Pastors: Teach A.S.L.O. to Your People

My role as a pastor is this:

1. I am to abide in Christ.

2. I am to saturate myself in Scripture.

3. I am to listen for the voice of God.

4. When God directs, I am to obey.

As I live these things my life will be fruit-bearing. This is a conditional statement. If I abide in Christ, then I will bear much lasting fruit. On the condition of my Christ-abiding, fruit-bearing shall result.

This is the strategy of Jesus. I am to pass this on to my people, who will be edified. Their lives will bear much fruit for God and his Kingdom.

Pastors: teach your people to:

• ABIDE
• SATURATE
• LISTEN
• OBEY

A.S.L.O.

Here are some of the implications. 

• Personal "striving" will be gone. This is not about "working harder" for God. It is about the Spirit of God working in you, and in us.
• Programmatic activity gets replaced by Presence-of-God reality. Here is where "church" starts to get exciting!
• Personal transformation into Christikeness (Gal. 4:19) becomes ongoing. We grow into Christ, like a little boy or little girl grows into their parents' clothing.  
• Live connected to God; show your people how to connect with God. This is the best you can give them. What you and your people need is God. You are dispensable. As you abide in Christ you will be broken of the illusion of your indispensability. This is a necessary prerequisite for God to be the Builder. God will not only help you get out of the way, you will end up thanking him for it.
• Become the abiding pastor, the "unbusy" and "unnecessary pastor" (as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Pastor: A Memoir, and The Unnecessary Pastor).
• When your church (= people who love and follow Jesus) deeply abides in Christ, they will be spoken to by Christ. This will be the end of all those meetings and committees and "brainstorming" get-togethers and the beginning of the days of fruit-bearing and redemptively storming the gates of hell.
• This is "Church" as a Revolutionary Movement. Abide, Saturate, Listen (Discern), Follow. 

Living for More Than Our Satisfied Selves

Maumee Bay State Park, Ohio

Is anyone more more perceptive and lucid concerning American culture than Yale University's Miroslav Volf? In A Public Faith Volf writes of the pervasive sea of shallowness the typical American dwells in (including, I think, the typical American Christian). He's worth quoting in full, with no commentary. 

"We live in an age of great conflicts and petty hopes... [T]he idea of flourishing as a human being has shriveled to meaning no more than leading an experientially satisfying life. The sources of satisfaction may vary: power, possessions, love, religion, sex, food, drugs—whatever. What matters most is not the source of satisfaction but the experience of it—my satisfaction. Our satisfied self is our best hope. Not only is this petty, but a dark shadow of disappointment stubbornly follows our obsession with personal satisfaction." (Volf, A Public Faith, How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good, p. 99)

This is spot-on, right? Think of churches where this manifestation of the American Dream forms and shapes how pastors and leaders "do church." Think of the pressure to satisfy people's petty hopes. Hear the clash of worldviews if the Gospel of the Kingdom is preached. 

The "dark shadow of disappointment" comes when, e.g., things like power, sex, and possessions fail to satisfy us, and off we go like animals hungering for more of the same.

Volf, who is a follower of Jesus, continues: "We are meant to live for something larger than our own satisfied selves. Petty hopes generate self-subverting, melancholy experiences." (Ib., 99-100)

***
In my book Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God I write about hearing and discerning the voice of God. 

A Discipleship Resource for Pastors

 

Pastors - the month of March has 31 days. My devotional book on discipleship has 31 entries.

Why not encourage your church family to use my book as a discipleship focus for the month of March?

My book, 31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship, is only $2.99 for Kindle, and $4.99 for a softcover.

Those Who Have Been Forgiven Much, Worship Much

(Worship at Redeemer)

This morning I read the story of the prostitute who anointed and kissed the feet of Jesus. It happened at the home of a Pharisee named Simon. It made me think of the worship at Redeemer. 

As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, 

she began to wet his feet with her tears. 

Then she wiped them with her hair, 

kissed them and poured perfume on them.

This troubles Simon. He chastises Jesus for allowing her to do this. Jesus responds, saying, "Simon, I have something to tell you."

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. 

One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 

Neither of them had the money to pay him back, 

so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

On Sunday mornings I look at our people, my friends, my sisters and brothers. Some are crying. Hands and hearts are open. Some are smiling and rejoicing. How beautiful this is! 

Why these responses? Because whoever has been forgiven much, worships much. But whoever has been forgiven little, worships little. True worship is in direct proportion to one's experience of forgiveness. Were Simon the Pharisee at Redeemer, he would be troubled by what he sees.

During worship I often think of how much I know I have been forgiven of. I also think of the unknown I have been forgiven of. To forgive is to have a debt cancelled. I don't have to pay any more. To forgive is to bring back into relationship. By the blood of Jesus, I find forgiveness. Atonement. Release. Forgiven, I am a captive set free. This moves me to tell God how much I love him, to say how thankful I am, and to worship him.

To worship.

προσκυνέω,v  \{pros-koo-neh'-o}
1) to kiss the hand to (towards) one, in token of reverence  2) among the Orientals, esp. the Persians, to fall upon the knees and  touch the ground with the forehead as an expression of profound  reverence  3) in the NT by kneeling or prostration to do homage (to one) or make  obeisance, whether in order to express respect or to make supplication  3a) used of homage shown to men and beings of superior rank  3a1) to the Jewish high priests  3a2) to God  3a3) to Christ  3a4) to heavenly beings  3a5) to demons

To kiss.

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

To realize this is the beginning of worship.

Five Problems with Top-Down Vision-Casting in Churches

(Green Lake Conference Center, Wisconsin)

At Redeemer Fellowship Church we have a team of Elders who function in non-task-oriented ways. As Elders our focus is twofold: discerning what God is saying to us, and loving and serving our church family. 

One thing we do not do is brainstorm about programs we could implement in our church. What a relief this is to me! I've been there, done that, and don't want to do it ever again.

In "5 Problems with Top-Down Vision-Casting - And a New Testament Alternative," Karl Vaters agrees.

"Some of my worst disasters in ministry have come from trying to implement a vision, only to find out that no one else was buying into it. They might have even agreed that it was a good idea. For me. But it wasn’t theirs. So they didn’t get behind it."

Top-down "vision-casting" strategy looks like this.

The pastor gets a vision for the church through prayer, Bible-reading or the latest church leadership conference

The pastor preaches about the vision

The leaders and congregation get behind the vision

The vision is supported, preached, and repeated regularly

Vaters says there are five problems with this.

Problem 1 - It's more Old Testament than New Testament.

In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit descends on the entire church. Peter than speaks for what the entire church experienced.

"The church gets the vision from prayer-soaked time in God's Word."

This is an example of what I call The Presence-Driven Church.

Problem 2 - It relies on obscure and/or questionably interpreted Bible passages.

How many times has Proverbs 29:18 been cited in defense of top-down vision-casting - Where there is no vision, the people perish. But the entire verse, in context, is really about keeping God's laws, not casting visions. It reads: Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law is happy.

Problem 3 - It puts all the weight on the pastor.

In Acts 2 Peter did not shoulder the weight of the vision. He and the Eleven shared the vision, as Acts 2:14 says.

Here is the heart of pastoral burnout: the carrying of a vision, alone, and striving to recruit people to have a heart for it.

Problem 4 - It doesn't include the dreams and visions of church members.

Vaters writes:

"When I go to a church leadership conference, it’s not to find out what the leader’s vision is and how I can help them fulfill it. I go to get tools to help me fulfill the vision God has given me for my life and ministry. I think a lot of people would come to our churches if they could get that help from us."

Problem 5 - It requires constant selling.

Anyone who knows me knows I would be a failure as a salesperson. Thank God I don't have to do that as a pastor!

Vaters writes:

"The three most-taught principles of vision-casting are "repeat, repeat, repeat." I've been told constantly that if I don't remind people at a minimum of once a month about the vision, they'll forget it.

That's a problem.

Any vision that needs to be sold to me that constantly...   I don't know... maybe it's not God's vision for me."

The reality is that, if a person has a vision from God burning inside of them, they couldn't stop thinking about it if they tried.

The role of a pastor is to equip the people for works of ministry, not to purchase equipment for the people to sit in while the pastor works. Vaters writes, "Leaders don't ask people to support their vision. They ask, "How can I help you reach your vision?""

Enter the small church. "Much of the emphasis on top-down vision-casting has been the result of our big church leadership obsession." It's hard to release a few thousand Christians into visionary missional activity that comes from God, to them. 

Small churches could do this. Like the 120 worshipers who gathered on the Day of Pentecost. Vaters concludes:

"A community of believers, worshiping, dreaming and working together as guided by the Holy Spirit speaking to and through everyone. Now that's a vision worth writing down and running with."

My Praying Time Today

 

This afternoon I went to a place where I could focus, and prayed for two hours.

I prayed for requests people sent me.

I prayed for healing for friends and others who are sick.

I prayed for dysfunctional marriages, families, and relationships.

I slipped in and out of praying for my self. I sensed God healing me of some un-Jesuslike attitudes. I gave thanks for some things, one time lifting my hands up and praising God for what he is doing in me.

I read Scripture (today, portions of Matthew 18).

I also read a section of Flannery O'Connor's A Prayer Journal. O'Connor, along with Annie Dillard, might be the greatest writer I have ever read.

"Freedom From Anxiety" Weekend at Redeemer - Feb. 19-20

 

We live in a culture where anxiety levels are high. Yet Philippians 4:6-7 counsels us to "not be anxious about anything." How is this possible? In response to this, we are providing a weekend addressing overcoming of anxiety. 

 

I am excited about Craig Miller (Masterpeace Counseling Center) coming to Redeemer on Sat-Sun, Feb. 19-20. 

On Sat. morning Craig will lead a prayer workshop from 10 AM - Noon. Craig will equip people to pray for emotional and physical healing and deliverance for others. 

 

On Sunday morning, Feb. 20, Craig will preach at Redeemer on "Freedom from Anxiety." 

 

On Sunday evening we will have a time (6-8 PM) of worship and intercession. A Prayer Team will also be available. 

 

CRAIG WILL HAVE A TIME OF PRAYING FOR KIDS who may struggle with anxiety on Sunday morning, 9:45-10:15 AM, in the Mother's Room. Parents are encouraged to be with their children as Craig prays for them. 

 

PARENTS - You may also choose to bring your kids for prayer at the end of Sunday's worship service.  

 

INVITE SOMEONE TO SUNDAY MORNING that may benefit from Craig's teaching and ministry. 

 

I am looking forward to this coming weekend, which promises to be a great weekend of healing at Redeemer! 

 

Stay Away from Church and You Will Leave Your Children Unprotected

 

                                                   (Our grandchildren Levi and Harper)

Christian parents: If you stay away from church, and don't involve your kids in church, you'll create little nihilists. See psychoanalyst Erica Komisar's article in the Wall Street Journal - "Don't Believe in God? Lie to Your Children."

Highlights are...

• A main reason depression and anxiety are common among children and adolescents is: declining interest in religion. "This cultural shift already has proved disastrous for millions of vulnerable young people."
• 
  
• A 2018 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology examined how being raised in a family with religious or spiritual beliefs affects mental health. 
• 
  
• "The result? Children or teens who reported attending a religious service at least once per week scored higher on psychological well-being measurements and had lower risks of mental illness. Weekly attendance was associated with higher rates of volunteering, a sense of mission, forgiveness, and lower probabilities of drug use and early sexual initiation."
• 
  
• The belief in God—in a protective and guiding figure to rely on when times are tough—is one of the best kinds of support for kids in an increasingly pessimistic world. That’s only one reason, from a purely mental-health perspective, to pass down a faith tradition.
• 
  
• Parents - get your kids, and yourselves, active in a church. This greatly helps your kids deal with life's big questions, such as "What happens to a person when they die?" Komisar writes: The idea that you simply die and turn to dust may work for some adults, but it doesn’t help children. Belief in heaven helps them grapple with this tremendous and incomprehensible loss. In an age of broken families, distracted parents, school violence and nightmarish global-warming predictions, imagination plays a big part in children’s ability to cope."
• 
  
• "In an individualistic, narcissistic and lonely society, religion provides children a rare opportunity for natural community... The idea that hundreds of people can gather together and sing joyful prayers as a collective is a buffer against the emptiness of modern culture. It’s more necessary than ever in a world where teens can have hundreds of virtual friends and few real ones, where parents are often too distracted physically or emotionally to soothe their children’s distress."
• 
  
• "Today the U.S. is a competitive, scary and stressful place that idealizes perfectionism, materialism, selfishness and virtual rather than real human connection. Religion is the best bulwark against that kind of society. Spiritual belief and practice reinforce collective kindness, empathy, gratitude and real connection. Whether children choose to continue to practice as adults is something parents cannot control. But that spiritual or religious center will benefit them their entire lives."

Listening Is a Type of Humility

(Ascending Masada in Israel, via cable car)

To hear someone, I mean really hear them, is to understand them. Hearing is for understanding. 

To understand is to "stand under." To get beneath someone. To hear and understand requires getting lower, below, the one who is addressing you. 

All this - hearing and understanding, which is true listening - is an act of humility. Only the humble hear. The proud have deaf ears.

This is true not only in human relationships, but in our relationship with God. To have ears to hear God, and therefore to understand what God is saying, means to place yourself lower than God (the correct position, irregardless). It is to be humble.

Understanding God comes to the humble; the proud remain confused. (James 4:6)

Letter to My Church on Our "Overcoming Anxiety" Weekend

 

Feb. 11, 2022

Hello Redeemer Family! 

 

We live in a culture where anxiety levels are high. Yet Philippians 4:6-7 counsels us to "not be anxious about anything." How is this possible? In response to this, we are providing a weekend addressing overcoming of anxiety. 

 

I am excited about Craig Miller (Masterpeace Counseling Center) coming to Redeemer on Sat-Sun, Feb. 19-20. 

On Sat. morning Craig will lead a prayer workshop from 10 AM - Noon. Craig will equip people to pray for emotional and physical healing and deliverance for others. 

 

On Sunday morning, Feb. 20, Craig will preach at Redeemer on "Freedom from Anxiety." 

 

On Sunday evening we will have a time (6-8 PM) of worship and intercession. A Prayer Team will also be available. 

 

CRAIG WILL HAVE A TIME OF PRAYING FOR KIDS who may struggle with anxiety on Sunday morning, 9:45-10:15 AM, in the Mother's Room. Parents are encouraged to be with their children as Craig prays for them. 

 

PARENTS - You may also choose to bring your kids for prayer at the end of Sunday's worship service.  

 

INVITE SOMEONE TO SUNDAY MORNING that may benefit from Craig's teaching and ministry. 

 

I am looking forward to this coming weekend, which promises to be a great weekend of healing at Redeemer! 

 

PJ 

More Progressivist Heterodoxy

 

(Grand Haven, Michigan)

(This is from my book Deconstructing Progressive Christianity.)

Are you ready for some more progressive God-talk? The current trajectory in [progressive Christianity] towards panentheism, also called process philosophy. In panentheism God is more like an “event” (the process word is “occasion”) than an independent, self-sustaining Being. I’m sorry to use big words like ‘panentheism’. But I must, since a number of progressive Christians are affirming panentheism as their metanarrative of choice. When I learned of this, it surprised me, because I am familiar with panentheism. My doctoral advisor at Northwestern was a process theologian, who studied with the great process scholar Daniel Day Williams. Under my advisor’s tutelage, I took one of my PhD qualifying exams on process theology.

Process theology emerged from Alfred North Whitehead’s book Process and Reality. That book is ridiculously hard to comprehend (or “prehend,” as Whitehead might say). Do progressive Christians know and understand Whitehead’s metaphysical system? I don’t know. My guess is most do not. By “most,” I mean 99%. If you hear a progressive talk about their interest in panentheism, ask them to describe it. Then take a sip of coffee, sit back, and enjoy.

It’s important to understand something before you affirm it. Affirmation without understanding is foolish. I’m not saying I’ve never done this. I have, and from experience I’m trying to avoid as much of it as I can. Now, I have become a slow-cooker for ideas to marinate in...

Greg Boyd, who did his doctoral dissertation at Princeton on process theology, writes,

“I am very concerned that so many progressive thinking evangelicals are flirting with Process Thought. It’s really not a friendly home for anything like orthodox Christianity. While many find the dynamic and relational ontology of process thought, compelling—I can see how this is attractive— the intrinsic nature of the system is hostile to the Christian faith.”  

How is panentheism hostile to the Christian faith? The unorthodox implications, according to Boyd, are these.

• In PT [Process Theology], God exists eternally in relation to a non-divine world. So PT denies “creation ex nihilo”  
• In PT, God is bound to metaphysical principles that govern both God and the world. So God isn’t able to really interact with the world as a personal being. God must always, of necessity, respond in ways that the metaphysics of the system stipulate. This means…  
• In PT God can’t intervene in unique ways, like personally answering prayer  
• In PT God can’t intervene and perform miracles  
• In PT God can’t become uniquely embodied, as he is in Christ.

(For more explanation, see pp. 88 ff.)

(If you want to try to understand process metaphysics, look at, and go slowly with, Donald Sherburne's A Key to Whitehead's Process and Reality.)

Solitude and Leadership (and why multi-taskers are poor thinkers)

(Linda, in our back yard.)

Here's a pretty cool essay by William Deresiewicz, given as a lecture to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Deresiewicz says that "true leadership means being able to think for yourself and act on your convictions."

How do you learn to do that? Not by multi-tasking. Deresiewicz cites a study that shows "the more people multitask, the worse they are, not just at other mental abilities, but at multitasking itself... Multitasking, in short, is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think. Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it." Now that... is a great definition of "thinking."

Thinking for yourself "cannot be done in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPod, or watching something on YouTube." We do our best thinking by slowing down and concentrating. Deresiewicz gives these examples.

"I used to have students who bragged to me about how fast they wrote their papers. I would tell them that the great German novelist Thomas Mann said that a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. The best writers write much more slowly than everyone else, and the better they are, the slower they write. James Joyce wrote Ulysses, the greatest novel of the 20th century, at the rate of about a hundred words a day... for seven years. T. S. Eliot, one of the greatest poets our country has ever produced, wrote about 150 pages of poetry over the course of his entire 25-year career. That’s half a page a month. So it is with any other form of thought." Leadership is a slow-cooker, not a microwave.

Deresiewicz argues that "concentration" and "focus" are achieved through "solitude." In solitude one is not being bombarded by the thoughts of other people, but is forced to think for one's own self. He writes:

"Solitude can mean introspection, it can mean the concentration of focused work, and it can mean sustained reading. All of these help you to know yourself better. But there’s one more thing I’m going to include as a form of solitude, and it will seem counterintuitive: friendship. Of course friendship is the opposite of solitude; it means being with other people. But I’m talking about one kind of friendship in particular, the deep friendship of intimate conversation. Long, uninterrupted talk with one other person. Not Skyping with three people and texting with two others at the same time while you hang out in a friend’s room listening to music and studying. That’s what Emerson meant when he said that “the soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude.”"

Solitude, says Deresiewicz, "is the very essence of leadership. The position of the leader is ultimately an intensely solitary, even intensely lonely one. However many people you may consult, you are the one who has to make the hard decisions. And at such moments, all you really have is yourself."

Learn to spend time with yourself. Just you and God. Jesus had a habit of getting away to be alone with the Father. If he needed to do this, so do we. And remember: Jesus of Nazareth is the most effective leader who has ever lived.

Acquiring a God-perspective on Our Government Leaders

If you are a follower of Jesus, you should view political events through the lens of the Christian narrative. 

You won't get this from the media. 

You may not get this from someone who claims to follow Jesus.

Do not frame political events through the secular media. 

Do not allow this world's mold to shape you.

Acquire a God-perspective, and live and pray from there.

Pray, "God, let me see earth, through heaven."

Meditate on these Scriptures.