Photo RT: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Illustration-Mix/1355399
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was, “Don’t give away leadership too early.” Now I have to admit this was initially a hard truth for me to accept. I mean, shouldn't we strive to see the best in people? Isn't unleashing the potential of others a central part of leading?
Perhaps no other factor plays a more central
role in shaping a church’s ethos than how it measures spiritual maturity.
As an inherently spiritual community, the
church’s gauge for spiritual maturity essentially defines success for its
congregation. In other words, the church’s measuring stick identifies the goal
that everyone ought to be shooting for. Is the ultimate aim to accumulate a wealth of theological knowledge? To be passionate about humanitarian issues? To be an outspoken republican? To become a central leader
in the church? To live a life of simplicity? To not do anything "bad"?
The easiest way to get a feel for how a church gauges spiritual maturity is by looking at its
leadership. These men and women represent the kind of lifestyle, discipline
and/or giftedness that is deemed worthy to lead (and thus most valuable) in
that community. In a way, they represent the quintessential believer because
they set the bar for what it means to be spiritually mature, or at least spiritually mature enough to lead everyone else.
If a church says
that true spiritual growth is revealed by acts of compassion, but the majority of its staff has theology degrees and spends most of its week in the church office, then
it is the latter that comes to be understood by the community as the standard
for spiritual maturity. Although that church might really believe that
spiritual maturity ought to be fleshed out through acts of love in theory, it is communicating
through its own action that in actuality theological education is the ultimate gauge for maturity.
This is extremely important for leaders to
understand because whenever certain qualities are considered more valuable than
others by a community, that community will find itself attracting, developing and retaining
people with those qualities. Over time, the community inevitably becomes a
reflection of its leadership.
Don’t believe me?
Take a moment to think of an established church near you that places a very high
value on biblical knowledge. They probably teach through the scriptures verse
by verse, use lots of big words with extensive theological meaning, regularly
examine the original Greek and Hebrew texts, argue that one biblical
translation is superior to all others, generally assume that people will bring a bible to church, encourages extensive note taking on
Sunday morning and
most of their staff have a seminary degree or its equivalent. Okay, are you
picturing it? Now survey the general characteristics of that congregation. I’d
venture to guess that the church you are picturing has a very high theological
IQ compared to most churches. Chances are that its members (like its leaders) would blast most of yours in bible jeopardy. These are the sort of people they attract, retain and develop because that is how they have come to define spiritual maturity.
Although the
details change, the story is always the same. Churches that use the Knowledge Gauge are really good at bible trivia and enjoy lengthy theological debates. Churches that use the Financial Generosity Gauge have white teeth, pleated pants and large budgets. Churches that use the Tolerance Gauge have a smorgasbord of sin issues and very few hard conversations. Churches that use the Faithful-To-Show-Up-Each-Week Gauge have
apathetic congregations and less and less young people. Churches that use the Involvement-In-Church-Functions Gauge have very full calendars and lots of single women. Churches that use the Frugality Gauge have small budgets, organic produce and no parking
issues. It all comes down to how you measure spiritual maturity and how that value is reflected in your leadership.
So how does your church measure spiritual maturity? What is your gauge? What cherished "spiritual" characteristic is most clearly modeled by your leaders as the most important? Is there consistency between this and what your church says it values most? Or how about between this and what you are asking of your people? If not, what needs to change? And most importantly, what does your gauge say about what you believe as a church? Is it biblically sound? Or did it generate from somewhere else?
(In part 2, I'll be looking at the way Mosaic gauges spiritual maturity and how that fleshes itself out in the church. It's probably not what you think...)
Mosaic puts great
emphasis on being a community where people can belong long before they believe.
This is really just a reflection of our value for those who don’t
normally associate themselves with church. Have you ever walked into an
environment and felt totally out of place?
I remember a rather
memorable evening spent at a local gay bar. A friend of ours was performing that
night and we decided to get a crew together to come out and support him. We had
a really good time, but as a straight, church-going, rural Midwestern married
man, suffice to say that it was a little out of my element. I had never been to
an event MC’d by a drag queen, had never seen so many fashionable men under one
roof, and I’m pretty sure there were a number of brilliant puns used seamlessly
throughout the night that just didn’t register for me. I was out of my element.
And as hard as I tried to fully immerse myself in the experience, and as
wonderful as the company really was, I still felt like an outsider.
I
think that church can often feel the same way to those who aren’t familiar with
it. Often times it is just assumed that people know all of the ins and outs. But
sometimes what we don’t realize is that over the years, we’ve developed a
highly complex (and often bizarre) subculture. This subculture has its own
language, norms, values and rules – most all of which are unwritten. To someone
on the outside looking in, it can look really strange at best, and uninteresting and alienating at worst.
Mosaic is a
community that desires to deconstruct this sort of “insider” culture by
creating an inclusive space where people don’t need to know the secret handshake
or subscribe to a set of beliefs to be a part of the community. Everyone who
wants in is already in. There’s no process. No membership. Just a community of
people from all walks of life that recognizes and respects the unique journey
of each individual, and who embraces that individual regardless of where they fall
on the spiritual spectrum.
What this means
practically is that at all times there are a number of people throughout the
Mosaic community – people who serve on various creative teams, who are a part
of small groups, who travel with us overseas and serve with us locally in humanitarian projects, who
attend Sunday gatherings and who consider Mosaic their home – who are not
professing Christians. And that is not just okay, but it is precisely what we
desire to see happen.
Our hope is that
Mosaic will be a place where all can encounter God and pursue what He might desire
for them on their time, when they are ready.
Call me cynical, call me vulgar, call me whatever you will, but here are my Top 5 Most Ridiculous Church Signs! (Signs were unfairly judged at my discretion on the basis of hilarity, irony and/or just plain ridiculousness.) Enjoy!
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Relevance has been a favorite topic of conversation in many circles over the last decade. The word is everywhere. We have Relevant Magazines, Relevant Radio (& these guys definitely are), Relevant Churches, Relevant Worship, Relevant Performances (sorry, I had to) Relevant Multimedia, Relevant Para-church Ministries, Relevant Branding, Relevant Blogs, and Relevant Conferences where Christian leaders can learn how they and their ministries can become all things, you guessed it, relevant.
The word has soared to the great heights of Buzzword - reserved for only the most ridiculously over-used terms in Christendom - taking its place alongside former chart-toppers, like seeker, contemporary, community and postmodern. But like most buzzwords, the hype has since fizzled out leaving our poor word to hang out in ambiguity with the other has-beens. Here they are generally assumed to be understood by most, but rarely are. And since they are no longer considered a relevant part of the conversation, they remain misunderstood.
Thus is the case with our friend Relevant. And so I thought I'd bring him back into the conversation today in order to address some of the common misunderstandings about him and to better understand the valuable idea he still represents.
"Relevance is not about being cool. It is about being understood." - Jason Jaggard
Tuesday I spent the day snowboarding at Big Bear with buddy Kurtis. If you've never been to Big Bear, it is a relatively small mountain consisting of 90% snowboarders, 75% fake snow, and 100% terrain park. It is a x-gaming terrain freak's dream. Every run on the mountain has terrain features - even the bunny slope. We're talking table tops, jumps, rails, funboxes, trees, wall rides, bonks, even conversion vans and broncos (the car, not the horse) on which to pull your sickest trick. The venue naturally pulls in a large hipster crowd from all over L.A. and Orange County.
In surveying this melting pot of cool, a converted midwesterner, like myself, can't help but muse on the almost comically obvious reality that I have stepped into a world far from the one I was raised. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto." As we took another ride up the mountain, Kurtis and I talked about the importance of fashion to L.A. You don't even have to live here to see it. Visit L.A. anytime of the week or weekend and you'll see it. It is everywhere. But here is the interesting thing about L.A. fashion, it is both necessary and relative. There is no one way to dress that is deemed cool or in. There is no one designer, one look, one anything, there are many. There is an understood freedom to express oneself. And because it is relative, no one is really better than the other. However, the one thing that isn't acceptable is to disregard the importance of fashion - in essence, to say with your look that you really don't think fashion matters. To do this is to essentially take a shared value of the culture and say that you do not deem it to be worthy of your time. Like all matters pertaining to relevance, it is a sure way to alienate yourself from the culture in short time.
And so herein lies a valuable truth about relevance to culture: It is not about being cool. It is about being understood. And at least in part, it is about communicating to others that their interests, concerns, struggles and needs are worth your time.
Relevance is about starting on even ground.
Sometimes pastors make the mistake of thinking that being relevant gives them "one up" on everyone else; as if one's ministry could only be cool enough, hip enough, edgy enough, it would almost certainly succeed. This is not the function of relevance. Relevance only affords you the opportunity to start the conversation on even ground. Irrelevance, on the other hand, forces you to start from behind. In ministry and relationships, it can often cause you to lose your voice with people before you even start speaking.
Relevance, therefore, is only Step 1. Failing to engage people in a relevant way may prevent you from ever getting to Step 2. And so it is important. Very important. But again, it is only Step 1. If relevance is all you have to offer, you don't have much.
Relevance is not a tool. It is a worldview.
Please hear me on this, being relevant does not mean repackaging what you are already doing in a trendier way. In fact, if you want to guarantee failure in engaging with those outside of the church, keep on doing what you're doing and repackage it to look like something different. That is not innovation. That is not vision. That is manipulation. And many pastors and churches are really good at manipulation. Relevance is not a tool to get people to do what you want. It is not the missing piece in your life or ministry. It is a worldview. It is a way of approaching life and ministry that puts the desires and needs of those who do not yet know Christ before your own and before those in your church.
It is the latter part of that statement that often makes leading relevant movements so difficult. The desires and perceived needs of church people almost always conflict with the desires and needs of those who do not yet know Christ. And just to spare you some time, the two mix about as well as oil and water. Choosing to pursue relevance may force you to make some difficult decisions. You may have to decide between talking about real and uncomfortable issues or maintaining the status quot. You may have to axe some programs that are loved by your members but that do not serve the mission of your church. You may have to watch friends leave and big tithers take their checks to the church next door. You may have to endure a lot of pain. Ultimately, you will have to choose between which voices you will listen to - the loud, constant and often powerful ones coming from within your church's four walls, or the soft, unspoken, unrepresented voices of those who do not yet know Christ.
Your relevance and irrelevance will be decided by which of these voices you choose to listen to. It is a choice that is made not once, but one that must be made continually. The voices will continue. The powerful voices within your ministry will continue to campaign for their interests, and that might involve also campaigning for your resignation. But that is the price of leading a ministry that strives to do what Jesus called us to. That is the price of relevance. Is it hard? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely.
I’m not sure if it’s the scores of commercials reminding me
that it’s tax season or the fact that we’re trying to sell our house right now, but I’ve really been struggling with the animal of wealth lately. It’s
not that I want to hoard it to myself or spend it frivolously. It’s
that I want to give it away...all of it.
I’ve found that something happens to your soul when you get outside the excess of the United States long enough to see the unforgiving realities of poverty up close and personal. For me, it was trips to the Dominican Republic and Brazil when I was a boy and then back again to the D.R. for the summer following my freshman year of college. Ever since that summer, I haven't quite been the same.
When you take in an experience like this, something happens to the very core of your being that is both beautiful and terrible at the same time. On the one hand, God uses experiences like these to open up our eyes and transform us. He begins to birth in us longings for justice, hearts that are moved to compassion, and lives marked by generosity. Our peripheral vision expands alongside our horizons. Our understandings of life, ministry, and mission are shaken. Scriptures take on new meaning. Our priorities are fundamentally reshaped.
On the other hand, however, I have also found that he uses
experiences like these to shatter us. He begins to break our hearts with the
things that break his. Statistics can no longer be subtly pushed aside and
forgotten as each one now evokes memories of names and faces.
When I read that
I find the unnecessary things that fill my house and sit on my shelves staring me right in the face like an old girlfriend I'd rather forget. I try to hide from them, but I can't. The $60 curtains...the $80 bedspread...the $25 lamp...the [gulp] $300 entertainment center...each one sitting there like a kilo of crack at a crime scene - evidence of my own fleshly desire for more stuff.
I try my hardest to justify it all. I really do. I mean, most all of the stuff in our house was given to us at some point or another - some dating all the way back to our wedding day. Others given to us just this last Christmas. We rarely ever make big purchases. We try not to go out to eat all that much. We've had just one car for most of our marriage. We never buy clothes. We tithe...
But no matter how hard I try, its not enough, because deep down I know the difference between needing and wanting. The matching living room decor? Its all luxury. The meticulously framed pictures in our bedroom? Luxury. The stacks of t-shirts I never wear? Luxury. I don't need much, but I sure have a lot.
Now I'm not condemning all of these things. There is nothing inherently wrong with having a trendy bedroom motif, some extra pairs of tennis shoes, or a self-propelled lawn mower. But what I have found is that it really doesn't take much for me to be ruled by my possessions. There's always one more little knick knack to go somewhere. There's always another cool little gadget to make life easier or more enjoyable. There's always a reason to buy something. But then things also need to be fixed, updated, insured, and replaced. There are the "necessary" purchases, like cars, insurance, gas, electricity, food, etc. There are the "smart" purchases, like real estate, retirement, stocks, college funds, etc.
Before you know it, there's just not room for generosity in our lives. So we compare ourselves to the (literally) millions of people all around us who have more than we have and we determine that we really don't live that unreasonably. I mean, sure, we'll spoil ourselves every now and then, but who doesn't? And we proceed to throw out a measurable number like 10% to give us a tangible marker for what God expects of us so we never have to feel guilty for turning down the volume during those obnoxiously depressing commercials that play between episodes of our favorite sitcom or for deleting those pesky World Vision emails that are always making their way into our inbox. Why should we? We faithfully give our 10%.
I know this country is an insanely expensive place to live. But is spending the vast majority of our wealth on our homes, our families, our future, our stuff - ourSELVES - while much of the world struggles to just stay alive really living generously? I'm just asking...mostly, I am asking myself.
Picture borrowed from 'chejenchu' at http://flickr.com/photos/24587527@N05/
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