“I am not what I ought to be,

I am not what I want to be,

I am not what I hope to be in another world;

but still, I am not what I once used to be,

and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

John Newton

(author of Amazing Grace)

De mens lijdt dikwijls het meest,

Door het lijden dat hij vreest,

Doch dat nooit op komt dagen.

Zo heeft hij meer te dragen

Dan God te dragen geeft. (Dutch)

Translation:

Man suffers often most,

Because of the suffering he fears,

But will never come about.

Thus he is burdened more,

Than God has designated for him.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Dear Sir,

. . . You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work.

Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself.

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer.

And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must”, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.

. . . Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. . . Describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember.

If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place.

And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sound – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it.

Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance.

And if out of, this turning within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it.

A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it. So, dear Sir, I can’t give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to, the question of whether you must create.

Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. . . as I have said,  if one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn’t write at all…

Yours very truly,

Rainer Maria Rilke

Paris

February 17, 1903

This is the seventh in a series of blog posts called, “My Top Ten Mistakes in Ministry (That I Can Share Publicly.)” After many years of ministry experience as a church planter, pastor and seminary professor, I think I’ve finally learned that one of the best kept secrets to surviving well in the ministry is to stop making the same old mistakes that others (like me) have been making for decades. Instead, let’s all start making some brand new, bold, innovative and creative mistakes!

We began this series with an introduction called, “Ladies First” in which veteran church planter wife, Shari Thomas, addressed the tough topic, What I Wish I Had Known About Church Planting from the perspective of the church planter’s/pastor’s spouse. We then took a look at:

Mistake #1 (these are in no intentional order), “Failing to Understand the Importance of How I Define Ministry Success.”

Mistake #2 Managing My Time and Not Managing My Life

Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Difference Between my Goals and Desires.

Mistake #4: Not Understanding the Difference Between Pursuing the Grace of God and the God of Grace.

Mistake #5: Not Understanding the Way Up is the Way Down

Mistake #6: Not Understanding the Priority of People Over Programs

Mistake #7: Not Understanding Product Living VS Process Living

I have to confess that I belong to what Pastor Mark Buchanan calls the Cult of the Next Thing. Buchanan writes, “It is dangerously easy to get enlisted. It happens by default–not by choosing the cult but by failing to resist it. It is dangerously easy to get enlisted. It happens by default–not by choosing the cult but by failing to resist it.”

For me the Cult of the Next Thing is sinful discontentment cast in religious terms.  It has its own sacred terms like: our ministry vision, our mission, our goals, our objectives. Please don’t misunderstand, these are good things, but we begin to believe that we can’t ever really be happy until we get them.

This Cult also has its own Mantras we church planter types often quote: I’ll be happy when we have a certain number of people in worship every Sunday. Or I’ll be happy when we are self-supporting financially as a church. Or I’ll be happy when we are self-governing with our own elders or deacons. I’ll be happy when I’ve been able to pass this baton (you name it) to another leader. I’ll be happy when I’m not sick anymore…when the kids are older…when the kids are gone….

And this Cult has its own shrines in other ministries that are doing better than ours.  And it has its own ecstatic experiences: those fleeting moments when you finally reach a goal you’ve been living for and looking to for so long. It feels great. But like sand through your fingers it ever so quickly slips away from you. So then you must look ahead to the next experience.

Author Isaac Rubin writes, “The joy and happiness from the process lasts much longer and can be much more satisfying over the duration of your life. But if you are totally goal-oriented in a success-oriented culture, and if the product is the only goal, you will destroy much of the possibility for true joy and happiness in life. That is because almost all of your life has to be the process and not the product. If you can’t learn to appreciate and enjoy the process of living itself, there goes your joy in life.

If you get nothing out of the doing, because you are always looking for the high that will come at the end, you’re in serious trouble. But if you learn to be nourished by the whole process, that result at the end of the road, positive or negative, is not terribly significant. You just go on to the next process. You must learn to understand and appreciate “Process Living” because the process is really what life is all about. We are in process 98 % of the time. If you are living for that final 2%, you’re in trouble. And the truth is most of us are in serious trouble.”

The story is told when Alexander the Great conquered the entire known world, he wept because there were no more worlds for him to conquer. The opiate of winning the next battle was now gone and he was left trembling in withdrawal, unable to live and love life in the present.

Elizabeth Elliot summed it up well, “ Don’t let your living for tomorrow slay your living for today.” If you’re not very careful you will always be living for tomorrow and find yourself being robbed of all of your todays. I wish someone had talked straight to me about that common and so costly mistake in life and ministry.

Steve Childers is the President & CEO of Global Church Advancement, an inter-denominational ministry that provides church planting training, consultations, and resources for church planters, pastors and missionaries throughout the world. Steve has trained Christian leaders from more than 50 countries (curriculum in five major global languages), representing over 200 denominations and mission agencies in 5 continents (& 5 languages). Steve is also an author, Professor of Practical Theology (since 1995) and the Director of the Doctoral program at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches church planting, missions, evangelism and spiritual formation. To learn more about GCA:

Browse the GCA Website: http://www.gca.cc

Join the GCA Cause: http://bit.ly/X5bZC

See the GCA Blog: http://www.gca.cc/blog/

Follow GCA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/_gca

Follow Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevechilders

Check out upcoming GCA Events: http://gca.cc/Seminar_Overview.htm

Support GCA: http://gca.cc/Support_GCA.htm

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts called, “My Top Ten Mistakes in Ministry (That I Can Share Publicly.)” After many years of ministry experience as a church planter, pastor and seminary professor, I think I’ve finally learned that one of the best kept secrets to surviving well in the ministry is to stop making the same old mistakes that others (like me) have been making for decades. Instead, let’s all start making some brand new, bold, innovative and creative mistakes!

We began this series with an introduction called, “Ladies First” in which veteran church planter wife, Shari Thomas, addressed the tough topic, What I Wish I Had Known About Church Planting from the perspective of the church planter’s/pastor’s spouse. We then took a look at:

• Mistake #1 (these are in no intentional order) called, “Failing to Understand the Importance of How I Define Ministry Success.”
• Mistake #2 called, Managing My Time and Not Managing My Life
• Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Difference Between my Goals and Desires.
• Mistake #4: Not Understanding the Difference Between Pursing the Grace of God and the God of Grace.

This time we’ll take a brief look at another common mistake church leaders make that I wish someone had told me about before I went into the ministry.

Mistake #5: Not Understanding that the Way Up is the Way Down

One of the supreme glories of the Gospel is that it is primarily through weakness that God chooses to show His strength. And it’s through foolishness that God loves to manifest His wisdom. The Apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear when he writes,

“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. (1Cor 1:26-29).

In their excellent book entitled Liberating Ministry From the Success Syndrome by Kent and Barbara Hughes (required reading for all church leaders!) they write, “To you who deem yourself unusually ordinary be encouraged: God must have liked ordinary people because he made so many of us!” I wish someone had told me years ago not to hold my weaknesses in disdain—but to know that God’s plan is to work through my foolishness and weakness so that He might manifest His wisdom and strength.

I also wish someone had explained to me more clearly that God’s kingdom is an upside down kingdom where “God is opposed to the proud but He gives grace to the humble.” and “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted “and “When pride comes, then comes dishonor, But with the humble is wisdom.”

And I wish someone had helped me understand more deeply these profound words written by Oswald Chambers:

“God can achieve his purpose either through the absence of human power and resources, or the abandonment of reliance on them. All through history God has chosen and used nobodies, because their unusual dependence on him made possible the unique display of his power and grace. He chose and used somebodies only when they renounced dependence on their natural abilities and resources.”

To those of you who consider yourself unusually gifted (you know who you are!) this means you must be very careful not to trust in your strengths illegitimately. In fact, unless you humble yourself and renounce your dependence upon them, all your labor and even your fruit is apt to be in vain. It will all be burned away (see Hughes’ book for more details).

What are some of the ways we can know we’re at risk in this area?  In C. Peter Wagner’s book, Humility, he lists 5 Signposts Along the Road to Pride:

1) Yearning for Praise and Accolades
2) Keeping Score
3) Rejoicing in others failures
4) Resenting others successes
5) Compulsively defending yourself

The paradox of grace is that the way up is the way down. One of the reasons there is often such little display of God’s presence and power in many of our lives and ministries today is because of the unknown root sin of pride and self-reliance. The Bible teaches that God’s presence and power normally dwells in a humble and contrite heart. “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My Word” (Is 66:2).

With this truth in mind, I wish someone had made clear to me early in my ministry that coming to the cross of Jesus Christ is not meant by God to be just a one time thing for us (at conversion) but an ongoing process. The Apostle Paul wrote “…just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him” (Colossians 2:6). Coming to God in humility means learning to keep coming to Him in repentance and faith through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Paul wrote,  “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). As God progressively shows us our sin of pride we must learn the secret of coming in humility again and again and again to the cross of Jesus Christ for not only pardon but also for power to change.

It is only at the cross that the streams of God’s transforming grace will begin to flow into our lives. Like water, God’s grace and power always flows down to the lowest place. As you respond to this reminder, prayerfully meditate on the words of the nineteenth century hymn writer, Horatius Bonar,

“I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Behold, I freely give the living water. Thirsty one, stoop down and drink and live”.

——————————

Steve Childers is the President & CEO of Global Church Advancement, an inter-denominational ministry that provides church planting training, consultations, and resources for church planters, pastors and missionaries throughout the world. Steve has trained Christian leaders from more than 50 countries (curriculum in five major global languages), representing over 200 denominations and mission agencies in 5 continents (& 5 languages). Steve is also an author, Professor of Practical Theology (since 1995) and the Director of the Doctoral program at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches church planting, missions, evangelism and spiritual formation. To learn more about GCA:

• Browse the GCA Website: http://www.gca.cc
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GlobalChurchAdvancement
• See the GCA Blog: http://www.gca.cc/blog/
• Follow GCA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/_gca
• Follow Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevechilders
• Check out upcoming GCA Events: http://gca.cc/Seminar_Overview.htm
• Support GCA: http://gca.cc/Support_GCA.htm

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts called, “My Top Ten Mistakes in Ministry (That I Can Share Publicly.)” After many years of ministry experience as a church planter, pastor and seminary professor, I think I’ve finally learned that one of the best kept secrets to surviving well in the ministry is to stop making the same old mistakes that others (like me) have been making for decades. Instead, let’s all start making some brand new, bold, innovative and creative mistakes!

We began this series with an introduction called, “Ladies First” in which veteran church planter wife, Shari Thomas, addressed the tough topic, What I Wish I Had Known About Church Planting from the perspective of the church planter’s/pastor’s spouse. We then took a look at:

• Mistake #1 (these are in no intentional order) called, “Failing to Understand the Importance of How I Define Ministry Success.”
• Mistake #2 called, Managing My Time and Not Managing My Life
• Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Difference Between my Goals and Desires.

This time we’ll take a brief look at another common mistake church leaders make that I wish someone had told me about before I went into the ministry.

Mistake #4: Not Understanding the Difference Between Pursing the Grace of God and the God of Grace.

John Piper’s words still seem to be ringing in my ears after all these years: “Is God a means of grace in your life and ministry or is grace a means to God?” No one had ever asked me that kind of question before. In fact, it took me a while to even figure out what the question meant.

But when I finally understood it, I found myself wishing someone had dared to ask me that kind of penetrating, potentially life-changing question many years ago. Let me try to expound on this idea briefly.

The Ultimate Quest of Your Life & Ministry

In John 17:3 Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Here we are meant to learn that God’s goal for our lives is not merely to serve him in faithful ministry but primarily to know him, to love him, to glorify him and enjoy him.

Think of this question again: “Is God made a means to grace in your ministry or is grace made a means to God?” To put the question differently, “Does the quest of your life and the passion of your ministry terminate on God? Knowing Him? Enjoying Him? Glorifying Him?

Or is God brought in beside all your planning, techniques and ministry strategies in hope that he might somehow be the means of a great outpouring of grace on your ministry and in your life?  The big idea here is that it makes a tremendous difference whether the ultimate quest of your life and ministry is the grace of God or the God of grace.

Using God to Solve Your Problems or Using Your Problems to Find God?

One of the most fundamental questions is whether you will place God or yourself at the center of your ministry. The practical benefits of a God-centered focus in life and ministry are far-reaching. Author Larry Crabb makes the point that a leader with this perspective stops trying to “use God to solve his problems”. Instead such a leader learns how to “use his problems to find God”.

A very common problem among church planters, missionaries, and pastors, is that we begin to see ourselves primarily as servants of God or soldiers of God. Unknowingly, over time, our view of God becomes primarily that of a Master or a Commander-in-Chief. And those pictures of God are biblical and true, but there is so much more to a truly biblical view of God.

In John 15 Jesus said, “You are my friends.” There is a sense in which that’s richer than merely being a slave or a soldier.  Then in 1John 3:1 we read these astonishing words, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God.”

Stop and think about this: more than being a “friend” of Christ, because you are now “in Christ” you are also considered by God to be His child—one who is now loved with the highest of all loves, a love previously reserved by the eternal Father for His one and only Son! There is no stronger love in all the cosmos (Eph 3:14-20).

In Ephesians 5 we see another graphic picture of a bride and a bridegroom—the picture of intimate lovers. As a church leader never allow the imagery of what has been called the “John 3:16 of the Old Testament” to leave your mind and heart: “The LORD your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy. He will be quiet in His love. He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy” (Zeph 3:17).  Here we have the Commander-in-Chief (the Victorious Warrior) rejoicing over you as His child with shouts of joy.

The Lord is our Commander-in-Chief, and we are called to be “good soldiers of Jesus Christ”, putting on and utilizing all the spiritual armor (Eph. 6) that is now ours in Christ.  He is also our Master and we are called to be His “servants” availing ourselves of all of His means of grace so we might be called “faithful” at the end of this race. But we must never forget He is also our Friend, our Father and our Lover (and so much more).

The reason having a proper view of God is so critically important in your life and ministry is because it is so easy to be unknowingly:

• Pursuing the Kingdom and not the King
• Pursuing the Truth of God and not the God of Truth
• Using God to solve your problems rather than using your problems to find God.

In other words, if you are not consciously fighting against it, you are at risk of falling prey to pursing the grace of God and not the God of grace.

Just before his death, Dr. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade spoke at Reformed Seminary in Orlando, Florida, where I’m on faculty (along with Steve Brown). He had a terminal respiratory disease. Many of us were told he might not live long enough to speak in chapel on the date he had been scheduled. So I’ll never forget watching this man of God being helped into the seminary chapel in a wheel chair with a oxygen tubes hooked under his nose. Here was without question one of the greatest visionary leaders of our generation. And he had come to preach to us as “a dying man to dying men”.

I found fascinating that the focus of his final message that morning was not on the importance of capturing a vision for reaching the world for Christ. That’s what I was expecting. But it was, to my surprise, a powerful message on the importance of capturing a vision for God in the fullness of all His attributes.

I’ll never forget Dr. Bright’s final challenge to us that day—to see God not merely as useful but instead to learn to see God primarily as beautiful.  It was just another way of saying, “Don’t merely pursue the grace of God. Pursue the God of grace”. I hope this helps you in that life-long process.

Steve Childers is the President & CEO of Global Church Advancement, an inter-denominational ministry that provides church planting training, consultations, and resources for church planters, pastors and missionaries throughout the world. Steve has trained Christian leaders from more than 50 countries (curriculum in five major global languages), representing over 200 denominations and mission agencies in 5 continents (& 5 languages). Steve is also an author, Professor of Practical Theology (since 1995) and the Director of the Doctoral program at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches church planting, missions, evangelism and spiritual formation. To learn more about GCA:

• Browse the GCA Website: http://www.gca.cc
• Join the GCA Cause: http://bit.ly/X5bZC
• Follow GCA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/_gca
• Follow Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevechilders
• Check out upcoming GCA Events: http://gca.cc/Seminar_Overview.htm
• Support GCA: http://gca.cc/Support_GCA.htm
• Become a fan of GCA:

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