For what it’s worth, here’s what I’ve learned. If the door is closed, don’t try to force it open. Let it go. No door closes without God’s loving approval. If the door is closing, let it close. Don’t keep trying to go into Asia. God has other plans.
David Alan Black, Dave Black Online.
Likewise, no door opens without God’s direction.
Category Archives: Ministry
Link: Toward a Definition of Church
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Ordinary People
Sunday, May 17
7:48 AM While reading through Mark’s Gospel this morning I was again impressed with the way Jesus chose ordinary people to follow him. He sees Simon and his brother Andrew, commercial fishermen, and says, “Come, follow me! I will make you fish for the souls of people!” A little farther up the beach he sees Zebedee’s sons, James and John, in a boat mending their nets. He calls them, too. It’s easy to forget that two of these plain fishermen later wrote two of our Gospels. With God there are no ordinary people. Think about that when you meet (vicariously) with your church family today. Most of us are ordinary folk. But God specializes in taking “nobodies” and making them “somebodies.” The only question is: Are we willing to be used by him? I am, though I am keenly aware of how short I fall of loving and serving him as I ought. I come to him daily asking for a renewed heart and a renewed desire to follow him as his disciple.
This is a challenge each of us must face daily.
(From Dave Black Online. Used by permission.)
Romans 15 and stages of ministry
(12/22/2019) 7:46 AM In Romans 15 this morning. Reminded that Paul’s ministry went through stages. This happens to us as well. We all grow. We all mature. We all develop. We all move from one stage of life to another. In Romans 15, Paul looks back on his ministry and, in effect, says, “I have fully proclaimed the gospel in the East. It’s now time to finish the great task of planting the gospel in the remainder of the Roman Empire, that is, as far as Spain.” There are two principles of life that occur to me:
1) Paul was being true to himself. Paul wasn’t a local church pastor. Paul was a missionary/church planter, a trail-blazer for the gospel. If he has planted, let others water! I must move on! Paul had one and only one ambition in life: to establish new congregations, not to build on someone else’s foundation.
2) What enabled Paul to say that it was time for him to move on? It was the fact that he could entrust his previous work into the hands of helpers like Epaphras (who established the church in Colosse) and others. Paul left no orphans behind!
I spent many minutes in prayer this morning asking the Lord to make clear to me His path in the coming years. As I write this blog post I am planning my international travel for the next two years. To the Greek mind, time was a circle imprisoning life until the soul was released through death. To the Hebrew (and Christian) mind, however, life was more of a line from past to present, the line of God’s redemptive purposes. Life was therefore meaningful. God has always been beside us on the road and is even now in charge of the route.
Of one thing I am sure. God leads His dear children along, as the old song puts it. Since 2004 Becky and I were involved in ministry in Ethiopia, where she was raised as an MK. This meant 14 trips for her and 17 for me. It’s been several years since I’ve been back. This was not unintentional. If Becky’s parents planted, Becky and I watered. Our work in Ethiopia was a most wonderful thing. But our work there is now completed. It’s time for others to carry it forward. Our ministry there will either rise like the Phoenix or go down in flames but we leave that in the hands of God.
In recent years I’ve made 13 trips to Asia to assist in the training of pastors. It was an unavoidable call. As we all know, in much of the world there has been much numerical growth without very much depth. There hasn’t been sufficient growth in discipleship that is comparable to the growth in members. Into this situation I found myself teaching Greek. I saw myself as a clay pot — common stuff, replaceable, but holding a priceless treasure that I was eager to pass on to others. That has now been done, and I sense it is time to pass the baton.
What’s the next place in God’s plan for my international ministry? What is my “place,” after all? What was our Lord’s place? It was that of a servant. A lowly slave. Can it be any different for those of us who claim to follow Him? Christ’s servants must be humble enough to be flexible. Paul certainly was. His obedience to the Father enabled him to do anything, go anywhere the Spirit sent him. No wonder he wrote, “There must be no room for rivalry and personal vanity among you, but you must humbly reckon others more important than yourselves. Look to each other’s interest and not merely to your own.” If we think of others before ourselves, everything else will fall into place. God will never disappoint us. He has a good purpose for every one of His children. Is there any joy more exhilarating than the joy of knowing He will help you maneuver through the stages of life? He cares about these things and more. You’ve got His word on it.
(From Dave Black Online, used by permission.)
pARTNER WITH wHATEVER cHURCH wILL fOLLOW jESUS
Sunday, April 14
7:12 AM At the end of his biography, Malcolm Muggeridge writes something truly profound. He’s talking about the British government but his words, I think, apply to the current political situation in the U.S.
The Apostle Paul, as usual, was right when he told the early Christians that all earthly authority must be accepted since it could only exist to the degree that it was acceptable to God — that is to say, appropriate. When it ceased to be so, it would collapse.
Think about this. Instead of inviting the polarizing ambiguity of politics into our kingdom fellowships and fighting over what we think Caesar should do (and, of course, our side knows better than your side what government should do), we could stop blaming government for what it is or isn’t doing and partner with whatever other churches are willing to mimic Jesus, forsake privilege and power, and advance the Jesus-looking kingdom. In the spiritual realm, it seems to me that we’re spending a lot of time treating symptoms instead of the disease. An aspirin may remove the symptom but there may well be a more serious cause of the headache. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call attention to symptoms. But the basic trouble is the old self-life that doesn’t consent to identification with Christ.
A lot more could be said (and needs to be said — see my aforementioned book if you’re interested), but this post is already longer than I wanted it to be.
Commit to Missions
(April 11, 2019) 7:15 AM I’m no expert on world missions, but by God’s providence I’ve been around the globe a few times. It has been an enormous privilege to minister in many countries. It humbles me to think that I’ve had a front row seat to see the workings of God in many parts of the world. It began in 1978, when Becky and I spent 3 months in West Germany. Some aspects of that trip were ludicrous: I thought I could speak German, but frequently made a fool of myself. I was often corrected ruthlessly. Still, I was privileged to see the Lord’s hand in the work our brass octet did as we traveled the length of breadth of that nation. Even in those early days, I realized that God can take any talent we have and use it for His service. The very evening we arrived in Seeheim after 24 hours of travel, I was asked to usher for a crusade being given in town by Joni Earickson. All I wanted to do was sleep. But I was young, and besides, who could pass up an opportunity to hear Joni speak? Her talk was electric. Such were some of the excitements of ministry in the early days of my life as a missionary of Christ.
Later I began traveling to South Korea to teach. I’ve made 6 such trips. This was my first real exposure to Asian Christianity, and I was fascinated to see the appeal of Jesus to the students I taught. At first I thought I was an abject failure. The students would never look at me when when I lectured. Later I was told that this was a mark of respect in that culture. You learn something new every day. My trips to Korea reinforced my determination to make Christ known wherever in the world I went and as long as I could travel internationally.
I have the happiest of memories of my 17 trips to Ethiopia. Simple to see where Becky grew up made an enormous impression on me. Today, during my lectureship at Piedmont International University, I plan on sharing some stories of our visits to Africa. Our repeated visits to Ethiopia were not without costs: malaria for me, and unspeakable disappoints for Becky. I began turning my attention more to Europe, especially the countries that were once in the Soviet Union. I can’t always recall why I was initially invited to visit Romania or Ukraine, but I was, and I delighted in the fellowship I enjoyed with my brothers and sisters there. I remember well a lectureship I gave for a week in Romania. It began in Oradea and finished up in Bucharest. Midweek I happened to be in Cluj, which my mother’s family of 12 left in 1916 in order to make its way to the U.S. It was a bit embarrassing for me not to be able to speak a word of the language, even though I am half Romanian. But it was wonderful to see the dedication and commitment of young people with had practically nothing, except a deep love for Jesus. When later I returned to Asia (13 further trips), what struck me was the way the new generation of Christians were taking risks for God and seeing fruit. I felt a sense of shame that we in the West are sometimes ignorant of the persecution of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, and I found myself praying that God would fan into flame the small fires of renewal to be found in churches where I live and work in North Carolina and Virginia.
I can’t help but wonder how different how things might have been for me had Becky and I not taken that first trip to West Germany. It’s remarkable to see what the Lord is doing all over the world. And it is remarkable to see more and more North Americans becoming intentional about missions both at home and abroad. This speaks eloquently of the free grace of Christ that lies at the heart of the Gospel.
All this, and more, will be on my heart and mind as I travel to speak at Piedmont. We need Christian centers like this, ready and willing to send forth students into the harvest. There is nothing gimmicky about the Gospel. You just follow King Jesus in obedience and love. I’m convinced that the churches in the Majority World have far more to teach us than we have to teach them. The future of the universal church now lies with them. The growth of the church in Asia, Africa, and Latin America totally eclipses anything in the West. Today I hope to share some of the lessons I’ve learned through my travels to these places. I’ll have the opportunity to pass out complimentary copies of my booklet Will You Join the Cause of Global Missions?My appeal to my audience will be as basic as ABC:
- Ask God to show you the needs of the people you hope to reach.
- Be practical and sacrificial in responding to them.
- Commit yourself to action.
There is nothing iconoclastic about the Great Commission. Partnership is the key word. We have a long way to go in our churches in America, but the job can be done provided we are prepared to make sacrifices of our time, prayer, finances, and commitment.
Thanks for reading,
Dave
Radu Gheorghita, a Romanian-American who teaches New Testament at Midwestern Seminary, served as my translator during my lectureship in Romania.
Here I’m trying to give my best impression of Count Dracula since we’re standing in front of his castle in Transylvania.
(From Dave Black Online. Used by permission.)
Holy Spirit and Witness
(4/6/2019) 7:45 AM The theme of my lectureship at Piedmont International University next week is “Proclaiming the Faith.” This was the theme given to me by the administration, and I’m utterly delighted with it. I’m determined to stay within the 30-minute time limit I have for the Thursday and Friday sessions, though I do have an entire hour to speak over the lunch break on Thursday. In due course I’ll post my Power Points here. I think one of the best ways we can nurture young Christians is through missions training. It enables them to share in the spreading of the Good News and see it take deep root in their own lives. But it needs to be modeled in their own churches and in the lives of their pastors. All Christians are called to serve the Lord, whether in the land of their birth or in ministry overseas (or both). It’s in serving the Lord through serving others that we develop spiritual muscles. We can serve Him through deeds of compassion or cheerful acts of helpfulness in the workplace or through undaunted witness but mostly, I think, through conforming our lives to His. Love shows itself in a myriad of ways. But if it’s going to attract anybody to the Master, it must embody that practical care for others that characterized the life of Jesus.
Just a brief word about my lecture last week in my NT class, which centered on the history and theology of Pentecostalism and the question of the sign gifts and their use (or nonuse) today. As I mentioned in class, I’m not fond of the term “Charismatic Movement” for the simple reason that all evangelicals — whether Charismatic with a capital “C” or not — are or ought to be charismatic in the sense that we all believe the Holy Spirit is given to equip us for service and mission, for love and worship. The Holy Spirit can’t be muzzled or contained. He blows where He wills. And we should celebrate that. The Charismatic Movement is a challenge to unbelief and intellectualism in the church. A true movement of the Holy Spirit always combines intellect and charism, knowledge and power. Not some but all are called to serve. We all have a ministry to perform. And, as the Book of Acts shows, the Spirit is given primarily for witness-bearing. All Christians have a story to tell, and the Holy Spirit is given to fuel our story-telling until we become enthusiastic witness-bearers. Even if we believe, as I do, that the “baptism with the Holy Spirit” refers to our initial encounter with the life-giving Spirit of God, we still need His love and power for continued witness and service. I know from sad personal experience that it’s possible to possess the Spirit of God and not be led by the same Spirit. One example will suffice, and that is prayer. Prayer is the believer’s lifeline to God, but prayer is impossible without the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Rom. 8:26-27). We can’t achieve anything in the service of God unless we are open to the living God acting and working in our lives, and yet how abysmal is my prayer life so often. I don’t know about you, but at least once a day I have to invite the Holy Spirit to full me afresh with His power for holiness and service.
Any believer who does not do that regularly is doomed to powerlessness and ineffectiveness. I fear that much of our trouble goes back to over-intellectualism in our classrooms. A radical reform of theological education is one of the most urgent tasks of the church if it is to provide leaders whom people are willing to follow.
(Featured image credit: Openclipart.org)
Academics and Mission
(2/16/2019) 9:15 AM In one of my talks at Phoenix Seminary I quoted the Scottish proverb that says, “Greek, Hebrew, and Latin all have their proper place, but it’s not at the head of the cross, where Pilate put them, but at the foot of the cross in humble service to Jesus.” Oh, I do hope the message came through loud and clear. Seminaries do not exist for scholarship. Yes, we need to study the Bible, and study it carefully. But the goal of the careful study of the Bible is not the careful study of the Bible. The goal is to become obedient Jesus-followers who feed the poor and open our homes to strangers and share Jesus with the lost and live lives characterized by scandalous love for our enemies. Show me a New Testament teacher off mission, and I’ll show you somebody who has no concept of what the New Testament is all about.
The Word and Unhooked Christians
(Friday, July 20, 2018) 7:46 AM Hey guys. This morning I’ve been “in the Word.” Both of them. I think God worked overtime on this morning’s sunrise, don’t you?
And then there was this passage in Heb. 13:1-2:
Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Don’t forget to welcome strangers into your homes and show them Christian love, for some did this and welcomed angels without even knowing it.
Two quick observations if I may:
First, I noticed the verbal aspect in the first command: “Keep on loving one another.” I find it interesting that the author didn’t rely on the tense of the verb to express his desire for continuous action. He used a verb that literally means “let it continue.” Perhaps our Greek textbooks should reflect this way of “mitigating” imperfective aspect?
Second, I noticed the morphological connection between “love of brothers” and “love of strangers.” This play on the phil-prefix is often missed in our English translations — “brotherly love” versus “hospitality.” Why should this be?
Finally, this morning I was reviewing my syllabus for the New Testament course I’m teaching this fall. This course is designed to cover Acts through Revelation. Its official title is “New Testament Introduction and Interpretation 2,” but I’ve entitled it “Becoming New Covenant Christians: Living a Life of Sacrificial Service to God and Others by Following the Downward Path of Jesus.” One of the books we’ll be using in class is this one.
I wrote this short treatise because, despite the proliferation of books about the church in recent years, no one had (to the best of my knowledge) ever exegeted 11 brief verses in Acts 2 that seem to practically “list” the hallmarks of the nascent church in Jerusalem. The early church was an evangelistic church, reaching out to the world in witness. It was a committed church, pledging allegiance to Christ alone in the waters of baptism. It was a learning church, devoted to the teachings of the apostles. It was a caring church, eager to share life together with one another (koinonia). It was a Christ-centered church, elevating His supper to a place of continued prominence. It was a praying church, asking God to help keep it pure and to give it bigger challenges to expand its territory. And it was a sacrificing church, generously caring for their poor brothers and sisters.
Today we read a great deal about “unhooked Christians,” Christians who’ve dropped out of the church. The reason they had done this was their disappointment and disillusionment with the local church. These churches seemed to lack a heart of witness, unquestioned loyalty to Jesus, devotion to biblical truth, genuine fellowship, Christ-centeredness, a keen sense of dependence upon God, and a sacrificial spirit, which is always a test of the sincerity of one’s love for Christ. With apologies to MLK, I have a dream of a church that is a truly biblical church, whose people love the Word of God and adorn it with loyalty and obedience. Such is my dream for the church. May it be one that all of us can share in our NT class this semester!
(From Dave Black Online. Used by permission. Dave Black is the author of The Jesus Paradigm and many other books.)
Pastors = Elders = Overseers
{July 26, 2017} 7:48 AM Pastors = Elders = Overseers. Then why should we have a church polity with “pastors” on the one hand and lay “elders” on the other? We are told it is because pastors are paid while elders are not. This seems like a distinction without a Scriptural difference. Church, ordination, titles — a biblical understanding of these themes is one of the most critical issues facing the worldwide body of Christ in our day. Even among evangelicals with their professed high view of Scripture, significant confusion remains. This is what makes Alexander Strauch’s Biblical Eldership so timely and relevant. Its appeal is for Christians of all traditions to get back to the “basics,” by which he means the word of God. He asks important questions. “What is the church?” “Who are called to its priesthood?” “What is the real significance of ordination?” Strauch is convinced that only when we recover the supremacy of Christ and His lordship over our thinking in these areas can local churches function as New Testament churches. Speaking personally, I’ve found that when our ecclesiology gets into trouble, it’s generally because we’ve tolerated distortions in our Christology. An example. Jesus alone is our high priest. Hence the word “priest” is never used in the New Testament for any official church “minister.” It’s the total community of believers that is the “royal priesthood.” Just as Christ offered Himself in service to the Father, so Christians offer themselves and their whole being to God as living sacrifices. Each and every Christian, as a “priest,” presents his or her entire life as a sacrifice to God. This is the priesthood of all believers, not just the “clergy.” Even a Roman Catholic theologian like Hans Küng recognized this:
The fundamental error of ecclesiologies … was that they failed to realize that all who hold office are primarily (both temporally and factually speaking) not dignitaries but believers, members of the fellowship of believers; and that compared with this fundamental Christian fact any office they may hold is of secondary importance if not tertiary importance (The Church, p. 465).
Küng further notes that, in the New Testament, words common in secular Greek for religious authorities are consistently avoided, including words implying hierarchy, primacy, rank, and power. The classic exception is the Diotrephes of 3 John, who is hardly being held up as a positive example. Instead, argues Küng, the language of the New Testament is one of horizontal relationships. Phil. 1:1 suggests that formal leadership in the church is placed within the congregation and not above it. No ministerial office represents status or rank in a social or political sense. The leaders’ influence is measured, not by their titles, but by their Christlikeness and the extent to which they allow the Holy Spirit to work through them for the good of others and the glory of God. In essence, then, the New Testament church is a brotherhood of believer-priests, centered not in the bishop but in Christ.
Ministry, not status, is what the church is about. The Protestant Reformation replaced the altar with the pulpit and the priest with the preacher. It was left to the Anabaptists to develop the concept of the church as a fellowship of active believers, a Christian brotherhood in which the ideal of the kingdom of God would be realized. I wonder if the title “senior pastor” is even biblical. It creates a leader-centric paradigm in which discipleship is staff-driven. It encourages a consumer mentality in which responsibility for “ministry” is shifted from the so-called laity to the pastors. Intentional or not, the title communicates that the head of the church is not Christ but a mere man. Ironically, the one man in the New Testament who could possibly have claimed to be the “senior” or “lead” pastor is willing to recede into the group. Why does the apostle Peter, in addressing elders, refer to himself simply as a “fellow elder” and only Christ as the Chief Shepherd (Senior Pastor)? Could it be that he’s widening the definition of what counts? I am suggesting this: titles matter. Whose name is on the marquee matters. The church is not a collection of supernovas but a collective light that shines on the Son.
(Taken from my forthcoming book Godworld: Enter at Your Own Risk.)
(From Dave Black Online. Used by permission.)