Fire Escape, Sinking Ship and Being Born Again

Fire Escape, Sinking Ship and Being Born Again

Some of you might be reading that and wondering, What in the world do those three things have to do with each other? Others of you will already understand.

Some of you have heard the pitch, you have to be born again to escape the fires of hell. Or, to free yourselves of the clutches of this decadently evil and sinking, decaying ship (society). Nowadays, these phrases are probably mostly heard from television or the radio. You might hear them in your church or some special meetings. More so in the past, they were the stock catchphrases of the evangelistic crusades. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not entirely knocking any of the above. I have not only attended but also taken part in and supported crusades in the past by Billy Graham, Barry Moore, the, Ken Campbell and the Sutera twins, not to mention Anabaptism's own Brunk brothers and Myron Augsburger. People have experienced changed lives because of the efforts of these teams.

However, as some of them will also honestly admit, based on their own follow-up surveillance, many who make decisions at or around the time of these events, do not follow through. In medicine, when physicians attend a continuing education conference or learn some new guidelines, but don't really end up putting all of that new knowledge into practice, we call that a knowledge gap or a failure of translation of knowledge from word to deed. The same thing happens with many of these evangelistic efforts, whether it is a crusade or television broadcast.

You see, turning away from your old life to follow The Way, or, if you will, being "born again" or "becoming a Christian," is only a start. Somehow though, over the last two or three centuries out of the nearly 10 centuries that The Church has been in existence, too much attention and effort has been put into a certain way of inviting people into The Kingdom of God. We have had John chapter 3, with Jesus’ reference to being born-again and his apparent final words in Matthew 28 emphasized at the expense of a lot of other important biblical material (I used the word apparent because I think I recall reading somewhere that some believe these words were added later to express a certain point of view and may not have been the original words of our Lord). This emphasis on "winning souls" also causes a lot of guilt on the part of those who are constantly reminded that this is what they’re to be about if they want to earn their "stars" in heaven, but find that they're not very successful in “converting” their families, relatives, neighbors, friends or co-workers. In all of this, we seem to forget that we cannot convert anyone, only the Holy Spirit can, and to do so, it needs to find soil that is ready and prepared for the growth of the CD that is planted with the hearing of The Word. This flask is the test of The Church, but one that often we often fail in. That is in part because new converts are often not successfully linked to the physical expression of The Body of Christ somewhere, or even if they are, the receiving congregation doesn't provide a nurturing atmosphere necessary for growth in The Way to continue.

Christianity has too often been reduced to a program, strategies, aimed at getting people in the door of the church building. To be sure, many churches also do a good job of engaging these individuals, their members, in things like small groups. Sometimes the emphasis here is more on fellowship, helping the newcomers feel more like they belong, then that these are an avenue of serious learning more about it what it means to be a Christian and growing in The Way.

Some of these valiant evangelistic efforts are based on the so-called missionary travels of The Apostle Paul. However, what gets lost in the ‘knowledge translation’ here is that the Acts of the Apostles and Paul's own letters indicate that he often spent months and even years in some of these congregations, trying to make sure they were established in The Way, before moving on to a new destination. Not only that, he often returned to spend time in these congregations or dispatched others to make sure they were doing well. And of course, he wrote letters to them, some of which we still have. He and his helpers worked at the individual relational level. This is often lacking in The Church today.

As for our efforts to try and get people through the church doors, The Church in the New Testament and The Early Church times did not even have church buildings to invite people to. If you read the writings of the Early Church, it does not appear that they were very many come if any, individuals engaged in evangelism in the way we are familiar with it today, as described at the beginning of this writing.

Some of us have come to realize that what we have failed to do is cultivate discipleship in the newcomers. This is what the early church took very seriously and was good at. This was all it took for the church to grow slowly but surely so that by the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire, which had been persecuting them to that point, basically capitulated and became Christian. Unfortunately, that led to a whole new other interpretation of Christianity, which set it on another course that was not that helpful, for the next Thousand use and then some. I am referring to what some called Christendom, with all of its ramifications of the union of church and state, but that would be the subject of another article.

What the early church practiced was the development of spiritual virtues. To be sure, there are recorded instances in the New Testament of individuals being converted and baptized on the spot. In other words, becoming members of The Kingdom. What we forget though is that in many of these instances, the individuals, and sometimes their families, were already following God as they knew him from Judaism, so they new a lot about what it meant to be a follower or live the life of a disciple. However, it did not take long when the church moved into the Gentile world, for it to realize that a lot of time and effort needed to be put into helping reprogram, if you will, the pagans to the Christian way of life. Those who became interested by the witness of the word, and more often the action, of their neighbors, and wanted to become a follower of Christ, were assigned to sponsors who worked diligently and intensively with them for a year or two, while they and the rest of the local congregation observed the catechumenate, as they have been come to be called, to see whether they were really showing signs of having the fruits of the Spirit within them. Here again, we have another example of where a Scriptural concept has been somewhat distorted. “The fruits of the Spirit” has to often been interpreted as the number of souls won, instead of spirit-given virtues cultivated.

Many who have been busy doing what they described in the earlier part of this essay are turning their back on it having rediscovered that what we are called to be is faithful where God has placed us, in our neighbourhood or parish (when I dictated that word with my computer's voice recognition, it came out perish, LOL as they say nowadays, which could be true enough as well). What we need to focus on is cultivating virtue, and making sure the needs of ourselves, our fellow saints and our neighbors are met in ways in which we see God working. I suggest that is where we need to direct our efforts in the future.

Telling Our Stories: My Story 3 - Cooperation

My Story 4 - Cooperation

Our Family loves to play Skip-bo, from my 95-year-old father, down to our children and their cousins. We may play anywhere from 1 to 3 rounds a session. You can't really play this game without someone "winning" or "losing." However, we don't go to the extent of counting the value of cards and adding up scores that way, which can add another layer of competitiveness to the game. We just settle for whoever gets rid of their stack of cards first. Then the winner, especially if it is my wife, invariably makes remarks about how it is just luck, referring to which cards you were dealt and what the opportunities where that presented themselves as the game made it  s rounds.

When I was brought up, for reasons that had to do with whatever they had inherited from their backgrounds, our parents never pushed or taught us to be competitive. There was a certain level of understanding that we should do our best, but this referred to all of life and more to academics then things like athletics or hobbies, which can also become opportunities for competition.

Somehow, around the time my wife and I began to raise our family, there was a movement in society toward non-competitive games. We learned of a small company in Ontario that marketed such games and acquired several of them. One involved players working together to build a tower with blocks. Another involved working together to climb a mountain, figuratively of course, on a strip of felt. But one that was perhaps the most fun and the most challenging was a game that had been developed to parallel the ever popular and competitive Monopoly. However, instead of acquiring properties and amassing large sums of money through rents etc., this game, including the strategies and what happened with the cards that were stacked in the center, focused on the benefits of cooperation. Obviously, in a sense, there were still some competition as, if I recall correctly, the more you cooperated, the more you benefited, a.k.a. won.

I am not athletic, and no one in my family of origin ever really pursued or excelled at any sport. However, I do recall admiring my father's ability in softball when I was a child. When it came to my ability, I probably peaked at soccer when I was in junior high. Part of that was because I was still smaller at that age then some of the older players with whom we played together in our village's schoolyard. I played some softball with my fellow nursing orderlies when I was working at University Hospital in Saskatoon. I even proudly wore our green windbreaker, with tour team name Ozarks, on it, referring to the fact that the university is rather high on a hill on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River there. 

I also became fairly good at volleyball. Even though I might not have been the quickest or best as a frontline player, I was often able to deliver a series of serves that helped our team rack up points. This was all learned on an outdoor volleyball court, As we had no gymnasium in our small school, or any level patches of pavement or concrete on which to play, I never did learn to play basketball, as it was not until after Grade 10 that we moved to the city. Somehow, we never played football there, so I never learn to play that either. Living on the lake, we learned to skate and enjoyed that and the number of games that opened up, including, of course, as a Canadian, hockey. It was all just at the fun level though. Later in life, when I was no longer doing much skating and rollerblades came into existence, I tried my hand at that for a while, skating around the neighborhood. That was a good workout.

In medical school, I played a little soccer again on our class team. However, at the same time, I started into curling and that was my sport for a number of years. Even there, I never developed enough skill to really warrant moving beyond the lead position. Another game that we learn to play when I was in junior high was table tennis. Somehow, for a physical break, both for herself and me, my daughter and I got into paying quite a few rounds of that when she was in high school.

We tended to develop interests in non-competitive sports. When we were children, living on Lake Winnipeg, we love to row our large 20-foot oak and cedar yawl on the lake. Later, I learned to canoe and enjoyed that for a number of years. At various periods in my adult life I tried jogging, but it never lasted more than six weeks. I just never got into it. Surprisingly, even though we lived on a lake, I never developed much skill in swimming. After I learned to cycle, I enjoyed that for a number of years and would even ride my bike to medical school or to my residency postings and work. Lately, I mostly just walk, something we did from the time we started school.

*******

Another aspect of competition that can develop is what some would refer to as ‘the pursuit of excellence.’ As I mentioned above, I did learn that one should try to do one’s best in life. There was a sense that this was even related to our faith and that God expected this of us. After all, Jesus gave up everything and poured his whole life into his ministry, eventually pouring it out for us on the cross.

I tried to do my best in my schoolwork, and was certainly always at the upper level of my class. One of my main interests as a child, and still, is art and I try to do well at that. Likewise, with singing and making music. Ultimately, I have tried to be a good Bible student and teacher.

When I became a physician, even already in training, one became aware of the competitiveness in this field. In training it took the form of those, particularly our seniors, who were able to remember and quote the latest in medical knowledge, making those of us who did not do so definitely feel somewhat inferior and lacking. However, as time went on and I saw some of these individuals become what the profession would consider successful and there careers, I saw that it was often at the expense of marriage and family life, something I did not want to pursue. I guess my experience in family life growing up within our own family of origin and extended family, and also being quite conscious of the families around us, made me see family as more important then that kind of success. 

What I was really seeing of course was the importance of relationships and community. This understanding was deepened and developed further in the years that I spent within the community that was Canadian Mennonite Bible College at that time. I began to learn about balance in life and see that as more important for one's overall health and that of one's family.

When I became a physician and began to raise a family of our own, together with my wife, I was determined not to let work take precedence over family. I worked hard, but I perhaps never studied medicine at hard in my off-work hours as some of my contemporaries would have. That did not help me become what the profession would have considered an excellent physician, at least when it came to academics, research and publication. To this day, I don't know how some of my colleagues did it. Perhaps they just were more intelligent and capable than me.

Indeed, as I have sometimes looked back at my life, I have wondered if I have sometimes overdone the concern for balance. Perhaps I should have poured myself into my career more and become a better and more capable physician, at least medically. On the other hand, I believe I have been a good physician in terms of being an individual, a person, who worked hard at relating to and communicating with the patient and/or their family who were in front of me, giving them my undivided attention at the time. I may not have learned and perfected the latest skills and strategies in terms of therapy as a psychiatrist. However, I believe that who I was as a person trying to relate to them, giving them unconditional support and thus maintaining hope, often did as much therapeutically as following the latest method of any particular school of therapy would have.

Telling Our Stories: My story 2 - Preparation

My story 2 - preparing to tell it

The writers of The New Parish (IVP books, 2014) state that part of the task that one needs to do to evaluate where one is at in preparation for moving forward in the area of beginning to work towards the neighbourhood or parish church is to write your story. They talk on page 123 of first listening to your own narrative. Indeed, regardless of where one is at in life or what one is facing, I think the words of these authors are good advice in telling us to look stories of our lives and what you can learn from them.

You are the product of your stories; they have shaped you, how you see yourself, the world and your place in it, so you need to know your story. It reveals who you are. In a sense, you become the story you, your life tells. You need to share the truth about yourself vulnerably, honestly questioning why you might want to suppress certain elements of your story. You might need to deal with less than pleasant aspects of your past life. Remember that all of this can be redeemed in Christ, Otherwise we have no hope. 

We also need to realize that to come to know our story properly and fully, this sharing of our story has to be done in community with others, as no one can develop true self understanding outside relationship, including with God. We also need to listen to the narrative of our place, Past and present. 

On page 127 the writers talk of listening to our story in the light of God's story, including scripture. Ultimately, when we do this, we can accept our limitations with gratitude and feel set free to take responsibility for who we uniquely are. It is then that we can really make meaning out of our lives and find vocational clarity. 

They talk on page 132 of three strands of the narrative aspect of one's life: the redemptive plot of God's story, the contextual settings of your place and the character of yourself in your story. In terms of having an adaptive presence, one that is open to change, one must listen, and discern, before acting. Sometimes we need to work on one of these aspects more than the other, and again, in community. 

As written on page 113, some of this reflection can also include looking at one's own denomination or tradition of Christianity, to see what strengths and weaknesses are there for the church becoming a neighbourhood presence. Then, we can look at areas such as environment, civic situation, education and economics.

I began to tell my story in part one. Actually, not having really taking into account the above and what follows, that was more of a reaction to what I have read in these two books, and others I have mentioned reading earlier, coming to some sense of vindication of what I have been about in my life as I understand myself at this point.

The author of Shrink, Tim Suttle, states of that's there are virtues that Christian leaders need to consider. In the first place, I have never really viewed myself as a leader. I remember how taken aback by was when a disgruntled fellow church member was the railing against the actions of our congregation's leadership in a certain area. This was in the lobby of our Church building and I was part of the group spoken to when the angry statement was made,"You leaders…”

The virtues Suttle writes about are (pg. 136) vulnerability, which he refers to as the cardinal one, cooperation, which he sets against competition, brokenness, patience and fidelity. I wonder if one should not also add humility and simplicity. A cursory glance at the chapters about the preceding suggests that these aspects are not dealt with at any length. Perhaps these characteristics of life are not really considered the virtues although I would certainly think their qualities to be pursued. Of course, in the sense, perhaps one cannot and should not pursue humility. It might rather be seen as the product of other aspects of the way one lives.

Suttle also writes on pages 103-105 about why memoirs or biographies, often autobiographies, are popular these days. He believes that it is in part because we are all looking not just for the story of our life, chronicles of facts and details, but for an overarching story that will help us make sense of our stories, our life. This would be the kind of story that the authors of The New Parish would be wanting us to know about ourselves. That is the kind of story I would like to try and write, with the hope that on completion of the process, recognizing immediately of course that it is never complete until one's life is over, so what should more correctly be said, is that as one begins to come up with enough of the story to make some sense, it will be helpful for myself and those around me.

Long Live the Queen!

For many years, as a Canadian and therefore a member of the British Commonwealth, one has been aware of the Queen's annual message, delivered at Christmas. One has not always listened, but after hearing excerpts from it this year, I did listen to it in its entirety. In the past this was more easily done when one watched it on TV, but we have not subscribed to Cable or kept up Broadcast TV for years.

In any case, I wrote the following on Facebook and thought I would share it here for those of you who are not my 'friends' there. Mind you, if you want to change that and are on Facebook, you know how to do that.

Long live the Queen!

Some say we should get rid of the monarchy. I am sure it could be toned down a lot in size and scope, which I would totally support - read landholdings, ostentatious lifestyle etc., but that is easier said than done in a democratic society. It's easily done by Fascists and dictators. Many monarchists would resist that. 

One might criticize the royal family and indeed many members' lives have been less than exemplary. However, I think the Queen has remained faithful and stedfast in adhering to the principles and beliefs expected of her, particularly as head of The Church of England, as she describes in this message. Which is not to be taken as me supporting the union of church and state either. In reality, most Western countries no longer practice that anyway. If anything the US is worse than Britain in that regard, which is not how its founders envisioned it.

Governments that come and go can scarcely leave us with the inspiration that someone of integrity removed from those vicissitudes can. Indeed, it was by becoming personal with us on earth that Jesus was really able to show us God, as the Queen alludes to, referring also to the example of Mother Theresa [Imagine, an Anglican praising a Catholic - Henry VIII would be fuming LOL]. 

Long live the Queen!

On Christian Leadership

This posting is a mixture of a review/summary of the following book as well as some of my own thoughts on Christian leadership and the church.

S  H  R  I  N  K

by Tim Shuttle

Zondervan, 2015

Walter Bruggeman, Columbia Theol. Sem., writes in an endorsement: Tim Suttle calls us to:

faithfulness, not success

story, not strategy

virtue, not technique

cooperation, not competition

Scott McKnight, NT Prof, Northern Sem., writes in the forward:

“Tim Suttle wants us to focus on … the local church, the Kingdom of God at work in the here and now in our situation… tired of global visions that suck the energy out of the local church, of plans to change the world that ignore the local church, and of hopes to be significant at the expense of being faithful in the context of the local church.”

“Tim Suttle is not reading leadership literature - [he] is reading the Bible” and wants “cruciform love, justice, peace and authenticity emerging from the local church.”

For too long the church and its leaders have focussed on a certain type of leadership leading to a certain type of success. The problem is, those patterns and goals and how to reach them were based in business. Trust America to turn everything into a slave of the capitalistic free enterprise vision. It was the last gasp of Christendom. 

In its wake we have people like those above, Stanley Hauerwas and the authors of “Slow Church” and “Simple Church” turning our heads, hearts and souls in a different direction. They are turning us back to the Lord and the Bible and the way the church was before Christendom. They are turning us back to focus on Jesus as our leader and the Bible as our guidebook, not some leadership guru with books, DVDs and great conferences suggesting their ability.

This movement also brings back a healthy return to consider the world God put at our mercy when he commands us to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and have dominion over it (Genesis 1:26-29), which we have too long interpreted as meaning to use the earth for our supposed benefit in ways that have removed us from thinking we are a part of it, separated us from the land and creation, leaving it ruined instead. 

Anabaptist writer David Augsburger recently wrote about how we need a tripolar theology involving God, ourselves and others. I like how our church member and peacebuilder in the Philippines, Dann Pantoja, has encapsulated some of the thinking in the above paragraph using the cross to symbolize a four-armed theology. We need to be reconciled to God above by the vertical upper, the land and all of creation apart from humanity by the arm extending down below and ourselves on the one hand, internally, and our neighbours on the other hand, externally, by the lateral arms. 

This re-visiting of our theology has also brought with it a re-envisioned eschatology. The theology of the last millennium plus has been accused of often being too otherworldly. This went along with how we were ruining our world. We desperately needed the new world we understood the Bible to tell us was coming to replace what we were leaving in ashes. The beautiful liberating view of the new-old eschatology is that Christ is returning yes, but that he, God, is coming back to earth to be our leader and make his home with us here. Redemption will see this beautiful earth restored to the Eden God created through Christ  and meant us to enjoy. 

Suttle writes on in chapter 1, Success, pg. 14:

“The church, like a healthy farm, has limits… it is not our creation, it is God’s. The church was here before got here and will outlast every single one of us. Our job is stewardship (italics Suttle’s): to leave the church better than e found it, and to cause the church to serve the world around us, not the productivity demands of the leadership… meant to be holy thing - which sees the value of he parish, speaks the language of the neighbourhood, and understands what the community needs to flourish.” 

Pg. 15 - “If we are going to be wise stewards of the church, we need to recognize what nearly all of our most celebrated contemporary church leaders have failed to teach us: that the church does not belong to us; it is we who belong to the church. We are not making the church; the church is making us. We cannot determine its success, its mission, or its outcomes.”

Under a new subheading, A New Leadership Narrative, Suttle writes on page 23: “I’ve come to believe that the most important things about a Christian leader is not that they are leaders, but that they are Christian (italics his) leaders. Leading in the way of Jesus is a particular mode of leadership that must adhere to the pattern of life Jesus recommended.”

Now there is a sentence to ‘unpack.’ I would add not only that Jesus recommended but perhaps even more so, what he demonstrated. And with that I would go back to the beginning, when God planned that eventually the final way to fully and completely show who he was and how he gets things done, and therefore wants us to do things, is to come and be one of us, to live fully among us as a human. That itself says a lot about how we should function as Christians in the world, the place we have been placed,  including leaders. 

Too often our leaders are too distant from their supposed followers. The more ‘successful’ they are, the more elevated above their church members they become. That was not the way of the Early Church. If you read the Early Fathers, as the writers of that period have come too be called, leaders were very accountable. Their personal life had to be exemplary if they wished to aspire to leadership. They were not leaders to direct some strategy or implement some program. They were leaders by virtue of their changed behaviour as Christians. That was the measuring stick - character. Even the Apostle Paul already told those he had worked among to imitate him, by which he meant his lifestyle, how he expressed the nature of Christ in his everyday interactions.  

Going on Suttle writes, still on pg. 23, “The Christian leader is called not primarily to e effective, but to be faithful and to practice leadership in the way of Jesus no matter what the perceived results may be.”

I would add that from my understanding of the Jesus way of leadership it is a way of humility as a shepherd. It is a way of servanthood; shepherds were servants. They looked after others’ sheep. This becomes more significant when we remind ourselves that shepherd were, socially, at the bottom of the totem pole in Jesus’ time. Yet they were the ones the angels came to at his birth, which only adds to the weight of seeing this form of leadership as the Christian one. Was God already giving us hint of who Jesus was to be? Then, of course, Jesus referred to himself as a shepherd, the Good Shepherd, whose sheep know his voice [John 10:4-5]. How many of our leaders’ voices are really known by their sheep? Too many only hear the voices of the leadership gurus coming through versus really knowing their shepherds. Jesus said in vs. 11, “The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrificing himself if necessary.” Again, today’s leaders tend to put themselves first and expect the sheep to make sacrifices themselves to help the leaders fulfil their plans. 

From 24: “Most of the church leadership conversation today has its footing squarely in the culture (to which Suttle and I would both add business) narrative… getting things done and growing a ministry we can be proud of,” focussing on “best practices… results… effectiveness… We crave practical advice that will help us to be bigger, better and so on.”  

“Christian leadership operates with a completely different basic assumption. Our most basic conviction is that the kingdom of God has come and is coming in and through Jesus Christ. We cannot accomplish the kingdom of God; it is the work of God. Our job is to be faithful to the ways of Jesus, not the ways of our culture. The Christian leader does not pursue success or results the way the CEO of a Fortune 500 company does. The Christian leader pursues faithfulness…

Christian leaders are meant to model their lives and leadership practices on the life of Jesus. This means the they can never have the [pg. 25] assurance of predictable results. We lead in the way of Christ and leave the results up to God. Faithfulness, not success is our goal. The goal of Christian leadership is always and only ever faithfulness in the way of Jesus (italics Suttle’s).”

On pg. 26 Suttle echoes what I wrote about early church leaders above: “I have become convinced that the Christian leader’s first job is to become a good and virtuous human being and a good and virtuous leader, and then to leave the questions of growth and perceived success in the hands of God.”