The Litmus Test

In the last post in this series , I talked about how conflict is a normal part of being human.   In your local church community, people are going to disagree with you and you are going to disagree with other people. Conflict is normal.  The real challenge is how you deal with the conflict when it arises.   I shared how at the end of Acts 15 Paul and Barnabas had a big disagreement that broke up their missionary partnership. It was an ordinary run-of-the-mill disagreement that they failed to handle in a godly way.  It led to the number one casualty of ungodly disagreement: broken relationship.  Even without Luke’s commentary, we can give Paul and Barnabas a solid “F” on how they handled this conflict.  They really blew it.  Severing ties in a relationship is a terrible way to handle conflict.  It’s a great way to ruin friendships and destroy communities.  It’s an effective way to end up isolated and alone (if that’s the only way you ever handl...

I’m the youngest child of four, and my family, like many of your families, is a blended family.   My father divorced his first wife at the age of nineteen after bringing my two older brothers into this world.  The good news for me is that my father stayed married to my mother, his second wife, for the rest of his life.  My sister and I came from that marriage.  My father’s parents had been divorced as well.  This meant, like many of you, that I had three sets of grandparents.  I had one set of maternal grandparents, and two sets of paternal grandparents.   Most of my grandparents passed away in the ‘70s and ‘80s before I ever met my wife Becca, so she never knew them.   In the early ‘90s, when Becca and I were planning our wedding, my brother asked if Grandma Esther was going to be invited to our wedding.  Becca turned to me and said, “You have a grandmother that’s still alive?  I thought they were all dead!”  Stop.  This is on...

When Jesus established his Church, he wanted it to be an extraordinary community , as I noted in an earlier post.   He wanted people to come and visit this community and see how we love one another like he loves.  Then they’d say, “Wow!  What an extraordinary community!  I want to be part of that community!”   We took a look at Colossians 3:11-17 to get a snapshot of what this community can look like. I want to keep casting this vision, so here it is again: Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule i...

In part 1 of this post , I began by telling the story about a lead pastor I knew once who accused one of the pastors on his staff of “only being in it for the money.”   The pastor on staff had requested a bump in pay because of some challenges at home, and the lead pastor was taking it poorly.  “They just want to get paid.  They don’t want to work harder for the money - they just want to do as little as possible and still get paid more,” the lead pastor complained.  I happened to know the pastor who was asking for the raise, and I knew them to be a hard-working, sober-minded, humble servant of Christ.  The lead pastor’s characterization of them was so far off the mark that it was silly.   What was happening here?   The lead pastor in this scenario was exhibiting an ungodly attitude concerning the pastor requesting the raise.  This has nothing to do with a discussion about the merit of giving the pastor a bump in pay.  It has everything to do ...

I knew a lead pastor once who accused one of the pastors on their staff of “only being in it for the money.”   The pastor on staff had requested a bump in pay because of some challenges at home, and the lead pastor was taking it poorly.  “They just want to get paid.  They don’t want to work harder for the money - they just want to do as little as possible and still get paid more,” the lead pastor complained.  I happened to know the pastor who was asking for the raise, and I knew them to be a hard-working, sober-minded, humble servant of Christ.  The lead pastor’s characterization of them was so far off the mark that it was silly.   Not to mention, no one goes into full-time ministry to “get paid.”  What was happening here?   Theory X & Y Leadership In the 1960’s, Douglas McGregor developed two leadership theories to explain how supervisors view their employees and the effect this belief has on their leadership.  He called these leadership...

According to Jesus himself, the way you will be able to identify his disciples is in the way we show love to our fellow followers of Jesus.   In my Litmus Test and What Jesus’ Church Is All About posts, I declared the primacy of God’s love as the  foundational litmus test for faith in Jesus Christ.   This leads to a simple cause/effect idea.  The way you practice your faith in Jesus is exemplified by God’s love: his love for you, your love for him, and his love flowing through you to others.  The desire is that these aspects of God’s incredible love would be obvious in the lives of Jesus’ followers.   God’s love in it’s three facets - his love for us, our love for him, and love for others - is the foundation of the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Because of God’s love, he sent Jesus to die on the cross and the kingdom of God has begun to manifest here and now on earth.  Jesus is King, and one day his kingdom will be fully manifested here on earth. ...

I’ve been unemployed for almost six months.   I’ve been rejected by over 20 employers.  I’m living with the shadow of leaving my pastoral role in such a sudden and disruptive way.  This has been a tough season.  My wife had an appropriately melancholy illustration for our ungraceful departure from our church community.  To the congregation that we spent so many years of our lives with, we had become a balloon suddenly blown from their hand and floating away.  Imagine a child who has a balloon they really love, and they accidentally let go of it.  The child is brokenhearted as their balloon drifts higher and higher into the sky - gone without any hope of retrieval. They watch the balloon get smaller and smaller, crying and wishing they could somehow get the balloon back.  But, as the balloon gets further and further away, the child moves on to some other thing.   They are given another balloon - or an ice cream cone - and they soon forget abou...