church/personal/theology

Final Exams & Other Reasons to Study

Posted on by David Norman / 0 Comment

Okay, I admit it.  Like most college students, I have a really short attention span and a tendency to drift away in class.  However, I’m not necessarily your average-run-of-the-mill college student.  I am, in fact, a graduate student working towards a Master’s Degree in Divinity.  I’m studying in the area of my calling.  It’s not just preparation for a career or a job, but rather something that God has graciously called me to do.  So why do I struggle so to pay attention?


Typically, before a major exam (mid-terms, finals) I study twice.  The night before – when I really get all of the information in the same place in my head – and the morning of – when I review and had better have it.  I was thinking this morning how ridiculous this method actually is.  Especially since this is no “Man & the Environment” course (sorry Dr. Damoff), this is Biblical Interpretation.  This is the story of God’s grace as told and proven primarily in the minor prophets and writings of the Old Testament.  I should be able to focus.

I was a little down on myself this morning – sort of verbally abusing myself for my laziness and procrastination – as well as a little ashamed that I can’t seem to force myself to do what it is that I long to do.  I always seem to do that which I hate.  Then it struck me.  This sounds familiar.  Read Romans 7:19 and see if you start to see what hit me this morning.

Sometimes the most amazing thing that happens to each us occurs when God enters into our self-loathing, self-focused, and fallen situation and shows us insight into His Word.  Of course I struggle with studying something in regards to my calling!  My knowledge of monocot vs. dicot has absolutely no bearing on the battle raging between Good and evil – not because it’s not important, but because that’s not my calling.

My calling is to represent, show, tell, speak, teach, and live the grace freely given by Jesus the Christ – who was foreshadowed by God’s speaking and teaching through the lives of the prophets – who was foreshadowed by the writings – and who is the firstborn of Creation.

So why study?  Especially since I will freely admit that my goal in life is not necessarily to earn the highest marks on a test in class.  But since my goal in life to present a never-changing message of freedom, grace, love, and forgiveness to a world that is ever-changing and that contains broken fragments created by the lack of freedom, grace, love, and forgiveness.

So final exams are good (and pretty dern important this time of year), but don’t forget that Christ-followers have a bigger mission.
leadership/personal

Avoiding a Stage-Only Faith Part 5

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This is the final part of an article I wrote on avoiding spiritual bankruptcy in ministry. I have found five specific things helpful in accomplishing this: Spend Time Alone with God, Spend Time Alone with the Creator, Spend Time Alone with Family, Spend Time Alone with a Mentor, and finally today’s topic: Spend Time Alone with a Running Partner.

GET ALONE WITH A RUNNING PARTNER

Find someone else in ministry (preferably outside of your church) to live life alongside of. Student Pastors are oftentimes some of the loneliest people I’ve ever met. We have dozens (sometimes hundreds) of people who look up to us, and we have dozens (more often than not – hundreds) of people who look down at us, but often there is no one to encourage us, to share our burdens with, to pray with, cry with, etc. Maybe your area has a network of Student Pastors. Maybe you could be instrumental in creating one. Another option is to get in on the conversation at www.pdymblog.com. But find at least one other person that you can be honest, open, and vulnerable with.

This certainly is not an exhaustive list, there are many other things you can do to prevent your faith from only existing on-stage. But these are some of the things that I have found extremely helpful. As I write this article, I pray for each of your ministries. I pray that you would find the imbalance and ensure that you are a Christ-follower that happens to be a Student Pastor.

church/personal

Avoiding a Stage-Only Faith Part 4

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Here’s another suggestion about how to avoid spiritual bankruptcy in ministry.  This might be one of my weaker points, but it’s definitely something I’m working towards.

GET ALONE WITH A MENTOR

The number one way in which we can guarantee making the same mistakes as those before us is to refuse to learn from their mistakes. The two best ways to prevent this from happening is to study history and meet with a mentor. Go to your mentor with a list of questions and allow them to help shape and mold you as a person, an adult, and as a minister. (A great source of these people are PDYM State Mentors that you can find at www.PDYMCommunity.com)

If you find yourself incapable of meeting with a mentor, allow me to suggest one alternative – if only on a temporary basis. Find a good book by a pastor or minister that you respect. Learn from that.

church/personal

Avoiding a Stage Only Faith Part 3

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Continuing our conversation of suggestions to prevent spiritual bankruptcy, today we look at what I consider to be our greatest challenge in the ministry fast-lane, but also the most important responsibility and opportunity we have.  Spending time with our family reminds us of our own inadequacies and limitations, while challenging us to better husbands, wives, daddies, mommies, sons and daughters.  When we get an accurate look at how we relate to our family, we can’t help but seek God.

GET ALONE WITH YOUR FAMILY

If you’re not married, then your small group or community group is your family (or, if you’re living at home, your family is your family). But for those of us blessed with a wife (or husband) and children, it means turning off your communication tools (mobile phone, PDA, laptop, Blackberry – my personal lifeline) and spending alone time with them. Your day off is not an option! Your primary role as shepherd is to your family. Do not make the mistake of placing your family on the altar of ministry and sacrificing them in the same of serving God.

church/leadership

Avoiding a Stage Only Faith Part 2

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I wrote that one of the first things you can do to avoid spiritual bankruptcy in ministry is to get alone with God.  Today I want to explore the next step, which happens to be very much the same but with the added effect of meeting God in his creation.

GET ALONE WITH THE CREATOR

It sounds like the same thing, and it is the same goal, but I have found great power in getting alone with God in creation. I live in a coastal city, so I go to a remote spot on the beach and just spend time in God’s presence. I used to live in a wooded area and would do the same in the middle of a forest. That could be desert, a park, or any other place that you have found suitable for you to meet and encounter God regularly.

Where do you find it easier to meet with God?

Where in creation can you go to feel the presence and power of God?

church/leadership

Avoiding a Stage-Only Faith

Posted on by David Norman / 0 Comment

This is the first part of a series of posts written to other Student Pastors on how we can avoid developing a faith that only exists on stage.

A well-known pastor got candid in a book once and wrote that one Sunday, he stood on the platform, and led a prayer before speaking – but as he did so, he realized that was the first time he had prayed all week. Consequently, that realization sparked a change in him that has moved him from a full-time pastor and part-time Christ follower to one wholly devoted to Christ.

As I read the story, I struggled with the thought of all the times when I stood to speak without complete confidence in the backing of the Holy Spirit.I confessed that too often I had interpreted the text well (exegetically speaking) but had completely neglected the pursuit of God on my own time in my own life.I was the proverbial pastor that never opened my Bible unless I was preparing a message.

How did it come to this? How did I – the dude who once had such good intentions – become THAT guy – the guy that only related to God on an information basis in order to move that information to someone else, but yet expect them to take action and incorporate it in their own life?I couldn’t believe what had happened and the reading of this pastor’s struggles and confession led to my own.

I had become so busy as a pastor (doing the good work of ministry) that I had neglected the most important aspect – my relationship to God – my lifeline!Eugene Petersen once wrote, “The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears as adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker.”

It’s not that we shouldn’t be eager to accomplish the will and work of God, the issue is that we often get so caught up in the moment – in the to do list – that we neglect the one who called us in the first place.So how do we avoid the realization that we have come to this point? Over the next several days, I want to make just a few suggestions.

GET ALONE WITH GOD

I recently realized that I need a structured reading plan to help prevent me from looking for sermons each week.I chose to read through the Bible in a year on a book by book basis, but there are numerous options as how to do it.So, I now begin each morning at my kitchen table with my One Year Bible, instead of waiting until arriving at the office, getting distracted, and working on a message or answering emails.

Have you ever feared that your faith only existed on stage?

Can you relate to my story?

What are you doing to get alone with God?

personal

Caught Him!

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This evening, I was talking with Krista at the dinner table after we had eaten and something caught my ear. It was my son’s voice, but something was awry (that’s SAT-speak for odd). He was reading the story of the 10 Plagues to his little sister! Clearly, he was having to work at it, but he did it. We just sat there dumbfounded – exhausted from a long day, but incredibly proud.

Later, as I was tucking him in bed, he was still reading from Scripture!  He had read over 25 pages in one night!  He’s still in kindergarden!  Then he asked me if I would show him how to read it in the morning so he could have a quiet-time!
I haven’t done much well as a father, but this is the kind of moment I’ve been waiting on.  I’ve begged God (today even) that Micah’s heart would get gripped by a holy hand.  I can only pray now that I continue to model what he’s imitating, and encourage and lead him without pressuring him.  I want his faith to be his own, not that which I’ve imposed upon him.  So far things are looking up.
book reviews/leadership

Radical Reformission

Posted on by David Norman / 2 Comments

I finished reading Mark Driscoll’s Radical Reformission this week, and – similar to my observations of Driscoll’s messages – I found the book to be dead on accurate in describing the new face of ministry in the culture we live in.

I thought this book offered solid teaching, challenging insights, and a wonderful grasp on the theological basis for evangelism in today’s postmodern (how I hate that term!) generation.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of this book was Driscoll’s explanations of why he made some distinctive decisions that were made during the early stages of Mars Hill Church. Perhaps it’s because of late I’ve become a student of church planting methods and histories, but I found these stories endearing, heartfelt, and inspiring.

And with this review (however brief and unintelligible) I would absolutely recommend this book to someone seeking to do what the subtitle explains. Reaching Out Without Selling Out.

personal

Q & A

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A student from my last ministry asked me this question the other day, and after speaking with him, I feel compelled to answer this for any considering this venture and to strengthen those of us in it.

Q: How do I know if I’m called to a life in ministry?
A: You know deep down in the pit of your soul that you will be unfulfilled and unhappy in doing anything else.  You may be enticed by the potential to earn a better living, to leave your job at your workplace at 5pm, and you may even appreciate the values and vision of the vocational opportunity you see in front of you.  BUT, you know that you would be unfulfilled.
If you can be a coach and be content, go coach.  If it’s the medical field, or the legal field, go.  But, if you know that God has called you to serve him in vocational ministry – you can’t get excited about anything else.  It won’t “taste” right in your mouth.  Something will be missing.  So seek God, ask God, pray and pray more.  Do not get up until he gives you permission or calling.
And just as a good friend of mine once told me, “If you can leave the ministry, you’d better do it because that’s apparently not what God has called you to. But you’d better be sure. If you are called to this [ministry], then you and I know that you’re walking away from God.”
personal

Get Ready for more TRAPPED

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Last week, a student shared this with me. She told me that this was inspired by the TRAPPED series we’ve been working through. I was and am just so impressed. I can’t get over it. God is doing some amazing things through this series in our ministry and in my heart. I am ready to see what God’s going to do. I’m pumped. If you can, you’d better be there! We’re talking about being TRAPPED BY THE MIRROR this week.