Spiritual formation

The Difficult Work of Christian Restoration

/ pastorlynnmalone / 2 Comments

Every person carries burdens. Some arrive through no fault of our own—a diagnosis, a death, a job loss, a broken relationship, a season of grief. The church is often at its best when those burdens appear. We show up with meals, prayers, financial assistance, and a steady presence. We do what we can to make sure no one carries the weight alone.

But there is another kind of burden we discuss less easily: the weight created by our own sin.

That burden may include guilt, shame, damaged trust, consequences we cannot escape, and the hard work of repentance. What does a Spirit-formed community do when someone has made a terrible decision? Do we stand back and explain why they fell? Make an example of them? Discuss their failure with everyone except them? Decide that their worst decision is the truest thing about them and leave them beneath its weight?

Or do we help them stand again?

Restoration Requires Truth and Gentleness

Paul answers that question in Galatians 6, immediately after describing the fruit of the Spirit. After naming love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, he writes:

“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

Then Paul turns directly to the person caught in sin:

“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.”

Conceited people provoke, compare, condemn, and keep their distance. Spirit-formed people move toward the fallen with gentleness. One way to measure whether the Spirit is forming us is by examining how we respond to someone else’s failure.

Paul does not tell us to excuse the sin, pretend it never happened, call evil good, or remove every consequence. He tells us to restore the person—and to do it gently. The word translated restore was used for mending a torn net or setting a broken bone. Restoration is careful work because the person is already wounded. Even a self-inflicted wound can be made worse by careless hands. Gentleness is not weakness, and it does not require us to avoid the truth. Setting a broken bone requires us to tell the truth about what is broken. But that truth must be handled by hands committed to healing rather than humiliation.

Get Beneath the Burden

Paul continues:

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

We often separate this instruction from the verse before it and apply it only to illness, grief, or financial hardship. Those applications are right, but Paul’s immediate context is the person caught in sin. The guilt, shame, damaged relationships, and difficult road back to faithfulness are also burdens the church is called to help carry. Burden-bearing means walking with another person even through their worst decisions. It means saying:

“You have made a terrible decision. I will not pretend otherwise. But I will not abandon you beneath the weight of it. We will walk through this together.”

That kind of presence is messy and costly. It is much easier to offer advice from a distance than to get beneath the load. But when we bear another person’s burden, we embody grace. We remind the fallen that repentance is possible, forgiveness is real, consequences do not mean abandonment, and their worst decision does not have to have the final word.

Peter made a terrible decision. After promising that he would never abandon Jesus, he denied Him three times. The risen Christ did not pretend the denial never happened. On the seashore, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love Me?” He brought Peter back to face his failure—not to humiliate him, but to restore him.

“Feed My sheep. Follow Me.”

Truth. Grace. Restoration. Discipleship. Jesus refused to let Peter’s worst decision have the final word.

Restore the Person, Not Necessarily the Position

Paul says, “Carry each other’s burdens,” and then, only a few sentences later, “Each one should carry their own load.” The first word can describe a crushing weight; the second points to personal responsibility. There are burdens we must help one another carry, but there are also responsibilities each person must bear before God.

Burden-bearing does not mean taking responsibility for someone else’s choices. We cannot repent for them, force them to tell the truth, manufacture humility, or perform the work of obedience on their behalf. We can walk beside them, pray, listen, speak truth, establish boundaries, and help them identify the next faithful step—but they must take it.

This distinction becomes especially important when the person once occupied a position of responsibility. In recent years, the serious moral failures of several prominent pastors have become public. Churches have then debated whether those pastors should be “restored to ministry.” But Galatians 6 tells us to restore the person. It does not necessarily tell us to restore the position.

Our task is not to rescue a career, recover a platform, or repair a reputation. It is to help the person bring the burden to Christ and return to faithful fellowship with Him and His church. Sometimes the clearest evidence of restoration is the humility to live faithfully without the former platform.

The goal is not to return people to prominence. It is to return them to faithfulness.

Restoration Is a Field We Cultivate

Paul then turns to the principle of sowing and reaping: “A man reaps what he sows.” In the larger context, he is speaking about the whole life of faithfulness, but his words certainly apply to the slow work of restoration. Restoration is hard, patient cultivation. Like a garden, the ground must be prepared, seed must be planted, weeds must be pulled, and the gardener must keep showing up and then wait.

Long conversations, intentional prayer, uncomfortable truths, patient listening, clear boundaries, practical assistance, and consistent presence are the implements of restoration. We cannot sow a few words of advice and expect an immediate harvest. Restoration is a field we cultivate, not a moment we announce. We cannot force the harvest, and the person being restored remains responsible for how they respond. Progress may be uneven. Setbacks may come. That is why Paul writes:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

The church should be the place where sin is taken seriously but fallen people are not discarded—where truth confronts us, grace carries us, and love helps us stand again. That does not mean every relationship returns to what it was, every position is restored, or every consequence disappears. It means no person is reduced to the worst thing they have ever done, and we keep believing that the grace of Jesus can still produce a harvest of faithfulness.

Jesus did not stand at a distance and explain the burden of our sin. He came near, got beneath its weight, and carried it to the cross.

The self-righteous stand above the fallen. The followers of Jesus get beneath the burden.

We are not called to return people to prominence. We are called to return people to faithfulness. And we do not abandon people beneath the weight of their worst decisions.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

When Ambition Masquerades as Calling

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Age is a humbling thing. It brings aches in new places, but it also brings old decisions into sharper focus. One uncomfortable truth I have come to see is this: Not every decision made for questionable reasons ends badly.

That may be one reason some of them are so difficult to recognize. Sometimes the opportunity works out. Sometimes the new position goes well. Sometimes everyone involved flourishes. The outcome becomes evidence we use to reassure ourselves that we made the right decision. But good outcomes do not always justify the reasons behind our decisions. Sometimes we succeed for the wrong reason.

You’re wondering about that questionable decision, aren’t you? One in particular has returned to my thoughts recently. It happened in 2011. At the time, I was serving as pastor of Benton United Methodist Church. A few years earlier, in 2008, I had taken a clergy renewal leave. When I returned that December, I stood before the congregation and made a commitment: I would stay as their pastor as long as they would have me.

And I meant it when I said it.

At least, I thought I did.

Then, in February 2011, the bishop called. He invited me to serve on the Cabinet as a district superintendent. It was an honor—a significant opportunity and the kind of invitation a pastor does not receive every day.

Vanessa and I talked about it. I said I would pray about it. Looking back, however, I’m not sure I really did. If I prayed at all, my prayer was probably more “Thank you” than “What do you want me to do?”

The truth is, I had already made up my mind.

The invitation felt like the next rung on the ecclesiastical ladder I had been climbing for a long time. It carried recognition, greater responsibility and the possibility of broader influence. I could easily describe it as an opportunity to serve the Church in a new way—and it was.

But it was also something I wanted.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with accepting a new responsibility or pursuing an opportunity. There is also nothing necessarily wrong with ambition. The danger comes when ambition becomes so entangled with our sense of calling that we can no longer tell them apart.

That is what happened to me.

I accepted the position without fully wrestling with the commitment I had made to the congregation. A promise that had sounded firm in 2008 suddenly became negotiable when a sufficiently attractive opportunity appeared in 2011.

Perhaps it was a promise I should never have made. In the United Methodist system, pastors do not ultimately control how long they remain in an appointment. But I had made it. The people had heard it. They had every reason to believe I meant it.

And then I set it aside. At the time, I had plenty of ways to justify my decision. It was a good opportunity. It was a larger role. It offered the possibility of broader impact. I could tell myself that the bishop had called, the Church needed me, and God had opened the door. All those things may have been true.

But they were not the whole truth. The rest of the truth was that my ambition spoke louder than my commitment.

I wish I could point to a particular moment when that realization struck me, but I can’t. It emerged gradually. As I have grown older and looked back across the years of my ministry, I have begun to see things I could not—or would not—see when I was living them.

Faithfulness has certainly been part of my story. I have loved the Church. I have wanted to serve Christ. I have tried to follow where I believed God was leading. But faithfulness was not the only thing driving me. Ambition was there too.

That is difficult for me to admit because ambition rarely announces itself honestly, especially in the Church. It does not usually say, “I want a more important position,” or “I want people to recognize me.” It learns to speak the language of calling, opportunity, influence and impact.

We tell ourselves we are expanding our ministry. We are accepting a new challenge. We will be able to influence more people. We may even interpret the opportunity itself as proof that God wants us to take it.

I did not have to choose between faithfulness and ambition because I had learned how to call my ambition faithfulness. Only with the passage of time have I become more capable of separating the two.

Leading a small congregation has been part of that process. Small-church ministry has brought a level of humility into my life that I did not know I needed. It has forced me to reconsider some of the assumptions I once carried about success, influence and significance.

There are fewer people in the room. There is little institutional prestige. Most of what happens will never be noticed beyond our congregation. There are no impressive statistics to report and few opportunities to convince myself that the size of my platform is evidence of the importance of my ministry. There are simply people to love, Scripture to teach, burdens to help carry, prayers to pray and a congregation to serve. And perhaps that is closer to faithfulness than much of what I once imagined.

Small-church ministry has not removed every trace of ambition from me. I am not sure anything short of complete sanctification could accomplish that. But it has exposed ambition in ways that success often concealed it. It has reminded me that a larger assignment is not necessarily a more important one, and that faithfulness cannot always be measured by the size of the room, the prominence of the title or the reach of the ministry.

Sometimes faithfulness looks like staying.

That is what makes the promise I made to the Benton congregation difficult to remember. I told them I would remain as long as they would have me. A little more than two years later, when an attractive opportunity appeared, that commitment became negotiable.

I never went back and acknowledged that to the congregation. There was no moment when I stood before them and admitted how much ambition had influenced my decision. I cannot go back and change what I did, but I can look back honestly and name what I now see.

Some things can be corrected. Other things can only be confessed.

I do believe God was at work in ways I could not see at the time. The Benton congregation has flourished, and so have Vanessa and I. God brought good from the years that followed, and I remain grateful for them.

But good outcomes do not make every motive good.

God’s ability to redeem a decision does not relieve me of the responsibility to examine why I made it. Grace does not require me to rewrite the past so that I was right all along. Grace gives me the freedom to admit that I was not fully honest about what was driving me—with the congregation, with God or perhaps even with myself.

That may be one of the most difficult forms of repentance. Failure forces us to examine ourselves. Success often allows us to avoid it.

Sometimes the hardest thing to face is not realizing that we failed.

It is realizing that we succeeded—and still need to repent.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

Forgiveness and Healing: Grace Is Greater Than the Wound

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

When someone wounds us, something inside us begins keeping an account.

They owe me an apology. They owe me an explanation. They owe me the years I lost. They owe me the innocence they took. They owe me the trust they destroyed. They owe me for the humiliation, grief, or pain they caused.

Some of those debts are real. Forgiveness does not say otherwise.

But forgiveness does determine what we will do with the debt.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:32, “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

The word Paul uses for “forgiving” is charizomai. It comes from the same root as charis, the word we translate as grace. It can mean to give freely, to grant graciously, or to forgive.

Forgiveness, in Paul’s language, is grace in relational form.

It is not primarily a feeling. If we wait until we feel like forgiving, we may wait for the rest of our lives. Forgiveness is a grace-shaped decision concerning what we will do with the debt created by another person’s sin against us.

We decide that we will not spend the rest of our lives trying to collect that debt through bitterness, retaliation, humiliation, or revenge. We release our personal claim to make the other person suffer as payment for what they did, and we place justice into the hands of God.

That does not mean all earthly consequences disappear. It does not mean a crime should go unreported, restitution should never be made, or accountability should be abandoned. Grace and accountability are not enemies. Forgiveness simply means that I refuse to make revenge the organizing purpose of my life.

Forgiveness Tells the Truth

We need to speak carefully about forgiveness because, in our hurry to tell hurting people they need to forgive, Christians have sometimes failed to acknowledge how deeply they were wounded.

Forgiveness is not denying that the wound happened. It is not minimizing the seriousness of the offense. It is not calling evil good. It is not excusing the offender by saying, “They couldn’t help it,” or “It really wasn’t that bad.”

Forgiveness is not forgetting. We sometimes say, “Forgive and forget,” as though faithful Christians should be able to erase painful memories. Human minds do not work that way, and Scripture does not command spiritual amnesia. Some experiences leave marks that remain for a lifetime.

Forgiveness does not automatically restore trust. Forgiveness can be given; trust must be rebuilt through truth, repentance, consistency, and time. Reconciliation may not always be possible, and forgiveness never requires someone to remain in an abusive or unsafe relationship.

Forgiveness does not eliminate consequences. A forgiven person may still lose a position, face legal consequences, or live with a permanently changed relationship. Grace does not erase wisdom, boundaries, accountability, or justice.

These distinctions matter because some people carry not only the pain of what was done to them but also the shame of believing their continued pain proves they have failed to forgive.

Healing is not always immediate. Forgiveness may begin with a decisive act, but with a deep wound it may also require repeated surrender. We may have to place the same hurt into God’s hands more than once.

The capacity of grace to forgive never diminishes the depth of the wound.

Grace is able to tell the whole truth. It can say, “What happened was wrong. It hurt me. It changed something. There were consequences. I did not deserve it.” Grace can say all of that without allowing hatred to have the final word.

Look at the cross. God’s grace never treated sin as insignificant. At the cross, God named the horror of sin and revealed the depth of divine love at the same time. Grace tells the truth about sin—and then demonstrates that sin will not have the last word.

Grace Is Greater

When we say grace is greater than the wound, we are not comparing levels of pain. We are not telling someone, “Your wound should not matter because grace matters more.” We are saying that the sin committed against us does not possess greater power than the grace of Jesus Christ at work within us.

Grace does not make the wound smaller. Grace keeps the wound from becoming greater than Jesus Christ.

Paul does not begin with the person who hurt us, the size of the offense, or the strength of our willpower. He begins with what God has already done for us: “just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

We do not forgive to earn grace. We forgive because we have received grace. Forgiveness is not the price we pay to be forgiven by God. It is the fruit produced in people who know how much they have already been forgiven.

Grace received becomes grace extended.

We love grace when it moves in our direction. We sing about the grace that forgives our sins and reconciles us to God. We are less enthusiastic when that same grace moves toward those who have wounded us. We want mercy to explain what we did and justice to define what they did. We want the Lord to remember our weakness but remember their wickedness.

Paul does not allow us to separate the grace we receive from the grace we extend. The grace that comes to us through Jesus Christ takes shape in the way we respond to one another.

That is why forgiveness reveals so much about our spiritual formation. It is possible to know the language of grace without being gracious. It is possible to explain forgiveness while refusing to forgive. It is possible to celebrate what Christ has done for us while resisting what Christ wants to do through us.

My capacity to forgive is directly related to the depth of my spiritual formation.

That statement is not intended to shame anyone struggling to forgive. Some wounds are extraordinarily deep, and the path of healing may be long. The struggle itself may become the place where we learn to depend upon grace more deeply than ever before.

If grace is greater than my sin, then grace is greater than the sin of the person who wounded me. And if grace is greater than the sin that wounded me, then grace is greater than the wound that sin left behind.

If grace is greater than my sin, then grace is greater than my wound.

What Is Discipling Us?

The pain of a wound is not an idol, and feeling that pain is not a spiritual failure. But a wound begins to occupy the place that belongs to Christ when it defines who we are, determines how we see others, dictates our decisions, and claims authority over our future.

Before long, we are no longer simply remembering the wound. We are allowing the wound to disciple us.

The wound may be part of my story, but grace refuses to let it become the author of my story. Forgiveness does not rewrite the past. It places the future back into the hands of Jesus.

Nearly thirty years ago, I pastored a church where two men lived in the same community, worked for the same company, and worshiped in the same congregation. Somewhere along the way, a work-related offense created a division between them. I do not remember all the details, and after all these years the details are not really the point.

What I remember is that they never found their way through it.

They continued attending the same church, but they sat on opposite sides of the sanctuary. Week after week, they worshiped the same Lord, heard the same Scriptures, and received the same grace—but the division remained between them.

Both men have now died. I do not tell their story to judge their hearts. Only God knows everything that passed between them. I tell it because their story has stayed with me.

They had moved on with their lives, but it appeared that something between them had never been surrendered to the transforming grace of Jesus Christ.

That is the danger of an unforgiven wound. Life continues. We go to work. We come to church. We sing the hymns and listen to the sermon. From the outside, it may appear that we have moved on. Yet the wound may still be deciding where we sit, whom we avoid, and how far the grace we have received will be allowed to travel through us.

Is there someone I need to forgive? Is there a wound I need to surrender again? Is there a division I have learned to live with that Jesus is calling me to address?

Forgiveness may not restore every relationship. It may not remove every consequence or erase every painful memory. But it refuses to let what happened to us become more powerful in shaping our lives than what Christ has done for us.

The wound may be part of your story, but don’t let it write the ending.

Give Jesus back the pen.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

What Has Institutional Success Done to the Church?

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Questions About Multisite Churches, Institutional Spending, Consumerism, and Accountability

Over the past several posts, I have been examining eleven questions I have been asking myself about the contemporary church.

I began with questions about church leadership and then turned to questions about what happens when the church gathers. 

Four questions remain:

  1. Are multisite campuses a desire to grow God’s kingdom—or the senior pastor’s kingdom?
  2. How biblical is it for as much as 50 percent—or more—of a church’s giving to support buildings, maintenance, utilities, and staff?
  3. Has the contemporary church fostered a consumer mentality rather than genuine discipleship?
  4. Why is the contemporary church so reluctant to practice church discipline?

These may appear to be four separate issues, but I believe they belong together. Each one raises a larger question: What happens when preserving and growing the institution becomes more important than forming faithful disciples?

Once again, I am not asking these questions as someone standing outside the institutional church. I have spent more than thirty-five years as an insider. I have served as a senior pastor and district superintendent. I have made my living from the gospel for most of my adult life. I have not merely participated in these systems. I have benefited from them.

Neither am I suggesting that everything associated with institutional Christianity is necessarily wrong. Institutions can preserve important traditions, combine resources, support ministries, and accomplish things an individual congregation could never accomplish alone. But institutions also have a natural instinct for self-preservation. Over time, keeping the institution alive can become more important than fulfilling the mission for which the institution was created. That is the concern behind these four questions.

When Expansion Becomes the Mission

I understand the appeal of the multisite church model. We explored it in two of the congregations I served over the years. It can make good financial and missional sense, particularly when a larger congregation merges with a smaller or struggling one.

The larger church can provide financial resources, leadership, technology, administrative support, and ministry programs the smaller congregation could not sustain on its own. A struggling church may remain open, and a Christian presence may be preserved in a community where it might otherwise disappear. Those are good things.

Everyone wants to reach more people for Christ. At least, that is what we say our goal is. A multisite model can provide opportunities to reach people in different communities while avoiding the expense of duplicating every administrative function. I appreciate the concept.

Still, I find myself asking a question: Why not call the new location a church plant? If the goal is to establish a congregation that makes disciples and reaches its community, why must it remain a campus of the larger church? Why must it retain the larger congregation’s name, organizational identity, ministry system, and usually its primary preacher?

Does the campus have local leadership with meaningful authority? Is it being prepared to become a self-governing congregation? Is the goal to reproduce healthy churches—or to extend the reach of one church’s brand? And, perhaps most uncomfortably, is the goal to grow God’s kingdom or our kingdom?

I am not suggesting that every multisite church is driven by ego or control. That would be an unfair judgment about motives I cannot know. Some multisite churches are undoubtedly reaching people and doing meaningful ministry.

But the model deserves examination. Bigger is not necessarily better. Expansion is not necessarily multiplication. Increasing the audience of one gifted communicator is not necessarily the same thing as forming a new congregation with mature local leaders.

Perhaps the real test is not how many campuses a church has but what kind of disciples and leaders those campuses are producing. If every campus remains dependent upon the personality, preaching, and authority of one senior pastor, have we planted churches—or merely expanded a platform?

When Maintaining the Church Consumes the Church

I am writing this while attending the General Conference of my denomination, the Evangelical Methodist Church. As part of that meeting, I have been looking at financial information from our congregations. The numbers raise difficult questions.

In many smaller churches, more than 50 percent of the congregation’s giving is allocated to pastoral support. Once denominational support, insurance, utilities, maintenance, and other facility expenses are added, as much as 80 percent of the church’s income may already be committed. That leaves very little margin for ministry and outreach.

This is not an argument against paying pastors. Scripture clearly supports those who receive their living from the gospel. As one who has received his living from the gospel for most of his adult life, it would be more than a little hypocritical for me to suggest otherwise.

Nor is it an argument against maintaining church property. Buildings require electricity, insurance, repairs, and upkeep. Those expenses are real and ignoring them does not make them disappear.

The problem is not that churches have expenses. The problem is what happens when almost everything a congregation receives is required simply to keep the congregation operating. At what point does maintaining the church consume the church?

We regularly say, “The church is not a building.” Our budgets, however, sometimes tell another story. They may reveal that maintaining the building, supporting the staff, and preserving the organization have become our highest priorities.

Again, I understand how this happens. A congregation loves its pastor. It values the building where generations have worshiped, married, baptized their children, and buried their loved ones. The building holds memories that cannot be measured on a financial statement. But a difficult question remains: If 80 percent of a church’s giving is required to maintain its staff, building, and denominational obligations, how much is left to feed the hungry, care for the poor, serve the community, support missions, and make disciples?

Perhaps an even harder question is this: Are we supporting these things because they advance the mission, or has preserving them become the mission? The institution was created to support the ministry of the church. The ministry of the church was never intended merely to support the institution.

When Disciples Become Consumers

Church-hopping and church-shopping have become normal in the United States. When we want a strong children’s ministry, we look for the church with the best children’s ministry. When our children become teenagers, we search for the church with the largest youth group, the most activities, the best facilities, or the most dynamic youth pastor.

I have watched this happen in churches I served. Families would participate in our children’s ministry, but once their children became teenagers, they migrated to the bigger church because it offered more opportunities for their teens.

I understand the impulse. Parents want their children to enjoy church. They want them to build Christian friendships, learn the faith, and have experiences that will encourage them to follow Christ. Confession: I’ve got teenage grandchildren. I want the same for them.

But I have begun to wonder whether we parents (and grandparents) have abdicated our responsibility for our children’s faith development to the professionals. We have outsourced discipleship.

We began to believe our children needed a professional children’s minister, a professional youth minister, and a full calendar of religious activities more than they needed parents who prayed with them, opened Scripture with them, worshiped beside them, served with them, and demonstrated a life of faith before them.

Churches have helped create this expectation. We compete for families by offering more programs, better facilities, larger events, and specialized ministries for every age and stage of life. In the process, we can unintentionally communicate that discipleship is something religious professionals provide for us. That is what consumerism does. It changes the question.

Instead of asking, “Where is God calling us to belong, serve, sacrifice, and grow?” we ask, “Which church offers the most for me and my family?”

The church becomes another provider of goods and services, which happen to be religious in nature. Worship becomes something we attend. Ministry becomes something the staff performs. Discipleship becomes another program we consume. And when another church offers a better product, we move.

I am not opposed to children’s or youth ministry. I am grateful for those who invest in children and teenagers. But no church program can replace the role of parents (and grandparents) in the spiritual formation of their children. The church should equip parents for that responsibility, not encourage them to surrender it. Have we become so focused on attracting families that we have forgotten how to form them?

When Accountability Threatens Attendance

Consumer Christianity also helps explain why church discipline has largely disappeared. No one seems to be accountable anymore—morally or theologically. We are reluctant to address destructive behavior because we do not want to appear judgmental. After all, we are all sinners. We are afraid of being hypocritical, unloving, or legalistic.

Those concerns are understandable. Church discipline has sometimes been practiced harshly, selectively, and publicly. Certain sins have been exposed while others were excused. Ordinary members have been disciplined while influential leaders were protected. What was supposed to produce restoration sometimes produced humiliation instead. We should repent of those abuses.

But the misuse of church discipline does not eliminate the need for loving accountability. “We are all sinners” is a reason to practice accountability humbly. It is not a reason to abandon accountability altogether.

The New Testament vision of the church is not a gathering of people who mind their own business while sitting near one another for an hour each week. It is a community whose members belong to one another. They encourage, teach, correct, forgive, restore, and bear with one another. That kind of life requires accountability.

Of course, accountability becomes difficult when people relate to the church primarily as consumers. Consumers do not expect to be corrected by the businesses they patronize. If they become dissatisfied, they take their business somewhere else. Church leaders know this.

If we challenge someone’s behavior, question a theological conviction, or call for repentance, that person may leave. Their family may leave with them. Their giving may leave too. They will probably find another church down the road that asks fewer questions. The temptation is to remain silent. But a church that is afraid to lose people will eventually become afraid to disciple people.

Biblical accountability is not about controlling people, policing every failure, or pretending some of us have risen above the need for grace. It is about loving one another enough to tell the truth and walking with one another toward restoration.

Perhaps the disappearance of church discipline reveals something deeper. Meaningful accountability requires meaningful belonging. It is difficult to hold one another accountable when relationships are shallow, attendance is optional, and participation consists primarily of watching a few people conduct a service. Church discipline cannot be separated from church community. We cannot expect accountability from people who have never been taught that they belong to one another.

What Are We Actually Building?

Multisite campuses, church buildings, paid pastors, denominational structures, children’s programs, youth ministries, and organizational growth are not inherently wrong. Each can serve the mission of the church. The danger comes when these things cease to serve the mission and quietly become the mission.

A church can have multiple campuses, excellent facilities, strong programs, growing attendance, and a substantial budget while failing to form people who live under the lordship of Jesus. A smaller congregation can devote nearly all its resources to preserving its pastor, property, and programs while having little margin left for the ministry it is trying to preserve.

Both may be institutionally successful—or at least institutionally committed—without necessarily being faithful to the mission Jesus gave His church. Perhaps the most important question is not whether our churches are growing, adequately funded, programmatically successful, or institutionally secure. Perhaps the question is whether our life together is forming people who look more like Jesus.

Are we making disciples—or merely attracting attenders? Are we multiplying churches—or extending brands? Are our resources supporting ministry—or is ministry supporting the institution? Are we forming children in the faith—or outsourcing their discipleship? Are we loving one another enough to practice humble, restorative accountability—or are we too afraid someone might leave?

Institutions have a way of convincing us that their survival is essential to the kingdom of God. It is not. The kingdom existed before our institutions, and it will remain long after they are gone.

The church must always be willing to ask whether its structures are helping fulfill the mission of Jesus or hindering it. Everything else—our buildings, budgets, programs, positions, campuses, and denominational systems—must remain secondary to that purpose.

We should not be asking only whether the institution is succeeding. We should be asking what its success is producing.

No Easy Answers

I know. I’ve raised a lot of questions. Many of which have no answer. Or, the answer will be different in every congregation. 

I haven’t asked these questions to condemn anyone or anything. I asked them of myself as one who leads in the institution. I just asked them out loud in the hopes that other leaders might ask themselves, and in so doing, that we might all be more faithful in our leadership.

As usual, my questions only raise more questions. Perhaps they did for you, too. I’d love for you to share your questions with me. Leave them in the comments below.

Until next time, keep looking up…

We Bought a Beach House—and Learned What We Really Needed

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Last night, a friend was watching television when a couple of familiar faces appeared on the screen—ours. 

She took a few pictures of the television, posted them on Facebook, and tagged us. There we were, a decade younger, walking around Dauphin Island, Alabama, looking for a beach house on an episode of Island Life.

We bought the house in 2016, but the episode still turns up occasionally. Every few years, somebody will be watching television, recognize us, and send us a picture. It is a little strange to have a decision from your past preserved in reruns.

Seeing those pictures again brought back a flood of memories. It also reminded me of something I learned during that season—something Richard Foster expressed far better than I ever could: “It’s possible to enjoy the beach without owning a piece of it.”

It took buying a beach house for me to discover that.

Let me clear up one misconception before we go any further: Vanessa and I are not wealthy people. We were not wealthy in 2016, either. Owning a beach house is not necessarily proof that someone has a lot of money. Sometimes it simply means they have a good credit score and a complicit banker. We had both.

We loved Dauphin Island. It was quiet, unhurried, and far removed from the pace of ordinary life. We could imagine ourselves escaping there, sitting near the water, watching the sun go down, and enjoying time with family. Somewhere along the way, however, enjoying the island turned into wanting to own a piece of it. Once that desire took hold, we began finding ways to make it happen.

That is one of the things I have learned about desire: once we decide what we want, we can become remarkably creative in justifying it. We run the numbers. We imagine the possibilities. We focus on everything that might go right and minimize everything that could go wrong. If the door opens—even if the door is opened with borrowed money—we take that as confirmation that we are supposed to walk through it.

We found the house. The bank found the money. And television found us. The producers of Island Life told the story of a couple searching for the perfect place on Dauphin Island. We toured houses, talked about what we liked and didn’t like, and eventually chose the one that would become ours. It made for a nice episode of television. But, there is nothing real about reality television.

The story had already been decided before the cameras arrived. Scenes were staged and conversations repeated. We walked through houses we had no intention of buying and acted as though the decision still hung in the balance. Hours of recording were edited into a neat little story about a dream coming true.

That is what television does. It removes the complications, compresses the timeline, adds some music, and gives everything a satisfying ending. Real life is rarely that tidy.

The episode showed the excitement of buying a beach house. It did not show the mortgage payments, insurance, upkeep, repairs, worry, or responsibility that came with it. It did not show what happens when the place you visit to escape becomes one more thing demanding your attention.

Owning a beach house changes the experience of going to the beach. You no longer simply arrive and enjoy it. You notice what needs repairing. You wonder what the weather has done while you were away. You think about what the house is costing when you are not there and what needs to be done while you are. The place that was supposed to provide rest can become another source of work.

There was another complication, too—one that is harder for me to admit. At the time, I was pastoring a church. Not everyone in the congregation celebrated our new adventure. Some assumed that buying a house on Dauphin Island meant we were preparing to leave. Others wondered whether my attention was where it needed to be.

I thought those concerns were unfair. We were not planning to leave, and I was still doing my job. From my perspective, owning a beach house had nothing to do with my commitment to the church. Looking back, however, I wonder whether they saw something I did not. Perhaps my body was still present while some part of my imagination had already moved to the island.

That does not mean pastors should never own beach houses. Nor does it mean the house itself was sinful. The deeper issue was not the property. The deeper issue was desire—and the amount of attention, energy, and imagination I was willing to give it.

I wanted something, and because we could find a way to acquire it, I assumed we should. I confused the ability to purchase something with the wisdom to pursue it.

That is a temptation most of us understand. We live in a culture that is remarkably skilled at turning wants into needs. We are told that fulfillment is always one purchase, one accomplishment, one experience, or one upgrade away. And when we finally get what we wanted, we often discover that it cannot give us what we were really seeking. The beach house was not just a financial decision. It revealed something about my heart.

I am in a different season of life and ministry now. These days, I find myself thinking less about success and more about faithfulness—less about what I can build or acquire and more about who I am becoming. As I reflect on my own discipleship, I am beginning to recognize how easily misplaced desires can shape a life.

Discipleship is not only learning to resist desires that are obviously sinful. Sometimes it means surrendering good desires that have taken an improper place in our hearts.

Rest is good. Time with family is good. Watching a sunset over the Gulf is good. Even owning a beach house can be good. But good things become dangerous when we ask them to give us something only God can provide—or when pursuing them begins to compete with the life to which God has called us.

We do not always abandon Jesus to chase what we want. Sometimes we simply ask Jesus to come along and bless the pursuit.

Richard Foster was right. We did not need to own a piece of the beach to enjoy it. We did not need a mortgage to appreciate the water, the sand, the sunsets, or time together. Those things were already available to us as gifts. We could receive them, enjoy them, and then return home without carrying the burden of ownership with us.

Perhaps that is what we really needed—not possession, but permission to enjoy the gift without having to own it.

The old episode will probably continue appearing on television from time to time. When it does, it will show two people pursuing a dream and finding the house they wanted.

What it cannot show is what took us years to learn: We bought a beach house. But what we really needed was to examine the desire that made us believe we needed one.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

Living the Lord’s Prayer

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I’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer for most of my life.

Like many Christians, I learned it as a child. Over the years I’ve prayed it in worship services, hospital rooms, funeral homes, around dinner tables, and in quiet moments when I didn’t quite know what else to say.

I’ve also preached it more than once. Whenever I preached it, I usually approached it the way many pastors do—taking each petition and showing how it can guide our own prayers. That’s a good approach. In fact, I still believe it’s a biblical one.

But this past week, while preparing to preach from Matthew 6, I noticed something I had never fully appreciated before. Matthew doesn’t place the Lord’s Prayer in a book about prayer. He places it in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. That matters.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ description of life in the Kingdom of God. It’s where He teaches what His disciples look like, how they treat others, what they value, where they place their treasure, and how they trust the Father. Right in the middle of that teaching, Jesus says, “This, then, is how you should pray…”

It made me wonder: What if Jesus wasn’t only teaching His disciples what to say when they prayed? What if He was also showing them the kind of life they were to live?

Read through the Lord’s Prayer again with that thought in mind.

It begins in the Father’s presence: “Our Father in heaven…”

Before there are requests, there is relationship.

Then it turns to the Father’s priorities: “Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” Before Jesus teaches us to pray about our needs, He teaches us to care about what matters to the Father.

Only then do our needs enter the conversation: “Give us this day our daily bread… Forgive us… Lead us not into temptation… Deliver us from evil.”

The entire prayer moves from the Father’s presence to the Father’s priorities, then to the Father’s provision and protection. That’s more than a model for prayer. It’s also a pattern for life.

The more I reflected on it, another realization dawned on me. Jesus didn’t simply teach the Lord’s Prayer. He lived it.

He lived continually in His Father’s presence. He sought His Father’s glory above His own. He proclaimed the Father’s Kingdom. He surrendered to the Father’s will—even in Gethsemane. He trusted the Father for daily provision. He resisted every temptation. And through His death and resurrection, He became the forgiveness and deliverance we could never achieve for ourselves.

Suddenly, the Lord’s Prayer looked less like a script to memorize and more like a portrait of Jesus Himself. And that’s good news.

The goal of the Christian life isn’t merely to pray better prayers. It’s to become more like Christ. By His Spirit, Jesus is forming His own life in us. As He does, the Lord’s Prayer becomes more than words we recite. It becomes a life we live.

The next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer, don’t rush through familiar words. Pause. Listen. Receive it as an invitation—not only to speak with your Father, but to live as His child.

Don’t just pray the Lord’s Prayer.

Live it.

Until next time, keep looking up…

The Danger Behind a Long Prayer

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I grew up believing that long prayers were better prayers.

The person who could pray the longest usually sounded the most spiritual. Sometimes those prayers were sincere. Sometimes they were beautiful. And sometimes, if I’m honest, they became performances. I’ve prayed some of those prayers myself.

As a pastor, I know how easy it is to slip into that trap. Standing in front of a congregation with every eye closed and every ear listening, it’s tempting to begin talking more to the people than to God. Before long, a prayer can become another sermon. Or worse, an opportunity to sound spiritual.

Jesus never condemned long prayers. In fact, He prayed through the night on more than one occasion. The problem isn’t the length of the prayer. The problem is the motive behind it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned His disciples:

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people…” (Matthew 6:5)

Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say public prayer is wrong. Jesus prayed publicly. The early church prayed publicly. Christians have gathered for prayer together for two thousand years. Neither does He say long prayers are wrong. Instead, He exposes something much deeper.

The problem wasn’t where they prayed. The problem was why they prayed.

The word “hypocrite” originally described an actor wearing a mask on a stage. These weren’t people who didn’t pray. They prayed. The problem was that they had confused their audience.

I’ve often said it this way:

The audience determines the prayer.

If my audience is the congregation, I’ll be concerned with how my words sound. If my audience is God, I’ll be concerned with speaking honestly.

That raises an uncomfortable question. Who am I trying to impress? That question doesn’t just apply to public prayer. It reaches into every part of our spiritual lives. Why do I serve? Why do I give? Why do I post Bible verses online? Why do I volunteer? Why do I pray?

Jesus isn’t trying to make us suspicious of public expressions of faith. He’s inviting us into something better. Prayer was never meant to be a performance. It was always meant to be a conversation with our Father. That’s why, just a few verses later, Jesus reminds His disciples:

“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:8)

Think about that for a moment. You don’t have to impress a Father who already knows you. You don’t have to convince a Father who already loves you. You don’t have to perform for a Father who already knows your heart.

The most beautiful prayers are rarely the most polished. They’re simply honest. And that’s the kind of prayer your Father has wanted all along.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Stop Trying to be a Better Evangelist…

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Acts 2:42-47

A Problem

A few weeks ago, a Facebook post caught my eye. A church was offering a one-day discipleship class — 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. A full day dedicated to making disciples.

Before I say another word, let me be clear: I’m grateful for any church trying to make disciples. I’m not throwing stones at that particular congregation. If I’m honest, this word is for all of us. That post simply exposed something we’ve quietly come to accept.

We’ve begun to believe discipleship can be primarily taught in a classroom. That with enough curriculum, enough seminars, enough programs, and enough information, we’ll produce mature followers of Jesus.

But following Jesus has never been mastered in a classroom. It’s learned in kitchens and living rooms, hospital rooms and workplaces, neighborhoods and ordinary daily rhythms. It is learned over a lifetime through daily surrender, daily obedience, and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost happened in a day. Spiritual formation happens over a lifetime.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve made the same mistake with evangelism. We’ve turned it into another skill to master, another class to attend, another program to organize, another technique to learn. We’ve made evangelism a “task” to be performed.

But when I read Acts 2, I don’t find an evangelism committee. I don’t find a strategic planning session or a “Director of Outreach.” I don’t find the apostles creating a twelve-week curriculum called “How to Win Your Neighbor in Five Easy Steps.”

What do I find? People worshiping. People praying. People eating together. People devoted to the apostles’ teaching. People giving generously. People living life together. And somehow — while doing all those ordinary things — “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”Evangelism is not primarily a task to be performed. Evangelism is a life to be lived.

A Pattern

We’ve made evangelism the destination. But what if Acts 2 reveals that evangelism is actually the byproduct? The fruit, not the root?

Luke doesn’t say the early church devoted themselves to evangelism, outreach, church growth, or making converts. Instead, he writes:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42)

The very things we often treat as secondary, Luke places first. Why? Because he understands a simple but profound truth: What fills us eventually flows from us.

The overflow of Acts 2 began on the streets of Jerusalem on Pentecost with 3,000 people believing and being baptized. If Luke were writing a modern church growth manual, he might have ended the chapter there. But he doesn’t. Pentecost wasn’t the finish line — it was the starting line.

The same Spirit who brought them to Christ now began the lifelong work of forming them into the likeness of Christ. Verses 42-47 describe what that looked like in practice: worship, prayer, generous sharing, and devotion to apostolic teaching. Nothing flashy. No celebrity speakers, no marketing campaigns, no social media strategy. Just ordinary people faithfully walking with Jesus in the ordinary rhythms of life.

Whatever is forming you is also filling you. And whatever is filling you will eventually flow from you.

A Promise

Luke gives us a quiet but powerful promise in the final sentence of the passage: “…And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Notice who the subject is: The Lord. Not the disciples. Not the apostles. Not the church’s clever strategies. The Lord added.

As I’ve been preaching through the Spirit-Formed Life series with my congregation, I’ve stumbled onto a beautiful surprise: The Spirit never asked the first disciples to carry the weight of building His Church. He asked them to devote themselves to Him — worship, prayer, fellowship, generosity, apostolic teaching. Faithfulness was their assignment. Fruitfulness was God’s responsibility.

The Spirit-formed life is one in which Jesus increasingly becomes the subject of every sentence in our story. Jesus is the subject of our worship, our fellowship, our generosity, our witness, our salvation. 

As Jesus becomes the main character, we become perfectly content to be supporting characters in His story. 

That is discipleship. That is maturity. That is holiness.

A Personal Confession

Before I close, I need to confess something. That one-day discipleship class in the Facebook post? Twenty years…no, really more like ten…okay, so seven years ago, that could easily have been me. I would have been the one developing the curriculum, standing in the front of the room, convinced that if I could just teach enough, organize enough, and equip enough, people would become disciples.

Those were the things that formed me as a pastor for a long time. But the Holy Spirit has been teaching me something I wish I had learned much earlier: Jesus doesn’t primarily form disciples in classrooms. He forms them in daily surrender, in worship, in prayer, around tables, in ordinary acts of obedience, and in the daily rhythms of a life yielded to the Holy Spirit.

And when Jesus forms a life, that life begins to overflow.

That’s why I’ve been asking my congregation a Question of the Month that I believe matters so much: What is forming me more than Jesus right now?

Overflow isn’t the goal.

Overflow is the result.

Christlikeness is the goal.

Overflow is the consequence.

So, I’ve decided that I’m not going to spend the rest of my life trying to become a better evangelist. I’m going to spend my life becoming more like Jesus. I’m going to trust Him with the results. Because what fills us eventually flows from us.

Friends, what is forming you more than Jesus right now?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments. And if this resonates, would you share it with someone who needs encouragement to return to the simple, ordinary, Spirit-formed rhythms of the early church?

Until next time, keep looking up…

Developing Devotion…

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What the Early Church Can Teach Us About Daily Spiritual Formation

Someone once said, “The problem with life is that it happens so daily.” The same is true of spiritual formation. It rarely arrives in one dramatic moment. It happens daily. And it is that daily work of spiritual formation that equips us to obey Jesus when ordinary life happens.

Right after Pentecost, the Holy Spirit falls, Peter preaches, and three thousand people are added to the church in a single day. What happens next? Do they drift back to business as usual? No. Luke tells us:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42, NIV)

What Is Devotion?

The key word is devoted—in the original Greek, proskartereō. It means to persist, to continue steadfastly, to hold fast. This is far more than casual interest or good intentions. It is wholehearted commitment.

We become what we repeatedly devote ourselves to. Everyone is devoted to something. The real question is not “Am I devoted?” but “To what am I devoted?”

Some of us are devoted to work—early mornings, late nights, minds always on the next thing. Others to family (a good thing), hunting, fishing, golf (though if you saw my golf game, you’d know I’m not devoted to that), shopping, or endless scrolling. None of these are inherently evil. But even good things can crowd out Christ if He is not shaping them.

Here is a truth I’ve wrestled with: Crisis doesn’t create our devotion—it reveals what we’ve been devoted to all along.

Luke doesn’t leave us guessing. He shows us exactly what captured the devotion of that first Spirit-filled church.

What Does Devotion Look Like?

They devoted themselves to four practices:

A. Devoted to the Apostles’ Teaching — Truth that Forms Us This was before the New Testament was written. They sat under the eyewitness testimony of Peter, John, Matthew, and others—hearing Jesus’ stories, parables, and commands directly.

The early church didn’t devote themselves to sharing opinions. They devoted themselves to receiving God’s truth.

We live in an age drowning in information but starving for transformation. The goal is not simply knowing more about Jesus. The goal is becoming more like Jesus.

B. Devoted to Fellowship (Koinonia) — People who Form Us This is far deeper than coffee and donuts after church. It’s shared life, shared burdens, and shared mission. Christianity is deeply personal but never private. The Gospel is a “we” proposition, not a “me” proposition.

There is no such thing as a solitary disciple. Jesus formed His followers in community, and He still does. That’s why the New Testament is filled with “one another” commands: confess sins to one another, bear with one another, encourage one another, forgive one another, spur one another on. Real koinonia looks like this.

C. Devoted to the Breaking of Bread — Grace that Forms Us This included ordinary meals together and the Lord’s Supper. The table became a place of remembrance, gratitude, equality, and belonging.

Spiritual formation doesn’t happen only in sanctuaries. It happens around tables. The early church was formed by sermons and suppers.

D. Devoted to Prayer — Dependence that Forms Us Prayer is not preparation for the work. Prayer is the work. The church born in prayer at Pentecost continued in prayer. A praying church knows it cannot form itself—it depends on the Holy Spirit.

How Is Devotion Lived Out?

Look at verse 46: “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”

Spiritual formation is not an event or occasional inspiration. It is a daily rhythm. Life happens daily—discipleship must too.

Practically, this looks like:

  • Daily surrender
  • Daily prayer
  • Daily Scripture (sitting under teaching in our own time)
  • Daily connection with God’s people—a text, a call, a conversation, face-to-face when possible
  • Daily choosing obedience over convenience

These are not a magic formula. They are means of grace—ordinary ways we experience God and God reveals Himself to us. Spiritual disciplines.

The early disciples were not earning God’s grace through devotion. Their devotion was a response to the saving grace already given in Jesus Christ.

We need fewer rows of isolated spectators and more circles of people living life together, deepening devotion.

For me personally, this means shifting my morning drive to the shop. Instead of political podcasts that feed my cynicism, I need to choose silence and prayer so Jesus can form my heart first.

The Secret of the Early Church

The secret wasn’t talent, strategy, or programming. It was devotion—steadfast, day after day—to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. In the temple courts and house to house.

Truth formed their minds. Fellowship formed their relationships. The table formed their remembrance and gratitude. Prayer formed their dependence.

The same Holy Spirit who fell at Pentecost is with us right now. The question is not whether the Spirit is available. The question is whether we will devote ourselves to the things through which the Spirit forms us into the likeness of Jesus.

A Challenge

Choose one daily rhythm and shift it toward Christ: consistent time in Scripture and prayer, gathering with God’s people, meals around the table with glad hearts, or fresh daily surrender.

Take a quiet moment right now and ask: “What is forming me more than Jesus right now?”

What one rhythm needs to change so Christ shapes everything else?

If your calendar and habits were the only evidence, what would they say you are devoted to?

Let’s devote ourselves to what matters most. The Spirit who empowered them is ready to empower us.

What’s one rhythm you sense the Lord asking you to shift? Share in the comments—I read every one.

Until next time, keep looking up…

The Lifelong Fire…

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Fire fell.

Wind blew.

Tongues of fire appeared over the disciples’ heads.

If you’ve spent much time around the church, you’ve probably heard the story of Pentecost in Acts 2. It’s one of the most dramatic moments in the entire Bible.

But here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately:

Eventually the fire disappeared.

The wind stopped blowing.

The extraordinary manifestations faded.

Yet the power remained.

Why?

Because the Holy Spirit remained.

When most people think about Pentecost, they focus on the moment. The signs. The wonders. The supernatural experience. But the real miracle wasn’t what happened for a few moments that day.

The real miracle was what happened afterward.

Acts 2 tells us that the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, prayer, worship, generosity, and shared life together. They became a community unlike anything the world had ever seen.

The visible evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work wasn’t ultimately the wind or the fire.

It was transformed people.

And that raises an important question for all of us.

What is forming us?

Because the truth is, every one of us is being formed by something.

Have you ever noticed how quickly your mood can change after spending a few minutes scrolling social media?

You can begin the day grateful and at peace, then suddenly find yourself irritated, fearful, cynical, or angry.

Nobody announces, “Today we’re going to shape your heart.”

Yet little by little, post by post, headline by headline, our hearts are being shaped.

I’ve noticed it in my own life.

Most mornings I leave home feeling pretty good. Grateful, even. But I’ve developed a habit of listening to political podcasts during my forty-minute drive to work. By the time I pull into the parking lot, I’m often frustrated with the world.

Angry.

Cynical.

Ready to argue with people I haven’t even met yet.

That realization forced me to confront something uncomfortable:

What we repeatedly consume eventually shapes who we become.

Something is always discipling us.

The question isn’t whether we’re being formed.

The question is who—or what—is forming us.

The Apostle Paul describes this struggle in Galatians 5. He speaks of a conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. The flesh isn’t simply sinful behavior. At its core, the flesh is our tendency toward self-rule. It is the instinct to remain in control of our own lives.

The flesh says, “I will decide what’s best for me.”

The Spirit says, “Trust God enough to surrender.”

That tension exists within every one of us.

Paul says the result of living according to the flesh is division, jealousy, selfish ambition, anger, and a host of other destructive attitudes and behaviors.

But when the Holy Spirit is shaping our lives, a different kind of fruit begins to emerge:

Love.

Joy.

Peace.

Patience.

Kindness.

Goodness.

Faithfulness.

Gentleness.

Self-control.

Notice something important.

Fruit doesn’t appear overnight.

Fruit grows.

That’s why spiritual formation is rarely instantaneous.

We often wish God would simply “zap” us into maturity. We want one prayer, one sermon, one worship experience, or one spiritual breakthrough to fix everything.

But God usually works differently.

There are moments of awakening.

Moments of conviction.

Moments of surrender.

Moments that change our direction.

Yet transformation itself is usually a journey.

The Holy Spirit may ignite the fire in a moment, but He forms the character of Christ in us over a lifetime.

That’s exactly what happened after Pentecost.

The same Spirit who fell in power stayed with those believers long after the excitement faded. Through worship, prayer, community, obedience, hardship, failure, and restoration, He continued shaping them into the likeness of Jesus.

Pentecost was the ignition.

Spiritual formation was the lifelong fire.

One of the things that stands out to me in Acts 2 is how deeply communal that transformation was.

Did you notice that almost every verb in Acts 2:42-47 is plural?

They devoted themselves.

They prayed.

They shared.

They worshiped.

They ate together.

They served together.

The Spirit who fell at Pentecost didn’t merely create individual Christians.

The Spirit created a community of disciples.

That’s a challenge for many of us because we live in a culture that prizes independence and self-sufficiency. We often think of faith as something private and personal.

The New Testament paints a different picture.

The Holy Spirit forms people together.

We need encouragement.

We need accountability.

We need people who know us well enough to celebrate our victories, challenge our blind spots, and walk with us through difficult seasons.

We need more than rows.

We need circles.

The Christian life was never intended to be lived alone.

As I reflected on all of this, I found myself asking a question that has become our congregation’s Question of the Month:

What is forming me more than Jesus right now?

That’s not a question designed to produce guilt.

It’s a question designed to produce awareness.

Because once we become aware of what’s shaping us, we can begin making intentional choices about what we allow to influence our hearts.

The good news is that God has not stopped forming people.

The same Holy Spirit who moved at Pentecost is still at work today.

Still transforming hearts.

Still calling people out of fear.

Still teaching us surrender.

Still shaping ordinary people into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

The question is not whether God desires to form you.

The question is whether you’re willing to surrender to the process.

So let me leave you with the same question I’ve been wrestling with myself:

What is forming you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment below, or send me a message. I’d especially love to know your answer to this question:

What is forming you more than Jesus right now?

Until next time, keep looking up…