Calling: 24-7

For most of us, doing the work of the Kingdom is like a part-time job.  We go somewhere or do something once a week, once a month or several times a year.  In between it may feel that we have a lot of down time.  Lately, I have been asking the question, “what if I want do to Kingdom work today or right now?”

A friend the other day told me of some who seem to have an identity of a minister.  They may or not have an official title or station within the church, but they are always sharing Christ’s love and care with others.  For them, pastoral care is not something that they can just pick up and put down again when they retire.  It reaches the chore of their identity.

Perhaps what I am wrestling with is an idea of vocation.  Unfortunately, in most of the churches I have been in, vocation is limited to a few people on the church staff.  Furthermore, many of those staff members experienced their work as more of a job than a vocation.

Every once in a while, there comes along someone like St. Francis, whose sense of vocation changes the world and creates a new category of calling.  Wisely, the church affirmed this vocation, but it could have just as easily gone the other way.  What would the world be like without the Franciscan family today?

Perhaps the church needs to be a little more creative in this idea of personal vocation.  I wonder how many times the church has missed the opportunity to come along beside someone on whom the Spirit has his hands.  What if, instead of the church’s asking where someone could fit into their plan they asked, "where is the Holy Spirit already working in this person?"  What if most churches felt free to create new categories of vocation?

Creating these categories of vocation would necessitate empowering those to do the work to which they are called.  These new ministers may need new tools.  Our old manuals may have to be supplemented.  Professional clergy would have to be willing to share the work and the blessings. 

I can almost see a church with many orders: orders of artists; orders on hospital pastoral care givers; orders of teachers; and orders of sages.

Blessing the End of Life

For the third time in three weeks, I find myself walking through the end of life with someone I know.  In all three cases, a close relative, a close friend and a new friend, I have been faced with the question of how I could be a blessing to the dying and others in this moment. 

We as a culture do not handle death well.  We avoid it as long as possible.  Great sensitivity must be taken in not naming it too soon.  Modern medicine doesn’t help by teaching us that death is in all cases the enemy.  It fights it and refuses to acknowledge the rightness of a respectful end of life.  I find that there is often a sense of relief when we finally name it.  We can then begin the mourning process.  We can deal with it straight on in a gentile and loving way.

I find that the church needs a better way to bless this final stage of life.  We need to have a way of commemorating this transition.  It should be a dignified time.  A sacred time.  We have the Ministration at the Time of Death, but what about the day or two before an eminent death, which may for a lay minister be the last visit that they have with the person?  Is there some way that we could speak a blessing that could acknowledge an impending passing?  Unfortunately, we avoid it until it is too late, and ministry opportunities are missed.

Disappointments

I recently faced a disappointment.  I had made plans, invested a great deal of time, and it seemed to vanish overnight.  I was flooded with many emotions from anger to defensiveness to sorrow.  I had many questions.  Was this really God’s will?  Was there a human mistake?  Are the two mutually exclusive?  Where am I to go now?

I was reminded by a friend that disappointments can be places of transformation.  It requires us to check our plans against God’s.  It reminds us that it is not all up to us.  I was asked to look for places where God could meet me in this situation.  I was also reminded that God is not boxed in by our expectations.  He is much more expansive than the little categories that we make.

Disappointments are sure to come.  It is a part of our being broken people living in a broken world.  But if we turn these misfortunes into places of worship, they may be powerful moments of growth.  Often, it is not on the mountaintop where we encounter Christ, but in the wilderness.

Following to an Unknown Land

In his book Money, Possessions and Eternity, Randy Alcorn raises the concern that most of us, having lived our entire lives in our American culture, do not know what it is like not to be materialistic.  This is a real concern for those who wish to move past the materialism that surrounds us.  Like Abraham, the journey out of materialism to the life that God would have for us is leaving home and traveling to “a land that we know not of.”  Perhaps it is like a young person who has lived all his life in the desert who decides that wants to live by the sea.  He doesn’t know what the sea is having never seen it.  Perhaps he does not even know where it is.  He only knows that he cannot live by the ocean until he leaves everything that he knows.  There may be many around him who seeing the mirages say that they have seen the sea.  They say that there is no need to take a long and dangerous trip.  It is just beyond our reach.  How more pitiful it would be for the young man, knowing that it is a mirage, to chase it anyway.

Of Many Books

Today, I took a quick look at how much I have spent on books this year. On the whole, I live a fairly austere life, in that I do not have many luxuries. To an extent, this is part and parcel of being an academic. No one works in higher education to get rich. Still, I was shocked to see how much I had spent over the course of a year. Perhaps my life is not as austere as I had thought.

Then I began to think about how much I had given this year: a paltry amount in comparison. I actually love giving, and cherish every opportunity I get to be generous. How is it that I had let all of those opportunities to give end up filling up my bookcase? What would happen if I had donated just ten percent of what I spend on books? Don’t get me wrong: some of those books will help me grow spiritually. Some of those books could have waited until later. I didn’t need to have all of them when I purchased them. Many of them were impulse buys.

This serves to remind me of the choices that I make with my money. I don’t think that it is good to start making rules about how much to give. There is no real guide that I know of as to how much giving is enough. But we could each stretch a bit more. Try this: the next time you go to the store, buy $5 worth of food for someone who may not get a meal. This may mean putting back that bag of chips, but this is no sacrifice. To an organization that provides food to the needy, however, this small donation may mean that one more child will not go to bed hungry for one night.

On the radio today, I heard in a recording Ayn Rand say that the greatest virtue is to provide pleasure for oneself. This is the way that many of us live, but it is in direct opposition to the way of Christ. We are our brother’s keeper. It is a virtue to help our wounded neighbor. Perhaps, it is time that I take a few small steps to fulfill this obligation.

Not by Might, Nor by Power

I have been in church leadership discussions for a number of years. My father was an associate pastor and music pastor in my youth, allowing me at a young age a front row seat to the inner working of a church. In one church of about 2000, where I spend much of my energy for 10 years, I was involved in many discussions about how to make the church successful. I was also a deacon there for a couple of years. I was not on the leadership committee, but I regularly had the ear of one or more of the pastors. I was even in a reading group with one of the pastors where we discussed classics like Resident Aliens. In addition, on my own, read a fair amount on the topic of church and spirituality.

I have read or discussed many “best practices.” I have heard many say that if we want to grow and reach people we have to do this or that. There were discussions of quasi Social Sciences, surveys and marketing plans. Oddly enough, there was not always the asking what God wanted. Had we properly entertained the idea that God may want to buck the system? Whose responsibility is it anyway to build a church? Ours or God’s?

The other day, a friend of mine commented that there is some truth in the claims of the church growth gurus, yet there is something that falls short in it also. It is my opinion that churches can often grow some by getting larger parking lots, or relocating to another part of town and totally leave God out of the loop. Many ideas can help some, but we do not rise or fall by this or that survey. A frightening warning is that Jesus said, “Behold I stand at the door and knock” to a church.

Let’s be biblical about this. It is not by our might or by our power, but by the Spirit of God that a church prospers. Prospering means not only growing in numbers, but growing deep spiritual roots and maturity. A church grows from its knees. A church grows as it grows in likeness to the one it worships. A church should grow not because it has what others want, but it has what they need. Social Science can help some, but as Os Guinness has taught us, they should be used with caution, and never as a solution.

I find it amazing that, believing in a miracle-working God, we almost expect him not to get too involved with the health of our churches. We think that it is all on us to read the signs interpret and apply the right principles. We give him a nod now and then and tell how God has blessed us, but it all pretty much went as planned. If it failed, then it was because we had not tapped into the right system.

What if the world looked at our churches and said, “Wow, how did that happen?” What if God was so central to the growth of our churches in such an unexpected way that others had to admit a miracle had happened? It can happen, and I hope it will.

chosing a loser

I have not traveled much, but I have been told on many occasions that in many countries a person’s future is determined for him fairly early on. In these systems, a student is at some point assigned to a college track or a trade school track. He or she does not really have a say in the matter. I once had a friend from Germany who came to the U.S. to go to college because she was placed on the non-college track back home. Her future was already decided for her. She had to travel across the Atlantic to have a chance at a different future.

In a similar fashion, a person who was to be a rabbi had to pass through several stages of schooling. At any point, he could wash out if the right people thought that he was not up to snuff. Those who were not up to snuff were sent back home to be a tradesman. Only the brightest and most talented people were allowed to make it to the place of being a disciple. Being a disciple would probably be equivalent in today’s world of being a medical intern. A person could not just decide to be a disciple.

This is why it is so unusual that Christ chose tradesmen to be his disciples. They had already washed out as some point. Someone at some point in their life has said that they did not have what it takes. Jesus could have chosen from many of the students in rabbinical schools of the day. No doubt, there were some promising intellectuals in the mix. No, Jesus went to fishermen, tax collectors and even someone from a terrorist party and asked them how they would like to join the elite of the society of that day.

I was taught from a young child by a very godly father that God seems to make a point of choosing the most unlikely vessels to do his greatest works. Scripture is filled with unlikely leaders, prophets and history makers. As God said to Samuel, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.” In a move that makes no sense in our understanding of the world, God chooses losers and makes them winners in his work.