Monthly Archives: September 2009

Sometimes the costly choice is to stay

Everyday Ministry

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I’ve just spent a week in a country I doubt you’d want to live in; I don’t think I would. It’s a country wracked by multi-level poverty, which makes it a difficult place to visit and an even more difficult place to live. (NB: for the security of the people involved, I’ve deliberately omitted the name of the country.) The economic poverty is apparent on every street corner: buildings and infrastructure are run-down, food is scarce and expensive, and essential services are hard to access. But perhaps more pressing is the overwhelming social poverty—expressed in a lack of relationships, constant mistrust and suspicion, and the reality that you are being ‘watched’.

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What ministry is about 10

Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel

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Well we’re up to the last of our ten propositions about Christian ministry. They don’t say everything (of course). And they are all necessarily short and simple (being very abbreviated summaries of argument of the new book The Trellis and the Vine that I’ve just finished writing with Col Marshall). I hope they’ve been stimulating all the same, and that they’ve whetted some appetites to read and think and talk further.

The first nine were as follows:

  1. Our goal is to make disciples not church members.
  2. Churches tend towards institutionalism as sparks fly upward.
  3. The heart of disciple-making is prayerful speaking of God’s word.
  4. All ministry has the goal of nurturing disciples, not just one-to-one discipling or mentoring.
  5. To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker.
  6. Disciple-makers need to be trained and equipped in conviction, character and competence.
  7. There is only one class of disciples, regardless of different roles or responsibilities.
  8. The disciple-making imperative of the Great Commission needs to drive fresh thinking about our Sunday meetings, and the place of training in congregational life.
  9. Training almost always starts small, and grows by multiplying workers.

The final proposition is less about the day-to-day life of congregations, and more about the generation-to-generation growth of the gospel.

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Self-knowledge for godliness and ministry (Part 3)

Pastoral Ministry

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As Mark has indicated, this little gig is looking at the ‘knowing ourselves’ part of the knowing God/knowing ourselves learning curve we are all involved in. One of the things that has recently surfaced again for me is the ubiquitous personality test—mostly because they have been pattering about all over Facebook like so many hobbits. So I thought it might be time to evaluate these critters again, and work out their strengths and weaknesses. Having a tool is all very well, but we need to be sure we’re using it correctly and not (to use a metaphor) digging a hole with a hammer.

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What ministry is about 9

Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel

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We’re on the home stretch with our ten propositions about Christian ministry. The first eight were as follows:

  1. Our goal is to make disciples not church members.
  2. Churches tend towards institutionalism as sparks fly upward.
  3. The heart of disciple-making is prayerful speaking of God’s word.
  4. All ministry has the goal of nurturing disciples, not just one-to-one discipling or mentoring.
  5. To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker.
  6. Disciple-makers need to be trained and equipped in conviction, character and competence.
  7. There is only one class of disciples, regardless of different roles or responsibilities.
  8. The disciple-making imperative of the Great Commission needs to drive fresh thinking about our Sunday meetings, and the place of training in congregational life.

The ninth is another counterintuitive thought: if you want to train people, don’t run a training event.

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Should theodicy be at the heart of preaching?

Pastoral Ministry

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Theodicy is the defence of God’s justice and goodness. It is something that we naturally think about, and yet, more often than not, it drives our preaching. You reach a difficult teaching of Jesus about hell, or a confronting passage of Paul’s about the role of men and women in the church, or even about the uniqueness of Christ, and instead of listening to the passage, you start arguing with it. And sometimes God’s word seems to magically come around to your point of view.

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History of the ordinary

Life

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History ‘from below’ gets down and dirty. It is a pity it hurts so much to do it.

The ‘Great Ones’ of human history often earn the acclaim they so enjoy to propagate—at the expense of many ordinary people. These ordinary people either made them what they became (without thanks), or were crushed by them in the process of their exaltation (without mercy). Either way, there are valleys of dried bones beneath the feet of those who call themselves benefactors.

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What ministry is about 8

Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel

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The Trellis and the Vine has just gone to printers in Singapore, and will be available (God-willing) in mid-October. In the meantime, our last three propositions start to zero in on some implications of this view of ministry. The first seven were:

  1. Our goal is to make disciples not church members.
  2. Churches tend towards institutionalism as sparks fly upward.
  3. The heart of disciple-making is prayerful speaking of God’s word.
  4. All ministry has the goal of nurturing disciples, not just one-to-one discipling or mentoring.
  5. To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker.
  6. Disciple-makers need to be trained and equipped in conviction, character and competence.
  7. There is only one class of disciples, regardless of different roles or responsibilities.

How does this agenda relate to our regular church activities?

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What to do when the sermon sucks like a vacuum cleaner

Pastoral Ministry

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I subscribe to more than 70 blogs while pointedly avoiding some, but Ying, missing yours was an honest-to-goodness mistake.

(By the way, for those of you who are curious enough to reconstruct which blogs I read, click through to my blog and check out ‘Gordon’s shared items’. They are a tip of the bloggy iceberg, so don’t be offended if yours isn’t there, because I read and enjoy a lot more than I let on.

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What ministry is about 7

Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel

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The first six propositions in our little list emphasize the ministry of the many. As follows, they are:

  1. Our goal is to make disciples not church members.
  2. Churches tend towards institutionalism as sparks fly upward.
  3. The heart of disciple-making is prayerful speaking of God’s word.
  4. All ministry has the goal of nurturing disciples, not just one-to-one discipling or mentoring.
  5. To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker.
  6. Disciple-makers need to be trained and equipped in conviction, character and competence.

But where do pastors and teachers fit in?

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The death of good intentions

Everyday Ministry

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“I’ll pray for you.”

“I’d love to give money to support that gospel or mercy ministry.”

“I’ll be part of that Bible distribution.”

This is a raw topic for me. My heart pours out for every good work. I want to support gospel ministries and pray for people. On so many things, I have all the right intentions, but not all the right carry through. (more…)

What ministry is about 6

Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel

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Okay, we’re half way there. The first five propositions about church life and ministry (taken from the forthcoming Matthias Media title, The Trellis and the Vine) have been:

  1. Our goal is to make disciples not church members.
  2. Churches tend towards institutionalism as sparks fly upward.
  3. The heart of disciple-making is prayerful speaking of God’s word.
  4. All ministry has the goal of nurturing disciples, not just one-to-one discipling or mentoring.
  5. To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker.

Number six is about how disciples become disciple-makers …

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Teaching the Psalms to our children

Life, Sola Panel

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Picture my husband and I sitting side-by-side on the couch in the semi-darkness, watching a DVD. There’s the patter of little feet on the floorboards. A plaintive voice says, “Mummy, I’m scared, I can’t sleep!” And as always, there’s the same response: “Do you want me to pray with you?” (more…)