Where I Am Spending My Anniversary

Mike Leake

Tomorrow morning my wife and I will be packing up the car and heading to the middle of nowhere in Tennessee.  It’s a 5 hour drive to a little place called the Whitestone Inn.  How awesome does this sound?

Discover the magic of refined country living at Whitestone! Located near Kingston, Tennessee on Watts Bar Lake with views of the Smoky Mountains, the 600-acre property includes a luxurious AAA 4-Diamond Bed and Breakfast, Restaurant, Wedding Chapel, and Conference Facilities…Luxurious B&B Inn accommodations feature large whirlpool, spa shower, fireplace and canopy bed. Dining options at Whitestone include breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as superb catering. Our guests can enjoy tennis, canoes, kayaks, paddleboats, lawn games and 8 miles of hiking and walking trails, or simply relaxing on a porch swing while taking in the view.

My wife and I will be staying at the Canada Goose room located in the Farmhouse.  We are very excited to have this time away to relax and celebrate our anniversary. 

I cannot believe that tomorrow we will have been married for 8 years.  My wife is more beautiful than the day that I met her.  The more I know her the more I love her.  If anybody wants to know how to be a helpmate to her husband they should spend some time with my wife.  She exemplifies everything that a wife and mother is to be.  She is captured by grace and the Lord continues to use her in my life to more fully capture me by the same grace that holds her. 

Not that I want to support your covetousness problem…but…

P.S. If you are a pastor there is a very sweet deal!  I forget exactly how sweet the deal is but it is something close to half price. 

Mustache Coaches and Pastoral Identity

Mike Leake

100 stinking push ups. 

That’s what one of my coaches in High School made me do because I called him Kareem Abdul (insert his last name).  Apparently, I should have called him Kareem Abdul COACH (insert his last name).  He clearly derived his identity as “coach”, even down to his early 90’s coach mustache.  So, a mouthy freshman teasing him about his less-than-stellar hook shots must have insulted his identity a little too much.  So he figured making the scrawny kid do a hundred girly looking push-ups ought to teach me to respect not only his ‘stache and his hook shots but also his identity as COACH.  Actually it made me give him another title…but that was before I was rescued by Jesus.

It occurs to me that “Coach” isn’t the only one that struggles with these identity issues.  Pastors may be worse.  That is why what Paul Tripp’s article on Your Ministry Is Not Your Identity will prove to be so helpful to many ministers.  Consider this statement:

This is part of the reason for the huge disconnect between my public ministry life and private family life. Ministry had become my identity. I didn’t think of myself as a child of God, in daily need of grace, in the middle of my own sanctification, still battling with sin, still in need of the body of Christ, and called to pastoral ministry. No, I thought of myself as a pastor. That’s it, bottom line. The office of pastor was more than a calling and set of God-given gifts that had been recognized by the body of Christ. Pastor defined me.

What I take from this article is that there is something deadly that can happen to my soul if I sign things Pastor Mike or Reverend Mike instead of just Mike.  This is something that I have believed for awhile; actually since hearing a kilted Mel Gibson shout, “Men don’t follow titles, they follow courrrrrrraggge”. 

The funny thing about pastoral ministry though…

Nobody is tempted to call the guy who pours your coffee at Starbucks Barista Joe when you see him in Wal-Mart.  But I’m “Pastor Mike” when I’m preaching and when I’m getting faux chicken at the Wal-Mart deli.  And contemporary pastors are not alone in this either.  There is a reason why we identify Paul as the Apostle Paul, because he signed his letters that way.  Paul wasn’t just Paul he was “sent Paul”.  Just as it seems that John the Beloved Disciple was also known simply as “The Elder”. 

Yes, there is a very real sense in which this is part of our identity. 

“Pastor” can be deadly or life-giving depending on your view of pastor.  If you mean an utterly dependent jar of clay that is only shepherding people as he himself is being shepherded, then “pastor” is a constant reminder that you aren’t your own.  But if “pastor” is a badge you wear that means “dude in charge” you’ve crossed the line from life-giving to deadly.  You’re a disciple first and a pastor later on down the line.  Your identity isn’t defined principally by your role in the mission but by the One who sent you on the mission. 

If you are anything like me your root identity often shifts from disicple to pastor to a million other things.  It’s healing, though, to remember that I won’t be wearing a name tag in heaven that says Pastor or Reverend.  It will be my new name given to me by Jesus…which by the way I’m really pulling for Aragorn.  But I can be certain it won’t be “Shepherd” because there is only one of those in heaven and He ain’t me. 

Monday Ministry Musing: Could Your Gospel Transform a Hoarder?

Mike Leake

Hoarders.  I cannot hardly stomach watching this show.  I am not even sure why–of all things in my Netflix Instant Queue—I decided to watch this show last night.  But I did and it was painful.  Not because of the rat feces, or the rotten squash, or the other disgusting debris that cluttered houses.  No, what made it really painful to watch was the sheer brokenness of the people portrayed. 

One of the stories that I watched last night was of this guy, Bill:

What you saw there was nothing.  There was one scene where Bill pretty much chose a box of old woodworking magazines over his daughter.  These people were created in the image of God and their obsession with stuff has made them much like the idols that they have bowed down to.  Their families are broken and their whole life is consumed by “stuff”. 

One of the most angering things about the show is the really shallow counseling that happens.  That is not surprising because I doubt A & E would not show stories of how the gospel transforms a hoarder.  Yet, as I see the brokenness in these peoples lives and all of the root issues that need to be dealt with I could not help but think—Jesus could transform this. 

You Can’t Just Clean The House

One thing that the counselors do get right, though, is that they cannot simply have a team of dumpsters go into these peoples homes and start throwing everything in the trash.  If you really want to help a hoarder you are going to have to get to the root issues.  Of course, they believe the root issues are things like “self-esteem”, etc.  Which may in part be true but they do not go deep enough and apply the only thing that can bring lasting change in the life of a hoarder; namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

As I think through Hoarders I am left to wonder whether or not my preaching only “cleans up the house”.  If I am preaching in such a way that people are simply cleaning up their lives, but I am not getting to root issues then the gospel is not really being preached. 

If I preach against alcohol, homosexuality, anger, cheating on taxes, gambling, pornography, or any other sins but the root idolatry is not being addressed then I’m not really pointing them to Jesus.  I’m just making sure they don’t have rat feces in their house and that they live lives sanitary enough that they get to keep their kids. 

Transforming a Hoarder

Consider the story of Bill.  If I convince Bill that his hoarding is silly or that this spray can doesn’t have much worth he may reluctantly throw away the spray can.  I may have added to his shame but at least there is one less piece of junk in his home.  We may be able to keep plodding along with Bill and convincing him that he is hurting his family.  At this point it becomes a matter of whether he loves his “wife” (I don’t think they were married) and daughter more than woodworking magazines.  That may get a few more nuts and bolts thrown in the trash.  But at the end of the day it’s not going to go deep enough.

The only thing that will transform Bill is a beautiful Jesus.  Bill’s deeper issues of shame and idolatry do need to be addressed.  But they must be addressed in light of the glorious gospel of Christ.  It is only through the beauty of Christ that a naked man can stand before the Lord—otherwise he continues to hide (in Bill’s case behind piles of junk).  It is only when Christ is seen as a treasure that sticks, magazines, screws, bolts, and saw blades are seen for what they really are; namely, tools.  Bill will not be actually healed until he is swept up into the much bigger than himself story of the gospel. 

So I’m left to ask, is your gospel big enough to transform a hoarder or would it only clean his house? 

Blast From the Past: Cinderella Dressing Up?

Mike Leake

I’ve decided to go through some of the older articles that I have written and pull them out of the vault.  Many of these articles are more akin to vaulting Snow Dogs than Dumbo.  Nonetheless, it is fun to look back and see some of the things the Lord was working in my heart. 

Occasionally, I have skipped across a blog post that was a turning point in my life, ministry, or writing.  The following article was written back in 2008 when Tony Kumner included me in the SBC Voices Blog Madness.  This caused me to seriously reflect on the place of blog promotion in the kingdom of Christ.  I am glad that I decided at this point to take writing more seriously. 

Enjoy:

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#16 seeds never win in the NCAA tournament. It’s always cute to watch them try against the powerhouse schools. There are two major things that separate the big schools from the little schools that get a #16 seed: Recruitment and Talent.

I am a #16 seed in the SBC Blog Madness. (Be sure to vote) I have little chance to get past the first round. I am just being honest. I am in the same division as Ed Stetzer and Tom Ascol. They will easily make it to the next round. And in order to get one of the two remaining spots I would have to beat out Peter Lumpkins, Joe Thorn/Steve McCoy’s subtext blog, Alan Cross, B21, amongst a host of others. No chance.

You know what separates me from the “big blogs”? Yep, you guessed it– Recruitment and Talent. I have never been good at recruitment. It feels contrary to the gospel. It seems self-indulgent and prideful. Or does it? From the time I began blogging I have struggled with whether or not I should engage in a blog-promotion. Of course my intent would not be to promote myself (or secretly is it?). I have kind of had the Field of Dreams approach to blogging. If you blog it they will come. I have had about 15,000 hits in the last couple of years. I only have 8 google reader subscribers. And I think a few from other feed readers. Some people do read this blog. But I have yet to see Shoeless Joe Jackson as a visitor or in the comments.

Here is my question for all 8 of you: Is blog promotion wrong?

  • More readers means better discussion. But better discussion means more time spent sifting through comments.
  • In order to promote the blog it means being more involved in online discussions. This can be helpful but it can also be distracting from hands on ministry. But, is blogging a “ministry”?
  • In promoting the blog am I promoting Jesus or trying to make a name for myself? (I realize you cannot answer this one).
  • Am I even decent enough at blogging? I know that the more the blog is known the more my faults will be known–like when to use a comma, semi-colon, etc. I’ve seen these online discussions–they get ugly. People are nasty. People take your ideas and make them something they are not. Do I really want that to be a part of my life? Is it realistic to not expect that to be? Am I wasting my talents out of fear?

I think as I have been thinking through this it comes down to one key question–am I blogging for Jesus or am I blogging for myself? If I am blogging for myself then blog-promotion is stupid and prideful. If I am blogging for Jesus then blog-promotion is merely proclaiming the gospel. Paul did come in fear and trembling and he did preach Christ and Him crucified. But in order to do that he had to stand up in busy synagogues and start preaching. He had to believe that he had something to say.

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