Dear Friends,
Having now married off two of four daughters as of last weekend, I can say with confidence that family weddings are too much fun to leave to the “professionals.” I suppose it’s not for everybody, but when it comes to weddings, Dunham nuptials are a full-contact sport.
To wit: Megan made 28 cakes (including the one for the bride and groom); Maddie designed the program and coordinated the bachelorette party as Matron of Honor; Millie did everyone’s hair; Katie served as reception emcee; family from out-of-town put together all the food for the reception; I (with stellar help from family friend and wedding coordinator, Ali Herron) tried to anticipate and meet needs in real-time.
And Chloe? She was an easy-going bride who was grateful for everything being done on her behalf; thus, it was a joy to celebrate her marriage to Brian (who was equally appreciative).
Thanks to everyone who prayed and/or provided a gift for the new couple as they begin their new life together. As a family, we were honored by the many good wishes directed our way.
Enjoy this month’s Second Drafts. Thanks for reading and praying for our family.
Craig (for Megan)
Seeds of My Pastoral Pursuit
Now that the wedding has come and gone, Megan and I turn to begin planning in earnest our move from Montana to Illinois this summer for the purpose of joining the staff of Exodus Church. We hope to have more specifics to share next month, but in this update, I wanted to include an email from a friend in higher education who shared some general observations and honest concerns about our plans. He wrote:
“Hello again. I have been thinking about you lately and after reading your tome, I had a thought that keeps hitting me in light of what I know about you. I may be crazy but hear me out.
It seems like the spot for you is a Bible or philosophy teacher at a classical school where you are thoughtfully engaged as head of the faculty and developing a world and life view curriculum. Maybe I am way off and maybe I am missing some things there. [Our mutual friend] is not easily impressed or motivated by people and if you could fire him up over his thinking on curriculum, you have a gift.
You really enjoy writing and are good at it. You don't enjoy schmoozing so upper management is not a good fit but a spot where you can thoughtfully discuss and develop teaching and curriculum with a team seems to fit. You are never going to ‘show’ well in terms of first impressions being slick or super cool. I think that it is in time when people have a chance to sit down over coffee or read your writings that they will start to see the value and thoughtfulness you bring to the table that is much deeper than the slickness of others. I think that is why a head of school or president is not a good fit as you value curriculum, developing worldview and integration, more than a flashy new building or state champion football team.
I do not want to in any way poopoo the idea of the church but I just am fearful that it will not allow you to follow some of those gifts that you have. I hope this does not come across as critical but I want what is best for you and your gifts or inklings and do not want to see your gifts not used to their fullest. Once again, this is a thought and I may be way off but wanted to put that out there.”
Though I’ve only known him for about a year, I was impressed with both the honesty and depth of his observations (particularly the “You are never going to ‘show’ well in terms of first impressions” line—story of my life!). After praying, I emailed him back:
“Thanks for your email. I appreciate hearing from you and am honored that you would have my best interests in mind. [Our mutual friend] will tell you I’m pretty hard to offend (especially when others I trust are involved), so no worries there.
Your observations are not missing much, other than the fact that my gifts have never seemed to be ones anyone wants! Part of the problem is I don’t have a doctorate (just two seminary masters), so that works against me in the education realm; the other part of the problem is I don't have an MDiv, which limits me in the church world (and what I'm trying to amend with Hebrew, ordination, etc.).
You wouldn’t believe the number of opportunities I’ve applied for that fall right in line with what you suggested—I’m talking dozens and dozens, everywhere from small Christian colleges to larger universities with study centers, etc.—but I’ve never so much as gotten an invitation to interview at any of those. Twenty years ago (or maybe even ten), this would have bothered me a great deal, but after my experiences of being let go from the two schools I led and God seemingly shutting (literally) every door but the pastoral one, I’m happy to have a sense that this is the direction to go.
I may still be able to do some of the things you mentioned (curriculum development, writing, etc.) in the context of what I’m doing in Springfield, but again, my experience has been that, despite how good my writing is and how many different things I’ve done, I’m usually on the receiving end of Acts 19:15: ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?’
So, I've chosen to take the way of Francis Schaeffer in “No Little People, No Little Places,” seeking to serve in smaller and smaller arenas, that God may ‘extrude’ me if/as he sees fit. If he doesn’t (and he sure hasn’t seemed to), that’s fine. All I really care about (at least in terms of any ‘success’) is that my girls know and love God, that Megan and I stay happily married, and that we’re willing to follow God wherever...including flyover country and the Land of Lincoln, which is not nearly as sexy as Boz Angeles, but then again, neither am I!
That said, I’ll keep thinking about what you wrote and let you know if something else comes about that might be in line with what you’re proposing. I don’t take lightly the words that trusted friends share, so know that your words don’t fall on deaf ears; I’m just not what God seems to be looking for in the areas you described and have come to grips (to a degree) with my role as clay in the Potter’s hands.”
We exchanged another email or two and he seemed satisfied with my responses. But in addition to the good exchange, our discussion got me thinking that it might be helpful in this forum to lay out what I consider to be the seeds of my pastoral pursuit (in other words, and for those who are wondering, this is not just some mid-life crisis).
Spurgeon’s Influence
“It is a fearful calamity to a man to miss his calling…it is imperative upon him not to enter the ministry until he has made solemn quest and trial of himself as to this point.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon in Spurgeon’s Lectures to His Students
After 12 years of ministry (1993-2005) with The Navigators in Colorado Springs, I came to Covenant Seminary in St. Louis (2005-2011) because I wanted my main job and focus for that time to be the study of the Scriptures. I longed to be newly, deeply, and personally inspired by ideas and instruction from others, in a frequent and formal way, and in a setting and environment conducive to this intense input. I also hoped that, as a result, God would clarify his calling for my life and future ministry.
For any of this to take place, Megan and I felt a drastic lifestyle change was necessary, one that removed a majority of distraction and placed limits on our ministry responsibilities over a period of time longer than a sabbatical or extension-learning program would. We also thought a new setting—one made up of other families pursuing similar goals (and with many of the same financial and family challenges)—would be beneficial to making it through this potentially turbulent period.
While I believed I had some pastoral gifting, I had not necessarily envisioned (but at the same time had not negated) becoming a pastor; my thinking and goals at that time were more along the lines of preparing for advanced academic study at the doctoral level, as well as to ensure that any new role in the future might provide time for my writing. But after coming to Covenant, reading five books on the topic of pastoring and a 200-page reader as part of Professor Jerram Barrs’ Pastoral Theology class, I sensed a change of heart occurring and a new openness to a pastoral pursuit (though I still viewed that within more of a Christian education context).
Spurgeon’s Four Evaluators
Charles Spurgeon, often called “the Prince of Preachers,” in his Lectures to My Students, lists four evaluators of what he deems “the heavenly call” to the pastorate. Walking through each of these, I am encouraged that, if I have perhaps rightly heard his voice, God has over time and finally now may be calling me to be a pastor:
“The first sign of the heavenly call is an intense, all-absorbing desire for the work…This desire must be a thoughtful one. It should not be a sudden impulse unattended by anxious consideration.”
As far as I can tell, the seeds of my pastorsl pursuit go back at least twenty years. In April 12, 2000, I wrote in my journal that,
“I am wondering if God is leading elsewhere, as I sense an increasing desire for pastoring, teaching, and administration emerging deep within me that I wonder if is to be used in a different part of the body of Christ. Despite these yearnings, I am unclear as to where or for what purpose that may be, as well as the context and community in which any of it would take place. The needs for these gifts are great; the calling, however, is elusive at this point in time.”
This entry was not in response to leaving a job uninvolved in ministry for ministry; on the contrary, this was my reply to seven years of intense and focused ministry with The Navs. While it is the first mention of the word “pastoring” I can find in my writing, its use wasn’t to get out of non-vocational ministry, but rather to get deeper into it, and that was after seven years of student ministry, and another three in college.
“There must be an aptness to teach and some measure of the other qualities needful for the office of a public instructor…A man must not consider that he is called to preach until he has proved that he can speak.”
Teaching has been in my blood from the beginning. My grandfather and mother were both educators, and over the years, God has given me many different opportunities and venues to develop my teaching skills, along with the confidence to utilize them in this way. To learn in order to help others learn to “get” whatever it is they want/need to “get” has been a strong driving force in my life. This is why I love to write; this is also why I love—yes—to teach.
“He must see a measure of conversion-work going on under his efforts…As a man to be set apart to the ministry, his commission is without seals until souls are won by his instrumentality to the knowledge of Jesus.”
While difficult to gauge accurately in terms of scope, the depth of difference in others whom God has impacted through my life and ministry seems real enough, both to me and to them. More important is that those of whom I am thinking were not influenced only from a distance by my writing or music, but rather from a personal closeness more congruent with a pastoral-type ministry. In every role I’ve occupied and in most relationships I’ve enjoyed, multiple people have seen me as their “pastor”—mostly figuratively, but for some (despite my protests), quite literally.
“It is needful as a proof of your vocation that your preaching should be acceptable to the people of God….”
This, I suppose, is the last piece of the pastoral puzzle to fall into place; that is, after twelve years of ministry training with The Navigators and six years of seminary training at Covenant, would God lead some congregation somewhere to issue their stamp of approval on my preaching and pastoring potential by calling me to be and become their pastor? This calling is what I am working toward with the Presbytery of Northern Illinois; the hope of this possibly becoming a reality has been life-giving.
The Call to the Ministry
Toward the end of his lecture called “The Call to the Ministry,” Spurgeon wrote:
“A really valuable minister would have excelled at anything. There is scarcely anything impossible to a man who can keep a congregation together for years, and be the means of edifying them for hundreds of consecutive Sabbaths; he must be possessed of some abilities, and be by no means a fool or ne’er-do-well. Jesus Christ deserves the best men to preach His Cross, and not the empty-headed and the shiftless.”
By God’s grace, I want to avoid living as “a fool or ne’er-do-well”…“empty-headed,” and “shiftless” as a pastor, despite the following admonition (which, if I’m honest, when I first read it in seminary kept me from pursuing the traditional pastorate):
“‘Do not enter the ministry if you can help it,’ was the deeply sage advice of a divine to one who sought his judgment. If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor, or a grocer, or a farmer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a senator, or a king, in the name of heaven and earth let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fulness, for a man so filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit by that for which his inmost soul pants. (26-27)
I’ve done a lot of different things over the past 30 years, and indeed, I’ve been wearied by many of them. I’ve also been in and around the church all my life and have no illusions that becoming a pastor is an easy gig (it’s hard being a shepherd; sheep bite).
But, over the past three years of being in what has felt like a vocational wilderness (and despite my many attempts to follow Spurgeon’s counsel to, “if you can do anything else, do it”), Jesus has funneled and fueled my heart’s desire to be a shepherd for His people—caring for His world, proclaiming His Word, and building His Church by making disciples who make disciples.
That’s what this pastoral pursuit is—and, as I look back, has always—been about.
How You Can Pray
Toward that end (and because several have asked), would you please pray God’s will for us over this next month concerning the following?
For a home in central Springfield that we can call our own and share with others
For a teaching position for Megan at one of the Christian schools in Springfield
For a strong finish to Hebrew and a good effort in writing the exegetical paper
For clarity in thinking about what to pack, how to transport it, and when to move
For good and meaningful closure with friends in Bozeman
For courage to meet and make new friends in Springfield
As with my friend’s email above, we welcome your questions and feedback.
Review: Jesus Revolution
Earlier this week, Megan and I took advantage of half-price night at our local Regal Theater to see the newly-released Jesus Revolution. Here’s the trailer:
Normally not one for so-called “Christian” movies (this one was made by the same folks who produced I Can Only Imagine and American Underdog, neither of which I saw), I told Megan on our way into the theater that I hoped this “untold origin story of the last spiritual awakening” would not:
beat to death the worn out “religion vs. relationship” horse to explain what went into the beginnings of the so-called “Jesus Movement” of the late 60s/early 70s
over-explain or under-represent the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the hippies coming to Jesus
suck
Thankfully (and with only a few cringe moments), the script and cast held together in its presentation of the story of Calvary Chapel and its place in the evolution of American evangelicalism (though there are definitely differing perspectives as to what did or did not happen back in those days in California). Here are my thoughts:
What It’s About
The movie tells the story primarily focused on the interactions of three main characters: Chuck Smith, the older pastor who accepts the idea of being a traditional pastor to non-traditional hippies; Lonnie Frisbee (yes, that’s his real name), the charismatic Christian hippie who serves as the bell cow for the rest of the growing hippie congregation to follow; and Greg Laurie, a struggling young “square” who gets swept along with the hippie crowd and comes to faith through the church (and Frisbee specifically), finding meaning for his future (spoiler alert) as an eventual pastor himself.
Interspersed through the story run several main themes: the search for Truth (capital T) and meaning; the emptiness of the psychedelic drug scene; the generational tension between old and new, not only in the church but in American culture itself; the impact and importance of music in causing and capturing the emotion of faith; and the power of a community of desperate people coming together to help one another. (Note: for an excellent summary of the cultural context of the time, read this excellent Time Magazine article from the summer of 1971, which figures in as an actual literary element in the film).
Cast & Crew
The acting (of the three principals, at least, as well as Laurie’s love interest/eventual wife in the film, Cathe, played naturally by Anna Grace Barlow) is quite good. Kelsey Grammer of Frasier fame makes the absolute most of a shallow script for his character as Smith, and Jonathan Roumie (who plays Jesus in the very popular biblical series, The Chosen) is full of energy as the engaging Frisbee. Joel Courtney was new to me on screen, but played a thoughtful (if perhaps a little moody) Laurie. Other cast members were a little stiff or stereotyped in their roles (the overbearing older church member; Cathe’s father; Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Greg’s mother), but don’t have much screen time to take run it off the rails.
From a technical standpoint, the film is a new level of “Christian” filmmaking in terms of production values, and I even liked aspects of Brent McCorkle’s original soundtrack, as well as the fact that he brought in music from what was then the Calvary Chapel band, Love Song, along with several original recordings of the time period from the likes of The Edgar Winter Group (“Free Ride”), The Doobie Brothers (“Listen to the Music”), and Up with People (“Carry It with You”). (Note: I confess that while I had heard of Love Song, I had never actually listened to their music, which I did the following afternoon riding around in the FedEx truck. The band was quite talented musically, the songs were singable, and I enjoyed their live album, which included this song and accompanying testimony about their background.)
Where Revolution Breaks Down
Where Jesus Revolution (and most “Christian” films) stumbles is (surprise) capturing the Person and work of an invisible God in the lives of a wide variety of people in a two-hour movie. The tendency (as mentioned above) is to either over-explain or under-represent what’s going on, and while I appreciated that the writers chose the latter over the former (not always the case), there was a lot that was assumed (about baptism, about ecclesiology, about Christology, etc.) that leaves things wide open for emotional interpretation, much like the actual Jesus Movement did.
For me, if there is a critique of the film (and of the Jesus Movement then, and of modern evangelicalism now), it is that it’s one thing to talk to, sing about, and love Jesus, but which Jesus are you talking to, singing about, and loving? And how do you know if you’ve got the right one, particularly when all of us are quite capable of anthropomorphism (making God in our image)? Much of the movie’s Christology centers on Jesus as the original hippie, but is this any different from so much of our anthropomorphism of the past 50 years, whether we’re making Jesus in our image as the ultimate social justice warrior (SJW) or as a card-carrying member of the now-defunct Moral Majority? To combat things like this, the early church developed succinct Christological summaries like the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds, but few modern churches recite them anymore.
Still Worth Watching
With those things in mind, Jesus Revolution is still worth watching and I’m glad we went to see it. If you’re interested in going further down the Jesus Movement rabbit hole, there’s plenty of reading online, some glorious and some very sad (the movie didn’t go into it, but Lonnie Frisbee’s background, struggles, and end of life story are heartbreaking). To be sure, it was a fascinating time culturally and spiritually, and I applaud the filmmakers for taking their best shot at capturing some of it.
Now to get back to some retrolicious Love Song tunes…
Thanks again for reading! Until next month…