Author: Tim Ehrhardt

I'm just a common ordinary pastor, chaplain, father, grandfather, and dog owner who loves the smell of a genuine leather Bible and the aroma of its message. I'm on a quest to track down the best Bibles, how to best read and use them, and to discover the encouragement inside.

Theology That Makes a Difference

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14).  Every Sunday I have the privilege of proclaiming this wonderful benediction at the end of the worship service.  As believers in Jesus Christ, we do not serve a generic God, but acknowledge that all three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, exist together eternally.  This is important because our identity as Christians is wrapped up in God as the Trinity.  Our worship, our life together, and our mission are based in the understanding of the triune God.
 
In the Apostle Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthian church, his focus was on addressing the continuing problem of special interest groups creating divisions and factions within the church.  He wanted the congregation to know that such behavior is inconsistent with who God is.  Paul zeroed in on the fact that God in Christ has brought reconciliation not only between God and people, but between one another in the church.  So, Paul’s point in ending his epistle with this benediction was to promote reconciliation and unity within the church.  Grace, love, and fellowship are available to God’s people.  Just as there is unity and harmony within God himself, there is to be unity and harmony in the church.  Unity will be a practical reality only when the church receives grace, love, and fellowship and then chooses to give it to one another.
 
Our triune God wants us to not just know what these blessings are, but to experience them.  A Trinitarian understanding of God is not simply a doctrine to believe, but a powerful reality to be lived!  The virtues of grace, love, and fellowship are blessings to be received and blessings that are to be liberally thrown back out to people.  In this way God is glorified through his people.
 
God has created us in his image.  That image is the image of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  The way our triune God relates within himself in perfect love and fellowship is to be reflected in our own human relationships with one another.
 
Here are some implications of the Trinity for our relationships in the church and the world:
  1. We will regard everyone in the church as an equal.  People are people, period.  When we start referring to them other than that name of “person” we distance ourselves from them, i.e. “someone should do something” is the ultimate act of misnaming and removal from being active in people’s lives.
  2. We will have concern for other churches besides our own local church or ministry.  We will share our resources and help each other accomplish the mission of God.  Grace, love, and fellowship ought to happen between churches and ministries who share the common theological doctrine of the Trinity.
  3. We will treat each family member as important, i.e. avoiding terms like “black sheep” or being so upset that one doesn’t talk for years with a family member.  The same goes for the family of God.  God in Christ has reconciled us with the Spirit, helping us to make it a reality in our human relationships so that we really have no excuse to hold a grudge.
  4. We will treat all human beings with respect, dignity, and value, rather than with suspicion or for what they can do for us.

 

The unselfish love of the members of the Trinity spills over into love for God’s creatures, and, so, this received love ought to overflow into the lives of others.  This is precisely how God is glorified.  This is to be what we celebrate, and what we practice.  This is theology that makes a difference.  Soli Deo Gloria!  

Worship Jesus

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
We are to have, in the words of Pastor Eugene Peterson, a “long obedience in the same direction.”  We are to follow Jesus, counting the cost of being his disciple – having all of life infused with the love of God and the desire to follow him.  This is why worship is important, and worship must center in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We are to be long on the worship of Jesus.
 
            As believers in Jesus, we are “living stones” being built to form the temple of the Lord.  In our worship we are all like priests, carrying the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving into the presence of God.  As God’s holy people, we have been set apart and hewn into shape for the purpose of worshiping Jesus Christ.  Instead of offering the blood of bulls and goats, like the select group of the Old Testament priests did, Christians are all priests who now offer spiritual sacrifices because Jesus has taken care of the sin issue once for all.  We are to continually offer to God our worship of Christ, a holy life in grateful response to Jesus’ death on our behalf (1 Peter 2:4-10).
 
            Jesus Christ is our cornerstone, our center.  In our priority of worship, we are to allow God to build us into a community of faith that worships Jesus with lives dedicated to knowing him and making him known.  It really is all about Jesus.  An ancient prayer says:  Less of me, more of Jesus.
 
            Since the worship of Jesus is of such importance, let me offer a definition of worship so that we are all on the same page:  Worship is the expression of a relationship in which God the Father reveals himself and his love in Christ, and by his Holy Spirit gives grace, to which we respond in faith, gratitude, and obedience.  All of life, not just a Sunday worship service, is to be a daily rhythm of God’s revelation to us, and our response to God in faith, thanksgiving, and an obedient life.
 
            We exist for worship, and Christian worship is grounded in the triune God and centered in Christ.  Worship is the heart and life response to the revelation of God in Christ.  Therefore, genuine encounters and experiences of God’s revelation to us and our response to that gracious revealing cannot help but form us into the disciples of Jesus that God wants us to be.
 
            Stuart Briscoe, author and long-time pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin told the following story:  “Many years ago, during the Cold War, I traveled to Poland for several weeks of itinerant ministry. One winter day my sponsors drove me in the dead of night to the middle of nowhere. I walked into a dilapidated building crammed with one hundred young people. I realized it was a unique opportunity.  Through an interpreter I preached on maintaining Christ as the center of our lives as Christians. Ten minutes into my message, the lights went out. Pitch black.  My interpreter urged me to keep talking. Unable to see my notes or read my Bible, I continued. After I had preached in the dark for twenty minutes, the lights suddenly blinked on, and what I saw startled me: everyone was on their knees, and they remained there for the rest of my message.  The next day I commented on this to one man, and he said, ‘After you left, we stayed on our knees most of the night. We wanted to make sure we were remaining in Christ and centering our lives in him.”
 
            God is real, and he is really present with us.  God is not just some third party listening in to our prayers and our meetings.  Worship is an occasion for us to experience God’s presence and power, and to be formed into the followers of Jesus he wants us to be. 
 
            Since Jesus is the center of our worship, that means that worship does not center in a style or an outcome.  We too often evaluate a worship service on whether or not it “worked” or if it emotionally “moved” the congregation through a particular musical or liturgical style.  When worship is designed for congregational taste and preference, Jesus Christ, as the center of worship, may easily be lost.  Worship that is pleasing to God has Christ as the center and object of its faith and response.  That means that worship that is pleasing to God can be offered in many different styles.  Worship itself is to be evaluated not by the satisfaction of personal preference but by its acceptance by God as pleasing and honoring to him.  And what is pleasing and honoring to God is worship that has Jesus as the cornerstone of our faith.  If Jesus ever gets pushed to the margins of worship, it doesn’t matter what style we worship in because then it ceases to be Christian worship.
 
            Since Jesus is the center of our worship, a particular worship gathering of people changes from more than just an obligation to a meeting with God himself.  Worship then becomes less about gaining truth, and more about letting Jesus as the truth gain us.  The more we pay attention to the presence of Jesus Christ through the songs, prayers, preaching, and Scripture, the more we will experience the centrality and power of God.  And when we experience Jesus, we cannot help but capture his heart and passion for the world.  Jesus becomes very precious to us when we align ourselves to him as the cornerstone of our faith and worship.
 
            Romans 12:1 says:  Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.  We center our lives on Jesus not just on Sunday morning, but daily.  Pleasing worship is not confined to a particular person or priest performing worship, but is the responsibility and the privilege of every believer.  We are embodied beings; we speak through vocal chords; we move with our legs; we act with our arms; we cannot communicate nor do the will of God apart from our bodies. 
 
            Jesus, as the center of our worship, means that acceptable worship is not just for the sanctuary; it is for daily living and communicating.  It is in the home, the neighborhood, and the marketplace that discipleship will prove itself.  It is in the quality of everyday relationships that God finds worship that is set apart and pleasing to him.
 
            A few questions, it seems to me, need to be asked:  1) Is Jesus the center of your life (not just part of it, but the chief cornerstone)?  2) How do you, or will you, live a life of worship with Jesus as the cornerstone of your life?  3) Do you know of what value Jesus really is?
 

 

            Jesus is much too precious of a cornerstone to be left in a church building.  Let God drill deep into your life and show you the infinite value of Jesus Christ.  Explore him.  Worship him.  Worship him through offering your very life to him.  Shape your life around him.  Center yourself completely in Jesus and discover just how precious he is.  Let your love be long on Jesus Christ.

Choosing Capable Leaders

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry Blog1 Comment
 
 
Maybe it should go without saying that Jesus himself is to form everything we do in the church. Nevertheless, it needs to be said because one bad apple in a church leadership position can spoil the whole bushel of leaders.  This is why character formation is at the core of being a church leader – because the elder’s ministry of oversight, shepherding, and discernment of God’s will comes from the inner resources of knowing Christ; and a deacon’s ministry of outreach and service comes from a close walk of faith with Jesus.  In a very real sense, elders and deacons are to manifest or reveal Jesus to the congregation.  It is a high calling.  In the New Testament text, 1 Timothy 3, Paul gave to the Church seven requirements of Christian morality and seven requirements of a daily walk for leaders.  These fourteen requirements are the basis for those who serve the church so that the responsibility of the church’s mission might be kept on track of bringing people to Jesus.  These requirements for leaders arise first and foremost from their experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.
 
            The first set of seven has to do with morality.  A church leader is to 1) have a good reputation; 2) be completely faithful and devoted in the marriage relationship (by the way, this doesn’t mean that a church leader must be married, because then even Jesus wouldn’t qualify as a church leader); 3) be clear-minded or even-keeled (consistent); 4) self-controlled (not trying to control others); 5) possessing moral courage, that is, specifically to speak truth with grace and not take the coward’s way of complaining; 6) a friend of strangers (hospitality quite literally means love of the stranger); and, 7) able to impart instruction to others, or, in other words, able to communicate truth in such a way that helps people and builds them up and does not tear them down in the Christian life.  These seven requirements are possible because the leader has witnessed Jesus personally working in his or her life.
 
            The second set of seven has to do with the conduct of the person in everyday life.  A church leader is to:  1) not be a drunk; 2) not given to being angry and constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder about something he doesn’t like (respectable); 3) gentle; 4) not always picking a fight about something; 5) not thinking about the all-mighty dollar in every decision; 6) having a caring approach to family that results in loving relationships with kids, because after all, rules without relationship will lead to rebellion not only in the family but in the church, as well; and 7) the leader must not be a beginner in the faith, but have some proven maturity in order to handle the job well so that those on the outside of the church may see that there is something wonderfully different about the way things are handled and done among those who profess Jesus Christ.
 
            In addition to this, we have seven related requirements for deacons:  1) dignified in every kind of relation (worthy of respect); 2) not double-tongued, saying one thing to one person and something different to another (sincere); 3) practicing moderation when it comes to drinking; 4) not greedy; 5) keeping very close to faith in Christ with a pure heart; 6) able to handle the eyes of everybody in the church on them when they serve without falling apart; and 7) also holding to the vows of marriage faithfully and nurturing kids well.
 
            God calls and sets apart individuals for his service so that he might reveal and manifest his presence among his people.  Jesus Christ wants his church to be built up through faithful service.  A few final observations:  notice that nowhere in this passage or in the New Testament is there found that it is the main requirement of a church leader to listen to complaints and whining.  The ancient Israelites took quite a beating from God for being a community of grumblers.  Philippians 2:14 flatly says Do everything without complaining or arguing.  Neither will you find that the church operates just like an American form of democracy.  Instead of church leaders being representatives of the people to do their will, church leaders are rather representatives of God to the people so that God’s will is done in all things.  So, then, prayer is a major work for elders; and, outreach a major work of deacons because this work is primarily the work of God and only secondarily the work of people.
 

 

            So, in selecting church leaders, churches have a biblical imperative to not just arm-twist anyone who will respond, but choose men and women of God whom are people of high integrity, on the path of spiritual maturity and pursuing Jesus Christ.  May God be glorified, Jesus followed, and the Spirit unleashed.

Following Jesus

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
            

 

 
           When he was on this earth, Jesus made it clear to the large crowds of people following him that a life of being a disciple is to be of highest importance to us – it is why the church exists.  People are to discover what this kind of life entails, and are to come to a decision to follow Jesus in every area of life with everything they have.
 
            Discipleship, following Jesus, requires radical obedience.  Love of family must not stand in the way.  Jesus said we are to ‘hate’ family and even self (Luke 14:25-27).  In Western culture we typically use the terms ‘hate’ and ‘love’ as descriptions of our emotions or feelings.  But in the Bible, love and hate are primarily terms of allegiance or priority.  In other words Jesus was saying that our primary loyalty must clearly lie with following him over every earthly relationship.  To follow Jesus means that we will not use family responsibilities to avoid obeying Christ, or use other loyalties and commitments to work or school as a reason to put our cross down.  Recently, I saw a 2007 study by the Barna Group which found that seven out of ten adult Christians in America chose their earthly family over their heavenly Father when asked to choose the most important relationship to them.
 
            Here’s the deal:  What is demanded by Jesus is that in this life with all its competing loyalties, the call of Jesus to discipleship not only takes precedence, but re-defines all the other loyalties we have.  This call involves some level of detachment and turning away from things in order to pursue following Jesus.  All of life is to be infused with being a disciple of Jesus.  If we insist on making other commitments and loyalties as high a priority as following Jesus, we will find ourselves in a pickle.  Several years ago I took a trip with some other church leaders into the Canadian wilderness.  We were so far out in the boonies that we needed special first aid training because if someone got hurt it would be hours before help could come.  We canoed the lakes, and carried our backpacks and canoes between lakes for an entire week.  Whatever we took with us, we had to carry.  Some people thought they needed all kinds of clothes and other accessories.  Not far into the week, they quickly began to leave things along the trail and learned, over time, to see that what they thought was important in their life wasn’t really important to what they were doing.
 
            We must get back to basics and do what is essential as Christians and churches.  And what is of most importance is following Jesus.  An un-salty disciple is worthless.  Making a profession of Christ without counting the cost is foolish.  Discipleship was never designed to be easy; it was intended to be a public display that Jesus is my Savior and Lord in every area of my life.  What this means is that we will struggle with such questions as:  How do I be a faithful follower of Jesus in my family?  How do I be a disciple, and do the work of discipleship at my job?  How do I practice following Jesus in my neighborhood, and everywhere I go?
 
            If we do not plan to follow Jesus at home and in the world, we won’t, because all kinds of competing loyalties will take over if we are not intentional about being disciples, and making disciples.  Everything and everyone is to take a back seat to Jesus, who is to be our primary loyalty.  Jesus used two examples to illustrate that we need to count the cost of discipleship (Luke 14:28-33).  In the first, a builder makes a plan and should ensure that he has enough money and materials to complete the entire structure.  Jesus was saying that we must take stock to finish what we have started; if we started well with Christ, we need to do whatever it takes to finish well as a disciple of Jesus. 
 
What will we do when the going is difficult?  Thomas a Kempis, in his classic work, The Imitation of Christ, said this:  “Jesus has many who love his kingdom in heaven, but few who bear his cross.  He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering.  He finds many to share his feast, but few his fasting.  All desire to rejoice with him, but few are willing to suffer for his sake.  Many follow Jesus to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the cup of his passion.  Many admire his miracles, but few follow him in the humiliation of the cross.”  Jesus said:  “Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).
 
 
 
            We will never know real joy until we give up pursuing happiness; until we discover that to live is to die, we will tend to be frustrated with our circumstances and other people.  Jesus’ second illustration is of a king and war.  The king makes a battle plan, and if he thinks he cannot defeat the opposing army, he wisely seeks a peace treaty.  What we must understand is that no one is going to oppose God and win, so it is best to make peace with him.  Rather than trying to fit Jesus into our calendar, we are to let our calendar fill out around the center of following Jesus.  If we insist we are too busy for prayer; do not have time for daily reading of the Scriptures; for loving one another; for making disciples (which requires much time and effort), then we have lost our way and must listen to this call of Jesus to be his disciple.
 
            So, what shall we do?  Imagine that in our heart is a big conference room: a big table, leather chairs, coffee, bottled water, and a whiteboard. A committee sits around the table in your heart. There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, and others. The committee is arguing and debating and voting, constantly agitated and upset. Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we’re this way because we’re so busy with many responsibilities. But the truth is that we’re just divided, unfocused, hesitant, and not free.  One way to deal with this situation is to invite Jesus onto the committee. Give him a vote, too. But then he becomes just one more complication. But a better way is to say to Jesus, “My life isn’t working. Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. I am your responsibility now. Please run my whole life for me.”  Being a disciple of Christ is not just adding Jesus; it is also subtracting the idols that are in my heart. 
 

 

            Following Jesus is not for the faint of heart; yet it is for those who humbly acknowledge that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  Making disciples is the church’s mission.  Let’s give Jesus his due:  our very lives.