David Bahn – Reflections

Perhaps you’ve heard me say that the trip to Tanzania is grueling. Ours was 28 hours long. A long flight to Frankfurt, a nine-hour layover there, an even longer flight to Mombasa, Tanzania, and a 90 minute layover there, then one hour on to Kilimanjaro where we spent the night. That was the 28 hour trek. We took a two-day safari while there before going on to Mwanza, then to Geita (a mere 6 hours!).

But let me be clear: the trip was an ordeal, but the time there was priceless, joy-filled, enriching, edifying, encouraging, humbling, and blessed. I’m reminded of St. Paul saying that “our suffering is light and temporary and is producing for us an eternal glory that is greater than anything we can imagine” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

The greatest traction around our time there was explaining, teaching, and modeling Jesus’ pattern:

• Jesus taught everyone: He increased their knowledge.
• Jesus discipled some: He increased their knowledge, and formed their Christ-like character.
• Jesus mentored/coached a few: He increased their knowledge, and formed their Christ-like character, and developed their skills.

I’ve seen personally how important this is in my service as a pastor and church leader. Knowledge is important. It is foundational. But character is even more important. Knowledge without character can become manipulative and coercive. Worse yet is skill and competence without character. Think Hitler. Stalin. Dare I say, Putin? Just because someone is gifted and well-skilled, does not mean he or she will lead in God’s direction or in God’s way.

Two attendant teachings during our time there proved to be pivotal, stimulating much conversation. Both had to do with character. The marriage teaching was very engaging. The pastors and wives grew more and more animated during PLI International Africa Coordinator, Rev. Emmanuel Makala’s presentation. We didn’t understand much of what was said because it was entirely in Swahili and we didn’t have an interpreter much of the time (he was busy listening and speaking with his wife). But he told us of one incident from last year’s conference. A pastor’s wife shared something about him with the other wives during their break-out session. When he learned of this (not our translator!), he beat her and forbad her to come to this year’s conference. As you can imagine there was quite a disturbed conversation around this – and rightly so! This is obviously a character issue – not only the issue of beating, but of marriage itself.

When I taught about stewardship, the conversation also grew intense. Thankfully I had a translator who not only conveyed my teaching to the group, but also interpreted for me the comments and questions from the group. They were most concerned about the challenge that they had to be leaders in their personal financial stewardship before they could teach this effectively to their people. This is a character issue. And our ability to teach effectively is greatly enhanced by our own personal faithfulness in this area.

I shared a bit of our personal stewardship journey, which includes an early-on decision to give 10% of our income to the church I was serving. It may seem odd to receive a salary from a church and turn around and give back 10% of it to the church. But that’s what we resolved to do. We have done it for more than 40 years now, and even when we doubled that gift for a period of time (for capital campaigns, for example), we never ran short of money because we gave too much to the church. More often it was too much spent on eating out or for a too-expensive car that got us into trouble. But those times were few because of our first commitment, and the different mind-set such a practice creates. Everything we have comes from God – whether it’s a salary from a church or proceeds from our business dealings. We return to him what he has given to us.

Especially meaningful to me was the teaching on Ezekiel 47:1-12. Blessings of grace and salvation flow from God’s Temple (the church) into the world. As it flows out it becomes larger and it enriches and transforms everything it touches. That’s what Jesus does through his people today. Perhaps I’ll share more about that tomorrow.