Category Archives: Monday Discussions

What does a Cross-created Family Look Like?

Monday is for Discussion

Early ChurchI am beginning to work on the next book I will take up for exposition at Trinity Church. Here’s the introductory outline for the first message in the series from 1 Thessalonians.

1:1-2          His Coming Creates a Family

  1. A Cross-created   family works together as a team. (v. 1-3)
  2. A Cross-created   family rejoices and gives thanks for all its members. (v. 2a)
  3. A Cross-created   family prays for one another regularly (v. 2b)

Suggestion:  Read the Epistles, all of them, not just Paul with this question in mind;

What does this book tell me about how the cross of Christ shaped the lifestyle of the early church?

“May I transfer my guilt to another.”

Monday is for Discussion

Charles Simeon“In Passion Week, as I was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord’s Supper, I met with an expression to this effect—’That the Jews knew what they did, when they transfered their sin ot the head of their offering.’ The thought came tinto my mind, What, may I transfer all my guilt to another? has God provided an Offering for me, that I may lay my sins on His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my soul one moment longer. Accordingly I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of Jesus; and on the Wenesday began to have a hope of mercy; on the Thursday that hope increased; on the Friday and saturday it became more strong;  and on the Sunday morning Easter day, April 4, I awoke early with those words upon my heart and lips, ‘Jesus Christ is risen today! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’ From that hour peace flowed in rich abundance into my soul; and at the Lord’s Table in our Chapel I had the sweetest access to God through my blessed Savior.”

Charles Simeon, quoted in John Piper’s The Roots of Endurance: Invincible Perseverance in the Lives of John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce, relating how his conversion came about.  He had been burdened about taking the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner and had begun to study to find some releif for his soul.

Question:

How can we encourage more to consider their spiritual state and to study their way to gospel understanding?

Alignment of Vision: Why it is critical and why it is hard.

Tuesday is for Discussion

Alignment 2Three principles of philosophy of ministry that leaders need to recognize whether the church is a large traditional church, a small attractional model church, or an organic church meeting in a house:

  • Alignment is hard.

Getting everyone on board with the vision and direction of your church is not easy, but it is necessary. Without it (alignment) there will be disunity, turf wars, competition for resources, grumbling about direction, second-guessing of leadership, diminishment of excitement, misplaced passion, foot-dragging on initiatives, and a host of other problems.  Here’s a link that will help you begin to understand the process and the reasons for better alignment. 

  • Alignment is never complete.

Getting “everyone on board” is never complete. Everyone will never be on board. There will be first adopters, early adopters, and late adopters and there will also be those who will never adopt. Live with it.

But at the same time, keep working at it and know, in the deepest recesses of your being that the process is never over. You will always need to underscore the vision. You will always need to explain why you do what you do and why you do it in the way you do it.   

Here’s a link that is miss-titled but helpful about how to align new ministries in a church with the vision/mission of the church.

  • Alignment leaks.

No matter what you do in sharing, communicating your vision and thinking through your ministries and the what and why you do everything you do, it will never be enough. It will never be enough not just because there are new people, but because alignment leaks. People forget, people never get your vision at the level of understanding and ownership that you want them to. People are pitched other visions by other great ministries that they are exposed to through books, radio, conferences and the like.

And those other ministries and visions, though great are different and can dilute the compelling nature of your church’s vision and call from God. Alignment leaks for any number of reasons and the only way to combat that leakage is to constantly keep filling the sink with new liquid that replaces what leaks away.

The payoff for working hard at constantly communicating the clarity of your church’s specific call from God, your God-intoxicated vision wrought in hours of prayer and listening to God for your community will be a church that stays on mission and makes multiplying disciples who live passionately for and like Jesus. And that’s what the world needs.

The First Command of Christ and The Cure for Depression

Monday is for Discussion

Calm 1Jesus has risen. His purpose has been accomplished. He appears to his disciples. The ones who ran and hid, … the ones who declared loyalty and failed, … the ones who he had told to not let their hearts be troubled (John 14:1), … are now given his first command between the resurrection and his ascension.

What would he say? What would he command? What would the risen Lord of life want them to know after all their failure, all their sorrow, all their disappointment?

John 20:19-26 (ESV)
19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”  22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” 

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.
Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said,
“Peace be with you.”

Jesus wants the believing heart to be at rest.

Preach that to your soul every day,

in every circumstance,

in every disappointment,

every sorrow,

in every difficulty,

challenge and

every sorrow.

Your Lord, 
your Savior,
your commander in chief,
the lamb-made-Lion of Judah says he holds you and your heart can rest. Let nothing steal your joy in what his blood has purchased. “Rejoice. Again I say, rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4)

Preach it to your soul and then to everyone you know.

Why Downton Abbey is Can and Can’t Miss TV at the Same Time

Monday Discussion

downton-abbey-not-_2001989bSpoiler alert: Read no further if you have not seen last night’s episode.

I Repeat:
Spoiler alert: Read no further if you have not seen last night’s episode.

Last night was the season ending episode of the wildly successful BBC production Downton Abbey.  The acting is superb, for the most part, the writing is well done, the staging and cinematography are fantastic, and as a period piece, the history is mostly on target.

No doubt today, fans and critics are waxing on about the death of Matthew Crawley only hours after the birth of his son and heir. For the most part, I have enjoyed the Downton story but less so with each passing season. And, as with most TV dramas, I have irritated my family with my periodic critiques of the underlying theology and worldview. I don’t try to irritate, I am just trying to be obedience to the Scripture and “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:5)

Last week I posted to links that tackled the Downton Abbey phenomenon head on. One was negative and one was positive and they were both on target. See what you think. The Links are below.

Another Take on Downton Abbey and Why the Left Hates It (Good juxtaposition with the next link.)
Sanity on the Downton Abbey Phenomenon (Some honest evaluation of the popular BBC production)

Missional Leaders and Phonies

Missional 3Monday Discussion

Missional leaders lead God’s people on the mission of God, to the world of God, for the glory of God.

You can call yourself a missional leader. You can read all the right books on missional leadership. You can sling all the right names around from the missional community. But unless you are leading people into the mission of God for the glory of God, you are not a missional leader.

So let’s ask a different question:

What are the attitudes, activities, and behaviors of a missional leader?

Preparing for Life after Failure

Monday is for Discussion

Peter's Denial 2Luke 22:31-34
31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” 33 Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” 34 Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”

Simple Observations:

  • Jesus knows Peter is going to fail in his service.
  • Jesus has prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail.
  • And Jesus tells Peter, before Peter fails in his service, that he (Jesus) is not finished with him and that he has a job for him to do, “… when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.“
  • Jesus prepared Peter for life after failure.

Peter’s story is our story.

  • Jesus knows we are going to fail in our service and commitment to him.
  • Jesus has prayed for us (John 17:20).
  • And Jesus is not finished with us.

Question:
How are you preparing young disciples for life in Christ after failure?

Guest Blogger: Scott Zabel—Making Tracks for God

Monday is for Discussion

My friend Scott Zabel sent me some observations and reflections on last week’s dusting of snow. I love it when the people of God are attuned to the moment and looking for something that will take their hearts back to the cross. When Scott sent me this, I thought of a book by Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, former pastor of the famous 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and a master at illustration.

In a book called Let Me Illustrate, a collection of some of his many sermon illustrations, he wrote a brief introduction and told the story of driving down the road and his children asking him questions about his stories. He told them that anything could be made into an illustration, whereupon they began to point at things and ask him to make it into an illustration of some biblical truth. It’s been years since I read the book, but Scott reminded me when he wrote down this story.

Snow tracks

As I got out of my vehicle this morning, I saw the fresh tracks the wheels had made in the light dusting of snow. Not an unusual sight in northern Illinois in the middle of January, but for some reason, this morning, it made me stop and think. What I realized, as I looked at the tracks, is the different path the rear wheels had taken. Although nearly identical in shape, the rear wheels had definitely taken a different path. I also noticed that the tighter the turn the vehicle had made, the greater the distance between the two paths.

How often does my walk with Christ resemble the path of the rear wheels? When the road is straight and easy to navigate, my path can look almost identical to His. However, as life starts to put some curves in my way, my path starts to depart from His. The sharper the curves, the more distant I feel from Him.

While I am writing this, I still wonder if this is a negative thing or merely an observation of our spiritual journey in a sinful world. For even though the path of the rear wheels departs from the front, they look similar enough in shape that anyone looking at the two paths can clearly see not only that the rear wheels are following the front, but also which set of wheels are in the lead.

Blessings to you as you make tracks!!  

Scott

Thanks Scott. And Let’s all of us make the straightest tracks we can to Jesus and the cross.

Parables for a Sleeping Church: The Parable of the Forgetful Farmer

Monday is for Parables

Corn HarvestToday marks the beginning of a new, (periodic) feature to the blog.

I’m calling it “Parables for a Sleeping Church.” All of these parables are being story-boarded now and eventually, all of these modern day parables will be made into videos for use in churches who want to stimulate their people to make disciples of the nations.*

Tell me what you think:

Hear then, . . .

The Parable of the Forgetful Farmer

A farmer went out to his fields and the harvest was ready. He revved up his combine and made one, then two, then three passes through his corn. At the end of his third pass, he knew that his bin was full and when he got to the end of the row, he turned and lined up his combine to make yet another pass.

Corn in the BinBut before he did, and because he was a religious man, he decided to thank God for the bounty of his harvest and so he turned his engine off, pivoted in his seat and examined the corn behind him. And from a heart filled with gratitude he cried out: “Thank You oh God, for the increase in this field. You have been good and You have supplied all our needs for another season. I give You praise and marvel at Your mercy and love. Thank You for all Your kindness and goodness. Amen.”

Approximately two hours later our farmer was still sitting in his combine, still gazing appreciatively at the corn in the bin of behind him. He hadn’t offloaded it to a truck for storage or distribution, but he did have a thorough measure of its value.

Two hours later, the combine had not moved; the farmer hadn’t either. He still stared at the corn in the bin, and when the sun went down, his family, believing he had had a breakdown of some kind, called the paramedics and carted him away to the hospital.

Mysteriously, he forgot the rest of the harvest. He had lost his health while staring at the corn in the bin of his combine and neglecting the harvest in his fields.

Let he who has ears to hear, hear what the farmer’s story teaches the churches of America.

Cf. John 4:35 and Luke 10:2

* This parable is in no way an attempt to improve upon the words of Jesus. It is simply an attempt to apply the import of the words of Christ to our lives today.

© 2013, Marty Schoenleber

“I Swear there Must be Blisters on My Heart” (Rich Mullins)

Monday Discussion

EM BoundsDownloaded the complete works of E.M. Bounds on prayer to my Kindle last week. Started reading Power Through Prayer two days ago. Nearly wrecked on every sentence. Conviction. Sorrow. Grief.  But also hope, wisdom, and joy in the knowledge that God is not finished working out the life of Christ in me. There is so much in these words from over a century ago that cuts (and helps) the spirit to the core.

I think of the line from Rich Mullins “Hold Me Jesus“ song, “I swear there must be blisters on my heart.” How often this fits me and I hate it. I don’t want a blistered heart.  I want a soft and supple heart, sensitive and responsive to a God who loves me despite the idiocies and corruptions of my heart. Pastors and professors and church planting mentors (and I guess I am all three) can get so wrapped up in the activity and work of the ministry that we mistake it (Activity and work) for relationship with the living God.

Bounds book cuts through the dross and reminds the preacher to not lose Jesus in the midst of his books, in the midst of his duties, in the midst of his ambitions. Here’s just  a few of E. M. Bounds sharp knives for the soul of a preacher.

“The sermon cannot rise in its life-giving forces above the man. Dead men give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill.”

“Life-giving preaching costs the preacher much—death to self, crucifixion to the world, the travail of his own soul. Crucified preaching only can give life. Crucified preaching can come only from a crucified man.”

“We shut ourselves to our study, we become students, bookworms, Bible worms, sermon makers, noted for literature, thought, and sermons; but the people and God, where are they? Out of heart, out of mind. Preachers who are great thinkers, great students must be the greatest of prayers, or else they will be the greatest of backsliders, heartless professionals, rationalistic, less than the least of preachers in God’s estimate.”

“Oh God, save me from such a life. Save all preachers of your word from such vanity. Make me and the men I mentor mighty in prayer. Make us utterly dependent on your Spirit. For the glory of Christ, Amen.”

Question:
How are you monitoring the and refreshing your soul?

Suggestion:
Engage your elders and staff in whatever process you use. It will help both you and them.

Similar:
Love and Hate in the Ministry