Dancing with Chaz Bono

The cries of Christian protest have begun against Dancing with the Stars because of its choice to have Chaz Bono as a contestant. (Obviously DWTS' quest for buzz and higher ratings is a bust, right?) I'm not sure what a boycott does except cause some to feel guilty about watching a show they enjoy and for those outside the Church to say "good riddance, who needs them anyway".

Thing is, I think that Chaz Bono has done in a physical way what many, many people in our churches do in a spiritual way every week. There is this concept that the journey with God starts with the stuff on the outside. So, after we begin with faith in Christ, we grab hold of the reigns and begin the have-to's and the should-not's and make ourselves look the part. We construct a Christian identity that has little to actually do with Christ.

As if changing the outside will make our inner world more aligned with God's heart.

Chaz Bono did the same thing. Her inner world was a struggle, having no peace, feeling like the inside and outside didn't match. So she did what we should expect someone without the hope of Christ to do, she tried to fix herself. She (along with a team of doctors) changed the outside. Created a new identity; from Chastity to Chaz. Hoping that when the outside was 'fixed' that change would happen inside as well.

She attempted to create her own hope, which is no different than what any of the rest of us did before we knew who Christ was. Then we tried to feel less broken by wearing the right clothes, having the right friends, enough money, or just drinking a lot of beer.

It is also no different than the religious act that a lot of people in our churches are still pursuing. Avoiding confronting the brokenness by being involved in enough church activities, using the right language, or just drinking a lot of beer.

Masks abound in church. Identities created, not on the foundation of Christ, but on the shifting sand of the false self. The effect is that not only do we not allow ourselves to be known by each other, but we avoid being known by God.

Whatever was broken with Chaz before surgery is still broken after. Whatever was broken in you while you were single is still broken after you're married. Whatever was broken when you were sober is still broken when you're drunk. Whatever was broken in you before serving the poor will still be broken after. There is only one cure for the brokenness that we experience as this world and its systems and disappointments gang up on us.

We must allow the light of Christ to shine in our darkened souls. Letting our significance be found in Him. Discovering our identity in the rock of the Gospel. Experiencing restoration as sons and daughters of the King.

The Reflected Sense of Self

The Bible is truth. It cannot be minimized into a user manual for life. Nor it is a guide for a more prosperous life. To say it is a science book would also be a mistake. It is the truth about our relationship with God. Man's search for significance and God's desire to impart it to us.

It is with that belief that a passage in the book of James helped me shed light on a psychological concept that I just became aware of: the reflected sense of self.

We all want significance and will try to find it in Christ or outside of Christ. When we seek it outside of Christ, we form what spiritual theologians call the false self. An identity that allows us to define our significance. Yet, while we would call ourselves free, in reality it is the opposite of the freedom that God intends for us.

One of the ways that we experience this bondage is that the false self must be continually propped up in order to be convinced of its significance. We become a slave to securing our identity. Significance requires comparison, so the false self attempts to define who we are in relation to others. Among others, the question "what do others think of me?" becomes of paramount importance as we attempt to feed the false identity outside of Christ.

This is where we pick up with the idea of the reflected sense of self - that out of our own lack we take on the emotions that are reflected to us by others. It is as if we become an emotional mirror and are dependent upon how others respond to us.

I've admitted before that my false self desires affirmation, to feel chosen, and I spent my share of time being ruled by that desire. Even firmly rooted in Christ, there are shadows of that desire. Until recently, I was unable to understand why someone not embracing an idea of mine or advice felt like a personal rejection. What I was seeing mirrored to me was disapproval and I did not have the ability to separate the disapproval for an idea from disapproval of me.

So that you won't think too much of me, here is a ridiculous example from my relationship with my wife of how this played out in my life. Hopefully this illustrates my point, because I really can't believe I'm about to type this out.

I'm one of those guys who don't mind shopping for clothes. My wife is beautiful and I enjoy buying things for her and also appreciate being involved in the selection process. So I scour the racks for deals and things that I think my wife would make look amazing. This goes well until it is time for me to present my armload of selections to said wife. Then what took so much time to find is usually rejected down to, if I'm lucky, one item. Her looks of rejection for these items of clothing mirrored rejection on me. And rather than understand her framework for making decisions - different color preferences, comfort choices, fabric selection - I bore the rejection. If she loved me, after all, she'd trust that she really does look good in that shirt!

That is how the false self works. It doesn't take much to reveal the cracks in the foundation of what we are seeking our worth. Shifting sand. Affirmation for me. Maybe it is social status for you. Sexuality for someone else. Outside of Christ, or during the times we are off center from Him, we all have some self built quest for significance.

From situations like this and others with my wife and within other relationships, what gives me the ability to break free is not passively saying "just stop", "don't be hurt" or "it's not about you" but rather being active in telling myself the Gospel. In particular, that is that God notices me, I have been chosen, my life is significant regardless of my circumstances.

But, what does all this have to do with the book of James?

James 1:23-24 says - "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like."

When we look at ourselves in the mirror of Christ, we see the true self, our identity as God intends it to be. That is the Gospel Christ came to proclaim, or as James refers to it a couple verses before, the word planted within us, that can save us. So, if I hear the word that God loves me, I'm adopted as His son through Christ, that I've been chosen, then I have had my true self mirrored to me in Christ. This brings freedom because I am no longer dependent upon others to build me up. I can love freely and need or expect nothing in return.

But if after hearing the Gospel truth about who I am in Christ, I return to feeding the false self, I have forgotten what I looked like. I'm settling for something less. The reflection that I see will be the dim one reflected to me by others. I'll return to the desperate needing of others to prop up my false sense of self.

We are to have our sense of self reflected to us. Only God has intended it to be reflected in Christ. Through the truth of the good news. Along with freedom, that brings the stability of an unchanging God. He is faithful not circumstantial. He is the foundation made of rock.

Christian Mingle

One of the funniest commercials on TV at the present time (at least to me) is the one for Christian Mingle, an online dating service for Christian singles. The hilarity starts with the voice over saying "Are you looking for God's perfect match for you?"

At this point, combined with the cheesy graphics, I am laughing so hard that I miss the rest of the promo. In my mind I imagine God sitting on his throne in heaven, and here are some of the conversations He is having with the cloud of witnesses...

"Finally. I am so exhausted holding all things together, knitting people in the womb, and sanctifying the elect. It is good to have the dating habits of Christians off my plate."

"What a great idea! All this time I've been leaving spouse selection to random chance."

"How'd I ever do anything without the Internet!"

"Where's my Internet connection? Let's mess with their heads!"

Or maybe God is just exasperated because this is another stupid Christian idea. We are just as big relational suckers as the rest of the world, and it is disappointing.

We are STILL looking for that one person who completes us and makes us happy. Our mistake is trying to find another person who will give us an identity or be the source of our significance. That is a lot of pressure to heap on the shoulders of another person, and we wonder why our relationships fail at the same rate as everyone else's.

I risk sounding like I'm doling out trite spiritual advice, but I'm going to proceed anyway mainly because this is the number one mistake I made in my relationship with my wife. She was destined to fail me because God did not create her to be the fuel for my identity.

There is only one person who makes us complete - Jesus Christ. If we Christians put as much focus on rooting our identity firmly in Him as we do dreaming about the greener grass on the other side, we would not be so tempted by websites like Christian Mingle.

Marriage books containing principles for successful, godly relationships are everywhere. The principles are great. But if our motivation is to get something in return even the best principles will fail. Motivation in our marriages and dating relationship needs to come from knowing who you are in Christ. If you want to prepare for a good marriage or resurrect the one you are in, rather than pointing at the other, look at your own foundation.

If you are incomplete before the wedding, you'll be incomplete afterward.

No matter how much you mingle.

The Example of Christ

Ever been counseled about the spiritual life and practices with the words Paul wrote to the Corinthian church - "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ"? Usually this is an invitation given to someone who is struggling to look upon the life of another who is getting by much better in order to learn how to really live effectively for Christ. Certainly, that is the gist of Paul's message.

Yet, what is the example of Christ that Paul is imitating and beckoning others to emulate?

Any time I have seen (or sadly used) these words, it has been from the perspective of performance. Jesus was perfect, so Paul must be saying that he was going to live up to the example of Christ. A living, breathing example of perfection.

That is the trouble when set Jesus as an example of how God wants us to act. We must imitate his actions and constantly ask ourselves "what would Jesus do?"

Following this kind of example would be exhausting and frustrating. Exhausting because it would be our self-effort, our external appearance, that was making us approved by God. Frustrating because every failure, every mistake would remind us that our actions are not adequate. Our willpower is not enough.

That is the mask in action or we can call it our false self. Style over substance. Performance based Christianity. Confidence derived from our actions; thinking that you are approved by God because of the things you do. An identity not rooted in Christ. And the problem is that it is not about Jesus at all - it is all about us, putting us at the center of salvation by works.

That is not the example Paul is directing us to at all. It is actually quite the opposite.

Weakness.

Christ did not consider equality with God his to grasp. Which is odd, considering when we employ our self righteousness, we are necessarily lessening the eminence of God.

Christ made himself nothing. Not tearing others down to puff himself up, rather for our sake, He took on a form of weakness.

Beginning His ministry in the wilderness, Christ was taunted in his weakness by the devil who dared him to display his power. Jesus chose dependence.

In the garden, Christ rebuked Peter for his attempted display of violent power. Instead of calling a legion of angels from heaven to his side, Christ chose to drink the cup set before him. Jesus chose humility.

In a similar way, following the example of Christ, Paul chose to display his weakness. Chief of sinners. Thorn in his side. Having the desire to do good but not able to carry it out. But Paul found delight in this, because in his weakness, Christ's Spirit was able to be strong. To increase its weight. To be glorified.

That is the example for us. Honesty about our weakness. Denying our inclination to try reaching God through our own effort. Being clothed in Christ and living out of our identity in Christ. Not making weakness our identity, but allowing our weakness to give Christ prominence.

Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Think of the instructions you are given on an airplane that is about to take off. In the case of an emergency that causes the cabin to depressurize, when the masks fall out of the ceiling what are we instructed to do?

The answer is that we are told to put our own mask on first before putting the masks on our children or others who need assistance. One mistaken way to think about this is that I am selfishly choosing to take care of myself before taking care of others! When looked at logically, very, very few people (hopefully) would agree with that declaration, for how could I possibly help my neighbor out if I am passed out in my seat from lack of oxygen.

In much the same way, we could look at Jesus' declaration (quoting Leviticus) to "love your neighbor as yourself". The first part of that we are pretty comfortable with and seems pretty straightforward. Loving our neighbor we can control and feels pretty safe. Bottom line, I have the ability to easily measure how I'm doing in this area.

But the part about loving yourself is more sticky. Conservatives in our Christian sub-culture react very vehemently against the idea of self-love, equating it with selfishness and the sin nature. On the other swing of the pendulum, liberals can embrace self-love to the point that pleasing the self and doing what feels right becomes the idol.

Why then, has Jesus included this caveat? Does this imply that I can only love my neighbor if I love myself? Or is it more like a limitation, that I can only love my neighbor as much as I'm able to love myself?

It is unfortunate that this statement of Jesus gets clouded by the narcissism that runs rampant in our culture. For us, these two concepts have become fused together so that self-love means considering our needs as preeminent, with not care or awareness for how satisfying them affects anyone else.

In some fascinating readings about relational systems, I have repeatedly come across this well accepted facet of relationships and conflict. We will, often without knowing or acknowledging it, react to the real or perceived defects and flaws in others that we feel are similar to our own imperfections.

Or, stated another way, the things we don't love about ourselves are the things we don't love in others.

Loving ourselves does not mean narcissistically satisfying every want or desire that we have. It is not an act of falsely inflating our self esteem or considering ourselves of more worth or importance than someone else. It also doesn't mean that I just accept my sin as part of what I love.

What Jesus is reminding us of is the fact that we were crafted by God. He knows everything about us. We are of so much worth to Him that Jesus came to die for our relationship with God. Nothing about us is an accident. We have been given abilities, inabilities, circumstance, strengths and weaknesses that are intended to bring Him glory.

So I should not hate my need for affirmation, but should instead relish the strength that God gets to display as I allow Him to overcome that weakness in me. Only then, will my actions be truly loving because I'll not be using them to satisfy some need in me.

Loving ourselves is not a sin, it is a command.

And it is what makes loving others a possibility.

Compelling

We hear stories out of China detailing how Christians must get up before the sun in order to walk to the home church they meet in. Or in Korea, we observe people who - EVERY DAY - get up before their 12 hour factory shift in order to experience life with other members of the body. Or those in India who forsake their familial relationship or abandon their caste in order to follow Christ.

For them, there is some so compelling about Jesus that they run through difficulty and trial in order to be present with Him.

Something. So. Compelling.

About Jesus.

While they seemingly would run over a mile of hot coals just to know Jesus, I see a lot of us who look for reasons to take a weekend off from our life in Christ. (Not that church attendance is equivalent to our entire life in Christ, but for many people it provides a barometer of their spiritual temperature.) Out late the night before. Weather's good at the beach. Literally, there are significant pockets of people who take the entire summer off from Body life because it is...summer. Better things to do.

Jesus is compelling. In fact, He is the blessing. No need for Jesus plus anything else. Just Jesus. So, why is it that the people we lead get tripped up by something like their surroundings while others find it a privilege to endure every major and minor discomfort and inconvenience to be part of the body?

This is a big question. And it involves the church culture that we have created at the norm for ourselves. It is the product of our corporation mindset of success. We leaders have adapted to the consumer culture we are immersed in by creating a consumer culture in our churches.

Growth strategies that are espoused have to do with professional looking music and lights, movie quality video segments, printing, theater seating, service times based on convenience, and messages promising to improve life quality. Not that these things are wrong things, but they are being used as the foundational attractional piece to what we do. So, it should come as no surprise that our churches are producing consumers, and consumers live in apathy.

One of my favorite Andy Stanley leadership lines is that "your system is perfectly designed to produce the results your getting". Maybe, then, it is true that we have gotten what WE'VE produced.

Apathy is what you get from consumers. Apathy is what you get when a christian-looking life is the product you are trying to produce. The church is full of the programs that we've designed to give people measures of their spiritual success. Then, as leaders we can feel good about our results that we measure, and our consumers can feel good about how they've cleared their plates.

When everything is boiled away, what we've created is a system based on our self-effort. Jesus franchises selling better life principles. It is another attempt to be our own gods, the original sin of the garden rearing its head once again. Leaders are comfortable because it is not messy (hectic yes, messy no) and can be easily controlled and measured. Consumers are happy because they know just what to do in order to be successful. The change we're concerned about it visible, and moving forward like a bull stock market is the definition of success.

Problem (well, one of them) is that consumers get bored with products. As evidence, just see every product in the grocery store that says "improved" on it. (My personal favorite is dog food that is labeled "improved taste". Now, how am I going to verify that claim?)

Maybe it is time for the church to grow a backbone and break free of culture rather than mimicking it. Let's reinvent ourselves and introduce our people to Jesus. Just Jesus. Unplug the light shows and clever videos and messages about how great my life can be and show them the one who promises to renew the soul. Because when He moves in, you may have seasons of questions, you may have dark nights of the soul, or wander in the desert, but you will not be apathetic.

It seems a disservice to placate people to heaven (or at least thinking they are heading there) rather then compelling them to choose. Hot or cold are the red letter words of Jesus. Then we can walk with them, pastor them, know them through their decision. Help them open to God so He can shape their behavior.

Exponential church growth may not happen. But do we really think the apathy we are met with is indicative of a life fully devoted to their new identity in Christ? It would be better to equip a few to live that new identity out, demonstrating love for one another, so the world will know why life in Christ is different, than to use our present growth strategies to have auditoriums filled with lukewarm people.

Soul growth is slow and laborious. Like tilling Midwestern soil. If Jesus is to be believed and weeds crowd out truth, then we have to be prepared for the back-breaking work of pulling the weeds; disconnecting from the things that distract our attention from the Living God. Developing openness and readiness for God.

Jesus is just that compelling.

The Plumb Line vs. The Pendulum

In my relationships, particularly my marriage, I struggle with the tension between love and truth. An epic battle in all the world, but one that plays out daily within me. Sometimes the oscillation of my pendulum is wilder than at others times, but it is rarely steady.

Love without truth is flaccid. Having no definition. It looks passive, letting the other do and behave how they want, defining all the boundaries. Seeing hopes, desires, or healthy expectations as an imposition, love in this system has no standard.

As the pendulum flies in the other direction, truth without love is brutal. It is rules. Easy to measure because you have a check list or a leader board. It is shame and judgment. There is not love to soften it.

One is all authority and the other has none.

In all honesty, I tend to the love side of the pendulum. For me to swing wildly is to go just a little past the equilibrium point. That is tough, but that is part of my journey of trust and strength. To embody more truth and balance it out. Providing the boundaries and authority that a loving relationship is dependent upon.

My fear is of becoming a dictator. A tyrant ruthlessly leading my wife. That is a long, long way off. But tending to the truth side of the spectrum just feels that unnatural for me. Yet, it is good for me to get out of my comfort zone more and more. Generational patterns are hard to break free from.

I'm not alone in this, entire denominations of Christianity (and if we generalize even more, all belief groups) reflect one side of the pendulum or the other. We seem to be more comfortable with truth or love (I wonder how our family of origin systems prepare us for the groups we choose). Either way, we are choosing a religion. Either I've got my list of rules and hierarchy of authority, or I've myself authority of what is to be right or wrong.

God does not swing on a pendulum of tension between truth and love; He is the standard, the plumb line. Jesus embodied truth and love. Our minds think it was a 50/50 split. Half truth and half love. So, He was loving up to a certain point, then truth and judgment came to play. Rather, He was fully love and fully truth. One hundred percent of each. All love and all truth. Perfect balance, exhibiting both in tandem. Yet another mystery about Jesus that our finite minds cannot wrap around.

I'm pretty sure in this life I'll not become a plumb line. While our two natures battle, this is something that is just out of our reach. Yet, as we become more like Christ, the amplitude of the oscillation should decrease - reflecting more balance and equilibrium between love and truth.

Archimedes of the Heart

Part of the battle that I have fought and I see a lot of other genuine Christ followers fall into is this idea of salvation as only a one moment in time event. What I mean by this is that we fully accept that salvation is by faith, so the door to God is opened by our faith, but the process of being saved, or sanctification to use a multi-syllable word, is a process that we have to gut out by our own self effort.

This has caused me to really ponder and dwell on the idea of our openness to God that I've brought up in a couple previous posts. A realization that faith in God as the potter is fully necessary for the entire process of salvation. Faith doesn't just open the door so that we can do the heavy lifting, faith is what is necessary to allow God to do the lifting, shaping and forming of our lives in Christ.

It is in this context that the words of Christ came to mind, when referring to what comes out of our mouths, that it is a product of the overflow of the heart. That is where an image from Archimedes comes in.

Now, much of this is a recollection from History of Science class 20 years ago, and if I were publishing this I'd put some time into fact checking, but since the story sounds good, I'll go with it here. Archimedes was charged with determining if a crown made for the kings was actually gold or a clever mixture of metals made to look like gold. Stumped, Archimedes decided to take a bath (who says real men don't take bathes) and noticed the level of the water change when he got in. That was inspiration and a naked Archimedes jumped from the bath and ran naked down the street to his lab. Archimedes' Principle ready to be birthed. I guess he did not want press his luck that he'd forget the new idea while dressing.

Anyway, digested as much as I can for you, part of the principle says this: if an object sinks, then the volume of water displaced is equal to the volume of the object. For example, if you have a glass water full to the brim, and you drop your set of keys in the glass, then the volume of water now on the table is the same as the volume of your keys. Further, when you pull the keys out of the glass, the level will drop accordingly.

Now, maybe none of the rest of this will make much sense, but I'll give it a whirl. This seems a lot like our hearts to me.

The way we are designed, our hearts are to be open to God, providing space for Him to fill. Openness is trust, faith and dependence. Like a cup of water that is held under a running faucet, out of the open heart will flow, naturally and authentically, the life of the Spirit. Works and words. No masks. Genuineness. The life of love. This is the ideal.

If not open to God, our hearts will be open to something. Our problem begins when we focus on or get hung up on other things that close us or direct us away from God. We let our hearts become dependent upon other things to feel the overflow. Take sex.

God given, God designed sex definitely should be delighted in. It produces intimacy and pleasure and impacts our very soul. But when sex is what we look to in order to feel valued, when our identity has been twisted together with sex in some way whether who, how often, how much, or whatever. In this case, we are using something to placate our pride or fear or envy or insecurity. We fill our hearts to feel the overflow. That is when the Archimedes Principle kicks in.

When you drop your keys into a glass of water to measure the overflow. When you take them out, there will be an emptiness. In order to get overflow from the glass again (without replacing the water), you much drop a larger object into the glass. This must happen every time, for each iteration. It takes a larger object to get overflow. More and more is required.

Same for the heart. If sex (or money or vacations or whatever) is producing the overflow you are depending on for your joy, then you will sooner or later have to fill up with more, bigger, wilder, younger, bolder and more and more. It will take more to produce a lesser effect. You will be a slave.

Even worse, is when the object of your delight is taken away. As the keys are taken out of the full glass of water, watch the level go down. When what we are defining ourselves with, when that thing that we are dependent on for our joy is taken away, we experience emptiness. An empty heart is a dangerous heart, for we'll always seek to fill it up with something.

What Archimedes of the heart cannot explain is how God fills our hearts. How we will overflow. How we will get out so much more than we put in. In fact, our part is trust and reliance, God has promised everything else. The expression 'you get out of it what you put into it' may be true of every other object of our heart, but not God. With Him, in the form of His grace and mercy, we get and get and get and...

That is His love for us in Christ and we never have to fear being empty.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Walking though Barnes & Noble today, I had to laugh. The title of a book on the 'bargain' shelf caught my eye as it seems to reflect the essence of my last entry, Corporate Church.

Mind you, I've never read this book so it may indeed be the best leadership book ever and worthy of being a national best seller. Really, anytime we can learn from Jesus that is a good thing. I guess the problem seems to be we so often create a Jesus in our own image or a Jesus that we are comfortable with. So, rather than God, Savior, Creator, or Sustainer of all things we have Jesus as CEO. Think about what a CEO does and with what he is concerned. When Jesus is viewed through that lens, is it any wonder we end up with corporate church?

Here it is. Enjoy. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Corporate Church

One of my pet peeves over the course of my church work has been observing the behavior of church consumers. These are the people who church shop every few months. Who will come up and tell you that they "don't feel fed" and that your church does not offer the programs that the need to grow. And because there is a perfectly good church just down the road that has not committed the offense of challenging their spiritual life, they leave your church and the hurt they have cause, never to be seen again. Sometimes this is not a bad things.

Yet, the reason that there are so many church consumers is that, as leaders of the church, we have created this system that produces them. They are our product; our spiritual children, if you will and we cannot forgo at least part of the blame for the monsters that we have created. As church leaders, we have made it mostly (or all if you are honest with yourself) about measurables. Yes, we can rationalize this all we want, but we want bodies in seats. Bodies in groups. Dollars in the offering basket. And more and more people volunteering to do work in the church. These are the things we look for. External stuff.

So, people's spiritual lives get measured by what we can see. And "good Christians" are looked at as the product. It is no wonder that when people are having doubts, involved in conflict, not measuring up, not "being fed" (which is a sense of their own stagnation), or not able to produce in the way we've defined - that they leave our churches. Their spiritual lives are viewed as a product that the church as a corporation produces. Defective products have to go.

As I have progressed in my journey, the question has arisen in my mind again and again - what is the true measure of growth? What should we be looking for within the people we lead to know the state of their spirituality - their relationship with Jesus, creator of their soul?

Steadfastness. The apostle Paul defined it. If you are a college basketball fan, Dick Vitale would call it stick-to-it-iveness. (So funny to me that spell checker did not underline that work. Thanks Dickie V!) Here's how we define steadfastness: it's like the man swimming for his life in the ocean from a shipwreck. He arrives on the beach tattered and exhausted. But he's arrived by his own effort.

This looks like the marriage where the wife decides that the godly thing will be to grin and bear the abuse. As long as she is able to make her husband happy enough they he doesn't explode, then everything will be OK.

Or the man who is addicted to pornography that decides that he just won't look. Even though it is all he thinks about, not looking, he is going to gut it out and make this change.

Or the parents who bring their kids to church no matter what, but who resent each other and never miss an opportunity to tear each other down at any other time.

All these look the part, but they are not examples of steadfastness. They are examples of self-righteousness. Making our own way to God. Covering our own shame with the fig leaves of our pretending. As long as I look good enough, my church buddies will accept me and I'll know God loves me.

A better way to understand what Paul is referring to is maintaining our openness to God. Being open to what He is doing no matter what the circumstances. Finding God as your delight rather than what God does for you.

This is a fundamentally less satisfying definition from a leadership perspective. How do you measure openness? What does delight look like on a bar graph? How do we report these things to the elder board? More than that, this is much tougher. It means that we are going to have to allow people to mess up. To be comfortable with a spirituality that doesn't progressively lead to a better life day by day before Jesus returns. Church leaders are going to have to believe that God DOES work all things for the good of those who love Him, and let people or help people experience their rock bottom so they can delight in the God who has given His EVERYTHING to save them.

Defining steadfastness outside of performance means that we have to take seriously the charge to restore our brother, not just discard him when the going gets messy. That we'll have to bear each other's burdens. Entering into each others lives in a meaningful way in order to do so. Really, doesn't it just lessen the burden we have to bear for each other when people perform well and look the part? No more obligation to be involved in the lives of others when they have it all together. Is "my best life now" even a realistic reality for the one in Christ while we remain in a world that is the dominion of the evil on in these last days? What should we expect from our people?

Our churches should be places where people have the freedom to go beyond the performance that we can measure. Sure they are in a group. Sure they serve every Sunday. So what? The Church should be a haven for those in Christ to walk through the mess of their brokenness with someone who has walked the path before. Without shame or guilt. If God gives none, then why should we? Most of all, the impression should never be given that we need to put ourselves back together in order to be acceptable before God. That is His job. We are the clay. He is the potter. We are the soil. It is God who makes things grow.

Please don't misunderstand my rant. I'm not discounting preaching, Bible studies, small groups, community, service projects, Sunday school or any other way churches get people involved. Those things are of the utmost importance. They should be a point of intersection between our lives and the Gospel.

Where we go wrong is imparting to those things the power to change. They don't have that power. God does. What each of those things are is an opportunity to foster our openness to God and His work in our lives. We are the soil. God is everything else. Nurturer. Lover. Forgiver. Pruner. Teacher. Comforter. Tender. He is the gardener of our soul.

It is time that we evaluate the predominance of Maxwell (or I could name a dozen other business oriented leader gurus, his name just came out first) style leadership within our church structure. Corporate structure and pastors as CEOs lead to people being products. Performance is success. Numbers are what we celebrate. It is time to abandon the performance driven church (how can people believe our words about grace when we are sticklers for performance???).

It is time for corporate leadership to give way to spiritual leadership.

Alas, there is the problem. For that to happen, we leaders must deal with our own root. Through the power of Christ begin to become aware of our own junk. From our awareness comes the ability to deny ourselves, take up our cross on which we crucify daily the old self, and follow Christ. Only then are we fit to tell people to follow me as I follow Christ. Because only then are we trusting the God whose church it is in the first place.