050219 Stewardship Friendship
When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”
When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…
Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.
What is the purpose of a human being?
Our purpose is to relate God and people.
(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)
When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.
This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).
When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.
I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.
We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says
15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.
We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.
Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays
I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.
It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.
Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.
Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.
I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.
A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.
I have people that I learn from here in our city.
The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…
Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.
Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.
When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.
Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.
Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.
Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:
See if you can help them.
I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.
There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.
Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.
One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.
Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.
The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…
We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.
We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.
In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.
We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.
(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)
One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).
Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).
I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…
I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…
This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.
A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.
A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…
James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”
Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.
According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.
We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.
Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:
2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.
I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.
My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.
I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.
Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.
One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.
I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.
As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).
One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.
At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.
At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.
Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.
I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.
That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.
Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?
Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.
Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.
There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)
Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.
Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….
The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…
The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
050219 Stewardship Friendship
When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”
When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…
Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.
What is the purpose of a human being?
Our purpose is to relate God and people.
(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)
When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.
This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).
When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.
I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.
We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says
15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.
We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.
Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays
I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.
It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.
Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.
Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.
I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.
A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.
I have people that I learn from here in our city.
The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…
Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.
Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.
When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.
Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.
Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.
Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:
See if you can help them.
I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.
There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.
Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.
One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.
Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.
The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…
We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.
We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.
In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.
We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.
(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)
One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).
Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).
I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…
I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…
This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.
A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.
A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…
James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”
Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.
According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.
We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.
Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:
2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.
I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.
My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.
I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.
Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.
One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.
I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.
As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).
One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.
At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.
At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.
Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.
I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.
That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.
Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?
Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.
Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.
There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)
Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.
Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….
The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…
The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
050219 Stewardship Friendship
When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”
When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…
Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.
What is the purpose of a human being?
Our purpose is to relate God and people.
(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)
When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.
This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).
When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.
I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.
We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says
15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.
We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.
Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays
I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.
It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.
Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.
Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.
I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.
A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.
I have people that I learn from here in our city.
The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…
Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.
Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.
When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.
Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.
Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.
Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:
See if you can help them.
I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.
There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.
Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.
One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.
Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.
The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…
We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.
We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.
In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.
We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.
(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)
One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).
Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).
I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…
I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…
This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.
A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.
A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…
James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”
Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.
According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.
We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.
Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:
2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.
I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.
My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.
I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.
Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.
One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.
I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.
As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).
One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.
At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.
At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.
Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.
I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.
That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.
Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?
Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.
Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.
There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)
Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.
Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….
The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…
The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
050219 Stewardship Friendship
When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”
When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…
Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.
What is the purpose of a human being?
Our purpose is to relate God and people.
(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)
When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.
This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).
When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.
I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.
We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says
15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.
We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.
Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays
I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.
It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.
Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.
Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.
I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.
A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.
I have people that I learn from here in our city.
The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…
Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.
Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.
When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.
Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.
Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.
Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:
See if you can help them.
I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.
There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.
Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.
One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.
Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.
The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…
We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.
We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.
In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.
We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.
(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)
One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).
Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).
I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…
I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…
This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.
A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.
A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…
James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”
Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.
According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.
We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.
Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:
2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.
I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.
My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.
I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.
Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.
One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.
I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.
As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).
One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.
At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.
At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.
Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.
I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.
That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.
Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?
Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.
Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.
There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)
Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.
Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….
The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…
The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…
Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.
What is the purpose of a human being?
Our purpose is to relate God and people.
(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)
When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.
This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).
When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.
I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.
We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says
15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.
We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.
Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays
I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.
It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.
Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.
Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.
I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.
A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.
I have people that I learn from here in our city.
The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…
Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.
Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.
When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.
Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.
Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.
Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:
See if you can help them.
I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.
There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.
Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.
One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.
Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.
The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…
We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.
We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.
In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.
We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.
(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)
One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).
Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).
I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…
I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…
This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.
A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.
A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…
James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”
Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.
According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.
We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.
Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:
2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.
I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.
My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.
I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.
Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.
One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.
I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.
As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).
One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.
At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.
At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.
Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.
I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.
That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.
Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?
Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.
Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.
There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)
Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.
Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….
The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…
The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
050219 Stewardship Friendship
When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”
When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…
Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.
What is the purpose of a human being?
Our purpose is to relate God and people.
(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)
When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.
This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).
When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.
I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.
We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says
15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.
We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.
Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays
I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.
It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.
Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.
Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.
I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.
A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.
I have people that I learn from here in our city.
The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…
Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.
Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.
When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.
Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.
Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.
Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:
See if you can help them.
I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.
There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.
Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.
One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.
Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.
The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…
We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.
We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.
In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.
We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.
(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)
One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).
Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).
I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…
I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…
This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.
A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.
A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…
James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”
Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.
According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.
We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.
Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:
2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.
I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.
My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.
I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.
Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.
One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.
I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.
As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).
One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.
At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.
At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.
Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.
I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.
That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.
Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?
Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.
Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.
There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)
Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.
Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….
The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…
The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
050219 Stewardship Friendship
When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”
When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…
Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.
What is the purpose of a human being?
Our purpose is to relate God and people.
(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)
When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.
This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).
When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.
I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.
We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says
15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.
We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.
Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays
I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.
It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.
Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.
Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.
I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.
A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.
I have people that I learn from here in our city.
The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…
Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.
Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.
When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.
Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.
Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.
Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:
See if you can help them.
I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.
There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.
Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.
One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.
Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.
The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…
We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.
We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.
In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.
We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.
(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)
One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).
Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).
I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…
I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…
This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.
A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.
A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…
James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”
Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.
According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.
We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.
Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:
2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.
I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.
My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.
I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.
Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.
One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.
I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.
As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).
One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.
At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.
At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.
Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.
I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.
That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.
Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?
Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.
Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.
There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)
Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.
Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….
The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…
The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
050219 Stewardship Friendship
When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”
When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…
Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.
What is the purpose of a human being?
Our purpose is to relate God and people.
(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)
When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.
This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).
When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.
I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.
We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says
15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.
We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.
Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays
I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.
It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.
Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.
Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.
I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.
A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.
I have people that I learn from here in our city.
The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…
Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.
Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.
When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.
Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.
Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.
Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:
See if you can help them.
I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.
There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.
Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.
One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.
Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.
The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…
We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.
We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.
In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.
We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.
(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)
One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).
Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).
I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…
I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…
This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.
A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.
A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…
James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”
Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.
According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.
We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.
Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:
2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.
I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.
My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.
I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.
Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.
One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.
I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.
As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).
One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.
At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.
At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.
Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.
I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.
That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.
Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?
Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.
Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.
There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)
Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.
Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….
The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…
The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
posted by Shigematsu at 10:09 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home