What to Give the God Who Has Everything

24 05 2012

With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.   Micah 6:6-8

Father’s Day is nigh upon us…just a little more than three weeks away.  It is not too early to start thinking about what (for most of us) is the most difficult gift of the whole year to find.  What in the world will you give him for Father’s Day?  He is so very difficult to buy for!  Whenever he needs something, he just goes and gets it…what could I possibly get him that he doesn’t already have?  A tie?  Did I give him that last year?  Did I really give him a tie last year!?  How cliche is that!?  I am so embarrassed.

In The Gathering, we are wrapping up our study of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah this week.  Finishing with this passage out of Micah got me thinking about God and what He really wants from His church (from His bride) and what we could possibly give Him, and I wondered…What do you give the God Who has everything?

Some would answer we should give Him our very best gathered worship…excellence in music, in preaching, in communion, in corporate prayer…that we should give Him a truly amazing gathered worship expression week after week.  They might cite Psalm 22:3 (our God inhabits praise).

Others would answer the church should give Him our broken Spirits and contrite hearts…that what He really wants from us is moldable hearts.  They would cite Psalm 51.

Still others would argue that what the church should give God is everything.  After all, it all belongs to Him anyway!  They would argue that we should give Him our very lives and all they contain…that we should present to Him “our bodies as living sacrifices”.  They would cite Romans 12:1-2.

None of those would be wrong.  That’s the nice thing about serving this God…it’s not really the gift that counts, it is the heart behind the gift.  Cain and Able taught us that.

But Micah captures the very essence of what it is God really desires from His people.  Micah, it seems to me, has the answer for what to give the God Who has everything.  What God really wants from His church is simply that we do justice in the world, that we love and show kindness or mercy just like Jesus did, and that we walk humbly with God.  Somewhere in there is a pretty good strategic plan for your church, wouldn’t you say?  What would it look like in your church?  How can your local body of believers do better to give this great gift to God?  Are you up for it?

Or, you could just give Him another tie.  Your choice.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Everyone's a Minister, leadership, missional, Spiritual Formation, strategic planning

Your Calling to Do Hard Things

26 04 2012

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

 And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

 He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’  Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.  Isaiah 6:8-10

Believe me when I tell you there are parts of my work as an attorney which I do not like.  Likewise, there are parts of my work as a church mediator which are hard and not very rewarding.  Likewise, there are parts of my various assignments as a church leader which I would definitely rather not do…things I definitely do not feel “gifted” to do, but which my leadership requires nonetheless.

Isaiah’s calling was almost certainly not to do something he enjoyed doing.  It was a calling to do a very hard thing…for over forty years…with practically no visible return whatsoever.

So, I hope my pastor friends will understand when I tend to look with some skepticism at their desire to just do the part of pastoring which they enjoy doing.  Some would like to just focus on the preaching and teaching without having to bother with the “pastoral care” parts.  Others would like to focus on the administrative aspects without having to do so much preaching and teaching.  Still others could be content just doing hospital visits all day long and never having to attend another insufferable committee meeting.

Shepherding God’s people includes all of those things.  You don’t have to be good at all of them…but you do have to do all of them.  If you don’t feel called to visit sick people and to counsel grieving people…you probably are not called to be a pastor.  If you don’t feel called to research, prepare and deliver God-honoring sermons, then you are probably not called to shepherd God’s people.  If your calling does not include a modicum of “interminable committee meetings”, then you are probably not called to lead in the church.  If relationships are just not what God called you to do, then you are definitely not called to be an influencer of God’s people.

If Isaiah teaches us anything at all, he gives us a glimpse of one central eternal truth about leadership among God’s people: it is a calling to do hard things.  The old saying is never any truer than it is with regard to leadership…”If it were easy, everybody would be doing it!”

Do the hard things.  They are not incidental to your calling…they are at its very heart.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Everyone's a Minister, leadership

Shepherds Among Us

1 03 2012

The words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa—the vision he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.  Amos 1:1

If God ever gives you the opportunity to change careers, to start over again and to choose any occupation in the world in order to be used by Him in His service…choose “shepherd”.  There is pretty good Biblical support for that choice.  Do not choose “lawyer”…not so much scriptural support there.

We are beginning a Spring study of Amos, Micah, Hosea and Isaiah this week in The Gathering.  I am amazed at the uncommon authority with which these guys spoke, given their relative positions in life.  Amos was a lowly shepherd…from Tekoa…not even from Israel (the Northern kingdom) where God sent him to prophesy.  He was a shepherd and a foreigner…with a very unpopular message.

God shows us over and over again through His story that He is perfectly willing to use common, every-day, “average Joes” to impact the world; not only willing but seemingly preferring of the common guys, the shepherds.  There is nobody too small, too remote, too plain, nor too obscure for God.  He just has an eye for talent, doesn’t he?

I wonder if you as a church leader have the same eyes?  Do you see the unbelievable potential in the small, “insignificant” people of your congregation?  More importantly, do your people know…REALLY KNOW…that our God is big enough and powerful enough to choose THEM to make a difference?

Evangelist, Mordecai Ham had such an eye.  He saw something in a 16-year-old farm boy who came to one of his tent revivals in Charlotte in 1934.  This was a farm boy who had been kicked out of church for being “too worldly”.  But Mordecai Ham must have seen something different in order to spend the time to sit with him and tell him about the Christian walk.  It just seems to me we all need those kind of eyes.  We all need to ask God to help us see the “shepherds” among us and how He might use them to make a difference in the world.  The unknown shepherd from Tekoa had a timeless message straight from God.  Mordecai Ham’s 16-year-old outcast farm boy would also end up having a message for the world.  His name was Billy Graham…maybe you have heard of him…and maybe the next Billy Graham is in your youth group right now.

Got any shepherds…any 16-year-old farm boys in your church?  Any of them who just don’t seem to fit in, who seem “too worldly” to ever really make it in the church?  Do you have any members who seem like outcasts, who won’t conform and be like everyone else?  Ask God for eyes to see and for ears to hear.  You might be surprised.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Everyone's a Minister, leadership, Spiritual Formation

« Previous Entries


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,162 other followers