Jesus was as thoroughgoing a Jew as anyone who ever lived. In fact, Jesus wouldn’t have responded to the name Jesus if you yelled “Jesus!” to him across a busy street. Known in his time as Yeshua, which we would translate in English as Joshua, he was named for the Jewish hero who led the Israelites into the Promised Land. Joshua, of course, prefigured Jesus’ own mission to lead people into the Kingdom of God.
When I was a young leader, I used to be incredibly impressed by people’s gifting. What an incredible preacher! I wish I could preach like that. She’s amazing—what a talented singer! What an extraordinary writer! What a gifted prophet!
If we want to understand the relative importance of our money and our giving to God, all we need to do is open God’s Word. There we will find thousands of verses about our money and our possessions. The sheer volume of verses on money shouts to us about the importance of money to God. There are way more verses in the Bible about money than there are about sex. There’s more about money in the Bible than there is about marriage. Jesus said more about money and possessions than any other topic including prayer or faith or heaven or hell.
By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures. Proverbs 24:3-4
I write this post as a pastor appealing to people’s consciences. I do not write in an attempt to persuade anyone regarding their choice of political parties or how they may choose to vote in an election. This post is simply an attempt to shape the moral sensibilities of the reader’s heart regarding one of the most significant moral issues of our day. So, I write as a pastor (and former lawyer) who has been morally opposed to abortion for more than four decades.
“There is no success without a successor.”
Nearly 20 years ago, I read a classic book on leadership by Jim Collins titled Good to Great. The book was about how to build enduring greatness in companies and institutions. Collins wrote, “Great companies (churches) are led by level 5 leaders. The good to great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal. Level 5 leadership is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company (church) great.
This next year I’ll celebrate my 32nd year as Senior Pastor of Vineyard Columbus. Marlene and I joined the church 41 years ago when we moved to Columbus for me to attend law school at The Ohio State University. Back then, the church was an independent, non-denominational church of about 35 people. We had no pastor, but we had lay leaders, who we called elders (and who were all in their mid to late 20’s!).
On the Day of Pentecost, when the Christian church was birthed, the Apostle Peter told us who the gospel and the church was for. He said this: “The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord will call” (Acts 2:39). As I understand it, the reason we do church, at least as far as it concerns people, is for us – to meet our needs, to heal our hurts, to minister to our pain, and to encourage our discipleship. Church is also for our children – to minister to our children’s needs, our children’s hurts, to care for our children who are in pain and to develop our children into fully committed disciples of Jesus.
In this incredibly partisan and politically divisive time, it seems that any time I communicate thoughts about topics that I regard as biblical—topics such as immigration, abortion or civility in public discourse—I receive a flood of emails and Facebook messages telling me that I’m becoming “too political”. So, I thought I might offer a few of my thoughts regarding one pastor’s perspective on politics.
Every two years, since 2002, Vineyard Columbus has done a survey of every adult who is present at one of our services on a weekend in the spring. What does our 2018 survey tell us about Vineyard Columbus at this time in our history?