On being called into ministry

Lisa Spencer2 Comments

This is a slightly edited version of a post I did for Parchment and Pen in 2011. These are some thoughts I spent some years in working out on the question of what it means to be be called into ministry. 

pupit w bibleOne of the essays in my application to Dallas Theological Seminary required that I respond to the question of how I knew I was called into ministry.  While I understood that question to be more related to affirming events that led me to apply to seminary, I find that the idea of being called into ministry has not only been a popular catch phrase but also bears some examination.  I say this because I believe the call to ministry has been designated as a special call to select individuals based on God’s selection for specific ministry roles.  I do believe that has some merit as I indicate below, but I think it might be different than what is commonly thought of as a call.

First, I think the ‘call to ministry’ as designated for select individuals is misleading.  All Christians are called into ministry because all Christians have spiritual gifts that are to be employed for service to the body of Christ (1 Peter 4:10).  That doesn’t require some specified direction but a working out of those gifts as we grow in our Christian walk and seek to serve the body.  1 Corinthians 12:12-24 identifies that everyone has a part to play in the growth of the body (also supported Ephesians 4:16).  I don’t dismiss the fact that God may have specific roles or even specialized ministries that he directs us to (after all the local assembly does require pastors, elders and deacons), but it is more indicative of our progress in the faith and a capacity bear larger burdens for service.

Second, the New Testament witness to the concept of calling is predominantly related to the salvific call of election. God calls individuals into the body of Christ. It is within the service to the body that one works out there inclination. And there is much to be said for passion and desire.  I heard a popular preacher say once that if you want to know what you should be doing pay attention to what drives you and what bothers you when its off.  I don’t believe that should be equated with a critical, fault finding mission, but an inclination of things that God has placed within us.  This is a process and it doesn’t happen overnight. But in time, we will find ourselves inclined and passionate in certain areas of ministry that we will gravitate towards. This actually factored in quite a bit in my essay. Continue reading →

The greatest lesson I’ve learned for successful Christianity

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

man standing on rockI’m not really a task oriented person and shun the standard listicles of how you can have a better life. Our world today gravitates towards simplified pragmatism for improvement and living a Christian life is no exception.

However, I might just break that disposition . . . maybe. There is one principle I’ve learned in all my years of Christian living. It’s the one thing that successes and failures and trials and disappointments and uncertainty and bad church experiences have brought me to time and time again. What is this one principle, you ask?

Get over yourself.

Yep, that’s it. Everything rests on that. Yes, but what accepting Jesus? Well, it starts with that. First, I had to get over myself to even be a Christian. It’s when you realize there is no way that any goodness on your part makes you acceptable to the Father, that your best efforts fall way short and it is only through faith in Christ. It means wholeheartedly accepting his life, death and resurrection and what that means.

Then, I had to try to understand who this God is. Though I spent some years following all kinds of distorted roads, over time, I came to realize that he spoke to us through his written word that testifies to the Incarnate word through whom we come to God in the first place. I came across hard passages, stories that made me cringe, divine actions that made me question, and I ask questions. Lots of questions.

However, in all my years of Bible reading, I’ve recognized the importance of getting over myself. Because you see, I could read hard things, troubling things and then set myself up as judge and jury over God’s actions to determine what I would find acceptable or not. I could shape my own version of Christianity based on my level of comfort and acceptability. But that would make me full of myself. Continue reading →

The church that Christ built (and is building): a Pentecost reflection

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

pentecost doveI’ve had some swirling thoughts today that I wanted to spit out in reflection on Pentecost Sunday. If you’ve read my About page, you’ll know that I’ve gone through quite a theological transformation. My Christian life began with prosperity oriented, Word of Faith, Pentecostal based teaching. I read the Bible in a very fragmented fashion that led to all kinds of erroneous beliefs about Christian faith and practice. I then went through a dispensational/baptistic phase because I started reading the Bible in a more holistic manner and came to recognize the connectedness in Scripture. That evolved in a solidly Reformed position.

I couldn’t help but think of this trajectory as I listened to the sermon today on Acts 2:14-36. In my earlier Christian days, the focus of Acts 2 had been about the evidence of tongues as proof of the Holy Spirit’s work. It demonstrated the miraculous work of the Spirit that moved people to prove their Christian position through extraordinary events. In this view, the Spirit moved individuals to do whatever it is they believed God called them to do based on some existential, individualized perception.

Since 2006, I’ve come to see that Acts 2 is but a reflection of the Christ-oriented nature of Scripture and God’s redemptive plan for his creation. The baptism of the Spirit had less to do with extraordinary events but had everything to do with the testimony and proclamation of Jesus Christ and our empowerment to proclaim him. After all, in John 14-16, Jesus had promised the Spirit after he was no longer with the disciples. Specifically, he said;

But when the Helper comes whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me and you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. (John 15:26-27)

A good trinitarian understanding will negate seeing the Holy Spirit as a rogue agent that propels us to focus on the Spirit’s work apart from the work of Christ. The Spirit’s role is to glorify Christ and point to him according to the Father’s good purpose that he has already revealed. So while it might seem plausible to focus on the the extraordinary works of the Spirit, the central character of Acts 2 is not the 3rd person of the the Trinity, but the 2nd person – Jesus the Christ. (Also, regenerating hearts to believe the gospel IS a miraculous event.) This is wholly demonstrated in Peter’s speech in our sermon passage today, vv. 14-36. Continue reading →

Some honest thoughts on #BlackLivesMatter, the church and real reconciliation

Lisa Spencer4 Comments

black lives matter2I actually started drafting this post some time ago, like a few months ago. When I first started the draft, it was a really tough post for me to write because it involves some issues that are near and dear to me. And tough because it involves people with whom I am united in the bonds of Christ and with whom I find myself increasingly coming into stark disagreement. It’s tough because I know these thoughts, which have been stewing for some time, might cast me and Christians who think like me, in a negative light.

At the heart of the matter is the Black Lives Matter movement and Christians’ endorsement of it. Now a lot of ink has been spilled so I don’t necessarily want to rehash whether Christians should support it or not. I’ve drawn my own conclusions as will be evident in this post. Nor do I want get into the #BlackLivesMatter vs #AllLivesMatter paradigm because I think there is something bigger at stake. I also don’t think framing the issues that way have been particularly helpful.

I actually thought I would leave the issue alone and hence my draft sat, picked at from time to time but never published. However, when I saw this post on Christianity Today, Where John Piper and Other Evangelicals Stand on Black Lives Matter just days after seeing this post from John Piper, What Can We Learn from Black Lives Matter, the way the questions were framed and the ambiguity around supporting Black Lives Matter confirmed a growing concern that I have had, which is this;

#BlackLivesMatter has become the litmus test to racial reconciliation within evangelicalism. Continue reading →

On #LivingRocks, throwing stones and racial reconciliation

Lisa Spencer3 Comments

stones in handsWell, I’ll get to the point. The other day, Dr. Russell Moore penned this piece in the New York Times, A White Church No More. In it, he argues that the swelling support of Trump by evangelicals belies a white institutional vanguard that in actuality, is far from reality. Rather, evangelicalism is a multicultural array of every tongue, tribe and nation (Rev. 7 anyone?)

The center of gravity for both orthodoxy and evangelism is not among Anglo suburban evangelicals but among African Anglicans and Asian Calvinists and Latin American Pentecostals. The vital core of American evangelicalism today can be found in churches that are multiethnic and increasingly dominated by immigrant communities.

Given the intent of the post, from what I read, was to point out that the white evangelical suburban paradigm that was at the heart of Christianity no longer had a stranglehold on the kind of evangelicalism that finds its support in Trump. If I’ve read his article right, he is denouncing the idea that white evangelicalism speaks for what evangelicalism truly is.

Apparently, some Christians weren’t happy with what he wrote, not so much because he challenged the status quo thinking of the majority culture (though I suspect he probably got negative responses on that end). Rather, it’s because what he wrote wasn’t good enough and did not adequately address the real issues of power structures. It represented a continuation of the problem. Continue reading →