All posts tagged pastoring

steven-furtick

Sincere Apologies to Steven Furtick

I do not personally know Steven Furtick and he will likely never read this post.  But I’m apologizing just the same.

Steven Furtick is the pastor and founder of Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. It’s the kind of church that many people love to hate.  Smoke, lights, highly produced worship, topical sermons and a preacher dressed in designer clothes.  Even “worse”, it’s a mega church that became mega seemingly overnight.  No one hates success more than Christians.  After all, if they have grown in numbers so quickly and dramatically then they must have done it in a way that violates scripture or at least causes Jesus to shake his head with dissaproval, right?  Certainly they cheated somehow!

I must admit that I’ve discovered some of this sentiment in my own heart this week and I’ve got to kill it before it grows.

Read more…

476 days ago /  Tagged: , , 4

You Have Never Met a Mere Mortal

I first came across this quote listening to John Piper teaching about C.S. Lewis.   I have been pondering lately the idea of discipleship in the Bible and how that relates to the mission of the Church.   In doing so, I’ve come to realize that so much of the effort spent in our lives (and in our churches) is wasted on things that are good, but not best.

People matter.   Jesus thought so.   So much so, that He died for them, offers to occupy their hearts, and then places the hope of the world on their shoulders as the Church.   People.   Really. Matter.

It is a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people.

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilization these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to [God Himself], your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. ~C.S. Lewis

How does this truth change the way we view and treat the people around us? I think it changes everything.

729 days ago /  Tagged: , , 0

Humble Confidence and the Bottomless Pit

A pastor’s life is a trip from extreme to extreme, from glowing praise to vitriolic criticism with very little in between.  I thought I didn’t care what people thought of me.  If God is for me, right?

Come to find out, I do care what people think.  I want people to like me, I like how it makes me feel.

Nobody sets out to care more about what people think than what God thinks.  Nobody wakes up one morning and says, “Hey, I think I’ll let other people define me today.”  Yet, one of the most difficult things to avoid in life is the gaping pitfall of living for the approval of others instead of the approval of Jesus.  It’s deeply satisfying to be appreciated.  It’s also deeply painful being misunderstood.  It touches a need in all of us to be known.  Not only to be known, but to be known and approved of.

The problem is, this need is bottomless.  Fathomless.  You can plumb the depths of it all your life and still never feel as though you’ve been filled.  You can please everyone, perform impeccably, never let anyone down, yet still you will feel the need to gather just one more enamored fan to yourself.

Recently I’ve lost some fans.  In the process of trying to please God, I displeased others.  Amazingly enough, I’ve survived it.

This need in all of us is a bottomless pit that only Jesus can fill.  Only your Creator can tell you what you’re worth.  No one else gets to vote.  Not you.  Not anyone.  The One that made you, determined your shape and your future, also determines your value.  Your value is dependent on Him, not on you.

I think once we see this, once we learn to love Him and fear Him , we can begin to live freely.  Only then can we cut away the shackles of futile attempts to fill the bottomless pit.

We can take risks without fearing the mess it always makes.

We can speak without fearing the inevitable pain of being misunderstood.

We can commit to change without fearing the blowback.

We can be both humble and confident at the same time.

872 days ago /  Tagged: , , 3