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Category: pastoral theology

Published on Leave a comment on A third way to pastor

As soon as I posted Two Ways to Pastor I thought - I'm missing a third way.

And I can do no better in describing it than to show you this clip from the film "Friends with Money."  The movie feels like it was written by a 1st year psychology student.  And while there are a few interesting examples of relationship dysfunctionality, the denoument to which the whole slushy mess has been heading is this heart-to-heart between Jennifer Aniston and her new man.  Previously, when she'd worked as his maid, he had scrooged her out of full payment and now it's revealed that he's actually stinking rich.  The cad.

No doubt interrogation units are using this film to extract information from suspects around the globe.  The simultaneous urge to laugh, shriek and vomit is wildly disorienting don't you think?

Here is the third way to pastor.  We say to each other, "I've got issues.  (Commitment trouble.  Sex addiction.  Difficulty getting close.  Need for control.)  Don't dig too deep.  Not here.  Just admire the complicated splendour.  Don't confront.  There's no need, I'm seeing a therapist.  We're working it out far away from the actual relationships my sins are destroying.  You have 'issues' too?  Aren't we interesting!"

What's wrong with this model?  Well, cutting to the chase, Jesus didn't die for 'issues'.  He didn't die for your commitment trouble.  He didn't die for your weirdness around women/men/money/authority/food.  He died for your sin.

Therefore, cross-centred pastoral care is not about diving into the dark and alluring waters of Lake You.  We don't plumb the depths to generate labels for our dysfunctions.  No, we uncover depths of feeling, thinking and acting because we're exposing sin to the Light. In the therapeutic world the 'inward look' actually serves to obscure.  It's these labels that justify my sin, not Christ.  In the gospel we aim to diagnose the problem so radically that Christ alone is the solution. In this way 'the look within' is only meant to serve 'the look up'.  (See the cross diagram of the last post)

If you hear me reacting against Pharasaical pastoral care and think I'm capitulating to therapeutic wallowing, rest assured.  I am not interested in 'sharing' for sharing's sake.  I want to flag up here and now that looking beneath surface behaviour is not good in and of itself.  There is an 'inward look' that is pure introspection.  And in the end it serves to hide sin and deny Christ.

But there is another kind of 'inward look' which serves to drive us to Jesus as beggars.  That's what I am arguing for.  My dyfunction (if you want to call it that) is not that 'social situations make me anxious' - my problem is that I'm a sinner and in myself the wrath of God is against me.  Rightfully so - I have developed and nurtured complex, chosen, self-protective, self-promoting, Christ-denying matrices of sin.  And it's not mysterious or brave or profound - it's ugly.  Wrath-deservingly ugly.  And I can't hide it, I can't justify it, I can't atone for it.  All I can do is, in fellowship with you, come into the Light, 'and the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.' (1 John 1:7).

This is what a look 'below the waterline' is about.  It's not about nodding sagely to each other's 'issues'.  It's confessing our sins to each other.  We'll be thinking more about this soon.

But for now I just wanted to throw into the mix this therapeutic way to pastor.

So... there's the Pharasaical world, the therapeutic world and the gospel world.

More to follow...

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Published on 15 Comments on Discipleship?

It's only just occured to me - discipleship is not in the bible.

The word I mean.

Disciple is.  Obviously.

But not discipleship.

Is that significant?

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The Cambridge online dictionary describes the 'ship' suffix as...

having the rank, position, skill or relationship of the stated type

So a lord has the rank or position of lordship.

Scholarship denotes the skill of scholars.

Membership refers to the relationship of members.

So what does discipleship mean?

Is it a rank or position?  Well that's not really how we use it.  We usually just call someone 'a disciple' if we want to refer to their position.

Is it a relationship?  Well maybe.  Discipleship might occasionally describe how we relate to the lordship of Jesus.  Very occasionally.

But most often we use 'discipleship' to refer to the skill of being a disciple.  It's disciple-craft.  It's the art of following Jesus.

And my question is just this - why talk about the craft of following Jesus?  Why not just talk about following Him?

Or to speak more literally (the greek 'mathetes' is where we get the word 'mathematics' - it's about knowledge) - why not just talk about learning from Christ.  We're not primarily interested in the craft of learning from Jesus.  Shouldn't the focus be on the actual learning/following/walking/obeying?

We could study disciple-craft all we like.  We could be extremely knowledgeable in the art of discipleship and actually never be a disciple.

So maybe we should forget about discipleship.  Maybe we should just be disciples.

Or have I just shot my mouth off in total ignorance / irrelevance?

There's always that....

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Published on Leave a comment on Two Ways to Pastor

In the last post I thought a bit about the dangers of Pharasaism re-producing itself.

If you pastor out of the Pharisee's mindset, here is how you will conceive the Christian life.

Here the Christian life is about minimizing sins and maximizing performance.  You will keep your sins private and your righteousness public.  Of course Jesus tells us to do the exact opposite.  He is the Doctor only for those who own the public label 'sinner' (Mark 2:17).  And He commands us not to perform our righteousness 'to be seen by men' (Matt 6:1ff).

But in this world performance is everything.  Life works because we've learnt the ropes, tried hard and never given up.  Things go wrong because of bad performance.  This holds for suffering too.  We might not be so crass as the disciples when they looked at the blind man and asked 'Who sinned?!' (John 9:2).  But actually the Pharisee will find themselves asking those same questions internally and will, in the long run, find it impossible to love an inveterately suffering person. 'If only they'd take my advice, live right, try harder, keep going they'd be well by now.'  Sustained suffering (not to mention on-going sin) will force the Pharisee to either abandon their Pharisaism or abandon the struggler.  But if they hold onto their works mentality they must eventually abandon the struggler.

Pastoring in this world will not be a long-term journey alongside people.  It will be an impatient 'fixing' of people.  It's all about whitewashing our tombs (Matt 23:27).  The pastors will be the experts, dispensing advice from on high.  The pastored will be those who progress outwardly through pressure.

The community might seem to be very judgemental.  And on one level, it is.  But in fact, while the accusations will be brutally harsh and backed by intense self-righteousness, they will be hopelessly superficial judgements.  The outside of the cup will be addressed in scathing attacks.  But the insides of all will remain full of every kind of uncleanness.  (Matt 23:25ff)

And, in collusion with one another, this community will consistently fail to address sin on any meaningful level.  Life will exist within a very narrow band.  No one will be very bad (or at least admit to it).  And no-one will be particularly good either.  They'll tithe their spices for sure.  But because of the self-centredness of works-righteousness, no-one will actually go out of themselves into the kind of 'justice, mercy and faithfulness' that Jesus identifies as 'the weightier matters of the law'.  (Matt 23:23)

So the Pharisee will show a very shallow gradient of Christian growth and level out early on.  They find the level of their Pharisaical community and stick there.

The world Jesus asks us to inhabit is completely different:

This diagram is ripped off from World Harvest Mission.  I learnt it from a friend who learnt it from a friend who got it from WHM.  Any good and profitable insight is entirely due to WHM, any misunderstandings or unwarranted developments are mine alone.

On this understanding, we begin the Christian life when we see Christ crucified for our sins and raised for our justification.  (Rom 4:25)  He has bridged the gap between ourselves and our Holy Father and He has bridged it entirely in Himself.  Christ crucified becomes precious to us - He is our wisdom; our righteousness, holiness and redemption. (1 Cor 1:30)

However as we continue in the Christian life, we realize that we are actually much more sinful than we'd ever realized.  The Lord begins to show us more and more features of our lives that need addressing.  And He reveals greater and greater heights to His redeeming love.  In this sense, the cross gets bigger and bigger in our understanding as we realize "Ah, the Lord shed His blood even for that; He justifies me even in that wickedness."

And so in the gospel world, our knowledge of sin increases not decreases.  But, correspondingly, our knowledge of Christ's gracious atonement increases.  Thus our love for Christ grows.

Except that... we are a strange hybrid of Christian and Pharisee.  The default state of our hearts is always to hide our sins and justify ourselves.  From the very beginning we've hidden our nakedness and sewed together fig-leaves.  Therefore my Pharisaical tendency will always be towards self-deception - 'I'm not really that bad.  There are plenty who are worse.  The Lord's more interested in X, Y, Z - the really bad sins.'  And I'll self-justify - I'll draw my sense of peace, joy, OK-ness from self and world and not from Christ crucified.

In doing this, I keep the cross small.  After all I'm not that bad and in fact I am quite good, all things considered.

The work of gospel pastoring will be to continually confront my self-justifying, self-deceiving heart with the grace and truth of Jesus.  In my right mind, I should welcome this pastoring because its goal is to reveal to me Christ in all His grace and wonder.

A community that seeks after this magnification of Christ and Him crucified will be radically different to the Pharisaical one.  Here I can never be shocked by my sin or by yours.  If I've seen anything of the cross then I'm convinced that my sins demanded the blood of God.  Not a moral pep-talk, not a 12 step programme or rigourous accountability structure - only God's blood spilt in wrath averting sacrifice can ever atone.  I'm so much worse than I'd ever imagined.  And when you point this out, you are my friend, because you are showing me fresh depths to the love of Christ.

Here, community is about coming out from our hiding places, standing naked before the Lord, peeling off our fig-leaves and being clothed in the sacrifice He has made.

It will be a life-long journey, not a quick fix.  And it won't be one expert dispensing advice from on high, but one beggar showing another beggar where to find bread.

More to follow...

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Published on Leave a comment on Twice as much sons of hell

I find Matthew 23 so chilling.  Jesus is tearing the Pharisees to shreds.  And, as He does so, I recognize so much of myself in them.

There's one line in particular that gets me thinking:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."  (v15)

Evangelism is not a good thing in and of itself.  It is a dreadful thing if it is done according to the wrong evangel.  It reproduces children of the devil.  In fact it makes them more devilish than the evangelist.  Now that is scary.

And I wonder whether we can apply that same insight to pastoral care.

Here's my contention: Pastoral care is not good in and of itself.  If you 'help' someone according to your own Pharasaical gospel, you will do nothing more than spread demonic influence.  In fact you will make the pastored person twice the son of hell that you are.

It seems to me, therefore, the question is not whether we do evangelism so much as which evangel we preach.

And similarly, the big issue is not so much getting your church to be pastorally minded.  The real issue is making sure they know the gospel.  'Pastoring'  that is not a thoroughly gospel pastoring will do incredible harm.

Please don't help me unless you're bringing me gospel help.  Otherwise you torment me with the powers of hell.

More to follow...

Published on Leave a comment on Pity the fool who pities himself

Self-pity is, for me, like a low-level virus, a background throb, a sapping sickness.  It heavies my bones and fizzies my blood.

But the other day I gained instant relief.  I was reading Psalm 103 in the King James version.  Verse 13 says:

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear Him.

Could this be true?  Does the LORD Himself pity me?  Yes.  With fatherly affection and concern.  I provoke the heart-felt pity of the living God.

You might think this would confirm my dreadful indulgence.  After all, heaven seems to agree with my self-obsession.  Actually no.  He pities the fool who pities himself.  In spite of my wallowing, the LORD's pity is a great 'nonetheless.'

A father whose child cries only for attention may still choose to pick up the boy, spin him round and kiss him.  He is not caving into the child's manipulation.  Instead He is loving from his own free grace.  And the boy is weaned from self by the love of another.

In the same way our Father in heaven reaches down in His Son to self-pitying wretches.  And He lifts us up, not to confirm our self-centredness but to replace it.  Now that heaven pities me, I simply have no need.  What could my own self-preoccupation add to the divine pre-occupation of the LORD, who sets His affections on me?

And so this verse brought a tremendous release.  Just as the LORD's love frees us from self-love, His service frees us from self-service, so His pity frees us from self-pity.

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Published on Leave a comment on Recipe for a 20 minute 'Quiet Time'

Close your eyes.

Imagine yourself kneeling at the side of Christ's throne, head on His chest, His arm around your shoulder.

Christ is speaking.  He's addressing His Father.

And this is what He's saying: Psalm 119.

Listen in. This really is the one thing you must do.  Listen.

Add your Amens and your Thankyous as He speaks.

Find a verse or phrase to hide in your heart for today.

Pray the Lord's prayer.

Stand up and walk into your day.

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Published on Leave a comment on Recipe for a 20 minute ‘Quiet Time’

Close your eyes.

Imagine yourself kneeling at the side of Christ's throne, head on His chest, His arm around your shoulder.

Christ is speaking.  He's addressing His Father.

And this is what He's saying: Psalm 119.

Listen in. This really is the one thing you must do.  Listen.

Add your Amens and your Thankyous as He speaks.

Find a verse or phrase to hide in your heart for today.

Pray the Lord's prayer.

Stand up and walk into your day.

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Published on Leave a comment on Why I am a Trinitarian Hedonist

I once spotted John Piper at the back of All Souls (he'd come to hear John Stott preach).  I came bounding up to him after the service intending to tell him that I'd quoted him in my sermon that morning.  But for some reason I decided that this would be proud - as though I was bragging about being a preacher.  (I know that's nuts.  But not as nuts as what happened next).  Having rejected my opening gambit mid-bound, I found myself in front of him with nothing to say.  And what did I blurt out?   I can't quite remember it exactly but it was something very close to "I'm a big fan."

Can you imagine a less Piper-esque line??  He didn't know what to say.  Which made two of us.  The whole embarassing situation was only resolved when my wife, God bless her, held out her hand and asked him about his trip.

If you ever catch me shaking my head ruefully and tutting, chances are these 90 seconds are running through my head.

Anyway, I love John Piper.  I'll never forget a mission trip to central New South Wales in early 2002.  I'd just read Desiring God and the idea of a happy God and that my satisfaction in Him was the way to glorify Him - it was truly liberating.  And I remember being inspired to greater service by my enlarged appetite for joy.  In 40 degree heat, I spent my time carrying around trays of ice-cold water for everyone and beaming at the thought of my reward (Matt 10:42).

And I loved (and still love) quotes like this from the opening of chapter 4:

Disinterested benevolence toward God is evil.  If you come to God dutifully offering Him the reward of your fellowship instead of thirsting after the reward of His fellowship, then you exalt yourself above God as His benefactor and belittle Him as a needy beneficiary – and that is evil.

In 2003 I ran a discussion group on Desiring God and enthusiastically recommended it.  But with one significant caveat.  Chapter 1!  I didn't like chapter 1.  I lacked a lot of the vocabulary to articulate what I didn't like, but I didn't like it.  And neither did anyone else in the discussion group.

Chapter 1 sets out the foundation for Christian Hedonism - the happiness of God.  But the happiness of God is defined explicitly in terms of His self-centredness.  "The chief end of God is to glorify Himself."  And this God-talk was not really trinitarian.  In fact, talk of God pre-eminently loving Himself came before talk of how the Father loves the Son.  First His happiness is spoken of as the glory of His unrestrained sovereignty, the magnification of His own divine perfections etc.  Then Piper turns to say "one of the best ways to think about" God's self-glorification is to think about the Father-Son relationship.  Why?  Because the Son is the Father's Image, therefore loving the Son is a way of God loving Himself.

Do you see the logic?  First it is asserted that God loves Himself - and this is supported largely on philosophical grounds (i.e. God's the best, He'd be unrighteous to value anything higher than what's best, ergo He must be supremely interested in Self).  Then he turns to Trinity and says, "See?  God loves His Image - He's a self-lover."

But if we begin with Trinity then the Father's love for the Son reveals not a self-centredness but an other-centredness.   God is happy not because He is self-absorbed (no-one - not even God is happy in self-absorption!).  God is happy because He is other-centred.  There is an over-flowing life of mutual self-giving in the triune relations.  That is the happiness of God.  And that is what we are invited into.

So once we've made that correction I am happy to call myself a Christian Hedonist.  (How could a hedonist be other than happy to be so!?).  I continue to see problems in Piper's doctrine of God and I still want to challenge the 'glory' which he speaks of.  But I've very much valued his teaching on hedonism.  And I think it can be strengthened (not weakened) by the insistence that happiness is found - from Top to bottom - in self-giving love.

Anyway, if you want to see how I ran the Desiring God discussion group - the handouts are here.  Session 1 is where I diverge from the book.

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Published on Leave a comment on Self-giving is absolute reality

[I]n self-giving, if anywhere, we touch a rhythm of all creation and of all being. For the Eternal Word gives Himself in mortal sacrifice; and that not only on Calvary. For when He was crucified on Calvary He did that in the wild weather of His outlying provinces what He had done at home in glory and gladness. From before the foundation of the world, Christ surrenders begotten Deity back to begetting Deity, in obedience. And as the Son glorifies the Father, so also the Father glorifies the Son. ...From the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated and, by that abdication, becomes the more truly self, to be thereupon yet the more abdicated, and so forever. This is not a... law which we can escape... What is outside the system of self-giving is... simply and solely Hell... that fierce imprisonment in the self... Self-giving is absolute reality.

C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain, ch 10, p157
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Read it and weep.
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