Advancing the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God.
We must understand the centrality of a robust theology that informs our lives and vocations.
In this segment, Tom encourages all of us – not just those in ministry – to approach life and work with a robust theology that is grounded in a complete view of Scripture. He warns that the danger is to "see what we know rather than to know what we see in the text" of the Bible.
Restoring the image requires Christians to engage with and create culture.
The image will not be restored if God's people avoid or disassociate with culture. Rather, Christians must engage with culture and create culture as image bearers who are designed to flourish within the created world.
Are you an image bearer, or are you in poverty, safety or idolatry?
By utilizing a 2 x 2 grid, Andy explores the four quadrants of the various relationships between authority and vulnerability. He surmises that high authority and high vulnerability are ideal since other combinations of the two lead to forms of poverty, safety, idolatry and injustice.
Ideal image-bearing is a balance of authority and vulnerability.
Andy discusses two seemingly incongruous characteristics of image bearers: authority ("capacity for meaningful action") and vulnerability ("exposure to meaningful risk").
The world that God creates is filled with potential, and it is waiting for image-bearing.
When image bearers follow the mandates in Genesis 1-2 to cultivate and to create, the latent possibility within the created world is realized and flourishing commences.
How Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22 are vital to understanding the relationship between work and culture.
Often, the interplay between work and culture is examined beginning with Genesis 3 and ending with Revelation 20. Andy contends that the "missing chapters," (the first two and last two of the Bible) hold tremendous power in understanding how image-bearing, cultivating and creating are brought to fullness in these settings.
Fear no longer defines me.
My mom tells me I used to cry at bath time. She also tells me I used to cry every time we went to the ocean. Although I grew up thinking I was just another kid who didn't like to take baths or go to the beach, I've come to realize those were the early signs of what would become a lifelong battle with fear and anxiety.
I am convinced we need to rebrand the way we talk about anxiety. We need to stop using the term "mental health" and start using different ways to discuss this topic. Maybe we could use Instagram and Twitter hashtags. For example, instead of using the hashtag #bff we can use #ibmfoo for "I Blame My Family of Origin." Or instead of the hashtag #throwbackthursday we can use the hashtag #tmfcslt "Throw my Front Cortex Some Love Thursday." It could change everything.
I'm joking of course, but my dream is that instead of words such as unstable and weak, we will use words such as intuitive, creative, and productive when describing people who deal with fear and anxiety. I am one of the over 18 million Americans who deal with fear, anxiety, and issues of mental health.
When I get anxious I feel it in my shoulders. My breathing gets shallow and I get what my therapist calls "brain lock." During these times, I seem to be in a state of both rational and irrational consciousness. I know what's going around me yet I'm telling myself messages that make no sense.
"You're going to die. You're not going make it. You're going to lose it all."
A few years ago, I went for a run in Palm Springs in 110 degree weather and suffered a severe panic attack. I grabbed the nearest palm tree while my mind raced with thoughts of catastrophe. I was convinced I was having a heart attack. I began to panic, wondering who would find me dead by the side of the road.
As cars drove by I tried to wave a few of them down. But being Palm Springs, most were retirees. I wondered if any of the drivers would have the strength to put my body in the car. I eventually calmed myself down, worked my plan, and made it home. I can now laugh at that experience.
My anxiety is triggered by a fear of death and disaster. It's an irrational worry that our children or those I love are dying or that I will one day lose it all. These triggers stem from a variety of factors: the trauma associated with growing up in the middle of a war in my native Nicaragua, issues related to moving to the United States when I was 12 years old, and experiencing what I call the "invisible immigrant syndrome."
But in the last 10 years, with the help of counselors, mentors, medication, and most of all the support of my wife and family, I've learned a lot about my anxiety. I've learned how to quiet my emotions. I've educated myself about diet and exercise. I've learned about the importance of truth-telling and learning new narratives that calm my irrational feelings. I've learned how to lead from a place of being not doing, how to live out of being the beloved versus being afraid. Things were going quite well—then I hit bottom.
I remember the day I got fired from my job as if it was yesterday. It was a beautiful Southern California afternoon on the University of Southern California campus and I was sitting in my office working on QuickBooks. My boss and the chairman of the board came into my office and I was informed my job was gone.
For the next three months my anxiety went through the roof. I scrambled to take control of my life. All my tools seemed to go out the window as I experienced panic attacks day and night. Still I kept praying, trusting God would provide for me and my family. There were many hard days along the way, which included getting swine flu, going to the clinic for the uninsured, and being asked if I was an undocumented worker. But the hardest day was when I waited in line at the Marriott in L.A. alongside 200 other men and women trying to land a $10/hour, 20-hour-a-week job—that I did not get.
That's when it all changed.
As I left the ballroom I felt God say to me, "You will get up from here, and just keep giving to others." On my way out, a man at a bus stop approached me. He told me that what I said during the group interview was something he really needed to hear (I talked about hope amidst adversity). Then a young pastor from Boston who was starting a church plant in L.A. told me how good it was to see another pastor at the meeting. He asked if he could get my information so we could talk. Then a friend of mine told me, "David, you've been living in the past way too long, it's time for you to move on."
As these interactions took place, I thought of the passage from Isaiah. "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" (43:19).
Over the past year or so I've finally begun to find some freedom from anxiety and live from a place of vulnerability. I know I have a new name. I am no longer useless or weak. I don't think of myself as a fearful freak. I am now Fearless Trig.
I know I have a new name. I am no longer useless or weak. I don't think of myself as a fearful freak. I am now Fearless Trig.
Last month I hosted and spoke at a conference at 7th Street Church in Long Beach, California called, "The Finding Grace Through Anxiety Conference." Our focus was joy, grace, and what we called #GOZO! (joy). We expected 8-10 people to come and sit in a circle. After all, who wants to talk about anxiety? But to our delight almost 80 people showed up. Some even left the conference because they were having panic attacks due to the crowded room.
God is doing a new thing in my life. He is teaching me to work together with others. He's teaching me to integrate mind, body, and soul. He's reminding me to lead from a place of vulnerability and to always remember my new name.
I've always loved the ocean and thankfully I now enjoy it without fear. My anxiety may be with me for the rest of my life, but God has given me a new purpose and a hope. I know that my weakness is his strength. My story is God's story and it's one I'm living out for him and for the sake of others. If you suffer with anxiety I hope you know it isn't the end. May you discover that there is still peace, grace, purpose, and joy at the end of each day.
Someday it may even feel like a day at the beach.
David Trig is the founder of Living a Life of GOZO!, an organization that helps people find hope and joy in everyday life. He lives in Long Beach, California.
Copyright © 2014 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
Do you need a flock to shepherd souls?
If you drive south on the highway that runs from Galilee to the Dead Sea, you will see boys driving sheep through the desert. The boys are bright-eyed and full of smiles, many no older than 6 or 7, wearing old Nike T-shirts or white Adidas soccer jerseys, riding donkeys, running on foot, jumping like puppies, and keeping their animals safe—off the highway, away from roadside produce sellers, and moving, always moving, toward water and food in that dry land that rolls by Jericho.
When you look at the little shepherds, you see something elemental, a sight—other than those ubiquitous soccer jerseys—that you could have seen a thousand years ago here. That someone will likely see a thousand years from now. The shepherds of the West Bank are an unchanging sight, tending unchanging sheep, working a profession nearly as old as human memory. Much like their (less dusty) namesakes—the "pastors," who spend their lives tending God's flock.
Livestock and souls are universals. The world can change; these needs will not.
Cross the world with me now, to the little farm where I grew up in Oregon's lush Helvetia hills. We tended a small flock of sheep for our landlord. I was familiar with the hormonal bleats of ewes eager for a ram, with the copper smell of December's midnight lambs, with helping my parents bottle feed (and sometimes bury) the runts. I loved the annual shearing buzz, clippers deftly wielded by a rogue New Zealander. I knew the feel of wet wool, and the stupidity of a spooked herd.
Sometimes I laugh about the many little ways that sheep have intersected my life. My last name means "shepherd" in the language of my Hungarian ancestors. After my family came to faith, I was a pastor's kid in a rural town. And my favorite outdoor activity is hiking our Cascade mountains, where sure-footed wild sheep can be spotted scrambling over volcanic ridges and jagged scree.
At any rate, I've always felt I shared some elemental thing with the shepherds of the Bible. Jacob, David, Amos of Tekoa, the shepherds of Bethlehem, the Good Shepherd; and kinship with their modern counterparts—the women and men who count people as their flock, and churches as their folds. Pastors.
Coming of age, I felt a call to serve them as I was able, and so spent seven years studying theology in college and seminary, with the goal of shepherding souls myself, or at least of training and resourcing spiritual shepherds.
But after seminary, it became apparent that life was leading me more to the pen than the pulpit. It's a path that's been deeply rewarding, and only cemented my sense of calling to the misfit band of disciples who have heard the ragged whisper in the night to "get up and feed the sheep." But it's also brought tension. The tension of—what am I doing? Is this my calling? Where do I fit into my church? Into the Church? What am I?
I'm not quite a pastor, but at the same time I could never be anything else.
I'm one of a growing number of my peers who are trained for and called to pastoral ministry in a changing culture where many established notions of "church" are evolving or failing. Bivocational pastors are growing in number—many young seminary graduates ponder a future where a full-time paid pastoral job will never be a reality. Many others are called to ministry slightly outside the margins of traditional churches, and struggle to understand their place.
Many of my friends from college and seminary are in similar places to me, with a call—and robust professional or seminary training—to serve Christ's people, but without traditional congregations to bestow the title of "pastor."
But they act an awful lot like pastors; people like my friend Luke, a trained and gifted preacher who supplied the interim pulpit for a struggling rural congregation for most of a year, leaving a small church much healthier than he found it. By day, he works at a nonprofit.
Like Allison, whose gifting in discernment and intercessory prayer has dramatically impacted other believers at key points of their journey. She's a homemaker and permaculture farmer.
Like Fritz, whose international-award-winning photography has brought a depth to "arts ministry" unmatched by any paid "arts minister" I've encountered.
Like Brandon, whose work leading a lay-led Christian community in a looked-down-on part of town has done dynamic work that paid "community pastors" would do well to emulate.
Like my boss, Marshall, whose dedication to volunteer service at his local church is exemplary in itself, let alone his ongoing work of encouragement that pastors formal pastors at pivotal moments in their ministries.
Like my wife, Emily, who shepherds our three children, and whose leadership and hospitality have shepherded the college-age women of a community home, and helped lead a "small group" bigger than most house churches.
Inspiring examples of ministry. Grassroots pastors. I could go on—I'm blessed to know 10 or 12 such people, all of whom express some personal sense of specific, pastoral calling, and have some degree of formal training that sets them apart from the average church attendee, but none of whom have "pastor" in their title. They do the work of shepherds, usually invisibly, and remarkably well.
The world can change, these needs will not. So if my friends look like pastors, and serve like pastors … aren't they pastors?
I think they are. Pastors, but with an important distinction—there's no replacement for a leader committed for the long haul to lead and shepherd a specific congregation. So, I suggest that we introduce a new term into the modern ministry vocabulary—"grassroots pastor." A called and trained informal minister shepherding souls, making disciples, and leading—even if informally—their neighbors and neighborhoods to the good news. Doing the work that all pastors are called to, but typically outside the walls of a local church, and generally without title or compensation.
"Grassroots"— a term that conjures images of homespun activism; a vague musk of Pete Seeger. Loosely organized but with purpose, outside the mainstream but doing the work of renewal. Growing tall, even if spindly, growing from the dirt up because it has to.
From my education, work, and travels, I see a growing population of Christians—especially young Christians—called and trained for ministry, but, for one reason or another, not in a formal church role.
They—we—are people of the in-between, undervalued and often ignored. My only statistics to back this up are anecdotal, but I suspect that if we were able to quantify the evangelicals who fall into this category, we would uncover a significant, largely unrecognized pastoral workforce of skilled Christian leaders.
It could be argued that I'm simply complicating the simple matter of the "priesthood of all believers." After all, aren't all Christians called to encourage and make disciples of their sisters and brothers? Without question. But from the very beginning, the church has acknowledged that certain men and women are called and gifted to be set aside for the work of ministry in a pastoral role. And at the margins of this formal calling are a ragged fringe of individuals who aren't ordained clergy but aren't just engaged laity either. They're leading, shaping community, called and trained for ministry. Just … in-between.
In no way are grassroots pastors a threat to established traditional ministry: we complement church work done by those with Reverend in front of their name. Nor are we some kind of replacement for formal clergy. We work day jobs, frequently have less experience, and are not sharpened by the unique pressures of organizational leadership in a faith setting. We are called, many of us are trained, but the nature of our work is typically more roving than rooted, though the nature of grassroots pastors tends to elude typecasting.
Moving to recognize and resource these people will consolidate efforts of church planting (a risky, though important, go-to outlet for young pastors), reduce the numbers of disenfranchised ministry thinkers (whose daily musings online often seem more the products of frustrated callings than fulfilled ones), and will further cement the vital, growing "redeeming work" trend that is reclaiming a strong understanding of Christian vocation.
Allowing grassroots ministry to gently dovetail with local churches will unify communities (boosting vision and mission for new understandings of local "parish" ministry). It can bring the best rootedness and relationality of grassroots networks to the work of the pastor, a calling that is often isolating, misunderstood, and pressurized. It can energize mission, open community doors, and extend the reach of the local church into those tough-to-reach corners.
If recognized, it could revolutionize local ministry.
We are all around; visible to God but few others. Noted perhaps as "good friends," "that barista who took Hebrew," a "prayer partner," "the Christian mom who runs the playgroup."
But to maximize this tremendous latent potential, many of us need formal local churches that recognize, resource, and rely upon the work of grassroots pastors in our neighborhoods. Here are some ways local churches and grassroots pastors can work together.
Recognition Many grassroots pastors feel their in-between-ness keenly. They often identify as outsiders, as iconoclasts, as someone who doesn't quite fit. But that doesn't take away the power of affirmation—the power of being seen by another. I'd wager that most church leaders can name at least three people connected to their congregation who have been called and resourced for ministry. Name them. Get to know them, listen to their story, begin to think of them as a co-worker in pastoral work. Is a grassroots pastor a member at your church? Acknowledge (publicly if appropriate) their specific avenues of ministry contribution, their sense of call, gifting, and training. Recognize their life season. Encourage them that regardless of their title, they are ministering—serving and leading the sheep of Christ. Just saying that they're seen carries power.
Resourcing My friend Brandon pastors his neighborhood while selling produce from his bicycle. You know what would be nice? A little cash to help toward operating expenses for his business. (No, the IRS won't let you write it off as a ministry donation, but I guarantee that it is one in the economy of the upside-down kingdom.) With the creativity, passion, and quiet commitment that characterizes the grassroots pastors I know, a little resourcing goes far. For the grassroots pastors in your life, quietly and humbly ask if there are ways to partner with what they're doing already to support common goals of ministry. Sometimes this will dovetail with an existing need or goal in your church. Sometimes it won't look like any pastoral work that you've seen before. But if the goal is fostering a Kingdom presence in your neighborhood, foster pastoral work wherever it's happening. A word of caution, though—you must be content sometimes with allowing powerful invisible ministry to remain invisible. Be sensitive, approach as a learner—as a servant to servants.
Reliance As you build relationships with grassroots pastors, consider what their work can accomplish that yours can't, and as needs arise in your ministry, rely on them for advice, perspective, community information and introductions, and pastoral care that they might be uniquely equipped to do.
I remember sitting with my sister in the hay loft of our red barn, looking down as that New Zealander sheared our sheep. His clippers moved like a thing alive, with a fibrous whine that peeled off great piles of wool without so much as a nick to the delicate skin beneath.
Perhaps grassroots pastors are like that New Zealander—there when needed, supporting the work of the year-round shepherds, giving our best gifts at whatever time and place we find ourselves.
There is a dynamic community of gifted pastoral leaders woven through our cities, suburbs, and rural communities. They serve you coffee, sell you insurance, nanny your children, teach at the middle school, photograph your weddings. Some of them even work in churches.
So keep your eyes open. You will know us when you see us. We will, with you, be trotting down the trail in search of the sheep, though maybe on the other side of the fence.
Paul Pastor is associate editor of Leadership Journal, a writer and grassroots pastor living in the woods near Portland, Oregon.
Copyright © 2014 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
Couples need more than just each other.
At many weddings these days, whether on picturesque hillsides or at funky warehouses or in swanky ballrooms, newly minted husbands and wives proudly declare to friends and family, “I married my best friend.”
If you attended a wedding this summer, you likely heard the phrase, now so standard in romantic rhetoric that we forget it’s not part of the traditional ceremony. “I married my best friend” appears in vows, program dedications, toasts, and other aww-inducing moments (not to mention the cards, frames, cufflinks, wine glasses, and other Etsy-inspired wares that attend modern weddings).
The sentiment, repeated in Facebook posts on anniversaries, is shorthand for the special relationship with someone we are comfortable with, who listens, loves, and encourages. From secular folks to Christians who firmly believe that God sent them the one, nearly all the married people I know are “so blessed” (or “lucky”) to get to spend their lives wedded to their best friends.
Even if couples don’t announce that they’re marrying their best friend, many newlyweds live out this philosophy, dropping out of the friend-making game once they have a ring on their finger. Sociologists find that these days, we typically form our most meaningful friendships prior to age 28. Not coincidentally, that’s also the average age we get married.
Marrying your best friend is enough of a cultural expectation that if I admit I didn’t, people might pity me. But here’s the secret: I’m actually the lucky one. I have a husband who isn’t my best friend. And I have a best friend whom I’m not married to. They play different roles in my life, and I need them both.
One Person Can’t Meet All Your Needs
For Christians, marriage is a relationship set apart, wherein we assume the cares and concerns of our spouse (1 Cor. 7:32–35; Eph. 5:22–33) in a way that supersedes any other friendship. Of course married people find their most significant relationship in their husband or wife—but that doesn’t equate to being BFFs.
I worry that the saying “I married my best friend” conflates the two types of relationships, distorting our views of both.
My marriage remains my priority… But without my friends, my relationship with my husband—and with God—would suffer.
Researchers have already noticed the trend: People increasingly expect their husbands or wives to meet all their social and emotional needs. The phrase implies that, since married people have each other, they don’t have best friends anymore and don’t need them. And it exaggerates the risks young couples already face: setting up unhealthy expectations, looking to each other as the sole source of fulfillment. It also relegates best friends to the realm of singleness.
Making friends in your late 20s and beyond is a whole different game. Not only are there fewer opportunities to meet people, there are also fewer people to meet, since married folks tend to pull themselves off the friendship market. Plenty of young couples dedicate more time to catching up on their Netflix queue than seeing their neighbors, coworkers, and old buddies. My husband and I have been guilty, and so have plenty of our friends. They update Facebook about spending yet another weekend in, joking about becoming “a boring old married couple.”
And yet friends can actually support—not detract from—our marriages. Psychology journalist Carlin Flora writes in her book Friendfluence:
Putting your best self forward for new friends allows you to shine and to see your partner through new eyes as she shines, too. Maintaining older mutual friendships also strengthens the bond between long-term partners: Having people around who think of the two of you as a unit, who admire your relationship, and who expect you to stay together can sustain you through times of doubt or distance.
When I got married, I knew I didn’t want us to become one of those couples who stopped making friends or fell out of touch. Maybe it’s because I knew I couldn’t rely on my husband, who is in the Army, to always be there to meet my needs. Or maybe it’s because I have really incredible friends, whom I’d much rather see Twilight with or ask fashion advice from than my spouse.
Don’t get me wrong: My marriage remains my priority, the place where God has done the most to reveal the gospel to me. But without my friends, my relationship with my husband—and with God—would suffer. I gain much from being around others and receiving their perspectives and their prayers. Time spent with friends also keeps me from idolizing my husband as “my everything,” a habit many married people struggle to resist.
Making Friendship a Priority
I want to intentionally be open to the multiple relationships God will use to work in my life and the many opportunities I may have in others’. But those kinds of relationships don’t happen by accident. Here’s where friendship is like marriage: It takes work.
On her sitcom The Mindy Project, Mindy Kaling declares, “A best friend isn’t a person. It’s a tier.” I’m in her camp. I have a best friend from growing up, a best friend from college, and others from my early 20s. It’d be easy for these relationships to fizzle out, so I make it a priority to visit, even when it requires sacrifice, and to regularly text, call, and write in between.
We moved around a lot when I was growing up. Always the new girl in school, I think back to a note my mom placed in my lunchbox: “To make a friend, you have to be a friend.” Decades later, I’ve found it still takes initiative and effort to sustain friendships. If we look to Jesus as an example, he selected friends to invest in. He had a best friend (John) and a best friend tier (the disciples). He says to them in John 15:12–15 (ESV):
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
Verse after Bible verse speaks of the “sweetness” (Prov. 27:9, ESV) and value of faithful friends. God wouldn’t have us give up these relationships for marriage, but continue to sharpen (Prov. 27:17) and grow one another in this special context.
We regularly talk about upholding and enhancing marriage and family life for their gospel witness, as we should. I’d like us to start doing the same with friendship. We need friends not only for our health, careers, and happiness, but more importantly, for the way they witness to our siblinghood in Christ. And from the meaningful ties of friendship often come opportunities to introduce others to Jesus, the one who calls us his friends in the first place (John 15:15).
I didn’t marry my best friend. Instead, I married my husband, with all my best friends beside me to celebrate. It was the happiest day of my life. I got—and still get—to have both.
Kate Shellnutt is associate editor of Her.meneutics, CT’s women’s site.
Culture is the fruit of the human quest for meaning in the world.
In this segment, Andy borrows journalist Ken Myers' definition of culture – "What human beings make of the world – in both senses" – to explore both the things we make and the meaning we make when engaging with and creating culture.
