Christmas in June

Yesterday I finished up a project I've been thinking about for several weeks...setting up an "Everybody Directory" for the people who don't fit into my other directories. This one has everybody from missionaries to long-ago friends to people I may never want to contact, but...
In order to do that, I pulled out the stack of old Christmas cards, birthday greetings and unanswered letters that have been accumulating for a year or two while I knock off quick notes via email or post blogs.
It was a good time to get caught up again on other people's lives...
My friend Kay is a young widow, serving with Wycliffe. She made some really insightful observations in her Christmas letter that keep coming back to my mind. Maybe they will challenge you as they've challenged me.
She says:

• "I've been learning about loneliness as opposed to alone-ness; how to distinguish between the two and how to work through one while growing in the midst of the other."
• "When God is silent on a subject, He does have His reasons. My job is to keep on doing the last thing He gave me to do until He does speak."
• "It's ok to yell for help when things get to be too much."
• "Change is inevitable. How we react to it helps determine whether it is good or not."
• "'Fine' isn't an acceptable answer when you really aren't."
• "Procrastination isn't working for me and practicing it until I get really good at it probably won't, either."
• "It pains God when I give Him my leftovers."

Are you feeling challenged, too? Let me know, so I can let Kay know how she's spoken to all of us.

Treasures & Trials

Lately I’ve been listening a lot to an album by Keith and Kristyn Getty, entitled “In Christ Alone”. Great contemporary hymns with lots of meat on their bones, and I’m sure that many people are familiar with the title song. One of my favorites, though, is “Jesus, Draw Me Nearer”. The lyrics are by Margaret Becker. One phrase in the chorus is: “Let the treasures of the trial form within me as I go…”

I’ve been thinking about that all week…the treasures of the trial…

How often do I think of those hard times and trials as containing treasure? Suffering and pain are not just pointless, and they are not just part of the curse of sin. Nor do they just produce treasure at the end…they are bound up in the treasure itself. Just as they were in Job’s life and trial, they are actual road signs that point us to a deeper understanding of God’s grace and His love for me. Without them, I might miss some of His deepest blessings.

“Let the treasures of the trial

Form within me as I go

And at the end of this long passage

Let me leave them at Your throne”

“…form within me as I go…” Those are pregnant words, aren’t they? God is actively involved in both my treasure and my trial, just as He was in Job’s trial. Just as He was in Mary’s trial when she allowed Him to inhabit her body for 9 months, forming a Body for Himself. She certainly endured trial, ongoing trial, for the sake of that treasure.

“…at the end of this long passage, let me leave them at Your throne.”

Mary left her son, God’s Son, at the throne of His Cross, but the things she “treasured in her heart” went with her all the way to Heaven. Was her trial worth it? Can you feel the treasure forming? Can you appreciate it, even now, during the trial? My family and I are living in the midst of a number of personal trials right now, but I can see the treasure forming. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The Pastor's Wife

Since returning from the RHMA conference for small-town pastors yesterday, I’ve been catching up with many of my favorite bloggers. A current meme that has been circulating among blogsites is “the …. formerly known as …” A particularly poignant posting by Lyn Hallewell at Beyond the 4 Walls is called: “The Women Who Have Been Known As The Pastor’s Wife.”
After spending the last three days in the company of pastors’ wives, it saddens me to realize that a significant number of them are suffering from the same wounds experienced by Lyn Hallewell. Some of those wives were young—still in their 20’s or early 30’s. Some were still full of ideals. Some had already been sliced in pieces and didn’t know who to turn to for help. Some of the older ladies had built walls for protection. And some, I’m sure had made peace with their “calling” or their martyrdom. And I never even got to know them.
Even though the theme of the conference was to measure our ministry by God’s standards rather than by man’s, I wonder how many of these women will allow isolation and criticism and unrealistic expectations to destroy them. I wonder if anyone ever gets to know them.
Then, as I read the news headlines tonight, “Tennessee Preacher’s Wife Convicted,” hit me between the eyes. Only God knows the back story here, but there are many pastor’s wives who can read between the lines. They feel deserted by both God and their churches and become vulnerable to Satan’s lies.
How can you and I reach out to the pastors’ wives in our communities? What positive things can you do today to build up them up?

Tax Season and Theology in Life

In just twenty-seven days, Tax Season 2007 will be over!

What is tax season? And what does it have to do with theology? Well, at our house, it has a lot to do with it. My husband is one of three elders in our local church…and he is also a Certified Public Accountant with both corporate and individual accounting clients. At our house, January 1 marks the first day of tax season, and that means work weeks of up to 90 hours until April 15.

For people in bi-vocational ministries, as we are, there are stresses and time crunches that threaten to erode both personal time with the Lord and planned times for study and ministry. And, when Sunday is one of the focal points of public ministry, it can be more draining than refreshing.

That’s when plurality of leadership within the church is such a blessing.

Although my husband has been responsible for most of the Sunday morning preaching, one of the other elders will taking over that ministry. The third elder has been teaching the adult class, as well as planning fellowship activities. He also meets with some of our men for a weekly Bible study, and my husband teaches a mid-week study at our home.

Bi-vocational ministry—working in the secular world (as our elders do)—and also ministering to a body of believers is far from the norm in our area. As churches grow, they are hiring more and more staff people to take the burden of leadership off the pastor. And that’s okay, but it does tend to build a protective barrier between the “clergy” and the “laity”, a bit like the barrier the secretary provides between the CPA and his demanding clients.

When the members of the body know that their leaders are facing the same kind of pressures on the job that they are, when they can sit down with them in their homes, when they see them cleaning the floors and changing light bulbs in the place where they meet…Then they are seeing their theology in action. They can see how Christ meets the leader’s needs when he faces tough situations or uses opportunities to share God’s grace in the secular world. They can experience hospitality and real servanthood.

There are twenty-seven more days til the end of Tax Season. Twenty-seven more opportunities to show people how to experience God’s grace through the high-pressure days of life. Twenty-seven more opportunities for God to show us how to live so that others can see Christ in us.

I wonder if twenty-seven days will be enough time for the lessons to be learned?

What are your thoughts on bi-vocational ministry? I’d love to hear from you.