matt mcgill: my nearly unfettered thoughts

In my devotions, I’m reading through Ecclesiastes and Jeremiah. I stopped to reflect on the following passage:

^17 “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them. ^18 Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. ^19 They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 1:17-19)

what I love about this passage

I love the clear call to be bold and make a difference, following God’s leading to change the world—and to do all of this without fear. It’s obvious that Jeremiah faced obstacles on a scale I can’t imagine. He stood before kings and kingdoms! However, I can identify with the call to be faithful in the moment. I can be ready to be used by God. I can stand up and say the right thing. I can be strong through trusting in God’s strength and refuse to give into fear. This passage reminds me of a few others:

“Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2)

^15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ^16 making the most of every opportunity… (Ephesians 5:15-16)

^11 “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, ^12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.” (Luke 12:11-12)

Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. (2 Corinthians 3:12)

how I am challenged by this passage

I’m challenged in a few different areas by this passage. I need to be better at being ready, listening to what God has to say, and trusting him enough to say the right thing. There are times when I’m not listening well enough, and then I’m not ready when the moment comes. There are times I’m not bold enough, I know what to say but I don’t. There are also times when I say something, with boldness and without fear, but it’s more my message than it is God’s message.

I need to be better at listening and speaking without fear, and speaking God’s words and not my own!

, or that I’m not bold enough. There are also times when I am too bold, and speaking a message that’s my own, rather than making sure it’s what God wants me to say.

Of course it’s possible to love people too much…most of us do this with regularity. We might love their attention or approval or their affection (sometimes we love the letter A)…maybe we love ourselves too much, a clever phrase or a spectacular achievement. We are crazy: we’ll even hold on to a deep bitterness so we can think, “I am better for suffering, when others don’t.”

It is a sad and subtle thing when we love people too much in the name of Jesus. When we crave influence more than connecting with God, we are on a dangerous path to a powerless and empty life. It’s so easy to cut corners, to slack off a bit on the unseen things we do to devote ourselves to God. I came across this in my readings the other day and I thought I’d pass it along:

No man appears in safety before the public eye unless he first relishes obscurity. No man is safe in speaking unless he loves to be silent. No man rules safely unless he is willing to be ruled. No man commands safely unless he has learned well how to obey. No man rejoices safely unless he has within him the testimony of a good conscience….It is better for a man to be obscure and to attend to his salvation than to neglect it and work miracles. It is praiseworthy for a religious seldom to go abroad, to flee the sight of men and have no wish to see them.

How about you: is the attention of others too important for you?

I have the privilege of doing a child dedication today for my friends. . . we are being really efficient, because we’re having a party for four new babies!

Nyomi HALL

Lola SARTI

Harper RUTENBAR

Savanna POGUE

Anyhow, as I was praying and thinking about this last night, rather than reading a a single passage of scripture, several verses came to mind. so, I’m going to read all of the following today:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen 1:1 NIV)

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. ² Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. (Psa 19:1-2 NIV)

²¹ Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: ²² Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. ²³ They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lam 3:21-23 NIV)

²³ I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. (Jer 7:23 NIV)

⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deu 6:6-7 NIV)

⁴⁰ Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the LORD your God gives you for all time. (Deu 4:40 NIV)

¹⁷ But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children–

¹⁸ with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. (Psa 103:17-18 NIV)

¹⁵ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, (1Pe 3:15 NIV)

²¹ Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. (Col 3:21 NIV)

¹⁷ "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, (Isa 65:17 NIV)

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2Co 5:17 NIV)

when I was younger, my Dad told me that you only needed to know three things to be successful in life. I was excited when he heard this, because I figured i could learn three things.

[Of course, my dad not only gave the disclaimer: “three things beyond knowing Christ,” he also told me that he didn’t make these up...everything in it’s place!]

He said: you need to know what you know, what you don’t know, and where to go to get what you don’t know.

It is a challenge to take the time to look inward to possess the self awareness that sees  line between what is known and what is unknown. Let to our natural selves, we are happy with our assumptions and self deceptions and the false hope that we have more than enough understanding. When confronted with our lack our lack of knowledge, do we fake it or do we have the humility to ask and learn?

Last weekend, I was picking up pins off of a table, and for a few moments, I was overcome with emotion. I won’t say a tear found its way into my eye, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. (is it grammatically possible to have a triple negative?)

Personally, my life has been quite a journey the past 6 years. It makes me feel old to say this. 2 years ago, I began serving in the regional ministry. For the ten months before that, I was at another church and started planting a church. For the 6 months before that I was living with daily discontent. The 12 years before that I was having the time of my life serving in high school ministry. (are you cool with timelines that go backwards?)

High school ministry was great. I loved everything about it. Well, almost everything. Then I realized God was working on my heart, that led to the most difficult decision of my life. After that decision, I had very little direction from God as to my next step, only, “keep walking with me, and do something different.”

Being gone from Saddleback for 10 months was one of the wildest rides of my life. I think I’ve written about that here.

Serving in the regional ministry has been a huge challenge. First, I was in the adult world… a place much more scattered and disconnected—relationally—than the student world. Second, I got to work on something that was totally new for saddleback. Third, I was leading a team that was scattered all over southern California. Fourth, the people who reported to me were great leaders, independent and capable. Strange after leading young 20s for many years. I’m sure there’s a fifth and sixth all the way up to twelve or so, but I’d probably start hurting some peoples feelings if I kept going.

My leadership has been pushed and pulled and stretched… in good ways, challenging, but good.

I was firmly convinced that coming back to saddleback was the right thing, and that this ministry was the right thing. It’s been tough, because some of the things I do best have been put on the back burner. about a year ago, I honestly considered moving on to another ministry. However, I felt it was still time to stay where I was.

About a year ago, Rick changed things, flattened the structure of the church, and I was one of ten who reported directly to him.That’s been a wild ride.

About four weeks ago, things have been turned upside down again. What’s crazy is that I’ve not been this excited about ministry since high school ministry. Saying this doesn’t cheapen my last 3 years, that is, I have no regrets and even with hindsight, I would have made the same decisions.

So here’s how life is different these days: I’m still leading the regional ministry, and I’m leading our 301 team and our local missions (peace). It’s a lot to get my arms around. I get to teach our 301 class every month, I’m excited for this. I get to work directly with our congregation, rather than just staff, and I’m also excited for this. Last weekend, it was cool to be a part of a program again.

Hebrews 12:7 contains a difficult teaching for me: “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.”

This comes in the context of persecution (see 12:3-4), which is pain that results from personal faithfulness, not personal sin. It’s easy to face the consequences of my sins as discipline. In fact, sometimes I make these consequences into badges of honor and delude myself into thinking I’ve paid for my mistake.

What’s difficult is considering ALL hardship as discipline from God. It makes me think, “HEY, WAIT A SECOND, THAT’S NOT FAIR!!!”

There are two comforting conclusions that I hang onto when I consider hardship as discipline. 1. The purpose of discipline is to teach, so I ought to look at every hardship as an opportunity to learn something. 2. God is bigger than the hardship I’m facing, and he’ll use it to do something good in my life, he’ll use it to draw me into deeper dependence on him.

Having this perspective gives me a bigger view of my hardships. It makes some of them seem silly; and by this I mean it shows me to be silly. For the next few weeks, I’m going to finish each day by asking myself: what was hard today and how is God using it to discipline me?

Since I never saved this to MUCH BETTER THAN MORE THAN DODGEBALL, I figured I would repost it:

http://hokma.com/?p=167

Here’s a question that was sent to the simply youth ministry podcast:

[In the past,] I made the mistake of getting too close to our student leaders who was in their 20s, and the problem with this is that when it came time for me to pastor then, all they expected and wanted from me is to be a friend. This led to quite a lot of conflict……I guess the truth is that you can never really befriend anyone you pastor? Have you guys ever blurred the lines? How did you deal with it? And what can you guys recommend in this kind of situation?

Taiki, great question! You have written four people who are good friends and do ministry together.

Ultimately, I think the most important thing you can do is to really hone down on what friendship means for you. I’m talking about for you specifically, not friendship in general. I’ll get back to this in a moment.

I think most people in the world (church and beyond) would say it’s best to keep friendship and leadership separate. It definitely is easier. One leader will say, I don’t want us to be friends, because if we were, they would feel comfortable to challenge me. To that person I say, have fun wallowing in your weakness.

I think that doing ministry as friends ought to be the goal and the best way to do ministry. Doing great ministry with great friends is what makes the most sense to me. This isn’t necessarily biblical, we’re called to love one another, but I guess that doesn’t mean “close friends.”

Developing your idea of friendship is important. For me, the people whom I know best are the people I “lead” the most. I put that in quotes because what I really mean is this: the more I know someone, the more I’ll speak into their life—calling them out and encouraging them to take the next step. Friendship with me means to be challenged. The people I know very little, I challenge little.

Friendship and ministry never really clash. A good friendship knows that a ministry is simply an activity and much less important than friendship. In my opinion, there is something else entirely that is in conflict. This other thing is sometimes superficial (like a difference in opinion) and sometimes very serious (a pride or regret).

Let’s get practical: a conflict is to friendship is what confusion is to the mind: a way to get stronger. Begin by not ending the matter too quickly by running away or pretending it doesn’t exist. Work on figuring out what the REAL ISSUE truly is.

If it’s an issue only in the realm of ministry, then the leader is responsible and has the authority to make the decision. it the issue is not, then resolve it as friends. If you’ve discovered the real issue and it’s both ministry and friendship, then you didn’t look hard enough.

It is easier to keep things separate, and I know many people who do. I cannot see any joy in ministry unless I am serving with friends.