Wednesday, June 14, 2006

 

A Call For Our Time

Unveiled Face reviews the book The Reformed Pastor by William Baxter. I'm sold! Mick concludes the review this way
He really does cover a massive range of issues that are surely just as relevant today as they were then. He wants to see ministers engaged in one-on-one ministry with their flock, not just pulpit ministry. He wants to see ministers forsking their lives in order to convert non-Christians and strengthen the Christians. He wants to see Pastors be as open to correction as they expect their congregations to be. Yes, Baxter's message is very relevant to us and I highly recommend it.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that the largest problem confronting the church today is the wall between pastors and the pews. This wall is expressed in so many ways. In the mega-church, it is the great wall, massively thick and strengthened by the sheer distance in a room that big. In a smaller church we see it in the pastor that says to "the inside circle", "I wouldn't say this to the congregation, but..."

This wall is a problem for both sides. Mick's review lays out the problems on the pastoral side very well, so I think I will leave that to him, and address the congregational side. The wall sends three distinct, but related, messages to the pews that are problematic.

First, the wall says, "It's OK if you don't pursue your faith too deeply - you can leave that to use paid professionals." The mere existence of a professional Christian class divides in ways that it is not really intended to do. At best it says there are good Christians and better Christians. This fact places an extraordinary burden on the clergy to do everything in thier power to tear down the wall.

The second message the wall sends is the message that what a Christian aspires to is not to be the best Christian fill-in-the-profession-here, but to join the professional Christian class. This is not God's intended plan for the world. we aspire to be who God created us to be, and to work that out in whatever context He has placed us. How many, oh Lord, have felt what they thought was a "Call" that was realy just a misunderstanding of this very point.

The foundation of the wall is pastoral pride as Mick makes clear is Baxter's primary point. And yet, humility is the hardest Christian characteristic to learn, and, at least in my experience, the most valuable. Humility is the point in which we learn where we really stand with God, and gain the graditude necessary to define genuine submission. The third message of the wall is that humility is not a valuable Christian attribute, regardless of what may come from the pulpit. For if the message is humility and practice is the wall, the wall speaks much louder than the sermon.

I'm looking forward to reading this book and am grateful to Mick for pointing it out.

Cross-Posted at How To Be A Christian And Still Go To Church

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