Bezalel: What is Ministry?

Interesting fact for the day:

Exodus 31:1-5 records the first place in scripture where someone is "filled with the Spirit."  Can you guess what the Spirit empowered them to do?  Not prophetic words, not healing, not angelic tongues, not preaching, nor worshipping, not even leading the people.

Bezalel was filled by God's spirit to be the artist and craftsman in charge of the artwork and finely crafted instruments for the Tabernacle.

It makes you think...

Ministry is often conceived of as "pastor-work."  In most places the nurses, teachers, gardeners and neighbors are looking over the pastor's shoulder saying, "that looks fun, can I try?"  But that isn't the way it is supposed to be!

Ministry is supposed to be the work of Christians in the world.  The pastoral role ought to be guiding and equipping Christians in that fundamental ministry task of partnering with God in His work around us, in us, and through us.  In short, the pastor should be looking over the shoulders of the nurses, teachers, gardeners, and neighbors and saying, "that looks fun, can I try?

BUMP Life

Imagine walking out the front door of your house onto your porch, down the steps and onto the sidewalk. You turn down the block, and around the corner, on your way to work, and as you walk, you pass by parents walking their children to the school.  These families are of all races and nationalities, they are from every corner of the earth: Nepalese, Congolese, Chin (Burmese), Somali, Sudanese, Karen (Burmese) and more.  Not to mention the Puerto Rican, African American, and Italian American families that populated the neighborhood before the refugees began to flood into the city.

You live, work, worship, and play in one of the most diverse places in America; the West Side of Buffalo.

You live in a neighborhood whose recent history is pretty rough, but whose future is bright.  The people still live in the grip of poverty; urban poverty that has oppressed generation after generation, and the poverty of the refugee community who escaped their homeland with nothing but their own lives and perhaps (if they were fortunate) some of their family.  But development work has hit a tipping point.  The neighborhood has seen a consistent effort towards the renovation of old housing stock, the kick starting of new business and economic ventures, the building of playgrounds and children's programs, the hiring of neighborhood youth, the organization of community groups, the development of urban agriculture, and more...

Ministry is often conceived of as something that pastors, worship leaders, small group leaders, and missionaries do.  But scripture makes it clear that the leaders of the church are supposed to be equipping the people to do the ministry.  That means that ministry is really something that is done by spirit-filled carpenters, teachers, gardeners, businesspeople, doctors, parents, neighbors, and artists.

You are one of those people.

What is more God is doing something strange and exciting here, something that believers have interceded about for centuries.  He is bringing unity to His children.  While divisions in the church are still real and painful, the Holy Spirit has woven together a network of churches, organizations, business ventures, and individual believers who are working together to glorify God and to bless the city.  Your home is a nexus for this unity.  You live with believers from many churches and church backgrounds, sharing meals together, praying together, sharing stories, and encouraging one another in ministry.

You live in the BUMP house.

The Buffalo Urban Mission Partnership (BUMP) is a collaborative network of church and parachurch partnerships.  The Buffalo Vineyard Church is a founding member.  For three years we have hosted dozens of young people in paid, year-long, ministry/service placements here in Buffalo.  The BUMP program has three essential facets: paid ministry work 20-30 hours a week, christian community life in a house and in a local church, a weekly class discussing a missiology for the city.

For more information visit:

buffalourbanmissionpartnership.com

or email:

schenk.steven@gmail.com

Pastor Steven Schenk

Buffalo Vineyard Church

By Gary Weins

wispy fleeting phantom

longing grazes the edges of my soul

just out of sight

A faint perfume

it hangs midair

a memory not quite complete

touching feelings

stirring something

not quite there

yet real

sweet Jesus

how long until once more your gaze arrests my heart

you come and go

now touching

not keeping distant

unpredictable like breath of wind

when can I find you?

will you be captured as you have captured me?

sweet sadness overtakes me

lending voice

to the pensive song

of a lovesick soul

less wild lovers call

sending forth their saccharine smells

false appeals

stemming not from love

but raging hate

they promise joy tonight

cheaply

if I but take and eat

I glance

but longing calls

and sweater far its misty strains

than any pledge of instant glee

lovely Lord

stretch forth your wounded hand

and drip the precious

fragrant flow of passioned love all over me again

retake my battered heart

steal me away to secret place where deep and deep engage

I love you Lord

I want your presence gorging me

consuming me

with fervent zeal

to know you more

living flame

beset me now

with love divine

and say to me again

beloved I am yours

and you are mine

but release does not yet come

the veil is torn

I've entered in

yet still I see with eyes be dimmed as in a glass

when shall I know as I am known?

when shall the hope be realized?

how long will mortal flesh impede desire?

how long?

wispy fleeting phantom

longing grazes the edges of my soul

just out of sight

a faint perfume

it hangs midair

a memory not quite complete

touching feelings

stirring something

not quite there

yet near

so very near

Good Things

"Enjoying good things is a wonderful preparation for Heaven."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Ministry Pornography

Pornography is damaging to the soul for many reasons, one of them is the way in which it creates a false understanding of human sexual behavior and norms.  When people feed their sexual imagination with pornography they begin to think that the behaviors they see in the porn actors/actresses are the behaviors that they should engage in when they are having sex.

The problem is that porn stars aren't normal.  They aren't normal in many ways.

1. Normal people don't have sex in front of a camera.
2. Normal people's bodies don't look like that.
3. Normal people don't enjoy those acts (indeed, most porn stars don't actually enjoy all of the things they are paid to do on camera, they do them because they get paid, not because they like it!)

What is more, the camera doesn't capture everything.

1. It doesn't show you the toll pornography takes on the porn star's romantic life.
2. It doesn't show you the toll pornography takes on the porn star's sobriety.
3. It doesn't show you the toll pornography takes on the porn star's self worth.

=================================

There is a parallel to draw to ministry.  (Actually there is a parallel to draw to any vocation.  The real parallel here is about how comparing ourselves to unhealthy people actually causes us to become unhealthy ourselves.  Or, how comparing ourselves to people that are in radically different situations than us can often lead to confusion and pain.)

In the church we love to hold up examples of church success that are the ministry equivalent of porn.  Looking to the mega churches to teach us how to do ministry is like looking to the porn star to learn how to make love to your spouse.  You are probably going to hurt yourself, hurt your spouse, and likely offend them in the process.  The same is true in the church; we are likely to damage people, and damage ourselves.

Lets make this clear.  The average church in America has 70 members.  If my stats are correct, churches with over a 1000 members represent less than 1% of American churches.  But we keep putting on ministry conferences, and teaching ministry classes, where the leaders are mega-church pastors, and the learners are normal church pastors.  This means the people we are putting on a pedestal have almost no common ground with the people we are asking them to teach.  They are engaged in radically different tasks.

At least as different as a married couple and a porn scene.  ...maybe even more different!

The Gospels and the Whole Story

“The gospels, the epistles, and Revelation itself “work” only when you see them as detailed elaborations of the large, complex, but utterly coherent story we sketched earlier: the call of Human to be God’s image-bearer into creation, the call of Israel to be the rescuer of Human, and the vocation of Jesus to be the one who, completing Israel’s task, rescues Human so that, through redeemed humankind, the whole creation can be liberated from its corruption and death and the project of new creation decisively launched.”

Excerpt From: N. T. Wright. “After You Believe.” HarperCollins, 2010.

Race at School

Within a few days of each other, all three of my children shared with me similar experiences at school.

My children go to a public charter school here in the City of Buffalo.  Like most city schools its student population is a mixture of racial groups.  Our kids classes are almost half black, and half white, with a smattering of other ethnic groups mixed in.  Like most city schools, the staff population is almost completely white, and overwhelmingly female.

My kids came home talking about the way the black kids and the white kids act, and how they act different from each other.  They came home talking about the way the teachers treat the black kids and the white kids, and how they don't get treated the same.  They also came home talking about how some of the black kids accuse some of the teachers, and white classmates, of being "racist."

This is, of course, a wonderful opportunity for us to engage our kids, to talk with them, and to help them gain some tools to use when they are adults.  In particular, we are trying to help them understand the following:

Culture Exists

Your culture is like the rules to a sport.  Everyone on the team knows where to be and what to do to participate.  Once you learn how to play the game, you never really have to discuss the rules anymore.  You just play.

When people engage across cultures, however, its like a group of two dozen kids playing together; except the first dozen think everyone is playing soccer, and the second dozen are trying to play basketball.  They have different expectations, and don't have a common language to use to explore those different expectations.  There is pain, offense, and confusion, without any real understanding as to why the other kids won't just play by the rules.

But in spite of the oftentimes painful results nobody is actually doing anything immoral.

Bad Behavior Exists

Sometimes people break the rules, and they know full well that they are breaking them, they just don't care.  This is true for white kids and black kids.  Sometimes they just do bad things.  This also applies to bigotry.  Sometimes people just mistreat people because of their race.

Neither one of those things is okay, and no one should get a pass because of their skin color, no matter which color it is.

Institutional Racism Exists

The simple truth is that our school, and most schools, are run by white people.  The power dynamics aren't just.  Its hard to see if you are white, but painfully obvious if you are not.  What is more, those power dynamics are the product of a really painful history.  While the events that caused the pain might be generations in the past, the pain of those events, and the institutions created by those events, persist into today.

This means that no one is presently doing anything immoral, but the immoral actions of people from the past, are still doing damage today.  It may not be our fault, but it is our responsibility to change it.

Discernment

Finally, its really important that we help our kids discern the difference between these three things.  Cross cultural interaction can be beautiful, but often its like someone stepping on your toe and breaking it.  Then the question becomes, did they do it on purpose?  or on accident?  Or maybe, just maybe, its my fault for putting my foot where it didn't belong!

Show up against TERROR!

What in the world is going on?

The same people who are horrified at the rhetoric surrounding Islamic terrorists, and Syrian refugees, are now bringing us... ?

...their own horrifying rhetoric that paints whole people groups as terrorists because of the actions of a few of its members!

I vote we "Show up Against People who can't Think for Themselves" and reject the rhetoric of fear, hate, and prejudice on all sides that the politicians are using to divide us.

I vote we begin to tone the rhetoric down on all fronts.  If you are a liberal, it is your job to tell your fellow liberals to stop the craziness.  If you are a conservative, it is your responsibility to tell your fellow conservatives to put an end to the divisiveness.  Lets engage in thoughtful conversation and productive action.  If you really can't resist the urge to be provocative try engaging in friendship with your enemies.

Church Draft

Hanging out with football geeks means you talk about the best player in each position, drafting your best 'all-time' football team. Hanging out with church geeks means you get to do the same thing for a church leadership team. Who would be the best preacher ever? The greatest worship leader? Here is my list:

1. Director of Church Discipline - John Calvin
2. Military Advisor - Joan of Arc
3. Science Advisor - Ken Hamm
4. Dance Team Coordinator - Herodias' Daughter
5. Women's Ministry Coordinator - Mark Driscoll
6. Youth Pastor - the Prophet Elisha and his bear
7. Biblical Scholar and General Cultural Advisor - President GW Bush
8. Senior Pastor - Balaam's Ass
9. Nursery Worker - Bob the Tomato

Just Do SOMETHING!?!

I heard an interview on the radio recently.

The woman was a scriptwriter or a playwright (not sure which, maybe both) who had recently written a story about life in impoverished American ghettoes.  She talked some about the genesis of her new work, and she talked some about the characters and the story itself.  She talked even more about the realities of life in America's impoverished inner cities.

I was, of course, interested.  She was talking about where I live, and what I care about.  We live in a neighborhood where most kids grow up seeing violence, addiction, and illegal activity as normal parts of everyday life.  Our neighborhood is improving, but you can still find needles on the ground in front of the school, you can still see the prostitutes walking the main thoroughfare, there are still young men standing at the corners making more money in an afternoon than a roofing job pays in a week, and you can still hear gunshots in the night.

Then she began to talk about why she wrote it and what she hoped it might accomplish.

"I hope it will motivate people to do something, give some money, change how you vote, just DO SOMETHING."

I was a little frustrated.  In her defense, she is a playwright; an artist, not an activist, or an advocate, or even a scholar, but I would have hoped for a more educated response than this.  Throwing money at our problems, and giving power to professional blowhards (regardless of their political stripes), will never serve to accomplish anything helpful.  In point of fact, one of the largest contributing factors to the perpetuation of American poverty is precisely our unreflective need to just do something.

Helping the less fortunate by giving money and voting for certain politicians is actually an abdication of our personal responsibility to engage in helping our fellow man.  Not to mention it's counter productive.  Don't get me wrong, throwing money and votes around works well if our goal is to make ourselves feel better, it just doesn't change anything for those in need.  Indeed free money is often the reason why better solutions fail.

What is needed is personal engagement.  Instead of throwing money at the latest cause, while simultaneously climbing up the social ladder, try climbing down the ladder instead.

On Race

1) The politicians are hurting us:Our political process is such that we give power to those who can whip up social support.  This is much easier and effectively done by exciting people's fear, anger, and pain.  Thoughtfully engaging with complex problems to find comprehensive solutions doesn't get you votes.  This drives the whole conversation in divisive and simplistic directions.  Politics divides us along conservative/liberal lines, but it also divides us along racial lines, economic lines, etc. We need to stop taking our cues from the politicians, and start taking our cues from Scripture, and the wisdom of the church (the global-historical church, not the 21st century American church).

2) Everyone needs to stop talking and start listening:The single largest problem is not that we don't understand each other, its that we don't recognize that we don't understand each other!  Just like in a marriage: its not the places where we recognize our misunderstandings, its the places where we think we understand each other (but we don't) that cause the most damage.  It is a rare conservative that understands liberals, and vice versa.  It is a rare white person that understand black culture, and vice versa.  It is a rare rich person that understands poor people, and vice versa.  But we all think we understand each other!

3) Demonizing your opponents will only make things worse for yourself:Our society will not be able to move beyond our current situation without active participation and engagement from everyone.  Simply put, if we want to see an end to social unrest like what happened in Ferguson and Baltimore, the black community needs to feel included in the consciousness and concerns of white americans.  If we want to see a change in the systemic racial disparities that plague our nation, the white community needs to have their fears and concerns addressed.  Neither of those things will happen if conservative voices continue to paint the black community as criminal and lazy, and liberal voices continue to paint the white community as racist.

4) Liberals ought to stop calling everyone racist:While racism still exists in some individuals and communities, it is no longer acceptable, or prevalent.  As a matter of moral integrity, most white americans are committed to the notions that black and white people are of equal value, that black and white people are deserving of equal opportunities, and that black and white people ought to live together as friends.  Again, this is not universal, but it is the dominant paradigm within white communities, particularly conservative communities.

In recent decades, liberals have shifted the conversation towards issues of systemic racial injustice.  This is proper and good.  The problem however, is that the language of racism has continued to be used.  White people are being accused of racism when they aren't racist.  Again, systemic injustice is real, but it isn't being caused or perpetuated by the bigotry of white individuals.  Its cause lies elsewhere.

This is where liberals need to listen to the voices coming from conservative communities.  Listen and attempt to gain understanding.

5) Conservatives ought to stop denying and/or justifying racial disparities:White conservatives look into their own hearts and think, "I don't dislike or mistreat black people," and then stop thinking about what else might be going on.  Their individualistic view of humanity and society blinds conservatives to the ways in which systems not only exist, but largely benefit white, middle-class, communities; indeed they often do so at the expense of impoverished minority communities.

Conservatives are conservative because they believe in the power of individuals to make their own destiny, as well as find solutions to larger community problems.  Because of this they are reticent to look to government to solve social problems, and this drives them to treat all social problems as driven solely by individual action.  This blinds them to the reality of social forces, both the social forces that marginalize impoverished communities and the social forces that empower middle-class communities.

Even more, this is where conservatives tend to ignore the anecdotes of black experiences of systemic injustice.  Conservatives view them as unique instances divorced from a larger social fabric of attitudes and experiences.  What needs to happen is a willingness to listen to the experiences and perceptions of the minority community.

6) We need to call people to personal engagement in cross-cultural relationships:The real path forward is the path laid out in Galatians 2; namely cross-cultural table fellowship in light of our common allegiance to Christ.  I am convinced that this is the closest thing to a silver bullet.  In many ways table fellowship is both the means and the end of the reconciliation process.  A commitment to maintaining unity in spite of difference, or misunderstanding, is the bedrock upon which understanding and communion can be built.

7) Racism isn't the real issue:The real issues driving the problems surrounding race in America are not overtly racist individuals, subconscious bias, or overtly racist laws; the real issues driving these problems are #1 the social/political/economic systems and infrastructure that were built by racists of a bygone era that persist into today #2 the generational effects of historic racism on the Black communities of the present #3 the apathy of middle-class whites to confront the status-quo if any sacrifice on their part is required.

The reason I believe liberals need to stop crying 'racism' is that it is a misdiagnosis.  If I am convinced the problem is that you are racist, then I will try to convince you to change your attitudes towards other people groups.  If I am convinced that the problem is that you are lazy and unwilling to sacrifice to help your fellow man, then I will try to convince you to change your attitude about your own personal responsibility towards those in pain.

8) The playing field isn't level:The reality of life in America is such that white and black individuals do not have the same opportunities.  The various statistical differences between white and black communities with regard to income, violent behavior, education, family commitments, incarceration rates, addiction, etc. are not to be ignored.  This is, however, one of the places where conservatives and liberals talk past each other and to their own constituents.

I have found that conservatives are very uncomfortable talking about an un-level playing field, but they are susceptible to hearing about the plight of children in poverty, and are concerned about injustice.  For many conservatives, so long as they are not considered the cause of the injustice, they are willing to consider taking responsibility for ending injustice.

UNITE NY

I was recently invited to my first UNITE NY meeting and was deeply moved...

One of the most significant pieces of practical wisdom God has granted me in the past years is about the role of business-people in the Kingdom of God. As a pastor I am compelled by my theology to believe that all people have gifts and callings to use for the edification of the Church and the advancement of the gospel in our world, but normal church practices often make that nothing more than pretty words.  In our 'normal' way of thinking, the Kingdom is manifested most gloriously in the church, the church is most evident in the Sunday worship gathering, and the Sunday worship gathering is all about what the pastor says and does.  In short, what the pastor does is Kingdom work, what everyone else does is pay for the privilege of observing the pastor 'doing Kingdom work.'  This is, of course, not what God had in mind...

 God has opened my eyes to the role of business-people, in large part, through my relationship with one person.  My friend is a retired businessman who, several years ago, decided to include me in some of his projects.  Through him I have learned the value of business-minded people working for Kingdom purposes outside of the walls of the church.  He has his hands in endeavors of all kinds, job training programs, ministry training programs, housing renovation, job creation, refugee resettlement programs, medical services, college education for the poor.  In all of these he brings his passion for the Kingdom, his crystalline focus on results oriented praxis, his drive to make every effort as effective and efficient as possible, his creativity and experience, and his intolerance of silly religious games.  He also brings his wallet, his schedule, and a profound willingness to sacrifice for what he believes in.

In collaborating with my friend over the years, I have come to see the tremendous value in partnerships between kingdom-minded business people, and kingdom-minded pastors.  This value goes well beyond the financial resources of the business community.  The value is in the skills, practices, and paradigms of the business world, when those skills, practices, and paradigms are used under the direction of the Holy Spirit, and in partnership with other kingdom-minded people, to accomplish God's purposes in the places where we live, work, play, and worship.

While at the UNITE NY meeting I appreciated the encouragements of the speaker, and the opportunity to network, but I was moved most deeply simply by a room full of kingdom-minded business-people.  I walked into a room full of people like my friend, and I couldn't help but get excited!

Flip the List

Irony

Lorigo = Children of Immigrants Against Immigration

Perverted

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Upton Sinclair

==============

Upton Sinclair wrote one of the most influential works of literature in the history of the United States of America.  His novel The Jungle was catalytic in the passage of the Food and Drug Act.  Indeed, the act passed into law only four months after the book was published.  Sinclair was pushed into the spotlight as a national figure for his work.

The book detailed the lives of immigrants in America, many of whom worked in the meat processing industry; at the time, a horrifyingly disgusting and dangerous workplace environment.  Sinclair wrote the book as an intended expose on the plight of the poor and immigrant in our country, and the exploitive way the rich were treating them.  The American public responded to Sinclair's book with great uproar, but not in the way Sinclair had hoped…

He is quoted as saying, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

One of the most gruesome episodes in the novel, (a worker falling into a lard-rendering vat, instantly dead, and unable to be removed), served not, as one might think, to provoke changes in worker safety, but to protect the purity of American lard by the immediate passage of federal legislation.

Safety and Danger in the Church

We baptized several people on Sunday.

One of them was my son.

It was glorious!

People shared briefly of their decision to follow Christ, to be washed clean in His death, and remade in His resurrection.  And then Pastor Cap and I plunged them into a feeding trough full of water!

At the baptism of the first adult, I saw gallons of water slosh over the side and onto the floor, water went everywhere.  I thought, "well, its too late to stop it now, people are here to get baptized, and we will just clean up the mess later."  …and then we kept right at it!

===================

Afterwards I got to thinking about the mess of the baptism, and what that says about the church as a whole.

So often we expect the church to be safe in all of the wrong kinds of ways.  We don't want anyone to come in and bring any of the world in with them.  We don't want anyone to come in who doesn't fit, who isn't tidy, who doesn't play by our rules.  In short, we want our faith community to be comfortable for us.  May our church never be this safe.

But what that ends up producing is a church culture that promotes hypocrisy, secrecy, and emotional isolation.  If no messy people are allowed into the circle of christians, then we can't let anyone know about our own messiness.  We have created a club for perfect people, and that is a very dangerous thing for a church to become.  Dangerous in all of the wrong sorts of ways.  May our church never be this dangerous.

Instead the church is supposed to be a safe place for messy people to let their messiness get dealt with.  People are supposed to bring the world with them right into our community.  The church is supposed to be a safe place for dark secrets to be exposed, it supposed to be a safe place for bad habits to be dealt with, its supposed to be a safe place for vulnerable wounds to be exposed and healed.  May our church always be this safe.

The church is supposed to be dangerous too.  Dangerous in the same way a show at Marine World is dangerous; you might get wet!  Dangerous to our comfort, dangerous to our ego, dangerous to our need for control and our desire for gratification.  Celebration is always a danger to decorum; just as worship is a danger to pride, fellowship is a danger to wealth, and glory is a danger to apathy.  May our church always be this dangerous.

===================

It wasn't just the water that was a little 'messy.'

We joined together with another congregation during the service.  Both congregations had members to baptize, so we celebrated the unity of faith in 'one baptism' as proclaimed by St Paul.  This meant we got to hear preaching that was different than normal, got to see baptisms performed in ways that were uncomfortable for some of us, and heard things said that we didn't all agree with.

I have to say, I was blessed to see the way people entered into the mess, cleaning up the water, engaging in relationships across dividing lines, and celebrating the beauty and potency of the Spirit's work in the lives of the saints.  This is a picture of how the church is supposed to be safe in the right ways, and dangerous in the right ways...

What is Needed for Unity to Flourish?

Be completely humble and gentle;

be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit

through the bonds of peace.

Ephesians 4:2-3

What, precisely, is meant by 'every effort?'

What hasn't been tried yet?

Remembering that Scripture commands 'every effort'
in the preservation of unity,

reflect on the places where disunity is present in your life.

====================

Humility is required.  Humility is the recognition of one's proper place in the order of things.  Knowing where you belong, and whom you belong to.  Understanding what authority you have, and who's authority you are under.  Knowing what wisdom you possess, and knowing what wisdom you lack.  Recognizing that you cannot stand alone, and have been joined (by God!) to those who challenge the bonds peace. Humility is required for unity to flourish.

Gentleness is required.  Harsh words and hard responses invite people to see us as their opponents.  Condescending tones provoke inferiority and/or indignation.  Strong actions, when taken without mutually agreed upon wisdom, lead to wounds; wounds lead to pain, mistrust, anger, and fear.  Gentleness sets aside all of this, and invites trust.  A gentle man can be trusted not to wound; even when he misunderstands, he does not misstep, because his steps are slow and deliberate.  Gentleness is required for unity to flourish.

Patience is required.  Perhaps the older word is better; long-suffering is required.  It has been said, about the work of reconciliation, "if you are bleeding, you are doing it right."  It has also been said, about the fellowship of Christians across cultural lines, "expect to offend, and to be offended."  Patience is the willingness to tolerate discomfort, disagreement, confusion, pain, deprivation, misunderstanding, even egregious offense, with the expectation that the future will be better than the present.  Without patience there can be no maturity, and maturity is a pre-requisite for unity.  A mature believe understands that all holiness, all glory, all wisdom, and all godly power, comes into the community of humans through a process that takes time, energy, and obedience.  Unity will not be sustained without the 'long obedience in the same direction.'  Patience is required for unity to flourish.

Leaders Get What They Want?

We often think that a leader is someone who gets to make decisions; a leader is someone who gets whatever they want.  This couldn't be more wrong-headed; a godly leader is a person who no longer thinks about what would fulfill his own desires, and instead works hard to make the community healthy and fruitful.  A leader shouldn't give people the things that he desires for himself, but instead, a leader should give people the things that they need to flourish.

Leaders don't do what makes themselves happy, they do what makes other people healthy.

Racial Politics: Why our Rhetoric Matters

I heard an interview on the radio the other day…

I am not even sure of the station or the program as I was driving out of the area.  But the program host was discussing with guests and callers the situation surrounding one of the recent shootings of black men by police officers, and the surrounding protests, the movements, the politics, the social forces, etc.

A woman called in and said something that I thought was profoundly important about race relations in our country.

She identified herself as an 'older, African-American, woman,' and she proceeded to say that in her experience white bigotry is no longer an important factor in our racial problems, rather white apathy is the problem.  She talked about other factors (the history of bigotry, and the black community's own apathy), but she talked mostly about how problematic and inaccurate it was to diagnose the problem as 'white racism;' in her experience, most white people aren't racists, they just aren't willing to do much of anything about the plight of black communities if it costs them personally.

I thought this profoundly important for several reasons:

1) Its true: while it is true that bigotry endures in our day, it is not the problem that it once was.  It is no longer acceptable by our culture, indeed calling someone a racist in many circles is a serious charge that most people will respond to with strong emotions.  The majority of white people in America are completely in favor of a society where people of all colors can freely share in the wealth, power, and blessing of our nation, and they are personally willing to engage relationally with people of all colors.  …but not if it costs them anything to do so!

2) Its informed: she had obviously spent enough time engaging with white people that she understood what was going on inside the hearts and minds of individuals and communities.  This is not just about proximity, but also about a desire to understand those who are different than you.

3) Its honest: saying what is true about a situation, instead of throwing insults at one's socio-political opponents, is a display of integrity.  It feels good to insult people, especially if they have hurt you.  But calling someone a bigot, when you know that they are not a bigot, is simply dishonest.

4) Its helpful: imagine a Doctor who was so bent on the eradication of cancer that he diagnosed every patient he saw with cancer and gave them chemotherapy and radiation treatment.  Compare that to a Doctor who was so concerned with the health of her patients that she carefully and methodically diagnosed each patient's symptoms for their various root causes and then applied the appropriate treatment for each individual case.  It simply doesn't help to call someone a racist who isn't a racist.  That usually only produces righteous indignation, and resolute opposition.  It simply doesn't help to ignore apathy in a lazy person or a lazy society.  Pointing at the real problem helps highlight the real solution.  A misdiagnosis erodes trust and hurts everyone involved.

5) Its generous: it would be easier to point at the actual white racism that exists.  It would be easier to point at the rhetoric of politicians who foment racial fear to gain votes.  But instead, she chose to look beyond that, to give people the benefit of the doubt, and to seek to understand.  She wanted to point at what was good in the white community and their response to racial politics.

6) Its hopeful: seeking to have an honest dialogue about a sticky topic is an indicator that you want to see progress.  Too often sticky topics are simply used by those attempting to gain political power.  Calling names, provoking anger, inciting fear, fomenting dissension, this is what we see politicians do with all divisive issues, and with race in particular.  They do it so that they can get elected.  But it doesn't help us heal, it actually gets in the way.  To hear a woman speak this way is an indicator that she actually hopes for healing; she actually believes our society can change.

Thoughts on Leadership