So it’s just turned noon and I’m back home from our last Sunday service of 2008. We call it “Simple Church” and on the last Sunday of the year for the past four years we’ve closed down our stage, sound, lights, food booth, resource booth, welcome teams, ushers, trolley driver, musicians, vocalists, camera guy and children’s ministry – rested our tremendously valued volunteers (we need 76 to make Sundays happen – we rest all 76 of them) and we sit in a circle around the communion table. For 60 minutes we quietly pray, hear the Word read and eat communion.
Simple Church ….pulling everything back, take it to the bare bones, a bit like detoxing!
Which is what I am about to do – literally. Thanks to a wonderful procedure I’m due to enjoy on Monday – today I've to swallow a special potion and boom ….my overeating Christmas binge body will be detoxed!!
[You know they had to take the stuff I’ve to swallow off of the shelf because people would literally try using it every month to detox themselves. Hey guys – this privileged potion is the exclusive right of us colonoscopy victims!]
But talking about detoxing.
I’m sitting in Simple Church and I’m thinking – in 2009 could we try a detoxing of the church. Not just strip bare a service from time to time – what would a total detoxing of everything we are about look like.
There’s some stuff out there written on this already. Simple Church @ Rainer; The Big Idea @ Ferguson; or even the old classic The Purpose Driven Church @ Warren.
Strip the church down to the bare essentials and focus on them.
Yet most of the above books aren’t performing detoxing – they’re more doing the slimming thing. Slimming cuts back consumption – number of ministries, number of things you teach.
Detoxing is more radical, deeper.
Detoxing asks questions of the why, not just the what.
Book like Organic Church @ Dale; The Forgotten Ways @ Hirsch or Total Church @ Chester. What’s helpful about these books is the theological exploration they bring to the search. Worth reading.
But come back to the detoxing question.
At its root definition, detoxing is to “get clean of a severe addiction.”
Take this thought into 2009.
I’ve read all the books mentioned – helpful insightful – but I think still blind to some of the insipid addictions evangelicalism has in the West.
In 2009 can we rid ourselves of our ecclesiological addictions?
Here’s a few addictions we have going on:
Addiction to time.
Addiction to copying what someone else is doing.
Addiction to ‘money still talks’.
Addiction to civic/patriotic Christianity.
Addiction to bumper sticker theology.
Simple Church slimming does not remove these addictions.
These addictions are deep within our church cultures.
For decades churches have allowed these habits to permeate our ecclesiology.
To detox.
To get clean of severe addictions.
May our staff and leadership, your staff and leadership drink the potion of God’s Word and Spirit and detox in this coming year.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Leading through paradoxes
One of the odd things I am discovering is that often churches get the pastor they deserve and pastors get the church they deserve – even when they don’t like each other!
It’s odd.
This is relational sociology 201.
It is true in life.
We get the relationships we magnetically pull.
This is so true.
We complain about people, about politicians, about other people’s kids, about our neighbors dog – but maybe the relationship we have with them is merely a reflection of our own self’s.
We complain about the shows on television – but we watch them.
We criticize the bad movie – that we’ve just finished going to the cinema to see.
We are a paradox of hypocrisy. We have developed skills of double lives.
We live on two tracks of life.
We stole the cookie out of the cookie jar.
So how do we live this paradoxical life and yet lead transformationally?
Or think about this.
How many times have you heard pastors use language that cannot be delivered on?
How many times have we spoken false promises?
Just a few weeks back I recorded how many times our staff guys used the word ‘awesome’ in describing something going on at our church as they tried to encourage people to participate while they gave announcements in one of our services. While the event or the ministry was a good event, unsure if ‘awesome’ was not going too far. That word is now banned from our announcements – as is ‘brilliant’, ‘wonderful’ and ‘incredible.’ We don’t want to mislead the public.
But there is a bigger reason – apart from shrinking some words, maybe we’ve begun to believe that it actually is ‘awesome’, ‘brilliant’ or ‘incredible’.
This is not so much a paradox of hypocrisy; rather it is a paradox of exaggeration.
Both our hypocrisies and our exaggerations are the enemies to leading transformationally.
Yet we cannot flee such, they are the human factor we are stuck with, we need to lead through them.
Effective, transformational leadership always leads through not around.
I’ve only got two suggestions as to how to deal effectively with our paradoxes:
1. Be fully recognizant of it – just knowing that you have this bias to hypocrisy and exaggeration helps you work through it. Be honest.
2. Listen to your spouse more often – my wife’s antenna to pick up on both hypocrisy and exaggeration is hot!
Anyone got more suggestions?
Saturday, November 8, 2008
The Gospel Makes it Possible to Have Such a Radically Different Life
The gospel makes it possible to have such a radically different life.
Listen to the words of a lady who grasped how amazing the gospel is:
If I was saved by my good works then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would like a taxpayer with “rights” – I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a sinner saved by grace – then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.
[Timothy Keller, The Reason for God p183.]
I love that quote. She’s got it.
It is these radical asks of grace that make the Christian life so radically different – because when God asks he empowers.
This asks are beyond the realms of human or natural boundaries. In his grace he asks us to forgive those who wrong us. In his grace he asks us to trust him even when the darkest cloud hovers over us. In his grace he asks us to give – even our last dollar. In his grace he asks us to turn the other cheek. In his grace he asks us to forego how the world defines success – give up for his values and his Kingdom.
In his grace he asks us to die to self and live for his kingdom and his gospel.
And when get this you begin to live a radically different life – a life that some don’t understand. But what a life.
So why are so many Christians living dull, ordinary lives.
Maybe it’s because they have assumed they are saved by their works and they refuse therefore to let God ask anything of them.
But maybe these works are different than we think. Sometimes our ‘works’ are our biblical knowledge, or our “daily devotional time” or our ‘Bible study”. We’re not doing door to door work like some cults but so often we default into a works based salvation and we miss the radical call of grace….we stop listening to it too busy doing our ‘works’.
Of course nobody would ever confess this. But the evidence is in the ordinariness of our living. Christians are boring. Christians are just like everybody else. The words ‘radicals’ and ‘revolutionaries’ are absent from all but a few. [Take Jake and Renée. Living in Guadalajara to then head to Guatemala to plant a church …..with their little daughter and no money!! …check out their blog @ jakenrenee.blogspot.com - radicals.]
Grace more than knowledge, more than theology, more than church activity, more than Christian piety makes you open to do whatever God asks. Risk, boldness, radicalness…are products of grace not of works.
So Christ followers out there ….live in grace …it’s an adventure. Read about it; learn about it; but most of all live it.
So church pastors out there ….. teach grace; saturate your campus with grace; model it …it will transform your congregation.
The gospel makes it possible to have such a radically different life.
Listen to the words of a lady who grasped how amazing the gospel is:
If I was saved by my good works then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would like a taxpayer with “rights” – I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a sinner saved by grace – then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.
[Timothy Keller, The Reason for God p183.]
I love that quote. She’s got it.
It is these radical asks of grace that make the Christian life so radically different – because when God asks he empowers.
This asks are beyond the realms of human or natural boundaries. In his grace he asks us to forgive those who wrong us. In his grace he asks us to trust him even when the darkest cloud hovers over us. In his grace he asks us to give – even our last dollar. In his grace he asks us to turn the other cheek. In his grace he asks us to forego how the world defines success – give up for his values and his Kingdom.
In his grace he asks us to die to self and live for his kingdom and his gospel.
And when get this you begin to live a radically different life – a life that some don’t understand. But what a life.
So why are so many Christians living dull, ordinary lives.
Maybe it’s because they have assumed they are saved by their works and they refuse therefore to let God ask anything of them.
But maybe these works are different than we think. Sometimes our ‘works’ are our biblical knowledge, or our “daily devotional time” or our ‘Bible study”. We’re not doing door to door work like some cults but so often we default into a works based salvation and we miss the radical call of grace….we stop listening to it too busy doing our ‘works’.
Of course nobody would ever confess this. But the evidence is in the ordinariness of our living. Christians are boring. Christians are just like everybody else. The words ‘radicals’ and ‘revolutionaries’ are absent from all but a few. [Take Jake and Renée. Living in Guadalajara to then head to Guatemala to plant a church …..with their little daughter and no money!! …check out their blog @ jakenrenee.blogspot.com - radicals.]
Grace more than knowledge, more than theology, more than church activity, more than Christian piety makes you open to do whatever God asks. Risk, boldness, radicalness…are products of grace not of works.
So Christ followers out there ….live in grace …it’s an adventure. Read about it; learn about it; but most of all live it.
So church pastors out there ….. teach grace; saturate your campus with grace; model it …it will transform your congregation.
The gospel makes it possible to have such a radically different life.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Dare we even suggest - why vote?
So I thought I could make it through this election season without blogging about it. Nearly.
Six days short of my goal.
But why?
Is it because I just discovered that attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund want pastors to endorse a candidate from the pulpit so they can engage in a legal challenge against the IRS rules taking it all the way to the Supreme Court to win the right for pastors to speak freely from the pulpit?
Is it because everyone else is talking about it so why don’t I join in?
Is it because prophetic speech about political stuff is an essential part of the Christian identity?
Is it because I’d prefer one candidate to win over the other?
Is it because some Christian's contributions to the debates are just downright unchristian and I’d like to disassociate my name from that sort of junk?
Maybe. To all of them.
Maybe the whole show has just got too much for me. We’ve gone crazy. Beyond the money, the rallies, the reality TV, the books about each candidate, the pundit’s thoughts, and the yard signs, the late-night comedian’s lines, and the latest polls – it’s begun to feel like a giant American Idol contest…..but the danger is there’s no Simon to tell us the truth.
Or perhaps there’s something else.
Why Vote?
Imagine standing in the pulpit the Sunday before the elections and daring to ask that question?
Some will jump to their feet and declare – we fought hard to win that right ..taking it back to running out the English and declaring constitutional independence.
Some might rise to their feet and declare that the civil rights struggle was about obtaining for everyone the right to vote.
Other will declare that democracy is American and America is Christian therefore you need to vote to be a good American and you need to vote to be a good Christian.
But I’m not even coming from that angle.
Why vote?
Maybe alongside whatever other reason we have for voting, we vote as some form of social action. In this election our voting could save lives – soldiers and unborn; our voting could feed the hungry; our voting could protect the environment; our voting could provide health care for needy people etc, etc.
This is my issue.
For too many Christians voting is the only form of social action they carry out. But it’s the weakest form, if not the most ineffective form. Christian social action is never secret, is never private, is never individual. It is never the action of public opinion. Christian social action is always communal, it is always public, it is always unpopular. More than that, and this is the biggest issue – Christian social action is not through the benevolence of the State or through majority opinion – it is through the sacrifice of the church and its people.
So ….we expect record voter turnout in this 2008 election – millions of them will be Christians.
Somehow, some way, prophetic pastor-leaders need to make sure that these same millions know that voting is not their social action.
Somehow, some way pastors need to delineate between political action and Christian social action. And if the surest way to delineate is to appeal to people not to vote – maybe you’ve done a greater good.
Six days short of my goal.
But why?
Is it because I just discovered that attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund want pastors to endorse a candidate from the pulpit so they can engage in a legal challenge against the IRS rules taking it all the way to the Supreme Court to win the right for pastors to speak freely from the pulpit?
Is it because everyone else is talking about it so why don’t I join in?
Is it because prophetic speech about political stuff is an essential part of the Christian identity?
Is it because I’d prefer one candidate to win over the other?
Is it because some Christian's contributions to the debates are just downright unchristian and I’d like to disassociate my name from that sort of junk?
Maybe. To all of them.
Maybe the whole show has just got too much for me. We’ve gone crazy. Beyond the money, the rallies, the reality TV, the books about each candidate, the pundit’s thoughts, and the yard signs, the late-night comedian’s lines, and the latest polls – it’s begun to feel like a giant American Idol contest…..but the danger is there’s no Simon to tell us the truth.
Or perhaps there’s something else.
Why Vote?
Imagine standing in the pulpit the Sunday before the elections and daring to ask that question?
Some will jump to their feet and declare – we fought hard to win that right ..taking it back to running out the English and declaring constitutional independence.
Some might rise to their feet and declare that the civil rights struggle was about obtaining for everyone the right to vote.
Other will declare that democracy is American and America is Christian therefore you need to vote to be a good American and you need to vote to be a good Christian.
But I’m not even coming from that angle.
Why vote?
Maybe alongside whatever other reason we have for voting, we vote as some form of social action. In this election our voting could save lives – soldiers and unborn; our voting could feed the hungry; our voting could protect the environment; our voting could provide health care for needy people etc, etc.
This is my issue.
For too many Christians voting is the only form of social action they carry out. But it’s the weakest form, if not the most ineffective form. Christian social action is never secret, is never private, is never individual. It is never the action of public opinion. Christian social action is always communal, it is always public, it is always unpopular. More than that, and this is the biggest issue – Christian social action is not through the benevolence of the State or through majority opinion – it is through the sacrifice of the church and its people.
So ….we expect record voter turnout in this 2008 election – millions of them will be Christians.
Somehow, some way, prophetic pastor-leaders need to make sure that these same millions know that voting is not their social action.
Somehow, some way pastors need to delineate between political action and Christian social action. And if the surest way to delineate is to appeal to people not to vote – maybe you’ve done a greater good.
Monday, October 20, 2008
'Better Christians" go into Africa - that's just how it is.
Let’s stay away from guilt.
Let’s stay away from heart tugging photographs of starving AIDS ravaged children.
Let’s stay away from even Jesus’ teaching to go into all the world.
Let’s stay away from James’ exhortation to care for the orphans is pure religion.
Here’s something really interesting…….
As our church has begun to send dollars and people to Africa – our monthly giving has gone up!
As our church has taken big steps in being global and turning our focus to new continents and new countries – more and more people have begun to come to our church searching for faith!
As our church has devoted time and attention to people in need 10,000 miles away – our church has never been busier!
As our church has helped people connect with people beyond our borders – we’ve seen more doors open within our community to extend the Kingdom of God.
I love this about God.
You can’t out give Him; you can’t out work Him; you can’t out do Him.
The more you sow - it seems the more you reap.
The more you give – it seems the more you receive.
The more you go – the more He comes.
It changes how you lead a missional church.
Maybe becoming a missional church is not singularly focusing on reaching more lost people, but maybe it more about focusing on forming ‘better Christians’ than just ‘more Christian’.
If you’re only about making ‘more Christians’, you’ve shrunk the church down to a local organization concerned about the individual often for the sake of the church. But, if you aim to form ‘better Christians’, you’ve expanded the church to be a catalyst for the good of the world – concerned about both the individual and the world in which the individual exists.
‘Better Christians’ (to use a Brian McLaren phrase) are at the heart of church growth. Don’t take McLaren’s word for it; if you’re familiar at all with the Willowcreek REVEAL study – it says much the same thing. The heartbeat of a growing healthy church are not new converts or ‘more Christians’ – but ‘better Christians’. These are Christians that have a bigger view of the church, a bigger view of salvation, and a kingdom theology.
‘Better Christians’ take seriously the great commission.
‘Better Christians’ go beyond individualism to globalism.
So here’s a very practical invitation. Become a missional leader by becoming yourself a ‘better Christian’ – orphans, AIDS, poverty, Africa.
Some GHC churches are already involved in Nairobi, Kenya and can connect you and your church to incredible indigenous leaders doing incredible Kingdom work.
Join a GHC pastor next year in Africa to see the role you could lead your church to play in bringing the Kingdom of God to earth.
To explore this further email Pete Shaw at pete@CrossWalkNapa.org or myself at gilbert@reedleyfbc.com – both church web sites link you to videos and blogs about what’s happening. Worth checking out.
Grow a church through developing ‘better Christians.’
Let’s stay away from heart tugging photographs of starving AIDS ravaged children.
Let’s stay away from even Jesus’ teaching to go into all the world.
Let’s stay away from James’ exhortation to care for the orphans is pure religion.
Here’s something really interesting…….
As our church has begun to send dollars and people to Africa – our monthly giving has gone up!
As our church has taken big steps in being global and turning our focus to new continents and new countries – more and more people have begun to come to our church searching for faith!
As our church has devoted time and attention to people in need 10,000 miles away – our church has never been busier!
As our church has helped people connect with people beyond our borders – we’ve seen more doors open within our community to extend the Kingdom of God.
I love this about God.
You can’t out give Him; you can’t out work Him; you can’t out do Him.
The more you sow - it seems the more you reap.
The more you give – it seems the more you receive.
The more you go – the more He comes.
It changes how you lead a missional church.
Maybe becoming a missional church is not singularly focusing on reaching more lost people, but maybe it more about focusing on forming ‘better Christians’ than just ‘more Christian’.
If you’re only about making ‘more Christians’, you’ve shrunk the church down to a local organization concerned about the individual often for the sake of the church. But, if you aim to form ‘better Christians’, you’ve expanded the church to be a catalyst for the good of the world – concerned about both the individual and the world in which the individual exists.
‘Better Christians’ (to use a Brian McLaren phrase) are at the heart of church growth. Don’t take McLaren’s word for it; if you’re familiar at all with the Willowcreek REVEAL study – it says much the same thing. The heartbeat of a growing healthy church are not new converts or ‘more Christians’ – but ‘better Christians’. These are Christians that have a bigger view of the church, a bigger view of salvation, and a kingdom theology.
‘Better Christians’ take seriously the great commission.
‘Better Christians’ go beyond individualism to globalism.
So here’s a very practical invitation. Become a missional leader by becoming yourself a ‘better Christian’ – orphans, AIDS, poverty, Africa.
Some GHC churches are already involved in Nairobi, Kenya and can connect you and your church to incredible indigenous leaders doing incredible Kingdom work.
Join a GHC pastor next year in Africa to see the role you could lead your church to play in bringing the Kingdom of God to earth.
To explore this further email Pete Shaw at pete@CrossWalkNapa.org or myself at gilbert@reedleyfbc.com – both church web sites link you to videos and blogs about what’s happening. Worth checking out.
Grow a church through developing ‘better Christians.’
Sunday, September 28, 2008
What's most needed for leading in today's church - a brain ...but??
So we’ve moved into what some people call The Conceptual Age. For those who promote such a reality (i.e. Tom Peters and Thomas Friedman, to name two) this new era is pronounced with three simple yet profound questions:
1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Am I offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age?
These three questions, first posed by Daniel Pink, have been rattling around in my thinking for the past few months. What is the Conceptual Age saying to church and to church leaders?
But let’s not be too modern in our engagement with this question. Rather than straight line these questions, let’s take a curved approach. What are some of the animations of the new age? (Again Pink is helpful here.)
• Creation of artistic and emotional beauty.
• Crafting a satisfying narrative.
• Combining seemingly unrelated ideas into something new.
• Embracing high touch; empathize with others; understand subtleties of human interaction; to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.
This list could go on, but the amazing thing for every pastor or church leader in examining these animations is that the Church and the Gospel checks out high on each of them.
Everything the Conceptual Age calls out for – the Church and the Gospel can more than deliver on.
The Church and the Gospel should be fully impactful in the new age.
This is our time.
BUT ….for leaders to charge full speed into this new conceptual age leaders need to flick the switch from left brain to right brain. This is the challenge. Most of our churches and most of our denominations or organizations are led by left brainers. But, left brain will leave you short every drive.
This is the right brain time.
Strategic plan – out; holistic design in.
Church growth theory – out; journey in.
Goals - out; synthesis in.
Data and information – OK; but organizational and behavioral empathy better.
Size - says something; depth says something more.
So what could this look like in a local church setting?
While there will remain the need for making plans and having tactics, new aspects of church will emerge ….local church global involvement. Not the surrendering of this to a para-church missions organization, but the local church doing it. Community care – bigger than pastoral care, but community care that meets the needs of the community at large, not the community within. Planting churches, but churches that not only preach and teach but feed and care and heal and work for justice. Holistic design.
Theories, formulas, models of how it all works are out ….its the journey, the story, the narrative specific to your context, your thumbprint, your DNA. Each one will be distinct, each one will be compelling. But don’t try to replicate someone else’s story. Journey is in.
It’s about seeing, more than goals. It’s about art more than math’s. It’s about music more than science. The difference – art, music, seeing …are much more subjective, more relational. This pushes us away from the flat lines of goals, to the symphony of metaphor.
And …..it is done with feeling, with soul, more than with targets or data. This is synthesis, this is empathy.
Instead of seeking to grow a large church, the church will see the health of reproduction over production. This is the size of health. This is depth.
It’s a new day in church leadership. The shift is subtle.
It happens through fermentation.
But …it’s the way of the now.
It’s our day.
Make the shift.
Change your thinking.
Welcome to the labyrinth of effective church leadership.
1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Am I offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age?
These three questions, first posed by Daniel Pink, have been rattling around in my thinking for the past few months. What is the Conceptual Age saying to church and to church leaders?
But let’s not be too modern in our engagement with this question. Rather than straight line these questions, let’s take a curved approach. What are some of the animations of the new age? (Again Pink is helpful here.)
• Creation of artistic and emotional beauty.
• Crafting a satisfying narrative.
• Combining seemingly unrelated ideas into something new.
• Embracing high touch; empathize with others; understand subtleties of human interaction; to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.
This list could go on, but the amazing thing for every pastor or church leader in examining these animations is that the Church and the Gospel checks out high on each of them.
Everything the Conceptual Age calls out for – the Church and the Gospel can more than deliver on.
The Church and the Gospel should be fully impactful in the new age.
This is our time.
BUT ….for leaders to charge full speed into this new conceptual age leaders need to flick the switch from left brain to right brain. This is the challenge. Most of our churches and most of our denominations or organizations are led by left brainers. But, left brain will leave you short every drive.
This is the right brain time.
Strategic plan – out; holistic design in.
Church growth theory – out; journey in.
Goals - out; synthesis in.
Data and information – OK; but organizational and behavioral empathy better.
Size - says something; depth says something more.
So what could this look like in a local church setting?
While there will remain the need for making plans and having tactics, new aspects of church will emerge ….local church global involvement. Not the surrendering of this to a para-church missions organization, but the local church doing it. Community care – bigger than pastoral care, but community care that meets the needs of the community at large, not the community within. Planting churches, but churches that not only preach and teach but feed and care and heal and work for justice. Holistic design.
Theories, formulas, models of how it all works are out ….its the journey, the story, the narrative specific to your context, your thumbprint, your DNA. Each one will be distinct, each one will be compelling. But don’t try to replicate someone else’s story. Journey is in.
It’s about seeing, more than goals. It’s about art more than math’s. It’s about music more than science. The difference – art, music, seeing …are much more subjective, more relational. This pushes us away from the flat lines of goals, to the symphony of metaphor.
And …..it is done with feeling, with soul, more than with targets or data. This is synthesis, this is empathy.
Instead of seeking to grow a large church, the church will see the health of reproduction over production. This is the size of health. This is depth.
It’s a new day in church leadership. The shift is subtle.
It happens through fermentation.
But …it’s the way of the now.
It’s our day.
Make the shift.
Change your thinking.
Welcome to the labyrinth of effective church leadership.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Summer of '08 Leadership Learns
It’s been a few weeks now since I wrote this leadership blog. Traveled many thousand miles, been in several countries, and enjoyed family time making sure that my Scottish accent remains loud and clear!!!
From a beach in Majorca, to the glens of the homeland, to the post-segregated Northern Ireland ……this summer gave me new experiences, experiences that offered leadership insights and developments. Yea we read many books ..but some of our most vivid summer leadership learning’s came from our locations.
Think about this.
Scottish people can cope with the 260 days of rain they get – if for two weeks they can fly away and soak up some glorious sunshine on some Spanish island.
260 hard days made bearable with 14 days of sun!
Leadership Learn - Sounds sociologically a version of Kotter’s short term win leadership strategy. Celebrate a win to help people stick with the mountain climb of change.
When last did you give your people some sunshine amidst the wind and storms.
Think about this.
We visited Northern Ireland to preach in Belfast, but on the Saturday we took a taxi ride up the Falls Road …and the taxi driver was an ex-IRA guy!
You maybe don’t know all about the issues in northern Ireland. But you’ve heard of the IRA and know that they were responsible for the innocent killings of many over years of the bloody conflict. They were a paramilitary organization wanting Northern Ireland to cease being part of the Union and join with the South – they used weapons to advance their cause. Now there’s more to it that that – but that’s the gist of it.
So we ‘re being driven up the Falls Road – a staunch IRA street …covered with photo’s of IRA hunger strikers and other paramilitary heroes and we’re listening in to the story of the troubles and the present through the opinion of an ex-IRA guy. This was a city where if you worn blue in a green area, or green in a blue area you’d be shot at! WOW!!
Leadership Learn - peace and progress can look very different that you imagined! Have you caricatured what peace and progress looks like and in so doing you’ve closed your mind to how that actually might look in the present. Who do you now consult with, listen to, befriend that you never imagined you would …or perhaps you haven’t …..take the risk. We were being driven around the Falls Road area by a taxi driver wearing green and we didn’t have a stitch of green on!!!!
Secondly – the story is very different when you hear it from the other side. Truth might be stranger than you think. The story we heard was from his perspective was the real story. It was how he viewed reality. The job of effective leadership is to help people view reality differently.
Leadership is managing differing realities while moving everyone towards a new reality.
Think about this:
We complain about $5 price of gas …..but it cost me $14 a gallon in the UK!!! So everything there is about fuel efficiency. Weird seeing GM or Ford try to sell a car here promoting it as getting a good, ‘here’s why you should buy this car’ 32mpg ……..the equivalent car in the UK or Europe would get around 45/48mpg!! Some argue its because of our US emissions requirements; some argue its because of the weight we require our vehicles to have for safety ….but the bottom line …we could if we really wanted to manufacture cars that have exceedingly greater fuel efficiency.
The point, the Leadership Learn – what could we do if we really wanted to.
There’s an old African proverb “Want something long enough and you don’t want it.”What is it you are saying you want but you don’t yet have …and question if you truly want it!
As for more summer 08 leadership learning’s?
Two more short ones -
A quote from Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission – “Jesus did not ask the disciples for what was needed, he just asked for what they had!” very helpful - made me and our team quit complaining about what we didn't have!
Secondly , Ax-i-om @ Bill Hybels …read it.
Got the time? Hit the blog response and let us in on any leadership learning’s you had this summer.
From a beach in Majorca, to the glens of the homeland, to the post-segregated Northern Ireland ……this summer gave me new experiences, experiences that offered leadership insights and developments. Yea we read many books ..but some of our most vivid summer leadership learning’s came from our locations.
Think about this.
Scottish people can cope with the 260 days of rain they get – if for two weeks they can fly away and soak up some glorious sunshine on some Spanish island.
260 hard days made bearable with 14 days of sun!
Leadership Learn - Sounds sociologically a version of Kotter’s short term win leadership strategy. Celebrate a win to help people stick with the mountain climb of change.
When last did you give your people some sunshine amidst the wind and storms.
Think about this.
We visited Northern Ireland to preach in Belfast, but on the Saturday we took a taxi ride up the Falls Road …and the taxi driver was an ex-IRA guy!
You maybe don’t know all about the issues in northern Ireland. But you’ve heard of the IRA and know that they were responsible for the innocent killings of many over years of the bloody conflict. They were a paramilitary organization wanting Northern Ireland to cease being part of the Union and join with the South – they used weapons to advance their cause. Now there’s more to it that that – but that’s the gist of it.
So we ‘re being driven up the Falls Road – a staunch IRA street …covered with photo’s of IRA hunger strikers and other paramilitary heroes and we’re listening in to the story of the troubles and the present through the opinion of an ex-IRA guy. This was a city where if you worn blue in a green area, or green in a blue area you’d be shot at! WOW!!
Leadership Learn - peace and progress can look very different that you imagined! Have you caricatured what peace and progress looks like and in so doing you’ve closed your mind to how that actually might look in the present. Who do you now consult with, listen to, befriend that you never imagined you would …or perhaps you haven’t …..take the risk. We were being driven around the Falls Road area by a taxi driver wearing green and we didn’t have a stitch of green on!!!!
Secondly – the story is very different when you hear it from the other side. Truth might be stranger than you think. The story we heard was from his perspective was the real story. It was how he viewed reality. The job of effective leadership is to help people view reality differently.
Leadership is managing differing realities while moving everyone towards a new reality.
Think about this:
We complain about $5 price of gas …..but it cost me $14 a gallon in the UK!!! So everything there is about fuel efficiency. Weird seeing GM or Ford try to sell a car here promoting it as getting a good, ‘here’s why you should buy this car’ 32mpg ……..the equivalent car in the UK or Europe would get around 45/48mpg!! Some argue its because of our US emissions requirements; some argue its because of the weight we require our vehicles to have for safety ….but the bottom line …we could if we really wanted to manufacture cars that have exceedingly greater fuel efficiency.
The point, the Leadership Learn – what could we do if we really wanted to.
There’s an old African proverb “Want something long enough and you don’t want it.”What is it you are saying you want but you don’t yet have …and question if you truly want it!
As for more summer 08 leadership learning’s?
Two more short ones -
A quote from Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission – “Jesus did not ask the disciples for what was needed, he just asked for what they had!” very helpful - made me and our team quit complaining about what we didn't have!
Secondly , Ax-i-om @ Bill Hybels …read it.
Got the time? Hit the blog response and let us in on any leadership learning’s you had this summer.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
It has to always come back to the Kingdom of God - always.
It's not often I publish on this blog what is on http://www.scottishpastormusings.blogspot.com/ .....but today I do. Keep thinking and keep reading below..........
So it’s a balmy early summer evening and we’re sitting around the barbeque enjoying a Saturday evening when one of the group pop the question ‘Gilbert, what do you think of California’s recent law allowing gay marrage?’
For those who read this blog across the pond and have no idea what this is all about let me explain. In May California Supreme Court past a ruling giving the right to marry to same-sex couples, making CA the second state, after Massachusetts to legalize marriage for same-sex couple.
In light of the Supreme Courts action some Christians have started talk of a renewed drive for a U./S. constitutional amendment. Other Christians have spoken of how ‘this decision puts marriage at risk all across the nation”, others suggest churches should ‘work to overturn it.’
The question hung over our barbeque waiting a response.
Now the front door of that question requires me to talk about homosexuality and marriage. Basic issue - definition of marriage and who defines it – the state or the church?
Or – both.
Is it wrong for the state to define marriage one way and the church define it another way?
Can marriage only be a religious institution or can it be a secular institution.
Who are the guardians of marriage – and what marriage?
Are we always talking about the same thing.
The single issue driven political culture of the US is a difficult place to engage in a balanced debate. Single issues tend to lead to singular answers …and singular answers though maybe right are not always the only answers.
So take the common response of Christians – gay marriage is wrong. Of course it is in the eyes of God and the eyes of His followers. God’s sacrament of marriage is between one man and a one woman. As a Christian that’s how the Bible says it and that’s how the Christian should see it.
But what about marriage as seen through the eyes of humanists or secularists or even plain deists – what definition of marriage do they need to hold – the Christian definition or the state definition. Or to ask this another way – what definition of marriage does the state need to hold – only the Christian definition, or could it hold multiple definitions due to the pluralistic and multiplicity of our culture.
Should the church, should Christians, expect their view to be the only view.
So the front door question maybe isn’t the front door question. Maybe the real front door question is – what is the relationship of Christians in America to America?
Enter the theology of the Kingdom of God.
You do not define Christianity through American history or American policy – you define Christianity through the scripture and scripture majors on a ‘kingdom theology’.
Is this not all about why Jesus came …. “Repent for the Kingdom of God has come.”
It’s the template theology of Christianity.
The Christian prayer is a demand prayer “your Kingdom Come!”
The Kingdom of God defines how Christians living in America relate to America.
The Bottom line …….the Kingdom of God is an alternative kingdom and Christians leave one kingdom (the Kingdom of this World – America) to enter the Kingdom of God – on earth but marching to the beat of another drummer. Jesus himself told Pilate (the representative of the Empire), “My Kingdom is not of this world”
Early Christians never tried to overthrow or even reform the empire, but they also weren’t going along with it. Never were the early Christians reformists offering the world a better Rome. They offered people another world altogether.
So ….bring this back to our gay marriage issue …….yes, the Christian holds to the biblical teaching on marriage –between one man and one woman - but, the Christian does not expect America to be Christian. Christians expect America to live out its own values and its own believes. And they are not Christian because America, or Britain, or anywhere is not the Kingdom of God …the Kingdom of God is always subversive, always counter cultural, always working within and away from the kingdom of the world……..the Christian holds to what the Bible says – but in holding to the same Bible the Christian does not expect the kingdom of this world to hold to such. The Christian is not trying to reform America to offer a better America – the Christian is offering something completely different, revolutionary, another kingdom – God’s.
Tony Campolo once wrote “we may live in the best Babylon in the world …but it is still Babylon, and we are called to come out of her.” This is the right outworking of a true Kingdom of God theology. This is John’s revelation being practiced, this is the Book of Revelation done today not waited for some future dispensation.
This guides how I handle the gay marriage debate.
Of course you might recognize this is another form, a cousin of this position – the separation of church of state.
Its funny how many church people strongly endorse this philosophy but on something like gay marriage that philosophy is thrown out! Wise Christians support separation of church and state for the church’s sake – not the country’s. Remember Constantine …the disaster that befell the church when it gained power in the State …never again – God forbid.
A strong kingdom theology upholds this essential separation.
But of course our barbeque engagement with this question didn’t stay at a kingdom theology level. It is my strongest argument to let the state be the State and the Church even stronger be the Church – the primary agent of the Kingdom of God.
But there are other paths to explore.
The cry of a moral argument is often used. Maybe rightly so. But watch how you outwork that cry.
Sometimes the loudest voices condemning gay marriage are Christian voices driven by a Christian morality. But where are those voices condemning the bombing of innocent lives in the multiple wars we are engaged in. Where are those voices condemning the inequality in our own nation’s health care provisions – the rich enjoy it the poor can’t get it, or our own nations education divisions. Where are those moral voices engaging with the our immigration crisis …the moral voices that see all men as created equal and equally valued. So the list could go on.
If people, Christian people want to engage with the gay marriage debate from a Christian moral position at least make sure that your moral position is not one-sided based upon some condemnatory preaching you’ve sat under. Make sure the morality is a godly morality …..a godly morality that is enraged with the injustice, the inequality, the oppression of innocents, the rejection of basic human dignity and value on the poorest, the innocents, the most vulnerable.
We could take this one a lot further – but I’m guessing you’re catching my drift.
It appears that too often our view of truth is biased.
Biased to our subjective experiences and conditioning.
That’s our reality.
Not wrong, but not always good.
We are subjective people.
We read and view life through the lens of our lives conditioning.
Today, as at all times in the advancement of the church and the Kingdom of God, Christians need to strive to surrender their conditioning to the text rather then submit the text to their conditioning. That surrendering will see Christians move from a moralist stance to a revolutionarist stance. It’s not that our morals are wrong – far from it - but it does mean our morals are not the whole story. There is something bigger.
So the barbeque evening rolled on, the kids got restless, all the food was gone and the cool breeze guided us towards home and rest.
As for the question ……you can tell it moved. It moved from being a question on “gay marriage”, to a question on truth…and how Christians live it, preach it, share it.
One word from the early church begins to surface – μαρτυρε – martyr. It means witness. Literally, ‘one who bears witness by their death’. In the early church Christians didn’t only want to live like Christ, they wanted to die like Christ. That living and that dying didn’t revolve around reforming Rome or defending morality – it revolved around the bigger thing ….the witnessing and confessing of allegiance to a new kingdom – God’s Kingdom.
For that they didn’t gain political office nor seek to get their issues on the ballot – for that they got burned alive, eaten by the beasts, crucified upside down ….martyred.
So let’s return to the question ……….. are you martyring or willing to be a martyr?
Monday, May 26, 2008
The Church is both one and more than that.
The other day after preaching a guy from out of town came up to me and after thanking me for the service told me that ‘the church needs to go back to what it was in the New Testament.’
Now this isn’t a new idea to me. I grew up in a tradition that would have you convinced that they were the closest thing to the early New Testament church.
Of course my response to the guy who said it to me …was the classic reply. "Hey man, I’ve just finished an eleven week series on 1st Corinthians – do you really think we should try to get back to that!"
It was the classic reply. Still perhaps the best reply.
[For an interesting, though slightly naive modern look at the question of getting back to the New Testament kind of church read Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna. I say slightly naive because I don't think the book resolves anything, nor does it present a good hermeneutic of history - but, it is certainly interesting.]
But ever since that conversation – questions are rattling around in my head. Leadership questions. Maybe even primal pastor leadership questions.
What is it we are leading …and how do we know we are leading it to the right thing.
Two years ago our church leadership took an adventurous strategic step and we completely redesigned our Sunday services. This was the highly visible catalyst of an even bolder plan to see our church become what we feel it should become in the future years. Wise leadership knew we would end up somewhere so it’s probably best to think through where we would prefer to end up.
But, and this was an essential but …..before we pulled the trigger we spend time, dialogue and study on what theologically is a local church. Beyond our strategic plans, beyond our new design and direction ….peel it all back, strip it down to its birthday suit – what is a local church??
Now this is when this blog begins to get interesting. Stick with me.
Pastors have to first and foremost be theologians. Too many churches set sail on tides of culture, popularity, or reducing church down to the capitalistic mindset of ‘if it produces more people it must be right.’ Yet, it must be theology that guides our leadership.
Calvin rightly taught we are theologian’s first, preachers second.
[The sad thing about most US seminaries or at least their students – they major on subjects that are ‘easier’ than the core biblical theology classes. I remember a fellow student plotting their way through seminary to avoid all the ‘hard courses’ which seemed to always be the theology – either pure or biblical theology courses.]
So as theologian’s pastors have to lead church leaders to examine what it is we are leading.
Simple.
Not.
Pastor-Theologians or Theologian-Pastors offer differing models of church governance – Episcopalian; Presbyterian, Congregationalism, etc - from the one Bible.
Pastor-Theologian or Theologian-Pastors offer differing models of church functioning – Alexandrian model, Antichan model, Jerusalem model – from the one Bible.
Pastor-Theologians or Theologian-Pastors offer differing models of church mission – attractional, engagement, seeker, emerging, incarnational, house church etc, etc – from the one Bible.
Pastor-Theologians or Theologian-Pastors offer differing models of church community - ecumenical model, confessional model or missional model - from the one Bible.
Even the newest emerging church Pastor-Theologians or Theologian-Pastors on the block offer differing models of the new way of churches – Deconstruction model, Pre-Modern model, open Anabaptism model or Foundationalist model. [See interesting blog http://gatheringinlight.com/2008/01/13/the-four-models-of-emerging-churches.]
Every differing model under gird by theology and outworked by pastors birthing churches that look theologically and ecclesiologically distinctively different
So how does a pastor lead effectively when theologians speak differently?
How does theology shape our leadership if theology offers multiple outcomes?
Some might suggest that we go the route of applied theology – that trumps pure theology.
Others suggest we should place a socio-historical or a social-cultural template over our pure theology to explore our right model.
Or ….maybe there’s another angle.
The acceptance of one gospel, many forms – one church, many forms.
Maybe all those models are there, will always be there. Maybe it’s not so much about applied theology, socio or historio interpretation. Maybe there is only one church – but there are clearly different forms in which that one church can be expressed.
Take our cue from the gospel.
Tim Keller writes an intriguing article in Leadership Journal Spring 2008 entitled “The Gospel In All Its Forms.” His premise – like God, the Gospel is both one and more than that.
Take that cue and turn it earth-wards – like God, like the Gospel – the church is both one and more than that.
The job of the Theologian-Pastor is to ensure that the ‘more than that’ is still solidly encased within the ‘one’. The one is not dependent upon applied theology, socio nor historio interpretations – the pastors job is to ensure the one is pure…and then with the one pure – design and interpret in any way that makes the
The church is both a simple formulation and yet multiple contextual presentations. The latter is the linguistic applied theology of the former pure theology.
The pastor leads by outworking both. This means he knows Corinthians, but he doesn’t stay in Corinth. He takes the one he learns in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus…all over Asia Minor and then knowing the one he outworks the multiple that relates most to his or hers socio, historio and cultural context.
The danger – no theology, only pure theology, only applied theology.
Now this isn’t a new idea to me. I grew up in a tradition that would have you convinced that they were the closest thing to the early New Testament church.
Of course my response to the guy who said it to me …was the classic reply. "Hey man, I’ve just finished an eleven week series on 1st Corinthians – do you really think we should try to get back to that!"
It was the classic reply. Still perhaps the best reply.
[For an interesting, though slightly naive modern look at the question of getting back to the New Testament kind of church read Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna. I say slightly naive because I don't think the book resolves anything, nor does it present a good hermeneutic of history - but, it is certainly interesting.]
But ever since that conversation – questions are rattling around in my head. Leadership questions. Maybe even primal pastor leadership questions.
What is it we are leading …and how do we know we are leading it to the right thing.
Two years ago our church leadership took an adventurous strategic step and we completely redesigned our Sunday services. This was the highly visible catalyst of an even bolder plan to see our church become what we feel it should become in the future years. Wise leadership knew we would end up somewhere so it’s probably best to think through where we would prefer to end up.
But, and this was an essential but …..before we pulled the trigger we spend time, dialogue and study on what theologically is a local church. Beyond our strategic plans, beyond our new design and direction ….peel it all back, strip it down to its birthday suit – what is a local church??
Now this is when this blog begins to get interesting. Stick with me.
Pastors have to first and foremost be theologians. Too many churches set sail on tides of culture, popularity, or reducing church down to the capitalistic mindset of ‘if it produces more people it must be right.’ Yet, it must be theology that guides our leadership.
Calvin rightly taught we are theologian’s first, preachers second.
[The sad thing about most US seminaries or at least their students – they major on subjects that are ‘easier’ than the core biblical theology classes. I remember a fellow student plotting their way through seminary to avoid all the ‘hard courses’ which seemed to always be the theology – either pure or biblical theology courses.]
So as theologian’s pastors have to lead church leaders to examine what it is we are leading.
Simple.
Not.
Pastor-Theologians or Theologian-Pastors offer differing models of church governance – Episcopalian; Presbyterian, Congregationalism, etc - from the one Bible.
Pastor-Theologian or Theologian-Pastors offer differing models of church functioning – Alexandrian model, Antichan model, Jerusalem model – from the one Bible.
Pastor-Theologians or Theologian-Pastors offer differing models of church mission – attractional, engagement, seeker, emerging, incarnational, house church etc, etc – from the one Bible.
Pastor-Theologians or Theologian-Pastors offer differing models of church community - ecumenical model, confessional model or missional model - from the one Bible.
Even the newest emerging church Pastor-Theologians or Theologian-Pastors on the block offer differing models of the new way of churches – Deconstruction model, Pre-Modern model, open Anabaptism model or Foundationalist model. [See interesting blog http://gatheringinlight.com/2008/01/13/the-four-models-of-emerging-churches.]
Every differing model under gird by theology and outworked by pastors birthing churches that look theologically and ecclesiologically distinctively different
So how does a pastor lead effectively when theologians speak differently?
How does theology shape our leadership if theology offers multiple outcomes?
Some might suggest that we go the route of applied theology – that trumps pure theology.
Others suggest we should place a socio-historical or a social-cultural template over our pure theology to explore our right model.
Or ….maybe there’s another angle.
The acceptance of one gospel, many forms – one church, many forms.
Maybe all those models are there, will always be there. Maybe it’s not so much about applied theology, socio or historio interpretation. Maybe there is only one church – but there are clearly different forms in which that one church can be expressed.
Take our cue from the gospel.
Tim Keller writes an intriguing article in Leadership Journal Spring 2008 entitled “The Gospel In All Its Forms.” His premise – like God, the Gospel is both one and more than that.
Take that cue and turn it earth-wards – like God, like the Gospel – the church is both one and more than that.
The job of the Theologian-Pastor is to ensure that the ‘more than that’ is still solidly encased within the ‘one’. The one is not dependent upon applied theology, socio nor historio interpretations – the pastors job is to ensure the one is pure…and then with the one pure – design and interpret in any way that makes the
The church is both a simple formulation and yet multiple contextual presentations. The latter is the linguistic applied theology of the former pure theology.
The pastor leads by outworking both. This means he knows Corinthians, but he doesn’t stay in Corinth. He takes the one he learns in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus…all over Asia Minor and then knowing the one he outworks the multiple that relates most to his or hers socio, historio and cultural context.
The danger – no theology, only pure theology, only applied theology.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Three hours later, one Thursday morning.
For 3 hours one day recently I sat with several other pastors and we debated and discussed the Emerging Church movement and the rise or not of postmodernity within our day and generation.
I enjoyed it very much.
I had the privilege to lead the discussion and on a topic that intrigues me I had the chance to dig deeper into to try and lay out a balanced and fair critique.
I then returned to my office to write and email to a dear friend in Kenya who lead the Kenyan church in a countrywide tour of reconciliation (check out his blog of some incredible events - http://msafara.wordpress.com ), and I read again the struggles of displaced peoples, injustice, families left with nothing and the key role of my friend in brining hands on, real help to real people.
…..and I couldn’t help but wonder ….did our emerging church discussion add any value to the Kingdom of God. It seemed removed from the real world – cerebral, academic, and too removed.
This wasn't helped by one of the pastor friends as he left saying "I didn’t understand a word you said!”
So how do we ensure that our days are spend in true kingdom extending, valuable ministry and not deflected to mere genealogies or boring administration etc, etc?
How many times that does happen in ministry? We write reports, we attend committee meetings, we do constant emails, we meet Board deadlines, we write more reports, we answer more emails, and we attend more committee meetings.
Give us the real stuff of kingdom leading!!
But then we have to ask further, maybe more analytical questions.
Is administration stuff not kingdom stuff also?
Could a 3-hour discussion on emergent theology not be critical to forming a strong ecclesiology without which we could be floating around in naivety let alone ineffectiveness?
[Maybe here I’m leaning again back to my last blog. Is most effective ministry not ministry that is placed within a broader, bigger, comprehensive ministry?]
So let’s return to my Kenyan friend.
He’s helping displaced Kenyans, he’s mobilizing the Kenyan church to model reconciliation, he’s working constant on the front line of a national crisis with the truth of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. BUT ……..he’s not doing that in isolation for the sort of things sometimes we see as getting in the way of ministry – long dialogical meetings, deep theological reflection, major administration and management support, clear systems and processes in place.
Rather than see them as hindrances to ‘real ministry’ we have to see them as crucial catalysts to effective ministry.
As practitioners we live in this tension.
Even as long ago as my first time through seminary …I went into seminary seeing it as a nuisance – “Why can’t I just begin preaching”.
But wisdom prevailed (if you give it a chance it always will) and seminary became a learning zone important to effective future ministry.
So in daily, weekly church life. The countless emails, the staff reports, the diligence to systems and management – they all deepen the impact of your ministry.
Let’s take our church’s glocal initiatives – When I Grow Up. Three initiatives in three countries all helping children. This idea could not fly without a strong theology undergirding it, countless hours of planning, strategizing; and it will not remain impactful without strong systems and management processes.
The rub however, or the contest …is to make sure you hit the right balance.
Larry Bossidy & Ram Charam wrote a book back in 2002 called “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done". On first read you might think their philosophy is quit all the strategy, all the planning, all the techniques and just do it, but this would be to misread their philosophy. Their leadership philosophy is that execution must be built into the company’s strategy, its goals and its culture. Execution flows out of good management and developed systems. It is the result of all the stuff we see as a nuisance.
We are aware that we can hold out too long for execution. We are holding out for the 4-star, bells and whistle plan. This can swing the pendulum too much towards management and systems. Rather we often now go with a 2-star plan that we can execute in the near future but still the out working of satisfactory systems and management in place.
It’s learning to live in the tension zone.
We need execution, but execution not adrift from effective systems and comprehensive thinking. It is the latter that enables the former to produce.
I used to be a banker. I saw so many small businesses go south – not because they weren’t great at their craft or their skill …but because they had lousy systems in place. You need both to move from good to great.
So let’s return to our 3-hour dialogical discussion of the Emergent Church.
Better things to do? Things that would add more kingdom value to our Thursday morning? OR ……gaining insight and knowledge about culture and the emerging of a new ecclesiology to meet this new culture (depending on which side of the EC debate you sit on), could be crucial to enable any execution of any front line ministry in the coming years ahead.
By itself ….it is meaningless, but attached to thinking, implementing leaders it could be transformational.
One Thursday morning could see years of impact and expansion. Effective missiology, flows out of developed ecclesiology built upon a true and discerning theology.
Maybe not next Thursday …..but I’m happy for another 3 hour discussion soon to help me better be a front line kingdom builder.
I enjoyed it very much.
I had the privilege to lead the discussion and on a topic that intrigues me I had the chance to dig deeper into to try and lay out a balanced and fair critique.
I then returned to my office to write and email to a dear friend in Kenya who lead the Kenyan church in a countrywide tour of reconciliation (check out his blog of some incredible events - http://msafara.wordpress.com ), and I read again the struggles of displaced peoples, injustice, families left with nothing and the key role of my friend in brining hands on, real help to real people.
…..and I couldn’t help but wonder ….did our emerging church discussion add any value to the Kingdom of God. It seemed removed from the real world – cerebral, academic, and too removed.
This wasn't helped by one of the pastor friends as he left saying "I didn’t understand a word you said!”
So how do we ensure that our days are spend in true kingdom extending, valuable ministry and not deflected to mere genealogies or boring administration etc, etc?
How many times that does happen in ministry? We write reports, we attend committee meetings, we do constant emails, we meet Board deadlines, we write more reports, we answer more emails, and we attend more committee meetings.
Give us the real stuff of kingdom leading!!
But then we have to ask further, maybe more analytical questions.
Is administration stuff not kingdom stuff also?
Could a 3-hour discussion on emergent theology not be critical to forming a strong ecclesiology without which we could be floating around in naivety let alone ineffectiveness?
[Maybe here I’m leaning again back to my last blog. Is most effective ministry not ministry that is placed within a broader, bigger, comprehensive ministry?]
So let’s return to my Kenyan friend.
He’s helping displaced Kenyans, he’s mobilizing the Kenyan church to model reconciliation, he’s working constant on the front line of a national crisis with the truth of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. BUT ……..he’s not doing that in isolation for the sort of things sometimes we see as getting in the way of ministry – long dialogical meetings, deep theological reflection, major administration and management support, clear systems and processes in place.
Rather than see them as hindrances to ‘real ministry’ we have to see them as crucial catalysts to effective ministry.
As practitioners we live in this tension.
Even as long ago as my first time through seminary …I went into seminary seeing it as a nuisance – “Why can’t I just begin preaching”.
But wisdom prevailed (if you give it a chance it always will) and seminary became a learning zone important to effective future ministry.
So in daily, weekly church life. The countless emails, the staff reports, the diligence to systems and management – they all deepen the impact of your ministry.
Let’s take our church’s glocal initiatives – When I Grow Up. Three initiatives in three countries all helping children. This idea could not fly without a strong theology undergirding it, countless hours of planning, strategizing; and it will not remain impactful without strong systems and management processes.
The rub however, or the contest …is to make sure you hit the right balance.
Larry Bossidy & Ram Charam wrote a book back in 2002 called “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done". On first read you might think their philosophy is quit all the strategy, all the planning, all the techniques and just do it, but this would be to misread their philosophy. Their leadership philosophy is that execution must be built into the company’s strategy, its goals and its culture. Execution flows out of good management and developed systems. It is the result of all the stuff we see as a nuisance.
We are aware that we can hold out too long for execution. We are holding out for the 4-star, bells and whistle plan. This can swing the pendulum too much towards management and systems. Rather we often now go with a 2-star plan that we can execute in the near future but still the out working of satisfactory systems and management in place.
It’s learning to live in the tension zone.
We need execution, but execution not adrift from effective systems and comprehensive thinking. It is the latter that enables the former to produce.
I used to be a banker. I saw so many small businesses go south – not because they weren’t great at their craft or their skill …but because they had lousy systems in place. You need both to move from good to great.
So let’s return to our 3-hour dialogical discussion of the Emergent Church.
Better things to do? Things that would add more kingdom value to our Thursday morning? OR ……gaining insight and knowledge about culture and the emerging of a new ecclesiology to meet this new culture (depending on which side of the EC debate you sit on), could be crucial to enable any execution of any front line ministry in the coming years ahead.
By itself ….it is meaningless, but attached to thinking, implementing leaders it could be transformational.
One Thursday morning could see years of impact and expansion. Effective missiology, flows out of developed ecclesiology built upon a true and discerning theology.
Maybe not next Thursday …..but I’m happy for another 3 hour discussion soon to help me better be a front line kingdom builder.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
How many days stock of grain does the world have left?
Political leaders follow – they don’t in fact lead.
They follow popular culture.
The question that pastors and church leaders have to ask is – who then is calling the shots; who is determining the prevailing values?
I’m finishing off a rather unusual read for me - A New Kind of Conservative by Joel C. Hunter -and Hunter speaks a little into this very issue.
(These days I’m reading more political books in my attempt to pull together reading material that we will suggest to people as the heat builds up in the US’s quest for its next President - books to help people think about politics with the mind, love and concerns of Christ.)
Hunter suggests that “whoever is putting forth the ‘big ideals,’ which come from the big ideas, are the thought leaders of the culture.”
This makes me rather anxious. I don’t know of too many pastors who live with the big ideas.
I don’t know many pastors who live in the realm of the big.
Most pastors I meet live in the realm of the local.
They are experts on all things local.
Every day they engage with myriads of stuff all relating to their staff, their congregations, their church, their community – but few live in the local with a good grasp of the big.
Yet, effective Kingdom leaders will live closely with the big.
Here’s a few of the big that I think pastors have to better live with:
Will Islam modernize?
Will China continue to expand?
Will geographic tribalism redraw the world map?
Will environmentalism and the changing climate determine most other issues?
Will gas or water be the most influential commodity?
Will the predicted population explosion to 9 billion by 2050 cause the food and energy crisis also predicted?
Will the church embrace the conceptual age?
Will AIDS ravage Asia the way it has Africa?
The questions could go on………
These are some of the dominant questions.
In coming months and years these big issues will become the currency of political discussion, debate and policy. But, church leaders need to engage with them before politicians get to them. Church leaders cannot be followers, we must be leaders.
Imagine if every church leader in the over 300,000 US churches spoke into the big questions – how much could we influence prevailing values which politicians follow after.
The church needs to begin to speak the language of the big not just the local.
But we speak the language of the big in the context of the local.
We redefine reality for people. We lift people out of their local world and help them see a bigger reality, a bigger world.
This is core to the Gospel. The Gospel is about the world.
The most memorized bible verse – 3:16 …..places the Gospel within the cosmos not simply the local or the individual.
Church leaders have shrunk not only the world, but the Gospel.
Too small a world – too small a Gospel.
May pastors become learners of the world.
May pastors be leaders who know the big questions.
May pastors be leaders who lead well in the local by helping people see the big.
May pastor influence the big by leading the big in the local.
Do you know that we only have 40 days of grain to feed the world left in stock!
Do you care?
Does it speak into how you lead?
They follow popular culture.
The question that pastors and church leaders have to ask is – who then is calling the shots; who is determining the prevailing values?
I’m finishing off a rather unusual read for me - A New Kind of Conservative by Joel C. Hunter -and Hunter speaks a little into this very issue.
(These days I’m reading more political books in my attempt to pull together reading material that we will suggest to people as the heat builds up in the US’s quest for its next President - books to help people think about politics with the mind, love and concerns of Christ.)
Hunter suggests that “whoever is putting forth the ‘big ideals,’ which come from the big ideas, are the thought leaders of the culture.”
This makes me rather anxious. I don’t know of too many pastors who live with the big ideas.
I don’t know many pastors who live in the realm of the big.
Most pastors I meet live in the realm of the local.
They are experts on all things local.
Every day they engage with myriads of stuff all relating to their staff, their congregations, their church, their community – but few live in the local with a good grasp of the big.
Yet, effective Kingdom leaders will live closely with the big.
Here’s a few of the big that I think pastors have to better live with:
Will Islam modernize?
Will China continue to expand?
Will geographic tribalism redraw the world map?
Will environmentalism and the changing climate determine most other issues?
Will gas or water be the most influential commodity?
Will the predicted population explosion to 9 billion by 2050 cause the food and energy crisis also predicted?
Will the church embrace the conceptual age?
Will AIDS ravage Asia the way it has Africa?
The questions could go on………
These are some of the dominant questions.
In coming months and years these big issues will become the currency of political discussion, debate and policy. But, church leaders need to engage with them before politicians get to them. Church leaders cannot be followers, we must be leaders.
Imagine if every church leader in the over 300,000 US churches spoke into the big questions – how much could we influence prevailing values which politicians follow after.
The church needs to begin to speak the language of the big not just the local.
But we speak the language of the big in the context of the local.
We redefine reality for people. We lift people out of their local world and help them see a bigger reality, a bigger world.
This is core to the Gospel. The Gospel is about the world.
The most memorized bible verse – 3:16 …..places the Gospel within the cosmos not simply the local or the individual.
Church leaders have shrunk not only the world, but the Gospel.
Too small a world – too small a Gospel.
May pastors become learners of the world.
May pastors be leaders who know the big questions.
May pastors be leaders who lead well in the local by helping people see the big.
May pastor influence the big by leading the big in the local.
Do you know that we only have 40 days of grain to feed the world left in stock!
Do you care?
Does it speak into how you lead?
Friday, February 29, 2008
Spiritual Formation and a Diet Pepsi
This year for Lent I decided to give up soda. The spiritual activity that prepares us to truly celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the excruciating sacrificial death of being crucified ….and I am giving up soda! WOW!
You don’t need to tell me, I myself, feel such a wimp!
Even worse, I’m really struggling. I’ve lost count of how many lunch times I’ve craved a cold Diet Pepsi. We’re only just past half way and if I didn’t think God could see me – I’d quit.
Today I was reading of an older Christian guy from the US who moved to Kenya. He went there not as a pastor or as a church leader but simply as a helper. He and his wife gave up everything they had here and moved to Kenya just to help, to do whatever is needed. Due to what’s happened in Kenya over the past few weeks they are living as displaced persons in a foreign country with nothing. Although they could have come back to the US they have chosen to stay and stay because of Jesus. And I’m struggling to not have a Diet Pepsi!
[Check out this blog-site to keep you involved with an amazing Msafara by Kenyan pastors http://msafara.wordpress.com/ as they lead the healing and reconciliation in Kenya.]
This kind of story to highlight my wimpiness could be retold a thousand times and more by huge heroes of the faith.
So here’s the odd thing. I feel a wimp for just giving up soda. I feel a total wimp for struggling to give it up. Yet, every lunch time when I deny the urge and drink water with my Subway I receive this incredible spiritual high! (I hope it’s not because at my core I’m Scottish, and an ex-Scottish banker and the buck I’ve saved at lunch time is really my reason for this spiritual high.)
How strange is spiritual formation?!
How strange is the discipline of denial? It seems too relative!
Compared to what my friends displaced in Kenya are doing and giving, my wimpish Lent denial seems utterly nothing.
Yet, for us both at nearly the opposite ends of the denial spectrum …we meet the same God, we receive the same spiritual strengthening.
I know this to be true because I know of extreme times in our lives when Carolyn and I have given up huge things – family, country, and career. And the amazing thing – in giving up my Diet Pepsi the victory I sense from that gives me a similar spiritual experience as when we gave up our jobs to follow Christ.
Weird!
Or is it more - wonderful!!!
How neat is our God?
He views the ordinary and the extraordinary as both means of grace to reveal himself to us.
God meets us equally in the small as well as the big!
This is the theology of grace.
Jesus once told a parable that astounds everybody. Some guys are hanging out waiting for work and early in the morning they’re hired. Later in the day some other guys get hired – like the middle of the afternoon. At the end of the day – those who worked from early morning to sundown and the guys who work only a few hours – all get the same pay!
[Check out Matthew 20]
Grace is not only how we receive God’s salvation, it’s also how we live in His salvation.
It’s the theology of the body …..the hidden or small parts are of equal value to the prominent big parts!
This is God.
I love this about God.
You can experience God washing your pots and pans …as much as having done a 40 day prayer and fasting exercise.
You can experience God in the high of an intense worship service …but also singing in the shower.
You can experience God in giving up everything to go and serve him in some foreign country …..and also by struggling to give up soda for Lent.
It’s as if God is inviting all to experience him – at all times, everywhere, in everyway!
You don’t need to tell me, I myself, feel such a wimp!
Even worse, I’m really struggling. I’ve lost count of how many lunch times I’ve craved a cold Diet Pepsi. We’re only just past half way and if I didn’t think God could see me – I’d quit.
Today I was reading of an older Christian guy from the US who moved to Kenya. He went there not as a pastor or as a church leader but simply as a helper. He and his wife gave up everything they had here and moved to Kenya just to help, to do whatever is needed. Due to what’s happened in Kenya over the past few weeks they are living as displaced persons in a foreign country with nothing. Although they could have come back to the US they have chosen to stay and stay because of Jesus. And I’m struggling to not have a Diet Pepsi!
[Check out this blog-site to keep you involved with an amazing Msafara by Kenyan pastors http://msafara.wordpress.com/ as they lead the healing and reconciliation in Kenya.]
This kind of story to highlight my wimpiness could be retold a thousand times and more by huge heroes of the faith.
So here’s the odd thing. I feel a wimp for just giving up soda. I feel a total wimp for struggling to give it up. Yet, every lunch time when I deny the urge and drink water with my Subway I receive this incredible spiritual high! (I hope it’s not because at my core I’m Scottish, and an ex-Scottish banker and the buck I’ve saved at lunch time is really my reason for this spiritual high.)
How strange is spiritual formation?!
How strange is the discipline of denial? It seems too relative!
Compared to what my friends displaced in Kenya are doing and giving, my wimpish Lent denial seems utterly nothing.
Yet, for us both at nearly the opposite ends of the denial spectrum …we meet the same God, we receive the same spiritual strengthening.
I know this to be true because I know of extreme times in our lives when Carolyn and I have given up huge things – family, country, and career. And the amazing thing – in giving up my Diet Pepsi the victory I sense from that gives me a similar spiritual experience as when we gave up our jobs to follow Christ.
Weird!
Or is it more - wonderful!!!
How neat is our God?
He views the ordinary and the extraordinary as both means of grace to reveal himself to us.
God meets us equally in the small as well as the big!
This is the theology of grace.
Jesus once told a parable that astounds everybody. Some guys are hanging out waiting for work and early in the morning they’re hired. Later in the day some other guys get hired – like the middle of the afternoon. At the end of the day – those who worked from early morning to sundown and the guys who work only a few hours – all get the same pay!
[Check out Matthew 20]
Grace is not only how we receive God’s salvation, it’s also how we live in His salvation.
It’s the theology of the body …..the hidden or small parts are of equal value to the prominent big parts!
This is God.
I love this about God.
You can experience God washing your pots and pans …as much as having done a 40 day prayer and fasting exercise.
You can experience God in the high of an intense worship service …but also singing in the shower.
You can experience God in giving up everything to go and serve him in some foreign country …..and also by struggling to give up soda for Lent.
It’s as if God is inviting all to experience him – at all times, everywhere, in everyway!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Turns out that thorn in the flesh might be a good thing after all!
So I used to always think that when St Paul spoke of his “thorn in the flesh” that he was referring to something physical. Some illness he had, some problem he had that restricted him.
Of course commentators have had a field day trying to figure this one out – was it Paul’s way of speaking about his wife, or was it a sin he had that he couldn’t quit from – perhaps lust?
But as I sat and thought about this “thorn in the flesh” I was always coming up with something either tangible or something I could define. I was always analyzing this (and much of my theology) from the earth up.
But maybe Paul was thinking in the other direction.
Maybe this thorn in the flesh was not something of him – some sin, or weakness or even illness. Could the thorn in the flesh have been something of God that he couldn’t understand?
Was the thorn - his fleshly limitation to understanding what God was about?
Was the thorn in the flesh something that said more about God than about some weakness or shortcoming in Paul?
So I’ve gotten to thinking that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was Paul’s way of saying “I don’t understand what God is doing. I’m confused. And in this I don’t know, I can’t even claim to know what God is all doing.”
The amazing thing about this weakness is there is incredible strength!
But if I take this as a theological thought, it’s a theological thought that then begins to overflow into so much more of my life, my ministry, my calling.
This takes me back again to my last blog and the rethinking of vision versus values. This last ‘vision versus values’ blog has received the most responses back to me both on the blog and via calls and emails.
The strong vision way of leading takes us into a mindset that says – I know what God is doing and here is the vision to see that all happen here.
The second, value based leadership, embraces this ‘thorn in the flesh’ perplexion.
We don’t know what God is doing, or where God is taking us – but what we do know is something about who God is, what God is passionate about – values – and as long as we focus on raising up those values then we may not know where God is taking us but we know we won’t miss it.
And I think this is what we have to begin to think further on as leaders.
Too often out thinking is earth up.
Don Miller (of Blue Like Jazz and Searching For God Knows What notoriety) is about to release a book talking about the concept of story. Don Miller is going to hit here close to where I’m trying to hit.
We need to begin to think of our leadership more in terms of narrative and story rather than vision and goals.
God has invited us into a story. It’s a true story – in fact there is no truer story – but it is a story, a narrative. God never invited us into a strategic plan or some annual goals.
There are components of a good narrative - central character, plot, conflict …..and essential to a good story is it is never written linearly.
It’s not written predictably.
It’s not written that the reader knows where they are going!
The glue that holds it together is the characters.
Now to transliterate this into what I’m suggesting:
The characters in our story are the values that we know God holds and we need to hold. As long as we hold these values – not placed within some 5 year plan or some central strategic document – but held within the livingness of the story, constantly featuring in the story we are writing ……a great story will be written.
If postmodernity has settled.
If we are now in a new day of culture, thinking, engagement, it is held with new words.
Words such as story, but also words such as organic, organism, morph, texture, motion.
These are the new leadership words of the emerged cultured.
They are significantly different than the words of a decade ago – vision, purpose driven, goals, targets, strategic plan, mission statement.
So for a Senior Pastor our role is changing from always casting vision, hosting staff meetings talking about reaching our goals, hitting our targets or laying out our next mountain to take - to birthing of value, feeding, nurturing, tending, releasing - a different nuance to our leadership that we need to engage with.
Now here’s the really good thing about a good story.
In a good story there are always positive turns and negative turns.
In a vision driven style of leadership negative turns are disallowed.
But in story they are allowed.
In a vision driven church if you don’t make a goal or a hit a target or stick to the plan …..you’ve failed. But in a story whatever turn you take is still part of the story.
So my leadership is no longer going into my office, pulling out the master plan and making sure that I know exactly where we are on this plan.
It’s going into my office and taking the characters of the story – our values – and bringing them more alive in our story.
And here’s the best part – I go home at the end of the day not thinking about all the stuff that still needs to be done to reach this goal or that goal ….but I go home knowing that the values are living in the lives of each person who is part of our staff, our leadership, our church and the story is still being written even when I’ve put my pen down for that day!
Like true characters the values live …whereas a plan is only worked on.
There is a ‘thorn in the flesh’ like Paul that we as leaders must be content to live with.
Vision, goals and target leadership does not help that happen – values based leadership does.
Of course commentators have had a field day trying to figure this one out – was it Paul’s way of speaking about his wife, or was it a sin he had that he couldn’t quit from – perhaps lust?
But as I sat and thought about this “thorn in the flesh” I was always coming up with something either tangible or something I could define. I was always analyzing this (and much of my theology) from the earth up.
But maybe Paul was thinking in the other direction.
Maybe this thorn in the flesh was not something of him – some sin, or weakness or even illness. Could the thorn in the flesh have been something of God that he couldn’t understand?
Was the thorn - his fleshly limitation to understanding what God was about?
Was the thorn in the flesh something that said more about God than about some weakness or shortcoming in Paul?
So I’ve gotten to thinking that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was Paul’s way of saying “I don’t understand what God is doing. I’m confused. And in this I don’t know, I can’t even claim to know what God is all doing.”
The amazing thing about this weakness is there is incredible strength!
But if I take this as a theological thought, it’s a theological thought that then begins to overflow into so much more of my life, my ministry, my calling.
This takes me back again to my last blog and the rethinking of vision versus values. This last ‘vision versus values’ blog has received the most responses back to me both on the blog and via calls and emails.
The strong vision way of leading takes us into a mindset that says – I know what God is doing and here is the vision to see that all happen here.
The second, value based leadership, embraces this ‘thorn in the flesh’ perplexion.
We don’t know what God is doing, or where God is taking us – but what we do know is something about who God is, what God is passionate about – values – and as long as we focus on raising up those values then we may not know where God is taking us but we know we won’t miss it.
And I think this is what we have to begin to think further on as leaders.
Too often out thinking is earth up.
Don Miller (of Blue Like Jazz and Searching For God Knows What notoriety) is about to release a book talking about the concept of story. Don Miller is going to hit here close to where I’m trying to hit.
We need to begin to think of our leadership more in terms of narrative and story rather than vision and goals.
God has invited us into a story. It’s a true story – in fact there is no truer story – but it is a story, a narrative. God never invited us into a strategic plan or some annual goals.
There are components of a good narrative - central character, plot, conflict …..and essential to a good story is it is never written linearly.
It’s not written predictably.
It’s not written that the reader knows where they are going!
The glue that holds it together is the characters.
Now to transliterate this into what I’m suggesting:
The characters in our story are the values that we know God holds and we need to hold. As long as we hold these values – not placed within some 5 year plan or some central strategic document – but held within the livingness of the story, constantly featuring in the story we are writing ……a great story will be written.
If postmodernity has settled.
If we are now in a new day of culture, thinking, engagement, it is held with new words.
Words such as story, but also words such as organic, organism, morph, texture, motion.
These are the new leadership words of the emerged cultured.
They are significantly different than the words of a decade ago – vision, purpose driven, goals, targets, strategic plan, mission statement.
So for a Senior Pastor our role is changing from always casting vision, hosting staff meetings talking about reaching our goals, hitting our targets or laying out our next mountain to take - to birthing of value, feeding, nurturing, tending, releasing - a different nuance to our leadership that we need to engage with.
Now here’s the really good thing about a good story.
In a good story there are always positive turns and negative turns.
In a vision driven style of leadership negative turns are disallowed.
But in story they are allowed.
In a vision driven church if you don’t make a goal or a hit a target or stick to the plan …..you’ve failed. But in a story whatever turn you take is still part of the story.
So my leadership is no longer going into my office, pulling out the master plan and making sure that I know exactly where we are on this plan.
It’s going into my office and taking the characters of the story – our values – and bringing them more alive in our story.
And here’s the best part – I go home at the end of the day not thinking about all the stuff that still needs to be done to reach this goal or that goal ….but I go home knowing that the values are living in the lives of each person who is part of our staff, our leadership, our church and the story is still being written even when I’ve put my pen down for that day!
Like true characters the values live …whereas a plan is only worked on.
There is a ‘thorn in the flesh’ like Paul that we as leaders must be content to live with.
Vision, goals and target leadership does not help that happen – values based leadership does.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Right-Brainers CARPE DIEM ...or at least dance a little!
So I was reading something today that disturbed me. It said “we have become a church of marketers, not artists.” Now this in itself is disturbing. There are lots we could blog about the church selling out and selling short….but also the need to do more to make sure the best/only message of hope and life in the world is heard! But let me leave that one for a later day.
The article then went on to say “And the artists, feeling distrusted, lacking support and resources, are leaving the church to find the freedom and ability to explore imagination and answer God’s call.”
Church leaders have to read those words and ask some questions.
The words come from Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog “Looking Closer” where he is discussing The Golden Compass debate. A very helpful critique of the brewing controversy – check it out at http://lookingcloser.wordpress.com under “The Golden Compass – Questions I’ve been asked, answers I’ve given.” Don’t take this one off the radar screen ‘cos episodes two and three are just around the corner.
Returning to his comments about church and artists.
A few weeks ago I showed in church a part of Michelangelo’s classic work The Last Judgment. Michelangelo was commissioned by the Pope to do this work as part of his masterpiece on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Despite being commissioned, the Pope did not fully trust the artist’s discernment so he put in place an editor of his work. The editor was the then Vatican Master of Ceremonies called Biagio. Biagio did not only dislike some of the painting Michelangelo did, he disliked Michelangelo. He would often try to edit what he had painted.
Well, in The Last Judgment, Michelangelo gains his revenge because in this work he depicts a man descending down to hell. He is naked, with a serpent wrapped around his body – eating part of his sensitive area! Here’s the punch line ….the face of the man in the painting is the face of Biagio!!!!! Biago’s image remains today in the Sistine Chapel in a way I’m sure he never would have wanted!
But let’s return to the point. Here is Jeffrey Overstreet blogging that artists are feeling distrusted and hence they are leaving the church. What’s new. The Pope distrusted Michelangelo and many of the other church art painters – they were edited.
But they never left the church.
So what’s changed.
One of the books someone recommended me was A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future @ Daniel Pink. I love it. But if right-brainers just get up and quit because the struggle is too hard?? …..come on artists and dreamers and designers and poets and writers and counselors and inventors and symphonic musicians and storytellers and some right-brain pastors/preachers/leaders - you’ll only rule the future if you stop walking away.
But there is something happening. Some of us who in this “left-brain ruled world” for years suppressed our right-brain tendencies and indulged in masses of left- brain fodder to survive, some of us are now allowing our natural right-brain inclinations to rise and rule! The brakes are off and we are allowing our right-brains to energize and evolutionize our worlds. This sometimes makes us misunderstood and scoffed at BUT…….
Is this just the postmodern versus modern debate in new language? I don’t think so. Although there might be some mileage in that one for somebody to open up. This is not saying that left-brain thinking is defunct or outdated or held with an agenda. This is saying left-brain is not enough.
This is saying to lead well you need to employ left and right brain thinking.
This maybe why the old vision and 5 year strategy thinking is redundant. [See the last blog!]
Pink’s thesis is that in this conceptual era - if we are not offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial transcendent desires of an abundant age – we will lose.
So ‘The Church’ knows and holds the most satisfying nonmaterial transcendent reality there is.
Hello – to be missionally effective all we need now is a bunch of right-brainers bringing all they’ve got to help deliver it!
Right-brainers - whether artists, poets, writers, inventors …..and hopefully pastors and preachers - don’t walk away. Rise up.
The article then went on to say “And the artists, feeling distrusted, lacking support and resources, are leaving the church to find the freedom and ability to explore imagination and answer God’s call.”
Church leaders have to read those words and ask some questions.
The words come from Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog “Looking Closer” where he is discussing The Golden Compass debate. A very helpful critique of the brewing controversy – check it out at http://lookingcloser.wordpress.com under “The Golden Compass – Questions I’ve been asked, answers I’ve given.” Don’t take this one off the radar screen ‘cos episodes two and three are just around the corner.
Returning to his comments about church and artists.
A few weeks ago I showed in church a part of Michelangelo’s classic work The Last Judgment. Michelangelo was commissioned by the Pope to do this work as part of his masterpiece on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Despite being commissioned, the Pope did not fully trust the artist’s discernment so he put in place an editor of his work. The editor was the then Vatican Master of Ceremonies called Biagio. Biagio did not only dislike some of the painting Michelangelo did, he disliked Michelangelo. He would often try to edit what he had painted.
Well, in The Last Judgment, Michelangelo gains his revenge because in this work he depicts a man descending down to hell. He is naked, with a serpent wrapped around his body – eating part of his sensitive area! Here’s the punch line ….the face of the man in the painting is the face of Biagio!!!!! Biago’s image remains today in the Sistine Chapel in a way I’m sure he never would have wanted!
But let’s return to the point. Here is Jeffrey Overstreet blogging that artists are feeling distrusted and hence they are leaving the church. What’s new. The Pope distrusted Michelangelo and many of the other church art painters – they were edited.
But they never left the church.
So what’s changed.
One of the books someone recommended me was A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future @ Daniel Pink. I love it. But if right-brainers just get up and quit because the struggle is too hard?? …..come on artists and dreamers and designers and poets and writers and counselors and inventors and symphonic musicians and storytellers and some right-brain pastors/preachers/leaders - you’ll only rule the future if you stop walking away.
But there is something happening. Some of us who in this “left-brain ruled world” for years suppressed our right-brain tendencies and indulged in masses of left- brain fodder to survive, some of us are now allowing our natural right-brain inclinations to rise and rule! The brakes are off and we are allowing our right-brains to energize and evolutionize our worlds. This sometimes makes us misunderstood and scoffed at BUT…….
Is this just the postmodern versus modern debate in new language? I don’t think so. Although there might be some mileage in that one for somebody to open up. This is not saying that left-brain thinking is defunct or outdated or held with an agenda. This is saying left-brain is not enough.
This is saying to lead well you need to employ left and right brain thinking.
This maybe why the old vision and 5 year strategy thinking is redundant. [See the last blog!]
Pink’s thesis is that in this conceptual era - if we are not offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial transcendent desires of an abundant age – we will lose.
So ‘The Church’ knows and holds the most satisfying nonmaterial transcendent reality there is.
Hello – to be missionally effective all we need now is a bunch of right-brainers bringing all they’ve got to help deliver it!
Right-brainers - whether artists, poets, writers, inventors …..and hopefully pastors and preachers - don’t walk away. Rise up.
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