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Thursday, January 27, 2005 posted by R.C. 8:58 PM link |
That Thing We Do From time to time it has been my habit to use this space to allow others to see something of the thinking processes that explain the things we do. I have explored our thinking on raising funds, on how we put together ETC, and assorted other behind the curtain goodies. Our goal, typically, is two-fold. First, we want you to understand better how we make decisions. Second, we want wisdom in how we make decisions. That is, we seek input from you. As I fly home from New Zealand, I am prompted along the same lines to explain something of the thinking process that determines what invitations to come and teach we accept, and which we turn down. We have a committee that makes such decisions, but we could always use more wisdom. We have basically two criteria. While half our standards may pass for piety, they both instead might be worldly. First, honest disclosure. While I receive more invitations than I am able to accept, the ratio isn’t utterly lopsided. It’s not like I accept one out of four invitations I receive. Our goal is to accept, roughly speaking, two speaking invitations a month, with at most one a month requiring that I be away on a Sunday. Four months out of the year, one of those two “invitations” is an event we put on here, two couple’s camps (in July and October), Pastor’s Camp (in February) and our annual conference (in April.) We try to accept one overseas invitation a year as well. It has historically been understood that when a man is ordained to gospel ministry, that his ordination brings with it a series of obligations that form a series of concentric circles. That is, no man can say, “I have been called to serve this local congregation alone. To serve the wider body would be a sinful distraction.” At the same time, a pastor who is always away from the flock might better understand his calling in terms of itinerate ministry. My first obligation is to the local body. Attending and participating in presbytery meetings and general assemblies, on the other hand, aren’t distractions, but a part of our calling. Of course, it has been known to happen among Presbyterians that they are more interested in the power politics of presbytery than feeding the flock. From there we move to the broader church. When, for instance, I speak to a homeschool conference, I am ministering to the church at large, and rightly so. I haven’t wandered from my calling, but am fulfilling it. The great bulk of the calculus we engage in is, in one sense, pragmatic. We are looking for opportunities where we will have the opportunity to help Christians live more simple, separate, and deliberate lives for the glory of God and the building of His kingdom. The question is, where can I go where I can tell more people stuff that others can’t say just as well? Not long ago I turned down an invitation to debate a full preterist. I believe full preterists to deny essentials of the faith, and so think they ought to be roundly refuted. But there are lots of folks out there far better equipped for that work than I’ll ever be. In like manner sometimes I get invitations to go somewhere and teach Reformed basics. These are things that I believe with vigor, but there are many others who likewise believe the same things and are perfectly able to teach them. Crowd size is, in some degree, a part of the calculus. I would rather speak to 200 than to 20. On the other hand, we are not slaves to numbers. If smaller numbers will give greater impact, we’ll go with the smaller numbers. A thousand homeschoolers is better than a hundred homeschoolers, but a hundred homeschoolers are better than a thousand evangelical youth group kids. We don’t know, of course, with any degree of certainty, which opportunities will turn out to be the most effective, but we have to guess anyway. This is the pious end, though we have our doubts about its piety. Here though is the damning admission. No, it’s not the centrality of money. I don’t know how I will be honored until I get home and open my honorarium. I have come home with comparatively larger checks, and thought I had wasted my time, and with comparatively smaller ones and rejoiced in the opportunity. My needs are met by the church here, and so money isn’t the issue, though it can help soften the blow of being away from family. But sometimes other perks come into the equation. It would be impious dishonesty to deny that the prospect of going to New Zealand didn’t play a role in our thinking in planning my current trip. Last winter, through a speaking engagement, I had the opportunity to ski in Montana, and I took it. Next month I will speak in Ligonier, Pa, my home town, for the second time in a year. I get excited over West Coast opportunities, because I rack up frequent flyer miles which both help me to fly more comfortably more often (through earning upgrades) and to take members of my family along more often (through cashing in miles.) In between these two elements of our committee’s equation is friends. I am more apt to speak at an event planned by a friend that fails by other standards, than for strangers that better fit the general criteria. Here I pray I am practicing loyalty, and enjoying the company of friends. There you have an outline of the process. I would welcome both suggested tweaks and overhauls, and hope that wherever I end up, that you will stop by and say hello. [comments] |
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Wednesday, January 19, 2005 posted by R.C. 8:23 PM link |
A New (gr) Attitude In the latest edition of Every Thought Captive I take a few column inches to speak of gratitude. I wrote in the context of the scope of our prayers, that we ought to pray big (like praying that our civil leaders would have a Josiah experience), pray small (like praying that our sore throat would go away), and pray for that which is less visible (like praying for peace among the brethren at church). In all instances, of course, we ought to be grateful to God. Indeed such is one of the great blessings of prayer, that it teaches us from Whom all blessings flow. Apart from our tendency to be grumpy, and to live in the realm of the decrees, we Reformed folk aren’t that bad here in being grateful. It is where the rubber really meets the road, however, that we do so poorly. Because we know God is the first cause of all things, for which we should be grateful, we tend to forget to be grateful for and more still to the secondary causes. I know this because I make this mistake. It is my habit in prayer to regularly pray not only that God would be pleased to sanctify my dear wife, but to thank Him for her. She, like my children, is a great gift. It is, I’m sorry to confess, likewise my habit to fail to express my gratitude for my wife. I mean, in a way I do. If you’ll pardon the psycho-babble, I try to demonstrate my appreciation for her by being a help to her in her calling. I know how to wash a dish, change a diaper. I do the bulk of the grocery shopping, and would be happy to cook every day, though in part it’s because I like what I cook. I’m more a show guy than a tell guy. I am grateful to God, however, perhaps in answer to my wife’s prayers, that I have found myself more often lately driven to speak her love language. Her skills of organization shine brightly as we work to finish our house. My failure in turn are obvious, which in turn makes me, every now and again, interrupt her mid-sentence, as she explains how and why she ordered this thing for the windows, or saved money on that thing for the kitchen, to kiss her, hug her, or simply tell her how grateful I am. A good woman is hard to find. A good man not only thanks God, but the woman as well. [comments] |
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Wednesday, January 12, 2005 posted by R.C. 8:49 PM link |
The Weapons of Our Warfare Once again we are told that we have turned the election. We, of course, refers to the evangelical church. We are being carried about on the shoulders of God’s Only Party like we scored the game winning touchdown. On the left, on the other hand, they are afraid, very afraid. Some pundits are growing increasingly shrill in insisting that evangelicals are the Taliban without turbans. As is so often the case, they’re both wrong. Evangelical support for the Republican Party may have helped them win, but it has done nothing for shrinking the size of government, or protecting the unborn. Just ask Arlen Specter. There are two important reasons why we haven’t and won’t make a difference. First, we are the problem, and second, we’re chasing the wrong solution. We haven’t swung the vote, we are the vote. Like non-evangelicals we want the government to take care of us. Like non-evangelicals we are willing to send our sons off to die to take care of foreign peoples. Like non-evangelicals we want our daughters to be able to hide their shame by adding to it infanticide. Like non-evangelicals, we fear freedom. We live in a statist world because evangelicals worship the statist god. If, however, we were ever to learn to long for freedom, voting Republican will never help us get there, and even voting wisely won’t be the mainspring of liberty. The Scriptures tell us, “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to the people, ‘Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us” (Exodus 1:8–10). Four hundred years prior to this there were seventy of the children of Israel. Now there were millions. Moses tells us, “And Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1: 6–7). There is no Children of Israel Party gaining seats in the Egyptian legislature. There is no Egyptian Family Association upsetting the national economy by boycotting Pyramid World. There are no million Hebrew marches, denouncing the debauchery of the culture. There were no political action committees bound and determined to get the Egyptian schools to allow creation carols. What we are told is that they were fruitful and multiplied. They set about the business of obeying the creation mandate, and God blessed them. Herein is the difference. In our day, we puff out our chests and play the part of power broker. We seek to manifest our power. In their day they, in simply and humbly obeying, showed forth the very character of God. And that is what struck fear in the heart of Pharaoh. As we serve Him in our meekness, we show Him in His power. [comments] |