Steve's Letter: A State of Mediocrity?

This morning, I read and graded "integration" papers from a course for Doctor of Ministry students at the seminary. The course was titled: Thriving & Surviving Pastoral Ministry.

I just finished reading the paper of one of my pastor students who wrote (referring to me):

The class helped me think about surviving and thriving. I like Steve. I like his attitude about the ministry. He has survived well. And he has thrived, it would seem. He has served churches, written books, had a radio ministry. He is celebrated in some circles as an authority. He seems comfortable in his skin as a pastor. He is the right guy to teach the class on surviving and thriving in this complex field. However, at the end of the day (and at the end of the class) I'm not Steve Brown. I'm a guy who finds himself settling into a sad mediocrity. I actually do sometimes go to bed at night grateful for another day of survival.

My first thought was, What a wise and insightful student! He's going to get an "A" for this class.

Then I had an attack of sanity. My second thought was, He's insane. If he only knew...

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Steve's Letter: God Doesn't Need Protecting or Defending!

I just discovered something I can hardly wait to tell you.

Are there certain Bible texts that make you wince? You know the ones I'm talking about... Bible teachers and mothers use them to make us feel guilty. Both want us to be good. They figure the best thing to do is to make us memorize Scripture that will keep us up at night until we either get in line or become atheists.

I call those "law enforcement texts."

I avoid them except when I'm doing the "lucky dipping." That's when you close your eyes, tell God you're in trouble and ask him to give you some "fresh word." Then you open the Bible at random and put your finger on a verse.

(That's not the way to study the Bible, you bozo! I know that! I'm a Bible teacher, okay? But we all do it and those who don't will lie about other things.)...

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Steve's Letter: It's all about His grace!

I'm actually writing this during Easter week and I'm sitting here feeling guilty. Well, I feel guilty a lot but more so during Lent.

Let me explain.

A number of our staff people have been doing a liquid fast for the last 40 days. They haven't talked about it a lot or made a big deal out of it. They certainly aren't trying to make me feel guilty. It's just that one can't help but notice as they waste away.

(Not really. Frankly, they look quite well-fed and I suspect they've been cheating...but that's another subject.)

Erik, in particular, solicited pledges on his fast with people pledging so much for each day he makes it. He raised almost a thousand dollars for Haiti. That's wonderful and I'm glad. But it does make me feel even more guilty, to wit, not only am I watching Erik go hungry, I'm now thinking about the hungry people he's helping in Haiti...and that's not helping my guilt problem either.

Do you know the sacrifice I made for Lent? I sacrificed nothing and gave up nothing.

So here I sit-fat, happy and...uh...guilty.

So let's talk about guilt...

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Steve's Letter: If you want to make God laugh...

Let me tell you about a couple of recent incidents. One is relatively minor and the other is so very sad. Then I want to give you a biblical principle. It is bad news, but becomes good news.

Sounds like a sermon. Sorry.

The first incident is about our house. We're going to stay in it.

I know I told you we planned to downsize and move to a condo or townhouse. We tried. In fact, we had the house on the market for months. Not only that, we received a very attractive offer.

So?

So when they did the appraisal, it came in lower than what we were paying taxes on and the buyers couldn't get a mortgage.

That morning (unbeknownst to me), Anna was sitting on the patio of the house looking at the squirrels, listening to the birds, and looking at all the flowers she had planted. She thought, I'm really going to miss this place. At the same time (unbeknownst to her), I was sitting in my study also thinking about how much I was going to miss spending time there. Neither of us wanted to "rain on the other's parade."

Then when the appraisal came in, we both started laughing...a surprise to both of us. (We don't communicate well!) To make a long story short, we changed our 15-year mortgage to a 30-year one and decided to stay.

I know, I know. More than you wanted to know but, stay with me, I'm making a point here.

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