Tuesday, June 30, 2009

preparing for Pastor John and Becky

What affirming news! Pastor John and Becky Nagle will be coming in September as John assumes the lead/senior pastor role in our church. I want to pass on a blog letter from a pastor's wife that should help us as we support our pastoral staff families.

Words of Wisdom to a Wannabe Pastor's Wife

"Your Relationships" posted on 06.29.09 by Paula Hendricks

Believe it or not, one of the things I would love to be is . . . a pastor’s wife! Obviously, there’s not much I can do about that. But, I did have fun asking several current and former pastors’ wives to share their words of wisdom with me—just in case God has this in store for me.

The following letter is from my current pastor’s wife, Holly. I love it. I hope it will help you as you seek to support, love, and respect your pastor and his wife as they shoulder the responsibilities and burdens of shepherding the church daily. So, here you are:

Dear Wannabe Pastor’s Wife,

I think it’s great that you would like to be a pastor’s wife! I consider it a huge privilege to be married to a man who preaches God’s Word week after week. I love my husband and am grateful for the ministry the Lord has given us.

Let me begin by sharing our current ministry circumstances. We’re getting close to completing our first decade in pastoral ministry. Brian is in his second pastorate. We’re in our mid-thirties and our children are currently 7, 3, and 2. So, the things that I’ll share reflect the context of a mother of three small children.

Sometimes there are unwritten expectations that the pastor’s wife will be a Bible study leader, the church pianist, and a great soloist all rolled into one package–oh, and she pulls this off with the kid’s hair and clothing looking perfect at all times! But we will become slaves to people’s opinions if we order our lives to please everyone else. I have sometimes found myself side-tracked with worries that I wasn’t meeting people’s expectations. Keep your eye on the ball (God’s Word)! I find much peace in going back to Scripture and reminding myself that my real acceptance and security rest in Christ’s grace, not my performance.

When we were interviewed before coming to our current church, we clarified what my role and level of involvement within the church would look like. My role is the same as most mothers with several small children. This church has been extremely supportive and respectful of me in that decision. Biblically, the role of a pastor’s wife is the same as every wife’s: love your husband and children, manage your home well, and be an example to women around you (Titus 2:4-5). Though keeping the home running smoothly may seem mundane, this is an important ministry to Brian. We regularly evaluate what I’m doing in the church to ensure that it’s best for our family. I let my spiritual gifting direct many of my choices. I would encourage you to do the same–pastor’s wife or not! My spiritual gift is service, which means much of my involvement is behind the scenes. This, of course, will vary from person to person. We will serve people best if we’ll just be ourselves.

Your main role is to support your husband. This will look different for each family but here are a few suggestions:

1) Watch out for him. You know him better than anyone and have his best interests in mind. If he is overworking himself, lovingly bring it to his attention. Try to find ways to lighten the load. Occasionally, there are seasons where there is no way around the busyness at church. During those times, be his “fun zone!” Be the place where he can relax and not have to fix problems.

2) Give your husband helpful and honest feedback. Brian often asks me for feedback on his messages. When he asks for advice, I try not to shoot off the cuff, but take it seriously. Some Sunday mornings, I am unusually exhausted or maybe one of my children was distracting me. So the problem may have been with me, not the sermon! Take time to think through your opinions carefully to be sure they are wise and accurate.

3) Stand with him when times are tough. Even when you disagree with him, respect him, both publicly and privately. Pray that God will give him wisdom in making decisions. Do not forget the seriousness of his calling. He is bringing the gospel to the church each week.

Here are a few other random thoughts:
• Never gossip. As a pastor’s wife, you will be privy to much personal information. Keep all of it to yourself. Let this knowledge drive you to pray. It is a privilege to have the trust of people and to be in a position to help them. We must guard that trust.
• Grow a thick skin. A pastor almost never gets a 100% approval rating from the church (except maybe during the first month)! There will be criticisms. Try not to take every conflict too seriously. Keep a sense of humor. This is easier said than done, I know. But Jesus will help us when we ask.
• Be careful what you read concerning being a pastor’s wife. There are lots of negative statistics and studies telling how hard it can be. This is not really helpful or useful information. Read people who are positive and offer help for getting through the tough stuff.

I call myself a “weekend widow” because Brian works long hours on Saturday and Sunday! But when I happily “hold down the fort,” it frees him up to do his job. Remembering the eternal significance of what he is doing helps me keep a good attitude.

Thanks for allowing me share with you. If the Lord does indeed call you to be a pastor’s wife, I pray he will give you many wonderful experiences and much joy in it!

Holly Hedges

a sobering moment in Walla Walla


David Warren Fisher's "Pilgrim Scribblings" blog was the first I really started to follow several years ago. He used to be a chaplain with the Toronto Blue Jays, which drew my attention. He also served with a hockey team. His writing speaks to me often. Several days ago, he reflected on the passing of Michael and Farah and carried a poem--

David's pastor/writer friend Greg Asimakoupoulos penned the following poem in the aftermath of Farrah and Michael's death and it ties in well with my thoughts.

Remembering an Angel and the King

Pondering the passing of two celebrities...

Farrah's dead and Michael, too.
The news is shocking, sad but true.
The King of Pop and Ryan's hope
are gone before their time.

But lest I think "Who gives a care?"
I'd best remember I'll be there.
What's bad will someday steal what's good.
There's no way to beat it.

So we'd do well to plan ahead
before our friends find out we're dead.
Let's make amends with those we've wronged
and make our peace with God.

Check out Greg's writing at "The Partial Observer."

Jim Dixon and I just came back from an amazing PFC tour of prisons and jails in Eastern Washington and Oregon. The trek passed over about 1,000 miles to Airway Heights outside Spokane, Pine Lodge women's facility in Medical Lake on Friday; Two Rivers in Umatilla, OR. and Walla Walla on Saturday; and Pendleton, OR. and Ahtanum in Yakima on Sunday. We really missed Chuck, Wayne, and Dwight. In various places, the inmates asked about each one.

I was approached by Peter, a student from my time at Jason Lee Middle School (1993-1997)after our ministry in Walla Walla. It was a rich, glorious, and sobering moment.

With very warm eyes, Peter said, "It's good to see you," offering me his hand.

Shaking his hand, I asked if he'd been at the Regional Justice Center.

"No, at a school." Pause. We held our hands in position.

"You were at Jason Lee in Tacoma."

"Yes, that's it. It is REALLY good to see you."

I will write Peter, if I can connect with the chaplain. I may never see him, again. The Lord confirmed in my heart Peter is a changing man. Peter was a "bad boy," as the current saying goes. He is a child of the King, a saint of God, a member of the family of God.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Mega Sports--undefeated


Our children's ministry at Faith Baptist Church in Kent is rolling out VBS on July 13-16 from 6-9 pm called, "Mega Sports Camp--undefeated," and I've agreed to serve as a leader.

Why? I love our kids and I love Jesus. I want to invite other men in our church to participate. Serving in our local church is part of Christian living. If you are in our church, contact Cindy Figaro.

Why serve in our VBS? What is my motive? 2 Timothy 2:2 is a really critical model for the PFC Kingdom work and literally everything else. Ministry should be founded and solid in our local church. Paul wrote: "and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." (ESV)

I know by experience our children, particularly our boys, need to have solid relationships with men they really know who love Jesus and aren't afraid to live it and talk about it with them. Our three boys are young men, now--22, 19, and 17. My boys greatly benefited from children's ministry relationships. Our kids aren't in this program but other sons and daughters are.

Our youth are bombarded with worldly influences every day. We MUST NOT passively surrender them to the world. That would be irresponsible from a kingdom, biblical perspective. We are to use this Mega Sports Camp to encourage our kids to deal with the obstacles of life with God’s help and guidance so they can live life undefeated. That's the theme for this camp.

For families outside our church or who don't attend at all, or who are very active in our local church, Faith Baptist continues to be a loving, safe place to come and experience Jesus through every adult and youth worker and certainly the other kids.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Mounce on "love"


I ran across this awesome post teaching on "love" from the Bible. I hope you greatly enjoy it! I visited a loved inmate at Twin Rivers in Monroe on Monday and am back at the RJC for the rest of the week.

Would you pray for the Prisoners for Christ team, today, in Woodinville? They will need God's love in a very foundational way.



Everybody needs a little love

I am a bit surprised I haven’t been asked this question earlier, but I did just receive one about the different words for love in Greek. How many youth talks have been given on the different types of love, based on the different Greek words? More than I can count, for sure.

There are four basic nouns meaning “love,” and many derivations from these. I am going to rely on my Dictionary for the basic presentation of the data. φιλεω was the general verb for “love.” It has a wide range of meanings, stretching from hospitality to affection to love, even “to kiss.” It is not necessarily a softened form of love, and is used of God’s love for his Son and our love for God. For example, “the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does” (John 5:20). Paul warns the Corinthians, “If anyone does not love the Lord — a curse be on him” (1 Cor 16:22). Jesus loved Lazarus (John 11:3). εραω (ερως) was basically sexual love between a man and a woman. BDAG lists it’s gloss as, “to feel passionately about, have a longing for, feel fervently about.“ It does not occur in the New Testament.

στεργω is more the idea of affection and is used for a person’s affection for others, for their god, or even their dog (see Verbrugge’s Abridged Dictionary of New Testament Theology). It does not occur in the New Testament except in compounds. αγαπαω (αγαπη) was a colorless word without any great depth of meaning.

Perhaps it is because the word was so colorless that the New Testament writers chose it to express a specifically Christian kind of love, most importantly God’s love for his unlovely creation. All those great talks you have heard about αγαπη love being an undeserved love for the unlovely really has nothing to do with what the Greek word meant in the Koine. Rather, the word was infused with God’s love and so after the first century carried the biblical nuances of God’s love.

φιλεω overlaps in meaning with αγαπη so care needs to be exercised in assuming there are always specific differences in meaning between these two words. One of the famous passages is John 21:15-17 where the risen Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, switching the words for love (as well as other words that appear to be in parallel, e.g., “feed”).

* Peter, do you αγαπαω me? Yes, I φιλεω you. Feed my lambs.
* Peter, do you αγαπαω me? Yes, I φιλεω you. Tend my sheep.
* Peter, do you φιλεω me? Yes, I φιλεω you. Feed my sheep.

The fact of the matter is that Leon Morris has proven that John likes to use synonyms, and variations do not necessarily have any meaning other than stylistic concerns. And the variations here make no sense if φιλεω is a watered down form of love (e.g., “like”). B.B. Warfield’s, The Terminology of Love in the NT (PTR 16, 1918, 1–45, 153–203) is the classic work on the meaning of these words.

So what is love? I had a great morning. (Today is Sunday.) We didn’t go to church (since you can’t go to what you are), but a group of us were the church. We meet to share, sing, encourage, challenge, and finally pray for one another. Then we ate. This is the essence of what Christian love looks like on the human to human level as we reflect God’s love for us to one another. It is this bond of love that unites us and so shows the world that God the Father sent God the Son to earth (John 17:23). As long as we “go” to church and envisage our religious duty in terms of a corporate structures, Jesus’ prayer for us and the world will go unanswered.

A Barna report a few months ago predicted that in 15 years 30% of the true evangelical church will no longer meet in traditional buildings — traditional, I should say, for western Christianity but not for the world. Maybe that is what it is going to take for us to start being the church and stop going to church, and truly love one another.

We received horrifying news this afternoon that a good friend of ours (John) collided with his brother (Hunter) on a jet ski, and Hunter died a few hours later. He was 17 years old. Even though we have lost a daughter at birth, I cannot begin to imagine the pain of losing an older child, or especially in John’s case of living with the fact that he ran over his little brother. The only thing that can possibly salvage his life is an understanding of God’s love reflected off the faces of their good friends as they all walk together in the years to come. John will learn in new ways that God’s love for him is not based on who he is of what he has (or has not) done, but is based on the fact that God loves.

Please pray for John and his family that he come to know God’s love in ever-deepening and more powerful ways.

William D. Mounce (PhD, Aberdeen University) lives as a writer in Spokane, Washington. He is the president of Biblical Training, a non-profit organization offering the finest in evangelical teaching to the world for free. See BillMounce.com for more information. Formerly he was the preaching pastor at a church in Spokane, and prior to that a professor of New Testament and director of the Greek program at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the author of the bestselling New Testament Greek resources, Basics of Biblical Greek, and served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version translation of the Bible.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Olympic Peninsula with Jim



On Sunday morning, our church voted 225-0 to call John Nagle as our new lead, or senior pastor. He and Becky, his wife, candidated with us beginning last Wednesday. If he agrees to the call, they could come in mid-September.

All of this culminates an amazing three year journey for our church and a two-year active process by faithful members of our search committee headed by Tim Larson. The faithful team--Linda Fredrickson, Gloria Peterson, Paul Dillard, Dave Baskin, Greg Plett, and Jeff Dial--met weekly on Tuesday nights for two full years.

Jim Dixon and I traveled for PFC worship services at Clallam Bay and Olympic Correction Centers on Saturday June 20. Clallam Bay is close to Sekiu, off Highway 112 and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Forks is near Lake Quinalt in the Olympic National Rain Forrest and Highway 101. The pictures are of Olympic Corrections Center and an awesome morning on Lake Quinalt.

We thoroughly enjoyed 31 and 17 worshipers in Clallam Bay and Forks. They are so receptive. Jim provides very interactive personal songs and testimony. I spoke from John 6:37-40 to support Jim about Jesus being the Bread of Life and then a longer sermon on the seven blessing statements in Revelation.

I'll be spending the next week at the Regional Justice Center in Kent and then next weekend, Jim and I travel to Eastern Washington and Oregon. We'll rejoice in services at Medical Lake, Airway Heights, near Spokane, Walla Walla, and Yakima, Washington; and Umatilla and Pendleton, Oregon.

Friday, June 19, 2009

knowing by experience


One of my most cherished study and devotional resources is anything preached by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He was preaching through Romans when he was stopped. Here is his account--

“I was at Romans 14:17. I had dealt with 'righteousness', with 'peace' on March 1st, and there I was stopped. I was not allowed to deal with 'joy in the Holy Ghost'. I have the feeling that this was not accidental. God intervened and I could suggest a reason why. I was able to deal with righteousness and peace (I had fleeting experiences of it), but the third thing is the profoundest of all. Why was I not allowed to deal with it? Because I knew something, but not enough about it. 'I want you to speak with greater authority on this,' God said . . .

Here is what I would put before you. For six months, until September, I did not preach at all. For four months I have had the most valuable experience of being a listener. My general impression is that most of our services are terribly depressing! I am amazed people still go to church; most who go are female and over the age of forty. The note missing is 'joy in the Holy Ghost'. There is nothing in these services to make a stranger feel that he is missing something by not being there.”

That reflection comes from a servant of the Lord many consider to be the greatest preacher of the 20th century. His words touch me directly as I consider my daily contact with men at the Regional Justice Center in the chaplain ministry and my own participation at our home church. Does the Lord delight in my worship and activities? What do strangers see in me in my church? I often am concerned about what the children see. They need to see men who genuinely love God and want to serve Him.

I'll be heading to the coast of Washington for the corrections facilities at Clallam Bay and then Forks on June 20th and then to eastern Washington and Oregon facilities for worship services with Jim Dixon, my PFC co-worker.

Oh, that the Lord Himself would deliver me from being a terribly depressing worshiper at Faith Baptist Church where I am a member. Deliver me, Lord! I pray the services Jim and I will be leading over these next two weekends as ambassadors with PFC would be filled with "joy in the Spirit," and those actively participating would rejoice in His presence!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

guilty verdict and full day


Wow! What a day. The accused inmate I have been supporting was ruled guilty by the jury which really surprised me. He will be sentenced in a month. I was the first person he saw in the late afternoon. Honestly, I still believe he is innocent. He was sick and "out of it" most of the day. He has a multitude of questions for the Lord. I told him I would, as well. I affirmed my genuine love for him. We read Deuteronomy 1:29-31 about the LORD carrying Israel through the wilderness. I exhorted him to let the LORD carry him, right now. He was a Christian when all this happened and has maintained a faithful witness in his unit. My role is to walk with him while he remains at the RJC, regardless of what unfolds.

I had a packed day meeting with other inmates, including two 19 year-olds. One I met with before who has gang affiliations. Another man struggling with meth addiction wanted to know about the wickedness of Satan. In the midst of all this during my afternoon break, I carefully read the "70 resolutions," by Jonathan Edwards which really focused my heart.


Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ Deut. 1:29-31

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

to the jury


I've continued to observe parts of a trial at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent to support the accused as part of my Prisoners for Christ ministry. Monday afternoon, the case went into jury deliberation dealing with "beyond reasonable doubt." I met with the inmate Monday night as he is now waiting for the verdict.

I tried to consider what the family of the deceased was hearing and then tried to place myself in the jury. As I wrote before, I know some of the family from high school, 39 years ago. We've talked briefly as if we hadn't skipped a day. We played intramural basketball together back then at Federal Way High School.

I am headed to prisons at Clallam Bay and Forks on June 20 and then on to eastern Washington and Oregon sites with my PFC team on June 26-28. Our team is dealing with changes so I would ask you to pray for that.

My guest teaching is winding down in Tahoma, this week. I am taking my first gang of awesome kindergartners, today. Wow! I am also umpiring girls fastpitch and boys baseball throughout this summer and am getting Jon involved.

Peter is off on a two week short-term missions trip to Japan with his small group from our church.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

DNA trial


As part of my PFC ministry at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, I am attending a really emotional murder trial. The accused is a committed Christian. In fact, his home church paid for the services of an excellent lawyer. He and I have met many times individually and in small group Bible studies. The case received significant media coverage.

The additional hard part is that I know the sons of the victim from high school 39 years ago. Although we haven't talked for all this time, we picked up like we haven't missed a day. We'll hope to talk after this trial concludes.

The prosecution rested on Wednesday. Today, the defense lawyer scheduled a DNA expert whose expert testimony will be persuasive, perhaps the significant factor, in the case.

I am working some still as a guest teacher in the Tahoma School District and am umpiring fastpitch and some baseball with the USSSA. Our 19 year-old son Peter heads off to Japan for a two week missions trip on Sunday. Wow!