A Westerner: Good or Bad?

As you may know, I will be traveling to Ukraine in April. Pastor Dick Moes (Surrey URC) and I are going to an international Reformed seminary in the city of Donetsk (pop. 1 mill). As I am preparing to go and reading more about Ukraine, I am continually reminded that I am a Westerner, whether Canadian or American, we stand out as Westerners. But what defines us as Westerners? Are these good things?

Is it ease of life? Old Democracies? Luxuriant living? Our music, movies, sports, etc.? The danger for a pastor is that the "Western" mind, has more impact on his ministry than the "biblical" mind. John Piper wrote a book to pastors a number of years back entitled, Brothers, we are not professionals. In it he warned of the danger of ministers "keeping office hours", elevating oneself above the rest, have a CEO mentality in the church. In other words, it was to take the mindset of the Western business mind into the ministry. He had many good points to make.

But my problem is that I am the pastor of a Canadian congregation and they are Westerners. I am a Westerner...so what to do? When I think about these things I look at a quotation I have taped to the wall of my study above my computer. It was written over 40 years ago and I will quote it in part.

Speaking of the ministry it says:

Fling him into his office, tear the office sign from the door and nail on the sign: Study. Take him off the mailing list, lock him up with his books-- get him all kinds of books-- and his typewriter and his Bible. Slam him down on his knees before texts, broken hearts, the flippant lives of a superficial flock, and the holy God. Force him to be the one man in our surfeited communities who knows about God. Throw him into the ring to box with God till he learns how short his arms are; engage him to wrestle with God all through the night. Let him come out only when his is bruised and beaten into being a blessing.

And when he is burned out by the flaming Word that coursed through him, when he is consumed at last by the fiery Grace blazing through him, and when he who was privileged to translate the truth of God to man is finally translated from earth to heaven, then bear him away gently, blow a muted trumpet and lay him down softly, place a two-edged sword on his coffin and raise a tune triumphant, for he was a brave soldier of the Word and e'er he died he had become spokeman for his God.

-Floyd Doud Shafer

That is what I remind myself of this Monday morning.