Why I’m not an Apple guy

I’m not an Apple guy.  I’m a PC guy.  Do I like Apple products?  Absolutely.  I could spend hours in an Apple store at the mall.  I covet an iPad and a Macbook and an iPod Touch.  The products they make are fantastic and superior to most everything else in terms of what most people use them for.  But apart from my 3 year old iPod Nano, I don’t own a single Apple product.

Why, might you ask?  Two reasons:

1. The initial cost is much higher than similar products.  I can get an MP3 player at Walmart for a fraction of the cost of an iPod.  I can get a decent laptop for much cheaper than I could a Macbook.  Now you could say that the overall cost will be the same or less since Apple products perform better and last longer, but the fact is, for someone like me who doesn’t have the type of upfront money it takes to purchase the more expensive version, even if it is better, Apple products are just too much.

2. I’m annoyed by “Apple people”.  You know who I’m talking about.  I’m not talking about every person who owns an Apple product.  I’m talking about the people who almost pee their pants every time Steve Jobs makes an announcement about a new Apple product.  I’m talking about the person who talks disdainfully about all PCs and considers all PC owners to be deceived.  I’m talking about the person who makes fun of “PC people” with all their other Apple buddies.  I’m not cynical of people who think Apple products are better, I’m cynical of the person who comes off like they’re a superior person due to the fact that they have those products and who try to convert PC people because they want more people on the Apple team, not because they actually want to help them.  I love Apple products, but there’s something inside me that makes me not want to buy them because I don’t want to be associated with “Apple people” and I just don’t want to become an “Apple guy”.

I think people have similar thoughts about Christianity.  They like the product (Jesus), but they don’t like the upfront cost or the people they have to be associated with if they buy in.  I think we require too much of people when they express interest in following Jesus.  We require them to talk differently, think differently, spend their time differently, change out their friends, attend Church at least once a week, become a Republican, etc. (that last one was a slight exaggeration…..slight).  What we should do is ask them to keep tight relationships with other Christians, read Scripture, and try to listen to the Holy Spirit.  That doesn’t seem like such a huge deal to begin with in comparison with making a lot of exterior changes.  Yet, asking those simple things is far more effective in creating a disciple of Jesus.

The other stumbling block we create is the way we, as Christians, treat those who don’t believe as we do.  We have a terrible history of judging them, isolating them or isolating ourselves from them, belittling them and generally making ourselves come off as superior.  We also have a history of treating them as projects and targets instead of people.  The result is that many rational people would never want to be associated with Christians.  This should not be.  Jesus, who was far superior than every other human who has lived, humbled himself to the point of death on a cross.  Sadly, many of his followers haven’t done a very good job of emulating him.

So, Apple person, instead of making fun of someone’s malfunctioning PC, empathize with them and gently tell them of the blissful experience that could be had by owning an Apple product and remember that you were once a PC person too.  Christian, instead of disdaining your godless neighbor or coworker, show yourself as humble and gracious towards them and remember that you were once godless as well.

Something’s Gotta Give (Part 5)

In terms of quality of Part fives, I’m hoping this post will fall somewhere between Rocky V (many Rocky fans pretend this one was never made) and The Empire Strikes Back (the consensus pick as the best of the Star Wards series amongst true fans). If this is the first post you’ve read, you probably want to go back and read previous ones (1, 2, 3, and 4) to get some context on what I’m talking about.   Without further ado, here’s three more ideas on how we can do a better job of training ministers to be leaders of a disciple-making movement.

5.  Seriously look at the concept of ordination and how we use it and determine if it is biblically sound.  There’s no doubt that the NT talks about church leadership and some ways in which to go about developing and empowering it.  From my observations, the way we currently do this (the ordination process), doesn’t seem to parallel very well with what we find in the New Testament.  In fact, the way we do it almost seems to match up more with the Old Testament than the New.  We say we believe in the “priesthood of all believers”, but I don’t see our actions match that.  Every Christian is commissioned by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to do the work of a minister.  Sadly, the Church has taken on the identity of an institution rather than a movement.  This means that priority #1 is to protect the institution.  The way you do that is create structures and systems that focus on maintaining uniformity, which means you give away power to a small number people and you only give it to those who have been thoroughly educated in what is deemed important to maintaining the institution.

I don’t think our denomination has intentionally done this, but, nevertheless, this is where we find ourselves.  By creating such a large gap in the level of training and education between ordained ministers and those who make up their congregations, we have inadvertently set pastors up as the experts, which means that they are seen as the primary conduits through which God speaks and works in the local church. Learning goes through them.  Ministering to the body goes through them.  New ministry efforts and strategies go through them.  Pastors have complained for years about the lack of ministry involvement by their people.  The problem is that we have trained them to do this.  We have created an extremely definable separation between clergy and laity that I do not believe can be supported by the New Testament.

So what do we do about it?  I think some of the ideas I mentioned in Part 4 would help this.  Again, make ordination more focused on character and fruitfulness, which would have to include the ability to equip others to do ministry.  This is actually the main role of leadership in the Church, but because we have an institutional mindset, we are leery of giving away ministry to those who are untrained.  Perhaps we shouldn’t ordain someone who can’t point to multiple examples of being able to equip people. 

6.  Assess those who are still relatively new in ministry to help them know where they are most gifted and what roles might be best for them.  The basic education requirements we currently have in place for ordination are heavily weighted towards pastoral ministry.  As I mentioned in Part 3, God has gifted leadership in a variety of ways, and those who are pastors are just one part of that equation.  If you’re gifted to be a pastor, or perhaps a teacher, you’re in luck.  If you’re gifted to be an apostle, evangelist, prophet, or something else, then it’s not so easy for you.  You’ll learn very little about how to function in those roles within the local church in our current education format.

So how about intentionally assessing people who are committed to ministry as they’re doing ministry?  A spiritual gifts inventory can be helpful, but, in my opinion, direct observation from others tends to be more valuable in assessing giftedness and strengths.  This would mean doing ministry under and with someone who’s committed to mentoring someone who’s not as experienced or educated.  Once a good assessment has been done, every effort should be made to partner them with someone of a similar gift set that has been able to successfully function in that role so that they can be mentored even further.

What about adding more options into the education requirements that don’t make it quite so uniform?  Perhaps keep the same amount of hours needed for ordination, but add more flexibility in terms of what classes to take based on your giftedness.  After all, how important is a class about how to do Christian Education in a local church to someone who’s going to be doing the work of an apostle?  I’m not saying there is no value in it, but learning about how to evaluate a culture in order to plant a church is more valuable to someone like that.

7. Decrease the role our colleges and universities play in the ordination process and find more experiential and cheaper ways of educating.  This goes hand in hand with some of the other solutions I’ve laid out.  I think this wasn’t a viable possibility 50, 20, or even 10 years ago.  Now that information is so much more accessible due to the internet and other telecommunications advances, we no longer have to physically move to a certain location in order to receive the benefit of it.  Education is much more flexible than it used to be, which is a good thing.  However, Wesleyan schools are extremely expensive, as are pretty much every other private school and they’re only getting more expensive.  I don’t see how scholarship money will be able to keep up with the rise in tuition over the next few years, which means students will have to keep going into more and more debt in order to get the education requirements needed for ordination.  We need to adjust our ordination requirements to start allowing for education that is not received through the traditional means.  The access to information we currently have is unprecedented and that access is rapidly expanding.  Requiring classes in the traditional sense, even if they’re done online, doesn’t leave room for the way in which education is changing.  The system needs to be rigid in its principles but flexible in its methods.

As I’ve been working on this series of posts, I think about other issues or ideas, but I think this is a good enough place for me to stop and let those of you reading step in.  I didn’t start this series so that people could know what I thought.  I started it in the hopes of beginning a conversation that might actually lead to something.  I really, really want to hear from anyone who reads this.  Let me know what you agree or don’t agree with.  What are your own ideas and thoughts about this?  What might be some practical first steps in making some changes that you think need to be made?

Something’s Gotta Give (Part 4)

I could go on about some other issues I see related to this whole subject, but I think I’ve had enough of it and want to move on to some solutions.  As a disclaimer, these aren’t intended to be things that I think have to happen, but simply some ideas about how we can address the issues I’ve written about in Parts 1, 2, and 3.

1.  Require less coursework before ordination and require more after ordination.  I find it interesting that you have to take so many classes to become ordained and then not have to do anything to continue your education once you are ordained.  I think you should have to take fewer classes to be ordained, but be required to still take classes once you are ordained.  Since you don’t have to physically move to the school you take classes from anymore thanks to online options, you don’t have to drop everything to go to school.  You can still continue whatever you’re doing wherever you’re doing it at.  This gets into some other questions about college degree programs.  While I have some thoughts about this, it’s way too big to tackle at this point.

2.  Encourage potential ministers to become marketable in another profession while providing training for how to be an effective bi-vocational minister. As I alluded to in Part 1, I think there is a financial crunch coming for local churches.  The generations that generally give more are dying out and younger generations seem less likely to give.  Also, while giving financially to those who are a spiritual blessing to you and others is a biblical concept, there’s not much evidence that having a lot of people who are totally supported by churches is something we should even expect.  Even Paul had to have a marketable skill (tentmaking) to support himself.  We can’t expect our current way of spending money at a local level (majority going to salaries and property) to continue if we’re going to be at all effective.

3. Make entrance into a ministerial training program based more on results (or fruitfulness if you want to sound spiritual) and less on willingness. Does a baseball franchise draft someone because they want to be a baseball player?  Does the military put someone in an officer training program because they showed up at a recruiting office and said they wanted to be one?  Then why do we put someone on track to ordination simply because they say they want to be a pastor?  At some point, we have to actually look at this person’s life and see if they’re actually doing ministry that produces anything, and I’m not talking about numbers.  I’m talking about seeing if there are people who can say that this person has blessed them in a specific way.  Is there evidence that God is already using them in the lives of others?  Have they proven that they can lead anything?  If you can’t show any of that, then why should we invest time, money, and resources to equip them to do something they’ve shown no ability to do?  Before beginning the ordination program, one should have to have multiple references about what they’ve already been doing to minister to others.

4.  Ordain those who have demonstrated character and fruitfulness, not those who can simply pass classes, get hired, and show potential. This goes along with #3, but takes it a bit further.  At this point, you can be ordained if you take and pass the classes, stay employed at a church for 2 years, and don’t get caught doing anything really bad.  Is it any wonder that anybody who’s been a pastor for long can easily name five or more pastors who have no business being pastors without really having to think hard?  When referring to leadership, the New Testament seems to put emphasis on character and fruitfulness rather than education and potential.  So why aren’t we doing the same?  If I trust you with my money and my wife and you’re obviously blessing others, I want you on my team, even if you can’t recite the Apostle’s Creed or tell me what transubstantiation is.  If you’ve shown the ability to persevere through tough situations and equip others, I want you on my team, even if you don’t feel comfortable exegeting Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer or know who Augustine is.  Let’s change the questions we ask of potential ordinands to reflect the stuff that we should see early on.  The knowledge can come later.  Character and fruitfulness normally doesn’t.

I’ve got a couple more I’m still working on, but I’ll save them for another post.  Honest confession time: If what I’ve laid out had been in place 15 years ago, I don’t know if I would’ve ever been ordained.  I think that’s a good thing.  My experience working in the local church as a paid minister was not a good one overall for me or for the people in those churches.  I think part of it was being misplaced in terms of my gifts (which I’ll get to in the next part), but some of it was getting the green light by the powers that be based on me being smart, somewhat likeable, and known.  That shouldn’t be.  A world that is dying to hear the good news of the Gospel will not be reached by a Church being led by people with those qualifications.

I’d love to get some discussion and feedback on this.  Please chime in.

Something’s Gotta Give (Part 3)

I think the way in which the Wesleyan Church and most denominations are training, educating and ordaining pastors needs to be reformed, not just because of the financial collision that’s coming or the context and content of the training, but because the way in which we think about and church leadership needs to be reformed.

Let’s start with the purpose of the church and work our way down.   I know this is a seemingly endless debate and no statement of purpose will ever be agreed upon by everyone, but here’s my (non-comprehensive) take:  Make disciples of Jesus.  To me, everything comes back to that.  To live and love as Jesus did pretty much takes care of all the “but what about _____” questions.

So if making disciples is the goal, I say we currently have an insufficient process and structure for developing the leaders of a disciple-making movement.

If you simply read the New Testament and then tried to set up a leadership structure for church accordingly, would you come up with what we have today?  What we currently have is a person at the top of the pyramid (Senior Pastor or Lead Pastor if you want to sound slightly cooler) who has the most education, preaches most Sundays, visits the sick and elderly, leads board meetings, counsels, lead evangelism efforts, administrates, comes up with a vision for the future of the church, etc.  Who can do that and do it well?  Yet this is what denominations are trying to train ministers to be.  Again, you can look at the classes for ordination and see that the goal, whether it’s intentional or not, is to produce Swiss army knife pastors who have the necessary tools to be able to do it all.

This should not be.

There’s good reason why the New Testament speaks often and in detail about the Church being a body.  One of the reasons is because people are normally really effective at a few things, not many.  Also, the New Testament often speaks about leadership not as one person, but as a group of people, each with different gifts, abilities, and roles.  One passage that’s often used is Ephesians 4:11-12 which says, “And he (Christ) gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” 

A few thoughts about this:

1. Paul doesn’t say that one person should be all these things or attempt to do all the things that they do.  I tend to have more of the prophetic tendencies and I’m pretty terrible at shepherding.  This verse gives me a lot of freedom.  It doesn’t give me the freedom to not be compassionate and loving, but it does give me the freedom to not try to mainly operate in that role.

2. This, and other verses, seems to indicate that leadership is not to be something that is done by one person at the top of a hierarchical pyramid, but rather something that is done by a group of equals who submit to Christ as the ultimate head.  (You can read more of what I wrote about that here and here). 

3.  All of those people and roles are needed for a disciple-making movement.  The apostle is the one who starts new works and communities of faith.  The prophet calls people to repentance and obedience.  The evangelist connects with people and presents the Gospel plainly and attractively.  The shepherd comes along beside believers and walks them through both good and bad.  The teacher studies and explains the Word in ways that educate and challenge.  Take away any of these and something that is needed to start and sustain a disciple-making movement is missing.

4. Verse 12 says that the reason Christ gave the Church these people is so that they could equip others to do ministry.  If the ministry is only done by one or a few, than the movement ceases to exist once those people cease to exist.  Unfortunately, our current way of training ministers doesn’t seem to account the idea for a multitude of gifts and roles or that the point is to equip others.  Much is learned about being the “do-it-all” pastor but not much is learned about operating out of your giftedness, utilizing a plurality of leadership, or equipping others to do ministry.

OK, so I should probably stop with the parts that are critical and move on to possible solutions.  Looking forward to writing about those in the next couple of weeks.

Something’s Gotta Give (Part 2)

So Part 1 was pretty much just figures and numbers and connecting some dots to form a logical conclusion.  Parts 2 and 3 won’t be so clean and neat and there will probably be more room for disagreement, but I think they may be more important to talk about.

I think the way in which the Wesleyan Church and most denominations are training, educating and ordaining pastors needs to be reformed, not just because of the financial collision that’s coming, but because the way in which we train pastors doesn’t seem to very effective.

I find it interesting that, when Jesus chose those who would be responsible for beginning the Church, he mostly chose ordinary, uneducated men and lived and traveled with them for three years.  However, when a denomination wants to train someone to lead a church, you have to be able to make it at a four-year liberal arts institution (and possibly a seminary as well) and you’re stuck in a classroom.  If you want to know how Jesus began a movement and why we’re basically just maintaining an institution, this could be a good starting point.  Classrooms and lectures certainly have value, but they are no substitute for life-on-life learning and modeling.  Somehow we have valued the classroom more than practical learning.  It takes about four years to get all the educational requirements for ordination but only two years of practical experience. 

I graduated from college and thought I knew everything I needed to know in order to be a successful minister.  What I know now is that I graduated from college as a very well-informed fool who had no real clue of what it took to minister effectively or to really make disciples.  I thought it was most important that I knew the Bible, theology, how to “manage” the church and how to preach well.  Given that the vast majority of the 24 required courses for ordination dealt with those things, I felt reasonably well-prepared for that.  What I wasn’t prepared for was how to come along beside a teenager in my youth group who was sleeping with their girlfriend/boyfriend and lovingly disciple them.  I wasn’t prepared to know how to interact at a party where most everyone else is drunk or on their way there.  I wasn’t prepared to know how to lovingly confront unhealthy religious behavior.  In other words, I didn’t know how to do the things that the disciples regularly saw Jesus do.    

Now you might say, “Well, that just comes with experience,” which is exactly my point.  The people that I see do well in ministry are, more often than not, the people who had strong modeling and mentoring relationships with people who were doing it well themselves.  Good youth pastors grew up having good youth pastors.  Entrepreneurial leaders spent a lot of time in entrepreneurial environments with entrepreneurial leaders.  You get the point.  I know this isn’t true across the board and I’ve never done any quantifiable research to back it up, but I have no doubt that there is a stronger correlation between observation/modeling and ministry “success” than there is between education and ministry “success”.

If what we value is leaders that know how to craft a good sermon, understand 20 times more theology than the average person in their congregation, and know what the Council of Nicaea was all about, then we’re doing a really good job.  But if what we value is leaders who can lovingly lead people in the mission of God, then there are some radical shifts we must make in the way we train and prepare ministers.

P.S. I thought this was only going to be three parts, but there’s way too much I’m thinking about to do that, so Part 3 will be laying out more problems with this and Part 4 (and maybe 5) will be talking about solutions.

Something’s Gotta Give (Part 1)

The movements of a 16-month-old make me thankful that God gave us skulls.  Otherwise, we’d all be braindead before then.  All the stumbling, tripping, and falling is funny because we know they can’t really do any better and don’t have the cognitive skills to really assess how what they’re doing is the cause of all the bumps and bruises.  Bottom line: little kids falling is funny.  AFV has been proving this point for 20 years.

You know what’s not funny?  An elderly person who has lost the physical ability to continue to physically function the way they used to, but ignores the facts or lives in denial of them.  Toddlers tripping because they overestimate their physical ability=funny.  Elderly person tripping because they overestimate their physical ability=not funny.

So what’s the point of my hastily conceived and ultimately flawed analogy?  That the way in which most denominations currently train, educate, and ordain pastors and ministers is like the elderly person who has lost the ability to perform like they used to but they don’t notice it or are in denial about it.

So here’s how this normally works in the Wesleyan Church.  Someone who wants to be in vocational ministry must be ordained or working towards ordination in order to be the pastor of a church.  In order to be ordained, they have to take a substantial amount of courses, have 1-2 years of practical ministry experience and approved by a District Board of Ministerial Development.  The majority of folks in this process get their course work done at a four-year private liberal arts college or a bible college.  Others who already have a four-year degree opt for seminary or a program called FLAME, which is for people already in vocational ministry who don’t have the necessary educational requirements to be ordained.  Here’s the problem: all those options, except for FLAME, are extremely expensive and are getting exponentially more expensive in the next few years.  Take a look at the graph below that shows projections from TIAA-CREF on the rise in total college costs at four-year colleges and universities.

That graph makes my heart skip a beat when I consider I’ll have a child ready to go to college in 13 years.  Here’s the problem, if most people continue to go the route of a four-year college to meet the educational requirements for ordination, we’re basically going to have a bunch of pastors in debt up to their eyeballs in a profession that isn’t lucrative (Osteen and others not withstanding).  This is a problem now and, according to projections, it’s going to get much, much worse in the coming years.

Another issue staring us in the face is the decrease in giving to religious non-profits by younger generations.  According to a 2008 study done by Indiana University, 72% of those born before 1929 and 57% of those born between 1929-1945 participated in giving to a religious non-profit.  Contrast that with 47%, 45%, and 41% of those born between 1946-1963, 1964-1981, and after 1981, respectively.  Add in the growing distrust of organizations seen as institutions, the more liberal spending habits, and increase in personal debt of younger generations and it creates a crisis of cash flow for the American Church, which means those in vocational ministry either can’t get paid or will get paid less.

Combine that with the massive increases in educational costs and you have an impending collision that requires some pretty serious attention. 

So I’ve taken a look at the logical and “numbers” side of this issue in Part 1.  Part 2 will be taking a look at it from a biblical view.  Part 3 will be laying out some possible solutions.  I know it’s been doom and gloom on this part but here’s the good news: I believe that reforming this system will end up being a good thing.

Random Thoughts on Quran burning

Like many, I’ve been caught up in the scheduled Quran burning by a small Florida church pastored by Terry Jones.  I’m having a hard time putting all my thoughts about it together in some coherent form, so I’m just going to throw them out there.

-It’s safe to say that I’m in the majority of Americans who find this to be ignorant, at best, and just downright evil, at worst.

-If you know me, you know that I have a low tolerance for church-goers who behave in a way that unnecessarily causes non-Christians to think less of Christ.  This is pretty much as bad as it gets in the past few years when you consider the act, the publicity, and the potential backlash.

-I agree with Gen. Petraeus that this will increase the probability that our soldiers will be attacked.

-I agree with our President that this will only help recruitment for radical Islamic terrorist organizations.

-I agree with SOS Clinton that this would be a “disgraceful” act.

-That sound you just heard was the trumpet announcing Christ’s return because I just said that I agreed with Obama and Hillary Clinton in the space of two sentences.

-I’ll be honest: If I could do what I wanted to do without fear of consequences, I’d go down to Florida and probably try to physically harm this pastor (I wouldn’t like my chances, though.  Never get in a fight with a dude who has a mustache like that) since rational, logical, and even biblical arguments are totally lost on him.   However, is this what Christ would really have me do or does my anger really come from a place that’s darker than I would want to believe?

-Is what this pastor plans to do right?  Absolutely not.  Does he deserve a whoopin’?  Probably.  Does Christ ask me to love him anyways?  (Crickets)

-I can veil my anger in spirituality and say that he isn’t loving his enemies as Christ commanded.  But when I become angry to the point of wishing ill upon him, then I’m breaking the same commandment I’m accusing him of.  That’s the crazy thing about judging:  the moment you judge someone over their sin, you’ve set yourself up to be judged for it as well.  I’m not saying we can’t condemn the acts of this pastor and his church, I’m saying we better be very careful to make sure we’re not condemning the people.

The Best Job You’ll Ever Have

Our culture is driven to become a bunch of better versions of our current selves.  Books, magazines, talk shows, etc. seem to be centered around this idea.  We’re chasing our dreams, climbing to the top, getting our crap together and bettering ourselves.  In our hopeful future, we will leave in our wake crappy, unfulfilling, boring, low-paying jobs where we are micro-managed by a boss who takes us for granted.  We boldly and confidently set sail for the promised land of doing something new and exciting where we control our  own destiny.  We are the masters of our domain and we are creating a future for ourselves where nothing can stop our creativity, intelligence, and determination.

Now before you think I’m just setting all this stuff up to bash it like a pinata, I’m in the beginning stages of doing some of this stuff myself.  I’m re-examining myself, our situation, and taking some steps so that I can hopefully do the things that I think I’m gifted to do.

That being said, if the majority of us succeed in chasing our dreams of doing something different from what we’re doing today, who does the jobs we’re currently doing?  Who’s going to take our customer service calls and deliver our milk (yes, that still happens) and take away our trash and scan us at the airport?  After all, I doubt most people doing those things are doing it because it’s their dream job.

My point is that it seems that our economy, culture and way of life depend on many of us not living our dreams.  I hate to be the guy who pops the balloons and kills the party, but not everyone will get to do the work that they feel like they really want to do.  This is a big game of musical chairs and guess what?  There’s not enough chairs.  There’s not enough buildings being built for every aspiring architect to get paid to design buildings.  There’s not enough people paying for music for every aspiring musician to make that their career.  There’s not enough people going to church for every pastor to be a mega-church pastor.

So what happens when your reality doesn’t meet your dream?  As the famous philosopher John Cougar Mellencamp once said, “Oh yeah!  Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”  A hard lesson I’ve learned and am still learning is that life does indeed keep going on after the dream of what you wanted to be or wanted to be doing are dashed. 

As crazy as it sounds, the dashing of those dreams can end up being one of the best things that ever happens to you.  Going through that has a way of revealing things, both good and bad, about yourself you never knew were there. 

You know what?  Facing those things is where your most significant and rewarding work lies.  It’s not flashy, it will never make you famous, and the pay stinks, but the work is full-time, the benefits are fantastic, and your boss, well, let me tell you about your boss.  Instead of micro-managing, he gives freedom to both succeed and fail, but his love for you isn’t affected by your performance.  Instead of loading on you more than you can bear, he makes your burden light.  Instead of overlooking your potential, he believes in you more than anyone else possibly could.

The greatest work you’ll ever do is what happens when you come to the end of yourself, your ambitions and your dreams and realize that God is the thing you’ve actually been striving for all along.

Freedom of Speech (or not)

During a recent conversation, I was hit over the head, smacked in the face, etc. by my mother of all people.  I don’t mean this literally.  If you know my mom, you know that she is one of the most gentle people around.  It was actually one of those times where you just have to admit that someone else was right and that you were wrong.

Without giving all the background, I stated that I felt like some of the criticism of the President from Christians was disrespectful.  My mom brought up criticism of other public figures such as athletes.  This is where the nerve was struck.  If you know me, you know that I tend to be opinionated and don’t mind expressing those opinions.  Now I’ve been careful of doing that with people in authority because I think Scripture speaks clearly about respecting those people, even if we don’t agree with them (1 Peter 2 is a good reference for this, especially when you consider that it was written around the time that Nero was in charge).  What I hadn’t been as mindful of was the relative ease with which I could trash another public figure like LeBron James, Brett Favre, or Coach K.

Why was it so easy for me to talk so negatively about people who I didn’t even know aside from what I had learned through the media?

I think it’s because of two things:

1. We live in a culture where we’re allowed and even encouraged to express whatever it is we’re thinking.  Not only that, but there are more ways to do that than we’ve ever had.  Facebook, twitter, and other social media outlets provide us with the opportunity to instantly tell the world what we’re thinking.  Like pretty much everything else, these are great tools used for both good and bad.  Our culture has latched on to the idea that it’s OK to voice our opinions through these mediums without consequence.  Folks, nothing we say, whether it’s with our mouths or our keyboards, is without consequence.  It’s been relatively easy for me to forget that when I just type and hit enter and never have to actually say it with my mouth or face the person I’m talking about.

2. This is a spiritual issue.  Part of relationship to Christ is submission to Christ.  I’ve found that my walk with him has been a gradual, and often begrudging, submission of more and more of myself to him.  This would include my tongue.  Scripture has a lot to say about this.  Seriously, do a search on biblegateway.com for “tongue”.  There’s a lot there.  James 3 has some of the strongest stuff on this issue.  James describes the tongue as “a restless evil”, “a fire”, and that it “corrupts the whole person”.  Why don’t you tell us what you really think, James?  If I feel the freedom to publicly criticize people, there should be a hesitation in me that says, “Is this going to do any good?  Is it going to bring to light an injustice or am I just ticked and feel like telling people about it?”

I’m not saying that we should never criticize.  After all, Jesus had some extremely harsh words for some people.  I’m saying that just because Freedom of Speech is granted to us by the Constitution, it doesn’t mean that Christians should fully exercise that right.  Our ultimate authority is God, not the Constitution, and submitting to him means we leave some of our rights, as Americans, on the table so that we can have ultimate freedom.

It’s a good thing I’m not a pastor

A lot of decisions in life are really made by process of elimination.  When looking over a menu, it’s easy to eliminate a good portion of it because I’m a somewhat picky eater (a quality that my mom and wife totally underappreciate).  When deciding on a movie, I’ve usually done some research on Rotten Tomatoes (a site that many “Ishtar” viewers wish was around when that movie came out), so I already know which movies are off the list solely based on the fact that reviewers think it’s terrible.

I think the same logic can be applied to my vocation, job, career, etc.  I was a “professional” pastor in one form or another for about six years.  I look back on those times with some fondness in terms of how God used me to minister to people and advance his kingdom.  I also look back on those times and cringe at how much I screwed up. 

The question of “Do you like what you’re doing?” is a good one to ask in terms of your job.  I think a question of equal merit is “Does what you’re doing like you?”  As I look back on being a pastor, there was a lot of it that didn’t like me.  That’s not, in any way, an accusation of people, churches or denominations where I served.  I made lots of mistakes that you can chalk up to immaturity, selfishness and naivete.  My mistakes aside, the role of pastor is not one that ultimately agreed with me.  Here’s why:

Anytime I’ve taken a spiritual gifts test or inventory, the results are the same.  ”Prophet” is always #1.  Not the ”I’m going to predict the future” kind of prophet.  It’s more of the ”God impresses truth on me and I have to communicate it” kind of prophet. 

If you look in scripture about what prophets did and how they were treated, it’s not something most would aspire to.  They were normally unpopular, at best, and hated to the point of being killed, at worst.  The messages they were given by God weren’t the feel-good messages we normally like to hear.  Instead, they pointed out people’s sin, told them how much God was sickened by it, and how God was going to punish them.  They were given odd commands by God.  Everything from marrying a prostitute to walking around naked.  If they were profiled psychologically today, I’m convinced many of them would be labeled as clinically depressed.  How about that for an exciting career path?

Now contrast that with the biblical role of a pastor/shepherd.  This person is to care for a group of Christians, comfort them in times of distress and sadness, and walk beside them and encourage them in their faith.  The picture is one of a gentle soul who easily empathizes with others and who enjoys deeply investing in individuals.  I can’t think of someone more ill-equipped to do this than someone who is prophetic in their giftedness and disposition.  Asking a prophet to perform the role of a pastor is like asking Arnold Schwarzenegger to play the lead in “Hamlet”.  It’ll get done but it will probably be painful for everyone involved.

Can you imagine John the Baptist pastoring an average church?  How would the average congregation react when Pastor Hosea announces that he’s married the town prostitute?   How long before Isaiah is fired and decredentialed because he persisted in walking around naked?

I realize these are extreme examples but they illustrate the point that prophets aren’t intended to be pastors.  We’re blunt and honest in our communication, habitually negative and generally aren’t the people you want to hang out with the most.  At our worst, we’re mean and judgmental.  At our best, we’re consumed with the fact that God demands our all and we lovingly and boldly share the hard truths that that means for God’s people.  Even at our best, it’s probably not the person you want preaching to a congregation week in and week out for years.  People will grow tired of it and feel unloved.  That’s why they need a pastor.

I’m still not totally sure how prophets fit into the local American church.  I know the Church needs them, but figuring out where to put them is like (yep, here comes another simile) trying to figure out how you can fit in the D-Day scene from “Saving Private Ryan” into a Tom Hanks film festival right next to “Big” and “Sleepless in Seattle”.  People know it’s supposed to be there but some might end up getting offended to the point of anger, crying, vomiting or some combination of those three while saying, “I just want to see the big piano scene!” and,  ”Where’s Meg Ryan?!”