We're in the middle of Vacation Bible Camp at our church this week, and it's been going so well so far! We've had a decent, if a little small, number of kids coming out, doing crafts, playing games, marching around the church auditorium, and learning about Daniel and his friends. One of the goals we want to accomplish with this endeavour is not only reaching out to the kids, but to the parents as well and hopefully get the opportunity to share the gospel with them.
I was talking afterwards with my pastor's wife, a very godly and insightful woman, who is also a blogger way more widely read than myself, so I suspect that she'll have a post sometime in the near future along the same lines. Anyways, we were talking about the conversations she had gotten to have with a couple of the moms who were there this morning, and she talked about how one of the conversations had been a good conversation, but the mom was a believer, and so she had sort of discounted it.
This brought to my mind some experiences that I've had in evangelism. It's happened on a number of occasions, always very unexpectedly, that I've struck up a conversation with a random person on the street or wherever it is that I'm evangelizing, and I've had every intention of sharing the gospel with them, only to find out throughout the course of the conversation that they are, in fact, already a believer, or at least they claim to follow Christ. Coming from a background of claiming to follow Christ but not actually being a genuine believer until my early teens, I'm acutely aware of the fact that just because a person claims the monicker of "Christian" that does not make it true. So, I start asking pointed questions to see if they actually believe the true gospel, and by the end of the conversation, as far as I can tell, their faith is quite genuine.
So at the end of these conversations, which are typically very encouraging both to myself and to the brother or sister I was just speaking with, and also typically fairly lengthy, I walk away feeling a pang of discouragement as well. I mean, I just used up a large chunk of my time which was meant for evangelism, and rather than reaching out to a lost soul with the gospel, I wasted it talking with someone who already knew Christ. I've failed in my duties as an evangelist! Right?
There are numerous occasions in Scripture, such as 1 Thessalonians 5:10, where we, as Christians, are commanded to encourage one another, or to build one another up, to pray for one another. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul addresses the Corinthian church, which was apparently quite zealous in seeking out "manifestations of the Spirit," citing speaking in tongues as an example. What Paul does in this chapter is urge them to shift their focus away from the manifestations, but instead, as he says in verse 12: "strive to excel in building up the church." Charismatic manifestations of the Spirit's power were certainly a sight to behold, and a remarkable experience, but they are as nothing if they do not carry with them something of edifying value. He says earlier in the chapter: "Now brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching?" (vv. 6).
The conclusion that both I and my pastor's wife came to is this: while it is certainly a clear command in Scripture to evangelize, and even while that may be the utmost duty of the church, it is also very clearly commanded in the Scriptures that we be encouraging and building up one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. It is no waste of our time to encourage a brother or sister. My pastor's wife this morning said that the conversation she was having with this mom who was there was not evangelistic, but it was deep, it was real, it brought tears to both of their eyes at points. It was a conversation built around the love of Christ. How can that ever be a waste of time? So don't be discouraged when an evangelistic encounter instead ends up being a conversation with a brother or sister in the Lord. I personally find sharing the gospel with a random non-believer a much easier thing to do than encouraging a fellow believer. So if God has brought a brother or sister into your path and you were able to share with them, and encourage them, then take heart. You are still being faithful to the Lord, and doing that which, in one very real sense, is a more difficult for some than just sharing the gospel with someone.
Don't be discouraged about encouragement.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Monday, July 15, 2013
The Blessing Behind the Pulpit
I've had the privilege over the last few months of being part of a great congregation in Toronto working as a pastoral intern. I can't even begin to express how much this has been a blessing in my life, and how much God has used this to work in my heart and teach me all sorts of incredible things!
One of the most fantastic of these privileges that this opportunity has provided for me is that most glorious of privileges: preaching. I started "preaching" (if it could even be called that) when I was only seventeen years old. Looking back, those sermons were pretty rough. No really, they're not good! But in this last while I've learned so much and grown so much, and this time around, several years after those first feeble attempts at preaching, I've gotten back behind the pulpit a couple of times. Were these sermons perfect? Far from it. Were these sermons a benefit and a blessing to the congregation? I hope so! Did God use these sermons to help me in my own understanding and my own walk with Him? Absolutely. And for that reason alone, I am thankful to God that I had that opportunity, and I hope to have many more such opportunities in the future.
There's something about when you are studying a text with the intent to communicate it to others that really makes it "click" for you that much better. I mean, there is a great benefit to personal study for the sake of personal study, but I always find that those times when God's Word comes together so much more clearly is when I am prayerfully approaching the text with the intent on understanding it for the benefit of others, to help them understand it.
Here's the thing, preaching, by its very nature, is one person explaining the Bible to a group of people. This is with the intent that the preacher, someone who, ideally, is learned in the area of theology and biblical interpretation, to some degree either formally or informally, so that they are able to take the text and express and articulate its truths in a way that is digestible for the general public, and will have some sort of direct application to their lives. Now, when I say that we want to make truths "digestible," that does not mean cutting anything out, watering anything down, or diluting the truths of Scripture in any way, shape or form. God forbid that that should be so! Rather, we are trying to take those truths and present them in a way that all of your listeners, from the least educated to the most, will be blessed and edified, and will understand what a particular verse or passage is saying in a greater way, and will be able to take that truth and apply it to their own lives. We are vessels, intended by God for the purpose of teaching and communicating what His Word says so that people understand it better.
In this process of seeking to present the truths of Scripture in a way that is understandable and applicable, something very important needs to happen: we need to understand the passage, and know how it applies to us! We can't preach to others what we don't understand. Many people try to do this, and it shows. When you look at their lives and the lives of their congregants, it is plainly and painfully obvious that something has gone wrong, and that something is, more often than not, that the preacher has not been preached to by the Word.
Our goal is to help others to grow in Christ, and what is so marvellous about this is that, if we are faithful in our duty and responsibility, we will grow also! There is a double-blessing available to preachers, if they a diligent in their efforts, and prayerful in pursuits. Not only do they have the joy of helping and encouraging their congregation with God's Word, but they also have the joy of the Word first helping and encouraging them! So let's make a real effort, preachers, to be faithful and diligent in our sermon preparation. Let's try and apply what we study and learn to our own lives so that we can help others do the same. I guarantee you, you won't regret it!
One of the most fantastic of these privileges that this opportunity has provided for me is that most glorious of privileges: preaching. I started "preaching" (if it could even be called that) when I was only seventeen years old. Looking back, those sermons were pretty rough. No really, they're not good! But in this last while I've learned so much and grown so much, and this time around, several years after those first feeble attempts at preaching, I've gotten back behind the pulpit a couple of times. Were these sermons perfect? Far from it. Were these sermons a benefit and a blessing to the congregation? I hope so! Did God use these sermons to help me in my own understanding and my own walk with Him? Absolutely. And for that reason alone, I am thankful to God that I had that opportunity, and I hope to have many more such opportunities in the future.
There's something about when you are studying a text with the intent to communicate it to others that really makes it "click" for you that much better. I mean, there is a great benefit to personal study for the sake of personal study, but I always find that those times when God's Word comes together so much more clearly is when I am prayerfully approaching the text with the intent on understanding it for the benefit of others, to help them understand it.
Here's the thing, preaching, by its very nature, is one person explaining the Bible to a group of people. This is with the intent that the preacher, someone who, ideally, is learned in the area of theology and biblical interpretation, to some degree either formally or informally, so that they are able to take the text and express and articulate its truths in a way that is digestible for the general public, and will have some sort of direct application to their lives. Now, when I say that we want to make truths "digestible," that does not mean cutting anything out, watering anything down, or diluting the truths of Scripture in any way, shape or form. God forbid that that should be so! Rather, we are trying to take those truths and present them in a way that all of your listeners, from the least educated to the most, will be blessed and edified, and will understand what a particular verse or passage is saying in a greater way, and will be able to take that truth and apply it to their own lives. We are vessels, intended by God for the purpose of teaching and communicating what His Word says so that people understand it better.
In this process of seeking to present the truths of Scripture in a way that is understandable and applicable, something very important needs to happen: we need to understand the passage, and know how it applies to us! We can't preach to others what we don't understand. Many people try to do this, and it shows. When you look at their lives and the lives of their congregants, it is plainly and painfully obvious that something has gone wrong, and that something is, more often than not, that the preacher has not been preached to by the Word.
Our goal is to help others to grow in Christ, and what is so marvellous about this is that, if we are faithful in our duty and responsibility, we will grow also! There is a double-blessing available to preachers, if they a diligent in their efforts, and prayerful in pursuits. Not only do they have the joy of helping and encouraging their congregation with God's Word, but they also have the joy of the Word first helping and encouraging them! So let's make a real effort, preachers, to be faithful and diligent in our sermon preparation. Let's try and apply what we study and learn to our own lives so that we can help others do the same. I guarantee you, you won't regret it!
Back on Track
So...it's been a while. I feel like almost every post I make on this blog starts off with something to that effect. I'm so terribly inconsistent with this whole "blog" thing. As much as I love to write, I expend most of my writing efforts on school assignments and things for my church. And I've always felt in the past that I was lacking in biblical literacy to such a degree that each one of my posts would have to be researched thoroughly. Now I think I've reached a point in my life where I realized that this was more about pride than anything else. I was afraid of being wrong, especially in such a public forum. However, a couple of years of seminary, practical ministry experience, and a whole heck of a lot of grace and work of God in my own heart, I now think it's time for me to get back on track with this blog. When I started this blog, it was because I thought I had something to offer the world. I thought that my thoughts should be made public because they were pretty clever thoughts, and thus should be read. But now I know that my thoughts are terrifically irrelevant. The words I write are only significant insofar as they are not my words, but as I am communicating God's Word to you. So now I want to try to keep up this blog not so I can show off how skilled a writer I am, but because I sincerely find that I am able to organize my own thoughts better when I write them down. I want to use this as an outlet to get my own thoughts out of my own head, so that I can see how they look out there in the big ol' world. My hope and prayer is that God would use this blog for my own personal growth and sanctification, and hopefully for yours as well. I hope for us to grow together in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord.
So, are you with me?
So, are you with me?
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