This handout is for a meeting with the Mt Juliet congregation's missions committee, 5 Sep 2013.
"Paul's recollections about the time he and Silvanus and Timothy spent in Thessalonica and the depth of emotions in those recollections might be instructive for a church that seems in danger of treating its ministers like disposable commodities."
—B.R. Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, Interpretation (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998): 9.
First Thessalonians records a church planter who writes in relieved thanksgiving at the faithfulness of the converts under pressure and hopes to consolidate the faith of new Christians in a recently established community. Today's preachers are usually workers whose jobs are to maintain well-established churches and keep the wheels of activity turning. With that difference, it is often hard, it seems, to capture the spirit of deep feeling that Paul demonstrates in 1 Thessalonians.
If you ever feel discouraged, this prayer-poem is for you: "With Darkened Thoughts and Lonely Sighs." I wrote it last night and polished it up this morning. You'll note some Bible allusions in the text. Can you identify them?
These thoughts shooting across the grey matter, jotted down before they dissipate in the night air.
• The Maiden took off for the weekend to stay with a Christian couple we're close to. She'll be back Sunday with them.
• That popular movie service has come our way, and The Maiden figured up it would be cheaper signing up for it than renting DVDs as we've done until now. So we're doing the month's free trial. I've yet to watch anything, but they've watched several. I think Jane Eyre was the first.
• We talked to The Grand Grandbaby and her parents last night. She kept looking behind the monitor for us.
• No Christian meetings of any kind tomorrow (Sat.), for a change. I'll use it to prepare for Bible school lessons. And store up sleep for the hour we'll lose tomorrow night when the time changes. Let's see, we go on DST here, I think it is, to lose an hour.
• Remember the story of the impatient kid who helped the butterfly break out of the chrysalis, only to leave it crippled? We can be like that in sowing the seed of the gospel, too. We want, but want so badly, for people to obey the Word, to take on responsibility in the body of Christ, that we might harm them if we help the process along too much. Overeager to make it happen, we can damage people spiritually. Balance!
Richard is a fine Christian man and I believe he will be a good preacher.
Why am I sharing this with TFR? For two reasons: (1) I hope you will pray for Richard. There are some advantages to his current situations and some disadvantages. I pray the former will outweigh the latter. (2) If you have any words of encouragement for Richard, please share them and I will pass them along to Richard. We need to encourage all preachers, but especially young ones.
More on this young preacher at the link above, where you also may insert into the comments area your encouragement, so that Stephen may have them all in one place.
Service comes naturally to Christians once they begin to appreciate all that has been done for them. As our love for the Christ grows deeper our desire to serve him rises too. It is a natural maturing of our faith that we seek to imitate our Lord in all ways. As he loved and served so we love and serve; we do things that put others first even at discomfort and inconvenience to ourselves.
Let us burn the words of this good brother into our hearts. His whole article deserves a close and careful reading, not once, but twice. And not once does he mention servant leaders! Good for him, since the Bible doesn't either. Click the link above and read it in its entirety.