Piper on Spurgeon and Surviving Ministry

As is so often the case, I have come across an article that I wish I had written.  Setting my envy aside, I am extremely thankful to John Piper for this tremendous article that takes an honest look at the life of the minister and how the minister faces struggles and survives.  If you are a minister sooner or later you will go through a difficult time and you will be glad that you have read this.  If you aren't a minister, I encourage you to read this too.  It may help you to understand the heart of the ministers who serve you.

Here is the article by John Piper: Charles Spurgeon; Preaching Through Adversity.

May we all rest in the sovereignty of God.

In His grace, for His glory.

A Birthday, a Time of Solitude, and a Special Olympian

I've mentioned before that my birthday is right around the corner. Most every year my parents will send me some money for this grandest of occasions. Usually, I end up spending the money on something extremely exciting like groceries or gas. This year I have made a huge decision. I'm going to spend that money on something that I truly want - solitude. I have always valued the spiritual discipline of solitude. Taking time to be completely alone with God. Time to be away from the TV, the xbox, the mp3 player, and even the cell phone. Time to be still. Time to meditate on Scripture and time to talk with no one but God. For me, finding time of such solitude has always been best served by taking my tent and going camping. It has been over a year since I have taken such time and am starting to feel the effects. I am in need of really reconnecting with the Lord. Many my find that last statement a bit odd for a minister to make. However, I suppose there is an occupational hazard to being a preacher in which you spend so much time with and doing the things of God that you miss God. It's not much different than a married couple who spend much time together maintaining the house, scheduling the calendar, caring for their children and yet spend little time actually being together, caring for their marriage. So this is my plan, to take the time (as soon as the weather cooperates) to go camping and to reconnect with the Lord.

There is one problem with my plan. Camping will only account for a fraction of my birthday money. So what else should I do? Many thoughts have come to mind. I thought of buying some music or a couple of books. I even thought of buying a video game. Not because I really play many video games but more so because my son would think I'm really cool. But none of this really seemed all that interesting. None of it seemed to be something that would have anything more than a fleeting impact. That's when I remembered that I could use this money to bring great joy to a special girl named Emilda.

Emilda is a young girl who is a sponsored child through Compassion International. She lives in the Philippines and she is mentally disabled. Emilda is also FAST. She can run and has ran her way into the Special Olympics. In order to compete in the Olympics, Emilda will need to raise nearly $20,000 dollars. Obviously, this is a virtual impossibility for a family that earns no more than $7.00 a week. You can read more of this family's story here: The Making of a Special Olympics Champion. I'd like to ask that you consider helping this special young girl achieve her dream. Help to show her family that despite their circumstances that there are people who will lift them up, give them hope, and love them in the name of Christ.

Emilda with her medals.

Compassion has set up a special fund to send Emilda to the Olympics. You can donate here: Help Send Emilda to the Special Olympics.

Thank you to all who give. Thanks to my parents for their gift to me that allows me to have time to restore my soul as well as to bless another in need.

In His grace, for His glory.

An Open Letter to Our Denominational Leaders

To the leaders of our State and National Conventions:

We need your help.  I, like hundreds of other pastors, am the pastor of a small church that is struggling and quite possibly dying.  I don't want it to die and I do all that I know to do to keep it going.  I go to the seminars and conferences that give glory to the wonderful churches that are growing, are missional, are simple, transformational, focused, and relevant.  I listened to speeches and sermons that instruct me on how my church needs to be like one of these churches.  I read the material on your latest evangelistic strategy that is going to revolutionize my church.  Guess what, it's all garbage.

It's not that I don't believe in the latest Stetzer or Rainer research.  It's not that I don't see value in what you are espousing.  It's not that I don't believe that you haven't spent hours and untold amounts of money coming up with the latest evangelism strategy.  It's that for all the rhetoric, for all the discipleship seminars and training sessions I've been to no one from a leadership position has been able to answer my one question:  If I do what you are suggesting I'll be out of a job, then what?

Honestly, I often leave your meetings feeling as though we struggling, small church pastors (who are the majority in your denomination) are the second class citizens who weren't smart enough or spiritual enough to be David Platt (no offense to David).  I often leave such meetings thinking that I have one of two choices: implement what is being discussed and cause chaos at my church or simply leave my church and start a new one.  Which by the way, there does seem to be a growing tendency toward, if you aren't planting a church then you aren't really doing anything.

I guess that is my biggest problem.  This feeling that because we happen to be in a situation where there aren't hundreds of people being baptized then the only logical conclusion is that we, as the pastors, aren't doing something right.  And perhaps we aren't.  Perhaps all the small, struggling church pastors should just leave their churches to go start new churches.  Perhaps we should be pushing our churches harder to change their centuries old ways and be "culturally relevant."  Perhaps there is much to do and much that can be done.  Perhaps.  Perhaps we small, struggling church pastors would like to believe that are denominational leaders are as interested in helping these pastors fulfill their calling, to which they are faithfully serving, as they are in telling us everything that is wrong with our churches. 

Consider these pastors as men on the frontline of a war and it's trench warfare.  It's hard, it's cold, it's dirty and it's dangerous.  What we would like to know is that the generals aren't going to send down a order that says, "Hey guys, here is a new program with flashy door hangers, power-point ready sermons, and even a meditative cd of worship music.  Now let's go baptize some folks and be sure to record them in your annual church profile!"  What we would like instead is for the generals to say, "We know what is wrong.  We know that you know what is wrong.  Let's work together to fix it and if it can't be fixed then know troops that you won't be left here in the trenches to die."

I don't think I need to give you the stats but I will:

80 percent of pastors say they have insufficient time with spouse and that ministry has a negative effect on their family. 40 percent report a serious conflict with a parishioner once a month. 33 percent say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family. 75 percent report they've had a significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry. 58 percent of pastors indicate that their spouse needs to work either part time or full time to supplement the family income. 56 percent of pastors' wives say they have no close friends. 45 percent of pastors' wives say the greatest danger to them and family is physical, emotional, mental and spiritual burnout. 21 percent of pastors' wives want more privacy. Pastors who work fewer than 50 hours a week are 35 percent more likely to be terminated. 40 percent of pastors considered leaving the pastorate in the past three months.Source: "Pastors At Greater Risk" by H.B London Jr. and Neil Wiseman, Regal Books, 2003

Leaders, we are tired, burning out, and could use a helping hand from you.  Stop telling us what is wrong all the time.  We get it.  We know the troubles our churches face.  We are there.  All we want to know is will you be there with us?

In His grace, for His glory,

Pastor John Raymer, small church pastor

A Birthday, Lent, Reflections, Resolutions, and a Hiking Stick?

There are times in a person's life when they are given the opportunity to reflect on their lives.  Some of those times are moments of circumstance such as a crisis of health or finances.  Then there are moments of arbitrary dates on the calendar.  Those moments such as New Year's Day, your anniversary, and of course, the birthday.  My birthday is just a few weeks away and it just so happens to be the day before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.  I've already been thinking about Lent.  Last year I attempted to read a book of the Bible everyday for Lent (and failed).  So I've been considering what I might do this year.  Then, with the realization of my birthday being around the same time, it has me truly in one of those reflective moods. 

Reflection allows us a time to experience the joy of good moments such as your wedding day or the day you met your adopted child.  However, reflection can also bring the disappointment of moments missed and dreams forgotten.  Reflection, if you will allow it, can also cause one to make resolutions.  Now I'm not talking about those New Year's resolutions that you know even as you make it you have no intention of keeping. I'm talking about resolutions that say, "As I reflect on my life now, here is what I'd like to resolve to change, to focus on, to have my life be about."

Of course, there is no guarantee that such reflection with resolution will actually result in any change.  Then again, making no decision to change and taking no action will most assuredly result in failure.  I think it needs to be made clear here that I'm not simply looking at getting in a little more exercise or eating better.  I'm looking at fundamental change.  The kind of change that only comes when one fully submits to God.  The kind of change from being merely a "good" person to being completely devoted to the Lord.

The question is, what will that look like?  In some manner that will look the same for everyone in that the fruit of the Spirit is always the fruit of the Spirit.  In another manner being totally devoted to the Lord will look different for everyone.  Obviously total devotion to the Lord will be lived out differently for a 78 year old woman in an assisted living facility versus a 20 year old college student living in a dorm.  So for me, a nearly 38 year old man, living in a home with a wife and 5 kids, what will complete devotion and obedience to the Lord look like?  This is the question I've been reflecting on lately.

I also realize that in considering such questions I'm obviously looking at practical results. For example devotion to Christ will lead to a greater amount of time studying His Word.  However, I'm not merely looking for a list of accomplishments.  It is true enough that such outward changes would take place if one is committed to following Christ.  Nevertheless, what I'm most interested in is not so much the doing of "christian" things as I am interested in being and in having the character of Christ.  To do this I believe that I'll need to learn more of what it is to simply abide in Christ.  Interestingly though I believe that to more fully abide in Christ I'll have to more fully invest myself in the disciplines of the faith such as meditating on God's Word, prayer, solitude, worship, service, etc. In some ways this may seem to be counterintuitive.  On one hand, I'm trying to simply be in Christ but on the other hand I have to do the things which place me in the center of where Christ is.  It may also seem that I'm trying to dwell in the very center of God's grace by forcing  myself into His grace by performing certain actions.  What we have to understand is that grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning (thank you Dallas Willard for this knowledge).  For example, I can decide that it would be beneficial to read more Scripture in order to abide more in Christ and to experience more of His grace.  Even so, the very act of spending more time in Scripture does not earn me more grace.  His grace to me is still His gift.  Furthermore, it takes God's grace acting through us to even allow us to have the desire to be with Christ as well as to have the ability to act in obedience to doing those things which Scripture instructs us to do.  This in turn help us to be in the place where God's grace can be most effective in us. 

In short, as I sit here these past few days in this reflective mood I am reflecting on my life as a follower of Christ.  In many ways I've been a pretty "good" Christian.  In so many ways I know that I've barely scratched the surface of what in means to follow Christ.  To use a biblical metaphor:  if a follower of Christ is one who picks up his cross to follow Christ, then I have been carrying around a hiking stick.  Oh, it's useful.  It's help keep me steady and on the right path but it is nothing that would cost me my life.

Someone to Teach Me

I just finished watching the first part of a documentary that has atheists discussing why they are atheists.  In the first interview with an atheist philosopher something struck me as an odd contradiction in his own thought.  He first mentioned that people do not need a god in order to have an idea of a moral absolute because moral absolutes are just that, absolute, and that they are "just known."  Furthermore, as people who have knowledge of the moral absolutes, we generally follow those moral absolutes.  In other words, people are generally good and do good.

He continued making the argument that there is no god because the very abundance of evil makes God an impossibility.  This does raise a legitimate question of why there is evil if God is all-powerful and all-good?  A question which I believe Scripture answers but that this philosopher believes Scripture doesn't answer.  On that point (for now) I'll simply agree to disagree with him.

However, I do believe that he has committed an error in his own reasoning. I wonder, if people are generally good, then why is there an abundance of evil?  Shouldn't there be less evil by the very nature of the fact that everyone has a clear understanding of the moral absolutes?  Now he does contend that not everyone does have a clear understanding of the moral absolutes for we are after all, "just human."  But then, would that mean that there is something fundamentally wrong with us?  That in fact we do not "just know" what the moral absolutes are?  Does not the very fact that we do not "just know" what the moral absolutes are, that we are indeed "just humans" who fail at those moral absolutes, suggest that there is a standard of rightness that we are to live toward and that somehow we need a teacher who is not "just human" to teach us those moral absolutes?  For if the teachers are all "just human" then how can we be sure that they teach us correctly?  It seems to me that at some point, if we are to recognize that we do not "just know" moral absolutes, then we are going to need someone to show us both in word and in deed just what a fully moral, dare I say, righteous life is.

The Idolatry of Heavenly Comfort

Whenever I'm asked to speak at a funeral I will at some point read the following Scripture:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, 

and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of

heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice 

from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, 

and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, 

neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, 

for the former things have passed away.”
(Revelation 21:1-4 ESV)

Now I have always read this passage for a couple of reasons.  First, I had always heard it read at funerals and it seemed that it was sort of expected.  Secondly, I read it because of the comfort that people receive.  I believe that this verse and for that matter all of Revelation was written in part to give Christians comfort in the glory to come.  However, I believe that the comfort one receives often comes from a misguided focus on the text.

I read this Scripture at funerals because the grieving family is comforted by the thought that every tear is wiped away, that death will be no more, that there will be no more mourning, crying, or pain.  All of this is true and again, I believe it is there to bring us comfort.  There is comfort in knowing that one day all the pain will be gone.

However, I must admit that I have mishandled this Scripture.  The fact is that I have used this Scripture to point people to the idea that there will be no more tears.  The text though is not about this.  The text is about why there is no more pain and suffering.  The text is about, "He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God."

If one continues on in the reading, the text moves forward giving a grand description of the new Jerusalem.  Everything is amazing.  The city is of pure gold with jasper walls adorned with all kinds of precious jewels.  Then one comes to the heart of the message:

"No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, 

and his servants will worship him." (Revelation 22:3 ESV)

When we read this text we may find comfort in the knowledge that there will be no more pain or sorrow; we may be in awe of the wonder of the new Jerusalem but we have to recognize that the text is pointing us to dwell with and to worship the Lord.  It is true that there are no more tears but that is because we are now fully with the Lord.  He is the reason for the pain being gone.  He is the reason for the mourning to cease.  He is the reason for the curse to be no longer.  He is the reason.  To focus on the results of His presence is to make those results our longing.  We long for no more tears and no more pain.  If this though is our longing then this is what our hearts desire and we have made an idol out of the comfort, out of the no more tears and no more pain.

When we read this text it should point us to Jesus and the glory of the Lord.  We can be thankful for all the joy that will come but our desire and longing should not be for no more tears but for the worship and glory of our Lord.  When we long for Heaven it should be because there we are fully with Jesus and we are gathered together to worship Him.  May we desire to be in His presence.  May we desire His glory above all.

Do We Need Another Story about Starving Children and Poverty?

I must admit that as important as I believe it is for all of us to be involved in the fight against poverty there are times where I just don't want to see another story, magazine, blog post, facebook status, or tweet dealing with this issue.  I admit that constantly hearing about it is a drag.  I mean I get it.  Poverty is a huge problem.  To that end I sponsor a child with Compassion International (compassion.com) and serve as a Compassion Advocate.  I've adopted 3 children from Ethiopia.  I serve as an associate for America World Adoption (awaa.org) and regularly speak on adoption and orphan care.  I regularly address the issue in sermons. I work to constantly remind people that this issue is not going away and yet it is important for us to continue to work to end it.  Nevertheless, there are times when I simply want to say that enough is enough and I'd like to hear some good news for a change.  Really, I just want to get lost for a while in mind-numbing nothingness.  I want to pretend for a minute that all is right with the world and whatever is not right is simply not my responsibility.

Then my 9 year old son who lived the first 7 years of his life in Ethiopia reminded me why we have to continue to tell the stories and to continue to inform ourselves on the issue of poverty and the many evils that accompany it.  The other night at dinner he mentioned that he "needed" an ipod.  When asked why he "needed" an ipod he said because "everyone has one."  Fortunately, I had just received in the mail Compassion International's kids' magazine Explore in the mail.  In this month's issue there was a page that had pictures of 4 different "houses" from around the world.  3 of these houses were what we Americans may consider to be shacks made of mud, cardboard, and scraps of metal and plywood.  Then there was one traditional American home.  I used this too illustrate to Feromsa, who has apparently forgotten his life in Ethiopia, that not everyone had such an American home and that they certainly did not have an ipod.  Many of them did not even have food.

Now then, if someone who lived in the struggles of poverty can after just a couple of years in America forget those struggles, then how much more are we who have been blessed to always live here likely to forget unless we are constantly reminded?

Still waiting...

Waiting…oh, the horror.

I hate waiting. Waiting for news – good or bad. Waiting for things to get fixed. Waiting for things to get done. Waiting for the people in front of you to check out. Waiting for a light to turn green. Waiting for the dog to do its business. Waiting, waiting, waiting.


Waiting is something that we tend to do a lot of and yet it is nearly viewed as a sin in our culture. After all, waiting is synonymous with doing nothing. In our culture we value success and success requires that you do something. In our culture we value getting things done, accomplishing tasks, building, growing, inventing, making more and earning more. We don't honor Edison because he waited for a light bulb to turn on. We honor Edison because he made a light bulb. Waiting, just sitting and waiting is considered wasted time. Time in which nothing is getting accomplished.


Of course maybe we just don't understand waiting. Maybe it is in the waiting that things really are accomplished. At least this should be true for a follower of Christ. If we understand waiting as the time in which we are abiding in Christ; the time in which we are in the court of the King; the time when we are at the feet of the Master, then truly nothing greater can be accomplished than being with the Father.


We should also acknowledge that waiting is a struggle because it is in waiting that we feel most out of control. Let's face it, the reason you are waiting is because you cannot speed up whatever it is that you are waiting on. Waiting for something means that something is out of your hands. But isn't this precisely the best place to be – out of control? More precisely to be in God's control. This is what it means to believe in Christ, isn't it? To trust in His sovereignty and to have our lives in His hands.


Perhaps the reason I hate waiting is that too much of the time I am waiting alone. Instead of abiding in Him I am abiding in my own mind, my own desires, and my own strength. Perhaps the reason I hate waiting is because in doing so I have nothing to "show" anyone of what is being accomplished. Then again nothing could be better than to show a life of one who is waiting in the arms of the Father, desiring to know Him, and to delight in His glory.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5 ESV)

"For a day in your courts is better
        than a thousand elsewhere.
    I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
        than dwell in the tents of wickedness."
(Psalm 84:10 ESV)