What Matters Most (book review)

August 13, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

The Old Testament prophet thundered out, “Thus saith the Lord!” and called the people back into a right relationship with God. The prophet’s words were not always well-received or well-liked, but they were always proved correct by God Himself. In many ways I felt like I was hearing a prophet’s voice in Leonard Sweet’s thundering words in What Matters Most, words calling us back into a right relationship with God.

The subtitle of the book is dead-on: How we got the point but missed the Person. Wow, how true that is! Christians and the Church today have so focused on getting the point of Christianity right, that we’ve missed the central point of CHRISTianity: Jesus Christ!

Leonard Sweet reminds us that we weren’t created to follow the rules of religion in isolated, solitary lives, but we were created to be in an intimate relationship with the Creator and with His creation. Sweet writes:

“What makes us human is the same thing that makes us created in the image of God. We are not isolated entities, self-contained, existing apart from God or from one another or even from God’s creation. We are made for “community” and “communion” and “ecology” …. We are judged by the world not on the basis of how “right” we’ve gotten what we believe but on how well we’re living it—on how we love God and people.”

So in What Matters Most Leonard Sweet focuses on those living relationships that should be the hallmark of Christians. Things like our relationship with…

  • our faith
  • our Creator
  • other people of faith
  • other people outside the faith
  • creation
  • arts
  • the unseen spiritual world

As I wrote earlier, often the prophet’s message was not received well initially. This is how you may feel when you first read What Matters Most. But if you will prayerfully read through this book, I think you will find (as I did) how these words resonate with the “Thus saith the Lord” tenor of Scripture and cause you to reevaluate your relationship with God and others.

I am a Waterbrook book reviewer. Check out some of the quotes I shared from this book by clicking here.

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Co-Workers

May 4, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

Obvious statement #1: Church ministry is not lone ranger work.

I needed to state that not only as a reminder to myself, but to my other pastor friends too. It seems like we can often lose sight of this fact. We can become so focused on the next sermon, the next appointment, the next Board meeting, the next outreach that we are actually worshiping the ministry instead of worshiping God through our ministry.

Oswald Chambers gave this warning:

“Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. … A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. … Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God’s blessing cannot rest on him.”

When we are more focused on the work than on God, we can easily begin to feel over-worked and under-appreciated. And this usually leads to us either bearing down to work harder or to simply throwing in the towel.

There is a healthy alternative: link arms with The Co-Worker—

“Walk with me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:29, The Message)

Link with The Co-Worker, and then you will do ministry out of the overflow of your personal worship. Remember, you are a co-worker, not a solo-worker.

Obvious statement #2: Church ministry is not just for the pastor.

Church member, you too are a co-worker with Christ. And with your pastor.

The apostle Paul reminded the church at Corinth that “we are God’s fellow workers” (1 Corinthians 3:9). In other words, we’re all in this together. You need your pastor, and your pastor needs you.

Allow me to paraphrase a quote from President Dwight Eisenhower:

“Never let yourself be persuaded that one [pastor] is necessary to the salvation of America. When [the Church] consists of one leader and [a bunch of] followers, it will no longer be [the Church].”

The Church is a beautiful thing! It functions best when:

  • Pastor and church member are both linked with Christ
  • The pastor is not a lone ranger
  • The church members are not spectators

Ready? Go BE the Church of Jesus Christ!

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United Redux

August 29, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

What a fantastic day we had yesterday! All of the churches in Cedar Springs joined together in a united worship service—which was very appropriately named UNITED.

In the book of Acts there is a great word that characterizes the first Church: together.

They all joined together constantly in prayer (1:14)

They were all together in one place (2:1)

All the believers were together and had everything in common (2:44)

Every day they continued to meet together (2:46)

They raised their voices together in prayer to God (4:24)

They gathered the church together and reported all that God had done (14:27)

We came together to break bread (20:7)

I love the fact that the other pastors in the Cedar Springs Ministerial Association want to work together. We realize that it will take our combined efforts to make a significant impact in our community for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Our annual UNITED service is a visible reminder of what’s going on year-round in Cedar Springs. We are together to bring glory to Christ.

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