Words'nTone

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (Exodus 3:8; cf. 3:17; 13:5).

Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way” (Exodus 33:3).

In the previous post, I suggested that if those who cannot, through whatever means or for whatever reasons, cannot benefit from the “milk and honey” of the land, are like those who are lactose intolerant and diabetic in that they cannot enjoy the benefits of the milk and honey. Now, of course I do understand that many people are poor of their own doing. And as well, I point out there are many who are wealthy and affluent who are so not of their own doing—but are so despite who they are as people or what they can and cannot do. And as for sin, first I take it that those who are poor and those who are not poor are of the same, both are sinners. But yes, sin can lead to poverty—as well as can wealth. So let’s stop with that game and move toward seeing that it is a Christian responsibility to assist those who are poor to move out of poverty and stop generational poverty, and as well it is a Christian obligation to addresss the causes of poverty. Now with this all said, I’d like to move to a second idea I have from the book Crashers.

It was the quote that got me going—Land of milk and honey…Bloody lot of good it does if you can’t handle lactose and you’ve diabetes to boot.--but my stream of consciousness kept flowing further in light of the Crashers book. In the reality behind the book I am impressed in how the gathering of experts would be called to act and move toward a crashed airline and would examine the crash, determine its cause or causes, and put things in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. I like that analogy.

Wouldn’t it make sense that such a team—or teams—of Christians (and even inviting non-Christian experts as well where needed and appropriate) to descend on areas of poverty and examine the blight and determine the cause or causes, and put things in place to ensure it doesn’t continue (or at least to begin to ameliorate the incidence of poverty)? (Now won’t that be a worthwhile endeavor to fund!)

It is interesting that there is a shift between the first promised move toward the Land flowing with milk and honey at the beginning of the exodus (cf. Exodus 3:8) and the latter part of the story in Exodus 33. In the latter chapters of the book of Exodus, we discover that even the Israelites were idolatrous—not just the Egyptians. This idolatry was a threat, yet they’d still be able to enter the Land flowing with milk and honey (it was a promise), but God would not go with them, because they had become stiff-necked people (a reference to how God viewed people who are idolatrous). The Israelites would inherit the land as promised, maybe even benefit from it, but God would not go with them.

So, it is possible for the people of God—in name at least—to inherit the blessing of God, but be actually without God’s presence. Very similarly, non-poor Christians can enjoy the blessings of God’s creation, yet be without God. They can look and sound like God’s people, but not in truth when they live idolatrous lives. And without repeating myself from a host of other posts, it is clear from the Biblical data and the Gospel itself that Christians are to be associated with the poor and should be concerned about the affects of poverty. It seems to be, although true of any economic culture, but especially true in a culture that promotes upward mobility, that Christians ought to be concerned for those who cannot benefit from the blessings of the Land (i.e., the economic location) and be active (as a Go-Team) that addresses the causes of poverty.

PS But who are the experts? Now that’s a good question, and I don’t intend to offer the answer in an sense of fullness, but I am thinking experts from the social service world, business, education, psychology, urban development and redevelopment, economists, bankers, medical…

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (Exodus 3:8; cf. 3:17; 13:5).

Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way” (Exodus 33:3).

I am reading a great novel about investigating a mysterious plane crash.  It’s really a great read.  Enjoying it immensely. It is a novel called Crashers by Dana Haynes.  ”Crashers“ is the name given to Go-Teams who are sent to investigate airline plane crashes, leading experts from specific fields vested in determining the cause of the crash so it never happens again.  In the midst of the storyline a character, not necessarily religious, thinks a rather interesting thought that got me thinking.  She thought,

Land of milk and honey…Bloody lot of good it does if you can’t handle lactose and you’ve diabetes to boot.

The book and the line referred to, Land of milk and honey remind, obviously, of the references in Exodus about the Land of Promise, the Land of Gift, as “a land flowing with milk and honey.” This was the promise made to the Israelite slaves, captive and abused under Egyptian rule, namely that God would deliver them from Egypt and bring them to a new land, a land flowing with milk and honey.  Obviously good news.  Mostly the reference to milk and honey simple means the land would be fruitful agriculturally (the milk) and productive (the honey).  The land would be a benefit to the incoming inhabitants.  It would be workable, sustaining, a land that would allow a measure of self-sufficiency for the Israelites who believed God and followed Him into the land.

But, the second part of the character’s thought brought me back to the numerous references in Exodus and other exodus-related texts to the weak, economically vulnerable and the poor who would be fellow occupants of this land flowing with milk and honey (e.g., Exodus 22:22, 24-25; 23:3, 6; cf. Lev 19:15; Deut 1:17; 10: 18ff ; 16:19; 24:17, 18; Prov 23:10, 11; Jer 7:6, 7; Amos 4:1-2, etc.).  It is so true that if one is lactose intolerant, one cannot enjoy the benefit of milk.  Nor can honey be useful to someone who has diabetes.  Bloody lot of good it does them. 

Similarly, the poor and other economically vulnerable populations are exactly in this bloody fix: The poor and economically vulnerable are unable—because of lack of access, barriers, lack of power, educational gaps, demographic separation, gender bias or racism, lack of resources, legislative policy—to enjoy what the land has to offer.  The economic vulnerable and the poor cannot utilize the milk and lack the ability to enjoy the honey (or, cannot be productive for the lack of abilities and barriers).

Among all the books I read for work and study, I find time to read a few novels throughout the year as well. One of my favorite authors, William Martin, has just released City of Dreams, a great Summer time read. The three quotes below were worth posting, if for no other reason that Mr Martin almost word-for-word put in his story line things that my daughter, Amanda, has told me this year. She wants to be a historian and a history teacher. When I read Mr Martin’s words, I heard my daughter. She like, Martin’s main character, Peter Falon, wants to help others see “the shadows of the past as of it were still unfolding.” Enjoy the quotes and get City of Dreams for yourself—you will enjoy it.

“Sometimes she thought Peter had a pair of extra lenses in his sunglasses and whenever he wanted, he could flip them down like polarizing filters to remove the modern world, so that he could see the shadows of the past as if it were still unfolding” (p 108).

“He preferred books. Whenever he open some fancy Web site, he felt like the defender of a dying faith, a Roman pagan before the glowing presence of Christianity. If the march toward the electronization of everything from novels to newspapers continued, he’d have to start calling himself an antique dealer instead of a rare-book dealer, because the book would finally go the way of the buggy whip” (p 112).

“Just one of those tiny grains of sand in the great machinery of history” (p 117).

T.S. Eliot, in “Four Quartets,” penned:

   “To make an end is to make a beginning.
         The end is where we start from.”

Ever look at a book’s or story’s ending before you read it?  Of course, we all have at one time or another.  I have enjoyed reading a book by Morna D. Hooker called Endings: Invitations to Discipleship.  Simply, Hooker gives us an exposition of the endings of the four Gospels and Acts and how each ending is a summary of the content of its respective book.  She suggests that each Gospel writer, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John leave us “suspended” endings.  Endings that call the reader to carry on and live out the story—live out the Gospel.  In essence, the hearers of these Gospels and the story in Acts would come to the end, the last verses, hear the main point of the author, and find an invitation to discipleship.  I read Hooker’s Endings and I am reminded of the purpose and essence of preaching.  Every Sunday morning, for over 2000 years, from the rising of the sun until its setting, all across the globe—and now from almost every language and tongue—someone stands to continue the story.  Although not the inerrant Word, preaching—in as mush as it faithfully reflects the intention of the text of Scripture—is the Word of God.  Elsewhere I have suggested: “The sermon is a redemptive historical event where God’s presence invades and the Kingdom of God is revealed in a moment in time, in a particular place, through the proclamation of His written Word.” Sidney Greidanus reminds us, “God uses contemporary preaching to bring his salvation to people today, to build his church, to bring in his kingdom. In short, contemporary biblical preaching is nothing less than a redemptive event.” The weightiness of the sermon should be taken seriously. Each sermon is a “carrying on” of the Gospel story.  Each sermon ought to be a call to discipleship—to be part of the ending.

“Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think is a very open question,” said Brit Hume on the show Fox News Sunday. “The Tiger Woods that emerges, once the news value dies out of this scandal, the extent to which he can recover, seems to me, depends on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’” Hume, the former news anchor says he became serious about his Christian faith about 11 years ago, when his son Sandy committed suicide at age 28. His words evoked a storm of publicity. “I certainly expected this. I’m nowhere near the first Christian to be mocked for his faith. It is simply a fact of life that the two most explosive words in the English language appear to be Jesus Christ. You don’t even need to say them if you speak openly of Christianity. Faith engenders a tremendous reaction, a lot of it positive and a lot of it negative.…Instead of urging that Tiger Woods turn to Christianity, if I had said what he needed to do was to strengthen his Buddhist commitment or turn to Hinduism, I don’t think anybody would have said a word. It’s Christ and Christianity that get people stirred up” [Quoted in Servant magazine, issue 84].

I was actually listening to the news when Brit Hume said this on air! I knew that there would be a stir, just as his follow-up comment indicates. The main stream media and the various celebrity circles just don’t know what to do when one of their stars makes a sincere public reference to their personal faith in Christ or how their Christian faith is central to their lives. Not only was Hume’s comment personal to his own belief, but it was also factually correct. Biblical faith is the only “religious” expression that actually forgives a person’s sins and gives the means to redeem one’s live after that sin—both in the here and now and in the afterlife. All other religions require works or some form of offering; some don’t even deal with the sin at all. Hume’s comment was a public confession, but also a wise piece of advise to one who so publicly sinned against many, and, oh yes, his wife. Forget golf as well, Tiger. That religion will not offer the forgiveness and redemption you need, nor what your wife and children deserve. And the MSM just needs to get over it when Christianity invades their sacred places.  And, Christians need to get over it that the MSM and the world is just not going to get over it.

Glancing through Servant magazine, I always like the stats and quoteworthies my good and now old(er) friend and editor of the publication, Phil Callaway, puts in each issue. These particularly had an impact on me:

• Estimated number of deaths in Haiti’s earthquake: 200,000
• Number of children worldwide who die each month from malnutrition and disease: 200,000
• 850 million people will go to bed hungry tonight
• Approximately four billion people live on less than $4 per day
• 1 billion live on less than $1 per day
• 2 billion on $1 to $2 per day
• 1 billion on $2 to $4 per day

Of course we should all be concerned with the people of Haiti, but it wasn’t the earthquake that killed all though people; it was only the vehicle, the means. The Haitian leaders are ultimately at fault for not addressing everything from the decrepit infrastructure and housing conditions to the vast spread of poverty. Although Rush Limbaugh received flack for saying so, nonetheless, ‘tis true. Furthermore, in perspective, per the quotes, the same number of children die of malnutrition and disease each month—we are those who sing “we are the world” for these children? Where are Christians on these matters? My crazy daughter keeps telling me I should run for something political. Actually I had, when younger, thought about it. But I tell her now, I couldn’t be an elected person to much of anything because I couldn’t’t sleep at night knowing that it was in my power to make sure no children in my demographic charge went to bed at night hungry. No one gets reelected on that kind of platform. Of course these issues highlighted in the quotes from Servant magazine, are just about getting food to people and rescuing earthquake victims and getting the bottom billion higher day pay-rate—it is about the systems which are and the people in place who are barriers to ameliorating these conditions. Of course changing people’s hearts is important, but these stats shouted out to the Christian community it’s not just about individualized sinning but as much from unrighteousness and injustice systems in which people live. Of course I want the problems solved “overseas,” but I continually wonder why the American evangelical Christian community doesn’t make it their mission to address the issues of poverty right here in the U.S. Certainly, one cannot read the Bible and think its not God’s mission.

On Martin Luther King’s celebrated Birthday, I am hesitant posting James Lowell’s song, “One to every man and nation,” because some might think I do so to “protest” the our military or the fighting on foreign soils, or in some way want others to think I take an opposing position to a strong national policy on the War (yes I said it War) on Terrorism.  I do not.  Lowell did write this well known hymn, however, to protest America’s war with Mexico in 1845; and, Martin Luther King quoted in a speech given to protest the War in Vietnam (two days before he, himself, fell victim to an assassin’s bullet.  I do post it to remind us that truth can be awfully hidden from us and it seems that God must work in the shadows.  Just read the song, the words, and think of the greater, the so much greater war between truth and falsehood that exists around us everyday.  And, think of how the poles have been reversed in our culture where right (or righteousness or truth) is spun as wrong or incorrect or politically incorrect, and where wrong (unrighteousness or falsehood) is triumphed as freeing, independent, and progressive.

   Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
   In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
   Some great cause, some great decision, offering each
      the bloom or blight,
   And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and
      that light.
   Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her
      wretched crust,
   Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to
      be just;
   Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands
      aside,
   Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
   By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet
      we track,
   Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not
      back;
   New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient
      good uncouth,
   They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast
      of truth.
   Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
   Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne
      be wrong;
   Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim
      unknown,
   Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
        ~James Russell Lowell, published in the
           Boston Courier, December 11, 1845

Many yesterday, as well as in gatherings today, will sing Lowell’s song.  I continue to be touched by the words.  Though the causes that stem from evil seem to prosper, truth will triumph in the end.  We live truth on the cross and falsehood on our thrones (or political offices).  But still, God, although hidden in the shadows, keeps watch.  Christ on the cross; Ceasar on the throne.  Mismatched.  But we dare give up hope, and find ways to join God—in those shadows, righting wrongs, and bringing righteousness in the midst of the darkness of unrighteousness.  That is why I post the song.  This should be ingrained in the Church’s mission.

“The prohibition against stealing and coveting are thus safeguards in behalf of the primary commandment, the love of God alone, as much as they are safeguards in behalf of the neighbor’s property” [Patrick Miller, an essay, Property and Possession in Light of Ten Commandments, p 48 in a compendium called Having: Property and Possession in Religious and Social Life].

“The acquisition of excessive wealth as it arises out of coveting and stealing is indeed a neighbor issue, but it is fundamentally a matter of the fear of God and the sole reliance on the Lord for the provision of life” [Miller, p 49].

A recent sermon on the 10th commandment, Thou shall not covet, emphasized the sin of wanting what others have. No mention was made of coveting what we already have that has already been coveted and has stolen the economic means for other people’s well-being—which by the way is actually the text where the command is found (Exodus 20:17; cf. Deuteronomy 5:21). This happens in most sermons on coveting. We concentrate through the sermon on what we don’t have but want as sin, not what we have already in our possession that has robbed others of their means of sufficiency as sin. The end of the sermon keeps the non-poor suburbanites comfortably in their social location of having more; but no application for the non-poor to repent of what they already have coveted, making restoration, and finding the salvation that God’s promises for such faith.

Although most often glossed over with poor application, this is what is most likely meant in the wee-little-man Zacch’s words in Luke 19:8:

“Zacch stopped and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.’”

Whatever the short-little, tree-climbing seeker of Jesus had defrauded the poor, he would restore—just like the Old Testament implies of those who covet, steal, and defraud the poor and economically vulnerable (my goodness, read the Old Testament with your eyes open!). Zacch knew, in the preaching of Jesus was the inauguration of the Kingdom, the presence of the pending judgment of God. God had promised that those who stole and coveted and as a result put the economically vulnerable in peril and in generational poverty would be faced with God’s reciprocal wrath—they too would face such poverty in their life (either through personal tragedy or exile, or death, which would make their wives and children widows and orphans like those they defrauded through stealing and coveting). This is why, when Zacch repents, Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham” (v 9).

When a sermon stresses future action to be ceased—i.e., to cease wanting what others have in this case—and neglects to point out what one already has in possession might in fact have already broken the 10th commandment, this leaves the lost (the non-poor who don’t know they are lost but sitting comfortably in the pew) not feeling lost (or having broken any commandment, especially not the ones concerning stealing and coveting) and in no need of being sought after (or of repenting for that matter). That is why Jesus ends the short tree-climbing-humbled-tax-collector story with, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (v10). Contemporary, keep-the-comfortable-comfortable-and-give-more-to-the-church sermons leave the lost (the non-poor right there in the pews each sunday morn’n) not knowing they are actually lost, and as a result, not needing the Son of Man to seek them. This is a sad state of affairs for everyone, for the preacher who leaves the non-poor comfortable and in their sin, the poor who are to be protected, and the non-poor sinner up a tree with no salvation.

“What do you think are the one or two most critical needs in our community?  Notice this is different than asking people what they would like to see in a church. (Reggie McNeal in The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church p. 62).

“If you are a pastor or staff member of a local congregation, you must model missionary behavior for the church to see” (The Present Future p.64).

Some of McNeal’s material truly challenges the chaplain status of most evangelical pastors.  Yes, of course there is a need to care for the flock, but the flock and the individual sheep will end up imitating, not what the pastor says, but what the pastor does.  And this is an important point, especially in regards to discipleship and church ministry.  I agree that pastors need to visibly model out-of-church-in-the-community behavior, activity, ministry, outreach, evangelism, care, mission—whatever—in order to demonstrate “this is what we, the church, are about.” This model begins by re-asking congregational questions.  We ask both inside and outside of church the question: “What do you want in a church?” This is a good marketing question, for sure.  And, it has its place (rarely).  But a more biblical question to ask is, “What are the critical needs of this community?” The reason we tend not to ask this question is that the answers might be ones that make us uncomfortable, ones that might take us away from a building-centered ministry, answers that could take away financial and people resources from our church-building-centered comfort, ones that could put us right in the middle of enemy territory.  Discovering what are the important issues a community needs or faces might break up the club mentality of most congregations.  But, this question is a good modeling question for pastors to be asking and doing!

I am hearing the pangs of end time panic again.  We have this greed-caused economic turndown, an administration that seems bent on turning the USA into a socialist-styled government, and of course hurricanes are a’coming.  These temptations are always in the news.  Like back in 2005 we heard from the false-prophet Pat Robertson:

“This weekend’s catastrophic earthquake in South Asia in the wake of recent U.S. hurricanes and December’s tsunami is catching the eye of televangelist Pat Robertson, who says we ‘might be’ in the End Times described in the Bible” (Joe Kovacs in “Robertson: Disasters point to 2nd Coming,” WorldNetDaily.com, Posted: October 9, 2005).

Why is it that celebrity TV evangelists continue to predict that we’re living on the cusp of Jesus’ second coming?  It is all marketing that gives opportunity for appeals for donations and “hey, look at me, I am a bible scholar and prophetic expert”—you know the Rahm Emanuel “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” principle.  Why do we continue to allow and entertain such ‘signs of the times’ predicting?  Don’t we recall Jesus’ warnings that we are to be ware of those false prophets who falsify his “soon appearance.” Pat Robertson is a regular false prophet, along with his co-false prophet Hal Lindsey, who joined the televangelist by stating, “It seems clear that the prophetic times I have been expecting for decades have finally arrived. And even worse, it appears that the judgment of America has begun.” (a broadcast of the “International Intelligence Briefing” on the Trinity Broadcasting Network).

Is it for ratings?  For fundraising and building up their financial base?  Or worse, for setting themselves up as the “ones in the know,” the wise, insightful prophets worthy of admiration and acknowledgement of their abilities to understand Scripture (like no one else) and read the signs of the times (like no one else).  Robertson continued:

“If you read back in the Bible, the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia, he said that in the latter days before the end of the age that the Earth would be caught up in what he called the birth pangs of a new order. And for anybody who knows what it’s like to have a wife going into labor, you know how these labor pains begin to hit. I don’t have any special word that says this is that, but it could be suspiciously like that.”

Don’t think for a minute, they’d be as “insightful” without the structures of modern American and the media culture that props them up.  Despite his mis-use of the text, the Thessalonian text Robertson alludes to is acknowledging that the end will come unannounced, suddenly, and that our daily faith and trust in Christ prevents us from being taken by surprise.  Not surprised because we can read the tea-leaves of the times, but not surprised because we are trusting in Christ and are obedient to His Word.  In fact, trusting in these false-prophets will take our eyes off Christ and make us ill-prepared for the end.

“Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you.  For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.  While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober” (I Thessalonians 5:1-6).

A thief does not announce his coming; but a smart thief knows to send distractions, ways to get his victims to be looking elsewhere, tricking them with misinformation whether it be comfort or smartly placed activity to distract them from the real activity of the thief.  Thieves pair up with those willing to bait and switch the victims, con them with false information.  Whose side are these guys on anyway?  Believing friends, don’t be fooled or distracted.  My non-believing friends, don’t believe them.  Please know these guys who are always predicting the future are either simply misguided Christianized media elites who believe in their own greatness or, worse, are working for the other side.  They and their kind have misguided us for 2000 years—full of predictions that “this is it” and “this is the end,” but have never been right, not once.  And as Jesus says about those who predicate the signs of the times,

“Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him.  For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.  Behold, I have told you in advance.  So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them” (Matthew 24:23-26).

“…discontinuous change is much more disturbing and difficult. Unlike the continuous form, it creates a situation that requires something different from and more potent than the normal habits and skills that were so useful during a stable period of continuous change. Congregations do not do well with this unexpected, dramatic change; they need entirely different skills and capacities from those that have service them well in the past” [Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk in The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World, pp 57-58]

Although I spend most of my time reading up on issues of poverty, urban blight and suburban sprawl, the tensions of economic advantages and disadvantages, the significance of demographic data and profiles of populations, and of course taxes, legislation, and politics, I try to keep up on church-related, ministry and mission issues facing Christianity and the Church. To be frank, I have been so unimpressed with much that I have read on the so-called emergent and emerging church (including anything smacking of contemporary church growth or just trying to be trendy), and books on missional churches have been as well unimpressive. Same ol’. Same ‘ol. I have heard it all before—just an attempt at keeping up on the times. Just trendy stuff and approaches wrapped in postmodern (hyper-modern, really just modernity gone wild) language.

I am very skeptical of the down-play given to the place of Scripture coming from most of the new elite authors. There is one set of authors that caught my attention and left me a little impressed (there I said it), that is, with Roxburgh and Romanuk’s book on the The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World. I appreciated the analysis of their church leadership approach to change and how various congregations fit within the continuous-discontinuous change mode. I like the honesty. The star statement comes on page 54, although it had already been hinted at on almost every page:

“Decisions must be made and action taken that no longer fit an established paradigm.”

Of course this book on Church Leadership is coming from guys who aren’t doing church, they advise, consult, and critique churches and church leaders. That’s always a problem for me. Doesn’t mean what they are saying isn’t right (and so far, I am about 90% in agreement—thus far, all good excepting, again, with their low view of Scripture and the eschewing of strategic planning—for another Thought), just that its easier to consult than do. But I digress.

In my reading: First we must face up to it—we make changes and respond to change (or instability) in ways that find its basis in protecting the current structures, authorities, and dare I say jobs (i.e., position and place). The book, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World, stresses that we simply cannot make changes and do church the way we have always done it, or even to attempt to try harder at the same thing. The social and cultural contexts have vastly changed from what the older church structures were built upon. Something else must emerge (oh, man I can’t believe I wrote that!). A different type of church must emerge (ouch, even that word I can’t believe I actually wrote out-loud) in order to compete with the changes surrounding the church—and that doesn’t mean just being trendy or mod. And the direction we face—we can’t think that serving up religious goods and services is the call of the Church. We continue to think it’s our job to create something the un (or even the churched from a competing church) will desire and come get, as if potential members of the congregation are consumers and we are selling a product. Some church leaders and authors continue to think we are, and some church growth gurus still portray church growth in such terms—but they are dead wrong, unregenerately wrong. And this book I have appreciated the idea of imaging a new future for God’s people (within a congregation), and allowing the Word, the sacraments, and our worship to be more formative in helping the congregation imagine that new future. What the authors paint is scary for pastors and congregational leaders—some might lose their jobs and their elite status!

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It’s an older paper now, and I wrote it to critique the status and state of the bible college movement and offer a future direction—don’t think anyone listened—but some of you might be interested in the thoughts in my paper on ministerial training, “Ministerial Training & (Post)Modernity: Institution-Based Ministerial Training Creates Concrete (Post)Modern Experiences for Students”

“This kind of development is what David Lyon calls ‘Disneyfication,’ what ‘diminishes human life through trivializing it, or making involvement within it appear less than fully serious.’ It is a fearful idolatry and the immediate judgment that is being visited upon us is that our culture has become shallow, cheap, and vulgar. And far from challenging this emptiness and futility, evangelical churches have too often been its exemplars, as I shall argue in a later chapter, pitching their ‘product’ to ‘consumers’ and emptying themselves of every vestige of spiritual gravitas as if striving for a serious faith were a failing of great magnitude and one to be avoided at all costs” [David F. Wells in Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World, p 47]

When my daughter turned into a teenager, I happened to be watching “politics” in action and I couldn’t help but hope that she will be a better teenager and less sophomoric than the Senators I am watching on TV showboating to their voter-base and baser instincts…and it makes me think of our culture, which is very much like a teenager…anyway… Reading David Wells book, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, isn’t quite like a breath of fresh air. It is more lot a ton of bricks falling. He hits the nail right on the head—Church as exemplar of our culture. Being creative and seeking how to “sell our product” to the unchurched consumer are not the same things. I have often thought the community at large and the unchurched don’t take us as very serious, because we aren’t—we do not show them serious, we show them entertainment, happy theme park, Disney-faith. I remember reading Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, and learning that Sesame Street didn’t work as well as they had originally thought—that is, the show didn’t actually help prepare kids for school. The big problem: school, once they were there, didn’t look or sound or feel like the Sesame Street TV show. I have often wondered: Life doesn’t look like or feel like or sound like church-life or worship, and maybe that’s why our faith doesn’t penetrate into society. People don’t live at Disneyland: they might work or play there, but they don’t live there. It is for escape, forgetting, for fun, a pause in life, not for developing life. No wonder we have it so awfully wrong within our church-life and worship habits.

“For earlier generations, the ideal minister was the evangelist who was measured by his success in persuading large numbers of people to become Christians. Some were traveling revivalists, and countless others worked in local congregations where they were appointed for evangelistic purposes. In the second era, congregational expectations for ministers shifted from outreach to nurturing the congregation and responding to the needs of individuals. In this era, ministers learned the techniques of the therapist and placed considerable value on pastoral care and counseling. Their task was to meet the ever-increasing perceived needs of the people in the congregation. In the present era, the minister is ultimately measured by the ability to organize, build, and manage a complex organization. Congregations continue to assume that the minister will maintain the traditional roles of marrying and burying, but they believe that the ultimate goal of the minister is to take the congregation to a new level of growth. The minister must be both an effective communicator and an administrator. In a competitive religious marketplace, the task of the minister is to ensure that the congregation maintains its place among religious consumers. Often search committees no longer look for someone who conforms to one of these models. Instead they seek someone who is a combination of, for instance, Jay Leno, Lee Iacocca, and Dr. Phil [James W. Thompson in Pastoral Ministry according to Paul: A Biblical Vision, pp 8-9].

Wow. When thinking about, searching for, or affirming a pastor—everything and anything but a biblical understanding of the role of the minister, pastor, shepherd of the flock. Immediately I connected with what Thompson was driving at in his new book. Over the past twenty-five years, I have read countless books on pastoral ministry, church ministry, and the expected role and duties (requirements) of the pastor. I have not seen many that actually struggles from a theological (what does the Bible actually say?) or an exegetical (what does the text actually say?) point of view. Oh, sure, a few proof texts here and there; a words study because an English word in our English translation of the Bible connects to our perception of what we are looking for; but, no exegesis or theological analysis. Thompson puts the discussion of Pastoral Ministry (at least according to Paul) within a theological and biblical framework. When I read the above words, my heart was saddened: we have traded the patterns of this work of ministry with marketplace values pressed upon the pastoral role and church praxis at the expense (really the replacement) of a Scriptural basis for pastoral ministry. We’ve invented much of what we call church and church life and experience, so a little return to Scripture is a good thing, a very good thing. I anticipate good things from Thompson’s book. I am getting closer to wanting to actually throw my hat back into the Pastoral ring. (Scary thought—for the church! And, after what I have said so often in this blog or written about, not sure bureaucracies and denominational hierarchy would want someone like me in their midst.) Sorry, a Dr, Phil I will not be. More biblical work needs to be done on measuring success biblically—something I have discussed throughout this blog, but also something I hope to tackle more fully in the future.

One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains— and one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.
     The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual. To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him.
     This time the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner. Three SS replaced him.
     The three victims mounted together onto the chairs.
     The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.
     “Long live liberty!” cried the two adults.
      But the child was silent.
     “Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked.
     At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over.
     Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting.
     “Bare your heads!” yelled the head of the camp. His voice was raucous. We were weeping.
     “Cover your heads!”
Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive…
     For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
     Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
     “Where is God now?”
     And I heard a voice within me answer him:
     “Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows…”

[Excerpt from Night by Elie Wiesel in Jon Pahl’s book Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces: Putting God in Place (2003), p 36.]

Pahl excerpts this piece from Wiesel’s book, Night, a powerful narrative of living through the Holocaust. What struck me was how the narrative (this little story) moved my own thoughts about God is showing up and what is typically thought of on that subject. Of course, as good evangelicals (and, yes, I am still one) we know God can’t be seen (at least according to texts like John 1:18). So, we piously eschew the idea of seeing God “in person” anywhere. But that’s not what is being asked when we say, “Where if anywhere, is God?” (as Pahl puts it). Of course, this is a metaphorical question or idea. So when we ask the question Where is God? we are really not asking something about God, but something about ourselves. The short account from Night made me think: where we see God is where we show our emotions, give our time, and place our commitments. If we see God in a cardboard box, over a street sewer vent keeping warm from the night’s cold, we do something about homelessness. If we see God hanging out on the street corner, spray-painting graffiti on a store façade, we fight for programs to change lives. If we see God hunched over on a hidden park bench smoking a crack pipe, we develop soup kitchens and halfway houses and drug rehab-centers. If we see God, baby in toe standing in line for free bread and clothing, we develop self-sufficiency programs to break the cycle of poverty. Maybe we’d have more Christian community action if Christians would stop limiting where we see or can see God.  Where do you see God hanging?

“For you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men? What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building” (1 Corinthians 3:3-9).

These verses should humble every prominent or self-proclaimed evangelical church growth “expert” and guru and wannabe. Every pastor. Every under-shepherd of the flock. It sure humbled and convicted me as a Christian college professor. Always pontificating as if I am right, as if my words were next to God’s, as if I received them straight from the Spirit Himself. Acting as if I got, the right insight, and everyone else is missing it. Don’t get me wrong. I have deep convictions about the Word and what the original authors, through the Holy Spirit, meant when they wrote down their words. I have deep convictions about the Word’s application, especially for the up-to-date-church. I certainly don’t mean to say I should be more wishie-washie, compromising, or tolerant on interpretation of sacred text, or that I should be more open-minded. I am talking about confessing my arrogance. We picture Martin Luther taking his stand before the Council as strong, prideful, maybe even defiant. And we think that’s “me.”

“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

Yet earlier, the great reformer pleaded with God, confessed a desire to just go home and live in peace, not troubled by the stand he must make against, who he called, “wise counsel and elders, more learned” than he, and stand for his conviction of the supremacy of God’s Word. So his words before the Council were more humble, contrite, even reluctant than arrogance. These words from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians should strike at our heart, pierce through our misunderstanding of the nature of the Church. Reggie McNeal is right in his book, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church, when he says:

“…we have the best churches men can build, but we are still waiting for the church that only God can get credit for” (p. 23).