I love my brothers in arms. Where I’m at we have a group of associational pastors who try to get together once a month for fellowship, prayer, encouragement, challenge, and food. Let’s not forget the food. Our particular group is a mix—there’s eight of us, and we’re mostly the younger guys. One is a youth pastor in his 20’s, four of us are the four youngest “senior” pastors in our association, all in our 30’s. And then there’s the three old guys (okay, one is in his early 40’s still and he’ll likely beat me up later for calling him old, such are the trials and tribulations of pastoring! 🙂 ). Half of us are full time, the other half bi-vocational. We have two who have been pastors longer than I have been alive, and four who became pastors in the past year. A couple of us have been to seminary, a couple to Bible college, and a couple who have no formal ministry education at all.
I love this group and the different perspectives we bring.
One man among us, though, who constantly encourages me and challenges me yet also convicts me is one of the newest pastors. He didn’t grow up in church and didn’t become a follower of Jesus until his late 20’s. Now he’s been a pastor for just under a year.
When we’re together we share our highs and our lows, we talk about our churches and how we can improve as leaders, and we pray for each other. Listening to this man share last night, I was struck with the same thought I have every time I listen to him: I wish I had a faith that simple.
Coming to faith when he did and just immersing himself in Scripture, he is humbly driven by John 8:31-32, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”; and 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”; and 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth.”
Essentially in the way he tries to live and the way he tries to pastor, he reads the word, sees what it says, and does it. Simple faith. Simple obedience.
I, on the other hand, can look at my life… I started going to church 9 months before I was born. I grew up in church life and in Baptist life. I have seen countless business meetings without singing or prayer over the issues or digging into the word. I have seen the politics and the dealings that come from gossip. I have seen people who love Jesus sabotaged in their attempts to do ministry by people who love their control. I have seen highs along the way, good things that have happened; but I have also seen many lows and red tape and traditions that do nothing but get in the way.
Then I read the Bible, see what it says, and wish we could do it, but can name twenty reasons why it won’t work right now.
Faith gets bogged down in the machinery of growing up in church tradition. And I know from talking to others and seeing the looks in their eyes, I’m not the only one who feels this way.
If our faith is not a simple trust that reads to see what Jesus says and then obeys, then repentance is needed as well as detoxification from the baggage of church and denominational culture.
So here’s to a simple faith and trusting in Christ over culture!
Good thoughts!
“Then I read the Bible, see what it says, and wish we could do it, but can name twenty reasons why it won’t work right now.”
A well-known and respected minister in our area was often quoted as saying, “You don’t deal with things they’re supposed to be, you deal with them as they are.” I wholehearted agree. But we can add that we don’t just leave things the way they are without trying to get them to where they’re supposed to be.
Ministry is often the conflict of the ideal and the real.
Amen to the article. I found I could not obey the Word in the confines of denomination and had to choose which I loved more.
A pastor of sheep leads, not follows the sheep…even when sheep pay his bills. Determine which you love more…the Words of Life or your livelihood….who do you trust to sustain you…the Great Shepherd or some power hungry sheep? Then ask Him for a vision for direction and begin to guide them slowly there with wisdom. Teach them the Word they need to hear and develop it on several levels before implementing in small ways. Some will be impacted and changed forever by your faithfulness.
I have been inside our denomination, then outside, and then back inside. While outside< I did not pastor any church. A pastor on the outside advised me to go back into my denomination, and I did. I had two pastorates before I left, they lasted a total of almost 4 years, and I had two pastorates after I came back. They lasted a total of nearly 24 years, plus one interim that lasted 3 mos. I would add, like David, that I went to church before I was born, the church which I would attend in my childhood. Reading and the study of God's word, coupled with the study of theological works, historical records, counseling information, and literary productions have served to help me develop my understanding. God's word is supreme with me; the rest are subservient to it as far as I am concerned. I should point out that now and then the knowledge gained from outside the word of God elucidates what the word says, showing that it is up-to-date and always contemporaneous and relevant in the best sense of those terms. Still it amazes me that the word is so deep. I admit that I never thought about it, when I began some nearly 56 years ago (it will be on Dec.7, if I live that long). I am thankful for the privilege of getting to know something of God's word, humbling acknowledging the depth of it, the wisdom and profundity therein. I am glad for all the experiences that I have had, good and bad, and how God has used them in altering my life. Now for 40 years, I have been praying for a visitation of God to our nation and to the world. As time has passed I have often mentioned cities, and am happy to report that there are growing evangelical churches in those places, including the favored Baptists, especially Southern. My prayers are made in terms of a reviving and awakening of the churches and the masses, for the whole earth and every soul on it, beginning, hopefully, in this generation and continuing for a 1000 generations and anywhere from 20,000-900,000 years and a million billion planets, God willing. And I certainly plead that such shall be the case, regardless of what happens, for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.