In his book, Ordering Your Private World, Gordon Macdonald shares the story of a book. The book was a biography of Daniel Webster, which Macdonald and his wife had picked second hand. It was printed in the 1840s, and looked heavily worn. But when they decided to open it up for themselves, they realized that the book had never been read. There was a manufacturing error in the book, and the pages hadn’t been properly cut - they would need to be slit apart to be read. And for well over a century, no one had bothered.
He then relates that to the way many people - sadly, many leaders - treat their mental and spiritual development. We’re like books, sitting on the shelf, collecting dust.
“Like the book, when we found it, many people show the outer marks of the wear and tear of life. But inside, large areas of their private world remain unopened. They are disorganized within because they have never stretched and conditioned their minds to handle the information and challenges of the age.” Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World, 116.
Playing Defense
I am reading this book (Ordering Your Private World, not the Webster biography) with a friend, and there has been quite a bit that has been both challenging and practically helpful. But of particular encouragement to me was the chapter which contained this story. In this chapter, Macdonald makes a distinction between defensive study and offensive study.
He defines defensive study as the studying you must do. For a pastor, this is studying to prepare a sermon, searching out an answer for someone’s pressing question, or the prep you do before a hard counseling session. This is good study, useful study, and if done intentionally can be very soul-feeding. But one of the great dangers of this sort of study is the fact that you must do it. And because of that, it is very possible to put a lot of work into it, and have it still seem to have little impact on your soul. Because, as I wrote in my book margin, it is studying to perform.
I don’t mean perform in a pejorative sense. I don’t mean to imply a sense of falsity or insincerity. Simply that if I don’t do my defensive study, it shows, and in obvious ways. The sermon lacks structure or depth. The advice skims on the surface level. The promise to find an answer goes unfulfilled. There’s built-in accountability to defensive study. Your performance in your roles is visibly, and sometimes immediately, impacted by whether or not you put in the hours. Defensive study is absolutely vital to any leadership role. But on its own, it leaves you at a deficit.
I have spent most of my ministry life living and dying on defensive study. When I was working 50-60 hour weeks at the post office and our kids were little, that felt like all I could manage. Sometimes even that study was lacking. Sometimes sitting down sent me instantly to sleep, and so prepping to teach Bible study or teaching a Sunday school class often involved reading the passage several times, listening to a few sermons, and trying to jot a few notes down late Saturday night or Sunday morning. It was a lot like cramming for a test, except the test was teaching the materiel to a group of middle schoolers at the teen center or young-middle age adults in Sunday School, or senior saints in a nursing home.
Those same study habits carried over, by necessity, into planting the church here in Remsen. Some weeks I would have time to read, and I would often try to read ahead in those times to compensate for the inevitable week of extra overtime to follow, or the unforeseen of a funeral, or emergency counseling call. I was essentially scrambling to cover my bases by the time 10am rolled around on Sunday morning. I lived on defense.
Transition
But then we had a radical shift in our life in 2021. We had joined RHMA in June, and in November I left my job with the post office. I left the PO in anticipation of opening our coffee shop, but we had a pretty big gap between cutting lose from that job and opening our doors at the end of June 2022. That gave me more time to do some obvious things - a few more meetings with people, a little extra sermon prep time, etc. - but it also left me with several hours a week of freedom. What would I do with that time?
Almost unintentionally, I started using some of that time for what Macdonald defines as offensive study.
Offensive study doesn’t have immediate performance as its goal. Rather, Macdonald defines it this way:
[Offensive study] “has as its objective the gathering of large clusters of information and insight out of which future sermons and talks, books, and articles may grow…[it’s about] exploring, turning up truth and understanding from scores of sources.” Macdonald, 113.
This makes intuitive sense to me. It’s often been my experience that diving deep into one subject will provide insights or mental tools in areas which seem unrelated. Or having gone deep in a subject outside of my “normal” routine will provide with me with information or insight that may not be immediately useful, but which forms my thinking in such a way as to prove useful 2-3 years down the road. In the margin beside Macdonald’s description of offensive study, I wrote that this is study for growth.
When I was carrying mail, this kind of “outside the normal bounds” learning largely took the form of podcasts. But as I said, when I was no longer tied to that job and had a few hours free, I started using this time to do some “offensive” reading.
However, I ran into an unexpected problem: guilt.
Conviction
What I began to struggle with, especially beginning last winter (opening the coffee shop threw me back into full-defense mode for about six months), was this: I’m getting paid to do ministry, should I really be spending time studying things or thinking about subjects that are not of immediate importance? Is this really a good use of my time and mental energy? How would _______ feel if they knew I was using some of my “working” hours to read a book on typology, or dispensationalism, or the Old Testament’s use of the Old Testament? Who cares if I read the collected works of John Owen?
I really enjoy broad reading, and reading for the sake of learning. My mind is always churning, and having grist for the mill keeps me from feeling like my wheels are spinning. It is sometimes hard and unpleasant, but it always feels rewarding. But the very fact that I enjoy it (either the process or the result) has often led to the aforementioned guilt. Is this really just a form of laziness? Avoiding the real work that needs done?
First, I will qualify my following answer: it could be laziness or avoidance. If it is crowding out time that I actually should be spending with people, or making it hard to accomplish the necessary defensive study, or (most dangerous for me) cutting into time when I should be focused on my home - then I need to put a check on it. But, frankly, that’s not usually what this sort of study crowds out for me. Instead, it tends to be a better use of time I’d otherwise be frittering away reading pointless things online or scrolling. So here’s an up-front limiting principle: all things in proportion.
Having made that caveat, I’m going to now lean hard the other way. There are a number of streams in the past year that have coalesced to solidify this conviction in my mind:
Offensive study is not only permissible but vital to long-term viability, growth, and usefulness in ministry.
As I said, a number of streams have been pushing my thinking in this direction, but Macdonald’s book gave me the language for articulating it.
I remember reading an article by Eugene Peterson once where he spoke of making “appointments” with authors - something like, “1-2pm: Dostoyevsky” or “3:15-4:00: Melville”, and then treating those appointments as seriously and inflexibly as any counseling session of committee meeting. I’m not there yet. (Frankly, I still need to become that steadfast with my defensive study time). But it is useful to reflect that someone of Peterson’s stature, whose ministry continues after his death (and likely will continue to influence others well into the future) was not built around frenetic attention to the present, but rather a measured pace of personal growth and meditation intended to build depth for the long-haul.
Often, when thinking about growth and depth, pastors think exclusively in terms of skills for ministry, or Bible-specific knowledge. But what our people need is not primarily us to be the most skilled bible-answer-dispensing machines that they can find. They need us to be people of holiness, depth, and godly character. And frantic worry about today or tomorrow is not the path to get there.
It’s not even going to make you a good Bible-answer man in their life, because if you haven’t developed the patience to attentively listen to and ask questions about their questions, you probably aren’t going to bring God’s word to bear upon their actual issues. Most people see the symptoms of their problems as their problems, and when you paste a Bible verse to a symptom you often end up with a disillusioned and defeated person, not someone experiencing growth, victory over sin, etc.
I’ve moved from being inclined toward broad study - and feeling bad about it - to being convicted that broad study is something I need to commit to. Not at the expense of ministry, but for the sake of long-term ministry sustainability. I need to build my life and mind with the perspective of decades, not days or even months, at the top of my mind.
Practice
But for this to be healthy (and to not crowd out other obligations), offensive study needs to be intentional. In this section of the article I’m moving into the realm of things I’m trying to put into practice, or that I am practicing but want to be more intentional about. If you have helpful thoughts or critiques to add, feel free to add them in the comments below or email me. If I ever get to a point where I do feel like I’ve got a handle on this, I may write a more prescriptive post.
Broadly speaking, I want my offensive study to have three components: reading, reflection, and writing.
Reading. I’d break this into two sections1:
Bible. In defensive study, I’m reading for my sermon. I’m reading that passage a lot. For meetings, I am also currently reading through Paul’s epistles and the book of Psalms. And to be honest, a lot of what some folks would call a “devotional time” is for me tied to these readings.2 But I want to spend time in reading God’s word outside of preparation, though. I’m aiming for two things:
depth. I want to read reflectively and slowly, simply for the purpose of being nourished by the Lord through his word. To that end, I’m using Spurgeon and the Psalms. It’s a slim book with excepts from Spurgeon’s Treasury of David, to go along with each Psalm in the Psalter. The NKJV is the translation it comes in, which is nostalgic and warm for me, as that was the translation I primarily read from from ages 12-21. I would also put studying Greek in this category. It’s not making my Bible study any deeper right now, but, again: playing the long game here. I’m focusing on Greek in the coming 1-2 years, then I’m going to take my first stab at Hebrew.
breadth. I also want to read a lot of the Bible. I remember, years ago, being told by an older pastor that if you are going to teach the Bible, you need to read it through at least once a year, and preferably twice. There have been a couple of years since when I haven’t quite made it through, and only once when I made it through twice. But a yearly covering of the whole scriptures is my baseline goal. There are simply themes and stories in scripture that you only grasp when you take in large chunks at once. Audio Bibles are a huge help for this. I am using Logos for my audio now, and I really like the ESV Reader’s Bible for trying to read large sections of scripture.
Theology and Ministry “Related” Books. The temptation here is to only read on those issues which are immediately pressing. And to feel like you need to finish every book you start. I have dozens of books started and unfinished, on topics from very clearly related to things I’ve taught on recently (Jesus the Son of God) to those which are more tangentially connected to the ministry here (Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth, or Protestant Social Ethics) And I think that’s totally okay. But what I will do from time to time is set aside a day or two to simply finish a pile (2-4) of books, and think through how they all relate to one another. Right now I’m thinking about Man of the House in relation to Ordering Your Private World and An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Philosophy and Life in the Negative World. There’s not an obvious through line, but setting the ideas in these books into conversation in my mind helps me to ponder through issues around men’s ministry, preaching, and parenting. What I would like to add into this category (inspired by Peterson) is the occasional fiction book of substantial weight: think Melville, Dostoyevsky, Cervantes, or Austen.
Reflecting. Again, this is two-fold:
prayer. My prayer life is one of my great weaknesses as a Christian. That is bad on several levels, including but not limited to these two: every great Christian from the past (at least that I am aware of and can think of off the top of my head) was marked by a devotion to prayer; as a pastor, my vocation is to devote myself to prayer and the ministry of the word (see Acts 6). So as I seek to grow, I first need to grow in what Macdonald refers to as the school of prayer. All the hurrying and flurrying in the world will be of no avail apart from the blessing of God poured out upon the prayerful (see James 5). So I want to make room in my life for reflective prayer. Practically, part of what this means is seeking to journal my prayers more frequently. My goal at the moment is to write out a prayer at least three times a week. That would be very little for some, but to consistently reach that mark would be a great improvement for me.
staring. This might take a tad more explanation, but basically what I mean here is the more traditional take on “reflection.” Simply taking time to stare at the wall (or out the window) and reflect on what the Lord is doing, what he wants me to be doing, where he wants me to focus time and attention. This, for me, is intricately tied to prayer. I can’t get into a truly reflective state apart from prayer, nor will prayer last long if I am not aiming to achieve some measure of reflection. I want to understand what he’s saying in his word and world, and I want to clarify my own thoughts as I’m speaking to the Lord. Sometimes taking a half hour to stare out the window, as unproductive as that sounds, is incredibly enlightening.
Writing. This part is vital for my own processing and growth, and it’s a part of this process that I can easily overlook or ignore. I thank you, dear reader, for participating in my growth in this area. A large part of why this newsletter exists is for me to force myself to process the information I’m taking in, the thoughts pinging around my head, and to seek and bring some order to the chaos inside my head. If the world naturally moves towards chaos, and part of the creation mandate for humanity is to exercise God’s lordship over creation by bringing order (I think this is a decent shorthand summary of Genesis 1-2), then the field I feel most gifted to labor in is the world of words and ideas. I write to help myself understand and rightly experience the world and the God of the world. I certainly hope you gain benefit from reading these writings, but I need to write, whether or not anyone is reading. This is part of what has been helpful about beginning to write some of my prayers - a writing outlet that I know other people will not be looking at.3
Advice
So, that section was largely about what I’m doing. Trying to establish practices in my life that allow for and make use of offensive study. Here, before I conclude, I will venture a short bit of advice:
Invest in Your Growth. I think this is worthwhile advice for any person. Creating time to study something that is interesting to you will be rewarding and beneficial, no matter who you are. But, as I stated earlier, if you are a leader then this is absolutely vital. Here is where this gets nitty-gritty: if you’re anything like me, you’re going to need to axe some low-benefit time wasters. Get rid of social media from your phone. I can’t remove Safari, but I made it less convenient to access by removing it from the home screen and suggested apps screen.
I also have to be careful about my computer. I can end up running down link trails that feel similar enough to the type of offensive study I’m talking about that I can almost always justify it to myself in the moment. So studying away from my computer is very helpful to me. When I do run across article I do think look interesting, I have a file labeled “to read” - I then occasionally open 10-20 of those in new tabs, and then look at each article asking “is this worth printing off to read?” If it’s yes, I’ll print and read. If not, I remove the bookmark and have saved myself the time and distraction.
One last consideration here, is that it is sometimes helpful to put yourself in a different physical space: go spend a few hours at the library, a coffee shop, or outside if the weather is nice.
Invest in the Growth of Your Leaders. If we recognize the value of this sort of offensive study, then we also ought to recognize that those who lead us need this kind of space for reading, reflection, and writing. In churches, this often takes the form of a writing or study sabbatical. For smaller churches, that’s probably not practical, at least in most cases. But how can you encourage those in your life (whether the church, the workplace, or even in your home) to invest in growth - for their benefit and yours? I’m incredibly blessed to have a wife who saw my need to this sort of reflective time.
Coda
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene.” 2 Timothy 2:15-17a
Get off social media. Use the time and energy to learn something worthwhile.
Not included on this list is “fun” reading - the kind of random stuff like P.G. Wodehouse, and memoir, and cookbooks. Some cookbooks are pretty fun to read.
There are different schools of thought on how close/distant a pastor’s devotional life and sermon or lesson prep should be, running the gamut from “your devotional life and preparation should be completely separate” to “they should be the same thing.” My inclination is more along the lines of, “you need to study more than devotionally, but your study should certainly be devotional if 1) you want to grow and 2) you intend to teach people.
On this topic, though, because I am largely attempting to write myself clear in this newsletter, anytime you have disagreements, pushbacks, or elaborations, I would welcome your feedback.