Bone tired. New parents know the feeling. So do harried executives. And seniors during finals week. Sadly, many Christians go through much of their pilgrim lives feeling that they’re not doing well if they’re not bone tired. If you look at the schedules of some of your local churches (see page 51 for a sample), you’ll find ample activities to keep you busy. But burning both ends of the candle leads to physical burnout’and in the church it leads to spiritual dropout. Is this the life Jesus calls us into when he makes us part of his kingdom?
Sustainable discipleship might seem particularly unrealistic when much that passes for Christianity today values success over faithfulness, a quick fix more than patient enduring, and a life centered on ourselves more than on others. For this issue, we gathered authors from across the reformational spectrum to chart a different’more sustainable’way forward into the future God is creating for us. Together they remind us that following Jesus is not dependent on our ingenuity or activity; instead, the pilgrim life is a gift that keeps on giving, upholding and sustaining God’s people in faithfulness.
In the first feature article, Baptist pastor Andrew Davis pushes back against the trend toward celebrity pastors that is as ancient (1 Cor. 3:4) as it is modern (have you purchased your Joel Osteen’s Best Life Now board game yet?). Davis demonstrates that a local church with its flesh-and-blood pastors, elders, deacons, and members can do more to provide for our spiritual health than any podcast, YouTube, or Facebook persona ever can.
Next, our editor-in-chief Michael Horton paints a picture of the real church at work. In his most recent book, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World (Zondervan, 2014), he shows that the true drama is seeing God at work in our everyday lives. In this article, he applies the same thinking to our churches: a church that tries to be extraordinary ends up missing what is most necessary for a church to be and do.
German Reformer Martin Luther joins our pages with a reprint of his sermon on the parable of the growing seed from Mark 4. Here, Luther famously declares that God’s word has its own working power, a power he trusts to do the work of Reformation even while he sleeps (or drinks beer!).
Our final feature article from Mary Moerbe, diaconal writer for the Cranach Institute (Lutheran Church’Missouri Synod), takes up the question many of us face: “Now that I’m a member of a church that takes its mission seriously and has leaders in place to build me up to maturity, what do I do with the rest of my time?”
Too many of us still consider ourselves as the center of our own Christian lives, but the end result of such thinking is regret, exhaustion, and ultimately failure. Our hope in this issue is to show you the way out of the rat race marketed to us as the normal Christian life. It’s okay to ignore the well-meaning motivational speaker trying to get you to do something “great” for God. Instead, feel free to rest in the great work God has already done for you, trusting him to uphold you in this life and in the life to come.
