Category: Exploring Church Ministry Blog

Renovation of the Heart

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            This past week, my wife and I enjoyed several days at our denomination’s annual meeting.  It was a wonderful time of worship, fellowship, making new friends, and discovering resources for church ministry.  Embedded into the time was, of course, the matter of business that goes into any kind of church or denominational apparatus.  At its best, church polity concerns itself with deep discernment, focused prayer, and intentional listening to God’s Spirit.  At its worst, church political structures clunk along with loud opinion-making, the dysfunction of personal agendas, and an inability to understand what others are truly saying.
 
            I appreciated the decorum of my denomination’s delegates and the leadership that went into ensuring that policy and procedure were carried out with decency and order.  Yet, as critically vital as church polity is in carrying out the business of the church, policies and procedures alone cannot bring a total transformation of life – only the Holy Spirit of God can do that.  As I sit and write today, a church shooting in South Carolina last night took the lives of nine black parishioners.  It seems clear that the tragedy was racially motivated.  Here is the point I am making:  even though an Emancipation Proclamation was passed in this country 150 years ago; even though Jim Crow laws have been upended; even though African Americans have equal access and opportunity according to the laws of this country; none of those laws, political triumphs, and policy making we have experienced in the United States has the ability to do a thorough renovating of any person’s heart from one of malicious bigot to benevolent citizen.
 
            We all desperately need faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to even begin addressing the profound brokenness of the human experience.  Apart from the Spirit, there will be individuals who continue in soul crushing stances of justifying their racism, excluding the LGBTQ community from their list of acquaintances, and insisting that their ideas are the only decent ones worth hearing. 
 
            Jesus preached his Sermon on the Mount in order to upend such proud thinking. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).  Only those who are spiritual beggars recognizing they have nothing to stand on in and of themselves are worthy of Christ’s righteousness.  In a world where pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps is hailed and validated, the biblical virtues of humility and meekness seem almost like concepts from some bygone era.  Yet, like a church building devastated by a tornado, until we can come to the end ourselves and admit how much our hearts are in chaos and need Jesus in the presence of the Holy Spirit, there will continue to be an endless stream of posturing and positioning to get what we want so that the other who seems so different from us will not get what they want or even need.  Indeed, there will be no mercy, purity, and peacemaking apart from identifying the deep depravity of our own hearts and inviting God to do an extreme makeover of our interior lives.
 

 

            While I applaud and laud every policy and law that turns the tide away from injustice and puts a death nail into systemic evil, I am realistic enough to discern that only the gospel of grace can bring human hearts in line with the kind of society that will truly be characterized by peace.  I hope that you will join me in praying for the shalom of God to takeover this broken world so that our hearts of stone are replaced by hearts of flesh by the Spirit who alone transforms both culture and church, society and self, law and life.  Soli Deo Gloria.

Do Not Lose Heart

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
We all face circumstances and seasons of life that stretch our faith and press the limits of what we can handle.  We have no promise from Scripture that we will avoid trouble.  Instead, Jesus promises trouble to his followers (John 15:18-20; 1 John 3:13; 2 Timothy 2:12).  The pressures of life can sometimes be so overwhelming that we might lapse into losing heart by either blaming ourselves for the adversity we experience and wish things were different, or by blaming others for our troubles and believing that if they would just get their act together all would be well with my soul.  No matter the source or nature of the problem, the church needs a point of focus to direct their troubled hearts. We all need to be reminded of the grace we possess in Jesus Christ.
 
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is both a spiritual and a physical reality.  If we believe this truth in our hearts we will be raised both spiritually and physically (Romans 10:9-10).  This faith in Christ gives shape to the hope that, although we might be experiencing the effects of mortality and the fall of humanity, we are, at the same time, being spiritually renewed day by day.  The very same afflictions that cause our bodies to degenerate and dispirit us are the means to achieving a glorious resurrected existence (2 Corinthians 4:13-18).  There cannot be the glory of spiritual and bodily resurrection without a shameful death.  The way of Jesus was to absorb the shame of the world’s violent ways on the cross so that we might be raised with him in his resurrection. 
 
However, this does not mean that the church will never experience difficulty in this present life.  In fact, daily spiritual renewal can and does happen through adverse circumstances.  There must be suffering before glory, both for Jesus and for us.  Just because we are saved does not mean we are inoculated from daily stress and pressure because it is the troubles of this life that teach us to trust in God and weans us from all that we have previously trusted in to deal with those troubles.
 
The truth of God using adversity and trouble in our lives begs several questions for each believer and every local church: 
 
Ø  Do we give inordinate attention to either the tangibly physical or the intangible spiritual? 
Ø  How does Christ’s resurrection impact us today? 
Ø  How do we interpret our earthly troubles? 
Ø  What place does faith in God have in our daily decisions? 
Ø  The older we get, are we being renewed in Christ? 
Ø  Does the Lord’s Table, as a tangible sign and seal of our intangible faith, shape our hope?
 
When I think of a person who is outwardly wasting away, yet inwardly being renewed, I think of Joni Eareckson Tada.  She has been a paraplegic for forty-five years after an accident as a teenager in which she dove into shallow water and broke her neck.  After the accident, lying in the hospital for months unable to move, she had completely lost heart to the point of being suicidal.  But she could not even kill herself since she could not physically move.  Finally, in her darkest moment she cried out to God with what she says to this day was the most significant prayer she ever prayed:  “Lord, if I can’t die, show me how to live.”  And he did.  Joni’s faith is as strong and robust as anyone’s, despite her infirmity and her handicaps.  She has learned to embrace her troubles as the means of growing her faith.
 
We cannot accept, cope, and transcend our troubles and afflictions if we do not acknowledge them.  They only have power over us for ill if we ignore them or put up a false front to hide them.  Paul was open with others about his life:  We do not want you to be uninformed about the hardships we suffered…. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.  Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.  But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).  Paul faced whippings and beatings, stoning and shipwreck, hunger and poverty, danger and trouble, not to mention all the pressures of his concern for all the churches he established.  Through it all Paul was transparent and named his troubles so he could apply the poultice of God’s grace to his afflictions.  It is our brokenness and not the pretension of having it all together that shows the grace of God to others.
 

 

Over and over again Paul described his life and ministry in apparent paradoxes:  strength in weakness; glory through shame; life through death; riches through poverty.  Although we experience the fallen nature of the world, God bends each situation for his own purposes so that what seems to be our downfall becomes the means to our spiritual renewal.  Every church is inherently paradoxical, a strange amalgam of victory and defeat, faith and doubt, full of sorrow and joy.  Let us all embrace this reality and allow God to use whatever means he so desires to shape his church for kingdom purposes.  Soli Deo Gloria.

Repentance as Worship

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Repentance is one of those big biblical words sometimes lost in the worship of God.  Yet, without repentance we would not be Christians and we would not be able to live fruitful lives following Jesus.  To repent of something simply means to change our minds and stop doing one thing, and start doing another.  In Holy Scripture, repentance means to stop sinning and start worshiping God.  Since true worship is a conversation with God in which we hear his revelation to us and we respond to him, repentance is a vital part of the Christian worship experience.  The nitty-gritty of repentance is to change our minds about trusting in things and people other than God, and start placing our complete faith in Christ alone.  The prophet Isaiah saw a vision of God in the temple, a self-revealing of the One true God that caused him to be completely unraveled with repentance (Isaiah 6:1-7).
 
Isaiah was reduced to nothing after seeing a vision of a holy God.  Humans cannot see God in his glory without seeing their sinful selves.  Isaiah’s response to God was not praise, but confession.  Show me a proud, self-centered, and arrogant person and I will show you a person who has not seen God (and will not see God unless recognition of personal sin is realized).
 
            Isaiah could not cleanse himself from his sin; he needed God to purge and purify him from his uncleanness.  In the same way, we need God to cleanse us.  The New Testament says that “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin… If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7, 9).
 
            In the Bible, when people saw God they were completely undone and saw their own sin and depravity for what it is.  When the Apostle Peter saw the Lord Jesus in his immensity and power through a miraculous catch of fish “he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man’” (Luke 5:8).  When the Apostle John had a vision of Jesus Christ in all his glory, and heard his voice, he fell at the Lord’s feet as though dead (Revelation 1:12-17).  When the prophet Ezekiel had a vision of God and saw the appearance of God’s glory, he fell facedown (Ezekiel 1:25-28).  Even Daniel, perhaps the most righteous prophet of all time, saw a vision of God in all his glory and fell prostrate with his face to the ground, totally overwhelmed with God’s holiness and human sinfulness (Daniel 8:15-18).
 
            There is so much sinfulness in the world and so much indifference in Christ’s Church today because people are not seeing God in his glory and his holiness.  If they did, they would be completely beside themselves and see sin’s foulness and degradation and repent from all the ways in which they have been apathetic and complacent in living their lives.  The world and the church need a fresh view of a holy God that only comes from meeting with God.
 
            We need to put ourselves in a position to see and hear God so that we can turn from all the obstacles that prevents us from experiencing Father, Son, and Spirit.  What hinders us from seeing God’s glory and hearing God’s voice is legion:  inattention to God’s Word and God’s creation that would cause a mindfulness to the Holy Spirit; intense, constant, and prolonged preoccupations and daydreams that prevents availability to the words and ways of Jesus; lack of sleep and good health habits that dulls the spiritual senses and prevents awareness of God; lack of spiritual practices and disciplines that would put us in a position to experience a vision of God.
 
            To put it bluntly:  we must repent of all the ways we do not pay attention to God.  God is calling but we do not hear him.  God is revealing himself but we do not see him. 
 
Ø  What, then, are we doing in our personal lives to put ourselves in a position to see and hear God?
Ø  In what ways are we corporately fostering a sense of the holy God? 
Ø  How does repentance fit into to our personal and corporate worship? 
Ø  Have we identified the things that grieve the heart of God so that we can repent of those things? 
Ø  What one action step will you take in response to this blog post?
 

 

            We serve a blessed holy triune God of Father, Son, and Spirit.  God has gone far out of his way to reach us so that we can participate in the dance of the Trinity.  May we all see a vision of God is his glory this Sunday and allow that scene to slay us so that we will have renewed fellowship with God in Christ through the power of the Spirit.  Amen.

Real Worship Changes Us

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            I am old enough to remember when there were no seat belt laws.  Back in the day, wearing a car seat belt was optional.  When mandatory belt laws came along, some folks did not like their freedom interrupted.  They felt “restrained” in more ways than one.  I had a few friends who felt like this, that is, until they were in car accidents that nearly did them in.  The experience of near death changed them in profound ways, not the least of which that they embraced wearing a seat belt every time behind the wheel of a car.
 
            The prophet Isaiah had the kind of experience that absolutely changed him to the core of his being.  He had a vision of God.  I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him were seraphs each with six wings:  With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.  And they were calling to one another:  “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke (Isaiah 6:1-4).
 
            Real worship changes us so that we are never the same again.  The essence of worship is the recognition and celebration of the triune God.  Worship is a relational rhythm between God and humans where God reveals himself and people respond.  Worship is an experience of seeing and hearing God in his self-revelation.
 
            Worshiping the triune God is to occur every day.  It is a lifestyle and not the result of one cleverly planned hour on Sunday.  The Jews of Isaiah’s day had drifted into going through the ritual motions of worship without having their hearts in it.  They had come to see worship more as a kind of rabbit’s foot in which, as long as they had regular temple attendance, they could do whatever they wanted with their lives outside the temple.  As a result, the people as a whole really never saw or heard God in their worship.  Indeed, it was not genuine worship at all.  Authentic worship of God does not have to do with the environment, the fellowship, or the music; true worship of the triune God comes down to a heart desire to see and hear God. 
 
If worship does not happen in the sanctuary in the way we think it should happen, it is because worship fails to occur in the daily routine of living.  Real worship is a life-changing encounter with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Real worship experiences God’s revelation and changes our view of him. 
 
            Isaiah saw a vision of God in his throne room.  It was a grand, majestic, and transcendent vision of a God who dominates the entire setting.  The train of God’s robe filled the temple.  This is Isaiah’s way of saying that the vision was really big.  If the train of his robe fills up the temple, then God himself is immense.  It is vital that we see the bigness of our God.  Gaining a vision of the hugeness of God is what causes our human problems to be seen as small. 
 
            Isaiah’s vision also included seeing seraphs.  Seraphs are angels with a job description to glorify God with ceaseless praise.  Their physical description symbolizes their function:  covering their face represents humility in God’s presence; covering their feet identifies it as holy ground; and flying signifies their work to do God’s will.  So, then, we have the seraphs having two-thirds wing power for worship, and one-third wing power for work.  If this is any kind of indication how God’s creatures are to conduct their lives, we as humans have a great deal of adjusting to do in order to accommodate the worship of God.
 
            The sound of worship that came from the seraphs was to proclaim God’s holiness.  Isaiah’s view of God changed as a result.  As he saw God’s glory, he saw God as much bigger than he had before.  Oftentimes European visitors who come to the United States really have no frame of reference to how spacious and large the geography of our country is.  They seem to have a notion that they can make day trips from the Mid-West to places like San Francisco, Houston, or New York City because where they live is much more geographically compact.  But once they get here they experience the land in all its glory and they gain an appreciation for the bigness of America. 
 

 

            Experiencing God in worship will and ought to transform our lives so that we are never the same again.  The church’s worship ministry must have as its ultimate purpose a life-changing encounter with Father, Son, and Spirit.  A proper liturgical movement will encourage seeing God in his immensity and foster a divine conversation with the people.  The measurement of knowing whether this takes place is whether people are renewed in the very depths of their souls.  After all, no one can see a vision of God and walk away unchanged.  Maybe we ought to have mandatory seat belt laws for church pews.