Theological Musings

aw this tweet from a church pastor that I know personally.  This makes me sad on so many levels, but I will refrain from offering commentary on it. Just am curious what thoughts any of you have in response to this.  What would you say in reply? (And unlike Twitter, you don’t have to limit your reply to 140 characters if you don’t want to.)

Been Preaching for 51 years. Only 2 times felt totally satisfied. Something lacking. Spend much time thinking about it. Begins early Monday.

Until next time,
steve

es, I am still alive. Yes, I have lots I would like to write about! Yes, I still occasionally manage to read other blogs. Yes, I am extremely swamped with work, etc., and don’t know when I’ll get back to substantive posting. (And yes, Scott, I still owe you a return volley!)

Thank you to those who have checked in with me to see if I was ok. I apologize for the silence.

Having said that, I do want to take a few minutes to report on a wonderful ministry today. In nearby Vilas, NC (a “blink and you’ll miss it” portion of road between here and Tennessee!) sits Brushy Fork Baptist Church.

Christy and I know several people who fellowship there, and finally, after several years of talking about it, arrangements were made for me to minister in music.

I strive, whenever I do minister in music at a gathering anywhere, to be a blessing to the people who gather. And that was certainly my desire today.

We attended the morning service, where I shared two songs during the service. Then, this evening, they were kind enough to allow me to have the entire evening service at my disposal to minister in whatever way I felt led.

I’m not sure who got the bigger blessing, however — the people that gathered or me. I simply must say that the portion of the body of Christ that is Brushy Fork Baptist Church is a sweet and warm and welcoming group. And they can sing!

Anyway, it was a delightful evening where I definitely felt the Holy Spirit leading and shaping the service. And the responsiveness of the people there was very encouraging.

Thank you, Brushy Fork Baptist, for hosting our ministry tonight, and thank you to each person there (although I doubt any of them even know about this blog, much less read it!) for being a blessing to us.

Oh, and before I sign this off, let me share a really cool “God thing” that happened tonight…

We left the building, after saying goodbye to the few that were still there, and headed to Applebees for a much-needed meal (we had not eaten dinner before going to the service). Just as we pulled into the parking place at Applebees (about 10-15 minutes from the church building), Christy realized that she had left her purse at the church.

Even though we figured no one would be there at the church, we drove back out there. Sure enough, the building was all dark and closed up. But I said, “I’ll go up to the door anyway and see if maybe someone is still inside.”

I got to the double doors at the front of the church and saw that it was, indeed, dark everywhere within. I pulled on the right door — locked. Big surprise there!

For whatever reason (thank you, Holy Spirit!), I pulled on the left door…and it opened!

I walked into the lobby in the dark, hoping there wasn’t an alarm that would go off! Sure enough, in the shadows over where our CD table had been, I saw Christy’s purse on the floor.

I picked it up, carried it outside, and let the door shut behind me. Then, out of curiosity, I turned around and tried the door again. It was locked securely!

By the time I got back to the car, the pastor had come out of his house. He had recognized us from across the parking lot and came out to see if everything was ok. I explained the situation to him, and told him about how the door had been unlocked for me to walk in and retrieve the purse. What a cool way for God to help us out!

He thanked me “for locking up” for them and we headed back to Applebees again for real this time.

Anyway, isn’t that so neat how God kept that door from shutting tight when the church was “locked up” the first time, so that I could easily go back in and retrieve Christy’s purse? That’s the kind of God we worship!

Until next time,

steve

ecently, I linked to a thought-provoking post by Bill Kinnon called “The People Formerly Known as the Congregation“. Understandably, there have been some mixed reactions to this post, and it has sparked something of a small phenomenon around parts of the blogosphere. There have been other “Formerly Known” posts written, all with varying degrees of controversial thoughts.

I haven’t been mentioning them here or linking to them, mostly because it didn’t seem to fit the flow of this blog to continue discussing it. This blog has a very eclectic audience, and I have been making a concentrated effort this calendar year to address a wider variety of topics.

However, today I read a “Formerly Known” post that literally stopped me in my tracks. In fact, I read it while sitting at a computer in a computer lab at the University, and was honestly afraid I would break down crying right there in front of the students. It affected me that much.

Please be aware that the post I am about to link to may not strike you the same way. It may offend some. There’s a great preamble to the post that addresses this already, so I won’t make a big deal out of it.

But I would strongly encourage each of you to go read this post. We can discuss it here, or you can discuss it over there. Either way, I would love to get some thoughts on it from my readers.

Why did it move me so much? Well, I’ll let you read it first, and then I’ll share my thoughts either in the comments here or in a later post.

Please go read “Formerly Known” by Brother Maynard (not his real name) at Subversive Influence.

Until next time,

steve

ost of you who read this blog on a regular basis have seen glimpses into some of my journey. And you probably know that at some point in the past, I was involved in vocational ministry. Much of what I write about when I reference the conventional model of church (or “institutional church”, aka IC, as I sometimes refer to it as) is far from theoretical. It’s based on my own experiences in various positions and on both sides of the “desk”, so to speak.

In the past, I was on the “pastoral staff” of four different churches, and served in other paid capacities (mostly related to music) in a handful of others, as well. The moves were mostly geographical, and not just because I was “church-hopping”.

My first pastoral position was part-time, and I eventually left that position for a full-time position in a different church in a different state. Then, it was off to seminary, which included a move to a different state about 24 hours’ drive away, so once again a change. I didn’t immediately join a staff when I went to seminary, but eventually found myself once again on pastoral staff.

During that position, sin in my life caused it all (including my marriage) to fall apart, and I left seminary and vocational ministry for a number of years, turning to computer software development for my income. My last position came several years later in the form of a part-time position in yet another location altogether.

One of the things I remember very vividly when I was a young pastor was the advice of the gentleman who was my senior pastor at the time. He advised me not to get close to the people in our congregation, but to maintain a certain amount of separation from them. He even went so far as to name the names of specific people that would end up “stabbing me in the back” if I got too close in friendship to them.

I discovered at that time how lonely it could be “at the top” of the hierarchical system (even though I wasn’t the senior pastor, I still viewed myself as being part of “the top”). And if I could go back and do it differently, I certainly would. I would have taken the risk of building genuine relationships. I would have not listened to the advice that was given to me to seclude myself “at the top” and hold my brothers and sisters at arms’ length. That’s hindsight, though. At the time, I took the route of loneliness and isolation, as have many other pastors.

But even more lonely than the pastors, sometimes, and certainly more overlooked in this concern, are the wives of pastors. I saw this when I was in the ministry, and watched as the ministry took its toll on the wives behind the men up front.

My lovely wife has recently written a post about this topic, based on some recent news articles. I would encourage you to go to her blog and read “The Calling“. She offers some good thoughts on what those within the conventional system can do to help alleviate this problem. Here’s a quote to whet your appetite:

I don’t know the personal situations of the families that we hear of in the news, but I do believe it is a sad commentary for Christians to have a person hiding behind the persona of a pastor’s wife, but dying inside for a lack of true companionship, relationships and love.

Go read the whole thing and see what you think.

Until next time,

steve