Tag Archives: Public Square

A Pastoral Posture toward Social Media

My undergraduate degree is in chemistry.  My desire was to be a doctor, but the Lord had other plans.  I’ve sometimes wondered, “Lord, if this was you plan, couldn’t you have led to me to an easier degree?!” But maybe God did that so I could learn one fact that I actually think about a lot: darkness doesn’t actually exist.  Darkness is simply what it is not; it is the absence of light. When light enters into the darkness, the darkness no longer remains, because darkness cannot exist where light is. 

This must be significant when we think of how many times in the Gospels that Jesus either called himself Light or said that his followers are to be a light. This is a world that has significant darkness to it.  As Christians, it is our job to be light, God’s light, in those dark places. 

One of the places that may seem the darkest today is social media.  All we have to do is look around Facebook or Twitter or any of the other social media sites to see our worst impulses. Name calling, mocking, divisiveness, so many areas of division and darkness.  I have many friends who have gotten off social media completely, and I can’t say that I blame them. The Bible warns to us avoid such pointless division. (Titus 3:9 – “But avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.”) So we should all log out and delete our apps, right?  Maybe. But maybe not.

As a pastor, as I’ve seen more darkness and division on social media, instead of giving it over to the darkness completely, I’ve felt compelled to shine a little light, especially in the days of COVID, where my friend list will be the largest congregation I preach to.  And that is what I’m doing: I preach.  Now, anyone who knows me knows that I preach a little different. I may think of it as preaching, though to the average person on social media, it may not look like that. But just like every sermon I preach, I’m trying to point to Jesus, and I do the same with my use of social media. It just may not look or seem like a sermon. Frankly, I think that says more about our sermons than it does about my social media usage. 

With my social media presence, I try to do a few different things.

  • Be transparent. First and foremost, I try to be transparent.  About the only compliment I really appreciate is when folks tell me I don’t act like a preacher. What that means is that I just act normally. Folks aren’t used to their preacher acting like a regular person, and we preachers don’t always put down our guard enough to act like normal people (which we are). So, I make fun of myself.  I talk about music or wrestling.  I make fun of friends.  I admit when I’m tired or sad or angry.  I post authentic things that are actually happening.  It is real.  So, when I talk about Jesus, that is the same thing. Real. 
  • Don’t take myself or life too seriously.  I want to make people laugh. I believe we’ve all just gotten too self-conscious.  I want to “preach” without being preachy or condescending.  I never, ever, ever, want to talk down to anyone. We should point to truth with a twinkle in our eye. Many of us have forgotten how to laugh or lost our joy and our ability to find joy in life.  I want people to laugh again. 
  • Help people think.  This may be my main goal. I try to never tell people what they have to do, or even what they must believe.  I remind them of what Christians believe, or what the Bible says, or what our church teaches. I try to help people do their own theological reflection. If you and I impulsively react to everything nowadays, then no one thinks. One of my goals, especially on complicated and controversial issues, is to help people to think for themselves, in light of what Scripture and church teaching show us. 
  • Focus on grace, grace, and more grace.  The world is so hard today. We need beauty, we need grace. We need hope.  We need peace.  I want us to do what Paul wrote in Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”  I want to help us focus on what is good. 

John Wesley would go where the people were and preach to them.  He preached in the fields, in the streets, wherever they were. That’s how I try to see social media.  I want to shine a light: provide some biblical commentary, some laughter, some realism, but always, hopefully, a little light.

The world is dark today and has always been.  But there is and has always been light and beauty. That’s the space we should operate from.  We have an obligation to shine light on social media and all throughout our lives.  We have a call to be salt and light in every area.  May it be so.

Featured image courtesy Jon Tyson via Unsplash.

Taking the Journey Together: Witness in Crisis

I know a man who works at a large, warehouse-style home-improvement store. One day he shared a story about how to help people find what they are looking for. There is a sign in the employee break room that says: “No Pointing.” The message to store employees is that when customers ask the location of an item, one should not merely point and say, “over there.” Nor is it sufficient to give an aisle number and description of the location on that aisle. Rather, the employee should walk with the customers and make sure that they are able together to locate what the customers are seeking. Along the way, the employee might learn more than just what one item the customer is looking for. Even at some small level, relationship and goodwill are built. The customers realize they are not alone and lost in their search; someone with expertise and experience is traveling with them. We are in a time when people need to know that the church is not merely pointing at some far-off place telling them that they must go on the journey alone. Rather, we go on the journey together.

No matter how we are called to serve in ministry – as a lay person or pastor – it is important to remember that we do not go alone. We join with one another in our mutual work for the sake of the Gospel. Examples of this are frequently found in the Scriptures. In Genesis 12, when God calls Abram to the land he would see later, he did not go alone. In Luke 10, Jesus sent the witnesses out in pairs to proclaim that “the kingdom of God has come near.” After the Resurrection, Jesus walked along the road to Emmaus with Cleopas and his companion (Luke 24). Paul and Barnabas are sent together in Acts 13. If you are a leader in ministry, are you merely pointing, or are you joining others on the journey?

The same holds true for those who are trying to find their way in the Christian faith. The last few months have turned many of us upside-down. People are looking for someone to show them the way in a dark time. Many people are afraid of what the future will hold, as evidenced by panic buying and the hoarding of basic necessities. They want direction on how to navigate uncertain times. Social distancing does not necessarily mean going it alone. Rather, at this important time, people around us need to be reminded that they do not need to go on this journey by themselves.

In times of difficulty, many people of faith have turned to Psalm 23 for comfort. Frequently, Bible study teachers and pastors point to the fact that the psalmist walks through the darkest valley rather than remain in that dark valley. That is an important point. However, notice that the comfort also comes from the fact that the Lord walks with us in those dark valleys. The Lord does not simply point but rather accompanies us. We take solace because we are not alone.

Though the problems facing the world today are significant, perhaps even unprecedented, this is not the first time that the church has faced ministry to those impacted by a widespread illness. In the second, third, and sixteenth centuries, the church was able to minister to people in times of plague and disease. Without minimizing the human toll, it is important to remember that the church served as a faithful witness in those times. The church has the opportunity to be a faithful witness again in a difficult time for many around the world. It is demonstrated in showing the mercy given to us by Christ and coming alongside others as we walk through these dark times.

As a response to social distancing, many churches have generated a great deal of online content in the form of services, devotionals, and Bible studies. I am grateful there has been a proliferation of these types of resources. The internet certainly needs it. All the while, church leaders can ensure that these are not just inwardly focused—aimed at people who are already connected with a church.

Many of our neighbors are asking some really big and really important questions about life, death, and the nature of the world in which we live. The gospel is the answer to these questions. This is an opportunity for us to journey with a world that is asking. We need to do this in a way that is not merely pointing and saying, “over there.” This is the moment to show the world the One who walks through our valleys with us.

Featured image courtesy Andrew Ly for Unsplash.

Reacting to the Image of God: Wesley and Worth

I try my best not to get drawn into the hot fire of the cultural moment. One of my great fears for our moment is that we will all become reactionary, driven more by emotions than reason (or if we are religious an overarching theological perspective). We react to culture, we react to others, we react to ourselves. Reacting like this often means that we don’t take time to stop, think, pray, and discern. In seminary, a professor named Dr. Knickerbocker said, “always watch what word we use. Do we say ‘I feel’? Or ‘I think’? Or ‘I believe’?” Our feelings may be valid, and reason is just as fallen and faulty as emotion. But in a reactionary moment, I try to stay non-reactive.

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve found that Wesleyan theology animates how and why I interact with people. One of the greatest theological works ever, in my opinion, is John Wesley’s sermon, “The Scripture Way of Salvation.” In this sermon, Wesley lays out a concept you may be familiar with: his understanding of grace – prevenient, the grace that goes before; justifying, the grace of conversion; and sanctifying, the grace of Christian growth.

There are so many takeaways from his theology but primary to me is the understanding that God is the first and primary actor in our salvation. We do not save ourselves by anything that we can do. God is the first actor. He calls us (prevenient), saves us (justifying), and grows us (sanctifying). Our very salvation is the work of God. In fact, in a recent sermon series on the Apostles’ Creed, we looked at how our very salvation is a Trinitarian act. We are brought to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. We are saved only through God’s work.

But here is why this matters in a reactionary culture. Why must God be the first actor? Why does salvation rest on God’s action, not on ours? The reason is original sin, sometimes called the doctrine of depravity. When Adam and Eve fell, they took all of humanity with them. (Romans 5: 12, 1 Corinthians 15: 20-21) This doctrine says that when they fell, we as humans fell with them. We are sinful, corrupt, whatever term or adjective you’d like to use. We are sinful. You. Me. All of us. It is part of the human condition.

Now here is the question. What does that mean? We know all humans are made in the image of God. (Genesis 1: 26-27) But sin has entered in. What does that do to the image of God within us? One theological perspective is that the image of God is completely destroyed: nothing good is left within us. From this perspective, we are completely dead in our sins. Sin destroyed that goodness of God. Yes, we are made in God’s image, but we most certainly are not good. That view is a dominant theme within modern American evangelicalism. As I’ve heard it said, a dead man can’t crawl out of a burning house, and the only thing we deserve is hellfire.

That way of thinking is not how Wesley looked at things. Wesley understood the reality of human sin, yes; but he believed that while the fall corrupted the image of God within us, it didn’t destroy it. Ted Runyan has a wonderful book called The New Creation that covers this subject in-depth. His entire point is that the fall corrupted that image of God within us – it is in need of redemption – but is not completely gone. We humans remain of great worth, and there is the hope for salvation for all. (John 3:16, 1 Timothy 2: 3-4)

This is the reason I am so drawn to Wesleyan theology. Without a doubt, we need salvation. And we are sinful. We can’t save ourselves. But that image of God, while corrupted, has not been completely destroyed. Prevenient grace extends to us an awakening of that image that allows us to walk toward God’s offer of grace.

This cultural moment would teach us to see other people as our enemy. To see people only deserving of judgment, especially those who are not Christians or those who we may disagree with. Those who may vote differently, live differently, act differently. We could easily take on the view of sin that casts them out and removes their worth. It is tempting to harden to our sides; they are over the line, they are on the other side.

Of course, I want to be clear. I believe in sin, judgment, and hell. No one comes to the Father but through the Son. (John 14:6) Sin is destructive; it destroys God’s prize creation, humanity. (John 10:10) This is not an apology for sin. It is a call to love all people in the way that God does. Our societal moment can take from us the desire to truly see the worth in others. The worth in those who are wrong. The worth in those we would see as even our enemies. The path of Christ calls us to love even the enemy. (Matthew 5:43-48; Romans 5:10)

As a follower of Christ and as a pastor, I want to speak against racism and also never discount the potential conversion and sanctification of the racist. And if I am their pastor, I want to be able to hopefully, through God’s grace, help them grow. I want to speak against immorality and also never discount the potential conversion and sanctification of the immoral. And if I am their pastor, I want to be able to hopefully, through God’s grace, help them grow. As a fallen human, my guilt is the same as anyone I preach to. In my calling, I want to hold out hope for redemption to those of infinite worth in the same way I respond to it myself. I never want to discount the worth of people, no matter who they are, what they do, or what they believe. Because everyone is truly loved by God who wants to redeem them.

I want as many people as possible to know the love of Jesus. Some would say that because of their sin, those who do not know Jesus are hostile to him and aren’t interested in knowing God at all. Maybe. But when I read Scripture, I see a lot of people who did not know Jesus but who wanted to know him. And today, I see a lot of people who do not know Jesus and who are very hostile to the Church. But there is still a fascination with Jesus and the Church. There is a yearning spiritually. It’s not surprising; Scripture says God has written eternity on the hearts of men. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Recently, I read a tweet that caused me to think a lot. By how I love others, do I make hell a more appealing place for folks to want to be than church? I want those who do not know Jesus Christ to be drawn to him and follow him. That is my one true desire for ministry. I want folks of all kinds to know their worth to Jesus. And if I all do is extend a metaphorical middle finger or kick sand in their face, how will know they know Jesus? Because that’s what I want more than anything else: for as many as possible to know Jesus.

I don’t want to get involved in hardening my heart at others, because I want all people, all people, to know Jesus. This world is calling me and you to harden our hearts to others. To write them off. To deem them as enemies. Maybe people in the church are calling us to do that. Maybe even preachers are calling us to do that. But I don’t believe that is right, and it isn’t Wesleyan. In one recent article, the author pointed out that for the first time in history, non-churchgoers make up the majority of the population in America. This is the context we live in now. We can choose to bemoan where we are. We can harden our sides and opinions. We can see our neighbors as our enemy and give up any hope for their redemption. We can harden our opinions, shout the loudest, and condemn the most. But I don’t think that’s the way of Jesus or the way of Wesley. I want as many as possible to know Jesus.

And that starts with each of us knowing our worth in Jesus and seeing others’ worth in Jesus. Even the folks we can’t stand.

Gathering in Worship Again: Ways to Mark Change

As many congregations return to gathering in new or partial ways after a period of virtual worship, there are both logistical challenges and shepherding challenges. Essentially, widespread change has occurred in a condensed and contentious time. Some shared rituals in worship function as rites of passage, like funerals; the loss of sharing these rituals as a community has at times been devastating. For many, the past 12 months have been marked by uncertainty, frustration, fear, loss, anxiety, stress, and relief; but not only are we, in the midst of life, in death; we are also, in death, in the midst of life. Babies have been welcomed, weddings performed, new vocations discovered. In liminal times of emotional complexity, humans crave communal markers to express the cry of the heart and to clarify seasons and meaning. Symbols can carry layers of meaning when life experiences are so tangled that mere literal words struggle to hold the weight. In Christian worship, these symbols aren’t only functions of community expression; they are received as means of grace that reveal the very heart of God. Not every Christian symbol is a sacrament, but many moments in embodied Christian worship have the capacity to serve as means of grace.

As believers begin gathering in person again, what are some practical ways a community can bear witness to the loss and hope woven throughout the past year? Surveying the sheer scope of change – good or bad – that individuals and communities have endured, how is room made for lament, celebration, and the exhaustion in between? Finding ways to mark change sits peacefully with the reality that everyone – individuals, communities, regions, countries – will re-enter familiar patterns at different paces, due to varying needs and conditions.

What are some recurring cries of the heart expressed by Christians and non-Christians, leaders and laypeople alike? Many are echoed in Psalms of lament. Gathering again stirs a variety of responses among people. There may be:

  • Relief, celebration, joy
  • Grief at the empty spaces of those who have died
  • Grief at the loss of daily rituals and companionship
  • Fear that accommodations for the disabled or home-bound will be forgotten
  • Distrust of others fueled by differing perspectives
  • Impatience for places and practices to look like they used to
  • Fatigue of tragedy and bad news
  • Relief at return to familiar space and practices
  • Guilt from surviving or experiencing the pandemic relatively unscathed
  • Anxiety from uncertainty in social interaction
  • Gratitude for the ability to begin gathering again, even with adaptations

Thankfully, there are some helpful liturgical resources from The Episcopal Church, the Church of England, and the Methodist Church in Britain that provide some markers to guide worshipers through the fog. From the inability to write in a coffee shop to the death of a loved one, from losing a business to losing facial expressions to educational upheaval, there is space to mark changes big and small, yet not-so-small. Jesus wept over the dead and heard the cry of the falling sparrow alike; and people who live alone, and people who live in families with children, all have something they’ve lost and found in the past year. There is room in the heart of God, and there is space in the worshiping community, for all of it – tragic fatality and kids’ disappointed plans alike.

The Liturgy of Gathering Again: Lament, Remembrance, Thanksgiving

The loss of usual funeral rituals has stolen the opportunity for loved ones to receive the healing honor of community witness. Not only have families of the deceased been affected, but communities themselves have endured the loss of sharing in these rituals. Some communities have lost many – so many it’s difficult to keep track. Health care workers sometimes lost the in-person support and services of hospital or hospice chaplains, finding themselves end-of-life witnesses. At the same time, many people have been limited in ways they can express thanks and gratitude for the many health care workers who labored often behind the scenes in very difficult circumstances.

The Church of England has shared valuable resources and reflections on opportunities to hold general services of lament, specific services of remembrance or memorial, and services of thanksgiving. For instance, on remembering and memorials, the counsel in one guide prompts that,

“The two main elements that memorial services and remembering events need to offer are opportunities to mourn and to give thanks:
• Acknowledgement of suffering, loss and death
• Gratitude for all who have helped in so many ways
• Thanks for survival, health and wellbeing
• Thanks for the life of the individual(s) who has died”

There are also insights on the value of services of restoration – a time of worship designed to bridge worshipers from crisis and loss toward renewed trust for the future. “Naming the unexpected gifts of this crisis as well as its challenges, celebrating the rediscovery of the importance of the local, and the resurgence of neighbourliness will enable the journey of renewal and restoration. Consideration may be given to bring an act of worship to focus in some sort of symbolic act of restoration, entrusting ourselves to the God who leads us into his future.”

The Timing of Gathering Again: Scattered & Together

Depending on the region or specific community needs, some congregations have not yet begun to re-gather, or haven’t started gathering again fully. One resource from the Methodist Church in Britain provides a service guide called “Beyond Exile: A service to celebrate a return to public worship.” Adaptable for local circumstances, it includes liturgy, planning notes, preaching notes, and new hymns for “a returning congregation” for situations that include congregational singing. From this service, one excerpt from the “litany of lament” questions,

“We thought we knew how the world was meant to be. We would see colleagues, friends and loved ones again, and we would embrace, laugh and share stories as we always have. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

And now, we know something new. We know that the world is not ours to control, and that our plans are confounded by the smallest microbe. God is teaching us a new song, for a new land.“

For places with many restrictions still in place, when believers may still be scattered or unable to provide in-person support, the Methodist Church in Britain also has adapted prayers for “the dying, the bereaved, and those who cannot attend a funeral.”

The Visual Cues of Gathering Again: Re-Entering the Public

This global moment invites people of all walks of life to re-engage with the practice of public mourning: not as a maudlin display of self-importance, but as a healthy tool of communication. But it’s been decades since people regularly wore the formerly common black armbands, like the character George Bailey when his father died in the film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” A black piece of fabric around the upper arm is a visual cue to strangers and acquaintances alike: be kind, tread gently, this person is grieving, give some extra grace for a while. A more modern version is a simple black silicone band marked with words like, “I’m grieving” – just enough to remind the wearer and others that all is not well.

Sometimes, biblical phrasing like, “sackcloth and ashes” or “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is used figuratively – few Americans would grieve now wearing scratchy cloth or ashes. But grief and lament are not antithetical to faith. They are emblems of love, that “greatest of these.” They do not betray a lack of hope or trust; they hope and trust in God’s character, willing to express without repression. Demonstrating grief is Christlike: Christ, who groaned at Lazarus’ death, who wept over Jerusalem. (Tish Harrison Warren’s uncannily timed Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep is a gift for the grieving and those who love them.)

For those who re-enter worship or public gathering with other infirmity, like ongoing health risk, there are other visual cues available to communicate simply with others. Wrist bands like Social Bands quickly cue an individual’s risk and desire for physical engagement. Ongoing consideration for others may well be one of the strongest notes of public witness that Christians can sound right now – consideration regardless of one’s own assessment or perception of risk.

At a basic level, hospitality is in part anticipating the needs of another and proactively preparing for them. Welcoming the jubilant alongside the dazed and shell-shocked means providing space and opportunity for both to bear witness to the changes in the lives of the other. In gathering, all are invited to bring the cries of their hearts to God in worship, receiving the same shared grace that offers hope, comfort, and celebration to each vulnerable heart.

Featured image courtesy Luke Carliff via Unsplash.

Words Destroy or Hallow

“Let’s put him on blast!” I hadn’t heard the phrase before, but I instantly knew what it meant: whatever the business’s misstep had been, the call was sent out to grab it by its social media handles and tear it down. A bit of photographic evidence, a globally-audible, locally-tangible siren, and the business was tagged: the company was now “it”—a toxic bit of business that infected whatever and whoever it touched. So, tear it down and stay away.  This doesn’t just happen with businesses. People get blasted, too. People scrub their Instagram and Twitter pasts to wipe away any bit of (perceived) filth before their Facebook posts are pressure washed with the words of others.

Anthropologist Mary Douglas noted the power and danger of dirt. We fear the filthy; dirt threatens disintegration. The best way to handle such dirty danger, whether located in the business misstep or social media slip up or political pariah, is to “blast” it: to use words to show the other’s filth, to distance oneself from the defiled, and to wash up the mess—all with one sweet Tweet.

But public humiliation is not new. In the fifth century, Augustine warned of the risks of wicked words (Confessions I:29):

  • Watch out for hatred! We do more harm to ourselves by hating another than the other can do to us.
  • Watch out for hostility! Harbored hostility toward another harms the self, even if it isn’t acted upon.
  • Watch out for hubris! To pursue fame is to place oneself under a human judge and to perceive others as competitors.

Hatred, hostility, hubris: A deadly combination in a fifth century social spat where one was careful to pronounce every word correctly without care for the actual human being who happened to be the victim of their verbal evisceration. Canceling another with words isn’t just a 21st century phenomenon: the form of the public put-down has changed, but the feat remains en vogue. Neither have the effects changed. Words aimed to take down a livelihood or life do not simply impact their target. They also impact the speaker-typer-texter-poster. Like shrapnel flung back upon the grenade lobber, words of hostility, hatred, and hubris score the soul who would blast another from the silent side of a screen.

C.S. Lewis also warned of the effect of destructive words, the most powerful of which in his series The Chronicles of Narnia was called “the Deplorable Word.” The Word, uttered by the Empress Jadis to arrest the forces and very face of her sister as Jadis’ defeat loomed large, stopped all living things, including her own forces and subjects. Jadis had spoken the deplorable word to destroy everything but herself, preserving her own life until the time was right and she could be awakened. And while Jadis, the White Witch, isn’t quite human, her verbal blast poses a warning for every Son of Adam and Daughter of Eve. Jadis’ own world (and its flagship city of Charn) is over, but she has been let loose in the new world of Narnia, and Polly and Digory’s own world is not immune to the temptation that took her down:

“When you were last here,” said Aslan, “that hollow was a pool, and when you jumped into it you came to the world where a dying sun shone over the ruins of Charn. There is no pool now. That world is ended, as if it had never been. Let the race of Adam and Eve take warning.”

“Yes, Aslan,” said both the children. But Polly added, “But we’re not quite as bad as that world, are we, Aslan?”

“Not yet, Daughter of Eve,” he said. “Not yet. But you are growing more like it. It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things. And soon, very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations in your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the Empress Jadis. Let your world beware. That is the warning.” (Lewis, 1955/1980c, p. 164)

The Queen presents a warning for using our own deplorable words. Contrasted with the singing of Aslan that brings Narnia into being, Jadis’ deplorable word only arrests death; it does not bring new life. This is not a passing theme. Jadis’ words reduce things to dust. In Charn, Jadis reduces “high and heavy doors” to “a heap of dust” (p. 57). In London, she attempts to turn Digory’s Aunt Letty to “dust” just as she had the gates in Charn (p. 76), but when she realizes this power of “turning people into dust” has left her (p. 77), she settles for hurling Letty across the room. Finally, in London, Digory believes that Jadis has reduced several policemen to “little heaps of dust” (p. 79). Her words and actions are powerful, no doubt, but they are not creative. Her words result in death and destruction. Her words, at best, only arrest her own death.

Likewise, the White Witch’s leadership in Narnia was only possible to arrest spring. She does not bring joviality; she can only keep it out. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Father Christmas says, “She has kept me out for a long time, but I’ve got in at last” (Lewis, 1950/1980a, p. 99). The Witch’s leadership is not fruitful because nothing grows in winter. While Charn had grown to become a great city under her ancestors, one assumes that the Witch’s leadership in Charn was likely similar to Narnia: it stunted growth and stifled life. In The Silver Chair, the owls say she “bound our land” (Lewis, 1953/1970, p. 52). In word and deed, the Witch cannot lead to anything of life; she cannot bring newness or construction. She can only preserve from death or bring to dust. Such is the life and soul of the one who would wield the deplorable word.

What might we glean from Augustine in the fifth century and from Lewis’ fiction? The justice-by-Tweet temptation is real, but yielding to that temptation is not for the one who would follow the Word made Flesh. For in the world of this Word – the only true world – we must foster, not hatred, hostility, and hubris, but instead, holiness. Within a sacramental worldview, every word is a kind of prayer. There is no word that is not overheard. God, the giver of words and the Word, is present. But the Word who allowed himself to be blasted, to be torn open as he was raised up, was deplored so that deplorable word users could become his preachers and prophets; so that words could be bound up in lives that do not simply arrest death in futility and bring pseudo-justice through rhetorical rage, but lead and love not with words of hubris, hostility, hatred, but of humility, peace, and mercy.

References:

Augustine (1997). The Confessions (The Works of Saint Augustine I/1). Trans. Maria Boulding. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press.

Lewis, C. S. (1970). The Silver Chair. New York: Macmillan. (Original work published 1953).

Lewis, C. S. (1980a). The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. London: Lions. (Original work published 1950).

Lewis, C. S. (1980b). The Horse and his Boy. London: Lions. (Original work published 1954).

Lewis, C. S. (1980c). The Magician’s Nephew. London: Lions. (Original work published 1955).

Lewis, C. S. (1980d). The Last Battle. London: Lions. (Original work published 1956).

Featured image by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Practicing Covenant Leadership: The Virtues of Christ

In our particular cultural moment, have you noticed a longing for values or traits that may seem absent in public life? Warren Bennis famously outlined key leadership characteristics, identifying vision, inspiration, empathy, and trustworthiness as essential leadership characteristics.  We long for leaders who model them; this longing seems innate in us.  In Scripture we quickly see that Jesus modeled these qualities. As the ultimate Servant, Jesus also modeled listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, commitment to the growth of people, and building community (see Robert Greenleaf’s work). Have you had the space to reflect on what characterizes your own leadership during this season?  Let’s take up the challenge to examine our leadership in light of Christ’s teaching by better understanding covenant versus contract leadership.

There are many examples of contract leadership. For instance, Dr. Richard Gunderman, M.D., a professor of medical humanities, might argue that the United States was founded on a contract. James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights and considered a father of the Constitution, understood the voluntary nature of contract leadership when he wrote about the restraints on, and rights of, the government and citizens of the country.  As suggested in a 2011 lecture by Dr. Gunderman, contracts are required because of a lack of trust.  Contract leadership characteristics may include concern for profit, narrowly defined responsibilities, and expectations of performance. The transactional nature of contract leadership requires adherence to rules and procedures and does not insist upon supererogation. 

Regarding transactions, the way in which rational people relate to each other through economic terms is sometimes referred to as homo economicus.  Within the realm of homo economicus, the primary desire is the acquisition of wealth and the primary ability is the choice between means (Gunderman).  John Stuart Mill suggests that humans desire to accumulate the most necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries with the least quantity of labor, which is the modus operandi of homo economicus.  

For example, many employment relationships operate with this paradigm.  When employees do not perform, they are in violation of their employment contract, and the employment is terminated.  In this sense, contracts limit relationships, have expiration dates, and are concerned with personal benefit. Contract leadership seems to be a form of transactional leadership. This can be effective in some contexts, but Dr. Gunderman suggests that we find a better word than greed and a better idea than economic transactions on which to base our leadership.

In fact, he challenges us to “not be concerned with writing our personal story, but discovering the larger story of which we are part.” This suggests that a worldview change is required to be a covenant leader.  Covenant leadership is an other-focused leadership style which is transformational, as opposed to transactional contract leadership. Transformation or metamorphosis is expected by the covenant leader: that followers and leaders would become something more than they were previous to the relationship.  As opposed to contract leadership in which breach of contract might mean loss of employment, Dr. Gunderman cites the parable of the prodigal son to illustrate breach being met with forgiveness, healing, and celebration. For the covenant leader, concern is for the relationship and the wholeness of the covenant, not on the breach of contract.

Where homo economicus operates assuming lack of trust, Dr. Gunderman calls leaders to operate in the mode of homo ethicus, relating to each other through principles. Where homo economicus operates out of greed, homo ethicus operates out of sacrifice and generosity. Although many non-Christian examples may illustrate the sacrificial, transformational leader, many examples are found in Scripture.

Considering covenant in Scripture, one can begin with the creation of humanity through inspiration, the breathing in of divine influence. Humans are to imitate God’s creative nature, needing inspiration – the breathing in of divine influence – “to be fully alive, and to help those around us to be fully alive.” The biblical arc is full of examples of the characteristics of covenant leadership: trusting like the Good Samaritan, bestowing blessing like Isaac to Jacob to Joseph’s sons, being transformational like Jesus to Lazarus (called back to full life), and being changed like Paul on the road to Damascus.

As a physician and leader in the ethics of health care, Dr. Gunderman calls organizational leaders to choose covenant leadership, issuing a challenge to assess whether we operate according to homo economicus or homo ethicus. We must evaluate what is most important to us and what we are striving to become. In the domain of homo economicus, work is punishment, a means to make money so that we can afford to do the things that we enjoy outside of work. In the freedom of homo ethicus, we work because God worked as a creative Being, creating not from necessity but from joy. Relationships within the work environment are to be enjoyed and used to generate transformed, better lives.

For covenant leaders operating from an assumption of homo ethicus, there is real opportunity to make a substantive difference. This is true even in a short time constrained by the brevity of working relationship. This leadership style is an active, ongoing choice.

Each moment, the organizational leader who desires to operate from the values of a homo ethicus approach must think of the sacred in the other, sacrifice selfish desires, and commit to the kind of creative, transformational covenant leadership found in the Creator’s actions throughout Scripture. 

Using the practice of covenant leadership as a guide, pastors and church leaders can endeavor to choose a homo ethicus approach as a consistent emblem of our servant leadership. When we cast vision, is it for the growth and transformation of those we influence? Do listen with awareness so that we can inspire people to Christlike character? Do we exercise empathy in healing, restorative, community-building ways? Are we trustworthy as we steward the leadership to which God has called us? What choices might you need to make in order to live as a covenant leader rather than a contract leader? Can you identify obstacles to this calling?

See Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader

See Dr. Richard B. Gunderman 2011 lecture Leadership: command, contract, or covenant?

For more from Dr. Richard B. Gunderman, consider We Make a Life by What We Give. His new book Contagion: Plagues, Pandemics and Cures from the Black Death to Covid-19 and Beyond is available now in Great Britain and is scheduled for publication in the U.S. in early 2021.

Social Media & Holiness

I’ve always been an “early adapter.”  I may not be the first person to try a new technology, but I’m not far behind.  Following the arrival of the first iPhones, I wasn’t at the Apple Store at midnight for a new release – but I’d show up sometime the next day. So I joined social media early on. As soon as Facebook opened to the public, I signed up. I started a Twitter profile.  I even tried Google+. 

By and large, I really enjoy social media.  I’ve made social media friends who became real friends; I remain in contact with old friends as they move away. Social media allows me to connect with church members and visitors; it allows folks to participate online with church activities.  In fact, you could argue that during this season of COVID, social media is indispensable to ministry.

Yet recently I decided to take a break from Facebook.  Why?  Sometimes my faith is at work when I feel something in my soul that I can’t explain, but I just know it. And I noticed that when I was on social media, I just felt – heavy. A sense of sadness. I couldn’t place my finger on it.  At that point, I decided to take a break and continued sorting exactly what it was that I sensed.

One morning while walking, the Holy Spirit gave me some insight. 

The reason why I’m a Methodist is not because I was born into it (though I was).  The reason I’m a Methodist is John Wesley’s theology.  Being a Methodist makes me a better disciple, it makes me a better follower of Jesus.  For me, the point of our entire salvation is to recover what sin has corrupted –  to recover that image of God within ourselves through sanctification, and recover it in all the world (through the eventual return of Christ).

So then, what does this new creation look like, what does sanctification look like?  It is the perfect keeping of the law of God.  Scripture tells us to be holy as God is holy.  As we grow closer to God and grow through grace, that image of God will be recovered, and we will more resemble our Savior.  Well, what does it look like to keep his law?  What does it mean to be holy?  Jesus tells us in Matthew 22: 36-40:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The entire law is summed up in those two commands – love God and love neighbor.  This is what holiness looks like: to allow the love of God to so consume us that our sins are driven out as we are filled with God’s love.  As I understand Wesley, he was focused more on perfect love than perfect action, because complete, perfected love will lead to unsullied intent. If I perfectly love God, I will not take his name in vain, I will honor the Sabbath.  If I perfectly love my neighbor, I will not murder my neighbor, I will not bear false witness against her. 

To talk of loving God and neighbor is literally to talk about the very goal and purpose of our salvation.  It is the very nature of holiness.  It is what we are created for and what our sanctification drives us towards.

And that was what felt heavy about social media.  In this season, Facebook was no longer a place of loving God and loving neighbor.  If we take God’s commands seriously, if we take the law and teachings of Jesus seriously, we cannot live in a way that tears down not only fellow believers, but fellow humans, day after day. 

As a pastor, each verbal attack, each biting meme, each political wresting match showed me the great need all of us have for continued sanctification.  As I thought through it, I began to see that this was not contributing to my holiness.  Social media was not helping me love my God and my neighbor better. 

While social media itself didn’t cause me to sin, it did cause me to grow discouraged, to pray less, and to worry more. It caused me to despair because so many Christians are allowing this cultural moment, rather than our desire for holiness and sanctification, to be the force that dictates our thoughts, our passions, our posts, and our words.

Let me be clear: I’m not calling for a dispassionate, milquetoast existence with no beliefs or morals.  Far from it.  If you read Wesley, he shared quite strong opinions in his writing, about poverty, slavery, and even the American Revolution.  This is not a call to ambivalence on moral matters.  But it is a call to the path of Jesus, who calls us to love not just our neighbors but to love even our enemies.  If we follow the commands and teachings of Jesus, we have no choice.

I’ve been teaching on the book of James during my online Wednesday night Bible study. There is a passage that stuck with me. 

“You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  James 2:8

It prompts me to consider legalism.  Think of all the things we tend to be legalistic about in lives.  Maybe it’s your language, what you eat or drink, what you watch or listen to.  To put it one way, as Christians, many of us have legalisms in our lives; to put it another way, many of us have moral codes. 

What if we were legalistic – about keeping that royal law?  What if we were legalistic – about love?  What would happen?  I logged off social media for a season because participating led me to be a law breaker.  It was not helping me keep God’s royal law of loving my neighbor as myself; and through God’s grace, that is really what I most desire to do.  I desire to keep God’s law.  I desire to be holy.  Will you join me?

Featured image courtesy Unsplash: Photo by Elijah O’Donnell

Biblical Posture in Public Life: Witness & Injustice

Today we’re pleased to share this presentation from Dr. Esau McCaulley, who provides a careful survey of texts from the Old and New Testament as a basis for an approach to public life – in particular, believers’ approach to the practices and systems at work in our world that were shaped in the forge of injustice. As he concludes, he walks listeners through truths in the Beatitudes, locating our mourning and thirst for justice in the persistent hope of the Kingdom of God.

He says, “This intuition that something is not right is justified by close reading of the biblical text. First Timothy 2 and Romans 13 are not the entirety of the Christian political witness. Jesus’ words to Herod, Paul’s testimony, John the revelator’s vision for the future, Jesus own commands in the Beatitudes, call us to witness to a different world. The Christian who hopes and works for a better world finds an ally in the God of Israel.”

Dr. Esau McCaulley is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. He is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America where he serves as a canon theologian in his diocese. He completed his Ph.D. in New Testament at the University of St. Andrews, where he studied under the direction of N.T. Wright. He is a sought-after speak and author whose works have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Christianity Today among others. Read more from Dr. McCaulley by clicking here.

Further excerpts from his presentation:

On Grieving

To mourn involves being saddened by the state of the world. We can be so bombarded by pain that the natural instinct is to say, “I’ve done enough.” But mourning calls on all of us to recognize our own complicity in the suffering of others. Mourning is the intuition that things are not right, that more is possible. I think the Christian lives with a certain “joyful sorrow.” But I can always pray.

Hungering and thirsting for justice is nothing less than the continued longing for God to come and set things right. The resurrection has to inform our plausibility structure. We tend to think – white nationalism is a big problem. So is being dead. And God called a dead thing back to life.

On Peacemaking

Peacemaking cannot be separated from truth-telling. The church’s witness does not involve simply denouncing the excesses of both sides and making moral equivalencies. It involves calling injustice by its name. If the church is going to be on the side of peace in America, there has to be an honest account of what has happened to black and brown people in this country. This peacemaking must be corporate and it must be personal. When it is corporate, we’re testifying to the universal reign of Jesus. When it is interpersonal, we’re being witnesses to the work God has done in our heart.

“Have I now become your enemy from telling you the truth?” – Galatians 4:16

Peacemaking bears witness to the King and his Kingdom. The outcome of peacemaking is to introduce people to the kingdom of God. Therefore, the work of justice when understood as a direct testimony to God’s kingdom is evangelistic in its ultimate aims. It is part, not the whole of, God’s work in reconciling all things to himself.

Featured photo by Benjamin Thomas for Unsplash.

Wesleyan Accent ~ Soul Posture for the Socially Distanced

Among many angles of spiritual formation during societal and global upheaval, these reflections from church leaders examine dynamics like community disruption and anxiety; the illusion of security in leadership best practices; pastoral wisdom from the Congo; and a community guide for praying during pandemic.

INDIVIDUAL SOUL POSTURE

Disruption, Solitude, Anxiety

How is it with your soul right now? Rev. Ashlee Alley Crawford, Clergy Recruitment and Development Coordinator for the Great Plains Conference of The United Methodist Church, took to social media to encourage reflection on the state of our hearts. She writes,

“The chaos of the external world means we’re all going to be staying home more in the weeks ahead. That’s perhaps a bit of a scary thing-not to mention that for many, that means loss of income and loss of essential connection with others. Is there a gift in the disruption of our rhythms? I absolutely believe there is, but it will not be easy. Thinking about those most financially fragile and finding ways to cultivate hospitality and generosity in this time will require something of us.

Not to mention that we’re likely going to be alone with our own thoughts a bit more. Solitude and silence as spiritual practices are the best teachers, but it can take a while to make friends with them. These new disruptions and the anxiety they produce tempt us into creating a hurry of a different sort.

But I’m convinced that this season of cancellations and more time on our hands-even though it’s most unwelcome-has a gift for us.”

Rev. Crawford’s insights on disruption, anxiety, community, and mindfulness are a timely call to lean into silence, or solitude, or self-awareness.

Deepening Character when Strategy Implodes

Meanwhile a gripping narrative has emerged from The Wesleyan Church, pivoting from personal quarantine to profound reflection. Rev. Ben Ward, Asia-Pacific Area Director and Director of Development and Communication for Global Partners, discusses imploding plans and emerging realization:

“On March 9, I was issued a home quarantine order from the Ministry of Health here in Singapore. This means I essentially can’t leave my bedroom for the next eight days. I was on a flight from Istanbul to Singapore on March 3. Apparently, a fellow traveler developed COVID-19 symptoms on the flight. The government began contact tracing to identify those who had close contact with the passenger, issuing quarantine orders. They tracked me down.”

Aside from the personal impact, Ward goes on to share the frustration of watching teams sent home and cancelling a major event that had taken months of resources and planning. With gracious transparency, he teases out a moment of clarity:

“Beyond the inconvenience the Coronavirus has created for me, it is also causing me to rethink what effective Christian leadership looks like.

I used to think an effective leader set a plan and then implemented that plan no matter what circumstances arose. Thinking through scenarios that could derail the plan and creating contingencies were essential leadership practices. If unforeseen events occurred and derailed the plan — well then, the leader must not have planned well enough.

But no one saw the Coronavirus coming. My best-laid plans were shipwrecked.

Ward goes on to share the keen awareness that,

“Planning is harder in the majority world than in the developed world. My Christian sisters and brothers in developing contexts have many more variables to consider that can derail their plans. I have enjoyed more stability than the majority of the world’s inhabitants. I repent of my arrogance, for thinking my hyper-planned-out approach to life is superior. I have more grace for my colleagues who keep loving, learning and leading in contexts marked by uncertainty and instability.”

He concludes with a sharp call to new perspective: “the thwarting of strategy is an invitation for God to do a deeper work of character.” (Click here to read Rev. Ward’s piece in its entirety.) What a beautiful posture toward spiritual formation when our best-laid plans go out the window.

When Lent Means Fasting from Easter 

Over the weekend I saw comments online wryly expressing that people hadn’t meant to give up quite this much for Lent. Today (March 16), tired pastors woke up to new CDC recommendations for the next eight weeks and realized that Sunday gatherings may be suspended over Easter. When I saw the comments on fasting and Lent, a memory stirred: last spring, Rev. Carolyn Moore asked me to write for her series on the Lordship of Christ, and I sent her “Jesus is Lord of the Valleys,” which expressly calls out what happens to fasting and Lent during upheaval, unpredictability, and loss. I wrote,

“Out of the corner of our eye, we have peripheral awareness of how close to being faith consumers we really are. We choose to go to a conference so we can grow spiritually. We choose to show up to Bible study so we can grow spiritually. We choose to read a book so we can cry or become more efficient or grow spiritually.

We choose.

We choose the parameters of our growth. Where we next discern/feel/think that God is leading us. What we will “give up” for Lent.  The problem is the insidious mindset that is entangled in our approach to faith: that we set the table, invite the guests, and choose the menu of our own spiritual growth. That we can choose what outcomes we want to see in our spiritual life. That we control how we want to be made Christlike. Lent changed from practices I chose to something outside my control, and I didn’t like it.

God allowed my chosen self-denial to be replaced with real desperation. I can’t guarantee you stability in this life. I can’t guarantee you won’t face tragedy. I can witness to the goodness of God, though…”

When the shape of spiritual formation is taken out of our hands – what is left? Grabbing onto Christ, proclaiming the goodness of God.

COMMUNITY SOUL POSTURE

Shared Prayer Guide for the Coronavirus Season

As we see the season of Lent turned inside-out, one way to witness to the goodness of God is through the discipline of shared prayer. Early on Rev. Pete Grieg shared a prayer resource as a community guide for praying about the impact of Covid-19. At the time, the likelihood of Coronavirus disruption had barely punctured American consciousness, but Grieg is quite in touch with global developments – the 24/7 prayer movement he helped to found stretches around the world. What seemed a bit early was, in retrospect, very timely: a lesson in itself perhaps. (Checking the calendar, “a bit early” in reality was just a week and a half ago.) Here is an excerpt:

“JEHOVAH SHALOM, Lord of Peace, we remember those living in Coronavirus hotspots. May they know your presence in their isolation, your peace in their turmoil and your patience in their waiting. Prince of Peace, you are powerful and merciful; let this be their prayer – ‘May your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need. Help us, God our Saviour, for the glory of your name.’ (Ps 79:8)

JEHOVAH RAPHA, God who heals, we pray for all medical professionals dealing daily with the intense added pressures of this crisis. Grant them resilience in weariness, discernment in diagnosis, and compassion upon compassion as they care. We thank you for the army of researchers cooperating towards a cure – give them clarity, serendipity and unexpected breakthroughs we pray. Rise Sun of righteousness, above this present darkness with healing in your rays. You are powerful and merciful; may this be our prayer – ‘Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.’ (Jer 32:17)

(Click here for downloadable slides for the entirety of this excellent prayer guide to use in community prayer – even if praying together occurs in virtual worship, and not in person.)

Spiritual Formation Lived in Shared Membership Vows

For congregations, Rev. Andy Stoddard reinforces community spiritual formation through the lens of membership vows, organizing congregational communication and resources through prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, with resources linked in each. He writes,

“There’s an old hymn of the church that reminds us: “The church is not a building; the church is not a steeple; the church is not a resting place; the church is a people.” We all believe that, we all know that, but in a season of “social distancing” it can be really hard for us to remember what it means to be connected.  That, in many ways, is my worst fear. We need each other.  And we need the church.  The church will continue to be at work, and we each can continue to do our part, and remember vows that we made on joining the church. In this time, in this moment, we continue to need God and need each other.  I love our memberships vows, and I believe that in this time, as we keep faithful with our prayers, presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness, these vows will hold us together more and more.  I want to share some useful resources that can help you and me live into our calling in this and every season. This will be a growing list in the days to come.”

What a great way to order posture for the days to come: to remind people of who they are, what they have committed together, and who the church will continue to be.

When Prudence and Cooperation Are Spiritual Formation: Wisdom from the Congo

Often community is pictured locally; but people of faith constantly affirm the unity of the global church. We are part of a local-global connection tying us to believers around the world. We all follow Jesus: it’s that simple.

While weighing the challenges of Coronavirus-related restrictions, Rev. Beth Ann Cook reached out to a clergy friend from the Democratic Republic of Congo; he has pastored people, “in the midst of war, economic and political unrest, and a cholera epidemic.” She expressed, “I was so very grateful to be able to ask, ‘what do I do?’” He responded,

“In such a situation we ask people not to panic but to be prudent.

Help people as Christians to turn our faces to God in prayer and ask for his wisdom to face the situation.

Mobilize the community and congregation to follow instructions given by health authorities.

Develop an excellent communication network.”

The posture suggested by a pastor who has led during war, economic dives, and cholera? Be prudent rather than panic; help people turn to God in prayer and to pray for God’s wisdom; use influence in your region and congregation to follow health authorities; and invest in a strong communication network.

If energy spent in helping people to be a non-anxious, careful presence or promoting health authority protocol seems separate from spiritual formation, it’s not. Centuries ago, the Apostle Paul wrote to Christ followers on the edge of the Mediterranean, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

As we form and grow, Paul – and a pastor from the Congo – remind us of the value of practicing mental habits and choices that the Holy Spirit can empower and illumine: in the middle of difficult circumstances, we can take joy, let gentleness be evident to everyone, resist the nagging call of anxiety, and in every situation, present our requests to God through prayer with gratitude. These postures are both individual and communal, hammered out personally and corporately.

In Matthew 22, we read, “Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Building a posture of humility includes mindfulness about Christians’ presence and witness in “the public square.” In times of outbreak, a response of simple humility might be, “of course we may have the right to do something, but we love our neighbors with the sacrificial love God has shown for all of us, and our actions must not ever be only about our own interests, real or perceived. And for the sake of our congregation and our community, we happily submit to anything that does not require us to deny Christ. We can easily worship Christ in our homes just as easily as we can in one building. We have nothing to fear by worshiping at home and serving safely wherever we can.”

The Discomfort of Spiritual Growth in an Outbreak: Wisdom from the 1500’s

About two weeks ago, Wesleyan Accent shared an adapted piece written during the Ebola outbreak, on Martin Luther’s pastoral responses to contagion in the form of the plague. People of faith don’t only have global connections during crisis; we affirm in the Creed, “we believe in the communion of saints…” The Body of Christ stretches across space and time and sometimes there is wisdom to be found from voices through the centuries.

“Even if people are accustomed to relative health and ease – or especially if they are – it is impossible to insulate any life from certain realities: illness, vulnerability, lack of control, mortality. Pastoral care during outbreaks is in part the quiet calming of deep existential fears usually ignored, avoided, or drowned out by many people in the Western world.

In addition to taking sensible precautions and exercising common sense and good cheer, we can outfit ourselves with wisdom from church history. Perspective is never so valuable as in a time of panic, warranted or unwarranted or somewhere in between. So let’s inoculate ourselves against denial, on one hand, and fear, on the other, with a visit to the Book of Common Prayer and a cantankerous German monk, Martin Luther.”

Luther gives counsel on the shape of prayer in the face of contagion; he offers frank advice on the social and ethical responsibilities of serving others if it puts you at risk; and he comments on pragmatic angles of dying well – a deeply ignored element of spiritual formation in the U.S. Despite the difference in what we now know of disease spread, a great deal of his insight translates remarkably well – and sometimes with unexpected kindness toward those who feel themselves faltering.

A Note to Tired Pastors

There are times that church leaders are tempted to grow discouraged; we know how much energy ministry can take when things are going well; will people turn toward their faith if there is no Sunday gathering, if the activity calendar suddenly goes silent? But activity and spiritual growth are two different things.

The question of whether people will grow or wilt may be thrown into clearer relief when business as usual is disrupted; but it’s not a new question, it’s an old question. And there is nothing that pastors have ever been able to do to guarantee that the people who often sit in the pews will push deeper into their faith in moments of chaos.

Fear that people will fall away from church because a time of outbreak occurs is the same fear that a person will fall away from faith because of a cancer diagnosis. We cannot inoculate believers from loss, challenge, or hardship. Some people may have casually engaged with faith communities, and they will become more invested, more active – they may even discover a call to ministry through this time. Others may have casually engaged with faith communities, and they will become less invested, less active – their belief may diminish in the face of self-preservation or trauma.

In your work to strengthen communications, encourage prudence over panic, support health initiatives, and lead into deep and regular prayer, be at peace. Do your best to support spiritual formation in the face of quarantine, and trust that while the congregation may look different when all is said and done, you will have new and more reasons to witness to the goodness of God than you can imagine right now. The well-being of your congregation and community is not all on your shoulders; so commit with boldness to stretches of rest, and let your spirit be formed.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Testimony, Conversion, and the Search for Genuine Faith

There are quite a few opinions about a recent celebrity in the spotlight for a high-profile conversion to Christianity. Or an alleged conversion to Christianity, depending on your point of view. Which celebrity it is doesn’t matter as much, because any time a celebrity joins anything, the people who belong to the faith or organization are thrilled. It’s like getting an endorsement or like a draft or trade in professional sports: “we got so-and-so! Maybe this year we’ll finally make it to the playoffs!”

Many devout believers – whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Mormon, or other beliefs – are used to being somewhat out of step with popular or dominant culture. So sometimes language of piety can dress up what may be a simple gut response: “we finally got a cool one!” Like a trading card game, the secular materialist kid slides his celebrity card to the Christian kid, and the Christian kid is relieved, because she’s recently lost several trading cards to the messy-mystical universalist kid.

Yet other believers are genuinely excited at the news of any testimony of conversion, and that’s a good thing. They don’t care about the “trading card” feel of it, because they’re genuinely just as thrilled when they hear testimony of conversion from the clerk at Dollar General. Take Fran: an elderly woman I encountered while working in a nursing home. She had a contagious, off-kilter laugh and a contagious, off-kilter love for Jesus, and she wanted everyone who came into her room to know that Jesus loved them. It is a zany follower of Christ who sees the call for assistance with bathroom needs as an opportune moment to talk to people about Jesus. And people like Fran don’t care if it’s an aide in a nursing home or a rapper married to a reality show star, they just want you to know that Jesus loves you and that they love you. People like Fran don’t see faith as a giant Pokemon challenge to, “catch ’em all,” collecting conversion trading cards for a stronger deck.

High-profile converts to any religion tend to attract extra scrutiny, and usually questions are raised about whether it’s genuine. People of a certain age will remember the controversy about fiery Watergate figure Charles Colson’s jailtime conversion. But whether testimony of following Jesus Christ is genuine isn’t a new question generated by the entertainment industry highlighting celebrity lifestyles. The early church dealt with this question, and leaders often counseled prudence, care, pastoral sensitivity, and community accountability. They weren’t dealing with a global celebrity conversion, a testimony of a religious experience given by someone with a history of giving and rescinding high-profile support to other high-profile figures; they weren’t dealing with a testimony by someone with a history of making sweeping, grandiose claims sometimes consistent with certain features of some mental illnesses.

Or maybe, in a way, they were. Maybe the early church did encounter these kinds of dynamics. Converts within the early church may not have had millions of fans spread through every time zone, but they certainly had parallel influence in their own world. During Jesus’ own time, one of his followers was Joanna, wife of Herod’s steward – broadly speaking, comparable to the Chief of Staff’s spouse. There were plenty of other powerful people who were public – or even private – followers of Jesus. (When Nicodemus went to talk surreptitiously with Jesus at night, you won’t read Jesus saying, “now, Nicodemus, you believe in secret, but when are you going to go public?” It’s worth some mulling.)

Later, when blinded Saul-turned-Paul gasped to others of his vision of Jesus, he wasn’t believed by some because he was so renowned for his violent persecution of early Christ followers; they were afraid of him and thought they were being trapped. They didn’t easily trust his testimony of conversion. There was deep skepticism and some understandable fear of what might come next.

Things got quite bad for Christians, whether their background was Jewish or Gentile – Nero’s treatment of Christians is infamous. And so one of the challenges in the early church was quite painful: what to do with people who denied their faith during persecution – physical torture with threat of death – and then came back later, apologizing, saying they really did believe? During a time marked tragically by martyrs, imagine losing friends and loved ones, surviving, then gathering for worship on Sunday and seeing someone who was alive because they had denied Jesus. What do you do with that? What approach does the church take as it hears their story? Early church leaders didn’t wholesale reject people who, in the face of horrible suffering, had denied Christ. And yet – what does it mean to testify to genuine faith? Could they believe these remorseful people rejoining their gathering – or, like the fear about blinded Saul, were they being trapped?

That very same terrorist-turned-missionary Paul gave pragmatic advice sometimes in his letters, a reminder that sometimes we need to appeal to the earthy wisdom of common sense even while practicing spiritual discernment.

So how should Christians respond when anyone testifies to converting, when anyone declares that they now follow Jesus? And how should Christians respond when someone does that who might, in your own congregation, elicit a sense of suspicion or hesitancy?

*Watch and wait. Be as “wise as serpents and as gentle as doves,” a phrase that reminds the hearer to be both kind and shrewd. This attitude might take at face value the first time; then exercise caution the second time, watching for growth; then employ healthy skepticism the third time. Just as not everyone who calls a church for emergency assistance at the holidays is scamming, and not everyone who calls for emergency assistance actually needs help, so it is with testimony of personal religious experience. In the case of benevolent funds and people asking for assistance, good policies usually reflect the reality that some are genuine while others are not, and the dynamic is similar to people who testify to conversion. Sometimes they’ve genuinely encountered God; sometimes their peers became people of faith so they went along with it; sometimes there seemed something to gain by professing Christianity – dating a particular person, or gaining trust in the business community, or gaining trust from a suspicious spouse to maintain cover for the real thing they want to continue unhindered. So with kindness, and with shrewdness, watch and wait.

*You can celebrate genuinely, without flippantly assuming that someone who claims profound life change is now completely mature or spiritually, emotionally, and mentally healthy. It might look something like this – “That’s great. I’m happy they’ve had a significant experience of some kind. I don’t know the details, but I’m sure that like everyone else they’ll have some tough patches and will need a lot of support and community along the way.” And you smile, and thank God, and pray for the person, believing in God’s power to transform – and knowing that transformation is a process that extends beyond a moment.

Postures something like this give an uncomplicated benefit of the doubt, without making it sound like the community of faith will immediately benefit from this conversion, which is what an attitude of transaction or gain implies – the “We got so-and-so in the draft!” kind of responses. The Church as an organism doesn’t need any high-profile convert to legitimize itself. Rather, a posture like this acknowledges that the spiritual life is challenging; not everyone who initially responds will continue on the path. It’s like the parable of the seed scattered on the soil. Some sprang up quickly but wilted in the heat, other seed got choked out by weeds, but a little – a fraction of what was scattered – took root and grew strong. So celebrate seedlings: not as tally marks for what you can grow, but as fragile new plants needing care and support.

*A person’s value doesn’t come from whether or not they’re on your “team.” People aren’t a draft pick that will help vault your faith into the end zone. People aren’t just an asset gained because they can bring their existing platform to your congregation. A celebrity and a Dollar General cashier are both humans made in the image of God whether or not they ever darken the doorstep of your church. Their value doesn’t change when they decide to follow Jesus. Their value won’t change if they stop believing in God. Their value doesn’t change whether they lose their fortune or win the lottery. Do we treat people like individuals with a particular story – or are we prone to reducing the complexity of personal lives into a transaction?

People can tell when you’re trying to recruit them. When you want to add them to your deck as a handy asset. And if they can’t now, they will later, when their profession of faith is scored into a total for a post-holiday social media post about impact made – for the Kingdom… Don’t exploit peoples’ spiritual lives like this. You don’t know if they’re vulnerable and easing into a faith community after a horrific experience in a church – or if they know an eager believer makes a handy character witness for their upcoming legal needs! Celebrities, star athletes, business gurus, single parents on disability, the guy working the gas station register, the shopping cart collector at Target: each one is loved by God, and the value of each person isn’t determined by whether or not they’re on your team. Love people more than you love what they can do for you.

*Continue to remember our belief that people can turn to God, find faith in Jesus Christ, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, be transformed. Christians believe change is possible.Through Christ, the jerk can become the nicest person in town. Through Christ, the embittered can become thankful and gracious. Through Christ, the addict can find sobriety – one day at a time. Through Christ, the egotistical can become humble and helpful. Dramatic conversion stories sometimes appeal to people so deeply because people are so desperate to hope and believe that real change is possible. Even in the lives of the most obnoxious people you know, even when the most obnoxious person you know is in the mirror. God makes all things new and there is nothing out of God’s reach. God’s not intimidated by your stench and God’s not waiting for you to clean up your act. While we were still smashing the window or lying or feeding our ego, Christ died for all of us who were so unlike God (to paraphrase Scripture).

In Paul’s letter to Christians in Rome, we read, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. ” (Romans 12:9-13)

What else are we to do in a broken, hurting world, but to, “be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer”? When we see people desperate and hungry for God, we pray for them: we joyfully hope, we’re patient when it doesn’t go well despite our hope, and we remain faithful in praying. It’s part of loving others. It’s part of what it means to believe – not in a person’s own ability to change, but in God’s desire and ability to bring transformation anywhere and everywhere. When we hope with joy, when we’re patient, when we stick to praying with perseverance, then we can freely practice generous hospitality. Not so that we can hashtag it for social media fodder, not so that we can collect a rare celebrity trading card for our faith deck, but because we love people; we love them more than we love what they can do for us.