VillagePastor

Avoiding Mistakes in Leadership

When Patrick Lencioni, who has written some of the best books on leadership, says that this book should be “required reading” for leaders, then you read it. I’m referring to Dave Kraft’s recent book, Mistakes Leaders Make. In the forward, Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle advises the reader to process the book—take it slow.  There is a lot of wisdom to ponder.

When I was a pastor in The Netherlands, I worked with a number of professionals, including an HR person with Eastman. Whenever we interviewed someone for a position, he made it a point to say to a candidate—tell me about a recent mistake you made and how you dealt with it, and what you learned from it.

Most of us who have had a leadership role do not need much time to process this one. Pastoral leadership is fraught with landmines, especially leading a multicultural church. I have inevitably offended someone almost every week. I have made mistakes in both hiring and firing. I have put up with sin in some members far too long, and been too short with others. I have made the mistake of emphasizing information over transformation in my preaching. All too often, I have made the mistake of not praying enough. I have let criticism have too much space in my heart. I have spoken when I should have listened, been quiet when I should have talked; been too available on some occasions, and not accessible enough in others; micromanaged when I should have entrusted and empowered, delegated when I should have taken more ownership.

Kraft has his list. Unfortunately, I can find myself in each one. He covers ten critical mistakes (the “big deal” kind) that leaders make, the first one being the greatest mistake—

1-Allowing ministry to replace Jesus

2-Allowing comparing to replace contentment

3-Allowing pride to replace humility

4-Allowing pleasing people to replace pleasing God

5-Allowing busyness to replace visioning

6-Allowing frugality to replace faith

7-Allowing artificial harmony to replace difficult conflict

8-Allowing perennially hurting people to replace potential hungry leaders

9-Allowing information to replace transformation

10-Allowing control to replace trust

 In each chapter, Kraft offers wise counsel. He counters the above “big deals” with these—

1-Make Jesus your life, pure and simple

2-Be yourself. Everyone else is taken

3-Get a true handle on who you are (Rom 12:2)

4-Live for the audience of One

5-Operate with the microscope of things up close and the telescope of things far off

6-Remember-people give to vision more than programs

7-Have the courage and conviction to collide and confront

8-Keep this as your focus when building a team: Getting the right people on the bus is based on character and chemistry; getting the right people in the right seats is based on competency and capacity

9-When you impart truth, tell yourself--It’s not enough to have thinking heads—we need responding hearts

10-Remember-holding people responsible for reasonable results and controlling them is not the same

Two nights ago, in a tight tennis match, too many of my balls sailed wide. Afterwards, one of the players mentioned that as long as we think of tennis as baseball, than getting three out of ten is not too bad. As he put it, “this is my general approach to life.” But three out of ten is not so good in tennis, nor is it in leadership. Batting .300 when it comes to making mistakes, making 7 mistakes for every 10 decisions, will probably not work in most environments. For one, it’s hard to recover from mistakes. With preaching, there’s always next weekend. But relational mistakes can take much longer.

But whatever mistakes, blunders, gaffes, miscalculations, or errors—Kraft’s closing words help us step up and step out into tomorrow: “The triune God is bigger than our mistakes and will work His plan and purpose in spite of them.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking Ahead to 2013

Some time in early March of this next year,  I will turn sixty-three. As much as I might protest, declaring I still feel like a young man in his thirties, it will do no good to resist. Whether I like it or not, I am steep into the second half, or, to use Wright's language, I am moving into my third third. Little wonder I am reading more and more about this next phase of life.  It started with Buford's book Halftime, a book that had a certain impact on my life in the early 90's.  More recently, Wright's book, The Third Third, has been a helpful read, for it provides a bit of a map. 

And a map is necessary, for you can get lost at this point of life. There are no end to the maps for the front side of life—road maps to the career one should pursue, the university one should attend, the mate one should look for.  But there aren't many maps for this third third. There is this false assumption by some that this period is associated with decline, letting go, waiting it out, and traveling aimlessly. And as a result, I observe a number of people who seem to be lost at this juncture. Now I must also admit that some of the lost seem to actually delight in their lostness. After years in professions where they may have been engaged in SWOT analyses, goal setting, vision casting, and strategic plans, it's nice to get up and enter into another unplanned day, where watches and roadmaps have been discarded.

But I must confess I need a map. I need one because I am convinced this part of life is the most important part of the journey, something affirmed in Rohr's new book, Falling Upwards (my latest read on the subject). As he sees it, the first half of life is merely preparatory for the second half. It is the gate. In this first half, we write the text. In the second half, we write the commentary on the text. Having worked through the necessary questions—who am I? what are the boundaries I must submit to? how can I support myself? if I should marry, who will this be? what are my projects that will bring success?, we move into the second half, where the real issues are sorted out.

Rohr describes this second half as the time in life you begin to learn to hear the deeper voice of God. You have come to grips with reality, with what matters, with what is worth investing in.  No longer are you trying to keep up an image or live up to other's expectations. You are finding what life is like in union with God. Faith is no longer defined merely by rules, but by a deep desire for intimacy with God. There is a certain gravitas that has replaced the thinness. Life is not becoming more confined but is actually becoming more spacious. One is no longer obsessed with being right; rather, one is more interested in being in right relationships. And in these relationships, people have less power to infatuate, less power to control or hurt. 

Not everyone gets to this second half. All too many seek to stay in the securities of the first half, and never grow up. They refuse to drop their nets, as Jesus demands. They avoid the risks—the necessary suffering one must experience to move into the second half. But the truth is, change and growth, death and resurrection must be programmed in. Some falling is necessary.

I will always remember the day I was working with my daughter, helping her to ride a bike without training wheels. She insisted that I put them back on. She did not want to fall, but as Rohr notes, you learn to recover falling only by falling. If one stays in the protective bubble of the first half, you can become a well disguised narcissist, an adult infant. If you are willing to move forward, "fall upward", you will learn to become resilient, age well, overcome adversity, find your way through complexity, and bloom with each opportunity. And it may be that the best opportunities are the ones that come in the third third for those who are looking.

Wright underscores this, though he uses different language. Moving forward, be it to the second third or the third third involves some risk. We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are!  We must journey forward to a place we have not been. Risk avoidance is not for those who live well in the third third. So here's to living well in 2013—receiving all that God wants to do in us!

Impulse Control

After hearing of yet another horrific shooting in Connecticut—and witnessing another mindless act of evil much closer to home at Clackamas Town Center, the news will have its usual stories, interviews with eye-witnesses, and ultimately search for some explanation. We will hear words of grief and shock. People will say that Jacob Roberts was a good kid (his aunt referred to him as a “warm and loving person”). Others will say that they never saw it coming. 

The recent NFL tragedies have a similar theme. Kansas City Chief Jovan Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend, and shortly after committed suicide in front of team officials. The memorial service remembered him this week as a “humble, kind, young man.”

What is it that causes a young man to take an AR-15 assault rifle and burst into a crowded mall and spray bullets randomly, all with the intent of creating havoc and destruction? Mental illness? Maybe. Rage? Perhaps. Need for attention? Why would Jovan Belcher destroy the life of one he loved, drive over to team practice, and do a horrifying act that will haunt his coach forever? Why would Josh Brent, with everything going for him as a professional athlete with the Dallas Cowboys, consume enough alcohol to exceed twice the legal limit, then get in a car, flip it, and kill his teammate? I’m not sure.

The easy answer, the answer we Christians often share, is that it is all part of living in a fallen world. Sin is always crouching at the door, always aimed at destroying a life. And that is true. Behind all of these acts is a self-centeredness that replaced (or never gave room for) a God-centeredness. Others will point to an out of control culture when it comes to gun control.  And I believe this is true as well. I honestly cannot understand why it is we protect the right for people to buy assault rifles and gun magazines that have the capability to fire off a significant round of bullets.  And maybe some, those with enough courage, will point to alcohol and the way we have let it define much of our culture. I found it interesting that on the sports radio I listen to, no one brought this up. My guess is that both Jerry Brown and Kasandra Perkins would still be here if alcohol consumption wasn’t so glorified.

But I wonder if what we are witnessing is a culture that is no longer aware of the need to control its impulses. My guess is that behind the above mentioned tragedies are impulsive young men who have not been guided to restrain their emotions. Maybe it is a steady diet of film, where people fall in love in a moment, followed up in the next moment with both in bed.  Maybe it is the constant narratives where people are in a rage, immediately followed by some act of violence. Impetuous, spontaneous behavior is the present storylines, be it on the screen, in video games, or in real life.

All of us are given to some impulsive behavior (a 12-12-12 air ticket for 12 dollars-who wouldn’t move fast?). The holiday shopping is aimed at impulse buyers. We pause to give thanks on Thanksgiving for what we have (it’s only a pause), because Black Friday invites us to remove restraint and reconsider what we don’t have and think about what me must have this minute! And the good news is that online shopping has made it unnecessary for one to get up at 3:00 am and wait in the Best Buy parking lot.

We are no longer conditioned to restrain desires—no longer prepared to pause and reflect. We are encouraged to gratify our desires, whatever they may be, and do it now.  AT&T may have given us the tag line of our culture: “The Freedom to Do What You Want When You Want It”. There was a time you waited two weeks for a return letter. There was a day when it was expected that your sexual longings were reserved for the one you married, restrained until the right moment, the honeymoon. There used to be such things as Layaways. You waited until you could afford it. But caution and restraint are something of the past (and thanks to recent lending practices, our economy is now paying a severe price). Impulse control has shifted to impulse out of control. We refuse to abide by time boundaries—or any other—and this has had the broader impact of redefining everything from marriage to ministry.

One of my favorite parts of the Christmas story is Mary beholding her Son Jesus. She is pondering, treasuring, and meditating on all these things in her heart (Luke 2:19).There is nothing impulsive in the story. She must yield and wait and reflect. Her freedom is to be what God wants when He wants. It’s a centering image that informs how we should both celebrate Christmas—as well as how we should live, especially in an age that is so out of control.  

 

 

End of Term Reflections

Coming to the end of Fall term, I get to reverse roles and learn from the students. It is always (well, almost always) quite stimulating. My students in leadership class come back to report on a leader they have studied and assessed. Students in a course in worship return with field reports, sharing what they discovered in attending area worship services. This can sometimes be quite depressing (“we listened to a sermon on the woman at the well in John 4 that focused on the need to protect and preserve our water systems”). This is what you call “watering down the text”!

Back to the leadership course, I am always amazed at the leaders students select, as well as the lessons they draw out.  Here is a representative sample from my Fall class—

 -Adolf Hitler-“Egoism can kill the most brilliant leader”

-Bill Bright-“When a man is given a God inspired vision, nothing can get in the way”

-Peter the Great-“Behind some of the greatest leaders are deeply flawed people”

-Pat Williams-“If you truly love people, your leadership can go a long way”

-John Maxwell-“Great leaders treat people as people they really like”

-Huey Newton-“Living out courage wins many followers”

-Henri Nouwen-“True servant leaders have their identity rooted in Christ—not in degrees or accomplishments”

-Abraham Lincoln-“Great leaders look for the good, even in their greatest rivals”

It’s an interesting cast of characters (from corporate heads to Black Panthers to ministry leaders), but each presentation always draws out lessons that explained their lives and inform ours. Leadership is a gift, but it is also something learned, and one of the best ways of learning is to study the lives of those who profoundly influenced others.

An hour ago, I stepped out of another class, having listened to student presentations evaluating contemporary ministries. Again, I was amazed by the diverse choices: Tim Keller (Redeemer Church); the US Army Chaplaincy; Joel Osteen (Lakewood Church); John Piper (Desiring God Ministries); Jews for Jesus; BSF; Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church); Chinese Homecoming Ministry; Village Missions; Youth for Christ; Harvest Bible Chapel: Andy Stanley (North Point); Inter-Varsity Fellowship.

Here are some of the questions we pondered—

-how big is too big? When 43,000 meet for worship, is it still a church?

-can a ministry that is called to be all things to all people still qualify as a ministry?

-is a video venue approach  biblical? Can you truly shepherd multiple locations?

-if a parachurch ministry is not intentional to support the local church, is it still valid?

Here’s one I found myself asking. With so many creative ministries, where do you draw the line at what truly constitutes ministry?  We can do lots of things in the name of Jesus and call it ministry. Are we doing a disservice to the body of Christ by continually creating new ministries?  What I mean by this is this: are we bleeding the local church to death by funding so present many ministries? Could we take a break from launching a new church, a new site, a new parachurch ministry devoted to reaching…?

I’m sure these questions may get some to see red, but the fact so many ministries are in the red causes me to wonder these things out loud. I’m not sure how to answer this (after all, I teach in a seminary). But I sometimes wonder if the landscape would be healthier if it were simply composed of local churches, each calling people into community, each member giving their time and resources to making the church a vital witnessing, training church. I know this—I would get a lot less mail this time of year.

 

 

 

 

 

LIVING ON A WHOLE NEW LEVEL

Tomorrow I will lecture on the glorious and inglorious sides of ministry. There’s great glory in watching over souls, of tending to the deepest aspects of a person’s life; glory in ministry’s hiddenness (e.g. the unseen work of prayer); glory in the challenge (what else tests your will, emotions, intellect, tact, patience, imagination, etc. like ministry?). But part of the inglorious side of ministry is seeing behind closed doors, past the façade, to sinful dimensions of life others do not see so clearly. We are invited into the mess of broken, hobbled, crippled, and abused lives—people living with deep addictions and unseemly behaviors.

There’s too much of this inglorious side today. The church is losing its influence in culture, in part, because there seem to be fewer and fewer truly transformed lives.  In a recent conference I attended in Beirut, a pastor walked out because it was clear he would not get enough glory—enough presence on stage. What is this about? No wonder we are losing our voice! We have become almost as dysfunctional as this present culture. Too many of our present choices are compromising our call as the church to be a contrast society.  We seem to be forgetting who we truly are in Christ.

In his new book, Meditation and Communion with God, John Jefferson Davis, challenges the church to rediscover its identity—to realize the profound intimacy available to us in Christ, and the power that emerges from experiencing it. This will, however, require a commitment on our part to meditate on Scripture, engaging with the triune God who is living, active, and present.

Davis underscores what Eugene Peterson wrote in Practice Resurrection, that life can (and should!) be lived at a whole different level. We can participate in life out of death—life that trumps death, life that is the last word. There are three reasons: First, with the announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand (Matt 4:17), a new age has dawned. The light is arising to take the place of the darkness. Something of the ‘already’ of the new creation is here. We are beginning to experience the realities and powers of the age to come (Heb 6:5). We can live eternity in time.

Second, with the acts of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, we exist in a radical new order. In our union with Him, we have died and risen (Rom 6:3; Eph 2:6); we have been given victory over sin and death. We have been transferred to another authority (Col 1:13). God has made space for saints to live robustly under the conditions of the resurrection. With His ascension, we live in the power of His intercessory work and His present reign (Rom 8:34). We can experience a personal encounter with God, “mysticism on the highest plain”.

Third, with the coming of the Spirit, we live in the age of the Spirit. Life is profoundly influenced by divine power. We are indwelt by the Spirit. We have been incorporated into a community, the body of Christ (I Cor 12:13). We are a whole new creation (2 Cor 5:17). We are God’s present prophetic voice (Acts 2:17). The very quality of life has changed.

As a result of these, it’s little wonder Jesus declared that we have the power and authority to do even greater things than He did (John 14:12-14).

-we can confront the powers of darkness knowing they have been disarmed. Jesus has armed us with sufficient strength to overcome the perpetual enemies of the soul. We can pray prayers that lay hold of and the release God’s willingness and ability to act in accordance with God’s will. We can ask for something of God’s kingdom, God’s rule in the future to enter into our present.

-we can experience the presence of Christ in a new way (Matt 28:20), one that is transformative and interior.

-we can enter into a new depth of intimacy with God—far beyond the OT priest who entered the holy of holies. We are in union with Christ, with a connection like a branch has with a vine.

We can make a significant impact in the world. Life is not only imparted to our souls when we read Scripture. A word saturated, prayer driven life can resist and push back the secularizing forces of modernity and postmodernity.

We seem to have lost sight of much of this, settling for life at a far more inglorious level.  We seem to accept the lie that sin has far more authority than it does.  We seem to come to the word with low expectations; into worship with little imagination. I need the occasional read like Davis’, that gives some theological clarity and calls me back to living with great expectation. We have overcome the world (I John  4:4).

 

 

REFLECTIONS FROM A TRIP TO BEIRUT

Tonight nearly thirty young people gathered in a home up here in the Lebanese mountains to remember a tragedy that took place ten years ago today. Bonnie Wittherall was showing grace and care,in the name of Jesus, at a health clinic in Sidon, when a gunman entered and shot her in the face.

A few years after this tragic death, I stood at the closed gates of the church, where the clinic was once housed. Tertullian once said the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. But Philip Jenkins has also made the case that there are times the blood of the martyrs is the end of the church. As far as I know, the church is still closed.

This helps to explain why Beirut is not a tourist mecca for most people I know. When I first flew over the city in 1996, it looked like one gaping wound. Years of civil war had left a lot of the city broken. Over the last sixteen years, I have seen the city change. There are some beautiful parts. But underneath the daily commerce is always the threat of chaos breaking out, as evidenced by the recent bombing.

The traffic is maddening, but people cope. The electricity occasionally shuts off, but people adjust. If you have a hard time flexing, this is a place to avoid. I watch with admiration as ministry leaders are thrown curves almost every day. I liken the context of their work to an emergency ward. You never know what will happen next.

Still, for some reason that I can only attribute to the Spirit, I am drawn to this place. The people are special--the food is amazing. But it is far deeper. I come here because of Acts 1:8. In the circles in which I am to witness, Beirut represents my "outermost parts of the earth." I come because I believe the Middle East is one of the most strategic places on earth. I come because there has been a cycle of conflict and suffering, and the only hope in this place, as in every place, is the reconciling work of the gospel. I come because there is a measure of dysfunction in the Christian community, and maybe, in some small way, I can help. I come because I genuninely love these people.

I also come because I need to be with the suffering church. On Friday nite, I joined some 200 believers from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, US, Korea, and Hong Kong. Some came from Baghdad or Aleppo or Amman at a certain risk. We come and worship and feel an incredible bond. We come to feel the grief and pain of displaced people.

When you are on the ground here in Lebanon, you get a much better feel of things. Here are some random impressions--
-there is a certain nervousness, with civil war next door in Syria and Gaza imploding to the south. Life goes on here, but there are fears Hezbollah might draw Lebanon in some conflict, conflict that could invite Israel to respond.
-Christians in Syria are in a no win situation. Aligning with any side comes with a real price. I was extremely impressed with the Syrians I met this weekend. Some have experienced great loss, but none asked for anything except our prayers.
-it is clear that for the body of Christ to matter in Lebanon, we will have to come together as a united community. This is the work of NEI, which I am so grateful to be a part of.
-businessmen, pastors, parachurch leaders, educators are coming from all over the world to be part of something God is doing in Lebanon. Every year this gathering grows. You can sense people are looking for a cause bigger than themselves and bigger than their comfortable suburban setting where indifference too often defines the world they have left behind.

I come because I get to work with people like Grant and Elie, men with gravitas who are passionate to see this region claimed for Christ. I come because there are a lot of young people with great hopes for the future. I want them to know churches like Village really care.  I am grateful for a church that has a global vision and sees the need to share my training and gifts with others.

It's November: Time for Those Irrelevant Awards!

I am in the great town of Milwaukee tonight, home of century old breweries and Polish steeples and site of this year’s Evangelical Theological Society Meetings. I am here to present a paper, as well as listen to a number of scintillating, brilliant, and fascinating papers by colleagues in fields from philosophy to theology to bibliology. As with every year I have attended, I am again prepared to give my prestigious “Most Irrelevant Awards”. Again, there are so many to choose from—so here the top seven (in no particular order):

1-The Relational Ontology of Third Article Theology

2-Kierkegaardian Forgiveness and the Condonation Objection

3-The Problem with the Proposal of a Peripatetic Provenance for the Lexical Conceptual Source of Paul’s Ethical Catalogues in Col 3:5, 8, 12-14 and a Proposal of Two Ways Forward

4-Wagering an Interest Relative Invariantism

5-Consciousness, Maximality, and Mereologically Simple Selves

6-On the Road to Vaticanus: Another Look at P4

7-The Evolution of Atonement; Hebrew Sirach 3:30 and a Semantic-Historical Argument Against the Sense ‘Propitiation’ for Hilaskesthai in Hebrews 2:17

I fantasize the thought of having all of the above presenters over for dinner one night and see where the conversation goes. It could be really wild and adventuresome. I might even invite some of my parishioners, those dealing with hard issues in life like an unfulfilled marriage, dealing with rebellious teenagers, living with the election results, or struggling with an unfulfilling career. I would guess it could all be very helpful.  

It would be unfair, however, to stop here.  For there were also some relevant papers (and the conference had a very relevant theme—“Caring for Creation”. It was great to hear some very good evangelical thinkers address the environment). Now for those more relevant papers:

Tree Hugging the Tree of Life

The Global Warming Hoax Makes You Pay for Everything and Threatens Your Freedom: A Biblical Response to Global Warming Claims

I Would Crawl Over Broken Glass to Hear Him: John Stott’s Popularity in North America

Boredom is a Heresy: Creation Mandates, the Ontology of Boredom, and Creation Care

Eternity is a Temporal Category

It’s All Going to Burn Anyway: Rethinking Dispensational Creation Care

Be Anxious for Nothing: Biblical and Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches for Treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Sleep, Sloth, and Sanctification

Okay, maybe you are still wondering why I am here. I come each year to get answers. And there were a number of papers seeking to answer life’s more significant questions:

Can Autonomous Military Robots Be Programmed to Behave Ethically?

Can’t We All Get Along? Friendly Atheism and the Epistemology of Religious Disagreement

Is There Really Such a Thing as Male and Female? The Challenge of Intersex to a Complementarian Understanding of Gender

Is Thoughtless Prayer Really Christian? A Biblical/Evangelical Response to Evagrius of Ponticus

Who’s Afraid of Univocity?

What’s So Bad About Making People Better?

Yahweh the Sadist? An Examination of God’s Delight in Destroying Israel in Deuteronomy 28:63

So many papers—and so little time!

Tomorrow I leave for Beirut, entering a part of the world where—finally—everything will make sense.

Reflecting on the Election

I just had breakfast with one of my leaders at Village, whose sour mood probably reflects a number of people in my congregation today. The morning after the election, the results are somewhat disturbing. The immediate take-away for me is how much our nation is moving further and further away from the biblical values we once were more inclined to accept. We have re-elected a President who is pro-abortion in his policies, as well as endorses same sex marriage. Even though he has articulated a clear conversion to Christ, it seems he has made little effort to reach out and find common ground with leaders of the church. At least two, and likely a third state, have endorsed same sex marriage. And a growing number of voters have declared no religious preference.

Reflecting on so much of the political discourse in recent days, at least on the moral issues, it does amaze me how seemingly inept we are at articulating our stance on such issues as abortion, marriage, gambling, etc. Some of the post deliberations talk about how turned off some were by politicians who took an “extreme stance on reproduction issues”. I take this to be code for standing up for the rights of the unborn. I find myself asking why taking a moral stance is “extreme”. Why is it so hard for some in the public square to give a reasoned defense without sounding apologetic or weak. Isn’t it to the government we must turn to to protect the rights of the innocent, the vulnerable? Is it crossing a line to say that if a parent will not protect the wellbeing of the child he/she is called to steward, someone must protect life? To say this is a women’s rights issue makes no more sense to me than saying a father who is sexually abusing his two year old son should be able to do so without governmental interference. If we will not protect the survival or the health of a human being, is it not the role of government, which Scripture defines as “a servant for good” (Rom 13:4)? Isn’t this also an issue of social justice? Shouldn’t this matter even more to those on the left?

With respect to same sex marriage, why is it that those politicians who believe in the heterosexual definition of marriage cannot boldly respond? Why doesn’t someone ask—if you redraw the lines and redefine the institution of marriage, aren’t you creating the potential that anyone with enough lobbying power might redraw them again to fit their orientation? Does anyone stop to ask what God’s will is?  Does anyone care?

The issues before us as a nation, of course, are far bigger than marriage and abortion.  There are issues of debt and immigration, and again, it is almost impossible to hear anyone take a position that reflects God’s moral will. We desperately need leaders who will not pander to the polls, who will promote justice while calling everyone to take responsibility to do their part. There are too many people who are not cared for, and too many others who are, for lack of a better term, squatters, freeloaders, who only want handouts.  It would be so refreshing to see someone address both. It’s great to hear someone call for the protection of a state like Israel, but it would be really great if one spoke with the same fervor for the rights of Palestinians. Too much of our leadership seems one-dimensional.

Okay, enough ranting. There is good news in all of this. Our present course as a nation places more responsibility on the church to be the church. Our best hope is not in Washington—never has been. Our hope, whether the nation realizes it or not, is on vibrant communities of faith that will—

-faithfully preach the Word of God. Instead of giving lip service to verses, picking and choosing favorite texts, and ignoring the ones that do not conform to our self-centered convictions, we need modern day prophets that will not shy away from preaching a word that centers the heart.

-reach out to every culture and generation and repent of the tendency to be a monocultural environment of “like attracting like”. Only then can we more intelligently address the needs of a city, a nation that is more and more multiethnic, and demonstrate the mystery of the gospel, that in Christ there is no dominant culture.

-get out of their cocoon and witness to the power of the gospel and live out its implications in the community. The reality is that most in the church are too afraid or indifferent to share their faith.

-show grace to the hurting, forgiveness to those who have injured us, and Christlike love to everyone.

-demonstrate the exuberant joy that comes from knowing God intimately.

-pray for those in authority over us, starting today. As I Peter so powerfully puts it, “Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor those who lead.” It is in our interest that those in the political realm succeed and lead with the wisdom and skill of Solomon.  

So this is where we must start—“Lord, thank you for our nation and for the freedom to choose. Show us your mercy, your justice, and your grace, and draw all of us ever closer to your heart”

 

 

Some Guidelines for Voting in this Political Season

For as long as I can remember, I have had a certain fascination with politics. A fair number in my church might assume I have a certain aversion, even a disinterest, as I often avoid the subject in my preaching. Some get downright angry with me for cautioning against placing too much hope in politicians or giving too much time to media voices that would suggest the hope of the world is Washington—when the hope of the world is a healthy, gospel centered church.

The truth is, I was a political science major in college and once seriously considered the State Department as my career. To this day, I continue to read widely, from Evangelicals in the Public Square to To Change the World to a recent title, Power, Politics, and the Fragmentation of Evangelicalism. I spent some formative years in Tim LaHaye’s church, where I was exposed to a church very involved in politics. And I have been teaching a course that discusses the role of church and politics for the last twelve years. None of this makes me any sort of expert, but it has shaped and informed my thinking.

I have discovered a number of thoughtful voices who would argue that the church should steer clear of any political involvement, lest we be soiled by politics. If you want to be an undivided Christian, then you should relinquish any ungodly identification of Christianity with patriotism. We’re called to be an alternative community, resident aliens. "It is not the business of Christians to work out the ethical problems of Caesar."

The problem with this stance is that faith loses a certain integrity. The church becomes irrelevant as it takes itself out of the public square.

On the other side, I have read, listened to, and worked with those who believe we should plunge right in. It is our right and our duty to be politically informed and involved. We must do battle with a rising secularism aimed to progressively remove religion from the public square and reduce it to the private realm. The soul of America is dying. Believers should, hence, ban together in a sequence of majorities and coalitions in order to become a dominant influence. This has had a wide continuum—from Liberation Theologians to Theonomists who call for a theocracy, to former groups like the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition, who wanted to restore America back to God. More recently, there have been the voices of David Crowe and James Dobson, and others on the Christian Right who have viewed the political scene as a war over definitions of marriage and life, and call for an alignment with those parties and candidates who have the right meanings.

Unfortunately, as history affirms, plunging in too far has not served the church so well. This was especially evident to me, living in Europe, where the church is a shell of itself, in part because it mixed church and politics from the beginning. Campolo once said that mixing church and state is like mixing ice cream with horse manure. It may not affect the manure, but it will mess up the ice cream. So one must be very cautious. As Chuck Colson once warned: "Christians should not unwarily plunge into the political marshlands, thinking they will drain the swamp." They may actually get caught in the mud.

Ultimately, we must pursue the model of Christ, who refused to yield to the temptation to usher in the kingdom through political power. The truth is, redemptive needs do not have political solutions. Politics cannot solve the deterioration of the family any more than the problem of greed and debt.

So what should be our involvement, our stance, as a significant election is around the corner? Be informed—be involved.  But maintain these core convictions—

 1-God is the One true Sovereign who ordains governments. The church is the bearer of that claim. Any authority found in government originates in the rule of God. He alone removes and establishes kings. They rule for His purposes, which are to command good, punish evil, maintain peace, and preserve justice (Rom 13:1-4). Ask yourself—who respects this divine claim and will best fulfill these divine purposes called of government?

 2-God calls us to submit to government to avoid God’s wrath. So no matter who is in office, our mandate is to honor them and pray for them regularly (I Pet 2:15). We are called to be the best citizens, involving ourselves thoughtfully in the public square. This means a wise church will seek to cooperate without capitulation to advance the cause of justice and human good and human rights and care for the earth and preserve life. This means thinking forcefully and carefully, refusing to be intimidated into neutrality.

Part of submission is to accept the consequences when we must disobey laws that contradict the commands of God, standing against government that attempts to take the role of the church or play the role of God, or deny us the right to preach and live the gospel (Acts 5:29). Ask yourself—who will best honor such partnerships and avoid exercising the role reserved for the church?

 3-God calls us to resist the tempting illusion that we can usher in the kingdom through political means. Christians betray their Lord if, in theory or practice, they equate the kingdom of God with any political, social or economic order of the passing time. The church is not an instrument of the state; it is of another realm. The kingdom of God is a thing unto itself, a community in the midst of the world called to be a redemptive influence, that does not unthinkingly cozy up to nationalism, pointing men to their trans political destiny and supra political loyalty. As Leslie Newbin once put it: "A church that sees the cross of Jesus as the central event of history can never identify any political order with the reign of God."

The first thing to say about politics is that it is not the first thing. The first thing is God’s kingdom, God’s purposes, and God’s ways. Our first responsibility is to honor Him, fearlessly discharging the word of God, addressing the governing authority with the word of God, no matter the price. We must speak prophetically, live radically, and hold to absolutes in a relativistic age, yet with grace and humility, without a drive to power and control. Ask yourself—who will respect the fact the church, not Washington, is the hope of the world?

 

 

 

 

 

A Centering Word in a Highly Politicized Moment

In these days, dominated by candidates and network news and poll numbers and sound bites, I find it helpful to escape it all and get my thoughts re-centered.  The other night provided such an opportunity. I was part of a unique gathering, including a few area pastors, Murdock Trust people, a couple of leaders from Cru and Palau Ministries, as well as a PSU physics prof. We met to converse with Andy Crouch. Andy is the author of Culture Making, and is currently lecturing here at Western.  We asked him to meet with us, talk about cultural engagement, and challenge our thinking. We were not disappointed.

It’s an important subject, for the reality is we seem to be losing the culture. NBC News reported this week that Protestants, for the first time in American history, make up less than 50% of the population. We have moved from “near hegemony to internal exile. ” But, as we discussed, the far bigger concern is that we as evangelicals have so accommodated to culture that it is hard to tell the difference between believer and unbeliever. We seem to have lost our way when it comes to being Christian. And we have lost much of our influence.

There are lots of models of engagement with culture. Richard Niebuhr gave a series of lectures in the early 50’s, in which he sought to answer the question—“How should the church relate to culture? ” It turned into a very influential book, Christ and Culture.  Niebuhr presented a series of models. On the one hand, we can withdraw from culture, creating an alternative society (think of the Amish).  The other side of this is to become immersed in culture such that a believer is one with culture (at the extreme, think of Christendom at its height, when everything and everyone fit under this one model of faith).  

One can also seek to take over culture, as some Christians, particularly on the left and the right, have sought to do. They believe that linking with power and politics and state is the answer. This is why some Christians become so immersed in the political process this time of year. But as history reveals, power carries unintended consequences. Gaining the levers of political control has not necessarily influenced culture for Christ. There are a couple of reasons: First, the problems that most people really care about (values, equity, and decency) do not necessarily have political solutions. When the church abdicates and  the state is given the power to address these, it makes an even greater mess. Secondly, when evangelicals gain access to the levers of power (corporate, political, and educational), they tend to adopt rather than change the structures and values. We tend to compromise many core convictions in the process. Michael Lindsay, a sociologist, demonstrates this in his revealing book, Faith in the Halls of Power.

Our discussion focused on other models of engagement, for the ones mentioned have not gained much traction in changing the culture. More recently, James Hunter has made a major contribution with his book, To Change the World. In this, he develops a theology of “faithful presence”, something Paul seems to instruct in passages like I Thess 4:9-12. It is rooted in a desire—not so much to change the world—but to honor God and fulfill His command to be faithfully present to Him, to one another, and to our tasks.

As the title of his book, Culture Making, underscores, Andy’s conviction is that our best engagement is not to impact nor subvert culture.  These efforts only invite push back. Rather than condemn or copy or consume or threaten culture, we must learn how to create culture. That is, we need to dare to think and do what has never been done before.  It goes back to Adam, who was placed in the garden to cultivate and care and create. It goes back to being made in the image of God. We reflect our Creator by creating. This is where evangelicals should be investing their time, but I fear in this political season, we will place our focus (and our hopes) in lesser places.

Andy took us back to someone we can learn from. His name was Pope Leo XIII, who in 1892 had no secular power; it was only spiritual. And he wrestled with this question of how the church should be involved in society, how it can create culture. A defining question is this—“How can we be a counter culture for the common good? ” This is a question that has driven Andy’s “Christian Vision Project”, in which he asked significant thinkers in various walks of life to come up with something that is a contrast to culture, but would strengthen the common good. One of my favorites is Lauren Winner, who wrote the article “Sleep Therapy”, in which she suggested that Christians can change the world by honoring sleep as God designed it. Pushing ourselves to go without sleep denies our fragile incarnation, our need to place our trust in God rather than our hard work, as well as our witness. To honor God’s rhythms is countercultural (especially in American culture), and to do so would be in the interest of everyone, and in the process we would be making culture.

Back to Leo. Andy pointed out that Leo XIII came to this conclusion—that when people flourish, from the most powerful to the most vulnerable, this is the common good. This is what the church should be about. Socialism defines “common good” as that which is the greatest good for the greatest number. But Leo argued against this. What the church must be about is answering the question—what could we do that leads to the flourishing of all people?  Where is the common weakness, the people who cannot defend themselves (the unborn, the oppressed, and the abused)? For what really defines us in our culture making is what we do for the least. If the church is more about this, about being a contrast society that is making culture, serving culture, sharing Christ in culture, we just might change culture.