Ecclesiastical Myopia

Perhaps the most remarkable statement I ever heard a man utter from the pulpit was: "He has a penurious epistemology, which tends to be myopic."

Excellent article by R.C. Sproul highlighting America�s tendency towards ethnocentrism and our arrogance towards the rest of the world. These are attitudes we must overcome as Christians before we can realize Christ�s vision of a unified Body. America isn�t that special; it is temporal while Christ�s Kingdom is both very real and very eternal. And for anyone who thought America was something special, it isn�t going to be for long, according to Peter Hitchens:

�The Night We Waved Goodbye to America�Our Last Best Hope on Earth�

This article was eye-opening; especially coming from the perspective of a British writer. That said, I want to emphasize that I will support our next president and I don�t believe that it is healthy to trade in doom-and-gloom scenarios of despair. This world is not my home and I am just passing through. My King is of Heaven and He is going to win in the end.

Google Flu Trends

I love what technology and the information age can do for us. This latest project from Google.org is a prime example of leveraging the information economy in innovative ways for the good of society. And it is just plain cool.

Something else that is cool: WHO DONE IT (live action �Clue�)

Watch that video. It is amazing. Really messes with your mind!

This morning, I was reminded of a very frustrating topic by a good friend. We were discussing how to accomplish a particular goal in our ministry here at IAA, and I realized that I was getting increasingly annoyed and frustrated by the circumstances surrounding this issue. After getting off the phone, I started wondering why I had gotten so frustrated and how I could move past these frustrations. Here are five steps I’ve come up with to understand and deal with frustrations:

1. Recognize Frustrations

For me, my back becomes tense, my stomach curls up in a knot, and my throat tightens. What are your signals? Recognizing a frustrating situation is the first step to dealing with it. Frustration tends to come as a result of assuming responsibility that doesn’t belong to us. So, the next step in dealing with it is:

2. Stay Humble

We get frustrated because we assume responsibility for something that doesn’t belong to us. This often points to a sinful attitude of pride: We believe that we know better or can handle better than the person(s) legitimately responsible for something. This is why Peter instructs us to, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:6-7). To be humble is to recognize that I am nothing, have nothing, and can do nothing apart from God. Recognizing this moves me one step closer to the next step:

3. Cast Your Cares on God

God cares for us, and He is waiting eagerly for us to ask Him for help! The idea of casting your cares on God is a common theme, but what does it really mean? The Greek word used in 1 Peter 5:7 literally means “to throw upon.” The idea is that we are relinquishing responsibility for these things which are frustrating us and committing them to God. How do we do this?

4. Pray!

Nehemiah provides a positive example for us. In response to profound frustrations throughout his experience, he prayed. When he got news of the state of Jerusalem, he prayed. When confronted with opposition, he prayed. His primary, first response to stress and anxiety was prayer! We can learn much from the contents of his prayers as well.

5. Recognize God’s Promises

Nehemiah’s prayer in Nehemiah 1:5-11 begins, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” Nehemiah recognized that God is faithful to His promises and to His people! As the author of Hebrews reminds us, “For he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”" (Hebrews 13:5-6). If God is for us, who can be against us?

Nehemiah then recited specific promises God had given His people. We should do the same. By memorizing and claiming God’s promises, we strengthen our faith and drive away our frustrations.

How do you deal with frustrations?

Any relationship has to have face time in order to grow and deepen. Its true in parent-child relationships, its true in marriages, its true in friendships. There must be communication often and in depth. And this same principle applies to our relationship with God.

But God is not a friend you can call up on the phone or a family member you can sit down at the kitchen table with. God is somewhere out there and is a great, big, kinda scary being, and is a non-physical spirit. How can we commune with him?

I think different people have different ways. I like to hike. To just take off into the wilderness, where I can appreciate the beauty of his creation, collect my thoughts, and talk out loud to him without anyone else hearing.Its amazing how I will get out there, start telling him about my struggles, and he will bring to mind Scripture to point my thoughts in a completely different direction. He has a great way of gently guiding my thoughts away from my tiny problems to his overarching priorities.

Case in point: This evening, I needed some answers. I needed some specific direction on where to go in a breakout session I am speaking at on Thursday about Quest. I went out hiking for a couple hours and started laying this out before God. He pointed me back to my own heart, speaking to it with some Scripture, then pointed me towards some interesting thoughts for this breakout session. Honestly, I would have never come up with these ideas on my own. But the work of the Spirit is to illumine Scripture and enable me to understand it better.

Getting alone with God is crucial. How you do it is up to you.

What works best for you?

Here being Quest, that is.

Over the weekend, I made a remarkable discovery. I realized that what I previously viewed as my most crucial role was actually only a small part of a much greater responsibility.

Previously, I viewed my chief task at Quest as discipling young men to help them towards maturity in Christ. This seems straightforward enough; after all, we are to be in the business of making disciples and my particular part in that work involved young men. Quest, as it turns out, is all about helping young men in that transition to manhood. Discipleship is at the core of Quest. So, as the head guy at Quest, naturally, it makes sense that my primary responsibility is to work on that discipling (through organizing, coordinating, managing, teaching, counseling, etc.).

But this weekend I made the critical discovery that I had been wrong. My primary role includes the above, but only as a small part. My real job is to recruit, train, equip, empower, mentor, and counsel disciple-making leaders.

The realization came in part as I spent time thinking (a useful discipline!) about how to make Quest do a better job at its core mission: Discipling and challenging young men. I realized that effective discipleship has to happen on a personal level (I was helped towards this by observing how William Borden, who’s biography I am reading right now, engaged most significantly in personal work). A large group of 80 guys might work well for teaching; and certainly, the larger the Quest program gets numerically, the better we can do with the teaching; however: A large group does not lend itself easily to discipleship. The key, then, is to work in small groups. Two years ago, I had a big birthday party with my training unit here at ALERT. We went camping, had a big bonfire, hot chocolate, smores, and cookies. From the ALERT officer ranks, two Col.’s, one Lt. Col., two Maj.’s, three Cpt.’s, and two Lt.’s showed up. I ended up spending quite a while talking with Col. Ron Furhman (the founder of ALERT and currently leading Whetstone ministries) and Isaac Millard (a dear friend) about discipleship. He made the astute observation that the most effective discipleship happens in small groups of men focused on Bible study, prayer, accountability, and generally building up each other.

So the key to making Quest tick is to build small groups inside of the large group, and to focus these small groups on discipleship. This is, in effect, what the teams are meant to be. Each team is aimed at right around 5-8 guys with a team leader. My encouragement to the team leaders each year is to be a leader (as in an influencer and discipler) not just a manager (making sure people follow rules and schedules).

My striking revelation over the weekend was that I need to be a lot more deliberate about developing these team leaders as true leaders with a focus making disciples. This is going to be the key to making the small groups actually work as force for change, which is the key to making Quest fulfill its mission.

As I thought on this, I realized how little I actually know about teaching and equipping and developing leaders. And how inadequate our current processes are. And how “impossible” it is to take 16-20 year old guys and turn them into dynamic leaders able to inspire and disciple and guide their teams for 600 hours straight. Its a marathon scale race for these guys and they tend to wear out about the second week. The successful ones (about 90% of them) discover the secret of relying on God’s strength and looking towards Jesus as the foundation of that strength.

Fortunately, God loves the impossible and He has done amazing things each year at Quest so far. To Him be the glory!

Sunday was a low day for me. It seems that there were a tremendous amount of problems; a handful (less than five!) guys were consuming me with frustration over their folly, pride, and general spiritual blindness. The day got worse in the evening as I dealt with some incidents of poor judgement with my leadership. By the time I hit my pillow, I was despairing, crushed, and broken.

But His mercies are new every morning.

I woke to my alarm at 4:45 feeling refreshed and well rested. I had a solid time of prayer, study, and Bible reading and hit the day feeling encouraged and excited.

The day was a rough one. I spent it jumping from one crisis to the other; dealing with leaders pushed past their limits and students making grand errors and parents calling. I had several leaders who were discouraged and hurting deeply–and I hate to see my leaders hurting.

But through it all, I was able to hold fast to these truths God gave me this morning.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8

This is not my ministry. It is not my burden. Not my work. God gave me the passion in December 2004, God gave me the vision over the summer and fall months of 2005, and gave me the mission in April 2006. I may plant or water, but God gives the growth. I may preach, teach, or rebuke, but God is the one who grants repentance. God doesn’t ask me to work miracles, or to change lives.

What does God ask me to do?

To do justice.

To love kindness.

To walk humbly with Him.

In my mind, this is a simple, straightforward manifesto for leaders in ministry. Here is all God has asked us to do. Justice. Kindness. Humility.

The issue of justice is key for a leader. Much of my role as the top leader in Quest is administering justice. Many of my mistakes have been because I didn’t do justice. I didn’t make justice a priority–I was more concerned with fairness or with popularity.

To love kindness is straightforward: We are to mirror God’s love for us in our love for others. God’s mercy for us in our mercy for others. God’s covenant faithfulness for us in our faithfulness to others.

In leadership, it means that that love motivates us and our actions are rooted in that and not in selfishness or in pride.

But the key thing God asks: That we walk with him in humility. For me, that means remembering in the way I walk that God is the one doing all the good. He is the one that is worthwhile.

So this is my encouragement: Its not my job to change guys lives; all I need to do is focus on these three things. He does the rest.

The Lord is my helper, I shall not fear what man can do unto me.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This was the prayer of Sir Francis Drake in 1577, as he left England on the voyage that would result in the first circumnavigation of the world by an Englishman, the first English presence in California, and his knighthood. I am, incidentally, directly descended from his family.

We serve a great God!!!

“He is not the God of the ‘half-empty’ or the ‘half-full’ in our lives. He is the God of the ‘Exceeding abundantly above all we could ask or think.’

“His will for is not just joy but ‘great joy’
Not just peace but the ‘peace that passes understanding.’

Not just love but ‘fullness of love.’

Not just to be a conqueror but to be ‘more than a conqueror.’

“When he fills our cup, it is overflowing.
When He flows through us, it is as rivers of living water.</br
When He meets a need, he does it out of the riches that are in Christ.”

(Roy Lessin, minister, co-founder of Dayspring cards)

(Click on picture to enlarge)

The first week of Quest was intense, busy, fruitful, and exciting. You can read all about it on the Quest blog, so I’ll just share some of what I learned.

I learned how sweet Jesus can be.

I learned how empty I must be.

I learned what it really means to say “The Joy of the Lord is my strength” and not in a cliche way…to see real emotional, mental, and physical strength rooted in real, thrilling, visceral joy rooted in a real, living, interactive relationship with my Lord and master.

I taught on manhood (an article will be coming from that) and preached on Philippians 3:3-14.

This has been so good for me…God has been so good to me.

Fish.

(image by Jared Cassidy)

Bob Allison gave me a nice 15-gallon aquarium and stand; a trip to Walmart got it setup; and various Quest leadership donated fish. It has been a learning curve and a new experience for me; many fish died but I think I’ve figured out how to keep them.

Having something totally unrelated to Quest, ALERT, or my plans this fall to consume a small amount of my time has been WONDERFUL. It provides a tiny little escape each day.

Also, fish are a tremendous distraction. I often find myself sitting in the living room at the end of the day, trying to muster some energy to write or plan or do other work, and I end up spending minutes on end just staring, watching the fish do their little fish thing. It rocks.

As I am facing the greatest leadership challenge I’ve ever had before, I am turning my thoughts towards Jesus Christ, the greatest leader ever (and the very model of a real man). I’ve been focusing my devotions on reading in the gospels to observe how Jesus led and worked and lived.

This morning, reading Mark 6â��10, I was struck by the importance of “downtime.” My experience as a leader has indicated that there are two distinct periods of time in my day: “Uptime”, where I am feverishly running around working, and “Downtime” when things are bit more relaxed and I have choices as to what to do.

Reading in Mark, I noticed six key characteristics of downtime:

1. Downtime must come after work.

   In Mark 6:30, the twelve apostles return to Jesus after going out throughout Israel on a training mission. After this great work, which involved casting out demons, healing illnesses, and witnessing God�s power for His people, they returned to Jesus. After we do work for God, we must come back to Him. It is all to easy to finish a great, hard fight, and then collapse into bed exhausted or plop down in front of a movie, trying to escape. It is at these times that we are weakest and most vulnerable, so it is essential that we return to the safety of the camp with God.

2. Downtime involves reviewing the work with God.

   The apostles told Jesus all they had done and taught. This meant that they themselves reviewed it as they discussed it with God. After we do ministry work, we should review it in prayer with God. We should carefully evaluate our actions and what we taught to make sure that is in accordance with God.

   Do you remember what it was like when you were little and your dad came home? I remember being so excited to run out and tell my dad all about my day. It should be like that with our heavenly Dad. We should be so excited about what we did following his commission that we can�t wait to come home and tell Him all about it.

3. Downtime should include separation

   Jesus told the apostles to go away by themselves. They were to remove themselves from the busyness of ministry and separate themselves from others. We must be cognizant of doing this as well. Sure, we should be ministering to others, but we also must create boundaries in our lives and be able to step back from active ministry to rest.

4. Downtime should involve solitude

   In addition to going away from the crowds, the apostles were instructed to go to a desolate place. They were to be separated from the crowds so that they would be able to spend uninterrupted time with Christ.  Jesus also followed this principle when He went up on mountains to pray at night. We must realize the importance of solitude in refreshing our souls. Stepping away from active ministry only to spend time with friends and family will contribute to burnout, not refreshment.

5. Downtime should be in rest.

   Jesus specifically instructs the apostles to rest up. The importance of regular rest cannot be overestimated. God set the example in Creation when He instituted the Sabbath as a day of regular rest. Even when this isn�t practical (as it isn�t for many in ministry), we must follow the spirit of God�s law and set aside time to stop working, to get alone, and to rest.

6. Downtime is when God reveals His truths to us.

   In Mark 4:10-11 and Mark 4:34 (among other places), the writer explains that Jesus “explained everything” to his disciples in private. It is when we get alone with God that He is able to explain things to us, to clarify things for us.

It is vital that we focus on utilizing downtime effectively. We cannot lead others where we haven’t been, and we canâ��t make disciples if we are not actively following Christ. It is truly important that we set time aside to spend in focused rest and in fellowship with God.