I recently communicated with a church leader whose congregation, like so many, is in the middle of transition. They spent some time in consultation with some of my Siburt Institute colleagues, and at the end of the time, one of the elders said to the minister, “I think we can do this.” I found myself immediately excited and encouraged by his response, but then I had to stop and think:

Why was this simple statement such good news?

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been in touch with leaders from a big church in Arkansas, some medium-sized churches in St. Louis, and a very small church in Central Texas. All of them have been asking in different ways the question that goes with the answer above: “Can we do this?” I suspect that, along with some concern that maybe it’s actually all going to come crashing down, the word “really” is hiding in their question: “Can we REALLY do this?”

When things are precarious—and times of transition often feel precarious—I think it’s natural for us to feel fear. We hear it in the Psalms, as in Psalms 42-43, where three times the Psalmist asks himself, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?” The encouragement in 42:5 is “Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God”... and yet the question keeps coming up. Or consider Psalm 74, which seems to come from the time after the destruction of Jerusalem, and in which the Psalmist says in v. 9, “there is no longer any prophet, and there is no one among us who knows how long. How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?” 

But it’s also true that the most difficult times are precisely when we can find depths of faith that we may not have known we possess. That is precisely what we see in the book of Acts, that biblical text many of us love so much. I teach it every year in my freshman Bible classes at ACU, and we talk about the boldness of the Jesus community and the ways that God worked in mighty ways among them. 

One of the things I want my students to see is that BOTH of these are necessary for the work of the church, the exercise of Christian leadership, and the spread of the gospel. It’s what preacher and writer Mark Dever has called “the means for the mission.”[1] For every great sermon by Peter, baptism by Philip, or testimony from Paul, there was also a mighty act of God right along with it. Sometimes God acted by an angel (think of the jailbreaks in chs. 5 and 12), sometimes it was “the Lord” (as in Paul’s jailhouse encouragement in ch. 23), sometimes it was the Holy Spirit (consider the Pentecost visitation of ch. 2 or the Spirit’s directing Paul and Silas in ch. 16), and sometimes it was Jesus, plain and simple (Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus in ch. 9). 

The same is true in our day, too. You are probably facing a lot of challenges in your ministry, your congregation, and your context.  And to engage those challenges, you may need all of your wisdom, ingenuity, imagination and just plain sweat. But you also need the presence and support of the living God—and the good news is that God is right there with you, supporting you and holding you up, just as in the book of Acts! 

That’s why I was so glad to hear that elder say, “I think we can do this”: there was confidence in his statement. If I had a megaphone to talk to church leaders all over the world, I’d want to echo that elder: I think we can do it! Granted, the “it” may be changing in these turbulent times. “It” may no longer mean busting at the seams with programs and attendees, and “it” may even mean being good stewards as we close a chapter or even the book of our congregation’s life story. But for all of us, the “it” is being faithful to the calling we have received, responding to the times we live in and the circumstances we face. 

Why am I confident that we can do it? We have each other, which means we aren’t alone at a human level. We have good leadership resources available to us—in fact, more resources than ever in the history of the church (and the Siburt Institute is glad to provide all sorts of things that might be able to help you). Hopefully we have the willingness to do it; we know our people and our churches need us, and we have the desire to serve them. But more than anything else, I believe with all my heart that the Lord is with us. Just as in the book of Acts, just as in the story of Israel, the God who is called Emmanuel is truly with us. As we sing, using the words of Psalm 124:8, “Our help is in the name of the Lord—blessed be the Lord!”

And blessed be your ministry as you serve God’s people.

David

1.  Mark Dever, The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 136-141. I have modified his syntax slightly, but I have preserved his good preacherly alliteration.