When I don’t deal with stress well…
I’m usually a pretty mellow person. While it might not come through the net of ether – especially during online discussions or disagreement – I’m almost always light and carefree. Very few things stress me out…
But, the last two weeks or so has been different. I’ve been stressed out, and I don’t like it.
Now, I know what’s stressing me out… Or, I should say, I know all of the things that taken together are stressing me out. At this point, I can’t go into the details about everything that’s going on, because many of them are ongoing. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share more in the next month or so.
But, really, the causes are not that important. None of them are life threatening or relationship threatening or anything like that. However, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still stressed.
A few times, I’ve had trouble going to sleep. Sometimes, I’m quiet or just want to spend time by myself. I’ve vegged out on video games. I’ve been discouraged. I’ve dealt with the stress in many different ways – but I’m still stressed.
Of course, I’ve prayed… often… regularly… now. I’ve read Scripture. I’ve talked with my family and some friends.
I know that I’m stressed, and I don’t like it.
Times like this are difficult… but often very important. Whether it’s stress or anxiety or depression or pain or illness or something else, it reminds us how desperately we depend on God.
What’s interesting is that in spite of the stress, my faith is strong, and I’ve never doubted God. I know and trust that he is in control. (Yes, I know this may sound contradictory… but, oh well.)
So, why am I sharing this with you? Do I want you to fix my stress problems? No. Do I want your pity or mercy? No, not really. Do I want you to pray for me. Sure, but, I always want you to pray for me. But, I didn’t write this so that you would pray for me.
Instead, I’m just trying to share more of myself with you. You may not care, and you may not want to read this kind of post, and that’s fine. But, to me, sharing all of life is important – even the parts that aren’t necessarily pretty. Right now, this is me.
I’m also hoping that this post will be encouraging to someone. Yep, encouraging. You see, too often Christians (especially those in the public eye) are all smiles and roses. But, life isn’t all smiles and roses. It doesn’t help others to pretend that everything is great when it’s not.
So, if you’re having a rough time too, just know that I’m right there with you.
So, right now, everything is not great in my life. Like I said, there are no big issues, but I’m not dealing with this stress well. (Thank God that my family has been extremely patient and caring.)
Would you like to help write a book about the church?
Jeremy at “Till He Comes” is putting together a book about the church. He tells us more about his plans in a post called “You Can Help Write a Book on Church.”
I took part in a similar project last year, contributing a chapter to the book The Practice of Love. I enjoyed the process, so I thought I would let my readers know about this opportunity.
So, what kind of contributions is Jeremy looking for? Well, you can find out more detail by jumping to his post “You Can Help Write A Book on Church,” but here is part of what he says:
We encourage you to shape your submission to fit within one of these categories.
Leaving Church
Stories about personal life adjustments, theological changes, or church moral failures which led people to leave church for good.Returning to Church
Stories about people who used to attend church years ago, but stopped for a while, and have now decided to start attending again. These stories explain why they left, and what caused them to return.Reforming Church
Though many people are leaving the church and criticizing how church is done, some people want to stay within their church and be part of the solution. These stories relate what problems exist in the church, and how the person is seeking to reform and renew the church from within.Changing Church
Many people leave one church to attend another. Sometimes they attend a similar church across town; other times the new church is a completely different denomination, or form of church, such as going from a mega-church to a house-church. These stories reveal what moves the person made, and why they changed churches.
Am I going to take part? Perhaps. I have a few things going on, but I’m hoping to contribute to the topic “Reforming Church.”
If you were to write for this project, which category (or categories) do you think you would contribute to?
Teaching Workshop: The Essence of Teaching
Over the next few weeks, I’m planning to lead a “Teaching Workshop” for the church on Sunday mornings. We’ll work through a few passages of Scripture and discuss together what those passages say about teaching and teachers.
This is not a workshop about how to put together a teaching outline or how to study commentaries or other reference materials. Instead, we will discuss a broad and general view of teaching through Scripture. I hope that this workshop will be helpful for people teaching in any context.
This is the general outline that I plan to use for this workshop:
Part 1: Who Teaches?
Part 2: The Motivations for Teaching
Part 3: The Essence of Teaching
Part 4: Teaching When the Church Gathers
For each week’s workshop, I plan to put together a short worksheet to guide our discussion. This is the worksheet for the first week’s session. This lesson will be called “Part 3: The Essence Teaching.” From the perspective of Scripture, what does it mean to teach?
Feel free to discuss or ask questions in the comments.
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Teaching Workshop
Part 3: The Essence of Teaching
For this session of the workshop on teaching in Scripture, we’ll consider the following question: What does it mean to teach from the perspective of Scripture? The authors of Scripture say very little about how to teach. However, there are many passage that help us understand WHAT to teach.
I recommend reading the following passages so that you will know the context and background of the specific parts that we will discuss together. As you read, pay attention to the context as well as what the author says teaching: Matthew 23:1-36; Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 10:25-37; Philippians 4:8-9; Colossians 1:15-23, 3:1-25; Thessalonians 2:1-12; 2 Timothy 3:1-17; Titus 2:1-10; 1 Peter 1:3-12, 13-21; 3 John 9-12; Jude 10-13
I. The Negative Example of the Jewish Religious Leaders
From Jesus reaction to the Jewish religious leaders, we can learn what teaching is NOT. Many of Jesus’ words against them relates directly to their teaching. (Matthew 23:1-36; See also 3 John 9-12 and Jude 10-13)
II. The Great Commission
Just before Jesus ascended to the right-hand of the Father, the told his followers to disciple others. This includes teaching… but teaching what? (Matthew 28:18-20)
III. How do we Teach Obedience?
In Scripture, the primary way of teaching obedience is by modeling obedience, that is, by sharing your life with others so you can learn from each other’s example. (Philippians 4:8-9; 2 Timothy 3:1-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12)
IV. Teaching may include Sharing Information
We often begin teaching with information about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, mankind, etc. (Colossians 1:15-12; 1 Peter 1:3-12)
V. But Teaching Cannot Stop with Sharing Information
But, we should understand that our teaching cannot stop there. (Colossians 3:1-25; 1 Peter 1:13-21)
VI. Teaching Includes Very Practical Information About Our Way of Life
Doctrine (teaching, instruction) includes practical aspects about our way of life in Christ as much as it includes facts about God. (1 Timothy 6:2b-10; Titus 2:1-10)
Just sign on the line, and you too can be a Christian
Miguel at “God-Directed Deviations” has started a very interesting series that he calls “Why I’m No Longer the Sort that ‘Closes the Deal,’ in Evangelism.” (You can read “Part I” and “Part II” of his series now.)
He is stepping through how his thinking about evangelism and, especially, “closing the deal” has changed. In the first post, Miguel explains, “I used to be the sort that asked others to raise their hands in the pews (with all heads bowed and all eyes closed of course) after a sermon to ‘accept Christ.'”
In the second post, he writes:
I can recall, during a major evangelistic campaign when 1000′s came forward to “Accept Christ,” how I felt. Having witnessed these miraculous events before, and having wept and worshiped God for doing such a wondrous things in the lives of others, I couldn’t help but think how grateful I was to be a part of it. But, on this particular occasion I asked one of the ministry leaders, “How many of these that came forward do you think have truly received Christ?” Without hesitation, and matter-of-factly, he said, “about 3%.” When I asked, “What about the other 97%?” He replied with a certain incredulity, “Look, we can only get them to a point of decision, the rest is up to God.” Sadly, at the time, and because I didn’t know any better, I accepted it a a reasonable response. It did, however, and for the years to follow, remain like a splinter in my soul irritating but still ignored. I learned many more methods, manners, and modes of “evangelism,” in the years that followed, and felt pretty good that I could make them better. I could take what I saw missing in these techniques and improve on them, and make them more “biblical.”
Now, please do not misunderstand the reason for this post. I am not condemning people who follow the types of evangelistic methods that Miguel talks about in these posts. (And, from Miguel’s comment to me, it is clear that he is not condemning the people or the methods either.)
Instead, I have a much different purpose in pointing you to Miguel’s posts. Looking back over the years that I attended evangelism training sessions, led evangelism groups, taught evangelism methodologies, and made evangelistic visits to people, I recognize that all of this effort and all of those resources resulted in very, very few new followers of Jesus Christ. Oh, there were many, many decisions, and, yes, there was “follow-up.” But, like in Miguel’s story, the decisions rarely resulted in the people actually beginning to be a disciple of Jesus (as far as anyone could tell).
So, I want to ask you 2 things: 1) Do your experiences match mine and Miguel’s, or have you seen better “results”? 2) Have you found a different way to help people begin to follow Jesus Christ that seems to be more “effective”?
(I put “results” and “effective” in quotes because I realize that the results and effects are truly up to God. That said, I’m not sure God is interested in us spinning our wheels doing things that are not actually helping people follow Jesus.)
Reflections on Teaching Workshop Part 2: The Motivations for Teaching
Last week, in my post “Teaching Workshop: The Motivations for Teaching,” I explained that last Sunday I continued leading the church through a discussion of the concept of teaching in Scripture. The “workshop” will continue over the next few weeks, but that second week’s topic was “The Motivations for Teaching.”
In this post, I’m going to offer a few reflections from our time discussing that topic. I was not trying to stuff information into people’s heads. Instead, I was simply leading people through passages of Scripture and asking questions. So, these reflections are not based on things that I taught. Instead, what I’m sharing here came from other people. (In most cases, I’m summarizing and paraphrasing, since I did not record our discussion.)
I’ll share these reflections within the outline (in a summarized form) that I used to guide our workshop:
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(From the beginning, we talked about how these motivations are not specifically related to teaching, but are also related to any response that we should have toward God and others.)
I. Love for God
Scripture: Matthew 22:37 – and parallel passages; John 21:15-17
II. Submission/Obedience to God
Scripture: John 14:15; Acts 5:29-32; 1 John 5:2
III. Honor/Glorify/Worship God
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:16-17; 1 Peter 4:10-11
While it can be beneficial to think about the different aspects of our motivations related to God, in reality, loving God, submitting to God, and honoring/glorifying/worshiping God are all interrelated.
These are all heart responses to God. Our actions should always follow our heart. If our heart is not right, then our actions will not be carried out from the proper motives. However, it is possible for God to change our heart as we are submitting to him through our actions. Still, our goal should be heart change (for ourselves as well as for others), which means we always have to rely on God to do the work (again, in ourselves as well as in others).
IV. Love for Others
Scripture: Galatians 5:13-14; 1 John 4:20-21
V. Desire to Benefit Others
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:4-7; Acts 20:20
VI. Desire to Disciple Others
Scripture: Matthew 28:19-20; Ephesians 4:11-13, 16)
VII. Desire to Build Up Others
Scripture: Romans 1:11-12; 1 Corinthians 14:26; Hebrews 10:24-25
Again, all of these motivations are interrelated, and they are even related to the previous motivations (loving/obeying/honoring God). As we know, we cannot love others if we don’t love God, and if we’re not loving others then we are not loving God (even if we think we are).
If we are not teaching, serving, whatever others, then we are harming the entire church, not just ourselves.
There are “false” motivations – “false” in the sense that they are not motivations from a heart that is right with God. These “false” motivations tend to cause us to do certain things in order to earn God’s favor or people’s favor.
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To me, the best part of our discussion came after we talked about these different motivations for teaching (or others responses to God). We discussed the following question: if we find that we are not motivated to teach others, then what should we do? This was the most beneficial and challenging part of our discussion.
How would you answer that question?
Longing for change while others are fine with the way things are
Over the weekend, after I wrote my previous post linking to a great comment by Arlan, Bettie left another comment that I would like to highlight so that more people read it and think about it.
As with the previous post, Bettie is actually introducing himself to me and my readers. However, her comment touches on an issue that I often struggle with as well. What do you do when you have a longing to change the way you live among the church (in whatever aspect), but others around you are “fine with the way things are”?
Here is Bettie’s comment:
I’ve been enjoying your posts for a while now, and sharing them from time to time. I guess when you say something that I’ve been thinking the same way about, it feels safer to let you say it than for it to be just my opinion… You have a nice way of challenging our thinking from a perspective of humility.
I have been a missionary in Guatemala for 14 years now, involved in different forms of ministry, and attending a megachurch. For the last three years or so I have been feeling more and more restless with that situation, studying both on my own and with the help of others like you, and coming to some disturbing conclusions about the current state of church in general.
My challenge here is that Guatemala is highly evangelized. Sometimes I wonder why I stay here when the Gospel has been so widely preached, but in reality Christ-followers are difficult to find. There is a church on almost every block but mostly full of religion, legalism and man’s traditions. I feel that with the religious freedom here we have a wonderful opportunity to be a greenhouse, so to speak, to raise up missionaries to go to places where the need is greater but North Americans wouldn’t be so welcome.
So when I read of missional communities, house church, simple church, organic church, etc. etc. I feel a longing for something like that but the culture here hasn’t seemed to be conducive to that sort of movement. People seem to be just fine with the way things are but I just can’t go on this way. So I feel like I’m longing for a home that I’ve never seen, and wrestling with the thoughts of whether I am to start something, keep looking for something already existing, or what. Somehow I know that I’m not the only one around here that feels this way.
So, I’ll ask you the same question that I asked Bettie in response to her comment: Why do you think you feel a restlessness about “the way things are” while others seem to be fine with it? How does someone move forward in this situation?
The need to live the truth, love, and service
Last week, on my post “Have you signed my ‘Guest Book’,” Arlan left a comment that I would like to highlight so that more people read it and think about it.
In the comment, Arlan is actually introducing himself to me and my readers. But, I think his comment goes along well with several of posts investigating fellowship and unity among brothers and sisters in Christ in spite of various kinds of disagreements. My latest post to discuss these issues was called “Unity and Fellowship: Where do you draw the line?”
Here is Arlan’s comment:
I was raised outside of the regular (institutional) church and have spent most of my life outside of any church. I have had some Christian fellowship, particularly with my own family, but I hesitate to call all Christian contact “church” in the sense of those called out by God assembling for the purpose of mutual edification.
Your recent post on unity and fellowship really strikes a nerve. In most of my childhood my family could not find enough unity to maintain fellowship. As I have tried things out on my own I have more often found too much fellowship without unity–a circle of friends, but not of servants, and without much honesty about the real differences between members.
Church, in all its institutional and organic flavors, seems to be a contest between doctrines and good feelings. On the one side they insist on truth at all costs and forget that God loved us while we were his enemies; on the other side they insist on love at all costs and forget that love without truth is false love–treachery, really. If we neglect to admonish each other we are abandoning one another to our sins.
A year ago I went to a Baptist Sunday school that was more concerned with Being Right and also to a home fellowship that was more concerned with Joy, Peace, and Encouragement. In June I moved and I haven’t gotten with any fellowship since. It is hard to even know how to look.
I’ve been to the Searching Together conference in 2008, 2009, and 2011, which is nice to do once a year; but I feel the need to live the truth, love, and service where I am without yet knowing how.
I appreciate Arlan’s last line especially: “I feel the need to live the truth, love, and service…”
Scripture… As We Live It #191
This is the 191st passage in “Scripture… As We Live It.”
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
By reading the Bible daily. (Psalm 119:9 re-mix)
(Please read the first post for an explanation of this series.)
Replay: 23 Years with a Missional Wife
Three years ago, I wrote a post called “20 Years with a Missional Wife.” It was part of a series that I did called “Stories.”
Well, as of today, January 14, 2012, Margaret has now been my wife for 23 years. It’s so hard to believe that we have been married for 23 years.
God has taught me so many things through her. Primarily, he has used Margaret to help me understand how to focus on people, how to find out what they need, and then how to serve those needs. I “replay” this post so that you will understand a little bit about what a special wife I have.
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“20 Years with a Missional Wife”
This post is part of my “stories” series. In this series, I share stories of how people live their lives in response to the gospel and as a demonstration of God’s love in order to teach us and to provide an example to provoke us to love and good works. (See “stories: A New Series” for more information about this series.)
Since today is my twentieth wedding anniversary, I thought I would start my “stories” series by talking about my wife. (Yes, I know that its hard to believe that someone would stay married to me for 20 years, but I promise that its true.)
I met Margaret when we were both 10 years old, so we’ve known each other for more than 30 years. In that time, I’ve never heard her use the term “missional”, not even recently when that word seems to be everywhere. But, I have learned more about missional living from her than from anyone else.
She has always been a caring person; the type of person that is deeply affected by other people’s circumstances and emotions. She truly rejoices when others rejoice and weeps when other weep. People notice this about her too, and people love to talk to her – to share their struggles with her.
Another reason that people like to talk to Margaret is that she is very accepting and not judgmental at all. In fact, she finds it easier to accept other people’s faults than to accept her own faults.
These two traits (empathy and acceptance) work together in Margaret to drive her to action. When someone tells her their problems, she wants to serve, comfort, and help. She cannot sit idly by while other people struggle alone. She wants to be part of their struggle. But, she goes beyond “wanting” to help; she actually helps people, giving of herself over and over again.
I’ve seen her comfort someone for hours. She’s made more meals for people than I can count. She’s taken care of people’s children and houses and pets when they could not do it for themselves. She’s given money to people in need – money that she had saved to buy something for herself.
Last fall, Margaret was talking with one of the elderly ladies who lives in government assisted housing development. The lady told Margaret that the housing authority does not rake their leaves. Within a week, Margaret had asked her friends to help her rake leaves. We raked leaves for 6 housing units.
Another time, Margaret was talking with one of the elderly ladies who had been sick. The lady said that she was resting so that she could wash her dishes, because she had not felt like washing them for a few days. Without asking or being asked, Margaret immediately went into the lady’s kitchen and washed her dishes.
These are not out of the ordinary occurrences. She does these kinds of things all the time.
Little things? Yes, these are little things. But, I believe that “missional living” is found more in the little things – the everyday things – the ordinary things – than in the great things. God has taught me how to care for people, how to love them, and how to serve them by watching and imitating Margaret.
I thank God for 20 years with my missional wife. I look forward to many more years.
(Update: I wrote this article several weeks ago. After I wrote it, Margaret’s father had heart problems and underwent bypass surgery. He’s doing well, but he will have a long recovery ahead of him. Margaret once again demonstrated that she’s a servant by staying with her parents for 2-3 weeks to help them through his recovery process. I miss her greatly, but I’m so proud of her decision to serve them.)
Unity and Fellowship: Where do you draw the line?
Thanks to Arthur at “The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia,” I’ve been involved in a few conversations on Google+ concerning fellowship, unity, interpretations, etc. (Yes, there are occasionally good discussions on Google+.) Arthur wrote about this in his post “Leaving our preferences at the cross.”
I have enjoyed this conversations very much, primarily because they have forced me to consider what I believe about various teachings as their relate to being a follower of Jesus Christ.
For example, when he was thinking about these discussions, Arthur wrote:
Taking our preferences to the cross and letting them die there. That sounds great but man is that hard! One of the hardest things about seeking a deeper sense of community is the inherent danger that when you let people in to your little world they are likely to make a mess and you might find that you don’t like them or agree with them very much. On the other hand in our natural state we were enemies of God, sinners in open rebellion against Him and yet He still sent His Son to die for the sins of His elect and adopted us into His family. If He did that for us I guess we can learn to get along in spite of our differences and quirks and annoying habits!
I agree completely with Arthur. We should be willing to give up our preferences and opinions for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ. This does raise some tough questions though, and these are the questions that kept circling around our discussion on Google+.
Where do we decide to draw the line between our preferences and beliefs that are necessary for someone who is following Jesus? I’m not asking WHAT those beliefs are. Instead, I’m asking a slightly different question: How do you know that a certain teaching is necessary but another teaching is a preference?