Do You Want to Be an Oak or a Squash?
A student asked the President of his school whether he could not take a shorter course than the one prescribed. ‘Oh yes,’ replied the President, ‘but then it depends upon what you want to be. When God wants to make an oak, He takes a hundred years, but when He wants to make a squash, He takes six months.’
-Quoted by Robert Clinton in The Making of a Leader.
Must See Video For Men
Last week Darrin Patrick shared the video trailer for his new book, Church Planter, at an event in the Bay Area. This is not simply a video for church planters or pastors, every man reading this blog post and every man you know should watch this 4 minute video. Women, watch it too. Then go make a man in your life watch it.
PS. My endorsement for the book/in the book lists me as a church planter in Phoenix. See here for why I’m not in Phoenix and still live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Redirection (not Phoenix)
A brief life update:
As we’ve neared our move to Phoenix/the church plant something funny has happened. God, in his providence, has decisively redirected us to not move forward with those plans, he’s kept us in the Bay Area.
We are now excitedly revisiting and sorting out what God is calling us to next. More details on that in the near future…
Perhaps the guy who has always lived in “S” cities (Sacramento, Spokane, Santa Barbara, Saratoga, San Carlos) should’ve been wary about breaking the pattern to move to a “P” city.
Vocation & Gladness
The voice we should listen to most as we choose a vocation is the voice that we might think we should listen to least, and that is the voice of our own gladness. What can we do that makes us the gladdest? I believe that if it is a thing that makes us truly glad, then it is a good thing and it is our thing. -Frederick Buechner
Vocation
Update: Justin Taylor informed me that World Magazine articles can be read in their entirety when linked to from blogs. So, you don’t need a subscription to read the article linked to below.
The latest issue of World Magazine is devoted to the subject of Vocation. Gene Edward Veith’s article, Arenas of Service, is the best short treatment I’ve read on the importance of recovering the doctrine of vocation. You need a subscription to World to read the whole article. The link will take you to the lead in:
Vocation is nothing less than the theology of the Christian life. It provides the blueprint for how Christians are to live in the world and to influence their cultures. It is the key to strong marriages and effective parenting. According to the classic Protestant theologians, our multiple vocations—in the family, the culture, and the workplace—are where sanctification and discipleship happen.
This is an article I will be sharing with many people. The article summarizes and builds upon Veith’s excellent book, God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life.
Possibility
If I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of what can be, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility.
-Soren Kierkegaard.
Seminary Should Be Like Boot Camp
I don’t know Richard Pratt. He looks a little bit like Chewbacca in his picture. But Chewbacca shoots straight in explaining how seminary should change:
The agenda of evangelical seminaries is set primarily by scholars. Professors decide how students will spend their time; they determine students’ priorities; they set the pace. And guess what. Scholars’ agenda seldom match the needs of the church.
Can you imagine what kind of soldiers our nation would have if basic training amounted to reading books, listening to lectures, writing papers, and taking exams? We’d have dead soldiers. The first time a bullet wizzed past their heads on the battlefield, they’d panic. The first explosion they saw would send them running. So, what is basic training for the military? Recruits learn the information they need to know, but this is a relatively small part of their preparation. Most of basic training is devoted to supervised battle simulation. Recruits are put through harrowing emotional and physical stress. They crawl under live bullet fire. They practice hand to hand combat.
If I could wave a magic scepter and change seminary today, I’d turn it into a grueling physical and spiritual experience. I’d find ways to reach academic goals more quickly and effectively and then devote most of the curriculum to supervised battle simulation. I’d put students through endless hours of hands-on service to the sick and dying, physically dangerous evangelism, frequent preaching and teaching the Scriptures, and days on end of fasting and prayer. Seminary would either make them or break them.
Do you know what would happen? Very few young men would want to attend. Only those who had been called by God would subject themselves to this kind of seminary. Yet they would be recruits for kingdom service, not mere students. They would be ready for the battle of gospel ministry.
Out of Your Depth
Peter and I soon saw that God’s way of dealing with us was to throw us into situations over our depth, then supply us with the necessary ability to swim.
–Catherine Marshall, wife of Peter Marshall. A Man Called Peter, p. 119
Go to Where Your Men Work
Pastors, go to where your men work.
During my past 4 years as a pastor in the Bay Area I quickly discovered that one of the most important things for me to do was to hang out with men in my church at their workplace.
This helped the men. It showed them that I care about their callings, how they spend 50+ hours of their week, and the people they work with.
This helped me. It taught me about the unique opportunities & challenges men were facing in their different workplaces, it opened my eyes to a world bigger than our church, and it helped set new trajectories for my preaching and discipling.
This is how I did it (and how I will continue doing it once I get started in Phoenix):
-Schedule a lunch-time visit with a man in your church. The best use of your time is to make most of these visits with men who are leader types. Schedule to meet the guy at his office, not at the lunch spot.
-Once you show up have the guy show you around his workspace. If you’re naturally curious like me, you’ll quickly have 20 questions about all that you’re seeing around you. Ask your questions. Learn the man’s world.
-Introduce yourself to his co-workers. Don’t tell people you’re a pastor, unless asked or introduced that way. They will find out eventually and they’ll be incredibly surprised that a pastor looks and talks like a normal person and doesn’t spend all his time on church property.
-Once you get the tour, take the man out to lunch (if there’s a lunch place on the work campus, go there, it will lead to more learning about the workplace) and let him talk to you at length about his work. You’ll quickly discover how you can best encourage and empower the man in his calling.
-Always speak out against the “higher calling of ministry” idea if it surfaces. Three out of five times when I meet a man at his work he talks to me about how the work I’m doing as a pastor is “so much more important” than what he’s doing as a software engineer, financial analyst, etc. I always immediately crush and correct this unbiblical view of vocation. Your men need you to tell them that all work is a means of glorifying God, and that working for a church is not superior to working for Google. It’s your job to empower your men, to help them see the nobility of the work God has called them to do.
Men need pastors to jump into the fire of their work world with them and empower them to keep their eyes on Jesus and do their work in Jesus’ honor, whatever that work might be.
Also, at least for me, doing this is a whole lot of fun. It’s been a blast visiting men at their work here in the Bay Area. I’ve been able to see:
-The financial analysis & game development sector at Electronic Arts.
-The inner workings of a Secret Service office.
-A two-person flower shop in the financial district of San Francisco.
-A small architect firm’s hip office quarters.
-A contractor’s truck-office.
-The sprawling, impressive campus at Google.
-Several software companies who do things I still don’t fully understand.
-The venture capital world on Sand Hill Road.
-Several impressive work-from-home offices.
-(And when I didn’t have a man working there, AnneMarie gave me a great tour of Facebook).
Pastors, if you’re not already doing something like this, start incorporating it into your schedule. I think you should aim for a minimum of 1 workplace visit per week. Doing this is part of what keeps my calling fresh and alive, and what keeps me connected to men and the larger working world.
And make sure you budget for this. This is just as important as your book budget. Budget funds to cover meals and mileage for these crucial visits.
(PS. I’ve written this post from an architect/contractor’s home office)
Photo: Took this shot last week of Boston firefighters fighting a 3 alarm fire in Beacon Hill.
3 Diagnostic Questions
God has given you a life and he wants you to steward it well. This involves choices. How will you best steward the gifting, personality, resources, and opportunities God has given you?
Most of us reading this know we need to make some changes in order to best invest (instead of bury) the “talents” God has given us. But we often don’t know how to discern what changes to make. I think we often make this process too complicated. Here’s one simple way of diagnosing how you’re stewarding the life God has given you. Ask yourself these 3 questions. And ask a few people who love you to give you their input on these questions.
- What is the one thing you are now doing that you think you should continue doing? (This should target towards your greatest strength)
- What is the one thing you are now doing that you think you should stop doing? (This should target towards your greatest liability/time waster/sin/way of harming others/etc.)
- What is one thing you are not now doing that you think you should start doing? (This should target toward your greatest opportunity/untapped potential/a big new risk)
