All honorable work is God’s work, a calling, and anyone serious about doing a good job in his/her work derives priceless benefit from the example of respected mentors. Surely teachers and doctors, business folks and farmers, all need mentors to encourage them to “soldier on.”
One of my most influential mentors is a man I’ve never met. Eugene Peterson, best-known for his amazing paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, has never written anything poorly, but his books written particularly for pastors bless me immensely.
Peterson’s newest book is his memoir, The Pastor. Reflecting on fifty years of ministry, he reminds those still on that journey that God does not call us to be religious CEOs but to love His sheep. Our calling is not to be little gods who think we can make the sun rise but simply to walk with our people through life each new day reminding them, and being reminded, that God is the One who bids it rise.
The job has never been easy, and it certainly is not now. The statistics are dismal and, as Peterson notes, pastoral “defections and dismissals have reached epidemic proportions in every branch and form of church.”
The pressure comes from all directions. Some groups, saying very truly that “every Christian is a minister,” draw some conclusions that are simply silly and demeaning and make as much practical sense as saying that everyone who has ever cut up a pork chop is a butcher. Of course, every Christian is called to the service of God, but our roles, functions, training, and gifts are, thank the Lord, all as different as they are all valuable and needed.
Our culture itself, and especially our “religious” culture, is toxic to real ministry and also devalues and demeans it. “The vocation of pastor,” writes Peterson, “has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans.” God is treated as a consumer “product to be marketed” and the marketers scramble to find the right “model” for “success” which is then “religiously” measured in our culture’s terms rather than Christ’s: if it’s big, if it’s quantifiable, if it’s impressive, it’s called success. Never mind that measured by such standards, Christ was remarkably unsuccessful as he loved the weak and little children, the powerless and the “foolish” of this world, and chose the cross instead of “success.”
Desperate for the latest program to revitalize the church, pastors often fall to the very temptations Christ eschewed and act as if the “fruit” we push the church to produce (and measure) is the only thing that validates its existence. Buying that lie, we devalue worship and prayer and become blind to the real fruit (much that is visible but much more that is “unseen”) that God produces. We proceed by displaying a profound disrespect and denial of God’s presence in the “ordinary.”
It’s good to have someone particularly ordinary particularly charged with pointing out what God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is doing through His presence, forgiveness, and grace in our seemingly ordinary lives. It’s work worth doing.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
"At 50, Everyone Has the Face He Deserves"
“At [the age of] 50,” writes George Orwell, “everyone has the face he deserves.” Well, that kinda hurts, largely because I suspect it’s true!
Not long ago, I happened to rush past a mirror at church, shot it a quick glance, and then almost broke my neck in the subsequent double-take. Somebody else was looking back from that mirror!
I might not have been all that surprised to see one of my brothers staring back. A couple of us have been told many times that we look alike. What I didn’t expect, though, was to see Granddaddy Key looking at me out of that glass! Good grief! When did that happen!?
On one hand, the experience is all the more pointed because it was so utterly unexpected. Such completely unbidden “lightning strike” impressions are usually accurate impressions.
On the other hand, I take a little comfort in the fact that I’ve looked in the mirror since then, and all I’ve seen is some obvious resemblance, not the dear man himself. Character-wise, I’ll never be that good. Physically speaking, I’m sure that reflection was indeed a sign of things to come. I’m just hoping that maybe I was really tired that day. I’m 54, and my grandfather in that mirror was older than that! Back to the gym, Curt, and quickly! And maybe a little Grecian Formula? Nah!
I’ll never forget a fascinating seminar I attended one day in which the subject was “face-reading.” The presenter was an expert in “reading” the physical characteristics of the human face. He purported to be able to look at facial features and come up with a fairly accurate description of at least some important characteristics of the person “behind” it.
I was fairly skeptical when the seminar began, but I was interested. I knew that the guy was regularly paid pretty handsomely by lawyers to “read” the faces of jurors. And I admit that the longer I listened to him and the more examples of his craft that I perused, the more convinced I became that there is at least some validity in what he claims to do.
It probably follows, by the way, that faces over 50 are easier canvases to “read” than younger faces not yet as “painted” by life and all the experiences and attitudes that come with years.
You don’t have to be an expert to engage in some “face reading.” We do it all the time. We recognize laugh lines, furrows of worry, scars of bitterness, or the cold tell-tale marks of hatred. They show, and consciously or not, we react to what we see.
Just last week I “read” one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen. It was the face of Mickade Hall Shelburne, my first, my brand new, grandson. I hope he liked the face of his grandfather. I know I liked his. I won’t be around to see what, by age 50, he has done with it. God grant that it always be a fine face etched unmistakably with his Creator’s love and joy.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Not long ago, I happened to rush past a mirror at church, shot it a quick glance, and then almost broke my neck in the subsequent double-take. Somebody else was looking back from that mirror!
I might not have been all that surprised to see one of my brothers staring back. A couple of us have been told many times that we look alike. What I didn’t expect, though, was to see Granddaddy Key looking at me out of that glass! Good grief! When did that happen!?
On one hand, the experience is all the more pointed because it was so utterly unexpected. Such completely unbidden “lightning strike” impressions are usually accurate impressions.
On the other hand, I take a little comfort in the fact that I’ve looked in the mirror since then, and all I’ve seen is some obvious resemblance, not the dear man himself. Character-wise, I’ll never be that good. Physically speaking, I’m sure that reflection was indeed a sign of things to come. I’m just hoping that maybe I was really tired that day. I’m 54, and my grandfather in that mirror was older than that! Back to the gym, Curt, and quickly! And maybe a little Grecian Formula? Nah!
I’ll never forget a fascinating seminar I attended one day in which the subject was “face-reading.” The presenter was an expert in “reading” the physical characteristics of the human face. He purported to be able to look at facial features and come up with a fairly accurate description of at least some important characteristics of the person “behind” it.
I was fairly skeptical when the seminar began, but I was interested. I knew that the guy was regularly paid pretty handsomely by lawyers to “read” the faces of jurors. And I admit that the longer I listened to him and the more examples of his craft that I perused, the more convinced I became that there is at least some validity in what he claims to do.
It probably follows, by the way, that faces over 50 are easier canvases to “read” than younger faces not yet as “painted” by life and all the experiences and attitudes that come with years.
You don’t have to be an expert to engage in some “face reading.” We do it all the time. We recognize laugh lines, furrows of worry, scars of bitterness, or the cold tell-tale marks of hatred. They show, and consciously or not, we react to what we see.
Just last week I “read” one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen. It was the face of Mickade Hall Shelburne, my first, my brand new, grandson. I hope he liked the face of his grandfather. I know I liked his. I won’t be around to see what, by age 50, he has done with it. God grant that it always be a fine face etched unmistakably with his Creator’s love and joy.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Anyone Who Is Loud About Being Holy . . . Is Not
You already know this, right? But you should never trust the “holiness” of anyone who is loudly “holy.”
According to recent news reports, a treasure trove of “intelligence” information is not the only thing Osama bin Laden had locked up in his hideout in Pakistan; he also had stacked up a serious stash of pornography.
Now, I know “holy” is not the first word that comes to mind when most of us think of Osama bin Laden, but he surely liked for his followers to think of him in exactly those terms. (I don’t mean wide-eyed and drooling; I mean “holy.”) Arrogant and ruthless self-righteousness is the same disease whether it afflicts Taliban terrorists, militant Puritans, or stinky Pharisees, whenever and wherever they’re found.
Anytime any of us begins to think that he/she is better than someone else morally or spiritually, Satan is pleased, and we’re in danger. We all fall to that temptation, probably often, and that’s a serious problem.
But it’s a very acute problem when two factors come together: 1) a person is sure he/she is holier than almost anyone else, and 2) he/she is unusually and obnoxiously loud about it. Then I think you can be very sure of one thing: they are not holier than others; and pretty darn sure of another: some fairly scandalous bit of “unholiness” is floating not that far down somewhere beneath the surface. Sooner or later, it will turn up in all its ugliness.
The pompous puritanical terror of “righteousness” has a bottle problem. The fellow most willing to “cast the first stone” at a “loose” woman has a mistress on the side. The guy most willing to beat the daylights out of folks with his supposedly vast Bible knowledge also beats his wife.
Count on it: folks who are loud about being better than ordinary folks are not better than other people and are generally a good bit worse. “Goodness” that is genuine never claims to be good; the real thing is quiet, well aware that it has no business and no time to focus on the faults of others.
Of course, Jesus said it best: before we worry about getting the speck of sawdust out of our neighbor’s eye, we first need to work on getting the log out of our own.
Ah, but self-righteousness gets its hooks into us in so many ways. It poisons a person who would never miss a church service but just as surely never misses an opportunity to look down his nose at others. But it’s just as deadly, if not quite as insidious, in the soul of a person who is self-righteous about not darkening the door of a church lest he be self-righteous.
If we really want to love God we can never trust Him enough, and we can never be suspicious enough of ourselves and our own motives. After all, we’re warned in Scripture that the one who is most sure he is standing firm is the most likely of all to fall.
Folks who truly want to be like their Father are never loud about being “good.” They know two things for sure: only God is good, and they are not.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
According to recent news reports, a treasure trove of “intelligence” information is not the only thing Osama bin Laden had locked up in his hideout in Pakistan; he also had stacked up a serious stash of pornography.
Now, I know “holy” is not the first word that comes to mind when most of us think of Osama bin Laden, but he surely liked for his followers to think of him in exactly those terms. (I don’t mean wide-eyed and drooling; I mean “holy.”) Arrogant and ruthless self-righteousness is the same disease whether it afflicts Taliban terrorists, militant Puritans, or stinky Pharisees, whenever and wherever they’re found.
Anytime any of us begins to think that he/she is better than someone else morally or spiritually, Satan is pleased, and we’re in danger. We all fall to that temptation, probably often, and that’s a serious problem.
But it’s a very acute problem when two factors come together: 1) a person is sure he/she is holier than almost anyone else, and 2) he/she is unusually and obnoxiously loud about it. Then I think you can be very sure of one thing: they are not holier than others; and pretty darn sure of another: some fairly scandalous bit of “unholiness” is floating not that far down somewhere beneath the surface. Sooner or later, it will turn up in all its ugliness.
The pompous puritanical terror of “righteousness” has a bottle problem. The fellow most willing to “cast the first stone” at a “loose” woman has a mistress on the side. The guy most willing to beat the daylights out of folks with his supposedly vast Bible knowledge also beats his wife.
Count on it: folks who are loud about being better than ordinary folks are not better than other people and are generally a good bit worse. “Goodness” that is genuine never claims to be good; the real thing is quiet, well aware that it has no business and no time to focus on the faults of others.
Of course, Jesus said it best: before we worry about getting the speck of sawdust out of our neighbor’s eye, we first need to work on getting the log out of our own.
Ah, but self-righteousness gets its hooks into us in so many ways. It poisons a person who would never miss a church service but just as surely never misses an opportunity to look down his nose at others. But it’s just as deadly, if not quite as insidious, in the soul of a person who is self-righteous about not darkening the door of a church lest he be self-righteous.
If we really want to love God we can never trust Him enough, and we can never be suspicious enough of ourselves and our own motives. After all, we’re warned in Scripture that the one who is most sure he is standing firm is the most likely of all to fall.
Folks who truly want to be like their Father are never loud about being “good.” They know two things for sure: only God is good, and they are not.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
"And Now, Here's Your Seven-day Forecast . . ."
I’m afraid I’ve missed my best chance ever to be a weatherman. Weather-person. Meteorologist. Atmospheric prognosticator.
If there ever was a year to break into the business, this was the year. If to be successful at such, all you have to do is aim at a half-way accurate forecast and hit the target more often than you miss, even the most intelligent yard dogs could do a jim-dandy fine job of weather-forecasting this year. All they’d have to do is to face the camera and bark once for dry and windy or twice for windy and dry.
I think I could do it.
“And now,” I’d intone in a cheery up-beat voice, “here’s your seven-day forecast: hot, dry, windy, dusty, brown. Batten down the hatches and watch as a good bit of Texas flies right by your window.”
As a lover of words, I might be able to work in some descriptors: depressingly dusty, suck-the-life-out-of-you dry, woefully windy.
To be really good at it, I’d need to vary the forecast a bit. Some days, I’d predict, “Dusty, dry, hot, windy, brown.” Others, it would be, “Windy, hot, dry, dusty, brown.”
What separates really exemplary weather wonks from average meteorological minions is precision, accurately predicting whether the weather on any particular day will be windier than hot, or hotter than windy, or dustier than dry.
But the basic forecast in my part of the country for way too many months on end has been pretty much in the bag. I’ve been wondering why they even go to a weather segment. Why not just pack the weather guy away and wait to trot him out until something actually changes?
In the meantime, just use the time saved from the pretty much useless weather segment to expand the news and sports. We could consider more ramifications of Charlie Sheen’s melt-down, or replay the royal wedding in even more stunning detail and give a truly in-depth psychological analysis of the real reason the prince kissed his bride twice.
I know this sounds surly. Shooting the meteorological messengers probably won’t help the situation.
The governor recently asked Texans to pray for rain. I already had been. I am. It might have been good if our forefathers had prayed more a long time ago about the wisdom of settling in what is basically a desert, but on most days, I’m glad they made the choice they did. I’ve thought about them a lot lately—especially the ones who lived through the Dust Bowl days. Some of those folks went crazy. In the midst of that much wind and dust, it was the only sensible thing to do.
How I wish we could divert a good chunk of the presently-flooding Mississippi over to my part of the country, but I don’t suppose . . .
Here’s my forecast: Someday it will rain. And here’s my hunch: There’s a 100% chance that living life successfully in drought-times, flood-times, and anytime, calls for faith in the One who gives us life and rains down scads of blessings on us in all times.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
If there ever was a year to break into the business, this was the year. If to be successful at such, all you have to do is aim at a half-way accurate forecast and hit the target more often than you miss, even the most intelligent yard dogs could do a jim-dandy fine job of weather-forecasting this year. All they’d have to do is to face the camera and bark once for dry and windy or twice for windy and dry.
I think I could do it.
“And now,” I’d intone in a cheery up-beat voice, “here’s your seven-day forecast: hot, dry, windy, dusty, brown. Batten down the hatches and watch as a good bit of Texas flies right by your window.”
As a lover of words, I might be able to work in some descriptors: depressingly dusty, suck-the-life-out-of-you dry, woefully windy.
To be really good at it, I’d need to vary the forecast a bit. Some days, I’d predict, “Dusty, dry, hot, windy, brown.” Others, it would be, “Windy, hot, dry, dusty, brown.”
What separates really exemplary weather wonks from average meteorological minions is precision, accurately predicting whether the weather on any particular day will be windier than hot, or hotter than windy, or dustier than dry.
But the basic forecast in my part of the country for way too many months on end has been pretty much in the bag. I’ve been wondering why they even go to a weather segment. Why not just pack the weather guy away and wait to trot him out until something actually changes?
In the meantime, just use the time saved from the pretty much useless weather segment to expand the news and sports. We could consider more ramifications of Charlie Sheen’s melt-down, or replay the royal wedding in even more stunning detail and give a truly in-depth psychological analysis of the real reason the prince kissed his bride twice.
I know this sounds surly. Shooting the meteorological messengers probably won’t help the situation.
The governor recently asked Texans to pray for rain. I already had been. I am. It might have been good if our forefathers had prayed more a long time ago about the wisdom of settling in what is basically a desert, but on most days, I’m glad they made the choice they did. I’ve thought about them a lot lately—especially the ones who lived through the Dust Bowl days. Some of those folks went crazy. In the midst of that much wind and dust, it was the only sensible thing to do.
How I wish we could divert a good chunk of the presently-flooding Mississippi over to my part of the country, but I don’t suppose . . .
Here’s my forecast: Someday it will rain. And here’s my hunch: There’s a 100% chance that living life successfully in drought-times, flood-times, and anytime, calls for faith in the One who gives us life and rains down scads of blessings on us in all times.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Trading Places With God Is a Serious Mistake
I rarely write sequels to these columns, but last week I wrote about the trouble with perfectionism, and I can’t quit thinking about it. The best way to unburden myself of such thoughts is to burden you with them, so brace yourself for Round 2.
A friend and pastoral colleague reading my column remarked that over the years he has worked with many people beset by this kind of perfectionism and has discovered both it and its attendant shame at the bottom of their alcoholism. Evidently, serious perfectionists don’t just drive others to excessive drink.
Genuine perfectionists try to trade places with God (and such gods are hard to live with). Some even try to back up their idolatry with Scripture, such as Matthew 5:48—“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Here Jesus is indeed calling us to a high standard, specifically telling us to strive for God’s “perfection” (the word means “completeness,” “wholeness,”) in loving even our enemies. Luke, in his parallel passage (6:36) writes, “Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful.” Complete love and mercy constitute a tall order, but God wants his children to grow up to look like him.
But do I need to tell you that we’ll never reach that “completeness” here, and that the power to get it done is God’s? This is not a “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” sort of thing. If it were, Jesus might as reasonably have said, “Be ye spotted toads,” and expected us to reach that goal; instead Christ urges us to trust our Father and his power to mold us.
Some perfectionists point to the Apostle Paul’s admonition to Christian slaves: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3:23). It surely is no stretch to hear the apostle urging, “Do a good job in your work, and thus honor the Lord.” The problem, again, is that as we work as “for the Lord,” we must not confuse ourselves with God and become control freaks seeking to sanctify our disease with Scripture.
The difference between productive, godly contentment and idolatrous perfectionism is vast. The former does not produce stagnation, it produces beautiful fruit, while the latter leads to fear, paralysis, and despair. It’s the difference between working joyfully for the Father, secure in his love, as opposed to working your fingers to the bone as a parley for paltry pseudo-love. It’s the difference between living a balanced life honoring the Lord, and a slavish life in which you live to work and forget to really live, to go home, or to look upward. It’s the difference between inner peace and slavery, between grace and law. It’s the difference between the truth that we are of immense value because we are created by God, versus the lie that we are just the sum total of what we produce.
Ironically, those who bow before the Lord and lead grace-filled, balanced lives end up being far more fruitful and productive than those who bow before the idol of their own perfectionism. At heart, we are self-made or God-made. We really must choose.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
A friend and pastoral colleague reading my column remarked that over the years he has worked with many people beset by this kind of perfectionism and has discovered both it and its attendant shame at the bottom of their alcoholism. Evidently, serious perfectionists don’t just drive others to excessive drink.
Genuine perfectionists try to trade places with God (and such gods are hard to live with). Some even try to back up their idolatry with Scripture, such as Matthew 5:48—“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Here Jesus is indeed calling us to a high standard, specifically telling us to strive for God’s “perfection” (the word means “completeness,” “wholeness,”) in loving even our enemies. Luke, in his parallel passage (6:36) writes, “Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful.” Complete love and mercy constitute a tall order, but God wants his children to grow up to look like him.
But do I need to tell you that we’ll never reach that “completeness” here, and that the power to get it done is God’s? This is not a “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” sort of thing. If it were, Jesus might as reasonably have said, “Be ye spotted toads,” and expected us to reach that goal; instead Christ urges us to trust our Father and his power to mold us.
Some perfectionists point to the Apostle Paul’s admonition to Christian slaves: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3:23). It surely is no stretch to hear the apostle urging, “Do a good job in your work, and thus honor the Lord.” The problem, again, is that as we work as “for the Lord,” we must not confuse ourselves with God and become control freaks seeking to sanctify our disease with Scripture.
The difference between productive, godly contentment and idolatrous perfectionism is vast. The former does not produce stagnation, it produces beautiful fruit, while the latter leads to fear, paralysis, and despair. It’s the difference between working joyfully for the Father, secure in his love, as opposed to working your fingers to the bone as a parley for paltry pseudo-love. It’s the difference between living a balanced life honoring the Lord, and a slavish life in which you live to work and forget to really live, to go home, or to look upward. It’s the difference between inner peace and slavery, between grace and law. It’s the difference between the truth that we are of immense value because we are created by God, versus the lie that we are just the sum total of what we produce.
Ironically, those who bow before the Lord and lead grace-filled, balanced lives end up being far more fruitful and productive than those who bow before the idol of their own perfectionism. At heart, we are self-made or God-made. We really must choose.
Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
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