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IN THIS ISSUE: Lessons in Perseverance from Adoniram Judson | Seven Ways to Handle Criticism How Moses Shifted from Burnout to Multiplication | Al Potter: Lessons from 55 Years of Ministry . . . AND MORE!TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 President’s Letter 5 Lessons in Perseverance from Adoniram Judson 9 How Moses Shifted from Burnout to Multiplication 14 Al Potter: Lessons from 55 Years of Ministry 19 Seven Ways to Handle Criticism 23 Student Spotlight: Levi Hoggard 26 Burned Out from Ministry? Seminary May Be the Answer. 2PRESIDENT’S LETTER In the 19th century, a young man named Charles prepared to sail to Africa with his wife as missionaries. However, after months of planning and preparation, tragedy struck—Charles’ wife unexpectedly contracted a disease that made it impossible for the couple to pursue their mission. Though they deeply longed to proclaim the gospel of Christ in Africa, that door was now permanently closed. Instead of growing bitter toward God’s will, Charles returned to the family business—dentistry—pouring his energy and creativity into one of his father’s lifelong passions. For years, his father, Thomas, had been experimenting with ways to pasteurize grape juice to prevent it from fermenting. His goal was to provide nonalcoholic grape juice for their church’s communion services. After many failed attempts, they finally succeeded. Word spread quickly, and demand for the product grew as churches across the region took interest. Eventually, Thomas and Charles founded a company that has now carried their family name for nearly two centuries: Welch’s Food Company, best known for its grape juice. Charles Welch continued to serve God faithfully through his local church, giving what would today be equivalent to millions of dollars to support missionaries and the spread of the gospel around the world. Reading about the origins of Welch’s Grape Juice reminded me of how often the Lord redirects our plans and alters our paths. King David experienced something similar early in his reign. Once established in his royal palace in Jerusalem, David began to feel guilty about living in luxury while the Ark of the Covenant remained in a simple, portable tent. He shared his heartfelt desire with the prophet Nathan—to build a temple for God. We might expect God to affirm this noble ambition. Instead, God said no. He told David that his son, not he, would be the one to build the Temple. David could have responded with confusion: “Why won’t you accept my offer, Lord?” He could have reacted with anger: “I volunteer to sacrifice for Your glory, and You reject my offer!” He could have responded with resignation: “If you won’t give me my heart’s desires, I’ll turn in my resignation.” But David chose a different path—one of perseverance and submission. He adjusted his plans to align with God’s and continued faithfully along the path God laid before him. Humility David responds to God’s denial with remarkable humility. He doesn’t say, “Look at all I’ve done for You, God. Don’t I deserve this?” Instead, he prays, “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?” (2 Samuel 7:18). We tend to focus on what we want to accomplish for God, instead of simply appreciating what He has already done. Surrender David continues, “And what more can David say to You? For You know Your servant, O Lord GOD!” (2 Samuel 7:20). David says, “I am your servant.” That is a pronoun of belonging. David belongs to God, to be used by God in whatever way God sees fit. 3Praise Even in disappointment, David offers praise: “Therefore You are great, O LORD God. For there is none like You, and there is no God besides You.” (2 Samuel 7:22) There may be a difficult time in ministry, or in life, where something is especially painful or hard to accept. Maybe it’s a “no” about fertility, a “no” about cancer treatment, or a “no” about ministry development or growth. A mark of maturity is that even when God tells us no, we still praise Him. God isn’t asking David to put on a “happy smile”. At the same time, David reinforces the truth that thanksgiving and praise are not emotions, they are choices. We cannot choose our crosses, but we can choose our responses. Readiness Readiness is the opposite of resignation. Resignation says, “God told me no, so I’m no longer useful to Him.” Readiness says, “God told me no, so I’m preparing for what He has next.” In the meantime, let us remember this truth: God doesn’t promise to give us more than we can handle—He promises to give us the strength to handle what we’ve been given. Stay the course, Stephen Davey President Stephen’s New Book is Now Available The disciples never asked Jesus to teach them how to turn water into wine, walk on water, or still a storm at sea. Only one request is recorded in the gospel narratives, and it was simply this: “Lord, teach us how to pray.” No doubt they’d watched and heard the Lord interact with His Father, and His communication with heaven staggered them . . . hungered them . . . inspired them to know how to pray in that manner. Jesus responded with a model prayer, teaching them— and us—how to reach heaven in two minutes or less. While this prayer was not necessarily intended for us to memorize, it provides for us a timeless model for communicating with our Heavenly Father. For more information or to purchase this book, visit www.wisdomonline.org/mp/disciples-prayer 4LESSONS IN PERSEVERANCE FROM ADONIRAM JUDSON by Dr. Aaron Valdizan, Registrar and Assistant Professor of Missions and Biblical Languages When I think of perseverance in ministry, the first individual who comes to mind is Adoniram Judson, the first American missionary to serve overseas. I’ll never forget sitting on the floor in my little apartment near the North Korean border with tears streaming down my face as I first read his biography. 1 I was approaching my second year as a missionary in a hostile area and was preparing to go somewhere even more hostile, so Judson’s experiences as a frontier missionary deeply resonated with me. His perseverance through many trials and extreme suffering has long inspired ministers of the gospel to keep going. Judson’s letters and speeches provide us with several lessons for perseverance in ministry, three of which will be highlighted below. 1 Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 1883). 5One of these lessons appears in his writings from when he was preparing for the mission field. At that early point in his life, he had already developed realistic expectations for the challenges of ministry. He wrote to his fiancée: “We shall be weary of the world, and wish for wings like a dove, that we may fly away and be at rest. We shall probably experience seasons when we shall be ‘exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.’ We shall see many dreary, disconsolate hours, and feel a sinking of spirits, anguish of mind, of which now we can form little conception. O, we shall wish to lie down and die. And that time may soon come.” 2 His sober and realistic understanding of what their future ministry would look like can also be seen in a letter he wrote to his future father-in-law: “I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world? Whether you can consent to her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life? Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death?” 3 These examples from the outset of Judson’s ministry teach us to maintain a realistic understanding of the challenges of ministry. Being somewhat prepared for the trials, disappointments, and heartbreak that we all inevitably experience in ministry helps us to better weather those storms. Had Judson not started out with such sober expectations, he may not have been able to withstand the deaths of two wives and eight children, months of deprivation and torture in the Burmese “death-prison,” or the countless other setbacks he endured in ministry. Another lesson in perseverance that Judson teaches us is to embrace suffering and move on. The darkest point in his life came at the death of his first wife 2Ibid., 21. 3Ibid., 20. and his sole surviving child at the time. He had just experienced the joy of being released from the death- prison and reunited with his wife and child when disease and exhaustion took them both. This proved to be too much even for him. He reacted by moving into a solitary hut in the jungle to brood in isolation over death and God’s hard dealings. However, he never abandoned his faith or the mission. He would eventually recover and often refer to that dark time when comforting others who were experiencing similar tragedies. He wrote to a widow of a fellow missionary: “My Dear Sister: You are now drinking the bitter cup whose dregs I am somewhat acquainted with. And though, for some time, you have been aware of its approach, I venture to say that it is far bitterer than you expected. . . I can assure you that months and months of heartrending anguish are before you, whether you will or not. I can only advise you to take the cup with both hands, and sit down quietly to the bitter repast which God has appointed for your sanctification. . . You will soon learn a secret, that there is sweetness at the bottom. You will find it the sweetest cup that you ever tasted in all your life.” 4 He also wrote the following to another grieving missionary: “We have both tasted of these bitter cups once and again; we have found them bitter, and we have found them sweet too. Every cup stirred by the finger of God becomes sweet to the humble believer. . . Let us travel on and look up. We shall soon be there. As sure as I write or you read these lines, we shall soon be there. Many a weary step we may yet have to take, but we shall surely get there at last. And the longer and more tedious the way, the sweeter will be our repose.” 5 So we see that not only expecting suffering but also embracing it when it inevitably comes helps us to persevere in ministry. A third and most important lesson Adoniram Judson’s life teaches us is his singular focus on pleasing Jesus. After 33 years of ministry in Burma without returning home, he finally boarded a ship to the States in 1845. 4Ibid., 374. 5Ibid., 521-22. 6Four months later, he arrived at Boston, recently bereaved of his second wife and in poor health. Decades of enduring various diseases and many hardships of both mind and body had weakened him to the point that he could barely speak above a rough whisper, requiring him to need someone to repeat his words to the audience at his speaking engagements. 6 Those who flocked to hear this legendary missionary were often disappointed at his speeches. Rather than entertaining them with exciting tales of perilous adventures in exotic lands, he would tell them about Jesus and “the old story of the cross.” 7 This practice was based on his overarching desire to please his Lord, as expressed in one of his speeches to potential ministers: “If any of you enter the Gospel ministry in this or other lands, let not your object be so much to ‘do your duty,’ or even to ‘save souls,’ though these should have a place in your motives, as to please the Lord Jesus. Let this be your ruling motive in all that you do.” 8 This singular focus on pleasing Christ is also seen in an eyewitness account of his preaching during that same visit to America: “. . . as he went on, in simple language, to unfold his thought, and repeated over and over again his one theme, pleasing Jesus, somehow I forgot all about eloquence. There stole over me, a boy convert of only a few months’ standing, a great tenderness. Was this venerated man influenced in all he had done by the simple thought of pleasing Jesus? Well, then, might not I, boy as I was, strive to please Jesus also? My eyes began to fill, and my heart was in my throat. Was there anything I could do to please Jesus?” 9 More than having a successful ministry, more than fulfilling a sense of duty, even more than seeing many souls come to Christ, Judson’s primary motivation that helped him persevere was the simple desire to please Jesus. May that be our desire as well! 6Ibid., 438. 7Ibid., 439. 8Ibid., 473. 9Ibid., 460-61. Adoniram Judson stands out in church history as a trailblazer in world missions and a prime example of endurance in ministry. He finally went to his Lord in 1850 after 35 years of ministry in the harshest conditions. He left behind several Burmese gospel tracts, a Burmese grammar, the Burmese-English part of the first Burmese dictionary, and the first complete Burmese Bible, which he painstakingly translated from the original languages. When he first entered Burma in 1813, not a single local knew Christ. He persevered for over seven years before seeing his first convert, 10 yet the Burmese church would number over seven thousand souls when he died. 11 The many thousands of Evangelical Christians in modern-day Myanmar, over five percent of the total population, 12 are a testimony to his perseverance and that of his coworkers. As we seek to persevere in ministry, may we all learn from Judson to maintain a realistic understanding of the difficulties of ministry, embrace those difficulties when they come—no matter how devastating they may be, and make our highest aim to please our precious Lord Jesus, who gave Himself for us. 10Ibid., 124. 11Ibid., 552. 12https://joshuaproject.net/countries/BM Dr. Aaron Valdizan serves as Registrar and Assistant Professor of Missions and Biblical Languages at Shepherds Theological Seminary. He holds an MDiv, ThM, and PhD in Old Testament studies from The Master’s Seminary. Dr. Valdizan ministered in Asia for eleven years, where he was involved in teaching, preaching, church planting, and music ministry. Those experiences have caused cross-cultural ministry, linguistics, and writing to become major parts of his life. He is passionate about teaching the biblical languages and ministering to students. Dr. Valdizan lives in Cary, NC with his wife and two children. ABOUT THE AUTHOR 7Doctor of Ministry 3-Year Program Learn more at shepherds.edu C o m p l e t e o u r P ro g ra m i n M i n i s t r y r a t h e r t h a n i n R e s i d e n c y 8The American church today faces a leadership crisis. Symptoms of this crisis include leadership burnout, fatigue, and a growing number of retiring pastors with fewer leaders to take their place. Barna Research conducted a survey in 2022 of church leaders. Many of them reported a significant decrease in their overall well-being, joy, and confidence in their calling since as recent as 2015. 1 Barna CEO David Kinnaman says, “A drop in the level of pastoral health this significant in just 7 years isn’t just unprecedented, it signals a crisis that the church has to address.” 1“5 Shocking Realities about the State of Pastoral Burnout” in Western North Carolina Conference, https://www.wnccumc.org/resourcedetail/5-shocking- realities-about-the-real-state-of-pastor-burnout-17392915; Excerpt: A Rapid Decline in Pastoral Security, Barna Research, May 2023, https://www.barna.com/ research/pastoral-security-confidence/. HOW MOSES SHIFTED FROM BURNOUT TO MULTIPLICATION by Josh Komis, Lead Pastor of Living Hope Church 9Next >