Yesterday I posted the beginning of a three-part interview with pastor Michael Burchfield. It was about how he turned John Piper's Swans Are Not Silent biographies into a series of staff devotionals.
Here is the second part.
The Takeaways
Mark Struck: You mentioned that each staff member walked away after 15 devotions with a different sense of Jesus speaking to them, helping them, and sharing a common yoke that was easy and light. What happened in these devotion times?
Michael Burchfield: I knew my staff, and I thought I knew them well. But when we were done there were many “take-aways” from the devotions that I could never have planned.
Mark: Explain.
Mike: As each staff member learned from Augustine, Cowper, Spurgeon, Tyndale, Athanasius, and all the others, they began to pick one or two attributes from that hero’s life that they wanted to incorporate into their own life. It was almost like the attributes that God wanted for our lives took on flesh and blood in the actions of these saints of old.
What the staff took away corrected my own perception of the needs, hurts, and situations that I thought I knew about my staff, while revealing how they were either walking in or struggling with certain spiritual disciplines or issues. These biographies helped me, as lead pastor, and opened new windows into their lives so I could see how to help them and how we could help one another.
Mark: Do you think the staff had a new window into your life? Did they see or change some perceptions about their own senior pastor?
Mike: Yes, I think they did. Many of the biographies allowed me, for example, to confess some character flaw or struggle, and this made us a stronger team. It is not just the senior man who confessed. We all learned how to confess our needs and ask for help to grow. That really changed and encouraged our staff.
Mark: So, now you have all these opened windows. It would have been easy to sit around and just realize that we are flawed from sin and continue in ministry with all our flaws as an excuse. How did you move from excuses to change?
Mike: You have hit the main change right on the nail head! Instead of a pity party for our issues and flaws we chose a path that made a real difference in the staff and in the church.
First, we understood—from God and Scripture—that we are broken vessels in which God has invested himself. He wants these broken vessels and dry bones; and he wants to correct our issues, fix our cracks and put new flesh on the problems.
Secondly, each staff member realized the deep, precious value of our own devotional time—whether we carve out time at home or here in the study. The church body sees us carve out time with God and they see God forming “new flesh” on these dry bones, and that encourages the whole church. It does change the church!
