Leading, not Pushing

You can learn how to lead well in some very unexpected circumstances.

A little background first. I grew up in a very conservative church environment with an emphasis on pastoral authority. It wasn’t a cult by any means, but from the outside you might recognize some cultish tendencies. To some members, the pastor’s interpretation of Scripture was generally viewed as right because he said so, and those who disagreed would be seen as dissenters. There was some room for discussion, and others were allowed to teach at times, but the rule was that all ideas were vetted through the pastor. He was the final authority in church matters. Ideas about anything from doctrine to the color of the carpet; from service schedule to plants in the foyer.

Others may have had a different experience in a similar environment, but what I took away was a strong distaste for authoritarianism in the church. This has been an underlying fear of mine since following the call into ministry: that I would succumb to the love of power and pride as a leader in the church. Four years in and the temptation is ever present, and likely my past experience is the grace and blessing that keeps me aware of it. 

I have found that holding the gift of teaching too tightly leads to a lack of trust in others, poor listening skills, and over-developed speaking skills. The expectation we can sometimes have is that we are called to teach every single person who crosses our path. (The gift has become our identity.) This can lead to an overbearing, impersonal, distant persona. People will view us as above instead of among, because, in our hearts, we’ve believed this premise, too. 

Jesus says something else: Matt 22:25-28; Matt 23, et al.

I have found that personally investing in the individual lives of those I’m called to minister to has done more to teach me about leadership than a hundred sermons preached to an audience. Being vulnerable has taught me to see myself in them. The Spirit has made me aware of my weakness through the weakness of others. As I seek to be grasped more and more by the love of God for me, his love for others through me grows and my mind and heart are transformed to honor them above myself. I’m not good at this, mind you. Submitting to love is death for the flesh. But there is hope for me yet.

Living and Dying

I feel like I am simultaneously living and dying.

These past few weeks have been hectic in our house, and not just because of the holidays. Nearly every day for a week I’ve had many moments where I’ve felt both incredible stress to the point of tears, along with incredible joy and peace in walking with Jesus. I wonder if this is the juxtaposition of the life of a disciple. I know that in the past I’ve always considered these feelings mutually exclusive, but perhaps it’s not that simple.

Here’s what’s true: loving others in the abstract is simple, easy, and satisfying to a point. 

Actually loving others is frustrating, offensive, and totally fulfilling. Actually loving the sick, broken, dirty, and selfish is annoying, depriving, and completely worth it. Actually walking the path of Jesus is sacrifice, rejection, suffering, loneliness, hardship, temptation, death. And absolutely priceless.

Thus I find myself both living and dying in the same moment. I find myself possessing a treasure I only ever dreamed of. I find myself seeing, feeling, and walking with Jesus – Jesus, the person.

Because there’s no such thing as “enough faith” for anything. None of us have enough. But we have Jesus. He says, Walk with me and be filled. Not just satisfied, but filled. 

You’ll never know him better by watching him walk by. Get up and go with Jesus. He’s the treasure you seek.

A Short Answer to “What Is Missional?”

“Jesus told us to go into all the world and be his ambassadors, but many churches today have inadvertently changed the “go and be” command to a “come and see” appeal. We have grown attached to buil…

Source: A Short Answer to “What Is Missional?”

Church on Mission

Because church gathering has become the focal point for many Christians over the past few decades, the actual place of meeting has lost significance.  Rather, it has become about convenience or affordability instead of being centered around mission.  This is partly due to the fact that we don’t need to be tied down to our neighborhoods – we’re mobile and nearly everything we do is outside of our neighborhood or town or city.  The church is no longer local, either.  Attendees come from far and wide to gather at a “good church” and it takes the emphasis off of involvement in the immediate community.  There’s no impact from the local church, and usually no impact on the local church.

The movement toward Missional Community is a remedy to this ailment.  The intention is to keep the neighborliness in the neighborhood, and not just the halls of a religious building once or twice a week.  No matter what we call our method, however, we should seek to pattern it after the Biblical model.  There’s a lot of room for variation here, but it seems a few key questions should be asked to determine our direction.

• What is our purpose as a gathering of the Body of Christ?
• What is our calling/to whom are we called?
• What are we going to do about it?

There are more and better questions other have asked, but these three have been helpful here.  We all know the Great Commission, but we usually see just the big picture as our duty and scatter across our city, state, country or world trying to do it.  (You’re more special if you’re a foreign missionary, after all.  Ranks pretty near Paul in the spiritual hierarchy in some circles.)  But what about as a local church?  What has God called us to do specifically?  What can unite us together with a common purpose?

We’ve got to stop biting off more than we can chew – it usually means we don’t do anything effective.

We need definition.  This is where locality comes into play.  It’s becoming more apparent that community-specific churches are absolutely necessary.  Many churches exist within communities that they never reach.  Members come not to feed the hungry, but to be fed.  They come twice a week to learn how to love their neighbor, but they never get to know the neighbors they drive past to get there.

It’s impossible to be the church where you are, if you go to church where you’re not.

Believers should be centered around a calling, not convenience.

Get a handlebar on it.

So far, the only new thing I’ve done this year is grow a handlebar moustache. And putting on this ‘stache has made me a new man. Rather, according to some memes, it has simply made me a man. I’m now separated from your average clean shaven women and children by the manly art upon my visage. (On second thought, does it make me less manly to spend an extra 10 minutes primping and applying wax to this new facial animal every morning?)

Okay, so it hasn’t changed me that much. I’ve been bearded in some form since 17 or so. But it did get me thinking about new things, the new year, identity, and faith. How do those things correlate? You decide.

Church here needs renewal. If I’m being honest, I have to admit that. But I also don’t need to feel guilty or depressed about it. The downs help us appreciate the ups. Besides, Jesus is still for me, his love never changes, and he remains faithful. It is finished – even when from our perspective the structure seems barely put together. Growth is a lot of fun when one recognizes that in spite of a propensity to fail on our part, Jesus picks us up, cleans the mess, and shows us the better way – again and again and again and again… So I’m excited about some things I believe God is leading us into in 2016. Some things that will bring more focus and intentionality to us as a group, and a fresh focus on the Word so we can learn together as he continues to show us more and more what it is to be a disciple of Jesus.

One of my friends said she feels like 2016 is going to be a good year for deeper personal faith, and she is excited about it. I’m excited to see the Spirit at work in our homes and in our town. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, right? He’s at work in the world, drawing men to himself, right? Then we should expect great and wonderful things from the God of miracles!

I feel like an identity crisis is the crux of every temptation. I probably feel that way because it’s Biblical. From the garden to Jesus in the wilderness, who we are is always attacked by the Devil. As I grew these handlebars it occurred to me that I might easily begin to think about myself differently in light of what my face looks like. People tend to root their security in the image they project. But what happens when the image gets distorted through accident, illness or time? I’m thankful that my life is hid with Christ in God and I don’t need an earthly identity to give me hope. Jesus is my hope because he is the express image of God: glorious, holy, righteous, loving kindness, long suffering… Moustache, thou art but a servant.

Faith. As the world gets darker, the light of truth shines brighter. This year brings us one closer to end, and so deeper into our society’s decline into rebellion. What an opportunity for faith!

• We’ll be challenged – Jesus loved!
• We’ll be persecuted – Jesus gave!
• We’ll be mocked – Jesus trusted!
• We’ll be tempted – Jesus overcame!
• We’ll be tested – Jesus believed!

It’s so comforting to know that Jesus was successful for us, gave his life to us, took up residence in us, lives that life through us, and has made a way to be with us forever! It’s going to be a good year.

Definitions

Christianity does not begin with my preconceived notions. I did not choose Jesus because he closely resembled my outlook, philosophy or worldview. Jesus chose me, and when my life was held in contrast with truth, by grace I turned from worshiping me to worship the true and living God – my Creator. Christianity is not about me finding something that fits me. It’s about letting go of me and letting the life of Jesus become my identity. It is self-denial and truth-acceptance.

 

It is not hypocrisy to sin after receiving Jesus’s righteousness. It is hypocrisy to think that we were ever, or still can be, righteous without him.

To Curfew, or not to Curfew?

Background: My town of Pittsfield, NH established a curfew back in 2006, requiring that all children 16 and under be off the streets by 9:00 pm every night. I didn’t move here until 2010, so I don’t know how bad things were before ’06. Recently, the ACLU-NH “sent letters…to several municipalities with curfews, stating that provision of their ordinances is ‘unconstitutional and bad policy’.” Concord Monitor, November 19th. They then threatened a lawsuit if they were not repealed. The curfew has been temporarily suspended pending the March 2016 Town Meeting, where we will get a chance to vote on the measure. There has been much discussion around town and in local papers, and my Letter to the Editor below is in response, to be published in the upcoming weekly Pittsfield paper.

 

 

There has been some buzz about the ACLU’s condemnation of our town’s curfew ordinance. Some are disappointed with the threat of a lawsuit, and see it as an effort to undermine our freedom of choice to (ironically) restrict the freedom of others. Others will be pleased to finally be free of the startling curfew horn sounding at 9:00 pm every night. Incidentally, since I’m an early riser I appreciate the horn letting me know that it’s bedtime.

But I suppose we should ask ourselves what the real problem is here, and I can’t help but view it through the lens of my faith. I wasn’t yet living in Pittsfield when the curfew was established, but I imagine it was in reaction to mischief caused by adolescents roaming the streets after dark. So what does a curfew solve? Well, it lets us spend quieter evenings in our comfortable homes, sleep without disturbance, and wake up to graffiti-free public buildings. What does it fail to solve? It does not change the hearts and minds of kids with no stability at home or in spirit. It does not force parents to be better stewards of the miracle of life placed in their hands by a loving Creator. It does not give us, as believers, another opportunity to reach out to a troubled and broken world with the peace and love of Jesus.

For those of us in Pittsfield who are Christians, let’s ask ourselves why we are here. Are we here to build walls around our pious, comfortable lives, or are we here to shine a light into the darkness of the ignorance of God’s love? Let’s identify the real problem apart from political distractions, and apply a Gospel solution. We’ve been loved to love; blessed to be a blessing; made free of this life to give our lives away. Let the world see what Jesus is like through our lives.

Gifted to Give

The spirit of missions is the spirit of our master, the very genius of his religion. A diffusive philanthropy is Christianity itself. It requires perpetual propagation to attest its genuineness.

– David Livingstone

The very heart of Jesus is his gift, and his love of giving and forgiving. As his church we show the world what he is like by what we do – are we giving ourselves, our time, our resources for the sake of the gospel?

What are we saying we believe by the way we live our lives?

We have been blessed to be a blessing.

We have been forgiven, so we are free to forgive.

We have received mercy; let us give mercy.

We are co-heirs with Christ of the eternal riches of glory; we have nothing in this world worth holding onto.

Let us be the giving people.

Truth in Unusual Places

I heard an interesting quote from Bill Murray, of all people.

The automatic things we do are a distraction from the better things we should be doing.

I was reminded of church tradition, personal habits, entertainment, eating, etc. None of them bad by themselves; all of them potentially bad when they become God things to us. What parts of my life and heart have I unwittingly kept under my control instead of submitting it to Christ’s control?

To me, hearing this was a reminder that all truth is God’s truth, regardless of the filter we hear it through. Most of my religious life up until a few years ago was immersed in a culture of judging the filters rather than the content.

Look at leaders who fail: everything they said was a lie.

Look at artists who fail: everything they sing is ungodly.

Look at churches that crumble: everything they did was carnal.

Look at me who (still) sins: I am not doing everything right enough.

I’m so glad that my identity is not based in my failure, but in Jesus’ success!

Bill Murray may not be a Christian – well, I in fact have no idea whether he is or isn’t – but he does have a conscience, he does have creation, and he does have the Holy Spirit testifying of God’s truth in the world around him through the church. I imagine that the angels rejoice when a sinner gets even one step closer to the truth of who God is, let alone when they come to repentance.

Truth is truth, and I love it when God gives it to us through unusual channels. It serves to shake up our comfortable notions of who is right and who is wrong – we can’t easily categorize people or issues. I truly believe that the Lord’s ways are mysterious to us, and I’d hate to tell God he can or cannot do things his way. Well, I’ve done this, and it has hurt me.

Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.

I Am Not Sufficient

There is a tendency in me – I think because of my focus on the calling God has given – to see the things God teaches me about myself and my heart as almost always for others. For the next sermon, if you will. Everything is always for the next sermon. I’m paranoid about not having “material” for the next time I’m called upon to give a word of exhortation, so everything spiritual that enters my mind becomes a viable option.

In this way I generalize God and lose the very personal, intimate nature of the relationship he desires to have with me, his child. I only see myself as a conduit, when in fact I’m probably most often the intended recipient. My deceitful heart rejoices in this mindset – albeit quietly, so as not to awaken my conscience – because the focus is taken off of my own brokenness and everyone else’s in enlarged. I see myself, then, as the healer, the restorer, the mediator. I see myself in the place of God, as God.

This is all subconscious (or at least it was, until a few moments ago) and I am repulsed by this as I write it. And yet I know it’s true. My self-righteousness is fed the ice cream of seeing everyone else’s struggle with sin so clearly, while minimizing my own. I fail in being gracious by not recognizing my own constant need for it. I secretly applaud myself for maintaining a spirit of humility in ministry to the broken. (HA!)

A calling to ministry does not occur because one is stronger than others. In fact, a calling may do more to expose weakness than to highlight strength, “that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” Humility is truly a recognition of deep brokenness before God, an acceptance of real weakness, and an acknowledgment of utter powerlessness. Humility speaks more to depravity and sin than to good performance and righteousness. And yet God is pleased to use the most broken of us as his vessels of honor. Because “when I am weak, then am I strong.”

So I am continually learning that I have nothing to offer God. My faith does not make him bigger. My desire to glorify him through my actions does not make me righteous, or add to his righteousness. He has declared me righteous because of Jesus.

I can do nothing without him. The first step to being a man of grace is understanding that I’m powerless without it. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” God works through me, I do not work with him. I labor according to the grace he has granted – no more, often less. The work God does in me enables me to do his will through Christ. God wills that I should glorify him by showing the world what he is like through my life, and he has made this possible, not by helping me be a better Dave, but by regenerating me an entirely new creature capable and worthy of this ministry in Jesus.

God in Jesus created something infinitely beautiful out of something destined to be eternally rotten. “Thou are all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.”