When I was in seminary I was required as part of my ordination process in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. to serve in a church in what the seminary called, “Field Education.” Pastor Ray and Pastor Jan were two of the coolest pastors in the world who loved Jesus and who were by all means the best of the best in making sure that I received what I needed in fulfilling my field education requirement at the seminary and helping me prepare in becoming a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church. I watched these two cats from afar and up close. I watched how they led worship and how they proclaimed God’s Word each and every week. Each had their own style in preaching. One used a manuscript and the other spoke from the heart without notes. One was introverted and the other was more of an extrovert. Both had a heart for the people of the church and were living examples of Christ’s love. Both preached God’s grace and were visionaries. They allowed me to preach and to lead one of their adult education classes during my internship. They allowed me to run their youth ministry alongside some wonderful people.
I recall on one occasion hearing a church member praise Pastor Ray and his ability to remember names. Pastor Jan and his wife were two of the kindest people Debbie and I ever met and made sure that our family was ministered to and cared for while we were living in Princeton during seminary and the entire church surrounded us with love and prayer when I graduated and we moved back to California for my first call as an Associate Pastor at a wonderful church in Sacramento. Pastor Jan was an Army Chaplain as well as one of the Pastors of the church and had a wonderful pastors heart and provided much of the pastoral care for the church. I got to watch Jan and Ray both interact with church members at the best and worst of times in a persons life. Pastor Ray and Pastor Jan blessed me in so many ways and I’m so grateful to have had served alongside them while in seminary. I learned more about pastoral care from these two guys than I did in seminary in my pastoral care class.
Over the last nine months I have had the honor of supervising a very good friend. He’s been a blessing in so many ways and I’ve enjoyed being able to be his supervisor while he’s attended Fuller Seminary and helping him, along with my church, fulfill his Field Education requirement in preparation for ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the PCUSA. When James and I first got acquainted I made sure he knew that if he were to do his “Field Education” at our church, he’d get as much as I got in my field education and even more. James has assisted me in leading worship, he’s preached almost monthly, and has served alongside me and our church leaders. We’ve had the opportunity in watching James grow in his ministry and in his internship. I have know doubt the Lord will continue to use James as he discerns where it is that God is calling him to serve when he is ready to receive a call. I’ve enjoyed also learning from James and what he has to offer the church.
James will continue serving at our church as our pastoral intern until he finishes the ordination process. I look forward in continuing to being able to give to James and others in the future what Pastor Ray and Pastor Jan gave to me as I prepared for becoming a pastor. James has recently entered the blogosphere. If you’d like to catch a glimpse of James heart and his passion for ministry visit his new blog elpisandshalom.com.
Thank you James!!!
I am horrible at taking time off as a pastor. I am usually running at full speed, always thinking about what’s next. I’m always thinking about next Sunday’s sermon and the folks I need to visit or I haven’t seen in church. Resting is something that I don’t do enough of and I need to. I know this about myself. It’s an area I am learning about. I recently talked to a respected friend who does spiritual direction on the side and offered to be my spiritual director. I am realizing this is something I should have in my life especially as I continue to be in ministry as a pastor. I of course said yes!
While away this past weekend I had an interesting experience happen to me while cruising the streets of Folsom after a happy dinner with family and some friends.
The kids were walking about a half block ahead of us. As I approached the corner I noticed a guy standing on a crate and a couple of folks huddled around him and I noticed that our kiddoes had stopped with their buddies to listen.
As I approached the crate dude and his buddies, I looked over at my older kid and he says, “My dad’s a pastor as he’s talking to crate dude and he points his finger over to me.” I knew exactly what the crate dude was doing. He was preaching.
Now this corner he had chosen as his platform for proclaiming, “good news,” was a very quiet corner. No one was around. As I walked this particular street I had noticed that there were three or so small restaurants and at least two very loud bars about a half city block away.
He was a very nice guy and did a good job being a witness to Christ’s love, but I found myself feeling a little impatient. “I was on vacation I thought to myself and here’s some guy trying to preach to my kids and their buddies.” The crate dude looks at me and says, “who is the most hated man on earth?” I said Jesus? He smiled and continued talking to the kiddoes.
As I stood listening, one of his huddled buddies leans over to me and says, “are you offended by what he’s doing?” She says, “Is he doing something wrong or saying something wrong?” I said, “no, he’s doing fine.” I did say though, “You know you guys are on the wrong corner. You should be at the bar up the street.” She looked at me with an uncomfortable smile and I walked away and got some toffee at the candy store. I kind of felt bad for my comment and thought, “nice come back Wahe, you nerd!”
The couple of friends we were walking with are people who I think are very cool. They’re not your typical church folk. As a matter of fact, they kept walking while the kids stopped and listened. I wondered why they kept walking? Was it the dude standing on the crate that turned them off? Was it his presentation of the gospel? Was it because he was standing above us, looking down at us?
As I processed this experience I wondered to myself are people looking for pastors to be genuine and real? Pastors who actually care and take a moment in their busy lives to step down from their crates every Sunday morning and actually take an interest in the people they’ve been called to shepherd. This is something I have continued to learn about in my growth as a pastor. People are looking for pastors to be genuine and real. Pastors who actually care. As the kids came into the candy store, we did talk for a moment about the crate dude and his buddies. One kid showed me that they were giving tickets out to go to heaven. Literally tickets they had printed up with little Bible verses on them.
Maybe its me. Maybe I’m just a nimrod and I’m jealous that the guy can stand on a crate and kick into full preaching mode on a street corner. Who knows. The experience did make me think about my preaching and my heart for preaching God’s love. I couldn’t help but think about Paul’s words from Romans, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel.” Am I ashamed sometimes?” Do I treat every moment I have as a pastor to preach God’s love with passion? I still love what one of my preaching professors once said to my preaching class in seminary, “sometimes the gospel is offensive.” Do I use every moment in my life for being a witness to Christ’s love even if the truth sometimes is painful to hear? Should I be crate dude? Or should crate dude throw his crate away and take a seat in the bar next to someone who needs someone to be real with them? Someone to love them as Jesus loved the brokenhearted? Someone to step down from the crate and actually care?
Maybe crate dude was there for a purpose that night and the Spirit of God was convicting my heart about my preaching and what I need to work on in my ministry as a pastor especially when it comes to preaching every moment given to me as a pastor.
My favorite vacation moment? Watching our kids enjoy being with their friends and watching t-bone try to figure out how to skip a rock on a river.
Now back to our regularly scheduled vacation time.
I’ve thought a lot about this all day. This idea that we pastors who’ve sensed God’s call to full-time ministry have some how entered the “big show?” Let me be clear that I’m not trying to say that we in the pastorate are better than those in the pews. I don’t want to be better. I had a professor in seminary talk about the preacher rising up from the pews to bring good news is where good news really should come from. His point being that the preacher is just like me. He or she deals with the same things I deal with. His thought also was that we’ve placed so much focus on the person sitting above us, in an elevated position on a Sunday morning, rising to the raised pulpit in the sky, that we’ve forgotten that there was a time in which the people of God would rise from the midst of community to proclaim God’s mission. This big show metaphor points me back to a time in my life as a youth where I got to watch some wonderful people in leadership positions. These folks were awesome in their presentation of the gospel. I looked up to them. I wanted to do what they were doing. I wanted to be part of a life changing experience that would impact the world for Christ and these folks were good at what they did and I myself was impacted or I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing in the church today.
I can even remember way back as a youth growing up in the church, attending church youth camps and I’d watch those putting on the big show and wondered what it would be like to be the one up front. I’d look at these folks with awe and thought they were some kind of “super” Christians. I thought that if I only could do what they were doing I’d be super Christian guy too. My first summer serving on staff at this same youth camp I attended as a kid and that I truly love with all of my heart, I saw a different side of the “super Christian.” I was kicked out of my box of “naiveté.” I was about 17 ½ years old and worked as a dishwasher all summer long at this camp. It was where I learned what it meant to really be in ministry. This is where it took place for me. 300-400 persons a week, three meals a day, 5-6 days per week, you do the math. That was a whole lot of dish washing.
I have to confess, I was so jealous of the folks up stairs and up front that there were days I wondered if I’d ever be doing what they were doing in ministry. Something happened though that first summer serving on staff at that camp. I realized that the folks who were up front, upstairs, doing the big show stuff, that I wanted to do so badly, were just like me. When I was older and when I had my first opportunity of serving in the church as a full-time youth director I was also blown away. This image I had was wrong and unfair. There were people full of sin and as broken as the next person. They were me. This was hard to swallow. I had placed these folks on such a high pedestal I felt guilty. What hit me though was that they were just as much in need of restoration of the soul as I was. They hurt and confronted their own stuff. They dealt with real life issues and struggled with many of the same things I’d struggle with. But they were always ready to be sent out on God‘s mission. Ready to respond to the ministry of proclamation. Ready to serve and love as Jesus loved, even in spite of what was happening in their own lives.
This is why I do what I do. I feel in some ways I’ve risen up from the pews like those I’ve watched over the years do the same. They’ve inspired me to keep doing what I‘m doing. Being with the people of God at the ground level. This is where change takes place in a persons life. This is where it happens. This where God works. This is where I get to hear how God is working. Maybe what I’m learning is that the really big show stuff happens in the pews. Not in the pulpit. Not elevated up high where the one who proclaims good news looks down upon the people. The one who proclaims good news needs to know what it’s like to rise up from the pews. In some ways the one who proclaims good news sometimes needs to go back to where it all began for them on that day God called them from their brokenness to tell others of the peace of Christ that restores the soul. This is where God works and moves. Not at the top. Not up front. But from the pews. The big show stuff I guess really happens in the pews. This is where I need to get the pulse of the church from. Maybe this is the ticket in bringing hope to the church, that the one called to preach good news, goes to the pews, empowers the people of God to rise up and help with the proclamation of God’s love.
Lord, may it be so.
As a young pastor (turning forty in less than six months) there are some days I am busting with joy that God has blessed me with the coolest calling anyone could ever receive from God in being a pastor to a church. There are other days I wonder if I’m even coming close to making a difference for the kingdom.
What are people looking for in a church? What are they needing? Are folks simply wanting someone to entertain them and make them feel all mushy inside or are they wanting simple truths that can challenge them to look at the gospel in a way that motivates them to think outside of their box of naiveté?
I had a conversation with a relative during the holiday season that left me wondering about the way I preach the gospel. This relative basically said in so many words, “What’s the matter with folks wanting to hear a feel good message?” Of course we talked about pastors and churches that are doing the “feel good stuff” and who are growing by the thousands. Pastors who are polished presenters of a “make you feel good gospel message.” Another relative sitting in on the same conversation says, “when I was a kid, my parents took me to some baptist church and all I remember was hearing a you’re going to hell sermon. What’s matter with the “feel good stuff?”
I came across another person a couple of weeks ago from another church in the area that implied that my role as preacher is to entertain from the pulpit. This person had implied that people want to hear politics and the gospel message somehow intertwined together. I had shared that my call to preach good news was simply to preach good news. Preaching good news meant that there couldn’t be room for the politics of today to interfere with the proclamation of the gospel message. The pulpit wasn’t a place for dancing on the heads of the parishioner with my take on the world.
I don’t have a problem using an illustration or two from the world to make a point. People get the “fluff and stuff” from the outside 24-7. When they enter the doors of the church they need to hear something more than just “fluff and stuff.” In the same respect I had a preaching professor say to us soon to be preachers while in seminary, “You ain’t preaching the gospel if you ain’t making people feel uncomfortable.” Implying that Jesus came with a message that called people to face the troubles of the world and that called people to turn away from sin which made people feel uncomfortable. How do I do this and yet still bring some kind of hope to those looking for just a small bit of hope when they enter the church on a Sunday morning?
One of my hopes for 2008 is that I’d continue to find “my preaching,” voice. A phrase I heard often thrown around seminary like snowballs. I want to be the kind of pastor and preacher that speaks the truth of the gospel. I also want to be the kind of pastor and preacher that helps others become more than just pew participants warming up some old pews. I want to be a pastor where when the words I put on paper somehow become the words that speak to a persons heart via the mouth of God. Words that move people from the pew out into the world.
(Pulpit rock in Norway)
This Sunday in church (in a few short hours) we move to a two service format. (8am & 10:30am) The last I church I was part of had two worship services. One “traditional” and one “blended.” The pastor did a wonderful job of leading both worship services. The lay helpers, the choir, and the praise team all had a hand in making the services a worshipful experience. My son says to me today, “dad, are you doing the same sermon twice?” My response, “I hope.” Say a prayer for us if you visit here on occasion and for those of you from church don’t forget to set your clocks back and don’t be late…hehe.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk0WI_If2wE]
Thank you volunteers! We had bunches of kiddoes! It was awesome!
I had the opportunity to meet Steve a few years ago and heard him preach at his church and really enjoyed his preaching and his style of leadership. The man can preach good news! The guy gets it! Here is a recent sermon he preached at his church about the kind of church Jesus would join and the illustration below is something I think summarizes well the kind of church we all should strive for in the kingdom of God.
I came across this story about Clarence Jordan, who was instrumental in founding
Habitat for Humanity. He visited an integrated church in the Deep South. He was
surprised to find such a large church so thoroughly integrated not only black and white,
but rich and poor. So he asked the old hillbilly preacher, “How did you get the church this
way?” The preacher said, “Well, when our preacher left our small church, I went to the
Deacons and said, ‘I’ll be the preacher.’ And the first Sunday, I opened the book and read, ‘As many of you as has been baptized into Jesus has put on Jesus, and there is no longer any Jews or Greeks, slaves are free, males or females, because you is all one in Jesus.’ “Then I closed the book and said, ‘If you one with Jesus, you one with all kinds of folks, and if you ain’t, you ain’t.”
So Jordan asked what happened after that and the preacher said, “Well, the Deacons took
me into the back room and told me they didn’t want to hear that kind of preaching any more.”
Jordan asked, “What’d you do?” He said, ‘I fired them Deacons. I preached that church down to four people. And not long after that it grew and grew and grew. And I found out that revivals sometimes don’t mean bringing people in, but getting people out who don’t love Jesus.’ (William H. Willimon, Eating and Drinking Among the Lost, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 35, No. 4, Year C, p. 24)
Amen. Found this on Mark’s site. Continued prayers for the Malibu Church.
Sunday after Sunday I would hear him preach the word with passion. There was never a dull moment. Fuller is hosting a wonderful event this month and in January. I will be here today sitting at the feet of a gifted preacher.
Good news for the 7.5 of you that occasionally visit my wannabe blog. I was recently accepted here to begin a Doctor of Ministry. I feel all goofy inside and overwhelmed with thankfulness to God for the opportunity to begin. It all happens starting Monday!!!!
