The Rev's Ramblings

I play a few instruments. Not so well that I will impress anyone, but well enough to enjoy entertaining myself, and well enough my wife has been gracious to endure the purchase of far more than I can play at any given time! Over the years I've come across many musicians who were technically brilliant, and I've learned from them. But occasionally there is that one who is truly gifted and the music flows unlike anything I've ever heard from a technician, and I can only listen in awe. I think the same is true in ministry. Jesus called the least likely, least trained guys to follow him (they all probably flunked out of Torah school or would have been following some rabbi) and yet they literally turned the world upside down for the Kingdom.

I listened to Bob Russell speak at Pepperdine. He went to a Louisville, KY, church of 120 members 4 decades ago and today they have over 20,000. He dazzles you, but not with typical seminar stuff about effective goal setting and mission statements and all the plans of action that have been proven to work. He keeps it rather simple: teaching people about Jesus and living it out in his life. And maybe he has all 35 skills listed below, but my guess is it was more a giftedness and blessing from God than developing necessary skills for ministering in the 21st century.

God isn't obligated to bless everything I do in my attempts to minister in his name. But when I join what he is blessing ... WOW! And it has nothing to do with what I bring to the table in skills assessments. It's all about God at work in the least of us.

But who am I to say? I sort of found my way into ministry through a back door and never got caught!

Worship skills

• Leads and/or works with other people in planning and facilitating worship.
• Performs baptisms, weddings, funerals, and other ordinances of the church in an appropriate manner.
• Designs creative worship experiences that involve music, media, and the arts.
• Educates the congregation in personal, family, and corporate worship.
• Communicates Scripture in a way that leads an intended audience to worship and to experience life transformation.
• Leads a congregation in prayer and a prayer ministry.
• Practices and leads the church in practicing worship through stewardship of life and resources.

Fellowship skills

• Builds and maintains healthy relationships with others.
• Sensitive to the needs and feelings of others.
• Develops relationships within and external to the ministry organization for accountability and personal support.
• Functions effectively with professional staff and church members and works with others in resolving conflict in the Body of Christ.
• Listens and responds in ways that let people know they have been heard.
• Develops small groups and leads them to birth new groups.
• Leads the church in developing a process for connecting new members into the life and purposes of the church.

Discipleship skills

• Interprets the biblical text and applies its truth to life situations.
• Effectively employs Bible study tools and basic biblical language skills for personal Bible study and Bible teaching.
• Evaluates current ministry programs and issues in light of church history and theology.
• Leads the church in planning, conducting, and evaluating a comprehensive program of discipleship and Christian maturity.
• Demonstrates a vibrant spiritual life through the implementation of spiritual disciplines including prayer, Bible study, holiness of life, and communion with God.
• Models the role of an effective teacher and communicator.
• Leads in developing, evaluating, and administering curriculum plans; functions as resource person in discipleship curriculum.

Ministry skills

• Exercises the administrative skills of strategic planning, organizing, leading, and evaluating the work of ministry that leads to achievement of defined goals and the mission of the New Testament church.
• Provides spiritual guidance in helping others analyze how God has shaped them for ministry through spiritual gifts, heart for ministry, abilities, personality, and experiences.
• Recruits, trains, and supervises individuals to fulfill the purposes of the church.
• Assesses the needs of the ministry community, designs appropriate actions to meet those needs, and effectively markets the church’s ministry in the community.
• Develops and administers budgets for ministry programs and organizations; reads and prepares financial reports.
• Provides pastoral care and counseling for the sick, hurting, and grieving, and makes appropriate referrals to other sources of professional help.
• Demonstrates godly humility and sacrificial love for those in the church.

Evangelism skills

• Communicates biblical truth through preaching, personal witness, teaching, speaking, writing, music, and other ways as may be appropriate to fulfill the Great Commission.
• Leads the church in an effective program of evangelism; plans and conducts a program of community witness.
• Leads the church in planning and conducting cross-cultural missions.
• Builds relationships with unbelievers that lead to opportunities to share the Gospel.
• Interprets the culture and plans appropriate strategies for sharing the Gospel in that culture.
• Respects persons of different cultural, social, and religious backgrounds.
• Articulates the Christian message and contrasts that message with other worldviews and major world religions.

# posted by Stoogelover @ 6:47 AM 8 comments

But the other day I was thinking about Mother's Day and what I might preach ... about the only thing I came up with was a title: When Your Mother Is Dead. As much of an attention-grabber as that title might be (or not), I just couldn't come up with much to wrap around it. Not anything anyone would want to hear.

That idea came to mind because this will be my first year not to be able to call mom or send a card or gift. Had I known last year that within 7 weeks of Mother's Day we would be burying mom, I would have cleared my calendar and taken some time to go home. Funny, mom was one of those people who didn't need anything else. Had no place to display it, hang it, or store it. So we struggled on birthdays, mother's day and Christmas as to what we might give her. Now that I no longer have that struggle, I miss it.

Mom was by no means perfect, but she loved us unconditionally, and she was a good mom, considering the offspring she had to work with (referring mainly to my siblings, of course)! She put up with a lot of junk from Dad over the years, though their final years seemed to be good ones. We moved a lot. Dad was more of a dreamer than a settled down husband / father. Mom fed and clothed us with on an extremely tight budget. Always managed to make Christmas and birthdays special. She wanted more than anything for her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to love Jesus and take seriously our call to the Kingdom of God ... a desire that has not been answered favorably by everyone upon whom it was prayed.

Mom truly was a prayer warrior and I was often the subject. We shared hours and hours on the phone (with me living either hundreds or thousands of miles away). Laughter. Tears. Concerns. Joys. Sadness. Dreams, both realized and shattered. She loved to hear about the children and Janice. She never failed to ask what I'd preached the previous Sunday and to share what was taught at Creekside (her church family), and to ask about people here she'd grown to love over the years. She loved to tell about her latest grandchild adventure - usually the younger grandchild at the time. She loved her church family and was loved by them.

Mom suffered a lot in the last years of her life, perhaps more than most of us really knew. She left a note for us to find after her death telling us that upon finding that note, she would finally be free of pain and would be breathing freely and have perfect vision! I watched her struggle for breath so hard I would leave the room to cry and pray for her. That's not much of a life, and it was her life for many years. I would ask if she had a good day and she would reply, "I've had good moments today."

We still have Jan's mom, Nana. But she doesn't remember a lot these days and sharing time with her is more of a caretaker role than a relationship between Mom and children. Though she is still around, we miss the Nana of yesteryear, but we're thankful she is doing as well as she is.

But I'm missing Mom this year as Mother's Day approaches. My sermon will probably be bland. I've done two sermons so far this week and have not been happy with either one. Sometimes I just wish we could skip mother's / father's day sermons. My shepherds said I could do that, but I feel the moms in our church deserve something ... far more than anything I'll give them, but they deserve recognition and honor, so I'll give it a shot.

I hope my children have a clue just how precious their mother is to them. I hope they will slow down now and then to show Janice how much they love her. I hope they will have opportunities in life to come spend time with her, even when it may not seem convenient. And I hope they'll think highly of their daddy from time to time as well, but I'm more concerned that they shower their mama with the love she deserves for she continues to shower them with love!

My grandmother's saddest comment to me was that her children (the ones who lived out of town) seldom took time to just come and visit. Not to stop by on their way to or from somewhere else, but to intentionally come to spend time with her. I know mom regretted not doing that for her mother and experienced some of it in her own life from her own. It's tough to do that, but mom regretted the times we just didn't take the time to come visit. We were too busy. And now it's too late ... and most of what kept us away simply wasn't that important in retrospect.

If your mother is still alive I hope you are treasuring the moments you have together ... and are being very intentional about making those moments together!

Oh, the picture? Just did want to get all that mushy this time.

# posted by Stoogelover @ 7:01 AM 21 comments

I was on vacation when your letter of April 25 arrived, and then was out of town attending the Pepperdine Bible Lectures last week, so I am just now able to respond.

I will not attempt to respond to all of the questions you posed, but I didn’t want to just ignore your letter.

The Long Beach congregation has been meeting in various locations in this area for just over 100 years. We are shepherded by elders and served by servant-hearted men and women. Besides myself, we have a full-time minister to our youth. Our desire is to honor God in all that we do, both as a church family and as individuals.

We are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ and his completed (perfect) sacrifice on Calvary and resurrection on Sunday morning. We can never please God through perfect performance nor perfect obedience. If so, there would have been no need for the cross.

Should you visit the Long Beach church, you’ll find people who are loving and generous and God-centered. We assemble to rejoice in our salvation and express the praises to God that flow from such redemption. The sermons are almost always expository (textual rather than topical) in nature. The singing is led by a five-person praise team. We are involved in various mission works and we try to be Christ to those around us.

We are very much a “freeway church” in that very few of our people actually live near the building. We are missional in our outreach (meaning we try to be Christ to those in our neighborhoods and work places) because our building sits in a very large, heavily populated Jewish section of town.

Most of the questions you posed center on the issues that have divided our fellowship for generations and we choose not to be issues-oriented. Many of our members do not have a restoration heritage background and are not concerned about those issues and debates. We choose, instead, to focus on Jesus Christ and to be led by His Holy Spirit that indwells us and through God’s Word that guides us.

I sincerely hope you find a body of believers with whom you can fellowship and work in a common bond of love to minister the Kingdom to others. It may be here at Long Beach, it may be elsewhere, but we wish God’s blessings on your search for a home church.

Grace and Peace,

# posted by Stoogelover @ 6:46 AM 15 comments