Month: March 2023

Is the Church having a Love Affair with Arrogant Pastors?

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            The role of a pastor or Christian leader is a heady calling. We are privileged to serve the people of God and be His representative. It is a humbling experience to see lives transformed. We are honored to witness the hand of God moving in people’s lives, as we speak words of life and encouragement to them. There is a very real temptation to take on more credit than we deserve. A pastor may be a charismatic speaker and see incredible growth in a congregation but we need to remember it is God who brings the increase, not us.

Most recently I was listening to a podcast called, “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” If you are not familiar with this story, Pastor Mark Driscoll pastored a mega church in Spokane WA, called Mars Hill. He was a powerfully gifted orator and drew a crowd anywhere he went. His church grew by leaps and bounds, and it seems most pastors wanted to be just like Mark Driscoll. He was a pioneer in one of the fastest growing church planting ministries in American history. Unfortunately, there were some internal conflicts and reports of bullying and accusations of hurtful arrogance on the part of Driscoll. The accusations eventually bubbled to the surfrace and came out publicly. When Driscoll unexpectedly stepped down as senior pastor, his church imploded. This is a powerful example of how power can go to the head of a pastor, and pride can lead to their downfall

(Rise and Fall of Mars Hill – link below)

.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/id1569401963

            Spiritual formation may help inhibit the arrogance and egotism often prevalent in pastoral ministry, and help to integrate resiliency in ministry leadership. Richard Foster wrote a book back in 2011 called, Sanctuary of the Soul: Journey into Meditative Prayer. In this book, he quotes Elizabeth Barrett Browning who famously wrote:

            Earth’s crammed with Heaven

            And every common bush afire with God;

            But only he who sees, takes off his shoes. (74)

It is so important for us to remember where our strength and help comes from. We are only successful because God gives us strength, talent, and even the very breath we breathe.

There are many things that can lead a ministry leader into pride and arrogance in the pulpit. High on that list is assumptions that the ministry would fail without them. They may work 7 days a week because they are afraid if they step away something may fail. Alan Fadling reminds us that when a person doesn’t stop working until everything gets done, they will never stop working. There is always more that needs to be accomplished. If there were more hours in the day, or more days in the week, the extra time would quickly be filled with more busy work. Some will say the work is too important to wait. Fadling says, “Sabbath can be a weekly reminder that our work is not sovereign, but God is” (122). Then he says, “Today is the day to enter into a weekly rhythm of ceasing my work one day in seven. Here I more deeply remember that God’s work always precedes mine” (122).

Pastors are extremely busy. There is a constant demand for our time and resources. Unfortunately the first thing to go is often taking a sabbath day off. There is so much to do, and all of it seems good and worthwhile. After all the Bible tells us to give our all in ministry, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:16 KJV) It can be so tempting to think “God can’t do this work without me.” The truth Is God is wiser than we are. When we take a regular day for sabbath we step out on faith that God will continue working even when we are not.  We acknowledge that God is in control. We are telling God that we are wiser than He is when we get into a mindset that we are indispensable. Isaiah 5:21 reminds us, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!”

            Pride was the sin that caused Satan to think he could put his throne above God’s and that got him thrown out of Heaven. He tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with the idea that they could become “like God” by simply eating the forbidden fruit. We are taught as young children to take pride in our work, and pride in ourselves. Pride and arrogance may seem annoying to those who witness it, but harmless. But pride and arrogance can be devastating for a minister.

Jesus tells a parable in Luke 18:9-14. It says, “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” We may think this parable is just for the legalistic pastors who think they are wiser than anyone else. But if you read the gospels, even the disciples were caught on at least one occasion having an argument over who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus told them the one who is humble as a little child is the greatest. If even the Apostles had to wrestle with pride and arrogance, who are we to think we are exempt from this temptation?

            There is another example of the consequences of relying on one’s own ability instead of on God in the Old Testament. King David was a mighty warrior, and was blessed by the Lord. He had a loyal army who could fight incredibly well. However, King David decided to number his people to determine how much power he actually had. Perhaps he was considering a draft and wanted to see how many he could call up to serve in his army. This displeased the Lord. 1 Chronicles 21:1 records this saying, “Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.” We don’t know the circumstances of this numbering, but it is easy to speculate that David wanted a head count of how many people were at his disposal to force into military service. The point is, David had no reason to know these numbers if he trusted the Lord. God said He would fight for Israel, and by numbering the people, David was showing his own doubt and distrust of the Lord.

            Pride can be summarized as an arrogant attitude of self-sufficiency. We can demonstrate this in not taking a sabbath, and practicing other spiritual disciplines. We may think we are too busy to pray, or to spend time in the Word. We are promoting our own self-importance in neglecting these things. Spending time in prayer allows us to petition the Lord, and to listen to his direction. Studying God’s Word brings it into our spirit, and often God speaks to us directly through His Word. Taking a sabbath puts our trust back on God in that He will help us accomplish what we need to do in six days instead of seven. It takes away our self-exaltation and the philosophy that God needs “us” to accomplish his purposes and that He can’t use anyone else.

Christian leaders are expected to love God and love others. Someone once said, “The opposite of servant leadership is arrogance. Arrogant leadership is not spiritual leadership. And arrogant pastors are not spiritual pastors.” There are too many arrogant pastors in the United States (perhaps the world). Pastors who do not keep spiritual disciplines and especially regular sabbath are in danger of falling into pride and arrogancy. John Ortberg has famously said, “Better to be a loving person without knowing how you got there, than an expert no one can stand to be around.”

            People in our society are hurting. A pastor who has an intimate relationship with God having spent time in spiritual formation and the spiritual disciplines will be better equipped to touch and minister to others with the kind of love that can reach the hurting people in our society. Spiritual formation leads us to become the kind of Christian leaders who will be able to break through the barriers that people put up and see them come to Christ where they will find a gentle savior who will give them rest for their souls.

            Have you been guilty of arrogance in the pulpit? Do you need to repent for your own pride? My encouragement to you is to keep a short account of sin. Go to God and quickly seek forgiveness when you recognize pride, and repent. To repent means to turn around and go the other way. Don’t continue in that sin. The best cure I have found for pride is spending time in the presence of God. That may mean getting quiet and still before the Lord. Ask the Lord what He would have you know, then shut down your mind and listen. Practice the spiritual discipline of lectio divina where you meditate on a passage from God’s Word. Take time for a regular sabbath. Many, if not all of the spiritual disciplines can accompany a sabbath. In modern society, you may have your sabbath on a Monday, or a Friday instead of the traditional Sunday. Take the sabbath and enjoy rest with the Lord, and recreation with family (more on that in a future blog). God bless you as you seek His face and seek to be transformed by His Holy Spirit.

Review of “A Testament of Devotion”

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By Thomas R. Kelly Copyright 1941, 1962, 1992

Once in a while you may read a book that really alters your perception of reality. It will have an impact on your faith, your convictions, and your relationship with God. This is such a book. A Testament of Devotion is not a very big book. It has a total of only 129 pages, but sometimes, dynamite comes in small packages. One could easily read it in less than a weekend, but I would not recommend it. It’s the kind of book that should be read slowly, and digested, with as few distractions as possible.

Thomas R. Kelly wrote a classic in this small volume. I believe it was first copyrighted in 1941, so it was certainly written to a different audience than what we have today. Yet, many of the truths in this book are simply timeless. It may be difficult to find, but it is well worth the search. I found a used copy on ebay. It was well loved and has lots of underlining, and dog-eared pages. Someone scribbled notes in the margins. I found myself adding my own highlighting of passages to come back and read again later. It is among the best things I have read outside of the Bible in a very long time.

I want to just give some highlights, while not giving away everything in the book. Kelly has a way with words that I admire. In the section on holy living, on page 34, he writes about the times we slip and fall in our walk. He eloquently writes, “If you slip and stumble and forget God for an hour, and assert your old proud self, and rely on your own clever wisdom, don’t spend too much time in anguished regrets and self-accusations but begin again, just where you are.”  Later on the same page he says, “Don’t grit your teeth and clench your fists and say, “I will! I will!” Relax. Take hands off. Submit yourself to God. Learn to live in the passive voice – a hard saying for Americans – and let life be willed through you. For “I will!” spells not obedience.” This is such good advice. Not to get too theological, but I think sometimes we slip and commit a sin, and then beat ourselves up over it for too long, rather than repenting, and moving on with what God has called us to do.

Many Christians today frown on any show of emotion when worshipping God. I don’t know where they get this from, as if being solemn, and looking like you have been sucking a green persimmon makes you some how holier than those around you. The Bible talks about how King David danced mightily before the Lord, and instead of being rebuked, it was said of him that he was a man after God’s own heart. Kelly talks about feeling the presence of the Lord, and the emotions that may go with this. He writes on page 70 of these periods of feeling the presence of God, “Sometimes these periods are acute and brief, too dazzling to report to anyone. Sometimes they are less elevated but more prolonged, with a milder sense of glory and of lift, yet as surely of a piece with the more acute experience.” I have experienced these moments with the Lord, as I have sought spiritual formation, and to partner with the Holy Spirit in this.

Sometimes we can get so full of ourselves that there isn’t room for much of anything else. Kelly warns against us having this kind of prideful attitude. He writes on page 72:

“Religion is not our concern: it is God’s concern. The sooner we stop thinking we are the energetic operators of religion and discover that God is at, as the Aggressor, the Invader, the Initiator, so much the sooner do we discover that our task is to call men to be still and know, listen, hearken in quiet invitation to the subtle promptings of the Divine. Our task is to encourage others first to let go, to cease striving, to give over this fevered effort of the self-sufficient religionist trying to please an eternal deity. Count on God knocking on the doors of time. God is the Seeker, and not we alone.”

As you seek to draw closer to the Lord, I want to encourage you to find those quiet times with the Lord, spending time in silence. Bring your petitions to the Lord, but instead of ending your prayer at that point, ask the Lord what He would have you to know. Then take time in silence to listen for that still small voice.  I would also recommend you begin a library of good books on spiritual formation. Don’t substitute these for spending time in your Bible, but use them to supplement your devotion time. Become a well read follower of Jesus Christ. I invite you to return to this blog frequently as I hope to not only review books on spiritual formation that will help your growth in Christ, but to include articles by myself and guest writers to encourage and strengthen you.

God bless you my faithful friends.

Silence: A Lost Spiritual Discipline?

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How Practicing Silence Before the Lord can Lead to Spiritual Formation

Have you ever been out in the woods, away from all the noise of the city? Maybe you were camping, or fishing, or just taking a nature walk. There is something soothing about the quiet. Most of us are so used to the noise and busyness of our world that we tune most of it out. But have you ever noticed it is harder to have a conversation with someone in a noisy environment? It’s easy to feel like no one is paying attention to you when you are in a crowd. Do you think God ever feels that way when He is trying to get our attention?

There was a time when men and women would seek solitude when they prayed. They would shut out the world, its noise and demands. It is much harder today to get away in the age of cell phones, and always being available.

There are many spiritual practices that lead to spiritual formation. The list of spiritual practices may include scripture reading, meditation, silence, prayer, giving, sabbath keeping, and others. I want to talk to you a little bit about the spiritual discipline of silence.

A few years ago one of my professors, Dr. Gene Maynard from Epic Bible College in Sacramento, offered a class in Spiritual Formation. One of the projects was to go to a Christian camp and spend some time in practicing the spiritual discipline of silence. He gave us some instruction, and as I remember, we were asked to spend two hours without talking and just spending time with God. We were instructed to pray “Lord, what would you have me to know today?” and then still our minds and just listen for two hours. We were invited to do a nature walk, or just sit in a comfortable chair and be still. This seemed very intimidating at first, but it was so amazing! What an experience. I felt so close to God during this two hours. I loved it, and try to get out in nature and repeat the experience as often as I can.

The world is loud, and noisy. Most of the time, there is so much noise, it is hard to hear the still small voice of God. In Quaker churches today, they have times of silence as part of their worship service.  They take the time to still themselves before God and listen. There is a passage in 1 Kings 19:11-13, that describes how God speaks in times of silence. Elisha had confronted the evil queen Jezebel, and she had threatened his life. He fled to the wilderness away from her. Here is where we pick up part of the story. It reads:

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The noise and busyness of the world can create a cacophony of tumult. It is hard to hear the voice of the Lord with such a constant hullabaloo going on. Dallas Willard speaking at The Center for Personal and Relational Growth, in April 2019 put it this way: “God coaxes Elijah out of his cave of depression and onto the mountaintop: “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by” (1 Kings 19:11)” (21). God uses a still small voice with Elijah. He was not in the storm or in the fire – in all the noise and chaos. He reached Elijah with a whisper. If Elisha, the great prophet had to be quiet to hear God’s whisper, then we should do the same thing.

Richard Foster talks about being quiet before the Lord in his book “Sanctuary of the Soul.” He talks about how when we enter into a time of silence and meditative prayer, that is the time when everything begins screaming for our attention. He calls it having a noisy heart. He goes on to talk about how even our time of Christian worship has become of less help in shutting out noise and distraction. He writes:

Sadly, our Christian worship services are of no help here.  Today for the most part, they have become one huge production in distraction.  Worship meant to draw us into the presence of God has become little more than an organized way of keeping us from the presence of God.  So it is little wonder that when we are first learning meditative prayer, we need help in how to control a wandering mind. (104-105)

It’s hard to imagine worship being a distraction to us as Foster puts it. But if you have gone to a church where they have a full production in worship, with lights, fog machines, and very loud music, I can see his point. Peter Scazzero is the author of The Emotionally Healthy Church. Scazzero writes about cultivating a quiet time with the Lord. He says, “Cultivating an intentional life with our Lord requires intentionally focused time – for silence, prayer, meditation on Scripture, and reading. But we are surrounded by endless distractions and voices that call us away from sitting at the feet of Jesus. Yet it is our only hope for seeing through the illusions and pretense of our world and for providing leadership to those around us” (206).

The Quakers have long practiced silent meditation as a part of their worship.  For many of us, this is strange and a bit foreign, but if you have an open mind to what God is doing, it can enrich your daily devotions. Richard Foster talks about one of his professors who gave three specific words of instruction for worship from the Quaker tradition. The three words were “center down,” “seek to be gathered into the power of God” and the third was to be careful not to run ahead, or get too far behind the guiding of the Holy Spirit. Foster went on to define some of these “words” about our worship. He wrote, “To center down in a Quaker context means to let go of all distractions and feelings; to become fully present to what is happening here, now; to silence our mind, which is askew with meandering thoughts, and our mouth, which is full of many words” (51-52).

When we quiet ourselves, we pray and then allow God to speak to us, we may get specific direction. God may well have something in particular He wants us to do. We may not hear an audible voice, but God may well speak to our spirit with a still small voice. Foster suggests we spend time during devotions meditating on God’s Word, quieting our heart and mind, and then taking action. Foster writes, “We allow God’s great silence to still our noisy heart” (63). Interestingly, Foster says our spiritual formation is not just about meditation, but God also calls believers to take action after hearing from Him. Foster writes, “In the biblical witness we have this dual nature of meditation on stillness and action” (20). So according to Foster, our prayer, meditation, and listening for the voice of God should lead us to action. Once a person hears from God, they are to take action on what He has told them.

In summary, part of the goal of silence before the Lord is to still our own minds, to shut out the noise and busyness of the world, to enable us to hear the still small voice of God. This helps partner with the Holy Spirit in spiritual formation, making us more like Christ. Being silent  may be easier when taking time to do a nature walk, or just being away from the city. This is not always convenient, but we can certainly turn off our electronics during devotion time. Many spiritual disciplines rely on being still and quiet before the Lord. Tuning out the world, and all of its noise will help in focusing on the spiritual disciplines and spiritual formation. The quiet rest in the Lord will refresh us, and then following the call and direction from the Lord after being quiet will energize us.