Archive for Pastoral Care
New Christian Guide
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been thinking a lot about some basic essentials for the new Christ Follower to better understand the nature of their new found faith and loving trust in Christ. When a person makes the choice to follow Christ they encounter a world that is strangely new and wonderfully exciting. Sadly, this new found walk with God too often meets with frustration and confusion. The initial excitement of the decision leads to increased curiosity and a thirst for a deeper understanding of Doctrine, but this curiosity and thirst for a better understanding is usually frustrated by a lack of guidance and instruction on the part of Pastors and church leadership.
I don’t want to be one of those pastors that has a church full of eager people, but fails to give proper guidance in a timely manner. So consider the following my 1st Year Discipleship Guide for New Followers of Christ. I’ve chosen books that are easy to read and steer clear of technical jargon.
1. English Standard Version -Study Bible
http://www.crossway.org/catalog/bibles#esv-study
2. Design for Discipleship Series by NavPress (Books 1 through 7)
3. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller
http://www.amazon.com/Praying-Life-Connecting-Distracting-World/dp/1600063004
4. Psalms (A Worship Compilation of Worship Songs based on the Psalms, excellent for accompanying a personal devotion time of prayer and scripture reading.)
http://www.sovereigngracestore.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=M4235-00-21
5. What is a Healthy Church? By Mark Dever
http://www.crossway.org/product/9781581349375
6. Why Small Groups: Together Toward Maturity edited by C.J. Mahaney
http://www.sovereigngracestore.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=B3150-00-11
7. Fifty Reasons Christ Came to Die by John Piper
http://www.crossway.org/product/158134788X
These books are the seven that I’d absolutely recommend for the new believer and follower of Jesus Christ for their first year of being a Christian. The new Christian needs two things: a good Bible and a great church that is faithful to preach the Bible. For those of you who have found Christ and are currently searching for a church to call home, my prayers are with you!
The Promised Shepherd
Posted by: | CommentsIn my personal devotion time with the Lord this morning, I came across a passage from Jeremiah 3:15 which says, “And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” This is a great passage for me, and for you as well, because it is a promise that brings tremendous hope and encouragement for the future. I know that many have searched for a place to call home, and many here at The Bridge come from church backgrounds and religious traditions that have left them disillusioned about the future and the possibility of actually having a family in Christ. Take courage, friends! God has promised to be with you, and to provide Shepherds for you after His own heart.
Allow me to expand on this promise for a moment.
1. God promises to give you shepherds. The first observation I have is this: shepherds must be rather important from God’s view of things, or else He wouldn’t have wasted His time promising them to us. Therefore, it is very important that you find a man to be your shepherd. God says so! Having a shepherd is critical to God’s eternal redemptive plan for your life, so you need to make it your top priority to find one. Some may say that this passage is teaching about Jesus being our shepherd. While that is certianly true, I dont think that’s what this passage is saying. The noun, “shepherds” is in the plural. While Jesus is our great Shepherd, this passage is clearly indicating that there will be multiple shepherds. I’m tempted to use this passage to argue for a plurality of elders in the church, but to be fair to the text I think I would be pushing it a little too far if I did that. I safely conclude, however, that God is talking about modern day pastors and elders -not Christ, and He promises that you need them, and that He will give them to you. What about those who have taken the time to look for one, but have come up empty handed? Good question. There are many, even now, who may be wandering around looking for a place to be cared for, looked after, and nourished –where they know they will be loved and taken care of. This may have been going on for years, and they just might be on the brink of despair. Don’t despair! God promises that He will give you a shepherd. Do you need to stress over whether or not such a man exists? No, because God has spoken and promised that He will provide such a shepherd for you. The man exists; you merely have to trust God and search for him. God says that He will give him to you. The man exists, and he is a gift from God. There’s nothing you need to do but love and trust in God. You don’t need to do the Christian equivalent of a rain dance to make the sky pour down rain, or a pastor-chant for a pastor to pop up out of nowhere. All you need to do is love God, trust God, and wait on God. Maybe you have already searched for a man to call Pastor and have not found him yet. Maybe you have been through all the churches in Kamloops, and still you have not found him. Be patient. God will keep His promise. He will give you a Shepherd.
2. God promises to give you a Shepherd. God has promised to give you a shepherd. Do you want a place to be loved and cared for? Do you want the gift of having a man in your life who will look after you? Do you want someone around that will offer counsel and guidance, a stirring and encouraging word in times of distress, a friend that will love you and take care of you no matter what mess you might inadvertently get yourself into? Do you really want that? Most people will say “Yes, I’d love to have a friend like that.” But, truthfully, they really don’t. A friend like that will love you in such a way that he will not be able to bear it when he sees that you are making decisions which have as their inevitable outcome the sure destruction of your life and the harm of many of those around you. A true friend will speak. He must speak if he loves you. Like a shepherd, he will use a rod and a staff (Psalm 23:4). What’s a rod for? It’s for whacking the sheep when they need some motivation. What’s the staff for? The staff usually has a crook on it so that the shepherd can loop it around the neck of the sheep from a distance and tug him in the right direction. The Psalmist says that the rod and staff are comforting to him. Here’s a modern day translation: “The whackings and neck-jerks that you give me are a comfort to me. Thank you for whacking me and jerking me by the neck on occasion.” I find it incredibly odd that so many should pine away longingly for a shepherd convinced that God hasn’t provided one for them when clearly He promises that He will. Could it be possible that you’ve said “no” to God’s shepherd due to your hard and rebellious heart? Could it be that you’ve said “no” to God’s shepherd in your life because you refused to listen to the warnings and admonition that he gave you? Could it be possible that you’ve said “no” to God’s promised shepherd because you didn’t want to be shepherded? God promises to give you a shepherd. If you really want to have a shepherd in your life, and you want to see God keep His promise of giving you a shepherd, then perhaps you should get busy being a submitted sheep. Perhaps you need to work on your humility a little bit, and try a little harder to being open to the gentle corrections and appropriate admonitions from a Godly shepherd.
3. God wants you to have a shepherd after His own Heart. This is where the Word of God begins to cut both ways. It’s easy from a pastor’s perspective to exhort people to find a place of worship and get involved in a local church, and it would be too easy for me to recommend that they come to the Bridge. Before any such recommendation can be made two pivotal questions must be asked: What does it mean to be a shepherd after God’s own heart?Are the pastors here at Bridge Church shepherds after God’s own heart? I think I’ll save the previous questions for another post for another day. I think that the encouraging word that we can draw from this portion of the text is that God promises to give godly shepherds who are men after God’s own heart. I know that God has demonstrated Himself faithful in this regard. All throughout history the shadows of deception have threatened to plunge humanity into a dark age where there would be no understanding of God, yet God has always preserved a spokesman to speak to His people on His behalf. ALWAYS! So we can trust that if He did it once in the past, He will do it again in the future. He has, and He will! From my own personal experience, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen the leadership from one church stray from God’s heart and suddenly another is lifted up to a position to speak truth to God’s people. God always begins a slow and tedious process (slow and tedious to us because it usually takes four or five years at a minimum, but five years is nothing from God’s perspective of eternity) of removing the offending shepherd and raising up a new shepherd in his place. So if you find yourself in a church where it is apparent that the leadership has strayed from God’s heart, then take courage in the promise of God to provide a shepherd after His own heart and start searching for a man who follows God’s heart. He’s out there! And if you haven’t found him yet, then be patient because God will keep His promise. **For me, this is a special moment of introspection. Am I a man after God’s own heart? I hope and pray that this is the case. As Paul says, “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.” (1 Corinthians 4:4) Likewise, I am not aware of anything against myself. But what should I do if the day comes that I fall before the Lord in failure? What should I do if, after preaching to others, I myself become disqualified? (1 Corinthians 9:27) I have watched so many pastors, deceived by the allure of sin, insist in the middle of significant moral failure that they still deserve to shepherd God’s people. They have clearly fallen from the Heart of God, and they now insist on continuing in a position of leadership. These men only further compound the problem. The church is always harmed, and the advance of the gospel is always slowed down in such situations. Here’s what I’ve decided to do if I am ever caught in moral failure and it is necessary that I must resign my position (I pray that I will follow through with this plan if that day, God forbid, should ever come.): I will use what standing I have left to guide the church towards the shepherd that God has promised to raise up, the shepherd that is a man after God’s own heart. If I sense that God has departed from me and has chosen to raise up a new leader, I want to get on board with God’s plan. I don’t want to be consumed with murderous rage like King Saul. I hope that I will have the heart to trust in the promise of God which is to give a shepherd after His own heart. I pray that I will have the heart to believe this promise and to obey this promise by guiding others towards the shepherd that God lifts up. It is this desire that actually prompted me to put my morning devotion into writing via this blog post, because I would like others to be able to use this blog posting as a tool of reasoning with me should the day, God forbid, ever come that I need to step down. If I fall from being a good pastor, a shepherd after God’s own heart, then may I have grace enough to guide others towards the promised shepherd who will replace me. When you, the members of Bridge Church, pray for me, please pray that I will always strive to be a man after God’s heart, and pray that I will always have the grace to step aside, should the day come, but still use my God-given intellect and knowledge of scripture to guide us toward the promised Shepherd. This is what I want you to pray for me for.
4. Who will feed you knowledge and understanding. This is where the Word makes things easy for both of us. What should you look for in a pastor? What should I try to do as a pastor? There are a lot of different items involved with the job description of a shepherd, but first and foremost is this: a shepherd after God’s own heart should always strive to preach the Word!!! A godly shepherd’s first order of business is to always be ready to proclaim the truth of God’s Word! This passage of text reveals to us that a sheep who loves God and wants to be a sheep after God’s own heart is going to be a sheep that searches diligently for a shepherd who preaches the word and seeks to give knowledge and understanding of the text. A good sheep is hungry for God’s Word. A good shepherd will find a way to deliver a tasty morsel of Word for the sheep to eat. Both the sheep and the shepherd are intricately bound to God at this point because as the one is, after God’s own heart, striving to feed knowledge and understanding of God through His Word, so the other should be striving to consume and digest knowledge and understanding of God. What a wonderful way to arrive at an understanding of godly shepherds and godly sheep: both the shepherd and the sheep, if they share a passion for God and can be described as individuals with a heart after God’s own heart, will be consumed with a love for the text of Scripture, for knowledge of the text, and for understanding of the text. Wow! This passage makes me want to study scripture even more, and helps me pray that the members of the Bridge would have an ever increasing and insatiable appetite for knowledge and understanding of God!
I want to close with an exhortation. For those of you who have not found a church home, I’m not exactly recommending us, but I know our church will love and care for you. For those of you who are searching for a pastor after God’s own heart, I’m not saying that I am that man, but I do strive to be that man every day. But here’s my real exhortation: you must be hungry for God’s word. You must have a soul craving for it! If you lack a soul craving for knowledge and understanding of God, then you need to get busy cultivating a healthy appetite, and you need to be in the hunt searching for a shepherd who can feed you. So get hungry, and then get busy looking for a good shepherd.
Why we use a Membership Covenant (Part 3 of 5)
Posted by: | CommentsA Signed Covenant is a Useful Accountability Tool
Without a signed membership covenant it would be hard for any church to do two things: 1.) hold individual members to any standard of accountability, and 2.) hold the church congregation to a standard of accountability in seeking to be reconciled with any wayward members.
In the Western Church, average church goer Joe and Sally live in blatant and unrepentant sin. They believe, erroneously, that they can do whatever they want with a subtle disregard for the interests of the church and the interests of Jesus Christ. They often make decisions that lead to subtle forms of idolatry – the most blatant and obvious being the inherent belief that they can leave the church whenever there is any disagreement and seek out a church that cators to their personal whims. Joe and Sally leave the church, abandon their family in Christ, and selfishly pursue whatever tickles their fancy. They should be held accountable for their decisions. A signed membership covenant PROVES that there was a clear understanding between various parties at the beginning of the relationship BEFORE there was any conflict. A church that utilizes a signed membership covenant can honestly say that Joe and Sally fully knew what they were doing when they joined the church. A signed membership covenant becomes a piece of evidence in a court of law when members violate the other members of the church and selfishly pursue their own interests. It helps to establish a baseline and the church can hold people accountable to that baseline because the church can prove that they explained that baseline of behavior to Joe and Sally before they joined the church.
It also helps to hold the church to a standard of accountability. Many in the church may not know Joe or Sally or do not have a relationship with them. As a result, many members in the church may be reluctant to pursue reconciliation with Joe and Sally. In the beginning, there was a tempting desire to allow Joe and Sally to go in peace without confrontation over their subtle idolatry. But every member will know that this is not an option that will carry water with the leadership. Why? Because they also signed a covenant that clearly articulated certain responsibilities that were incumbent upon them in moments of crises. The church KNOWS that they have a responsibility to Joe and Sally, to reach out to them and to love and care for them during this moment of crises. And so the church steps out in obedience and can call Joe and Sally back to church attendance and begin to appeal to Joe and Sally via the membership covenant to resolve their differences amicably. The church leadership is effectively able to hold the church to a standard of accountability to engage Joe and Sally in an act of reconciliation and redemption when few really want to. And this is very helpful. Because it further compounds Joe and Sally’s guilt for so flippantly disregarding their church. They have had a loving family reach out to them and appeal to them to repent and come back to the church. Any insistance upon departure is, in cold-hearted fashion, a rejection of the loving appeals of their fellow brothers and sisters. This makes church discipline really really easy at this point.
A signed covenant is a piece of evidence that can show to a watching world that there was a clear-cut understanding among various parties involved. As evidence, it cannot be denied! Therefore, it is useful in holding people to a standard of accountability.
Cultivating a Heart for Love
Posted by: | CommentsJohn 14:15-21 teaches that if you love God you will keep his commandments. We need to be careful about assuming that obedience equals love. The passage does not explicitly say that simple obedience is the same as love for God. The Pharisees were insanely legalistic about adherence to the law and keeping God’s commandments, yet it is obvious that they did not love God. How do we know this? Because when God showed up and said, “Howdy!” they executed Him on a wooden cross. We need to be very careful in understanding the relationship between love and obedience.
It is true that obedience is the result of a heart that loves God. If you love God you will keep His commandments. But obedience is not the same as love. So how do we cultivate a heart that loves God? Because if we can find out how to cultivate a genuine love for God then obedience will be easy. I am persuaded that 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 gives us instruction on how to begin cultivating our heart for a genuine experiencing and expressing of love both to God and our fellow man.
Church Discipline UP-Front (Part 2 of 2)
Posted by: | CommentsTalking about Church Discipline UP-Front is Wise because it’s the way that Jesus did it.
The membership class begins. Everyone is smiling. Discussions of baptism and communion abound. Food is shared around the table. Everyone is having a good time. Then one of the Elders clears their throat, and says, “Let’s talk about how we’re going to maintain purity here at The Bridge Church.”
“Oh, how delightful!” many say in response to this news. But then follows a conversation that -despite best efforts to clearly articulate the issue at hand- always raises the question, “Isn’t that a little condemning?” But it isn’t condemnation. It’s wisdom bound inside of a careful warning.
Bridge Church is convinced that if we talk about church discipline from the beginning, we will be following the example that Jesus gives us. If we all agree that Jesus is the ultimate pastor, then we should all try to model our ministry on His, and if we decide to do that- then we will sooner or later realize that Jesus talked about church discipline the very moment that He began to talk about the church. When Jesus first begins to talk about Church, He does so in Matthew 16:13-19. This is the FIRST time “church” is mentioned, and it’s the FIRST time that Jesus begins to talk about the church.
In that passage he immediately begins talking about “binding & loosing.” Jesus, from the very moment that He first begins to teach about the church, begins to teach that the church’s primary function is to provide a positive identification of authentic believers in a fallen and lost world. The church as a “called-out community” is given the responsibility for calling-out others from the world, and distinguishing those truly called-out from those who are still of the world. Jesus begins teaching this ministry of binding and loosing from the very first mention of the word “church.” The second time he mentions the church, and the second time that the church is ever mentioned in the New Testament is in Matthew 18. This passage further unpacks the idea of “binding & loosing,” and explicitly talks about church discipline. So if any good pastor wants to base his ministry on the example that Christ modeled for us, then we must conclude that if Jesus talked about church discipline from the very first moment that He talked about the church –we should talk about church discipline the very first moment that we begin to talk about church. By refusing to make church discipline a part of the discussion from the very beginning, you are basically saying that you have more wisdom on the appropriate timing of such teaching than Jesus did.
And there are, unfortunately, too many who do this. When folks come to join with the church and decide to take the church membership class they are almost never approached with the concept of accountability and never told that they may be removed from the fellowship of the church. This is a sad tragedy that rejects the ministry that Christ modeled for us.