LEADERSHIP LETTER ARCHIVES

 

A MONTHLY READING

FOR ALL ARC LEADERS
December 2007

 

Pastoral Thoughts

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

 

It’s been awhile since I invaded your cyberspace with any reports or perspectives regarding our common journey in the ARC.  So let me give some input that will hopefully serve to keep our lives together.

 

Since mid-July I have been to Denver CO (with Mike Sares and Tim Dunbar at Scum of the Earth Church and Brian Myers in Dillon CO), with my wife Sue to Brazil  (with the ARC leaders in Belo and Sao Paulo), on vacation (to our annual rented cabin in Ideal Corners MN), Warm Springs VA (with Doug Fike and the GDI folk), St. Paul MN (with Ray Nethery for our Annual Review), Toledo OH (with MMC leaders for a pre-conference focus on our Poland agenda), Gryfow and Swidnica, Poland (with my wife and the other MMC leaders for a conference and several marriage seminars) and Haslett MI (with the Spirit of Christ folk for another marriage seminar).  And finally on November 16 I joined my daughter Lisa in marriage covenant to Jonas Schaefer who is a great guy who has yet to discover just how great my daughter is – but I digress.

 

I’m very glad to be home for some much needed pastoral attention to Christ Community Church and Whitewater Ministries contacts.  Ray Nethery still remains deeply pastorally engaged to my life and oversees my eclectic mission responsibilities and for this commitment I remain very grateful.  I have a wonderful wife as a life partner and a great group of leaders within CCC, but there is another facet of accountability and care that Ray provides for me.  But Ray would affirm that I pursue him for this need in my life and that enables him to be more effective.  He never has to “hunt me down.”  I would encourage all of you who are in pastoral care relationships to do likewise.  It’s helpfully empowering to the pastoral leader so that he can more easily draw from the grace of the Good Shepherd to add His help into your personal life and missional focus.

 

Here are some of the things I learned in each of the places where I have been since July:

  • Denver – God’s creation is beautiful and ought to be enjoyed deeply.

  • Brazil – God’s people are starved for practical teaching on relationships, including parenting skills.

  • Ideal Corners – Investing in family is profoundly important and studying God’s Word in depth is indispensable.

  • Warm Springs VA – We need to do a better job at promoting and releasing women in many areas of mission.

  • St. Paul MN – Churches need apostolic input and perspective.

  • Toledo OH – It’s wonderful to work with leaders who are committed to Christ’s mission and who are humble.

  • Poland – God can connect to His broken world through His people if they will pray and “get out of the boat.”

  • Michigan – In a divorce culture we not only need solid teaching but even more, solid examples of marriages that are fruitful.

  • The wedding – I am related to four of the loveliest women in the world (and the sons clean up nicely also!)

 

Next month I want to project the perspectives derived from the MMC meetings in Toledo and Poland on the matter of ministry and gender and re-look at the kind of complementarian Christians that we want to be as we seek to follow Christ. Two provocative books on this issue are Our Social and Sexual Revolution by J.R. Stott and Men and Women in the Church by Sarah Sumner.  Check them out.

 

Blessings,

Ned

 

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