Category: christianity

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christianity leadership

Ministry Idolatry from Tim Keller

The following is from 3 questions with Tim Keller at Towers Online.

Q: What safeguards should 20-something pastors have in place to avoid the idolatry of ministry fame and the attitude of big numbers equals success?

TK: If you know it is a danger, that is a very important start. Additionally, when you find yourself unusually discouraged because things aren’t growing or people aren’t listening to you — you have to catch yourself. You have to realize “This is an inordinate amount of discouragement, which reveals the idolatry of justification by ministry.” Meaning, you say you believe in justification by grace, but you feel like and are acting like you believe in justification by ministry. You have to recognize you are making something of an idol out of ministry. When you do experience inordinate discouragement because things aren’t going well, you need to say, “It’s okay to be discouraged but not to be this discouraged. This is discouragement that leads to idolatry,” and you repent.

Additionally, idols create a fantasy world. You may think that you are just thinking about ministry strategy, but it could be you’re fantasizing about success. So be careful about doing too much daydreaming about success, what you would like to see happen. Because it’s really a kind of pornography. You’re actually thinking about a beautiful church and people acclaiming you: be careful about fantasizing too much about ministry success and dreaming about it and thinking about what it’s going to look like.

I think the equation with fantasizing about the future is a good correction and reminder that I need.  It’s hard to maintain a healthy dose of vision for your future, while remaining a minister in the present.

For you who are reading, how do you maintain a vision for the future without living in an alternate, fantasized reality?

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christianity

Storyframes | Unconventional Baptism

This is why I love what I do.  Please watch it!

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christianity personal

Reading the Bible – A Simple Truth

I guess I’ve been in a reflective mood over the past few weeks, and have been dwelling on some of the things I have learned over the past few years.  Since college, my view of the Bible has been drastically altered from a book filled with nuggets of wisdom to the narrative of the glory of God.

One simple thought that struck me recently is that reading scripture ONLY in a verse by verse way, it’s way too easy to miss out on the overall theme of the Bible.  Similarly, reading Scripture without a theological foundation is like trying to put together a shelving unit without a parts list.  This was, in part, why I think I struggled to really love reading God’s word.

Verse by verse, inductive study is very useful and helpful, but if you only study Scripture from the inductive lens, which is the predominant mode I was taught, it is very difficult to see the overall storyline of God’s redemptive work.

I think the best way I’ve come to understand this is by analogy.  I need to have an overall vision for where my life and ministry is heading, while I also need to do the daily discipline of managing tasks that align toward that end.  If I don’t have vision, I’ll be busy for the rest of my life without really accomplishing much, and if I don’t do the daily tasks, I’m never going to fulfill God’s calling on my life.

I think it is pretty similar with our reading of Scripture.  If you only read the Bible as a great story, you’re going to miss much of God’s grace in momentary, day-to-day life with specific verses.  If you only read it verse by verse, mining for nuggets, you’re going to miss the forest for the trees, and accomplish a ton, but never really “get it”.

The meta-narrative of Scripture helps me to understand each passage in the context of God’s overall plan, and the day-to-day discipline of reading and studying passages is when I receive very specific, applied encouragement, correction, or wisdom from God.

I am thankful for God’s divine inspiration of the Bible…it has, does, and will continue to transform me.

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austin stone christianity personal

Redeeming Love

At The Austin Stone today, Aaron Ivey led us in worship to song called “Praise for a Fountain Opened” or more commonly, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood”.

The last line of the fourth verse, and the anthem we camp out on is:

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be til I die.

Additionally, Matt Carter preached from 2 Corithians 1:3-5 on comforting those with the comfort we have received from God himself.  Through this song and teaching, a very simple truth echoed in my soul Sunday morning:

We are incapable of sharing love apart from the grace and love of Christ.

I have the tendency in my heart to extend my concept of love to people, which very rarely is tied to the cross.  I wrote a little about this concept in Forgiveness in Marriage, but it’s been ringing in my life in a variety of ways–forgiveness, comfort, love, mercy, and justice to name a few.  I am so prone to attempt to do these things on my own, and never tie the threads of my responses back to the power of the gospel flowing from my life.

We have two choices in how we define love: an internal sense of what it is, or an external foundation from the demonstration of others.  Christ’s sacrificial, atoning death is, according to scripture, the greatest act of love in human history.  Any act of love that doesn’t have this simple fact at its base, is establishing a concept of love outside the foundation of love.

We simply cannot divorce love from that which was demonstrated on the cross.

If I desire redeeming love to be my theme ’til I die, I must continue to dwell on the foundation of love that was demonstrated at Calvary.  I cannot crave one thing in worship and ignore it in my life in the smallest of ways.  I MUST go to the fountain of blood poured out for me if I am to forgive my wife, if I am to comfort a neighbor struggling in marriage, if I am to disciple a college student in the scripture, or if I am to demonstrate mercy to my son in his disobedience.

My secondary thought is that Christ’s love is redeeming what is broken.  If I am to follow my savior, I must follow Him into brokenness, toward redeeming what is lost and broken.  Specifically, this redeeming love leads us to be reconcilers and comforters in every single relationship we have.

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Do we desire to love well?  Go back to the cross and be loved.  Do we desire to forgive?  Go back to the cross and be forgiven.  Do we desire to comfort?  Go back to the cross and be comforted.  Do we desire to minister well?  Go back to the cross, and be ministered to.

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christianity personal

The Holy Spirit

I’ve been dwelling on the Holy Spirit as I read Jaeson Ma‘s book The Blueprint.

Here is my simple, yet difficult, thought that arose: the degree to which the gospel is central in my life is directly correlated to the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit in me and through me.

If I want to see how central God is in my life, I just need to look at the evidence.

I am too prone to work in my own power.