Don’t Worry, Be Happy

12 01 2012

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Matthew 6:25-27

I am not a worrier…at least I do not think I am. Oh, I do worry. Some. But I don’t think of myself that way. Still, maybe I am a worrier but just not very self-aware. Could that be possible? If so, then maybe I actually worry a great deal more than I think I do. In fact, maybe it is a huge problem for me but I am just not very connected to that reality. And maybe I worry so much (without realizing it) that I could actually have a heart attack or a stroke one day because of it. Maybe I am killing myself slowly every single day and don’t even realize it. It is possible, you know. I could die any day now.

:)  See how easy it is to worry?

I am not claiming any expertise as a worrier, but I am definitely no stranger to the notion. I have had a few stressful seasons in my life. I am actually entering a new one right now. Tomorrow, my ministry’s Board of Directors will consider approving the largest, most challenging budget in our ministry’s history. If they do approve it, it will also signal a scary shift for me. It will be a critical step toward becoming less and less financially dependent on my self-employment (as a lawyer) and more and more dependent upon this ministry to meet my family’s needs. Less dependent upon God meeting my needs the way He always has through my law practice, and more dependent upon God meeting those needs in entirely new and different ways. Scared? Worried? You bet!

In my experience–and this could just be me–it just does not help me much to know I should not be worrying. You do me no favors with your simple counsel, “Blake, don’t worry” or “Blake, stop worrying”. How, exactly do you do that? How do you just not worry? “Don’t worry, be happy” just does not work for me. No, in my experience, if I want to stop worrying, I have to treat it like a bad addiction and replace that behavior with another, more positive behavior. I suspect that may have been Paul’s experience as well. Look at his counsel to the Philippian church in chapter 4 of that letter: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  See? Paul would say that all the energy we are using to worry is energy we could be using for prayer.

That is the solution to the worry problem, isn’t it? We must replace worrying with praying.  That is the productive behavior.  That is the behavior which draws us closer to God and which slowly but surely helps us to see our world and our circumstances through His eyes.  Come on, you know it’s true…you always wonder where you will find the time to have the kind of prayer life you know you should have.  Just take the “worry” time and use it for prayer.  Think about all the hours each week that will buy you!

As for me, I have prayed more for this ministry in the past few months than ever before.  And through those prayers, God has given me a peace.  It is not an unrealistic, naive kind of peace.  It is a deep, grounded peace that God is still in control…still on His throne, that He still loves me and that He still has much to do through this ministry.  Prayer has been a good thing for me in this!  Oh there is much work to be done, and it will be hard in some cases.  It will not all be happy times.  But there will be joy, and peace, and we will see God do great and mighty things.  Not because we worried, but because we prayed.

So I am changing my tune.  ”Don’t Worry, Be Happy”?  Not so much.  ”Don’t worry…PRAY!”  Now that is worth singing about!

© 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

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Categories : prayer

Finding Focus in a Church’s Grief

10 01 2012

Tuesday Re-mix - 

“Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.” Hebrews 3:1

I have been blessed with only a limited amount of genuine grieving in my life.  Frankly, I’ve done a whole lot more consoling of others than I have needed consoling myself.  But you don’t have to be an expert on grief to know that it has a profound effect on our ability to see truth.  In fact, a part of the healing process is learning to look through the pain to some larger truth which, difficult as it may be to grasp in spite of the pain, still has a way of guiding us.

But did you know that the grief process is not reserved only for individuals?  Churches grieve also.  They grieve the loss of a much-loved leader, the loss of a ministry or program, the loss of a “way of doing things”, the loss of unity…all of these can cause a type of grieving process for a church.  And like the grieving process for an individual, a church’s grief can be unpredictable and unrelenting.  It can last a few days or a few years, perhaps even an entire generation.  It can cause the church to do and say things it doesn’t mean to do and say.  But most of all, just like the grief process for anyone else, it is painful…unbearably so.

Moreover, grief has a way of disorienting us, both as individuals and as congregations.  It turns up into down and right into left.  It leaves us not even knowing which way to look for direction.  It is chaotic and complex and confounding.

So, it is in the pain of real grief where we are often left with little orientation other than to fall back onto whatever “safe harbor” we have established ahead of time.  For me, that would be God’s Word.  Whether in my individual grief or in my corporate grief, I have already long since decided where I will turn.  I have placed my most childlike faith in God’s Word, so that, even through the unspeakable pain of emptiness and loss, I can at least find some general sense of my bearings.

Of course, hearing the truth–perhaps even knowing the truth–does not take the pain away.  It does not bypass the grief process.  We must still go through all the pain which grief brings, for however long the process may be for us.  But fixing our eyes on eternal truth at least serves to give us direction, it reminds us to breathe, and then to breathe again.  It walks before us every day of the journey, calling us one more step forward…not around the grief, but through it.

It gives us the only thing we can trust during the otherwise mixed-up season of emptiness and loss.  There is nothing else trustworthy, nothing else which is not capable of leading us astray.  We must fix our eyes on Jesus and cling to His Word…and crawl forward, and then do it again.  And at some point a long way down that road, clarity begins to come again.  And though the loss is still there and has carved out a new normal for us, we still have the one thing worth holding onto through it all…God’s love.  And isn’t that exactly what your church needs most?

© 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

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Categories : 5 Principles of Unity, conflict, H2H, leadership

Checking Your Motives…um, I Mean My Motives

5 01 2012

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”  Matthew 6:1

I have at least a couple of observations about Jesus’ words above..observations that apply directly to us as church leaders.

1.  This is not a word for you to apply to someone else…this is a Word from Jesus to you ABOUT YOU.  Even though I do get it wrong from time to time, I consider myself a student of grammar.  With all due respect to Mrs. Harris, Mrs. Stephens and Mrs. Seitz (my first three English teachers in high school) it was Ms. Peak, my 12th-grade English teacher who really convinced me that good grammar and good communication are related.  So let’s take the English translation of Jesus’ sentence in Matthew 6:1 and do some simple diagramming, shall we? (Is there anyone else out there who remembers diagramming sentences?)

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.”  

Anybody know the subject of that sentence?  Anybody?

If you said the subject is implied and that it is an implied “You”…you get a gold star for today!  This is a word to “You”.  It is not a word about “them” or about “him” or “her”.  It is for you, and it is about you.

I once heard someone say that God’s Word is always more effective as a mirror than as a magnifying glass.  I love that concept.  It is perfect.  I believe we would all become better scholars of Biblical interpretation (and much better followers of Christ) if we would learn that.  As a church leader, I read this as a word to me about me and my leadership.  It is NOT a word for some other leader and his/her leadership.  It is for me.

2.  This is not a word about what I do…it is more a word about why I do it.  I do not have to tell you that there are books and websites and DVD’s and conferences galore out there about all the cool or good or spiritual things you and I should be doing as a church leader.  But this word from Jesus reveals a heart in the founder of this revolution we call Christianity that is more concerned with the motives behind the things we do than with the things themselves.

“Be careful not to practice…to be seen by them.”  The questions behind this counsel are simple but convicting: whose approval am I seeking?  Do I do the great things I do in order to get the approval of men?  Or am I seeking strictly the approval of God?  What motive is at the heart of my leadership?  When I hold up this Word from my Lord and look at my own reflection in it, what kind of heart do I see?  What is at my core?  What need in myself am I seeking to fulfill?  If my ministry is like Jeremiah’s, i.e., an entire lifetime of teaching without a single conversion, without any affirmation at all from men, can I still feel successful?  Or do I rather tie my success to the applause of men?

Never read this passage and allow it to conjure ridiculous images of arrogant pharisees screaming their prayers in public, giving you reason to sit back and feel good about yourself because, after all, you cannot possibly be that bad.  Rather, hear these words from your Savior and honestly ask yourself why you do the things you do as a leader.  It is a pretty healthy exercise, don’t you think?

© 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

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Categories : leadership

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