Faithfulness

It should be fall.

Oh, I know it may be a little early to say that—in this first week of August—but I have always loved fall, so every year I try to rush ahead. It is my favorite season of the year.

Where I live, in Wisconsin, fall weather generally provides the greatest comfort. Normally by the start of September the sweltering heat has largely subsided, and there is almost never an early season snowstorm.

People should be getting back into the regular routines of life right now. For many, that means that school should be starting again.

From kindergarten through seminary, and adding in my teaching experience, I have been part of 28 fall semesters to date. I started out loving school, then learned to hate it at times, but definitely ended by learning to love it again. As a kid, a new school year meant new school clothes, new notebooks—even a new lunchbox.

When I was in college and seminary, especially, I remember the enthusiasm I had for the new books, and even my excitement at reading through a new syllabus. Going to the first day of a new class in seminary was sort of the adult version of sitting down to open a big Christmas gift.

But fall also means other things to us in our spare time—like football. From high school, through college, and adding in my coaching experience, I have been part of 14 football seasons.

No one will ever replace Dr. Myron J. Houghton.

“Dr. Myron” was my seminary theology professor. He served at Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary from 1983 until his retirement in 2019.

He died on Tuesday, less than two weeks from his 79th birthday.

There are, in fact, many aspects of his life that can never be replicated—such as his wit, his unique life experiences and the incredible rapport that he had with his students who, through the years, became an increasingly smaller fraction of his age. He even spent most of his evenings going out to dinner with one, or sometimes a small group, of them.

But perhaps his affinity for students grew from the fact that Dr. Myron had so much in common with them.

A lifelong bachelor, Dr. Myron devoted his life to the academic study of theology. He graduated from nine different institutions of theological higher education. These schools represented not only his own fundamental, Baptist and dispensational views, but also the views held by the Grace Brethren, Methodism, confessional Lutheranism, Eastern Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church. He also undertook arduous study of other theological perspectives.

For Dr. Myron, this was not merely an academic exercise. Rather, he aspired to be competent to provide—from direct testimony—an accurate representation of the best version of the view that any given theology had to offer. He believed that anything less than this approach was Biblically and academically unacceptable.

Republished with permission from Baptist Bulletin © Regular Baptist Press. All rights reserved.

Crash and burn. Another one bites the dust. “Did you hear about …?” Accusations of financial impropriety, sexual misconduct, or verbal abuse erupt. Another pastor flames out and tumbles into oblivion. Whether a nationally acclaimed figure or just your average pastor, the impact on the name of Christ and His church is significant. The public demise of pastors should provoke us pastors to examine our hearts and to subject our own lives to scrutiny.

Thousands of pastors quit. Scores of men in ministry fail.

How can you and I persevere? What measures can we take to not only avoid a crash, but cross the finish line with our integrity and ministry intact?

Watch Yourself

The importance of personal integrity for pastors is nothing new. Paul looked the very first pastors in the church of Ephesus in the eye and said, “Watch yourselves.” The complete instruction goes like this: “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).

The previous post on this subject presented reasons people leave one church for another and concerns that our pastors have about this practice. Let me say again, there are legitimate reasons for leaving a church and going to another one in the same community. It may seem that I should discuss those reasons in these articles. But I want to focus on problematic church-hopping rather than the acceptable variety.

Some Recommendations

For church members who are considering making the jump to another church in your community, may I encourage you to walk through the questions I listed at the end of the previous post. You may not realize how important you are to your church, how much people care about you, and how your decision will affect you, your family, and the churches involved. Please take the time to prayerfully and honestly consider your answers to those questions.

Highlights. We are addicted to highlights. We subject ourselves to a continuous media stream telling us what is noteworthy and what isn’t. Is it re-tweetworthy? Is it worth a share or a status update? We have come to value style over substance and flash over fundamentals. Of course, nothing is inherently wrong with highlights, style, or flash, but when these captivate our attention fully, we are in trouble. We can quickly lose our appreciation for and connection to ordinary.

We have teachers and teachings advocating a kind of Christianity that is “radical” and a kind of love that is “crazy.” They tell us we should consider the status quo an enemy and fight to enjoy our best life now, and to make sure we are driven full throttle by purpose. We begin to place ourselves in bondage, wondering if what we are doing is significant enough. We feel guilted into wishing for bigger and better things—for more fulfilling roles and more substantial ministries. But in our zeal for a kind of Christianity that makes a difference or that matters, we have become focused on outcomes and mountaintop moments. In doing so we are prone to overlook something important.

One of the most interesting words in the English language is hagiography. One of its definitions is the one I have in mind, an “idealizing or idolizing biography.” The idea is that once someone has died, we remember the individual as being better than he or she actually was. This adjusting of memory and idealization of those who lived before us is common throughout the human race.

But people “back then” were really not as wonderful as we think they were.

This is universally done with the folks who made up the very early church. Although the very early church had its strong points (the Apostles were around to teach and lead, God worked some unprecedented miracles like raising the dead, etc.), the people who made up the early church community were far from wonderful.

The case of Corinth

Consider the words of the New Testament itself about the believers who made up the family of faith. In Corinth, we notice a man sleeping with his stepmother (1 Cor. 5:1) while fellow Christians in the church accepted this brother as someone in good standing. The Corinthian church was divided into factions, each following the unique perspectives of a famous Christian leader (1 Cor. 3:4-5).

Things were so bad at Corinth that during their carry-in dinners members were consuming all the food before all arrived; some even became drunk while they waited (1 Cor. 11:21). The Corinthian Christians invented the “happy hour.”