Read This! 07.30.19

Mike Leake

5 Resolutions for Pastoral Ministry

These would be fine resolutions to adopt.

The Faithfulness of Christ in the Little Things

Great piece by Sinclair Ferguson.

5 Communication Tactics That Can Make or Break Your Ministry

Helpful suggestions.

5 Ways to Help Kids Communicate Well on Social Media

Yep, I think Coram Deo and Imago Dei are a couple terms which are helpful for kids to know.

Reasons to Write Properly

I try. I really do.

For the Pastor’s Kid: Your Dad Needs You

I liked reading an article from this perspective.

How Can So Many Pastors Be Godly and Dysfunctional at the Same Time?

It’s a fitting question.

5 Questions to Ask When You’re Short On Volunteers

One that I thought would appear here is the question of whether or not you ought to be doing that thing you can’t find volunteers for.

I read Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work, and I’ll be honest as I read it I pictured a 60 year old man writing it. Maybe somebody who could have played on the 80’s show Dallas. Mind blow:

The Real Tragedy of Misrepresenting Others

Mike Leake

A mob of Christians fights another mob of Christians online. Who loses? Of course the right answer is that everybody loses. But how so?

I am thinking in particular about our online brawls as it concerns social justice. I’m not even sure that we have an agreed upon definition of social justice. I think most of the time we’re aggressively talking past one another. In an effort to not get lost in terms, I will give us a real scenario to consider.

The recent release of a trailer to a documentary put out by Founders Ministries created quite the online stir. In my opinion it was harmful on multiple fronts. It was not a representation of a group who is interested in pursuing truth on a hot button issue within evangelicalism. It mispresented people and even the issues. (See here).

Now how do we respond to this? What is the greatest consequence to their putting up a polarizing video which distorts truth?

The Greatest Consequence

One answer to this question is to say that the world is watching and that such a video harms our corporate witness. It’s no secret that many within the world are watching the way we navigate this issue. There is much social pressure on responding correctly to racism, victims of sexual abuse, etc. And we need to get this right.

But might I suggest that we need to get this right not for the sake of pleasing outside observers but because it’s pleasing to the Lord. Don’t hear me wrongly. I believe we should adorn the gospel. We should make efforts to not bring reproach upon the body of Christ. And it’s simply the right thing to do. But our primary aim is to be pleasing to the Lord.

The greatest consequence to misrepresenting brothers and sisters in Christ is not that it harms our witness. It’s not even that it does harm to the person misrepresented. The greatest consequence is that it is not pleasing to the Lord.

It’s a bit ironic here because I think I’m saying something similar to what Founders and others are attempting to say. We are moved not by the world’s standards but by the standards of God. The fear of man is a snare and that’s especially true if that “man” happens to be one who doesn’t fear the Lord. There is a very real danger in muddying the gospel whilst trying to win the worlds acclaim.

Talking Past One Another

This is where I think we are talking past one another. To someone who views the world with a Founders-type mindset their greatest concern is going to be pleasing God by being truthful. To others they believe that the greatest concern is going to be pleasing God by being winsome in our conduct. It’s the old false dichotomy of truth and grace.

So whenever this video comes out, one side becomes the tone police and points to how this is harming victims and ruining our witness, etc. While that is likely true it’s not speaking in a language that someone with a Founders-type mindset is going to hear. The greatest issue is that misrepresenting people with half-truths and grainy innuendo is the method of the serpent. It’s not godly. It’s not pleasing to God. And hopefully such a statement is speaking in language that they’d hear. The fundamental problem with the video isn’t that man is offended—the problem is that distortion in service to agenda is diametrically opposed to the way in which God proclaims truth.

The path forward, in my opinion, with all of our division isn’t for us to dialogue. We’ve had enough of that…or maybe we’ve never actually had dialogue just lots of yelling and little listening. Rather, I’m convinced that it’ll likely be resolved by a season of silence combined with each divided brother and sister spending a season digging into what it really means for them to please the Lord. Maybe take a break from trying to determine how my brother or sister can best please God, and spend a season wrestling with that question in my own life. That’s what I’m hoping to do.

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Photo source: here

How To be a Miserable Pastor

Mike Leake

If you want to be a miserable pastor there is one certain way to do it; namely, be a people-pleaser. Richard Baxter says it well:

“Remember what a life of unquietness and continual vexation you choose, if you place your peace or happiness in the good will or word of man. For having showed you how impossible a task you undertake, it must needs follow that the pursuit of it must be a life of torment. To engage yourselves in so great cares, when you are sure to be disappointed; to make that your end, which you cannot attain; to find that you labour in vain, and daily meet with displeasure instead of the favour you expected; must needs be a very grievous life.

You are like one that dwelleth on the top of a mountain, and yet cannot endure the wind to blow upon him; or like him that dwelleth in a wood, and yet is afraid of the shaking of a leaf. You dwell among a world of ulcerated, selfish, contradictory, mutable, unpleasable minds, and yet you cannot endure their displeasure. Are you magistrates? The people will murmur at you, and those that are most incompetent and uncapable will be the forwardest to censure you, and think that they could govern much better than you…

Are you pastors and teachers? You will seem too rough to one, and too smooth to another; yea, too rough to the same man when by reproof or censure you correct his faults, who censureth you as too smooth and a friend to sinners, when you are to deal in the cause of others. No sermon that you preach is like to be pleasing to all your hearers; nor any of your ministerial works.

Your life and your ministry will be absolutely hi-jacked if you allow pleasing people to be your guide. It’s an end we can never attain. It doesn’t mean that we intentionally pursue offense or that we eschew the command to “make every effort to live at peace with one another”. But it does mean that we realize that our task is to be pleasing to the Lord. If he is glad with me, and in Christ He is, then all the world can bid me adieu.

It’s not that I don’t care if you’re pleased, it’s just that I’m after the delight of a much higher authority. If He is pleased then it helps me interpret your smile or frown. Your countenance only directs me when it matches His.

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Photo source: here

In Which I Bid Farewell to a Former Association

Mike Leake

“You’ve changed!”

Those were the words of a man who once was a supporter of our ministry. But in his mind we had changed and went full-on apostate. He couldn’t identify the doctrine or really even any serious error—it was just different.

I feel that way today in some of the online circles I once traveled. While in one segment of the blogosphere my audience has grown, there is another segment in which I’ve almost totally lost my voice. I just don’t belong anymore. I was shocked the other day when I wanted to message someone I considered an online friend only to find that I’d been unfollowed. I guess in their mind I’ve “changed”.

It’s weird because I don’t believe I’ve changed doctrinally all that much in the past fifteen years. I was going through some old papers the other day and it was eye-opening. I affirmed everything doctrinally that I had written. I hadn’t moved much at all. But the way in which I would communicate those things has changed drastically. Almost so drastic that I’d like to kick my former self in the throat at times.

This is why I’m writing what I’m writing today.

This is not to be seen as a boycott or as some sort of attempt to grasp at power. I’m not trying to influence. I’m not trying to put somebody in their place. I’m just trying to make a wrong, right.

But first a few statements of belief:

  • I believe that intersectionality and identity politics/theology are not helpful.
  • I remain a complementarian in my theology of gender roles.
  • I continue to hold confessionally to Reformed theology much in the same vein as Andrew Fuller or John Newton.
  • I believe in regenerate church membership. I’d prefer a plurality of elders.
  • I also believe that we are far too sensitive and often driven by emotionalism instead of truth. We are a culture far too easily offended. Truth matters.

Basically, as it regards their doctrinal statement I would fit pretty well within the ministry of Founders. I’ve linked to their stuff. I’ve signed on to some of their documents. I’ve recommended their books. But today I would like to publicly distance myself from Founders Ministries.

I do this not because of doctrinal shift. I do this because I think Reformed evangelicalism deserves better than hit pieces, slander, conspiracy theories, and unfounded accusations. The way in which engagement is happening on issues of social justice is unbecoming of Christ.

How we engage matters.

How the recent video put out by Founders has portrayed Rachael Denhollander is unacceptable. She is a sister in Christ who, like me, could likely sign on to Founders doctrinal statement. And yet she was portrayed as a demonic force threatening Christian orthodoxy. She wasn’t the only one misattributed and misrepresented. This video does not evidence a group that is passionate about the truth. And I thought that was what Founders was about.

So maybe I’ve changed. 

Maybe I’m just a big softy now and I’ve turned into one of those liberals that you believe needs to be silenced and feared and driven away. Maybe I’m just a millennial snowflake.

Either way, please consider me as one who is no longer to be associated with Founders Ministries.

I know it’s not a big loss. And y ’all probably didn’t even know I existed. But those who know me might at times associate me as one who is in agreement with Founders. And I just don’t want that association anymore.

This pains me greatly.