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The Slow and Steady Pace of Discipleship

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Most of the mechanisms God uses to transform us into Christlikeness aren’t the big, but the small. They are the series of choices we face day after day. This is how Paul described growing in Christ – not as something exciting, but as a methodical process akin to that of athletic training:

Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize. Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. However, they do it to receive a crown that will fade away, but we a crown that will never fade away. Therefore I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:24-27, CSB).

Despite what the training montages in the Rocky movies might lead you to believe, being an athlete is hard work. It’s not accomplished in 5 minutes and it’s not usually done to the soundtrack of Survivor. Staying in top shape requires waking up at 4 a.m. every morning and going to bed early every night; having a plan for what you eat and how you spend your time; making sure that all the small choices in life point to the one goal. That’s the metaphor Paul chose for growing in Christ – it’s an athletic contest, not a magic show where doves come flying out of a hat.

One of the reasons that everything has meaning for us as disciples of Christ is because everything is either moving us toward Christ-likeness or away from it. Every choice isn’t just about the choice – it’s about whether we are embracing our sanctification or pushing against it. Paul knew the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ – that he is so valuable that anything stacked up against him looks like dung. Is it any wonder, then, that he would, just one chapter after 1 Corinthians 9, also exhort those in Corinth to consider the little things of life as an opportunity to glorify God? “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

These common, everyday choices are the guts of discipleship. Following Christ is not just about selling everything you have for the sake of the poor (though it might indeed be that at some point); it also involves managing your time; appropriately handling your throw away thoughts; glorifying God through your eating and drinking; seeing the small things of life as things that either move you toward or away from Christlikeness. Disciples understand the true significance of these choices.

When was the last time you or I thought about these things? Chances are we haven’t considered them nearly as often as God has. As much as we might long for something new and different, something more exciting and fresh, God is still vitally concerned that we make the everyday, run of the mill choices of faithfulness because we desire the same thing that He does – to more and more resemble His Son.

Many of us, in an effort to spice things up a little bit, have abandoned thinking deeply about and struggling with these choices. Similarly, we have abandoned the everyday practices of saints of the past, looking for something a little bit more modern and progressive. So we find ourselves bowing down to the idol of excitement all while claiming to be seeking after the living God.

We don’t need something new. We need something old. We need to do the same things that saints of old have been doing in order to deepen our understanding and apprehension of the greatness of God. We need to see that it’s not some kind of secret formula or latest methodology that exposes the myth of the ordinary. Instead it’s through these means of grace that many of us have cast aside as outdated and legalistic that God has chosen to deepen our relationship and experience with Him.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley. Check out his latest book, Growing Down: Unlearning the Patterns of Adulthood that Keep Us from Jesus here.
Church Leadership

The Most Dangerous Question You Can Ask When Studying the Bible

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I believe in questions. I believe in them because they help us learn. Because they encourage our imagination and our sense of wonder. Because they exercise our creativity. And because asking questions, both to other people and to ourselves, helps us personalize information.

I believe in questions. And I believe in questions when studying the Bible. In the same respect, questions help us dig deeply into the meaning of Scripture. Questions help us meditate on the truth we find there. And questions also help us move our time in God’s Word from being just an educational exercise and into the realm of training in godliness. So it’s good and right, I believe, to ask all kinds of questions when we are studying the Bible. But there is one question we should avoid. It’s a question that is, in fact, dangerous for us to ask:

“What does this passage mean to me?”

Or, if you are leading someone else in Bible study, the question looks like this:

“What does this passage mean to you?”

Why is this a dangerous question to ask? It’s because the question itself implies a level of authority for you or me that we simply don’t have. It supposes that you and I have the right to determine what a passage of Scripture means to us. And what it means to me might not be what it means to you, but that’s okay, because each one of us determines the meaning on our own. And so we find ourselves on the slippery slope of relative truth in which we are all living under our own lordship. Of course, when we ask that question to ourselves or to others we might not be intentionally alluding to this, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither is a worldview formed in a moment, but only over the course of time with repeated questions like this.

When we come to the Bible, we must come with an understanding of the Bible’s authority. That it is the truth. And when we see the Bible as authoritative, then the question of “what this passage means to me” becomes irrelevant. To be blunt about it, who cares what the Bible means to me? Who cares what the Bible means to you? I didn’t write it, and neither did you. The question, if the Bible really is God’s authoritative Word, is not what it means to me, but rather what does it mean period. Because it means what it means what it means.

By way of illustration, let’s say that I have a plate of food that I serve to a group of friends. I might ask all kinds of questions about that food – what does this look like to you? What does it taste like to you? What is the texture? What does it remind you of? All these questions can being out a deeper appreciation of the dish. But if I asked the question, “What is this plate of food to you?” then it is really just speculation. In the end, it might be an interesting discussion of what different people think it is, but what they think it is doesn’t change what it actually is.

But there is a simple change we can make to this question that makes all the difference in the world. It’s just a one word alteration, but with that single change we also change the implication dramatically. We emphasize the authoritative nature of God’s Word. Further, we also emphasize that God’s Word, because it is authoritative, requires a personal response from us. Here’s the change:

“What does this passage mean for you?”

Or,

“What does this passage mean for me?”

Again, just one word. But that one word makes all the difference because with this new question, we are calling ourselves or other people not to decide upon what truth is, but instead to act on the revealed truth. This is a good question. This is the right question. And this is the right posture for us to have when we approach God’s Word. We approach the Bible knowing that this is God’s Word to us, and God’s Word is calling us to respond over and over again. It is a Word for us. For us to respond to. For us to live by. For us to treasure. But not for us to interpret according to our own desires.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley. Check out his latest book, Growing Down: Unlearning the Patterns of Adulthood that Keep Us from Jesus here.
Church Leadership

Don’t Forget to Give This Gift to Your Group

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Vision. Direction. Goals. Strategy.

These are the buzzwords of leadership, whether Christian or otherwise. And these are good, right, and important things. A leader must work to master these disciplines, and a Christian leader should be proficient in these areas as a matter of stewardship. God has, after all, entrusted us with this role of leadership, whether seemingly big or small, and as stewards we should work to make the most of the opportunity.

In a way, all these things are gifts a leader gives to those he or she leads as a matter of stewardship, especially if all the vision, direction, goals and strategy is centered on the gospel. But there is one gift that many leaders fail to give their people; one that Paul articulated in his first letter to the church at Thessalonica:

“We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us” (1 Thess. 2:8).

Do you see it? There are two things that Paul reminded this church that he, and others, gave freely to them.

First of all, there is the gospel of God. This is the center point of leadership, in as much as it is the center point of life. This is the great grid through which all our vision, strategy, and everything else as leaders must be filtered through. And it’s not only that the specific vision we articulate must be centered in the gospel; the way we communicate, measure, and implement that vision must also be centered in the gospel. Paul gave this gift to the church. But then comes the second gift – the gift of his own life.

This is the gift we, as leaders, often fail to give. We can articulate many other things, set many other directions, measure many other metrics—but we often fail to give our own lives. In other words, those we lead might have a great sense of direction, a compelling gospel-centered vision, and a crystal clear set of metrics in order to gauge progress toward goals… and yet might not know us as leaders.

Once upon a time, I had a seminary class about church leadership. The professor was a well known and well respected retired pastor. And in one of his opening lectures, he cautioned all these young and impressionable young leaders: “Church leadership is the loneliest profession you could have chosen.” Whether that is how it should be or not, he was stating a fact. Leaders—and sadly, perhaps most especially Christian leaders—are lonely. They are not known. They might be faithful in sharing the gospel of God and yet very unfaithful in sharing their own lives.

I’m sure there are valid reasons for this. But I’m also sure that our failure as leaders to share our lives has some invalid reasons too. Reasons like our pride—that a leader should be “above” the doubts and struggles of those they lead. Reasons like our insecurity—that even though we put a confident show of bravado we are actually deeply insecure souls who need to be reminded that Jesus loves them like anyone else. I’m sure there are others.

What we fail to realize, though, is that sharing our lives with those we lead is actually not a burden to them. It is a gift.

It is a gift to know that the person who teaches me God’s Word is also a real person. It’s a gift to know the deep places of the heart where this conviction of the gospel is born. It’s a gift to know how specifically I can pray for and encourage these leaders.

Our lives are a gift. And the gospel frees us to share, with boldness, not only the great truths of that gospel, but also our very lives.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley. Check out his latest book, Growing Down: Unlearning the Patterns of Adulthood that Keep Us from Jesus here.
Church Leadership

Three Tips for Building Trust in Your Small Group

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Imagine that, for some reason, you’ve been talked into doing something which might be completely out of character for you on your next birthday. So you wake up the morning of that birthday, get dressed, hop in the car, and drive to a small airstrip and get ready to jump out of a perfectly good airplane with a device strapped to your back. You are going skydiving.

Perhaps you’ve been able to work yourself up for the moment. You’ve told yourself what a great story it’ll make, how exciting it’ll be, and how unique the opportunity is. And that rationale has propelled you to this moment. It’s even given you enough adrenaline to get on the plane. But there will come a moment—a moment when the plane is at its height, when the green light comes on, and the door opens—when adrenaline won’t cut it anymore. That’s the moment when you’ll have to make a choice—either to step out of that plane, or to head back to your seat.

I would propose that that decision is a decision of trust. Do you really trust the instructor? Do you really trust the parachute? For that matter, do you really trust the manufacturer of that parachute and the safety inspector who signed off on it? See, all our choices are really, if you boil them down, based on trust at the core.

If you really step out of the plane at that moment, chances are the trust you display by doing so didn’t happen in a moment; rather, it was cultivated over a period of training, conversations, and questions. This isn’t unlike what happens in a small group.

As a leader, you want your group to have a culture of openness and vulnerability. You want people to share freely what they struggle with as well as their joys. You want these people to know and love each other deeply. In short, you want it to be an atmosphere of trust. But that trust doesn’t happen by accident. You, as a leader, can take an active role in building that kind of trust among your group members, and here are three ways how:

1. Make the first move.

Trust starts to happen when someone makes the first move. When someone is willing to step out and trust someone else with their true selves—their fears, their doubts, and their unmet expectations. This isn’t an easy thing to do.

But trust is also like a fire: once you get a small spark, it can quickly grow. You, as a leader, can be the spark. Of course, that means that you have to also be the first one to take a chance at opening yourself up to other people. But as you do, you’ll find those around you who are hungry for an environment of trust where they can do the same.

2. Invite people to tell their stories.

One of the easiest ways to start building trust in your group is to provide an opportunity for people to tell the stories of their lives. There are a number of ways you can do this—you might, for example, devote the first 10 minutes of each of your group times for one person to share some of their story to help others know them better.

But it shouldn’t stop there. When you come across a point you are trying to make in the group, instead of sharing a story from your personal life in order to illustrate it, ask someone else to share their story. Of course, that would mean that you, as a leader, have taken the time to get to know people well outside of the group which is, by the way, another excellent way to build trust.

3. Make time for connection.

Trust is something that is built over time. It’s constructed brick by brick as people become more and more comfortable and familiar with each other. Sure, that can happen in a structured Bible study group, but it can happen much more quickly through the unstructured times.

Don’t underestimate the value of asking your group to meet for lunch or dinner or go to the park together outside of your official group time. These opportunities for connection aren’t just fun; they become the basis for solid relationships.

Trust doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not easy, and it will take some risk, but the spiritual growth and development that happens as we live together in authentic community is worth it.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley. Check out his latest book, Growing Down: Unlearning the Patterns of Adulthood that Keep Us from Jesus here.
Church Leadership

3 Reasons to Get to Bible Study Week at LifeWay Christian Stores

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Decades ago, the month of August was sort of seen as the “last gasp” of summer. Vacations were still happening, pools were still populated, and the AC was still running at full blast. That’s because most schools didn’t actually begin until the last week in August, or even after Labor Day.

But times? They are a-changin’. Some of those things are still true, but increasingly August has become less of an ending of summer and more the start of fall. For churches and groups, this means that August is ramp up time.

This is when groups of all times start their planning and preparation for a new cycle. In an effort to help that planning and preparation happen well, we are pleased to host the first ever “Bible Study Week” in all LifeWay Christian stores August 6-11. This is a great opportunity to take advantage of if you lead a group, or if you are in charge of the group ministry for your church.

Specifically, here are three reasons why you should make the effort to get to a LifeWay store near you during Bible Study Week:

1. Grow as a leader.

People are busy. It’s a fact of life. As a result of our increasingly overcrowded schedules, many churches don’t have the same opportunity they once did to train the leaders for their Group Ministry. To help with this, we are pleased to offer compact training opportunities during Bible Study Week.

This training – “How to Lead a Bible Study Group” – will be offered three times during Bible Study Week:

  • Monday, August 6 at 7 pm
  • Wednesday, August 8 at 11 am
  • Friday, August 10 at 10 am

This practical training will be a great refresher course for a seasoned leader, or a helpful jump start to give you confidence if you are a leader for the very first time.

2. Join the community.

Leadership at any level can feel lonely at times. That’s why it’s important to be reminded that you aren’t the only one taking the initiative to help people around you grow spiritually. Making time to come to Bible Study Week at LifeWay will be encouraging to you in this respect. You’ll find associates there who are your biggest fans, eager to help equip you for ministry.

And through the training workshops offered, you’ll be able to sit in a circle with people who have taken on the same task as you are. Not only will you learn some of the best and helpful leadership practices, you’ll be able to interact and dialogue with others.

3. Choose the right study.

One of the most difficult parts of leading a group can be knowing what to center that group on. After all, there are tons of potential Bible studies you can lead your group through. As part of choosing the right one, you might ask things like:

  • Can I trust the content?
  • Who is the author?
  • Will this resource really meet our needs?
  • Is there a video that goes with this study?

This week, all those questions can be answered. In addition, to try and make resourcing your group as affordable as possible, we are offering a special “buy one get one free” Bible study book sale for nine different Bible studies that we are confident can help you make disciples.

If you’re a group leader, mark your calendar for August 6-11. We hope to see you soon in a LifeWay store near you.

Click here for the full details of Bible Study Week.

Church Leadership

Dads, Don’t Waste Your Summer

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Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil – Ephesians 5:15-16

Nuance is everything in this passage. Depending on how you read these words, you can either find yourself emboldened or shrunken back. The hinge seems to be on the word carefully.

Since it’s in the context of walking, I think about how I go to check on my kids after bedtime. We live in an older house, and it seems like at night the wooden floors creak with every step. So I creep through the playroom down the hall—being very careful how I walk—to try and keep the creaks from waking them up. The thing about my walk in that instance is that it’s a defensive carefulness: I’m careful with every footfall, like I’m walking on eggshells, because I don’t want to step in the wrong place.

But I don’t think the verse above is meant to cause us to watch every footfall, our head swiveling back and forth and sweat beading on our foreheads to make sure we don’t step wrongly. It’s true that, as Christians, we are to be careful where we go, what we see, and what we do to make sure we avoid sin. And sin is everywhere, because, as the verse says, the days are evil.

In the context above, however, it seems to be more of an offensive carefulness that Paul wanted to inspire. We are to be careful in order to make the best use of time—literally, redeeming the time. When you redeem something, you trade it in for something better. You “buy back” the time you have been given to use for good. In that sense, our head is swiveling around, but it’s not fear that motivates us. It’s anticipation. We look in every direction to make sure we’re not missing any chance to do good by way of the gospel.

Here is where this truth hits the road right now: summer.

We typically think about the summer as a time to pull back. To take a break. To rest up for what will be a busy fall. So we go to the beach, sleep late, and lounge around. Maybe we even shut down our Bible study groups for a while.

In other words, we play defense against the pressures of life. But what if, instead of playing defense this summer, we chose to play offense? What if we had a redemptive mindset toward the time we have rather than a defensive one?

Summer could become something different. A time to walk boldly. A time to engage rather than pull back. A time to stride through life, looking this way and that, determined not to miss any opportunity.

So dads, the summer is coming, and it could be more than a time for mowing the lawn and sipping lemonade. Certainly it can be those things, too, but let’s not neglect the best for the good. Be on the offense when it comes to your family:

  • Reinforce the family discipline of church attendance.
  • Plan specific and intentional outings for each of your kids.
  • Lead your family to set goals for the summer, rather than let the season pass you by.
  • Don’t let the TV or computer use up all of the seasonal margin you have.

What a great season is before us. Together, let’s do what we can to buy back this time.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley. Check out his latest book, Growing Down: Unlearning the Patterns of Adulthood that Keep Us from Jesus here.

Church Leadership

An Old Testament Prayer for Dads to Pray Daily

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You can improve at almost anything in the world the more you do it. Whether it’s shooting hoops, playing the piano, or managing a budget, the more you do something the more comfortable you will feel doing it. And in almost every case, you can reach a reasonable level of proficiency.

Everything except parenting.

It seems to me that the more time I spend as a parent, the less confident I am that I am doing it correctly. I don’t think I’m alone; in fact, at the heart of most parents, I think there is a lurking fear. A nagging doubt. A still small voice that says, in various ways, I don’t know what I’m doing.

And the older the kids get, the more challenging things seem to become. Consequently, so also grows the sense of being out of your depth and over your head as a parent. And I don’t think I’m alone.

So how can you encourage the fathers in your Bible study groups this Father’s Day? How can you help a bunch of guys who don’t really know what they’re doing, but are trying the best they can?

One way is to encourage them to pray a prayer we find in the Old Testament. It’s the prayer Solomon prayed when the Lord told him that he could ask for anything. Now consider that for a moment.

What an offer: The God of the universe, He of infinite power and resources, gave this man a no-limit request to make. So what did Solomon ask for? He asked for wisdom. Here’s how it happened:

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask. What should I give you?”

And Solomon replied, “You have shown great and faithful love to your servant, my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, righteousness, and integrity. You have continued this great and faithful love for him by giving him a son to sit on his throne, as it is today.

“Lord my God, you have now made your servant king in my father David’s place.Yet I am just a youth with no experience in leadership. Your servant is among your people you have chosen, a people too many to be numbered or counted. So give your servant a receptive heart to judge your people and to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of yours?”

Now it pleased the Lord that Solomon had requested this (1 Kings 3:5-10).

Solomon had watched his father, David, rule the kingdom. Perhaps he had even been in some introductory “ruler in training” classes. And yet when it came down to it, when the crown finally passed to him, he knew he was in over his head. He was, even at this moment, wise enough to know what he didn’t know.

So what did Solomon do when he sensed his great weakness? How did he respond when he knew how much he lacked? He didn’t fake his way through it. He didn’t remind himself of how talented he already was. He didn’t think positively. He asked the Lord for wisdom to steward well what had been given him.

As a father, this rings so true to me. God has entrusted me, along with all fathers, a great amount. The hearts and souls and education and emotions and everything else—this is what He has given us. And whether you have one child or 10, such a responsibility can be crushing when you consider its magnitude. When you consider what’s at stake. When you consider how deeply you love this small section of humanity.

But oh, the good news of the next verse. That when Solomon owned up to his weakness and asked for help, “it pleased the Lord that Solomon had requested this.”

It gives me great comfort to know that early almost every morning, when I confess my inadequacies as a dad, the Lord is pleased by this. When I ask for help in the middle of a conversation with my children, the Lord is pleased by this. When I tuck them in at night and feel the weight all over again, the Lord is pleased by this.

And then, how much better the news becomes when we, as fathers, know that we have a Father who does not lack. Who actually has wisdom. Who actually has good plans. And who actually has the resources to carry them out. And that because of the gospel, we can call God “Father” and know that He knows how to give better gifts to His children than we do.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley. Check out his latest book, Growing Down: Unlearning the Patterns of Adulthood that Keep Us from Jesus here.

Group Leadership

Three Christian Perspectives on Time

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What is your most precious resource?

Is it money? Property? Bitcoin? Perhaps. But I suspect that in a world of increasing busyness, when the lines between work and rest are blurred by technology—when there is always another email, another podcast, another post, another opportunity—that the one resource you wish you had more of is time.

But you don’t. And I don’t. Furthermore, we can’t. We can’t gain more than what God has allotted to us in our lives; we can’t make the sun slow down; we can’t stop the calendar pages from flipping. Time is marching on, and every single second we have less of it in our lives than we did the second before. The best we can do is make the most of what we have.

But for Christians, doing this means having a unique perspective on time, one informed by God’s Word. The Christian should, then, view time through the lens of Scripture and have that perspective shaped by a few key truths:

1. Time is futile.

The clock is ticking on both a macro and micro level. Time is ticking through the day and, on a broader scale, through our lives. Every moment that goes by is a moment that we’ll never have back. It’s this issue of time that the Teacher in Ecclesiastes address in Ecclesiastes 3. In that chapter, he acknowledges that there is a season for everything under the sun. And if we rephrased Ecclesiastes 3 into our modern culture, we might find something like this:

There is a season, turn, turn, turn, for everything, turn, turn, turn…There is a time for the healthy pregnancy and a time for the miscarriage. There is a time for the good days of fun with kids and a time for when they are too cool to hang out with you anymore. There is a time for the diapers and a time when you wonder how you can afford the groceries for the teenager. There is a time to earn a good living and a time to wonder if you’ve saved enough for retirement. There is a time for chemotherapy and a time for remission. There is a time for diplomacy in the tenuous regions across the world and a time for bombs to be dropped. Turn, turn, turn…

When you put it like that, it’s not so easygoing. It does, however, expose at least part of the reason why the Teacher looks at time and—along with so many other things—cries, “Vanity!”

The Christian perspective on time is formed by the reality of the seasons. Coming and going. We don’t need to struggle to hold onto the past, nor do we need to be in a hurry to get into the future. We don’t need to be the people who constantly seek plastic surgery to keep our youth, nor do we need to be the people who are always looking to some future opportunity or financial state. There is a season for all things in God’s sovereign design.

2. For such a time as this…

In Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo once remarked to Gandalf, “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” as he lamented the fact that he had lived to see the evil advancing from Mordor. Gandalf responded, “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

We live in the days in which God decided we should live, just as Esther and Mordecai did. Esther, who had been given a position of power and stature in a royal kingdom that was a threat to the very survival of the Jewish people, was not put in that position at that time by accident. This is what Mordecai tells her in Esther 4:14:

“If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father’s family will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”

The Christian perspective on time is built on the knowledge that when we are, and where we are, is not by accident. God has planned good works for us to walk in. He has placed us in specific places, times, communities, and positions in order to make the most of them. We must not be the people who are constantly wishing for another time, or another place, or another position, but recognize by faith that this is when and where God has placed us.

3. The present is framed by eternity.

Our knowledge of eternity defines our perspective on the present—not the other way around.

As believers in Jesus, we are the people who know the future. We are those who have a sure and certain hope. We are the ones who have had all the guesswork removed for eternity. Because we are, we should live now in light of what will certainly be true tomorrow:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable,undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:3-5).

This knowledge of eternity changes the way we see time. In some ways, it makes us more urgent with the time we have. It makes us share the gospel freely because we know that every human will spend eternity either in heaven or hell. It makes us want to invest everything we have in the Kingdom because of the future dividends it will pay.

But a knowledge of eternity also helps us not just make the most of the present, but endure in the present. We can endure suffering because of what we know is waiting for us in eternity. We are free from the need to seek revenge because we know that God will bring justice in His own time and in His own way.

Because of eternity, we know that today won’t last forever. So the Christian can live, in a way, outside of the bondage of time because we know that we will be with Jesus forever. We don’t panic, but we don’t live lazily. We don’t worry about tomorrow, but we also invest in the future. The Christian lives with a sense of balance because of our knowledge of eternity.

Time is indeed a precious resource, maybe the most precious one we have. But this resource, like all the others, must be framed in light of what we know to be true from God’s Word. Our perspective must be irrevocably altered because of our faith.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley. Check out his latest book, Growing Down: Unlearning the Patterns of Adulthood that Keep Us from Jesus here.

Group Leadership

Four Words From Jesus that Will Change the Way You Lead

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There is no insecurity in the Son of God.

He’s not like us. We subtly beg for compliments, we subversively seek affirmation, we passive aggressively look for allies—but not Jesus. Jesus knows what He’s about. And He knows that what He offers is the only thing that truly satisfies.

It’s against this backdrop that we find the very simple but profound invitation of John 1. To set the context, John the Baptist was the religious draw of the day. With his eccentric dress, his biting rhetoric, and his fearless demeanor, he challenged the religious establishment by calling all who heard his message to repent, for the kingdom was at hand.

But John also knew that he was only a messenger; his entire life was meant to point to another. And so in John 1, when Jesus came walking toward him, it was the perfect thing to do for him to deflect the attention from himself and onto Jesus:

“Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

There were those who heard John say this—those who had been following John himself. But hearing the pronouncement, they stopped following John and started following Jesus. And the Bible tells us that Jesus, knowing these two men were following Him turned to them and asked them a simple question:

“What are you looking for?” (John 1:38).

The truth is, they didn’t know. At least not yet. They didn’t know what they were getting into. They didn’t understand the journey Jesus was about to take them on. They didn’t grasp the fullness of what it meant to truly follow Jesus. So they returned Jesus’ question with another question:

“Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” (John 1:38).

That’s when Jesus said three words that changed their lives. And three words that can still change your life:

“Come and you’ll see” (John 1:29).

This is a statement of profound confidence. There is no self-justification; there is no offer of proof; there is no cajoling or sweet talk to get them to follow suit. Only these three, simple words that changed the trajectory of their lives:

“Come and you’ll see.”

Jesus knows. Jesus knows that He is the only One that satisfies. Jesus knows that He alone can offer true life. Jesus knows that He alone can show us the true nature of all things. Jesus knows that only in following Him will we discover the true meaning we so long for. And so without any other preamble or elaboration, He offers the simple invitation:

“Come and you’ll see.”

It occurs to me that Jesus is still extending this same invitation today. And that He extends this same invitation to all, regardless of their national origin, their socioeconomic status, or their educational level:

“Come and you’ll see.”

Further, it’s this invitation that we extend as leaders of groups in the church. We aren’t presenting ourselves, our clever vision, our best ideas, or our new take on the Bible. Ultimately, we are holding up the Son of God for all to see and making the same offer that Jesus has made to us:

“Come and you’ll see.”

Come, and you’ll see the water that doesn’t run dry. Come, and you’ll see the Bread of Life. Come, and you’ll see the Living Word. Come, and you’ll see the antidote to sin. Come, and you’ll see the way to hope.

So confident is the Son of God. So self-assured. So much so that He holds Himself out to us, day after day, with the same invitation. And because of His confidence, we can also be confident as we extend the invitation to others:

“Come and you’ll see.”

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley.

Church Leadership

The Bible is a Crock-Pot, Not a Microwave

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If you’re not a great cook, there are two 20th century inventions that have probably positively impacted your life.

The first is the microwave. In 1945, Percy Spencer was working for a company called Raytheon. He noticed that while he was near a radar set, a candy bar melted in his pocket. The idea occurred to him that microwaves from the radar were responsible for the melted candy bar. To test his theory, he tried to cook popcorn and then eventually exploded an egg. With some modification, Raytheon filed a patent for the cooking process later that year.

The second is the slow cooker. Irving Naxon developed the “Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker” after his Jewish grandmother told him how her mother would cook a stew for several hours in an oven. The invention gained popularity in 1970 when it was reintroduced under the name “Crock-Pot” when, after many women began to work outside the home, it allowed them to start cooking dinner in the morning before they left for work.

It’s easy to cook in both the microwave and the slow cooker. The only difference between the two is time. Well, time and taste.

Because what you’ll find is that you can cook a steak in the microwave, but it won’t taste great. Neither will it be tender. But if you put the same piece of meat in a Crock-Pot, it’s going to come out with a ton of flavor and much easier to chew. Simmering, it seems, changes the composition. It just takes a little longer.

While almost every Christian would acknowledge that reading the Bible is important, most treat the Bible like a microwave. We want an immediate answer to some issue in our life or our world. Or we want to have an immediate boost of good vibes. Or we think that reading the Bible is like a rabbit’s foot—that by looking at a few verses we are motivating God to give us what we want.

We want what we want now. Immediately. Microwaved. But the Bible doesn’t work like that. It’s less like a microwave and more like a Crock-Pot:

How I love your instruction!
It is my meditation all day long (Psalm 119:97).

As Christians, we aren’t meant to only turn to the Bible when we need some kind of quick spiritual fix. Instead, we are meant to simmer in the Word. To have our lives marinated by the truth we find there. To have the composition of our hearts and minds reformed according to the Bible. And that takes time. It’s a slow-cooking process. It’s not just getting in a quick 10 minutes here and there, but instead reading. And reading again. Thinking. Praying. Slowly.

Take your time, Christian. Simmer in God’s Word. Don’t rush through the truth. Memorize it and bring it to mind over and over again. Make sure, as you can, that your heart and soul have time to cook.

For one resource that can help you and your group simmer in God’s Word, check out the Daily Discipleship Guide from Explore the Bible. The Daily Discipleship Guide will allow you and your group to have daily devotions from the same biblical passage you study each week in your group.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley.

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