As long as a small church depends exclusively on an imported pastor for its survival, it will lack imagination in desperate times. A pastor will not keep a church together, whose men cannot be spiritual leaders on their own (with God's help). Elders who are afraid to preach, or visit, or lead, or pastor, will lead to a pastor serving 2 or three or four churches, until they die one by one. Unless by some special grace, God imports a whole bunch of believers into that church from somewhere else.
You've raised some interesting questions, Bill. It is true that microbes die daily. It is also true that some trees are more than a thousand years old. The difference in age between microbes and turtles is also interesting, as is the question about the human lifespan changing when environment, sickness, nutrition change. Even in the garden of eden, food was given to eat, so in that sense plant material was converted even there. For our bodies to maintain themselves, cells are constantly dying and being replaced. Genetics inform and manage lifespans, and it is interesting also how people that lived to nine hundred years (in fallen creation) eventually gradually shortened to about 120 years after the flood.
While you say that a myth provides tribal unity and morality, the conundrum is that it only does that if people actually believe it. A false tale cannot do that. Myths can die. Unity can be fickle. Numerous myths make for an obvious disunity. False myths create a temporary unity at the expense of humanity. (think WWII). So that premise I don't agree with. Maybe that premise is the myth.
As for chemicals: not all artificial chemicals are dangerous, and not all natural chemicals are good. Many artificial chemicals are completely analogous to natural chemicals, but created using a different "unnatural" process, and available in different doses and quantities. Generalizations can be misleading in this case.
When we see tropical forest trees under the ice and on the beaches near the north pole, and when we see giant fossilized reed plants and dragonflies and mammoths, and camels in siberia and the arctic, we know that climates have not always been what they are today. That's true.
Agree with much of what you say, Daniel. We often love people in spite of what they have done, just as God does love us in spite of us sometimes. But, loving God seems to me a bit different, because maybe I'm wrong, but all of God's names indicate what He has done or is doing, yes? God has identified himself to us by what he has done. His divinity, personality, and identity cannot be fathomed without his actions. Even God loving us while we were still enemies in sin, is part of who God is. Our desire to love God, is part of who we are.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that what we do is inseparable from who we are, as it is for the God in whose image he created us.
It would be interesting to see an explanation of what it means that elders should have the ability to teach others. As scripture indicates is a required characteristic for elders. Do we agree with scripture on this?
I wonder if we come from a tradition of not asking enough questions, and for that reason, sometimes do not know how to respond to questions. I've often seen questions not as questions, but as someone's challenge to scripture, or challenging God, or challenging authority. Questions truly asked, vs rhetorical questions asked in anger are different.
When asked questions, perhaps it would be good for us to ask questions in return?
But I don't think you should say you are not sure about the answer unless you are really not sure. Lying about that will not give you your internal credibility in trying to understand another.
I agree that there are all kinds of ways to teach. And I agree that teaching does not mean being an expert science teacher, nor a theology prof. Teaching should mean sharing the gospel with anyone, whether it is in a discipling relationship, an evangelism relationship, or simply defending faith, or contending for the gospel. Every christian should be able to disciple another, and every parent to a child, but it seems the ability to teach means that they can explain and are eager to explain the gospel to others, whether friendly or foe.
Hmm. The difficulty with an analogy is that the desire to understand it is key. I understand your analogy of food for the body to food for the soul. But, you should understand my poor analogy of recipe and serving as well. I understand the Word is not a recipe book... its just an analogy. You don't have to be a master chef in order to bring some hot dogs, relish, roasting sticks, marshmallows to a picnic. Its not hard to add some corn and honey dew melons, and presto, you have a meal. Fairly nourishing, especially if you add some tomatoes and carrots from the garden. It might not be the only meal you would want, but you wouldn't starve.
Presentation matters? It probably helps. But maybe it doesn't. Presentation that clarifies for one person is a roadblock for another person. Moses thought he couldn't speak... so he got Aaron to help. But either way, presentation would not have changed the outcome for someone who had his own agenda.
The problem I sometimes see is that some people are only ever concerned about being fed. Feeding others is not their concern. They get spiritually fat and spiritually lazy as a result.
Now I know the Word is not a recipe book; perhaps more of a plan for building a house on a solid foundation. But no analogy is perfect. Our relationship with God is not a house, after all; yet Jesus used this analogy. Was it the apostle that wrote: leaving aside the milk of the gospel, the elementary things, for the meat is what we should be looking for? Being fed what? What's the milk? what's the meat? He seems to allude to the "recipe" being the meat... in other words, how do we live? How do we shape our lives in response to God's grace? Hebrews 5 and 6. How do we cook the "meat...?
Ironically, it is only in sharing the "recipe", that we learn more about it. And if we demonstrate the "recipe" (christian living) or forget certain items in the recipe, our actions speak louder than our words.
Here is a response from another blog on the Network by Larry Dornboos. The response was by Norman Sennema on May 10, 2014 I thought the whole thing was very relevant and spoke my thoughts well, so I'm including the whole thing.
"Thanks for sharing this, a great topic, one that I have been personally wrestling with. I would avoid the extremes (no need for shepherds at all, calling people only to be 'self-feeders'), but would encourage a rethink of how we think about shepherding. I would like to add to this discussion, and to hear what your responses to my 'rant' might be.
1) An important qualifier is that we are under-shepherds, working for the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:1-4). My fear is that instead of helping the sheep hear His Voice (John 10:27), we are training people to know our voice. They come to rely on us to interpret scripture for them. Or if they don't like our voice, they look for a shepherd who's voice they prefer. The shepherds need to improve their voice to keep their audience, and compete with others in order to satisfy their sheep... or they look for greener pastures. Somehow we need to teach the sheep to hear His Voice whenever scripture is opened, whether the sermon is good or bad, the speaker is dynamic or bland, ordained or not ordained. For me, the Voice of God (Logos, Jesus) is more important than the mouthpiece (which we need too); whether the mouthpiece is a professor, pastor or pew-sitter, a sunday school teacher, a parent, a youth group leader, or a stranger on the street, God's Voice needs to be heard.
2) I would suggest adding another image to help us explain the shepherding image: a parent (1 Thessalonians 2:7-12). When children are young, they need to be fed. But eventually they need to learn to feed themselves, and eventually even feed others. This does not end the parents role, they still help them get the food, help them prepare it for a time, but the children eat for themselves. And soon they are able to prepare a meal, and maybe even surprise their parents with a meal prepared for them. And one day, they will have opportunity to feed their own children. By feeding themselves, I don't mean 'self-feeding' as you characterized it (independent, individualistic). Eating and feeding should always be communal affairs, but at some point the kids need to grow up and eat... with the support of the community. My experience is that we make 'food preparation' so complicated that you have to have a seminary degree to do it rightly. We not only lead our sheep to the table, we precut the food, we decide on what to eat, when and how, we even make them sit quiet and still while we spoon feed them. This makes sense for babies, but when do they grow up? See Hebrews 5:11-14, where eventually the babes become teachers, who by constant use they have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
3) How many of us have heard those dreaded words, 'I'm not being fed'. They make it sound as if they are deeper than we are, that their maturity level has grown beyond our shepherding skills. But that is not what I hear. I hear baby robbins squawking in the nest, demanding that we give them what they want - feed me, love me, help me, teach me, care for me, comfort me... This is the kind of SELF-feeding that I think we need to address. They have not grown up, they are still in their high chairs, with their clean bibs, waiting for us to spoon feed them. Is this cycnical... maybe? True of everyone... of course not. But it is I fear a common pattern, one that is related to our traditional shepherding/preaching ideas and practices.
4) I am presently serving in a long time 'church plant' setting. We have lots of babes in Christ, and they do not know how to hear God's Voice. But they have learned enough of churchianity to know that some shepherds provide better sermons than others. I have felt the pressure to perform better, to compete with the mega-shepherds. But that is not the way I want to go. I am who I am, and I do the best I can. I need to instill in them a love for God's Voice in scripture, and an ability to feed themselves in community, to grow up and eventually become teachers, who by constant use of Scripture have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. My sermons are not all great, and some of them are pretty bad, but the scripture is always great, and God's Voice can always be heard.
5) So I am trying something, and praying that it will help. I've adopted a three year bible-reading schedule. I hand out the readings each week, and highlight which reading from that list I will be preaching on next Sunday. The handout has open space for them to answer the question beneath each reading, 'what do you hear God saying?'. I blog my own reflections for each reading, each day, and ask them to post their own thoughts. I email 5-10 members each week and ask them to share their responses to the upcoming Scripture passage, and incorporate their responses into the message (I would love to meet weekly with some, as I've heard other pastors do, but in my busy, commuter culture meeting time is at a premium). On Sunday morning, I attempt a partial 'lectio' by reading the scripture, pausing, then reading it again. Then I ask them to share what they hear God saying in the scripture. Finally, I share some of my own reflections, trying to model how we need to all hear God's Voice in scripture. I am letting them know that one day I may be asking them to publicly share their own reflections in a 'sermon'. So far only two have done so... but in time.
6) I have discouraged them from saying 'good sermon' to me after the service (that was easy, not too many did). Instead I've urged them to share with me if they heard God speaking to them - teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, comforting, blessing, etc. - in the service. Sometimes it was in a prayer, sometimes in a song, sometimes in message. One time a young girl shared with me what God said to her in the passage, and it had nothing to do with my 'sermon'. Thing is, after I heard what she said, I myself heard God differently, through her 'sermon'! I am often surprised and blessed by what others hear God saying in scripture. I realize that all my training and experience gives me tunnel vision, seeing things that others don't see, and missing (obvious) things that others do see. Reading scripture and hearing God is indeed a communal activity - we should stop restricting it to the educated and qualified few.
7) I fear that our emphasis on ordination and the formal 'preaching of the word' has held back the church. We stress the anointing of the pastor, but scripture also stresses the anointing of the disciples, so that they do not need anyone to teach them (1 John 2:26-27). It is the Spirit that teaches us, it is the scripture that is God-breathed and useful, a double-edged sword. Why is it that so many christians do not know how to proclaim (preach, share) Jesus in the marketplace? Because we've hired that task out to a limited few. When the early church was persecuted, the disciples that scattered preached the word wherever they went (Acts 8:1-4); today they just look for another church to preach it to them. Think of the story of the church in China, when the communist government killed the pastors, burned the bibles and books, sent away the missionaries, scattered the churches, closed the seminaries. The west thought for sure the church was toast; but they (and the Chinese government) forgot about the Holy Spirit, the Chief Shepherd, and the power of God's Voice. When the walls in China finally opened a little, the west found a thriving church. Still to this day ordinary people (without seminary training) are being used by God to speak, and be heard. We need to learn from them!!!
Conclusion. Do we still need shepherds? Yes! But do we need to rethink what shepherds do, and how they do it? YES! Reading scripture for yourself is not the self-feeding that concerns me. I feel the bigger problem is the SELF-FEEDING of baby sheep that never seem to grow up and learn to feed others."
And I would add, that it seems sometimes the shepherds only feed, and do not teach others to feed. They give the flock a fish, but never a fishing rod. (mixed metaphor... but you get the idea).
This certainly resonates. I do get the impression that some people think being reformed means to do what the world does, and then color it christian. I don't think that's what the reformation was about.
Posted in: Gracious Residue
You might not be able to cook all the meals, but certainly you should be able to serve them.
Should not sermons be delivering the recipes? And should not you then be able to share these recipes with others?
Posted in: Lessons from the Junk Yard
Good article!
Posted in: Classis and the Smaller Church
As long as a small church depends exclusively on an imported pastor for its survival, it will lack imagination in desperate times. A pastor will not keep a church together, whose men cannot be spiritual leaders on their own (with God's help). Elders who are afraid to preach, or visit, or lead, or pastor, will lead to a pastor serving 2 or three or four churches, until they die one by one. Unless by some special grace, God imports a whole bunch of believers into that church from somewhere else.
Posted in: Sovereignty Matters
You've raised some interesting questions, Bill. It is true that microbes die daily. It is also true that some trees are more than a thousand years old. The difference in age between microbes and turtles is also interesting, as is the question about the human lifespan changing when environment, sickness, nutrition change. Even in the garden of eden, food was given to eat, so in that sense plant material was converted even there. For our bodies to maintain themselves, cells are constantly dying and being replaced. Genetics inform and manage lifespans, and it is interesting also how people that lived to nine hundred years (in fallen creation) eventually gradually shortened to about 120 years after the flood.
While you say that a myth provides tribal unity and morality, the conundrum is that it only does that if people actually believe it. A false tale cannot do that. Myths can die. Unity can be fickle. Numerous myths make for an obvious disunity. False myths create a temporary unity at the expense of humanity. (think WWII). So that premise I don't agree with. Maybe that premise is the myth.
As for chemicals: not all artificial chemicals are dangerous, and not all natural chemicals are good. Many artificial chemicals are completely analogous to natural chemicals, but created using a different "unnatural" process, and available in different doses and quantities. Generalizations can be misleading in this case.
When we see tropical forest trees under the ice and on the beaches near the north pole, and when we see giant fossilized reed plants and dragonflies and mammoths, and camels in siberia and the arctic, we know that climates have not always been what they are today. That's true.
Posted in: Grateful for What...or Whom?
Agree with much of what you say, Daniel. We often love people in spite of what they have done, just as God does love us in spite of us sometimes. But, loving God seems to me a bit different, because maybe I'm wrong, but all of God's names indicate what He has done or is doing, yes? God has identified himself to us by what he has done. His divinity, personality, and identity cannot be fathomed without his actions. Even God loving us while we were still enemies in sin, is part of who God is. Our desire to love God, is part of who we are.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that what we do is inseparable from who we are, as it is for the God in whose image he created us.
Posted in: A Bar Too High: Unrealistic Expectations of Church Leaders
It would be interesting to see an explanation of what it means that elders should have the ability to teach others. As scripture indicates is a required characteristic for elders. Do we agree with scripture on this?
Posted in: Questions - How Do We Respond to Them?
I wonder if we come from a tradition of not asking enough questions, and for that reason, sometimes do not know how to respond to questions. I've often seen questions not as questions, but as someone's challenge to scripture, or challenging God, or challenging authority. Questions truly asked, vs rhetorical questions asked in anger are different.
When asked questions, perhaps it would be good for us to ask questions in return?
But I don't think you should say you are not sure about the answer unless you are really not sure. Lying about that will not give you your internal credibility in trying to understand another.
Posted in: A Bar Too High: Unrealistic Expectations of Church Leaders
I agree that there are all kinds of ways to teach. And I agree that teaching does not mean being an expert science teacher, nor a theology prof. Teaching should mean sharing the gospel with anyone, whether it is in a discipling relationship, an evangelism relationship, or simply defending faith, or contending for the gospel. Every christian should be able to disciple another, and every parent to a child, but it seems the ability to teach means that they can explain and are eager to explain the gospel to others, whether friendly or foe.
Posted in: Gracious Residue
Hmm. The difficulty with an analogy is that the desire to understand it is key. I understand your analogy of food for the body to food for the soul. But, you should understand my poor analogy of recipe and serving as well. I understand the Word is not a recipe book... its just an analogy. You don't have to be a master chef in order to bring some hot dogs, relish, roasting sticks, marshmallows to a picnic. Its not hard to add some corn and honey dew melons, and presto, you have a meal. Fairly nourishing, especially if you add some tomatoes and carrots from the garden. It might not be the only meal you would want, but you wouldn't starve.
Presentation matters? It probably helps. But maybe it doesn't. Presentation that clarifies for one person is a roadblock for another person. Moses thought he couldn't speak... so he got Aaron to help. But either way, presentation would not have changed the outcome for someone who had his own agenda.
The problem I sometimes see is that some people are only ever concerned about being fed. Feeding others is not their concern. They get spiritually fat and spiritually lazy as a result.
Now I know the Word is not a recipe book; perhaps more of a plan for building a house on a solid foundation. But no analogy is perfect. Our relationship with God is not a house, after all; yet Jesus used this analogy. Was it the apostle that wrote: leaving aside the milk of the gospel, the elementary things, for the meat is what we should be looking for? Being fed what? What's the milk? what's the meat? He seems to allude to the "recipe" being the meat... in other words, how do we live? How do we shape our lives in response to God's grace? Hebrews 5 and 6. How do we cook the "meat...?
Ironically, it is only in sharing the "recipe", that we learn more about it. And if we demonstrate the "recipe" (christian living) or forget certain items in the recipe, our actions speak louder than our words.
Posted in: Gracious Residue
Here is a response from another blog on the Network by Larry Dornboos. The response was by Norman Sennema on May 10, 2014 I thought the whole thing was very relevant and spoke my thoughts well, so I'm including the whole thing.
"Thanks for sharing this, a great topic, one that I have been personally wrestling with. I would avoid the extremes (no need for shepherds at all, calling people only to be 'self-feeders'), but would encourage a rethink of how we think about shepherding. I would like to add to this discussion, and to hear what your responses to my 'rant' might be.
1) An important qualifier is that we are under-shepherds, working for the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:1-4). My fear is that instead of helping the sheep hear His Voice (John 10:27), we are training people to know our voice. They come to rely on us to interpret scripture for them. Or if they don't like our voice, they look for a shepherd who's voice they prefer. The shepherds need to improve their voice to keep their audience, and compete with others in order to satisfy their sheep... or they look for greener pastures. Somehow we need to teach the sheep to hear His Voice whenever scripture is opened, whether the sermon is good or bad, the speaker is dynamic or bland, ordained or not ordained. For me, the Voice of God (Logos, Jesus) is more important than the mouthpiece (which we need too); whether the mouthpiece is a professor, pastor or pew-sitter, a sunday school teacher, a parent, a youth group leader, or a stranger on the street, God's Voice needs to be heard.
2) I would suggest adding another image to help us explain the shepherding image: a parent (1 Thessalonians 2:7-12). When children are young, they need to be fed. But eventually they need to learn to feed themselves, and eventually even feed others. This does not end the parents role, they still help them get the food, help them prepare it for a time, but the children eat for themselves. And soon they are able to prepare a meal, and maybe even surprise their parents with a meal prepared for them. And one day, they will have opportunity to feed their own children. By feeding themselves, I don't mean 'self-feeding' as you characterized it (independent, individualistic). Eating and feeding should always be communal affairs, but at some point the kids need to grow up and eat... with the support of the community. My experience is that we make 'food preparation' so complicated that you have to have a seminary degree to do it rightly. We not only lead our sheep to the table, we precut the food, we decide on what to eat, when and how, we even make them sit quiet and still while we spoon feed them. This makes sense for babies, but when do they grow up? See Hebrews 5:11-14, where eventually the babes become teachers, who by constant use they have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
3) How many of us have heard those dreaded words, 'I'm not being fed'. They make it sound as if they are deeper than we are, that their maturity level has grown beyond our shepherding skills. But that is not what I hear. I hear baby robbins squawking in the nest, demanding that we give them what they want - feed me, love me, help me, teach me, care for me, comfort me... This is the kind of SELF-feeding that I think we need to address. They have not grown up, they are still in their high chairs, with their clean bibs, waiting for us to spoon feed them. Is this cycnical... maybe? True of everyone... of course not. But it is I fear a common pattern, one that is related to our traditional shepherding/preaching ideas and practices.
4) I am presently serving in a long time 'church plant' setting. We have lots of babes in Christ, and they do not know how to hear God's Voice. But they have learned enough of churchianity to know that some shepherds provide better sermons than others. I have felt the pressure to perform better, to compete with the mega-shepherds. But that is not the way I want to go. I am who I am, and I do the best I can. I need to instill in them a love for God's Voice in scripture, and an ability to feed themselves in community, to grow up and eventually become teachers, who by constant use of Scripture have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. My sermons are not all great, and some of them are pretty bad, but the scripture is always great, and God's Voice can always be heard.
5) So I am trying something, and praying that it will help. I've adopted a three year bible-reading schedule. I hand out the readings each week, and highlight which reading from that list I will be preaching on next Sunday. The handout has open space for them to answer the question beneath each reading, 'what do you hear God saying?'. I blog my own reflections for each reading, each day, and ask them to post their own thoughts. I email 5-10 members each week and ask them to share their responses to the upcoming Scripture passage, and incorporate their responses into the message (I would love to meet weekly with some, as I've heard other pastors do, but in my busy, commuter culture meeting time is at a premium). On Sunday morning, I attempt a partial 'lectio' by reading the scripture, pausing, then reading it again. Then I ask them to share what they hear God saying in the scripture. Finally, I share some of my own reflections, trying to model how we need to all hear God's Voice in scripture. I am letting them know that one day I may be asking them to publicly share their own reflections in a 'sermon'. So far only two have done so... but in time.
6) I have discouraged them from saying 'good sermon' to me after the service (that was easy, not too many did). Instead I've urged them to share with me if they heard God speaking to them - teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, comforting, blessing, etc. - in the service. Sometimes it was in a prayer, sometimes in a song, sometimes in message. One time a young girl shared with me what God said to her in the passage, and it had nothing to do with my 'sermon'. Thing is, after I heard what she said, I myself heard God differently, through her 'sermon'! I am often surprised and blessed by what others hear God saying in scripture. I realize that all my training and experience gives me tunnel vision, seeing things that others don't see, and missing (obvious) things that others do see. Reading scripture and hearing God is indeed a communal activity - we should stop restricting it to the educated and qualified few.
7) I fear that our emphasis on ordination and the formal 'preaching of the word' has held back the church. We stress the anointing of the pastor, but scripture also stresses the anointing of the disciples, so that they do not need anyone to teach them (1 John 2:26-27). It is the Spirit that teaches us, it is the scripture that is God-breathed and useful, a double-edged sword. Why is it that so many christians do not know how to proclaim (preach, share) Jesus in the marketplace? Because we've hired that task out to a limited few. When the early church was persecuted, the disciples that scattered preached the word wherever they went (Acts 8:1-4); today they just look for another church to preach it to them. Think of the story of the church in China, when the communist government killed the pastors, burned the bibles and books, sent away the missionaries, scattered the churches, closed the seminaries. The west thought for sure the church was toast; but they (and the Chinese government) forgot about the Holy Spirit, the Chief Shepherd, and the power of God's Voice. When the walls in China finally opened a little, the west found a thriving church. Still to this day ordinary people (without seminary training) are being used by God to speak, and be heard. We need to learn from them!!!
Conclusion. Do we still need shepherds? Yes! But do we need to rethink what shepherds do, and how they do it? YES! Reading scripture for yourself is not the self-feeding that concerns me. I feel the bigger problem is the SELF-FEEDING of baby sheep that never seem to grow up and learn to feed others."
And I would add, that it seems sometimes the shepherds only feed, and do not teach others to feed. They give the flock a fish, but never a fishing rod. (mixed metaphor... but you get the idea).
Posted in: The Front Door Field
Great points! For some of us, its too bad we were not encouraged nor taught how to do that from the time we were children. Never too late to start.
Posted in: Seduction by the 'Spirit of the Age'? Are Reformed People Immune?
This certainly resonates. I do get the impression that some people think being reformed means to do what the world does, and then color it christian. I don't think that's what the reformation was about.