Loving, Learning, and Leading

This week, millions of people all over the world will celebrate Easter.  It is the highest of all holy days on the Christian calendar, but as a foreign born friend of mine commented: "Americans spend more time and energy observing Halloween than Easter".  It is not the highlight of the year for most Americans who identify themselves as Christians. I believe that part of this resistance is that Americans deeply resist the concept of redemptive suffering.  We can get behind redemptive violence (using violence to bring about justice), redemptive power (using influence to bring about justice), but redemptive suffering is something foreign to the American Christian psyche.  We will kill and manipulate for the glory of God and the rescue of man, but we will not die for either, unless it is in the attempt to do the former. Jesus challenges us, as His disciples, to pick up our cross.  The cross represents that cruelty and oppression of the world redeemed by the powe...

I have been reading the book "The best me that I can be" by Pastor John Ortberg.  He wrote "You can not be fully loved unless you are fully known".  I have been contemplating that statement over the past several days. What is being suggested is that love is authentic when you know the totality of the the object of your love.  Think about this for a minute.  So often we portray a false self or persona to others in order to reduce the likelihood of rejection or ridicule.  We know this is evident when we first meet people and we put on our "professional" or "neighborly" voice.  However, this is also present in some of the deepest and most intimate relationships.  We are afraid to reveal the true self because we are not confident that we will be accepted.  Many a husband would like to share his fears, insecurities, dreams, and passion with his wife, but does not due to his understanding of masculinity and his projected understanding of what his wif...

David Gibbons speaks of the need to develop a "liquid culture" in church leadership in his book "The Monkey and the Fish".  He describes this liquid culture as fluid and flowing as it moves.  It adapts to obstacles while still moving forward.  Gibbons has correctly identified that most church's have rigid organizational structures and leadership that is based upon a culture that disappeared 50 years ago.  For a interesting video, check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLQfhxDld7E My friend and Church Coach, Mike McFerrin has developed the "Law of the river".  This law is to describe the church as a movement of God that is "powerfully and relentlessly pursuing its goal" while adapting its shape to do so.   That shape is dependent upon the culture in which the river is to flow, not despite it. Gibbons describes 3 shifts that must take place for a church to have a liquid culture and remain relevant in our communities: 1. From people cen...