Preface
It is one of the distinct, undeserved privileges and joys of my life. I did not train to do it, did not see it coming, and continue to carry the surprise with me to this day. I have been called to put gospel words on page after page after page in book after book. I get up each morning with enthusiasm and appreciation. At first, writing did not come naturally to me. I wrote with about as much confidence as a person, swept into the winter spirit, ice skating for the first time. My first manuscript came back with the editor’s corrections and comments in red, and it looked like a botched transfusion! But I’ve kept at it and am so deeply grateful that this is what I get to do with my life, my time, my gifts, and my knowledge.
I only have one thing to offer: the right-here, right-now truths of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. All I ever do with each book is put on my gospel glasses and look at another topic in the life of a believer or in the culture of the church. I have jokingly said that I have written only one book; I just retitle it every year. Because the gospel is so infinitely deep, I know I could keep digging into it for the next century and never reach the bottom. I also know that applications of the gospel to everyday life are so wide and varied that I would also never run out of new things to examine from a gospel perspective.
You see, the gospel is not just a set of historical facts. It is that, for sure. It is rooted in divine acts of intervention and substitution that if not real and historical would rob the gospel of its reliability, promise, and power. But the gospel is not just a set of historical facts; it is also a collection of present redemptive realities. Certain things are true now, and are true of every believer, because of what God historically did and is presently doing on their behalf. There is more. The gospel is a living identity for all who believe. We have become something in Christ, something that is glorious and new and filled with new potential. Good gospel theology doesn’t just define for you who God is and what he has done; it also redefines who you are as his child.
There is one final thing. As I said earlier, the gospel is meant to be a new set of glasses that every believer wears and through which he looks at life. Let me say it another way. The gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to be your life hermeneutic, that is, the means by which you understand and make sense of life. This is important because human beings don’t live life based on the facts of their experience but on their interpretation of the facts. Whether they are aware of it or not, every human being is a meaning maker, a theologian, a philosopher, or an anthropologist, always taking things apart to understand what they mean. As a ministry leader, you are doing theological work not just when you preach, teach, or lead but also in the ways that you think about yourself, understand your ministry, and relate to fellow leaders. Every book I write is written to help people look at some aspect of life or ministry through the lens of the gospel.
Sometimes this wonderful work I have been given is easy and flows fluidly; the words seem to fly out of my fingers and onto the page. But other times I seem to spend a lot of my writing time looking at the unwritten page, debating how things would be best said and praying for wisdom and ability that I do not have on my own. On those days, I’m not sure how much of it is me and the variety of distractions and weaknesses that I bring to the writing process or if it is the topic and all the delicate balances that need to be expressed well. I am not discouraged when the work is hard, because I am deeply convinced that I have been called to do this work—not first because I am glorious in gift and wisdom but because my Lord is glorious in every way, and he meets me in my weakness with strength that only he can give.
I write always as a pastor. This may seem strange to you, but I write with a congregation in view in my mind’s eye. I write with love for the people in view. I write with a passion for them to know the full depth and breath of what they have been given in the amazing grace and boundless love of Jesus. And I know that because the work of Jesus on our behalf is so completely sufficient, I can be honest. There is no damage that sin has done or will do that hasn’t been addressed by his person, work, promises, and presence. I write convinced that we, the community of believers, can be the most honest community on earth because there is nothing that could be known, revealed, or exposed about us that hasn’t been covered by Christ’s atoning work.
In the end, I trust that my work will not just give people a new way to think about the gospel information that they find in their Bibles but will ultimately lead to heart and life transformation. I write with the hope that my words will stimulate faith, love, hope, courage, joy, humility, perseverance, mercy, and generosity, and that these things will live not only in all the typical places where people live and relate but also in the relationships and work of those commissioned to give leadership to the church.
It is with these hopes that I offer this book to you. I write as a pastor who loves pastors and has a deep appreciation and respect for the daily sacrifices that every ministry leader makes for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the spiritual health of the people of God. Like every other book I have written, I think of it as a gospel book. It is not first a ministry leadership critique but rather a call to let the gospel of Jesus Christ form the way we think of ourselves as leaders, the way we relate to one another as a leadership community, and the way we go about doing our ministry leadership work. This has not been an easy book, because I wrote wanting to examine hard things, but I do so in a way that reflects the hope and love of the gospel. I didn’t want the honesty to diminish the hope or the hope to weaken the honesty. My hope is that as you read, you will be blessed not only with hope but hope that corrects, protects, and sets a new agenda where needed.
May God richly bless you and all you do in his name!