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Letters To A Young Leader:
A relationship that grows
15/11/11 15:00 View entire series at: Letters To A Young Leader
Letters to a young leader is a series of leadership mentoring advice. It is written by Vic Francis who is the Chairman of the VCANZ board. Vic and his wife, Fran, pastor Shore Vineyards in Auckland and have four children.
A relationship that grows
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“Just as we cannot love without having had the experience of being loved,
so we cannot bring the water of life to others if our own spiritual well is dry.
This means we have to be intentional about finding opportunities for spiritual growth.”
Lawrence Farris
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I don’t have quiet times any more. There, I’ve confessed. It’s now public knowledge.
When I was a new Christian, quiet times were life-changing. The regular discipline of Bible reading and prayer filled my tank and inspired me day-by-day to live for Christ.
But over the years these times dried up as the Bible became less inspirational, probably because I had come to know it quite well, and my prayers became formulaic and dull. Eventually, despite some guilt, my quiet times slipped away. John Calvin wrote that “Our religion will be unprofitable if it does not change our heart, pervade our manners and transform us into new creatures.” Quiet times were no longer changing my heart, and so it was time for them to go.
But while quiet times are now a thing of the past for me, my relationship with Jesus is again growing stronger day by day. These days I don’t often read large chunks of the Bible, but I reflect more deeply on smaller passages. I pray less, but listen more; I strive less, but trust more; I know less, but am closer to the one who knows more.
And I don’t feel guilty about it.
I’ve been married to Fran for nearly 30 years. Over that time our lives have changed hugely – five pregnancies, four children, three births (figure that one out!), plus three churches, mortgages and life’s many adventures, do that to you. Our relationship has changed too – less intense and more secure; less striving and more content; less independent and more mutual. Relationships are like that. Unless they adapt from their early difficult-to-breathe stage, someone is going to burn out.
In a similar way, our relationship with God also has to evolve. Fran, a spiritual director, has great advice for people who have lost connection with God. “Are you still doing the things that used draw you close to him?” she will ask. If not, then resume those things and you will probably rediscover that precious relationship. But if you are continuing to do the things that used to work and are discovering they don’t any more, maybe God is inviting you into a new depth of relationship with new ways of growing in your love.
Bernard of Clairvaux in his famous sermons on the Song of Solomon identified this progression of relationship with God as going from the kiss of the feet to the kiss of the hands to the kiss of the mouth. Sixteenth-century Spanish saint Teresa of Avila, in her book The Interior Castle, wrote of an internal journey towards the centre of our being where Jesus lives.
Whatever language or imagery you use, we must continually seek new depths with God. And for pastors, whose lives are ones of regular depletion, this growing relationship is doubly vital.
Next entry: God loves people more than you do
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It's all in the mind:
Things to avoid
14/11/11 15:00 View entire series at: It's All In The Mind
It’s All In The Mind is a series of helping tools for doing pastoral care with people suffering from mental illness. It is written by Kirk Vette from Shore Vineyards Churches, who is a clinical worker for YouthLine NZ. Kirk and his wife, Caroline, live in Auckland with their three children and on his day's off you will find him sneaking off for a surf.
Depression - Things to avoid
Today, our blog post is a very easy one; the things not to say.• It’s all in your head.
• We all go through times like this.
• Look on the bright side.
• You have so much to live for why do you want to die?
• I can’t do anything about your situation.
• Just snap out of it.
• What’s wrong with you?
• Shouldn’t you be better by now?
Next week I will post some of the things that are important to understand from the side of the helper when working with depression.
Next entry: Things to understand
Subscribe via RSS Feed, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to not miss the next entry.Letters To A Young Leader:
He's constantly wooing you
09/11/11 08:00 View entire series at: Letters To A Young Leader
Letters to a young leader is a series of leadership mentoring advice. It is written by Vic Francis who is the Chairman of the VCANZ board. Vic and his wife, Fran, pastor Shore Vineyards in Auckland and have four children.
Some things you need to know about God: He’s constantly wooing you
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“You would not be seeking him or loving him unless you had first been sought and loved.”
Bernard of Clairvaux
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When going on a seven-day silent retreat this year, I determined I would read the entire New Testament during that week. I am a methodical person, and worked out that if I read 40 pages a day I could achieve my target easily. So on days one and two I laboured through Matthew, Mark and Luke – and, to be honest, was somewhat disappointed. Not surprisingly, I suppose, they all told stories I knew.
And then I got to the Gospel of John and my 40 pages a day evaporated. That day, I read a mere 18 verses of John chapter 1. I was captivated by the first five verses about God becoming flesh – it was as if I’d never read them before. I was heartbroken by verse 11 – “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him”. I was theologically stirred by verse 17 – “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
Of course none of this was any newer to me than Matthew, Mark or Luke had been, but that day John stole my heart. As I discussed this with my spiritual director a couple of days later, I had a moment of inspiration. “Do you think God’s inviting me to a ‘John’ relationship more than a Matthew, Mark or Luke one?” As the words fell out of my mouth, I didn’t need her to confirm that God was inviting me to intimacy, closeness and love like I’d never experienced before.
The great 19th-century Baptist preacher C.H. Spurgeon talked of God “driving you away from the shallow waters and bringing you into deeper seas, where your nets shall bring you larger draughts”. Jean LeClercq, writing of the 12th-century Cistercian mystic Bernard of Clairvaux, says: “Jesus comes so that the soul will cling to him; he goes away so that the soul will call him back. He wants us to love him and takes certain steps to win our love: He gives himself so that we will enjoy his presence; he then leaves so that we will then long for it even more”.
God is passionately interested in a deepening relationship with you. He loves your labour for his kingdom’s sake – he’s called you to it after all – but never at the expense of his invitation for you to know him more.
And so he woos you constantly – by moving close and, at times, paradoxically, by moving away – always, though, inviting you to discover new depths of his love.
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Jesus - a murder mystery:
Making sense of the story
03/11/11 09:00 View entire series at: Jesus - a murder mystery
Jesus - a murder mystery is a series of strong theology and thinking for the resurrection of Christ. It is written by Tim Denne from Harbour Vineyard who in his spare time likes to read theology.
Making sense of the story
From the first sermons in Acts by Peter, Stephen and Paul, we can hear a simple message: you don’t have to understand atonement theory to come to faith in Jesus, but you do have to believe that he is alive. God can, and does, forgive on the basis of his authority; he is beholden to no one. And that is fine if that is all there is to the story – just a rescue (getting Israel to the Promised Land; getting us to Heaven). But the message is about more than rescue. From when God first called Abraham, the purpose of choosing a people was so that they would “do righteousness” (do what was right – Gen 18:19): live justly, demonstrate God, bless the world (Gen 12:2-3) and act like a light drawing others to God (Isa 42:6-7).
But they (and we) have to be righteous (in the right) to do righteousness (do what is right).
I believe the theories of atonement are right:
• when Jesus’ death is seen as being required for God to satisfy himself (to be utterly consistent and true to himself – for his name sake);
• To the extent that they portray God’s hatred of sin and his love for us; and
• When they note that the devil is defeated (via death & resurrection)
But they don’t tell the whole story. We get a much fuller picture of why Jesus died by understanding it as Jesus declaring that the story of Israel was being rewritten and coming to completion in him. The exodus from Israel and the coming to the Promised Land is also a picture of our rescue; the kingdom in which we live is, like the wilderness, “already and not yet” (they were with God but had not yet got to their permanent home).
By becoming the Passover meal, Jesus has started the exodus; he has rescued us from Egypt/sin; he is the manna for us to eat in the wilderness; he is the atonement sacrifice which was started in the wilderness for those already rescued as the means by which they could meet with God and deal with their sin; and he is the one who will guide us through to the end - the new Moses.
All of this is wrapped up in Jesus’ death.
Although God has absolute authority to forgive sin, he chose to deal with the problem of sin and death once and for all through Jesus – his death and resurrection – and in a way that is familiar to Israel and faithful to the story. This vindicates those who had lived faithfully to the old covenant and those who join under the new.
If I tried to summarise this, it might look like this:
The God who made the world and everything in it promised Israel that they would show what he was like and be good for that world, drawing others to him. Because of their inevitable failings, and to be faithful to his promises, God sent Jesus, who had always been God, as a person and to be Israel as she was meant to be, to speak and act with authority, and to suffer and die to show: God’s hatred of sin, his faithfulness in doing what was right (righteousness) and his love. Jesus rose from the dead to show that he was Lord (equal with God and fully in control), and as a first step and guarantee of the eventual renewal of the world so that it truly will demonstrate God and give him glory. God chose to use Jesus’ death-resurrection event to deal with sin and its consequences once and for all. We are invited to believe in who Jesus is (the living God) and what he has done, and to be part of the plan to bless the world, starting now.
That’s all for this series, I hope it has helped you in some way.
Will write again soon,
Tim.