Gleaning From Greatness

“Obey your leaders
and submit to their authority.
They keep watch over you
as people who must give an account.
Obey them so that their work
will be a joy, not a burden,
for that would be
of no advantage to you.”
~ Hebrews 13:17

Eew! Now there’s a verse we pastors better not quote very often! Talk about a self-serving passage for a leader to teach, right? Yet it is in the Book, isn’t it? And what makes the conversation even testier is that this is one of those passages which doesn’t trouble us because it is hard to understand. It troubles us because it is so very clear and easy to understand. After years of troubling leadership failure, authoritarian abuse and cultural slide, it troubles us to be told to obey and submit. Admit it. We’ve just spent forty years or so attacking authority…and now we’re supposed to just up and embrace it? That’s a hard sell, Pastor.

Robert Sevier, in a thought-provoking 1999 article entitled Follow The Leader, told the grim story of a university president who resigned his position. The next day, the consensus in the all campus meeting was that the campus was most desperately in need of leadership. After much frustrating conversation, the current faculty president finally exploded at the group, "Leadership? Leadership? You don't want leadership. None of you want to work with a leader. You don't care about anything but yourselves. No leader in their right mind would come to this campus. You assassinate your leaders. You sue them. You stall and pretend you're discussing. You are not really interested in leadership because none of you are interested in following." When the faculty president was finally done with his diatribe, he stormed out of the room. The response from the assembled group was quick and critical. “What does he know?” they responded, “He's no leader!"

How interested are we in following? Where exactly do we learn how to follow well? Who exactly do we follow through all the troubling twists and turns of this life? And what exactly does the Bible teach us about leaders and followers? Is Almighty God more interested in how we lead or how we follow?

Interesting questions, huh?

We have been talking about leadership and followership a bit in recent weeks, hopefully raising some new perspectives and good challenges. You all know it is my hope (actually one of the profound passions of my life!) that we will all come to a better understanding of God’s desires in these leading and following areas. Hopefully, we will all come to more joyously and thoroughly understand God, others and ourselves.

In the month of September, we’re going to spend some time gleaning from leading and following greatness. In a loose continuation of our ongoing leading and following conversation, we’re going to spend six weeks considering some great people in the Bible. We’re going to take a look at three men and three women in the Bible from whom we can learn profound things about faithful leading and following. The life story and experiences of Ruth, Simeon, Elijah, Esther, David and Deborah have much to teach us if we will listen. I hope we will truly listen to what their stories have to teach us.

But in the meantime, prayerfully re-read that Hebrews passage above and test your cringe factor. Study it any which way you like. But if you find yourself wanting to add in a bunch of caveats and conditions, if you find yourself looking for a bunch of excuses for your rebellious behavior, ask yourself and ask God if there might be something He wants you to think about this month.

May God help us both lead and follow well! May we rejoice in whatever roles God gives!

Amen.

How Do You Spell Surprise?

I got a lovely note in the mail today - a real day brightener for a pastor. A couple guys in prison heard about the weekly sermon mailing list and wanted to get themselves put on it.

I frequently get letters like this - letters with lots of spelling problems and messiness, but blessedly good intention. And sometimes the letters come with comments revealing how truly little people often understand about God, pastors, churches, the Bible and our motivations to love and serve them. They aren't used to getting anything for free. They aren't used to anyone making time for them. The idea of a loving God, for many, is only beginning to dawn on them...but with lots of spelling errors and messiness.

Today is the first official day of our "Be The Surprise" experiment. We are asking God for opportunities to be His surprise in the world around us.

I guess my encouragement and reflection today, as we begin these prayers, is that we not let a few spelling errors get in the way of offering God's best surprises. May God help us secretly serve and surprise even those who still can't quite get the words right.

Have a great week of secret service and surprise, Elim!

Our Secret Surprises (Matthew 6:1-4)

How do people know we are followers of Jesus? Is there some sort of secret mark we carry? Is there some sort of painful tattoo or embarrassing initiation ritual we must endure before we’re allowed in the club? We’re going to close our service today with a baptismal celebration. Is that our secret sign? Is a baptismal ceremony any guarantee of anything?

Or is there some other sort of spiritual decoder ring we have to figure out how to use? Anybody remember the old Ovaltine Decoder Ring? Does our status as followers of Jesus depend on what we know or what deep secrets of the faith we’re able to figure out for ourselves? On using the correct theological, spiritual, perhaps even political decoder rings? Following all the right teachers or reading all the right books? Is God only interested in smart followers?

With all the differing definitions of Christian faith floating around these days, sometimes it isn’t immediately obvious who the real followers of Jesus are. But sometimes I wonder if that isn’t exactly the way God wants it to be…God is always looking for secret saints.

Last April, we did a thirty day experiment here at Elim Church called “Surprise Me God.” Inspired by Terry Esau’s book of the same name, for thirty days many of us began each day with a simple, three word prayer: “Surprise Me God.” And then we recorded in journals and on my internet blog how we saw God answering those prayers. It was a great exercise in simply noticing God’s hand in our lives. Experiencing the big and little surprises of God reminded us of the living relationship with Almighty God always available to us. We know we are genuine followers of Jesus by the depth, power and vitality of the faith relationship we have with Him.

But our faith relationship with Jesus is not only proven genuine by what we notice God doing for us. Our relationship with God is also proven genuine by the quality of our service to God. And so for the next thirty days, we’re going to reverse our surprising prayers. For the next thirty days, we’re going to ask God to help us “Be The Surprise.” Instead of asking God to surprise us, we’re going to ask God use us to be a blessed surprise in the life of someone else.

But there is something we need to clearly understand before we begin this thing.

Our service is supposed to be a secret. Our surprises are to be seen by God alone. Open your Bibles to Matthew 6:1-4. Jesus is in the middle of his great Sermon on the Mount teaching when he says something that sounds a little strange on the surface of things…

Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Why? What’s the big deal with secrecy? What’s wrong with getting a little good public relations value out of our good deeds? As long as we’re genuinely doing good deeds for God and others, what is the harm in letting people know about it? Jesus, isn’t it only common sense that we would use our good deeds to publically advertise our faith, beliefs, church and our God? Isn’t it a good thing to give ourselves and others a little credit for the genuinely good things we do? I mean, LORD, how many cancer centers would get built if we couldn’t put somebody’s name on them? How many church buildings or other worthy projects would get finished if we can’t put a brass plaque on the wall? These people have done a genuinely good thing. We want to honor our donors, we want to honor missionaries, pastors and others who have served so sacrificially. What’s wrong with that? What’s the big deal with all this secret service?

There are lots of answers to those questions, but let me suggest three I believe Jesus was hinting at in this passage. As we pray this “Be the Surprise” prayer, as we faithfully immerse ourselves into this Christian life, as we are buried into his death and raised together into new lives of selfless service and sacrifice, there are three things we must remember.

Service Is Sacred

First of all, we must understand our service to God and others is sacred. Our service and sacrifice is an act of worship. As Jesus will say very plainly toward the end of Matthew’s Gospel, we must understand that “as you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it unto me.” Ultimately, we aren’t serving others when we serve others. When God uses us to “be the surprise” in someone else’s life, we are serving as the hands and feet of God. It is worship. It is purity. It is sacred. We serve others, we surprise others, we are fully baptized into this downwardly mobile Christian life because we have finally come to see the innate, image of God value in others. When I give a cup of cold water to a thirsty friend, I am giving it to Jesus. And who among us would give a cup of water to Jesus and expect a pat on the back for doing so?

The people around us are innately worthy of our service. We worship our LORD as we serve others. We rejoice in the opportunity to surprise others with the grace of Jesus. The last thing we want in the world is to blur someone’s pure experience of God’s surprising love by cluttering it up with a bunch of obligatory thank-you notes and gratitude. My favorite thank you note is supposed to be the sheer pleasure of being found useful to God and the kids he loves…

Last week at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, Bill Hybels interviewed the rock star Bono as a follow up to their controversial conversation three years ago. At one point in the conversation, Bono told the story of one very discouraged day a few years ago in New York City when he was seriously considering giving up his world poverty efforts. He has taken withering criticism over the years for his efforts on behalf of the poor. On this particularly down day, he was walking sadly through Central Park mulling things over, when he came across a man selling off his collection of famous, old editions of the New York Times. Bono stopped just to talk to the man and asked to see one of the newspapers the man had for sale. The very first paper the man drew out of his stack was the one with the headline, “Men Walk On Moon.” Ironically, the totally impossible story of man walking on the moon was the very metaphor that had driven Bono to get involved in his efforts against worldwide poverty and disease in the first place! Bono thought if it was possible to put on the man on the moon, then it simply must be possible to eliminate much of the stupid poverty and disease plaguing much of this world. And thus the man on the moon metaphor became the image God used to drive Bono to keep going; to get governments around the world to erase over 40 BILLION dollars of Third World debt. And so a strangely gracious, simple moment with an old man and his newspapers in Central Park felt like God stepping back into his tired life and reminding him of the importance of his calling. God restored his vision and passion through some anonymous guy and a stack of old newspapers.

But Bono never told us the newspaper guy’s name because that sacred, surprising moment wasn’t about the guy selling newspapers. It wasn’t about the newspapers being sold. It was about God using that guy. It was the God orchestrated sacred moment that mattered.

Do you see? Our service is sacred. We don’t want our name getting mentioned. Our name isn’t ever what this thing is about. In the overall scheme of things, there is nothing very surprising or special about us anyway. But in the hands of Almighty God, oh my goodness, we are powerfully sacred vessels. We can change the world! There is literally nothing my sacred service cannot accomplish in this world, but only if I understand the sacredness of my service.

Service Is Silent

And that leads right into the second truth I think Jesus is teaching here. Our service is not only sacred, it must be silent and humble. It must be as anonymous as we can make it because we aren’t interested in drawing attention to ourselves. Yuck! We don’t want all the trumpets blowing in the synagogues and all over the streets. We don’t want plaques, posters and praises! We don’t want people looking at us at all. We want people looking to Jesus.

Think about it logically for a moment. What is more fun? Being in need and receiving what you need from friends after being forced to shamelessly beg them for it or being in need and anonymously receiving exactly what you need without even telling anyone about your need? Some old Ft. Bragg friends of mine got a brand new washer and dryer given to them out of the blue by a Christian friend about an hour after their old one died! Who gets the thank you note when the sacred gift is obviously a God thing? Do you see? When was the last time somebody excitedly walked into a church service and said, “Hey pastor, you won’t believe it! I finally managed to badger all my friends and family into giving me a big loan! Oh praise the Lord!” That isn’t the kind of news typically reported in church newsletters, is it? That’s mostly just a boring business deal, isn’t it? But how many times have you heard someone tearfully stand in front of a church congregation and say, “I don’t know how or where this money, this gift, this surprising act of kindness came from, I don’t understand how people who don’t even know me could do something like this…frankly, I don’t even know how people found out about my situation, but look what Almighty God has miraculously done for me! How cool is this?”

And so what sort of service and surprise do we want to be involved in around here? Do we want to be a part of something obviously sacred, secret and powerfully miraculous, or will we continue to settle for all the silly trumpets and synagogue stuff just like the world does? Are you looking for more name recognition for yourself or do you humbly and silently long to serve the Name Himself? Trust me when I tell you that silent and humble service is way more fun!

Service Is Rewarded

The third and final truth Jesus shares in this passage is stunningly ironic. Our service must be sacred and silently humble. And Jesus encourages this because he knows how much God longs to eternally reward us. Sacred and silent service is the only path to genuine reward.

Isn’t that utterly ironic? Our rewards are mentioned three times in this passage! Our Father, who sees what is done in secret, longs to reward us one day! Almighty God wants us to see our service as sacred and silent because it is only in doing so that we will earn rewards of any eternally enduring value. Only by sacred and silent service can we ensure pure motives and enduring rewards. So selfishly speaking, if you’re looking for the very best return on your service investment, then serve selflessly and silently. Jesus wants to see us meaningfully and eternally rewarded, not superficially, temporally rewarded. He says all this for our benefit!

How cool is that?

On Thursday afternoon at the conference last week, a young woman named Jessica Jackley was interviewed. In 2005, she and a few friends decided to do a little microfinance experiment. For those unfamiliar with the term, microloans are nothing but relatively small loans typically going to poor people or groups of people whom banks would never consider loaning money. One tiny loan can often change a life dramatically. In any event, four years ago, Jessica and some friends scraped together $3,500 to loan to seven poor people in Uganda – a goat herder, a fish monger, a cattle farmer and a small restauranteur among them. Within six months, lives were changed and all the loans were repaid. And so Jessica and her friends considered their little experiment a success and launched a web-based microloan networking site called Kiva.org. They now help facilitate approximately $5 million per month in microloans to poor people all over the world! And all of that loan money comes from mostly anonymous people signing up to lend as little as $25 to any particular person or group of their choosing.

How utterly cool is that? Is that not a ready-made way of sacredly and silently wracking up mongo eternal rewards? And do you know what Jessica Jackley’s advice to 120,000 leaders gathered around the world for this conference was? “Never apologize for small beginnings! If we truly believe in the innate value and possibilities of people, all the rest is just logistics!” Can you imagine what would happen in the world if 120,000 people actually thought that way?

What do you suppose could be accomplished by a group of people utterly committed to the sacredness of service and the secret surprising of the world around them with the goodness and grace of God? What do you suppose could be accomplished by even a smallest group of people, much less 120,000 people, utterly committed to seeking only heavenly reward?

We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength! The devil must truly quiver at the thought! As we begin to pray for God to show us how to “be the surprise,” as we enter these beautiful baptismal waters once again this morning, may God wonderfully and powerfully fill the world around each one of us with many secret surprises.

Amen.

This Makes Me Happy

I'll Make You An Offer - Michael Franzese

This is truly an odd book. To be completely honest, I'm not sure what I think of it. I've been stupidly busy with my doctoral reading and so haven't had much of a chance to read anything else. But I promised the Thomas Nelson people I would read and review the book, so I guess I better get something written.

This book is a collection of insider business tips from a former mob boss who apparently has become a committed Christian (or at least God follower). For the most part, the book is a comparison of the wisdom of Machiavelli vs. the wisdom of Solomon. While the wisdom shared is generally alright I suppose, I'll confess to being uncomfortable with the idea of Solomon's wisdom shared as "better Mob business tips." The book opens with a rather exalted view of Mob business success, savvy and wisdom. And even though the business tips are thoughtful, I kept asking myself if this was supposedly Solomon giving me advice or a mobster who really misses a great deal of his mob life. It sounds cynical I suppose, but I kept asking myself if Franzese misses his violent, money obsessed, take no prisoners, homeboys. Weird.

Franzese advises us to use our brains more than our mouths. He says we should listen much and speak little. He shares some good, common sense business wisdom supposedly driven by Solomon. I guess there isn't anything particularly wrong with most of what he is saying.

But where is Jesus in this conversation? Where is repentance and humility? Where is any shred of a "chief of sinners," saved by grace perspective I would expect to see in a former Mob boss who has done, literally, God knows what?

This book leaves me feeling weird. Maybe I'm being a picky pastor, but I can't honestly say I would recommend anyone take the time to read this one. Sorry.

Tony Blair - The Irreducible Core of Leadership

This final session of the conference wasn't necessarily content laden, but a thought-provoking interview nonetheless. Some of my favorite quotes were...

"The biggest problem with leadership is our desire to be liked."

"Leaders stand or fall by what we truly believe - we must all understand the irreducible core of our leadership. We must even be prepared to walk away."

"There is always a very big difference between tactics and strategy. Sometimes we must tactically accommodate and compromise in order to accomplish more important strategic objectives."

But perhaps the most touching moment of the interview came when Mr. Blair was discussing dealing with difficulty. He was complaining about everything to his wife who very bluntly responded, "Oh stop it! Look at your blessings! Look at all the wonderful things you have the opportunity to do!" Amen, sister! We deal with our difficulties by focusing intently on our blessings.

A great way to finish a great conference!

Bono - An Interview w/Bill Hybels

In a follow up interview three years after their first controversial conversation, this was a very inspirational moment in the conference. Three churches active in responding to Bono's first call to action were highlighted and many other issues were discussed. The only point of conflict in the conversation came when Pastor Hybels prodded Bono about his church participation. While Bono's answer probably satisfied no one, it is clear his passions are spiritually informed.

I also find it interesting that so many pastors and speakers alluded to at least partially being shamed into action by "this rock star" as if Bono was some ordinary rock musician and they were embarrassed to be challenged by him. I find that rather confusing, since Bono has always been passionately involved in social causes of one sort or another almost since the inception of his career. Bono is not just some rock musician - he has been challenging all of us to act for decades now! There is no shame in listening to a guy like this...

There were a couple of interesting quotes and stories I enjoyed. The first was at the close of Bono's argument for Christian grace in the world - "Whenever I see grace, I am moved by God." Amen.

He also told the story of one depressing day walking through New York's Central Park, considering giving up on his "social work." Long inspired by the long-thought impossible idea of putting a man on the moon, Bono was struck to discover an old man selling an old collection of New York Times newspapers. The edition he had for sale? Several copies of the paper with the headline: "Man Walks On Moon." An angel with the New York Times...we must allow God to encourage us with His angels, but we must never forget the work is always going to be hard.

A good conversation.

Chip/Dan Heath - Switch

The afternoon began with a fascinating interview with Chip and Dan Heath, co-authors of Switch, discussing organizational change. Using the metaphor of a human riding an elephant (not exactly the most flattering leadership image!), the Heath brothers made some fascinating observations. Probably the most important theme running through the interview was solution focused therapeutic idea of "looking for what is working and going there." Instead of concentrating on areas of weakness, look for current areas of strength, searching for why those areas are successful. Transfer the discoveries to the weak areas, and, voila, much more successful elephant steering!

They discussed Jerry Stirnen of Save The Children, frustrated with "whining about weaknesses," deemed the information he was receiving "TBU - True But Useless," tried instead to discover why some children thrived in poverty situations and some did not. Upon discovering those factors, he was able to transfer them to the rest of the children and make enormous changes in the lives of children. Fascinating! Check out the story here. They argued that good leaders must learn how to "reverse engineer successful changes" so we might be able to use those successes to attack other necessary changes.

Another fascinating component of the conversation was the Heath's belief that "big problems are only rarely solved by big solutions." They argued that big changes must be shrunk into the smallest components possible and attacked bite by bite. Very thought-provoking for someone passionate about the importance of the follower! The illustration used here was that of some kids in a South Dakota small town economics class who managed to save their town simply by encouraging everyone in town to spend just 10% more of their money locally. And it worked!

A third issue discussed was the idea of a growth mindset. Successful leaders are never satisfied with success. Like Tiger Woods improving his swing at the height of his game, we too must be constantly willing to look towards the future.

A final issue discussed were the differences between people problems and situational problems. Perhaps many of the people problems we think we have as leaders might actually be situational problems mostly unrelated to the people. Stressed people behave differently than people in relaxed situations. How can we change the situations that might result in behavioral change?

Another thoroughly thought provoking session!

David Gergen - Eyewitness to Power

The final session of the morning was a conversation about leadership between Bill Hybels and David Gergen. While this session was probably not as spiritually profitable as the rest of the sessions so far, it was still a fascinating conversation. With Gergen's access to power, leadership studies, media experience and perspectives as a Harvard professor, his insights were always thought-provoking. His encouragement to be leaders who read was particularly valuable (and particularly evident in his own conversation). His comment that "not every reader is a leader, but every leader must be a reader" was great. Another quotation he shared, from the former director of the Gates Foundation, was also very insightful for leaders of organizations facing dramatic change. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." This is enormous and enormously true. This has great relevance for churches and studies in followership in particular...

Another exchange I found interesting was in response to Hybel's question about whether or not dramatic leadership improvement is truly possible. Gergen abruptly responded, "We must change! Leaders have no choice but to continuously be working on improvement. This is not optional for us." Gergen argued strongly for "reflective practitioners." We must constantly be evaluating ourselves, seeking improvement as necessary.

All in all, I found the presentation very constructive and gracious when it needed to be. It easy to see why four Presidents found this man's advice useful!

Wess Stafford - Leveraging Your Past

Probably the most personal, emotional and gripping speaker of the morning was Wess Stafford, the President and CEO of Compassion International. Stafford was challenged to speak to the group about the painful experiences of his childhood abuse in a missionary boarding school in Africa and how those experience served to influence his leadership. This conversation was, at times, difficult to hear, but absolutely riveting. Stafford's very personal story, and the concluding challenge to redeem the pain and heartbreaks of our lives for God's glory, was simply riveting.

The entire group also received a complimentary copy of Dr. Stafford's latest book, Too Small To Ignore. After hearing his story this morning, I am certain this book will be a very profitable read.

Andrew Rugasira - Aid vs. Trade

This fascinating speaker, founder of the Good African Coffee Company, was from Kampala, Uganda. His riveting presentation on the importance of trade over foreign aid echoes what many have been saying for years. Aid is not aid. Trade is aid. Between 1970 and 2000, 400 billion dollars went to Africa in foreign aid. And yet the more aid increased, the more African GDP's decreased. While well intentioned, most foreign aid has actually been counterproductive. We must begin to think of Africa as a continent of potential consumers, not an object of charity.

A very challenging address!

[UPDATE: After lunch, Bill Hybels challenged us to remember there are different kinds of aid; life-saving, emergency assistance and long-term government to government assistance. Apparently, some felt Mr. Rugasira's presentation was denigrating the importance of all forms of aid. I felt Hybels clarified things appropriately.]

Dave Gibbons - Third Culture Leadership

The first presentation this morning was from a pastor encouraging us to consider what it means to be a "third culture leader." These are leaders willing to painfully adapt to other cultural groups as ever is necessary. Gibbons argued these leaders are different in three distinct ways...

First of all, they are focused on the fringe people. They understand it is from the fringe where most change comes and so they are very intentional about connecting with these folks.

Secondly, they have a completely different matrix of success. They are not obsessively focused on the "upward and rightward" models of leadership success. They allow weakness to guide them as much or more than strength. Their focus on relationships frequently trump their concern for vision. They are willing to change their priorities to accommodate what they believe truly matters.

Third and finally, third culture leaders understand obedience is more important than passion. They are more committed to being obedient than being passionately influential. Gibbon suggested four necessary expressions of this obedience. Third culture leaders are committed to a deeper collaboration, more significantly communal living, prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit and radical sacrifices on behalf of those outside the church.

Harvey Carey – Against All Odds

What a great finish to a truly great day! Pastor Carey serves a church in the poorest place in America and does so passionately. He truly believes “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” What a riveting speaker! Some of his most thought-provoking nuggets were:

• Do you really believe God’s Word is true? Then show it by your actions!
• Stop whining about staff and resources and get ferociously intent on equipping others!
• Members must be forced to take ownership of the work. We must get out of the huddle and play the game!
• We do “urban camping” in the darkest parts of the city. We’ve shut down 9 crackhouses!
• We create a context in which people have the opportunity to see biblical truths lived out. Force people to discover for themselves the truth of God’s Word in the most awful of circumstances.
• DON’T ALLOW RESOURCES TO DRIVE MINISTRY!

Wow – what a great finish to an already pretty fantastic day!

Jessica Jackley – The KIVA Story

This was yet another very inspirational moment in the day. This young woman and her friends have put together a website (kiva.org) which now does over $5 million per month in microloans to the poor all around the world. Her attitude was not only thrilling, but absolutely infectious! She received one of several standing ovations at the conference today. Among many thoughts impressing me was her encouragement to “never apologize for small beginnings.” Her organization began with seven friends getting together to purchase a truck for a rice farmer. Her “just do it” philosophy and bias toward action was evident in every moment of her conversation. Her final thought was also wonderful: we must genuinely believe in the possibilities of people and, if we truly do, then "all the rest is just logistics!"

Beautiful!

Tim Keller – Leading People to The Prodigal God

Okay, wow! Just wow! Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New York, was simply riveting in his interpretation and application of the familiar story of the Prodigal Son. He pointed out that it was the bad boy who got saved at the end, while the good boy did not. Keller asked the question: what can we do about the dead older brothers filling our churches? He shared both diagnosis and prescription.

Diagnosis – How do you know if you’re an older brother? Because an elder brother's salvation is in what he does not what Jesus did…
• Elder brothers get angry when things go wrong (it means God doesn't appreciate all their hard work.)
• Elder brothers can’t take criticism (their work is their salvation)
• Elder brothers pray petitionary prayers, not intimate prayers (they need to get things done, not enjoy God)
• Elder brothers loathe other people, especially lazy, sinful and doctrinally sloppy people (why isn't everyone a hard-working Martha like me?)
• Elder brothers can’t forgive (because they aren't experiencing/familiar with grace)

Prescription – A new level of repentance and a new level of renewal. A theology professor once shared, “The main thing separating you from God is not your sins, but your damnable good works.” Our works can get in the way of our experience of Gospel and grace.

Five Ways To Kill Deadness In Our Churches
• Work this grace into your own life. Why am I working so hard? For my worth or God’s glory?
• Move beyond biblical principles to Gospel grace in every preaching and teaching moment
• Teach these elder brother and grace principles to your elders
• Teach these things to your church
• Pray, pray, and pray!

Keller has caused me, once again, to realize how "elder brotherish" I often am. A strong challenge to repentance and renewal I must not ignore!

Josh Wilson - Great Guitarist

An unbelievable guitarist! I bought this album off iTunes already, but the guitar solo from today was not on it. But the album is still very worth it. Great music.

Reveal – Greg Hawkins/Greg Terrill

This luncheon session was also outstanding. Reveal is a series of studies used at Willow (and many other places) for the purpose of more accurately gauging the true spiritual condition of the church. The results have been shocking and have changed the way Willow and others are doing church. They have clearly discovered that activity for God is not necessarily any guarantee of intimacy with God.

Probably the most stunning result of the research was that engagement with the Bible was discovered to be the single most catalytic factor in spiritual growth across all levels of engagement. The more Bible, the more intimacy with God. And when people were asked what they wanted most, the results were also pleasantly surprising:
#1 – People want to learn the Bible in greater depth
#2 – People want a deeper intimacy with God
#3 – People want leaders who model what they teach
#4 – People want to be challenged to grow and take risks and next steps

And when people were asked what they wanted from their senior pastors, the answers were very similar…

#1 – Bible – Give me an “aha” moment in God’s Word
#2 – Challenge – Give me a meaningful challenge to embrace
#3 – Model – Transparently model what you’re calling us to live.

Another component of this session involved the use of technology in community building. There are some really exciting and innovative things coming out of Willow very soon. One interesting thought was to “open source” sermons and teaching to entire congregations or small groups. Let people know and engage the sermon text before the sermon, that it might actually even affect the message shared.

A very good lunch!

Gary Hamel – Manage Differently Now

I almost skipped this message because it sounded too much like stuff I’ve already been studying for months in my doctoral work. I wasn’t expecting much novelty or challenge. Boy, was I wrong!

Opening with a bleak picture of church effectiveness, Hamel asked how we in the church can possibly face the withering pace of organizational change? Hamel discussed four imperatives…

#1: Conquer Denial – We must overcome our tendency to take refuge in denial. We must face the facts about who we really are, for better or for worse.

#2: Generate More Strategic Options – We must do all we can to ensure that change sounds like a more exciting option than the status quo. We must “cover the ground with acorns,” since we have no idea which of these seeds will sprout meaningfully. The parable of the sower and the seed surfaces here. He mentioned Dell’s Ideastorm website as a model for church innovation.

#3: Deconstruct Organizational Orthodoxy/Doctrine – Not theologically, but organizationally, we must ask ourselves what programs/ministries/activities have not changed in 4-5 years and why. Are we engaging in the redemption of the world or are we simply continuing to comfort the converted?

But the fourth and final imperative was the stunner, from my doctoral research perspective…

#4: Autocratic Leadership Must End – There is no longer any place for superheroes! While there are truly some great, multi-talented leaders out there, we must increasingly forget the idea that any one person is capable of leading our churches where they are supposed to go. We must become Velcro organizations, with countless points of connection. We must become Wikipedia organizations, where we are all working on the dictionary. We must become WWW churches, where we exist as a network more than a fixed and controlled hierarchy. WE ARE NOT A COMPANY, WE ARE A CAUSE!

Bill Hybels – Leading In A New Reality

Pastor Bill began the conference this morning by talking about the impact of the rogue waves currently hitting the church. The economics of our day, along with culture shifts, leave us wondering when the old normal is going to come back. Hybels argues it probably isn’t. Now is the time for leadership to emerge – times of crisis separate the wheat from the chaff.

Hybels invited us to consider four great lessons of rogue wave times…

Philosophical – Do we still believe the church matters in the world? How will the difficulties of these days serve to focus what we do? Willow Creek is working, among many other things, to ensure their Sunday mornings are “all killer, no filler.” They start before the beginning, blur the ending and do serious church in between! Every Sunday morning.

Economics – What is the church when the math doesn’t make sense? As we Luke 14 this thing, counting the costs of doing ministry, how can we better allocate funds and prioritize ministries to maximize all we do? Hybels talked about three-bucket priorities – what is tertiary, what is secondary and what will we never, ever stop doing regardless of the rogue waves that hit us? He also analyzed our budget pie according to predefined values of the church. He told a wonderful story of people stepping forward to “pop” for water filtration systems in Africa (22 of them at $25K each!) Remember: people will always continue to give to a white hot vision and, secondly, financial crisis is a wonderful time to teach God’s financial management. People are finally ready to hear it now that their own financial management has left them in crisis.

Relational – Drawing on Habakkuk 3:2 and the prophet’s desire for God to do cool things in our day just as He has done in the past, Hybels asks how many of our people are willing to radically become instruments of God’s activity. God moves through surrendered people.

Personal – Is the pace at which we’re working spiritually and emotionally sustainable? Is our workload demonstrating our confidence in God’s ability to get the work done successfully? Or our own lack of faith? Is the pace at which I’m faithfully working destroying the work of faith God is doing in me?

A very passionate and challenging message.

Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit

What an unbelievable first day of the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit Conference! There are scarcely words to describe how impressed I’ve been today.

I began the morning overwhelmed (and somewhat depressed) by the crowds and enormous, luxurious facilities here in South Barrington and finished the day having found a more quiet spot to truly listen and enjoy the conference. I don’t know what it says about me, but I’ve never been a big fan of crowds. So I spent most of the day sitting in an overflow area watching the conference on enormous video screens with a few other mostly older pastors. We finished the afternoon listening to a stunningly blunt message from Pastor Harvey Carey from Detroit, a feisty black pastor from the inner city.

I looked to my left and saw several old, white pastors with tears streaming down their faces. It was that kind of day. I was tempted to skip one session (info overload!), but it turned out to be an incredibly great session also.

Wow! What a day! Tomorrow I will blog throughout the day.

Praise the Lord!

About Marriage (Ephesians 5:21-33)

Okay, what is the deal with marriage? We’ve all heard the depressing statistics ad nauseum. About half of all marriages supposedly now end in divorce. That statistic has been declining since its peak in 1980, but then again, lots of people just aren’t bothering to even get married any more. And being a church-goer is no guarantee of anything! There have been some painful statistics in recent years about divorce rates even among Christians. While social scientists tell us we can significantly decrease the possibility of divorce by waiting to marry until we’re 25, waiting to have children till at least seven months after marriage, by having a stable income, by having at least a little college under our belt and other factors – the fact remains that a large number of marriages just don’t survive. Why? What’s the deal with marriage?

This just can’t be the way God wanted marriage to work.

Last Sunday, Stephen Pastis’ “Pearls Before Swine” cartoon strip in the Star Tribune shared an interesting perspective on marriage. Apparently, his goat, mouse and pig characters were told to come up with a proper anniversary card. Here’s what Mouse came up with…

Elly Elephant did everything for Henry Hippo. She cut up his fruit for him. She bought his clothes. She made his plane reservations. She paid the bills. She mowed the lawn. She did the laundry. She did the dishes. And she dusted. And she vacuumed. And she made the bed. One day, Elly Elephant asked Henry Hippo a question, “What do you do for me?” Stumped, Henry Hippo handed her a corn chip. “I hand you the corn chips,” he said. Elly Elephant suffocated Henry Hippo with the corn chip bag. Then, in the final frame of the cartoon, Goat, Mouse and Pig are discussing the card. Goat shouted, “Hey, what kind of anniversary card is this?” Mouse said, “The realistic kind!” And Pig just dreamed of dying in a corn chip bag.

Is that really what marriage is? Is it really that bad? Some tragic fight over corn chips?

What in the world has happened to marriage?

I used to believe marriages were in trouble because we all listened to Hollywood and the culture too much. Marriage is having a hard time enduring in this country because we’ve all seen one too many Meg Ryan movies! Boy meets girl, girl loves boy, Cary Grant kisses Audrey Hepburn, they fall in love, get married, have 2.3 children and live out the rest of their lives in starry-eyed bliss. Sigh! Marriages are falling apart all over the place because our culture never told us marriage was going to be a lot of hard work, drudge and commitment. Our culture paints too rosy and romantic a picture of marriage – just too many mushy movies.

Right? It’s all Meg Ryan’s fault! Romance can’t last forever, right? That picture just isn’t realistic, son! Get with the program, girlfriend! Puhlease! Don’t be so dreamy and naïve!

Is that what the Bible teaches? That Christian husbands and wives need to stop longing for long walks on sandy beaches, tender kisses, stolen glances, sexual passion, sparks, roses and romance and just settle in for duty and drudgery? Is that honestly what the Bible says?

No! That isn’t what the Bible teaches at all! Good romance is our reality! Folks, please understand some parts of the Bible were once considered so sexually explicit young Jewish kids were not allowed to read them until they reached maturity. Our LORD GOD is the consummate romantic! You may find this honestly hard to believe, but when it comes to love and romance, Hollywood doesn’t go far enough! The more I’ve studied what the Bible says about marriage, the more I’ve come to sincerely believe God longs to give us beyond all we can possibly ever ask or imagine in life – perhaps in this area in particular. Our LORD loves not only the nervous kisses of our wedding day, but the tender, soul-soaked kisses of our seniority! This is reality!

This is God’s wonderfully mushy desire for our marriages. So as we close our “What Does The Bible Say” study series this morning, I beg you to suspend your marital cynicism for a moment and allow me to make a very mushy, biblical case for marriage. And since we learned in our Revelation class a couple weeks ago that twelve is a biblical number of completion, let me fly through twelve biblical definitions of marriage for us to take home and study later.

Marriage Is God’s Invention

First of all, Genesis 2:18 tells us marriage is God’s invention. The Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper (colaborer) suitable for him.” God invented this thing. God invented relationships. God invented sex and God made it pleasurable.

Marriage Is One Flesh

Secondly, Genesis 2:23 tells us marriage is one flesh. This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. We are made a one flesh, new creation in marriage. There is no silly 50/50 contract between us – you do your part and I’ll do my part and we’ll meet each other in the middle once a week. This is 100/100! This is a new life and new existence. There is only us. Marriage is one body with some new and very interesting parts tossed in just for the sheer fun of it! We are one flesh in everything.

Marriage Is Damaged

But thirdly, that gorgeous one fleshness has been horribly damaged. Genesis 3:16 tells us one of the many things destroyed in our sinful fall from grace was the marriage relationship. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. The Hebrew word for desire is the same word used later in Genesis for Satan desiring to control the heart of Cain. It is a selfish, controlling and evil desire. And it will be met by iron-fisted rulership from the man.

Where once there was one flesh, mushy, colaboring mutuality and utter nudity without hint of shame between us, now there is a vicious struggle for control. Love and oneness have been replaced with a nasty fistfight; tragically and literally so in many marriages. But this is not God’s desire for us. This was never God’s desire for us. This sort of relational brokenness is not even in God’s nature. This is not the lovely way God wants things to be between us. This is part of the curse of sin which, along with all other Genesis curses, will eventually be reversed.

Marriage Is Being Restored

And that’s the good news! While marriage has been damaged, marriage is now being restored to us in Jesus, along with all the other stuff damaged in the Fall. This is the fourth biblical truth about marriage. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 says “since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” All that died through the first Adam, God intends to restore through Jesus the Second Adam. Paul repeats this theme in 1 Corinthians 15:45 when he said, “The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.” Jesus Christ came to breathe His life-giving spirit into everything damaged by the Fall. And that happily includes marriage!

Marriage Is Submission

But what does this newly restored Christian marriage look like? This is where perhaps the most important biblical description of marriage enters our conversation. All the rest of our twelve-fold biblical case for mushy marriage is drawn from Ephesians 5:21-33.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Marriage is God’s invention, marriage is one flesh, it is damaged and it is being restored and all that restoration, I believe, begins with mutual submission. This is the fifth biblical truth. Following Jesus is about joyously embracing all sorts of submission in virtually every area of our lives; a fresh, holy, spiritually empowered sense of submission to God, to our leaders, to other believers and perhaps especially to each other as we live in relationship. Holy submission is the thesis statement from which Paul’s entire biblical description of one-flesh marriage flows. Wives submit to your husbands and husbands, love and submit yourselves to this marital relationship as Christ submitted Himself to the church. Christian marriage swims in an ocean of submission!

Marriage Is Respect

Marriage will also include respect. This is the sixth biblical truth. Remarkably, in a culture where women were considered little more than the property of men, Paul reminded them that they still must submit. Why? He probably does so because he himself has been teaching, in Galatians 3:28, that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” While there is glorious freedom and oneness in Christ like you have never experienced, you still have to respect your husband in marriage.

Marriage Is Love

But ladies, don’t worry about the impossibility of respecting and submitting to your husbands because Almighty God has given men exponentially more difficult instructions. Not only must there be respect in marriage, but there must be self-sacrificing love in marriage. In a culture where men and women may not have even met each other before their wedding day, husbands are told to love and sacrifice themselves as Christ did for the church. There must be love in this relationship beyond all we can ask or imagine; the love of Christ himself. Stunning!

I used to get in all sorts of arguments about marriage. Obviously, I don’t have a traditional, hierarchical view of marriage and some people don’t like that. But this passage in Ephesians has caused me to stop fighting about all this stuff because even if someone has the most traditional, hierarchical, “man in charge, woman submit” view imaginable, our loving God’s instructions to the men in this passage utterly destroy any sort of masculine cruelty in marriage! If a man loves his wife as Christ loved the church, I challenge anyone to find a woman in the world who wouldn’t adore submitting and respecting a man like that! If a man is serving his wife’s needs as Christ served the church, there won’t be problems. So I don’t fight anymore.

Marriage Is Holiness

But according to the Apostle Paul here, marriage is also about holiness. Gary Thomas has written an interesting book, entitled “Sacred Marriage: What If Marriage Is More About Holiness Than Happiness?” While the title makes me a little nervous since I believe pursuing holiness actually is the best way to find true happiness in life and relationships, Thomas does make a good point. Our marriages, as Paul says clearly here in Ephesians, are about working together with another person that we become holy. And that means sometimes there will be “iron sharpening iron” times in marriage intended to move us onward and upward into holiness.

Marriage Is Mysterious

And that can be a mysterious thing. This is the ninth biblical truth about our marriages. There is much about our marriages that will always, almost of necessity, be mysterious. Just as in anything having to do with our discipleship, our Christian growth and God-ward movement, there will always be stuff we don’t understand. Marriage is always at least a bit of a mystery.

Marriage Is Metaphor

And, tenth, one mysterious quality of marriage is the metaphorical nature of it. This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. Our marital relationships are one of the single most frequently used biblical metaphors for Christ and the church itself. God intends marriage to serve as a relationship parable for the rest of our lives. As we increasingly learn to love and enjoy our marriages, we learn to love and enjoy all our other relationships.

Marriage Is Miraculous

But all this isn’t something we can master without a great deal of help. And that is why I must add as the eleventh item on our list that marriage is miraculous. I simply do not believe this one flesh we’re talking about is possible without a great deal of God’s presence and help. Like anything truly good in life, good marriage utterly depends on the power and presence of God. Marriage is a miracle! God is constantly leading us into places we cannot experience fully without Him – and marriage is precisely one of those miraculous places.

Marriage Is Muy Mushy!

And so, as I consider these other eleven biblical principles I’ve flown through this morning, as I think of still other biblical marriage definitions we could discuss (marriage as blessing, marriage as evangelism, marriage as discipleship and ministry, marriage as kingdom fulfillment, marriage as worship, marriage as spiritual laboratory and on and on and on), as I stir all these things together in the marriage pot under the watchful eye of Almighty God “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” I am left with no other biblical conclusion about marriage than to summarize things in true Kevin Hanson fashion this morning – saying simply that biblical marriage is muy mushy!

God wants your marriage to be a very mushy, romantic, absolutely wonderful deal!

On the basis of God’s Word, on the basis of 23 something years of marriage to a woman who constantly drives me crazy and yet a woman who has become oxygen to me, I believe God wants you and I to cherish every minute of our marriages. When I came close to losing Monica in our motorcycle accident a few years ago, these things came clearly into focus for me. And now I’m not exaggerating when I say I honestly miss Monica when I’m at work – she brightens my day by walking into a room (unless it’s walk time!) We argue constantly; usually playfully and often quite seriously, but she is my one flesh. Emotionally, intellectually, socially, we are regularly all over the marriage map, but eternally, she is mine and I am hers. While we are all completely different people with different baggage, stories, emotions and spiritual gifts, while no two marriages will ever look completely the same, while God’s holy desires will demand a great deal of suffering and difficulty, I believe the Lover of our Souls wants us to enjoy each other. It will look different in every marriage, but I believe God loves a muy mushy marriage!

I don’t think Hollywood has a clue! Hollywood doesn’t come close. Yet if anything, we probably need even more romantic comedies…although I can’t believe I’m saying that!

The first time I visited Al and Esther Dalberg’s home toward the end of his life, after 60 some odd years of marriage, she very quietly and tearfully whispered to me, “Pastor, this is all happening too fast. I’m not ready to lose him! What will I do without him?” To this day, my heart breaks for Esther’s loss, but I count it an honor to have seen an old, tender, married heart still very alive; still romantic after all those years of marriage. What a precious gift! What a glorious testimony to our broken, adulterous world! What a holy goal to strive for!

Folks, don’t listen to what the world around us says is normal marriage. And don’t settle for less than God’s best for marriage. Pick up a copy of this sermon today, listen to it again on the church website or read it again on my blog – but go home today and study this biblical blizzard of marriage blessing for yourself and ask yourself if I’m not correct in what I’m saying.

May all our marriages become lovely, wonderful expressions of our Loving God! May there be romance in this place!

Amen.