Edwin Crozier

The Jerusalem Church (Part 6): The Vision–Every Hand Working

July 22, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 2 Comments

(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the sixth post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

Not More Hired Hands to Work, But Every Hand Working

As we talk about what worked at the Jerusalem church and other churches in the New Testament, I can’t help but notice that they all had multiple full-time workers. Jerusalem had 12 apostles acting as evangelists. Antioch had 5 (Acts 13:1). Paul always had multiple workers with him on his journeys. Many folks today start thinking a church is going liberal if they have more than one full-time preacher working with the church. Some are getting used to two workers. After all, most congregations have two sermon times each Sunday, but 5 or 12? Please, there must be something wrong with that. Except that is exactly what we see in the Bible.

Having noticed that, we may begin to think the Jerusalem vision is about having multiple full-time workers. We may mistakenly think that the vision is to hire workers and let everyone else simply contribute money to support the workers. That is not the Jerusalem vision. The Jerusalem vision is not getting enough hired hands to do the work, but to get every hand working.

In Acts 2:44-47, it wasn’t the 12 full-time workers who were doing all the ministering. It was everyone who had ability. In Acts 6, it wasn’t the 12 full-time workers who did everything. They searched through the congregation to find folks to fill other roles. In Acts 8:4, it wasn’t the full-time workers who did the teaching, everyone went out teaching as they were scattered.

No doubt, full-time workers have their place. But their place is not to do all the work. We all have work to do. In fact, Ephesians 4:11-12 explains the place of full-time workers. Their job is not to do all the work. Their job is to equip everyone else to do the work of ministry.

As we learn about workers in Jerusalem, don’t lose sight of this overarching principle. The Jerusalem vision is not about hiring enough hands to do the work, but about getting every hand working.

Come back next Thursday, when we’ll examine this a little more and see the Jerusalem vision is not about 12 evangelists but about getting the workers that are needed.

Be Kind to Yourself, Love Yourself

July 19, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 3 Comments

Before my hiatus, we started looking at God’s love for us and noted that if God loves us, we are allowed to love ourselves. In fact, we noted from Matthew 22:39, that God didn’t command us to do this, He simply expected it. Let’s pick back up on that series of learning how to properly love ourselves, so we may love others properly.

Be Kind to Yourself

I Corinthians 13:4-7 has been our guide for this journey. We’ve already learned about being patient with ourselves, Paul then says love is kind. If we are allowed to love ourselves, then we are allowed to be kind to ourselves.

This sounds odd to us. “Be kind to myself,” we think, “I’m always kind to myself.” Really? If you talked to others the way you talk to yourself, would anyone mistake your treatment for kindness? What about when you make a mistake? Do you call yourself names? “You idiot.” “Only a moron would make that mistake.” “You’re such a failure.” “No wonder you’re such a screw-up.” When you go to someone for help or to ask a question, do you lay the foundation of your own inadequacy? “I know this is probably just because I’m stupid, but could you help me with…” “I’m sure you’ll think I’m a loser, but I don’t understand…” When you look in the mirror, what do you say to yourself? “You fat, ugly slob.” “Who would ever be attracted to you with your bald head?” “You are so pathetic.”

If you are saying these things to yourself, I’m sure you think you are just being honest. You think you are just keeping your head in reality. But if you talked to anyone else like this, you would be shunned as unkind. You are allowed to be kind to yourself. You are allowed to say nice things to yourself. In fact, you should make a habit of it. The fact is, if you call yourself pathetic and ugly every time you look in the mirror, you’ll start to walk that way, talk that way, act that way. People will think you are because they sense it coming from your every pore.

Say nice things to yourself. “You’re beautiful.” “You’re nice.” “Your hair looks good today.” “Those clothes look nice on you.” “You’re a success.” Not in a pompous, conceited, self-centered way. Not in the “You’re the hottest thing on the block” sort of way. Simply in a loving yourself way. If you can’t bring yourself to say these kinds of things because you keep telling yourself you are lying to yourself, then why not try saying, “God loves you just the way you are.” “God loves you so much just the way you are that He sent Jesus to die for you.” Those statements are true. You are allowed to say them and remind yourself.

Take Care of Yourself

Do you remember what the stewardess said to you on your last flight? While she was demonstrating all the equipment and you were hardly paying attention she talked about the cabin pressure. If something breached that pressure, an oxygen mask would fall out of the ceiling. What did she tell you to do before you helped your child sitting next to you? She said to put your mask on yourself first. What a shocking display of self-centered selfishness. And yet, we need to follow that advice. Why? Because if we don’t quickly put our mask on first, we may pass out before we are able to help the person next to us. There really is a time to take care of yourself before you take care of anyone else.

I’m not advocating looking out for number 1 because if you don’t no one else will. However, we do need to understand that killing ourselves in the service of others is not what God wants of us. He wants us to serve in such a way that we can keep serving for days and years to come. (Yes, I understand there is a time for the ultimate sacrifice and martyrdom but let’s understand that doesn’t have to happen every day.) Too many people are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs of service. Yes, serve your children, your family, your friends, your brethren, but don’t do it in such a way that you end up in the hospital because you aren’t taking care of yourself.

Yes, you need to serve your children. But moms, its okay to let your children know that Mommy has to eat something before she turns into a hypoclycemic bear. “Kids, you’ll just have to wait while Mommy takes care of herself so she can then properly take care of you.” Yes, you need to serve your neighbors. But if your body is worn out, you need to take time to rest. You are allowed to tell someone, “No, I just can’t help you with that right now. I need some time to recharge. I’ll be able to help you at such and such a time.” Yes you need to do that work for the congregation in the Bible classes. But if your own spiritual batteries are low it is okay to let someone know, “I’ve got to have some time to connect with God myself and let Him restore my soul.” When you need some time with just you and God, take it.

I don’t know what sins you struggle with, but there are four times when you are made extremely vulnerable to fall into them. Remember the acronym H.A.L.T. Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. When you find yourself in one of these situations, you are walking on thin ice. It is time to take care of yourself. Consider what you need to overcome these scenarios. If you just keep pushing yourself to take care of others, you’re going to fall into sin. God hasn’t asked you to serve your way in to sin.

I know you are reading this with skepticism. This just doesn’t seem right to us. We have been so taught about self-sacrifice and service that this seems anathema. However, this is such a proper principle that even Jesus exemplified it. Yes, the very Jesus who did let Himself get killed in our service, understood that there is a time to take care of ourselves.

In Matthew 14:22, Jesus dismissed the crowds and then put the disciples on a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. In Matthew 14:23, the text says He was alone when evening came. He was taking some alone time with His Father. He was recharging His spiritual batteries. He was finally doing what He had come to do but had put off because of the crowds. Yes, He did sacrifice to serve, but when evening came, He took care of Himself first. Evening is around sundown. The disciples were already in their boat on their way at that time. But they were having trouble. The winds were keeping them from getting anywhere. No doubt they were tired, they were struggling, they were weary, they were scared. What did Jesus do? He kept on praying. Don’t forget this is Jesus, God in the flesh, He knew what was going on out there. But what did He do? He kept on praying alone with the Father.

Not until the fourth watch of the night (Matthew 14:25) did Jesus come to their aid. The fourth watch is from 3 am to 6 am. They had been struggling since before evening the previous day. Jesus didn’t come to their aid for hours. Why? Because even Jesus needed to take care of Himself. He needed to have time with the Father if He would be of any service to anyone else.

We Can’t Give What We Don’t Have

If we don’t take care of ourselves, then we won’t have anything to give in service to others. You are allowed to be kind to yourself. Otherwise, you won’t really have any kindness to give to others. Trust me, what you think is being a sacrificing servant will end up simply being manipulative martyrdom. It will backfire in the end.

Take time to take care of yourself, to be kind to yourself, to love yourself. Then you will have the strength you need from God to love others as He has commanded.

Make sure to come back next Monday as we learn a little bit more about kindness to ourselves.

The Jerusalem Church (Part 5): The Vision–Continual Growth not 10,000 Members

July 15, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 1 Comment

(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the fifth post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

Continual Growth not 10,000 Members

Jerusalem by mharrsch I like to talk about the Jerusalem church a lot. I see it as an exemplary church of growth and work. I know we claim to want to be what they were and do what they did, but how many congregations achieve what they achieved?

As I talk about this example, I’ll mention that according to Acts 2:41 they started with about 3000 members. By Acts 4:4, the number of men came to be about 5000. When you add in wives, widows, and children, this means the congregation could have been between 10,000 and 15,000. Yet, somehow many brethren tend to believe if a congregation gets over 150 they must be doing something wrong. Either they are doing something wrong to attract that many members or simply having that many members is wrong all by itself (after all, how can the elders know everyone in a 10,000 member congregation?). Yet, Jerusalem did it.

A sad byproduct of talking about this aspect of the Jerusalem church is missing the actual vision. Some people have a vision of getting a church to be so large. Maybe their vision is to get to 100. Maybe 500. Maybe 1000. Maybe 10,000. The problem is what happens when you accomplish that number? Will the church continue to reach out and save the lost? Usually not. We have a tendency to reach our goals and then take breaks.

When we look at Jerusalem, however, we don’t see a church with a goal of 10,000 members. We see a church with a goal of saving one more person. More than giving the life-changing gospel to one more person, they made sure they could handle adding one more person as part of the congregation. This is the real issue for us today. Most churches know well enough to claim they want one more convert. What we often miss is that how we run the congregation on a practical level, the kind of facilities we have, the kind of leadership we employ, the kind of relationships we develop all limit our ability to grow.

The Jerusalem church was not simply about baptizing one more person. They were about conducting their work, even changing their work, in such a way as to handle having that one more person be a viable part of the congregation.

If we are going to really grow congregations today, we must do more than simply work on baptizing people. There are many churches that baptize people ever year, but they never grow. We need to be like Jerusalem, expanding and adapting our leadership and work to allow for the growth many of us claim to want.

Keep coming back and we’ll discuss the keys of the Jerusalem church’s success in this growth and expansion.

I hope you are enjoying and learning from this look at the Jerusalem Church. Come back next week as we learn that the Jerusalem vision is not about hiring enough workhands, but about getting all hands working.

Take Care of Yourself; It’s Good for Your Family

July 13, 2010 by Edwin Crozier Leave a Comment

The number one thing our spouses and kids want to know today is that we love them and are proud of them. The number two thing is to know that we will still be around tomorrow to love them and be proud of them.

Granted, freak things happen. We can’t guarantee anything about tomorrow. But we can start working to stack the odds in our favor. For instance, don’t text and drive. (I’m writing this because today I forgot and texted in a quick note, only to almost find myself eating a bumper. I need this reminder.) Start getting your anger under control so you don’t blow up at the wrong person or road rage your way into a wreck.

Something I’ve started working on is my health. I’ve learned this past week that with good diet, exercise, and stress management many of the frightening diseases of our time can be prevented, sometimes even reversed. I’ve been reading Dr. Dean Ornish’s book, The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health. I’m really learning a lot. It’s exciting to me and I know it is helping Marita feel a bit secure with me and happy in our marriage.

I can say this. I feel better as I’m making some changes. I feel better about myself. My family feels better about me. Maybe one day I’ll even look better (but that may not have so much to do with diet and lifestyle). One of the great things I’ve learned is we have a spectrum of choices to make with our health. They are not necessarily good/bad choices. They aren’t necessarily a moral choice. Eating fruits and veggies tonight won’t mean I’m a better person and eating a pepperonin pizza won’t mean I’m a bad person. These are simply choices we can make about our health. The best thing to do is simply get educated about it so we can make our choices in an educated way.

I highly recommend Ornish’s book to you. Click either of the affiliate links in this post in order to learn more about his book.

Have a great day with your family.

I’d Like to Share a Victory

July 5, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 2 Comments

It’s good to be back on the web. The break was needed, but seems like it went a little too long for my taste. Thanks for your patience with me.

When I started the break, our Monday posts on God’s Way for Our Lives was starting a series on learning to love ourselves properly. I’m glad to get back to that. However, before we take up our look at the definition of Love in I Corinthians 13, I just want to share a victory with you. It shows this blogging thing is helping me out just like I wanted it to.

Before I started looking at this biblical concept that we are allowed to love ourselves, I would have beat myself to death trying to maintain this blog even through all the turmoil of making the move. That might have meant putting some family issues to the side. It would surely have meant missing out on some time with my children and wife, which was so needed as I was leading them through this transition. It probably would have meant sleepless nights and grumpy Dad. Or, I might have grudgingly caved on the blogs but hated myself for not having the stamina to keep it up. I would have trashed myself, probably even on this blog in order to try to make me feel better about what I would have seen as a colossal failure.

However, I’ve learned that love is patient and love is kind. I’m allowed to be patient with myself. Just because I can’t do everything I want to be able to do, doesn’t mean I need to belittle myself, talk down to myself, despise myself. I’m also allowed to be kind to myself. The fact is, in a transition like a move, something is going to have to give. It is not normal life. It’s okay to let things go for the sake of my sanity. I don’t have to beat myself up for going through a special season.

I’m so thankful for the liberty from stress this recognition that I’m allowed to love myself by being patient with myself and kind to me is bringing. I’m so thankful that I’m able to jump back into this blog without all the feelings of shame for having to break for multiple months. I’m so glad I have God’s word to guide me and help me have peace and serenity through God’s love, knowing that God loves me whether I blog or not. I’m allowed to love me too.

This is a huge victory for me. It means God’s word really is impacting my outlook on life and His peace is guarding my heart and mind. Thank you, God, for that protection. Please, keep it up.

I hope you can keep joining me on our Monday posts to learn more about properly loving ourselves so we can love others properly as well.

Remember, God’s way works.

Be Patient with Yourself, Love Yourself

May 4, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 7 Comments

A few weeks ago, we started looking at God’s love for us and noted that if God loves us, we are allowed to love ourselves. In fact, we noted from Matthew 22:39, that God didn’t command us to do this, He simply expected it.

The problem, of course, is we have been so warned against self-centeredness that hearing this shocks us a bit. We aren’t allowed to love ourselves, we think, because that is narcissism. That would be selfish. Besides, II Timothy 3:2 warns that the sinners of this age will be lovers of self. Clearly, there is a way in which we are allowed to love ourselves and a way in which we aren’t. I think the best explanation of how to love ourselves biblically can be found in I Corinthians 13:4-7. If we pursue God’s definition of love for others, and are supposed to love them as we do ourselves, then this will help us love ourselves properly.

Love Is Patient

The first thing Paul said is, “Love is patient.”

Be patient with yourself. If you’re like me, you are a mess. You don’t want anyone else to know it and you do your best to put on a great face so no one else will ever know it, but you know exactly what a mess you are. You know every flaw, every mistake, every failure, every sin. In fact, you know the little bitty things that no one else would recognize as bad, but you know for you it is.

With every mistake, you can begin to beat yourself up, shame yourself, throw your hands in the air and claim there just isn’t any reason to keep going on. “Why bother,” you tell yourself, “I’m never going to make it.”

But love is patient. Be patient with yourself. God is patient with you. II Peter 3:9 says the Lord is not slow about His promises, He is simply patient, not wishing any of us to perish. A few verses later, he says we should count this patience as our salvation (II Peter 3:15). God is waiting on us.

However, there is an even better reason to be patient with yourself than simply God is patient with you.

God is Working On You

Not only is God waiting on us, God is working on us. Philippians 2:12-13 encourages us to keep working on ourselves, not because we are doing such a great job, not because we are perfect, not because we make no mistakes. We should keep working on ourselves because God is working on us and in us.

Romans 8:28-30 explains that God is going to bring us to conformity with Jesus. He is working on us and He will get us there. When we mess up, there is no need to throw our hands up and quit. Rather, be patient. God is working on us. We just need to keep working.

Let’s face it, we are all like toddlers struggling to walk in a manner worthy of Jesus Christ. As we start to pull up on the furniture, we are going to fall. We may even fall a lot. However, eventually, just as sure as little children eventually learn how to walk, we will to. Not because we’re such great walkers, but because we aren’t alone. God is holding our hand.

Even after we’ve been walking for a while, we may have a big fall. In fact, just this morning, I fell down the stairs (again). However, God is still working on us. He still loves us and is patient with us. We can be patient with ourselves as well.

Patient, not Permissive

Now, please don’t misunderstand. Romans 6:1-2 says, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” Being patient with ourselves when we sin, doesn’t mean we are granted permission to sin. God’s patience with us is not a license to sin. Neither should our own patience be.

The point is simply that since we are growing and are not perfect yet (Philippians 3:12), we will stumble and fall. When we do, patience doesn’t tell us not to care and just stay on the ground wallowing in the mud. Patience says to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, pick up our cross and keep walking. Or rather, it tells us to let God pick us up, clean us off, give us our cross, and keep walking with Him.

I don’t know what has been happening in your life. I don’t know what struggles you have or what failures you’ve made. All I know is this, if you love God, He is working on you. Be patient with Him. Be patient with yourself. Love is patient. Why not love yourself today, cut yourself some slack. Be patient. You’ll make it. God has promised you will.

Come back next week, we’ll learn about being kind to ourselves.