I got hit with a double whammy over the last few days...and I'm thankful for it.
Last Thursday, I spent the day with a network of church planters from South and North Carolina that I am a part of. Captain Dino dropped some serious hammers, but none more effective than this one:
"What would your relationship with Jesus look like if you were not in vocational ministry?"
If I couldn't preach, would I still follow Jesus? If I wasn't planting a church, would I still follow Jesus? If no one read this blog, would I still follow Jesus? If I never met another pastor again, would I still follow Jesus?
As the question continued to roll around in my mind over the weekend, I read the chapter entitled "The Problem of Sin" in Tim Keller's masterpiece, The Reason for God.
Is preaching ultimate, or is Jesus? Is planting a successful church ultimate, or is Jesus? Is having an increasing blog audience ultimate, or is Jesus? Is being known ultimate, or is Jesus?"...according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things. It's seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship to God." - p. 162
Keller argues that putting anything that is good in the role of ultimate and trying to draw identity, significance, happiness or purpose out of it is sin. Preach, plant, write, meet...if my identity, significance, happiness and purpose depend ultimately on those things, then I am preaching, planting, writing, and meeting in sin.
I'm diving into these questions headfirst because I know that if I am honest, I have to say that there have been and are times when those things (and others) move into the role of ultimate in my life.
My highest calling is to remain, or abide in Jesus (John 15). That means all of life has Him as my center point and His glory as my motivation for living. The cool thing is that when I am in that place, He produces more fruit than I could ever hope for or imagine.
What good thing battles for the place of ultimate in your life? For those of you in professional ministry, what would your relationship with Jesus look like if ministry was taken away? Challenging questions, but ones we need to ask of ourselves often.
Very thought-provoking bro. I've never thought of life outside of vocational ministry. Thanks for stretching me today.
Posted by: Terrace Crawford | June 12, 2008 at 12:36 AM
This has nothing to do with your blog entry, really, but I think you should re-read chapter 18 of Blue Like Jazz. I've been re-reading it this week and when I read that chapter today you were on my mind. It was kinda a well-worded answer to some stuff we were talking about last time we hung out. It won't be anything new to you, just pretty beautiful. Tell me what you think.
Posted by: Ashley Ables | June 12, 2008 at 11:57 AM
What a great question! Good gosh... it's hard to think of my relationship with Christ outside of the context of ministry. Thanks for throwing it out there.
Posted by: paul | June 12, 2008 at 02:11 PM