grateful for my equippers

dr. kevin tyler is a prolific missionary (director of eurasia teen challenge) and a good friend of  mine (at least he allows me to say so in public).  when he is in the country, he visits our accountability group and he always brings something meaty.

this week in our meeting, the topic turned (again!) to local church polity and methodology.  we talked about churches we both know of that are wildly successful, and we talked about churches we know that are dying a slow and painful death.  kevin travels all over the world, is exceptionally well-read, and is an “out-of-the box” thinker so he brings a broad perspective to our meetings that i cherish.

when the conversation turned to the fellowship i lead, kevin asked about our mission statement.  then he asked about my personal mission–”not what’s written on paper,” he said, “but what is in your heart that you want to see god do.”  i told him i wanted to raise up young men and women who would come after me and make a difference in the next generation, generally, and in my community, specifically.

he asked, “what is your role in that mission.”  i told him that my biblical function is to model servanthood for them, and to resource and equip them.”

then kevin tyler asked me a thought-provoking question: “who equips you?”

i immediately told kevin that he did, and my other accountability partners.  then i began to think of all the godly influencers in my life and i felt an overwhleming sense of gratitude.  several times every week, busy, important men take time to pour into me and listen to me and admonish me.  these are guys that juggle many personal demands, and yet they pause to invest in me.  i know they are a gift to me from god, and i thank him for his gracious kindness toward me.  my friends are absolutely invaluable to me.

going into the weekend, i would turn dr. tyler’s question around to you, dear reader, and ask you to carefully and deeply consider the relationships in your life.

who equips you?

lessons from a retired mechanic

i’ve had several conversations lately about the “your best life later” concept and i feel compelled to further illustrate what i’m trying to say.  in no way am i condoning destitution, nor am i suggesting that comfort is sinful and hardship equals holiness.  and i’m not saying that jesus preached a “poverty gospel,” or that he compels us to live lives of physical deprivation. 

my contention is that if our focus/passion/goal is to have a better life here on earth, then we have missed the point of the gospel.  i pursue him/his will (not me/my will) and he will see that i have ”life, and have it to the full.”

maybe it’s because i’m getting older, but this truth is becoming so much clearer to me.  i don’t know how i missed it for so long.

there is a gentleman in my fellowship who recently retired.  he went to work at the local caterpillar dealership as a very young man, and spent more than forty years working on massive tractors.  i used to pop in to his workplace from time-to-time and find him up to  his elbows in transmission fluid.  a quiet, jolly man, he never complained about his job, but it soon became obvious to me that he looked forward to the weekend (short-term) and retirement (long-term).  well, he recently “pulled the plug” and seems to be enjoying life without responsibility (he lost his wife a few years  back).

this past sunday, he got to church early (as he always does…he covets the back row) and i stopped by to shake hands and visit for a moment.  when i asked how he was, he replied, “couldn’t be better…this is the second best place i could possibly be.”  thinking of his recent retirement, i said “i guess your number one would be a fishin’ hole.”  as he is a man not given to hyperbole, i was taken back when he answered, “no, the only place i’d rather be than here is in heaven.”

i remembered how i used to inwardly judge this man for what i perceived as a lack of ambition.  “instead of enduring this job until retirement,” i would wonder, ”why doesn’t he do something else?  make something of himself?”  last sunday morning, for the first time, i saw how right he is and how wrong i am.  if it’s a better job we’re living for, or greater success or even retirement, then we are, as paul said, “to be pitied more than all men.”

this humble mechanic has become my teacher.  he understands “kingdom” as jesus defined it.  he gets it.  he may live another thirty years.  or forty.  but he embraces the idea that no matter how great it gets (or miserable, for that matter), he will never enjoy his best life while he is drawing breath on this earth.

your best life is later.

 

 

 

we’re a pretty sorry lot

perhaps i’m overreacting.  i mean, it’s not like i’m suffering personally.  perhaps it shouldn’t matter to me at all.  but i am concerned.

one of the reasons i started writing in this space every day several times a week when it is convenient for me, was my knee-jerk response to prevalence of the “your best life now” message (hence, the title).  and its not that i’m advocating a life of misery and deprivation for all of christendom.  i’m simply raising questions about our (the church) obsession with success and comfort and happiness.

today was my day off and i spent a little time surfing the web.  i happened across (read: “facebook”) a couple of young pastors who grew up in my youth group.  each of them is leading a thriving fellowship with more than a thousand in attendance each weekend.  when i scrolled through their recent sermon series, however, there seemed (to me, at least) to be a preponderance of “your best life now” messages (i.e.: how to have a great family, how to overcome anxiety, how to raise great kids, etc.).  i am not saying that those things are not important, or that those subject should not be dealt with in the church.  they are and they should.  i am saying, however, that i’m not seeing a lot of sermon series on “participating in the sufferings of christ” and “denying self” and “joyful in persecution.”

like i said, i’m probably overreacting.

at the fellowship i lead, we are currently walking through the book of 1 corinthians and yesterday we started chapter 15.  in this passage, paul makes a provocative statement:

If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. (1 Corinthians 15:19 – The Message)

paul seems to be saying that it’s pretty ludicrous to make this life our hope.  yet, it seems to me that many christians are preoccupied with (and many preachers are preaching about) having a great life on this earth.  but didn’t we become part of the kingdom to escape the emptiness and futility of this life?

“but jesus loves us,” you might say. “doesn’t he want us to have a great life here on earth?”  he sacrificed his life to give us the kingdom.  isn’t the kingdom enough for us? why do we yearn for things pagans run after?  and what exactly did jesus mean when he said:

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. (Luke 9:24)

am i suggesting that we are victims of a massive satanic conspiracy?  i’m not that smart.  but i’m pretty sure our eternal spiritual enemy is pleased when we focus on success in this life rather than success in the life to come.

according to scripture, your best life (and mine) is later.

one more question for young christian leaders

in this space a couple of days ago, i asked a question (actually, a series questions) of young leaders:  what do you need?  what are you pursuing?  what does success look like to you?

that post generated some great responses and several interesting conversations.  and another set of questions.

so today, i’d like to query my young colleagues further.  maybe you courageously considered what it is you really want out of life.   or it might be that you took these questions to the lord for prayer and meditation.  or perhaps you submitted the questions, and your responses, to your small group for ruthless examination and accountability.  whatever your method of deliberation, i want to inquire further of those astute young leaders out there in the blogosphere who might be/have been thinking about what you really want to accomplish in your life and ministry.  and here is my question.

why do you want what you want?     

in my accountability meeting this morning, we talked about motivations: our own and those of others (and we are champions at discerning the latter).  we talked about the prevalence of church leadership conferences and why people attend them.  we  talked about those church leaders whom we have canonized, and how they attained such exalted status.  we discussed the church of the future, and what the next generation of leaders will have to do to be not only viable, but prolific.

and i got sick.  then i got tired.  now i’m sick and tired.

kevin and i have both attended catalyst (and, might i say, it is a life-changing experience) and he made an interesting statement: “everyone at catalyst is sitting in the audience thinking ‘i could do that’.”  i replied that i think the reason that people go to catalyst is because they want to do that (fill in the blank: write a book, lead a mega-church, stand on the stage, etc.).  and that is why i bring this question today.

why do you do want you want?

i am vexed by the definition of success we have adopted in the contemporary church.  i have absolutely no fear of contradiction when i claim that success in this church culture equals bigger.  and more.  the proof is that we hold up the conference speakers as people we should all learn from and, ultimately, become.  the irony lies in the fact that the conference speakers all say, “don’t try to be like me–be what god made you to be” and “more people and a bigger church will not make you successful.”  but no one would attend the conference where the keynote speaker is joe normal who leads a church of 100, no matter what he insight he might have to share.  because he is not “successful” and no one wants to pastor a church of 100. 

we all want to lead growing churches.

but i want to know why?  why do we want our churches to grow, really.  and i implore you not to lean on a bunch of tired cliches like, “so we can reach more people” or “so we can do a better job” or “so we can have a greater impact on our community.”  i want to know why you, as the leader, want to have a bigger church.

i think if we could be totally honest, most of us secretly nurture a desire for greater recognition, or more influence, or bigger crowds.  but aren’t those just synonyms for vanity and power and ego?  so if i don’t have a pride problem, why don’t i just submit myself to god and leave the results to him?  why do i want to go to conferences and study marketing and operate like a corporation?

and please don’t say, “to be more effective.”  i just cannot see jesus putting his face on a billboard.  or a television commercial.

look, the lord is going to utilize some gifted men and women to raise up high-profile ministries and i think that’s great.  what disgusts me is my desire to be in one.  because i’m pretty sure my “ambition” is nothing but pride in righteous packaging.

so why do you want what you want?

a final word on donald miller

after my recent entries, several people have asked about donald miller.  who is he?  what does he write?  is he a christian writer?

in my humble opinion, donald miller is one of the most compelling (take that to mean whatever you like) writers i’ve ever read.  is he a great writer?  he is to me, but that is very subjective.  but i want you to at least know about him, so i am inflicting one more donald miller post upon you, my longsuffering readers.  and if you haven’t read anything by donald miller, by all means, check out his book excerpts in the “resources” section of his website.

one person wrote, “you said donald miller is humble–what makes you say that?”  read this and judge for yourself.

as to the question, “is he a christian writer?”  donald miller himself has much to say on that subject.  in fact, i read a hilarious piece of satire on his website that addresses this very issue.  with your permission, i will share it in it’s entirety.  remember, it is meant to be satirical.

My Plumber’s Name is Judasby Don on August 3, 2009

Recently I purchased a new garbage disposal for my kitchen sink as the old one sounded like I’d dropped a watch in it. I got a referral from a friend for a good plumber, a man who happened to be a Christian, and I called him for an estimate. I called around and his price seemed fair so I made an appointment. The plumber, I will call him Judas, came over with the new disposal and installed it in under an hour. As far as plumbing goes, he was a master craftsman. I was very pleased with his work. And he was polite and kind and even made good conversation, explaining to me how my pipes worked. But here is why I was upset with my plumber:

He did not share the gospel of Jesus with me.

He was a Christian plumber posing as a non-christian plumber. Perhaps he was trying to be “relevant” or something, I don’t know.

So I confronted him. I opened my checkbook but didn’t write the check. I asked him how, as a Christian, he could leave the gospel out of his work? He made some excuse about being a plumber, about being a craftsman and having a job to do, and doing it well, fulfilling his responsibility. And then he had the nerve to say to me that, as a writer, my primary job wasn’t to share the gospel, it was to write a good book. Can you believe he said that to me? I accused him of being emergent.

He tried to calm me down, as by this time I had closed my checkbook. He said to me, look, you know, if somebody writes a cook book, they are just doing a service, they are sharing recipes. No Christian would judge the author of a cookbook for not putting the gospel of Jesus in it, would they? Or a novel, for that matter, or a self-help book that helped people organize their time? Those are utilitarian, right? He was trying to confuse me with his mystical thinking, his new-age, left leaning theological wish wash. I accused him of not loving Jesus, and of completely abandoning scripture in his work life.

Judas then said to me that he often shares the gospel, and he makes no rules about when he will or when he won’t. He said he hadn’t even thought about it that day. I pointed at him and said “aha!” and he kind of rolled his eyes.

He kept talking but I had my fingers in my ears so I don’t know what else he said.

Anyway, I just needed to get that off my chest. It was a frustrating day. Tomorrow I’m having a guy come over to take the disposal out.

  

a question for young christian leaders

to you young ones that give us old ones hope:  may i ask you a question?

what do you need?  what are you pursuing?  what does success look like to you?

because today, this very day, i arrived.  i attained.

just so you’ll know, i am 52 years old.  for as long as i can remember, i have served in the local church. i went from volunteer, to full-time youth pastor, to planting the church i am now leading.  more than 30 years in total.  for the entire time, i have desperately wanted to be useful.  in my late 30’s (and without realizing it at the time), i began intermingling my vocation and my identity in a very unhealthy way.  if you had asked me, i would have said that i was kingdom-motivated.  i was very sincere and we saw god do some pretty incredible things.  as i look back on that time in my life, however, i realize that i was secretly nursing some pretty ugly desires.  i wanted to be noticed.  i badly wanted to be respected by my peers.  i wanted to be loved and admired by my congregants.  and, most of all, i wanted to be seen as humble.  in short, i wanted to be successful.

well today, i am.

please do not misunderstand.  i am neither renowned nor revered.  my fellowship is smaller than it was five years ago.  my financial outlook is somewhere between laughable and grim.  and even with all i’ve learned in 30-plus years of ministry, i feel like a rank rookie.

yet, i am exceedingly successful.

(WARNING: sappy granddaughter story to follow!)

as i’ve mentioned before in this space, 15 month-old emma spends her days at the child-care center at our church.  a couple of times a day, i find some important task that needs to be done in that area.  today, i was going to the child-care office to work on the computer.  as i walked by the door to emma’s classroom, she saw me (yes, i was walking very slowly).  a huge smile lit up her face and she ran to me.

and, suddenly, i was validated.  completely and absolutely.

she doesn’t care how many people come to hear me preach, or how much money i have (although i’m sure that will change), or how influential i am.  or am not.  she loves me just because i’m “grandpa.”  i tell you, i’ve had some powerful experiences in my life, but nothing can compare to the feeling that i feel when emma smiles at me.

and here’s my point, young leader…

most of what you think is important is not.  most of your hours are spent in trivial pursuit.  and the things that seem so important today–acclaim, authority, affluence, advancement–will lose their allure as the years pass.  paul communicates this concept masterfully:

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 corinthians 4:18)

Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. (1 john 2:15-16 – the message)

so here is my advice (unsolicited, but priceless) from a ministry dinosaur…

close the book, close your laptop, close the office.  spend time with your children.  find a way to become their hero.  cherish your spouse.  enjoy nature.  have coffee with your parents.  make yourself available to people who do not have the capacity to help you build “your ministry.”  strategize less and laugh more.  and don’t start tomorrow or next month or next year–start today.  because until we get to heaven, these are the things in your life that are “unseen”…”eternal.”

and in them you will find success beyond your wildest dreams.

my donald miller retrospective

donald miller wrote another spectacular book.  i’ve been told that the critics are not terribly high on a million miles in a thousand years but i don’t care.  i was moved over and over.  beyond compelling, it is the kind of book that makes me want to be closer to god.  i recommend it without reservation.  can i share one more quote?

Nearly every day in the summer I take my dog to Westmoreland Park, where she plays in the creek.  She runs up and down through the creek bed, diving headlong into the water, chasing ducks.  Sometimes when I watch her I think about how good life can be, if we only lose ourselves in our stories.  Lucy doesn’t read self-help books about how to be a dog; she just is a dog.  All she wants to do is chase ducks and sticks and do other things that make her and me happy.  It makes me wonder if that was the intention for man, to chase sticks and ducks, to name animals, to create families, and to keep looking back at God to feed off his pleasure at our pleasure.

i don’t want to ruin the book for you if you haven’t read it, but in this book donald miller literally reforms himself.  he climbed the inca trail, wrote a screen-play, connected with his father (whom he hadn’t seen in 30 years), started a foundation to mentor fatherless kids, and rode a bicycle from coast to coast.  that being said, i was continually surprised by the tone of the book.  i suppose i was expecting some pretension, or some subtle “look how disciplined i am” references.  but miller was invariably self-effacing and transparent.  you might say, “so what” but to me his tone was very endearing.

by contrast, tracy morgan was the subject of the “10 questions” feature in this week’s issue of time magazine.  i can’t claim to be a fan of tracy morgan, but i have nothing against him either.  but when i read his responses to the questions submitted by readers, i was completely repulsed.  disgusted, even.  it seemed to me like he was trying to sound ambitious and clever, but he came off as arrogant and superficial.  like he’s trying to compensate.

i’ve always wondered why humility is not a fruit of the spirit, but it’s not.  kindness is. and so is gentleness.  and gentleness and goodness and patience and self-control. and i’m pretty sure those precious, fragile attributes cannot survive in the presence of pride.  humility is kinda’ hard to describe, but i know it when i see it.

one of the reasons donald miller is such a great writer is because he is a humble man.

another donald millerism

please forgive me for dashing off a couple of quick, uninspired lines.  after all, it is wednesday (if you are unsympathetic to my plight and cannot see why the fact that “it is wednesday” might be a problem for me, ask your pastor to explain it to you).

yesterday i wrote about my foray into a million miles in a thousand years by donald miller.  specifically, i shared his perspective on the human propensity to “seek comfort and order” and to “fear change.”   today i want to share another of miller’s takes on the human condition. 

donald miller tells the story of visiting a friend who runs an outdoor school in canada where “the men tended to bond like brothers and respect each other and treat each other with dignity.”  throughout his stay, miller observed the men in all kinds of crazy, high-risk, outdoorsy-type activities.  when he asked his friend about it, his friend reminded him ”that men don’t bond unless they risk their lives together, and that Canadians enjoy free health care.”

i love the lesson miller takes from his experience.  he writes…

“After visiting (my friend), I realized how much of our lives are spent trying to avoid conflict.  Half the commercials on television are selling us something that will make life easier.  Part of me wonders if our stories aren’t being stolen by the easy life.”

i feel pretty certain that the gospel is not “the easy life.”

donald miller deja vu

let me be clear: this is not a review of donald miller’s new book “a million miles in a thousand years.”  i’m only about half-way through, but already i’m feeling that old familiar sensation.  miller is sucking me in.  he knows it and i know it, but i can’t stop it.  he is going to ruin my life.  he is going to make me feel like a half-hearted follower of jesus.  he is going to make me wonder if i love myself more than jesus.  he is going to force me to ask questions i’m afraid to ask.  and there’s nothing i can do about it.  his weapon is his writing and i am utterly defenseless.

and i love it.

donald miller has helped me see a “big picture” god–a god who is much bigger than my measly efforts to appease him.  miller has introduced me to a god who is madly in love with me and will stop at nothing to connect with me (and yet i continually thwart his efforts with my self-erected parameters, my demand for rules and formulas). donald miller’s writing creates desire in me; it never fails to birth in me a dream for something bigger/greater.

for example…

The most often repeated commandment in the Bible is “Do not fear.”  It’s in there over two hundred times.  That means a couple of things, if you think about it.  It means we are going to be afraid, and it means we shouldn’t let fear boss us around.  Before I realized we were supposed to fight fear, I thought of fear as a subtle suggestion in our subconscious designed to keep us safe, or more important, keep us from getting humiliated.  And I guess it serves that purpose.  But fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life. (p. 108)

another powerful passage for me was where miller talked about hearing a radio interview with a woman who worked with people who had been abused.

She said most women who came to her for help go back to the situation they come out of, back to the man who abused them.  When the interviewer asked why, the  woman said that even though most women had family they could escape to and friends who would take them in, they returned to the abusive man because the situation, as bad is it might be, was familiar.  People fear change.

and miller synopsizes…

Humans are designed to seek comfort and order, and so if they have comfort and order, they tend to plant themselves, even if their comfort isn’t all that comfortable.  And even if they secretly want for something better. (p. 100)

see what i mean?  there are only about a million parallels between the above passages and the church (and perhaps even more to my life).  i’ll keep you updated, but in meantime i’m going to enjoy getting sucked in.

okay, i’ll share

(NOTE:  i started donald miller’s new book “a million miles in a thousand days” and i am officially sucked in.  i was going write something today about the book, but i’ll save it for tomorrow.  and i wasn’t going to say anything about our little “vacation,” but my brother sent a few pictures so i thought i’d share.  please be jealous.)

well, we’re home and we had an amazing time on our trip.  the fall foliage in the ozarks was breathtaking and roger and angie were delightful. the best part, though, was the ride.  i’m not a “biker” (you know the guy…leather vest with patches, ponytail, bad attitude) but i sure love being on my bike.

this was the first bike trip for jaycene and me.  the weather was unseasonably cool (highs between 55-60 degrees) and we had to bundle up, but otherwise the trip was perfect.  i wish i could tell you that i connected with god during my sojourn into nature, or that he spoke to me through my encounters with sinners, but that would be a lie.

frankly, i pretty much unplugged.  i didn’t check my email/voice mail.  for most of the trip, i didn’t even turn on my cell phone (and on the first night, i couldn’t get service anyway).  i just loaded my wife (and some extra underwear) and hit the road.

and as much as i love you, my faithful readers, i cannot wait to go again.