Leaning Forward

Kingdom praying and living

Kingdom talk was prominent in the ministry of Jesus. His first sermon announced the nearness of the Kingdom. He moved from Galilee village to village proclaiming Kingdom ideals. When he sent his disciples out to preach, he entrusted to their stewardship the liberating words of the Kingdom of God. When he prayed, his petition included, "...thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is is heaven." He prayed for God's Kingdom to reign on earth.

Today we complete 40 Days of Prayer. The daily lessons and devotional thoughts have applied layer after layer of truth regarding Kingdom praying and Kingdom living. It has provided a tutorial in progressive, developmental process, each week building on the previous theme, each day offering more Biblical data to inform us of Kingdom principles. The essential learning? There is a Kingdom. This fact presupposes a King. The King has children. That would be us. We must learn to live and pray as children of the King. Nothing revolutionary. Theologues for generations have knows as much. Yet, profound.

Look around. The world is really messed up. I'm one of the glass-is-half-full people and I'll even admit that things are bleak. Yet, Jesus prayed for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, and I have to believe there is some possibility of Kingdom ideals even in a fallen world. So, that's where we're going this weekend. To examine whether or not the Kingdom can happen here on earth, as it is promised in heaven.

Hope to C U around when we talk about it!

no habla ingles? then, yell

This is so uncool. Most of us usually yell at people who don't understand what we are saying. Just introduce a friend to someone who doesn't do English. A good many times your friend will speak to them both slowly and loudly, as if loud will help them understand.

This was reinforced to me Thursday evening. My friends Keith and Courtney Tepera, Campus Crusade directors at The Citadel, graciously invited me to speak to their group. What a fantastic group of kids. It was a genuine blessing. OK, they also invited several Guatemalan active duty soldiers to join our worship and Bible study. Except for the commander, the men did not understand English beyond "hello".

As they mingled with the cadets and guests before and after the meeting, this loud thing happened over and over. Maybe it's just instinctive! When our words were met with puzzled looks, most of us turned up the volume, as in loud. Seems we think loud overcomes languages barriers. You got to be kidding me!

The lesson here is profound for me. Of course, it is not a new learning. God the Holy Spirit has been trying to teach me this for a long time. You see, there is a language barrier in our communication of the Good News. On one level, we are asked to speak the Good News to the world around us. Ooops! There's a language problem here. You see, unbelievers cannot comprehend spiritual truth (see 1 Cor. 2:14) and all of our our devised church talk. It is as foolish to him/her as English was to the Guatemalan soldiers. The only spiritual truth this person can grasp in when God the Holy Spirit convicts them of their need for Christ. So, usually we're talking in a foreign dialect when we aim our church-speak at the world around us.

So, what instinctively happens in this scenario? We usually crank it up. When they don't understand we yell. This is true at another level as well, when there is a generational language gap as well. Face it, the millennials and busters and all the other younger cohorts have a new vernacular---words, phrases, ideas, abbreviations, acronyms, and all manner of cyber jargon that most of us just cannot comprehend. I mean, you need a new rosetta stone to decipher text messaging hieroglyphics and some of the other symbols used in social networking these days.  Rather than learn a lingua franca to communicate with these exodus generations, we tend to turn up the volume so that we can be heard. Often, we hammer them---loud, critical, often judgmental, usually negative, raising the decibels a notch or two to transmit just how passionate we are about the message. Of course, loud doesn't translate the words or make them understandable.

The Good News I know doesn't require loud. It is the power of God to salvation, authoritative, eternal. We are to proclaim and speak it, announce it to the world, make it known. We don't have to yell, condemn, criticize, bloviate, or modulate. We are to preach it with conviction and passion. And, let it communicate. God the Holy Spirit is persuasive.

Yelling isn't necessary.

Leadership = risk management

Among many other disciplines, leadership always involves risk management. World class leaders know that moving an organization forward means taking risks. Elaine Agather, CEO of JP Morgan/ Chase-Dallas writes, "The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and wish bone that go with it." It is the backbone that defines leaders in the final analysis, the strength of character to stand alone when necessary, to stick your neck out, to risk.

Henry Blackaby defines spiritual leadership as moving people to God's agenda. OK, let's debate the level of risk involved in representing God, pursuing His will, and going to the wall for it. Yes, there can be costs here, you know, like martyrdom, persecution, being sawed in half, run out of town on a rail, or having moving trucks show up at your house, getting the  silent treatment, dismissal, among others. Just as surely, there is a big picture element here too, the promises made to people who are faithful, trust God in a deacons meeting, walk with him through the fire, and all the rest of the outcomes of standing with Him. There is surely some immediate risk in just about every move leaders are asked to make, spiritual leaders too. So, get over it all you who would simplify to the point of minimizing the risk of leading. God is good, truly. Ministry is tough. Leading is risky. Especially in well-entrenched institutions, like, you know, the church. or, denominational structures.

So, here is the church in a mess, most denominations too. "Numbers aren't everything" is the refrain of all the woe-is-me church leaders lamenting our continued slide into oblivion. And, that's what it is, you know, oblivion---the lack of influence that finds us under the bus while the world yawns. It's more complicated than one or two easy answers. But, somewhere in the vital signs is a risk-meter, a way to gauge the degree to which leaders are on the cusp, pushing the envelop, trusting God in the deep water, leading. When we finally uncover the risk meter, what we'll find there won't be all that surprising. It's low, almost immeasurable. Many church and denominational leaders are too frightened to take risks. Translated, too frightened to lead.

Spiritual leadership, in the final analysis, is calculated risk anyway. I mean, "if God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). So, leaders who are plugged into the Book, connected to the Vine, hard-wired into the will of the Father, aware of the culture, should be bold and fearless. OK, not foolish, not childish, and certainly not clueless. These leaders aren't afraid to take a close look at how things are, weigh that against how things should be, and make whatever adjustments, whether small or great, are necessary to bring the organization to missional effectiveness. 

Many of our churches, and the Southern Baptist Convention, are at the rare moment of decision that may define our future, and the eternal future of millions. Denominational and church leaders must take the mantel of leadership, and the inherent risk that goes with it, to move us into new vistas and greater influence over our culture. 

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force is obviously comprised of spiritual leaders willing to challenge the entrenched structures and systems of a denomination in trouble. There's risk. But, there's more risk in standing pat.

Let's learn the promise of Jesus and be willing to take a few risks as we serve him: "...I am with you always, even to the end of the age".

Or, is that a part of the Great Commission we really don't want to...uh...uh...uh...is resurge a word?

An imperfect parable

 I am a corporate honcho, the owner of a large   distribution organization. We have locations all over the United States and are especially market visible in the South. In fact, we have branches on just about every street corner. Some of our sites are extremely successful. Most are not. We also have placed non-revenue producing regional training centers out there in the marketplace to assist forty-five to seventy-five of the local units in accomplishing their work. In fact, our central office allocates some of our funding to these regional training centers. You see, they don't usually generate revenues and must staff for the work not being done by the local outlets. So, our marketing strategy includes both the work of the regional training centers as well as local sites.

Now when one of our neighborhood locations becomes less productive or short on human resources, the local training center will assume a segment of their assignment. To enable the training center to assign personnel to the work that had originally been allotted to the local unit, we shift more funding to them. So, the funding stream follows a circuitous route: local unit produces some revenue that is sent to us at headquarters, and then we channel those funds back to the local training center to cover the cost of their staff that is supplementing the assignment of the local group. It is called cooperative production. It is an innovative funding system.

Now, we'd like to open de nova units in those areas of our country where our presence is less visible. But, here's the problem: there is no funding stream for such expansion. Most of our operating income, surplus assets, and reserve funds are being devoted to completing the assignments that our local units cannot complete. This means funding the additional staff at the regional training centers who are doing the work that the local outlets will not accomplish. Are you with me so far?

Our analysts have recently told us that most of our marketing and expansion money is being channeled to those locals where we have already saturated the market, with outlets on just about every street corner and regional training centers as well . This is a problem. You see, our product is living water. And, we're supposed to be taking the living water to the dessert areas, the wastelands of our nation, the places where no living water is offered. But, recent market research indicates that we're expending most of our vast resources taking water to the places where the living water is already available on every street corner. It's like taking water to the river. I mean, the system seems broken to me.

Our local units and the regional training centers have the finest information technologies and facilities that are available. There is an abundance of living water. Some of our outlets don't want to provide the living water to the people around them. But, they do meet their contribution quotas each month. So, rather than create all manner of ill corporate will with them, we just allocate more money to the local training centers so they can hire personnel to distribute the living water to the people the local units would rather not engage. That sounds odd, I know. It is a remarkable system though. Local units that don't make their monthly quotas or, God forbid, start distributing living water in another units territory, or, worse, where the regional training center specialists are distributing water, or fate of all fates, through another distribution center altogether, are labeled ungrateful, rebellious, mutinous upstarts. Can you imagine? There may at times be a breakdown in the distribution system.

So, we're studying what we can do to get more water to the people who are thirsty. We've called in some of our most effective distribution personnel to talk to me and our staff about the problem. They're doing some detailed analysis of the water needs of the country, our endless supply, and the distribution apparatus we are using. They've suggested some very effective fine-tuning. I like it. Trouble is, some of our managers don't like it. It reduces their allotments, cuts into their funding formulas, shifts some of the responsibility back to the local units, starts units where we have none. You know, turf wars.

And, all I wanted was to get some living water to the dry and desolate areas of our land. So sad!

I'm broken. Fix me.

The Progress Report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force released Monday evening gives me reason for hope. If you have not read the progress report, please go here and study it now. Of course, the reason for this hope is the planned releasing and reinvention of the North American Mission Board.

The GCR Task Force should be commended for their fine work. To submit such a comprehensive review of our denominational structure and work while leading their respective organizations is a tribute to their commitment to the assignment and the trust of our churches. 

Surely our pastors, denominational media, and church members will submit the progress report to the detailed analysis such work demands. At first glance, two things are clearly obvious to this life-long Southern Baptist. One, task force members obviously recognize and understand one of the most troubling aspects of our corporate partnership: the North American Mission Board is broken and needs to be fixed. There are two hairballs that rank and file Southern Baptists can no longer choke down: that so much of our money funds work in areas where SBC churches proliferate, and, that our church planting strategy is so antiquated and feeble.

Surprisingly, most Southern Baptists don't realize the dependence of local associations on NAMB funding for many of their salaried staff positions. The question is why NAMB is funding so many mission staff job descriptions in, say, the Charleston Baptist Associations, when there are 67 local SBC congregations who by rights and Biblical assignment should be pursuing the Kingdom work in that association?  OK, do some string theory here too. This mis-allocation of funding helps to explain the anemic church planting strategy currently in place. This work is sucking the coffers dry. Now, connect the dots! This is why so many of our younger pastors are doing the SBC exodus thing right now.

Yes, I am a Southern Baptist and  will stay one till they roll my office chair across the church parking lot to the funeral home next door. There are some good reasons for this commitment. My sweet mother enrolled me in cradle roll at West Greenville Baptist Church nine months before I was born. I was saved and baptized under the ministry of my grandfather, Rev. O.F. Owens. The Cooperative Program and a good dose of God's grace helped me receive an excellent theological education---M.Div. and D.Min. degrees from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Doctrinally, the SBC represents most clearly what I believe to be Biblical stances. And, Southern Baptist women cook the best fried chicken and mac/cheese. This is all to say, I'm not going anywhere.

But, I will influence my congregation to put our money where it can reach the North American and international mission fields with the most impact. And, I thank God the GCR Task Force for recognizing and admitting that NAMB is broken, and designing a plan to help us fix it. 

Let me add this, I will be one pastor who will lead our church into a more definitive church planting era.

Rejoice and be glad!

The Barnum effect hits home

P.T. Barnum knew something about gullibility. The man who said "a sucker is born every minute" also provided "something for everyone" in his three ring circus and along the mid-way of the local fair. The sultan of oddities sold people tickets to see the the yak-woman, human snakes and alligators, amphibian people, two headed cows, and many other biological anomalies. Bearded ladies, giants, little people, and a man who could hammer nails into his skull dazzled curious onlookers all over the world.

Inquiring minds want to know: was he really such a great showman? Or, did he just understand human nature that well?  Maybe a little of both. Barnum did know how to sell tickets, identify acts people will pay money to see, and gather a crowd. More, however, he understood the big- top, center ring ego that possesses most mortals. He played to the dark side of human nature,  piquing interest with his weird side-shows, knowing that the real show was the people in the audience and not the ones on the stage.

The Barnum effect is actually the human tendency to think personality inventories, assessments, tests, astrological signs, and even fortune cookies are custom suited to the individual. I've often seen this phenomena when coaching people through the Clifton Strength Finder material, which I heartily endorse. The thirty-four descriptives are totally generic. But, most people think it describes them to a T. Go figure. Still, the Barnum effect is grounded in gullibility. We want to believe.

Yesterday I wrote a blog about the "Welcome to Kenya" sign someone forwarded to me. It was totally bogus. Like many of the "forwards" we receive everyday it was plausible. I mean, there has been a lot of inquiry, court room shenanigans, and editorializing about President Obama's nation of origin, questions about citizenship, and other baiting to lure us into the deal. So, I checked with Snopes.com and jumped on the ignorant band-wagon to have some fun at the President's expense.

Two things strike me now, in the aftermath of reviewing the truthorfiction.com material on the subject and discovering my error. One, you don't have to go to the gutter or fan the fires of urban legend to find something critical about the President. The front page of just about any daily will give any interested party volumes of factual data to raise questions about the President, the administration, the economy, or anything political. If that isn't enough, listen to talk radio or tune into the Fox News Channel and you'll get more good stuff that you can handle. This stuff is plentiful. Give me a break.

Second, the "forward" stuff is often manufactured data that appeals to our taste for juicy gossip, inside information, rumors, hoaxes, and other drivel that are, well, here it is, lies. The dark heart of mankind likes to foment lies. We all laugh at the spin doctors and PR guys who sell us this stuff day in and day out. Still, the ease with which we fall for these tricks affirms our comfort with prevarication, stretching the truth, telling white lies, half-truths, and all the other word games that disguise our dishonest ways. Yes, most of us are not equipped too research the veracity of news articles, photo attachments, or all of these internet "forwards". Even so, we like dark the underbelly of illicit yellow journalism. We''re the Barnum Effect come home. It hit home close to me yesterday.

Innocent as doves and shrewd as snakes. That's what Jesus expected of his disciples. It's what he expects of you and me. In a world of smoke and mirrors, virtual reality, he wants us wise enough to know truth when we see it. 

And, not be a sucker in the Barnum effect. Woe is me!

Shut my mouth wide open---

Ooops! My blog this morning is an April Fools joke!

Seriously, go here for the truth about the Kenya sign, according to truthorfiction.com. I didn't do enough homework. Shows what can happen when we try to jump on the wrong band wagon.

Mea culpa!

Don't tell the Kenyans

OK, go ahead and tell me some slick Photo Shop arteest faked the picture stage right. Or, better yet, that I'm a conspiracy theorist with evil in my heart against our President. Here's a good one. You can always play the race card and accuse me of prejudice, using such under-handed tactics to discredit our political system and undermine the good work of the current administration. I mean, obviously the President's citizenship questions have been answered and only anti-American right wing fascist pig extremists would think to include a picture like this in blog-land.

Well, yes, the birth-record thing seems to have been settled. You can review a capsule of the entire process at the Snopes.com site here. Philip Berg's lawsuit was finally dismissed and the case has been marked "closed" by a court system and media eager to put the so-called urban legend in the tank for good. Just don't tell the Kenyans. In spite of all the hype they still believe that Mr. Obama is one of them. I mean, by birth. Could be a case of wishful thinking on their part, the claim that the first United States President of African American descent was actually born in Kenya. I'm just saying their "Welcome to Kenya" sign may give them the kind of national ego boost that the "Home of Shoeless Joe Jackson" puffed a little pride in native Greenvillians over the years. Well, that's on the dubious side to be honest. I mean, Joe Jackson was part of the Black Sox scandal in the 1919 World Series. So, the "Welcome to Greenville" sign may not have the same boast power as the "Welcome to Kenya" sign. Say it isn't so, Joe!

Still, there's something fishy afoot in Nairobi, giving the Kenyans the audacity to claim something that even the fair-minded people at Snopes.com guarantee is false. Surely the courts couldn't be wrong on this one and the Kenyans right. All the under-the-table maneuvering and photo-copying of newspaper articles and old birth records are prima facie evidence establishing our President's citizenship for sure. Except that, usually, photo-copies aren't accepted as people's exhibit 1. Ooops! Been watching too much Perry Mason.

Seriously, the sign welcoming people into Kenya may be something positive to a nation that has seen it's share of misery, political unrest, poverty, and economic struggle. To hitch your wagon to the star that is President Barrack Obama may just be what they need to breathe some new life into their national ethos. Weather or not Mr. Obama was born there is really irrelevant. Shoot, the political spin meisters may have established birth records that declare Mr. Obama's eligibility to serve as President. Maybe not.

Just don't tell the Kenyans. Let them have their fifteen minutes too.

Look back: 1970 again

1970 was free-wheeling college days for me, or at least, as wild and untethered as college at The Citadel could be. I mean, we had compulsory class attendance five days a week, intramural sports every Monday, company drill every Tuesday, practice parade every Thursday, full dress parade every Friday, Saturday Morning Inspection every guess when, required sports attendance on most Saturdays, chapel every Sunday, and some leave time on Friday and Saturday nights. So, it wasn't like weekly frat parties and disco nights. It  was a rigid world, but fun is an odd sort of way.

In 1970 I had my second car. The first was a high-school tank---a 1959 Chevrolet Station wagon with wings and a third seat facing backward. The car I drove as a junior at The Citadel was a 1964 Corvair convertible, a cream puff that my friends and I used to play around Charleston. I found a picture of one just like it. Here it is---

 

Nice, huh? It was gorgeous. Four speed in floor, bucket seats, AM radio, nice convertible top, great gas mileage. Of course, gas was a whopping 29.9 cents per gallon. And there were no other accessories. It was as loaded as a car usually was in those days. The engine was in the back. OK, I know it wasn't a Corvette or a T-bird, or even a new Dodge Charger or Chevelle or Mustang, truly cool rides. But, it did have a certain 1970 style. If I had driven up to Northwood Baptist Church in 1970, everyone would have admired the little sewing machine engine. Oh yeah! I bought the '64 Corvair---cream puff---for $300.

See, the whole world has turned upside down since 1970. What was cool then would be a collector's item now, maybe even an antique, like me. But, it just goes to show how much has shifted since then. My new Kia Soul, 2010 model, has iPod connections, hands-free Blue Tooth telephone, XM Radio, all kinds of space saving innovations, fuel economy, air bags, seat belts, front and rear windshield wipers, tinted glass, fold down seats---most things never heard of in 1970. 

The only thing that is the same is Jesus and the Gospel, and human nature. Oh yes, and the fresh vibrant truth of the Good News, new wine. Prayerfully too, a new wine skin---the renewed church of Jesus to serve a world  like this. 

1970 reminds me of a '64 Corvair and how much the world has changed since then---

The Greatest Trick

At the end of the film The Usual Suspects, the primary Kevin Spacey character, Verbal Kint says, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing the world he didn't exist." Of course the film is about a mythical crime lord by the name of Keyser Soze. Police all over the world are pursuing Soze. But, he is invisible, elusive to the point of being legendary, almost as if he did not exist. A phantom.

The week before last Dr. Frank Page, VP of Evangelism for the SBC North American Mission Board, preached at the Evangelism Conference hosted by our church. His topic was how we under-estimate the reality and power of Satan. From the text, John 10:10, he discussed the work of the thief---to steal, kill, and destroy---enlarging the theme to address our skepticism about first, his existence, and second, his power. It was a very challenging message, reminding us of the reality of evil, and even more, the organized schemes of the evil one.

OK, some people glorify the devil. There are dualistic fanatics under the evangelical tent who ascribe to the adversary powers not validated by Scripture. Just so, there are as many who refuse to acknowledge his existence or the subtle ways he inserts his wiles into our lives. Pages point, at least to me, is that the thief does exist and does attempt to steal, kill, and destroy the work and testimony of Christ within us. His point was not that we should obsess about him. We should be aware and remain vigilant.

The greatest trick may actually be to minimize Satan and evil. Both are real. He is strategically aimed at believers and the church. Because we are human and fallible, he has easy access to us if we are not watchful and prepared. Jesus has overcome him and given us all we need to live a full and meaningful life. Trusting in Jesus, walking with him, relying on his provision is the beginning. Wearing the full armor of God is how we stand firm.

Remember: his greatest trick is just a trick. Don't fall for it.