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Pastors and Ministers: Do We Care About the Return on Our Investment of Time, Talent, Treasure?
Devotional Thought of The Day:
6 I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 (ASV)
215 The ploughshare that breaks up the earth and opens up the furrow sees neither the seed nor the harvest. (1)
In Business, often you make decisions based on a data that provides a potential “ROI”. Te acronym means, “return on investment”. Here is a quick summary.
You only have the resources to fund one project, and you have to decide between..
Project A – you invest 1 million, and the result in you make 50,000 in profit, pretty much guaranteed.
Project B – you invest one million, and you have a 50-50 chance of returning 500,000.
Your decision is a matter of risk versus the return you get for the investment. Some would apply this kind of idea to the ministry, where do we plant churches, which direction do we lead the church, how do we decide about staff people. It even is applied to our daily priorities, which things will I do today, that will build the kingdom? Who will I invest my time in, who will I pass off to to others. What will be my best ROI as a pastor? Do we use such thoughts to justify why we don’t talk to this person, or don’t try that in ministry. Either the ROI is to minimal, or the risk is too great? We can’t spread ourselves that thin, or we have to concentrate strongly on this or that. We use concepts from time management and strategic planning.
I started thinking about this last night – and the challenge my own congregation has in reaching out. I started thinking about my first congregation and its growth, which was significant given its size. It wasn’t were I planned to “invest” that provided the growth. In fact, it was what I had to do besides being a pastor that resulted in growth. First, my work as a part-time instructor at a college, and as a hospice chaplain. Neither was supposed to be something I was doing to help our church grow, but that’s what happened.
If we are honest, all of our statistical analysis and projected ROI’s don’t mean diddly squat when it comes to the world of the Holy Spirit. We don’t know if the nurse watching us minister to the person with alzheimer’s or in a coma will have seeds planted that will result in their baptism. We don’t know that the student we failed in a class will later come by the office to apologize, and then reveal struggles that only God can heal. We don’t know if the person who watched us grab someone’s check at a restaurant will ask why we did such a thing, and find our about God’s love. Or the person we smiled at in the checkout line at Walmart needed some encouragement on a very hard day.
We don’t know when God is using us to break through a hard heart, or plant the seed of His love. We might not ever know. That kind of investment cannot be quantified, it cannot be studied, it cannot be controlled and reproduced. That present to many of us a problem.
We’ve been trained since birth, to look for results, We’ve been trained to do things in a way that can be evaluated by criteria, we’ve been instructed to get the best grade, to aim for successful goals, to describe our mission in life with quantitative elements.
And evangelism, as St.Paul points out, isn’t so easy to see the results of, because it is a matter of teamwork. It is the Holy Spirit working through all of us, not just one or two. It is as Fr. Josemaria indicates, often we have no clue of the harvest we’ve been working towards, because that is not our role. We’re aren’t the owner of the field, or the foreman. We have our vocations, our gifts, and we follow His lead. It’s unnerving. especially as we invest and invest and invest in some people. Being the plow blade that breaks up hardened ground, or hardened hearts is a tough job…. and it is made only tougher because we do not know the result. Yet it is a necessary job, this work where the Holy Spirits works through us.
What gets us trough? What eases our frustration our doubt that what we invest will have some positive return? What helps us to keep going?
Knowing the heart of God. Realizing that is desire is that non one should perish, but all come to know the transformation to everlasting life. Knowing is promises, how He sustained Jeremiah, how he called Paul, how e worked through Peter. Those live serve as a legacy, a testimony to us who in this generation serve……
Not knowing the gruit of our labors, but assured He does…..
Lord Have mercy on us, in this amazing, complex, frustrating, ministry of reconciling the world to You….and increase our trust in You!
.
(1) Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). Furrow (Kindle Locations 1107-1108). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Is This Claim Audacious, Blasphemous or Simply Crazy?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
18 All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (MSG)
1 So then, my friends, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer. 2 Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God—what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect. Romans 12:1-2 (TEV)
200 “When you consider how many people do not take advantage of a wonderful opportunity, but allow Jesus to pass by, think: where does this clear calling which was so providential, and showed me my way, come from? Meditate on this every day: an apostle has always to be another Christ, Christ himself.”
If you read the words of St.Josemaria Escriva (in blue) first, they might startle you. Every apostle has to be another Christ? We have to be Christ Himself? How in the world can he say those things! How audacious! How….. blasphemous it seems!
It becomes even more audacious when I tell you that by apostle, St. Josemaria means each of us who follows Jesus. Not just the 12 back in the day, not just missionaries who go to exotic places, meet interesting people and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Not just pastors and elders and deacons. Each one of us is sent by God into places where we represent Him, where we reflect His glory, where we bring Christ’s love to invade the darkness.
You who are reading this, God has placed you where you are, to reflect His love today. for you dwell, in Christ. You have, since your baptism.
Audacious to think you are Christ? Blasphemous to say you are? Or perhaps you are just nuts, insane, and have a Messiah complex?
That’s why I noted the two Bible passages above, where we are transformed by God into the image of Christ. When our attention is so captivated by the mercy of Christ, by His love, by His presence, that our old self is killed off, and all that remains is what is of Christ. That is why Paul will also write:
“19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. 20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:19-20 (NLT)
We don’t have to die on the cross, as Jesus did, for we died there with Him. But there is another part of that, the what does our baptismal life mean? How do we live, and we need to remember and struggle with the fact that we are to continue the work of Christ, that we are those He has sent, even as the Father sent him. Does this mean we need gimmicks and programs and all have to head off to seminary? No. Does it mean we have to sell everything we have, give it to the poor, and move to the Amazon or Siberia?
No, you are where as God placed you – that is where He has sent you. (for now) To be a father, mother, employee, boss, child, parent, but to do those things in view of your vocation as an apostle, as a son/daughter of God who has been put there to reflect His glory, to help people see God, to help them realize that Christ is there, and they can’t just let Him pass by. Because you are there – reflecting the Father, and Christ is loving them through you. The prayer in my devotional this morning said it well:
At every moment of our existence,You are present to us, Father. In gentle compassion help us to be present to one another so that our presence maybe may be a strength that heals the wounds of time and gives hope that is for all persons, through Jesus, our Lord and Brother. Amen. (2)
May this be so….may we live to Christ, dying to self. AMEN.
(1) Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). Furrow (Kindle Locations 1041-1045). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
(2) from Celtic Daily Prayer – May 17th, the year of Aidan
Be a Missionary: Serve All People, including the most broken around us?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
8 He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, 9 letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, 10 a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. Ephesians 1:8-10 (MSG)
22 On the contrary, we cannot do without the parts of the body that seem to be weaker; 23 and those parts that we think aren’t worth very much are the ones which we treat with greater care; while the parts of the body which don’t look very nice are treated with special modesty, 24 which the more beautiful parts do not need. God himself has put the body together in such a way as to give greater honor to those parts that need it. 25 And so there is no division in the body, but all its different parts have the same concern for one another. 26 If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it; if one part is praised, all the other parts share its happiness. 1 Corinthians 12:22-26 (TEV)
“It’s easy to love the people who are standing hard and fast, pressing on to meet their higher calling.
But the one’s who might be struiggling? We tend to judge to harshly, and refuse to try and catch them when they’re falling.
We put people into boxes and draw our hard conclusions, and when they do the things we know they should not do we sometimes write them off as hopeless and we throw them to the dogs. Our compassion and forgiveness sometimes seem in short supply.” (1)
600 Serving and forming children, caring lovingly for the sick. To make ourselves understood by simple souls, we have to humble our intelligence; to understand poor sick people we have to humble our heart. In this way, on our knees in both intellect and body, it is easy to reach Jesus along that sure way of human wretchedness, of our own wretchedness. It will lead us to make ‘a nothing’ of ourselves in order to let God build on our nothingness. (2)
On my mail pile, and about to be in my discard pile is a small poster, challenging people to “become a missionary.” It saddens me in a way, because the it focuses mission somewhere “out there”. It is of course, and there are those God is calling to be a missionary in places that are far different, far more “extreme”. But it overlooks the fact that we are all missionaries, we are all “sent” as the apostles were, to take the gospel into places where only we go. To our families, to our neighborhood, to our work places.
We are missionaries when we determine to love those that are struggling, when we reach out to those that are falling, when we patiently work with them, helping them take each step, being there when they cannot. Being willing to look at their situation, their actions, their lives, not to condemn them, but to realize how much they need God’s love, and how they will have to be nursed back to spiritual health.
Make no mistake, ministering to the broken takes time and effort, patience and endurance, and mostly, trust in God. Know that God has given us all we need to minister to them, He has provided all that is needed to see them brought into His family. They are the ones to whom we are sent, even though the work may bend us over, and we feel like we will break. If not break, that we will lose our patience, succumb to frustration, or even despair.
Yet that is our calling, they aren’t just a mission field, they are the mission, they are the ones God has loved enough to send Jesus to die for, and to send us to serve, to minister to, to bring God’s love so that they can find healing.
Perhaps the challenge in doing so is that we have to confront our own brokenness, our own inability, our own failures. Indeed we must, for it is then we see the power of God at work in our healing, that leads us to the confidence that God desires that they, yes, even they, can come to know that healing. It is through our weakness, that we see the power of God unleashed, and trust Him enough to do what others see as impossible, There, in our humility, we find the very things they need, the mercy, the comfort, the peace, the love of God, who delights in making us His own.
SO do not fear, do not hide. cry out Lord Have Mercy, and go tho those He has sent you to, that they may learn the cry as well!
(1) from Celtic Daily Prayer, Harper One Publishing, pg. 307 (attributed to Chuck Firard)
(2) Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 2220-2224). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
He Has Sent, and Sent Again, and therefore, We Call Out to Him!
He Has Sent, and Sent Again,
and therefore, We Call Out!
Galatians 4:4-7
† IHS †
May you truly know the grace and mercy of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, which has seen you through this year, and will accompany you in the next!
The Trinity at Work…as the Father sends.
One of the things I find fascinating is the heritage of the church in Ireland. Perhaps we know about St Patrick and his three leaf clover, or the a Celtic cross and the knots on it like I am wearing today, the kind of cross the one hanging over the altar is modelled after. There are others. Bede, the author of “Be Thou My Vision”, and one of the great historians of the early church, and Adain and Finian. The early Irish Christians were known for their artwork, especially their Biblical manuscripts and stone and metalwork. If you do a little research, they were also know for their missionary zeal, for bringing word of God’s love to mankind.
One of the reasons we did our Advent series on a Celtic look at advent, is that of the theologians I’ve read, the early Christians in Ireland and Scotland were amazed at the interaction of the Trinity in Scripture. The mystery of how Three are One, and One are Three, and the paradox of what that means for us.
It’s been said that every denomination plays favorites among the Trinity. Some focus on the authority of God the Father. Others, especially us in the Lutheran sphere, focus a lot on the work of Christ, how He came to make us right before God, how when we are joined to His death and Resurrection, we are cleansed of our sin. Others have focused primarily on the Holy Spirit, with an emphasis on personal holiness and using the gifts the Spirit gives us, as we are made alive through the Spirit’s power.
Yet God is three, and yet one, Three who love us and work in our lives. We see it in today’s reading, as we hear Paul tells us that the Father has sent Jesus, and sent the Holy Spirit, and that is why we can truly call on Him, our heavenly Dad.
He sent Christ to deal with our sins
We’ll get to the Father at the end of the sermon, so we start looking at what St. Paul tells us about the Father sending Jesus to us. Quite appropriate as it is the fifth day of Christmas, don’t you think?
Paul says in verse 4, “when the right time finally came, God sent his own son,” He sent Jesus. The word there for sent is “apostled”, to send someone was an emissary, an ambassador with the authority and power to establish a relationship.
What it would take, in this case, was simple. He had to buy our freedom from the things in our life that captivate us, that seem to control us, that oppress us and stop us from loving God, and stop us from loving each other and those that so dearly need it.
That is the what is so devastating about sin, the actions and thoughts and life that we count on, that society tells us brings us joy and fulfillment; they don’t bring us joy, they enslave us. We spend so much time chasing them, and when we “get” them, trying to defend them, or defend why they are the center of our life. This sin, for all sins are part, ends up owning us, owning our time, our lives, our souls.
Which is why Jesus came to purchase, why he came to take us off the market. To not only purchase us, but also to free us and to make known that we are adopted by the God the father. To enter into not just a business relationship, but also one of family, of not just respect, but love.
He sent the Spirit to confirm our adoption.
It is incredible to think of this freedom that has been purchased for us, these chains that have been broken. It is so incredible, that I think we often lose sight of the freedom, and the incredible relationship that we have with God. Which is why the Father sent the Son, and then they sent the Holy Spirit to us, to confirm in us that which Jesus had already accomplished.
If we need it confirmed, and I most definitely believe we do, for so many things would try to steal the peace and comfort of knowing God’s love, the Holy Spirit is here, in our hearts. The proof, the guarantee of God’s love for us, that He will never leave or forsake us.
Knowing that presence, knowing our place in His heart, and His place in our hearts, we are prompted to call out to God, as a child calls out to his father. Sometimes this is in time of need, in desperation. Sometimes it is in excitement, as we realize His glory, as we are excited in His presence.
Luther wrote:
63 In addition, you must also know how to use the name of God aright. With the words, “You shall not take the name of God in vain,” God at the same time gives us to understand that we are to use his name properly, for it has been revealed and given to us precisely for our use and benefit.
Since we are forbidden here to use the holy name in support of falsehood or wickedness, it follows, conversely that we are commanded to use it in the service of truth and all that is good—for example, when we swear properly where it is necessary and required. So, also, when we teach properly; again, when we call on his name in time of need, or praise and thank him in time of prosperity, etc. All this is summarized in the command in Ps. 50:15, “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.” All this is what we mean by calling upon his name in service of truth and using it devoutly. Thus his name is hallowed, as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer.[1]
Here is why the Spirit comes and dwells with us, why He comes into our hearts, so we have such a relationship with God, that we can run to him, when hurt, so that He can comfort and bring us peace, or when we are excited, and want Him to share in our joy.
This is our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a God who comes to us, a God who brings us into His presence, who share with us His glory, who gives to us in ways that are so incredible, that we struggle to believe that He didn’t make a mistake. The entire Trinity, their work focused on communicating to you and I a love that is beyond anything we can imagine.
A love for us…
So what do you need to cry out to Him for?
So maybe this morning, we’ve found ourselves in need of crying out for His help, crying out with our last hope. This is your God, who sent Jesus to make it so, and the Holy Spirit to convince you that it is the fullness of time for those cries.
Maybe this morning you are just overwhelmed with His grace, and you need to cry out to Him with excitement, with praises that go on.
Both cries are appropriate, and we can, as His family join in those prayers, and in those praises.
Then, may we all realize, that because we are His children, because the Trinity has heard our prayers and praises, that we can dwell in their peace, in their love. For God is here, He has freed us from all that would hold us captive, and has made us His children.
It is the fullness of time for us as well…. To know the Lord is with us. AMEN?
[1] Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 373). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
It’s Not About Calling the Qualified, or Even Qualifying the Called… it’s about revealing Christ.
Detail – Glory of the New Born Christ in presence of God Father and the Holy Spirit (Annakirche, Vienna) Adam and Eva are represented bellow Jesus-Christ Ceiling painting made by Daniel Gran (1694-1757). Post-processing: perspective and fade correction. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Devotional Thought of the Day: (feel free to discuss – would really like to discuss this one!)
9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NLT)
“With little effort we could find among our family, friends, and acquaintances—not to mention the crowds of the world—so many worthier persons that Christ could have called. Yes, persons who are simpler and wiser, more influential and important, more grateful and generous. In thinking along these lines, I feel embarrassed. But I also realize that human logic cannot possibly explain the world of grace. God usually seeks out deficient instruments so that the work can more clearly be seen to be his. It is with trembling that Saint Paul recalls his vocation: “And last of all, as by one born out of due time, he was seen also by me. For I am the least of the Apostles, and am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God.”15 Thus writes Saul of Tarsus, whose personality and drive fill history with awe. As I said before, we have merited nothing. Before God called us, there was nothing more than personal wretchedness. Let us realize that the lights shining in our soul (faith), the love wherewith we love (charity), and the desire sustaining us (hope) are all free gifts from God. Were we not to grow in humility, we would soon lose sight of the reason for our having been chosen by God: personal sanctity. If we are humble, we can understand all the marvel of our divine vocation. The hand of Christ has snatched us from a wheat field; the sower squeezes the handful of wheat in his wounded palm. The blood of Christ bathes the seed, soaking it. Then the Lord tosses the wheat to the winds, so that in dying it becomes life and in sinking into the ground it multiplies itself.” (1)
It’s Monday morning, after an incredible church service, a great Sunday School class, and then 4 plus hours in a hospital room with my dad, who is struggling with a number of verious serious health concerns and hates the weakness he finds himself in now. I am sitting down at my computer, in a moment will begin the studies for everything I have to teach this week – from a very indepth Bible Study for those preaching this week (tonight), to the end of the first chapter of Philippians (Wed), to the 10th Chapter of Hebrews (Thursday morning) to preaching and teaching Sunday. IN my weakness, I wonder why me, why isn’t there someone stronger, more charismatic, more caring, more eloquent, more spiritual, less sinful.
And I know that if I were to post such a thing – I would undoubtedly here the phrase above, as people try to encourage me, with a trite phrase that simply pounds me into the ground a little deeper. You see, what I hear when I hear the phrase, “God doesn’t call you because you are qualified…because you are absolutely not qualifed – what WERE YOU THINKING! But that’s okay, somehow God will make you barely adequate!” (Somehow I think I am not the only one who hears it that way!
That trite “Christian-ese” is so wrong. Simply because it leaves the focus on us, on our ability, on our qualifications, and on our success or failures.
Paul thought the issue didn’t revolve around us – it is simply about grace – about His power not just qualifying us, but compensating, healing, overwhelming us. It is about knowing how trustworthy He is, and knowing the Father has entrusted us into Christ’s care, and sent the Holy Spirit to work through us – in all of His power.
I love how St Josemaria explains it! Just the the apostles, God works in and through us in such a way that people have to admit that it is more than our natural abilities. In our God given vocations, as husbands and wives, parents, children, employees, managers (See Eph 5:21-6:9), we see God at work, as we love and serve and yes submit our desires to what is best for those with whom we live. And in that sumbission, in that “dying to self” we find that Christ brings His light, His glory, His healing, into every relationship, into every place we go.
That is living in Christ, that is living the life of one who is revitalized/quickened and renewed in their baptism.
Such we see our lives, despite our sin, despite our shortcomings, despite our weaknesses, being reflections of Him into this world of darkness, into this valley where sin and death had cast their shadow on all.
We walk there, knowing this simple truth, which we hear over and over in our Liturgy.
The Lord is with You!
So go in His peace!
(1) Escriva, Josemaria (2010-11-02). Christ is Passing By (Kindle Locations 425-438). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Related articles
- We Don’t Lecture about Christ, We proclaim His Love and Crucifixion (justifiedandsinner.com)
- Hear His Voice, Know He Knows You, and Follow Him! (justifiedandsinner.com)
- Grateful to be used… (justifiedandsinner.com)
- The Church’s Only Business, it’s only ministry…. (justifiedandsinner.com)
