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discipleship, leadership, pastors
discipleship, leadership, pastors Entries in leadership (8)
The Fellowship of Low Expectations
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 09:26AM Across the spectrum of Christian worship, our churches are filled with individuals who do not believe Christlikeness is possible. Individual believers have camped beside the river of God’s grace and drink daily of his forgiveness, unaware that this same grace can can provide spiritual transformation into Christlikeness. Discipleship, they suppose, is for those few super-saints called into the ministry.
Our difficulties embracing discipleship occur not only at the individual level, but also at the level of Christian leadership. Pastors rarely describe their task in terms of reproducing the character and power of Jesus in the people of their congregations. Nor do the people of the church expect their pastors to be spiritual mentors. Sadly, many pastors do not think the image of Christ is reproducible in their charges. As a result, leadership in Christian churches looks less and less like the Biblical model and more and more like models drawn from the secular world.
Individual Christians struggle in their relationship with Jesus, and his call to become like him. Pastors struggle with the same thing: the idea that Jesus calls each one of us to become like him. When pastors do not have a realistic expectation that every Christian can live up to the example of Jesus, pastoral ministry becomes about something other than making disciples. If pastors are not convinced of the Christlike destiny of each person in their charge, the role of Christian leadership drifts away from the Biblical example toward any number of earth-bound substitutes. These earth-bound substitutes may each be a moral good in their own right, but they will miss the high calling of developing a royal priesthood capable of demonstrating the glory of God to a watching world.
How many pastors carry the vision Peter expressed for the people in his charge?
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (I Peter 2: 9 - 12)
These four verses express high expectations for the assembled people of God. Consider this partial list drawn exclusively from these four verses:
- The people are chosen by God to do ministry;
- God has a regal view of his people;
- The people are ordained to represent God;
- The people are the light-bearers for the world;
- The people have a new identity with one another;
- The people have a reason to embrace life-change.
Peter presents a vision that the everyday conduct of “average” Christians will elicit praise for God from those who are not yet believers.
In my personal experience pastors rarely present such a high view of those they are called to shepherd. Many pastors lack the vision of a church filled with mature disciples. Is it any wonder the church at large is powerless?
Monday's Meditation: Does Jesus Trust Us?
Monday, February 22, 2010 at 12:23PM Why would Jesus save me from Hell? That’s easy: most believers understand his infinite and sacrificial love on behalf of everyone in need. Pastors and church leaders present this picture of Jesus again and again. “Even if you were the only sinner in history,” they proclaim, “Jesus would have died for you.” But here’s a question most Christians fail to ask: Why would Jesus want to disciple me? We are comfortable with our need of a Savior; we are less comfortable with his vision for our lives. Any unworthy fool can receive his mercy; believing that he trusts us is another matter entirely.
The truth is, Jesus wants to place his trust in us. Jesus selected the most unlikely people to train as disciples: working-class fishermen, turn-coat tax collectors, members of the armed resistance against Rome. After three years of intensive training, his followers scattered at the hour of his greatest need, and hid behind locked doors after his death. The best disciple-maker in history left behind a decidedly rag-tag group! Yet Jesus had confidence in these very men. After his resurrection Jesus gathered these eleven fearful and scattered men and, under the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, set them loose to turn the world upside down. Jesus saw each one as pre-selected by the Father's grace and fully capable of Godly potential. (see John 17: 6 - 11)
Today’s Memo is addressed not only to individual believers, but also to a second group of people: pastors and church leaders. Do we believe in our congregation as much as Jesus believed in his? When pastors lack vision for their people the result is lowered expectations, dumbed-down preaching and a general chaplaincy that considers victorious Christian living a pipe dream. The lesson of Jesus the disciple-maker should be clear: even if individual Christians do not have confidence in their identity in Christ, at least their leaders should.
What would happen if pastors and leaders began to operate from the conviction that it is possible to reproduce the character and power of Jesus in his followers? Jesus apparently held that idea:
I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. (John 14: 12 - 13)
Monday's Meditation: Flawed Leaders
Monday, September 21, 2009 at 10:24AM The twelve men who followed Jesus were just that: men. They were a remarkably flawed group of followers. One of the most comforting studies you can do in the gospels is to observe the disciples’ shortcomings. Stories of their bone-headedness are the common stuff of preaching and teaching: “Don’t worry about falling short,” says the preacher, “the disciples didn’t measure up and Jesus still loved them.”
I would like to suggest that the New Testament keeps an account of their troubles for another reason as well—to teach us about leadership. Not Jesus’ leadership, but the leadership of these very flawed men we call “the Apostles.” We readily accept the idea that Jesus chose followers who are flawed, but rarely consider that these flawed individuals became the first leaders of the church as well. As we turn from the gospels to the book of Acts, we are sometimes stricken with amnesia: the group of followers who deserted Jesus were the very same guys who Jesus left in charge of the whole show! True, the resurrection of Christ and the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit contributed to a dramatic change in these men, but character issues don’t yield to change overnight. In part, the book of Acts is the account of how they grew into the task Jesus gave them.
There’s a lesson for us today as well. We can be a difficult group of people to lead. Christian leaders are at a real disadvantage when compared to Jesus or the Apostles. Not only is Jesus perfect, he also isn’t here! That means we are left with imperfect leaders whose flaws are available daily for inspection. Most people will pay lip service to the idea that there is “no perfect leader,” but when the flaws begin to show through, lip service gives way to disappointment, hurt feelings, and criticism. I wonder how a modern church would react to the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira recorded in Acts 5: 1-11. That incident didn’t create a crisis of leadership in the young church, it helped establish the leaders! Keep in mind that these were same leaders who continued to struggle with their calling for the next twenty years.
Are we willing to consider the possibility that the same Lord who chose flawed men to lead his church is still choosing men like that today?