Spirituality in the Word

Photo by Ricardo Teixeira on Unsplash

The following post was originally published by Dr. Ron Frost on his A Spreading Goodness blog. It is reprinted here with his permission...

I’m reading and rereading books on Christian spirituality these days. It comes with my prepping to teach on the subject. With that as context, I’ll offer a brief reflection on two widely appreciated works that promote spiritual transformation.

One, Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, lists disciplines under the headings of Inward, Outward, and Corporate. The second, the late Dallas Willard’s Spirit of the Disciplines, endorsed Foster but added his own emphasis on the human body as the proper focus of change. Willard saw the actions of Jesus—his nights of prayer and his long fast in the wilderness—as models for we should follow in bringing about life change.

The strength of both works is their shared call for real change: both insist that change starts with reformed behaviors. In their critique and invitation, they challenge habits of offering glittering doctrines and Christian principles that don’t really make a difference. Ideas that tickle ears and stir minds on a Sunday … but that don’t make a difference on Mondays … need to be replaced. Amen and amen!

Yet as much we can say a hearty amen to the goal of life-change, the means for getting there—human initiative—is more than suspect. We may cheer the old Nike slogan “Just do it” or the cute sketch by Bob Newhart, “Stop it!” But the reality of life is that pulling our bootstraps for all we’re worth will never get us airborne. And building a “discipline” to reshape our spiritual profile is always an effort in bootstrap pulling. It just doesn’t work. Not, at least, if the Bible is any measure.

The true key to spiritual transformation is the Spirit. He does any and all changing—both in the Old Testament and the New. And we change as we respond to his work in us.

This was a lesson lost on Nicodemus when he met with Jesus in John chapter three. The Pharisee leader was already “the teacher of Israel”—as Jesus labeled him—and would have been rich with the disciplines of the Pharisaical lifestyle, but he was still as dead spiritually as a forest is still when there isn’t a breeze to stir it. He needed a work “from above” and not more effort from below. Faith is always a response and not a responsibility: with Christ’s words and works in focus rather than our duties and efforts.

Photo by Mark Eder 
on Unsplash

Here’s why I grieve in reading the overlapped discipline lists in the books I mentioned. They promise ladders that lead to heaven—with the disciplines of abstinence and engagement as rungs along the way. So that solitude, fasting, frugality, study, service, confession, prayer—and more—promise to bring us ever closer to union with God. But the ladders never reach heaven.

The approach, in other words, ignores the guidance Jesus and his Apostles offer in the Bible. And it misses the true transforming power: “God’s love has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Ro. 5:5). Paul, for one, spoke of this love as the one effective motivation in ministry in 2 Corinthians 5:14— “For the love of Christ controls us.…”

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The starting point for true spirituality is always from above, birthed in God’s paternity. Jesus made this clear to some erstwhile believers who in the end tried to kill him (in John 8:30-59): “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here.” And the first indicator of life-change is a bold appetite for Jesus and his words. Self-driven faith, on the other hand, reduces him to a sidebar. Why? “It is because you cannot bear to hear my word” (8:43).

Jesus was all about spiritual transformation but he had his own way of doing it: always from the inside out. He starts with hearts. The so-called Rich Young Man in Mark 10:17-22 was a ladder-climbing genius but when Jesus asked him to come and be with him the man balked. The real pathos in the text is in verse 21: “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him…”

Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash

The Bible is a love story. Jesus uses the metaphor of a branch-and-vine bond (John 15) to describe the basis for true spiritual formation—Jesus calls it “fruit”—by calling for us to share his life: “Abide in me and I in you.” And with this, we are to let “my words abide in you” and, collectively: “Abide in my love.”

So, if we need a counter analogy to this love story, consider a loveless marriage. Where the partners have lost their first love and are now driven by duties—by the “disciplines of marriage.” I’m a lifelong bachelor and even I know the answer to this notion: “Go find a marriage counselor, quick!”

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Let’s take up, instead, the pursuit of Jesus, who loves us and gave up his life for us. His heart is a transforming center that brings the sort of joy and peace only a living relationship offers.

A Bridge over (In)Tolerant Waters

Are We Bridge-Builders or Culture Warriors?

The question asked in my subtitle, “Are we bridge-builders or culture warriors?” is important to those of us who serve in Christian ministry. I would contend that if we are to be faithful and fruitful in the “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18) we will need to engage relationally as ambassadors more than either issuing edicts as cultural dictators, or cutting ties with the world outside our spiritual stockade.

AP Photo 2012

Yet it seems to be culturally acceptable to cut ties with others, blowing up our relational bridges because they don't meet our expectations. It is hard work to seek understanding and work towards reconciliation with those who have offended us or whom we have offended. We can unfriend/unfollow someone on social media with the click of a button. We end marriage through easy access to divorce for almost no reason at all. Many people are estranged from their family because one party or both are unwilling to seek forgiveness. This relational brokenness is a contributing factor to both economic and relational poverty. 

As pastors and Christian leaders, we should not contribute to further brokenness but participate in God's mission to "rebind the broken cosmos." However, sometimes our efforts are tragically flawed by our own self-assurance that we even know what the problem is, and our unilateral efforts to fix things because we are the ones who know/have the solution.

If you are interested in exploring this question, I am including links to three articles I wrote a few years ago for an academic cultural engagement blog, Compelled2.blogspot.com.

Bridge-building in a Chaotic World

How do we intentionally reach out to engage, to build bridges of understanding and respect, on behalf of the common good? The steps to building a physical bridge offer surprising insights into the process of building and maintaining relational/cultural bridges.

Bridge-building #2: Start with Listening

So many of our conflicts arise, or are exacerbated, by our failure to really listen. Just as large construction projects must include an environmental impact study, any effort at relational bridge-building must begin with serious listening. As the church looks for a ministry paradigm for an increasingly diverse yet hyper-connected world, the ambassador approach to cross-cultural engagement is vital!

Bridge-Building #3: Tolerances & Tighteners, Gaps & Grips

KGW News Photo

This article began as an assigned response to Paul Louis Metzger’s prompt entitled “Beyond Tolerance to Tenacious Love.” In this post I revisit what physical bridge-building teaches us about the tricky subject of tolerance and intolerance. Everyone loves a good object lesson…right?

While these posts don’t provide all the answers, perhaps they will help us to start asking the right questions. If these posts are helpful to you and your ministry, I would love it if you would let me know.

Longview Bridge
Photo: Greg K. Dueker

Don’t Isolate—Engage!

We have all dealt with people who just want to do things their own way, expressing their opinions unfiltered by any increased understanding. As it is written,

“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire;
    he breaks out against all sound judgment.
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
    but only in expressing his opinion.” (Prov. 18:1-2)

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

But the challenge for us, is to not become this person, by neither allowing our understanding to ossify though overindulging in our opinion nor becoming brittle through our stubbornness. Isolation is insidious. It can arise when we feel rejected by others in some way but also when we feel superior to or independent of, others.

There is an example of this kind of foolish behavior among the parables of Jesus,

And [Jesus] told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ (Luke 12:16-19)

Kenneth E. Bailey, in Jesus Through Middle-eastern Eyes, points out that in the culture of 1^st Century Palestine, it would have been unthinkably foolish to make important decisions without wise counsel. Some decisions are too important to be made alone. The Rich Fool doesn’t consult anyone…he is satisfied with his own internal dialogue instead of consulting the advice of others, or more importantly, seeking to ask God what he should do. This is the trifecta of foolishness:

1. thinking he needed no other human counsel or input; 
2. completely failing to involve the Lord in his decision-making process; 
3. assuming that all he had been blessed with was for his own use—to enjoy at his leisure.  

We do well to remember that God is the ultimate source of any true blessing we enjoy, yet even so, it is not intended as a terminal blessing—one that ends with us—but one that can only truly be received and enjoyed when it is shared with others. The Abrahamic blessing was no different. The blessing given to one man would ultimately be extended into a blessing for all the families on earth (Gen. 12:1-3). This should prompt us to consider how what we have received participates in the shared goodness of God. Secondly, we cannot participate in the wonderfully redemptive plan of God if we isolate our individual selves from others or insulate our local congregations from engaging with other groups in our community.

One thing is certain: when we engage with others, we can’t just express our opinion without listening to other viewpoints and potentially corrective reasoning, not to mention caring relationships, that might restrain us from doing stupid and hurtful things.

Unfortunately, too many consider social media outbursts to be engagement. While significant conversation can be facilitated across great distances by various digital platforms (I currently use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn in addition to blogging) we may be shielded by our digital avatars and emboldened, or “disinhibited”, to attack or bully others and thus “breaking out against all sound judgment.”

Photo: Greg Dueker

Are we followers of Jesus Christ? We should remember that while he consistently confronted the sin of the religious leaders (usually in person), of him it could also be said,

“He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
    nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory;
     and in his name the Gentiles will hope.” 

(Matthew 12:19-21, citing Isaiah 42:2-4)

If we represent him, then our approach should not be one of obnoxious tirades and trolling launched from an insulating distance where our ego can easily dismiss opposing voices as “ignorant idiots.” We would do well to draw nearer to others than ever before—to hear their stories, to celebrate their triumphs, and sit with them in their pain and brokenness. Such relational engagement has mutual benefits (See my pastoral post on "Talking to Strangers"). Others might experience healing and deliverance through our participation in relational gospel ministry, but we will be changed as well! We benefit from having our paradigms challenged, our pet perspectives turned upside down, and our cardboard concepts enfleshed by the Spirit working through the unexpected. Sometimes it is hard to face reality through relationships with less-than-perfect people, but the alternative is that I might never be set free from the prison of my own opinions. 

My application of this passage admonishes me, saying, 

• Don't isolate yourself to pamper your opinions. 
• Don't make major decisions independent of wise counsel. 
• Don't do stupid stuff because you don't have anyone you would allow to change your mind. 
• Do let the Scriptures, taken in context, be the filter on your affections, thoughts, and speech. 

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

So, what does this anti-isolation message mean for the way we prepare for roles as pastors, chaplains, missionaries, and other avenues of service? Are we passionate about ministering but self-trained, or tend to form our beliefs in isolation? Maybe we earned a degree years ago and launched out on our own, but now wonder how best to minister to a post-everything culture?

If any of these are the case, I encourage you to become more Biblically orthodox while also becoming more of a bridge-building ambassador than ever before! Find cohort-based learning communities from well-respected seminaries that are designed for those currently serving in ministry roles and leverage the advantages of both classroom engagement and online flexibility. I am pretty certain that your ideas will be challenged, your faith will be strengthened, and your ministry refocused and readied in anticipation of new seasons of fruitfulness! 

Iron Sharpens Iron—Better Together! (Prov. 27:17)

 “Iron sharpens iron,
      and one man sharpens another.”

This is a message we often hear in the church, especially in the context of ministries aimed at men, though it is equally true for women. It is a powerful metaphor of the relational element of whole-life character (and perhaps even personality) development. It has often been said that such engagement might produce sparks, but it also brings strength and respect.

Pondering the concept of “iron sharpening iron” causes me to ask practical questions such as, “How can we sharpen each other for greater effectiveness and faithfulness in the long work of the harvest? What needs to take place for us to overcome the dulling effects of living and ministering in a fallen world? I have a 45-year-old boy scout hatchet (see below left) that is a bit the worse for wear. It could stand to be sharpened if it is going to be useful for chopping this summer.

Forged in Fire is currently a very popular television show, where four contestants are challenged to construct their signature blades in such a way that they will stand up to a series of sometimes gruesome tests for strength, sharpness, and lethality. The final two contestants are then tasked by the judges with building a specific weapon from history in their own home forge that will be brought back to be tested, and a winner will be chosen. While within our learning cohorts, we are not in competition with each other, there is a spirited discussion on matters of importance so that we can hear, learn, and grow in understanding—all while taking seriously the call to build (not puff) each other up.

Photo Credit Greg Dueker

A Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program is for those with considerable ministry experience—having run, walked, or crawled through some victories, some defeats, some wise decisions, and some foolish decisions. Yet just because we have experience doesn’t mean that we know everything or can even rightly perceive what we know. In cohort-based learning, we subject our pet ideas and approaches to the scrutiny of the community of learners. Untested ideas get tempered and nicked up a bit while the gouges and notches left by past and present conflicts are hammered out, heat-treated, and honed through lasting relationships and reexamination of the Scriptures, learning about the lives of fellow saints and spiritual soldiers, and humbly seeking godly wisdom in our ministry contexts.

Earlier in the same “sharpening” chapter, the author of Proverbs wrote,

“Better is open rebuke

    than hidden love.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend;

    profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” (Prov. 27:5-6)

This is also hard to hear…especially if we don’t like having our ideas and methods questioned. Yet, for the sake of the gospel, we should be willing and ready to face sharpening if we are going to be effective over the long term. Have you ever taken the time to consider how open rebuke is better than hidden love? I’m not sure that I have except to intuitively know it is better. The Book of Proverbs is consistent in talking about how the wise man responds to rebuke differently than the fool (See Prov. 13:1; 17:10; 28:23; 9:7-8; 12:1,15; 1:7-9, 23-27). The wise man finds value in being rebuked, for he can “learn” or “gain understanding” from the process. Even if the rebuke is undeserved, it may still help produce humility in the wise man and increase his dependence upon the Lord. However, hidden love doesn’t help anyone. This verse (5) reminds me of a technique you may have seen on the popular TV show, The Voice, where, in the early stages of the competition, the coaches often try to sell contestants on why they should pick them as their coach. One coach, Adam Levine, is often complimentary, but then points out some minor issues that need to be corrected and how he could help the singer improve. When he uses this approach, it works almost every time over the “compliments alone” approach other coaches might employ, because serious performers want to get better.

As pastors, chaplains, missionaries, and Christian leaders, we would do well to seek wise counsel before going into the spiritual “battle” that swirls around us. As it is written,

“Where there is no guidance, a people falls,
    but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” (Proverbs 11:14; See also 24:6)

The Bible—the whole counsel of the Word of God—when we delight in it, provides just such an abundance of counselors (Psalm 119:24). It is a wonderful thing that we don’t have to face the enemy, or prepare ourselves for the task before us, alone. In fact, we shouldn’t even attempt it. The Apostle Paul wrote to a younger pastor,

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

This means that the Bible, read and studied together in community, is God speaking into our lives and ministries. It will be very useful since it …

• reveals what is right and true (teaching or doctrine)
• reveals what is not right (reproof)
• reveals how to get right (correction)
• reveals how to stay right (training in righteousness)

The bottom line is that we all need a teachable heart, a mind that is applied to seeking understanding, a life overflowing with the love of God, the faith to leave our comfort zone to join in the mission of God and to encourage others to keep up, that and the physical strength to do the work.

I am thankful to those men and women of my D.Min. cohort who walked with me in full, or in part, through the sharpening process—Mark Nicklas, Cliff Chappell, Joe Luce, Eric Knox, Chris Haughee, Jody Bormuth, Noel Schaak, Jim Polenski, Joe-Silem Enlet, Wilfred Kaweesa, John McKenricks, Serena Briening, Bill Myers, Will Berkley, Paul Louis Metzger and many others who supported us along the journey!

"In Process"
Photo Credit: Greg Dueker

I hope that you have faithful men and women to encourage and challenge you as you serve the Lord Jesus Christ. If you don’t have a committed learning community, check out cohort-based programs at well-respected seminaries. 

If there is one thing I know about axes, it is that a dull ax doesn’t split much wood, and just might be more likely to cut your leg than a log! Don’t be that person!

Retooling, Recalibrating, & Releasing for Ministry

Greetings, fellow laborers in Christ (e.g., pastors, chaplains, missionaries, teachers, and other Christian workers)!

If you are like me, your life in ministry has been filled with times of both joy and sorrow, constancy and change, growth and pruning, excitement and exhaustion, ... sometimes all in the same week!

It may have been a while since you graduated from seminary…or perhaps you are still in the formative stages of your ministry. In any event, I’m wondering if this new season finds you sensing the need for…

• Retooling—sharpening your understanding and skills for ministry in a rapidly changing cultural context;
• Recalibrating—your approach to ministry (separating what is merely Western culture from what is more biblical and more orthodox than we have ever been) to an even greater level of biblical faithfulness and missional effectiveness through the process of a learning community;
• Releasing—has the weekly pressure of ministry led you to neglect the dream that God has imparted to you? Is there a ministry passion that has been set on the back burner for longer than you planned?

It is my belief that God wants to use us all to release a gift to the Church and to the world that would benefit from the nurturing accountability of a cohort-based ministry training program. It can be a program that is either academic or non-academic, but it should be deeply relational, honestly wrestling with the scriptures and our methodologies as well as with our own attitudes, words, and actions. It is tough to self-edit, so my prayer is that we all can find a learning community that will facilitate us doing the work together.

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, many lightning-started wildfires are 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-lapse video.  

This last fire was believed to have been started a week ago by some Washington teenagers throwing fireworks off 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 the 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 former MU faculty mentor for Global Evangelism) 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