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I was reading today at work and I came across a verse that troubled me.

“But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” I Corinthians 9:27 (ESV)

Let me preface the following comments with the clear understanding that it is very dangerous to simply look at one verse outside of the context of the surrounding verses. With that stated, I think that there is an awful lot packed into this verse.

What struck me was four words:

Discipline
Control
Preaching
Disqualified

I think that the Discipline that this verse is talking about deals with:

Physical Discipline ? I can?t be sitting behind the desk ?Working? all the time ? I have to get out into nature and exercise. I was clicking through the TV channels a couple of weeks ago and came across the UFC ? Ultimate Fighting Championship tournament. I was totally attracted to this not because of the violence, but because men were sweating and bleeding and fighting. I had forgotten then men could do those things. I?ve been sitting behind my computer screen for so long that I just forgot. Not that I?m going to go out and pick a fight with someone, but I realize that I need to make regular exercise a priority in my life for the simple reason of taking control of what happens to my body. In the same line, I know that when I exercise I feel better about myself and I feel more confident in what I am doing. As I?m going through this process of preparing for re-entering the ministry, I am realizing that I really need to take better care of myself physically in order to be able to do the spiritual work that God has called me to.

Intellectual Discipline ? The struggle that I?ve had with working in this job and sitting in the chair for 10 hrs a day answering phone calls has been very, very hard for me. However, I must admit that I have really enjoyed the opportunity to read in between calls. To be quite frank, I?ve got a lazy mind. Everything has always come easy for me, so I have a tendency to only study something when I need help. What I?m realizing is that I?ve got to feed my mind better if for nothing else so that I don?t become a slave to the computer or the TV all the time. There is something very special about the tactile experience of picking up a book, turning the pages and slowing down to read the book. It fills my mind far better then when I just listen to a podcast or read something off the internet. What I realize is that I need to take control of my intellectual discipline as well if I want to prevent a lazy mind.

Spiritual Discipline ? I love the spiritual disciplines, they make sense to me. The idea of having a clear purpose and focused activity that is designed to help me grow closer to God and to strengthen my relationship with Him is something that I welcome and embrace. While am actively working on these spiritual disciplines I am not doing my best at following them, partly because I understand them and they come easy to me. What I realize is that I need to work very hard at these disciplines now because there is going to come a time in my life when I am going to need to draw on them and if I haven?t conditioned myself to be practicing them to the best of my ability, then I am going to be found lacking at some point.

Emotional Discipline ? I don?t even want to talk about this one because I have no discipline in this area. I have never really worked on controlling my emotions other then the life-saving practice of trying to think before I speak. I often times find myself at the whims of how I am feeling at any specific time or place. I guess I try to control my anger, but what I?ve unfortunately done is actually just suppress that anger and not truly deal with it. I think that suppression is in some part directly related to the liver disease that I now live with.

The idea of control is something that I am always struggling with. I often times find myself very controlling and unable to resist the temptation of trying to control things that I shouldn?t. What God has been teaching for the past couple of years is that I really can?t control anything. I think that my discomfort and inability to feel secure stems directly from the idea that I?ve given up trying to control things and now I?m just sort of wondering what to do. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I have focused my control desires on my outward life instead of my inward life. The idea of taking control of my inward life is something that I?m only recently beginning to understand and acknowledge as important.

The idea of preaching being directly related to the discipline of the body and the controlling of it is an interesting concept. As I look though the four areas of discipline that I believe this verse relates to I?ve come to the conclusion that if any of those four disciplines are out of sync, then the preaching will be out of sync as well. It?s only logical that if the inward life is flawed then that will directly manifest itself through a flawed outward life. I know this from working as a counselor for so many years. The teens that came to me were outwardly flawed but that came about because of a direct connection to the lack of control and respect that they have for the inward life. Using the same logic, if I am called to preach the Gospel, then I need to make sure that my inward life is in order because I don?t want to fall victim to a flaw that could have been avoided.

The idea of disqualification is the most concerning of this verse in that it implies that the individual was proficient enough to help others into a relationship with Christ but not themselves. I don?t want to be like this. I don?t want to be the person who is proficient at something that can help others, but not be able to help myself. I relate this to being a poser and I definitely don?t want to be a poser. More importantly, I don?t want to be disqualified simply because I was too lazy to discipline and take control of my inward self. If I?m going to be disqualified, I want it to be because I gave my absolute best and yet my best wasn?t good enough. I probably won?t be happy that I was disqualified, but I?ll know that I did everything I knew to get there.

I?ll wrap this up since it?s pretty long already, but I think that the problem that I had in the ministry before was that I never put these disciplines in place and thus I was never grounded the way that I should have been. If that?s the case then no matter what situation I find myself in, I will always struggle until I can get my inward life in order. Just my thoughts for today.

I am asked alot why I am care so much about the Wesleyan Church. Here’s a couple of the reasons why.

A doctrinal symposium, sponsored by the Board of General Superintendents, was held June 1-2, 2007 at The Wesleyan Church World Headquarters. Ninety-five theologians, pastors, and church leaders gathered to discuss issues of ecclesiology as a part of refining A Wesleyan View of The Church. The papers that were delivered are available online at www.wesleyan.org/symposium. Dr. Thomas Armiger summarized key positions about the church that were affirmed in this symposium as he delivered this concluding statement:
To recap our presentations, responses, and group discussions, it may be helpful to ask the application question: What are some of the implications that need to be addressed or affirmed by all of us within our ministry venues? While this list is not intended to be all-inclusive, it does summarize those challenging issues needing our attention and affirmation.

1. We affirm that the Church is the “Hope of the World.” In a variety of ways, we were given biblical and theological support to our Article of Faith (#16) on the Church, which highlights both the incarnational and missional focus of the Church. As I Peter 2:9 states: “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

2. We affirm that pastoral identity must include the New Testament imperative of the “hyper-essential” role of teaching and mediating the Word of God. While teaching is the “core calling” of pastoral ministry, we were reminded not to exclude the use of other gifts for building and equipping the church. We understand that word-bearing is a changeless core of our ministry, but recognize that the forms and delivery can be adapted to maintain cultural relevance and ministry effectiveness.

3. We affirm that ministerial recruitment should be based on personal character and capacity to be “bearers” of the Word of God, noting that in the New Testament the shepherd’s role was predominately that of teaching. The implication was that “all pastors were to be teachers but not all teachers were necessarily called to be pastors.” We were reminded that personal character and calling to ministry is changeless, but what is fluid is the issue of personal competency and skills.

4. We affirm the role of scripture as vital to church life, viewed as “Divine Speech,” which is authoritative and true, but also transformational and sacramental, mediating to the church the very presence and power of God to create and shape the community. We must proclaim the importance of the sacraments as ordinances and means of grace: a form of proclamation that shares in the incarnational strategy of God housed within the instructional ministry of the Word.

6. We affirm that The Church, at its very core, is called to be a worshipping community. “Where there is no worship of God by the people of God, there is no church.” We were given a practical definition: “Worship is faith inspired, grace-enabled, life consuming responses to divine revelation and initiatives that glorify the Triune God and result in the sanctification of disciples in a life-style of reverence, holiness, fellowship, witness and service.”

7. We affirm (after a reflective look at liturgical cores in various traditions) that our worship must incorporate doctrine reflecting Christian orthodoxy; Protestant principles; Arminian perspectives; an evangelical thrust; and must communicate Wesleyan/Holiness beliefs and values. Our corporate worship must become the arena and venue for “exercising and experiencing theology” as a community of faith.

8. We affirm that worship styles must not divide the community of faith; allowance must be given to a diversity of worship, recognizing that God is more concerned with the motive and attitude of our worship than he is our form of worship. We were reminded that worship is relational and must be holistic, involving all levels of living and demonstrating our dependence on Him. The outcome of worship is that of personal surrender and obedience.

9. We affirm that God is still performing miracles today—symbols pointing the way to Christ. Our challenge is to become sensitized to what God is doing in order to propel the mission of the church. We were admonished not to settle too quickly for a mundane ministry of the flesh that is void of the supernatural.

10. We affirm that the church must maintain a healthy balance regarding contemporary miracle working gauged by what is scriptural, reasonable, traditional and experiential. The historical synopsis that was presented helps us to appreciate Wesley’s view and allowance of the miraculous. As was mentioned, “Wesley was sometimes ridiculed for his belief in the supernatural, but found support of his views from the early Church Fathers.”

11. We affirm that the church should applaud the miracle of the transforming power of the gospel to change lives when persons receive Christ. The transformational miracle of God’s grace and power is simply “…If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” We were reminded that God’s intervention in performing miracles must be viewed beyond the temporal to the eternal purposes of God.

12. We affirm that God’s miraculous intervention flows out of a ministry of intercessory prayer. The church’s missional focus is both empowered and released by a dependent people calling upon God and convinced of the Lord’s promise in II Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land (or church).” Therefore, the call to be issued to the church is to be “Presence Driven,” derived from a community that prays together.

13. We affirm, in accordance with Wesley’s view, that the church must have soteriological focus. We were reminded that in Wesley’s view, salvation was determined not by one’s relationships to an ecclesiastical institution but rather to the saving work of Christ. It was noted that “Wesley and early Methodists sought to call the church to her true mission of saving souls and to structure ministries around that end, rather than to create/promote any single ecclesiastical form as being the exclusive biblical option.” As was stated, “Wesley steered away from what might be called “the perfect church,” but rather gave allowance for flexibility in form to fulfill the church’s redemptive mission.

14. We affirm that the primary mission of the church is reflected in Wesley’s statement. “You have nothing to do but to save souls.” We were reminded that evangelism includes both a “message proclaimed and a life-style manifested to others;” therefore, both personal and social holiness must not be neglected in fulfilling our mission. The Wesleyan view of the church is to be “transformational in its deepest sense.”

15. We affirm that faith in the redemptive work of Christ is the primary prerequisite for membership in the body of Christ as did Wesley, but we struggle as a church with the ongoing process of developing a holy people who are to reflect to the world the reality of the transformation wrought by the Spirit.

16. We affirm that The Church “is called to be a Sanctified Community” built around the triune nature of God based on three biblical principles: The Father sets apart a people for the Son by the Spirit; The Son cleanses his body for the Father by the Spirit; and the Spirit fills the temple for the Father and the Son. Some implications for church membership were noted as application. Membership commitments should be: “concrete identity makers which are an aspect of God’s sanctification of the church; a process whereby the body of Christ is brought into submission to God; and a reflection not only of where we have been, but where we are going. Membership commitments should describe the kind of community that God wants the world to be.”

17. We affirm that the church is to be a community modeled not after any given culture but after an understanding of the God-head. God is the center that holds the community together, and the church’s collective identity must revolve around the divine relationship and mutual indwelling of the triune God. As was noted, “What the church has to offer is the authentic community our culture is looking for, but it can only be understood as one knows the God that this community centers around.”

18. We affirm that the church, empowered by the Spirit, is to be the incarnational-missional agent that imitates and communicates God’s love to a lost world. As was stated, “Using the Trinity as the model, one can easily see that the unconditional love we receive from the Triune God must be our defining mark as a church community-love is our distinction.”

19. We affirm that the role of the Holy Spirit in an individual takes place in the context of a community of faith, the Church. The New Testament sees “any individual relationship as a subset of our corporate relationship with God as a whole.” However, it was noted that the application of the plural form of “you” must not distract from the individual’s responsibility to personally receive the Holy Spirit. We understand the Holy Spirit speaks to individuals through the collective voice of His people. We see the role of the Holy Spirit “defining us as individual Christians, but He defines us so because He defines the entire body as the body of Christ, the Church.” We maintain the necessity of believers being part of the community of faith for their own spiritual growth and development. As stated, “From both a biblical and a Christian standpoint, there are no lone Christians.”

20. We affirm the Unity of the Church, which calls for an ecumenical Wesleyanism to “join arms with those whose hearts are righteous, and to encourage and work together with those whose opinions or practices may differ from our own.” This spirit is rooted in the unity we embrace as part of Christ body and through the oneness we share as those awakened by the Holy Spirit. However, we were reminded this unity with other believers does not dictate we be united on all theological views.

21. We affirm that the Apostolic nature of the Church calls us to defend, confirm, advance, and contend for the gospel. Our union with Christ involves our union with His vocation, mission, and passion. We are a “sent” people, not allowing culture to compromise our message or allowing “cheap grace” to prevail, but calling our people to willing obedience and sacrificial service. Therefore, the Word of God must be rightly preached, the sacraments rightly administered, and discipline rightly ordered.

22. We affirm that The Wesleyan Church must be a redemptive agent in the world. If the church is to be a redemptive agent, we must hold fast to the universal trues of doctrine, remembering those of faith who have come before us . . . “hold dear the faith once delivered to the saints.” We are reminded that the “great things of the gospel,” will unite us to be agents of change in the world if we are part of the one, holy, apostolic, and catholic church.”