You doing much reading?

So I decided that my reading was slipping …..reading to preach but not reading to study.
So I’m on this 100 pages a day pledge. But here’s what I’m observing – I’m more confused than most folk already thought I was.
On my desk being read at the same time are the following books and authors:

The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of Atonement, edited by Derek Tidball with contributions by Steve Chalke, I Howard Marshall, Joel Green and several others. A worthy read on the atonement debate sparked by Chalke’s earlier book.
Reforming The Doctrine of God @ F. LeRon Shults. This guy is the premier Emergent movement theologian. He penned the Emergent Village’s anti-statement of faith back in 2006.
The Life You Can Save: Acting Now To End World Poverty @ Peter Singer. He’s a mad Princeton bioethicist who advocates infanticide while at the same time wants to eradicate poverty.
Death by Love: Letters From the Cross @ Mark Driscoll – Reformed pastor who loathes the emergent guys.
The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing And Why @ Phyllis Tickle …who Driscoll would strongly disagree with. Actually a very weak book – not worth buying.
Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church @ Michael Horton – editor in chief of Modern Reformation and host of The White Horse Inn radio broadcast who frequently questioning many of the authors above, including strongly questioning my next author.
Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God @ Gregory Boyd. A strongly criticized Openist who had hundreds leave the church he pastors over his insightful book The Myth of a Christian Nation.
Add to this some interesting global reading We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work @ Jimmy Carter – and excellent read similar building on his earlier book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. Really appreciate his knowledge of the key players in this conflict.
The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier @ Tony Jones – wild Emergent Village guy.
Being Well When We’re Ill: Wholeness and Hope in Spite of Infirmity @ Marva Dawn – writer and theologian often known to speak out against modernized, seeker type churches – famous for her books critiquing the church worship wars of the past decades.
Prayer Coach: For All Who Want To Get Off the Bench and Onto The Praying Field @ James L. Nicodem. A helpful read for people who want to pray more.
The Principle of the Path @ Andy Stanley …..easy read, one of these ‘duh’ moment books worth running through.
Add in another great Tim Keller book , Brennan Manning’s latest and Michael Frost’s latest, not forgetting the Total Church book by the British guys Tim Chester and Steve Timmis …….am I mixed up or what?

…..and then been sharpening my leadership thinking by reading a leadership a week:

The One Thing You Need To Know….About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success @ Marcus Buckingham
E-Myth Mastery @ Michael Gerber
Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling @ Andy Crouch
Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration @ Warren Bennis
Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos @ Tim Keel

And then just for fun The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess @ Andrei Codrescu

Each book has something interesting to say and something necessary for me to edit and process.
Sharpens the mind ….but is always secondary to God’s Word.

So what you reading? Blog it, email it or twitter it.

A twitter of a blog!

So I now Twitter.[Twitter Name: GilbertFoster]
Yep.
140 words – say it with less words.
A real discipline.
But in leadership I'm more and more appreciating the less words route.
This is not the same as me going home and Carolyn wanting to talk to me and I say “can you give me the short version babe” – that’s just bad.

Take for example last week.
I left the office at 11am, drove 25 miles, ate lunch (which I needed to do anyway) with Tim Brown a pastor in Clovis, drove back and was at my desk by 2pm. Three quick, simple hours ….but that relatively short time was so helpful in multiple areas of ministry leadership and thought process.
The week before I’d left home on a late Sunday afternoon, drove 4 hours, slept in an hotel room, sat for 6 hours at a seminar, drove 4 hours home, exhausted for the rest of that day (14 hours total)….and in truth, the 60 minute talk with Tim was more beneficial – short, sweet, 140 word principal.

Short and sweet.
Maybe that’s why 140 word tweets appeal.

So rather than write a really long blog that few will read …here’s my twitter equivalent:

Great article on missional church by Tim Keller:
http://www.redeemer2.com/resources/papers/missional.pdf

Interesting book to read on the history of Emergents:
The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier @ Tony Jones.

Perhaps a balanced critique of the Emergent movement:
http://www.9marks.org/CC/article/0,,PTID314526%7CCHID598016%7CCIID2249226,00.html

Five e-articles on missional church:
http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/the-meanings-of-missional.html

Great short read for Easter Sunday preach:
Jesus, the Final Days: What Really Happened@ Craig Evans & N.T. Wright.

Each was less than 140 words – hope they are helpful.

Shush ...... there's a global financial meltdown going on.

So I'm recovering from a little surgical procedure and I’m sitting with my feet up not trying to stress my mind too much (doctors orders) …so I watched American Idol 2009 Season 8.
I’m realizing that this recession is pretty vast – its hit American Idol. This must have been the poorest bunch of singers to grace their stage – and these were the finalists out of over 100,000 people who auditioned! They were dreadful (with maybe the exception of Danny Gokey the Milwaukee church choir director and Anoop Desai) this viewing did not aid my recovery ….it would have been less stressful if I had been doing my taxes or reading Joel Osteen – and normally these two rank at the top of my stress inducers!!

Recession.
I’m noticing pretty much a silence coming out of Christian blogs, e-newsletters and magazine/journals on the recession. A little in Sojourners (thanks guys – read a very insightful blog http://blog.sojo.net/2009/02/10/two-kinds-of-recovery by Brian McLaren) but nothing like the noise I thought might have surfaced by now.
Quite interesting - the demise of the Christian influence in my homeland (UK) was when the church stayed silent on the relevant issues and made noise on all the irrelevant issues. That was 25/30 years ago and the UK slipped from 25% evangelical to maybe around 5-6% now. I have always argued that the US is but 25 years behind the UK in the demise of the Evangelical voice and influence. Is our silence on this global recession further evidence I am a prophet of doom!!

So what should Christian leaders be doing or saying in this global economic meltdown and why silence?

Rather strange that the evangelical church has shouted loudly about the morality meltdown in our nation; shouted pretty loudly about religious meltdown in our institutions; shouted pretty loudly when they sniff a possible theological meltdown among their own; some are trying to shout loudly about our environmental meltdown – but astounding silence on this global economic meltdown.

Why?
Is the Western Church as guilty as any in bad spending and living beyond its means, relying on the green-back for our strength, influence and even our success?
Is the American Church – its churches and its congregation members - as much about the dollar as their neighbors?
Is our silence due to our own dependence upon the Benjamin’s?
Maybe we can’t speak into this meltdown because we’ve lost the moral ground to speak from?

Yet – we need to speak into the reality we all find ourselves in. Any church leader removed from reality is not leading.
So where do we start and what do we say?

If we follow the lead of President Obama we need bold and big moves. The money that the US Government is injecting into our economy is money with mindboggling zeros and ordinary person can’t get their heads around. Big and bold.

Maybe the big and bold is to close shop on how we are doing church and rush to a remake of the house-church movement. It could seem that for the latest church guru’s this is highly attractive i.e. Total Church: A Radical Reshaping of the Church around Gospel and Community @ Tim Chester & Steve Timmis (a good book – worth reading).
But reality says the big and the bold is improbable (size and substance has always been a part of US Christianity) and maybe it is unnecessary. Maybe multiple small steps could mean more; maybe more small steps would accomplish more in this economic recession.

Here’s some small steps every church, every pastor, every congregation member could take – these are steps we’re taking as we don’t remain silent about the economic meltdown:

1. Place the present reality within the spiritual teaching of the church. We’re using the wisdom of the Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) to help us. A new series called Spent: When Life’s Got You Max’d. (Helpful graphic and title from Pursuit Resources out of Central Christian in Henderson NV- http://www.pursuit.org/

2. Give real practical teaching and training on getting out of debt – the bottom line reason of most peoples financial issues. We are launching Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University Course – 13 weeks, on brand new evening, with full child care. Senior staff and leaders all involved modeling that this is serious and for everybody. Check out www.daveramsey.com/fpu/home. FPU will see them cut up credit cards, focus on getting out of debt and will keep that focus for long enough that it becomes a habit and they truly do change their financial situation.

3. Model financial changes and modification at the corporate level for all to see. We’ve put our staff on a 50 day no spend; we’ve cut out Sunday refreshments for a few weeks; we’ve put a moratorium on courses and training; we’ve reduced our spending to a minimum – not because we’re broke, but to demonstrate sound fiscal policy making sure we end the first and second quarter ahead not behind. We’re helping every church member see that when you’re in a jam or a crash you can’t keep doing the same thing and except a different outcome – classic leadership motto “in drastic times you have to take drastic action.” This is the big and the bold but it comes in small steady steps.

4. We’re talking about it at leadership level every time we meet; we’re discussing and praying about it at every staff time together; it is staying clearly on the radar screen of our church.

5. We’re guiding people to our Celebrate Recovery ministry for support and help through habits and hang-ups that are characteristics of many peoples economic situation.

6. In pastoral situations we explain we can’t fix their financial crisis, we guide them to organizations that possibly can help them a little, and we help them see that in any meltdown situation – economic, relational, physiological God’s redemption through the door of repentance is the right road ahead.

Maybe these smaller steps by one local church are not loudly heard around the globe – but imagine if church after church after church began to speak, teach and train their people in how to handle finances differently, spend differently, and take the personal big and bold steps in the midst of this meltdown.

Historical Economists tell us there are economical cycles – and this too shall pass. But the wise Christian leader does all he or she can to make sure we learn the big lessons of our historical reality and teach and train people to not return to the cycle – but leave it for a new, biblical Kingdom of God guided economics – debt free and free to give.

So what’s your church doing to speak into this meltdown – speak up, there’s too much silence.

What it takes to be a leader in 2009.

Leadership in 2009?
How different than 1999 or even 2008?
Enter Thomas Freidman – yet again.
Leadership in 2009 must be global.
If the world truly is flat; if our generation can travel anywhere around the globe within 37 hours; if the global is local – then the measure of our leadership must include the measure of our global-ness.

That’s what it was for Paul back in his day.
With the Pax Romana and the incredible road network Paul’s leadership rose or fell on his seizing the day and expanding the Gospel due to the global conditions around him.
True also for every epoch of the Christian expansion.
Take the Great Awakening.
The revival of the colonies began through the travel of George Whitefield from England. For him the new world now open to receive visitors required him to travel, to be global in his preaching.

The measure of your leadership at this time in the history of our world will include the measure of your global-ness.
To our generation of leaders the responsibility and opportunity of a flat world has been entrusted.

So how you doing leading at a global level – or have you defaulted that to some international mission’s board or travel wired adventurer in your congregation.

So what does global leadership look like?

Here are 5 key features:

1. Our grasp of reality cannot be shrunk to the reality on our doorstep but must engage a global perspective. We cannot be insular in our world view. We need to be the eyes that lead people to seeing things beyond themselves and their corner of the globe.

2. How we interpret Scripture and/or the voices we listen to as we make decisions theologically or philosophically need to reflect the cacophony of color and diversity within a global church. We need to lead in moving the West from only engaging with western thought and idea. We have much to learn from Asian and African scholars and practitioners.

3. We must work to remove any sense of Western superiority within the Christian sphere. Our resources and education does not make us greater than our global brothers and sisters. We are equal – lead your church to seeing that in complete ways.

4. Our missions profile; budget spending; resource allocation should reflect a global church – not just an American church.

5. We need to travel – leaders need to touch the greater world and be touched by it.

So how you doing?
Need help?
Email me (gilbert@reedleyfbc.com)and I’ll help you become a global leader.

The Kingdom of God is always so much bigger than our systems, structures or spheres.

Detox

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.

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?

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.