wonders and reflections in God's presence

(This post was written last week, Wednesday, February 1, saved but never posted )

Because of the news lately, I’ve added a blog-search feed to my blogwatcher that looks for blogs containing references to Faith Harbour, Randy, Eklektos or … well, me. Today, after the Christianity Today article was published this morning, two new blog postings appeared, The Prodigal Sheep, and A Classical Presbyterian. They each raised the issue of the church to enforcing its “rules”.

It’s true that Christians need to hold each other accountable. And the Churches needs to hold congregations accountable. But, to what or whom are we accountable? Church rules, specific interpretations of scripture, traditional doctrines? In a church that acknowledges that “there are truths and forms with respect to which men of good characters and principles may differ” (G-1.0305 of the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA)) our strength comes in our ability to hold each other accountable to growing, learning, praying, reading scripture, studying, and discerning the will of the Spirit.

Accountability and discipline is not about punishment. It’s not about control. It’s not about keeping the right rules. It is about learning and practicing a way of life. When I discipline my daughter, I do so not to “keep her in line” or to be sure she grows up to be just like me, but to help her learn appropriate ways of living according to the values our family lives by. A community of believers also have a responsibility to hold each other accountable to a specific way of life — Christ’s way. And we do that, not by shunning or judging or excluding, but by entering into relationship with each other as we encounter the living Christ.

I think the church needs to hold its members and leaders accountable to the marks of discipleship … daily prayer, Bible reading, spiritual friendships, significant giving, regular worship, and meaningful ministry or service. When we hold each other accountable to that … when we hold ourselves accountable to that … the rest will fall in line. I think many of the problems our churches have faced are because we are not paying enough attention to how we live the path of discipleship, and, instead, we attempt to “discipline” good, faithful people for not following the rules.

God’s thunder sets the oak trees dancing
A wild dance, whirling; the pelting rain strips their branches.
We fall to our knees—we call out, “Glory!”

I am forty-four years old, I have been ordained for nearly 18 years, and I continuously lament over the fact that when I attend Church gatherings, I am still one of the “young” ones – often being the youngest in the room. It was different last month when I attended the Emergent Convention in Nashville. For the first time, I was actually one of the older ones in the room. Hundreds of pastors and church leaders – and I was in the oldest quartile of participants! It felt good – but odd; hopeful – but unfamiliar.

Emergent is a conversation regarding the characteristics, thoughts, and shape of the emerging Church in North American and, actually, around the world. It started with a few people realizing that the younger generations are becoming lost to the church, but still very interested in Jesus, God and spiritual things. Church-going parents and grandparents used to console themselves with the assurance that when the younger generations grow up, settle down, and have kids of their own, they’d come back to church. But they’re not. And now we are more than one generation into this trend, meaning that today’s young adults are very often total strangers to the church – they didn’t even attend Christmas and Easter services as children. They sometimes don’t even know that Christmas or Easter are religious holidays. Yet, they long for spiritual experience and meaning in their lives.

Many young adults are cynical of the institutional church. After a book-signing at which she was the guest musician, a young woman asked Brian McLaren, a Christian author, if he really believed the stuff he wrote or if he was just trying to sell books.* Fortunately, McLaren heard the deeper longing in that question – a curiosity about what difference faith makes in his life. And, fortunately, he was able to respond with an authentic articulation of the path of discipleship he was following. I think that’s our biggest challenge in evangelism, in church transformation, in new church planting – we need to hear the questions which may not even be posed as questions, and respond not so much out of our answers, but out of our journey … sharing together, living together, and loving together.

Our culture has changed. Stanley Hauervas claims that anyone over the age of 40 is an alien in our own culture. At Emergent, though, we’ve learned that it’s not so much about a person’s age as it is about their mindset. It’s more than a generation-gap – it’s a different way of experiencing the world. Some church members are convinced that if we’d just change the style of worship music, they would come. No, say the people I met in Nashville, it goes much deeper than that. Contemporary music, relevant sermons, casual dress, friendly greeters, or icons and candles don’t attract young people to the church. No, it’s changed lives that attract. What is appealing to the younger generations of adults is seeing how discipleship in Christ can make a difference in our lives, in their lives, and in the world.

*to know more about the spiritual relationship which developed between Brian McLaren and this young woman, see his book, More Ready Than You Realize, which I review on page of this issue of Connections.

Printed in the July 2005 issue of Connections, a publication of the Presbytery of New Covenant.

My nearly sixteen year old daughter is now wearing the high school ring of one of the varsity football players around her neck. They are together nearly everyday, and I can sense the excitement around them. Filled with the mystery of spring, of life, of possibilities, day by day they are falling more and more in love.

Falling in love. Dewitt Jones, photographer for National Geographic, says that creativity is not a skill reserved for the few; it is really nothing more than falling in love with the world. Isn’t that what God does with the earth and all its creatures? God fell in love with the world – and it was good. In fact, the Creator fell in love with us, so much that he surrendered his own flesh and blood for our benefit, that we might also know the life, breath, and creative power of love and be bathed in them forever. God is love, and releasing that love in the world is, essentially, falling in love with God in Christ.

The more I read about success in transformational churches, new churches, and even the marketplace, the more I am struck by the need to get out of our heads and into our hearts. Business leaders are not giving up strategies and planning and thinking well about their enterprises, but they realize that they have to “fall in love” with what they are doing to really have a lasting impact on the market. Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, writes this in the prologue of his book about the rise of Starbucks coffee:

“A company can grow big without losing the passion and personality that built it, but only if it’s driven not by profits but by values and by people.

The key is heart. I pour my heart into every cup of coffee, and so do my partners at Starbucks. When customers sense that, they respond in kind.”

I have to admit, one of the first things I notice in a church is the level of passion visible, audible, and palpable in the room as they worship together. When a community of faith is in love, you know it. You feel it. You are moved by it. When a congregation merely recites prayers, sings notes, listens to the words of a sermon, and passes the offering plate, it is no more alive than a body on life support and a feeding tube. This is not the fullness of life that God intends for us.

Falling in love is one of the key elements of transformation in a church. But, be careful who and what you fall in love with. I remember being a teenager myself, and the truth is that at that young age, I was more in love with the idea of being in love, than I was in the young man for whom I expressed my affections. It didn’t last.

What we fall in love with as a church is just as critical to the lasting relationship with the community to which God has called us. A congregation needs to be careful not to fall in love with the order of worship, with the music, the pastor, the architecture, the history, or even “the nice, close, family feel”. But, rather, falling in love with Christ, with the very essence of being church, with all the people God loves and longs for like the loving father longs for the lost son – that’s the mark of the Church alive.

Printed in the May 2005 issue of Connections, a publication of the Presbytery of New Covenant.

Occasionally I read a book which excites me – inspires me – and compels me to drive others crazy talking about it.  Last year is was Hilary Clinton’s autobiography.  My family affectionately advised me that if I told them one more story about the Clintons, they’d disown me.  This year it’s Dee Hock’s account of the birth of VISA International called Birth of the Chaordic Age.

Perhaps you’ve noticed; these days I cannot enter into a conversation about the church and its future without at least mentioning the book once.  More likely, I end up buying you copy.  Why this fascination with VISA and its founder, Hock?  Because, I believe the church can relate to the challenges Hock faced as he successfully transformed the banking industry, and, more importantly, we can learn from his techniques, theories, failures and successes.

When asked by the National Bank of Commerce to head up the launch of its BankAmericard franchise, Hock had no idea of the depth of innovation he would soon be required to summon up in himself and in the people working with him.  Innovation comes only after you have a good handle on the general principles which will guide you into the future.  For Hock, it was his belief that VISA ought not to be about making money, but about the transfer of value between people and peoples of differing cultures, nations, ethnicities, etc.  Hock had a vision of the card being more than a credit card, but a transaction card.  Today VISA international is owned by 22,000 member banks, and it transfers $1.25 trillion a year across hundreds of national borders and across currencies.  In order to help move the traditional banking industry into a new world, Hock had to envision an organization which was not hierarchical, tyrannical, or highly controlled, but one he calls chaordic.  That is, a self-organizing structure in which each part is guided by the internal DNA of the whole.

Those same principles are important for leading the Church through the transformation God is calling us toward as we face a new multi-cultural, post-modern world.  For starters, we need to be absolutely clear about the principles which guide us.  You may call them your core values, or bedrock beliefs, or mission statement, or vision.  Stan Ott calls them the defining vision and defining practices of the church.  What is the ultimate goal, the reason for being church?  Find your answer to that question, live by it, and the programs and “doings” of the church will more readily birth themselves.

Hock’s book is filled with many other ideas and stories that will shed lots of light on the transformation of congregations.  Throughout the chapters he highlights “MiniMaxims” – short pithy sayings which tell challenge us to think about leadership in a new era.  Let me end with two which I think have real meaning for transformational ministry:

Only fools worship their tools. (p.44) 

Life is a gift, bearing a gift, which is the art of giving. (p.45) 

Hock, Dee. Birth of the Chaordic Age.  Berret-Koehler: San Fransisco.  1999.

Printed in the April 2005 issue of Connections, a publication of the Presbytery of New Covenant.

If I were to boil down everything I know about transformational ministry into one word, it would be … prayer. I have learned to never underestimate the power of prayer in a church attempting to turn-around from a shrinking, aging congregation to a thriving community of believers.  Prayer is more important than programs, curriculum, praise bands, small groups or even money in reaching the un-churched public.  I am convinced that if a church is serious about growing, it must be serious about prayer.

Now, I’m not talking about the constitutionally required words of devotion offered during the first three minutes of a session or committee meeting.  I’m not talking about the prayers for people’s health concerns that make it to the prayer chains in our churches.  Both of these have their place in church-life and are a blessing to many.  No, I’m talking about life-changing, mission-discerning, intentional, time-intensive, and sacrificial prayers offered by the whole congregation calling on the Holy Spirit to fill them and lead them through the transformational process. 

I think it’s time to look at the kinds of prayer we’re offering most in our congregational lives.  I hear lots of prayer requests – requests that God will keep people safe while traveling, that God will make sick people well, that God will help a program or effort of a congregation go well.  Certainly there is benefit in offering these kinds of prayers.  But, dare I say, these prayer requests are more about God blessing what we are doing instead of about helping us become more about what God is doing? 

Brian McLaren wrote:  “Our persistent “bless-me” bug, like a nasty flu into which we keep relapsing, creates what some of my friends have called “the great commotion,” a close approximation of the Great Commission, but a miss nonetheless. Seminar junkies accumulate plastic-covered notebooks that could fill an oil tanker. Authors like myself write books whose combined gross weight may exceed the weight of our congregations after a pot-luck dinner. But not much changes.”

Not much changes, because in transformational ministry, what most needs to change is inside ourselves.  It’s not so much about the style of worship or the types of programs, it’s not about mission/vision statements or designing a “cool” new logo; it’s not about small groups or permission-giving environments; it’s not even about knowing the needs of generation-x or the post-modern world.  No, it’s about our willingness to put aside our busy schedules and our pre-conceived notions about life and church and allow God to mold our hearts, minds, and spirit into the likeness of Christ. 

I have witnessed congregations in serious prayer – 24 hour prayer vigils; committee members entering 30 day prayer covenants; 40 day fasts or periods of intense daily prayer for a vision or discernment in a congregation’s direction.  And I have been blown away by the power of God at work in those congregations.   I have seen miracles! 

Are you interested in congregational transformation?  Do you want your church to move from losing members to gaining?  The first step is the easiest – and the hardest – Pray.   Pray that God will shape your congregation into the vessel most effective at carrying the living water to a parched, dry and dying world.

Printed in the March 2005 issue of Connections, a publication of the Presbytery of New Covenant