Showing posts with label Equipping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Equipping. Show all posts
4.09.2010
3.22.2010
Equipping the Saints
THE CENTRALITY OF EQUIPPING
I take it as my basic working assumption that this is one of the essential functions of leadership.
(I hesitate to say the essential function because I know I will get pushed back on that, but in my regular daily life, I operate on the assumption that it is in fact the essential function of Christian leadership.)
THE PROCESS OF EQUIPPING
We must learn a lesson from Barnabas. He stood up for Saul, vouched for him and his faith, invited him along to see what God was doing in Antioch, included him in his own apostolic ministry. It was Barnabas' invitation to Antioch in Acts 11 that leads to Paul's vocation in Acts 13. Barnabas' influence on the life of the Church was never more indispensable, never more valuable, than when he was less concerned with his own influence on the Church and more concerned with Paul's.
This is the relational investment of one disciple to another; a master carpenter once said to an apprentice, "the goal is for you to be a better carpenter than I am."
THE CONTENT OF EQUIPPING
We are to equip and empower others to participate in the Divine Nature, connecting to God in prayer and scripture, worship and sacraments.
We are to equip and empower others to share in the common life of the People of God, connecting to each other in service, fellowship, and pastoral care.
We are to equip and empower others to personify the Mission of God, connecting to the world in service, justice, and evangelism.
This is the basic day-to-day life of the people of God in terms of spiritual practices, essential character, and overarching purpose.
THE RE-IMAGINING OF EQUIPPING
In my estimation there are two critiques we must take to heart in our praxis as equipping leaders. 1) We are equipping people to lead our church instead of equipping people to be like Christ. 2) Our focus on leadership development leads us to ignore the very people who need to be equipped and empowered for those who can 'get the job done' already.
1) Church or Kingdom
We must declare that we are not merely equipping for church work, but equipping for Kingdom work (of course these should be identical, but anyone who has read even a paragraph of church history is not so naive). I often fall into the ubiquitous temptation to treat the Church like my project, and so equipping leaders becomes myopically focused solely on those tasks and responsibilities that build my church organization.
I recently met with a local Christian business man, John, who is five years into a housing initiative in our neighborhood; he is the head of a para-church organization. I brought along a woman from our church, Lavern, who is an urban planner for a secular organization in the city. It was great to have all three perspectives at the same table, and we conversed for some time on the need for all three to work together. In reality, the Church already is all three, I just did't get that immediately because I am too used to thinking organizationally instead of organically.
Too few of us would be willing to get behind John's parachurch initiative, or Lavern's occupation in a secular organization, but it is exactly this that we must do! We must learn from them, and more pointedly, equip them, and others like them, to do their Kingdom work. We still label everything 'sacred or secular,' and 'ministry or regular life;' their should be no distinction, and we should equip for Urban Planning, just as we do for Church Planting or Worship Leading.
To be an equipping leader is to get behind people, instead of getting behind projects. The temptation is to get the person in front of me to leverage everything on behalf of my project, fitting the right people into the right slots in my church, instead I need to leverage everything to help the person in front of me grow into Christ; they need to be the end, not the means.
2) The Importance of Disaster
We are fearful of failure. We bore easy at mediocre performance. We abhor ugliness. This is a major impediment to the equipping process!
The discipleship process employed by Jesus looks a lot more like little kids being tossed into the deep end of the pool! Sure the life guard is there to resuscitate them, but there is a lot of yelling and splashing, coughing and hacking. But they have to splash and cough if they are going to learn to swim! Learning is a lot like doing... actually, learning is exactly like doing, except its uglier.
An individual was asked to be the worship leader of a medium sized church. This person was a talented musician, but struggled vocally. On occasions this person opened songs in one key instrumentally, and a different key vocally. Ouch! Why would the pastor do such a thing? People probably left the church over the decision!
My own sending pastor routinely gave me opportunities to 're-create' his church. Not because I had expertise, but precisely because I lacked it! Failure is necessary. If there is no failure, then we are not equipping and empowering those who need it. My pastor was keenly aware of the consumer itch that Christians have; he knew all too well that allowing myself and others to play games with his church would probably have adverse effects on the size of the congregation. He was even more keenly aware that his calling was to his fledgling disciples, even though that meant leaving that itch unscratched...
"It was He who gave some to prepare God's people..."
I take it as my basic working assumption that this is one of the essential functions of leadership.
(I hesitate to say the essential function because I know I will get pushed back on that, but in my regular daily life, I operate on the assumption that it is in fact the essential function of Christian leadership.)
THE PROCESS OF EQUIPPING
"...so that the body of Christ may be built up..."
We must learn a lesson from Barnabas. He stood up for Saul, vouched for him and his faith, invited him along to see what God was doing in Antioch, included him in his own apostolic ministry. It was Barnabas' invitation to Antioch in Acts 11 that leads to Paul's vocation in Acts 13. Barnabas' influence on the life of the Church was never more indispensable, never more valuable, than when he was less concerned with his own influence on the Church and more concerned with Paul's.
This is the relational investment of one disciple to another; a master carpenter once said to an apprentice, "the goal is for you to be a better carpenter than I am."
THE CONTENT OF EQUIPPING
"...attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
We are to equip and empower others to participate in the Divine Nature, connecting to God in prayer and scripture, worship and sacraments.
"...the whole body, joined and held together..."
We are to equip and empower others to share in the common life of the People of God, connecting to each other in service, fellowship, and pastoral care.
" ...as each part does its work."
We are to equip and empower others to personify the Mission of God, connecting to the world in service, justice, and evangelism.
This is the basic day-to-day life of the people of God in terms of spiritual practices, essential character, and overarching purpose.
THE RE-IMAGINING OF EQUIPPING
In my estimation there are two critiques we must take to heart in our praxis as equipping leaders. 1) We are equipping people to lead our church instead of equipping people to be like Christ. 2) Our focus on leadership development leads us to ignore the very people who need to be equipped and empowered for those who can 'get the job done' already.
1) Church or Kingdom
We must declare that we are not merely equipping for church work, but equipping for Kingdom work (of course these should be identical, but anyone who has read even a paragraph of church history is not so naive). I often fall into the ubiquitous temptation to treat the Church like my project, and so equipping leaders becomes myopically focused solely on those tasks and responsibilities that build my church organization.
I recently met with a local Christian business man, John, who is five years into a housing initiative in our neighborhood; he is the head of a para-church organization. I brought along a woman from our church, Lavern, who is an urban planner for a secular organization in the city. It was great to have all three perspectives at the same table, and we conversed for some time on the need for all three to work together. In reality, the Church already is all three, I just did't get that immediately because I am too used to thinking organizationally instead of organically.
Too few of us would be willing to get behind John's parachurch initiative, or Lavern's occupation in a secular organization, but it is exactly this that we must do! We must learn from them, and more pointedly, equip them, and others like them, to do their Kingdom work. We still label everything 'sacred or secular,' and 'ministry or regular life;' their should be no distinction, and we should equip for Urban Planning, just as we do for Church Planting or Worship Leading.
To be an equipping leader is to get behind people, instead of getting behind projects. The temptation is to get the person in front of me to leverage everything on behalf of my project, fitting the right people into the right slots in my church, instead I need to leverage everything to help the person in front of me grow into Christ; they need to be the end, not the means.
2) The Importance of Disaster
We are fearful of failure. We bore easy at mediocre performance. We abhor ugliness. This is a major impediment to the equipping process!
The discipleship process employed by Jesus looks a lot more like little kids being tossed into the deep end of the pool! Sure the life guard is there to resuscitate them, but there is a lot of yelling and splashing, coughing and hacking. But they have to splash and cough if they are going to learn to swim! Learning is a lot like doing... actually, learning is exactly like doing, except its uglier.
An individual was asked to be the worship leader of a medium sized church. This person was a talented musician, but struggled vocally. On occasions this person opened songs in one key instrumentally, and a different key vocally. Ouch! Why would the pastor do such a thing? People probably left the church over the decision!
My own sending pastor routinely gave me opportunities to 're-create' his church. Not because I had expertise, but precisely because I lacked it! Failure is necessary. If there is no failure, then we are not equipping and empowering those who need it. My pastor was keenly aware of the consumer itch that Christians have; he knew all too well that allowing myself and others to play games with his church would probably have adverse effects on the size of the congregation. He was even more keenly aware that his calling was to his fledgling disciples, even though that meant leaving that itch unscratched...
8.29.2007
Be All That You Can Be!
No this isn't a rerun of an old US Army commercial...
I had some visitors a week or two back from Germany (I am still putting together a rumination on their visit) and I got to reminisce about the Church we were sent out from. I had a conversation with Ingo on my front porch that involved me explaining my thankfulness at having been a part of our sending church for the years that we were there. He asked, "Why was it so special?" This was some of my response:
Church is not supposed to be about putting the best person in the best place to do the best job; creating a perfect product for the consumption of those who show up. There are so many problems with this approach to Church (it creates a clergy/laity dichotomy between those who are and those who are not, it promotes comfort over sacrifice, it promotes a 'discriminating palate' instead of an activist lifestyle, etc.) but I would rather discuss the amazing aspects of a different approach to Church.
If we stop trying to get the best person to come and put on the best show, and instead use the various aspects of Church to be the 'training grounds' for the individuals who perform the various functions, then we are begining to live out the meaning of such passages as Ephesians 4:11-16.
Here are some practical examples:
Why do we want the best worship leader leading worship? Wouldn't we rather have someone step into that position who will be grown and developed by their time in that role? Instead of finding the person who knows how to develop and oversee small groups in a church and paying them to come to your church and do that there, why not let someone who is already in the church yet doesn't know what they are doing give it a shot, in the process they will be developing the very attributes that God wants to produce in them?
There are some fundamental assumptions behind such an approach:
1) The Church's primary role is to represent the person of Jesus to the world in attitude and action, word and deed, both corporately and (more importantly) individually.
2) The role of Church leadership is not ministering to the Church 'laity;' it is equipping, educating, and empowering the 'normal' Christian to minister to the world.
(I have heard it speculated that the Apostle Paul would define the role of baptism in an individual's life the way we today view ordination. In other words, the way most people today think of the role of priests or pastors is the way Paul understood the normal Christian life.)
3) Success in spiritual terms has to do with an individual's connection to God's realm of power, not with the number of people connected to our particular organization.
4) Completing a well-defined task is not the same thing as spiritual growth.
5) Being given the answers to your questions is nowhere near as beneficial as the experience that comes from figuring out the answer.
6) If you are lacking in gifted people in your local community you do not have a resource problem you have a training problem.
Some practical ways that I have seen this walked out at the Church we were sent out from:
Consistently placing less qualified people in positions of responsibility; from the managers of the Coffee Shop to the worship leader, to the pastors, to the small group leaders, to the outreach directors, to the Sunday School leaders, etc. our church viewed a willingness to learn and to serve, and a heartfelt love for Jesus and hatred of their own sin, as the sole prerequisites for accepting responsibility in our community.
"Soft Architecture" - An intentional fuzziness in structure that provided enough room for people to struggle with God. Individuals were forced to seek their own answers, their own job descriptions, their own growth into the task at hand. There was some structure, but mostly there was encouraging relationship with other spiritual sojourners.
A willingness to let people 'mess things up' by learning through doing. Just like a parent does more work in letting their three-year-old 'help' cook dinner (but is providing all sorts of wonderful opportunities for maturing and bonding), so it is more work to let someone learn how to lead a ministry after they start leading it.
All this to say: the Church should be doing everything in its power to help every individual connected to it to come to look like Jesus
I had some visitors a week or two back from Germany (I am still putting together a rumination on their visit) and I got to reminisce about the Church we were sent out from. I had a conversation with Ingo on my front porch that involved me explaining my thankfulness at having been a part of our sending church for the years that we were there. He asked, "Why was it so special?" This was some of my response:
Church is not supposed to be about putting the best person in the best place to do the best job; creating a perfect product for the consumption of those who show up. There are so many problems with this approach to Church (it creates a clergy/laity dichotomy between those who are and those who are not, it promotes comfort over sacrifice, it promotes a 'discriminating palate' instead of an activist lifestyle, etc.) but I would rather discuss the amazing aspects of a different approach to Church.
If we stop trying to get the best person to come and put on the best show, and instead use the various aspects of Church to be the 'training grounds' for the individuals who perform the various functions, then we are begining to live out the meaning of such passages as Ephesians 4:11-16.
Here are some practical examples:
Why do we want the best worship leader leading worship? Wouldn't we rather have someone step into that position who will be grown and developed by their time in that role? Instead of finding the person who knows how to develop and oversee small groups in a church and paying them to come to your church and do that there, why not let someone who is already in the church yet doesn't know what they are doing give it a shot, in the process they will be developing the very attributes that God wants to produce in them?
There are some fundamental assumptions behind such an approach:
1) The Church's primary role is to represent the person of Jesus to the world in attitude and action, word and deed, both corporately and (more importantly) individually.
2) The role of Church leadership is not ministering to the Church 'laity;' it is equipping, educating, and empowering the 'normal' Christian to minister to the world.
(I have heard it speculated that the Apostle Paul would define the role of baptism in an individual's life the way we today view ordination. In other words, the way most people today think of the role of priests or pastors is the way Paul understood the normal Christian life.)
3) Success in spiritual terms has to do with an individual's connection to God's realm of power, not with the number of people connected to our particular organization.
4) Completing a well-defined task is not the same thing as spiritual growth.
5) Being given the answers to your questions is nowhere near as beneficial as the experience that comes from figuring out the answer.
6) If you are lacking in gifted people in your local community you do not have a resource problem you have a training problem.
Some practical ways that I have seen this walked out at the Church we were sent out from:
Consistently placing less qualified people in positions of responsibility; from the managers of the Coffee Shop to the worship leader, to the pastors, to the small group leaders, to the outreach directors, to the Sunday School leaders, etc. our church viewed a willingness to learn and to serve, and a heartfelt love for Jesus and hatred of their own sin, as the sole prerequisites for accepting responsibility in our community.
"Soft Architecture" - An intentional fuzziness in structure that provided enough room for people to struggle with God. Individuals were forced to seek their own answers, their own job descriptions, their own growth into the task at hand. There was some structure, but mostly there was encouraging relationship with other spiritual sojourners.
A willingness to let people 'mess things up' by learning through doing. Just like a parent does more work in letting their three-year-old 'help' cook dinner (but is providing all sorts of wonderful opportunities for maturing and bonding), so it is more work to let someone learn how to lead a ministry after they start leading it.
All this to say: the Church should be doing everything in its power to help every individual connected to it to come to look like Jesus
5.21.2007
"Success is..."
If you haven't read it yet, click on the title link to read a previous post, and read also the comments to it.
Much of what passes for the definition of "ministry success" (no offense to those who find value in it) stands in opposition to the methods Jesus Himself engaged in to "build" His ministry. Success is defined in terms of how many people have attended a particular event, the size of our budget, or the square footage of our building. By these terms Jesus was an utter failure. He had no operating budget, or a building; and as for body count, the man kept sending everyone away!!!!
Those who answered the previous post by pointing to obedience to Jesus, and love for God and neighbor, are certainly correct...
...however, I had better rephrase the question:
Granting that success is defined by our obedience to Jesus, and that 'obedience to Jesus' is defined by our love for God and our love for people, what is an accurate measure of that success?
What is the fruit that will show that the tree is healthy?
Matthew 7:15-20
The answer Jesus gives is that we would leave something behind us (John 15:16); if we look to Jesus we can see in His life a model for us to follow. If we would judge our lives a success by the standard Jesus set then we must first begin by stating that 'success' is to be measured by the people who follow after us...
...it has been said:
"Success is defined by our successors!"
Jesus made many baffling decisions if His ministry is to be evaluated by much of what passes for 'church growth' today. He sent people away without even a basic understanding of the gospel, He refused to let people follow Him, ran away and hid from them when they wanted to give Him a place of prominence and authority in their community, was constantly avoiding the influential people in society in favor of people who had nothing to offer, would consistently tell people things that were phrased in such a way that they either plotted to kill Him or simply left His ministry altogether; in fact, Jesus seems to have been more interested in 'Church Growth Governors' than in conventional and contemporary 'Church Growth' wisdom.
Why did Jesus do things the way He did them? Because He measured success by the lives of the disciples He left behind Him. He knew that no matter how large His Church became, there was not the possibility of 'success' if He was the only one to take responsibility for what God wants to do upon the earth. In fact, the whole goal of Jesus ministry was not to 'reach people with the gospel' (as we often think of this term) but rather to help a small group of people to learn how to live in God's presence so fully that they would be able to teach others how to do the same thing. (Which is what Jesus meant when He used the term gospel...)
God is not concerned with externals...
...He is truly concerned that each person would become the woman or man that they were intended to be (a unique reflection of the Son of God and Son of Man, Jesus), and so would rather spend three years teaching twelve men how to 'be' then lead 10,000 people in a 'sinner's prayer,' or gather 20,000 into a group, or oversee the construction of a giant community center/meeting hall, or raise 1,000,000 dollars.
Much of what passes for the definition of "ministry success" (no offense to those who find value in it) stands in opposition to the methods Jesus Himself engaged in to "build" His ministry. Success is defined in terms of how many people have attended a particular event, the size of our budget, or the square footage of our building. By these terms Jesus was an utter failure. He had no operating budget, or a building; and as for body count, the man kept sending everyone away!!!!
Those who answered the previous post by pointing to obedience to Jesus, and love for God and neighbor, are certainly correct...
...however, I had better rephrase the question:
Granting that success is defined by our obedience to Jesus, and that 'obedience to Jesus' is defined by our love for God and our love for people, what is an accurate measure of that success?
What is the fruit that will show that the tree is healthy?
Matthew 7:15-20
The answer Jesus gives is that we would leave something behind us (John 15:16); if we look to Jesus we can see in His life a model for us to follow. If we would judge our lives a success by the standard Jesus set then we must first begin by stating that 'success' is to be measured by the people who follow after us...
...it has been said:
"Success is defined by our successors!"
Jesus made many baffling decisions if His ministry is to be evaluated by much of what passes for 'church growth' today. He sent people away without even a basic understanding of the gospel, He refused to let people follow Him, ran away and hid from them when they wanted to give Him a place of prominence and authority in their community, was constantly avoiding the influential people in society in favor of people who had nothing to offer, would consistently tell people things that were phrased in such a way that they either plotted to kill Him or simply left His ministry altogether; in fact, Jesus seems to have been more interested in 'Church Growth Governors' than in conventional and contemporary 'Church Growth' wisdom.
Why did Jesus do things the way He did them? Because He measured success by the lives of the disciples He left behind Him. He knew that no matter how large His Church became, there was not the possibility of 'success' if He was the only one to take responsibility for what God wants to do upon the earth. In fact, the whole goal of Jesus ministry was not to 'reach people with the gospel' (as we often think of this term) but rather to help a small group of people to learn how to live in God's presence so fully that they would be able to teach others how to do the same thing. (Which is what Jesus meant when He used the term gospel...)
God is not concerned with externals...
...He is truly concerned that each person would become the woman or man that they were intended to be (a unique reflection of the Son of God and Son of Man, Jesus), and so would rather spend three years teaching twelve men how to 'be' then lead 10,000 people in a 'sinner's prayer,' or gather 20,000 into a group, or oversee the construction of a giant community center/meeting hall, or raise 1,000,000 dollars.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)