Swiss Pastors' Conference: April 22-27, 2008
Pamela and I had two pleasant flights, first at 8:20 am from SFO to JFK and then on to ZRH, where we arrived at 7:30am Wednesday in the middle of a cold, rainy morning. I slept numerous times—always a sign that I have been pushing the envelope in the days/weeks prior to take-off. Though my schedule has been uncomplicated lately, allowing me to spend many days/hours working on CTW matters, there have been other challenges coming unexpectedly from other arenas. Spiritual leadership is, indeed, a wild ride: there seems to be no end to the ways that our enemy attempts to steal past victories, incite current conflicts and threaten our future. But how fantastic that the Lord is our stay and our defense and our hope for victory!
We’re having the best days ever in CTW. All the staff is working so well and so diligently; we’ve made progress on several book translations, and we’re nearly ready to go to print on Spanish, Burmese and Chinese versions of Enjoying Your Journey with God. Russian and Bulgarian copies are not too far behind. We’ve nearly finished the sorting process of all the written material from these many years, and we should be able to produce more booklets and additional material for the website later this year. The mood on staff is happy, happy, and happy.
Also, there has been a renewed connection between Coastlands and CTW—not that there was ever a division amongst us, but the church’s ministry assignment differs somewhat from CTW’s mission. For instance, Todd is concerned mostly with local people; I’m thinking more about leaders in other states and countries. He’s always in Santa Cruz; I’m almost never there. Cell groups are a reality at Coastlands; CTW sends teams to introduce cell group ministry in other churches. No matter how cordial and loving the personal connections between leaders may be, their organizations take awhile to figure out how to interrelate, correlate and connect in vital ways.
I am so proud of Hilary and Todd—and all the key leaders who have understood how important it is to support the pastors God has portioned to them. It has taken a year for people to truly realize that ALL of us have new pastors, and it is not a negative reflection on the former pastor to fully embrace and celebrate the new one (and vice-versa). Just as it has taken CTW a year or so to get its stride, so too with Coastlands. We’ve been something of a three-leg race, fitfully and unevenly making our way toward the finish line. Now it feels like we’re running side-by-side as team-mates, each of us using our own second leg.
Did I have fun last week when I asked Michael Martinez if I could speak to one of my pastors about a situation I am facing! It was so much of a relief to NOT have to be the pastor listening to others’ pain; I could speak as freely and openly as I wanted to—and leave it to one of my pastors to offer balance and perspective. What a cushy job…to be a member of a church instead of its pastor. I got to go to my church two weeks in a row. I love attending Coastlands, and the congregation is bustling with activity, new life and spiritual transformation.
I suppose it’s like my children—and the delight I have in watching them live life. We poured lots and lots into them, and even though they are their own people, responsible for their own choices and perspectives, it’s comforting, encouraging and rewarding to see so many of the things we taught them through the years being lived out through the ensuing years.
I guess it’s all about fruit! As Jesus said, the best way to accurately judge a tree is by the fruit it bears through the years. Some people miss the obvious: they examine the bark, the insects sapping the leaves, the root structure, the location, the size of its branches, weather patterns and a host of other aspects of an apple tree, but they forget to look for and acknowledge the apples. Apple trees go through droughts and severe winters. They may not get adequately fertilized one year, or receive too much nitrogen/potassium the next year. They always battle pests and disease.
In the end, however, trees that produce good fruit consistently and abundantly ought to bring the farmer joy. Do some apples drop before their time or become individually infected by insects? Yes. Would the farmer prefer to send every apple from the tree to the market, with none being bruised in the process? Of course. But how silly to examine a few gone-bad apples in an effort to judge a tree. The contrast of a few apples that were somehow damaged by insects, careless handling in the orchard (or in the grocery store long after being harvested), compared to an abundance of good fruit year after year, might actually point more at the few apples than at the tree.
What father could possibly be more delighted in his children than I am? What former pastor could have happier thoughts about his congregation than I do?
The jetlag was terrible for both of us last night. I went to sleep at 10:30pm but woke up at 1:00am, at which time I pulled out a novel I’m reading and spent the next four hours enjoying it before I went back to sleep.
This was a fairly non-descript day, in terms of getting anything accomplished. Perhaps it would have been wiser to avoid trying to do something the first full day on the ground. I spent most of the day fighting with my email, ultimately conceding defeat. Though I could not answer the many emails in my box—or receive any other messages—I was able to work on a couple other projects.
Pamela and Ruth spent a couple of hours talking together after lunch; then Pamela slept for another couple of hours before I returned from a power-walk with Volker. It is such a privilege for us to be able to listen/share; pastors share the same sorts of troubles and traumas all over the world. Sometimes just knowing that others have experienced similar developments and circumstances. “What did you do when…?”; “How do we do X without suffering Y?” These are the questions I get all over the world.
It reminded me of one day last month when I was speaking to various gatherings of pastors/leaders. Three separate pastors were dealing with the fallout of previous leaders’ actions/words, and they just needed someone to tell them that these sorts of things happen to almost everyone. As I shared some of my stories from years ago, the pastors were so encouraged to discover that even experienced ministers like their supervisor are not immune to the misunderstandings that lead good people to disagree—and sometimes to allow those disagreements to become sources of great pain.
The rest of the afternoon, Pamela slept and I endeavored to solve my email mystery. For some reason, I can receive emails but I cannot send them. These travel journals are, therefore, not being posted as I write them.
Pamela decided she wanted to have breakfast with me despite another night of little sleep, so we journeyed downstairs for a typical Swiss morning meal—yogurt (over cornflakes), rolls with cheese, jam and butter, as well as coffee (for me, not her). Somehow, a good breakfast sets the world aright for me, and it was a perfect way to ready ourselves for the five hour train ride with Ruth and Volker to Locarno, on the south side of the Swiss Alps, bordering northern Italy. This is where we will hold our annual Swiss Pastors’ Retreat.
The scenery passing through the Alps is truly breath-taking: sheer cliffs, distant waterfalls, Alpine meadows, stately trees, white capped mountain tops, etc. At one point, the train winds its way upward through a series of circular tunnels inside a mountain. It circles a small village whose most prominent feature is an old church building with an impressive spire. The train makes three separate passes around the village, each time it has ascended further up inside the mountain, and it emerges to present the view of the church from slightly different angles. A curved, upward heading tunnel inside a mountain! Wow…
The small hotel where we’ll be meeting sits on a mountainside above a gorgeous lake. Mercifully, the weather that has been so cold and rainy in Switzerland for many, many weeks, turned today, and upon arriving at the hotel we found ourselves in the midst of a warm, sunny afternoon with a view that was out of control. These pictures cannot really do it justice…
Volker is trying something very different at this year’s retreat. Whereas in the past we have concentrated on building the relationships among the Swiss pastors, and providing them with a safe place to disclose the struggles that are common to us all, this year we’re taking that offer of connectedness for national pastors to the regional level. As one of the five regional leaders in Foursquare Europe, Volker provides coordination and ministry encouragement to several countries: Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Pastor couples from the two Foursquare churches in Austria (along with one of their leading couples), both pastors from Poland, two pastor couples from Germany, five pastor couples from Italy, and several additional associate pastors from Switzerland have enlarged our group to nearly 60 people this year. This will present challenges to the style and form of ministry we offer because the sheer number of people makes it very difficult to maintain an informal, relational atmosphere—as opposed to having meetings.
Because people do not know one another, they tend to be a bit more reserved and guarded; that also complicates or desire to offer people heart and connection.
But we are convinced that such relationships are critical to spiritual growth and health within the larger denominational/regional structure and in the midst of the crazy, taxing ministries we have throughout the year. So, we’re taking a risk and enlarging the number of people we invite. Volker opened the meetings with an appeal for everyone to make extra effort to connect with one another—and to remember that we have shared values. He gave everyone a copy of the values the Swiss church lives by (here are a few of them):
· Offering friendship and accountability while speaking the truth in love.
· Modeling servant-leadership and cultivating authentic spirituality.
· Extending mercy, pursuing a redemptive plan and believing in people more than they believe in themselves.
· Celebrating diversity of giftedness and perspective while
· Seeking to be Bible-based in what we do and teach.
· Prioritizing people and discipleship above programs or structures.
· Treating women as equals in ministry.
· Seeking balance and simplicity in faith.
Volker asked me to give my thoughts about the retreat, and I shared much along the same lines as what e had already explained. In addition to that, I offered them a word of wisdom relating to God’s work/plans in their lives. I felt the Lord tell me that He wanted to teach us the difference between times when He takes (something) away from us AND times when the enemy steals (something) away from us. When He takes away, His purpose is to give more to us; when the enemy takes away, his purpose is to diminish our life/ministry, etc.
I as drawn to two texts (1 Peter 5:6-11 and John 10:7-18), both of which I shared with everyone. I asked them to read both texts before breakfast, and pick something from either passage that most strikes them while reading; share at breakfast with one other person (not from their church or their country) what caught their eye.
Even though it is always a bit nervy to launch out with any kind of prophetic prompting, the results—presuming we’re correctly discerning the Spirit’s leading—far outweigh what can happen if we simply proceed along with the original plan. Part of the trauma for spiritual leaders is knowing that—but sometimes feeling such pressure to preach a sermon, that they don’t have the wherewithal to make a change. In the past, our pastors’ retreat was small enough and familiar enough in our relationships with one another that we could conversationally suggest a change in direction and/or offer the possibility that God was speaking to us.
With a larger group, it takes a bit more willingness on everyone’s part to effect a change. The speaker/leader must be willing to abandon the relative “safety” of notes; the group must be willing to be instructed in other than sermon format; everyone must be willing to cover one another’s uncertainty (and possible mistakes); and, the whole group must be willing to grope its way forward without some familiar landmarks.
I wanted to register the point that we’re all tempted to evaluate our situation out of the context of our own thinking, instead of being “biblically informed”. By that I mean we should be asking ourselves, “Which verse or passage is providing an example for how I am thinking about my circumstances or handling my situation?” I picture it like someone painting a landscape: the artist must constantly look from the landscape back to the canvas throughout the process. Receiving a spiritual impression is NOT like being an Impressionist painter who “interprets” scenery; rather, spiritual (biblical) impressions turn us into Realist painters who strive to capture each detail in the landscape by matching the canvas to the scene.
So, I had everyone share with a new best friend (i.e., someone who did not attend the same church) some detail of either passage (1 Peter 5 or John 10) that really spoke to them personally. Afterwards, I asked them to break into groups of three, avoiding anyone from their church and the friend who had just shared with them. This part of the exercise asked each person to discuss their current situation in light of: 1) the aspect of either passage that had struck them in their own reading; 2) the detail a friend had just shared with them; and, 3) the item that I had explained meant so much to me (the person who was teaching them at the time we got this word of wisdom).
When we reassembled 30 minutes later, it was amazing the kinds of stories and remarks we heard—of how people’s thinking about their current issues had been totally transformed by a few simple verses in the Bible. I was among those who were able to testify to an incredible shift in my thinking…
It had to do with the true authority we have to lay our lives down. That’s a greater authority than others’ power to take our life away. We can lay our life down, and trust that God will give it back to us in the future…or we can fight to save our lives…only to lose them in the end. Wow! What peace flooded my soul!
The beauty of bearing up under suffering is the promise that after awhile God, Himself, will perfect and establish us. In other words, whatever people may be doing, whatever the devil may be doing to introduce suffering and pain in our lives, what we end up with (in the end) is what God establishes for us—not what we accomplish on our own. Our lot in life, our ministry, our reputation, our fruitfulness, our contributions to the Kingdom—don’t we want them to be the result of what God perfects, confirms, strengthens and establishes (1 Peter 5:10)?
Those realizations buoyed me considerably. And then my mind went to a few other passages I have been studying lately–especially the story of Isaac digging several wells, moving further and further away from where he experienced contention and strife. His was a true God-trusting perspective: “Be blessed! See all the land spread out before us? If you want the north, I’ll go to the south. If you take the east, I’ll gladly head west. It doesn’t matter to me where I end up living because my blessing comes from the God who is everywhere.”
When I was younger, I usually chose to fight when people wanted to fight (I don’t mean a physical rumble or an actual fist-fight). Maybe I thought of life as crossing a fallen tree over a river, and if someone contested my right of passage to go where I felt God wanted me to go, I’d push them off the tree, out of my way. Now, I see ministry more as a huge land of promise, and if people want to hassle me or deny me access to certain places, I’m as happy as can be to simply turn in the other direction.
It’s helped, too, I’m sure to have traveled so extensively throughout the world since I stepped aside as pastor of Coastlands. I have seen, first-hand, how vast the need is everywhere. For every one person who might not want the help we can offer—or who might not like our style, agree with our perspective or think well of us—there are 100’s more people whose lives we can impact for Jesus’ sake.
When my kids were trying to decide where to attend college (it was never an option in our home to even consider NOT attending university), I tried to explain that they were actually looking for which schools NOT to attend. There were hundreds of colleges they could have attended; we needed to eliminate possibilities, not scrounge around for them. I’m at a season in my life when ministry opportunities in Asia, in Europe and in my district back East keep expanding. As odd as it may sound, I’m on the look-out for things not to do, places not to go and people not to join with…
Part of my realization during the morning was that I’ve lived like that most of my life…quick to concede (give up) any territory, any ministry opportunity, any members-only connections to dig additional wells elsewhere. Many, many years ago, a highly respected and loved spiritual leader told me there wasn’t enough room in a particular ministry for both of us. His implication was that I needed to move on—out of his way. Rather than cause me consternation or grief, it was like music to my ears! It was permission to relinquish the assignment I had carried there, in order to move into unchartered territory.
Abraham said to Lot (Genesis 13), “Be blessed! There may not be room for both of us if we stay close, but there is plenty of room for us both if we look at how vast the land is before us. Please let us separate! If you go left, I’ll go right; if you go right, I’ll go left.” I had forgotten that God did’nt show Abraham the Promised Land until after he separated from Lot…
We wrapped up the Pastors’ Retreat with lots of worship and several testimonies from leaders whose life-situation had been dramatically affected by the scriptures and sharing in the previous couple of days. I always enjoy hearing how God has moved in people’s hearts. Years and years ago, when I led the College Group and the Young Singles’ Group at Church on the Way, we used to do a couple of retreats each year. Hundreds of us would descend on a hotel, sleep four to a room and fill a few days with fellowship, teaching, worship, fun and food. The last session was always devoted to testimonies—especially declarations about how these young adults were going to live differently, as a result of what God had said to them or done in their lives.
Dozens of those guys and gals now serve the Lord as ministers, church leaders and missionaries all over the world. Volker asked me to explain a bit about how to give a testimony—not a technique to follow, but what are the essential elements in a powerful testimony? In my opinion, testimonies are more than just long stories; they’re about God’s word (so share a paraphrase of a verse or two), speaking into my existing situation (so tell a short version of the pertinent details of your life), and “converting” both my mind and my circumstances (so tell what God showed you or did for you that changed everything).
We took a group picture, hugged and chatted with one another out on the deck overlooking the lake and the majestic Alps. I feel like I have made excellent personal connections with several pastors who were new to me. Volker’s Region in Europe is becoming more of a tight-knit group, and I think everyone was feeling connected with something bigger than their own church situation. Based on things said by some ministers—and by what I sense of God’s timing, etc.–Lord willing, it looks like I’ll be traveling to southern Germany, to Berlin, to Italy and to Austria at different times in 2009.
God truly is the Lord who opens and closes doors. I guess the issue for us who follow Him is simply knowing when He is closing a door (so we don’t smash our noses into it), and when He is opening a door (so we don’t miss walking through it into a new room filled with wonders)…
Volker, Ruth, Pamela and I took the train back to Basel. I slept much of the way while they solved the world’s problems. Back in Basel, we were picked up at the train station and driven to a nearby retreat site where I conducted the first session (from 7:30-9:45pm) of the Bible Study Intensive for Foursquare Switzerland. This is the second time I’ve done this seminar here in Switzerland. We had a blast…at least as far as I could tell.
Several of the students for this seminar were the spouses of people who took it last time. That was very encouraging because it means previous students really felt it was worthwhile for them.
