In staff meeting, one of our pastors asked us to pray for his mom because she’s having a bad flare-up with her medical condition.

She lives in another state and is part of a different church, but I asked if I could call her.

He said yes and gave me her number.

1/
I dialed the number and she picked up the phone. We talked for a few minutes and then I prayed with her.

After we finished, she texted her son and said I was the first pastor to call and pray over her since she was diagnosed 5 years ago.

The first one… IN FIVE YEARS.

2/
She is not some fringe attender either.

This woman has been a committed and serving church member her entire adult life at numerous churches.

Pastors, I say this as someone who believes deeply in the role of shepherd and the potential of healthy churches…

3/
If we “don’t have time” for the most basic pastoral functions, like praying with someone who is sick, then what the hell are we even doing?

4/
If we’re writing great sermons, running meetings, planning strategy, managing donors, leading staff, and casting vision, but neglecting the people God has asked us to care for, we are no longer pastors.

We might be CEOs, speakers, and strategists, but we aren’t pastors.

5/
“Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God.

Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example.” 1 Peter 5:1-3

6/
This is our calling, fellow pastors:

- care for the folks in the church.
- support people with enthusiasm, not reluctance.
- lead with humility, not arrogance.
- lead by example, not decree.
- be eager to serve, because it’s ultimately God you’re serving.

Let’s do it.

7/7
Tons of heartbreaking responses to this thread, so here’s what I want to do:

If you’d like to be prayed for over the phone, and you don’t have a pastor who is willing or able to do so, I’d love to do that for you.

My DMs are open. Message me with your number and I’ll call asap.
I’ve gotten to pray with a bunch of people over the last 24 hours; from Canada to Nigeria to Kentucky and everywhere in between.

And here’s the thing:

I think I was more blessed by it than they were.

What a privilege it is to simply listen to someone’s story and pray together.

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More from @ZachWLambert

Jan 17
The quote is NOT:

“don’t judge people by the color of their skin...”

The quote is:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Quick #MLKDay thread:
Dr. King said this because he lived in a world where his children were constantly belittled due to their skin color rather than evaluated based on their character.

This happened to them because they were Black.

This did not happen to children who were white.
This kind of racism, both individual and systemic, lingers today.

Dr. King’s three living children, and every other Black person in America, continue to be plagued by judgements based on skin color rather than character.

This racism does not exist for white people.
Read 8 tweets
Dec 15, 2021
I finished the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill last week and have been letting it simmer before I share my perspective.

So here goes.

My biggest issue with the podcast is its refusal to engage with the toxic theology beneath all the abuse.

Namely, white supremacy and patriarchy…
When churches and leaders who ascribe to a certain belief systems continue to be exposed as oppressive and abusive, we have to ask if the system itself is broken.

Rotten fruit often comes from toxic theology.
In every intro we heard Jen Smith say, “Why are we not looking at the deep-seated reasons for this?”

Every episode I would hear that and pray it would be the one where they'd actually examine the underlying belief systems, but as the credits rolled each time I was disappointed.
Read 18 tweets
Dec 7, 2021
People aren’t deconstructing because it’s “sexy” or because they want to sin.

People are deconstructing because many of the folks who first told them about Jesus have stopped living like him.

Thread:
I’ve talked to hundreds of people about this and never met a single person who chose to start deconstructing, myself included.

Deconstruction is involuntary; it happens when something we’ve been told to believe comes into conflict with something we experience.

For example…
We were told Christians value ethics and morals, but then we watched them give full-throated support to Donald Trump.

We were told Christians welcome everyone into God’s family, but then we saw LGTBQ+ folks diligently following Jesus be kicked out of the church.
Read 9 tweets
Sep 27, 2021
Many of Haiti's ongoing issues are the direct result of reparations.

Not reparations paid to formerly enslaved people and their descendants. That has never happened.

These reparations were paid to enslavers by the people they enslaved.

a thread
In 1791, self-liberated slaves rose up against French colonial rule and what became known as the Haitian Revolution began.

It ended in 1804 with Haiti declaring its independence from France, but the French refused to recognize Haitian independence for another 20 years.
In 1825, King Charles X said France would recognize Haiti’s independence, but it with a cost.

Haiti was required to pay former French slaveowners 150 million francs (~$21 billion today) because they claimed to have lost income when they could no longer enslave the Haitians.
Read 17 tweets
Aug 30, 2021
In preparation for a time of prayer this morning, I tried to locate the number of lives lost in the Kabul suicide bombing.

I already know the US troops (13), but I was trying to find the number of Afghans who died.

I skimmed 20 different articles and couldn’t find it.

1/
I checked CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, USA Today, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Reuters, AP, NPR, and everywhere else I could think of.

Nothing.

Just words like “dozens” or “many” but no actual number of Afghan casualties.

2/
I finally found the number on Wikipedia.

169.

One hundred and sixty-nine Afghan civilians died and most of our major news media barely even mentions them.

3/
Read 6 tweets
Aug 28, 2021
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

1/
This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

2/
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

3/
Read 7 tweets

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