View from the view - thanks to the pastors

 

A letter to the shepherds of God’s people,

 

Thanks!

 

Many of you are doing it tough right now.

 

You and your family are affected by the rolling lock-downs and are tired of the daily commute to the living room, kitchen, and back yard. Perhaps you are caught up in difficult circumstances at home, your family income may have dropped and maybe you or loved ones have been a Covid contact or contract. And there is the silent grief for that family holiday or wedding, or the relatives or friends who are now just pixels in another zoom call. And the  tension around that daily press conference and the ever-changing restrictions.

 

And then there is church.

 

Like most people, you want to be physically near people, for that’s how God made us. As a pastor you want to invest in the lives of your congregation for caregiving and discipleship. You may be struggling to post a tolerable online service each week. Meanwhile ‘helpful’ members tell you about that church elsewhere that has a fantastic online programme that they and their family watch. Then there are the people who you have been trying to draw in from the margins and who just drift off. And there are the older saints, as loyal as superglue, but whose underlying health makes them loathe to venture out to church again.  There’s another church meeting tonight, but you feel like a zoombie at 10am. Oh – the treasurer called to say that income is a Covid casualty and the accounts are threadbare. Ruefully, you look at your ministry planner and see all those initiatives that were an integral part of the five-year plan – and with a sigh you hit ‘delete’.

 

You knew ministry was tough but weren’t ready to be a fireman or a punching bag. This family that has suddenly exploded over differing views on vaccination. That member who is paralysed by conspiracy theories read on the internet. The year 12 and final year uni students, couples with wedding plans, forthcoming retirees – all these people in various transitions that are now as uncertain as tomorrow’s Covid numbers. The bereaved family wanting a funeral. All around you, people who are angry, fearful, and suspicious and who transfer that to you in various ways.

 

Thank you!

 

Thank you for persisting in ministry. Thank you for the tiring phone calls to catch up with us. Thank you for the deliveries of food and treats to needy people paid from your own pocket. Thank you for praying for us. And thank you for lifting our hearts to the big horizons of God who knows what’s going on before it happens, who is all good and all faithful and who continues to reconcile all things in Christ.

 

Want a word of advice? (Feel free to say ‘no’.)

 

Look after yourself and be kind to yourself and your family. You too are a finite, flawed and needy creature. Eat and drink healthy – and enjoy an occasional treat. Get out to dig the garden, play with the kids, take that walk or run. And especially, hit God’s gym to use the means of grace as you linger in the word, in prayer and in music that sings the Lord’s word into your heart. Please do all this so you stay well and so you have reserve capacity to be God’s fireman and punching bag as we dump our problems on you.

 

Thank you for loving God and his people through these times.

Preaching and teaching

 

Teaching and preaching

 

For the last week and the next two weeks I am teaching a class on weekdays. I sit in front of a camera and the students sit in another building in front of the screen.

 

Today, Sunday, I am preaching. I sit in front of a camera and my hearers sit in other buildings in front of their screens.

 

Monday to Friday we open our Bibles, pray and I talk. Today we open our Bibles, pray and I talk.

 

So what’s the difference?

 

On Monday to Friday there is difference in methodology. I talk to the students, they talk to me and they talk with one another. They work in small groups and individually to produce oral assignments that testify to, express and cement their learning.

 

The Monday to Friday class involves 40 hours of teaching over some weeks. Preaching has a different time frame and is more a one-way communication.

 

My teaching is of a unit of Scripture, and so is the preaching – and so the content is common.

 

A key difference between my preaching and teaching is in the emphasis among outcomes. Both preaching and teaching have goals of head learning, attitudinal change and change in actions. This is the ABC of education: Affective, Cognitive and Behavioural learning. To paraphrase Kant, teaching without actions is empty and preaching without content is empty.

 

As I say the difference is of emphasis in outcomes. If the students in my class emerge with more knowledge of the contents of this part of the Bible and increased skills in using it in ministry to themselves and others, then my work is considered well done. It’s different in preaching. The cognitive content in my preaching is a means to an end – I long to see lives changed as attitudes are transformed under the Spirit-illumined word and I want those changed attitudes to manifest in changed actions.

 

The different emphasis among goals informs my prayers and preparation. For teaching, I use the educator’s various arts. My prayer is for faithfulness and clarity in what I say, the ability to teach in ways that connect and for the students to build their knowledge and cognitive skills. When preaching I pray for faithfulness, clarity and connection in my words and that my life gives them integrity. My prayer is that God is present through his Spirit to break down defences, soften the hardness of heart and turn unbelievers into believers, believers into followers and followers into gospel servants.

 

Teaching are preaching are not so close as to be identical and not so different as to be antithetical.

 

A prayer on starting to read the prophet Joel

 

A prayer, on starting to read the prophet Joel.

Lord, I thank you for this book to which I turn today.

I read very different views about exactly what part of OT history it belongs to and so I guess that I must live with that unresolved.

I do know that it has the usual big prophetic themes of your judgement and salvation which lie at the heart of the eternal gospel. So, help me hear the warnings of judgement and not imagine that I am exempt if I prove to be a covenant breaker. But let me also hear the promise of your generous salvation for those who heed the call to ‘cry out to the Lord’, (Jl 1:14), ‘tremble’ (2:1) and ‘return to you will all your heart . for he is gracious and merciful’ (2:12-13) that ‘you shall know that I am the Lord your God’ (3:17)

What I also know is this book was shaped as you carried men along by your Spirit (2 Pet 1:20-21), that it is all-inspired and all-useful to teach, train, correct and rebuke so that I might be fully formed for you (2 Tim 3:15-17).

 So please help me approach this book with the humility that this is your word, that came to Joel, and which speaks into my life now. Please send your Spirit to illuminate me so that I can understand your word and it transform me in this day when your Spirit has been poured on all flesh (2:28; 1 Cor 2:6-16).

Amen