Broken-hearted ministry

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" - Psalm 51:17

Having your heart truly broken by God is the most essential pre-requisite to being an effective minister of any kind. To the inexperienced, ministry can seem so blissful, even romantic. We often dream of our own effectiveness and how great the rest of our lives will be.

Then comes the first heartache. It is often a significant disappointment - not as many people came to the event as expected, the church leadership did not give approval, too many details were forgotten and it all fell apart - these are often difficult to take for the first time. They cause us to doubt our idealism, "Maybe ministry isn't what I thought it was going to be..."

The true heart-breaker comes when our ministry ideals hit the wall of disillusionment. This pain is of a greater weight - getting fired by someone you respect, betrayed by a confidant, even realizing you're not as good in ministry as you hoped - they come with a driving force into your gut and leave you breathless. You are brought to the point of despair. All prior dreams feel paper-thin. You feel unqualified.

It is here that the LORD can forge us into the person He is calling us to be. Right here, in this despair and pain when all seems ruined, is when the LORD walks with us through the unimaginable.

On the other side of this heartache is the road prepared for us. We are sober-minded, maybe a little jaded, toward ministry - knowing that we are all just fragile and sinful people. We know the road won't be easy, but we are ready for the storm this time. Instead of battling against our idealism, we fight to stay hopeful. We don't wonder how large the number of people will be, but how many of them will stick around.

And in a funny way, the LORD uses this to teach us that ministry has everything to do with Him. Our hopes and dreams in ministry revolve around Him and His plan. We can no longer get caught up in how things look or feel within our church; the disillusionment has set for too long. We are smarter now. We can do our best and trust God to move how He sees fit.

It is here that we can begin to increase our effectiveness, precisely because we are no longer concerned with it. How our church is doing doesn't reflect our identity anymore, and it is the pain that reminds us to stay this way.

Let our hearts burn with the pain of past lessons. Let us watch as fear and pride melt away to reveal a mature passion for the LORD. It is only the trial that can burn us this way, and we can embrace them as the LORD's blessing.

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Prophet and Poet

I've been dreaming lately. It's probably because I've been on The Island for a little bit now, but in any case, I've been considering what life after seminary will look like. So when we were able to take this assessment during class yesterday, I jumped on it.

This particular assessment laid out four leadership styles: Pastor, Apostle, Poet, and Prophet. It turns out I'm a Prophet first and a Poet second. I was a little surprised by the "poet" tag, but it made me think. Here's a description of each one:

PROPHET

The prophet wants to see the church shaped by God’s kingdom vision for the world.

They are drawn to the speaking the Word into the cultural context.

Hearing what God is saying about being a biblical people is of the highest importance.

They want the church to recognize its captivities to our culture and discover a more radical, biblical way of life.

The prophet wants to move people toward a vision of how God is shaping them in the midst of transition.

The prophet brings that Word that comes from the outside and addresses the people with a fresh sense of direction.

They thrive in the world of vision and a big picture of the future, they find it hard to spend much energy in the here and now.

Planning and strategy are secondary to vision and creating new futures.

They are future directed, the immediate is a gateway to tomorrow.

POET

They love to connect people’s confusion and struggle with the stories of God’s purposes in Scripture so that they can see things differently.

Poets call forth that which is hidden.

They listen, giving words, images and experiences that help people see things differently.

They don’t criticize nor judge but bring God’s story into the reality of people’s longings and pain.

Poets listen beneath the surface levels of the attractive and trendy changes in the culture and the church.

They focus on people touching the feelings and inner drives forming their lives.

Poets are not strategists with solutions or plans.

Poets take time, they immerse themselves in the multiple stories of the culture understanding their power and critiquing their claims.

They use words with reverence, get immersed in everyday particulars, spy out the glories of the commonplace, warn of illusions, attend to the subtle interconnections between rhythm and meanings and spirit.

They work with the question: How can I help people to see differently?

They stimulate, give hints, paint pictures, and create imaginations that run counter to the dominant ideologies.

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InCarnation Instant Breakfast

InCarnation Instant Breakfast is possibly the best title of a blog I've ever seen, and it's "the unofficial weblog for new types of missional communities in Canada." Anyone looking for the last frontier in missional church planting can find it blogged here.

Get on their site, give them some love.

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gatherings...

So I'm under a moderate amount of stress right now and it's 10:45 at night! I've got Vox Church on the brain, so I'm going to rant. You've been warned.

As I've been wrestling through current issues, I'm feeling a bit stuck on worship gatherings. I'm dealing with two immovable objects.

ROCK: My desire to not put on a show and further add gasoline to the consumerism fire that exists in American culture.

HARD PLACE: My desire to inspire, lead, rally, celebrate with everyone else in Vox Church. It seems like in order to do that, we need coordinated effort and common experiences.

Dallas and I are having more and more conversations where our clashing leadership styles come into play, and I think it's due, in part, to issues like these that we're wrestling through. We're getting a little bigger and more are collectively growing deeper, so the playing field has changed since it was 10 people in a living room.

Secondarily, I have this question in my head: what can a church do with a larger group of people [20-200] that it cannot do with a small group [5-20]? It's a pretty important question.

So, I threw it all to the side and closed my eyes with one thing in mind...

Everyone would come in, and feel welcomed beyond belief, like Cheers only more loving. There would be art on the walls to look at, music to listen to, incense and food to smell, and a warm feeling about the whole environment.

As we'd all sit down, we would pray together for our time to bless God and for us to collectively feel His presence. The conversation over communion breakfast is interesting and we're blessed to get to know each other a little better: making connections over common interests and experiences.

The music starts and we're invited to kneel at the presence of God, there's all the time in world for this. No hurry, just time to worship God however we desire to. The teacher comes in the same Spirit as the music that just ended to inspire, lead. He communicates as if we're all going somewhere together- somewhere towards a deeper obedience in Christ.

Jesus, how can we do this? Is this even something you want? Didn't it inspire me? It wasn't fake. It wasn't something I regret or look back at with contempt. I felt YOU there. I want to do the same thing with Vox Church gatherings.

All that's in my head is in Your hands...

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On Dying

We've started small groups at Vox Church. Without going into grand detail [and I want to] about the form of it all, one of our primary concerns is for each small group to be connected with some kind of service organization. It's a way to get into the community and begin to meet people, serving them in Jesus' Name.

So as I was having a meeting with a Christian non-profit organization as a potential partner for our small group, and our choices came down to two. Either we served once every 4-6 weeks in service to the organization [cleaning offices, painting, organizing events] or we served every 7-14 days in service to the children of the community [tutoring, playing, helping with homework].

Suddenly, it was clear. I was hit with the stark reality of death: This is going to radically change my weekly schedule and the schedule of everyone in the small group. This is going to greatly affect our lives and the lives of those around us significantly. It was a very uncomfortable thought.

Instead of pushing forward, I held off. I told the organization that I'd talk with the small group about it and see what they wanted to do. I'm still feeling queezy about the whole thing.

First things first, I need to listen to Jesus concerning my expectations of serving. We are called to die. To let ourselves be thrown in the ground and die, all for the sake of the Kingdom. That was never more real than yesterday at that meeting, and I'm still reeling a little.

Secondly, I'm a little twisted up about the organization we'd be serving. They're not horrible people or anything like that, I'm just wondering if our missions coincide - they want to indoctrinate these children for Jesus [among other very helpful things they do for the community] and we're more about building the relationship first. Like I said, I'm still not sure. If they don't really mesh, we might need to look elsewhere. Decisions...

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