—————————————————————–

I’m going to say something that might make some of you angry today, but I just have to say it: Some pastors drive me nuts!

In my line of work as a pastor and consultant I meet tons of pastors. All are wonderful people, some just don’t quite get what pastoring is all about though. Here are some of the characteristics of many pastors that make me crazy:

• Focusing on “church growth” rather than mission.
• Thinking small groups are about “getting people connected” rather than discipleship.
• Trying to lead without being relational.
• Identifying things that need to change, but not changing them.
• Tolerating obvious sin in their congregation.  Gossip, division, greed, lack-of-faith, and idolatry top the list of tolerated sins.
• Not having accountability.
• Not being in a small group.
• Having a “vision Sunday” once per year.  People need vision all the time!!!  Over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over…and over!!
• Making plans, without executing them.
• Not returning phone calls or emails.
• Blaming staff for problems without looking to themselves first for fault.
• Openly offering feedback without being open to feedback.

Okay I could go on, but I’ll stop.  There’s my rant.  ’Nuff said.

————————————————————————————-

To me, 1 Samuel 27 is one of the most confusing passages of Scripture in the entire Bible.  I have a hard time understanding this chapter in light of the fact that David is the only person in the Bible to be called “a man after God’s own heart”.  How can the liar and ruthless killer we find in 1 Samuel 27 be “a man after God’s own heart?”  Honestly, I’m just not sure.  Then when you pile on the fact that David later committed adultery and murder, the whole “man after God’s own heart” title is a pill that’s pretty hard to swallow.

Why am I not “a man after God’s own heart?”  Why don’t I get such a title?  I mean, I try to honor God.  I strive to live a life that pleases Him.  I don’t cheat on my wife or my taxes.  I have accountability and very clear boundaries in my life in order to remain virtuous.  I haven’t murdered anyone and I try to be a man of integrity.  Then again, in my heart I’ve committed all of these sins.

I have hated and lusted, which Jesus equates to murder and adultery.  I’ve lied to and deceived others far too often.  My sinful nature makes me a lying, cheating, killer.  So while I don’t understand 1 Samuel 27, this passage gives me hope.  If the lying, murdering, cheating David was able to capture God’s heart, maybe there’s something in me that can capture God’s heart as well.

At the very least, I can understand what David meant when he wrote Psalm 16:2 saying, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing” (NIV).

David thought to himself, “Sooner or later, Saul’s going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to Philistine country. Saul will count me a lost cause and quit hunting me down in every nook and cranny of Israel. I’ll be out of his reach for good.” So David left; he and his six hundred men went to Achish son of Maoch, king of Gath. They moved in and settled down in Gath, with Achish. Each man brought his household; David brought his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, widow of Nabal of Carmel. When Saul was told that David had escaped to Gath, he called off the hunt. Then David said to Achish, “If it’s agreeable to you, assign me a place in one of the rural villages. It doesn’t seem right that I, your mere servant, should be taking up space in the royal city.” So Achish assigned him Ziklag. (This is how Ziklag got to be what it is now, a city of the kings of Judah.) David lived in Philistine country a year and four months. From time to time David and his men raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites—these people were longtime inhabitants of the land stretching toward Shur and on to Egypt. When David raided an area he left no one alive, neither man nor woman, but took everything else: sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels, clothing—the works. Then he’d return to Achish.

Achish would ask, “And whom did you raid today?”
David would tell him, “Oh, the Negev of Judah,” or “The Negev of Jerahmeel,” or “The Negev of the Kenites.” He never left a single person alive lest one show up in Gath and report what David had really been doing. This is the way David operated all the time he lived in Philistine country. Achish came to trust David completely. He thought, “He’s made himself so repugnant to his people that he’ll be in my camp forever.”

1 Samuel 27:1-12 (The Message)

—————————————————————————————

Elisha, an Old Testament prophet in Israel and Judah, followed in the footsteps of the similarly named prophet Elijah.  As reported in Scripture, the former prophet, Elijah, did not die.  Rather, when his time on earth was up, God took him directly to heaven riding on chariots of fire.  Before going up to heaven, Elijah prayed that God would give Elisha a “double portion” of God’s spirit.  Then the younger prophet Elisha witnessed Elijah fly up to Heaven.  With a double portion of God’s Spirit, Elisha took up Elijah’s cloak and became his successor.

Elisha did his job well for years.  He was a godly prophet and advisor to kings.  Then we read about the end of his life in 2 Kings 13:14 & 20 (MSG), “Elisha came down sick.  It was the sickness of which he would soon die…Then Elisha died and they buried him”.  I just have to be honest for a minute; this passage of Scripture throws me off a bit.  Elisha had a double portion of God’s Spirit.  Why didn’t he get a non-stop flight to Heaven like Elijah did?  That doesn’t seem fair.

Then it hit me; I prefer stories where the heroes have happy or glorious endings.  The former prophet, Elijah, had both a glorious and happy ending.  Elisha’s ending was…well…kinda dull.

Elisha’s ending may not be quite as exciting to tell as Elijah’s, but I suppose that’s the point of this passage.  Most of us will have rather unglamorous endings to our stories, but it’s not the endings that really matter.  What matters is the in-between.  There are two dates on every grave marker in every cemetery:  date of birth, and date of death.  The most important thing on every headstone, though, is not the dates, but the hyphen.  It’s that tiny dash that documents how a person lived.

Elisha’s hyphen is made up of his godly life, his obedience, his character, and the miracles in which he participated.  What will people remember when they see my hyphen or yours?  The great news for all of us today is that we have time to add plenty of great stuff to our hyphens.  We may not all have a glorious ending, but we can all have a great hyphen.

—————————————————————————————–

Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv, often says, “We’ll, do anything short of sin to reach people for Christ.”  I’d like for us to consider that statement for a minute.  More specifically, I want us to consider the outcome if that statement is not true of all churches.

If a church is not willing to “anything short of sin to reach people for Christ”, that means they are willing to stop short of reaching people for Christ.  Sadly, I’ve seen this in too many churches all over the world.

We Christians allow the silliest things to stop us short of reaching people for Christ:

• Musical styles
• Out-dated traditions
• The size of facilities
• Small-thinking about growth
• The belief that our church is “big enough”
• The notion that the staff is responsible for evangelism
• Slow decision-making processes
• The length of our services
• The lack of good kid’s ministry
• Lack of money

If churches don’t embrace and live out the phrase, “We will do anything, short of sin, to reach people for Christ”, then they are willing to sin by not reaching people for Christ.  Frankly, that’s a scary place to be!

——————————————————————————–

In my devotional time I’ve been reading through the New Testament in The Message translation and I’m finally in the last book:  Revelation.  This is a tough book to read.  Symbolism, the apocalypse, judgement, death, and suffering are common themes in many of its chapters..  Because of this, its easy to read a chapter or two in Revelation and walk away without feeling motivated or inspired.

Today was different.  I read two chapters about plagues that would harm the earth and kill billions of people; it was kinda depressing.  Then I read:

The remaining men and women who weren’t killed by these weapons went on their merry way— didn’t change their way of life, didn’t quit worshiping demons, didn’t quit centering their lives around lumps of gold and silver and brass, hunks of stone and wood that couldn’t see or hear or move. ~Rev 9:20 (MSG)

After reading about plagues and suffering, this verse stood out to me.  Why?  Because it reminds me of myself.

How many times have I finished a semester in the “school of hard knocks” only to return on my “merry way” and not change my way of life?  Too often.  Painful times should draw us to God, but all too often they don’t.  Too often, we survive a painful season and still center our lives around lumps of gold, silver, brass, stone and wood (material things), rather than centering our lives around God.

The chief lesson taught in the “school of hard knocks” is that we should trust and serve God only.  Because we don’t learn this lesson, we are stubborn, foolish people.  Sometimes I think I’m the stubbornest and most foolish of us all.

Lord, teach me to depend wholly on You rather than things.  Change my stubbornness into teachability.  Change my foolishness into faith.  A-men

————————————————————————————–

I’ll never forget reading Brad Powell’s Change Your Church For Good:  The Art of Sacred Cow Tipping. It made me weep.  I wept because Brad accurately described so many churches I know and have been a part of.  They are churches who were once effectively reaching people, but they crept into decline.

I was reading the book on an airplane and looked out the window at the city below.  Within eyeshot there were hundreds of thousands of people living without the hope of Jesus.  Also within my view there were many churches like the ones described above.  It was too much for me to bear and I began to cry.  The guy next to me thought I was nuts, but I didn’t care.

Why do churches decline?  Why do churches lose their effectiveness and forget their mission? Powell answers those questions insightfully so I won’t try to answer them here.  I will say this though:  no one started any of those churches with the hope that they would one day plateau and decline.  No one started those churches desiring that they would lose sight of their vision and mission.  No one planted their churches designing them to die.  Rather, people made tremendous sacrifices to start those churches so that they would each be “the getting saved place”.

Let us never forget why the church exists.  It doesn’t exist to meet the needs of a fattening congregation.  The church exists for the same reason that Jesus came to earth:  to reach a dying and hurting world.  Let us recall our heritage of evangelism and doing whatever it takes to reach people who don’t know Jesus.  Let us fall on our knees broken before a Holy God and repent of our self centered sin.  Let us all again make each of our churches “the getting saved place.”

Consider this thought for a moment:  the greatest obstacle between you and what you want may be the very thing(s) that you want.  What do I mean?  The Apostle Peter says it far better than I ever could:

Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.   1 Peter 4:1-2 (The Message)

Think of the thing(s) you so desperately want to acquire or achieve.  Then ask God to reveal if His desire for your life is different than your desire.  If you find that His desires and yours don’t align, spend the next week fasting and praying to discover what God wants and pursue that instead.  There is no better or safer place to be than in the center of God’s will for your life.

———————————–

Almost every small group has “that person”.  You know, the one who talks too much, interrupts other people, never brings snacks, eats all the snacks, causes drama, has all the answers to your problems but none for theirs, and generally raises everyone else’s blood pressure.  ”That person” makes others in the group think, “our small group was awesome until ‘that person’ started coming!”  By the way, if you can’t think of someone in your group who fits this description it might be that you are the person who fits the description.  ;-)

Seriously though, what do you do with this person?  Your conversations with them about their “issues” seem to fall on deaf ears.  You want to haul off and smack “that person” upside the head, but you’re pretty sure that he/she would call the cops and have you arrested for assault.  Plus there’s the whole WWJD thing…I don’t think Jesus would smack “that person”.

So in our frustration the answer seems to be this:  lovingly, gently, but firmly uninvite “that person”.  If that’s the answer, then you’re wondering “How do I kick ‘that person’ out of my group?”  As a general rule I say, “Don’t”.

God seldom brings others into our lives to we can “fix” them.  Rather, He usually wants to use them to “fix” us.

The Bible says, “Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17 (NASB)

Look at this verse a little differently today.  Ask God, “How are You using ‘that person’ to sharpen me, Lord?”  You’ll find it much more rewarding to stop whining about “that person” and begin focusing on letting God develop your character through “that person”.  Who knows, you might even start thanking God for “that person”.

On Friday our cable company provided HBO free to its customers through the 4th of July. Included in that is free HBO on demand for the same period of time. Now I must confess that I’m a sucker for some of the HBO Original Series’. The Sopranos, Band of Brothers, and The Pacific are my favorites. After getting HBO on demand free a few days ago, I started watching Game of Thrones. It’s a story of a fictional world set in medieval times starring Sean Bean who played Boromir in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’m a geek who loves fantasy tales so I was hooked about five minutes into the first episode.

Today as I prayed I felt distant from God. My Bible reading time wasn’t vibrant. I didn’t feel a strong desire to spend time with Jesus. Something was off. Then it hit me: I feel off because my mental diet changed significantly over the last few days.

I usually watch kids shows and family-friendly movies with my children, or shows (that I don’t really like very much) with my wife. Over the last few days I’ve withdrawn from those experiences more to watch episodes of Game of Thrones; I changed my mental diet. I changed it from harmless fun to dark, twisted, immoral and violent tales. No wonder I don’t feel as connected to God. That changes today! My relationship with Jesus is more important to me than finding out about Sean Bean’s fate in a cable TV show.

For the record, I’m not one of those pastors who is going to preach against HBO, the media, and Hollywood. I’m sick of Christians who are known more for what they are against than what they are for. I’m a recovering legalist who cringes when I hear preachers lambasting our culture and I’ll NEVER tell people that they must avoid all movies, TV and secular music to be a godly Christian. Those kinds of pharisee-like statements make me sick!!!

That said, I do believe that the things we mentally ingest, directly influence our spiritual lives. When we think about pure things and set our minds on things that honor God, we are more able to hear Him. When we drench our minds in things that don’t honor God, we have a hard time hearing Him.

Don’t be a legalistic fanatic, but be mindful of the things you absorb; it does impact your spiritual health.  Our moms were right after all when they said, “You are what you eat.”

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.

~Phil 4:8 (NIV)

I haven’t gone anywhere, I’ve just been busy.  At New Life Bible Church we’re in the middle of a series called “Summer Blockbusters.” In this series we take a movie each week and teach a Biblical message that is found in the story of the film.  The idea isn’t original to me, we got the idea from LifeChurch.tv, but our people have LOVED it!!

Preparing for this series was not easy. It took lots of preparation, prayer, and just plain hard work. As a result, I found myself faced with some choices about how I was spending my time.

My priorities have always been simple and clear:

1. Christ first.
2. Family second.
3. Ministry third.

Blogging falls into the third category.

I love to blog, but recently I had to choose to neglect blogging for the sake of other priorities. The tasks on my ministry plate were overwhelmingly many and I decided that, for a season, blogging had to go. I discovered (if I wanted to badly enough) I could have kept blogging, but it would have taken away from my first two priorities.

The reasons I’m writing this post today are three-fold:

1. I’ve got time again. The pace of this series is behind me so I’m back to blogging.
2. I wanted to let my readers know what’s been going on with me.
3. I hope you’ll evaluate your own priorities.

While I didn’t like dropping my blog for a while, I did find the exercises in prioritization to be very helpful for my own personal growth. It’s always good to stop and really evaluate how I’m spending my time. It forces me to evaluate and remember what’s truly important. The exciting thing about the crazy season I’ve been in is that I’ve been even more intentional about my time with Jesus and my time with my family. I’ve missed blogging, and I’ve missed you (my readers) but I haven’t missed the relationships in my life that are most important.

I’d like to say that I always make the right choices regarding Christ and my family, but unfortunately I can’t. I’ve blown my priorities plenty over the years. I am glad to say, however, that throughout this most recent busy season I’ve managed to keep my priorities straight.

Lord, let my behaviors and my priorities of late always be the norm in my life.  Please help me to never neglect that which is TRULY important for the sake of that which is urgent or merely fun. May I always find my greatest pleasure in You!  Amen