Today in Blogworld 09.23.16

Mike Leake

The Seven Fears of Controlling Controllers

Controlling people are often fearful people. David Murray lists seven of these fears.

How to Be a Writer: 10 Tips

I love helpful little lists like this one.

Dear Absentee Church Member

I think a couple of these might be worded a bit stronger than I would, but the overall points still stand.

How Fear Can Derail Your Ministry

This is true. I’ve seen it happen in my own life. I’d add another corrective and say something like “grow in your knowledge of God”.

Not as good as being so stunned like vegetable, but this offering is pretty funny too:

the Making of a Celebrity Pastor

Mike Leake 1 Comment

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

We heard that question all the time in grade school. And it was often followed by a statement that we can be and do whatever we desire to do. Even our Saturday morning cartoons were inundated with the message that we could do anything. I grew up drinking my daily doses of cultural Kool-Aid. Music. Television. Every where I went held that same message.

If you want to see this on full display consider the words of Teddy Bridgewater after going down with a season-ending knee surgery: “My faith is strong, my faith is unwavering and my vision is clear. My purpose will not be denied.” Ignoring the fact that it sounds a bit robotic—this is what it means to be an epic difference maker. We were all born with this destiny and if you want it bad enough you can get it. It’s yours for the taking.

Now what happens when someone steeped in that culture begins to sense a call to the ministry? This person, as 1 Timothy 3 says, “aspires to the office of overseer”. There are several books out now which try to answer that question for those trying to discern whether its really God calling them into the ministry or if it was just too much Taco Bell. And most of these books have the person asking that question to go through the list of qualifications in 1 Timothy and Titus.

But here is a problem I see. Us epic difference makers NEVER fail tests like this. If we want something there isn’t anybody going to tell us that we aren’t qualified. Mr. T already solidified our calling in first grade—we are going to be somebody and ain’t nobody else qualified to tell me that I’m not going to be who I want to be when I grow up. So I take that little test, I take a spiritual gifts test, and I jump through all the hoops. I decide I am qualified for ministry.

Next stop, seminary. Now for most schools in order to enroll in seminary you have to have a pastor/church sign off on this. Usually the young man wanting to go into ministry has to walk forward and say that he’d like to surrender to the ministry. Most people see his outgoing personality and his talents. Sure he has some room to grow and a host of immaturity issues but a bit of growing up in seminary will sort those things out. So the pastor asks the congregation whether they agree with this decision? Everyone gives a hearty “Amen” because nobody would want to stop someone from living out their destiny. Within a year he is darted off to seminary where the question of calling is all but settled. Now he is just going to be trained in how to do ministry—or in other words how to sharpen his skills and work on that God-given talent.

Graduation day comes. Now he is off to either pastor a local church or more than likely to plant his own church. And he succeeds because he has a ton of talent. His church grows and multiplies. His sermons are dynamic. His ideas are phenomenal. He starts selling books. Going on preaching tours. He has become the epic difference maker that he has been striving for since second grade.

Then he resigns. Maybe it was from some scandal. Maybe it was burn out. Either way his talent was still there but somewhere along the way the wheels came off and now we have another story of a celebrity pastor breaking the heart of a church.

I’m not intending to speak to any specific situation here. The fact, though, that a handful could come to mind shows the problem that I’m talking about. In our celebrity pastor culture talent seems to always trump character. And when that happens this stuff follows an inevitable pattern. Though the church at large is shocked on resignation day we shouldn’t be. This didn’t happen in a vacuum. The whole system is scaled to reward talent over character every time. We set this whole thing into motion when Podunk Baptist sent little Johnny off to seminary knowing he had character flaws but hoping that somehow it’d get worked out in the crucible of studying Greek participles.

The system is broken. But I’m convinced local churches can turn this ship around. It won’t be quick or easy, but it will be necessary.

Another Way

Do you notice something about that list of qualifications in Titus? It isn’t meant for the pastoral candidate to ask questions of himself. Don’t get me wrong—there is a certain self-assessment and even aspiration for the office of elder/pastor which needs to be there. But I’m convinced the norm ought to be the ones already established (like Titus) who are seeking out those to be elders. You don’t take those character tests on your own. You don’t decide whether or not you are greedy but another elder (ideally group of elders) watch your life and they see that you are qualified.

I know we live in a culture where we get really offended at the suggestion that somebody else might be able to determine God’s calling on your life, but I’m convinced it is the biblical way. Godly men who know about the difficulty of the eldership see character (and yes even talent) of those God has placed in the church and he disciples them and helps them grow into that role.

Maybe seminary happens. Maybe it doesn’t. But training happens in the context of the local church. We don’t send off a young man to an institution hoping that it’ll work out the character issues. No, we work those out in the context of a local church. We see how young Johnny interacts with the widows in the church just as much as how he leads a Sunday School class.

My goal here at FBC Marionville is similar to the goal I had at FBC Jasper. I pray that they never have to put out another ad in the Baptist paper looking for a senior pastor. Not because I’ve done so terribly they’ve had to shut their doors, but because we have raised up so many young men for ministry that they can look internally to fill that position. I want to do the slow plodding of raising up elders and equipping the church for the work of ministry.

The local church calls men to the ministry. The local church equips men for the ministry. We must stop this process where individuals steeped in a “be an epic difference maker” culture are the deciding factors as to whether or not they are called into ministry. And we must stop viewing seminaries as the place where ministers are made. That’s at the local church. Seminary is meant to come alongside the local church and strengthen what is already there. We must be diligent in making sure when we sign a paper saying a young man is called to ministry that we’d be willing to let him do actual service in our church on that day. We shouldn’t expect seminaries to create what should have been birthed and nurtured within the local church.

The answer to the celebrity pastor problem is the local church being faithful to her calling.

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Photo source: here

Today in Blogworld 09.22.16

Mike Leake

Desiring to Rule over Genesis 3:16

Good summary of the new ESV translation of Genesis 3:16.

How to Avoid Pastoral Burnout (Before It’s Too Late)

I appreciate this wise counsel.

When Pastors Doubt

It happens. I especially love this line: “Doubts are just questions as long as you have an anchor.”

7 Principles for Angry Parents Disciplining Angry Children

With some help from MLJ, Kevin DeYoung gives us these seven principles.

This is a question I’ve often wondered, RC Sproul answers:

An Anchor Stronger Than Roots

Mike Leake

I lived the first twenty years of my life in the same community in Northeast Missouri. We had around 700 people in our little town. Both sets of my grandparents were within a twenty minute drive. Aunts and uncles and cousins all around me. Though I suffered through my own fair share of instability, at the end of the day I was rooted in the community. (For all the good and all the bad which comes with that).

When I got married my wife and I moved and I took a position as a youth pastor. Our move wasn’t too far, though. The church where I was a youth pastor was only about 15 minutes from my childhood home. It was pretty much the same community. A few new faces but really what was happening is that those deep roots were just extending into another community.

I surrendered to the ministry in that little church where I was a youth pastor. We weren’t quite sure what the future would hold but we knew that our next step was seminary. This mean uprooting. My wife and our newborn son moved eight hours away to Louisville, KY. We didn’t know many people at all but we knew this is where we needed to be.

My wife did what great wives like her do; she started putting down new roots. These weren’t able to get too incredibly deep, though, because within 6 months we moved to a new community. It was a painful uprooting. We knew we were supposed to be in Louisville, but our next move wasn’t so certain. It wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t what we envisioned. It ripped us out of the seminary community where we had hoped to grow and flourish and put us back into the furnace.

We felt a bit like our backyard looks right now. When we moved into our present home the homeowner filled in a pool and resodded the backyard. But things didn’t really set well and so what you’ve got are a bunch of bare spots where the sod didn’t really catch hold. We were still raw from our last move. The tiny roots that we had started to set down were ripped right out and we were expected to do it all over again.

And we did. In time. We developed such great friends and relationships in Jasper, Indiana. At some point I’m going to write about the Lord’s faithfulness to us during this season. But I’ll summarize here and say that I believe I sinned against my wife in moving us away from Louisville and to Indiana. It might have been the right decision in the long run—God certainly redeems and uses even our desperate and silly choices—but the way we got there was sinful on my part.

For the first couple of years it was a wilderness. Not because of the people at Jasper. They were great. God was using us. Things were going well but I was dead inside. Even with the joyous birth of our daughter, those first couple of years were difficult for me emotionally (I’d be happy to speak in a ‘we’ but I don’t want to speak for my wife here). It felt like a wilderness. But God was able to set a table even in the wilderness and Jasper became home.

Roots started to grow deeper. Friendships blossomed. We finally considered Jasper our home. We were content. We were happily doing ministry, seeing our small group flourish and getting to pastor alongside a great friend. We had tough times, sure. We had dark days, just like anyone else. But we were starting to establish some roots. Home felt like home. Friends felt like family.

Then the wind blew again. A violent storm which couldn’t be ignored. I started feeling like I was hitting a ceiling in Jasper. I knew that God was calling me to be a lead pastor. My wife affirmed this—though both of us with great trepidation. The elders of our church affirmed it as well. We put out resumes for awhile. Nothing. Not many churches wanted to take a chance on a thirty year old pastor.

We had settled into the idea of just staying at Jasper. We wanted to stay there, anyways. I tried to pretend like that ache inside of me wasn’t too terribly strong and that we could make it work. And just as soon as we decided that we’d start pushing those roots down a little further, a church finally called.

It was time to uproot again.

There were many tears shed as we left. We were excited about our new opportunity and this new mission field God had placed us into. But we also knew what lay ahead of us. We had to put down roots again. The slow and plodding process of making a new place your home.

In part this is an easier process for a senior pastor. I am immediately known by several people. Folks want to get to know me. They want us to plant roots and they want them to go deep quickly. But let’s be honest. Starting in a new church is a bit like a rebound relationship. That church usually has wounds from the previous pastor who just left and had to break their heart and the new pastor has wounds from the church he just had to uproot from. And so it takes time. Roots don’t grow deep too quickly.

If you are still with me, I’ve just now arrived at my point. I feel like that tree pictured at the top, right now. That’s not to say anything about the great folks at Marionville. I have relationships which are deepening. We are planting those roots. But there are some Monday mornings when I just flat out hurt. I feel disillusioned. I feel rootless. And if I’m being honest, I kind of am. I’ve come a long ways from that little community of 700 people where everybody knows your name. Moving into a new community as an introverted pastor isn’t an easy task. My roots will tend to grow deeper and expand out longer but it takes them a bit longer to establish. While I’m waiting it’s tough.

But I read something today by Lauren Chandler which really ministered to my soul:

God has graciously used seasons in the desert, in chains, in folly, and in the storm to expose the weaknesses of my anchor impostors. He unties the frail rope from the measly brick and replaces it with His hesed chain tied to the anchor of Yahweh, the Great “I am,” the One who will never fail. –Chandler, Lauren. Steadfast Love: The Response of God to the Cries of Our Heart (Kindle Locations 495-496). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Those roots that I’m almost idolatrously longing for are anchor impostors. They won’t hold. I want and need deep relationships with people. I’m fine if the Lord doesn’t ever uproot us again—until he pulls us out of the ground somewhere when the trumpet sounds. But I want to be realistic in the fact that when I became a disciple of Christ I gave him a blank check. I didn’t do that at my ordination. I didn’t do that when I said “yes” to pastoring this church. I did that when I bowed a knee in repentance and faith and asked Jesus if I could follow Him wherever He goes.

Some day I feel a bit like that tree. Gracious people in our community help my wife and I establish roots. We’ll get there. I’ll feel less and less like that tree. But my ultimate hope is found in the immovable anchor of Christ. He cannot be uprooted. And I think the Lord was communicating this to my wife and I even before we set foot in Southwest, Missouri. As we choked down our fears, and endured the pain of uprooting, and packed up our stuff for this new journey a song kept ministering to my sweet wife. That song was Kari Jobe’s “I Am Not Alone”. The lines, “I am not alone, I am not alone, You will go before me, You will never leave me” were precious to us in that season.

Those lyrics, I’m convinced, were precious for a reason. Christ isn’t roots we establish. He’s an anchor. And He has tied me to Himself. The immovable anchor. This is stronger than any roots I could ever establish. Roots are good—but they aren’t ultimate. Christ is. Roots aren’t eternal. But He is. And so, I’ve been given by Christ what is needed to do the plodding work of pastoring and go about lovingly and unashamedly trying to establish deep roots all the while knowing that Christ is holding a blank check in his hand.

The anchor always holds.

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Photo source: here