Just Call Me Pastor

Pastors are to bring theological substance to events they administer. That is one of the expected benefits of their years of pastoral training.

Consider marriage. In a time when its definition is increasingly fuzzy in society at large, a pastor’s first task in the conduct of weddings today is to reflect what the Scriptures teach about marriage.

In my book, The Pastor’s First Love: And Other Essays on a High and Holy Calling, I summarize a Christian understanding of marriage, as follows:  

When a man and woman come to the altar, what happens there in a few minutes changes them forever. They approach the altar as two single persons, legally unrelated; they leave as a married couple; a new unit in society. Their status will be forever altered, and so will the church community of which they are a part. Should not anything so crucial deserve appropriate celebration in the setting of Christian worship? The event is more than a legal moment; it is a sacred moment of life-changing significance.

For a Christian couple, a wedding may be a very personal matter, but it cannot be a private one — limited to two people only. It is the couple’s wedding for sure, but it is also the church’s, meaning it also belongs in the context of a particular unit of the body of Christ.

So, the Christian church has a large stake in the wedding: its sanctuary provides the setting; its congregation provides the witnessing community; its ministers provide the authorized officers; and its rituals provide the theological content concerning what the event means. It can be argued that all of this is brought together best and most coherently when the couple meet at a Christian altar and the people gather with them in a setting conducive to the worship of the God who is the creator of marriage.”

I recognize that across a lifetime of ministry spanning well over 60 years, secular influences have had their effect on Christians.  On occasion, two people raised in a church setting may therefore still need gentle and loving instruction as they approach their wedding — such as, on what the parts of the ceremony mean. And of course, pastors need to teach their people basic theology regarding weddings, even when none is in the offing.  

One example of Christian doctrine is that marriage is an “institution” ordered by God at the time of creation (Genesis 1&2). Therefore, the couple must not appear at the altar as though they were creating something new. They may be demonstrating a fresh version of the event but they are entering into the timeless, created order.  This should make the moment for them not only joyful but also humbling and worshipful. That’s why we are not so likely to speak of “performing” a wedding as “solemnizing” the event.

Given marriage’s profound attachment to creation, the words spoken should contain deep Christian substance.   Rituals that are designed by the couple are not nearly as useful as rituals that begin by proclaiming that the event is ordained by God.  Next, the couple is asked to pledge to each other (and God) their lifelong support and faithfulness to each other.  Finally, the wedding concludes by asking God in deep earnestness for his blessing on the couple at the altar. Repeating, to accomplish these three things in the face of today’s secularizing influences may require some teaching and counsel by the officiating minister.

It seems to me that, as never before, Christians ought to give special attention to each wedding’s content and meaning. Weddings, insofar as possible, should be shining reflections of the grace of God which enables two — a man and a woman — to become one, and profoundly united in all aspects of their life together!

Originally published April 14, 2014

Revised and reposted September 11, 2023

Photo credit: Marco Verch Professional Photographer (via flickr.com). CC License.

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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Tragedy.  Injustice.  Grief.  Loss.  Pain.  Sometimes people of faith wonder why such things break into their lives. Especially when they are trying so hard to serve a Heavenly Father who they believe loves and cares for them, and when attempting to live out their lives under the Lordship of Christ. Here’s an anonymous poet’s attempt to give some of the wrenching difficulties of life a possible spiritual dimension or explanation.

When God Wants To Drill A Man
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!

How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;

While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;

How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He’s about.

— Anonymous

First published: April 28, 2014

Reposted:  September 4, 2023

Photo credit:

Surian Soosay (via flickr.com)

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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Advice about what makes a marriage great is everywhere. Books, both physical and virtual, offer tips and pointers. Newspapers devote columns and magazines, articles, on the subject. And there is always a friend or family member with a word on the subject.

In this torrent of good advice I see a neglected or under-emphasized element.

Kathleen has mentioned this secret many times across the years, including in the context of our recent 75th anniversary in December 2022. Whenever asked, “What’s the secret of a loving and durable marriage?” She always begins with the same answer: Mutual respect!

That answer may seem too simple – even naive. There’s a lot more to a fulfilling marriage than a husband and wife sitting all evening respecting each other.

There’s stretching income to cover monthly bills, teaching children right from wrong, dealing with a crisis of unemployment, divvying up tasks, and knowing how to ease up when one’s spouse is under special stress.

But simple as Kathleen’s answer may seem at first, she is right that respect flowing both ways between husband and wife is basic to a loving and enduring marriage.

Respect is like the shock absorbers in a car. If the car has only springs it may only rock gently as it speeds along a smooth highway. But without shock absorbers, a rough or curing road will make the car bounce and sway uncomfortably and even dangerously.   

The shock absorber of respect doesn’t alter the road of life. But it mutes and damps the “ride” in rough patches until the marriage arrives at smoother pavement.   

Respect is a learned and practiced art. It can take years of faithful teaching before rambunctious children learn to say “please” and “thank you.” But when established, these niceties — and many others such as “You first,” or “Let me help you with that,” add excellence later, during marriage.   

Blessed are both the young man and woman who enter their marriage with such training in their social repertoires!

No matter how noble the intentions, marriage partners may slip from time to time. And so, one key element of respect is the ability to say, “I’m sorry.”

In the early 1970s a film called Love Story hit the screens. It was an emotional story with a repeated line, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Even some young people of faith were drawn into its casual treatment of love.

The saying for Christians should be, “Love means always being ready to say you’re sorry.” In fact, because we are imperfect, “I’m sorry” is a necessary accessory to respect and when we say it we reflect that our love is deep.

Respect in marriage is not optional. It is indeed a crucial shock absorber for all husbands and wives who mean their marriage to survive through all the seasons of life and to prosper in its many “road conditions”—level plains, valleys, and mountaintops.

Originally published March 10, 2014

Re-posted August 28, 2023

Photo credit: Ian MacKenzie (via flickr.com)

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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By Robert Bastian

It can feel stagnant or confining to have to always “be who we are.” Why not new glasses? A different house? Even a change of occupations? While such changes can energize, in the realm of values, character, and fundamental identity, longitudinal stability and coherence are essential.  

This thought was triggered about not just individuals, but also about organizations and institutions, by something Dad said many years ago concerning the Articles of Religion of the Free Methodist Church. The following statement was sent to me by a friend, a man with deep knowledge of church history. He quoted Dad from a General Conference proceeding of the Free Methodist Church almost forty years ago. A comment that could be translated to any denomination, local church, or even place of business:  

The tone of the General Conference may well seem pragmatic, isolating immediate problems and seeking immediate solutions. But the underlying question will be implicit, underlying all we decide. When the event closes, we will be a little more Methodist or a little more Anabaptist or a little more rootless, depending on how seriously we consider our historical lineage in all our deliberations.

It is an interesting statement from Dad, who is a change agent and daring personality: Many besides the Bastian clan know him to have an entrepreneurial spirit. We’ve always thought that, in a team with Mom, their energy, dynamism, people-serving natures, and perfectionism would have made a great success in any business enterprise.  

At the same time, however, they are people of deep principle and rootedness. Pragmatism has a place only if means are scrupulously honest and tied to principle, whether law, policy, transparency, or even identity. 

About pragmatism, Dad has told us several times that someone had said that it is North America’s only unique contribution to the field of philosophy. Loosely defined as “whatever gives you the result you want.” In an extreme form, “the ends justifies the means,” even if the means border on wrongdoing or a kind of administrative squishiness or even lawlessness.  

Does pragmatism have a place in the church? Here’s a helpful quote for Christians from www.gotquestions.org, under the search term  pragmatism: 

Christians cannot follow both pragmatism and the Bible… Particularly when it comes to moral issues, Christianity and pragmatism are entirely incompatible. Whether or not we like the outcome (Matthew 6:9–13), and whether or not we personally benefit (Philippians 2:3; 2 Corinthians 12:8–9), right and wrong are defined in relationship to God (Job 38:1–5; Romans 2:4). What “works” for us in our limited human minds, in the end, is not necessarily what’s true or what “works” from an eternal perspective (Romans 8:17–19; Matthew 7:21–23).

Persons of discernment will see pragmatism at work everywhere. But for people of principle, surely the attention to uprightness and rootedness of means will always be equal to — or greater than — interest in results. That goes for any sphere of life, and most of all to every action of Christians in the church.

Photo credit: John Jennings (via flickr.com)

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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The Book of Proverbs is a collection of pithy sayings that captures the ancient Jewish understanding of wisdom. Created or collected by King Solomon, these sayings have endured for at least 3000 years, and have a prominent place in the Old Testament.

Does a sophisticated age like ours need wisdom from the ancient past? Hasn’t our knowledge and intelligence superseded antiquity’s biblical wisdom? 

By biblical wisdom we mean the ability to see life holistically or panoramically, as God sees it. Now, as then, the tendency especially of the young can be to break life into “now” moments — and to treat each such moment as the whole of reality. We all may remember that in our youth it was easy to act on “now” without considering “later” consequences.

Just seven verses into his whole collection, Solomon gives us wisdom’s key: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. (Proverbs 1:7).

To “fear” the Lord does not mean to stand in dread of him. It means to respect and revere him because he is righteous, all-knowing, and worthy of trust. Our God is the Ultimate One we hold in such regard. If there is actual fear, it is about displeasing him.

Wisdom begins here, because The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Not of things like mathematics or physics. It is a right ordering of what we experience to best understand life – its choices, manners, priorities, pitfalls and outcomes. Such knowledge is wisdom.

This call to fear (respect, revere) the Lord is repeated several times in the Proverbs (2:5; 9:10; 14:26 and 27). This idea is found as well in Job, the story of a man in dire distress. (Job 28:28) King David sings about it (Psalm 34:11). The call to “fear the Lord” undergirds the Old Testament.

The ancients were more pointed and direct than we tend to be.  Solomon says forthrightly that those who despise his collected offering of wisdom are “fools.” That is, they are morally deficient. The use of such strong language is not meant to insult; it is meant to wake up anyone who is unserious and trifling with life, and to unmask folly.

The call to wisdom and the fear of the Lord is carried into the New Testament. For example, Luke gives us little information about Jesus for the 18 years from the time of his appearing in the Temple at 12 until the beginning of his public ministry at age 30. That relative silence makes wisdom all the more important when he notes twice that during those years of development, Jesus was “filled with wisdom” (Luke 2:40) and he “grew in wisdom” (Luke 2:52).

And in The Acts of the Apostles, Luke described the young church as increasing in numbers and “living in the fear of the Lord” (Acts 9:31). At the same time, the church was joyful; the living Christ was real; believers 

 him! They were faith-filled and they bravely witnessed to that living faith in a treacherous world. But the young church at its peak was humble and reverential toward the Lord, bowing low figuratively, and often literally, to seek his divine blessing.

There is a sophistication to our age which no one can deny. And of course it is important to be smart. But if it is a question of putting “smart” in a worldly sense over against “wise” in a godly way, believers will make wisdom the primary goal every time.

In all our seeking we first bow in reverence to the Lord and seek heaven’s wisdom passionately and with our whole hearts. And with this we are promised a great reward of knowledge.

First published: March 17, 2014

Revised: August 14, 2023

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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When we become Christians, the Scriptures say, we pass from death to life (Ephesians 2:4). But this isn’t about physical life. We already have that.

No, the new life we are promised begins with peace with God during our time on earth, and continues into eternal life, after physical death. If we believe in our Savior Jesus Christ and live under his Lordship, we will not face punishment for our sins (eternal death and darkness) at the Final Judgment because he paid that penalty for those of us who believe.

For every human life, Jesus sacrificed his life on Calvary (2 Corinthians 5:21). He says of those who believe in him, “I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:28)

Before we pass from death to life, God is not in our thoughts except as some remote being to be feared or ignored. Then we are made aware of our sin and offered spiritual birth and life. Search “Ephesians 2” to read the marvelous explanation.

After we become spiritually alive, God’s Spirit gives us a whole new perspective on the present and the future.

Jesus called passing from death to life as radical as being born again (John 3:3). It is like starting all over. And the very God we have resisted, tried to ignore, or even hated is now seen to us as a loving Heavenly Father (Luke 11:11-13).

Jesus told a man who came to him under cover of darkness that passing from spiritual death to spiritual life is as mysterious as the wind (John 3:9). When the wind blows we can hear it and feel it brush our faces. Our senses tell us it is real. But we can’t see where it came from or where it is going. Just so, when we put our trust in God and he visits upon us a new birth the experience is real but also mysterious to our full understanding.

Elmer illustrates well going from death to life. I revere his memory. He had heard the gospel outlined above on a radio broadcast many years earlier. It was a radically new message to him. And thanks be to God: right then, he accepted the message, prayed the “I’m sorry” prayer of a penitent and expressed a simple faith in Jesus as his Savior.

It was all so new and strange to him that he didn’t go near a church building for a year. He didn’t initially see the connection between faith and the church. Then a caring pastor crossed his path and led him into the church for worship, fellowship and service to others.

Across the years since that first encounter with the Lord, Elmer explained to me, he had tried to walk in obedience to Jesus, living Lord. The result: He became a lover of God, and an outstanding servant in the life of the church, his workplace, and family. The evidence that he had passed from death to life was warmly apparent as long as I knew him. And he is now with the Lord and has heard those longed-for words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

The Apostle John summarizes spiritual re-birth so simply: “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11,12).

Oh the joy of passing from death to life. All from, and for Jesus! It prompts the question: Am I dead or alive?

First published FEBRUARY 17, 2014 / DONALD N. BASTIAN

Edited August 7, 2023

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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Nehemiah was a Jewish boy living in ancient Babylon (about 50 miles south of present-day Baghdad).  He was there with throngs of his countrymen taken into exile from Judah after the fall of Jerusalem in 597 B.C. His story is found in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. 

Over time, he rose to a position of trust, as cupbearer to King Nebuchadnezzar. He tasted the king’s wine before serving it to assure that it was not poisoned. 

His important job notwithstanding, his heart remained in his homeland, Judah, and focused on the Lord’s covenant with his people. When a traveler arrived from Jerusalem, and Nehemiah learned that his people there were “in great trouble and disgrace,” he wept for them.

Nehemiah was not only cupbearer to the king, but also a patriot who, with the king’s permission, returned to Judah to rebuild Jerusalem. Here are four character traits that shine through his story.

I. Scrupulous honesty. While still the cupbearer the king asked Nehemiah why he looked so sad. Telling the truth might cost his job or his life, but Nehemiah told the truth: he was heartsick over the wasted state of his homeland (Nehemiah. 2:1-6). The king released him to return to Jerusalem. After his nighttime inspection of the damage to the city’s walls, he shared openly and honestly with the officials what he intended to do and then invited their help (Nehemiah. 2:16-18).

II. Deep spiritual commitment. He prayed and fasted for his beloved homeland even while still in Babylon. His deeply personal prayer at that time is recorded (Nehemiah. 1:5-11). Later, in Jerusalem, he attributed his great achievements there to divine providence (Nehemiah. 2:8). When enemies threatened to overcome his exhausted workers laboring to restore Jerusalem’s wall, he made their peril a matter of prayer (Nehemiah. 4:4-5). This deep spiritual grounding is constant as his story unfolds.

III. Discernment. All leaders have nay-sayers, competitors, and even enemies. When the broken walls of Jerusalem were being built under his leadership, jealous neighbors – namely Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem – plotted to stop him. It seems to me that Nehemiah’s honest, uncluttered mind was quick to sense their hidden intentions and avoid their traps.

IV. Moral strength. When famine struck Jerusalem and surrounding areas, a few wealthy men in Jerusalem were selling food to the poor at inflated prices. The people cried out to Nehemiah that they were losing their land and even their children just to stay alive.

This may have been Nehemiah’s supreme test. When dealing with charges of wrongdoing – the rich against the poor, the powerful against the weak, or the group against individual — it can be tempting to take the side of the strong, influential, or prestigious. The law of God recognizes this peril and says, “Do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly” (Leviticus. 19:15).

Nehemiah sternly commanded the grasping wealthy officials to stop, and pay back the excessive amounts they had exacted (Neh. 5:6-13).

In our times the need for scrupulously honest, spiritually grounded, discerning, and resolute leadership is urgent — in government, business, education and particularly in the cause of Christ. 

Nehemiah—honest, godly, discerning,  and morally courageous patriot, will forever model leadership traits that really matter.

First published January 6, 2014

Edited July 31, 2023

Photo credit: Dennis Hill (via flickr.com)

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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By Donald G. Bastian

John Wesley, like all thinkers during the Enlightenment (primarily the eighteenth century), wrote long, carefully argued essays and books, in his case on theological, ecclesiastical, and moral topics. Wesley was a Church of England priest who was instrumental in starting the Methodist movement.

But in the midst of these writings are aphoristic jewels on a large range of topics. I am struck by how appropriate many of them are to the crisis today in political discourse (if it can even be called that). Here are some jewels from John Wesley.

Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.

We should be rigorous in judging ourselves and gracious in judging others.

What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.

I want the whole Christ for my Savior, the whole Bible for my book, the whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field.

In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church.

Lord, I am no longer my own, but Yours. Put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will. Let me be employed by You or laid aside for You, exalted for You or brought low by You. Let me have all things, let me have nothing, I freely and heartily yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, You are mine and I am Yours. So be it. Amen.

Not, how much of my money will I give to God, but, how much of God’s money will I keep for myself?

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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By Robert W. Bastian

The Bastian family has been working with Mom on her upcoming memoir. Hers will complement Dad’s memoir of a few years ago, From Kitchen Chair to Pulpit: A Life of Family, Faith, and Ministry, and document Swallow family history for the three generations of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. 

Mother was born Kathleen Grace Swallow, in 1926, the fourth of seven children who lived on a farm in Saskatchewan and then, forced by circumstances, moved to Niagara Falls, Ontario.

We are amazed by what Mom has written and hope to have the book completed within the next few months.

One of the things we have learned is the role of aphorisms in Mom’s family. Her widowed mother was famous for her good-natured teaching/teasing comments to her seven children, such as, “Pride is warm,” when a daughter didn’t want to disturb her hair with a hat in winter. Another one was, “Of all my father’s family, I love myself the best,” said when one of the children took the largest cookie on the plate instead of leaving it for someone else. Many other Swallow aphorisms will be found in Mom’s memoir.

Dad’s family also had aphorisms from his English immigrant parents. “Your chickens will come home to roost.” Or, on a Saturday morning to rouse a teenager wanting to sleep in: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.”

We think the refrain of there’s a right way to do everything wisdom may have been handed down by his parents. And Dad’s English major and wide reading gave him some others that he applied more sparingly that deserve mention.

For example, all three of us children had at least one experience (as does almost everyone) with dishonesty and betrayal from a friend or co-worker. “Lies circle the globe, while truth is pulling its boots on” might have been a word of comfort from Dad at such a time.

We can each think of a time when we felt trapped by a bad work environment, an impossible task, the sting of injustice. Dad might provide insight into our emotional state by saying, “It seems to me that you are feeling like a victim. Nobody does well in victim mode.” And then he’d brainstorm with us how to get out of that mode.

And now in our generation, we each have a favorite aphorism. One is, “Truth is violated by falsehood, but outraged by silence.” Another: “ In matters of taste, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” Or here’s a good one: “You can cover a lot of ground in life if you don’t stop to throw rocks at all the barking dogs.”

The reader can find the source of each of these aphorisms, with a simple Internet search, and, in so doing, find more aphorisms of their own.

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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King David, the “man after God’s own heart,” had a son Absalom who was impossible to manage. He was willful, scheming, and pathologically ambitious (2 Samuel 13–18).

The Scriptures tell us that Absalom nearly succeeded in overthrowing his own father, the legitimate king of Israel. He did this in a stepwise, scheming way. First, as a way to gain notice and show strength, he began traveling about the area in a chariot, with fifty men running before him.

Then he ingratiated himself with the people by intercepting them as they came to seek justice from his father and bestowing favors. Using such manipulations, across four years he gained a substantial following. Then came the day when he triggered the actual overthrow.

It is heart-rending to think of David, the rightful king, fleeing Jerusalem, past the Mount of Olives, and across the Jordan in response to such treachery from his own son. 

David’s troops, organized under three commanders, would live in the open air waiting for certain battle. David seemed desperate and even a bit resigned at times. Yet he did manage to say to a supporter, as recorded in 2 Samuel 16:12, “It may be that the Lord will look upon my misery and restore to me his covenant blessing instead of his curse today.”

What else do we know about David’s response to this desolation? It inspired poetry! Psalm 3 begins with, “A psalm of David. When he fled from his son Absalom.”

O Lord, how many are my foes! 

How many rise up against me! 

Many are saying of me,

“God will not deliver him.” (verses 1,2)

Like David, most Christians have moments when they could write those words. Especially when betrayal is within the family. We are nearly overwhelmed. David continues:

But you are a shield around me, O Lord;

you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. 

To the Lord I cry aloud, 

and he answers me from his holy hill. (verses 3,4)

The English Standard Version (ESV) translates verse four in the past tense: “I cried aloud.” It is as though David encouraged himself by recalling God’s past deliverances. In our desperate moments we too sometimes need to reinforce our faith by remembering past moments of divine intervention. And another passage of hope:

I lie down and sleep; 

I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. 

I will not fear the tens of thousands 

drawn up against me on every side. (verses 5,6)

I wake again . . . The psalmist is remembering past daunting moments when, after recalling the faithfulness of the Lord, he could lie down and sleep, waking up refreshed. If God was faithful then, David must have thought, why not now? But then his faith wavers:

Arise, O Lord! 

Deliver me, O my God! 

Strike all my enemies on the jaw; 

Break the teeth of the wicked. (verse 7)

It seems like a moment of vacillation. At this point, David may have had a twinge of fear that God was not interested enough: “Arise, O Lord!” We have been there too with such impatient thoughts. After all, war is in the offing! 

But then comes a return to confidence: 

From the Lord comes deliverance. 

May your blessings be upon your people. (verse 8)

Not only does David end with an affirmation of hope, but his focus broadens from a personal entreaty to a concern that God bless all of his people. Whether for David or for us, this is a good way to end any time of entreaty and worship.

Those familiar with the story know that Absalom is defeated and loses his life. This ending is  tragic. There are no traces of personal faith in Absalom’s history. In this, the contrast with his father is instructive. That is, though David was not a perfect man, he knew to call on God in the overwhelming situations of life. That’s an important example for us in our desperate moments.

Originally published October 14, 2013; edited July 10, 2023

By Robert W. Bastian

As mentioned last week, Jan and I recently visited Mom and Dad at their retirement center in Mississauga, Ontario. Here is the essence of a conversation we had about righteousness and justice, catalyzed by a discussion of current events.  

For background, note that for several months Dad (and Mom) have been pondering the passage in Psalm 89 that says of God, in verse 14:  “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne …”  This pair of words has also come up from time to time during our phone conversations.  

Dad said, in essence, that these things are central to God’s nature. They are the base undergirding His very being.

He said that righteousness is non-negotiable. Along with justice, it is an immovable pillar under the deity. Mom has mentioned that people seem to want to run at these pillars to knock them over, but all they do in the end is break themselves.  

And Dad added that if righteousness is violated, there has to be a provision for justice. Justice demands satisfaction.

You do no favors to persons,” he said, “who have violated righteousness by saying, ‘never mind.’ This weakens the wrongdoer, and also society.” 

Dad is a loving and restorative person, but he was pointing out that love and mercy follow justice. These empathic virtues don’t go first, like a road grader to push aside the application of justice. God’s mercy toward us loses its meaning if it does not follow our understanding that we stand condemned in the judgment dock before God, who lives in a realm of utter holiness.

Current events are rich with food for thought about these two words: righteousness and justice.  Readers can make their own application to family, workplace, criminality, courts, corruption, police action, education, and, yes, the church.

Photo credit: Rae Allen (via flickr.com)

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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By Robert W. Bastian

Allow me to report on a visit Jan and I recently had with our parents, Donald N. Bastian – the founder and main writer of this blog – and Kathleen G. Bastian.

Mom and Dad are doing as well as can be expected at ninety-seven. Though a memory for this or that may occasionally slip, our conversations were amazingly rich – on current events; what is happening at their retirement community; memories of days gone by; and a recent Scripture passage with some exegesis.

A strong segment of our conversation was on the church universal and the Free Methodist Church in particular. Their love for the latter, an earthly manifestation of the Kingdom, burns brightly.

Dad’s energy has flagged but not his motivation. He frequently spins ideas for church growth; how to maximize the effectiveness of the Center for Pastoral Formation at Greenville University; how to let the American church know about the Chair of Wesley Studies at Tyndale University in Toronto; and how to help the local church.

He knows his years of direct influence are past, yet still loves these subjects. On this visit he was dreaming about a ten-year denominational focus on two things to build the local church: preaching and pastoral care.

This is not to leave out the third leg of the pastor’s task that he has also spoken and written about across his years of pastoral vocation: administration.

Preaching

Dad is passionate that each pastor’s sermon be his or her own, not from a book of sermons or borrowed from the Internet – and that it be developed during personal study, prayer, and preparation. 

Dad’s strategy was to spend the hours of 8 a.m. to 12 noon in his study at church. He considered this time inviolate. You would never find him out and about during those hours: errands, phone calls, and television were not allowed to intrude. Today, I’m sure he would refuse to let the Internet distract him during those hours. 

With this four-hour appointment with Scripture and the Lord every day, he could “guarantee” himself a minimum of twenty hours per week to prepare the Sunday-morning and -evening sermons and Wednesday Bible study.

Pastoral Care

Pastoral care meant afternoon hospital calls and counseling appointments. Evenings, he often visited in people’s homes. What an idea! He understands the difficulty of doing this in current times, but as a family we are sure he would not relent on the importance of visiting his flock. He has said and written many times that “a home-going pastor makes a church-going people.” This was Dad’s formula for notable growth in each of the churches he served.  

And so, a suggestion to pastors from a ninety-seven-year-old always-churchman and his wife: a serious decade of focusing not on the latest techniques or novelties but on preaching the Word and caring for God’s people.  

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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Ten years ago, a young woman from Spain visited Canada for five weeks on a visitor exchange. She was posted to live with a devout evangelical family.

She attended Sunday morning worship with them all five weeks of her stay, perhaps out of cultural interest. On her first visit the pastor extended a warm welcome. In return the young woman gave matter-of-fact notice that she was an atheist. There was no challenge or defense on either side. 

She warmed to the family and church environment, became acquainted with some of the young people, and expressed amazement at the seriousness of the congregation in worship and their joy and friendliness when services were dismissed. The people seemed to experience a happiness she had not seen before.

She left her last service bearing the pastor’s gift of a beautiful Bible, with his simple suggestion that she begin reading in the Gospel of John.

Notably, prior to her visit to Canada she had not known that such a book existed. Throughout her childhood and youth she had never had contact with a church. Yet her final words to the pastor were that she hoped she could find a friendly, happy church like this one back in her own country.

We Christians become so used to the language of faith, the words of Scripture, and the gentle presence of God when we worship that we can scarcely grasp the perspective of one who has never seen a Bible or Christian worship.

This story reminds us that the Lord God is at work in the lives of others. They are his lost sheep. And we can’t know when someone nearby might be a first-time hearer of the Gospel. 

Did the young woman encounter the Gospel itself in the order of worship, sermon, or songs? Was the Gospel proclaimed? Did the Spirit pursue her? Did she ever make a profession of faith after returning to her home country? 

I do not know. But I understand that contacts continued via the Internet and that the initial friendships have remained warm.  

Everyone reading this can add their prayers that this young woman, ten years on, is in the care of the Shepherd who will not quit searching for his lost sheep. We can yet pray that this young Spanish woman has been found by the Lord Jesus Himself.  

First published September 9, 2013; revised June 19, 2023

Photo credit: Peter Toporowski (via flickr.com)

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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Stuart Townend

The worship song “In Christ Alone,” written in 2001, sets the Gospel in fine, tightly-knit lyrics, with singable music. But a few years after it was written, the hymnal committee of a mainline denomination wanted to change one line before including it in a new hymnal for its people.

The hymn as written says as part of the second stanza:

On that cross as Jesus died

The wrath of God was satisfied.  

The hymnal committee wanted this to say, instead:

On that cross as Jesus died 

The love of God was magnified.

It seems the committee may have argued, “How can the holy God whose love for sinners is boundless also be wrathful?” The composers would not agree to the change.

Consider the following analogy: A man is known in his community for his friendliness and loving nature. “He loves everybody,” the townspeople say of him. But one day he glances down an alley and sees a high school student bullying and beating up a much smaller student.  

Does the man stand there and say to himself, “Everyone knows that I love everyone; for that reason, I can’t be angry about what I am seeing”?  

Instead, laying his life on the line, and at great risk, the man’s righteous anger flares and he goes to the rescue even if that means restraining the bully by force.  

Each state of mind — love and wrath — is a necessary possibility for this man.  

We see this dual possibility to an infinite degree in the character of God. Except that his wrath is more than the deep, passing anger that humans experience. Wrath has to do with his settled and relentless opposition to sin. This is presented clearly in both Old and New Testaments.

In fact, in making his case to the young church in Rome for salvation through faith in Christ, the Apostle Paul’s very first sentence refers to the wrath of God: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18).

In that same letter he refers at least eight times to God’s wrath against sin. God’s wrath is the other side of his measureless love for sinners.

Moreover, the Psalter speaks of God’s wrath at least twenty-six times, and remember, this sacred book is the hymn book of the ancient church, used regularly in worship.

So what is to be done about God’s wrath? Simply put, to flee to Jesus. Jesus identified fully with the predicament of mankind in our sins and came to appease the wrath of a holy God against sin. To accomplish this, Jesus died a substitutionary death offered for all, effectual for those who turn to him in faith for salvation. Flee to Jesus.

When we truly feel our plight as sinners — the horror of it — we are drawn to Calvary where we understand that God loves sinners enough to provide a way to escape its consequences.

The essence of the Gospel pulsates in the lines of “In Christ Alone.” Its lyrics are worth pondering as they explain that God’s wrath against sin is not to be trivialized or wished out of existence. But God’s love for sinners shines brightly into our lives from Calvary.

In Christ alone my hope is found

He is my light, my strength, my song;

This cornerstone, this solid ground,

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!

My comforter, my all in all —

Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,

Fullness of God in helpless babe!

This gift of love and righteousness,

Scorned by the ones he came to save.

Till on that cross as Jesus died,

The wrath of God was satisfied,

For every sin on him was laid —

Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground his body lay,

Light of the world by darkness slain;

Then bursting forth in glorious day,

Up from the grave He rose again!

And as he stands in victory,

Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me;

For I am His and He is mine —

Bought with the precious love of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death —

This is the pow’r of Christ in me;

From life’s first cry to final breath,

Jesus commands my destiny.

No power of hell, no scheme of man,

Can ever pluck me from his hand,

Till he returns or calls me home —

Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.*

* Words and music by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend; Copyright © 2001 Thankyou Music 

Blog originally published August 12, 2013; revised June 11, 2023

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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In a Wesleyan church where I was the guest preacher, the pastor led the congregation in prayer five times, with an opening prayer, a pastoral prayer, a prayer for the children, a prayer to consecrate the offering, and a blessing of the people at worship’s end (benediction).  

The prayers were prepared, to some degree, but they also were fresh, simple, sacred moments in which he brought the flock he clearly loved “vertically” into the Presence. I could tell he was talking directly to God on behalf of his people. His prayers also “horizontally” bound the people together before the Throne.

There is a vertical and horizontal aspect to worship styles, as well. Sometimes one outweighs the other. 

I was once part of a service in a cathedral where worship was so objective, so exclusively vertical that I felt little of the warmth of human fellowship. 

And I’ve been part of services that are more horizontal – like community gatherings  for music, marked by applause and laughter. 

My first experience of worship was in a small, white, clapboard-sided church on the dusty prairies of Saskatchewan in the 1930s. The Sunday-morning service was intentionally simple. There was no printed program, no choir, piano, or other musical instruments. Instead, there was unaccompanied congregational singing, prayer, and preaching. Various individuals sometimes spontaneously expressed their experience of God in open testimony. 

I recall even now feeling at times a sense of awe as the congregation worshiped and, at the same time, the fellowship of people sharing their lives with each other.

By our natures, some of us seem to need more of the vertical, and others more of the horizontal, but we all need both. In searching for a middle ground, I ponder the two main words for worship as they turn up in both Old and New Testaments. The one means “to adore; to bow down; to prostrate oneself.” The other means “to offer service,” much as a servant would offer service to his master.

The worship of God for me is beautiful. It prompts joy and humility when it is simple, focused on the Triune God, rich in Christian content, marked by an artistry of leadership that does not call attention to itself, and made vital by the Holy Spirit not just by the spiritedness of leaders. It is lifegiving when the focus is decidedly vertical, but with the horizontal community element represented, too.

There is good reason why this matter should be important to every Christian. “Worship,” Robert E. Webber writes, “is the summit toward which the entire life of the church moves and the source from which all of its ministries flow.”

First published August 19, 2013; revised June 5, 2023

Photo credit: Emma (via flickr.com)

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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By Robert W. Bastian

At ninety-seven, our mother, Kathleen Grace Bastian, is compiling her memoir, Grace Upon Grace: My Journey in Faith from Saskatchewan to a Wider World, with the help of us, her children. The original intent was a brief summary of her life as the first chapter of a book of recipes for family.  

This project has grown into something bigger, due to the abundance of interesting information — some a slice of history; some an inspiring life lesson, and the following, an “allegory for life.” She says: 

My father’s father, Grandpa Manford Swallow, was a tailor, who sat cross-legged while he worked. Back then, kerosene lamplight was all that was available indoors, so tailors normally sat this way on a tabletop near a window to gain better light for such close work. This custom also kept clothing or drapes being worked on from dragging on the floor.  

I wonder if tailors were trained to guard their spines, because Grandfather would stop every ten or fifteen minutes, put his work down, straighten his spine, and then pick up his work and begin again. It must have been effective, because he had very erect posture even when he was what I considered to be an old man.

What a good analogy: In whatever we do, we stop at intervals to revisit and straighten the core, the framework, the “spine” of life.

Businesses can “put their work down” to review their vision, mission, and value statements. They can reiterate and discuss the spine of their business in employee meetings. They can review policies and procedures with their business spine in full view.

Nations can do the same thing: On Memorial Day (last Monday in May in the US) or Remembrance Day (November 11) they remember those who gave their lives to preserve our freedoms. They review the history that establishes a shared identity. They take care that young people understand the big ideas on which their nation was founded: freedom of speech, innocence until guilt is proven, tripartite or parliamentary governance, and so much more.

And so it should be for the church. We take care to know and support the institutions that help a body of believers to function: boards, constitutions, and other documents, mechanisms of oversight. In worship, we continually express the Gospel publicly: our status as created beings, the Fall, the Law, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, Pentecost.

And above all, on a personal basis, Christians visit Holy Scripture and listen and pray to God our Father daily; we follow the Old Testament injunctions to “remember, remember, remember” his work in our lives. We worship with God’s people each Sunday. In these ways, we continually straighten our spine as believers, so we never forget who — and Whose — we are.

Photo credit: S Pakhrin (via flickr.com)

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

Purchase in Canada

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