a different kind of low & high church

These words by Steven Covey (HT: Matt Perman) are very challenging when applied to church culture:

A low-trust culture is filled with bureaucracy, excessive rules and regulations, restrictive, closed systems. In the fear of some “loose cannon,” people set up procedures that everyone has to accommodate.

The level of initiative is low — basically “do what you’re told.” Structures are pyramidal, hierarchical. Information systems are short-term. The quarterly bottom line tends to drive the mentality in the culture.

In a high-trust culture, structures and systems are aligned to create empowerment, to liberate people’s energy and creativity toward agreed-upon purposes within the guidelines of shared values. There’s less bureaucracy, fewer rules and regulations, more involvement.

Are you fostering a low-trust environment or a high-trust one?

Are people flourishing, truly?

asking questions

It's a skill, and a deeply necessary one at that, in both pastoral and evangelistic ministry. Ron Ashkenas writes with business and management in view but his points are transferable and worth pondering.

Hubris in the church

This is a very perceptive piece by Thom S. Rainer.

For example:

Hubris often manifests itself in the idolatry of ministries, programs, or preferred styles of worship. Those ministries that were once a means to the end of glorifying God become ends in themselves. Inevitably the church will experience conflict when any leader attempts to change or discard those ministries, programs, or worship styles. They have been become idols. They represent in the minds of some the accomplishments of the church rather than just an instrument to glorify God.

overcoming procrastination

Take Breaks After Starting the Next Part of a Task, Rather Than In Between

When you take a break, don’t take your break at a natural stopping point. Instead, get to a natural stopping point, and then start into the next segment of the task. This gets you into it a bit and gets your wheels turning. Then take your break. While you are on your break, your mind will be inclined to get going again, since you’ve already started in to it. So it will be easier to come back from the break and avoid letting the break turn into an extended period of procrastination.

Matt Perman

How do you get to hear about books?

I guess for most ministers, books are constant companions. But how do you get to know about them? How do you discover what's out there, let alone what's worth reading?

Years back, I'd hear about books in magazines. I'd browse a bookshop and, later, the college library. Maybe someone would mention something they'd been reading. Just occasionally I might get hold of a catalogue or two. And that was about it.

Now things are so very different. I still see book reviews in the occasional magazine but they're not often new to me or they tend to be a little too obscure. Bookshop scours are far rarer, certainly Christian bookshops. Ditto for theological libraries. Far and away the most extensive exposure to books is online.

But that needs to be broken down further. Blogs are a large source of information of what's new and what's helpful. And when a book is mentioned, it's only a few clicks to check it out on Amazon, read some reviews and add it to the wish list.

And then there's Amazon itself and Kindle - looking at what other customers have bought; clicking on an author's name and instantly seeing what else by them is available. Sometiems it's by personal recommendation but far and away it's the personal trawl and discovery.

late in the afternoon (tracey thorn)

love this song and it's great to see it performed live (at home)

how late in the day is it with you and yours?

Baptism and Fulness

(the best books - no.10)

Subtitled 'The work of the Holy Spirit today', I first read this little book by John Stott in about 1986/87 when there was a lot of debate about charismatic issues. It's great strength is that it is down-to-earth exposition of biblical material - you'd probably call it 'sane' and it is, but it's more: it's real; it's properly deep without being dense or inaccessible. Just a great book to recommend to anyone working through the issues.

"the overwhelming emphasis of the New Testament letters is not to urge upon Christian readers some entirely new and distinct blessing, but to remind us of what by grace we are, to recall us to it, and to urge us to live by it." (p.44)

believing and doing: how do they stack up?

There's been some ongoing discussion all over the place about statements of truth and commands to obey in scripture (indicatives and imperatives).

I found Kevin deYoung's latest piece a helpful response, especially his answer to the question, "Should Christians be exhorted to obey the imperatives or does sanctification so invariably flow from justification that the way to get obedience is always and only to bring people back to the gospel?"

(Clue: the answer is 'yes, they should' because 'no, it doesn't and it isn't')

Do you defend the status quo?

Here's a great piece by Seth Godin, asking all the right questions to help you know the answer.

Ghost on the canvas

Ya gotta give the new Glen Campbell album a listen.

sustaining a discouraged pastor

If you're finding the going tough, this piece might offer some encouragement.

(nb: the Isaiah quote mentioned is incorrect; it ought to read 49:4, not 6:9)

HT: Scot McKnight

wanna preach without notes?

then this might help you

HT: David Murray

one last love song

The Guardian has a fascinating interview with Glen Campbell, on the eve of the release of his final album and having been diagnosed with alzheimer's disease.

Far Away Trains Passing By

Ulrich Schnauss - what an album!

wished-for

Just added this book to my Amazon wish list. Here's the blurb...

Art is often viewed as being inherently spiritual. But what does it mean to describe an experience of art or beauty as spiritual? Is there a relationship between the spiritual experience a person has in the presence of a work of art and the Holy Spirit of Christian faith? Theologian, musician, and educator Steven Guthrie examines particular areas of overlap between spirituality, human creativity, and the arts with the goal of sharpening and refining how we speak and think about the Holy Spirit. Through his exploration of the many different connections between art and spirituality, Guthrie uses the arts as a creative lens for exploring the Holy Spirit and offers a unique introduction to pneumatology. He also introduces an important idea from the early church that is now unfamiliar to many Christians: the Holy Spirit is the humanizing Spirit, whose work is to remake our humanity after the image of the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ. This clear, engaging theology of the arts will be of interest to professors and students in theology and the arts, pneumatology, and systematic theology courses as well as thoughtful lay readers, Christian artists, worship leaders, and pastors.

preaching and authority

Here, then, is the preacher's authority. It depends on the closeness of his adherence to the text he is handling, that is, on the accuracy with which he has understood it and on the forcefulness with which it has spoken to his own soul...What really feeds the household is the food which the householder supplies, not the steward who dispenses it.



John Stott, The Preacher's Portrait, p.26 (my emphasis)

Caught, not taught

Christianity is "a contagion which spreads by contact with a shining example; it is not just learned from a textbook. God's most powerful visual aid in the education of mankind is a consistent Christian."

John Stott, The Preacher's Portrait, p.87 (my emphasis)

Call no-one 'Father'

I suggest that what Jesus is saying is that we are never to adopt towards a fellow-man in the Church the attitude of dependence which a child has towards his father, nor are we to require others to be or become spiritually dependent upon us...Spiritual dependence is due to God our heavenly Father. He is our Creator, both physically and spiritually, and as creatures we utterly depend upon His grace. But we do not and must not depend on our fellow-creatures. Our desire, as preachers, is (like Paul) to 'present every man mature in Christ'. We long to see the members of our congregation grow up into independent, adult, spiritual maturity in Christ, looking to Him for the supply of all their needs, since it is 'in Christ' that God 'has blessed us...with every spiritual blessing'. We have no desire to keep our church members tied to our own apron strings and running round us like children round their mother. There are in every church some weak and feeble souls who love to fuss round the minister and are constantly seeking interviews with him to consult him about their spiritual problems. This should be resisted, and that strenuously. Gently, but firmly we should make it clear that God's purpose is that His children should look to him as their Father and not to men.

John Stott, The Preacher's Portrait, p.73f

The Complexities of Forgiveness

Cate Macdonald has written two very thoughtful articles on forgiveness and its complexities. Someone you know may be very helped by reading them.

Part 1

Part 2

Preacher/Pastor

The preacher needs to be pastor, that he may preach to real men. The pastor must be preacher, that he may keep the dignity of his work alive. The preacher, who is not a pastor, grows remote. The pastor, who is not a preacher, grows petty.

Phillips Brooks, quoted in Stott't |The Preacher's Portrait, p.77