An Old Dream

Last night I was reminded of an old dream. A dream that once was fresh and vivid and invigorating, but which I thought was long dead.

It was a dream of the local church being a place where people, all sorts of people, were encouraged and enabled to develop their own unique gifts and callings, and then released to be significant players in the Kingdom of God. Some staying with the local church, others moving on to other churches (established or being re-established), and still others participating in the establishment of new churches; but all reflecting the call and gifting of God discovered and developed here.

In a sense, this dream saw the local church as something analogous to a seminary, but operating in an experiential and experimental mode rather than an academic one. But like a seminary, it would periodically spin off a graduating class that would move out together to new challenges to which God called them. Places to grow, places to develop, places to lead, places to dream would always be available, because there would always be new places out there for some to graduate to, leaving ample places behind for others to step into. Growth in such a church would be measured primarily by how many people the church could send out into the Kingdom rather than by how many it drew in (although that activity would certainly be occuring too).

I remember how wonderful that dream felt, and how awe-inspiring it was. And indeed it feels again now, recalling it.

I also remember trying to share that dream with others, and how difficult it was when few, if any, seemed to catch any of the invigoration that I felt. Indeed, once Doug left, it seemed that no one else shared the dream in any real sense. Oh, to be sure, there were those who spoke well of the idea, but only as something we might someday consider when we were twice the size. But we really weren't big enough for such a model. So for the time being, the only dream that seemed to gather any interest was the purely mathematical dream of getting bigger.

And so the dream died. {And ironically, our church did not grow, but rather has lost as many people or more as it ever would have in spinning off graduating classes to span new local congregations.}

Odd that I should be reminded of this old dream again now. Is this memory just a bit of nostalgia brought on by a chance mental connection? Or might it perhaps have something to do with discerning God's direction on our life now, at this juncture? I wonder.

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Ignoring the Cross?

Yesterday, the Easter service we attended featured a drama involving a family gathering for Easter dinner. All the usual prepartory activities were there -- setting the table, decorating eggs, worrying about visitors, busying about the meal preparation. Everything was normal, in the ditsy idiosyncratic way that many families are normal. And everyone was carrying on as normal studiously ignoring the fact that a huge cross had crashed through the roof and lay splayed across the dining room and the dinner table.

In the closing chapter of A Sacred Sorrow, Michael Card writes:

At every major turning point of His ministry, Jesus pours out His heart in lament -- when He enters Jerusalem for the last time, when He experiences his final meal with the disciples, when He struggles with the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, and most importantly, when He endures the suffering of thhe cross. Jesus understood the honesty represented in the life that knows how to lament. His life reveals that those who are truly intimate with the Father know they can pour out any hurt, disappointment, temptation, or even anger with which they struggle. Jesus spoke fluently the lost language of lament.

Each time we refuse Him entrance to our holy place, every time we doggedly deny our sacred right of lament, we tell the world in effect that the cross has nothing to do with us. Without realizing it, we plug our ears so as not to hear Him lamenting for us to God, "Why have you forsaken me?" The "You" might then not be capitalized, refering to us, who have forsaken Jesus by our own inability to listen. (emphasis added)

Just how much have we in our churches been ignoring the cross, even though it intrudes time and time again into our lives like a thunderclap? Do we not ignore the cross when we instruct our people to leave all their troubles and laments outside the church door? Do we not ignore the cross when the church doors are guarded by "greeters" who shake hands and inquire, "Hi, how are you?" even while looking past us to the next person in line, seemingly not interested in our pain, but just in ensuring that only those who can put on a "happy face" are allowed in? Do we not ignore the cross when year after year we put on happy clappy Good Friday services that refuse to enter into Jesus' own sorrow and suffering and agonize with Him "for even one hour"?

Perhaps there is a reason that the cross in our churches has become such a beautifully polished piece, tastefully lighted and gilt inlaid. Maybe it isn't because the cross is central to our faith at all, but rather because it helps us ignore the cross, turning it into just a beautiful, abstract, metaphysical symbol of a rosy, over-realized eschatology, that has no real power to address the real hard core realities of our often painful day to day existence.

If that is so, no doubt Jesus does cry out again, "Why have you forsaken me?"

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God With Us

In his book A Sacred Sorrow, Michael Card writes

... the ultimate answer to all laments is not to be found in the specifics of what is lamented for. The true answer for a lament of disease is not ultimately a cure. The real solution for a lament of financial distress is never simply money. The answer is always found in the Presence of God. It is rarely what we ask for, but it is always what we ultimately need.

In the end of the book, God's answer to Job's loss is not getting his dead children back. Indeed he never gets them back. The answer, God's answer, is that Job gets God back. And Job's response, brought into focus by his suffering is clear: That is all he ever really needed. The same can be said for both David and Jeremiah and you and me.

This is indeed what I find again and again at Easter time -- somehow in the lament of Jesus' suffering, and its expression through His people, that the answer to my own lamentings is found. Never in the sense of getting the specific answer that I thought I wanted, but always in the sense of getting God back, once again.

Somehow, in the midst of my pain, often brought about through the actions or attitudes of persons within the local church, God becomes present through the faithfulness of His one Holy catholic church. And God's presence is enough -- no, more than enough -- even though the problems of the local church remain the same.

Once again then, I join with His earliest followers and His followers throughout all time, in proclaim that God is indeed with us.

Jesus Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

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Maundy Thursday -- A New Command

This is the day that Christ, the Lamb of God, gave himself into the hands of those who would slay him.

This is the day that Christ gathered with his disciples in the upper room.

This is the day that Christ took a towel and washed the disciples feet, giving us an example that we should do to others as he has done to us.

This is the day that Christ our Lord gave us this holy feast, that we who eat this bread and drink this cup may here proclaim his Holy Sacrifice and be partakers of his resurrection.

How strange that on that night of all nights Jesus' disciples should be debating among themselves concerning which of them was the greatest. Or perhaps not so strange. For we too are often preoccupied with determining who is the leader, who is qualified for ministry, who is in charge, who has the authority or mandate.

But what qualifications does it require to be a servant? Only the humility to serve others.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.

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Thoughts on Leadership

There are thousands of books out there with titles like Developing the Leader Within You that promote the idea that leadership is a quality or attribute, or more accurately a collection of qualities and/or attributes, of the leader herself. That is to say, a leader is a leader because she is a leader.

This seems to me to be a rather simplistic, and patently wrong, conception. It seems clear to me that a leader is a leader only within a particular context. The interplay between the community and the "leader" is what generates leadership. The community cedes leadership to the leader for its own reasons, and the leader accepts leadership for her own reasons. Both parties are necessary for the leadership relationship to exist and continue. (This is, of course, not to say that there may well be huge power differentials between the parties that make things look as though it were unilateral. But even with the most autocratic dictators, if the community has had enough, the dictator can no longer lead.)

The cooperative nature of leadership is probably most evident within the local church, particularly a church with a congregational governance tradition as is common in Baptist and Baptist-like churches. Both the process by which the leadership relationship is initiated and the bonds of what the leader can actually accomplish are subject to this joint community/leader dance.

For me, the state of being free to stay in the church I am in means recognizing that a primary mode of belonging has been eliminated. Throughout almost all my adult life, the primary mode of belonging to a local church has been through the mechanism of so-called "lay church leadership". It has been in that collegial space that relationships have formed and been sustained, and where the sense of connectedness has been focussed. However, over this past year, it has become increasingly clear to me that the relationship between myself and this community can no longer operate on that level. My capacity to offer my gifts to the community in the context of "leadership" is no longer -- a sufficiently large portion of the community will no longer accept such a gift, for reasons undoubtedly varied and perhaps not even fully known to the individuals themselves. Whether that may change lies entirely within the hands of the community, so for my part I must accept that it may well be a permanent situation.

This of course, raises questions. What means continue to exist for the formation and sustaining of relationship and a sense of connectedness? What avenues continue to exist for the expression of those things God is teaching me, particularly if those things appear on the surface to run counter to the established pattern of the community? Will expressing such things result in greater harm to the community than good? Will not expressing such things result in greater harm to my own spiritual walk than good?

And of course, the big one: Is addressing my thoughts toward such questions part of hearing God's direction or a distraction?

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Free to Stay?

Ignatius of Loyola is said to have advised that one cannot discern the voice of God while in a state of desolation, only in a state of consolation. For me, that has meant that I am not free to leave until I am free to stay. Those who leave a church because they are not free to stay always seem to encounter the same troubles again later. It's as if the issue simply follows them around.

I've spent much of the last few years attempting to live out of a space of being free to stay. Through that I've concluded that there are a couple things that being free to stay is not.

Being free to stay is not a shortcut to being allowed to leave. I cannot take the approach that once I think I'm free to stay, that I will then automatically be able to leave. God will not be manipulated that way. Being free to stay must really be being free to stay.

Being free to stay is also not a guarantee that God will fix all the problems at the church to my liking. Being free to stay means being free to stay in the church as it is, not as I wish it would change into. It's not saying, "Okay, I'll give this place another x months or y years, and it better be fixed then."

Finally, being free to stay is not about finding staying put an easy and carefree task. The question is only being considered because staying hasn't been easy. And staying may well never be easy.

Being free to stay means being ready and willing to accept God's call to stay in the current environment, knowing full well all its real problems and strengths, even if God decides to let it stay that way for as long as I am here. Once I can be in this space, only then am I truly ready to hear God's direction as to whether to stay or whether to go.

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Hearing God's Call: To Go or To Stay?

Perhaps all of us from time to time wrestle with the question of whether to remain in the local church of which one is a part, or to move on to another. Pastors do, and so do congregants, although they may perhaps look at the issue in different ways.

My wife and I are grappling with the question right now. But we believe it is not enough just to ask questions like: where would I be happier? or where can I get my needs met? or where will we feel at home?. More important is hearing God's call. For us, this is the issue, indeed the only issue -- all the rest are barely secondary.

But how does one hear God's call? Reflections on that question will likely form the basis for a number of subsequent posts. I don't expect to come up with the definitive answer -- indeed I strongly doubt such one exists -- but perhaps these reflections will prove useful -- to myself as well as to others.

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Hand-Clapping in a Gothic Nave

The above captioned article in Christianity Today is subtitled What Pentecostals and mainliners can learn from each other. Recently I heard (the very recently late Baptist theologian) Stan Grenz describe Baptists as "Pentecostals on valium". Perhaps that's why I tended to read the second half of the article as what Baptists can learn from mainliners. An awful lot, it turns out, and much with which I strongly identify and wish we could learn to appreciate in our church.

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What if Men Actually Led?

One of the recent struggles we've experienced has been related to a discussion around a church constitutional amendment to permit women to serve as elders in our local congregation. On Sunday, I spoke with a former member who has just recently moved out of town, and who indicated that he had been surprised to learn of how the vote had gone: 60% in favour of retaining the existing "no women as elders" rule.

But it was his further comment that made we wonder. He said that he believed that in large measure the entire debate arose from the fact that men have not taken their responsibility for leadership seriously enough -- in the home and in the church. We had, he said, let the ladies down. If men actually led, then there would be no need for a discussion on whether women were qualified to lead in the church or in the home. From the context of his comments, I am pretty sure he meant that the exercise of leadership by women would be unnecessary if men rose to the occasion as they ought.

As I read Ephesians 5:25 et seq, I get a different perspective.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind--yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body.

If I read Paul correctly, then for me to be the leader in the marriage relationship means that I have primary responsibility for ensuring that my wife develops into all that she can be; that all of the gifts that God has given to her are nurtured and developed and expressed in all their glorious fullness. For surely that is what Paul says about Christ's love for the church.

It seems to me that if all Christian men led in this way in their own homes, then the argument over the position of women within the church would indeed be moot, but not in the way my friend thought. Instead men who exercise such headship would all see that the church is presented most gloriously when all her members shine forth with the gifts God has bestowed. Far from clinging to power, or fearing the taking of authority, men would be encouraging their wives and daughters and the wives and daughters of their brothers in Christ to be all that they could be -- in the home, in the world, and in the church.

Far from being a sign of abdication of male responsibility to be the head in the home, the exercise of leadership gifts by women in the church ought rather to be celebrated as part of the fulfillment of husbands' and fathers' collective responsibility to see that their wives and daughters truly are part of Christ's gift of leaders to the church

to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

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Spirituality for All the Wrong Reasons

As I read this Christianity Today interview with Eugene Peterson, I could just hear Eugene speaking. I've missed him. It was a good reminder that spirituality is not about me, not about a mystical feeling, and not about quick answers or particular techniques.

We've all met a certain type of spiritual person. She's a wonderful person. She loves the Lord. She prays and reads the Bible all the time. But all she thinks about is herself. She's not a selfish person. But she's always at the center of everything she's doing. "How can I witness better? How can I do this better? How can I take care of this person's problem better?" It's me, me, me disguised in a way that is difficult to see because her spiritual talk disarms us.

Ouch!

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