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Where are our Bridges? A Lesson From My Past..
Devotional thought of the day…
18 Jesus came to them and said: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! 19 Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20 and teach them to treasure (do) everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world. Matthew 28:18-20 (CEV) adapted
Monday, Wednesday and this mornign I returned to my undergraduate alma mater, the school were 30 years ago I started my journey towards becoming a pastor. I had the pleasure of working with some senior students, talking to them about sacramental views of the Lord’s Supper. It’s been a great experience, and provoked not only much thought about what I beleive and why I trust in God, but many memories.
As I walked across campus, I saw where the escalators were, and even though they never ran, it still seemed odd that they weren’t there.
Even odder was that the walking bridge that cross Nutwood Avenue is no longer there. Though never an “official” symbol of the school, it was a valued object lesson in missions, and in going to “all nations”. For across that bridge was the world, or at least the 28,000 students of California State University at Fullerton. A veritable mission field, and one of the reasons my alma mater, Pacific Christian College (now Hope International University), was re-located from Long Beach to Fullerton. 28,000 students, their faculty and staff, and our little school of 400 students had a mission field.
That bridge was our access point. Sure, you could cross at crosswalks – crosswalks that were still there.
Doug Dickey was one of my professors, as in his retirement he served as a professor of homilatics (preaching) and as the pastor of Campus Christian Fellowship. He led the students who did outreach over the CSUF. He constantly encouraged and molded us to keep our sermons and our ministry focused on Jesus, on Christ crucified. When i would write a sermon about some great theological truth, the question asked was, “where is Christ-crucified in your sermon Dustin? How will it save anyone, how will it give them hope?”
The Bridge….. was a way to share Christ… it was a way into others lives… it was a way to get to the what Peter called, “the words of life!” The words that were the reason Peter and others stayed with Christ. Words that made even more sense after the cross. A Bridge Doug would cross – leading us in prayer, zealous to engage our peers and friends in conversation, conversations that would eventually focus them on the cross, and on the love of God, and the presence of God in thieir lives. That bridge, it was the way to get the message out to the world, to people of every ethnicity, of every imaginable type.
It leaves me think ing….
Where are my bridges today? Where are yours? Were are the places we can go – to teach people of all nations about a Lord who loves them enough to die for them?
Dove of the Holy Spirit (ca. 1660, alabaster, Throne of St. Peter, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The local coffee shop? A Doctor’s office?
Where are our bridges, where we can teach everyone to treasure what Jesus has taught us…
To teach us His love…
May we never forget those people – or how to get to them….
Related articles
- Persecution, Martyrdom, the Love of Christ…. and a hard lesson in prayer (justifiedandsinner.com)
- The Eucharist and Its Effective Work on our Hearts: (justifiedandsinner.com)
Are pastors professional leaders, or servants? ( Evangelical Catholic XIV – plus some Luther)
All who have given up home or brothers and sisters or father and mother or children or land for me will be given a hundred times as much. They will also have eternal life. 30 But many who are now first will be last, and many who are last will be first. Matthew 19:29-30 (CEV)
If service, in our serving. In Greek it reads διακονίαν, ἐν τῃ̂ διακονίᾳ, that is, “in ministering.” “Ministers” are all those who serve in ecclesiastical offices, such as the priest, the deacon, the subdeacon, and all who have to do with sacred rites except the administration of the Word of God, and also those who assist a teacher, as the apostle often speaks of his helpers.
Folio 27r from the Lindisfarne Gospels contains the incipit Liber generationis of the Gospel of Matthew. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(1)
Has this man reached a level of spiritual maturity in which his competence as a pastor and his security as a man and a Christian disciple express themselves humbly? Does he see his ministry as one of empowering in others the gifts the Holy Spirit has bestowed on those in his pastoral charge? Does he treat those who help him implement his pastoral ministry as collaborators in the work of the Gospel, or as indentured servants? Does he foster talent, not being threatened by it? (2)
Most pastors aren’t called to give up homes or family, in the USA even few are called to give up their lives. But there is something that continues to grow, that goes against everything I learned in my early training, and more and more, I am finding, in the historic church.
My Bible College drummed it into us that those in ministry are servants. Whether they are going to be Children’s Ministers, Youth Ministers, Senior/Preaching pastors, or Missionaries – each are called to serve… each are called to lay behind our personal preferences, our wants, and yeah – even sometimes our needs, in order to reveal to people the love and mercy of Christ, and to show them how to love and be merciful to those around them. This isn’t easy… it takes realizing that we aren’t superstars, that we are as broken, and the chief of all sinners, that God may show our people what can be done in our lives..
That’s different than the idea of professional clergy, it’s different from the times in history where the pastors and priests were looked up to as “Herr Pastor” or the idea of the “high priest”. (I have to admit a certain level of pleasure watching Pope Francis take this attitude on in the Catholic Church, where others have simply tolerated it – and more than a smidgen of jealousy as I consider our leaders…)
Luther reminded us that we are servants – not just those who have inherited the apostolic office, but all those who assist as helpers as well. Weigel dreams of a priesthood as well – where we see our co-workers in ministry as our collaborators, not as our servants. We have been called to serve them, to train them, to see them develop. Last week, one of the men I get to assist in growing up in the ministry preached another awesome sermon. Even more, he preached it in a place few others could go, to people that most “professionals” would discount, would see the doors closed, because it wasn’t enough.
there is something in his work, that I wish every professional pastor could learn, could observe, could emulate. That they too could take on such a group of guys and serve them – work with them, patiently, lovingly, helping them see God, helping them see God working in their brokenness, helping them see that relationship develop…. and transform those that they work with…completely. Then as they transform, watching them care for others.
Weigel dreams of this for his church body, he loyally suggests this is the track it is taking (and did so prior to Francis being elected.) Luther knew it – his co-workers literally faced persecution and death – and rose up from nothingness…
I pray this for the churches and pastors I work with as well….
That we would serve… content to follow the example of Christ… and to seriously look at passages like Phil. 2:1-11, Romans 12:1-8, and 1 Corinthians 12-13……
And may we, in ways sometimes seen, and often not seen…on earth.. praise and give glory to God our Father, who sees all, as we obey His commands.
(1) Luther, M. Luther’s Works, Vol. 25 : Lectures on Romans. Ed. J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann. Luther’s Works. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1972.
(2) Weigel, George (2013-02-05). Evangelical Catholicism (pp. 123-124). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.
