thoughts

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

This morning's "shower" thought:

I know there are millions--literally--millions of acts of generosity, redemption and God-deeds done everyday by the "church", by average people who are trying to live in God's Story. So maybe my worry yesterday has no basis?

OR, it makes my point: God's "Divine Conspiracy" is NEVER dependent on buildings, programs, staffs, budgets and the like. Saying, "not dependant" is not the same as saying "they are of the devil" or something; just that they are periphery. The real action is PERSONAL, Spirit-led (as opposed to programs, etc.) and ground level. The article on postmodernmission regarding Re-imagining the church--turning it inside, out says what comes to my mind here--no need to repeat it.

Eugene Peterson once put it to me this way: "Todd, why would anyone WANT to start programs? Programs are what you do when you have to because God has sent a revival or something that temporarily overwhelms you. But as soon as possible you would want to stop the programs and find a way to go back to smaller numbers. This is true BECAUSE, ministry is, by definition, personal. When it stops being personal, it is no longer ministry--it is some sort of mutation."

That is almost a direct quote...three years later it still rings in my ears...and demands that I die a still further death: death to "success", to the approval of my peers, friends, family and my sub-culture, etc. Oh well, here goes…the journey calls and I am going even if I do feel like a fool part of the time…maybe it is “the spirit of Wimber” (my main mentor…and Hannegraffs BEST friend; Wimber put lots of H’s kids through college, bought him a nice luxury car, etc.) rumbling around in me…”I am a fool for Christ, who’s fool are you?”

I'll be back in this space Friday. Tomorrow and Thursday I am in San Diego teaching at the Emergent Conference.

Blog with you then,

Todd

posted by todd 12:22 PM

Monday, February 24, 2003

I said when I started blogging that I was going to be more self-revealing. I’m not sure, other than the first one, that I’ve done so… but I’m trying. So, here goes…

I had one of those “shower” thoughts this morning.

It went like this: I sometimes worry about myself these days. I feel so “negative” or pessimistic about the church or actually, “church”, not The Church (God will never let The Church go too far wrong). I remember worrying the same way about Ralph Neighbor when I read his book (though I am not a great fan of the “house church movement” if it merely moves “church as we have known it” into a house, this is no slam on Ralph, I know from others he is a good guy). He seemed angry, maybe even bitter or cynical; about he church. So how could I end up in a place that I didn’t like in others (understanding that I could be wrong about Ralph)?

I think I am just human, “curious…in the image of God”. I love to investigate and learn-- especially if it can help others to shape the church. I have spent my whole adult life (27 years) thinking about all things church. The scary part is that I have changed a couple times in 27 years (thus it is fair for you to consider whether I am a reliable guide!) in my whole-hearted, honest search for Christian/church/disciple truth.

I can’t stop the thoughts in my mind that wonder if God, his Christ, the Spirit and the apostles really intended church to be mostly about (despite the protests of its defenders; the ones fully invested in the system) about programs, the vision of one man, single issue churches (i.e. anti-this or that, “outreach”, therapy, and on and on), buildings, professional staff, corporate “alignment” that excludes the weak, marginalized and least among us—the very ones Jesus and my heroes Vanier, Nouwen and Teresa included.

I know that some churches or some people in churches find their way in to something more meaningful than the above. In fact, the little Methodist church I grew up in had a fantastic “community” of elderly Christians who, in the Spirit of Christ, really cared for each other and the larger community of Santa Ana. I know “community” is a big topic today, but I wonder if it goes far enough. I wonder if the community-talkers need a good dose of Bonhoeffer to take the edge of the marketing aspects I now see being associated with “community” while we ignore the authentic communities all around us.

It is easy and takes little brainpower to rant against the church (which I do not mean to do) and I know that others are hundreds of years ahead of us (the whole Anabaptist tradition, among others) asking similar questions. I hope these mental ramblings, in the end, help. In fact, let me put forward a possible alternative.

What if we could think more about the Kingdom of God and less about “church-as-we’ve known-it?” What if instead of trying to “get a vision” (in the entrepreneurial sense) we tired to get God’ s vision for the planet and its people? What if we thought of ourselves as “the sent people of God on a journey together trying to figure out how to be his people and live into and out of His Story” instead of people who show up at the same building—on average—2 times per month? What if we thought of our “natural” life as our communities (work, school, neighborhood, etc.) instead of driving 30 minutes across town to “go to kinship/house-group,” etc. What if we spent our lives conversing about and attempting to embody, announce and demonstrate the Kingdom? You don’t need fancy meetings to do that, AND, fancy meetings don’t usually ever get there.

I am gratefully indebted to people like Wright, Willard, Peterson, Newbigin, etc. Stimulated by them, I hope to think good and righteous thoughts and do good righteous and deeds that lead to expressing the Rule and Reign of God. When the journey is over I hope those authors, the cloud of witnesses and God will be proud of me.

But as for now, I’m a little worried…

posted by todd 2:53 PM

Saturday, February 22, 2003

I'm here: but not "early". I stayed up too late with the kids playing games and looking through old pictures trying to find pictures of Jonathan (our 18 year old son) for a scrapbook Debbie is doing for him for his High School Graduation.

(Keck: I’m lookin’ for some love here; only 16 hours between posts!)

Anyway…here are the cool and helpful ideas from the article—

What if leadership can be re-imagined from merely “when an individual called ‘a leader’ acts in a way to change the behavior or attitudes of others called ‘followers’” to seeing “leadership as a social meaning-making process that occurs in groups of people who are engaged in some activity together?” What the heck, you ask is “a social process of meaning-making???

It seeks to make sense of things for people. I know, from my long years of coaching others, that one of the greatest gifts we can someone is the gift of self-understanding. Most of us do not really “get” ourselves or what is going on around us. Thus, assisting others to understand experiences, “leadings”, the past, present and future so they can interpret, anticipate and plan is huge. And, it leaves “them” intact and in their proper place in the cosmos before God, not a pawn in game to build someone’s church.

Thus, leadership can be understood as “making sense of what people are doing together so that they will understand and be committed”. (Here, I think Wright’s and Peterson’s ideas about “Story” really help.) “I.e. knowing what Story we are part of let’s us know something about our parts as “actors” and the ups and downs inherent in the plot.

Meaning making involves “naming” things. For instance, there was no “civil disobedience” (it would have been thought to be a contradiction in terms) before Thoreau “gave it meaning”. We REALLY help people and serve the purposes of God when we help people see “that is the gift of _______.” Or that idea or insight fits the Story of God here__________.” As we interpret with people, they will learn to interpret for themselves and help others to do the same.

All the above necessities shifting from “a dominant leader” to “participating in a shared process”. Everyone in a Community-of-the-Spirit plays a part in meaning making. This makes spiritual leadership “situational” based on the leading and enabling of the Spirit.

Re-imagining leadership in this way set us free from thinking, “most people are slugs and I need to influence or motivate them to do something”. It allows us to see people “in the image of God” already in motion, already acting, doing and behaving. Thus, we serve them by helping them make sense of their “already life” by fitting it into the story of a community of the Spirit and the Story of God. This shows someone how their gift can become increasingly important to the community and the community’s mission in the world.

The key—and freeing—movement here is from “how do I take charge and make things happen?” to “how do I participate—under the guidance of the Holy Spirit--in an effective process of leadership?” Now, it is: “we” need to get busy ordering our lives around the Story of God and “I” need to figure out how to best participate in the process of “us” doing just that. Thus, leaders must learn—for themselves and others—to see themselves as “embedual” (in a community) and not just “individual”.

My key takeaways:

Leadership happens in “conversation” with the community and the Spirit. This is not a weak position (“leaders ought only listen to themselves or they are weak”), it is the position of greatest strength—unless you are an atheist and thus do not believe people are created…created in the image of God! I DO NOT mean to say that decisive, even autocratic hierarchical leadership should never happen, but it should be rare and confined to times of crises, emergency and last resort.

This means we need to listen and observe much more that we talk and point; and listen-pray much more than say religious things. (Peterson, Willard, Foster, Nouwen, Vanier, etc. please help!) It means we have to really put into practice Jesus’ and the apostles’ teaching to “put others ahead of yourself”.

Well, there is much more to say, but this has gotten too long already. The article is worth tracking down if you want the longer version.

Bloggingly yours,

Todd

posted by todd 10:00 AM

Friday, February 21, 2003

"I've died a thousand deaths..." Those words have frequently come out of my mouth the past few years as I've tried to answer people’s questions about the transition I've been in. I am not complaining with those words; the deaths needed and still need to happen. I am better off for it. Losing ones old life leads to a far superior one according to our Teacher/Savior/Lord. Still, facing "deaths" are a little scary to most normal people.

Some of the biggest deaths for me have revolved around leadership. If I led "too much", shutting down the gifts of others, or worse, The Holy Spirit, I felt horrible; if too little, like a dunce who ought to know better after 25 years.

Along the way I formulated a question: "what does it mean to function as a leader in a group of people who are supposed to be following some else (God the Holy Spirit) and someone else’s (God’s) vision to have a redeemed, covenant people who would be his cooperative friends (not for merit, but of grace and “Spirit-strength”) leading constant lives of creative goodness on behalf of the whole world…even up to and including, the new heaven and new earth?

Next, I developed a hypothesis: Christian leadership means to serve, coordinate and empower the sovereignly given activities of the Holy Spirit in a (usually local) group of people.

Next, I needed models. I’ve mostly been learning as I go, watching other people and talking to all the best practitioners I can. This week I read a great “scholarly” article (though not hard to read) called “Making Common Sense—leadership as meaning making in a community of practice” by Drath and Palus. I think the authors give us some good new language that can help re-shape our imaginations and break the old leadership paradigms (not all of them, just the ones that work against my hypothesis) we are enslaved to. If you think “enslaved to” is too strong a phrase, look up “paradigm” in a dictionary to discover how controlling our way of viewing things really is.

So you say, “What are the big lessons you learned?” Sorry, but you gotta come back tomorrow. I gotta go home. It is 5:40pm MST and the kids (18 & 10) are "home alone" and I need to go get them fed since Debbie is in California. I know tomorrow is Saturday, but I’ll come in early to blog before the kids get up.

(Boy will Keck be proud of me!!!)

posted by todd 5:40 PM

Monday, February 17, 2003

Check me out: only a three-day gap between blogs this time! Uh huh, I'm bad...

Actually, I've taken a step forward; I found out that blogs could be READ as well as written! Thus enlightened, I spent an hour this morning reading the blogs of friends and friends-of-friends. Reaction: I am always humbled, grateful and encouraged by how intelligent, focused and Spirit-inspired many of the "players" are in this "church-next" conversation.

Humbled: because I realize I've probably never had an original thought—well maybe my question: “what does it mean to lead a group of people who are supposed to be following some one else (the Spirit)?” But, for the most part, as I often say, nothing we are discussing is truly new (if it were I’d be VERY cautious about it). For instance, much of the conversation sounds “Anabaptist”. Well for crying-out-loud we’re only about 500 years late to that party! But more than any of that, I’m always humbled by clarity of thinking and sincerity and humility of fellow bogglers. I’ll not name names, because I know I’ll forget some one.

Grateful: For 2+ years I’ve said that as “coach” Hunter I’ve learned more than anyone (it is one of the many reasons I am grateful to Mark Priddy). I feel like I’ve been the center hub of a think tank; learning and passing on learning which leads to still more co-laborative peer-based learning. Thank you for allowing me into your lives, your journeys and your learning.

Encouraged: because something does need to be done to improve the outcomes of “church”. Radical (“to the root”) thinking and action needs done. Mere tweaking will probably not due in this season/era. Risks need to be taken to think through “your systems are perfectly suited to achieve the results you are now getting”. I am always heartened by the risk-taking I see going on and discussed on blogs. I know the price you all pay. I know the struggle to “deconstruct with humility and intellectual honesty”. Every one trying to work with God to create “cooperative friends of Jesus living constant lives of creative goodness”, people who strive to embody “the Story of God’s Kingdom come” are my heroes!

I’ll keep reading…

posted by todd 1:07 PM

Thursday, February 13, 2003

I just looked at my watch to see what time it was (cause I promised blogger-coach-Eric that I would blog again today by 7:30am; oops, missed that by and hour) and noticed that today is the 13th, one week since my last post. I didn't mean to write only weekly, but alas its been a week...I am still trying to get this whole blogging deal firmly in my routine.

Later today I'll write an article for next-wave magazine on "the massive transitions many of us are going through"; try to provide some understanding about why it feels the way it does and give some tips for handling it. As I woke this morning and the soon-to-be article popped into my mind, I thought of a different aspect: I wondered "why" so many of us are on this upsetting journey of letting go of almost everything we've know regarding church?

I once asked Eugene Peterson "why do you supose my generation of pastors messed things up so bad" (with refeerence to the way Eugene concieves of being church and doing pastoral work)? His answer stunned me, but also seemed intuitively right. He said " most of you guys were not willing to be seen as unsucessful in the eyes of your peers, which in your era meant a rather mindless pursuit of numbers, growth and programs ran by professional manigerial types.

So I wonder, why now? Why the shift in some of us the past five years?

I can't answer for everyone, but for me (and I suspect for others as well), it is a matter of "conscience". By concsience, I mean a combnation of prayer, thinking, expereinces and inutition that leads me to "not be able to do anything else". Thanks to people like Dallas Willard and N.T. Wright I have a diffeernt sence of what it means to be a Christian and the church; thansk to Peterson I ahve a new sense of what it means to be "a pastor"; thasnk to the sociologists of religion, I now know that the celcbrated approaches to "church growth" I employed my whole life do not wrok--don't even come close--to making the kinds of disciples the "idea leaders" of my life, the scriptures, God's Story and now I, envision.

I do not mean to say that others, using different approaches and operating from different assumptions, are not trying to do the same. It is just that I see the outcomes and think "one's systems are perfectly suited to achieve the results you are now getting". Which means (and here is the source of my main personal "discomfort") we must ask big questions--usally a controversial process--and suggest useful alternatives. I dno't like be contrversial--it is totally contrrsy to my temporment--but I dislike the state of Jesus-followership even more--which leads me bakc to my consience...

So, no matter what it costs, no matter how much we have to "decontsruct", no matter how much it takes me out of my comfort zone, I must pursue being a follower of Jesus and help others become the same, in way that is as true to our Story as we possibly can

posted by todd 9:41 AM

Thursday, February 06, 2003

Oh boy...here goes...a whole new adventure...BLOGGING!?!?!?!?

I guess I'll start with a confession: I really don't like talking about myself if it means "exposing" personal stuff. I don't just mean negative stuff, but most anything "personal". It is not intuitive to me why anyone wuold care about ME? My work: maybe. My thoughts: perhaps. But me...I don't get it..but I am sincerely willing to learn and grow.

I just realized as I faced the pressure to start blogging that parts of me are still pure-boomer. I'll talk about fun and interesting ideas all day, but ask me to be personally vulnerable; in a blind, yet "public" forum? No way! What good could come from that (people just end up using it against you when they need to, don't they--that's a rhetorical question, but I have put at least one of Hank Hannegraff's kids through college "with my words"!)?

I noticed a couple of years ago how important email is to my wife Debbie. It is one of the most fun, gratifying things in her life. It points up one of the reasons I respect her: she is far more naturally relational than I am. She is a significantly--almost totally--free and open person. On the other hand, I have been taught by example and precept to always think of all the possible ramificatons before you speak, which is not totally bad or wrong--I don't say much I end up regretting--but I must confess that it feels like part of me has died on the battle field of religious politics. I wonder if those old bones can ever come alive...

God knows I have opened myself to dramatic changes over the past few years; here is just a short list: trying (and failing) to reshape the Vineyard after John Wimber's death; beginning to take the "young" Vineyard pastors serious (against the wisdom of those around me); resignation with no job to go to (thanks Mark Priddy for finding me!); diving into conversations that were very scarry and unnatural to me (all the serious, non-cheesy "post modern" stuff; re-thinking--as a true blue evangelical--the Gospel for crying out loud!); moving to Idaho to start all over again, etc. Maybe I'm over reacting, but these message boards (did you note that I really didn't playthere either?) and this blogging business seems like a whole new area for growth and big change to me.

There you have it my conversation friends: I did it; my first post on my first blog--God help me!

I am supposed to sign my name? How do you "close" one of these posts?

posted by todd 8:55 AM