Two Great Commissions

Vocation is a word that will occasionally get thrown around in our current culture, but it is also one that has lost the significance of its meaning.  Vocation literally means a “calling.”  It comes from the Latin word vocatio and speaks to God’s calling in the life of a Christian.

This calling happens in a variety of spheres from the workplace to the neighborhood to the home.  And because of that the way that calling is played out in the life of one believer is often significantly different than the calling of another.

One aspect of our callings as Christian is the calling we have to fulfill the Great Commission.  When we talk about the Great Commission, we commonly think of the call to “Go and make disciples of all nations.”  Robert Kolb and Charles Arand, two incredible theologians, suggest that when it comes to vocation we should consider two great commissions.

The First Great Commission

When God creates humanity, he gives an important vocation to the man.

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” - Genesis 1:26

The first calling is to manage the created world, to care for it, serve it, and protect it.

In the Genius of Luther’s Theology Arand and Kolb suggest, "They take up their vocations as places of service to others, where they can live as human beings according to God’s design.”  The vocation of every Christian is to serve within the places that God has placed them.  The calling of the Christian is to serve their neighbor.

And in this calling it isn’t about proselytizing.

The serving of the neighbor isn’t a means to an end.  The needs of the neighbor is the end.  The vocation is to love, serve, and care for all that God has created.  It is the unique calling of the Christian that often does not look distinctly Christian, but that does at the same time witness to the beauty and love of the Creator God.

The Second Great Commission

The second Great Commission is the one that is popularly referred to.

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” - Matthew 28:19-20

The calling of the Christian in this world is to be disciple-makers.  We are called to make disciples in the spheres in which God has placed us in this world.  It is similar to the first great commission in that it takes place out of love for neighbor and exists for the sake of neighbor, but it is unique in that it seeks to address specifically the spiritual realities of that individual and not simply meet physical needs.

In light of the second Great Commission, our vocations become opportunities for mission in which we carry out the task of making disciples.

Parents not only protect and care for their children, but parents make sure that there children grow up as disciples of Jesus.  Husbands not only provide for their wife, but they seek to speak God’s word to their wife.  Neighbors not only want to act neighborly and be a good friend, but they want to have opportunities to share the Gospel with their neighbors.

Because we each have unique mission assignments, our vocations should be an opportunity to share the Good News with the people we are in relationships with using the gifts, passions, and desires that God has given each of us.

The Emasculation of Vocation

Vocation is the forgotten doctrine of the Reformation.  Justification was & is central, but vocation has been lost & emasculated since then.  In Luther’s day, just like our own, people had a misunderstanding in how God’s calling worked and the way that God was at work in his people.

In Luther’s day, the priests were the mediators between the people and God.  The priests did God’s work.  They were the ones that had a sacred calling, and they were the way that God was at work in the world.

But Luther recovered something different.

God’s calling wasn’t reserved for the priests.  And God’s working in the world wasn’t exclusively through the so-called “professionals.”  God’s calling was for everyone.  Luther understood that God not only called the priests and monks, but he called the shoe-makers, the mothers and fathers, the bankers, and the farmer.

And all of these were sacred callings because God was at work in the world through these people.

God worked through ordinary people fulfilling their daily tasks in order to provide our “daily bread.”  And God worked through ordinary people in their relational connections to “make disciples of all nations.”

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In Luther’s day, the priest was Christ’s ambassador and no one else was.  Luther’s understanding of vocation suggested what the Bible suggests; we all are Christ’s ambassadors.  We are all ministers of reconciliation.  And that plays out in our vocations as we serve our neighbors in our vocations..

The Professionalization of Ministry

I’m all about “professional ministry,” as I make a living doing the work that I do, but has it also created some in unintended problems? Recently, I was hanging out with some friends and my good friend Ken suggested that the Church has retarded the doctrine of vocation.

And he's right.

It seems that perhaps the professionalizalation of ministry has emasculated the doctrine of vocation and brought us back to a dangerous understanding of God’s calling.

Because now people are “called into ministry.”

As though there are Christians who aren't.

Even in the language we use, we’ll throw out a word like bi-vocational ministry.  Think about what that means.  Two-calling ministry.  That means you have two callings, one of which is typically seen as “ministry” and the other that pays the bills.

That’s not how Luther understood the doctrine of vocation.  Bi-vocation or “two-callings” ministry significantly handicaps that way God is at work in the world and the sacredness of all of work.  Calling isn’t about what you get paid to do, but about the way God is at work in our churches, in our neighborhoods, and in our families.

Luther used at least four primary categories to describe God’s calling:  family, work, church, and in the world as a citizen.

So that’s at least quad-vocational ministry.

But even within those vocations are more.  There are multiple vocations even within one’s home.  The calling as a husband or wife, which is distinct from the calling of mother or father, which is distinct from the calling to be a brother or sister.

And within one’s world, there are callings as a citizen, there are callings as a member of your neighborhood, and in our digital age, you might even consider that there’s a calling to your digital neighborhood.

In a person’s calling to their homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, and churches, they are called to serve and care for those around them.  This happens by taking care of both the first article gifts, like helping a person with their house, home, and any bodily need.  But it also happens in the calling to “Go and make disciples.”  A person is also called to their home, neighborhood, workplace, and church to be a missionary.

Do you see what’s going on here?

For Luther, vocation was not something that happened only within the church.  Vocation was anyway and anywhere in which you serve your neighbor.  And because of that ministry is not something reserved for the professionals, but it is something done by ordinary people for their neighbors.  Core to the Reformation was this crazy idea that everyday, ordinary people were called by God to do their work and serve their neighbors.  There was this crazy idea that it wasn’t just the priests that had a sacred calling, but also the construction workers and farmers and mothers.

When Boys Wear Their Mama's Shoes

 

I think every little boy at some point decides to walk around the house in his mama’s shoes.  I’ve seen my son does this.  He also likes to play with his toy vacuum.  This past weekend he played with a dollhouse.  And recently, he chose the princess band-aids for his pretend injury (although he later regretted not choosing the batman ones).

And get this, I don’t think he’s having a crisis with his masculinity or what it means to be a boy.

This is just what kids do.

With the exception of my Jordans, my wife’s shoes are always more interesting for a two-year-old than mine would be.  And he likes to vacuum because he sees me vacuum.  And he likes the princesses because my wife loves the princesses, his friends do too, and his little sister is bound to be a huge fan.

And that’s okay.

But it raises the inevitable question what makes a man a man?  How do we define masculinity?  And when we expand that question into the lives of our children, what makes a boy a boy or a girl a girl?Boyhood gets linked to things like sports and rowdiness.  Girlhood gets linked to things like sensitivity and creativity.  But what happens to the boy who is emotional or the girl who wants to wrestle with the boys?

Some might say that the girl is a tom-boy.  Or that the boy likes girly things.  Some might even go the lengths of saying they are having a gender-identity issue.  I’d be more likely to suggest that we simply have a definition issue; the way the world often defines manhood and womanhood is based on purely superficial things.

So, what makes a man a man?

I’m not very “manly” by most popular definitions.  I’m not good a shooting a gun, I know nothing about fixing a car, and I’m not great a physical labor.  I know how to change a tire and pump my own gas but that’s about the limit of my car knowledge.  I can’t tell you about the cars I see on the road, I tend to be emotional, and I love to kiss and cuddle with my kids.

The problem is our world defines masculinity with superficial things.  It defines masculinity by sports, alcohol, cars, and guns.  Or it defines masculinity by even more dangerous things for our boys like the objectification of women.

I once had a conversation with a young man who simply because of the fact that so many other guys watch pornography that it caused him to question himself in his masculinity.  This wasn’t a gender problem or a sexuality problem, it was a definition of manhood problem.

The way we define manhood in our world affects the way that men see themselves.  It affects the way husbands see themselves.  And it affects the way our little boys (and teenage boys and young men) see themselves.s

So what is a man?

A discussion on manhood could fill up pages and pages of discussion.  But for our purposes here, I want to talk briefly of what might be one way to think about what men should be pursuing in their own lives.  It is what I want for myself and what I want to model for my son.  And it is the way I hope that I will define masculinity as it goes beyond superficial issues and gets to the heart of what it looks like to be a man of God.

In Ephesians 5 Paul uses Christ as the model that men should look to in loving their wives when he says, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  So if a husband is to love as God intends the manliest of husbands to love, it will look like Christ loved.

And therefore if we are going to teach our boys to be men, being a man is less about sports and guns and more about imitating Christ.

One of the ways that Jesus has been described throughout history has been having a three-fold office, basically this idea that Jesus related to people in three primary ways in his ministry.

Prophet.

Jesus was a prophet; he spoke God’s word to people.  In Genesis, we see the failure of Adam as a prophet, when he fails to speak God’s words to his wife.  And in Jesus, we see the opposite, Jesus perfectly speaks God’s word to us.

A man is called to speak God’s word in his home.  He is called to be the mouthpiece of God to his family as he loves his wife and cares for his children.  Are we teaching our boys to be God’s mouthpieces?  Are we teaching them to speak God’s words in the context of our homes and in their relationships?

Priest.

Jesus was also a priest.  He was the mediator who stood before the Father on our behalf.  And he is the one who cares for us.  Just as Adam in Genesis is given the job to care for and cultivate the garden, man is given the job to care for and cultivate his own family.

A man is called to care for, to love, and to grow his family.  He is the shepherd that cares for his little flock.  Are we teaching our boys to become pastors of their future homes?  Are we modeling what it looks like to shepherd and disciple our own families?  Are we caring not only for the physical needs of our families but their spiritual needs?

King.

Jesus was also known as the “King of Kings.”  And as a King, Jesus protected his people.  He was a warrior who went to battle for the sake of his people.  When the devil raged war against Him, Jesus gave his life for us.

A man is called to be a protector of the family.  While the priest shepherds and cares for the sheep; the King makes sure that the wolves get shot.  A man protects his family and goes to fight for his family.

"Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” - 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Are we teaching our boys to be protectors?  Are we teaching them to fight for the things that matter?  Are we teaching them to act like men, to be strong, and to do everything in love?

Where is God?

A family member dies. A diagnosis gets made. Lay-offs happen. A close friend goes through a divorce. A natural disaster strikes.

The inevitable response to suffering is often, “Why?"

Why did God let them die?  Why did God let me go through this?  Why me?  Why now?

The problem is that no matter how much we might speculate, we don’t get an answer to that question. God hasn’t told us. So trying to search for the mysterious “plan” that God must have is hardly helpful.  Because we won’t find it out.

And would we even want an explanation anyways?

In times of suffering, while we often want to ask, “Why?” we are better served by asking the question, “Where?"

For that we have an answer.

This doesn’t make it any easier.  It doesn’t answer a lot of the questions you face. But it is something that you can look to with confidence.  Where is God in the midst of your pain and suffering?

He is with you.

And he is for you.

Where is God?

As all hell breaks lose on your life.  As evil and suffering rains down on your family, you can be confident that God promises to be with you and to never leave you.  And you can be confident that as hell rages war against you, God as your warrior fights on your behalf.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? - Romans 8:31-32

That doesn’t mean it is easy to see God in these moments.  That’s actually why it is so often we need to be reminded that he is with us.  In the times where suffering hurts the most, it is often the most difficult to know God is present.  In fact, Luther actually suggested that God was hidden in our suffering.

Even in the suffering of the cross, it hardly appears that God is at work; it’s not until we get the full picture of the significance of the cross that we can clearly see God’s work in the midst of the suffering.  It is in the very act of suffering on the cross that God redeemed his broken creation.

In our suffering, God is at work.  This isn’t to suggest that our suffering is just for some greater purpose.  This is simply to suggest that in the awful pain we find ourselves that God is with us.

In the moment we may not be able to see God at work, but as we move beyond the situation we are later reminded, “God was in this place, and I was not aware of it.”  One rabbi suggested, "When you look closely and for a long time, you discover things that are invisible to others."

If you look close enough at your suffering, you might find that God is there in the midst of it.

If you aren’t in a season of suffering, you will be.  And in those moments, you will have unanswered questions.  You will wrestle with and be angered by your unanswered questions of, “Why?”  But in the face of those questions be reminded that God does reveal to us where he is.

He doesn’t promise to us that our suffering is going to go away in this life.  He doesn’t promise that we are going to like the end result.  But he does promise that he is there in the midst of the suffering.  He promises to be with us and to fight for us.

The Worst 3 Point Sermon

3 point semron.jpg

There are a lot of bad sermons.  And since I’m a professional sermon-giver, I tend to think of myself as a connoisseur of good preaching.  And in my listening to sermons, there are plenty of preachers who just come up with garbage.  There are dull and boring preachers that at least still preach the truth.  And even worse, there are engaging and creative preachers that boldly preach things that are not biblical and hardly helpful.

Harmful preaching can be hard to detect behind a veil of clever phrases and enthusiastic shouting.  And it’s not because the listeners are unintelligent, but simply because harmful preaching often disguising itself in spiritual language.

The worst kind of 3 point sermon was, “Here’s what you should do.  You are not doing it.  Try harder.”

1. Here's what you should do.

This is great.  The scriptures clearly proclaim to us the will of God and how we should live our lives.  They speak to what we should do as Christians and they speak to what all people do as they go about their lives.  To say that we shouldn’t ever talk about what we should do is equally dangerous as the problem that only talks about what we should do.

2. You are not doing it.

Again, the sermon has not yet taken people down a road to hell paved with an excellent spiritual life and a lack of cursing, drinking, or gambling .  This point is spot on.  If you tell people what they should be doing, quickly following that will be a reminder that they are not doing it.

And a lot of preachers can’t even get this point right.

If you preach, “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”  The only response must be, we don’t do it.  But often preachers will preach what we should be doing and fail to ever point out our failure to do so.

Good preaching does not ignore the reality that God’s word is often a mirror that we can hold up to our own lives and see every blemish and crack.  The Bible is clear about what you should be doing.  And it is clear that you are not doing it.

3. Try harder.

The worst kind of sermons make the first two points and move on to this third one.  If you preach well and make clear what the scriptures call all people to do, people will fully realize that they are not doing it.  And if you when that happens, they will be broken by their sin.

And that’s not bad.  That’s just God doing what he wants to do in order that the Gospel might do its work.  The problem is that when we the third point is about trying harder instead of Christ, we leave people broken and drowning in their sin only to throw them an instruction manual on building a better boat.

The response to the broken and condemned person is not “try harder” but “It is finished.”  Too many of our sermons ignore the message that forgiveness was won on the cross of Jesus and disguise it by claiming it to be about a Christian’s “spiritual life.”

The problem is without preaching “It is finished” no motivation or inspiration is going to change the person hearing the message.  Try harder doesn’t ever produce what it demands.  Only the Gospel produces the change that the law demands.  Only the Gospel changes the me-centered hearts that are continually prone to wander and rebel against everything that God has said.

The Marks of a Church

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What makes a church a church?  There are all kinds of things that we can use to describe the ways that we prefer our churches to look, sound, smell, or feel, but what are the things that define the Christian Church?

Martin Luther described the church simply when he said, “A seven year-old child knows what the church is, namely, holy believers and sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd.”

From preaching to the band, from membership to sacraments, from worship to the parking lot, the practices that shape the life of a congregation are endless.  So what matters most?

What are the marks of a Christian Church?

Martin Luther listed seven marks that we can recognize the church by.  His list is incredibly helpful and I thought it would be helpful to re-state many of the themes that Luther suggested but to say it in different words and add some nuances that are helpful for our own conversations.  At the heart of my list is what you could find in Luther’s work “On the Councils and the Church, 1539."

Word.

There is no church without God’s word.  God works through his Word and God’s church is formed by this Word.  Our churches should be places that are shaped by the word and who love and cherish the word.  In addition to the scriptures, this also would include the “visible word” or the sacraments.  God is at work in bread, wine, and water giving the gifts he promised to give just as he does through the preaching, teaching, and reading of Scripture.

*in Luther’s list, this would include the marks of God’s Word, Baptism, and Lord’s Supper.  

Mission.

God’s church is given a mission.  And that mission is to proclaim the message of the forgiveness of sins.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” John 20:22-23

The church isn’t the place for good advice (although it might have some great advice), it is a place for the Good News.  The church proclaims God’s promise of forgiveness. It does this publicly and on behalf of the congregation in the vocation of the pastor and it does it daily in the personal lives of the church members in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces as members are given opportunities to speak God’s word of Law (binding sins) and God’s word of Gospel (forgiveness).

*in Luther’s list, this would be the mark of the Office of the Keys

Suffering.

The most surprising in Luther’s list of marks of the Church is suffering.  For Luther, the Christian is formed in his suffering and the Church is defined by its understanding of suffering.  The life of a Christian as a disciple of Jesus is a life that centers on suffering.

The disciple is called to “deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  Perhaps that mark of suffering might even be more simply considered the mark of disciples.  After all, is there such a thing as a disciple of Jesus who doesn’t suffer?

But to be clear, this isn’t about finding a cross to bear.  Suffering is inevitable.  We don’t need to go looking for our crosses.  The disciple of Jesus will find suffering in the midst of the daily struggles of life.  This often might be found in the depths of pain, hurt, and tragedy.  And it at times will come in the midst of the smaller struggles of daily life.

It might be better stated that suffering in and of itself isn’t the mark of the church, but the way in which the Church suffers that is the mark.  The disciple of Jesus suffers with eyes fixed on the one He follows.   The sufferer focuses on the one who suffered for us.

Shepherds.

Every church has a pastor.  The pastor is the person that God has called to the congregation to shepherd the people.

As a friend of mine said, "That’s a strange word. Sounds so archaic. Unsophisticated. Definitely not as impressive as Chief Executive Officer."

The shepherd cares for the flock.  He feeds the sheep, keeps them where they are safe, and he shoots the foxes.

My friend also described a “good” shepherd as one who knows:

what it’s like to be lost,

what it’s like to be rescued,

what it’s like to be strengthened, healed and bound up,

what it’s like to be fought for, defended, protected,

what it’s like to trust and follow,

what it’s like to listen for “the voice”.

*in Luther’s list, this would be the mark of the pastoral office

Family.

As a family of believers, we don’t just go about our individual lives as Christians but we must gather together.  A church is marked by the family gathering together around the Word.  The church should not just be individual family members worshipping privately, but the family gathering together to worship corporately.

Luther suggested:

“However, we are now speaking of prayers and songs which are intelligible and from which we can learn and by means of which we can mend our ways. The clamor or monks and nuns and priests is not prayer, nor is it praise to God; for they do not understand it, nor do they learn anything from it…”

The family gathers.  The family learns together.  The family praises together. The family prays together.  As the family gathers together, they are served by the God who promises to be present.  The family gathering in a sense is the “work of the people” in which we receive from the gifts that God has promised to give and respond to those good gifts he has given to us.

*in Luther’s list, this would be the mark of prayer, public praise, and thanksgiving to God

Ordinary Radicals

We need more ordinary Christians.  I know that sounds boring and will hardly start a movement, but I’m serious.  We need more Christians who live their everyday lives, doing their work, loving their families, and being a good neighbor.

The problem with this is it’s not very sexy.

People don’t like the stories of the people who are engineers working hard to provide for their family and come home to care for their wife and children both physically and spiritually.  People like the stories of a radical giving up of something to follow God’s call.

People want radical obedience and extraordinary stories of people selling their house and giving up all their belongings and moving their family across the world.  And that might be what God does indeed call certain people to do, but not everyone.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I’m all for people finding new, extraordinary ways to sacrificially give of their times, talents, and treasures to go to places across the world in all kinds of different ways.  But I’m also concerned that we can easily celebrate God’s calling in the extraordinary, while ignoring God’s calling to the very ordinary, average places that you and I often find ourselves in.

There is great appeal in pursuing exotic or “extraordinary” mission. But the Bible calls us to look a little closer as we live out Jesus’ mission: those in need and our neighbors. - Ben Connelly

In our desire to serve other people, we can’t ignore the simple fact that we are called to love people radically in the context of our ordinary, everyday lives.  We don’t have to travel across the ocean to love our neighbors, we just need to walk outside.

Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. - 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

What’s an ordinary radical?

They are ordinary in that they embrace their God-given vocations.  This means they embrace that God has called them to the places he has placed them.  For some this means that God has called them to be a missionary in Africa.  For others that means that they have been called to make pizza at Little Caesars.  For others that means being a stay-at-home mom.

And here’s the thing about these callings, they are all important and equally sacred.

An ordinary radical embraces the ordinary.  He sees that while changing a diaper might not be sexy when compared to somebody else who does something “extraordinary” for God, it is an important and spiritual act of service.  She sees that while she might not be called to go across the world, she has been placed in a mission field in her own neighborhoods.

The temptation in our modern world is to do what was fought against in the Reformation.  In seeking to do something radical for God, we ignore the sacredness of the ordinary.  In Luther’s day, it was the priests who had a sacred, spiritual calling and not the average person.  But Luther embraced an understanding of vocation that understood everybody had a sacred calling whether that be in the church, in the home, or on the farm.

When we measure the importance of a person’s calling based on our pre-conceived notions of God’s calling, we can easily be tempted to ignore the importance of ordinary callings.

"For him who heeds his vocation, sanctification is hidden in offensively ordinary tasks." - Gustaf Wingren

And ordinary radical cannot simply focus on being ordinary, however.  There is a radical component to the ordinary radical.  An ordinary radical, while perhaps having a very average, ordinary vocation, they have a radical calling in the command to “Love your neighbor.”

The ordinary radical embraces the ordinary.  But they also embrace the call to love their neighbor.

And because of their understanding of their calling, they do it exactly the way that God created them to do it and with the gifts that God has given them to do it.  The ordinary radical radically loves their neighbor in very ordinary ways.  They love their kids by providing and taking care of them.  They love their co-workers by showing up for work on time and by speaking well of them.  They love their neighbors by inviting them over for meals.

Ordinary radicals show the radical, scandalous love of God in all the places God has placed them in their normal, everyday lives.

4 Ways to Help Your Kids Grow

One of the primary desires of any Christian parent is to see their kids grow in their faith.  Parents are the primary disciple-makers in the lives of their kids; when Jesus says “Go and make disciples,” this begins in the living room.  So as parents, one of our primary vocations is to disciple our children.  I’m by no means an expert of this, but there are some things that I’m doing that I enjoy and that I think are helpful in our home.

1. Find a good Bible and read it often.

Reading the Bible is a part of our bedtime routine.  We do it every night in some form or fashion and this has been going on since before Eli could even understand we were reading the Bible.  My goal in reading the Bible every night is that this would just be normal for our family.  I want Elijah and Emaline to never think twice about reading the Bible before bed.

My wife recently blogged about the Bibles we love in our home if you want to know what ones we prefer.

2. Make your church home for them.

Being that I work at our church, this one is especially important to me.  I want my family to feel like they own our church.  I want them to feel like they are free to be themselves and love to be around “Daddy’s work.”  For us, this means I do special things like let Eli play the drums when no one is around or go walking through the offices to see friends and family.

But even apart from church also being where I work, I want my kids to always see our church as their church home.  I want it to be a family.  And in order for that to happen, we have to be around church a lot - whether that be physically at a church function or simply with those who make up the church.

3. Sing Bible songs together. 

I always knew Bible songs were valuable, but I kind of got caught off guard as to how soon they would become important.  All of the sudden, I noticed Eli singing the words to “What does the fox say?”  At that point, I realized I needed to start making sure that we listened to our Bible songs more frequently.  We had already listened to Bible songs, but this prompted me to make sure it was on a regular rotation for our music in the car.

Bedtime also becomes the place where we are always singing.  We have a few bible songs that we love by Matt Boswell.  And I also always like to sing a few hymns every night to my kids as they go to sleep.  And we still throw in some “What does the fox say?” or “Everything is Awesome” for good measure.

4. Encourage your kids to confess their sins. 

Elijah is two.  And that means he gets in trouble.  A lot.

Since we started implementing time-outs as a method of punishment, we also made sure to add into that the importance of confessing our sins to Jesus.  Whenever Eli gets sent to time-out (which is often), we set the timer on our phone and at the end have a little talk.  It usually involves Eli telling me why he was in time-out, saying he was mean, and asking for a hug.  Before he gets down I always make sure he says, “I’m sorry Jesus.”  And once he does, as a dad, it’s my responsibility to make sure he knows his sins are forgiven.  Then we get up and go say sorry to whoever else needs an apology.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but just a list of some things that I’m learning or have experienced others talk about doing.

What else has been helpful for you?

God's Calling When You Hate Your Job

It’s fun to talk about God’s calling when we are talking about a career we love or even our future dreams.  But what about when you don’t like your job?  What is there to talk about when you are stuck in a job you hate, that seems menial, or that you makes you want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork.

Does the doctrine of vocation still apply?

Can you be called to a place that makes you miserable?

Yes.

God can and God does call us to work in places that might not be the best places of employment.  Does that mean we should put up with being treated horrible or that we shouldn’t consider employment elsewhere?  By no means!  But it does mean that until we find a different job, we are called to the one we are at.

In Genesis we learn that after the fall, the earliest vocations of man and woman become difficult.

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken.”  - Genesis 3:17-19

Work was created as a good thing.  God gives Adam and Eve callings even before sin enters the world.  But once sin enters the picture things change.  There isn’t a job in the world that is stress-free.  Even the best job in the world will be accompanied by days of pain and toil.

This is evidence of the broken world that we live in.

What Do I Do if I’m Called To a Job I Hate?

So you didn’t get that dream job that your fancy college-degree and a butt-load of debt promised to get you.  What does that mean for God’s calling in your life?  Do you have one?  Is it not what you thought it would be?  While you may not like your job and it may not be what you hoped it might be, there are some helpful things to consider when the calling you have today is not the calling you hope to have someday.

There is a myth floating around these days that has some folks feeling down—particularly those twenty or thirtysomethings who expected to find themselves settled in a job that makes them wake with the dawn and leap out bed grinning because their work completes them. - Read more

Your job isn’t your only vocation.

Your job is a calling from God.  And it is a place that God’s desires to work with and through you.  But if that job does not utilize all your gifts and passions, it is important to also realize that your job isn’t your only vocation.

In fact, in our world of entrepreneurship, people frequently make a point that we shouldn’t quit our day job in order to pursue our dream job.  Your dream job that you work on at night and on weekends might be a calling that you pursue alongside your day job.  Or your volunteer work for the local non-profit might be the place that utilizes your gifts and passions in a way that your workplace can’t.

You might not be passionate about your job or even feel like it is the place that you should be at long-term, but their are other significant areas in which God wants to use you and your gifts.  And these other areas are important callings to consider.

Your job might be primarily about your calling to your family.

Luther in his conversations about vocation actually primarily categorized the workplace within the vocation of family.  In Luther’s understanding, the job you had was primarily about fulfilling the vocation of providing for a family.

It wasn’t until more recent history that jobs were seen as a place to pursue your passions and find fulfillment.  It used to be that your job was what you did to put food on the table.

You might not like your job, but it pays the bills.  And if it is your responsibility to provide a home for your family and put dinner on the table, you might have to work a difficult, unfulfilling job for the sake of the people you love.

Your job is an opportunity to serve.

In that same light, you’re work becomes an opportunity to serve.  God doesn’t need our works.  We don’t seek to fulfill our vocations because God needs it or it is going to earn us some spiritual points.  We do it because our neighbors need it.

Even if you don’t like your job, you are serving someone.  You are serving the customers that drive you crazy.  You are serving the boss that makes you miserable.  And if all else fails, you are serving your family by working hard at a job you don’t look forward to doing.

So you may not like your job.  Most of us at some point in our life have a difficult, miserable job.  But even in the midst of a job you hate, God’s calling is still present.  And he has called you to the place you are to serve those are you in and through your workplace, he has called you to serve your family by your job, and he has given you all kinds of opportunities to have other vocations alongside of the work you get paid to do.

2 Biggest Lies About Homosexuality that Threaten the Gospel

In our culture, the biggest problem and threat to the Gospel being preached to the homosexual community are the false beliefs that are perpetuated by both those within the community and those outside it.  People within the homosexual community and outside of it often falsely belief that “they are not like us” and that “our sexuality is our identity.”

This is dangerous for us as we understand the message of forgiveness.  This is dangerous for all the people throughout our country who come out to friends and family and falsely believe things about themselves and their identity that are simply contrary to what the Gospel proclaims.  And I write this not to point out what those who struggle believe, but to primarily point out what many of us who don't struggle with this issue falsely believe. 

The Two Biggest Lies People Falsely Believe

1. They are not like us.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.  They are just like us.

In 1 Timothy 1:8-10, Paul describes the lawbreakers and the rebels:

We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Paul makes another list.

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

But here is the point; we are all on these lists.  Paul’s point in the list isn’t about calling out only homosexual behavior, but in calling out all of our sin.  We are all the lawbreakers and the rebels.  We are all guilty.  And just for good measure, in case you don’t think you find yourself on the list, Paul even says “and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine.”

That means anything that go against right belief.

So even if you are arrogant enough to think you aren’t on the list, he still adds the kicker to make sure you’re still counted as:

Lawbreakers. Rebels. Ungodly. Sinful. Unholy. Irreligious. Wrongdoers.

This is why Paul says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Because the Scriptures description of human nature makes it clear that we are all broken.  It is clear that we are all guilty of sin.  And that brokennness expresses itself differently in each of our lives.

For some brokenness gets expressed in our sexual behavior.

For others that brokenness gets expressed in greed or gossip.

In others, it happens in drinking.

Homosexual behavior is not a worse sin, but a different one.  It simply expresses the same brokenness that is true of all of us differently.

This means that anyone who believes that they are a sinner in need of a savior can with confidence trust the words of Psalms 103:11-12 when it says, "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

When Ephesians says we are saved by grace through faith, that goes for all of us.  We are all in the same boat.  Our root problem is the same.  And the grace we receive through faith is the same.

2. Our sexuality is our identity.

Sin is not our identity.  It is not the identity of those who struggle with homosexual behavior, it is not the identity of those who support it, and it is not the identity of those who oppose it.

When your sin becomes your identity, you desperately need to hear the Gospel.

You are not what you do.  You identity is not found in your own behavior, but is found in Christ who gave of himself on the cross.  Your sin should be your identity, but because of the crucifixion your identity becomes that of a saint.

This is why 1 Corinthians 6 says, “That is what some of you were…”  Because in Christ, no matter where you fall on that list, you are given a new identity in Christ.  No matter who you are or what you’ve done, by faith your identity can be found in Christ. You are called a child of God because Jesus took on your brokenness and sin and made it his own.

You are not what you do.

You are not your sins.

You are not your relationships.

You are not your addictions.

You are not your sexual preferences.

You are not your career.

"So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” - Galatians 3:28

Your identity is not found in any of these things.  By the grace of God, we can find our identity completely outside of ourselves and in Jesus.

Because it can be hard to capture this in a short blog post, I encourage you to listen to a recent sermon I did on the subject.  Even that leaves a lot that could yet be discussed, but I feel it is helpful in getting a fuller picture.

Simply Preaching

In a recent interview with Tullian Tchividjian, he recommended that young pastors learn to “Comprehend high and communicate low.”  For pastors and theologians that give their live to studying a library of complicated theological works, this can be difficult.

We’ve all experienced at some point or another being in a conversation with somebody that knows so much about something that it seems like they are talking in a foreign language.

It happens when pre-teens start talking about Minecraft.  A bunch of pre-teens gather around talking about their servers, texture packs, briefing, or something else that I really don’t understand.

Meanwhile you are standing there like, “So you build stuff?"

This happens to me whenever I get my car fixed.  The professionals know so much about cars that an ordinary person like myself cannot understand anything beyond “It is going to cost $500 because it is broke.”

As preachers, we eat, sleep, and breathe theological works.  We love to read books by guys who are dead and wrote brilliantly hundreds of years ago.  We love to listen to other preachers and understand how they proclaim the Word and find out what books they are reading and who they are learning from.

But the people we preach to aren’t in the same boat.  I’m not preaching to seminarians or professors.  I’m not preaching to theological connoisseurs who treat their preachers like tasting a fine-wine; I’m preaching to ordinary people who are looking for a sermon in a language that they can understand with a theology that matters for the life they live.

Martin Luther said it this way:

“To preach plain and simple is a great art: Christ himself talks of tilling ground, of mustard seed, etc; he uses altogether homely and similitudes.  Cursed are all preachers that in the church aim at high and hard things, and neglecting the saving health of the poor unlearned people, seek their own honor and praise…When I preach, I sink myself deep down.  I regard neither Doctors or Magistrates, of whom, are here in this church above forty; but I have my eye to the multitude of young people, children, and servants, of whome are more than 2000.  I preach to those.”  - Martin Luther

I pray that the more I learn and study theology, the harder I work to translate the truth of God’s word into the language of the people I serve.  In the words of JI Packer, my hope is that I would learn to “Feed sheep, not giraffes."

Drifting East of Eden

Our family often goes on a vacation with a number of our friends to a cottage up north.  One of the activities our families enjoy is taking the ridiculous number of kids we have and piling them onto a pontoon boat.

And then we hang out on the water.

A couple of times this ended up with our families beaching the boat at a sand bar so we could let the kids out and play.  And inevitably, because the boat was beached and not anchored, one of us would look over at the boat and see the boat was beginning to drift away.

We always caught the boat thankfully.  But what is fascinating is that the people on the boat never realized it.  They were eating, hanging out, and relaxing and drifting away from shore without every noticing.

This is how drifting works though.  It’s subtle.  It happens slowly and it’s not until somebody points it out that you even realize it is happening.  This happens on beaches all the time; you are hanging out in the water and swimming when all of the sudden you look up and realize you’ve drifted down shore without even noticing it.

The Drift Away from the Garden

In Genesis 3:24, there’s an interest observation that has significant implications for us as Christians.

“After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden a cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”

East of the Garden.

After Adam and Eve sin, they are moved eastward.  Out of the Garden and away from God.

And then in Genesis 4, we read about a story of two brothers.  A story of a brutal murder.  And then at the end of this story, the writer makes a simple note about the murderer-brother.

“Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.”

There’s a drift that is taking place.  And Cain not only drifts eastward, but he settles there.  He puts down roots and builds a city; he makes his home in the east.  There’s this feeling in the first four chapters of Genesis and throughout the entire history of the Israelites that they are going the wrong way.

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We are all east of Eden.  We all drift eastward.

“So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it. For the message God delivered through angels has always stood firm, and every violation of the law and every act of disobedience was punished. So what makes us think we can escape if we ignore this great salvation that was first announced by the Lord Jesus himself and then delivered to us by those who heard him speak?” - Hebrews 2:1-3 (NLT)

This is the tendency of the human heart, there is a slow drift away from the truth we have heard.

We see it in Adam and Eve, we see it in Cain, we see it in the Judges, and in a man like David.  All of us are blown about by the wind and the waves of this world and are pulled by the currents of our own hearts.

And Hebrews makes clear what it is that we drift away from when he says, “We ignore this great salvation that was first announced by the Lord Jesus himself.”  We drift away from the promise that Jesus proclaims to us.  We move eastward and begin building cities for ourselves instead of building our lives on the finished work of Jesus.

And our eastward drift is only stopped by the promise of the cross.

The cross jumps into the middle of this mess with a message that brings us back home.  The Good News comes to us as we’ve gone eastward and re-orients us.  It curves our me-centered hearts outward.  It declares to us our sins are forgiven and jolts us out of the drift and makes sure we cannot “ignore this great salvation.”  Jesus jumps into the storm and despite the currents of our own hearts, he changes the course and brings us back home.

Vision-Casting: There Are No Vision-Less Churches

Vision.  Churches, organizations, non-profits, and even sometimes families all talk about vision.   And these conversations around vision are often, although not exclusively, helpful.  As Christians, we believe that the God is at work in this world both in the work of believers and unbelievers.  Because of this, there is a lot that we can learn about the organization of a congregation and leadership from those who have no interest or appreciation for Church.

And vision is a common business practice and strategy.  And so it is helpful consider, is vision-casting Biblical?  And if so, what should it look like in our churches?

It depends.

If your pastor seems to imply that he has some direct revelation from God that has been given to him outside of Scripture, no.  It is unbiblical and I’d be a little worried about what he might say.  But if vision-casting is nothing more than looking towards the future and stating a preferred future (which is also given and guided by God through people in their vocations), it is absolutely does not contradict what the Bible teaches.

Here is how Jim Collins defines “vision” in organizations.

Yet vision is one of the least understood-and most overused-terms in the language. Vision is simply a combination of three basic elements: (1) an organization’s fundamental reason for existence beyond just making money (often called its mission or purpose), (2) its timeless unchanging core values, and (3) huge and audacious—but ultimately achievable—aspirations for its own future

As our churches are led, they should certainly be led with this kind of vision.

But this doesn’t mean that the pastor is seeking some unique word from God where God shows up in a miraculously way telling them how to build the next mega-church.  Instead, leading a congregation with vision ultimately comes from knowing the Scripture and knowing the culture you are trying to reach.

Vision is simply aligning the congregation around a shared ideal for the sake of the people you are trying to reach.

The scriptures say, “Go and make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching.”  If this is the mission, the vision is how a congregation does this in their context.  The vision becomes the unique ideals that shapes that congregation, not necessarily the given Biblical commands that are required of all congregations.

Non-Christian organizations do this all the time.  Starbucks, Wal-Mart, ABC, Disney, Apple.  They all cast vision for their organization.  The CEO aligns that company around a particular idea and seeks to form the strategy and philosophy of business around that vision and mission.

And while our churches shouldn’t be run strictly like a business, there are valuable lessons we can learn from businesses, and uniting around a common vision is a lesson that is important for our congregations.

There is no such thing as a vision-less congregation.

“Vision" language might not be used.  And a vision might not even be clearly expressed, but there is some kind of vision for what that place should look like and how ministry should happen.  And if that vision is not clearly communicated, it will also be controlled by somebody other than the shepherd of that congregation.  And when that happens, the vision to not have a vision gets hijacked by somebody else’s vision to make sure the church looks like their vision.

Happy 4th Birthday!

My blog is officially 4 years old today.  After 400 of posts over the past 4 years, it has been fun to see how the blog has changed, grown, and become what it is today.  This blog wasn’t the first time I had blogged.  I had a livejournal back in the day and even blogged while I was an intern for a short season.  But four years ago, I decided to venture back into blogging.

Here was my first paragraph I wrote on rjgrune.com:

I’ve thought about blogging for a while now; I’ve struggled with the idea of why I’d do something like that, wondered if I’m arrogant to think that anyone would care what I have to think, and ultimately put my reservations aside and decided to go for it.  Since I have spent a lot of time trying to decide if I would blog, I figured I should share my thoughts going into it.

When I started blogging, I initially blogged primarily about youth ministry and technology, occasionally adding in some random theology posts.  At that point, I would’ve considered my blog primarily a youth ministry blog and also a way to promote some of my app development work.

I blogged because I wanted to, had no strategy, and slowly began to have people reading and interacting with what I wrote.

Now, four years later, this blog has grown up a little bit.  I’m still motivated by my love for writing and sharing my ideas.  And I still love the things that I have previously spent a ton of time blogging about.

The blog has matured as I have better understand what I’m blogging about.  And it has matured as the community that is involved here has grown.  This blog is all about theology for everyday life.  This shapes what I write, how I write it, and the new ideas and dreams I have for my writing.

I honestly believe that good theology is not reserved for the academics, pastors, and dead guys, but it is for the people living everyday life.  And as a leader who believes this, I do whatever I can to translate the ancient message of the Bible into the language of ordinary people.

This affects the way I write, the way I preach, and the way I talk about my faith in daily conversations.  It influences the eBooks that I share with subscribers.  And even the new podcast that I’m working on.  It’s all connected around this crazy idea that the core doctrines taught throughout scriptures should be translated into the language of ordinary people.

So this is just a way to say Happy Birthday to my own blog and to let you know, I’m going to try to keep working with this crazy idea that when ancient truths are translated into everyday language that it changes people’s lives.

In the words of the beloved Steve Jobs, “Here’s to the crazy ones.”

The Power of Words

While most of us have grown up with the rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will never hurt me,” we know that words have far more power than that simple childhood rhyme led us to believe.

Words have the power to create and destroy; to kill and give life.  God works through words.  In the beginning, the Word created the world and everything in it.  In our daily life, our own words have the power to create and destroy the lives of our friends, family, and coworkers.  Our words have the potential to give life or kill the life of the people around us, just as God’s own words do this in our life.

God’s word “kills us in order to make us alive.”  He speaks his word of condemnation to shatter our self-made delusions about the kind of people we think we are.  He reveals us for what we are in his sight and once we have been shattered, he reminds us of who he is.

God’s Word is made up of two words: Law and Gospel.  The Law is the Word that kills.  It kills the self-righteous, breaks the arrogant, and destroys the legalist.  The Law reveals our sin and kills us so that we might be resurrected.  The Gospel is the Word that gives life.  It rescues the person who cries, “Lord have mercy on me a sinner.”

As Christians, we are given the sacred calling to speak God’s words in the places he has placed us.  In our homes, in our families, in our neighborhoods, and in our workplaces God has called us to be people who speak his word in the unique places we have been placed.

In the words of Uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

We have a responsibility to use our words wisely.  Our words have the power to correct those who live licentiously and falsely believe there is no law.  And they have the power to set free those who have been enslaved by sin.

The Law will inevitably drive people to guilt and shame.  These aren’t bad feelings when they drive us to repentance.  But without the Gospel, they leave a person destroyed.

Guilt says, “I’m sorry, I did something wrong.”  Shame says, “I’m sorry, there’s something wrong with me.”  The Gospel speaks words of hope to both of these experiences.

It speaks to our guilt when it declares, “Your sins are forgiven.”  The guilt has been removed.  And it speaks to our shame, when it says, “You are not who you were.”  Our identity is found in Christ, not in our shame.  We are not only sinners, but we are also saints. And these are the words that we have the privilege to speak in our conversations, in our preaching, and in our writing.