Dear Family,
I am going to keep this short and sweet, i know, i know, that seems impossible for someone like me who never seems to shut up. But i am going to keep this short and sweet. There are gifts to be. Cookies to bake. Trees to gather around. And an important birthday party to plan. When there is so much to do, reading a blog from a hot airbag falls down the list of important things to do.
Anyway. I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my journey, so far, with my church family at the West Milton Church of the Brethren. Eight plus years of mountaintops and valleys, good times and bad, laughter and tears, makes for a wonderfully entertaining narrative, if anyone wants to hear about it. However, as i reflect, which is a godly thing to do at the end of every calendar year, i realize that i still have no idea how to pastor a church.
I have read as many texts as i can find on how to be a better pastor, more effective leader, more godly teacher, and vision/mission focused shepherd, but it seems little fruit comes to bear. I have studied different worship styles, trying to discern how to create a worship that brings the people in by the waves, so that our empty pews would have warm seats in them. But any look at the attendance board tells the painful story. And i have asked, ad nauseum, different pastors their secrets to success, and i have done my best to implement these ideas at West Milton, but i still feel like i have failed.
And that, i think ,wont change until the tide turns on our church community, and we begin tasting the delicious fruit of our labor.
But i have to wonder if i am missing the point, at least a little bit. God used the son of a poor carpenter, from Nazareth, to heal and save the world. Jesus didn't have a great education. He wasn't published in First Century Palestinian Theology. And He wasn't even a powerful figure head in His community, ensuring that Jesus would always know success. Instead He was the son of a poor carpenter from the part of Palestine many Jews overlooked. This is how God saves the world?
Where are the vision statements? Where are the consultants assisting God in forming a healthier mission and vision for God's Kingdom? Where are the great authors paving the way for Jesus to now how better to minister? And where are the great success stories, something akin to the great Mega Church models of today, which enabled Jesus to go into the world preaching the Gospel? They weren't there.
Sure Jesus had his Jewish tradition/narrative to fall back on, but at the core of His ministry wasn't a Saddleback or Willow Creek or even a Ginghamsburg model. Nope. Jesus' model was simpler than that. He chose love. And he let that love take Him to the margins where so many exist and are overlooked. It took the son of a poor carpenter to realize that the most effective ministry doesn't occur in the temple, but in the bars. The most powerful ministry doesn't happen during Sunday morning worship, but it heals under the cover of darkness, on the streets of desire, and in the alleys of ill repute. And the most successful means of ushering in the Kingdom of God doesn't come through 'models' but through authentic love and empathy for so many the world has forgotten.
It seems a strange way to save the world: the son of a carpenter who spends a good deal of His time ministering to people who will get Him nowhere good. (Few would argue the Cross being a wonderful place to end His ministry, even if Jesus knew it was inevitable and necessary). And yet, regardless of the 'benefits' of ministering to the poor, the sick, the forgotten, the pagan, the drunk, or tax collector, (there were no real benefits only social ostracism), Jesus, and by proxy God, chose this unorthodox method to heal the world.
It must have worked, because all other church models become obsolete, eventually, but loving people, well that is eternal. Amen.
Shalom,
jerry
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