Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 9 of 11

The Posture of Birth

To anticipate God’s future and to frame our present in light of God’s work is to know existentially in our present the reality expressed in Revelation 21:5. “And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘see, I am making all things new.’” The posture of birth is the posture of a midwife; it sees its never ending work in the Christian assembly as that of delivering healthy and well the new things God is birthing through his body the church. This sort of posture anticipates pain and discomfort and the messiness of delivery and coaches through it. And as midwifes do in homes and delivery rooms, it reminds the body that giving birth is a healthy, normal and natural thing to do…and that the pain that comes in the midst of it is of the sort that does not last.

In my own ministry I state openly and regularly that God expects to give birth to new mission through us, to deeper discipleship and followership, to new disciples brought into our community, and to great hopefulness and trust. What I find anecdotally is that the stated expectation, the assertion of the posture, shifts the Christian community into a synergistic posture of expectation, watching and discernment. Though there may be anxiety over changes and new things occurring in our congregational life, the simple conversation of “expecting” changes and modifies the nature of the anxiety from that of negative murmuring to that of positive excitement. These small communal shifts do something remarkable in community over time as well. In the end, the community of Christ is able to conceive and birth greater and greater amounts of mission and engagement with the world. In other words, the posture of birth in fact gives birth to a missional church.