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Not Taking Myself Too Seriously

Published by Jeff Kennon on November 5, 2014

Here are some convicting words by Carl Truman. We (especially me) do well to take listen to such advice as we live in a culture of constant pressure to achieve celebrity status.

We mediocrites struggle at a different level, hoping that our own petty contributions, irrelevant and ephemeral as they are, will be puffed and acknowledged by others; and in a sense, there is nothing we can do about that.

I am a man divided against myself; I want to be the centre of attention because I am a fallen human being; I want others to know that I am the special one; and as long as the new me and the old me are bound together in a single, somatic unity, I will forever be at war with myself.

What I can do, however, is have the decency to be ashamed of my drive to self-promotion and my craving for attention and for flattery and not indulge it as if it actually were a virtue or a true guide to my real merit. I am not humble, so I should not pretend to be so but rather confess it in private seeking forgiveness and sanctification. And, negatively, I must avoid doing certain things. I must not proudly announce my humility on the Internet so that all can gasp in wonder at my self-effacement.

I must make sure I never refer to myself as a scholar. I must not tell people how wonderful I am. I must resist the temptation to laugh at my own jokes. I must not applaud my own speeches. I must deny myself the pleasure of posting other people’s overblown flattery of me on my own website, let alone writing such about myself.

I must never make myself big by clinging to the coat-tails of another. In short, I must never take myself too seriously.

You may read the entire article here.

The Ministry Of Listening

Published by Jeff Kennon on October 14, 2014

If there has been one book that has been helpful to me in understanding service and ministry in the church community, it has been Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together. Though the entire book is worth the read, I have found that his chapter on ministry (chapter 4) to be one that I continue to reread from time to time. It is in this chapter that Bonhoeffer highlights four acts of service that believers owe to each other and to which I would like to expand on for the next few posts.

A Quick Look At Bonhoeffer

Before we look at Bonhoeffer’s list of services we owe each other, it’s important to know a bit about Bonhoeffer himself. He was born in Berlin in 1906 and was a theologian, a churchman, and led an underground seminary during the Nazi regime. Most importantly, Bonhoeffer took up the pen of which his work, The Cost of Discipleship, has been widely read. Bonhoeffer was hanged in 1945 by the Gestapo on charges of conspiracy to kill Hitler.

A key to understanding Bonhoeffer is his Christology. For Bonhoeffer, Christ and the cross were central in his thought and dictated his understanding of the church and its ministry to others. Therefore, Life Together is Bonhoeffer’s understanding of Christian community in which Christ is at the center.

For more biographical information on Bonhoeffer I suggest Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas. For a good understanding of his theology and thought, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life by Stephen J. Nichols is valuable.

The Ministries We Owe Each Other

As Bonhoeffer begins to write of the ministries we are to perform for each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, he is aware that there is no greater service than to proclaim God’s word to one another. However, he writes that “a Christian community does not consist solely of preachers of the Word.” Other ministry must not be overlooked for if they are, “we can go monstrously wrong.”

The services that Bonhoeffer writes that we owe each other, and of which we will examine a bit more closely, are: the ministry of listening, the ministry of helpfulness, the ministry of bearing, and the ministry of proclaiming.

The First Service

The first service that Bonhoeffer writes of is the ministry of listening. He writes that “just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them.” We are often quick to want to contribute a word (especially preacher-types), but we must not “forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.”

We must realize that there are many people who are in need of a listening ear. This is especially true in the busy and hurried culture in which we live. But because we also are caught up in living such fast-paced lives, we don’t have time to listen to those in need. But Bonhoeffer writes that “anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet [listening to others] will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.”

I feel that listening however, is not just a ministry to our Christian community. It is something that we as Christ-followers should give to the world around us. Consider sharing the gospel with others. Is not listening a vital ingredient? Jonathan Dodson writes:

The work or calling of an evangelist isn’t to drop names, recite presentations, or campaign politics. Rather, the work of the evangelist is to listen patiently for minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years in order to wisely show others how the gospel is actually worth believing.

Let us remember the need to listen. “Christians have forgotten,” writes Bonhoeffer, “that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share.” We must therefore, practice the ministry of listening for as we do, we “listen with the ears of God in order that we may speak the Word of God.”

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Loathing To Be Faithful In The Small Things

Published by Jeff Kennon on June 25, 2014

In reading through Dale Ralph Davis‘ short commentary on Joshua, I stumbled upon the following statements…

We find being faithful in little more annoying than satisfying.

The Christian’s faith is not so much proved by his courage in a sudden crisis as by his faithfulness in daily plodding.

What this translates for me is that it is sometimes easier to feed the homeless than it is to load the family dishwasher. It’s easier to spend a week overseas prayer-walking than it is to pray daily for an annoying neighbor.

Again, Davis writes:

We frequently and strangely prove faithful in the great crisis of faith, remain steadfast in severe storms, perhaps even relish the excitement of the heaviest assaults, yet lack the tenacity, the dogged endurance, the patient plodding often required in the prosaic affairs of believing life; we are often loath to be faithful in (what we regard as) little.

It’s the small things, however, that reveal our true character. On Sunday morning, I can preach eloquently and yet speak unkindly an hour later to the waiter at my favorite Mexican food restaurant.

Jesus said, one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

The reality is that Christianity is pretty daily! Some days we just stumble along and nothing exciting appears to happen.

Rod Dryer writes…

Everydayness is my problem. It’s easy to think about what you would do in wartime, or if a hurricane blows through, or if you spent a month in Paris, or if your guy wins the election, or if you won the lottery or bought that thing you really wanted. It’s a lot more difficult to figure out how you’re going to get through today without despair.

Could it be that the reason we don’t deal well with “everyday Christianity” is because it doesn’t do much for our egos? We need to admit that there is a tendency to make “doing something big for God” our treasure instead of God Himself. And as a result, we will never be satisfied.

This is why we must continually go back to the gospel less we become adrenaline junkies moving from radical Christian venture to radical Christian venture trying to fulfill in our souls what can only be accomplished by Christ. As Augustine famously wrote, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

I don’t mean to infer that grace does not move us to radical action and mission. I think it does. However, we need to be aware that the radical action and mission God opens for you may be found in the ordinary routine of your life. It might just be that in the small things you do daily, the miraculous arises.

We do well to remember Jesus’s parable of the talents in Matthew 25. To those who are good stewards, the master says, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.

Tag: Ministry