–Four Questions–

One of my favorite paradigms to encourage teams to think about advancing ministry is asking four questions: Who am I? Where am I? Which was is home? How do I get there? These four questions in considering ministry inevitably lead to the basics. In football the basics include blocking and tackling. In ministry, basics always involve Jesus. We examined those four questions in Florida at the October board meeting. Here are some highlights of our answers and discussions.

As to our identity, we are children of God (Jn 1.12), friends of Jesus (Jn 15:15), justified through faith, so we have peace with God through Jesus Christ (Rm 5:1).
Dustin VanHook offered an excellent presentation to answer, “Where are we?” We stand in the midst of powerful philosophical currents indifferent if not hostile to our faith in Christ. His talk entitled “Postmodernism – Reaching a Generation that Believes in Nothing” underscored what is true for large numbers of young people: there is no truth, meaning, or certainty. Their feelings approximate thinking; they listen with their eyes while attempting to think with feelings.

The way home is through narrative because we can only find our story in Jesus’ story; we can only find meaning in our lives by discovering the meaning of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, resurrection, post resurrection appearances and ascension.
We arrive home by declaring His victory over sin and death on the cross. In Luke 24, when Jesus was on the road to Emmaus, he says the whole scripture is about me. It’s all about me. So we don’t just encounter Jesus when we get to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Jesus appears in the beginning of the Bible and he comes at the end of the Bible and everywhere in between. We have to help pastors and elders, adults, youth and children understand the centrality of Jesus in the Scriptures. Please join us in the joyful task of proclaiming and exalting Jesus by delivering the central message: Jesus Saves.
-Linda and Paul Doriani