I’m posting this today in part to respond to some concerns raised by readers after my recent “Effectiveness” post. I trust that this post will help to redress the apparent (but of course not actual) imbalance in what I wrote before.

I once accepted an invitation to teach a summer school course in a Canadian theological seminary. It was July 1990, and I offered a course on “Canadian Evangelicalism” in the evenings for two weeks. Given this seminary’s location in a major Canadian city and the pertinence of this course to its constituency, I looked forward to a large audience.

Precisely three students enrolled. And one of them dropped the course half-way through. Each evening for a fortnight, then, I faithfully showed up and taught the students, both of whom attended class and completed their assignments. Yet often, I confess, it was hard for me to stay motivated to teach just two students.

In an autobiographical sketch (in the fine collection of Kelly Clark’s, Philosophers Who Believe), Yale University philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff recalls his student days at Calvin College in Michigan. Once, he writes, he signed up for a course on Immanuel Kant’s difficult Critique of Pure Reason. Taught by a senior professor, Harry Jellema, the course enrolled just two students. Nicholas Wolterstorff was one. Alvin Plantinga, who became a professor of philosophy at Notre Dame University, was the other.

Wolterstorff delightedly notes that every student in that class has since been invited to give the prestigious Gifford Lectures in Scotland, defending the Christian faith. Wolterstorff and Plantinga unquestionably today are two of the leading Christian philosophers in the world. And they look back on Jellema’s class as a seminal experience in their development as philosophers.

Harry Jellema, though, could not have foreseen any of that when he faithfully entered his classroom each time to teach just these two students. He simply wanted to teach anyone who wanted to learn.

At the University of Chicago they still enjoy telling the story of astrophysics professor Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. In the 1950s, Chandrasekhar was living in Wisconsin, conducting research at the university’s observatory. The university scheduled him to teach one advanced seminar that winter, however, so Chandrasekhar drove eighty miles each way to teach the course on the main campus to—you guessed it—just two students. He could have cancelled it, but he did not.

In the subsequent decades, both of those students, and Professor Chandrasekhar himself, won the Nobel Prize. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, however, could not have foreseen any of that when he faithfully entered that classroom every time to teach just two students. He simply wanted to teach anyone who wanted to learn.

How can we escape the constant temptation to equate magnitude with importance? Length of resumé, size of congregation, cost of house, number of friends, list of commitments: Too small? Too bad.

Yes, statistics of the right sort can help us see if we are being as effective as we might be in God’s mission. But we mustn’t assume that what we can count is all that counts.

So maybe two is enough, if the task is God’s will done in God’s way. Who knows what our investment in one, or two, or six, or ten people will yield—in a friendship, in a Sunday School class, in job training, in coaching? Who knows what will happen when two or three are gathered together, or when just twelve are selected for a particular task?

I thought about all of this one August as I prepared to teach my own classes at the University of Manitoba. The introductory courses were always well-enrolled, so I could count on large audiences in those. But I could see on the Dean’s printout that my advanced seminar in religion and philosophy registered just two students.

I could hardly wait.

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For more on this theme, see here and here.

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Let me now go forth, O Lord my God, to the work of another day, still surrounded by Thy wonderful lovingkindnesses, still pledged to Thy loyal service, still standing in Thy strength and not my own.

Let me today be a Christian not only in my words but also in my deeds:

Let me follow bravely in the footsteps of my Master, wherever they may lead:

Let me be hard and stern with myself:

Let there be no self-pity or self-indulgence in my life today:

Let my thinking be keen, my speech frank and open, and my action courageous and decisive.

I would pray, O Lord, not only for myself but for all the household to which I belong, for all my friends and all my fellow workers, beseeching Thee to include them all in Thy fatherly regard. I pray also–

for all who will today be faced by any great decision:

for all who will today be engaged in settling affairs of moment in the lives of men and nations:

for all who are moulding public opinion in our time:

for all who write what other people read:

for all who are holding aloft the lamp of truth in a world of ignorance and sin:

for all whose hands are worn with too much toil, and for the unemployed whose hands today fall idle:

for those who have not where to lay their head.

O Christ my Lord, who for my sake and my brethren’s didst forgo all earthly comfort and fullness, forbid it that I should ever again live unto myself. Amen.

One friend simply put it that way: “faithfulness” means doing what God says, regardless of considerations of efficacy.

To such good people, and to you, I offer this revised version of a passage in my Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World:

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Some Christians quite firmly maintain that “it is not our job to be effective—that’s God’s business—but to be faithful.” Alas, how convenient it is for certain Christians to fly the flag of faithfulness as their numbers dwindle, their evangelism languishes, and their social ministry remains unwelcomed by others. I grew up in a conservative tradition that reassured itself in this way: “We’re small, and uninfluential, and disparaged by others, but that’s just because we are so true to the gospel.” Nowadays I hear such rationalization also from those on the religious left, who congratulate themselves on their “prophetic faithfulness” even as they effect no change in the world worth mentioning.

Other people, however, are not rationalizing. They’re good people earnestly trying to live in the light of the Gospel. To them I say, I share your fears, but not your response to them.

Yes, they’re right to resist the modern tyranny of the “efficient,” the ruthless rationalization (in another sense) of life per Max Weber or la technique per Jacques Ellul. We must beware especially of short-term and obvious efficiencies that do not in fact conduce to the maximization of shalom in the world, but only to the immediate satisfaction and self-aggrandizement of the actors. In short, we must eschew stupid and selfish “efficiency,” of course. But that doesn’t mean effectiveness doesn’t matter to God.

Hear again this familiar parable:

For [the Kingdom of heaven] is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.

The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.”

His master said to him, “Well done, good and faithful slave; you have been faithful in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”

And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, “Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.”

His master said to him, “Well done, good and faithful slave; you have been faithful in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”

Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”

But his master replied, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt. 25:14–30)

The definition of faithfulness here is results. It is effectiveness.

The first two slaves double their master’s investment in them. That’s what the master cares about. He does not even inquire as to how they did it.

The third slave does not make any money at all, but rather retains his master’s original investment in him and hands it over upon the master’s return. Indeed, the third slave is the very picture of “integrity” or “faithfulness” without effectiveness. He carefully guards what the master gives him, as many Christians guard their faith, their purity, their witness. And when the master returns, they have not compromised. The original investment is returned in full: It’s all there, intact and complete.

But the master is furious. He did not gift the slave with the talent in order to have it preserved, but to have it multiplied. And he punishes the slave as a total failure, as “worthless” and thus fit only for removal as so much trash.

The great commandments of God all entail performance, accomplishment, effectiveness. Cultivate the earth. Love God and your neighbor. Love each other in the church. And make disciples of all nations.

Notice particularly this last one. If one confines oneself to Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ last words to his disciples, one can be forgiven for understanding the mandate to be simply to “bear witness”—whether anyone listens or not (Luke 24 and Acts 1). But Matthew’s account makes quite clear that the command is to “make disciples,” not merely to drop the gospel at the world’s feet like a brick and then return home, satisfied with another job well done. We must engage the world, stay with the world, keep at the world until the world—or, at least, lots of the world—has joined Jesus’ band.

The full Biblical teaching about faithfulness, therefore, requires both integrity and effectiveness. Indeed, they work together. Keeping integrity in full view will caution us against inappropriate methods of attracting and retaining the world’s attention, against minimizing the scandal of the Cross, against growing churches—or businesses—by any means possible. Keeping effectiveness in equally full view will caution us against the truly deadly sins of self-righteousness, insularity, and sloth.

God is not an aesthete who desires that we live nice little lives according to some divine rulebook or choreography, but a loving lord and parent intent on reclaiming an entire planet via the agents he has equipped and commissioned. In short, he wants to get something accomplished, and as much accomplished as possible.

And so should we.

Your comments on the blog and your e-mails to me off it tell me that what I’m writing is doing some of you some good, even as it is annoying others, a few to extremes. Sorry about the annoying: I’d much rather you just be convinced of the shining rightness of my views and cheerfully join the side of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Failing that, however, I am sincerely grateful that you sound your disagreement with me forthrightly, even wittily, and I trust you feel you are being heard when you do. I have even been known to change my mind, or at least my tone, once in a while–although let’s not make a big thing about that or I’ll lose my blogger’s license.

This month marks the fifth anniversary for this weblog. Yes, you ought to celebrate by opening your own bottle (or can, or keg, or jug) and reading meditatively through the previous 300+ posts as a sure way to becoming wiser, better informed, and more spiritual–or, at least, soundly convinced that you’ll never, ever read this dreck again. (You won’t need to read all 300+ for that latter outcome, however.)

My sage wife thinks I spend too much time blogging, and I have indeed cut back some this past year. But it is a lot of fun interacting with you, I hope to interact with more (come on, lurkers, how about at least hitting the “Like” button or saying, “Yes, Professor Stackhouse, you have put the matter so pithily I have begun cross-stitching it on my pillowcase”–is that too much to ask?), I enjoy finding out what I think about things by writing on them, and it gives me the opportunity to sit down in a chair, an experience otherwise quite rare in my profession.

So onward, comrades, fellow travelers, sympathizers, and deadly nemeses! Here’s to continuing the conversation into 2012–unless Jesus returns tonight, in which case we’ll continue the conversation, yes, but in far more salubrious circumstances…

Behold the day breaks, the sun riseth, darkness vanisheth, wrath and malediction give place to favour and salvation.

Justice is content to give mercy the upper hand.

Grace comes down from the imperial court of glory, in a refulgent throne of ivory, drawn by swans and doves, simplicity and innocency. Thousands of angels wait upon her, those celestial voices make her melody; the sun calls his beams to do her reverence, the moon and stars bow low to her; the obedient clouds part to give her way, the earth springs to welcome her; … the floods clap their hands for joy; the birds sing in the air, the beasts skip in the pastures.

There is a universal holiday all over the world; only hell trembles, and the infernal spirits be struck with melancholy. Truth and righteousness go before her, peace and prosperity follow after her, pity waits on her left hand, on her right hand mercy; and when she first sets her foot on the earth she cries,

“A pardon, a pardon. Hear, ye sons of men, and thereby sons of wrath. My sister, Love, hath prevailed with your offended Father, and he hath sent me, the daughter of his goodness, to bring you news of a Jesus, the Son of his delight and greatness.

“Lo, he shall come down to the earth, that you may ascend up into heaven; he shall die, that you may live. Thus dear do you cost him; be thankful to him. A pardon, a pardon! Let the heavens sing, and the earth shout for joy, and the whole frame of nature triumph! Peace be with you, for God is reconciled unto you. To assure you of which comfort, I, Grace, do promise both to live with you during this world, and that you shall live with me in the world to come.”

May your Christmas Day, and every day thereafter, glow brightly in the Light of the World!

There is nothing like truth to ground faith and foster hope: Here is the way things really are. Here is what I can be, and shall be. This is who controls things, and that is who and what really doesn’t. This is the real source of my confidence and aspiration, and that is really not.

There is nothing like truth to awaken and magnify love: Here is the way things really are. This is who loves me and will always love me. This is who really matters, and that is what doesn’t. This is the real source of  joy and peace, and that really isn’t.

The Baby is the Truth. Look at him. See what he is, and what he means. Behold the Statement, the Message, the Word: Here is the way things really are.

Thus may resentment give way to gratitude, envy to prayer, irritability to solicitude, selfishness to care, ambition to enthusiasm, self-pity to patience, anxiety to trust, distraction to purity, confusion to vocation, and loneliness to love.

As Walter Hilton reminds us, in the Bible the truth is a shield, a shield against pride, and doubt, and worry, and all manner of temptation to feel and think and speak and act as if the world were other than it truly is. The Baby protects us from all that as we tear our eyes away from what frightens or seduces us to stare at the Truth of our Universe, to read the Love Letter from God enveloped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

“Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” Let us go now, and on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day, and on every day, world without end. Amen.

There was once a man who wanted to go to Jerusalem. Because he did not know the way himself, he went to another man he expected would know the way, and asked him how he should proceed to come to that city. The other man said to him that he could not hope to get there without great difficulties and much travail, because the way was long and imperiled by hordes of thieves and robbers, as well as many other hindrances such as can beset a traveler. And there was a great diversity of routes, so it seemed, leading there, along which people were killed and despoiled every day, and prevented from coming to their coveted destination. Nevertheless, one sure way existed. Whoever would take that road and keep to it, the man guaranteed that he would come to the city of Jerusalem, and never lose his life through murder or peril along the way. True, it was likely that he would be robbed and beaten a number of times, and suffer much distress in the going, but he would keep his life safe.

The pilgrim then said: “If I can really preserve my life safely so as to come to the place I covet, I do not care what mischief I will have to suffer en route. Therefore say to me what you will and truly I will endeavour to do as you say.”

The other man answered him and said: “Lo, I set you upon the right way. This is the way, that you keep the counsel that I am about to offer you. Whatever you hear or see or experience that threatens to block your way, do not linger with it of your own will, or tarry at rest hoping it will go away. Do not consider it, take any pleasure in it, or fear it. Rather, press ever onward in your journey, and remember that you want to be in Jerusalem. For that is what you desire, and nothing else but that.

“If someone robs and vandalizes you, beats you, scorns you, or despises you, do not struggle against these things if you want to keep your life. Rather, compose yourself, come to terms with the harm you have endured, and go forth as if nothing had happened, so that you suffer no additional hurt.

“And also, if people want to delay you with tales and feed you with falsehoods, attempting to draw you into mirth and so cause you to abandon your pilgrimage, turn to them a deaf ear, and answer not again. Say nothing else except that you want to be in Jerusalem.

“And if people offer you gifts and strive to make you rich with worldly goods, pay no attention to them. Think always on Jerusalem.

“And if you will keep to this way and do as I have said, I guarantee your life, that you shall not be slain but come to the place of your desire.”

Each life place has its promises and perils. Each life situation has its particular temptations and trials of distraction or discouragement. Satan does not care how we get off the path, only that we get off it. And whether you believe in Satan or not, the point is the same: I am either proceeding, step by faithful step, toward God’s goal for me, or I am not. It doesn’t matter how I am not, just that I am not.

Good day to you, fellow pilgrim! And thanks, Brothers Hilton and Jeffrey, for these good words along the Way.

In a season of the year in which it is easy to get sentimental and silly, Hilton offers this powerful diagnostic tool to assess whether we really do love each other, and particularly whether we can say to Jesus that we are obeying his repeated commandment to love our enemies:

What it really comes to is this: if you are not stirred up against such a person in anger while faking an outward cheer, and have no secret hatred in your heart, despising him or judging him or considering him worthless; if the more shame and villainy he does to you in word or deed, the more pity and compassion you show toward him, almost as you would for someone who was emotionally or mentally distressed; and if you are so compelled by love that you actually cannot find it in your heart to hate him, but instead you pray for him, help him out, and desire his amending (not only with your mouth, as hypocrites do, but with a true feeling of love in your heart): then you will be in perfect charity toward your fellow Christian.

Well, that’s a pretty tall order. But then Brother Hilton presses his point with an Example that smacks us in the chest:

Stop and think how Christ loved Judas, who was both his mortal enemy and a sinful dog. How good Christ was to him, how benign, how courteous, how humble toward him whom he knew to be damnable. He chose him for his apostle and sent him to preach with the other apostles. He gave him power to work miracles. He showed to him the same good cheer in word and deed. He shared with him his precious Body, and preached to him in the same manner as he did to the other apostles. He did not condemn him openly; nor did he abuse him or despise him, nor ever speak evil of him (and yet even if he had done all of that, it would simply have been to tell the truth!). And above all, when Judas seized him, he kissed him and called him his friend.

How could Jesus do that? Hilton concludes with the most fundamental point that sends a laser into my own heart:

For he is love and goodness, and therefore it is characteristic of him to show love and goodness to all his creatures, as he did to Judas.

And I, by contrast, am not love and goodness, and therefore it is characteristic of me to show ___ and ___ to my fellow creatures, and particularly those that vex or frighten me.

Yes, fill in the blanks, and we know what we are during this Advent season of repentance–and how far we have to go on the path of the imitatio Christi.

Carolyn Arends, The Irrational Season–This album combines the whimsical freshness and realism of Carolyn’s own compositions mixed with some well rendered classics in her beguiling folk style. (“Do Not Be Afraid,” however, is a song for all year ’round: powerfully comforting.)

Steve Bell, The Feast of Seasons–This was my first “favourite Christian Christmas album,” and it’s still one of my favourites. The T. S. Eliot-evoking “Old Sage,” the plaintive “Magnificat,” the smooth guitar solos–no one who likes music can’t like this album.

Bob Bennett, Christmastide–just listened to it again this morning, and it’s a multifacted jewel of composition, arranging (way to go, Roy Salmond!), and performance. It takes several listens to get into the subtle layers of this deceptively “folky” album.

Chris Botti, December–Don’t be put off–or seduced–by Chris’s glamour boy album cover. And don’t listen to the jazz police who hate anyone smooth and popular, as Chris is. The guy can play, cats, and this album manages to both soothe and startle in its creativity.

The Carpenters, Christmas Collection–no one has sung like Karen, and no one has arranged like Richard (put your headphones on, sit still, and listen to “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” for Richard’s characteristic voice layering that now is done routinely by a capella groups, but this was thirty years ago)–but the guy can also wail on the piano (“Carol of the Bells”), as this terrific pop album attests.

Bing Crosby, White Christmas–Bing recorded several Christmas albums, and here’s a good one to get you started. He is, after all, The Greatest Singer Ever, and even though some of his Christmas stuff is comically schmaltzy, no one sounds better when he’s serious–or swinging.

Vince Guaraldi Trio, A Charlie Brown Christmas–One of the more unlikely pairings in the history of television was the Charlie Brown Christmas special and the undeniably groovy jazz of Vince Guaraldi. On “Skating,” for example, listen closely to hear a master imitating two pianos as he comps with the left hand while the right hand sends up flurries of snowflakes. And the chords of “O Tannenbaum” have made one of the dullest of Yuletide songs into virtually a jazz standard.

Diana Krall, Christmas Songs–I admit it: I’m in love with Diana Krall and I have been since my wife and I first heard her at the Winnipeg Jazz Festivals before she achieved pop goddess status. (Yes, I heard her before you did and, yes, that makes me better than you.) This isn’t her best album musically, of course, but it is a fine album that puts Holly Cole in the shade as the silly phrase-stretcher that she sometimes is while adding a welcome bit of fireside smoke to classics grown thick over the years with sugar-coating.

Kathy Mattea, Good News–Sister Kathy sings it as if she means it, which she does. And this good ol’ country album goes well beyond good ol’ country (with the almost-too-clever “There’s a New Kid in Town”) to some intriguing vocal arrangements (“Good News”) and simply the best version available of “Mary, Did You Know?”

Mannheim Steamroller, [all of them, but the earlier, the better]–I know, I know, the Mannheim Steamroller does tend to steamroll over some pieces in overproduced, overwrought enthusiasm. But “Silent Night” is unforgettable, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” is a rocking blast, and “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella” tugs at the heartstrings.

And, yes, G. F. Handel’s Messiah has some pretty singable stuff in it, too. Give it a listen if you haven’t already.

Merry Christmas!