tabletalk

A Musical Teaser - Enjoy this along with Mark Hanson, Doug Smith, Laurence Juber and many other talented guitarists. Great new cd.

Mark Hanson's version of Breakdown (a nice mid-week groove)

Adaptability and Flight

This photo is the Langley Aerodrome A model that is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. It is beautifully intricate and gives the appearance of a graceful flying machine. Read the description below.

Samuel Langley's successful flights of his model Aerodromes Number 5 and Number 6 in 1896 led to plans to build a full-sized, human-carrying airplane. Langley's simple approach was merely to scale up the unpiloted Aerodromes to human-carrying proportions. This would prove to be a grave error, as the aerodynamics, structural design, and control system of the smaller aircraft were not adaptable to a full-sized version.

This description reminds me so much of what has happened with denominations and particularly with my own PCUSA.

The sign on the actual exhibit in the museum said that the design was too complex and this led to a structure that couldn't support human flight. In many ways this is the challenge to the PCUSA. The weight of all our special interests and activities can't be supported by the structures we have. In fact, they are a model that can't be adapted for the future. We need some new approaches. Many people around the country are working on this challenge. They key will be to discover again what we are made for.

One of the axioms of marketing, I'm told, is that the narrower the focus the broader the appeal. The more complex our focus the more difficult it will be to accomplish our basic mission. Right now our denomination is in need of focus. Mission is the point, and narrowing that mission will allow us to get off the ground and broaden our appeal.

What is that focus? I believe it is church development - churches that see their call to make disciples who follow Jesus; who in turn see their call to make disciples - who will in turn start new communities that make disciples to follow Jesus. The result is a culture of discipleship and church planting.

We need to be more like the Wright brothers. Not getting caught up in our systems but our purpose. 9 days after the Langley crashed for the last time, the Wright brothers flew this simpler aircraft at Kitty Hawk. Oddly enough the Langley is supported from the ceiling as though it is flying above the Wright Brothers aircraft that is on the floor below. Isn't that ironic. hmmmmmmm

Lewis For Lent 2: A Welcome Into the Heart of Things

Lewis For Lent 2: A Welcome Into the Heart of Things

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Lewis For Lent 2: A Welcome Into the Heart of Things

“But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view,, the promise of glory, in the sense described,, become highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door upon which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.” The Weight of Glory p. 40-41

Giving things up for Lent. I’ve never been very good at it. It almost always resulted in a trivial act. By trivial I mean it was always about me losing weight, or eating healthy or going to bed on time or reading the right things so I will feel better about my life. It almost always resulted in what Lewis described at the beginning of his sermon, The Weight of Glory, “as if my abstinence [and my happiness] and not others’ happiness” was the important point Many times we Christians stop in our development at what we get from God, rather than what God intends to do through us.

Lewis at this point of the sermon, touches on a very real intuition – “The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers….” And this being “part of our inconsolable secret.” The we, Lewis refers to, is all of us - humanity. We are all longing to be acknowledged, to be met with a response, to know we are part of an ultimate reality that takes us seriously. When the door to Christ is opened we are no longer strangers to the universe, to God, to each other or ourselves. We fit in. We are part of something bigger.

When we become aware that God in Christ regards us, acknowledges us, meets us and makes us part of an eternal reality that he has created, we also become aware that it is not just for us, but for US! The bigger ‘US’ called humanity. We become aware that our invitation to come through the door is not merely to feel good about being insiders. Our inclusion is all about coming and going through that door. To go out and meet those who are still strangers and regard them, pay attention to them, to include them in the same way that God has included us. We share the glory of God, cast upon our lives, with those around us. We show people the door….not to usher them out but usher them in. We want to extend “a welcome into the heart of things” as Lewis says.

Lewis for Lent 1

"If you asked twenty good men [people] today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has a lot to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself." C.S. Lewis - The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, 2001 Harper Collins San Francisco p. 25-25 - The opening words of the sermon.

I find myself in more and more conversations where this statement by Lewis is most relevant. Many in our time believe the Christian faith to be about denying people things. We deny them fun, approval, attention, even heaven itself. We withhold and withdraw. We become a people who hold on to God’s love as though it were a possession not an action.

Aristotle defined a prodigal as one who has wasted their substance. We see this clearly in Luke 15. The flip side of that same coin is the story of the elder brother. It seems that the religious problem is not in wasting our substance but in withholding it. This is one of Jesus’ points. You can be outside of what God desires for humanity by wasting what you have. You can also be outside of it by withholding your resources from others.

In this time of Lent, it is especially significant that we understand that our abstinence is all about securing “good things” for others. When we “give up” our time, our energies, our safety, our ‘fill-in-the-blank’, we do it with an eye to what we can do for others. I can lower my grocery bill by clipping coupons. Does it result in greater generosity?

Love, like Faith, is a verb, not a possession. It is an action to be taken, not a commodity to collect. Let’s consider how to “do good things” in this season that leads up to Easter, so that others will give glory to God.

Starfish and the Spider #11: Chaplain? CEO? Or Something else? Hybrid-Starfish Leadership

Starfish and the Spider #11: Chaplain? CEO? Or Something else? Hybrid-Starfish Leadership

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Missional Church: A Field Guide - Practice Stewardship to Build Financial Viability

I want to observe two things about this chapter and I think about the nature of this book in general.

First, if I had it to do over again in the starting of Trabuco Pres Church I would have worked much harder at developing faithful practices of stewardship in the leaders of the congregation. It's one of those areas where we are not accountable enough with one another.

Second, when I read this chapter I am reminded of a conversation I had recently with Alan Roxburgh. The point of the conversation was that the development of Missional Church got derailed in Western Culture when we started viewing it as means to devise new practices for ecclesiological maintenance and continuance. In other words, much of this book betrays the missional focus it espouses. This chapter in particular is the most naked.

Not that institutional survival is a bad thing. It isn't the thing. Our Western perspective is so deeply rooted in the survival of "what we've known" that it is difficult to develop a new way of seeing things.

When we look at churches throughout the world, financial viability is not a possibility. Plus, it is not even necessary to the health and future of the work of the Spirit. Now I know stewardship is more than money. It is more than fiscal and physical assets. It is gifts and abilities and heart as well. In this sense good stewardship is merely good discipleship.

But if we believe that being financially viable is a missional practice then we miss out on the fundamental understanding that it is God who keeps his people and his world. This is one of the hangovers of Christendom thinking. We are hoping to establish ourselves in the world as we know it. What if the calling is to have a church that doesn't rely upon the wealth of the empire for its existence? What if we are to be leaner and freer? What if we are to be united by a vision and a Lord who doesn't need buildings and staff?

I know this sounds idealistic and unrealistic, but my point is simple: Be wary of the effects of Christendom on our missional thinking. It has the power to coerce and subvert even the best intentions.

Missional Church: A Field Guide - Stay the Course When Facing Conflict

"This is the fifth transformational key. It is important for healthy, Spirit-led leadership to stay the course when facing conflict by practicing truth telling as an opportunity for learning and growing together." p.96

There is a difference between problems and conflict. Problems are well, challenges that have solutions that can be derived when we put our heads together and work on them. They are more like tasks that need some good thinking.

Conflict on the other hand is personal. Conflict is always more than a problem-solving task. Underneath it has feelings, history, unconscious responses, and much much more. Conflict is not rational though it will have rationality as part of it's resolve. I may be in conflict with someone not because I disagree with their ideas, but because something in them, the way they talk or act, has reached into my sub or unconscious and grabbed ahold of my sensibilities. I then become reactive - often unknowingly. It's like the physical and psychological response we get from some smells. It catches us off-guard.

The key in both conflict and difficult times (knowing they are not the same) is to stay the course. This is where the non-reactive, non-anxious leadership role is most needed. The true key then is to stay in the room long enough to find out what is really going on. This could take a long time or not.

Often conflict is masked by a more publicly appropriate disagreement over a policy or theological position. While we hammer away at trying to convince others of the rightness of our positions, we wonder why no one's mind is changed. Sometimes we give up and walk away believing the other side simply will never "get it". Admittedly there are real disagreements that have no earthly solution. But most of the time I would wager that we simply walk away too early and never get at the root sources of our perceived problems and underlying conflicts.

I'm reminded of the description of liminality. Liminal is that place in-between. It is the desert wilderness. It is the no man's land between adolescence and adulthood. It is the waiting place where there seems no resolve. I believe it is Richard Rohr who said that the key to leadership is to assist people who have been in that in-between place for a long time and are ready to leave to stay. And to beckon into the room those who want to avoid the desert wilderness to join in with the others. And then to stay put. Stay long enough until the solution, the truth is known. Don't settle. Don't run away. Don't give up. Stay put until God removes you from the in-between.

This is what missional leadership needs to do when it is blocked or challenged or confronted. Stay put. Stay the course. Wait. Pray. Be. Until you know God has spoken and moved. Let God be the truth teller to all gathered. Let's not be the ones to give only one side of the truth - ours!

Missional Church: A Field Guide - Build a Supportive Staff and Lay Leadership

By now you can tell that I'm only touching on aspects of each chapter and giving my own thoughts that are prompted by the authors. I hardly ever read anything in which I am in total agreement or understanding. As you use this resource, I believe it is easily adapted and expanded so as not to be a static set of recommendations that will make you a successful missional leader. These are more like "guidelines".

In this chapter the others talk about what a supportive team ministry would look like. One aspect they touch on is in a title of a paragraph on page 91. They quote Steinke again where he says that healthy congregations "Focus on their strengths." I believe this to be essential to developing a missional congregation.

Missional churches are highly contextual. They see themselves as planted in their mission field. The missional church is sent to the neighborhood in which they live. I'm reminded here of The Message and Peterson's translation of John 1, that the Word became one of us and "moved into our neighborhood." That's what God has done in our churches. Many of us have forgotten this. But this is what a church discovers when it becomes missional in character.

By saying that a missional church is higly contextual means to me that the leadership and ministry gifts that are needed for the work are also present. God has gifted the church with all it needs to do the ministry that is before it at present. The Church lacks nothing other than "eyes to see and ears to hear".

Saying this means that God's gifts are the strengths present and they are what you use to move forward. Some of those gifts may appear as weakness (humility?) but must not be demeaned. Instead God has arranged the gifts in such a fashion that all are needed. When Steinke comments that a healthy congregation focuses on its strengths, it doesn't mean it can do everything. But it does mean that God has gifted the church with special skills and abilities and people. This is the foundation upon which you build. Don't be looking for those who aren't there. Like the boy with the loaves and fishes, appearance isn't everything. Put what you have in God's hands and see God work.

In response to the natural church development folks, I would say that their emphasis on finding out what you don't do well and concentrate on that is thorough modern approach to ministry. We need to be hitting on "all cylinders" to be effective. Well, God may have only gifted the church for a specific task in a specific time and place. To spend our energy trying to pull up the areas that we aren't good at seems an unfaithful act to me. I think the parable of the talents is helpful here. Invest what you've got. That's how things grow. Remember each individual church is not the whole church and in most places doesn't need to be.

I think that supportive teams are teams that can encourage the gifts present with one another. Otherwise you're always wishing for something you don't have. That's the "wish dream" that Bonhoeffer says we need to let die.