Journeys and Destinations. 5.26.2022

     This month we have considered the role of milestones in defining who we are and how we become increasingly effective during our life of ministry. Where we come from sets many of the conditions for our lives. For some, these conditions are opportunities. For others, unfortunately, these conditions are obstacles. Experience has taught me that there are times when we must overcome both if we are to become useful to Christ in building His church. Next, we looked at the process of figuring out where we are going. Destinations are a matter of planning and purpose. Without intention, you arrive, though you may not know how or why you arrived or even, where you have arrived.. Last week we asked the question why? I suggested the answer “Because workmen should work.” 

    This week I want to close this loop by thinking through the distinction between the journey and the destination. The former, of course, is a process. The latter is a conclusion. Ministry flourishes when we consider and prepare for both. 

    Let’s begin by riffing off last week’s thread. Not only are we called to be diligent workmen, but we are also called (and thereby expected) to be craftsmen who are constantly honing their craft. When I was younger, I could show up and work diligently, but I did not always work smart. There was a point where I began to realize that the journey is much more satisfying and the output of higher quality when I think long-term and invest in becoming a better craftsman. My writing goal for all projects is 1500 words a day. This includes lessons, sermons, blogs (today’s 1500 will largely consist of what you are now reading), essays, books, workshops, long-form personal notes, and more. This does not include professional and administrative writing. Assuming a 300-day work year. That is 450,000 words, many of which are written to be preached or otherwise spoken, in which case further consideration of tone, pitch, vocabulary, and structure are necessary.

    Following our analogy, if those 450,000 words are the destination, craftsmanship is a matter of making the journey as productive, fulfilling, and effective as possible. Preaching is a great craft because the fruit of one’s labor is revealed, in public, on a weekly basis. Preaching requires a deep commitment combined with a “short memory”. There is a test every week. This keeps the craftsman to the task of improving every part of the journey. That journey can be harrowing at times but with instant feedback, recalibration is also instant. 

    Think about your life and ministry as a constant process of travel. If you want to travel like a bohemian with no plan, purpose, or direction, you may do that. But (as the saying goes) Sunday’s coming and your arrival may be rocky after a week of unplanned wandering. Balancing the journey and destination requires a bit of plotting, planning, and preparation. This is true not only of our week-to-week journey but the longer arcs of month, year, ministry, and career. 

    Craftsmanship implies that I am getting better at what I do, the longer I do it. The journey is more productive, the longer I travel. The destinations are more satisfying, as they accumulate. The task may not get easier but my capacity to work through the difficulties has improved simply by going through the process so often. 

    I believe I have adequately made my point. Please allow me to share a few other concerns which threaten the long-term craftsmanship that makes for lifelong ministry. 

First, it is becoming more difficult for those who want to enter the ministry to find a place to be educated. As colleges close and consolidate it is becoming harder to find a place to begin the journey of ministry learning. I believe the theological banality of the current Church is largely a result of poor or non-existent exegetical, hermeneutical, and theological training. Most of what a preacher learns, he learns after college. But if college did not prepare him to be a lifelong learner, if there was no proper beginning to the journey, then it can be difficult to arrive at the right destination. 

    Second, too many abandon the journey before it really gets going. This is related to my first concern. If someone is inadequately prepared for the lifelong journey of ministry, if they do not know how to learn or feed themselves, this increases the likelihood of burnout, exhaustion, or frustration. We need to teach people entering the ministry how to flourish on a long journey of ministry defined by fidelity to the ancient craft of proclamation. 

    Third, we need to repudiate shortcuts and cheats and those who provide them. In the rush to modernize ministry we have succumbed to a model of ministry heavily reliant on highly specialized “practical” ministries. When the tale is fully told this may be the reason that so many Bible Colleges and Seminaries are failing. Reconfiguring ministry education to mirror a business education, eroding the focus on biblical studies disciplines, and narrowly defining ministry specialties have made it virtually impossible to define what a well-prepared ministry professional should know, and what they should be able to do. The vast majority of preaching ministers are the only paid minister in their Church. This requires many subordinate skills to the central purpose of preaching and teaching. Lack of focus on Biblical studies skill development creates a ministry environment where unprepared individuals, lacking the capacity to hone, refine, or add new skills, buy what they need. This is the intersection of two tragedies that are killing the church. Preachers who can’t do the work, and mercenaries who enable this failure by providing turnkey solutions allowing the unable to lead the unwitting. This can hardly be called craftsmanship and it will not likely produce lifelong ministry, so this problem will worsen if it is not stopped immediately. 

    All my concerns for ministry are interrelated and pulpit-driven. Ever since I answered the call to preach in 1976, I always assumed that this was a lifelong journey. While I’ve not always paced myself appropriately, I have always tried to pursue this day’s work so that it flows into the work I will do tomorrow. I want to be the best I can be. Craftsmanship is important. I want to preach the best sermons I can. I want to improve. I start next Sunday’s sermon pretty much right after this Sunday’s is delivered. The last journey flows into the next journey. I was fortunate to be given very good tools. I had good teachers at College and Seminary who taught me how to learn. I can read the maps, examine the terrain, plot a course, and prepare for the road ahead. I am not bragging about those skills I am recommending them. 

    There was a time when older ministers constantly counseled and mentored younger ministers. Those days seem to have passed. Experienced travelers are no longer treasured for their tribal knowledge gained through long years of repeating the weekly journey to the pulpit. Good craftsmanship and appreciation for the journey take time. Wise counsel eases the process of making mistakes and altering course. This is not theoretical for me. I’ve been there. I have apprenticed with men whose words and wisdom helped me not only improve my outcomes but to appreciate the journey. 

Why

    According to the current ontology of work typologies, we preachers would fit into the category of“knowledge workers.” We don’t work in a physical trade; we don’t move from conceptual design to an actual “real-world” item. We investigate scripture, integrate that information with data from the world, and instruct the Saints that we might guide the Church and evangelize the lost. This week I wish to give a little thought to answering the questions “Why?” and “How?” These two questions are related to this whole process that began with a focused education and continues through a lifetime of study. 

    We don’t (or shouldn’t) physically threaten, bribe, or provide some shiny new object for our listener's approval. When we preach or teach, whether an audience of one (typically called a “conversation”) or an audience of many (a congregation), our currency is the veracity of scripture, the integrity of our faith,  the diligence of our work, and the clarity of our words. Paul put it this way to a famous protege

15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV)

I particularly like the way that the BDAG lexicon defines the usage of the word the ESV anemically renders as “do your best.”— “to be especially conscientious in discharging an obligation, be zealous/eager, take pains, make every effort, be conscientious ”. (William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 939.)

    Why work so hard? Why dig so deep? Why probe, investigate, question, quarry, query, test, review, skim, sketch, read, and annotate our Bibles, books, papers, periodicals, monographs, blogs, podcasts, magazines, journals, and random notes from our congregants? Why? Because the mission deserves workmen who work. 

    There are times when our education does not seem sufficient for the task. There will be occasions when you simply cannot find the information you need to answer the questions that are before you. There will be circumstances where it all seems to fall flat. That is simply how things work for us human beings. There is much about life and ministry that you cannot control. One thing that you can control is being especially conscientious in discharging your obligation, eagerly taking pains, and making every effort—in other words, you control the planning, pace, progress, and persistence of your own work. 

    You’ve got a good education? Great. What did you learn yesterday? Formative and empowering life experiences? Awesome. Bring it all into your study. A thoughtful plan? Execute. Execute. Execute. Why? Because an unashamed workman does the work. A faithful steward shows up. A preacher prepares. Doing the work even when it seems to yield little fruit creates its own reward. 

    My education laid the foundation for a lifetime of ministry work. Much of the actual “learning” is technically obsolete, as are many of the tools. Like you, I have had life experiences that have contributed to my pilgrimage of faith and my approach to preaching. Again, a lot of what I experienced maintains a fine balance between irreplaceable and irrelevant. It might hurt to face the facts but that is reality. What remains of the past and the experiences we experience is the capacity to turn those historical data faithfully and prayerfully into the next sermon, talk, or lesson. That’s how God works. He helps us ask “why?” to focus on the future. 

Where You're Going To

    Last week I reviewed a bit of my “origin” story. St. Louis Christian College, Oil Belt Christian Service Camp, and Lincoln Christian Seminary were character-forming institutions for me. Yet, education and background are designed to prepare you for something. What is the foreground for which background gives context? What knowledge, skills, or habits are inculcated in education? Or to quote Diana Ross “…Do you know, where you’re going to, do you like the things that life is showing you?” Our formative years and formal education should be directed at the rest of our lives. If I know where I am from, if I have prepared myself diligently and appropriately then I should be able to articulate where I intend to go, what I intend to do, how I intend to act, and who I hope to become. 

    In short, all of that is for this. Perhaps I should not have left y’all with a cliff-hanger last week. Let’s continue that discussion of the past and focus on the future. Education and life choices are the beginning and underpinning for a fully lived life dedicated to the purposes for which God has called you. Our subject this month is not nostalgia but mission. A significant part of our mission is determined by who raised us and who educated us. Family, Church, and College help us to construct our life as if it were an abacus. As we make our way from late adolescence to adulthood, we begin to move the beads on the abacus, aggregating all those experiences into a fully formed, mission-driven, Jesus-following life of discipleship. While it is nice to reflect on the past, it is not a good place to remain. One of the challenges for us as we continue to “ripen” in our service is the capacity to not only describe where we are going but to in some way manage the journey, if not the destination. 

    Life is a process of aggregation. We are compiling experiences. We are acquiring, sorting, systematizing, and deploying knowledge. We enter a variety of relationships—not knowing, from marriage to parenting—what the outcome will be. In ministry, we serve in various capacities, roles, offices, and environments. We engage in all these processes and after 25 or 30 years we wake up one morning and we realize that the journey has yielded untold and unexpected fruit. You shower and shave, prepare for the next thing and move another bead on the great abacus of life. 

    During this journey there are appropriate times to take stock in a more detailed and focused fashion, to remember, recalibrate, and refocus. One example: anniversaries. I just passed 6 years here in Grayville, 41 years preaching, 42 years out of high school, and 38 years out of college. More sermons, lessons, classes, workshops, presentations, and sessions than I should really count. Every single Sunday, all of that and more walk into the pulpit with me—not to even mention my wife, 4 kids, 18 Grandkids, 1 great-grandchild, 7 cats/kittens. 4 siblings, etc. 

    Do you know…where…you’re going to? Well, I’m headed to the pulpit. In fact, I’m pretty much always headed to the pulpit. This week that journey takes me through the book of Revelation, through our High School Baccalaureate, and our monthly board meeting. This week my journey to the pulpit took me from hasty phone calls about pastoral issues to friendly visits with Church folk bringing flowers to my wife. This week also included increasing concern, on my part, about a bunch of work that I need to attack over the next month (camp sermons and lessons, materials for family camp in Oregon, my next two sermon series.) Much of what needs to be done over the next couple of weeks will be built on the foundation of the commitment made at Oil Belt, the education from St. Louis and Lincoln, and more than forty years of doing the work. Yeah. I know where I came from, but I am even more certain of where I am going to, and what I will do with every breath God gives me until I hand the abacus back to Him and stop aggregating the experiences of my life. Continue with the mission, my friends. 

Then and There, Here and Now

     I made a bit of a pilgrimage last Saturday. I was not the only one. The place I was going was not the only destination. One was a physical place, the other a state of mind. I had a choice to make and decided to return to the very place from where it all began. 

    My college is merging with another. St. Louis Christian College has come to the end of its journey as a separate entity. Insolvency has been transformed into something new by joining forces with Central Christian College of the Bible, an institution with a similar background and guiding purpose. I am glad that, in some way, the journey continues. For some of us, in many ways, it will not really be our journey. For us, that is not the place where it all began. 

    Before the beginning, I heard about SLCC at Oil Belt Christian Service Camp. Faculty and staff from SLCC ran a week of camp designed to recruit students for ministry. I was hooked. I never seriously considered attending any other Bible College. When I decided to preach, that decision was essentially “I will go to SLCC to learn to preach.” I was called to ministry at Oil Belt Camp when I was 13 years of age. I chose at that moment, sight unseen, that SLCC would be the place where my life of ministry began. 

    What did I learn at that place from whence I come? First, I learned that ministry, service, and devotion are a fully entangled strange loop. (That is an obscure reference to Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach.) I love Jesus. I love ministry. I wish to do my best. There is really no way to separate them. It’s all one thing. In the 21st century, the trend has been to separate career from identity. However, if your career is a calling, if your profession is a craft if your purpose is a passion—it’s all one thing.

What then, did I learn at this tiny Bible College which is no more?

1. I learned how to learn.

2. I learned to value collegiality in the context of individual integrity.

3. I learned that passion without control is too messy for real-world ministry.

4. I learned the power of lifelong friendship forged at life’s crossroads.

There is much more. A nice, compact list of four should give you some indication of my affection and gratitude for this place. It was not the last place I studied. Lincoln Christian Seminary is likewise going through a season of retrenchment. Our Alma Mater's matter. Tomorrow, many pulpits will be filled by orphans. Since last Saturday I’ve been playing and singing some old, maudlin songs on the piano. That’s what I did first thing this morning, one week later. Then I remembered I needed to finish this Blog. A neighbor of our Church brought a big box of food by for our food pantry, expressing interest in worshipping with us. Our town is having its “citywide” rummage sale day today. The Chamber of Commerce is selling Pork-Burgers in our church parking lot. Tomorrow is the Lord's Day. And as I sit here and think about Church tomorrow, I can’t help remembering how everything then and there contributed to the preacher that I am here and now.