You're Not Crazy E-Book

Ray Ortlund

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Practical Advice for Weary Leaders Who Want a Gospel-Centered Culture for Their Church Being a pastor is hard. Whether it's relational difficulties in the congregation, the increasingly hostile attitude towards church, or just the struggle to continue in ministry with joy and faithfulness, the pressure on leaders can be truly overwhelming. It's no surprise that pastors are burned out, tempted to give up, or think they're going crazy. In this practical guide, seasoned pastors Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry help weary leaders renew their love for ministry by equipping them to build a gospel-centered culture into every aspect of their churches. Emphasizing the importance of healthy doctrine, they explain that failing to also nurture a healthy culture can be frustrating, polarizing, and even unbiblical. This encouraging guide features Scripture-focused advice on honesty, honor, preaching, leadership, and mission to support leaders and help them regain a beautiful, Christ-centered vision for their ministries. - A Great Resource for Pastors, Church Planters, and Seminary Students: Encourages weary church leaders with Christ-centered advice on hospitality, discipleship, preaching, and more - Valuable Ministry Insights: Each chapter features discussion questions and a brief, engaging conversation between the authors about the topic - By Pastors Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry: Expanding on their podcast, "You're Not Crazy"

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“From the very first episode of the You’re Not Crazy podcast, I was hooked. The overarching theme of the podcast, and now the book, is this: gospel doctrine is meant to produce gospel culture through which the church shines forth the beauty of Christ. I have come to embrace that message wholeheartedly and am thankful that Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry have made it accessible to all through this book. If you’re currently leading a church or ministry, or planning to do so in the future, this book is for you.”

Brian Brodersen, Pastor, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, California

“This is the most important book I’ve read this year. You’re Not Crazy is written for pastors, ministry leaders, and followers of Jesus who not only believe the gospel but also desire to experience good news in their everyday life and work. The grace of God should shape not merely our theology but also our experience within our churches. This is exactly what Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry do through these biblically rich and deeply practical chapters. This book is refreshment for those who are weary, renewal for those who are disenchanted, clarity for those who are frustrated with the present state of the church, and rocket fuel for those who refuse to bow to the tribalism and outrage addiction of our times. Here you will find the kind of Christianity that every follower of Jesus longs deep down to experience. Read it slowly. Read it annually.”

Adam Ramsey, Lead Pastor, Liberti Church, Gold Coast, Australia; Director, Acts 29 Asia Pacific; author, Truth on Fire and Faithfully Present

“You’re Not Crazy contains an insightful, straightforward path toward seeing gospel culture established in your ministry—a path that travels through the very heart of Christ. Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry’s writing is quintessentially moving, motivating, and practical, as one would expect from two men who have lived their message so wholeheartedly. I wish I had read this fifteen years ago, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.”

Simon Murphy, Lead Pastor, Redemption Hill Church, Singapore

“In this book, Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry unfold a biblical and beautiful truth: sound doctrine ought to create compelling community for followers of Jesus. The local church is Christianity enfleshed, and our life together is integral to our witness. The authors show how gospel doctrine creates gospel culture in various areas of church life—from the pastoral welcome, to how we honor one another, to how we preach, and more. Here is a timely and inspirational reminder to turn afresh to the high calling of being part of—and helping foster—the body of Christ.”

Samuel D. Ferguson, Rector, The Falls Church Anglican, Metro Washington, DC

“A church that lacks gospel culture will undermine its gospel preaching. A gospel culture welcomes messed-up people to stumble toward glory together, knowing that God’s grace is their only hope. You’re Not Crazy is an invitation for Christians and churches to press past the confusion of our day and experience the beauty of Jesus’s grace together. I highly commend this work.”

J. Garrett Kell, Pastor, Del Ray Baptist Church, Alexandria, Virginia; author, Pure in Heart: Sexual Sin and the Promises of God

“Huge, if true! As I read this book, named after the authors’ hugely popular podcast, line after line hit me with life-giving gospel hope. In fact, I started sending quotes over to my wife but soon realized I was effectively texting her the whole book. What a tragedy that so many who declare or defend gospel doctrine have failed to develop gospel culture. What damage this has done to Christ’s body and witness. And what an incredible tonic this book will be for those committed afresh to moving truths from head to heart to life.”

Dave Gobbett, Lead Pastor, Highfields Church, Cardiff; author, The Environment; Trustee, Word Alive

“I love this book. I love it for exploring God’s vision in his word for gospel doctrine to create a gospel culture in our churches. I love how it applies precious gospel truths like grace, justification, and glorification to honesty, hospitality, and honoring in church life. I love how it explores God’s vision for the preaching, leadership, and relationships in our church families, which is so compelling to the communities we’re trying to reach. I love it because it encourages and challenges Western evangelical churches—rocked by leadership scandals, denominational revisionism, and class tribalism—to rediscover God’s inspiring vision for his churches in which the love of Christ truly shapes and fuels our ministries and lives.”

Richard Coekin, Senior Minister, Dundonald Church, London; Director, Co-Mission

You’re Not Crazy

Other Crossway Books by Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry

Ray Ortlund

The Death of Porn: Men of Integrity Building a World of Nobility

The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ

Isaiah: God Saves Sinners

Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel

Proverbs: Wisdom That Works

Sam Allberry

7 Myths about Singleness

What God Has to Say about Our Bodies: How the Gospel Is Good News for Our Physical Selves

You’re Not Crazy

Gospel Sanity for Weary Churches

Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry

Foreword by Russell MooreAfterword by Clark Lowenfield

You’re Not Crazy: Gospel Sanity for Weary Churches

Copyright © 2023 by Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Content in the sidebars at the end of each chapter was initially published in Ray Ortlund’s and Sam Allberry’s You’re Not Crazy podcast, The Gospel Coalition, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/youre-not-crazy/.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates.

Cover image: Unsplash (Josh Applegate), Unsplash (Louis Moncouyoux), NYPL ‘Map illustrating structures needing major and minor repairs, Page 43’.

First printing 2023

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-9057-3 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9059-7 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9058-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ortlund, Raymond C., Jr., author. | Allberry, Sam, author. 

Title: You’re not crazy : gospel sanity for weary churches / Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry ; foreword by Dr. Russell Moore ; afterward by Bishop Clark Lowenfield. 

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. 

Identifiers: LCCN 2023005761 (print) | LCCN 2023005762 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433590573 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433590580 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433590597 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Clergy—Religious life. 

Classification: LCC BV4011.6 .O78 2023 (print) | LCC BV4011.6 (ebook) | DDC 248.8/92—dc23/eng/20230407

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023005761

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023005762

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2023-08-22 01:04:49 PM

To the Rev. Dr. T. J. Tims,

Friend and Pastor

Contents

Forewordby Russell Moore

Introduction

1  What Is Gospel Culture, and Why Does It Matter?

2  Open the Doors, Open Your Heart

A Culture of Gospel Welcome

3  Come into the Light

A Culture of Gospel Honesty

4  See the Glory!

A Culture of Gospel Honor

5  Let Christ Preach

A Culture of Gospel Invitation

6  Leave Behind Lord-It-Over Leadership

A Culture Guided by Gentle Shepherds

7  Make Your Church’s Love Obvious

A Culture Fueled by Renewal and Mission

Conclusion

Afterwordby Clark Lowenfield

Acknowledgments

General Index

Scripture Index

Foreword

In a crazy time, sanity seems insane. In an irrational time, reasonableness seems disloyal. In an angry time, peaceability seems provocative. We’ve seen this over and over again throughout history. Sometimes in order to keep your mind and your soul, you will feel as though you are all alone. That’s often necessary. Sometimes God’s call for you is to be the only one to say to injustice, “No,” or to say to the invisible, “I see you,” or to say to the mistreated, “I believe you.”

And yet, though that willingness to stand alone is necessary for the sanity of any society or any family or any church, we also know that no one can withstand craziness alone—at least not forever.

A generation ago, sociologist Peter Berger wrote about the way that “plausibility structures” work1—the way that those taken-for-granted assumptions of the community around us can change not just what we believe but even what we consider:

To deny reality as it is has been socially defined is to risk falling into irreality, because it is well-nigh impossible in the long run to keep up alone and without social support one’s own counter-definitions of the world. When the socially defined reality has come to be identified with the ultimate reality of the universe, then its denial takes on the quality of evil as well as madness.2

Much of the craziness of our time is the effort to skew the plausibility structures, sometimes even to force a kind of irrationality as a way to prove one’s loyalty to the tribe. If Berger is right, then our typical strategy—just waiting for the fever of that craziness to break—is dangerous not just to the individuals caught up in it but to future generations as well. After all, what is accepted as plausible in one generation—sometimes enforced by loyalty tests—becomes the default for generations to come.

That’s why your ministry—whatever it is—is so important. You are not just serving the people in front of you at the moment. You are not just connecting isolated individuals to a community (although you are doing that). You are also connecting the community to reality, to a truth that is not “useful” but transcendent and personal. You are not just helping people to live their lives with flourishing and integrity (although you are doing that), but you are also pointing them to what they can’t see, to what the anchor holds behind the veil (Heb. 6:19). When people face the ultimate moment of death, they do not need shibboleths that prove they are “one of us.” They need to know “Is it true?” They need to know “Is he there?”

That’s why we need the word of God through which we hear the voice of Christ, through which we are conformed to that great community of believers from Abel to whoever first told you about Jesus to people living now but whose village you will never see and whose language you will never learn.

When you start to wonder whether you’re crazy, you are pulled in a couple of different directions. You might isolate and just start to live within your own mind. That, ultimately, leads to a seeking for sensations just to give some imitation of life. Or you might assimilate—taking on the untrue assertions of those around you because it’s easier. If you practice the expected falsehoods long enough, you might even start to believe them. Both of those ways lead to despair, to exhaustion, and ultimately to collapse.

You are loved and valued, and we need you healthy and whole. The church needs you—whether or not you’re in vocational ministry—not to be paralyzed by self-questioning and a failure of nerve. That’s why this book is important.

Ray Ortlund and Sam Allberry are wise and respected leaders throughout the world, but some of us have been able to see them up close. We’ve seen them ministering in our local church—teaching the Bible, counseling the bewildered, serving the lonely. We’ve seen them take those who believed their ministries were over—very sane people who started to wonder whether they were “crazy”—and encourage them, pointing them to the sort of renewing of the mind and transfusing of hope that can come only from presence rooted in the word and enlivened by the Spirit.

This book will help you in your calling, steadying you for turbulent times, without hectoring you with preachy imperatives. This book is not “Do it more!” or “Do it better!” or “Do it like me!” This book is instead more like a couple of trusted friends who are saying, “You’re not crazy; we see it too. You’re not imagining how hard it is. And you’re not wrong about how overwhelming it is. But here’s what we’ve found, and here’s how you can find it too.”

Ultimately, that’s not about “experts” teaching you “technique.” That’s what led so many churches and leaders to insanity in the first place. This approach is much more like those in first-century Galilee who heard a man speak like they’d never heard before, and who said to their friends, “Come meet this Jesus, from Nazareth. I can’t really describe to you what he’s like. Just come along with me, come and see.”

The end result of that is the sort of sanity that’s not just the absence of craziness, the sort of ministry that’s not just the presence of “effectiveness.” The end result is a personal encounter that the old hymns tell us about:

Yes, ’tis sweet to trust in Jesus,

Just from sin and self to cease;

Just from Jesus simply taking

Life and rest, and joy, and peace.3

You’re not crazy. You’re not forgotten. And you’re not alone.

Russell Moore

Editor in Chief

Christianity Today

1  Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967; repr., New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1990), 39.

2  Berger, Sacred Canopy, 39.

3  Louisa M. R. Stead, “'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” (1882), Hymnary.org, accessed December 15, 2022, https://hymnary.org/.

Introduction

Like many people, I (Sam) use an app to keep track of my health. I make notes of my sleep quality, weight, exercise, and (if I’m really being diligent) my caloric intake. I can see all this at a glance and measure which way things are trending from week to week. It’s been useful. I live with Crohn’s disease, and these metrics give me a basic sense of how I’m doing. The trouble is, of course, all those metrics that I need to track for Crohn’s could be going well but I could still be seriously unwell. After all, there’s more than one way to be sick.

The same is true of our churches. I’ve had the privilege (a great privilege it is) of being in theologically careful churches for the whole of my Christian life. I don’t take this for granted. At each of these churches, the Scripture’s authority drove all our ministries and teaching. We wanted to be biblical. In each case, the congregations were encouraged to listen to preaching with their Bibles open and to make sure what was being taught lined up with what was in the text. Teachers were always open to correction, and I continue to rejoice in the blessing of the many years I sat under their faithful and careful exposition.

But there’s more than one way to be unhealthy. It’s possible for any of us to be theologically careful and still be seriously sick. This first came home to me when I read through 1 Timothy and reflected on Paul’s instructions for the care of widows:

If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God. She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach. But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Tim. 5:4–8)

Did you spot it? I don’t know how many times I read this text without noticing it myself. In that last line, Paul shows that not providing for relatives isn’t merely a serious sin of omission; it’s a denial of the faith. I’d always seen denying the faith as a theological failure: At some point, someone starts to believe what is false, or he begins to deny what is true. He goes off the rails doctrinally. But here we see it’s also possible to deny the faith by what we do (or, in this case, by what we don’t do). It’s entirely possible for someone who has never strayed theologically to deny the faith practically. But it’s also possible for a whole church to affirm or deny the faith by either embodying it or failing to do so. That’s why we have written this book.

We humans are culture creators. How we are around each other will always take on a particular relational dynamic, a shared personality, a noticeable tone. It can never be otherwise. We shape one another in many complex ways, and a resulting culture always emerges. It’s true of friendship groups, of workplaces, of families, and of churches. There will always be a vibe, a feel, an intangible but powerful way the group tends to be when together.

Every church has its own culture. The question is, How fully does its culture align with its doctrine? Whatever the answer, a church’s culture always reveals whatever the people most deeply believe. Not every truth that’s preached is believed down at the level of felt, shared reality. Some truths are given lip service, while others become deeply defining. The sorting process isn’t always visible, but the outcomes will show themselves in a church’s observable culture.

A pastor friend once said that it may be safer to confess sin in the bars and clubs of his city than in its churches. This shouldn’t be. If the members of a church are merely keeping up appearances, if they, for instance, fear opening up about their sins and failings, those gospel truths aren’t yet believed down at the level where the church’s culture is formed. A church may formally believe in the forgiveness of sins and in the freedom of confession—its sermons and liturgy may affirm that grace for sin is abundantly available—but while this church seems healthy at the level of doctrine, it may be seriously unhealthy at the level of culture. To use Paul’s stark language, they may be denying the faith they profess to believe. That is how the people in a church can affirm glorious theology but be weary in their hearts and in their witness.

That’s a negative way to frame what our book is about. And let’s all face that stark reality. But there is a positive message here too. We’re longing for the beauty of Christ to shape every aspect of our churches—not only the content of our teaching but also the quality and flavor of our relationships. We believe that the culture of our churches, empowered by the doctrine of our churches, can make the presence of the risen Jesus a felt reality in this generation.

So, our plan in this book is to establish what we mean by “gospel culture” in our churches and to make a biblical case for why this is essential (chapter 1). Then, in the remaining chapters, we will (broadly) follow an order of service and think together about how we might try to reflect the beautifying impact of the gospel from our opening welcome to the way we’re sent out at the service’s end. On the way, we’ll cover the vital ingredients of honesty, honor, preaching, leadership, and mission, and we’ll think through what it might look like to make all this more “Jesus-y.”

This is the ministry that Scripture itself is calling all of us to. We ourselves have been struck by how full the category of faithfulness really is. It’s not gospel doctrine alone, but gospel doctrine creating gospel culture. The truth of Christ must shape our creeds and our sermons so that the beauty of Christ also adorns our life together as churches. Then we will be a prophetic presence in the world today.

1

What Is Gospel Culture, and Why Does It Matter?

To them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

Galatians 2:5

How gospel doctrine connects to gospel culture became clear for me (Sam) when I ran into a long-standing church member at the store.1 We had one short conversation, but it was emblematic of a much wider concern. She’d been going through a crisis, and we hadn’t seen her at church for a few weeks, which was unlike her. So when I ran into her, I told her how much we’d missed her and how lovely it would be to see her in church again. She told me she couldn’t come until she was doing better. She didn’t want people to see her while she was feeling life’s mess: “I’m waiting until the storm passes and I’ve got things back together enough to be able to walk back into the church building.”

Her words were heartbreaking to hear. In her mind, church was a place she could come only when she felt like her life was together. She didn’t even identify this as a problem. It was just reality for her. I saw in that moment that there was something unhealthy going on. Church should be the place we sprint to when things are at their worst, not the place we avoid until we’ve got our Instagram-worthy Christianity back in place.

I began to realize that there was a mismatch between the beauty of the truth and the culture of my church. The more I thought about it, the more clearly I saw the difference between the social dynamics of grace-justification and the social dynamics of self-justification.

We all need to examine this so we can enlarge our understanding of what it means to be faithful to the gospel. Yes, even the social dynamics of the gospel matter because, as Luther taught us, justification by faith alone is not just one doctrine among others; it is “the article by which the church stands or falls.”2 Luther also teaches us that justification by faith alone is hard to accept and hard to hold on to. In his commentary on Galatians, he writes,

[This doctrine] cannot be beaten into our ears enough or too much. Yes, though we learn it and understand it well, yet there is no one that takes hold of it perfectly or believes it with all his heart, so frail a thing is our flesh and disobedient to the Spirit.3

Based on Galatians, then, the gospel—and justification in particular—calls for more than doctrinal subscription. It also calls for cultural incarnation. It’s not necessarily easy to follow through at both levels. It’s impossible without Christ himself. But we would be unfaithful to settle for doctrinal correctness without also establishing a culture of grace in our churches and denominations and movements. In other words, if justification by faith alone is the doctrine on which the church stands or falls, what does it look like to stand rather than fall? Is it possible to fall while we think we are standing?

The book of Galatians and my conversation at the store show us that such confusion is possible. A believer or a church can trumpet the doctrine of grace-justification while, at the same time, being crippled with the dysfunctions of