Leadership

By Adam Gustine

Recently, I have seen a slew of blog posts and twitter updates from pastors, both high and low profile, who have said something like, “I’m down on Christians who ____”, or “I can’t stand Christians who ______.”

This isn’t the, oftentimes, intense online dialogue between church leaders who hold differing views. Passionate critique and dialogue between ministry leaders can be helpful (although we cross a lot of lines here too).

These are pastors taking aim at ordinary Christians. Presumably, people in their community. I don’t know if you have noticed this trend or not, but it seems to be jumping out at me more and more. Sometimes it is explicit condemnation, other times it is a harsh, angry tone that seems to betray the same inner feeling.

From what I can tell, the Christians these leaders are ‘down on’ are the ones who simply ‘don’t get it.’ The ones who have embraced legalism instead of grace, the ones who value tradition rather than the Spirit of God at work today, the ones whose character does not reflect the fruit of the Spirit.

But I have a few questions: What does it say about our character when we are willing to publicly insult or condemn someone, particularly someone who is part of the community of faith? How does this give evidence to the fruit of the Spirit in our lives? What is it doing to our souls as pastors when we publish the fact that we are ‘down’ on fellow believers?

Now, I am the first to admit that frustration seems to be part of the pastoral vocation. People who don’t see things the way you do, or have the same vision for the church, or who aren’t open to new or fresh approaches to being the church can create a lot of disappointment.

But it seems to me that if every Christian ‘got it’ there wouldn’t be much need for pastors. If we didn’t struggle with sinful self-centeredness, there wouldn’t be much need for grace either. So should the fact that people struggle to live faithfully surprise us?

The longer I reflect on this trend, and, quite frankly, my own heart, I find myself challenged by two insights that we should always keep in front of us as pastors.

1. Community is not an ideal.

It seems to me that at the root of many of these public attacks (that is what they are, after all, subtle as they may, or may not, be) is disappointment in the unrealized ideal of Christian community. A particular pastor is passionate to see the community he/she is a leader within become more faithful, to see more people come to a deeper understanding of grace and love. This is honorable.

However, the fruit of such a passion oftentimes is not. To this end, I am reminded of the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Life Together.

He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren.

I think this is an accurate diagnosis of the root problem. As pastors we tend to gravitate toward, and think highly of Christians who ‘get it’ like we do. Those who don’t get it, well it would be better if they weren’t around. Those are the Christians in the crosshairs of our venom. Bonhoeffer points out, that even our judgmental pretension can come from decent intentions. But at the core it is fatally flawed.

This leads me to the second insight; this time from Eugene Peterson.

1. Our job as pastors isn’t to fix people, its to lead them to worship God.

Eugene Peterson reflects on his own experience in pastoral ministry, and the constant struggle pastors have in this regard.

I suddenly realized that I was gradually becoming more interested in dealing with my congregation…as problems to be fixed rather than as members of the household of God to be led in the worship and service of God….I was slipping into the habit of identifying and dealing with my congregation as problems, reducing them to problems that I might be able to do something about.

By reducing them to problems to be fixed, I omitted the biggest thing of all in their lives, God and their souls, and the biggest thing in my life, my vocation as pastor.

When we take to public criticism of our congregation, I think that we have reduced the people of God to problems for the fixing. Maybe the frustration that spills out into the blogsphere stems from our anger that we haven’t, as of yet, figured out how to find the solution to the ‘problem’ people in our community. Perhaps, we find the rant to be therapeutic for our fragile egos that so often feel as though we ought to be able to have an answer for everything; we ought to be able to solve every problem, and we have decided that problem is a person(s).

In doing so, we have utterly missed the point. God is wooing people to himself, we are driving them away. Unfortunate indeed.

I am struck by how often these pastor’s public statements invoke Jesus public statements against stale religion and legalistic ritual. It seems we use Jesus condemnation of the Pharisees, and pharisaical religiosity, to go after people in our church.

But, while it is true that Jesus was not a fan of ritual religiosity, isn’t it accurate to say that his public condemnation was for the religious leaders themselves; who used their expertise, authority and power to oppress the ordinary person; the leaders who had a very narrow definition of what true belief looked like in practice and used that narrow definition to control people and get them to submit to their religious agenda?

When we make public pronouncements about ordinary people and their faith and criticize them for their failures and create division by defining the people who get it and applauding them over against the people who don’t; aren’t we doing the same thing? Who is the Pharisee in this equation? I’ve come to think Jesus might have stronger words for us than for the people we are so fixated on.

There is a difference between calling people to faithfulness through the proclamation of God’s Kingdom from within a particular community…and taking potshots in the blogosphere.

I don’t speak as one who has conquered this in my own heart. The trends I’m seeing are at work in my life, the same way I’m sure that they are lurking just around the corner for most pastors. I’m sure I’ve transgressed in this area, and I’m sure I will again. In fact, the longer I have reflected on this, the more I see my need for repentance.

In times like this, I’m thankful for the reminders from men like Bonhoeffer and Peterson. I’m thankful that they saw/see it better than I do, that there are more charitable and grace-filled voices that call us into our true vocation as shepherds within the community of God.

And I’m REALLY thankful God doesn’t log every way in which I fail to ‘get it’ and write blog posts about it…

Adam Gustine is senior pastor at First EFC in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow Adam on Twitter here.

by Ben Sternke of Christ Church in Ft. Wayne, IN.

Over the past few years I’ve spent a lot of time looking into church planting practices, approaches, methods, etc. I’ve also been looking at the mission context we’re working in here in Fort Wayne, listening to the Spirit, and learning about how I am wired as a leader.

One of the practices I’ve come across is that of organizing a church as a network of mid-sized missional communities (MCs). MCs are “extended family”-like communities of 20-50 people with a common mission focus, usually a relational network or a neighborhood. One of the first questions I asked was “What’s the big deal with mid-sized communities? How are they different from small groups with a mission focus? Or from a house church?”

When I first asked the question, I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went! But after a lot more reading, talking, and observing in various contexts, I have come to believe that organizing a church as a network of mid-sized missional communities holds tremendous promise in reaching post-Christian contexts.

I recently wrote a series of blog posts exploring mid-sized missional communities from a biblical, historical, and sociological perspective, highlighting how they are different from small groups, and sharing some of the specific transitions we are making this summer in our church plant that will move us in this direction.

These posts barely scratch the surface of what missional communities can be, but hopefully they will function as catalysts for you to explore them in more depth and seek to apply them, with the guidance of the Spirit, to your context.

1. What’s the Big Deal?
2. What Does It Look Like?
3. The Early Church
4. Oikos in the Bible
   
5. Sociological Matters
   
6. Being the “Right Size”
   
7. Is Structure a Dirty Word?
   
8. Making Disciples
   
9. A Culture of Discipleship
   
10. Our Path to Get There
11. Challenges of Transition

David Fitch has an excellent post on the topic of “flat” leadership on his personal blog. It’s worth reading as it is sure to stimulate some good thinking about leadership in your context.

He writes,

“Much has been made about flat leadership in the missional church. Flat leadership of course refers to non-hierarchical forms of church leadership structure. In my experiences, there are various reactions to it. Some assume flat leadership is a reaction to abusive authoritarian structures of leadership. Still others complain that flat leadership means no leadership. Some like it because, in the midst of conflict or confusion in the local church, flat leadership means we talk more or tolerate each other more. For me, all of this misses the point of flat leadership….”

Continue Reading the rest of his post here.

David Fitch has an excellent post on the topic of “flat” leadership on his personal blog. It’s worth reading as it is sure to stimulate some good thinking about leadership in your context.

He writes,

“Much has been made about flat leadership in the missional church. Flat leadership of course refers to non-hierarchical forms of church leadership structure. In my experiences, there are various reactions to it. Some assume flat leadership is a reaction to abusive authoritarian structures of leadership. Still others complain that flat leadership means no leadership. Some like it because, in the midst of conflict or confusion in the local church, flat leadership means we talk more or tolerate each other more. For me, all of this misses the point of flat leadership….”

Continue Reading the rest of his post here.

An interesting thing happened to me on the way to church planting.

I got offered a 70k a year job out of the blue.

Before we felt drawn (or pushed… pushed probably fits better!) to plant a new community here in Portland, I had been sending out a lot of resumes. I knew it was time to get out of the media job I had been doing and back into pastoral ministry, and to that end I was putting out the feelers far and wide. But… I kept being number 2. It came down time and again to me and someone else, and yet in the end- always someone else.

At about that time, God really grabbed my attention. I was told my media job would be ending, and I’d have 3 months to figure out what came next. We had just bought a house, gotten pregnant… mild panic began to set in.

I woke up one morning, and was laying in bed, resolving to redouble my efforts at resume-sending, when my beautiful wife opened her eyes and the first words out of her mouth were, “Well, we could sell the car, sell the house…”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I don’t think it will get that bad. I’m sure we’ll find something.”

“No,” she said, “I mean, so we can plant a church! It’s what you’ve always said you wanted to do.”

Always said, and never really had the nerve to do.

Until that day. That was the first of many conversations that day which God used to move me from “I need to send resumes out” to “We need to plant a church.” October 27th, 2003. It was a big day.

About a week later, I got a call, though. It was someone offering me a job. No thanks, I told him. We’re going to plant a church. 70k? Uh… no, no… we’re going to plant a church. Over the next couple of weeks I kept getting the same call, from the same guy. It was as though my resolve to plant just triggered something in him- “That’s EXACTLY the kind of person we want for this position!” he told me repeatedly.

I’ll confess- there were a few moments where I looked at my pregnant wife and thought- really? Wouldn’t the wise thing be to take this job?

As I prayed it through, I felt God pretty clearly putting the question to me: Do you really want to plant a church? All this stuff you have been saying about the people who are missing from the standard evangelical churches in Portland, all this about My kingdom, about presenting the Good News of Jesus in ways that people who aren’t part of the church world can grab ahold of… Did you mean it? Because here’s a simple way out if you didn’t.”

I meant it. We turned down the offer, stepped out and planted a church community. But I’ve since seen that scenario played out time and again with new church planters. It seems to be something of a motif in the way God often (not always, but often) works.

And I saw it again today in a very similar question I heard. This morning, to be exact.

We’re now in year 7 of our community, the year I’ve been told marks something of a speed bump for church planters/new communities. The year it gets hard. The year you either endure or fold.

For us, it looks like a general season of churn, hard conversations, an uphill battle to flag some lagging enthusiasm, a need to refocus on mission… And lots of fun conversations about finances.

Oh yes.

We’ve never missed a paycheck in 7 years or been unable to pay another of our pastors. We all either do work on the side or raise support, so none of us look to the community for 100% of our income, and yet- it’s still the majority and very much needed. Last month, when we saw the trend we realized- we may not be able to make payroll. Further, our treasurer, the only one with a real detailed view into who gives (someone’s gotta do those tax statements!) let us know- so far this year, only 56% of Evergreeners had given anything at all. The conversation that came out of us letting the community know both of those facts was hard, but very good. In the end, people stepped up and we were actually OVER what we ask for from the community for the first time this year.

All good? Not exactly- Maybe everyone just moved their giving from this month back a couple weeks and gave early? In any case, we’re severely under budget again. And worse, it seems only about 15% of our community pitched in financially this month.

That number is disheartening on a number of levels. Besides the fact that I needed to let my wife know we may not get a full paycheck this month (our other staff will- I’ll make sure of that), it’s discouraging enough to make someone legitimately ask “Are we really all in this together? Do we care? Or are we just playing church?”

I woke up this morning with a heavy heart, thinking about all of this- wondering what the answers to those questions were. As I lay there, I started praying “God, please… I want this thing we started to continue, to live on…”

And that’s when I heard the familiar Voice: “Really? Why?”

God was asking me- is this about building a church? An institution? Or is it about something, or Someone, else? All this stuff you have been saying about the people who are missing from the standard evangelical churches in Portland, all this about My kingdom, about presenting the Good News of Jesus in ways that people who aren’t part of the church world can grab ahold of… Do you mean it?

And that’s when I realized God had brought me full circle.

Here in year seven, I feel God pretty clearly asking me- What do you want? What’s it about for you?

I believe in church- but church isn’t an end to itself. I want a paycheck this month, but I’m not going to start looking at the pastor porn of Ministry Job Boards and dreaming about other places where things might be more predictable. For me, Evergreen is a means to an end, and the end is Jesus.

Here’s what I really want: I want Jesus. I know church comes with Him (it is His body and bride after all), but first and foremost, I want Jesus. I want Evergreen to go on, not for my sake, but for His– and for the sake of those He is loving into the kingdom through our community. And that means I never get to pastor the fully committed, already mature and stable community that, in my weaker moments I daydream about. I’ll always, to one extent or another, be dealing with questions like this, because I’ll always be working to move hearts and minds (including my own) from places of immaturity towards growth and greater depth of commitment to Jesus and one another.

So I’ll ride this one out however long this “speedbump” time lasts. Where else would I go? What else would I do? For as long as God allows me, I’m on this ride, helping to lead this community, pointing our church towards loving each other, loving the city of Portland and loving Jesus… because it’s the best way I know, given my gifts and callings, and until I hear otherwise, to serve Him.

Bob Hyatt is the lead pastor of the evergreen community, a church community in Portland, OR. More importantly he is the husband of Amy and the father of Jack, Jane and Josie.

In a recent blog post called “The Pleasure of an Imperfect Community” Bob Hyatt hit on something very simple, yet something very important about this thing we call “church.” He writes,

“Yeah- we’re going to annoy the crap out of each other. You are going to hear some bad sermons. Someone will say something stupid on the City or even to your face. People will forget your birthday and occasionally not show up when you need them. It’s how community works because it’s how life works. But what’s present in community that is so often missing from life is… Grace. The very thing that seems to flower and bloom not in our successes but in our failures.”

In Eugene Peterson’s newest book, Practicing Resurrection, he hits on some of these similar themes. It is well worth the read and so is Bob’s blog. Check out the rest of Bob’s blog post here.