Discipleship, Anyone?

Is the call to Christian discipleship with its potential discomforts and dangers passé in modernity? After all, it can be argued that the Gospel has directly and indirectly brought the world better health and a greater material abundance. Perhaps, then, the health and wealth gospel is the more current expression.

For example, a man embraces the gospel seriously and finds deliverance from his addictions that have been robbing him of health and his family of the material necessities of life. As a result, he becomes responsible with his spending and in months the whole family begins to feel the positive material effect of the changes -– to say nothing of the greater material blessings the years may bring.

Or, a woman whose health is being eaten up by bitterness because of a failed marriage turns to the gospel and finds peace in forgiveness and support from a caring Christian community. Soon the symptoms that have been driving her to the doctors begin to ease and her health is gradually restored.

These are not imaginary results. In such situations, the gospel is a pathway toward health and wealth. But, despite these blessings, the gospel is still first of all a call to discipleship.

I read thoughtfully these words of Jesus: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

This is at the heart of Jesus’ call to discipleship. The New Living Translation says it even more clearly, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me.”

Put aside your selfish ambition? Is that where discipleship starts? Renounce the ‘me first’ impulse so deeply ingrained within us? Say “no” to self-indulgence, the love of ease, the desire to be pampered? It all seems so grim, so demanding. Where is the promise of health and wealth there?

And to be asked to shoulder your cross? The cross is an instrument that stands for torture, and death. Does our Lord call us to invite suffering? Wouldn’t that mark us as psychologically disordered? Neurotic? No, Jesus made the cross for himself a symbol of redemption through suffering. It’s “the narrow gate” that led to his resurrection.

It all seems so forbidding until we read what follows in Luke’s account, “As (Jesus) was praying the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning” (verse29). This is Luke’s report of the Transfiguration, on Mount Hermon.

In that moment, the disciples saw who Jesus really was, in his hidden glory and splendor. He was indeed God in human flesh. Many years later Simon Peter recalled that moment and wrote, “we were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Peter added, “We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mount” (2 Peter 1:16b-18).

Catching a glimpse of who Jesus really is changes his call to discipleship from a call to self-abasing, grim duty to one of ever-expanding joy in his kingdom’s service.

The issues of health and wealth must be dealt with separately from his call to discipleship. It’s true that some find purpose in life through the Gospel and this makes life fuller even in the issues of possessions and bodily well being.

But the wealth that all are assured of through the Gospel is that of knowing God in Christ and experiencing fellowship with him. And the health that’s certain is the promise of eternal life – in this life and the next.

This reality of the gospel can only be experienced from the inside. Either we say yes to Christ and discover the true health and wealth of the soul or we say no to him and deprive ourselves of the fullness of life that only he can give.

10 Tips for Young Pastors

Pastoral work is demanding. It has its peculiar stresses. But, it is also deeply satisfying when done with wisdom and care. Here are some suggestions gleaned from 22-years of pastoral ministry and another 19-years as a general church overseer.

1. Ground your ministry in daily Bible reading and prayer. Pray daily for your people. Pray often through the day. Consider that pastoral labors grounded in prayer are the “gold, silver and costly stones” the Apostle Paul speaks of as durable building materials used in pastoral labors (1Cor. 3:10-15).

2. If your study is at the church, be there at a set time each work day. I suggest 8 A.M. God honors a good work ethic.

3. Spend your mornings in sermon preparations, reading, and related study. Be diligent. If you have a secretary, have her guard these hours. Don’t allow legitimate resources to become time-wasters — the Internet, TV, video games, long telephone calls, news papers, news magazines, etc.

“If in the morning you throw moments away,
You’ll not catch them up in the course of the day.”

4. Get an exercise program and stick to it, whether it be jogging or swimming or walking or exercising to a DVD. If you have no better idea, consider, as one possibility, incorporating this routine into an extended noon hour. A jog, then a sandwich, an apple, and a beverage need take no more than an hour-and-a-quarter.

5. Do not have favorites. If your attachment to one person or couple or family becomes obvious — you meet regularly for meals together, even go camping together — this will make other members feel second rate. The pastor must be pastor to all the people all the time. If you need more intimate friendships, form them outside the congregation — with a neighboring minister, for example.

6. Never, discuss church problems in the presence of growing children.  They do not have the wisdom to handle adult problems.
Their trust may be damaged, and eventually their respect for Christ and his church.

7. If division develops over some issue (whether to launch a building program, add a staff member, change the music program, etc.) give leadership through proper channels. But don’t take sides by talking informally with one faction or the other. To do so will deepen the congregational rift and likely shorten your tenure.

8. Develop a clear understanding of your boundaries and observe them — with the opposite sex, the aged, children, young people, church officers, staff members, etc. Strive to keep all pastoral relationships above reproach.

9. However modest your income, set an example of responsible stewardship. Show leadership in tithing your income. If you have debts that are out of hand, seek professional counsel. Your care with money will increase the congregation’s trust in your leadership.

10. Never ask to borrow money from your parishioners. To do so puts parishioners at a disadvantage, may reduce their respect for you, and if not repaid as agreed may create a rift that puts your pastoral tenure at risk.

Pastoral ministry is built on the ability to preach and teach the Bible. But it is also grounded in genuine godliness, basic ethical competence, good interpersonal skills, and beyond these on common sense. These ten points do not tell the whole story but they offer some time-tested suggestions about how to avoid the traps that sometimes spring and limit or even shorten a minister’s usefulness to the Lord and a congregation.

Just Call Me Pastor

I am pleased to be writing this new blog for pastors, church workers, and rank-and-file Christians – to anyone concerned about the great challenge of the pastorate.

Why have I called it “Just Call Me Pastor”? This memory from my days as an active pastor answers that question.

One Sunday morning during announcement time in the worship service I said to my new congregation, “Just call me pastor.”  Then I explained:

• Call me pastor for my sake — I need to be reminded of the special reason I’m in this town.

• Call me pastor for your sake, so that you will be aware of the special relationship we have.

• And call me pastor for your children’s sake so that they will have access to one more person who is special in their lives to help them through the sometimes difficult years of youth into a purposeful Christian adulthood.

For me, “pastor” was an honorable biblical title, meaning shepherd — a title which Jesus himself took when he said, “I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Back then, the increase of secularism had not yet taken the edge off the term.

The time was 1962. The place was the Free Methodist Church in Greenville, Illinois. I was new to the congregation, having come just a few months earlier into this pastoral appointment in this small midwestern city. Sunday morning attendance ran at about 600 worshipers, half of them students from the Christian college across the street. Culture-wise, it was the beginning of the youth revolution, that upheaval that brought into question all traditional standards in a way that was very destabilizing to society as a whole.

One feature of that revolution was an easy jettisoning of titles. It was an authority issue. One had to be careful about any conscious or intended display of authority. When youth sat on the floor to rap, I sat on the floor with them. It was the era when the use of first names became common regardless of the situation. The sense was that authority figures for sure should keep their heads down.

During that period the word “share” began to take a prominent place in much of public discourse. I recall that in college assemblies even if a renowned authority was to give an address in an area of her proven expertise she was introduced as having come to “share.” The word became tiresome to those of us who understood why it was used as it was, but nevertheless it held unchallenged sway.

Yet there I was, at about 36 years of age, asking a Christian congregation, including many my senior in age or credentials, to call me pastor. Was that audacious? Foolish? Swimming upstream against a raging current? Although 47 years have passed since then, I have never regretted making that invitation. It defined in one word both for me and the congregation what I was there to do.  It described a primary relationship.  It tended to restrain both me and members of the congregation when serious disagreements arose as in church life they often do.

At that time, there seemed to be a growing number of church personnel who were of a different mind-set from mine. They argued that titles, even “pastor,” get in the way of authentic relationships.  I could not agree. I found that under one set of circumstances I could exchange hearty laughter with former schoolmates who were now members of the congregation and under another set participate in soul-searching conversations about issues of life and death. As I see it, being real is not helped or hindered by titles. Being real is a state of being that develops out of the bumps and bruises of life.

Yesterday I received a phone call from that midwestern community. It’s been 35 years since I left. A longstanding member had died and the family wanted me to know. That family now crosses four generations. The phone call was from the married daughter of a couple at whose wedding I had officiated — a mother of three growing children herself. It is not lost on me that, after 35 years of absence from that community, to all four generations I am still given that honorable title, Pastor.

I welcome your thoughts, memories, and dreams about pastoring.