Emerging Pastor

I just love this quote.

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
 - Theodor Seuss Geisel

To me it is a reminder to be fearless in speaking the truth into peoples lives and not shying away if I think that be saying something I may ruin the relationship.

No, food poisoning isn't a clever theological metaphore, it's a horrid statement of fact.

I seem to be on the mend now but this weekend was pretty much a wipe-out for me. I was supposed to be leading the church in worship this weekend but I realised at 3am Sunday morning this wasn't going to happen. I wont go into any details, you all know what food poisoning does to the body, I'm just thankful to God for my wife who has nursed me through this time (even now as I blog ill lying on the couch) and for those in my church family who picked up the slack for my absence.

Someone once said "Don't make yourself irreplaceable or you will never be promoted", I believe something similar applies to the life of the minister. Not being promoted but rather having people being able to step into your shoes when life takes an unexpected turn.

One of the most frustrating issues in ministry is waiting at the well for people to drink and drink deeply. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Ministry is about leading horses, I mean people, to the water and waiting patiently as they discover that they need to drink the water to be sustained.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?"  Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:7-14 slightly abridged)

In ministry there seems to be a great deal of waiting at the well with people. We speak to people about the water, try and sell them on it's benefits, tell them how the water has sustained us in all times but ultimately we are required to wait patiently as they make the decision to drink for themselves.

It's just painfull to see people...

One of my favorite college subjects is one called "Personal Formation". It is 3 years long and works to grow the individual in themselves. It's run as a small group (typically about 8 people) who get together over regular periods during the year to reflect on themselves, life and ministry and how God is forming them. I had my third session this year on Monday and we were introduced to the term, Missionalism. This is the tipping point from being a sucessful leader and drawing yourself into a cult of personality and sucess. And I'm prone for it!

Those that sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. (Ps 126:5) I've always enjoyed that Psalm, it brings an amount of comfort to me when ministering to those in pain because it points me towards the hope that they have in future and that the pain not matter how much it hurts will be redeemed. Twice this weekend I fell into some accidental ministry where this verse resonates deeply within me. The first happened in my lounge room...

I've been trying to make the "Sunday Life" entries as regular as possible, reflecting on ministry experiences from the weekend. My Sunday's are usually quite busy, if I'm not worship leading, I'm praying and talking with people. If I'm not talking or praying with people I'm preparing for something else. I sat down this morning thinking, I've got nothing to say. Sure I went to both services, was blessed by the messages and was challenged to draw closer to God, I had the opportunity to minister to people one on one, pray for healing in their lives and encourage them on. But sometimes it doesn't seem like enough.

This was a very exciting weekend for me, I had the honour of performing two baptism's. The first was my grandmother who I've mentioned previously. It was a very emotional experience for the both of us, and I will admit I was a little nervous in doing it. I'm not exactly sure why I was nervous, public speaking isn't an issue for me, but I did use an unfortunate word, I announced that we had three "victims" who were being baptized, definitely poor phrasing and a couple of people mentioned it to me afterwards.  

Here's an action shot of Gran going into the drink :)

There were three people being baptized, the second was John, a man who has come into our church through the soup kitchen (well it's really a BBQ) that we run every fortnight in a block of housing commission flats. Although I wasn't doing the baptizing I had an indirect hand in it. My dad was the one to baptize John! I had the pleasure of baptizing my dad a couple of years back and to see him growing in God like this is just amazing!!!

Here is the two of them before it happened. (Dad's on the left :)

Just over a year ago Sally and I made some new friends, Gary and Rhiannon. They started coming to our church and soon after to our bible study. We have been blessed to know them and travel with them in their Spiritual journeys as well as seeing their family begin to grow with a beautiful little boy. I'm usually someone who has a lot of acquaintances but not many close friends, Gary and Rhiannon were fast friends and we love them a lot.

Rhiannon expressed her desire for baptism some time ago and after a little electronic cajoling (I love email) she hopped in to be buried with Christ and identify publicly with his resurrection.

Here's some before and afters.

Join with me in praying for all three of them as they continue their Spiritual journey in Christ.

On the train this morning I was finishing off one of my ethics assignments, this one is about the validity of cohabitation as a pathway to marriage.

It's a very difficult question to answer because of the crossover between sacred and secular views of marriage. The Catholic church insist that marriage has to be performed by a member of the clergy in from to at least two witnesses (the council of Trent) while Martin Luther said that marriage is a secular issue and the church should just stay out of it.

The underlying question for me is how much say can the church have in a secular society. We can not be legislators of all morality (mostly because we abdicated the moral high ground long ago) but at the same time we can be a positive influence on our society guiding them towards a Godly way of living.

After all the foundation of our societies laws are based in Judeo-Christian thought and no one argues that "don't kill" and "don't steal", while going somewhat against our nature are beneficial to society.

That's not the path I went down in my assignment though, I think once people cohabitate they have entered into marriage with each other. Australian law at least recognizes that after a certain amount of time living together you are in a de facto marriage. What we can add to society and people who are considering cohabitating is give them access to pre-marital counseling! And encourage them to make a public commitment of their relationship to their friends and family so they can feel invited to support their relationship together.

When Sally and I were married we could have eloped, had the minimum witnesses and excluded our friends, but by inviting everyone to our wedding ceremony we were saying, join with us on this journey and I think that is something that the cohabitating couples I know are missing out on, the society of friends and family invited to help strengthen a relationship.

This weekend marks a momentous occasion. Ready for it?

We have added a new addition to our family, his name is Denny Crane! (yes, with the exclaimation mark!)

Named after one of my favorite T.V. characters (played by... the brilliant... Will...iam... Shatner), little Denny, the Shetland sheepdog is bumming around our appartment scratching at everything in a desperate search for food. Not that he needs anymore food, he's a little porker.

As a rule I have chosen not to use this blog as a forum for non-ministry related things so here comes a really tenuous segue.

Denny is a sheepdog, and pastors are called to be shephards. Told you it was tenuous :)

As a pastor, you are called to be a shepard, literally someone who guides a bunch of often clueless people around life and into safe pastures for the next life. It is truly one of the greatest responsibilities a person can have. If by chance you are an athiest reading this or someone who just generally disagrees, you can not disagree with the fact that when someone who has a degree of authority in your life abuses the trust you have given them, it can have quite serious repercussions.

To take the biblical sheparding analogy to it's logical conclusion, if the shepard fails to watch over his sheep then the wolves get in and hurt and kill. They seek to get in and devour.

Now I'm not saying that the pastor needs to be coddling people, holding their hand through every trivial decision or signing off on whether they should get that car loan or not, but they have a responsibility to guide, guard and protect the spiritual well being of those God has blessed them with.

Denny Crane!