Soren Kierkegaard once wrote: "Order the parsons to be silent on Sundays. What is there left? The essential things remain: their lives, the daily life with which the parsons preach. Would you, then, get the impression by watching them, that it was Christianity they were preaching?"
Do the people you serve know you are a Christian? What if you were to lose your voice? What if it were to become illegal to preach on Sundays? Would your daily life add up to a sum total where there was no arguing what you believed? Or, better yet, in whom you believed? Kierkegaard was awefully hard and demanding of the clergy of his day. It leaves me laughing as to what he would discern about today's "parsons"! Yet, you and I, serving in obscure places and obscure people with obscure results must live our lives in such a way that we fulfill Jerome's desire for a pastor: Sacerdotis Christi os, meus, manusque concordent...A minister of Christ should have his tongue, his heart, and his hand agree. Those are powerful words. They are also a potent and powerful witness.
Living in a small community has its up and downs, it positives and negatives, plusses and minuses. Yet, there is no other place I would rather be! How about you? Are you looking at your present appointment, placement, job, as just a bottom rung of the ladder? Is it just the first step up a flight of ministerial stairs getting you to the top floor eventually? Or, are you actually in love with HIS people and HIS place and HIS timing? "If you love me, feed my sheep." If you can attest to that fact - you love Him and His people - then remember two of the most important Latin quotations I have come across:
1.) Vita clericorum liber laicorum - The life of the clergyman is the book of the laymen.
2.) Vita clerici evangelium populi - The life of the clergyman is the gospel of the people.
Make your life an open book. Make that book the gospel. John Wesley stated he wanted to be homo unius libri - a man of one book. May all of us serving small churches in small communities with small resources remember that our lives truly are the gospel which the community knows. How we act at the local sporting event; conduct ourselves at the PTO meeting; what comes out of our mouths while waiting in line at the gas station; the faces we make while getting behind a tractor - or, tobacco wagon here; all of these are much more important to the people we have been called to serve than the words we utter on any given Sunday. Kierkegaard's point is well taken.
Do the people you serve know you are a Christian? What if you were to lose your voice? What if it were to become illegal to preach on Sundays? Would your daily life add up to a sum total where there was no arguing what you believed? Or, better yet, in whom you believed? Kierkegaard was awefully hard and demanding of the clergy of his day. It leaves me laughing as to what he would discern about today's "parsons"! Yet, you and I, serving in obscure places and obscure people with obscure results must live our lives in such a way that we fulfill Jerome's desire for a pastor: Sacerdotis Christi os, meus, manusque concordent...A minister of Christ should have his tongue, his heart, and his hand agree. Those are powerful words. They are also a potent and powerful witness.
Living in a small community has its up and downs, it positives and negatives, plusses and minuses. Yet, there is no other place I would rather be! How about you? Are you looking at your present appointment, placement, job, as just a bottom rung of the ladder? Is it just the first step up a flight of ministerial stairs getting you to the top floor eventually? Or, are you actually in love with HIS people and HIS place and HIS timing? "If you love me, feed my sheep." If you can attest to that fact - you love Him and His people - then remember two of the most important Latin quotations I have come across:
1.) Vita clericorum liber laicorum - The life of the clergyman is the book of the laymen.
2.) Vita clerici evangelium populi - The life of the clergyman is the gospel of the people.
Make your life an open book. Make that book the gospel. John Wesley stated he wanted to be homo unius libri - a man of one book. May all of us serving small churches in small communities with small resources remember that our lives truly are the gospel which the community knows. How we act at the local sporting event; conduct ourselves at the PTO meeting; what comes out of our mouths while waiting in line at the gas station; the faces we make while getting behind a tractor - or, tobacco wagon here; all of these are much more important to the people we have been called to serve than the words we utter on any given Sunday. Kierkegaard's point is well taken.
Thanks for the wonderful message, Steve. I often wonder if I'm living out loud enough. I guess if I'm wondering, the answer may be no. What a blessing you are to your community.
ReplyDeleteTony
thanks tony. your kind words are encouraging. i hope and pray that God not only blesses us and leads us but also that our work will bring him honor. Love you, brother and hope you have a fantastic week!
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