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Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 14

July 10, 2024

Why Balance is Bad for Pastors

When I was a little boy, we used to go to a park near our house to play at the playground. I didn’t think about it then, but a significant amount of the equipment–and the games we played on it–depended on balance. There was a wooden balance beam, a seesaw, and some of those little rocking toys on oversized springs. We would walk up the slides and across the monkey bars. We would shimmy up the poles on the swing set and sit on top or hang from it. We would play “ground is lava,” where you had to leap from equipment to equipment without touching the ground. The point of every game was don’t fall.

That often feels like the objective (see also: threat) of navigating ministry and family life. Except this “game” is high stakes, and falling doesn’t lead to laughter with friends or mere scraped knees. Instead of a light-hearted adventure, this feels like a tightrope walk across a chasm of open flames, and if we fall, everyone gets battered and burned–the church, our kids, our spouses, and ourselves.

I have come to realize, though, that trying to balance ministry and family life is just another name for pitting the two against each other. It is a paradigm for unnecessary conflict. It puts them at opposite ends of a seesaw, which means one is nearly always up while the other is necessarily down. We need a new way of thinking about the relationship between family and ministry than “balance.” Two foundational biblical realities can help us see a new paradigm.

1. A Pastor’s Primary Responsibility Is to His Family

From the first chapters of the Bible, we see God’s design for family and his valuing of families. We see this in the design for marriage and the gift of children. He calls children to honor their parents in the Decalogue (Ten Commandments). We see it in the commending and honoring of Jesus by his Father– “This is my beloved son” (Matthew 3:17, Matthew 17:5). God’s foundational design for humanity was the family, and his primary call to any parent was to prioritize the care and shepherding of their family. This is especially significant because family is the paradigm God uses to help us understand the church and not the other way around. So, while it is tempting for a pastor to think we are primarily responsible to the church, that is not God’s set of priorities or his paradigm. If he has given us a wife and kids, we are to care for them above all.

In isolation, that last sentence seems to pit the ministry against the family–like we are to pick our family over the church. In an unhealthy, dysfunctional context, that is true. But in a gospel-reflecting, healthy context, we need not make that choice because . . .

2. The Church Is a Family

Throughout the Bible, God’s idea of family extends far beyond biology. Something more defines our closest, most meaningful relationships: Jesus Christ. Jesus himself said, “Who are my mother and my brothers? . . . whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:33, 35) When His disciples ask Him to teach them to pray, Jesus says, “When you pray, say, our Father . . .” Do you see what Jesus is saying in these two brief exchanges? He is expanding and defining what it truly means to be family to those who faithfully walk with Him. “Family” is not a mere metaphor or simile to help us understand the church. The Bible doesn’t say the church is like a family; it says we are family. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are children of God. Mark 10:29-30 explains what that means for us:

Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel,who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”

These two biblical realities reframe everything for a pastor. We no longer need to see family on one side and church on the other. Rather, we should be able to see our family as part of the church and our church as part of our family. Instead of thinking, “How do I protect my family from the burdens of ministry?” we should be thinking, “How can I help my family love the church we are part of?” Meeting with a member is not a “task” any more than a conversation with your son or daughter is. An elders meeting is not a work meeting but a conversation among “parents” of the church family.

This may sound idealized and even impossible to many people in ministry, but it doesn’t have to be. Developing this kind of relationship with the church and with your family may not be easy (especially if there is a significant amount of dysfunction right now), but it is possible. And it is necessary for your joy, your family’s, and your church’s. Here are four steps you can take to foster this kind of relationship.

Speak to your family of meetings, whether with members or elders or whomever, as relational, not as tasks. While there might be an agenda and tasks to accomplish through these meetings, they are gatherings with brothers and sisters in Christ.Exercise discernment about what ministerial hardships you bring home. You want your family to be able to walk into church with a sense of participation and belonging, not with trepidation, suspicion, or looking for red flags.Open your home to the extent you are able. A church can’t be a family unless we eat together, laugh together, and have some sense of how each other lives.Learn to say “no” to requests from the congregation for the sake of your family. This might seem contradictory to the church being family, but in God’s design, there is a priority. A church member asking you to coffee cannot take precedence over your daughter in crisis or your son’s baseball game. By prioritizing your nuclear family, you contribute to their joy in the church and the church’s respect for them.

Balance cannot be what we pursue in ministry and family. In the end, that will lead to falling off one side or the other at the expense of everyone. Instead, let us pursue familial unity in Christ for the good of our families, churches, and ministries.

This article was originally posted at The Focused Pastor

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Published on July 10, 2024 04:53

July 9, 2024

Kindle Deals for July 9

Some Kindle deals worth your mind and money today:

Man in White: A Novel about the Apostle Paul by Johnny Cash – $2.99

Peace Like a River: A Novel by Leif Enger – $3.99

The Last of the Just by Andre Schwarz-Bart – $2.99

The Gospel of Our King: Bible, Worldview, and the Mission of Every Christian by Bruce Ashford & Heath Thomas – $3.99

The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine by A.W. Tozer – $1.99

Know Why You Believe (KNOW Series) by K. Scott Oliphint – $1.99

Describer’s Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations by David Grambs & Ellen Levine – $2.99

MY BOOKS:

The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life – $4.99

These links are Amazon affiliate links.

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Published on July 09, 2024 04:26

July 8, 2024

Praise the Lord

“Praise the Lord, O my soul” (Psalm 146:1)

Where does praise come from? Most of the time, it’s a response to something that brings us joy. I praise the beauty of my wife or the efforts of my children. We burst forth in praise when a musician plays a magnificent solo, or an athlete makes a highlight play. And in each of these instances, we don’t even really decide to praise–we just respond.

But our hearts don’t react to God nearly so naturally or joyfully. Because of our sinful natures, praising God often feels unnatural. This is why we need the words of Psalm 146:1 so much:


Praise the Lord!


Praise the Lord, O my soul!


Who is the psalmist talking to? Himself! He is reminding himself, commanding himself, to do what is absolutely right but doesn’t come naturally. But this isn’t a mantra or a gritting-his-teeth force-of-will thing. He goes on to remind himself whyGod is worthy of praise: he is our helper, he is creator, he is just, he is generous, he is merciful, he is a rescuer, he cares for the lowly, and he will reign forever.

We need this example because our hearts are slow to praise God. First, remind yourself to praise. Then remember all the reasons God is worthy of praise. Then you will be ready to respond in praise.

I originally wrote this post for my church, Immanuel Nashville, in our Daily Pulse email. If you want encouragement from God’s word delivered Monday thru Friday to your inbox, I encourage you to subscribe! 

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Published on July 08, 2024 04:59

July 1, 2024

He Who is In You

“He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

Sometimes doesn’t it feel like the darkness is closing in, like the world is too evil to handle? There is so much injustice, so much anger, so much division, and so much violence.  It all feels oppressive and heavy. It really is too much for us. We weren’t made to handle this much awareness of this much crisis. Friends, this is when we must remember and cling to these words from 1 John 4:4: “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

Satan is the prince of this world, and he does wreak havoc. He is far more powerful than you or me. He is full of hate and wants to see evil and darkness thrive. So why do we not fear and tremble? Because of who is in us, the Spirit of God! He is the very presence and power of Jesus Christ in you and me. And Christ is Lord of all. He is infinitely greater than Satan and all his forces.

Jesus already won the war, but Satan is still scrapping and fighting. He is on borrowed time and is no match for the victorious King who dwells in every believer. What an assurance for all who follow Jesus! In the words of Martin Luther:


The Prince of Darkness grim,


We tremble not for him;


His rage we can endure,


For lo! his doom is sure,


One little word shall fell him.


I originally wrote this post for my church, Immanuel Nashville, in our Daily Pulse email. If you want encouragement from God’s word delivered Monday thru Friday to your inbox, I encourage you to subscribe! 

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Published on July 01, 2024 05:13

June 28, 2024

3 Things I like This Week – June 28

Each week (give or take one or two here and there) I share three things I like – It could be a book, a movie, a podcast, an album, a photo, an article, a restaurant, a food item, a beverage, or anything else I simply enjoy and think you might too. You can find a whole pile of things, especially books, I like and recommend HERE.

1. Quentin Walston’s “Retro Future” Album

I love Jazz. I love Jazz classics and Jazz standards. So to find a contemporary jazz musician who loves, respects, and can play the fire out of the classics and standards with respect for the masters is a delight. I accidentally stumbled across Quentin Walston on  Instagram (who says social media is all bad?) and immediately loved his posts. He is educational about how Jazz works. He highlights the particular styles and skills of genius musicians. He is a pianist, which happens to be my favorite jazz instrument. And he clearly loves the music. Now Walston has released an album of his own, mostly covering some standards and classics in homage to the greats. It is delightful. If you are a jazz fan you’ll appreciate it. If you are new to jazz it is a great jumping in point.

 

2. Bryce Harper’s Swing

Over my lifetimes as a baseball fan there have been a handful of players whose swings have captivated me with some combination of savagery, grace, force, and abandon: Alfonso Soriano, Nelson Cruz, Eric Davis, Mo Vaughn, and others. (Royce Lewis of my very own Minnesota Twins is vying for a place on this list too.) These aren’t the most graceful swings or technically perfect ones. They are to baseball swings what Mike Tyson was to boxing: ferocity, power, speed and wow. Today, the leader in the clubhouse is Bryce Harper. He isn’t my favorite player. I care nothing about the Phillies. But wow, that swing is the next in a long legacy of ferocious hammers.

 

3. Tolkien Audio Books Read by Andy Serkis

I am a white reformed Christian man, so theologically, genetically, culturally, and morally I am obliged to love The Lord of the Rings and other writings by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. And I truly do. I first encountered the hobbit as an audio book on cassette when I was in elementary school and immediately fell in love. I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time in middle school and many times since. I have even dabbled in other Tolkien lore (The Silmarillion, etc.), albeit with less enthusiasm or enjoyment. For decades the available audiobooks for Tolkien’s work were pretty awful–flat British narrator, tinny audio, and at points you could even hear pages turning and doors opening and closing. So when I heard that a new edition was being released with Andy Serkis as the narrator I was positively giddy. For those who don’t know, Serkis is the actor who so brilliantly played and voiced Gollum in the movies. He does a masterful job narrating,. voicing characters, and even bringing the admittedly long and cumbersome epic poems to life throughout The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, and even The Silmarillion. For any Tolkien fan these audiobooks are a must-have, and for anyone looking for a non-intimidating way to try out these books you have found it. 

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Published on June 28, 2024 04:46

June 27, 2024

30 Pieces of Writing Advice from C.S. Lewis

Whether you fell in love with C.S. Lewis through his Chronicles of Narnia, his collections of brilliant essays and radio addresses like The Weight of Glory or God in the Dock, or his numerous longer works it is undeniable that he was, unhyperbolically, one of the most brilliant thinkers and writers ever. He has shaped the minds and craft of innumerable Christian writers over the decades, and I number him among my greatest influences and inspirations. Here are 30 pieces of writing advice from the man himself, drawn from this wonderful collection, C.S. Lewis on Writing (and Writers). They are practical, inspiring, clever, and true–just as you would expect.

In writing don’t merely adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”: make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please, will you do your job for me?”

Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”: otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. 

Write about what really interests you . . .if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about.

The shocking truth is that, while insincerity may be fatal to good writing, sincerity, of itself, never taught anyone to write well. It is a moral virtue, not a literary talent.

The greatest cause of verbicide is the fact that most people are obviously more anxious to express their approval and disapproval of things than to describe them. 

Every thought can be expressed in a number of different ways: and style is the art of expressing a given thought in the most beautiful words and rhythms of words. . .thus by the power of style, what was nonsense becomes ineffably beautiful.

 A plague on these moderns scrambling for what they call originality–like men trying to lift themselves off the earth by pulling at their own braces: as if by shutting their eyes to the work of the masters they were likely to create new things themselves.

No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work’s sake, and what men call originality will come through.

What you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesn’t matter what we write (at least that is my view) at our age, so long as we write continually as well as we can.

Poetry most often communicates emotions, not directly, but by creating imaginatively the grounds for those emotions. It therefore communicates something more than emotion; only by means of that something more does it communicate the emotion at all.

The more abstract the subject, the more our language should avoid unnecessary  abstraction.

Adverse criticism should diagnose and exhibit faults, not abuse them.

Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago.

I am sure that some are born to write as trees are born to bear leaves: for these writing is a necessary mode of their own development. If the impulse to write survives the hope of success, then one is among these. If not, then the impulse was at best only pardonable vanity, and it will certainly disappear when the hope is withdrawn. 

It certainly is my opinion that a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then. 

Writing a book is much less like creation than it is like planting a garden or begetting a child: in all three cases we are only entering as one cause into a causal stream which works, so to speak, in its own way.

I don’t know what I mean until I see what I’ve said. In other words writing and thinking were a single process.

The re-reader is looking not for actual surprises (which can only come once) but for a certain surprisingness. The point has often been misunderstood. . .We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savor the real beauties. Till then, it is like wasting great wine on a ravenous natural thirst which merely wants cold wetness. The children understand this well when they ask for the same story over and over again, and in the same words. 

Great subjects do not make great poems; usually, indeed, the reverse.

The critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown-up because it is grown-up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish: these things are the mark childhood and adolescence. 

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. 

But surely arrested development consist not in refusing to lose old things but in failing to add new things? . . . A tree grows because it adds rings: a train doesn’t grow by leaving one station behind and puffing on to the next. 

It would be much truer to say that fairy land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his lifelong enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. This is a special kind of longing.

Since it is so likely that [children]  will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. 

I think it possible that by confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable. For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones: and the terrible figures are not merely terrible, but sublime. It would be nice of no little boy in bed, hearing, or thinking he hears, a sound, were ever at all frightened. But if he is going to be frightened, I think it better that he should think of giants and dragons than merely of burglars.

Whatever in art is not doing good is doing harm: no room for passengers. (In a good black-and-white drawing the areas of white paper are essential to the whole design, just as much as the lines. It is only in a child’s drawing that they’re merely blank paper.) 

Every sentence should be tested on the tongue, to make sure that the sound of it has the hardness or softness, the swiftness or languor, which the meaning of it calls for. 

It is very dangerous to write about a kind [of genre or style] you hate. Hatred obscures all distinctions. 

I have come to the conviction that if you cannot translate your thoughts into uneducated language, then your thoughts were confused. Power to translate is the test of having really understood one’s own meaning.

You waste on calling me a liar and a hypocrite  time you ought to have spent on refuting my position. Even if your main purpose was to gratify resentment, you have gone about it the wrong way. Any man would much rather be called names than proved wrong. 

 

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Published on June 27, 2024 05:51