On “Finishing Well” and a “Shockingly Supernatural Ending”: Guest Posts at The Gospel Coalition and Gospel-Centered Discipleship
Today I have a guest post on two different websites. I didn’t coordinate it to be that way, but I’m thankful.
The first guest post is a book review for The Gospel Coalition. A scholar and pastor named D. A. Carson wrote a book about his father called Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson. The publisher, Crossway, recently published a new edition, and TGC asked me to review it. (It’s a great book, by the way.)
The second guest post is for Gospel-Centered Discipleship and is about the surprise ending of Paul’s letter in 1 Corinthians. Having preached through the letter for almost a year, when I got to the end of the letter, I would have expected Paul to be cold, perhaps angry, with the church. I was very wrong.
As appetizers, I’ll put the opening paragraphs from each article below. I’d love for you to click over and read them in full, even perhaps sharing them online.
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Why Finishing Well Matters More Than Visible Success: Review: ‘Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor’ by D. A. Carson
I already felt overbooked with weddings and studying for my ordination exams and a scheduled shoulder surgery when, unexpectedly, a key pastor left our church. Then the congregation put me in charge.
As often happens during pastoral transitions, some of our church members left. Yet I was shocked when many more people showed up, asking to take our membership classes and join our small groups. Our staff stretched and scrambled. The rapid growth made the season tough but invigorating.
I’ve often wondered how I would have reacted had the opposite happened. As an ordinary pastor, what would I have done if attendance had plummeted and finances had dwindled? I don’t know.
In Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson, Don Carson, cofounder of The Gospel Coalition and renowned New Testament scholar, tells his father’s story of faithfully serving for decades in a spiritual desert as a pastor, missionary, and caregiver. In the foreword to this republished edition, Mark Dever calls the book “a modern classic” (10). He’s right. It’s exactly the sort of book that needs to be widely read when every news cycle seems to include headlines about pastors leaving the ministry due to discouragement or disgrace.
This book encourages pastors who serve in normal-sized churches with uncertain and seemingly limited results, which tend to be most pastors. These are ordinary pastors, and Tom Carson was one of them. His story celebrates God’s blessings on an ordinary pastor, a happy father who loved his family, and a faithful leader who finished well. (To continue reading, click here.)
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The Shockingly Supernatural Ending of 1 Corinthians
Our church recently celebrated more child dedications than anyone on staff can remember. Commotion and joy and reverence and tears from parents and children filled the stage. But if I listed the names of the parents and children, the list would mean nothing to you. None are famous. You could search the internet and learn a few tidbits, but the list of people would still probably seem ordinary. Just names.
That’s often how people receive the list of names at the end of Paul’s letters. Most of them aren’t famous across the New Testament. Their names are just names.
But since I’ve been pastoring for the last dozen years in the same church, that list of names from our child dedications means more to me than just names. I can tell you which parents struggled with infertility and brutal miscarriages. I know that when some parents stood on stage praying that the church would become their family, they did so because their own family wouldn’t talk to them. I know which parents adopted out of the foster care system. I know the meanings of middle names. Staying in one church for twelve years creates this sort of knowledge.
Sometimes, however, this knowledge can make the relationships between shepherds and sheep more difficult, not easier. It’s easy to love people and pastors when we don’t really know each other. Casual attendance might let us think of a church as friendly and the pastors as nice. But meaningful, extended time together can reveal sin patterns. Such time often shows us blind spots others cannot, or will not, see in themselves. Familiarity can breed contempt more often than love.
When I came to the end of 1 Corinthians, after preaching through the book slowly for a year, I never expected the letter to end the way it does. Long ago, the list of names had seemed blah. When I read their names this time, however, having spent so much time staring at their blind spots and sin patterns, I expected the apostle Paul probably couldn’t stand them.
I was very wrong. (To continue reading, click here.)
* Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash
