Indeed

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I have a bit of a Mike Breen man-crush at the moment. I've begun to read Building a Discipling Culture (Kindle Version) and read this very early on:



The problem is that most of us have been educated and trained to build, serve and lead the organization of the church. Most of us have actually never been trained to make disciples. Seminary degrees, church classes and training seminars teach us to grow our volunteer base, form system and organizational structures or preach sermons on Sunday mornings and assimilate newcomers from the Sunday service. As we look around as Christendom is crumbling and the landscape of the church is forever changed, a stark revelation emerges: Most of us have been trained and educated for a world that no longer exists.


However, the call to make disciples still remains. It never wavers and never changes.


Breen, Mike (2011-08-16). Building a Discipling Culture (Kindle Locations 94-99). 3DM. Kindle Edition.



(Emphasis mine) I bear the marks of that kind of education as I try to lead and make disciples within the church I lead and the community in which I live. Seminary was great but one thing I've noticed about post-seminary life (I graduated 9 years ago) is that putting all the pieces together is up to me and there were several classes that I took that were out of date as soon as class was over (not to mention dreadful for an introvert like me. Walk up to three random strangers to talk to them about Jesus for an evangelism class? Ugh).


Churches and denominations shouldn't require a Master of Divinity anymore. If they're going to require a masters level education at all it ought to be more like a Master of Missiology. How else are we going to make disciples in an ever-changing world?

Glorious Relief

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I've always scored a very strong "I" in the Meyers-Briggs Inventory which means I am an introvert. My wife has never been able to understand why I was never embarrassed to eat alone in a restaurant or go to the movies by myself. Most of the time, I prefer to read a book over going out with other people. When I attended the Acts 29 Bootcamp in Dallas last March, Matt Chandler directed us to pray together in groups of 3 or 4. I immediately dropped my head in prayer and hoped no one would ask me to join them. When I attended our conference's Connected in Christ program for a total of four weeks over two years, I always went to my room as soon as evening worship was over rather than hanging out with the rest of the group.


I've been called anti-social but, thankfully, Susan Cain has pointed out that I'm "differently social" and so are all the other introverts in the world and the church. I just picked up Cain's book Quiet and am looking forward to reading the rest of it.


If you're interested in reading a little bit more about introverts, check out this post by Alastair Roberts. He is a very sharp thinker and shares a bit about his own life of introversion as well.


I for one look forward to one day meeting Alastair so that we can shake hands and then read quietly together.

What Would Help My Marriage?

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Last week was a crazy one in terms of marriage and sex talk by famous pastors. Ed Stetzer did his usual excellent analysis on the information that came out and you can read that here. (I love Ed. He's one of those rare helpful people who wants to help churches of just about any denomination get better at the Great Commission - including Methodists like me. Thank you, Ed, for your kingdom focus!) I don't want to comment on everything in the post, just something that stuck out to me about pastor Ed Young's upcoming bed-in.


The bed-in is supposed to draw attention to Ed and his wife Lisa's new book Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy with Your Spouse. I've not read the book yet. I might not because, believe it or not, I feel a little over-sexed by the culture both inside and outside the church. My wife and I enjoy each other and feel practically no inhibition in our bedroom. I'd say that some of the safest and carefree times of our relationship together are when we, to borrow a phrase from Tommy Nelson's Song of Solomon series, renew our marriage covenant. When I look at our relationship and think about deepening our intimacy, sex isn't where we need the most work.


Are we the odd couple within American Christian churches?


What would really deepen our intimacy with one another?


I know the answer to that and I want to trot this thought out there for people who might be thinking, "You know, sex really isn't our problem." Let me entice you to read a blog post that I'm about to link by providing a snippet from a comment left at that particular blog: "I will say that few things make me feel more loved and cared for by my husband than when he___". Now, how would you fill in that blank? How would your spouse fill in that blank? As I judge a book by its cover, Pastor Ed might tell you that sex is the key. While that is important to a marriage, what might turn out to be the most underrated key to lasting intimacy is prayer. (Pastors you should definitely read this post by Brian Croft about praying with your spouse. It's where I took the comment I mentioned).


You want to try something that will increase your vulnerability? Want to really lay yourself bare and naked before the one to whom you have pledged to love and serve "till death do us part"? Want to increase intimacy and, hey, maybe even improve your sex life because you have an even greater connection and commitment to one another? Pray together.


Sure, you expect me to say that. I'm a pastor. I think you should pray. I'm also a gigantic hypocrite because that is one of the biggest weaknesses in my own marriage and I've made a commitment to destroy that weakness. Since that barrier to intimacy is on my mind, sure, I'm thinking a lot about how prayer can contribute to intimacy with my wife. Maybe it would help you, too.

The Preacher's Danger

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C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism
I am thinking of unfortunate scholars in foreign universities who cannot 'hold down their jobs' unless they repeatedly publish articles each of which must say, or seem to say, something new about some literary work; or of overworked reviewers, getting through novel after novel as quickly as they can, like a schoolboy doing his 'prep'. For such people reading often becomes mere work. The text before them comes to exist not in its own right but simply as raw material; clay out of which they can complete their tale of bricks.

This is what Bible reading has become for many of us and it is a soul killer. What does it profit a preacher to mine a bunch of alliterated sermon ideas yet forfeit the Word of life waiting for us if we would only linger?

I'll Pray for You

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The title of this post is probably one of the biggest lies told in the church. You're talking with someone who is in the middle of a rough season. She mentions that her grandson is having surgery on Wednesday. You say, "I'll pray for him." Wednesday comes and goes, you see this woman in the grocery store on Friday and think, "Oh no! I said I'd pray and I didn't! Jesus, please let this prayer for her grandson be retroactive. Amen!"

If you're wondering how I was able to take a peek into your past and see accurately it's because I've done it, too. I've had that sinking feeling of knowing I promised to pray but forgot to. I've even developed a habit of not even offering to pray in the future because I know I won't remember to pray even if I write it down.

Until now. Pastoral care, meet iOS 5.

I'm a shameless Apple shill. No doubt. I like things that have a low frustration factor and I can count my frustrating Apple moments on one hand.

But this isn't really about Apple. It's about how easy it is to set a reminder to pray for someone using iOS 5 with Reminders. There's probably always been some workaround to this, but I find Reminders incredibly easy. For instance, I promised to pray for some folks Saturday morning when I'll be out of town. In the past, I'd have a 98% chance of forgetting. This time, however, I set a Reminder for Saturday morning at 10AM.



Boom! Now I know I'll remember to pray.

For Future Reference

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The Gospel Coalition is running a 5-part series on depression in the ministry. The first two are available and I'm going to link them here as well as the next three when they come out.

This is a very real issue and many times we pastors do not seek out the kind of confiding, accountable relationships that would be of great benefit to us for one reason or another. I'm convinced that many pastors slide into depression because we internalize so much and do not share it with anyone for one reason or another.

Part 1 by Paul Tripp (who looks like the older, Christian version of Ron Swanson)

Part 2 by Garrett Higbee

Part 3 by Steve Viars

Annual Conference After Show

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Thanks to Andy Ihnatko (yes, I spelled his last name from memory, thank you very much) from MacBreak Weekly, I finally have an iOS blogging client that doesn't make me want to injure myself or anyone else. His "pick of the week" on the show this week was an iPad app called Blogsy and it is fantastic. That takes me one step closer toward being able to abandon my computer for all but about 10% of my tasks (image & video editing, Skype, writing really long pieces, and desktop publishing).

Enough of the tech talk, though, for that is the subject of my other blog.

I returned last night from the Arkansas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. It was a long week. The United Methodist Church meets every four years at General Conference and there we make decisions concerning the polity and structure of the whole church. Ou next General Conference is in 2012 so we elected delegates at our Annual Conference this year who will go next year. The clergy and laity groups each elect 6 delegates, 6 more delegates to Jurisdictional Conference (where new bishops are elected), and three alternates. In all, 30 people were elected in 3 days. This was my first time to vote as I wasn't eligible to vote last time because I hadn't yet been ordained.

OK, enough of the nerd talk, right? Actually, the voting was pretty important because it meant that we had to stay in the conference most of the time so that we wouldn't miss a ballot. I spent less time visiting with people this year than years past because of this. The Asbury Seminary alumni were pleased to host J.D. Walt for our alumni lunch. It was great to visit with him and to hear of some exciting things going on in the world of Wesleyan Methodism.



The Confessing Movement of Arkansas hosted Dr. Chris Bounds from Indiana Wesleyan University. Chris is a great guy and one of the smartest people I've ever met. It was great to catch up with him and hear him speak at both the CMA breakfast and on the floor of the Annual Conference.



We also passed a new and radical direction for our conference called Imagine Ministries. That was a significant deal and am proud of the work the IM team did and look forward to joining in their work for years to come.

Power Through Prayer

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In the last three days these things have happened in my life:

  • I left church on Sunday feeling neither high or low about the sermon I preached. I left confident in the Word of God and God’s power to work in the hearts of people. I was able to rest in that.

  • I deleted a couple of tweets. I grew up thinking that giving someone a hard time was a way to show someone you liked them and appreciated them. That’s pretty dumb. About 20 minutes after posting them, I felt this impression in my heart not only to delete those tweets but to start paying attention to how I give people a hard time and to stop doing it. It honors no one.

  • I apologized to my wife this morning. Yesterday, I was gruff with her for a moment in the middle of my yard work. It’s no way for a man to speak to his wife who just happens to be a daughter of God.


(If that last thing seems strange to mention, I have a really hard time apologizing. I’m that wicked.)

So, what’s been going on? It seems like I’m surprised at these good things. I am, a little. What’s been going on is that I recently finished a book called Power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds. More than anything, that little book is an indictment on prayerless preachers who work so hard to create power and strength in their ministries while neglecting the only true power in their lives - prayer. I have repented and have devoted more - much more - time to prayer than some of the other things that tend to crowd my attention during the day. You know what? God’s been working me over. And it is awesome. The Holy Spirit has moved me in each one of those bullet points. No joke. It’s one of those weird moments in life when I think, “Man, this rebuking by the Holy Spirit is hard and it hurts. Do it some more!” (If this keeps up I’m sure my wife and church will be saying, “Do it some more!”)

I’m not writing to brag but to give those of you who are experiencing prayerlessness either some encouragement or a kick in the pants. Especially you preachers who walk into the pulpit thinking that your three points are going to totally change someone’s life when you haven’t sought the one who is already at work in the lives of those who hear his word.

Here’s three links you can try on for size (You’re in luck if you’re a Kindle-user).

Complete Works of E.M. Bounds on Prayer
The Complete E.M. Bounds on Prayer - Kindle $3.99
Power Through Prayer - Kindle is $0.99!