Freedom to Thrive

It's that time of year again! As the fall ministry year is just about to get underway this Sunday we celebrate the end of Summer (somehow that just doesn't sound right, does it?) with our second annual Ministry Fair.

The Ministry Fair is an opportunity for you browse tables in the gym that have been set up for all the different ministries that we run and offer at Estevan Alliance Church with the intention of you finding a place to be involved this coming year. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that with 1 and 2/3 fewer pastors than we're used to operating with at EAC and no significant reduction in either attendance or number of ministries, that everyone needs to make sure they are pulling their weight to see the work of God done through our congregation. In fact the Ministry Fair represents more than just filling slots - it's also a performance evaluation for me as a Pastor and a health check-up for you as a church. What do I mean by that? Well let's look to the Scriptures:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-13 (TNIV)

The word of God says clearly that the job of a pastor is to equip the people of God for works of service. If we go into this upcoming ministry season without a buy-in from the people of the church to be equipped and in service - it's a fairly unflattering reflection of the job I'm doing as your pastor. That doesn't mean that every position has to be filled - it may be that some ministries have already had a good life and need to be discontinued to make room for new things that God wants to do - but it does mean that everyone needs to be involved in some way.

Secondly the passage says that we need to be equipped and serving as a church so that "the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach maturity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature..." I've had a difficult week this week as Penelope has continued to struggle with her weight gain to the point that she was admitted to the hospital for a few days until they could sort her out. It's been difficult because she hasn't been growing the way she is supposed to and it's made her unhealthy. When a baby gets to a certain point down that road I'm told they get classified as "failure to thrive" which generally means the child is below the 5th percentile for weight according to their age. The prescription for a child with that classification is to do whatever is necessary to get that child to put on weight and start to grow - in the Church we are told that one important way to grow is to be involved in the ministry of the church - to be serving the way that Christ served. If we neglect  this simple but profound truth of the faith we endanger ourselves of Spiritual Failure to Thrive as a church. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want that label being attached to our fellowship here at EAC.

So what I'm inviting you to do is to join us this Sunday. We will be dismissing you part way through the service to visit the gymnasium where all the booths will be setup. There will be snacks and refreshments and an opportunity to not only sign-up for ministries but also to learn about ministries that you may not be aware of or that you know little about. Please come with an open mind, and having spent some time this weekend thinking about how and where God would have YOU serve this coming year. I don't want us to come out of this weekend with concerns about the health of our fellowship.

See you on Sunday when we come together to "thrive" as a church in ministry.

...and to give your pastor a good report card ;)

Chris

Pride

Pride brings a person low, 

   but the lowly in spirit gain honour.

Proverbs 29:23 (TNIV)

Just a short reflection this morning on something I’ve been learning.

Every Christian who has spent a considerable amount of time in the church has heard the Biblical axiom that pride goes before the fall – it’s one of those Biblical statements that has even entrenched itself in secular colloquialism.  We understand pride as a synonym for boasting and arrogance and we understand from Jesus’ repeated rebukes of the Pharisees in the Gospels that the Christian ethic is to be one of humility and Paul, in Romans 12, reminds us that we ought to have a sober evaluation of ourselves not thinking that we are greater than we are – we understand pride in that way but I think that there is another pitfall that we sometimes overlook with regard to this sin.

What sort of sin would you call it when you are beaten down by unmet expectations of praise? When you are depressed by a lack of acknowledgement? When you feel pushed to the side and forgotten despite the fact that you think you have done something worth remembering? We might not identify it as such – or even identify the sinfulness of our attitudes in these instances at all – but this too is the problem of pride rearing its ugly head in our lives.

We think that a prideful person is full of themselves and consequently full of self confidence as well – but in many cases it’s the most insecure people out there that are struggling with pride. It’s not that they are boastful but that they crave the attention of others; it’s not that they are arrogant so much as they want desperately to be looked up to and admired. Their need for recognition and approval is crippling and even with a pseudo-humble persona (it’s not uncommon to see people like this be overly self-critical with the unspoken hope that someone will correct the ridiculousness of their claim and praise them) pride brings them low.

We see the destructive effects of this type of pride in the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. Remember that it was dishonesty that brought them into judgment and death (the lied about the value of the property they had sold and misrepresented their generosity in giving proceeds to the church) but it was pride that motivated their deception. Right at the end of Acts 4 before we hear their story we get a simple statement about Barnabas:

Joseph, whom the apostles nicknamed Barnabas (that is, “one who encourages”), was a Levite from Cyprus. He owned a field, sold it, brought the money, and placed it in the care and under the authority of the apostles.

Acts 4:36-37 (CEB)

Ananias and Sapphira wanted to be acknowledged and revered the way Barnabas had been – they longed to be valued and admired and they were willing to go to dangerously sinful lengths to fulfil that craving for attention and recognition. This too is a form of pride and it’s a form that I’ve been recognising in myself lately.

It’s not a very Christian or pastoral thing to admit to but there are times when I want the glory, there are times when I want the recognition and I want the admiration – but rather than receiving that which I crave so much I am humbled, and forgotten and ignored. It is at times like these that I have a choice to make – do I allow pride to breed bitterness and disappointment that could lead me down a path of destruction (like Ananias and Sapphira) or do I accept the loving providence of a God loves me too much to feed my pride and learn from His gentle rebuke? That is the encouragement I’m hearing from our proverb – Pride brings a person low – not in the sense of destruction that we normally associate with pride (true but not quite the point of this particular proverb) – but rather in the sense that the unsatiated longing to be important by our own merit, talent or achievement is a sure path to an unfulfilled life unless we accept the Lord’s gentle correction and become lowly in spirit.

When we let go of our pride and instead live for God to receive the glory and the recognition and the admiration then in our humility we gain true honour. May God continue to humble me and teach me to seek His glory rather than my own, and may God show us all the blessings of letting go of our pride – even when it is hidden under the surface.

...everyone, clothe yourselves with humility toward each other. God stands against the proud, but he gives favour to the humble.

1 Peter 5:5b (CEB)

Mitt Romney and the politics of poultry

This past weekend GOP presidential candidate and perceived frontrunner Mitt Romney got ambushed in a stump speech during the Ames Iowa Straw Poll weekend by a group of liberal leaning protestors from the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. Group spokesperson, Joe Fagan, somehow managed to get close enough to the front of the crowd to have his protest chants of "scrap the cap" actually elicit a response from Romney. At this point (probably to the mortification of his handlers) Romney, to his credit, actually entertains a question from Mr. Fagan which sounded like this:

"What are you going to do to strengthen social security, medicare and medicaid without cutting benefits?"

To which Romney replied:

"I'm not going to raise taxes! That's my answer. I'm not going to raise taxes. And if you want somebody who's going to raise taxes, you can vote for Barack Obama!"

Fair enough. The hard line against raising taxes is all but a prerequisite for being a GOP contender in this election cycle with so many Republican lawmakers signing onto Grover Norquist's Taxpayer Protection Pledge making even the discussion of increasing government revenues by any means a taboo topic. But what really got me thinking was something Mitt Romney said a little late when referring back to this exchange:

From "the Economist" http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/08/crowd-control:

Mr Romney had been laying out the options for ensuring that Medicare and Social Security remain "promises we can keep." Referring back to the chanted demand to "scrap the cap", the candidate began his menu of choices: "One is raising taxes on people…" Those who had come to confront power immediately began yelling "Corporations!" as though it had suddenly occurred to them that raising payroll taxes might not be necessary after all. Corporations! Tax those. A less rattled Mr Romney might have observed that to "scrap the cap" is to raise taxes on a certain set of relatively well-paid people. He might have asked his vocal interlocutors if he was mistaken to think that was their idea. Instead, he said, with a note of sneering condescension, "Corporations are people, my friend."
When a mocking laugh went up, Mr Romney pressed on, "Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people." More mocking laughs. "Where do you think it goes?"
Shouts: "Pockets!" "Into their pockets!" "Pockets!"
“Into whose pockets? People’s pockets. Human beings, my friend.”

Now I'm not going to claim to fully understand the economic implications of treating corporations as people - I am woefully unqualified to comment on the merits of economic policy but I do feel somewhat qualified to speak on the social and spiritual implications of treating anything but people as "people".

I remember back in my second year of Bible College a classmate in my public speaking class did a presentation on factory farms and animal rights - particularly based oh his experience at a chicken farm. I don't even remember where he came down on the issue anymore but I do remember one story he told about a lady and her chickens.

If I recall correctly this lady (who was unsurprisingly a crusader for animal rights - something more Christians I think should be concerned about) had two pet chickens that she kept as a part of the family. She treated those chickens like they were her own children. They ate good food, they got good care, I'm sure if chickens have the cognitive capacity for higher processing that they believed they were "people" like their owner. Well this lady was interviewed about her feelings on animal rights and brazenly declared that because her pets were "people" and more than that, her "family" that if her building was burning down and she had the choice to save a human stranger or her beloved poultry - the Chickens would not be getting roasted.

I think that for any well adjusted person out there (even if you are passionate about animal rights) this seems absolutely ludicrous; and for a Bible believing Christian it should be more than that - this idea is patently offensive. When God created the world (however you think that whole process shook down) he created humanity in a class by itself. Adam was made more than the trees of the forest or the fish of the sea, or the birds of the air or the beasts of the land - he was made in the Image of God.

God said, “Let the earth produce every kind of living thing: livestock, crawling things, and wildlife.” And that’s what happened. God made every kind of wildlife, every kind of livestock, and every kind of creature that crawls on the ground. God saw how good it was. Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.” 

God created humanity
in God’s own image,
in the divine image God created them,
male and female God created them.

Genesis 1:24-27 (CEB)

Note that there is nothing else in all creation, including all the angels and the heavenly beings to which Scripture ascribes the Image of God. Humanity is special and in a class by itself among all created things. What this does theologically is say that according to God's created order, chickens are important (God declared them "good" long before the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices) but no matter how much we want them to be - chickens are not "people"; only people are "people"

Which brings us back to Mitt Romney (and every other Republican candidate for the presidential nomination with perhaps the exception of Ron Paul) and his "corporations are people too" position. In the United States based largely on the interpretation of the 14th Amendment corporations hold many of the same rights as individuals. This is based on the inherent logic that corporations are made up of groups of people and that people when organised and assembled shouldn't be stripped of their rights. The history of the argument can be traced back to the landmark Supreme court decision in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad back in 1886. The argument was over whether the railroad had the same rights that individuals had in deducting mortgage expenses from the tax burden - it was a small and seemingly inconsequential case at the time but it ended up setting precedent that would shape all future applications of the 14th Amendment. The fallout from that decision meant that Corporations now enjoyed the same constitutional protections as ordinary citizens (with some exceptions being upheld like the 5th Amendment's right to not incriminate oneself) in short companies were now "people" in the same sense that any other citizen was, and since that ruling powerful corporations and special interest groups have continually found ways to exploit that designation to their benefit. In context, the comment by Romney was about raising taxes on corporations to help pay for social security, medicare and medicaid - and his distaste for such a move because corporations were "people"  and just as he and his fellow candidates are opposed to raising the taxes on the wealthy (who actually are "people") they are also opposed to raising taxes on the engines that generate the wealth of the wealthy. So what's the problem with this?

Well there are several problems with Romney's assertions actually. The first is constitutional; it is clear historically that the authors of the 14th Amendment did not have corporations in mind when they drafted and ratified it. The purpose of the amendment was to ensure the equal application of rights to human beings in the Republic regardless of which state they resided in - especially with regards to racial inequality and segregation. It was designed to be a safeguard against the rich and powerful exploiting the poor and marginalized and although it was initially gutted by the courts in the development of the "separate but equal" doctrine which legitimized some States' policies of segregation - it eventually led to the abolishment of those practices in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. The fact that corporations saw the benefit of the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment before minorities was a scathing indictment of a legislative and legal system that favoured keeping the powerful powerful and the impotent marginalized. In 1938 Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black said it best when he commented:

"The history of the amendment proves that the people were told that its purpose was to protect weak and helpless human beings and were not told that it was intended to remove corporations in any fashion from the control of state governments."

The second problem with Romney's position is ethical. The way that corporations are being afforded rights in this day and age is through powerful lobbying rights, unlimited political contribution rights, and persistent taxation evasion. It's a circular problem where corporations indirectly bankroll candidates through political action groups and provide the resources to win the media war (and usually the election) against their opposition for the privilege of that candidate remembering who their friends are when they get into office. That legislator then crafts legislation that favours the corporation or special interest group that got them elected (or conversely blocks legislation that may be harmful to their backers) which in turn gives the corporations greater rights and powers to influence and control the political process. The most heinous example that I have seen recently was the deadlock over raising the debt ceiling where the republicans in congress (led and pushed by the Tea Party caucus) refused to consider any tax increases as a way of reducing the deficit including - and this is the part that actually makes me angry - legislation that would close tax loopholes that currently allow some of the countries largest and wealthiest corporations to avoid paying nearly any of their tax burden through diverting revenue through off-shore and foreign holdings. The American political process is virtually owned now by the corporations and is manipulated for their sole benefit. How does this fall in line with legislators being elected to represent the people in their districts or states? Even if corporations are "people" why do a small number of wealthy individuals have more say than the hundreds of thousands or millions of other voices these legislators represent?

And the third (and this is where I'll end my rant) problem with Romney's position is theological. By arguing that corporations are "people" you devalue what God created on that sixth day by asserting that we have the power to create for ourselves organisations and institutions in the image of God. The Bible never gives rights to a group of people over an individual - even in situations where God favours a certain group (Israel and the Church being the obvious examples) the mandates and social codes given to those groups call for the protection of the individual, of the less fortunate, of the vulnerable and the poor. It would be accurate to say that the Bible does not address the issue of "corporations" per se but it does speak clearly and forcefully to power, to kingdoms, to empires and the like. To give corporations the same status as "people" is to go against the testimony of Scripture and the ethic of the Kingdom of God. With so many of these republican candidates professing to be Evangelical Christians (and yes I know that Romney is a Mormon - but while that puts him at odds theologically with Christians it places him on common ground morally and ethically) I'm left wondering why this is so universally ignored?

Okay, I'll finish here because I don't want to increase my blood pressure over another country's politics any further and because I've probably already exceeded most of my reader's attention spans and interest with my long winded musings.

Until next time,

Chris

Becoming a People of Prayer: All eyes on Jesus

This week we wrap up our mini-series on becoming a people of prayer with a message that I’m calling “all eyes on Jesus”. This week I want to once again look at what scripture teaches us about a very practical problem that many of us in the church face – and what I know keeps many people from engaging in and participating in corporate prayer. Let’s drop all pretence and masquerade and fess up to something we all know – praying in front of people can be one of the most terrifying experiences in the world for a Christian. Perhaps you pray like a seasoned pastor (or even better, a missionary ;) ) today but most of us can remember a time in our lives when we were self-conscious about praying in public and for some of us that fear has kept us away from being involved in corporate prayer even when we feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit that we should. This week I want to look at arguably the most famous and well known passage on prayer in the whole Bible and see what Jesus’ simple and plain instructions and practice say to us on this matter. This week we head to the Sermon on the Mount and look at the instructions surrounding what is commonly known as the Lord's Prayer.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

   “This, then, is how you should pray:

   ‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

   on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,

   as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

   but deliver us from the evil one.’

For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Matthew 6:5-15 (TNIV)

I'm looking forward to seeing you on Sunday!

The Pastor's iPod

Time for another installment of "The Pastor's iPod" the column where I share with you some great sermons that I've been listening to with the hopes that you might share in my learning and encouragement. Of course, preaching is always more powerful in the context of community (even when the preaching is significantly weaker than some of the heavyweights that I share on this blog) so if you're part of the EAC crowd I'd encourage you to make sure you're caught up on our sermon series first before going elsewhere for your teaching. You can find our most recent messages either on our website here, or through iTunes here.

Here are some more messages that have been causing me to think deep and hard over the last little while.


Dr. Timothy Keller: Made for Stewardship
(October 22, 2000) iTunes Link

Tim Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He was passed onto me by a friend in ministry as a pastor well worth listening to. This was the first sermon of his that I've listened to and I've enjoyed his messages so much that two have made it onto this installment! I downloaded it looking for some insightful reflections on Stewardship as I plan to preach on the topic this fall but instead what I got was a powerful and sermon on the value and nature of work (which is in the technical sense stewardship - but I'll contend that the title is a little misleading). The text is out of the creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2 and is a powerful portrait of a God who gives value to that which all other "gods" contemporary to the ancient Israelites demeaned as beneath them. Keller paints a picture of a God who "gets his hands dirty" in the act of creation and calls us to work alongside him - reflecting His likeness in our work. I really can't do it justice, but it's well worth a listen.

Dr. Timothy Keller: Can Faith be Green?
(November 16, 2008) iTunes Link

"Genesis shows us the goodness of creation, the stewardship of creation, the fallenness of creation, and the final restoration of creation. The Bible calls us as Christians to be careful stewards of creation because nature reflects God’s goodness and because nature will ultimately be restored in heaven" One of the best arguments for Christian environmentalism that I have ever heard. And also one of those messages that I wish I had been able to listen to live because from listening to what is said it seems to me that the whole worship event was built around a performance of Haydn's "Creation". I can only imagine how powerful that would have been to be a part of live. Well worth the listen.

Beau Hughes: Establishing a Healthy Church (Part 3)
(July 17, 2011) iTunes Link

So I'd been hearing good things about this Pastor named Matt Chandler from a place called the Village Church and I decided that it was high time I checked him out for myself to see why so many people were being blessed through his ministry. So I went on iTunes and downloaded the last month worth of sermons they had there and went for a long walk one night to start listening. Wouldn't you know my luck - it turns out that I tune in just as Matt goes away on a study leave/vacation. So here I am stuck listening to another one of the pastoral staff deliver part three in a series that I haven't been following along in from the start. Part of me wanted to switch to something else but I was already outside the range of my house's wifi signal and walking in the wrong direction and I had nothing else downloaded that I hadn't already listened to so I decided to give this guy a shot. The Sermon was on the 2nd chapter of Titus (the WHOLE chapter) and I have to admit that it started out a little slow. But it wasn't too long before the pastor found his stride and things actually got interesting. The bulk of the message was focused on mentorship (I can't recall if the pastor ever used that word - but it was clearly what the process he was describing was) and it was encouraging to hear about the development of a cross-generational practice of teaching the younger generation how to be the men and women of God that Christ demands his church be populated by. I'm not sure I buy into everything he said about the role of women in the church and home (this is one of those passages) but nothing he said was so far outside of my theological comfort zone as to ruin the rest of the message. If nothing else this message has made me think long and hard about how we do discipleship and mentorship in our church. I guess it wasn't a waste of time after all. God wanted me to hear that message - and perhaps it would be beneficial for you to hear it too.

Surviving and Thriving in Corporate Prayer

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Mark 14:32-42 (TNIV)

We’re familiar with the story

Jesus before being arrested goes to pray in Gethsemane – a place where he was known to frequently come (John 18:2) which is why it was convenient for Judas to catch him there

It’s the eve of his crucifixion and he desperately needs to commune with the Father

On this night he takes the inner circle of his disciples – Peter, James and John – with him to the garden leaving the other eight off somewhere at a distance and then he brings them near and leaves them instructions to watch while he goes off a little further to pray.

Three times the trio are admonished to watch and/or pray while Jesus struggles in the garden and three times the disciples find that they aren’t up to the task.  James and John disappoint Jesus with their inability to persevere with him, but Jesus’ hardest words are reserved for Peter.

“Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep?

This is Peter’s story.

The Gospel of Mark, like Matthew, Luke and John, is all about Jesus – but it’s Jesus from Peter’s perspective. We get more of Peter than anywhere else in the Gospels – at many times in Mark it’s like we’re listening to an aged apostle recounting the amazing story of how he met the God of the universe as a well intentioned but bumbling and blustery young man desperately in need of seasoning and wisdom. And it is in the Gospel of Mark that we get one of the most palpable expressions of Peter’s failure.

Just verses earlier Peter was in full bravado mode when he insisted “Even if everyone else abandons you, I will not.”

And when Jesus rebukes his bluster with a sombre warning Peter ratchets up the rhetoric: “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.”

But we know how the story goes.

That night, like every night – as dawn approached the rooster did what God designed him to do – and as he crowed for the third time he announced not the dawn of a new day – but the defeat of a disciple.  Peter – who had been so assured of his own invincibility in conviction – was defeated by his own misplaced confidence.

So assured of his call, so confident of his importance, so comfortable with his role, so complacent in discipline, so ruined by his shame – Here is a frightening thought for us – if we are not careful, this could be our story too.

We are in the middle of a series right now on becoming a people of prayer here at Estevan Alliance Church and this week we are going to look at “surviving and thriving in corporate prayer.” How do we move from being a church that survives in prayer to a church that thrives in prayer? How do we take that which is supposed to be at the centre of the church’s life and practice and restore it to its rightful place before the rooster crows three times and we find ourselves ruined and disgraced? How can we avoid a similar fall and what does corporate prayer have to do with the story of Peter or Jesus in the Garden? To answer all those questions I’d invite you to join with us and journey with me through the Scriptures this Sunday as we look toward being a church that is not content to merely survive in corporate prayer – but instead become one that thrives.

See you on Sunday.