In my last post, The joy of service, I wrote about the need to serve practically when all you want to do is teach. Karen asked a great question: “Does it work the other way, Jean–when you’re good at (and often prefer) to stuff envelopes, stack chairs and wash dishes, but the thought of leading Bible study fills you with extreme terror?” Here’s The joy of service re-written (with apologies) for such a person. Because, yes, I have friends who lead Bible studies even though it terrifies them. And, yes, it works both ways. (more…)
Category Archives: Everyday Christianity
The joy of service
Everyday Ministry, Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel
flickr: UggBoy
I’m no behind-the-scenes servant. My love is given to wordy ministries: the nervous plunge when I teach a group of women, the energy that sparkles in a small group, the light in a friend’s eyes when God’s truth sinks in. If I’m honest, I also love the recognition that comes with this kind of ministry. There: I’ve said it.
The humble roles, the practical roles, the self-effacing roles: they don’t come naturally to me. Setting up for a meeting, cooking for an event, serving food, running crèche, stuffing envelopes: these mundane tasks aren’t on my bucket list. I have to fight my inner whinger as I do them. I don’t like this about myself, but it’s true.
I know this isn’t good enough. (more…)
Thanksgiving: it’s not trivial.
Life, Sola Panel
The mundane work of the Spirit
Everyday Ministry, Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel
I burst into tears.
Not true! Sorry Jean, I don’t burst into tears (at least can’t remember the last time), but I get moist at the corners of my eyes quite often! For example, just yesterday… (more…)
Freedom of religion and thought
Life, Sola Panel
The theologian and social critic David Wells suggests that we have seen a significant rise in the language of victimhood in both society and the church. He suggests ‘playing the victim’ comes from being overly sensitive to individual rights. We often excuse our behaviour by noticing every insult or injustice that comes from others. Wells warns that when everyone is a victim—as it seems many feel—it trivialises real victims. (more…)
→ True Holiness Befriends Sinners
Link
Thoughtful and practical reflections from David Mathis:
The pursuit of holiness may keep you from bad company. But have you ever considered that it might also lead you to keep some pretty bad company?
Jesus is our litmus test of lived-out holiness. He is the Holy One of Israel in human flesh. His life serves as the best answer key for what divine holiness looks like when reflected in humanity. And they rightly called him “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 11:19).
So what are we to do with a God-man who associated with the most blatant nonbelievers of his day?
→ Inconvenienced by inconvenience
Link
Tim Challies with some good and challenging reflections on using our houses and homes for others:
[Rosaria Butterfield] writes about the open door policy in their home and it reminded me of my younger days in my parents’ home: “Anything worth doing will take time and cost you something. We notice, as our attention focused more on families and children, that many people in our community protect themselves from inconvenience as though inconvenience is deadly. We decided that we are not inconvenienced by inconvenience. We are sure that the Good Samaritan had other plans that fateful day.”
Learning to see God’s glories in a Melbourne spring
Life, Sola Panel
flickr: Pink Sherbert Photography
A week ago it came, kicking its heels like a witless lamb. Spring. Didn’t it know it wasn’t due yet?
We’ve been locked down in cold for months. We swap war-stories of coughs and runny noses, risk suffocation under layers of bedding, and shiver in the school yard as we wait for the kids to emerge from over-heated classrooms. I listen to winter complaints but secretly love it: (more…)
The Two-Pronged Strategy of a Master Evangelist
Everyday Ministry
It’s amazing how culture changes and we don’t notice it. The practices that one generation took for granted become unknown, and slightly shocking, to a later generation. Even for those of us who live through the change it happens too incrementally for us to observe it. It is when we revisit the old times that we detect how much we have changed—sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and often without any real difference. (more…)
In the footsteps of Ezekiel
Life, Sola Panel
Ezekiel: Michelangelo
When a man was called by God to be a prophet in Israel, he could be pretty sure he wasn’t in for an easy life. Jeremiah, marked out as a traitor by his own people, thrown into a cistern and waiting for his nose to slip beneath the mud (Jer 38:1-28). Ezekiel, his life a bizarre acted parable of Jerusalem’s fate, lying on one side for months on end and cooking his food over excrement (Ezek 4:1-17). Hosea, commanded by God to marry and be reconciled to an adulterous wife, to picture God’s relationship with his unfaithful people (Hos 1:2-11, 3:1-5).
All those words of judgement, all that rejection, all that sacrifice! I sometimes think how glad I am that God didn’t make me an Old Testament prophet.1 (more…)
Discipline, routine and the ‘quiet time’
Life, Sola Panel
Graeme Goldsworthy on the ‘quiet time’…
Avoiding legalism while exercising self-discipline
Most of us need some kind of self-discipline in all kinds of things that we do on a regular basis. Usually we don’t have any difficulty in having three meals a day, but some do. We get into a routine for eating, sleeping and going to work. One routine that is often observed is the ‘quiet time’, particularly by Christians who recognize the need to study the Bible and to pray, usually on a daily basis. A quiet time is a good routine, but it needs to have some flexibility. The quiet time can become a legalistic requirement to the point that some feel that if they sleep in and have to miss their quiet time, their whole day will be a virtual disaster. This borders on superstition. The person who cultivates the art of praying without ceasing will recognize that, like the Sabbath, the quiet time was made for man and not man for the quiet time! All kinds of things can interrupt our routines, from storm, tempest, flood, fire and earthquakes. Or it may be simply a neighbour in need who calls on us, or a sick child. On the other hand, the person who makes a habit of chaotic indiscipline needs to take this matter in hand. However we might discipline our day to include Bible-reading and prayer, it is important not to reduce this habit to the level of the fulfilment of a legal obligation. It is always a privilege for the children of God and, as such, it is an expression of our being saved by grace alone.
Source: Prayer and the Knowledge of God (IVP), page 196. (more…)
A good news story getting better
Pastoral Ministry
One of the good news stories for Christians is the ministry amongst university students, and this story is just about to get better still. For this area of effective ministry is about to see a significant increase, thanks to recent Government decisions.
Contrary to popular opinion, or that of their parents, university students are not the most important people in the world. Nor is ministry amongst them important because of some supposedly elite status—“the future leaders of industry, government and the professions”. The world may think like that, but it is not a gospel perspective. (more…)
Finish the Race: favourite Olympic story
Life, Sola Panel
Recently, David Mathis shared John Piper’s advice for Christians about how to watch the Olympic Games.
This prompts me to share my all-time favourite story from among the many inspirational episodes of Olympic history. (more…)
Gatekeeping the church: not a one-man job?
Pastoral Ministry, Resource Talk
I enjoyed a great day of fellowship and ministry encouragement yesterday at a conference run by Crossway Anglican Churches. Really stirring and stimulating stuff. (more…)
To dye or not to dye?
Life, Sola Panel
To dye or not to dye? This question came up on Jenny’s blog, and I just couldn’t resist jumping in with a typically over-long comment! Here’s an edited version of what I wrote, for women considering the pressing question of whether or not to dye greying hair. It’s not a bad test-case for issues of beauty and personal adornment.
flickr: foxtongue
Like all things the Bible doesn’t legislate on, whether or not to dye your hair comes down to the freedom to serve one another in love (Gal 5:13). It’s the teaching of demons to declare a created thing “bad”: it’s good if received with thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:1-5). We’re not to submit to rules like “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch!” (Col 2:16-23).
So yes, hair dye, waxing, and, dare I say, even botox and surgery to improve appearance are not evil in themselves: (more…)