Lessons in Leadership

Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?”

Think about that. Jesus knew the answer – He was, afterall, God incarnate. But maybe Peter needed to hear the question – or maybe Peter needed to hear his own answer.

In his amazing little book, In the Name of Jesus, Henri Nouwen points out that Jesus did NOT ask, “How many people take you seriously?” Jesus did NOT ask, “How much are you going to accomplish?” Nor did Jesus ask, “What results can you show?”

Jesus, in fact, asked none of the questions you or I would likely ask. He didn’t ask any of the questions we offer to prospective employees, church planters or ministers. He didn’t ask about Peter’s strategy, past accomplishments, his vision for the future, his spiritual gifting, personality profile or personal goals.  Jesus knew all those answers or course, but wouldn’t Peter have been better prepared for his upcoming ministry if Jesus had prompted him to think through his vision, values and strategies?  Apparently not.

Jesus asked, “Do you love me?”

We would do well to contemplate the same question, and hear the same answer. Only then are we ready to “feed Jesus’ sheep.”

The Crime of Our Time

I am currently engaged in a battle for health insurance. Being self-employed, my wife and I don’t have the protection of group health insurance, and as such are at the mercy of insurance underwriting. Since all five of us are healthy and have no unusual or ongoing health issues, you’d think insurance would be easy. Not so…

My four-year-old son has had 4 ear infections in the past two-years. Count ‘em: 4. Four ear infections for a 3-4 year old boy. Not unusual is it? No, it isn’t, but it’s enough for CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield to deny coverage. That’s right – my son has been declared medically uninsurable because of 2 earaches a year!

The medical-finance industry may be the biggest crime of our time. One can’t get medical service without insurance, but if one actually uses medical services, one can’t get insurance. It is a catch-22, and it must be resolved. People are being denied medical care because they are uninsured and that’s just wrong.

The solution, I think, is to reintroduce the market into the medical industry. Currently, there is no market. In Maryland (it may be this way elsewhere, I don’t know), medical insurance rates are set by the state government, and all providers work within the Maryland Health Insurance Program. In other words, the government controls demand for the service of medical insurance. Individual insurance purchasers have no options: they can purchase insurance from an independent provider, or directly from the State (at a much higher premium). If they can’t afford either – they’re just out of luck. There is no budget-market for insurance coverage.

Similarly, Drs, hospitals and medical suites can and do charge unreasonable rates for medical care. They can do this because health care costs are not subject to market conditions – they are set by the insurance industry, whose rates are set by the government. As a result, medical costs are sufficiently high that practitioners can and do deny care to the uninsured. Even if a person can afford to pay these artificially inflated rates, they’re seldom given the option.

Insurance, we (including the knuckleheads in DC) seem to have forgotten, was once a financial hedge against catastrophic medical expenses. It protected against unforeseen, potential (‘if’ not ‘when’) illness and/or injury resulting in medical expenses beyond one’s means. It ‘insured’ quality medical care in the event of catastrophic illness or injury.

Today, insurance is not insurance – it’s the medical finance system (I wonder what the APR would be on your average BlueCross insurance policy – wouldn’t that be a nice number to know!). The result is overinflated medical costs (covered by the high insurance rates set and regulated by the government) being charged to insurance providers and financed by the pool of healthy individuals who rarely purchase medical services. The market is maintained by the unholy alliance of government and the lobbies of health care providers and insurance companies respectively. The consumer of health care services has no affect upon demand. His only choice is to go without insurance (which also means going without medical care). He cannot influence medical costs or insurance rates by paying more for better service or less for inferior service. His only choice is to pay or not (and as we all know the Governmental-Insurance-Medical Axis is trying to take away the consumer’s loan option).

 But what if the market were restored?  What if insurance companies had to compete for individual customers?  What if rates had to be both profitable and competitive?  What if consumers were allowed to make personal, financial decisions regarding their health care and insurance options?

What if the market were restored?  What if Drs, hospitals and health care suites couldn’t deny care to the ‘uninsured but able to pay’?  What if they could only charge what consumers were willing and able to pay? 

What if the government regulation didn’t set profit margins and rates for the medical-finance industry, but instead insured fair coverage and financial solvency?  What if it let consumers decide whether and how much insurance and/or medical care to buy?

Medical reform is needed, but not anything like what DC is proposing.  We need insurance to become subject to market conditions, so consumers have more than two choices – to play or not to play.  We need medical service providers to become subject to market conditions, so consumers can have more than two choices – to play or not to play. 

As I see it, the only reason to oppose this proposal is greed.  Will health care services decline if consumers are given a choice?  Perhaps in the short-run, but since consumers will also have the ability to pay a premium for superior care, the long-term implications are that health care service will improve. 

Insuring the uninsured doesn’t solve the basic problem: medical costs – including insurance – are too expensive for a large and growing number of Americans.  Let the market work.  

Leading in the Kingdom of God

The North American church is obsessed with leaders and leadership.  It has become commonplace to credit leaders with the success or failure of missional endeavors.  Because we recognize the inherent theological problem with this practice, we soften our language and modify our terminology, but our behavior – the metrics we use to measure success, and the people we endow with ‘expert status’  – give us away.

 

Leadership, we all learned, is the capacity to envision a preferred future and the ability to cast that vision in such a way as to mobilize vast human resources toward that end.  This is leadership ala Covey/Blanchard/Collins/Guru-du-jour, and despite a growing number of well reasoned and theologically sound corrections, its shadow still looms large in the Christian community. 

 

While some in the organic movement are pushing for a model that effectively excludes human leadership (funny, how this is accomplished in seminars, conferences and books which attempt to lead people away from the hierarchical leadership models of modernity), the truth is – we need leaders.  The biblical narrative, history and personal experience tell me so.   Likewise, the biblical narrative, history and personal experience tell me that simply adding the prefix “Servant” does little to change the behavior or outcome.

                                                                             

Our problem runs deeper.  It isn’t enough to redefine leadership with qualities we find more appropriate to the Christian disposition.  We have misunderstood the very role of leadership in the Kingdom movement.  Christ hasn’t called men and women to redefine His future (Why do we instinctively scrutinize and reject claims of divine revelation regarding theology or ethics, yet almost unquestionably accept similar claims regarding ministry?).  He has called men and women to equip Christ-follower for that future. 

 

Until we understand our role as equippers, we will continue to relieve Christians of the responsibility to obey God, rather than empower them to obey.  We will continue to devalue the responsibility, ability and importance of ordinary-every-day Christ followers – excusing spiritual sloth, moral depravity and selfishness as normal.  We will continue to teach that commitment, consistent service, humility and holiness are higher standards required only of leaders.

 

Until we accept and embrace our role as equippers, we will continue to breed dependency, undermine accountability and limit our “capacity to create an alternative future”[1] – to follow God into His Kingdom Come.  Jesus said that whatever we bind on earth will be bound in the Kingdom and whatever we loose on earth will be loosed in the Kingdom (Matthew 16:19).  The way we bind or loose our practice and understanding of leadership is no exception. 

 

So, go… equip all people everywhere to follow Christ – baptize them, teach them to obey Jesus’ way of life and encourage them to walk in Jesus presence as part of His body, forever and ever.  Amen.

 

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[1] Block, Peter, Community, the Structure of Belonging (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2008), 41

Faith

Faith that can be either explained or supported isn’t faith afterall.  This is what keeps us from moving mountains, we have the faith of a bulldozer, not a mustard seed.

Eugene Peterson on Church Planting

I’ve been catching up on my blog reading of late.  Here’s a great entry from J.R. Briggs and Eugene Peterson.  Enjoy…

http://www.jrbriggs.com/the-wisdom-of-eugene-peterson/06/

Praying for the Presence of God

I just came across this guided prayer/meditation from an old friend and mentor, Bruce Hopler. It’s well worth the time to read…

Praying for the Presence of God

This devotional comes from a message I delivered at Cornerstone. I have been finding myself praying through this on a daily basis, and felt that others might benefit from the same. My prayer is, whether you find this as a useful tool or not, each and everyone of us would experience a greater presence of God in our lives.
Rivers have always fascinated me. The sights, the sounds, the crisp cold air that bounces from the water; they have a way of drawing me to them. I am intrigued by how much the direction of the river parallels my spiritual journey, windy, deep in some areas, shallow in others, but never a strait line.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
Psalm 46

When I find those rare moments where I can be reflective along a river side, I find my mind reflecting on God. His artistic beauty, His creativity, His unpredictability and how life is both with-in him and life all around him is greener. Last summer as I saw a deer drinking from a stream I thought of Psalms 42, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Jesus not only is life (John 14) but he draws life.

Staring down the river also causes me to think of the people of God. Not only our winding journeys, but the ways we reflect and restrict God.

In my very unscientific point of view, the river is made up of four parts:
1. The river bottom
2. The river banks
3. The water itself
4. The source of the water

Reflecting on this simplistic structure, it has created a new model of prayer, for both me personally and for the Cornerstone community at large.

THE RIVER BOTTOM:

The river bottom, to me, defines potential depth. How deep the water can flow, as well as the depth of our spirituality is reflected here. The bottom of the river, in its very structure to hold up the river, can be overly cumbersome as to many layers begin to be added. Thus what could be positive becomes a hindrance. Reminds me of Hebrews 12: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus…”

Again, unscientifically, the river bottom is made up of three parts: Muck, obstacles and the hard bottom of the river.

The muck is the gooey stuff that if stepped in, you hope as you are bringing your foot back up a shoe will still be on it. It is the stuff that at a glace gives the appearance of being a good foundation, yet when the storms hit it is stirred up making the waters muddy and cloudy. Reminds us of what the writer of Hebrews said, “let us throw off …the sin that so easily entangles,”. It is amazing to me how many things we justify in our life as good for the time, than latter cause us to have what we value to be stuck in the mud, or how in the storms of life causes us to lack clarity and doubt God.

PRAY FOR THE DREDGING UP OF THE RIVER BOTTOM

• For the sin and nonsense in your life to be removed to keep from entangling the things God wants to do in your life.
• For the Cornerstone community, that we would individually and corporately dredge up anything that is hindering the work of God
The obstacles are things such as rocks and trees, the things that may not be inherently sinful, yet are investments of our time, energy and resources, that have little or no eternal significance. It’s funny how fiercely we protect those obstacles, guarding them with the illusion that we can protect them from the river flow. In truth, if we wait long enough, many of these things will be worn down by the water. How many senior adults have looked back on their lives saying, “Many of the things that I spent so much time and energy on all of those years just hold no value to me anymore. What a waste”. Why not remove those things now, the things that hinder us so.

PRAY FOR THE OBSTACLES THAT STAND IN THE WAY

• For the things that we pour so much of ourselves into that have no eternal barring.
• That cornerstone does not get caught up in useless programs that could rob us of our primary focus.
The hard bottom of the river is the actual limitations of the river bottom; the water can go no deeper. Or can it? Who / what has defined your self image / limitations: past hurts, other people, past failures, physical handicaps or how you were brought up? Or have you gone to the Lord and prayed, “Lord, do what is beyond my abilities, take me to depths that I never imagined.”?

PRAY FOR YOUR PERCEIVED LIMITATIONS:

• Lord, do what is beyond my abilities, take me to depths that I never imagined
• Lord, do what is beyond Cornerstone’s abilities, take us to depths that we never imagined
THE RIVER BANKS

The banks of the river provides direction for the water flow. I would understand this to be the spiritual disciplines (tools) that we incorporate into our lives to foster our spiritual development. At Cornerstone we have defined our understanding of what tools represent as the D:7, The Seven Essentials of Discipleship. I put together a whole booklet on that called “The Spiritual Portfolio”, so I wont belabor that information again. If you don’t have a copy of the Spiritual Portfolio, then please ask the help desk for one.

As a reminder, the D:7 are:
• Corporate worship
• Prayer
• Bible study
• Multiplication
• Service
. Stewardship
• Community

A life without embankments becomes a swamp. Not so healthy things grow in a swamp. A life that is obsessed with the embankment is legalistic, and life does not flow alongside of legalism. The greater question I would like to ask is, why do you find yourself not working on your river banks? Why do you find yourself justifying doing other things, than developing your spiritual journey? I would like to propose that ultimately it is a comfort issue. There are things in your life that you turn to that give you immediate comfort during your down times (gossip, anger, bitterness, lust, control, ect) Since the Holy Spirit calls Himself as the Great Comforter, why do we find ourselves turning the things that are ultimately destructive? How do you get to the point where prayer, Bible study, community and so on become the no brianer choice to turn do? Actually, rather than trying to give you a cheap answer to that question, I would like for you to use it as a point of prayer.

PRAY FOR YOUR RIVER BANKS

• Reflect on the things you turn to as a source of comfort and begin asking God to transition you to the point that He becomes your source of comfort.
• Pick two spiritual disciplines from the D:6 and begin asking God to help you grow in that area.
• Pray that the Cornerstone community will be faithful to the things that will give us clear direction according to God’s calling
THE RIVER SOURCE

Show me a place that has high banks and is deep, yet no water; and I will show you the Grand Canyon. Many activities and religions will help you become a good disciplined person, but if it does not contain Jesus, there will be no life. If you are not Jesus centric during this time, you will lack the very thing you worked so hard for.

PRAY FOR THE RIVER SOURCE
• Pray that you will always see Jesus as your source
• Pray that Cornerstone will always see Jesus as their source

THE RIVER WATER

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, all life comes through him (John 14). Life and renewal will come solely through Him. Pray that the river will flow, pray that God would do a great outpouring in your life and in Cornerstone.

PRAY FOR THE RIVER FLOW

• Pray for the river of God to flow with a major outpouring into your life
• Pray for the river of God to flow with a major outpouring into the life of Cornerstone.

You can find the full transcript here: http://www.cornerstone-d6.org/pastors-blog/praying-for-the-presence-of-god/

False Prophets and Naked Emperors

Yesterday I had a telling exchange with a prominent author and speaker on the “we’ve been doing it all wrong since Nicea” conference circuit.

The author in question, and those like him have become a prophetic voice to the Church – correcting long standing traditions and preferences that stem more from culture than Scripture. Unfortunately, the prophet in question has done the same.

Beware those who profess to understand God’s ultimate purpose, but refuse to explain it. Beware those whose theology is founded upon philosophical pretext and secret gnosis, rather than the revealed Word and will of God. Beware those that claim Scriptural authority, but refuse Scriptural correction.

We know of God only what God has revealed. Nothing more, nothing less. To claim private revelation is scarry business, and counters New Testament teaching. If you have a revelation, bring it to the Church and let the Church decide whether it be from God. Anything else is heresy.

The Emperor has no clothes.

The Future of Church Planting

If you’re at all paying attention to the church planting movement in North America you will notice two glaring realities. First, the movement has lost significant steam in recent years, seeing both a decline in the number of churches planted and a decline in the effectiveness of those plants. This is particularly egregious when catalytic planters see declining results in subsequent plants – meaning they aren’t getting more effective over time, but are getting less effective over time. Second, the North American church planting movement – if it could ever be called a movement – appears to be a seasonal blip. The explosion of new plants over the past decade or so was the result of a massive influx of planters. The one-time influx did not produce a significant number of second-generation planters, nor a significant number of church plants that themselves plant churches.

While strategists and missiologist continue to study, discuss and argue about the faulty means causing this trans-denominational impotence, I want to call into question the end: namely, that the creation of new churches was never a Godly goal.

Jesus never said, “Go… plant churches. He said, “Go… make disciples.” Church planting strategists have understood the making of disciples (followers of Jesus) to be the means towards the ultimate end of making churches. This is a tragic flaw. The end is, and must remain, what Jesus said – disciples (Christ-followers). Church planting is a means towards the end of raising Christ-followers.

This is an important distinction for two reasons. First, the wrong means will always produce the wrong end. We will never raise Christ-followers if we’re really trying to produce churches. Second, when we understand church planting to be a means, we accept its temporary nature. We plant churches as long as they provide a healthy environment for raising Jesus-followers. We stop planting churches when they don’t.

Likewise, we need to pay closer attention to church plants that actually do raise Christ-followers (not just grow – and not just baptize – though I’ll always prefer baptisms to members). I think we will find that they function in a markedly different manner than their more ‘successful’ contemporaries. In fact, I know we will.

The era of church planting is drawing to a close. Long live the era of following Jesus.

The Lingua Franca of North American Missions

The language of the builder is brick and mortar.
The language of the boomer was music.
The language of Gen-X is video.
Thus ends the generations of the analog world.
The language of Gen-Y is the Internet.
The language of the I-Gen is IM.

The language of the church is biblical, spiritual and liturgical.

Never has communication been more complex and less assured. What we need is a common language, understood by multiple generations and cultures. What will be the lingua franca of the new century?

Skepticism as the anti-hope

I’ve recently been reminded that people tend to fall into two categories. Those that criticize what others do, and those that do. The former practice a worldview dominated by the lack of hope, whereas the later embody hope in everyday life. Long live the hopeful do-er!