People are Watching, Wash Feet

This post was inspired by JE’s post “Leaders of the Towel and Basin”

I grew up in a faith community that practised what Jesus did with his disciples in John 13. Twice a year, Good Friday and Thanksgiving, we washed each others’ feet. Since leaving home as a young adult this Anabaptist ‘sacrament’ lost much of its meaning for me. As a pastor and a Christian of the Mennonite tradition I avoided the washing feet thing at every turn.

Then I visited Burma.

In the back waters of that nation I spent a week teaching and preaching an Anabaptist understanding of the Gospel to a Bible College student body and faculty. At the end of the week I spoke at their convocation service. Over 500 people gathered on a warm February Sunday afternoon to celebrate the 14 students who were graduating with their Bachelor of Theology degrees.

With input from the President of the school I decided I would dust off the Anabaptist ‘sacrament’ which I had grown to loathe. Nancy, my wife and fellow teacher, and I proceeded to wash the feet of these students. I was unprepared for the rush of family and friends who came forward to take pictures.

One of the faculty summed up the people’s curiosity around foot washing. “We have taught the importance of John 13 to our students but no one ever dared to think that a wealthy, educated, leader from the west would ever wash the feet of one of my people. We look up to you. We are your servants. That you would wash our feet is amazing to me.” 

Read JE’s post. Then, as a leader, go out and serve those who least expect it. You too may be as surprised as I was.

People are watching; wash feet! – BB

Jesus liked A.P.E.s

Recently I noticed first hand a leadership reality which Alan Hirsch, an Australian Missiologist, teaches. “At the beginning of a religious organizations life the Apostles, Prophets and Evangelists are large and in charge and by the time the organization matures and plateaus the Pastors and Teachers have taken over the management positions. The ‘APE’s’ have either moved on or have been ostracized.”

I had the privilege of meeting with the National Executive of a 15 year old Christian non-denominational organization in Burma two weeks ago. It was a room full of passionate, fervent, God fearing, fearless, tireless, and generous to a fault men and women. The majority were self-proclaimed Evangelists with a couple of Pastors thrown in for some balance.

It didn’t take me long to realize that this room of large yet healthy egos would not be tolerated in the North American church circles where I typically move as a leader. At best these Evangelists would be gently ignored and at worst be treated with disdain and derision.

They taught me a valuable lesson. If I as a leader want to see new things begin or old ways truly renewed then I have to be able to identify the “APE’s” in the crowd, disciple them and then let them loose on the world.

This is what Jesus managed to do. Peter, ‘the Rock’; James and John, ‘Sons of Thunder’; Judas; were not gentle shrinking violets. I realize anew that Jesus chose leaders with large personalities who after three years of being discipled were going to be instrumental in starting a new thing; a large sustainable, life giving God thing.

It is an example worth following today. – BB

GPS Leadership

With a bone crunching weariness I slipped the car into park and shut off the engine with a satisfied sigh. The 4 day 1500 km road trip to Montreal & Ottawa to check in with 6 leaders and their new churches was now in my rear view mirror. The challenges I listened to from these men and women were numerous: not enough resources to meet the overwhelming needs of their communities; not enough leaders in their faith community to share the load; good leaders leaving to find work in another city; immigrants trying to understand Canadian culture. I must also say that the joys that breathe life into their long days are plentiful enough to keep them at their tasks with confident smiles on their faces.

All I can do is listen attentively to these anabaptist leaders and pray that the few words I choose to share will bring encouragement to their spirit.

At times I fantasize about what it would be like to hand these leaders a road map with all the twists and turns, breath taking peaks and soul sucking valleys already mapped out. In my car I managed to navigate these two world class cities without taking one wrong turn. Even where all signage is in French I didn’t get lost, not once. Although there were a few times when my GPS quietly, non-anxiously said “recalculating”.

Leaders don’t get to have detailed road maps or a GPS. Instead perhaps the best we have to offer the leaders in our sphere of influence is a listening, understanding ear and a heartfelt non-anxious word of encouragement. It’s what leaders and I suppose the GPS get to do. – BCB

Rip Those Pages Out

Last week, over a simple meal, some friends and I were discussing the merits of the Old Testament.  Can we as followers of Christ in the 21^st century do without the Old Testament?  What is the real value of this text to the person in the pew?  As a Mennonite, I often struggle with the “God as Warrior” image of the Old Testament.  Or even the “vengeful God” imagery.  It would be so easy to rip those pages out of the Canon.  And yet, there they are glaring at us. 

Johnny is a close friend of mine who lives in South East Asia.  He frequently shares stories of his displaced friends living on the Thai-Burma border.  Johnny is an ardent promoter of just peace making.  This deeply rooted belief has put him on various government target lists.  He has been prohibited from visiting dear friends and places and even spent time in prison for this belief.  As he watches his displaced friends on the border continuing to suffer, he asks me (his institutional administrator friend), “as a leader, how often do you consider how your decision impacts the poor?” 

This question came roaring back to me last week.  Here we were in Lancaster County, USA discussing the merits of the Old Testament wanting to rip pages out of the Bible to suit our perspective on just peace making.  Meanwhile, the displaced in SE Asia find comfort in the arms of a God who is on their side and would be willing to fight and take revenge on those who were continually maiming, raping and killing their families.  So, if we are to truly seek the welfare of the poor, should we be ripping pages out of the Bible or releasing our dogmas to God? – JM

ReThink Everything

What we plant determines what we grow.  Farmers understand this but for an urban guy like me, it has taken a while to figure out.

For 25 years, I’ve been involved in what evangelical-Anabaptists refer to as, “church planting.”  The Christian world can be divided into those who think church planting is a good idea and those who are actually doing it.  I’ve lived in both camps, and I think that some of my fellow-travelers (myself included!) have been involved in a great adventure in missing the point.

 Leaders have engaged in church planting as institutional formation.  We focus on executing strategies that attract a collection of people who we hope find spiritual meaning in the church plant’s wonderful programs.  Growing a church requires the planter to commit to sustaining program excellence, manage costs, and form relational bonds through customer intimacy.  Mission agencies sustain this model by offering venture capital to the church plant with the expectation that a sustainable and self-funding church will emerge that supports the mission agency in return.  In short, the system demands we plant churches as institutions.

What if we did gospel planting instead?  What might it look like if we see every follower of Jesus as a church planter and believe every church can plant another church?  What if we incarnated the victory news that Jesus is Lord of everything?  

Gospel planting requires leaders to re-think everything:  our definitions of mission and church; our leadership cultivation and discipleship formation; and the way we use money in the formation of church plants.

Our current church planting models grow from the same Christendom assumptions that have informed much of the way we have done church over the past 1700 years.  Instead, let’s start planting the gospel, and experience the church fruit that grows from that seed.

 Scary, huh? – JW

Rezoning

When we started this church, one of our goals was to bless and serve the community that we were in as a church. I was convicted through a question posed in something I’d read which said, “If your church left, would the community notice?” We do this serving through a whole variety of events geared at sharing God’s love in tangible non threatening ways including neighbourhood parties, playing with kids in the park, Easter egg hunts, youth after school programs, etc. Our ability to engage the community has increased through a “community space” which our church leased just over a year ago across the street from the school where we meet Sundays. Getting the space was a succession of miracles, including getting the site rezoned to have a church group using it. In order for that rezoning to happen, the city does checks with the residents within several hundred meters of our building. At our annual community pancake breakfast last month, a woman came up to one of our pastors and said, “Someone came to our door asking us to sign a petition because they didn’t want the church in the area. But I told them, “The church comes to bring life not death. They have helped my children. I’m not signing this petition. So I started one of my own to support your church…” I didn’t know this person, and we didn’t get wind of either of these petitions. But I could not help but think that our presence in the community through acts of serving, helped give legitimacy to our being here. -JLT

 

“Say it ain’t so Joe”

Leaders need to remember that trust is hard to acquire and easily broken. This week Joe Paterno was fired from Penn State University. If you don’t know the story simply Google his name. The short version is that this much loved, legendary, well respected coach of an American college football team did not do nearly enough to report the criminal actions of an alleged pedophile who was a senior member of his staff.

We earn trust one rung at a time as we climb the ladder of trust with the people around us. However when that trust is broken we don’t just lose it one rung at a time. When you fall off a ladder you hurdle all the way to the bottom, the same is true of trust. It is a delicate thing and no leader gets to abuse it and survive for very long.

The Roman Catholic Church as well as the Boy Scouts of America are two large institutions that have been in the headlines for breaking trust along with a whole host of other church, business and political leaders. The news cycle provides leaders with regular reminders that looking the other way or if I ignore ‘it’, ‘it’ will go away doesn’t suffice.

PLEASE use this current tragic story to be certain you, as a leader, have a firm grip on the trust ladder. At the very least you can do what Joe failed to do; muster the courage to protect the children and youth in your sphere of influence. – BB

Necessary Endings

Leaders can be encouragers, decision makers, listeners, teachers, doers, and admonishers. These abilities are required throughout the days of leading others. Dr. Henry Cloud in his book Necessary Endings points out another critical part of being a leader. There are times you must bring a relationship to an end simply because “this isn’t working”.

There are toxic people who will seek to corrupt you, others and the whole organization. These are the easy situations to detect although managing a smooth ending is a daunting task. There are also those less obvious necessary endings that call out to leaders. There are well meaning, good hearted, and salt of the earth people who are in the wrong position at the wrong time or they’ve been accidently promoted beyond their abilities or the organization has out grown them. A leader must discern for the good of the organization. Cloud argues that if you’ve done everything in your power to train, educate and empower the well meaning, good hearted, salt of the earth under-performer a leader gets to say, “I’m sorry but this isn’t working.”

Personally, I like to be the nice guy and I find no joy in necessary endings because I’m then seen as the hard hearted guy who doesn’t understand. But then I realize that not even Jesus tried to work with or rescue everyone who crossed his path in Galilee. I suspect the Rich Young Ruler was a salt of the earth kind of guy but Jesus did a ‘Necessary Ending’ on that relationship before it even had a chance to begin.

It’s hard but sometimes endings are necessary. – BB

Audacity!

As the US economy continues to hobble along, it is clear a major issue is that of job security.  In the past few months there have been a spate of layoffs among several church agencies in our area.  These layoffs have frequently been carried out in the name of developing “more effective program.”  And I would agree there is some truth to these claims and wishes. 

However it does not minimize the pain felt by individuals who have been sidelined in the process or, put differently, not included in the new vision for the agency.  At times such as this I am reminded of well-known church administered who was released from service after three decades of service because he was deemed “irrelevant” to the institutions future.  The shock of the moment left this dedicated servant paralyzed.  However he recovered and found a way to envision a new place to engage in God’s ministry with the poor.  In the latter part of his life, his wife passed away leaving him yet again spiraling downward.  It was during this time of deep trial that he found the wisdom to pen for himself, “Do you have the AUDACITY to believe the best is yet to come?”  Anyone who has lost meaningful employment or a loved one will understand the ridiculous polarity of this question to the context they face.  And yet I wonder if this is a question we should be asking in times of both deep pain and enormous joy.  – JM

Jesus Spring

Last week in the UK a programme was broadcast on BBC2 called ‘How Facebook Changed the World’.  It investigated and charted how social networking underpinned the revolutions and uprisings that have become known as the ‘Arab Spring’.  The ability for young men and women to circulate information about the injustices they witnessed, galvanise support and communicate the whereabouts of demonstrations enabled a swift and effective liberation movement of like-minded people, particularly in the initial nations such as Tunisia and Egypt. 

This week-end I was invited to share a story at a conference called Future Church.  Organised by the Northumbria Community and the Anabaptist Network it wanted to explore the factors that will be impacting church in 20 years time. In part of my story I imagined how church might look with two further decades of social media behind it.  Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson in their recent book On the Verge which calls itself  ‘a journey into the apostolic future of the church’ state that ‘the digital era, with the associated network thinking and acting, sets us up to experience movement again in a significant way.’ (p32)

We talk with longing in our hearts about church as a movement rather than an institution but I do wonder how many of us mainstream church-type people are ready for or indeed would welcome such a spontaneous and seemingly out of control movement of Jesus followers – just regular people trying to peacefully do what Jesus would do – a ‘Jesus Spring’ if you like! 

Hirsch and Ferguson go on to say that ‘Christianity is designed to be a people’s liberation movement, a social force, a viral idea passing from person to person through the medium of gospel and discipleship, creating gospel communities in its wake.’  This week I find myself asking what type of leadership we need to begin practising that could  facilitate, release and cope with mass levels of disorganised but holy Jesus chaos. 

In my story I included this rather wonderful ‘parable for a church tucked up in bed’, written by my friends Matt & Juls Hollidge at Kore.  After 2000 years of packaging and controlling the gospel I wonder how we as leaders can keep the focus on the Wild Thing!  JK