Measuring Success Missionally

Conventional wisdom says that it is impossible to manage what is not measured. And in the church, we've been told "God cares about numbers because numbers represent people and God cares about people."

So under the banner of accountability and stewardship, church leaders collect statistics to measure the effectiveness of ministry.

Eventually, we end up with thinking like this:

Many [churches] are unable to improve because they are unfocused or are pulled in many directions; focusing on critical activities is the key. Furthermore, no [church] wants to think of itself as average or below average. When a [church] knows measurably how it stands vis-à-vis its peers (especially those performing at levels of excellence), a natural sense of friendly competition where everyone can win is invoked.

A [church] that is falling far short of excellence will be motivated to improve by learning from consultants and other [churches] at the top of its peer group; the [church] will also be able to mark and show donors its quantitative progress toward measurable excellence. Meanwhile, top performing [churches] not only help other [churches] emulate their success, but they are also motivated to keep setting the standards of excellence even higher. Most importantly from the fundraising perspective, a [church] has an instant report card that it can show its donors (noting both areas of excellence and areas for improvement). Finally, if a networked [church] is to invest in a consulting team for help, it must be equipped with tools allowing it to challenge and motivate each [church] affiliate.

(Each occurrence of [church] replaces either "organization" or "non-profit.")

But the church is not a business. It is the body of Christ, a living temple of God's presence. And our evaluations need to reflect that reality. Yet not everything that counts can be counted.

It seems to me that there are several issues here:

• God's kingdom is not identical with the church, even though there is considerable overlap.
  
• Jesus Christ is the head of the church and builds his church in his own time and in his own way.
  
• While we have responsibilities regarding the advancement of God's kingdom, many of those responsibilities are difficult or impossible to define in quantifiable terms.
  
• 
  
  Measurement has several pitfalls
  
  • If the wrong things are measured, the focus gets diverted from what is truly important.
    
  • Over emphasis on the numbers can lead to the assumption we are totally responsible for increases and declines.
    
  • The most important factors cannot be reduced to a number in a spreadsheet.
    
  • While "numbers represent people," most statistical systems reduce people to just numbers.
    
• "Growth" easily becomes an idol with pressure to improve the numbers from the previous reporting period.
  

I suspect that collecting stories is more important than collecting statistics.

But if we were going to collect numbers, what numbers would be useful?

Doug Resler published a list of Missional Metrics written by Hugh Halter

• Number of new relationships formed where I know their names and they know mine.
  
• Number of people who have been uniquely blessed by me and my community.
  
• Number of people who invite me to be with their friends who don't follow Christ.
  
• Number of ways, my street, neighborhood, or community are more livable because of my influence.
  
• Number of Christians that are actively confronting their consumerism and making adjustments at the life level.
  
• Number of Christians that I ask or persuade NOT to go on mission with us.
  
• Number of incarnational communities that commit to form around benevolent action instead of just a bible study.
  
• How long people remain at our weekly gathering after the formalities are over.
  
• Number of community-based initiatives our people are supporting with their time or money.
  
• Number of young leaders we're intentionally developing.
  
• Number of people baptized for the first time.
  
• Number of Bibles purchased because someone asked for one.
  

These are helpful as pointers toward missional-incarnational living. But I wonder how well they avoid some of the problems I identified above.

We certainly want to evaluate certain aspects of missional-incarnational living:

Genuine relationships with people, not prospects

Missional-incarnational influence in the neighborhood

Discipleship that bites into real life

Healthy community (communitas)

Perhaps more helpful than numbers would be a rubric to help us evaluate each of these areas.

Here's a suggestion for Genuine Relationships from a personal perspective.

-1	I have neighbors, relatives or co-workers that I am "not talking to."
0	I get along with my neighbors, relatives and co-workers.
1	I know the names of my neighbors.
2	I know personal information about my co-workers such as birthday, anniversary, names of family members, hobbies.
3	I have bought a gift for a friend just because I saw something I thought they'd like (not for a specific occasion).
4	I have done a favor for someone anonymously.
5	I have a relationship with a non-relative with whom I spend time at least weakly.
6	I have a relationship with a person who does not attend my church, and we talk about spiritual things
7	I have a relationship with a person who is not a follower of Christ, and we talk about spiritual things.
8	I have a relationship with a person who is an atheist or agnostic and we talk about spiritual things.
9	People frequently ask me to pray for them.
10	I frequently offer to pray for people.
11	I frequently pray for people when we are together and they mention a need.
12	I have non-relatives in my home at least once a month (besides church groups).

This would be more helpful than a raw number. Similar rubrics could be developed for each of the values of missional-incarnational living. Rubrics could also be created for congregational evaluation.

I would be interested in any comments you might have to improve the suggested rubric and any suggestions you might have for other rubrics.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Stubborn Passion

Once again "missional theologian" Tom Peters provides us with an important insight:

[There is] a Very Sensible Saying that I think is pure, unmitigated crap, in fact the World's Worst Advice: "Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em."

As I said ... pure crap.

Forget "fold 'em."

Drop it from your vocabulary.

Excise it.

Bury it.

Stomp on its grave.

If you care, really care, really really care about what you are pursuing, well, then, pursue-the-hell-out-of-it-until-hell-freezes-over-and-then-some-and-then-some-more. And may the naysayers roast in hell or freeze in the Antarctic or bore themselves to death with the sound of their "statistically accurate" advice.

The smart people know when to give up. Most failures have the sense to sulk off and leave the stage to the super stars. But some are too stupid to give up.

Tom shares this paragraph from The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company, by David Price:

One of the curious aspects of Pixar's story is that each of the leaders was, by conventional standards, a failure at the time he came onto the scene. Lasseter landed his dream job at Disney out of college—and had just been fired from it. Catmull had done well-respected work as a graduate student in computer graphics, but had been turned down for a teaching position and ended up in what he felt was a dead-end software development job. Alvy Ray Smith, the company's co-founder, had checked out of academia, got work at Xerox's famous Palo Alto Research Center, and then abruptly found himself on the street. [Steve] Jobs had endured humiliation and pain as he was rejected by Apple Computer; overnight he had transformed from boy wonder of Silicon Valley to a roundly ridiculed has been.

Success is not guaranteed, at least not in the conventional understanding of success. But if we believe in the God of Abraham who "gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were," how can we ever give up?

Triumphalism has distorted our view of the biblical narrative.

We forget that

• Jacob was a scheming cheater.
  
• Gideon was a frightened nobody.
  
• David was an obscure shepherd boy.
  
• Peter was a sniveling coward.
  
• Jesus was a total failure by any human standard.
  

We speed-read through the book of Job until we get to the "pay off":

After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before (Job 42:10).

We see Jesus as a deus ex machina figure who confidently acts out his role wearing his "costume" of "human flesh." Consequently, the crucifixion becomes little more than a theatrical special effect.

The scene in the Garden of Gethsemane fades into a shadowy prequel to the didactic moral: "Nevertheless, not my will but your will be done."

However, if Jesus was "tempted in every way just as we are," he must have experienced uncertainty and even self-doubt.

He endured opposition in ministry, despising the shame of being misunderstood and refused to allow the false expectations of his friends or the false allegations of his enemies to define who he was.

Philip Greenslade, A Passion for God's Story, p. 248

A servant is not greater than his or her master. We must follow the same path, if we are to be genuine disciples.

The way of the cross sometimes leads us into those places where all we can do is hold on. We can't see our way forward, we are confused that God isn't doing what we expect, and we can't see any meaning for all the pain and frustration.

Allen Mitsuo Wakabayashi, Kingdom Come, p. 170

As Tom reminds us:

If you really really really really really care ... then there ain't no time to fold 'em until your last breath is drawn—and even that's too soon if you've bothered along the way to inflame others about your presumed Quixotic cause.

In the (doubtless not) immortal words of Tom Peters: "There's a time to hold 'em and a time to keep on holdin' 'em—if you really really really care."

From a kingdom perspective, it's about more than just passion:

We must always do what we know is right and true before God even if it doesn't seem as if it produces results.

Allen Mitsuo Wakabayashi, Kingdom Come, p. 172

So it's not time to fold 'em, but it's time to go all in.

God's kingdom strategy sometimes feels like a long shot, or even an impossible dream. But he is the God of the unlikely and the impossible.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Rethinking the “Day Off”

My exploration of missional living has led me to rethink the idea of taking a day off from ministry.

One the one hand, missional living must seep into every part of life, or it is not missional living. If we construct levees to hold back the river of ministry to a particular place or a particular time, then we can hardly consider ourselves missional.

Yet Sabbath is a deep value throughout the biblical narrative. The meaning of Sabbath is rooted in the creation account. And Sabbath-keeping became the identifying mark of God's people in the Old Covenant.

(I'm not endorsing Sabbatarianism. As it is typically practiced, I think it misses the point of the Sabbath.)

When we look at the example of our Lord, a "day off" seems entirely out of place.

For example: can you imagine Jesus ever taking a day off from teaching his disciples? He seemed to go out of his way to perform miracles of healing on the Sabbath. He frequently sought out solitude, but we have no indication that he observed any kind of weekly schedule with breaks from "ministry." And when his solitude was interrupted, he did not run people off with some line about it being his "day off" as Messiah.

However, most pastors are too busy and overstressed.

The last thing they need to hear is that they need to be "on" 24 hour per day, seven days a week. Perhaps the idea of being "on" is part of the problem.

It would seem that a pastor needs to discover a way to live that he can maintain indefinitely.

But how can this be done? Ministry too often feels like a job—with a starting time and an ending time. Pastoral families often are neglected (or worse) for the sake of church work. And most pastors can't wait to get time away from their church.

Perhaps part of the problem is that they have "created a church they don't like or wouldn't attend."

Here's one of the dirty secrets of pastoral ministry: We try to get people to participate in activities that we participate in only because it is our job.

Participating in the kingdom should be meaningful, rewarding, enjoyable, life-giving, fulfilling and satisfying.

• If we have to bully people into participating, something is wrong.
  
• If we have to bribe people to get them to participate, something is wrong.
  
• If we have to baby people to keep them participating, something is wrong.
  

But if the pastor doesn't find his ministry meaningful, rewarding, enjoyable, life-giving, fulfilling and satisfying, no one else will.

Yet a missional approach to ministry demands selflessness. It requires us to be other-focused. How does this square with a view of ministry that resembles a vacation in Sicily more than it does working in the coal mine?

Then there's the airplane-oxygen principle. If I am not "taking care of myself," then I cannot be of much help to others.

But does this mean that I should be selfless for six days and then reserve one day to be selfish?

How would I take a day off from ministry without taking a day off from following Christ?

Can I clock out of my calling once a week?

If my calling is "full-time," then my ministry must also be full-time. How, then, does Sabbath fit into full-time ministry?

First, the lives of Jesus' disciples are to be characterized by rest.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:28–29).

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his (Hebrews 4:9–10).

There should be an ease that permeates our lives, including our ministry. We cannot save the world. That is God's job. Even when we are "struggling with all his energy" (Colossians 1:29), our lives should exhibit peace, joy and patience.

Second, many of the things we do to "take care of ourselves" do not deepen our souls and strengthen our spirits. Most of us do not have enough solitude in our lives. Yet when we have a "day off," we fill it with noise and commotion and call it "unwinding."

Third, if our view of ministry is healthy, then we will not feel "entitled" to some time off. Too often we do double-entry bookkeeping with our ministry efforts. We build up a balance of "things for others." Then we draw down that balance in personal indulgence. Ministry should be fully integrated into our lives. Paul says, "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17). If we really understood what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, it would not be possible for us to take a day off from ministry.

Fourth, we need space in our lives. We need space to process our thoughts and our feelings. We need space to speak with our Father. We need space to hear his still, small voice. Busyness, activity and anxiety are the enemy of depth and spiritual health. We need more than a day off from meetings, programs and commotion. We should build solitude and reflection into our schedules. That is something we see Jesus doing regularly.

So here's my plan (for now): I no longer talk about a day off. But I keep my schedule free of most obligations on Mondays. I approach every encounter with others as an opportunity for ministry. (At least that is my goal.) I give myself permission to take a nap if I get tired. I try to do things that I enjoy with others.

We'll see how well this works. So far it seems to be working.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

One-Buttock Leadership

Watch this engaging video of Benjamin Zander at TED. (HT: Rex Miller).

What are the implications for leadership?

• Leaders must stay focused on the vision.
  
• If everything is important, nothing is important.
  
• The leader must stop thinking about every note and concentrate on "the line from B to E."
  
• While the details are necessary, they should not be given too much focus.
  
• A mechanical approach to anything is rarely engaging.
  
• A leader has power only as he or she helps others powerful.
  
• A leader can tell if he or she is awaking possibility in other people if their eyes are shiny.
  
• A leader's success is measured by the number of shiny eyes.
  

A missional leader will stay focused on God's grand story and be surrounded by shiny eyes.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Forgetting to Breathe

It goes without saying that our efforts to promote our individual congregations "are nothing if God isn't working through them."

Kevin Hendricks tells us:

It's like breathing. Life doesn't work so well if we forget to breathe. That's how I see the role of God in church growth--or any of the marketing and communications we talk about.

He reassures us that methods are just methods, as long as we rely on God:

Trying to bring people to Jesus should never be about mindlessly following a set formula. We certainly have to do our part, and that may mean following a standard formula, but we also need to rely on God to work through that formula. Notice that the reliance is on God, not the formula, and as long as we rely on God there's nothing wrong with the formula.

I used to think like this and talk like this.

But I've since repented of my stupidity and my self-delusion.

There are several problems with this kind of thinking.

First, breathing is automatic. Under normal circumstances, people don't need to think about breathing. Relying on God is far from automatic. It requires focus, concentration and a degree of self-discipline. The default attitude is to trust in ourselves and in our "formulas."

Second, methods are not just methods. Every strategy is based upon several assumptions. We often use methods and strategies that are not consistent with the essence of the gospel. For example, motivating people through guilt or pride is an affront to the good news of grace.

Third, this kind of thinking is at its heart based upon the deadly misappropriation of God's mission as our mission. It is not our job to convert people. It is not our job to save the world. It is not our job to build the kingdom. It is God's mission in which he has invited us to participate.

Fourth, we have narrowly defined making disciples as getting people signed up for heaven. We assume that fulfilling the Great Commission is equal to increasing the weekly attendance at our church.

Fifth, this approach easily becomes a cover for ego-driven "ministry." I make all these great plans and ask God to bless them. I use my God-given skills and God-given resources to produce results. I give God credit for what happens. But this ends up being the same as an actor in his Oscar-acceptance speech thanking his parents because "this wouldn't have been possible without you."

Depending upon God and living missionally do not happen automatically.

• All our natural instincts work against us, especially our egos.
• Our materialistic, consumer culture distracts us from focusing on God's kingdom.
• The busyness and stress of "ministry" squeeze out the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit.

Relying on God requires

• Intentionality (The first step must be to intend to trust in God.)
• Commitment (We must practice the spiritual disciplines that will allow the Holy Spirit to produce his fruit in our lives.)
• Focus (We must cut through all the distractions.)
• Trust (We must let go of the feeling that it all depends upon us.)

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

This Is Not Your Father’s World

The hymn "This Is My Father's World" uses an antiquated view of the universe as a poetic device:

This is my Father's world,

And to my listening ears,

All nature sings and round me rings

The music of the spheres.

"The music of the spheres" comes from the idea that the earth was surrounded by rotating, transparent spheres upon which were fixed the sun, moon, stars and planets. And these spheres operated according to ratios similar to those found in reflected in the harmonic scale. No one still believes that the earth is the center of the universe or that the sun rises and sets every day, but we still use that language metaphorically.

The key is that we know this is figurative language. It doesn't shape our actual perception of the world.

Every fifth-grader knows that the geocentric view of the universe was replaced by a heliocentric view. Johannes Kepler then refined the sun-centered model by discovering that the orbits of the planets were ellipses rather than pure circles.

A similar transition has happened in the world of communication.

Marshall McLuhan popularized the phrase, "The medium is the message." The point is that the method we use to communicate is at least as important as the message we think we are transmitting. As new communication media appear, they also shape the culture.

M. Rex Miller has written an analysis of these changes from the perspective of the church. The Millennium Matrix suggests that the way we store and distribute information changes our worldviews.

At the time of Jesus, the culture was oral. This prevailed until the advent of the printing press which gave birth to a print culture. Television ushered in the broadcast culture. Finally, computers and the Internet produced a digital culture.

The book contains a detailed matrix of the various cultures and their characteristics. (A brief PDF version can be found here.) For example, in the oral culture truth is relational. The credibility of a message is based on the credibility of the messenger. In the print culture truth is based on principle. Logic and other tools of deduction are used to verify the message. In the broadcast culture truth becomes existential. The message is validated through experience. In the digital culture truth is contextual. Community tests and validates reality.

We'll return to some other aspects of The Millennium Matrix, but first I want to make clear that this is not a generational analysis.

In 1990, I attended a seminar sponsored by The Church Growth Institute called "How to Reach the Baby Boomer." It was based upon research described in the book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation, by Landon Y. Jones. This seminar had a profound impact on the North American church.

The idea was that Baby Boomers had similar experiences and expectations. Formulas could be devised to reach them with the gospel and to get them involved in attending church. Demographics became an essential tool in church growth. The seeker-driven model was canonized. Consumerism became the focus of church programs and ministries.

This approach was so "successful" that church leaders tried to adapt it to the following generations. Various names were suggested (gen-x, busters, MTV generation, millennials) but none of these really caught on. Furthermore, those who followed the boomers were not as monolithic in their attitudes and experiences. Many of their characteristics were seen as reactions to the values of the boomers.

The church growth industry produced strategies, methods and programs to reach these generations. But something just didn't click. These approaches were not as effective.

Into this milieu came the emerging and missional movements. The resulting confusion has left pastors and denominational officials baffled to this day.

First, they tend to see these movements as identical. Even though there is considerable overlap between the emerging and missional movements, they are significantly different.

Second, they tend to view them as a generational phenomenon. While many of the people who make up these movements are younger, they are not simply expressions of age and shared experiences. In fact, many of the key figures in these movements are boomers.

We now live in a world where generational analyses are less and less useful.

It is important that The Millennium Matrix not be understood as a description of younger generations. It is rather a description of the world in which we all live. Yes, some older people still try to live in the print and broadcast cultures. But we all live in a digital age.

Let's look at the way the oral, print, broadcast and digital ages view leadership.

In the oral culture the leader is a steward. The steward acts as a caretaker for the entire household as a representative of the owner, fulfilling his intentions.

In the print culture the leader is a manager. The manager uses command and control, division of labor, and vertical integration to maximize efficiency and production. The assumption is that people need to be structured and tightly supervised to be productive.

In the broadcast culture the leader becomes the inspirational leader. The focus becomes releasing the potential of individuals.

In the digital culture the leader becomes a facilitator. Management takes on a less definable structure and acts more like a web of collaboration.

The church still seems to be enamored by the larger-than-life leader. (See Joel Osteen.) Yet the digital culture requires something very different:

Congregants in the emerging digital culture are hungry for leaders who are approachable, touchable, accessible, transparent, and real. They want to connect with someone who is unscripted, unrehearsed, and not "on." They want a real person who walks among them, not someone who periodically comes down from the mountain to deliver a prescription for life or platitudes of hype.

M. Rex Miller, The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church, pp. 154–155

The values of these cultures are also different. The oral culture valued reliability. The print culture valued productivity. The dominant value of the broadcast culture is quality. The highest value of the digital culture is creativity.

In the print and broadcast cultures, community is a technique.

Community becomes a strategy, a means to retain the numbers, instead of the end or the purpose from the very outset. That inversion seems to be an inherent trap that many churches focused on numerical growth succumb to.

M. Rex Miller, The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church, p. 260

But in the digital culture, community is the goal.

If what we offer is a weekly experience or presentation that does not raise the urge or provide the opportunity for connection resulting in community, then we might as well take down our label as church and proclaim our facility a house of religious entertainment.

M. Rex Miller, The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church, p. 182

Miller suggests that the church needs to embody eight values in the digital age:

• Agility
  
• Authenticity
  
• Cohesion and balance
  
• Resiliency and forgiveness
  
• Sustainability
  
• Open-endedness
  
• Accessibility
  
• Collaboration
  

This book does not provide the final word on the factors that shape our world and the context in which the North American church finds itself. But it does provide important insights and raises significant questions.

But remember, this is not our Church or our mission. It is God's. We are not charged with saving the world. It is not our job to devise the ideal strategy.

Our responsibility is to be aware of the world in which we live, to be open to the various ways in which God is working in that world, and to be willing to assume the role that God calls us to.

While this is not your father's world, it is your Father's world:

O let me ne'er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the ruler yet.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Regeneration

Here's a poem by 17^th-century Welsh poet Henry Vaughan with a few notes.

Award, and still in bonds, one day

I stole abroad,

It was high-spring, and all the way

Primros'd, and hung with shade;

Yet, was it frost within,

And surly winds

Blasted my infant buds, and sin

Like clouds eclips'd my mind.

Storm'd thus; I straight perceiv'd my spring

Mere stage, and show,

My walk a monstrous, mountain's thing

Rough-cast with rocks, and snow;

And as a pilgrim's eye

Far from relief,

Measures the melancholy sky

Then drops, and rains for grief,

So sigh'd I upwards still, at last

'Twixt steps, and falls

I reach'd the pinnacle, where plac'd

I found a pair of scales,

I took them up and laid

In th'one late pains,

The other smoke, and pleasures weigh'd

But prov'd the heavier grains;

With that, some cried, Away; straight I

Obey'd, and led

Full east, a fair, fresh field could spy

Some call'd it Jacob's Bed;

A virgin-soil, which no

Rude feet ere trod,

Where (since he slept there,) only go

Prophets, and friends of God.

Here, I repos'd; but scarce well set,

A grove descried

Of stately height, whose branches met

And mixed on every side;

I entered, and once in

(Amaz'd to see't,)

Found all was chang'd, and a new spring

Did all my senses greet;

The unthrift sun shot vital gold

A thousand pieces,

And heaven its azure did unfold

Checker'd with snowy fleeces,

The air was all in spice

And every bush

A garland wore; thus fed my eyes

But all the ear lay hush.

Only a little fountain lent

Some use for ears,

And on the dumb shades language spent

The music of her tears;

I drew her near, and found

The cistern full

Of diverse stones, some bright, and round

Others ill'shap'd, and dull.

The first (pray mark,) as quick as light

Danc'd through the flood,

But, th'last more heavy than the night

Nail'd to the center stood;

I wonder'd much, but tir'd

At last with thought,

My restless eye that still desir'd

As strange an object brought;

It was a bank of flowers, where I descried

(Though 'twas mid'day,)

Some fast asleep, others broad-eyed

And taking in the ray,

Here musing long, I heard

A rushing wind

Which still increas'd, but whence it stirr'd

No where I could not find;

I turn'd me round, and to each shade

Dispatch'd an eye,

To see, if any leaf had made

Least motion, or reply,

But while I listening sought

My mind to ease

By knowing, where 'twas, or where not,

It whispered: Where I please.

Lord, then said I, On me one breath,

And let me die before my death!

Enjoy.



Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Rest After Struggle

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "I wouldn't give a fig for the kind of simplicity which exists on this side of complexity, but I would give the whole world for the simplicity that exists on the other side of complexity."

I've thought a lot about my changing views about the role of pastor. I've wondered what I would do differently if I could start all over.

• I'd focus more on people and less on tasks.
  
• I'd resist the pressure to have all the answers.
  
• I'd be more "wasteful" of my time.
  
• I'd learn to enjoy the present and not mortgage it for "someday."
  
• I'd let go of the dream to "make something of myself."
  
• I'd enjoy life more.
  
• I'd worry less about what other people think of me.
  
• I'd be more open to see God working in unconventional ways and in odd places.
  
• I'd be less of a lecturer and more of a poet.
  

The problem is that I'd probably make the same mistakes all over again.

In fact, I wonder if it's possible to get to the proper kind of rest without going through the struggle.

Jacob had to struggle with God before he could quit playing the trickster and receive his blessing as "Israel" (Genesis 32:22–31).

• It is only after we try and fail that we are we ready to listen to a different way.
  
• It is only when we recognize that we are sinners that we are ready to accept a Savior.
  
• It is only when we exhaust all the other options that we are ready to rest in God's grace.
  

One cannot be a poet without experience. It seems that we don't know how to live until we die.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Break the Habit

Len Hjalmarson suggests that churches are fixated on the wrong things. (HT: Brad Brisco). Actually, his point is much stronger than that. He's saying the things we spend all our time and energy on are of no importance.

Here are the things we must let go of:

1. The number of people who come to our church.
   
2. How "relevant" our style of worship is.
   
3. How many new people walk through the doors of our church.
   
4. The size of our building, staff or budget.
   
5. What any other church in the world is doing.

Instead, here are some suggestions for things that really do matter:

1. Actively looking for evidence of God's kingdom wherever that might show up.
   
2. Simple, honest worship.
   
3. Making friends with people who have no interest in our church.
   
4. Giving away money to people who need it.
   
5. "Go[ing] on a unique, unreproducible journey with a group of people and rejoice with other groups of people who do the same."
   

Of course, this would require enormous courage, and a fair amount of faith. We would actually have to start trusting God and seeking his kingdom above all else. We would have to live as if we really believed Matthew 6:33.

That'll never work. Let's just stick to business as usual.

Pastor Rod
"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Just Enough Time

The official song of our culture is "I Need More Time."

We live under the delusion that our problems would all be solved if we just had more hours in each day. There's just not enough time to get everything done. If only we had just a little more time.

But as Parkinson's Law tell us, "Work expands so as to full the time available for its completion."

However, work is not the only thing that expands. If we had more time, we would tend to fill it in the same way that we do the 24 hours we get every day.

We see this dynamic in computer storage capacity. In the past 30 years hard drive capacity has increased by about a factor of 1,000,000:1. But instead of having abundant free space, we've filled up our drives with music, videos and mega-pixel photos. John Dvorak may be an early adopter, but he voices a complaint that we can all indentify with: "I filled a terabyte drive with crap; now I need another terabyte drive."

Besides being metaphysically impossible, manufacturing more time is not the solution.

Enter the GTD cult.

Since we can't have more time, we must get more out of the time we have.

What was once known as time management has now become an entire industry. We have planning notebooks, software, blogs, newsletters and clothing to help us make the most efficient use of the 86,400 seconds that slip through our fingers every day.

Now we are not just overwhelmed with stuff to do, but we also feel guilty because we are not productive enough. We feel the angst of opportunity cost for all the things we should do that we never get to.

This problem is especially bad for pastors and other church leaders. Our "opportunity cost" has eternal consequences.

It's no wonder then that 1500 pastors leave the ministry each month and 50% of all pastors say that they would leave but have no other way of making a living.

So what's the solution?

Clergy renewal centers call us to pay more attention to our own spiritual development:

More than anything, God has called pastors to have an intimate relationship with Him. That must come before the ministry, that must come before the congregation, and that must even come before the family. As you can plainly see from the statistics above, we literally cannot survive in the ministry without taking the time to be with the Lord.

If we, as ministers, don't have an intimate relationship with the Lord, how can we expect to have anything to minister to others? Our congregations don't need yesterday's warmed over breadcrumbs. They need the fresh meat and manna for today. But, you know what? We need that too.

Unfortunately, we pastors tend to hear this as just another thing we should do, another thing that we can't get to. So we try to do more devotional activities and schedule time for retreats. But these good intentions go the way of our diet and exercise plans. Before we know it, we're just as busy as ever—and even more guilt ridden.

There are several things that contribute to this culture of perpetual busyness and constant stress.

Most Protestant congregations have unrealistic expectations for their pastors.

Pastors can NEVER do everything right. If we visit the hospital then we either stay too long or not long enough. When we preach we either are too shallow or too hard to understand. When we are at the office we either need to be in deep study AND also be available for every phone call, e-mail and every random person that happens to drop by. When we walk through the crowd we spend too much time with some people and not enough time with others.

And denominational officials try to "get the most out of" those under their direction.

Abused pastors tend to perceive the denominational office as having a "fire the coach" strategy.

Many of these beaten up pastors (and their abused families) just play the game of "churchical chairs," moving on to a new field every two to three years, only to find the same battles, just with new faces. Tragically, many just give up and walk away from the call that God once placed so vividly upon their lives.

But the main source of stress and pressure is the mindset of the pastors themselves.

Many pastors have a Messiah complex. They have the notion that everything depends upon them. They talk about grace, but they have no experience of grace.

Our culture canonizes workaholics. And ministry workaholics are raised to an even higher level. Overwork is seen as dedication, commitment and sacrifice.

But at the heart of this obsession is ego.

Buried deep in the psyche of many leaders is a Superman mentality—the idea that somehow there are a few of us that can function beyond normal human limitations and save the world. Or at least our little corner of the world. This is a grandiosity that we indulge to our own peril.

Dallas Willard suggests that church leaders need to let go of the illusion that everything depends upon them and to "release the world and [their] fate" to God's care and keeping. But this may be the most difficult challenge these leaders face.

For leaders, a decision to release the world and our fate to God runs contrary to everything within and around us.

Consequently, one of the greatest blessings a pastor can experience is failure.

If we are not very successful in ministry, in whatever way we measure success, then God does not have a hard time getting us out of the way. . . . The burdens of office may have become so heavy that we welcome being bumped aside by Jesus.
Andrew Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, p. 25

Once we resign as Messiah, the true Messiah can take over.

Ministry is no longer about us and our skills. It is now about the real presence of Jesus Christ.
Andrew Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, p. 16

If we feel that we have too much to do, it is a sign that we are not trusting God.

• It is not our job to save people.
  
• It is not our job to change the world.
  
• It is not our job to build the Church.
  

So how do we break the grip of this ego-centered, compulsive, workaholic approach to ministry?

Here's a hint: Exodus 20:10.

The Sabbath for the Israelites had one overriding purpose, to continually remind the people that their future was in the hands of God. They were not allowed to be productive for one entire day every week. They were forced to do nothing.

I'm not advocating the keeping of a literal Sabbath. For many people (e.g. the Pharisees) the keeping of a Sabbath quickly turns into a legalistic obligation.

One of the great dangers in the process of spiritual formation is that self-denial and death to self will be taken as but one more technique or "job" for those who wish to save their life (soul).
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 67

Sabbath-keeping is just one example of the kind of spiritual discipline that reminds us that God is in control and we are not.

Another spiritual discipline that addresses the problem of "grandiosity" is solitude.

Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on your shoulders after all. You will find yourself, and God will find you in new ways. Joy and peace will begin to bubble up within you and arrive from things and events around you.
Dallas Willard, The Great Omission, p. 36

Ironically, the cure for the feeling of not having enough time is to set aside time to do nothing.

Once we assume our proper place in ministry, we begin to realize that we have just as much time as we need. Eventually, we learn to live with the relaxed urgency of Jesus.

Jesus was willing to adjust his personal schedule to give time to anyone who began to follow him. He was accessible, adaptable, and capable of showing love and attention.
Arthur Glasser, Announcing the Kingdom, p. 210

If we give up the job of trying fix everything, then we can take the time to be present to the people around us. And we have all the time we need to be loving and caring to those that God sends across our path. We don't have to solve their problems. We just need to be with them and do what we can with the resources that God makes available to us.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Sour Grapes

In the classic Aesop tale, the fox, unable to obtain a juicy bunch of grapes, convinces himself that he really didn't want them in the first place.

To many, my incessant nattering about the false idol of success will appear to be little more than the whining of a jealous pastor who secretly wants to trade places with a mega-church pastor with a book contract. There is probably nothing that I could do to dispel that perception (except to turn down the offer of a book contract, which I probably wouldn't do).

Let me suggest the possibility that there is really something else going on here.

Pastors are increasingly seen as administrators who must manage by objective, and church growth is thought to be the result of human engineering. We even measure our spirituality by the work we do. This "spirit of human management" is one of the "powers" that we must challenge if we are to recapture a biblical vision of the church and of society.

Paul Hiebert, "The Gospel in Our Culture," in George Hunsberger, The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America, p. 145

The church is being held captive by "the powers" against which we fight (Ephesians 6:2). Contrary to folk interpretation, the armor of God does need protection in the back--to defend against "friendly fire."

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

What is the gospel?

Gospel is one of those words that we think we understand, until we're asked to explain it.

Most people see the gospel as information about how to go to heaven after death.

Some would define the gospel as

the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that provides full and free deliverance from the power and penalty of sin according to the grace of God alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Others would say it this way:

Believe in God. Repent. Be transformed by the teachings of Jesus. Love God. Jesus' death and resurrection shows that we too will be resurrected if we listen to Jesus.

In any case, we have been too individualistic in our understanding of the gospel. It's all about me. Even those who say that it's all about God, turn it into a private, personal matter.

But a close reading of the New Testament would seem to indicate that the gospel is bigger than that. It's about more than just getting signed up for heaven.

Lesslie Newbigin gives us some helpful clues about the nature of the gospel in his posthumous book, Signs amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History:

I think we have used the word "gospel" without giving as much attention as we need to the question of what exactly we mean by that world. We don't mean Christianity. Christianity is what generations of us have made of the gospel, and we know we have often made a mess of it (p. 113).

The gospel tells the story of what happened when the true light came into the world, the only light, the light that shines on every human being, the light in which things are seen as they are and reality is distinguished from illusion. Those who were confident that they see turn out to be blind, and those who knew that they were blind receive their sight. The light shows up the illusions of human wisdom and godliness and political shrewdness. It overturns human confidence that we can know how and where God is at work in the world. It invites us to believe that the victory of God is achieved in the rejection and shame and suffering of the cross (p. 108).

The specific responsibility which has been given to the church and to nobody else is the responsibility to bear witness to the reality of Jesus' victory (p. 115).

Whatever else we do for people—to come to know Jesus, to love Him, to serve Him, to honor Him, to obey Him—that is the greatest thing that we can do for anyone and it is the specific thing entrusted to us. It must be the center of our missions (p. 115).

The announcing of the good news about the Kingdom is empty verbiage if there is nothing happening to make the news credible (p. 99).

Here are some things we can say about what the gospel and what it is not.

• The gospel is not about organized religion or about a private, personal faith.
  
• The gospel is not just about the eternal destinies of individuals.
  
• The gospel is not about recruiting church members.
  

• The gospel cannot be reduced to a simple transaction.
  
• The gospel cannot be reduced to a theory of the atonement.
  
• The gospel cannot be reduced to moral reform.
  

• The gospel is good news for all people everywhere.
  
• The gospel is both now and "not yet."
  
• The gospel is the occasion for great joy.
  

We need to recapture that joy, or, better yet, let the good news capture our hearts and produce its characteristic joy.

Isn't it remarkable that according to the New Testament the whole thing begins with an enormous explosion of joy? The disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God! It seems to me, the resurrection of Jesus was a kind of nuclear explosion which sent out a radioactive cloud, not lethal but life-giving, and that the mission of the church is simply the continuing communication of that joy—joy in the Lord (p. 121).

May we once again experience the gospel as good news.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Stating the Obvious[ly Wrong]

In the command known as the Great Commission, Jesus said, "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Of course, we all know exactly what Jesus meant:

• "Making disciples" means to seek the conversion of individuals.
  
• The goal is to increase the number of Christians.
  
• In order to be baptized, these individuals must repent, which means they must turn away from their sins.
  
• The responsibility of the Church (and individual believers) is to bring unbelievers to a point of decision after presenting them with basic information about the content of the gospel.
  
• After an individual is converted, then he or she learns the commands of Jesus and is encouraged to model his morality.
  
• While both of these steps are important, the most important is conversion because it allows people to get into heaven.
  
• A significant part of this Commission requires us to go (or send others) to other countries.
  
• "All nations" refers to the countries of the world.
  

The problem is that each of these "obvious" facts is wrong.

But our understanding of this Commission has become ingrained in our church culture, and no one asks anymore what it means. Furthermore, many of these assumptions actually get in the way of the Church fulfilling its true mission.

If one regards it as the primary purpose of mission to increase the number of Christians and treats such increase as the criterion of success, without posing all the time the more radical questions which the gospel puts to the common assumptions of our culture, if the dominical call to "repent" is translated as "turn away from your sins" and there is no understanding of that radical overturning of the world's ideas of sin and righteousness and judgment, then there can be rapid church growth; but the very success of the burgeoning congregations may actually incapacitate them for a radical encounter with the culture into which they fit so comfortably. If religion is an affair for the private life, it can flourish in a society governed by other assumptions, taking the characteristic form which we know so well—a series of voluntary societies made up of people who share the same religious tastes. In that form Christianity can flourish, but it cannot challenge the beliefs that control public life. It has been co-opted into the culture.

Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, p. 91.

Besides, the advancement of the kingdom is not the Church's mission. It is God's mission:

Mission, then, is not essentially a human activity undertaken by the church and its leaders out of obligation to the Great Commission, gratitude for what God has done for us, and the desperate plight of the world. It is God's own mission in which we are invited to participate.

Stephen Seamands, Ministry in the Image of God, p. 161

So what is the mission of the Church?

The Christian mission is thus to act out in the whole life of the whole world the confession that Jesus is Lord of all.

Leslie Newbigin, The Open Secret, p. 17

This requires deep knowledge of God and more than a passing familiarity with the culture in which a particular congregation finds itself. It is God's embassy in a particular community.

The business of the church is to tell and to embody a story, the story of God's mighty acts in creation and redemption and of God's promises concerning what will be in the end. The church affirms the truth of this story by celebrating it, interpreting it, and enacting it in the life of the contemporary world. It has no other way of affirming its truth. If it supposes that its truth can be authenticated by reference to some allegedly more reliable truth claim, such as those offered by the philosophy of religion, then it has implicitly denied the truth by which it lives.

Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence, p. 76

So what do you think? Do you still agree with some of the "obvious facts"? Are there other "obvious facts" that you'd like to debunk?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Mission of the Triune God

In an unpublished essay at www.Newbigin.net, Lesslie Newbigin writes:

We are not engaged in an enterprise of our own choosing or devising. We are invited to participate in an activity of God which is the central meaning of creation itself. We are invited to become, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, participants in the Son's loving obedience to the Father. All things have been created that they may be summed up in Christ the Son. All history is directed towards that end. All creation has this as its goal. The Spirit of God, who is also the Spirit of the Son, is given as the foretaste of that consummation, as the witness to it, and as the guide of the Church on the road towards it. The Church is not promised success; it is promised the peace of Christ in the midst of tribulation, and the witness of the Spirit given out of the Church's weakness and ignorance. For the future it has Christ's promise: it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. And for the present it has His assurance: Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Each branch of the Church has its own idea of what that mission should be. But these ideas quickly become proprietary and "parochial." Furthermore, organizational survival replaces this mission in practice.

The power to accomplish this mission does not come from the wealth, power or influence of the Church. It comes from the Holy Spirit. And this power works through the "weakness and ignorance" of the Church.
Christ won his victory through apparent defeat. If we are serious about following in the way of the cross, we will trust in him rather than in our own success.

Pastor Rod
"Helping You Beecome The Person God Created You to Be"

Christian Political Action

As followers of Jesus Christ, what should be our role in politics?

Jesus called us to be in the world but to avoid becoming part of it. The way of Christ is the way of the cross—victory through weakness. The accumulation of earthly power seems contradictory to Christian discipleship.

Yet we are called to participate in the advancement of God's kingdom, seeing his will done on earth as it already is in heaven.

In a series of lectures in Bangalore, India, given in 1941, Lesslie Newbigin asserted

I do not see how the Christian can avoid concerning himself with politics. Love to men, and the fundamental obligation to seek everywhere to create true fellowship, cannot be made effective except over a very small range of life, without invoking political means. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, p. 53

He reminded the audience that the kingdom cannot be produced by human effort. It can only come by God acting in history. But we have been given the privilege of participating in that kingdom.

While political participation is necessary, it is not without its difficulties.

Politics never allows us to choose exactly our own way, but compels us to decide between a very small number of politically possible alternatives. This means, therefore, that Christians taking part in politics always find themselves working with people who are not Christians and [who] do not share their motives or their ultimate aims. It is this that creates the extreme tension which is always involved in Christian political action. That tension cannot be avoided. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, pp. 53–54

This means that we can never align ourselves with a political party, or even a political candidate.

We must never lose sight of our true goal. We are not seeking to establish a human-centered utopia. All those efforts seem to end in tragedy and exploitation. Our true goal is the perfect community of the New Jerusalem.

Our goal is the holy city, the New Jerusalem, a perfect fellowship in which God reigns in every heart, and His children rejoice together in His love and joy. To that we look forward with sure hope, and for its sake we offer up to God all that we do in response to His invitation to love our neighbor as we ourselves have been loved. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, p. 55

At the same time, we realize that the goal will never be accomplished by us. This true community always remains just out of our grasp. In fact, the forces of evil seem to grow in strength at the same time that God's kingdom spreads.

And though we know that we must grow old and die, that our labors, even if they succeed for a time, will in the end be buried in the dust of time, and that along with the painfully won achievements of goodness, there are mounting seemingly irresistible forces of evil, yet we are not dismayed. We do not need to take refuge in any comfortable illusions. We know that these things must be. But we know that as surely as Christ was raised from the dead, so surely shall there be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, p. 55

But this does not lead us to despair and passivity. On the contrary, we act with hope and purpose.

A Christian is one who, through Christ, has been reconciled with God who is the King. God's rule is operative in his heart, through gratitude to Christ. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. His gratitude impels him to acts of love towards men, but he also acts in hope—hope of the final completion of God's Kingdom in a perfected fellowship. Even though his actions may all seem to be failures as far as visible effectiveness is concerned, he commits them to God as his thank offering. In the sure hope that they will not be lost. And by faith, the substance of things hoped for, he now possesses in his heart a foretaste of the joy of that perfected Kingdom in which God's purposes shall be complete. Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, pp. 52–53

Christianity is not a private, personal thing. It is public and universal. It is good news for all people everywhere. At is very core, Christianity is political. The claim, "Jesus is Lord," has distinct political implications. As followers of Christ, we participate in his war against the "powers."

But we must never forget that it is God's kingdom and his mission.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

The Prince goes to church

A Machiavellian Primer on Church Growth

• The greatest moral good is the preservation of the church (denomination).
  
• Any actions to preserve the church (denomination), no matter how cruel, are always justified.
  
• The only real concern of the pastor (denominational leader) is the acquisition and maintenance of power.
  
• The pastor (denominational leader) must do whatever is necessary to keep his power.
  
• The pastor (denominational leader) should seek to be feared and loved, but it is more important to be feared than to be loved.
  
• During a siege a pastor (denominational leader) will "keep the morale of his subjects high while removing all dissenters."
  
• The authority of the organization must be supported by a show of power that makes obedience inevitable.
  
• While the pastor (denominational leader) comes to power by his own initiative, skill and talent, it is useful to convince others that he is under divine appointment.
  
• Most followers do not want freedom. They want security. The few who want freedom can be bought off with honors or eliminated.
  
• A pastor (denominational leader) must contrive to earn for himself the reputation of a great leader.
  

It may seem to some that these principles are extreme. But let me reassure you that they are practiced in many places within the western church. While they are never stated so explicitly, these principles are currently being taught in leadership books and seminars.

Just as sports fans are ultimately responsible for the absurdly high salaries of star athletes, consumer Christians are complicit in maintaining this situation. They flock to the church or denomination that has the most visible trappings of success. They ignore the machinations of the leaders because "they are doing so much good."

God have mercy on us.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

He Gets It, He Really Gets It

I hear people using the word "missional" as if it is a style of ministry or a new technique of church growth.

Very few have any idea what the concept is. But here's a guy who gets it. And he's not even a pastor.

It's real easy to love The People. It's much more difficult, much more challenging, much more exhausting, much more a test of the heart to love actual people: The people who work for you. The people in your home. The people who slip you a heart-rending note when you're getting ready to impress The People.

Ministry is loving people you didn't handpick.

So here's to those with pastoral hearts, who love each inconvenient human around them -- each person who offers nothing but a mess. Blessed are those pastors, for theirs is not an ego trip.

May his tribe increase!

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"