Discipleship

It’s Not Your Job

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Just the other day I was listening to a pastor who is a Christian leader who I respect greatly, but he said something that made me kinda sit up in my seat and question what I heard. I came to the conclusion that I had to disagree with him, and in disagreeing, I realized what this man stated explains a lot of challenges that we’re facing in the church right now.

The statement had to do with this fellow expressing his call to build the church. When he said that, I stopped and thought to myself that Jesus is the one who builds the church and that our call is to make disciples that as we make disciples. The church grows and Jesus puts the body together and builds the church.

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Who Are The Fish?

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The big question of the day is who are the fish? Who are you fishing for? I was going to call this topic, who are you hunting, but the appropriate bit of biblical metaphor is fishing. He calls us to fish for people, not hunt for people though. Perhaps if Jesus was in a different cultural context, he would have used the phraseology of hunting and made it work.

But we will stick with the biblical picture of fishing and ask the question who are the fish, you know, in business and marketing. There’s a lot of talk about target audience and customer avatar. It almost sounds like a new agey kind of thing.

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Unprecedented Pivot to the New Normal

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Do you have a growing list of words you never want to hear again?

This past fall, I very quickly ran out of patience for the words “pivot” and “unprecedented” and “new normal.” These words have gotten old pretty quick partly from over-use, but also because when reflecting on life and history and the nature of the world, the fact is that things are always changing. There are events almost every year, and certainly every decade, that have completely changed everything.

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Plans and Interruptions

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This is just a short thought at the start of a new year. Probably by the time you see this it will at least be the middle of January of 2021, but I think the thought is relevant no matter when it is.

Here’s the thought: sometimes ministry, sometimes life is about a plan; making a plan, following the plan, working the plan. In fact, probably it’s true most of the time.

We see Jesus who, when you pay attention to what He was up to in the gospels, wasn’t just wandering aimlessly. He had a plan to develop a core group of disciples to prepare them for the reception of the Spirit and the birth of the Church. He, at different points, talks about how He was working His way towards Jerusalem. He had a plan. He was going to the cross and He was going to rise from the grave.

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Swing Thought For 2021

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I just had the privilege a couple of days ago on the first Sunday of the year to preach my first live sermon since mid-March of 2020. Actually, yesterday I did two prerecorded messages at two different churches. I spoke live at Fort St. John, British Columbia which is a church we did a transitional pastorate in several years ago and where we are currently living right now. The title of the message was “A Swing Thought or 2021.”

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