Articles https://www.gracesharjah.com Tue, 19 Mar 2024 03:10:06 -0400 http://churchplantmedia.com/ Grace Church and Sermon Feedback https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/grace-church-and-sermon-feedback https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/grace-church-and-sermon-feedback#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2022 16:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/grace-church-and-sermon-feedback A Tool for Deliberate Discipleship

What did you think about the sermon?” That’s a question you will frequently hear if you attend Grace Church. Perhaps you heard it from the preacher after the Sunday morning service or from one of our members. If you are a member, then this is not a strange question to you. You look forward to both hearing it and asking it, and you delight in the conversation that follows. But if you have never been asked this question, you may treat it as a social courtesy, and feel compelled to say something polite. And so, you might end up saying something like, “It was good!” or “That was inspiring!”. Or perhaps that question landed on your ears like a waiter at a restaurant asking you, “How was the food?

It is possible that if you have the unbiblical notion that the gathering of the saints in corporate worship is all about ‘customer service’, then you might interpret that question as our desire as ‘service providers’ to know whether you as a consumer of spiritual goodies, were satisfied with the Sunday morning ‘experience’ or not. This is not our intention. This question, while intentional is not our way of assessing whether you will come back next week or not. This is a matter of deliberate discipleship.

Why The Spotlight on The Sermon?

While we must certainly reflect on the spiritual benefit of every element of corporate worship, the expository sermon is the highpoint of our gathering. It’s when the congregation listens with the ears of faith to what God’s Word says to His redeemed. The risen Christ speaks to his people from heaven through His Spirit inspired Word and we dare not refuse Him who speaks (Heb 12:25). The preacher is not the originator of theological ideas but a servant of Scripture. His job is to faithfully preach the Word (2 Tim 4:2).

This is why at Grace Church; you will hear expositions of Scripture where the preacher explains or ‘exposits’ the text and applies it to the hearts of the hearers. Our method of preaching is rooted in our understanding of the nature of Scripture itself. It is the almighty utterance of the Triune King. He alone has graciously made worship possible through His Son and He calls us to worship Him by the power of His Spirit as we hear His Word. As evangelicals, we believe that God’s Word is inspired, inerrant and infallible. Scripture is our supreme authority and sufficient for all matters of faith and practice; or doctrine and life. 

The biblical and theological foundation for this belief is found in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Paul writes,

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 

This tells us that God’s Word is not just God’s Word but God’s Word to us and God’s Word for us. It is His redemptive Word. It is the unfolding drama of redemption; the wonderful story of how God saves sinners – and not just a collection of unrelated verses. God has spoken in an orderly way and He commanded His servants of old to write down His words. Therefore, we ought to lovingly pay attention to the text; to His voice. The preacher’s task is to simply explain the text and when he does so in an orderly way, the very nature and purpose of Scripture itself is upheld and honored.

A Profitable Question

So, what do we mean when we ask one another, “What did you think about the sermon?” 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us that God’s Word is profitable to the believer. And so, at the heart of this question is a desire to see how you, the hearer, have spiritually benefitted from God’s Word. It is a desire to hear of how the Lord has graciously worked in the lives of His disciples for His glory. It is an opportunity to engage in clarifications to remove any weeds of misunderstanding. It is also an opportunity for you to bear witness to the power of God’s Word and encourage others.

The sacred writings are able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ (2 Tim 3:15). God’s Word not only saves us but sanctifies us (John 17:17, 1 Cor 1:18, 2 Cor 3:18, 2 Thess 2:13). The Spirit of Christ conforms us to the image of Christ as we lay hold of all His saving benefits by faith. This is why Peter tells us that we would do well to pay attention to Scripture as ‘a lamp shining in a dark place’ until the day dawns (2 Pet 1:19). 

A Christ Exalting Answer

A Christ honoring way to give feedback about the sermon would be to consider how Scripture builds us and equips us. We are told that all Scripture is profitable for 1) teaching, 2) reproof, 3) correction and 4) training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. These are helpful categories of spiritual gain to group your answers under. So, consider how the sermon has ministered to you in these ways:

1) teaching (what have you learnt?)

2) reproof (what have you been convicted of?)

3) correction (how has the sermon corrected your way of thinking or living?)

4) training in righteousness (how have you been encouraged to live faithfully?)

As you think about these categories, here are four ways that you can be better prepared to give sermon feedback in an edifying way: 

1. Prepare your heart to hear from the Lord and come with the intention to edify others in the congregation through speech that is seasoned with grace. 

2. Read the sermon text the evening before and study it with your friends and family. Before you study the text and hear the sermon, ask the Lord to search your heart and transform you into the likeness of His Son. Pray what David prayed - Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24

3. Remember those categories of spiritual gain from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and ask questions like:

a) What does this passage tell me about God? Which of His attributes stands out?

b) What does this text tell me about the sinfulness of man? How does it convict me of wrong doing or unbelief; fear or hopelessness? Is there something I need to repent of? Do I need to ask anyone’s forgiveness? Is there a work of reconciliation that I have left undone? What aspects of cultural thinking do I need to put off?

c) How does this text point me to Christ? What aspect of His redeeming work does the author want me to see? 

d) How does this text strengthen my faith in Jesus? How does it encourage me to loving obedience? How does it comfort me? Does it make me hate my sin more? How do these truths empower me to love my brothers and sister in Christ?

e) Have I heard the sermon with the ears of faith or have I been a passive listener? What commands of Scripture have I failed to obey? Where do I need help in pursuing faithful and cheerful obedience? What do I need more clarity about? Should I speak to a trusted member or pastor about specific counsel? 

4. Listen intently to the preaching of God’s Word, taking notes if possible. Give thanks in your heart for the gospel of grace being sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 

So, when someone asks you, “What did you think about the sermon?” give glory to God as you recall how His all-sufficient Word has fed your soul through the sermon and encourage one another in the faith. Do this and you will help one another become wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

]]>
A Tool for Deliberate Discipleship

What did you think about the sermon?” That’s a question you will frequently hear if you attend Grace Church. Perhaps you heard it from the preacher after the Sunday morning service or from one of our members. If you are a member, then this is not a strange question to you. You look forward to both hearing it and asking it, and you delight in the conversation that follows. But if you have never been asked this question, you may treat it as a social courtesy, and feel compelled to say something polite. And so, you might end up saying something like, “It was good!” or “That was inspiring!”. Or perhaps that question landed on your ears like a waiter at a restaurant asking you, “How was the food?

It is possible that if you have the unbiblical notion that the gathering of the saints in corporate worship is all about ‘customer service’, then you might interpret that question as our desire as ‘service providers’ to know whether you as a consumer of spiritual goodies, were satisfied with the Sunday morning ‘experience’ or not. This is not our intention. This question, while intentional is not our way of assessing whether you will come back next week or not. This is a matter of deliberate discipleship.

Why The Spotlight on The Sermon?

While we must certainly reflect on the spiritual benefit of every element of corporate worship, the expository sermon is the highpoint of our gathering. It’s when the congregation listens with the ears of faith to what God’s Word says to His redeemed. The risen Christ speaks to his people from heaven through His Spirit inspired Word and we dare not refuse Him who speaks (Heb 12:25). The preacher is not the originator of theological ideas but a servant of Scripture. His job is to faithfully preach the Word (2 Tim 4:2).

This is why at Grace Church; you will hear expositions of Scripture where the preacher explains or ‘exposits’ the text and applies it to the hearts of the hearers. Our method of preaching is rooted in our understanding of the nature of Scripture itself. It is the almighty utterance of the Triune King. He alone has graciously made worship possible through His Son and He calls us to worship Him by the power of His Spirit as we hear His Word. As evangelicals, we believe that God’s Word is inspired, inerrant and infallible. Scripture is our supreme authority and sufficient for all matters of faith and practice; or doctrine and life. 

The biblical and theological foundation for this belief is found in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Paul writes,

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 

This tells us that God’s Word is not just God’s Word but God’s Word to us and God’s Word for us. It is His redemptive Word. It is the unfolding drama of redemption; the wonderful story of how God saves sinners – and not just a collection of unrelated verses. God has spoken in an orderly way and He commanded His servants of old to write down His words. Therefore, we ought to lovingly pay attention to the text; to His voice. The preacher’s task is to simply explain the text and when he does so in an orderly way, the very nature and purpose of Scripture itself is upheld and honored.

A Profitable Question

So, what do we mean when we ask one another, “What did you think about the sermon?” 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us that God’s Word is profitable to the believer. And so, at the heart of this question is a desire to see how you, the hearer, have spiritually benefitted from God’s Word. It is a desire to hear of how the Lord has graciously worked in the lives of His disciples for His glory. It is an opportunity to engage in clarifications to remove any weeds of misunderstanding. It is also an opportunity for you to bear witness to the power of God’s Word and encourage others.

The sacred writings are able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ (2 Tim 3:15). God’s Word not only saves us but sanctifies us (John 17:17, 1 Cor 1:18, 2 Cor 3:18, 2 Thess 2:13). The Spirit of Christ conforms us to the image of Christ as we lay hold of all His saving benefits by faith. This is why Peter tells us that we would do well to pay attention to Scripture as ‘a lamp shining in a dark place’ until the day dawns (2 Pet 1:19). 

A Christ Exalting Answer

A Christ honoring way to give feedback about the sermon would be to consider how Scripture builds us and equips us. We are told that all Scripture is profitable for 1) teaching, 2) reproof, 3) correction and 4) training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. These are helpful categories of spiritual gain to group your answers under. So, consider how the sermon has ministered to you in these ways:

1) teaching (what have you learnt?)

2) reproof (what have you been convicted of?)

3) correction (how has the sermon corrected your way of thinking or living?)

4) training in righteousness (how have you been encouraged to live faithfully?)

As you think about these categories, here are four ways that you can be better prepared to give sermon feedback in an edifying way: 

1. Prepare your heart to hear from the Lord and come with the intention to edify others in the congregation through speech that is seasoned with grace. 

2. Read the sermon text the evening before and study it with your friends and family. Before you study the text and hear the sermon, ask the Lord to search your heart and transform you into the likeness of His Son. Pray what David prayed - Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24

3. Remember those categories of spiritual gain from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and ask questions like:

a) What does this passage tell me about God? Which of His attributes stands out?

b) What does this text tell me about the sinfulness of man? How does it convict me of wrong doing or unbelief; fear or hopelessness? Is there something I need to repent of? Do I need to ask anyone’s forgiveness? Is there a work of reconciliation that I have left undone? What aspects of cultural thinking do I need to put off?

c) How does this text point me to Christ? What aspect of His redeeming work does the author want me to see? 

d) How does this text strengthen my faith in Jesus? How does it encourage me to loving obedience? How does it comfort me? Does it make me hate my sin more? How do these truths empower me to love my brothers and sister in Christ?

e) Have I heard the sermon with the ears of faith or have I been a passive listener? What commands of Scripture have I failed to obey? Where do I need help in pursuing faithful and cheerful obedience? What do I need more clarity about? Should I speak to a trusted member or pastor about specific counsel? 

4. Listen intently to the preaching of God’s Word, taking notes if possible. Give thanks in your heart for the gospel of grace being sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 

So, when someone asks you, “What did you think about the sermon?” give glory to God as you recall how His all-sufficient Word has fed your soul through the sermon and encourage one another in the faith. Do this and you will help one another become wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

]]>
How to Hear a Sermon Well https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/how-to-hear-a-sermon-well https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/how-to-hear-a-sermon-well#comments Sun, 23 May 2021 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/how-to-hear-a-sermon-well No preacher, upon looking up from his pulpit, hopes to see what I saw mid-sermon one Sunday morning: a man in the last row, head tilted against the back wall, sleeping like Rip Van Winkle.

A humbling moment for a young preacher, to be sure. Yet as I remember that drooping face several years later, a question comes to mind that brings a humbling of a different kind: How many church gatherings have I attended where, as far as spiritual attentiveness goes, I might as well have been sleeping?

Oh, how easily we can drift through corporate worship week by week, hearing but not really hearing. Present in body but absent in spirit. Eyes open but distracted in mind, divided in heart, drowsy in soul.

The matter calls for our attention. For Christians are, first and foremost, a hearing people (Deuteronomy 6:4; Romans 10:17). And how we hear will determine, over time, whether the word we hear is devoured by the devil, scorched by trials, choked by cares, or nourished by God into abundant fruit (Mark 4:1–9).

Sunday Distractions

I do not write as one unaware of the distractions that confront many on Sundays. More often than not lately, I listen to the sermon from the church lobby, where my 1-year-old — a scorner of nurseries — tries to clang cabinet handles and pick crumbs off the floor.

And the distractions are not restricted to young parents. Nearly every week, whoever we are, something storms the gates of our minds, demanding that we focus anywhere but on God and his word. Babies cry. Someone three rows back sings loudly off-key. A task for tomorrow comes to mind. A glare bounces off the window. Your phone vibrates. You wonder whether you shut the garage door. In truth, life rarely offers ideal circumstances for hearing God’s word. Every Sunday is imperfect.

Yet amid all the imperfections, the living God still speaks. And barring exceptional circumstances, we have the opportunity to hear at least some of his words. So, with help from Christians past, consider how we might leverage the before, during, and after of our gatherings so as to obey Jesus’s command, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:9).

Before: Till the Soil

If the word of God is seed, and our hearts are soil, then our aim before the gathering is to till. Break up the dirt. Furrow the ground. Make way for the word.

Why do many of us enter our gatherings Sunday after Sunday with parched hearts, littered with stones? Perhaps some just need practical instruction on how to prepare. But the how will mean little unless we regularly remember the why. Faithful tilling requires heart work before hand work.

HEART WORK

Many Christians of old held Sunday as the greatest day of the week — and corporate worship as the greatest part of Sunday. The Puritans called Sunday the “market-day for the soul,” the day when Christians gather a week’s worth of spiritual goods. Not that they neglected their daily personal devotions; they just knew that God visits his people in a special way every Lord’s Day.

With this background in mind, John Owen offers a stern but needed warning,

To make a pretense of coming unto God, and not with expectation of receiving good and great things from him, is to despise God himself . . . and deprive our own souls of all benefit thereby. (Works of John Owen, 7:437)

The word we hear — not only in the sermon but in the songs, prayers, and Supper — is filled with “good and great things,” even with “all that our souls do stand in need of,” Owen goes on to write. So if you would both honor God and serve your own soul, go to the gathering as a mother might go to a weekly market: eager, prepared, and expecting to bring something good home.

HAND WORK

Practically, how might we prepare our hearts for the gathering? To return to the image of tilling, consider both removing stones and breaking up the ground.

First, remove stones by clearing away unnecessary hindrances — especially tiredness and lateness. How many of us struggle to listen on Sunday morning because we stayed up too late on Saturday night? Or because we shuffled into the gathering partway through the second song, our heads still swirling with the events of the morning? We cannot always control our sleep and our timing, of course, but often we can.

Second, break up the ground by putting your heart in a listening posture. We might consider, for example, reading the sermon passage the morning or evening beforehand, perhaps as part of family devotions. We might also pray specifically for the gathering — or better yet, attend any pre-service prayer meeting our church offers.

How we hear shapes how we live, but the reverse is also true: how we live shapes how we hear. So, before the gathering, resolve to live in a manner that welcomes the word of God.

During: Bury the Seed

A well-tilled heart, however, is only the first step in faithful hearing. The richest soil will bear no fruit unless a seed finds its way into the furrows. During the gathering, then, we labor to bury the seed of the word deep into our hearts. Which means, at bottom, that we strive to pay attention (Hebrews 2:1).

HEART WORK

As with our preparations beforehand, the task of listening during the sermon begins in the heart.

We’ve already observed that a dozen distractions and more vie for our attention during our gatherings. Like so many mental crows, intrusive thoughts land on our minds in a way that can feel out of our control. Yet even here, I have found help by applying a well-known passage about preachers to hearers. The apostle Peter writes, “Whoever speaks, [let him so do] as one who speaks oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11). And therefore, “Whoever hears, let him do so as one who hears oracles of God.”

We do not gather as a church to hear the opinions of man. We go to hear the oracles of the only living God. In our gatherings, the same one who commands the hosts of heaven condescends to speak to us. And why? To ease our sorrows, lift our burdens, cast away our lukewarmness, awaken us to temptation, and draw us deeper into his glory.

Could anything be more urgent than to listen?

HAND WORK

Along with a mind riveted by God, several practical steps may help us bury the word deeper. We might turn off our phones entirely, rather than allow them to vibrate. We might follow along with the sermon in a paper Bible. Some might take brief notes of the sermon’s most striking points.

The most practical step of all, however, is to embrace the habit of active listening. Just as we can read passively (scanning the lines without critical thought) or actively (underlining, responding, querying), so too can we listen. Genuine, heartfelt hearing calls for hard work. As Richard Baxter writes,

You have work to do as well as the preacher, and should all the time be as busy as he. . . . You must open your mouth, and digest it, for another cannot digest it for you . . . therefore be all the while at work, and abhor an idle heart in hearing, as well as an idle minister. (A Quest for Godliness, 254)

If we drift into the worship gathering as we might drift into a movie, we should not be surprised if we leave with as little as we brought. But if we enter ready to wage an attention war, if need be, then we may leave with pockets lined with spiritual gold.

After: Water the Ground

With the soil tilled and seed buried, the remaining task is to water the ground. Faithful hearing does not end when the sermon does. In some ways, the most decisive moments for our hearing happen in the hours afterward: when we drive home with the family or meet for lunch with friends, when we walk with our spouse in the afternoon or prepare for the week ahead.

HEART WORK

What we do with the preached word depends on whether we see ourselves not as consumers of the word, nor even as mere hearers of the word, but as stewards of the word.

We tend to imagine preachers as the stewards of the word — and they are (1 Peter 4:10). But as Jason Meyer writes, “When the truth is preached, the responsibility of stewardship shifts from the preacher to the hearer” (Preaching, 27). If during the sermon we were observers, after the sermon we are the observed. What will we do with the treasure God has entrusted to us: hide it in the dirt, or multiply it faithfully (Matthew 25:14–30)?

And what does God require of stewards? “That they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). Or, in the apostle James’s words, that they become “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).

HAND WORK

Stewards make themselves known as soon as they open their mouths to discuss the sermon. Rather than only asking, “What did you think of the sermon?” — a question that allows us to speak from the safe distance of an observer — they might ask, “How did that sermon land on you?” “What word did you need to hear the most?” “How do you think we should respond?” The time may come to graciously criticize some aspect of the sermon, but a steward’s first impulse is to speak as one who will give an account for what he’s heard.

Embracing our role as stewards clarifies our after-sermon response in another way, one that might free those who feel burdened by a poor memory: our responsibility as stewards of the preached word is not primarily memorization, but transformation.

Puritan pastor George Swinnock (1627–1673) once asked readers to imagine two men gathering fruit from a tree. When they had eaten all they wanted, one man took as much fruit as he could carry. The other man, however, took the tree. Swinnock writes,

Those who hear the word and have large memories and nothing else, may carry most of the word at present, yet, he that possibly can remember little who carries away the tree, plants the word in his heart and obeys it in his life, shall have fruit when the other hath none. (The Genius of Puritanism, 59)

By all means, remember as much of the sermon as you can. But if you want the sermon to bear lasting fruit, then take as much as you remember, and plant the word in your heart, and obey it in your life. Or, to return to the broader picture, till the soil by preparing your heart to hear, bury the seed by paying rigorous attention, and water the ground by reflecting humbly and responding obediently to the word that, once planted, can become a tree of life in your soul.

This article by Scott Hubbard first appeared at desiringgod.org called How to Hear a Sermon Well.

]]>
No preacher, upon looking up from his pulpit, hopes to see what I saw mid-sermon one Sunday morning: a man in the last row, head tilted against the back wall, sleeping like Rip Van Winkle.

A humbling moment for a young preacher, to be sure. Yet as I remember that drooping face several years later, a question comes to mind that brings a humbling of a different kind: How many church gatherings have I attended where, as far as spiritual attentiveness goes, I might as well have been sleeping?

Oh, how easily we can drift through corporate worship week by week, hearing but not really hearing. Present in body but absent in spirit. Eyes open but distracted in mind, divided in heart, drowsy in soul.

The matter calls for our attention. For Christians are, first and foremost, a hearing people (Deuteronomy 6:4; Romans 10:17). And how we hear will determine, over time, whether the word we hear is devoured by the devil, scorched by trials, choked by cares, or nourished by God into abundant fruit (Mark 4:1–9).

Sunday Distractions

I do not write as one unaware of the distractions that confront many on Sundays. More often than not lately, I listen to the sermon from the church lobby, where my 1-year-old — a scorner of nurseries — tries to clang cabinet handles and pick crumbs off the floor.

And the distractions are not restricted to young parents. Nearly every week, whoever we are, something storms the gates of our minds, demanding that we focus anywhere but on God and his word. Babies cry. Someone three rows back sings loudly off-key. A task for tomorrow comes to mind. A glare bounces off the window. Your phone vibrates. You wonder whether you shut the garage door. In truth, life rarely offers ideal circumstances for hearing God’s word. Every Sunday is imperfect.

Yet amid all the imperfections, the living God still speaks. And barring exceptional circumstances, we have the opportunity to hear at least some of his words. So, with help from Christians past, consider how we might leverage the before, during, and after of our gatherings so as to obey Jesus’s command, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:9).

Before: Till the Soil

If the word of God is seed, and our hearts are soil, then our aim before the gathering is to till. Break up the dirt. Furrow the ground. Make way for the word.

Why do many of us enter our gatherings Sunday after Sunday with parched hearts, littered with stones? Perhaps some just need practical instruction on how to prepare. But the how will mean little unless we regularly remember the why. Faithful tilling requires heart work before hand work.

HEART WORK

Many Christians of old held Sunday as the greatest day of the week — and corporate worship as the greatest part of Sunday. The Puritans called Sunday the “market-day for the soul,” the day when Christians gather a week’s worth of spiritual goods. Not that they neglected their daily personal devotions; they just knew that God visits his people in a special way every Lord’s Day.

With this background in mind, John Owen offers a stern but needed warning,

To make a pretense of coming unto God, and not with expectation of receiving good and great things from him, is to despise God himself . . . and deprive our own souls of all benefit thereby. (Works of John Owen, 7:437)

The word we hear — not only in the sermon but in the songs, prayers, and Supper — is filled with “good and great things,” even with “all that our souls do stand in need of,” Owen goes on to write. So if you would both honor God and serve your own soul, go to the gathering as a mother might go to a weekly market: eager, prepared, and expecting to bring something good home.

HAND WORK

Practically, how might we prepare our hearts for the gathering? To return to the image of tilling, consider both removing stones and breaking up the ground.

First, remove stones by clearing away unnecessary hindrances — especially tiredness and lateness. How many of us struggle to listen on Sunday morning because we stayed up too late on Saturday night? Or because we shuffled into the gathering partway through the second song, our heads still swirling with the events of the morning? We cannot always control our sleep and our timing, of course, but often we can.

Second, break up the ground by putting your heart in a listening posture. We might consider, for example, reading the sermon passage the morning or evening beforehand, perhaps as part of family devotions. We might also pray specifically for the gathering — or better yet, attend any pre-service prayer meeting our church offers.

How we hear shapes how we live, but the reverse is also true: how we live shapes how we hear. So, before the gathering, resolve to live in a manner that welcomes the word of God.

During: Bury the Seed

A well-tilled heart, however, is only the first step in faithful hearing. The richest soil will bear no fruit unless a seed finds its way into the furrows. During the gathering, then, we labor to bury the seed of the word deep into our hearts. Which means, at bottom, that we strive to pay attention (Hebrews 2:1).

HEART WORK

As with our preparations beforehand, the task of listening during the sermon begins in the heart.

We’ve already observed that a dozen distractions and more vie for our attention during our gatherings. Like so many mental crows, intrusive thoughts land on our minds in a way that can feel out of our control. Yet even here, I have found help by applying a well-known passage about preachers to hearers. The apostle Peter writes, “Whoever speaks, [let him so do] as one who speaks oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11). And therefore, “Whoever hears, let him do so as one who hears oracles of God.”

We do not gather as a church to hear the opinions of man. We go to hear the oracles of the only living God. In our gatherings, the same one who commands the hosts of heaven condescends to speak to us. And why? To ease our sorrows, lift our burdens, cast away our lukewarmness, awaken us to temptation, and draw us deeper into his glory.

Could anything be more urgent than to listen?

HAND WORK

Along with a mind riveted by God, several practical steps may help us bury the word deeper. We might turn off our phones entirely, rather than allow them to vibrate. We might follow along with the sermon in a paper Bible. Some might take brief notes of the sermon’s most striking points.

The most practical step of all, however, is to embrace the habit of active listening. Just as we can read passively (scanning the lines without critical thought) or actively (underlining, responding, querying), so too can we listen. Genuine, heartfelt hearing calls for hard work. As Richard Baxter writes,

You have work to do as well as the preacher, and should all the time be as busy as he. . . . You must open your mouth, and digest it, for another cannot digest it for you . . . therefore be all the while at work, and abhor an idle heart in hearing, as well as an idle minister. (A Quest for Godliness, 254)

If we drift into the worship gathering as we might drift into a movie, we should not be surprised if we leave with as little as we brought. But if we enter ready to wage an attention war, if need be, then we may leave with pockets lined with spiritual gold.

After: Water the Ground

With the soil tilled and seed buried, the remaining task is to water the ground. Faithful hearing does not end when the sermon does. In some ways, the most decisive moments for our hearing happen in the hours afterward: when we drive home with the family or meet for lunch with friends, when we walk with our spouse in the afternoon or prepare for the week ahead.

HEART WORK

What we do with the preached word depends on whether we see ourselves not as consumers of the word, nor even as mere hearers of the word, but as stewards of the word.

We tend to imagine preachers as the stewards of the word — and they are (1 Peter 4:10). But as Jason Meyer writes, “When the truth is preached, the responsibility of stewardship shifts from the preacher to the hearer” (Preaching, 27). If during the sermon we were observers, after the sermon we are the observed. What will we do with the treasure God has entrusted to us: hide it in the dirt, or multiply it faithfully (Matthew 25:14–30)?

And what does God require of stewards? “That they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). Or, in the apostle James’s words, that they become “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).

HAND WORK

Stewards make themselves known as soon as they open their mouths to discuss the sermon. Rather than only asking, “What did you think of the sermon?” — a question that allows us to speak from the safe distance of an observer — they might ask, “How did that sermon land on you?” “What word did you need to hear the most?” “How do you think we should respond?” The time may come to graciously criticize some aspect of the sermon, but a steward’s first impulse is to speak as one who will give an account for what he’s heard.

Embracing our role as stewards clarifies our after-sermon response in another way, one that might free those who feel burdened by a poor memory: our responsibility as stewards of the preached word is not primarily memorization, but transformation.

Puritan pastor George Swinnock (1627–1673) once asked readers to imagine two men gathering fruit from a tree. When they had eaten all they wanted, one man took as much fruit as he could carry. The other man, however, took the tree. Swinnock writes,

Those who hear the word and have large memories and nothing else, may carry most of the word at present, yet, he that possibly can remember little who carries away the tree, plants the word in his heart and obeys it in his life, shall have fruit when the other hath none. (The Genius of Puritanism, 59)

By all means, remember as much of the sermon as you can. But if you want the sermon to bear lasting fruit, then take as much as you remember, and plant the word in your heart, and obey it in your life. Or, to return to the broader picture, till the soil by preparing your heart to hear, bury the seed by paying rigorous attention, and water the ground by reflecting humbly and responding obediently to the word that, once planted, can become a tree of life in your soul.

This article by Scott Hubbard first appeared at desiringgod.org called How to Hear a Sermon Well.

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Pray to See the Church as God Does https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/https--wwwdesiringgodorg-articles-pray-to-see-the-church-as-god-does https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/https--wwwdesiringgodorg-articles-pray-to-see-the-church-as-god-does#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2020 16:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/https--wwwdesiringgodorg-articles-pray-to-see-the-church-as-god-does Criticizing the church can come easily, especially in an age like ours. Though many of us are aware of the dangers of consumer Christianity, few of us escape its influence entirely. I know I can find myself slipping into an attitude of detached critique, rating sermons, music, and small groups as if I were reviewing a blender on Amazon.

Alongside our consumerism, we live in a time when criticizing the church is fashionable. A subtle contempt, even in some Christian circles, garners respect. We are the jaded and disillusioned, those who inwardly roll our eyes at Christian clichés and anything that smacks of churchy strictness. When unbelievers share their grievances with “organized religion,” sometimes we offer little more than a sympathetic nod.

Whether it arises from consumerism or cynicism, however, such a critical spirit toward the church of God appears nowhere in the New Testament.

Divine Portraits of God’s People

“Ah,” but someone might say, “the church of the New Testament was altogether different from what we find today. If only we could go back to the New Testament!” True, twenty centuries have passed since the apostolic age. But the churches of the first century were not the spiritual havens we sometimes imagine them to be.

New Testament churches were composed of sinner-saints just as ours are. They felt temptations toward frustration, impatience, and division just as we do (Ephesians 4:1–3). They too needed to be told not to “despise” and “pass judgment” on each other (Romans 14:3). They sometimes disagreed so strongly that they could no longer partner in ministry (Acts 15:36–41).

Yet Peter and Paul, James and John never exhibited the spirit of criticism that so often characterizes us. Though unafraid to exhort and even rebuke fellow Christians, the apostles labored to see (and to help us see) the church as she is in God’s sight: the family of God, the body of the Lord, the temple of the Spirit, the bride of Christ.

Family of God

Who are these people who gather with us on Sunday mornings: this father of four who sings off-key, this communion server with the ill-fitting shirt, this young woman with an unusually loud laugh? If they are in Christ, they are “beloved children” of the Most High God (Ephesians 5:1).

We often pray “our Father” and yet approach brotherly love more casually. But for the apostles (and for us in our best moments), the fact that God should call us children was enough to furnish wonder for eternity (1 John 3:1). Unless Jesus himself said it, who would dare to imagine that those who follow him are his “brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:33–35) — and what’s more, that he is not ashamed of such a family (Hebrews 2:11)?

Yet so it is. These Christians who sing with us, pray for us, speak Scripture to us, and sometimes frustrate us to no end are brothers of the same Savior, destined to dwell alongside us in our Father’s house (John 14:2). They are “odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed,” as C.S. Lewis put it (The Four Loves, 37). They are our family in Christ.

Body of the Lord

Not only are we siblings in the same family, but also parts of the same body. Paul remarks, “As in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:4–5). We may appear as different from each other as a kneecap from a nose, but we are bound together by eternal sinews and immortal bones, with Christ himself as our head.

Paul takes it for granted that some parts of the body “seem to be weaker,” “less honorable,” even “unpresentable” (1 Corinthians 12:22–23). We may feel ourselves tempted to say of some member of the body — perhaps just under our breath — “I have no need of you” (1 Corinthians 12:21). And yet the very thought betrays a fundamental ignorance of what the church is: not a collection of individuals, but a body of members. There is no such thing as lone-ranger Christianity because there are, in fact, no rangers — only eyeballs, hands, ears, and limbs, which survive only when attached to the body.

Temple of the Spirit

At the crucifixion of Jesus, the veil covering the entrance to the temple’s Most Holy Place “was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38). The holy presence of God, which once sat enthroned above the cherubim (Psalm 80:1; 99:1), would no longer dwell in the Jerusalem temple — rather, it would dwell in the church.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” Paul asks the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3:16). Don’t miss the scandal. Paul is saying that wherever the true church is, though it be as flawed as the Corinthians themselves, there is God. The apostle John, awake to this wonder, writes, “No one has ever seen God.” And yet: “If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). The invisible God abides, of all places, in the visible community of the true church.

Of course, God is omnipresent; we couldn’t escape from him even if we wanted to (Psalm 139:7–12). But if you aim to encounter the holy presence of God, where God dwells in glory and grace, then don’t hike to the top of a mountain, chase ecstatic experiences, or search deep inside yourself. Instead, gather with the humble, ordinary community of saints, and know that here is “a holy temple in the Lord,” which is “being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21–22).

Bride of Christ

When we come to the end of redemption’s story and catch a glimpse of the world to come, the final image of the church that God gives us is not of a family, body, or temple, but of a bride. “Then came one of the seven angels who . . . spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb’” (Revelation 21:9). Here, the former harlot stands before the Husband who redeemed her, finally “in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27).

For now, the splendor of the church is dim. Spots still mar the beauty of her face; wrinkles still run down her dress. But the blaze of her Groom’s passion — compared with which our fiercest love is a spark — will one day make her ready. She will soon be clothed with his own glory (Revelation 21:2).

We need not blind ourselves to this bride-to-be’s faults in order to faithfully devote ourselves to her now. With the eyes of faith, we see her as she one day will be: a woman without spot or wrinkle, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). And then we go on loving her as she is.

The People God Loves

If we could see the church as she really is, perhaps nine-tenths of our criticism would die. We would find ourselves standing in silent wonder at this family of God, body of the Lord, temple of the Spirit, and bride of Christ — awed not only by its beauty, but that we should be part of it.

To be sure, not all of our criticism would wither away. Hard words sometimes belong in the mouths of those who love the church, as Jesus and the apostles remind us (Revelation 3:19; 1 Corinthians 4:14). But the criticism we do share would sound worlds apart from consumeristic faultfinding or cool contempt. Our criticism would be carried by sadness, sighs, and prayers, and would compel us to lay ourselves down for the people God loves.

This article by Scott Hubbard first appeared at desiringgod.org called Pray to See the Church as God Does.

]]>
Criticizing the church can come easily, especially in an age like ours. Though many of us are aware of the dangers of consumer Christianity, few of us escape its influence entirely. I know I can find myself slipping into an attitude of detached critique, rating sermons, music, and small groups as if I were reviewing a blender on Amazon.

Alongside our consumerism, we live in a time when criticizing the church is fashionable. A subtle contempt, even in some Christian circles, garners respect. We are the jaded and disillusioned, those who inwardly roll our eyes at Christian clichés and anything that smacks of churchy strictness. When unbelievers share their grievances with “organized religion,” sometimes we offer little more than a sympathetic nod.

Whether it arises from consumerism or cynicism, however, such a critical spirit toward the church of God appears nowhere in the New Testament.

Divine Portraits of God’s People

“Ah,” but someone might say, “the church of the New Testament was altogether different from what we find today. If only we could go back to the New Testament!” True, twenty centuries have passed since the apostolic age. But the churches of the first century were not the spiritual havens we sometimes imagine them to be.

New Testament churches were composed of sinner-saints just as ours are. They felt temptations toward frustration, impatience, and division just as we do (Ephesians 4:1–3). They too needed to be told not to “despise” and “pass judgment” on each other (Romans 14:3). They sometimes disagreed so strongly that they could no longer partner in ministry (Acts 15:36–41).

Yet Peter and Paul, James and John never exhibited the spirit of criticism that so often characterizes us. Though unafraid to exhort and even rebuke fellow Christians, the apostles labored to see (and to help us see) the church as she is in God’s sight: the family of God, the body of the Lord, the temple of the Spirit, the bride of Christ.

Family of God

Who are these people who gather with us on Sunday mornings: this father of four who sings off-key, this communion server with the ill-fitting shirt, this young woman with an unusually loud laugh? If they are in Christ, they are “beloved children” of the Most High God (Ephesians 5:1).

We often pray “our Father” and yet approach brotherly love more casually. But for the apostles (and for us in our best moments), the fact that God should call us children was enough to furnish wonder for eternity (1 John 3:1). Unless Jesus himself said it, who would dare to imagine that those who follow him are his “brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:33–35) — and what’s more, that he is not ashamed of such a family (Hebrews 2:11)?

Yet so it is. These Christians who sing with us, pray for us, speak Scripture to us, and sometimes frustrate us to no end are brothers of the same Savior, destined to dwell alongside us in our Father’s house (John 14:2). They are “odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed,” as C.S. Lewis put it (The Four Loves, 37). They are our family in Christ.

Body of the Lord

Not only are we siblings in the same family, but also parts of the same body. Paul remarks, “As in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:4–5). We may appear as different from each other as a kneecap from a nose, but we are bound together by eternal sinews and immortal bones, with Christ himself as our head.

Paul takes it for granted that some parts of the body “seem to be weaker,” “less honorable,” even “unpresentable” (1 Corinthians 12:22–23). We may feel ourselves tempted to say of some member of the body — perhaps just under our breath — “I have no need of you” (1 Corinthians 12:21). And yet the very thought betrays a fundamental ignorance of what the church is: not a collection of individuals, but a body of members. There is no such thing as lone-ranger Christianity because there are, in fact, no rangers — only eyeballs, hands, ears, and limbs, which survive only when attached to the body.

Temple of the Spirit

At the crucifixion of Jesus, the veil covering the entrance to the temple’s Most Holy Place “was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38). The holy presence of God, which once sat enthroned above the cherubim (Psalm 80:1; 99:1), would no longer dwell in the Jerusalem temple — rather, it would dwell in the church.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” Paul asks the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3:16). Don’t miss the scandal. Paul is saying that wherever the true church is, though it be as flawed as the Corinthians themselves, there is God. The apostle John, awake to this wonder, writes, “No one has ever seen God.” And yet: “If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). The invisible God abides, of all places, in the visible community of the true church.

Of course, God is omnipresent; we couldn’t escape from him even if we wanted to (Psalm 139:7–12). But if you aim to encounter the holy presence of God, where God dwells in glory and grace, then don’t hike to the top of a mountain, chase ecstatic experiences, or search deep inside yourself. Instead, gather with the humble, ordinary community of saints, and know that here is “a holy temple in the Lord,” which is “being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21–22).

Bride of Christ

When we come to the end of redemption’s story and catch a glimpse of the world to come, the final image of the church that God gives us is not of a family, body, or temple, but of a bride. “Then came one of the seven angels who . . . spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb’” (Revelation 21:9). Here, the former harlot stands before the Husband who redeemed her, finally “in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27).

For now, the splendor of the church is dim. Spots still mar the beauty of her face; wrinkles still run down her dress. But the blaze of her Groom’s passion — compared with which our fiercest love is a spark — will one day make her ready. She will soon be clothed with his own glory (Revelation 21:2).

We need not blind ourselves to this bride-to-be’s faults in order to faithfully devote ourselves to her now. With the eyes of faith, we see her as she one day will be: a woman without spot or wrinkle, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). And then we go on loving her as she is.

The People God Loves

If we could see the church as she really is, perhaps nine-tenths of our criticism would die. We would find ourselves standing in silent wonder at this family of God, body of the Lord, temple of the Spirit, and bride of Christ — awed not only by its beauty, but that we should be part of it.

To be sure, not all of our criticism would wither away. Hard words sometimes belong in the mouths of those who love the church, as Jesus and the apostles remind us (Revelation 3:19; 1 Corinthians 4:14). But the criticism we do share would sound worlds apart from consumeristic faultfinding or cool contempt. Our criticism would be carried by sadness, sighs, and prayers, and would compel us to lay ourselves down for the people God loves.

This article by Scott Hubbard first appeared at desiringgod.org called Pray to See the Church as God Does.

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Brothers, Serve in the Nursery https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/brothers-serve-in-the-nursery https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/brothers-serve-in-the-nursery#comments Thu, 08 Aug 2019 17:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/brothers-serve-in-the-nursery Six months ago I volunteered to do a stint as an assistant teacher in my church’s two-to-three-year-old Sunday school class. My main motivation for volunteering was to help my son adjust to the class. I hoped my presence would calm his fears and within a month or two I’d be able to quietly slip away. He made the adjustments just fine, but six months later I still found myself serving in this capacity. I entered the situation assuming I was simply helping my son make some adjustments in his life. It turns out God was helping me make some adjustments in mine.

Cultivating Pastoral Character   

As I’ve observed, many seminary students and other brothers aspiring to pastoral ministry are always on the lookout for opportunities to serve in the church. Regrettably, I think sometimes we have our sights set on only one type of service—public teaching. Of course, nothing is necessarily wrong with desiring to exercise your gifts, putting them under the evaluation of the church, and cultivating pastoral skills for future ministry. The problem is that many aspiring pastors fall into the trap of thinking this only happens by engaging in the adult teaching ministry of the church.

Serving in the nursery may not feel like a time to cultivate your pastoral gifts, but that may mean you have a too narrow or professionalized view of pastoral ministry. We cannot reduce pastoral ministry to proclamation and teaching, though that task is obviously central and essential (2 Tim. 4:2). If we take our cues from the character qualifications given to elders in 1 Timothy and the example of Jesus’s own life, we find a comprehensive picture for Christian ministry that is both more beautiful and more daunting than anything like mastering Greek and Hebrew. Serving small children in nursery might just be the place to cultivate the very character qualities Christ demands of those who would lead his church.

Cultivating Christlike Character  

Jesus models this for us in John 13 when he fills a basin of water, kneels in front of his disciples, and starts scrubbing off the filth encrusted around their heels and toes. In this act, Jesus shows us the true character of Christian ministry—humility, compassion, and an initiative to volunteer for the least reputable acts of service. I’m always struck by the fact that this event occurs at the end of Jesus’s ministry, a time he might have felt most entitled to be served and to avoid the less glamorous aspects of ministry—a temptation we all face. “Sure, I’ll serve in the nursery or cut the grass . . . at least until I can work my way up to teaching a Sunday school class.” Ministry for some is a pyramid scheme where we work our way out of avenues of the church’s life we find less desirable. We “serve our time” in one part of the church, never to return. Jesus, on the other hand, after working miracles in front of crowds larger than any modern celebrity pastor could attract and preaching sermons that would shatter podcast download records, embraces the ministry his disciples would have considered too menial even for themselves.

Spending an hour with 10 two-year-olds every Sunday may not stretch your preaching skills, but it might just be what the Lord uses to make you a more compassionate and faithful church member in the present and church leader in the future. Nursery service is a great way to grow to love the children in your church—you may just find that requests for their salvation and faithfulness become part of your regular routine in prayer.

This type of service is also a great way to grow in love toward the parents in your church. At the risk of being captain obvious, parenting is hard work. Bearing the responsibility for someone else’s children so that weary-worn parents can be nurtured in the corporate gathering is one of the most practical ways you can carry the burdens of your fellow members (Gal. 6:2). Additionally, children provide a unique window into the life of a family. The more you know the particular struggles parents face as they raise the children God has placed in their homes, the more sympathetic and tenderhearted you will be toward them. Nursery also gives you a profound sense of gratefulness for the precious saints who labor to oversee nursery and children’s Sunday school as part of their regular ministry to the church. If John 13 has anything to teach us about the character of Jesus, these brothers and sisters just might be some of the most Christlike people you ever encounter.

Emulating Our Lord’s Example 

So brothers, serve in the nursery. Serve in children’s Sunday school. Don’t let your M.Div., Ph.D., or any other life situation or experience convince you that you’re overqualified to emulate our Lord’s example. In our cultural context, picking up saliva-soggy Cheerios off the floor, changing a diaper, and telling a toddler about Jesus may just be the closest thing you ever do to washing someone’s feet.

This article by Samuel Emadi first appeared at thegospelcoalition.org called Brothers, Serve in the Nursery.

]]>
Six months ago I volunteered to do a stint as an assistant teacher in my church’s two-to-three-year-old Sunday school class. My main motivation for volunteering was to help my son adjust to the class. I hoped my presence would calm his fears and within a month or two I’d be able to quietly slip away. He made the adjustments just fine, but six months later I still found myself serving in this capacity. I entered the situation assuming I was simply helping my son make some adjustments in his life. It turns out God was helping me make some adjustments in mine.

Cultivating Pastoral Character   

As I’ve observed, many seminary students and other brothers aspiring to pastoral ministry are always on the lookout for opportunities to serve in the church. Regrettably, I think sometimes we have our sights set on only one type of service—public teaching. Of course, nothing is necessarily wrong with desiring to exercise your gifts, putting them under the evaluation of the church, and cultivating pastoral skills for future ministry. The problem is that many aspiring pastors fall into the trap of thinking this only happens by engaging in the adult teaching ministry of the church.

Serving in the nursery may not feel like a time to cultivate your pastoral gifts, but that may mean you have a too narrow or professionalized view of pastoral ministry. We cannot reduce pastoral ministry to proclamation and teaching, though that task is obviously central and essential (2 Tim. 4:2). If we take our cues from the character qualifications given to elders in 1 Timothy and the example of Jesus’s own life, we find a comprehensive picture for Christian ministry that is both more beautiful and more daunting than anything like mastering Greek and Hebrew. Serving small children in nursery might just be the place to cultivate the very character qualities Christ demands of those who would lead his church.

Cultivating Christlike Character  

Jesus models this for us in John 13 when he fills a basin of water, kneels in front of his disciples, and starts scrubbing off the filth encrusted around their heels and toes. In this act, Jesus shows us the true character of Christian ministry—humility, compassion, and an initiative to volunteer for the least reputable acts of service. I’m always struck by the fact that this event occurs at the end of Jesus’s ministry, a time he might have felt most entitled to be served and to avoid the less glamorous aspects of ministry—a temptation we all face. “Sure, I’ll serve in the nursery or cut the grass . . . at least until I can work my way up to teaching a Sunday school class.” Ministry for some is a pyramid scheme where we work our way out of avenues of the church’s life we find less desirable. We “serve our time” in one part of the church, never to return. Jesus, on the other hand, after working miracles in front of crowds larger than any modern celebrity pastor could attract and preaching sermons that would shatter podcast download records, embraces the ministry his disciples would have considered too menial even for themselves.

Spending an hour with 10 two-year-olds every Sunday may not stretch your preaching skills, but it might just be what the Lord uses to make you a more compassionate and faithful church member in the present and church leader in the future. Nursery service is a great way to grow to love the children in your church—you may just find that requests for their salvation and faithfulness become part of your regular routine in prayer.

This type of service is also a great way to grow in love toward the parents in your church. At the risk of being captain obvious, parenting is hard work. Bearing the responsibility for someone else’s children so that weary-worn parents can be nurtured in the corporate gathering is one of the most practical ways you can carry the burdens of your fellow members (Gal. 6:2). Additionally, children provide a unique window into the life of a family. The more you know the particular struggles parents face as they raise the children God has placed in their homes, the more sympathetic and tenderhearted you will be toward them. Nursery also gives you a profound sense of gratefulness for the precious saints who labor to oversee nursery and children’s Sunday school as part of their regular ministry to the church. If John 13 has anything to teach us about the character of Jesus, these brothers and sisters just might be some of the most Christlike people you ever encounter.

Emulating Our Lord’s Example 

So brothers, serve in the nursery. Serve in children’s Sunday school. Don’t let your M.Div., Ph.D., or any other life situation or experience convince you that you’re overqualified to emulate our Lord’s example. In our cultural context, picking up saliva-soggy Cheerios off the floor, changing a diaper, and telling a toddler about Jesus may just be the closest thing you ever do to washing someone’s feet.

This article by Samuel Emadi first appeared at thegospelcoalition.org called Brothers, Serve in the Nursery.

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Church Membership is an Office and a Job https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/church-membership-is-an-office-and-a-job https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/church-membership-is-an-office-and-a-job#comments Wed, 08 May 2019 16:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/church-membership-is-an-office-and-a-job Christians have a long tradition of referring to elders and deacons as church “officers.” The nomenclature rightly recognizes the role and responsibilities that Scripture gives to our leaders. It also points to the honor due to pastors (1 Tim. 5:17). People show respect to officers, right?

I don’t want to downplay any of this.

But . . . church membership is an office, too. It’s a job that comes with authority and responsibility. We can call a lieutenant an “officer” without diminishing the honor due to a general.

What’s at stake here is not just academic, but pastoral and biblical. Too many Christians today view their relationship with the local church consumeristically—as if churches were gas stations. You drive around once a week looking to fill your tank spiritually. You find the station with the lowest prices and the car wash option. Maybe you join the rewards program. Church membership is that rewards program. Loyalty to their brand brings extra benefits.

People often say “Church membership is not in the Bible” because they have something programmatic like this in mind. And they’re half right: this isn’t in the Bible. But they miss what is in the Bible. There, church membership is a job. You’re expected to show up for work (Heb. 10:24­–25). You have authority to exercise, tasks to complete, privileges to enjoy, a corporate reputation to protect, risks to endure, and profits to share. If anything, we need to think less like consumers and more like owners. You’ve bought in. You have a vested stake.

WHAT’S AN OFFICE?

The Presbyterian Charles Hodge defined an office like this:

The ministry is properly an office, because it is something which cannot be assumed at pleasure by any and every one. A man must be appointed thereto by some competent authority. It involves not only the right, but the obligation to exercise certain functions, or to discharge certain duties; and it confers certain powers or prerogatives, which other men are bound to recognize and respect. [1]

So it is with every church member. Not everyone can be a church member. Only the repenting and believing and baptized can be.

No person possesses the authority to make him or herself a member. The church itself must.

And no member is without functions, duties, powers, or prerogatives. Every member possesses them, which others must recognize and respect.

WHERE DID THIS OFFICE COME FROM?

Here’s the biblically interesting part: the office of church member is the new covenant version of Adam’s everyman office, assigned to us by Christ.

God put Adam to work as a priest-king and tasked him with watching over and working the garden. “Expand the Garden, Adam. Obey my words. And keep lying serpents out, since the Garden is where I, the Lord, dwell.”

When Adam failed, the job of priest-king went to Noah, then Abraham, and eventually the nation of Israel. The mom-and-pop shop went corporate as a “kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6). At the same time, God separated out a class of priests and a class of kings to make their respective responsibilities clear. The priest’s job, like Adam’s in the garden, was to “work” and “watch over” the tabernacle/temple, keeping it consecrated to the Lord (Num. 3:7–8; 8:26; 18:5–6). They were charged with naming things as clean and unclean, holy and unholy. The king’s work, meanwhile, was to establish order and dominion while following God’s law (see Deut. 17:14–20).

When Israel failed in its corporate job and the kings and priests in their individual jobs, the prophets promised the special mediatory offices of priest and king would be “democratized” once more (Jer. 31:33–34). Christ would come as the perfect priest and king, the second federal Adam, and through the new covenant of his blood reassign a new covenant people with being:

  • A chosen race—new Adams;
  • A royal priesthood—a democracy of priest-kings
  • A holy nation—a new Israel
  • A people for God’s own possession (1 Peter 2:9)

These priests should offer sacrifices of obedience in all of life, their daily activities serving as a mediating witness to the world (see Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:5). Yet they also constitute the temple where God dwells, just as he dwelt in the Garden and the tabernacle (1 Cor. 3:16–17), which means they possess a priestly obligation to one another: to make sure they’re not unequally yoked, to come out and being separate, and to touch no unclean thing, so that holiness comes to completion (2 Cor. 6:14–7:1). To this end, they employ the keys of the kingdom in priestly fashion. This enables them to keep the line between the inside and the outside of God’s people clear (Matt. 16:19; 18:15–20).

Meanwhile, every member of the church has been given a kingly task: to make disciples and be ambassadors of reconciliation, bringing the territory of hearts into subjugation to God (Matt. 28:18–20; 2 Cor. 5:18–20).

What is church membership? It’s undertaking Adam’s job, thanks to our inclusion in Christ. It’s the public recognition that we have stepped into the office of priest-king. “Expand the church, church member. Obey my words. Give witness to me in all of life. And do not recognize lying serpents as members, since the church is where I, the Lord, dwell.”

Irenaeus put it succinctly one hundred years after the New Testament was written: “For all the righteous possess the priestly order [sacerdotali ordinem]” (Against Heresies).

Almost two millennia later Herman Bavinck said something similar: “And just as all believers have a gift, so also they all hold an office. Not only in the church as organism but also in the church as institution, they have a calling and a task laid on them by the Lord” (Reformed Dogmatics, 4.375).

WHAT’S THE MEMBER’S JOB?

That’s the biblical-theological backdrop. Concretely, then, what is the authority and work of every church member? Our work is to share and protect the gospel, and it’s to affirm and oversee gospel professors—church members.

Think about Paul’s “amazement” in Galatians 1: “I am amazed that you are so quickly . . . turning to a different gospel” (v. 6). He rebukes not the pastors, but the members, and tells them to reject even apostles or angels who teach a false gospel. They were supposed to have protected the gospel.

Or think of Paul’s astonishment in 1 Corinthians 5: the Corinthians were accepting sin “not tolerated even among pagans” (v. 1). “You are to remove the one who has done this thing,” he says to the whole church (1 Cor. 5:2). He even describes how this should happen—not on Thursday evening behind the closed doors of an elders meeting, but when the whole church gathered and could act together: “When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, with my spirit present and with the power of the Lord Jesus, hand this man over to Satan so that his spirit may be saved” (vv. 4–5). The power of the Lord Jesus is actually there when they’re assembled in his name. With that power, they were supposed to have protected the gospel by removing the man from membership.

Every member of a church should recognize, “It’s my responsibility to protect the gospel, and it’s my responsibility to receive and dismiss members. Jesus has given it to me.” To use the business lingo again, we’re all owners. We all have a share in the losses and the profits.

Therefore, pastors who fire church members from this job, whether by formal church structure or by turning them into consumers, undermine the members’ sense of inclusion and ownership. They cultivate complacency, nominalism, and eventually theological liberalism. Kill church membership today and you can expect biblical compromises tomorrow.

Of course, the job here is bigger than showing up at members’ meetings and voting on new members. The church member’s job lasts all seven days. Ours is the work of representing Jesus and protecting his gospel in each other’s lives every day.

So we must study and work to know the gospel better and better. We must study the gospel’s implications and consider how they relate to repentance. Further, we must work to know and be known by our fellow members seven days a week. We cannot affirm and give oversight to a people we don’t know, not with integrity anyhow. We try to start including more of our fellow members into the regular rhythm of our lives. This is not a gas station rewards program: fill out a form and drive away.

WHAT’S THE PASTOR’S JOB?

What then shall we say about the pastor’s office? What’s his job?

Ephesians 4 says it’s the job of the pastors to equip the saints for the ministry of building up the church (vv. 11–16). Notice the two jobs in this passage. Job one is the pastors’: equip the saints. Job two is the members’: the ministry of building up the body of Christ.

The weekly church gathering, then, is a time of job training. It’s when those in the office of pastor equip those in the office of member to know the gospel, to live by the gospel, to protect the church’s gospel witness, and to extend the gospel’s reach into one another’s lives and among outsiders. If Jesus tasks members with affirming and building up one another in the gospel, he tasks pastors with training them to do this. If the pastors don’t do their jobs very well, neither will the members.

When you put the pastor’s office together with the member’s office, what do you get? Jesus’ discipleship program.

CONCLUSION

When someone wants to join the church where I pastor, I’ll say something like the following in the membership interview:

Friend, by joining this church, you will become jointly responsible for whether or not this congregation continues to faithfully proclaim the gospel. That means you will become jointly responsible both for what this church teaches, as well as whether or not its members’ lives remain faithful. And one day you will stand before God and give an account for how you fulfilled this responsibility. We need more hands for the harvest, so we hope you’ll join us in that work.

The membership interview is a job interview, after all. I want to make sure they know this. I want to make sure they’re up for the task.

Author’s note: To think further on this topic, see the very short Understanding the Congregation’s Authority (B&H). For a more thorough academic treatment, see Don’t Fire Your Church Members (B&H Academic).

[1] Charles Hodge, Discussions in Church Polity (1878; repr., New York: Westminster Publishing House, 2001), 346.

This article by Jonathan Leeman first appeared at 9marks.org called "Church Membership is an Office and a Job".

]]>
Christians have a long tradition of referring to elders and deacons as church “officers.” The nomenclature rightly recognizes the role and responsibilities that Scripture gives to our leaders. It also points to the honor due to pastors (1 Tim. 5:17). People show respect to officers, right?

I don’t want to downplay any of this.

But . . . church membership is an office, too. It’s a job that comes with authority and responsibility. We can call a lieutenant an “officer” without diminishing the honor due to a general.

What’s at stake here is not just academic, but pastoral and biblical. Too many Christians today view their relationship with the local church consumeristically—as if churches were gas stations. You drive around once a week looking to fill your tank spiritually. You find the station with the lowest prices and the car wash option. Maybe you join the rewards program. Church membership is that rewards program. Loyalty to their brand brings extra benefits.

People often say “Church membership is not in the Bible” because they have something programmatic like this in mind. And they’re half right: this isn’t in the Bible. But they miss what is in the Bible. There, church membership is a job. You’re expected to show up for work (Heb. 10:24­–25). You have authority to exercise, tasks to complete, privileges to enjoy, a corporate reputation to protect, risks to endure, and profits to share. If anything, we need to think less like consumers and more like owners. You’ve bought in. You have a vested stake.

WHAT’S AN OFFICE?

The Presbyterian Charles Hodge defined an office like this:

The ministry is properly an office, because it is something which cannot be assumed at pleasure by any and every one. A man must be appointed thereto by some competent authority. It involves not only the right, but the obligation to exercise certain functions, or to discharge certain duties; and it confers certain powers or prerogatives, which other men are bound to recognize and respect. [1]

So it is with every church member. Not everyone can be a church member. Only the repenting and believing and baptized can be.

No person possesses the authority to make him or herself a member. The church itself must.

And no member is without functions, duties, powers, or prerogatives. Every member possesses them, which others must recognize and respect.

WHERE DID THIS OFFICE COME FROM?

Here’s the biblically interesting part: the office of church member is the new covenant version of Adam’s everyman office, assigned to us by Christ.

God put Adam to work as a priest-king and tasked him with watching over and working the garden. “Expand the Garden, Adam. Obey my words. And keep lying serpents out, since the Garden is where I, the Lord, dwell.”

When Adam failed, the job of priest-king went to Noah, then Abraham, and eventually the nation of Israel. The mom-and-pop shop went corporate as a “kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6). At the same time, God separated out a class of priests and a class of kings to make their respective responsibilities clear. The priest’s job, like Adam’s in the garden, was to “work” and “watch over” the tabernacle/temple, keeping it consecrated to the Lord (Num. 3:7–8; 8:26; 18:5–6). They were charged with naming things as clean and unclean, holy and unholy. The king’s work, meanwhile, was to establish order and dominion while following God’s law (see Deut. 17:14–20).

When Israel failed in its corporate job and the kings and priests in their individual jobs, the prophets promised the special mediatory offices of priest and king would be “democratized” once more (Jer. 31:33–34). Christ would come as the perfect priest and king, the second federal Adam, and through the new covenant of his blood reassign a new covenant people with being:

  • A chosen race—new Adams;
  • A royal priesthood—a democracy of priest-kings
  • A holy nation—a new Israel
  • A people for God’s own possession (1 Peter 2:9)

These priests should offer sacrifices of obedience in all of life, their daily activities serving as a mediating witness to the world (see Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:5). Yet they also constitute the temple where God dwells, just as he dwelt in the Garden and the tabernacle (1 Cor. 3:16–17), which means they possess a priestly obligation to one another: to make sure they’re not unequally yoked, to come out and being separate, and to touch no unclean thing, so that holiness comes to completion (2 Cor. 6:14–7:1). To this end, they employ the keys of the kingdom in priestly fashion. This enables them to keep the line between the inside and the outside of God’s people clear (Matt. 16:19; 18:15–20).

Meanwhile, every member of the church has been given a kingly task: to make disciples and be ambassadors of reconciliation, bringing the territory of hearts into subjugation to God (Matt. 28:18–20; 2 Cor. 5:18–20).

What is church membership? It’s undertaking Adam’s job, thanks to our inclusion in Christ. It’s the public recognition that we have stepped into the office of priest-king. “Expand the church, church member. Obey my words. Give witness to me in all of life. And do not recognize lying serpents as members, since the church is where I, the Lord, dwell.”

Irenaeus put it succinctly one hundred years after the New Testament was written: “For all the righteous possess the priestly order [sacerdotali ordinem]” (Against Heresies).

Almost two millennia later Herman Bavinck said something similar: “And just as all believers have a gift, so also they all hold an office. Not only in the church as organism but also in the church as institution, they have a calling and a task laid on them by the Lord” (Reformed Dogmatics, 4.375).

WHAT’S THE MEMBER’S JOB?

That’s the biblical-theological backdrop. Concretely, then, what is the authority and work of every church member? Our work is to share and protect the gospel, and it’s to affirm and oversee gospel professors—church members.

Think about Paul’s “amazement” in Galatians 1: “I am amazed that you are so quickly . . . turning to a different gospel” (v. 6). He rebukes not the pastors, but the members, and tells them to reject even apostles or angels who teach a false gospel. They were supposed to have protected the gospel.

Or think of Paul’s astonishment in 1 Corinthians 5: the Corinthians were accepting sin “not tolerated even among pagans” (v. 1). “You are to remove the one who has done this thing,” he says to the whole church (1 Cor. 5:2). He even describes how this should happen—not on Thursday evening behind the closed doors of an elders meeting, but when the whole church gathered and could act together: “When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, with my spirit present and with the power of the Lord Jesus, hand this man over to Satan so that his spirit may be saved” (vv. 4–5). The power of the Lord Jesus is actually there when they’re assembled in his name. With that power, they were supposed to have protected the gospel by removing the man from membership.

Every member of a church should recognize, “It’s my responsibility to protect the gospel, and it’s my responsibility to receive and dismiss members. Jesus has given it to me.” To use the business lingo again, we’re all owners. We all have a share in the losses and the profits.

Therefore, pastors who fire church members from this job, whether by formal church structure or by turning them into consumers, undermine the members’ sense of inclusion and ownership. They cultivate complacency, nominalism, and eventually theological liberalism. Kill church membership today and you can expect biblical compromises tomorrow.

Of course, the job here is bigger than showing up at members’ meetings and voting on new members. The church member’s job lasts all seven days. Ours is the work of representing Jesus and protecting his gospel in each other’s lives every day.

So we must study and work to know the gospel better and better. We must study the gospel’s implications and consider how they relate to repentance. Further, we must work to know and be known by our fellow members seven days a week. We cannot affirm and give oversight to a people we don’t know, not with integrity anyhow. We try to start including more of our fellow members into the regular rhythm of our lives. This is not a gas station rewards program: fill out a form and drive away.

WHAT’S THE PASTOR’S JOB?

What then shall we say about the pastor’s office? What’s his job?

Ephesians 4 says it’s the job of the pastors to equip the saints for the ministry of building up the church (vv. 11–16). Notice the two jobs in this passage. Job one is the pastors’: equip the saints. Job two is the members’: the ministry of building up the body of Christ.

The weekly church gathering, then, is a time of job training. It’s when those in the office of pastor equip those in the office of member to know the gospel, to live by the gospel, to protect the church’s gospel witness, and to extend the gospel’s reach into one another’s lives and among outsiders. If Jesus tasks members with affirming and building up one another in the gospel, he tasks pastors with training them to do this. If the pastors don’t do their jobs very well, neither will the members.

When you put the pastor’s office together with the member’s office, what do you get? Jesus’ discipleship program.

CONCLUSION

When someone wants to join the church where I pastor, I’ll say something like the following in the membership interview:

Friend, by joining this church, you will become jointly responsible for whether or not this congregation continues to faithfully proclaim the gospel. That means you will become jointly responsible both for what this church teaches, as well as whether or not its members’ lives remain faithful. And one day you will stand before God and give an account for how you fulfilled this responsibility. We need more hands for the harvest, so we hope you’ll join us in that work.

The membership interview is a job interview, after all. I want to make sure they know this. I want to make sure they’re up for the task.

Author’s note: To think further on this topic, see the very short Understanding the Congregation’s Authority (B&H). For a more thorough academic treatment, see Don’t Fire Your Church Members (B&H Academic).

[1] Charles Hodge, Discussions in Church Polity (1878; repr., New York: Westminster Publishing House, 2001), 346.

This article by Jonathan Leeman first appeared at 9marks.org called "Church Membership is an Office and a Job".

]]>
God Chose This Home for You https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/god-chose-this-home-for-you https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/god-chose-this-home-for-you#comments Sat, 27 Oct 2018 14:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/god-chose-this-home-for-you Your address is not a coincidence.

Where you live — house, townhome, duplex, apartment, or dorm — is not ultimately a consequence of your budget, your stage of life, or your commute. You live where you live because God has deliberately, sovereignly placed you here. The long series of events, decisions, and circumstances that led you here really did lead you here. He brought you home one detail at a time.

The God who made the world, and everything in it, as Paul preached at Mars Hill, “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26–27).

God not only knit you together in your mother’s womb; he also sovereignly orchestrated all the places you would call home — the periods and boundaries of your “dwelling place.” You do not have a home by accident. Your home is an invitation from God to seek God, and a commission from God to help others seek God.

Five Dreams for Our Home

Our family’s address changed in the last few weeks. We only moved three short miles away, but we have felt the weight of leaving our last (and first) home behind. And we have felt the joy of making this new house our home (even with the joys of painting and moving wearing off more quickly).

The move has given us a fresh opportunity to think and dream and pray about having a home. Why do we have a home? What do we want to happen inside these walls? What will the legacy be of our years here, however many years we end up living here? As a family who believes in Jesus, obeys Jesus, and loves Jesus above all else, how do we make the most of this home?

The questions are all too big for us on our own, so we take them to God and let him speak. The verses below are shaping how our family intends to steward our home, and inspiring us to make it an outpost for ministry, rather than a retreat from our mission.

1. May we build our home on Christ and nothing less.

Of all the things that might show up on an inspection report, foundation issues are the worst. If you decide to buy a house with a bad foundation, you’re signing up to suffer a host of serious problems throughout your home, or you’re signing up to pay tens of thousands of dollars to have the foundation fixed. Most buyers simply walk away from a bad foundation, and for good reason.

If Christians are ever going to maintain and steward a home in a meaningful way, we must build our house on Christ. Regardless of whether we own or rent, whether we have lived here for 25 years or a few days, we have the opportunity to rebuild the foundation under our spiritual feet.

Jesus tells the parable,

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24–27)

If you’ve been living on sand, start pouring God’s word into the foundation underneath you and your family. As strong and secure as most modern homes may seem, many of them are quietly crumbling from the inside out because we’ve neglected the words of and about Jesus in Scripture. We subtly (or overtly) build homes on comfort, privacy, entertainment, and safety, without making room for God himself to speak. Then when the rains of various trials fall, or the floods of crises come, or the winds of life beat against us, the once strong house suddenly falls apart.

Build your home, instead, on the Rock. Allow his voice to be the regular stabilizing, guiding, shaping, correcting, and comforting foundation under your lives.

2. May we hold this home loosely.

Even hours into living in our new home, the temptation emerges to idolize the familiarity, comfort, and security a home brings. We are walking into our second home with eyes wide open to the reality that God may take away this home a year from now, or he may call us away from this home at any time for the sake of his kingdom.

Just as he has graciously and lovingly given, he may graciously and lovingly take away (Job 1:21). We bless his name today, and we resolve to bless him if and when a harder day comes.

Jesus says some of us will lose houses because we decided to follow him,

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29–30)

We may lose a house because of Christ, but we will never be losers in the process. However much we lose for his sake in this life, we receive a hundredfold now because of him — and infinitely more in eternity. For all those thousands upon thousands of years, having lost a house in this life will suddenly look and feel like having lost a favorite pen or pencil.

So, enjoy this home, but hold it loosely.

3. May we make our home a home for others.

When God gives us a home, he wants to care for our immediate family, but he also has other people in mind. The New Testament makes clear that God wants every Christian home — whether we are single, married, or parents — to be a home for people outside our home. Sometimes literally and physically, often more spiritually and emotionally.

Paul charges every home owner (or renter), “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality” (Romans 12:13). Hebrews adds, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers” (Hebrews 13:2). Show hospitality. Meaning, wherever you call home, bring people home with you — and use your home to serve the needs of others.

And do the harder, even impossible work of showing hospitality without grumbling(1 Peter 4:9) — without complaining about cleaning the home, or making extra food, or changing our plans, or being inconvenienced. Grumble-free hospitality and generosity will produce “the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2:15–16) — the distinct and beautiful smell we all want filling our homes.

4. May we prioritize our true family.

Among all the people we might bring into our home, the Bible calls us to prioritize one group above the rest — perhaps even more than our biological families. Paul says, “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:9–10). Especiallyto other lovers of Jesus.

When asked about his biological family, Jesus says, “‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:46–50). He also tells us to honor our parents and to provide for our biological families, but with a special burden for those who love and obey him with us.

You not only live in a home, or own a home; you are being made, with lots of other believers, into a home: “You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). Let your home be a catalyst for that kind of spiritual building, joining, and maturing within the family of faith.

5. May we remember that this home is not our home.

While we may live here for a season — five years, 25 years, maybe even 50 years — this is a temporary living situation. Our earthly home is not our true home, because we have a better home, and an abiding one, in heaven (Hebrews 10:34). “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). If we love, follow, and serve Christ, wherever we live in this world, we know we belong somewhere else.

That does not mean we cannot treasure these four walls. God has chosen these walls, for these days, specifically for us — for the sake of his glory through us and our joy in him. It does mean that we live inside these walls and care for these walls with hearts set on our final and everlasting home. As you enjoy this dwelling place for this allotted time, prepare your heart and family to live forever at home with the Lord.

This article by Marshall Segal first appeared at desiringGod.org called "God Chose This Home for You".

]]>
Your address is not a coincidence.

Where you live — house, townhome, duplex, apartment, or dorm — is not ultimately a consequence of your budget, your stage of life, or your commute. You live where you live because God has deliberately, sovereignly placed you here. The long series of events, decisions, and circumstances that led you here really did lead you here. He brought you home one detail at a time.

The God who made the world, and everything in it, as Paul preached at Mars Hill, “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26–27).

God not only knit you together in your mother’s womb; he also sovereignly orchestrated all the places you would call home — the periods and boundaries of your “dwelling place.” You do not have a home by accident. Your home is an invitation from God to seek God, and a commission from God to help others seek God.

Five Dreams for Our Home

Our family’s address changed in the last few weeks. We only moved three short miles away, but we have felt the weight of leaving our last (and first) home behind. And we have felt the joy of making this new house our home (even with the joys of painting and moving wearing off more quickly).

The move has given us a fresh opportunity to think and dream and pray about having a home. Why do we have a home? What do we want to happen inside these walls? What will the legacy be of our years here, however many years we end up living here? As a family who believes in Jesus, obeys Jesus, and loves Jesus above all else, how do we make the most of this home?

The questions are all too big for us on our own, so we take them to God and let him speak. The verses below are shaping how our family intends to steward our home, and inspiring us to make it an outpost for ministry, rather than a retreat from our mission.

1. May we build our home on Christ and nothing less.

Of all the things that might show up on an inspection report, foundation issues are the worst. If you decide to buy a house with a bad foundation, you’re signing up to suffer a host of serious problems throughout your home, or you’re signing up to pay tens of thousands of dollars to have the foundation fixed. Most buyers simply walk away from a bad foundation, and for good reason.

If Christians are ever going to maintain and steward a home in a meaningful way, we must build our house on Christ. Regardless of whether we own or rent, whether we have lived here for 25 years or a few days, we have the opportunity to rebuild the foundation under our spiritual feet.

Jesus tells the parable,

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24–27)

If you’ve been living on sand, start pouring God’s word into the foundation underneath you and your family. As strong and secure as most modern homes may seem, many of them are quietly crumbling from the inside out because we’ve neglected the words of and about Jesus in Scripture. We subtly (or overtly) build homes on comfort, privacy, entertainment, and safety, without making room for God himself to speak. Then when the rains of various trials fall, or the floods of crises come, or the winds of life beat against us, the once strong house suddenly falls apart.

Build your home, instead, on the Rock. Allow his voice to be the regular stabilizing, guiding, shaping, correcting, and comforting foundation under your lives.

2. May we hold this home loosely.

Even hours into living in our new home, the temptation emerges to idolize the familiarity, comfort, and security a home brings. We are walking into our second home with eyes wide open to the reality that God may take away this home a year from now, or he may call us away from this home at any time for the sake of his kingdom.

Just as he has graciously and lovingly given, he may graciously and lovingly take away (Job 1:21). We bless his name today, and we resolve to bless him if and when a harder day comes.

Jesus says some of us will lose houses because we decided to follow him,

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29–30)

We may lose a house because of Christ, but we will never be losers in the process. However much we lose for his sake in this life, we receive a hundredfold now because of him — and infinitely more in eternity. For all those thousands upon thousands of years, having lost a house in this life will suddenly look and feel like having lost a favorite pen or pencil.

So, enjoy this home, but hold it loosely.

3. May we make our home a home for others.

When God gives us a home, he wants to care for our immediate family, but he also has other people in mind. The New Testament makes clear that God wants every Christian home — whether we are single, married, or parents — to be a home for people outside our home. Sometimes literally and physically, often more spiritually and emotionally.

Paul charges every home owner (or renter), “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality” (Romans 12:13). Hebrews adds, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers” (Hebrews 13:2). Show hospitality. Meaning, wherever you call home, bring people home with you — and use your home to serve the needs of others.

And do the harder, even impossible work of showing hospitality without grumbling(1 Peter 4:9) — without complaining about cleaning the home, or making extra food, or changing our plans, or being inconvenienced. Grumble-free hospitality and generosity will produce “the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2:15–16) — the distinct and beautiful smell we all want filling our homes.

4. May we prioritize our true family.

Among all the people we might bring into our home, the Bible calls us to prioritize one group above the rest — perhaps even more than our biological families. Paul says, “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:9–10). Especiallyto other lovers of Jesus.

When asked about his biological family, Jesus says, “‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:46–50). He also tells us to honor our parents and to provide for our biological families, but with a special burden for those who love and obey him with us.

You not only live in a home, or own a home; you are being made, with lots of other believers, into a home: “You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). Let your home be a catalyst for that kind of spiritual building, joining, and maturing within the family of faith.

5. May we remember that this home is not our home.

While we may live here for a season — five years, 25 years, maybe even 50 years — this is a temporary living situation. Our earthly home is not our true home, because we have a better home, and an abiding one, in heaven (Hebrews 10:34). “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). If we love, follow, and serve Christ, wherever we live in this world, we know we belong somewhere else.

That does not mean we cannot treasure these four walls. God has chosen these walls, for these days, specifically for us — for the sake of his glory through us and our joy in him. It does mean that we live inside these walls and care for these walls with hearts set on our final and everlasting home. As you enjoy this dwelling place for this allotted time, prepare your heart and family to live forever at home with the Lord.

This article by Marshall Segal first appeared at desiringGod.org called "God Chose This Home for You".

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Your Church is Not a Restaurant https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/your-church-is-not-a-restaurant https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/your-church-is-not-a-restaurant#comments Sat, 27 Oct 2018 14:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/your-church-is-not-a-restaurant In recent columns, we’ve explored how the church can be faithful in a world of “expressive individualism.” But what happens when the church doesn’t stand out?

In a consumer-oriented society, the default orientation for church attenders is to see their local congregation as a dispenser of religious goods and services. I say “default” not because it’s inevitable that everyone who goes to church perceives their congregation this way, but because without serious and sustained effort to have a more biblical approach people will naturally gravitate toward a view of the church that is influenced by a consumerist imagination.

In Gaining by Losing, J. D. Greear uses three metaphors to help us understand these different conceptions of the church.

The Church as Cruise Liner

Some Christians see church as a cruise liner, offering Christian luxuries for the whole family, such as sports, entertainment, childcare services, and business networking. They show up at church asking only, “Can this church improve my religious quality of life? Does it have good family ministry facilities? Does the pastor preach funny, time-conscious messages that meet my felt needs? Do I like the music?”

The Church as Battleship

Other Christians believe their church is more like a battleship. The church is made for mission, and its success should be seen in how loudly and dramatically it fights the mission. This is certainly better than the “cruise liner”; however, it implies that it is the church institution that does most of the fighting. The role of the church members it to pay the pastors to find the targets and fire the guns each week as they gather to watch. They see the programs, services, and ministries of the church as the primary instruments of mission.

The Church as Aircraft Carrier

I would like to suggest a third metaphor for the church: aircraft carrier. Like battleships, aircraft carriers engage in battle, but not in the same way. Aircraft carriers equip planes to carry the battle elsewhere. . . . Churches that want to “prevail against the gates of hell” must learn to see themselves like aircraft carriers, not like battleships and certainly not like cruise liners. Members need to learn to share the gospel, without the help of the pastor, in the community, and start ministries and Bible studies—even churches—in places without them. Churches must become discipleship factories, “sending” agencies that equip their members to take the battle to the enemy.

I love J. D.’s categorization of concepts concerning the church. It helps cut through the debates over “missional” or “attractional” or “traditional” models by showing us the purpose of the church and reinforcing the why behind our gatherings. In conversations with other pastors, almost everyone agrees that more people in our congregations have the cruise liner mentality than we’d like to admit and that it is natural for even mission-focused churches to slide back toward that mindset. In a consumer society, the drift will always be in that direction.

The Church as Restaurant

But there’s one more metaphor I’d like to add to this list. It differs somewhat with the cruise liner mentality because the focus isn’t on the reason why you’d choose to belong to a particular church over another one, but on the reason why you might attend a variety of churches without ever committing to any of them. It’s when you see the church as a restaurant.

“My church” isn’t determined by where I have my membership or where I most belong. My church just happens to be my favorite of many different experiences, much like going out to eat. Our family has a favorite restaurant that is our “default” whenever we’re going to eat out. But we have lots of other restaurants that we enjoy from time to time. Sometimes we’re in the mood for steak. Other times, for chicken, American cuisine, or a Mexican restaurant, or a local dive. Church is like that, too. “Our church” is the one we attend most often, but it’s not the only one we like.

What happens here is that church members migrate from one congregation to another, enjoying for a season the preaching and music here, sometimes coming back to their go-to congregation when they’re in the mood for something more familiar, or heading over to a third church for a mission trip. The result is sporadic attendance at any particular congregation.

When pastors notice that their church members have been absent for a while and they check up on them, they’re puzzled to discover that there isn’t a particular reason why these members have been more absent than present. The attenders are not mad, and they’ve not had a bad experience; they just see church attendance much as someone might see the choice between Firehouse Subs or Red Robin. It’s whatever they’re in the mood for that Sunday, or during that season of life.

This mentality is more common in areas of the Bible Belt than in other parts of the country. It’s largely contained to areas where there are many churches of various sizes and styles, yet still with an evangelical ethos. The mindset is not as common in places where there are only one or two similar churches.

The problem with viewing the church as a restaurant is that it amplifies the cruise liner mentality in that the service is all directed one-way. The attender pays with time or money and expects a religious service. This is consumerist, not missional. But the bigger challenge is that the person isn’t even committed to the cruise. In the case of the restaurant, there’s not enough commitment to even keep people attending week after week, making it hard for the consumerist mindset to be challenged at all.

I wonder if others have noticed this to be an issue in places where there are many churches from which to choose. If so, how have you sought to address this problem?

Learn more about the relationship between TGC and the blogs we are honored to host.

This article by Trevor Wax first appeared at thegospelcoalition.org called "Your Church is Not a Restaurant".

]]>
In recent columns, we’ve explored how the church can be faithful in a world of “expressive individualism.” But what happens when the church doesn’t stand out?

In a consumer-oriented society, the default orientation for church attenders is to see their local congregation as a dispenser of religious goods and services. I say “default” not because it’s inevitable that everyone who goes to church perceives their congregation this way, but because without serious and sustained effort to have a more biblical approach people will naturally gravitate toward a view of the church that is influenced by a consumerist imagination.

In Gaining by Losing, J. D. Greear uses three metaphors to help us understand these different conceptions of the church.

The Church as Cruise Liner

Some Christians see church as a cruise liner, offering Christian luxuries for the whole family, such as sports, entertainment, childcare services, and business networking. They show up at church asking only, “Can this church improve my religious quality of life? Does it have good family ministry facilities? Does the pastor preach funny, time-conscious messages that meet my felt needs? Do I like the music?”

The Church as Battleship

Other Christians believe their church is more like a battleship. The church is made for mission, and its success should be seen in how loudly and dramatically it fights the mission. This is certainly better than the “cruise liner”; however, it implies that it is the church institution that does most of the fighting. The role of the church members it to pay the pastors to find the targets and fire the guns each week as they gather to watch. They see the programs, services, and ministries of the church as the primary instruments of mission.

The Church as Aircraft Carrier

I would like to suggest a third metaphor for the church: aircraft carrier. Like battleships, aircraft carriers engage in battle, but not in the same way. Aircraft carriers equip planes to carry the battle elsewhere. . . . Churches that want to “prevail against the gates of hell” must learn to see themselves like aircraft carriers, not like battleships and certainly not like cruise liners. Members need to learn to share the gospel, without the help of the pastor, in the community, and start ministries and Bible studies—even churches—in places without them. Churches must become discipleship factories, “sending” agencies that equip their members to take the battle to the enemy.

I love J. D.’s categorization of concepts concerning the church. It helps cut through the debates over “missional” or “attractional” or “traditional” models by showing us the purpose of the church and reinforcing the why behind our gatherings. In conversations with other pastors, almost everyone agrees that more people in our congregations have the cruise liner mentality than we’d like to admit and that it is natural for even mission-focused churches to slide back toward that mindset. In a consumer society, the drift will always be in that direction.

The Church as Restaurant

But there’s one more metaphor I’d like to add to this list. It differs somewhat with the cruise liner mentality because the focus isn’t on the reason why you’d choose to belong to a particular church over another one, but on the reason why you might attend a variety of churches without ever committing to any of them. It’s when you see the church as a restaurant.

“My church” isn’t determined by where I have my membership or where I most belong. My church just happens to be my favorite of many different experiences, much like going out to eat. Our family has a favorite restaurant that is our “default” whenever we’re going to eat out. But we have lots of other restaurants that we enjoy from time to time. Sometimes we’re in the mood for steak. Other times, for chicken, American cuisine, or a Mexican restaurant, or a local dive. Church is like that, too. “Our church” is the one we attend most often, but it’s not the only one we like.

What happens here is that church members migrate from one congregation to another, enjoying for a season the preaching and music here, sometimes coming back to their go-to congregation when they’re in the mood for something more familiar, or heading over to a third church for a mission trip. The result is sporadic attendance at any particular congregation.

When pastors notice that their church members have been absent for a while and they check up on them, they’re puzzled to discover that there isn’t a particular reason why these members have been more absent than present. The attenders are not mad, and they’ve not had a bad experience; they just see church attendance much as someone might see the choice between Firehouse Subs or Red Robin. It’s whatever they’re in the mood for that Sunday, or during that season of life.

This mentality is more common in areas of the Bible Belt than in other parts of the country. It’s largely contained to areas where there are many churches of various sizes and styles, yet still with an evangelical ethos. The mindset is not as common in places where there are only one or two similar churches.

The problem with viewing the church as a restaurant is that it amplifies the cruise liner mentality in that the service is all directed one-way. The attender pays with time or money and expects a religious service. This is consumerist, not missional. But the bigger challenge is that the person isn’t even committed to the cruise. In the case of the restaurant, there’s not enough commitment to even keep people attending week after week, making it hard for the consumerist mindset to be challenged at all.

I wonder if others have noticed this to be an issue in places where there are many churches from which to choose. If so, how have you sought to address this problem?

Learn more about the relationship between TGC and the blogs we are honored to host.

This article by Trevor Wax first appeared at thegospelcoalition.org called "Your Church is Not a Restaurant".

]]>
The Benefits of Going to Church on Vacation https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/the-benefits-of-going-to-church-on-vacation https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/the-benefits-of-going-to-church-on-vacation#comments Sun, 30 Sep 2018 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/the-benefits-of-going-to-church-on-vacation Airline tickets? Check.

Rental car? Check.

Hotel? Check.

Church for Sunday? Uh, no. This is vacation.

There are many reasons we don’t attend church while on vacation or traveling abroad. We wouldn’t know anyone at the church, so we might be uncomfortable and conspicuous. We might have to get up earlier than we’d like. There might be a language barrier. What about childcare? You don’t want to leave your kids with strangers! And as Thabiti Anyabwile notes, when we plan to take a break from our normal routine, we often include a break from church.

Going to church on vacation is challenging, but our family has come to value it as an opportunity to fellowship with believers we might not otherwise meet. Some of my most memorable and spiritually refreshing moments while traveling have been worshiping in a local church. In fact, they’ve transformed my perspective on how God is at work through his people around the world.

Blessings of Worshiping with Strangers

Years ago, I attended an English-language service in a small basement church in Paris. The congregation of 50 was dynamic, comprising many nationalities using English as the common language. That Sunday they were having a clothes drive for families in poverty, not unlike what my home church would do. My love for the global body of Christ grew through that interaction.

In Chartres, France, my husband and I were deeply moved as a young man and his praise team led a small group of worshipers in the main hall of the famous cathedral on Easter Sunday. Though my husband doesn’t speak French, I translated some of the phrases, and he was able to sing with understanding. Hearing worship in a foreign language deepens our understanding of how God communicates and inhabits the praises of his people. We may not understand the words, but God does.

In Amsterdam, I attended a centuries-old English-speaking church. The sanctuary built to host hundreds held only a dozen elderly people. They were overjoyed to see my young face, and even more excited that I participated in the congregational singing. The presence of a stranger worshiping in their midst was a tremendous encouragement to them.

On a three-day weekend in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, my husband and I decided to worship at the church of a familiar denomination. Before the service began, we bumped into parents of a college friend I hadn’t been in touch with for several years. What a pleasant surprise to meet his relatives. There are no surprises in the body of Christ—only encounters he uses to refresh us and remind us that his family is everywhere.

How to Find a Church

When researching churches to attend on vacation or traveling abroad, you may not find a church you would join, but it’s likely you can find a church where you can worship for one Sunday. Here are seven ways to find one.

1. Read the ‘Statement of Faith’ page on the church website.

Church websites often have a summary of their beliefs, along with a list of staff, including short bios of the individuals and their education. This will give you an idea of their theological bent. If your home church belongs to a particular denomination, visiting a church of the same denomination mitigates (though it doesn’t eliminate) church-search challenges. (The Gospel Coalition has a church directory of likeminded congregations around the world.)

2. Find a church close to your lodging.

You’ll be more likely to attend and even arrive on time. It will also make you aware of the believers who live in the community you’re visiting. The church members may be your neighbors, particularly if you’re staying in a vacation rental.

3. Research denominational church plants abroad.

Missionaries serving these church plants would be aware of any local English-speaking fellowships. I grew up overseas, the daughter of missionaries. On Sunday mornings the missionaries ministered in the local languages. In the evenings English-speaking expats would gather for English fellowship. Guests were always welcome; indeed, their presence was greatly encouraging.

4. Find English-speaking services.

If traveling internationally, research “English-speaking fellowship” or “international church” in the city of your choice. That’s how I found a worship service in Cyprus composed mostly of British retirees and snowbirds. I was encouraged by their evangelism efforts and their passion to serve the growing refugee community from their meager resources.

5. Find services with simultaneous English translation.

Many churches in urban centers and university towns abroad offer simultaneous English translation. We visited a church in Germany where English speakers were offered a headset to wear during the service. A translator spoke the sermon in English while the pastor preached in German. Simultaneous translation may seem odd to the uninitiated, but across the globe thousands of churches use it so members can hear God’s truth in their mother tongue.

6. Arrive with a posture of humility.

I’ll be the first to admit that when I visit a church, I’m quick to notice the things I don’t like. The guitar is out of tune. There are typos in the bulletin, how unprofessional. The sermon isn’t polished. Do they really need to repeat the chorus seven times? A mature Christian sets aside preferences and rejoices to worship the living God in unity with their brothers and sisters in Christ.

7. Be flexible with your kids.

As a mother of four, ages 8 and younger, I’m well aware that visiting a church on vacation is hard. Some churches keep children in the service. Chances are, if there are many youngsters in the crowd, the congregation is used to the occasional youthful shenanigan. If childcare is offered, though, arrive early so you have time to put them in the nursery or Sunday school. Visiting a church is a great opportunity for children to expand their vision of what church is.

Diversity of the Global Fellowship

A friend and I once took a pilgrimage to a dreamland from our youth—Prince Edward Island, Canada. I researched churches near our lodging and found a good option. Shortly after breakfast we drove down a winding country road and spotted the white church on a verdant hill in the distance. We parked on the gravel and walked into a service that had already begun. We, along with my 4 month old, entered discreetly and found open seats. The congregation was small and, yes, I felt all eyes on us as we took our places at the end of a pew. We were obviously not from around there.

Unlike my home church, this one didn’t use instruments. The congregation raised their voices heartily, led by the pastor at the pulpit. At the close of the service, we were greeted genuinely by various congregants who invited us to the fellowship hall in the basement for the weekly church potluck. Though we came empty-handed, they insisted we join them. They had nothing to gain except mutual encouragement. They knew they would likely never see us again, but they extended the hand of Christian hospitality anyway. I was reminded once again that even though attending church on vacation can be stressful, the blessings far outweigh the burdens.

This article by Heidi Carlson first appeared at thegospelcoalition.org called "The Benefits of Going to Church on Vacation".

]]>
Airline tickets? Check.

Rental car? Check.

Hotel? Check.

Church for Sunday? Uh, no. This is vacation.

There are many reasons we don’t attend church while on vacation or traveling abroad. We wouldn’t know anyone at the church, so we might be uncomfortable and conspicuous. We might have to get up earlier than we’d like. There might be a language barrier. What about childcare? You don’t want to leave your kids with strangers! And as Thabiti Anyabwile notes, when we plan to take a break from our normal routine, we often include a break from church.

Going to church on vacation is challenging, but our family has come to value it as an opportunity to fellowship with believers we might not otherwise meet. Some of my most memorable and spiritually refreshing moments while traveling have been worshiping in a local church. In fact, they’ve transformed my perspective on how God is at work through his people around the world.

Blessings of Worshiping with Strangers

Years ago, I attended an English-language service in a small basement church in Paris. The congregation of 50 was dynamic, comprising many nationalities using English as the common language. That Sunday they were having a clothes drive for families in poverty, not unlike what my home church would do. My love for the global body of Christ grew through that interaction.

In Chartres, France, my husband and I were deeply moved as a young man and his praise team led a small group of worshipers in the main hall of the famous cathedral on Easter Sunday. Though my husband doesn’t speak French, I translated some of the phrases, and he was able to sing with understanding. Hearing worship in a foreign language deepens our understanding of how God communicates and inhabits the praises of his people. We may not understand the words, but God does.

In Amsterdam, I attended a centuries-old English-speaking church. The sanctuary built to host hundreds held only a dozen elderly people. They were overjoyed to see my young face, and even more excited that I participated in the congregational singing. The presence of a stranger worshiping in their midst was a tremendous encouragement to them.

On a three-day weekend in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, my husband and I decided to worship at the church of a familiar denomination. Before the service began, we bumped into parents of a college friend I hadn’t been in touch with for several years. What a pleasant surprise to meet his relatives. There are no surprises in the body of Christ—only encounters he uses to refresh us and remind us that his family is everywhere.

How to Find a Church

When researching churches to attend on vacation or traveling abroad, you may not find a church you would join, but it’s likely you can find a church where you can worship for one Sunday. Here are seven ways to find one.

1. Read the ‘Statement of Faith’ page on the church website.

Church websites often have a summary of their beliefs, along with a list of staff, including short bios of the individuals and their education. This will give you an idea of their theological bent. If your home church belongs to a particular denomination, visiting a church of the same denomination mitigates (though it doesn’t eliminate) church-search challenges. (The Gospel Coalition has a church directory of likeminded congregations around the world.)

2. Find a church close to your lodging.

You’ll be more likely to attend and even arrive on time. It will also make you aware of the believers who live in the community you’re visiting. The church members may be your neighbors, particularly if you’re staying in a vacation rental.

3. Research denominational church plants abroad.

Missionaries serving these church plants would be aware of any local English-speaking fellowships. I grew up overseas, the daughter of missionaries. On Sunday mornings the missionaries ministered in the local languages. In the evenings English-speaking expats would gather for English fellowship. Guests were always welcome; indeed, their presence was greatly encouraging.

4. Find English-speaking services.

If traveling internationally, research “English-speaking fellowship” or “international church” in the city of your choice. That’s how I found a worship service in Cyprus composed mostly of British retirees and snowbirds. I was encouraged by their evangelism efforts and their passion to serve the growing refugee community from their meager resources.

5. Find services with simultaneous English translation.

Many churches in urban centers and university towns abroad offer simultaneous English translation. We visited a church in Germany where English speakers were offered a headset to wear during the service. A translator spoke the sermon in English while the pastor preached in German. Simultaneous translation may seem odd to the uninitiated, but across the globe thousands of churches use it so members can hear God’s truth in their mother tongue.

6. Arrive with a posture of humility.

I’ll be the first to admit that when I visit a church, I’m quick to notice the things I don’t like. The guitar is out of tune. There are typos in the bulletin, how unprofessional. The sermon isn’t polished. Do they really need to repeat the chorus seven times? A mature Christian sets aside preferences and rejoices to worship the living God in unity with their brothers and sisters in Christ.

7. Be flexible with your kids.

As a mother of four, ages 8 and younger, I’m well aware that visiting a church on vacation is hard. Some churches keep children in the service. Chances are, if there are many youngsters in the crowd, the congregation is used to the occasional youthful shenanigan. If childcare is offered, though, arrive early so you have time to put them in the nursery or Sunday school. Visiting a church is a great opportunity for children to expand their vision of what church is.

Diversity of the Global Fellowship

A friend and I once took a pilgrimage to a dreamland from our youth—Prince Edward Island, Canada. I researched churches near our lodging and found a good option. Shortly after breakfast we drove down a winding country road and spotted the white church on a verdant hill in the distance. We parked on the gravel and walked into a service that had already begun. We, along with my 4 month old, entered discreetly and found open seats. The congregation was small and, yes, I felt all eyes on us as we took our places at the end of a pew. We were obviously not from around there.

Unlike my home church, this one didn’t use instruments. The congregation raised their voices heartily, led by the pastor at the pulpit. At the close of the service, we were greeted genuinely by various congregants who invited us to the fellowship hall in the basement for the weekly church potluck. Though we came empty-handed, they insisted we join them. They had nothing to gain except mutual encouragement. They knew they would likely never see us again, but they extended the hand of Christian hospitality anyway. I was reminded once again that even though attending church on vacation can be stressful, the blessings far outweigh the burdens.

This article by Heidi Carlson first appeared at thegospelcoalition.org called "The Benefits of Going to Church on Vacation".

]]>
How Corporate Worship Strengthens Weary Saints https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/how-corporate-worship-strengthens-weary-saints https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/how-corporate-worship-strengthens-weary-saints#comments Sun, 30 Sep 2018 14:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/how-corporate-worship-strengthens-weary-saints When my church gathers, it appears we have little in common. Our skin colors vary. Our political tastes differ. Cultural backgrounds have ingrained us with diverse identities. We have distinct preferences and convictions.

Yet, we have two realities that bind us together.

The first is our love for the Lord Jesus. Though each salvation story is unique, we bear the marks of his divine love. He died for us, rose for us, called us, converted us, and continues to hold us fast by his grace. We love him for this, and so we gather to worship him.

Secondly, we all suffer. I have my own scars, as do the rest of these heavenly pilgrims. While I preach, I see their faces tell a story. Or when they sing, sometimes I hear and sense the hurts and pain of God’s people.

Why Gather?

As a pastor, I have the privilege of walking with many through their pain. Miscarriages. Ailing parents. Straying children. Aching bodies. Haunting depression. Relentless temptations. Unemployment. Longing to be married. Tired of their marriage. Loneliness. Persecutions. Our afflictions could fill a library.

Yet week in and week out, month after month, year after year, we gather to worship.

Gathering is not always easy. Swirling political and racial tension drains many of us. The constant reports of terrorism and natural disasters overwhelm us. Personal pains and tempter’s snares at one time or another have slowed each of our steps.

But we still gather to worship because God has graciously commanded us to do so. He has promised that through our gathering, he strengthens us and uses us to spur one another on. And through all of this, he is glorified—in his weak, feeble, worshiping bride.

God’s Strength On Display

Our weakness supplies the perfect opportunity for God’s strength to be put on display (2 Cor 12:9). One of the primary ways God strengthens his people is through the corporate worship gathering.

“The Lord is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed. Oh, save your people and bless your heritage! Be their shepherd and carry them forever” (Ps 28:8–9, ESV).

When we gather in faith around his Word, God supernaturally supplies strength to aid our weary souls. This truth is entwined throughout the New Testament, but is explicitly taught in the book of Hebrews. Consider this exhortation:

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb 10:23–25, ESV).

The author directly connects our enduring confession of Jesus with the intentional gathering of his people. God uses the local church as a means of exhortation and encouragement to persevere in faith until we reach our heavenly home.

Neglecting to gather with the church puts our soul in danger. Sin can overtake us by its deceitful attacks (Heb 3:12–13). We risk isolating ourselves from other believers especially when we suffer. But we must resist the temptation to withdraw and instead gather in hope of receiving God’s strengthening grace.

Good News for Struggling Saints

We need to hear God’s voice especially during our greatest times of trial. We know that when we proclaim Scripture, God speaks to us. This is why every element of our worship services ought to be filled with the Word. Let’s consider this together. God strengthens us through preaching. We could fill up volumes that describe the ways God uses his preached Word to help his people. Chief among them is to assure us that he remains faithful to keep his promises.

Disorienting lies swirl in our minds when we travel through the wilderness of affliction. This is why it’s safe to say there is nothing more relevant to the human heart than the Word of God.

His Word is filled with precious and very great promises which supply everything we need in our trials (2 Pet 1:4). We find assurance that our weakness is not a curse but an opportunity for God to show his power (Exod 14; 2 Cor 12:8–9). When the Word is preached in the gathering, both the one preaching and those listening receive what they need most.

God’s Word teaches the good news for struggling saints like us. It reminds us that we never graduate from the gospel. Jesus is not only the Savior of lost people, he is also the shepherd of pilgrim people. Our desperation, brokenness, weariness, and needs never stop. And he never ceases being a faithful, powerful, compassionate, sympathetic Savior.

Observing Ordinances

God strengthens his people when they gather around his Word. He calls us to come near and be refreshed by the promise of fresh mercies purchased for us by the blood of Jesus (Lam 3:22–24).

God also strengthens us through observing ordinances. While preaching helps us hear the gospel, the ordinances help us see it. When a sinner plunges into the waters of baptism, we are freshly reminded of God’s mercy toward us. When we take the Lord’s Supper together, we tangibly consider Jesus who entered into our broken world and suffered for us.

God designed these ordinances to be taken together by the church to remind us that we have a High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses (Heb 4:15). They call us to Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and his fast-approaching return (1 Cor 11:26). They are memorials of mercy God uses to strengthen our faith in him.

Prayer also helps. God strengthens his people through praying. “When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31, ESV).

Setting Our Gaze on God

Prayer is one of the most fundamental reasons believers gather. Prayerfulness marked the early church and should mark us as well. We pray for all the saints (Eph 6:18) and especially for the sick, those who suffer, and those ensnared in sin (Jas 5:13–20). Though we often do not know what to pray, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness (Rom 8:26).

When we read the Scriptures, we find a variety of prayers. Each type of prayer highlights a different part of our relationship with God. Though public prayer looks different in every gathering, it should always aid the congregation in remembering that our help comes from the Lord (Ps 121).

Prayers of praise set our gaze on the God who ordains and orchestrates all things for the good of his people (Rom 8:28). Prayers of confession bring our transgressions to mind and lead us to humbly bring them to his throne of grace (Ps 38, 51; Heb 4:14–16). Prayers of thanks help us remember his faithfulness while prayers of supplication teach us to bring all our needs to a heavenly Father who cares for us (Matt 6:8; 1 Pet 5:7).

As we hear others pray, we are reminded of specific ways God has worked in the past which gives hope in the present to trust him in the future. Corporate prayer strengthens weary saints.

Making a Melody to the Lord

God strengthens us through our singing, as we “address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Eph 5:19, ESV).

One of my great joys is to sing with the saints at our church. Not only do their strong voices move me, but also the heart of faith that leads their voices. This verse teaches us that when we sing songs filled with his Word, they serve in two ways:

First, they serve as personal testimony to the Lord. Through singing, we proclaim words about God to him. He delights when his people gather before him and declare truths about him. He is glorified in this, and we are edified.

This singing should be done “with your heart.” Heart-oriented worship is always God’s desire (Ps 51:17, ESV). When we feel the weariness of sorrow, our hearts are prone to retreat from God and find refuge in idols.

Yet, singing truths to God helps us to follow David’s example of forcing our soul to fix its gaze upon the God who rules and reigns over all our sorrows. “Why are you cast down, O my soul . . . hope in God; for I shall again praise him” (Ps 42:11, ESV).

Word-infused songs to God serve as a balm to the soul. The lies of the deceiver can overcome anyone. Instead, lift a melody of hope to the Lord in the face of sorrow. God is greatly glorified by this logic-defying worship, and he is not the only one who is blessed by it.

Secondly, singing serves as an encouragement to each other. Suprisingly, God actually commands us to “address one another” in song (Eph 5:19). When we sing truths about God’s love or faithfulness, they fall upon the ears of other saints gathered with us.

When I watch our church sing “When Trials Come,” I know their song springs from hearts that have known heavy hardship. There’s guilt over abortions, scars from sexual abuse, and wounds from harsh words. Some of their bodies grow weary from having a family or from disease. Others simply fade with age. Yet they sing to a God who never fails them.

“One day all things will be made new I’ll see the hope you called me to, And in your kingdom paved with gold, I’ll praise your faithfulness of old I’ll praise your faithfulness of old.”

The faithfulness of God will forever be the anthem of our songs. Today we sing these songs by faith. When we approach each other sober-minded and with our sufferings in light of eternity, it strengthens us to keep trusting until the day when faith will become sight.

Until That Great Day

When our gathering ends, we scatter. Yet we do not go alone. We go out as a community strengthened from what God has done among us. From our gathering we grow in unity. Relationships have formed, grown, and furthered.

God uses these Spirit-empowered, Word-strengthened relationships to help each other toward heaven. We need each other because we are not strong at the same time. We bear each other’s burdens as we go about the work the Lord has given us to do (Gal 6:2).

That work includes telling sufferers about the hope we have in Jesus. We go to the lost and say that Jesus has rescued us from our sins and he can rescue them as well. We call people to repent and believe in Jesus, the Savior of sinners and sufferers.

This is what we do. We gather and scatter together until that great day when we shall gather in the land where crying and pain will cease to exist. What a day that will be when we shall see how the orchestrator of eternity has worked all things, wonderful and hurtful, into a marvelous tapestry for his glory and our good (Rom 8:18, 28; 2 Cor 4:17; 1 Pet 5:10).

“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth . . . In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation’” (Isa 25:8–9, see Rev 21:1–7).

Let us gather together in worship, strengthening each other in all we do, making ourselves ready for the Lord Jesus to arrive.

Come, Lord Jesus, come!

J. Garrett Kell (ThM, 2006) grew up in Berkeley Springs, WV and attended Virginia Tech where he came to know the Lord through the witness of a friend and the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Garrett serves as Lead Pastor of Del Ray Baptist Church. He is married to Carrie and together they have four children, Eden, Haddon, Phoebe, and Graham. Garrett enjoys hanging out with his family, watching sports and occasionally doing some type of exercise.

This article by J Garrett Kell first appeared on https://voice.dts.edu website.

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When my church gathers, it appears we have little in common. Our skin colors vary. Our political tastes differ. Cultural backgrounds have ingrained us with diverse identities. We have distinct preferences and convictions.

Yet, we have two realities that bind us together.

The first is our love for the Lord Jesus. Though each salvation story is unique, we bear the marks of his divine love. He died for us, rose for us, called us, converted us, and continues to hold us fast by his grace. We love him for this, and so we gather to worship him.

Secondly, we all suffer. I have my own scars, as do the rest of these heavenly pilgrims. While I preach, I see their faces tell a story. Or when they sing, sometimes I hear and sense the hurts and pain of God’s people.

Why Gather?

As a pastor, I have the privilege of walking with many through their pain. Miscarriages. Ailing parents. Straying children. Aching bodies. Haunting depression. Relentless temptations. Unemployment. Longing to be married. Tired of their marriage. Loneliness. Persecutions. Our afflictions could fill a library.

Yet week in and week out, month after month, year after year, we gather to worship.

Gathering is not always easy. Swirling political and racial tension drains many of us. The constant reports of terrorism and natural disasters overwhelm us. Personal pains and tempter’s snares at one time or another have slowed each of our steps.

But we still gather to worship because God has graciously commanded us to do so. He has promised that through our gathering, he strengthens us and uses us to spur one another on. And through all of this, he is glorified—in his weak, feeble, worshiping bride.

God’s Strength On Display

Our weakness supplies the perfect opportunity for God’s strength to be put on display (2 Cor 12:9). One of the primary ways God strengthens his people is through the corporate worship gathering.

“The Lord is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed. Oh, save your people and bless your heritage! Be their shepherd and carry them forever” (Ps 28:8–9, ESV).

When we gather in faith around his Word, God supernaturally supplies strength to aid our weary souls. This truth is entwined throughout the New Testament, but is explicitly taught in the book of Hebrews. Consider this exhortation:

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb 10:23–25, ESV).

The author directly connects our enduring confession of Jesus with the intentional gathering of his people. God uses the local church as a means of exhortation and encouragement to persevere in faith until we reach our heavenly home.

Neglecting to gather with the church puts our soul in danger. Sin can overtake us by its deceitful attacks (Heb 3:12–13). We risk isolating ourselves from other believers especially when we suffer. But we must resist the temptation to withdraw and instead gather in hope of receiving God’s strengthening grace.

Good News for Struggling Saints

We need to hear God’s voice especially during our greatest times of trial. We know that when we proclaim Scripture, God speaks to us. This is why every element of our worship services ought to be filled with the Word. Let’s consider this together. God strengthens us through preaching. We could fill up volumes that describe the ways God uses his preached Word to help his people. Chief among them is to assure us that he remains faithful to keep his promises.

Disorienting lies swirl in our minds when we travel through the wilderness of affliction. This is why it’s safe to say there is nothing more relevant to the human heart than the Word of God.

His Word is filled with precious and very great promises which supply everything we need in our trials (2 Pet 1:4). We find assurance that our weakness is not a curse but an opportunity for God to show his power (Exod 14; 2 Cor 12:8–9). When the Word is preached in the gathering, both the one preaching and those listening receive what they need most.

God’s Word teaches the good news for struggling saints like us. It reminds us that we never graduate from the gospel. Jesus is not only the Savior of lost people, he is also the shepherd of pilgrim people. Our desperation, brokenness, weariness, and needs never stop. And he never ceases being a faithful, powerful, compassionate, sympathetic Savior.

Observing Ordinances

God strengthens his people when they gather around his Word. He calls us to come near and be refreshed by the promise of fresh mercies purchased for us by the blood of Jesus (Lam 3:22–24).

God also strengthens us through observing ordinances. While preaching helps us hear the gospel, the ordinances help us see it. When a sinner plunges into the waters of baptism, we are freshly reminded of God’s mercy toward us. When we take the Lord’s Supper together, we tangibly consider Jesus who entered into our broken world and suffered for us.

God designed these ordinances to be taken together by the church to remind us that we have a High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses (Heb 4:15). They call us to Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and his fast-approaching return (1 Cor 11:26). They are memorials of mercy God uses to strengthen our faith in him.

Prayer also helps. God strengthens his people through praying. “When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31, ESV).

Setting Our Gaze on God

Prayer is one of the most fundamental reasons believers gather. Prayerfulness marked the early church and should mark us as well. We pray for all the saints (Eph 6:18) and especially for the sick, those who suffer, and those ensnared in sin (Jas 5:13–20). Though we often do not know what to pray, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness (Rom 8:26).

When we read the Scriptures, we find a variety of prayers. Each type of prayer highlights a different part of our relationship with God. Though public prayer looks different in every gathering, it should always aid the congregation in remembering that our help comes from the Lord (Ps 121).

Prayers of praise set our gaze on the God who ordains and orchestrates all things for the good of his people (Rom 8:28). Prayers of confession bring our transgressions to mind and lead us to humbly bring them to his throne of grace (Ps 38, 51; Heb 4:14–16). Prayers of thanks help us remember his faithfulness while prayers of supplication teach us to bring all our needs to a heavenly Father who cares for us (Matt 6:8; 1 Pet 5:7).

As we hear others pray, we are reminded of specific ways God has worked in the past which gives hope in the present to trust him in the future. Corporate prayer strengthens weary saints.

Making a Melody to the Lord

God strengthens us through our singing, as we “address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Eph 5:19, ESV).

One of my great joys is to sing with the saints at our church. Not only do their strong voices move me, but also the heart of faith that leads their voices. This verse teaches us that when we sing songs filled with his Word, they serve in two ways:

First, they serve as personal testimony to the Lord. Through singing, we proclaim words about God to him. He delights when his people gather before him and declare truths about him. He is glorified in this, and we are edified.

This singing should be done “with your heart.” Heart-oriented worship is always God’s desire (Ps 51:17, ESV). When we feel the weariness of sorrow, our hearts are prone to retreat from God and find refuge in idols.

Yet, singing truths to God helps us to follow David’s example of forcing our soul to fix its gaze upon the God who rules and reigns over all our sorrows. “Why are you cast down, O my soul . . . hope in God; for I shall again praise him” (Ps 42:11, ESV).

Word-infused songs to God serve as a balm to the soul. The lies of the deceiver can overcome anyone. Instead, lift a melody of hope to the Lord in the face of sorrow. God is greatly glorified by this logic-defying worship, and he is not the only one who is blessed by it.

Secondly, singing serves as an encouragement to each other. Suprisingly, God actually commands us to “address one another” in song (Eph 5:19). When we sing truths about God’s love or faithfulness, they fall upon the ears of other saints gathered with us.

When I watch our church sing “When Trials Come,” I know their song springs from hearts that have known heavy hardship. There’s guilt over abortions, scars from sexual abuse, and wounds from harsh words. Some of their bodies grow weary from having a family or from disease. Others simply fade with age. Yet they sing to a God who never fails them.

“One day all things will be made new I’ll see the hope you called me to, And in your kingdom paved with gold, I’ll praise your faithfulness of old I’ll praise your faithfulness of old.”

The faithfulness of God will forever be the anthem of our songs. Today we sing these songs by faith. When we approach each other sober-minded and with our sufferings in light of eternity, it strengthens us to keep trusting until the day when faith will become sight.

Until That Great Day

When our gathering ends, we scatter. Yet we do not go alone. We go out as a community strengthened from what God has done among us. From our gathering we grow in unity. Relationships have formed, grown, and furthered.

God uses these Spirit-empowered, Word-strengthened relationships to help each other toward heaven. We need each other because we are not strong at the same time. We bear each other’s burdens as we go about the work the Lord has given us to do (Gal 6:2).

That work includes telling sufferers about the hope we have in Jesus. We go to the lost and say that Jesus has rescued us from our sins and he can rescue them as well. We call people to repent and believe in Jesus, the Savior of sinners and sufferers.

This is what we do. We gather and scatter together until that great day when we shall gather in the land where crying and pain will cease to exist. What a day that will be when we shall see how the orchestrator of eternity has worked all things, wonderful and hurtful, into a marvelous tapestry for his glory and our good (Rom 8:18, 28; 2 Cor 4:17; 1 Pet 5:10).

“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth . . . In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation’” (Isa 25:8–9, see Rev 21:1–7).

Let us gather together in worship, strengthening each other in all we do, making ourselves ready for the Lord Jesus to arrive.

Come, Lord Jesus, come!

J. Garrett Kell (ThM, 2006) grew up in Berkeley Springs, WV and attended Virginia Tech where he came to know the Lord through the witness of a friend and the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Garrett serves as Lead Pastor of Del Ray Baptist Church. He is married to Carrie and together they have four children, Eden, Haddon, Phoebe, and Graham. Garrett enjoys hanging out with his family, watching sports and occasionally doing some type of exercise.

This article by J Garrett Kell first appeared on https://voice.dts.edu website.

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Be a Gospel Neighbor https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/be-a-gospel-neighbor https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/be-a-gospel-neighbor#comments Sun, 30 Sep 2018 14:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracesharjah.com/blog/post/be-a-gospel-neighbor “The aim of hospitality is to forge relationships strong enough to bear the weight of truth.”

—Dustin Willis & Brandon Clements

* * * * * * *

I’ll never forget Andrew. He joined the church several years ago. He came from the UK and didn’t plan to be in the States very long. Andrew was young, single, and lived in a small apartment. He had every excuse under the sun to not be a good neighbor. And yet, he is one of the most hospitable men I’ve ever met. He regularly welcomed co-workers, next-door-neighbors, and church members into his home. During his last Sunday here, I asked the evening gathering if they’d ever been in Andrew’s home. Nearly every hand went up. In a small but important way, Andrew made a difference. By opening up his home and sharing his life, he helped others see the priority of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He is a gospel neighbor.

Every Christian wants to make a difference. It’s part of our spiritual DNA. We know humanity’s greatest need is salvation, so we long to see our friends respond to the gospel in repentance and faith. But if we’re honest, we admit we struggle here. We know our friends need the Good News, but we have a hard time opening our homes and opening our mouths to make the gospel known. Too often, we’re like a postal carrier who can’t seem to leave the driveway.

Being a good neighbor is a crucial component to being a faithful evangelist. We should all aspire to be gospel neighbors. But first, I want to assess a couple typical ways we measure evangelistic success.

THE METRICS OF SUCCESS

It’s tempting to equate healthy evangelism with results. I recently heard a Christian leader lamenting the lack of baptisms in our state. He assumed this is because we aren’t evangelizing enough—and he may be right! We should certainly pray for more baptisms. But since God is the Giver of life, a decrease in the number of baptisms is not necessarily due to a lack of evangelism. After all, we plant the seeds through evangelism, and it’s up to God to give the growth in conversion and then baptism (see 1 Cor. 3:6). Therefore, I don’t think “number of baptisms” is the best metric for assessing our commitment to evangelism.

Instead of counting the number of baptisms, we could instead count the number of times we shared the gospel in any given week. Counting evangelistic conversations is a much better metric. It reminds us that even though salvation is in the hands of the Lord, we must tell people about Jesus (Rom. 10:14). Should I, as a pastor, challenge every member to share the gospel once a day? I’m thinking about it, and do think the frequency of evangelistic conversations is a better gauge of our spiritual health than the number of baptisms we register.

However, there’s an even better way. In addition to praying for baptisms andencouraging numerous evangelistic conversations, faithful Christians will seek to open up their life and homes in the biblical practice of hospitality. I love how Dustin Willis and Brandon Clements put it: “The simplest way to change the world is to leverage your ordinary life for his history sweeping mission of hospitality.”[i] Simply being a good neighbor, a gospel neighbor, is an important part of living an evangelistic life.

IS NEIGHBORING BIBLICAL?

A number of passages in the New Testament call us to be good neighbors. The most obvious is the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25­–37). Christians are to show mercy to the overlooked and unwanted. Every Christian should have a Christ-like disposition to all—happily loving those in need. This is the spirit of the first half of Galatians 6:10 where Paul tells the churches to “do good to everyone.” This applies to the Syrian refugee around the world, the homeless man across town, and the lonely widow and busy young family right next door.

The requirement for hospitality gets to the heart of neighboring. It’s even a qualification of elder leadership. Any man who wants to shepherd God’s flock must be hospitable (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8). In describing an elder’s calling, Alexander Strauch noted, “An open home is a sign of an open heart and a loving, sacrificial spirit. A lack of hospitality is a sure sign of selfish, lifeless, loveless Christianity.”[ii]

Though Strauch applies this qualification to hospitality within the body of Christ, there are good reasons to think Paul intended a broader view. For example, the author of Hebrews exhorts us “to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). Like Paul, he is very concerned about hospitality inside the church. He may be exhorting believers to open upon their home to Christian travelers. But the language is broad enough to include those who don’t know the Lord.[iii] Paul has a similar message in Romans 12:13–14: “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” Paul demands a spirit of generosity to all: the brother or sister, the stranger, and even the enemy!

Faithful pastors and Christians alike will strive to be good neighbors. They’ll open up their homes to people around them. Such hospitality is not without cost (it takes time and money). If this cost seems high, remember the words of our Savior in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Yes, gospel neighboring is biblical.

COWARD IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD?

Gospel neighboring is important. Just to be clear, I pray tons of impromptu evangelistic conversations are taking place throughout the week. Not only that, I encourage Christians to invite their unbelieving friends to church gatherings. These public meetings are a good place to hear the gospel. But I fear if we neglect the hard work of gospel neighboring, any culture of evangelism we build will be far too thin and shallow. Gospel neighboring makes our evangelism thick and deep. Though it’s great to share the gospel with whomever you meet—God’s Word is sufficient to save—it’s appropriate to share the gospel in the context of sturdy relationships. Gospel neighboring strives to make such relationships a reality.

If pastors are faithful to share the gospel to the gathering on Sunday morning, but are not faithful to make Christ known on their own block, are they really evangelistic? As the quotable Dallas pastor Matt Chandler challenges, “If you’re a beast in the pulpit but a coward in your neighborhood, something has gone wrong.” But this isn’t just a criticism for pastors. All of us need to hear this. If you’re willing to engage in a ten-minute conversation with your Uber driver, but are unwilling to invest in the people God planted in your family, workplace, or neighborhood, are you truly a faithful evangelist? I don’t think so.

A CHALLENGE AND A CAUTION

The challenge is for every church and Christian to see the importance of engaging our neighbors—the people God has specifically put in our lives. Whether it’s a house we drive past each and every morning or a co-worker we talk to each and every day.

The cold hard truth is many of us don’t even know who’s living next door. Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon in their book, The Art of Neighboring, devised an ingenious exercise to see how well we know our neighbors. Draw a chart with nine boxes (think tic-tac-toe) and mark your home at the center. The other boxes are the eight nearest neighbors in your apartment complex, dorm, or block. In each box, jot down three items of information about each neighbor: First, their name. Second, a simple fact—e.g., “works at UPS” or “mother of three.” Third, an in-depth fact—e.g., “wants to be a lawyer” or “had a bad experience with religion.” Pathak and Runyon have come to refer to this as the “chart of shame” because so few of us can get past question one.[iv]

You see the challenge, don’t you? It’s hard to have meaningful conversations about anything with your neighbors if you don’t actually know them.

The caution is just as important. We must not to treat our neighbors as projects. They aren’t machines that need their controls adjusted before they overheat. Care about people for who they are (God’s image bearers) and not simply for whom they may become (our brothers and sisters in Christ).[v]

This is a tension I feel when I look at my calendar. Life is full, and I want to be a good steward of my time. I’m not looking for deep friendships with people who don’t know Christ. And yet, if I make no room for unbelieving neighbors, am I really living out the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37–38), much less the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19–20)? And if I engage them only because they may one day be children of God, don’t I risk seeing them as a battle to be won instead of a neighbor to be served? I think so.

The challenge is to know our neighbors. The caution is to beware of treating them as objects that need to be fixed instead of people who need to be loved.

THE END GOAL

As a Christian, I cannot deny how much I long for my neighbors to know what I know: Jesus Christ is Lord. We’ve been made to know and love God. All of us fall short and deserve eternal punishment. But God, in his love, made a way of escape. The Father sent the Son into the world. Jesus lived a perfect life and, therefore could die as a perfect sacrifice in the place of all who would turn and trust in him. His resurrection proves he really is the King of Kings, and now all are called to follow him. This is the gospel, it’s the heart of my life, and it’s what I want my neighbors to hear and believe. This is not the only goal of good neighboring, but it is the end goal. I appreciate how Willis and Clement make this point:

Clearly the aim of hospitality is more than merely inviting someone into our home, sharing a good meal and a few stories, and calling it a night. We are missionaries, after all. Paul reminded us, “We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:20). And pastor Charles Spurgeon said, “Every Christian . . . is either a missionary or an imposter.”[vi]

I want to share Christ with my Uber driver, my barista, and anyone that crosses my path. However, I want to be especially faithful with those God has planted in my life. These are my nearest neighbors, and I have a unique responsibility to show them Christ. Furthermore, I don’t want to be a beast in the pulpit but a coward in my neighborhood! I’m sure you don’t either.

MOVING FORWARD

How can you (and I) grow in being a gospel neighbor for the glory of God? Here are ten imperatives I pray God uses to move us in the right direction.

1. Name the people God has placed near you. This goes back to the “chart of shame” mentioned in the Art of Neighboring. Give yourself a few weeks or even months, but do all you can to figure out who is around you.

2. Start praying for your neighbors by name. Be like that persistent widow in Luke 18. Plead with God to open doors (Cor. 16:9). He can do this.

3. Strategize ways to welcome them into your life. The book, The Simplest Way to Change the World: Biblical Hospitality as a Way of Life, is full of practical and easy ways you can open up your home to your neighbors. It’s a good read. It’s going to take some work to figure out if you need to spend more time going to block parties or simply open up your home once a quarter for a cookout. You may already have relationships with neighbors you can pursue. Is it time to see who’s interested in reading the Bible with you?

4. Welcome neighbors into your life. At least for me, the hardest part is not strategizing how to have neighbors over, it’s actually doing it. For some of you, this is very easy. But for many of us, it’s hard. This may be due to a lack of time, energy, or courage. You’ll need all three!

5. Love them for who they are. Again, in order to be a gospel neighbor evangelism shouldn’t be your only goal. Enjoy getting to know your neighbors. Ask them questions. Find ways to serve and spend time together. They are magnificent image bearers. You don’t know their future, so try to love them where they are.

6. Be consistent. We want to aim for gospel neighboring until the Lord returns. Let’s commit to neighboring for the long haul. That may require setting fairly modest hospitality goals. Better to a little over a long period of time then overextend yourself for a month.

7. Find accountability. Do you have a Christian brother or sister who challenges you to read your Bible and pray faithfully? Consider asking him or her to encourage you in the discipline of hospitality as well.

8. Share what you love the most. If you are a Christian, you love Christ the most. Period. How you get to the gospel with your neighbors takes wisdom. Again, you don’t want them to feel like a project. But you don’t want to be silent too long, either. Willis and Clements are helpfully honest: “Yes, as you take the bold step of speaking the good news, you may feel nervous and reluctant for fear that you will be rejected, but understand the gospel you have is so attractive to the hurting who live right next door to you.”[vii] So true.

9. Keep first things first. We all know someone who focuses so much on discipleship he neglects evangelism. This is not good. But let’s not forget the full command of Paul in Galatians 6:10, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Paul prioritized the local church. This is surely because he remembered Christ’s words, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Being a faithful next-door neighbor starts with being a faithful church member.

10. Rest. Do you remember Andrew, the young man who opened up his apartment to literally dozens of friends? We aren’t all like Andrew. For him it seemed to come naturally. Thankfully, our hope isn’t in being like Andrew. Our confidence is in God who made each of us just the way he wanted us to be. Our success in gospel neighboring, therefore, doesn’t depend on our charm, ability to throw a party, or even our stick-to-itiveness. It comes from the power of the Spirit of God exalts the Son of God known for the sake of the glory of God. Because of this, even as we work hard at being a gospel neighbor, we can rest.

This article by Aaron Menikoff first appeared at 9marks.org called "Be a Gospel Neighbor".

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[i]Dustin Willis and Brandon Clements, The Simplest Way to Change the World: Biblical Hospitality As a Way of Life (Chicago: Moody, 2017), 143.

[ii]Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership (Littleton, CO: Lewis & Roth, 1995), 194.

[iii]“In verse 2 the author teaches that this brotherly love should even extend beyond the church.” R. Albert Mohler Jr., Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary: Exalting Jesus in Hebrews (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2017), 220.

[iv]Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon, The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012), 37–38.

[v]Ibid., 102.

[vi]Simplest Way, 119.

[vii]Ibid., 121.

 

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“The aim of hospitality is to forge relationships strong enough to bear the weight of truth.”

—Dustin Willis & Brandon Clements

* * * * * * *

I’ll never forget Andrew. He joined the church several years ago. He came from the UK and didn’t plan to be in the States very long. Andrew was young, single, and lived in a small apartment. He had every excuse under the sun to not be a good neighbor. And yet, he is one of the most hospitable men I’ve ever met. He regularly welcomed co-workers, next-door-neighbors, and church members into his home. During his last Sunday here, I asked the evening gathering if they’d ever been in Andrew’s home. Nearly every hand went up. In a small but important way, Andrew made a difference. By opening up his home and sharing his life, he helped others see the priority of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He is a gospel neighbor.

Every Christian wants to make a difference. It’s part of our spiritual DNA. We know humanity’s greatest need is salvation, so we long to see our friends respond to the gospel in repentance and faith. But if we’re honest, we admit we struggle here. We know our friends need the Good News, but we have a hard time opening our homes and opening our mouths to make the gospel known. Too often, we’re like a postal carrier who can’t seem to leave the driveway.

Being a good neighbor is a crucial component to being a faithful evangelist. We should all aspire to be gospel neighbors. But first, I want to assess a couple typical ways we measure evangelistic success.

THE METRICS OF SUCCESS

It’s tempting to equate healthy evangelism with results. I recently heard a Christian leader lamenting the lack of baptisms in our state. He assumed this is because we aren’t evangelizing enough—and he may be right! We should certainly pray for more baptisms. But since God is the Giver of life, a decrease in the number of baptisms is not necessarily due to a lack of evangelism. After all, we plant the seeds through evangelism, and it’s up to God to give the growth in conversion and then baptism (see 1 Cor. 3:6). Therefore, I don’t think “number of baptisms” is the best metric for assessing our commitment to evangelism.

Instead of counting the number of baptisms, we could instead count the number of times we shared the gospel in any given week. Counting evangelistic conversations is a much better metric. It reminds us that even though salvation is in the hands of the Lord, we must tell people about Jesus (Rom. 10:14). Should I, as a pastor, challenge every member to share the gospel once a day? I’m thinking about it, and do think the frequency of evangelistic conversations is a better gauge of our spiritual health than the number of baptisms we register.

However, there’s an even better way. In addition to praying for baptisms andencouraging numerous evangelistic conversations, faithful Christians will seek to open up their life and homes in the biblical practice of hospitality. I love how Dustin Willis and Brandon Clements put it: “The simplest way to change the world is to leverage your ordinary life for his history sweeping mission of hospitality.”[i] Simply being a good neighbor, a gospel neighbor, is an important part of living an evangelistic life.

IS NEIGHBORING BIBLICAL?

A number of passages in the New Testament call us to be good neighbors. The most obvious is the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25­–37). Christians are to show mercy to the overlooked and unwanted. Every Christian should have a Christ-like disposition to all—happily loving those in need. This is the spirit of the first half of Galatians 6:10 where Paul tells the churches to “do good to everyone.” This applies to the Syrian refugee around the world, the homeless man across town, and the lonely widow and busy young family right next door.

The requirement for hospitality gets to the heart of neighboring. It’s even a qualification of elder leadership. Any man who wants to shepherd God’s flock must be hospitable (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8). In describing an elder’s calling, Alexander Strauch noted, “An open home is a sign of an open heart and a loving, sacrificial spirit. A lack of hospitality is a sure sign of selfish, lifeless, loveless Christianity.”[ii]

Though Strauch applies this qualification to hospitality within the body of Christ, there are good reasons to think Paul intended a broader view. For example, the author of Hebrews exhorts us “to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). Like Paul, he is very concerned about hospitality inside the church. He may be exhorting believers to open upon their home to Christian travelers. But the language is broad enough to include those who don’t know the Lord.[iii] Paul has a similar message in Romans 12:13–14: “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” Paul demands a spirit of generosity to all: the brother or sister, the stranger, and even the enemy!

Faithful pastors and Christians alike will strive to be good neighbors. They’ll open up their homes to people around them. Such hospitality is not without cost (it takes time and money). If this cost seems high, remember the words of our Savior in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Yes, gospel neighboring is biblical.

COWARD IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD?

Gospel neighboring is important. Just to be clear, I pray tons of impromptu evangelistic conversations are taking place throughout the week. Not only that, I encourage Christians to invite their unbelieving friends to church gatherings. These public meetings are a good place to hear the gospel. But I fear if we neglect the hard work of gospel neighboring, any culture of evangelism we build will be far too thin and shallow. Gospel neighboring makes our evangelism thick and deep. Though it’s great to share the gospel with whomever you meet—God’s Word is sufficient to save—it’s appropriate to share the gospel in the context of sturdy relationships. Gospel neighboring strives to make such relationships a reality.

If pastors are faithful to share the gospel to the gathering on Sunday morning, but are not faithful to make Christ known on their own block, are they really evangelistic? As the quotable Dallas pastor Matt Chandler challenges, “If you’re a beast in the pulpit but a coward in your neighborhood, something has gone wrong.” But this isn’t just a criticism for pastors. All of us need to hear this. If you’re willing to engage in a ten-minute conversation with your Uber driver, but are unwilling to invest in the people God planted in your family, workplace, or neighborhood, are you truly a faithful evangelist? I don’t think so.

A CHALLENGE AND A CAUTION

The challenge is for every church and Christian to see the importance of engaging our neighbors—the people God has specifically put in our lives. Whether it’s a house we drive past each and every morning or a co-worker we talk to each and every day.

The cold hard truth is many of us don’t even know who’s living next door. Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon in their book, The Art of Neighboring, devised an ingenious exercise to see how well we know our neighbors. Draw a chart with nine boxes (think tic-tac-toe) and mark your home at the center. The other boxes are the eight nearest neighbors in your apartment complex, dorm, or block. In each box, jot down three items of information about each neighbor: First, their name. Second, a simple fact—e.g., “works at UPS” or “mother of three.” Third, an in-depth fact—e.g., “wants to be a lawyer” or “had a bad experience with religion.” Pathak and Runyon have come to refer to this as the “chart of shame” because so few of us can get past question one.[iv]

You see the challenge, don’t you? It’s hard to have meaningful conversations about anything with your neighbors if you don’t actually know them.

The caution is just as important. We must not to treat our neighbors as projects. They aren’t machines that need their controls adjusted before they overheat. Care about people for who they are (God’s image bearers) and not simply for whom they may become (our brothers and sisters in Christ).[v]

This is a tension I feel when I look at my calendar. Life is full, and I want to be a good steward of my time. I’m not looking for deep friendships with people who don’t know Christ. And yet, if I make no room for unbelieving neighbors, am I really living out the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37–38), much less the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19–20)? And if I engage them only because they may one day be children of God, don’t I risk seeing them as a battle to be won instead of a neighbor to be served? I think so.

The challenge is to know our neighbors. The caution is to beware of treating them as objects that need to be fixed instead of people who need to be loved.

THE END GOAL

As a Christian, I cannot deny how much I long for my neighbors to know what I know: Jesus Christ is Lord. We’ve been made to know and love God. All of us fall short and deserve eternal punishment. But God, in his love, made a way of escape. The Father sent the Son into the world. Jesus lived a perfect life and, therefore could die as a perfect sacrifice in the place of all who would turn and trust in him. His resurrection proves he really is the King of Kings, and now all are called to follow him. This is the gospel, it’s the heart of my life, and it’s what I want my neighbors to hear and believe. This is not the only goal of good neighboring, but it is the end goal. I appreciate how Willis and Clement make this point:

Clearly the aim of hospitality is more than merely inviting someone into our home, sharing a good meal and a few stories, and calling it a night. We are missionaries, after all. Paul reminded us, “We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:20). And pastor Charles Spurgeon said, “Every Christian . . . is either a missionary or an imposter.”[vi]

I want to share Christ with my Uber driver, my barista, and anyone that crosses my path. However, I want to be especially faithful with those God has planted in my life. These are my nearest neighbors, and I have a unique responsibility to show them Christ. Furthermore, I don’t want to be a beast in the pulpit but a coward in my neighborhood! I’m sure you don’t either.

MOVING FORWARD

How can you (and I) grow in being a gospel neighbor for the glory of God? Here are ten imperatives I pray God uses to move us in the right direction.

1. Name the people God has placed near you. This goes back to the “chart of shame” mentioned in the Art of Neighboring. Give yourself a few weeks or even months, but do all you can to figure out who is around you.

2. Start praying for your neighbors by name. Be like that persistent widow in Luke 18. Plead with God to open doors (Cor. 16:9). He can do this.

3. Strategize ways to welcome them into your life. The book, The Simplest Way to Change the World: Biblical Hospitality as a Way of Life, is full of practical and easy ways you can open up your home to your neighbors. It’s a good read. It’s going to take some work to figure out if you need to spend more time going to block parties or simply open up your home once a quarter for a cookout. You may already have relationships with neighbors you can pursue. Is it time to see who’s interested in reading the Bible with you?

4. Welcome neighbors into your life. At least for me, the hardest part is not strategizing how to have neighbors over, it’s actually doing it. For some of you, this is very easy. But for many of us, it’s hard. This may be due to a lack of time, energy, or courage. You’ll need all three!

5. Love them for who they are. Again, in order to be a gospel neighbor evangelism shouldn’t be your only goal. Enjoy getting to know your neighbors. Ask them questions. Find ways to serve and spend time together. They are magnificent image bearers. You don’t know their future, so try to love them where they are.

6. Be consistent. We want to aim for gospel neighboring until the Lord returns. Let’s commit to neighboring for the long haul. That may require setting fairly modest hospitality goals. Better to a little over a long period of time then overextend yourself for a month.

7. Find accountability. Do you have a Christian brother or sister who challenges you to read your Bible and pray faithfully? Consider asking him or her to encourage you in the discipline of hospitality as well.

8. Share what you love the most. If you are a Christian, you love Christ the most. Period. How you get to the gospel with your neighbors takes wisdom. Again, you don’t want them to feel like a project. But you don’t want to be silent too long, either. Willis and Clements are helpfully honest: “Yes, as you take the bold step of speaking the good news, you may feel nervous and reluctant for fear that you will be rejected, but understand the gospel you have is so attractive to the hurting who live right next door to you.”[vii] So true.

9. Keep first things first. We all know someone who focuses so much on discipleship he neglects evangelism. This is not good. But let’s not forget the full command of Paul in Galatians 6:10, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Paul prioritized the local church. This is surely because he remembered Christ’s words, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Being a faithful next-door neighbor starts with being a faithful church member.

10. Rest. Do you remember Andrew, the young man who opened up his apartment to literally dozens of friends? We aren’t all like Andrew. For him it seemed to come naturally. Thankfully, our hope isn’t in being like Andrew. Our confidence is in God who made each of us just the way he wanted us to be. Our success in gospel neighboring, therefore, doesn’t depend on our charm, ability to throw a party, or even our stick-to-itiveness. It comes from the power of the Spirit of God exalts the Son of God known for the sake of the glory of God. Because of this, even as we work hard at being a gospel neighbor, we can rest.

This article by Aaron Menikoff first appeared at 9marks.org called "Be a Gospel Neighbor".

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FOOTNOTES:

[i]Dustin Willis and Brandon Clements, The Simplest Way to Change the World: Biblical Hospitality As a Way of Life (Chicago: Moody, 2017), 143.

[ii]Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership (Littleton, CO: Lewis & Roth, 1995), 194.

[iii]“In verse 2 the author teaches that this brotherly love should even extend beyond the church.” R. Albert Mohler Jr., Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary: Exalting Jesus in Hebrews (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2017), 220.

[iv]Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon, The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012), 37–38.

[v]Ibid., 102.

[vi]Simplest Way, 119.

[vii]Ibid., 121.

 

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