John Ortberg and a Church’s Most Impotant Vision

Leadership Journal is not one of my favorite magazines, but last Wednesday it nailed me just where I needed to be nailed (Spring Edition, 2010).

It was a day of frustration.  I was wondering about lots of things.

Why is our building project coming along so slowly?

Why are our worship numbers not growing now (after 8 months of extraordinary growth in 2009?

Why is it so hard to get people to commit to discipleship (beyond Sunday morning worship)?

Why don’t more people volunteer for the nursery?

On and on the list went.  We know its not healthy, but any honest Pastor will tell you that we all have days like this.  Days when we wonder what we are doing and why we are doing it and if it really makes any difference?

None of this was helped by some of the reading I’m doing for our parenting sermon series.  Apparently one of the difficulties with adolescence and the teenage years is that parents hit midlife at about the same time and they face their own identity crisis and have to deal with goals they set in their 20′s that may have gone unaccomplished by the time they are in their late 40′s and 50′s.  I’m a long way from mid-life, but I started to wonder about my goals and accomplishments anyway and what kind of progress I’m making.

Enter Leadership Journal and an article by John Ortberg, one of my favorite pastors and authors.

Ortberg discusses the necessity of vision as it relates to the maturity of the body (the church), but as he says, he’s probably not talking about “the kind of vision you’re thinking about.”

The most important vision, as Ortberg articulates, is not the church’s vision for its programs or ministries or its future, but its vision of God.

Here’s the paragraph that really got me:

The number one “vision problem” with churches today is not (as is widely held) leaders who “lack a vision.”  The real problem is when our primary focus shifts from who God is (a vision that alone can lead to the peace of Christ reigning in our hearts) to what we are doing.

He then goes on to suggest a few ways to diagnose this “mission-replacing-vision sickness”.

• People in leadership feel constant pressure and inadequacy.
• Goals, numbers and techniques replace the goodness of God as the most frequent topics of thought and conversation.
• Leaders view themselves as constantly having to motivate and hype and whip up enthusiasm in the church for doing and giving.  You will sometimes hear people say “vision leaks”; a more accurate statement is that “mission leaks” when it has replaced the vision of God as people’s dominant inner reality.
• People’s sense of esteem or excitement depends on “how church is going.”
• A church’s identity gets rooted in its success.

Ortberg concludes this section of his article with this statement:  “The vision of God is not a tool leaders can use to get the church to function better.  It is freedom from the need to perform for the whole church – beginning with leaders.”

Does Christian “Parenting” Work?

We’ll continue this Sunday with the second in our two part series of teachings on Parenting.  Below are some quotes from Tim Kimmel’s book Grace Based Parenting:  Set Your Family Free that have been on my mind today.

“The painful reality is that too many parents would rather feel good than do good.”

“Since how children turn out is far more contingent on what is going on inside them than outside them, unnecessarily tight boundaries undermine the desire of the Holy Spirit, who is working to build a sense of moral resolve in their hearts.”

“The real test of a parenting model is how well equipped the children are to move into adulthood as vital members of the human race.”

“We need to have kids that can be sent off to the most hostile universities, toil in the greediest work environments, and raise their families in the most hedonistic communities and yet not be the least bit intimidated by their surroundings.  Furthermore, they need to be engaged in the lives of people in their culture; gracefully representing Christ’s love inside these despearate surroundings.”

“Are we, as an entire group, known for sending out children from our homes who are not easily snookered by the corrupted world around them?  It doesn’t appear that we are.”

“There was one fortress that he (Satan) had a difficult time penetrating:  a good, solid family.  Parents armed with little more than a vibrant relationship with God consistently served as the ideal springboard for great people.  So something changed.  We got scared.  and I think that fear is waht motivates so much of the Christian parenting advice we get.”

Sophistication and the Widow Gibson

Last Tuesday, I went hiking at the Civil War battlefield at Perryville, Kentucky.   As a history buff, it is one of my favorite local places to hike.

As I was walking up and then cresting the ridge that gives view to the location of what was once “the widow Gibson’s cabin” I was struck by the possible nature of faith in Kentucky’s 19th century countryside.

I do not recall ever seeing a picture of the Widow Gibson on any of the markers at Perryville, but in my mind’s eye, I could imagine her living alone in her cabin with her nearest neighbors a few ridge’s away.

When she walked through the fields and saw the little purple wildflowers silouetted against the larger yellow buds of another bloom growing wild in nature, did she fret over global warming and the appropriate Christian response to the supposed demise of the environment?

When she thought of God, did she ponder the mystery of the Trinity?

If she ever took Communion was she riddled by the exact presence of God in the sacrament (or the ordinance) as the case may have been?

Was she forced to compromise her Christian ethics to accomodate the paltry entertainment offered up on her television screen?

Did she have to search the bookstore to find the best translation or the best Study Bible; only to find that someone would then insult the legitimacy of that translation or the author of the study notes?

Did she even know that the Bible was initially written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and would it have made any difference?

Maybe she was embroiled in some sort of controversy about whether or not worship was best played and performed with regular notation or shape notes? (contemporary vs. traditional)

Maybe she  was busy trying to figure out whether she was a premillenialist, a postmillenialist or an a-millenialist?

Maybe she wished that she could come up with the money to attend a Christian conference for reviving her spirit?

Or maybe, as scary as it sounds in our current information-saturated, theologically-sophisticated Christian culture, that the Widow Gibson, if indeed she was a Christian at all, was satisfied simply to know Jesus and to have him walk with her and talk with her as she farmed her crops, chopped her wood, cooked her food and walked her ridges.

Maybe our supposed sophistication – rather than making us closer to our Lord – chokes the very life out of our faith and impedes the very relationship we think it will enhance!

Maybe following Jesus is not as sophisticated a task or challenge as we presume?

Never Much Luck

I’ve never had much luck at gardening.  I live in the suburbs, so gardening means putting things in pots and planting shrubs in beds.  Every year for five years, I have planted stuff that has died by the end of the summer.

But this year, I have taken a different tack.  I have thoroughly researched everything I’ve planted to make sure it can handle the conditions (for example, I have a very shady front porch, which meant planting impatiens).  Every day I do what I need to do to take care of the plants.

Here are some of my accomplishments so far . . .

The bamboo I potted on our front porch is growing by leaps and bounds.  The impatiens are doing well and growing slowly.  A rhodedendron is sprouting new leaves.  And another rhodedendron that was near death’s doorstep is doing well.

None of this comes without work and tending.  Two years ago, I planted bamboo in pots on our back deck, but having not researched bamboo, I remained aloof to two basic penchants of bamboo.  They only like about six hours of shade and lots of water.  (on the deck, I forgot the water them and they were under the barrage of almost constant sunlight.)  So, this year, I move the new bamboo in its pot to the corner of my sidewalk for the morning sun each day.  I spritz it’s leaves with water daily and give it a fresh drink every other day.

The impatiens are loving their shade and seem to enjoy having the deceased blooms easily snapped carefully from their flimsy stems.

The one rhodedendron was transplated to a new location where it is now showing signs of its first crop of new leaves!

All of this reminds me of what God has been speaking to me this week about our church’s building project.  God grows mustard seeds into trees of shelter for his creatures, but all of that growing does not come without his tending to us, working in us, and transplanting us to save our leaves and blooms and fruit, if necessary! 

I’m glad to be tended by such an expert gardener and glad he also tends to the church where I serve!  He’s in the business of growing righteous oaks!

The Art of Manly Reading

I have once again had to move my Sabbath Day.  Sunday afternoons through Monday mornings were no longer working so I am now going to try what has traditionally been the least active day of my week:  Tuesday.

It worked really well yesterday.  As I was heading into Lex to do some shopping, I began to wonder what classic books I had not read that I really should read.  Looking for some good advice, I yahoo’ed “100 books for men” on my phone and landed at a great list of books at www.theartofmanliness.com. 

As I looked over the list, another terrific idea hit me.  I certainly do not want Max, my son, to miss out on these books in the same way that I had missed out on so many of them.  My goal is to collect all 100 books, read them, and then pass them onto my son as he gets old enough for them.  I started the collection yesterday with the top 5:  The Great Gatsby, The Prince, Slaughterhouse Five, 1984 and the Republic.  I had to purchase copies of the first three, but still have my High School copy of 1984 and my wife (a political science grad) has The Republic.

It’s an ecclectic list and already I’m excited about it.  It started the reread of  Gatsby yesterday and it’s a shame you have to read it in High School when you probably cannot appreciate the lyricism of Fitzgerald’s writing and the intricacies of his characters.  I was shocked at what I’d missed out on nearly 15 years ago.

Also of interest, the very same website, www.theartofmanliness.com, has listed the top 50 adventure books for men, too, which I hope to eventually tackle and pass on, as well.

Every Moment with God

So many folks at GCF on Sunday asked me for the Brother Lawrence quotes I used on Sunday.  Below I have included the quotes from Brother Lawrence that I used in the second message in our Simple sermon series:  “Simple in Action”.

“For many years I was bothered by the thought that I was a failure at prayer.  Then one day I realized I would always be a failure at prayer and I’ve gotten along much better ever since.” – quoted from The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg

“I have quitted all forms of devotion and all set prayers except those to which my position as a friar obliges me.  Now my only business is to remain in the holy presence of God . . . or better, in an habitual, silent and hidden conversation with God, a thing of joy and inward rapture not to be expressed before others.”

“With me, my time of action is no longer different than my time of prayer.  Amid the clatter and confusion of my kitchen, when numerous people are calling orders, I possess God, and with as great tranquility as though I were on my knees at the blessed sacrament . . . In his service I turn the cake that is in the pan before me.  When that service is done, I kneel in submission before Him, for it is through his grace that I have this work to do.  Then I rise happier than a King.  For me it is enough that I but pick up a straw from the ground for love of him.”

“We should so rule our actions that they be little acts of tribute to God.”

“Men invent means and methods of coming at God’s love.  They learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, so that it seems a world of trouble to bring oneself into the awareness of God’s presence.  Yet it might be so simple.  Is it not easier and quicker to do our common business wholly for the love of Him?  Thus we put his consecration upon all that we lay our hands to, at the same time establishing communion of our hearts with his, summoning the sense of his abiding presence . . . we go, as we are to him, unpretending, single-hearted.”

“It would see almost beyond belief if one could foresee the nature of the converse the soul holds with God at these times.  He seems to delight so in this communion that, upon the soul utterly committed to him, he bestows joys beyond number . . . Thus it gains divine nourishment, an unbounded contentment, of a sort beyond thought or perception; and this with no more effort on its part than simple assent.”

We began a sermon series at GCF yesterday called Simple.  As I shared the sermon with Kyra on Saturday she reminded me that much of what I had written flowed out of the spiritual journey that we have been over the course of the last 12 months.  We can honestly say that we have “simplified” things and have discovered more contentment and freedom with one another and in our relationship with God than we have ever before experienced.

Some of our journey with “simple” will be evident in the remaining five weeks of the series.

But I wanted to explain some of the spiritual journey that went into the closing illustration of yesterday’s sermon.  As I was wrestling with the idea of explaining what it means to “seek ye first the kingdom of God” (because ”simple” is what happens to us when we do that) I knew that God wanted us to understand that his kingdom is something tangible that we can take hold of.  I had decided on Friday to close the message with the exercise of asking everyone to take hold of our chairs as a way of grasping something that does not have eternal value in God’s kingdom and then grabbing hold of the hands of the people around us as a way of taking hold of some things (some people) who have eternal value in the kingdom of God.

But it was not until Sunday morning as I was reading through the sermon a final time that God pointed out to me that it is not merely people that make up his kingdom, but that his kingdom is most manifest and tangible for us when we are together with other people, in community, seeking to receive what it is that God has to offer to us.  In a very real way, then, Jesus was telling his disciples in Matthew 6 to seek more of what they were experiencing as they were sitting around his feet, in community together, receiving his teaching and blessing.  God’s people focusing on Jesus receiving God’s gifts to us through his Son – that is where thethe kingdom is.

There are three additional thoughts I want to offer as and addendeum to yesterday’s sermon.

First, if we focus only on people then we still do not have sight of God’s kingdom.  As we seek to be with other people, we remember that God’s kingdom is most present when we are together seeking his kingdom and seeking to receive from Jesus.  Thus, the kingdom is present whenever we bring a desire – in relationship – to help someone know the love and grace and knowledge and power and joy of Jesus in both word and deed.  The kingdom is present when we share God’s good news in word, but the kingdom is also present when we ask God to keep our mouths shut as we take our places – often silently – beside those who are hurting or struggling.  At all times we seek to receive what Jesus has for us so that his kingdom becomes real to the people with whom we are sharing life.

Second, I wanted to draw us into the idea yesterday that the kingdom of God is present every Sunday morning when we (people) gather to love one another and love God together.  But this is certainly not the only place where we can seek God’s kingdom.  His kingdom is present as we seek it with friends and family and strangers throughout the week.  One of our goals as a family for the new year is to celebrate Sabbath together as a family each Sunday afternoon and evening.  God’s kingdom is with us as week to “be with” each other for the remainder of our Sundays after worship.  We have been reading a Bible passage each Sunday evening, talking about the passage and singing a hymn or praise song together just after lighting a candle for Jesus in our dining room.  The kingdom is present when our families seek Jesus, together.

Finally, I want to add that our goal as a staff at GCF is to help you understand and know the tangible reality of God’s kingdom in your day to day living.  We are reading a book right now called Resurrecting Excellence.  The book’s authors remind us that our call and profession as pastors is to help equip everyone else in the body to live out your call and profession in the life that God has given you.  We want to help you know what it means to seek and experience God’s kingdom with your family as you are getting ready for work in the morning, as you are driving your car to work, as you are doing the job that God has called you to, and as you are with friends or family or neighbors in the evenings or as you are on short-term  mission trips or in worship on Sundays or in Community Groups.  Our call is to help you hear God’s call for you and then to live it out in the life that God has given you.

Seek God’s kingdom – it’s all around you!