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Equipper Blog

June 24, 2011 by Bob Hyatt

As Pastors: Can We Be “down” on Christians?

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.

Filed Under: Equipper Blog, Leadership

February 21, 2011 by Bob Hyatt

The Kingdom in Everyday Life

by Tracy Commons

Currently, I am working full-time and finishing up my last semester at Temple University. It’s been stressful trying to balance everything, trying to have it “together” – and continuing to build relationships with others. Even though I know this is my last semester and graduation is so near- I still get “ants in my pants” and sometimes feel like life is moving so quickly and there is so much to do…

So, the messages on the Kingdom have been inspiring to me and have really encouraged me! But even though I feel encouraged – I also feel frustrated and doubtful at times, like there is so much on my plate for this season – and thinking “how am I living out the Kingdom in my everyday busy/rushed life? Especially when the people I work with can be so moody, discouraging and frustrating – and school/work life is so stressful?”

I was really encouraged as God spoke through J.R. Briggs this week and reminded me that “everyday life is the place where the kingdom is most powerful and has the most potential. Every day of the week matters.” So, I wrote that down in my journal and tucked it away for further thought – along with other notes..

Well, this past week I had to write a post for one of my online nursing courses – and it was about “What is the human role on this earth? Who am I? What is my purpose, my function, and my destiny? What imprints would I like to set for humanity?”

As I wrote the post – my first thought was “give the easiest comment and be done” but the other part of me said “this is a great opportunity to share Jesus.” So of course I had to share. I was not sure how people would respond or if anyone would respond. But there were three responses which led to ongoing conversations with other nursing students that felt as though they were lacking something in their lives and looking for more.

Needless to say, this opened up a beautiful opportunity to share the Lord and at the same time God humbled and reminded me that His Kingdom is at work – even in our busy lives – even though sometimes we don’t realize it. Sometimes I think my online classes are pointless – Jesus showed me wrong – and I was brought to my knees.  So, even in my doubt Jesus still made it known that He is in charge and working in the mist of it all!

Tracy Commons is a pastor at the Renew Community in Lansdale, PA

Filed Under: Ecclesia People, Equipper Blog

February 21, 2011 by Bob Hyatt

Leading From Where You've Actually Been

by Eric Phillips

“The true Christian leader is one who walks with others, leading them to a place where he himself has already been.”

This is an idea that recently has been on the forefront of my mind. Recently I have wrestled with the fact that there seems to be so little power in my ministry, very little true and lasting transformation within our church, and that there seems to be more and more information available yet with such little evidence of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.

These questions that have passed through my mind for years have become more of a pressing reality, or crisis as you will, as I seek to establish East End Ecclesia. On a daily basis I encounter individuals wrestling with crack addiction, beat down by the cycle of poverty and violence, people who are at the edge of suicide. I face individuals that have been abused and called a F*&% up since they were children, unable to believe that God loves and accepts them. Worst of all I face arrogant young hipsters that in their “self justification through relevance and selective justice”, have no interest in a just God unless His justice remains confined within their superior moral definition.

So in other words I have found myself trying to convey information while realizing that information alone could never free an addict from addiction, convince an abused child that they are loved, or convince a self righteous hipster of their need for forgiveness from a righteous and just God. Within this personal struggle I’ve been continually reminded of passages that I so regularly dance around, passages concerning the our dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit, passages in calling us to not seek to build the church by words alone, but by the power of God. I have spent much time wrestling with the fact that no matter how great my ability to convey information might be, man cannot be saved by information alone.

Yet in the midst of my intellectual wrestling God has opened my eyes to a reality that I have so greatly neglected. I have been studying many of the great men of faith from times past, some of authentic moves of God that brought true transformation within the society at large, and the first great move of God through the church which was recorded within the book of Acts.

The thing that I found in common within all that I have studied is that God has worked in mighty ways through men and women who have been consumed with a deep, passionate, obsessive, pursuit of true communion with their God. God seems to mightily use those who proclaim not what they have heard about but what they have encountered, lived, and experienced. I’m so challenged as I read what was stated concerning Peter and John as they were before the Jewish leaders “they were common uneducated men, but it was apparent that these men had been with Jesus.”

I believe this is important for us today; it is not our superior education, our relevance, our charisma, or anything else that will have the greatest impact on those around us. It is the intangible reality that the outside world may not be able to pinpoint. It is the man or woman who had clearly “been with Jesus”.

So, closing up the thought I began with: The true Christian leader leads others to a place he himself has already been.

As communicators we are to speak to the church that which we have first heard from our God, as shepherds we disciple as ones who have walked with Christ, and as evangelists we proclaim a loving, powerful, awesome God that we have not just heard about but deeply know. For too long the role of the pastor has been as one giving directions from a map to a location he has not yet been, instead of acting as a guide to a mountain top that he himself has frequently visited.

But on a very real and personal level, I have for too long been consumed with a desire to learn about God, teach about God, and be on mission for Him without first and foremost being one obsessed with spending time with my God, Hearing from my God, and allowing my God to first do within me that which He desires to do within my world.

Eric Phillips is the lead pastor at East End Ecclesia in Pittsburgh, PA.

Filed Under: Ecclesia People, Equipper Blog

February 20, 2011 by Bob Hyatt

Formation as Excavation

Lindsey Sullivan.

Junior at Lynchburg College. [lcf] leader.

excavation

Though the attractive colors may lure you to this visual metaphor of Excavation, I thought it best to further explain why I am digging deeper.  Reading the picture left to right, our eye rests on the giant volcano first.  We see lava spewing from the top and cascading downward.  We must experience a lava-spewing moment before we are able to get to the X, the Excavation.  So, “What is a lava-spewing moment?”

Symbolically the lava is the Holy Spirit.  As Christ-followers we often have moments in our walk where something happens and we are doused in the Holy Spirit.  Moments such as conferences, one’s day of salvation, or the end of a persevering trial are great examples of spewing lava.  Hopefully, each of you have had a moment where you are standing beside a volcano of God and the eruption of the Holy Spirit in your life is melting everything else away.

These lava-spewing moments at a point in time are called kairos.  As Mike Breen and Steve Cockram of 3DM put it: “a kairos moment is when the eternal God breaks into your circumstances with an event that gathers some loose ends of your life and knots them together in his hands.”

What next? As we don’t remain in kairos time, we then enter into the new part of our walk.  Referring to the picture, this section of our walk looks like the middle dip.  This is where we are presented with the choice to continue in the ways of the Lord post kairos-moment. When we reach the dips in our walk, we have to press into God. Discipline is strengthened, knowledge is acquired, and lessons are learned all in the name of Christ.  Periodically we may have other kairos moments, and then the cycle of eruption to reclaiming the day-to-day begins.

Excavation occurs when a Christ-follower wants more than the kairos moments and yearns for a challenge greater than the day-to-day disciplines.  The letter X conveniently marks the position of the symbolic map of a Christian walk where one asks more of God. The goal of this great shift into God is to reach new heights in one’s relationship with God; a point in which the union between man and Maker is closer than ever before.

Though I am only at the beginning of this journey, I am taking steps toward the Holy Spirit.  And with each forward moving foot, I lean, press, and shove myself into the hands of the Holy Spirit, begging for more of God.  I have learned that even in the moments when God is spewing lava around me, He is alluring me into the woods of my heart (Hosea 2:14).  I have taken it as my mission to find out what God can show me through his Word.  I would love to say that in three months I will have tapped into the endless supply of God’s wisdom and knowledge, but the process of Excavation is not timed.  Yet, it is a journey measured in perseverance and pursuit.

[lcf] or Lynchburg Christian Fellowship is a college church based on the campus of Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Choosing to express church in multiple ways like missional communities, small groups, and a Sunday Gathering is what allows our community to create a discipleship culture as well as reach people with the love of Jesus. Engage the culture. Embrace everyone. Endure the cross. www.lcfva.com

Filed Under: Ecclesia People, Equipper Blog

February 19, 2011 by Bob Hyatt

First Free: A Test-case for the Declining Evangelical Urban Congregation

by Adam Gustine

I came to First Free, with my family and co-pastor Ben, when the church was coming out of a long transition period that had followed an even longer period of conflict and trouble. You could say that our church was a test-case for the declining evangelical urban congregation, struggling to make sense of, and respond to, the demographic changes in the neighborhood. Formerly a mono-cultural neighborhood, Bay Ridge and its surroundings are as diverse as anywhere in the city today. I think everyone knew that our future together would look different than our church’s long history, but I don’t think anyone was anticipating what that would mean.

Our church is one congregation in a community of ethnic churches that share space with each other. In some ways, this is not much different than many rental relationships between ethnic congregations. But in other ways, we are starting to see how we can move beyond that landlord/tenant relationship and embrace a multi-ethnic approach to mission in the neighborhood.

The stereotypical strongholds of power and territorialism are starting to come down as we grow together. Ephesians 2 comes to mind as we see a different kind of community coming into focus, where walls that divide are being torn down through Christ as we endeavor to discern a future with some degree of shared purpose and vision, instead of just shared space.

I’m excited to be a part of this process. Living and laboring here is a daily education in cultural difference, a far cry from my middle American upbringing. My assumptions are challenged and values like dying to self and mutual submission take on whole new layers of meaning for me, or anyone engaged in this kind of multi-ethnic missional experiment. We are stepping into a different way of being the church that is new for all of us. We are excited about the possibilities of how God may work through us. Even though we certainly don’t have all the answers, I’m encouraged to see us asking better and more important questions.

Adam Gustine lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Ann, and their two sons. He has been serving with First E-Free Church in Brooklyn, and learning to love his city, since the fall of 2008.

Filed Under: Ecclesia People, Equipper Blog

February 18, 2011 by Bob Hyatt

Christlike love is not practical

by Evan Curry

“As kingdom people we are called to live in love, which means we are called and empowered to live free of fear. Because our source of worth, significance, and security is found exclusively in God’s love and God’s reign, not our own immediate well-being, and because we believe in the resurrection, we are empowered to love…fear is an indication that we are living in idolatry, not love.” (Greg Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church).

Phil is a homeless man that attends our church. I don’t really know Phil all that well. I am not actively involved in our homeless outreach, which takes place every Tuesday in Bristol. As I’ve gotten to know Phil on Sunday evenings when our church meets, he always greets me with a smile and refers to me as “Pastor.” It has become a highlight of my Sundays.

Two Sundays ago, after I preached a sermon, Phil approached me. He was touched by the sermon. He told me of a situation he had been facing recently—a woman, who had consistently caused him trouble, earlier that week, pulled him down from behind, in which he injured his tailbone. Phil asked, “What would you do?” I told Phil that I know Jesus would tell him to love his enemies and pray for this young woman. Phil responded with skepticism (as we all often do when dealing with issues of reconciliation). He feared that love wouldn’t work. I encouraged him with an example from Martin Luther King, Jr., another statement by Jesus, and told him to keep me updated about how it was going.

This past Sunday, Phil walked up to me during the service. As usual, he addressed me as “Pastor” and then said in a loud whisper, “I did it! I walked up to the girl this week, gave her a hug, told her I loved her, and that she should to come to church with me. And now we are friends!” Quite frankly, I totally forgot about our conversation the week before, but I was impressed that Phil actually carried out the commands of Jesus and it actually worked.

Fear often keeps us from loving others. We are afraid people won’t respond to the love of Christ because “it’s just not practical.” Christlike love is not practical. Fear is totally practical, but it is not a Christian virtue. It is, in fact, idolatrous. If we live in fear, if we are afraid that what Jesus said won’t actually work because we are people in the real world, we fail to see the power the resurrection brings into the lives of people like Phil—walking testimonies that looking out for our own well-being, rather than another’s, keeps us in bondage to fear but loving others breaks the chains of fear. And perfect love casts out all fear.

Filed Under: Ecclesia People, Equipper Blog

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