Fireworks, Unguarded Words, and Cultural Engagement

Eagle Creek Fire (Photo KATU)

While Houston was horribly flooded by Harvey and Florida evacuates in anticipation of Hurricane Irma, in Portland, known for its rain, it has been a long, hot, and completely dry summer. As usual, there are many lightning-started wildfires burning around the state particularly in Southern Oregon (Chetco Bar Fire) and in the Central Cascades (Milli Fire). 

As I write, approximately 35,000 acres along the Oregon side of the picturesque Columbia Gorge are burning in the Eagle Creek Fire as seen in this time-lapsed video.  

This last fire was believed to have been started a week ago by some Washington teenagers throwing fireworks off of a forest trail down into the canyon. While some may think that they wanted to start the fire, it might have been less intentional. Perhaps they just wanted to watch a smoke bomb fall and gave no thought to what would happen when it landed in the tinder-dry forest floor or as it bounced from rock to rock, throwing sparks onto very dry grass and leaves.

Photo KOIN-TV

So many have been hurt and inconvenienced by that careless action. All the fire departments in the region have sent resources to help, residents have been evacuated, and I-84 (a crucial transportation corridor) has also been closed to all traffic all week. The entire Portland metro area has been beneath the pall of the cloud of smoke and Mordor-like ashfall. The sun and the moon have been filtered and reddened to an apocalyptic degree for a hundred miles. Images and narratives fill the news and weather broadcasts (competing with floods and hurricanes elsewhere). Public opinion strongly contends that they should have known better. The damage is beyond anything they or their families could ever fix or pay for.

It is hard to watch this consuming story without seeing the latent object lesson in it... 

We all should know better. 

In the New Testament, one of Jesus’ half-brothers wrote a letter for all the churches to read. In an apt metaphor, he warned,

So also the tongue is a small member,

              yet it boasts of great things.

How great a forest is set ablaze

      by such a small fire!

And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.

The tongue is set among our members,

               staining the whole body,

               setting on fire the entire course of life,

              and set on fire by hell.

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.

It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With it we bless our Lord and Father, and

 with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and saltwater? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. (James 3:5-12 ESV)

Our insensitive words are even more dangerous when spoken into an environment, a society, a culture, increasingly withered dry by disconnection and relational distrust, choked by structures and systems surprisingly unjust, made brittle by unkindness (even trauma) of “I must…”.

There are too many tragic cases. In such a context, one of extreme fire danger, we are called to speak, serve, and love. As followers of Jesus, we should submit our words (and the inner condition they reveal) to a higher love than the self.  To a love that when it speaks reveals the One who claimed,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Certainly, we need to set a guard over our lips so that instead of cutting people down, our words and deeds might heal wounds and bind up the brokenhearted in a God-honoring way (Prov. 12:18; Psalm 147:2-3). We also need to learn how to engage those whose beliefs and experiences are different than our own in a way that doesn’t start a damaging fire of invective or pollute the place of meeting with the noxious smoke of ignorance.

For those of us who are in places of leadership and influence, it is important that we learn to minister in this changing cultural environment. We must unlearn some of our old ways so that we can reach the world in a more biblical, more relational, and more Kingdom-oriented way than before. 

Our words, as well as our tone and demeanor, even when we are speaking the truth can be incendiary if we don’t first clear relational space to be heard with a healthy amount of love, listening, and learning how what we say is interpreted and understood. 

Photo by Bjørn Tore Økland
 on Unsplash

It is helpful to be reminded that we are not called to defend this place as our home, where we can demand our rights. Rather, we are called to die to that impulse in ourselves and serve God and humanity as ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven in a way that shows forth the overflowing heart of God. Christ’s ambassadors are not to leave scorched earth and a pall of smoke in their path; rather they are to turn the valley of weeping into a wellspring of life (Psalm 84:6)!

Fan into Flame the Gift

My last post concluded with these verses and the following encouragement,

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame [ἀναζωπυρέω] the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:6-7) 

Is there something that God has put on your heart to do, but the pressures of daily ministry and the fear of the unknown have kept you from doing it? Perhaps now is the time to revisit it.

I am going to take up that advice and revisit the topic here today...

Pastors and other Christian workers usually begin their ministry with an idealistic enthusiasm for the mission to which they have been called. The preceding verse, suggests that this was true of Timothy, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” (v.5)

Timothy not only had a sincere faith personally but was part of a heritage of faith. He also had been given “the gift of God” through Paul’s prayer. And yet Paul considered it important to remind him to rekindle or “fan into flame” [anazopureo: to kindle again] that gift. In this post, I want to do the same thing.

It's harder to build a fire
in the rain. But all
 the more necessary.

So why would we need to hear this message again? I think that doing the work of the ministry and participating in ongoing spiritual warfare can tend to dampen the flame with distractions, doubts, and the fog of discouragement. This also happens as men and women get caught up in what I call the “machine” of ministry—dealing primarily with the organization, administration, planning, budgeting, production, and never-ending deadlines that come with western ministry leadership—which can quickly entomb their initial gift, starving it of the spiritual wind it needs to burst into flame.

We live in dark days—days when people need to see authentic lives empowered by the Holy Spirit, seeking to live out their love for Jesus. Such lives bring both light and heat for the good of all. However, the well-cooled machine of church culture is not so friendly to such divergent light and heat. So if we are going to revisit and rekindle the very reason Christ called us into his great mission, then we will need to be intentional about it.

Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash

What is the gift that God has put in you for the Church? What is the purifying coal of service from the very altar of God that has been planted within you, that which when we let God overcome both our fear and our fatigue might change the world (Isaiah 6:5-8)? Perhaps it involves one of the five ecclesial gifts—mentioned by St. Paul—that the Lord has given to the church, “apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds (pastors), and teachers.” (Eph. 4:11-13). No church is complete without each and every God-given, Spirit-empowered part working together. Yet are we making the church look like only one of the gifts? Or are we leaving one of the essential gifts out of the local church because it might be culturally unseemly? Dr. Tim Robnett (the MU faculty mentor for the Global Evangelism track) thinks so. He contends that we are systemically ignoring the need for gifted evangelists in the local church.

Photo by Madi Robson on Unsplash

Fanning the gift into flame might also involve one or more of the “sign” or “charismatic” gifts (1 Cor. 12) but it is not limited to such a list. These lists are certainly not exhaustive nor constrictive, but empowering for the evangelistic and discipling mission and the edification (building up) of the community of believers. Jesus has a place and a purpose for each of us to fill…without which the church is less than it should be. So how has the love of Christ transformed us and quickened our spirit to humbly meet some needs, right some wrongs, or declare some truths, as a participation in his restorative mission?

The church grows when “every part is working properly” (Eph. 4:16). This doesn’t mean that we all should do the same things in the same way. Instead, we need to be working as God has designed, called, and empowered us to work; not merely doing what others have taught us to do. Just as the Lord inspired and worked through all the different people who wrote the Scriptures—processing his message through their backgrounds, personalities, passions, and education, so he desires to work through our uniqueness to touch the world. At the same time, this post is not an encouragement for us to do our own thing regardless of what others have done. God’s purposes for our lives, like good theology, are best discerned in community. This is one reason we should seek out someone who can be a Cupbearer in our lives. 

This is also a good reason why churches should invest in the continuing education of their pastors—such as what takes place through a cohort-based MA or DMin program. 

So I ask again, do you know what gift you are being called to develop, evaluate, refine, and give to bless the church? I hope you will not hide it under your bed (Luke 8:16) but as Jesus instructed the twelve, "Freely you have received; freely give" (Matt. 10:8).

As we collectively fan into flame the gift of God within us, our authentic example becomes a beacon, encouraging others to do the same. Jesus said that if we are filled with the light of Christ’s love, and participate in the redemptive mission of God, no matter what kind of opposition we face, we will find that our light cannot be hidden. 

Photo by Al x on Unsplash

5. A Cupbearer Is Both Ministry Coach, and Missional Incubator

The last two Cupbearer roles—the ministry coach and the missional incubator—are more common in our ministry culture. Many people call themselves coaches, and many want to plant the seeds of mission in others. However, the distinctive of the cupbearer approach is that it would encourage the minister to apply the humble-shared glory motif throughout all areas of their ministry. Similarly, the mission that ought to be incubated and released through their ministry is intentionally Trinitarian and relational. If there is less mission or orthodoxy than desired, the Cupbearer might use a problem-posing approach, asking the pastor to think about an answer and then follow up later.

Cupbearers as ministry coaches will encourage the development of kingdom values, building on the Trinitarian glory model (i.e., It is shared, humble, and invitational) in keeping with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and specifically the beatitudes. From these kingdom values, will come an analysis of the fruit of the ministry entrusted to them, not the false narrative of the numbers game but the kind of fruit that issues forth from the presence of the Holy Spirit in a faithful believer. The role of a ministry coach is neither to hand out participation trophies nor is it to shame pastors into conforming to a popular model. It is rooted in the teachings, commissions, and promises of Jesus Christ and is motivated by the love of God poured into our lives, as Paul wrote to the believers in Rome,

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)

In such an approach, God sees to it that nothing is wasted. We can rejoice even in suffering for it produces endurance à character à hope. At the very least, suffering is laboratory learning! Jesus, our savior, and example, became human to identify with us, and in the process, the one who is omniscient in his divine nature actually learned obedience through suffering in his human nature. As Hebrews 5:7-10 says,

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Missional incubation is a natural function of the Cupbearer's calling for they are as committed to fulfilling the missio Dei (mission of God) as anyone if thought is taken to do it Jesus’ way and in cooperation with others. In the west, we like strong leaders, who get things done, but at the same time, we don’t like being told what to do. What we need are spiritual leaders that fully expect that their followers are hearing from God and are empowered by the Holy Spirit in their own lives and don’t need the leader to tell them what to do in order to do what needs to be done. The late Ron Mehl once shared in a pastoral staff meeting,

“A strong leader says, ‘This is what we’re doing!’

 A spiritual leader says, ‘What are we doing?’ He has the willingness to release   

 leadership to [others so they can] do what they are called to do.”

I love the stories of a former missionary who never told national pastors what to do (“You need to plant a church in such-and-such town”) but simply asked them questions about what they might do (e.g., “If you were to plant a church where would you plant one?”) which peaked their imagination and incubated the mission already placed within them from the Lord. Cupbearers, like Jesus in his passion, do not seek to shout in the streets, neither adding to the bruising experience of life in ministry, nor snuffing out the smoldering wicks of your dreams and callings (Matt.12:19-21), but rather they desire to restore, rekindle, and release it.

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:6-7) 

Is there something that God has put on your heart to do, but the pressures of daily ministry and the fear of the unknown have kept you from doing it? Perhaps now is the time to revisit it.