CK: In your evening public lecture at Regent this summer, \u201cConfessions of an Ex-Pastor,\u201d\u009d you said, \u201cI wished I\u2019d have lived and ministered more out of a Sabbath heart.\u201d\u009d Can you unpack this a bit more?<\/p>\n
MB: In my lecture, I made reference to the story in John 12 that during a celebration dinner for Jesus after Lazarus was resurrected, Lazarus had become as interesting, dangerous, and fruitful as Jesus. But the backstory in John 11 begins with Jesus getting some bad news: \u201cThe one you love is dying, please come quickly.\u201d\u009d Jesus doesn\u2019t come quickly. He delays and, according to Mary and Martha, he delays far too long. \u201cIf you had been here, my brother would not have died.\u201d\u009d I think there\u2019s something compelling about that example of Jesus in the face of what we would consider as one of the greatest ministry crises imaginable for a pastor. The story begins with Jesus resting and ends with Lazarus resting with Jesus.<\/p>\n
To draw a larger lesson from that, I think all effective ministry comes out of attentiveness and restfulness. That\u2019s what I mean by a Sabbath heart. What you find in the life of Christ and the life of those who are present with him is an incredible fruitfulness and effectiveness in their ministry that people who are super busy don\u2019t have. They\u2019re not raising people from the dead like Jesus because they themselves are half dead.<\/p>\n