By Mike Glenn

Pastor As Midwife 

Whenever people ask me about the biggest mistake I’ve ever made as a pastor, the answer is simple and embarrassing at the time.

I didn’t listen. Now, my wife will tell you I don’t listen – present tense – but that’s another story.

When I arrived at Brentwood Baptist Church in 1991, I was so excited about the opportunities and potential of Brentwood Baptist Church. I couldn’t wait to unload my vision for what God was going to do. Needless to say, my ministry nearly crashed on takeoff. By God’s mercy, Brentwood Baptist Church was patient, merciful, gracious and long suffering. That we survived those first few years is a testimony to the graciousness of this church, not to my skill and talent as a pastor.

I’m sure you noticed the key words that gave away my mistakes. “My vision”, “telling everyone”, “what God was going to do.”

And why shouldn’t I have led this way? After all, doesn’t the pastor bring the vision to the church? God tells the pastor and the pastor tells the people. That’s the way it goes, right?

Wrong.

The Spirit of God implanted God’s vision for this congregation when this church was born. In the hearts and minds of those men and women who gathered together over 50 years ago to start our church, God had planted a dream. Every congregation is pregnant with the vision God has given that church.

The members know that vision. They may not be able to articulate it, but they know it. They know the moments when God was doing something among them. They know the moments when they were their best selves. Stories they will tell over and over again and say, “That’s us.”

If I had been smart when I came to Brentwood, I would have sat down and had coffee with everyone and anyone who would come. I would have asked questions – lots of questions – and I would have listened to their answers.

“When was the last time you saw God move in this congregation?”

“Who are the people who have defined this church’s identity?”

“What were the dreams of those first members of our church?”

“What do you say to someone who wants to know the best thing about our church?”

I would have taken all of those stories and put them up on the wall. I would have looked at those stories until I saw the common themes running through all of them. From those themes, I would have crafted the mission and vision of our church.

If I had done that, I would have heard stories about church planting, generosity, great congregational care and great worship services. Taking those points on history line of our church and pushing them into the future, I could have articulated the mission and vision in ways the church would have recognized and said, “That’s us.”

All you need to form a straight line are two points. Once you have those two points, you can pull the line as far as you want into the future.

With that in mind, I could have said to the church, “This is how God has worked in the past. This is who we are, and from those two points, we can see how God will work in our future.”

I would have saved myself two years of frustration, not to mention wear and tear on the church.

I would have done well to pay more attention to the story of Shiprah and Puah. You remember them, don’t you? They are the midwives of Exodus. You remember their story in Exodus. Pharaoh declared that every male Hebrew child should be killed upon birth. The midwives didn’t do it. When Pharaoh called on them to explain why they weren’t carrying out his orders, the midwives explained the Hebrew women were so strong they were having their babies before the midwives could get there.

To this day, in Jewish circles, the midwives are celebrated as heroes of the Exodus story, equal with, if not greater than, Moses. Why? They were willing to defy Pharaoh, and they didn’t need a burning bush to do it.

As I have thought about these two brave ladies, I notice they did two very important things. First, they wouldn’t let a foreign ruler dictate the future of God’s people. Second, they created a safe place for the dream of God to be born.

In my years of ministry, I’ve noticed that, more and more, I serve the role of a midwife. I didn’t place the vision in the person or the church, but I’m not going to let some “expert” or “trend” tell my people who they are, and second, we’re going to create a holy space where God’s dream can be born in every person and in our congregation.

The church already has a vision and that vision, like the vision for every person, is as unique as they are. Our privilege as pastors is protecting that vision from harm and giving that vision a safe place to be born.

And like all children, those visions will look a lot like their parents – God the Father and Mother Church.

I’m taking a few stops at James D.G. Dunn, Jesus According to the New Testament.

The central message of the NT is not justification by faith, it is Jesus — Jesus is the gospel, the gospel is Jesus, and how one thinks about justification or any other centralizing theme — God’s love, reconciliation, God’s justice —  depends on how one thinks about Jesus.

That alone is enough to buy this book and read it — for it relentlessly concentrates on Jesus in each NT segment.

He begins with how Jesus understood himself, but he does so — as Dunn is known for — with methodological rigor. So, first, Lessons learned from the impact of Jesus; second, distinctive features of Jesus’ ministry (and here there is an echo of Elizabeth Anscombe’s famous study on intention); and then — and only after these two steps — Jesus’ self understanding.

An outline will do the trick; you fill in references and explanations, but this would make for some very good class discussions, which I now frame as a question for each:

What were the major lessons the Evangelists/earliest Christians learned from Jesus?

What were the major elements of Jesus’ own ministry?

What did Jesus think of himself?

First, lessons learned from Jesus, and there are eight:

(1) The Love Command
(2) Priority of the Poor
(3) Sinners Welcome
(4) Openness to Gentiles
(5) Women among His Close Followers
(6) Openness to Children
(7) Relaxation of Food Laws
(8) The Last Supper or Lord’s Supper

Second, major features of Jesus’ own ministry:

(1)The Kingdom of God
(2) Teacher
(3) Teaching by Parable
(4) Exorcising Evil Spirits
(5) Concentration on Galilee
(6) Submission to High Priestly Authorities

Third, themes at work in Jesus’ self-understanding:

(1) Jesus’s Baptismal Commission
(2) “I Came” or “I Was Sent”
(3) Messiah/Christ
(4) Abba
(5) Son of God
(6) The Son of Man
(7) Jesus’s Self-Expectation

Last Fall I began reposting a series on biblical womanhood with intent to expand and extend. Today’s post is a lightly edited repeat of a post from the original series. My contention is that our only true authority is God, with all authority given to Jesus. God calls who he will, when he will, to carry out his work. As humans we are brothers and sisters who stand before Christ. Effective Christian leaders will model, or aim to model, Christ’s ethical teaching. As I’ve mentioned before I spend most of my morning commutes listening to streaming audio from Bible Gateway on the app on my phone. Although I usually listen to the NIV dramatized version, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase The Message as read by Kelly Ryan Dolan lends variety and insight. Several passages seem relevant here.

At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, “Who gets the highest rank in God’s kingdom?”

For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.

Jesus wasn’t telling his disciples to become (or behave) like toddlers or young children. The question that sets up this passage gives us the intent. Jesus was, once again, driving home a point about the kingdom of God (on earth as in heaven). The kingdom of God turns our this-worldly ideas of power and authority and position and pride over on their head. This has important consequences for a Christian view of leadership. Leadership (home, church, or anywhere) isn’t about power, authority and privilege. It is about service and love and sacrifice and responsibility. If a position of leadership brings up feelings of pride, arrogance, and entitlement, something is wrong. This is true in general, but especially in home and church.

Jesus is about as harsh as he can be when it comes to consequences for arrogance.

“But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse—and it’s doomsday to you if you do.

“If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.

“Watch that you don’t treat a single one of these childlike believers arrogantly. You realize, don’t you, that their personal angels are constantly in touch with my Father in heaven? (18:1-10)

Peterson uses the term “the great reversal” in a number of other passages. The first will be last and the last will be first. Concern for rank, privilege, authority, etc. are worldly values with no place in the Kingdom of God.

But what about marriage? Not too much further (after a few stories including the rich young man – worth discussion in its own right) Matthew reports the teaching of Jesus on divorce. The Message puts a slightly different twist to the passage than I’ve heard elsewhere.:

One day the Pharisees were badgering him: “Is it legal for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”

He answered, “Haven’t you read in your Bible that the Creator originally made man and woman for each other, male and female? And because of this, a man leaves father and mother and is firmly bonded to his wife, becoming one flesh—no longer two bodies but one. Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart.”

Yes, we are complementary as individual members of the body of Christ. And male and female are complementary in particularly valuable ways – whether one takes an egalitarian or male headship view of marriage.

They shot back in rebuttal, “If that’s so, why did Moses give instructions for divorce papers and divorce procedures?”

Jesus said, “Moses provided for divorce as a concession to your hard heartedness, but it is not part of God’s original plan. I’m holding you to the original plan, and holding you liable for adultery if you divorce your faithful wife and then marry someone else. I make an exception in cases where the spouse has committed adultery.”

Mark 10:12 makes clear that this is reciprocal, women likewise are not to divorce their husbands for another, but this was less of a problem in a patriarchal culture.

Now the surprising part. It isn’t the Pharisees who respond aghast, but Jesus’s very disciples! They still haven’t gotten the point. This is about marriage – but on another level it isn’t. The message is far greater. Marriage is one particularly powerful application of the greater Christian calling to love for others.

Jesus’ disciples objected, “If those are the terms of marriage, we’re stuck. Why get married?”

But Jesus said, “Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn’t for everyone. Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked—or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons. But if you’re capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it.” (19:3-12)

Marriage, as God intended it, requires the self-giving love and commitment of two people for each other. Men should not take wives for selfish fulfillment, discarding them if it isn’t profitable. More than this – they should love them as their own self. Christian marriage should not be entered into unless one is willing to live a life of self-sacrifice, truly becoming one flesh. We will all fail at some point, but this should always be the goal and ideal.

The great reversal impacts all areas of life. Concern for rank, privilege, authority, etc. are worldly values. They have no place in the Kingdom of God.

Lord, help our unbelief.

What does it mean to have a child-like faith?

Does Peterson’s paraphrase of Jesus’s response to his disciples (if you are capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it) make sense?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Now

Good ministry notice:

BY PAIGE STANAGE

This is Living Ministries is seeking to help women leaving incarceration improve their lives.

“Tennessee Department of Corrections has given us their approval, and we can take in participants any day now,” said ministry executive director, Lindsay Holloway.

Holloway said the focus group for the ministry are women under the supervision of the Department of Corrections.

“There are (TDOC women) in every county jail, and prisons. I just feel like that’s the population of women who are the least served.”

Most of the women behind bars, regardless of their upbringings, share one commonality that the ministry hopes to address in their program.

“The majority of women who are incarcerated have been through a trauma at some point in their lives,” Holloway said. “Before they were criminals, they were victims of some sort of crime (sexual, physical, mental).”

Holloway used her own experience with methamphetamine and opioid addiction as an example.

“I was a varsity cheerleader. I was in 14 clubs throughout high school. I didn’t wake up one day and think ‘I’m going to throw away all my scholarships and be a drug dealer.’ That’s not how it happens. It just sneaks in there and controls you.”

This is Living offers a 12-month program, which includes grief and trauma counseling; relationship and friendship curriculum; an abundance of craft classes; gardening and outdoor activities; journaling; job services; and Bible studies.

The ministry is the fourth parole-approved house in Tennessee.

“There were only three houses in the entire state that were parole-approved for women,” Holloway said. “So that means women get denied parole and have to stay incarcerated because their home plan isn’t approved, or they don’t have a program to go to.”

Those involved with the ministry also plan to keep in contact with the women who go through its doors by having alumni groups.

I’m with David Swartz:

I confess to considerable ambivalence over the prospect of bookless libraries. On one hand, I kind of get it. Why buy expensive books and shelves when e-books can be accessed for far less money? The library holdings at my small liberal arts college are limited compared to those of the research university library where I went to graduate school, so I’m dependent on interlibrary loans and electronic resources such as Jstor and Ebsco. In fact, my research has benefited tremendously from searchable databases and electronic journals. I’ve been able to track down sources in ways that would have been impossible decades ago.

On the other hand, I’m not ready to toss out the books. I get a lot of pleasure from sitting down in my office’s green leather recliner with a mug of steaming Earl Grey as I turn the pages of a book that I can actually touch. Is this a silly nostalgia for a preindustrial utopia that never was? I don’t think so. Along with Neil Postman, I’m not convinced that form doesn’t matter. This seems especially true when working in the archives. There’s something almost mystical about touching and reading the very documents that my historical subjects had touched. I like to think that it makes me a more empathetic historian.

I also object to bookless libraries because of the way we learn. Many times I’ve searched my library’s online catalog for a book only to realize later that the search was laughably insufficient. I might identify an important book, but when I head to the bricks-and-mortar library to fetch it, I almost always realize that the catalog didn’t find everything. In fact, some of my best sources have not come from targeted searches. I almost always come out of the stacks with half a dozen books from surrounding shelves. Catalog searches have real limits. We’re limited, obviously, by the terms of the search—and the teleology embedded in our searches. Browsing the stacks allows us to happen upon sources we never considered.

Sometimes the best learning comes through indirection as we travel circuitous routes toward an unknown destination. Sometimes we stumble on answers or insights on the path to somewhere else. Sometimes we pose the wrong question—or we construct an answer before we even ask a question. Sometimes we happen upon our best archival sources after being given the wrong box. Sometimes our most profound insights result from winding journeys in the laboratory, in the field, or in the text. The process can seem inefficient, but the search itself is important. It takes us beyond knowledge to wisdom.

James Macdonald, Elephant’s Debt, and Julie Roys — the newest:

In late December 2018, Moody radio (which has a large national network of radio stations) discussed pulling MacDonald’s radio “ministry” program Walk in the Word (WITW) from their radio distribution.  Julie Roys, again, has written a masterful piece covering this issue in detail.  When you are finished reading Roys’ piece, please return to this post for further discussion of the issue and a litigation update regarding proceedings scheduled for this Monday, 7 January 2019.

Welcome back.

What must be appreciated is the large network Moody radio has around the country that provided a massive fund raising platform for MacDonald. In a time when millions of dollars from Harvest Bible Fellowship (HBF) are no longer available to him and regular giving at Harvest Bible Chapel is consistently running under budget, this represents a significant financial blow to the MacDonald empire.

As is his usual practice, when faced with “strained” relationships that place a “burden” upon him, MacDonald resorts to resignation and rhetoric. This morning an email went out to the church announcing that WITW was going digital. This is yet another “resignation” he is attempting to explain to his congregation. Recall that he resigned from the Gospel Coalition in 2012, he resigned from Harvest Bible Fellowship in 2017, and now he has resigned from Moody Radio (and TBN) in 2018. Even before this email and website posting, MacDonald was in full spin mode.

How encouraging! Stadia’s church planting financial support.

Beginning immediately, we are giving away our vital, proven church planting services at no cost and with no strings attached – which means there will be no requirement of ongoing investment back to Stadia. We are confident this shift will open up opportunities for partnering with church planting organizations and with even more high capacity leaders, expediting church planting across the United States.

As Stadia has partnered to plant over 250 US churches, we have developed a suite of unique and highly effective church planter services, including church planter discovery, development and assessment, project management, coaching, bookkeeping, training, fundraising intensives, residencies, and post-launch support. When these services are provided, the resulting church plants thrive in ways that differentiate them from other church plants:

• 90% of Stadia’s US plants are still engaged in their vision at year five, as opposed to the national average of 60% at year 3
• Stadia’s US church plants average 67% higher attendance at year four than the national average

Are these on your list? 15 foods to avoid according to Fast Food workers.

Ocean Cleanup Device breaks down:

(CNN)A 2,000-foot-long system created to clean up plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean is broken and being towed back to port for repair.

The Ocean Cleanup System 001, a U-shaped floating barrier created by the organization The Ocean Cleanup, arrived in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in October.

Ocean garbage patches are formed by rotating ocean currents called “gyres” that pull marine debris (litter, fishing gear, and plastic) into one location, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The are several of these patches in the ocean, including two in the Pacific. The one known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located between Hawaii and California, and it’s about double the size of Texas, or three times the size of France.

After several months at sea, it was determined the system failed to retain plastic, the organization announced earlier in December.

Now, a 60-foot section of the device has broken free from the system, the organization announced December 29. The entire floating system, along with over 4,400 pounds of plastic it has recovered, is being brought back to shore.

“We are, of course, quite bummed about this as 1) we hoped to stay out for a bit longer to collect more data on plastic-system interaction, and 2) it introduces an additional challenge to be solved,” Boyan Slat, Ocean Cleanup’s CEO, said in a blog post. “At the same time, we also realize that setbacks like this are inevitable when pioneering new technology at a rapid pace.”

The device is 2,000 feet long with a 10-foot skirt that hangs below it, under the water. It set sail from San Francisco in September, with the goal of cleaning half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in five years.

Some like to repost the post that gained the most pageviews, but I’ve chosen a different kind of post for this last day of the year: the one that surprised me in how much interest it attracted.

The post was by Alexandra Greenley and it was at CBE, and it suggests that the “elect lady” of 2 John is a real person and a pastor. Read it, it’s a good suggestive post.

May 2019 be a better year for women in ministry.

CBE

By Alexandra Greenley

The second letter of John is addressed “to the elect lady and to her children.” But who is the “elect lady” of 2 John? Is she a mother with kids, or something more? A look at the apostle John’s use of the word “children” in 1 John can help us understand who the woman’s children are. Then, we can try to solve the mystery of who the woman is.

We commonly recognize that the “children” of 1 John refer to Christian converts. The “fathers,” “young men,” and “dear children” in the second chapter may refer to literal ages, or to spiritual development. Regardless of their age, the apostle John considered himself a spiritual father to these “children.” The apostle Paul also used this language to the Galatians, when he said, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you!” (4:19, KJV).

What does it mean to be a spiritual parent? Likely, it means that the apostle John first preached the gospel to them, and they believed it. He then took on the responsibility of teaching, disciplining, nurturing, and raising them in the faith. He devoted his life on earth to them so that they could have eternal life. As the apostle Paul expresses it, “For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord” (1 Thess. 3:8, WEB).

Even if some of the Christians weren’t directly converted by John, the apostle must have so given himself to raise them in the faith that the converts felt it right for John to call them his children. They saw how John sacrificed, prayed, labored, and had the greatest concern for their salvation. To them, it would not sound strange for John to call them children. Rather than strange, it would sound tender and affectionate.

We come to the final line of 1 John and read, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen” (KJV).

We then immediately come to the first line of 2 John, which reads, “The elder [John] to the elect lady and her children” (KJV), or “The elder, to the lady chosen by God and to her children” (NIV).

Then, 2 John closes with the verse, “The children of your sister, who is chosen by God, send their greetings” (v. 13, NIV). So we now have two women with two sets of children to account for.

So who are these two “elect women” with children? Let’s first look at significant clues in the text.

Significant Clues in the Text

• The woman’s authority comes from God; she is the “elect lady” (KJV), or the “lady chosen by God” (NIV) (verse 1).
• The woman has been teaching Christians how to walk in love, truth, and obedience to God’s commands; John commends her for this, even saying that he “rejoices” (verse 4).
• The woman is honored by John, who “beseech[es]” her to continue teaching the Christians to walk in love (verse 5, KJV). The word here translated “beseech,” is in the Greek, erotao. Other translations of this word in the New Testament include “ask,” “pray,” “desire,” and “entreat.” Far from being a high-handed male command, it is a supplication.
• She has the authority to reject false teachers (verses 8-10).
• She and her children typically live or meet in her house (verse 10).
• Notice the word “children” is used in both 1 John and 2 John. If we’re to read consistently, we would think that John is using the same word, “children,” to describe the same relationship. The apostle John is a spiritual father to the Christians in 1 John. Likewise, the “elect lady” is a spiritual mother to the Christians in 2 John.
• Furthermore, this similar relationship puts John on equal footing with the woman of 2 John. Both John and the “woman chosen by God” have children for whose souls they are responsible.

Significant Omissions from the Text

• Aside from the apostle John himself, and the other “elect lady” in verse 13, no other church authority is mentioned in the text.
• John does not mention the woman needing to submit to male authority. Instead, the woman appears to be the sole leader of the Christians.
• John does not reprimand the woman for teaching or leading.
• John does not demand that the woman submit to his apostolic, male authority. Instead, he acknowledges that her authority is from God. John lays aside his own authority and entreats her, using the word, “beseech.”

These clues lead us to two possible scenarios.

Scenario 1: Biological Children

Second John refers to a mother with biological children that she is raising in a Christian manner. Because no father or other male authority is mentioned, we may guess that the woman is either widowed or divorced. Because the apostle John recognizes that the woman is responsible for her children’s behavior, we’re to infer that the children are not yet adults. This also explains why they are in their mother’s house (they live there). The apostle warns the mother about deceivers who would wish to enter her house. It’s unclear why these people would want to enter the house of a single woman—likely divorced or widowed—with children.

Problems with Scenario 1

This first scenario is difficult to support. First, why would the apostle John suddenly change the meaning of his language? He’s just spent pages writing to his “children” in his first epistle. Logically, what basis do we have in the text to say that 1 John refers to spiritual children, and 2 John refers to biological children?

Second, why would the apostle John be concerned with not only one, but two apparently single women raising biological children? Said another way, what would compel the apostle to write to individual, ordinary Christian families, rather than the church?

Third, why would “deceivers” and “antichrists” be interested in going into an individual family home—in which only a divorced or widowed mother, with non-adult children, lived? We may further ask, why would a woman in such a situation even be letting others into her home?

Perhaps one would say, “She’s a married woman whom John converted during his ministry. If John doesn’t mention her husband, it must mean he isn’t converted. That leaves her responsible for the spiritual growth of her children. That’s why John is writing to her, and not her husband.” Or, “She’s single—widowed, divorced, or a redeemed promiscuous woman. Now, she doesn’t have a male authority for her kids, so John is helping her.”

Even if we allow this, it doesn’t answer many of our questions. For example, why would “deceivers” be trying to enter the home of an ordinary family? If her husband wasn’t converted, why wouldn’t John mention him in the letter? Wouldn’t that be a more pressing matter than “antichrists” trying to enter a private residence—for some unknown reason?

This defense still leaves unanswered why the apostle John would write to an individual family, and not a church. It also doesn’t explain for what purpose God chose this “woman chosen by God.” Are we to say that any mother raising Christian kids is a “woman chosen by God”? Most significantly, it doesn’t answer the key question: what basis do we have for reading the “children” of the “elect lady” as biological while at the same time reading the apostle John’s “children” as spiritual?

Scenario 2: Spiritual Children

The second scenario is that this woman has a position similar to that of the apostle John. We know from Acts 2:46 and church history that the early church taught publicly in the temples and synagogues, and then met privately in homes to celebrate the Lord’s Supper and worship.

Thus, the apostle writes to her as a fellow pastor or apostle of a church that meets in her home. The elect woman was “chosen by God” to be a minister. She has full authority to teach and to rebuke false teachers. By not allowing “deceivers” into her “house,” she has the authority to exclude certain individuals from membership. She is the primary leader of the church. We might call her a “senior pastor.”

In this scenario, the woman’s children are her converts. Perhaps some were converted by other church members, then joined the church she leads. Just as the apostle John did for the “children” in 1 John, this “woman chosen by God” poured out her life for these new converts. She made every sacrifice for them that a mother would make for her children.

The apostle John commends her for how she is guiding the flock. “It has given me great joy,” he writes, “to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us” (verse 4, NIV). He then exhorts her to continue walking in love, which is obedience to God’s commands, “as you have heard from the beginning” (verse 6). Then, he warns her of recent heresies to be on watch for. He emphasizes the severity of the heresies by saying not to let such a “deceiver” and “antichrist” into her home (verse 7). In other words, she should not allow them into the church, where they would lead astray her dear spiritual children who are currently walking in the truth.

John’s letter also reveals the love and trust that the Christians have for their spiritual mother. John indicates that they are obedient, not rebellious. They haven’t strayed from their female pastor in search of better, male church leaders. Instead, the “children” look to her for spiritual teaching, guidance, correction, and protection just as a biological child would look to a mother for the same. They love and trust her with their souls.

We do not know whether this female pastor or apostle is married. But in either case, John writes to her as if she is the main leader of the church. If she is married, John’s letter contains no special instructions about how she’s to lead in relation to her husband. For example, he does not say to submit to her husband’s decisions about church leadership. Rather, this woman is presented as the sole leader, and mother, of the church.

Overall, this scenario is more likely. It fits with what we know about the structure of the early church, which was primarily a house church movement. We aren’t left with unresolved questions, and we don’t have to force the text.

Most importantly, it is consistent with the use of the word “children” and the pattern of writing to churches, and not individual families, found in 1 John. This results in a beautiful, smooth, and empowering read. In fact, it is some of the best evidence we have in the New Testament of women in leadership! I believe we can safely say that whatever the apostle John was to the Christians in 1 John, this woman was to the Christians in 2 John!

We enter this weekend into the 3d Sunday of Advent.

Good for John Dickson:

Well-known Australian writer, speaker, minister and apologist John Dickson has announced his decision to step down from local church ministry to focus more fully on reaching the “doubting public outside the church”.

Dickson has been in part-time church ministry for two decades, and Senior Minister of St Andrew’s Anglican Church in Roseville for the past nine years. He will retire from this position at the end of March 2019 to be a writer and speaker on a full-time basis.

Dickson, who describes himself as “a public advocate of the Christian faith”, has written 15 books, including the award-winning Simply Christianity: Beyond Religion. Two of his books – The Christ Files and Life of Jesus – were made into documentaries that aired on national television.

Sometimes we don’t know the whole story, and sometimes the real story is being hidden by authoritarian voices, three of whom are exposed here:

In spite of this, [John] MacArthur  blamed secular forces and even Satan for the accreditation situation (in spite of the fact that TMUS was out of compliance on two key eligibility requirements — an independent board and a full time CFO). Much of the challenge came as a result of the significant overlap between the church MacArthur serves, the institution, and its governing structure. As I’ve written before, Christian universities aren’t churches and the more they confuse the two the more the latter takes precedence.

The Chronicle summary of the sermon ends with these warnings MacArthur gave to the community:

“I’m gonna be real honest with you,” he said. “You didn’t have any right to find out about anything. That’s not your responsibility.”

In his remarks he referred to a Bible passage from the Book of Proverbs.

“There are things that God hates, right?” MacArthur said. “One of them is the one who stirs up strife,” he said, urging students to keep their complaints within the university and seminary.

“Keep your mouth shut,” he said. “Don’t stir up strife. You don’t know the whole story.”

This combination of authoritarian leadership and dismissal of dissent is also at the heart of the sexual abuse stories arising out of the Independent Fundamental Baptist churches. The story is similar to what we’ve seen for years in the Roman Catholic Church — stories of abuse not being believed, perpetrators being transferred to new locations without disclosure, and placing the priority on the church’s mission and reputation. That the story opens with a review of the abuses by one of the key families in the movement only adds to the horror. This wasn’t some isolated pastor somewhere in a remote location. Key figures in the movement were engaged in abuse or involved in minimizing the impact.

When abuse was acknowledged, it was expected to stay in the church under the authority of the leadership.

“Any issues, even legal issues, go to the pastor first, not the police. Especially about another member of the church,” said Josh Elliott, a former member of Vineyard’s Oklahoma City church. “The person should go to the pastor, and the pastor will talk to the offender. You don’t report to police because the pastor is the ultimate authority, not the government.”

The insularity of a “we know best” philosophy becomes an impossible situation for those who have been victimized. It provides no place for them to remain within the fellowship in good faith. Either they will be seen as suspect or they have to live with a cognitive compartmentalization that is harmful to a healthy Christian life.

The subjects of the CBS program on #exvangelicals showed some of the same patterns. The churches they were part of provided little space for their questions or concerns. At first marginalized, they eventually leave the evangelical church because the pain of staying is too great. Even though they have left for their own well-being, they seem still to be processing considerable harm dealt them by the very group that was central to their upbringing.

Increasingly, “evangelical” means “white nationalist” or “white Republican”.

In short, this poll helps dramatize the trend among American evangelicals. Instead of the word “evangelical” meaning primarily a set of religious ideas and theological commitments, it has become a political and culture-war marker. If you call yourself an “evangelical” these days, it usually means you think of yourself as white, Christian, and politically conservative.

So it’s no surprise that big majorities of people who call themselves evangelical voted Republican. Choosing to call yourself an evangelical these days usually means endorsing a set of conservative political beliefs associated these days with the Republican Party.

What do evangelical Christians think about Trump and the GOP? This poll doesn’t tell us. To be an “evangelical Christian” can mean a whole bunch of different things. There are lots of non-white people who have religious beliefs that have historically been associated with evangelical Protestantism. There are white liberals who no longer call themselves evangelical but who retain their evangelical religious beliefs.

What this poll does tell us is that the word “evangelical” has come to imply a set of political beliefs, not only religious ones. People who embrace the label tend to embrace those politics. Are they still religious? Sure. But we make a mistake if we try to understand how someone with evangelical religious beliefs could support politicians who seem to go against those beliefs. Calling yourself “evangelical” these days is more about those political leanings than any specific religious commitments or theological ideas.

The Politics of Advent:

We don’t get political,” a friend recently told me about his church. It’s a sentiment many church leaders would appreciate: the implication that the church focuses on the truly important, spiritual things, instead of getting caught up in the quagmire of political debate. Regardless of the many arguments that could be made about the necessarily political character of the church or the need for churches to engage cultural issues, there’s one uncomfortable fact that trumps them all: our worship is political.

Whether we intend for it to be or not, the songs we sing, the words we repeat, the prayers we pray, the rhythm and rituals of our corporate identity shape our political identity. The real question is not whether our churches are political, but whether we’re aware of it. Are we thoughtfully considering the ways that our worship together can counteract the political messages of the world, or does our worship leave our political preferences undisturbed? Are our loyalties and allegiances formed more strongly toward the global church, our risen King, and his coming kingdom or toward a political party, a nation, or a racial category? One way to approach these questions is to discover the church traditions that have come before us, often rich with political significance, and join with centuries of Christians across the world in practicing them.

And in these seasons of Advent and Christmas especially, history points to a church whose worship is particularly political.

Worth reading the whole article, but here’s the ending:

After much debate, Virginia Mennonite Conference decided to ordain Ruth [Brunk Stolzfus] in 1989. She became the first women in the conference to be credentialed. However, George II [Brunk] communicated to conference leadership that, if they went forward with [his sister’s] Ruth’s ordination, he would withdraw his ministerial credentials and membership. When they did not change their decision, George II held to his commitment as well. When his sister entered the pulpit, he stepped down. Yet, though George II and Ruth never reconciled their different positions on women in ministry, they continued to relate amicably to each other for the rest of their lives.

Therein lies the biggest lesson that the Brunk siblings’ story and sermons teach us. Theological (or political) disagreements matter, but need not be toxic to relationships. There are stronger ties that bind us together. Despite not supporting her role as interim pastor at Bancroft, George II still came by Ruth’s house to help her pack her car. Ruth praised George II’s presence—in person and prayer—when her family faced a series of tragedies. And while even good sibling relationships are not perfect (just ask my sister), how George II and Ruth chose to relate to each other still proves instructive. As we spend this holiday season among family and friends with whom we might disagree, it’s helpful to remember that, though we maintain legitimate differences, there are things that matter more.

Church names, sorted by G. Shane Morris, with this conclusion:

Changing the name of your church to sound like a night club, a romance novel, or a spa probably isn’t worth the money you’ll pay your marketing consultant. You won’t appeal to a larger crowd, you won’t shake the negative perceptions many Americans have toward Christianity, and you might even come across as desperate (or worse) dishonest.

I’m not discouraging anyone from attending a church named “Relevant,” although I would suggest (as with all churches) that we keep both eyes on our Bibles. What I’m arguing is that churches should own their identity, no matter their denomination, creed, or confession.

If a congregation isn’t officially part of a denomination, what’s wrong with the older tradition of naming churches after apostles or other biblical heroes? Or why not “Emanuel,” “Redeemer,” or even “The Good Shepherd?” Wouldn’t that say more about a church’s beliefs than would a one-word name that sounds like a ride-sharing app? Why should we hide our theological convictions? They’re core to who we are. And they will remain long after fleeting fashions and edgy branding strategies fade.

I believe in the Holy Spirit

Working through the Apostles’ Creed, the next topic is a one-liner, or perhaps a two-liner if we consider the reference to the Holy Spirit in the incarnation (Jesus was “conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit”). Yet the Holy Spirit is an important part of Christian belief – traditionally represented as a dove as in the image of the baptism of Jesus shown to the right (image credit). Although the understanding of the original audience was somewhat different that Christian understanding, there is a long history of the Holy Spirit or Spirit of God in Scripture. We can start with Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Derek Vreeland (primal credo), J.I. Packer (Affirming the Apostles’ Creed), Ben Myers (The Apostles’ Creed) and Michael Bird (What Christians ought to Believe) all include this passage in the discussion of the Holy Spirit.  The Old Testament references don’t stop here, however.

Job 33:4 The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Ps 104:30 When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

Ps 139:7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

Num 11:25-29 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again. However, two men, … were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. … Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!” But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

Joel 2:28-29 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Many other references in the Old Testament could be brought forward for discussion. Within the pages of the Old Testament the Spirit is active in creation, in the governance of the world, and in prophetic voice.

In the New Testament the two most obvious examples are at the Baptism of Jesus. The image to the right is from an illuminated manuscript of liturgies dated to ca. 1315 AD (image credit).

Matthew 3:16-17 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Acts 2:1-4 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Other references in the New Testament are to numerous to list. We can look at only a few. The Holy Spirit is sent as a helper and teacher.

John 14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

The Spirit bears witness to Christ.

1 John 5:6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

The Spirit produces growth in the people of God. 2 Cor. 3 and Gal. 5 are important examples here.

2 Cor. 3:3,18 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. … And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Gal. 5: 5, 22-23,25 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope…. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. … Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Romans 8 is another important passage. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. (v. 14) Paul makes reference to the Spirit repeatedly in his letters.

The Spirit gives gifts.

1 Cor. 12:1, 3, 4, 7 Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. … Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. … Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

To affirm belief in the Holy Spirit is to acknowledge the presence and role of the Spirit in the church and in our lives. This is not a small, inconsequential part of Christian belief. It permeates the New Testament writings including Acts (I haven’t touched on this) and the epistles of Paul and John. It is affirmed in the rule of faith as described by Irenaeus, (e.g. Against Heresies 1:10:1-2) and Tertullian (Against Praxeus 2). (Image credit)

J.I. Packer summarizes:

So when I say, as a Christian, “l believe in the Holy Spirit,” my meaning should be, first, that I believe personal fellowship, across space and time, with the living Christ of the New Testament to be a reality, which through the Spirit I have found; second, that I am open to being led by the Spirit, who now indwells me, into Christian knowledge, obedience, and service, and I expect to be so led each day; and, third, that I bless him as the author of my assurance that I am a son and heir of God. Truly, it is a glorious thing to believe in the Holy Spirit! (p. 117)

The Holy Spirit is at work in the church today.  May the Spirit work in all of us as we seek to follow.

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail [at] att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Hello from Dublin!

Beth Allison Barr:

The same afternoon Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, one of my friends sent me a link to a devotional series for married couples from Desiring God. My heart just sank.

This is how it was tweeted on October 5, 2018: “She submits. He sacrifices. She follows. He leads. She affirms. He initiates. They both reflect Jesus.” The devotional book, Happily Ever After: Finding Grace in the Messes of Marriage, was a free digital download last weekend. I don’t know how many folk downloaded it, but the tweet was altogether liked, retweeted, and commented on more than 600 times.

Just the next day, on October 6, I ran across another Desiring God post (through twitter). In this post, Piper answered the question “can a woman preach if elders affirm it?” on his blog. It received 69,386 views on YouTube (by my count on October 12). You can watch the video (and read the really lively comment discussion), but the tweet already gave his answer:  “All men and women should be active in ministry. The question is how. Pastor John explains why God reserves Sunday-morning preaching for men.”….

On the one hand, John Piper’s promotions of “godly patriarchy” on Desiring God has no explicit connection to the mixed reactions toward Christine Blasey Ford and thesupport for Brett Kavanaugh by conservative men and women. On the other hand, it has everything to do with it.  Attitudes like those perpetuated by John Piper create, sustain, and promote a culture of patriarchy in North American Christianity that advocates for submissive women and aggressive males. What saddens me the most is how these portrayals of manhood and womanhood are marketed (and I really do mean marketed) as the “biblical” standard for godly behavior. …

Listen not just from the experiences of other women, but also from the evidence of church history. I confess it was experiences in my life, my personal exposure to the ugliness and trauma inflected by complementarian systems in the name of Jesus, that tipped me over the edge. I can no longer watch silently as gender hierarchies oppress and damage both women and men in the name of Jesus.

But what brought me to this edge was not experience; it was historical evidence.

Soon I am going to start a new series on The Historical Problem of Patriarchy for Modern Christians. It will highlight my journey to egalitarianism through historical evidence. I hope you will join me.

MeToo Backlash:

While the #MeToo movement has officially been around for more than a decade, the campaign really took off a year ago this week, when the New York Times published its investigation into movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Since then, hundreds of women have levelled accusations of sexual misconduct against a growing list of high-profile men.

And while #MeToo has ended, or at least sidelined, the careers of some household names, it also has unintended chilling consequences on women seeking careers in the medical profession, a new commentary says.

A commentary published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that very same hashtag is also creating a “culture of fear” in academic medicine, scaring off men from mentoring women.

Backlash is ‘hostile sexism’

“Some men in positions of power now say they are afraid to participate in mentoring relationships with women,” reads the commentary, penned by six Canadian scientists — all women working in the fields of medical research and education.

“Men say they fear false allegations of sexual misconduct that could compromise their reputations and end their careers, even if they were found to be innocent.”

The authors describe this #MeToo backlash as “hostile sexism” because it punishes women by withdrawing mentorship opportunities from those who challenge the status quo.

Michelle Van Loon:

…every stick-and-stone word ever flung my way.

Yesterday, our Tweeter-in-Chief lobbed one of his never-ending word grenades at a woman with whom he’d had a consensual intimate relationship, calling Stephanie Clifford/Stormy Daniels “Horseface”. We all know this wasn’t a one-off thing; he has a long history of giving opponents all sorts of demeaning nicknames, with what seems to be a special focus on verbally trashing his female enemies. His political fan club loves the spectacle, and celebrates the way he “punches back ten times harder” when he feels he’s been disrespected or attacked.

During the last two years, I’ve read an ocean of words explaining why his supporters love him so, and why such a large percentage of self-identified Evangelicals back (and in some cases, seem to worship) him. Though I am not among them, and remain staunchly in the #NeverTrump camp, I try to listen to the concerns and hopes of those with whom I disagree. (The operative word here is “try”. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t always succeed.) But I can’t listen when names like “Horseface” are applied to a human being made in the image of God. I just can’t.

Some of Trump’s supporters claim to hold old-fashioned values like chivalry and human dignity in the context of Biblical morality. They cling to the hope that once just the right mix of laws and judges are in place, America will return to a golden age that once existed in the latter years of the Eisenhower administration, at least for white people. (People of color didn’t enjoy the greatness of 1950’s America in the same way that white people did.) With a brutal ends-justifies-the-means approach, it means that no matter who gets mowed down on the way there, it’ll be worth it when America is finally, finally great again.

I can not imagine what equation would lead someone to believe that if you dehumanize people, you will somehow magically be on the road to greatness. How can “Horseface” ever lead us anywhere good?

In middle school, some boys called me an animal name, and my overreaction to that mean name, no doubt emerging out of the name I’d been called by my mom my entire life, branded me with it for the rest of one miserable school year. Even now, I can not bear to put it in print. (I also know that the internet is populated by people with the emotional bandwidth of middle school boys, and by putting it out there, I might find it resurrected by someone who decides he or she has an axe to grind with me.) There was no one to stand up for me, and by the end of the school year, I was beginning to contemplate suicide.

Conservative politics and Roman Catholic intellectuals: where are the evangelicals?

When evangelicals mobilised politically in the 1970s and declared a ‘culture war’ against the menace of secularism, they put aside their longstanding anti-Catholicism and reached out to Catholic conservatives. Catholics proved to be perfect partners. Unlike evangelicals, conservative Catholics could draw on research universities, law schools, medical schools, business schools and other intellectual-producing institutions in the fight against secularism. Evangelicals’ suspicion of higher education since at least the days of the 1925 Scopes trial over teaching evolution meant that they had built few institutions of higher learning. Their bible colleges and seminaries were meant to create believers and converts, not intellectuals.

One important exception was an effort by the evangelical theologian Carl Henry to build a research university in the 1950s to rival Harvard and Yale (not to mention Georgetown and Notre Dame). But Henry’s effort to raise $300 million quickly fell apart. Donors worried that the university would distract from proselytising, which they held to be far more important. They also clashed over student-conduct rules, such as whether alcohol and movies would be allowed at the new university. Evangelicals had no centralised authority to settle these disputes and, in any case, rigorous intellectual enquiry was not a priority for a tradition that argues that the basic insights of Christianity are matters of the heart more than the mind. Evangelical law schools and PhD programmes remain extremely rare in the US. Ironically, a tradition so devoted to spreading literacy saw too much learning as a potential danger.

So, Catholics contributed a disproportionate share of intellectuals and professionals for the religious Right, while evangelicals provided the bodies and the votes. Unlike the Jewish intellectuals clustered around neoconservative publications, Catholic conservatives were more reliable on cultural issues such as abortion. It is no small irony that Notre Dame has become the most important centre for the historical study of evangelicalism. In 1994, the influential historian, and evangelical, Mark Noll called the lack of rigorous intellectual activity among evangelicals a ‘scandal’. Ten years on, he celebrated ‘the increasing engagement between evangelicals and Roman Catholics’ for the ‘improved evangelical use of the mind.’

How long the Catholic-evangelical alliance in US politics will continue is hard to say, but it is still going strong. One only needs to look at the nomination of the Catholic Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Now confirmed, he replaces Anthony Kennedy, another Catholic, and keeps a five-seat conservative majority on the nine-person court (including Gorsuch, who grew up Catholic but now attends an Episcopalian church with his family). Three of the four finalists for Kennedy’s seat were Catholic.

Catholic intellectual life in the US is not solely conservative, and Catholic conservatism sometimes cuts across the Left-Right divide in the US (on immigration and the death penalty, for example). But it remains the case that Catholic intellectuals are overrepresented in the US conservative movement. By virtue of their 19th-century separationist anxieties and their investment in institutions of higher learning, Catholics have become the brains of the religious Right in the US.

“I don’t know why it got that big, but it just grew and grew and grew,” he told WNEP.

Their tomato plant is 22 feet tall, and it was only planted five months ago.

“My buddy gave me his little secret recipe for growing big tomatoes, and I used it and beat him. Now, he won’t tell me the rest of it,” Sam Krum said.

Krum planted others at the same time and cared for them the exact same way, but they didn’t turn out the same way.

“My biggest one (before this) was 13 feet. This one bypassed that by far.”

By Mike Glenn

One of the things I still carry from my southern upbringing in my love for college football. I live for Saturdays in the fall. For me and most of my friends, there was football season, spring practice and recruiting. Our discussions were always about who has the best quarterback, which defense could stop what offense and what top rated high school player was going to which school. Coaches were rated on wins and losses and how well they do on the recruiting trail.

Who would have thought one of the things ministers have in common with college coaches is the willingness and ability to recruit? If you ask any minister what is the most persistent challenge of their ministry and almost without exception they will say, “finding volunteers.”

Part of the problem is most ministers aren’t told this is a necessary skill for success in our ministry. We receive almost no training in the process of identifying and employing volunteers. Most of it is hit or miss and most of the time, it’s a miss.

One of the more modern developments of church leadership is the growing reliance on professional clergy. Positions that were once done by volunteers are now filled by professionally trained ministers who have graduated from a recognized schools and assumed to be experts in their chosen fields. One of the unintended consequences of the professionalization is the loss of volunteers. Lay people think either they can’t do the work because they don’t have the training or they shouldn’t do the work because the church can and will hire someone to do the work.

That’s all about to change. There are two streams coming together to form a new river of ministry in the local church. First, we aren’t going to be able to afford to hire professionals for every role in the church. Gen Xers and Millennials have different priorities in their giving. The rising generations will be less inclined to support large building programs and institutional funding plans. They prefer to give directly to the ministry. The coming generations need to see and understand the impact their giving is making.

The second stream is a renewed desire on behalf of the younger generation to actually do the ministry. Builders and boomers were driven to succeed in order to provide the resources required to live the way we wanted to live – including being generous. The rising generations don’t want to pay someone else to do their ministry. They’d much rather do it themselves. Now, instead of giving money to dig a well in a village on the other side of the world, the Gen Xers and millennials will jump a plane and go dig the wells themselves…and post it all on social media.

One last stream of influence is churches are going to be smaller. Gen Xers and millennials crave community. Churches will be large enough to provide extended families and intergenerational community groups – think tribes, but no bigger. The average church community will between somewhere between 400-800 individuals.

This means smaller budgets and smaller staffs, but the more ministry that needs to be done. How in the world are we going to do all of this work?

The same way the church always has – through volunteers. Which means church leaders – professional ministers included – like college coaches are going to have to be good recruiters.

What does it take to be a good recruiter? First, every great coach has a plan. This plan will include an offense and a defense and a thorough knowledge of what kind of athlete is needed to run those schemes. Every minister needs to have a ministry plan. Here’s what we’re going to do and here’s how we’re going to get it done. From there, the minister will know how best staff the work.

Most ministers don’t have a plan. That means they don’t know whom to recruit. They just do whatever it takes to get them to next Sunday. The result that can be hoped for is mediocrity, but worse, ministry never happens and people are robbed of their opportunity to use their gifts in a way that makes a difference for the Kingdom of God.

Next, ministers need to train their volunteers. To stay with the sports metaphor, ministers need to “coach up” their volunteers. Teaching adults isn’t the same as teaching students. There are techniques and skills that can easily be taught to our volunteers. Our volunteers deserve opportunities to succeed and with a little help, most volunteers will.

Volunteers need to be celebrated. Too many times, faithful men and women show up Sunday after Sunday, do their ministry and no one will ever thank them. Most people who serve in a church don’t do it for the glory, but a little gratitude will go a long way in raising their level of satisfaction in serving the church.

Make sure you’re asking your volunteers to do something that can be done in a few hours a week. Don’t try to find people who’ll work forty hours a week for cookies and juice. Break every job into chunks of hours that can be done by a volunteer during the week. Some people can give twenty hours a week. Some can give ten and others can only give four or five. Tailor your requirements and expectations to fit what each one has available.

Finding volunteers to staff a ministry is part of the calling of working in a local church. Recruiting is part of the job. Most people want to make a difference with their lives. Make sure your ministry gives them an opportunity to do so.