Emerging Pastor

There is something about the Word of God that can make a person just come alive!

Last night I met with two fellow elders of my church and we sat down to open the Scriptures and nut out a theological and ethical issue that has been nagging at us for some time. We were discussing the importance of baptism and it's linkage to church membership.

Nothing heavy :)

Churches of Christ, the denomination I "belong" to has traditionally held to a very strict "no baptism, no membership" policy since it emerged out of the restoration movement. We were taking a fresh look at it because of inter-denominational transfers and trying to reconcile the traditions of other Christian traditions. (I recently wrote a paper on the issue and my college would like me to pursue some post-graduate research on the topic).

All of that is actually beside the point. Before I arrived at the meeting I was still in my morose, disconnected and melancholy but while I was there and engaged with the Word of God I felt alive once more.

The things of God have the ability to excite me even when I am feeling dead in the world, the trick for me is to be motivated to go into the Word when I feel like this which is no easy task.

the things of God excite

 

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God has been teaching me a big lesson lately and it's not one I think I'm ready to learn. It's all about time.

A few weeks ago our preaching pastor and I were talking about his workload. He is about to finish up his work with our church and has ramped up his ministry in other areas. At the moment there is an overlap and he asked me the question "How do you fit it all in". I stood their and answered him honestly, "You take the time you would devote to your number 1 priority and divide it over all the lower priorities". By that I meant you steal time from your family and spend it on the other jobs we must do.

Doing this is ok in for a short time because there will be times when we must simply finish a task or put food on the table. Doing this for the long haul is not ok, and I've being doing it for the long haul.

These past few weeks, since answering that question honestly I have been physically, mentally and Spiritually exhausted. I need to take a break but every time I find time something else pops up to fill the newly created gap.

I guess I'm asking you quazi-anonymous people to pray for me. For strength, for wisdom and for endurance.

When I was worship leading this Sunday morning it was a real struggle to do it. There was a mini-revolt from some singers because they didn't like the songs, others were pressuring me to make changes. I prayed for God to lead me as I lead the church but midway during the service I lost my grip on Him and never quite recovered.

I feel empty inside, the tank is dry.

At the moment there are two things keeping me going. The love of my wife and Jesus' promise that the well of living water he has caused to spring up inside me doesn't not diminish but rather overflows from me into the lives of others.

The truth is, I'm still seeing that overflow into other peoples lives. I still see God effectively ministering through me to those who He brings across my path even though I am broken and empty inside.

I am a cracked pot still leaking out his love.

In my last post I mentioned that I was a very busy boy last weekend. We had a Christmas in July where a lot of people from the soup kitchen we run came along.

We were blessed to have many of them visit with us the next Sunday morning, this happend to be a day that I was preaching.

It was a great privellege to have these people who have never darkend the door of a church before to come come and hear me speak about God and the wonderful gift of life he has for us all, and as promised I have published the text of the sermon on the website for you to read and critique.

The message is The Holy Spirit, God within us.

My prayer for it was that it would be words of hope and words of life for those who need it.

Appreciate your feedback.

As I've said before, my church has seriously beefed up it's commitment to the disenfranchised in our community. We run an outreach to prostitutes on the Great Western Highway as well as a soup kitchen to a group of housing commission flats down the road along with various other ministries that offer practical help to people.

I'm not directly involved in either of the major ministry focuses although I do have a great deal of ancillary contact with the ones that have started visiting or attending our church.

This weekend we invited a whole heap of them over to our place to have lunch with us, Christmas in July. Most of these people had never darkened the door of our church before so it was an important time for us and one I was asked to be involved in.

The close contact I was blessed to have with these people from our local community has changed forever my perceptions of the expectations of the needy in our community.

The people I met and had lunch with this Saturday are hungry for hope.

Sunday and Tuesday night I brushed off ye olde electric guitar and was involved in a very intimate worship experience with my church.

It happened quite by accident, all the night service crew (except for one) who were rostered on had to bail at the last minute so the drummer (the only original), another worship leader and I just sat on some stools and bashed it out. The drummer was playing a large bongo and the other worship leader and I were playing guitar and singing.

That Sunday night I really felt the presence of God in the worship time, at the end of a couple of songs I engaged in some "free worship" and it was a blessed time with the Word, communion and ministry afterwards.

The three of us were asked to lead worship on Tuesday night during our monthly prayer gathering and we readily agreed, everything was about the same but I just didn't feel it.

So it begs the question, what was different, God or me? And what can I learn from this?

Some have noted that this month my post's have been a little further apart than in the past months. There is a reason for this apart from the general busyness of life.

I am working on an expanded version of this website to reach a wider audience as well as to be less focused on myself and more focused on the equipping of all of us for ministry, especially us new pastors.

The new site will be more portal focused. There will still be the blog and articles but I hope to get started on the sermon section as well as adding additional resources for preaching such as an expanded set of illustrations and sermon construction techniques.

I'm also aiming to add some sections like book, music and movie reviews (in that order for importance). I know a lot of other sites do this already so I'll try and aggregate content as much as possible.

The biggest change for the site is I'm looking for your contributions as well! I know my limitations and I'm looking for others further down the road to do any or all of the following. Blog, write articles and reviews or contribute sermons. If you already have a blog I'm not asking you to switch over fully, but consider cross posting here as well.

If your interested and want to know more email me at "steven [at] emergingpastor.com"

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The last two Sunday's have been very confronting for me as a realize more deeply the privilege it is to pray with someone and the difference it can make into their lives.

Prayer is a chance for us to either speak words of death or words of life into someone. I put that in stark contrast because as C.S. Lewis once said, every interaction we have with someone will either draw them closer to God or push them towards the devil (I'm paraphrasing their, leave a comment if you know where it's from), how much more so will be do this when praying with someone.

When we pray with someone the circumstances are certainly not by accident. God has chosen this person to come to you at that time and has privileged you as an agent of His grace to help them say what they can not do by themselves.

One of the things I believe that Catholic church can teach the Protestant church is the art of confession.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)

Recently I've had someone ask me to pray with them because they are on the treadmill of guilt and shame. They are doing something that they have a compulsion to do and feel like they do not have the strength to stop. They do, they feel guilt, then shame and after a while they are back doing it again.

James gives us good advise. When we confess our sins, when we give them voice to another and when we pray we can find healing! That is the hope of God that we can be transformed into someone more like His son every day.

This is the third part in the unintentional series on business following on from Confronting busyness with vision and Overburdening our congregations. Burn out, drop out or drop dead.

I say unintentional because initially I was really just ranting about something I see as a problem for the church and pastors, getting those people in the pews committed to the vision of the church (universal) and growing Spiritually.

Something that has been keeping me awake at night, and I do actually mean that it has been keeping me awake, is the questions

1) Are we making disciples of Jesus or just a crowd of followers,
2) If our church was to disappear tomorrow, would anybody notice?

The questions have popped up so many times recently that I know that it is God asking me to explore them in my own life and own church and ministry.

This is the third part in the unintentional series on business following on from Confronting busyness with vision and Overburdening our congregations. Burn out, drop out or drop dead.

I say unintentional because initially I was really just ranting about something I see as a problem for the church and pastors, getting those people in the pews committed to the vision of the church (universal) and growing Spiritually.

Something that has been keeping me awake at night, and I do actually mean that it has been keeping me awake, is the questions

1) Are we making disciples of Jesus or just a crowd of followers,
2) If our church was to disappear tomorrow, would anybody notice?

The questions have popped up so many times recently that I know that it is God asking me to explore them in my own life and own church and ministry.

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Thought I'd start to share some of the sermon illustrations that come through my inbox. Hope it helps your preaching.

Keep reading for 4 more illustrations

I've had a few conversations with people about my last post "Overburdening our congregations. Burn out, drop out or drop dead"

Some helpfully pointed out that I had not addressed one fundamental issue, the cause of busyness.

What has changed in the last 50 - 100 years to cause the busyness? And what can we do as ministers to help remedy this situation? How can we begin to point people to sacrificing some of their free time for God's purposes?

What a Sunday! It seems God can continue to teach me even when I get a little crusty and belligerent on the outside :)

In the third week of the church wide bible study series we learnt about meekness. Meekness is one of those qualities that is misunderstood as well as unappreciated by society and the church at large. Think about the first thing that comes to mind when you when you read the work "Meek".

Most people will answer something along the lines of "mild", "weak", "timid", "humble" or in a similar vein when the true meaning of the word is something far different.

Jesus encouraged us with the words "Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth" but how can mild, weak and timid people do that?

When Jesus uttered those words he spoke of meekness as being "strength under control". I liken it to a horse that has been broken in by it's rider. The horse has not lost any of it's strength or power, rather it is now channeled through the desires of it's master.

Have we allowed ourselves to be bridled by Jesus? To be led in the way He desires or are we following our own desires.

I am being taught the lesson of meekness at the moment as far as it goes for holding my tongue. It is becoming more apparent to me that even if what I say is right, it's not always right (or the right time) to say it. Meekness for me is bringing my tongue under control for God's sake.

I've been reflecting a lot recently on why people seem so reluctant to be involved in the life of their church. In my church as a lot of others the 80/20 rule holds firm, 80% of the work is performed by 20% of the people. It's a problem of complacency for the most part, people are just happy to not be involved.

This 80/20 creates a dangerous situation for the church (like any other organization) because the concentration or work on a small group of people means that they are prone to burn out, drop out or drop dead. Which ever way it happens you could see important ministry functions such as pastoral care or your soup kitchen / outreach ministry dropping straight off the face of the earth.

During the last three days I've been attending a course in advanced preaching techniques at my college. On the second day they rolled in three pastors from very different churches and life experiences to talk with us about the challenges of preaching ministry. The conversation turned to ministry in general and again this topic of complacency raised it's head.

The consensus of these pastors and the rest of the room seems to be that people in the west are just too content to care! They are happy with their big house, car and job and can't give much care to what happens in the church.

There is obviously a Spiritual issue involved here but I'm not sure if it is complacency or something else and complacency is just a symptom of a deeper issue.