THE EXAMPLE OF AN EXAMPLE

The Law of Influence By Association first hit me in an uncomfortable way when I saw something that initially looked cute. It was when my firstborn as a toddler face-palmed and let out an exasperated sigh to show his disappointment at something rather trivial. Cute pretty soon turned to disturbing when I realised where he had learned this mannerism!

¶ Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
Philippians 3:17

THE EFFECT OF ASSOCIATING

Spend enough time with someone whom you enjoy being with and you're likely to be influenced by them. We have some delightful nextdoor neighbours who happen to have children about the same age as our youngest child. They come over to play very regularly. Lately I've been noticing that our Ruby has changed the way she now speaks. She is imitating the way the older of the two girls speaks (which is fortunately very cultured and proper). 

I urge you, then, nbe imitators of me. 
First Corinthians 4:16

It was said of the first disciples that the people could tell 'they had been with Jesus'. It was evident in the way they spoke, they way they reasoned, they they treated people,  and from their depth of their knowledge of the Scriptures.

¶ Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
Acts 4:13

How would we be different from how we are now if we spent more time in the presence of Jesus? What if I could take you back to the time of Christ in the flesh on earth for just one day in which you could just watch Him, listen to Him, see Him talk to women, children, and the elderly - would that day make any difference to the rest of your days?

SOME PRESUMING

When the great Medical Missionary, David Livingstone, set off to explore the "Dark Continent" of Africa with two express aims of stopping the Slave Trade and discovering the source of the Nile, his colleagues at the Royal Geographical Society, in London, feared the worst when Livingstone (who had been appointed as the Queen's Consul For The East Coast of Africa) because by around 1870 he had not been heard from or sighted for quite some time. A New York Herald reporter, Henry Morton Stanley (pictured right), was told to go find Livingstone who had by this become internationally famous as an explorer. As Stanley made his way into the interior of Africa, the evidence of Livingstone's past activities were undeniable. Whole villages had been won to Christ at his preaching and hymns of the Church of Scotland were being heard sung around the camps in the dialects of the tribes-people.

Livingstone had long suffered the lingering effects of malaria. He had just exhausted his scant supplies of precious medicine to combat this dreaded virus. By the time Stanley eventually tracked him down, Livingstone had been urgently praying for a miracle. His prayers would soon be answered when Stanley and his expedition approached the village of Ujiji on the shore of Lake Tanganyika on November 10, 1871: 

"We push on rapidly. We halt at a little brook, then ascend the long slope of a naked ridge, the very last of the myriads we have crossed. We arrive at the summit, travel across, and arrive at its western rim, and Ujiji is below us, embowered in the palms, only five hundred yards from us! At this grand moment we do not think of the hundreds of miles we have marched, of the hundreds of hills that we have ascended and descended, of the many forests we have traversed, of the jungles and thickets that annoyed us, of the fervid salt plains that blistered our feet, of the hot suns that scorched us, nor the dangers and difficulties now happily surmounted. Our hearts and our feelings are with our eyes, as we peer into the palms and try to make out in which hut or house lives the white man with the gray beard we heard about on the Malagarazi. 

We are now about three hundred yards from the village of Ujiji, and the crowds are dense about me. Suddenly I hear a voice on my right say, 'Good morning, sir!' 

Startled at hearing this greeting in the midst of such a crowd of black people, I turn sharply around in search of the man, and see him at my side, with the blackest of faces, but animated and joyous, - a man dressed in a long white shirt, with a turban of American sheeting around his woolly head, and I ask, 'Who the mischief are you?'
'I am Susi, the servant of Dr. Livingstone,' said he, smiling, and showing a gleaming row of teeth. 

'What! Is Dr. Livingstone here?' 
'Yes, Sir.'
Stanley's Route 'In this village?'
'Yes, Sir' 'Are you sure?'
'Sure, sure, Sir. Why, I leave him just now.' 

In the meantime the head of the expedition had halted, and Selim said to me: 'I see the Doctor, Sir. Oh, what an old man! He has got a white beard.' My heart beats fast, but I must not let my face betray my emotions, lest it shall detract from the dignity of a white man appearing under such extraordinary circumstances. 

So I did that which I thought was most dignified. I pushed back the crowds, and, passing from the rear, walked down a living avenue of people until I came in front of the semicircle of Arabs, in the front of which stood the white man with the gray beard. As I advanced slowly toward him I noticed he was pale, looked wearied, had a gray beard, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold band round it, had on a red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of gray tweed trousers. I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob, - would have embraced him, only, he being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; so I did what cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing, - walked deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'."
Henry Morton Stanley, "How I Found Livingstone", The New York Herald, 1872

YOU'VE BEEN WITH HIM!

Stanley took copies of Livingstone's maps with him to England before returning to the United States. Presenting them to the Royal Geographic Society, he was accused of fraud and having fabricated his supposed encounters with Dr Livingstone. Dejected by their response, he was met by Livingstone's daughter who had travelled down to London to meet him before he left. As they talked and he retold her of his accounts of meeting her father she looked him in the eye and said, "I believe you. I believe that you have indeed met with my father!" She went on to explain that she could see some of her father's mannerisms in Stanley and hear some of his expressions in his voice. Influence by association. 

¶ Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel,"
Second Timothy 2:8

Paul told Timothy not to forget Jesus. "Remember Jesus!" I guess this involves thinking about how Christ is revealed in the Scriptures. It is here that we meet Jesus. It is here that we get a front row position to watch how He treats the outcast, the despised, the religious, women, children, and His disciples. It is here we get to hear Him pray. It is hear we watch Him when He is alone. We see how He looks at people. 

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
Luke 22:19

When we remember Jesus we are struck by Someone who literally had the weight of the world's sin on His shoulders. He knew He was born to die. Yet He still cared for others. In this, He establishes the preeminent example of godly maturity. The thing that sets the mature apart from the spiritually weak is their ability to demonstrate compassion, care, and concern for others with their relatively small problems, when they themselves are having to deal with seemingly all-consuming problems. When you see Jesus doing this time and time again - and especially doing it as He came closer and closer to the time of His execution, you can't help but be impressed!

It's a challenge to remember Jesus when we are under pressure - when we are absorbed by our difficulties - and someone is telling us about the pressure they are under from what sounds almost trivial in comparison.

When we remember Jesus we recall that He showed care when He didn't have to and could have easily been excused for not doing so. Who can forget what He did for Malchus (Jn. 18:10) in the Garden of Gethsemane? If you look closely at Jesus you can't look at others the same again. As you remember Jesus, ask Him to help you to see people as He sees them. You'll be amazed at what will happen in your own heart when you do. And maybe The Example might use you as an example because the world desperately needs examples of those who have truly been with Christ.

They said to him, "Lord, let our eyes be opened."
Matthew 20:33

Ps. Andrew

The Church I C. E. O.

There's several trends happening in the contemporary church today. Depending on who you listen to, the church is either trending toward a house-church model, a mega-church model, a satellite-extension service model, a multi-campus model or an "Apostolic" model. But behind all this window dressing, two things are observable. Firstly, each model appears to bear some kind of fruit (taking 'fruit' to mean converts to Christ). Secondly, all of the models require a different style of leadership and structure to drive them. We might call this- a "C.E.O." style of leadership.

The C.E.O. leader is growth orientated. Expansion, extension, evangelism, expensive and excellence are all key words in the CEO leader's vocabulary. The CEO leader works through other leaders and demands loyalty, team-work, submission, commitment, and honour from them. If someone questions or challenges the CEO leader they dealt with swiftly and harshly and to varying degrees: publicly.

The CEO leader builds their organisation through focussing more on a younger audience, delivering excellent music, and hosting large conferences. Why do they do this? Because it "works". And like Paul in prison writing to his beloved Philippians, we too should rejoice that the miracle of Gospel transformation in a human soul takes place, and the name of Christ is promoted and honoured.

But there is another model of church which some may wish to explore. It is more of a pastoral model. It encourages community. It seeks to get people involved with whatever God has gifted them with. It is led by a pastoral leader who uses the unfolding of God's Word to direct, discipline, develop and doctrinally inform those he cares for. He doesn't allegorise the sacred text to say what he wants to say. He rarely claims that God told him.

This pastoral-model church looks like young and old living and worshiping together. When they meet, crying babies are present, fidgety youth file in, stressed out mums struggle into the meeting, and exhausted dads takes their seats. The music is good but not slick. The preacher is clean shaven and neatly dressed because he thinks he actually represents the God he is teaching about by more than just his words. When he preaches he knows what's going on in the lives of most of the people in front of him. He sees others in the church ministering in ways that he knows they are gifted in and is not threatened by this.
At more times than he cares to admit he wants to quit because he feels the enormity of the charge that God has called him to- but he goes on because he knows that despite his inadequacies he is indeed called.

This type of leader prays. He cares for his few people. He longs to see their unsaved husbands saved. He longs to see their wayward daughters return home reconciled. He longs to see these marriages harmonious and these children not disillusioned with Christ and His church. He prays that he will be a good example and when it counts most that he will be found faithful.
He doesn't demand devotion and unquestioned loyalty. In fact, he is often challenged over something he said and more often than not realises that he was indeed wrong. His people know that he is a humble man by the way he apologises to them when necessary. His children know this too.

He attends his denominational conferences and is told that he is not blessed by God because his church is not growing like it should if God were blessing it. He listens to the line-up of CEO leaders. He admires them. He wishes them well. He wonders if he should become more like them. But then in quiet reflection the church that he sees is fundamentally different. It uses ordinary people that don't necessarily look good on TV. His church is noisy. His church laughs (not necessarily because someone said something entertaining, but) because something funny just happened. His church eats together often. Prays together regularly. They long to see its community blessed and care about the welfare of everyone in it. They wish other churches well.

Perhaps this is the type of church model you see as well?