Danny ChaiAs you may or may not know, I revise the English translations of my dad’s blog, which are published weekly in Korean in the church bulletin. I don’t translate, I just make the English a little more readable. (Sometimes poorly. Any awkward language there is entirely my fault.) Also, as you may or may not know, he’s huge into the cell/house church, and he wrote a few books on it in Korean, and I’m in the process of revising the English translation of one.
A combination of going through the book and Sam’s excellent sermon on Sunday made me realize something: I am not a mature Christian. Some people say that preaching doesn’t really change people. I don’t know how to assess that. But Jesus did it, Paul did it, and man, sometimes sermons really hit me and, I think, provoke me into behavior change.
A Christian’s maturity is ultimately measured by how much he or she is like Christ, I think. And Scripture states over and over that Jesus was a servant; it’s perhaps his foremost human characteristic. I am not a servant. The startling I had is that I don’t even think I *know* how to serve other people. All my Christian life I’ve loved to be involved in activities. Worship team, Bible studies, whatever. And while that is service, I think it’s vaguely serving the church and actually keeping me from really serving people. This may make no sense to anyone whatsoever, but it’s crystallized in my mind. And I’ve known this cerebrally for years. But it never fully sunk in.
I think what made it hit was reading about the logistics of how the house churches work at my dad’s church. The leaders don’t lead the Bible study. Those are the teachers. The leaders are called shepherds (the Greek root of the word “pastor” means shepherd). And they don’t teach; they do real shepherding/pastoring – taking care of members, visiting them, counseling them, helping them with whatever they need, stuff like getting a driver’s license or finding work or whatever. Real serving. And separating out the roles of shepherd/pastor and teacher emphasizes the point that teaching is just a role; the group leader is the one who serves in action.
I freaking led a small group for years and I never did real shepherding/pastoring. I concentrated on facilitating a good meeting and leading a good study. Which are fine. But that’s not real leading because it’s not real serving. I rarely really initiated in seeing how people were doing and how I could serve them. Not only did I not really serve, when I read the qualifications for a shepherd at my dad’s church, man, I don’t even qualify to start. I have no idea what I was doing. I do think I led the meetings well. But I clearly didn’t lead the group. In reality, I’m not a mature Christian.
Maybe it’s dramatic, but I honestly feel like I’m starting my Christian life now in learning how to serve. Jesus’ disciples learned how to serve by being with him and watching him; I suppose I should take that approach and find someone to model myself after. I kind of regret the years I lived with John – in retrospect, I should have asked him to explicitly disciple me. I should have asked him questions: how do you follow up with so many people? How did you end up in a situation where you illogically basically gave your car away in exchange for a worse, less reliable car right before driving from the Bay Area to Dallas? Oh well. Too late for that. There’s only the present.