Tending the Vineyard of Others while Neglecting your Own
Challenges to Living by God's Word (Week Two)
Hey! This week, we’re continuing a mini-series on challenges to living by God’s Word. I’m reading through a work of Pastoral Theology by Albert N. Martin and have been encouraged by voices from the past that he has brought to bear, which have worked their way into this month of newsletters. There are parts geared toward vocational ministers and pastors; if that’s not you, hang in. There is plenty of meat on the bone and questions to consider.
Thanks for reading!
MK
Years ago, I heard a pastor say: “If I met with every one of you who wanted to meet with me, I’d disappoint you. The things you see and hear from me are found precisely in me not meeting with everyone.”
14 years into pastoral ministry, and I feel this. The balance of my ministry depends upon the cultivation of my inner life, and where my inner life is neglected, diminished, or cheated due to tasks, schedule, or lack of self-management, it is not only my communion with the Spirit that is hindered, it is the only hope of power and efficacy that I have in my work: a heart alive through cultivation in secret with the Lord.
The temptation is to sacrifice your inner life to give of yourself to others. But failing to cultivate your inner life depletes your ability to offer anything of living substance through the Holy Spirit. It is the temptation to place task over relationship.
This week, I’ve got two quotes from James Stalker (1848-1927), a pastor who has reaffirmed my love for Scottish Presbyterians, as he has encouraged my heart these last few weeks.
Lose your inner life, and you lose yourself, sure enough; for that is yourself. You will often have to tell your people that salvation is not the one act of conversion, nor the one act of passing through the gate of heaven at last; but the renewal, the sancti-fication, the growth, into large and symmetrical stature, of the whole character. Tell that to yourself often too..
We take it for granted that you are a regenerated man, or we would not have ordained you to be a minister of the Gospel to-day. But it is possible for a man to be regenerate and to be a minister, and yet to remain very worldly, shallow, undeveloped and unsanctified. We who are your brethren in the ministry could tell sad histories in illustration of this out of our own inner life. We could tell you how, in keeping the vineyard of others, we have often neglected our own; and how now, at the end of years of ministerial activity and incessant toil, we turn round and look with dismay at our shallow characters, our unenriched minds, and our lack of spirituality and Christlikeness. O brother! Take heed to save thyself!
-James Stalker
How in keeping the vineyard of others, we have often neglected our own…
Where are you trying to provide for others what you won’t give yourself?
Last week I mentioned how I forget my soul is like a thimble, able to hold little. I often think I’m a Route 44 Sonic drink, poured out until I’m dry and in need of refilling. I’d rather the thimble be overflowing.
Here’s Stalker again:
Perhaps of all causes of ministerial failure the commonest lies here; and of all ministerial qualifications, this, although the simplest, is the most trying. Either we have never had a spiritual experience deep and thorough enough to lay bare to us the mysteries of the soul; or our experience is too old, and we have repeated it so often that it has become stale to ourselves; or we have made reading a substitute for thinking; or we have allowed the number and the pressure of the duties of our office to curtail our prayers and shut us out of our studies; or we have learned the professional tone in which things ought to be said, and we can fall into it without present feeling. Power for work like ours is only to be acquired in secret; it is only the man who has a large, varied, and original life with God who can go on speaking about the things of God with fresh interest; but a thousand things happen to interfere with such a prayerful and meditative life. It is not because our arguments for religion are not strong enough that we fail to convince, but because the argument is wanting which never fails to tell; and this is religion itself.
People everywhere can appreciate this, and nothing can supply the lack of it. The hearers may not know why their minister, with all his gifts, does not make a religious impression on them; but it is because he is not himself a spiritual power.'
- James Stalker
Points to Consider and Connect:
When you consider your communion with God in his Word, your inner life in the Secret Place:
How stale is your bread?
Do you find yourself reaching far backward for moments of encounters with God in his Word?
What things get in the way of time in secret with God?
One more challenge next week, and then a way forward.
Thanks for reading!
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I live in Flower Mound, TX, with my wife Carly, our three kids, and our chocolate lab. I pastor, teach, and lead at The Village Church, serving as the Executive Director of Discipleship. In my spare time, I’m working on a Ph.D. program in Church History, studying Jonathan Edwards and character formation.
Also, last year I released A Short Guide to Spiritual Disciplines: How to Become a Healthy Christian. If you read it, I’d love to hear what resonated or was encouraging.
Talk soon,
Mason