Don't Lose Your Awe!

I grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  It was a great place to grow up.  The city is well-known for being the coldest major city in North America.  It is also a place that is flat.  There are no hills in Winnipeg – it is built on some of the flattest land in the world.

My wife is from Montana and when we got married, we settled in the Missoula area.  And after growing up in a place with no hills, I never tire of looking at the mountains around me.  Whether it’s the Flint Creek Range south of Drummond or Snowbowl and Lolo Peak on my morning walks, I cannot get enough of mountains.  After almost 15 years of living in western Montana, the peaks never get old.

Are there things in your life that you never tire of?  Things that constantly amaze you?  Things that generate awe in your life?  Is God included on that list?

In his book, Dangerous Calling:  Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry, Paul David Tripp addresses the danger of losing our awe of God.  Pastors handle God’s word each and every day.  They talk about the things of God.  They counsel people on the basis of those truths.  They study and parse His revelation.  And in some cases, while familiarity may not breed contempt, it is easy for it to breed a sense of commonness toward God and the things of God.  And this danger is not just for pastors – I think any believer can fall into this danger of divine things becoming increasingly common in our lives.

Dr. Tripp lists a variety of situations where this can happen.  Read this list carefully and with a sense of self-examination:

You’ve spent so much time in Scripture that its grand redemptive narrative, with its expansive wisdom, doesn’t excite you anymore.  You’ve spent so much time exegeting the atonement that you can stand at the foot of the cross with little weeping and scant rejoicing.  You’ve spent so much time discipling others that you are no longer amazed at the reality of having been chosen to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  You’ve spent so much time unpacking the theology of Scripture that you’ve forgotten that its end game is personal holiness.  You’ve spent so much time in strategic, local-church ministry planning that you’ve lost your wonder at the sovereign Planner that guides your every moment.  You’ve spent so much time meditating on what it means to lead others in worship, but you have little private awe.  It’s all become so regular and normal that it fails to move you anymore….  (Paul David Tripp, Dangerous Calling, pg. 114-115)

Is that you?  And if it is you, what can you do about it?  The remedy Dr. Tripp suggests is to begin with one of the Bible’s awe passages, a passage like Ps. 145.

I will extol you, my God and King,
    and bless your name forever and ever.

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
    and his greatness is unsearchable.

On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
    and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

 The Lord is gracious and merciful,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord,
    and all your saints shall bless you!

The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;
    he also hears their cry and saves them. (Ps. 145: 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 18-19, ESV)

Psalms like this make it clear that the deepest motivation of every human being is to live in awe of God.  It is an awe that should govern our reality.  That awe should shape our decisions, it should empower our marriages, it should guide our parenting, it should give direction in our walk with God, and it should dominate every aspect of our ministry.

Have you lost your awe?  Are the things of God becoming common?  Do you tire of walking with God or ministering to the people of God?  Seek God’s face, meditate on His character, praise Him for his work and wonder at His salvation.  Don’t lose your awe – you don’t know what else you will lose along with it.

An Old Idea Crystallized in a New Way

How do we make disciples?  Of course, ultimately it is God who makes disciples, but what role do we play in that process as a church?  What does that role look like and how can we participate in what God is doing more effectively?

These are the questions rolling around in my head after hearing Dr. Tony Campolo speak last Thursday.  Dr. Campolo was in town promoting the Missoula Interfaith Collaborative and he graciously took time from his schedule to have a session with about 50 area pastors.  He shared for about an hour, and then took questions from the audience.  It was a challenging time for me.  Although Dr. Campolo and I would disagree on a number of things, I know he has a heart for God.  His insights on our world and the impact of the kingdom of God on our society, especially those from a sociological point of view, were thought-provoking.

But out of all the good stuff I heard, there was one statement he made that immediately connected with me.  I pulled out my phone, opened my task program and typed it in so I would not forget.  (I hope Dr. Campolo did not think I was texting someone….)

The statement was made in the context of a discussion about making disciples.  Dr. Campolo suggested that a primary way of making disciples in churches today was didactic.  We have discipleship classes.  We hold catechism classes and membership classes.  We do one on one mentoring.  And for some, this is a very effective way of making disciples.  The challenge of course, is moving all that head knowledge – which can be substantial – into a heart knowledge that is lived out in daily life.

Dr. Campolo then mentioned a second method of training disciples, and he illustrated it with a story.  A few years back, while speaking in England, he was approached by two young men who were doing doctrinal theses on American cities.  After hearing about Dr. Campolo and his ministry work in the inner city, they asked if they could join his ministry for the summer as “missionaries.”  They added to their request with this bit of information – that before he said yes, Dr. Campolo should know that they were both agnostic.  Could they still come and work with his ministry?

Dr. Campolo enthusiastically invited them, but with one condition.  If they were going to be missionaries, they would have to participate fully in the spiritual life of the ministry.  They were expected to attend and contribute to morning Bible Study.  They were expected to attend worship services.  They were expected to do everything that was expected of any other missionary in the organization, despite the fact that they were agnostics.

And that is just what they did.  And you probably know the end of the story – before the summer was over both of them had received Christ as their Savior and Lord and both are now serving the Lord as Anglican clergymen in England.

The story was meant to illustrate Dr. Campolo’s second method of making disciples – becoming disciples by doing the work of a disciple.  That is the phrase that connected with me.  Not because the idea was necessarily new, but rather the way he crystallized it really got me thinking.  As a church, we need to be intentional about training disciples.  And one effective way of doing that is placing believers, especially spiritually young believers, in environments and circumstances where they are expected to act like disciples.

What does that look like?  Well, for our church, the first examples I thought of were encouraging believers to serve with AWANA or on our Mexico Missions team or at camp in the summer.  Each of those opportunities places them in an environment where they are confronted with the word of God, where they are serving alongside mature believers and where they are expected to do the work of a disciple.  Dr. Campolo’s words got me thinking about other places and opportunities where we can be intentional about training disciples this way.

Does this mean the teaching part of making disciples should be thrown out?  Not at all.  In fact, I cannot think of a better combo for training disciples – being taught and mentored by a mature believer while placing them in an environment where they are expected to do the work of a disciple as well. 

Is this a new and revolutionary idea?  Nope.  But God has a wonderful way of taking ideas we have heard before and repackaging them in a way that suddenly connects for us.  In this case, it is to be intentional not only in teaching disciples, but encouraging them to participate in opportunities where they will be expected to do the work of a disciple as well.

Your Worship - Complaint-centered or Cross-centered?

The following an article I wrote for the January, 2013 edition of the Rocky Mountain Bible Mission's Rendezvous Newsletter.

Worship is a word that can be very divisive in a church.  We have all heard the complaints.  (Maybe we were the complainers.)  The service is too long.  Too short.  The music was too loud.  Too long.  Worship was too traditional.  Too contemporary.  There were too many distractions.  Perhaps you have some complaints that I have not listed.  There are many – it seems like believers spend far too much time being upset over the issue of worship.

And frankly – I think that is pretty sad.  Don’t get me wrong – I understand having strong opinions.  I have them myself.  There are certain ways I prefer to worship the Lord and there are other ways that are a little out of my comfort zone.  I get that.  But when we spend so much time complaining about worship, we miss the point of why worship exists.

Worship, first of all, is not about us.  It is not for us.  It is not meant to give us a fuzzy feeling or an emotional high or music to dance around to.  Worship is for God.  It is directed at God.  It is His alone.  And our whole lives should be lived to worship. Everything we do as believers should be worshipfully focused on Him.  Why?  Because He alone is worthy.

And why is he worthy?  There are many reasons, but here is the one that hits me the hardest.  Here is how the saints see it in heaven.  

 “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.’”  (Rev. 5:9-10 - ESV)  

The short version is this – our Lord is worthy of worship because of the cross.  At the cross, God provided a sacrifice that ransomed people from every tribe and nation and brought them into His kingdom to serve Him forever. 

So it stands to reason – at least to me anyway – that any worship we express to God should not be complaint-centered, but cross-centered.  Every song we sing, every prayer we express, every Scripture passage we ponder and every gift we give should be done in light of the cross.  Worship should happen in light of the event that changed our lives, set our eternal hope and by His grace, touches everything we do in every day of our lives.  As we set our lives to worship – in the church or outside of the church, that worship should be gripped by the cross, the single most important thing in your life. Don’t let the worship flowing from your life be centered on complaints, but rather on the cross.

What is a Pastor? A Book Review of The Pastor by Eugene Peterson

I don’t usually read autobiographies.  I am not sure why I feel that way.  Likely it has something to do with my feeling that the autobiographer is not always able to provide an accurate reflection on their own life.  All too often, I am disappointed by the publication of autobiographies of people who are just slightly removed from their “15 minutes of fame.”

Dr. Eugene Peterson’s autobiography – The Pastor: A Memoir – might change my mind about autobiographies.  This book is a reflection of his life as he has lived it through the lens of becoming and then being a pastor. 

The book itself is a wonderful read.  The chapters alternate from short to rather lengthy.  The subject matter is a mixed bag as well.  Whimsical stories of growing up in Kalispell, MT are mixed in with thoughtful meditations on a variety of topics.  All the chapters relate, directly or indirectly to the vocation God called Dr. Peterson to – that of a pastor.

The book resonated with me immediately, not only because I live a few hours south of Kalispell, but also because of Dr. Peterson’s journey toward his vocation.  Like Dr. Peterson, I too was a reluctant pastor.  Like him, a vocation in the pastorate was not my first choice – academics was.  And like him, I woke up one day with the realization that God had called me and gifted me to be a shepherd, despite my initial reluctance.  And since that calling, like Dr. Peterson, I also have wrestled to discover just what it means to lead and shepherd a flock of people seeking God.

In addition to much discussion on the nature of the pastorate, Dr. Peterson has much to say about other great topics.  What is does it mean to be a community of believers and how is such a community nurtured?  How do architecture and worship intersect?  What is it like going through the “badlands” of ministry?  Why are pastors “invisible” much of the week?  And there is story after story of how the Word of God and the community of the people of God drew those seeking God into a walk with Him.

And while, as a pastor I was both challenged and blessed by this book, I don’t believe this book is for pastors only.  It gives a non-pastor a unique glimpse into the thinking and even the struggles of their pastor.  It gives insight into the pastor’s understanding of his weekly “invisibility.”  And it reminds each of us of the power of the Word of God and the impact of a faithful shepherd.

As a result, I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a good, thought-provoking read.  Although Dr. Peterson and I come from different church backgrounds and have some different views on theology, we share a calling that is precious.  Like Eugene Peterson, I too am a pastor.  And like him, I continually reflect – and marvel – on what that word really means.