Books of Note: Ajith Fernando's "The Call to Joy and Pain"

Recently published by Crossway, Ajith Fernando's "The Call to Joy and Pain" (2007) transcends expectations for such a small, devotionally oriented book. There is considerable food for thought in this 180-page text, including many helpful stories, personal reminisces, and exegetical points to ponder. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and would enthusiastically recommend it to readers, particularly those who would like to read more about the book's subject in smaller doses. This is no overwhelming manuscript; Fernando writes with grace and gentleness in a style that is fluid and easy to understand. Seminarians, laypeople, pastors, professors, all will find much to chew on in a book that is small but profound.

It's a bit ironic to read a book on suffering for fun. But one should. Suffering, as most adults know, is not an abstract idea. It is a reality for each of us. Suffering does not come in a one-size-fits-all package. It comes particularized to us. God sends us packages of suffering that challenge our greatest weaknesses and aim directly at our spiritual tension points. Fernando advances this basic theme in The Call to Joy and Pain and returns to it again and again, all the while encouraging the reader on a practical, day-to-day level to fight for joy in Christ in the midst of our personal sufferings. Whether you are fighting cancer, helping someone else through a season of great pain, attempting to grow in patience and love, or simply working through the difficulties of ordinary life, you will benefit from this meditation on suffering.

Most of us seek out meditations--in the broadest sense--on the opposite, of course. That's no bad thing in moderation. But when one considers that pop culture (and even Christian culture) often focuses relentlessly on what is sunny, happy, airy, and light, a gentle but realistic consideration of suffering has much to offer. This is not to say that Fernando's text necessarily involves a descent into the morbid. It does not. Rather, it functions as a wizened fellow traveler on a journey through the wild terrain of this world. For the duration of the text, Fernando comes alongside his readers and guides us with grace through the suffering that surrounds us and the joy that beckons us from the sky above. "Do not avoid this crossing," Fernando's text seems to say, "walk through it. Walk with Christ, and you will make it, and you will be stronger for it."

The text is helpful for countering what one could call a "materialistic ministry" mindset defined by Western ideals of success and productivity. If you are involved in the work of ministry and sense some discontinuity between the biblical picture of ministry and that practiced by many pastors today, you will benefit from this text. It will encourage you (gently) to lay aside your thirst for "success" and will help you to focus your eyes on that which is truly important: imaging the Savior in a fallen world in desperate need of the very One they hate the most.

"[T]he happiest people in the world are not those who have no suffering--they are those who are not afraid of suffering." (55) Powerful words from an excellent text.


Also, please note that Christianity Today named this book one of it's year's best. See here for more (it's under "The Church/Pastoral Ministry").

The Week-est Link, July 11, 2008

1. Over at the CBMW blog, Brent Nelson has some helpful thoughts on what Paul's comment on women being saved through childbearing in 1 Timothy 2:15 means. I'm preaching on this passage this weekend, so I found his comments particularly apropo!

2. Sovereign Grace has another leadership podcast up, this one on "The Pastor and His Joy". Sounds terrific (and it will in your headphones, I'm sure).

3. Have you bought the New Attitude Band's new cd "Looked Upon"? No? Do you want to be encouraged? Yes? Then buy the cd, and look out especially for number eleven, "All I Have Is Christ". Extremely powerful and uplifting.

4. An interesting look in on China's upcoming hosting of the Olympic Games from the Washington Post.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Comments on God Delighting in Small (New England) Churches

From Paul Buckley in Methuen, MA (check out his excellent, Christ-exalting blog)--

"I pastor a Sovereign Grace Ministries Church in New England, King of Grace Church. Thanks for your encouraging post! Pastoring in New England has been a wonderful adventure of learning to glory in Christ and the precious folks he does give us and not in our relative church size. It is one thing to say I am pastoring for God's glory, it is another to be tested with small success yet still labor. There are many here as Josh said who have labored faithfully for years (far beyond mine). They are my heroes.

I trust their faithful prayers and labors will indeed be answered in time with new converts, new church plants and a region full of disciples who will surpass them in zeal, knowledge and faithfulness. We intend to labor for Christ and His glory regardless of outcome yet we continue to ask for a greater harvest."

From Mike Freeman in Ohio (formerly of Maine)--

"Having grown up in a Maine small church, I agree with Owen. Additionally, I have labored as a lay youth leader for the past six years at at a church in southwest Ohio. I can say with certainty that the folks in Maine, by and large, "get it." In Ohio, the bible belt, many people go to church because that's what you are supposed to do- even fundamental evangelical churches. In Maine, most people don't go to church; the ones that do come actually seem to want to be there."

Are there other pastors out there who want to comment on the original blog I wrote? I would love more testimony on what it is like to pastor a small church and how you handle it.

To my knowledge, this subject is not often talked about. Small churches are something of the elephant in the room in many evangelical circles. We all know they're there (in large numbers), but as our environment is suffused with notions of success and grandiosity, we don't want to talk about them much or really even acknowledge they're around. We'd much rather talk about the "success stories" than the churches who are, in their quest for faithfulness, achieving a certain numerical mediocrity.

This (extended) blog is no attempt to demonize large churches. Far, far from it. I give thanks to God for large churches that are faithful to the gospel. God often uses them in special ways. God blesses many, many people through them. For Bethlehem and Covenant Life and other churches of similar size and gospel focus, I am thankful to God. But we must not think that these churches alone are faithful and glorifying to God. If our definition of God's glory is measured along metric lines, we are surely off. If faithfulness must in some way equal numerical prosperity, we are certainly wrong. The very message of the Bible is that God takes pleasure in the few. God, unlike men, does not need recognizable size and prosperity--in terms of His followers--to be delighted. The message of the Bible is that God loves His people. He loves the few. He loves the remnant. He delights in the faithful, self-sacrificial lives of His people. It is not massive size that He searches the earth for. He searches it for faithfulness.

The Bible is rife with stories that support this basic idea. Try it out--test this theme out. Read through your Bible, and see how often God delights in a people who are small in number but great in devotion. See how little emphasis there is on the mere size of things. Tiny Israel, puny David, Gideon's 300, the faithful remnant, the mustard seed, the scattered disciples, the overmatched apostles, the slain martyrs--this is just a tiny selection of biblical matters that show with clarity the joy God takes in the few. In so many of these things, in fact, it is God's explicit design for His numbers to be small.

When a church is small, then, we must not rush to feel bad for it, or wonder what has gone wrong, or contrive many ways to fix it. Perhaps change is needed. But it may well be that God is delighting in the small size of the congregation, taking joy in their gathered worship, smiling as they evangelize and celebrate His supper and struggle to fill an oversized room. Knowing God's character from the Bible, wouldn't it be just like Him to do so?

Jonathan Edwards on the Pastor's Chief Responsibility

The following is from a paper I just wrote on the subject.

Edwards's “Farewell Sermon”, delivered in June 1750 on 2 Corinthians 1:14, presents Edwards’s most extended treatment of the theology of Christian ministry, specifically, the theology of the pastorate. The following quotation captures nicely Edwards’s view of his call.

Ministers are set as guides and teachers, and are represented in Scripture as lights set up in the churches; and in the present state meet their people from time to time in order to instruct and enlighten them, to correct their mistakes, and to be a voice behind them, saying, “This is the way, walk in it” [Is. 30:21]; to evince and confirm the truth by exhibiting the proper evidences of it, and to refute errors and corrupt opinions, to convince the erroneous and establish the doubting.[1]

For all of Edwards’s abilities and proclivities, these words are immensely instructive to the one seeking an abbreviated conception of Edwards’s understanding of his life’s work. A minister is a “light” who leads his people on the narrow path of textual faithfulness. Pastors are both “guides” and “teachers.” Though Edwards’s capacities for preaching and theological instruction are so often bifurcated, in his own mind they were united.[2] The master pastor-theologian saw the Word as calling him to be just that: a pastor-theologian, one called to feed his people truth and to keep them from ingesting theological teaching that would poison and corrupt them.
This life-passion did not produce a thinly moralistic, intellectually simplistic body of work. No, Edwards’s sermons show that his quest to defend truth and refute error resulted in doctrinal and exegetical theology of the richest kind. Theology was not incidental to the life of the local church—it was central. Without a meaty, steady diet of it, the saints would suffer. The road to heaven would grow dark, and the people would wander off, Satan and a thousand dark angels waiting for them. But with it—with preaching of the stoutest kind, the stuff smacking of God, His character, His work, His dealings with men and all creation—the light would shine, and the people would live.
For Edwards, being a pastor-theologian was not a matter of choice, a pastoral flavor neatly tailored to his intellect and gifts. For Edwards, to be a pastor was only to be a pastor-theologian, one who devoted the full strength of his energy and ability to train his people in the way of truth. Though in the future these dual callings would split off from one another, in Edwards and his predecessors they were necessarily and beneficially joined.

---

[1] Jonathan Edwards, “Farewell Sermon” in Kimnach, Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, 217.

[2] Edwards offered equally helpful meditations on the pastorate in his “Notes on Scripture”: “When men read the Holy Scripture, they there may see Christ’s glory, as men see images of things by looking in a glass; so we see Christ’s glory in ordinances. Ministers are burning and shining lights, but then they don’t shine by their own light, but only reflect the light of Christ.” Jonathan Edwards, Notes on Scripture, ed. Stephen Stein, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 15 (New Haven: Yale, 1998), 320.

Becoming a Research Assistant: Or, How to Best Pursue Your Dreams of Assistantship-Based Glory

I've done a number of internship and worked as a research assistant a few times in my young life. In fact, I've gone so far as to label myself a "career intern" due to my completion of no less than five internships to this point in my life. In the course of my glorious and seemingly unending intern career, I have gotten the following question a number of times: what does one do to get such opportunities? I thought that I might take a stab at this question in hopes of passing on a few words to those who seek evangelical assistantships and the accoutrements--jacuzzis, BMWs, and global renown--they provide.

In all seriousness, I count myself quite undeserving of the opportunities I have had to study under godly, gifted men in preparation for pastoral and academic ministry. The Lord has blessed me richly by giving me opportunities to study under men like Mark Dever and Al Mohler. How, then, did I get such opportunities? The quick and easy answer is that there is no easy answer. As with every blessing that you and I receive, the Lord decides in His will when to give us gifts. I didn't figure out a magic formula by which to fit certain positions into my life. I simply lived the Christian life and, as we all do in different days, experienced the Lord's kindness in many ways.

With that said--and it must be said--young men who desire training under godly, gifted men in preparation for a life of sacrificial, self-denying service for the Kingdom can do a few things to win such opportunities. Here are a number I've thought of, though I state them without any pretense to systematic or definitive thought and without any belief that I have practiced these points with great success. Take these as humble thoughts from one young man to others.

1. Pursue godliness: Strive first and foremost to be a godly man. Do not strive to be a famous or successful or well-known man. Strive to be holy, to live in a way that glorifies Christ, and to do what will honor Him with your life. If you determine that you are called to some form of future leadership that will be enriched by training under a godly, gifted man, then pursue research assistantships (or internships, or whatever they may be). But don't pursue them for your own glory. Mark this first point carefully. Many men do not, and you can spot them. They are the ones who don't care a great deal about holiness, about God's mission in the earth, and about preparation for ministry. They care more about fame, reputation, and success. If you are interested in training opportunities for these reasons, please, repent. After you learn in the context of a local church how to pursue things rightly, then consider pursuing ministry opportunities. But don't start out doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

2. Work hard: If you and others around you perceive that you are called to leadership of the church of some sort, then work very diligently in all that is before you. Don't seek the rewards of labor without engaging in the labor itself. By this I mean that ambitious young men should tax themselves to sharpen their minds and hearts for the glory of God. Men who need assistants and interns aren't looking for sycophants to tell them how great they are, they aren't looking for staff who are interested in basking in their reflected glory, and they aren't looking for lazy stair-steppers who are zealous only to climb the next step. Such men are looking for workers who can make a meaningful contribution to their scholarship and ministry. If you want to work under them, then, work very hard to make your mind and your spirit useful to such a man. Take hard classes, participate in ministry, speak up in class, get to know other action-oriented guys, and pray that you'll work well and humbly in all that you do. I've come into contact with many guys who think one's resume is shaped by one's connections. This is true to a degree, but the most important earthly factor is being a person who others would refer and who leaders can use in their work for the Lord. The men I've worked for prized the ability to think critically, to think quickly at times, to anticipate needs and requests, to bring a level of knowledge to one's work, and to work with a spirit of zest and energy. Cultivate these qualities as you seek opportunities.

3. Practice humility: This is a subset of point one, admittedly, but it is so important as to bear stating. The Bible teaches us clearly that the Lord blesses the humble. Above all, pursue humility in your walk with Christ. Do not seek to glorify and exalt yourself. Seek to humbly serve the Lord and His church by the application of your gifts and abilities to a vocational calling. As you gain opportunities, speak little of them. Talk little about what you've been able to do and who you've worked under. Talk much about Christ and His kingdom. Concern yourself with what truly matters. It may be well and good to write articles, to pen books, to lead ministries, to work for evangelical dignitaries, or whatever else you may be able to do, but these things are not ends in themselves. They are merely channels by which you can send some glory to God. This is one of the hardest things to remember in life, but it is one of the most essential. Pursue humility.

4. Seek opportunities in alignment with your calling: Don't seek opportunities for their own sake. You might have snagged a killer internship, but what good will that do you if it has no bearing on your future life? Take care not to be jealous, then, of those who are getting opportunities that have little relation to what you want to do. (Take extra care not to be jealous of those who have the positions you seek, of course!) Focus on what your heart and your church members and friends tell you they perceive to be your calling. Don't chase glory. Chase preparation. If an internship under an unknown pastor will prepare you for ministry better than one under a big-name pastor, take the former. Remember, you're not seeking a slick resume. You're seeking a godly heart, a seasoned mind, an experienced hand at the vocation God seems to be directing you toward. Seek what will furnish you with these qualities.

There are a few thoughts for those who are seeking ministerial opportunities. There's much more that could be said, but I hope that this is at least minimally helpful. If I can leave you with just one thought, remember that you are not working for your own glory in this life, but the glory of God. Those who seek opportunities are often ambitious young men. There is nothing wrong with ambition in itself, as it can be directed to godly ends, but the execution of this matter makes all the difference in the world as to whether you end up a profitable, useful servant of the Lord or a self-centered, opportunistic, self-glorifying servant of your own ego. Be ambitious, then, but be ambitious for the Kingdom. That is a skill and a qualification that fits you not only for earthly work, but for a heavenly rest.