Jared C. Wilson's Blog, page 2

Pastoral Ministry Means Death

My new book Gospel-Driven Ministry: An Introduction to the Life and Calling of a Pastor releases today. Here is an edited excerpt:

It is the mandate of every pastor to become well acquainted with death. And the truth is, there are a million little deaths to die along the road to the big one. Every day as we tend to Christ’s flock, we are dealing, whether we realize it or not, with the necessity of our own death to self and the dying of self to others. I used to think that pastoral ministry was about helping people live. Then I learned it was actually about helping people die. These daily deaths, these momentary self-crucifixions, are in fact necessary for anyone who wants to live forever. “Die before you die,” C. S. Lewis writes. “There is no chance after.”

Whether you are facing the daunting prospect of congregational conflict or your eyes are wide in wonder at seeing your “wish-dream” come to life, you must heed your death in Christ. Milton Vincent writes:

“When my flesh yearns for some prohibited thing, I must die. When called to do something I don’t want to do, I must die. When I wish to be selfish and serve no one, I must die. When shattered by hardships that I despise, I must die. When wanting to cling to wrongs done against me, I must die. When enticed by allurements of the world, I must die. When wishing to keep besetting sins secret, I must die. When wants that are borderline needs are left unmet, I must die. When dreams that are good seem shoved aside, I must die.”

Do you die, pastor? Because you will. This will be your legacy, in fact — your demonstrating of life in Christ, having taken up his cross and having gloried in his resurrection. Everything else is shifting sand.

Shortly after I left the pastorate and moved to a new city to embark on a new season of ministry, I began visiting a Christian counselor, mainly to just process the mess of me. As I began to recount for him the weight of my previous ministry, how I had spent the last few years of my last assignment daily facing the darkness of death, the floodgates opened. I buried too many friends. Precious saints. Those with whom I’d eaten, laughed, cried, sung, and served. I walked with them all through weeks and months of suffering, seeing them across their finish line into glory. It seemed as though as soon as we’d put one in the ground, another one would become sick.

I was still mourning up until my final months of ministry. And at the same time, as I was caring at the bedside of a good friend who was dying of pancreatic cancer, I could sense some in the church turning on me. I endeavored to ignore the pain of that, to stuff it down deep within me. While I was helping someone die, the church was helping me die to self. And it was painful in ways I didn’t recognize.

The counselor suggested I had never really processed all that death. I sort of laughed that off at the time. Now I think he was more right than either of us knew. I had come to him still licking some wounds from church life. I still carry the scars and callouses. I often lament them. But I also treasure them.

Paul contemplates his death this way:

“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Tim 4:6–8 ESV).

Whatever pain or grief you are enduring (or will endure) in your ministry, picture getting to the end, whenever that may be, and feeling the rough places on your flesh, the fatigue in your bones, the weariness behind your eyes, and considering it all glory, all worth it, all part of the treasure of knowing Jesus and helping others know him too.

You can buy “Gospel-Driven Ministry” via Amazon or wherever you buy Christian books. Here’s what some people are saying about it:

“There are certain books that a pastor should read once a year to regain his gospel sanity, clarity of calling, passion for his Savior, love for his people and a renewed sense of what his daily work is. Gospel-Driven Ministry is one of those books. It holds the gospel forward, not just as a preacher’s core message, but also as his model and motivation for who he is to be and what he is called to do. Pastor, buy this book and put it in your yearly reading rotation.” — Paul Tripp

“Current and future pastors – and those who love them – need to read this book.” — Harold L. Senkbeil, Executive Director Emeritus, DOXOLOGY: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel, Author of The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart

“If you know one thing about Jared, it’s that he has an unwavering passion for gospel-centrality. Gospel-Driven Ministry reads like a greatest-hits of Jared’s wisdom and experience from years of pastoring both local congregations and local pastors. A must-have for every pastor and ministry leader who desires to keep the gospel at the core of their ministry and practice.” — Ronnie Martin, Lead Pastor, Substance Church, Ashland, OH

“I’d recommend this book to any pastor, especially those just starting in their ministry, and any others desiring to understand what faithful leadership in God’s church looks like. Saturated in the gospel-depth that has characterized his other books, Jared shows us that a church leader is not just a defender of truth but a servant of people. I was particularly moved by Jared’s challenge that we represent the love of God to people who walk through our doors. What an incredible and weighty privilege. May God use this book to raise up a generation of faithful servant leaders!” — J.D. Greear

“In Gospel Driven Ministry, Jared Wilson invites us to sit down and reimagine the call of pastor ministry in biblical terms, as a supernatural stewardship. You hold in your hands a book that will not only recalibrate your heart but will also reenergize your hands to navigate the practical day to day work among the people God has called you to serve. Again, and again, Jared’s writings set him apart as a true pastor to pastors. You will do well to apply his wise and experienced counsel.” — Matt Capps, Senior Pastor, Fairview Baptist Church, Apex, NC

“Whether you are new pastor or a seasoned veteran of many years, Gospel Driven Ministry will educate, instruct and encourage you in your service to the Lord and His people. Combining personal experience, theological understanding, and a deep love for Christ’s church, Jared Wilson offers timely wisdom for those called, in these challenging times, to shepherd the flock of God.” — Brian Brodersen, Senior Pastor, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, California

“With clarity and the requisite pastoral experience, in Gospel-Driven Ministry, Jared Wilson seeks to bring us back to the gospel roots that drive faithful pastoral ministry. If you’re considering pastoral ministry or are in the habit of training up gospel ministers, pick up this book and use it as a “gospel primer” for ministry.” — Juan R. Sanchez, senior pastor, High Pointe Baptist Church, Austin, Texas

“Gospel Driven Ministry is an honest, practical, instructive, and comprehensive work on pastoring that I wish would have been available to me twenty-five years ago.”  — JR Vassar, Lead Pastor of Church at the Cross and author of Glory Hunger: God, the Gospel and our Quest for Something More

“In Gospel-Driven Ministry, Jared Wilson provides a timely and necessary reminder of the transformative power of the gospel as the cornerstone of all effective pastoral ministry. With the warmth and wisdom of a seasoned pastor, Wilson calls the reader to consider not only the shape of their ministry, but more importantly their motivation for it.” — Dr. Malcolm Gill, Director of Postgraduate Studies, Lecturer in Greek, New Testament, and Homiletics, Sydney Missionary & Bible College, Sydney, Australia

“Absorbing this book will yield more of Christ in you and his Church.” — Jonathan Dodson, Lead Pastor of City Life Church and author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Here in Spirit, and Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes

Pastors Are Paid to Stare Out the Window

But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
— Acts 6:4

My friend Ronnie Martin and I recently started a podcast for Christianity Today called The Art of Pastoring, and I’m particularly fond of this episode on The Pastor’s Study. If I may, I commend it to you, because I think it reflects a needed reminder for many in the church today.

Our modern contexts for ministry demand so much from a pastor in the way of strategy, administration, organization, and the like—and our ongoing Covid season is demanding even more—that it only exacerbates the sense among many ministers of estrangement from the fundamental stuff of shepherding. Our churches and our cultures expect pastors to be creative public speakers and entrepreneurial leaders, but the essence of pastoral ministry is simply this: prayer and ministry of the Word.

In his book Working the Angles, Eugene Peterson illustrated the tension this way: “A misnaming replaces ‘pastor’s study’ with ‘office,’ thereby further secularizing perceptions of pastoral work. How many pastors no longer come to their desks as places for learning but as operation centers for organizing projects? The change of vocabulary is not harmless. Words have ways of shaping us. If we walk into a room labeled ‘office’ often enough we end up doing office work. First we change the word, then the word changes us.”

I had an elder once challenge me about the same signage on my door. The placard I had inherited read “Office.” I took his advice and replaced it with an Amazon-ordered sign that read “Pastor’s Study.” I wanted to be reminded—and I wanted my people to be reminded—that they pay me, actually, to read, learn, contemplate, reflect, to be still, to be quiet, to be solitarily devotional, and above all to be prayerful.

This does not mean neglecting the pasture work that is also required of the pastorate. Peter exhorts elders to “shepherd the flock of God that is among them,” by which I take him to mean that faithful pastors are actually active among their flocks. But I do think it means pushing against the insecurity about pastoral work not being “real work,” rejecting the insinuations (even if just assumed) that the pastor “only works one day a week.” They actually pay you, pastor, to read and pray. Assuming they do pay you, they pay you to pursue a Christward affection in personal study and devotion.

It’s the sweetest gig in the world, isn’t it? I tell my students, “Right now, you are paying us to study the Bible. But one day there will be a great reversal. We will soon enough pay you to study the Bible.” Won’t that be a glorious privilege?

Churchfolk, expect and encourage your leaders to tend to their intellectual and spiritual development. We want them to be brimming with Bible. It is for their and our good that they do. Pastoral ministry is more art than science, and as such, it requires deeply thinking and deeply formed people to carry it out. And deeply thinking and deeply formed people dive deep into ancient wisdom, push deep into intimate prayer, probe deep into their own souls, wage deep war with their sin. We want them not to become sick with hurry and drowning in the anxiety of productivity and efficiency. That only infects us with the same. We want them to stare out the window and think. That’s what we pay them for, and that’s what will pay off for us in the long run.

My Top 10 Books of 2020

The best books I read this year. As every year, please keep in mind that not all of these were published in 2020—they were just the best books I read in 2020. However, this year I’ve excluded re-reads, as I did more re-reading this year than in recent years. Titles like Augustine’s City of God, Richard Lovelace’s Dynamics of Spiritual Life, and C.S. Lewis’s Four Loves and Perelandra would have easily crowded out some newcomers.

In ascending order:

10. Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father by Thomas S. Kidd (Yale)

This is the second year in a row a book by Kidd has made my “best of” list and for good reason. Franklin was of course not a Christian, but this spiritual biography of sorts is a fascinating and meticulous look at the philosophies and formations that drove him, including not just deism but the burgeoning Puritan Calvinism of his upbringing.

9. Deep Discipleship: How the Church Can Make Whole Disciples of Jesus by J. T. English (B&H)

I can’t believe this book hasn’t been written yet, but I’m glad that English was the one to do it. You’ll find a non-panicky appraisal of the discipleship deficit in evangelicalism over the last 30 years but also an optimistic, practical, robust, and—above all—biblical exploration of the antidotes. I especially appreciated Chapter 5 on how disciples grow, which is by itself worth the price of the book. For those looking to implement a gospel-centered discipleship culture in your church, no matter your size or resources, this is the book you need. Going forward, it will be a go-to recommendation for those I teach and coach.

8. Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon (Abingdon)

A short but punchy read. Almost wore out my pen underlining things on every page. This challenging, provocative book goes hard against Western evangelicalism’s syncretistic and accommodating position in her surrounding culture and casts a consistent vision for recapturing the prophetic peculiarity of the Christian community in the world. I didn’t agree with every little thing, and Hauerwas and Willimon write out of a tradition different from my own, but I found so much in this book resonating and stirring. Maybe you will too.

7. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (Liveright)

An excellent work of data-driven history and sociology. Aided by Rothstein’s largely dispassionate delivery—he really writes as an historian and social scientist, not as a pundit or commentator—the sheer tonnage of explicit prejudice he chronicles should be as maddening as it is enlightening. Many ought to wrestle with the history here, the “de jure” racism enforced by real-estate zoning, school zoning, banking, and so on, continuing well past the civil-rights era and right into the 1980s, still having ramifications today. If you are one to discount the idea of systemic injustice/racism, please read this book and consider its implications.

6. Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage by Gavin Ortlund (Crossway)

I technically read this at the end of 2019, but it was too late to have made that year’s list, so it’s going here. I was also blessed to endorse the book. Here was my blurb: “To put it simply: this is an important book. With an historian’s insight, a theologian’s precision, and a pastor’s wisdom, Gavin Ortlund has given the church an invaluable handbook for navigating our ongoing doctrinal challenges and for healing our ongoing doctrinal divisions.”

5. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Vintage)

The second-best-selling “true crime” book of all time but certainly the most artful. Capote’s rich narrative recounts the frightening events surrounding the murders of the Clutter family in 1959 Kansas. Through thorough personal research, including visiting the area (with author pal Harper Lee) to interview locals and ponder the scene and even befriending one of the murderers on death row before their execution, Capote crafts a mesmerizing and deep portrayal of the sweetness of innocence and the banality of evil.

4. Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536-1609 by Scott M. Manetsch (Oxford)

I had to read this book for my doctoral studies this fall—scratch that. I got to read this book for my doctoral studies this fall. What looks on the surface to be a dry and daunting history text is actually a wonderful and detailed manual for pastoral care and ministry life that I’d recommend to just about any pastor. Manetsch’s intricate study of life in Calvin’s Geneva, both during and after that towering figure’s ministry, covers everything from intimate details of familial life to even caring for people during a plague. Church discipline, in-fighting, navigating political environments, and so on. This book about a different place several centuries removed is ever-relevant for church life today. Highly recommended.

3. Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What by Peter Steinke (Rowman & Littlefield)

Could there be a more relevant book for pastoral ministry in 2020 than this? Published in 2006, there is apparently a later, revised edition under a different title (which I am not familiar with), this work resulting from the extensive pastoral experience and church consultation work from Steinke (who sadly passed away earlier this summer) is a master calls in navigating church conflict, division, and other assorted maladies. While I would have certainly liked more gospel and less therapy-speak, this is still an excellent read and a book I’d recommend to almost any pastor about calm, confident leadership in the midst of conflict, confusion, or chaos. Really good stuff here on understanding conflict dynamics, emotionality, and so on in congregations. For every story he told, I could think of real-life examples I either faced as a pastor or am aware of in the pastorates of others I know.

2. One Assembly: Rethinking the Multisite and Multiservice Church Models by Jonathan Leeman (Crossway)

This is the book that should have made a big splash in 2020, except for the tidal wave of COVID-19 which I think just overtook serious consideration of it. You can read this one sitting, but you should consider it slowly. Leeman thoroughly and convincingly argues from Scripture that the way so many of us do church is really a way of doing churches. And as I’m already seeing ecclesiological “futurists” declaring that livestream and “online campuses” are to be the norm for church going into the future, we need Leeman’s book more than ever before. It would behoove every pastor and ministry leader to read and wrestle with this book. The third chapter on catholicity in particular, whether you agree with Leeman’s arguments leading up to it, is very important.

1. Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund (Crossway)

What else could it have been? This book is exceptional and exquisite. No work ministered more to me in this crazy year than Dane’s painstaking and patient helping me stare at the comforting glory of Christ. It is above all the books I read this year the one I will keep coming back to for years to come. If you’ve read it, you know. If you haven’t, stop punishing yourself and give yourself the Christmas gift of this beautiful work.

—

I hope you won’t mind if I mention I published two books of my own in 2020—The Gospel According to Satan, a non-fiction work aimed at helping you understand the tempting deceptions at the root of some popular cliches both cultural and religious, and Echo Island, a Christian novel written with young adult readers in mind but with wider appeal for readers of all ages who appreciate the writing of C. S. Lewis and the kinds of mysterious tales you might find in The Twilight Zone or in Unexplained Mysteries.

—

Previous lists:

2019

2018

2017

2016

The Beauty and Burden of Nostalgia

Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

— Ecclesiastes 7:10

Thanksgiving week is now behind us, and as we run full-bore into the Christmas season, we find ourselves very often running into that mercurial state endemic to all holidays — especially Thanksgiving and Christmas — which is probably best understood as nostalgia. It’s not just the porcelain baby Jesus we get out of that box in the attic, it’s a dream — a dream about what the holidays can be, what we always wish they were. Listening to Christmas music, watching those gauzy Christmas movies, conjuring up images of holiday-lit lamps down picturesque village streets, happy families gathered around festal tables in Norman Rockwellian fashion, crackling fires and country stockings, and all the rest.

We want to feel it. A sense of home, a sense of something familiar that we can’t seem to grasp in our everyday lives. The holidays hold the promise of bygone, yesteryear, of quaint and extraordinary at the same time. And then the presents are unwrapped, the paper is strewn about the floor, the turkey is a carcass on a greasy platter by the overflowing kitchen sink, and we think, “Is that it?”

An Escape from the Maladies of the Moment

This is what nostalgia promises us — an exit from the tyranny of progress, the chaos of everything we see on the news and in our neighborhood.

Don’t underestimate the power of nostalgia. It tells us something important. There’s a reason the toy shelves today are full of resurrected icons from the recent past — Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, G.I. Joe. Right now, a documentary called “The Toys That Made Us” is hot stuff on Netflix. Why? Because Gen-Xers are largely in charge of production, and we have a nostalgic affection for the playthings of our past, and because we want our children to have the same experiences we think so fondly about. And what are toys, but the talismen of our imaginations, fantasies?

Nostalgia like this can be good. We live in increasingly strange times, the news cycle more rapid than it’s ever been, and each wave of headlines by the minute delivering overwhelming bad news. Or confusing news. Chaos. Conflict. Class warfare. Nostalgia can be our escape. It can be warming, settling.

That’s what we want from the holidays, especially. A carved out moment in time that promises something precious, something peaceful, something good and pleasant in the midst of our normally anxious lives. But those dishes aren’t going to wash themselves.

A Nice Place to Visit; A Terrible Place to Live

We cannot stay there. Anyone stuck in a nostalgic space is stuck in unreality. And the truth is, much of our nostalgic dreaming is fantasizing about a fantasy, not anything actually experienced. There is a kind of nostalgia that is actually harmful.

A church stuck in the “good old days,” for instance, is in great danger of death. Nostalgia is toxic to a church.

Similarly, the cold hard truth is that there is no such thing as a “golden age.” For every “simpler time” many people look back in hopes of recapture, there is a large number of people who experienced it as anything but. Sometimes white folks love to look back to the 50’s and 60’s as the good old days, willfully oblivous to the institutional injustices against black folks for whom nostalgia isn’t an option.

In this way, there are personal moments or experiences we might look back to and think upon fondly, but the time that the Lord has drawn out for us is relentlessly linear. We cannot — we dare not — live in the past. But it is helpful to remember it, to be cautioned by the reality as well as selectively instructed by the hopes.

Looking Back to the Future

What is nostalgia, but a longing, really? A longing ostensibly about “the way things were,” but really, embedded in it, a longing for what we hope will be.

A million years ago I read the late Roger Ebert’s review of the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Demolition Man. I don’t recall that Ebert much liked the movie, but I do remember one point of commendation he mentioned. Ebert said it was nice for once to see a movie’s vision of the future as positive. For the last 50 years or so, every movie picturing the future has projected a dystopian vision. This is completely understandable, as the promise of the nuclear age has given way to its understood peril. But there was a time when the movies gave us a vision of the future more like “The Jetsons” than Blade Runner. People are united. Technology is our friend and servant. It’s a science fiction aspiration. We even wear matching jumpsuits. Demolition Man, in its hackneyed way, pictured a utopian future.

Every now and again, we get a fiction that manages to combine nostalgia for a halcyon past with a utopian vision of the future. From a few years ago, Disney’s Tomorrowland made a valiant effort. The film begins with and launches from a sweet retro depiction of vintage Disneyana — the World’s Fair origin of some of the theme park’s most treasured attractions — into a visionary dream about an alternate reality that could be humankind’s future — every tongue, tribe, and nation living in peace forever.

This retro/visionary spirit is still at work in a lot of the Disney parks’ rides today. I think fondly of the Carousel of Progress, cutting edge once upon a time, in which the scene of the future looks like 1987. What was once a forward-looking marvel is now a memorial to nostalgia. The kitsch is even part of its appeal.

Of course, the Disney vision of world peace is built around human ambition, the human spirit. We know, through the Scriptures, this is a hopeless peace.

It’s okay to long for the Garden. But we cannot go back. We must go forward. And we must see that our longing for the Garden is really a longing for the Garden to come. We can see our Savior in his Gospels teaching and doing great things. But we miss the point of it all if we don’t see that what he inaugurated is yet to be consummated. And indeed, he is coming, and coming quickly.

So here’s what to do with your holiday longings: own them, appreciate them, enjoy them. But don’t be surprised when the memories being made don’t quite satisfy, don’t quite live up to the feeling we anticipate their bringing to us. We weren’t made to dwell in the dream. The golden age is still before us. So we can give thanks for all God’s done — this Thursday, and every Thursday (and every day) — but we hang our hope not on some recaptured memory, but on the Blessing to come.

The truth is, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.

— Psalm 126:1

7 Ways to Kill the Thanksgiving Impulse in Your Life

“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

– Philippians 4:5-7

This is an excellent recipe for what it itself describes: a Spiritual settling of the heart, thankfulness, closeness to God. But let’s suppose you didn’t want those things, you didn’t want to be thankful in all circumstances (as God commands through Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5). How would you design your system in order to crush any impulse of thanksgiving in your heart?

1. Freak out about everything.

Let your unreasonableness be known to everyone. Be unreasonable about everything. Turn everything into drama, everything into a crisis.

2. Practice practical atheism.

The Lord is at hand, which is certainly something to be thankful for. Our God isn’t just transcendent, but immanent. He wants to be known. You could therefore intellectually acknowledge God is there, but act like he’s not. Assume he has no interest in you or your life. If you pretend like God’s not there, you don’t have to thank him for anything.

3. Coddle worry.

Be anxious about everything. Really protect your worry from the good news.

4. Give God the silent treatment.

The best way not to give thanks is not to talk at all. That way you’ll never give thanks accidentally.

5. Don’t expect anything from God.

Don’t trust him for anything. Normally we do this so we don’t have to feel disappointed, but another reason to do it is so he won’t give you anything to be thankful for. If you pray for something, he just might say yes, and then you’d be obligated to thank him.

6. Relentlessly try to figure everything out.

The peace of God is beyond our understanding. He is bigger than our capacity to grasp him. The closer we get to God, the bigger he gets. An immense vision creates immense reaction. So if you want to crush that reaction before it has a chance to start, ask as many “why” questions as you can, and don’t settle for the answers Job or Habakkuk or David did. Best to think you’re better than them and deserve an explanation from God. If you really want to kill thanksgiving, act like God owes you. Leave no room for the possibility you might not know or understand something. And one of the best ways to crush thankfulness is to take credit for everything you can.

7. Focus on anything other than the gospel of Jesus.

God owes us nothing but has given us every good thing in Christ. If you’re not interested in thanksgiving, by all means, pay no attention to that. Concentrate on your problems. Don’t concentrate on Jesus, or you might accidentally end up thankful in all circumstances.

A Charge to the New Pastor

I was honored recently to preach a charge from 2 Timothy 4:1-5 at the ordination service for our church’s newest elders. Below is the text. I pray it will bless you.

2 Timothy 4:1-5

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

The Bible calls the pastoral office a “noble” thing. Given all else it says about pastoring, we also know it to be a weighty thing. So while this occasion this evening is a celebration in a sense of your training and maturity, while it is a joyful occasion, we also know you all feel the weightiness of it.

You will be judged more strictly. By the Lord perhaps, but also by your church. We will look to you to be examples to us. We will look to you to cast vision. We will look to you for correction. We will look to you for comfort. We command you not to lead us astray.

So Paul’s charge to Timothy is my charge to you, and Liberty Baptist Church membership’s charge to you, and I offer it in correlation to Paul’s.

1. First, we charge you before God to preach the word.

We want your wisdom, we want your experience, we want your winsomeness, and we want your advice. But we need above all is the sufficient word of God. So don’t ever not give it to us.

You will not get to the end of your ministry and think, “I wish I’d preached the Bible less.”

If one of us happens to cut you, you should bleed Bible.

And Paul’s qualifier is important too – preach the word in season and out. Right now the word is very much in season at Liberty Baptist Church. But some day it may not be. The fault for that must not be traced to your leadership. The word is very much not in season in the outside world, not even in many churches. Some day you may find yourself in a church or community where the word is out of season. We charge you to hold fast to the word of God and the gospel of Jesus that it proclaims as “of first importance.”

2. Secondly, we charge you before God to lead us both strongly and patiently.

Correct us and comfort us. Paul is telling Timothy to lead the sheep, not push them. And he’s telling Timothy to condemn the wolves, not coddle them. Remember that you are accountable to us but you’re not our employees. You must serve God before the membership, and in fact, it’s in putting God first that you best serve the membership.

Sometimes our ears may itch for different things. Sometimes yours might too. Sometimes we may want a different shepherd, one who doesn’t make us feel so convicted. Sometimes you may wish you were a different shepherd. Own who God made you to be and own what he has laid out for you to do, and do not waver from your unique giftedness, your identity in Christ, and your commitment to guard the good deposit from challenges without and within.

Some may trust in their education and some in their giftedness, but you must trust in the Lord your God. You must obey God rather than men.

3. Thirdly, we charge you to be sober-minded about your life and ministry.

You must be sober-minded about sins of the flesh. Don’t get drunk on anything that would prevent you from loving your wife and children well, even if what intoxicates you is a fruitful ministry or approval from the church. Keep your mind attuned to the obedience of Christ that you may take every thought captive. We charge you to pursue, by God’s grace, sexual purity in your marriage and in your mind. We command you to put your family before us.

You must be sober-minded about life and its troubles, about personal and communal suffering, about hardships and afflictions of all kinds. You will face trials personal, emotional, and spiritual. You will encounter a multitude of opportunities to share in the afflictions of Christ. Be sober-minded about the reality of tribulation. Be sober-minded about the temptation and oppression of the devil. He hates you and wants your ministry to fail. Rebuke him in word and resist him in spirit. When it comes to suffering, Paul says ENDURE.

Be sober-minded about the pastoral task. Be serious about the curing of souls, about fellowship and visitation and counseling.

And finally, you must be sober-minded about the fate of sinners. Paul comes full circle here from “preach the word” to “do the work of an evangelist,” bookending his charge with a reminder of the pastor’s fidelity to the gospel.

We charge you before God to commit to these things – the faithful ministry of the word and of prayer – so that your ministry may be fulfilled, by God’s grace.

We charge you with all of this not just because you are qualified to hold the office of pastor, but because our Lord Jesus Christ is above all worthy. We commend to you a ministry worthy of his name, because we believe that by the power of the Holy Spirit, God has equipped you for it.

4. Fourthly and finally, we charge you to resolve to know nothing among us but Christ and him crucified.

That is Paul’s phrase from 1 Corinthians 2:2. Here he says in v.5 to “do the work of an evangelist” – that is, a proclaimer of the gospel – and to fulfill your ministry.

We’re all in danger at all times – but especially in this crazy season — of drifting from the centrality of the gospel. Of giving in to our fears, animosities, and anxieties. And our charge is not to chase dreams or scratch ears but fulfill the ministry.

Commenting on this passage, Calvin says, “The gospel will not long maintain its place, if pastors do not urge it earnestly.”

Do not pursue your own greatness. Pursue the magnification of Christ through the ministry of the good news. And when you get to the end, whenever that may be, you will have no regrets. Our church may grow, or may it not. You may be here a long time, or you may not. Whatever the Lord’s will for you and for Liberty Baptist Church, the eternal constant is God’s grace in Jesus. We charge you to stubbornly fix your eyes on the glory there. Resolve to know nothing among us but Christ and him crucified, and you will fulfill your ministry.

The Bible Is a Big Book with Lots of Words

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly . . .

— Colossians 3:16a

I want to bleed Bible. Don’t you? I want, when somebody cuts me open, my guts to spill out in Bible verses.

We are staring back along the wake of an entire generation of church teaching that treats the Bible likes Bartlett’s Book of Quotations. We swoop down toward the Scriptures quickly and snatch something, anything, that will do for a pick-me-up, a soundbite, a prooftexted inspiration. Jeremiah 29:11. Philippians 4:13. Romans 8:28. These verses and more we have decontextualized into a devastating discipleship deficiency. And then we act shocked when professing Christians who otherwise know some Bible verses do not portray the wisdom of the Word.

We have grown accustomed to baptizing our worldliness, justifying our syncretism with Scripture. Like the children of Israel ascribing their worship of the golden calf to YHWH, we treat others with scorn and contempt, citing Jesus’s being mean that one time, or we engage in moral relativism and pragmatism, excusing it with the Lord’s use of immoral men. What is this except using the Bible without being transformed by it? We can be biblically savvy without being biblically wise.

The Bible is a big book with lots of words. It is meant to be dwelt in, not drizzled or dabbled. It is inspired by the Holy Spirit who has indwelled us that we might be filled with it, drunk with it, oozing from the pores with it.

Whenever the Scriptures hold up measurements of true spirituality, it endorses things like peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. These things cannot be faked. These qualities cannot be cultivated by mere religion. We can whitewash a tomb, but only the implanted Word can grow new life inside. Superficial use of the Word makes superficial people.

Be careful with how you use your Bible, then, to make sure it is actually using you. Consult its whole counsel. Don’t be an adherent of pick-n-choose-ianity. Reject sloganeering and cliche-peddling. Through the deep Word, become a deeper person. The Bible is bigger than your bumper sticker.

Get Lost in the Story Today!

This fall don’t you feel the need for a good story? How about a book that takes place in the Pacific Northwest that’s equal parts mystery and adventure? How about a book that incorporates elements of C. S. Lewis and Dante and classical mythology? How about a book that chapter by chapter builds a world full of signs and symbols, literary allusions, and theological depth?

I tried to write this exact thing for you, and it’s officially available today. My new novel Echo Island is about four boys who return to their island home off the coast of Washington state from a camping trip to discover that everyone has vanished. (No, it’s not the rapture!) Where did everybody go? Why doesn’t anything electronic work? What’s up with that mysterious cabin in the woods? What’s the deal with all the green notebooks?

Ostensibly a YA novel, Echo Island is written with lovers of classic speculative fiction of all ages in mind. It tells a story about growing up and about finding our place in the battle of good vs. evil, as well as about the age-old tension between God’s sovereignty and human freedom. On top of all that, it’s got killer plot twists, a spooky mystery, and a lot of action. I hope your kids—and you!—will love it.

Find out more at EchoIslandBook.com. You can order it there or buy it wherever good books are sold.

Here’s what some people are saying about it:

“In Echo Island, Jared WIlson taps into all the things I love most about fiction: adventure, mystery, and a story that truly makes you think. Jared’s writing is exquisite, and I found myself locked into the characters and story from the first few pages. Now more than ever we need stories that shape us, and this one will surely do just that.”

— Aaron Ivey, Pastor of Worship + Creativity, The Austin Stone and co-Author of Steal Away Home

“With Echo Island, Jared Wilson has done it again. A mystery and adventure—this story will keep you turning the page. You’ll hear echoes of your own story and of the ‘Real Story,’ in which C. S. Lewis says ‘every chapter is better than the one before.’ This story, once you start, will grab your attention, and if you listen, will shape your life.”

— Champ Thornton, pastor and author of several books including The Radical Book for Kids and Why Do We Say Good Night?

“Two things: I’ve never been a huge fan of are book blurbs (perhaps, besides Twitter, the lowest and least-sincere form of human communication) and young adult fiction. But after reading Echo Island in its entirety I am, at least momentarily, a huge fan of both. This book was everything a young-adult novel should be—fun, hopeful, thoughtful, challenging, and full of the kinds of characters you see aspects of yourself in. And oddly, as a middle-aged father, I found myself being edified and encouraged by it as well.”

— Ted Kluck, author of The Extraordinary Life of a Mediocre Jock and The Outstanding Life of an Awkward Theater Kid, co-host of The Happy Rant Podcast

“Wilson is the consummate storyteller. Echo Island is a brilliantly crafted adventure ride from page one. There is an art to fleshing out characters and painting a backdrop on the written page that can magically stick in the mind’s eye of the reader and Wilson masterfully accomplishes that. Filmmakers aim to greenlight stories that can resonate with a broad audience while simultaneously sticking to a niche genre; Echo Island accomplishes all of that and more!”

— Ryan O’Quinn, President & Founder, Damascus Road Productions

Starting the Morning Satisfied

“Satisfy us in the morning with your faithful love so that we may shout with joy and be glad all our days.”

— Psalm 90:14

A couple of years ago I began the habit of reading my Bible first thing in the morning. I know, I know—this does not seem revolutionary to many Christians. Plenty of people have their quiet time in the morning. But it was revolutionary to me, because what I mean is that I read the Bible literally first thing in the morning. Before I sit up. Before I put my feet on the floor. Before I’m even fully awake.

Okay, I guess technically, the literal first thing I do is turn off my alarm. But I had been convicted that I was starting my days with the mundane routines of life and not with God’s Word. I have never really struggled to study my Bible. It has come more “naturally” to me than prayer all my Christian life. But without beginning with God’s Word, I was struck by how flooded I am with self-talk and a sense of self-sovereignty during my morning routines.

In the past, after I turned off my alarm and before I got out of bed, I would open my email and look at my calendar. I was instantly in a mode of thinking of obligations and appointments. I would open up social media to see what everybody else had been saying and doing while I was sleeping, filling my mind with everybody else’s thoughts. I began the day thinking it belonged to me. Aside from how anxious this was unwittingly making me, it is also a self-focused way to begin. Starting my day listening to myself and to others was taking its spiritual toll.

Deeper and more thoughtful study of God’s Word still comes for me later in the day, when I’m more awake. But I have benefited in multiple ways from turning off my alarm and immediately opening up my Bible app. Before I get up, before I brush my teeth, before I shower, before I get dressed, before I stop by Starbucks, before I get to work, before I’ve begun believing my day is run in my own power. Before I do anything else, I want to hear from God.

Sometimes it takes a bit for my sight to adjust, but there, through my boogered eyes and before my heavy brain, is a window into the other world that reorients my heart before it can get too far astray.

I don’t read a whole lot. I tend to graze. I pick books and passages mostly at random, though sometimes according to a particular need I feel or a subject I think pressing. Morning by morning, I tend to alternate between Old and New Testaments. But the important thing is that the first voice I hear in the morning is the Lord’s. I read just long enough to have my heart warmed by his presence with me and his pleasure in me. I get a sense of settledness in his declarations and his priorities. This is just a simple and direct way to make sure I wake up into the sufficiency of Christ, into the reminder that his finished work is the grounding and fuel for my own.

And then, when I’ve been wakened by the word, I sit up, put my feet on the floor, stretch, and stand. It’s a reminder everyday that only in him do I live and move and have my very being (Acts 17:28). To read before I rise is a daily enacting, in fact, of the resurrecting power of God’s Word. Through this practice, my whole day is better positioned as a response to his call.

Maybe you want to try it. What better start could there be to your day than to fill your first waking moments with the voice of the holy One who made you and loves you?

Sometimes Leaders Need to be Carried (2)

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

— Galatians 6:2

A few nights ago, I was searching for a completely unrelated message in my email app and inadvertently stumbled across a series of exchanges with a particularly troublesome person in the last year of my pastorate. Against my instincts, I read through most of them, and I was instantly sucked back into the heaviness of those days. It prompted me to revisit this old post. I wasn’t in a place to talk about the conflict eroding my joy and confidence at that time. But even years removed from the experience I was nonetheless overcome with recent feelings of anxiety, nervousness. The heaviness overtook me all over again.

I realized a few things in the experience. One, it is hard to shake what my friend Jeff Medders calls “pastoral PTSD.” Not to diminish the experience of severe trauma that survivors of war or abuse suffer, there is a nonetheless a physiological impact leaders carry from a steady exposure to anger and hostility, conflict, and divisive sabotage. (I felt it overtaking me the first few years of membership meetings at my current church, during which nothing remotely tense would take place, but during which nevertheless I felt tense and anxious.) And on top of that, there is the enduring grief of pastorates full of crisis counseling and shepherding people through suffering and death. All of this came rushing back to me, as I was transported back to one of the most difficult years of my life.

Another thing I realized was how I had then—and have since—sort of been “gaslighting” myself. I tried to talk myself out of hurt feelings by telling myself it wasn’t really all that bad, that I was being (internally) dramatic or even exaggerating. Looking back with so much time in between at specific words and accusations, I realized it was actually worse than I was even treating it at the time. I allowed myself to be victimized and excused it as being “gentle,” “peaceable,” “patient.” I labeled passivity as being pastoral.

I don’t need to rehearse the specifics of these incidents here, but they were occurring in the background of a very difficult year of helping yet another saint—yet another friend—walk faithfully toward their earthly finish line. So week by week, as I was helping other loved ones carry a dear one into death and feeling the can’t-turn-it-off exhaustion and grief of that experience, I was being undermined, attacked, and scrutinized. I felt lonely, misunderstood, and unsupported.

I hear from pastors almost weekly who are in the thick of this very thing now. I feel for them. I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll say again: abusive pastors are a real problem, and they need to be rebuked and dismissed. But we rarely talk about the many pastors who face various kinds of abuses. They suffer silently. They don’t want to lose their job. They don’t want to disrupt their families. They are desperately trying to keep the peace and faithfully plod through the normal difficulties of ministry all the while feeling there is no one they can talk to or no one who will understand or care even if they did.

Your pastor might be one of these people. How would you know?

You might not. And yet it is our duty as lovers of Christ and his church to remember:

(a) Our pastors are human beings.

They feel like we do. They hurt like we do. They have the normal stressors that any finite person living in a fallen world does. But on top of that, they carry responsibility for an entire flock. They are not supermen. They, like Paul, “on top of everything,” feel an anxiety for the church (2 Cor. 11:28).

(b) Our pastors need pastoring.

Many of them do not receive it. A great many do, often from fellow elders. But leaders need to be led, need to be fed. They give and give and give, and too often they are surrounded by sheep content only to be fed, to be loved, rarely to return the favors.

(c) Our pastors are sinners in need of grace.

They aren’t holier than you. They aren’t more justified. They stand on the same level as their flock at the foot of the cross. But we expect more from them—and for the most part, rightfully so! But what they need is what we all need, and what we presumptuously expect from them often unidirectionally, which is a gracious consideration that overlooks faults, excuses mistakes, and forgives sin. We do not want our pastors to be constantly measuring us, holding up all the ways we fall short in their eyes. They undoubtedly wish we were more faithful, more zealous, more devoted to the Word and to each other. But we are loathe to reciprocate. Their falling short of our expectations and preferences becomes a cardinal sin. Their making decisions we wouldn’t make becomes un-overlookable.

The truth is, especially in this weird, polarized, hostile season, your pastor probably needs more grace than you think he does—or more than you think he deserves. Shepherds are also sheep. Which means sometimes they need to be carried.

During this Pastor Appreciation Month, one great gift maybe you could give your pastors, along with and after the gift cards and notes of appreciation and celebratory desserts, is a letting him off the hook and a having of his back. Exonerate him of your idiosyncratic charges.

Maybe this doesn’t apply to you. And that’s great. God bless you. But I know it applies to many, including many who don’t think it does. Just remember that sometimes leaders need to be carried, and the Lord has charged us with doing the carrying.

And pastor, if I’ve described your situation even approximately in this post, please know two things:

1. The Lord sees, and the Lord knows. You are not forgotten or forsaken by him.

2. You don’t have to be anyone’s martyr. Christ took our condemnation, and his work was sufficient. You don’t need to replicate it.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

— Hebrews 13:17