The Simple Pastor
By Phil Whittall, church planter, blogger & book reviewer
RT @lukedvd: Hope his resignation from the England manager job will allow @JoelVirgo to focus on his church duties #nomorehairdye 16 hrs ago
*Update* I meant to add this but couldn’t find it because they’ve changed their name but check out www.streetbank.com which is a new idea launched by some guys known to us at Breathe. Have a look and see if you can join in and make it happen…seems like a good idea
I’ve not bothered with ebay or amazon, because giving away things for free is more enjoyable for me.
218 albums is about 14 a year or just over one a month. Actually, I’ve not bought all those and before you chasten me for stealing, I was sent a fair number to review – most of the Christian music came to me that way. Even so, that’s a lot of music and represents about £3000 worth of stuff.
I probably listen to more now it’s on my laptop – but it just showed me again how stuff just creeps into your life and before you know it, there’s a tonne of it that clogs up your home and your life. Best to resist at point of purchase, prevention is easier than cure. I might catalogue my books at some point and that will really scare me silly.
We know that following Jesus is the goal of our lives (seek first the kingdom of God and all that) and even though God may bless some of us with massive incomes, it’s not for massive personal gain but for massive blessing of others. Anyway, the answer is obvious.
The follow up question, ‘how is that evidenced in your life’ is a little trickier. I’m pretty clear that wealth is not the goal of my life but somehow along the way I’ve done pretty well at acquiring things for myself. I’m not wealthy by any measure (although I am a very long way from being poor) but if the goal is not accumulation then how come I have so much stuff?
But NOT having stuff is not the goal either it’s just less distracting from what is the goal. When I buy books, sooner or later, if I keep them I’m going to need some bookshelves. When I buy a DVD player, I’m going to buy some DVDs to watch. One purchase almost always leads to another – new outfit, new shoes. Then somehow, by a series of very small justifications I end up with a house full of stuff, and invariably the bigger the house the more stuff there is. So even though my desire is to radically follow Jesus, I find the laptop, the TV, the books, the toys, the house, the hobbies can all (if I let them) get in the way.
The more I have, if there are no restrictions, then the more weighed down I become, the less responsive I am. God asks us ‘why spend money on what is not bread and your labour on what does not satisfy?’ But our response is that we are satisfied, satisfied with lesser goods and lesser things, satisfied by the temporary not the eternal, satisfied by the mundane not the significant, by trinkets and toys, by possessions not people.
So, action is needed. The things must remain servants – every now and then I need to demonstrate that they don’t have a grip on my life by technology Sabbaths (anyone else get jitters when they don’t check the web to see what’s going on? – the BBC used to pride itself on updating its news site every minute of every day), I need to exercise my freedom by sharing and giving rather than simply just taking and keeping. I need to set boundaries (thus far and no further) to the size of my wardrobe, to extent of my house or the frequency with which I change my car or kitchen. Action to keep distractions in check is necessary if I am to keep first things first and seek his kingdom.
But I must also turn my attention to delighting in Him and that isn’t achieved by having little or lots…
It’s natural that I should want to own a home and once I have a home to own the the things that fill the space up. As I go through life I see things, I want them and I try to acquire them, it’s only natural. Those possessions are mine, and no one elses – so hands off.
But it’s only natural if we think that this life is all there is, it’s only natural if we think the point of life is to make oneself happy, it’s only natural if we think we have to look after number 1 and it’s only natural if we think no one else is going to look out for us. It’s only natural if we neither know nor trust our neighbour and have no sense of family or community.
Ownership is linked pretty closely to control, if I own it I say what happens with it, I set the conditions and rules. I am in charge. You can’t touch my stuff unless I say so. Control gives us power. It’s always a travesty when people act as if other people are their possessions, as if they own their partner or children so they can control them.
Anyway, it should come as no surprise that the Bible has a different take on ownership. For a start it has a much longer term perspective. It recognises that everyone perishes and the only person who has any ‘real’ ownership of anything in this world is the one who made it. In fact it’s not really implicit but pretty clearly stated – ‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it’ according to Psalm 24.
Our desire for ownership then brings with it some real problems, firstly it’s a challenge to the real owner, which is why playground battles can be so vicious. We challenge God’s right to the earth and all that is in it. Having staked our claim to ownership, we then attempt to assert control, which again challenges someone who has a claim to Lordship. We were created to be great tenants but we ended up making pretty terrible masters.
But the consequences extend to our relationship with others, we become possessive, selfish and anxious and that’s if we’re among the lucky ones. Yet generosity, sharing, community, families and most of all acknowledging God’s prior claim over our lives and all that comes through our hands are effective antidotes.
The more I give, the freer I become, the less I have the less what I have has me and the more contented I become. God sets me free because what is natural is actually an unnatural chain around me, that I will use to the best of my ability to use the things that God has given me the way He wants them used. Which I suspect is to be a blessing to others.
I’m not sure I’m happy with being defined as a consumer. I’m not sure I want to be measured by the strength of my appetites, be it for food, books, music, entertainment, travel or whatever. That doesn’t seem to fit within my biblical calling to be a steward, to be a follower, to be a worshipper or virtual any description of a Christian that I can think of.
There are plenty of problems that come from being consumers, not least the challenge of personal debt and the increased pressure it places on the environment. Because we consume, we rarely keep, we’re always looking for a replacement, we need MORE.
But we’re never satisfied by the new TV, the car we drive, the phone we carry, the clothes we wear. In fact you’re not supposed to be. If your dream was actually attainable then you’d stop consuming and that would be a problem. No, they want you coming back again and again and again for what is new.
But this mindset is a bit viral, it spreads beyond the wallet to relationships, family, character, work, society and so on. It undermines our satisfaction with ourselves, our lives, our partners and virtually everything. It’s not that we can’t be happy, but that we can’t be content. You do a word study to find the one the Bible encourages us to be.
There are problems with a consumer mindset for the church, because we measure church by how much it satisfies us, rather than how satisfied God is with us or even how satisfied in God we are. We start to measure churches in unbiblical ways – comfort of chairs, quality of sound, entertaining preaches, quality children’s programmes and quality coffee. I wonder how the church of Jerusalem or Antioch or Ephesus measured up under those criteria?
Instead, Jesus calls me to define myself by my service to God and to others and not my service to myself. To consider others first, to seek first not my own appetities and desires but the kingdom of God. It’s pretty rare that I go shopping with the kingdom of God on my list. Jesus challenges me to find my satisfaction elsewhere, we don’t live on bread alone right?
For more read a great article by my friend Mark Powley here at Breathe
Here are a few hunches (shot from the hip), let me know what you think. Money becomes tied up with our dreams, in fact they become inseparable. Money is the key to my early retirement, my travel dreams, my home, my family aspirations. It’s not that I begin by wanting money but that I can’t achieve my dreams without it, so begins our search for more cash.
At the other end of the spectrum is a different but related issue. Money is tied up with my survival, without I cannot buy clothes, food, shelter, basic provision for my family. Without money, my options are limited and unlikely to be lawful.
So money feeds my dreams and keeps me alive but it also soothes my fears. When I’m old, I’ll be OK because I’ll have a good pension, because I’ll have bought my home, because essentially I’ll have money. Without those things I become anxious, nervous and fearful of the future, fearful of illness and loneliness.
In the end we invest ourselves into money, it is the road we must journey on to have hope, to live without fear and to survive in our world. Yet Jesus holds out something different – he calls us to have a new hope, one founded on his kingdom, one that stretches into eternity, He calls us to live without fear – trusting that our Father knows what we’ll need and is able to provide. Death has lost its sting so we are freed to live fully in the present moment. More than that we are born into a family that cares and shares its possessions with each other because they are not mine or even ours but His. No widow should fear loneliness or lack, no orphan should worry about a life without love or food, no family should struggle to survive. And our dreams become renewed, of an earth without pollution, a society without sin, a life without guilt, a kingdom of justice, mercy and grace.
When our hopes, dreams, fears and lives are placed in Christ, money can no longer be a master or even a servant but instead another gift given, received and shared. Then we are free.
The problem with that of course is that I remain resolutely materialistic. My eyes remain fixed on earthly things, I’m worried about my stuff. I’m worried that someone will break my stuff, not give me my stuff back, not share with me their stuff (that I may want), that I’ll pay more than they will. Deep down I’m just trading some of what I don’t use a lot to gain access to more stuff. Deep down I’m not really as free from the love of possessions as I would like.
If a friend I really care about is in need I’ll do what I can and not a minimum but to a maximum. For other people I tend to share to the minimum. What’s the least I can manage? The problem is that I’ve not enough love for those outside my circle of friends.
How different was the early church? Their cozy group of close knit friends, with the same language, values, beliefs and backgrounds was shattered on the day of Pentecost when 3000 strangers from all over the middle east speaking a dozen languages were suddenly added to their group. Yet people soon began selling what they had to provide for their new members of their family. Not because they had great rules but because they had great love.
So, perhaps what I need is a more generous, big hearted love for the people of God and out of the overflow of my love comes my willingness to share because the treasure I seek cannot be found on earth, cannot be bought, cannot be traded, cannot be sold. “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose”.
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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