Francis Chan is stepping out in faith... from Catalyst on Vimeo.
Showing posts with label leadership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leadership. Show all posts
Tuesday
Single Leaders
"Losing the specific and original trait of the primitive community, the church by and large became again subject to the usual anthropologically universal pattern of the single, sacramentally qualified religionist. By and large . . . this pattern has continued to our day in churches of every polity and theology."
John Howard Yoder
Friday
Why is church so dull? A psychotherapist diagnoses the Sunday ritual. - By Stephen W. Simpson - Patrol Magazine
Why is church so dull? A psychotherapist diagnoses the Sunday ritual. - By Stephen W. Simpson - Patrol Magazine
Painful honesty with a glimmer of hope for the future.
"As much as postmodern evangelicals bandy about the word “community,” our gatherings have changed very little. Stylistic alterations might add some hipster flair, but the focal point of the liturgical week remains theater. A dozen or so people perform for a few hundred that sit, stand, kneel, pray, and sing on command. We squeeze real community into the gaps, between events with a hierarchical structure."
"In the first century there was still teaching, prayer, and worship, but the early church was about community. Paul’s letters paint a picture of people living together and collectively figuring out what it meant to follow Christ. The authority of the leaders and teachers wasn’t a forgone conclusion. They were in dialogue with their congregations. Paul himself often had to defend his position of authority and many of his letters are part of an ongoing doctrinal debate. You get the sense, however, that even theological issues were somewhat secondary. The focus was a meal, not a class or a worship service. Some early Christians enjoyed the community meal so much that Paul had to tell them to tone it down because they were partying a little too hard."
"How can we expect our leaders to be authentic when theater is the center of our religious week? No one is drawn to such a job unless they enjoy power and attention."
"In my fifteen years as a psychotherapist, I have encountered few human systems so consistently dysfunctional as church staffs....When we rely on the talents and titillating vision of one man instead of the slow, silent life of community, it’s easy for people to get hurt."
If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.
Monday
Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained for Ministry
Apologies if you've read it already. It was new to me and made me chuckle.
I found it on Eugene Cho's blog here and traced it back to the original author on the Serving Bread site here.
I found it on Eugene Cho's blog here and traced it back to the original author on the Serving Bread site here.
Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained for Ministry
10. A man’s place is in the army.
9. The pastoral duties of men who have children might distract them from the responsibility of being a parent.
8. The physique of men indicates that they are more suited to such tasks as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do ministerial tasks.
7. Man was created before woman, obviously as a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment rather than the crowning achievement of creation.
6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. Their conduct at football and basketball games demonstrates this.
5. Some men are handsome, and this will distract women worshipers.
4. Pastors need to nurture their congregations. But this is not a traditional male role. Throughout history, women have been recognized as not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more fervently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.
3. Men are prone to violence. No really masculine man wants to settle disputes except by fighting about them. Thus they would be poor role models as well as dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.
2. The New Testament tells us that Jesus was betrayed by a man. His lack of faith and ensuing punishment remind us of the subordinated position that all men should take.
1. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep sidewalks, repair the church roof, and perhaps even lead the song service on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the church.
Boom, boom.
Friday
Responding to Adrian Warnock on Measures of Leadership
Adrian Warnock has posted this week on the subject of measures of gifting and knowing your role as a leader. Since the views expressed in the post are widely held among Christians - the passage is a particular favourite of cell churches, for instance - it seemed appropriate to respond to it and invite readers to consider another perspective on the passage and its application for today.
The passage in question is Exodus 18.
Adrian's arguement, if I have understood it correctly, is that the Exodus passage refers to different measures of leadership capacity that different people possess ("leaders of 10's , leaders of 50's, " etc ) and that church leaders today should be aware of their measure of leadership gifting and seek to operate faithfully within that specific sphere or measure.
My problems with this interpretation are several:
1. The men in Exodus 18 were essentially judges not pastors or elders. The words used to describe them in the NIV are "officials" (21) and "judges" (22). They are called "leaders" in verse 25, but this term is immediately qualified in the same verse by again referring to their role as "officials" and "judges". Moses is here setting up a system of law enforcement - more a police force than a church leadership team.
2. The view that the different roles these judges occupied were based on their "differing capacity for leadership" is stated but not proven from the text. The passage itself does not actually tell us what basis was used by Moses for selecting some to be officials over 10 and others to be officials over 1000. It is an assumption that the different roles were based on "capacity" but not a conclusion that arises naturally from the text, which merely states that men were appointed to these roles.
3. It is entirely possible that Moses made these appointments based not on measures of gifting but on age or on family or clan ties. Anyone reasonably familiar with middle eastern cultures in the past or present would not find that sentence as shocking as those of us raised in a modern, urban and western environment. Of course, I am not claiming that this was the basis for Moses' decisions - I am merely illustrating that "gifting" is not a necessary way of understanding the passage as it is not referred to at all within it.
4. Adrian assumes the validity of the "number one" leader model for local churches and basis his application of the passage on that assumption. His application includes the following : "Sadly we fail to realise that not every godly Christian leader should aspire to be the so-called "number one" leader of a church." I would respond that it is surely preferable that no godly Christian aspires to such an un-biblical role.
The phrase "number one" is virtually always placed in inverted commas when used in a Christian context, as I have done in this sentence. Such usage highlights the inherent problem with the term. We feel it to be an inappropriate phrase because we claim to believe in servant leadership rather than hierarchy in church life; at the same time, our use of the term reveals that, in fact, we do believe in hierarchy in the local church. Hence the inverted commas, as a way of trying to have our leadership cake and eat it.
Who was the number one among Jesus' apostles after the ascension? The vision caster? The most gifted public speaker? Actually, it was the the one who had always been the greatest - namely, the least of all.
Adrian does, of course, make a valid point, which I agree is implicit indirectly in the passage, that leaders should not assume more of themselves than is realistic. Perhaps Paul had something similar in mind when he exhorts us to "not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." The context of this passage in Romans 12:3 does have to do with gifting in a broader sense - not whether I am a "leader of 50" or not but whether my gifts include teaching, being a mercy-giver, prophesying or leadership, all of which are to be used to serve the body of Christ and build others up.
The passage in question is Exodus 18.
Adrian's arguement, if I have understood it correctly, is that the Exodus passage refers to different measures of leadership capacity that different people possess ("leaders of 10's , leaders of 50's, " etc ) and that church leaders today should be aware of their measure of leadership gifting and seek to operate faithfully within that specific sphere or measure.
My problems with this interpretation are several:
1. The men in Exodus 18 were essentially judges not pastors or elders. The words used to describe them in the NIV are "officials" (21) and "judges" (22). They are called "leaders" in verse 25, but this term is immediately qualified in the same verse by again referring to their role as "officials" and "judges". Moses is here setting up a system of law enforcement - more a police force than a church leadership team.
2. The view that the different roles these judges occupied were based on their "differing capacity for leadership" is stated but not proven from the text. The passage itself does not actually tell us what basis was used by Moses for selecting some to be officials over 10 and others to be officials over 1000. It is an assumption that the different roles were based on "capacity" but not a conclusion that arises naturally from the text, which merely states that men were appointed to these roles.
3. It is entirely possible that Moses made these appointments based not on measures of gifting but on age or on family or clan ties. Anyone reasonably familiar with middle eastern cultures in the past or present would not find that sentence as shocking as those of us raised in a modern, urban and western environment. Of course, I am not claiming that this was the basis for Moses' decisions - I am merely illustrating that "gifting" is not a necessary way of understanding the passage as it is not referred to at all within it.
4. Adrian assumes the validity of the "number one" leader model for local churches and basis his application of the passage on that assumption. His application includes the following : "Sadly we fail to realise that not every godly Christian leader should aspire to be the so-called "number one" leader of a church." I would respond that it is surely preferable that no godly Christian aspires to such an un-biblical role.
The phrase "number one" is virtually always placed in inverted commas when used in a Christian context, as I have done in this sentence. Such usage highlights the inherent problem with the term. We feel it to be an inappropriate phrase because we claim to believe in servant leadership rather than hierarchy in church life; at the same time, our use of the term reveals that, in fact, we do believe in hierarchy in the local church. Hence the inverted commas, as a way of trying to have our leadership cake and eat it.
Who was the number one among Jesus' apostles after the ascension? The vision caster? The most gifted public speaker? Actually, it was the the one who had always been the greatest - namely, the least of all.
Adrian does, of course, make a valid point, which I agree is implicit indirectly in the passage, that leaders should not assume more of themselves than is realistic. Perhaps Paul had something similar in mind when he exhorts us to "not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." The context of this passage in Romans 12:3 does have to do with gifting in a broader sense - not whether I am a "leader of 50" or not but whether my gifts include teaching, being a mercy-giver, prophesying or leadership, all of which are to be used to serve the body of Christ and build others up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
