Free to Serve

Pastors don't listen very well . . .

So argued the late William Still, pastor of Gilcomston South Church of Scotland. He wrote in The Work of the Pastor:

The hardest thing ministers, who are great talkers, find to do is to listen. Don't be making up your next speech while the other is talking. Listen! You may hear something you have never heard before. Don't assume that this problem is like many others you have dealt with. It may seem to be, but as no two people are exactly alike, so no two persons' problems are alike. You will find that many of your fixed ideas, which you may think are thoroughly Christian and apply to all cases, will be upset if you listen carefully enough to begin to see what the solution to a particular problem may be.

And so Still goes on to say that the best course of action is to ask questions, lots of questions, and to withhold offering counsel until you have listened as fully and as carefully as you can.

This seems like a wise word to all of us. After all, the church is full of men and women and children talking and listening to one another all the time. There are some of us who do a great job of listening. In fact, truth be told, it would be good for those of us who fall into this camp to do a little more talking! But then there are others who just won't stop talking. Another person's sentence is just an opportunity for us to figure out what to say next. 

Into which camp do you fall? Proverbs 15:23 is a good reminder for both camps, "To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is!"

 

What is the Mission of the Church?

I'm reading Greg Gilbert's and Kevin DeYoung's book, What is the Mission of the Church? Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission.

In part I'm reading it because I know Greg. He has a first-class mind, a love for Christ, and desire to see the Scriptures clearly explained. I'm also reading the book because, as a pastor, it can be easy to lose sight of the what the church is about. There are so many projects that vie for a church's time, finances, and attention. Most of them are good, even wonderful. So how does a church focus on the main thing?

Early on in the book, they set out this mission for the church:

The mission of the church is to go into the world and make disciples by declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and gathering these disciples into churches, that they might worship the Lord and obey his commands now and in eternity to the glory of God the Father.

I don't want to lose a heart for or a commitment to this mission. It is a glorious mission. Our lives and our churches are to be devoted to making disciples. We do this by declaring the gospel. But we can't do it alone, we need the Spirit. He will gather the disciples together into our churches and lead them to worship and obey. And through it all, God will be glorified.

Raising Up Teachers

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

                                                                                                        --Jude 3

One of the most important things a church can do is raise up Bible teachers. There are so many different formats in a church for teaching the Bible. There is the Sunday school format. This is usually more of an inductive approach, meaning the teacher should use a lot of questions to bring the group along. There is the sermon format. This is a longer study with one person doing the speaking. There is the small group format. This may be like a sermon, it may be like a Sunday school class, it may be teaching the Bible with the help of a solid, Christian book.

Then there is the Christian devotional. It is good to be able to teach a Scripture passage in ten to fifteen minutes. These are the kinds of lessons that you might use to open up a meeting with, share with your family, or, as we do at MVBC, encourage the body of Christ on Sunday evenings.

This Wednesday night, after our Equipping Matters classes, I'll be leading a brief session on how to teach a Bible devotional. I'm excited to do it because I see the Lord raising up more and more men with a love for the Word and a desire to teach it clearly and passionately.

I'm going to target my discussion toward men who will be leading a Sunday evening devotional--but all teachers are welcome to come and listen and, Lord willing, learn and grow.

Why Didn't Jesus Pray to End World Hunger?

There is something striking in Jesus' teaching on prayer. On on hand he urges us to pray for anything. John 14:13-14, "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." And notice John 15:7, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." These words lead us to big, bold, prayers, don't they? We should pray boldly for ourselves and for the world in which we live. It is, after all, a world rife with injustice. 

On the other hand, he urges to pray for something as simple as daily bread. Matthew 6:11 is not grand, it hardly seems bold. It is straightforward, modest, perhaps a little dull: "Give us this day our daily bread." 

This day.

Not "every day," not "forever," but simply "this day." Jesus is saying that our attention should be focused on the moment. Our prayers should be focused on getting us through this present trial, not the next one. Perhaps this is why the chapter ends, "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

I don't for a moment believe I should stop praying big, future-oriented, kingdom-minded prayers. Whether it is "Lord, come quickly!" or "End the evil of abortion" or "Prepare the hearts of godly men who might one day marry my daughters and the heart of a godly woman to one day marry my son." There are many wonderful, big prayers that take tomorrow into account.

And yet, the prayer of Matthew 6:11 is not that kind of prayer. "Give us this day our daily bread." God gave Israel just enough manna to last them one day. God's grace is like that. There is an everlasting supply, but it comes to us each and every day as we approach the throne of grace boldly with specific prayers:

• "God, help me today to serve you well." 
• "Give me the strength, today to resist temptation."
• "Allow me to trust, today, that you will provide all that I need."

It is easy to look forward to tomorrow and worry what is going to come next. But it is far better to leave tomorrow alone and plead with God to help us, provide for us, and strengthen us, today.

May the Gospel of Jesus Christ drive us happily to our knees in prayer. May we lay the world, which is already His, at the Lord's feet. And may we place our day, which he has already ordained, in the Lord's hand as we humbly ask Him to give us all we need, and nothing more, to get through today.

Sunday Reflections

Started Sunday at MVBC sitting through an excellent Sunday school in the Bible Overview class. The text was Genesis 3. The topic was Adam's sin. I was reminded by Dustin Butts that Adam's sin really was my sin, and that God was just to punish Adam and Eve just as he would be just to punish me. Yet even back then, God revealed not only his justice but his mercy. He clothed Adam and Eve, he promised a Savior, God gave them hope.

Dean Ropp, the pastor of Midway Community Church, a church partially planted by MVBC, preached through John 10. He pointed to Christ as the fulfillment of Psalm 23 and our good shepherd. He is everything we need.

After a good lunch with Dean and family, I had a membershp interview before the evening service. This is an opportunity to hear someone's testimony before they join the church. It is ALWAYS an encouragement to see how the Lord works in people's lives to bring them to a saving knowledge of himself.

Brad Thayer led the prayer service Sunday evening while I took a break and sat with my family. After we prayed, Larry Chandler led us through a devotional of Psalm 23:1-2. Some application he gave us: 1) Do you know God's Word well enough to mediate upon it? 2) Do you know Christ as your good shepherd? 3) Is your prayer, "God, protect me from the storm" or "God, protect me in the storm?" 4) If you don't desire God's Word, ask God for help. 5) Ask God to make you bold to share his Word with others. 6) Are you trusting the Lord? Husbands, pray with your wives. Singles, get in the Word. Church, pray for each other.

It was a good day to remember that God really does take care of us. His compassion is real. To remember that Christ has given us everything we need through his atoning death and resurrection is to be able to endure anything the world can bring. 

 

"Courageous Confidence in God"

The church that I am privileged to serve has a number of elderly saints. It is tempting in a church like this to think that death is something that comes upon the old. Though that is certainly true, we must all be prepared to die, and die well at that.

None of us is ready for death naturally. Death is unnatural and our flesh rejects it. God's Word and Spirit must do a supernatural work in our hearts to prepare us for death, whether it take place when we are 90 or 19.

Nancy Guthrie has edited a nice volume of essays on the topic of death. O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God. Published last year, the book includes contributions from the past, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, B.B. Warfield, Abraham Kuyper, Jonathan Edwards and the present, J.I. Packer, Michael Horton, Randy Alcorn, Timothy Keller.

Here's a taste from Keller, "Rubbing Hope into the Reality of Death":

Our future is not that we will live in an ethereal, immaterial world. You're not going to float around in the kingdom of God. You're going to eat; you're going to love. You're going to sing because you'll have vocal chords! In realms and degrees of joy, satisfaction, and power that you cannot now imagine, you're going to eat and drink with the Son of Man. On that day we're going to see each other and say, "I always knew you could be like this. I saw glimpses of it, flashes of it, and now, look at you!" You're going to get the life you always wanted. This is only the real defeat of death.

So the Christian hope, in distinction from the religions and cultures that offer you an impersonal future, gives you a world of love. In distinction from religions that give you an ethereal, immaterial future, the Christian hope gives you the life you've always wanted. Lastly, while other religions and cultures talk about an afterlife, none gives you the assurance of it. 

Why a Sunday Evening Service?

One of the biggest changes that I made when coming to MVBC was re-instituting a Sunday evening service. The church had one years past, but it had gone the way of the Dodo Bird. My previous two churches had Sunday evening services, and I loved the time to share, to pray, to experience church community with men and women of all ages. It was the closest thing these churches had to real family time.

But a Sunday evening service in metro Atlanta -- or any other metro area -- is a real challenge. The schedule of life finds a way of intruding. The week gets busy fast. Sunday evening can be an break from the rigmarole of life. Nonetheless, I pressed ahead. Why?

Because I felt the church needed to have a service that was large enough for us all to be together and yet small enough to experience some sense of intimacy. The teaching on Wednesday nights had been divided up into small groups. Today, Wednesday teaching is still separate. Though there are fewer groups on Wednesday, we are never all together. Sunday morning is large enough that someone can enter the church and still be anonymous. That is not possible on Sunday evening.

But more than that, the Sunday evening service is a different kind of service. It is not a repeat of the Sunday morning gathering. The majority of our time is dedicated to prayer. In the hour from 6-7 you can get a sense of where the church is, where we are going, what we value, and what our needs are--all by listening carefully to what we pray for and how we pray. 

I've heard more than one person tell me that they really get to know MVBC simply by listening to the body pray. 

Every Sunday evening ends with a brief devotional from God's Word. It is not a mini-sermon. Though each man prepares extensively to teach--his main job that night is to apply the text to our lives. It is more of a devotional on a passage than it is a sermon. 

We are still going against the grain by having a Sunday evening sermon. Furthermore, I don't ask that everyone be there. I urge new members to come to at least one evening sermon (again, I'm convinced that Sunday-morning-only attendance will make fellowship very hard). However, there is something special about Sunday evening. It is a unique opportunity to see the church in action--not one pastor preaching or even one teacher teaching but the whole body praying.

Ambassadors for Christ

I had the privilege last week of speaking to the staff of Ambassadors for Christ who were on retreat in the Atlanta area. Former member and friend of MVBC, Wallace Francis, put the retreat together. The highlight for me was conversations with numerous folks who have devoted their lives to sharing the Good News. They are eager to be theologically sound, and they are committed to sharing the Gospel wherever and whenever they can.

My message was entitled, "You Pick: Emergent, Emerging, or Enduring?" I talked about some different methods of "doing" church in the twenty-first century. However we go about engaging in church ministry, our goal has to be to protect the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some churches try to change the Gospel to meet the times. This is the Emergent movement. They insist that as the culture changes the Gospel changes. They argue that the Gospel is a story, not a declaration. Stories can (and must) be changed to fit the context. As our culture is more diversified, the Gospel message needs to be diversified as well--so they say. The problem with this approach is that the Gospel is a declaration. There is no way around it! It is true yesterday and it is true today: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners through a cross.

Some churches ignore the Gospel to meet the times. Such churches would not say that the Gospel changes, but you get the sense that they don't pay much attention to the Gospel. It is assumed more than anything. It may be offered in a private counseling session or a Christmas Eve service, but the Gospel just isn't part of the fabric of the church. It isn't everywhere. The reasons why churches ignore the Gospel are legion and different. Some do it because they don't want to be offensive to seekers. Others do it because they don't think a specific message about the cross is necessary for salvation. Others don't intend to ignore the Gospel, it just sort of happened--other stuff got in the way.

Finally, some churches eclipse the Gospel. Churches like this may very well be Gospel-centered and yet, one can't help but get the impression that other things are more important--a style of music or dress or target audience. The packaging of the church has a way of taking center stage. Sometimes, when you get really dressed up, all people can do is think of what you are wearing, they don't actually get to know you. It can be like that with churches. There is a lot of good content here, but the conversation so quickly moves to context (where the church is, how the music sounds, how good the preacher is) that the Gospel is just sort of eclipsed.

So, at MVBC, we need to be careful. Of course we don't want to change the Gospel--that is to abandon the faith altogether. We certainly don't want to ignore the Gospel. The damage would be nearly as bad as changing it. A good Gospel, ignored, is really no Gospel at all. Finally, we need to be careful not to focus so much on demographics or style in such a way that our focus on the Gospel is diminished.

The missionaries of Ambassadors for Christ have a real heart for the local church. They want to see the people they witness come to know Christ as Savior plugged into a church. My prayer has been that my comments would encourage them to stay personally involved in a church while understanding some of the dangers methods of ministry pose today.

One of First Elders is Gone

Ken Henson died last Friday morning, his service was today. It was a tremendous opportunity to mourn the loss of a friend and rejoice that he is now with Christ.

I mentioned during the service that Ken proved we are never too old to be sanctified.

When Ken lost his beloved wife, Stella, three years ago, he was despondent. You could see it in his walk and in his face. He struggled to keep going. He kept coming to church, but it was obvious that he was struggling. 

This kind of struggle is to be expected. But God allows these trials for a reason. They provide an opportunity to grow to depend more on God. These trials test us to see whether or not Christ is really our treasure, or whether we have placed our faith in someone else.

Then, one Sunday evening during a prayer service, Ken made it clear that he believed the Lord still had work for him to do, and he was going to do it happilly. His countenance changed. He started to smile more, joke around a bit, and not too long Ken was elected to be one of our first elders.Watching Ken work through grief, perhaps even depression, and then cast his cares on Christ as best he could was a beautiful thing.

He was a man of few words, but faithfully taught a Sunday school class since the late 1960s and discipled younger men. I had the privilege of meeting a man at the funeral who, about twenty years ago, had asked if Ken would teach him how to be a godly man. Ken agreed and they worked together through Kent Hughes's Disciplines of a Godly Man. 

Ken is gone now, but he leaves behind a large, biological family behind (an 18-year-old, great-grandson shared at the funeral), a spiritual family, and a pastor that will all miss him. 

New Adult Sunday School Classes

The folks over at 9Marks are encouraging churches to take Sunday school seriously. Good call. I've often thought of the Sunday school as the golden hour of Sunday morning. It is a feast of biblical teaching nicely placed right before the Sunday morning service. I can't think of a reason not to come.

This Sunday morning, we are beginning some new classes. Some of them are ongoing. Take a look! Others are rotating, meaning every four months the teachers may change. Two of these classess will be studying the Gospel of Mark, chapters 9-16. One of the classes will be studying the Book of Romans, chapters 9-16. One class will begin a Bible Overview.

If you are in the area, I hope you will find one of the classes and camp out there from January through April. In addition to solid teaching, people in each class have been asked to make sure there are opportunties to get to know others and build friendships. All these classes start at 9:15.

As for me, I'll spend this Sunday School hour teaching on what it means to be committed to a church during Knowing MVBC, our membership class. 

See you Sunday!