Delegation

And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. (Exodus 7:1)

It amazes me what God can do with someone totally sold out to Him

Imagine God making Moses a god!

Does it surprise us that Moses was still the meekest person who ever lived?

Can you imagine God delegating some of Himself to you?

How would it feel? How would you behave?

We are unable to handle little gifts and talents as we feel they make us superhuman.

In fact, the term diva, star and such other words confer on us that extra something that makes us feel that we are not like other men.

A pastor transforms into a CEO and a few other major titles when he grows a church into a mega church, whatever that means.

Then he must move to the leafy suburbs and drive a car commensurate with his status even when his church is in the slums and some in his congregation can barely afford food.

Now imagine that Moses was given the title god, and that by God Himself!

And he was able to handle that.

Imagine the millions in Egypt and Israel hang at his every word! Imagine Israel repented to God for speaking against him!

Yet he was still submitted to God. Yet he was submitted to the people he served.

Philippians 2 speaks about Christ humbling Himself. And I believe in a small way it can also describe Moses.

Why do I say this?

We love defending our humanness and its frailties when it suits us.

And we love attaching ourself to divinity when we need the power.

But you see power from the divine is not a preposition we pick when we need.

God releases His power to us so that we can partake and walk in His nature.

That is what makes many miracles deceptions as they release God’s power without manifesting His nature. I perform miracles but am unable to escape the snare of pornography. I can prophesy but am unable to stop lying to exaggerate my exploits. I raise the dead but can’t keep my trouser zipped in the presence of a woman.

But Moses was not like that.

He was made a god and took God’s nature, from compassion to a repugnance for sin.

Remember him pleading with God to kill him to forgive Israel? Remember him pleading for mercy for the people who had belittled his position when they were judged?

In short God delegated some of Himself to Moses and Moses didn’t choose what suited him. He took the whole package.

We love speaking in God’s name and using His power. But we have a problem when it comes to us having His nature running our lives.

We are like those women who will apply layers of paint to hide the spots and creases that show what they are like.

It is taking the cosmetic industry to the spiritual.

But God seeks to make us like Moses. He wants His nature to flow through us, not only His power.

Do you know the easiest demonstration of meekness?

It is a yoke of oxen (or buffalo or elephants for those who use them) plowing.

The power is immense. But it is subject to the one guiding them.

Isn’t that what we see with Moses?

Imagine someone who can move millions at will! Imagine someone who can move God!

Yet he could listen to miserable orphans (Zelophehad’s daughters).

Imagine someone who could stay for eighty days (a very short break between them) without eating and drinking anything! Imagine someone whose face glows with God’s glory that he has to veil it! Imagine someone God spoke to face to face!

Yet he could listen to his father-in-law who was not even from Israel.

Yet we see him hurrying Aaron to offer a sacrifice because judgment had been activated by the congregation’s defiance of him.

Thus saith The Lord should not be just a power statement. It should be indicative of a delegated position.

Look at Elijah.

It won’t rain until I say so appears very arrogant until we see him declaring that the rains have come.

I have done all this as You told me.

Remember that even at his lowest point he had to have God’s word?

We love those offices and power positions without seeking to be like the One who has given them to us.

God is in the business of delegating. But there is a stark disconnect between the people who love those positions as they do not desire the nature of the One delegating them.

And we see that most clearly with Saul the king.

Remember seeking the respect of his troops when God rejects him, the same troops that according to him caused him to disobey God’s order?

Yet isn’t that how many of us handle our delegation, especially after a long time of serving people?

How many ministers left everything for ministry yet have refused to move when God says so? How many have refused to hand over to another generation because they cannot afford to leave those positions, positions that were nowhere in their mind when God was calling them?

How many ministers have become spiritual brokers, selling everything from books to sermons to motivational speeches yet in their initial years cared nothing for mammon?

How many cook stories to get an extra car or a house yet in their first days were comfortably walking when they could not afford bus fare to get to the places they needed to minister to?

How many have removed offense from their sermons to please their troops like Saul?

In closing, do you realise that God delegated so much to Moses that He started calling Israel Moses’ people that he had led from Egypt?

Just imagine that!

 

Pastor 2

Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. (Genesis 31:40)

I promised to help us understand a Biblical pastor better.

We had looked at a pastor in the context of God and His pastoring.

Today I want us to look at it from the farmer’s side, or a pastoralist or herder if that makes you more comfortable.

Incidentally I was able to understand this concept better when I started keeping animals. That is actually where the promptings of this message came from but I couldn’t write then because my computer was down.

Have you ever wondered why at the time of Christ’s birth the angel appeared to pastors, eeh, shepherds?

A pastor was being born. THE PASTOR was being born.

Why had it to be at night?

It was in their nature and duty to spend nights out for effective pastoring, probably because the days were too hot for the flocks to feed effectively.

Those of us in the tropics do not understand seasons because we do not experience the extremities of the same.

Summer in the tropics is just warmer than normal and winter is the converse.

Outside the tropics things are completely different. Winter is freezing cold while summer is scorching hot. We read of fires starting from nowhere because of the summer heat. We read of people dying of heat strokes for the same reason.

It therefore must have been the summer season that had prompted those pastors to keep their flocks outside so that they can adequately get their nutrition.

This gets me to the first point.

Pastor is not a title or job.

Pastor is a commitment, a calling if you want it to appear spiritual. Pastor is a function.

Just like it is impossible to have a shepherd without a flock, it is impossible in the spiritual to have a pastor (same name as shepherd) who does not tend a flock.

A pastor does not do it for the pay, if I may call it that.

You do not take the risks of fighting wild animals just to get a few coins.

You cannot forfeit sleep and the comforts of a bed just because of a paycheck.

The next point is related to the first.

A pastor has a complete relationship with his flock. There are no timelines with a pastor as concerns his flock due to that commitment.

Jacob herded Laban’s flock for fourteen years for a wife (who became four before long).

I am sure he could have haggled for the second seven years especially because he hadn’t wanted Leah. Maybe asked a discount of three or four years since the ‘goods’ had been forced on him.

But I am sure that in those first seven years he had become attached to the flock.

It took the complaint (and probably threat) of Laban’s sons and God’s order to consider leaving them.

This is the reason I have an issue with denominations that transfer pastors like the government transfers policemen so that they do not become too familiar with their flock.

You see, animals do not talk.

A pastor must learn to interpret their ‘language’, something that needs adequate time to develop.

Incidentally, each animal has its own language. And that is why we have verses like this.

What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? (Luke 15:4)

He does not count one two three every time to know that one is missing.

He knows each sheep individually and so can easily identify the loss. And he knows the one with such tendencies of course.

Otherwise how would he know his sheep if it was swallowed by another flock, a usual thing with animals?

Remember recently when I wrote about the time our calf followed my grandfather’s flock and its mother noticed in the morning?

You see, a sheep gets lost when it is separated from its flock.

And it would require the same skill for the pastor whose flock the lost sheep joined to identify the stranger in his house.

A pastor therefore has a flock, however large, with individual sheep that he knows very well because he loves them individually.

That is why he celebrates the recovery of that troublesome one when he finds it.

The next point follows this one.

A pastor can never be paid for his services.

A pastor feeds from the flock, and not by ‘eating’ the flock.

Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. For riches are not for ever: and doth the crown endure to every generation? The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered. The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field. And thou shalt have goats' milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance for thy maidens. (Proverbs 27: 23 – 27)

Jacob tended Laban’s flock for a wife. But after he cleared the ‘debt’ he continued to tend to get his own flock. And those who have some background information on herding know this.

Let me illustrate.

You tend the flock for free, but with particular conditions like, every second birth is yours, we share the twins equally, or even every one with a particular color or color code is yours.

Or you do not remember Jacob’s story?

But you are also milking, and if possible, selling the milk since many times you are far from home. That is what gives you sustenance as there is no other income you are getting.

That is how many people in the past used to get out of poverty, by attaching to someone with a large flock or herd and being gifted a startup capital of a few of his own.

Like I said recently, giving a cow is easier than giving money.

A Biblical pastor operates along the same lines.

He walks and grows with his flock. He does not demand anything from his flock but gladly shares (giving and receiving) in the growth and multiplication of his flock.

A pastor loses sleep over the state of his flock. A pastor agonizes over his flock. A pastor fights for his flock. That is what we hear Jacob saying. That is the reason the flock has no issues sharing their increase with him.

You see, only the pastor knows the goat to milk because he has taken very good care of it.

A pastor has both goats and sheep and intricately knows each and its peculiarities.

He doesn’t kill goats because they are troublesome.

He knows he needs them as much as he needs sheep.

But he also knows each needs its own shepherding.

The goat is independent, troublesome, looking for and creating trouble and of course loves herbs.

But they produce milk. And their meat has a unique taste because of their troublesome and greedy nature. They also produce twins, triplets and quadruplets more often.

The pastor must know that the goats require a lot of watching as they are naturally prone to trouble. It appears as if they are addicted to trouble. You take them to a very juicy meadow and they will run off to a neighbor’s wasteland.

A pastor must know this and herd them effectively.

A pastor knows sheep are not demanding. Give them food and they are content and will flourish. They do not care for anything the neighbor has provided they have food and water.

But they also have needs. Only that they do not make noise about them like the goats.

An unwise pastor concentrates on lowering the noise of the goats, a noise that is lowered only for a moment before it resumes.

A wise pastor knows that goats will make noise for nothing just as sheep do not make noise for anything.

He will therefore concentrate on keeping a healthy flock instead of lowering the noise of the goats.

But is that how pastors operate?

In closing let me state that a good pastor knows his neighbors and their sheep, of course not as much as he does his.

He needs to do this because like I mentioned earlier sheep get lost into other flocks. His goats can also easily cause a mess to another flock. Or some will mess their flock and run to hide in yours and vice versa.

It is thus important that he pastors his neighbor’s flock as well so that he can deal with some of those complications without needing to go to court.

Then all the sheep and goats around are secure in your shepherding.

I hope you understand my allegory.

But I am talking about the church and its pastor.

Feel free to comment or even bash me if you think I have not said anything.

Politics

It is the season of high politics, if there is something like that.

I feel that it is imperative as a minister to direct us to a few questions and expectations as we engage the political aspirants.

What is the purpose of politics? What is the end game for politicians?

Why do politicians always want to be called servant leaders, even servants of the people when they do absolutely NOTHING for the people they profess to serve?

You see, a servant leader is a person whose leadership is driven by the people he leads. It is a leadership dictated by the needs and aspirations of the people he leads. Simply speaking, his every thought and decision has his people at the very top.

That is why I have always said that Kenya has a very serious leadership vacuum. I am simply saying that we DO NOT HAVE leaders. And I will direct us to a very simple aspect of our lives.

Have you ever wondered how maize from Mexico makes our maize unsellable? Ever wondered why rice from a neighboring country is almost half the price of the one we produce? Why is rice all the way from Thailand and Pakistan cheaper than ours?

Why is sugar from the war-torn Sudan cheaper in than our country yet we have enough cane farmers and factories, factories that are on their knees?

Have you like me wondered why eggs from a neighboring country brings our poultry farming and business to their knees.

Do their chicken feed on soil and water to produce eggs?

Ever wondered why milk had to be stopped from being imported, and that because a big man runs the dairy industry?

It costs money to import, from transport to broker charges, even assuming that duty is not paid.

It is the answers to these questions that any leader should be seeking. It is the answer to these questions that any leader should be strategizing on.

Uganda’s cows do not produce cheaper milk because they drink from Lake Victoria to produce milk that is cheaper than ours.

And why is petroleum cheaper in Uganda yet the same passes through our port and land?

We always have leaders spending billions going for benchmarking trips around the world.

This is what those money guzzling trips should be doing, seeking answers for some of these questions.

I would want to know why a farmer a thousand miles away sells an egg to my neighbor cheaper than I can. I want to understand how someone would buy maize across the oceans, hire a ship and still sell maize cheaper than any sustainable price our farmers sell at.

But beyond that I would want to know how to deal with that to make it possible for me to sell my milk, maize, eggs, etc. to my neighbor because the price will make importation irrelevant.

But let me not just ask questions. Let me give an observation.

Do you realise that animal feeds in Kenya are up to six times their cost in Uganda?

Do our leaders and aspiring leaders know this?

Are they concerned about it?

Do they have a solution for it?

As we seek to elect leaders, will we engage them on such matters?

One is saying he will give the youth some monthly pittance, a pittance that will be inadequate to buy chicken feed for that month. Not forgetting the dependence the same develops.

That for me is an insult to hard working Kenyans.

Make farming viable. Make business easy to start and run. Make factories and industries easy to run by lowering the cost of power as an example.

In short ask them to give you to the solutions to the challenges facing you

Otherwise they are not servant leaders but noisemakers and conmen.

I haven’t rested my case, just taken a short break. I have just scratched just one aspect of or lives.

But I do not know when I will be back.

 

Pastor

The LORD is my Pastor; I shall not want. (Psalm 23:1)

I know some are already protesting that I have corrupted their favorite verse

I will start by stating a very simple truth, a truth that we many times confuse with our compartmentalization.

It is that the name pastor is another name for shepherd.

That compartmentalization has aided us in lowering the standards for the people we call pastor because they are so different from the Pastor our call originates with.

Yet it is the same Person we are ultimately answerable to as to our pastoral responsibilities.

You see, no one is called into the pastoral ministry by people, unless he is the hireling Christ talked about. Such will be answerable to the people who called him as to his calling.

I have never in my life heard a minister speak in the words of the politician, that he was heeding to the call of the people when seeking a position. No minister ever says that.

Again no minister says that they responded to the call of their stomach or their laziness index.

Every minister I have heard always says that they were responding to God’s call. And they even demonstrate how that call came and the battles they fought to respond to it.

Isn’t it amazing that we then use a worldly standard to assess that call? Isn’t it stupid when we use worldly standards to demonstrate the success of that call?

But even worse is the fact that we base the running of the pastoral calling on the world.

As such, we feel we have done well or failed purely on worldly standards. And by worldly I am not talking about sin and wickedness, though many, due to their shift in the one they report to, eventually end up there.

Again let us look at John 10.

I am the Good Pastor. A good pastor lays down his life for his flock. (John 10: 11)

Is that our standard?

I want to challenge us to read the Bible as it was written without making one word mean different things to satisfy our doctrine or theology.

Why do we love being called pastor when we are not willing to go the whole distance of being like our Model?

Look at this pastor who ministers in the slums yet lives in the leafy suburbs where none of his sheep can access due to transport, security, and other logistical and social challenges yet it is the same slum dwellers who pay for that house and car that drives him there, some who have a hard time putting food on their tables.

How much like Christ, the Good Pastor, are they?

Or this pastor who drives the congregation’s systems using proxies until they are bought that house or car. Or this other one who threatens to quit (of course in a very ‘spiritual’ way) if their package is not improved.

Was Christ ever like that? Is that the way God pastors us?

I have taken verses all of us know so well to challenge us to think about those we call pastors.

God is our model. Christ exemplified and incarnated that model.

How do we treat weakness? How do we treat sin? How do we deal with talent and gifting? How do we deal with wealth and the wealthy? How do we deal with the down and outs? How do we deal with the repentant?

The Bible was written to help us understand the responsibilities our callings demand. This by showing us God dealing with people, those on His side and those against Him.

Next time I will be writing about pastor from a farmer’s view. And this because the Bible is basically a farming book.

We therefore err by interpreting Biblical terms in a different context.

But suffice it when I conclude by stating the obvious (which is not so obvious when we compartmentalize our theology); that God is the model for the pastor’s office. And in fact it is not exactly an office. It is a function according to the scriptures.

Just like we have the attributes of God showing us who God is and how He operates, we have our ministries described.

Forgive me for taking so long to write.

My computer misbehaved and it became impossible to write anything because it was swallowing it whole, saving only titles.  I therefore had to wait until that was sorted.

I hope to be more consistent in my posts.

Once again forgive me for being unable to post anything for some time.

God bless you