Christian Discipleship

Pondering Tozer…

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

The recent fire in our home put the reading of A. W. Tozer as part of my devotional habit on hold for a few weeks. My books were in the living room that was filled with soot and ash, and it was three weeks before the books were cleaned.

Okay, it’s been over a month since the fire and my house still isn’t clean, but that’s another story I’ll save for another time. I need to get over my frustration with the cleaning company before I express my sentiments publicly. Mama always said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.” So, I’m not saying anything.

I picked up Tozer again this week, and there are several quotes that I have been ruminating over the last several days. I share them here. Perhaps the quotes will prompt you to ponder, as well. Please keep in mind that Tozer died in 1963. If it was bad in 1963, how bad must it be today?

These quotes are from The Pursuit of God:

Self-Sins

“To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them.”

Tozer identifies self-love as a sin. I get that, but at the same time, I wrestle with what Jesus said to the scribe in Mark 12: 31–“The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself‘.” Where is that line? I know it has much to do with being as forgiving of others as I am of myself. I know when I screw-up, I am very quick to extend grace to myself, and make several excellent excuses for what I’ve done. I should be so quick to do that for others. I know there’s more to it than that, but I still want to know, “How do I love myself without being guilty of the sin of self-love?”

Self Promotion

“Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.”

Oh, the things we do in the name of Christ that have nothing to do with Jesus! Jesus gets credit for a lot of things he would really rather have nothing to do with, and he gets the blame for many things that are absolutely not on him. I suspect it is (at least in my case) because we want to avoid responsibility and accountability for ourselves. I noticed that self-responsibility and self-accountability are not in Tozer’s list of the “self” sins.

Scribe or Pharisee

“Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God.”

I am especially convicted by Tozer’s quote above because of one old seminary professor. That professor, after hearing one of my sermons, approached me and said, “Lynn, you have the gift of prophetic utterance. Use the gift wisely.” I fear I have not used it wisely, but rather have not used it at all. Unfortunately, I have fancied myself more the scribe (who has read) than the prophet (who has seen). Oh! To be one who has seen the Lord, high and lifted up, glorified and sitting on the Throne, instead of one who only knows what he has read of the glory of the Almighty.

Dying to Self

“Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.”

Every disciple must die–he/she must die to self, and as Tozer says, “It is never fun to die.” The greater pain comes in knowing that I must die to self everyday, and everyday that death is no less painful. Perhaps that is why I avoid it so much. Didn’t Jesus say, “If anyone desires to be my disciple, they must take up their cross daily…?” I am reminded in these moments of the words of the great G. K. Chesterton: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

I think that’s quite enough pondering for one day (probably enough for a week). I admit I long to read Tozer because I know he’ll light a fire under me, but then I read Tozer and the conviction often outweighs the anticipation with which I began.

Tozer. Always compelling. Always interesting. Always convicting. Always challenging. Always worth it. May I commend him to you?

Until next time, keep looking up…

The Road Between Work and Worship…

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Part of my present devotional exercise is reading a sermon a day from Eugene Peterson, beloved translator of The Message paraphrase of the Bible. Though Peterson suffered some damage to his “evangelical” reputation near the end of his life, I refuse to throw the baby out with the bath water. Peterson was gifted with the ability to turn a phrase with elegance and simplicity, and with over 50 years in ministry, he turned many phrases that are both abounding in truth and utterly challenging.

If you’ve never read Peterson (outside the occasional look at The Message), I commend his work to you. If you are a pastor, you would benefit greatly from his memoir The Pastor: A Memoir, whether you’re just beginning the work of pastoral ministry, or whether you’re nearing the end of the journey. Another classic I would recommend any Christian read is A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society. This book will change the way you view Christian discipleship. Well worth the read.

So, one of the sermons I read this week offered me a particular challenge in how I view the church (little “c” intentionally used–meaning the local congregation). Here are the two paragraphs that challenged me:

“The ideal church, as far as I’m concerned (which is rooted in my understanding of Scripture), would be one where nobody came near the church for six days and everybody came on Sunday. The best kind of church would be one with no committees or organizations–nothing happening here between Sundays. Not because we have nothing to do but because we have everything to do. During the week we’re out carrying crosses, denying ourselves, following Jesus, making our witness, helping our neighbors, serving God, working responsibly and as hard as we can to be the people of God in serving and suffering the way he’s called us to do it. We work. We do.

“But, then, on the “seventh day” (the first day for Christians), we come here and leave all that behind. And we enjoy everything that God is doing. We become carefree. Free. We become children again. We let God do it all, and you sing and adore and become aware of his presence.”

Sermon “Transfigured”, Eugene Peterson

Ah! A congregation with “no committees or organizations.” A pastor’s dream! But, without the incumbent “work” of ministry that all Christ-followers are called to do in the interim, I’m sure it would soon become a nightmare. Perhaps it has…

I am reminded by Peterson’s words that there is to be no distinction between our work and our worship. We worship AND we work. Worship is meant to fuel our work. Too often, we compartmentalize our lives such that our worship is divorced from the everyday-ness of life. “This” is my religious life, and “that” is my work (everyday) life. I get so much out of the “worship” part that I want to return tomorrow or the next day to experience it again, but in doing so, I neglect the necessity of the “work” part of loving my neighbor or greeting the stranger. Worship becomes the excuse for my failure to work. Ouch!

It is easy to be Christian on Sunday. It is much more difficult to be Christian on Monday when we are met with the challenge of actually putting feet to our faith. And, if I can go to enough bible studies and serve on enough church committees, I can find solace in the fact that “I’ve done my Christian duty.” It becomes easier to forgo the loving my neighbor or caring for the orphan part of our Christian duty.

As a pastor serving full-time in vocational ministry, I thought it was my responsibility to lead Bible studies and develop programs that enhanced the life of the congregation and fostered discipleship in its members. To do otherwise would likely have gotten me fired! Besides, how would anything ever get accomplished in the life of the congregation without committees and organization? Right? Someone has to lead all that. The “work” of the church does need to get done, after all.

Now, serving as a bi-vocational pastor, I’ve come to appreciate the necessity of the work that must be done outside the walls of the church. Listen, folks! The lost aren’t coming to the church anymore. If we would encounter the lost, it will be in the ordinary, everyday encounters we have with the people where we live most of our lives–our work and our home. It is in that environment that we must live obediently and faithfully. It is in the Monday through Saturday of life where disciples are formed. It is in the Monday through Friday of life where the lost are introduced to Jesus, and are offered the opportunity to embrace him as Lord and Savior.

Worship is not an escape from the world…a welcome respite from the challenges of life. Worship is meant to propel us into the world where our work becomes our witness, and our service to others reflects our faithful obedience to Jesus Christ.

I certainly don’t mean to diminish the work I did as a full-time vocational minister, nor am I casting dispersion on the many friends and colleagues who continue to do that work faithfully. I am, however, calling into question the motivations for doing what I did as a pastor, and for doing what we do as congregations. Age and context have given me a different perspective, and that change in perspective has me questioning some of my deeply held beliefs concerning discipleship. That’s all…

I guess the long and short of it for me is that there is no distance between worship and work. The journey of discipleship follows the same road between worship and work. I suppose faithful discipleship is learning how to “keep it between the ditches” along that road.

Until next time, keep looking up…