Some Of What Nick Shock Is Thinking About

This past Monday and Tuesday I spent 24 hours at an overnight prayer retreat for pastors in the Greater Austin area.  This was my second year to attend and I think that the experience is one of the best environments to be a part of as a pastor.  I have been reflecting over my time there.  Some of our prayer was individual, some was directed by Bob Bakke (a pastor in Minneapolis, author, and global day of prayer leader), some was guided through worship led out by Ross Parsley (pastor of One Chapel in Austin), and much of it was in the context of small groups of pastors.  I am convinced that God is up to something big in Austin, TX.    I know I don’t pray as much as I want to and should, (Can we every really pray enough?), but this was a great time of refocusing on prayer.

While I am still mulling over what God said to me, I was also reminded of the power of partnership in the Gospel when pastors lay aside agenda’s and egos to support one another in advancing the Kingdom.  I was a student pastor at a large church for several years, and found it frustrating that my peers were many times too busy to get together to pray and connect.  It was difficult to build relationships with them when I had a better chance of connecting with them at a conference out of town than in my own city.  I am sure I contributed to this as well because of my busy schedule I created.  However, what I saw at this retreat this past couple of days was very encouraging!  Pastor’s from all sizes of church, and all types of denominational backgrounds interacting and praying for God to do something great in our city.

When we broke out into small groups at the retreat for prayer we had the opportunity to hear the stories of other pastors and how God is working in their churches.  We shared success and struggles with one another and prayed for each other.  I was so encouraged as men surrounded me and prayed for my personal walk with Christ, my family, and my ministry.

During our large group sessions, key leaders expressed some profound ideas that really convicted me and reminded me how significant this time is.  Here’s a few that stood out to me…

1) We need to be asking God not only what what He wants us to do in our church, but what is he doing in the broader faith community.  In light of this, how do we need to realign our priorities for the sake of partnering.
2) We don’t have all of the spiritual gifting we need in our church alone to accomplish the mission God has called us to.
3) We need pastors who will not simply be friendly with one another, but forge real friendships with each other.

All of these are great ideas, but I was also thinking about how we actually do this.  Here’s some ways I’m working to do this…

1) Personally I am praying for other pastors consistently, and leading our people to pray for them as well.
2) When I’m planning, I am creating margin to work with other pastors. (ie. attend the prayer retreat, respond to their initiatives, consider how to work with them)
3) I am having lunch or coffee with these men and asking them how I can support them and pray for them.  Also, I want to let them know I want to learn from them and let them speak into my ministry.
4) I’m committed to not speak badly about these men or slander them in any way to anyone.  I want to go to directly to them if I hear something about them that is out of line with Gospel conduct.  I invite them to do the same for me.

Bottom line: Pastor’s and churches need to work together for the sake of the Gospel.  I am not a believer that we can all merge our church together and become one church.  Each church has it’s unique passions, skills, gifts, calling in the city.  But if we believe that we are all part of the same bride of Christ called the Church, it should be normative that we embrace and encourage one another in the mission!

Where do you put your trust?  When you are failing?  When you are succeeding?  No doubt, the most obvious and most common object of our trust is ourselves.  We look to our strength, our abilities, our talents, our intelligence, our…wait, that’s a bit of a problem.  Somehow, we’ve forgotten that everything we are or ever will be is not ours.  In fact everything that exists belongs to the creator and sustainer of it all.    The One who’s eternal purpose will prevail.  And if we will surrender our agenda’s so that our lives are on His page, we just might get to see the supernatural hand of God do things we can only imagine.

Yesterday I was spending some time looking at Jeremiah 17:5-8 and was confronted again by one of the greatest issues I face.  Trusting in something other than God.  When you dissect this passage, you see such a common pattern of the human heart.  In the text Jeremiah records the words of the Lord contrasting the man who’s trust in mankind and the one who’s trust is in God.  The startling reality is sobering for me and yet encouraging at the same time.  Maybe you will benefit from a reflection on these powerful verses.

The Man Who Trusts In Mankind (vs 5 & 6)

• Limited strength
• Heart disconnected from God
• Cursed
• Struggling to survive
• Only see’s the negative
• Spends his life in the spiritual waste land
• Isolated
• Surrounded by death

The Man Who Trusts In The LORD (vs 7 & 8 )

• Unlimited power at his disposal
• Confident in God
• Blessed by God
• Deeply connected to God
• Never-ending supply of spiritual nourishment
• Eyes of faith that overcome fear
• Thriving and productive even in difficult times
• Vibrant life evident to all

Ok, so which one will you choose?

I was reflecting this morning after a great weekend with my family.  We officially started our t-ball season with our son and soccer with our two oldest girls.  As the coach for one team and the assistant for the other, (both an excellent way to reveal my issues!) I can proudly say that we won both of our games.  Errr…I mean we played hard and had fun.

I was thinking about some of the ways we interact with the kids playing sports and how we interact with the people of God as we work out our salvation in Christian community.  One aspect that I noticed is how we cheer for our kids.  Cheering for them is not the issue.  Some parents get so intense about a game that they can get brutal with their words, yelling at their kids to do better or even degrading them when they mess up.  However at my kids age, it seems to be the complete opposite.  One of the girls was playing goalie and let the ball roll into the goal, and her parents would say “you’re doing good out there.”  Another girl would chase after the ball only to run completely past it and a parent would say “way to run hard.”  One of the girls tried to kick a ball in the goal and completely whiffed the ball and I heard a parent say “good job.”  What!?!?  I think you get the point.  We had girls messing up as they try to learn the game of soccer, and parents cheering for them even if they were doing terrible.  As I mentioned previously, I am a firm believer in affirming our kids and encouraging them often.  But I have to wonder, have we moved to the point that we are actually saying it is ok for them to do poorly.  I am willing to admit, that maybe I am being a little harsh here…

What about the process of spiritual maturity?  I wonder if this over-encouragement, call it the American Idol syndrome, is actually doing damage to the spiritual maturity of immature children of God, despite their physical age.  Scratch that, I am convinced it is.  Showing one another grace is an outflow of the Gospel and is an indicator we are grasping the power of the Gospel to overwhelm our failures.  But being honest about our sin condition and holding each other accountable with truth is also an outflow of the Gospel as well.  These are not in opposition to each other like we sometimes mistakingly believe.  We must hold both of these in tension, so we can call ourselves and others to live a life of obedience to Christ while being gracious to forgive just as Christ forgave us.  It is not productive or helpful to only encourage while ignoring sin.  Just as it is not biblical to deal harshly with sin without being gracious or remembering the power of the cross to overcome it.

There are hundreds of scriptures that speak to this.  A few to consider:  Jesus was full of grace and truth John 1:14.  He was so gracious that the worst of sinners wanted to be near to him, but so truthful that the most religious was cut to the heart by his words.  Colossians 3:12-16 reminds us to love each other and forgive as Christ did, and part of this is to admonish one another.  In Hebrews 10:24 we are called to “spur one another on towards love and good deeds.”  Spur does not give off the idea of being comfortable, does it?  And one final one from Proverbs 27:6, wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.

Only the Gospel can give us the freedom to be humbly gracious and brutally honest at the same time.  Who is doing this for you?  Who are you doing this for?