SHOULDER TO SHOULDER #167 ---- 3/19/01
Posted by: lifeunlimited <lifeunlimited@...>
As We fight The Good Fight In This New Millennium
SHOULDER TO SHOULDER #167 ---- 3/19/01
Title: "Pastor A Church or Reach A City?"
TO SUBSCRIBE to "Shoulder to Shoulder", send a blank message to
<[email protected]>.
To Subscribe for someone else, write <[email protected]>.
TO UNSUBSCRIBE, send a blank message to
<[email protected]>.
My Dear Friend:
It was predicted by some friends that I would say, "I am writing you
today from O'Fallon, MO, some 40 miles west of St. Louis where I spoke
yesterday in . . . "
So ---- they're right.
The point they were making pertained to my efforts to write to you,
regardless of where I might be. So, today I am sitting in the Holiday
Inn waiting for evening services, and doing just as they predicted.
But, regardless of where I may be, I always anticipate the joy of sharing
my heart with you and encouraging you in the Lord.
And, today, I want to first address an . . . .
URGENT NEED:
Since 1995 Jo Ann and I have been taking volunteer groups to the Balkans
to minister. In 1998 we began working with pastors, missionaries, and
lay leaders in Sarajevo, Bosnia. This coming May we will return again
with a team to work with several Christian ministries under the overall
supervision of Pastor Tomislav Dobutovic.
It has come to my attention recently that Pastor Dobutovic is in
desperate need of more groups to help them this Summer. Such groups
would be doing a variety of things ranging from working with refugees,
ministering to orphans, distributing food and clothing, doing street
ministry, working in youth and family camps, and other vital activities.
I am extending an extremely urgent plea to anyone who would seriously
consider putting a group together and traveling to Sarajevo this Summer
to help this extraordinary pastor and his varied ministries.
If you would be willing to consider this and would like to contact him,
please drop me a note; I can send you his e-mail address immediately.
The fields are unbelievably white for harvest ---- he just needs some
more workers. Please pray! Please consider! Please help!
ANOTHER OUTSTANDING RESOURCE:
Thursday of last week I received the following e-mail concerning a
special ministry of prayer. I checked the website and felt it was an
extraordinary ministry that you should know about. This is not the
"Washington D.C." Gary Bauer, but a brother in the Lord from Louisiana.
Even if you're not from the U.S., I think you'll find it worth checking
out. Read on . . . .
-------------------------
Fellow Laborer,
We need to spread the word about Partners in Prayer for Schools among
believers. If you could check out our web site we would appreciate it.
Then, if you would, point others to this ministry. We need a strong
prayer covering, as we storm the very gates of hell that have been
established about our public school campuses, and have our nation's
children captive in their own land.
As our growth has been tremendous over the past year space has been
donated for the national office. Please prayerfully consider becoming a
PIPS, and/or passing this message along to everyone you know who might
have a burden for interceding on behalf of the public school children of
our nation.
In Christ,
Gary and Billie Jean Bauer
"...suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not..."
Mark 14:10
check out http://www.pipforschools.com
--------------------------
WHAT'S YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
What is your understanding of God's call on your life? For some strange
reason this past Wednesday I began thinking about that. Our perspective
regarding that call determines to a great extent the real effectiveness
of our ministry.
As I contemplated the idea, I was hit by one of those fascinatingly
concise catchy little phrases that the Holy Spirit seems to get a charge
out of flashing before my consciousness.
"Did God call you to pastor a church, or to reach a city?"
That was Wednesday.
Thursday afternoon I read the following quote in Dr. Bob Hall's "Friday
Fax" letter.
"After 21 years of successful church growth and at the height of his
career
as a church leader, 39-year-old Samiton Pangellah stepped down, to make
room for the next generation of leaders. . . . Samiton believes that God
will speak to pastors and other Christian leaders increasingly to serve
their town, region or nation, not just their own church. 'God is changing
our paradigm of church, so that we see the Body of Christ as he does - as
an organic unit, not split into denominational fragments'."
That same afternoon I talked with a pastor from a distant state some 1200
miles from where I live. His son had gone with Jo Ann and me on our
recent trip to Ukraine. It was our first time to meet face to face, and
was a delightful blessing.
He has a heart for God, a hunger for revival, and a distressed sense of
the condition of churches in his region. Among other things, he talked
about how so many of the people in his congregation have no interest that
reaches beyond their own age group and their own church. He, on the
other hand, has a vision that crosses age barriers and expands to cover
his city.
I have been so captured by that question, that I posed it to Phil
Miggliorati, editor of National Pastors' Prayer Network newsletter. Phil
wrote back last night . . . .
"Most are called to pastor a congregation and, thereby, the community
that congregation resides in. Many are hearing that call to the
community.
"Some are hearing a call to the entire "city" (region). Some of those
continue to pastor their congregation; some begin to "pastor" the pastors
and churches in the city; some the business community; some...
"How about an NPPN article on this subject...?"
I do not in any way want to imply that pastoring a church is not
important, but the more I think about that question, the more obvious it
seems to me that there is a significant difference between pastoring a
church and reaching a city.
It has to do, for the most part, with attitude ---- our attitude about
ministry and about the Great Commission.
My point?
I'm fearful that an enormously high number of pastors and staff members
have misread their call from God. They have become content to pastor a
group of already saved people and see no real connection between that and
reaching the people in that community. It seems to me that if God calls
you to pastor or be a staff member in a local church, it is for the
expressed purpose of reaching that "city".
So where do we come up with the idea that a "pastor" is only a pastor?
That leads me to ask the question again . . . .
Has God called you to pastor a church, or to reach a city?
If it is only to pastor a church, as honorable as that may be, you're
missing the point of why you're there in the first place. If God didn't
intend you to reach the city, He wouldn't have called you to pastor that
church.
Does that make sense?
THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE:
I guess what is "bugging" me is the idea that often we think we know what
God's call is all about only to discover later that we underestimated the
magnitude of the call.
Why can that happen? What is it that makes us sometimes settle for less
than what God had for us? Well . . . . consider the following possible
reasons.
1. Our level of understanding regarding our call is either dwarfed or
distorted.
You and I both come out of some type of tradition built on generations of
habits, assumptions, and practices that may not necessarily be totally
valid. In fact, for each successive generation that passes, the original
vision or calling distorts that much further.
So, maybe you and I are victims of so many generations of distortion
regarding what it means to be called to a church that we have assumed
that our primary role is simply to shepherd the flock, visit a few
newcomers that may come along, and do our pastoral duties, when the fact
of the matter is that God brought us to that community in the first place
to not only care for His people, but to have our own eyes opened to the
community in which that congregation has been placed.
2. We think too small.
Even though we certainly know we serve a very big God, we often don't
think we're big enough to do what is really in our hearts. I've said it
before, and I repeat it here ---- one of my favorite questions is, "If
you could do anything in the world in serving God, you knew you couldn't
fail, and money was no object, what would you do?"
I asked an older couple that question last night following the services.
They had never considered such a question. It was exciting to see the
light go on as he faces retirement a month from now and then begins
looking for ways to serve the Lord during his retirement years.
If you're honest, chances are you'd be doing something beyond what you're
doing at the moment. While we probably don't under estimate God, we
often under estimate ourselves. Or we under estimate God's plan for us.
When I moved to a pastorate a number of years ago, I assumed it would be
to pastor a little loving congregation in a small midwestern community.
I had no idea God was going to open my eyes and stir my heart for an
entire community.
But, once He did, it changed my perspective on ministry, and certainly
changed by ministry to the church itself. It seemed to not only give me
responsibility, but it gave them a reason for existing. You see, if a
church isn't going to reach its city, it has no reason to exist.
3. We've had enough disappointments to conclude the call of God probably
will never fully develop.
All of us believe God "can"; some of us believe He "wants to", but few of
us believe He "will". Frankly, we sometimes don't permit our calling to
go beyond what we feel we alone can handle because we don't want God to
be embarrassed or disappointed.
Or ---- we don't want to be disappointed in God if He doesn't come
through. We are disappointed by people often enough; the last thing we
need is for God to disappoint us. So, rather than pay the agonizing
price of interceding and working to reach a city, we just satisfy
ourselves to "hold our own", not admitting that it is just another way to
say nothing is happening.
4. We're not willing to take "risks".
Then often we won't commit ourselves to reaching our city simply because
we know it will require us to stretch our faith, start living on the
cutting edge, and take some daring risks. Risk taking requires lots of
energy and work we're not willing to expend.
So, let's just do a good job of "shepherding", fill our schedule with
good spiritual looking pastoral activities, and let our city go to hell.
Besides---- like Jonah, some of us are mad at our city anyhow because we
don't like the way it lives, and we think it deserves to burn for
eternity.
Then, of course, some of us, again like Jonah, are mad at God as well.
5. We assume someone else's box is for us.
Did you ever start a new ministry in your church because you saw some
other church successfully do it?
We can do the same thing when it comes to reaching a city. "Nobody else
is trying to reach the city, so why should I? Since they aren't, it
probably means that's not part of God's agenda."
In other words, we let somebody else's short sightedness become the
standard, and we are satisfied to buy into the idea. But, friend . . . .
just because some other guy doesn't get the picture, that doesn't mean
you have to do the same.
Get out of the box! Take a look around you!
Your city is dying and going to hell! Try doing something about it. The
other guy's self-imposed box doesn't have to be your coffin.
6. We approach the call from selfish goals.
I am deeply distressed over the growing number of pastors and staff
members who are doing what they are in vocational ministry for selfish
purposes. Basically, all they want to do is gain approval from others
for their sacrificial service, make themselves feel good by good
religious performance, and keep their hands clean from the ways of the
world by refusing the get down in the gutters, cesspools, and garbage
dumps of their cities.
In other words. . . . . they're in it purely for selfish reasons. They
really don't care about their city; they just care about their
reputations, their popularity, their resume' that some bigger church
might possibly acquire.
Frankly, if we're in it for selfish reasons, we'll never see our cities
the way Jesus saw them.
7. We don't think we can accomplish the big things.
If anything, this may be one of the biggest hindrances to committing
ourselves to our cities. We just don't think we've got what it takes to
do such a big job.
But, do you know what, my friend? Take it from me; you are big enough
for the task.
Why is that true? It's because this is a God thing again, and whatever
He calls you to do, He also gives you the vision to embrace it, and He
gives you the insight and the energy to see it through.
Let me tell you, my friend. You're good enough for the job! Go ahead!
Love your city! Just because you may have failed doesn't mean you're
disqualified. Just because you've never done anything "big" in the past
doesn't mean you can't do it tomorrow.
Bertha Smith's great statement still rings true ---- "God strikes some
awfully straight licks with some awfully crooked sticks."
I don't need to be intimidated by the size of my city, the wealth of her
leaders, the "crony-ism" of her power pools, the enormity of her
problems, or the deafness of her ears to the Gospel.
If you're big enough to say "Yes!" to God, . . . . you're big enough to
do the big things ---- like claiming and taking a city.
IN CONCLUSION:
So, I end my letter to you today with that question still shouting in my
ear. . . . . "Has God called me to just pastor a church, or to reach a
city?"
The answer is a resounding . . . . "YES!"
Find some other pastors who hunger for God and love their city like you
do, get together, start talking about what you're feeling . . . . and get
to praying.
Then . . . . go for it! If you love your city, your city needs you.
If you don't . . . . it doesn't.
Don't sell yourself short by settling for less than the full and complete
call God has placed on your life. God demands more, you deserve more . .
. . and so does your city.
Bound By His Love,
Bob Tolliver ---- (Rom 1:11-12)
Copyright March, 2001. All rights reserved.
--------------
^
/ |
(_/____)
/ ^ ^
{ (O) (O) }
------oOOOo--------U-------oOOOo------
Hang in there! I'm with you!
--------ooooO----------------Ooooo--------
( ) /
| | /
(_) (_)
Our heart is to "Lift up hands that hang down". We'd love to hear from
you. Drop us a note with reports, observations, prayer requests, etc.
If this letter has blessed you and you know of someone else who needs to
be encouraged, feel free to forward it in its entirety to all such people
you know.
If you would like a list of past issues which you could receive upon
request, just let us know.