Category Archives: Spiritual Formation

Hearts and minds on fire

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by Jeff Gissing | @jeffgissing

Lauren Winner is interviewed at Comment, a journal of Cardus (a think tank dedicated to the renewal of North American social architecture). It’s an interview that’s worth reading. I’ll pull out some highlights below. Thanks to Andy Byers (@Byers_Andy) for the link.

Two Qualities of a minister…

 I teach future pastors at a divinity school because I believe that thinking well matters—I want my students’ future congregations to be guided by pastors who know how to think clearly, think well about (among other things) theology, politics, and history.

-Lauren F. Winner

Two qualities ought to be present and mutually-reinforcing in a minister: vital piety and a well-formed mind.

Parts of the church have elevated piety and made it to stand alone. A heart of fire is enough for these people, and they do not trust the mind. Others have emphasized the life of the mind and have come to distrust the heart.

In reality the two must go together–a heart burning with love to God and others as well as a keen mind with which one worships God and seeks to know God through His self-disclosure in Scripture. 

Five books you should read…

Reading is indispensable for those in leadership, especially for those whose leadership is in the church. Guiding a community of people is a complicated task at the best of times, especially when that group of people are “strangers and aliens” in the midst of a culture that no longer (if it ever really did) understands its story in the story of God.

The minister has an essential task of being rooted in the redemptive history of God and, at the same time, interpret and apply that story to a people who are also located in the world (which has a competing story). It’s impossible to do either of these things without reading. The Biblical world requires both knowledge and understanding. The contemporary world also requires hermeneutical skill and tools. The minister is, as John Stott’s book puts it, between two worlds.

In what ways do you think it important for ministers to be trained?

Prayer for the workday

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All of us spend most of our waking hours at work. In fact, work is a gift from God to us. It is our vocation–one of the things to which God has called us. In his letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul counsels them to devote their lives to God: “…whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10.31 ESV).

Many of us struggle with a piety that extends to our work. As an aid to developing vocational holiness, I offer the following liturgy developed by my colleague Bobby Gross.

Personal Liturgy for the Work Day

Psalm 90

Reverence

Lord, you have been our dwelling-place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

I begin my work this day, O God, acknowledging you as Creator and Redeemer. In you I live and move and have my being. All that exists, you made, including us humans in your image. You so loved this world that you entered it—Word becoming flesh—in order to save it. And surely you will redeem “all things” in the universe, including higher education, for your glory. So all praise and honor belongs to you, Eternal God. Amen.

Humility

You turn us back to dust, and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals.’
For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.

You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

I acknowledge my mortality and my finitude, O Lord. Apart from your providential grace, I could neither live nor work; so I enter into this day’s labor with gratitude and humility.

Furthermore, I fall far short of your moral expectations for me: I am not holy. Have mercy on me this day and help me to conduct myself in a manner that pleases you.

For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end* like a sigh. The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due to you.

Stewardship

 So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.

I receive this day as both opportunity and responsibility. Help me to do my work with your wisdom: using my time well, completing my tasks diligently and leading those entrusted to me with love.

Dependence

Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.

I want to work today in grateful response to your love, O Lord; animate me with your joy and strengthen me to respond to all hardships and difficulties by trusting in you.

Prayer

Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.

Show me what you are doing, Lord, so that my purposes may align with yours.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands—

O Lord, these are my biggest concerns for today…

…in these matters, Sovereign and Gracious God, I look to you.

Impart your power to all my efforts, according to your will; apart from you, spiritually, I can do nothing.

Finally, may your Kingdom come in the university world, even as it is in heaven. Amen.

Action

O prosper the work of our hands!

And now I begin my work, in your name—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and for your glory. Amen.

What do you want to be?

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We will be back to our series on the issue of gay marriage tomorrow, but today I want to consider an important question: who do you want to be?

Occasionally you bump into a word, phrase, or larger chunk of writing that works its way into the heart’s deepest recesses. It’s as though in encountering it prompts you to stop and shout: “Yes!” Sometimes these moments come in the oddest of places. I suppose it’s not surprising since God seems to revel in providing insight through paradox.

Last week I read a post by Michael Hyatt about taking stock of your life and seeking to see it as a Divine tapestry–a web of God-infused moments that together create something beautiful. That’s worth considering, but his thesis wasn’t what arrested me. Instead, it was his description of a college friend he encountered after twenty years of absence.

He writes, “I was especially proud that my friend was still married, still in the ministry, and still growing as a person. He was no worse for the wear, but much wiser and, somehow, deeper and more thoughtful. I know that if we lived closer together, we would be good friends once again.”

In my thinking, writing, and preaching over the last two years I find myself coming back to a single point: the purpose of the Christian life is to make us saints (holy). As I consider the Christian life I don’t think that God is ultimately working to make us more productive, wealthier, happier, or necessarily healthier. Productivity, wealth, happiness, and health may be either pathways to God (in the sense that we turn to God in our experience of them and thank Him) or they may be pathways away from God (when in bitterness at our poverty or in self-sufficiency fueled by our wealth we harden our hearts to God).

Before all else, God wishes for us to be holy. God is a personal God and therefore we can relate to Him. The product of our relating to Him, at least our positive relating to Him through the grace and merit of Christ, is that His holiness by graces changes us to be more like Him. Experiencing God produces holiness.

And holy men and women are very often precisely what Michael Hyatt describes: “wiser…deeper…more thoughtful…” At different stages in my eight plus years of ministry I have wanted to be different things: intelligent, winsome, an effective communicator, a strong leader.

A deepening conviction is settling upon me that these things are sort of like productivity, wealth, happiness–they can lead me to or away from God. They are not sure guides nor are they certain testimony to the blessing of God in my life.

At the end of the day, I want to be “wiser…deeper…more thoughtful” and I believe that growth in these graces is the result of encountering God in Christ through His Word, Sacraments, and in the community of faith.

Gay marriage 1 – an intro

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Next month the people of the state of North Carolina will have the opportunity to vote on a Constitutional amendment that will define marriage as between a man and a woman. This issue is exposing cultural fault lines in North Carolina and dividing what is commonly known as a “red state.”

In this post and the next I will offer two arguments: one will be the Christian case against allowing the state to recognize same sex unions/marriages; the other will be the Christian case for allowing the state to recognize such unions.

Notice the phrasing these two sentences. I will in neither case be arguing that Christian churches should recognize or solemnize unions between two people of the same sex. I am of the conviction that a Biblical case cannot be made for expanding the definition of marriage beyond the marriage of a man and a woman. We may argue about the evolution of the meaning of marriage or the rights enjoyed by the husband and wife, but what cannot be argued is that marriage has ever included more than one person of the same sex–in polygamy, for example, a husband has multiple wives, but those wives have a single husband (not a husband and a series of wives).

Nor will I be discussing the specific language of the proposed amendment. Several voices have made the case have been made that the language of the proposed amendment is overly broad and will reach beyond the actual intent of the drafters (to adversely affect existing domestic violence laws). This is worth considering, but not in these two posts.

Monday I will post a Christian case in favor of state recognition of gay marriage, and on Tuesday I will post a Christian case opposing such state recognition. Notice that I have used the qualifier “Christian.” I am writing as a Christian minister and as a Christian voter. I believe my calling as both is to think Christianly on a topic as significant as the ordering of our society. While I may touch on issues like the purpose or nature of the law, my chief concern is to root my comments in the tradition of the Church’s reflection on Scripture.

I invite your civil comments and interactions around these two posts and the issue in general. Any incivil comments will be moderated and removed from the blog. Thanks for playing nicely!

Note: I will try to link to appropriate articles or posts either in my own posts or in a separate post providing resources for a Christian discussion of this issue.

Three cultural realities stop us from understanding the Gospel

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Last night at Graduate Christian Fellowship (GCF) we spent some time discussing the distinction between “gospel” and “religion” outlined by Tim Keller in The Reason for God. It’s in chapter 12 if you’re interested.

There are two competing ways of approaching God: Gospel and religion.

The essence of the Gospel is salvation through grace–God restores our relationship with Him on the basis of the sacrifice of His Son. Reconciliation comes in the admission of our faults and brokenness and in the believing that God will be true to His Word and will rescue us if we approach Him in faith. Read more about the Gospel here (from R.C. Sproul) and here (from the Gospel Coalition).

The alternative is religion. Religion (this may be Christianity or other belief systems) is about demonstrating merit or worthiness by performance. We approach God and point to our record of achievement, niceness, goodness, or generosity as the basis for re-establishing the relationship with Him that was sundered by the Fall.

Of these two approaches only the Gospel is effective in achieving its goal and only the Gospel produces the by-products of reconciliation with God–freedom. peace, humility, joy, etc.

As we discussed, I observed: “Ours is a culture that makes it difficult to believe the Gospel.”

There are at least three cultural realities that I think are barriers to deeply contemplating God’s grace extended to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ:

  1. Our litigiousness. Ours is a culture that is quick to blame and slow to forgive. It’s difficult to deeply understand grace when society places a high value on apportioning blame rather than forgiving.
  2. Consumerism. Consumerism affirms what we as fallen humanity are already prone to: the belief that we stand at the center of it all. We are entitled to choices, deals, sales, customer service. Consumerism reduces almost all of life to a series of cost/benefit analyses and transactions. We look for a good deal…all the time…because we are entitled to it as consumers. This mitigates against grace because when we encounter grace we can only receive it in relinquishing our centrality and moving aside to allow God to occupy the central position.
  3. Instant gratification. Technology has altered the way we relate to time. We are conditioned to receive instant feedback and instant gratification. Growing in grace, really drinking deeply of the Gospel, requires meditation on God’s Word and time in prayer–things that require intentional time over years rather than days.
The author of Hebrews wrote, “…let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (10:25, ESV). If we’re to drink deeply of grace, we need to do it together.