Over the past several years, I have experienced a huge paradigm shift in my thinking about life and ministry. As a result, I have watched with interest how this shift has affected my theology and my ministry practice.
Below is a brief explanation of the shift that has occurred, and a few of the resultant ramifications.
The Shift
I no longer view myself as pastor, or church planter, but as a missionary…and not just any missionary, but a missionary to a cross-cultural, unreached people group. In plain English, I view myself as a person who wants to introduce Jesus to a group of people who don’t know much (if anything) about Him, and as far as they are concerned, don’t really care to know Him.
The Ramifications:
There are many changes I’ve gone through, but here are four examples:
1. A Shift in “ministry” time.
While a pastor primarily does ministry among the people of his church, a missionary focuses on the people who are not yet part of a church. He immerses himself among them and learns their culture, their language, their issues, their needs, and their concerns. He lives life with them and among them.
Practically, while in the past, I have spent most of my pastoral time in the church office and with church people, in the future, I want to spend most of my time out of the church office, and with the people of the community.
2. A Shift in Vocation.
A pastor wants to get paid by the people of the church so he can free himself up to do “ministry.” This is not bad, but a missionary will often get a job in the community so he or she can live and work among the people, and be seen as one of them.
I don’t yet know what I’m going to do, and maybe some of my income will come from the “church budget” but ideally, I want to be living and working among the community. This also has the added benefit of freeing up as much money as possible to actually serve the community.
Many churches are handcuffed by pastoral salaries and building mortgages. Imagine what the church could do in the community and around the world if it didn’t have to pay for pastors or buildings!
3. A Shift in Bible translation. (This one I can hardly believe.)
As a pastor who focused primarily on preaching and teaching believers, I wanted a Bible-translation that was as close to the Greek and Hebrew as possible. Now, I want to use a Bible that is as close as possible to the language of the people I am working among.
When Wycliffe goes into a community to translate the Bible, they don’t try to make a translation that is hard to read but instead, while trying to maintain accuracy, try to get a translation that is as close as possible to the vernacular. So, while I used the NASB and the NKJV, I now think I’m going to switch to the NLT.
4. A Shift in how Truth meets life.
I used to be a professional theologian-pastor. All I did was read, write, think, talk, and teach about the Bible and theology.
I now believe that while doing so is valuable and important, if it does not result in loving and serving others (especially those who are not followers of Jesus), then I don’t really know the truth I talk so much about. While some pastors can afford to live and work in an ivory tower, missionaries must get down and dirty. Theology must come to grips with life.
I have discovered that as I try to live with and love other people (especially those who are not like me and don’t believe the way I do), a lot of what I thought and taught becomes much less important. Knowing the various views of the rapture are not that important when you are talking to a drug addict who is facing divorce.
Truth, I believe, is both tested and forged on the anvil of relationships.
If you are undergoing similar shifts, please let me know in the comments below. Maybe I will add more as I think of them.
Very good description of the shifts necessary to live a sent/missionary life that is so crucial to connect with today’s culture not to mention one that is more consistent with the missionary nature of God. Keep up the good work!
Amen, Amen, Amen and of course, Amen!
You and I could talk for hours in a coffee shop or (run for your lives) a tavern.
Great! The world needs more pastors like you who realise they are missionaries. The church also needs them, because otherwise it will slowly die.
Jeremy, thanks for the kind words. I ran upon your site via google alerts a couple of days ago. Look forward to keeping up, added your feed as well.
Mike,
I’m counting on it someday. One way or another, we must meet and talk.
Brad,
How did I not know about your blog? I clicked on your name, and after reading several posts, realized I had found a blog to add my “top 10.” I will also add you to my bloglines reader. Keep the great posts coming!
Peter,
I really enjoyed reading your blog as well, and it is now in my bloglines reader. Thanks. Quite a series on tongues!
Jeremy,
I couldnt agree more with your thoughts on ministry. The more I study the church… I mean the assembly… and the officers of that assembly… I mean the minstries of that assembly, the more convinced I am that we have really rendered ourselves highly ineffective and very inefficient in our efforts to fulfill the great commission. I pray the light continues to come on for you as it does for me.
Eddie,
Good to hear from you!
I like your comment. I smiled as I read it becuase it reflects some of the confusion we are all facing about what to call ourselves and how to describe who we are and what we do. I struggle with this terminology all the time.
Well, I really want to write a reply to this, but now I am feeling exactly like your post On Writing Books about trying to decide what needs to be left unsaid! I’ll try to be breif, but it’s so difficult expressing how and why my thinking has drastically changed.
Over the years my husband and I often felt caught between not feeling comfortable with titles, and then others feeling like they can’t relate if we didn’t call ourselves by some title.
We were missionaries in Hungary and Slovakia around the time we were first married in 1995, and were wanting to return to central Europe for many years afterward to visit our family in Christ. We’re currently living here in Slovakia again.
Back in the States we most recently had been part of General Baptist churches we were usually involved as worship leaders and Sunday school teachers, my husband a deacon. We were often misunderstood when we could not in good conscience agree to being paid for any of these “ministries.” But it just wasn’t super clear for us why, until this last year.
We believe God led us back last year (12 years later, this time with our 2 kids in tow), though now without any straight church affiliations, just spiritual support of mentors and friends. We came with no other plan than to encourage the faith of our friends here. It looks like it will work for us to stay for just one more school year (my husband teaches in the public school system here in Komarno). Some had been hurt by churches and were just wanting to meet in our home when we arrived.
It was here that I picked up Frank Viola’s books, starting with “Pagan Christianity” and wow! what a difference it has made in the direction we took here! They gave voice and reason why we have always felt adverse to titles, why we felt uncomfortable in making ministry a vocation.
My husband does a very good job in staying on good terms and trying to encourage rather than cause division. If I didn’t follow his cues, I would probably have “disowned” everyone as I went through this shift. So thankfully, he was a huge help to me in discussing the new perspective we’d gained (which was more like confirmation of what we already believed), and helping me get through the stage of wanting to despise the institutional church and anything that slightly smelled of it. (I experienced a deep aversion at first, and he was sure that that wasn’t the right, godly response.) I am glad that I listened…and continued reading.
Because eventually God brought me back around to Jesus being the focus and allowing all the other stuff to go. Church isn’t a business, it is the living bride of Christ. Bringing Jesus to those around us is our calling as Christians. Letting Him reveal Himself through us…that is what His desire is.
Okay, that’s one long reply, but I hope this adds to the encouraging discussion.
Esther,
Wow, what a great, encouraging story! Why will you stay for just one more year?
Does your husband teach in English, or the local language? How did he find this job?
Frank Viola’s books have been helping me as well, though I am not sure I fully agree with everything, he is challenging me to think, which I value above all else.
I really want to learn more about your journey and your present ministry. I hope some of it is on your blog?
Thanks for asking about us. It’s always fun to share!
Well, we aren’t sure we will even be able to stay next year due to difficulties in our paperwork. But if it works out, for us to continue on, we are open to whatever God’s plan may be in how long we stay. We have both family and family in the faith back at home that we feel drawn to be with, just as we had hoped for some time with our friends here.
Yes, my husband teaches English in a Slovak elementary school here. Since we had lived and worked here in the late ’90’s, both of us as ESL teachers, we had some connections that helped us get settled this time around too. I am only teaching English minimally this time, as I homeschool our kiddos.
This post in particular > http://esztertun.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/have-you-read/ tells a little more.
My blog mostly explains what I’ve been learning personally, and then there are a few posts for our relatives back home about our general interests. I haven’t written much in the blog that describes what we are doing here. I guess I feel like it is personal, down-to-earth, real life, or not really blog-worthy.
We are not being led into a mammoth-sized work; quite the opposite really. Meeting in our flat was how some of them had come to Christ and felt comfortable meeting in the same way again. Some understand the concept of “organic church” being each member bringing something to the table like it’s described in the New Testament. Others expect it to turn into something bigger with a big name. Maybe they’ll always be of that persuasion. Our job isn’t to bash other believers and their idea of church. But we are praying that we can just live out our faith together, grow spiritually, teach each other, and love each other all because Jesus is living through and in us.
What is really cool is that some of our family back in Indiana is heading down the same road, so to speak. So were journeying together, e-mailing back and forth, but so far apart. God is showing us how real he is!
My wife just said to me on Monday…”How about teaching ESL overseas?” My heart actually jumped at the idea. I’m not sure what that means. It looks like you at least know the language there? I don’t know any foreign languages.
I like what you are doing to live as an organic church. It will be interesting to see how that develops.
Thanks for the link. I’m headed over to read it right now.
The language barrier is far from ideal when getting to know brothers and sisters in Christ. Lots gets lost in translation! We study Hungarian, and most of the population of the town we live in is bilingual in Hungarian and Slovak. (Komarno, Sk. is just across the Danube from Hungary.) But this also creates a healthy situation which makes the locals close to each other and not dependent on us. They expect that at some time we’ll head home.
As for teaching English, the best way to learn a language is for the teacher to only speak the language you are learning. This really facilitates learning faster, teaches the student to do the footwork of researching what they don’t understand, and having to output whatever they have learned. As you can imagine, it’s always easier to understand a language first, and super hard to create the sentences yourself. The teacher must just start out very simplistically and build on it.
This is the best certification program in our opinion: http://www.cambridgeesol.org/exams/teaching-awards/celta.html
Thank you very much. I will look into it.
Does it pay okay? Do they cover moving expenses?
Since I contributed to your book, Finding Church, I have since been earning my living working with a hospice company. It has afforded me incredible opportunities to build relationships with not-yet believers and to demonstrate and declare the gospel in everyday life situations. In fact, all of us in leadership in our church earn our living outside the church budget. It has been incredibly freeing and I’m doing more ministry than I ever did as a full-time vocational pastor–that is, I’m ministering ‘with’ others to those who are not-yet believers rather than ministering ‘to’ and ‘for’ people in the church.
Wow! I am thrilled to hear about what is going on in your life now, Carey. I love where you have landed and what it sounds like you are doing. Jesus leads us all on quite the adventure, doesn’t He?