IM Book Review–The Pastor: A Memoir

By Chaplain Mike

“The way is made by walking” (Antonio Machado)

Eugene Peterson’s career as a pastor has been a living tortoise and hare fable.

In an age of emphasis on church growth, Peterson was “the contemplative pastor.” As the calling of minister morphed into the job of CEO, whose main task is to “run the church,” he renounced that role and sought to maintain the pastor’s singular vocation as one who gives attention to what God is doing and witnesses to that through face to face relationships in a local faith community. While the church ran to and fro, chasing the shifting winds of “relevance,” Eugene Peterson kept walking the old paths of worship, prayer, and conversation. When the church said, “fast,” Peterson went slow. When the church said, “big,” he insisted on small. When the church prescribed activism, he encouraged the time-honored practice of Sabbath.

Countercultural, against the grain — now that’s my kind of pastor.

Many Christians know the name “Eugene Peterson” because of The Message, a translation of the Bible into “American.” This work is a revelation of his love for language and his conviction that the Bible’s original text speaks in a vivid, earthy, “non-religious” kind of language that we have lost in translation.

However, for many of us who have tried to make our way as pastors of local churches, it was Peterson’s books on the pastoral vocation that have had the most influence. Like a prophet standing alone, decrying idolatry that has infiltrated the Temple itself, he set forth a path of ministry than ran directly counter to the American way of doing church.

In the secularizing times in which I am living, God is not taken seriously. God is peripheral. God is nice (or maybe not so nice) but not at the center. When people want help with their parents or children or emotions, they do not ordinarily see themselves as wanting help with God. But if I am going to stay true to my vocation as a pastor, I can’t let the “market” determine what I do. I will find ways to pray with and for people and teach them to pray, usually quietly and often subversively when they don’t know I am doing it. But I am not going to wait to be asked. I am a pastor. (p.142)

In The Pastor: A Memoir, Eugene Peterson tells how he became a pastor and how he fought to maintain that identity in the context of an American suburban congregation for thirty years.

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James 3:1 in the Age of Social Media

By Chaplain Mike

At Christianity Today, the blogosphere blow-up over Rob Bell’s book prompted them to run a column today by John Dyer called, “Not Many of You Should Presume to Be Bloggers.” The title is taken from James 3:1, where James warns us, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.”

In other words, taking up a position of instructing others is not something to pursued lightly. There is responsibility and accountability attached to the role.

The background of James suggests that this verse may not just be speaking about “official” teaching positions in the church. The believers James addressed were going through trials of many kinds (1:3), particularly with regard to relations between rich and powerful people and the poorer folks in the community (2:1-7). One common consequence of living under pressure is an inability to control the tongue (ch.3). James therefore exhorts his brethren: “This you know, my beloved brethren But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.” (1:19-20) So, when James warns them to think before taking a “teaching” role in the congregation, he may be including the kind of passionate belief and opinion sharing that is common in congregations, particularly those undergoing “stress fractures.”

According to Psalm 34, the first and foremost component of a “good life” is control over the tongue: “Who is the man who desires life and loves length of days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.” (Ps 34:12-13)

Dyer asks whether we have adequately considered and remembered this in the age of Facebook and Twitter, when we are not only encouraged but expected to share our thoughts, opinions, feelings, and observations constantly.

What few of us realize is that when we press those “Publish,” “Post,” “Comment,” and “Send” buttons, we are making the shift away from merely “believing” truth and stepping into the arena of publishing that belief. In doing so we are effectively assuming a position of leadership and teaching that prior to 2004 was not available to us.

James warned us, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1, NIV1984). James goes on to graphically portray the incredible power that our tongues have both to praise and to curse especially in the context of teaching. He then says, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life.” (James 3:13). Solomon echoes similar wisdom, “Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent” (Prov. 17:28).

Yet Facebook and Twitter do not encourage this kind of self-restraint. In fact, they encourage an opposing value system. Social media relentlessly asks us to publish our personal opinions on anything and everything that happens. There is no time for reflection in prayer, no place for discussion with other flesh and blood image bearers, and no incentive to remain silent.

You must declare your position, and you must declare it now.

We convince ourselves that by answering the questions social media asks us we are standing for truth alongside the great leaders of the church, but slowly and subtly as we respond to the prompts of our phones rather than our Bibles we begin to worship the false gods of immediacy, distraction, and celebrity in the Temple of Lord Zuckerberg.

We here at Internet Monk obviously value the opportunities for communication and discussion that the Digital Age affords us. We wouldn’t be doing what we do if we thought a primary consequence was, “There is no time for reflection in prayer, no place for discussion with other flesh and blood image bearers, and no incentive to remain silent.”

Lent may be a good time to check ourselves in this regard.

How to win an argument . . . like a Christian

By Guest Blogger Andy Zehner

Chaplain Mike made a nice post last Friday regretting what happens when Christians get “political.” By adding my own bit here I affirm what he said. Anything we do from a desire to score off someone else is wrong. But there’s another point I would add. It is too small a thing merely to avoid contentiousness. We do nothing good when guided by our ego, but even when ego is controlled we cannot be content.

Doctrine and practice matter. The Old Testament is packed with proof — Cain’s vegetable offering, Nadab and Abihu’s unauthorized fire, the blemished sacrifices God despises in Malachi — that God doesn’t accept all that is offered to Him. God’s glory demands that He be worshiped in ways that are acceptable to Him. We latter-day believers worship in spirit and truth, but none of us knows how broad a license that phrase confers. “In spirit and truth” is not the same as “what works for me.” God allows us latitude in our practices, but when the fences are down the sheep will wander: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” (2 Tim. 4:3) We have a duty to stand firm for right doctrine and practice.

Before a church-league softball game years ago, I suggested to my teammates that we try to win the game. I said we’d honor our opponents by giving our best effort between the chalk lines. By their dropped jaws and incredulous stares you might have supposed I wanted to brush off their lead-off hitter with the old high, hard one or go into second with our spikes up. They seemed to think we did enough if we went through the motions, and that serious effort was unChristian. I suspect many Christians take the same approach — content to make the appropriate motions and noises without much care for the outcome — to discussions about religion and faith.

But here’s the delightful thing. Fervency for right doctrine and practice does not require us to compromise courtesy. We aren’t being pulled in two directions. It’s not a case of, “You put down your rock and I’ll put down my sword.” We aren’t required to give up anything except what impairs us. Fulfilling the call to be gracious makes us more effective in defending the faith. You catch more flies with honey.

My thesis is that we need to add a firm resolve to defend good doctrine and practice to the graciousness Chaplain Mike commended to us earlier. Let me back that up with a few principles showing how courtesy and humility go hand in hand with persuasiveness.

Continue reading “How to win an argument . . . like a Christian”

IM Film Review: Humans 1, Angels 0

By Chaplain Mike

My first comment to my wife after watching “The Adjustment Bureau” was, “I don’t think John Piper would like it.”

Turns out divine sovereignty is more malleable than we thought. However, on the other hand, free will isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either. There are doors all around us through which fedora-topped “men” pass to make sure our lives run according to plan and manipulate matters when they don’t. But it also seems that “The Chairman” revises his plans, and even his messengers are unaware. His case workers just study the books in their hands and follow what’s written. And in the great tradition of American movies, love wins over even The Chairman’s heart in the end. Though it requires a “great deviation” in the plan, hero and heroine live happily ever after.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, which is surprisingly up front in taking on its theological subjects. The “Calvinism” the film portrays is certainly awkward, limited, and subject to misadventure and tinkering. Who would have thought a spilled cup of coffee at the wrong time could stir up so much angst in heaven’s courts? At one point an Adjuster laments that heaven is short-staffed and can’t keep track of every single individual, so, apparently only those who have a vital public destiny in changing the world, such as Matt Damon’s character, get resources devoted to them. And when a high-ranking Adjuster explains why the Bureau acts as it does, he gives a run-down of history that indicates heaven would like nothing more than to turn earthly affairs over to humans. But alas, humans just haven’t been able to keep things from blowing up when left in charge. So at critical moments, heaven has stepped back in, cleaned up the mess, and kept us from self-destructing.

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Lent I

The Temptation of Christ, Flandes

By Chaplain Mike
Today’s Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11

a sonnet

when israel moses led across the sea
to desert, hunger, thirst, and poverty
he called them there to trust and not transgress
their god would care for them in wilderness
he water, meat, and manna did provide
yet still the children grumbled, groaned, and cried
their baptism and freedom they disdained
and satan laughed when israel complained
through water jesus came and god did bless
then, like them, went into the wilderness
in desp’rate thirst and hunger there alone
he would not conjure bread from lifeless stone
by ev’ry word of god the son prevailed
and conquer’d where our human flesh had failed

iMonk Classic: The Quotable iMonk

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
Quotes from Various IM Posts

Note from Chaplain Mike:
Instead of running a complete classic Michael Spencer post today, we present some individual passages from past articles expressing Michael’s thoughts on various subjects.

We hope you enjoy these bite-sized gems from the Internet Monk’s prolific pen.

On the Gospel for Christians
I think it’s provable again and again that what we are comfortable saying to an unbeliever, we aren’t comfortable saying to a Christian. The Gospel is for Christians, too. We love the story of the Prodigal son. Now, what about the day after the party? What if the son messed up again in a week? What if he doesn’t live the life of a grateful son? Or to be more realistic, what if he sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t? Does that change the Father? Does the older brother get to come back into the story and say “Aha!! I was right!” Christ died for the sins of Christians, and we need to hear that over and over again.

• From “Preaching Grace Is Risky Business,” (3/7/04)

On Church as Grown-Up Youth Group
…there is a genuine difference between a church that proclaims a message of sin, justification and redemption and a church that seeks to produce the feeling of “a big hug from God.”  I learned this lesson as a youth ministry specialist, one of those people with the job of keeping the kids interested in church by running a program that resembled church as little as possible. It is no surprise to me that so many of today’s adults despise anything that looks traditional or classical in Christian worship. We fed them a diet of pizza, trips to the beach, concerts, games and the appropriate musical soundtrack and kept them far away from what was going on upstairs. We endured Sunday morning with the promise of “youth stuff” the rest of the week. While most of us never abandoned the Bible, many did, and we did practice the principles of communication that the seeker sensitive movement holds sacred. So if you are looking for someone to blame that adults now want to applaud at Holy Communion, blame me. (But they paid us to do it.)

• From “Fighting Words” (date unknown)

Continue reading “iMonk Classic: The Quotable iMonk”

Saturday Ramblings 3.12.11

Take me out to the ballgame. That is, if the ballgame is in the Phoenix area over the weekend of March 25. Your rambler will be in the Phoenix area that weekend for a little Spring Training action. And an In N Out or two. Should you be so inclined to get together for lunch on Saturday, March 26 and/or a baseball game that afternoon, email me at jeff@internetmonk.com so we can make arrangements. In the meantime, we have much to discuss today, so let’s get to rambling, shall we?

First of all, we should all to prayer for Japan. As I write this, the quake’s magnitude had been increased to a 9.1. Thousands were still reported missing on Japan’s northeast coast, where the tsunami hit. And the nuclear reactor at Fukushima is close to a meltdown. This is a horrible situation. You will no doubt know more about this as you now read this. Pray.

What would C.S. Lewis have to say about giving up sweets for Lent? Especially Turkish Delight. Lewis saw the tension between feasting and fasting that is seen in Scripture. There is a time for both, says Devin Brown.

Emotions or reason? Is man a divided being, or can emotion work with our mind? David Brooks has an excellent commentary on this here.

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Repenting of a Political Mindset

By Chaplain Mike

NOTE: Either I have communicated poorly or my use of the word “political” has thrown some of you off in terms of the focus of this post. I am using the words “politics” and “political” in their more informal, secondary sense in what follows. Dictionary.com includes the following definitions:

  • politics = any activity concerned with the acquisition of power, gaining one’s own ends, etc.
  • political = use of intrigue or strategy in obtaining any position of power or control, as in business, university, etc.
  • to “play politics” = to deal with people in an opportunistic, manipulative, or devious way, as for job advancement.

I have revised the post in a few places to try and make this more clear.

One reason I struggled as a pastor can be summarized in the word, “Politics.” In this case, it was “church politics.” I remember telling people, sincerely, “I don’t have a political bone in my body.” I didn’t think being a pastor should involve the kinds of maneuvering and tactics that we normally associate with politicians.

I just don’t think in those kinds of political terms. What do I mean by that?

When I use the word, “political,” and say I don’t think in those terms, I don’t mean I lack political views. If we’re talking about “politics” as a subject—the realm of political philosophy, how society should be governed, what it means to be a citizen of a community, nation, and world, and so on, of course I have certain understandings and opinions. I wouldn’t say I have highly developed views. Although I try to stay informed and find the historical study of politics interesting, I’m neither a “political junkie” nor a serious student in political matters. At certain times in my life, I’ve actually made a conscious effort not to discuss or offer opinions on many political matters because it caused too many complications and distractions in my pastoral role and in developing proper relationships with the church and parishioners.

But all of that is neither here nor there with regard to this post. I’m not talking about whether one is a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or affiliated with some other political party or platform. This is not about being a liberal or a conservative. I haven’t written this to discuss Congress or President Obama, the Tea Party, current crises over state budgets and the rights of unions, what our proper foreign policy should be toward Libya, or how we should handle the process of health care reform.

I’m talking about the political mindset. There is a way of looking at the world, of defining the issues of life, of the way we think about and treat other people, of advancing various causes and agendas, of expressing our opinions, and of participating in groups and organizations that can be described by using the word “political.” In my view, this way of relating to others is destructive to those who are called to fulfill God’s commandments to love him and our neighbors.

Continue reading “Repenting of a Political Mindset”

Friday with the Fathers (1)

The Church Fathers, Kievan Miniature (11th c)

By Chaplain Mike

During Lent, we will contemplate excerpts from the Apostolic Fathers. These are the earliest Christian writings known to us outside the pages of the New Testament itself. Their works come from the latter half of the first century and the first part of the second.

The traditional list of the Fathers includes:

  • Clement of Rome
  • Ignatius of Antioch
  • Polycarp of Smyrna
  • The Didache
  • The Epistle of Barnabas
  • The Shepherd of Hermas
  • Papias

Today, we take a brief look at Clement of Rome.

Continue reading “Friday with the Fathers (1)”

The Bigness Of God

Silence, it seems, is big business these days. My friend Mike leads silent retreats several times a year. He started with four guys, and now gets close to 80 wanting to go and experience something that is getting harder and harder to find in our day: Silence. I went away for a similar retreat last weekend. I needed to get away from the noise of life and listen to the one who most often speaks in a still, soft voice. And while the quiet was very welcome, one thing I was not prepared for was encountering just how big God is.

The retreat was in a monastery where I was invited to pray the offices with the monks who live and work there. I gladly went to most of the offices held in the church on their property. When you first enter the church you find six rows of chairs set out for the lay people, with a small, decorative wall separating this area from the monks’ carols. My first impression was how small and narrow the church is. There is a low ceiling where I sat (a balcony is above), and the whole section might only seat 40 or so people. Very small indeed.

Following the morning office of Lauds is the Eucharist, or Mass. And it’s at that time the gate in the small wall was opened so I and the other retreatants could go to the front of the church. We walked past the carols to a section where there were more chairs set out and … and there I saw just how wrong I was. This church wasn’t small. It was huge. The height and width and depth was far greater than I could have imagined from the spot in the back where I had been sitting.

Continue reading “The Bigness Of God”