The Modern Church Leader

I recently rediscovered my StrengthsFinder results. I hadn't attended to this information in nearly two years after much life change and that relating to these findings and their outworking (or not) in my life and ministry. Wow.

So I've been reading a book on leadership loaded with 25 Principles for Leadership that Matter (subtitle). There really is some fantastic stuff in there. Much of which resonates within my 33 year old, white, North American, small town, 2014 time and space, middle-lower class cultured experience.

Catch that? I didn't either until somewhere around the 14th principle. His incredible experience and wisdom on leadership totally makes sense if the the Church is to function like a modern day Non-Profit Org with a CEO. A leader who is great at:
- Preaching/Speaking
- Managing
- Administration
- Finances
- Politics
- Counseling
- Writing
- Media Leveraging
- Reading everything under the sun (and Scripture too)
- Visioneering
- Sole-decision making
- Carrying the weight of an Organization...alone.
- The singular-appointed Torch-bearer of the mission

Oh yeah, and the leader totally manages his/her Time well. They disciple their families with the best of 'em, are home for birthdays and anniversaries and manage to make it to every single meeting and event and program the Church offers, fosters and convicts the body to partake in...

So I recently discovered my StrengthFinder results and found it refreshing that I'm not even remotely wired to function as a CEO in the modern day local church. Not that this test defines who I am but it's amazing how it confirms what I've been relearning and rediscovering about the Church as it unfolds and takes shape in the Scriptures and so in my own life.

In Acts the Twelve gathered their disciples and so instituted another level of leadership in the Body. Maybe this was the Deacon, maybe it was the Elder, doesn't really matter, what does matter is what the Twelve decided was most important in their role in fostering the first-fruits of The Movement of the The Way.

"It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables (finances, politics, media-wrangling, Microsoft Office...). Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom (sharing the burden of leadership with trustworthy brothers and sisters in Christ, differently gifted and full of the Spirit). We will turn this responsibility over to them and give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word." Acts 6

I'd say we've added a few things to the list of 'leadership' wouldn't you? Culture and Context aside, we've heaped an unnecessary mountain of burdens onto one man...no wonder burnout is epidemic in the Church.

Listen, if we are the Church and we are first and foremost His family, as I tell my kids on a daily basis, then it is up to us to re-claim the culture of the Church back from the mindset/attitude of Corporationism. My immediate family is not a business, nor is it an organization, and my extended family (the Church) is to be living out His mission in like manner. Yes in unity and in organized form but we have to ask ourselves if our current forms look and act more like business' than families?

What if. What if we did totally reevaluate and reestablish norms in the Family of God?

This would begin with those called and so Gifted to lead the Church. If leaders aren't willing to change the language and dynamic of the Pastor who singularly holds the reigns on the vision for the untold number of believers living in the cracks and crevices of our culture and so equip all believers to live according to their appointment as apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers (beyond paid and degreed staff) and each with a local vision for their family, neighborhood and workplace...if we aren't willing to equip and release our disciples to cast their own vision in Christ then we will continue on receiving the very same results that has brought the American church to it's present small place in culture.

So I found my StregthsFinder results and realized that being filled with a healthy dose of Rebellious Visioneering in the Church today is probably a role that lends itself to the Early Church movement more than we lend credit.

If God is One as Paul notes in Ephesians, and We, the Church are One with Him as Paul notes in Corinthians, then it stands to reason that it takes more than one man to carry a local vision for a local Body. Yes we need a King to follow, and last I checked that is most notably Christ, while our local kings in the Church possibly ought to look more like heads of families, elders of the community who are banded together and so gather to lead, innovate, brainstorm, pray, study the word, struggle with community sin and struggles, make disciples and invite more and more into that inner-circle of leadership. Co-CEO's if you will.

Are you willing to put your form of 'church' on the table and evaluate in light of the early movement? Are you as a leader willing to truly exegete your culture and change your life as a missionary accordingly? Are we as the Church willing to tear down those forms that model Corporationism while our mouths preach disciple -making?

Read Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12 once again - leadership in the Church and the movement of the Body truly is a beautiful thing that needs to be reevaluated in the context and rhythm of our current systems and forms and definitions of the Church.

Albert Mohler, The Conviction to Lead

Redeeming the Sacred Night of the Candy

Oh sweet hallows eve.  Some thoughts for incarnational living on this most...religio-sacro-spirituo-holish-day.

It's that strangely universal celebration of after-hours-candyholics.  One that draws your neighbors out of their homes once a year - so hand something out and connect with them.  (If you don't agree with candy do something cool like temporary tattoo's, please avoid the rice cakes, please.)

1. Why not walk around and chat it up around fires, glowing pumpkins and bowls of sugar with the rest of the neighborhood?  In fact, make it point to connect on a deeper level with at least one other family on your journey.  (I've not yet been accused of anything more than having a sweet beard and a lot of fun on Halloween.)
2. Join up with your missional community, small group or extended family and have a party in your front yard handing out candy to neighbors.  Why not add some sweet music and a barbecue and I promise you'll not only connect with the unknown hermits down the street, but you might enjoy it yourself!
3. If you simply must redeem the night through blatant Christianization from the commercialized-pagan-holish-day, and if you must dress up as your favorite patriarch of the faith, and if you  must quote copious amounts of Scripture...then please, please, please at least do it with some serious pizzaz, drama and fanfare as though you actually believe and enjoy the dramatic ancient beauty of the text, the heroic people, and the their powerful God.

Oh, and whatever you choose to do with the night, model for your children what it means to glorify God through missional candy collection, proliferation and neighborhood connects...and for those of you staying indoors with your kids, demonstrate healthy fasting from what you believe to be all-too-close identification with and worship of the worlds gods without condemning the rest of the Body.

Party on Wayne...Party on Garth.

Hows Your Community Group: Part 2

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship...

Note that I am not separating teaching and fellowship here. Hearing the Gospel of Christ happened within the context of fellowship with other believers and the Apostles. If any of the 3,000 were interested in growing it meant community, it meant time with other disciples and time under the Apostles.

And there was a strong desire for and a commitment to this teaching. Have you ever made a vow? I did on my wedding day...I vowed once not to eat green olives, otherwise I don't recall specifically vowing to do or pursue anything in particular. It's not our language. Yet this is the language in the text. These early believers vowed to pursue the doctrine of the Apostles - the Gospel, the Truth of Christ, the Reality of the Creator of the Universe!

A hunger and a joy, an honor and a healthy terror, a newness of life in such incredibly new fellowship that I imagine a unified devotion being the only possible response in this season of the ecclesia, the budding communities of believers.

Foundational to both the devotion and the fellowship is the teaching. What were they teaching? The Gospel. This new Message regarding the life of the Messiah and how this alters their paradigm of life in God.

How did they teach it? Their immediate response was to gather together as many believers as possible and...well...talk about Jesus while living about Jesus. Talk about the OT with new light shed on the grand Story, a story they were all a part of.

Guys, if we're going to be a part of Kingdom growth in coming generations we must move beyond our Western view of partitioned community (family/friends/church members/neighbors/coworkers). Who we 'click' with doesn't ultimately matter. This lone-wolfism-amidst-the-crowd-culture is killing the mission of the Church (Matthew 28:19-20) and it's killing our built-in reputation (John 13:35). Put bluntly, we must wholly reengage in exegeting our communities, our culture, the next generation and so rebuild the bridge to Luke's Gospel movement in this Acts 2 devotion to the Word in growing fellowship.

1. Is your home church devoted to Scripture in fellowship? Let's stop thinking of genuine friendship as optional when we gather.
2. Are you leading out of a devotion to Christ both in fostering the Word and fostering genuine community?
3. Is your small group devoted? To one another, to the Word, to healthy community, suffering together, to enjoying life together, to sharing in this devotion with more and more people..

Read Members of One Another. Check out Building Missional Communities. Dig into to remaining story in Acts and trace out the connection between teaching and fellowship.

How's Your Community Group: Part 1

How's your Christian community going?

Do you like it? Not in a 'boy likes girl' sort of way, but do you get excited that your community is fulfilling the Great Commission and joyfully! Or are you just spending another night with a 'hang-out' crowd, or another Bible study, or another 'save-the-world' service group with no real discussion on Truth?

If you're anything like me you spend more than enough time evaluating whether or not your Life Group, Cell-group or Missional Community is healthy or not. While every church may have a different matrix for discerning health I want to take some time to discuss the early church koinonia (fellowship gatherings) that was forming and multiplying following the explosion of growth in Acts 2.

Disclaimer: I realize that some very brilliant theologians (much more so than I) push against the idea that the community we find in Acts 2:42-47 should ever be considered normal, especially not in our Western culture. Others lean in the opposite direction and say that if the early Church were able to more readily fulfill the Great Commission in Matthew 28 through tight-knit family/friend communities, then we ought to adapt and adopt.

I agree.

That said, I want to use this passage in Acts as a dynamic discussion guide to gauging healthy community. It's not nearly definitive and it doesn't have to be normative...but it says something about community in a time where the Spirit was rapidly moving (not to mention it was deemed noteworthy to be included in our Canon), so let's lean into it a bit.

Before we get started I've stolen and compiled different sources worth of information and put together a 'health' diagram to foster our conversation. You'll notice that there are several stages a community group grows through, each one being necessary and all a piece of the divine puzzle that is co-Mission.

I'm going to start with the assumption that if the Son of God rose from the dead to send us on a mission, then that mission must be central to our community - and so every other 'stage' of communal growth only drives us to our mission which never actually ends. In fact, if your group is on mission then you will grow through these stages time and again.

In the next post we'll start Teaching and clarify the text, ask some questions and press on our own experience in our community groups.

Read Acts 1-5 - crazy times. The Master Plan of Evangelism is a great compass in this discussion as well.

Emotion and Truth and Four

This morning my little boy displayed his first truly defined bout of sadness regarding our recent cross-country move. In other words he freaked out for a while.

Some little frustration, like not being able to play the Sonic video game he wanted with his cousins, was the catalyst to being able to express his general sadness, pain and frustration about the move. In his own way at that.

He misses his friends. He wants to sit at his desk chair and watch Octonauts. He wants to be in control of his environment. He wants to know that the same God that made the trees in Wisconsin is here as well, right now.

Now of course his tears set the stage for my wife's and, not surprisingly, my own.

So I was reading in Romans this morning. That the Spirit brought me into the fold of Gods family is comforting beyond compare. We're made in His image and comprehensively at that, so the sadness I partake in with my own son and wife is a mirror image of the pains and burdens the Father carries on my behalf.

My wife and I continue to remind our little dude (and ourselves) that it's not only okay to feel sad, but it's a sign of truth, that love does exist even when unexplainable and that Christ-like community is so good that when it's gone, even for a moment, it should leave us wanting.

Read 1 Corinthians 12 for the importance of community - Romans 8 for the awesome work of renewal the Spirit brings - Study the 'one anothers' and discover the necessity of true community to live these out appropriately. Read!

Nomads and Discernment

1)  Physical: An experiential reminder of what we truly need in order to do life...no computer, ipod, personal library etc.

2)  Social: With community: shared meals, shared parenting, shared laughs, shared life, shared imperfect-but-beneficial-to-all Christ-based-community.

3)  Mental: Appropriate time to ponder what Christ is doing through His Spirit in this season...without said modern distractions. As one famous punk singer called this sort of thing 'a cerebral scrub!'

4)  Emotional: Time outside the norm. Time to be separate. Time for distance. Space for renewal. Who doesn't like a good cry?

5)  Familial: Simply being with my family through heat, cold, rain, thirst, packing, cooking, firing, kids, bugs, swimming, sand, tantrums, laughs, challenges, joys, new experiences. Growth.

6)  Hygienic: Well, it's camping, not to much say about that...fresh undergarments anyone?

7)  Spiritual: All of the above and more combined to create a very real, very tangible movement of the Spirit in real time, away from the normal rhythm of life and regular time in the Word.

This camping trip has been a metaphorical taste of the greater nomadic journey my family and I are venturing out on. No place to attach our name to - though borrowing a room in a home to live in until the Lord provides other means. No job to commit my time to, nor receive compensation from - until that door opens in due time. New social arena. New environment to ponder life in and about. New spiritual season in which to set up camp with all it's challenges and joys, many of which are parabolic to the very nature of camping itself.

I am exhausted and yet refreshed. I am humbled and yet filled anew with confidence. I am discerning what's best and yet banking on the Spirits guidance, yet knowing little of what's in store.

'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion' (Romans 9:14-16). Is God unjust in saying this to myself and my wife, who are giving up our home, community, comfort for His work? I don't think so.

He is the Creator of life and definer of purpose and justice. We are the created and the receptors of His purpose and His justice. He died on our behalf so that we would know Him personally, eternally. I may miss out on the American Dream version of comfort while serving Him in this indefinite season and yet still be blessed more than I will ever comprehend.

He remains merciful by allowing me to know Him. He is gracious in calling me to follow.

So we'll continue on with a camping mindset, in His love and care, filled with the knowledge of His goodness and provision, whether meager or bountiful. Is it possible for every believer to live as called wanderers? Is it necessary? I don't know, but it's a good experiential reminder of what we're really about.

Read Hebrews 11 and Romans8:18-9:29 and spend some time in the forest, see the trees.

Weirdly Normal...

Graffiti art at one time was simply vandalism. Then it became artistic vandalism. Then it turned into a form of artistic expression, only some of which was purely vandalism. Now it's a full blown artform where money is made and graffiti is commissioned worldwide...and in some cases still vandalism.
Most things that seem weird to us at first are simply another persons normal. Normal doesn't make something right and quite honestly some peoples definition of normal is pretty stinkin' weird. Weird doesn't make something wrong though it does warrant healthy questioning.

Jesus was weird.

Even today, the average church leader if witnessing it first hand here and now, would disagree with his methodology (blanket statement not supported with factual evidence). We would wonder at his miraculous works, question his passion and doubt his teachings. Even as we hold his Word in our hands and hearts I doubt we would legitimize his ministry.

However, my desire isn't tear down the modern church, I'm a part of it and wouldn't consider abandoning his bride. My desire is to see the same ethos of Jesus' ministry play out in our own. The same mindset he had while on earth carry us through our days. The same philosophy of ministry shape our own. The same practical elements he displayed in building the church be lived out here and now.

His Personal Style:
He personally stayed close to at least 3 men whom he trained and shared life with, almost all of life for several years. Close enough that at least one was willing to speak up against the Lord...only to be put back in his place!

He built a solid team of 12 with whom he trained and sent. These he spent only a little less time than the 3 above.

He interacted regularly with at least 70-120 other followers he would call disciples. And he taught regularly to crowds in the hundreds and thousands.

He even spent massive amounts of time during his public ministry healing, eating with and talking with the masses between Caphernaum and Jerusalem.

To Jesus this was normal ministry. To others only some of this was normal for a Rabbi. For others yet this was blasphemous living.

His New Normal:
As the rock-star of his day - the miraculous healer, fantastic teacher, homegrown prophet and 'possible' messiah - Jesus did not pull away from the crowds outside of his teaching to create space. He spent more time with them.

Jesus didn't spend all his time alone with his 3 closest friends/disciples. He spent much time with them and balanced it with the masses.

Jesus managed to raise up leaders, lead a small group of men passionately willing to follow him anywhere, and regularly share his life with the world around him...all the while mapping out and equipping his disciples for the greatest missional movement ever set in motion in the history of mankind.

And he even managed to spend quality time with the Father amid his sacrificial mission.

His weirdness created a new normal.

He was obedient to his authority. He was humble in action. He was confident in theology and mission. He was gracious in confusion. He was direct in opposition. He was firm in condemnation. He was solid in clarification. He was passionate about reconciliation. He was committed to salvation.

Can we as leaders of the church: pastors, evangelists, teachers, prophets, preachers, apostles, administrators...disciples - both lay and vocational - can we really create a better system for unfolding the kingdom here and now? While Jesus never said, 'only do church the way I have done it' - out of all the models he could have implemented during his short time with his people he chose intimate, life-sharing discipleship with a few and large community teachings with the many...and intertwined the two beautifully under his watchful eye.

Let's disciple a few for a season of time. Then repeat.

Let's enter into smaller Christian communities and do life together.

Let's meet the masses, meet their needs and be and share the word.

Let's gather and worship with great teaching regularly.

I'm not sure the church is truly using Jesus' life and ministry as the model for how we do life and ministry today. We've got some things down. Others, maybe the more important things, not so much. Let's rethink the weird and the normal in life, ministry and Scripture...and keep transforming until our disciples look like Jesus'.

Community: What the...

Are we as the Church challenging, expecting and equipping God's Spirit-filled people to live as cultural missionaries?

OR

Are God's empowered people expecting those without that power to enter the church on their own?

Think of it like this. It's terrifying to radically alter your worldview, culture, mindset, belief system, lifestyle...so why do we expect those outside the Church to do all these things in order to engage with the Word.

Are we expecting more faith and courage from people who haven't interacted with the Creator than we are from those who are indwelt by Him? Who is called to be intentional: those who have been reconciled or those who haven't? Who's called to be an ambassador?

What if we spent our time being Christian community, gathering as believers, mashed together with our locale. There's lots of room to define what that really means without giving up the Gospel - the catch is, if we simply say we're doing this and aren't either experiencing fruit or persecution...we probably really aren't doing it.
Dang.

Read and be: Matthew 28:18-20 - 2 Corinthians 5:11-21