Pillars are Just Crutches

I’m reading an amazing book by Eugene Peterson entitled, “The Contemplative Pastor”.  I would suggest that anyone even thinking about going into pastoral ministry read this book.  It’s quite thought-provoking and profound.  Here’s a bit that I appreciated about evangelism (page 79).

The witness points, mute, so as not to interfere with the sound of silence … [Witness] is an important biblical word in frequent contemporary use.  It is a modest word saying what is there, honestly testifying to exactly what we see, what we hear.  But when we enlist in a cause, it is almost impossible to do it right: we embellish, we fill in the blanks, we varnish the dull passages, we gild the lily just a little to hold the attention of our auditors … important things are at stake – God, salvation – and we want so much to involve outsiders in these awesome realities that we leave the humble ground of witness and use our words to influence and motivate, to advertise and publicize.  Then we are no longer witnesses, but lawyers arguing the case, not always with scrupulous attention to detail.  After all, life and death issues are before the jury.

Another quote along the lines of quietness and silence is a quote that I have on my Facebook page which is attributed to A.W. Tozer:

Man has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity, and bluster make a man dear to God

I found ‘The Wounded Healer’ particularly insightful.  It took me longer than I expected to get through as the pages are weighed down with content heavy enough to support a book 3 times its size.  One thing is for sure, Henri J. M. Nouwen did not mince words!

At the end of his book he speaks of the loneliness of a minister, he says:

But the more I think about loneliness, the more I think that the wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon-a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding.

Later he continues,

We get an idea of the kind of help a minister may offer.  A minister is not  doctor whose primary task is to take away pain.  Rather, he deepens the pain to a level where it can be shared.  When someone comes with his loneliness to the minister, he can only expect that his loneliness will be understood and felt, so that he no longer has to run away from it but can accept it as an expression of his basic human condition.

I talked about leaders being accountable for the people they disciple before just as the Mike Guglielmucci story was breaking and so as time has past and the leaders have been given there time to speak it’s become clear that what is happening with Mike is the same thing that continues to happen in Christendom, leaders are not being accountable for what their disciples say and do.
Read the rest of this entry »

Community has gotten a bad wrap in the last 30 years.  It was all the rave in the hippie movement, YWAM picked it up and has been using it dogmatically since.  Then Jonestown happened and community has never really been looked at the same.

On a side note, PBS did a fantastic documentary on Jonestown which I would encourage anyone to watch!

Our society doesn’t really allow for community to be done in the Jonestown sense, or (unless you’re a deliberate mission organization) in the YWAM sense either.  But still, there is something that is supposed to be communal about the church.  I’m not saying that we should all sell our properties and move at a discrete location together but I think that the church is on the other end of the fence, we’re too private.
Read the rest of this entry »

In thinking about Church (I mean the local church, unless I state otherwise) the obvious question – for me, at least – that needs to be settled first is, “Who is church for?”

If this seems like a dumb question to you, that’s because it is.  But it’s evident that a lot of churches are not asking themselves the question when they consider major church decisions.  And your audience is always the first thing that should be considered!

Who is Church for?  Christians. (Well, technically God, but we’ll get to that)

Is it a place where seeking people can find God, Yes.  Is that it’s purpose, No.

Is it a place where people can bring their unsaved friends, of course.  Is that it’s purpose, No.

Is it a place where everyone should feel comfortable, No.

I would challenge anyone to find a Biblical passage that indicates the church is for non-Christians.  The only verses I’ve found are ones that indicate if a non-Christian happens to be in the building (1 Corinthians), it’s always the exception, never the rule.

We are preoccupied with this idea that EVERYONE should be comfortable in church and that it should apply to non-Christians as much as Christians.  But what does it say about the churches answer to ‘Who is church for?’ when they start having church services that are primarily aimed at, not spiritual growth but making sure that non-Christians feel welcome.

I think this is incredibly damaging to the Church for a number of reasons:

1. It leads to ‘Fat’ Christians.  For some reason Christians come to church and take.  They take and take and take and don’t give anything.  They are not disciplined in their spiritual lives and therefore become spiritually lazy and fat.  But, lots of Christians do not know how to become fit because the messages are always tailored to trying to get people interested in fitness, not fitness itself.

It’s like I told my wife (who loves working out and the gym), I’d go to a gym, but once I get there I would not know what to do, how much to do and where to do it.  A lot of Christians suffer from the same ignorance because the pastor is a recruiter, not a trainer.

2. Although church is for Christian in a worldly sense, in another sense it’s not for Christians at all, it’s for God.  There is something about taking church away from Christians and giving it to non-Christians that makes it about the individual and not about God.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed.  Sermons aren’t about God, Worship song aren’t really about God anymore the focus has shifted, largely due to the Churches focus shift from Christians to non-Christians.

3. It has created the Celebrity Pastor.  You may think it’s not the case, but if point 1 and 2 are true I think point 3 has to be true as well.  The Christians aren’t disciplined, don’t know how to read their Bible, pray, or fast so all of their insights have to come from the pastor.  Therefore, the pastor is held in esteem because the Church was never shown any other way.

I’ve heard the defense before too: “Well, my church is ’seeker sensitive’ but they do bible study on Wednesday nights”

My question is always, “Oh, how do you like those?” – I’ve only met one person who has actually gone.

I wonder how well those services would do if the roles were switched.  So on Sunday the pastor has a bible study with the congregation and on Wednesday it’s ‘bring your friends day’.  I’m betting both would fail (in the worldly sense) miserably – at least in the short term.  Here’s why.  A lot of the congregation would leave either because a) they are being convicted (real Bible teaching will do that) OR b) it’s not about them anymore.

Very few would show up to the Wednesday nights because – very few showed up in the first place and those that did were interested in the Bible, not bringing their friends somewhere they probably didn’t want to go.

I want to talk about ‘church’ in the next couple of months.  Both my wife and I have a desire and passion to church plant in the next couple years and I think blogging about ideas, concepts, community, theology and methodology (amongst other things) will help solidify what I think about church, what I think a healthy church looks like, where church is headed in the next 5, 10, 25, 50 years, and more importantly, what church is for.  A question, I think, that hasn’t been asked enough while making church decisions and that has been lost in the crowd of loud preachers and loud music (don’t get me wrong, I LOVE loud music!).

So I hope you stay tuned, and give your input in the next couple of months because this is one of those topics that thrives on discussions, debates and differing points of view.

There hasn’t been such a bizarre, heart-wrenching and disappointing fall within Christendom quite like Mike Guglielmucci’s in recent memory.  We’ve seen the standard falls, the crooked money deals and the hidden mistresses, but never something like this.  There’s this feeling that innocence was lost.

The recent Todd Bentley case has served as a good reference point, because people were disappointed by it but most didn’t seem hurt by it.  It’s different this time, it’s personal.  In fact, I would say to a lot of people who didn’t know Mike would consider the offense deeply personal.  People worried, prayed, and supported someone that they did not know only to find out that it was a con.

I’ve read some blogs in which the individual expresses their departure from the faith.  I’ve read through the whole range of emotions: angry, hurt, disappointed, cynical, happy … and even more.

There is no proper emotional response.  How you feel is how you feel.  It’s alright to be angry or hurt.  It’s alright to let a little bit of that naive Christian inside of you go and being a little more skeptical next time around.

Some would say that this just goes to prove what many people already know: Christianity is a scam.  This really doesn’t prove anything however.  Even if every Christian is a scam artist this saying is still not true.  Christianity is based on Jesus Christ.  His teachings, His Death, His Resurrection.  Our actions (My actions – thank God) do not effect it’s (actual) validity.  But it still effects people’s perception of it.

What can we do?

Pray.  For him, for the people who were hurt the most, for those who now think Christianity is a scam, for good to come from it.

Forgive.  This is a process.  It’s a hard, deliberate and continuous act but the alternative, bitterness, will literally make your Christian faith useless.

Talk.  Talk about it.  Talk to people who are on the fence about Christianity, talk to those hurting, just talk about it.

How can we avoid this?

Truthfully, we can’t.  My only recommendation would be to stop putting leaders on pedistals and thinking too highly of them, they are fallen and hurting just like you, just like me.

For those wondering why someone would do something like this … I think this may have some answers

As I’ve noted in previous blogs by a similar title, I just finished reading the surprisingly powerful, In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen.  The book talks about what the author learned about leadership in his transition from Harvard to Daybreak.

The last temptation that Nouwen talks about in Jesus wilderness temptations is that of being powerful and wanting control.  Nouwen shares about how his arguments and nice words could not convince the handicapped people at Daybreak.  He had to let go of his need for control and power.  He offers good insight to why the temptation to be powerful can often be the most powerful temptation:

What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible?  Maybe it is that pwer offers an easy substitute for the hard love.  It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people that to love people, easier to own like than to love life.  Jesus asks, “Do you love me?”  We ask, “Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom? (p. 77)

Nouwen hopes for a poor church whose leaders are willing to be led in humility.  He is not referring to weak leadership, simply leadership that allows love to overrule.  The way to do this is through theological reflection.  Nouwen says, “the task of future Christian leaders is not to make a little contribution to the solution of the pains and tribulations of their time, but to identify and announce the ways in which Jesus is leading God’s people out of slavery, through the desert to a new land of freedom” (p. 87).

I agree with Nouwen that todays Christian leaders have become more ‘pseudo-social-worker or pseudo-psychologist rather than real ministers.  Pastors have (to some degree) forgotten that it is God who calls people into ministry and therefore God who will sustain, provide and help people in ministry.  To strictly rely on counseling or social-work techniques cheapens and diminishes what God wants to do.  Ministers need to be theologically and prayerfully prepared “to manifest the divine event of God’s saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of their time” (p.88).

I just finished a rather powerful book called, In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen.  He shares his insights on leadership that he gained through his move from being a Harvard professor to ministering to mentally handicapped people in Ontario, Canada.  I previously wrote on his section about relevance and now I’ll continue with a look at the next section about popularity.

The second temptation that Nouwen talks about is the temptation to be popular or spectacular.  He talks about how being at Daybreak stripped him of his individuality.  He used to do things alone and could go on his own route, but when he made his transition there was always someone there with him or wondering where he was.  Nouwen comments that we have this feeling that we have to do things solo and that we need to have recognition for the things that we have done.  However, fhis is just the temptation to be popular

.As a remedy to this Nouwen switches tracks to talk about Jesus send his disciples out, not alone, but in pairs.  This works to keep people accountable, as Nouwen notes, “I have found over and over again how hard it is to be truly faithful to Jesus when I am alone” (p.58).  The partner is a vital part of ministry for guidance, accountability and encouragement.

Just earlier I posted about pastors who are using video so they can preach in more than one venue at a time.  I think this is a classic example of not having people in ministry that you can work with.

Nouwen also remarks that confession and forgiveness are the keys to help from falling for the popularity temptation.  I know first hand that confession and forgiveness have had a huge hand in helping curb any temptation and let me know that I will always be in need, not only of the grace and mercy of God, but also of the people around me who are an encouragement and support.

We are left with the realization that ministry cannot be about popularity and any such goal only serves to make a fall that much greater.