Playing It Safe?

For the past couple of years, I've been thinking a lot about Jesus' famous parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). It's been one of those passages I can't get out of my mind.

Here's the parable: a man goes on a journey. Before leaving, he entrusts his property to three servants. Each one gets a lot: one gets five talents, possibly worth some three million dollars. A second gets two talents, probably worth just over a million dollars. A third servant gets a paltry (!) half a million dollars or so. When the master returns, he holds them accountable for how they've invested what he left with them. Two servants doubled the money and are rewarded; the one who received the least amount of money only preserved the capital and receives a strongly worded rebuke.

It's not hard to see what the story means. Jesus has left and has entrusted his followers with resources. He will return and hold us accountable for what we've done with what he's left us. Six lessons:

1. God has given all of us something. He's given the least of us a lot. I love what J.C. Ryle says: "Anything whereby we may glorify God is ‘a talent.’ Our gifts, our influence, our money, our knowledge, our health, our strength, our time, our senses, our reason, our intellect, our memory, our affections, our privileges as members of Christ’s Church, our advantages as possessors of the Bible—all, all are talents." We all have them.
   
2. Nothing we have is ours. The servants didn't own their resources; they only managed them on behalf of the master. We don't own anything we have. It's all God's, and we'll give account for all of it one day. I should mentally write on everything I have, "God's." It's all his. Nothing is mine.
   
3. The amount is irrelevant. I sometimes think that God has given others more, so they're more accountable. Not so. We will not be judged based on how many talents God has given us, but based on what we’ve done with them. I love how Spurgeon puts it: "If there be degrees in glory, they will not be distributed according to our talent but according to our faithfulness in using them."
   
4. We're supposed to do something what what we have. It's not enough to play it safe. I love what D.A. Carson writes: "It is not enough for Jesus’ followers to ‘hang in there’ and wait for the end. They must see themselves for what they are—servants who owe it to their Master to improve what he entrusts to them. Failure to do so proves they cannot really be valued disciples at all."
   
5. It's really about our view of God. The one servant played it safe because he had a distorted view of his master (Matthew 25:24-25). How I live, and what I do with what God has given me, is really an indication of what I believe to be true about God.
   
6. We're supposed to live for that day when we'll give account. When I read this parable, I often think of four words: "Not me. Not now." All of this is not about me; it's about God. All of this is not about now; it's about that day when I'll give account to my returning Master. Live for that day. As Randy Alcorn says, "Financial planners tell us, 'When it comes to your money, don’t think just three months or three years ahead. Think thirty years ahead.' Christ, the ultimate investment counsellor, takes it further. He says, 'Don’t ask how your investment will be paying off in just thirty years. Ask how it will be paying off in thirty million years.'" Live for that day. Evaluate everything for how it will pay off in eternity, for that day when you'll give account to your Lord.

This parable continues to significantly shape me. There's enough to feast on here for a very long time. Refuse to play it safe with your life. Instead, invest everything you have for Jesus and for eternity.

Saturday Links

My Identity in Jesus

So who does God say we are? Join me and many others in standing on these truths about our identity in Jesus. Post it at home and in your office. Pass it along to friends. Dwell on these verses of who you are. And when we come to know who we are as He says we are, we will become truly unshakeable.

We’d love for you to pass along this PDF to anybody you think it might encourage. Download it here.

Church Identity: How Your Church Must Not Be Unique

In terms of the foundation of our faith, your church—as part of the Church—must not be unique.

Church Identity: How Your Church Must Be Unique

While the foundation of a church must not be unique, the culture and ministry practice must be for at least three reasons.

Four Reasons Most Churches Aren't Breakout Churches

1. Lack of leadership development
2. Unbiblical understanding of church membership
3. Unclear purpose
4. Lack of outward focus

5 Tools Needed to Reach Today's Teens

1. Knowledge about the canonization of Scripture
2. Developed theology of sexuality, particularly homosexuality
3. Ability to teach the Bible in the greater context of redemptive history
4. Theological, not only moral, understanding of sin
5. Understand adoption as an element of salvation

I do drugs. What would Jesus say about that?

Many who question the gospel need to know how it applies to them in their current situation. Behind the challenging question is a heart in need of applicable truth.

Hope for timid evangelists

But here’s the good news—God’s Word offers much hope for timid evangelists like me, especially in the gospel of Luke. Here are five truths we can embrace.

Four Lies About Introverts

I've discovered some subtle and not-so-subtle assumptions I'd unwittingly latched onto over time.

1. Extroversion is the biblical ideal.
2. Introverts don't like people.
3. Solitude is selfish and indulgent.
4. Introversion is incompatible with teaching and leadership gifts.

7 False Assumptions Made About Introverts

1. I’m shy
2. I need more courage
3. I’ve got nothing to say
4. I’m dumb
5. I am arrogant or don’t like you
6. I need you to talk for me
7. I need to change, mature, grow as a person or leader

3 Questions That Can Help You Avoid Leadership Blind Spots

1. What am I doing that’s not helping our mission?
2. What do I need to do to make sure you feel comfortable telling me what you see?
3. How can I help make it better?

Is the News Marking Us Dumb?

What do we expect to gain by spending an hour or two a day keeping up with the latest headlines?

What Happens When You Really Disconnect

The key to being more fully absorbed is to regularly and fully disconnect.

Urban Church Planting: An Interview with Mark Reynolds

Mark Reynolds is Vice President of Redeemer City to City, an organization that aims to help leaders build gospel movements in cities. I love what City to City is doing, and I've found Mark to be a wealth of wisdom on why urban church planting is important, and how we can plant effectively in the key urban centers of the world.

I'm grateful that Mark took the time to answer some of my questions.

Your role allows you to see what God is doing in cities all around the world. What excites you?

Primarily in the West I'm seeing a convergence of ministry innovation and learning in the context of urban church planting. You have this overlap of cities as an idea, and then church planting. These are potent tools for research and development for the church. This creates a laboratory of learning and ministry innovation. Over time this will be extremely helpful to the city churches and others that are outside of the cities as well.

I’m also seeing a growing awareness of the need and opportunity in cities for church planters. There’s a growing awareness, but we’re still lagging behind in the competencies and proficiencies to do it well.

The story is still unfolding, but there are three things that I am excited about:

• First, the church in the West is thinking through its relationship with the culture. It’s bringing more explicitly its understanding of its role in the culture as a particular church or collection of churches instead of just letting the culture determine that or just assuming that there's one model. They’re not just acquiescing to the culture or taking a militant posture towards the culture but asking, “How are we as a church to relate to culture in this particular time in history, with our gifts and our contributions?” Before it was either assumed for us, or it was just nakedly brought in without us thinking it through. I’m excited that churches are thinking this through.
• Second, there’s a simultaneous awareness of the gospel being both proclaimed and embodied in deed. The church is committed to preaching the gospel, calling people to the new birth. We’re also realizing there are great needs in the city. Churches need, for the love of neighbor and for Christ’s sake, to serve those that have need.
• The third thing I am excited about is still evolving. The church is asking what evangelism and apologetics looks like in this particular time in these urban centers. How does the church do persuasion? How do we address the base line narratives that urban dwellers are asking or living in and not just assuming that we know? The church is entering into those stories, asking what people are thinking, and considering how they present the gospel to those people God has called them to reach.

We are still learning from them because evangelism can be a challenge in the cities. I think that the church that isn't in the city should be attracted to learning from these urban churches, because that's where  a lot of innovation is taking place. Cities as an idea are already the leading edge of forming culture. They are creating the new norms. How is the church responding to the new norms? It's very important. We want to be learning from them as well as helping them flourish.

What concerns you?

Well maybe lets start with the macro level.

Many urbanologists are telling us that five million people each month are moving into cities. This is taking place through domestic and international migration. It's a staggering number of people.  Over two months that's ten million people - a significant city every two months being added to the globe as it were. God is moving the human community into cities. Even to keep pace with that urban growth trend we would need to create 500 new congregations every month. Thats only assuming one church for every 10,000.  Missiologists tell us that we need at least one vibrant church for every 1,000 people, so just to keep pace at a very unreached level we would need to be planting 500 churches a month in the cities. Really, to reach those cities, we need to do 10 times that.

The need is overwhelming, and the invitation to the global church to awaken to this need should be there. It should keep us seeking the Lord of the harvest to raise up laborers to reach people in cities. 

Within the West, I think that we are not keeping up with the contextualization requirements.  By that I mean, it’s too easy to import a model of ministry that has shaped us. We are all creatures of habit. We are all shaped by different things, but the imposition of a church model that we love or we haven't properly assessed just doesn’t make sense. We need to be weened off a certain imperialism, just assuming that we know what cities need without listening and learning.

Then maybe the other thing that I am concerned about is that it’s a challenging assignment. What is attracting churches and leaders to these cities? Is it with a redemptive heart? Or is it that it’s a nice place to live and raise a family? There can be a lot of idolatry and hubris built around that as we kind of think about going into mission in the cities, but hopefully we’ve thought it through.

We haven't really seen church planting by multiplication in North America. It seems to be mostly incremental. Do you see this changing?

I would love for it to change. I see examples of some churches that are multiplying, but I don't see it happening at a constant place or in many locations or many denominations.

I think we have embraced that ideology as a way of giving us an identity and vision, but it actually isn't happening as much as it should. The invitation saying “Let's be a church that multiplies, let’s be a network that's growing exponentially” is desirable, but we still have a lot of churches that need to be planted. We need to ask particular churches, “What is our unique calling within this church multiplication world and how can we as a particular church be generative in the way that God has made us?”

We can be generative by partnering with other churches to plant churches.

We might be a church that raises up a lot of leaders and sends them out but doesn’t exactly create what we might call daughter churches. Instead of saying, “Our church isn't multiplying,” we need to ask ourselves, “How can we be generative, how can we expand the body of Christ though the the unique gifts and abilities we have?”

There are reasons why some churches struggle to be multiplying churches. I'm recognizing some unique calling they may have, and I’m not simply saying, “Because you didn't multiply within 3 years you are never going to do so.” I want to say, “There might be other things you can do to participate in growing the body of Christ in your city or your community.”

What practical steps can churches in a city take to work towards a gospel movement in that city?

We know that churches that are multiplying need to be at the core of the gospel movement in a particular city.

We would love to see gospel movements happening in places and cities. That's one of the reasons why Redeemer City to City exists as an organization.

As for the particular question of how can churches participate in that, we can again ask, “What is our particular contribution in a gospel movement in a city?” The needs are great and we can almost be overwhelmed by the scope of the mission and the scope of the need. I want to see a gospel movement happen in this city where there is Shalom and there's flourishing of the city, and people are coming to faith. What is the unique way that God has designed our church. How can we steward that? These are the fundamental questions the church could ask itself.

When we have theological or geographic affinity with other churches, we could do a few things together rather than operating our churches as silos. The need is great, and a gospel movement assumes that churches are beginning to work together.

As we study the history of revival we see the unique ways God brings about a movement or brings about revival.  It's anteceded and sustained by corporate prevailing Kingdom-centered prayer. Any way that churches and leaders can come together to pray for he whole city, not just their own church and its needs, will be a powerful testament.  If we want to see a gospel movement happening, it has to be preceded by this Kingdom-centered corporate prevailing prayer.

There are evidences of stages that some cities are moving across over a period of time. It probably takes longer than we might have realized or hoped for. But yes, I see new churches being birthed and churches coming together for missions, and that is exciting.

How can we pray for you in your role at Redeemer City to City?

We want to see the city become a cause that the church awakens to, just as the church has thought about poverty or any kind of challenge or struggle in our world. We want the church to be awakened to the city as a cause of mission as never before. So we are thinking of ways of doing that, but we want lots of partnerships and people joining us. We want to be sound with humility and confidence that cities are a cause we need to champion as the church.

The second would be that we find both long term sustainable and fruitful ministry in cities. I think about the church planting families, church planting couples, all that we relate to. I am always praying for them to be able to have long term fruitful ministry in cities - any church leader, any pastor, and any church planter.

I was recently reading a book by Paul Trip called Dangerous Calling which outlined with great skill, the unique challenges of that calling that intensify in pastoral ministry When and then when you come into urban ministry it intensifies even more.

So be praying for us, that God would allow us to have fruitful long term ministry and that we would avoid some of the challenges that are in that dangerous calling and actually thrive and see the body of Christ flourish in that city. So that's how you can be praying for us, for me and others.

Thanks, Mark.

Saturday Links

Cultivate Gospel Conversations by Listening

Listen for patterns. Listen for underlying causes. Listen for regrets. Listen as through a stethoscope to identify the particular malady to which the good news of Jesus would bring healing.

Just Keep Sowing, Just Keep Sowing

We have no idea how God is using our labors to draw a person to himself. We usually are not the best judges of the results of our ministry.

Your Church is Closer to Planting than You Probably Think

Whenever we remove much of the hype, quantitative expectations, and North American cultural expressions of church planting, we come to recognize that church planting is not very glamorous. It involves small steps. It is about making disciples from out of the harvest and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded. If your people can do this, then by God’s grace, your church can plant churches. . . . many churches.

What to Say to “All-Religions-Are-Basically-the-Same” Dude

One of your fears can be calmed. You don’t have to know all religions to respond to this guy. You just have to know the one absolutely unique gospel.

7 Paradigms of the “New Normal” in Church Leadership

1. We must do more with less
2. We have to think outside the walls
3. Church is an opinion, not a trusted source
4. People trust their friends…more than the church
5. Easter is for church people
6. Regular attendance is semi-regular
7. Loyalty has dwindled

5 Ways Pastors Spiritually Benefit From Preaching Expository Sermons

The celebration and joy of preaching God’s word will return to you when you remember the blessings that God has in store for preachers who give themselves wholly to the task of expository preaching. What are those blessings? Here is a list of five.

Pulpit Cooking Options

1. Fast Food Preaching
2. Home Delivered Fast Food
3. Home Delivered Fast Food Stolen
4. Thrown Together Left-Overs
5. Good Food Disconnected
6. One Favourite Recipe
7. Good Ingredients Cooked the Wrong Way
8. Good Ingredients Cooked the Right Way
9. The Fast Feast
10. Non-gourmet home cooked healthy meal

Why Pastors Quit

I would suggest that the reasons below are the greatest struggles to perseverance in the ministry (though you are welcome to add others in the comments). As we consider each, I want to offer a little encouragement to young pastors and aspiring seminarians.

Let's Be Social: Social Media for New Churches

Our very own Tim Cox recently shared some tips and general strategy on how to thoughtfully approach social media and content creation as a church plant.

3 Lies Porn Tells You

1. That was the last time.
2. You can stop anytime you want.
3. Confessing your struggle will cost you too much.

The New Normal

One of the things I wrestled with as we considered the call to plant a church is that some things were going to have to change.

• We would have to be a lot more dependent upon God in prayer.
• We would have to be a lot more intentional about evangelism.
• We would have to be willing to risk a lot more in terms of our comfort and security.

Would we be willing, I asked, to live prayerfully and evangelistically? Were we willing to risk our comfort and our security for the sake of the gospel?

Put that way, there was no way to say no. In a sense, this is the new (old) normal. Not that everyone is called to plant a church, but all of us are called to live prayerfully, evangelistically, and to invest everything that we have for the sake of the Kingdom.

I began to envision what it would look like to not plant a church. In the end, it looked kind of the same.

I'm not surprised that we had to wrestle with that call to plant a church. That's a good thing. I'm a little surprised that I had to wrestle with how prayerful, dependent, and "all in" I was prepared to be. That should have been settled a long time ago. Once you've encountered the grace of Jesus, is there any other way to live?