Maybe 'vision' isn't all its cracked up to be?

There's a text hanging in my office that is a powerful leadership text. It's Psalm 103:7 "He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel." I was a young leader when a wise and godly leader shared it with me - emphasizing the difference between Moses being told of God's ways and the people only being told of God's deeds. This is leadership, the wiser leader told me - knowing the ways of God.
Not long after that wisdom was shared with me ...... Christian leadership guru's emerged onto the scene and the word 'vision' became the driving word in leadership. 'Without it things will perish' was often preached. 'If you don't know where you're going you'll end up nowhere' came in a close second preach. Vision as a word and concept has held sway over much Christian leadership for the past decade and more.
But this blog wants to put a question mark over that leadership philosophy. Maybe 'vision' is not what it was/is all cracked up to ....and I've often cracked it up to be lot!

Vision is very much about where we are going. Its a linear word. It produces 5 year strategy papers, plans and 'how to' manuals. Vision is held out there and then everything lines up behind it.
But maybe therein lies a problem. More a clash. A clash of cultures. Our culture, our context is less and less a linear context. Much has been made of this in the tiring debate between modernity versus postmodernity; between systematic theology versus narrative theology; between meta-narratives versus paradigms ...but why has it not crossed over into the philosophy of leading?

Maybe I'm too much living in my paradigm, but the drive to vision - cast it, plan around it, staff for it, budget to it, is getting tired. it seems to be being moved to the back of the line. In its place is a moving to the center the concept of values.

Vision is about where we are going; values are about being.
Being is the new going.

Of course,values were always meant to be under-girding vision. But did they?

Maybe I'm too much of an existentialist (in the good sense). Were humans called to this linear, always moving forward existence? Or were humans called 'to be'. Does the emphasis on vision not drive us to miss today and miss what it is to be human? Is being human not about living in the present?

'Moses knowing the ways of God' ...is more about values than about vision - surely!

Here's how we're seeing it these days. If a church is all about values that reflect the heartbeat of God ......then acting on those values alone will lead you into the future more than wrapping a vision around it.

In the old vision way ...you got the value and then you cast a vision of what living with that value might look like in 5 years ....and here's the steps to make that happen.

In the new way ...you just live with the value and let God morph whatever God wants to morph!

Is this a subtle semantic adjustment - maybe ...but it feels more than subtle. It feels like its placing the right thing in the right place and not allowing it to be squeezed to a lesser place because of something more compelling, more organised, more strategized.

Its trying to be more about the ways ...rather than the deeds.

Maybe the church should be more sinful? Ouch!

I’m on the phone to a friend in Scotland and we are talking about church and faith. But the conversation is slightly different than you might have imagined. I’m making the case to him that his church needs to become more sinful!

Let me bring some context.
Many Christians live in two worlds. The world of the week – busy jobs, hard deals, tough bargaining, hectic hours, constantly pushing forwards.
Then on Sunday they go to church ……and they enter a completely different world than the world they have lived in for the past 5 or 6 days. Their church world speaks the language of the ‘saints’. They talk about being separate from the world; they talk about holy living; they sing songs that speak of purity, of living a victorious Christian life; songs about truth, love, commitment, loyalty.
In many ways their church language of faith is a very ‘high’ language.
People are urged to count the cost. Sermons on sacrifice, denying self are well preached. People are reminded that they will suffer rejection for the name and the cause of Christ.
To all this they, like me, would say ‘Amen’. The bar is set high.

But then for so many here’s what happens. Monday arrives and they return to their busy living …..and it bears no resemblance to the language they heard or used on the Sunday.

If you look closely many Christians seem to be two different people. A Sunday person and a very different Monday person.

This is not unfamiliar …in many ways it's the reality of most Christians whether in the UK or the US. We live double lives. We are the saint on Sunday and we are the sinner on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc. [Check out the problem with this on a preach I did on April 29,2007 Mastering the Art of Living “Be One” – download or listen at http://www.reedleyfbc.com/ click on Messages.]

Now this is where our conversation came in. As we talked about church and faith I suggested that while most people would say the problem is they’re too much of a sinner on Monday and they need to become more of the saint on Monday – I argued the opposite. I suggested that the solution is – they should be less of the saint on Sunday!!

Here’s an interesting thumbprint we’re noticing in our church. People come on Sundays – not trying to play the saint – but being vulnerable and authentic enough to admit they are the sinners.

How worshipful, how godly is it, when a group of people gather on a Sunday and pretend to be what in reality for most of their living they’re not? Is it not better to be honest in the presence of God than pretending!

Now you might say … “well Gilbert what about the Scriptures teaching on being holy, on being set apart, on sanctification.” I would say – absolutely – but is a part of being holy, of being sanctified is it really being dishonest on a Sunday!
What part of sanctification is about causing our people to pretend to be what they really are not?
Maybe if we are more honest on a Sunday, more authentic true and real …..our Mondays and Tuesdays would be less removed from our worship and we’d begin to move to something nearer what we should be.
Maybe if our Sundays were more sinful we’d be less sinful on Monday.

Did Jesus not teach that it’s the pure in heart who shall see God? Am I not more pure in heart when I’m most honest about my sin compared to Sundays when I pretend to be the saint I’m not. Maybe there’s more purity on Monday when I’m honest about who and what I am …and maybe then I’ll see God …..which cannot leave me unchanged!

I’m arguing that a movement in spiritual formation is not just the movement away from being sinner to saint; I’m arguing that some of our movement is from being the saint to being the sinner. I think God is more pleased and God’s Spirit can more do His work when sinners are honest, rather than when saints are dishonest!

So …how sinful is your church??

Take the church back - be a Glocal Leader!

So I was emailing a fellow glocal trekker by the name of Bob Roberts and I was asking him if he knew any Kenyan pastors in Nairobi that we could connect with as we prepare for another trek over to see our guys in the Huruma slum – daily heroes. Bob comes back to me telling me that this very Sunday a Nairobi pastor was at his church – Oscar Muriu. And then he tagged on words to his email “he’s the real deal – are you?”
So I emailed him back telling him that Oscar pastors’ Nairobi Chapel which has its roots in the Plymouth Brethren and those were my roots and therefore both Oscar and I were THE real deal – but what about Bob? [If you haven’t read Bob’s book Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World ….hello!!]
Roots are so important. Roots hold us. Roots take us down deep. Roots determine our strength and endurance.
That got me thinking about my roots. The Plymouth Brethren were a group of guys who in the early 19th century quit the Anglican Church and started a new movement – trying to do church the way the early church did it. Now I greatly admire them, but if you read the New Testament the early church was pretty messy – hence Paul’s multiple letters trying to fix things. I mean – who’d like to return to being like the Church in Corinth …aaargh!
But, one thing these ‘Brethren’ got very right was their missionary spirit. (They got other things right as well – I owe much to the hours and hours of bible teaching they poured into me.) But they got right their missionary adventure. Go to most of the reached nations in the globe and you’ll find people there who can trace their roots to the Brethren movement. Here’s an aside - the Catholic Church acted with genius when during the Reformation while the Protestants began to argue with them and amongst themselves they sent out the Jesuits to Latin America and evangelized that entire continent - the results live on today! So too the Brethren movement instead of joining in the debates about the established church they began to send all over the globe missionaries. But – they never forgot the local ….. read their history – orphanages in the UK, inner city hostels, and small churches built in the poorer housing estates with their doors open to help and serve. In some sense the Brethren were Glocal Christians …and that’s the roots that Bob, Oscar and myself are trying to put down within our local churches for this generation and coming generations.

So church leaders – how glocal are you?? Glocal leaders are the real deal. Glocal leaders are missional but missional beyond the way the emergent church guys or the way Robert Webber talked about missional (there’s another book really worth reading Ancient Future Faith @ Robert Webber – a theologian the Church deeply misses). Missional that is fully both-and. Both local and global. Both engaging with the sins of individuals and the sins of society. The key word is connect. This is not sending money to some mission’s organization to do the global while you do the local (or vice-versa) – this is people within the local church being connected both locally and globally, individually and communally to other people. Within the church there is a great movement for community living churches within urban ghettos. I love this movement and many of the people involved in it - they stir and inspire me. But with a flat world we get to be part of generation of leaders that don't only lead towards new forms of local churches in urban ghettos - wherever the ghetto might be - Cincinnati, Philadelphia, or Nairobi, or Paris, or Phnom Penh. Glocal Leaders are both-and leaders.

The early Plymouth Brethren guys wanted to take the church back to the New Testament time. Glocal Leaders are doing the same – taking the church back to seeing the world in all its size as on their doorstep. Reread how global and local the early church was - fascinating.

Be a Glocal Leader - and take the church back. Back is the new forwards. Think about it. The best new movements don't invent new things ....they rediscover what got lost. In the history of the church there was a point and time when we did glocal well, when we did holistic well, when we did missional well, when we did multicultural well. All today's new words and new movements the church in history at some time and place did - the best leaders take us back to go forward. I think that's what my Brethren upbringing is newly teaching me ..... but of course that's not new.

Maybe its all a matter of language.

So I've just spent a day with some church leaders - all engaging with the topic of leadership. Good fun and good conversation. But its got me thinking, or rethinking - again. My friend Tim Brown from Clovis was speaking about the transition in his own thinking driven by both the reality of what he was hearing from people in his church and the new thoughts Simple Church @ Thom Rainer was stirring in him. A new way of looking at spiritual formation and ensuring that we guide people from searching for faith, to finding faith to being formed in their faith. Its a topic close to my heart and to our church. But here's my concern. I admire the thinking behind Simple Church. In fact I admire much of the thinking of many of the 'bright lights' of the modern church - the Andy Stanley's, the Rick Warren's, the Bill Hybel's the Ed Young's. Names that anyone passionate about lost people and the church being centrally missional will know and will listen to - wisely. But as I listen I feel a tension. I hear their thoughts/ strategies for both growth and discipleship but it sounds (may I say it) - formulaic. Their strategies are based around propositional solutions. Their pathways still sniff of linear western thinking. And it makes me question it. Because, at the same time as listening to these leaders I listen in to other guys that I equally respect - Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Mark Driscoll and their pathways seem so different - at least how they talk about them seems different. Their wording is more dynamic, more organic. Its morphing, its movement, its rhythm. One leaves me cold, one leaves me invigorated. This leaves me puzzled. Which one do I choose, which do I give greater attention to. And that gets me thinking even more. One sounds Western, the other sounds more Eastern. One sounds static the other sounds dynamic. One sounds linear the other sounds holistic. They sound different .....but this is what I'm wondering - they sound different but maybe their not. Maybe its all a matter of language. Maybe their same exactly the same, but differently.

As Tim and I talked maybe what the church has to do is pay more attention to our language than we do. Maybe at the start of the 21st century we have to pay closer attention to our wording.

Sometimes people think I'm heretical. At first listen sometimes they wonder ..... "where does this guy stand on this or that?" ... and they email me or rush to set up an appointment to make sure I'm "sound". But, when they dig deeper, listen closer, they see that I'm completely Orthodox - all I'm doing is choosing my words carefully to cause you to hear the same old truth in a new way. If I can make you hear it differently it becomes fresh, dynamic, alive....and maybe then you'll re-think it to then re-live it. So many people know it linearly - but they don't know it dynamically.
Maybe leadership at this juncture where cultures, generations even philosophies are birthing while some are dying - maybe leadership needs to pay closer attention to the choice of language.

I guess beyond strategies and vision and organizing and planning - a huge part of what leaders do and how we do it is speaking words - and what I'm suggesting is that maybe today our words have to change. I grew up in a generation that talked about having a 'new song' and a new movement of worship was being birthed. Today we need 'new words'.

I'm urging leaders to not only have a strong ecclesiology, a strong missiology, a strong theology ...but at this time and place we need to have a strong "wordology" - words shape, words form, words guide, words birth. Maybe today we need new words for people to hear it.
Friends - choose your words carefully.

Is doing - being?

So there's this line that preachers preach (me included) - "don't be what you do, be who you are" - and I know why we preach it. We're in a crowed room meeting new people and our first question normally is 'so tell me, what is it you do?' It's like the classic conversation starter. So when they tell us they manage some major company or are a NASA physicist we have some internal chart that then tells us they are more important than us; we earn less than them etc, etc. We live in this majorly competitive culture and to survive in this culture we need to always be measuring others to ourselves to see who comes out on top. So preachers (rightly) challenge this cultural phenomena because we know a persons worth is not measured by their job title or their income levels ....so we preach it "you're more than what you do, who is the real you - away from the job, removed from the task ....just be who God made you to be." It sounds so existentially wonderful.

And at some level it is existentially wonderful - but at another level is it true reality? So let's return to the last blog article and the last blogging comments (thanks Tim and Morton). Can a pastor live in the dichotomy of 'this is what I do' and over here 'this is who I am' ....or is it all one, and we've created a false dichotomy and we have allowed a tension to exist that was never a tension in the first place. We've placed Greek thinking about parts onto something that is truly a whole.
Think about God. In the Old Testament he has multiple names, each name representing a differing aspect of his character. God is multi characteristical BUT he is fully one. You and I being made in his image - maybe we are multi characteristical - in both function and personality- yet this is who we are - the one.

Therefore ..... in the case of a pastor (and is it only in the case of a pastor??) "we are what we do" AND "we do what we are". So getting away from it, switching off from it, struggling with my identity sometimes more being formed by what I do rather than by who I am - is all poor theology at best, Greek ideology at worse. To just be - is to do and doing is being.

Is it who we are or is it what we do?

So it's past 5pm on Monday and the job I told myself I would do first today still has been left undone. Of course, sadly, this is not the first day that this has been my reality. In fact for the last three weeks I've been chasing my tail ....my wife would say its been since August (yes, sadly she has now put a picture of me on the fridge door along with all the other friends we see once a year - and no, I'm not proud of this confession - but it is the first time for several years.)

But now, I'm closing my door, switching to my answering machine and getting this done - or am I?
Is this my tension?
Is this the leadership article we want to blog as our first official virtual mentoring article for church leaders?

.......... "Do we ever switch off? Are we ever off-duty? Can we ever truly shut the door? Can the
world outside ever stop getting inside?"

I've heard and read Bill Hybels on The Art of Self-leadership ....and nod fervently and fully agree.
I've read Dallas Willard's The Great Omission and been challenged by the early Church Fathers discipline towards solitude.
My best buddy Stuart (involved in some amazing missional stuff up in Canada ......and will write us a leadership article in coming months) has duly spoken severely to me about switching off and so I slow down on Monday mornings to read, pray, listen.
I've heard Bart Campolo talk about self survival and the need to escape to survive.

But can you truly do it?

It's like farmers in our community ....always farmers; 24/7; spring, summer, fall and winter- when at the local football game, when drinking coffee at church, when shopping with their wife's (although I've never known a farmer to go shopping with their wife!)
It's like mom's ....even when at the coast with their husbands ....still calling the kids back home 'just to make sure' ...you can tell I speak from experience 'come on babe call once but every hour on the hour and especially this hour - ah em'!!!

Does your mind ever stop thinking about life, faith, the lost and how to do better?
Can you ever stop the world outside coming inside - can you ever switch off?

Now I know some leaders who tell us they do ....but I'm unsure how honest their being? I mean they may be at their cabin in the mountains or hanging with their kids ...but are they really fully present?

I spoke about that some months back in a preach ......how present are we when we're there?

Now before you run too far ahead of me and have me conclude something that I'm not concluding. I need to say we need to rest. We need to do self-leadership well. We need to hold to the Sabbath. We need to be able to be fully present ...and not running to the next thing. We need to redefine who we are not by how busy we are but by who we are becoming. We need solitude. We need ...and so the list rolls. I remember John Ortberg preaching a message about ruthlessly eradicating hurry from your life and that's one of the main reasons I don't carry a cell phone and I've learned to drive slower - and enjoy it. I also agree that the western order of living is incorrect - start at sunrise end at sunset, the Hebrew order of the day is God;s order - start sunset to sunset.

But ....this tension thing. Do we only do rest by switching off the leader/pastor antenna? Is there times when we can truly close the door and keep everything else out?
Is the model of rest and closing the door ...the right model or a model that only ever generates guilt.
Why do I feel guilty that today I did not get done all I was to get done ...and so to try to relieve that guilt I'm closing the door to make sure I get it done.

Got me thinking about the Sabbath. Was the Sabbath to withdraw from society or was the purpose of the Sabbath to make sure that in our journey we didn't miss God. Is the whole purpose of live - making sure we don't miss God.

Did I miss God today by not getting done the things I needed to get done - or did I not get done some things today - but today I was still with God ....and that's all that counts.

Is there the possibility that my best leadership does not come by accomplishin the tasks - even the task of rest, but my best leadership comes through not missing God - even if that's in the mess and unaccomplished tasks of the day.

I guess the only problme is - how do you explain this to your spouse or your Board????

So - anyone willing to engage? How do we hold the tension of being pastors or leaders ....its what we are ...don't ask me to switch off from being that. Or is it a being thing or a doing thing? What does it mean to say "I am a leader" or "I am a pastor"? How far do you take it?
By the way ....my door was closed and my phone was off ..but I still met with two people, answered one call and made one call while writing this blog....aaargh!!!

Have I proven the point or just highlighted one of my biggest flaws?

Have you all got blogstipation?

So no one has posted a comment on my first blog.
Patiently for the last 22 days I've waited for even one brave soul to make some comment - even if it is from a blogroach. But nothing.
Zilch. Zero. Silence.
Is it because something has entered the blogosphere and inflicted all bloggers with blogstipation?
Is it because it's only blurkers who are reading my blog and you're out there lurking around quietly?
Is it because commenter's are blego-ing and in measuring this bloggers worth that too has been zilch!

What is it? Why?
How do you think this makes me feel?

Is this both the genius of a blog while at the same time the curse of a blog?
If no one comments - a blogger can say whatever they want. Its a bit like the speech you've gone over a hundred times in your head that you'd like to give to your boss, your colleague, your neighbor with the cat (for no reason other than they've got a cat!), or your mother-in-law.
So you say it.
But here's the curse - no one heard it! Or if they did - it wasn't your boss, colleague, neighbor or mother-in-law.

But this brings me back to my blog.
Does silence mean I stop and just return to my day job of saying what I want to say from the pulpit on Sundays ....which come to think of it can often be like my first blog - zilch, zero, silence!
Do you just say something when you're guaranteed a response?
Do you only say something for a response?
Is there value in just saying?

Let me put it this way. "Silence", wrote Stephen Webb, "is constructed not natural."
The zero, zilch, silence my first blog has incurred doesn't mean there hasn't been a response. The response has been the construction of silence.

So I'll keep saying, because in saying something is always constructed.

Parents, lovers, teachers, preachers need to keep saying ...... even in the silence.

Does carbon foot printing really matter?

So it seems completely strange to me that my introductory blog post for this mentoring blog has drifted seemingly off course to talk about carbon footprinting! Has the long hot summer living in Reedley (the backside of a desert and not far from purgatory) done something to what I thought was a pretty decent brain?

Whatever has happened you are reading this interested in joining this blog for missional church leaders and the title demands that some how an introduction to this blog and carbon footprinting over lap. [It's a bit like my preaching sometimes - found a great illustration and now I need to find a text about God or Jesus to make it work ...ouch...and that's even after two degrees from two seminaries!]

I could start by saying - carbon footprinting is todays hot topic and all missional church leaders live amongst the hot topics because we value relevance and cultural architecture as propellants of our missional leadership. There's mileage in that one.

Or I could say - carbon footprinting is a pragmatic lifestyle for "live in the present leaders" to display their engagement and participation in the new cool 'green' theology (supported by eminent theologians from all branches of orthodoxy expect the Southern Baptist boys who love to live frequently in denial!). Its new and cool but somebody should tell people - if it hasn't been around since the time of Genesis then it most certainly has been around since the days of St Benedict, St. Francis and of course, for you more reformed followers - your very own St. Calvin.

But now let me try and make my point as we launch this mentor blog.

Leaders, especially missional leaders, define reality. This is what stands us out as leaders. Our leadership is fully present. Carbon footprinting is part of today's reality. We may know little about it. We may have only briefly heard the term. We may view it with apprehension, maybe even cynicism - but it is part of the language and thought around us and thereby part of our reality - and therefore it matters. Leaders define the reality that others just experience.

So, to all my Issachar's - get the title yet? The men of Issachar knew the times (1 Chronicles 12:32). David was a wise leader. He had with him folks who could define reality.
This blog hopes to become a community of missional leaders who are better defining reality helping each of us and all of us know what we should do.

Welcome my fellow clansmen and clanswomen - join me.