Here is an index of this quarter's postings (December '07 to February '08). Clicking on the titles will take you to that post. You'll notice that I'm getting a little slacker on the update frequency - that's on account of a short holiday in December, and things getting quite busy some days!
 
At the start of this quarter there was a short series on the lies we use to comfort ourselves that the sins we like are really okay. Over three posts we looked at  materialism, lust and gossiping. If you're discipling someone, these might be worth talking through!
 
And towards the end of the quarter you'll find a series on the heart and the affections, on account of some talks I have been working on for our leaders' retreat - which incidentally starts TONIGHT!! Hence the picture of the harried pastor. You can find the posts on January 25, 26, and February 04, 11, 13 and 28.

December 2007


January 2008


February 2008


[ PS: during this period which were your favourite posts? which did you feel strongly about? ]

A couple of weeks ago I heard about a book written by a retired pastor. In this book he writes about his life story, his experiences at church, how he became a pastor, and his thoughts on the practice of being a pastor.

His reflection was that in the past, pastors used to spend a lot of time meeting with people and shepherding their flock.

His analysis was that pastors of today have by and large abandoned that vision of the pastoral task and have instead become managers of their flock, spending very little of their time with congregation members.

His contention was that a pastor should spend 90% of his time doing visitation, and only 10% of his time writing a sermon.

And by and large, this is probably what a lot of people in the pew would like, whether they admit it or not - pastors to shepherd us individually, relationally ... time-consumingly! After all, isn't this what the word 'pastor' means?

There's some good things in what that book is saying. It really should be about bringing to bear the word of God onto people's lives - and yes, that can be done from the pulpit, or over coffee. However it would actually be pretty dysfunctional church when all the work of ministry was being done by one person!

In our congregation I don't actually just want one (or two) pastors. I actually want thirty, maybe forty pastors! I actually want lots of people in church to be doing the work of ministry - not just one or two!

And this is in line with the Bible. You see this quite clearly in Ephesians 4. There Paul reveals God's vision of how his church should work. Paul says that,


In verse 11 and 12, the role of the pastor-teacher is to prepare God's people for works of service. Verse 12 suggests that it is then God's people who then do the job of building up one another. There's debate about that (it's about whether the preposition just modifies the final clause, or the whole lot), but the debate is actually answered down in verse 16. There in verse 16 we have confirmation that the whole body is doing the work, the whole body is building itself up - not just the one part.

It can be very attractive to have the vision of the pastoral role they found in the book. It really resonates with people - and perhaps also touches some deep cultural chords. However God's own vision of what his pastor-teachers are to do is radically different. Yet he promises it will lead to a church that is mature (v.13) - and healthier.

As pastors are we labouring under an unbiblical view of the pastors' role? This can lead to burnout on our part, let alone an abandonment of the true task God would have a pastor do! And not only that, it leads to a denigration of the work of the body as a whole.

Through our ministry might we reinforcing an unbiblical view of the pastor or the congregation? Often it doesn't come across in official documents and job descriptions - but tacitly, in what leaders expect, what people hint, how they talk about church. Are there subtle tendencies and unspoken expectations that need to be brought out into the light of day and examined under the lens of Scripture?

[ PS: are you building a dysfunctional church? ]

Over the last short while I've written a few things about the place of the heart in Christian discipleship. But maybe you're not yet sure about the difference between the mind, the will and the heart...

Well, I've knocked up the following diagram that might help illustrate what they are.

 

We put a lot of emphasis on knowing correct doctrine and living obedient lives - but we neglect the heart. And in doing so, we are actually neglecting quite a lot of the exhortations in the Bible to love the Lord - not merely to know him or serve him!

Moses' exhortations to the Israelites before crossing over into the land wasn't just for them to obey the Lord and keep his commands, but to love the Lord (eg. Deut 11:1, 30:16)! The Psalmists again and again exhort us to "Love the Lord, all his saints!" (Psa 31:23). Jesus himself summarised the first part of the law as "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matt 22:37).

One might argue that "love the Lord" is another way of saying "serve the Lord", since our love for God should go on to show itself in obedience. That is partly true - and in fact our heart is the engine of our behaviour.

But you can also imagine that there is a difference between (on the one hand) an obedient act done out of love for God, and (on the other hand) an obedient act done resentfully and with the do-er full of a love of himself. In fact in the Old Testament sacrifices offered in such a way are rejected by God (eg. Isaiah 1, Malachi 1)!

God does not merely command our minds and our obedience, but our affections also!

[ PS: what do you think are the pastoral implications of neglecting the heart? ]

Sound familiar? That's because this is a common complaint of Bible study leaders a few years into serving. And it actually stems from a dangerous misunderstanding...

You see, what the statement reveals is a dichotomy between public ministry on the one hand, and the leaders' private spiritual growth on the other. One necessarily takes time away from the other. And so having a lot of ministry to do will mean spending less time on one's own spiritual growth - leading to spiritual dryness.

However this is wrong. The first job of the leader is not actually to write Bible studies or attend meetings. The main task of the leader is not even to lead their Bible study group!

Their first job is actually ... to love God.

Because the way of Christian leadership is not through programs. Nor is it through setting of policies. Instead, it's through teaching and modelling the Word of God. But note that it's both teaching and modelling!

Most young Bible study leaders think of their role as being all about writing and leading Bible studies - but that's not all there is to it! It's equally about modelling Christian discipleship. And so the leaders' own spiritual growth is not a separate part of their life isolated from their public ministry - but an integral part of their ability to minister!

In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul says, "follow my example as I follow the example of Christ". In Philippians 3 he says, "join with others in following my example brothers, and take careful note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you." In 1 Timothy 4 he tells Timothy to "set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity".

And so when Christian leaders admit to neglecting their own spiritual growth for the sake of ministry, that's not noble and sacrificial ministry. Nothing like it! It's simply a sign of being irresponsible - like admitting to downloading the first study you can find off the internet for your group!

The first job of leaders is not to write Bible studies, or even to lead other people. Instead, it's to love God. To grow in our godly affections. And as people in our groups see that we love God above all other things, as they see us hating sin, and longing for the return of Christ - this will attract them.

This is how Christian leaders lead - not through commanding people to do stuff, but by teaching and modelling Christian discipleship! And so the first job of the leader is to grow themselves in godly affections.

[ PS: have you been divorcing your own private spiritual growth from your public ministry? ]

So if the affections of a Christian are so important, how then do we go about changing them?

How is it possible for someone to change their own heart? Do we just ... you know ... try really, really hard to love God? Do we simply sqeeze out of ourselves a longing for our heavenly home?

During the early 18th century, revival swept across North America. Thousands of people were responding to the gospel  - and their radically transformed lives showed a real love for God. This was known as the First Great Awakening, and in the midst of this heightened spiritual fervour, Jonathan Edwards wrote The Religious Affections (you download it for free here).

In part 3 section IV, Edwards tells his readers about how godly affections come about. And he says that "gracious affections do arise from the mind's being enlightened, richly and spiritually to understand or apprehend divine things."

In Luke 24:32 the hearts of the disciples on the road to Emmaus were set ablaze, not through some secret technique! No, it happened as Jesus opened the Scriptures to them. It was in them looking at the Bible that their hearts were engaged. So the engaging of our affections does start with knowledge - but it's a particular kind of knowledge, a particular kind of understanding.

It's not necessarily about learning new things from the Bible. It actually comes from being confronted again, and again, by the truth of the graciousness and loveliness of God. We do it by keeping ourselves astounded by God's greatness and his compassion as we read about what God is like in the Old Testament - and most of all, what he has ultimately done in the gospel!

Hebrews 13:9 tells us that our hearts are strengthened by grace (not by rule keeping). The writer of Hebrews isn't telling us that God graciously does it (although that is true) - but that when we feed on the stories of God's graciousness, we will actually be strengthening our hearts. At the intellectual level, yes, we already know that God is gracious! But here we're not reading to feed the intellect - we are reading to fuel our heart.

I used to have Christian friends who would only read the Bible to learn new things (they are no longer Christians, by the way). But that's not right - we actually need to hear about the old things in order to feed our hearts. The old things about God being gracious. And compassionate. Things we already know.

Because it's as we read from the Old and New Testaments of God's awesomeness, it's then that we grow in our love for God. We grow in our fear of him, in our hate of sin, in our desire for his word and our longing for the return of Jesus. This is because being confronted with God's grace again and again is like flinging coal into a furnace - it fuels our hearts, it fires up our affections!

Why do lovers who are apart from each other look at pictures of their loved ones? Is it because they've forgotten at the intellectual level what their girlfriend or boyfriend looks like and must be reminded? No, they remember very well! The reason they look is not for their minds, but for their hearts, to fuel their desire for their loved one!

Which is why Christians must never tire of being told that God is awesome and gracious. See, there's nothing new there for us on an intellectual level! But we need that - for our hearts. Consider also the Old Testament. Read properly (that is, using biblical theology), there's often not a great deal of application that applies directly to our wills. Most of it is actually highlighting for Christians that our awesome saviour has already arrived! Again, nothing new there, and people say, 'ho hum'! But God has graciously given us all of that - in order to fuel our hearts. To fuel our love for him. To fire up our longing for heaven. To heighten our hatred for sin.

However it's actually not enough to just read the Bible. See, buried in the middle of Edwards' quote is that one word, 'enlightened'.  He says that "gracious affections do arise from the mind's being enlightened, richly and spiritually to understand or apprehend divine things."

In 1 Thessalonians 3 Paul prays that God would strengthen their hearts. In Philippians 1 Paul prays that their love abounds more and more. And in Romans 5, Paul tells us that it is God who pours out his love into our hearts.

Ultimately, we can't actually change our hearts ourselves. God has to do it! And that is why Paul prays that God would engage the hearts of the Thessalonian and the Philippian Christians.

And so we too should pray that God would grow in us a love for him that will overshadow our love for everything else. We should pray that God would make us long for the return of Jesus, and entreat him to grow in us a hatred of our own sin - because God is the one who ultimately changes our hearts!

However God's way of working is consistent. He always works through his word - not in spite of it. In Genesis 1 when God creates, he does so by speaking. When he 2 Peter 3 when God will destroy the heavens and the earth, he will again do so with a word. And when he redeems the world, John 1 tells us that he does so by sending his Word into the world.

And it's no surprise that it's the same again when it comes to God's operation on our hearts (Heb 13:9). While we pray for God to grow out love for him, we must also be reading his word. God's way of working is through his word - not in spite of it.

Do you want to grow in your love for God? Are you troubled that you aren't longing for the return of the Lord Jesus? Dissatisfied with your hatred for sin?

The answer sounds simple: read the Bible and pray. Too simple, really. But the reason is that you're doing these things in order to strengthen your heart, to grow godly affections. And so you read - hungry to feed yourself on God's graciousness and greatness, so as to fuel your love for him, and your hatred for sin. And you pray - longing that your heart is changed, and knowing that God is the only one who can do it.

[ PS: more to come... ]