David Ralph

The Complexity of It All

Yesterday I had the chance once again to spend a day with a group of pastors from some of the largest churches in Ontario.  I love this group of guys.  They are some of the best and brightest minds in the church world.  I’m not sure why they let me in the group but I am glad that they did. 

Our discussions yesterday centered around the whole complexity of doing ministry in a large church context.  Lead a large and growing ministry is very complex.  We looked at the whole issue of staffing and how we need to know the different temperaments and gifts and love languages and general make-up of our staff in order to lead them effectively.  Although we were able to categorize our staff members into three groups, it still requires us to lead these groups in different ways, which makes leading the staff a complicated challenge.

Then we talked about why our churches seem to be growing overall but that less and less people are attending weekend services, are joining small groups, are signing up to serve and participating in community life.  We looked at the cultural factors that have led to this.  We examined how technology has played a part in this as many of us were using videocasts and podcasts of our services.  We talk about how the church has to take responsibility in some of this and own their part.  We asked lots of questions but we didn’t come up with many answers.  The issue is very complex.

At the beginning of the day, we went around the circle and leader after leader talked about the many joys that were happening in their communities but we also shared about some of the stresses and struggles and challenges we face.  If we were to make a list of it all, most of us share the same struggles.  Again, there were lots of questions but not as many answers. 

As I sat there, listening to all of this, the struggles, the challenges and the complexities, I thought to myself that if there had been young seminary students sitting in the room who are contemplating pastoral ministry that they would have decided on a new career path in a heartbeat.

Not that it was a disheartening day but it did remind me of what it takes to lead this thing called the church, especially large and growing churches.  The good news that we need to remind ourselves is that although it is complex, God is the builder of the church, not us, and he has way more wisdom than all the minds in that room put together.  So we must continue to ask the hard questions, work through the difficult days of reflection and contemplation but we must also continue to turn it over to God.

Concerns for the Church

The Bible writer Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:28, “Besides everything else, I face the daily pressure of my concern for all the churches”.  Paul shares in the previous verses about the intensity of the suffering that he had endured as a leader in the newly formed church.  Beatings, stonings, lashings, shipwrecks, sleeplessness, hunger and nakedness.  I find it interesting that the last thing in the list is his concern for the church.  I wonder what his concerns might have been?

I have my own list of concerns for the church these days.   Thoughts that roll around in my head when I am day dreaming but often just before I fall asleep it night.  Thoughts that sometimes even keep me awake.  I could probably rattle off a long list of concerns.  Some of them would be somewhat trivial but a few of them would be quite significant, at least from my point of view.

Let me share a few of them.  First, would be the word “consumerism”.  Instead of seeing the church as a body or a family as described in the bible, people are treating the church community like a store they would shop in or a restaurant they would eat it.  If they don’t like the product or the service or the atmosphere or if it doesn’t meet some selfish need, then they bail and find a new one.   We have groups of genuine followers of Jesus who are constantly on the move from one church community to another.  Sometimes they return to a previous church they attended because they realize they liked it better than the one they are at.  This is not the church that Jesus died for.  That is why the Bible uses words like family and body.  Amputation hurts.  People disconnecting from family is painful.  I know there are always legitimate reasons for leaving – a lack of vision – disfunctional leadership – a lack of family ministries.  But so often the reasons are so much more superficial than that.   I was at a conference last week and one speaker defined Christian love (the foundation for community) this way, “Christian love is not affection or passion but the unconditional commitment to the wellbeing of others in community”.   He then asked a couple of questions.  First, “Am I a member, sharing  joys and sorrow and would I stay even it it didn’t meet all my needs?’  Secondly, “Is my first priority the community rather than some personal external agenda I have for the community?”  In other words, “if all jy needs don’t get met and if I don’t get my own way, will I still make being part of the community a priority?”  Great questions. 

My second concern could be summed up in one word, “busyness”.  For all sorts of reasons we have become a very busy society.  I hear the words overwhelmed and stressed and too busy far too often.  This busyness is keeping us from connecting in community. from being part of weekly worship gatherings, from serving others and from spending time alone with God each day.  These things are the very things that keep us on track in our relationship with Jesus.  Yet, busyness seems to be keeping us from these things.  But maybe it the right word isn’t busyness.  The right word would be priorities.  It seems we do have the time that we think are the most important.  Shouldn’t building a growing friendship with God be at the top of the list and shouldn’t things that make that a reality be part of our schedule?

My third concern would be the word “empathy”.  We seem to care more for ourselves and less for others.  I hear the words Paul on Phillipians 2 echoing over this lack of concern for others and a primary concern for ourselves.  Listen to the echo, “do nothing out of selfish ambition and vain concept, but in humility consider others better (or before) yourself.”  Brokenness is dominant in our world.  Poverty is off the charts.  Jesus wants us to be his hands and feet.  N0t flowing from any obligation or “have too’ but flowing from a heart that really cares.  We need to let the things that break the very heart of God break our heart and from this heart care for others in our world.

Finally, it would be the word “apathy”.  It seems that we just don’t care about our spiritual health and being an active part of a faith community.  Maybe this one word might be the summary of all the rest.  Paul talks about passion and zeal and straining and pressing on which seems to be the antithesis of apathy.

How did we get this way and where are we headed?  Maybe instead of being a spiritual light in the darkness of our society, we have become less illuminating because of the influence of the darkness on the light.  We have let societal patterns and attitudes to invade our thinking and we have become conformed to them.  Maybe it is time to be transformed by the “renewing of our minds” because right thinking always leads to right attitudes which always leads to right behaviours.

Let me end with a sobering question, “Would Jesus be proud of the church that he died for and would he be proud of the followers he gave his life for?”  But these are great concerns because there are no simply solutions to them.  Like Paul, I have concern for the church and I am willing to give all I have until the day I die to help the church be the church that Jesus would be proud of and died for.

The Speed at the Track

Today I had the chance to go out with a group of professional drivers on one of Canada’s best race tracks in some of the fastest road cars available on the market.  I had a chance to go around the track in two different models from Porsche and an awesome Audi.  We traveled at times at speeds in excess of 200 kilometers per hour.  The track that we were one is not simply an oval.  Mosport is a road course with ten very crazy corners and multiple elevations.  Corner number two could be one of the most dangerous corners at any race track.  You enter the corner at a high speed and your enter it blind.  Because of the turn and the change in elevation you have no way of  knowing what is ahead and around the corner.  If you are going too fast or you don’t pay attention to the flagman who warns you of upcoming danger, you could wreck your car and end up badly injured. 

I got thinking about something as I went about a dozen laps around the track.  Life is like turn two.  There are many blind turns in life where you can’t see what is beyond the bend in the road or the changes in elevation.  If you are traveling too fast or you don’t pay attention to the warnings of others you can end up having a wreck with the ramifications having significant impact on your life.

Too many people today are traveling too fast today and they are paying a price.  Yet with all the competition on the track of life, how do you slow down without being passed or lapped?  There are no easy answers.  But more and more people I am talking to are looking for ways to slow down and are not worrying about being lapped anymore.  Their personal health, the relationship with God and their relationship with their family are more important than winning some marketplace or cultural race.   Will they pay a price?  For sure.  But it is a price they are willing to pay because the payoff is the ability to grab ahold of the things in life that really matter.

Temptation

This weekend’s talk at Lakeside is all about facing temptation and the consequences we experience when we cross the line of temptation.  We will be looking at the life of David and his infamous affair with Bathsheba.  In my study time this week I came across a great piece by Detrich Bonnhoffer about temptation.  Because I am not able to share it as part of my talk because of time, I thought I would make it part of my blog entry today.

Listen to what he says about temptation – let it soak in…

“In our members there is a slumbering inclination towards desire which is both sudden and fierce.  With irresistable power, desires seize mastery of the flesh.  All at once a secret, smoldering fire is kindled.  The flesh burns and is in flames.  It makes no difference whether it is a sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money…  At this moment God is quite unreal to us.  He loses all reality and only desire for the creature is real.  The only reality is the devil.  Satan does not fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God… The lust thus aroused envelopes the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us.  The questions present themselves as, “Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case?”.  And, Is it really not permitted to me, yes, expected of me now, here in my particular situation to appease desire?” 

I found this to be a great summation of the struggle we all face with temptation.  At the end of this listen what he says, “The Bible teaches us in time of temptation in the flesh, there is one command: Flee!  Flee fornication.  Flee idolatry.  Flee youthful lusts.  Flee the lusts of the world.  Every struggle against lust in one’s own strength is doomed to failure”.     What a great solution.  If David had of run away from the edge of that roof top, imagine what painful consequences might he have avoided.  Is there an area in your life where you need to run?

The Words of a Saint

I have been reading the private writings of Mother Teresa over the last few days and I today I came upon the parting words her mother shared with her as Mother Teresa left home to begin her ministry as a missionary to the poor in India.  Listen to what she wrote.  “Put your hand in Jesus hand, and walk alone with him.  Walk ahead, because if you look back you will go back.”    Now listen to what she writes after a few months in India, “I want to be only all for Jesus – truly and not just in name and dress…I would give everything even life itself, for Him.  It doesn not go easily when a person has to be on one’s feet from morning until evening.  But still, everything is for Jesus, so like that everything is beautiful, even though it is difficult.”  

I love that passion for Jesus and for ministry.  Even though ministry sometimes can be difficult (of which she writes about later on) she still has that passion for Jesus and for ministry.  That same kind of passion for Jesus, for ministry and for serving seems to be found in so few people today.  Our passion for Jesus seems to be in so many ways moved from sacrificial commitment  to convenience and comfortable.  If it is easy I will do it.  If it fits into my schedule well then okay I will do it.  If nothing else is on the schedule then I will consider it.  There is a growing sense of apathy in our Christian culture today and it deeply concerns me.  

I hear the reasoning (I would call it an excuse) that loving Jesus and serving and doing ministry for Jesus are separate things.  That I can love Jesus without serving him or doing ministry for him.  Really?  That is almost as foolish as saying that you can have a personal relationship with Jesus without being part of spiritual community.  That is a topic for a different day.  The practices of love and serving are absolutely inseparable.  You cannot serve or do ministry for Jesus if you don’t love him with all your heart.  But you can’t love him with all your heart and not serve him or do ministry for him. 

I know that we live in very busy days.  Lots of people are scrambling to keep up with all of the demands.  So many people are overwhelmed and overloaded.  Many people are searching to find the time to serve and to do ministry.  I am often ask, “how can we make this happen?”.  It is a simple answer.   Grow deeper in your love for Jesus.  We all have time for the things we love the most.    Jesus said seek first the kingdom and all the rest of life will fall into place.  He also said that if we love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and then love our neighbour as ourselves and we make that our primary priority that it would overshadow all the other priorities and have a direct influence on them.   I think the depth and richness of her love made Mother Teresa the saint and servant of God that she was.  Let me close with some final words from Mother Teresa – “Why must we give ourselves fully to God?  Because God has given himself to us.  If God who owes us nothing is ready to impart to us  no less than himself, shall we anwer with just a fraction of ourselves? To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God himself.  I for God and God for me.  To possess God we must allow him to possess our soul.  Jesus said in Luke 14:33 – “Unless a person gives up everything that they own, they cannot be my follower”.  I have a feeling Mother Teresa lived by these words.