The Free Methodist Church in Canada | W inter 2011 | Volume 7 Issue 4
Reflecting the diversity of ministry expression within the Free Methodist family
CONTENT WHY READING TIMOTHY’S MAIL COVER Why reading Timothy’s mail is a good idea by Bishop Keith Elford
PAGE 2 Editor’s Desk The Care and Feeding of the Common Household Pastor by Jared Siebert
PAGE 3 Sabbaticals From Health, For Health by Kim Henderson
PAGES 4 & 5 Pastor Joe’s No Good, So Sad, Very Bad Day by Wendy Kittlitz Dancing with Burnout by Jay Mowchenko One of my Favourite Summers! by Terry Gibson
PAGE 6 Passages Live Generously Generously Poured Out by Sandy Crozier FM Numbers
PAGE 7 General Conference Update by Chris Lewis International Child Care Ministries
PAGE 8 Faithful and Obedient To God Haiti Moves forward Canadians Free Methodists move alongside by Grant Sigsworth
MOSAIC
is a publication of The Free Methodist Church in Canada
4315 Village Centre Court Mississauga, Ontario L4Z 1S2 T. 905.848.2600 F. 905.848.2603 E. mosaic@fmcic.ca www.fmc-canada.org For submissions:
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IS A GOOD IDEA | BISHOP KEITH ELFORD
I
f you are a lay person, you may be tempted to set aside this edition of the MOSAIC because pastoral health is not relevant to your life. Actually, it is very important for you to prayerfully consider because you, along with the other members of your congregation, can play an important role in encouraging your pastor to maintain and model practices of healthy living before your congregation and in the community. In fact, what is being discussed is relevant to every believer. So please take the time to work your way through the articles and think about how you (especially if you are a board member) can be used by the Lord Jesus to play a crucial role in encouraging your pastor to be wholesome and healthy. For my contribution on the topic, I decided to turn to the Apostle Paul, a spiritual leader for whom I have high admiration and deep respect. As you read the letters he wrote to individuals and to churches in our New Testament, you find a person who was radically committed to the Lord Jesus and ready with energy and authenticity to engage with whatever life brought his way. When circumstances required it, it was not a problem for him to minister bi-vocationally and make tents. When churches sent support his way, he was deeply grateful and expressed his appreciation to them without a sniff of entitlement. He was a person who could write, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:11b-13
And we know from what he wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians that there was nothing hollow about his claim. As a Christian leader, he had learned the disciplines of appropriate self-care so that whatever his situation, he was able to persevere with optimism. (I am not suggesting that the Apostle Paul was never discouraged or never battled with self-doubt or depression, but in order to have the following testimony, he really understood something about being alert to healthy practices that fulfill the third point of Jesus’ Great Commandment - “to love ourselves.”) Here’s how Paul described how life was for him in his ministry. You feel his emotional toughness, spiritual resilience, and grace-based optimism. One might question his basis for “commending himself in every way,” but once you read the summary of his experiences, any concern about that dissolves. He writes: “Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not
“2 Timothy” - Sixty-Six Clouds: Visualizing Word Frequency in the Bible [www.66clouds.com]
killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” 2 Corinthians 6:4-10
... if we run from hardship or in our suffering, look for comfort in unhealthy places, our morals will weaken and we will make unhealthy choices. As one reads this (and we get details on some of these events when we read the book of Acts), we see that a healthy understanding of suffering (and how to take it in stride) is essential to the health of any spiritual leader. I read recently that the late Dr. Martin Luther King said that only when the cross of difficulty and tension is picked up and carried so that its weight, mark and pressure are all felt in the soul, is it possible to find that most excellent way which comes through suffering. “Christianity,” he said, “has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear.” Over my years as a pastor, I have found it helpful to imagine myself in a place as an understudy of Paul and to read the two letters that he wrote to Timothy. He has
some important things to say about the place of prayer, the work of the Spirit, and the role of the Word of God in a healthy pastor’s life. Assuming that others will write about these, I am going to pick up on some other key coachings that Paul gives in his second letter to Timothy. There is not space enough to cover them all, and so let me encourage you to join me in occasionally reading the two letters to Timothy and taking to heart what the Apostle has to say. Here goes for several of these key coachings in 2 Timothy: “Fan into flame the gift of God which is in you…” (1:6). In other words, understand who you are in Christ and step up in those areas where you are gifted! “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus… entrust what you have learned to others…endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2:1-3). • Grace is to be the defining characteristic of our lives – grace received, grace appropriated and grace given to others – especially those who don’t deserve it. • Sharing life with reliable people (especially ministry leaders) is so healthy. Healthy leaders entrust the things they have learned to other people who are reliable.
THIS ARTICLE CONTINUES ON PAGE 2 - “TIMOTHY”