In Appreciation of Jim, Linda and 50 Years

A couple of weeks ago, our family had the privilege to join with the rest of my wife’s family in celebrating my in-laws’ 50^th Anniversary.  We hosted an open house at their church for them, and then almost the entire family – we missed you Reid – spent three days together near Yellowstone Park.

As a pastor, I deal with marriages in turmoil all the time.  Sometimes it is the couple I don’t know, who calls me one day and asks if I do counseling.  They share in my office for one evening, but when I don’t have the quick fix answers they are looking for, I never see them again and next thing I know they are divorced.

Other times it is a couple in my church, friends that I know well.  In those times I have the privilege of helping them work through some turmoil with the goal of making their marriage better than it is already.  Every marriage, even good ones, go through their rough patches.

Being confronted with marriages in various levels of crisis, from mild to serious, makes me appreciate the accomplishment of my in-laws all the more.  50 years of commitment to one another.  50 years of faithfulness.  50 years of friendship.  50 years of dependence on God and dependence on each other.

And the fruit of those 50 years was on display a couple weeks ago in a cabin perched above Hebgen Lake.  All three of their children married believers committed to God.  All of their grandchildren are walking with the Lord.  And their first great-grandchild is due to be born into a family that is committed to raising their children to know and love Jesus Christ.

Now I know my in-laws well enough to say that when/if they read this, they will divert all the glory to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  And they should, since it is God’s grace that sustains us each and every day of our lives.  As the apostle Paul reminds us, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” (2 Cor. 9:8)  That includes the good work of being committed to your spouse and committed to raising a family that knows and loves the Lord.

Yet at the same time, although I will be the first to say that it is God who works in us and enables us, I do want to say this as well.  Jim and Linda, thank you for being willing to pursue the things of God for 50 years together.  Thank you for continually choosing to cleanse yourself from what is dishonorable. (2 Cor. 7:1, 2 Tim. 2:20-21)  Thank you for faithfully working out your salvation in front of your family for 50 years. (Phil. 2:12-13)  Thank you for living the type of winsome Christian life that drew my wife to Christ rather than turned her away.  Thank you for 50 years of example, of faithfulness, and of obedience. 

May God’s blessings rest on you now and forever,

Your son-in-law

Book Review: Saving Eutychus: How to Preach God’s Word and Keep People Awake

It is the bane of all preachers.  It’s the middle of your sermon.  You are passionate about your topic.  And you look around and see someone (or more than one someone) nodding off in your congregation.  I suspect every preacher – even the best ones – have been there.

And if that is you, there is help on the way.  Gary Millar, a transplanted Irishman, and Phil Campbell, an Aussie, have written a wonderful book to provide aid for every pastor.  It is aptly entitled Saving Eutychus:  How to Preach God’s Word and Keep People Awake.  I suspect every preacher will get the title, but for those of you who don’t, check out Acts 20:7-12.  (Even Paul put people to sleep at times….)

Saving Eutychus is an immensely practical and surprisingly funny book about preaching in such a way as to keep your audience in tune with your message.  I have read many preaching and communication books.  Some I enjoyed.  Some I forced myself through.  Some stood on my deck half read until I gave up on them.  This little book – clocking in at only 170 pages – belongs in the first category.

Saving Eutychus has some things in common with other preaching books.  There is a focus on speaking to change the heart.  There is a chapter on finding the big idea in your passage.  Some of that stuff I have read many times before.  But Millar and Campbell’s style make it enjoyable, even if the material is familiar.

I was quite surprised that Millar and Campbell were, like me, manuscript preachers.  (I have always been told that types like us were second class citizens.)  It encouraged me to know that, and to know that they type their manuscript as they would speak it, using present tense verbs frequently.  That is a trick I stumbled on myself years ago – it is nice to know others feel it is valuable as well.

There were a number of chapters that I enjoyed greatly.  One chapter focused on the place of the gospel in preaching, even (and especially) when preaching from the Old Testament.  It offers the reader a biblical theology primer for preachers.  Another investigated the mechanics of sermon delivery, using some useful visual images.  The book ends by walking through the process of building a sermon with Phil Campbell, and then seeing that sermon critiqued by Gary Millar.  Included is a sermon feedback form that can be used to provide feedback on your own sermons.

Is Saving Eutychus the best book on preaching out there?  I would not go that far, but it is good.  It is worth the read.  It is challenging and funny and enjoyable.  And I suspect that every person who speaks publicly – whether preaching or not – will find helpful truths and tips so that they, unlike the apostle Paul in Acts 20, will preach God’s Word and keep people awake.

Abuse in the Church: A Review of A Cry for Justice

Every pastor that has ministered for any length of time is familiar with abuse.  Some pastors or pastor’s wives grew up in abusive situations.  Others see kids or spouses in their community that are abused.  We understand that in our sin-soaked world, abuse happens and we compassionately do our part to minister, care and rescue those in abusive family situations.

             

But one of the things we pastors don’t think much about is abuse in our churches.  I am not talking about sexual predators that all churches should be on guard against.  Rather, I am talking about seemingly ordinary families in our churches, people perhaps in leadership or in ministry that are secretly either abusers or victims of abuse.  This is the topic of Jeff Crippen and Anna Wood’s book A Cry for Justice:  How the Evil of Domestic Abuse Hides in your Church.

            

I do not know either of the authors personally.  A couple in my church gave me the book, sharing with me that Jeff Crippen was an ex-pastor of theirs in the years before they moved to our area.  Jeff has a background in law enforcement and has been a pastor for 20 years.  Anna Wood is an abuse survivor who writes and blogs to help other victims of abuse.

            

A Cry for Justice is a powerful book.  It is obvious that the authors feel passionate about their subject.  Anna dealt with it first-hand as a victim, Jeff as a pastor of a church with abusive families.  It is a call for believers, and especially pastors, to open their eyes to the fact that there may be families in our churches who outwardly appear normal, but in reality are hidden centers of abusive behavior.  The book is a hard read, because it is a hard topic.  Jeff and Anna delve into the mentality of the abuser – their motivations and thought processes.  They present a clear picture of the ugliness of sin and the true depravity of man.

             

The authors argue that the serial abuser has a mentality foreign to our understanding.  While pastors deal with sinful people all the time, we can often see that solid biblical counsel, confession, prayer, forgiveness and the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives can bring true life change.  For the serial abuser, that is not the case, mainly because the authors argue that the serial abuser, even the one who holds a leadership position in the church, is not a believer.  They argue that:

While every Christian can certainly hurt, mistreat or be insensitive to another person, and more frequently than we think, it is impossible for a Christian to be what we have defined as an abuser in this book.  That is to say, Scripture makes it plain that a person whose very mentality and habitual practice is that of entitlement, power, control, and justification, does not know Christ, nor does Christ know him. (p. 241)

The authors argue that when we see the serial abuser who he really is, as someone who does not know Christ, we are able to see the abusive situation as it really is.

            

The book is a valuable resource for pastors.  In addition to chapters on how the abuser thinks and operates (which are very disturbing), there is good counsel about the effect of abuse on children, how the church can help an abuse victim, how abuse often continues after separation and how the church should deal with abusers, especially those who are on a quest for power in the church.  I am not sure I agree with the authors on every point.  They argue that abuse qualifies in Scripture as abandonment (1 Cor. 7:15) and thus enables the abuse victim to pursue divorce without sin.  Another controversial point they make is that pastors should be reading secular experts in the subject of abuse; men and women who have made is a specialty to delve into the mentality of abuse.  I for one am not totally convinced on these last two points, but I do plan to hunt down some further resources to pursue these questions in greater depth.

             

Despite the fact that it contains truths that are hard to read, pastors should read this book.  Jeff Crippen and Anna Wood have done a service to the church.  They have lifted the lid off something we do not want to talk about and have shed the light of the Scripture upon it.  While it should not prompt us to see abuse under every tree and bush, it should equip us to recognize the signs when we see it, and have the tools to compassionately and justly care for the victims of that abuse.

Read This Book!

I read a lot of books.  Some of those books are fine, but when I get a chance I trade them in at a local used book store, knowing that I will never read them again.  Others are better and are books I want in my library because they will be a valuable reference to me.  Still others reach a higher plane, becoming books that I know I need to pull off my shelves every few years and read again.  Dangerous Calling:  Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry by Paul David Tripp is one of those books.

I will admit, I was not keen on reading this book at first.  While I have been impacted by Dr. Tripp’s writing and speaking over the years, I was not sure I wanted to read another book on ministry.  But when a friend suggested we read it together, I agreed and I was so glad I did.

The title of the book – Dangerous Calling – and the graphics suggesting warning and danger on the cover of the book led me to believe that this was a book about the outside pressures, temptations and dangers that confront pastoral ministry.  I was wrong.  Rather, the emphasis of this book is internal.  Dr. Tripp forces the reader to focus on the attitudes, the assumptions and the motivations that all too often guide, and misguide the average pastor.

There are two themes that can be found throughout the book.  The first is a negative one – Dr. Tripp is persistent in giving us a glimpse of the dark underbelly of pastoral ministry.  What does it look like when a pastor has theological knowledge but lacks a heart for God?  What happens when a pastor divorces himself from the church community?  What occurs when the minister does not recognize that the calling they have is a calling to a spiritual battle, a war?  What is the result when a pastor is motivated by pride or a sense of arrival?  What goes wrong when we settle for mediocrity in preaching or seek our own glory rather than God’s?  Over and over again, I found myself searching my own soul, as the words and the personal testimonies of this book revealed my own struggles, my own temptations, my own personal ugliness.  It was not a pleasant experience.

At the same time, another theme persists in the book.  Without this theme, Dangerous Calling would likely be the most depressing book I have ever read.  This positive theme is found in a simple statement – pastors need the truths of the gospel as much as anyone else.  You see, the key to solving all the struggles inherent in pastoral cultural and all the temptations that come upon a sinful person in church leadership is found in the gospel.  The gospel reminds us that our value comes from God, freeing us from feelings of unworthiness.  At the same time, it reminds us also that everything in our lives comes from God, freeing us from pride.  The gospel tells us that all glory belongs to God, not us.  The gospel reminds us that we are sinners, but also has the solution to our sin.  The gospel is about grace and transformation, enabling a flawed instrument to be used by God.  The gospel reminds us of God’s profound and loving care for us.  I could go on and on.  Every ailment in the heart of a pastor can be solved by honestly and carefully preaching the gospel to himself before he preaches it to his congregation.  We can never think we are above the basic truths of the gospel, or begin to believe that they are applicable to the flock but not the shepherd.

So if you are in ministry, read this book.  It will hurt, but the gospel truths in it can heal.  If you are not a pastor, prayerfully read this book yourself and then pass it on to your pastor and perhaps your church leadership.  Pastors are involved in a dangerous calling.  Let’s make sure they are strengthened by and equipped with God’s truth in the midst of it.  Anything less will spell disaster.

Do We Understand New Life in Christ?

This is the last in a series of reflections on the messages at the recent Shepherd’s Conference put on by the Rocky Mountain Bible Mission.  Joel Van Hoogen was our main speaker and he spoke on Removing the Rubble from the Wells of our Salvation.

Joel sees our life as a well, with the life of Christ in us as the refreshing water in that well; water that is necessary for our life as a believer.  Rubble in our well blocks our access to that water.  In our lives, the rubble in our wells is often the doctrines of the Christian faith we lose hold of.  We fall into doubt and unbelief.  We distance ourselves from the authority of the Word of God.  And last, we lose sight of the power of regeneration.

Regeneration is part of the salvation process in which the Holy Spirit of God brings new life or a new creation to us.  Sin springs from spiritual deadness – apart from Christ, we are spiritually dead to God.  We cannot earn our way into His presence or manufacture a reconciled relationship with Him.  Being spiritually dead, a person is actually blind to God, sick in mind and soul and deaf to His truths.

All that changes at salvation.  We become brand new persons.  Sure, we all recognize that sin still infects our lives, but the Bible assures us that at the core of our being, we are new people in Christ.  As the apostle Paul notes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  (2 Cor. 5:17, ESV)

When we are regenerated, we are given new life in Christ.  The life of God resides in us.  As a result, every Christian, as time passes, should reflect that new life in increasing measure.  If we are a new creation at the core of our being, we should increasingly live like one.  This is what sets regeneration apart from another wonderful event that happens at salvation – our justification.  Justification is the divine act in which a holy God makes sinful humans acceptable to Him.  Justification happens by grace through faith.  But justification, though it is vital in salvation, is really invisible.  We do not see the fruits of justification.  But we do see the fruits of regeneration.  You see, regeneration leads us directly into sanctification, the process of the believer becoming more like Christ.  Sanctification is the outworking of our new creation life.  The life of Christ in us enables us to be more like Christ.

The idea of regeneration is so important to grasp hold of because it changes how we approach the Scriptures.  Every believer knows that the New Testament epistles have a lot of material on how a believer should live.  The apostle Paul alone dedicates chapter after chapter on what we tend to call ethical teaching. Unfortunately, reading those chapters can be discouraging for believers, because we assume that they are lists of what we need to do.  Frequently they are guilt-inducing in our lives.

Regeneration calls us to look at those chapters differently.  Rather than ethical demands written down to make us feel miserable, we should look at them as a description of the new creation in Christ.  These are the changes new life in Christ can make in us.  They are the pulsations of the regeneration life in us.  They become the things we want to do, and no longer the things we need to do.  If we are truly a new creation in Christ at the core of our being, we should desire to do these things, not out of guilt but out of a true response to who we really are. (And if we do not want to do these things, we need to take a hard look at where our walk with Christ really stands!) So the commandments of God in places like Ephesians 4-5 or Romans 12 or the book of 1 John are not demands, but enablements.  It is as if God, through the apostles, is saying, “This is a picture of the life of Christ in you.  I am waiting to enable you to look just like this.”

Do we understand that we are truly new creations in Christ?  And if we do, our lives should increasingly reflect that reality of that new creation.