An Inch-deep Church?

It has been really rather a busy week so I have neglected my blog. I fear also that I may have missed some thoughts that had I got around to it I could have posted. Friends have very generously encouraged me to write some more posts having read my few musings. Where to begin. Well, why not with some thoughts on a sermon a friend gave earlier this week. It was given with great passion, contained much profound thought and challenged me to think more broadly. Always a good thing. One thing that Eric said has stuck with me: " We must beware of creating churches a thousand miles wide and only an inch deep". Indeed we must.

Here my thoughts again turn to Ted Haggard, the fallen American pastor. As a chance happening on a bus journey from Oxford to London I met a friend from London who helped me understand all of this. He said that initially he had been pleased to hear this news and than God said a simple thing to his heart. " Put down your stone". What a word for me and for all of us who would judge another man's sin. "Put down your stone". May God work this misfortune and pain to his glory as he did for Gordon MacDonald. The fruit of MacDonald's removal from leadership was a profound and important book called 'Rebuilding your broken world' and anyone seeking after a life in the pastoral ministry would do well to read it.

Yesterday, I learnt that 47% of evangelical pastors are suffering from stress. My simple word to them is this: take up fly-fishing. For an introduction to fly-fishing for the uninitiated I commend the wonderful book by Norman MacClean called 'A River runs through it' which I like to read at least once every year or for those more visually attuned you can watch it on DVD thanks to Robert Redford. Perhaps I am being a little narrow in my treatment of stress but the principle of finding a restorative pastime is a task worth undertaking.