Here’s a small lesson from the story of blind Bartimaeus as found in Mark 10:

They spent some time in Jericho. As Jesus was leaving town, trailed by his disciples and a parade of people, a blind beggar by the name of Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, was sitting alongside the road. When he heard that Jesus the Nazarene was passing by, he began to cry out, “Son of David, Jesus! Mercy, have mercy on me!” Many tried to hush him up, but he yelled all the louder, “Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10.46 – 48, MSG)

Bartimeaus knew what he wanted, and he persisted. Jesus stopped, called him over, and asked explicitly: “What do you want?” The response was clear and immediate, “Rabbi, I want to see!”

Bartimaeus knew that Jesus could transform him, and he was willing to fight through the obstacles to see him. What about us? I’ve written often about how hard it is to help folks start even the most simple spiritual discipline like daily time with God. I’m beginning to agree with Matthew Kelly that it’s not that people don’t think that Jesus can transform them; they don’t want to be transformed! If we wanted transformation, we would be as persistent as Bartimaeus.

[Moses] said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.” (Deuteronomy 32.46 – 47, ESV)

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12.2, ESV)

Relating to a recent message on prayer, here’s something I picked up from the memorial service of Sue Marotta, who passed away suddenly on January 23 at the age of 83. She and Basil had been in full-time ministry for well over 20 years.

Sue, like the apostles (see Acts 5.42), taught “in the temple and from house to house,” according to her friends at the memorial. In a house, her preferred podium was the kitchen table! So what was the prayer lesson? Sue encouraged people to:

Talk to God like he’s your friend! Quit “praying” to him!! -Sue Marotta

That’s a good word from someone who, as I write, can talk with Jesus face-to-face.

Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. (Exodus 33.11, ESV)

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15.15, NIV)

Here’s a follow-up to yesterday’s blog on Mike Treneer’s making an impression on flight attendants simply by paying attention to them.

My friend Clarence Shuler is active in a number of arenas. He and his wife Brenda were just awarded Speakers of the Year by FamilyLife for their work at the Weekend to Remember marriage conferences. Clarence also has written a number of books and frequently helps companies with race relations.

The point of this blog is an encouraging story he shared from his fitness club. A lifelong athlete, tennis player, former college basketball player who traveled with Sports Ambassadors, Clarence still works out whenever he’s in town. The other day he reported this exchange:

At my fitness club last week, the new manager, who has become a friend, said, “You are the mayor of this club. You seem to know everyone and everyone seems to certainly know you!” He asked, “What is your secret?” My response, “I love people.” 

Clarence continued, “Please keep reaching out because people need the Jesus in you!”

Let all that you do be done in love. (1 Corinthians 16.14, ESV)

We have returned from The Navigators’ 2:7 Series Jubilee Conference in Frisco, Texas. Thanks to you all who prayed for this trip! There’s much to be thankful for: it was a soul-stirring time, we connected with a lot of old friends, we had uneventful travel, AND a blizzard that dropped a foot of snow in our area came and went while we were gone!

Here’s another thought from Friday’s talk by Mike Treneer, International President of The Navigators from 2005 – 2015. He said:

The world longs for love, for joy, for peace,…. Sound familiar? Through the Holy Spirit, we have the resources the world needs. We just have to get close enough to people for them to smell the fragrance of Jesus.

Mike illustrated his point by telling this story that supports what I’ve written before about Holy Moments and “ministering grace and love” as one type of fruitfulness. Mike said:

I was on a flight, and as I went to the back of the plane, the flight attendants were talking with one another in the galley area. One of them said, “There he is!” And I thought, “What have I done now?” The flight attendant explained: “You are different from most passengers. You were attentive and aware of us.” 

Mike said it was a decision he made years ago. 

This is my space. If you come into it, you should experience the Kingdom of God.

This gives new meaning to what I wrote in my first book, Join the Adventure: the first two steps to living missionally are just to “be there” and “pay attention.” There’s power, even in that.

In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. (2 Corinthians 2.14, MSG)

We are still at The Navigators’ 2:7 Jubilee Conference in Frisco, Texas. It’s been a great time of seeing old friends, making new ones, and celebrating the 50-year anniversary of The Navigators’ disciple-making tool, the 2:7 series, sometimes called the In God’s Family series. The original developer, my friend Navigator Ron Oertli who is now in his 80s, is here.

Friday night, Mike Treneer, International President of The Navigators from 2005 – 2015, spoke to us about Missional Living that advances the gospel in a fallen and chaotic world. Here’s a highlight: he said something like…

Do you get discouraged that we’re not farther along? Remember the weeds in the field. “An enemy has done this…Don’t pull the weeds!” We’re not called to mess with the weeds. God wants us to work on the wheat. – Mike Treneer

Why do we get upset about the fallenness and chaos of the world? We should expect that and not get derailed by it. In the meantime, continue with what God has asked us to do: make disciples.

And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?” He said to them, “An enemy has done this.” So the servants said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he said, “No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest…” (Matthew 13.27 – 30, ESV)

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… (Matthew 28.18, 19, ESV)

I’m writing from The Navigators’ 2:7 Jubilee Conference in Frisco, Texas, near Dallas.

Here’s a quick thought from Thursday night’s talk from Mutua Mahiaini, International President of The Navigators. Mutua said something like:

Many people think that being a disciple of Jesus is a matter of being nice. It’s nice to be nice, but being a disciple is more than that. Discipleship includes mission. That’s why you don’t find the Great Commission after it was given in Matthew 28. The apostles just assumed it was part of discipleship – part of following Jesus.

Mutua went on to quote from Howard Snyder’s Liberating the Church:

Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy, and truth. Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world.

Mutua went on to remind us that the church at Philippi did very well, and Paul hadn’t even been there very long. But, as Mutua put it, “He left behind local believers carrying the gospel into the normal pathways of life.”

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. (Philippians 1.27, ESV)

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Philippians 2.14 – 16, ESV)

I often pray while riding my exercise bike, and I must confess there are times when I think, “Is this doing any good? Just ‘thinking of certain things’ here in my house?” 

Then I (re)read Matthew 6.6:

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6.6, ESV)

Sounds like a promise to me! And it’s one for which I meet the conditions!

You do not have because you do not ask. (James 4.2, ESV)

P.S. June and I leave this morning, February 6, for the 2:7 Jubilee Conference in Frisco, Texas, returning Sunday morning, February 9. We’d appreciate your prayers! I look forward to sharing highlights of that time with you.

Here’s one more lesson from the John 2 story of Jesus changing the water to wine. It’s a possible application, one that I wouldn’t fight to the death for, but it made sense in a discussion I had recently had with a friend who feels responsible for the moral behavior of his adult grandchildren. It’s not the first such conversation I’ve had with people I respect on what to do about grandchildren, say, living with someone out of wedlock.

It’s not a hypothetical: we and many of our friends have family members not living as we think Jesus would have them live. June and I have chosen to live by principles:

• Our responsibility is to love them where they are and as they are.
• They don’t work for us!
• I am not responsible to God for others’ behavior.

It’s this last that I believe the water to wine story speaks to. My friend mentioned in the first paragraph didn’t want to fund hotel rooms for a family reunion that would be occupied by grandchildren “shacking up.” He said, “Am I not responsible, especially if it’s my money?”

I can’t dictate to others what to do (he doesn’t work for me either!), but I did notice that Jesus made A LOT of wine at that wedding. Probably more than they needed. And if it was a big wedding party, and people then are anything like people now, isn’t it possible that someone got drunk on Jesus’ wine? 

To apply my friend’s logic, Jesus would have said, “I’d like to help you, but I can’t be a party to someone’s abusing alcohol.” To put it into modern-day terms, “I’d like to help you since you’ve gone over budget, but I can’t, you see. I can’t use my money that way.” So I get to save money and attempt to make myself look holy in the process.

When my personal purity becomes an excuse not to help someone, I think I’m on the wrong track. Jesus was clear on that in the story of the Good Samaritan. And, I think, indirectly, in his being willing to make wine for a wedding.

So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. (Romans 14.12, NKJV)

[The conclusion of the story of the Good Samaritan: Jesus asked, ] “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?” “The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, “Go and do the same.” (Luke 10.36, 37, MSG)

I wrote earlier that distraction is one way Satan has derailed the church from its mission. Here’s a version of distraction that also contributes, I believe, to mental health issues among pastors and pastor burnout. 

The problem is that pastors, along with the congregations that hired them, think the pastors are supposed to do everything. Is someone in the hospital, for example? Visiting them is the pastor’s job. Ditto the shut-ins. That’s what we hired the pastor for! 

But that attitude ignores all the “one anothers” in the Bible. We are to care for one another (1 Corinthians 12.21-26), encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5.11, Hebrews 3.13), teach one another (Romans 15.14), and stand with one another in mission (Philippians 1.27). If the pastors do all that, they are depriving the members of their chance to serve, the pastors are wearing themselves out, and they are NOT doing their job of equipping the members to be on mission. 

A friend of mine, a Navigator-trained disciple-maker offered to help a pastor disciple the men of the church. The pastor told my friend, “If anyone in this church teaches the men, it will be me.” I heard a pastor say in a sermon, “My job is to feed the sheep; your job is to serve the sheep by, for example, keeping the nursery on Sunday morning.”

As a result of attitudes and practices like these, the mission effectiveness of churches goes way down.

I need to emphasize that pastors can’t change course by themselves. As Neil Hudson writes in Imagine Church, the pastors need to “renegotiate the contract” from pastor-shepherd to pastor-equipper. A young pastor I was working with came to that conclusion even before he read the book! But he had read the original directive:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ… (Ephesians 4.11, 12, ESV)

I recently read a summary of a new book on spiritual warfare and among the quotes was this paragraph with a great start and, in my opinion, a weak finish:

Satan hates the church and is continually seeking to destroy it (Rev 12:13–17). He tries to find means to derail the church from its mission. This attempted destruction can be done through hypocrisy, false teaching, and persecution (Acts 5:1–11; 1 Tim 1:18–20; Rev 2:9–10, 13; 3:9). [Emphasis mine]

[I’m withholding identification of the book because I haven’t read it, and maybe my concern is addressed elsewhere.]

How does Satan “derail the church from its mission?” These authors say “through hypocrisy, false teaching, and persecution.” How about distraction? We see this clearly in Acts 6 with the widows. And what the apostles would not be distracted from was teaching the word publicly and from house to house:

Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables…We will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” (Acts 5.42, 6.1, 2…4, NIV)

Today’s pastors are distracted by myriad duties associated with “running a church.” Few are able to implement Paul’s basic instruction to Pastor Timothy:

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.1, 2, NIV)

Once at a meeting where I was encouraging the staff of a church in some basic spiritual disciplines, one staffer astutely observed, “We’re so busy doing the business of the church that we don’t have time for the business of the church!”

There are other means Satan uses to derail the church from its mission, and I’ll address them over the next few days.

(A Parable about being distracted by busyness)
And as the king passed, he cried to the king and said, “Your servant went out into the midst of the battle, and behold, a soldier turned and brought a man to me and said, “Guard this man; if by any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.” And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone. (1 Kings 20.39, 40, ESV)