leading from below

Haiti Earthquake Relief

2010-01-17T18:23:00.001-06:00

For the life, beauty, and hope of the Haitian people. Their's to is the Resurrection and the Life...

Generation WE : The Movement Begins...

2009-04-13T12:02:00.001-06:00

Generations are an interesting thing. Each one has its own characteristics...formed out of the crucible of the pressures of the day...each responds and forms a distinct personality. I'm personally on the front end of this generation...part of what's called GenX. Not a Boomer, and not a Millenial.

But church, we need to pay attention to the heart of this generation. If we don't understand what this generation is passionate about, we will never be able to connect with it.

So pay close attention...both to their hope and frustration with this "Present Future."

Peace and all that is good from my Longwood Lanai.

Nathan Swenson-Reinhold

Just Because: Coldplay - Viva La Vida

2008-09-11T21:31:00.001-06:00

I haven't posted much recently. Truth is I've been focusing most of my energies on a blog for my congregation called, "The Spirit Porch." You can check it out through the link in this blog, or simply type thespiritporch.blogspot.com into your URL.

In the meantime, this my favorite song in the media right now...and I thought I'd share it with you for kicks.

Peace to you all as you sort out the "postures of leadership" in your ministries and lives.

Nathan

Making Our Marks...

2008-07-31T22:30:00.006-06:00

I've been on a trip with my congregation's "Solid Rock" youth group. I've been working with youth groups for over eight years now. I've never enjoyed working with a group of kids as much as these. They are solid...in faith, service, hope...though their lives are varied, and their homes are a kaleidoscope of the suburban realities that assail all who live in such a realities.

But this week, we've been making a unique mark: one of service and sacrifice, of joy and laughter. And it has been showing in the tears, the excited sharing, the warm embraces, the great meals shared. It has been showing in homes rebuilt and rubbish hauled away down here in Bayou la Batre, Alabama...where the flood waters washed in at high tide along with Katrina.

But as Katrina moved, so did the God of the universe...the one who does His best work in crosses and tombs. And he's showing forth life. In our kids. In the homes of the people here who persist.

Jesus is alive. He's alive in us. It is a PRIVILEGE to be his BODY.

From the heat and beauty of the Bayou...

Nathan

OPENsource JESUS: The Priesthood of All Believers in a User-Generated Culture

2008-07-07T19:09:00.002-06:00

Something like the above will be the title for my now in the works dissertation. In our open-content/open-source world (or as Len Sweet would relate it: USER-GENERATED), faith expressions where denominations authorities expect the baptized (and unbaptized for that matter) to outsource their faith and mission to professionals is dead. Mission and moneys that get outsourced through denominational centers, synod offices, district offices, dioceses, etc., are seeing their pockets squeezed by a shift in understanding about who is supposed to be generating mission and authentic faith. Let's just say that the movement isn't towards centralization.

For a hands on, reality creating, input generating culture, clerical/denominational structures that insist that ministry (of any sort) be the province of a select few will increasingly find that they can no longer relate to our postmodern world. And I predict that for those of us called to bridge the clerically bound church cultures of the present with the user-generated culture that is morphing around us, the ugliness is just beginning.

Because denominational authorities will not relinquish their power and authority. However, whether they like it or not, the church IS an economy...and the economy of the church says increasingly that it will no longer stand for denominational authorities that cry partnership (i.e. "send the undesignated funds to us and WE'LL disperse them) while refusing to lead in terms of vision, management of the cultural anxieties that are ratcheting up levels of conflict in all congregations, and an articulation of the gospel and ecclesiologies that place it (and authentic contextual mission) first. No...they are all trying to shore up their power. But today, more than even, whether you find yourself in the UMC, ELCA, LCMS, ECUSA, PCUSA, or others, you come to this realization:

It's just a matter of time.

And the switch will be the way that we are knit together as churches, not whether or not there will be the church. It will exist. It will persist. It will even find ways to thrive...just as it has done over two millenia.

But I wonder, (and this is the angle of my thesis) if we might not get ahead of what's happening in the culture...and check our inventory and find that we can relate, equip, and unleash a church that can lead and in fact impact the culture. We have the tools for the whitewater around us. But we're going to have to give up our addiction to control, and give in to the Spirit, to find that we have the power to surf these waters. But these changes won't come from the centers of any of our tribes.

The key doctrine, mostly unpracticed, and certainly never theologically fleshed out (too threatening to our Protestant denominatioanl hierarchies) is the stuff of the unfinished business of the Reformation: e.g. "the priesthood of all believers." And to that I will begin to speak. So stay tuned...

Cardboard Testimonies

2008-06-26T20:48:00.001-06:00

Moving and powerful. I know in my own Lutheran Christian tribe we need to reclaim the reality of transformation...not just in the kingdom to come, but in this life...that the Spirit of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah is moving HERE and NOW...transforming, recreating, renewing, restoring, redeeming, rebuilding, and rescinding our sin.

I think my cardboard testimony reads:

My Life: God's Life

I hope that today, as you see and absorb this, you connect to the power of God at work in you...and that the transformation of the living God isn't far away.

Blessings from the heart of Christ, and the land of Sun and palms!

Nathan

A New Pentecost is Coming

2008-05-31T12:21:00.002-06:00

I'm new in this call. In my third month here at St. Stephen, Longwood, I can feel the stirrings of the immensity of the immanent movement of the Spirit. Things are stirring in the church...and they are stirring in me.

Recently I've been moved by the Spirit to walk daily. Oddly not for my health (though a look at my waistline will tell you it's time to engage a new exercise program)...but to walk and pray...for this neighborhood that I live in and for the Church I'm called to lead into a powerful new day...a fresh channel of the Spirit of the living God that blows from the doorway of the empty tomb.

I've been moved to pray big. The prayers that I am praying are these:

1. That God would double our worshipping community over the next 12 months.

2. That God would give us twice as many adult baptisms (expressions of conversion) as their are infant baptisms in our church.

3. That our presence in our community would matter...not for the sake of St. Stephen...but that because of our presence here and commitment to deploying the kingdom in our neighborhoods and the places we work...that the radical transformation of Jesus' Lordship would be overwhelming felt and lives changed -- all over the place!

It's a powerful thing to pray these sorts of prayer. I feel transformation in me as I pray them and also the conviction that to allow for these things to happen, the church and I will have to both undergo a radical new sense of mission. We will have to preach the unmitigated "go to the cross Love of Jesus"...and that the work of salvation has already been done for this broken world. And as this is communicated, give people a new opportunity to respond to the working of the Spirit...to step into discipleship consciously and with as much commitment as our sinful human containers will allow...trusting that the Spirit of the empty tomb will work through these steps and will take care of the rest.

I have to tell you this stuff scares me...I feel the power coursing. And at the same time...I know that God's living Spirit is ahead of me in all this. The miracle of Pentecost is already underway.

May the Spirit of the Living God fall afresh...on all of us...and may there be a baptism of the Holy Spirit like none ever experienced in my community ever before.

Amen

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

2008-03-13T20:02:00.011-06:00

Conclusion

Pastoral leadership has been mired in a model that asks it to surrender the story of the church, that of Jesus crucified and risen, to the wills, whims and needs of the state. As we come into the 21st century and as the church/state relationship begins to unravel, the church has a unique opportunity to reconnect itself and its priorities with the story of the resurrecting God that formed it so long ago. With this reclamation of identity and calling comes the opportunity for pastoral leaders in the church to reconnect with the deep identity and calling of the church and to utilize their systemic presence as a catalyst for the transformation of Christian communities.

Pastoral leaders can do this work of catalyzing transformation through how they function, dream and self-define in Christian community. In this work there are at least four intentional postures of transformation. The first posture is that of discipleship where the pastoral leader understands that his first work as a Christian and as a leader in Christ’s church is that of a follower of the risen Jesus. The second posture is that of perspective where the pastoral leader works to create the communal capacity to frame and see the work and challenges of the church in the present in light of the future reign of God disclosed in the Lordship of Jesus’ resurrection. The third posture is that of birth which asserts that pastors function with an attitude of expectation in Christian community, fostering the capacity to give birth to new ideas and mission and to frame the anxiety and pain related to these changes as temporary signposts that God is up to new life in their midst. The fourth posture is that of engagement which functions to create as much systemic space for people to find meaning, purpose and life in the body of Christ as possible so that the Christian community naturally engenders engagement and community in all who come into relationship with it.

These catalytic postures are not exhaustive, nor has the purpose of this essay been to create another list of “must do’s” for the work of leadership in the church. Rather, this essay has been an attempt to frame the work of pastoral leadership as it was and as I believe it has the potential to be in Christian community, not for its own purposes and gain, but for the purposes of the God who in fact, does make all things new.

Appendix: Practical Outcomes Report

In the book Presence, the authors write, "We’ve come to believe that the core capacity needed to access the field of the future is presence. We first thought of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence as deep listening, of being open beyond one’s preconceptions and historical ways of making sense. We came to see the importance of letting go of old identities and the need to control and as Salk said, making choices to serve the evolution of life. "

I think that ministry has the opportunity to move in some fundamentally new ways. This vocational movement will be directed by an awareness of where we have come from, the God we are called to serve, and the future he calls us into. The notion of catalyst that I used to shape imagery for the possibilities of a new sort of expectation for pastoral ministry is not some sort of new paint by the numbers technical schemata. Nor should it be downloaded into congregational life as such. It has to do with an adaptation in how I as a pastoral leader think and function in and with God’s people. All I have asserted is that the systemic pastoral role privileges it to work well as a fulcrum for the systemic transformation of God’s people. I have been finding that these postures form powerful lenses that help me shape my questions for maximum impact and prioritize my work.

In seminary I was taught not to take risks, not to push or articulate change, and not to expect too much from God’s people. I believe this is because the model of pastoral ministry I was trained in operates from the premise that pastors are there to shepherd and herd disengaged sheep rather than equip, train, and challenge what Bill Hybels calls God’s fulcrum for the transformation of the world: the local congregation.

The practical application of these four catalytic postures is a new sort of functional awareness for me. It shapes how I am handling preparation for the new budget year. I am asking questions like these. Do we build the budget based upon what we believe God is birthing in and through us this next year, or do we base it upon what we spent categorically last year as usual? Do we risk the financial strain of new buildings trusting that the God who raises the dead can provide for and through us? Or do we duck the opportunity because we believe we simply do not have the capacity to engage the future God calls us into?

I think that the practical application of these four postures is a new sort of awareness that engenders new sorts of questions that challenge us to step consciously into engaged lives of faith for God’s sake and the sake of the kingdom. They are adaptive mental frames of reference through which new realities and possibilities are communicated. The communication event, in verbiage and action and the differentiation that comes through it cause a conscious systemic differentiation in response. The localized articulation of a new awareness and way of seeing in the pastoral leader facilitates a new sort of consciousness in the community at large. In this, its capacity to see and dream anew and to reframe its life together expands and grows. The reality is these sorts of consciousness actually transform people and community and cause wholesale new sorts of functioning. What I am trying to articulate is not some program that can be rolled out into a congregation. Programs are technical and do not demand that people see who they are and what they do in a new sort of light. But a differentiated leader who functions from the perspective of the doorway of the empty tomb does.

Bibliography

Barger, Rick. A New and Right Spirit : Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2005.

Barna, George . The Power of Vision: Discover and Apply God’s Vision for Your Ministry. Ventura, CA: Regal, 2003.

Bass, Diana Butler. The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2004.

________. Christianity for the Rest of Us : How the Neighborhood Church Is Revitalizing the Faith. 1st ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.

Bliese, Richard H., and Craig Van Gelder. The Evangelizing Church : A Lutheran Contribution: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2005. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip055/2004030681.html
Materials specified: Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip055/2004030681.html.

Boyatzis, Richard E. Resonant Leadership : Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion, ed. Annie McKee. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005.

Brueggemann, Walter. Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism : Living in a Three-Storied Universe. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993.

Collins, James C. Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't. 1st ed. New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 2001.

________. Good to Great and the Social Sectors : Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer : A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't, ed. James C. Good to great Collins. [Boulder, CO: J. Collins], 2005.

Dawn, Marva J. The Unnecessary Pastor : Rediscovering the Call, ed. Eugene H. Peterson and Peter Santucci. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Vancouver: W.B. Eerdmans; Regent College Pub., 2000.

Friedman, Edwin H. Generation to Generation : Family Process in Church and Synagogue. New York :: Guilford Press, 1985.

________. Friedman's Fables: Guilford Press, 1990. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/guilford051/90047336.html
Materials specified: Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/guilford051/90047336.html.

Friedman, Thomas L. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. 1st Anchor Books ed. New York: Anchor Books, 2000.

Gardner, Howard. Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People's Minds. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

Goleman, Daniel. Primal Leadership : Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, ed. Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

Heifetz, Ronald A. Linsky Martin. Leadership on the Line : Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

Horton, H. Robert, Laurence A. Moran, Raymond S. Ochs, J. David Rawn, and K. Gray Scrimgeour, Principles of Biochemistry, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996) 119.

Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

Lull, Timothy F. On Being Lutheran : Reflections on Church, Theology, and Faith Lutheran voices series; Variation: Lutheran voices.: Augsburg Fortress, 2006. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0519/2005027514.html
Materials specified: Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0519/2005027514.html.

Mead, Loren B. The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier. Herndon, VA: Alban, 2001.

New Revised Standard Version Bible. Nashville: World Publishing, 1989.

Senge, Peter M., and Society for Organizational Learning. Presence : Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: SoL, 2004.

Steinke, Peter L. Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times : Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What: Alban Institute, 2006. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip074/2006036119.html
Materials specified: Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip074/2006036119.html.

Stevens, R. Paul. The Equipping Pastor : A Systems Approach to Congregational Leadership, ed. Phil Dr Collins. [Washington, DC] : Alban Institute, 1993.

Sweet, Leonard I. Summoned to Lead. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004.

Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952.

Willimon, William H. Calling & Character : Virtues of the Ordained Life Calling and Character. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000.

________. Pastor : A Reader for Ordained Ministry. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.

________. Pastor : The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.

Winseman, Albert L. Growing and Engaged Church: How to Stop “Doing Church” and Start BEING the Church. New York: Gallup Press, 2007.

Zumdahl, Steven S. Chemistry, 3rd ed. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1993.

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 10 of 11

2008-03-13T19:51:00.010-06:00

The Posture of Engagement

In the church shaped by Constantine ministry was outsourced to professionals. In Europe today where this model of ministry has run its course cathedrals are effectively empty at Mass except for priests and a handful of devoted people. For whatever reason, the church and what it points to has lost its relevance and meaning. In contrast, a church that connects meaning to people’s lives engenders engagement and passion. It adds value to life and gives purpose…and purpose more than anything else motivates people to commit and to engage.

Albert Winseman writes about a man named Mike, a family man, and engaged disciple of Jesus who meets in a men’s Bible study over his lunch hours and in the evening heads to church with his family for a family evening of discipleship. He also provides leadership for his church’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity. He is an engaged Christian. Winseman writes, “For Mike, his faith is the organizing principle of his life. ‘I wouldn’t consider myself a fanatic or anything like that, and I certainly don’t press my beliefs on others,’ he says. ‘It’s just that without my faith, my life wouldn’t be as meaningful.’”

The posture of engagement in the church is a leadership posture that believes to its core that ministry in the church should never be done by the pastor. This is not an ethic of laziness. It is simply the insight that what St. Paul maintained is true. The church is alive and empowered by God with gifts for the edification of the body and the world (1 Corinthians 12). Pastor Lou Forney says that one of the most significant and powerful questions pastors can ask themselves in the church is, “What am I doing in ministry that someone else in this body can do as well or better?” Part of the difficult shift that pastors who try and apprehend this posture have to make is that their success is not measured by how much ministry they get done in a given week or by how much their parishioners need them. Instead, the measuring stick is how much ministry can be given away to the priesthood of all believers so that they can find purpose and meaning in the body through their unique gifts and design.

At a deeper level, the posture of engagement understands that the goal of all of our work as servant leaders in Jesus’ church is the creation of people who live with a vision of Jesus and his resurrection ever before them, and who speak and enact that vision with the material of their lives. They create ecclesial environments where people grow naturally in faith and life and in expression of their God-given baptismal identities. They create environments where leaders beget leaders and the circle of participation grows and grows because there is always room for another to share who they are within the purpose and hope of the community.

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

2008-03-13T19:33:00.003-06:00

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.

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 8 of 11

2008-03-13T19:21:00.004-06:00

The Posture of Perspective

Much can be said for what is called a leader’s vision. Author and researcher George Barna defines vision as “a clear mental image of a preferable future imparted by God to His servants and is based upon an accurate understanding of God, self, and circumstances.” One of the key features for Barna is that vision is imparted to leaders specifically and not to groups. Contrast this with author Jim Collins whose seminal decade long research collated into his book Good to Great has rocked business, social sector, and leadership paradigms everywhere. Collins maintains that vision is something that is discerned when you get the right passionate people, in the right seats, doing what they can do together better than anyone else. So vision gets defined and gains clarity as the organization moves daily towards doing better what it is uniquely passionate about. Len Sweet, adding his own unique perspective maintains that vision is not something seen, but rather heard. Vision in his articulation is “seen” through “hearing.”

I think that the Christian vision is a fixed vision disclosed by Jesus in his resurrection.

The Lutheran systematic theologian Walter Bouman used to tell his students that he was a mystery novel buff. What was surprising however was the way in which he read his novels. He would read the first two chapters to learn the characters and discover the tension that had to be resolved and then would flip to the last chapter to read how it all turned out. He pointed out that inevitably, this changed how he participated with the middle of the novel. In other words, it did not hold the same level of tension for him.

He used this personal peculiarity to make a point. “This is the Christian life,” he would say. “Because we know how it all comes out in the end through the resurrection of Jesus, we have the joy of participating in our present without the same fears and anxiety. God has our future in hand.”

As a posture of leadership, the posture of perspective is grounded in a future held by God. It is leadership that is able to frame in conversation and action the challenges of the present in light of the God who holds the last word, a word of life, in our tomorrow. This posture discerns the work of God in our midst. In light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ it expects transformation in Christian life and community to be the rule rather than the exception. This sort of leadership dreams big for the kingdom because it understands the work of the church to be grounded in the God who is today on the move and who ultimately raises the dead.

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 7 of 11

2008-03-13T18:02:00.004-06:00

The Posture of Discipleship

There has been so much ink spilled on the topic of leadership both in the culture and the church. Strangely, I have read nothing that grounds our church’s capacity for leadership in what Len Sweet likes to call “followership.” Perhaps this is because it lacks the overt sexiness of the leadership terminology. Followership, in a room full of narcissistic personalities, takes too much of the emphasis off of the self. Nevertheless, it is where we have to begin.

In his comprehensive work called Pastor, Will Willimon looks at the pastoral office and work through a multiplicity of lenses. Interestingly, he does not explicitly come to the topic of pastor as disciple until the last chapter of his book entitled, “The Pastor as Disciplined Christian: Constancy in Ministry.” Even so, it grounds the notion of discipleship through a pastoral lens only.

I want to suggest however that discipleship as followership begins not with a follower’s identity as a leader, but simply in the baptismal calling of a follower of Jesus the Messiah. To be a disciple is to call someone other than oneself Lord, and to call Jesus Lord is ultimately to be subject to him. I believe that a “subjected leader” is the starting point or “enzymatic posture” for all leadership in the church. The daily source of strength for the Christian vocation of the baptized comes not from an office of leadership in the church but through a daily relationship with and following of Jesus. What we are talking about here is the differentiated expression of a life that is being formed and transformed by the movement of the disciple’s life from the story of the world to the story of God’s resurrected future. A life that takes on this shape has Jesus at the head, and is filled with his grace, power, and his Spirit of abundance.

I wonder as I write this if this does not evoke an “of course!” It should be obvious should it not? And yet in my experience, albeit anecdotal, and in the many and varied books on leadership I have encountered related to leadership in the church, the pastoral leader as first and foremost a follower who is subject to Jesus seems to be anathema. Let me state this clearly: followership of Jesus is not only the ground of being for the discipleship of the baptized, but for the Christian leader as well.

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 6 of 11

2008-02-01T10:23:00.000-06:00

The Posture of Discipleship

There has been so much ink spilled on the topic of leadership, both in the culture and the church. Strangely, I have read nothing that grounds our church’s capacity for leadership in what Len Sweet likes to call “followership.” Perhaps this is because it lacks the overt sexiness of the leadership terminology. Followership, in a room full of narcissistic personalities, takes too much of the emphasis off of the self. Nevertheless, it is where we have to begin.

In his comprehensive work, Pastor, Will Willimon looks at the pastoral office and work through a multiplicity of lenses.[1] Interestingly, he does not explicitly come to the topic of pastor as disciple until the last chapter of his book entitled, “The Pastor as Disciplined Christian: Constancy in Ministry.”[2] Even so, his work grounds the notion of discipleship through a pastoral lens only. I want to suggest however that discipleship as followership begins not with a follower’s identity as a leader, but simply in the baptismal calling of a follower of Jesus the Messiah. To be a disciple is to call someone other than oneself Lord, and to call Jesus Lord is ultimately to be subject to him. I believe that a “subjected leader” is the starting point or “enzymatic posture” for all leadership in the church. The daily source of strength for the Christian vocation of the baptized comes not from an office of leadership in the church but through a daily relationship with and following of Jesus. What we are talking about here is the differentiated expression of a life that is being formed and transformed by the movement of the disciple’s life from the story of the world to the story of God’s resurrected future. A life that takes on this shape has Jesus at the head, and is filled with his grace, power, and his Spirit of abundance.

I wonder as I write this if this does not evoke an “of course!” It should be obvious should it not? And yet in my experience, albeit anecdotal, and in the many and varied books on leadership I have encountered related to leadership in the church, the pastoral leader as first and foremost a follower who is subject to Jesus seems to be anathema. Let me state this clearly: followership of Jesus is not only the ground of being for the discipleship of the baptized, but for the Christian leader as well.

[1] William H. Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002).
[2] Willimon, Pastor, 315-36.

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 5 of 11

2008-01-10T10:07:00.000-06:00

Catalysts, Enzymes, and Postures

I took Biochemistry my senior year of college to round out my pre-medicine second major. A synthetic course that was built on inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry and physics, it took physical and chemical principles and looked at them through the multi-faceted lenses of living organisms. Fundamentally, biochemistry is the study of the living chemical processes of life and the energy transforming systems that sustain them. In short, it comes down to a study of two basic things: catalysts and enzymes. In chemistry, a catalyst is, “a substance that speeds up a reaction without being consumed.”[1] In the biochemical world, catalysts are called enzymes. Enzymes are

…extraordinarily efficient and selective biological catalysts—agents that accelerate the approach of a reaction toward equilibrium without changing the position of that equilibrium. Most reactions catalyzed by enzymes would not proceed in their absence in a reasonable time without extremes of temperature, pressure, or pH. Enzymatic reactions are 10³to 10¹⁷ times faster than the corresponding uncatalyzed reactions.[2]

An enzyme is a protein whose shape and chemistry is nearly 100% efficient in achieving the transformation of a substrate, the substance it is designed to act upon. Biologically what makes enzymes so powerful is that they require almost no energy and have little or no waste as a by-product for the organism to dispense with. They are God’s perfect tool for physiological transformation. Again, this feat is achieved through their very shape and how that shape interacts chemically with the substrate around it.

People can act like catalysts and do so all the time. In conversation and action we change the thinking and actions of others through the expression of our thoughts and the illustration of our actions. This is what is called differentiation in family systems theory. Peter Steinke defines differentiation as “a process in which a person moves toward a more intentional and thoughtful way of life (and less automatic way of functioning).”[3] He goes on to say that

Differentiation is the relative ability of people to guide their own functioning by

· Thinking clearly

· Acting on principle

· Defining self by taking action

· Coming to know more about their own instinctive reactions to others

· Learning to regulate those reactions

· Staying in contact with others

· Choosing a responsible course of action

Differentiation is a process that takes place in relationships. It is about balancing two life forces—individuality and togetherness—when interacting with others.[4]

I do not want to overemphasize the catalytic power of pastors in Christian community. However, I am highlighting it here because I believe that it has heretofore been underemphasized. What I want to point out in this discussion is that their systemic position in Christian community gives them a powerful presence for transformational, enzymatic action. As relational beings, our very presence in community (as human beings) impacts others around us. This presence in the pastoral office is augmented because of the deferential posture Christian communities often take with regards to their pastors. To dismiss this reality is to be remiss. To understand this position as only that of feeding the spiritual egos, wants and needs of others is a travesty. To place this presence and its functioning in the service of the crucified and risen One and the future he points to is the essence of pastoral leadership. In fact, it is Jesus and the news of his death and resurrection and the future they disclose that provides for the shape or “posture” of all pastoral leadership. This cannot be underemphasized: family systems theory is not functionally Christian or Christ-centered. It brings to light how groups of individuals function and influence one another. In this conversation, what must be discerned is that our differentiation in Christian community is not grounded in our own selves or egos. Rather, it finds its life and motivating energy in the very work of God in creation through the power of the cross and resurrection.

At a recent church conference, author and speaker Len Sweet spoke about what he believes are the operating system and the connective interface of a 21^st century church.[5] He stated that the mnemonic device he uses for the church’s operating system is M.R.I., which translates as a 21^st century church that is missional, relational, and incarnational. The church’s interface with a postmodern culture is what Len calls E.P.I.C., or experiential, relational, image-rich, and connective. In other words, for the church’s operating system to communicate with our present world it must have a user interface that is E.P.I.C.

Using the same information technology metaphor, I want to suggest that the operating system for pastors ought to be what I illustrated in “The News” above: a resurrection witness, grounded in the resurrected Jesus pointing to the future reign he discloses. Furthermore, I want to suggest that if the enzymatic, transformational action of this leadership is this resurrection witness, that this expresses itself through at least four “postures” or faces. These postures are the posture of discipleship, the posture of perspective, the posture of birth, and the posture of engagement.

[1] Steven S. Zumdahl, Chemistry, 3^rd ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1993), A30.

[2] H. Robert Horton, Laurence A. Moran, Raymond S. Ochs, J. David Rawn, and K. Gray Scrimgeour, Principles of Biochemistry, 2^nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996), 119.

[3] Peter L. Steinke, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What (Herndon, VA: Alban, 2007) 19.

[4] Steinke, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times, 19.

[5] Beyond Survival: Thriving through Spiritual Leadership, Sheridan Lutheran Church, Lincoln, Nebraska, November 1-3, 2007.

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 4 of 11

2007-12-26T10:51:00.000-06:00

The News

The reality of this differentiation between the Church and culture might be the best gift it has received in 1700 years. Remember that the good news of Jesus Christ is not a theological or philosophical proposition on the justifying nature of God. No, the event of the news of Jesus Christ is that his tomb was empty. On the third day, there was simply no dead body. We can assume that most in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas knew of Jesus of Nazareth’s crucifixion. Had there been a “Jerusalem Times” in those days it would have certainly made the front page. The saving message has never been that Jesus died on a cross. Not only did people know that Jesus was crucified, the Roman use of crosses was simply common in Jesus’ day and was not in and of itself cause for special notice. The event of Jesus’ crucifixion in and of itself would not have been enough to distinguish Jesus, even with Messianic claims. Remember, however, that Messiahs are not supposed to be crucified. The Jewish Messiah was supposed to come and conquer.

The news that spread by word of mouth was that the tomb was empty. Acts 2:23-24 reads, “…this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.”[1]

A God who can raise the dead is a God to contend with. This is a God who holds the future in her very hands. The witness and power of this proclamation in the real world is that it deconstructs so many of the fears and challenges our world throws our way. It is important to say that this witness is not triumphalistic. It takes very seriously the pain, suffering, sorrow, and real death in the world. But more importantly it names where it is that we can find God in the midst of these things. When the bullets fly in an Omaha mall, God takes the bullets. When the bombs explode in Palestine, it is God who is killed. When the space shuttle burns up upon re-entry, we as Christians know that Jesus was there, on that shuttle, with those astronauts.

God shows up in the crosses of life. But this is only half of the gospel. As Peter put it so eloquently in Acts 2:24, “But God…” God’s “but” changes everything. It changes the coercive posture of power of the world powers that use the threat of death and powerful weaponry as fear induced motivators. It moves us from postures of self-protection, self-preservation, and stinginess to postures of service and sacrifice and generosity. It motivates us through its very message to serve the God who has the last word rather than the powers and forces of this world whose word can only ever be penultimate. I believe that it is in this witness that a life-bleeding world is deconstructed, and the life-giving reign of the Messiah is discerned. In the context of the church this witness gives us a new/ancient identity and calling. In this new identity and calling the role of the pastor in Christian community is recast and reshaped into something entirely new, and this new thing has entirely nothing to do with being a dispenser of religious goods and service.

[1] New Revised Standard Version Bible (Nashville: World Publishing, 1989).

with us

2007-12-24T18:18:00.000-06:00

I heard someone say once that we all have our heresies. I believe this is true. As long as the world is filtered through our cloudy human lenses, we're simply going to see off, or poorly, and in the straining to see, will make guesses at that way the universe is constructed.

Because we just want to know, WHY. That's it. That simple.

I have this heresy. It's a Christmas heresy. It goes something like this: Jesus didn't come to make justification for us...recompense before an angry God demanding blood for the sin of his fallen humanity.

I think Jesus was God's justification to us...his act of total solidarity and a once for all human fleshly response that says, "I am here. I am with you."

What was the question? I wonder. I wonder if Jesus isn't God's ultimate response to Job who amidst his meaningless ashes cries out "Why?" Except God never just answers straight up. Job asked "Why?" God's response? His presence. Immanuel. God with us. Not justification for us. Just a quiet, humble, but persistent insistence..."I am here. You are not alone. You cannot escape my love. You cannot escape me. When the ashes persist and overwhelm, I am there. When the seas rise, I am there. When the loved one dies, I am there. When you die, I will be there. In the midst of your sin, I will be there. When you walk away from me, you will actually be walking towards me. And I will be there."

Somehow, in a world full of mall shootings, ancient hatreds, fundamentalists with bombs and guns, and the everyday sin that erodes our human lives, there is this quiet answer to the question, "Why?"

The "whys" won't ever go away. But then again, neither will Immanuel. This Christmas, this is still enough.

May you experience his "present" justification this Christmas.

Nathan

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 3 of 11

2007-12-22T15:11:00.001-06:00

Towards an OLDER Paradigm

You can hear a great deal of discussion about the ancient/future church these days. Loren Mead wrote The Once and Future Church over a decade and a half ago and it is still a fixture on the bookshelves of many pastors.[1] Many assert that our current USAmerican cultural conditions more closely approximate a pre-Christian cultural milieu than at any other point in history.[2] They go on to assert that in the church’s 2000-year history there has never been a time more filled with opportunity for the spread of the gospel. I do not know how you can ascertain the veracity of this statement. What I do know is this: the Constantinianization of the Church appears to be eroding. Our secular culture is increasingly hostile to the Church and her witness and story, and often shockingly ignorant of it. Cultural wars over prayer in schools and the display of the Ten Commandments in state courthouses demonstrate the cultural/religious differentiation that is spreading across our land. So while there are those who are decrying the slow erosion of the Church’s privileged status in the culture, the reality is that the Church is reclaiming its ability to be a contrast society once again. This is not a bad thing. For the Church, this is a differentiation that brings life.

There is danger and opportunity in this differentiation. On the one hand, we have the opportunity to apprehend and own the good news once again in such a way that the message and saving story of our faith are no longer subverted for the purposes and aims of the state. However, we might have also so sold our soul to a position of power and preference that as the culture’s need for the cultural chaplaincy services of the Church erodes, so will the very institutional body of the Church.

[1] Loren B. Mead, The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier (Alban, 2001).

[2] Such assertions are made by thinkers and authors such as Rick Barger, Len Sweet, Bill Easum, Loren Mead, Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Diana Butler Bass. There are certainly others as well.

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 2 of 11

2007-12-20T17:22:00.002-06:00

The Old Paradigm

The reality is that we live in a culture that is confused about the identity and calling of the Church. In a culture that is confused about the Church’s very purpose, and confusion that permeates the Church itself, it stands to reason that those who are raised up to lead in the Church would be confused as well, not only because the confusion permeates our cultural air and water, but also because the confusion permeates our pastoral training. So to further expand on the classroom illustration above, no doubt we were all convinced that in some way we could help the young Muslim woman. But the reality was that there were at least two paradigms operative in that room in the midst of the discussion. One understood itself to be a dispenser of “spiritual presence,” something that in the end is functionally indistinguishable from something that could be provided by a social worker, doctor, or nurse. The other paradigm was interested in catalyzing perception, or if you will, a transposition of story. The story that was operative in the case study in that hospital room was the story of death, loss, grief, sorrow, and sadness. The story of the faith that we serve affirms that story because all of these things are very real. But the second story says in the midst of that death and sorrow, “Yes. But see that shadow that surrounds this death and sorrow? There’s a story, a more powerful story that frames this moment and this life.”

Pastor Rick Barger explains that from the earliest moments of the church, the church understood itself to be a contrast society.[1] To be sure the manifestation of this sense was not monolithic, and the reality is that there were many groups who sought to remove themselves from the world altogether. But most early Christians lived as citizens of the empire in lives and vocations that called them to engage the larger culture around them.[2] Early on this relationship in and among was as a religious minority. When you are a minority, it is easy to live in contrast to the world around you. There is simply a great deal to help you differentiate yourself. This all changed however in 313 CE with the (assumed) Christian conversion of Emperor Constantine. The Roman Empire effectively became Christian overnight and the church’s position moved from that of a minority contrast society to that of the state-sanctioned religion of empire. Monumental shifts in Christian identity ensued.[3] Barger writes,

…the Christianization of the Empire under Constantine meant a reinvention of the church’s identity and calling. This reinvention would ultimately prove to be disastrous for the integrity and spiritual power of Christianity. The hostile boundary between the church and the culture disappeared. The church became a partner in the culture. This new partnership meant that the sacred narrative of the church merged with the narrative of Empire. There was no longer “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:5-6) that defined a church in tension with the culture. There was now one empire and one story. The stories were so intertwined with one another that emperors and political leaders would take a full role in the development of the church, and church leaders could often engage in political and military leadership.[4]

This merging of stories has shaped the nature and expression of the church for nearly two millennia. At the time of Martin Luther, almost 1200 years after the Constantinianization of the church, to be a citizen of the empire was to be synonymously a baptized member of the church.

As many of our USAmerican forebears fled their native homelands and the theocratically-enmeshed governments that held them, they brought their own, albeit new, versions of theocratic governments across the Atlantic. In fact, many of the earliest colonies played with these governmental forms. Though the United States government that followed provided for separation of church and state, the reality is that Constantine’s grip still held sway and even today “In God We Trust” is inscribed on our currency, the United States Congress still funds a full time chaplain who begins their opening sessions with prayer, and the church still enjoys fiscal privileges and some level of deference in our society.

Today in our hyper-consumeristic culture people “church shop,” seeking communities to meet their spiritual needs. This of course goes to the point. The culture believes that the church exists to dispense spiritual goods and services. The point: the old paradigm of Christian ministry and the pastor’s role in it locate the pastor’s vocation as that of spiritual cultural prop. Houston, we have a problem!

[1] Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit: Creating and Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture (Herndon, VA: Alban, 2005), 7.

[2] Ibid., 7.

[3] Ibid., 8.

[4] Ibid., 9.

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership, Part 1 of 11

2007-12-19T07:48:00.003-06:00

For those of you who took a look at the paper I just posted and got overwhelmed, I'm going to repost it in sections over the next week or so, every other day, to make it more manageable to read and absorb in this format. (Thanks to friend Kevan Penvose who helped me get smart about this!). Regardless, I would love your feedback and comments on this. I think that there is a book in here someday soon and the dialogue would help me sharpen my thinking. Thanks for stopping by and being a part of the conversation!

The Problem

It was a cool autumn day in my senior level pastoral leadership class. We had begun a segment on pastoral case studies and our professor had handed us a new scenario just that morning. In the scenario a parishioner’s friend is hospitalized and miscarries at twenty-six weeks. The friend is in her twenties, is single, and a USAmerican, secular Muslim. The assumption was that we as pastors had responded to the call and were at her bedside, ostensibly welcome. The question: what would you do and say?

I had a visceral response to the scenario and a sort of instinctive vector for presence. I wanted to begin by listening, feeling the currents of the space. But then I wanted to tell the young woman stories of the God that does his best work in the midst of crosses, stories of healing, transformation, and the end of death. I wanted to read to her Isaiah 25:6-9 and talk with her about the God who promises to wipe tears from all faces, to take away shame and sorrow, and to swallow up death forever. I wanted to tell her about the God who raises the dead, about the God who has a word of life for her little one even in the midst of that tragic day. I wanted to stand with her at the foot of the cross and offer her the tension of our faithful hindsight; all of our crosses have a shadow…the shadow of the empty tomb.

What I learned that morning was that I was not a good chaplain. Perhaps this is a good thing to know, but after all I was sitting in a class called “Pastoral Leadership” and not “Chaplaincy 101.” Certainly these two realities are not always severely distinct, and I do not even want to suggest that they need be. However, what happened that morning was this: this class full of senior seminarians with thoughts of hospital hallways and ten weeks of summer Clinical Pastoral Education and Internships dusted off their best understandings of “pastoral leadership” which were in fact attitudes and practices that better reflected “chaplaincy 101.” So the discussion immediately moved to concepts such as “unconditional positive regard,” “the ministry of presence,” and things that are significantly similar to attitudes and practices that my wife has learned as a therapist. These things are not in and of themselves a bad thing. Both “unconditional positive regard” and a “ministry of presence” can be healing and transformative things. To be in the shadow of a cross is incredibly lonely. Human community and the basic communication, “You are not alone!” can mean the difference between getting through the day and abject despair.

But something was missing. I was taught in my own unit of CPE not to have a witness. The rationale for this had to do with the reality that patients and families in a hospital can be Buddhist, Sikh, atheist, Baptist, agnostic, or Roman Catholic, and I was taught that a posture of non-interference is best.

This attitude is of course what is at issue: it is the issue of posture. It is the supposition that I can be a Christian minister, ordained into the body of Christ and somehow not have a witness. It is the assumption that in these dire stations of life, the only story that counts is one of presence that is not grounded in the story that we tell, the story of Jesus Christ and him crucified and risen.

Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership

2007-12-17T01:20:00.000-06:00

The Problem

The Old Paradigm

Towards an OLDER Paradigm

You can hear a great deal of discussion about the ancient/future church these days. Loren Mead wrote The Once and Future Church over a decade and a half ago and it is still a fixture on the bookshelves of many pastors.[5] Many assert that our current USAmerican cultural conditions more closely approximate a pre-Christian cultural milieu than at any other point in history.[6] They go on to assert that in the church’s 2000-year history there has never been a time more filled with opportunity for the spread of the gospel. I do not know how you can ascertain the veracity of this statement. What I do know is this: the Constantinianization of the Church appears to be eroding. Our secular culture is increasingly hostile to the Church and her witness and story, and often shockingly ignorant of it. Cultural wars over prayer in schools and the display of the Ten Commandments in state courthouses demonstrate the cultural/religious differentiation that is spreading across our land. So while there are those who are decrying the slow erosion of the Church’s privileged status in the culture, the reality is that the Church is reclaiming its ability to be a contrast society once again. This is not a bad thing. For the Church, this is a differentiation that brings life.

The News

The reality of this differentiation between the Church and culture might be the best gift it has received in 1700 years. Remember that the good news of Jesus Christ is not a theological or philosophical proposition on the justifying nature of God. No, the event of the news of Jesus Christ is that his tomb was empty. On the third day, there was simply no dead body. We can assume that most in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas knew of Jesus of Nazareth’s crucifixion. Had there been a “Jerusalem Times” in those days it would have certainly made the front page. The saving message has never been that Jesus died on a cross. Not only did people know that Jesus was crucified, the Roman use of crosses was simply common in Jesus’ day and was not in and of itself cause for special notice. The event of Jesus’ crucifixion in and of itself would not have been enough to distinguish Jesus, even with Messianic claims. Remember, however, that Messiahs are not supposed to be crucified. The Jewish Messiah was supposed to come and conquer.

Catalysts, Enzymes, and Postures

I took Biochemistry my senior year of college to round out my pre-medicine second major. A synthetic course that was built on inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry and physics, it took physical and chemical principles and looked at them through the multi-faceted lenses of living organisms. Fundamentally, biochemistry is the study of the living chemical processes of life and the energy transforming systems that sustain them. In short, it comes down to a study of two basic things: catalysts and enzymes. In chemistry, a catalyst is, “a substance that speeds up a reaction without being consumed.”[8] In the biochemical world, catalysts are called enzymes. Enzymes are

Differentiation is the relative ability of people to guide their own functioning by

· Thinking clearly

· Acting on principle

· Defining self by taking action

· Coming to know more about their own instinctive reactions to others

· Learning to regulate those reactions

· Staying in contact with others

· Choosing a responsible course of action

Differentiation is a process that takes place in relationships. It is about balancing two life forces—individuality and togetherness—when interacting with others.[11]

At a recent church conference, author and speaker Len Sweet spoke about what he believes are the operating system and the connective interface of a 21^st century church.[12] He stated that the mnemonic device he uses for the church’s operating system is M.R.I., which translates as a 21^st century church that is missional, relational, and incarnational. The church’s interface with a postmodern culture is what Len calls E.P.I.C., or experiential, relational, image-rich, and connective. In other words, for the church’s operating system to communicate with our present world it must have a user interface that is E.P.I.C.

The Posture of Discipleship

There has been so much ink spilled on the topic of leadership, both in the culture and the church. Strangely, I have read nothing that grounds our church’s capacity for leadership in what Len Sweet likes to call “followership.” Perhaps this is because it lacks the overt sexiness of the leadership terminology. Followership, in a room full of narcissistic personalities, takes too much of the emphasis off of the self. Nevertheless, it is where we have to begin.

In his comprehensive work, Pastor, Will Willimon looks at the pastoral office and work through a multiplicity of lenses.[13] Interestingly, he does not explicitly come to the topic of pastor as disciple until the last chapter of his book entitled, “The Pastor as Disciplined Christian: Constancy in Ministry.”[14] Even so, it grounds the notion of discipleship through a pastoral lens only. I want to suggest however that discipleship as followership begins not with a follower’s identity as a leader, but simply in the baptismal calling of a follower of Jesus the Messiah. To be a disciple is to call someone other than oneself Lord, and to call Jesus Lord is ultimately to be subject to him. I believe that a “subjected leader” is the starting point or “enzymatic posture” for all leadership in the church. The daily source of strength for the Christian vocation of the baptized comes not from an office of leadership in the church but through a daily relationship with and following of Jesus. What we are talking about here is the differentiated expression of a life that is being formed and transformed by the movement of the disciple’s life from the story of the world to the story of God’s resurrected future. A life that takes on this shape has Jesus at the head, and is filled with his grace, power, and his Spirit of abundance.

The Posture of Perspective

I think that the Christian vision is a fixed vision disclosed by Jesus in his resurrection. The Lutheran systematic theologian Walter Bouman used to tell his students that he was a mystery novel buff. What was surprising however was the way in which he read his novels. He would read the first two chapters to learn the characters and discover the tension that had to be resolved and then would flip to the last chapter to read how it all turned out. He pointed out that inevitably, this changed how he participated with the middle of the novel. In other words, it did not hold the same level of tension for him. He used this personal peculiarity to make a point. “This is the Christian life,” he would say. “Because we know how it all comes out in the end through the resurrection of Jesus, we have the joy of participating in our present without the same fears and anxiety. God has our future in hand.”[18]

As a posture of leadership, the posture of perspective is grounded in a future held by God. It is leadership that is able to frame in conversation and action the challenges of the present in light of the God who holds the last word, a word of life, in our tomorrow. This posture discerns the work of God in our midst. In light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ it expects transformation in Christian life and community to be the rule rather than the exception. This sort of leadership dreams big for the kingdom because it understands the work of the church to be grounded in the God who is today on the move and who ultimately raises the dead.

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.’”[19] 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. 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.

The Posture of Engagement

In the Church shaped by Constantine ministry was outsourced to professionals. In Europe today where this model of ministry has run its course cathedrals are effectively empty at Mass except for priests and a handful of devoted people. For whatever reason, the Church and what it points to has lost its relevance and meaning. In contrast, a Church that connects meaning to people’s lives engenders engagement and passion. It adds value to life and gives purpose…and purpose more than anything else motivates people to commit and to engage.

Albert Winseman writes about a man named Mike, a family man, and engaged disciple of Jesus who meets in a men’s Bible study over his lunch hours and in the evening heads to church with his family for a family evening of discipleship. He also provides leadership for his church’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity. He is an engaged Christian. Winseman writes, “For Mike, his faith is the organizing principle of his life. ‘I wouldn’t consider myself a fanatic or anything like that, and I certainly don’t press my beliefs on others,’ he says. ‘It’s just that without my faith, my life wouldn’t be as meaningful.’”[20]

The posture of engagement in the church is a leadership posture that believes to its core that ministry in the church should never be done by the pastor. This is not an ethic of laziness. It is simply the insight that what St. Paul maintained is true. The church is alive and empowered by God with gifts for the edification of the body and the world (1 Corinthians 12). Pastor Lou Forney[21] says that one of the most significant and powerful questions pastors can ask themselves in the church is, “What am I doing in ministry that someone else in this body can do as well or better?” Part of the difficult shift that pastors who try and apprehend this posture have to make is that their success is not measured by how much ministry they get done in a given week or by how much their parishioners need them. Instead, the measuring stick is how much ministry can be given away to the priesthood of all believers so that they can find purpose and meaning in the body through their unique gifts and design.

At a deeper level, the posture of engagement understands that the goal of all of our work as servant leaders in Jesus’ church is the creation of people who live with a vision of Jesus and his resurrection ever before them, and who speak and enact that vision with the material of their lives. They create ecclesial environments where people grow naturally in faith and life and in expression of their God-given baptismal identities. They create environments where leaders beget leaders and the circle of participation grows and grows because there is always room for another to share who they are within the purpose and hope of the community.

Conclusion

Pastoral leadership has been mired in a model that asks it to surrender the story of the Church, that of Jesus crucified and risen, to the wills, whims and needs of the state. As we come into the 21^st century and as the Church/state relationship begins to unravel, the Church has a unique opportunity to reconnect itself and its priorities with the story of the resurrecting God that formed it so long ago. With this reclamation of identity and calling comes the opportunity for pastoral leaders in the Church to reconnect with the deep identity and calling of the Church and to utilize their systemic presence as a catalyst for the transformation of Christian communities.

Pastoral leaders can do this work of catalyzing transformation through how they function, dream and self-define in Christian community. In this work there are at least four intentional postures of transformation. The first posture is that of discipleship where the pastoral leader understands that his first work as a Christian and as a leader in Christ’s church is that of a follower of the risen Jesus. The second posture is that of perspective where the pastoral leader works to create the communal capacity to frame and see the work and challenges of the Church in the present in light of the future reign of God disclosed in the Lordship of Jesus’ resurrection. The third posture is that of birth which asserts that pastors function with an attitude of expectation in Christian community, fostering the capacity to give birth to new ideas and mission and to frame the anxiety and pain related to these changes as temporary signposts that God is up to new life in their midst. The fourth posture is that of engagement which functions to create as much systemic space for people to find meaning, purpose and life in the body of Christ as possible so that the Christian community naturally engenders engagement and community in all who come into relationship with it.

These catalytic postures are not exhaustive, nor has the purpose of this essay been to create another list of “must do’s” for the work of leadership in the church. Rather, this essay has been an attempt to frame the work of pastoral leadership as it was, and as I believe it has the potential to be, in Christian community, not for its own purposes and gain, but for the purposes of the God who in fact, does make all things new.

Appendix: Practical Outcomes Report

In the book Presence, the authors write,

We’ve come to believe that the core capacity needed to access the field of the future is presence. We first thought of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence as deep listening, of being open beyond one’s preconceptions and historical ways of making sense. We came to see the importance of letting go of old identities and the need to control and as Salk said, making choices to serve the evolution of life.[22]

I think that ministry has the opportunity to move in some fundamentally new ways. This vocational movement will be directed by an awareness of where we have come from, the God we are called to serve, and the future he calls us into. The notion of catalyst that I used to shape imagery for the possibilities of a new sort of expectation for pastoral ministry is not some sort of new paint-by-numbers technical schemata. Nor should it be downloaded into congregational life as such. It has to do with an adaptation in how I as a pastoral leader think and function in and with God’s people. All I have asserted is that the systemic pastoral role privileges it to work well as a fulcrum for the systemic transformation of God’s people. I have been finding that these postures form powerful lenses that help me shape my questions for maximum impact and help prioritize my work.

In seminary I was taught not to take risks, not to push or articulate change, and not to expect too much from God’s people. I believe this is because the model of pastoral ministry I was trained in operates from the premise that pastors are there to shepherd and herd disengaged sheep rather than equip, train, and challenge what Bill Hybels calls God’s fulcrum for the transformation of the world: the local congregation.

The practical application of these four catalytic postures is a new sort of functional awareness for me. It shapes how I am handling preparation for the new budget year. I am asking questions like these: Do we build the budget based upon what we believe God is birthing in and through us this next year, or do we base it upon what we spent categorically last year? Do we risk the financial strain of new buildings trusting that the God who raises the dead can provide for and through us? Or do we duck the opportunity because we believe we simply do not have the capacity to engage the future God calls us into?

I think that the practical application of these four postures is a new sort of awareness that engenders new sorts of questions that challenge us to step consciously into engaged lives of faith for God’s sake and the sake of the kingdom. They are adaptive mental frames of reference through which new realities and possibilities are communicated. The communication event, in verbiage and action and the differentiation that comes through it cause a conscious systemic differentiation in response. The localized articulation of a new awareness and way of seeing in the pastoral leader facilitates a new sort of consciousness in the community at large. In this new awareness, its capacity to see and dream anew and to reframe its life together expands and grows. The reality is these sorts of consciousness actually transform people and community and cause wholesale new sorts of functioning. What I am trying to articulate is not some program that can be rolled out into a congregation. Programs are technical and do not demand that people see who they are and what they do in a new sort of light. But a differentiated leader who functions from the perspective of the doorway of the empty tomb does.

[1] Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit: Creating and Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture (Herndon, VA: Alban, 2005), 7.

[2] Ibid., 7.

[3] Ibid., 8.

[4] Ibid., 9.

[5] Loren B. Mead, The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier (Alban, 2001).

[6] Such assertions are made by thinkers and authors such as Rick Barger, Len Sweet, Bill Easum, Loren Mead, Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Diana Butler Bass. There are certainly others as well.

[7] New Revised Standard Version Bible (Nashville: World Publishing, 1989).

[8] Steven S. Zumdahl, Chemistry, 3^rd ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1993), A30.

[9] H. Robert Horton, Laurence A. Moran, Raymond S. Ochs, J. David Rawn, and K. Gray Scrimgeour, Principles of Biochemistry, 2^nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996), 119.

[10] Peter L. Steinke, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What (Herndon, VA: Alban, 2007) 19.

[11] Steinke, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times, 19.

[12] Beyond Survival: Thriving through Spiritual Leadership, Sheridan Lutheran Church, Lincoln, Nebraska, November 1-3, 2007.

[13] William H. Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002).

[14] Willimon, Pastor, 315-36.

[15] George Barna, The Power of Vision: Discover and Apply God’s Vision for Your Ministry (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2003), 24.

[16] Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 13.

[17] Leonard Sweet, Summoned to Lead (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 56.

[18] Walter Bouman, Ph. D. died as professor emeritus of systematic theology, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, in the summer of 2005. He died with courage and without anxiety as his body gave in to cancer. He said in his last months with regards to the gospel, “I have lived my life trusting in it, and now I bet my death on it.”

[19] New Revised Standard Version Bible.

[20] Albert L. Winseman, Growing and Engaged Church: How to Stop “Doing Church” and Start BEING the Church (New York: Gallup Press, 2007), 66.

[21] Rev. Dr. Lou Forney is the Senior Pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Millard, Nebraska.

[22] Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers, Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society (Boston: Nicholas Brealey, 2007), 13.

Bibliography

Barger, Rick. A New and Right Spirit : Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2005.

Barna, George . The Power of Vision: Discover and Apply God’s Vision for Your Ministry. Ventura, CA: Regal, 2003.

Bass, Diana Butler. The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2004.

________. Christianity for the Rest of Us : How the Neighborhood Church Is Revitalizing the Faith. 1st ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.

Bliese, Richard H., and Craig Van Gelder. The Evangelizing Church : A Lutheran Contribution: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2005. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip055/2004030681.html

Materials specified: Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip055/2004030681.html.

Boyatzis, Richard E. Resonant Leadership : Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion, ed. Annie McKee. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005.

Brueggemann, Walter. Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism : Living in a Three-Storied Universe. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993.

Collins, James C. Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't. 1st ed. New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 2001.

________. Good to Great and the Social Sectors : Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer : A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't, ed. James C. Good to great Collins. [Boulder, CO: J. Collins], 2005.

Dawn, Marva J. The Unnecessary Pastor : Rediscovering the Call, ed. Eugene H. Peterson and Peter Santucci. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Vancouver: W.B. Eerdmans; Regent College Pub., 2000.

Friedman, Edwin H. Generation to Generation : Family Process in Church and Synagogue. New York :: Guilford Press, 1985.

________. Friedman's Fables: Guilford Press, 1990. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/guilford051/90047336.html

Materials specified: Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/guilford051/90047336.html.

Friedman, Thomas L. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. 1st Anchor Books ed. New York: Anchor Books, 2000.

Gardner, Howard. Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People's Minds. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

Goleman, Daniel. Primal Leadership : Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, ed. Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

Heifetz, Ronald A. Linsky Martin. Leadership on the Line : Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

Horton, H. Robert, Laurence A. Moran, Raymond S. Ochs, J. David Rawn, and K. Gray Scrimgeour, Principles of Biochemistry, 2^nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996) 119.

Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

Lull, Timothy F. On Being Lutheran : Reflections on Church, Theology, and Faith Lutheran voices series; Variation: Lutheran voices.: Augsburg Fortress, 2006. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0519/2005027514.html

Materials specified: Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0519/2005027514.html.

Mead, Loren B. The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier. Herndon, VA: Alban, 2001.

New Revised Standard Version Bible. Nashville: World Publishing, 1989.

Senge, Peter M., and Society for Organizational Learning. Presence : Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: SoL, 2004.

Steinke, Peter L. Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times : Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What: Alban Institute, 2006. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip074/2006036119.html

Materials specified: Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip074/2006036119.html.

Stevens, R. Paul. The Equipping Pastor : A Systems Approach to Congregational Leadership, ed. Phil Dr Collins. [Washington, DC] : Alban Institute, 1993.

Sweet, Leonard I. Summoned to Lead. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004.

Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952.

Willimon, William H. Calling & Character : Virtues of the Ordained Life Calling and Character. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000.

________. Pastor : A Reader for Ordained Ministry. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.

________. Pastor : The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.

Winseman, Albert L. Growing and Engaged Church: How to Stop “Doing Church” and Start BEING the Church. New York: Gallup Press, 2007.

Zumdahl, Steven S. Chemistry, 3^rd ed. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1993.

the church that brings me LIFE

2007-12-01T20:46:00.000-06:00

Let me tell you about the church that brings me life...

It is the church of Christ’s empty tomb. In fact prior to knowledge of the tombs reality, the church itself was a fearful huddled mass of confusion and anxiety. But something happened. Jesus happened. His life in God conquered his death…and his reign ensued. And when this early church witnessed it, the church went from fearful speculation about a dark future, to open proclamation that the Jesus who had been crucified had been raised from the dead. With Jesus at its head, it threw its locked doors open and embraced a hostile world for the sake of the God who was on the move with his kingdom and reign.

It embraced Jesus’ life in a world of death. In a world of darkness and cynicism it stood tall in hopefulness. In a world of sickness and blindness it healed and gave sight. In a world of seeking people it pointed, not to itself, but to the Risen One. In a world of confusion and death, it offered assurance (not certainty) that the God who raised Jesus from the dead is the same God that gets the last word in all things–a word of life, of restoration, of forgiveness, of transformation.

This is the church that brings me life. It is the church of the Risen Jesus I’m called to serve. It is a church not of duty, but passionate joy, not of gruesome sacrifice, but of priestly surrender. It is a church that gives life because it follows the Jesus that gives life, and lives his story with abandon.

I know many of you have been wounded and hurt by the church as have I. But tonight I remember, and ask you to as well, the Jesus whose body was broken for the world, and for the broken body of his church–which is nothing more than the world with a witness. The Jesus who was broken is the Jesus who is now alive and whole and beckoning.

Let’s follow him and be the church he’s always had in mind.

From these cold white plains…I write for his glory and his Name.

Nathan

Unified Theory (House Mix) by The Cobalt Season Fan Flick

2007-11-30T17:54:00.001-06:00

Physicists have been looking for a Grand Unified Theory for over a century now...the elegant equation that joins the seemingly disconnected facets of nature...the impossibly large forces of gravity and the impossibly small forces of quantum physics.

"Unified Theory" rather than speaking to the questions of physics, speaks to the disconnected and disjointed forces of our lives...all the consumeristic forces shouting for our attention and loyalties...and the demands of modern life.

In the midst of this we find our own lives disconnected, compartmentalized, and increasingly lonely.

My prayer for all of you is that in this season that focus on the bling-bling of cheap Chinese gifts spilling onto the floors of shopping malls and department stores everywhere, in the midst of Black Fridays and Dead Saturdays, that you might find the only REAL life in the one who is Jesus, the only "Unified Theory" that gives life in his uniting LOVE.

Blessings to you from these cold, cold plains.

Through Him...

Nathan

Unified Theory (House Mix) by The Cobalt Season Fan Flick

2007-11-30T17:52:00.001-06:00

It's been a long time since I've done a post. Life, congregation, family and my doctorate are taking up much of my time. Actually, all is as it should be.

But I want to gift you all with this reflective music. I discovered "Cobalt Season" through and Emergent Podcast and was hooked. A secular-folk-alternative band that speaks to issues of faith, social justice and the rat race of our consumeristic lives, you won't find them on the shelves at Barnes and Noble or Borders. You CAN now download them from iTunes which is however.

"Unified Theory" - this is a house mix, so a bit modified from the original. But as you'll hear, life's hard to get at in all the bustle. As the consumer dominated season of Christmas comes upon us, and the bling-bling of cheap chinese imports spills onto the floors of malls and vendors everywhere, it can be hard to get at what draws us to ground, to center, to that which brings together the disparate threads of our lives.

Physicists have been looking for the GUT now for over a century...the Grand Unified Theory that ties up the equations of gravity (macro) and quantum physics (micro) together into an elegant whole.

But the GUT isn't a formula or a proposition. It's a LOVE given to us in a relationship/person...a man named Jesus.

My prayer for you this Advent/Christmas season is that your life might find wholeness and unity in him.

From these cold plains, blessings!

Nathan

"Unified

Lifehouse's Everything Skit

2007-10-03T23:04:00.001-06:00

I'm incedibly moved by this. Without getting over analytical, I'm finding that as my faith matures, the simpler it gets. And what I need to know most days is what this portrays: As my friend Paul says, "He's got my back."

That, and his overwhelming grace, really are sufficient...

In his service...

Nathan

Pecha Kucha - Life Dance 人生舞蹈

2007-09-20T20:38:00.001-06:00

This is Haiku intersecting PowerPoint: pecha kucha (literally Japanese for chatter) - new urban presentational art.

Our mo for communication is shifting Church. I wonder, will the Body go where Jesus is going?

Spiritual Linebacker

2007-09-14T18:52:00.001-06:00

I'm usually so serious. It's time for a bit of humor. Vince Beresford is a new friend and cohort member in my George Fox doctoral program. He is currently the Student Ministries Pastor at the Yorba Linda Friends Church in Yorba Linda, California.

Enjoy!

Special Relativity, humility, and LOVE wins...

2007-09-05T22:35:00.000-06:00

In my doctoral program, we are reading Postmodernism 101 by Heath White. For the most part I think White's treatment of postmodernity is solid. But at the end of the day, I felt like there was a perpetual hermeneutic of suspicion throughout...especially as it relates and tries to speak to the relativization of truth, history, and the denial of absolutes.

The truth is that we're almost a century behind the times as POSTMODERNS. Einstein's special relativity exploded the notion of a preferential perspective in spacetime; there is no created perspective that is absolute...at least none you and I can ever have. The only constant (or absolute) is the speed of light. Light moves at the same speed from all perspectives at all velocities. I think that culturally we are only now really wrestling with what this means.

What I think this means is that our rational inquiry into the nature of the universe has brought us back to the very basic reality or our creation. Our quest to be God has been denied. The "objective" perspective, God's perspective, cannot be ours. We are by definition finite and there are simply limitations that come with this.

In a world as varied and beautiful as our own--in a universe as vast and surprising and impossible as our own--the only appropriate response is one of humility.

I remember that as a seminary student in my first year, I worked feverishly to master everything put in front of me. I felt like I had just four years to learn EVERYTHING. My systematic theology professor freed me from this particular hell however, when one day he made this assertion. "If truth is really Truth, then it's not something you can ever have. Instead, it's something that will have you" --Don Luck. I remember the tension in my shoulders melting immediately.

I think that as long as we cast the faith as a laundry list of intellectual propositions pitted against all other truth propositions we'll be in a losing game. There's always more knowledge; one more piece of evidence. Let's face it cause scripture insists on it; faith is a gift. The gospels are stories, not propositions and in their own self-disclosure honest about the fact that they aren't even ALL the information...only SOME of the holy story told for the sole purpose that we might simply believe...simply trust that in the end, God's love for us ALWAYS wins.

LIVING WATER

2007-09-02T23:01:00.000-06:00

I am a postmodern Xer. And as a Buddhist new ager, so many years ago, what I wanted more than anything was a story I could trust and believe in.
It found me. I didn't find it. I was at a communion rail next to my Swedish girlfriend and I didn't believe or trust any of it. But the pastor still placed the bread in my hand: "The body of Christ given for you," he said.
And in that simple encounter so much was deconstructed. Without my rational consent, Jesus breaks his body for me. With all my distrust in authorities (my home was incredibly broken) and my distrust in any authority, even Jesus', he STILL dies for me. I wasn't consulted. I wasn't asked if it was a good idea. I wasn't asked to be on the divine committee assessing the human delimma and forced to come up with solutions to the human question and problem of sin/estrangement/slavery.
God simply acted.
As a postmodern person of faith, what I want to know more than anything else is that the story I am living in and out of is authentic: that it can be trusted, that it is worth trusting, and that at its very base I might actually be made free from my own slavery to the sin inside me and the broken human stories around me.
I think the church might have a shot if it can learn to tell the story of the God who acts once again. Not the story of the 12 step God, or the 7 habits God, or the Starbucks God. Let's face it. We all know that we're consumers and that when we get tired of one product, we're going to move onto another. Because we're just that fickle. And the self-help section of the book store isn't getting any smaller, is it?
I want and seek the God that's bigger than the 7 habits, or Starbucks. Don't give me a drink from the stale well. I want the LIVING WATER...
And while our culture is thirsty for living water, we keep serving up 12 steps, and the 7 habits, and Starbucks, and McChurch...and the modern lying metanarrative (on postmodern steroids), that life is all about me. And we can all smell the semiotic stench of death. I think this sounds suspiciously like the thing that got us thrown out of the garden...
I don't always want it, but I need it...to be caught up in a vision that's larger than my micro-reality.

The Face of a New Church in Portland, Oregon

2007-08-30T21:34:00.000-06:00

Tonight I write this from my room at the Paramount Hotel in downtown Portland, Oregon. I'm finishing up day 4 of what's called an "advance" for the doctoral program I've just begun at George Fox Evangelical Seminary. The doctorate will be a Doctorate of Ministry in George Fox's "Leadership in the Emerging Culture" cohort, shepherded by an ecclectic and excellent faculty and mentored by historian and futurist Len Sweet.

My cohort is the smallest they have had at ten people. But my peers and I believe this to be the powerful work of the Spirit. There will be more time for us as a small group to form a group identity, to interact and challenge one another, and more air time for each of us as we converse with Len over matters of the Kingdom and learn to "hear" with semiotic awareness God loose on the world.

I'm excited and a bit amazed. I'm a liberal evangelical, a part of what faculty here are describing as the most diverse cohort they have had. A Presbyterian pastor from inner-city Portland, two ex-Pentecostals (one who serves as the young adult pastor at mega church Hillvue Heights Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky and the other a passionate layman from Nevada who just finished his seminary education and wants to pursue a doctorate in spiritual formation as an offering to his local congregation), an Episcopal priest from Oakland, California, a teaching pastor from a non-denominational church in Springfield, Oregon, a Free Methodist pastor who serves a dual point parish in Neversink, New York; a student ministries pastor, circuit speaker and regular contributor to Group Magazine from the Yorba Linda Friends Church in Yorba Linda, California, and two United Methodist Pastors, one who serves dual point parishes in East Texas, and the other who serves dual point parishes in West Texas. Lastly, there's myself, the liberal evangelical ELCA Lutheran pastor from rural Nebraska.

We've moved fast this week to listen and self-define and to build bridges across theological and ecclesiological chasms and though so much of the insider language of our various churches varies in incredible and difficult to understand ways, we have found a common center.

Jesus. He is our Lord, and each of us has a deep and abiding love for him and a restless, holy discontent for the bodies of Christ we serve--that they might be the bride of Christ in all her glory.

I'm amazed and humbled by the level of listening with open minds, hearts, and spirits that has taken place...and in the midst of the amazement, I wonder...

I wonder if we aren't the face of the future church, passionate about our contexts but ultimately truly post-denominational with a deep appreciation for the tall shoulders of faith and tradition we each stand on but a deeper love still for the Jesus who is Lord in all of our traditions.

I wonder. If WE can talk and laugh and love and listen like we have been, then perhaps the Spirit of God in us, the Spirit of reconciliation IS larger than our human divisions.

It's really stupid wondering isn't it? Of course God's Spirit is larger than our divisions.

We are the church. Not all of it. But together, we are a powerful expression of a new future being created as we walk and talk, share, dream, and challenge.

With hope for the kingdom where you are...

Nathan

VISION and VOICE

2007-06-06T22:20:00.000-06:00

As I’ve shared before, I’m relatively new to the Christian faith. It’s true that I was born into a Church of the Brethren family, but I quickly moved out of the orthodoxy of my childhood as a teenager. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God anymore; it was simply that the God I had felt and experienced seemed to be so much larger than the one the faith of my childhood seemed to paint and describe.

Hence my wilderness wanderings. Some might call them pagan or heretical. But I have the gift of hindsight now, almost two decades later. I can see God’s fingerprints all over and throughout those times. Life is a journey, and because of my own journeying, I find myself much less willing to criticize paths and choices others make. My eyesight is limited, and the truth is, sometimes you can see the fruit of the Spirit’s work in the lives of others, and at other times the work and its fruit are hidden. Like the plants in my newly created garden, new roots are being established in the transplanted life forms—new pathways being formed in the nutrient rich soil. And for awhile, the important things of growing will be going on underground, away from prying eyes, rather than above ground and in the light. But I can tell you from experience that the fruit WILL come on soon enough and we will have zucchinis galore and more tomatoes than we’ll know what to do with. This is the way it should be.

The way for my re-entrance into the Christian faith came through my appropriation of a new VISION. As I said earlier, I left the orthodoxy of my childhood faith because it wasn’t large enough to really converse with the God who created the majesty I glimpsed even through the light pollution of the Tucson evenings of my youth, those desert skies high and clear above—the spilled milk of God’s breakfast sloshed across the sky.

And then came the experience of communion and encounters with the radical grace of the God who doesn't knock at the door of my heart and ask for entrance, but who breaks out the tactical nuke of his son Jesus to explode all barriers between myself and his reconciling and transforming work.

Those experiences began to give me a new VISION, one that could reconcile the Christian vision with the inner sense of God I’d carried since my early childhood.

The Spirit didn’t stop there of course; Erin and I eventually found our way into a Jesus community that nurtured our faith and in me, nurtured the new VISION I’d been given. The discipleship I underwent challenged me to give VOICE to this new VISION. And to my surprise, I found that I had something tangible to say—to contribute to the symphony of praise lifted up by the faithful to the God of the universe for his goodness, his sufficiency, and the hopefulness of the transformation he brings to created life and living.

The words and phrases of my VOICE were stilted at the beginning. But the VISION in me created a passion to share the work of God going on inside of me and the will to persist through my stuttering. And in time, I came to realize that not only did I have something to say, my presence and my VOICE contributed to and worked with the VOICE and VISION of God in creation.

There are many ways to measure the health of the church. Metrics can tell us a great deal about what’s going on in a community. Take these statistics for instance. During my time at St. Mark's, the congregation's average weekly worship attendance has grown by 20+%, we’ve added members, and there is a Spirit of empowerment that fills the community.

These are all indications that as a community, people are responding to the VISION and the VOICE of God’s kingdom at work in this community. But the best metric of the work of the Spirit in any community comes through the VISION and VOICE that you have...your sense of where God is taking your community, and where God is taking you as his disciple, and how you share (VOICE) that VISION with the world and people around you.

So my questions—and challenge for you are these: Where IS God taking you and your community? What does our world look like on the horizon? And what do you have to say about that? What do you have to say about how God is at work in your life and in the lives of others? What is the passion that you have to share?

You may believe that you don’t have a VISION or a VOICE of faith. But you do. And if you aren’t incredibly careful, through the power of the Holy Spirit, they will find you!

Passionate for Jesus— Pastor Nathan

A Sufficient Cross

2007-04-06T21:53:00.000-06:00

It was a five pound hammer. As Les drove it into the large block of wood at the back of the Nave, I not only heard the deep report of metal on wood, but FELT the front pew, my pew, leap with each determined strike.

I began to weep. I wasn't the only one.

I'm ashamed. Sitting through those pounding sounds I couldn't avoid the truth of it. I hate the cross. I hate what it represents. My sin...one blow upon the other on the body of Jesus. My wounds; his wounds. My pain; his pain. My fault; his punishment.

It's just too real there at his trembling feet. And I just feel to naked to my own brokenness in the LIGHT cast by that ghastly symbol of my freedom. But that's not all. As each blow landed, I could feel in myself a rebellion...a refusal to accept this basic tenet of the orthodox Christian faith. It only took one cross. No other cross since has been necessary. No other cross or life given in all of creation's history can suffice or even needs to.

One cross was sufficient. His cross was/is sufficient. Jesus' cross is sufficient.

Which seems so ludicrous. Mostly because I act as if I am my own god, in power of my own life, in control of my own decisions, and guiding my own behaviors, perfectly free to accept and reject the stuff of life. But he deconstructs all of this; him and his cross. Because at the foot of the cross I simply can't escape the fact that someone else has decided for me; someone else has acted on my behalf, and no matter what I try and think I might be able to accomplish, that cross thing is just, simply, completely, totally beyond me.

And I resent that. And am also so desperate for the truth of it...because I know that in the shadow of that cross and the empty tomb intimated in the horizon beyond it is a freedom and reconciliation and redemption and healing that sets me and my very broken world to rights.

And that, let me tell you, I LONG for...

Tonight, on this Good Friday, removed by two millenia and way to much discourse and preaching, God is still acting, and his cross is still freeing me, and you, and "those" people, whoever they are.

I want to treat that cross as "virtual," efficacious only on my own power and through my own choice. But I thank God that he didn't consult me on his son's work. I not only thank him, I PRAISE him. Because he IS sufficient. And I am not.

Because of him, I have a future, and a hope, and so do you.

I am including below the prayers we prayed tonight for the world, the church, and ourselves...all in light of the cross. Tonight, they are my prayers for all of you as well.

PRAYERS OF THE CROSS

L: Let us pray for our world, held captive by the shape of the cross,
and blind to the reality that it has been overcome.

{A brief silence}

P: Lord Jesus, you promised that even as you are lifted up, you will draw all people to yourself. Draw our senseless world with its confused priorities and its lavish investments in false hopes, and put it to death in your death that it might know the power of your life.
C: Lord, your work is reconciling.

L: We pray for your broken body the Church…

{A brief silence}

P: Gather your members together Lord, the hand that argues with the foot over doctrine, and the brain that argues with the gut over who is welcome at your table of salvation and reconciliation. Mend and re-unite usthat we might tell the world with ONE voice, that as you are lifted up, you transcend all of our divisions and decisions and draw ALL to yourself.
C: Lord, your work is uniting.

L: Lord, we pray for the poor and exploited and those cast away…

{A brief silence}

P: Precious Jesus, your heart resides with the poor and accused, the thrown away and the societally useless. It is in your cross that we see this most clearly...where it is you stand and how far it is you are willing to go to restore what is yours. May we who have everything learn to see as you see, and learn to stand where and as you stand.
C: Lord, your work gives dignity.

L: Lord, we pray for ourselves, we who are trying furiously to save ourselves…

{A brief silence}

P: In our sinfulness and frailty, and our narcissism and deceit, we work night and day to turn the finished work of your cross and resurrection into a virtual work that is contingent upon our decision. But we and our work and even our decisions are broken and not sufficient.
C: Lord, you and your cross-shaped work ARE sufficient. Amen

The Resurrection: The Power of God's Free Gift

2007-04-03T15:55:00.000-06:00

My friend and colleague Paul Mussachio (Assoc. Pastor, Preston Meadow Lutheran Church, Plano, Texas) read my April newsletter article to my congregation and thought that I should share it with a wider audience. I hope you find this edifying! May you be touched and transformed by the Risen One this Easter season. --Nathan

It is not long now. Our waiting is almost over. In just two Sunday’s, this Lenten pilgrimage will be over and we Jesus’ disciples, will arrive once again at the ending and new beginning of the greatest TRUE story ever told. In the stillness of that morning, in the midst of the memory of the wet alkali smell of THE damp tomb, we will proclaim the GOOD NEWS of the Church:

HE IS RISEN!
HE IS RISEN INDEED!

The old time religion I was baptized into saw the cross as the culmination of God’s Good News. The Resurrection was really immaterial—just a happy ending to an otherwise tragic story: on the cross, Jesus died for my sins so that I can live with him in eternity should I make that choice and follow him.

But what I was never told, and would have to wait another fifteen years to discover, is that the old rugged cross, the pivot of salvation in the thinking of the Anabaptist faith tradition of my childhood, was simply meaningless without the quiet gasp of the tomb on the 3rd day.

I am NOT saying that the cross is not important. It is...and is still the crux (pun intended) of the matter. But it can only be God’s sign of salvation because in the end the tomb is empty.

The truth is this: you and I do not pay attention to Jesus because he died on a cross. Perhaps you were taught this. But the truth is that if Jesus had merely died on a cross, history would not remember him, and you and I as Jesus’ followers would not call him Lord and Messiah.

Thousands throughout the Roman era were tortured and killed on crosses. History does not remember them.

Just ONE. Only ONE name under heaven is remembered. We do not remember him because he died on a cross. We remember him because he didn’t stay dead! And today we DO in fact call Jesus Lord. But not because of the cross.

It seems like foolishness doesn’t it? That in a world where nothing is gained for free, in a creation where everything appears to need an earning, we in the orthodox Christian faith, proclaim the Good News of God’s FREE gift? Think about it: you weren’t consulted about whether or not you think you need God’s salvation. And yet Christ died for you. You weren’t asked whether or not Jesus should enter Hell for you as we affirm in the Apostles’ Creed. But he did, and he did that for you. He did that for me. He didn’t consult us on whether or not he should conquer the death we caused through the cross with his resurrection. Without our participation, he acted to give us a future and a hope. And he loved each of us enough to make sure that none of us got to vote on his saving work.

It is precisely because we were not involved that this is the best GOOD NEWS you and I will ever hear. God has been working for our restoration to his vision for us since the day we had to be run out of the Garden for trying to do life on our own terms, in our own way.

But in all of creation, there is and can only ever be one way if God is God. And that is God’s WAY. There can only be one vision. That vision is God’s VISION! There can be only one salvation. That is God’s SALVATION!

I’ve been abnormally thirsty for the Word recently. When the thirst started, I said to the Holy Spirit, “Where do you want me to read?” My Bible fell open to the letter’s of Paul. And so each evening, I’ve been reading a different letter. A few days ago, I was in Ephesians, the book that best expresses the nature of God’s FREE GIFT. It reads:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
—Ephesians 2:8-10

Do you hear the message of this? God's grace and the very faith that makes it accessible to you is the very work of God; not a divine bandaid for the particular sins of your individual life. No, this grace and the FREE GIFT of faith are a part of God's plan for your life. They are an extension of God's vision for you and this mess of a creation. God's not done creating yet. He's not done creating you, and he's certainly not done creating me. And he absolutely refuses to leave us to our own devices...because he knows what we so often forget our real limitations. We fail at everything related to God and holy living. We are narcissistic, prideful, and totally uncapable of living into a covenant relationship with God. Unless, that is, God is really in the business of creating/re-creating us.

This is how Martin Luther heard and articulated the passage from Ephesians above:

"I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, BUT instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith."
--The Small Catechism; Explanation to the 3rd Article of the Creed

During this Easter season, my prayer for you as your pastor is that the power of the resurrection will grasp and hold onto you, and that the passionate life that pours forth from the doorway of the empty tomb might fill your heart with the HEART of Jesus, your lungs with his BREATH, your eyes with his VISION, your ears with his SONG, and your thoughts with the THOUGHTS of the Everlasting, Ever-Loving, Ever-Redeeming, Ever-Transforming, Ever-Creating God.

Passionate for the Risen One and for you—

Pastor Nathan

A New and Right Spirit

2007-03-30T09:16:00.000-06:00

Friends and colleagues, my apologies for not keeping new and edifying material in front of you this last month and a half. It's been busy here in northeastern Nebraska both in terms of family and call. Below is a book review I recently wrote for the "Trinity Seminary Review" and will be published in the summer/fall addition later this year. So stay tuned. You get to see it here first! If you haven't read RIck's book yet, you owe it to yourself to purchase a copy (from Alban, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble) and to read it with relish and supreme attentioin. It's a relatively short book, but is incredibly high octane! Blessings to you all as you seek to follow and serve Jesus in your day to day lives! Nathan

A New and Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture. By Rick Barger with Foreward by Mark Allan Powell. Herndon, VA: Alban (www.alban.org), 2005. 154 pp. ISBN #1-56699-306-7 $18.00 (Paperback).

“As we have crossed the threshold of a new millennium, the main calling of the church is not a matter of more programs, more strategies for membership recruitment, and more ways to meet people’s needs. It is a matter of authenticity” (3). This is Rick Barger’s assertion as he imagines and articulates a church that is transformed at its core for vibrant missional life rather than seeking these things in the latest church growth fad to make its appearance.

A New and Right Spirit is a powerful, postmodern take on what it means for the church to become an adaptive movement of transformation for individuals and communities in the 21^st century. Rather than being a book on leadership theory, its wisdom and authenticity have been hard won on the frontlines of the incredibly faith-resistant context of super-sized and ultra-consumerized suburban America and a community traumatized by the Columbine High School shootings.

I had the privilege of serving under Barger while he was writing this book for Alban nearly three years ago, and so have a window into the workings of a large suburban church, especially as it seeks to model a life shaped by the gospel and not the culture. As a pastor in a small community now, and in a much smaller church environment, the best test of Barger’s witness and this book’s prowess is that it is just as applicable to my context in rural Nebraska as it is to that of suburban Littleton, Colorado.

A New and Right Spirit’s power lies in its simple assertion that the rebirth of the church as God’s transformative agent for people and communities comes through its single-minded witness to the finished work of Jesus through his cross and resurrection. Barger writes:

“…the rebirthing of an authentic church with transformational traction with the culture is not about programs or strategies. It is about bringing to life out of the rich soil of the church the ancient and authentic story of Jesus and the construction of a faith community whose life together, passions, and character—that is, its community ethos—are constructed from the authenticity and integrity of the story” (71).

Barger takes pains to build the case for how and why the church struggles to articulate an authentic identity and calling, and how these things can be rediscovered in the doorway of Jesus’ empty tomb. This is what makes this book so incredibly helpful; Barger builds a vision for what congruency with the church’s story of the crucified and risen Jesus looks like played out in the work and witness of congregational life. He and the community he has served for a decade and a half are living proof that a church that serves God and deconstructs the consumer can not only survive in the white-water culture of the 21^st century, but abundantly thrive.

A New and Right Spirit was written for the servant-leader in Christ’s church, whether that person is a pastor, bishop, seminary student, or a part of the priesthood of all believers. As such it is an edifying, empowering, and hopeful offering that, though theological and ecclesiological in nature, is incredibly accessible to a wide audience. Whether you are a pastor, a seminarian, or a lay person with a passion for Christ’s church, A New and Right Spirit will give you a powerful and fresh articulation and vision for what it means to be and do church for God in a 21^st century post-everything world.

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church Rev. Nathan Swenson-Reinhold
Bloomfield, Nebraska

The Family Pickle and the God Who Makes All Things New

2007-01-17T11:40:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year to all of you! Just like that we are in 2007 and already halfway through January. It was just seven years ago that we were led to believe that the world was going to grind to a shuddering stop as computers turned over the electronic digits of a new millennium. Alas, that didn’t happen and the sun still rises every morning, and sets every evening. Some things never change.
But praise God other things do! It’s about this time every year that millions of us will make covenants of change with ourselves or others—commonly called New Years Resolutions. We will take on a diet to change our weight, or take on a cancer to change the near term outcome of our lives, or resolve to spend more time with our children to change the reality of our disconnected families. You get the picture.
Our world is changing. Like or not, everything has changed, will change, or needs to change. Death is in a real sense the ceasing of change; the termination of interaction and communication with an environment and a failure to respond appropriately. So the long and the short of it is this: we need change. Without it we die.
We need it. And we resist it. We are nostalgic for the familiar—wanting to be connected to those things that bring the comfort of regular life rhythms and patterns. This could be the bed we sleep in, or the chair we watch TV in, or our favorite beer cozy, or Grandma’s china.
In my family there is an amicable argument over a pickle. It’s a special pickle really; nothing ordinary about it. It’s special because it’s 150 years old. A great-grandparent grew the cucumber inside the narrow mouthed jar, broke off the plant when the fruit filled the jar in a completely unnatural way, filled it with preservative, and then sealed it with a glass stopper and wax. It hasn’t been opened since.
When I was a child, I remember seeing it sitting on my grandmother’s organ. It seemed a strange and odd thing to keep on an organ, but there it was.
My grandparents are now in their mid-70’s and have begun their end-of-life estate planning. Because of this they have been having conversation with their children and grandchildren about the things of value they’ve accumulated over time, figuring out who will get what.
There has been more argumentation over that pickle. Like I indicated before, it’s congenial. But that yellow pickle, sitting in that old glass jar, filled with suspiciously yellow water, always comes up in conversation. “Who do you think the pickle is going to now?” “Well I’ve told them I expect that pickle...” and on and on.
I think I’m the black sheep in the family. I’m the only one I know of who isn't that interested in that pickle.
But I’ve often wondered why THEY all are? And this is the conclusion that I’ve come to: it connects my family to its history. An ancestor who lived 6 generations ago produced this odd organ sitting anomaly, and it has family historic value.
I get that. Our histories are important. They connect us to our forebears and to their traditions, beliefs, and values, even if those same things have changed for us.
Churches, especially established ones like ours, have significant histories. St. Mark’s represents at least five generations of faith here in the Bloomfield community. Hence our museum artifacts, the artifacts of our history stored in a large locked glass case of the Nave.
But we as the church live in a dynamic tension. It’s one of change. Time marches on. Human society changes. And our Holy Scriptures tell us that God isn’t done creating yet: the Holy Spirit is continuing to create faith and the Kingdom in our broken world.
It is Jesus who says, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21). And that is good news. Jesus PROMISES to change us, to bring reconciliation to hard and angry hearts, and forgiveness to our forsaken souls. He promises to bring sight to the blind, and to release the captives. And that folks is change no matter how you slice it. It’s change that saves!
Faithful churches are changing churches. They are faithful and changing because they are willing to follow Jesus into the mission field (Bill Easum). They are willing to learn new faith languages and new ways of being to reach the nations for Jesus Christ.
The reality is, we’ll get to the nations. But out there, wherever you are, all you need to do to begin following Jesus into the mission field is to simply reach your community. The mission field isn’t any further away than our pews or coffee shops, co-ops, schools, or homes.
Here’s to the Lord of creation who creates us, not from our pasts, but from his glorious and life giving changed future!
Grace and peace to all of you on the front lines of faithfulness!

The Only Relevant Church

2006-12-19T22:58:00.000-06:00

I've been struggling from a leadership standpoint with the conversation over cultural relevancy. It's the "kiss the culture" question; you know, are we going to so engage the culture that we lose any sense of what it means to be an authentic church, or spurn it in such a way that our rejection of culture is seen as a rejection of the people Jesus so clearly comes to love and claim as his own?

Here are the brass tacks in my context: forecast? 8% decline in our county over the next five years. Average age? 46. The largest unchurched population? Under the age of 45. An interesting fact? Our community is much younger than we think it is. The average age of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is somewhere in the late 50's depending on who you talk to and the resources you cite. The reality is, we hang out with folks our own age...e.g. NOT the younger generations around us.

The Jesus and Kingdom questions? How are we going to connect these next generations to Jesus and his work?

I live in an interesting culture. It's what sociologists label as "oral." This does NOT mean my community is illiterate. Far from it. You'd be surprised by all of the University trained farmers in these parts. But it is to say that information about important things is communicated in coffee shops, in church hallways, via rolled down windows in idling vehicles pitched parallel and opposite in the middle of roads, and through the communal interactions of dozens of community organizations that make a town like mine go round the sun. When I first arrived here, I launched a mid-month periodical as a counter point to our newsletter called "The Spirit Porch," a sort of forum for conversations about faith, life, and discipleship. My readership (in town) was all of ten people out of our of a mailing list of 250.

I stopped that after about five months. Discipleship wasn't coming through spiritual reading. It was coming through the holy conversations, one on one, that occurred at the gas pump, at the corner store register, and just outside our town's library.

It was these experiences that convinced me that getting an active Internet site up and running shouldn't be a high priority.

A year later we've just finished our re-survey for the Natural Church Development work that's been underway in the congregation. The results? Our coach tells us that we've had greater overall growth than any other church utilizing the instrument in the Nebraska Synod. How did we do it? One Jesus conversation at a time. One Jesus question at a time.

What do you think JESUS is passionate about? How can you/we be passionate about that?
What do you think Jesus really values in our lives together as his church?
How do you think Jesus feels about our worship? Is he inspired by it?
Where do you think Jesus is calling us to follow him?
How do you think Jesus is challenging us to grow?
How do you think a church of the God of the empty tomb is called to serve? Give? Lead? Live?
What kinds of opportunities do we have to tell others about Jesus in our day to day lives? And what's holding us back?

These are relevant questions here. They are questions that are stirring the saints.

I know our USAmerican culture is changing. Christendom, whether small town America knows it or not, is on the ropes. We can't take for granted the Christian face of the nation anymore, if we ever could. We can't take for granted the church's protected status in our culture as blue laws erode, as soccer makes its way to Sunday morning, and hockey to Sunday afternoons, and as every hunting season imaginable becomes an excuse for not worshipping the living God.

I know it's getting harder to communicate. The cultural gap between my confirmation students and the Builder generation of my congregation is a light year apart. To give you a sense of the rate of disconnect just between myself and my confirmation students, think on this. I'm thirty. In confirmation just two weeks ago we were talking about God's gift of the Sabbath and relating it to the Old Testament concept of the year of Jubilee...God's vision for grace and a clean slate for human communities and creation. We talked about the recent year of Jubilee (2000) and about Bono and his work for international debt relief. "You know who Bono is don't you?" Blank looks. "You've heard of U2, right?" Again blank looks.

I thought to myself, "But God, I'm only thirty!"

They're not listening to U2. They are listening to "Linkin' Park" and "Green Day" and "System of a Down" and "Eminem". None of these kids loads the top ten organ hits of all time onto their iPODs. But my congregation IS talking about a costly organ renovation. Why? So we can make sure the next generation will never come?

I think I know why we're losing the conversation and why the church is struggling with relevancy. I think our organs and other social projects have become more important to us than Jesus, his message, his work, and our mandate to connect others to him. I think that in the church we are passionate about maintaining our museums for posterity, rather than creating MASH units for our hurting communities, wells of the deep water for the spiritually thirsty.

Perhaps you're sitting there saying, "Nathan, it's just not that black and white." And maybe you're right. But maybe we could at least agree on one thing: our passion for Jesus, the risen One, and for the creation he comes to claim as his own, should be WAY more important than any of our man-made traditions and agendas.

In his book "Blue Like Jazz"; Donald Miller writes...

A friend of mine, a young pastor who recently started a church, talks to me from time to time about the new face of the church. He says the new church will be different from the old one, that we will be relevant to culture and the human struggle. I don't think any church has ever been relevant to culture, to the human struggle, unless it believed in Jesus and the power of His gospel. If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool Web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either. It is just another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing (111).

Maybe the questions is, are we passionate about our forms of communication? Or are we passionate about that which we are communicating, and the ones to whom we are communicating? Can we reach the next generations with worship that features organ music? Of course we can. But those others we are called to reach, to love, and to embrace should be the first move in our thinking and not the last. And maybe questions about how we communicate should be of higher value than questions about how we're going to maintain the museum. One thing I know for sure: churches that create museums soon turn into mausoleums. The organ shouldn't come first. The building shouldn't come first. Even our budget shouldn't come first.

Jesus should. And all those he's called his own, that don't know yet that they belong to him.

Don Miller has named the mark of relevancy: it won't be found in Blogs like these, pod casts like those, or $70,000 organ renovation projects. When these things become our passions, we become passionate for nothing. The church's relevancy has always been and always will be her belief in Jesus and the power of his gospel.

A Beggar's Kingdom is Better...

2006-12-16T23:44:00.000-06:00

What follows is an exerpt from a piece of phenomenal prose: "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. He writes about the love of God...

We dream of Christ's love for His bride reading like Romeo and Juliet; two equals enflamed in liberal love. I think it is more like Lucentio's pursuit of Bianca in The Taming of the Shrews. That is, the groom endearing the belligerant bride with kindness, patience, and love.

Our "behavior" will not be changed long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible. The laziest of men will swim the English channel to win his woman. I think what Rick said is worth repeating that by accepting God's love for us, we fall in love with Him, and only then do we have the fuel we need to obey.

In exchange for our humility and willingness to accept the clarity of God, we are given a kingdom. And a beggar's kingdom is better than a proud man's delusion (p. 86).

The Desert that Feeds the World

2006-12-10T21:24:00.000-06:00

I’m a desert rat at heart. Much of my sense of the wonder and mystery of life was formed in the washes of deserts, around blossoming Ocotillos and towering Saguaros, and skies heavy with Monsoon thunderheads heaving above with light, pouring forth floods. My sense of the vastness of the cosmos was shaped by campouts with my granddad, sleeping bags thrown into the back of his tan F150 Ford pickup out on the shores of Lake Pleasant. As the day’s heat would fade to the dry cool of a desert night, we’d pick out the planets and stars as they’d come out of their day long hiding. As the sky faded to black velvet, the luminous Milky Way would make its cosmic debut, spilled milk splashing across the vastness. With field glass enhanced eyes, we connected constellations and tracked speeding satellites, and watched the white pastel blur of Haley’s Comet in its stately circuit.

In the presence of this vastness with huge skies above and jagged edges on the beautiful horizons, I connected with a sense of the limitless in life. Early on there formed in me a craving for the possibilities and creativity intimated in these vistas…an openness I’ve sought throughout my life.

But reality assails; I am beset by limitations. Some of them are biological; my body is that of a thirty year old, but I can feel in my knees that they are no longer twenty. Early white wires of hair tell the story of slow obsolescence. This body is not eternal.

Some of my limitations are relational—the choices of family and the obligations that come with nurturing a marriage and raising two precious human beings. If I value these relationships, I will choose directions that honor them and the privilege and responsibility of having them.

Some of my limitations are sinful…the stuff of the brokenness that encroaches my fallible heart…the self-centeredness and self-reliance that seeks to displace in me the God of the universe described above as center and source of my life.

The truth is, I am a nexus of limitation in a universe of possibilities, and I rail against those limitations. It doesn’t even matter if the limitations aren’t really there; still I balk. Perhaps I want to be God. But I don’t believe that. I do want to be connected to him though, and the space of the eternal.

I had the privilege of seeing my childhood best friend John last May while in Tucson for my brother’s high school graduation. We had several rich conversations, but one in particular stands out. He said to me, “Nathan, the best creativity comes from a context of limitations.” (My paraphrase)

I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking through that statement since…mostly struggling with it. I want those vast horizons and infinite resources to play and create in. I don’t want to accept limitations and constraints as natural or even desirable to the creative processes of life in which I am called to play even a small part.

John’s right.

It’s taken a bit of work to admit it. But his observation (though perhaps he wouldn’t see it as such) is a holy one. It discerns the paradoxes of life in play around us; that the eternal works through the finite.

When Noah and his family climbed into that Big Boat…

When Moses raised his staff in the face of the Reed Sea…

When Jesus took several loaves and fishes and fed five thousand…

When he turned water into wine…

When his insignificant death becomes the redemption of the cosmos in his resurrection…

Jesus walked and worked in deserts, was tempted in the wilderness of one, and crucified amidst its jagged rocks. At first glance, deserts are a place of incredible limitation, a moisture poor environment the context for the epic struggle of life. But the thing is, if you look closely, within the limitations of their ecologies, deserts flourish with life, such is their creativity.

I am learning about limitations and that God works, moves, and makes things new in the midst of them. I am learning that John is right. And in the middle of this learning, as I sit in this limited human form, I am coming to terms with a universe of possibility confined in the apparently finite.

This evening, I thank God for such paradoxes…

A Sufficient Atonement

2006-10-31T19:27:00.000-06:00

A reading from "For All the Saints: A Prayer Book for and By the Saints" published by the American Lutheran Publishing Buruea, 1998.

Ralph W. Sockman (1889-1970) wrote...

[Describing the Bible as a four-act drama of the search for deliverance from evil via the scapegoat (Act 1), via morality (Act II), and now via the stong helping the weak (Act III).]

Suppose that is all I could say this morning: just be decent, help the weak, be charitable, help the Red Cross. We are all in this together; we must be men. It wouldn't be a very strong gospel, would it? There is a fourth act to the drama, and that fourth act is made most vivied by the great Negro play, Green Pastures. Green Pastures has in it a scene in which God is looking down over the parapet of heaven from His office. He is talking to the angel Gabriel, and saying, "Whose shadow is that?" Gabriel says, "That's Hosea's shadow." Hosea was the Old Testament prophet whose wife was unfaithful to him; and just as he had to suffer to win back that erring wife, he came to the conviction that God suffers to win back His wayward children. When God sees the shadow of Hosea, He says to Gabriel, "Does that mean that even God has to suffer?" "Yes," says Gabriel, "that's what it means." In the next scene God is looking down ove rthe parapet, and He says, "I see a young man carrying a cross up a hill."

That is the fourth act in the drama of deliverance. The scapegoat is not enough; morality is not enough; not even the vicarious principle is enough; God suffers to deliver us from evil. That, as I understand it, is the meaning of the cross. The cross isn't the price man had to pay to break God's heart. God's heart is always love. The cross is the price God paid to break our hearts. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.

Reforming and Remaking...

2006-10-28T19:27:00.000-06:00

It's Reformation weekend. Just hours ago I published the blog "Leading from Below." But my mental and spiritual wheels are still turning. The image of footwashing as the most basic and grounding "sacrament" of the church is powerful for me because of the way I know the act of it re-stories both the one who washes the feet and the one who receives the washing. Foot washing quickly deconstructs class, hubris (having your feet washed is perhaps the most humbling experience I've ever had), and coercive power. It grounds us in the proper physical mudra of serving and leading...the posture of kneeling. It's power is supreme in the gentle and loving ways of our Lord Jesus.

Some of the things I promised to change in the congregation I now serve were its "Table Practices." I went to the same sort of seminary you did. You know, the kind that says you're not supposed to change anything in your first year of ministry. But I've never bought into that. I know that those who argue this position argue that you have to build trust to engage change in a congregation, and that coming in and immediately changing things somehow communicates the congregation's prior inadequacies. But I find it unfortunate how binary our perceptions of change and challenge; that the only sort of message change might indicate is one of belittlement. You see, I think it is the most profound way we honor one another, when we call each other more fully into the gospel. In fact, I believe that this is the call and purpose and identity of the church.

This makes me wonder at our defintions of compassion and mercy. Are mercy and compassion most concerned with the "feelings" of a context, or the LIFE God so desperately wants for it? I realize that even this dichotomy should probably be seen as a both/and. But I wonder. What if Jesus had been less abrupt with the lame man at the pool of Siloam? What if he hadn't in the midst of the man's whining and excuses for his illness simply said, "Stand up! Take up your mat and walk?" It doesn't seem all that compassionate. It seems rough, and abrupt, and uncaring. And yet the man walks and lives! Think on that...

In the rite of ordination, I said "Yes!" to the holy privilege of stewarding the gospel. It is my holy call, as it is with anyone who is ordained, to remove obstacles and barriers in community to living in response to the good news about the God who claims beyond all sin, death, and brokenness; who reconciles and forgives beyond all offense, curse, and damnation. And where the fullness of this gracious activity is occluded, despite my own brokenness, (God prefers broken vessels) I've been called to remove the barriers with the help of the "reforming Church" and the Holy Spirit who calls and enlightens as she goes before us.

Semper reformanda. This is the Reformation's call to the ongoing task of "reforming" and "remaking" his precious and broken body, the church. And yet, it seems as though we teach and encourage the safety of mediocre servant leadership that doesn't risk for the gospel at all.

My congregation is flourishing. It is NOT flourishing because I am here. It IS flourishing because the gospel is becoming the music of our collective heart beat. It is becoming that music because not only do we preach the gospel every week, we enact it in a table that welcomes all, tax collectors and sinners, saints and prophets, pharisees and thieves, and CHILDREN to the banquet of the Lord where we live and anticipate together now the fullness of God's coming reign.

Our "Table Practices" have changed, and so have we. It is a powerfully grounding and transformative thing to enact in community the promise of God given to us in Isaiah 25:6-10. But I am wondering, in light of a church always "reforming", what a church that enacts the mutual washing of feet would look like? I wonder where we could be if we were now washing each other's feet week in and out? I wonder, how much further the Holy Spirit could witness through us if The Servant's heart was richly and truly formed in us? I wonder what it would mean to have built into our worship a way to regularly story one another in the most basic posture of the disciple?

Leading from Below

2006-10-28T15:43:00.001-06:00

It’s in my deepest memory—those images of that simple meal; plain bread, water, and simple meat. And afterwards the humble submission of follower to follower, servant to servant as one knelt before the other and with warm water, soap (YES! real soap…), and towel performed the sacrament of the kingdom. In the community of my childhood, this LOVEFEAST/FOOTWASHING was the praxiological centering event of this community. It was the way the community enacted Jesus’ very real servant heart: “So if I…have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13:14-15).

And it didn’t end there, in that preciously powerful and liminal space. The once yearly lived witness was taken and practiced on Monday mornings at the farm, and Tuesday afternoons at the office. When I look into the past of my forebears, I see this commitment to serve mirrored in my great-grandfather (a public water district employee in La Verne, California) who would pay the water bills of his Hispanic customers rather than shut of essential resources. I see my grandfather who would pick up wanderers, feed them, and pray with them. I see the peaceful ethos of a people who refused to take up arms but instead offered life and limb to move essential resources and support to a war torn Europe and her homeless denizens in both the First and Second World Wars.

Of course, this sacramental way of being isn’t Anabaptist. It’s a God thing—hard to wrap our heads around in a world of powers and principalities that lead through power and coercion.
But those of us claimed by the Way are different. We follow a king who reigns from a kingdom where the king is a beggar, a janitor, the street-sweeper. We follow a king who dies to reign rather than killing to do so; who sacrifices himself rather than sacrificing others; who loves and blesses rather than hating and damning.

And so we, the followers of that king, talk about leadership in a different way. We lead from below as the king does. We move communities through the power of an authority born of love and sacrifice and the Spirit of the Living God who goes before us, rather than the coercive arm of power and title and personal agenda, just as Jesus does. We lead not through our own calls, but through the call of the Gospel that has formed us; the Gospel that will gather us, all nations, on the mountain of the Lord where death is swallowed up and the reconciliation of the nations will make the headlines of eternity.

Praise be to Jesus, the janitor King, who washes the feet of the world…

IMAGE: “Footwashing” by Sieger Koder

A More Comprehensive Pledge

2006-10-20T22:15:00.000-06:00

Last year I arrived during my congregation's usual annual stewardship emphasis month. Because of the timing, "commitment Sunday" didn't occur. In the interim, my congregation learned that their new pastor doesn't believe that conversation about issues of stewardship should only occur one Sunday per year. Jesus talks about the ordering of our lives in light of the nearness of his kingdom. This reordering is by definition stewardship. So when Jesus talks about it--which is frequently, so do I.

My congregation is NOT a pledging congregation. A congregation started by farmers whose incomes were as mercurial as the crops that supported them, it seemed impractical. But this year, one hundred years after their beginning in mission, I'm asking them to stretch themselves for the sake of the Gospel they are called to serve, and for the sake of their maturation in that same Gospel. Borrowing marks of discipleship/stewardship from my colleagues at Abiding Hope, Littleton, Colorado, and marrying the ideas found therein with the pledging practices of Prince of Peace, Burnesville, I've created a pledging form that I believe is an original. I offer it below for your edification. If you can use this idea or something like it in your ministry, go for it! Blessings...

Nathan

Holy Spirit Stewardship
for Disciples of the Risen Jesus
Pledge Form: 2007

—3 Beats to a New Heart—

As we’re discussing in worship, stewardship involves much more than our pocketbooks.

Stewardship IS discipleship: It is everything we do with our lives after we’ve been claimed by Jesus and his life. Because of this, we are talking about our giving in a new way. As God’s people, the question of our generosity is never about what we can do. Rather, it’s about what God can do through us. We belong to Him. Life belongs to Him. God intends abundance for each of us and for this creation He so

passionately loves. Being created in His image, we are made in the image of the God who gives everything, even His very life. He is a generous God. We are His generous people.

This year, as an exercise in generosity and the promise of our lives and resources to God, we seek to exercise biblically faithful stewardship muscles. II Corinthians 9:5, 7-8 reads—

“...I have decided to ask Titus and the others to spend some time with you before I arrive.
This way they can arrange to collect the money you have promised. Then you will have the chance
to give because you want to, and not because you feel forced to.
each of you must make up your own mind about how much to give.
But don’t feel sorry that you must give and don’t feel that you are forced to give.
God loves people who love to give. God can bless you with everything you need,
and you will always have more than enough to do all kinds of good things for others. (CEV)

Because of this, we will exercise the muscles of pledging/promising to God our worship, relationships that grow in the Living God, and financial generosity that places
God as center and Lord of our lives.

1st Beat—WORSHIP: Last year we/I worshipped God in community approximately______
times. This year God is calling me/us to even greater engagement in the life of worship. I/we pledge
to worship times.

2nd Beat—RELATIONSHIPS: This year the Holy Spirit is calling me into intentional, accountable
relationships of faith that allow me to grow and mature as a follower of Jesus Christ, that give me opportunities to serve God’s church and world, and that allow me to see my personal story in light of God’s overarching story of salvation. This year I will engage this call by participating in______ .

3rd Beat—PASSIONATE GIVING: Last year I gave $____ / month as an offering to the Lord. This represents ___% of my monthly income. This year God can give through me $____/month which represents ___ % of my monthly income. This next year, given this increase, I will grow in my tithing by ___%.

Thank you for your faithful prayer and pledge. Please bring this form with you to worship on October 22nd sealed in a self-addressed stamped envelope. The church office will hold this in trust until February of 2007 when it will be sent back to you as a reminder of your covenant with yourselves and God.

A Professors Response to: "Transforming People and Communities: The Work and Art of Pastoral Leaders"

2006-05-22T13:24:00.000-06:00

My friend and mentor, Wray Bryant, Ph.D., professor of religion at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, has graciously taken the time to really interact with my piece on the transformation of people and communities. Unfortunately his text was of greater depth and length than the response space that was allowed. So I'm posting it as a blog because I believe there is incredible wisdom and insight in his interaction, and a solid and helpful critique of my musings. I offer it to you all for a deepening of the conversation...

Nathan

Your post stirs a lot of questions and observations
within me.  It is so true that Christianity is
grounded in the transforming newness of the power of
the Resurrection of Jesus experienced in life in the
here and now.  Transformation is usually understood as
dramatic total and sudden. But sometimes it is slow, a
very slow process.  You should think of tying this
into your understanding of creation from chaos, chaos
(death, 3-days in the tomb) precedes creation or new
creation.  And very often, chaos starts to take form
through conflict (a theme you mention later). If you
think of slow transformation and the way to th slow
transformation of people, then perhaps you can link
this to your emphasis on relationships and relational
reality.  If that is the case then your observations
on character and who we are–followers of Jesus– is all
the more important. 

I think this metaphor explains it best, your list is
like the list one may assemble before going out to buy
a house.  It is a wonderful list, but I still can’t
see the house. Don’t get me wrong. Writing the list as
an excellent first step.  It is a step more of us need
to make.  It will also be interesting to see what you
list looks like in 10 or 20 years from now.  You need
to take the next step.  Draw the picture. Give us your
vision. Make us see it.  This goes along nicely with
what you have said about prophetic ministry.  The
reason I bring this up is that the Prophets were first
called SEERS.  They saw something, the Vision, and
they tried to get us to see it too. This is what
turned them into tellers, forth-tellers, or as you
say, “story tellers.”  But they could only tell the
story of something they had seen and heard.  They were
witnesses to what had happened to them. Thus we are
back to you final observation of knowing Jesus.  We
cannot witness to that which we have not witnessed
personally and intimately!
So while I am going to affirm that the main thing is
the Vision.  I am also going to say that the Vision
cannot be manufactured.  It has to be given.  Perhaps
the most we can do is open our eyes and look. Thus
perhaps transforming leadership can be defined as
helping us and others to open their eyes and see.
Perhaps the only way to do that is to tell the story
in words and in deeds.  Thus, I can affirm your
understanding of yourself as “lead story teller.”  I
guess what I would ask you to do is turn the “talking
points” you have listed into a story, into a
narrative, a witness to things seen and heard
concretely.  This would make your work powerful. (Note
the way you tell stories in your following post “The
Reason for our Hope”).  Where I would suggest you to
do more study is the area of narratology.  You are
telling a story, a story which is a metanarrative that
will change the world.  While I might agree with the
metanarrative, Post-modernism is skeptical of there
being metanarratives. They acknowledge local (smaller)
narratives.  So I would  welcome your working on what
is paradoxically a possible solution and significant
problem.


Your list makes me think of something else. It makes
me think of wisdom. On one level this sounds like a
list of stories that someone might tell as the sum of
what one has learned over years of ministry (compare
this with Robert Fulghum’s “ All I Really Need To Know
I Learned In Kindergarten” list and the stories which
go along with it).  Thus, as a reader I want to hear
the stories, the fruits of a lifetime.  While “wisdom”
is often thought of as the enlightenment we finally
receive after decades of experience, paradoxically
wisdom is also that which we seek when we are
beginning to build our lives/vocations. [Note that
much of wisdom literature is set up as advice from an
elder to a younger (see the book of Proverbs has a lot
of advice from a father to his son)].  What your list
reminds me of is the need for the dynamic exchange
between the generations... the need for mentoring (in
your words coaching) relationships and how these
exchanges can help both generations to sharpen their
lists.  I think that wisdom may also be a very useful
category in the Post-modern context where the past
cannot just be recapitulated but where insights
(wisdom) is needed.

These are my preliminary musings on your post.  Keep
up the good work.

Wray

Transforming People and Communities: The Work and Art of Pastoral Leaders

2006-05-13T18:13:00.000-06:00

The term “transformational leadership” is much used, and perhaps has lost its sense of coherent meaning within church circles. It seems that there are programs and academies on transformational leadership everywhere. For example, the congregation in the Rocky Mountains that formed me for leadership hosts its own Adaptive Leadership Academy every year but has opted for the term “Adaptive” rather than transformational to place distance between itself and the confusion that comes from the overuse of such a term. I get this. In the marketplace of faddish buzz, it is easy to dismiss “transformational leadership” as more hype in an over-marketed culture.

But I don’t want to throw the term away. We in the church are confronted with the reality of sin and brokenness in the world, and try as we might, we never move from one point to another where there is significant change in the transition without something supernatural occurring. God is in the process and he must have his due. This is no mere evolutionary adaptation (though with all due respect to those who formed me, I understand the significance behind their use of different terminology and do not discount this rationale or them or what they are doing; we are on the same page). But the truth is that transformation as metamorphosis connotes a total change that may happen through us, but not ultimately because of us or by us.

In my thinking, transformation applied to leadership is the humble art of moving people from the story of the world (one that celebrates death, nihilism, a disconnect from God, materialism, humanistic me-ism, spiritualism, therapeutic salvation, and nation-state patriotism) into the story of the cross and resurrection of Jesus (the story of life in the midst of death, of the God who claims against all odds, all sin, and all brokenness for the life, wholeness, and redemption of the cosmos). Moving from the world’s story into Jesus’ story is painful. Much of who we are and what we value will be put to death so that Jesus can raise up a new creation in us. This is why I hesitate to throw the word transformation out. It’s what happens to us when Jesus gets a hold of us. It’s what happens when Jesus breaths his Holy Spirit on our communities. Fearful people become Spirit powered and alive when Jesus breathes in their midst.

Those of us who have the privilege and consternation of pastoral leadership know that we are never responsible for the transformation of communities. When it happens, it’s because God is leading the dance, guiding the vision, and empowering the change.

And yet, God calls us to participate in the work of transforming communities. The work comes to us honestly; we are the primary story tellers and reality builders in the communities we serve. If transformational leadership is the art and practice of moving people from the story of the world into the story of the cross and resurrection, then we play a central and significant role as channels through which the Holy Spirit can work. This should humble us and challenge us; and I hope as well…invigorate us.

So if a pastor is (and s/he should be) a facilitator of this process of transformation, then what Peter Steinke says about leadership is true:

· All good Christian leaders must have two aptitudes:

1. The ability to tolerate great amounts of pain in themselves.

2. The ability to tolerate great amounts of pain in others.

Asking people to be bitten by the cobra of Jesus Christ, to experience death, and to trust that there is new life on the other side of it is a risky business. To be sure, most will choose not to make the journey. And yet, as “unleashers of the Good News of the finished work of Jesus’ cross and resurrection,” this is precisely what we’ve been called to do. We are spiritual mid-wives. We facilitate the death of the old life and birth of the new in people and communities.

If you find the leadership section in any large bookstore, you’ll be surprised by the number (and overall quality) of leadership materials available. The topic of leadership has been perhaps over-written. But I think there’s value in each of us putting to paper/screen what it is we think about as we approach this holy work of leading Jesus communities. Over my past five years of training (especially during my time of contextual education at a congregation in Littleton, Colorado) and now as a full time solo pastor in a mid-size church, I’ve thought through a working list of essentials. The things that have come home to me as critical and empowering ways of being in this ministry as a mid-wife are:

A Vision. In our human frailty, we never have a perfect sense of the topography of the future ahead. But leadership is about listening, praying, and dreaming the future God has in mind for God’s people. If you can’t describe for people where it is God is taking them, you’ll never get them to move. For us as leaders of Jesus people, this is given to us already though in part—we will always have to work to contextualize the vision in the communities we are called to serve. Our vision is framed by the doorway of the empty tomb and the Lord Jesus who stands on the other side of it proclaiming God’s shalom, his reign, and the fullness of his forgiveness and reconciliation given freely and decisively to us.

B It is my calling to make people uncomfortable—to help them move. The gospel challenges how we order our lives and the destructive, life bleeding-killing pacts that we make with the world. Jesus tells us that he has come that we might have life and have it in abundance. He meant it! But that doesn’t mean that coming to that abundant life isn’t going to hurt, challenge, and change us. My wife and I used a mid-wife to help us bring our second son, Ephraim, into the world. What made this experience different than that with our MD the first time around was the coaching. She helped us prepare for the stages of delivery, helped Erin to know what to expect, that there would be pain and the type of pain, but that she could get through it, on her own and without the aid of medication. She helped us both see birth not as a medical condition to be treated, but as a natural, beautiful, life-process to be worked with. The paradigm shift was profound. Pain becomes a different animal with the shift in paradigm. It is a sign post on the way to the birth of something new! And it won’t last forever.

C People will tolerate pain and discomfort if they understand what it is for. It all goes back to that “vision thing!”

D The “Main Thing,” must be the “Main Thing!” The primary task of pastoral leadership is to keep the body of Christ focused and faithful to the mission and vision held in trust by the people. Period.

E Conflict isn’t bad or innately destructive. What is important is who we are in relationship to it—specifically, how we manage our anxiety in the presence of it, and at times, how we orchestrate it.

F Environment matters and I as a pastoral leader am a prime creator of this. Is the environment permission giving and empowering? Does it encourage people to fly? Or does it tie lode stones around people’s necks that prevent God’s gifts and fruits from coming to maturity in them?

G Chaos is ok. In the creation of anything new, first there is a formation, and then the storm as the system seeks order and rhythm, then the norming as the system finds it, and then, when everything finally clicks—the performing…the music making. Most people and systems never get to performance because of fear of the storm!

H Clarity of communication and meaning is essential. Communication can make or break a system.

I Follow through is mandatory. If you say “yes” to something, then mean it. And let your “no” be “no!” There is perhaps no greater disparager and disempowerer of systems than a leader who doesn’t keep his/her word.

J As the saying goes, 90% of life is showing up. How much more so in the ministry of our Lord Jesus—because we represent him. Showing up doesn’t mean that you just physically show up. All of you (heart, mind, and soul) has to show up. A ministry of true presence is perhaps the most transformative tool we have in our arsenal.

K Invest, invest, invest! The task of leadership is throwing sparks and fanning flames, and doing so until what you have set alight burns on its own. God made us as Christians healthy viruses! If we aren’t replicating the gospel and passion for it in others, we aren’t doing what God has in mind for us to do. But for those of us who lead congregations, we can’t accomplish the task of spark throwing and fanning with the coercive arm of power. Notice Jesus who is our example. He led from below, at people’s feet, serving and acting for others out of love. People follow Jesus not because he is coercive, but because he loves them. And because he loves them, he has authority over them. All leadership flows first from love…a love that throws sparks and fans flames.

L Transformation should be the “rule” of the people of God, and not the exception. Jesus is in the business of transformation, though most of his body acts as if this isn’t the case. Applied to pastoral leadership, this means that if we aren’t questioning, challenging, building community and resonance, holding people in the story of the cross and the empty tomb, encouraging, and energizing those we’ve been given to serve and lead—inviting transformation and beckoning to a new way of seeing and being in the world—then we’ve become the church “club” that has plagued the people of God since Jesus’ ascension into God’s future, and not the movement God has always had in mind.

M As a pastoral leader in the church, I am called to excellence and integrity and to my very personal best. Because God has given me his best, I respond with my best out of joy and pleasure at the magnanimity and love of the Creator. We as Christ’s body are called to be a church of the maximums (maximum love, abundance, joy, hopefulness, generosity, faithfulness, and expansive vision)—because the tomb is empty. But often, Christ’s body today functions as a church of the minimums (in fear, resentment, jealousy, covetousness, myopicity, and insularity). However, this is not my call…

N I am called to dream big for God and his kingdom. I serve the Creator of everything—the one who makes the dead alive again!

O Details matter! You will find God there, and God will find others when they are attended. And when they are not, opportunities are often lost.

P This call to ministry is a privilege and not an entitlement. I serve at God’s behest and not my own and ultimately even the church’s call is subordinate! And yes, the two, in our world, are often not synonymous.

Q Most churches and systems are held hostage and made stagnant by an amorphous, “they.” But leaders don’t lead by kowtowing to the demands of a small group of controllers. They lead by staying on mission guided by the vision. Mission and vision define decision making for the future of the church, not the anxiety of a controlling few.

R Our congregations are not the enemy. They are an embarrassment of riches through which God is witnessing his transformative life, love and power to the world. They should be treated and honored as the precious gems they are, and challenged commensurate with the great wealth of gifts placed by God in their midst.

S Character matters. A lack of it disqualifies a Christian leader from ministry and can create Titanic, unwarranted and unnecessary pain in congregations. On the other hand, the presence of it empowers, lifts, and vitalizes congregations.

T Tithing matters. The biggest idol in American life is money. The best pastoral leaders in our culture lead with their pocket books. There is no divine dispensation that precludes us from fiscal generosity simply because we serve God's people. Get over it!

U The last thing is the most essential. Good leaders are first and foremost good followers. If we aren’t following Jesus ourselves, seeking him, trusting him, talking and walking with him, and ourselves relocating our lives into the story of his death and resurrection, it is very hard to engage others authentically in this process. It all comes back to the Main Thing; Jesus and his work are and ever will be the Main Thing.

These are the things I’ve internalized as ways of being and thinking with regards to my role as Pastor. This thinking in me is forming and reforming, but works as I reflect on where it is I am and where it is I am going. I hope that you find something useful in this as well.

Peace to you all, and Spirit led leading wherever and however this finds you…

Nathan Swenson-Reinhold
Lead Story-Teller, Discipler, and Ministry Equipper
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
Bloomfield, Nebraska

The Reason for Our Hope

2006-05-11T21:53:00.000-06:00

"Whereas Christ turned water into wine,
the church has succeded in doing
something much more difficult;
it has turned wine into water."
--Soren Kierkegaard

The writing is on the wall. Mainline denominationalism is on the decline and culturally the Christian witness appears to be a minority report in the pregnant market of spirituality that comprises the USAmerican consciousness. The quote above is a sad commentary on the way the church so often fights the work of the Lord that is supposed to be at its center. Here we are a century and a half later with the fruit of our false pursuits and priorities paying out the dividends of attrition and rampant disillusionment.

As this happens, congregations everywhere are being beset by changes that assail their doors. In the inner city of Atlanta an ethnically Swedish congregation watches as the skin color of its neighborhood darkens. In the end it finds itself afraid. You see, it can't distinguish between the Lutfisk and potato sausage of its ethnic heritage and the Lord that claimed them in baptismal waters. The congregation votes to relocate and quickly moves out to a lighter skinned suburban reality. This church is afraid.

In rural Nebraska there are two churches dying through slow demographic attrition. They are the same denominational heritage and as chance would have it, just three miles apart. Their denominational polity has suggested that they join congregations to pool resources and vision for a more vibrant future. But they refuse. You see, they might change each other. They are afraid.

In a suburban community in Florida there is a congregation whose membership is comprised primarily of retirees. The congregation's growth plateaued over a decade ago and then entered a gradual decline. It's members can't understand why this is the case because they reside in a booming and increasingly young area where young couples with children abound. So they hire consultants to come and assess their situation. The consultants interview several young families that had visited but had not returned. They discover that in every case each family had felt unwelcome and in particular, children who had participated in worship had been glared at when the noise they had made seemed "inappropriate." The findings are shared with the congregation. The consultants are amazed when what they encounter in response to these findings is indignancy and apathy. The findings? The church's doors a mertaphorically closed.

Out in the middle country, a mission start congregation blooms in the long shadows of the Rockies, a resounding denominational success of growth both in terms of discipleship and physical numbers. But its floundering local denominational authority sees its vitality not as an asset for leading and resourcing other churches in the region, but as a threat. You see, the thriving congregation's vision stands out as a painful contrast to the vacuum of vision that rests in the denominational offices just miles away, and they are afraid.

In the midst of all of this, my own shelves are filled with books and periodicals that talk about the opportunity of the American church to become a first century church once again.
But we are already there. It's not an opportunity. It's our reality. As I prepared for a sermon several weeks ago on John 20 I was struck by the image of the "first" church.

"When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews..."

This is just so painfully familiar. Their doors were locked and closed for no other reason than fear, just like ours. This is the first century church, its raw material congregated...a huddled mass of confusion, indignancy, frustration, and simple fear. This is the humus...the raw dirt and humble beginnings of a movement that now spans our globe and thrives in many of its corners even as it seems to wilt in ours.

It's a bleak picture; a real picture; a human picture.
AND it's also the only sort of picture God needs to do his best work. It's when the chips are down, at the foot of crosses, in closed up and dark alkali tombs, and locked and barred rooms where God does God's best work.

"When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews...Jesus came and stood among them...[and] said to them, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.' When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'"

Here's the reason for our hope; Jesus. You see, he's still breathing. And in the fearful ocean of a first century church like ours, all we need is the breath of this risen man to fill the sails of a new church. Not a church regentrified and vainly attempting survival because it's an organism afraid to die; but a Jesus- breathed church engaging the kingdom mission of forgiving and reconciling in a self-proclaimed forsaken and unreconciled world.

The Transforming Feast

2005-12-30T09:26:00.000-06:00

The text below formed the primary content for my first publication of "The Spirit Porch," a monthly publication for my congregation dedicated to a transformational conversation about the praxis of our discipling community and whether it points to or away from the Ressurected Lord Jesus. My congregational leadership and I just made the decision to move St. Mark's, Bloomfield, Nebraska, to weekly communion and the content of articles and conversations such as these were central to this rapid movement. I offer this for your edification!

A mentor friend of mine ends every table prayer with these words: “...and thank you Lord for this food. It would be a banquet anywhere.” It doesn’t matter how small or large the meal is...here in the states we don’t see much hunger even if there is a great deal of it around us. When it is around us, it tends to be hidden from our eyes. But Rick’s eyes were forever changed by a trip to Haiti where he encountered a kind of poverty and destitution he’d never encountered before. As it happens, Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. As Rick says, “There’s poor...and then there’s Haiti poor.”

When we are surrounded by such an abundance of food, it is difficult for us to see the importance of the meal and feast imagery so prevalent in Scripture. In times and places of incredible lack and scarcity, feasts were associated with salvation; with well-being, wholeness, and divine abundance. In our scriptures, where there’s a meal and God’s involved, you can be sure that God is bringing about his salvation.

We see this in God’s deliverance of the Hebrew people from slavery at the hands of the Egyptians to freedom in God’s Promised Land; in the Passover Meal where the first born children of the Hebrew people are spared in God’s spirit plague (Exodus 12), to the Manna that God showered upon the Israelites during their long wilderness journey (Exodus 16).

We see this work of a saving feast all through the ministry of Jesus...and most of the time his feasting is scandalous. Why? Because his “table fellowship” involves tax collectors and sinners, those who have committed treason against their own people, and the spiritual losers of Jesus’ day. When Jesus eats with them, what he’s in essence saying is that it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs. This is one of the reasons that the spiritual leaders of Jesus’ day are so furious with his choice of company. They think that he’s got it all wrong. His eating with them is a statement of their well being and acceptance in the eyes of God—and God’s intention to reconcile the lost and the least (Mark 2).

Then there are the powerful stories of the feeding of the five thousand, and the feeding of the four thousand...images of God’s abundance poured out on the hungry and weary.

And then there’s the last Passover Meal that Jesus will ever celebrate… the Last Supper. It is celebrated with the twelve central disciples, not as an exclusive meal, but as a symbolic act of God’s promise to Abraham to bless all nations through his offspring. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, and this Passover Meal that precedes it, this blessing and this promise is fulfilled.

All of these meal stories and feasts have at their core one thing; it is God who does the feeding, God who does the reconciling, God who does the forgiving and God who does the work of salvation. Period.

What do we do? We show up and participate and trust and thank God that he’s sufficient. That’s it. God’s in the business of bringing some beauty and harmony to this mess that so often characterizes our lives. Given all of this, the words from the prophet Isaiah about God’s promises are profound and deeply meaningful:

“On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.” (Isaiah 25)

I know that the word has gotten out that the new pastor is passionate about Communion. This is true; I am. But not because it’s my hobby horse. I’m passionate about it because it is how we experience God’s good news—how we participate in God’s promised reconciliation and forgiveness right now. What did we do to deserve it? Nothing. What do we need to do to participate in it? Simply come. We don’t learn faith by taking tests and reading books. We learn faith, faith in God’s good news, by participating in it. Jesus says, “Come, follow me!” Jesus says, “Take and eat...take and drink.” We learn faith by participating in God’s work.

In Christian community, this participation is most profoundly experienced at the Communion table where we participate in the future feast that will be prepared for ALL people, right now. We participate in it, and it transforms us. We participate in it, and it reconciles us—us to God and to one another. It makes of us a people who gather at God’s mountain, eating his abundance and grace.

In my ordination, I have been called to be an unleasher of the Good News in the midst of God’s people. We are experts as human beings at constructing barriers between ourselves and God and his incredible work. But in Christian community, we are required to remove them...to be a transformed people and in our transformation, witnesses to a world that desperately needs to see and experience God’s promise of reconciliation and healing.

So I thank you, ahead of time, for enduring the changes in our midst. In the end, I guarantee you that you will see that you weren’t humoring your new pastor, you were living the Kingdom of God unaware.