a new mantra

Long before consultants endlessly chirped the mantra "Plan the work; work the plan" and way before "strategic planning" surged to the fore, a word of wisdom was heard way out in the desert.

Planning, of course, is necessary and good if we are to properly steward our gifts for the good of the kingdom. I wonder, however, if "strategic planning" is most often just the admission that our other planning is not what it should be. All planning, if done well, is strategic in the most basic sense.

Planning, and especially strategic planning, gets problematic as soon as it takes on the aires of being authoritative, declarative, and settled. It locks down certain possibilities and excludes others. Life is rarely quite that linear.

There's some old advice in scripture that seems to capture the best of what we seek in strategic planning but doesn't lock it down. Leadership, it seems to suggest, is anchored in deep discernment--the fruit of being steeped in the law (God's teachings).

Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no (vision/revelation/prophecy), people cast off restraint (get out of hand/perish). But happy (blessed) are those who keep the law.

This little proverb sits among a number of others that call us to heed the "teachings" of God. Indeed, the term "the law" at the end of the proverb can be translated "the teachings."

People perish, they get out of hand, they cast off restraint, the proverb indicates, when there is no vision or revelation or prophecy from God to lead them. In other words, when we fail to discern--to perceive, to contemplate, to gaze into--what it is, or where it is, or how it is that God is providing for us (as we carry on the teachings), we'll inevitably fall prey to this or that trend of the day, charismatic figure, or fortune teller.

Perhaps we would do well to coin a new mantra: Discern the way; the Way leads to discernment.

billvg

He is risen!

The grave is empty.
Death is defeated.
Now, all that matters, is a new creation.
Today and ever more.

Good Friday

God is love.
At just the right time, while we were still dead in sin, Christ died.
In this world, Love suffers ...

leading and following

One day last week during my usual commute, I was travelling with two cars when after a few miles I looked back and realized we had become a “train” of cars. There were probably 10-12 cars moving in concert together. As I began to notice the group holding together along the freeway, I wondered about the interaction of leading and following. None of the original three cars were technically leading – if leading means heading off into unchartered territory. We were following a well laid out freeway – one that provides the stability, the structure, and the direction to get us to the small town where we, presumably, were headed. On the other hand, we were leading - if leading means that others kept joining us and becoming part of our group. Some cars entered the freeway at different locations and joined us. Other cars joined in after we passed them and decided to go the speed we were going. However it came about, it became a “train” that lasted for about 10 miles. The group eventually fell apart as we hit the first of three exits that leads to the area where I live. Eventually, I reached my exit (the third) and went my own way.

As I went my own way, I was struck by the experience. The experience of being in the group. The experience that somehow that day I had traveled with these cars rather than next to them. The experience of whether I was following or leading.

It seems to me that following and leading are almost always this difficult to separate. Leading is in essence being a good follower. Following well almost always leads to some degree of leading because others join in. Maybe, that’s what the foot washing of the disciples was meant to convey? That following well and leading well are almost always inseparable. Maybe that is what gets most leaders in trouble…when they separate following and leading. When we – who think of ourselves as leaders – forget that we must remain followers in order to lead well.

mccrory meditates

A few days ago, we received an email from a friend of ours who is unable to post comments from his locale (teaching English in China). We were engaged by his thoughts in response to the 2/29 blog and asked if we could post them as part of the blog rather than as a comment. Our thanks to Don for allowing us to do that and for being the voice of hobab's journey this week. We've posted his blog in quotes below. Dan & Bill

"I've been meditating about the choices made by the two criminals who were crucified with JC (Luke 23). It seems to me that the basic issues separating their requests of JC parallel the issues you summarize in your last paragraph. They both had a figurative "gun to their heads." There was no way they were going to get out of their desperate situations alive, and they knew it. And so like hostages in the mall or in the classroom, they had to make critical choices. Criminal #1 wanted JC to perform a miracle that would land him back into his life of crime. All he wanted was the cultural benefit (safety, comfort, security, a way out of his tight situation) of having a conversation with J. (Note that J does not even expend the energy to respond to him.) Criminal #2, however, had a sense that life with God was the better choice. All he asked was that J. "remember" him in the new kingdom. That was the request of faith that prompted J's response. I've noted, too, that nearly every word of J's response is hopeful...I, truth, today, you, will be, with me, paradise. Criminal #1 wanted release; criminal #2 wanted relationship." Don Mc Crory

Recently, PEW funded a major study, and just released its report, on the state of religion in America. From what I can tell from a most minimal perusal, it pretty much parallels my own modest sampling and analysis.

When I explored this matter with a denominationally diverse group of undergraduates the concensus looked something like this:
Church is a place. It's a building with an address. It's something you go to (for a variety of personal reasons), not what you are.
When asked what was the most essential element of Church there was no statistically significant response. It totally depended on the person and what they were looking for.
For people in the lower echelons of the socio-economic strata, Church might play a factor in how they located themselves in a new community. For all others, it was at best a secondary matter that one looked into after all the essentials were taken care of--proximity to work, stable property values, amenities conveniently close by, etc.
When asked why some people don't like Christians, they were quick to identify most of the same maladies that are recounted in the Barna Group's book by Kinnaman (Un-Christian: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, [Baker, 2007]): hypocritical, judgemental, sheltered, political, pushy, etc. They were unashamed about this, despite knowing it was pretty much the opposite of "they will know we are Christian by our love."
They were unanimous in their rejection of the idea that city planners should be required to designate space in any new development for religious facilities, and non-plussed to learn that this had been the case for most of our history.
In short, my summary of their understanding of the role of religion in American life, including their own, is that
a. it's a purely personal, individual matter
b. the church has no authoritative (or functional) influence in their lives--no-one and certainly not an institution can tell you what you have to believe or how to behave
c. basically, church brings no "added value" to a community
and d. that it's not likely any of this will change. After all, why should it?

Given this scenario, and you can get the overwhelmingly comprehensive data that undergirds my little sample in the PEW report, I'm trying to imagine what gospel might sound, look, live like in this North American world.
Though we live in a culture of violence and death (recent shootings in a mall and classroom close by), there seems to be no sense of warrant, and certainly no urgency, to want life or society to be any different than it is. So if gospel is anything other than a blessing on what is, it's hard to imagine how it would really matter to us.

Thinking (in American style--binary and violent) of the martyrs of the church through the ages, I wonder: if, while we were at the local mall or in our class/office, etc., a rogue were to put a gun to our head and demand that we "sin against the Holy Spirit" or be shot on the spot, what would we do? Which life--life with God or a life immersed in our cultural benefits--would claim our soul?

billvg

authority

We’ve been having a bit of a nasty winter in Michigan where I live. I commute about 30 miles each way from the lakeshore community I call home with lots of snow (ever heard of lake effect?) to a community 30 miles away where the church I lead is located. Several times this year I’ve driven through near blizzard, or simply blizzard, conditions on my way to the church and back home. What struck me on these drives is that in the middle of a blizzard, strobe lights representing authority are rather comforting. They mean that you are not out there alone. They indicate that help is present for stranded motorists. They mean that some amount of authority is present.

On the other hand, the other day when the roads were clean and traffic was again shooting along at about 75 mph, I saw a strobe light behind a car. The driver was getting a ticket for speeding (presumably). As I instinctively let off the gas (why do we do that anyway?), I realized that strobe lights pulling people over for tickets are not nearly as comforting as those in a blizzard. In fact, the strobe in open space is pretty threatening (maybe that's why I slowed down?). So what’s the difference?

Authority is best when it is recognized, not when it is exercised.

That’s the thought that has been churning inside me this week. How often do we as leaders want to “exercise” our authority so that people know we have it? And when we do that, suddenly we’re not comforting, but instead are threatening. But what if we simply lived in such a way that people “recognized” authority in us, rather than us having to exercise it? It might be more difficult for us as leaders to live that way, but in the end, people might be glad to see us rather than spend time trying to avoid us.

I wonder if that’s what people saw when it says of Jesus in Luke 4:32 “They were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority.” Wouldn’t it be nice if that were said of us and our teaching? Maybe it will be if we, as leaders, live our lives so that authority is recognized, rather than exercised.