Emergence

About two years ago my friend Walt gave me two books, “Avoiding Exegetical Fallacies” by Da Carson, a book on how not to be a pastor who ends up being a heretic and “Lectures to my Students” by Charles Haddon Spurgeon which is largely a book written by Spurgeon to young pastors, about how to not stink as a pastor.  I am trying not to think to hard about what Walt might have been saying when he gave me the books.  Reading Spurgeon makes me feel like a spiritual five year old, and so I have been reading the book very slowly, and am now reading it a second time through.

Spurgeon lead a church in the late 1800’s of 5,000 in London England.  In a time when most ministries where fleeing towards the suburbs Spurgeon chose to remain in London, because he saw that the city was a place of influence, as well as the opportunity to minister to London’s poor.  Spurgeon is claimed to be (outside of Jesus) the greatest preacher who ever lived.  One of his few vices was cigar smoking and once when confronted by a parishioner about his smoking after a sermon she asked “when will you stop smoking those ghastly things”.  His response, “when I smoke them in excess.”  She responded, “You just finished a sermon and are smoking a cigar as people leave don’t you think that is excess”.  Spurgeon’s response, “I will know it is excess when I smoke two at the same time”.  

I read a chapter last night on the concept of turning a deaf ear in ministry, a chapter on the idea that as ministers there are just some things we should ignore.  Spurgeon believes rightly that to engage certain issues or people (gossips, divisive folks, single issue voters, people who refuse to forgive others) would do far more harm then good.  One of the things he strongly warned young pastors against was turning a deaf ear toward criticism.  Not in that we should not be teachable, in fact he says criticism should motivate us to be better preachers.  But he warns against taking unfair or untrue criticism to heart. Spurgeon writes this… “Those who praise us are probably as much mistaken as those who abuse us, and the one may be regarded as a set off to the other, if indeed it be worth while taking any account at all of man’s judgment.  If we have the approbation of our God, certified by a placid conscience, we can afford to be indifferent to the opinions of our fellow men, whether they commend or condemn.  If we cannot reach this point we are babes and not men”.

I will tell you in my ministry career I have had far more praise than criticism… but I love Spurgeon’s response… that both are probably a misunderstanding of our work and our ministry.  So my prayer in 2009 is that Jesus is the one who receives all the praise for what he is doing… and more and more we as a community can celebrate Jesus, what he has done for us, what he is doing among us, and give him all the credit and praise for his good works…