One of my favorite commercials is a FedEx commercial from several years ago. A guy is sitting in a corporate mail room with a bank of telephones in front of him, each ringing away. He picks up one. In his most upbeat, can-do voice, he says, "Have that in Poughkeepsie by 9:00? I can do that!" He grabs another phone, "Have that in Peoria by 10:00? I can do that!" He grabs yet another phone, "Have that in Pasadena at 8:00? I can do that!" Then he hangs up the phone, looks into the camera for a moment, pauses, and then says in the same tone, "How am I going to do that?"
I have been writing about several problems within the Church. It is one thing to identify problems and commit to solving them. It is quite another to know how to solve them. My brain is wired toward strategy and often short on tactics. So I look to others for clues about "How am I going to do that?" From what I have experienced, observed, and read, I think leaders must do at least four things for a gathered community to become an emerging priesthood of believers in Christ. These concerns are especially true for pastors, but I think they apply to anyone in leadership.
1. You are the curriculum – We can say whatever we want, but if our lives do not rigorously exemplify the truth we are saying, then we are wasting our breath. If we say we believe in the priesthood of believers but rarely highlight the use of a variety of gifts as ministry, talk about "the ministry" as something that happens inside the four walls of the church, and (if a pastor or elder) insist on operating in a controlling way, there isn't going to be transformation.
As leaders, we have to be certain we know in our own minds what it means to function as the diversely gifted body of Christ. We have to be committed to being one in Christ while exhibiting a variety of gifts. It means refusing to take responsibility for the ministry ideas others impose upon us while encouraging and empowering the saints to live out the passion for the ideas God has given them. It means publicly and relentlessly holding up examples of people who "get it."
I think the last issue may be one of the most underrated tactics among Meyers-Briggs intuitive types (more than half of all pastors but only about 25% of the population.) We intuitive types see ideas and models in full three-dimensional, Technicolor, surround-sound imagery. We love metaphors. Not so for the sensing types. Most sensing types catch an idea from seeing a concrete example. They love clear instructions. Sensing types begin to journey toward a new paradigm when there are real-life examples to connect with. (I want to be very clear here. This is not a statement of being "intelligent" versus not being "intelligent." It is an issue of different kinds of intelligence. The ability to efficiently and effectively implement a pattern of behavior is an intelligence few intuitive types have. We need each other!)
2. Cast the vision – Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote, "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
Demographers have what they call the "Push-Pull" theory of migration. This theory's core assumption is that a combination of two things must be in play for a person to move from place A to place B. Either place A has to become so unattractive that residents develop a desire to leave (the Push from) place A or place B becomes so attractive relative to place A that residents of A are drawn (Pulled) to place B. I think the same can be said of "spiritual" migration from one paradigm to another.
While critiquing the existing "home" is a must, it is insufficient alone. Critique may persuade folks to move, but it may not be to the place B we intended. I think the primary motivator has to be the "Pull." Everything that we teach, the metaphors we use, and the very way we organize ourselves for action have to reflect the vision we have in mind. A (word) picture is worth a thousand words for the intuitive types. For the sensing types, the best criticism of the bad is the practical practice of the better. We have to have both.
3. Momentum – I don't know if it is just a Presbyterian thing, but almost every pastor, congregation, or governing body I have seen that seeks transformation starts by trying to devise a program that will bring the whole body of people from place A to place B in one giant step (usually in about 3 to 6 months!) I know of no example anywhere of this kind of change happening. In fact, it usually has a negative effect. Any future efforts are hampered because everyone points back to the last time they tried "transformation" as a concrete example of what doesn't work.
Transformation usually comes as a snowballing effect. We have many examples of Jesus casting his vision to the crowds. This is important. Yet Jesus spent most of his time pouring himself into twelve people, three more than the others (Peter, James, and John), and one was especially close to him (John).
Erwin McManus notes in his An Unstoppable Force that the scientific formula for momentum is mass multiplied by velocity. Mass without velocity has no impact because it is stationary. Velocity without mass is motion without the ability to have an impact. If we view the Church as a "movement" that is to have an "impact," there must be "momentum." Had Jesus simply gathered many people (mass) without deeply instilling vision (velocity), the Church would have died quickly without impact. Had Jesus only instilled vision in a couple of folks without a broader proclamation, the Church would have died from lack of mass.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that true change takes place with one person deeply impacting a few people while casting wide the larger vision. As people catch the vision and replicate the process of impacting a few while casting the vision wide, change achieves such momentum that old paradigms are swept away.
4. Integration and Deployment – The key to effective vision casting and sustaining others in the vision is integrating them into the ultimate source of the vision, the living God. God has given each person gifts and passions. Apart from God, we often live out warped expressions of our gifts and passions because they are not integrated into a larger picture of God and God's purposes in the world. We are not integrated into the body of Christ.
Too often, salvation is presented only as salvation FROM sin. This is a half-truth. Salvation is also salvation TO service. Baptism is ordination into ministry. Spiritual formation must be present that opens us to who we are in God and the unique call that God has for each of us. It must also help us see our gifts in coordinated relationship to the gifts God has given others so that we may truly be one in Christ, giving witness to God's love for the world (John 17). (I have wondered if maybe we need to rethink our baptism and confirmation ceremonies in ways that accentuate better the call to service through God-given gifts and passions.)
Leadership in the Church must have as its ultimate aim the full integration of people's lives into the very heart of God. It must integrate them into the body of Christ, empowered and deployed throughout the various spheres of human existence.
As I have been in Emergent circles, I have seen some themes in people's reasons for joining the conversation. They tie directly to these four concerns I have listed:
1. You are the curriculum – Emergent types see little authenticity in traditional churches. Too much of it sounds and feels like slick marketing instead of transparent relationships of people struggling through a journey. Sometimes it sounds and feels like people wallowing in a sea of co-dependence with no true vision of God.
2. Cast the vision – Instead of casting a vision, the picture is too often one of "circle the wagons." When vision is cast, it often seems to be about moving to a place that has little resemblance to where Jesus called us to be. Emergent types have become dissatisfied with place A but are often not on their way to place B leaders are offering as a new home.
3. Momentum – I think many Emergent types either see their congregations as inert mass with whatever vision there is spread a mile wide and an inch deep. They hunger for deep vision that moves and transforms people, relationships, and cultures.
4. Integration and Deployment – Most Emergent types experience the Church as a place of control and constraint. Their gifts are trivialized in the face of "ministry" that goes on within the four walls of a building, and "integration" usually means being plugged in as a piece of institutional machinery rather than being brought into authentic relationship with God and others, empowered to serve.
These are not the only issues in play, but I do believe that leaders who take these concerns to heart will find themselves in a much better place to nurture the growth of the body of Christ as the Church emerges in the Twenty-First Century.
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