A Big Day For Our Family

As many of you know, for the past 8 months, our family has been navigating through the difficult and wonderful process of foster-adoption. Last July, Jasmine (6yrs), Brian (4yrs), and Shamie 3 (yrs) moved into the already chaotic land of the Freng house, and joined with (collided with may be a better phrase) Noah (7yrs), Isaac (3yrs), Dan (31yrs) and Kelly (31yrs) to form a new and expanded family. For those of you who have not visited Kelly's blog, I highly recommend you taking some time to read through some of her posts. I have posted the link (Life As a Party of 7) on the "Blogs I Read" section of this blog. Kelly is a great writer and has done a wonderful job of honestly and humorously (sometimes with a healthy dose of sarcasm) chronicling this journey.

Here is an excerpt from the most recent post from her blog, which shares the exciting news of an awesome event that will happen this Friday:

The end is in sight.

On Monday we received word that we would be finalizing our adoptions of Jasmine & Brian this Friday. We are super excited. We then leave for Spring Break in the new vacation HOT SPOT-South Dakota. When we get back we will finalize our adoption of Shamie.

It is a very confusing process-the easy way to "get it" is that the kids are followed by two different counties based on where their parents were living when the kids were originally removed. Make sense!?! No, not to us either. It's a crazy process that we are glad to be bringing to a close. The real work will begin when the adoptions are finalized. We won't have caseworkers, guardian ad litem's (GAL's), and every other person on the planet coming to our house every month. At the same time, we won't have as many people to call if we are having "problems". Our support staff will reduce drastically. It will all be worth it though.

Keep us in your prayers for this huge event in our lives, our travel with 5 little beings (praise God we are NOT bringing the dog this time), and for our general well being. History has shown us that transitions, changes, and "big" events tend to trigger some behaviors & frustrations. I have to remember that while this is awesome and amazingly exciting (for us), it is the final slamming shut of that small window of possibility that the kids will be reunited with their birth parents. For us, this is obviously a blessing. For the kids-or at least Jasmine-this could be tumultuous. When you are a kid-your parents are your parents. Even if they do NOTHING right-they are still your parents & you love them. You don't know better & you don't know it any other way. Please pray specifically for Jasmine that she would be comforted during this confusing time in her life.

Thank you all for all of you care, support, and prayers as we have moved along through this process. Please continue to pray for us and don't be afraid to give us a call or swing by the Casa de Freng to enjoy a bit of time in the whirlwind we call home.

Success In Ministry

In one of my first classes at seminary, the professor teaching the class began the semester by asking us two very probing and convicting questions: (1) "How should we measure success in ministry;" and (2) "How does God measure success in ministry?" Because the class was comprised mostly of anxious and insecure, first-year seminarians, no hands went up. After a few pregnant moments of silence, the professor threw out a few commonly held answers to the first question - answers that no one in our class wanted to share publicly, but had, at one time or another, most likely embraced and pursued personally.

"Ultimate success in ministry, for too many pastors, is measured by increasing church membership numbers, growing budget dollars, excellent ministry programming, and widespread notoriety and influence in the larger Christian community," he said. "Unfortunately," he continued, "I think it is possible to achieve all of these things and still fall short of God's standard for successful ministry; which, I believe, He measures by two standards: consistent faithfulness in ministering under the authority of Scripture and ongoing obedience in following the leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit."

That day in class, God used my professor to help me begin to understand the reality that large crowds can be gathered and big budgets can be assembled in a way that draws the attention and praise of men, but fails to honor and please the heart of God. Successful Kingdom ministry is best gauged by faithfulness and obedience to Christ.

Last week, during a mentor-team meeting at Denver Seminary, I was blessed with an opportunity to spend an hour with one of the most faithful and obedient servants of Jesus I have ever met - Dr. Vernon Grounds. For more than fifty years, Dr. Grounds has served faithfully and obediently (in several leadership roles) in equipping leaders at Denver Seminary. Now in his nineties, Dr. Grounds continues to serve the seminary community as Chancellor - meeting often with current students, alumni, faculty, and ministry leaders from around the world. By God's grace, through the outworking of the Holy Spirit, Dr. Grounds has been blessed with the rare combination of a profoundly brilliant mind and a deeply compassionate heart. I pray that Dr. Grounds' legacy of holistic, Gospel-centered, faithful and obedient ministry will continue to shape Denver Seminary many years after he hears Jesus say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

After the mentor-team meeting ended, on my way out of Dr. Grounds' office, my friend Betsy, who is Dr. Grounds administrative assistant, handed me a piece of paper with a short poem printed on it. As she handed me the paper, she whispered, "I am pretty sure Dr. Grounds wrote this." Here are the words to the poem, which is anonymously authored in V.R Edman's book, Disciplines of Life:

When God wants to skill a man,
and drill a man,
and thrill a man;
when God wants to mold a man
to play the noblest part;
when He yearns with all His heart
to create so great and bold a man
that all the world will be amazed,
watch His methods - watch His ways -
how He ruthlessly perfects
whom He royally elects;
how He hammers him
and hurts him
and with mighty blows converts him
into trial shapes of clay which only God understands.

When man's tortured heart is bleeding
and he lifts beseeching hands,
how God bends,
but never breaks,
when His good he undertakes;
how He uses those He chooses
and by every purpose fuses him,
by every act induces him
to try His splendour out.

God knows what He is about.

Indeed, God does know what He is about - molding us, shaping us, and leading us into greater faithfulness and more radical obedience to Him in mission and ministry.

A Picture of Living the Gospel

Check out this video - Kelly posted the link on her blog and I thought I would put the video here as well. Straton's life is a powerful example of living obediently and ministering faithfully in the way of Jesus. Listen to some of the questions he raises and think through what it might look like to imitate Straton (as he imitates Jesus) in your own context.

James: Living a God-Saturated Life

For those of you who may not attend Levi's House, or South Suburban Christian Church, I thought I would post the introduction to the study guide we have put together for our current sermon series in the book of James. We have titled the series, "Saturated," which comes from the idea that in James we encounter clear, direct teaching on what it "looks like" to live a life completely saturated with Jesus. Here is the intro:

Imagine for a moment, a sponge - a sponge so completely filled with water, that if you so much as brush your finger across it's edge, water will immediately spill out onto your finger and flood whatever surface the sponge happens to be resting on - such a sponge is saturated with water. In similar fashion, the Letter of James paints for us a vivid picture of authentic Christian faith. Authentic faith, according to James, results in God-saturated living - an everyday life so full of God, that Who He is and what He says permeates and transforms every part of who we are. The Letter of James exposes us to the core message of the Gospel of grace and challenges us to seek God's wisdom and guidance in faithfully living as agents of gracious restoration. Our prayer is that God will use this sermon series along with our daily Bible reading, to increasingly shape us into a God-saturated community of people, who are passionately pursuing Jesus, being transformed by His grace, and transforming the world for His glory.

This week we will be digging into James 1:12-18, a passage that focuses in on temptation, sin, and God as the giver of all good and perfect gifts. Check out this link to our online sermons to listen in: http://www.southsuburban.com/audio.html.

Robert Murray M'Cheyne

For the past year, I have been moving very slowly through the biography of the 19th century, Scottish pastor, Robert Murray M'Cheyne. The book, Memoir & Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, includes a short biography and a collection of M'Cheyne's letters, sermons, and published writings. Though M'Cheyne struggled with physical maladies most of his life and died just shy of 30 years of age, his memoir, letters, sermons, and devotional writings present an uncommon devotion to Jesus, timeless wisdom, and a unique expression of Christian maturity. His life and thought consistently encourage and challenge me as a young and growing pastor.

Here is a brief description of Mr. M'Cheyne from the preface to the biography:

All who knew him not only saw in him a burning and shining light, but felt also the breathing of the hidden life of God; and there is no narrative that can fully express this peculiarity of the living man. (p.vi)

What an incredible picture of living and ministering faithfully in the way of Jesus! I am so inspired by this brief description of the young pastor - he was a man who lived with vibrant passion and influence for Christ in a way so readily palpable that others would "feel" it and describe him as "breathing the hidden life of God." Though he died over 150 years ago, Mr. M'Cheyne has mentored me through his life and writing.

Over the weekend, I read these words from a letter M'Cheyne wrote to a member of his congregation, who was suffering from a physical illness. His words and questions really tie in to much of what I have been learning as I have been studying James, joy, and suffering. I think the questions he lists are worthy of ongoing, honest, prayerful consideration as we move through hardship and suffering. The title of the letter is "How cares and troubles sanctify."

All His doings are wonderful. It is, indeed, amazing how He makes use of affliction to make us feel His love more...You cannot love trouble for its own sake; bitter must always be bitter and pain must always be pain. God knows you cannot love trouble. Yet for the blessings that it brings, He can make you pray for it. Does trouble work patience in you? Does it lead you closer to the Lord Jesus - to hide deeper in the rock? Does it make you lie passive in His hand, and know no will but His? Thus does patience work experience - an experimental acquaintence with Jesus. Does it bring you a fuller taste of of His sweetness, so that you know Whom you have believed? And does this experience give you a further hope of glory - another anchor cast within the veil? And does this hope give you a heart that cannot be ashamed, because convinced that God has loved you, and will love you to the end? Ah! then you have got the improvement of trouble, if it has led you thus. (p. 278)

1 Peter 1:6-7 speaks similarly of the "improvement of trouble:"

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer many kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of more worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (NIV)

Lord Jesus, help me to embrace and rejoice in trials, hardships and suffering - not in some sadistic, masochistic, or even fatalistic way; rather, through deeply trusting Your promise that You will use adversity to purify my faith - burning away the dross and leaving behind that which is authentic, genuine, and pleasing in Your sight. Amen.

Some Thoughts on Suffering, Joy, and Transformation

At church we are working through a 12 week sermon series in James. Yesterday, I preached from James 1:2-11 - an incredible text, where we, as followers of Christ, are challenged (literally commanded) to respond to hardship, adversity, and suffering with pure joy.  The main idea I tried to communicate yesterday is that we should respond to hardship and suffering with joy, because God uses trials to increase our capacity for Him and transform us spiritually.  As I was preparing to preach last week, I came across several great thoughts on joy, transformation, and a Gospel-centered response to suffering - 

• On the nature of true joy:

Joy is a settled contentment in every situation, or an unnatural reaction of deep, steady, unadulterated and thankful trust in God.   - Derek Tidball

Joy is a pervasive sense of well being.  It is not the same as pleasure, though it is pleasant.  It is deeper and broader than any pleasure. Pleasure and pain are always specific to some particular object or condition, such as eating something you really like (pleasure) or recalling some really foolish thing you did (pain).  But for joy, all is well, even in the midst of suffering and loss.  - Dallas Willard

• On spiritual transformation:

All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out of the changes that understanding creates in your heart.  Faith in the gospel restructures our motivation, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world.  Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting.        - Tim Keller

• A gospel-centered response to suffering:

The goal of the gospel is not the gifts that God gives, but rather, God as the gift given to us by grace.  The gospel sees hardship in life as sanctifying affliction that reminds us of Jesus' sufferings and is used by God in love to make us more like Jesus.  - Mark Driscoll

I am so excited to see how the Holy Spirit might possibly use this sermon series from James to further transform the hearts, minds, and lives of our people, their pastors, their neighborhoods, and our community for God's greater glory and for our greater good.

Closing Out The Day With Eugene

This week, I started reading through Eugene Peterson's book, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity.  Enough friends and other pastors have mentioned this book in passing, or on their blogs, for me to finally catch the hint that this is a pretty important read.  Here is a stinging excerpt from the introduction:

For a long time, I have been convinced that I could take a person with a high school education, give him or her a six-month trade school training, and provide a pastor who would be satisfactory to any discriminating American congregation. The curriculum would consist of four courses.

Course I: Creative Plagiarism.  I would put you in touch with a wide range of excellent and inspirational talks, show you how to alter them just enough to obscure their origins, and get you a reputation for wit and wisdom.

Course II: Voice Control for Prayer and Counseling.  We would develop your own distinct style of Holy Joe intonation, acquiring the skill in resonance and modulation that conveys and unmistakable aura of sanctity.

Course III: Efficient Office Management.  There is nothing that parishioners admire more in their pastors than the capacity to run a tight ship administratively.  If we return all phone calls within twenty-four hours, answer all the letters within a week, distributing enough carbons to key people so that they know we are on top of things, and have just the right amount of clutter on our desk - not too much, or we appear inefficient, not too little or we appear underemployed - we quickly get the reputation for efficiency that is far more important than anything that we actually do.

Course IV:  Image Projection. Here we would master the half-dozen well-known and easily implemented devices that that create the impression that we are  terrifically busy and widely sought after for counsel by influential people in the community.  A one-week refresher course each year would introduce new phrases that would convince our parishioners that we are bold innovators on the cutting edge of the megatrends and at the same time solidly rooted in all the traditional values of our sainted ancestors.

(I have been laughing for several years over this trade school training with which I plan to make my fortune.  Recently, though, the joke has backfired on me.  I keep seeing advertisements for institutes and workshops all over the country that invite pastors to sign up for this exact curriculum.  The advertised course offerings are not quite as honestly labeled as mine, but the content appears to be identical - a curriculum that trains pastors to satisfy the current consumer tastes in religion.  I'm not laughing anymore.)  (pp. 7-8)

Neither am I - ouch!  Thanks Eugene - for being a faithful, godly, obedient pastor, who is not enthralled with novelty, driven by popularity, or consumed by consumeristic Christianity.  

The Cross of Christ

During Lent this year, I have decided to read John Stott's book, The Cross of Christ.  This book is on my "Top 10 Books I Frequently Recommend, But Have Never Actually Read" list (I will most likely post the other 9 books on the list sometime soon).  In preparation for several different sermons and a systematic theology class I taught last fall,  I read and referred to pertinent sections of the book, but I have never actually read the entire thing from front to back.  I am excited to read and pray through this great work and share thoughts and reflections on this blog as I move through the coming weeks of Lent.  To that end, here are a couple of great thoughts worth reflecting on : 

"...the cross transforms everything.  It gives us a new, worshipping relationship to God, a new and balanced understanding of ourselves, a new incentive to give ourselves in mission, a new love for our enemies, and a new courage to face the perplexities of suffering." (p. 17) 

"In daring to write (and read) a book about the cross, there is of course a great danger of presumption.  This is partly because what actually happened  when "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ" is a mystery whose depths we shall spend eternity plumbing; and partly because it would be most unseemly to feign a cool detachment as we contemplate Christ's cross.  For, whether we like it or not, we are involved.  Our sins put him there.  So, far from offering us flattery, the cross undermines our self-righteousness.  We can stand before it only with a bowed head and a broken spirit.  And there we remain until the Lord Jesus speaks to our hearts his word of pardon and acceptance, and we, gripped by his love and full of thanksgiving, go out into the world to live our lives in his service." (p. 18)

I pray that as I reflect on the cross this Lenten season, that the Holy Spirit would move powerfully in my heart and fill me with overflowing gratitude and passion to live my own life in Jesus' service.

Morning With The Puritans

This morning, as is the case on many mornings, I began my day reading and praying a few words from my favorite prayer book, The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions.  Today, I was blessed by the prayer titled, "Fourth Day Morning: True Christianity." Here are a few lines from the latter half of the prayer:

"Grant us always to know that to walk with Jesus

makes other interests a shadow and a dream.

Keep us from intermittent attention

to eternal things;

Save us from the delusion of those

who fail to go far in religion,

who are concerned but not converted,

who have another heart but not a new one,

who have light, zeal, confidence, but not Christ.

Let us judge our Christianity,

not only by our dependence on Jesus,

but by our love to him

our conformity to him,

our knowledge of him.

Give us a religion that is both real,

and progressive,

that holds on its way and grows stronger,

that lives and works in the Spirit,

that profits by every correction,

and is injured by no carnal indulgence."

After reading these words, I prayed earnestly that God would keep me ever mindful of my proclivity to judge my own followership of Jesus by metrics other than increased dependence, love, conformity, and knowledge of Jesus, His finished work on the cross, and the salvation He has graciously offered me.  I prayed that the Holy Spirit would empower me to return daily, in humility, to a fresh, heart level consideration of these truths.  

As I closed out my morning prayer time, I prayed also that the Holy Spirit would move mightily in the church I serve, that individually and corporately, our community would be delivered from the delusions of "being concerned but not converted, having other hearts but not new ones, having light, zeal and confidence, but not having Christ," that, with hearts bowed low in conviction and repentance, we might more fully honor our Father and in greater measure, experience the joy of finding our ultimate identity and satisfaction in Him.  

Gospel Longings

This afternoon, as I spent a bit of time basking in the warmth of a March Tuesday in Colorado, nourishing my caffiene addiction with a tall cup of St. Arbucks' finest, I wrote down a few thoughts on the riches of God's grace and the profundity of the Gospel. These words were originally offered to Jesus, through a written prayer of thanksgiving and adoration in my Moleskine journal - I am not sure how well they will translate into this format, but I will give it a shot.

More and more, as I spend time reading the Scriptures, I find myself captivated by the simple profundity of the Gospel and by the unceasing riches of God's grace. At times, the far-reaching ends of each seem well beyond my capacity to grasp intellectually, live in practically, and minister out of faithfully. These simple phrases: Christ came, Christ died, Christ was raised, Christ will come again contain an abundant, treasure-store of life and eternity-changing truth - truth, which has fostered a series of "Gospel-longings" within me:

I long for God to bless me with sufficient wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to truly "know Christ and Him crucified." I long for the Holy Spirit to fill me and lead me in greater measure, that I might more fully work in and live out the Gospel - that I might, in greater measure, become more like Jesus in my thoughts, attitudes, motivations, and actions. I long to more fully understand, embrace, and rest in "how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Jesus." I long to more fully live, love and minister out of the reality that I have been graciously accepted by my Heavenly Father - not because of who I am, or because of what I have done, or have managed not to do - but because of Who Jesus is, and what He has done on my behalf on the cross.

I long for these truths to bury themselves deep within the core of who I am and work in a miraculously, transformative way - I long for a Holy Spirit driven, inside-out, restoration project of my heart, life, and ministry.