Endorsement “Tim Morey . . . combines the rare attributes of an engaging intelligent mind,crisp clear writing,and an obvious-ominous concern for his subject matter . . . It very well may be the most challenging book you read this year.”
—Christian Book Distributors
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My friend Steve is leading a particularly rich men’s group in our church around the topic of God and our work. Below is his latest communiqué – valuable for pastors and laity alike.
The output of our work should be a function of our priorities as “workers” in God’s Kingdom. Let’s remind ourselves of the priorities Scripture gives us:
Read Matt. 22:35-38 and Col. 3:17
Glorify or worship God through your work – this must come before we “love our neighbors as ourselves.” Why?
[Dorothy] Sayers suggests that if we work to serve “our neighbor” as first priority it moves us off the sense that the work in and of itself is given us to do to please God as an expression of our unique being and purpose. She cites several consequences of this (talk about examples of these you’ve seen at work):
1. Poor Quality – “You cannot do good work if you take your mind off the work to see how the community is taking it – any more than you can make a good drive from the tee if you take your eye off the ball. ‘Blessed are the single hearted’: (for that is the real meaning of the word we translate ‘the pure in heart’). If your heart is not wholly in the work, the work will not be good – and work that is not good serves neither God nor the community; it only serves mammon.”
2. Entitlement – “The second reason is that the moment you think of serving other people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains; you begin to think that you have a claim on the community. You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause, and to harbor a grievance if you are not appreciated. But if your mind is set upon serving the work, then you know you have nothing to look for; the only reward the work can give you is the satisfaction of beholding its perfection. The work takes all and gives nothing but itself; and to serve the work is a labor of pure love.”
3. People Pleasing – “Nine-tenths of the bad plays put on in theaters owe their badness to the fact that the playwright has aimed at pleasing the audience, instead of at producing a good and satisfactory play. Instead of doing the work as its own integrity demands that it should be done, he has falsified the play by putting in this or that which he thinks will appeal to the groundlings (who by that time have probably come to want something else), and the play fails by its insincerity. The work has been falsified to please the public, and in the end even the public is not pleased. As it is with works of art, so it is with all work.”
Think about God’s pronouncement at the end of each day’s work during the work week we pattern all work weeks after – the week of creation. If we focused our work with the goal of finishing each day with our own pronouncement of “it is good,” how might that change our way of approaching our work?
Pray for each other that God will give you focus this week as you seek to worship Him through your work.
Oh how I love theological humor . . . Now it’s well known that it’s bad form to poke fun at tribes other than your own, but this is just too funny. Granted, I was originally ordained with the Baptist General Conference, and the Evangelical Covenant has Lutheran roots. Does that make it legal to laugh at this?
Picture from Lutheran Satire, posted at Christian Century, sent to me by my friend Kenny Johnson.
From my current devotional reading, A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie:
Eternal Father of my soul, let my first thought today be of You, let my first impulse be to worship You, let my first speech be Your name, let my first action be to kneel before You in prayer.
For Your perfect wisdom and perfect goodness:
For the love with which You love mankind:
For the love with which You love me:
For the great and mysterious opportunity of my life:
For the indwelling of your Spirit in my heart:
For the sevenfold gifts of your Spirit:
I praise and worship You, O Lord.
Yet let me not, when this morning prayer is said, think my worship ended and spend the day in forgetfulness of You. Rather from these moments of quietness let light go forth, and joy, and power, that will remain with me through all the hours of the day;
Keeping me chaste in thought:
Keeping me temperate and truthful in speech:
Keeping me faithful and diligent in my work:
Keeping me humble in my estimation of myself:
Keeping me honorable and generous in my dealings with others:
Keeping me loyal to every hallowed memory of the past:
Keeping me mindful of my eternal destiny as a child of Yours.
Through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
This morning I was praying through a challenge we are currently navigating, and the Lord brought this passage to mind:
Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2 Tim 2:22–26)
Everyone who leads will face opposition. We can wish it were otherwise, but this is part of our reality this side of heaven. The fleas come with the dog, so to speak.
When facing opposition it is all too easy to become angry and mistreat those who oppose you. To seek to overpower those who would oppose you through political maneuvering, belittling or speaking ill of them, to simply marginalize or replace those who prove difficult to lead – leaders need to recognize these as real temptations and run away.
The saints who have come before us presciently warned that the three biggest challenges to the spiritual life are sex, money, and power. The temptations of sex and money – lust, covetousness, greed, materialism – are typically pretty easy for us to see. But sins that deal with power are another story. The leader who dominates others, is prone to outbursts of anger, or who quietly but deliberately plants seeds of doubt about his opponents is rarely corrected, and in fact is sometimes praised as a strong leader!
I once heard Dallas Willard say, “Jesus is looking for men and women he can trust with power.” This is a pretty good description of spiritual leadership, isn’t it? We as leaders wield tremendous power, and we need to seek God to shape us into those who will use it wisely.
That’s how I read Paul’s words to Timothy:
Pursue growth in Jesus – “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace . . .” Are we seeking him first? Are we growing? Are we men and women of the Word, of prayer, worshipers, servants? This is the primary task of every leader.
Choose your battles – “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.” Make good choices. Quarrelsomeness is opposed to servanthood. Don’t go down paths that will lead to battles not worth fighting.
Keep your heart clean – “the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.” Forgive quickly. Don’t allow yourself the luxury of holding a grudge. Give no quarter to bitterness. (How difficult is this? I know of no better way to do cultivate a graceful heart than the daily praying of the Lord’s Prayer and praying for those with whom we are angry.)
Teach gently – “Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth . . .” Don’t lash out, build a coalition against the person, try to overpower or outmaneuver. Be patient and deliberate. Gently instruct. Truth communicated in love, not power, is what is needed.
Know your true enemy – “ . . . and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” Your good hearted opponent is not the enemy, Satan is (caveat: I say good hearted on the assumption that the majority of our opposition is. Those who are truly divisive are a different story – see Titus 3:10-11). And the Enemy is at work sowing seeds of discord, stirring up strife, trying to splinter a church’s unity. Do we fix this by making a power move? Yes and no. We make the biggest power move of all – we pray. We love. We gently instruct. And we trust that as we keep ourselves right, the God who love his Church will be responsible to keep others right as well.
May the Lord of the church, who loves us as and gave himself for us, who is gracious with us in our failings, give us grace for those good saints with whom we find ourselves in opposition.
10 Ways to Honor Dr Martin Luther King, from my friend Efrem Smith:
1.) Lift up the Importance of Education
Too many young people have no sense of the lives sacrificed for integrated schools and access to higher education.
2.) Lift up the Importance of Participation in Democracy
Lives were also sacrificed for the right to vote for all citizens
3.) Lift up the Beloved Community
This was Dr. King bringing the vision and values of the Kingdom of God into the mainstream of the nation. It’s also a wake-up call to the church to connect evangelism and justice.
4.) Plant and Develop Multi-ethnic and Missional Churches
11:00am on Sunday morning still remains a segregated hour in too many churches
5.) Study Matthew 25:31-40
Develop an understanding that the first drum major for justice was Jesus
6.) Teach little children the stories of Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges in church Sunday School classes.
(Especially in non African-American churches)
7.) Go to Washington D.C. with your family and see the monument in his honor.
Hold me accountable to this one.
8.) Develop a serious and fruitful friendship with someone of another ethnicity/race.
9.) Explore deeply and confess your own racism, prejudice, sexism, and neglect of the poor.
10.) Thank God for how far we’ve come.
We’re not where we should be, but don’t act like God hasn’t brought us a mighty long way. Balance your lament with praise.
I’ll add a bonus #11 – last night when I got home from worship I watched The Help. Amazing film, cried like a baby, made me appreciate all the more the injustice and dehumanization that has been (and too often still is) part of the black experience in America.
[I originally posted this at Fuller’s The Burner blog]
It seems the only thing pastors enjoy as much as reading good books is sharing them with others. In no particular order, here are the books that most nurtured my soul in 2011:
Biography: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas.
This volume offers an amazing education on the life of one of the 20th century’s most influential Christians, and one of history’s great examples of principled resistance to systemic evil. Bonhoeffer’s courage, wisdom, and commitment to follow Jesus wherever he might lead is bracing and inspiring. (Honorable mention in biography goes to Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. Dang.)
Spiritual formation/church life: With: Reimagining the Way you Relate to God by Skye Jethani.
This is a great book! With simplicity and wisdom, Jethani exposes four common dysfunctions in the ways we relate to God (as rule-following appeasers, as those who attempt to manipulate God to get what they want, those who define their relationship with God primarily by what they do for God [pastors beware], and as those who treat God as a cosmic vending machine). By contrast, he points to the truth that we are made primarily for relationship with God, and helps us lean into that truth in healthier ways.
Family: Sticky Faith by Kara Powell and Chap Clark.
Studies show that at least half of our Christian teens leave the church after high school. How do we instill in our children a lasting love for Jesus and his church? Drs. Powell and Clark have been researching this for years, and their practical guidance on this is invaluable.
Pastoral/leadership: The Pastor by Eugene Peterson.
What is a pastor, and how does being a pastor differ from the dominant leadership models of our time? In telling his story, Peterson unpacks the good, bad, and ugly of pastoral life and leadership. Beautifully written, humorous, and moving, Peterson’s memoir focuses more on what a pastor is than what a pastor does, grounding his readers in the sacredness of vocation rather than technique-based ministry.
Global: Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman.
Written by two Wall Street Journal reporters, this volume documents the amazing advances we’ve made in agriculture, and how short-sighted and (at times) self-serving aid policies prevent those advances from taking root where they are most needed. Must reading for those working with the global poor.
Biblical studies: How to Read the Bible in Changing Times by Mark L. Strauss.
This hermeneutic text is both scholarly and practical. Focusing especially on contemporary application of the Scriptures, Strauss interacts helpfully with authors like Kevin Vanhoozer, N. T. Wright, William Webb and others in charting what he terms a “heart of God” hermeneutic. Great resource for both pastors and lay people.
Old dead guys: The Secret of Guidance by F. B. Meyer.
Dallas Willard names this little book his personal favorite on the topic of divine guidance, and now I know why. Profound, practical, and biblical, the first two chapters alone are worth the trouble of chasing down a copy.
Devotional: Sanctuary of the Soul by Richard Foster.
Foster has a unique ability to explain deep things in simple ways. This little book gives a clear and concise onramp to meditative prayer. Great devotional reading for any who want to grow in their capacity to listen to God.
My friend Chuck Olson is among the best leaders I’ve known. Below is a rich article he posted today. Enjoy!
Some books entertain. Others educate. And then there are those books that mess with you.
I’m talking about the books that by design or default show up on your bookshelf (or get downloaded on your Kindle) that knock you off stride. Bust up your mental models. Remind you that you have some learning to do.
Or perhaps some unlearning.
Meet Leading With a Limp by Dan Allender–author, professor, therapist, and former president of Mars Hill Graduate School.
The book grabs its title from the episode in the Old Testament where Jacob finds himself in a no-holds-barred, all-through-the-night wrestling match with the Almighty–a wrestling match that forever alters his gait, and more importantly, his life. Here’s a quick snapshot of Allender’s take on this remarkable event:
The climax of the story is found in Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles with God and gains a new name as well as a leader’s limp. Prior to the limp, scheming and deceit marked his life. But after wrestling all night with God and gaining a limp that was obvious to all, Jacob in many ways became a different person. His story shows that God intends to wrestle with each of us in order to both bless us and cause us to walk and lead with a distinctive frailty.
Armed with this age-old account, Allender fires away. Meddling. Messing. Often painting you into the proverbial corner. No way out. Forcing one to think deeply.
Differently.
Here are a few excerpts from Leading With a Limp that may serve to whet your appetite for the full read. And if that is your choice, you won’t be disappointed. But buckle up. You’ll hit some bumps along the way–the kind of bumps that jar heart and mind.
- Leading is very likely the most costly thing you will ever do. And the chances are very good that it will never bring you riches or fame or praise in exchange for your great sacrifices. But if you want to love God and others, and if you long to live your life now for the sake of eternity, then there is nothing better than being a leader.
- Here is God’s leadership model: He chooses fools to live foolishly in order to reveal the economy of heaven, which reverses and inverts the wisdom of this world. He calls us to brokenness, not performance; to relationships, not commotion; to grace, not success.
- This is the terrible secret about leadership and life: we achieve brokenness by falling off our throne. To be broken is not a choice; it is a gift. I don’t know anyone who has made the decision to be broken and achieve it as an act of the will. But to experience brokenness and humiliation, all you have to do is lead.
- A limping leader understands this: I don’t know if I am right, nor am I sure the path chosen is the best, but after reflection, feedback, debate, and prayer, I am choosing this path.
- A leader who limps subverts the expectations of those who define leadership as running an organization. It is not that a limping leader does not hire, fire, advance, reward, discipline, and delegate. These are inescapable duties of leadership. But the aim of a leader’s activity is not the growth of the organization. It’s not even meeting needs or doing good. The purpose of limping leadership is the maturing of character.
- Clearly the disillusioned and best leaders are those who have nothing left to prove because they have known both failure and success. Failure teaches us to not fear the contempt of others. Success teaches us to not trust the applause of others. When contempt and applause no longer move your heart to hide or to strive, then you are ready to ask the question "What will please you, God?"
While I was reading Leading With a Limp, I was repeatedly taken back to perhaps my most significant wrestling match. With the clarity of an interstate billboard, I can give you the exact day and time and place, and more importantly, the message. It wasn’t what I wanted. But it was what I needed.
On that day, I bulled my way into the wrestling arena armed to the teeth with an arsenal of complaint, wielding a veritable grocery list of well-documented, self-justified reasons for why I deserved something different…something better.
But what I left with wasn’t what I came for.
I left with a limp. But I also got a new name. And a fresh start.
I know I’m a different person.
And I trust a better leader.
Lord, as I reflect on what it means to lead with a limp, I am once more reminded that Your ways are not my ways and how great is my need to pay attention to how You work out Your master plan in and through me.
A great Advent challenge from my friend John Notehelfer:
Greetings to all of you on the front lines of kingdom work abroad and at home.
Westmont Professor, Gregory Spencer, got my attention when writing about “authenticity” in his book, “Awakening the Quieter Virtues”. He would argue that the parent-virtue of authenticity is Courage – the courage it takes to be real with our self and with others.
Then he threw out a challenge for us as missionary leaders or superintendents or pastors that I need to pass on to you as he underscores practicing the discipline of real presence.
“Jane next door e-mails me instead of stepping into my room. Derek texts his friend, though his friend is just thirty feet away. I call instead of walk over to a colleague down the hall. In an age of second-hand presence, I suggest that we lean toward firsthand presence, that we make the extra effort to be face-to-face whenever we can. ‘But e-mail is more efficient,’ we say. Indeed. Firsthand human interaction, true communion, is messier and slower. So what? What’s the rush?
A tip: “…count the number of human senses available in our communication—and ‘lean toward’ the choice with the higher number. Face-to-face has the potential to include all five.
A video phone call loses touch. A regular phone call loses sight. Voicemail loses hearing. E-mail and texting lose tone of voice. For all its benefits, e-mails implicit bluntness has been the cause of untold confusion and conflict.
Real presence understands that we are sensory creatures. The likelihood of misunderstanding grows exponentially with each sense lost.”
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While serving as interim in the departments of World Mission and Church Growth/Evangelism I learned the hard way that there are critical matters that cannot be addressed with wisdom and healing by second-hand presence. It was a lesson well learned—whether leading globally or locally.
And what about the authenticity of our Creator-God?
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish” – John 1:14 ( The Message)
Prayerfully, John N
From Sanctuary of the Soul: Journey into Meditative Prayer by Richard Foster:
But our being born from above, of necessity, includes our being formed from above. Being spiritually born is a beginning – a wonder-filled, glorious beginning. It is not an ending. Much intense formation work is necessary before we can stand the fires of heaven. Much training is necessary before we are the kind of person who can safely and easily reign with God.
How many of us started the Christian life (or as pastors/leaders have taught it to others) as one whose goal is to receive forgiveness of sins, and then just try to hold on and not screw up too much until we get to heaven? This stands in stark contrast to the gospel of Jesus which Foster touches on here. Our salvation begins with forgiveness of sins, but that is only like the ticket one purchases to get into the show. The real action (and joy, and beauty, and gospel-life) happens as we are transformed inch-by-inch into the likeness of Jesus. As Foster rightly points out, we are meant to reign with God (a theme throughout Revelation, among other places), and God is making us fit for this reign. Or in the phrase used here (borrowed, I believe, from C. S. Lewis), we must be changed before we can stand the “fires of heaven.”
As pastors and leaders especially, think what difference is made by the gospel we preach in the types of Christians are formed in our churches.
[I first posted this at Fuller’s The Burner blog]
We live in a culture of notorious non-joiners, and I am one of them. Way back when, while thinking about what the hypothetical church I might someday start would look like, I was dead set against having “church membership.” What could be more useless? I knew I was committed, God knew I was committed, and even if I wasn’t, what good would attending a class and signing on the dotted line do? It just seemed to me a waste of time and effort.
This began to change for me, though, the more I saw how fickle our generation is about church. Even those of us with modest means grew up as the most privileged consumers the world has ever known, essentially able to acquire what we wanted when and how we wanted it. And if a particular store, restaurant, or brand let us down we thought nothing of moving our allegiance to a new one that better met our needs. As I came into the church as a young adult, I brought this same mindset there as well. Church was something I consumed, something which served me. As long as my needs were being met I would continue to consume. If they weren’t being met (or perhaps if a fellow consumer did something to upset me) then I began wondering if the place down the street might serve me better. I took the idea of changing churches about as seriously as I took the idea of switching my grocery shopping from Vons to Ralphs.
But the New Testament began to screw this up for me. In the biblical view, a person doesn’t belong only to an abstract, invisible body called the church (think of this as the “Von’s Club” view of membership). Nor does belonging to a church mean being an anonymous part of an impersonal organization that doesn’t know or care about your comings and goings, so long as you pay your dues (the “gym membership” view).
In the New Testament, the church is people, and being part of a church means belonging to those people. In Scripture the church always consists of an identifiable group, often described as a family, or as the parts which make up a body, or as the bricks which together make a house. It is a set of relationships shared with those who, like you, have been baptized into Jesus, died with him, and now share his risen life. And this family – made up of real, messy, screwed-up, difficult-at-times people – becomes the context in which one’s life in Christ is lived out, the place where one learns to love their neighbor as them self, and the missional community with which one participates in seeing God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven.
So as we wrestled through what this might look like at Life, some questions began to emerge. “What if ‘church membership’ can actually become part of our spiritual formation? What if we can use it as a tool to call people out of me-centered, consumer-driven spirituality, and to challenge them into the counter-cultural act of committing to live deeply with one another as they follow Christ? And what if, rather than asking nothing of people (so we get more to sign up), we set the bar high and utilize membership as a means of calling people to take seriously living as a disciple of Jesus, and actually doing the things Jesus calls us to do?”
That was five years ago, and having membership has ended up being one of the best things we’ve done. In seeking membership at Life, a person is saying that they believe God is calling them to live out their apprenticeship to Jesus in this particular time and place, in the midst of and with the help of this particular family of people. They commit to a “rule of life” (to borrow a term from the monastics) – a set of practices, relationships, and experiences that we see as essential to our growth in Christ. And believing this to be the case, they are willing to do the hard and joyous work of living as a committed member of a community.
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