4. Preaching/Teaching — Our Integrity.
It is easy to preach what we are not living. I know.
People trust we have spent the time with God in prayer and stillness to speak for Him publicly. People trust we are living what we are preaching.
If we can’t say, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ,” then we need to press the pause button. Investing time in our development and growth is perhaps the greatest contribution we make to our teaching and to our people.
5. Leading the Church — the Marriage Vow.
Ephesians 5:32 argues that our earthly marriage is a pointer of something beyond itself — of the profound mystery of Christ’s marriage to His bride, the church.
Our marriage, if we are married, is our most powerful message to our churches. It is a sacrament, imaging something invisible!
The marriage vow is both a limit and a gift. Like a monastic vow it informs all we do and every decision we make every day. To expand our churches as if we were single is a violation of Scripture and our vows.
6. Social Media/Technology — the Ancient Church.
God has called us, like the apostle Paul, to contextualize the gospel and bring Christ to our culture. That culture today is Twitter, blogging, Facebook and the worldwide web.
At the same time, we learn from the great cloud of witnesses who have preceded us. We learn from church history and the early church fathers (e.g. Ignatius of Antioch, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Basil, Gregory the Great, Augustine) who were leaders of local churches, theologians and monks who prayed their theology.
We are called to be an “Ancient/Future Church.”