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?
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..........
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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