SHARING THE JESUS YOU KNOW
by Mike Chong Perkinson
So much emphasis has been placed in our evangelical culture on witnessing. On one hand, we wholeheartedly endorse it. While on the other hand, we are not sure that trying to get people saved is the same as living out the incarnation. More simply, living out how Jesus has impacted our lives – living and sharing the Jesus we know. What seems to happen is that we find it necessary to share about a Jesus we don’t know, memorizing facts, details, all in the pursuit of leading someone to Christ. As a result, we may share about a good and right Jesus, but it is a Jesus we do not know. For example, as a pastor I might be tempted to share the Jesus that Rick Warren or a Bill Hybels know. It is a correct Jesus but one that I have not experienced. As a result, I try to copy their systems and models that are predicated on the Jesus they know. The focus of such a practice leads us away from incarnating Jesus in our everyday lives. Instead, we share from knowledge rather than from a heart that has been transformed.
The man born blind (John 9) illustrates this rather dramatically for us. Jesus heals him of his blindness. The man is brought to the religious leaders after he has been healed and questioned about this Jesus that has healed him. The Pharisees ask him what he thinks of Jesus. They are of the opinion that Jesus is a sinner and not from God and should not be able to do these kinds of things. They were demanding that the blind man give glory to God and not to this sinner, Jesus. The blind man responds with all that he knows about Jesus, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” (John 9:25, ESV) The blind man later discovers Jesus’ true identity as the Son of God (John 9:35-38).
The blind man answers just as we should. He only tells of what he knows to be true, sharing what Jesus had done for him. Too many people try to answer all the questions of life: Why did God allow Katrina? Why pain and suffering? Why this? Why that? It might behoove us to answer more truthfully, “We don’t know. However, what we do know is that God is good and kind and I trust Him because of what He has done in my life. After all, I was blind and now I see.”
If we are going to be effective witnesses for our Lord then it would help us to understand just what a witness is. A witness is someone who testifies to that which he/she knows through direct knowledge or experience (I John 1:1-3; John 9:24-27). We can only testify to that what we know, have seen, heard, and experienced. Any other presentation is a second hand account. As Don Smith says, “I know God is doing well because I just had breakfast with Him.”
No one can tell your story better than you. You are the expert to the activity of God in your life. As witnesses, we are to live our lives in such a way that our way of life, speech, conduct, gives testimony to the hope within (I Peter 3:15). Our lives are lived so loudly that people ask us about the hope that is within (I Peter 3:15, ESV, “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you”). Think about it! When was the last time someone asked you about the hope that was in your life? Nothing wrong with sharing offensively, Peter is encouraging us to do precisely that, sharing offensively by our lives, then with our words.
What the enemy of our souls would love is to have the people of God no longer share their stories of how Jesus has saved and healed them. The book of Revelation makes it quite clear that the early saints overcame the evil one by these things:
And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. (Revelation 12:11, ESV)
One of the reasons we have lost our way or our impact in our culture today is that we have moved away from incarnating the Gospel to peddling the gospel. Instead of coming from our lives it tends to come from without, creating a religious system more than a spiritual life that continues to be transformed into the Image of His Son as it communes with the Father daily.
All of this to say, share the Jesus that you know. Tell people about the Jesus that saved you and continues to save you. You may not know the answers of life but you know Him who is THE ANSWER to life. Share the answer you know.
We can only give away that which we have received. Maybe this is precisely the problem – the joy of our salvation has been replaced by a system of propositional realities that systematize and organize our Jesus and domesticate our all powerful God. Systems and propositional realities do not bring the kind of comfort that comes by way of the presence and love of God. The apostle Paul writes, “who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:4, ESV)
And so, we invite you to live out the Jesus you know. Give away the comfort that you have received. Tell your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers what God has saved you from. Be a witness to what and Who you know. Tell your story!!!
Tell me what you think. Let’s talk about it.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Another Kind of Pastor
Another Kind of Pastor
by Tom Johnston
So, what is a pastor, anyway? There are a number of different definitions, most of which are cultural, some of which are biblical. The term pastor is found only once in the English text, In Ephesians 4:11 –
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ
The Greek here, poimen (poy-mane’), means shepherd, one who watches out for (oversees) and cares for the flock. Paul seems to link it here with teacher. Now, much has been written on the subject lately, so I don’t really want to try to create a whole theology or philosophy of pastoral ministry here. But I do wonder how what we have as a pastoral role in the Western Church might be going through some serious changes.
For the past century or more in our country, being a member of the “clergy” has meant that you were, in most cases, the primary, singular spiritual leader of a local community church. For the vast majority, it has also been seen as a vocation, and in the past 75 years or so, has been viewed as a profession, a desirable career track for one to pursue. In the past 30 years with the rise of the “Mega” church, pastors have been challenged to become a whole lot more than just shepherds. Leader, manager, financial wizard, vision-caster, promoter, communicator, and program manager are now part of the expectations of being a pastor.
With the American “bigger is better” mindset still prevalent in the Western Church, success or effectiveness is equated with the size of the church. And yet research continues to find that real church growth in America – via conversion growth – is still between 5-7 percent, with 93-95 percent of growth coming through transfer. So, maybe bigger isn’t really better. Maybe better is better. Hey, we all want to see the harvest come it – and it’s not – and we want to see churches grow – but through conversion, not transfer.
But I digress. The point is those Megas, (will we have Gigas soon?) and we are glad to have them, representing a tiny fraction of the total churches in America. But do they really represent “success”? Yes, and no.
Success in the Kingdom is obedience. Jesus tells a great story about obedience in Matthew 25:14-30, where He is talking about the talents. Three different people, three different levels of investment, two different responses. Two were obedient, one was not. Two traded with what they had been given, one buried what he had out of fear. So, if a Mega church pastor is someone with grace empowerment from Jesus at “5 Plus” talent level – then yes, their obedience would potentially produce something massive. For them that is success. But not for the rest of us. The fruit of our obedience will look different from one person to the next. What matters is that we are obedient to be who we are called to be, do what we are called to do, and that we bear much fruit, bringing glory to the Father, and proving to be Jesus’ disciples (John 15:8).
Is this an excuse for us to be lazy in pursuit of our mission? No way. If we did, then we would get the response from Jesus the one who buried the talent got – rebuked and kicked out of town. No, we have to press in to mission, being obedient to our calling, investing what has been invested in us by the Holy Spirit into the Kingdom economy.
But here’s the rub: The current paradigm of pastoring in the West, and the accompanying church system, limit who can be released into the pastoral role. We’ve built, or perhaps inherited, an expert-driven, professionalized system that spends $286 Billion per year on ministry – and we aren’t reaching our own kids (less than 5% of teens indicate faith in Christ). How can the one, two, three, or in my case, a zero-point-five talent pastor find expression of their giving and calling? Do we all have to be CEO’s? Is that what Paul was thinking when he wrote Ephesians 4:11? Are there more people with the ability to pastor 20, 30 or 50 people than there are who can pastor 500, 800 or 1000? I think maybe there are, and if we want to see a spiritual revolution, a Third Great Awakening, then we might need to figure out how to mobilize them, from the local church for the local church. And do it fast. We may need to let go of our preconceptions about what pastoral ministry is, and allow our structures to become more flexible, adapting to new pastoral roles, and consequently, new incarnations of church.
So here is my question for discussion: Is there room for another kind of pastor in the Western Church? Let’s talk.
by Tom Johnston
So, what is a pastor, anyway? There are a number of different definitions, most of which are cultural, some of which are biblical. The term pastor is found only once in the English text, In Ephesians 4:11 –
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ
The Greek here, poimen (poy-mane’), means shepherd, one who watches out for (oversees) and cares for the flock. Paul seems to link it here with teacher. Now, much has been written on the subject lately, so I don’t really want to try to create a whole theology or philosophy of pastoral ministry here. But I do wonder how what we have as a pastoral role in the Western Church might be going through some serious changes.
For the past century or more in our country, being a member of the “clergy” has meant that you were, in most cases, the primary, singular spiritual leader of a local community church. For the vast majority, it has also been seen as a vocation, and in the past 75 years or so, has been viewed as a profession, a desirable career track for one to pursue. In the past 30 years with the rise of the “Mega” church, pastors have been challenged to become a whole lot more than just shepherds. Leader, manager, financial wizard, vision-caster, promoter, communicator, and program manager are now part of the expectations of being a pastor.
With the American “bigger is better” mindset still prevalent in the Western Church, success or effectiveness is equated with the size of the church. And yet research continues to find that real church growth in America – via conversion growth – is still between 5-7 percent, with 93-95 percent of growth coming through transfer. So, maybe bigger isn’t really better. Maybe better is better. Hey, we all want to see the harvest come it – and it’s not – and we want to see churches grow – but through conversion, not transfer.
But I digress. The point is those Megas, (will we have Gigas soon?) and we are glad to have them, representing a tiny fraction of the total churches in America. But do they really represent “success”? Yes, and no.
Success in the Kingdom is obedience. Jesus tells a great story about obedience in Matthew 25:14-30, where He is talking about the talents. Three different people, three different levels of investment, two different responses. Two were obedient, one was not. Two traded with what they had been given, one buried what he had out of fear. So, if a Mega church pastor is someone with grace empowerment from Jesus at “5 Plus” talent level – then yes, their obedience would potentially produce something massive. For them that is success. But not for the rest of us. The fruit of our obedience will look different from one person to the next. What matters is that we are obedient to be who we are called to be, do what we are called to do, and that we bear much fruit, bringing glory to the Father, and proving to be Jesus’ disciples (John 15:8).
Is this an excuse for us to be lazy in pursuit of our mission? No way. If we did, then we would get the response from Jesus the one who buried the talent got – rebuked and kicked out of town. No, we have to press in to mission, being obedient to our calling, investing what has been invested in us by the Holy Spirit into the Kingdom economy.
But here’s the rub: The current paradigm of pastoring in the West, and the accompanying church system, limit who can be released into the pastoral role. We’ve built, or perhaps inherited, an expert-driven, professionalized system that spends $286 Billion per year on ministry – and we aren’t reaching our own kids (less than 5% of teens indicate faith in Christ). How can the one, two, three, or in my case, a zero-point-five talent pastor find expression of their giving and calling? Do we all have to be CEO’s? Is that what Paul was thinking when he wrote Ephesians 4:11? Are there more people with the ability to pastor 20, 30 or 50 people than there are who can pastor 500, 800 or 1000? I think maybe there are, and if we want to see a spiritual revolution, a Third Great Awakening, then we might need to figure out how to mobilize them, from the local church for the local church. And do it fast. We may need to let go of our preconceptions about what pastoral ministry is, and allow our structures to become more flexible, adapting to new pastoral roles, and consequently, new incarnations of church.
So here is my question for discussion: Is there room for another kind of pastor in the Western Church? Let’s talk.
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