Reproach and Approach

^{“Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate,
self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach…” – 1 Timothy 3:2}

Have you ever heard the term, “above
reproach” and wondered where it came from? Or maybe you know it’s from the Bible but you never really knew what
part of the Bible it is from. Well the
verse above it is. If you do a search
for this phrase in the Bible, the only verse that comes up is this verse where
Paul is instructing Timothy about the qualities an elder or “overseer” should
have. One of the qualities in the list
is this phrase, “above reproach”.

Ever
since taking my first ministry class at Lipscomb, I have tried to live above
reproach. That’s because the professor
beat it into my brain that ministry is a dangerous profession to enter because your
life gets placed under a microscope and any flaw you have is laid out for the
entire congregation to see. I was warned
about counseling women and given some very good guidelines in regards to
that. I was told story after story about
ministers who failed to live a life above reproach and what that did to their
lives and the lives of the church they were called to work for.

When I
started working at Central, I had a great conversation about living above
reproach with the elders and ministers here. We put into place certain rules for me to follow so that I would never
find myself in a situation where I could fall into temptation or even be wrongly
accused of anything. I believe I have
lived up to those standards completely since starting here almost five years ago. I do my best to honor this lifestyle so that
God can work through me in my ministry and Satan cannot.

However,
recently I have been convicted of the fact that I have gone to the extreme of
living in a way that is not just above reproach, but above approach.

There is a great difference between living above reproach and above approach.

It is
in my nature to keep a wall of protection between me and everyone else in my
life. The wall of protection I keep up
between me and others causes me to become unapproachable so that people don’t
feel comfortable coming to me with their concerns, problems, worries, etc. People don’t want to let down their guard
because I don’t let mine down. People
don’t want to enter into any relationship with me because I am afraid to enter
into one with them.

As a
minister, one of my biggest callings is to help pastor those who God has placed
in his church at Central. But my zeal
for living above reproach has made me above approach
and therefore I have very few opportunities to actually do what I have been
called to do. The teens like to joke with
me about this. They call me awkward. I give awkward side-hugs, I don’t make good
eye contact, I shy away from one-on-one conversations that last longer than, “How’s
it goin?” I have been praying very hard
and working very hard on this lately. Itdoesn’t come natural to me, but I feel like I’m making strides.

What
about you? Do you feel like you have a
hard time living above reproach without living above approach? If so, maybe we can encourage each other and
find some ways to set up boundaries that not only help us live above reproach,
but also help us engage in meaningful relationships at the same time. I’d love to brainstorm with others like me to
find strategic ways to balance these two ideas in order to be effective
ministers.

Maybe you struggle the opposite
way. Maybe your struggle is finding how
to be approachable without being reproachable. In other words, maybe you find yourself being able to get to that deeper
level of relationship with others very easily, but sometimes that leads you
into inappropriate situations. Maybe you
need to place some boundaries in your life in order to protect you from sin or
from accusation. If that is the case, I
would be happy to pray with you or help you find ways to set some boundaries in
your life.

Please Read

I tried to edit the previous post but it would not let me save for some reason. But that post is not my original thoughts or words. It is from our XP3 student curriculum. I posted it (as instructed by XP3) to this blog for our parents to read in hopes they would find use for it.

GOd Bless,

JD

Unwrapping Christmas: Parent Cue

1. Be a Student of What They are Learning

Christmas is that feel-good time of year when the lights are up, the holiday music is flowing and the cheer is palpable in the air. It’s also the time of year when we go through the same Christmas routine as always and pass another holiday season without necessarily thinking through how the story of Christmas is meant to change us, not just be a backdrop to two weeks off from school. So, this Christmas we’re going to take a fresh look at the Christmas story with some new insights to help us understand how revolutionary Jesus’ arrival on Earth really was. When we think of the Christmas story this year, let’s be reminded that Jesus is more than we need during the holiday season, and for the rest of the year too.

2. Be a Student of Your Student

What was it that used to make the holidays special when you were a kid? Was it the chill in the air signaling that Christmas break was right around the corner? Baking and decorating ginger bread cookies with a sibling or your mom or dad? Or, maybe it was that feeling you got on Christmas Eve as you waited for the morning when you could finally tear into those beautifully wrapped packages underneath your tree. Whatever may have made the holidays a special time for you, there is one thing that tends to define the Christmas season for most of us: family. When we are young, our families define what Christmas looks like from the traditions they keep to the way they express the story of Jesus to those around them. And, for those of us who are now raising families of our own, we are now defining Christmas for our families. It can feel a bit overwhelming establishing the values, traditions and attitudes that revolve around this idea of Jesus’ arrival on this Earth.

While most students may be able to tell us the “real” meaning of the season, they aren’t necessarily connecting it to the value of the Christmas story. Developmentally, our students are in a place where it is difficult to think outside of their own world and their own lives. They may have head knowledge of the Christmas story, but in order to take that and bring it down to heart level, there has to be an experience that they can call their own. This is especially important for those of us with middle school and younger high school students who are still in the developmental stage of egocentric abstraction. During this stage, your student is the center of his or her own world and is not easily able to identify with ideas and concepts that are not personally connected to their own feelings. However, when they have the chance to experience the joy of reaching out to others in the midst of other’s true needs, they can personally identify with the value of the Christmas story.

For those of us with older high school students, now is the time when they are beginning to widen their worldview and understand the world outside as more than the sum of their own feelings and experiences. For them, the experience of reaching out to others is a chance to put legs to the social and global concerns that are already stirring in their hearts. Once the meaning of the Christmas story is tangible through personal experience, it isn’t easily forgotten in the mind of your teen. Another thing to remember is that though developmentally your students are in a place where they may not fully “get” the meaning of the Christmas story, we as the adults in their lives are. It is necessary for us to set the example and show them the importance of the Christmas story. So, we may need to take some time on our own to reflect on the value of Jesus’ arrival on Earth before we can begin to define that for our students.

3. Action Point

This Action Point is where we, as parents, can start to define what Christmas is truly about through the traditions we establish and the way we express the Christmas story—in our homes, in our schools, in our churches, in our neighborhoods and to the world at large. This is not just an exercise for the Christmas season, but rather a great time to start refocusing our family’s attention on putting Christ back into His rightful place. So, this Christmas as you and your family settle into the usual gate of the holiday season, take a moment to pray, reflect and search your heart for how you want to represent the Christmas story to your family. And then, do something together as a family that will allow those values to be expressed in a way that will forever shape the way they “do” Christmas.

Here are some ideas for ways you and your family can connect to and define the Christmas story together:

• Adopt a family for Christmas through the Salvation Army: http://Salvationarmyusa.org
• Volunteer at a local homeless shelter to serve a meal on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
• Give one less gift this year to each family member and instead buy gifts for children whose parents are in prison through Angel Tree: http://Angeltree.org/angeltreehome
• If you have a musical family, visit a convalescent home or local children’s hospital and sing some of those Christmas favorites.
• Help the local hospice or meals-on-wheels organization distribute Christmas dinners. You
  can help prepare the actual meals or donate your time and car to transport the meals to the elderly or sick.
• Look through Martha Stewart and other crafty magazines or old craft books for Christmas-inspired crafts and buy enough supplies to have a hospital ward of children or a retirement home ward make crafts or ornaments with you and your family.
• Ask your church if there is a family that attends that could use some extra help this holiday season. Invite them over for Christmas dinner or offer to buy and decorate a
  Christmas tree for them.

This Christmas, as you celebrate the gift of Jesus and the story of God’s redemption in all of our lives, take the time to put that message into motion. Christmas is not just about giving things away so that we get that warm fuzzy feeling, or because we want to “share the wealth.” It’s about expressing God’s heart for justice, love and reconciliation.

Giving and Getting

It is the week of Thanksgiving and I can happily say that I have not listened to a single Christmas song yet! I always try to put it off as long as possible because I know by the end of December I'll be so sick of those songs that I can't stand it. I'm still sick from last year of that song about the boy who wants to buy shoes for his dying mom. WHAT ARE YOU DOING SHOPPING WHEN YOUR MOM IS ON HER DEATH BED?!?!?

I digress...

Have you made your Christmas list yet? Have you had your kids make their list yet? I have always hated Christmas lists and I never could figure out why until today. I saw a bunch of ads for the sales going on this Friday and I kept thinking, "I'd like to have that! OH and that! Oh that would be nice!"

Last year, I went shopping on black Friday. Know what I came home with? A new TomTom GPS... for myself! Ok, I also got some gifts for Megan, but my main goal for getting up so early was to get the unlimited maps edition TomTom for myself.

So today it hit me... I'm REALLY selfish. How did I get this selfish? Why am I so concerned about what I'M going to get for Christmas? And I think I had a revelation.

I think we do our kids a disservice when we have them sit down and write out a list of things they want for Christmas. We are basically enabling our kids to think of their wants and desires and by doing so, we are ingraining in them this idea that Christmas is all about what you got for Christmas. It's usually not till later in life when we try to come back and say, "Oh by the way Christmas is not about getting, it's about giving!" But by the time we try to teach our kids that, we've already told them, by our actions, that it is all about getting. Kids learn much more through observation than they do through instruction.

So I'm proposing a twist on how we normally handle our kids Christmas lists. Instead of having them sort through the online store or the news paper ads to come up with a list of stuff they want, have them sort through all that stuff and come up with a list of things they think each of their family members and friends would most enjoy. If you have two kids, have them come up with a list of items they think their brother or sister would appreciate.

And you do the same thing! As you see the ads this season, resist the temptation to think about how much you would enjoy it, and instead, try to decide which one of your family members, co-workers, or friends could benefit from that the most.

If everyone in your family does this, you will have a list of presents to buy all of them. Then watch your kids on Christmas day and see how they react to one another. Hopefully, they'll still get really excited to open up their gifts. But my guess is that they might get equally excited to see the joy on their siblings face as they watch their sibling open up a gift that they picked out.

Like most of my ideas, I'm sure there are lots of problems with this one. Feel free to pick it apart and point out the realities of what might happen if we did this. Maybe this is a dumb idea. But if you don't like this idea, then reply to this blog and give me your own ideas for how we can bring back the true spirit of Christmas... which is giving.

Thanks

Since this is Thanksgiving Month and I'm way behind on the daily thankfulness facebook and twitter posts, I figured I'd spend some time talking about who and what I am thankful for.

I am most thankful, today, for God. I know that's such a typical Christian thing to do... to put God first in the list. But it's the truth. We are going through a study in youth group right now called GodView. The study is an attempt to help the teens realize that God is more than just someone who wants you to be good and happy. We subconsciously limit God to this little box and think that he can't act in any way other than how we think he can act. We live our lives on our own and then expect God to show up when we need him to. Then we get upset with him when he doesn't show up in the ways we expect him to. But God is bigger than our expectations. God's ways are not like our ways. God's understanding of what's going on is so much greater than ours. And God is in control, no matter how out of control our lives feel. Some people are scared of that idea but for me, I am thankful.

I am thankful for freedom. I have actually thought about this a lot lately. God must place a very high value on freedom. Think about it... when God, who knows everything, chose to create humans, he wanted us to have freedom to do what we want. So he had to design a system to place us in, where we could somehow HAVE the freedom to make choices on our own, even though he would know what those choices would be, before we ever made them. Some say if God already knows how I will choose, then I'm not actually making a choice. But the genius of God shines through with how he created the dimension of time that we are subject to, (and he is not). Without time, free will is taken away because everyone's decisions are made and we lose our ability to change them. But inside of time, we cannot see the future and therefore we have freedom to make those choices without knowing exactly how those choices will effect the future. Freedom exists because God created it. Some might say it is a false sense of freedom. I say, you are free to believe that if you want and I am free to believe what I believe. :-)

I am thankful for loving people who truly consider others greater than themselves. These people are few and far between, and I confess that I am not one of them. But how refreshing is it to come across someone who truly has a heart of a servant? I am thinking of several in my life who have had demonstrated this at times in their lives, and I know of several others who seem to demonstrate this all the time.

I am thankful for people who value honesty and integrity over self-preservation. These are values that are not taught in our culture anymore. These are values that should be praised and rewarded much more than what they are.

I am thankful for people who do their best to seek unity and not division among all people. Whether it be in religion, politics, ethnic/race, gender, age, opinions, or any other differences, unity is of utmost importance. I saw an astronaut interviewed on TV who said that when he looked down on the earth, he didn't see any differences, he just saw one earth and we are all in it together.

Finally, I am thankful for specific people in my life. I actually typed out all the people I am thankful for and there were way too many. And then I realized how many people I would be forgetting if I tried to name them all. So instead of listing them all, I'll just say that I am a blessed man to have so many friends and family. I will try my best to express my gratitude in person sometime this month. :-)

Celebrating God's Work

I’ve been reading through Genesis and Exodus lately and
something came to my attention today.
Anytime God would do something for the Israelites, he would have them
pick a special way to mark that event so that they would never forget. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all made alters at
specific places so that they could give a sacrifice to God out of gratitude for
his provision. They would leave those
alters up to stand as a witness that God had provided for them so that whoever
passed by would see and be reminded.

When God prepared the Israelites for the Passover, he gave
Moses instructions to celebrate that event every year as a way to always
remember that God rescued Israel from the Egyptians.

After Moses led Israel out of Egypt, God told them to mark
the day on their calendars and celebrate it every year so that they would always
remember the day that they left Egypt.

Then, when God provided manna, God gave Moses instructions
to collect several quarts of it and place it in a sacred spot so that the
Israelites could always have it with them as a remembrance of how God provided
for them in the wilderness. This
eventually became one of the items in the arc of the covenant.

It seems to me that God finds it very important for us to
mark special occurrences in our life that remind us of him. One of the most common things that Christians
do today is communion. We take communion
in “remembrance” of Jesus Christ. We
also celebrate Christmas and Easter for this same reason.

What are some other things that you do in order to remember
how God has come through for you? Do you
have any special days of the year that you celebrate to remind yourself of a
past event in your life where God provided for you? Do you ever set anything aside as a reminder
of God’s provision? Do you ever mark
down specific events in your life that are significant in your walk with
God?

This is something I want to start doing. I write in a prayer journal periodically, but
that’s about as close as I come to this type of thing. But celebration is an important part of the
Christian walk. We celebrate birthdays
and national holidays, as we should. But
I want to start celebrating spiritual holidays as well! Want to join me? Respond to this and give me your best ideas
of what we can celebrate!

Current Events

I don’t usually share my opinions about politics on a public
forum. I try to stay out of it as much
as I can because I believe the message of the Gospel is far more important and
worthy of discussion. However, I seem to
be ok talking about college football way more than it should be talked about,
so I don’t think it’s terrible to give my 2-cents every now and then about
politics.

Recently, the protests across the nation have intrigued
me. It was all started by a group called
“Occupy Wall Street” and they have a website you can go to if you want to find
out more about who they are and what their beef is. But this group is growing very rapidly and
more and more groups are popping up across the nation. I’ve even heard that a similar protest has
popped up in my home town of Columbus, OH.

I’ve looked into this group a little bit to see exactly what
it is that they are protesting. What I’ve
found is that they are basically protesting against big corporations who think
they can rule over our country and government at the expense of the
people. They are sick and tired of the
decisions our government has made over the past several decades and they seem
to be protesting our entire system of capitalism.

Fox News and other conservative publications are tossing
this group out as a bunch of pot smoking hippies. But that is just fueling the fire for these hippies
because it looks like Fox News and the entire right wing is just backing the
big corporations… which proves to them that the big corporations are behind the
scenes controlling the media (and everything else).

This whole thing is a mess and I believe it’s going to get
worse before it gets better. The problem
is that both sides are entrenched so deeply that they won’t budge for
anything. Each side believes that they
are right and the other side is wrong, and so neither side will listen to the
other. And every time one side says or
does something, it just proves to the other side that they are that much more
wrong.

Conservatives are painted as being corrupted by money and
having no heart for the poor and marginalized.
Liberals are painted as being morally corrupted and having no respect
for justice.

And then there are people like me. We are so disgusted by it all that we just
want to pull away, dive into pessimism, and believe that all sides are totally
messed up. We don’t trust anybody when
it comes to government or politics. We
see through the talking points of both sides and we are just sick of it. We value honesty but that word does not exist
in our media or in our politics or in our corporations.

I actually think that these protestors are on to
something. I don’t think capitalism is
the answer. Capitalism is not scriptural
at all. I believe we are reaping what we
have sown for the past fifty years. The
rich control way too much and the poor are mistreated way too much. Corporations have worked their way into our
legal system and into our governments so much that they are getting away with
almost anything they want.

But it’s not just corporations and capitalism that have
screwed up our society. The moral
failure of our culture is just as guilty.
When we can’t tell right from wrong or when we teach our children to
believe that truth is relative, we can’t expect to succeed. The fact that people clap on national tv when
they hear that Mexico City is offering a 2-year marriage agreement is sad. The fact that the majority of people in
America admit to lying on their resume is sad.
The fact that saving yourself for marriage is considered weird is a sad,
sad reality of our culture.

Republicans and Democrats are both wrong. But they are also both right. Republicans need to stop fighting harder for
the rich than they do for the poor. That
is anti-Christ! Democrats need to stop
ignoring moral boundaries as if they serve no purpose. That is anti-Christ! Corporations need to be shut down if they get
to a point where they are harming the people more than they are helping the
people. And 24-hour news companies
should be shut down immediately because they are more concerned with
entertainment and making money than they are with helping America.

The reality is that we need both conservatives and liberals in this country. Looking out for the poor is considered pure religion in the Bible... (orphans and widows). Being rich is considered one of the best ways to sure up your ticket to hell according to Jesus. But Jesus also says, "If you love me, you will obey my commands." We need to hold our public servants, our corporations, and our people accountable both morally and socially. Social justice is considered moral justice to Jesus. He doesn't allow for one or the other. Neither should we.