Tag Archives: New Testament

Leading like Ananias: Prominence vs Significance in Pastoral Ministry

“Prominence does not equal significance in the Kingdom of God.” I am not sure who said that first, but whenever I hear it my mind always goes to the book of Acts and Ananias. No, not Ananias who with his wife Sapphira lied to the Apostles and tried to defraud God and met an unfortunate end, but the simple believer we only hear of in a couple of verses in Acts 9. My fellow Scottish minister William Barclay called him one of the great forgotten heroes of the Bible and I want to do a little bit to help us remember his significance for our leadership.

You know the background; Saul has been on a violent crusade to stamp out the fledgling Church. He is now on his way to Damascus to carry out the next stage of this literally murderous campaign. Then he meets Jesus and everything changes. Saul is told to go to Damascus. Luke tells us this is what happens next.

^“In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, ‘Ananias!’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he answered. The Lord told him, ‘Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.’

‘Lord,’ Ananias answered, ‘I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.’ But the Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’

Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord – Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here – has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptised, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” (Acts 9:10-19)

Tom Wright makes this comment about our unsung hero: “We know nothing about him except this passage, and it’s enough: that he was a believer, that he knew how to listen for the voice of Jesus, that he was prepared to obey it even though it seemed ridiculously dangerous.” (N.T. Wright, Acts For Everyone) Wright’s words capture why Ananias is my unsung hero. Although we have few recorded words from his lips, his life speaks loud and clear about what it means to follow Jesus. He reminds us that being a disciple is about openness and obedience to Jesus. Ananias was a simple believer who was open to hearing the voice of Jesus and then was prepared to obey it wherever it led and whatever it cost. His life is a reminder to us that openness and obedience to Jesus are the essence of following Jesus.

We see this willingness to hear and obey Jesus in his encounter with Saul. To understand the full significance of what happened on Straight Street, remember that Saul had been carrying out a terror campaign against Christians. There is every chance that Ananias knew people whose death Saul had been responsible for. In all likelihood, Ananias himself was on Saul’s hit list for Damascus. Jesus tells Ananias to go and meet the man responsible for the death and torture of some of his friends and fellow believers and who was out to harm him personally.

I wonder what I would have done in that situation?

I wonder what my first words would have been to Saul?

The first thing Ananias did was to go to where Saul was. He obeyed Jesus. He obeyed despite the fact he seems to have had worries that it might be a suicide mission. Once he heard Jesus’ words, Ananias was willing to obey whatever the personal cost to himself. Now there is an example that the contemporary church could do with embracing.

I never fail to be deeply moved by what Ananias does and says when he finally encounters Saul. “Placing his hands on Saul, he said, ‘Brother Saul…’” I find that nothing short of incredible. Ananias embraced Saul, the arch-enemy of believers. The first words that Saul heard from a fellow believer following his conversion was not “killer,” but “brother.”

The only explanation I have for what happened in Judas’ house is that at some point, Ananias had heard Jesus say that his disciples had to love their enemies, so that is what he did. No questions asked. Saul couldn’t see Ananias but, in his words and embrace, I suspect he felt the grace and acceptance of Jesus through his fellow believer’s hands.

As a leader, I wonder whether Ananias’ example suggests I have been guilty of making being a disciple way more complicated than it is? This last year I’ve been caught up in theologizing and strategizing about discipleship, as our church tries to get serious about being and making disciples. But Ananias reminds me that fundamentally, I need to challenge people (and myself) to simply make time to hear Jesus’ voice and then do what he says. (I said it was simple, not easy.)

We are a congregation of ex-pats here in Switzerland; many of our people have stressful jobs that consume time voraciously. It’s a familiar challenge – I think our enemy successfully pulls us into a cycle of busyness which leaves us with little room to be open to hearing Jesus. I have been contemplating whether or not we are obeying Jesus – not because of stubborn disobedience, but because we are not making the time to hear what he is saying. After the Covid restrictions are rolled back and church life goes back to “normal” will that “normal” have enough space built in to allow us time discerning the voice of Jesus?

Does your life? Have you regularly cut out a chunk of time to be open to Jesus? Recently, a powerful revival has broken out at Longhollow Baptist Church in Tennessee. Its pastor, Robbie Galatay, has spoken about how this revival can be traced back to him finally scheduling time to simply be with and be open to Jesus. There is a lesson there for all of us in leadership.

I am in the final phase of my ministry now. In all likelihood, I am never going to be a megachurch pastor whose sermons attract millions of views on YouTube. Nothing I write will knock My Utmost for His Highest or The Purpose Driven Life off the Christian bestsellers list. A few years after my retirement, I doubt if many people will remember my second name. But as I contemplate that, I come back to my original thought: prominence doesn’t equal significance in the Kingdom of God.

Was Ananias prominent in the early Church? No. But did his ministry have significance? Of course it did! Ananias’ ministry of love and prayer to Saul unleashed into the world a spiritual tornado whose impact is still very much with us. I wonder if Ananias lived to see the impact that Saul-turned-Paul would have? I wonder how many other people Ananias loved, embraced, forgave, and prayed for in his ministry? I wonder what impact they made? His ministry reminds me that my ministry may not have prominence, but in the Kingdom of God it can have a significance I cannot even begin to imagine.

Can I remind you? That’s true for you too, wherever and whomever you minister to.

Featured image courtesy Jon Tyson via Unsplash.

Where Is Our Leadership Leading?

Do you ever think about where your leadership is leading? Winston Churchill once commented that, “we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” Having been the pastor of a congregation which met in a barn of an Art Nouveau Gothic church building, I really understand what he meant. Yet something else also shapes how we function as the church: our understanding and resulting practice of leadership.

I entered ministry in the early 90s, so I lived through the rise of the “leadership movement” within the evangelical church. My bookshelves are now packed with books on leadership. Over the years, I attended numerous conferences on leadership and took undergraduate and postgraduate courses on leadership. Like most pastors, my email inbox is daily bombarded by invitations to read blogs about leadership and listen to podcasts about leadership. With providential predictability and irony, as I type these words, I have an email notification beginning, “Seven Signs Your Leadership…”.

I confess that I have not been just a passive witness of this rise of leadership thought in the church but also an active consumer and even promoter of it. The books, conferences, blogs – and in the early 90s, even cassette tapes – churned out by leadership writers and consumed by me have shaped my self-understanding as one called to ministry in the church. If I am honest, as a result, I came to understand my primary calling as being a leader. And my understanding of what it means to be a leader has in turn been shaped largely by models of leadership drawn from business and even the military.

Have you played the wooden block balancing game Jenga? If so, you know what happens: one by one, the wooden blocks are removed until the whole tower becomes shaky and eventually collapses. That’s what has happened to my confidence in the leadership movement over the past few years: scandal after scandal has made my confidence in it wobble; now it feels to me like it’s collapsing around my ears.

For those of us who are called to serve the church, being a leader (as spelled out in the flood of resources aimed at us) was never meant to be our primary way of approaching that calling. For his PhD work, David W. Bennett looked at the metaphors for ministry in the New Testament. One of his main conclusions was, “Jesus focused more of his attention on teaching the disciples to follow rather than giving them instructions on how to lead. The single most important lesson for leaders to learn is that they are first sheep, not shepherds, first children, not fathers, first imitators, not models.” (Leadership Images from the New Testament) This is consistent with a quick approximation that in the New Testament the words “lead” or “leader” are found about seven times but the word “disciple” appears 260 times and the phrase “follow me” appears 23 times.

Despite what we’ve heard from the leadership gurus in the Kingdom of God, everything does not rise and fall on leadership but on discipleship. We can only lead in the Body of Christ through following Christ. In fact, what makes Christian leadership Christian is that it is expressed in and through Christian discipleship. In the church, following is leading, which is why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” The problem is that a whole industry predominantly focused attention on “follow me” while virtually ignoring, “as I follow Christ.” After all, have you ever been invited to a global followership summit?

To be clear, I am not questioning the need for leadership in the church. What I am questioning is from where we draw our models and our mentors for leadership in the church, and the impact that has on church culture.

In The Strength Of Weakness, Roy Clements asked three questions that go to the very heart of the issue. “Let me ask you, what is your image of a great leader? Let me ask you another question, what is your image of a great Christian leader? Now, let me ask you a third question. Did the insertion of the word ‘Christian’ into the second question materially change your answer?”

Clements forces us to think about the sources we draw on for our definition of greatness in leadership in the church. Surely, only Christ gets to define that for his Body. In his clearest statement on leadership, Jesus said to his disciples,

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20: 25-28)

Those words are a clear call for us as Jesus’ disciples to reject the leadership values and practices of the dominant culture rather than be inspired by them. Instead, we are to follow his example of sacrificial servanthood in how we exert influence within the Kingdom of God. Pecking orders and power plays are ruled out among his disciples. Author Lance Ford writes of these verses in Unleader, “His [Jesus] requirement is that we lay down the crown and spectre of leadership and pick up the towel and basin of servantship.” Yet I can’t shake the feeling that the leadership movement effectively encouraged me to do the opposite.

Rather than focusing our primary attention on Jesus when it comes to leadership, our focus has been elsewhere. For about two decades, Christian leaders have been encouraged to draw inspiration for their leadership from the leaders in the worlds of business and the military. As a result, many have come to approach leadership in the church as a position of power rather than a spiritual gift and an opportunity to serve. Recently, the evangelical movement has thrown its hands up in horror as a whole crop of its leaders has been revealed to have abused their power. There has been a litany of stories: leaders who have created toxic, unaccountable macho cultures, who have exploited and abused people and acted in narcissistic ways that served themselves rather than Jesus or others. In retrospect, where else should we have expected the version of leadership we popularized to lead?

It is time to admit that the power-abusing, narcissistic church leaders of recent scandals are not aberrations but the all-too-predictable Frankenstein creation of the evangelical industry’s own leadership movement. As for me, I’m turning my back on importing the leadership modes of Fortune 500 CEOs, victorious generals, and leadership gurus. Here are the voices I am choosing to listen to; here are some of their leadership maxims, when it comes to my calling:

“Follow me.” – Jesus Christ

“He must become greater; I must become less.” – John the Baptist

“Follow me as I follow Christ.” – Apostle Paul

“If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him.” – Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

“The bible is a book about followers, written by followers, for followers. I am always a follower first.” – Rusty Ricketson

When it comes to leadership, which voices are you currently listening to? Where do you think they will lead you and your church?

The Snake Still Slithers

While America watched the horrors at our United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021, hurting and crying over the awful scenes unfolding on our screens, tumultuous laughter could be heard from one who some of us deny even exists. One elected representative evacuated that day even described his experience with unusual words for a politician: “it was like looking at evil.” If you don’t believe Satan is alive and well, believe it now. He is the prince of this world, and what a chance God took when he set that snake on the loose! He has already been defeated; Jesus took care of that on the cross. He has no power now, except the power we decide to give him. When Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished,” did you think he meant his life? But Jesus was raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father.

So what did Jesus mean? What was finished? Satan’s power. Jesus meant, “He lost. We won!” But Satan failed to get the memo; he moves ruthlessly through his days, a wimp of who he used to be, trying in vain to continue his deception. As far as our lives are concerned, he is only as successful as we allow. His mission is to wreak havoc any way he can. He does not care who is embarrassed, hurt, mistreated, or slandered as he sets about to fulfill his purposes on this earth: turning every last one of us away from God’s glorious kingdom of light and pulling us into the destruction and darkness he loves.

Someone has said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.” I bought into that when I was younger. I thought he was simply a wind of evil that floats among us all, influencing bad things to happen. A good friend of mine echoes my thoughts during those days. “I thought Satan wasn’t actually real – until I met him face to face during my divorce.”

Yes, Satan is real. He is alive and well, and if we know this, we need to get ourselves into God’s Word, where we can not only see him described, but also recognize that he is a has-been. You and I have to stand against his spirit of self-destruction. Biblical teaching reminds us that, “Greater is He [Jesus] that is in you, than he [Satan] that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

Satan is clearly our enemy, our adversary. He was dancing while the Capitol was being damaged, lives taken, injuries and trauma inflicted. “Be watchful. Your adversary, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Look at some of the horrific acts he has handled. You will not understand this unless you have made a decision that Satan is our real enemy. We can all point to names of those we consider to be the real problem, and we might be right, but look beyond those names and watch how Satan instigates every act of darkness. And remember that he is always a liar.

“Now the serpent was craftier that any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”’” (Genesis 3:1)

When Eve ate the fruit and offered some to Adam, they both willfully chose to listen to the liar instead of their Creator. Before that moment, they were happy. But on taking a bite, they lost the innocence with which they were born. Quickly, they made clothes of leaves to cover up.

As glass was shattering, doors were smashing and anger was exploding at our Capitol building, Satan was propped contentedly on a tree near the Capitol, slithering from limb to limb and laughing hysterically as one by one, scuffling people broke doors and windows, feeling they had the right to do whatever they wanted. “It’s our building,” some chanted, excusing themselves from the mayhem they caused.

And the snake slithered on.

Of course, Satan had long been after America. I am appalled at the divisions in our country. I can’t imagine how I would feel if one I loved had been mistreated or killed on our streets. In fact, for a while, the only redeemable picture from the brutalization of our Capitol was the realization that for a short period, members of both parties were on the same side, binding together, helping each other escape to safety, fearing for themselves and each other – and praying. If we could have gotten into the hearts of our elected officials, we would have heard many prayers being spoken silently.

The night of January sixth, Inside Edition anchor Debra Norville ended the evening with, “God bless America.” The message is not a subtle one. America needs to return to the God we ask to bless us.

Had we been able to actually see a real snake crawling on a tree near the Capitol, we would have noticed one very real, very telling detail. The snake’s head is bashed in. He slithers with a wound. He circles with a crooked head, smashed at the victory over death by our strong Warrior, Jesus Christ. God’s words to Satan after the fall in the garden are telling. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:16)

Yes, the snake still slithers. But he is defeated. When he starts attacking you, repeat the name of Jesus, for, “At the name of Jesus, Satan has to flee.” (James 4:7) God is the ruler yet! Live in these uncertain days in the clear and certain authority of your Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Featured image courtesy David Clode on Unsplash.

In Peace: An Advent Benediction by Suzanne Nicholson

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who was King and is King and will forever be King
Was born not to a family of nobles and princes,
But to a family who couldn’t even place their child in a proper crib;
a manger would have to do.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who would be both the high priest and the perfect sacrifice for sins
Was born to parents who couldn’t even afford to give the full sacrifice, but only the offering of the poor:
a pair of doves.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who will reign over all the kingdoms of the world
As a baby was hunted by the despotic ruler of an oppressive government.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who perfectly embodied the fullness of God in human form
Experienced the human temptations of hunger, power, celebrity, and self-determination.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who healed the blind and made the lame to walk and raised the dead
Bore our scars, experienced our woundedness, and tasted death.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who triumphed over the spiritual powers of darkness
Knows the darkness of a cold tomb.

Go in peace,
Knowing that the child born into poverty, uncertainty, oppression, temptation, woundedness and mortality
Is Jesus, the Son of God, the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the True Vine, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, Our Redeemer, Christ the Resurrected One, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Great I AM, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel—
God with us.

Go in peace.
Amen.

Vicarious Faith in Community

A few years ago, I ran into a friend who was going through some tough family times. I asked him if there was anything I could do; his response caught me off-guard. He said, “I am struggling to have faith, and I just need other people to have faith for me.” I confess that before this, I didn’t really consider “having faith” for someone else. Of course I prayed for people and situations; but to have faith for someone – that seemed a bit strange to me. But I have come to believe that having faith for others – what you might call vicarious faith – is one of the most powerful, Christian things we can do as followers of Jesus.

How do you define faith? The writer of Hebrews defines it this way In Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (ESV) So faith might be defined as “trust” or “belief.” One of my favorite definitions is that faith is “leaning our full weight upon” someone or something. I think many times we tend to think of faith as something we have (or don’t have).

It wasn’t until I ran across a chapter in a book called Humanity and God by Samuel Chadwick that my thinking was challenged. He introduced the idea of vicarious faith.

Chadwick says that vicarious faith is a “faith that is exercised on behalf of another and is accepted for another,”* and he points to the Gospel of Mark for the prime example.

In the second chapter of Mark, we read a story in which Jesus has powerfully launched into his ministry and at the end of chapter one just healed a leper. He has now returned to the town of Capernaum, Jesus’ “home base” on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. A crowd has gathered, as it often does around Jesus. And then something dramatic happens. Four friends, determined to get their friend into the presence of Jesus, lower a paralyzed man through a roof. Mark then reports something that may surprise us: “Jesus saw their faith.” In other words, he saw the faith of the man’s friends – he then pronounces forgiveness to the paralyzed man. There is a very interesting interchange with the scribes about whether Jesus has the authority to forgive sins, which we don’t have time for today, but then Jesus goes further and heals the man’s body. Jesus sees the faith of the friends and then turns to the man and says, “your sins are forgiven.” And then he said, “Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”

Chadwick comments on this scene, “This man received both the forgiveness of his sins and the healing of his body, through the faith of the men who brought him.” It is very interesting that out of more than 20 miracles recorded in the Gospels, at least seven of those were healed through the faith of others.

In Matthew 8:5-13 we read about the Centurion with a sick servant.

“When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.’ And he said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ But the centurion replied, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, “Go,” and he goes, and to another, “Come,” and he comes, and to my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment.” (ESV)

Not a word is said about the faith of the man who was healed. It is attributed entirely to vicarious faith – faith exercised for him.

In John 4:46-54 we read about the healing of an official’s child:

“So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my child dies.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.’ The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ And he himself believed, and all his household. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.” (ESV)

Whose faith had resulted in Jesus saving the official’s child? That son was healed entirely through the faith of the father vicariously exercised 25 miles away.

In Mark 9:14-29, we read about the healing of a boy with an unclean spirit. The disciples had not been able to heal the boy. Here the boy’s father is struggling with faith, but he says, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (ESV)

Whose faith moved Jesus to free the boy? Not the boy’s own faith, not the disciples’, but rather his father’s.

We find a final example in Matthew 15:21-28 where a Canaanite woman approaches Jesus and begs him to heal her daughter:

“And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.’ But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she is crying out after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ And he answered, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.” (ESV)

Whose faith brought her healing through Jesus? It came, not through any faith of her own, but in response to the mighty faith of her mother.

This takes me back to my friend’s statement, “I just need other people to have faith for me.” He was asking me to have vicarious faith for him and for his family, that Jesus might move in their lives in a powerful way. At the time, he didn’t have faith for himself or his family – he needed others.

Is there someone you know, for whom you might be called to have vicarious faith? Or maybe today you are the one who needs someone else to have faith for you.

Chadwick closes his chapter on vicarious faith with this: “Personal faith brings personal salvation, but vicarious faith brings salvation to others; and in this also it is more blessed to give than to receive. The supreme test of faith is not its personal benefit but its vicarious power.”

This is what the community of faith is about. It’s about having faith in Jesus, but it is also about having faith in Jesus for one another. Lord, may we have faith for one another and remember that it is Christ who saves and heals.

* Chadwick, S., 1904. Vicarious Faith. Humanity and God. London: Hodder and Stoughton, p. 295.

Featured image by James Tissot: “Man with Palsy Lowered to Christ” located in the Brooklyn Museum, New York City. Public domain.

Resilient Prayer in Escalating Crisis: Video

Are you a leader facing escalating crises on multiple fronts? Enjoy this video from Managing Editor Elizabeth Glass Turner, on resilient prayer for leaders juggling the unexpected, and recognizing signals of growing spiritual resilience. Excerpt below.

Excerpt: “The Holy Spirit not only shapes what you want or what you pray for, but how you pray in the midst of crisis, because you cannot pray for what you do not see. This is why resilient prayer begins with deliberately mindfully honing awareness. As you acknowledge your human propensity for blind spots, it allows your spirit to be sensitive to what you simply haven’t been aware of.

So when you pray from awareness of the seen and unseen, awareness of the immediate vs the eternal, the global and not just local, aware of the limits of your own control and autonomy – then you are inviting God to break into the present calamity in ways that you can’t foresee or predict. You are inviting God to put a burden on your hearts for the needs around you that the Holy Spirit helps you discern. You are inviting God to take your availability and propel it into the needs of this world, whether locally or globally, in small or in major steps.

When this honed awareness provides the basis and architecture of prayer, what will you find? Spiritual resilience that is steadfast in crisis – personal crisis, national crisis, global crisis; it may not feel like you are resilient; you may not feel confident.

So what are some signals that you are growing in spiritual resilience, whether you feel strong or resilient, or not? First, if you find that God is using you in ways you didn’t expect, that is a signal that you are praying with honed awareness. It is a signal that that awareness is structuring how you pray, and that how you pray – no matter what your circumstances – is demonstrating growth in spiritual resilience.

What you wrote off or thought nothing of, you now discover yielding unexpected good things. Maybe someone comments, or says, “you have no idea how much I needed to hear that.” Maybe what you underestimated instead blossoms and flourishes. If you find that God is using you in ways you didn’t anticipate, pay attention; you are praying with honed awareness, and how you pray is demonstrating growth in spiritual resilience – because you were faithful to small moments that seemed insignificant.”

Strength in Ephesians: The Body, the Armor, the Power

If you’ve been part of a marching band, you know how intricate the planning is for halftime. I spent the last 16 years in Ohio, where it’s impossible not to hear regularly about Ohio State University. Renowned for its sports teams, OSU is also known for its marching band and its creative halftime shows. One halftime show particularly caught my eye: a tribute to Michael Jackson, in which the band took his shape and proceeded to moonwalk across the field. It was amazing! In a marching band, one individual part may look like random steps, but when put together with all the other parts, the band works together to create an amazing picture. And as the apostle Paul finishes his letter to the Ephesians, he acts like a marching band director choreographing the halftime show. He gives instructions to the Church so that it can faithfully stand as a beacon of peace and righteousness. Today, we’re looking at three things that are necessary to remain standing after all is said and done: The body. The armor. The power.

Let’s read from Ephesians 6:10-20 (CEB):

“Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and his powerful strength. Put on God’s armor so that you can make a stand against the tricks of the devil. We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens. Therefore, pick up the full armor of God so that you can stand your ground on the evil day and after you have done everything possible to still stand. So stand with the belt of truth around your waist, justice as your breastplate, and put shoes on your feet so that you are ready to spread the good news of peace. Above all, carry the shield of faith so that you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.

Offer prayers and petitions in the Spirit all the time. Stay alert by hanging in there and praying for all believers. As for me, pray that when I open my mouth, I’ll get a message that confidently makes this secret plan of the gospel known. I’m an ambassador in chains for the sake of the gospel. Pray so that the Lord will give me the confidence to say what I have to say.”

Before we get into specifics, let’s look at the overall context of Paul’s letter: Paul writes this to remind the Ephesians of their identity in Christ, their unity as the body of believers—regardless of ethnic or other differences—and to encourage them to live in a way that honors God. The content of the book is split in half: the first three chapters explore the blessings of our life in Christ and how we have been saved by grace through faith; the last three chapters describe how we live as a result of our new life in Christ. After all, when something amazing happens in your life, you live differently.

Before jumping to Ephesians 6, let’s recognize an important aspect of this letter. We often read letters like this, hear the author say “you,” and assume it refers to me as an individual. While it’s true that as an individual believer, I need to follow Scripture, this is not Paul’s primary emphasis. Most of the time, Paul uses the plural form of “you” (“all y’all,” as we say in Kentucky) to address the Ephesians. In other words, these are commands for the church as a whole. God is calling the church to work together and help one another to live faithfully as believers.

As we venture into 6:10, Paul begins to wrap up. He urges the Ephesians to be strong in the Lord’s great strength. This is not a new theme in the book. Paul goes full circle—in 1:19, Paul told the Ephesians that he prays they may know “the immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” This is an important reminder—especially for the discussion about evil powers that comes next. We do not rely on our own strength.

Having the correct source of power is incredibly important: If you have a fancy sports car, you’re going to use the best gasoline available. You can’t just pour water in the tank. And if we’re going to have strength for the battle ahead, we have to rely on the right source of power: God’s power, not our own. Paul is emphatic about this: he repeats the idea of strength three times in a single verse: literally, “strengthen yourselves in the power of his strength.” We need God’s power, not our own, because the battle ahead is a difficult one.

In verses 11-12, Paul calls believers to put on the armor of God, because it is the only way to withstand the evil day. He makes it very clear that we are not simply battling everyday circumstances and temptations; rather, powerful forces exist that in the world that make every effort to derail our walk with God.Paul describes them as rulers, authorities (not government authorities!), cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. There is a spiritual realm populated by hostile forces that are in opposition to the work of God. Paul’s point here is not to catalog the various kinds of demonic forces. Rather, he emphasizes the spiritual component to the struggles we face.

Yet Paul notes that these spiritual powers are in “the heavenly places.” The Ephesians who have read this letter will recall:

1:3: We have been blessed in Christ “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”

1:20-21: Christ sits at the right hand of God in the heavenly places “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”

2:6: We are seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

3:10: The plan of the mystery of God has been revealed so that through the Church the wisdom of God will be made known to the authorities in the heavenly places.

Paul is urging us to be prepared to fight these forces but not to be afraid. Everything Paul has written to this point in the letter reminds us that Christ’s power is far greater than their power, and we who believe are seated with Christ, far above these lesser powers! Our transformed lives and unity in the body of Christ serve as testimonies to these spiritual beings, that God already has won the victory through Christ.

After digressing to point out who we are fighting (and the ultimate defeat of these spiritual forces), in verses 13-17 Paul returns to call the Ephesians to put on the whole armor of God. Traditionally, these next few verses are read as a call to the individual believer to put on the armor of God, but Paul already told us earlier in the letter who is the body that wears the armor: “And [God] put all things under [Christ’s] feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23).

This armor is effective when the whole body takes it up—there is a communal sense. We are not meant to be solitary individuals bearing the armor of God; rather, we are meant to help one another to bear the armor. Like the OSU marching band, in which individuals walk a path laid out for them and together make a unified whole, we who believe work together to provide a unified vision of the life in Christ.

What is this armor? Paul uses military imagery to illustrate preparing for battle, and yet the armor described is used mostly for defense. It is the devil who wages war on us, and our job is to stand our ground, stand firm, and remain standing. We’ve had a lot of hurricanes this season, and I’m always amazed at the weather reporters who stand out in the middle of the storm: they have a job to do and they find a way to stand firm in 70 mile an hour winds.

That’s our job as believers: we don’t go out looking for the battle; we know it will come to us. But New Testament scholar Andrew Lincoln reminds us: “The decisive victory has already been won by God in Christ, and the task of believers is not to win but to stand, that is, to preserve and maintain what has been won.”

Yet we won’t always face a hurricane. Scripture refers to the “schemes” of the devil. Sometimes attacks are powerful because they are subtle, taking us by surprise. Rather than a hurricane, we face a creeping mist that slowly blinds us, leaving us groping in the fog. Whether we face an onslaught of terrible life circumstances or creeping doubt, we have to be prepared to stand firm.

The first two pieces of armor that help us to stand firm are the belt of truth and the breastplate of justice (also translated righteousness). In terms of Roman armor, which is what Paul’s readers would picture, the belt is likely a reference to the leather aprons worn under the armor. This allowed freedom of movement while protecting the thighs. The metal breastplate protects a soldier’s vital organs, such as heart and lungs. When Paul refers to the belt of truth, “truth” has the sense of faithfulness and loyalty to God, and the breastplate of justice (or righteousness) has the nuance of doing what is just or right. We may think of being righteous, but the terminology refers to an action!

Paul does not pull this imagery out of thin air; these pieces of armor are mentioned by the prophet Isaiah. In one case, a messianic figure brings righteousness and faithfulness to those who suffer, particularly the poor (Isa. 11:4-5). In another case, God is offended at the lack of justice in the land, so God himself brings righteousness and justice to the people (Isa 59:15-17). Paul uses this imagery to describe how the church, the body of Christ (you and me!) must wear that same armor in order to fight its battles. The warrior God is a God who cares about righteousness in the land—justice for the poor and oppressed. When we wear God’s armor, we are to demonstrate God’s justice and righteousness.

Paul already said this in a different way in Ephesians 4:24 when he called them, “to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Here in our worship space we see the phrase “holiness to the Lord” displayed prominently. It reminds us that we are called to be people set apart for the Lord; we imitate Christ and offer every aspect of our lives to the Lord. We seek holiness in our own lives, and we work in the midst of culture to transform the injustices that we witness around us.

Connected to this righteousness is the imagery of shoes that prepare one to proclaim the Gospel of peace. Paul already wrote about the Gospel that brings peace, declaring in 2:14-16 that Christ is our peace, who destroyed the wall of hostility—the ethnic rivalry—between Jew and Gentile, making all believers one in Christ. And Isaiah connects righteousness with peace in 32:17:

“And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.”

When Christians are faithful to God, when we live rightly—in a way that brings about justice to the community—this brings peace. It is common to hear protestors chanting, “No justice, no peace.” This was not an idea created in the 1960s; these protestors cite a biblical theme. It is only when justice pervades the land that peace will exist among us. We must work for justice for those who have been wronged—whether demanding justice for Breonna Taylor, providing aid to the poor in our community who have been overlooked, arguing for the rights of those with disabilities, or protecting others in society.

Next, Paul calls believers to take up the shield of faith to extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. Roman shields measured about 4’ x 2-1/2’ and were made from wood covered in leather. Paul identifies the shield for Christians as faith. When we trust the message of the Gospel, when we believe that Christ died for our sins, when we know that the Holy Spirit is transforming our lives, then these beliefs extinguish the lies of the devil, when he tries to tell us we’re not worthy, we’re irredeemable, we can never change.

But there’s more to this imagery than standing firm in our faith! Roman soldiers worked together in formation. They brought their shields together in battle so that they could protect one another from literal flaming arrows. This testudo formation (“tortoise” in Latin) created a shield wall—soldiers in the front line held their shields forward; those in the middle held the shields overhead, and those on the sides protected from the sides. Soldiers were far better protected when they worked together.

This underscores the “all y’all” language. Paul encourages us to work together as the body of Christ. It’s the body of Christ together that wears the armor. John Wesley proclaimed that he knew no holiness but social holiness—by which he meant that the body of Christ works together to strengthen each other.

We cannot stand alone in this battle to keep our faith alive and vital. If you help me to strengthen my faith, and I help you to strengthen your faith, then together we are better prepared to withstand the flaming arrows of the devil. We need each other. We are stronger when we are unified.

But our armor is not yet complete. Paul keeps telling us we need the whole armor of God, and armor is incomplete without a helmet and a sword. For the believer, this is the helmet of salvation. Protection comes from knowing that Christ has already won the battle on our behalf. The only offensive weapon for the soldier is the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. The term for sword refers to a short sword (about two feet long) that soldiers used for combat in close quarters, where fighting was particularly brutal. The Spirit is the power that makes the sword effective. The “word of God” refers to the gospel message of Christ, laid out for us in Scripture. This sword makes sense as a weapon: when the devil attacks, scheming and lying, the believer’s best counterattack is claiming the truths of the Gospel found in Scripture. Paul gives plenty of these throughout Ephesians:

God chose us in Christ (1:4)!
God destined us to become adopted as his children (1:5)!
We have redemption through the blood of Christ (1:7)!
God loves us (2:4)!
God saved us (2:5)!
God created us for good works (2:10)!
God has reconciled us to one another (2:16)!
We have access to the Father through the Spirit (2:18)!
We are being built into a dwelling place for God (2:22)!

And that’s just the first two chapters. We need to be immersed in the truth of the love of God so that we can stand firm. But Paul is not done yet. Although his armor language ends with the sword of the Spirit, he urges believers to cover the battle in prayer. He started with the command to be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. But how do we find strength in the Lord? We connect to God, submitting ourselves to God’s will, through prayer.

Paul refers to the kind of prayer in which we talk to God and listen to God throughout the day. The way that we keep alert in battle is to be in prayer regularly. This is how we stand firm in the power of God’s mighty strength.

Just like our armor must be worn together, our prayers are offered for each other. Paul begins his letter by praying for the Ephesians, and he ends by asking the Ephesians to pray for all the saints, including Paul himself, who is under arrest for preaching the Gospel. The body that wears God’s armor finds its strength only when it is connected to God whose mighty strength has made the victory possible.

Paul concludes by urging the Ephesians to stand strong. He gives us three keys to remain standing: The body. The armor. The power.

Without the body working together to strengthen each other, gaps in the armor appear; flaming arrows slip through, wreaking havoc. This Christian walk was never meant to be solitary. We encourage each other, building each other up. When you join a church, you learn from small children, middle-aged parents, and elderly saints. You get to speak into their lives and encourage their walk with Christ. Becoming part of committed discipleship groups helps us grow in the faith. John Wesley’s vision of banded discipleship groups recognizes the importance of the body strengthening each other.

To stand strong, we need (say it with me!) the body, the armor, and the power. Without the armor of truth, justice, peace, faith, salvation, and the Spirit-empowered Gospel message, we are susceptible to the lies of the devil, who tells us we’re not loved, we have no value, we have no future. When we live faithfully in God’s truth, when we trust the love of Christ and devote our lives to him, we find that God’s armor holds fast. In wearing God’s armor, we pursue justice in an unjust world, we love and care for the humanity that God fought so hard to save, and we bring light to dark places.

To stand strong, we need the body, the armor, and the power. Without the power of God’s mighty strength, none of us will be able to stand in the evil day. It’s that simple. None of this happens on our own. Regular prayer, individually and together as the body of Christ, connects us to God, whose power is more than enough for the battle we face. Together as the body of Christ, we must seek God’s power to transform the world. To withstand the evil day and to remain standing, we need the body, the armor, and the power. This is Paul’s call to the Ephesians, and it’s God’s call to us today.

Three Reasons You Should Download a Daily Office App

What is essential reading for you every day? I don’t think I’m alone sensing an increase in “noise” when I read. If I go online for a few minutes to check social media or scan for wild fire containment progress, my eyes quickly absorb what I usually associate with my ears – a lot of noise. Communication is necessary; noise isn’t. Trying to parse the difference between the two, however, can be challenging. I love to read, but reading “hot takes” in real time leaves me scattered, fractured, tired. Some commentary on life or current events or ministry is helpful; but I quickly find myself tiring of secondary sources. If that sounds familiar, it might be time to download a Daily Office app.

There are thousands of devotional books, if not millions, and a lot of American Protestants aren’t familiar with the Daily Office. It is not, as it sounds, a daily random episode of a workplace comedy. It is not a workspace rental company. It is not an office supply source.

The Daily Office is a set of Scripture readings and prayers. You can find Christians around the world reading these same texts and prayers on the same day that you are. Centuries ago, Christians often prayed the hours of the day; about 500 years ago, the Book of Common Prayer was developed within Anglicanism. Daily worship was condensed into morning and evening prayers. It may sound strange to remember that in some traditions, people used to go to church daily; it may sound strange to remember that in some Christian traditions, people still go to church every day (at least, pandemic allowing). But the Daily Office isn’t limited to usage in a Vespers service in an aging stone church in the rolling hills of rural England. Anyone with a Book of Common Prayer can read the Daily Office. Except now the internet exists; anyone with a Daily Office app can read the Daily Office.

So why should you? Here are three reasons that spring to mind, though there are many.

1. Cutting Out or Reducing Dependence on Devotional Commentary

Please don’t read this as a suggestion that spiritual formation writings are useless. I’ve learned and grown so much from the wisdom of others, some from my own lifetime, some from decades or centuries before me. But a fatigue has taken hold in the midst of so much noise. I find myself yearning not for secondary sources, but for the wellspring of life itself.

We are, as C.S. Lewis suggested with different intent in mind, too easily pleased sometimes. Half a Scripture verse and four paragraphs of reflection on it are insufficient sustenance for your daily pilgrimage. Some devotional books offer great value – especially those that primarily parse the Scripture to which they refer or those with uncommon wisdom and insight.

But devotional books aren’t the Bread of Life. In John 1, we see the author distinguishing between John the Baptist, who was not himself the light but bore witness to the light, and Jesus, who is the light itself – the light that is life to all humanity. Sometimes we’re more comfortable with proximity to John the Baptist, as it were, than we are with proximity to Jesus.

But in times of heightened noise, one of the best things we can do is to dip into Scripture itself. Because I’m not hungry for Devotional Collection Aimed at North American Women Pushing Forty Who Are Likely to Have Shopped at Target in the Past 12 Months. I’m starving for Jesus. Give me Jesus. There are millions of commentators and bloggers and gurus and influencers. Some of them are great, fulfilling a need or even a vocation.

But right now the world is groaning. “Where else would we go? You have the words of life.” When you’re sick of talking heads or you’re in triage mode, you just want Jesus.

So why not just open a physical Bible or Bible app? Why a Daily Office app, specifically?

2. Scripture Variety and Scope

The Daily Office already includes excerpts from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms. You don’t have to decide where to begin. Maybe that sounds lazy; if you’re a leader in your congregation or you’re tired or you’re a tired leader, not having to decide where to begin might sound quite appealing.

Daily Office apps remove another hurdle because you don’t have to navigate the sections of a physical Book of Common Prayer or look up references in a physical Bible. Rather, the excerpt is right there in front of you, ready to go.

(There’s much to be said for reading physical books or noting in physical margins, including research on retention or mental mapping; but jotting down a few notes on the daily reading helps retention as well.)

Sometimes identifiable themes thread through the passages from the Old and New Testaments. Sometimes they seem more randomly paired. The Daily Office helps to correct the tendency to swerve more heavily into one section of Scripture more than another, by putting a “balanced diet” onto our plate for us. It’s like a grab-bag fresh produce subscription box showing up at your door, in contrast to entering the fresh vegetable section of a store and veering toward your automatic weekly go-to of baby carrots and salad mix. The Daily Office makes sure that sometimes you try rutabagas or jicama, so to speak, prying your fingers off of your familiar household stand-by’s.

There are combinations of scriptural texts that simply wouldn’t occur to me if I didn’t discover them presented to me side by side. There is rich, fresh sustenance in these creative combinations.

3. Guided Prayer with Global Christians

Whether you thumb through a Book of Common Prayer or download a Daily Office app, you’ll find an odd sense of community in progressing through a shared liturgy, even if you’re sitting by yourself at a park.

The closest thing the Daily Office has to commentary comes in the form of the written prayers, many of which are quite old. At times, I’ve found myself unable to stitch words together in much of a prayer. Then, I’ve read the Daily Office and found what I didn’t know I needed or wanted to say, said for me. At other times, I’ve shared a collect from that day on social media, only to have acquaintances comment on why they love that particular prayer – a reminder of the worshiping community spread across the globe.

There is also keen solace in skimming over the prayer prompts for the day. When I feel overwhelmed by the sheer scale of need or tragedy in the world, the Daily Office calmly settles the uproar into a neat line. Groups of people are remembered on particular days: pray for those affected by natural disaster; pray for those who work in the justice system; pray for the sick and dying; pray for those who work in health care. And just like that, I join millions of other Christians who find a path marked out neatly to guide our intercessions.

If you find yourself weary of the fractious noise, hungry for something simple and quiet, maybe you would find new sustenance in the Daily Office. There are a variety of apps; sometimes I read the morning selection; sometimes I read the morning and evening selections; sometimes I read the night selection; sometimes I don’t open the app for several days.

But there are few better resources when you need to turn down the commentary, let yourself be exposed to a variety of Scripture, and receive the words and prayer prompts of others to help give voice to the intercession you may not have the words for.

Do you already read the Daily Office? When did you begin the habit? What have you gleaned from that experience?

Featured image courtesy Kentaro Toma via Unsplash.

Carolyn Moore ~ Spirit-Filled Ministry: “I Forgot How Big”

Do you mind if we drive around a bit in the Word? I’d like to show you some points of interest that changed the way I understand Spirit-filled ministry. If you need to set your GPS, we’re going to start in 2 Timothy, where we’ll pick up a three-letter key. Then we’ll stop in Luke 9 for a map and we’ll stop for gas in Matthew 8.

That’s where someone is going to ask us: “Have you forgotten how big?”(Remember that question.) And so you won’t have to ask, “Are we there yet?” we’ll be ready to come home to the Holy Spirit when we hear Jesus telling his disciples to stay right where they are until they receive power from on high.

In 2 Timothy 4:5 (NIV), I find a three-letter word that seems remarkably poignant for ministry. In this passage, of course, Paul is talking to his friend, Timothy, who he’s mentoring in the ministry and he says this: “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”

Until recently, the word I’ve always latched onto in that passage is the word, “evangelist.” My first semester at Asbury, a wonderful evangelist from Australia (Alan Walker) came to speak in chapel. And I went home that night and told my husband, “I want to be an evangelist.” Of course, I had no clue what I was saying. At the time, I thought evangelism was preaching a good message and giving an effective altar call. Or possibly memorizing the four spiritual laws or the Roman Road or working the Evangicube. Or putting tracts in a public bathroom or adding a line to the end of every email that says, “If you love Jesus, forward this to ten friends.”

(I knew a guy who was a genius at asking the ultimate evangelism question – you know the one – “If you die tonight, do you know where you’ll go?” He worked out at the Y every morning, and he said he’d usually wait until he was in the sauna alone with someone – nothing but towels on – and that’s when he’d pop the question.)

I thought that was evangelism and while that may be part of it (though probably not the more effective part), Paul challenges me to think deeper. Here in his letter to Timothy, Paul challenges Timothy to discharge ALL the duties of his ministry. That’s the word that jumped out at me: all. What a loaded three-letter word! It feels like that line at the end of a job description— the one that says, “other duties as assigned.” You don’t find out until you take the job that the “other duties as assigned” take about 40 hours of your work week.

What Paul is trying to tell his first-century audience and also me is that evangelism is a package deal. It is preaching and acts of mercy. Word and works. To do the work of an evangelist, we have to discharge all the duties of ministry. Thomas Fuller, a Puritan, once said that the words of the wise are like nails fastened by masters, but our examples are like the hammers that drive them in. Word and works. In other words, what good is a bucketful of nails if you’ve got no hammer?

I think I found those “other duties as assigned” in the first couple of verses of Luke, chapter 9. This is where Jesus sends out the twelve to do evangelism, and here’s how he defines that little word. Luke 9:1-2 says, When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

So when Jesus gave normal people the power and authority to do evangelism, here’s how he defined that little word “all.” He sent them to drive out demons, cure diseases, preach the Kingdom of God, and heal the sick. Because this is how Jesus believed the Kingdom of God could best be explained. Word and works. Just like Jesus did it; that’s the job description.

To flesh that out, go back to Matthew, chapter 8. This is an amazing chapter, actually — a fireworks display of healing. Right off the bat, Jesus heals a man with leprosy, and by touching him, he heals him all the way through. Then he meets up with a centurion who came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.” Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.” The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith…Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour. (Matthew 8:5-10, 13)

Now, contrast this guy’s faith with something that happens just a few paragraphs down in the same chapter of Matthew. They’ve been healing people and casting out demons and now Jesus has crawled in a boat just to get away from the crowd for a bit. To take a nap. The followers and Jesus are all there in a boat crossing a lake when a furious storm crops up and scares the heck out of his disciples. Jesus is sleeping, of course, so they wake him and that’s when he says, “Oh, you of little faith, why are you so afraid?”

Picture this: On one hand we’ve got a handful of guys who make their living evangelizing and they are scared to death and faithless. On the other hand, we’ve got your average Joe Centurion who actually knows nothing for sure, except his need. And the power of God.

I understand these people better than I want to admit. I know what it means to become so focused on the work and the politics and the systems and the next big book that’s going to tell us how to really do it right, that I can forget what Jesus is capable of and why he’s filled me with the Holy Spirit and what he’s called me to do. Somehow (I’m sure this is not the correct theological language), it seems like the Spirit leaks out. Or maybe I push him out. I know it has happened when I find myself telling God how big my storm is, rather than telling my storm how big my God is.

Does this sound familiar?

My daughter says I can trace every sermon point back to a scene from Joe Vs. the Volcano. I don’t know if that’s true, but there is this scene in Joe vs. the Volcano. It comes after they’ve survived a typhoon and a shipwreck and they are stranded on a raft in the middle of the Pacific. They’ve been through so much, and now Joe is as close to death as it gets. And that’s when he remembers. He is on his raft facing the moon as it rises over the horizon of the water. It is huge and just there before him, almost as if it could be touched. Joe is delirious, and for him this moon is something supernatural — perhaps even God himself. As the moon rises, Joe sinks slowly to his knees, places both arms in the air and says, “Thank you. Thank you for my life. I forgot …how …BIG …”

How easy it is, in the midst of ministry, to forget how big. All the hoops we jump through and all the personalities we juggle can sap the joy right out. Before we know it, we’ve forgotten just what it is we signed on for, and just how big our God is. Have you forgotten how big? I wonder how it might change the spiritual atmosphere if we could all just put our hands in the air and confess together, “God, I forgot how big!”

My experience after fifteen years of ministry and the start of two congregations is that the only thing standing between me and complete burn-out is not success, but the power of God. It is the power of God that saves me from myself. And make no mistake about it: until we get the bigness of God, we won’t be qualified to discharge the “other duties as assigned.” All the duties of ministry. To cast out demons, cure diseases, proclaim the Kingdom, heal the sick. Because that’s what they are hungry for, these people who come limping into our faith communities. And clearly, this is the work of ministry Jesus expected of his followers.

But here’s the shame of it. The very things Jesus sent his followers out to do are the very things we’ve lost faith in. In fact, our culture has come to accept an hour in church and a blessing before meals as the center of the Christian experience, while driving out demons and curing diseases…well, that’s just weird. But folks, when I read in my Bible what Jesus did and then read what he teaches followers to do, this is what I hear: that followers have power and authority to drive out demons, cure diseases, proclaim the coming Kingdom and heal things that destroy people’s lives. This is the center of the Gospel, and the power of it!

I once visited with a pastor who serves a downtown church. We talked about a mission center he was asking his church to develop for their community and he said, “Some of our people don’t get what we’re doing. And I tell them, ‘If you knew Jesus better, you’d get it.’” He went on. “I’m trying to get my people to meet Jesus, so they’ll get it.” Because when we get Jesus, we get what it means to follow him. And as we follow, we find ourselves more and more in the company of the broken-hearted, the blind, the poor, the prisoners — even those oppressed by demonic forces. People who are hungry for healing, and who need spiritual leaders who have a heart for healing — not because we’re that big-hearted, but because God is that big.

This is where most of us need to glance at our spiritual GPS. We understand the destination, but how do we get there from here? Jesus maps it out plainly to his followers in the last chapter of Luke, even using Paul’s powerful three-letter word. There he is, standing with his friends after the resurrection and he says, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’” And then Jesus says – listen to this: “You are witnesses of all these things. And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But (and this is the punchline) stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.” (Luke 24:46-49, NLT)

Here’s the secret: don’t leave here until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven. This seems too simplistic to be enough, but it is a critical piece. The fact is, Jesus’ Church has met its quota of pastors who can get the bulletin printed, follow an order of worship and preach three points and a poem. But the Kingdom Church is starving — and “the fields are white” — for Spirit-filled followers who are willing to do all the work of an evangelist.

Whether you are worn out or burned out, you owe it to yourself and your sense of call to find a place of prayer, then shake the gates of heaven asking for the Holy Spirit to come and fill you, or fill you again.

Don’t leave that place until your heart aches again for those who are hungry for healing and waiting for someone to come, who brings with them Holy-Spirit power to cast out demons, cure diseases, proclaim the Kingdom and heal the sick. Don’t let go of the hem of Jesus’ garment you until you’ve received that. After all, what good is a bucketful of nails if you’ve got no hammer?

For more reflection from Dr. Moore, check out her Art of Holiness podcast here. This piece from the archives originally appeared on Wesleyan Accent in 2014.

Featured image courtesy Joshua Earle on Unsplash.

Edgar Bazan ~ Racism & Bias: We All Suffer

For 400 years, through slavery, lynching, Jim Crow laws, the Civil Rights movement, and institutionalized racism, people of color (especially within the Black community) have been fighting and crying out for justice and equality. Justice is sought because they have been oppressed and abused for centuries; equality, because that is the underlying cause of their unjust treatment: they have been seen and treated as lesser humans because of the color of their skin.

I am a Mexican-American immigrant, and although my experience is not the same as Black Americans’ experiences, on some levels I can relate to the viciousness shown them. It is not uncommon to hear stories of people like me who have been told to, “go back to Mexico.” As upsetting as I find this, it makes me sad, for it reflects the failure of a society to nurture individuals that treat one another with respect and dignity.

As a pastor who serves a diverse and bilingual community, I will speak to these dynamics of prejudice that are persistently based on race, language, and economic and education levels. In all of this, the pervasive reality is that some people are inclined to judge others based on external factors. These judgments come with labels, and these labels add or subtract value to people.

For example, it is not unusual when I meet new people and introduce myself as a pastor, that they say: “so you are the associate pastor of the Hispanic church.” I am not offended by the Hispanic label, of course; however, the underlying problem is the assumption that because I am Hispanic, I must be the Hispanic associate pastor serving people like me. To put this in context, how often do we hear about white pastors, “so you are the white pastor for the white people”? Most likely never.

I invite you to explore the implications of this. Labels carry value (or lack thereof), and those at the top usually do not have the same labels – often they are the ones who assign them to others. Bias is not always a loud offense; sometimes it has the form of rather subtle but heavy weight to keep people “in their place” — often assigned by those in positions of influence.

These acts and attitudes have pained and oppressed many people of color over the years — centuries — and it breaks God’s heart, for it is sinful: a way in which we fall short of the glory of God.

So what does the Bible say about racism and bias?

In Genesis 1:26, we find the following statement that gives us a theological framework from which to address racism: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’” This scripture teaches us that God created every human being in God’s image. Every person measures the same amount of the glory of God in themselves. There is no distinction nor differences in the worth between one person or another. Whether one is white, black, brown, God loves all the same. In the Incarnation, God became flesh, embracing all colors, races, and ethnicities that make up the human race.

Racism, however, denies the image of God in humankind. It seeks to destroy God’s likeness in every person, both in those who invite and ignore racism, and in those who are the recipients of it, repudiating what God created and the way God created it. Therefore, the Bible teaches us that racism is incompatible with Christian teaching; it is sinful, for it denies the image of God in others and oppresses those who are the object of God’s self-giving love. Ultimately, it leads to the violation and denial of human rights, of justice, and of inherent human sacred worth.

Now, bias on the other hand, is a more subtle form that still leads to oppression. The apostle James makes a compelling case explaining bias and cautioning against it. In James 2:9, we read, “But if you show partiality [or bias], you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.” James was addressing an issue of showing special treatment to a particular person or persons based on their social standing. He illustrates this with a hypothetical scenario where two men come into a church gathering: one is rich and given the best seat in the house; the other is poor and asked to stand away or sit on the floor. The rich man is given privileges because of his wealth, but the poor man is despised because of his poverty. Such treatment, James says, is evil.

Although James addresses a particular issue of class discrimination, the principle helps us to address any and all other practices of bias, including those based on race. (It was not long ago that people of color could not sit on the front seats of a bus in America.) In many ways, this reality resembles a “caste system” in which hierarchical structures communicate to subjects, “you are not all equal,” and, “here is your label and place.” This has caused profound generational suffering and loss, including economic, cultural, and identity devastation for people of color and marginalized groups.

Many Americans would be appalled to think that such blatant partiality or bias that mirrors a “caste system” could exist in a country founded on the premise that, “all are created equal” and that, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is a right for all people — the American Dream. Nevertheless, even as this nation of ours may create more economic opportunities for people than any other place, we continue to have deeply embedded unfair policies and attitudes, like “redlining.” There are policies that are discriminatory, unfair, and inconsistently applied, when rule of law and distribution of community resource give preferential treatment to some people over others.

Most of these harmful practices reflect a subtle yet hostile and derogatory way in which some people are communicated to be more of a liability, or more valuable, than others. This stigmatization wears on people emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. But if someone is spared these additional burdens, because of the sound of their name or the color of their skin, they don’t realize that they don’t have to prove themselves in the same way to get ahead in life, even if they’re born into poverty or other serious trauma, while others may have those struggles but also bear the additional burden of race-based bias and prejudice.

Have you ever observed how someone who is not white is often questioned about their capacity to accomplish a task? And if they do accomplish it, they are seen as an exception? The tragedy is that this is normalized and internalized by both sides: “we are more” and “we are less.” As a pastor, it breaks my heart when I hear young people begin to accept the labels and positions assigned to them, whether it is because of the color of their skin or their socio-economic status. It is heartbreaking to hear them settle for less than they dream, for less than they are capable of accomplishing as individuals, because their abilities, intelligence, or character are constantly questioned. These mental and emotional chains are heavy. To treat people in such a way is a terrible sin that plagued the early church and has continued to plague the church and society at large in every generation.

The apostle Paul, in talking about prejudice and favoritism in the church, wrote that, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). Paul makes a compelling case about undermining the giftedness and value of people in our communities. By doing so, he says, we harm each other.

By now, I hope there is little doubt that we are called to face the pain, abuse, and oppression of a segment of our community that has been affected by racism and bias — “if one suffers, we all suffer together.” Not only that: the work towards eradicating unjust practices of racism and bias must be a top priority for followers of Jesus, not at all because of political affiliation or preferences, but because of our compelling faith in Jesus Christ, which is what James wrote: “because of your faith, you should not play favoritism but treat everyone as fellow brother and sister.”

My prayer is that the principle of “loving our neighbor as we love ourselves” will guide us (Matthew 22:39). Just as we care about our own needs, feelings, and desires, we must show the same care for the needs, feelings, and desires of others. So how can we foster and nurture communities (at church, home, work, school) where anyone is welcomed, respected, and treated with dignity?

We don’t need to have all the answers; we simply need to start asking the right questions from a place of compassion.

Featured image is an interior photo from the Don Bosco church in Brasilia, capital of Brazil. Photo credit: Vladimir Soares on Unsplash.