I picked up a copy of Brian Jones book Second Guessing God: Hanging On When You Can't See His Plan after chatting with him briefly at a conference. He told me about the two guys in his church that he describes in the article below. Brian is an authentic and encouraging guy. His book is a good read and I'l likely pass along copies of it to few people I know. Here's a sample...
MINISTRIES OF MISERY by Brian Jones
In the spring of 1997 I quit
being a pastor. I didn't make a formal announcement to my congregation, but I
might as well have. I was out of there. In my mind I had two good reasons for
taking my hand off the plow: Jim and Franklin.
Jim was a guy who felt
called by God to be my accountability partner-without asking me. He offered to
take me out to eat one day, so I accepted. Little was I prepared for what was
about to happen. Setting down his sandwich he said, "Brian, there are a number
of things you are doing wrong at our church, but for the sake of time I've
shortened my list to 10." I made the mistake of saying, "Start with number one."
Two and a half hours later I left with two things-50% less self-esteem and a
really good case for why first cousins should never marry. After that meeting
Jim felt that it was his special calling from God to point out my mistakes on a
weekly basis-through letters, phone calls, notes in the offerings bowls, frowns
during the sermons, and disappointing stares in the church hallway. Jim was the
first person I ever met with the spiritual gift of complaining.
Franklin,
on the other hand, felt equally called to correct my flaws; he just had a
different strategy. Instead of coming directly to me, he would secretly approach
people one on one and ask questions like, "What do you think of Brian's sermons?
I've talked to just about everyone except you. People are really disappointed. I
just wanted to know what you thought." Occasionally someone would approach me
and warn, "You really need to talk to Franklin." Every time I directly
approached him, however, he'd laugh, "You're paranoid Brian. Things are fine."
Franklin had a special CIA-covert-black-ops-stealth-ministry-of-subversion thing
going on in our church. I'm sure the Bible talked about why those kinds of
ministries were important in the local church, but I must have skipped that
chapter.
Jim and Franklin's ministry of misery went on for eight months.
I was young and inexperienced. I was leading a new church with new Christians so
they were just as confused as I was. My leadership team didn't really know how
to handle the situation. So Jim and Franklin got exactly what they wanted: I was
out of there. My soul was too heavy to carry on. I didn't want to quit but I
knew that every time I walked into that church a little part of me died inside.
If I kept it up nothing would be left.
One day, out of complete
desperation, I drove across town to the church of a Pastor I had recently met. I
didn't have an appointment, I just showed up. As I walked into his office he
could tell by the look in my eyes that I was desperate, so he graciously stopped
what he was doing and asked me to sit down. My lips quivered. My eyes watered.
My chest expanded and compressed with great force. When I finally talked I could
only mouth small, measured sentences. It reminded me of those lines in
Hamlet:
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my
story. (Hamlet, Act V, Scene ii)
I told him about the two men at our
church. I told him about the way I felt on Sunday when I saw them corner people
in the hallway. I told him about the notes, the emails, the phone calls, the
stares. I told him that I knew it wasn't Christ-like but I wanted to get back at
them so way-hire hit men or scrap my keys on their car doors or make fun of
their bad haircuts or something. I told him I was quitting.
Then he
shared something with me that changed me.
He pulled his chair closer to
me, grabbed my hand, looked me in the eyes and said, "Brian, God wants to change
the city. But in order to do that he has to change our hearts first. What you're
experiencing is God's way of softening your heart. Ask God to take the pain
you're experiencing and use it to give you his heart for people in pain."
Honestly, I wasn't real encouraged by what he said. But he was older and
wiser and thinner than me so I thought I should at least give what he said a try
before I threw in the towel.
That night before I went to bed I threw up a
half-hearted prayer, "Jesus, give me your heart for people," and went to sleep.
Then I did it the next night, then again, then again, and again.
For almost ten years now that has been a spiritual discipline of mine.
In fact, for ten years now that one simple prayer has worked more good in the
lives of people I serve than just about anything else I've done - all thanks to
Jim, and Franklin, and a pastor named Doug Roe.
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