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Turning Over Tables

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By Larry Short

I am very much enjoying being a part of a small but lively community group designed for newish and upcoming group leaders. We rotate and share responsibility for leading Bible studies, sharing and prayer times, and fellowship.

Recently Rebekah McKenzie led our Bible study on the topic of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers, in the second half of John 2. It was her first time leading, and I was really looking forward to it. (And she did a great job herding us cats!)

I tell leaders, “Success in leading a Bible study is not up to you. It’s up to the Holy Spirit, moving as He desires among the members of your group, in accordance with the gifts He’s given them.” Effective group leaders really should simply be facilitators of this process, more than teachers, per se.

And that takes a lot of the pressure off, doesn’t it?

Working Together in Our Gifting

After studying Ephesians 4, particularly verse 11, I’ve recently come to the same conclusion regarding the Church itself (and Jesus’s own church with a small c, here on the corner of 94th and 128th, Elim Evangelical Free Church). It’s God’s Church—not ours—and we must look to Him to work His plan for it. And He will do so through the effective working together of the gifting He gives to the members of the Body.

We learn the following from Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:

  • There are a variety of gifts and a variety of types of service. We are not all the same. (Thank God for that, right?!)
  • The purpose of those gifts is to build up the Body of Christ. And that means that Body will not be healthy unless those gifts are being used properly! (This is why I think it is so important for us to seek to understand how God has gifted us and experience His freedom in learning to use those gifts well and wisely.)
  • If one member of the Body suffers (and I think from the context this might include those who may not be using their gifts as God intended to serve others and build up the Body), the entire Body suffers.

Then in Ephesians 4:11 and following, Paul shines an even sharper spotlight on the five specific gifts that are super important for the healthy functioning of the Church:

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.

And Paul goes on from there to reveal more about what spiritual maturity and church health look like. (It’s definitely worth a read, at least through verse 16! Also, it’s worth noting that some scholars believe the last two [shepherd and teacher] are actually one gift alternately translated “pastor.” And I definitely think these are two distinct skill sets or gifts.)

The Forgotten Ways

But what caught my attention here (for the first time, recently, thanks to “the forgotten ways” and innovative 5Q work of Alan Hirsch and our local EFCA district) is that Paul here focuses specifically on a subset of the myriad of spiritual gifts that exist. Why?

My conclusion is that while the exercise of all gifts is good, right, and healthy, the exercise of these four or five gifts in particular is critically core to the health of a vital, viable, and growing church! They are “pastoral” gifts.

What happens in most of our churches (which derive their paradigm from the Christian church in Europe, which sadly is now practically dead in many places) is that they focus on the last two in what Hirsch calls the 5Q, or APEST, model—shepherding and teaching. They completely ignore the first two—apostle and prophet—and mostly marginalize the third—evangelist.

I said “they,” but you can make that “we” if you want to! Our church is also in this camp.

Hirsch made two other points that spoke to me, which leads to my title about Jesus overturning tables:

  • God has given the Church everything we need for healthy function. Therefore, those gifts already exist in our Body. Our main task will be to find them, encourage them, and release them. A key function of our “professional” pastors will then be to model these gifts to whatever extent possible and to lead our members in the discovery and exercise of these gifts as they already exist within this Body. (Obviously, this has profound implications for the pastoral search upon which we are about to embark!)
  • We need to clearly identify and call out the paradigms (the ways we have always done church—for instance, investing in a pastoral structure that reinforces certain gifts and diminishes others) and be willing to replace those failed paradigms with new, more biblical paradigms.

Which of Our Tables Need to Be Overturned?

This is where turning over tables comes in. In our small group, we have at least three leaders with the gift of prophecy fairly high up there in our profiles (Dave Lingenfelter, Isaac McKenzie, and I). All three of us got very excited during Rebekah’s study as we began to discuss the question, What tables might Jesus turn over in our churches today and in the way we do church?

Actually, I take that back: Isaac and Dave got excited, and I (as an elder) was mostly getting nervous! I think this was because I sensed we were starting to touch on something that God wanted us to do, which would probably not be comfortable in our own Body at this time: carefully identify our existing paradigms, asking Jesus to turn these over and substitute His paradigms for this Body.

This Will Be Uncomfortable

I was warned that even mentioning this possibility might be upsetting for some, particularly those who are more change averse. But I think it’s good to give fair warning. The elders all agree that a time of transition such as this might be just the opportunity God wants us to take a serious look at how we do church, reengineering it to become more effective at achieving Christ’s mission for us.

Also, when you hear the word paradigms here, it might help to think of the phrase ministry structure. Our ministry structure is the way we as elders and a Body hire staff and ask them to run specific ministry endeavors, and it’s the way we involve ourselves in those efforts.

Speaking of uncomfortable . . . if I’m sitting at a table, doing something the way it’s always been done and believing there’s really nothing wrong with that, and then suddenly that table gets turned over by a Guy who is backed up by a whip made of cords, I have a strong feeling it’s not going to be a pleasant experience for me!

But the real question is, Are we (as a church) willing to have our tables overturned for the sake of what God really wants to do in our midst? It will probably stretch us (out of our comfort zone) in many ways. But remember whose Church it is!

And I think the same question can be readily applied to my personal life. What aspect of being a Christian am I a little too comfortable or complacent with? Am I willing to allow Christ to overturn some tables in my own life? What might those tables be, and how does He want me to respond?

Freedom to Serve the Way We Were Made

Realizing and leaning into my own gifting has given me a unique sense of freedom I don’t think I’ve ever fully experienced before. I’ve begun to feel free to speak out more (as I’m doing here . . . and don’t say it, I know some of you are thinking, So he was holding back before? Uh-oh.) in ways that might make my brothers and sisters uncomfortable. I realize I need to do so in love—responsibly, understanding that there can also be a dark side to the way we as fallible humans use any gift God has given us. (Prophets can drive people absolutely nutzoid, I know, and they can also get themselves sawn in half!)

Nevertheless, I challenge and encourage each of us, as members of His Body, to figure out how we fit in and what role we should play. If you don’t yet understand what gifts God has given you and how you should use them, connect with your community group leader or mentor and suggest that they spend some time helping you figure this out. (And please feel free to give me a call or send an email if you can’t figure out who can help you, and I will help get you connected!)

May Jesus overturn whatever tables in our lives and in His Church that are standing in the way of the salt and light He wants us to be as we love people in our community and around the world to Christ!

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Walking Away Sad

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By Hannah Comerford

Through the white picture-frame windows, closed by curlicue latches, I can see a short iron gate, bushes and hedges in various shades of green, and a tree bare from winter and covered in ivy. Birds sing. I have tea at my desk. I’m sitting in the home of C. S. Lewis, my hero of both the faith and literature. This room once belonged to his stepson, Douglas Gresham, and now I’m living here for two weeks.

It’s all more than I could have hoped for.

But what if I could give it all up? What if I could turn back the time, drop out of the master’s program I’ve worked so hard to be a part of, give up every precious experience I’m gaining in this beautiful land? I would do this all and more for the one thing I’ve desired for years.

The rich young man in the Gospel of Matthew asked, “What must I do to obtain eternal life?” He left sorrowful because the price was too high.

My problem isn’t so much with price. Through deaths of loved ones, loss of health, and multiple moves, I am not as scared to give things up as I once was. Nor do I have a problem seeing what I can do for eternal life, for I know that, as a believer in Christ’s death and resurrection and payment for my sins, I already have eternal life.

No, my question is both more and less holy. On bad days, I see the children others have been given and ask, “What must I give to become a mother?”

If I give up my career as an editor, my journey toward a master’s degree, the health I’ve worked to maintain, would I then be able to earn this privilege? Perhaps I haven’t prayed hard enough or long enough. Maybe I just need to hurry up and learn the lesson God has for me so He can finally bless me.

My namesake prayed to the Lord and received a son, the prophet Samuel. Why did God answer her and not me? Was it because she bargained with God, promising to give up her child to be a servant in the temple if only the Lord would provide the infant? If I, too, bargain, will I obtain what I seek?

On these bad days, I walk away sad, for I cannot obtain the prize I so desperately want.

The rich young man and I have different questions, yet our problem is the same: we don’t recognize the true prize. It is not eternal life or motherhood or any other blessing—those are gifts given freely above and beyond our life with God.

The true prize was sitting in front of the rich young man. The answer lay in the heart behind Hannah’s prayer in the temple. And it’s free to me and to all believers in Christ.

The rich young man left sad because he failed to see that a relationship with Christ was worth more than all his possessions—and even more than eternal life. Hannah received her answer to prayer because her ultimate goal wasn’t just to be a mother; she wanted the opportunity to worship the Lord by giving Him an offering worth more than the mandatory sacrificial lambs. If she had valued her son more than the Lord, she would not have kept her promise. Instead, she took her blessing as an opportunity to praise the Lord through sacrifice and prayer.

When you’re in love with a person, you’re willing to give up your time, money, and plans in order to be with them. As a wife, you hold dear the engagement ring your husband gave you, but you would give it up if it could somehow save your beloved’s life. Your relationship with the person is worth far more than what they give you.

When we place our ultimate hope, love, and satisfaction in the Lord, we can recognize that anything more than a relationship with Him is like that engagement ring—added grace, blessings from the kind heart of a Father. We can enjoy these things because we know they are gifts from our Father, but we can also willingly lay them down, for they are not the source of our joy.

Perhaps, like I do, you long for a good thing that God hasn’t chosen to give you. Or perhaps God has blessed you with the desires of your heart—family, health, financial provision, etc. Maybe you’re worried that these desires, whether fulfilled or not, can become more desirable than Jesus, that you will become the rich young man. Take heart! As the young man left, Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. . . . With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

On the bad days when we long for things more than we long for Christ, and on the good days when we find our joy in our relationship with Christ first and in His blessings second, may our prayer continue to be that God would do the miraculous and make our hearts long after Him.

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