Mark S. Mitchell

Pastor, Writer, Follower of Jesus


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Parenting Skill #1: Modeling

The question remains how to train our kids. What are the skills we can develop as parents that will help us train our children in this way? The book of Proverbs gives us three such skills. I will discuss each one on my next three blog posts

The first is modeling. In Proverbs 20:7 it says, “A righteous man who walks in his integrity, how blessed are his sons after him.” This isn’t a promise but a statement that’s true most of the time. It describes a person who is righteous, who seeks to conduct his or her life with integrity. The idea here isn’t perfection, but it speaks of the overall pattern of a person’s life. The word that comes to mind for me is authenticity. When a parent lives a spiritually authentic life the result will be that his sons and daughters will be blessed. To be blessed means to be happy; to be fulfilled; to be content. Isn’t that what we want for our kids? We want them to live lives that are meaningful and fulfilling. We want for them a certain measure of happiness, joy and contentment.

The key to that is who WE are. This isn’t really a skill as much as it is a lifestyle. As we live lives of authenticity, as we engage the Lord with all of our hearts, as we allow the Spirit of God to have his way in our lives, the net result will be that our kids will be blessed. The biggest issue in parenting isn’t what we do but who we are. Nothing can happen through us that isn’t happening to us.

If we want our children to grow up to have a vital relationship with Jesus Christ, it starts with our own relationship with Christ. If we want our kids to be kind to others, it starts with our own kindness. If we want our kids to have a pure tongue, then our tongue had better be pure. If we want our kids to be able to forgive, then we had better be forgiving people. If we don’t really believe in the values we encourage our kids to live by, if those values don’t permeate our own lives, our kids will be the first to pick up on that.

We’re not talking about perfection here, but about authenticity. One of the most powerful things we can do for our kids is share our battles and even our sin with them. It’s a powerful thing to say to our kids, “I know that I have been on you about how to speak to your mother. I know that I’m the worst culprit of this very thing. I’m sorry. Can we pray for each other in this?”

This verse recognizes the fact that truth is caught rather than taught. In other words, kids learn best as they simply watch you live your life. Parenting isn’t so much a set of skills but a living relationship; it’s life on life. One of the things we want to do as parents, one of our basic priorities, will be to simply spend time with our children. No lectures, just life on life; time to allow them in the natural course of life to “catch” what’s important to us.

Years ago I had the opportunity to take my eight-year-old daughter to a ball game. I was excited about our time together, and was praying for an opportunity to teach her something by my example at the game. About the eighth inning I began to worry because nothing much had happened. Finally, the game ended and still nothing had happened. We went home and I thought, “Why didn’t the Lord allow something to happen where I could be a model?” Soon it hit me that I had missed the point. The point was to just be with her and to be myself. Nothing unusual needed to happen for me to be a model to her. Being with her was enough.

How do we train our kids? We seek to be the kind of people we want them to become. As part of that, we give them access to our lives at the deepest level, allowing them to “catch” what’s important to us in the natural course of life.


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Train up a Child

In my last post I mentioned Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” This is the best known of all the Proverbs on parenting, but it’s also one of the most difficult to understand, so I want to unpack this verse. There are three parts to look at here.

First, it says that we are to “train up a child…” The word for “train” here means to inaugurate or to dedicate. The word was used most often in the OT to describe something that was dedicated to God. The Jewish feast of Hanukkah is the noun form of this word because it involves the dedication of the altar. So to train a child in this way can mean to dedicate him to God. It can also mean to start him or to inaugurate him or to prepare him to go in a certain direction. HOW we’re to do that is something I’ll come back to in a minute.

The second thing to notice is that it says we should train a child “in the way he should go.” This is where the verse really gets ambiguous. Literally, this should read, “according to his way.” Some take this to mean that we should train up a child according to the proper or right way to live. This is how both the NIV and the NASB take it. But, the text does say, “his way,” i.e., the child’s way. For this reason, many scholars take this to mean that a child should be trained according to his own unique personality and stage in life. The emphasis here is on really knowing your child well and training him accordingly.

This means that before we can train our kids we have to be students of our kids. We have to know their stage of life as well as their unique characteristics. I have three kids who are each about five years apart. Growing up, they were always at very different stages of life. That means I treated each one differently. They’re also very different in their temperament and personality. Among the three we have an extrovert and an introvert. We have a mercy giver and a truth teller. We have a morning person and a night person. Recognizing these differences kept us from making the all too frequent mistake of comparing them with each other, “Why can’t you bring home the same grades as your sister?” Because they’re different we expected different things from them and taught them and disciplined them in different ways. Two went to a Christian school and the other to a public school. These are the kinds of things that go into knowing your children.

The third thing to notice about this verse is the last line, “…even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Does this mean that after a period of rebellion they will come around and find the right path? Although that might be true, that’s not what it means. Notice that it says, “EVEN when he is old…” The idea here is that, not only in his youth, but even in his old age he’ll not stray from the right path. The beginning determines the end. It’s as if the writer is saying that raising children is like pouring cement. The way you mold it and shape it when it’s newly poured, before it sets, will determine its shape for the rest of its life. Although it’s not a guarantee, this is what child development experts have been telling us for quite some time now: the first five years of life seem to determine so much of what that child is like. Proverbs has been saying that for a few thousand years!

Years ago there was a family in the San Francisco Bay Area. The father was a well known pastor and his son was named David. David grew up in a family where he was “trained up in the way he should go.” He grew up to love the Lord, felt a call into ministry, and went to seminary. David was a big, athletic young man. He was six feet two and 200 pounds. He worked with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. At age 32 he was diagnosed with cancer. It wracked his body and over time he went from 200 pounds to 80 pounds. When he was about ready to die he asked if his father could be brought to the hospital room. Lying there in bed, he looked up at his father and said, “Dad, do you remember when I was little how you used to hold me in your arms close to your chest?  Do you think you could do that again, Dad, one last time?” His father nodded and he picked up his 32—year—old son and held him close to his chest so that their faces were right next to each other. They were eyeball to eyeball, tears running down both faces, and the son looked up at his father and said to him, “Thank you for building the kind of character into my life that has enabled me to face even a moment like this.”

It’s this kind of character that every parent wants for his child; the kind that will carry them through even the darkest storms. God, in his grace, can do that with or without us. But the fact is, he has entrusted us parents with the privilege of being a part of that process, a very important part. “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” By God’s grace we can do just that. In my next post, I will write about three skills parents must learn to do this well.


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Parenting with Grace

Whenever I talk about parenting I feel a little bit like how Charlie Shedd describes himself in his book, Promises to Peter. Shedd tells how the title of his messages on parenting changed with his own experience of fatherhood. In his early years as a preacher before he was a father he entitled his message, “How to Raise Your Children.”  People came in droves to hear it. Then he had a child of his own, and it was a while before he gave that message again. When he did, he gave it a new name: “Some Suggestions to Parents.” Then he had two more children, and a number of years later he called it, “Feeble Hints to Fellow Strugglers.” Several years and children later, he seldom gave that talk, but when he did his title was, “Anyone got a Few Words of Wisdom?”

I can relate! As time has passed and my own kids have grown up I feel in many ways like I have less and less to say about parenting. Because of that, I give parenting advice with a certain amount of fear and trepidation. The Bible has a lot to say about parenting. Without embarrassment, it offers us some very pointed and specific wisdom on how to raise our kids. But, having been at this business of raising kids for a while, I know how difficult it can be to really do these things, and I’m very aware of areas in which I’ve failed to live up to these standards.

For this reason we should approach what the Bible says about parenting in the larger context of what we know about the gospel of Jesus Christ and specifically the grace of God. Before we DO anything as parents we need to know something of God’s grace at the core of our being. We need to know He loves us unconditionally; he’s not keeping score of our performance. We need to know that we’re very much in process as people, and that we need God’s love and grace every day of our lives.

If grace is not at the very core of our lives as individuals, then we’ll not be able to parent with grace; we won’t be able to parent without our issues getting in the way. Our relationship with our kids will be tainted with our own insecurities. We’ll place them on the performance treadmill we ourselves are on. We’ll look to them to fill the holes in our lives that only God can fill. Everything the Bible says presupposes a relationship with your kids that is rooted in grace and unconditional love. It presupposes an authenticity that flows from grace where you can laugh together and cry together and forgive together.

Part of this foundation of grace means that we recognize that we need God’s grace in our parenting. There is a pervasive lie floating around the Christian community that places all the responsibility for what our kids become on the shoulders of the parent. Often, a verse from Proverbs is used to support this myth. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” We take that as a blanket promise that if we just train our kids right they will turn out to be model Christians. But, Proverbs were never intended to be blanket promises. They were intended to be general statements of what happens most of the time. The fact is, we can’t do anything to guarantee the outcome of our child’s life.

Depending on how you look at it, that’s either very good news or very bad news. The bad news is that you can’t do anything that will absolutely determine the outcome of your child’s life. The good news is you can’t do anything that will absolutely determine the outcome of your child’s life. Do you catch my drift? If you’re a parent in need of grace, this is very good news. It frees us up as parents to know that everything does NOT depend upon us. That’s the law. But we don’t live under the law, we live under grace. As parents who’ve experienced the grace of God in our own lives, we’re free to live with the expectation that He’ll act in grace in our children’s lives as well! That’s very good news because none of us feel we have it all together; none of us want it all to depend on us.

With that foundation of grace intact, it’s true that God has entrusted parents with a tremendous responsibility.  And He offers us some very helpful instruction on how to be effective parents.  I will talk about that in an upcoming post.


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Family Business or Body of Christ?

The word “nepotism” originated in the Middle Ages, when some Catholic popes and bishops, who had taken vows of chastity and therefore usually had no children of their own, gave their nephews (sometimes illegitimate sons) positions of preference in the church. But this isn’t just an old problem in the Catholic Church; it’s also a problem in the Evangelical church. Many churches are rampant with nepotism. A brief look at the names of the staff on a church’s web site or Sunday bulletin reveals far too many people with the same last names!

Nepotism is favoritism shown by somebody in power to relatives and friends, especially in appointing them to good positions without regard to objective evaluation of skill or qualification. Nepotism is natural in that almost everyone wants to help out those close to them. Especially in a small, close knit operation, or a family business, it’s normal. There’s nothing wrong with the desire to help your family out, but what happens when there’s a better qualified candidate? What happens when that family member doesn’t carry his or her weight or commits an indiscretion? What happens if the job outgrows their skill and abilities?

Robert Cubillos, business administrator at Rolling Hills Covenant Church in, Rolling Hills Estates, CA writes, “The consideration and hiring of an employee who is closely connected—by a blood relation—to another employee can cause a great deal of concern for churches…Nepotism can create a group of people who are insular and self-referential; they are insulated from outside scrutiny and opinion and are allied together by powerful allegiances to each other.”

Some of the problems associated with nepotism are even seen in the Bible. The spirit of nepotism is seen in the mother of James and John who lobbied Jesus to let her two sons sit at his left and right in his kingdom. The dangers of nepotism are seen in Eli, a priest in Israel, who failed to deal with the incompetence and indiscretion of his two sons serving in the same position (2 Samuel 2). It’s interesting that Jesus didn’t appoint one family member to be among the Twelve. James, the Lord’s brother, did become a leader in the Jerusalem church, but not until after the ascension.

Certainly this isn’t a black and white issue. There are no clear biblical commands against hiring family members, although there are warnings against showing partiality (1 Timothy 5:21). Furthermore, spiritual gifts are not passed down through families but sovereignly distributed by the Holy Spirit (Romans 12:3-8). Paul encouraged Timothy to appoint elders according to godly character rather than family connections (1 Timothy 3:1-7).

Here are some of the problems associated with nepotism in churches: First, we could end up hiring someone who is unqualified for the job and therefore doesn’t perform well. When we do that, it certainly doesn’t help our relative! We should ask if they would be hired in a similar position at a similar church. Second, nepotism can create frustration and disrespect towards church leadership when they perceive that favoritism played a part in either hiring or advancement. Third, there can be a lack of freedom among coworkers to honestly express their opinions about the spouse or child of a senior leader or elder. Fourth, it’s human nature to favor our own family and it’s near impossible to be completely objective about your own spouse or child. Fifth, the perception of favoritism and/or a financial motive behind the hiring of a family member can hurt a leader’s credibility. At the very least, the practice of nepotism gives the appearance to outsiders that the pastor is building a family kingdom at the church’s expense. In regard to the stewardship of a financial offering, Paul wrote, “…taking precaution so that no one will discredit us in our administration of this generous gift; for we have regard for what is honorable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men” (2 Cor. 8:20-21).

I believe it’s important for many churches to rethink their staffing policies. At the very least, they should establish clear policies at the elder level about fair hiring processes and operating procedures. They should avoid having family members report to family members. If they do hire a family member, they should start them at the bottom. There’s a story in Hollywood about a legendary talk show host who brought his son into the company, but he didn’t start him out in management. He started him out in the painting department as a set painter. That generated so much respect both for the host and his son, that story is still being talked about today.

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability has established a very helpful sample policy for churches regarding nepotism: “XYZ Ministry permits the employment of qualified relatives of employees, of the employee’s household, or immediate family as long as such employment does not, in the opinion of the Ministry, create actual conflicts of interest. For purposes of this policy, ‘qualified relative’ is defined as a spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, first cousin, corresponding in-law, ‘step’ relation, or any member of the employee’s household. The Ministry will use sound judgment in the placement of related employees in accordance with the following guidelines:

  • Individuals who are related by blood, marriage, or reside in the same household are permitted to work in the same Ministry department, provided no direct reporting or supervisor to subordinate relationship exists. That is, no employee is permitted to work within ‘the chain of command’ when one relative’s work responsibilities, salary, hours, career progress, benefits, or other terms and conditions of employment could be influenced by the other relative.
  • Related employees may have no influence over the wages, hours, benefits, career progress and other terms and conditions of the other related staff members.
  • Employees who marry while employed, or become part of the same household are treated in accordance with these guidelines. That is, if in the opinion of the Ministry a conflict arises as a result of the relationship, one of the employees may be transferred at the earliest practicable time.”


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Blessed Bankruptcy

Jesus begins the Beatitudes saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” That sounds like nonsense to most of us. We live in a society where leadership, success and fulfillment have nothing to do with being poor in spirit. Political candidates promise if they’re elected things will be better. They’ll lift our economy, bring on world peace, solve our health care crisis and improve education for our kids. Smart political candidates are optimistic and confident, not poor in spirit. We don’t raise our children to be poor in spirit either. On the soccer field we yell from the sidelines, “You can do it! Believe in yourself!” We don’t want our kids to cower in the face of life’s challenges; we don’t want them poor in spirit; we want them to have confidence. Our culture says, “Blessed are the people who have it all together, who are confident, independent, and think well of themselves.” So when Jesus says the poor in spirit are blessed we don’t really believe that’s true.

What does it mean to be poor in spirit? It doesn’t mean to be financially poor. Living in a slum doesn’t merit favor with God. You can be materially poor and proud as a peacock. You can be rich in the world’s goods and poor in spirit. Nor does it mean to be poor spirited. Jesus isn’t saying the wimps of the world are blessed. He’s not promoting passivity of spirit or a certain cowering kind of personality. Nor does it mean to be poor in spiritual awareness. Jesus isn’t pronouncing a blessing on those who have no interest in spiritual things; who go through life without a second thought of God. Finally, to be poor in spirit doesn’t mean to be modest. It’s not the Academy Award winner who says, “Aw shucks, I couldn’t have done it without my supporting cast.” That may be a nice way to handle an award, but you can be modest in your manner yet proud in your spirit.

Being poor in spirit has to do with our relationship with God. In the Greek language there are two words for “poor.” One word describes those who live from paycheck to paycheck with just the bare necessities. That’s not the word used here. The word used here means to be afflicted and oppressed and look to God and God alone for help. Psalm 34:6 says, “The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” To be poor in spirit means to recognize our own spiritual bankruptcy and our deep need for God.

In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus told a story to show what it means to be poor in spirit. Two men went to church to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee stood before God and thanked him he’s not like other people. He’s not a liar and a cheat in business, he doesn’t sleep around, and he doesn’t rip people off like this tax collector. He fasts on a regular basis and gives a tenth of his income to God. What he was saying was true; he probably lived an upright life. This is the kind of guy every church wants. This is the kind of guy other people look at and think, “If only I could get it together like him. He’s so disciplined, so spiritual.”

The tax collector couldn’t have been more different. Tax collectors were the scoundrels of the ancient world. They were Jews who bought franchises from the Roman government which gave them the right to collect taxes. Besides being traitors to Rome, they got rich by extortion. Rome had no standardized tax rates, so the tax collector could charge what he wanted, and skim whatever he could off the top. They were the scum of society. So when this man prayed, he didn’t have a whole lot to say. He didn’t even dare raise his eyes to heaven. He beat his breast and cried out, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” We say, “Well, he ought to be praying that! If anyone needs mercy, he does!”

By anyone’s measure, the Pharisee was better than the tax collector. If they were both running for election, we’d vote for the Pharisee. But Jesus closes the story with a statement that must have sounded like nonsense. He said the tax collector, not the Pharisee, went back to his house justified, right with God.

What’s going on in this story? We might say that the Pharisee’s problem was conceit. He really was a better man, he just needed to be more modest. Who would stand up at church and say, “Thank you Lord that I’m not like these other guys. I rarely miss church. I tithe. I witness to my neighbors.” But his problem wasn’t conceit, it was pride. Luke said something important to introduce this story. He said, “Jesus told this story to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and looked down on everybody else.” This tells me the difference between pride and poverty of spirit has to do with who you trust. The Pharisee didn’t trust in God; he trusted in himself. He didn’t really need God for anything. He wasn’t a beggar before God; he was confident in himself. But the tax collector came empty handed, trusting in God. We might say, “He had an advantage. He really was a loser!” But he could have practiced his own form of pride. He could have said, “Lord, thank you I’m not like this proud Pharisee. I may be a sinner, but at least I’m open and honest about it. At least I’m not a hypocrite.” He didn’t say that. Instead he saw his moral poverty and trusted God, not himself.

I think the reason he did that was how he measured himself. The Pharisee was proud because he measured himself against man. That’s why it says, “He looked down on everyone else.” He didn’t measure himself God-ward; he found a guy who would make him look good. Some of us aren’t poor in spirit because we really haven’t looked God-ward and identified the sin in our lives as sin. We’ve rationalized it and trivialized it. To be poor in spirit means to look God-ward and come to grips with our absolute moral bankruptcy in his sight. But it equally means to come to him out of that need; to cry out to him for mercy and to trust that he can and will supply what we need.

I had an uncle who married late in life and never had children. As a result, he treated my brother and me like grandsons. When he got older, his wife was in a care facility and he stayed in his home. Before he died, he shared with me that his home was in joint tenancy, and if he died first his wife would become the sole owner and her plan was to leave the home to some of her own relatives. But, if she died first, my uncle would leave the house to my brother and me, along with four other cousins. I remember the day he called me to tell me his wife had died. Despite the fact they never had a great relationship, he was full of grief and remorse. My first thought wasn’t to grieve over the loss of my aunt, but to rejoice over the fact that now I would inherit one-sixth of the house. There’s a sense in which in my spirit I could have killed her for the money. My uncle died just a few days later, but in that experience I saw how ugly and dark my heart really was.

What happens when we truly see our hearts and lives for what they are? We can try to deny what we see, or cover it up, or explain it away, or find someone worse. When we do that, we stay in our sins. Or we can come to God as a beggar, throw ourselves at his feet and cry out for mercy. It’s then, and only then, that we’ll know the blessing of being poor in spirit: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”


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To Live in Joy

I’ve been thinking about joy lately. Where does it come from? How can I live in joy when there is so much wrong not only in this world, but in my own life?

Our church has just started a study on the letters of John. John opens his first letter by telling his readers that his whole purpose in writing was to make their joy complete (1 John 1:4). How is it that followers of Jesus can experience complete joy? We live in the same world as everyone else, we experience the same trials and troubles. The world knocks us all around, rather unmercifully at times. Where does this joy come from? How is it possible?

No one explained this better than G.K. Chesterton. In his book, Orthodoxy he wrote, “The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, but sad about the big ones.” What did he mean by that? He simply meant that unbelieving people are forced to find their joy in the “little things” of this earth, but when they consider the much bigger questions of their ultimate existence, they’re sad. Chesterton writes, “…the pagan was…happier and happier as he approached the earth, but sadder and sadder as he approached the heavens. The gaiety of the best Paganism…is all a gaiety about the facts of life, not about its origin. To the pagan the small things are as sweet as the small brooks breaking out of the mountain; but the broad things are as bitter as the sea. When the pagan looks at the very core of the cosmos he is struck cold. Behind the gods, who are merely despotic, sit the fates, who are deadly.”

This past weekend I had the joy of watching my son play football at Wheaton College. Both he and his team played well and there was joy on the Wheaton College field when the game was over. While God grants us these moments of earthly joy, and it is good for us to enjoy them, the reality is that if the night had not gone so well, our joy would still be complete. This remains true even amidst life’s more devastating tragedies. Chesterton explains that in the Christian faith, “joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small. The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world… We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.”

If Chesterton is right—and I believe he is—then we would expect to see this sort of complete joy in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was known as “a man of sorrows,” but could it be that he was restraining something deep within? I’ll let Chesterton answer that question: “The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”

I believe it is this very real joy of his that he shares with us. We still experience the tears and the anger, as he did, but all the while the laughter of the heavens echoes in our ears.


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Does Your Work Matter to God?

It’s Labor Day and perhaps a good time to ask the question, why do you work? There can be two extremes in answering that question. There are those who see work as a necessary evil. They work because they have to. Work is a means to an end. “I work because I have to pay my bills.” Or “I work because I want to be able to pay for the things I want out of life.” Or “I work because some day I want to retire.” For these people, work has little intrinsic value. It’s something they do because of something else they want. Some of these people, of course, aren’t neutral about their job; they HATE their job. Like the David Allan Coe song from 1978, Take This Job and Shove It, they loathe their work. Tim J. McGuire, former editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune once said in a speech: “Work is brutal. Work is a four-letter word. Most people don’t think that work could possibly have anything to do with spirituality. They assume that these two worlds cannot mesh.”

The other extreme sees their jobs and their work as central to their worth and identity as a person. Not only do they love their work, their work is everything to them; it’s their religion. One study showed that Americans work an average of 49 1/2 weeks a year, more than any other developed nation. My oldest daughter used to work for Facebook. It was great because you could eat three very nice meals a day there; they would even do your dry-cleaning. All this for free! But after awhile she realized part of the deal was you never needed to go home! For some, work is an obsession.

God is the One who invented work. When God created Adam and Eve, he gave them work to do. He told them to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 2:28). Before sin ever entered the world, there was work in paradise. The Bible also hints strongly there will be work in heaven. But work isn’t everything. God also instituted the Sabbath; a day of rest. Life is to be lived in a sacred rhythm of rest and work.

How do we capture God’s purpose for our work? How can work become for us more than just a necessary evil? How can our work take on it’s rightful place in our lives? I believe the answer to that question lies in the whole idea of what the Bible calls our calling. We need to understand how our jobs connect with our calling. Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians 7:17, 20, “Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk… Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called.” Paul calls our job the place “the Lord has assigned to each one.” He says, “Wherever you were at when Christ called you, that’s your assignment.” Then in v. 20 he says something very surprising. The word translated “condition” is actually the same word he uses in the rest of the passage for “calling.” It should read like this: “Each man must remain in that calling in which he was called.” You see, our jobs are a calling. You might say, there is Calling with a big “C” and calling with a small “c.” Calling with a big “C” is the same for every believer; we are called into a relationship with Christ.  Calling with a small “c” is a little different for every believer. Our different jobs are a kind of calling; they are an assignment from God. This is where the word “vocation” comes in. We use that to speak of our careers, but the word comes from the Latin root which means “to call.” We each have a vocational calling. Our vocation is the unique place God has called us to live out the implications of our big “C” calling.

Paul gives us a a very strong hint of what that might mean later in v. 24 when he says, “Each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.” Those two words, “with God” make all the difference in the world. The idea seems to be that, whatever our work is, God is not only right there with us, but we do our work for Him; he is the One we are to please. In Colossians, Paul put it this way, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men” (Col. 3:23-24). Paul says do you work as if it were an act of worship. What difference would it make if you did your job every day before an audience of One?

It would make a difference in how we work. When we are doing our work for God we strive for excellence in all that we do. Sweeping floors, pounding nails, pulling teeth, fixing computers will be done with diligence and conscientiousness. It should never be said of Christian workers that they are halfhearted, chronically late, irresponsible, whiny, and “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.”

Working for God should also make a difference in who we are. This goes beyond just being good workers. The idea here is being people of Christlike character in the marketplace. We should be marked by integrity. We should be known as people who don’t shade the truth to make the deal. Expense accounts are not padded. Petty cash is not pilfered. That’s only the start. We should actually model a lifestyle that is directly opposed to the typical standard. The typical marketplace mentality centers on the bottom line: profits, quotas, sales reports, balance sheets and getting ahead of our co-workers. Yet, we should be people marked by compassion, servanthood, putting people above the bottom line. Its so easy to slip into self-centeredness. When you go to work tomorrow, who do you need to reach out to? Who needs your encouragement? Who needs you to listen?

Being Christlike also means being vulnerable — admitting when you make a mistake. As followers of Christ we are going to blow it at times. We will lose our tempers, say something unkind, fall into gossip, or just fail to do a good job. We should be known as people who refuse to shift blame or rationalize, but who say, “I’m sorry. I blew it. I shouldn’t have said that. I was wrong.”  We can also be vulnerable by just being honest when we’re struggling with something. We don’t have to be “Joe Christian” with a plastic smile. We need to be human, sincere and transparent.

Finally, working before an audience of One should make a difference in what we say. Once we earn credibility in how we work and who we are, then we’ve earned the right to share Christ with our co-workers. I like what Bill Hybels says about this, “Jesus never commanded us to engage in theological debates with strangers, flaunt four-inch crosses and Jesus stickers, or throw our Christian catch phrases. But he did tell us to live and work in such a way that when the Holy Spirit orchestrates opportunities to speak about God, we will have earned the right.”

At the end us his life Jesus prayed something to his Father we would all want to be able to pray. He said, “Father, I have finished the work you have given me to do.” That work was his calling to be obedient to his Father in everything, including the work of dying on the cross. Jesus finished his work; he fulfilled his calling. But sometimes we forget that for twenty-plus years that obedience found expression in climbing out of the sack six days a week to make plows and repair broken furniture. When Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth and began to teach in the synagogue like he was a rabbi, his old buddies came by to see him and said, “Is this not the carpenter?” We forget that for most of his life he was the carpenter; it was only the last three years of his life that he was a preacher. But whether he was at the workbench pounding nails or in the synagogue preaching, he did his work before an audience of One; what drove him was His call to live for the Father. And at the end of his day his reward was to hear his Father say, “Well done! Well done in your calling. Well done in your job.” Would that be what he could say to each of us?


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Raising up Preachers Through the Multi-Site Model

For the past five years, the church in which I serve as Lead Pastor on the San Francisco Peninsula has adopted a multi-site model. Being a church of almost 3,000 people with only 2 acres in Foster City, we outgrew our facilities and felt this was the best way to continue to grow and reach the Peninsula for Christ. Our original campus is still in Foster City, but we have started two additional campuses. About five years ago, we started our North Campus in Millbrae (now in San Bruno), and then this past September we started a campus in Redwood City. We continue to function as one church on three campuses, with one budget and one board of elders. Each of our campuses has its own Campus Pastor and its own “campus specific” staff, but several of our staff serve all three campuses.

One of the challenges of doing multi-site has to do with preaching. With three campuses meeting every Sunday, we now have 156 Sundays a year (52 on each campus) to cover on the preaching calendar. Many multi-site churches have chosen to leverage the speaking and leadership gifts of one preacher and so they have him preach “in person” in the original campus and show a video of the sermon on the other campuses. It is argued that this is also a wise use of resources, in that it takes most guys 15-20 hours a week to prepare a message. But that approach has been criticized for several reasons: it just furthers the “celebrity” status of one person; it doesn’t allow young, emerging pastors to grow and develop their own preaching gifts; and it is contrary to an “incarnational” model of ministry.

What our church has adopted is a hybrid approach. Trying to cover 156 Sundays is a lot, so we still use video some of the time, usually when I am preaching on the “hub” campus. But we have also found that the multi-site model is a great way to train young preachers. Each of our Campus Pastors preaches “in person” several times a year on his own campus. On those weeks, I have an opportunity to work with them on their messages and debrief the following week. They benefit from that in several ways. First, if we never chose to go multi-site, we would only have 52 Sundays to cover, and they would get much less opportunity to preach. Second, if we had started a church instead of a campus, they would be burned out by trying to preach 52 times a year! Third, hopefully they benefit from the coaching I give them as well as the interaction between themselves as they prepare their messages on the same text. The bottom line is that more young guys are being trained to preach under this multi-site model than otherwise possible.


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Cheap Grace

Eric Metaxas has written a timely and insightful essay on “cheap grace” in light of politicians “falling from grace” and then being restored to a measure of respectability. I couldn’t agree with him more. The same thing applies to those in ministry. I hope you will read it!


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Shout Out to Coaches

Last weekend I had the opportunity to hang with and speak to about 55 coaches and their spouses. This was a weekend conference at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley put on by a group called Coaches Time-Out (CTO), which is part of Pro Football Outreach. My good friend, Steve Stenstrum, is the President of Pro Football Outreach and he invited me to be one of the speakers. I was joined by David and Kelli Pritchard, who spoke on marriage; Don Christiansen, who spoke on managing money; and Steve Kennelley, who spoke on leadership. Joe Broussard, the National Director for CTO, did an excellent job hosting the conference.

Part of the reason this was fun for me is that I have a heart for coaches and their spouses. As I think back to my own growing up, I can see how influential coaches were in my life. Men like Tom Burt, Bob Baird, Ron Moser at Los Altos High School and Jim Sanderson at Cal Poly had a huge impact on me. I was like wet cement and they made an imprint on me that has lasted to this day. Growing up, I never understood how much they sacrificed to invest in me and others. It makes me also appreciate the many coaches who are now part of the church I pastor and I am reminded of the important ministry they have in the lives of children.

Coaches were so important in shaping my life that I went to college as a P.E. major with the intent of being a coach. God re-routed me to pastoral ministry, but I have still done some coaching along the way. I coached varsity football for a year at Mountain View High School. I also coached wrestling for a year at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton while serving as a youth pastor at a nearby church. One of the joys of my life was coaching all three of my kids in soccer, football and baseball. I’m not sure I was all that good at it, but I wanted to coach because of what my coaches had meant to me. Even now as a pastor, much of what I do with our staff is more like coaching than pastoring.

Coaches continue to be an important part of my life. I have a son-in-law who is a football coach at Stanford University. I am very proud of him and my daughter, who see coaching as more of a calling than a job. My own son, Matt, has had a lifelong dream of being a Division One football coach. He is now approaching his senior year at Wheaton College where he plays football. I’m more than grateful for the coaches at Wheaton College, like Mike Swider and Rodney Sandberg, who have invested in my son and have provided a sterling example of what it means to be not just a football player but a man of God.

If you get a chance, find a way to say thanks to the coaches in your life. Better yet, pay a coach’s way to one of the conferences put on by CTO next summer.