Writers’ Roundtable

We are introducing a new—and I hope, regular—feature today: the Writers’ Roundtable. I am so incredibly blessed to work with some of the best writers I know. Mike Bell. Lisa Dye. Adam Palmer. Damaris Zehner. Joe Spann. And, of course, Chaplain Mike. Honestly, these great friends put in many hours reading, researching, praying, and then writing for InternetMonk.com with no compensation. Did I mention they are all crazy as well?

Writers’ Roundtable will be a feature where Chaplain Mike or I will introduce a topic, ask a few specific questions, then sit back and listen to the discussion. Imagine us, if you will, seated around a kitchen table, beverages at hand, wrestling with ideas as brothers and sisters in this journey of faith. That is just what you will get in this—except our “table” is the internet.

And you have to provide your own beverage.

Our topic today is how followers of Jesus, specifically in the Western culture, should view the Bible.

As always, your comments are welcome as well. Enjoy. (Oh, and use a coaster under your glass, will you?)

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What Is My Portion?

“and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

and your night will become like the noonday.”

Isaiah 58:10

One of my daughters has travelled to more than a dozen countries in the last year, sometimes for work, sometimes for missions, but always because she’s not afraid to say ‘yes’ when God invites her on a journey. In her apartment, a suitcase remains almost perpetually open, interesting for the variety of odd contents being packed depending on the upcoming destination. Most recently, I noticed mosquito netting, malaria pills, toilet paper, water bottles and thrift shop clothing – the portion necessary to her survival for an upcoming journey.

Immediately following the earthquake that leveled the already impoverished island nation of Haiti earlier this year, Ashley made plans to go in June and work for a local church that is directing feeding programs and repair efforts in a city about 25 miles from Port au Prince. It was from there that she called me to let me know that she was well physically, but heartbroken over the poverty she found.

Landing in Port au Prince, she saw hordes of still homeless people and piles of spontaneously combusting trash in the streets. A three-hour bus trip took her to a less crowded, but no less poor area.

Continue reading “What Is My Portion?”

IM Recommended Reading: Rachel Evans on BioLogos

By Chaplain Mike

Friend of Internet Monk Rachel Held Evans has a great post on the BioLogos site that includes a video conversation. It’s called, “My Faith Shouldn’t Be Alive (But It Is, and Here’s Why).”

Check it out here.

We recently reviewed Rachel’s wonderful book, Evolving in Monkey Town, and continue to recommend it to you as a winsome, honest testimony of maturing faith.

Help Me with My Sermon!

By Chaplain Mike

OK friends, I need your help.

For the next three Sundays, I have the privilege of leading worship and proclaiming the Gospel in a sister congregation. One thing I have appreciated about the Lutheran tradition is the emphasis each Sunday on the Gospel passage and message.

As you know, however, Jesus spoke some “hard sayings,” teachings that are hard to process personally, and difficult to understand as “good news.”

This week’s passage is a good example—Luke 9:51-62

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ But he turned and rebuked them.

Then they went on to another village. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’

I’m working on this, but I thought I might enlist your assistance in the process.

  • What is the “Good News” in this Gospel passage?
  • Where do we see God’s grace in this text?
  • What attracts you to Jesus as you read these words?

Join me in the study, and let’s talk!

Skye Jethani on “The Daisy Cutter Doctrine” of Ministry

Presented by Chaplain Mike

One of today’s most clear-sighted Christian leaders talks about where our legitimacy in ministry comes from.

Quotes to Remember:

What I call the “Daisy Cutter Doctrine” is a lie that I think a lot of us in ministry have fallen into, which is the belief that the larger the impact of our ministry, the more legitimate we are as ministers of the Gospel.

How different would our ministries be, and our souls be, and our joys be, if we disconnected our legitimacy from the outcomes of our ministry and instead rooted our legitimacy and our identity in the fact that we are sons and daughters of our loving Father?

Paul the Pastor

By Chaplain Mike

We will conclude our little flurry of posts on being a pastor and the duty of the church to provide pastoral care to its members by looking at another of the apostles, Paul.

I had a great breakthrough in my understanding of pastoral theology during seminary, when I realized that I could study Paul’s letters and not only learn about Christian doctrine and living, but also see laid out before me how a pastor ministers to people. The epistles of Paul provide one of the greatest resources we have for learning what it means to have the heart of a pastor, as well as what practices can shape our efforts to proclaim the Gospel and build up God’s people into a mature community of faith.

Among my favorite passages in this regard is 1Thessalonians, chapter 2. 1Thessalonians is one of Paul’s earliest letters, indeed one of the first apostolic epistles written in the NT era. It shows me that the ministry of Jesus’ followers was shaped by Jesus’ example of personal care and face-to-face ministry from the beginning.

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Peter the Pastor

By Chaplain Mike

I have written several posts over the past year on the subject of pastoral visitation and the importance of church communities taking seriously the responsibility for the personal care and tending of their members.

In a comment I received to one of those posts, a church leader wrote that some pastors should not be considered responsible for pastoral care or visitation because they serve in an “apostolic” role rather than a pastoral one. The commenter wrote:

I believe pastors who lead multi-campus ministries effectively have an apostolic gift. J. Robert Clinton defines apostleship as “the gift to have the leadership capacity to move with authority from God to create new ministry structures to meet needs and appoint leadership in those structures.” While the apostles in the early church were responsible for the church they were not obligated to do personally all of that for which they are responsible.

He then stated his desire to be “an apostle” someday so that he could devote most of his time to prayer and the ministry of the Word, instead of the “waiting tables” ministry he was in when he wrote.

Here is a part of my response:

With all due respect, I think you are reading an awful lot of contemporary culture back into the Bible. Peter was not the great CEO who holed up in his office, study, and prayer closet and then came forth to “cast vision” and delegate the ministry to others. These are American business concepts, not reflections of the way Peter and the apostles actually lived day by day in down-to-earth ministry.

Peter may have had apostolic responsibilities (which by the way, were on an episcopal level beyond the local church, not a local “church staff” level), but this did not release him from “tending the sheep,” as Jesus had commanded him (John 21:15-17).Continue reading “Peter the Pastor”

I Am a Pastor

By Chaplain Mike

I wrote this many years ago, while on a mission trip in India. I used it to teach children about what a pastor is and does.

Over the years, I’ve come back to it many times. Its simple words reminded me of God’s calling.

Perhaps, on this Monday morning, it can be of encouragement to those who share the pastoral call.

“Be shepherds of the flock of God.” (Acts 20:28)

I am a pastor …

If you would ask me who I am, I would answer, “a pastor.”

To be a pastor means to be a shepherd.

To be a shepherd means to care for sheep …

to attend to their births,

to cleanse and groom them, to see that they are well fed,

to tend to them when they are hurt or sick,

to go ahead of them, seeking clean sources of food and water, to rescue them from difficulties,

to guard them from predators and fight off attackers; to seek and find them when they wander off,

to provide a calming presence when they are in frightening situations,

to move them out of the comfort of sheepfold at times, and lead them out to open places,

to gather them together again and lead them back to their warm, familiar home,

to understand the unique characteristics of each sheep — where each one is weak and where each is strong — so that I might give the entire flock wise and sensitive care.

to set them on their feet again when they fall and cannot right themselves; to put up and maintain fences that will keep them from going astray,

to see to their health and bring them to maturity, so that they can reproduce and bring forth lambs,

to help them adapt to and flourish the different seasons and circumstances of life,

to remember, mourn and bury them when they die.

I am a pastor. I take care of sheep.

In return, they nourish me, warm me, and keep me company on bright days and through dark nights.

They are my friends.

With them, I follow a greater Shepherd, who does all this and more for me as well as them. He equips me to serve them as his under-shepherd, and he rewards me generously.

I do what I do for his pleasure and for the increase of his honor.

He is my Shepherd, and in him I have no wants.

Shaped By Jesus II

By Chaplain Mike

“Shaped By Jesus” is a series of sign-posts pointing to Jesus’ teaching and acts as the soil from which Christlike discipleship grows. We are shaped by Jesus and we are shaped to be like Jesus in his character and mission.

The Spirit enables us to be with Jesus today as we live our daily lives in the context of the Biblical story. As we contemplate our Lord’s words and acts, and as we live in a conversational relationship with him, our minds and imaginations discover that Jesus is the Way—not only the Truth we believe and the Life we receive—but also the pattern of life which shapes ours.

In our first post, we examined the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), concluding that the way of being shaped by Jesus involves:

  • Living in and by Jesus’ grace alone.
  • Joining Jesus in living among and ministering to the poor.
  • Living now in the light of the new creation Jesus is making.

Today, our text is Matthew 5:13-16, known as the “Similitudes”—

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

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Sunday’s Gospel: Teaching One Another

By Chaplain Mike

On Sundays, we hear the Gospel reading from the Revised Common Lectionary.

Sometimes, I share a message based upon this text. On other weeks, I ask you to share your observations so that our readers can be edified. Today, we’ll be teaching one another again.

Please remember the one main rule:

My only request is that you be as brief as possible. Don’t think you have to do a full Bible study or sermon for us here. Give us one or two pertinent points from the Biblical passage that you think would be edifying to the iMonk community.

Today’s Gospel text is: Luke 8:26-39.

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