My apologies for my hiatus from blogging. My planned hiatus was followed by an unplanned one. You know how it is when you have a discipline that you stay out of for a while. It's tough to start the discipline again.
Anyway, this week, Andy Backus and I are at the Together for the Gospel Conference. This year's theme is Together for the Underestimated Gospel. I'll be blogging my notes for the sessions, so stay tuned for updates!
This was too good to keep to myself. From Mark Batterson's The Circle Maker:
With God, there is no big or small, easy or difficult, possible or impossible. This is difficult to comprehend because all we've ever known are the four dimensions we were born into, but God is not subject to the natural laws He instituted. He has no beginning and no end. To the infinite, all finites are equal. Even our hardest prayers are easy for the Omnipotent One to answer because there is no degree of difficulty.
Talk about your deep theological truths.
The first cathedrals were built as instruments of worship. They were intended to honor God through their excellence—as He deserves the best we can offer—and to inspire awe through their grandeur—reminding visitors of the greatness of God.*
Today we often view things like cathedrals as frivolous. It seems almost obscene to spend so much time, money, and effort on a building when there is such great need in the world. Shouldn't we rather care for the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and advocate for the voiceless?
Yes, we must do these. If there's one thing that my generation of Christ followers has done better than my parents' generation, it's just that.
But in Scripture we read the story of a woman who takes a bottle of perfume worth a year's wages and pours it over Jesus' head. When those around object that the money should rather have been used to help the poor, Jesus tells them to "Leave her alone" and asks "Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me."
"She has done a beautiful thing to me."
She met no tangible need, served no practical purpose.
And yet Scripture says:
She did a beautiful thing... to Jesus... the Son of God... Creator of all that exists.
God: big, mysterious, powerful, holy, faithful, wrathful, sovereign, merciful, beautiful, jealous, love...
...and because of all of those things, worthy. He is worthy of a jar of ointment worth a year's wages. He is worthy of grand monuments. He is worthy of being worshiped with extravagance and seeming frivolity.
I fear this may be something that my generation has forgotten. We've elevated our acts of service and unrooted them from a profound understanding of the magnitude of our Creator and our primary purpose in life: to glorify the Almighty.
We've made our God small enough that small acts of worship are sufficient.
NCC spent last summer exploring nine attributes of God's character. We preached sermons on them. We discussed them in our small groups. We sang original music about them.
When the summer was over we held a church-wide event (no small feat when you're one church with seven locations) where we worshiped in song with the pieces that our musicians had written, and we recorded the event in order to produce a live album.
It was a huge undertaking. The amount of staff time that went in to writing the songs and orchestrating the event was incredible. The amount of money that was spent renting facilities and equipment, hiring production staff, and paying music producers was significant.
There have been times when I've asked myself, "Was it really worth it? Was it really worth all of the time and money and headache to record some songs?"
But what I've come to realize is that these aren't just "some songs." This album is a modern day cathedral. It is an alabaster jar of ointment.
These songs were written by our worship leaders—people who are committed to excellence in their craft—assisted by our discipleship staff—people who are concerned that we speak truthfully and accurately about God. They were performed by our mostly volunteer musicians who gave up a great deal of their summer to practice. They were sung by our congregation who spent their summer learning about and reflecting on the attributes of God in light of the studies led by our small group leaders and the sermons delivered by our teachers.
People gave their best to create their best music, their best art, to glorify God as best as they could.
It was an extravagant act of worship, undertaken because God is worthy of extravagance.
The album releases next week. I'd encourage you to visit this modern day cathedral.
*I recognize that many cathedrals were built with mixed, if not outright wrong, motives. However, I believe that many cathedrals were built with the intention of bringing God glory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_cathedrals,_basilicas_and_abbey_churches#cite_ref-Wim_4-1
http://clioseye.sfasu.edu/Archives/Student%20Reviews%20Archives/gothic%20cathedrals.htm
http://bit.ly/v1WiVW
Last night my small group was at my house until nearly 11 PM, and my co-leader didn't leave until 11:40. We had wrapped up the group around 9:00, but as people sat around the circle chatting, two of the group members began to talk about a play they had seen over the weekend, "A Bright New Boise." As they related the story, it paints a picture of Evangelical Christians as people who disengage from the world because they're really only concerned about getting to Heaven.
This began a conversation about how well (or not) this stereotype represents the American Church, role of faith and works, the Church's response to homosexuality, the need to serve the poor, the tendency for a purely social gospel to replace the Gospel, the need to love others, whether ongoing sin will cause someone who believes in Jesus to go to hell, the problems with faith as our parents practiced it, the blind spots of our generation of Christians, and the perception of the Church by those who are not a part of it.
As I sat there listening and participating, there was a moment when I remembered and rediscovered why I do what I do, why I lead small groups, why I help others organize and lead small groups. I help create environments where conversations like this can happen. I help create environments where people can wrestle with their faith, where they can figure out what it means to live out their faith, where they can disagree and still walk away as friends.
It was a rich conversation. It was the sort of conversation that is worth its weight in gold. The feeling is much the same feeling as giving your all on the soccer field or the basketball court with a team of friends. It was challenging, draining, and invigorating all at the same time.
It was discipleship. It was community. It was theology.
It was life-giving.
The challenge now is to make sure it translates into life-change.
Four years ago I joined Twitter.
Three-and-a-half years ago I started a blog.
Three years ago God taught me a big lesson in humility.
Sometime in the last 18 months I forgot it.
I began to focus on my own personal success. I wanted to be one of the cool pastors, speaking at conferences and writing books. I've been using Twitter and this blog and twitter to grow my platform and increase my influence. I've wanted to meet people simply because they were influential and could help me further my career.
At some point I became more focused on the number of people following me than the number of people following Christ
Five weeks ago God began convicting me of my pride.
Rachel and I were on vacation in Seattle, and we visited Mars Hill Church. The sermon that week was based on Luke 22:24-30, wherein the disciples begin arguing about which of them is the greatest.
Mars Hill is preaching through the book of Luke over the course of two years, and I just happen to be on vacation in Seattle the weekend they preach on pride? I guess you could chalk it up to coincidence.
The previous weekend we began a sermon series at NCC called "The Three Headed Dragon" in which the first sermon addressed—you guessed it—the sin of pride.
So two weekends in a row I hear two sermons on pride from two different pastors on opposite sides of the country?
God was trying to tell me something, something I really didn't want to hear.
In his sermon at Mars Hill Mark Driscoll posed seven questions that we can ask ourselves to help us determine if we're pursuing Godly greatness or worldly greatness. I think the last one was the most convicting.
Would you rather achieve a status or make a difference?
Would you rather have a real impact or just get noticed, have the title, the promotion, the recognition?
I realized that I wasn't sure I could honestly answer that question the way it should be answered.
What a fun thing to think about on the first day of vacation, huh?
As our vacation continued I began to question if maybe I needed to give up blogging for a while, but thought "I can't do it now. The Catalyst conference is coming up, and I need to be able to make connections and get more blog readers and Twitter followers while I'm there."
And so I didn't do it, and I went into Catalyst more focused on making connections than listening for what God wants to do in my ministry.
But these thoughts, this idea of fasting from my blog, stuck with me, and God has a way of breaking through.
The first day at Catalyst I went to a session by Michael Hyatt on the heart of a leader, and God went to work on my heart.
Suddenly Catalyst became not primarily about making connections and not even primarily about my ministry. It became about the condition of my own heart. And as I listened to speaker after speaker God continued to show me not how I could use their messages to change my ministry but rather how I could use them to change my heart.
Tied in with all of this is an awareness that over the past few months I have become more judgmental, hypercritical, and less happy. I've been getting angry far to easily and far too often. It's hard to explain exactly how this is related to my pride and desire for self-promotion, but it is.
At the end of Catalyst they asked us to write down two things that we needed to take away from the conference. I wrote:
And so in an effort to combat my pride and soften my calloused heart, I have made the decision to take a step back from Twitter and blogging for a while, as they have been two of the biggest outlets for my pride.
Deciding to give them up started as a very difficult decision but after being made became a very obvious one. Even though I haven't actually begun the fast, just making the decision is already changing my heart. I've started having all of these ideas for new blog posts, but rather than my primary motivation to write them being to draw attention to myself, I genuinely want them to to help others learn and grow.
Alas, those posts will have to wait for another time, as I'll be off of Twitter and blogging for about a month. At that point I plan to re-evaluate the condition of my heart and see if I need to continue the fast.
During these weeks I'll be putting a renewed emphasis on growing my relationship with Christ, and I'll probably write some stuff that you guys won't see for a little while. I might even tackle a couple of projects that have been rolling around in my head. I'd covet your prayers during this period.
If you typically talk with me on Twitter and want to get in touch with me, just drop a comment here, and I'll shoot you an e-mail. I'll also still be on Facebook, so you can hit me up there.
While this is the story of my struggle with pride, I'd encourage you to use it as an opportunity to examine your own heart and motivations. Ask yourself those seven questions I mentioned, and if my story sounds like your story, fight the battle with pride now. The longer you wait the more damage it will do.
In our staff meeting this week, the National Community Church team reviewed some of our personal highlights from Catalyst 2011: Be Present. There's some good stuff in here that I thought was worth sharing. Most of these are my paraphrase of someone else's paraphrase of a speaker.
Thanks to Mike, Steph, Chris, Juliet, Jennifer, Sarah, Matt, Andy, Heather, Christina, Jeremy, Joel, Dave, Maegan, Amanda, Amanda, Emily, Jason, and Kurtis for sharing their hearts and to Pastor Mark for opening up the dialogue.
Hope you found these helpful. If you want to take a look at what the speakers said, I've got notes from the main sessions and labs.
Just had a post featured on Pastors.com:
It was a rainy day in Los Angeles, as it often is that time of year, and as I sped along in the left lane I hit a pool of standing water and began to hydroplane. I let up off the gas, but it was too late. I spun backwards across four lanes of traffic before slamming into the concrete barrier along the right shoulder.
This morning I came across this passage in Lamentations:
Your prophets have seen for you
false and deceptive visions;
they have not exposed your iniquity
to restore your fortunes,
but have seen for you oracles
that are false and misleading.
-Lamentations 2:14
As a pastor I'm sometimes called upon to have difficult conversations about the sin in someone's life. I know the Church has taken a lot of flack for being too judgmental, but I really don't like this part of my job.
So sometimes I avoid doing it.
But Lamentations 2 is all about how destruction has come to Jerusalem, and it lays the blame squarely on the shoulders of the prophets of Israel.
Which then made me wonder if I too often avoid dealing with the sin of those under my care. Will the people I pastor be destroyed because I have failed to expose their iniquity?
And then we remember that when Christ came he ushered in a new priesthood, a priesthood of all believers.
And if we truly believe that, we realize that it is not only the pastor's responsibility to confront sin—although a pastor certainly bears an extra responsibility—but rather it is the charge of all mature believers to confront sin and walk with those who are struggling.
But we cannot end before looking at the next line, or else we'll miss the whole point.
Why do we need to expose inquity?
"[T]o restore your fortunes."
We don't confront sin with a judgmental attitude, with a holier-than-thou attitude, with an air of superiority. We confront sin out of love in an effort to help bring them closer to the loving Father.
Who do you need to have a difficult conversation with?
If you're already confronting sin, are you doing it out of love to bring restoration?
Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.
And that is the point from which Eric Foley begins his tome: The Whole Life Offering – Christianity as Philanthropy. As God loves humans with all of Himself, He in turn calls us to mirror that love to the world with all of our selves.
Philanthropy as we so often know it–in which a wealthy benefactor writes a check from afar in an attempt to solve a problem or salve his own conscience–is not truly philanthropy at all.
Rather, philanthropy (literally love of men) is the love that God has for mankind, a philanthropy that brings the benefactor (God) into the lives of the recipients (mankind) in an intimate and sacrificial way. It is this sort of philanthropy, this sort of love, that we are called to.
There are ten ways, ten Works of Mercy, in which Christ shows his love to us and that we in turn are to reflect His love to the world:
Key here is the understanding that these are not to be discreet acts of service but part of a life that is being conformed to the image and likeness of Christ.
The point is not to keep a checklist: “I shared my bread last week. I opened my home the week before that. Thursday I am going to visit people in the hospital. Sunday afternoon is the evangelism outreach.” And so on.
Quite the contrary, “Growing to fullness in Christ does not mean filling one’s calendar with more and more projects in each Work of Mercy. In fact, it typically involves doing less: as one grows in a given Work of Mercy, one moves away from experiencing it as a discrete project. It gradually becomes a part of who one is” (19)
Foley also identifies seven Works of Piety in which each Work of Mercy must be grounded:
Without these we are not practicing true philanthropy, not true growing and giving of self in the way that Christ gave of himself. Without them we are practicing discreet good deeds, likely undertaken for the crass reasons of worldly philanthropy mentioned above.
“In Christianity-as-philanthropy, the donor, not the donation, is the offering. … The focus of philanthropy is on who one is and what one is becoming as one makes the donation. According to Paul in Romans 12, each person is a living sacrifice. As a result, how and why one makes a gift becomes far more important than what one gives.” (11)
Without the Works of Piety we will feed the hungry and house the homeless, but we will not, as Isaiah calls us to do, “divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house.” (58:7 NASB)
This is the radical life to which Scripture calls us, not merely to ensure that people are cared for but to care for them ourselves, to open our lives to those in need in order to reflect God’s love into the world.
I found myself resonating with much of what Foley said. It is a call to radical discipleship, to costly grace, as Bonheoffer put it. It paints a picture of a person who is being formed into the likeness of Christ, the God-man who got his hands dirty with saints and sinners, who wasn’t afraid to enter into the mess of life to bring love and restoration.
The only major issue I take with the content of the book is that Foley seems to leave little to no place for specialization within the body of Christ. He would say that each Christian is called to equally participate in each Work of Mercy (7), while I would contend that God gives particular gifts to particular individuals in order to better glorify Himself and advance the Kingdom.
While the content is superb, it is presented quite poorly. The book is too long, relies too heavily on quotations, and is unnecessarily dense, routinely using five dollar words where five cent words would have sufficed.
In short, it is a book of great content but poor writing. I’d rate the content a nine out of ten but the writing a three out of ten. I’m not sure whether to recommend it, so I’ll just say: read at your own risk.
Andy's books include the newly released The Grace of God, as well as Communicating for a Change, Making Vision Stick, Next Generation Leader, The Principle of the Path, and How Good is Good Enough? Andy lives in Alpharetta, Georgia, with his wife, Sandra, and their three children.
I think this is one of the most important things as it relates to leadership, especially as it relates to church leadership. And it’s overlooked because it’s intimidating. And the younger you are the more intimidating it is to you.
It’s something that the last generation of Church leaders and maybe the current generation of Church leader hasn’t done very well./Je
The Church is the hope of the world.
Luke 5 – How did Matthew get to be one of Jesus’ disciples? Jesus selected him.
Luke 6 – Jesus calls his disciples to him and chooses the apostles. So how did the rest of them get to be apostles? Jesus selected them.
Some of you would be tempted to say, “That’s not fair.” But I think Jesus would have said, “That’s not fair.”
If we’re not careful, we’re going to make the same mistake the previous generation did.
I want to talk about the word apprenticing.
We started North Point Church several years ago, and we spent hours and hours and hours talking about what the values of our church would be. We asked what our strategy would be for developing leaders.
The single focused strategy for developing leaders in our congregation is “intentional apprenticing.”
You can be an accidental apprentice, but our whole leadership strategy was going to be intentional apprenticing.
It seems unfair. And even among the 12 there were the three, and there had to be times when they said, that’s not fair.
Jesus decided he wanted to be around to see it work without him. Even if you started the church, you’re not going to be around forever. Someday, someone is going to take your place, your job. Most people say, “No, I’m not going to be around.”
That’s a perfectly good answer in the marketplace, but not in the church. If Jesus did it, I think that’s something we should pay attention to.
Churches almost always ignore this principle. W’ere too busy to apprentice. We’re too insecure to apprentice. And when you’re young, you think the people who are younger than you are too young to do what you do.
And we completely miss the idea of handing off what was handed to us in better shape than it was handed to us.
We do lots of training. We do lots of leadership training, but this is different. This is, “I want you, and you and you, and I don’t want the rest of you.”
This is not a talk about succession planning. Jesus picked his successors. He only had three years, and he was the son of God. I’m not finding the next person to have your actual job. I’m talking about being intentional about pouring into the leaders coming along behind you.
At every point along the way, if you are a professional church person, your responsibility and my responsibility is to look behind us and point to specific people and pour into them, not because some day they will have my job but because at some point they will be in a similar place.
This is what kills apprenticing. If you wait until you feel like you’re an expert, you will never, ever do this.
If you ever get to a point you feel thoroughly equipped, you’re arrogant. Leaders are constantly learning, and if you’re constantly learning, you’re always aware of what you don’t know. There’s something on the inside of you that says you are not ready.
Which means if you are in this room and feel that way, you are prepared. If you wait until you feel like you’re ready, you will never, ever do it.
This is where we get hung up.
This is what the current generation hasn’t done for some of you.
Your responsibility is to empty your cup. We think our responsibility is to fill someone else’s cup. You’re not that good.
If they become as good as I am or better than I am (which is actually the goal), what am I going to do?
Do you know how it lights me up as a leader and pastor when someone pours themselves out to the point that their apprentices can replace them.
If you’re worried about being kicked out if you pour into someone who replaces you, put your resume out.
Suddenly your impact will be felt in new places.
We started group crazy. We spent tons of money on it.
People are always volunteering to be in my small group. I handpicked people and said, “This is what a small group is supposed to be like.”
And then after 8-12 months we helped them form their own groups.
It’s amazing to see how many of those leaders that we apprenticed are now leaders in community groups at our church.
The same with our communicators. I love meeting with our communicators. I love pouring into them. When they’re preaching, it’s like I’m preaching at 3-4 locations without the use of video screens.
You know why our churches are so full of old people? Nothing against old people. I want to be one. Old people complain there are no young people. The problem is they wouldn’t let young people do anything. You know why? Because they’re not ready. Well whose supposed to make them ready.
Anytime someone blames the next generation, they’ve abdicated leadership.
We have three teenagers. The best thing we’ve ever done in our church is a program called Student Impact. It allows 6th graders to volunteer in a children’s small group. The great thing about 6th graders is that no one has told them they can’t do it. No one has told them they’re not an expert. When you put them in a circle with children, they don’t know any better but to show up and lead a small group. When the little kids are promoted, we just promote the middle schoolers with them, and suddenly they have a relationship with those kids. And our high school students help lead the middle school groups. And they haven’t been told they’re not mature enough. Last year 101 students in high school left our student ministry who had been with their kids in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade because no one told them they couldn’t do it. And now the first thing they do is go off to college, find a church, and want a group.
You know what we’re teaching high school kids in our church, it doesn’t matter how old, mature, or smart you are, if you are one step ahead, you have something to offer.
I am overwhelmed.
My mom is over for dinner one Saturday, and she has a medical emergency, and I’m not preaching the next day. So we decided I’m not going to church the next day. So my kids get dressed for church and tell us they’re going because they have to lead their small groups. I looked at Sandra, and said, I love my church. Don’t tell them they’re not ready.
I don’t have to be an expert, and I don’t have to know everything.
There is no curriculum. If there’s a curriculum, it’s not apprenticing. It’s a class.
You don’t even have to tell someone you’re apprenticing them, it’s often a bad idea.
hire young, and hire smart. You need to hire people who are smarter than you, who might intimidate you a little bit, who will blow past you in no time, because the Church is worth it.
This is almost the whole thing. This is incredibly important.
Invite people to participate with you in tasks that are part of your job description even if they don’t work in your department or don’t share your job description. Just make sure whenever possible you don’t work alone.
If you’re interviewing someone, don’t interview them alone. Invite someone younger. It doesn’t matter if you’re not good at it. You don’t want to expose your weakness and insecurity.
This generation is afraid of engaging in the local church, because we’ve made it big and spooky.
Don’t budget alone. Invite someone into that. Find the brightest person.
Don’t produce alone, plan alone, design alone, create alone. Do things alone as little as possible. Invite people in.
This is where preferential treatment is preferred. You can’t do this with the whole church.
I have a friend Tim who is a federal judge. A federal judge is like a mini-God. I went to lunch with him the other day and walked into his office. There are these three twenty-somethings in his office sitting on the couch with notepads. He’s talking to these attorneys who are about to bring a case before him. And there’s a stenographer taking notes. So he finishes up, spins around, and asks the kids on the couch what they learned. They’re interns.
In the church, here’s how we do it. We send them outside and whisper to each other.
I bet there are opportunities to pour into the lives of your staff and the people around you because we work alone.
Show them what you do. It may not be the best way. They may have a thousand other ideas.
Here’s your assignment, it’s simple: Replace yourself.
Who’s the sharpest young leader on your staff? What could you begin doing to empty your cup into theirs? You look at them and know they’re sharp. What can you begin to do now? You don’t need to set up any formal relationship. What can you begin to do now to pour into their lives.
Success is not measured by how capable you are at handling your responsibilities. Success is measured by whether or not you leave your responsibilities in capable hands.
Someday, somebody is going to be doing what you’re doing. Wouldn’t it be fun to be around to see it?
Leave the next generation more equipped than you are.
