I had such a great time this past weekend. I was invited to go down and spend some time with a few of the pastors of Okeechobee as they got together with a church planting coach. I was also invited to spend Sunday morning with the folks of Everglades Baptist Church and shared some of the journey that the Lord has taken me and my family on over the past few years.
I was so encouraged by what the Lord is doing in and through these pastors and through the people of Everglades. Everglades has four priorities that it emphasizes: High View of Scripture, Kingdom Families, Spiritual Multiplication, and Church Planting. They have been using the resources of Church Growth International and are seeing God do awesome things in the communities surrounding their church. For example, they have been giving out a workbook called Good News For You to their members and ecouraging them to begin leading their neighbors through the workbook with the intention that their neighbors would begin a relationship with Jesus and would begin following Him. They have seen a tremendous response to this and are now in the process of preparing to plant new churches among these new believers and within neighborhoods that have few Jesus followers. Please keep this church and these new believers in your prayers that they would continue to be bold with the Gospel and that they would see entire communities transformed by Jesus.
For more information about this method of church planting you can visit the Church Planting Institute Online for details. Please continue to keep these pastors and others in the Okeechobee area in your prayers.
Blessings,
Shiloh
Monday, March 23, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Family Leaders
This post is the third and final continuation of Priests and Pastors.
In some ways it may have seemed like I left a leadership vacuum at the end of my last post. How can churches exist without clear leadership? Even leadership teams still have one person that they eventually answer to, right? They can't; and yes they do.
I am absolutely not against leadership within the church. Jesus was never against leadership, just bad leadership. My main points in the last two posts were simply that every one of us has been given the privilege of being a priest/minister/ambassador for our Lord and King and we shouldn't neglect that or even worse abdicate it to someone else, and Christ's Church wasn't intended to be lead by one man (pastor or otherwise) who gets completely overwhelmed by everyone dumping every responsibility on him.
A very good analogy for the Church is a family. We are a family of believers, God's family. I'm not going to take the time to point out all the reasons and references why this is a good analogy, but if you are wondering, start looking in Scripture for words like mother, father, children, and family and see how many times it refers to God and His relationship to His people. Okay, so let's say that the Church is God's family. Just like any other family (especially really big families) there are roles that each person plays in the family, and there are disputes and squabbles and times for discipline and correction, and there are times when decisions must be made for the entire family. So what are the Scriptural guidelines that show how families are to resolve those disputes and make those decisions, etc?
The roles of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, grandparents, widows, and so on are all reasonably explained in Scripture. All of us are created equally, but each of us has a unique place and role and function within our blood family as well as within God's family. First-born males have very different roles from their sisters or younger brothers. There are three main points that I believe come out of this that are crucial to understanding leadership within God's family.
First, mothers and fathers have the duty and responsibility to love, nurture, raise, and train their children until those children have families of their own. This is true physically as well as spiritually. In fact, at some point it becomes the responsibility of the children to take care of their own children and their parents who have raised them. Simply stated, there are seasons of leadership within every family. Let's not neglect our appointed time to lead, or reject the leadership of others when it is their time.
Secondly, not all people are able to lead in the same way. First-born males are given responsibilities that others in the family aren't ever given. Husbands are given responsibilities that wives are never given (and wives are given responsibilities that husbands are never given for that matter). Apostles, pastors, deacons and others who have been called and chosen by God are given responsibilities that others will not be given. To me it makes perfect sense that Paul would tell Timothy, "If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?" Exactly!
Moses was an amazing leader of God's people, but it took his father-in-law to point out that he was leading in the wrong way (see Exodus 18). He had become "the man" and took all responsibility upon himself for leading God's family. Jethro pointed out rightly that "The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone." He told him to "select capable men from all the people - men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain - and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens." Not all of these men were appointed to serve thousands, some were appointed only to serve ten, and some were not appointed at all.
Here's my final point. In God's family we have only one Father, and there is only one First-born Son. Between them, they have ultimate responsibility for appointing leaders, for choosing the seasons for their leadership and how many they will serve, and for making decisions for the Family. Each of us has a role and function within the Family. Those that are called on to serve as leaders must ask the Father who they are to lead and for how long. And if any significant decision needs to be made, it is not theirs to make, but only to follow the decision of the Father.
Leadership in God's family is a wonderful thing. Each of us have been chosen to lead others in some way for some season. May we all be faithful to the responsibilities we have been given and truly bless and respect those that have been given greater responsibilities within God's family.
Blessings,
Shiloh
In some ways it may have seemed like I left a leadership vacuum at the end of my last post. How can churches exist without clear leadership? Even leadership teams still have one person that they eventually answer to, right? They can't; and yes they do.
I am absolutely not against leadership within the church. Jesus was never against leadership, just bad leadership. My main points in the last two posts were simply that every one of us has been given the privilege of being a priest/minister/ambassador for our Lord and King and we shouldn't neglect that or even worse abdicate it to someone else, and Christ's Church wasn't intended to be lead by one man (pastor or otherwise) who gets completely overwhelmed by everyone dumping every responsibility on him.
A very good analogy for the Church is a family. We are a family of believers, God's family. I'm not going to take the time to point out all the reasons and references why this is a good analogy, but if you are wondering, start looking in Scripture for words like mother, father, children, and family and see how many times it refers to God and His relationship to His people. Okay, so let's say that the Church is God's family. Just like any other family (especially really big families) there are roles that each person plays in the family, and there are disputes and squabbles and times for discipline and correction, and there are times when decisions must be made for the entire family. So what are the Scriptural guidelines that show how families are to resolve those disputes and make those decisions, etc?
The roles of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, grandparents, widows, and so on are all reasonably explained in Scripture. All of us are created equally, but each of us has a unique place and role and function within our blood family as well as within God's family. First-born males have very different roles from their sisters or younger brothers. There are three main points that I believe come out of this that are crucial to understanding leadership within God's family.
First, mothers and fathers have the duty and responsibility to love, nurture, raise, and train their children until those children have families of their own. This is true physically as well as spiritually. In fact, at some point it becomes the responsibility of the children to take care of their own children and their parents who have raised them. Simply stated, there are seasons of leadership within every family. Let's not neglect our appointed time to lead, or reject the leadership of others when it is their time.
Secondly, not all people are able to lead in the same way. First-born males are given responsibilities that others in the family aren't ever given. Husbands are given responsibilities that wives are never given (and wives are given responsibilities that husbands are never given for that matter). Apostles, pastors, deacons and others who have been called and chosen by God are given responsibilities that others will not be given. To me it makes perfect sense that Paul would tell Timothy, "If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?" Exactly!
Moses was an amazing leader of God's people, but it took his father-in-law to point out that he was leading in the wrong way (see Exodus 18). He had become "the man" and took all responsibility upon himself for leading God's family. Jethro pointed out rightly that "The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone." He told him to "select capable men from all the people - men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain - and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens." Not all of these men were appointed to serve thousands, some were appointed only to serve ten, and some were not appointed at all.
Here's my final point. In God's family we have only one Father, and there is only one First-born Son. Between them, they have ultimate responsibility for appointing leaders, for choosing the seasons for their leadership and how many they will serve, and for making decisions for the Family. Each of us has a role and function within the Family. Those that are called on to serve as leaders must ask the Father who they are to lead and for how long. And if any significant decision needs to be made, it is not theirs to make, but only to follow the decision of the Father.
Leadership in God's family is a wonderful thing. Each of us have been chosen to lead others in some way for some season. May we all be faithful to the responsibilities we have been given and truly bless and respect those that have been given greater responsibilities within God's family.
Blessings,
Shiloh
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Pastors
This is a continuation of the last post on priests, so if you haven't read that one you might want to start there.
As I stated in a comment in the last post, pastors are a very important part of the Church. They are one of the five groups of people listed in Ephesians 4:11 that were given to the Church by God "so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Sounds pretty important to me.
A quick study in the New Testament on pastors might surprise you though. In most translations the word pastor or pastors is actually only used once (in Eph 4:11) and literally means "shepherd." There are other words that people assume mean the same thing as pastor, like bishop or overseer, but even if you include them, they are only mentioned a handful or so times to describe a person other than Jesus.
Perhaps most surprising of all, I have yet to come across a passage of Scripture that identifies any individual (other than Jesus) as any of those things, pastor, bishop, or overseer; and I have yet to see anything that would indicate that every local church had a pastor. In Revelation, the messages to the seven churches never include a single word about pastors, though there is a mention of false apostles. In Acts 13, the church at Antioch had prophets and teachers, and five of them were named, though Paul and Barnabas were set apart and sent to others. Even the church at Jerusalem had a council made up of apostles and elders (see Acts 15).
Can I make a statement that may seem a bit heretical? During the first days of the Church, I don't think every church had a pastor, certainly not as the leader of the church. I think leadership was usually done with a team approach, utilizing apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. I don't think every church had all of these people, but I don't think a church was supposed to have one man in leadership of a local church either, no matter what title you give him.
I think we have done a great disservice to pastors. They have a very special place and role in the Church, but we have elevated them far beyond where they are supposed to be. We have almost completely neglected our responsibility as priests and ambassadors and have decided to pay pastors to do almost everything for us. Is it any wonder that we are seeing so much turmoil among our pastors? For example (as cited in Death by Church by Mike Erre):
As I stated in a comment in the last post, pastors are a very important part of the Church. They are one of the five groups of people listed in Ephesians 4:11 that were given to the Church by God "so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Sounds pretty important to me.
A quick study in the New Testament on pastors might surprise you though. In most translations the word pastor or pastors is actually only used once (in Eph 4:11) and literally means "shepherd." There are other words that people assume mean the same thing as pastor, like bishop or overseer, but even if you include them, they are only mentioned a handful or so times to describe a person other than Jesus.
Perhaps most surprising of all, I have yet to come across a passage of Scripture that identifies any individual (other than Jesus) as any of those things, pastor, bishop, or overseer; and I have yet to see anything that would indicate that every local church had a pastor. In Revelation, the messages to the seven churches never include a single word about pastors, though there is a mention of false apostles. In Acts 13, the church at Antioch had prophets and teachers, and five of them were named, though Paul and Barnabas were set apart and sent to others. Even the church at Jerusalem had a council made up of apostles and elders (see Acts 15).
Can I make a statement that may seem a bit heretical? During the first days of the Church, I don't think every church had a pastor, certainly not as the leader of the church. I think leadership was usually done with a team approach, utilizing apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. I don't think every church had all of these people, but I don't think a church was supposed to have one man in leadership of a local church either, no matter what title you give him.
I think we have done a great disservice to pastors. They have a very special place and role in the Church, but we have elevated them far beyond where they are supposed to be. We have almost completely neglected our responsibility as priests and ambassadors and have decided to pay pastors to do almost everything for us. Is it any wonder that we are seeing so much turmoil among our pastors? For example (as cited in Death by Church by Mike Erre):
- 80% of pastors believe that pastoral ministry affects their families negatively
- 90% feel they are inadequately trained to cope with ministry demands
- 50% of pastors' marriages will end in divorce
- 70% constantly fight depression
- 23% confess inappropriate sexual behavior with someone in the church
- 1500 pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches
- The majority of pastor's wives surveyed said that the most destructive event that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry
Maybe it is time to seek the Lord and seek the Scriptures to find out what the leadership of the Church and of local churches is supposed to be. Maybe it is time for the followers of Jesus to be the Church, the body of Christ. Maybe it is time to show our pastors that we are done being spectators and bench-warmers and that we are really going to seek the Lord and do what He says. I can't think of anything more encouraging to do for our pastors than that. What about you?
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Priests
I have a Jewish friend that recently told me I was his Rabbi. That totally humbled me, but it was really encouraging to hear. He told me that about the same time a particular theme kept coming up in my reading and in my personal times with the Lord. That theme was the priesthood of common people.
Have you ever thought about how we pay people to "do ministry" today? In general most people don't share their faith with others, or go to visit people in hospitals or prisons (unless they are family members), or teach others about God or the Bible. That's what we pay pastors and missionaries to do. For whatever reason we expect pastors, reverends, priests, missionaries and maybe elders and deacons to do those things, because that is their job after all, and we can choose to help if it fits into our schedules.
I was reading in Exodus 19 a passage of Scripture that blew me away. God told Moses to tell the rest of the freed slaves (the Jews), "'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Awesome! God set these people free in order to make them priests.
Rob Bell comments on it this way in the book Jesus Wants To Save Christians:
"Priests? A priest mediates the divine. To mediate is to come between. A priest comes between people and a god or gods. A priest shows you what his or her god is like. When you go to a temple or shrine and you see the priest there - what they do, what they say about it, the rituals they perform - you get a sense for what their god cares about, who their god cares about. So when God invites the people to be priests, it's an invitation to show the world who this God is and what this God is like."
So the Jews were chosen to be messengers, ambassadors, witnesses, priests of who God is to the rest of the world. And guess what... so are we! Peter wrote a letter to Jesus followers scattered all over the world, and he said, "you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God."
Have you ever thought about how we pay people to "do ministry" today? In general most people don't share their faith with others, or go to visit people in hospitals or prisons (unless they are family members), or teach others about God or the Bible. That's what we pay pastors and missionaries to do. For whatever reason we expect pastors, reverends, priests, missionaries and maybe elders and deacons to do those things, because that is their job after all, and we can choose to help if it fits into our schedules.
I was reading in Exodus 19 a passage of Scripture that blew me away. God told Moses to tell the rest of the freed slaves (the Jews), "'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Awesome! God set these people free in order to make them priests.
Rob Bell comments on it this way in the book Jesus Wants To Save Christians:
"Priests? A priest mediates the divine. To mediate is to come between. A priest comes between people and a god or gods. A priest shows you what his or her god is like. When you go to a temple or shrine and you see the priest there - what they do, what they say about it, the rituals they perform - you get a sense for what their god cares about, who their god cares about. So when God invites the people to be priests, it's an invitation to show the world who this God is and what this God is like."
So the Jews were chosen to be messengers, ambassadors, witnesses, priests of who God is to the rest of the world. And guess what... so are we! Peter wrote a letter to Jesus followers scattered all over the world, and he said, "you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God."
The people of God are people who make up a Kingdom of priests. Each of us has been called out of darkness and into light and each of us shows the rest of the world who God is. Paul put it this way, "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God." We are appealing to others on Christ's behalf to be reconciled. Isn't that what we pay our pastor to do? Even if that were true, are you willing to pay someone to do something that He has chosen you to do? I hope not.
If you are a citizen of the Kingdom of God, then you are a priest. And with that comes the responsibility to show the rest of the world who God is, what He cares about, who He loves. If we call Jesus, "Lord," then we ought to be ready to stand in the gap between Him and those who don't know Him and introduce Him to them.
May every citizen of the Kingdom live this life as a priest of the Living God, presenting Him to the world as Savior and Lord.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Gut Check
About a month and a half ago my family started going through one chapter a week of the Gospel of John using a DVD Bible. The way we do it is we listen to the entire chapter and then talk about it a bit, especially if we have any questions. Then we go through it again stopping every time we have a question or comment. Then after we have gone through it a second time we share our favorite part and the part that we think is the most important. I have thoroughly enjoyed these times with my family. Yesterday we went through John 6 and I saw something that I've never really put together before.
In the beginning of John 6 Jesus felt compassion for the people following him around and decided to bless them with a meal since they were in a remote place. His disciples didn't know what to make of it since there were thousands of people and the disciples weren't sure where they were getting lunch either. The point is that Jesus treated a whole bunch of people to a free lunch.
The next day Jesus and His disciples were in a city across the lake so the crowd followed them hoping for another free lunch. Jesus chastised them for it and told them to do God's work instead. So they asked what God's work was and Jesus told them "to believe in the one He has sent." So then they proceed to tell Jesus that they need proof that He really is the One, and they specifically mention proof that involves... you guessed it, food. They were still looking for a free lunch. In fact, not only were they looking for one more free lunch, they implied that they wanted a free lunch every day (see vs. 31).
Jesus was undeterred, but also determined to test the sincerity of these "followers." So He begins to tell them about the bread of life. He declared, "I am the bread of life," and they began to grumble. He clarified for them, "This bread is my flesh," and they began to argue. He said to them, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." This horrified them. I don't know about you, but I've never heard a pastor proclaiming the benefits of cannibalism and vampirism from the pulpit before (He was teaching in a synagogue). I have to think that some of them literally got sick to their stomachs. Every mediocre Jew knew that they weren't allowed to drink blood, and here the Rabbi is telling them that they have to drink His blood to have life. It's no wonder some of them thought He was demon-possessed.
It says that from that time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him. I guess so! Jesus blessed them with a free meal. They liked it and wanted more. Jesus wanted to give them much more, but not literal food. He wanted to give them eternal nourishment and eternal life, but He knew their motives and caught them in their own snare. After many left He asked His chosen twelve if they wanted to leave too. Peter answered for them, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" They probably didn't understand what Jesus was talking about any more than the others, but they understood that they had no other Lord to follow.
Here's the gut check. Why do we follow Jesus? Is it because He blessed us with a material blessing and now we want more? Is it because He healed us and now we want more? Is it because the crowd around us was going so we tagged along for the show? Is it because we heard about Jesus and were curious to see if He was the real deal? All of those are good reasons to start following Jesus. But we can't hang on to those motives for following Jesus. At some point we have to move to the point where we say, "I don't understand and I don't know what's going on. It feels like you are asking me to leave (vs. 67), but I don't have anywhere else to go. I am following You because there is no one like You. Only You have the words of eternal life."
Am I looking for a free lunch, or am I seeking the Bread of Life? May you hunger for the Bread of Life that satisfies every hunger for all eternity.
Blessings,
Shiloh
In the beginning of John 6 Jesus felt compassion for the people following him around and decided to bless them with a meal since they were in a remote place. His disciples didn't know what to make of it since there were thousands of people and the disciples weren't sure where they were getting lunch either. The point is that Jesus treated a whole bunch of people to a free lunch.
The next day Jesus and His disciples were in a city across the lake so the crowd followed them hoping for another free lunch. Jesus chastised them for it and told them to do God's work instead. So they asked what God's work was and Jesus told them "to believe in the one He has sent." So then they proceed to tell Jesus that they need proof that He really is the One, and they specifically mention proof that involves... you guessed it, food. They were still looking for a free lunch. In fact, not only were they looking for one more free lunch, they implied that they wanted a free lunch every day (see vs. 31).
Jesus was undeterred, but also determined to test the sincerity of these "followers." So He begins to tell them about the bread of life. He declared, "I am the bread of life," and they began to grumble. He clarified for them, "This bread is my flesh," and they began to argue. He said to them, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." This horrified them. I don't know about you, but I've never heard a pastor proclaiming the benefits of cannibalism and vampirism from the pulpit before (He was teaching in a synagogue). I have to think that some of them literally got sick to their stomachs. Every mediocre Jew knew that they weren't allowed to drink blood, and here the Rabbi is telling them that they have to drink His blood to have life. It's no wonder some of them thought He was demon-possessed.
It says that from that time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him. I guess so! Jesus blessed them with a free meal. They liked it and wanted more. Jesus wanted to give them much more, but not literal food. He wanted to give them eternal nourishment and eternal life, but He knew their motives and caught them in their own snare. After many left He asked His chosen twelve if they wanted to leave too. Peter answered for them, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" They probably didn't understand what Jesus was talking about any more than the others, but they understood that they had no other Lord to follow.
Here's the gut check. Why do we follow Jesus? Is it because He blessed us with a material blessing and now we want more? Is it because He healed us and now we want more? Is it because the crowd around us was going so we tagged along for the show? Is it because we heard about Jesus and were curious to see if He was the real deal? All of those are good reasons to start following Jesus. But we can't hang on to those motives for following Jesus. At some point we have to move to the point where we say, "I don't understand and I don't know what's going on. It feels like you are asking me to leave (vs. 67), but I don't have anywhere else to go. I am following You because there is no one like You. Only You have the words of eternal life."
Am I looking for a free lunch, or am I seeking the Bread of Life? May you hunger for the Bread of Life that satisfies every hunger for all eternity.
Blessings,
Shiloh
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