A Pastor's Heart

Pastoring, It’s a Process

Pastoring is a process. In fact, it’s many processes. When I came to the one and only church I served for nearly forty years of ministry it was a church that, historically, had not been Christ-centered, Biblically focused, socially conscious, or mission minded. Pastoring the church was like turning a large ship to a different direction.

It was a process, a long process. Disciplining people was a process. Working with church boards was a process. Helping the congregation to catch a vision was a process.

Yes, pastoring involves many processes, and we don’t like processes. We want results, now. Goals are wonderful and creating steps to achieve those goals is critical. Yet, all along the way we can be impatient with those steps, always anxious to moving on to the next step, to get to the “the next level” as we so often here, and then to reach the goal. What happened to enjoying the journey? If I had to list regrets of my ministry, and I think I’ve mentioned this before, one of my main regrets is that I’d been more intentional about enjoying the journey.

Let me share a personal parable from nature. Jesus used parables based on nature so I’m going to do the same here.

It’s a process, raising and releasing Monarch butterflies. We regularly turn our screened-in porch, called a lanai here in Florida, into a butterfly house to carry out this process. We place a potted milkweed plant purchased from a nursery in the lanai. If it’s been in the open any length of time it has been visited by a female butterfly who’s left a number of her eggs on the underside of the leaves.

Within days we spot tiny little caterpillars crawling about on the leaves, feeding continually. Their ravenous appetite allows them to grow at an incredible rate, and within a couple of weeks the caterpillars are the thickness of a crayon and leave the decimated plant to crawl up something vertical for their next stage.

When they find the perfect spot they begin to attach themselves to it by their back end. They then curl into a shape like the letter “J” and grow still. Then the skin behind their head splits, and they wriggle out of their caterpillar skin, the skin rolling up toward the tail end, exposing a chrysalis. The newly revealed chrysalis wiggles and wiggles some more until the rolled up skin of the previous caterpillar stage falls to the ground. Then they grow still, for over a week, while a hidden miraculous transformation is in process.

The green chrysalis slowly becomes semi-transparent, revealing distinct butterfly wings folded inside. Within days the chrysalis splits open at the bottom out of which the butterfly emerges, wings pleated and wet. The butterfly hangs there, at the end of the empty chrysalis, slowly pumping its wings with fluid, expanding them to full size for flight.

The butterfly slowly flaps its wings back and forth, strengthening them or perhaps testing them. Eventually it takes flight and flutters about the lanai at which point we gently catch it in, you guessed it, a butterfly net, and release it outside. It soars into the blue sunlit sky and freedom. Yes, it’s a process for a butterfly to go from a nearly invisible egg under a leaf to a colorful creature fluttering across the sky and swishing down to one flower blossom after another.

Most of what happens in our own lives is also a process, which we don’t always appreciate. Just as my wife and I have sometimes been impatient with the drawn out process of a butterfly emerging, so we can be impatient with the process of circumstances changing, events unfolding, relationships changing, or our own growth as God’s person. And, as a pastor, it’s easy to become impatient with many of the processes that are going on in our churches. Yet, this is how God works, not only with butterflies, but with us individually and with pastoring our churches..

Author Kelly M. Kapic writes, “God doesn’t fret about process, but seems to enjoy and value it. In fact, although God clearly can do whatever He wants and as quickly as He wants, He doesn’t tend to do things instantaneously… God doesn’t rush when He works.” (You’re Only Human, p 147)

Life’s a process in all kinds of ways. Pastoring is a process in all kinds of ways. Though we have a goal, an objective, or a result in view, God values the process and has His purposes in it for us. We should value that process too!

The words of Jesus to His disciples, indicating that His teaching among them involved a process, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.” (John 16:12)

Jesus in Disguise

While I was pastoring our church in Toledo, Ohio, Bill started attending the church. Bill lived alone, down the street, in a small ten foot wide mobile home that most would refer to as a trailer. Bill’s social skills were limited. He was a nice man, but, admittedly, not the type of person people would naturally be attracted to. Bill had this habit of suddenly inhaling a breath of air, sniffing every few seconds. Being the preacher up front, it could be distracting. One week my wife made him an apple pie, having packed it in a flat cardboard box. Bill expressed his gratitude, took the boxed pie, turned it on its edge, then tucked it under his arm, and started walking toward home. We’ve always wondered about the condition of the pie once he unpacked it at home.

Over the years of pastoring we’ve had other folks come to our church who were a lot like Bill, often with marginal social skills, sometimes having grooming habits that would be considered substandard by most others. I figured out what God was doing, so I determined to see these dear folks as Jesus in disguise.

We’re going to come across people different from us in ways that make them less appealing. They may be a relative, a neighbor, a co-worker, or even a fellow church attender (especially true for pastors). I’ve often said there are people I wouldn’t mind being holed up in a barn with during a snowstorm for an extended time, and there are others I would not want to be stuck with during a snowstorm. It’s those folks that I’d rather they find their own barn that I’m referring to.

God calls me to love all people, even those I don’t like, or at least don’t like as much as others. It’s those I would not like spending much time with that I’ve come to see as Jesus in disguise! I’ll be honest with you, over nearly 40 years of ministry, Jesus showed up disguised as quite a number of people!

We all have people we’re naturally attracted to, people with whom we have much in common, those who are in many ways like us. Then there are those to whom we’re not naturally drawn. We have to recognize what God is up to here. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow He will put people near us who we’d rather not be near!

As a Christian I’ve come to see that this is a test! It’s an opportunity for spiritual growth. These folks I’d rather not be stuck in a snowstorm with are Jesus in disguise. He cares a lot for them, and how I treat these folks is how Jesus sees me treating Him; He takes it personally!

Jesus told a story that we’ve all preached on a few times, at least, the parable of the Good Samaritan. The context, as you undoubtedly remember, is Jesus’ conversation with an expert in Jewish law. Jesus tells him a story of a man who was mugged along a road. Two religious guys, a priest and a Levite, passed by the injured man, but a Samaritan (Samaritans and the Jewish population had, at best, a strained relationship) helped the injured man who was Jewish, a man to whom he would not have been naturally drawn.

Jesus asked the expert in religious law, “’Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’ The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’ Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’” (Luke 10:36-37)

The Calling of Being Passive

During my four decades of ministry with our church in Toledo, Ohio, I attended a great many church seminars. Quite a number had an agenda, either spoken or unspoken, that there are principles you can adopt to grow your church. I, and I suspect a great many of the other pastoral attendees, returned home newly enthused to cast a fresh vision, roll up the ecclesiastical sleeves, and get to work implementing the new strategic concepts.

As I look back over my ministry, I’m still glad I attended most of these conferences and sought to implement something of what I learned. On the other hand, as I look back over my ministry, I wish I would have lightened up a bit at times and enjoyed the journey more.

Yes, a step of faith is important, but so sometimes is a stop of faith! Faith not only can call us to be pro-active but also pro-waiting, to stop, to rest, to do nothing for the time being. There’s certainly a Biblical basis for sometimes taking this pro-waiting approach to ministry.

The nation of Israel was at war with the Philistines and were losing. Then they remembered the Ark of the Covenant back at Shiloh. There was an apparent general consensus. “Let us bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.” (1 Samuel 4:3) They did, and they lost. Bad idea; the Philistines ended up with the Ark. This undoubtedly surprised the Israelites. After all, the Ark had been carried around the city of Jericho and the city was conquered. They figured it was a transferable principle. Not so. The first time it was God’s idea, this time it was their idea; big difference.

We don’t have the Ark that we’re tempted to position for success. We do have our programs and strategies.

Isaiah the prophet was called upon by God to declare judgment on Israel for depending on an alliance with Egypt to guarantee safety from their enemies. God’s Word through Isaiah? “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” (Isaiah 30:15) They weren’t to be busy establishing such alliances but to rest quietly with the trust that God would defend them.

We don’t depend on Egypt to build a great church. We may depend on our programs and strategies to build a great church.

The psalmist, addressing the issue of depending on such alliances, declared on behalf of God, “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

We can come to believe it all depends on our working. It may depend more than we think on our waiting, on our being still. There may be times to pause rather than to push.

We often use the imagery of sowing and reaping in ministry. I grew up on an Iowa farm and we did a lot of sowing and reaping. Yes, we worked hard, but we didn’t make crops grow and produce a harvest. We tilled the field, planted, cultivated, and then waited, waited for the crop to grow. God did the growing. Shouldn’t this balance between working and waiting be present in the pastoral field which God has called us to tend?

Identifying a Possible Idol of Pastors

I’m reading The Power of Prayer and the Prayer of Power by R. A. Torrey. He has some words for pastors on an idol in our lives and how it prevents us from being effective in prayer. I thought it worth sharing.

“The temptation to make an idol of our reputation is especially real with ministers of the gospel. Many people today put an extraordinary and absurd value upon what is called advanced thought and original thinking. If a minister of the gospel is true to the old God-given doctrines, no matter how scholarly and how brilliant he may be, he will be rated as not scholarly and not up-to-date by many people.

“On the other hand, no matter how little a scholar or how poor a thinker a man may be, if he promotes views that are a little contrary to biblical teaching, he will at once be rated as a great thinker, fully abreast of the times, and a great scholar. So many ministers who are really perfectly sound at heart in their own views will throw out a little suggestion now and then in order to make people think that they are up-to-date and in tune with the culture, yet those suggestions will undermine the faith of the young men and women in their congregations. They have made idols of their reputations, and they have lost their power in prayer.

“Sometimes we ministers realize that if we use very ornate rhetoric and theatrical modes of address we will not win as many souls to Christ as we will by preaching the simple, straight gospel, but we will have a far greater reputation as pulpit orators. Many men in the pulpit today have sacrificed their real power for God by cultivating elaborate and highly polished rhetoric and oratorical methods of delivery that awaken the admiration and applause of shallow men and women, but has robbed them of real power for God. Such men have made idols of their reputations, and they are not on praying ground.

“Oh, men and women, if you covet power in prayer, get alone with God and let Him search you. Ask Him to show you if there is any idol in your heart, and when He shows it to you, do away with it today.”

Pastors and Their Strangely Attractive Scars

Here’s a link to a book review by Harold Senkbeil of M.Craig Barnes’ book Diary of a Pastor’s Soul I thought of value to share…..

Pastoring The Wheat and the Tares Church

I find all four of J. C. Ryle’s expository thoughts on the Gospels to be great devotional reading and good primers for sermon ideas! In the quote below Ryle comments on Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares as recorded in Matthew 13. I find his words to be a realistic appraisal of what pastors face with their churches. I also find that the truth he expresses offers a measure of encouragement!

Ryle writes that “this parable teaches us that good and evil will always be found together in the professing church until the end of the world. The visible church is set before us as a mixed body. It is a vast field in which wheat and weeds grow side by side. We must expect to find believers and unbelievers, converted and unconverted, the sons of the kingdom, and the sons of the evil one, all mingled together in every congregation of baptized people.

“The purest preaching of the gospel will not prevent this. In every age of the church, the same state of things has existed. It was the experience of the early church Fathers. It was the experience of the Reformers. It is the experience of the best ministers at the present hour. There has never been a visible church or a religious assembly of which the members have been all wheat. The devil, that great enemy of souls, has always taken care to sow tares. The most strict and prudent discipline will not prevent this.

“Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents all alike find it to be so. Do what we will to purify a church, we shall never succeed in obtaining a perfectly pure communion. Tares will be found among the wheat. Hypocrites and deceivers will creep in. And, worst of all, if we are extreme in our efforts to obtain purity, we do more harm than good. We run the risk of encouraging many a Judas Iscariot, and breaking many a bruised reed. In our zeal to gather up the tares, we are in danger of uprooting the wheat with them. Such zeal is not according to knowledge and has often done much harm. Those who care not what happens to the wheat, provided they can root up the tares, show little of the mind of Christ. And after all, there is deep truth in the charitable saying of Augustine, ‘Those who are weeds today, may be wheat tomorrow.’” Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Matthew [Updated Edition]: A Commentary” by J. C. Ryle

Influence

I’m continuing my reading of The Letters of John Newton. What a prolific letter writer! It’s taking me a long time to read through this thick book of his letters. That’s why you’re seeing frequent posts referencing John Newton’s thoughts.

The famous hymn writer, pastor, and author wrote a letter to an unidentified pastor who had greatly influenced his life. In part he writes, “It was, under God, that your favor and influence brought me into the ministry. And though I be nothing—yet he who put it into your heart to patronize me, has been pleased not to allow what you then did for his sake to be wholly in vain. He has been pleased, in a course of years, by so unworthy an instrument as I am, to awaken a number of people, who were at that time dead in trespasses and sins. And now some of them are pressing on to the prize of their high calling in Christ Jesus; and some of them are already before the throne!” (from The Letters of John Newton)

John Newton is famous, but we know nothing of the pastor whom Newton credits for guiding him into the ministry. Newton writes his mentor, sharing how his influence on Newton is spreading among those who Newton is influencing, some of whom are now in heaven.

I wonder if this pastor ever felt he wasn’t having much of an impact for the Lord. Very likely his ministry was obscure by human standards. He may not have had a large sphere of influence, but one of the men he influenced, John Newton, did, and still does have a large sphere of influence. Would we know of John Newton if it hadn’t been for this unknown pastor God used in his life?

The application for our own ministry is obvious. We may never know how far reaching our own ministry is or will be. That’s in God’s hands. We just need to be faithful and minister to those, be they many or few, the Lord puts within our sphere of influence. John Newton’s mentor was faithful with this task, and aren’t we glad he was!

Another John Newton Quote

“For every new service, I stand in need of a new supply, and can bring forth nothing of my supposed store into actual exercise–but by his immediate assistance. His gracious influence is that, to those who are best furnished with gifts, which the water is to the mill, or the wind to the ship, without which the whole apparatus is motionless and useless.” John Newton

“Live by Faith on Your Face”

Charles Stanley, the well-known pastor and writer is now 88 years old. In my opinion he oozes godliness, and when you add that to the wisdom that can come from many years of living, well, I’m ready to listen to anything Dr. Stanley has to say. Here’s a thought of his on prayer.

“I start the day on my knees with the Lord. I end it that way. And oftentimes I’ll be studying and think, ‘It’s time for me to ask the Lord about something here.’ And so for me, that’s the key. It’s the key to everything. Because what you are doing, you’re acknowledging God at the moment—you need his help, his insight, his understanding, or his courage, or his faith, whatever it might be.

“I would say to anybody: the greatest lesson you can learn is to learn to live by faith on your face before God. You can face anything, no matter what it is. He said, ‘I’ll never leave you or forsake you,’ but if I’m so busy I’m not listening to him, I’m not waiting for him, I’m not expecting him to do something—I think people face a lot of circumstances and go through a lot of heartache and trouble that would be unnecessary if they would just stop and listen.”

Taken from Christianitytoday.com at https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/september-web-only/charles-stanley.html