I’ve been invited to speak to a group of pastors (actually a local Baptist association’s pastors breakfast). My topic will be “The Church and Shepherding in the NT.”
The topic was suggested to my by the person who invited me to speak. He had read a few things that I had written about leaders and service in the NT. He said he thought it would be good to discuss the relationships between elders/pastors/leader and others in the church according to the NT. As he said, this would then lead to a discussion of the nature of the church.
So, thinking through these issues (leadership, service to others, nature of the church), what passages of Scripture do you think would be important to this type of discussion?
A couple of months ago, I was asked to wrote a post about internet ministry. Since I was preparing to leave for Ethiopia, I said that I would write the post after I returned. As I was studying and thinking about the topic, my post turned into a series of posts.
In this first post, I want to define what I mean by the term “internet ministry.” Now, to be completely honest, this is my definition. While my definition may be similar to others, I wanted to define the phrase in a way that express what I think about ministry itself. So, I’ll begin my definition with the term “ministry.”
As many, many scholars have pointed out, the English term “ministry” comes from the same Greek term as the English term “service.” “Ministry” is “service” and “service” is “ministry.” In the New Testament, there is not difference. So, in my definition there is no difference either. “Internet ministry” is “internet service.”
But, serving whom? In Scripture, service is also directed toward other people.While it may be beneficial to do something that benefits only yourself, this is not service. For example, if I write a book, but do not show it to anyone, it is not an act of service. It only because a possible act of service when I then share that book with others. So, “ministry” or “service” is directed toward others and interact with others in some way.
Thus, “internet ministry” is “internet service directed toward and interacting with other people.”
Now, what about the “internet” part of the phrase “internet ministry?” For this series, I will include any technology, app, or function that uses the internet as “internet.” That may seem obvious, but this means that both email and cell phone apps could be included in the phrase “internet ministry.”
On the other hand, simply having a computer program does not mean that I would include that program in the phrase “internet.” For example, I often use BibleWorks, but I would not include that software package in the term “internet.”
There is at least one more statement that needs to be made about “internet ministry.” I’m writing this from the perspective of a child of God – from someone who desires to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ. As such, my intentions in serving others is so that those other people will be drawn to the love of God and begin following him as well. In other words, I want to see people grow in maturity toward Jesus Christ as the ultimate goal.
So, I could a hungry person food as an act of service. But, as a child of God, I also give them that food to demonstrate the love of God and to attract them to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This idea is not found in the terms “ministry” or “service” but should always be found in the life and actions of a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Thus, as a Christian, my idea of “internet ministry” must include the idea of helping someone grow in their understanding of God and in maturity in Christ.
So, “internet ministry” is the use of online services, apps, functions, and technologies in order to serve people with the intention of helping those people grow in maturity towards Christ.
Rod left a comment on my post “Rejected” that I want to give more visibility.
His comment was an excerpt from a Christianity Today article called “To Serve Is to Suffer.” Here is part of the article:
The biblical model of community life is Jesus’ command to love one another as he loved us—that is, for members to die for other members (John 15:12-13). The model of Christian leadership is that of the Good Shepherd dying for his sheep, not abandoning them when the situation gets dangerous (John 10:11-15). When God calls us to serve him, he calls us to come and die for the people we serve. We don’t discard people when they have problems and cannot do their job properly. We serve them and help them come out of their problems. We don’t tell people to find another place of service when they rebel against us. We labor with them until we either come to agreement or agree to disagree.
When people leave a church because they do not fit the program, it communicates a deadly message: that our commitment is to the work and not to the person, that our unity is primarily in the work and not in Christ and the gospel. The sad result is that Christians do not have the security of a community that will stay by them no matter what happens. They become shallow individuals, never having true fellowship and moving from group to group. Churches committed to programs can grow numerically, but they don’t nurture biblical Christians who understand the implications of belonging to the body of Christ.
The way we treat people who disagree with us demonstrates whether we love the people or the work… (By the way, I think this is true for all believers, not just elders/pastors/leaders.)
Some friends of ours are beginning to meet together with the specific intention of serving their neighbors, co-workers, and friends. He recently sent me a description of their meeting. It may not sound like a typical church meeting… but, that’s a good thing, I think. This is what he said:
Sunday we met with the S.’s and one other family in their home and studied scripture, sang with a guitar, and prayed together. It was good to sit around and talk about all the people we know who we can serve and then move forward right then to contact some of them. This is something we are going to try to do a few times a month as we look to see what the future has for us, while hopefully bringing in a few other families as well.
I ask my friend to explain what he meant by “talk about all the people we know who we can serve and then move forward right then to contact some of them.” This is what he described:
We talked about who we know that needs help and we came up with a person J. works with that is going through some financial hardships (her husband is a Muslim who is opposed to the gospel but she is a professing believer). We called her and she had received help that same day already from her mom with groceries. We found out her windshield has a huge crack that needs to be fixed so we are going to see how to get funds together for that. J. also knows a 97 year old lady in town who she has taken food to and who doesn’t have family around. We tried to call her but wasn’t able to get a hold of her at the time. (This lady is amazing, even though she is old she lives alone and does yard work for her house and a few rental houses she owns). I called a lady from Africa that works in the cleaning department (she lives alone and doesn’t have a car or family close by). We have had her up to our house before, so I called her and setup a time to have her up to our house and to take her grocery shopping (she loves to fix food from Africa). Lastly, a friend of ours who A. and I meet with weekly for breakfast and encouragement has some stumps in his back yard that he wanted to grind but he lost his job recently and is starting nursing school in September so his funds are limited. Instead of renting a stump grinder, A. and I are going to attempt to go over there while they are out of town and chop up some stumps with a couple of axes (they aren’t huge trees and we figure it may be good exercise). As you can see, J. is our person of peace, which makes it easy to come up with people with needs because she naturally meets them or people gravitate towards her.
I love the way they met together! What? Do I love the Scripture they studied or the songs that they sung? Well, probably, but I don’t know what that was.
What I like is that when they gathered together, they thought about and discussed how they can serve others. And, instead of just talking about it, they started doing it right then! Yes!
Sounds to me like considering one another to stir up love and good works… (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Most of the volunteers I have observed in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere have arrived on the field with the desire to work with, not for, the nationals. However, many volunteers lack even minimal cross- cultural sensitivity or knowledge of their own denomination’s understanding of mission. Such people are apt to repeat the mistakes of the past. On one occasion a group of American evangelical volunteers traveled to Barahona to spend two weeks “working with the youth.” After they returned to the U.S. I asked the president of our youth group what he thought of the volunteers’ work. He replied: “They said that they had come to us with a mission, but they took no time to understand our mission. They should have come to share with us. It’s as though they felt we had nothing to give them. They spent a lot of time on the beach handing out tracts and lying in the sun. Evidently this made them feel good.”
This is a good admonishment and warning to anyone attempting to work with people from other cultures. However, I think this warning also applies to those who are seeking to minister to people within their own cultural context.
I’m working on a post on the subject of internet ministry. Several weeks ago, I was asked to write a post for another website. Since then, I’ve been thinking about how to approach the subject.
As I’m writing the post, I thought I would ask my readers about their opinions as well. So, that’s what I’m doing here…
What do you think about internet ministry? What are the benefits or detriments? Are there limitations? What concerns do you have? What media or sites offer the best/worst options for internet ministry?
I would appreciate any feedback that you’d like to offer.
While thinking about our recent trip to Ethiopia, I have to write a post about culture. But, hopefully, this post will help you understand more than the food and living conditions. Instead, I hope it helps you think about your own culture better.
You see, there are good things and bad things about any human culture. There are good aspects of American culture and there are bad aspects of American culture. This is true of Ethiopian culture as well.
I learned alot from the Ethiopians and their culture. I learned about service. I learned about hospitality. I learned about being content working within the roles of your society. I learned about the importance of greetings and welcoming people.
While we were in Ethiopia (Alaba, especially), we were served as if we were kings. While this was often disconcerting, it was also necessary to give them opportunities to serve. We also looked for opportunities to serve them, but we had to allow them to serve us as well. This service often took the form of hospitality, with various people offering us food, coffee, or a place to sleep.
(By the way, Ethiopian food is outstanding! We enjoyed (almost) everything that we ate and drank. One warning… watch out for the long green peppers, especially if they still have the seeds in them. Oh, and the buna (coffee) with salt and butter takes some getting used to.)
I’m glad that most of the songs that we heard were original Ethiopian tunes, and not American tunes with Amharic words. We even met a guy who wrote and recorded music for the church. Of course, this also meant that we didn’t understand the songs that the people were singing. But, I was glad that the Alaba church was creating their own music.
Greetings are very important to the people of Ethiopia. When someone comes into a room, he or she will greet every person that is already there. Often, the people who are in the room will shift seating positions to give the newcomer a place to sit. This creates a very welcoming and accepting atmosphere.
Men and women have specific roles in Ethiopian culture. And, they are content with their roles. Do not misunderstand what I am saying. I am not saying that they accept their roles begrudgingly. I’m saying that they find contentment and joy in working within those roles. The woman who prepared our meals for a week was one of the most joyful people that I saw while in Ethiopia. Work was not a burden, but a blessing.
However, culturally, the people do not confront one another. If there is a problem, they will tend to ignore the problem, even in relationships. Thus, we heard (though did not witness) about sin that was not confronted. This was sin that was obvious to the people involved, and affected the life and ministry of the church involved. (It was not in our area of Ethiopia.)
So, in all cultures, including Ethiopian culture, there are good things and there are bad things. In any culture, the church must learn to operate within the culture, but not to allow the culture to dictate a way of life for believers. Unfortunately, I think the American church lives more according to “the American way” than to the wisdom of God.
I hope this trip to Ethiopia helps me to think about my own culture, and how I live within this culture but do not conform to this culture. I am a citizen of the kingdom of God and must live as his child.
In the video below, you’ll see (kinda) many of the people who gathered on our last night in Alaba. There was a big party and feast. Unfortunately, part of the video is very dark. There was only one light bulb for the whole room. They seem to like things darker than we do.
Instead, he says, churches should be more like community gardens, where the people work together to produce the fruit of their labor. He says:
The church should be more like a community garden and less like a supermarket. That might mean we need to spend a lot of time together. We might get a bit dirty in the process and there are going to be disappointments. Things might not turn out like we hope. If you have a garden and plant tomatoes, sometimes some of the tomatoes will have bugs in them or turn brown or fall off the vine before they are ripe. Sometimes it rains too much and sometimes it rains too little.
Yeah, Arthur’s right. It’s hard work.I wonder if the “hard work” is the reason that many people choose to skip that part and jump straight to the fruit of another’s labor?
Three years ago, I wrote this post called “Any opportunity to ‘one another’.” The encouragement here is to find any opportunity to care for, teach, build up, disciple one another.
A couple of weeks ago, we were able to spend time on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with other believers. We love to get together with one another to share meals, to talk, to serve… really, any “excuse” to spend time with one another.
Last week, Margaret, my wife, was sick for a couple of days. Then, I caught the bug from her and was sick for a few more days. During that week, we didn’t spend much time with other believers. (Actually, Margaret was able to attend our regular Sunday meeting, and she was also able to have lunch with another couple on Sunday. But, that was all of the interaction that we had with other believers that week.)
So, when Monday rolled around – and we were both finally feeling better – we jumped at the chance to have dinner with some friends of ours. This time, we went to a restaurant, and not just any restaurant, one of our favorites! On the ride to the restaurant, during dinner, and on the way home we had a great conversation about many different topics – from spending time at the beach, to their influence in the lives of our children, to hearing and knowing and following the will of God, and many other topics that flowed naturally (supernaturally?) from our relationships with one another and from our mutual relationships with God.
Occasionally, when we think of church, it is easy to get stuck on the big things: big groups, big meetings, big projects, big results, big presentations, big themes, big sermons… But, if we continue in our life stuck on the idea that “church” is only in the big things, then we may miss some of the most important things that God has for us, those things that can only be found in the intimate relationships that God is building between us and other brothers and sisters in Christ.
Sometimes, God teaches us more from a few words from a friend than from a 30 minute sermon. Sometimes, God uses us more in a simple hug than in an afternoon of working hard with a large group. Sometimes, God reveals himself more in the tears of a friend that we’re consoling than in a large group of people that we do not know as well.
I like the big things. I like to gather with a large group of believers and hear about the many ways that God is working and changing and moving and teaching. I like singing with a large group of believers. I like the big things.
But, God is also – and at times even more – in the small things too. I hope this encourages you to take any opportunity to “one another”. Even “small” opportunities… you might just find God there.
Here is an important and powerful passage from Hebrews, written to those who are struggling and suffering about those who are struggling and suffering:
Therefore lift up drooping hands and strengthen weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord, seeing to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled… (Hebrews 12:12-15)
Who are you lifting up and strengthening today? To whom do your paths run so that you can help them heal? With whom are you striving for peace? Whose life are you examining so that you can help them obtain God’s grace?
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