The risk of catastrophic victory

January 13, 2010 David Murray 0 comments

The passage of the present health care bill will be a catastrophic victory for President Obama. So argues Peggy Noonan in her most recent WSJ article as she analyzes the administration’s misjudgment of the public mood. Noonan also looks back at catastrophic victories for previous administrations and predicts that the Republicans risk a catastrophic victory in the 2010 elections.

Perhaps Noonan has inadvertently provided an explanation for why the church of Christ is often defeated, divided, and depleted? God is saving her from the risk of catastrophic victory – a victory which would result in long-term harm rather than health. In the Old Testament, God could have given Israel total victory. Instead He allowed hostile nations to remain as thorns in their sides to keep His people needy, humble, and looking to Christ through sacrifice (Judges 2:3-4). In the New Testament, God could have established perfect churches. Instead we find the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Thessalonians, etc, with all their problems and needs.

And perhaps this explains our personal defeats and disasters as well. Like Paul we are given thorns in our flesh lest we should be “exalted above measure” (2 Cor. 12:7). This thorn kept Paul needy and seeking Christ’s all-sufficient grace.

In other words, though the Devil can turn our victories into defeats, God can turn our defeats into victories.

Picture: 2009 © Chris Lamphear. Image from BigStockPhoto.com

What can a 100-year-old coach teach us?

January 12, 2010 David Murray 0 comments

The old coach entered the office of a much younger coach and asked, “Got a minute?”

The old man, then 85, showed the coach a medal he had won as a young track star many decades before. Inscribed on the back of the medal were the words, “Friends. Family. Health.” Then the old man said, “When you are done coaching, make sure you’ve got those three things and that you keep them with you.”

The old coach was Red Simmons, the founding coach of the women’s track program at Michigan State University, and also a member of the 1932 U.S. Olympic team. Now 100, yet still going strong, his advice is also applicable to under-pressure, performance-driven, or workaholic pastors. John Baldoni, who reported this story, comments:

Not only do these three words – friends, family, health — anchor a leader’s life, they provide him or her with a perspective on how to treat others. Leadership is rooted in self awareness but leadership is an outward focused mindset that emphasizes responsibility for others

Friends. Family. Health. It’s a good framework for keeping your leadership and your life in perspective.

Sadly, some pastors have ended their ministries with none of these. And the cause was not faithfulness.

How to erase your past

January 11, 2010 David Murray 1 comment

Many of us who were converted to Christ from a foolish and worldly lifestyle have much in our past we wish we could forget. We know and rejoice that God has “forgotten” our sins (Heb. 8:12). Yet we are still haunted by memories we wish we could erase. This painful problem has been worsened for many young Christians today who are haunted by an online past which is even harder to “forget.”

Dave Borgenicht highlights this problem from an employment perspective:

These days, it’s getting tougher and tougher to keep a good name unbesmirched. Surveys indicate that as many as half of hiring managers use search engines to screen job applicants, and 1 in 10 have rejected potential employees because of damaging information on the web. Even if there’s no one out to get you, it’s likely that you’ve left your own e-trail of embarrassment: Facebook, photos, blog comments, cached web pages, YouTube videos — all these things can provide the world with evidence of your previous poor judgment and wrongdoing.

However, the newly converted Christian has the additional concern about how their online past will impact their future Christian witness, usefulness, friendships, and even marriage. And this problem is only going to get worse as, according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, “the age of privacy is over….public is the new social norm.” More and more people are sharing more and more information with more and more people.

How then can you escape or erase your online past? Dave Borgenicht offers the following advice as a starting point:

1. Take down your own postings: The vast majority of embarrassing online material consists of things people posted themselves. Remove all such material from your Facebook page, MySpace page, Classmates page, Twitter postings, and anywhere else it appears. When evaluating whether material is unacceptable, imagine your grandmother or a potential employer viewing it.

2. Block outsiders: Reset the “settings” on your social networking profiles to limit access only to people you have approved.

3. Search for your name: Find your entire online presence by searching for yourself in every search engine. Dig into all the resulting pages and open every link. Look for pictures from your past in which you are doing embarrassing or questionable activities, such as doing a keg stand, setting a police car on fire, or wearing stonewashed jeans.

4. Search smarter: Redo your search, this time searching for just your last name, in combination with your hometown, college, or any institution you’ve been a member of, such as a scouting organization, sorority, or fight club.

5. Politely request removal: E-mail the administrator of any site that includes dubious material relating to you, and ask them politely to remove it.

Some of the other suggestions are more humorous (I think?). But the overall point is serious and relevant for new Christians. There is simply no point in giving the devil extra ammunition. (Perhaps churches should help new Christians with this?)

Ultimately we have to trust the Lord with our reputations. If we cannot escape or erase our past sins, whether from our memories or from computer memories, then we can pray that God will humble us with them and use them to ever remind us of His amazing grace to wretches like us.

Picture: 2009 © Doug Owens. Image from BigStockPhoto.com

Undo send

January 11, 2010 David Murray 0 comments

Google Mail now allows you to stop an email you’ve already sent – as long as you do it within five seconds. I can think of quite a few occasions when I wish I’d had that opportunity. OH NO! I forgot I was replying to the group rather than one member of it. AAAGH! That’s the wrong Tom I’ve sent that that to. NOOOOO! I should have waited a few minutes before reacting to that. Actually, according to research, five seconds would have been sufficient

Instead of regretting, take five seconds before you speak or act, especially in high-stress or emotional situations. Brain research has shown that by pausing, regulating your breathing, and taking just a few seconds, you are more likely to act rationally instead of foolishly.

The science behind this is a bit complicated:

It turns out while there’s a war going on between you and someone else, there’s another war going on, in your brain, between you and yourself. And that quiet little battle is your prefrontal cortex trying to subdue your amygdala.

Think of the amygdala as the little red person in your head with the pitchfork saying “I say we clobber the guy!” and think of the prefrontal cortex as the little person dressed in white saying “Uhm, maybe it’s not such a great idea to yell back. I mean, he is your client after all.”

“The key is cognitive control of the amygdyla by the prefrontal cortex,” Dr. Gordon told me. So I asked him how we could help our prefrontal cortex win the war. He paused for a minute and then answered. “If you take a breath and delay your action, you give the prefrontal cortex time to control the emotional response.”

Why a breath? “Slowing down your breath has a direct calming affect on your brain.” He told me.

“How long do we have to stall?” I asked. “How much time does our prefrontal cortex need to overcome our amygdala?”

“Not long. A second or two.”

Thankfully we don’t need to understand the process. We simply need to obey the simple command of Scripture: “Be slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19). Then we would have less “undo send” and “undo speak” moments.

The Ministry is God’s Sandbox

January 9, 2010 David Murray 2 comments

2006 © Timothy Stone. Image from BigStockPhoto.com
A few years ago I was sitting with an old Pastor who had labored faithfully in one congregation for decades and yet had seen little or no “growth” in his flock. I asked him if he ever got jealous when he saw other congregations growing and other ministers being used in the salvation of souls. “I used to,” he replied, “and I still long to be a blessing to precious souls. However I came to realize that while God’s work through me was important, God’s work in me was even more important.” I was puzzled and asked him to expand a bit. “Well, I have come to realize that God may have put me into the ministry primarily for my own sanctification.” This startling thought has often encouraged me in my low times. And it has kept a check on me in times of blessing too. The Christian Church has all too many examples of men who have focused on God’s working through them, to the neglect of God’s work in them. Fellow pastors and preachers, God has called you into the ministry not only to work through you but also (primarily?) to work in you. As you face another Sunday pastoring your flock, with all its challenges, frustrations, and disappointments, remember this memorable image painted by Dave Evans: “Work is God’s sandbox. He invites His children to play together in ways that help to grow them into who they are to become.”

You can read Dave Evans excellent article on work here.

Learning on the tightrope

January 9, 2010 David Murray 0 comments

2009 © Benjamin Haas. Image from BigStockPhoto.com
Should the church have “leaders”? If so, to what extent can church leaders learn from the business world?

In answer to the first question, the Bible does speak of leadership in the church. “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation” (Heb.13:7). This and other verses clearly teach that the church has leaders (”them which have the rule over you”), whose faith is to be followed (insofar as they follow Christ).

As to the second question, we should exercise caution about embracing the business model of leadership wholesale (Luke 22:25-26). Many of us have been burned by ecclesiastical CEO’s and still bear the scars. However, every Pastor and Christian leader has tasks which overlap with other professions – reading, studying, communicating, administration, time management, etc. There is much we can learn from the lessons which other professions have discovered in these areas by God’s “common grace” (or “providential gifts” if you prefer).

The sufficiency of Scripture does not mean that the Bible is exhaustive on every topic, but that it covers every topic sufficiently for us to make the right decisions. Calvin spoke about the Bible as a pair of spectacles through which we view (filter) the world and learn from the “truths” others have discovered. He

One example of this is the Scriptural idea of “servant-leadership.” The business world is increasingly embracing this model of leadership on pragmatic grounds. In some instances, they seem to have a better grasp of what it means than Christians! We can certainly learn from them as we “fill-out” our understanding of biblical leadership.

In fact, if you think about it, every model of leadership found in the Bible is originally derived from “the world.” The concepts of shepherds, stewards, ship-captains, household-managers, teachers, etc., all originated in the world and were adopted and adapted by the Biblical authors to mold and shape Christian leaders. So, we can learn what it means to be a shepherd, steward, etc., by studying these people and professions.

As Christians we are always balancing on that tightrope of being in the world but not of the world, learning from the world without being infected by the world. Let’s pray for one another that we don’t fall off neither on the side of sinful compromise nor of sinful separatism. As John Calvin said in his Institutes of the Christian religion:

The human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator…We will be careful…not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears (2.2.15).