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As he was walking by the shore of Lake Galilee, Jesus noticed two fishermen who were brothers. One was nicknamed Keefa (later called Peter), and the other was Andrew, his brother. Watching as they were casting their nets into the water, Jesus called out to them and said, “Come and follow me, and I will transform you into men who catch people for God.” Immediately they dropped their nets and left everything behind to follow Jesus. (Matthew 4.18 – 20, The Passion Translation)

It’s a familiar passage: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Here are some simple observations:

• I think it’s fair that this was a special call to “leave everything behind to follow Jesus.” Not everyone is called in that way. 
• Jesus called Peter and Andrew while they were working! One doesn’t sit around doing nothing while waiting for Jesus’ call. I served 20 years in the Air Force, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1990. I ran a statistical consulting business for another 10 years. I had just returned from Europe where I had been teaching courses in training development for Azusa Pacific University, and I was in Washington, D.C., working with a client on test development when my call came: a literal call from a friend in Alabama asking me to apply for a church staff job in discipleship. I was working, and my immediate response was “not interested.” But we did apply; we were hired, moved from Colorado to Alabama, and started work six months later. 
• The call involves transformation. “I will transform you…” Our time in Alabama was transformational, too, but that’s a subject for another blog!
• The call is for a mission. “…men who catch people for God.” I’m not called for my personal enrichment. Following Jesus is about mission. And as I’ve written here many times, the mission is for ALL, whether we have a special call or not. 2 Timothy 2.2, “What you have heard from me …commit to faithful people who will teach others also.” It’s so easy, anyone can do it, even “lay” people. It’s so important, everyone must do it, even Christian professionals. As one pastor said, “Preaching is my day job; my real calling is to invest in men to make reproducing disciples.”

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I’m going through the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. This week is the section recognizing the Lordship of Christ, a long-time emphasis of The Navigators as well. Often, Christian leaders spend a lot of time trying to talk believers into responding to Jesus’ call on their lives. It seems a shame. Why would we NOT want to follow Jesus wholeheartedly? 

Going back to our lessons from Clemson football (or any excellent athletic program): teams need players’ wholehearted participation. Players may make mistakes, but they should never be lacking in devotion or effort. 

Ignatius puts it this way: 

“All those who have judgment and reason will offer themselves wholeheartedly for this labor.” 

Can you think logically and rationally? Do you have good judgment? Then respond wholeheartedly to Jesus!

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. (Philippians 3.13 – 15, NIV)

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I was shocked, as many Christian leaders were, when George Barna’s research revealed that only 17% of church-goers had heard of the Great Commission and knew what it meant.

One pastor analyzed the problem as pastors’ forgetting what their mission is:

When pastors think exclusively about the gospel as God’s means for serving people instead of the Church’s motivation to serve the world, the Great Commission gets lost in the flurry of church-centric activities. The Great Commission and the glory of God it declares must be more than a verse; it must be the driving force of a disciple-making church. – David Daniels, lead pastor of Pantego Bible Church, Fort Worth, Texas.

It’s back to what I wrote in Sunday’s Join the Adventure blog. The church’s job is to equip ALL members to be “missionary families.” That people can go to church and not even know what the mission is is unthinkable. And, of course, it’s not enough to know what it is, we must see ourselves as on mission to fulfill it. My book, Join the Adventure!: A Call to Christian Discipleship and Mission Suitable for Everyone can get you started.

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Not everyone understands that mathematics can be beautiful. Sometimes we get too mired down in the nuts and bolts to get to the beauty. But here’s a problem from Brilliant.org that is pretty to look at, and the solution is beautiful, as well as astonishing, I think.

The ability to be astonished is something I’m working on this year–to appreciate the beauty in God’s creation or in a well-functioning organization or in the kindness of people. I don’t want to take life for granted. I’ll write more about that later.

So here’s a beautiful problem, just in its appearance.

The question is, what is the total area in orange? There is a formula for the area when circles overlap. It’s medium complicated, and in this case, even with all seven circles of radius 1, pi is involved, as well as the square root of 3. But the answer, surprisingly (astonishingly!), is 2 pi. So the picture is aesthetically pleasing, and the answer is too.

There is beauty everywhere, and we are encouraged to find it:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

(Philippians 4.8, NIV)

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I was talking with a pastor friend the other day, and he was very pleased with the progress his small church had made in 2018. Attendance had doubled, and he attributed that to the “missionary family” that he had prayed for. “God, please send us a ‘missionary family,’ someone who will commit themselves to reach out to people at our local military base and invite them to church.” And God did! 

After sharing his joy, I asked a simple question: “What are you doing to make ALL of your families missionary families?” 

The job of the leaders of the local church is laid out clearly in Ephesians 4.11 – 13. I like the way The Passion Translation captures part of it: 

And their [the leaders’] calling is to nurture and prepare ALL the holy believers to do their own works of ministry, and as they do this they will enlarge and build up the body of Christ. These grace ministries will function until we ALL attain oneness in the faith, until we ALL experience the fullness of what it means to know the Son of God,… [emphasis mine]

The key word is ALL serving, ALL enlarging and building up the body, not just a select few. Another pastor wrote recently, bemoaning the fact that bad weather was keeping people from Sunday morning attendance:  “Nothing can replace being here in person. The purpose of the church is to gather in worship and glorify the Lord together.” 

This sounds to me as if he believes the church leaders’ job is put together a Sunday morning worship service and the parishioners’ job is to be there. 

There’s way more to following Jesus than that! Join the Adventure! If you’re a pastor, help people join the adventure of being “missionary families.” And when God sends you a “missionary family,” see them as part of the leadership team training others. (When you click the link above, you’ll go to the Adventure tab on this blog’s website. There are links to my books and other resources that proclaim this message. One of the best is Imagine Church by Neil Hudson.)

I’ve written on this before and will continue to do so from time to time: it’s part of my ministry emphasis of “Equipping ordinary believers to make a difference where they are…helping willing pastors do the same!”

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It’s been a good week (January 7 – 12, 2019, after Clemson won the National Championship on Monday). I wore my Clemson colors all day Monday through Wednesday, and on Tuesday and Wednesday, I was amazed at how many greetings I got! “Good job!” “Your guys were great!” “Congratulations!” Most of these were from total strangers. No question, it feels good to win!

But I can’t take the personal accolades seriously—I didn’t do anything! While I tell myself that wearing orange way out here in Colorado helps the team, the fact is my total contribution to this season’s success is zero. I’m reminded of Galatians 6.3, 4:

For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.

I knew of a church where it was common to hear, “I’m glad to be part of a church that…” has a prison ministry or helps the poor or sends out relief teams to disaster areas… It’s great to be part of such a church, to be sure, but I am accountable for what I do, not for what people around me do. 

I’m proud to be part of The Navigators, but the question isn’t, “What are The Navigators doing?” Instead, it’s, “Bob, who are you investing in?” Or as my Navigator hero Skip Gray used to say, “Where’s your fruit?”

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. (Romans 14.12)

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It’s trivial, but I just solved a geometry problem! The problem wasn’t trivial, it was medium difficult, but my solving it or not solving it is certainly trivial. I do math for fun, and to keep my brain sharp, I subscribe to Brilliant and try to solve one problem each day. This particular problem has been hanging around since before Christmas, and I just solved it. I had been all around it, but I hadn’t put the pieces together just right until today.

What are the lessons? 

• Persistence is certainly one. I persist until I succeed (sometimes!). We are called to persistence in prayer; see, for example, Luke 18.1. We ought also to persist in tasks that need to be done. Nehemiah persisted through difficulties and finished the wall. 
• Flexibility is another lesson. When one approach doesn’t work, try another. Old-time Navigator Leroy Eims wrote a book called “No Magic Formula,” in which he observed that every Old Testament battle was different. They only marched around the walls to defeat one city – Jericho. Gideon took 300 men and used surprise. Joshua in defeating Ai took a lot of men and used a ruse. Flexibility. Churches are sometimes guilty of running the same program year after year because it worked once. 
• That leads us to creativity. God gave us the gift of creativity. Adam’s’ first task was to name the animals. Joseph was creative in how he reconciled to his brothers while giving them a chance to redeem themselves.

Persistence, flexibility, and creativity: not a bad set of lessons from a geometry problem!

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I’m trying to get into the habit of blogging every day. (Those who do say the first 1,000 days are the hardest!) To do that, I have to write whether or not I feel inspired. I started today with nothing in mind to write so I’m talking with God, and I’m on the lookout for a word.

I started my day by writing three thank-you notes. The idea was that I would get those written and mail them while I was out for a breakfast appointment. So I wrote the notes upstairs and took them downstairs to put stamps on them in preparation for leaving. Then the notes disappeared! The pen that I had written them with was downstairs on my desk (brought down from upstairs), but no notes. I looked “everywhere.” Finally I went to breakfast with no notes to mail.

Then it hit me, “Without me, you can do nothing.” (John 15.5) I can’t even mail a note! I’ve been urging us the past few days to do the next right thing. And that’s good counsel. But it presumes that we’ll do the next right thing in God’s strength and under his guidance. 

I finally found the notes about three hours later…mixed in with note cards that I haven’t used yet. When I put those away, I accidentally included the ones I had already written. 

But I hope I’ve learned something: do the next right thing with God’s help because “Without me, you can do nothing.”

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I am a proud graduate of Clemson University (B.S. in mathematics, class of ’68), and I’m very pleased, of course, with Clemson’s victory Monday night over Alabama.

There’s a lesson in Head Coach Dabo Swinney’s comment at the end of the first half when Clemson was leading 31 – 16: “Ain’t nothin’ less important than the halftime score.” He was saying what I wrote in this blog on January 6, quoting another head football coach Fisher DeBerry: “You’re only as good as your last play.” Dabo urged his team to come out in the second half with the same intensity as the first half and play like the score was 0 – 0. 

Many of us want to rest on our laurels OR let our past poor behavior cloud our future. But Paul wrote, “Forgetting those things which are behind…” (Philippians 3.13). 

Just go out and do the next right thing!

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The Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke tell of two different events in two different places. Luke speaks of the angel’s appearance to the shepherds and their visiting the newborn Jesus in the manger. Matthew tells of the wise men visiting the “young child” in a house some time later.

I just read that the early church has always loved the wise men, but it largely ignored Luke’s shepherds. Drawings of the wise men appeared in the catacombs 200 years before drawings of the shepherds for example. (E.A. Carmean Jr, art historian). The shepherds were low status men, poor, and did not seek out the Messiah until the angels called them. The wise men, on the other hand, were high status, wealthy, and had to work really hard and travel a long way. 

God used them both. The shepherds’ appearance was a confirming sign to Mary and Joseph, and the shepherds started telling about him right away (Luke 2.17). The wise men came later and didn’t tell anyone. However, their gifts would have funded the family for a long time. 

Here are a few simple lessons:

• The Messiah is for all people, rich and poor. 
• God works through ordinary people.
• God often calls people through their work. The shepherds were working when the angel appeared to them. The wise men would have discovered the star as part of their work. For that matter, Jesus called the first disciples while they were at work fishing!