{"id":200,"date":"2010-01-15T20:08:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T20:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianmashburn.net\/?p=200"},"modified":"2010-01-15T20:08:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T20:08:00","slug":"a-question-i-am-ashamed-to-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=200","title":{"rendered":"A Question I am Ashamed to Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">About 10 months ago, I received an email that I quickly deleted. It had a strange foreign name attached to it, some generic sounding title, so it didn\u2019t make it through my \u201cmaybe that\u2019s not junk mail\u201d filter when I did a quick scan of my Inbox. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">As it turns out, that deleted, unread email came from a desperate man in India, asking me to personally mentor him as a student of Christ, a minister at a church, and a world changer.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">I only know this because, fortunately, he sent a second email. In it he was pleading, <em>\u201cDear brother, please do not hesitate to write me, please encourage me in the truth. Please help and guide and explain what ever I asks questions. I have some questions to ask. Please give me permission to ask more.\u201d<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">I replied to him, and it began a wonderful dialogue that I have thoroughly enjoyed and learned from. He found me in a somewhat random way (yeah, right) through a search engine that led him to the website of the Southwest Church in Amarillo, TX\u2026 the group with whom I seek the best possible life. <\/font><\/p>\n<p>As he said, he had many questions, and was looking for someone to ask. Among them:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is Non-Institutional institution? <\/li>\n<li>What is conservative? <\/li>\n<li>What is liberal? <\/li>\n<li>What is mainstream? <\/li>\n<li>What is one cup churches and non class Churches? (He saw these words in the recent issues of Christian Chronicle news paper.) <\/li>\n<li>We train few youths as preachers, is it wrong or non-Biblical? <\/li>\n<li>Can I have your sermons and lessons in printed form for use in our daily ministries? <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>From here, he started sending me some of his curriculum and lessons. I began to notice that his good work had within it a heavy focus on teaching \u201chow to do church right\u201d and not so much on \u201chow to love and live like Jesus Christ\u201d (You can search my blog archives at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\">www.brianmashburn.net<\/a> if you are interested in why this stood out to me), and our dialogue included discussions about this. Perhaps one of the greatest treasures I have from G. David as a result of our dialogue is this one:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cOur God is helping us through you to change this bias towards to imitate Christ and better preachers and ministers of Christ, more like Jesus and more focus on Jesus. I thank you very much for your excellent guidance in Christ Jesus our Lord, you are in my heart, because you have changed it to focus on Jesus and Jesus only.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Let me pause here and tell you\u2026if it is true that I can play any role whatsoever in helping anyone (particularly leaders of others) to focus on \u201cJesus and Jesus only\u201d\u2026that is enough for me and an answer to countless prayers of mine.<\/p>\n<p>So\u2026praise God. His questions then moved into this realm\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How to come to the image of His son? &#8211; Rom 8:29. <\/li>\n<li>How to attain the fullness and stature of Christ? &#8211; Eph 4:11-13.<\/li>\n<li>How to walk and what are the foot steps of Christ? &#8211; I Peter 2:21.<\/li>\n<li>How to walk as He walked? &#8211; I John 2:6.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What an impossible joy it has been to wrestle with these magnificent questions.<\/p>\n<p>I respect this man so much. He and his family minister with limited provision, and with zealous faithfulness. He has invited me over for a visit to teach and encourage. I hope to someday go, because I know that it is I who would be taught and most definitely encouraged (His little boy looks like he\u2019d be my favorite!)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lh3.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLBrDwp6I\/AAAAAAAAAJk\/4AciaMI1Hy4\/s1600-h\/MyFamily3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"My Family\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"148\" alt=\"My Family\" src=\"http:\/\/lh5.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLCN84yQI\/AAAAAAAAAJo\/RwZDKP92fVM\/MyFamily_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800\" width=\"244\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>&#160;<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve gotten to \u201cbe with\u201d him as he traveled, while injured sometimes, thousands of miles to take advantage of an opportunity to teach people about Christ in less than ideal circumstances\u2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lh4.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLC7zEvOI\/AAAAAAAAAJs\/BqCibgDQdVU\/s1600-h\/Bike22.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Bike-2\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"244\" alt=\"Bike-2\" src=\"http:\/\/lh6.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLDhRDqnI\/AAAAAAAAAJw\/XNf4hO7triU\/Bike2_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800\" width=\"148\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>As one of his questions indicates, and on top of all of his daily demands, he had collected an assortment of eager young men and started a preacher training school! Here are his students\u2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lh3.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLFSgJ-BI\/AAAAAAAAAJ0\/BWzT82JOhLA\/s1600-h\/school2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"school\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"172\" alt=\"school\" src=\"http:\/\/lh5.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLGcgz9lI\/AAAAAAAAAJ4\/GazVN8SZaqs\/school_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800\" width=\"244\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>I even got to \u201cwitness\u201d him slave away, beg, plead, and organize relief for the people of his church and city when the horrible flooding of India last year hit Chennai hard\u2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lh4.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLHYgG8DI\/AAAAAAAAAJ8\/LBANknM2w48\/s1600-h\/RaininChennai83.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"INDIA\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"152\" alt=\"INDIA\" src=\"http:\/\/lh5.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLIC_k6II\/AAAAAAAAAKA\/GrTP3oEZc-Y\/RaininChennai8_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800\" width=\"124\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>&#160; <a href=\"http:\/\/lh4.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLJ-UcvPI\/AAAAAAAAAKE\/-GNJmLACtYg\/s1600-h\/Relief14.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Relief-1\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"150\" alt=\"Relief-1\" src=\"http:\/\/lh4.ggpht.com\/_09YibWUlr-c\/S1DLK6JIpBI\/AAAAAAAAAKI\/_H9a92DqiUQ\/Relief1_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800\" width=\"198\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>I was always eager and ready to continue our mutual learning from each other\u2019s lives and ministries. I always looked forward to his questions, and speedily replied to the best of my ability, until he asked a question that stopped me in my tracks.<\/p>\n<p>He asked, <em>\u201cHow much does your church provide for you per month as the preacher?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I froze in front of my computer screen.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t want to tell him.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not that I think I\u2019m a bad steward of the financial resources given to me.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not a self-esteem thing, that I don\u2019t think I\u2019m \u201cworth\u201d what I\u2019m paid (been there, done that).<\/p>\n<p>Nor is it that I take some kind of pride in how much I\u2019m given, as if that is some sort of measurement of my worth. <\/p>\n<p>And it is certainly not that I\u2019m ungrateful.<\/p>\n<p>What was it? Why was I ashamed? <\/p>\n<p>I am provided more money than I ever dreamed I would be when I decided to go into ministry. But that doesn\u2019t seem like it should be enough to make me feel ashamed.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not making more than might be expected for people who have a comparable position that I have (in the U.S., that is) according to a survey taken by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acu.edu\/academics\/cbs\/centers-services\/churchrelations\/resources\/salarysurvey\/2009_survey.html\">ACU<\/a>), but that\u2019s not enough to keep me from feeling ashamed.<\/p>\n<p>Help me out here\u2026<\/p>\n<p>And as a bonus\u2026why does it seem like I\u2019m breaking some kind of rule just be bringing this subject up?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 10 months ago, I received an email that I quickly deleted. It had a strange foreign name attached to it, some generic sounding title, so it didn\u2019t make it through my \u201cmaybe that\u2019s not junk mail\u201d filter when I did a quick scan of my Inbox. As it turns out, that deleted, unread email [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pO6nf-3e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}