Welcome back to the conclusion of my interview with Billy Raies, senior pastor of Christian Life Center in Midland, Texas. You can read part one here and part two here.

Billy, what single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership?

My precious dad would often tell me—and model for me—the phrase, “they won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” As such, I pray that the counsel of the following portions of Scripture will become living realities in my leadership: “he who has been forgiven much loves much” (Luke 7:47); “greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friend” (John 15:13); “they will know you are my disciples if you love one another” (John 13:35); and “Do you love Me? … feed my sheep” (John 21:17).

Where in ministry are you most regularly tempted to discouragement?

In my personal life there are two.

The first is in the realm of my deficiencies and sins that contend with my being the husband and dad that I aspire to be. When everything is said and done, I would love it if my wife and boys could say that I was a better husband and father than I was a pastor.

I battle with the second area on Sunday afternoons in replaying the morning’s preaching and witness over in my mind. I can bounce back and forth between being dissatisfied in the sense of practical ways that I could have done better versus being discouraged over my “performance” and how others might have perceived me. The war between wanting to instruct vs. wanting to impress can be fierce and discouraging. Now you know why I am reading Lou Priolo’s book Pleasing People!

In my pastoral life, nothing breaks my heart like a broken family, and nothing thrills me more than to see a family restored by the gospel and reflecting the gospel through their marriage.

Do you exercise? If so, what do you do? If not, why not? (Please be specific.)

Is it a sign of sinful pride to be defensive in giving an answer? Here is my specific answer…I am currently not exercising. My reason? I guess it would be laziness, love of ease, and now that you have me thinking about it, apparently a lack of love for my family in being a better steward of my health. Ouch. Why don’t we go to the next question... this is starting to look like what an ordinary pastor should not be!

Currently, what sport do you like to play and/or watch?

I play about 6–8 rounds of golf a year depending on schedule, who may be visiting from out of town, and whether or not it is baseball season for my sons (they refuse to play golf with me then because they don’t want to mess up their baseball swing!). The only other times I play is when I am practicing baseball with them or helping coach basketball. I enjoy watching baseball, basketball, and football during the post season and championships.

What do you do for leisure?

I love the mountains and fishing, but don’t get to do either often. This other answer may sound pretty corny, but I derive a great deal of joy out of the laughter of Jan and the boys and still get a thrill out of holding my wife’s hand.

If you were not in ministry, what occupational path would you have chosen?

Childhood dream: major league baseball player.

In the real world: If I were not a pastor I think I would have ended up teaching high school or jr. high and coaching baseball.

Billy, I’m grateful for the joy you derive from the laughter of your wife and thrill you still receive from holding her hand. Thanks for your example as a husband, father, and pastor.

Welcome back to my interview with author and speaker Randy Alcorn. You can read part one here and part two here.

Randy, what single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?

In Charles Hummel’s booklet Tyranny of the Urgent, which I read as a young Christian 35 years ago, he said that what is urgent is often not important, and what is important is typically not urgent. It’s not urgent to spend time with God, talk with your wife, or read to your kids, but it is extremely important. It may be urgent to return someone’s call, go speak at some event, or turn in a manuscript next Thursday, but not important. (The manuscript, for instance, will likely sit in your editor’s inbox three weeks before he has time to open it.)

Years ago I developed a response to the 99% of things I have to decline:

I have to say “no” to many good things, and even some great ones, in order to be able to say “yes” to those very few things God has called me to do.

I live by this, saying “no” unless there’s a compelling reason to say “yes.” My life is very full, but that way I am free to do some things I couldn’t otherwise do (including coaching teenagers, playing with my grandkids, and hanging out with my wife).

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership?

No one said it in exactly this way, but several men have said what helped me come to this way of thinking: Care about people but don’t live to please them. If you do, you’ll fail your Lord and you’ll fail people too.

As a young pastor I cared too much what people thought. The best cure for this was 20 years ago when I was repeatedly arrested and went to jail for peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience at abortion clinics. I did it because I believed God wanted me to stand up for unborn children. But it was extremely unpopular, to say the least, in Oregon, and even many Christians, including some of our church folk, disapproved. I learned to accept that. We live out our lives before the Audience of One. In the end, his approval is the one that matters. If our goal is to hear others say “Well done,” we won’t do what we need to do to hear him say it.

Where in ministry are you most regularly tempted to discouragement?

When I was a pastor, my discouragements were with people who were going nowhere spiritually, neglecting the basic spiritual disciplines, and living unfruitful lives year after year. Then, of course, there were the always-critical or easily-hurt high-maintenance folk. It was discouraging because I wanted to mentor, disciple, and shepherd, not change diapers and listen to whiners. (You wanted me to be honest, right?)

As a director of a parachurch ministry, I’m seldom discouraged in the ministry, as our staff stays on task, has a Christ-centered work ethic, and gets along well. Because I often have to withdraw in order to do my writing (I have an office behind my home, they are at the ministry office seven miles away, where I come in only once a week for prayer, sharing and lunch), I feel like I let them down by not being available as much as I want to, and used to be.

As a writer, especially on the big books such as Money, Possessions and Eternity; Dominion; Heaven; and this latest one, If God is Good…; there have been nights at 3:00 a.m. when I’m asking God, “Is this really worth it?” I feel like giving up or not going the second mile in research or doing yet another revision and seeking further critique that will create still more work for me. Sometimes the big projects feel like they will never end. But God graciously empowers me and I sense his sweet presence with me in those otherwise lonely hours.

God usually encourages me by time with Nanci, our kids, grandchildren, and our close friends. And often he encourages me with the emails that come in from people who say God used my books to change their lives. Often they come at exactly the right time, causing me to weep and renew my determination to persevere with my current writing.

Join me next time for the fourth and final part of my interview with Randy Alcorn.

Welcome back to my interview with Grady Van Wright, senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Houston, Texas. Read part one of the interview here.

Grady, what single piece of counsel (or constructive criticism) has most improved your preaching?

The one counsel is the centrality of the gospel in preaching. Though every passage is not a gospel passage, every passage either leads to the gospel or emanates from the gospel. My job is to get to the gospel either forward or backwards.

What books on preaching, or examples of it, have you found most influential in your own preaching?

Preaching and Preachers by Martyn Lloyd- Jones. I own the actual lectures, which were later transcribed for the book, and listen to them quite often. As to the question of influence in my own preaching—I don't hold out hope for any transfer of this man's exceptional gifting to my preaching! But his persistent belief and exhortation that the “Spirit's unction” should attend all preaching has influenced my preaching tremendously.

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?

Laziness isn’t inactivity—it’s not doing what needs to be done at the time it needs to be done.

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership?

Don’t love in order to lead them, lead because you do love.

Where in ministry are you most regularly tempted to discouragement?

My discouragements are almost always rooted in my sinful desire to control those things that are beyond my control, which incidentally includes everything! Somehow I can forget this when a counseling session doesn't go well, or when I am uniquely aware that my mistakes and failures contributed to those times not going well. It is then that I am tempted to believe that the sovereign God released a task to me and I let him down. Pray for me that I be reminded in those times that God knows me well, and that He would in no way, whatsoever, release anything to me!

Do you exercise? If so, what do you do? If not, why not? (Please be specific.)

This interview was going so well! Now that’s a convicting question. I feel like asserting my Fifth Amendment privilege! I could say, given the second law of thermodynamics, what’s the point? Also, I could just say it hurts but I know, “no pain, no gain.” I think I’ve just settled for “no pain, no pain.” A lot of people don’t read this blog, do they, C.J.?

Currently, what sport do you like to play and/or watch?

I still enjoy marksmanship and can be found at the firing range on occasion. My oldest son is a fencer and I enjoy watching him.

What do you do for leisure?

I love reading; watching documentaries, particularly biographies of historical figures; and the outdoors, camping, hiking, picnics, etc.

If you were not in ministry, what occupational path would you have chosen?

Well, I was pursuing pharmacology (that would be the legal kind, white smock and all) before I enter the ministry 15 years ago and I suspect that's where I would have ended up.

Thank you, my friend, for taking time to answer my questions!

Welcome back to my interview with Gareth Lloyd, the senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Read part one of the interview here and part two here.

Gareth, what single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership?

The experience of God’s work upon your own soul is the best qualification to lead others.

Where in ministry are you most regularly tempted to discouragement?

This is a tough one!

For many years I regularly experienced debilitating discouragement ministering in an atmosphere which was not grace centered but where believers were constantly heaping burdens on themselves and beating themselves up with guilt for their sin (myself included). I recently sat with a number of guys who are all ministering in that same environment and each one, in turn described how they were suffering the discouragement of ministry as though that were a natural part of the deal of being in ministry.

I am so grateful that for the past four years I have enjoyed being part of a new church plant where I have experienced and enjoyed a grace centered community. I get to do life with the most grateful, encouraging people I have ever known!

Do you exercise? If so, what do you do? If not, why not? (Please be specific.)

I play soccer for an hour once a week and over the last month have been spending an hour on a treadmill and cross trainer two days a week.

Currently, what sport do you like to play and/or watch?

I play soccer once a week as part of our local church outreach and also for the church team. (We are currently the UK Sovereign Grace Churches champions having beaten all the opposition!)

I watch soccer whenever I get opportunity on TV and watch one of local teams live with my sons a couple of times during the season. I also enjoy watching rugby.

What do you do for leisure?

I love listening to music, walking with Angela and the children and watching movies.

If you were not in ministry, what occupational path would you have chosen?

I spent some years prior to ministry in property management and before being encouraged to consider ministry was training towards teaching.

Thank you, Gareth!

Welcome back to my interview with Bill Kittrell, the senior pastor of Cornerstone Church of Knoxville (TN). Read part one of the interview here and part two here.

Bill, what single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership?

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. (John Piper)

Only the humble can see evidence of grace in those in need of correction. (C.J.)

“Am I now seeking the favor of God or of men? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)

Christians need the gospel every day after their conversion. (Jerry Bridges)

Where in ministry are you most regularly tempted to discouragement?

The leadership of my pastoral team. Though they are the finest men I know—and their wives are wonderful wives and mothers—I often feel I do not serve them effectively and fail to provide the kind of leadership and care I think they should receive.

Do you exercise? If so, what do you do? If not, why not? (Please be specific.)

Yes. Usually 5 days a week. Three times per week I do 50 minutes on my elliptical machine. Twice per week I do a perfect pushup routine / Navy SEAL total body workout. I also have a road bike I ride when the weather is nice.

Keep in mind that I am the best athlete in Sovereign Grace Ministries (besides Mickey Connolly, who is too old to do much now).

For readers not familiar with Sovereign Grace, this answer is a form of taunting me, and not intended to encourage Mickey. Truth be told, both Bill and Mickey are envious of my athletic ability. Please pray for these men, that they be content with their own measure of gifting and rejoice with those who are more gifted.

Currently, what sport do you like to play and/or watch?

I play golf more than anything and b-ball when I can.

I watch all things that are Big and Orange, i.e., the University of Tennessee / Knoxville (with one exception I won’t mention). I especially like football and men’s b-ball. I also like NCAA football and b-ball in general, the NFL, and major championship golf, or any tournament where my man Phil Mickelson is playing.

What do you do for leisure?

Like all good disciples I fish (John 21:3) and (more importantly) I fly fish. This is how Norman Maclean begins his book, A River Runs Through It:

In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.

If you were not in ministry, what occupational path would you have chosen?

I received a degree in Forestry because I would have liked to have been a naturalist in a national park, etc., explaining God’s wonderful creation to guys like C.J., who couldn’t tell the difference between a ponderosa pine and a mule deer.

Laugh out loud funny (and sadly true). Thanks for the interview, my friend.

Welcome to the fourth and final part of my interview with biblical counselor and author Dr. David Powlison.

David, what single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership?

The shepherd must know that he is one of the Shepherd’s needy and beloved sheep: 2 Corinthians 1:4; 1 Corinthians 10:12–13. You can best give to others the very things that you are receiving and living.

Where in ministry are you most regularly tempted to discouragement?

I don’t tend to get discouraged in ministry. I think that I was convinced early on that evil is incomprehensibly deep and tangled, and that life is shadowed by death. The fewer the illusions, the less prone to disillusionment. Jesus came for all this sin and suffering, continues to enter in with light, mercy and power into imperfect and broken lives, will return to make right all that is wrong. “Tis mercy all, immense and free….” Kyrie eleison.

I do get discouraged simply as a man, by my own shortcomings, lovelessness, and weakness/astheneia. But time after time the place of discouragement has become the door for the mercies of Jesus to delight and refresh me.

Today, as I’m doing this written interview for CJ, I’m nearing the 3 week mark of a post-surgical recovery period. I’ve been quite slowed by the pain and fatigue. The process has been disheartening at times. But the very act of doing this interview (something that was not on my project list—see question above!) has brought me back to basics and invigorated me, helping restore me to the mindset of work and ministry.

Do you exercise? If so, what do you do? If not, why not? (Please be specific.)

I exercise by walking outdoors in some part of God’s creation where I can observe something beautiful—stream, field, tree, cloud, bird, light, rain, snow, mountain…. My physical exercise includes a major aesthetic component. (This is also part of how I answer the question below, about leisure). Sometimes I throw in a few sets of pushups or wind sprints to get the pulse racing and the muscles burning.

Currently, what sport do you like to play and/or watch?

Injuries and aging have pretty much put an end to sports. I loved surfing, basketball, football, softball, distance running, competitive swimming, cross-country skiing. I still occasionally do a little kayak surfing or boogie-boarding (when I visit my family in Hawaii), or some skiing (when we get 4" or more of snow).

On TV I’ll watch a little of all the major sports, when it comes to playoffs and championships. And every four years I watch swimming and track during the Olympics.

What do you do for leisure?

Among the highlights are hiking (both with Nan and alone), reading good fiction, cross-country skiing or kayaking (when opportunity presents), and playing with my granddaughter. I find that a half an hour of something both absorbingly mindful and mindlessly forgetful—a card game on my Palm Pilot, a computer strategy game, the Sunday crossword puzzle—can be refreshing. I love the ritual of reading the newspaper over a cup of coffee.

If you were not in ministry, what occupational path would you have chosen?

God made me to do what I am doing, shaping every aspect of both gifts and life experience. If I had to do some other job in order to support myself and my family, I’d do any honorable work as an occupation in order to enable my vocation in ministry. For me, doing ministry came with becoming a Christian.

If I had not become a Christian, I’m not sure what I would have done. I was never occupation-oriented. In fact, I was intensely alienated even from the idea of an occupation, and came close to becoming a dropout from society. I was repelled by the degree to which people sought personal identity and meaning from their occupation and achievements. My only aspiration had been to write honest and beautiful poetry, song lyrics, and fiction (not the most promising of occupations). I would likely have ended up either as a derelict or, if I’d stayed functional in society, as one of Thoreau’s “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

[Added by Dr. Powlison]

What one further question should C.J. be asking?

Who are your closest personal friends (outside your family)? What role do they play in your life and ministry?

Four men have been in my life through many years (40, 30, 20, and 15 years, respectively). We are honest with each other—a track record of loving concern creates a depth of basic trust and immediate honesty. We hold each other to Jesus Christ. We pray with and for each other. I need the mutual give and take, the simplicity of caring and candor both given and received.

Here’s a quotation that captures it for me: “Those who lack friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts….This communicating of a man’s self to his friends works two contrary effects; for it redoubles joys and cuts griefs in half.” (Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship,” 1625)

Thank you, David!

Welcome back to the second part of my interview with Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III (read part one here).

Ligon, apart from Scripture, what book do you most frequently re-read and why?

I do not think that I can answer the question, which book I most frequently re-read, since there are a number of them that I have re-read over the years. Some examples of these books would be:

• Calvin’s Institutes
• Packer’s A Quest for Godliness
• David Wells’ No Place for Truth
• Thomas Brooks’ Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices
  

I re-read these books because they are particularly edifying, convicting, timely and instructive.

When you finish a book, what system have you developed in order to remember and reference that book in the future?

I have no system. I’m not a fast reader, but I can usually remember what I read and where I read. So, I largely rely upon my memory, but this does result in some rummaging around to find things from time to time. Of course, if I’m researching something for publication, I keep notes, by author, title, and subject.

If you could study under any theologian in church history (excluding those men in Scripture) who would it be and why?

Calvin or Irenaeus.

I would choose Calvin because he is, in my opinion, the best exegete and possibly the greatest systematic theologian in the history of Christianity. He is certainly one of the five greatest theologians in the history of the Church.

I would choose Irenaeus because he played such a crucial role in the shaping of orthodoxy and because of his close proximity to the apostles. I would love to pepper him with questions about all of that for about two years, eight hours a day, five days a week.

What single piece of counsel (or constructive criticism) has most improved your preaching?

Well, I’m not sure I can claim that it has improved my preaching, but at least Mark Dever’s counsel has been helpful and instructive to me: “if your wife wakes you up at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning to ask you what your sermon is about, and you cannot tell her in one crisp sentence, then that sermon is not ready to preach.” Basically, we must be really clear on what the main thrust, thesis, argument, point, and main application of our sermon is.

What books on preaching, or examples of it, have you found most influential in your own preaching?

I have benefited from Lloyd-Jones’ book Preaching and Preachers, the volume edited by Sam Logan called The Preacher and Preaching, and Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons. But I have gained the most from listening to great preaching. Growing up under the faithful and powerful expository ministries of Gordon Reed and Paul Settle, and listening to Mark Dever, John Piper, C.J. Mahaney, Derek Thomas, Sinclair Ferguson, Eric Alexander, and others, have been most influential on my preaching.

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?

I do not use my time effectively, but the best advice that I have been given is, “Learn to say, ‘No.’” Unfortunately, I have not taken this advice yet, but am trying.

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership?

“I have not come to be served, but to serve.” And “if you want to be a servant, you have to be prepared to be treated like one.” (Glen Knecht)

That is humbling counsel. Thank you, Dr. Duncan.

Please join me next time for the third and final part of my interview with Dr. Duncan.

Whether you’re the pastor of a large church like Covenant Life or the only pastor of a new church plant, determining priorities is crucial to shaping a schedule that is faithful to God’s expectations for you. In this second excerpt from the forthcoming Leadership Interview podcast, “The Pastor and His Time,” Josh, Jeff, and C.J. discuss these biblically defined priorities; the common, albeit well-meant, interruptions; and the importance of educating your church on your priorities. All this in order, C.J. says, “to most effectively, uniquely, specifically, and broadly serve those who have been entrusted to your care.”

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Joshua Harris: Are there any priorities (or, really, not priorities) that you see creep into a pastor’s life? What are some of the temptations that you would think are out there for a pastor to get involved in that really isn’t [a priority]?…

C.J. Mahaney: There are legitimate distractions on a daily basis. There are distractions that I think are created by the active presence of indwelling sin. Certainly there are distractions in the context of ministry. There are distractions provided for us in the context of our culture. These distractions are absolutely endless in their variety and in their consistency, which is why it is so important for pastors to be clear on their calling, role, and priorities. And to recognize that if you don’t prepare for a given week by identifying those roles and creating appropriate goals in fulfillment of those roles, your week will attack you, and you will end up devoting more time that week to the urgent than you do to the important.

Jeff Purswell: And I think that is particularly a temptation for pastors, because a lot of those distractions you mentioned, C.J., will emerge from legitimate needs. And that’s precisely what happened in Acts 6:1–7, the first time you have the crystallization of specialized responsibilities for pastors. There were real, pressing, legitimate needs [related to feeding widows] that needed tending to. But the apostles recognized that it wasn’t their need to attend. They needed to raise up gifted leaders to tend to those things while they specialized in what they were called to do: attention to the Word of God and to prayer (v. 4).

And so I am sure a lot of pastors listening are aware of many legitimate needs. We call them distractions, but they are real, pressing needs. But that doesn’t mean they are the solution to those needs directly, or that those needs become immediate parts of their to-do list for the week.

CJM: Each pastor enters into each week aware that the requests made of him in a given week will exceed his capacity to respond and fulfill those requests. Therefore, if I haven’t in some way determined what is most important and uniquely important for me to do in a given week, I will find myself responding to these urgent, and often legitimate, requests and end up busy throughout the week, but not productive and not ultimately fruitful at the end of the week.

I think it is of critical importance for pastors in particular to enter their week aware of what is most important, what is uniquely important for them to do in order to most effectively, uniquely, specifically, and broadly serve those who have been entrusted to their care. This will inevitably involve some form of specialization, and must be informed by some awareness on the part of the pastor of his limitations.

So a lot depends on whether one is pastoring alone, or whether one has a pastoral team. But regardless of the size of the pastoral team or the size of one’s church, what we are saying applies to a pastor.

JH: That’s good. I just was thinking as Jeff was referencing the care for the widows, the distribution of food, that it is so important. As pastors we are really receiving our priority list from God. I think it is so easy to allow that priority list to be written by other people, you know, the people in your church.…

CJM: You must have a pastoral team supporting you and specializing in particular ways, so you can inform the church specifically of the role of each pastor and how each pastor exists to specialize and to serve the church. In that way that individual that you just described—who you want to care for and not disappoint—you can inform that individual that you are not simply declining to serve that individual through, say, pastoral counseling because you are pursuing some unrelated purpose. No, you are seeking to serve them and the entirety of the church by specializing in particular ways, and other pastors have been trained and provided to care for their souls in this regard. And you cannot devote yourself to all the possible tasks and opportunities and needs, or else you will not serve the church.

JH: We are in a larger context at Covenant Life, but I think the principle still holds even for a guy who is pastoring by himself. He needs to involve other members of the church, small-group leaders, people who can come alongside of him. And ultimately, the good news here is that that is so much healthier for the whole church, for people not just to be looking to that one guy, but to be realizing the grace that flows through so many different means.

CJM: He does, indeed. And he needs to inform or have someone, like a fellow elder, inform the church of what his unique role is, so that the expectations of church members are clear in their hearts and minds. That pastor who is pastoring alone—prior to the formation of a plurality—needs to make clear to the church that he is devoting himself primarily to this task of study and teaching in order to serve the entire church. Other provisions can be made for the important need of biblical counseling through other individuals, who might not even be staff members or part of the pastoral team at that time.

That kind of information, in my experience, is just often not communicated to the church, and therefore individual church members are vulnerable when they make a particular request. They call the office with an expectation that the pastor will respond to their request. But when the pastor declines, if sufficient explanation isn’t given, then the individual is not just disappointed, but offended, and all this can be avoided if there is a clear definition communicated to the church about the role of that particular pastor. And that, again, applies as the pastoral team grows into a plurality.

The role of the church in influencing and shaping contemporary American culture is a topic generating much interest, discussion, and disagreement. Gauging from the many books on the subject, there is a lot that can be said, but I especially appreciate what my friend Mark Dever has said.  

Today I want to draw off another excerpt from my 2007 interview with Mark. Mark lives, works, and pastors a church four blocks from the U.S. Capitol and three blocks from the U.S. Supreme Court. Mark is geographically—and in his thinking—on one of the front lines where the church and contemporary culture meet.

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C.J. Mahaney: Elaborate more on the priorities of 9Marks.

Mark Dever: Well, what we want to see are communities of people that reflect the character of God, and by doing so are distinct from the world around them. As I travel around I see so many evangelical churches trying to “break the code” of how to look as much like the culture as possible and yet keep the gospel, assuming this will maximize the evangelistic impulse.

I’m not sure that’s true.

I think there is a lot of peril in this. And it seems to be that even from the very earliest chapters of Acts, what strikes people are not thoughts of, “Hey, they speak Hebrew too,” but rather, “Hey, look at how they love one another in a way that is different from the way we are loving or being loved.”

So I think that God’s character, as it is reproduced in a community of people, must be one of the most powerful witnesses to the truth of the gospel, both for evangelism and the edification of those already converted. So I would like to see evangelical churches— while not becoming unsophisticated in how they interact with culture—keep cultural interaction in perspective, and realize that the life-blood of your church continuing is not your contextualization (your similarity to the culture), but how you are blessedly distinct from the culture. The church is full of people who are born again.

So our distinctives are what we want to hold out, and trust that God will make them attractive and will commend the gospel to other people.

So sometimes I feel like I am being called to tar the ark before the flood. Our world is increasingly secular. And churches that are trying to be as much like the world as possible, I fear, are very leaky arks. And churches that are trying to be like the world are often unselfconsciously nothing more than part of their culture. I fear they are just going to sink and become spiritually worthless spiritual tombs.

So I think the rise of secularism will itself cut down on nominal Christianity. It will actually encourage the clarity of what truly is the gospel and the effects that it has, because the cache, the worth, the value of nominal Christianity will just continue to decline in the culture broadly, so that you won’t want to be known as an evangelical Christian because that means you hate various groups of people or you believe these weird things. (As opposed to in the 50s it meant you were a respectable, upstanding citizen.) So as the general cultural perception turns on evangelical Christianity, I think we are just seeing all the more clearly our need to have a positive vision for the church as distinct from the culture.

CJM: And so what would you say to a pastor who is attracted to models of the church that aren’t distinct from the culture and aren’t distinctly proclaiming the gospel?

MD: Well, when you are not distinctly proclaiming the gospel, then you are not talking about a healthy church in any way whatsoever.

I want to be careful here. Not every church is going to be exactly alike. For example, there are churches that deliberately dress differently, or have a different kind of music, or different order of their services. But as long as they are preaching the gospel, preaching the Word, the things they are saying are true, they are reading Scripture, they are praising—as long as they are doing the things we are commanded to in Scripture, I am prepared to believe there are a number of different ways, and that in different settings one can be better than another.

But I would be very careful if these things are what a church begins majoring on. If the adverbs overtake the verbs, the adjectives overtake the nouns, the how you do it becomes more important than what you are doing, well then I think you have surely lost your way.

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For more on this topic, consult Mark’s T4G’08 message (“Improving the Gospel: Exercises in Unbiblical Theology”), The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World by David Wells (Eerdmans, 2008) and Christ and Culture Revisited by D.A. Carson (Eerdmans, 2008).

 

Summer is fast approaching and that means the kids will be out of school, and families will be loading into the minivan and merging into the 230 million annual summer vacations celebrated in this country. In light of the season, C.J. recently posted a series to encourage fathers and husbands to begin preparing their schedules—and their hearts—to lead their families in a “God-glorifying, grace-filled, relationship-building, memory-making time together.”

Here is an index to the three-part series:

Leadership + Family Vacations (part 1)
Leadership + Family Vacations (part 2)
Leadership + Family Vacations (part 3)

And perhaps the easiest way to read this series is to download it in one printable PDF file (download by clicking here).

Happy vacationing.