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Who Gets to Lead?

5/30/2012

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In most social settings it will eventually come out: I am a minister.  And that makes people do the weirdest things.  Some hide their beer as though I had not been holding one myself.  Most replay the entire conversation quickly in their heads to remember how many times they cursed.  More often than not people will fumble out a statement that goes something like this, "Wow, I could never do that.  I could never lead a church.”

     I often remind folks of two things: first, there is nothing special about me, no holy water I drink each morning, no halo around my head.  I am just a man, a guy, a bit of a nerd, a football fan, who leads because I have been asked to lead by God.  And second, what I have learned is this: God is asking each of you to lead in some capacity, too.   

     God defines leadership as servanthood in this world.  And God asks each of us to love each other to the point of serving.  And that means you.  Yes, I spent eight years acquiring a college and graduate degree in theology and saturating myself with biblical study at the highest academic level.   Yes, I have seventeen years of experience in church leadership on my resume.  But what this experience and study has really led me to is a clear, faithful, Jesus-modeled landing spot on who 'leads'.  God only wants leaders who serve.  And God wants servants who give their best.  Beyond that, just as Jesus demonstrated in His ministry, there aren't really any barriers!  Women can serve and men can serve and therefor lead.  God needs young people who can lead and wise elders who can lead.  The church needs single people who can lead and married people who can lead.  And God even needs divorced and remarried people like myself to model servant leadership.

     As the church in America continues to shrink, we have seen, and I fear we will continue to see, a closing of the theological mind.   And if the church fails to serve with the best of the human mind and the human heart's capacity, as God created us to lead, as God commanded in the first Commandment, we, the church, fail.  If we, the church, tell 50% of our community that even though they run a business, or manage in company 6 days out of the week, they may not have a leadership or teaching title on Sundays because of her gender, we fail.  If we tell the 50% of our community that is divorced or remarried that we, the church, will forever define you and condemn you by your past, unlike our leader Jesus modeled, we fail.  And if the mission of God is sidelined by the failure of the church to lead, the blessing of God sorely needed by so many will be missed.

     Even as we have a leadership crisis in our culture I am hopeful for the future of God’s church.  God has a way of getting done what God wants done.  In surprising and unexpected ways, through mangers, crosses, and empty tombs, God will get done what He wants to get done, to shatter the darkness of earth with Love.  Let us move past the legalisms of the past that have and continue to shrink the church in America and move into God’s future where servant leaders lead and the mission of God trumps all.





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The religion of None.

3/13/2012

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What is the fastest growing religious group in America?  It might surprise you.  It is not the explosion of the polished mega church, though they are here to stay.  It is not Islam, though there are more Muslims in America than there are Presbyterians.  There fastest growing category is what researchers simple call 'None'.

Thom Rainer, President of Lifeway, recently wrote about the expanding segment of our country that describe themselves as 'None'.  When asked by researches if they are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Muslim, one in five said they are 'None'.  While there are Nones who have rejected theism for intellectual reasons, many more have rejected the structures of traditional religion.  

Nones, as a group, are big and only getting bigger.  If you also lump into this category the large and growing number of people who will give a nod to God on a survey or show up in their grandmothers church on an occasional Easter, the Nones + the apathetic offer a blistering critique of American faith. 

For those who are looking for solid research on the Nones I would point you to "UnChristian" by Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman.  Speaking as born and bred Evangelical Christians, they confront the hard data regarding the perception of the church through the eyes of those not involved.   Their answers are not surprising but still painful.  The Nones perceive that the church is too political, too homophobic, and anti-women.  But I also have a few thoughts that press to the core of what the church is doing to multiply the 

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What's the Big Deal About Jesus?

1/25/2012

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Is the Bible Against Women Teaching or in Leadership?

1/20/2012

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Short answer, no, the Bible isn't against it and the church shouldn't be.  The Bible actually supports women in teaching and leadership roles repeatedly.  Here are the quick instances that come to mind:  1) Christ himself revealed himself to the woman at the well, who proclaimed His Lordship to her whole town - many believing in Him as a direct result.  2) He also explicitely sent Mary from the tomb to reveal the resurrection to the Disciples.  3) The Isrealite people were led by Deborah, as judge, and 4) saved by Esther as queen.  5) And even in the non-Isrealite traditions, the Queen of Sheba was respected and given hospitality by the Isrealite king, Solomon.  6) And even much maligned Jezabel's leadership authority was never questioned even though she was feared for being straight-up evil.   
 
The entire prohibition against women teaching is sourced in a few sentances in Paul's letters and routinely taken out of the context of his humanity and his good ministry.  As to the first point, Paul was Paul, a human, sinful and as lost as any of us.  He was not the Christ, and he himself repeatedly affirms that he is not to be treated as the Christ.  Paul himself describes that in Christ there is no male or female, that love trumps everything, that love is NOT insistance on one's own way, that placing a law of any kind above the work of the Holy Spirit destroys the power of the Gospel.  He repeatedly confronts believers to get out from being under religious law (like circumcision), but then he ardently applies religious law to women regarding silence and head covering.  And there's the rub... But seriously, who can blame him, those days were very oppressive towards women - that was the norm - he was officiating in his present time.  Paul was a single man, who was doing his absolute best to share the Gospel and keep his congregations from falling into chaos.  He just displayed his humanity from time to time, blinded by his own blind spots, passing judgement that can't be passed, etc...just like us.  It's not like he was Jesus, after all.
 
 So anyway, the vast weight of history through scripture supports that women are not prohibited from leadership by God, though it obviously seems strikingly less frequent.  I don't want to get too deep into the historical aspect, but it is worth mentioning we are in the very first era in human history - really only about 30 years of the entire human history - in which women have been granted any semblance of equality or opportunity, and that is only happening here in Western society.   It is only here and now that men and women may each individually grapple with serving God with their entire mind, body and spirit to their best capacity.  It is only here and now that each person can truly be treated as a creation who God has ordained for good work in such a time as this.  That is an exciting opportunity for the body of Christ.  
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Religion < Jesus...this guy rules.

1/13/2012

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This video has received over 6.2 MILLION views in 2 days.  Apparently we are not the only ones tired with business as usual.
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Sexuality & Freedom

1/4/2012

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So lots of flap and fluff about the newest chauvenistic sex advice book for married couples from a misc. pastor.  I am not surprised by the flap but thought the world needed a little slap- in- the- face style clarity on this issue.

So here it is:

Your sex issues are yours.  Nobody else is responsible.  If you want to look at porn, or sleep around, or stare at women/ men in the gym, you don't get to blame your wife or your husband or their hairy back or big rear end.  The problem is you.  You.

Free will is really a bugger.  But it is real.  So please don't put your fail on somebody else's shoulders.  Time to own up, face the music you're playing, stop acting like a petulant child, etc etc.

But here is the good news:  We all fail.  It is a universal constant of humanity.  We all think or act on thoughts that we should not to whatever degree.  Because of us, ourselves, we are less than we had once hoped.  We are less than we are capable of.

And there is Someone who can help, who can genuinely transform the way you think, the way you act, remove this blight that is cancer to your soul from within yourself.  But only if you are willing to admit your inadequacy and turn your eyes and mind and heart to Him.

So stop blaming your spouse, your friends, or your parents for what you are doing today.  
Decide how you want to live.  Heck, it's your life, after all.  You are the only one who can do a thing about it.


Cheerio!
 

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Joy to the World pt.2

12/9/2011

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In faith we talk about 'the fruits of the Spirit', which is a real religiousy way of describing that when Christians are really living faith, they will display certain characteristics: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.   So that is how we should see Christians behaving.  If we described our lives, those words should be present if we are living our faith.

Now here is the rub:  John 10:10 (looked at in the last post) "The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  But I (Jesus) come to give you life, and to give it abundantly."   I don't think it is much of  a leap to say that an abundant life would be characterized by plenty of joy, peace, faithfulness, patience, gentleness...etc.

Let's jump to the obvious point, we Christians don't have an abundance of these markers.  We are in fact known as the opposite, judgemental, isolationistic, unkind, etc...

Why?  Wouldn't it be a fantastic witness if we lived these - shoot, wouldn't it be fantastic for us and our families, let alone the world as a whole?

So what is the thief up to that Christ's Church is living so inversely?  What lies have we bought that erode love?  What is the destroyer destroying to erode joy in the world through Christians?  What essentials have been hikacked that prevent kindness?    

Makes all those rousing sermons against so and so seem misguided, eh? 
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Are you a smelly kid?

9/6/2011

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I was once 12.  My son is now 12.  12 is one of those ages where people are working really hard to figure out who they are, who they want to be around, and how to simply not be the smelly kid.  Nobody wants to be that.  But everybody is sometimes

Not much changes in life, does it?  Maturity is supposed to create a drammatically different human at 35 than existed at 12.  But in my experience that isn't really happening.  Just flip through your cable channels - Housewives of Whatever God-forsaken-region, Jersey shore, even an average cooking competition is ridiculously...juvenile.  It's pretty sad.

People want to know who is in, and who is out.  I guess I can chalk that up to some primal urge.  People want to take a first impression and never look deeper.  People create and stay charicatures - shells of who they could become.

Nowhere is this more obvious and unfortunate than faith.  Consider Jesus.  Thousands pushed to be taught and healed by him when he was in.  Thousands rejected him to be killed when he was out.    He was surrounded by perpetual 12 year olds.  He was nice enough to just call them - US - sheep.

The good news is there is hope for us to all live differently.  We can all have a guide - a shepherd who loves us more than we could ever imagine, who would lead us on a path towards depth, maturity, real beauty and meaning.  We just have to agree to it. 

But agreeing is scary isn't it?  Christians are not exactly attractive as a group.  Who wants to become 'one of them!?'  So we have to be willing for someone else to tell us we are 'out', lame, a loser, in order to finally come into a real and full life.  Maybe that is why faith in America is slipping away.  Are we all just scared of being the smelly kid?  Like when we were 12...
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Wasted opportunities

7/23/2011

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It started late.  600 people crammed into a hot gym in late July.  The looks on the faces of those who just got done with their commute made it clear they would rather be at home, in the AC with a cold one or two.  I agreed. 

Ten minutes after we were supposed to start, a guy I had never met grabbed a microphone and invited everyone to head across the gym to sign up for their turn to work the booster booth.  So like hogs to the slaughter, the crowds headed over to form two long, slow-moving lines.  Twenty minutes later there were only 65% of the way done. 

Thirty minutes later the same guy went back to the mic, “Ok, I guess I will go ahead and begin my long, boring speech.”  For the next thirty minutes he read his power point slides top to bottom in a monotone.  Each slide, each name, each odd job on the board of directors that was not yet filled was explained in painful detail.

Disorganized gatherings.  Unskilled communicators who ramble on about irrelevancies.  Crowds of people wanting direction but forced to sit in uncomfortable arrangements getting nothing helpful.  Anxiety about when it will finally be over.  Convinced that if it is this bad experience for you, and wondering how bad must it be for your 9 year old.  Does this sound like church to you?  It sounds like church to me.

Nothing keeps me up more at night than the wasted opportunities- TOTALLY FRICKIN WASTED- opportunities the church is given each week.  We make people walk into our odd buildings, sit in weird arrangements, force them to dress like the are from another culture, stare at their kids for acting like kids, while we ramble on and on about the dumbest things- and wonder why the church is shrinking like an empty balloon.

All that is about to change- at least in one pocket of Kendall County.  It is going to be fun.  It is doing to be relevant.  And the one thing you really want to learn about- Jesus- is all we are going to be about.  No politics, no clichés.  Just Jesus. 

And we will start and end on time!  

PneuProject - coming soon to Oswego, IL!  


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Big tent religion

7/20/2011

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I have had a lot of questions over the last week about what we believe, what we are trying to accomplish, who we are targeting at PneuProject, etc.  So let me introduce you to a concept we like to call, the big tent.

Big tent means everybody is welcome.  Our tent is defined by being Christian, so we are going to talk about Jesus.  And Jesus talks a lot about how to love, non-judgement, addressing your own issues in life, forgiving others, living with them gracefully, etc.

If we take him seriously, we aren't EVER going to be telling you what kind of food is wrong, which categories of people are evil, etc.  Because that flies in the face of the things that he taught (see above).

Now, in our church experience, that has caused a lot of consternation.  People WANT to be told what to do towards God, what to believe, what political party to vote, etc.  They want to be told what we believe, so they can decide if they are for or against US not Jesus. 

And if we were to do it, the biggest problem with us spelling out what we believe and requiring you to conform to it, is that essentially, it is requiring you to think, pray, live, LIKE US. 

And while we are REALLY confident about Jesus and his purposes for you, we are still very much works in progress, and we would like the same opportunity we are affording you - to grow as God leads us.

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