October 2011 was an extraordinary to
supernatural adventure in Montana for four covenant brothers spending a week
with Eugene Peterson. While you've often read references to that time
from moi, here's another harvest from His seeds through him. BTW, you may
wanna read Matthew 15 and 23 before or after being blessed by the Lord through
the vision entrusted to Chuck!
Exiting from the
Success Superhighway
By Chuck Legvold
July 21, 2013
It’s been almost 38 years since I heard the call
to pastoral ministry, during my first semester in college. I’ve spent 8 of those years preparing for the
work of ministry, and almost 30 years “practicing” it. But the Spirit finally got it through my
thick skull and thicker ego this week that I’ve been following a poor model for
ministry, one that broken me, wounded me, and made me want to quit more time
than I can remember.
From the very first sense of call to ministry, I had big
dreams. Even as my major changed and I
began to pursue a course that would bring me to ordination, I was quite sure
that my future held greatness. I would
preach to large congregations, be asked to speak to large conventions, write
books with large circulations, and be known as one of the great ones, the
tall-steeple guys. After all, when you
attend a spiritual hothouse like ORU, where the motto is “make no little plans
here,” I was sure that the big, the bright, and the successful were right
before me. I just had to get on the
road.
For most of the three decades in which I have been honored
to be an under-shepherd, I have pursued success as much as I pursued
excellence. I made the right choices,
got to know the right people, attended the right programs and, in some cases,
it actually worked. Given the measures
of ecclesiastical success being butts (attendance), bucks (offerings), and
buildings (structures), I’ve had more success that failure. I should have been aware that attention to
such matters fed my pride more than my humility, and that which feeds our pride
is rarely the work of God. But I didn’t
see it…primarily because I had bought into the cultural mandate that says that
success in measureable areas is the true indicator of whether or not God is
blessing you, whether or not you are in the middle of his will. It just isn’t true.
My first clue was the growing recognition that the programs
I thought would work to bring up the numbers where I currently serve were not
working. Increased numbers of worship
services, attempting to launch new small groups, reorganizing the form of
government, and constantly realigning staff just didn’t work the way it should. Numbers stagnated, then slipped, and my anxiety
increased 100-fold. Harder work and
longer hours made no difference. Surveys
and assessments didn’t make a dent in anything but my sense of success.
My second clue that something had to change came in a visit
with author and pastor Eugene Peterson almost two years ago. Though a prolific author and effective
preacher, Peterson demonstrated a stress-free life. Though he could have commanded the attention
of thousands, he purposefully worked in a congregation that was never more than
500 or so members in size. You cannot be
an effective pastor, he told us, if you do not know your flock, and you cannot
know your flock if it gets much larger than that. Successful by some standards, he has eschewed
the trappings of numbers, favoring being intimate with Jesus and the flock with
which he was called to work. Prayer, not
popularity, has made him what he is.
But the big, old exit sign from the success superhighway
came for me in the passage from Acts 7 and 8 from which I preached today. There we find Stephen stoned and killed for
telling the truth, the apostles choosing to live under constant threat in
Jerusalem for the sake of the wounded church, and many disciples abandoning
their comforts, homes, and perhaps families to flee to other parts of the world
as persecution swept down upon them.
There is nothing of worldly success in the death, terror, and dispersion
in this story. But there is a far more
important thing: faithfulness. Stephen’s faithful devotion to Jesus, even in
his death, infuriates the man who would become the apostle to the Gentiles, but
his witness will weigh heavy on Paul’s heart and
influence his conversion and subsequent mission. The popularity of the apostles in Jerusalem
wanes, but they refuse to leave their remaining flock to the wolves—some must
stay in painful places faithfully. And
the good news of Jesus is carried out into the world by fearful, yet trusting
people, who suddenly have no program, no structure to lean on; all that is left
is Jesus. Their witness has changed the
world.
So today I have hit the turn signal and veered off of the
success superhighway onto the exit labeled faithfulness. I leave behind the traffic devoted to bigness
in favor of the bumpy roads of daily shepherding. I leave behind the stress that I have seen
claim many colleagues, and way too many of my friends, and which has threatened
to claim me, too. I leave behind
self-imposed expectations in favor of just trying to please Jesus and loving
those he loves, in the way he loves them.
I’ve left the success superhighway…for good. And I urge you to get off at the next exit as
well.
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