ministry

The Divine Purpose

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“Our lives mean much more than we can tell; they fulfill some purpose of God about which we know nothing; our part is to trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean to our own understanding. Earthly wisdom can never come near the threshold of the Divine; if we stop short of the Divine we stop short of God’s purpose for our lives” (Oswald Chambers, Bringing Sons Unto Glory).

I’m guilty of trying to decipher God’s overall plan for me and whether or not I feel like I’m living up to it. What God calls me isn’t to figure it all out but to be faithful in the minutiae and the mundane from moment to moment. It’s to be in a constant attitude of prayerful mindfulness and paying attention to God’s voice wherever I am and whatever I’m doing.

Ultimately, it’s presenting myself as a living sacrifice with everything I do as a spiritual offering of worship to God my King. That looks a lot like doing the small stuff and the daily routine like it matters to God, because it does.

It means that the janitor is as much of a sacred office as the minister. It means that sweeping floors and scrubbing toilets can be just as much an act of worship as singing hymns. For me, it means doing my best in everything as if I were doing it directly for God.

Being faithful looks like showing up and staying prayed up and never giving up, no matter what. It means reminding yourself of God’s promises and thanking God for them in advance while you’re still waiting on their fulfillment. It means preaching the gospel to yourself every day, several times a day, until you remember that it starts and ends with God, not you.

Sometimes, being faithful isn’t about the next 24 hours. It could be the next two hours. It could be the next 15 minutes. It could be the next breath. But it’s all about remembering the God who is forever faithful.

Keith’s Legacy

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It’s hard to believe that Keith Green went home to be with the Lord 43 years ago today. What amazes and saddens me even more was that he was only 28 years old at the time. He was able to accomplish so much and leave behind a legacy of music and ministry in such a short amount of time.

I think Keith would be grieved at the current state of the American Church. He’d see that so many people and churches that profess to follow Jesus now teach a kind of universalist message that the Apostle Paul would call another gospel. So many have surrendered their core beliefs for the illusion of fitting in and conforming to the culture. Sadly, even entire denominations have gone away from true faith.

I don’t think for one moment that Keith Green was perfect. He himself would admit as much. However, he did more to call people to repentance and faith in Jesus than just about anyone else. He begged and pleased for people to get right with the Lord. He also begged and pleaded for lukewarm churches to recover their first love and not be asleep in the light when so many outside their stained glass windows are perishing without Christ and without hope.

But I believe as always that there is a remnant that is faithful. As in the early Church and all throughout history, there has been a small core of true believers who have kept the gospel message alive even when it was unpopular or even deadly to do so. People all around the world are holding on to the message of Christ in the face of persecution and martyrdom. I think Keith would be so proud of them.

I love that I have all of his albums but one. I can put them on my turntable and drop the needle and instantly Keith, yet though he were dead, still speaks. His message and the message of all who have come after remains just as true and timely now as it was back in 1982 and down through all the centuries before that.

May we hold true to the Apostles Creed and the Gospel, and may all who come behind us find us to have been faithful.

Faithful to Your Call

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“If you live a life of watching and waiting, you will know what kind of call you have. You are not called to solve every problem in the world. Jesus was not called to go all over the world. He was called to be faithful to his own people. Every human being has a call. I work with mentally handicapped people. Sometimes I spend hours with one person, and we barely speak. Does that help people in Bosnia, does that help people in Northern Ireland, does it help people in Somalia? I don’t know, but I think it does. I think that when I am faithful to one person who is given to me, when I am convinced that’s my vocation, then I am doing more than when I am anxiously trying to put out all the fires all over the world. And that gives me peace” (Henri Nouwen).

Sometimes, the greatest gift you can give to the world is to be faithful to your call right where you are. You can do your job well. You can raise your family well. You can serve and minister to those in your small circle where you live, work, and play.

God didn’t call you to fix every problem and right every wrong. He called you to be faithful in a little, so He can trust you with more. He’s called you to be faithful with five talents, so that He can one day trust you with ten.

Sometimes, faithfulness looks a lot like showing up every single day. It looks a lot like not giving up, despite nothing ever seeming to change and the future still looking so far away. But if you show up and stay prayed up, then God will show up. God can take your meager little offerings, bless them, and multiply them to touch the lives of so many more people than you ever could have imagined.

But it all starts in being faithful with your two fishes and five loaves. It starts with being faithful with your small mustard seed. And the beautiful part is that it’s never too late to start.

The Door of Destitution

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“We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute; until we get there Our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us if we think we are sufficient of ourselves; we have to enter into His Kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are rich, possessed of anything in the way of pride or independence, God cannot do anything for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit” (Oswald Chambers, from My Utmost for His Highest).

That one hits me in my pride. I like to think that I can contribute to what God is doing. I like to thing I bring something to the table. I don’t like to think that even my very best righteousness is like filthy rags to God. I definitely don’t like to think that anything that’s good in me is God working through me.

That’s the whole point of the Beatitudes. We bring nothing but poverty of spirit, meekness, mourning, and a hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and God blesses us in spite of it all. God still works through nobodies just like He did way back when with 12 nobodies that He picked to be His disciples instead of choosing the best and wisest like every other rabbi would have.

The idea of us being children is more true than we want to admit. Children are dependent on their parents for absolutely everything, as are we to God. Our usefulness doesn’t come from any merit or talent we possess but simply us being surrendered and available to God at any and every moment. That’s when God does His best work.

But that’s also the best part. If God can use nobodies, then God can use you and me. We don’t have to have a degree from a seminary. We don’t have to have a job title like pastor or minister. We don’t even have to be able to be the best writers or speakers. We just have to show us and say, “Yes, God. Here I am. Send me.”

Can God Use You?

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I think if God can use any one of these people, He can use you and me. The key is not our ability but our availability. God isn’t looking for charismatic leaders or powerful speakers or Billy Graham-type evangelists as much as He’s looking for those whose hearts are open and willing. Simply, God is looking for people who will say YES, no matter the question.

The beautiful part is that there is no expiration on God’s call. There’s never a time limit. You never age out of being useful to God. God wants people both young and old, to kids from 1 to 92 like the old Christmas song says.

The Bible says, “God is always on the alert, constantly on the lookout for people who are totally committed to him” (2 Chronicles 16:9, The Message).

You may be a child. You may be past retirement age. It doesn’t matter. God has a call on your life that is uniquely suited to you and no one else. You alone can accomplish God’s specific calling, and you will only know what that is when you step out in faith (like Indiana Jones in that last real Indiana Jones movie).

May our answer to God always be YES, no matter the question.

Ministry Mindset

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I think most of us (including me) have the mindset that says, “Whenever I get to a comfortable place in my life with lots of money in the bank account, then maybe I’ll serve. When I get my career sorted out and my kids raised and shipped off, then I can go be a missionary or do ministry within my local church.

First of all, no one is promised tomorrow. Not to be completely morbid, but if you’re waiting until a magical age or after a certain number of years, you may not have that. Today is what we have. Today is the day God has gifted us.

Also, where you are right now is not happenstance. Where you are at this moment is exactly where God has planted you to serve not five years down the road, but right now. Your workplace is your mission field. Your homeschool group is your mission field. If you’re like me and in between jobs, anywhere you go on any given day is your mission field.

I pray we can have the mindset of Isaiah, who prayed, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.”

The joke is that if you pray for mission opportunities, God will send you to a remote spot in an isolated jungle in some third world country with no luxuries or comforts or even — gasp — no wifi. But more likely, God has set people around you who can be your mission field. You may not have to travel around the world but only across the street or down the block.

Once again, I’m preaching to myself. I need to get back to starting every day praying for chances to have gospel conversations wherever I live, work, or play. Then I need to get back to praying for courage to actually have those conversations when the moment arrives.

God is at work right now. I pray we can have eyes to see and join in. As I heard recently in a sermon, we need God’s love to move from our heads to our hearts to move through our hands to transform our habitat.

The Last Sunday

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There’s something a little sad about last things. Even if you know something better is coming, it doesn’t mean that you won’t be sad about the ending.

I got a little emotional singing the Doxology for the last time at The Church at Avenue South’s last service at 2510 8th Ave S. I know the new campus on 901 Acklen Ave will be so much better in so many ways, but it’s hard to deny 10 years of history.

As my pastor reminded us all, when we set out to plant a church in the Melrose/Berry Hill area of Nashville back in 2013, many “experts” said we’d never be able to find suitable property. Even if we did, we’d never be able as a church to compete with other bidders or afford space to accommodate our needs.

But God. That’s how all the best stories start. God showed up. A property opened up that was exactly what we needed at the time. The owner was the son of a pastor. His name was Gabriel. Does it get any more God-ordained than that?

Fast forward 8 or so years later and we’re looking for a permanent home. Again, those in the know said we’d never find it in the area we felt called to serve. But God stepped in again. A church half a mile away had relocated to Hermitage and wanted to sell the property to another church to keep the gospel presence intact in the neighborhood. They left money on the table to sell to us versus selling to a developer.

God’s fingerprints are all over the move, yet it’s still a goodbye. We’re saying goodbye to a building where so many God-moments have taken place. We’ve seen God show up time and time again. So many of us (including me) are different people than we were when we first walked into 2510 8th Ave S. We are more like Jesus.

There are not many left from those early days in 2014, but everyone who has been in the building for 10 years, 10 months, 10 days, or 1 day has a story to tell about how God met them in that place.

May there be many more stories to tell in the years to come at 901 Acklen Ave.

Last Room in the Inn of the Season

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I always get a little sad at the end of the Room in the Inn season. I know I will miss seeing all the people until we kick off the new season in November. More than anything, my head is still spinning from how fast these last five months have flown by.

This year I got to teach more in the Bible study. I saw more of the homeless men showing up to hear God’s word taught and really lean in to learning about God’s way of living. Plus, I love seeing the faithfulness of those core volunteers who have been with the ministry for such a long time.

I can’t remember exactly, but I think a friend named Brad Johnson told me about this ministry and invited me to check it out way back in 2012, give or take a year or two. I know it’s been a minute or two ago. That was when I really saw the impact of Room in the Inn to give people a warm place to spend the night and a good meal and a hot shower.

I’ve heard stories of God’s faithfulness in the lives of these men and how they still trust in Jesus in spite of all the hardships of being homeless. I’ve seen homeless men who know the Bible and can quote verses way better than I can.

I see homelessness less and less as a stigma and more of a “there but by the grace of God go I” kind of thing. For some it’s a choice, but for others it’s simply a bad financial break or the loss of a job or an unexpected medical expense.

I remember a book I read that basically said that in a sense we’re all homeless because this world we’re living in isn’t really home. We’re following Jesus as best we can on our way to our real forever home. Room in the Inn is a good reminder of that.

Living Out the Gospel

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“Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let it be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he’ll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything—encores to the end of time. Oh, yes!” (1 Peter 4:7-11, The Message)

The Message translation is hit-or-miss in my book. Sometimes, it misses the mark in capturing the original intent of the author and gets too loose with its paraphrasing. But when it’s on, it’s dead on. Like this passage form 1 Peter 4.

That’s the gist of the gospel right there, spelled out in black and white. Faith isn’t genuine unless it shows itself in good works. Love isn’t genuine unless it goes beyond mere words and takes hands and feet toward the less fortunate in very tangible ways.

It’s not just social justice without addressing the spiritual need for salvation, and it’s not just a call for repentance without meeting their physical needs. It’s both.

Most of all, it’s about loving people in the same way that God in Jesus loved you. Of course, that’s impossible by merely human standards. It only becomes possible when you serve out of the overflow of God’s love.

As my favorite pastor put it, when you receive God’s love, it’s like trying to contain the ocean in a thimble. When that love of God spills out onto those around you, that’s the basis on which you’re loving people with God’s love and serving them from the overflow and not from your own resources.

 

A Little Love Goes a Long Way

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“I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It’s not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love” (Linus Van Pelt, A Charlie Brown Christmas).

I keep thinking about Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Yes, I realize that it’s August and still unbearably hot outside. Yet, I can’t help thinking about that classic Christmas special that airs every year without fail.

It’s the scrawny little sapling that that round-headed kid picked out of a lot full of shiny aluminum trees, just barely a branch with a few twigs on it and even fewer needles. Most people wouldn’t give it a second glance and 9 times out of 10, it ends up in a trash can.

Yet all it needed was a little love to flourish and grow.

That same applies to lots of situations and people. A little love goes a long way with a lot of people and in a lot of places.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Just the act of acknowledging someone’s existence. of being a witness to their life, and simple words of encouragement can be the difference between despair and hope, death and life, damnation and salvation.

Even the smallest gesture has the power to turn around someone’s day (and possibly even someone’s life). You never know. I do know that the smallest act is still better than the grandest intentions never acted upon.

I’m also thinking about the kids at the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Home, many of whom are starved for affection and attention. They need to know that they are valued and worth the effort of loving. Many of us are the same way.

There’s a saying from the Jewish Talmud that goes like this: “Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe.”

Saving a life always starts with a simple act of love.