LIVING LIFE WITH FOCUS

  I had come in earlier than usual to my church office this week with a mission to turn the heaters on in our Education Centre where our MOPs (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) ladies would shortly be arriving for their fortnightly meeting. (Despite Tasmania’s global reputation as having all-year-round balmy weather, sometimes – on the very odd occasion – we have sub-zero centigrade mornings in our slightly cooler months.) After doing so, I knew that in about an hour, our church building would be buzzing with people and I knew that I needed to move quickly to film tomorrow’s daily YouTube video – before the sound of all the activity around our building might be picked up by the cameras doing the filming. But then the phone rang. With a this shouldn’t take long attitude I thought I would take this “quick” phone call and get straight back to setting up the lights, microphones and cameras to get my video filmed and edited ready for the next day. Please don’t jump ahead in this story that I haven’t told you yet, but this was not a quick call. It was an international call. Arizona in fact. It was my IT friend, Nam, who helps us with our websites. He told me that in just a few minutes all of our websites would be shut down and that unfortunately everything we had posted or uploaded over the past ten days would have to be deleted. I asked whether there was something we could do to avoid this? Nam told me there was but it would involve all of our websites being off-line for 48-72 hours. I then asked for a delay of 5 minutes so I could quickly copy what I could (including my apology post from last week). He consented to this request and we were only offline for about two and half hours instead of several days. When we came back online, Vanessa began to re-upload all the work that she had done earlier in the week, and I reloaded last week’s Pastor’s desk post (minus all of the comments which couldn’t be recovered). Then, I was now ready to continue setting up to record tomorrow’s daily Digging Deeper Youtube video. Except for what happened next.   

 

LIFE’S INTERRUPTIONS – GOD’S APPOINTMENTS

As part of my initial doctoral program, I was required to write an assignment about pastoral time-management. This involved accounting for every 15-minute block of my work days over a period of a few weeks. I then had to examine the life of Christ to both observe how Jesus managed His time and what I could learn from this. This assignment was an important moment not just in my pastoral ministry but also in my life more generally as I discovered that Jesus prioritised His time around His Father’s mission for Him and how this incorporated “interruptions”. Jesus would often be on His way somewhere and someone would interrupt Him but rather than regarding this interruption as annoying set-back to His mission, He often turned it into a miraculous moment as He took time to minister to someone. And despite how interrupted Jesus was, He also prioritised time alone with His Father away from the crowds and even His disciples. These insights into our Saviour’s ability to stay focused on His mission while always treating interruptions as divine appointments for ministry transformed my attitude considerably. And this little explanation about how I now regard interruptions sets up how I handled what happened next on the day that I came in early to turn the heaters on for the MOPs ladies.

   

LIFE DOES NOT ALWAYS GO THE WAY YOU PLAN

As I returned to my office to continue setting up for recording tomorrow’s video, the phone rang again. Vanessa came and told me that it was for me and it was another call from Arizona. I had no sooner finished with that call when my mobile phone rang. I deal with that call and then realised that it was time for a coffee. I returned to my office with my coffee and then a few urgent and important emails that had to responded to immediately. It was now just after lunchtime (which I had skipped in an attempt to make up some time) and the phone rang again. This time it was an interstate caller who wanted to talk to me and share with me a part of his journey with Christ. I then had several people who were frustrated that they couldn’t get through to me because my phones were engaged, who each decided to message and text me instead. I won’t bore you with how the rest of my day went, but there were several other important things that happened that day that I know my Heavenly Father had planned for me. There were a few times throughout this day when I reflected that I had started my day with the a relatively clear plan how it was going to transpire – but had to accept that it actually bore no resemblance to those plans! But this reflection also resembles aspects of my life as well.

I am greatly appreciative of the many many people who have written cards to me, sent emails, texted, messaged, and even strangers who have stopped me in town when I was doing some shopping, who have expressed that they have been praying for me to be healed from what doctors have told me is untreatable. I obviously did not plan to be dealing with the situation that I am now confronted with. But, just as I entrusted myself to God throughout my interrupted Thursday, I have also entrusted myself to God in the midst of what has now become an interrupted life. Life does not always go the way you plan – but this does not mean that your life has no plan – it’s just not necessarily your plan that is being carried out!

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.
Proverbs 19:21

Learning what I did from my study of how Christ managed His time taught that it is important to stay focused on the mission that God has for us. I see in the life of the apostle Paul the same principle of not allowing life’s circumstances to hinder us from continuing to seek God’s kingdom first and to strive to make Him known to as many as we can. (This is why it was important to me that during my convalescence that our church continued to stay focused on reaching out to the lost and discipling the found.)

¶ Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ,
so that whether I come and see you or am absent,
I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit,
with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel
Philippians 1:27

For to this end we toil and strive,
because we have our hope set on the living God,
who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.
First Timothy 4:10

We are all on a mission from God to know Christ and to make Him known. But sometimes life’s circumstances bump our focus on that mission slightly out-of-focus. This is why my photography hobby has been so helpful in understanding the importance of focusing and re-focusing.

 

ABOUT MY DSLR CAMERAS

 I have a passion for history which is why I love photography – particularly DSLR photography. I presently have only one DSLR camera which I have now had for 8 years. It has travelled the world with me. Like me, it now looks a bit worn-out and old. But it can still produce amazing photos and videos. DSLR stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex. The right single lens reflect (SLR) lens allows the photographer to focus on one thing while everything else in the photo is out of focus. This helps the photographer to tell a story and to focus the viewer’s attention on the one thing that is in focus. I think of our spirituality like this. When we gather each Sunday, the SLR ‘lens’ of our soul is brought back into focus as we realign our attention on Christ and His Word. 

 

FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF APPROPRIATELY FOCUSED PEOPLE

After I was done with convalescing, emergency medicine nurse, Karen Dickson (who is the other voice on our Finding Truth Matters podcast and radio program), advised me to seek out someone who was dealing with chronic pain and learn the lessons that they had learned about how to best function with incurable, untreatable pain. After she left my office I turned to the fifty-five books on the shelf behind my desk and looked at those most treasured books written (and some owned) by Dr. F.W. Boreham. While I knew well that Dr. Boreham lived with pain, I now reconsidered how he lived with this chronic pain from losing his right leg just below the knee when he was just 15-years old. I saw afresh that he accepted and realised that life now had certain boundaries that is did not have prior to this accident. Even though he lived with prosthetic leg for the rest of his life, he never told anyone. He simply got on with his life doing what he could with a limp. Yet, by far, the most significant thing he did was not focus on himself and his chronic pain. Instead, he turned his life over to Christ in complete surrender to sacrificially help and serve others with the gifts and talents that God had given him. While he deliberately chose not to focus on his pain, he also chose to focus on his mission. His fifty-five books are testament to this! The three churches he pastored and his 18-years of being the Wednesday lunchtime preacher at Scots Church, Melbourne, also show that like Christ Dr. Boreham always made time for people and alone-time with God. I still have a lot to learn from Dr. Boreham about all this, as KD has advised me to do.

¶ Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.
Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
Hebrews 13:7

LIvIng LIfe wIth foCUs

We usually think of highly focused people as being overly task-driven and not very people-orientated. But this opinion of highly focused people cannot be pressed onto Jesus. He loved people – even the Pharisees, Scribes and Levitical Priests. F.W. Boreham was a highly focused person, yet he too (despite his intense shyness) was a people-orientated servant of Christ. This is the balance that I am also striving for. I would covet your prayers to be able to achieve this as well. The banned that I created before writing this piece has the f, o, s, in focus out of focus while the c, and the u, are in focus. This was an artistic reminder to me before writing this that the goal of every follower of Christ is to be both focused, but at the same time to see other — to see you. Perhaps together we can become the kind of church that is genuinely focused yet not at the expense of not seeing each other. While I strive to focus on my mission of serving Christ with the gifts He has given me, I am also striving to see people so that I may serve them as well! And this includes you.

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

What On Earth Are You Good For?

What on earth are you good for? I can guarantee it is for a good reason. But in case you don't think it is, let me prove it to you.

People who felt of very little worth who have then put their trust in Christ have found their good reason for being on earth. Christ transforms people who feel that they are no good into people who do great good. He started doing this with a rag-tag bunch of Judean fisherman, zealots, and tax colectors.

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Matthew 10:5-6

Most people lack focus in their life. They spend their lives doing what they have to do rather than on what they can and should do. Jesus gave His first followers focus. When you spend your energies without without a sense that you are making a difference, it can leave you feeling unncessary and even useless. This is one of the most debilitating things that a person's soul can be afflicted with. But when you see your Saviour directing you, it gives your life focus. Before Jesus told His disciples to "Go!" He first told them to "Go to..." Jesus would rarely ask a new Christian to pack up their life and relocate to another part of the world and attempt to reach people who have a completely different language and culture. He told His first followers to start with their own community (Mtt. 10:6).

And proclaim as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
Matthew 10:7

As a follower of Christ your life focus starts by doing what you already do - connecting with people in your neighborhood and it then involves proclaiming. You already proclaim. We all proclaim. You are born and then reborn to proclaim. You can't notproclaim. Every person proclaims by:

- choices and decisions they make.
- what they talk about most.
- what they keep silent about.
- what they wear.
- what they do with with their time.
- what they do with their money.

Christ calls us to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven. Too many people describe their lives as "hell". Followers of Christ are citizens of Heaven.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ
Philippians 3:20

You may not think of your life or home as a taste of Heaven, but compared to what most in your neighborhood experience, it is! Even when you go through down or tough times, you may think that your witness is poor, but it is quite possibly then more than any other time that your neighbors are listening more closely to what you proclaim! You should live a life that causes those who watch it to question how you do it. Live a questionable life!

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.
Matthew 10:8

"Heal the sick" is part of Christ's commission to meet the needs of a community. He didn't ask them to do anything they couldn't do. He gave His first followers gifts and then simply asked them to use these gifts among people who needed them. What do you find easy? Cooking? Sewing? Lawn-mowing? Child-minding? Tutoring? Whatever your answer to this question probably reveals the gifts that God has given you. The other thing that helps to reveal what gifts God has given you are the needs you see in your neighborhood. I feel I might have gifts of leadership, teaching, and discernment. I see needs in our community. You might have gifts to show compassion and empathy and readily see a need among teen-mums in our community (if you do, please talk to Heidi Sands of Baby Mum who is looking for some mentor-types to help with unwed teen Mums). You might have gifts of hospitality. Perhaps you see the need to connect with your nextdoor neighbours? This might result in you inviting them or your work-colleagues over for a BBQ at your place. Maybe you have the gift of teaching a rather patient disposition? You might look at the influx of non-English migrants and see a need you can meet. Christ calls His followers to serve. It's not much, but nearly 17 years ago our local tennis club was looking for someone to help coach the children of our children. I volunteered. Seventeen years later, I'm still there. I get a thrill everytime I see one of them come along to one of our church events like Carols By Candle-light. In Acts 9:36, Dorcas rates a special mention for the extraordinary good she did in her community through her ability to sew. Consider how you can serve others to meet some of the needs in our community.

Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food.
Matthew 10:9-10

So much of the good that has been done for the Kingdom of God has been undone by those who have served God yet succumbed to greed. Your life focus should never be about accruing wealth or serving merely to get.

And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
Matthew 10:11

In every community there is a person of significant influence. Jesus told His first followers to seek out such a person. This "man of peace" is someone who can open doors because of their widespread connections with others in the community. This person might be your neighbour who knows more of their neighbours in your street than you do. If you take the time to "greet" the people whom God brings across your path, you may be a vital part of accomplishing great good - in fact, eternal good.  We sometimes think good leadership must involve leading many. But good leadership involves influencing influencers.  

God has a good reason for you to be on this earth. He has given you the ability to do great good when you connect with people. You can do this! He wants you to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven - a realm where He is on the Throne, and calling all people to turn away from eternal harm and come to Him. He has also given you gifts that enable you to serve others and meet needs. We do this with pure motives. We don't do it to get / to grow our church / to be acclaimed / to benefit materially. And God has enabled you to influence at least one other person who has influence with others. These are the principles that Christ gave His first followers to live a focussed life of doing good on the earth.

Ps. Andrew

The Importance of Looking

The First Look

Before my accident, I had already participated in two advanced rider training courses. One of the things that was stressed by our experienced professional trainers, was the importance of looking. They made us go through some drills where we had to suddenly dodge some obscured obstacles with one simple instruction: look where you need to go - not what's stopping you from getting there. My unfortunate accident didn't provide me with the opportunity to employ this new skill (because I was blindsided from behind). But this principle of looking is not limited to advanced motorcycle riding. It's also a life-skill.

A potential road accident provides several distractions. On a motorcycle your best chance of minimising harm is to look at where you have to go rather than the potential collision ahead demanding your attention. Even at the time, I pondered how profound the Advance Rider Trainer's words were. So many harmful things in life are caused by a lack of focus on the right things. I think the most common harmful distraction is the Urgent. We should always keep the Important as a higher priority. Yet urgent things jump out at us on the road of life and scream for our attention.

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?
Matthew 6:31

Not all distractions are themselves harmful. Our family has just had two weeks of delightful distractions. In the midst of times like this it is too easy to forget what Jesus taught about what should be our focus. At a time when the Romans had recently come through and massacred Galileans, Jesus gathers the survivors and nearby residents on a hillside and begins to tell them how they can have a blessed life by forgiving, serving underservedly, and being kind to their enemies! Sure, most people were still reeling from the recent Roman atrocities, but their most common distractions were far more urgent: What are we are going to eat or wear? In the midst of such horrific and mundane distractions, Jesus teaches the supreme instruction about priorities andlooking.

¶ "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Matthew 6:24

"Seek first", Jesus said. This tells us clearly that He regards what He is about to say as the priority for His followers. The fact that we have to be told to put this "first" indicates just how difficult this will be for us because we have so many other things vying for our attention (especially urgent things). But Jesus isn't giving us a merely urgent imperative. He is giving His followers the most important imperative. When it comes to priorities, this is "first", says Jesus.

We are told not just to make this our first priority, we are told how to do it. We are to seek. Last week, Kim lost her iPhone. We rushed back to the motel to seek it (to no avail). Compared to what Jesus is about to tell us to seek, an iPhone (despite costing $1200) is worthless! Christ tells us to seek. I guess the fact that we spent so much time and effort looking for a gadget indicates how Christ wants us to enact this supreme priority. He told the story of a woman who relentlessly searched high and low for a single coin lost in her house as a model for how we are to seek and the extraordinary effort required to obey Him in this.

¶ "Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.'
Luke 15:8-9

"Seek first the Kingdom of God" Jesus said. Seek. First. The Kingdom of God. To His original audience, the Kingdom of Rome was all encompassing. It impacted every area of their lives. Jesus says, don't look to Rome. Don't seek Roman approval. Seek the Kingdom of God - first - where My Father is King.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:33

This is done through prayer and faith. Prayer, that surrenders our heart to God and acknowledges that He is King of our life. Faith, that takes up the Word of God and communes with our King each day. Prayer, that we might better know and represent our King. Faith, that we might obey our King even when so many distractions hinder us from doing so. Prayer, that increasingly sounds like worship. Faith, that increasingly acts like we love our King.

The next time you are distracted, either pleasantly or sadly, remember to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness(Matthew 6:33). Is Christ and His Kingdom "first" in your life? The New Testament lists three firsts for the follower of Christ: 1. Seek First the Kingdom of God; 2. Treat the Gospel as of First Importance (1Cor. 15:1-4); 3. Return to your First Love (Rev. 2:1-7). Be a person who puts first things first. Resolve to be a person of deep prayer and deep faith. When you do, quietness becomes your aid and your Bible your companion. This will rarely be urgent, but it will always be important.

Ps. Andrew

FOCUSSING ON THE IMPORTANT RATHER THAN THE URGENT

COMING INTO FOCUS...

There are so many things that demand our attention and cause us to lose focus. We have urgent lists to complete, repairs to be made, tasks to be done, people to see, children to drop-off and pick up, deadlines to meet, and places to be. In fact, in recent times I have found the pressure to keep up with all these urgent things quite immense. As a leader I know that leadership means carrying extra responsibility which means a higher price has to be paid by a leader. Nehemiah is a fantastic example of this. He led with such diligence that when his people slept, he continued to work. When Nehemiah's people were becoming intimidated by their antagonistic neighbours, he stepped up and gave clear leadership by re-focussing them on God and His mission for them.

Last Sunday night I shared with the church some of the ways I am representing our church and advancing our vision to be a dynamic growing church for all the family reaching our community and beyond. Some of these things include managing 12 websites, managing the Finding Truth Matters teaching ministry, leading LeganaMEDIA, producing radio-ready 1-minute biographies of great Christian leaders, serving as President of ICI Theological College, lobbying politicians on family and moral issues, lecturing for Tabor College, contributing to an upcoming abortion-recovery information campaign (Hope For Women), pioneering an eBay outreach ministry, running a YouTube evangelism and apologetic ministry, setting up and chairing a round table forum of community, business, and church leaders to pool resources and talents to achieve the Great Commission in Tasmania, called Believe In Tasmania and in recent times have been invited to become an executive member of the Australian Christian Churches in Tasmania. Added to this is my involvement in the community as a volunteer junior tennis coach at the Legana Tennis Club where I have been building bridges with many families. With all of these to keep me busy I have learned that it is easy to lose focus if the urgent becomes prioritised over the important.

It is important for the important things to be done before the urgent ones.
Added to these "beyond" responsibilies of leadership on behalf of our church are the ongoing responsibilities of pastoring our church family through teaching, writing and preaching. My pastoral goal is to help equip everyone in our church to be a Biblically-literate ambassador for Christ, ready to give an answer for the hope we have within us. The only way I can keep up with this is to constantly try to ensure that the important is not swamped by the urgent.

I pray that we as a church we will ever keep the important before the urgent. For us as a church we to prioritise our daily devotion and quiet time with the Lord in prayer and His Word. Together we need to prioritise our worship together, our devotion to the teaching of God's Word together (Heb. 10:24-25), and our commitment to our families as our primary witness (1Tim 5:8).

While Winter is always a frustrating time for trying to get the whole church together (sickness, holidays, darkness) it is also a great time for us as a church to re-focus on the important. It is important for us to be prayerful for our church and our witness. Please pray that we will be a good witness for the Lord in our community, neighbourhood and Valley. Please pray that God will show you how you can serve Him within our church and to give you the strength to do it. Please commit to discipleship- being a disciple and discipling. If everyone in our church had a goal -to reach one ~ teach one- we would become increasingly focussed on the important commission that Christ has given us (Matt. 28:18-19).

I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.”
PHILIPPIANS 3:14 NLT

Amen.

Andrew Corbett