to do good to the other person, “as long as you both shall live.”

This must be the approach of the pastor as well. Maybe we got into ministry because of what it could be for us. Eventually, though, we need to make a commitment to ministry because of what it is — a commitment to the good of the congregation no matter what.

Pastoring a local church is like a marriage. We aren’t joined with perfect people — and they don’t have a perfect pastor — but when we are committed to each other a great beauty unfolds.

Does this not reflect Jesus commitment to his bride? Jesus’ commitment to his church was costly.  Giving eternal life to all those who trust in Him required Jesus to lay down his own interests and to take up ours.  And Jesus still suffers today for the good of the world; now through his followers.  And Jesus is calling to his leaders to forsake cohabitation with the church — commitment as long as the church meets their needs — and move on to covenant — a commitment to do what is best for the church “as long as you both shall live.”

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