Bad Influence?
So, my friend Jason at “Fight the Good Fight” has posted an “End of Year Recap.” I wonder if I (and a few other miscreants) have been bad influences on Jason. He writes:
This summer’s internship with Mike had several influences. First of all, it solidified the fact that I love working with youth, teaching them, building relationships, showing them how to live. Second of all, it solidified the thought that was circling in the back of my mind that vocational ministry is not what God was “calling†me to. It’s been made pretty clear to me over the past year, through the scriptures that God does not call individuals to “ministryâ€, but rather everyone to ministry if they are a Christian. Elders/Pastors are a necessary part of the church body, yes, they oversee and teach, but they are not the head of the church. It seems that experience has shown me this past summer that vocational ministry (paid ministry) is the cause of many of the things wrong with the way the church functions today. It pervades the way people think, regardless of if it is scriptural or not. It influences the body’s idea of ministry to the point of creating the idea that ministry is for those in vocational ministry. Not only that, but the idea of hiring out that position to someone who you have no relationship with is definitely not the way scripture presents it. If we hold the standard of watching our deacons live to make sure they are qualified, why do we not hold that same standard for pastor/elders? How can we as a church, entrust the oversight of our body to a man we don’t even know. There is no way that a “search committee†could effectively analyze a pastor and the way he lives with a few interview questions. Ultimately, God has shown me that I need to be a “tent makerâ€, if you want to put it that way. Support my family in the best way I can and do ministry (what God calls every Christian to do, disciple, spread the gospel, etc…) and utilize whatever spiritual gift I have within the body to encourage them, whether it be teaching, playing guitar, whatever.
I hope that we can continue to influence young men like this.
A Random Convenience Store
Yesterday, Christmas Eve, we spent the day with my family. We had lunch with my Mom and Dad, and with my brother and his family. We needed some ice, so Margaret and I went down the road to a local convenience store to buy a bag. This was a normal convenience store combined with a chain gas station. (I honestly don’t remember which gas station.)
There were two employees in the store, both of them men. The oldest of the two men was wearing a “Santa” hat, and was helping an elderly lady pick out a bottle of wine at a wine display. When the lady had picked out her bottle of wine – the bottle that was recommended by the employee – they walked up to the counter together. She asked how much the wine cost, and also handed the man two bottles of coke (in glass bottles!).
The man, “We talked about this already. This is our Christmas gift to you. There’s no charge for the wine or for the cokes.”
The lady protested slightly, as you must do in the South, and then began proclaiming, “I love y’all! I just love y’all so much!”
Meanwhile, I was standing in line at the cash register where the other employee was working. The lady in front of me wanted to by a car wash. She said that she had not bought gas because she had a full tank, but she was traveling through town and wanted to get a car wash. The man rang up the lower price for her (as if she had bought gas), and then he reached beneath the counter to get her car wash code.
“Oh, no!” he said, “It says the car wash needs maintenance.”
The other employee said, “I guess I need to fill up the soap.”
The employee at the cash register asked the lady if she could come back in a few minutes. She said she needed to buy a few things, so she would go to a local store and come back for the car wash. He handed her the car wash code and said, “I’m not going to charge you for this. That way, if he doesn’t get the soap filled before you come back, then you’re not out anything, and if he does get it filled, then you can just consider it a Christmas gift.”
I bought the bag of ice, thinking about the great example these two employees demonstrated. I don’t know if these two men are Christians are not, but they showed that they cared more about people than about their business. They were more concerned with being good neighbors than making a buck. We need to see – and be – more examples like this.
As I walked out of the store, the elderly lady was still saying, “I just love y’all so much!”
Considering Mutuality – Implications for ‘Non-Leaders’
So far in this series, I’ve introduced the topic of mutuality (“Considering Mutuality – Introduction“), contrasted mutuality with both individualism and collectivism (“Considering Mutuality – Individualism and Collectivism“), demonstrated that the concept of mutuality is prevalent in the New Testament (“Considering Mutuality – Where in Scripture?“), and explored the scriptural connection between mutuality and maturity for believers (“Considering Mutuality – And Maturity?“). Finally, in my previous post in this series, I discussed some of the implications of living mutually interdependent lives for leaders among the church (“Considering Mutuality – Implications for leaders”).
There are many, many among the church who desire to live mutually interdependent relationships with other believers, and who recognize the importance of these relationships for the maturity of the church. However, these people are not considered “leaders” among the church. They are not elders, or deacons, or pastors, or teachers, or whatever other titles the church may use to recognize leaders. What do these people do? Is it hopeless? Must they “leave their church” in order to find and nurture these kinds of mutually interdependent relationships?
The simple answers are: No, it is not hopeless, and no, they do not have to “leave their church” in order to live mutually with one another.
However, they many need to become leaders. What?!?!? Am I saying that people will need to become elders or pastors for their church in order to seek and see these mutual relationships? No. That’s not what I said.
Instead, I said that they may need to become leaders… meaning, they may need to lead others in forming mutually interdependent relationships. They may need to become the examples that others will need in order to recognize the importance of mutuality.
I get calls and emails from believers all the time. I meet with people for lunch. And, eventually, a question like this comes up: “But, how do I begin to form and live in this kind of relationship with others when our church and church leaders don’t seem interested? Should I leave my church?”
I have never suggested that someone “leave their church” for this reason. Instead, I encourage people to begin forming and living in relationships with those people who are already in their lives. They may know these people through church organizations, work, neighborhoods, etc. Eat together. Serve together. Get together. Play games together. Go to movies together. Help one another.
Invite your church leaders to your house and spend time with them outside of the “formal programs” of the church. Relate to them as brother and sister. Ask them about their problems and concerns and hopes and struggles etc.
In other words, if you want live mutually with others, then you may need to “lead” in this type of relationship. Share your life with others and provide opportunities for others to share their lives with you. And… be PATIENT! People do not naturally think mutually. You may need to listen to others for months, years, decades before they start listening to you. You may need to care for others for a long time before they start caring for you.
But, that’s okay… even though it is very difficult. The goal of mutuality and maturity in Christ is worth the hard work… and it IS hard work. In fact, once there is a group of people living mutually with one another, the hard work remains.
But, mutuality and maturity are worth the hard work. And, remember, you are never working along. In fact, you are never working at all… you are simply allowing the Holy Spirit to work through you doing the work that he already wants to do.
Wednesday Afternoon Worship Service
Last Saturday, our family visited with friends in “the Neighborhood.” We spent some time with Mrs. W. and her son B. We’ve known them and have been spending time with them for just over a year and a half. But, something different happened last Saturday.
Usually, after we talk to people for a while, we ask them if we can do anything for them. Mrs. W. has always answered, “No, we’re fine.”
But, Saturday, for the first time, she said that she could use some help cleaning her apartment. I told her that we could ask our friends to help us clean her apartment, but since it’s so close to Christmas and New Years, it may be a couple of weeks before we can do anything.
That was fine with her.
But, it was not fine for my wife Margaret.
So this afternoon, Margaret, our daughter, and a friend of ours went to Mrs. W.’s apartment and cleaned it – sweeping, mopping, dusting, picking up, everything she needed. This was a service that Mrs. W. can never return or repay! What a great example to all of us of worshiping God by serving someone in need!
Considering Mutuality – Introduction
According to one definition, mutuality is “a reciprocal relation between interdependent entities.” In fact, mutuality is directly related to a state of interdependency. For mutuality to exist between two or more individuals, the individuals involved must recognize that they depend upon one another.
Beginning a 1985 article, Leonard Swidler said:
What is the fundamental matrix within which humans must live if they are to lead mature lives? A simple, but momentous, question to which everyone has an answer, even if it is inarticulate or unconscious. In the contemporary world there are two very dominant but extremist answers abroad: individualism and collectivism. There are other, better, answers and in these reflections I want to put forward one that takes the best insights of the two extremes and puts them together in, I believe, a truly creative, humanizing way: mutuality. (“Mutuality: The Matrix for Mature Living,” Religion and Intellectual Life 3.1, Fall 1985, p. 105)
For the remainder of the article, Swidler considers mutuality from various perspectives: metaphysical, epistemological, psychological, and ethical. He concludes as follows:
How these principles of mutuality, relationality and dialogue, which are at the very foundation of our human existence, understanding and action, and hence at the core of our religiousness, are to be applied to the further building of the community of men and women is a matter of hard thinking, work and experience by many individuals and groups. Simply knowing these principles will not solve specific problems; they are myriad and unending. But knowing them should keep us from unconsciously resisting them – always to our distortion and destruction – and also provide us with starting points which orient us in the direction we need to move… (p. 119)
While Swidler’s article considers mutuality from the perspectives of metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, and ethics, for the past few years, I have been considering mutuality from a different perspective: Scripture. I have become convinced (as has Swidler according to the title of his article) that mutuality is the matrix through which Christians grow toward maturity in Jesus Christ.
In this short series that I’m calling “Considering Mutuality,” I will be considering what it would mean for the church to lead mutual lives, as opposed to independent or collectivist lives. Note, as Swidler says in the quote above, all of us relate to one another in some way, whether we are aware of it or not. For those who desire to mature in Jesus Christ, and if the way we interact with one another affects our maturity in Christ, then it is important for us to consider how we relate to one another instead of relying on our culture or personality to form our default manner of interaction.
Again, as Swidler says, this is a “a matter of hard thinking, work and experience by many individuals and groups.” I certainly don’t intend to answer all of my (or my readers’) questions concerning mutuality in this short series of posts. Instead, I hope that this series can help us all begin to ask questions concerning mutuality, and how our lives either demonstrate or hinder mutuality.
Furthermore, if you conclude – as I have – that mutuality should be a characteristic of both the individual believer and the church, I hope that this series will also help us begin to consider our own manners of interactions, and how we – individually and as a church – can begin to relate in a manner that better demonstrates our mutual relationships – our interdependence.
A full day tomorrow
We’re leaving in a few minutes to meet some friends at one of our favorite hangout-spots: Wake Forest Coffee Company. As I sit here waiting for a call from our friends, I realize that we’ve got a full day planned tomorrow.
First, we’re headed to “the Neighborhood” to spend some time with several friends who live there. Lately, we haven’t been able to spend as much time with these friends as we’ve wanted to because of a combination of sickness and other obligations. So, we’re excited to spend some time with these sweet friends tomorrow.
After that, we’ll go spend time with Ms. Jenny. Again, we haven’t been able to see her as often as we would have liked lately. She always likes to talk “religion” with me, and I’m hoping we get a chance to talk tomorrow.
Later in the afternoon, we’re going to start cleaning the house because Margaret is hosting a Christmas ornament exchange party for some of her friends and our daughter Miranda’s friends. They had a great time doing this last year, and they’re all looking forward to spending time together again.
Saturday night, several friends are going to join us as we return to the Neighborhood to sing Christmas carols to the people who live there. Obviously, we’ll try to sing to the people that we know – the people that we’ll spend time with in the morning. But, we’re also hoping this will be a chance to meet even more of the neighbors.
So, it’s going to be a full day… but I think it will be a good day.
Examples and Models
Two years ago, I wrote a post called “Examples and Models.” In that post, I tried to explain how my course has changed from seeking “full time ministry” to seeking full time ministry. Of course, a few years before that, I thought that the only way to seek full time ministry was to be in “full time ministry.”
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I love the latest post by a new blogger, Trey from “One Man’s Journey“. The title of the post is “Walk Away for the Love of Christ?” I love his honest reflection and life-changing questions. I also see in his questions many of the questions that I started asking myself a few years ago. Here is an excerpt from Trey’s excellent post:
As my family and I sunk into a financial pit of despair, I began to read much in the realm of finance, investing, financial planning, and biblical financial stewardship. I grew to love this and can see many ways in which the average Christian and also the average church misuses the resources provided by God. I began to see myself as doing this sort of consultation work to families, small businesses, churches, and parachurch ministries once I gained the proper training. But what about seminary? What about my calling? What will my family think?
As previously, most issues discussed here have not been settled in my mind completely. I have been reminded in my prayer times that God certainly does not need me. He has managed eternity just fine before me and will do so long after I become one of saints on high. Also, why do I need the spotlight of an official pastor-elder of a local congregation? Can I not teach and serve in other ways just an important to the kingdom?
Several years ago, I also had this “calling”. Looking back, I think that God was calling me to a more committed life of serving himself and others – he was calling me to full-time ministry, although I don’t think he was calling me to “full-time ministry”. At the time, though, I only saw two options: 1) become a vocational pastor, or 2) become a missionary.
Why did I only see these two options? Well, those were the only two options that I saw modelled. These were the only examples that I saw of what it meant to serve God full-time. So, I picked one – vocational pastor – and did what I was supposed to do: I went to seminary. But, as my family will tell you, I struggled with the idea of being a full-time vocational pastor from day one. I did not think that this accurately reflected what God wanted from me, but I did not have any other categories, models, or examples to compare to.
I knew what God wanted from me: he wanted me to serve him and serve others in everything that I said and everything that I did. But, this couldn’t happen if I worked a regular job, right? I mean, regular people are distracted by work and commuting and co-workers and business trips and office parties. But, God didn’t want me to be distracted by these “secular” things, so I needed to give all of that up, go to seminary, get hired by a church in order that I could concentrate on “spiritual” things.
As Trey expressed in his blog post, I thought that the real work of God was done by those people who prominently stood before me each Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, etc. These were the people who knew God and what God wanted from me and others and how to teach the Bible and how to put on Bible studies and where to find the lost people and when to schedule the Children’s program.
A strange thing happened on the way though. As I was happily preparing myself for just this type of “spiritual” vocation, I took my professors seriously, and I read Scripture to find the answers to my questions. It began with recognizing that Scripture does not call the Sunday morning routine “worship”. I asked myself, “If that’s not worship, then what is worship?” Again, I turned to Scripture for answers. From those answers, I was forced to ask other questions and search for more answers.
In fact, the more I studied and read and asked questions, the more I realized that the type of “spotlight servants” which Trey mentions – and to which I was aspiring – was not described in Scripture at all. In fact, I would suggest that “spotlight servants” are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, Paul, Peter – in fact, all the books of the New Testament. Instead, Jesus calls all believers to be servants – not “spotlight servants”, but servants.
And, slowly, I began to understand that “vocational pastors” may be necessary to carry out what we typically see associated with church today. However, when we examine church in Scripture, we see that “vocational pastors” seem out of place. Instead, we see people shepherding as they work, and discipling wherever they are, and teaching in any context, and caring and comforting wherever they find people who are hurting. We find leaders who lead by example, not from the spotlight. We find elders who are mature and wise and known, not hired for their education and speaking abilities. We find prophets and teachers and apostles who are willing to dialog instead of monologue. We find disciples who are constantly and consistently attempting to live for Christ with the help of other brothers and sisters. We find that there is no secular and sacred divide. Through the indwelling Spirit, all things become sacred – every place becomes a sanctuary – every believer becomes a priest and a temple.
In other words, God can use me as his full-time servant when I am selling cars, or writing code, or running a business, or seeing patients. I can pastor while I am teaching in a school or college, or taking care of the home, or packing boxes, or delivering mail, or selling clothes. I can meet with other believers as the church in a church building, or in a restaurant, or in a park, or in a home, or in a car, or in an office. God was calling me – and he is calling others – into full-time service, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing.
It is my desire to live the rest of my life as an example of following God and serving him full-time in whatever vocation he provides for me. I hope that the believers who come along after me will see my example as another option when God calls them also.
Images of Leadership
Here’s an interesting exercise. Surf over to Google Images. (You may want to make sure that “SafeSearch” is on.) Then, search the image database for whatever term you or others use to identify the leaders among your church. Here are a few examples: “pastor,” “preacher,” “minister,” “elder,” “deacon,” “priest,” “presbyter,” “bishop,” “vicar.”
Now, remembering that Jesus said that we should follow those who serve (that is, our leaders should be servants – Matthew 20:24-28 for example), search for the term “servant“.
Why are the images so drastically different?
Of course, I suppose, there’s a better way to check this than by doing a Google search. Do the lives of our leaders look like the lives of servants?
A Proverb to Consider
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Proverbs 31:8-9 NIV)
How are we doing with this?
(HT: Jonathan)
Tuesday Night Worship Service
Its about 9:00 pm Tuesday night, and we’re just returning home from a Tuesday night worship service with the church. I hear some of you asking, “A Tuesday night worship service?” Yes. A Tuesday night worship service.
This afternoon and this evening after work, twenty or so of us gathered together and worked together to help Jason and Mandie (two of our friends) move. (By the way, Jason has an awesome post on his blog called “Lessons from Marriage.” He’s learning, as I have learned, that marriage can become our most important discipling relationship.)
One friend told me that he had a bad attitude all day. His attitude seemed fine when we were talking. Serving others has a tendency to do that because we take our minds off of ourselves and our circumstances.
So, that was our Tuesday night worship service… helping Jason and Mandie move.