Slower

This exercise of regularly blogging through the season of Lent has been a real challenge for me - but not in the way I imagined it would be. Parting with my Transformers has been a bittersweet affair but in the end a necessary one that I'm getting more comfortable with as the days march on - however the real challenge has been keeping up with the daily blog entries in a way that isn't just putting in a post with a picture of the selected toy and saying "there, I did it for today!"

I'm a fairly verbose person by nature, and opinionated too. I'm usually full of commentary on things that are going on in the world and in the pertinent theological discussion of the blogosphere. I'm not always right but I always have an opinion - but somehow committing those opinions to screen real estate and the permanency of the internet has me thinking twice before I post anything - and perhaps that is a lesson in itself. This exercise in blogging through Lent is teaching me to think before I speak (or post) and to evaluate my opinions and gut reactions in ways that are probably healthy for me. Anyone who knows me even remotely well will know that I tend to let my gut reactions drive my decision making - If I haven't made a decision on a matter in the first couple minutes it's because I'm either terrified of the implications of said decision or because I'm consciously trying to be more measured; reflective decision making is not my natural gear. That however is exactly what this blog is teaching me to do. The Apostle James reminds us:

Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. This is because an angry person doesn't produce God’s righteousness.

James 1:19-20 (Common English Bible)

What I take from that is that I need to perhaps let my ideas and thoughts ferment like a good wine before I continue in the creative process and like the Master Creator pronounce them "good". I need to take my instincts and hone them through prayer and meditation on the Scriptures so that they are thoroughly saturated in God's will and plan. James continues in the next verse:

Therefore, with humility, set aside all moral filth and the growth of wickedness, and welcome the word planted deep inside you—the very word that is able to save you.

James 1:21 (Common English Bible) 

 "With humility..." says to me that I need even my intellect refined and redeemed by the life changing Word so that my deeply held and passionately defended beliefs fall in line with the message and mandate that God has called me to exercise in this world. As a pastor - and now even more so in my new position of leadership in the church - I need to make sure that my plans spring forth from God's plans and not the other way around. "The moral filth and growth of wickedness" that James refers to here is probably related to the anger mentioned in verse 20 but I think it speaks on another level to of the moral wickedness of self assurance and confidence in my own ability to minister to people - in short, pastoral arrogance. Arrogance has a way of growing in us until we become so self absorbed and assured that no one can hold a contrary opinion and be right - my word becomes THE Word rather than THE Word becoming my word. After all when the Lord called Jeremiah he did not say that Jeremiah's words would be authoritative rather he said "I have put my words in your mouth." (Jeremiah 1:9 emphasis mine) I have to be very careful in asking myself what are my words and what are the Words that God is placing in my mouth as a leader, pastor, preacher and teacher?

Even the Apostle Paul in his letters that we rightly recognize as the inspired Word of God had cognizance of the difference between divinely ordained words and his own thoroughly sanctified opinions (1 Corinthians 7:12, 2 Corinthians 8:8-10) I pray that as I take up the mantle of leadership at EAC that I would have the same understanding of my limitations.

I write all this with the heavy burden of a brief but important message coming up to be given during my installation service where I will be expected to share some of my plans for the church going forward. I will be completely honest with anyone reading this that this message is a source of apprehension. I have had six and a half years to evaluate this church and think of the ways that I would change things to better fulfill the mandate that God has called us toward and some of those ideas are fabulous (and some have been implemented even before I was appointed to this position) but some of the ideas I've had over the years have also been awful and unfortunately a few of them found their way into practice before we realized how bad they were. I would be a fool to believe that I could have any sort of ministry longevity in this church without chasing a few bad ideas going forward - I am after all still a work in progress and God still has a lot of rough edges to smooth out and a number of cracks to fill - but my hope and prayer is that I will learn the discipline of slowing down and allowing the Spirit of God to be both inspiring the leadership I provide and vetting the ideas that I come up with so that the frequency of those bad ideas steadily diminishes over time.

At this point I feel like I'm starting to ramble and lose focus in this post so I'm going to wrap things up. If I could ask you for one thing going forward it would be that you pray for me. Pray that God would shape, refine, polish and embody the direction that he has placed on my heart for this church. Pray that my will would  be so overwhelmingly saturated in God's will that he would be able to accomplish his purposes for the church through me. Pray that God would use the leaders that God has surrounded me with to speak into my life and my ministry so that I may experience the growth that comes from iron sharpening iron (Proverbs 27:17), and pray that when needed to that I would lead boldly not seeking the approval of men above the approval of Christ (Galatians 1:10).

Thanks for letting me ramble. I'll post the Transformer of the day later tonight. Jo's teaching a class in the basement right now so I can't get to the storage room.

Chris