NEUE 05 | Winter 2011

IDEAS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH

From the makers of RELEVANT | February/March 2011

JESUS CULTURE

THE BAND THAT’S SPARKING A WORSHIP MOVEMENT p. 42

WHAT KIND OF DISCIPLE IS YOUR CHURCH PRODUCING? p. 56

WIRED CO-FOUNDER KEVIN KELLY

ON FINDING YOUR PERFECT BALANCE p. 26

THE EMERGENCE, EXODUS & RETURN OF

FRANCIS CHAN WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR AND PASTOR? p. 32

NEUEMAGAZINE.COM | ISSUE 05 | $4.95

p. 52

TH ON

BURNOUT

BIM

p. 50

NO W

FOR DENOMINATIONALISM?

LY!

IS IT THE END AVOIDING PASTORAL

Jesus Culture, pg. 42

CONTENTS DEPARTMENTS

4 Neues

FEATURES 26 Find Your Technological Minimum | by Kevin Kelly

14 Neue Info

30 Developing a Cultural Intelligence | by Soong-Chan Rah

18 Neue Church

32 What Is Francis Chan Thinking? | by Tyler Charles and Josh Lujan Loveless

Freedom 4/24

38 Lead Like an Artist | by Cole NeSmith

20 Neue Thought

46 For Richer or Poorer, In Ministry and Not | by Bonnie McMaken

Englewood Community Development Corporation

The True Mission of a Leader by Scott Williams Life as Liturgy: Seeing What Shapes Us by Chuck DeGroat

24 Neue Voices

50 Where Have All the Baptists Gone? | by Roxanne Wieman Q&A with Bryant Wright, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention

Bobby Gruenewald

62 Neue Recommends

56 The Full Disciple | by Scot McKnight

52 Avoiding Pastoral Burnout | by Fred Antonelli

64 Last Word

Making the Great Leap by Josh Lujan Loveless ACT. THINK. DISCUSS. In the following pages, we invite you to interact with the content we’ve assembled by acting, thinking and discussing. The prompts we offer at the bottom of each page are meant for both you and your team as you wrestle with the ideas shaping the future of the Church.

IDEAS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH From the makers of RELEVANT | February/March 2011 | Issue 05

EDITOR & PUBLISHER

Cameron Strang > cameron@relevantmediagroup.com

Editorial Director | Roxanne Wieman > roxanne@relevantmediagroup.com Senior Editor | Josh Lujan Loveless > joshl@relevantmediagroup.com Associate Editor | Ashley Emert > ashley@relevantmediagroup.com Associate Editor | Ryan Hamm > ryan@relevantmediagroup.com Editorial Assistant | Alyce Gilligan > alyce@relevantmediagroup.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Fred Antonelli, Haley Bodine, CJ Casciotta, Tyler Charles, Chuck DeGroat, Kevin Kelly, Scot McKnight, Bonnie McMaken, Cole NeSmith, John Pattison, Soong-Chan Rah, Scott Williams Design Director | Amy Duty > amy@relevantmediagroup.com Senior Designer | Charles Russo > charles@relevantmediagroup.com Senior Marketing Designer | Jesse Penico > jesse@relevantmediagroup.com CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Nathan Grubbs, Keith Pytlinski, Kevin Von Qualen Chief Marketing & Finance Officer | Josh Babyar > josh@relevantmediagroup.com Advertising Manager | Michael Romero > michael@relevantmediagroup.com Director of Channel Development | Philip Self > philip@relevantmediagroup.com Promotions and Campaigns Manager | Sarahbeth Wesley > sarahbeth@ relevantmediagroup.com Circulation Coordinator | Rachel Gittens > rachel@relevantmediagroup.com Marketing Assistant | Richard Butcher > richard@relevantmediagroup.com Chief Innovation Officer | Chris Miyata > chris@relevantmediagroup.com Audio/Video Producer | Chad Michael Snavely > chad@relevantmediagroup.com Systems Administrator | Josh Strohm > joshs@relevantmediagroup.com Web Developer | David Barratt > david@relevantmediagroup.com Web Production Assistant | Dave Turpin > dave@relevantmediagroup.com Communications Manager & Executive Assistant | Theresa Dobritch > theresa@ relevantmediagroup.com Project Manager | Austin Sailsbury > austin@relevantmediagroup.com Finance Manager | Maya Strang > mstrang@relevantmediagroup.com

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NEUES GRADING FAITH

New survey indicates students’ faith decreases in four years at a Christian college Anyone who has attended, toured or considered a Christian college has heard the promise of pursuing a higher education while simultaneously being guided into spiritual maturity. But transcripts don’t reflect how much a student gleans from chapel. Which is why one professor has set out to track, analyze and maybe improve the spiritual development of students at Christian universities.

Todd Hall is an associate professor of psychology at Biola University and the director of their Institute for Research on Psychology and Spirituality. Since 2003, he has conducted various surveys and studies through Biola, the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities, and the Association of Christian Schools International to explore the spiritual condition of Christian college students.

Based on that research, Hall released a report, “Spirituality at a Crossroads,” that divides students into five spiritual types based on their involvement.

“Obviously, we can’t categorize people, but this gives some indication of where students fall in terms of their faith and how to approach them,” Hall says.

However, regardless of their subgroup, most students reported lower spiritual vitality in their senior year. One of Hall’s primary research tools, the Spiritual Transformation Inventory, lists key indicators of one’s personal faith. Most seniors scored lower than freshmen in 19 of the 22 areas.

4

Interestingly, the study proposed a decrease in STI indicators could reflect a deepening of one’s faith, like students who feel secure in their spirituality without having to be as expressive.

“It’s part of a deconstruction and reconstruction process, exploring your worldview, which I think happens a lot more at a Christian college where there is safety to do that,” Hall says.* The surveys showed relationships are a struggle for students—as well as their most positive spiritual reinforcement. “I think part of that is people’s social networks changing quite a bit,” Hall says of the contrast, noting mentors and professors may counteract peer problems.

So how can Christian colleges ensure they provide the best faith-based education experience?

Hall is still working on that, but offers one piece of advice. “Try to help students stay engaged in the process of spiritual formation, and to understand that, that looks different for different students.”

*THINK: When have you felt the most comfortable in your faith—during a time of questioning or of certainty?

The 5 Student Types Using “cluster analysis,” Hall came up with these five spirituality types for students, according to their spiritual practices and assessment of their personal relationship with God.

27.2%

Anxious and disengaged

25%

Average security and engagement

21.4%

Secure and engaged

15.2%

Distant yet engaged

11.2%

Insecure and disengaged

NEUES

The Lord’s Prayer, Bonus Features “Worship” and “art” are two concepts with somewhat slippery definitions, especially when combined. But Derek Webb and friends are taking another stab at it with their recent Feedback project. The musician recruited painter Scott Erickson and photographer Jeremy Cowart to create a three-tiered meditation on the Lord’s Prayer. After exploring the history and phrasing of the famous passage, the trio has produced an entirely instrumental electronic album, a series of graffiti-style paintings and a collection of conceptual photography. For the music portion, Webb divided the prayer into three movements and created meditative tracks accordingly. “It’s easily the most challenging thing I’ve done in my career,” Webb says.

SUNDAY MORNING IS THE MOST SEGREGATED HOUR Diversity still remains an elusive reality for U.S. churches

We all know the song: Red and yellow, black and white / They are precious in His sight. But while congregants commit these lyrics to memory early in life, such an idealistic picture is rarely represented in church services on Sunday morning.

In a recent issue of Sociological Inquiry, two

professors found that nine out of 10 Christian churches in the United States remain segregated.

The study identifies these congregations as those with 80 percent or more of a single racial group.

Even churches that strive for multicultural membership often fail to maintain minority attendance. However, the

report also noted that this segregation should not be confused with racism. The dividing lines don’t seem to be drawn out of malice, but out of preference for one’s own race and cultural norms.

“People choose churches where they’re comfortable,” concludes Kevin Dougherty, a sociology professor at Baylor University.*

“The very idea of ‘worship’ has become a complicated one. There have been rigid guidelines regarding what qualifies as ‘worship,’ especially in art. These are troubled waters to wade into as an artist.”

—Derek Webb

Preaching vs. Politics | Pastors agree you shouldn’t mix the two The faith community has proven to be a tense political climate. Whether liberal or conservative, outspoken or apathetic, Christians have found much to debate. The one thing they do agree on? That their pastors shouldn’t talk about it. LifeWay Research surveyed Protestant pastors and found that 84 percent of them don’t believe they should publicly endorse a candidate—a statistic that 6

has increased by 9 percent in the last two years. Sixty-one percent of Republican pastors and 84 percent of Democrats were against such political statements, and mainline pastors were usually more opposed than evangelicals.

“The vast majority of those pulpits remain silent on advising others how to vote,” says Ed Stetzer, president of Life Way Research. “They may not approve, but they do not plan to tell.”

DISCUSS: How have you allowed people to remain culturally comfortable in your church? Is that a good thing?

*

GET NEW BEARINGS

FALLING UPWARD:

A SPIRITUALITY FOR THE TWO HALVES OF LIFE In Falling Upward, Fr. Richard Rohr helps you see opportunity and hope in the midst of life’s chaos. It’s essential reading for anyone at a crossroads or asking, “What now?”

NEUES

ALL FOR NONE

Study shows that most churches fail to provide true accountability

34% 21%

19%

16% 10%

8%

Regularly scheduled reviews with church leaders

Answering directly to congregation for questionable activities

Personal accountability to pastoral staff

Completing and following up on activities with church leaders

Being accountable to individuals in the congregation

Taking a Sabbath is certainly not a new idea. But a group of Jewish artists have set out to reinvent the day of rest with Sabbath Manifesto. This list of 10 principles is intended for once-aweek observation, though the creators say its religious application is open to interpretation. They see their Manifesto as more of a protest against society’s pace rather than a spiritual discipline. The guidelines? “Avoid technology. Connect with loved ones. Nurture your health. Get outside. Avoid commerce. Light candles.

Drink wine. Eat bread. Find silence. Give back.” Again, nothing entirely original here. But Sabbath Manifesto is earning press and popularity as major media outlets are taking notice of this “radical” notion and celebrities are getting on board, including Josh Radnor from CBS’ How I Met Your Mother. Supporters are pushing March 4 as the National Day of Unplugging. What do you think—can a new approach revitalize ancient traditions?*

Small groups

b The Sabbath Manifesto

Limiting or revoking memberships based on specific standards

What is the difference between judgment and discernment? It’s a fine line—and one it seems the Church would rather avoid. Barna found that only 5 percent of churchgoers receive accountability in their faith community. The following were identified by this slim portion as the primary avenues of accountability.

6%

SURVIVAL OF THE KINDEST When thinking of man’s most basic instincts, we perhaps picture a physical struggle, an individual quest for food, water, sleep or sex. But a Harvard Business School study suggests our survival instincts might not always be so self-oriented.

In fact, generosity was identified as a universal psychological trait of humanity. The “findings suggest that the reward experienced from helping

others may be deeply ingrained in human nature, emerging in diverse cultural and economic contexts.” Regardless of one’s status or background, survey data from 136 countries indicates prosocial giving contributes to social well-being, on both a personal and national level.

Turns out, there really is something to that Golden Rule after all.

The Side Effects of Faith | Losing your religion could mean losing your health Research indicates that consistent faith can be beneficial to your body. Penn State researchers recently looked at the perceived health consequences of changing or abandoning one’s religion. Of those belonging to strict religious groups, 40 percent claimed to be in excellent health. This number fell to 25 percent among those who switched religions and dipped again to 20 percent of those who left religion entirely.

Health benefits of faith could be the influence of a 8

nurturing community that promotes holistic wellbeing and positive thinking. Most strict religions would also suggest abstinence or responsible standards for alcohol and tobacco use. Choosing to leave such a group could increase stress, cut off supportive relationships and negatively affect one’s health. On the other hand, the study notes declining health could prompt one to leave church in the first place, by discouraging active membership or challenging their faith.

*THINK: What is it that so easily allows us to dismiss the Sabbath commandment today? Take an account of the damage not resting might be doing in your life.

Connecting Your Church with

America’s Largest Generation

At more than 78 million strong, the Millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000—have surpassed the Boomers as the larger and more influential generation in America. Now, as its members begin to reach adulthood, where the traits of a generation really take shape, best-selling research author ThoM RAiNeR (Simple Church) and his son Jess (a Millennial born in 1985) present the first major investigative work on Millennials from a Christian worldview perspective.

The breadth and depth of this research will be of interest to any church or ministry who is studying this generation. The Millennials is based on 1,200 interviews with its namesakes that aim to better understand them personally, professionally, and spiritually.

Available online and in bookstores everywhere.

ChurchLeadershipBooks.com

NEUES

WE’RE OUT OF OUR MINDS It doesn’t take much to determine that we’re a distracted people. (Have you ever tried making it through a dinner with friends without someone checking their phone?) But a couple Harvard University psychologists decided to track the impact of our wandering minds—and what better way to do so than with an iPhone app? The app randomly prompts volunteers to record their current activity, current thoughts and current mood. Results showed that 46.9 percent of the day, our mind is elsewhere. And whether we’re lost in fantasy or in memory, this absent-mindedness leads to unhappiness. The most unhappy activities included resting, working or using a computer. Engaging activities like conversation, exercise or making love generated the most present happiness. The study showed that overall, only 4.6 percent of our happiness is dictated by our current activity or surroundings.

Religious Are Unfaithful— Well, as Consumers Remember when you were younger and your identity was wrapped up in the logo on your jeans or the patch on your backpack? Apparently, such brand identity is less of a temptation for Christians. Scientists from Tel Aviv University, Duke and NYU conducted some recent market research on how faith affects a buyer’s choices.

Non-religious consumers gravitated toward certain corporate brands, while those with stronger religious affiliations were less prone to particulars. The study theorizes that logo-loyal consumers find a sense of self-worth in their favorite brands, much like a religious person might find in their denomination or church body.

FROM THE NEUE P O DCAS T Charles Lee

The Neue Podcast is a weekly conversation with ministers and thinkers shaping the future of the Church.

“We all want to execute something. And more than people not knowing what to do next, sometimes it’s just this obstacle of time.

But I always say you will give time to anything you value. If it’s a passion worth implementing, of course it’s going to require time.”

“The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

—Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, psychologists at Harvard University

Gabe Lyons “In Western society, more and more it’s requiring some creative thinking about: ‘What does it look like to fight systemic injustices? And what does it look like to communicate the truth of Jesus Christ in a culture that doesn’t trust institutions and doesn’t think anybody has the answer to what life is all about?’ It’s quite the difficult task, but one I’m finding these next Christians are up for.”

Robbie Seay Joannah Saxton “You know that many pastors didn’t do [ministry] to be in meetings, and they didn’t do it to be in a committee.* They did it because they wanted to change the world. They responded to a calling and they laid down their life because they wanted to see people know Jesus. ...

We need to reconnect with our reason for being.”

“Changing the world is maybe a little overstating, but I always tend to connect with smaller stories. …

Changing the world seems a bit much, but maybe we could change a few villages in Haiti. Maybe we could give a few folks a job and really teach them a job skill that can help them through the course of their lifetime.

That’s pretty life-changing, not only for them but for me and my family.“

Subscribe at iTunes.

Search keyword “Neue.”

10

*ACT: You did it for the meetings, didn’t you? But, seriously, why did you do it? Write down the top five reasons you became a pastor.

Next to each, write down how you feel those goals are being fulfilled in your current job. What needs to change?

Max McLean “There is a sense that Christians don’t really care about the arts except as it is useful for promoting some sort of broad form of evangelism or some kind of utilitarian construct for the Church. That’s the problem, because art is not utilitarian. Art is art. ... We can serve the Church better if we can do our art well.”

NEUES

Christianity’s Greatest Hits … and Misses

Christianity’s Contributions

Respondents to the Barna survey offered the following as the best and worst of what Christianity has contributed to the world.*

19%

16%

14%

12

Quick, off the top of your head: What are the best and worst contributions of Christianity? ... It’s a tough one, right? Barna recently posed this question to a random sample of adults. Rather than offer a bulleted list of options, they asked participants to arrive at their own conclusions regarding the wins and losses of this ragtag team known as the Church.

Depending on a person’s level of support of Christianity, the same issue might receive a check in either column. While one might highlight the Church’s care of the poor, the other would focus on violence toward the innocent. Evangelicals, skeptics (atheists and agnostics), notionals (those who consider themselves Christians without being born-again) and non-evangelical born-again Christians all responded in the survey.

Those with the most complaints about Christianity? Evangelicals.

said Christianity has served the poor and needy

said Christianity has advanced belief in God and promoted Christian faith

said Christianity has shaped and preserved the morals and beliefs of the nation

25%

19%

could not think of a recent positive contribution of Christianity

could not think of a recent negative contribution of Christianity

19%

said Christianity has acted in violence or hatred in the name of Jesus

13%

said Christianity has wrongfully opposed gay marriage

12%

said Christianity has been too involved in politics

Although many churches are worried about offending people by sharing the Gospel, less than 1 percent of the population complained Christians are too aggressive in their evangelistic efforts.

*ACT: Take a poll among your staff and congregation. What are the best and worst contributions your church is making in your city?

WHAT IS

NORMAL? The latest book from Scott Wilson Senior Pastor of the Oaks Fellowship, Texas

Act Normal provides more than just an introduction to the basics of the Christian faith, it offers solid, biblical content that will help new believers better understand their faith and mature believers grow in their faith.

Wilson takes you on a thirty-one day journey through the Book of Acts. Each day’s reading introduces you to what it means to live for God and be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Through the use of real-life examples, and the ability to express complex concepts in everyday language, Scott helps you gain a grasp of the story that runs through Acts, while at the same time providing practical suggestions for living a biblical life that honors God.

$14.99

Small group studies coming Spring 2011!

50UK0101

influenceresource.com Bringing more than 20 years pastoral experience to the table, Scott Wilson is the senior pastor of The Oaks Fellowship in Dallas. His church has tripled in size over the last three years and now ministers to more than 3,000 people via five weekend worship experiences.

Influence

resources PracticalRelevantProven

INFO

[HOW TO…] … Avoid Pastoral Clichés (Hint: Just don’t say these) Whether it’s in staff meetings or in the pulpit, avoid sounding totally unoriginal by striking these from your conversational arsenal:

01 Using “community” to

describe everything

02 “Synergy” 03 Referring to the Bible as a narrative 04 “Paradigm shift” 05 Saying anything about a

“treasure in heaven”

06 “Authenticity” and/or “Transparency” 07 “Push the envelope” 08 “Season of life” 09 All football metaphors 10 “Take it to the next level”

... OBSERVE ASH WEDNESDAY AT YOUR CHURCH Over the last few years, more and more evangelical churches have started to observe Ash Wednesday, the beginning to the season of Lent. If you’re interested in observing Ash Wednesday in your own church, here’s a quick crash course. The tradition of Ash Wednesday dates back to at least the 10th century. The service should be a reminder of our sin and mortality in the face of God’s holiness and promise of eternal life. It’s also a time to be spurred toward repentance in the face of our own sin and brokenness. Normally, the service includes the administration of ashes to the forehead, as a tangible symbol to ourselves and to others of our sin. It’s traditional to make the ashes by burning palm fronds from the previous year’s Palm Sunday (to symbolize how our praise can so quickly be reduced to ashes by our sin), but you can buy ashes from most church supply stores. When administering the ashes, it’s tradition to recite either Genesis 3:19 (“Remember, o man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return”) or a part of Mark 1:15 (“The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”) to each person receiving the ashes. Overall, the service should be a solemn reflection on each person’s sin and need to repent to a holy God.

… Protect Your Church | Four ways to keep your congregation—and your church’s future—safe

14

Building Security

Church Grounds

Event Management

Children’s Ministry

Make sure your building—and everything inside—is as secure as it can be. Leave only one area unlocked during the day and have it monitored by a receptionist or greeter. Allow employees to use other entrances between certain hours using a key, keypad or FOP. Talk to law enforcement in your area to get advice on addressing the security concerns in your community.

Make sure there aren’t places where people can hurt themselves—ensure your sidewalks are safe, fill in potholes in the roads and holes in the ground where people could fall in. During the winter, make sure you’re salting your sidewalks and any walking areas. Make sure you have signs posted on fences (that they shouldn’t be climbed) and that any pond/fountain isn’t for swimming.

Any time your church hosts an event not run by your church, make sure you communicate clearly with the event planners and have them sign a contract releasing the church from any liability for injury during the event. Make sure it spells out exactly what you expect the outside party to do and how they should clean up. It might seem harsh, but it will protect both parties later.

Take the extra time and expense to collect applications and personal information for professional background checks for anyone involved in children’s or teen ministry. It not only saves you from lawsuits, but more importantly, it protects the children and young adults in your church. Check out SafeHiringSolutions.com for a quick way to start background checks.

... Get Caught up on the Films of 2010 The Oscars are almost here, and it’s time to get caught up on some of the most important films of the year. These films will make you think hard, see things in new ways and experience deeper narratives.

127 Hours

What really matters in your life?

That’s the question 127 Hours forces you to ask. The film is based on the real-life story of Aron Ralston, a hiker who was trapped by a boulder and forced to amputate his own arm to escape.

... Cultivate Friendships Outside of Church Who do you know who doesn’t go to your church?

Pastors’ busy lives and responsibilities have kept them from knowing the stories of those in their city who could care less what’s happening at church this week. Get involved in a project or program in your city that has no faith-based component. Take your skill set and passion and find the needs in the public school system, in your neighborhood or at your local Little League. Pastors are needed in every corner of culture, and if you busy your life with only the needs of those involved in church practices, you’ll miss the rest of society.

Try reading through the New Testament and identifying all the places outside of the religious system that Jesus conducted His ministry. It may change how you work. Would you ever consider taking a year to stop officing out of your church building? Finding neutral places to work will

change the way you see your city. But you would have to change the way you engage with the people you meet for it to make any real difference in you and in anyone else. Do you know the name of the person you order from at your local coffee shop? Get to know their name and their story.

Not so you can invite them to your next event but so you can be their friend. You need these relationships as much as they need you. Without this way of thinking, these relationships will only be false conversations meant to convert someone, and people will pick up on the motivation behind your kindness. The best leadership changes are those that lead to formational changes. Having friendships with people outside the walls of your church will even change how you pray. You’ll pray for their needs because you know them, not because they’re a “target demographic.”

... FAST EFFECTIVELY AND WITHOUT GOING CRAZY On March 9, Christians all over the world will begin fasting for the season of Lent. But it’s not the only time of year you might want to think about giving up something in your life. Fasting is an important discipline because it removes things that aren’t harmful but that could become distractions in your walk with Christ. So here are some basic reminders for fasting. First, fast in community.

You’ll want people who will remind you why you’re doing it and who can keep you accountable.

Fasting with friends or with a small group gives you someone to lean on when you feel yourself

weakening. Second, know it’s worth it. Even on the days you don’t feel like keeping to it or remember the reasoning behind why you gave that up, it’s still a worthy process because it’s a constant reminder of your frailty. There is something to be said for sheer discipline. Finally, replace the activity with a spiritual discipline. You’ll probably have some extra time, regardless of what you’ve decided to refrain from. So fill it with prayer, Bible reading, silence, lectio divina or any number of other spiritual disciplines. You’ll find that you might never want to go back to the old way of living.

True Grit

This newest film from the Coen brothers brings their skewed moral universe to the Old West and tackles the notion of revenge.

In typical Coen fashion, the movie is at turns dark, funny and bracingly thoughtful.

The Social Network

A fascinating look at ambition run amok, The Social Network follows the founding of Facebook and the ruthless quest for influence by founder Mark Zuckerberg. The film is a technical marvel and leaves you wondering what our dreams cost us—and others.

Waiting for “Superman”

If you live in the United States, you need to see this movie. A documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud), it’s a searing look at the public school system in the U.S. It also offers solutions that are surprisingly even-handed.

Winter’s Bone

Well-acted and thrilling, Winter’s Bone offers an all-too-rare glimpse at what happens to families who are destroyed by drugs. The film takes place in the Ozarks as a teenager is forced to try to find her meth-dealing father—all to save their family home.

neuemagazine.com 15

INFO

[HOW TO…] ... Get More Familiar with Martin Luther King Jr. February is Black History Month, and there’s probably no bigger figure associated with black history than Martin Luther King Jr. He was an expert orator, preacher and theologian. Check out these books by one of the most important people in American—and church—history: A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of MLK This book collects 11 of King’s greatest sermons and serves as a powerful reminder that the civil rights icon wasn’t just the leader of a nationwide movement—he was also a skilled preacher.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. This book is only sort of an autobiography. It’s written in first person but was compiled posthumously from King’s personal and public writings. It’s an essential glimpse into King’s inner life.

I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World This collection has pretty much every major essay and speech King gave, including classics like “I Have a Dream” and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It’s a vital insight into King’s theologies of love and nonviolence.

Strength to Love This theological treatise on love sums up much of what tied together King’s theology. It explains how God and God’s love drove his social, political and philosophical efforts and started a movement that changed the nation.

Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King Jr. A nearly 600-word biography of King, this book by award-winner Stephen B. Oates traces King’s life from childhood to adulthood. Oates also shows a human side to the civil rights icon.

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... PREACH A VALENTINE’S SERMON ON LOVE (SANS THE CHEESE) Hearing someone teach about love can feel cliché. If God used the metaphor of the bride and groom throughout the Scriptures to symbolize His love relationship with us, we must find ways to do the imagery justice. We know it’s important, but making love feel new, meaningful and treasured every time we talk about it remains one of the great challenges for those commissioned with the responsibility of teaching a church community. Part of the cheese factor that’s turned love into a cliché is a result of the inauthentic way we’ve described

it. We’ve oversold the fantasy of love rather than its reality. Love has felt like the thing we have to define and be able to describe, rather than acknowledge as mystery and full of tension. Most of us do a great job of pointing people toward the Promised Land, but we can’t forget it isn’t “them” who are living in the wilderness, trying to get there—it is “we.”

People want to know that you know and have experienced the spectrum of love’s blessings and curses and want to know why you still haven’t given up your pursuit to chase after it.

“KEEP ASKING YOURSELF IF YOU’RE STILL HAVING FUN AND A JOYFUL SPIRIT. IF NOT, PAY ATTENTION BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING STUPID AND DISQUALIFY YOURSELF.” —Nancy Beach

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CHURCH

A LOOK AT UNIQUE TYPES OF COMMUNITY

FREEDOM 4/24 LYNCHBURG, VA

BY HALEY BODINE

ENGLEWOOD COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION INDIANAPOLIS, IN

BY JOHN PATTISON

Mike Bowling knew when he was hired in 1993 as the pastor of Englewood Christian Church in Indianapolis that the 98 yearold church was experiencing an identity crisis. Englewood was a commuter church in the inner city. Three-quarters of the congregation drove in from outside the neighborhood.

Englewood’s pastors hadn’t lived in the neighborhood for 30 years.

The question nearly every church asks itself—“How different would our community look if we weren’t here?”—was an easy one for Englewood: not very different.

Through a years-long conversation about who they were and what they believed, 18

Thailand is known as “the land of smiles.” A common word heard among locals is “sabai,” meaning “chill”—relaxed, at peace. The 1 million women who are forced to work as prostitutes in one of Thailand’s 60,000 sexual service centers, however, do not know such peace. Night after night, women’s bodies are leased to bar-goers for approximately $24 US per night.

“These women … changed my life. Their The sex enterprise brings in $27 billion a year, and that number is beautiful faces and painful stories are growing daily.

Brentwood Church in Lynchburg, etched in my heart.” —Christine Gelatt Va., has partnered with Freedom 4/24, a nonprofit organization working to provide a pathway to freedom for the sexually exploited.

Englewood discerned God the church’s “core conviction” Together, they encourage their community to was calling them to their own that “the wisdom of God is to raise awareness of sexual exploitation and to neighborhood. “It’s one thing to provide local, specific, concrete resource Christ-centered ministries on the front say you love your church or your and particular witness in places lines in this battle. neighbor,” Bowling says, “but through local, specific, concrete Freedom 4/24 was founded by Brentwood to not care about the housing and particular communities member Christine Gelatt and brought to fruition situation, their employment most often formed in local with the assistance of others within the church. situation, to not care about these congregations.”

While Gelatt was in college, Brentwood was everyday things is just a lie. It Englewood also explores researching a Thailand-based organization called lacks integrity.” “the church’s redemptive role Beginnings—a safe house in Bangkok working The church formed the in caring for the health and directly with oppressed women. Gelatt founded Englewood Community wholeness (shalom) of not just Freedom 4/24 in response to a month-long visit Development Corporation humanity, but all creation.” The she made to Beginnings. “Being with these women (ECDC), a nonprofit organization church has a community garden, is something that changed my life,” Gelatt says. controlled by the church. Over a beehive on the roof and worm Freedom 4/24 is able to help the women escape the last 14 years, the ECDC has composting in the basement. The sexual exploitation through organizations like helped dozens of families settle green roof installed on a building Beginnings that offer safe housing, education, in a neighborhood with one of owned by the church was the first health care, counseling and other support. the nation’s highest rates of in the city. And the church eats Beginnings frequents the red-light district and abandoned houses. It is currently together several times a week. develops trusting relationships with the women converting an old school into 32 Bowling and Chris Smith, working there. Once a woman from Beginnings units of affordable housing, 10 the editor of the Englewood believes one of the girls she has befriended is of which are supportive housing Review, point out Englewood is seeking a way out, she offers to pay the girl’s bar for people emerging from still figuring things out. Thus, to fee—the same fee a customer would pay the bar homelessness. The ECDC also use Englewood as a one-sizeowner to “purchase” the girl for the night. Freedom provides homeowner repairs fits-all model is to violate its 4/24 then offers the girl a night of freedom through for neighborhood residents and central lesson. “The way God Beginnings. During this time, the woman is shown operates a lawn-care service, has chosen to redeem the world the opportunity to leave the sex industry. a bookkeeping service and the is place-by-place,” Smith says, Brentwood Church aids Freedom 4/24 by Englewood Review of Books, “by gathering communities that coordinating community events, merchandise which publishes online weekly together seek the common good, sales and more. As a result of partnerships around and has a quarterly print edition. the redemption, the shalom of the world such as Brentwood and Freedom 4/24, Central to all these efforts is particular places.” more women will know the meaning of sabai.

Many Christians struggle to read the various parts of Scripture in a way that is life-changing.

How do you read a psalm in a way that really sings? Or the law or the prophets in a way that talks to you? Or ancient letters as if they just arrived in your mailbox?

LifeWay, in partnership with Union University, has launched a biblical literacy initiative called Read the Bible for Life to help all of us grow in reading the Bible more effectively. The book at the heart of the initiative is now available online and in bookstores everywhere. In the book, scholars, pastors, and other friends talk us through how to read the Bible really well. So relax, pull up a chair and join the conversation as we learn to read the Bible for life.

ReadTheBibleForLife.com

THOUGHT

THE TRUE MISSION OF A LEADER SCOTT WILLIAMS Most churches, ministries and organizations in general would love to have the best high capacity leaders possible to fill the slots within their organizations. Unfortunately, organizations often overlook the necessity for those high capacity leaders to actually be leading at high capacity—and what it takes to get them there.

I’ve always been intrigued by leaders, coaches and teams who use the phrase, “I want to be surrounded by the best!” You would think this should be an obvious or natural desire for all leaders. Think about it: When was the last time you heard a leader say, “I want to be surrounded by the mediocre!”? The reality is many leaders and organizations say they want to be surrounded by the best but instead settle for surrounding themselves with mediocrity.

Although “best” is an elusive term, it’s still a goal organizations seek to obtain. “Best” is defined as, being of the highest quality, excellence, the best work, desirable, etc. With that definition in mind, leaders and organizations should always strive for the best. It’s also important for leaders to understand they are ultimately responsible for developing their team to be great.

If you look at sports teams that have a tradition of winning, you will almost always find a head coach surrounded by the best assistant coaches in the business. You will also find a program where everyone in the country is trying to recruit and hire those assistant coaches away.

It’s not enough, though, to simply recruit the best, as leaders have the ultimate responsibility to develop those team members into even better leaders. I love how the founder of Firestone Tires, Harvey Firestone, put it when he said, “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.”

In my opinion, the University of Oklahoma Sooner Head Football Coach Bob Stoops is one of the best leaders in the last decade. And it’s not because the Sooner Nation loves him, or because he has the title of head coach, or that he can inspire others or that he has won a National Championship. The reason I think he’s the best leader is because of the way he’s grown and developed the leaders around him.

The proof is in the stats: Since Stoops has been head coach at Oklahoma, he’s produced more NCAA Division 1 head coaches than anyone else in the last decade.

I am a firm believer that the heart of leadership is about the leaders we produce.

At the age of 25, I became one of the youngest prison wardens in the country. Throughout my

THE HEART OF LEADERSHIP IS ABOUT THE LEADERS WE PRODUCE. I remember visiting an executive-level leader of one of the fastest-growing churches in America. He began to talk about his senior pastor’s philosophy as it relates to their leadership team and their organization in general. His senior leader said: “I want guys on my team who are high capacity, high quality.

I want the best. I want guys on my team whose phone rings from people outside of our organization. I want the guys other guys want.”

That passion of wanting to be surrounded by the best will ultimately produce leadership fruit, both inside of the organization and outside of the organization.

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career in corrections, I wanted to and did produce other wardens instead of just other security chiefs or deputy wardens. Leaders have a responsibility to develop and make more leaders.

If you want to be surrounded by the best, you must embrace these three things: • It’s your responsibility to develop your team and give them opportunities to be the best.

• You have to give those who are the best room to grow, dream big and try new things.

• You must openly embrace that the best people will not only be sought after, but sometimes they will leave and take those best practices other places.

This mindset will sometimes leave organizations scratching their heads and asking: “What do I do with so-and-so? They are knocking it out of the park, their potential is off the charts and they have the leadership margin to spread their wings.”

Allowing people to spread their wings means different things for different leaders, but it boils down to, “How can I steward their talent/potential and continue to allow them to make a positive impact on the organization?”* Many times, organizations make the decision to just bury that talent and, in so doing, severely limit the potential of that high capacity leader.

It’s like the parable of the talents: The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. The one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money out of fear for losing it or risking too much.

“So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.”

His master replied, “You wicked, lazy servant!

So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?’”

(Matthew 25:25-26, NIV) If your organization, team, staff or business wants to be the best and has been blessed with some great talent, don’t bury it. There are new harvests to be sown with this high capacity seed.

As a leader, if you figure out a way to maximize the potential of the high capacity talent you have been blessed with, you will be rewarded. This may require you to be creative, dream big, think bigger and set clear expectations.

However, the potential of the harvest is immeasurable. If you manage the talent wisely, at some point you will look up and find you have created a leadership tree as tall as Bob Stoops’ and a line of the best leaders waiting to be part of your team.

Are you willing to be surrounded by the best?

Scott Williams

is a campus pastor for LifeChurch.tv. His book Church Diversity: Sunday, the Most Segregated Day of the Week releases in spring 2011. Read his blog at BigIsTheNewSmall.com.

ACT: Identify at least one person on your team whose talents you want to encourage and specific ways you can empower them.

*

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THOUGHT

LIFE AS LITURGY: SEEING WHAT SHAPES US CHUCK DeGROAT I live liturgy. Every morning, I wake up to a cup of coffee, a bowl of cereal and a shower. I take the J Church light rail downtown to my office, where I open my MacBook and begin my day. My daily liturgy.* We are a liturgical people in the sense that we live by habits, practices, rituals and routines that give form to our days. And all of our churches are liturgical—all of them—in the sense that each has a certain set of guiding practices and rhythms that form people.

Let’s be honest: The debate is not whether or not our churches do liturgy. The debate is about how we understand and practice it.

Back to the Future Several decades ago, the Western church integrated new experiments in musical expression, aesthetics, communication and more. Responding to the stagnancy of churches caught in endless intellectual debates between fundamentalism and liberalism, some chose to put the past behind them, creating the contemporary American church.

The Church needed renewal, and it needed to engage the demands of modern life.

But the response was extreme. It critiqued traditionalism but threw out tradition in the process. The historian Jaroslav Pelikan has said, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”

The longing for a rooted faith re-emerged in young men and women who, in the 1990s, left contemporary churches in significant numbers for Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican churches.

Liturgical Integrity Though I’m glad liturgy is “cool again,” renewed interest in traditional liturgical expressions seems to be accompanied by the notion that classic practices like the Eucharist or the Call to Worship are choices in a grand liturgical buffet. In other words, renewed liturgical expression can come with a lack of good thinking around liturgical integrity—the purpose of the liturgy as a whole.

The elements of liturgical worship are not choices in an ecclesial buffet line. Rather, as a whole, they tell a Story. And that Story counters the stories we are told in the many liturgies we practice every day. The elements of the liturgy are not merely cool sacred opportunities. Together, they form (and re-form) us, telling a different Story than we typically encounter.

Consider this as it applies to social media.

Because liturgies are habits, practices and rituals that give form to our lives, we might consider our online social engagement liturgical. What strikes me is how we can create a kind of social identity in and through our status updates, tweets

THE ELEMENTS OF LITURGICAL WORSHIP ARE NOT CHOICES IN AN ECCLESIAL BUFFET LINE. Some in the U.K., New Zealand and the U.S. began experimenting with classic liturgical expressions re-presented in new forms and music. It was the resurrection of the living faith of the dead.

The “father” of this new movement was the late Robert Webber, a prolific writer and gifted teacher who put words around this seismic shift in liturgical expression. In Webber’s many works, he argued a hopeful future of the Church resided in a new articulation of the historic liturgical tradition of the Church. As one friend who teaches worship said, “Robert Webber made liturgy cool again.”

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and more. We might tell of good things, but we might also confess something—a bad breakup, exhaustion, anger toward our boss. Soon, however, we’ll receive comments and be assured of our acceptance by friends. We’ll feel connected, perhaps even empowered, to plug in more. We learn all kinds of things about ourselves, others and the world. We join a group, enjoy photos, watch YouTube uploads, play games—we eat and drink of the total social media feast. And we don’t just take. We offer ourselves, our talents, our thoughts, the things that make us laugh. Closing

ACT: Write down your daily liturgy. Note what story your liturgy tells and what values it emphasizes.

*

our laptop, we feel blessed, perhaps, to have had good words spoken to us, good connections made.

In his book Desiring the Kingdom, my friend Jamie Smith argues these social practices are not merely habit-forming, but desire-forming. He writes, “Liturgies make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us is what we love.” Does our use of social media shape what we love? Maybe not for everyone. But for many of us, it’s addictive. We feed on the connection we experience. We feel a sense of acceptance when we’re followed or friended.

We’re creatures of desire. That’s how God made us.

But a lot competes for our affections.

Shaping Our Lives Certain words are italicized in the previous section to highlight the connection, and perhaps the contrast, between different liturgies. Go back and re-read them. Consider this: The time-honored elements of liturgical worship are all geared around forming our habits, identities and desires.

Now, hear the same italicized words in this context. God calls us into worship to remind us of our identity in light of His grace. We confess sin because we’re all convinced something is wrong with the world, and us. We are assured by words that speak acceptance into our lives. We connect as we pass the peace of God to one another. We learn as we’re challenged to become followers in the sermon. We participate more fully as we eat and drink of what will satisfy us more than anything.

We offer our resources to God. And we are dismissed with the benediction, literally the “good word” spoken over us—a word of blessing.

The liturgies we practice speak of what we love.

Our lives are aligned around the narrative(s) most compelling to us. Liturgy invites our lives to be re-shaped, our loves to be re-aligned, our desires to be re-directed. It is not a call to disconnect from all of the competing liturgies we’re engaged with.

Perhaps it’s a call to reify them, to transform them, to infuse them with the possibility of real connection, real identity, real love.

I live liturgy. And so do you. So, step back and look at the shape of your life. Maybe you’ll ask the question I ask myself: What do I really love?

Chuck DeGroat

is a pastor at City Church San Francisco, and professor in the Wilberforce Fellowship, a theology and spirituality program for young urban professionals.

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VOICES

BOBBY GRUENEWALD IS FOREVER CHANGING THE WAY WE READ THE BIBLE

BY JOSH LUJAN LOVELESS In late 2006, Bobby Gruenewald was sitting in O’Hare airport in Chicago, waiting on a delayed flight. As he watched people feverishly engaged with their computers and phones, he started wondering: “Could today’s technology actually revolutionize the way people engage with the Bible?”

It’s a question that’s been asked by every generation using every technology in every era of history. But, as the innovation leader for LifeChurch.tv, Gruenewald is uniquely equipped to address that question head on. “There have been statistics and data for several decades that Bible engagement—people actually reading it and making it a part of their lives—has been on a steep decline,” he says. “I was wondering if we could create a website that would allow people to associate any type of web media with any verse or series of verses in the Bible. I wanted to figure out a way we could take the conversations already taking place through YouTube, blog posts and other places online and make the Bible a central part of that conversation.”

His idea became YouVersion, an online resource of LifeChurch.tv, and something that has impacted Christian culture like little else in recent history. In fact, though you’ve probably never heard of him, Gruenewald might be one of the most influential people in the Church today; he doesn’t speak from a platform, but he’s created one for all of us to speak from.

Gruenewald didn’t start out as someone who was going to obviously change the modern church. His classmates in middle school knew him as the rapper in the group Christ Before Everything. Hardly the most auspicious start for a burgeoning innovator.

Gruenewald’s parents brought a computer into the house when he was a child, and that one purchase ignited his fascination with technology.

Though his family wasn’t wealthy (at least from an American perspective), his parents’ sacrifice 24

COURTESY OF LIFECHURCH.TV

gave him the opportunity to investigate the power of technology.

Though Gruenewald majored in finance in college, he found the time between classes to start a web-hosting company in 1996. He sold it in 1998. “We sold it at that time in the history of the Internet when there was a large emphasis placed on how many people you could draw to a website,” Gruenewald says. “You’d see Wall Street and the public sector valuing any sort of company that could assimilate traffic.” As a result, Gruenewald created a business that hinged on acquiring an online community of some kind, growing it and then turning it into a public company.

Gruenewald describes what he and his team began to look for. “We wanted to find something where there was a strong affinity for the content, something that people read, used and consumed, and were really passionate about. It just so happened we found an opportunity to acquire a pro wrestling website,” he says. “It was pretty easy at that time to get a lot of people connected to pro wrestling. We grew it from 3 million page views per month to 15 to 16 million page views per month in about 15 months.”

It was about this time in 1999 that Gruenewald and his wife, Melissa, began attending Life Church. They quickly became involved in the church community and found themselves serving on a weekly basis. In December of that year, Gruenewald decided to step out of the ring of pro wrestling websites and was approached about helping the church with some of their technology needs.

Though LifeChurch.tv is considered one of the most innovative church communities in the country, Gruenewald admits it hasn’t always been that way. “At that time, Life Church’s best technology was probably air conditioning, and that barely worked,” he laughs. “I didn’t step in trying to make it a high-tech church. It was more like, ‘How do we just send email to each other?’”

After increasing his volunteer hours to nearly full time, Gruenewald felt a shift in his heart. “It really became clear to me that the passion I had developed for the church exceeded my passion for business,” he says. “I decided I had to make a symbolic and significant decision that this would be my job and not just where I serve. That helped me say, ‘I’m all in.’”

At the time, Gruenewald had no idea his decision to embrace his role would lead to the potential to shape modern church history. But it didn’t begin with the development of a product— it began with a radical and fundamental shift in the philosophy of how the church operated.

While most churches in the late ‘90s were trying to create new revenue streams for their ministries by selling and packaging church

resources, Life Church had a different idea.

Gruenewald says it was probably the most defining decision they have ever made as a church. “I would potentially say we were a selfish church for those first 10 years. We never would have labeled ourselves that back then, but in retrospect when we look at it, we were very focused on what we were doing. We would help another church if they asked us to, but we certainly wouldn’t go out of our way to help a church.”

But everything changed in January of 2006.

“We felt like God was saying, ‘You really need to share these resources that you’re creating as a church for free.’ My job then was to take that concept and come up with a way to do it efficiently.” In April of 2006, Gruenewald and his team transitioned all their resources to a purely digital distribution model that allowed them to identify all of the intellectual property they owned as a church for the purpose of giving it away to the world—for free.

That’s when the idea for YouVersion started.

After sitting in O’Hare and wondering how today’s technology could influence Scripture, Gruenewald took the question to the team at LifeChurch.tv, and they quickly began working to answer it. The result was a website called YouVersion. But by the end of 2007, the website had only caught the attention of about 20,000 people and hadn’t sparked the revolution they were hoping for.

The smart phone boom proved to be the solution to the problem. Gruenewald believed the cell phone could be as valuable as a Bible if you made it easier to navigate than the one most people keep on their nightstand. “In 2008, we just created a simple mobile version of the website, and that was the key thing that changed the face of what YouVersion is today,” he says. “We individually found ourselves reading the Bible a lot more because it was available on our phone.

We then developed an iPhone app and, of course, since then it has been a bit of a wild ride.”

“Wild” doesn’t begin to describe it. YouVersion quickly became the top Bible app for iPhones, BlackBerrys and Androids. The app itself seems to carry with it the infused addiction most thought only reserved for the likes of Angry Birds. It’s been downloaded on more than 11 million mobile devices. Every 2.7 seconds, someone new downloads the Bible App. Users have spent more than 12 billion minutes reading the Bible with YouVersion. More than 1 million users have subscribed to reading plans.

With its easy-to-navigate translations, community note sharing tabs, multiple reading programs and live event capabilities, YouVersion is an attempt to marry the evolution of technology with spiritual formation. Via

*DISCUSS: Are you using technology in a way that’s destroying or empowering your church culture?

YouVersion communities that have emerged on Facebook and Twitter, people are tagging and sharing with one another how Scripture is shaping them throughout the day, wherever they are in the world. On an ordinary day in the middle of December, YouVersion saw the largest number of shared verses in one day when 5,807 people shared through Facebook and 3,264 people shared verses through Twitter.

“We see technology purely as a tool,” Gruenewald says. “It’s the type of tool that obviously can be used in destructive ways, and it’s also the type of tool that can enable people to connect in ways they never imagined.* What we know now is there are a lot of people who have a desire to learn more about the Bible, but there has been a gap between that desire and their

YOUVERSION Whether using the site on a computer or mobile device, users can engage with others in the Bible App community and discuss Scripture. The site also includes more than 20 different reading plans.

action. So technology really has the opportunity to close that gap. It’s something that is with us at all times. It’s certainly not the only answer. It doesn’t take away from the relationships and the things we have in person, but we see it as a complement in the ways it engages a society that is changing.”

Gruenewald feels uncomfortable with taking all of the credit for the innovative thinking that comes out of LifeChurch.tv. “I’m not the source of innovation for the church,” he says. “I just try to foster environments that encourage our teams toward that goal.”

While no one knows how church history will judge the way the Church used technology in 2011, chances are YouVersion will be in the conversation. It’s made the Bible accessible to people in their native vernacular—social media. And somewhere in that conversation, Gruenewald should be given credit for creating new ways to interact with the ancient text. If God can use a shepherd boy with a slingshot to grow up to be a warrior king, of course God would do something like call upon a young MC who ran a pro wrestling website to change the way we interact with the holy Scriptures.

neuemagazine.com 25

WIRED CO-FOUNDER AND EDITOR KEVIN KELLY ON FIGURING OUT WHEN TO EMBRACE—AND WHEN TO REJECT—NEW TECHNOLOGIES

BY KEVIN KELLY

26

I

n any discussion about the merits of avoiding the addictive grip of technology, the Amish stand out as offering an honorable alternative. The Amish have the reputation of being Luddites, people who refuse to employ faddish new technology. It’s well known that the strictest of them don’t use electricity or automobiles, but rather farm with manual tools and drive a horse and buggy. They favor technology they can either build or repair themselves, and they are, on the whole, thrifty and relatively self-reliant.

First, a few caveats. The Amish are not a monolithic group. Their practices vary parish by parish. What one group does in Ohio another church in New York may not do or a parish in Iowa may do more so. And their relationship to technology is uneven. Most Amish use a mixture of very old and very new things, like the rest of us. It’s important to note that Amish practices are ultimately driven by religious belief: The technological consequences are secondary. They often don’t have logical reasons for their policies.

Finally, Amish practices change over time and the Amish are, at this moment, adapting to the world by embracing new technologies at their own rate. In many ways, the view of the Amish as old-fashioned Luddites is an urban myth.

But like all legends, the Amish myth is based on some fact. The Amish, particularly the Old

Order Amish—the stereotypical Amish on postcards—really are reluctant to adopt new things. In contemporary society our default is set to say yes to new things, and in Old Order Amish communities the default is set to “not yet.”

When new things come around, the Old Order Amish automatically react by ignoring them.

Thus, many Old Order Amish never said yes when automobiles were new. Instead, they travel around in a buggy hauled by a horse, and they always have. Some sects allow cars, but only if they are painted entirely black.

Behind all of these variations is the Amish motivation to strengthen their communities.

When cars first appeared at the turn of the last century, the Amish noticed that drivers would leave the community to go picnicking or sightseeing in other towns, instead of visiting family, the sick on Sundays or patronizing local shops on Saturday. Therefore the ban on unbridled mobility was intended to make it hard to travel and to keep energy focused in the local community.

One Amish man told me the problem with phones, pagers, BlackBerrys and iPhones (yes, he knew about them) was that “you got messages rather than conversations.” That’s about as accurate a summary of our times as any. Henry, his long white beard contrasting with his young bright eyes, told me, “If I had a TV, I’d watch it.” What could be simpler?* The Amish are steadily adopting technology— at their pace. They are slow geeks. Half of the inventions they use now were invented within the last 100 years. They don’t adopt everything new, but when they do embrace it, it’s half a century after everyone else does. By that time, the benefits and costs are clear, the technology stable and it is cheap. As one Amish man said, “We don’t want to stop progress, we just want to slow it down.” But their manner of slow adoption is instructive: 1 They are selective. They know how to say no and are not afraid to refuse new things. They ignore more than they adopt.

2 They evaluate new things by experience instead of by theory. They let the early adopters get their jollies by pioneering new stuff under watchful eyes.

3 They have criteria by which to make choices: Technologies must enhance family and community and distance themselves from the outside world.

4 The choices are not individual but

*ACT: Write down two technologies you use simply because you have them.

communal. The community shapes and enforces technological direction.

The Amish have become very good at managing technologies. But what do they gain by this discipline? Are their lives really any better for this effort? We can see what they give up, but have they earned anything we would want?

Leon, an Amish friend, spoke about this: fewer distractions, more satisfaction. The everready embrace of his community was palpable.

Imagine it: Neighbors would pay your medical bill if needed, or build your house in a few weeks without pay, and, more important, allow you to do the same for them. Minimal technology forces a daily reliance on neighbors and friends.

Hospital stays are paid by church members, who also visit the sick regularly. Barns destroyed by fire or storm are rebuilt in a barn raising and not by insurance money. Financial, marital and behavioral counseling are done by peers. The community is as self-reliant as it can make itself and only as self-reliant as it is because it is a community. I began to understand the strong attraction the Amish lifestyle exerts on its young adults and why, even today, only a very few leave.

But the cost of this closeness and dependency is limited choice. There is no education beyond eighth grade. Few career options for guys, none besides homemaker for girls. For the Amish and minimites, one’s fulfillment must blossom inside the traditional confines of a farmer, tradesman or housewife.

OUR MINDS ARE BEING REWIRED BY OUR CULTURE. WITH NO EXAGGERATION AND NO METAPHOR, WE ARE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE WHO FIRST STARTED TO PLOW 10,000 YEARS AGO. The Amish are a little sensitive about this, but their self-reliant lifestyle as it is currently practiced is heavily dependent on the greater technium (the realm of technology) that surrounds their enclaves. They do not mine the metal they build their mowers from. They do not drill or process the kerosene they use. They don’t manufacture the solar panels on their

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roofs. They don’t grow or weave the cotton in their clothes. They don’t educate or train their own doctors. They also famously do not enroll in armed forces of any kind. (But in compensation for that, the Amish are world-class volunteers in the outside world.)

If the Amish had to generate all their own energy, grow all their clothing fibers, mine all metal, harvest and mill all lumber, they would not be Amish at all because they would be running large machines, dangerous factories and other types of industry that would not sit well in their

If the nature of humans is indeed invariant, then it is possible to achieve a peak technological solution to support it. I could be wrong, of course, but it seems pure foolishness, if not the height of conceit and hubris, to believe that in the long course of human history, and by that I mean the next 10,000 years in addition to the past 10,000 years, the peak of human invention and satisfaction should turn out to be 1940. The year 1940 cannot be the end of technological perfection for human fulfillment simply because human nature is not at its end.

THESE TWO DIFFERENT ROUTES FOR TECHNOLOGICAL LIFESTYLE—EITHER OPTIMIZING CONTENTMENT OR OPTIMIZING CHOICES—COME DOWN TO VERY DIFFERENT IDEAS OF WHAT HUMANS ARE TO BE. backyards (one of the criteria they use to decide whether a craft is appropriate for them). But without someone manufacturing this stuff, they could not maintain their lifestyle or prosperity.

In short, the Amish depend on the outside world for the way they currently live. Their choice of minimal technology adoption is a choice—but a choice enabled by the technium. Their lifestyle is within the technium, not outside it.

I am convinced the Amish and minimites are more content and satisfied as people than the rest of us fast-forward, urban technophiles. In their deliberate constraint of technology, they have figured out how to optimize an alluring combination of leisure, comfort and certainty over the optimization of uncertain possibilities.

The honest truth is that as the technium explodes with new self-made options, we find it harder to find fulfillment. How can we be fulfilled when we don’t know what is being filled?

So why not steer everyone in this direction?

Why don’t we all give up more choices and become Amish? After all, the Amish see our multimillion choices as illusory and meaningless, or as choices that are really entrapments.

I believe these two different routes for technological lifestyle—either optimizing contentment or optimizing choices—come down to very different ideas of what humans are to be.

It is only possible to optimize human satisfaction if you believe human nature is fixed.

Needs cannot be maximally satisfied if they are in flux. Minimal technologists maintain that human nature is unchanging.

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Our minds are being rewired by our culture.

With no exaggeration and no metaphor, we are not the same people who first started to plow 10,000 years ago. The snug interlocking system of horse and buggy, wood-fire cooking, compost gardening and minimal industry may be perfectly fit for a human nature—of an ancient agrarian epoch. But this devotion to a traditional way of being ignores the way in which our nature—our wants, desires, fears, primeval instincts and loftiest aspirations—is being recast by ourselves and by our inventions, and it excludes the needs of our new natures.* I know the Amish well enough to know they believe we don’t need exploding technology to expand ourselves. The Amish find incredible contentment in their enactment of a fixed human nature. This deep human fulfillment is real, visceral, renewable and so attractive that Amish numbers are doubling every generation. But I believe the Amish have traded contentment for revelation. They have not discovered, and cannot discover, who they can become.

That’s their choice, which is fine as far as it goes. And because it is a choice, we should celebrate their development of it. I may not tweet, watch TV or use a laptop, but I certainly benefit from the effect of others who do. In that way, I am not that different from the Amish, who benefit from the outsiders around them fully engaged with electricity, phones and cars.

But unlike individuals who opt out of individual technologies, Amish society indirectly constrains others as well as themselves. If we apply the

ubiquity test—what happens if everyone does it?—to the Amish way, the optimization of choice collapses. By constraining the suite of acceptable occupations and narrowing education, the Amish are holding back possibilities not just for their children but indirectly for all.

Unlike the Amish, the tens of millions of migrants headed into cities each year may invent a tool that will unleash choices for someone else. If they don’t, then their children will. Our mission as humans is not only to discover our fullest selves in the technium, and to find full contentment, but to expand the possibilities for others. Greater technology will selfishly unleash our talents, but it will also unselfishly unleash others: our children, and all children to come.

That means that as you embrace new technologies, you are indirectly working for future generations of Amish, even though they are not doing as much for you. Most of what you adopt they will ignore. But every once in a while your adoption will evolve into an appropriate tool they can use.

Nonetheless, the Amish have important lessons to teach us about selecting what we embrace. Like them, I don’t want devices that add maintenance chores to my life without adding benefits. I do want to be choosy about what I spend time mastering. I want to be able to back out of things that don’t work out. I don’t want stuff that closes off options for others (like lethal weapons). And I do want the minimum because I’ve learned I have limited time and attention. l owe the Amish a large debt because through their lives I now see the technium’s dilemma very clearly: To maximize our contentment, we seek the minimum amount of technology in our lives. Yet to maximize the contentment of others, we must maximize the amount of technology in the world. Indeed, we can only find our own minimal tools if others have created a sufficient maximum pool of options we can choose from.

The dilemma remains in how we can personally minimize stuff close to us while trying to expand it globally.

KEVIN KELLY helped launch Wired magazine and was its executive editor for its first seven years. He has written for The New York Times, The Economist, Science, Time and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

He is most recently the author of What Technology Wants (2010, Viking).

Excerpted from What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly. Published by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright (c) Kevin Kelly, 2010.

*DISCUSS: This desire to “go back” isn’t always technological—Christian leaders often talk of wanting to go back to the early Church, for example.

But is it a similar idea? Has our culture and technology simply taken us too far beyond it to ever go back? What do you think?

OUR MOVE. “Adam Taylor is a movementbuilder and hope-mobilizer. In this inaugural book he dares us to nonconformity, for it is the duty of every Christian . . . to interrupt unjust systems and to live in ways that do not compute to the patterns of this world that are out of line with God’s upside-down kingdom.”

—Shane Claiborne, author, activist and recovering sinner (www.thesimpleway.org) Martin Luther King Jr. read the words of the apostle Paul—“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”—as a call not to retreat from the world but to lead the world into the kingdom of God, where peace and justice reign.

In Mobilizing Hope, recent White House fellow Adam Taylor takes directives from the civil rights movement to equip today’s activists who are continuing God’s work of reconciliation and love.

978-0-8308-3837-0, $18.00

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DEVELOPING A CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE

BY SOONG-CHAN RAH

A YOUNG WHITE MAN IN HIS 20S STANDS AWKWARDLY OFF TO THE SIDE DURING THE FELLOWSHIP HOUR. He knows he should make the effort to talk to his fellow church members, but he is intimidated by the clusters of parishioners that have already formed. Most of the groups are divided along national and ethnic lines. He would like to join in, but he feels like he would be intruding, and anyway, he doesn’t know if he could relate to them. He makes eye contact and exchanges a few polite nods with a number of different church members but ends up sitting at a table with other white members of his church.

An older African-American woman sits by herself in the sanctuary. Her frustration is difficult to put into words. She has been attending her

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church for more than two years. She is one of a handful of African-Americans at the church who were attracted to a church committed to multiracial ministry and to serving the needs of her neighborhood. But she has become increasingly frustrated with how little the worship service addresses her spiritual needs. Her fellow church members seem preoccupied with making sure the worship service ends on time rather than how the Spirit is moving. They seem to have a completely different set of expectations about worship.

A young Asian-American man glances around the circle of church board members seated at the conference table. He is the only non-white member of an otherwise all-white church board. The young man is listening patiently to all the opinions being

expressed but doesn’t know when he should talk.

He waits for someone to ask for his opinion, but no one does. He feels a growing sense of frustration as the debate moves along without him.

A young Latina mother watches anxiously as her 5-year-old son bounces out of the sanctuary.

He joins the flow of children leaving the “adult” worship service to attend the children’s church.

She doesn’t quite understand why the children are being asked to leave. She recognizes there is some cultural value at work, but it escapes her. She doesn’t see why they need to take the children out for a separate service. It seems like a devaluing of the children and their place in the family. She wonders if her church holds the same values as her family.

SEEKING A CHANGE

IT’S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS

All over the United States, many churches are taking more seriously the biblical call to build and participate in multiethnic congregations.

This attempt takes on a greater sense of urgency when one considers the reality of a changing American society. The U.S. is moving rapidly toward the 2050 date, when our nation will no longer have a clear ethnic majority. Churches will need to become more multiethnic in order to keep up with demographic reality. Not only are multiethnic churches an attempt to deal with a dramatic change in society, they are usually also sincere attempts to be a part of the good work of God bringing His will on earth as it shall be in heaven. The Church is beginning to recognize its responsibility to build a biblical community of faith that encompasses the diversity of races, nationalities, cultures and ethnicities.

Such idealistic visions and easy optimism are quickly lost, though, in the difficult realities of multiethnic ministry. It’s certainly no easy task to reverse centuries of negative history between the races and to rectify ignorance and incompetence when it comes to cross-cultural sensitivity. As the American church seeks to fulfill the biblical mandate for unity, we are coming to the realization that we desperately need the proper motivation, spiritual depth, interpersonal skills and gracious communication in order to live into God’s hope for the Church. In short, the Church needs to develop cultural intelligence in order to fully realize the many-colored tapestry God is weaving.

In order to move toward the fulfillment of this many-colored vision, some foundational work is necessary. I have met and counseled too many pastors who are in over their heads when it comes to multicultural ministry. They have major gaps in a biblical, theological understanding of culture and a limited understanding of cultures outside of their own experience.

In many American churches, there are assumptions about what is the normative cultural expression.* Those in the dominant culture tend to assume their own cultural expressions are the closest to the heart of God and other cultures fall short; this attitude contributes to a sense of superiority about one’s own culture over another culture. All of humanity is made in the image of God. At the same time, every individual bears a sinful nature. In the same way, human creations, such as culture, can reflect the image of God, while also reflecting fallen human nature.

Cultural intelligence recognizes the redemptive and fallen nature of all cultures. The telling and retelling of history, therefore, becomes an important part of cultural intelligence.

Learning history requires truth-telling and truth-hearing. Oftentimes, acknowledging and confronting a painful history that may exist between different people is the first step toward developing a healthy multiethnic community. In addition, individuals need the ability to share their own story so the dividing walls of hostility can begin to fall. The common experience of sharing one’s story moves individuals separated by hostility toward the establishment of community.

story and entering into the story of the other. It is about changing our identity and frame of reference for the sake of the other. It is about changing the cultural environment of our churches from hostility to hospitality. And moving beyond simple hospitality to a mutual submission. Cultural intelligence is about systemic change.

The work of cross-cultural ministry is a difficult one. If it were an easy task to build a multiethnic church, then every church in America would be experiencing the joys of successful multicultural ministry. Instead, most recognize that planting, developing and nurturing a multiethnic and multicultural church is extraordinarily hard work.

In fact, if you were finding multicultural church

BUILDING A MULTIETHNIC, MULTICULTURAL, RACIALLY RECONCILED CHURCH IS AN EXTREMELY HIGH CALLING. Cultural intelligence is a necessity for the multiethnic church. At the same time, it is not simply the acquisition of particular skills. Skills acquisition may give us a level of efficiency in dealing with other cultures, but there is the additional necessity of developing a cultural intuition. Intuition is gained through ongoing experience. It is the willingness to change your worldview, to change your prejudices and biases, and it may require the changing of your lifestyle to minister in a multicultural context.

Cultural intelligence is not a quick or easy fix.

Human lives and cultures are much too complex to reduce our understanding of them to a simplistic formula. Cultural intelligence is not about simply adapting and changing our patterns and personality. Cultural intelligence is about creating an environment that welcomes different cultures.

It is about developing cultural intuition as well as gaining a knowledge set.

Cultural intelligence is about changing our view of culture in a way that honors different cultural expressions and acknowledges God is at work in all cultures, not just our own. Cultural intelligence is about developing a biblical view, rather than a socially derived view of culture. It is about learning our tainted history so we can understand where the other is coming from. It is about creating a culture that does not move everyone to one spot of the scale but allows for the whole range of the scale to be expressed. It is about the communication of identity through

ministry to be easy work, I would wonder if you are engaging in a multiethnic church but within a mono-cultural context. In other words, your congregants are adapting to one set of preferences—they are not expressing the fullness of their own culture but instead acquiescing to the dominant culture. That type of church can be exciting and dynamic, but it would not require cultural intelligence.

Building a multiethnic, multicultural, racially reconciled church is an extremely high calling.

There are numerous obstacles in society and in our human nature that could prevent us from living into God’s calling for our church. We must recognize, however, that this calling to be a diverse community that truly represents the Kingdom of God requires great sacrifice. The deeply seated demonic power of racism cannot be overthrown without great cost.

Even in the difficulties of multiethnic and multicultural ministry, there are great joys. As God calls His people to the high calling of multiethnic and multicultural churches, may we respond with the fullness of joy that comes from faithfully seeking and living into His will for the Church.

SOONG-CHAN RAH is the Milton B. Engebretson associate professor of church growth and evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago. He is the author of Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church.

*DISCUSS: What cultural assumptions does your church make? Put together a list and talk through how those assumptions might damage your ability to form a truly multicultural church.

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KEVIN VON QUALEN

WHAT IS FRANCIS CHAN THINKING? WHAT PROMPTED THE POPULAR PASTOR TO WALK AWAY FROM HIS CHURCH AND WHY AMERICAN CHRISTIANS ARE LOOKING TO FOLLOW HIS LEAD

BY TYLER CHARLES AND JOSH LUJAN LOVELESS Maybe it’s his contagious smile, or the conviction evident in his voice. Maybe it’s his refreshing sense of humor, or the childlike glee that surfaces when he laughs. Whatever it is, people just like Francis Chan.

You don’t have to listen to Chan for very long to realize he is a gifted communicator and an engaging personality. On paper, Chan’s accomplishments as a well-known and well-respected pastor, best-selling author and sought-after public speaker may not seem unusual. After all, such success has almost become standard for megachurch pastors. But Chan has never been the typical megachurch pastor.

When he talks about the way some churches chase after the latest trends in an attempt to woo people to their services, you can almost hear traces of dismay (or disgust) in his voice.

Chan prefers to point to the Bible—emphatically—and to call Christians to embrace a lifestyle that doesn’t make sense to the rest of the world (the central theme of his 2008 best-seller, Crazy Love). It’s this passion to see Christians living transformed lives that makes Chan’s messages distinct and personal.

When asked in which role—poet, priest or prophet—he believes he is most gifted, Chan answers in a tone that suggests clarity, not conceit.

“I believe my stronger gift is toward a prophet. The Lord seems to really have the words of Scripture just jump out to me as I’m reading them. It’s almost like He’s showing me exactly how He wants me to convey that to the people,” Chan says.

Maybe that explains why so many are drawn to his

messages, why Chan’s podcasts are downloaded by the thousands, why he is asked to speak at venues around the world and why Crazy Love has sold more than a million copies.

Sure, part of Chan’s allure can be attributed to his persona and speaking ability, but it’s more than that.

People trust Francis Chan. They are drawn to his directness and sincerity. And when Chan speaks, people almost feel like they’re receiving a message straight from God. And that’s a voice Christians do not want to lose.

Which is why Chan created such a stir last April when he announced he was leaving Cornerstone Church—the megachurch he planted in Simi Valley, Calif.

“Lisa [my wife] and I believe God is calling us out now, that He is sending us out to do something new, something that scares us, something that’s a step of faith,” Chan told his church when he resigned.

Though he was still uncertain about the details, Chan said he felt like God was leading his family to embark on a new ministry in a large city (such as Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York) where he will focus on ministering to the poor, and he wanted to be faithful and answer that call.

In the days that followed, Chan outlined his next steps, which included speaking throughout the U.S., walking the streets of large cities while praying for God’s direction, and eventually spending a few months serving in a developing country to “work with kids who have been rescued out of the slave trade … to go to a place where I’m a little bit more obscure, unknown—and

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“WHEN YOU LOOK IN SCRIPTURE, THERE WERE NO POPULAR PROPHETS. … IT’S A CONSISTENT FEAR IN MY LIFE THAT I LOVE THE APPLAUSE OF MAN TOO MUCH.” —FRANCIS CHAN

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just serve and care for some widows, orphans, and […] really seek the Lord, really be alone with Him.” Chan’s decision (and uncertainty) elicited responses from church leaders and laypeople everywhere. Many asked why he would leave his church without knowing what he was going to do next. Many wondered if there was more to the story. But Chan says those who knew him best were not surprised— they could tell something was stirring inside him.

“You can talk to the people at Cornerstone and most of them—I’d say 80 to 90 percent—have been like: ‘Well, we knew it was coming. I thought it was going to be years ago.’”

Those at Cornerstone may have known him best, but they were not the only ones affected by his decision. Chan has become something of an ambassador for the big-c “Church”— writing books, speaking at conferences, preaching around the world. And so, in the wake of Chan’s announcement, the same question reverberated on blogs, forums and at conferences: “Why? Why would he walk away from his ministry?”

Others were asking more pointed questions.

CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS In an online video conversation hosted by The Gospel Coalition that has attracted numerous viewers and given life to new debates about Chan’s decision, Mark Driscoll hijacks a discussion between Joshua Harris, Francis Chan and himself and uses the opportunity to put Chan on the spot, asking many of the tough questions others had been wondering.

One of the more memorable moments comes when Driscoll suggests that everyone thinks Chan is “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” for walking away from a thriving church.

Without realizing it, Driscoll’s claim may have affirmed Chan’s decision. After all, Crazy Love is Chan’s plea for people to embrace Christ so completely that it doesn’t make sense to others. Or, put another way, to trust God even when it prompts others to call you “cuckoo.”

“I don’t see it as this big step of faith. I mean, I do and I don’t,” Chan says. “I think people look at what I was doing and go: ‘Isn’t that the goal? Isn’t that what we’re striving after? So why would you not keep doing that?’ And I guess it’s because some of it was the goal, but the goal is really to just move as the Spirit moves, and to be as biblical and Christ-like as possible and try to be faithful to your calling.

“It will look a little different for everyone.”

Chan can laugh at Driscoll’s ”cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” comment. He can certainly handle the word “crazy.” But the one thing that does bother him is when people start suggesting what he’s doing is weird.

“If we say, ‘That’s a weird person, that’s a weird theology,’ it automatically excuses us from doing anything similar. And to me, I don’t see it as strange,” Chan says. “Honestly, when I read the Scriptures, I really believe the Lord puts a heart in us when we become believers. And when the Spirit comes in us, there is this concern for the poor and for those who are in need, and this love for them to where you go: ‘Man, I would happily give you the shirt off my back. I would happily give up my future retirement to help you guys stay alive.’”

Chan is quick to explain he’s not trying to defend himself.

Rather, he says he’s concerned about labeling someone as weird because they want to devote themselves to the poor or sacrifice for those in need.

“It doesn’t seem weird to me, or based upon a weird theology.

It seems like Christ laying His life down for us. That’s weird, yeah, based upon the world’s standards. But He says that’s the model now. Now we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. So if we make this a weird thing or a wrong theology, then maybe we’re worse off than I even think,” Chan says.

A SENSE OF RESTLESSNESS But why did Chan walk away? Is it as simple as he makes it sound: that he’s just trying to follow God’s call for his life? Is this an exciting step in a new direction? Or is this what it looks like when a well-known and wildly successful pastor experiences the burnout that snags so many lesser-known pastors?

Is his decision a response to God’s call? Or just irresponsible?

Even before announcing his resignation, Chan was outspoken about his frustrations with Cornerstone Church. In an interview with Neue before his resignation, Chan admitted that the size of his church was more of a curse than a blessing.

“It’s because I know that a lot of the people who come on Sunday morning are not followers of Christ. So I know it’s just a matter of time before they leave, and yet it’s still painful every time they leave. And in my heart I know it’s not right; the church has got to change,” Chan says. “So I’m saying the right things, and I believe the elders are leading us in the right direction, but it still just hurts because these are friends and you almost feel this sense of betrayal.”

Chan says Cornerstone became the dream he envisioned when he first planted the church in 1994, but then it went beyond the dream. Initially he just wanted a place where he could preach the Bible completely and experience authentic worship. And he says Cornerstone got to that point almost from day one.

“Over the years, as I studied the Bible more, I saw so much that we were missing,” Chan says. “With the elders as well, we

KEITH PYTLINSKI

sat down and realized, ‘Where did we get this idea that the goal of the church was to fill a room just to hear the word of God and sing worship songs to Him?’ There’s so much more in Scripture.

So as we saw those things, whether it was caring for the poor, reaching the lost, loving one another—pretty major themes—we realized, ‘Wow, we’ve neglected a lot of those things.’”

As Chan and the elders of Cornerstone Church encouraged their community to get involved in their neighborhoods and take discipleship more seriously, Chan became frustrated by the lack of commitment he witnessed.

“I can give a strong message and people will nod their heads and it’s like, ‘OK, cool, he gave a tough message.’ But in the confines of the local church, when I’m with these people day in and day out, I’m like: ‘Wait, you haven’t applied that message.

Let’s come up with ways in which you have to do it and not skirt around it.’ Well, that really bothers people,” Chan says. “And pretty soon they’re like, ‘You know what, never mind, quit pushing me; I’m going to go to another church.’ … I guess I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to be rejected by people who’ve been in the church for 10 years or more, and it’s pretty painful.”

Chan’s dissatisfaction with church extends beyond his experiences; when he starts talking about his vision for a new kind of church community*, the usually eloquent Chan gushes.

“I’d love to just be in a room with some people who really believed and had absolute faith in their prayers,” Chan says. “[Who] just wanted to obey the Scriptures and share their faith with whomever and disciple and just get in a group and pray like crazy, and go and talk about how God moved in our lives throughout the week, share Scriptures, and those types of things. And that looks so different from your typical church service. I think more and more people are hungering for the same thing I am. As I read the Scriptures and feel led by the Spirit in a certain direction, it seems like other people are having that same restlessness.”

THE POPULAR PROPHET Chan is subtly intense. He doesn’t raise his voice; he’s not overly demonstrative. But his passion, his conviction, is unmistakable. When he challenges people to evaluate their lives, to look to Scripture, it doesn’t come across as a rebuke as much as it sounds like a plea. And people trust that Chan is a man who genuinely practices what he preaches.

All the proceeds from his book sales are given to charity. A few years ago, his family downsized to a smaller home so they could give more money away. Then last October, before Chan and his family went to Asia to minister to impoverished people there, the family sold their home so they could be completely free to go where God leads them—without a home to return to.

But Chan doesn’t share these details with a “Hey, look at me!” attitude. For the last couple of years, Chan says he has become increasingly interested in diverting attention away from himself.

After leaving Cornerstone, he mentioned more than once that he fears he’s even more messed up than he realizes. For Chan, stepping away from the spotlight is providing an opportunity not only to prepare him for the next season in his life, but also to give him a chance to evaluate the state of his soul.

“I struggle with this—this magazine article, with traveling and speaking, with being so widely accepted—because Jesus says in Luke 6:26, ‘Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so

their fathers did the false prophets.’ When you look in Scripture, there were no popular prophets. People hated the prophets; they loved the false prophets. There’s always this fear for me when I go places and I’m so well-received,” Chan says. “On Sunday morning, when I get up there, I’m not trying to be rude. I’m not trying to turn people off. But I don’t ever want to back down from what God says. It’s a consistent fear in my life that I love the applause of man too much. And I’m trying to fight that.”

Whether Chan’s exodus is the result of burnout, frustration with a church that craved his voice but didn’t always respond to his messages, an awareness of the need to safeguard his soul from the corruption of fame, or just an honest response to God’s call, there is no doubt Chan longs to shift away from the spotlight—at least for a while.

That desire is evident in Chan’s voice when he recounts a conversation he had with some Christians from China whom he calls “house church people.” One of these men shared the observation that pastors in America feel like they must be famous in order to be effective. But this man told Chan that it’s the opposite in China: No one knows the most powerful, influential Christians because they have to be “even more hidden, even more underground.”

“When I heard that, my soul was like, ‘Ah, that would be so cool.’ You’re having an effect on the Kingdom, and you have to fight to just be hidden, hidden, hidden, so nobody knows who you are,” Chan says.

“There’s got to be a way where we don’t make celebrities out of people who are wanting to have impact.”

NEW GATHERINGS Chan is longing for more than just a departure from the celebrity-pastor model. He also feels like God is calling him to create a new type of church community. As for what that will look like, Chan admits he’s still trying to figure that out.

“That’s why I stepped away from the current church. I just think I’m going to start with a blank piece of paper and see how I do it, because I couldn’t get my mind around how I was going to tweak [it]. So I just thought, ‘Let me just try and start over and not make a big deal about it and just kind of do my own thing as I’m led by the Spirit, with some other believers, and see what comes out of that,’” Chan says.

At Cornerstone, Chan had a vision for a way to change the dynamics of how the church operates. Instead of building a new facility, he wanted to start meeting outside in an amphitheater year-round (one of the luxuries of living in California). The money that would have been designated for a new building would have been used to erect a center for Children’s Hunger Fund.

Chan says most of Cornerstone was committed to this endeavor. But Ventura County prevented it from happening (thanks in part to some input from wealthy landowners in the area) because Children’s Hunger Fund would have needed to store and ship food from this location, and the county didn’t want that area to house this type of operation.

Chan says this experience was like the “death of a vision” for him. But he also suggests there is a bigger issue at stake when churches are considering where to meet or what type of facility to build.

“I’ve been frustrated with the idea that no matter how big a

*DISCUSS: What are the gaps between your dreams for church and where your church community is now? What are you doing to close those gaps?

CHAN IN PRINT

FORGOTTEN GOD In the follow-up to Crazy Love, Chan calls on Christians to stop neglecting the Holy Spirit and discern the gifts offered by this “forgotten God.”

CRAZY LOVE Chan challenges readers to give their all—whether it’s money, time or other sacrifices—to the daily pursuit of living for God and showing Him our “crazy love.”

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BACK TO BASICS

building you build, those walls really just limit what God wants you to do,” he says. “It doesn’t seem like Jesus would limit Himself to the size of a building.”

According to Chan, the alternative is discipleship. “[We have to teach] other people to lead gatherings, whether it’s in their home, the school, the park or wherever,” he says.

“We just need to multiply the disciples and equip more and more people who are able to lead others, no matter where it is, [to the point] where they don’t need a building to go to.”

Chan certainly isn’t the first to long for a church community that is defined by the community itself rather than the building it inhabits. Though talking about it and making it work are two very different things, Chan thinks that’s where God is leading him.

“From my time alone with the Lord and from the study of His word, I really feel that He’s called me to prepare more and more believers in our country and equip them for something different—new gatherings,” Chan says.

“I find people in other places who really want a tighter expression of church and family, and they have no way to live it out. I want to help equip those people so they can create those true expressions of the church where they really live as one and function as one—as a body, as a family, as a bride.”

DISCONTENTEDNESS IN THE SOUL

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Chan’s BASIC series is made up of seven short films. It stems from four questions: “What is church?

Who is it for? Is it broken? Can it be better?” The first three films explore the question, “Who is God?” The last four films delve into “The Practices of the Church.” The series seeks to offer a solid foundation for faith.

As the website says in response to the first question: “You are church. I am church.

We are church.”

When Chan first stepped away from his church, he didn’t know exactly what God was calling him to do next. But he seemed fairly certain about some of the things his soul was longing for: ministry to the poor, ministry in a large city, a model of church built around smaller communities of believers rather than a megachurch that is most identifiable by its celebrity pastor.

All those things sound great. But what happens if those plans don’t materialize in the way Chan hopes? What happens if he encounters new obstacles and new frustrations? In that same Gospel Coalition video, Driscoll raised these questions, suggesting that perhaps Chan’s decision to step away from Cornerstone was prompted by a “discontentedness” in his soul.

“How long do you think you’ll be at the new work before discontentment and frustration set in?” Driscoll asks. “Is this a discontentedness in your soul that won’t ever be satisfied?”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.” Chan laughs for a moment before adding emphatically, “I don’t think so!”

Chan goes on to say this isn’t a new feeling—it’s a conviction he’s been wrestling with for years, but he’s just recently had the courage to speak up about it.

“There’s always been this core conviction that something’s not right,” Chan says. “Now I want to express it and live it and go, ‘Now I feel like I’m living in congruence with the whole New Testament, like I just feel at peace.’ And maybe I’m dreaming, but I gotta go for it.”

Of course, every pastor will admit to frustrations and disappointments when it comes to their church and how people are living. So, what kind of precedent does Chan’s decision set? Should every pastor just leave if they feel their church isn’t living up to expectations?

Chan says he can’t answer that for everyone, stressing that this is his journey; he isn’t trying to put together a reproducible model for all pastors to follow.

“What I did find,” he says, “is that when we do church services [with] the kind of corporate model that we have right now, we

end up doing a lot of things and keeping ourselves busy doing things other than discipleship and other than true ministry,” Chan says. “And we just feel like, ‘I’ve got to spend my time on this!’

So I guess my question is, ‘OK, do I really have to?’ What if we simplify, then couldn’t I spend almost my whole day discipling?

[Once] you start hiring more and more staff, pretty soon you realize the amount of time you actually spend praying or in Scripture or discipling or evangelizing, it becomes very little compared to how much time we spend preparing this awesome message, service and everything else that runs the machine.”* But should other pastors follow his lead? Or is it possible to tweak the system to emphasize the aspects of ministry that are most important without creating “the machine”?

“I couldn’t figure it out, but again, I had a bigger machine to run. I’ve got to believe it’s possible. I’ve got to believe a lot of guys are going to be able to do it,” Chan says. “I think it’s too soon for me to be speaking a lot about all these things because I haven’t really proven it or lived it out. Let me pursue this journey first and show you how it works. I believe I’ll find an easier way to make all of the things happen that I see biblically, but I don’t know that.

I could totally fail. I could totally be misled.”

And if that happens?

“Then I’ll just take over another megachurch or something,” he laughs. “Someone else commits adultery and I’ll just take over their church.”

There’s Chan’s sense of humor—cropping up unexpectedly again. But only for a moment before he gets serious again.

“Honestly, I don’t know what the future is going to be. [This is] the desire of my heart based upon what I see in Scripture.

Maybe I’ll just come to the end of this journey and go: ‘There’s just no other way to do it. Let’s just keep the system going.’”

THE NEXT CHAPTER Chan seems both excited and tired. Excited to take this step of faith and see where God leads him and his family. But tired of answering questions about why he left Cornerstone, tired of people not understanding his heart for the poor or how all of his decisions are rooted in his desire to be more like Christ—and yet, tired as he may be, he seems compelled to keep answering the questions, to keep responding to the doubters and critics, not because he necessarily cares what people are saying about him, but because he knows God is revealing something to him—and he wants to make sure that message doesn’t get lost.

For years now, that’s what Chan has been doing— delivering the messages God reveals to him. So even as he shies away from the spotlight and shifts into a new ministry, Chan is still teaching, challenging people to take a step of faith and embrace their relationship with Christ wholeheartedly.

Only now, he’s the illustration reinforcing the message that challenged so many during his years at Cornerstone Church.

Even though some will accuse Chan of abandoning his church or giving up, most are excited to see where God is directing him—and where God might be leading the Church.

Right now, the questions of why he left his church still linger. But in the months ahead, those questions could change.

Instead of asking why Chan left his church, Chan hopes people will ask: “Why not? … Why not follow God’s lead in my life?

Why not question how things have been done? Why not risk everything and look a little cuckoo for the Gospel?”

*ACT: Write down three things you have to do this week and three things you want to do. Is there a way to eliminate at least one thing you have to do for something on your “want to do” list?

HOW TO ALLOW CREATIVITY TO INFLUENCE YOUR LEADERSHIP

BY COLE NeSMITH 38

DECLASSIFICATION: UNDERSTAND AND LOVE THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU

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he most respected artists create works that offer a unique perspective on issues, ideas or even physical objects. Some characteristics that enable an artist to see things differently can also help an artist lead differently. And can offer a new perspective on leadership principles.

AUTHENTICITY: UNDERSTAND AND LOVE WHO YOU ARE Authenticity is the foundational characteristic of an artist. In fact, “selling out” is one of the most painful critiques an artist can receive. It implies an artist has become something other than what he or she has been created to be—that his or her artistic expression is a rip-off of something else or was watered down for the sake of commercial viability.

In an age of commodified Christianity, we’ve become obsessed with providing products that are intended to attract as many people as possible into our spiritual factories. We cast our nets wide by catering to the lowest common denominator rather than asking what role we play in the unique landscape of the global body of Christ. We attend conferences hungry to hear and see what we can take home to our congregations. We read books or magazine articles in hopes that we’ll discover the next innovative formula for how we can grow to the size of the bigger church down the street.

But artists don’t emulate—they create. Our first glimpse of God in Scripture is as Creator. He speaks into nothing, something, and at the sound of His voice, a beautiful world unfolds. Each piece is fashioned to reflect His glory, to tell of who He is, and then—in His crowning glory—He places His image. He instills in humanity the ability to create.

This ability for authentic expression is at the heart of Jesus’ words to the woman at the well in John 4:23: “That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship” (MSG).

This is what we see in Emmanuel. In meeting humanity where we are, God maintained His true identity in the person of Jesus. As we lead, it’s essential we begin by letting down the facade we’ve created and live honestly before God and humanity.

And just as we should seek to be simply and honestly ourselves before God, so should we help those around us seek the same.

I love efficiency, and one of the best methods for attaining an efficient life is categorization. If I want to buy an orange, I walk to the produce section of the grocery store. If there was no categorization, the orange would be just as likely to be placed on a shelf next to the toothpaste as it would be placed next to the tangerines and grapefruits. But often, when we treat people like produce and place them into categories, we move away from the words of Jesus in John 4:23. In our classification, we rob people of their individuality. But the heart of the artist is to discover the beauty that exists below the surface of what is seen in each individual.

While highly inefficient, declassification is central to leading well.

Categories enable us to immediately make a decision about who we think a person is based on a few pillars of their personality or behavior. And, as a result, we can assess whether, in our own minds, they are valuable to us. But categories, like comfort foods, are mostly bad for us.

Categorization allows us to write people off.

Like the phrase, “Oh, he’s just a Charismatic Christian.” In long form, this phrase really means: “Oh, that person—with his flailing arms and dancing—most likely isn’t genuine in his spiritual expression. He is just copying what he’s seen other people in that Charismatic Christian category do.” It allows us to not only write off the individual, but frees us from having to ask if their experience means something for our lives.

And you can replace “Charismatic Christian” with pretty much any category: “Type A personalities,” “Europeans,” “boys,” “girls.”

Then, after categorization and the formation of our opinion of all people in that category, we begin creating systems of how we will respond to anyone we encounter from that category. It allows us to ignore relationship and maintain stereotypes.* The life of Jesus is a perfect example. In Jesus’ day, there were lots of people claiming to be the Messiah. Most of the pious—the ones who should have recognized Him the most—were able to simply write Him off as just another guy in the “claiming to be the Messiah” category.

The problem is … He actually was what He was claiming to be.

In his book The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida speaks of the “Tolerance Index.” There are some controversial issues related to this concept— especially for the life of the Western, evangelical Christian—but the central tenet is important. It

points out the willingness of creative individuals to share life and experiences with people who are unlike themselves.

This is the very context of Jesus’ comments in John 4:23 about existing simply and honestly before God in our worship. Jesus was having a conversation with a Samaritan woman—a separation of both nationality and gender. Jesus was constantly willing to step outside culturally imposed norms to build relationships with the outcasts of society.

You and I can go on categorizing in an attempt to make life simple. Or we can awaken to the beauty of uniqueness by discovering the individuals around us.

REDEMPTION: SEE THE FUTURE OF WHO YOU AND THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU CAN BECOME Once we begin to understand and live out the ideas of authenticity and declassification, then—and only then—can we begin moving forward.

That forward movement is eloquently summarized by Madeleine L’Engle in her book Walking On Water where she writes, “There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.”

By knowing the former depravity of our own hearts, we are brought to a place of humility in recognizing just how far God’s grace has brought us. That postures us to receive others as they are—not categorically dismissing them, but seeing them the way God sees them. And once we begin cherishing the uniqueness of who people are as individuals, we can move forward together. The prophetic heart of the artist is about recognizing and revealing the beauty in people and things.

No individual, thing or group of people is too far gone to recognize and begin living out the life God sees for us. In Culture Making, Andy Crouch points out several typical responses the Church has toward culture. Two of them are “condemning” and “critiquing.” The easiest response to seeing something that is broken is to look at it, point at it and tell it that it’s broken. But when we look at the words of Jesus, we see a better way. He looks at the Pharisees and says in John 8:15, “You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one” (NIV).

When you and I are filled with the Spirit of God, we are—like Jesus—able to walk into a situation full of hate and bring peace. We can walk into a relationship full of anger and bring patience. We can enter into a conversation full of selfishness and bring love. When we think of creative works, we usually think of painting a picture or writing a song. But the heart of an artist is necessary when engaging in the work of the Kingdom. It

*THINK: Is there someone on your ministry team or in your church who you have easily categorized and written off? How could you begin seeing that person as an individual beyond those categories?

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requires us to walk into a situation and speak into existence that which has only been revealed in the unseen realm of the Spirit.

When I pass a homeless drug addict on the street, I can respond with my earthly, uncreative heart that sees what is before me. I can call him an addict. I can pass by and believe I am somehow better than he is. I can scoff at his irresponsibility.

Or I can choose to look on with the creative heart of God that sees something that is yet to exist.

God looks onto what seems like a dark canvas of nothingness and imagines a beautiful life—a life bearing all kinds of good fruit that nourishes those who come to eat of it.

Recently, I was talking with a friend who has lived and worked in Haiti for the last 27 years. He said, “The most difficult thing to overcome in Haitian culture is the pervasive mindset of ‘present hedonism.’” And it seems that statement is true for lots of Americans (especially American Christians) as well. We’re only concerned with the present, the now, today. We’ve lost the ability to dream. In short, his assessment is that one of the largest hurdles in Haiti is a lack of creativity.

So, as you and I enter into relationship with people, we must see the beauty of 2 Corinthians 3:18, in which Paul says we are being transformed “from glory to glory.” It’s the truth that God loves where we are, and if we are to move to a new place, He will take us there by means of His loving kindness. And God invites us, as His followers, to partner with Him in His work of reconciliation.

EMPOWERMENT: HELP PROVIDE THE TOOLS FOR INDIVIDUALS TO BE ALL THEY ARE MEANT TO BE Once we see that beautiful picture of what “can be,” it’s our natural propensity to begin doing the work to get us all to move there. But in this process, it’s important to remember another central tenet to the heart of the artist: empowerment.

In leading creatives, one of the things I’ve become passionate about is freeing them in their creativity. If we believe each member of the Body has been uniquely gifted for acts of service, we must also believe God is equipping them for those acts of service. Most often, I see artists leveraged in churches for someone else’s end goal. As a result, the artist is commissioned not into an honest expression, but to create a piece of entertainment viewers will enjoy on Sunday morning. So, what would it look like to move our view of people from leveraging to empowerment?

From an artistic perspective, perhaps we give the artist a theme for inspiration and invite her into an honest expression of who she is. Rather than dictating a set list for the band, we ask them to 40

write a song of their own. In our small groups, we stop telling leaders which curriculum to use and ask them to find something that aligns with the passions of what God is currently revealing to them.

Just as individuals are uniquely gifted and shaped, so too are our individual communities. And empowerment is key to discovering the expression of that uniqueness. But empowerment is messy.

It’s not prepackaged. And it’s certainly not easy.

It requires us to create an environment where mistakes will be made. The clock won’t always rule our gatherings. And sometimes, someone who’s not so eloquent might be holding the microphone.

But our organizations move from an attempt at a beautiful facade into a collective expression of honesty before the Lord.

of these things involve risk—another characteristic inside the heart of an artist.

We in the West have a cultural obsession with safety, and we often allow that to define our lives as Christians. We’ve spent the last several hundred years sterilizing our relationship with Christ into a religion that is neat, defined, predictable and systematic. We’ve worked hard to eliminate as much of the unknown as possible, and we wonder why we feel distant from a God who exists in the mysterious.

But God has called us to a life of abundance. He promises to do things far beyond what we can ask or imagine, and to enter into this abundance, we must move from our life of risk management and dive into the unpredictable life of Christ.

AS INDIVIDUALS ARE UNIQUELY GIFTED AND SHAPED, SO TOO ARE INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITIES. AND EMPOWERMENT IS KEY TO DISCOVERING THAT UNIQUENESS. What does empowerment mean for a leader?

It changes our role altogether. We move from providing services and programs that tell people what to do, and we move into providing tools to help individuals experience God firsthand.

The difficulty is that, when given the option, people would rather someone else live their spiritual lives for them. It’s much easier. So they give power to those on the payroll. And for the people on the payroll, doing the work is often much simpler than delegating the work. On top of that, we fall in lusty, eros love with power and fight to keep it.

But in order for us to have a community that is thriving spiritually, we must continually push responsibility back where it belongs. We must be steadfast in our fight against leveraging individuals in the work of building our own kingdom and redirect them toward actively engaging in the work of God’s Kingdom.

LOVE: ADOPT THE PROPER POSTURE One of the most intimidating things in life is presenting a creative work to the world for the first time. It’s a moment of extreme vulnerability that welcomes criticism. The same is true for everyday life. As you and I bear our full, authentic identities, there’s a potential for criticism. As we seek to engage with individuals on a unique and personal basis, we will inevitably enter into some difficult and painful relationships. As we hope for redemption, it might not always turn out as we expect.

Empowering individuals toward the work of the Kingdom will mean that sometimes not all the work will get done just the way we thought it would. All

The only hope for our ability to take these steps of faith is to truly understand, receive and live in the unconditional love of God. Fear leaves us paralyzed, but Christ’s “perfect love drives out fear.” When you and I are called to take a risk that might leave us flat on our fleshly faces, our only hope is to be firmly planted in the good ground of God’s love. It gives us freedom to do the unthinkable because we know that, even if all the world leaves us, God will never leave us nor forsake us.

And as we experience God’s love firsthand, we begin showing that same type of unconditional love to the people around us. It’s a reciprocal sentiment that fosters an environment of exponential risktaking creativity.

No matter where you are or what you’re doing right now, you have two options: You can continue creating a nice facade for your life and hide behind mundane niceties. Or you can be true to how God has molded and shaped you and pray for the best.

There are a million excuses for what’s preventing you from leading creatively, but ultimately, you are the only one who can take the step of faith.

Today, start trusting that the Creator knew what He was doing when He painted the unique you on the canvas of His world. Stand and show the world what He has made.

COLE NeSMITH is the creative director of Status, a church community in Orlando, Fla. He is also the creator of UncoverTheColor.com, an artist collective featuring visual, auditory and live media that churches can use in their gatherings.

THE SOUND OF A

COUNTER CULTURE JESUS CULTURE IS LEADING A MOVEMENT OF HOPE AMONG A GENERATION OF CYNICS

BY CJ CASCIOTTA

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NATHAN GRUBBS

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T

he Church often forgets Jesus chose average young people—outcasts who society had little faith in, headstrong kids full of unrefined passion and energy—to lead His movement.

Yet this is the genetic makeup of movement makers throughout history. Following suit is Jesus Culture, an international ministry cultivating revival among thousands of young people internationally through its conferences and worship experiences. Birthed out of one youth group’s imagination, Jesus Culture is the result of a few teenagers and twentysomethings hoping to create, as they say, “a new breed of emerging evangelists.”

In 1999, Banning Liebscher, a young pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, Calif., and his students decided to put on a youth conference aimed at serving other youth groups in the area.

At a time when phrases like “subculture” and “counterculture” were being thrown around the American evangelical church, Liebscher and his youth group (including worship leaders Kim Walker and Chris Quilala) desired a generation whose culture didn’t reflect an institution, music style, bracelet or T-shirt, but rather the attitude and posture of Christ Himself. They named the conference Jesus Culture with the hope God would show up, worship would transform and revival would begin to sprout.

Over the next several years, the group witnessed their expectations become realities. In 2005, they had enough funds to record a CD of their worship band, hoping sales would help expand their conference ministry and resource a conference in Atlanta. “We didn’t even know if the CD would sell,” Liebscher says. “We had no idea what we were doing at all, but we felt God was telling us to share what He was stirring in our community with an entire generation.”

More than 70 conferences and nine albums later (their most recent, Come Away, released last November), the result has been a warm reception from students worldwide. Now, Liebscher remains on Bethel’s leadership team as the director of Jesus Culture’s own staff.

Though many label this generation as apathetic, the Jesus Culture movement holds up a mirror to a different kind of demographic: young, motivated revivalists passionately pursuing more young, motivated revivalists. Liebscher, who has encountered thousands of young people through Jesus Culture, views this generation as one marked by passion, creativity and innovation. “This generation is growing up in the smallest world ever,” Liebscher says. “The world has become so connected that they’ve been given permission to dream bigger. Back in the day, the thought of changing the world was somewhat hard to wrap your brain around. Now, the ability to impact the nations through something as simple as a website is tangible.”

Liebscher adds that these qualities extend to young people globally, refuting the notion that the spiritual climate in regions

such as Europe is bleak and decaying. “We were doing a conference in Berlin where 2,700 people showed up and sold out the entire venue,” Liebscher says. “We had to turn away hundreds more. The passion in these young people’s worship and pursuit of God that night was inspiring. I didn’t even have time to preach because they were pursuing God so passionately through worship. Hope is alive and well in Europe, and it’s alive and well in the States. The generation we are seeing rise up is honestly embracing a lifestyle of holiness that is willing to consecrate fully to the Lord.”* So, what’s the disconnect? Why do people disregard this generation as detached and passive? Liebscher suggests that, while passionate and idealistic, today’s youth culture is also entitled. “They’re not like the World War II generation who understood what it meant to sacrifice in order to save a nation, or build a company. They’ve grown up in a world where things are given to them—fast. We encourage students to start revivals in their schools, and when it doesn’t happen in a week, they’re thrown off. There’s a short-term mentality.”

“THE GENERATION WE ARE SEEING RISE UP IS HONESTLY EMBRACING A LIFESTYLE OF HOLINESS.” —BANNING LIEBSCHER In addition to this need for instant gratification, there is a sense of cynicism among Generation Y toward the traditional Church and its subculture—and yet thousands are flocking to this new breed of “Christian” conferences all over the world. Liebscher believes it has to do with the younger generation’s desire for authenticity.

“Young people are on the search for the genuine,” he says. “I think the American church hasn’t been the best representation of authentic, genuine Christianity. In many churches, community and acceptance is based on looking and acting a certain way, all the while presenting a very controlling, angry God. I believe that if we can bring people into a true encounter with the God of the universe, they will encounter a God who is passionately in love with them, not angry with them, and they will give Him their lives.

That’s all Jesus Culture tries to do.”

Liebscher doesn’t attribute a five-year plan or strategic growth model to Jesus Culture’s favor. Rather, he points to their threefold leadership values. First, the group makes it a point to lead with a local heart. “We were never trying to make a name or be national,” Liebscher says. “We just wanted to impact our city.

When we did go national, our main goal was simply to export what the Lord was doing locally and try to encourage the body of Christ in other regions. Our focus, however, is local. It’s out of that focus we began to ask the question, ‘How can we serve?’”

*DISCUSS: Do you see a lifestyle of holiness in the young people at your church? How so?

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JESUS CULTURE LIVE Jesus Culture is holding a few conferences in 2011.

The first three took place in January— one in Redding, Calif., where the group started, and the other two in Australia. Their next event, Awakening, will be held in Chicago Aug. 3-5.

Hillsong United will also lead worship at that conference.

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They also espouse standing back to let God build their ministry, even when their instinct is to jump in. “I have some builder in me,” Liebscher says. “I love strategy and planning, but at the risk of using ‘Christianese,’ I honestly feel like we’ve just been trying to follow what the Lord is telling us and we’ve ended up here. It wasn’t like five years ago we mapped out this massive strategy—we just had dreams and words and Scriptures that came alive.”

“A LOT OF US PURSUE OUR POTENTIAL OVER THE PRESENT. BUT GOD CARES HOW WE FOLLOW HIM NOW.” —BANNING LIEBSCHER Finally, Jesus Culture considers it important to stay true to themselves—especially when it comes to expanding. “There’s a lot of internal pressure that begins to build once you start to grow,” Liebscher says. “Ideas like cutting down worship songs so they’re radio ready or shortening conference sessions to attract a wider audience begin to creep in your head. You begin looking at what other national movements are doing. I don’t think many leaders are great at gleaning from other leaders without feeling like they have to be them. It’s not even talked about, but it’s felt.

When we’re not convinced the Lord is building our ministry, we begin trying to build it ourselves. The goal is to remain confident in the specific mandate God has called us to carry out. We are genuinely trying to remain true to what our heart is, to go after

God, encounter His presence and serve this generation.”

Most people initially encountered Jesus Culture through a YouTube video featuring worship leader Kim Walker-Smith performing “How He Loves Us” at one of their events. The video now has more than 3 million views. Liebscher says the group didn’t post the video themselves. “Some kid put that up,” he says.

“We didn’t even have the idea. None of us even knew about it until someone finally told us it had gotten 250,000 plays.”

A constant struggle for most ministries is that of letting God build them instead of comparing themselves to others.

It’s a conflict Liebscher admits to wrestling with. “My mentor, Bill Johnson, says: ‘I want to be known in heaven. I want to be known in hell. I could care less if I’m known on the earth.’ A lot of us pursue our potential over the present. But God cares how we follow Him now.* I’m starting to realize this is becoming harder the bigger Jesus Culture gets. When all of a sudden money is coming in, there’s a staff relying on me or when iTunes doesn’t launch our album like we thought, it’s evident to a lot more people.”

From their humble beginnings, to reaching hundreds of thousands of people at their conferences and even more with their recordings, Jesus Culture continues in their mission to spur on a generation of evangelists. Liebscher understands it can be taken away at any moment—and he’s alright with it.

“I find myself constantly wrestling and processing, reminding myself this is God’s deal. If He wants to dismantle this whole thing, then that’s up to Him. I’m going to do the best I can. I’m going to keep pursuing Him. I’m going to continue carrying out my assignment from Him. But if He wants to take this whole thing away, that’s OK. I’ve found an immense amount of freedom in that.”

*THINK: How can you be intentional about doing ministry for the right now and not for the someday?

FOR RICHER OR POORER

IN MINISTRY AND NOT N avig ating th e pe culi ar challe nge s of be i ng married and i n mi ni str y toge the r

BY BONNIE McMAKEN

NO PASTOR IS AN ISLAND. Every ministry leader should be surrounded by a community of other Christians—peers and mentors.

For married pastors, a spouse can be the most valued member of this circle of support: a cheerleader, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to hear late-night rants, a voice of tempered reason during confusing ministry seasons.

But what if both spouses are in ministry? Can wife and husband both be the cheerleader for one another in a vocation that often brings joy and pain, blessing and curse? Can each spouse be fulfilled and grow? Can the marriage and 46

ministry both flourish? Most couples struggle with understanding how to love each other well, much less a church family and a hurting world.

We spoke with three ministry couples—Alan and Debra Hirsch, John and Nancy Ortberg, and Jarrett and Jeanne Stevens—about these questions. Even through difficult seasons, these couples realize the immeasurable value of ministering together as husband and wife. They all expressed they are better together than they are apart.

“Ministry” looks different for each of these couples. Collectively, they shepherd, preach, write, speak, travel the world, teach, serve their communities, mentor, empower other leaders and raise children.

Even though they have distinct callings and passions, they are all committed to God’s call on their lives and their marriages. We ask them about the joys of ministering together as a couple, complications that have arisen for them, and how ministry couples can be better in their marriages, churches, communities and the world.

THE MINISTRY OF MARRIAGE Marriage reflects an unseen reality of Christ and His bride, His church. In its skeletal structure, marriage ministers to the body of Christ and the world because it communicates the truth of our relationship with a loving God who pursues His people (Ephesians 5). Every Christian marriage is

called to live this reality, whether or not that couple is in full-time ministry.

For couples who are called to vocational ministry, however, they understand it’s not just a job—it’s a way of life, a commitment to the transformational power of the Gospel and its relevance in our world today.

Authors and teachers Alan and Debra Hirsch have served with one another in a variety of contexts since they’ve been married: ministering in the Church, writing, speaking, serving the gay and lesbian community and mentoring others.

They recently co-authored Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship (Shapevine) and are active participants and ministers within their church community, Tribe of L.A. Often living in a communal context, Alan and Debra invite others into their family by the openness they embody. They truly see ministry as an integral part of their life in Christ, not just a career. “One thing we often say to each other is that we want to remain on an adventure together as husband and wife,” Debra says.

WHAT WE CAN DO TOGETHER, WHAT WE CAN DO APART In his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul addresses the issue of ministry in the contexts of marriage and celibacy. Celibacy, he says, has particular benefits, for it focuses our sights on Christ and His Kingdom.

However, marriage gives Christians the opportunity to benefit from one of the world’s greatest mysteries. In his book Sacred Marriage, Gary Thomas asks, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” Becoming one with another person means facing sin and selfishness on a daily basis, sanctifying couples in profound ways.

At its best, marriage shouldn’t distract from the work of God’s Kingdom, even if it means being focused on another person first, as Paul says.

Instead, the sanctification process of marriage should make Christians more compassionate, loving persons. It should even strengthen their ministry as couples learn what it means to serve another person in this intimate communion.

In this way, husband and wife are more effective as a team. Alan Hirsch calls marriage “the classic example of synergy. We’ve done far more together than we could do apart. It’s hard to see what my own ministry would be like without Deb.” This synergy can take place in a variety of ministry situations. Some couples have very similar calls to minister—literally together—in

the same context. Jarrett and Jeanne Stevens, for example, are co-lead pastors and founders of their church, Soul City, in Chicago. Jeanne is author of Soul School; Jarrett wrote The Deity Formerly Known as God (both Zondervan).

“It’s not mandated that every couple has to have shared ministry,” Jeanne says. “We happen to have the same calling and complementary spiritual gifts, and we’re grateful to share in our ministry.”

Jarrett and Jeanne experience a great deal of liberation in knowing they’re not alone in their leadership. There’s another person to have their back not only in the home, but also in their ministry. “I love that there’s someone to share this ministry with,” Jarrett says. “I’m not in charge of making all the decisions on my own. It’s freeing to know God has gifted Jeanne in ways that complement me.”

Other couples, because of the nature of their gifts, realize they are not necessarily called to minister in the same context. Pastors and authors John and Nancy Ortberg know God has gifted them very differently: Nancy, author of Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands (Tyndale), co-founded a leadership consulting and coaching firm and uses her gifts to build into other leaders. John focuses on spiritual formation, shepherding and preaching as senior pastor of his church, Menlo Park Presbyterian in California. He also spends much of his time writing books, including his most recent, The Me I Want to Be (Zondervan).

“There’s a pretty individual nature to our gifts as they play out in a work setting,” Nancy says.

“When we work, it’s not necessarily in tandem like in our marriage.” But as a couple, they are able to strengthen one another in their unique ministries and give one another the independence to become who God has made them to be.

Two lives becoming one are not watered down by the marital union. In a healthy marriage, husband and wife each become stronger not only as a team, but as individuals as well. “Marriage obviously helps us understand the concept of becoming ‘one flesh,’” Debra Hirsch says. “But at the same time, in marriage you become more of your own person; your understanding of yourself and your own passions become even clearer.”

THE UPS AND DOWNS In the traditional marriage liturgy, husband and wife vow their commitment to each other in a number of circumstances: for better, for worse, in sickness, in health, for richer, for poorer. But what about committing to each other in ministry, a life

that often includes the difficulties these marriage vows address? When husband and wife are both called to the messy work of ministry, there are a number of factors—external and internal—to navigate. Here are some areas of concern for any couple in a ministry marriage:

Find Your Focus Most couples will admit to struggling with ministry focus at one point or another. “When [Alan and I] were first married, we wanted to change the world,” Debra Hirsch says. “But we spread ourselves too thin in our ambition.” Now, the couple says they have focused and crafted their particular gifts. “We know we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be,” Alan says. “The Holy Spirit has been really clear in our lives.”

Without a unique purpose, a marriage might last, but it can become aimless. Or, if a couple is in ministry, they can become frenzied, dabbling in a variety of ministries but never really becoming effective in any of them. Even if a husband and wife don’t share any of the same spiritual gifts or interests, God has called that couple to something special. Defining the roots of their separate calls and how their passions merge can focus their time, gifts, energy and money toward that goal.*

Combat Jealousy John Ortberg says it’s important to ask: “How do I feel like my ministry is going? How do I feel like my spouse’s ministry is going? How does her [or his] ministry make me feel about mine?”

For example, when Nancy began to exercise her gifts in leadership formation and see fruit from her ministry, John saw his own lack of the same gifts. “It was a real challenge to realize my wife has a gift that I thought I had, but I don’t,” he says. “It was painful. Eventually, though, I found immense freedom to be able to say, ‘If I can let go of my need to have a particular gift, I will actually be a much happier person.’ I want to be the kind of person who can watch my spouse grow and flourish while I cheer that on.”

Nancy adds: “It’s easier to compare when you’re married. You have to see your own gifts clearly apart from the other person and then be genuinely excited about the gifts in your spouse.”

Make Boundaries a Priority … Again The issue of boundaries inevitably arises in conversations with ministry couples. It’s a topic that recycles itself again and again, always relevant, always complicated.

*ACT: It may seem cheesy, but write out a mission statement for your marriage. Pray through it together and discuss specific ways each of you is working and living toward that goal now.

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“I WANT TO BE THE PERSON WHO CAN WATCH MY SPOUSE GROW AND FLOURISH WHILE I CHEER THAT ON.” —JOHN ORTBERG To handle the demands of a new church and prevent leadership or marital burnout, Jarrett and Jeanne Stevens have focused their energy to build up and empower other leaders. “In a young church with a lot of needs, Jarrett and I could try to meet every one of those needs,” Jeanne says. “[Instead], we’ve built a team around us that meets those needs with us.”

Jarrett and Jeanne are also intentional about how they set boundaries in their personal lives.

“A lot of couples in ministry create boundaries and think that’s all they have to do,” Jeanne says. ”They forfeit the boundaries right away. You have to teach people to honor your boundaries.”

For John and Nancy Ortberg, the boundaries conversation is an ongoing one. When their kids were younger, Nancy says, “they would have to gently remind us, ‘No church talk at the dinner table.’” Now that they’re no longer working in the same setting, John says: “[Nancy and I] meet together every few weeks and think through different ministry opportunities. We decide together what to say yes to and what to say no to.

It’s part of the rhythm of our life.”

Healthy couples—in marriage and ministry— work through boundaries over and over again, even when it seems laborious.

Create a Plan for Ministering Together It’s important to set ground rules for ministering together. Jarrett and Jeanne Stevens know they 48

have to be on the same page on decisions: “We never want to be a two-headed monster, confusing people because one of us said one thing, while the other said something completely different.”

When the Ortbergs were both working at the same church, they had a motto: “When we’re at work, we’re not married.” They chose to sit separately in meetings and had an understanding that they would ask provocative questions of one another, just as they would with another coworker.

This will look different for each couple, and flexibility is crucial. But when couples have a foundation of understanding about exactly how it will work for them to be spouses and coworkers, their ministry will be more effective and they will avoid misunderstandings later at home.

Find What Makes You Healthy Every couple mentioned the importance of rhythm, the idea that all life is best lived with holy order.

This rhythm is unique for every marriage, but should include date nights, observing the Sabbath, sabbaticals and other “unforced rhythms of grace” (Matthew 11:28, MSG).

For the Ortbergs, this rhythm means, as Nancy says, “living inside your marriage really well, with a lot of joy. We talk about theology and church, which is really fun, but we also try to find things we both enjoy outside of work. We don’t want to lose that.”* As in all things, who couples choose to surround themselves with can also build their marriages.

*THINK: What do you most enjoy talking to your spouse about—that isn’t ministry-related?

“It’s been really helpful to have a group of people around us who really care about us,” Jeanne Stevens says. “About our marriage, about whether we’re having date nights. I’m sure they receive blessing from our friendship, but it’s not our sole responsibility to care for them … they’re able to care for us.”

Jarrett adds: “Of course we have mentors and personal counsel. But we also just need friends who we can laugh with, see a movie with, friends that fill our souls. Jeanne and I try to find friends who we want to be like. That’s really important in ministry—to have friends apart from mentoring and accountability.”

Personal health is also vital, especially if a couple ministers together. “Not everything has to be done together. One of the greatest gifts I can bring to Jeanne and our church,” Jarrett says, “is that I’m taking responsibility for my own spiritual growth and fostering my own relationships completely outside of Jeanne.”

Minister to Your Spouse First “This week, John is working on a sermon that a lot of people will be helped by,” Nancy Ortberg says.

“But this morning, he turned on the heat before he left and brought me the newspaper. And those two things mean a lot more to me when the week is over.” How couples live their domestic lives is worth as much, and probably more, than their public ministry lives.

“A critical part of your ministry is your ministry to your spouse,” John says. Critical. Nonnegotiable. What if a pastor’s ministry is visibly “successful,” but his marriage is hurting? Or what if a pastor feels intimate with the Lord, but her husband is going through a spiritual desert?

Leaders won’t always be completely in sync spiritually with their spouse. But when they see their marriage as their primary ministry context, they become pastors to one another, sharpening and challenging one another through fruitful seasons, and offering grace, counsel and understanding through dry times.

“I know a lot of people who have an ‘effective ministry’ and a struggling marriage who aren’t happy,” John Ortberg says. “I don’t know anyone who has a great marriage and a struggling ministry who is deeply unhappy.”

Ministry isn’t something to do apart from the home and family; ministry begins in the home.

Living a life in Christ means being constantly under His reign, submitting to Him in all things.

Pastors can minister His grace wherever they find themselves, especially in their marriages.

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IDEAS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH

WHERE HAVE ALL THE BAPTISTS GONE?

BY ROXANNE WIEMAN

WE ASK NEW SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION PRESIDENT BRYANT WRIGHT ABOUT THE FUTURE OF DENOMINATIONS IN THE 21st CENTURY IN 2010, BRYANT WRIGHT, FOUNDING PASTOR of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Atlanta, was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention. His election marks a new season for the SBC as they face declining membership numbers and a steep drop in baptisms. We talked to the new president about this trend away from denominations and what role he believes denominations will play in the future of the Church.

What made you decide to take on the role of president over the SBC? About this time last year I began to get calls from pastors in different parts of the country asking me to pray about it, and I was really floored by that. So I began to pray, and over about a three-month period, with my wife praying with me, sensed the Lord was leading me to have a willingness to serve. When you are nominated, you don’t know you’ll be elected, but [you need] to have a willingness to serve. I

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came to have a peace about that. I know for sure, looking back on the experience, if there had not been a large contingent of younger pastors at the convention, I would not have been elected. Those younger pastors were somehow identifying with me and perhaps how we approach ministry at Johnson Ferry, and they are a key reason why I was elected.

we [at Johnson Ferry] want to have an unchanging message but ever-changing methodologies. We don’t want to compromise the message, but we want to always be wide open to how the Lord is leading in new ways of reaching people in today’s culture. I think that was also a point of identity with the younger pastors.

What do you think that reason is?

What are some of your goals?

Well, it’s hard for me to speak for all those younger pastors, but I will say this: I may be the first church planter ever elected president. I don’t know if that’s the case, but at least in my lifetime I don’t know of anybody. So many of the younger pastors are passionate about church planting, I think that was a point of identity with them. Plus, unlike a lot of church planters, I’ve stayed at the church rather than every three or four years going and planting a new church. God has blessed us in those years of being here as the church has grown. Second,

First of all, urging people to return to their first love of Christ. I realize that’s not a measurable goal.

But I do think in the Church today we have allowed materialism, and hedonism, and workaholism, and technology obsession and all of these things to have a stronghold in people’s lives. And the Church has suffered for it. I try to tell everyone that comes on our staff, when I meet with them: “Look, the biggest temptation you’re going to have when you come into full-time vocational ministry is not usually the traditional temptations of money, sex, power. The

biggest temptation is going to be substituting your ministry for your relationship with Jesus.” Second, [a] global missions emphasis. I’m challenging Southern Baptist churches that aren’t doing this to take at least one mission trip in 2011 and urging them strongly to see if their pastor goes, because if a pastor doesn’t catch the vision, it’s going to be hard to keep it going in the life of the church. There’s just no way to describe the impact [mission trips] have in people’s lives—in giving them a world vision and giving them more passion about reaching their neighbor when they get home, from sharing their faith abroad. That’s something I’m very passionate about. Thirdly, out of that, I believe, in our giving to denominational missions, we’ve kept way too much money in the States. The majority of the money for our denominational mission fund stays in the States. And I feel like that’s just something that really needs to change, and I think more and more younger pastors see that and are less willing for their church to support denominational global missions because they see how much stays.

Especially in the Bible Belt areas, we need to see more dollars going outside the States.

What do you think has led to so many churches going nondenominational?

The builder generation, those that really were born during or before World War II, were very loyal to the company, to the denomination, to the local civic club, to the family. It’s just a very loyal generation, and then the [baby] boomers come along and that sense of loyalty hasn’t been there. You began to see a shifting away from denominational priority. We not only live in a post-Christian culture in America—we live in a post-denominational culture. And we can sit around and lament it and complain about it and plead with people to be loyal, and that is going to fall on deaf ears. Denominations have value when we feel we can do more together than we can do alone. We just have to go about doing ministry in the best possible way that makes it attractive, because calling for loyalty in a post-denominational world is just not going to work. Unless we are really excelling at church planting, unless we are really excelling at how we approach reaching this world for Christ in missions, people are going to go where they feel people are excelling. That’s just the world we live in, and let’s recognize it and try to make the best of it. We want to be a Kingdom-minded church.

*DISCUSS: Are you part of a denomination? Why or why not?

Christ didn’t come to start denominations. He came to start the dawning of the Kingdom of God. That needs to be our priority and that needs to be the denominational priority.

Do you think denominations are in their death throes?

I really don’t think so. But in saying postdenominational world, I know that probably sounds like I’m speaking out of both sides of my mouth. Even though it is a post-denominational world, you have the Willow Creek Association, the churches out of the North Point model. [With those you] really have a mini denomination— it’s just not the formality of it yet. I think that indicates people still need larger groups they can identify with in both their beliefs and how they do ministry. It could be that some of the present denominations are not going to make it, that’s a possibility. That’s why there is such an urgent need for our denomination to really have a vital impact on fulfilling Christ’s great commission, because otherwise we won’t make it either. But I think there is always a need for doing more together than we can do as one local church.

Is there a sense of panic among denominational leaders, or are they making the best of it?

I wish there was a greater sense of urgency. And I really commend the previous president, Johnny Hunt, that he at least had the courage to identify we were no longer growing as a denomination.

The baptisms and the indicators of really reaching people, they really haven’t been doing well at all.

He set up a study, a task force, to look at some structural things as well as priority focuses we could do that have been very helpful to us.

Denominations, like local churches, can come and go. We have to just be constantly seeking the will of God and calling on the spirit of the Lord to empower us to fulfill Christ’s mission. If we do not, then there is a slow death that occurs.

Why is it still worth it for a church to be part of a denomination?

We can do more together than we can independently.* I certainly understand some are still going to desire to go the nondenominational approach because they want to avoid any kind of

label they see as restrictive in fulfilling the mission.

Of course, every mission church we’ve started— every single one of them—has chosen to leave “Baptist” out of the name, which is fine; we give them the freedom to do that. They feel it helps them in reaching an unchurched culture [without] the denominational barriers there, even though they are Southern Baptist.

How much does public perception outside the denomination affect how people inside the denomination feel?

I think the fact that we have come across more anti certain issues than focused on Christ, it just makes it a big challenge for us in reaching people outside our churches. But if you’re going to be biblical, there are going to be certain moral values contrary to culture. It’s just a tension we have to live with. I think the one thing we could do better at is to not confuse legalism with biblical morality, and I think a lot of times that has been the case.

Is that in the eye of the beholder?

I think the average lost person doesn’t know the difference between legalism and biblical morality— they just see what the church is standing for. But I think inside, when we get that confused, it’s not healthy for the local church. That’s a challenge. The best way to overcome that is when the individual members have a Christ-like spirit and character and mission. Nobody is more devoted to the Father’s will than Jesus, but nobody was more loved by the lost sinners than Jesus. Religious people didn’t like Him, but sinners loved Him. That says a lot. We need to remember that the longer people are in church, they tend to become like the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son. We need to be very cautious—we tend to become more like Pharisees than like Jesus in spirit and character. I think that happens in any denomination or tradition.

What are you hoping your legacy of leadership will be over the denomination?

If anything, I just hope I have been a good influence for people loving Jesus more than anyone and anything. And secondly, to be a good influence on reaching this world for Christ—especially in our global missions area—in a way that really moves the Church forward in that regard.

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AVOIDING PASTORAL BURNOUT

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BY FRED ANTONELLI

B

eing a pastor isn’t simply showing up on Sunday and then settling into a restful week. It’s a full-time commitment to your church and your community—and it can sometimes prove overwhelming. Many leaders find it hard to drum up the desire to go to work. While the pastorate used to be exciting, now they’re just tired, and it takes a great deal of effort to get out of bed. Have you ever found yourself in this position? Maybe you’ve wondered: What’s wrong with me? Why do I have to fight the very thing I used to love? Why does almost every day appear to be a spiritual, emotional and physical chore? Why am I feeling so pastorally lethargic?

Is it possible for a “God-commissioned” pastor to hit a wall in ministry? Wouldn’t God’s call and grace prevent burnout?

These are typical questions, transdenominationally, asked by pastors throughout the country. The issue of burnout for those in ministry is becoming more and more pervasive as a result of current socio-emotional pressures, and it can be brought on by a couple of unavoidable factors confronting pastors on a daily basis. First, having to face the pressures of social and relational interaction with others in the church who are in different places in life. In other words, trying to be

“all things to all people” and finally coming to the realization that you can’t, even though you feel you need to continue to do so. And second, having to face, often on a visceral and private level, spiritual, emotional and, in some cases, moral incongruities in your life that tend to hamper your ability to feel useful in the ministry, or even at times loved

by God. This brings unrealized anxiety and even guilt into the shepherding experience, which only exacerbates your ability to be an effective minister.

The combination can be emotionally draining.

Many high-level ministry leaders have fallen into moral failure in the past 10 years, wiping out the perception that pastors aren’t adversely affected by everyday life struggles. It would do pastors well to catch a glimpse of themselves through Walt Kelly’s famous cartoon Pogo when he said, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

Pastors’ objectivity of their strengths and weaknesses can be blurred if they’re not looking at themselves through the right lens. And if pastors don’t bring their perception into proper balance within their overall environment, the outcome could prove to be unpleasant at best and devastating at worst.

Statistics in the last seven years on pastoral burnout have begun to surface with alarming concerns. Even within our practice here at Life Counseling Center in Easton, Md., where we counsel pastors throughout the country, we have found a significant increase in pastoral issues.

The concerns are notable and widespread. They include an increase in levels of stress, anxiety and depression. An increase in inappropriate sexual

anger. An increase in feeling lonely and alone in the ministry. Having few to no close friends. Feeling they cannot go to their denomination or fellowship with their personal struggles. A sense of spiritual apathy and at times abandonment from God. The problem of sexual addiction alone within the ministry is becoming more infectious than originally thought. Conservatively, at least 3-6 percent of the adult U.S. population struggles with sexual addiction. This type of acting out (viewing pornography, soliciting prostitutes, having affairs, etc.) isn’t as important as the pattern and reasons driving it. According to Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., “an addiction is a pattern of unmanageable behavior that continues despite someone’s efforts to stop.”

Sexual addiction is an intimacy disorder—using sexual activity or a relationship in a desperate search for connection, affirmation or love.

Sexual addiction is often, however certainly not always, woven into the dynamics and causes that contribute and help set up the traits that can lead to pastoral burnout.

Preventing Burnout Though it may seem unavoidable, there are steps leaders can take to prevent burnout. Practicing self-care is the right thing for everyone to do— including pastors. Jesus gave us examples in the Gospels where He stepped away from the limelight and retreated to a quiet place to commune with His Father. These quiet (retreating) times spent with God added some very important emotional and spiritual benefits to a calling of great demand. Here are some ministerial “escape hatch” suggestions:

THE ISSUE OF BURNOUT FOR THOSE IN MINISTRY IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE PERVASIVE. behavior and/or affairs. A significant increase in pornography addiction (which raises levels of guilt, shame, condemnation and a low sense of self, which can render the pastor ineffective when it comes to their call). An increase in marital conflict, separation or even divorce. A notable increase in “approval addiction,” which stems from their family of origin. (This often shows up in rejection issues with the father.) An increase in family conflict and

Set Realistic Goals Set specific goals so you will know when you have achieved them. Of course you want to save the world, but you are not going to do it alone. Become conscious of your strengths and weaknesses. The Apostle Paul wisely said, “When I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10, NIV). It was his acknowledgement of his weaknesses that set

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the stage for the strengths that had been given to him. Without the former, there cannot be a true, objective understanding of the latter.

Where there are no realistic goals, there are only unrealistic expectations. This frame of mind sets you on course for failure and potential burnout.

Fitzhugh Dobson said, “Without goals and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.” Learn to not overburden yourself with unrealistic goals; it dumbs down your God-given strengths and adds unnecessary anxiety to your life.

So learn to relax and acknowledge Jesus as the one who can take care of them better than anyone else—including you.

UNLESS THE CAUSE OF BURNOUT IS CLEARLY ADDRESSED, THEN ALL THAT’S LEFT ARE THE SYMPTOMS.

You are not indispensable, and you do some pretty funny things. Pastors and ministry leaders need to know two things. First, you’re not perfect, you never will be and imperfect people do imperfect things—that’s just life. And second, realize that, even in your imperfection, you’re made in God’s image—and He’s pretty great. So lighten up, don’t allow yourself to be so serious and make sure to delight in the joy of the Lord on a daily basis.

Take Breaks This includes different kinds of breaks, from coffee breaks to lunch breaks (don’t catch up on work during that time—leave the office). Also, make it a point to take one day off a week, and leave town if you have to. Don’t forget about vacations—you can’t go, go, go all year, year after year, and expect to not burn out.

See your life as a leader as you see the dashboard of your car. When you see a red light or two flash on the dashboard, you probably address it ASAP. If not, there is a great likelihood it may leave you broken down on the side of the road.

There should be no difference in the life of a pastor. If you’re not addressing the “red lights” flashing on your “life’s dashboard,” then chances are they will address you—sooner rather than later. If you’re not doing things that are taking care of you, then you’re most likely on the path to burnout.

You Are Not Responsible for Everything that Goes Wrong The people in your community and their problems were around before you got there and will no doubt be around when you’re gone. Personally taking on parishioner issues only increases your own.

You are not emotionally, intellectually or spiritually capable of meeting everyone’s needs. As Abraham Lincoln said, “You can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time.”

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Leave Your Work at Work When you come home to your family, enjoy them.

Learn to “unstring your bow” at the door and don’t bring your war mentality into the house. If not, they will end up looking like those you’ve been battling with all day, and they will inevitably get caught in the crossfire.

Learn to Laugh at Yourself

Have a Support System You need someone to encourage you and serve as a yardstick against which you can measure yourself realistically. Sometimes pastors find it difficult to talk with other pastors about their issues because of doctrinal/theological differences, similarity struggles or just a sense of not being able to relate. Often the close support partner you need to connect with is not a leader in the church or even a parishioner.

Men in particular usually find it difficult to engage on a personal level with another man.

This is greatly compounded if you happen to be a pastor. Your persona alone as a spiritual leader puts you in a “higher” category with both the church and the community you reside in. This is a tall order and, to some degree, an unfair one. I’ve often said that a pastor in the ministry must have either heard their call clearly from God, or have a strange longing for spiritual and emotional cruelty.

Pastors are no different than any other person going through real life issues in real life ways.

However, often they are not treated as such and consequently are expected to reach a standard others find difficult to reach themselves. Having a support system with the right people, people who can be trusted, is absolutely crucial for professional stability. Also, there must be a true and honest longing to engage with the support system in order for legitimate healing and safeguards to take place.

Live a Life of Your Own Get a hobby—seriously. Find an activity you enjoy

doing regularly. Hobbies offer a time of relaxation and are an ideal way to relieve the pressures of a demanding day. Being able to come home from work and sit down to enjoy your favorite pastime helps to take your mind off of the stresses clinging to you. Hobbies also help you unwind before going to bed so you can get a better night’s sleep, which is worth its weight in gold in terms of “fresh energy” for the next day.

Have Maintenance “Therapy” at Least Four Times a Year Attend sessions with a professional licensed Christian counselor a few times a year. This should be a financial commitment the local church makes as an investment toward the overall well-being of their pastor.

The benefits will prove greatly valuable in terms of emotional and spiritual stability. There are times when the challenges of attempting to meet so many people’s needs in the ministry become absolutely overwhelming. As a result, this may lead to isolation, a low sense of self, anxiety, depression and other health-related problems. Through counseling, you can explore your alternatives, have a “safe” venue to express your frustrations, build on your strengths and develop new skills. For those pastors who have incorporated this form of professional Christian therapy into their lives, it has ended up “covering a multitude of sin” in multiple ways. In the end, the investment well outweighs the potential deficits.* Pastoral burnout involves a cycle of disappointments, anxiety, depression, failure and insecurity that leads to greater disappointments, deeper anxiety, ongoing depression and more failure and insecurity. Unless the cause of burnout is clearly addressed, then all that’s left are the symptoms, and dealing with the symptomatic aspects of burnout is like trying to sip water through a straw with holes in it—you get a little refreshment but not nearly the amount needed to quench your thirst. The bad news is, if left unattended, the factors causing burnout will only intensify and get worse. The good news is, if you want to deal with the cause, then there remains a wonderful promise: “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!”

(Ephesians 3:20, MSG)

FRED ANTONELLI, PH.D., LPC is a former senior pastor of 23 years and founder/director of Life Counseling Center, Inc., which has offices throughout the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware.

*ACT: Make an assessment of how you’re doing in each of these categories. Where are you most in need of developing healthy routines?

IS YOUR CHURCH PRODUCING PEOPLE WHO EMBODY KINGDOM HOLINESS?

BY SCOT McKNIGHT

CHURCHES PERFORM THE GOSPEL. Every church in the world embodies the Gospel.

Churches embody the Gospel in the quality of discipleship in the lives of individuals, and churches embody the Gospel in the quality of life the church exhibits as a body. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not that every church in the world embodies the full Gospel, or the glorious Gospel or even the best parts of the Gospel.

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No church is perfect because no Christians are perfectâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;let alone a collection of Christians. There is always some imbalance between the Gospel a church teaches and the Gospel a church embodies or performs. Whether a church chooses to or not, that church embodies a Gospel.

Which raises a central question: What kind of disciple is your church community producing? Is

*DISCUSS: What kind of disciple is your church currently aiming to produce? How are you doing?

your church producing a full-Gospel disciple or something else?

EXACTLY WHAT THEY AIM AT Harry Caray, the late and much loved Chicago Cubs announcer, used to quip that on a given day the Cubs got what they aimed at: nothing. The same is often true for churches when it comes to discipleship.*

It might sound unduly harsh, but many churches embody a kind of discipleship they are (sadly) aiming at: nothing.

They’ve got all the right programs, and they’ve got a preacher who can preach the congregation’s socks off, and they’ve got a band that rocks the house, but the average Christian leaves a week-to-week routine of attendance to live a week-to-week routine of … going on with what they go on with.

The church runs well, the money comes in, the money goes out, but discipleship doesn’t happen unless it’s intentional and personal and concrete and developmental and adjustable. But this takes careful planning—like weeks working on a mission statement and set of outcomes, exploring how those outcomes can be achieved, working with people to achieve those outcomes at a personal level, and then assessing both the people and the outcomes to see what needs to be done next. It is far easier to gather, sing songs, preach and go home.

You get what you aim at.

YOU WORK IT OUT Accompanying the previous approach, often enough, is either a conscious or an unconscious belief that the church services and programs provide the goods, but it’s up to the individual person to do the shopping and consuming. This, too, sounds a bit harsh. But some churches think the way to operate is to give individuals a maximum of choice and options, and then encourage each person to figure out what they need and make their own judgments.

Thus, the church has a genuine Sunday school program, encourages people to read authors like Richard Foster or Dallas Willard or John Piper, and offers conferences and retreats, among other resources. But the church is mostly hands-off and expects individual Christians to figure things out. This laissez-faire approach to discipleship is more the norm than most of us care to admit.

Individuals get what they aim at.

MASTER THE DISCIPLINES Many churches are “into” spiritual formation. By this I mean the practice of the spiritual disciplines, and by these I mean those listed in Richard Foster’s famous Celebration of Discipline. Practice and mastery of the disciplines is often then equated with being a disciple. What are the disciplines?

Meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship,

guidance and celebration. Dallas Willard put philosophical muscle on this structure of Foster’s in his famous book The Spirit of the Disciplines.

But discipleship is more than disciplines.

In fact, Jesus’ approach to discipleship wasn’t through the mastery of the classic disciplines of either the Eastern or Western churches. Not to overdo this, but Jesus didn’t expect His audiences to read the Bible daily, because very few Jews could even read. The standard estimation is that no more than 10 percent of Jews could read.

Nor did Jesus overtly teach the disciplines as a means of fostering deeper intimacy with God. I’m a bit hesitant to put that last sentence into print for fear of being misunderstood, so let me clarify: Our concern with personal intimacy seems instinctual, but no one talked quite like this in the New Testament. And I don’t mean to say they didn’t pray or talk to God or have a deep relation with God—for they did. But I’m unconvinced they saw the disciplines exactly the way we do today.

The disciplines are very important, but there is …

holiness.” For Jesus, a disciple is someone marked by kingdom holiness—a life that has been captured by Jesus and swallowed up into God’s Kingdom work in this world and beyond.

There are seven dimensions of kingdom holiness:

A Right Understanding of Kingdom Any reading of the Gospels leads us immediately to the word “kingdom” and then to ask what Jesus means by that term. “Kingdom” is Jesus’ comprehensive and all-embracing term to describe God’s mission in this world. We’ve got to erase the idea in our heads that “kingdom” means “heaven” or the place we go when we die.

In the Jewish world of Jesus, the word “kingdom” immediately evoked these ideas: a king, a land, citizens and a law for those citizens. “Kingdom” meant “all that God has ever promised for his people Israel.”

The remarkable thing for Jesus’ first hearers is Jesus said the Kingdom—the long-awaited

MANY CHURCHES EMBODY A KIND OF DISCIPLESHIP THEY ARE (SADLY) AIMING AT: NOTHING. ANOTHER WAY There are many useful, God-honoring programs and books we have developed to help us in our walk with the Lord. I benefited greatly in high school from a book called The Way by Godfrey Robinson and Stephen Winward, and then my pastor gave me a series of booklets published (if I remember correctly) by Campus Crusade for Christ and I worked through them. They pushed me forward in my journey.

As a lifelong observer of discipleship programs, in part because I came of age as a Christian when the word “disciple” was becoming popular in the 1970s, I have a serious interest in how we look at discipleship. And my plea is that we would go back to Jesus and to the Gospels to see how He defines a disciple.

There are seven themes that set the tone and tenor for how Jesus understood discipleship, and these seven themes ought to be the top items we are concerned with in our discipleship programs.

Until we get these seven themes to the surface, we will likely get stuck in programs that produce thinner disciples than Jesus expects and become satisfied with less than what I’m calling “kingdom

completion of God’s promises and plans—was about to appear on earth. Jesus said: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15, TNIV).

A disciple of Jesus is someone caught up in Jesus’ kingdom.

Dreaming for God’s Kingdom I love the parables of Jesus, but I think we’ve flattened them. The parables of Jesus are to be read—or better yet, listened to as someone else reads them aloud—the way we read short stories. I’m partial to the short stories of Flannery O’Connor and Ernest Hemingway, but I wonder if you could ponder a moment how you read your favorite storyteller. What happens? You enter into the world they create and wait on every move they make—only to be led by their words into what they want you to see and hear and experience.

Jesus’ parables are just like that. We are to hear them, imagine them and let Jesus guide us into the world He creates in those short stories.

In those stories, the current world of Jesus— and ours too—is subverted. Our sense of power, our sense of passion, our sense of success, our

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Worth Reading

Giving Church Another Chance Todd D. Hunter IVP Books Hunter suggests fully taking in traditional spiritual practices— and then taking them out into the world to help others.

The Jesus Creed Scot McKnight Paraclete Press McKnight focuses on one of the most simple yet important teachings from Jesus: love your neighbors as yourself.

The Shaping of a Life Phyllis Tickle Image

The Radical Disciple John Stott IVP Books

Filled with sweeping Southern landscapes, Tickle’s memoir recounts her spiritual journey and how ancient disciplines formed her faith.

In his last book, Stott discusses critical points of being a disciple. The book also includes the last public sermon he ever preached.

sense of how to live—all these things are turned inside out and upside down.

Sit down with Mark 4, pray before you read, and then read the parables aloud (or have someone read them to you) and go where Jesus takes you— He will take you to the edge of the universe and show you what a Kingdom world looks like.

A disciple is someone who is lost in the Kingdom dream of Jesus.

Love Jesus reduced the Torah of Israel, all 613 commandments and prohibitions, to the rockbottom essence when He said the whole law hangs from the commandment to love God with our whole being and the commandment to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:38-42).

A disciple is someone who loves God and loves others with everything they’ve got.

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Justice This theme is causing unusual consternation among (some) older evangelicals. The paradox is that no one in the Bible was more committed to doing justice and bringing about justice than Jesus—just read Luke 4:16-30 or 6:20-26—but unfortunately, many think this term has been captured by one political party.

But this is where we are wrong, and where we need Jesus to do some subverting: the word “justice” in the Bible (tsedeq, mishpat, dikaiosyne) does not mean the principle values of Western liberal democracies, but actions and conditions that reflect God’s will for this world as taught

by Jesus. Justice is about evangelism, love, holiness, purity and compassion.

A disciple is someone radically committed to doing what Jesus teaches and working toward conditions that reflect those teachings.

A disciple is someone who is wise and seeks wisdom.

Church This one hurts some of the most vocal Christian speakers and writers in our world. Individualism is on steroids today, but the truth is there is no such thing as an unchurched disciple of Jesus.

The church is the place where discipleship occurs, and when it occurs outside the context of a local community of Jesus followers, it is not the Kingdom vision of Jesus.

Jesus’ favorite word was “kingdom.” That word speaks of a society where God’s will is done. Jesus was the Lord, and a Lord has those who submit to and follow Him. Jesus was the Servant and those who follow Him serve with Him together. Jesus formed a family, those who do the will of God.

JESUS’ CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP IS NOT A CALL TO GO IT ALONE WITH JESUS. IT IS A CALL TO GO IT TOGETHER UNDER JESUS.

Peace If the word “justice” brings a snarl to some older evangelicals today, the word “peace” did it to the older folks when I was coming of age. Peace meant John Denver and John Lennon, and since they were into mind-altering substances, peace was also a mushy idea. One more time, let’s let Jesus subvert us and subvert our culture. Jesus wants “biblical peace.” What does it look like?

You might be surprised to read what the Bible says: material prosperity; loving relationships with God, family, Israel and other nations; and moral goodness and integrity. Blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus said.

A disciple is someone who is at peace and works for peace.*

Wisdom The most prized virtue in Jesus’ very Jewish world was wisdom. How often have you seen a book on discipleship that aims at wisdom? There is nothing peculiar about what Jesus thinks of wisdom except He thinks what Israel taught in its Scriptures: wisdom is living in this world in God’s way, as taught by Jesus.

Jesus’ call to discipleship is not a call to go it alone with Jesus. It is a call to go it together under Jesus. Discipleship according to Jesus takes place in the context of fellow followers of Jesus. In other words, when Jesus uses the word “kingdom,” he intends for His followers, once they are filled with the Spirit of God, to be the Church, the body of Christ in this world.

A disciple is someone who lives out her or his calling in the context of a local church.

DISCIPLES EMBODY DISCIPLESHIP AS TAUGHT BY JESUS Every church embodies the Gospel. They do so in the form of discipleship that the Christians in that community live. We need to be challenged all over again to embody the kingdom holiness vision of discipleship that our Lord, King Jesus, taught us.

SCOT McKNIGHT is the Karl A. Olsson professor of religious studies at North Park University. He is the author of One. Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow (Zondervan).

*THINK: “Peace” isn’t just a political word, of course. The key is to help people live so they are bringing peace to their homes, workplaces and neighborhoods.

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Here are a few of the things we’re enjoying these days for inspiration, motivation—and an occasional moment of amusement.

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TeachParentsTech.org | We’ve all been the IT guy for our parents at some point, taking phone calls about how to properly attach a photo to an email. But now, Google has come to the rescue. Just send Mom or Dad a “care package” with instructional videos on everything from checking the weather online to changing the desktop background.

TerraCycle.net | See that old Capri Sun on your floor? TerraCycle wants to use it to make a fence.

This creative eco-friendly company collects your waste for free and turns it into a variety of products for your home, garden, office or school.

OnionSportsNetwork.com | Miss an episode of Onion SportsDome, a hilarious (and fabricated) sports news show airing on Comedy Central? Don’t worry, this site is the show’s online companion. It’s perfect for those who like their sports news timely, interesting and entirely fake.

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READ

Quo Vadis | Don’t be scared off by the word jumble on this classic’s cover. Henryk Sienkiewicz won a Nobel Prize for this 1896 novel, an early Christendom love story that explores the spiritual and political climate of ancient Rome.

The Story of God, the Story of Us | Sometimes it’s easy to forget the Bible is full of real people living in community, with families, jobs, fears, hopes and faith—like us. Intended for public presentation, this book

by Sean Gladding brings to life the conversations and stories of some of Scripture’s poignant passages.

Unshaken | One of the most amazing stories from Haiti’s earthquake was of Dan Woolley, a photographer with Compassion International, who used an iPhone first-aid app to survive until he could be rescued from under a collapsed hotel. Now, he shares how the experience brought him back to life spiritually.

USE

Tubeify | When Last.fm, Billboard and YouTube meet, you get Tubeify, a fast, free, online music and video streaming service. Searching, discovering and sharing playlists is always nice, but a unique feature of this player is the ability to pull up any music chart from 1964 to present.

Plus, you have to request an invitation to get access—an exclusive touch all music snobs can appreciate.

Apple TV | An awesome Apple product you won’t go broke for? The new-and-improved Apple TV is a small, sleek device that lets you rent HD shows and movies, watch YouTube and Netflix, and stream from your computer, iPad or iPhone—for $99.

Lightsaber Chopsticks | Whether or not you are good with chopsticks, you’re going to look really cool using these. When you’re eating rice with miniature Darth Vader lightsabers, who is going to care if half of your meal ends up on your lap?

WATCH

http://bit.ly/a77642 | Most worship videos feature footage of the masses gathered with arms aloft, swaying under bright lighting.

But the moving song “All the Poor and Powerless” is accompanied by images of strangers on street corners, children in fountains, neighbors in conversation and other glimpses of the daily life we’re all trying to live more fully for Christ. http://bit.ly/bQepg7 | Money may not make the world go ‘round after all. Research creatively animated by the folks at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce shows our true motivations are far more purposeful than society suggests.

Take time to watch this 10-minute lecture and you’ll be inspired to get back to work. http://bit.ly/fHl8IV | Remember the days where there was nothing more thrilling than a fresh 24-pack of crayons? This intriguing video shows the creative process of how they are made. It will either make you want to whip out your coloring books again or just play with massive quantities of wax.

LISTEN

Cold War Kids — Mine Is Yours | The Cold War Kids took a no-holdsbarred approach to Mine Is Yours, opening up about faith, relationships and mistakes. It’s their most personal and ambitious album, sonically and spiritually, and perhaps most likely to land on your next playlist.

The Civil Wars — Barton Hollow | Joy Williams and John Paul White have finally released their long-awaited fulllength album—and it was well worth the wait. It’s a moving collection of folk ballads you’ll want to listen to straight through. Be sure to check out their stripped down cover of Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.”

Mt. Desolation — Mt. Desolation | It seems unlikely that two members of Keane would want to dabble in country music. But Tim Rice-Oxley and Jesse Quin gathered a few friends to do just that—and it’s pretty good. Mt. Desolation’s debut is a subtle take on Brit-rock bluegrass worth listening to.

FOLLOW

Jeremy Cowart - @jeremycowart | Jeremy doesn’t just take gorgeous photos of famous people. This talented artist is also the founder of Help Portrait, a group of photographers who offer their services to the underprivileged, and Voices of Haiti, a daily photo essay of those affected by last year’s earthquake.

Steve Saccone - @stevesaccone | Steve is a “leadership catalyst,” which is a fancy way of saying he loves to shape environments where leaders can be as creative and effective as possible. As the author of Relational Intelligence, he tweets bite-sized wisdom about how you engage with those around you.

Whitney George @whitneygeorge | Once upon a time, Whitney was helping out with the landscaping at Church on the Move. Now, he is their art director, overseeing all of the music, drama, video, audio and general moodsetting of the Oklahoma church.

neuemagazine.com 63

LAST WORD

MAKING THE GREAT LEAP JOSH LUJAN LOVELESS

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When David shows up as a teenager on the battlefield to check on his brothers, I imagine he expected to hear embellished war stories from Israel’s latest heroes. The kind of stories told in the midst of laughter and drinks after a day dominating the enemy.

I imagine as he walked over the hill toward the Israelite camp, he anticipated hearing the songs of his people, chanted by men he respected and admired. He knew the stories of war from what his brothers had told him, and he knew how passionate every man felt about fighting.

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Which explains why David was so confused when he arrived at the battle with the Philistines only to discover the army of Israel dressed for war, but doing nothing.

The Scriptures say that for 40 days, the Israelites had come out to war dressed for battle, shouting their war cries in the direction of the Philistine army and then cowering back and simply standing there. The story you’re as familiar with as I am describes a man named Goliath—a giant of a man—taunting the Israelites every morning and every evening. That means the Israelite army stood there 80 times, listening to the same repetitive speech mocking their God and their culture ... without doing anything about it. Because sometimes doing nothing is easier than doing something. Picture this from David’s perspective—these are older men he looked up to, men he wanted to grow up and be like.

You don’t have to read between the lines to see that when David arrives, he immediately starts running around to his brothers in disbelief.

He can see that fear has already captured them and it’s as if they are standing in shackles. These men were dressed like warriors but looked like children who didn’t belong in battle. In 1 Samuel 17:28 it says: “When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, ‘Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert?’” (NIV) Textbook older brother talking down to the younger brother in front of his friends. The King James translation says David responded to his brother by saying, “Is there not a cause?”

David has heard the rumor in the camp about this man Goliath. He sees the fear in the eyes of the men. He wonders aloud, “Is there

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not something in us that says we must do something?” As David is talking to his brothers and the other soldiers, he begins to realize someone has to do something. He’s searching the camp for someone willing to risk it all, but he finds no one.

For certain people, discovering a problem that needs a solution is as powerful as finding the solution itself.

What’s amazing to me about this account of David is that he’s quickly ushered into a conversation with King Saul, where he has no trouble saying, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” David makes, in my opinion, one of the greatest leaps a human being can make by moving from, “Someone should do something” to, “I will do something.”

One of the things I love about this issue of Neue is that we’re featuring people who have made that kind of leap in their leadership. These are men and women who have recognized problems and issues within themselves or the church and have sacrificed greatly to do something about the solution. We chose Francis Chan for our cover because we respect his honest questions about what church should look like among a large group of believers—and his passion to search for and live out the answers.

We take a look at the ways Chan has modeled what it means to move from recognizing a problem to doing something about it.

In another article, Scot McKnight asks, “What kind of disciple is your church producing?” He has recognized a lack of intentionality in churches when it comes to discipleship and offers seven dimensions to producing full, Kingdom-minded disciples who are truly living a whole Gospel in their daily lives.

WE’RE NOW BIMONTHLY!

You asked, and we listened. Starting with this issue, Neue will now release every other month. That’s two more issues a year of Neue’s unparalleled coverage of the innovators and ideas shaping the future of the Church. (Don’t miss an issue— subscriptions are only $14.95!)

Keep up with Neue between issues. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/NeueMag, and download our weekly podcast featuring conversations with innovators and leaders impacting the church. (Subscribe at iTunes, keyword “Neue”.) Also, this spring we’re launching an all-new NeueMagazine.com—full of exclusive articles, videos, media and more.

In her article “For Richer or Poorer, In Ministry and Not,” Bonnie McMaken explores the tensions unique to ministry marriages. She speaks with three married couples who lead together within the church. One of the couples, John and Nancy Ortberg, describe how they previously held the motto, “When we’re at work, we’re not married.”

They would sit separately in meetings and try to take more of an objective, coworker approach to ministry. They wanted to take a radical step— one that might be shocking to many people—so they could fully explore who God made them to be, individually and with the rest of the staff.

Some see what needs to be done, become afraid and do nothing. Some see a crisis and hope someone does something about it. Others see a problem and recognize how God has called them. They are able to make the great leap from, “Someone should do something” to, “I will be the one to do it.”

May the great leap become a part of the story others tell about you one day.

JOSH LUJAN LOVELESS is the senior editor of Neue. Josh has been a pastor for the past 14 years and is currently trying to finish a movie script.

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