Sometimes A Little Chaos Is Good for the Soul

I am at Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, Kansas for the Leadership Institute. It has been an excellent experience. I will plan on returning next year.

Yesterday, in our second general session, Adam Hamilton said that sometime leaders create chaos. The Online Dictionary defines chaos as "a state of utter confusion or disorder." Adam didn't comment much on what creating chaos means for him, but I have my own thoughts on the matter.

Creating chaos does not mean creating a continual situation of confusion and disorder. That would obviously be less than beneficial. Any effective organization needs order and structure. But the problem with the church is that it gets all too comfortable with the way things are. Good leaders do not create chaos to destroy order and stymie effectiveness. They create chaos at those times when an organization has become stagnant or is in decline. In this context the purpose of creating chaos is to shake up the status quo, to highlight that comfort has in reality become complacency and that stability has in fact become stagnation.

Yes, Indeed... Jesus Did Have a Little More in Mind

Leadership Institute at COR

I'm in route to Kansas City to the Church of the Resurrection to attend the Leadership Institute. I'm looking forward to a fruitful time.

Theology Is Serious and Necessary Business

Theology is serious and necessary business. I think that is obvious. But more than a few Christians protest. Theology is not important. All we need to do is love everybody. The problem is that such a superificial understanding of love can become an excuse to be ignorant of the important affirmations of Christian faith and their implications for our mission in the world. It is forgotten that God so loved the world, he sent his Son to die (John 3:16). The command of Jesus to love one another as he has loved them loses it theological rationale (John 13:34-35).  But, as Karl Barth rightly said, "In the Church of Jesus Christ, there can and should be no non-theologians."

S. Michael Craven has written a wonderful post arguing for the importance of theological reflection. Sound theological reflection provides the resources to create disciplined church congregations. I quote a portion here, but the entire article is worth a read:

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In J. I. Packer’s 1973 classic Knowing God, he points out that "ignorance of God-ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him-lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today." The ignorance to which Packer refers is first and foremost theological. To some, the term theology evokes images of scholasticism and ivory tower elitism with little practical use. However, the science of theology is simply the organized and systematic study of God. Every Christian is called to know God and if we deny that responsibility then we deny what it means to be Christian. Therefore every Christian is to be a theologian in the strictest sense of the word.

What Is Heresy? #3

Does Diversity in the New Testament Undermine the Concept of Heresy?

As was mentioned in the last post, a canon or standard of writings was needed because of the diverse and even contradictory nature of some of the early Christian documents. But was the canon itself (in this case, the New Testament writings) so diverse that finding any unity of theme, story, narrative, and doctrine proved to be quite elusive?

The fact that the documents of the New Testament are diverse should be obvious to the one who studies the canon. But Alister McGrath offers two cautions in employing the word "diversity" when speaking of the voices that come to us from the pages of the Christian canon. First, the word diversity does not in and of itself point to a fundamental unity with the New Testament, when it is clear that Jesus is the central focus of every New Testament writer. Second, the diversity of concern is in actuality quite limited. Careless use of the the term diversity to refer to the New Testament undermines the truth that a fundamental core of ideas can be identified within all the writing of the New Testament. McGrath lists five core ideas:

1) The God of Israel can be loved and trusted as Creator of all.

2) Jesus is the one sent by God to reveal and redeem humanity.

3) In spite of human failure, trust in God's redemptive work through Christ is the way to salvation, a redemptive process begun in this life and completed in the life beyond.

4) A person who has salvation is expected to love others and care about them, and to follow the ethical standards laid down by Jesus.

5) The body of believers is an extended fellowship. (pp. 49-50)

With Thanks Again...

...this time to Arthur Sido for his review of my book, The Politics of Witness.

The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note

This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:

Daniel McLain Hixon: On the holiness of Christian leaders

 

Mike Lindstrom: God is not a Duck

 

Henry Neufeld: Hired Staff Won't Solve Church Problems

 

Jennifer Smith: how big is your delete button?

 

Sean Peters: The Allure of the Spotlight: Some Thoughts on Why Being an Actor and Being a Pastor Are Not the Same Thing

Renovate or Die: Fridays with Farr (and Kotan) #6

It's Not About More Programs!

All we need is another program. That's what I have heard in the church over the years. Let's develop another program. In response to this let me say unequivocally, "NO! NO! NO!... We do NOT need another program. If that is all we need churches everywhere would be flourishing.

Jesus' final words prior to his ascension was that we were to make disciples of all nations. We who follow Jesus do not need to debate that. We do not need to ponder that. AND we do not need to present that to the church's Administrative Council for approval. We do not vote on the commands of Jesus. As Bob Farr says, "Our mission is clear; the only question is how your local church is going to carry it out" (p. 51).

The church moves forward not in developing programming, but in developing strategies, and mission is the "plumbline in renovation" (p. 53). The problem is that churches, all too often, FDR the church to the extreme, meaning that the church democratizes the decision making process to include everyone and the old adage that "too many cooks spoil the broth" is fulfilled in our hearing. The result is that the mission and outreach of the church is stunted in favor of endless discussion and debate among committees. We talk and talk and talk while the mission is neglected.

Bob Farr is correct: we spend too much time listening to the insiders. We need, not an other program, but a strategy. What is that strategy? We must make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Anything less is unacceptable to the Lord who calls us to embody his life in the world.

Are You Living Christ So That Others Are Learning Christ?

Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practise every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:17-24)

A former District Superintendent of mine used to say something many of you have already heard someone else say, "You are the only Bible some people will ever read." And as much as I like that statement, in Ephesians Paul seems to be saying to us, "You are the only Christ some people will ever see."

In 4:20, Paul states, "That is not the way you learned Christ." I find Paul's expression intriguing. He does not say that is how you learned about Christ, but that is not how you learned Christ. Charles Talbert writes,

The ancient auditors would not have heard it as strange. In their milieu the ideal ruler (here, the Christ/Messiah) was understood as a "living law." It was regarded as better to learn a right way of living from observing the ruler's lifestyle than from the laws he has promulgated.... The Gentile lifestyle is at odds with the Christ paradigm, the walk that Jesus embodies.*

Life by example is the most compelling witness of a faithful way of life. We can talk all we want about what is good and right and true, but only in embodying our words, will our preaching be effective. Jesus embodied his words in his way of life. When he charged his disciples to be servants of one another, he served them. When he insisted that they take up their crosses, he carried his own. When Jesus sent the disciples out to proclaim the coming of the kingdom, he went proclaiming the same. The point is that the followers of Jesus are to "incarnate" Jesus in their lives. If they do not, then no one will listen to our words... nor should they.

It has been said that many persons outside of the Christian faith like Jesus but not the church. I say that those outside the faith cannot know who Jesus truly is unless his followers embody Christ in their lives.

And if we as Jesus' disciples have not learned Christ, we cannot expect anyone to follow the Jesus they cannot see in us.

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*Charles Talbert, Ephesians and Colossians. Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), p. 123.

Caption Contest 2011.12... And the Winner Is...

Chuck Tackett: The Defense Department's new drone aircraft after budget cuts.

Thus Saith John Wesley... NOT!

Mary Jacobs, staff writer for the UM Reporter, has written a helpful article on the misquoting of John Wesley, the founder (along with his brother, Charles) of Methodism. The misquoting of famous and influential people has always been a problem, but even more so now with the Internet and the advent of social media. Someone posts a quote on Facebook (as I often do) and everyone reading it assumes that the quote is accurate without even checking sources. Before the day is over others have posted the same quote as well, and all of a sudden someone has supposedly said something she or he never uttered. In reference to John Wesley, he never said several things that have been attributed to him for many years. Two examples are:

"Set yourself on fire with passion & people will come for miles to watch you burn."

And, "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity."

The latter is quoted often by Methodists and was the motto of the 1996 General Conference of the United Methodist Church. But as Richard Heitzenrater, professor emeritus of church history and Wesley studies at Duke Divinity School and a leading authority on John Wesley said, "It's a nice saying, but it's not Wesley."

And, most importantly, John Wesley never spoke of a Quadrilateral, which the coiner of the term, Albert Outler, regretted he ever used because it has been so abused. As more than a few have rightly noted, the Wesley Quadrilateral is neither Wesleyan nor a Quadrilateral. More on that in a future post. 

 

The article is worth a full read. At the end Jacobs adds a list of some things Father John did indeed say. Here they are:

 

1. The best of it all is, God is with us.

 

2. I am always in haste, but never in a hurry.

 

3. I look on all the world as my parish.

 

4. Beware you be not swallowed up in books!

 

5. Read the most useful books, and that regularly and constantly. Steadily spend all morning in this employ, or, at least five hours in four-and-twenty.

 

6. A Christian abhors sloth as much as drunkenness.

 

7. The more labor the more blessing.

 

8. Fervor for opinions is not Christian zeal.

 

9. Can anything but love beget love?

 

10. Do a little at a time that you may do the more.

 

11. I have often repented of judging too severely, but very seldom of being too merciful.

It's About the Interpreter... And More

This past Sunday afternoon, I went to the Cleveland Museum of Art with my son, Joshua, daughter, Alyssa, and her sister-in-law, Amanda. If you love art museums and find yourself in Cleveland, Ohio you need to put its art museum on your itinerary. It is one of the best art museums in the country and, except for special exhibits, it is always free.

One of my favorite paintings can be found in Cleveland's art museum-- Frederic Church's, "Twilight in the Wilderness" (pictured above). Church painted this masterpiece depicting twilight in the American West in 1860. What Church meant to portray in this painting was known only to Church, but that has not stopped the painting's admirers from speculating as to what the artist wanted to communicate.

Some see in the painting an optimistic view of America's future with the so-called "westward expansion," and even though it is twilight, it signifies that a better day is dawning. Others see exactly the opposite. In 1860, Civil War was only a year away; and even though no one was sure at that time that war would be the result over the issue of slavery that no one in the country could any longer ignore, many were seeing ominous signs on the horizon. Perhaps, therefore, Church was emphasizing the twilight-- that a darkness was about to envelop the United States with the bright colors of the sky highlighting the good days that were about to pass from the scene.

Caption Contest 2011.12

Do United Methodists Need a New Mission Statement?

John Meunier thinks so. He writes,

We should return to our roots: "The mission of the United Methodist Church is to spread scriptural holiness across every continent."

Let me offer a couple of reasons I propose this.

First, it is a mission that requires motion. One of the biggest flaws of our current mission statement is that it leaves out a key verb from the text that inspires it. Jesus told us to "go" to all nations and make disciples. We dropped the "go" and settled down to make disciples where we happened to be at the moment. If our mission is "to spread" then we cannot sit where we are.

Second, it turns discipleship into a means rather than an end. If we are going to spread holiness, we will need disciples. But the disciples exist not to simply be, but to do something. Discipleship is a means to holiness and it is a means of spreading that holiness.

Third, it tells us what kind of world transformation we are seeking. Our current mission asks for transformation of the world, but gives that concept no content at all. You could make a case that the spread of sin and evil transforms the world and therefore satisfies our mission statement as currently constituted.

Finally, it does speak to us about who we are by reminding us who we were. It reconnects us to the past like a branch is grafted to a root.

I am curious what others think. Do we need to return to the emphasis on spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land, and should that be reflected in a new mission statement?

With Thanks...

...to Joel Watts for his review of my latest book, The Politics of Witness.

Do You Want to Increase Sunday School Attendance? Start a New Class

It can be very difficult to start a new Sunday school class in many churches. Unless the Sunday school is bursting at the seams, most folks in the church do not see the need to start a new class; after all, there is plenty of room in the current classes for new people. But it is not necessarily that easy. Growing Sunday Schools do not wait until all the classes are "full." Indeed, it is the case that Sunday schools that are consistently growing are always starting new classes.

To be sure, existing classes can and do grow, but there will always be a certain percentage of visitors and existing members who will not join an established class. I can tell you from personal experience, that starting a new class, if it is done correctly, will increase the number of Sunday school attendees:

Why start a new class? Tim Smith gives eight reasons:

Noah's Ark Is Making a Real Splash!

My friend and colleague, John Byron has written a wonderful post on the story of Noah's Ark and how it is portrayed in our contemporary context. He writes,

...I wonder if I am the only one who finds it odd that people have transformed the story of Noah and the flood into a quaint children's story? We wallpaper the nursery with pictures of Noah's Ark, create toys with action figures and produce story books that feature cute pictures of animals. Heck, we even have birthday cakes made to look like the ark.
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But has anyone really thought about the story before doing all this? The story is about the destruction of the world. All but eight humans are wiped out along with a significant portion of the animal kingdom. Is this the kind of story that we want to hold up to children as something to celebrate? I know it is in the Bible, but so is a lot of other stuff. For instance, I don't see anyone making an Elijah action figure that can kill all the prophets of Baal. Or how about Joshua committing divinely inspired genocide? Somehow making the story of Noah into a children's bed time story and wallpaper design is like creating a Ford's Theater play set or a Titanic for the bathtub.
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John also comments on several contemporary Noah's Ark projects.
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You can read his entire post here.

What Is Heresy? #2

There is no doubt that the early church was a textual community-- from receiving and reading texts they already had (e.g. the Old Testament) to writing texts on the faith to individual church communities scattered throughout the Roman empire. Not only was this noted by some second century writers, but pagan and Roman criticism of the church often focused on the church's writings and local persecution of Christians often involved the confiscation of their writings.

Alister McGrath writes in his book, Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth:

Yet, many early Christian manuscripts include more then texts that were later recognized as canonical New Testament writings.... Christians seem to have drawn on a variety of sources in developing their faith, some of which would have appeared strange to those familiar with the settled canon of Scripture.... It is becoming increasingly clear that the early Christian communities had complex theological and devotional loyalties, which is clearly expressed in their reading preferences.

These writings could be very diverse from one letter to another Gospel, as well as teaching things of a contradictory nature. One local Christian community had their texts to draw from while another church in another region of the empire had their texts. Moreover, there were some texts that appeared on the scene in suspicious contexts in which the date or the writer of the document was in question (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas).

Thus, it was inevitable that the church universal would need to decide upon a canon, a standard whose writings would be authoritative for the church universal. Without such a standard the church could not remain as a unified and universal body. The process of canonization was not always easy. Not every book that became part of the canon was decided without controversy. Nevertheless, a canon (a constitution of authoritative texts) was necessary. Thus heresy could arise if one based one's doctrine on non-canonical sources instead of the canon of the New Testament that was received as the authentic apostolic tradition.

But the books of the New Testament are diverse as well. But to what extent? And does the degree of diversity with the New Testament render the categories of orthodoxy and heresy unintelligible?

That is the subject of the next post.

A Prayer on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

O God, our hope and refuge, in our distress we come quickly to you. Shock and horror of that tragic day have subsided, replaced now with an emptiness, a longing for an innocence lost.

We come remembering those who lost their lives in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. We are mindful of the sacrifice of public servants who demonstrated the greatest love of all by laying down their lives for friends. We commit their souls to your eternal care and celebrate their gifts to a fallen humanity.

We come remembering and we come in hope, not in ourselves, but in you. As foundations we once thought secure have been shaken, we are reminded of the illusion of security.

In commemorating this tragedy, we give you thanks for your presence in our time of need and we seek to worship you in Spirit and in truth, our guide and our guardian. Amen.

-Rev. Jeremy Pridgeon

Political Labels and Apocalyptic Prophets of Doom

...political labels are dangerous. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those folks who thinks labels are unimportant. We have to use labels to communicate. The problem with political labels is not that they are a bad idea in general, but rather that they are normally used manipulatively. This shouldn’t be surprising, considering the political process.

Henry Neufeld has written an excellent post entitled, Dominionists, Dominionisimists, Theonomists and Political Labels. The quote above from his post really struck a chord with me as I was intending to write a post on a related but somewhat different subject.

Once again, we find ourselves engaged in another political season. And as expected all the apocalyptic prophets of doom on the left and the right are coming out of the political woodwork. On the right we are continually being warned of President Obama's desire to make America into a socialist (i.e. in their thinking "Communist") state; and that if the Democrats get their way, they will take away individual freedoms making citizens subservient to the whims of bureaucrats. Not to be outdone, the apocalyptic prophets on the left are carrying their "The End Is Near" signs as well warning of the disaster that will surely take place if the Republicans gain control of the White House in 2012. They are firing the signal flares of class warfare warning of the Republican desire to undermine democracy in their desire to put an oligarchy in control of government, giving the wealthy few control over the masses and rolling back civil rights returning to the Jim Crow laws.

Of course, the problem with such apocalyptic pronouncements is that they are simplistic construals of a complex reality. What amazes me is not that the politicians who desire power talk this way. They want to win elections and be in charge, so the nuance of truth and attention to factual accuracy are not high on their list of priorities. Whoever said that in politics the first casualty was the truth was spot on. But what I scratch my head over are those whom I know on both sides of the political aisle, and who are more than capable of employing thoughtful and sophisticated analysis, and yet, when it comes to politics, they fall into unsophisticated argumentation. Many of the very same people who find the religiously certain arrogant, appear so certain in their political views, that those on the other side are to be stereotyped and denigrated at all cost. Politically certain arrogance is rearing its head once again.

The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note

This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:

Nancy Johnson: More

Pam BG: Spiritual But Not Religious - Bring It On!

Henry Neufeld: Dominionists, Dominionisimists, Theonomists and Political Labels

Russell Martin: Stop and Research Before You Repost

Betty Newman: Losing the "Oh!" from our hearts

Jeremy Smith: The Best Compliment is Shameless Plagiarism

John Meunier: Without Holiness

Renovate or Die: Fridays with Farr (and Kotan) #5

Understand Your Present Reality

In Renovate or Die: Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission, Bob Farr begins chapter two of his book with a quotation from a friend of his, Dave Cummings, that was directed at church-planters: "If you ignore the Adam Hamiltons and the Bill Hybels of the world, you do so at your peril. If you copy the Adam Hamiltons and Bill Hybels of the world, you do so at your peril. What you must do is soak up all you can from these types of leaders and then mix in your own sauce" (p. 24).

The reason we refer to each congregation as a local church is because every church must know and understand its context in order to connect with that context. Pastors and individual congregations need to know three things in order to be in effective ministry to their community: 1) demographic data, 2) historical information about the church and it geographical area, and 3) what Farr calls "walk-around information." On this last one, Farr writes,

What Should Pastors Say on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

As a pastor, I am pondering what to say this Sunday on the tenth anniversary of a "day that will live in infamy" (to turn a phrase from another event). It would probably be quite irresponsible for a pastor to preach this Sunday and not refer to 9/11. Those of us who have been entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ need to say something because 9/11 will concern everyone's attention this weekend, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ should have something decisive to offer in our deliberations. So what should we pastors say?

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First, let me reflect on what I think we should not say:

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1) The sermon is not the time to simply echo what the talking heads and pundits are saying. If all I do is echo the thoughts of Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity, I have undermined the calling the church has affirmed for me as a preacher of the gospel.
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2) I must not "politicize" 9/11 as an argument in support of the Democratic or Republican parties and their policies. Politicians on both sides of the political aisle are already posturing themselves. The church does not need pastors to do the same. If we want the Good News of Jesus to be irrelevant with nothing decisive to offer this Sunday, just sound like John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi.
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3) We must not lose sight of the fact that the worship of God on Sunday is about God and not the nation state. Yes, the nation needs to mourn and reflect. We recognize that. But worship is about what God has done in Jesus Christ and the mission of the church in the world. If we make worship primarily about nation state and not God, we are guilty of idolatry.
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4) On the other hand, we must not use this Sunday as an occasion to bash America and somehow blame the country for 9/11. Yes, like all nations, America has been less than perfect. We know that. But if we use this tenth anniversary to point out all of America's issues, no one will listen to us and rightly so. Not only would such words on Sunday be bad timing but to venture in that direction is simply stupid.

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Now, what should I say:

Christology and Science

Mark Noll has been posting a thought-provoking series over at the Biologos Forum.

Here are the links in the series thus far:

"Come and See": A Christological Invitation for Science, Part 1

"Come and See": A Christological Invitation for Science, Part 2

"Come and See": A Christological Invitation for Science, Part 3

"Come and See": A Christological Invitation for Science, Part 4

"Come and See": A Christological Invitation for Science, Part 5

 

Enjoy!

The Original Calvin & Hobbes

HT: John Byron

Labor Day, The Social Principles, and Theological Rationale

Methoblogger and part-time local pastor and professor at Indiana University, John Meunier, has published a post on this Labor Day on the Social Principles in which he shares his frustration.

First, he quotes the SP on collective bargaining:

¶ 163 B) Collective Bargaining—We support the right of all public and private employees and employers to organize for collective bargaining into unions and other groups of their own choosing. Further, we support the right of both parties to protection in so doing and their responsibility to bargain in good faith within the framework of the public interest.

In order that the rights of all members of the society may be maintained and promoted, we support innovative bargaining procedures that include representatives of the public interest in negotiation and settlement of labor-management contracts, including some that may lead to forms of judicial resolution of issues.

We reject the use of violence by either party during collective bargaining or any labor/management disagreement. We likewise reject the permanent replacement of a worker who engages in a lawful strike.

Then, John articulates his difficulty. I quote a portion:

On a personal political beliefs level, I have no problem with this statement. I just don’t understand the theology behind it. My feeble mind cannot trace a line from our Scriptures or even the theology of John Wesley to this kind of declaration on behalf of collective bargaining rights. (Notice how many times this short section uses the term "rights," without any apparent concern for its contested nature as a theological term.)

I resonate with John's concern. As one who believes that Christian moral and social convictions must have theological foundation and justification, or they cannot be said to be significantly Christian, I often find that reading the Social Principles is an exercise in personal frustration. It's not that I often disagree with the spirit or the overall position of what I read. Indeed, I agree with John that in general I support the spirit of the SP's affirmation of collective bargaining, which is why I oppose the recent attempts to strip collective bargaining from state unions and why I also oppose labor unions' support of the so-called card check. Collective bargaining should always take place on equal footing between management and labor.

What bothers me, and John mentions it briefly, is that once one employs rights language, theological rationale for a social and moral conviction becomes secondary, and as seems to be the case with many of the UM Social Principles, somehow beside the point. Thus, in general, the Social Principles do not embody the Kingdom teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, nor do they reflect rigorous theological reflection nearly as much as they simply resemble the political platform of the DNC.

I quite understand that as brief statements the SPs are not meant to be exhaustive, but they should nevertheless be theologically decisive in the positions that are affirmed. Such theological reflection is badly needed.

We already have a DNC (and an RNC) political platorm in America. We don't need any church denomination to simply echo either one in their social and moral pronouncements. That makes the church...well... redundant... and irrelevant.

I am interested in what my UM colleagues in the Methocybersphere think on this, lay and clergy alike. Do You agree? Disagree? If so, why? If not, why not?
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For those who are not familiar with my blog, please note that I welcome anonymous comments as long as they are not critical in nature. Criticism must be given by those with whom we can identify. It is nothing more than an exercise in integrity.

A Brief History of Labor Day

The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note

This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:

Christopher Gudger-Raines: How the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero Would Benefit from the Presence of Clergy

Daniel McLain Hixon: Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo

Andy Bryan: A "Third Option" for the Future of the Church

Randy Willis: Guard Against Short-Term Thinking

Kevin Watson: On Being a First-Time Visitor

Jon Disburg: Mean Christians

Lorna Koskela: Food for Thought

Renovate or Die: Fridays with Farr (and Kotan) #4

After a few weeks hiatus we return on this Friday with our fourth post on Renovate or Die: Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission, a book by Bob Farr with Kay Kotan.

Hold High the Torch of Mission

Farr begins his discussion with the central place of mission by reminding us that "Good leadership is caring but it isn't held hostage to loud voices or the will of a few" (p. 19). Pastors are responsible for what is best for an entire congregation. It is not that the individual is unimportant, but the highest priority should be placed on the overall health of the congregation. Farr states that this is difficult for most church leaders "because most pastors and lay leaders are trained to keep everyone happy" (p. 19). Indeed, I would add that approximately 80% of all pastors enter the ministry not to lead a congregation in mission, but to be chaplains to the existing membership. While there certainly is a chaplaincy aspect to ministry, chaplaincy is more about maintaining the status quo instead of leading in new ways to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

It is the task of the pastor to "hold up the torch for the mission of the church at all costs" (p. 19). The pastor must provide good leadership for the whole of the church, while making sure that individuals are cared for. This means that the care of individuals in the church does not rest solely on the shoulders of the pastor. It is the job of the congregation to care for the congregation. A system of lay visitation allows time for the pastor to do what is necessary to lead, while giving individuals the care that they need. Such a program also sends the message that it isn't only the pastor who cares; but the church. Indeed, when the parishioners are also ministers and not just the pastor (which is biblical) the level of individual care increases!

A Shadow of Our Future Self