How To Be the Church When the Pastor Can’t Be the Pastor

January 13, 2016 By revheff in Pastoral Ministry Tags: church, community, elders, Gifts, pastoral ministry, service, trials 3 Comments

Just Jawful

Ever since my jaw fracture forced me to the pastoral sidelines, I’ve given some thought to this question. How can a pastor’s extended absence from his church result in their greater good? In hopes the saints at OGC might actually thrive, not just survive, my health hiatus, I offer these Scripture verses as essential principles for being the church when the pastor can’t be the pastor:

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases (Psalm 115:3). Stay anchored in the sovereignty of God. My mandible misery is no accident. His plan for His church to soldier on for the time being without me is precisely that–His plan.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28). This season–8 hour surgery, week-long hospital stay, and all the rest of it–abounds with good in it for me, my bride, as well as my church. For example, some things God can only do in his servant by laying him out. He can get your attention on the bench in ways you never realize in the game. The benefits of the trial accumulate by the day for me. Keep your eyes open similarly for yourself.
For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls (1 Pet. 2:25). Just like I remind everybody on day one of each Discover OGC membership class–I am NOT the senior pastor; Jesus is. Only one pastor holds the title “Chief Shepherd.” And He has promised never to leave us or forsake us. Church, you always have Jesus.
So I exhort the elders among you (1 Pet. 5:1a, emphasis added). This balances number 3. God does give to His church pastors and teachers to shepherd them (1 Pet. 5:2-3). Sometimes we need Jesus with skin on. But in wisdom He rests the pastoral load on a plurality of elders. You almost always find the word in the plural form in the New Testament. No church benefits by relying excessively on one leader. God has plans through my leave both to grow our other elders in their ministries and increase your legitimate reliance on their pastoral role in your life.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12). This piggybacks on number 4. Pastors don’t exist just to tend the saints’ spiritual needs; they have a calling to equip the saints for spiritual ministry. Church, the body of OGC needs every single one of you more than ever! Are you in the game or riding the pines on the sideline (assuming you have a choice)? Where are you bringing your spiritual gift(s) to bear on others in community (1 Pet. 4:10-11)? When you see a need in the body, are you asking the Lord how you possibly might be the one to meet it?
For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance (Phil. 1:19). I can think of no better place to end. My circumstances differ from Paul’s to be sure. But my need for your prayers and Jesus’ help doesn’t. May our heightened sense of need in this hard providence at the outset of 2016 cause us to seek His face like never before.

Lord willing, Jesus plans to restore me to the work at Orlando Grace before too long.

I look forward to coming back with a better-than-ever jaw and church to go with it. And that largely because you have been the church when this pastor could not be your pastor.

Sorrows and Preaching

December 28, 2015 By revheff in Trials Tags: pastoral ministry, suffering 2 Comments

If the good people of Orlando Grace Church can possibly summon the patience to wait AGAIN for this pastor to struggle through what feels like his thousandth sorrow, I hope eventually to return to them a better preacher and pastor. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

For my readers not enamored by the likes of D.A. Carson or Tim Keller or even my beloved John Piper, I ask your indulgence through viewing this video. I wept and prayed as I watched.

Why Protestant Pastors Need a Sabbath

March 23, 2015 By revheff in Pastoral Ministry Tags: obesity, pastoral ministry, rest, Sabbath Leave a comment

Apparently pastors are growing in the wrong way.

This from the current issue of Christianity Today:

A third of US Protestant pastors (34%) are now obese—but not because of church potlucks. According to new research by Baylor University sociologists, it’s because pastors are stressed and need to take a Sabbath. It’s especially true for bivocational pastors, who are nearly twice as likely as other pastors to be obese, and almost guaranteed to be obese—even with average levels of stress, hours, staffing, and exercise—without a support group.

For more of this article click here.

Makes me glad I’m not bivocational, by God’s grace, AND that religiously I take Fridays off, except for emergencies, AND that my elders granted me a sabbatical last year. I’ve got enough trouble keeping off the pounds without the risk of insufficient rest.

Are you looking out for your pastor in this way?

One Word Prayer Requests of Pastors

October 28, 2014 By revheff in prayer Tags: encouragement, pastoral ministry, prayer 2 Comments

Earlier today I wondered how I could reach out to encourage some of my pastoral counterparts fighting the good fight (1 Tim. 6:12). The trick with this kind of thing comes with realizing that pastors fall into the crazy busy category. None of us relish the idea of getting spam-like texts, n0 matter how well intentioned.

So the Lord gave me what I think amounted to a pretty sweet idea. I texted this to a bunch of guys:

One word from you please? Pray for my _________________ .

So far I have received the following in reply:

words
faith
daughter
inner being (OK, cut us some slack. Pastor-wordsmiths struggle with brevity, this one included)
exercise
heart (spiritually speaking)
children (painful story attached to this one)
efficiency
niece (getting married)
wisdom (um, that would be mine)

Not a huge sample by any means. But, I would suggest we can distill some takeaways from it for building a prayer list for our pastors.

One, pray for our hearts. Jeremiah 17:9 warns us of their default condition. We may know that better than most as we day-in and day-out attempt to minister to others’ hearts. Unbelief can plague our dispositions more than we care to admit.

Two, pray for our families, immediate and extended. Before we are shepherds to our flocks, we are shepherds to our households. Your pastor may carry greater burdens than you ever imagined about the state of his marriage and the welfare of his children.

Three, pray for our health. I battle constantly the temptation to sacrifice self-care, like exercise, on the altar of pastoral demands. Some of that comes from my struggle with ministry idolatry, but not all of it. Most of us labor under excessive demands, feeling the weight of the responsibility upon us. Neglecting things like walking, running, and working out in some way over time can easily lead to weight of another kind.

Fourth, pray for our ministries. We want to be efficient/effective on every front. We need massive doses of wisdom for pastoral care dilemmas that occasionally boggle the mind and seemingly defy solution. We long to bring words of life in preaching, teaching, and shepherding that flow like a fountain of life in the lives of our people (Prov. 10:11).

Bottom line? “Brothers and sisters, pray for us” (1 Thess. 5:25).

Leading With Love

July 24, 2014 By revheff in Leadership Tags: leadership, love, pastoral ministry, teaching Leave a comment

leading with love

The Lord has me camped out of late in Alexander Strauch’s exposition of 1 Corinthians 13 as it applies to the realm of leadership in the local church. All I can say is very convicting. I have a long way to go in living out the law of love in the stewardship that is pastoral ministry. For a PDF version of the book click here.

This gem at the end of chapter one will give an idea of how close things hit to home:

A Modern Paraphrase

Picturing himself as the most extraordinary teacher or leader
to ever live, Paul would say:

If I were the most gifted communicator to ever preach,
so that millions of people were moved by my oratory,
but didn’t have love, I would be an annoying, empty wind-bag
before God and people.

If I had the most charismatic personality, so that
everyone was drawn to me like a powerful magnet, but
didn’t have Christlike love, I would be a phony, a dud.

If I were the greatest visionary leader the church has ever heard,
but didn’t have love, I would be misguided and lost.

If I were the bestselling author on theology and church growth,
but didn’t have love, I would be an empty-headed failure.

If I sacrificially gave all my waking hours to discipling
future leaders, but did it without love,
I would be a false guide and model.

The scary thing is that reading something like this usually guarantees testing in the area for the purpose of growth.

Prayers are definitely appreciated.

A Shepherd’s Dilemma

July 22, 2014 By revheff in Ecclesiology Tags: church, church membership, pastoral ministry, shepherding Leave a comment

Frankly, it’s hard for any pastor, I suspect, to zero in on only one. Lots of things perplex, challenge, disturb, perhaps even dismay a shepherd of God’s sheep. The one I feel the most more than not is trying to shepherd those with whom I can’t seem to make contact.

Proverbs 27:23 exhorts, “Know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds.” The writer’s main application may well pertain to literal diligence on the farm, but I dare say any pastor worth his salt will make the connection that he should familiarize himself as well as he can with the sheep of his pasture for their welfare. Add Hebrews 13:17 to the equation, the sobering truth that undershepherds ultimately will give an account to the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4) for those entrusted to their charge, then you have a pretty good idea how distressing it can be for someone who takes such a thing seriously to lose touch with the lambs in his fold, many or few.

As self-serving as it may seem, here is my plea to sheep everywhere to help ease this dilemma of shepherds everywhere when it comes to their obligation to feed, tend, know, and care.

One, become a member of your local church. Without your informed consent, your willing submission to the pastoral authority in your church, your shepherd has no ecclesiastical ground upon which to move into your life with the array of responsibilities with which he is charged, especially your discipline if necessary. This is why Hebrews 13:17 exhorts believers to submit and obey. You acknowledge that some ecclesiastical authority, somewhere, has your permission to keep watch and even intervene with discipline if you stray and that they are indeed responsible before God to do that. Remember, you cannot be put out of that to which you don’t belong (see 1 Cor. 5).

Two, don’t forsake the assembling of the saints together on the Lord’s Day (Heb. 10:24-25). It’s not the only way shepherds track sheep, but it’s a primary and significant way. We look to see who is hanging around the ordinary means of grace each Sunday that is the preached word and the Table. By the way, you can help your shepherd a lot if you will communicate with him in advance when you are going to be on vacation or away from the assembly for any other reason so that he need not be concerned about whether or not your absence means you have fallen into the ditch somewhere and that he needs to come with his crook to help yank you out of there.

Three, if you become discontent with your church and decide to go searching for a different sheep pen, do your present shepherd who cares about your welfare the favor of letting him know. Give him a heads up. I get that this is hard. You don’t want to hurt his feelings. You just want to slip quietly away. All I can tell you is that my default response when anyone extends to me the courtesy to communicate in this fashion is this: “Thank you for loving me well by cluing me in. You just made my mission-impossible job a bit easier.”

Four, don’s stay in limbo too long and as soon as you can take the church you are leaving off the hook for your care by resigning your membership and/or preferably transferring it to your next place of community. I’m not saying every church cares about this kind of record keeping, though I believe it should. But it helps your shepherd and it protects your soul if you make a clean and appropriately timely and sooner-rather-than later shift and inform the necessary parties affected.

My personal philosophy of people moving from church-to-church boils down to this: bless and release – EXCEPT if someone is running from sin or conflict. In those cases the same sin and the same conflict is waiting for you in greener pastures just in different garb. Deal with your stuff where you are and then if still lead, get a move on, little lamb.

And if you don’t know how to do that, ask your shepherd for help. If he can’t or won’t, you should probably leave that pen anyway.

A Sabbath Rest

April 6, 2014 By revheff in Spiritual Life Tags: pastoral ministry, rest, restoration, sabbatical Leave a comment

After His apostles completed a particularly demanding season of ministry, Jesus prescribed the following: “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). Since my cancer hiatus in 2005, by God’s grace, I’ve continued to minister at OGC for another eight years now. Toward the end of 2013, after healthy discussion and diligent prayer, the elders agreed that the Lord would have me take a sabbatical in 2014. We discussed this as part of the agenda in our 2014 annual congregational meeting last February. Not everyone could attend that meeting so I chose to make this the subject of my weekly column in the enews some time ago. However I am finding that some still have questions about this so I am posting it as well on my blog. Since we plan to leave, Lord willing, in two weeks time, the review may be helpful whether you’ve heard or not.

We’ve agreed to a six week Sabbath rest from ministry for me and Nancy to which we will tack on two weeks of regular annual vacation. My last Sunday in the pulpit will be April 20, Easter Sunday. Lord willing, I will return to the pulpit again on June 22. For the first six of those eight weeks we plan to retreat to our desolate refuge in Idaho, although we plan about a ten day road trip to get there, visiting some places and friends we haven’t seen for a long time. The elders want me to get all the rest and refreshment I can while out of pocket. For the last two weeks of the time I will participate in an annual pastoral retreat called the Spurgeon Sabbatical hosted by Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Boston. There I will join a number of other pastors from around the country for prayer, worship, instruction, dialogue, and further rest.

We felt led to make this provision for me, not just for rest after especially these past three years of demanding ministry, but also as an investment in the future. I hope, Lord willing, to hang around OGC for a good long time to come. Please pray with us that the Lord will do a work of spiritual inspiration and physical rejuvenation that will pay mega dividends in the future. Frankly, though we decided this well before the loss of our son, the additional demand grief has brought to our lives makes the prospect of such a season of rest even more welcome.

When Words Don’t Fail

February 24, 2014 By revheff in Grief Tags: comfort, death, grief, loss, pastoral ministry Leave a comment

I consider Nancy and me fortunate in more ways than one. In this season of loss, there is one notable mercy that stands out. Our comforters in grief, by and large, have excelled. None of Job’s tribe here. More than not in our pain we have heard “I don’t know what to say.” To which I typically reply, “That alone brings me comfort, because words truly fail in the travail of grief.” Others who have walked this path have often told me a different story. I hurt for them.

However, sometimes words don’t fail. Proverbs 25:11 moments do happen. I experienced that this morning when I opened my Facebook page. I found an “apple of gold in settings of silver” on my wall. It comes from a dear brother whom I miss greatly. He too belongs to the unenviable fraternity of those who have buried a child – in his case, more than one. It was my privilege to minister to him and his bride in their multiple losses. Today he returned the favor way beyond anything I ever offered in the way of comfort to him. Here is what he wrote:

I’m reading a biography of Samuel Adams, and today I read of the passing of his first father-in-law, the Reverend Samuel Checkley, in December 1769, after 50 years of ministry. Checkley’s wife had recently died and 11 of his 12 children predeceased him. Some excerpts from his obituary made me think of you:

“He was uncommonly gifted in prayer. His voice was very pleasant, and his delivery without affectation, natural and graceful. His preaching also was serious, affecting, scriptural, plain and useful. His piety was deep and effectual, his religion hearty, and his devotion unaffected and fervent.” It noted that of Checkley’s twelve children, only one survived him, and said that those losses and the death of his wife “greatly affected his spirits, and impaired his constitution, tho’ he bore up under them all with very exemplary patience and christian resignation.”

His successor in the pulpit, Penuel Bowen, preached the following Sunday that Checkley “really esteemed religion the only support under the sorrows and afflictions of life, (a large share of which he had,) and used it himself in this view; so he was abundant in recommending it to others for the same valuable purpose: his discourses were almost all in good measure filled with savory matter for the consolation of mourners, and the encouragement of those who were afflicted and cast down.”

Don’t misunderstand. When Bowen used the word “religion,” he did not mean empty formalism. He couldn’t possibly have commended self-saturated moralism. Legalism will NOT carry you through the valley of the shadow. Striving to perform a list of do’s-and-don’ts before God will leave you sadly wanting. Ministers of Bowen’s day used the word “religion” in the best sense of the term. He meant the gospel. Jesus is enough. More than enough. That’s true religion – hope set on the One who suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18).

If you pray for me at all, and I know that many of you do (thank you!), please pray that I imitate more thoroughly the faith of Samuel Checkley, as I continue to emerge from the hard providence of death at my doorstep.

John, you make me want to be a better pastor. Thank you.

Why All the Fuss About an Ordination?

January 15, 2014 By revheff in Ecclesiology Tags: church, ordination, pastoral ministry, shepherding Leave a comment

Call it fuss, call it hype, call it excitement, call it attention, call it what you will, this ordained pastor is jazzed about participating in setting apart another godly man for the ministry of the gospel this Sunday night.

Lord willing, on January 19, 2014, 6 PM at OGC, Kevin Scott Wilhoit will become Rev. Kevin Scott Wilhoit. This, I am convinced, is the biggest of deals deserving all the fuss, hype, attention, and excitement an entire church can give to it. This begs the question, of course, why is that the case?

I can think of at least three important reasons:

First, the ordaining of a man to the pastorate constitutes an answer to a high priority prayer request commanded by Jesus Himself. I refer, of course, to Matthew 9:35-38.

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

If anything suffers from a scarcity-of-resources dilemma it is the supply of godly ministers on hand for a plentiful spiritual harvest. That God has answered our prayers at OGC in giving us Kevin for these purposes warrants our ecstatic delight for the prospect of less harassed and helpless sheep in God’s church.

Second, the ordaining of a man to the pastorate recognizes the love and goodness of God to His church in gifting us with yet someone else capable of equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. Here, of course, I refer to Ephesians 4:11-12.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

Another ordained man in the pastoral ranks increases the likelihood that more of God’s people will acquire greater knowledge of God’s word and the discipleship training they need to function in such a way as to contribute to the edification of the church.

Third, the ordaining of a man to the pastorate delegates dreadfully serious and desperately necessary responsibilities to someone who acts on God’s behalf to care for those for which Jesus acquired ownership at the ultimate price. Now, of course, I refer to Acts 20:28-30 (a portion of the text selected by our guest speaker for the ordination service).

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.

Such things can keep me awake late into the night. Guide the flock. Guard the flock. Care for the church. What a massive responsibility! Who is competent for these things?

I can think of no other compliment I can pay to a man or credit I can give to God than this: if I myself were not a pastor entrusted with similar privileges and responsibilities at my own church, I would put myself and my family under the servant-shepherding authority of someone like the soon-to-be Rev. Kevin Wilhoit. And I would definitely count myself blessed to do so.

I wouldn’t miss the opportunity this Sunday night to celebrate with him what God has done in calling Him to serve Christ’s church even for a chance to spend an evening picking John Piper’s pastoral/theological brain. And some of you know just how big a deal that would be for me!

My prayer is you will share with me in the ordination fuss, hype, excitement, and attention this weekend.

And please don’t forget to bring a finger food to share for the reception.

What Kind of Assistant Pastor We Should Want

April 25, 2013 By revheff in Ecclesiology Tags: fear of God, pastoral ministry, selfishness, worship 2 Comments

I finished my Father’s Day message for this year today. I selected Psalm 112 for my text. The writer commands us to praise God for the extraordinary blessing of a man who fears the Lord. I call that kind of man an awestruck man. The man who fears the Lord lives moment-by-moment in a reverent awe of God that shapes everything he does.

As we prepare to interview on Saturday four men from our body for the assistant pastor of administration post opening this summer at OGC, we should concern ourselves with numerous issues related to character and skill, but none more than this one. Paul Tripp, in his book Dangerous Calling, explains:

Awe of God must dominate my ministry, because one of the central missional gifts of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to give people back their awe of God. A human being who is not living in a functional awe of God is a profoundly disadvantaged human being. He is off the rails, trying to propel the train of his life in a meadow, and he may not even know it. The spiritual danger here is that when awe of God is absent, it is quickly replaced by our awe of ourselves. If you are not living for God, the only alternative is to live for yourself. So a central ministry of the church must be to do anything it can to be used of God to turn people back to the one thing for which they were created: to live in a sturdy, joyful, faithful awe of God.

Would you pray for the interviewer team that we ask the right questions and probe the right issues in our time with these men? Pray especially that we get to the bottom of all-important issues like their degree of awestruckness (yes, I made up a word) before the God of the universe. While you are at it, pray this pastor knows something more of the same virtue for the glory of God and the joy of our people.

By the way, how’s your awestruckness quotient these days? Praying it gets bigger and bigger for us all.