Leadership

I came across this comment on a blog a while back, and finally got around to posting it, (the title link is to the place I lifted it from), it seems to get at some important aspects of discerning calling, and the role of existing leadership in the training, and releasing of new leaders.

"Despite being late on this one, the last few comments intrigued me. In particular, I find out some of the comments on personal "calling" troubling.
For instance:"But at the end of the day, this is about a particular person's unique calling which always trumps whatever opinions or ideals that any of us could have."
And: "What about the trained, called and gifted women, who are never even considered for ordination simply because they're female?"
I don't find all ordination processes entirely biblical. But one thing that seems to be missing here is that so-called "callings" are supposed to be affirmed by current, qualified leaders. I don't get to, my heart and track-record unquestioned, get to say "I have a calling, therefore you have to give me authority over God's people". NO! Wolves still exist and the most likely wolves are those that claim a "calling" from God. Have you ever heard of a wolf that felt called to pick up after church? I doubt it. It's those that are "called" who prey. Therefore, it is the job of qualified leaders to affirm the calling for the good of both the "called", who may just end up crashing when they actually aren't called, and for the flock, who are vulnerable to poor leaders.
I don't usually get aggressive with my comments. But those who believe that "individual calling" always trumps current, qualified leadership on just word of one's so-called "calling" are quite likely either very ignorant sheep or very wolfish themselves...they certainly aren't shepherds."

Paul Dalach

Labeling

I had an intriguing conversation with Amy and Nathan about labeling. It was at a neighborhood mixer. They were talking specifically about the labels we place on everyday items and how those labels can actually effect our perceptions of products, our choices of consumption, and so, whole economic patterns...

For example, what do you read on the labels of your foodstuffs? Probably just the price per quantity, right, maybe some of the health information. How does that effect what you choose to purchase? How much you are willing to pay? Etc.? What if there was no health information on any of our food labels, how would that effect purchasing decisions?

My new friends were talking specifically about environmental impact statements on everyday item labels, and how that might effect our purchasing habits. For example, if the carbon footprint of that item was placed on that label, (let's say in units of trees) how would that effect your purchase decisions? This gallon of milk costs $2.50 and .75 trees, that one costs $3.00 and .07 trees; which one would you choose to buy?

Or how about the percentage of the purchase price that would be recycled into the local economy?

...or the average wage of the person(s) who produced that item?

...etc.

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The basic idea is, that what we choose to put on the label effects how we see the product, and in turn effects our choices with respect to that product. In one sense, nothing has changed about the product itself by changing the label (those things were always true about the product, even though we may have been largely unaware of them), however, by making that reality public, by labeling it, we are potentially effecting change on a large scale.

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My mind immediately went to how we label in the world of Church and religion.

What goes on the label for most spiritual communities?

The number of rear-ends in chairs

The size of the facility

The technological 'wow' factor

How would changing the 'label' effect how we thought about church? What if we found a way to get justice issues, or personal holiness, or cultural diversity, on the label? What if we found a way to get equipping lay-leaders into ministry, or planting new churches, or helping people discover calling, on the label? Not only would that effect the 'purchase' decisions people make (how do I decide which church to commit to), but it would probably begin to have serious effects on a system-wide level. Changing the way churches define themselves, and changing the whole system we have built that equips churches to increase attendance, buildings, and budget, as a sign of 'success.'

May it happen soon, Lord!

The Power of Art

Eucharist and Justice

This theology of the Eucharist, which I am offering to you today, or sketching out with you today, therefore is extremely closely conjoined with a holistic view of mission. Of the mission of God in the world, which is of course all about the challenge to you and you and you and you to repent, to believe, to accept Jesus, to know him for yourself, to rejoice in His salvation, in and through your whole being. But also simultaneously and for the same reasons, the challenge for you to become agents of new creation, where there is hunger, where there is poverty, where there is injustice, where there is danger anywhere in the world.

And, as I said before, this is because God's work in the world is never merely pragmatic. It isn't just we can organize a program to go and do this. If you think you can do God's work like that read the lives of people like Wilberforce and think again. You can't. You need prayer, you need the sacraments, you need that patient faithfulness, because we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the world rulers of this present darkness.

Read some of the great Christian biographies and see how they did it. Read about Desmond Tutu. Who would have thought forty years ago that at the start of the 21st century there would be a black archbishop of Cape Town chairing a commission for truth and reconciliation listening to white thugs and black thugs confess their sin? Who would have thought that? But God had other ideas, because that black archbishop used to spend three or four hours on his knees every morning, day after day and week after week, and get other to do the same, and was living the life of the sacramental life of the church and claiming the victory of Jesus over the principalities and powers.

You can't do it by just a little bit more politicizing, social techniques. You can only do it through being energized in the sacramental and prayerful life of the church, whatever the "it" is that you have to do.

-NT Wright

Christian Storytellers Pt VIII

There is a scene in the film A Time to Kill where the lawyer tells the story of the young African-American rape victim. It was her rape, torture, and humiliation that motivated her father to kill the two Caucasian men who committed the act. As he tells the story to the all-white jury he ends with a picture of the young girl brutalized, and then instructs the jury, "now imagine she is white." This elicits gasps from the jury and the entire chamber full of people...

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Art is able to speak to people in one world, about realities in another world. Art speaks in the language people know, but invites them into a world beyond. It is this very thing that is so perplexing and compelling about the parables of Jesus. He invites his listeners into a story that they are familiar with, but it drops them into another world! A world where our enemies are the good guys; where moral people are on the wrong side of God; where rich people are the truly needy ones; and where honest, hardworking, and resentful older brothers are revealed to be just as self seeking as prodigal younger brothers...

...but of course, the real deal is not telling the story, it is living in the Story!

It is entirely possible to tell a story, without it being the controlling narrative of your life, and with this story, that would be a bummer...

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If the call of the Christian artist is to tell the story in the language of the world, then the call of the Christian, is to live the story in this world. To know the plot, to understand our role, our relationship to the plot and the other characters, and ultimately, to take our cues from the playwright!

We are supposed to be living parables, not by our own creativity and voice, (perhaps, not even directly aware of it) but because we are connected to the One who tells the story best...

Safety and Agitation

One of the questions I often grapple with as a pastor and as a professor is, how do people change? How do they grow? Particularly when I teach a course on discipleship, this question seems to emerge repeatedly. My theory on spiritual growth is that growth does not occur without the combination of two factors: the creation of a safe place coupled with the introduction of discomfort. Having just one of the two factors is not sufficient for growth. If you only create a safe place, you can become too comfortable and feel no need to change and grow. If you only have the presence of discomfort, you generate too much stress to allow for growth. Both a safe place and discomfort must exist to move towards growth. My book is an attempt to introduce a bit of discomfort to the overly comfortable culture of American evangelicalism.

Professor Soong-Chan Rah