On this day exactly 500 years ago, John Calvin was born.

John Calvin would not be happy with all the attention he is getting today. His will included instructions that he be buried in an unmarked grave. He didn’t want his grave to become a shrine. To this day, the location of his grave is unknown.

Although Calvin has a reputation for being scholarly and combative, he was more than that. Nicolas des Gallars, a member of his pastoral team, described his ministry:

What labors, what long waking hours, what worries he bore, … with what faithfulness and intelligence he took an interest in everyone; with what kindness and good will he received those who turned to him; with what rapidity and openness he answered those who questioned him on the most serious of questions; with what wisdom he received, both privately and publicly, the difficulties and problems brought to him; with what gentleness he comforted the afflicted, raised those who were laid low and discouraged; with what firmness he resisted the enemy; with what zeal he brought low the proud and stubborn: with what greatness of soul he endured misfortune; with what moderation he behaved in prosperity; with what skill and enthusiasm, finally, he acquitted himself of all the duties a true and faithful servant of God, words of mine could never express. (Opera Calvini XXXVI, 15–16)

Calvin had (and has) his critics, but even they grudgingly respect him. Pope Pius IV, Roman Pontiff at time of Calvin’s death, said of Calvin: “The strength of that heretic [Calvin] consisted in this, that money never had the slightest charm for him. If I had such servants my dominion would extend from sea to sea.” Jacob Arminius said that Calvin is “incomparable in the interpretation of Scripture,” and he recommended Calvin’s commentaries second only to the Bible itself.

I’m looking forward to reading his Institutes later this year. Happy birthday, John Calvin.

I’ve really appreciated the perspective that sin is idolatry. Tim Keller, among others, have really done a good job of explaining this. (Keller has a book coming out later this year on the topic.)

C.S. Lewis explains how relationships can become idols:

If Affection is made the ultimate sovereign of a human life the seeds will germinate. Love, having become a god, becomes a demon. (Four Loves, p.56)

The beginning of my chapter in fresh & re:fresh:

I lay awake the night I realized I would be going to Richview Baptist Church, a Fellowship Baptist church in northwest Toronto. I don’t know how I knew but I did. It was enough to keep me awake for hours praying that it wouldn’t happen.

It was still weeks until I spoke for the first time at Richview. It was months until I made it into the pile of candidates. It was even more months until my name made it to the top of the pile, and then an even longer time until I began as pastor. But for some reason, I sensed that night that I would be going to Richview, and I wasn’t happy.

Richview Baptist Church was founded in 1959 in what was then a remote part of Toronto. Over the years it had grown to become the largest church in our denomination in west Toronto, with an average attendance of over 400 people. It was a flagship…

I’m not usually prone to revelations or mystical experiences, but somehow that evening I had a sense that I would be part of the next chapter of this church’s history. I wasn’t at all confident in my own abilities, or sure that I wanted to pay the price for the transition that would take place.

I was right to be scared. It’s been almost ten years, and it’s been even harder than I thought. Transformation has taken place, but it’s taken longer than I could have imagined. This is the story of the ongoing transformation of Richview. It’s equally the story of the ongoing transformation of me.

This was an interesting chapter to write. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of the book and digesting some of the other contributions. You can find out more about the book at the fresh & re:fresh website.

I recently posted on some of my biggest mistakes in ministry, and promised I would follow up with what helped me overcome some of my mistakes.

There are two ways to describe what happened: as a story, and as a summary

Story – I gradually became discouraged by the shallowness of my own ministry. I was good at critiquing but had to move beyond being negative and work on being a lot more constructive.

Around this time, I began a D.Min. in preaching with Haddon Robinson at Gordon-Conwell. This helped in a lot of ways: it helped my preaching, it exposed me to good friends and role models, and it stimulated my thinking. I really believe in the idea of being a scholarly or thinking practitioner of ministry, and this program fit the bill. My work on theocentric preaching helped sharpen my thinking on some of the issues I’d been working through.

At the same time, I began to learn everything I could from Tim Keller. His talk at the 2006 Desiring God Conference got me going. I devoured his Preaching to the Heart lectures from Gordon-Conwell, and began to listen to his weekly sermons.

One more change: When my father died, the way my family processed things led me to confront the way that I tend to handle things on my own without leaning on other people. I had to learn to work through my issues in community, which led to some pretty big changes in the way I lead at Richview. At the same time, the leadership culture at Richview became a lot healthier, which made leading in community possible.

Summary – I experienced a number of positive changes:

• I was better equipped to preach and to take preaching seriously;
• I began to develop an appetite to dig a bit deeper and do more thinking and serious reading;
• I learned from Tim Keller and others about the power of a Gospel-centered ministry;
• My leadership style shifted, and I became more open about my struggles.

These were all very positive changes, and I don’t know how much longer I would have lasted without them.

Still a long way to go – but I wouldn’t go back. I’m thankful that God worked to save me from how things could have developed.

My latest column at Christian Week:

Summer is a great time to take a break from the normal grind and be refreshed. It’s also a great time for ministry leaders to reflect on the past ministry year and to prepare for the next one.

This summer I’ll be asking some questions based on John Frame’s Theology of Lordship series. Frame is known for arguing for a tri-perspectival approach: that it’s best to look at everything from three perspectives. Frame’s three perspectives are normative (God’s Word), situational (our world), and existential (ourselves). “The knowledge of God’s law, the world, and the self,” Frame writes, “are interdependent and ultimately identical.” These three perspectives give us a fuller picture and better balance.

I’ve found Frame’s three perspectives to be a useful grid for ministry evaluation and planning.

Normative: How is our commitment to God’s Word? I’m going to be looking at how we’ve used Scripture in our ministry. I’ll begin by looking at the preaching. I’ll be looking to see if I’ve been sitting over Scripture, inserting my own ideas, or sitting under Scripture in an attitude of submission. I’ll also be evaluating my balance to see what themes I’ve been missing, and what themes I’ve overemphasized.

I’ll also be examining how the rest of our ministry has used God’s Word. I’m sometimes surprised by how rarely we use Scripture apart from the preaching. Our entire ministry – our entire lives – should be shaped by Scripture. The normative perspective asks how much we’re shaped by Scripture and the gospel.

Situational: How is our understanding of our context? Some leaders think that it’s enough to exegete Scripture. But we also need to understand our context so that we can apply Scripture to our world.

Yonge Street Mission in Toronto recently presented research on how Toronto has changed. In 1970, most communities were middle-income. Today the city is largely polarized between high-income and low-income communities in 2005,. Many of Toronto’s churches were around in 1970. Unless these churches understand how their communities have changed, they will not minister effectively in their context.

I had lunch just the other day with someone who calls himself a youth culture specialist. I was overwhelmed as he described how drastically youth culture has changed since I was a teenager. Most pastors and parents, he said, don’t have a clue.

Every ministry needs to understand its context. This summer I’ll be looking at our local community and our cultural context and asking some tough questions. Are we attempting to serve a community that exists only in our minds? What do we need to know about our context that we may be missing now? What are the greatest needs of our local community and culture? How does the gospel apply to those needs? The situational perspective asks if we understand the world around us.

Existential: How well do we understand people? We need to understand Scripture and culture; we also need to understand people’s hearts. They used to call the Puritans “physicians of souls” because they had uncanny insight into how people think and why they are motivated to do what they do – the motivational structures of the heart. I need to understand what drives people to do bad things, or to do good things for all the wrong reasons. I need to know what good things have become ultimate things in my own life and the lives of those around me. And I need to understand how the gospel intersects with the spiritual disorders I find around me. The existential perspective asks how well we understand people.

This helps me not to panic too much when the situational perspective gets overwhelming. I need to understand culture, but I also need to remember that people are more alike than it appears.

Most leaders and churches have blind spots, and are weak in at least one of these areas. As a result, ministries struggle. But it’s beautiful to see ministry that’s been shaped by all three perspectives. Effective ministry takes place as we understand and apply God’s Word within a particular context to the needs of real people.

Jack Miller writes to a discouraged missionary:

Frequently humble yourself as you did during our recent time at Entebbe. That was great! But let the team and the Ugandan Christians see you as the chief repenter, the one who is quick to renounce idols. Confess hindering sins like pride, impatience, coldness, anger, lack of tenderness, love of preeminence, self-dependence, boasting, and misuse of the tongue. Perhaps you don’t struggle with all of these nasties, but I do, and I suspect they are the sins that much afflict leaders like us…Pray for me that I would be more ready to confess and forsake publicly my own sins. (p.158)

Top commentaries on every book of the Bible – I checked a few of the selections and I like his choices.

Why do the New Calvinists insist on complementarianism? Don’t miss Scot McKnight’s interaction in the comments.

A great piece by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck in the Newsweek/Washington Post forum in religion: Church: Love It, Don’t Leave It (HT: Justin Taylor). This is a great writing partnership.

The best post I’ve read all week: Trevin Wax on reasons to take a blog sabbatical. An ironic choice for my favorite blog post this week, but it’s a good one.

Happy 4th of July.

Today I’m posting the biggest mistakes I’ve made as a pastor. On Tuesday I’m going to post what I’ve learned that’s helped me in dealing with some of these mistakes.

Here, in no particular order, are some of my biggest mistakes:

Trendiness – In The Art of Pastoring, David Hansen said that he could trace the progress of the different fads and movements as he looked at his predecessor’s library. It’s easy as pastor to be latching on to new trends in the hope that they will provide what’s lacking within the church. I regret it.

Impatience – I tried to take the long view, but I can recall one occasion in which I grew tired of the process and lashed out at people. Moses did this twice in 40 years with greater cause, and he was punished severely. I regret being impatient.

Shallowness – Pastoring requires theological thinking and reading. There were times that I let the demands of ministry stop me from engaging much below the level of practice.

Isolation – I’m really enjoying leading in community, but for a long time, I tended to keep the struggles of leadership and life to myself. That cost everyone.

This list is weighted to the negative, which isn’t entirely fair. But I do wish I could go back having learned some of the lessons I know now.

On Tuesday I’ll share some of what helped me.

The good news is that God doesn’t use people who have it all together. He uses weak and sinful people by his grace, and somehow redeems even our mistakes.

I told a friend that I regretted some of these mistakes, and he suggested that if I ended up like Jacob, walking with a limp, that it wouldn’t be a bad thing. Maybe that’s what Jack Miller meant when he advised pastors to stay long enough in one place to be humbled.

Related: Lessons learned from a decade behind the pulpit

I started at Richview eleven years ago today. It’s been quite a ride!

Any church community is a story of broken, imperfect people who still bear God’s image and are used by his Spirit. So I’ve got the stories of brokenness and imperfection, including my own. But I’ve also got the stories of God blessing us in ways we didn’t expect. Church community hurts and challenges and blesses like nothing else, except maybe marriage and family, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I’ve got a chapter about my journey so far at Richview in fresh+re-fresh which was just released yesterday. I guess I should go back and read what I wrote. You can find out more at the book’s site.

Our new Director of Outreach started this past Tuesday as well. Can’t wait to work with him as we launch a summer-camp and after-school ministry to kids in our neighborhood.

We visited Founders’ Hall in Charlottetown last summer.

In 1864, delegates to the Charlottetown Conference arrived at the Historic Charlottetown Waterfront on board the HMCS Queen Victoria. Today, it is the site of Founders’ Hall – Canada’s Birthplace Pavilion, a heritage attraction telling the story of Canada from its inception in 1864 up until modern day.

We were surprised, again, by the stories of Canada’s start. You could call them unvarnished.

• A circus was in town the same time as the 1864 Charlottetown Conference. The circus seemed more interesting. You can’t make this stuff up.
• When the Canadian delegates arrived on the SS Victoria, nobody met them. All the hotels were full due to the circus, so the delegates had to stay on the boat.
• Some colonies had no interest in being part of Canada, until bankruptcy forced them to take a second look.

There was more. At first I was a little disappointed by how unspectacular the story is.

And then I came to realize that’s part of what I like about Canada. Whatever you say about us, there’s a certain understated quality about us. Our stories haven’t been rewritten by a Hollywood screenwriter. We’re at our best when we’re unvarnished, and what you see is what you get.

I think that says something about Canada, and I like it. Happy Canada Day.