You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Pastoral’ category.
This weekend, i have the opportunity to speak for the College Group at Bel Air Presbyterian Church…however, not in the church building but for their retreat in Big Bear, California.
I have been in quite a bit of prayer leading up to this and i am excited to see what God does.
The three sessions will revolve around:
Belonging to God
Belonging to God’s Community
Belonging to God’s Mission
When i get back, i’ll give you some more details…i’m back to the books now.
Without a doubt, it has been the hardest 3 weeks of my life as a pastor. Granted, I only started in youth ministry 5 years ago at Forest Home Christian Camp and am now the High School Pastor at Calvary Community Church…but the things that have happened in the last 3 weeks make me feel like I have really aged.
Though youth ministry is often potrayed as a 24/7 party of games, camps, “fun” mission trips to Costa Rica, and late nights playing “Mafia,” there is a side that few people talk about or even experience…the utter depravity of the american teenager.
I know you are thinking…”whoa buddy, why the downer?” But when you get past all the fun and the games and get to a point where a student can open up to you and share their fears, pain, and feelings of abandonment with you…you will begin to understand there there is a world beneath the surface that we often miss…a world that few would listen to and as a result caused two girls from our group to run away two weeks ago…
I am engaged in ministry in an area that most of the world would say is pretty amazing…Westlake Village…just inland from Malibu…everything you want at your fingertips…students in my youth group go to a high school that costs more than most 4 year universities…actors like Jim Caviezel and Heather Locklear come to speak at assemblies…and from the outside everything looks perfect.
But in the last 3 weeks a door was opened in our ministry that revealed to me a lot of hurt and pain and desperation. Don’t let the 4.0 GPAs, the National Honor Society Awards, and extensive involvement in church activities fool you…
REM was write when they wrote the song “Everybody Hurts.”
I knew it would only be time until that door was finally opened and now that it did, I know there is no going back.
I am tired of youth ministry that is all about fun and games and forgets about the Incarnation of Jesus Christ who left the comforts of heaven and entered into the suffering reality of our world to bring healing and redemption. I am tired of youth ministry that rates its success on how many students show up to youth group or small groups or mission trips or service projects and forget about the life-transforming power of Jesus that promises that he will bring life to the full. I am tired of youth ministry that is afraid to ask the tough questions to parents for fear that they might stop supporting the ministry and forgets that the primary call is to please God not people.
I am tired…and I think a lot of high school students are tired as well of youth groups that don’t take them seriously and don’t take the time to really listen to their hearts.
My prayer is that we can this week stop and listen to Jesus’ words recorded in Matthew 11:28…
Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
In an earlier post I talked about a professor’s adamant request that we stop asking God to join what we are doing…to stop inviting him into a situation…because the reality is, he is already present and at work and it is our job to respond to His love and to join Him in what He is already doing.
Two comments that stuck out…
Rhett Smith Says:
January 30th, 2006 at 12:18 pmI like how Dr. Ray Anderson would tell us in class that the whole concept of WWJD is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. The question is not what would Jesus do, but what is Jesus doing. He is alread here in our midsts.
Rhett,
Love it…Ray was the first to really challenge this concept in my life…Christ is already present and at work and we have the choice over whether or not we follow him or not.
Steve Says:
January 31st, 2006 at 8:35 amYes, Jesus is already present in this place, but we have been given this incredible gift of free will, and so He says “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”, seeking a welcome from us.
Think of Moses, who followed clouds and pillars of fire of God’s presence and yet still was trying to strike the rock o get Jesus to perform for Him. God does not need to be compelled to show up, he’s already there, but he does want us to ask for his grace.
Steve,
so right you are…he is present yet he does not force his will upon us…we must receive him.
The fantastic thing is that we have confidence when we respond to his free gift of love because he is present and we don’t have to wonder if he will show up or not.
I love the passage you quoted from Revelation 3:20.
I don’t want to make any assumptions about how you interpret that passage but I recently have been processing whether or not, even I myself, have misinterpreted this passage.
I have generally understood it as an evangelistic device. Jesus stands and knocks at the door of our hearts and it is our choice whether or not to invite him in. I have been taught this for years and have heard it in countless sermons…but recent conversations with pastors and seminary professors has made me rethink why I believe what I believe about this passage.
When you look at the context of this passage, it is written to the church in Laodicea NOT a non-believer. As we look at the entire passage we see John’s vision of the Son of Man rebuking a lukewarm church that does not have it’s eyes focused on Christ. This passage comes in the midst of Jesus’ message to 6 other churches…not one referance to the nonconverted…
So the questions that I ask are:
”why do we think we can take this verse out of context and use it in an individualistic and evangelistic sense?”
“are we taking it out of context?”
“is this passage directed more at us the church rather than those outside the church?”
Would love to hear your thoughts…as you formulate your thoughts, check out an interesting review of Revelation 3:20 that I stumbled upon…
Wow…another amazing class with Dr. Francis Bridger at Fuller Theological Seminary.
So, the question came up in class, “How often do we in our prayers and in our conversations invite Jesus into a situation or a place?”
I mean, when you think about it, we do it all the time.
“Jesus, during this difficult time, we invite you into this place and give us peace.”
“Lord, we ask that you be with us here today as we plan the upcoming year.”
It has become so common in our language that if you type in “inviting Jesus” into Google, 1,680,000 search results come up at the time this was written.
So when our teacher brought up this common request today in class…we all thought nothing of it.
Until he said it was…
unbiblical.
what? unbiblical? are you saying that thousands of pastors and, come to think of it, millions of believers pray an unbiblical prayer?
after our initial shock gave way to an awkward silence…one student broke through and asked what we were all thinking, “what?”
He replied,
How dare we invite Jesus into this place? How dare we have the audacity to think we are the gatekeepers who can beckon and hold back God at our whim? How dare we miss the biblical truth that God is already present in this place…that He was here long before we arrived…that He is already at work in ways beyond our comprehension. Rather, our pray should be, ‘God, we recognize you are here in this place and are in control. How can we join you in what you are already doing? How can we respond to the love you have initiated to us through your Son, Jesus Christ? We want to follow you, show us the way.
Silence.
What if he was right? What if Christ was bigger than our feeble attempts to “bring him” into a situation? What if God is already at work in a situation and desires us to pray for the next step…he is already there…we don’t need to waste our time and believe we have to invite him in….he is already ahead of us and we are to follow.
How would this change counseling sessions? Instead of inviting Jesus into a situation we would point to the reality that he is here in our midst walking alongside us in our pain.
How would this change church meetings? Instead of inviting Jesus in to bless our plans and our process we would acknowledge his leading and ask in ernest prayer that our scales would fall from our eyes so that we could collectively see the direction he is leading.
How would this change my life? Instead of inviting Jesus into my life, I would live a life of responding to the love that he initiated…that he set into motion long before I sent him the invitation. That I would go beyond seeing Jesus as another part of my diverse portfolio that will give me a better life…but humbly acknowledging that the only way this thing works is if I allow Jesus to take the wheel of my life instead of trying to wrench it from him…
How can we move from living as false gatekeepers of God to authentic Christ-followers?
Oh Jesus, show us the way…
Really looking forward to taking Ryan’s and Eddie Gibbs’ class at Fuller Theological Seminary in two weeks…
There is a thing at my church called MOC…or “Minister on Call.” Basically, everyday, a pastor is available from 8AM until 8AM the following day…making pastors available to the community around the clock. If a call comes in after hours and a voicemail is left…the MOC is paged automatically and they can call in and check the message in order to call the person in need of care.
In addition to the pastors on staff there are also lay volunteers who have been trained to serve as Minister’s on Call as well.
This past Thursday I was the MOC for the day and I was connected with a woman who’s husband was in the final stages of cancer. To make a long story short, I called her and set up a time where I could come spend some time with her and her husband, to pray with them, and to offer any type of support. She and her husband were looking forward to my coming over the next day as they have been attending Calvary Community Church for the last two years and felt connected to the church body there.
As the next day started to unfold and as the hours got closer to when I was going to visit them, I’ve got to tell you, I got really nervous. I don’t know if it was because there wasn’t much history between us that I was wondering what I was going to talk about with them or if it was because I had never done a house call like this before or if it was because he was in the late stages of cancer and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy…whatever it was I became more and more nervous as the time got closer and closer. To add another element into the mix, I started getting really frustrated with myself, thinking, “Drew, you are a pastor, this is what you do…why are you getting so worked up over this?” This continued on all the way until I showed up in front of there house…obviously not the best mindset to be in…
So now that I am sitting in front of there house in my car…after having stressed out for the previous 5 hours…all of a sudden I felt this sudden urge to pray. It was a good thing because as I started to just let my nerves flow out througha pretty desperate prayer I started to realize something…it had nothing to do with me.
When I walk through the doors of that house in a minute, I’m not coming as Drew Sams…I’m coming in the name of the One who sent me. I don’t speak with my own words but with the words of the One who speaks deep into our souls. I’m not going to be capable of comforting this family, but I know that the Great Comforter will use me. I realized I had been so worked up over not being able to do it that I didn’t realize God wanted to remind me that I couldn’t unless I leaned on Him. It was as if a weight was lifted off of my heart and I felt a new confidence to walk into that house and just love on that family.
And then something happened that I can look back on and only give God all the credit for…
I get out of my car and start heading towards the front door, realizing for the first time that the mortuary van is sitting in the front driveway…
the front door is wide open…
the family is crying in the family room…
i walk into the bedroom and see the coroner zipping up the man I was suppossed to meet and pray with at 3pm…
a wife sobbing over her husband that she had just lost…
a hug that we shared as they took her husband away…
The next two hours were surreal and I can only say to you that the words of comfort, encouragement, support, and prayer couldn’t have come from me…but from the One who sent me….
Sure, I was the one forming the thoughts in my head and articulating them in speech, but where they came from I can only tell you that God had a big hand in it.
As I write this now, I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 5:20 – “We are Christ’s ambassadors, and God is using us to speak to you…” The two hours I spent with that family didn’t happen because I am a pastor…in fact, I don’t think I would have been very useful at all if I hadn’t stop and prayed and allowed God to remind me that HE wanted to USE me to be an instrument through which he could care for that family.
As I reflect on this, the amazing thing is that God will use anyone as an instrument if they allow Him. And the interesitng thing is that I was feeling pretty useless before I went to make that house visit…it had been a rough day…and i got stressed on top of it…but God somehow still used me to love on that family.
My prayer is that you allow God to use you to be an ambassador for his son, Jesus Christ. My prayer is that you believe that God could actually use you. And my prayer is that you realize it is God who enables you to give love and compassion to those most in need of it.
