Tag Archives: Leadership

Advice for Young Preachers by Michael Smith

When I was in high school, I took private voice lessons.  I will never forget my first lesson: I had to stand in front of a mirror and look at myself.  I thought, “what does this have to do with singing?”  It was the most uncomfortable experience.  This was a lesson in posture, in how the muscles in our mouth and throat, and even through our body, affect the sound we produce as singers. I had to align myself in the mirror.  The mirror revealed truth (it always does).  Even worse for me was when we recorded the lesson and I was asked to listen to the tape when I got home.

You see, I thought that the sound I produced was a combination of Frank Sinatra, Barry White, Nathan Lane, and all of the other great voices that I wanted to emulate.  I was afraid of my own voice and thought that in order to be good, I had to sound like someone else.  When I listened, it wasn’t my voice.  I was able to hear the sound I produced rather than what I thought I sounded like.  That kind of reminds me of some lessons in preaching.

Work on it.

When was the last time you listened to yourself – or worse, watched yourself – preach?  Humble yourself, and listen and watch.  Don’t live into the lie that you are God’s gift to preachers.  I know I’m not; I have to keep working on it every week. Guess what? It’s hard, soul-wrenching work.  When you watch, you may discover that you wipe your nose too much, you sway, or you have a nervous habit.  Of course, preaching is more than just excellent oration; the Holy Spirit is involved.  But let’s be honest: you can still work on ways to eliminate distractions to let the Spirit speak.

Listen to others.

Listening to good preachers should inspire us to sharpen our skills (and not just borrow material). Reflect upon not only the material and presentation, but also on who you are as a preacher. I remember sitting in an ecumenical service where another pastor preached.  I thought to myself, “what is he talking about?”  There was no focus.  I don’t mean to be offensive to that person; in fact, it was more convicting for me.  It invited me to reflect. I discovered I never want to be a preacher who, when I finish, walks away unaware that the people don’t have a clue what I was talking about. I realized how much I want to honor the precious gift of people’s time each week.  When you listen to others, let it inspire you to be the best version of you.  To do this you must find your voice.

Find your voice. 

Much like my singing analogy, there is nothing more frustrating than listening to someone who is clearly trying to be somebody else.  Just go to an elementary school talent show: the fourth-grade version of Christina Aguilera is enough to make you go crazy. Be comfortable with who you are.  If you are not funny, don’t try to be. Let your passion and your authentic experiences shape your words.  Remember that it is not all about you in your message, but people don’t want to hear about this random guy or that girl as an illustration. Your listeners want to know that you have wrestled with your subject and have overcome it, or are still wrestling with it.  Your sermon must be authentic.

More and more, I see people going online and printing off stories they found from a keyword search.  That’s lazy.  Don’t do that.  I like Mother Theresa, Winston Churchill, C.S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, and Abraham Lincoln – but it seems many preachers follow a recipe for what a sermon should be that includes a sprinkle of quotes from these people.  Quotes have their place, but even more powerful is your memorable phrase that drives what you are presenting over and over again in your message.

I still consider myself a “young preacher,” and I know that I am not “there” yet.  But I do know that if you are not passionate about preaching, then you should find someone else to do it. I would do it for free. Unfortunately, in ministry, we want people to be great at all things. I know a lot of senior leaders who are great at pastoral care, visitation, Bible studies, and the like, but not great at communicating or preaching. Their churches are often struggling.

Until we reach a place where the senior leader isn’t expected to do everything in the church, you will have to work on your preaching. So either delegate this weakness, which can mean swallowing a huge dose of pride, or work on it, listen to others, and find your voice.

When Preachers Read by Elizabeth Glass Turner

“Read everything.”

Rev. Steve DeNeff, a pastor and well-known preacher and speaker in The Wesleyan Church, said this one day in my undergraduate homiletics class. He is an excellent communicator and taught a fascinating preaching class. At the end of the second semester, he presented students with a print of a pastor in a pulpit, surrounded by shadowy figures – prophets and leaders from familiar biblical texts. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” it reads. It is an encouragement: you never step into the pulpit alone. Preachers are part of a fellowship of truth-speakers that stretches back across centuries.

“Read everything.” News stories, fiction and nonfiction books, magazines. It was practical advice – we had to assemble folders of cut-outs or printed pieces from the web or photocopied pages of books, a built archive of potential sermon illustrations that might work well as an introduction to a text or an illumination of a difficult principle.

“Read everything.” The advice was also given almost like a pronouncement, a warning, an exhortation: if you preach, you must know the culture in which you live and breathe. A lot of our cultural dynamics go unspoken – but if you read regularly, you will notice trends, changes, you will be aware of the atmosphere others breathe unconsciously.

Reading everything didn’t mean ignoring the scriptural text in a sermon: on the contrary, DeNeff made clear that a sermon that doesn’t reference the Bible after the initial reading isn’t a sermon. It’s a motivational speech. Rather, reading everything means voraciously pursuing every tool at your disposal to help communicate the Word of God.

So what happens when preachers read?

You gain perspective. If all you read is Tweets and football scores, your perspective will be limited. When you read the news (even skimming stories outside your usual areas of interest), you become aware of the big picture. If there’s any danger in church life, it’s becoming so wrapped up in your own denomination or geographical area that you forget to pop your head up and see what’s happening around you. Because most preachers also make hospital visits or review committee budgets or calm disputes or counsel troubled couples, it’s even easier to get so wrapped up in other areas that the habit of reading is seen as a luxury. If a preacher does read, it’s a book – often from their own denominational or traditional perspective – about leadership, ministry, or preaching.

Which is about the moment that we begin to get nearsighted. But when you read – whether hardback or Kindle or even audio book – you deliberately expose yourself to other times, to other places, to other voices. Reading Dickens will throw into sharp relief how much things have changed in just a short 150 years – and how much they’ve stayed the same. In a time when all news is “BREAKING!” headline, it’s valuable to get some perspective. How far have we come? Where was God faithful in the Middle Ages? What circumstances from 50 years ago might give us some wisdom as we face today?

You gain storytelling awareness. If you read or listen to classic fiction, you will inevitably become – at the least – a slightly better communicator. Writers read good writers. Reading a good writer makes you a better writer. Not all books are worth your time. Some of them are worth investing in, though. By reading “Moby Dick” or “Roots” or “The Violent Bear It Away” or even “Harry Potter,” you allow yourself to be a listener – a good discipline for speakers in itself – and to be swept up in the tide of the story itself.

Dr. Sandra Richter tells her Old Testament studies students to “tell the Story, and tell it well.” The more shy or inarticulate you are, the more I encourage you to read really good stories. They will help give you the words to express yourself.

You gain a disciplined mind by engaging new texts. Pastors have a lot of spinning plates, to use a familiar image. You’re busy. You’re subjected to the need for ruthless time management. But consider this benefit of reading fiction, nonfiction, news articles or poetry: you are subjecting yourself to the discipline of engaging new texts.

And that’s what you ask people to do every week.

Biblical literacy is at an astonishing low in North America: people who grew up in the pews are often unfamiliar with Bible stories and biblical themes. When you add people who did not grow up in the pews, even if you hand them a Gospel + Psalms, you are asking them to engage in reading that might, for them, be a challenge. Even listening to the Bible on your morning commute can be a challenge if you’ve never read it before.

Many pastors delegate Bible study to small group ministries. While whether actual Bible study actually happens in the fruit salad and coffee context of living room discussion is up for debate, it is the preacher’s job to proclaim the Word of God on Sunday mornings. And when you’re asking people to engage with the Word of God throughout the week, whether individually or in groups or through whatever book they’ve picked up at their local Christian book peddler’s, you should be willing to discipline yourself to read texts that are, for you, out of your comfort zone.

Reading one chapter of Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time” will probably remind you of how it can feel to encounter the Bible as a newcomer to the faith.

You gain sermons that grow beyond the surface. Truth pops up across history in many ways. There’s extraordinary wisdom about
human nature in Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” You can dog-ear pages of “Watership Down” or even smile at “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” If I preach to a certain demographic of college students, I can communicate difficult Christological truths in a cultural shorthand with just one or two short quotes from “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

Many people need to move from the familiar to the alien, from concrete to abstract. Jesus knew this in his own preaching. To prophetically proclaim is to take people on a journey. When pastors read, pastors deliberately invest in looking for effective ways to communicate the truth of scripture. Engaging in classics not only allows you to use stories and images that will engage your listeners as you bridge them to the biblical text, but also allows you to engage listeners whose intellects will appreciate the connections you draw – say, between Naaman’s vulnerability to his soldiers as he bathed in the river, and the struggle for dominant tribal position illustrated in a jungle animal fight early in Kipling’s “The Jungle Book.”

You gain health. Preachers, you are as hungry after mental work as you are after physical work. Only you haven’t expended near as many calories. Which means you’re ravenous after you write or preach your sermon, even if you haven’t been chopping firewood or playing basketball. In other words – you may be sedentary and very hungry, a potentially problematic combination. That’s on top of having a job that elevates blood pressure and steals hours of sleep.

But reading can boost your memory and reduce your stress; neuroscientists have discovered that reading a novel increases your brain connectivity; when you’re ready to clobber a difficult church member, reading can help increase empathy. (Just maybe read a paper version and not a screen that emits light right before bed.)

So when you have to fill out a report on your wellness practices, you can include “reading” on the list.

Last week I encouraged everyone to take a nap.

But if you’re in a preaching rut or having trouble sleeping, I recommend a good book.

The Greatest Spiritual Need by Elizabeth Glass Turner

A college professor at my faith-based liberal arts university used to make a bold declaration.

“The greatest spiritual need on this campus,” he would state, “is sleep.”

Every semester he saw the same thing. A student would come to his office for a meeting feeling discouraged or depressed, defeated or frustrated, struggling. Whether it was addiction or relationship problems or academic anxiety, the student would spill out their woes for a few minutes until he gently interrupted.

“How much sleep did you get last night?” he would ask. Their faces surprised, students gave answers that revealed a pattern. Four hours. Three hours. Five hours. “How much the night before last? Last week? What did you do over the weekend?”

Soon, a picture would emerge. Attempting to operate on three or four hours of sleep a night, students began making poor decisions, finding their tolerance or resistance low, their emotions unpredictable. And often, they looked first to emotional or psychological or spiritual factors before taking into account one very practical influence.

So instead of telling them to pray harder or switch majors or break up with their significant other, Dr. Keith Drury would tell them to go take a nap. And then to start going to bed earlier.

Sound familiar, Church?

Are you feeling discouraged?

Depressed?

Defeated?

Frustrated?

Is everything a struggle?

Church members, small group leaders, pastors – how long did you sleep last night? The night before? Last week?

Do you wrestle with hidden addiction – alcohol, porn, eating disorders, binge shopping, prescription pills? (PS – it won’t stay hidden forever, as we’ve relearned the past few weeks.)

You may scoff. Maybe your ego won’t let you consider being or appearing less productive (why is productivity a god in our culture?). Maybe your feelings of insecurity won’t let you put away Pinterest ideas for creative cupcakes you’re taking to a bake sale hosted by a snide woman. Maybe your auto-pilot won’t let you question how healthy it is to let your kids sign up for so many extracurriculars.

Recently I half-jokingly commented to a friend that I felt holier.

Why?

My husband had traveled out of town for a while and the absence of my beloved epic squirmer resulted in the best nights’ sleep I’d had in years. I noticed I had more patience with the kids. I was making better lifestyle decisions. I was more sensitive to the pushes and pulls of the Holy Spirit. I noticed feeling more free to be intentional.

The truth is that all the dark circle correcter in the world won’t erase bad decisions, broken relationships, and vanished months and years. Besides knowing that sleep deprivation leads to more obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, slower reaction time, less creative thinking and poor immune systems (30% of adults get six hours of sleep a night or less – and getting less than six hours of sleep a night makes you four times as likely to catch a cold), we might also ask how many church board conflicts, 15-passenger van accidents, extramarital affairs, social networking snark, and small group meltdowns are influenced by what, according to one wise college professor, is the greatest spiritual need on any given college campus.

“Jesus was inside the boat, sleeping with his head on a pillow. The followers went and woke him. They said, ‘Teacher, don’t you care about us? We are going to drown!’

Jesus stood up and gave a command to the wind and the water. He said, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind stopped, and the lake became calm.

He said to his followers, ‘Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?'”

You can choose to be like an alert disciple, panicking and awake.

Or you can choose to be like Jesus, and go take a nap, ready to face the storm with calm and clarity and authority.

Or are you better than Jesus?

Right Privilege by Tom Fuerst

About a year ago my son started expressing interest in playing baseball. So we went to Dick’s Sports to get him a glove. But my son, only 3 years old at the time, throws left-handed. When we tried to find a glove small enough for his right hand there weren’t any. There were plenty of left-handed gloves for right-hand throwers, but absolutely no right-handed gloves for left-hand throwers. The right-handed throwers are the dominant culture. Being right-handed is the assumption. It is most people’s reality.

But this trip got me thinking at the time about how, when little league starts, my son could be functionally behind the right-handed kids. Not because he’s not smart enough, athletic enough, or big enough, but simply because there were no gloves in his size and for his hand. Simply because the dominant culture is not one he fits into. In this way, he lacks privilege that most kids have.

Privilege is a dangerous word in our culture. We don’t like to acknowledge privilege, and for those of us in the dominant culture, we don’t have to acknowledge privilege because the society is set up for us. We can be blind to these things, not because we’re necessarily immoral, but because we’ve had the privilege of never having to think about them. Again, I never had to think about the dominance of right-handed culture because I’m right-handed, but once I saw how left-handedness can impact athletic performance, I learned that my privileges of right-handedness come with all kinds of assumed, unearned benefits. How much more, then, does the fact that I’m white come with assumed, unearned benefits? How much more, then, does the fact that I’m male come with assumed, unearned benefits?

Of course, it’s at this point that people object – especially white men. We like to see ourselves as self-made. We like to think that we did it all ourselves. And some of this might even be true. Those right-handed little leaguers who get really good at baseball certainly work hard at it. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t benefit from privilege. You can be privileged and still be a hard worker.

The point is, your privilege affords you certain benefits that others can’t assume. To further the handedness metaphor a bit, once I noticed how my son might be delayed about in his baseball skills because of a lack of glove, I began to also notice other ways our world privileges right handers. Standard scissors assume right handedness. Our written language assumes right-handedness – even the way the letters are formed, especially cursive. Even something as simple – and unnoticed – as the dishwasher always being on the right side of the sink displays an assumption (and therefore privileging) of right-handers. Before I had a left-handed son, I never had to think about these things.  I was able to just assume right-handedness is just the way the world is.

And this is maybe the key to any discussion of privilege. Those with privilege just assume this is the way the world is, and therefore they do not have to be aware of how others are not included in their privilege. As a man, I’ve never had to worry about whether people think I have the authority to preach. I’ve never had to worry about people judging my entire sex based on my preaching performance. Rather, because men dominate pulpits, I just get to assume this is just the way the world is. But I’ve never had to think about why a woman’s experience in the pulpit is thoroughly different. I’ve never had to think about the fact that most women in preaching roles struggle with their congregations questioning their authority, giftedness, or competence. I’ve never had to think about how if I preach a bad sermon, no one is going to say, “See, that’s why men shouldn’t be preaching.”

As a white man, I’ve never had to worry about if I did or didn’t get a job because of my skin color. I’ve never had to worry about how a “black name” might appear to an employer on a resume. That’s not a problem white men in this country ever have to deal with. And when I do get a job, nobody ever asks if I got it because I’m white. I have to privilege of everyone just assuming I’m qualified. That’s just the way the world is for me. But it’s not the way the world is for everyone. I’m privileged.

But my blindness to my privilege can also make me blind to the fact that the God I worship is not blind to the way the world is and he sees how some people have an easier go at life than others. Getting a late start in baseball because you can’t get a glove on your hand has minimal significance in life. But getting a late start in education or getting an inferior education simply because of where you were born or the color of your skin matters to God!

The God of scripture has a preference for those who are not privileged. Christ came to proclaim release to the captives, healing for the sick, restoration of sight to the blind, and good news to the poor. His entire mission is a message of restoration and empowerment for those who lacked privilege. This is why Christianity started off as a dominantly poor movement. It’s why so many women were attracted in the beginning. It validated the lives and stories of those who lacked privilege in Roman society.

But this isn’t just something Christ did that was different than how God had previously revealed himself. Rather, God, from the beginning, has been challenging our understandings of the way the world is. In Genesis 4, God went against the way the world is and accepted the younger Abel’s sacrifice over the older (and more privileged) Cain’s sacrifice. Later, God went against the way the world is by choosing Isaac over his older brother, Ishmael. Again, later, God contradicted the way the world is by choosing Jacob over Esau. God later tells the people of Israel that He chose them, not because they were the greatest, most powerful, privileged nation, but precisely because they were not. We could cite numerous examples of this even prior to Christ.

So it begs the question – in what ways does God want to challenge the way the world is today?

One of the key things God may want us to understand is that just because that’s the way the world is for us, doesn’t mean that’s the way the world is for everyone. As a white male, I was raised on the assumption that if you just work hard enough, you can accomplish anything you want. That promise is nice in an ideal world, but it’s a myth – even for me. Nevertheless, it still stays in the back of our minds, such that when we see less privileged people who aren’t succeeding as well as we are, we don’t first think about privilege. Rather, we first thing about hard work, or intelligence, or even virtue. They must not be working hard enough, be smart enough, or be good enough, we think.

But, if I can continue with the handedness metaphor, that’s like saying, “Left-handers have ugly handwriting. If they just worked harder at their handwriting, if they just worked on not smearing the ink on the page, if they just put in some effort, they could have beautiful handwriting like me.” But such an assumption fails to take into account the privilege – the way the page is set up, the way our written language moves from left to right, the way beautiful handwriting is judged by certain slants and curves that are darn near impossible for left-handers to achieve, no matter how hard they work.

Or, if the ugly handwriting metaphor doesn’t work for you, let me actually couch the metaphor in performance. Remember in grade school you had the wrap-around desks? Well those desks were made for right handers – so right handers could rest their arms up on the wrap-around piece to make writing easier. But where did that leave left-handers? If we were doing a timed test, as a right-hander I had an easier time with the actual writing because my arm didn’t get tired. Not so for a left-hander. Not only do they write slower on average because their pen-strokes have to be different, but they also didn’t have an arm rest. My higher performance on a timed test may not be because I as smarter, but was because I had a privilege, the word of the desk was assumed me.

When we consider that privilege is more than just about desks, the problem is exacerbated. An individual underperforming child, then, should prompt questions, not first about a child’s intelligence, but about social structures, educational access, and even simple things like if child eats when not in school. Looking at the larger context should cause us to ask other questions, too – why are all the best schools and best teachers out in the suburbs? Why do Christian schools – schools that name themselves after a poor man named Jesus – have prices so high that poor people can’t access them and get a great education, too? And what is the impact on our city of 50 years of underfunded schools in poor neighborhoods? Do you see? There’s a larger context than individual underperformance. And we must be willing to look at the larger context.

Just as left-handers can’t work harder or just learn to write with their right hands, no amount of hard work is going to remove or displace a glass ceiling. It’s going to take persons in privilege caring enough to notice that ceiling and working with those who are limited by it to remove it. It’s going to take the non-privileged persons to raise their voice, and the privileged persons having the willingness to listen and respond appropriately.

And our faith can play a key role in helping non-privileged persons gain access and resources to flourish as God’s creatures. Christianity is a religion that proclaims a God who laid aside his privilege, power, and even comfort, entered into the human story in the physical form of an oppressed minority in the backwater of nowhere, died a non-privileged death. What might it take for Christians today, especially those of us with privilege, to “take up a cross” and emulate that story?

To return to the left-handedness metaphor, when I was in high school, my best friend Tommy Branch was a left-handed Catholic. In elementary school, he said he went to a Catholic school where they, for religious reasons, tried to make him learn to write right-handed. As a Protestant, I don’t fully understand this, but the point is, his teachers reinforced “right privilege” and tried to justify it on religious grounds. The way the world is was reinforced by baptizing the way the world is instead of celebrating that there are other ways of viewing the world.

I wonder what the white church world, of which I have always been a part, can learn from our brothers and sisters of color. I wonder how we have theologically justified white privilege or male privilege, instead of asking tough questions about the way the world is. I wonder how much we have baptized our assumptions and benefits, talked about them as gifts of God, without considering how God might want us to lay those aside to benefit other voices. Not because I’m anyone’s hero or messiah, but because I care about a world where everyone can flourish, and I understand that I participate in a faith tradition where God’s privileging of the non-privileged is just the way the world is.

The Prevailing Sin Of Evangelicals by Elizabeth Glass Turner

In the midst of an extraordinary amount of stone-throwing and name-calling from across the political and theological spectrum, the Church in North America has shuddered and shaken from its timbered ceiling (or its artfully exposed industrial lighting) to its hallowed stone foundation (or tiled coffee house floor).

(Astute readers perhaps will have noticed the use of the capitalized word “church” but not the use of the phrase “Body of Christ.”)

The various branches of the organization of Christian faith in North America are flailing in a storm that some see as a clearing, cleansing front needed to wash away theological detritus while others see a hurricane destined to imperil and destroy life as we know it.

The shake-up, for better or worse, has caused a great deal of soul-searching and reflection – though perhaps not as much as is needed, one might think after wearily skimming the morning Facebook news feed. What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be human? How has the way in which the Church relates to prevailing culture changed in the past 30 years? What leaders to we need to pay attention to right now? Who has the answers? Will my congregation die if we don’t change what we believe?

How did we get here?

To the dismay of many, a startling realization is beginning to dawn: we thought we were strong, faithful, and following where God led. But what if we weren’t?

I know that many of my progressive friends will read the above question in a different light. “You thought you were strong, faithful, and following where God led, but you weren’t, because you refused to be fully inclusive. Now you’re realizing that and you’re reevaluating what you believe and who you are. That’s a good thing, because now you can change.”

That angle is not the one predominantly preoccupying the evangelical consciousness right now, however.

(I use “evangelical” for lack of a better word to describe theologically orthodox Christians who place a high value on the understanding of Scripture as the inspired Word of God and, out of that understanding, hold a humble but defined traditional theology of marriage and human sexuality. Personally, I think “evangelical” is largely a useless term because of the number of meanings that can be painted onto it.)

How did we get here? We thought we were strong, faithful, and following where God led. But what if we weren’t? These thoughts haunt laypeople and clergy alike who have spent years serving in the church and who now survey their surroundings in shocked disbelief. The sweeping changes in society over an extremely short time in the scope of historical context – a few decades, half a century at most – have left a reverberating tremor of shellshock.

No matter how many “statements” are issued from denominational spokespersons, individual clergy, and faith-based organizations, there seems to have been little direction, discernment or comfort gleaned from what many feel are either empty platitudes or hopeless, feeble claims of continued perseverance in the practice of the faith. This is understandable in part: there’s a great deal in flux in North American culture, in key denominations and in many pews. But behind a great deal of conversation lurk the questions above. We thought we were strong, faithful, and following where God led. But what if we weren’t?

It is time for the Church in North America to repent – but of what?

We must ask ourselves, “what made us think we were strong, faithful, and following where God led?” Were we confident we were being faithful because we could afford a new building? Were we assured we were strong because attendance grew and we implemented the leadership trends du jour? Were we assured we were following where God led because we practiced relevance and offered a traditional and contemporary worship service?

None of these are the fruits of the Spirit.

We should’ve recognized the symptoms – pastoral scandals brushed over and shrugged off, millions of budgetary dollars spent on state-of-the-art buildings while the missions and outreach dollars stayed steady or shrank, congregations of predominantly one race or socioeconomic status staying of predominantly one race or socioeconomic status. None of this characterizes the Spirit-filled Body of Christ. 

It did, however, characterize the Church.

What if the prevailing sin of evangelicals in the past 30 years was the same as the prevailing sin of progressives today – the cult of the individual? Protestants have this struggle wrapped tightly throughout our Reformer DNA. It was extraordinary, a gift of grace that individual people could read Scripture in their own language. It was extraordinary, the idea that the individual can reach out in response to God on her or his own because of the priesthood of all believers. It was extraordinary.  It also had a deadly-sharp edge, as all Truth does – for individualism, run rampant, becomes as much of an idol as a statue of a saint or a gilded icon does to uneducated peasants.

If there is a prevailing sin of evangelicalism, might it be the cult of the individual? Take, for instance, the far-right fundamentalist trope – “God says it, I believe it, that settles it” – and place it alongside what could easily be the far-left progressive credo – “I feel it, I believe it, that settles it.” Both hinge on the individual. And while we have inherited a robust faith that celebrates the one – the one up in the tree, the one lost or left behind, the one who came back, thankful – it is not a faith that relies on the individual. Far from it.

The Christian faith springs from belief in the Trinity, first and foremost – Father, Son, Holy Spirit (not suggesting that God is gendered, but that God is persons, that God is relationship – that God is love…). Unlike our Muslim and Jewish friends, we do not claim God is one without also claiming God is three. And of the Threeness of God, we believe that the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, Word-Made-Flesh, Emmanuel-God-With-Us, has called us to be his Body on earth empowered by the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

There is no such thing as a solitary God in Christianity, this Three-In-One “I AM,” and there is no such thing as a solitary Christian.

Yet for decades, evangelicalism swooned into a vast approach not unlike marketing rather than evangelism – and make no mistake, the two are different. For one thing, marketing targets consumers, not believers. And when you market, you see demographics made up of individuals. The North American Church began attempting to market the faith to what it perceived as “swing voters” – every young new emerging generation, seen as the trendsetters that predict the future.

“Now hold on a just minute,” pastors counter, having spent thousands on demographic research, relocation trend watches and seminars on relevance. But I counter that a small but important tell-tale sign that North American evangelicalism got too self-centered is the fascinating migration of Protestants to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. I have begun to lose count of the number of friends from college and seminary – not counting friends of friends – who now have icons in their living rooms, rosaries next to their beds, and a surprising but joyful number of children springing up.

Fed up with the elevation of the individual, this minor but very significant trend reveals people from their 20’s to their 50’s deliberately seeking out traditions that emphasize a great many practices and doctrines before the individual comes into play. Eastern Orthodox followers spend seasons fasting together, feasting together, venerating together. Roman Catholics turn to a higher authority than the individual in the pew, looking to time-worn dogma, to a faith community of extraordinary countercultural fellowship. Both traditions practice exclusivity, interestingly enough, something that occasionally offends unwitting Protestants expecting to “take communion” like everyone else. Yes, both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy have strong traditions of mysticism – something experienced by the individual. In the main, however, you do not have the tail wagging the dog.

Before we repent, then, for what “those people” are doing (“thank you, Lord, that I am not like that person over there…”), fearing that they will bring about the Apocalypse during our lifetime or our children or grandchildren’s lifetimes, Church, we must repent for being an organization of Christian faith but not the Body of Christ. We need to face that we have made an idol out of self, a god of the individual. It is not about us. It is about Jesus Christ – and him crucified…

We have shaped the Church in our own image, so that it is a safe, suburban place to be, with mall lotion in the ladies’ room and shrubbery trimmed to perfection. We have shaped the Church in our own image, so that we worship only in ways that will attract people we want to be seen with. We have shaped the Church in our own image, so that “benign” segregation is practiced while we allow cultural differences to trump unity in Christ. We have shaped the Church in our own image, so that it is something that will appeal to our grandkids or our yoga friends or our IT colleagues, though hopefully not the foreclosed-upon, the elderly poor, or the bi-racial kids of a single woman missing several teeth driving a broken-down car.

If we attempt to address theological challenges with answers that rely on the individual, we return immediately to where we started.

We thought we were strong, faithful, and following where God led. But what if we weren’t?

“It’s not as I would have it,” said Rev. Richard Coles, priest in the Church of England, gay, living celibately with his civil partner, on the doctrine of the Church of England. “But then – it’s not about me…”

What a splash of cold water in the face. It’s not about me. When’s the last time you heard an activist, commentator, pastor or church member say that? (And that’s what was so stunning about the shooting victims’ families confronting Dylann Roof, after all: “I forgive you” is a profound wail of pain combined with the acknowledgement that it’s not about me. “Accept Jesus Christ.”)

I’m not sure what to think about this community worship our pastor set up with a neighboring Black church. I want the other church to know I like them, but I don’t know how they perceive me and I don’t know the songs they seem to love.

It’s not about me.

Is my ministry making any difference? Are my family’s sacrifices worth it? If we build a new $7.5 million worship center, that will be something I can look to for affirmation that something I’ve done is of value, that something will outlast me.

It’s not about me.

I don’t want my friends to think I’m ignorant, predictable or gullible because of my traditional theology of human sexuality.

It’s not about me.

I don’t want my friends to think I’m ignorant, predictable or gullible because I feel called to volunteer and serve with AIDS ministries.

It’s not about me.

If there is anything that God is calling us to face, it might just be the reality that there has been a stark difference between the organized Church and the living, Spirit-filled Body of Christ.

I am crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live.

If there is anything that God is calling us to celebrate, it is that we are not alone – we are not individuals squabbling over foyer paint color – we are called to live and breathe the fellowship of the saints, the suffering of our Lord, the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the community-generating creative motion of the Father.

We confess we have not loved you with our whole hearts. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

Pastors, Moral Failings, And The Thing Nobody Wants To Talk About by Tom Fuerst

When a pastor has a moral failing, especially of the sexual nature, everyone wants to talk through the sordid details. That thing that happens behind closed doors, that thing that is supposedly “no one else’s business” when it comes to my sexuality, becomes everyone’s business when it comes to the pastor. People want to know who the other party was. They want to know what led to the moral failing. They want to know (blame?) if the pastor’s wife didn’t “keep herself up” for him. They want to know how long the affair’s been going on. And they want to highlight all the possible ways the pastor might be a hypocrite for espousing a stern sexual ethic in public while living in blatant sin in private.

Everyone wants to talk about these things. Everyone wants to know.

But there’s an issue behind all of this that no one is addressing. There are questions to be asked that no one really wants to ask because such questions don’t make for good water-cooler gossip.

You see, lost in all the pastor-gone-wild media porn out there is the fact that pastors have jobs that, as largely defined in the American setting, are not sustainable for healthy living. The way the pastorate is defined in American culture, whether the church is large or small, reflects the larger systemic issue of an over-worked American society that knows nothing of a work/life balance. And this is not only the minister’s fault for living into this kind of lifestyle (though it is certainly our faults, too), but it’s also the church’s fault for expecting their pastors to live this way, or rather, for not expecting their pastors to model a better way of living.

The contemporary American pastorate in larger churches looks more like a CEO. His/her job is to make sure the investors are happy, engaged, and committed. S/he must provide a weekly presentation that emphasizes the entertainment factor to maintain the interest of the people. The pastor spends his time visioning, executing, managing, and promoting himself/herself and the church. The church becomes a commodity in this model, another thing people might consume or not consume, depending on whether or not they like the product and the person – the pastor – who advertises the product.

But it’s not much different in smaller congregations. In smaller churches, the pastor is always on the run doing all the hospital visits, administrative tasks, cleaning the church building, writing his sermons (often on Saturday nights), putting out congregational fires, and making sure the few parishioners are happy.

What strikes me here is that, when it comes to the moral failings of pastors, we want to talk as if this is an individual issue. As good Americans, we cannot look beyond the specific free will decisions of the isolated individual pastor. But whether we’re talking about large churches or small churches, when pastors are working 60+ hours on a consistent basis, we are setting him/her up for moral failure.

And yet, despite the plethora and increasing number of major pastoral moral failures in the last three decades, the American church continues to insist that this particular structure of pastoral ministry is not only the way it should be, but many argue, in fact, that it is biblical.

But this couldn’t be further from the truth. When the ministry of the church became too great for the apostles, the church didn’t come to them and offer them more money in exchange for more time spent at the church building. No, the apostles and the church worked together to find a way to ensure that the Apostles could focus on very specific things and let others concern themselves with what was left.

This is exactly what we see in Acts 6, when the ministry to the needy became too great for the apostles to take care of. Due to the size and demands of this early ministry,certain people (widows) were being neglected because the apostles couldn’t handle it all (6:1). When the job ministry is too big, matters of justice, things of importance to humans and God, get neglected. And the early church found a solution:

 And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables. Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.” What they said pleased the whole community…

The apostles don’t see themselves as CEOs or slaves to the church. They see themselves as fulfilling a specific duty for the church: the ministry of the word of God and prayer. Everything else was dropped from their plate. And not only did the church not look down on them or call them lazy for a desire to emphasize these two tasks alone, but this suggestion “pleased the whole community.”

I’m not arguing here that a pastor’s moral failings are somehow excusable. They’re not. These men and women make terrible decisions that have long term impacts on their families and their churches. But make no mistake about it: these decisions are not made in a vacuum. These decisions are made in the context of a church structure that fails to emphasize what the apostles in Acts 6 emphasized. Pastors are encouraged to be leaders and counselors, friends with everyone and visioneers for the city, but I wonder how often pastors are simply encouraged to be ministers of the word and prayer.

I wonder when the last time a church simply wrote on their senior pastor job description, “we’re looking for a man or woman who simply focuses on the word of God and prayer.”

In the end, this Americanized, degenerate pastorate has already failed. The only reason we can’t see it is because our American individualism blinds us to how structures of oppression work. And, yes, I use the term oppression on purpose. A consistent 50-70 hour work week is not liberty, but enslavement – a return to Egypt. A consistent neglect of family in order to meet the needs of everyone else’s family is not freedom, but bondage.

The American pastorate is bondage.

We want our pastors to be the moral reflections of a godly humanity. We demand that they live in glass houses and sit on pedestals. But we’ve structured their lives in a way that inevitably leads to failure. This is a no-win situation for anyone. I just wonder how many lives will be ruined before we seek a better way. How long will it be before the church demands a better, more biblical way? I don’t know. But I’m not holding my breath for this trend of pastoral moral failings to stop so long as we continue to view the ministry through the lens of the American way instead of the way of the apostles.

Called To Be A Nimble Follower by Elizabeth Glass Turner

What does it take to be a nimble follower of Jesus Christ?

Describing yourself as “nimble” (“quick,” “light,” “quick to comprehend”) may not be a trendy way to phrase a quality – I doubt I’ll see it on any t-shirts soon, unless it becomes a merchandised quote from a quirky show – but followers of Jesus Christ are called to be nimble, even if you can only picture “nimble” in the context of a candlestick and a bloke named Jack.

How can we be quick, light followers of Jesus who are quick to comprehend?

Nimble followers of Jesus first have situational awareness. Whether you’re an athlete (unlike the time I got whacked in the side of the face with a volleyball because I wasn’t paying attention) or an air force pilot, both of whom practice situational awareness regularly, you know the importance of keeping the big picture in mind. What is happening around you? Where are the people around you? At what part of a process are you now executing a maneuver? This global perspective is essential. It requires seeing beyond your own borders, looking beyond your own life, and tuning in to the activity around you.

Consider New Testament examples: Jesus spotting Zacchaeus in the tree; Jesus “having” to go through Samaria; even Jesus methodically braiding a whip to cleanse the temple. Jesus’ situational awareness went beyond these examples though: upon seeing a paralyzed man, he first forgives his sins. Upon responding to one plea for healing, he first feels power go out of him in a crowd. Though his disciples frequently got frustrated with his seeming lack of situational awareness – “everyone’s been looking for you,” “you’ve talked so long the people are hungry – what will we feed them?” and the favorite – “how can you be asleep? we’re all going to drown!” – Jesus had Spirit-filled situational awareness to the things were essential for him to carry out his earthly ministry.

Nimble followers of Jesus also have single mindedness, that quality of focus that edges right up to preoccupation or obsession without going over – though, to others, it may seem we have. “Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). To be singleminded means to have unity of purpose, thought, direction, focus, like the intent face of a crouched tennis player, putting pro golfer or springing basketball player. Singleminded people cut out otherwise harmless or good things in order to dwell on what they are doing and why they are doing it. The adolescent Jesus displayed this to Joseph and Mary’s chagrin when he got caught up in the temple and was surprised to see them worried.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield describes this quality at length in his fascinating book, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me about Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything.” Growing up in Canada, Hadfield decided he wanted to be an astronaut – even though at the time Canada didn’t have a space program. Every decision he made in his career positioned him to be well-placed in case the opportunity ever arose. It did. In the meantime, his single mindedness had carried him through years before his goal was reached.

Nimble followers of Jesus are all in. They are willing to put skin in the game, to make sacrifices easily and quickly. From someone who played “all in,” consider the wise words of  NBA star (and famous Hoosier) Larry Bird: “It makes me sick when I see a guy just stare at a loose ball and watch it go out of bounds.” Bird was describing the kind of player who was making a great deal of money but who wasn’t all in – and it made him sick.

Simon Peter wanted to be all in, thought he was all in, and it nearly destroyed him to realize that he wasn’t. Only by the power of the Holy Spirit was he able to be all in. And when he was all in, he no longer counted the cost. He followed the pattern Christ set in Gethsemane – “yet not my will, but thine be done.”

Quick, light, comprehending followers of Jesus maintain situational awareness, single mindedness, and the wholehearted commitment of being all in.

So what keeps us from being nimble followers of Jesus Christ? What might prevent us from being quick and light as we follow Jesus? What might slow us down, burden us, wear us away, or cloud our comprehension?

When followers of Jesus don’t maintain situational awareness, it is often because we are zoomed in to our immediate circumstances or context to an extent that becomes nearsighted. I might have eyes for my own world, my own schedule, my own demands – and therefore, thinking about my grocery list, as it were, I back into a truck, only alerted to the presence of another vehicle when grinding metal crunches the air and halts my thoughts. A crumpled bumper is one thing, but what about when you lose situational awareness in your individual spiritual life or in the community life of your fellow believers? Nearsighted followers of Jesus run up against screeching metal and are startled out of their immediate focus. This has happened recently as North American Christians have reacquainted themselves with the ongoing reality of racism in the United States.

When followers of Jesus don’t maintain single mindedness, we fall prey to distractions that take our eyes off the ball. Our attention wavers, or we get “choked by the cares of this world,” which we deem a higher priority than our singular bent towards Christ, or we slowly allow split loves, believing we can maintain more than one love, living with a divided heart. It is such an insidious way to die.

Because losing single mindedness is the way of death, as Colonel Hadfield describes in his section on Pre-Launch in his chapter, “What’s the Next Thing That Could Kill Me?” Astronauts have to practice worst-case scenario simulations over and over again in multiple versions. What will we do if this fails? What will we do if this appears to fail but isn’t actually failing? And so on. And no astronaut can afford to maneuver the tricky re-entry phase of the mission while wondering if her or his family remembered to pay the water bill on time.

When followers of Jesus don’t maintain the commitment to be “all in,”  we are usually giving in to a sneaky set of emotions: fear, or reserve, or self-preservation. Whatever we’re giving in to, it isn’t love – that effective excuse that silences others. “I love my kids too much to enter ministry,” and so on. Keeping something back usually means fear – fear of pain, fear of being made fun of (so many grown-up’s still carry that fear), fear of being let down, fear of missing opportunity for advancement – because sometimes self-preservation looks a lot like ambition. And we stand, and stare at the loose ball, and watch it go out of bounds…

If you want to be a quick. light follower of Jesus who comprehends quickly – in other words, nimble – think about a situation where you’re not feeling particularly nimble right now. Is there a situation about which you feel clouded, confused, divided, fearful, reserved, or nearsighted?

Now, put a little situational awareness into play: what are the facts? What are some primary dynamics? What outcomes might arise from the circumstances? (“What’s the next thing that could kill me?”)

Next, ask yourself: “Given my history, my personality, my current setting, what things tend to derail single mindedness in my life? Given our history, our collective personality, our current setting, what things tend to derail single mindedness in my tradition or denomination?”

And then, consider this: “What truths or misconceptions could keep me from being ‘all in’? What truths or misconceptions could keep my tradition or denomination from being ‘all in’?”

Can you be nimble for Christ? Can you, as an individual, be ready, quick, light on your feet? Is your tradition well-poised to be ready, quick, light on its feet, in service to Christ? 

Dear ones, we are not playing the heartbreaking game that we narrowly lost that keeps us up at night; we’re not playing the game we had hoped to play, dreamed of playing when we envisioned a glorious tournament; we are playing this field, as it is, this moment. Today is the setting in which we are called to be nimble: behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of our salvation.

As Saul the persecutor-turned-Paul-the-Apostle wrote in II Corinthians 6:

Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.For he says,“In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love;  by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;  as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed;  as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

We must be nimble so that we do not receive the grace of God in vain.

Aware to the situation in which we find ourselves – truthful and honest about what the console tells us as we blast off.

Singleminded in our pursuit of Jesus Christ and him alone.

All-in, dedicated, given over to that which we have given ourselves.

We must be nimble so that we do not receive the grace of God in vain.

Are we free to follow Christ quickly, lightly, quickly comprehending his ways? That is a question worth losing sleep over.

A brief note: equipping yourself to be a nimble follower of Jesus is a distinct trail leading off from the path along which we build monuments. Our experiences of Christ transcend the context in which we met him, learned about him and grew more like him. Anything other than quick, ready following of Jesus slides rapidly toward the slippery desire for tabernacles on a mountaintop, so beware.

And let us, as part of the Body of Christ, confess our sins.

Lord, as your followers we have often been nearsighted and self-absorbed, limiting our awareness of our situation; we have traded singlemindedness for trying to please many and gain the love of all; we have reserved part of ourselves from you, keeping back a portion and resisting your call to be “all in.” Because of this, we confess that we have confused our vision, weighed ourselves down, divided our heart, and trusted in ourselves to know best and protect ourselves fully. For this, we are truly sorry and we humbly repent. Forgive us and light in us the glow of your Holy Spirit. Help us to think of things other than ourselves; to be singleminded in love, thought, purpose and intent; and to release fear, self-preservation and ambition to you. Show us true liberty, plant in us a vision of what the church can be when we are equipped as a body to be nimble followers of you, light and quick to hear your calling. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit – Amen.

Earlier I stated:

“when followers of Jesus don’t maintain the commitment to be ‘all in,’  we are usually giving in to a sneaky set of emotions: fear, or reserve, or self-preservation. Whatever we’re giving in to, it isn’t love – that effective excuse that silences others. ‘I love my kids too much to enter ministry,’ and so on. Keeping something back usually means fear – fear of pain, fear of being made fun of (so many grown-up’s still carry that fear), fear of being let down, fear of missing opportunity for advancement – because sometimes self-preservation looks a lot like ambition. And we stand, and stare at the loose ball, and watch it go out of bounds…”

What if I shifted a few words and rephrased a few observations:

“Whatever we’re giving in to, it isn’t love – that effective excuse that silences others. ‘I love my family too much to risk my pension, no matter what doctrinal changes occur in my faith tradition. I love my friends too much to practice the faith I genuinely believe Jesus is calling me to. I love my denomination too much to wonder what God may actually be calling me to do,’ and so on. Keeping something back usually means fear – fear of pain, fear of being made fun of, fear of being let down, fear of missing opportunity for advancement…”

What might a fellowship of believers look like that was free to follow the swift promptings of the Holy Spirit?

Are we letting the ball go out of bounds? Are you?

What Pastors Can Learn From Zumba by Elizabeth Glass Turner

Recently I took a college student with me to a Zumba class at the local Y.

“What you see may not be pretty. What happens at Zumba stays at Zumba.” This warning is necessary for all who accompany me to a workout class, given my unique combination of Lucille Ball and Miranda Hart-like skills or, more specifically, lack thereof.

Male pastors in particular, I speak to you today. I understand you might be uncomfortable visiting a primarily female workout class (though occasionally there are a few men). My advice: book a special Zumba session just for you and your staff or clergy group. It will be highly instructive, and hey, we all know the risks to personal health that ministry can inflict. You probably need to get your target heart rate up anyway.

This post isn’t so much about what pastors can learn from Zumba as what they must, and because the Venn Diagram results of clergy who sweat through Latin music dance exercise class who write yields only a small overlap, I’m here today.

1. Leaders occasionally need to put themselves in a place of following instructions in a group.

Pastors, no matter what your role or title in a local congregation, are frequently up front and on the platform. Many gatherings of pastors, who, whatever their personalities, are intrinsically in leadership positions, end up being, “all shepherds, no sheep.” Pastors are used to making decisions, bearing a weight of responsibility, and being the one who has to run things.

When I enter Zumba class, I’m not the expert in the room – to put it mildly. I’m not choosing a hobby at which I already excel (a tempting option to tired leaders). I enter the room knowing I’m not the one in charge.

What blissful relief.

You’re not the one a roomful of people is following.

But be warned.

You’re not the one a roomful of people is following.

Can you be comfortable with that? It’s a good test. You need to have some area in your life, some space in your life, where you have to be the clueless follower. You may not choose Zumba as the arena in which to practice that (though I think it’d be a great staff exercise), but you need to remind yourself of what it is to follow.

It’s also helpful to watch how someone else leads. How do they cue? Do they seem like they enjoy what they’re doing? If you find yourself frustrated, why? Is it your lack of ability to mimic them? How might people on your staff or in your congregation or district or conference feel similar?

2. Leaders occasionally need to put themselves in a place of uncomfortable marginalization.

When I enter the aerobic room at the Y, which dauntingly has two mirrored walls, I set down my water and take my place.

At the back.

The very back.

Of the hour-long class, the first 20 minutes or so I can usually follow the leader pretty well. The next 20 minutes is definitely uphill. The last 20 minutes, I’m following her in my mind, but my body doesn’t cooperate and the word “flail” comes to mind.

I deliberately place myself on the margin, but I’m in a place of marginalization nonetheless. One of my first days in Zumba I remember thinking, “and this is what it must feel like to visit a church and feel completely out of place and bewildered.” Even if you have a great “hospitality team” or “greeters,” sometimes if they’re too in-your-face it feels just as overwhelming: you want to explore at your own pace, make your own judgments.

The only way through is…doing it. Friendly faces who smile wryly between songs while getting a drink of water are helpful, but at the end of the day, you’re the only one who can do it.

It’s valuable to remember the off-kilter feeling of being on the edge, the threshold. There are participants here who are already friends, who are familiar with the music, who run half marathons and even wear Zumba shoes. Who’s on the inside and who’s on the outside?

3. Leaders occasionally need to put themselves in a place of being a minority.

Depending on the day, sometimes when I walk into the room I’m a minority, not in terms of gender or skill, but in terms of race and cultural background. The first day I realized this, a deep wistfulness washed over me.

“Why don’t more churches look like this?” I thought.

There were senior citizens and teenagers, Latina women and black women and white women, fit women and very large women, chic women and dowdy women.

All sweating together, moving to the same music, like fitness Pentecost. We were sweating enough to feel like tongues of fire were on our heads.

It’s the history of the church and the future of the church.

I so want it to be the present.

When’s the last time you picked up your keys and drove somewhere to take part in something where your culture or race might not be dominant, especially if you’re Caucasian? Do you regularly seek that out as a discipline in your life?

As I look over these three points, something strikes me, after recently visiting the site in Georgia where John and Charles Wesley spent some time.

Wesley had trouble with these things at one point in his story, as he watched from the outside as the Moravians handle crisis gracefully, as he placed himself as an outsider in Georgia with the hopes of being a missionary to Native Americans, as he had trouble getting along and following others.

All of these things helped unsettle his heart so that it could be strangely warmed (not by an hour of Zumba, according to our best church history records).

If your ministry has stalled, go to Zumba. Maybe Aldersgate will follow.

Race: The Newest Old Issue Confronting American Christian Life by Kevin Murriel

Several weeks ago I attended a conference in Houston, Texas that targeted ministry with large churches. Throughout the conference were presentations on technology, capitol campaigns, and “new age” ideas in ecclesiological innovation. Many left with concepts to take back to their congregations in hopes of implementation while others departed inspired with a rejuvenated energy for ministry. I, however, returned to Atlanta convinced that few recognized what was missing. There was no mention of the race problem we continue to face that affects American Christian life and the growth of our congregations.

Yes, I called it a “problem.” Problems are unresolved issues that stall progress. And needless to say, our inability as a country and as the Body of Christ to have productive conversations about the reality of racism is a problem. By race, I mean, our biologically engineered features (not to be confused with ethnicity) – the problem we often have with each other because of our color differences.

One of my confirmation classes experienced this problem first-hand. At their confirmation retreat two years ago, 35 black youth from an affluent Atlanta congregation were asked by a large group of white youth if their church was “ghetto”and if their hair was “real.” Where they were from and how prominent their parents were didn’t matter–only the difference in their skin color.

Because of the race problem, the nation now has to face itself in the way it did when Emmett Till was murdered in 1955. Ordering that the casket remain open at his funeral, Till’s mother wanted America to see that senseless killing as a result of racism is not just unjust, but evil. That no one regardless of their color should have their life end under such cruel circumstances.

Fast-forward 60 years and the nation now faces more media coverage of the killings of unarmed black men and women as well as the issue of racial profiling. Not that these things are new, they are just receiving more media coverage since the Travyon Martin case in 2012.

It is important to pause here and explain my intent. I am not a race baiter.  Neither do I believe that inciting rage is the way to productive discourse. Rather, I am a pastor who always seeks ways to unite God’s people regardless of the associated discomfort.

Race is an uncomfortable thing to discuss. It brings back memories for many who would prefer them remain in the closet in which they were locked. Some even ask if race matters at all.  It is the 21st century and by the way, we have a two-term black president, interracial families, minority-owned businesses and multi-cultural churches. Why is there a race conversation?

A recent New York Times article titled, “Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions,” cited a study conducted by Marianne Bertrand, an economist from the University of Chicago that highlighted the effect of race on job opportunities. Bertrand and her team mailed thousands of résumés to employers with job openings and measured which ones were selected for callbacks for interviews. But before sending them, they randomly used stereotypically African-American names (such as “Jamal”) on some and stereotypically white names (like “Brendan”) on others.

The same résumé was roughly 50 percent more likely to result in a callback for an interview if it had a “white” name–even though the résumés were statistically identical.

The conversation about race is important for the Church because it directly affects our parish–the world. And though every person has value, we each have intrinsic prejudices. Whether parents become nervous when a black kid shows up to a majority white youth group, or members of a primarily black congregation look suspiciously at a Latino man with tattoos who decides to attend worship, we often have the propensity to feel some kind of way towards the “other.”

So, where do we begin?

I contend that it begins with a desire to love all people and seeing the Kingdom of God as racially diverse. God did not create everyone to physically look the same so it is preposterous to think that God is White, Black, Hispanic, or any other race and only attends a certain “type”of church. Such a theology about God will keep the Church divided as it has for centuries.

One of my mentors, Dr. Gil Watson, is a white pastor serving one of the most prominent churches in United Methodism, located in the Buckhead area of Atlanta, Georgia. He is 40 years my elder and has been in ministry longer than I have been alive. We continue to see God, through our conversations, expand our understanding of each other and our calling as pastors. This relationship is intentional, and at times, uncomfortable for us both; and at the same time, one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives.

What he and I understand is that we are the Church–one, holy, apostolic, and universal–and our witness demands that we live in these intentional, uncomfortable relationships and lead the difficult conversations about the race problem. Society should not drive the Church; rather, the Church should be the influencer of society.

The race problem, however, does not have to remain. When reconciliation comes, such a problem is overcome. This will be the next subject in this series. So, stay tuned.

I Must Go by Michelle Bauer

To be a follower is not a valued characteristic in our culture, is it?  If someone asked us if we wanted our children to grow up to be followers or leaders, I’m guessing most of us would say leaders. When we hire or promote someone at work are we looking for leaders or followers? Businesses and even ministries offer people leadership training. But have you ever heard of a group that offers follower training? When we are giving life lessons to our children we say, “don’t be a follower.” It’s even something we say as sort of an insult: “that person is such a follower.”

I wonder if that’s why we have a hard time following Jesus.

Following requires us to give up control and submit to the leader. Who wants to do that?!  I prefer to do things my way, plot my own course and figure it out. Following slows us down. It requires us to proceed at another person’s pace or take the long way if that’s what they prefer.

As I’ve pondered discipleship over the last weeks, the word that keeps floating past is “follow”.  Discipleship can be a scary word. It sounds really intense and serious. But it really just means to learn from someone through a process of listening and doing.

About 12 years ago before our kids were born, my husband Chris talked me into taking scuba diving lessons with him. I’m not what you would call an adventurous person. I have no need to bungee jump or sky dive. Riding a bike is about as adventurous as I get. So this was a big stretch for me. But he was excited and wanted us to do this together. So, I agreed.

To learn to scuba dive you have to go through a pretty structured certification process. It starts with a text book, classroom lectures and even tests. That was right up my alley!

The next step is to handle the equipment, put together the gear, the regulator and air tanks. Chris and I were the only students in our class. So, we had a lot of opportunities to ask questions and get really comfortable with how everything worked.

Then one day, we had to actually get in the water.

The dive center had a little pool right in their building. It was the perfect place to practice because it felt contained – you could see the sides and there was no wildlife. The regulator is the thing that is connected to your air tank. When you put it in your mouth you are able to breathe normally. What I discovered pretty quickly, though, is that it is one thing to read in a book about how a regulator works but it’s something altogether different to put it in your mouth and start to breathe as you go under water.

Let’s just say I had a few false starts and sucked down about a half a tank of air before I finally got all the way under. But the instructor was really patient and kept saying things like, “this is really normal.”  He stayed close by and that gave me a lot of comfort.

When it was time to do our certification dive, we drove out to an abandoned quarry that had been flooded. We got all of our equipment on and walked into the water. It was a really smooth entry, mainly because we could go at our own pace. We went down to about 25 feet and swam around for a while. When we surfaced, we were certified divers.

A few months later, we went on vacation to Mexico and Chris signed us up to do a drift dive over a coral reef with a group. I was a little nervous – this wasn’t a quarry and there wasn’t an instructor present. We were on our own. We had to get on a boat, ride out into what felt like the middle of the ocean and were then forced out of the boat.  As we are getting on the boat, they made the announcement that we would be going to a depth of 80 feet and they asked if everyone had gone to that depth before. I looked at Chris and we began this conversation using our eyes, like married people do. My eyes said “we have not gone to 80 feet before.” And his eyes said, “if you tell them that, they might not let us dive.” I was ok with that; he was not.

Eighty feet sounded like a different planet to me at that point. There is a big difference between 25 and 80 feet, at least for a beginner. At 25 feet, you can see the surface of the water. That is comforting. At 25 feet you can get to the surface quickly if there is a problem with your air supply. At 80 feet you cannot see the surface and you have to ascend in stages or you could hurt your ears. You can’t just panic and pop to the surface.

The other thing that was making me nervous was a movie we had seen called “Open Water.” The plot of this movie revolves around a couple that had gone scuba diving while on vacation in another country, and when they resurfaced, the group and boat had left them on accident. They bobbed around in the water for a few hours and then they got eaten by sharks. Oh yeah – and the movie was based on a true story. So I had all of this running through my non-adventurous mind as we were riding to the dive site.

I have a very strong flight or fight instinct. Except my instinct is always towards flight. Now if there is some sort of emotional crisis, I’m your gal. But if I sense that I am in physical danger, I flee every time. I don’t wait around to take others with me or even warn of danger. I go.

That day we were doing a drift dive, which means that we weren’t diving to look at something and then surfacing all in one spot. Once we got to the bottom, the guy leading the group would find the current and we would ride it for a few miles to another location where the boat would pick us up. I saw all sorts of opportunities for danger in this plan – I could get separated from the group, get disoriented, look around and find myself alone in the ocean – at 80 feet.

As I’m descending to 80 feet I’m frantically strategizing how I’m going to get out of this alive. When you dive, you always dive in pairs. You are supposed to stay close to your buddy and check in periodically to make sure they are doing ok and to offer assistance if they need it. Well, we got to 80 feet and I abandoned my buddy which happened to be Chris. “For better or worse” doesn’t count at 80 feet.

Instead, I found the professional diver master who was leading the group and I stuck to him like glue. I figured if something happened I wanted him to be the one coming to my rescue. And I figured the tour operators wouldn’t leave him in the ocean. They would know he was missing and when they found him, they would find me too. I would have gone anywhere with this guy and nothing or no one was going to get in between us. I was going to follow any instruction he gave me immediately and completely. I really wanted to live. If I could have tethered myself to him, I would have.

And my plan worked! We survived the dive. I had gone from reading a textbook about diving to actually diving at 80 feet!

The Invitation – “Follow”

I was able to get from a book to the ocean through a process.

There are a lot of similarities between that process and the process of discipleship. Through the gospels, we see Jesus leading his disciples through a very similar process.

Jesus didn’t originate the discipleship model. In the New Testament world, if you wanted to learn something – a skill or a subject – you became someone’s disciple. Disciples didn’t attend a course or a seminar; they attached themselves to their teacher and followed them around for as long as it took to learn what they wanted to learn. A disciple went through a series of steps on their way to becoming experts themselves:

  1. They began by reading, watching and listening.
  2. They asked questions – why did you do this that way? Or you said this, what does it mean?
  3. Then they progressed to doing the thing they were learning, under the master’s supervision. If something didn’t go well they could ask for clarification or more teaching.
  4. Finally, the master sent them out on their own and expected them to operate independently of him or her. It was also understood at this point that they were able to teach others what they had learned.

Before a person began this process, though, they had to accept an invitation to become someone’s disciple. The gospels tell the story of how Jesus gathered and trained his original group of 12 disciples.  We learn through their stories what it means to leave the life you know in order to follow.

After Jesus’ baptism and time of temptation in the desert, he begins his formal ministry. His first project is to assemble a group of disciples. He doesn’t ask for applications and pick the people who have the best resumes or credentials. He doesn’t pick the people who everyone else would consider “disciple material.” He picks the guys that didn’t have a chance in the world of becoming anyone else’s disciple. They had jobs like fishing and tax collecting and leading rebellions. Let’s look at Jesus’ invitation to Peter and Andrew in Matthew chapter 4 verses 18-22.

Peter and Andrew and James and John respond to this amazing offer by immediately accepting. They didn’t weigh their options or seek advice. They literally dropped their nets, got out of their boats and walked away with Jesus.

These disciples demonstrated for us the first lesson of becoming a disciple. In order to accept an invitation to follow, we will have to leave something behind. These disciples left behind the tools of their trade – their boats and nets – their profession, their businesses, their investment, their father and their father’s plan for their lives.

Sometimes, the call is to literally walk away from your life as you know it. Other times, we are called to keep living our same lives but in a different way.  Sometimes this is the harder call, because the nets we leave behind are the unhealthy things we do to make our lives ok. We leave behind addictions, habits, passive-aggressive responses, temper tantrums, denial and a thousand other things we do to get through our days. To go back to your relationships and your work as someone who follows Jesus can be very challenging. But so can following Jesus while dragging around our old life.

At the end, 12 men accept Jesus’ invitation to follow him. And he proceeds to lead them through the process of teaching them everything they needed to know and do to be like him:

  1. They follow him from village to village and listen to him preach. They have front row seats as he heals the sick and casts out demons.
  2. They have lots of opportunities to ask questions – they draw him aside after he speaks in parables and ask what they mean.
  3. Then Jesus starts to give them jobs to do. He asks them to feed the 5,000 people who’ve gathered to hear him preach. They’ve watched him do miracles and now he wants to see what they’ve learned about how he operates.
  4. Finally, in Mark chapter six, he gives them authority and sends them out in groups of two to minister in villages. He sends them out to be fishers of men.

This is very much what our journey of discipleship should look like. Learning to be like and act like Jesus should be the primary focus of our lives. He asks us to learn how to do the life we already have like he would. What kind of a spouse would he be to my spouse? How would he parent my children? How would he do my job?  What kind of a student would he be? Too many times, though, we don’t let being a disciple sink that deep.

Often our discipleship is focused on steps 1 and 2 – learning about Jesus. Think back to my scuba diving experience. If I told you I was a scuba diver and then you found out I’d only read the book and listened to the lectures but had never been in the water, what would you think? You’d think my statement was a bit of a stretch wouldn’t you?  Why? Because reading about something and doing something are two different things.

A discipleship process that stops at listening to sermons or even reading the Bible is not complete.

Those things are very important but we must add the “doing” in steps 3 and 4 if we are to be disciples. We must move through the steps like the disciples did. We need to ask questions and figure out what we believe. We need to start participating in God’s work through service. Once we know enough and have experienced enough we need to get into the water and start doing it.

We can put the brakes on this process at any time. I could have taken all the written tests and decided that was far enough. No one was going to drag me into the pool. And Jesus did not drag any disciples along against their will. At every step we have the opportunity to accept his invitation to go farther.

This is where trust comes in. As we follow him, we learn that we can trust him. He doesn’t ask us to dive in the ocean until we are ready. And when we are ready, he dives down with us and lets us swim right up with him.

Dallas Willard, a Christian philosopher and  a pastor for many years, wrote and taught some amazing things about what it means to follow Jesus. He once said in an interview, “the only thing that transforms us spiritually is the action of following Christ.”  Knowledge and experiences of feeling God’s presence only transform us if we do something with them.

That kind of talk can make us nervous. We believe in grace, right? We believe we do not earn salvation by works, right?  Absolutely. But salvation is not the end; it is the beginning. At the moment of salvation we are saying to Jesus, “yes, we want to follow you.” And then we start following him.

In II Peter chapter one verse five, Peter (who is a graduate of Jesus’ discipleship program) encourages us to “make every effort to add to our faith.” God does not want us to go through life burdened with the thought that we have to earn our salvation. But he does expect us to put some muscle behind our faith. Discipleship happens when we choose to put into practice what we are learning and experiencing.

When we begin to serve and make disciples things get interesting. I was not once nervous sitting in the classroom learning about scuba diving. I said things like “how interesting!” and took notes – sort of like I do on Sunday mornings at church. What requires effort is what happens as I take what I learn on Sunday morning and put it into practice.

A few months ago, I heard a song about following Jesus: “I will go with Jesus where he leads, no matter the roughness of the road. I must go. I must go.”

The person leading worship taught it to us. This is a fun song to sing. It’s catchy! And it caught me all week long. Whenever I was at a crossroads – the moments you decide, am I going to do what I want or go where God is leading – I heard that song in my head. Then the song went from something fun to a matter of obedience.

That’s the roughness of the road. For many of us it is not martyrdom or losing all of our possessions as we flee to the mountains. It is those moments when we have to take what we are learning and choose to obey.

Discipleship sometimes takes us to places that are new and hard and not our normal. And it is in those places that we are compelled to follow Jesus. I dove at 25 feet like a normal sane person. But when I was led to 80 feet, I followed as if my life depended on it.  Jesus takes us to places where we are forced to follow as if our lives depend on it. These are the places where our natural skills and abilities just won’t cut it. These are places where we are inexperienced and unsure.

In the book of John we see a great example. In chapter 11 verse 16, Jesus has just gotten word that his friend Lazarus has died and he tells his disciples that the plan is to go to Bethany.  The disciples say to Jesus, “normally we’d be all about that, but if you’ll remember, Jesus, the last time you were in Bethany, your enemies tried to kill you.”  Jesus insists on going, and that’s when we get to verse 16.

Lots of people will say that Thomas is the Eeyore of the group. “Well, if we’re gonna die, let’s get it over with…” But I think Thomas is courageous. He actually thinks he’s going to die and yet he follows Jesus to Bethany! Why would he do that? Because he realizes that Jesus is Lord and that to follow him is the best thing he can do with his life – even if he loses it.

Not many of us will be asked to follow Jesus into physical death but there are a lot of things that feel like death – fighting addiction feels like death sometimes, and so does walking away from a damaging relationship, and loving someone who has wounded you and choosing peace when all you want to do is fight.

That’s what “no matter the roughness of the road” means.

The Commission – “Go!”

When Jesus invites you to become his disciple his desire is for you to complete this whole process. And he’s really honest about that. Let’s look again at Matthew 4:18.

When Jesus finds Peter and Andrew they are fishing because they are fishermen. What we “do” flows out of who we “are”.  Jesus’ invitation to these men is an invitation to change not only what they “do” but who they “are”.

In verse 19, Jesus tells them exactly what he wants to change them into – fishers of men. There is no bait and switch here. From the moment they are called to follow, Jesus is very clear about the purpose – in order that they might reach others with the good news. Every master wanted their teachings or their craft to live on after they were gone. They were deeply invested in the process of teaching others and then setting them loose to teach still more.

So, after three years of being his disciple, when Jesus tells them, “Go! Make new disciples,” they should not have been surprised at all. He was very clear from the beginning.

In Matthew 28:16 Jesus tells his disciples to go to a mountain outside of town and wait for him there. This passage is known as the Great Commission. To commission someone means to grant them authority to accomplish a task.  This is the disciples’ graduation and commissioning ceremony.

Jesus says to them, “I have taught you what you need to know, I give you my authority, now go and find your own disciples and teach them to make disciples and through this process we will reach the entire world.” And Jesus’ plan worked. The gospel started with 12 people on a mountain in the Middle East and that same gospel has spread around the world.

And yet, there is still work to be done. Has the good news reached your work place, your neighborhood, your school?

This was a command given first to the 12 disciples, but if we want to be disciples of Christ it is also a command for us today. It is not a suggested add-on for those who are super Christians or for pastors.

The purpose of God calling and forming you is to reach others.

Of course he reaches out to us because he loves us; but he also loves the person you are called to reach out to. His desire is for them too. You are here because someone obeyed God’s call to “Go!” It might have been your parents or a pastor or a friend. But we are all here as a result.

I never got the chance to dive again after that vacation. We started having our family and my certification lapsed. But I wonder if the next time I went to 80 feet it would have been as scary? Or the twentieth time? I’m guessing the more we follow Jesus into the deep water of telling our stories and calling others to follow, the less scary it becomes.

How do we know when we are ready to start making disciples?  I would never have considered myself ready to go to 80 feet. I could have read a thousand books about diving, but until I went to 80 feet I wouldn’t have thought I could do it.

We will never feel ready. And that’s ok. When we head out to make disciples we don’t have to know everything or have all the answers. We are called to share our stories and invite people to follow Jesus with us. If you have learned one thing about Jesus or had one experience of him – you are ready. Someone you know may need to hear that one thing that you have learned.

What are we supposed to teach those we are discipling? We are to teach others to follow Jesus.  The invitation we give to others is not to believe and observe. It is an invitation to follow and obey. 

Let’s go back and look at the Jesus’ discipleship process:

  1. Listen and watch
  2. Ask questions
  3. Serve
  4. Make disciples

Here’s where Jesus’ discipleship process and those of other New Testament scholars differ. By the time you got to step 4 it was expected that you would begin to operate independently of your master.

But look again at Matthew 28:20. Jesus tells the disciples “I am with you always.” We always have our instructor with us!  Jesus left his disciples on that mountain when he returned to heaven but he sent the Holy Spirit who is the constant presence of God in our lives. Jesus never sends us off on a solo mission. If he sends us to 80 feet, he is right there with us.  And he loves the idea of us following him so closely that we can reach out and grab onto him at any moment.

Do you see yourself in this process somewhere? Or maybe you see yourself in a couple of places all at once? It is possible to be at step 3 in one area of your life and back at step 1 in another.  I can be making disciples and yet back at the learning and observing step as God deals with me about a specific issue.

This is why the process of discipleship never ends. Our whole lives are to be marked by following. I have made a decision to follow Jesus. But there are parts of me that haven’t gotten the news yet. As soon as God calls me to follow in another area of my life, I must be ready to go.

Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever he leads you? Are you willing to let him take you to the place where you really need him? The place where you have to follow as if your life depends on it?

The song “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” does not say, “I will follow Jesus perfectly” or “I’m not afraid to follow.” We will not follow perfectly and we will often follow Jesus afraid, like Thomas did.

But we must follow Jesus – no matter the roughness of the road.