Learn Which Race You're Running
GCD Newsletter – Wednesday, October 10, 2024
Five minutes until the race begins. Head down, cold towel on your neck, you visualise the 110m stretch ahead.
Step, step, step, jump. Repeat.
Four minutes to go. You walk towards the starting line, each moment stretching, preparing. You see the first hurdle, then the second.
Three minutes, others join you.
Two. You hear the roar. Not the crowd though, this is different.
With just one minute left, the athletes around you stand agog. You notice that your own jaw has fallen too, as an F1 race car pulls up in the final lane.
The gun fires.
It seems like barely a moment later. The car has upturned not only its own hurdles, but others too. The other runners have all stopped, looking at one another hurt. Angry.
You look ahead, your hurdles are still standing.
Confused, but committed, you begin to race ahead.
Step, step, step.
Jump.
Repeat.
I just back from having lunch with a friend. During the conversation I mentioned a Pastor who recently upturned his life by disqualifying himself from ministry. I mentioned the State, and the city the Pastor was from. He thought I meant someone else. It turned out not one, but two men had done the same thing, in the same state and city, at the same time.
I wonder how long it took the other pastors in that city to recover.
Some will have had their own hurdles strewn across the path before them. Others might have been left dumbfounded, unable to run.
This isn’t the first time this has happened—we’re dealing with two similar fallouts here in the UK too—and it won’t be the last. What often goes though is the multitude of faithful pastors who have been running their race for years. They’ve jumped more hurdles than you can imagine. Death threats and funerals. Prodigals and parental abuse. Personal sin, and public accusations.
One such Pastor, Dave Kraft, has been serving for over fifty years now, and he can see the finish line ahead. He’s pressed on. He is persevering.
Now, part of his mission is helping train runners at the start of their own races, so that they can reach the finish line too. He’s not interested in finding fancy drivers in fancier cars who will race fast, burn out, and devastate everyone in their orbit as a result.
You can check out more details below, followed by this week’s articles from here at GCD.
Keep running.
Grace and Peace,
Adsum Try Ravenhill is married to Anna and together they are passionate about seeing men and women discipled in the context of the local church. They live in Reading, UK and are part of a church plant that meets in the town hall. Adsum edits the GCD Weekly Newsletter and can be found through his writing at The Raven’s Writing Desk. You can find all of Adsum’s previous articles for GCD here.
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
From a Roman jail, the Apostle Paul wrote these iconic words to a younger ministry leader. Paul was cold and winter was coming. “Do your best to come to me soon,” he wrote to Timothy. In whatever time Paul had left, he wanted to pour his life into this younger leader, strengthening Timothy in the calling God had placed upon him.
Finishing well in the Christian life, especially as a leader, is hard. So many leaders struggle to finish well, and too many fail. Dave Kraft has over five decades of ministry experience. Throughout this time, he has made it his personal life mission to help develop, equip, and empower leaders in local churches so that they finish their race well. Kraft’s book Finish Line Leadership is his version of 2 Timothy, his heartfelt plea and practical steps to run the race with integrity and joy.
Last Week at GCDiscipleship.com
Are there corners of your heart that are not given over to him?
The book, Why Revival Tarries, asks something similar: “Can the Holy Spirit be invited to take us by the hand down the corridors of our souls? Are there not secret springs, and secret motives that control, and secret chambers where other things hold empire over the soul?” That phrase, where other things hold empire over the soul, haunted me when I first read it. Likewise, the great theologian Augustine pleaded with the Lord: “Set love in order in me!”
Neither Despair nor Blind Optimism
by
Most of us naturally want to “fix” things. We see our culture going down a dark path, and our natural tendency is to think that if we do certain things, everything will be all right. We should speak God’s truth clearly and faithfully, but we have been given no promises that our voices will be heard or things will go well when we do. We don’t get to pick whether we conquer kingdoms or suffer mocking and flogging; that’s up to the Lord. We strive to live faithful, bold, and courageous lives and let God do what he wishes.