The Mindset of Mission

"The missionary mandate . . .has one explicit aim: to display the glory of Christ through the ingathering of a hugely diverse and unified redeemed people." ~John Piper

That God brings the nations to our country is a blessing; we are able to evangelize/disciple/send. Yet I've heard a lot of complaining about other nations being in this great country. It is an opportunity, not a problem that the nations come to us. That we complain the nations come is a tragedy. Let us pray God continues to use us to reach the nations.

It saddens me when I hear my Christian brothers and sisters complaining about social issues such as illegal immigration. They whimsically try to end the discussion with a hand swept swiftly through the air as if shooing a fly and say something to the effect of, "They should all just go back and go through the process legally to get here!" Their dismissive attitude and condescending judgementalism shows more about their own heart than it does about what legislation should do in this situation. Their heart is not to reach out to others with the message of the gospel, it seems their heart is wanting to hide behind excuses that keep them from feeling they must take risks for the gospel.

(caveat: Put your umbrella up, it's about to rain cynicism) Those I hear complaining about illegal immigration are the same personalities who refuse to do anything out of their comfort zone. They are not plugged into the church in sacrificial service, they do not share their faith with their friends, they do not give to missions agencies or couples the church sponsors, and their life style is marked by a focus on material possessions that bring comfort and prosperity.

It really is a sad illustration of the church in much of America that we are angered by "illegal's" in our country instead of joyful at the opportunity that we can, at very little expense, evangelize/disciple and send these dear people to places in other cultures where they, because of their nationality, will find great harvest for Christ.

Servant Leadership

          Henry Blackaby makes it very clear how influential a Christian man and woman can be on their culture as he writes, “As go the people of God, so goes the redemption of the world.”[1] Another way to say this is, “As goes the spiritual leadership of the people of God, so goes the people of God.” In Matthew 20:28 lies the foundation for spiritual leaders: to serve. If Jesus, the supreme example of leadership, came to serve, how much more so do His followers need to be people who serve? The model of Jesus’ servant leadership is in the text; “. . . to give his life as a ransom for many.” Not only is this the model, this is the goal of servant leadership. Spiritual leadership has as the goal, to lead in a sacrificial way so that those who would follow would be led to the redemption found in Jesus Christ.  Servant leadership is the foundation for all spiritual leadership.

            Knowing the foundation for spiritual leadership enables and it empowers. It enables in that leaders will know what it is to which they are leading. They are able to build on a foundation that has substance as well as sustaining power. Spiritual leaders do not have to build their own foundation-it has been built for them in the person and work of Jesus Christ.   There is no reinventing of the wheel for spiritual leaders. Spiritual leaders do not need to lead people by coming up with a new and compelling vision statement that will attract the masses. The vision is Jesus.

Servant leaders are empowered to lead sacrificially, not out of a sense of entitlement; their goal is not their own comforts. (Philippians 2:3) In fact, the larger the sphere of leadership influence, the less personal choice a leader has. What a leader does in private becomes less private the larger the sphere of influence. Jesus Christ gave His life as a ransom for the redemption of humanity. Spiritual leaders who are servant leaders are empowered by this message to do whatever it costs, short of sin, to lead people to Jesus.  

            A servant leader loves others. They cannot be effective unless they have a desire to better the lives of those they lead. Of course the deepest way to better others is to lead them to an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ. A servant leader has a desire to have those they lead to be healthy and whole (spiritually/emotionally/physically). No healthy person wants to follow a servant leader who inflicts soul wounds on those they influence, or to spiritually/emotionally abuse those whom they lead.

Humility is a trait that is deep within the soul of a leader. (Philippians 2:5-11) Humble servant leaders understand that it is because of the work of God and others that there is any achievement in ones life.  Humility understands how to honor those they serve and lead.

A servant leader whose life is marked by duplicity and moral compromise will not be a leader with very much influence, if any at all. A servant leader who influences deeply and broadly is one who lives with rock solid integrity. They inspire those they lead by the high standard with which they govern themselves. A leader with integrity is a leader that can be trusted; a leader who is trusted gains access into the life of a person that others do not or will not have. 

A leader may be loving, humble, and full of integrity, but still find their influence diminished if they are not enjoyable to be around. A servant leader is full of joy-they are fun people. Jesus was one of the happiest guys to ever walk the earth. (Hebrews 1:9) People enjoyed being around Jesus (unless they were a religious hypocrite.) Servant leadership is leadership that walks in and demonstrates the joy of the Lord in their life.

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[1] Blackaby, Henry, “Holiness,” Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003. 1

Grace and Leadership

There has been a phrase that has been used in leadership that comes across a bit more like a warning than an encouraging exhortation. It reads like this, "Do not mistake my meakness for weakness." The premise behind this statement seems good, but for some reason the phrase is a little off-putting. It seems to come across as a bit of a warning; like a rattle snake shaking its tail to make sure any passer by knows it is there and to be warned. It will strike if need be. Perhaps a balance is in order; one need not confuse those they lead by being just "meak". Leadership that comes across as weak, potentially confusing those they lead by being weak, is not good leadership. Meakness is strength in check, or strength/power under control. If a leader is being confused as weak and their leadership appears weak, then there is a bigger problem.

Leaders must walk between difficult, sometimes painful decision making while also demonstrating Christ-like tenderness. A leader must be full of God's powerful grace, and ready to forgive and dispense His grace. Spiritual leaders must also, while being forgiving and full of grace, be motivators and movers of people onto and into God's agenda in this world. Axioms aside, it will be fun to explore leadership and leader making this semester.

Meditating on the life of Jesus Christ, one sees such power under control. There was never a time someone following Jesus would ever mistake His meakness for weakness. As a father and husband, sometimes it can be tempting to use size, power struggles, voice tone and volume, to get desired behaviors and outcomes. In this situation, the mistake is not assuming weakness. It is, however, still a very weak form of leadership.

As mentoring kicks off this semester, there will be many cracks in the foundation found. These will need to be addressed, and by God's grace, fixed. It will be fun to explore leadership development (for spiritual leadership this really just boils down to disciple making) in the context of God's agenda here on this earth in and through people.

Worship

I wrote a review of a book that outlines six different methods or styles of Worship.

Here it is:

John Piper argues for the value and importance of worship by declaring worship is the ultimate goal of the church, over and above missions. He reasons, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” This puts in perspective how vital worship is to the Christian individually and corporately with the body of Christ. A believer shares the news of Jesus Christ not to win arguments or convince unbelievers of its truth, but to make worshipers out of people. The goal of a holy life is so others will see the truth and beauty of God and be worshipers of Him. In Exploring the Worship Spectrum there are six views explaining, defending, and critiquing the theological and historical basis for different styles of worship.

The temptation with this author was to latch onto Harold Best and his arguments because his thinking was sound and the denomination affiliation of Christian and Missionary Alliance is the same. However the experience of traditional worship is unfulfilling and lacks a perception of spontaneity that assumes interaction with the Holy Spirit. With that said, it would logically seem the charismatic worship stream would be most fulfilling with the third wave of the Holy Spirit as the one that is most relatable; however, even though there is a focus on directly worshiping God with Charismatic worship as well as a restoration of the Holy Spirit to church services , there is too much spontaneity in charismatic worship services. The lack of structure , and experientially speaking, the tendency for churches to be full of granola Christians, causes a stereotypical irrelevance of the church in ministering to the needs of the community at large.

The view of Blended Worship is most appreciated and engagement in this worship style connects most for this author. After spending a few formative years at the Moody Bible Institute, it was heard over and over to be a balanced Christian. Perhaps this is why blended worship, combining elements of traditional worship as well as contemporary worship , is so appealing. Webber is hitting on a major point as he states what is lacking in traditional worship-the experience of God during a service, while the contemporary worship service misses substance.

As Webber dissects blended worship to expose the three aspects of content, structure and style there is attractiveness to this; a balance that seems lacking in other worship styles. Of course as Exploring the Worship Spectrum it could not be helped but notice there is an element of all the styles intermingling, but this Blended Worship seems the most intentional. It is grudgingly to critique Harold Best as he argues against Blended Worship as it tempts congregations into a “McDonald’s” mindset. Perhaps this is not such a bad thing to want to know what the service will “taste like” simply because of the power behind worship. One is able to trust God to do the unexpected. The traditions become a source of stability while the contemporary allows for spontaneity. Worship is not a show , it is participatory; the worshipper is able to engage more deeply because they are not forced to stand warily by critiquing the content, structure or style, it is familiar to them.

There is a frustration with Don Williams critique of Blended Worship, not that Blended Worship is above being critiqued, but his argument is so tragically flawed. He argues against Blended Worship because he does not like the structure (which has come to be associated with Charismatic worship) and implies structure is not biblical because he does not see it evidenced in the New Testament. Much of this was because there were no church services at each corner in all the cities; most of the early church worship was done in homes or small groups out of doors. The strategy was for Paul to go to synagogues and evangelize the Jewish congregation before looking for small homes or groups of Christians. There is a structure to how the early church ministered and worshiped in the New Testament but unfortunately many people fail to realize this. Secondly, his conclusion that the lack of structure that he assumes is lacking in the New Testament but argued for in Blended Worship puts the worshiper under the law is preposterous. Even in ancient times those who were actually under the law were still able to worship God (check out the book of Psalms). It is irresponsible to accuse a worshiper as law based simply because they find a modicum of structure appealing in their worship service. God’s grace is bigger than this. Thirdly, having even a moderate amount of structure can be done in obedience to Scripture. (1 Corinthians 14:40) God’s grace flows to those who choose to obey Him, especially when they mess up. (Romans 5 & 6)

In today’s culture there are enough people who desire a church that can connect them with their traditional roots as well as a generation unfamiliar with those structures. Blended worship can provide a place where the past is honored but not idolized as well as providing a place for a fresh experience with contemporary artistic forms to be utilized in expressing praise and adoration to the God who has seen more worship styles and forms than any of us.

Worship Wars?

One of the classes I am taking this semester is called Pastoral Theology and Worship. Last night we discussed different ways churches minister culturally. Some churches worship model avoids integrating different cultures and their styles into their worship services, they avoid hiring staff who are ethnically more diverse, etc. While other churches are so blended culturally as they infuse ethnicity and diversities into one synergistic whole.

It dawned on me as we have been thinking our way through worship and its implications in the church that we have a culture that does not want to bring a sacrifice of praise, nor do we want to offer our lives as living sacrifices of worship. We are fragmented rather than united because that is easier than dealing with our issues, walking humbly with each other, and living radical lives that deal with personal sin and selfishness.

How do I live a life that offers sacrificial praise and worship to God? What areas of my life have I guarded selfishly as I justify myself rather than dealing with sin?

How Christianity Changed the World

The learning curve for Seminary seems to have taken on less of an upward move and has leveled off; at least a little. Last semester I felt overwhelmed and did not feel as if there was any good in my work. Now that there has been some work to gauge how to do things, this semester seems to be flowing at a better clip.

Continuing to process through this adventure called Seminary, one of the books I read called, How Christianity Changed the World. In essence it shows the impact on Western culture directly by Christianity.

A couple of things that struck me as quite interesting, and alarming, is how our society is trying desperately to increase the distance between religion and science. The reality is modern science has its roots in Christianity. Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci, William of Occum, were all devout Christians and strong theologians who made significant discoveries for science. Copernicus discovered the earth rotates around the sun; this impacted how we date the world including significant religious festivals, and other things. Davinci, not just a great artist, but a great scientist. His drawings on the human body helped science understand the body at a whole new level. For example doctors long believed the body pumped air through the heart. DaVinci's studies proved air does not go through the heart but through the lungs. There are many discoveries made by DaVinci's drawings of the human body as well. William of Occum's summation that the simplest explanation is probably the best is well known in sacred and secular circles alike.

There are many other examples of how Christianity has had direct involvement in areas of education, women's rights, etc. My one point of contention was his take on music. But I'll let the reader decide.

The book is a fairly easy reading book that keeps the reader engaged and interested. It is well documented.

I've been worshiping to this song the past few days. I purchased the CD this song is on and found it about a week ago; the CD is going to be my study CD. When I heard this song I've replayed it now about a half dozen times. It's moving, compelling, emotion-provoking, powerful. It moves me to want Christ more.

There is a sense about life these days compelling a feeling of hopelessness. There is a reality to the idea that no matter how "good" something goes, there is an end to it; or even worse in the midst of the experience of that really good reality, somewhere, most places, there is utter depravity and sadness. Life in most places on this globe are not all that great. I have sensed this now for a few years, beginning at the loss of my son a little over four years ago. Life is not awesome. In most ways it is hell. The prick in my spirit bringing this thought back to the surface was the visit to a nursing home facility where an aging Episcopalian Priest came up to speak to someone and from outward appearances seems wholly normal. But as he began to speak it sounded as if he wanted to follow up on some work he had delegated but none of his words made a sentence and all of his rambling was incoherent. His dementia is severe, obvious, and killing him. Pouring his life out for the church and his end is met with mental darkness and wasting. How poignant! Christians believe the point of life is the Gospel of Jesus, the gospel changes life and brings hope and healing to a dark and dying world. The irony of this man is he pours his life out for the advancement of the Gospel only to end his life unable to articulate a sentence about this life changing, healing-bringing message. Does he even know what the Gospel is anymore?

I thought of Ecclesiastes . . . meaningless! I thought of the book of Job, speaking of the wicked, "How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?" (Job 21:18 NIV) There is gratitude in being reminded in the shortness of this life. There must be something greater. Lord help us if this is all there is; how grateful one must be to know there will be an end, sometime, to all the dementia, dying, aging, death. As I meditated on this, it made me grateful that God would even tell us there is an end. We do not deserve to know this fact; the knowledge He has given us is not on a need to know basis. He has given us hope. There will be an end to the suffering and loss. How unwise to put my plan for peace and prosperity in the basket of now.

Church & Christ

Chris and I took the kids to a Messianic Jewish church yesterday with our friends. It was a, dare I say, life changing and transformational experience. It was like the curtain to the stage of my mind was pulled back just a little and the exposure of sheer ignorance shown brightly in front of the stage lights.

One paradigm that continues to be exposed is how I import, or maybe transport, my 21st Western thinking into first century middle Eastern characters and culture. I realized my thoughts of Jesus were a person born in Iowa or Nebraska or Pennsylvania; He's just some good ole boy from a small-town farm. Born in the 20's or 30's. He's obviously passed away and in heaven but his upbringing was so familiar to mine He's not that much different. As I sat in the service it blasted me, Jesus is Jewish. He's not part Jewish and part Nebraskan. He is ALL Jewish. And in order to understand Him, to truly know Him, I need to know something about what it means to be Jewish. To know the Christ of the New Testament, it is imperative to know the Old Testament.

I was so impacted from the service and this realization that I am changing about the order of my studies. Instead of taking Greek this next fall, I'm going to study Hebrew. And instead of pursuing any more New Testament classes I am going to take Old Testament classes first. I want to study in the order of the History of the Bible and the culture of the Bible in order to understand the Bible more fully.

Character

Today is the last day of the first week of my second semester of graduate studies. And what a semester this is going to be; I am very excited about the course load. I am taking a New Testament class focusing on the Epistles through Revelation; Church History focusing on the Reformation through the modern era; and a pastoral theology & worship class.

In my pastoral theology class this week we discussed the five "P's" of leadership: Prayer, plan, prepare, practice, and perform. Great thoughts that can take some time to meditate on and apply. Specifically the 'P' of planning. I can definitely use some work when it comes to this area of my life. Taking time throughout the week to work specifically on areas that need work. Carving time to intentionally focus on projects that get neglected yet are crucial in taking me to the next level of life.

It made me think about the reality of leadership; much of what we do is imposed on us by outside factors. Buildings, budgets, and bodies can be a focus we can not escape and our planning is around these things. But what about the leader who is not yet in a position and much of the planning is self-imposed. What benchmarks should that leader be looking at to see if they are focused in the right direction?

I respect and value this professor so much. His answer, in my opinion, is absolutely right on. He answered (my shortened version) the leader needs to focus on character. He elaborate a bit, but for now I want to focus in on my thoughts about how to assess character. I'm trying to think of how to take a personal character inventory. What types of things should we be looking for in our lives to see where we are at on the road to quality and deep character and what indicators should we look for to see if aspects of our character need work. Self character assessment is almost impossible. I'm realizing I will need to cultivate some quality relationships with other men whom I trust in order to help me hold up the mirror and do some character construction.

Not to be trite, but "male accountability" is way overused and often misunderstood. I have seen groups of men get together and ask 'specific' questions and everyone has to answer 'honestly' and if we have a good week then it's some back-slapping, good 'ole boy congrats and if we mess up then it's some hearty c'mon man's, get in the game's. Blech. Talk about a recipe for failure. It's totally law based. I'm sure there would be someone reading this who would disagree and say, "That stuff is important, Brian." That's okay. I'll give you the freedom to be wrong.

More on that later.

For now, I've got some planning to do.