Newsletter #55
On Building from Scratch and Unseen Obstacles to Humility
I know everyone in Philadelphia is excited about their recent win over the 49ers—and yes, it counts. And yes, you’re in the Super Bowl. But in that game you will have to beat the best quarterback in the world, not a fourth-stringer. Something to consider.
A Welcomed Development
Last week I was driving down the main street in town and saw something surprising: a bulldozer was tearing down a vacant building.
This building has been an eye-sore for quite a while. It was previously the home of a cellular service provider; I have no idea what it was before then. But to my knowledge, the building was still available to rent.
I was by no means heartbroken to see the space demolished. I had been eyeing it for a while, wondering which level-headed business owner would ever dare rent such an ugly building. Not only did the building have a weird, yellow canopy over the front, but it had a terrible parking situation. Having sat vacant for so long, I can only imagine what other problems lie in wait for an uninformed renter.
I then wondered, “What else could they put there that would be much better?” Part of why the property is so unappealing isn’t just the current configuration of the existing building. The land itself is rather restricting in what it would allow. I’m not sure how many more parking spaces could be created. The building backs up into a hill where other businesses and older homes stand. It’s just not a good spot.
Maybe the town will be better off with nothing at all in that lot. If someone does plan to do something new, they’ll have to be smart and patient (probably wealthy, too).
Patience, Please
There’s are several stereotypes associated with younger preachers, one of them being that they’d rather start a ministry from scratch than reform an established one. I don’t have data to support this, but I have a hunch that if you surveyed the ages of church planters for major church planting organizations going back 30 or 40 years, the median age would skew lower.
Were this true, this pattern would make perfect sense. I once heard an older pastor say, “Church planting is a young man’s game.” That’s a crass way to put it, but let’s assume he’s right. Aside from the energy required to develop new churches and the long runway (chronologically speaking) to see a church plant reach self-supporting status, is there some other reason why we might see young men drawn to church planting over other forms of pastoral ministry?
I will wager that patience is a much bigger factor in this discussion than we’d like to admit.
I’ll be 38 in a few weeks. That makes me an older Millennial with nearly 16 years of vocational ministry experience. Gen-Zers who attended college are only just beginning vocational ministry. Nevertheless, in the big scheme of things, I’m in the “younger crowd.”
I’ve spent the bulk of my 16 years involved in church revitalization. What makes that remarkable is that I'm not really a patient person. Frankly, I struggle in that area. Nevertheless, it’s incredibly important to any kind of pastoral ministry.
All Christians should take note of all the mentions of patience (in all its forms) in the New Testament. Notice how many times words like “endure” and “steadfast” show up in the Pastorals especially. Patience, therefore, isn’t just a “ministry strategy” or a temperament. It’s a virtue we’re commanded to exhibit.
I think the fairest way to put it is that all forms of pastoral ministry require patience, albeit in different ways. I also think it’s fair to say that sometimes pastors, perhaps more often younger ones, cannot muster the long-term patience required for existing, declining ministries.
Scrutinize Your Assumptions
I’ve thought extensively about this topic in recent years. I’ve clearly seen and heard many instances of guys who openly said that they had no interest in assuming the leadership of a church which was “set in its ways.” Of course, that sounds like the type of thing someone set in his own ways would say, but I digress.
I do think evaluating ministry fit is very important. But as we do, we need to keep two crucial questions in mind that might go overlooked: (1) am I prepared to let the Lord teach me to exhibit patience, recognizing this to be a fruit of the Spirit essential to ministry impact? and (2) how confident am I that whatever I “build from scratch” won’t be as unattractive to my successor years down the road as other established ministries are to me now?
If an error in church revitalization is to think we always must tear everything down to the studs, maybe the more general error is to think that we can build things out of nothing, and therefore be free from the perennial sins associated with human nature, and therefore, human organizations.
It’s My Birthday Month?
I don’t remember the first time I heard it, but a few years ago I heard someone refer to their “birthday week.” If one simply means “this is the week in which my birthday occurs,” then I understand the expression. However, what I’ve come to see is that many believe that the anniversary of their entrance into the world should be celebrated for at least seven days, not merely one.
Even more recently, I’ve been hearing people refer to their birthday month. Really? Is that where we are now? My initial reaction is to say maybe we should reserve such extended celebrations for those who’ve really accomplished something, like those living to 90 or 100. Of course, maybe such people wouldn’t feel up to such prolonged celebrations. They probably don’t need a lot of the items they’d be given at that point in life either, unless I suppose, it’s a walker or adult diaper.
I say much of this in jest as a way of reflecting on how enamored we all can be with, well, ourselves! Sometimes I think the Jehovah’s Witnesses are onto something by not celebrating birthdays, though ultimately I don’t think we need to go that far.
What I do hope is that we are all attuned to the ways our world always seeks to encourage us to turn inward on ourselves. Self-centeredness is a function of the spirit of our age. It arises from the flesh, but is encouraged by so many features of contemporary life. And where selfishness prevails, humility is absent.
I was reminded of this challenge recently because it is, after all, my birthday month. (I just mean the month in which my birthday occurs.) My email account has been bombarded with deals and offers from all the many vendors and companies who have my name and email address. There’s a free popcorn from the movie theater chain. There’s the $2 smoothie from Smoothie King (normally they’re $5 or $6). There’s a free dessert from the restaurant. There’s 50% off a book from the publisher (off the retail price, of course). I’m sure more offers are on the way, too.
Try to Think of Yourself a Little Less
There are two things I want readers to know. First, yes, I am that guy who will go to nearly every business this month who offered a birthday gift and claim it. I won’t go to places I wouldn’t normally go. I won’t drive to a neighboring county to buy something for $25 just to get something of little value for free. But I’ll probably end up cashing in on half of these offers. Why not?
More importantly, I want readers to be reminded of how hard it is to practice self-forgetfulness and humility in a world that is constantly bombarding us with messages about the need to celebrate ourselves.
On an old, now-defunct Wordpress blog where I used to write (circa 2007-09), I wrote about the emergence of the “i-everything” world. Much of this arose from Apple’s line of products which took the market by storm. But as far back as the early 2000s I recall hearing about how I could store “my files” in “my library” and import “my bookmarks” or “my music” from “my drives.” The proliferation of first-person pronouns didn’t seem confined to the digital space either. They were everywhere!
I know others who have lived through earlier times can testify to how these trends date back much earlier, but I do think things are different now. The ubiquity of electronic devices is one thing. But the fact that we have centralized dozens of functions in singular devices (watches, phones, tablets) means that we always have one-stop shops with us. This, alongside the way that the explicit, us-first messaging works, leads me to think that the obstacles to humility are more common (and therefore subtle) than we imagine. They’ve become the entire background upon which our social experiences are inscribed. It’s in the air we breathe.
We can manage our lives with less external constraint or contingency than ever, although we continue to see soaring evels of loneliness, unhappiness, and despair. Everything being about us isn’t just wrong; it’s disordered. A little humility says that we’re not the scum of the earth, nor are we the best thing since sliced bread. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are significant. We are blessed. Yet we are also limited, vulnerable creatures.
Taken together, these truths can help us remember our true place in the big scheme of things. However, humility will require more than propositions, but better practices, too.
Celebrate your birthday. But before you extend it into days and weeks, remember that it is your birth-day. There was a time in which you didn’t exist, and a time coming (quickly) when you’ll expire. Now that’s humbling!
Follow-Up:
In Newsletter #52 I wrote about a funeral which I had attended, including the fitting songs we sung. As I have been updating my own funeral plans, I can think of few modern songs more appropriate and beautiful than this one by Sovereign Grace.
Currently Reading:
Catch-up week
Quote of the Week:
“In contrast to their liberal counterparts, radical feminists are fully willing to accept the fact of innate physical differences between the sexes. Conventionally, however, neither liberals nor radicals are willing to go a step further and accept an even more difficult fact—that there are also innate differences ‘above the neck’. Radical feminists committed to socialization theory can acknowledge the existence of male upper body strength, but they refuse to acknowledge its cause.”
Louise Perry in The Case Against the Sexual Revolution