Leadership

The Word for 2012: Community

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CommunityWithout fail, the Lord provides a burden for me each year that I have typically shared here. Over the last few months, the one aspect of our walk with Christ that has been most apparent and problematic has been the way we American Christians practice community—or fail to practice it, as the case more often is.

A few questions regarding community that never seem to be far from my thoughts:

Do we meet together and practice community in the same manner as the Spirit-directed early Church did?

Do we value community in such a way that we ensure that the spiritual gifts of individuals in the church community are allowed to operate when we assemble together?

Do we lay down our selfish selves so that we are always thinking of what is best for the church community?

Do we maintain a belief that corporate sins are just as heinous as individual sins and live in such a way as to address and correct them?

Do we ensure that each person in our church community has his or her needs met, physically, emotionally, and spiritually?

Do church leaders identify and stoke the gifts of people in the church community?

Do we maintain a “flat hierarchy” leadership style that ensures that leaders are considered equals in the church and not an elite class within it?

Sadly, in most churches today in America, the answer to most (if not all) of those simple questions is no.

Changing those answers to yes will be the major theme of Cerulean Sanctum in days to come.

Stay tuned.

Where There Is No Vision: Asking Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How

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Where there is no vision, the people perish…
—Proverbs 29:18a

I haven’t written much lately because I’ve been spending more time observing and listening. As an American, I suffer from what most of us Americans do: I tend to spout an opinion before all the facts have come in. Given the inflammatory nature of our punditry nowadays, I think we’d all be better off saying less and ruminating more.

It is no coincidence that, this month, several Christians from different churches have dropped the same statement to me:

“I have no idea what the vision is for our church.”

Oddly, for most of those people, the vision statement for their church is ever before them. It’s printed on their church bulletin every Sunday. Some have it emblazoned in big letters on a wall in the church lobby. The pastor even talks about the vision of the church in his sermons.

But it might as well be buried in the silt at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, because little of that vision plays out among the lives of the people in the seats.

Who is to blame for this lack? The leaders of the church.

Leaders lead. And one huge aspect of leading is communicating vision in a way that people get it.

In most cases, I think the leaders of a church do have a vision. This is not to say that all do, though. Some leaders fall down in their responsibility to get a specific vision for their church from the Lord.

When the Lord speaks to the churches in the early chapters of Revelation, it’s clear that each church has its own flavor and character. They are in different regions, and those regions have a personality. Therefore, the way a church in that region operates will reflect a vision that matches where it is located. For this reason, not every church will have the same vision or act the same. This is the beauty of how the Holy Spirit operates in the lives of leaders: communicating a unique vision.

So if you are the leader of a church and you have no unique vision for your church, you darned well better find out what it is the Lord would have you do.

And it better be specific.

I add that because a simple pass through the New Testament shows that the Lord, more often than not, is specific in what He wants church leaders to do. He names specific names (set apart Paul and Barnabas), directs people to specific places (come over to Macedonia), and tells people what they should do (bring one Simon, who is called Peter). This is the normal Christian life. If it is not the norm for our leaders, then we need to get leaders for which this is the norm! If a leader isn’t getting direction from God, then he or she is not a leader. Period.

But assuming our leaders do have a vision, how is it that we end up with the generic, bland visions that practically define Evangelicalism today?

Here are some perfect examples of vision statements that often make their way to the front cover of a church bulletin:

To present every man mature in Christ

To make Jesus known

To love our neighbor as Christ loved us

Here’s my one word comeback for those bold statements: How?

How are we to present every man mature in Christ?

How are we to make Jesus known?

How are we to love our neighbor as Christ loved us?

Ask most people in the seats the question of how with regard to their church’s declared statement of vision and you’ll see dumbfounded expressions on their faces. Why? Because they don’t even know where to begin to answer the question. In fact, most of them have never asked anything of their church’s vision statement, much less a tough question such as how.

Some may attempt an answer, but further drilling uncovers a shakier and shakier foundation for their reply.

The problem is, if the people in the seats can’t answer the question How, you can bet that they are just as shaky on the rest of the journalist’s other favorite questions of Who, What, Where, When, and Why. Who, what, where, when, why, and howIf those questions go unanswered, then it is nearly impossible to say that church leadership has effectively communicated the vision of the church. If people cannot answer those questions, then they can neither own the vision statement in their own lives nor carry it out in practice. Effectively, that vision statement becomes worthless.

Asking Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of any church vision statement will show how shallow—or deep— it may be.

That shallowness begins with leaders. If they can’t ask themselves those six questions of their church vision statement and answer them quickly and fully, then thinking the people in the seats can is foolishness.

Beyond that, the six questions expose the shallowness often found in the vision statement itself. The questions uncover just how impossible it is to fulfill a vision that lacks details.

Why are we to present every man mature in Christ?

Where are we to make Jesus known?

How are we to love our neighbor as ourself?

We can’t hit a target we can’t define. Yet this is what churches attempt when their mission statement withers under any kind of scrutiny. An unfocused vision can’t be enacted because the enactors will never know the justifications for that vision. In America, we see the results of that failure every day.

If you are a leader, put your church vision to the six question test. How are you plainly and regularly communicating the answers to those six questions to your congregation?

If you are one of the people in the seats, have you ever asked your church leaders to explain the church vision statement in such a way that the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of it are fully answered in a way that makes practical sense to you? If not, why not?

Folks, if we want our churches to look like the company in the Dilbert comic strip, let’s keep our vague, high-sounding vision statements that make us feel good about ourselves but which have no practical expression in the world beyond the doors of our churches.

On the other hand, if we want to get serious about the Faith and our praxis, let’s not be afraid to subject our pontifications to a little fire. If they are worthy, they’ll stand. If not, then we know what we need to do.

And while we’re finding answers to Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How, let’s thank journalists for helping us to be better Christians.

See, the Press IS good for something.  😉

Cyrene Surpasses Berean

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If you’ve noticed the lack of posts here recently, kudos for being a consistent reader! I must admit to some burnout. It’s not that I don’t have many topics I’d like to write about, it’s just that the Internet is such a poor place from which to minister to others that I’m having something of a crisis of conscience adding my voice to the cacophony and lack of action.

One of the things that has set me off lately concerns several posts and comments I’ve read from folks under the age of 40. I have no axe to grind against younger Christians, but when such folks start talking about how someone else isn’t carrying his or her cross correctly, I get furious.

The problem of judging someone else’s ability to carry the cross is a huge one on the Internet. Simon the Cyrene bearing the cross for JesusThe amount of presumption on the part of these judges is staggering, particularly when that judger has lived a golden, carefree life in which “my cross” consists of mistakenly receiving a mocha latte instead of the ordered cappuccino from the barrista at Starbucks (or whichever coffee dispensary is trendiest among the self-righteous).

The wisdom to discern anything about another person’s life can only be gained through time and the Holy Spirit. Bury a parent or two. Have a child wind upon the wrong side of the law. Suffer a divorce. Care for a chronically ill or terminally sick family member. Adopt a special needs child. Suffer repeated job losses.

There’s a reason why the eldest were the first to drop their stones in John’s chapter 8 telling of the woman caught in the midst of adultery. The eldest were the first to understand what Jesus was saying. Age buys people rights, but that’s largely because they’ve experienced enough vicissitudes of life to know that sometimes they need to withdraw their dog from the hunt.

A prime example of how the young often get it wrong is the pile-on concerning stupid things Pat Robertson said to a man wondering if his pursuit of personal happiness trumped taking care of his wife, who had Alzheimer’s. Was it okay to divorce her and marry someone else?

No, it’s not okay. And the youngsters quoted Scriptures and got riled up and foamed at the mouth and all the other things they tend to do to make sure EVERYONE knew it was not okay. To let everyone know how right and just and perfect they were by letting their righteousness shine before all on the Internet.

But the funny thing about holding onto the rock when the elders have already dropped theirs is that the rock cries out against the holder. And it does so because the holder lacks the wisdom of empathy and basic compassion. To the fool, the path is always clear and obvious. Needless to say, the fool often winds up on the wide path that leads to destruction.

The ugliness that is self-righteousness starts from frame of reference. In the case of judgmental people, they rarely wander outside themselves to ask what it is like to be the person on trial. They don’t have enough rotten experiences in life to have any kind of empathy. They lack that perspective of Jesus, who saw lost people as more than just another face in the “bound for hell” crowd. He saw people as being more than their disease. More than anything else, He saw how He could be there for others.

The great unanswered question in the Robertson fiasco was not about the rightness or wrongness of the reply to the man asking the question about his wife, but why that man asked it in the first place. People who lack widsom and empathy never ask those kinds of deeper questions when confronted with a problem situation. They instead rush to the obvious question with the most broad, simplistic answer. The problem with that mentality is that life is found in the narrow, more difficult way.

While self-righteousness and judgmentalism rush to the approved mob answer, empathy and wisdom draw people to ask how difficult it must be for others to carry the cross.

Anyone who has spent a couple decades watching a spouse slowly lose his/her mind endures a cross unimaginable by most. Not everyone can afford the kind of professional, third-party care that allows the remaining spouse to put some distance between the horror of that cross and the rest of life. We know the simplistic answers, but it’s the daily living in the shadow of that cross that should have us clapping a hand over our mouths before we presume to speak and to reveal our ignorance.

No one wanted to help Jesus carry His cross. Someone had to be compelled to do it.

We can talk all we want about right and wrong. We can point fingers at weasels, liars, and cheats. We can let the world know just how right the Law might be. But for most of us, we are far, far away from anyone bearing a difficult cross.

All the Scripture study in the world cannot trump helping another bear the cross. I don’t care how right you are or how well you divide the Scriptures. It all comes to naught if you are too preoccupied to shoulder for a time someone else’s crushing cross.

Young people, here’s my word for you: One day it will be you. No one gets out unscathed. Be careful what you speak to others bearing up under the weight of the cross. Because you might very well have a massive one dropped on you, and when you cry out for help, you better pray that some kind soul shows you more compassion and aid than what you offered to others.