Modelling the message

At the end of an article that reflects on David Fitch's proposals for overhauling church planting, Jason Hood reminds us of the important example of the Apostle Paul. Whilst the whole article is worth reading, these words in themselves are solid food for thought:

Paul's own method for ministry was a message: his gospel (1 Cor. 15:1–4; Rom. 1:1–4) and his gospel-shaped way of life (1 Cor. 4:8–17).This message impacted Paul's method of ministry. He did not choose a tent-making approach to ministry for pragmatic or financial reasons, but for pastoral reasons. He used his lifestyle to model the sacrifice and service required of every Christian (Acts 20:33–35; 1 Thess. 2:9–12, compared with 1 Thess. 4:9–11; 2 Thess. 3:6–12; and a point also made in the middle of 1 Cor. 8:1–11:1).

Do you fear living an insignificant life?

Then you might like to read this piece by Skye Jethani.

Here's a taster:

When we come believe that our faith is primarily about what we can do forGod in the world, it is like throwing gasoline on our fear of insignificance. The resulting fire may be presented to others as a godly ambition, a holy desire to see God’s mission advance--the kind of drive evident in the Apostle Paul’s life. But when these flames are fueled by fear they reveal none of the peace, joy, or love displayed by Paul and rooted in the Spirit. Instead the relentless drive to prove our

worth can quickly become destructive.

The 33

one year on.

So, Think Paul You Know, You Do?

Might want to have a looksie at this piece by Tim Gombis then.

Speaking With Authority

As a preacher who is fully human, and clearly not divine, I can't speak as Jesus did. But I do seek to speak truth that carries weight and authority. All of us who preach the gospel aspire to speak under the authority of Jesus.

There's an unmistakable connection between the author and authority. Part of what it means to be made in the image of God is that just as God is able to speak and his words carry weight, so our words can also carry weight.

God speaks, and it is so. Every word that comes from heaven does not come in vain. It comes with purpose. In our own little way, even though as humans our words are distorted by sin, we still have the capacity to think and to speak and to have it be so. When our words shape and interpret reality, that's because we were made to carry authority.

John Ortberg, Redeeming Authority

'Tis the Dandy season

Endings

An ending "insists that life makes sense, that there is an underlying logic". So asserts Paul Ford as he observes how social media robs of context, of boundaries and, especially, of endings.

How important that is for those who believe that history had a beginning, has boundaries of purpose and will have an ending.

pen & paper: the comeback

Over at The Next Web's Lifehacks page, there's an article proclaiming pen and paper to be "possibly the most underrated creativity and productivity tool".

I think I heartily agree; writing sermons (which end up digitised) with pen and paper is, for me, a great help in the creative process. It usually involves isolated sentences on scrap paper, some more coherent paragraphs and quotes in a moleskine notebook and, sometimes, something approaching a mindmap (but more linear) on a piece of landscape A4. Last week, the A4 became A3 and that was a very interesting departure.

These dark cafe days

The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68,
And he told me, "All romantics meet the same fate, someday,
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe."
"You laugh," he said, "you think you're immune, go look at your eyes
They're full of moon; you like roses and kisses and pretty men

to tell you all those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realise they're only pretty lies
only pretty lies, just pretty lies."

He put a quarter in the Wurlitzer, and he pushed
Three buttons and the thing began to whirr
And a barmaid came by in fishnet stockings and a bow tie
And she said, "Drink up now it's gettin' on time to close."
"Richard, you haven't really changed," I said,
"It's just that now you're romanticizing some pain that's in your head
You got tombs in your eyes, but the songs
You punched are dreaming -
Listen, they sing of love so sweet, love so sweet
When you gonna get yourself back on your feet?
Oh, love can be so sweet, love so sweet."

Richard got married to a figure-skater
And he bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator
And he drinks at home now most nights with the TV on
And all the house lights left up bright.
I'm gonna blow this damn candle out,
I don't want nobody comin' over to my table
I got nothing to talk to anybody about.
All good dreamers pass this way some day,
Hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes
Dark cafes
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And I fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days.

Facing criticism?

Then be careful not to respond by speaking with contempt.

Referring to Numbers 20, Tim Keller muses,

God was ready to be gracious, but Moses was in no mood for that. The relentless criticism had made him self-righteous. He held them in contempt. He had wrath but no compassion, and that is the mark of a man who is becoming less like God, not more. (See Isaiah 15-16 where God grieves even as he speaks in judgment.) Moses is a man who has forgotten grace, and the sign of it is a sanctimonious spirit along with words of denunciation without humility and compassion.

Thankful

We sang this song by Timothy Dudley-Smith at communion yesterday, to the tune Penlan. It's probably one of my favourite passion-songs and is posted today as an expression of gratitude for God's grace, on my 48th birthday.

The relevant scripture references are 1 Pet. 1:18-19 (st.1); Isa. 53:3-6, John 1:29 (st.2); 2 Cor. 5:14, 17 (st.3).

No weight of gold or silver
can measure human worth;
no soul secures its ransom
with all the wealth of earth;
no sinners find their freedom
but by the gift unpriced:
the Lamb of God unblemished,
the precious blood of Christ.

Our sins, our griefs and troubles,
he bore and made his own;
we hid our faces from him,
rejected and alone.
His wounds are for our healing,
our peace is by his pain.
Behold, the Man of Sorrows,
the Lamb for sinners slain!

In Christ the past is over;
a new world now begins.
With him we rise to freedom
who saves us from our sins.
We live by faith in Jesus
to make his glory known.
Behold, the Man of Sorrows,
the Lamb upon his throne! 

How to get creative

This will be anathema to the multitudes who worship at the altars of Motivation and its close relation, Productivity. Indeed, when I meet with ambitious young entrepreneurs, I am invariably asked, “How can I get more done in fewer hours? What can I do to jump-start my creativity? How can I keep my edge?”

Here are the three answers I can offer: 1. You can’t. 2. Stop trying so hard—if it feels like work, something’s wrong. 3. Do less stuff.

Motivation, productivity, efficiency—these things are not constants. In my experience, they come in waves. They ebb and flow, and there’s no sense in fighting it. The key is to recognize a productivity surge when it appears, so you can roll with it.

Jason Fried

Come down, O Love divine (Ortega)

Here's a video of Fernando Ortega talking about his latest album (HT: Justin Taylor):

Come Down O Love Divine from fernando ortega on Vimeo.

And if you want to listen to it on Spotify, click here.

The Darker Side of Productivity

Driven onwards in ministry by the need to be effective and yet you have the nagging feeling you're simply being efficient? Reading this might help.

Piper: misperceptions about what is needed in missions.

John Piper has spoken of 4 waves of change in missions - here's the third of them:

I pray that this conference would blow away the notion that missions can stay home now because all the nations have come to us. My neighborhood is currently reported by CityVision to be “the most ethnically diverse single neighborhood in America with 100+ languages spoken.” That changes a lot in the way we do missions. But one thing it does not change is the fact that the Joshua Project catalogues not a few hundred, but 6933 peoples globally without a self-sustaining gospel presence. Another misperception I would like to see blown away is that Westerners should just send money rather than go as missionaries. My paraphrase: Let others give their blood. We give our bucks. Realistically, most of the unreached peoples do not have anyone with better access to them than we have. “Unreached,” in its fullest sense, means: there’s no missionary in the people group to whom you could send money if you wanted to. So wave #3 would result in doing it all: missions to the unreached peoples that are here, support for missions from other sending churches, and especially mobilizing our own people to reach the thousands of people groups without access to the gospel.

A minister's good depression

I believe there is a good depression that all pastors/ministers have to go through to be used by God. This is the deep sadness that one must go through which enables each one of us to give up things we somehow became attached to as central to our own identity, but really these things are not essential to God’s Mission. In ministry, there are things like “I’m a great preacher” or “I will lead a certain kind of change in this neighborhood for Jesus” or “I will show my worth by being a mega church pastor executive” that somehow have been allowed to become part of my identity. I hold onto to these things. Being freed from these identity markers will allow us to become the instruments anew of what God is doing in Mission.  I fear most pastors never allow themselves to die to their ministry ego markers (whatever they might be) because this requires a good period of depression. As a result, ministries shrivel and churches die.

David Fitch (read the article for his take on good & bad tired etc)

Are you a creative leader?

The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued. So it’s much more about creating climates. I think it’s a big shift for a lot of people.

from Ken Robinson On The Principles Of Creative Leadership (it's worth reading the whole thing)

Your Words Influence Your Perspective

There is a fascinating article over at Psychology Today on how words influence our perspective (of course it works the other way, too, but don't be pedantic).

I really liked this bit:

When someone told him that friction makes shoe leather wear out, [Feynman's] response was “Shoe leather wears out because it rubs against the sidewalk and the little notches and bumps on the sidewalk grab pieces and pull them off.” That is knowledge. To simply say, “It is because of friction,” is sad, because it is empty definition.

HT: Lifehacker

The STEP Project

Going Deep

Gordon Macdonald suggests here that Cultivating people of spiritual depth is a pastor's top priority.

What d'ya htink?

How to frustrate your employees

Well, I don't have any (unless giving the children pocket money counts as employment?) but, anyway, these 13 'rules' from Michael Hyatt have wider application.

The Climax of the Covenant

(The Best Books - no.9)

You didn't know that Tom (N.T.) Wright was at the centre of some raging theological storms? Where ya been, dude? Whether you approve or not of all his theology (you don't do that with hardly anyone, do you?), you'll have to concede that Tom writes in a compelling and provocative manner. But I've chosen one of his books that draws the least flak, presumably because it's his most technical and, therefore, least read. It's also the least polemical of his non-popular writings.

A series of papers on a variety of topics that have been collated under the twin themes of 'Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology', this was the first of his works that I read and found it compelling stuff, even where you feel you can't go all the way in agreeing with him. The essay on Philippians 2:5-11 left me stunned and worshipping - no mean feat for technical exegesis.

Of course, you can't ignore the rest of his works, nor should you. But don't let this one pass you by.

Creative Hands

Creative Hands from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.

Appreciating Peake

I've never read Gormenghast and the other Peake stuff but I know a man who has and he says it's good. So here's a worthwhile read from The Guardian.

Learning from 'Good to Great'

It's a book you see quoted all over the place. It's on my read-this-someday list. But here is a great summary (by Jim Collins himself) of some of they key lessons of the book, Good to Great. It strikes me that many of them have a deep resonance for churches and ministry.

Receiving the New Testament

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.

Yali Jubilee 2011

children in the wilderness

This week I intend to preach on Genesis 21:14-21, which is the story of Hagar and Ishmael. If these were ordinary times - if I were twenty years younger - I'd be making an orderly passage through the Gospels and Epistles before I turned to Genesis again. That was my custom, and I have always felt it was effective as teaching, which is really what all this is about. Now, though, I talk about whatever is on my mind - Hagar and Ishmael at the moment.

The story of Hagar and Ishmael came to mind while I was praying this morning, and I found a great assurance in it. The story says that it is not only the father of a child who cares for its life, who protects its mother, and it says that even if the mother can't find a way to provide for it, or herself, provision will be made. At that level it is a story full of comfort. That is how life goes - we send our children into the wilderness. Some of them on the day they are born, it seems, for all the help we can give them. Some of them seem to be a kind of wilderness unto themselves. But there must be angels there, too, and springs of water. Even that wilderness, the very habitation of jackals, is the Lord's. I need to bear this in mind.

 (Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, p.135)

Kiss On My List (Hall & Tunstall)

Copenhagen (Lucinda Williams)

Thundering news hits me like a snowball 
struck in my face and shattering
Covering me in a fine powder and mist
and mixing in with my tears

And I'm 57 but I could be 7 years old,
Cos I will never be able 
to comprehend the expansiveness 
of what I've just learned

You, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed

Walking through unfamiliar streets
and I'm shaking unfamiliar hands
and I'm hearing unfamiliar laughs
and lovely language I don't understand

It's late October in Copenhagen
The skies are grey, the snow is falling
I see my breath outside, I'm freezing
I'm motionless, I'm disbelieving

You, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed

You can't do it all? Then say so...

Saying you can't do it all is not a failure of leadership, it is effective leadership. But despite all the books and articles, like Jim Collins' Good to Great, that preach such reasonable humility, the culture of heroic leadership persists. Consequently, resources are wasted, false hopes are raised, and quagmires persist. When a leader comes along who is willing to offer a realistic assessment of strengths and weaknesses, and to state what an organization — or nation — should not do or should stop doing, that leader should be received with gratitude and not mockery.

from Good Leaders Acknowledge What Can't Be Done.