And its easy to think that this releasing humanity from the law is creating a new structure.  But what if its revealing God’s original structure established in the Garden.  If we examine the story in Genesis it basically had no law.  Humanity is free to eat from anything in the Garden.  The parallels in the two stories are obvious, once we understand the problem God is solving.  In speaking to Peter to eat the story is making a direct connection back to the original command.

But the problem is this. Its very hard to imagine a world with no law.  We hold onto it because it provides a not so neat little (actually monstrous) framework for dealing with fear.  All the law is is a human agreement for action.  It gives us comfort to know someone isn’t going to kill us.  So to remove is to create the potential for chaos.  Yet we can’t ignore that this is what God is doing in the story.  God is removing the construct of law in favor of grace.  Grace is infinitely harder to dole out because it requires love.  It requires holding onto the basic dignity of each human being, even in the face of oppression or even death. (see the cross)

But today I was thinking about something in regards to freedom.  Instead of the need to deal with fear, what if we’re really afraid of what freedom represents.  What if in engaging this freedom we go too far.  Could we really go too far?  Could we do something that tested the edges of freedom, only to find there really is a limit and we’re all fooling ourselves.  I was thinking about new Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and part of the story is in testing the bounds of limits.  Is there an edge of the world?

I’m just thinking out loud, but I’d love to hear what you think?

In your understanding of spiritual transformation, what change is actually happening?

Darryl Gardiner’s Sin Chat from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

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This video is going to frustrate some people but I love it. It’s from The Work Of The People. Travis Reed is doing some great projects and posts it all at Alter Magazine.  Darryl explores our contextual understanding of discipleship and how it changes based on where you live.  And then Darryl offers a provocative definition of discipleship. He says:

“So much of our discipleship of people is actually not training people on what the Bible says of right and wrong, its socializing them…or making them fit into a particular culture, a particular context that we say is the representation of Jesus and I would say that is bullshit.

Most discipleship I would suggest is often in the West is nothing more than socializing people into a set of values that are defined by the culture that are represented by the church.”

Doooooh!

It’s interesting to me that much of conversations on following Jesus have to do with right or wrong, when Jesus was primarily focused on love, and stepping into spaces where people had already gotten it wrong.  It’s like Jesus was continually saying, this doesn’t define you, but it does affect you.

So, one, do you think discipleship is the training of right and wrong, which is essentially a moral training process, and two if not, what is it?

What do you think?

It seems like I’ve had some of the best conversations lately. It started with this post, which asks if Christianity is a system of belief or a way of life.  And then it extended to this post, which asks if denying God is wrestling with God.  And within these conversations seems to be common thread.  What is a follower of Jesus? What is the true essence, the stripped down version of being a follower? In other words, did Jesus come to establish complexity or simplicity?

I ask this because of a recent conversation I had with a friend who said that he has a bunch of friends who are willing to practice love, which is arguably the basis of what it means to follow Jesus, but who are completely unwilling to set foot into the church.  In other words, they dig what Jesus is saying but they are unwilling to add on all of the religious jargon associated with Christianity.  And for them its not just about social justice, but about engaging a deeper form of what it means to be human.

And it seems like so many people I meet and talk to are wrestling with this strange notion of what it means to strip away the religious connotations, in order to get to following.  We all want the real thing.  And this desire is not limited to Christians.  It’s deeper than that.  Its extends to human beings (who are created in the image of God anyway).  Jesus even said, “You will know them by their fruit.”  And can’t we make the assumption that love is the greatest fruit, and the essence of Jesus’ intention for spiritual formation?

So I would ask if you think one can be a follower of Jesus, and not set foot in the church or participate in traditional forms of worship?  Can one be a follower of Jesus simply by practicing love. And this doesn’t mean not participating in community because so many of my friends already have tribes that are asking these deeper questions, and they aren’t taking place in churches.

Do we have an intrinsic mobilizing story that compels us to follow?

This video by Francis Chan is interesting for several reasons.  Francis talks about how we’re attracted to Jesus but not really willing to follow Jesus. We like what Jesus did, but we’re not willing to see Jesus as an action role model to emulate. The subtle tension is that our lack of action reveals a roadblock to following.  Yet what is that roadblock?  I would offer that it’s the way we approach the word “must”.

Francis shares Jesus’ own words that we “must” walk as Jesus did.  I would suggest that “must” is true in the sense that we cannot realize the life of Jesus unless we actually follow.  But the tension for me is seeing it as something we have to do in order to make grace true in a cosmic sense.  This is the subtle tension I have with focusing on “must”.  Its easy to hear “must” and walk away thinking, “If I’m not doing it God must be disgusted with me.”  We can easily create a roadblock to experiencing life.

The question for me is where does our motivation reside.  Do we follow because it’s the right thing to do?  Or do we follow because its the most valuable life to live?  It’s really easy to see following as an extrinsic cosmic rule isn’t it?  In other words, its easy to develop a extrinsic story that has no personal motivating value in our lives.   We assume we’re supposed to follow because it’s the “right” thing to do.  We even agree that its right as though it sits on a shelf waiting to be picked up at some point in our lives.  And suddenly we’re sixty and its still sitting there.

The question is then what would make us pick up that call to follow?

I would offer that we need to shape our stories as something intrinsically valuable.  To follow is to live.  We don’t have to follow in order to be loved.  God loves us before we were born.  But we do have to follow in order to experience that love.  See the difference.  One is a conditional requirement that makes it true in a cosmic sense, or from God’s perspective.  One is conditional requirement that makes it true in a personal sense, or from our perspective. Legalism continually focuses on the former, where I think Jesus saw it as the latter.  We follow to realize the love of God in our own lives, not make it true in God’s perspective.

We need intrinsic mobilizing stories.  We need to see that God’s love is not something we earn by doing the right thing, which is an external motivator.  God’s love is something that is simply true, but can only be experienced by following. The difference is light years apart. I see so many people wanting to love God but their stories are deeply shaped by something they have to do “in order to” receive love.  I’m suggesting that we reframe our stories based on something we “get to” in order to intrinsically experience God’s love.

Matt Carter // Missional Small Groups from Todd Rhoades on Vimeo.

I so wish every pastor in the world would watch this video.  Chips and dip, a living room and the Bible do not make a missional community. I really was amazed at Matt’s honesty about the process.  And it is that honesty that I believe has transformed his community.  When the leader gets honest, s/he gives permission to the people to be honest.

Matt asked a really good question.  “What is it in life that actually builds authentic community…that you see occurring in Scripture?”  His answer came in the context of military units.  A bond is created through significant mission. I’ve interviewed many veterans and I would add perseverance through conflict.

If you are a pastor really working through the questions in this video and how to create missional community within your church, I want to introduce you to a unique process called Thrive.  Check us out.  We’ve been wrestling through these questions and answering them for over seven years.

Last night I had an interesting conversation with a friend about spiritual maturity. A friend of his is part of a small group and they are hitting the proverbial wall and the community is somewhat stagnant. They aren’t taking risks, instead settling into the easy right answer routine. I know that feeling. I know what it’s like to reach a place where it’s no longer about the info, but something else.

And this conversation made me think. What is spiritual maturity? Is it simply a theological ascendancy to a set of beliefs. Is this what Jesus and Paul were after. Because what I have found is that theological brilliance typically leads to arrogance. And yet so much of our current small group formats are based on simple downloading the right information. And the assumption is that the right answer creates right action. And I just don’t buy that.

One of the fundamental problems I see is that we’ve relegated truth to the chalkboard, without ever taking it out on the field. It’s the right answer to learn, not the real answer to live. And in doing so we’ve created a world of theological misfits who don’t know how to practice what they preach. They know the right answer but it has very little value in the every day world because they can’t apply it. I should know because that was me for so long.

Now I’m not doubting or calling out the value of truth. It has been incredibly valuable in my life. But I recognize that at 40, I believe very differently than I did at 25 when I became a Christ follower. And at 25, I thought I had it all correct. But up until that point I had spent 20 years of my life learning the right answer, but it produced little more than a pious religiosity that was crippling me in guilt and fear.

And over time, I am beginning to realize that spiritual maturity is the capacity to love, which is founded in truth. It’s the right answer put into practice in the real world. This is why Missio Dei was so important to me. It gave me a context for the truth. It gave me a purpose other than just theological brilliance (as if) that led me to being the smarter guy in the room no one wanted to know. Because at some point, the basic answers no longer provide intellectual stimulation and what’s left is an ad nauseum, esoteric debate about the subjective. And it leads to division, which leaves the enemy laughing.

Spiritual maturity is engaging the truth. And the truth is that He loves us. He establishes us as His beloved creation. He gives us His Spirit. And with that Spirit, we can live like Jesus. That is the Good News. And living the truth is to love in a world that so desperately needs it. It’s being loved as much as it is loving people. It’s learning that I am loved and letting go of the baggage that is essentially a suitcase full of lies. It means embracing my own dignity and taking responsibility to grow into love, to meet the Holy Spirit at exactly the right moment He is calling me to.

Spiritual maturity is learning to forgive the unforgivable, not because I have to but because I need to. In forgiveness I find the love that restores my own heart as I let go of the justice that longs to come back and haunt me. In reconciliation I can participate in a larger mission of restoration than brings the best to the world, not my worst.

I long for spiritual maturity, the capacity to engage truth in love. I long to realize what God has created me to be, unencumbered by the wounds of my past. I long for the capacity to be love to the world around me. I long to be whole. That is spiritual maturity.

Over the last couple of months I have been reading an increasing number of people talk about and engage the issue of leadership. We know we want it but we don’t necessarily know what it is. We know it when we see it but we also know when what we’re being fed something that has a distinctly awful aroma. I would suggest there is a clear definition of leadership in Scripture. But first lets take a look at some of the concerns that the word “leadership” brings out in people.

Billy Calderwood says, ” “Leadership.” Through the lenses of my own personal history with various expressions of Christianty, this word has picked up good deal of baggage and has become something of a source of anxiety to me.”

Nathan says, “I don’t think I can throw out all ideas of leadership. There is something inside of it that still rings true with me. I think there can be a leader/follower relationship that is healthy and not degrading to either side. It needs to be reinvented, of course, but I don’t think it needs to be thrown out or looked past.”

Glenn and Aaron duked it out over “high-caliber leadership” here in the comments section.

Aaron says, “High caliber leaders are those that “get it” about leadership and have an amazing capacity to lead others towards the vision and get people on board towards helping people find their way back to God.”

Glenn responds with, “Using high caliber leaders to lead the church makes perfect sense on one hand and sounds exactly like the corporate world on the other hand. That is not a bad thing by itself, except I don’t see that the corporate/high caliber leadership model has produced many truly missional churches.”

Dan has a great take on the issue here. He says, “In particular, much of the Christian discourse about leadership seems to be flawed, and fatally so, in two regards: (1) in its focus on the individual; and (2) in its understanding of power. This, I think, is largely due to churches looking to outside models when it comes down to issues of polity and structure. By and large, a business paradigm has come to dominate the church (and, I might add, the social services — think of the pervasiveness of the role of the “manager” as that is described in MacIntyre’s After Virtue). Consequently, leaders, Christian or otherwise, are understood as powerful and influential individuals who can “get results.” A successful Christian leader is the sort who has a full church, heck, a growing church, and, perhaps most importantly, a tithing church… blah, blah, blah (in social work, a successful Christian leader is the sort who can produce glowing stats and has the connections and voice necessary to bring in abundant donations).”

In both Glenn’s and Dan’s posts, there is a tension about the adoption of business approaches to leadership. I get this. Why are we looking to business for solutions? Part of this is because they are the one’s who are doing the research and writing the books. Business has a vested interest in knowing how an organization runs effectively. Churches can share this concern because they are organizations. And compound this with the problem that there are virtually no classes on administration, marketing, leadership, or governance in seminary. And yet these are all components of a church organization.

These conversations are important. We want to know what leadership is and what is the best expression of it. The tension is palpable in each of these posts, and I’m sure there are thousands like them. All of which leads to the question of what is leadership?

And to add to the confusion the people who study leadership don’t know either. I just finished my Master’s in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga and you would think that those who created an entire Master’s program, let alone a PhD program would know what they were studying. But sadly this is not the case. There is no single definition for the word leader or leadership. In fact at last count there were 87 (and some say up to 300) documented definitions of leadership. I’ve been part of a the ILA’s leadership dialog for over a year and mention the word definition and you get silence or tremendous flack.

But I would suggest that leadership is actually very simple. Jesus modeled leadership with one simple word: love. Love is the definition of leadership for many different reasons. It is the fullest expression of our design as human beings made in the image of God. There is no single expression that is greater. Love speaks to the dignity of the other person, letting them know that they are worth what ever cost to restore the person. Love is not interested in hierarchy or org charts because a role is a responsibility of action, not a validation to be attained up a ladder or with a title. In fact love would place oneself at the bottom of the ladder, elevating those around her as valuable. Love would search out meaningful opportunities to restore people because they are God’s creation. Love knows the mission, which is the restoration of all creation. It is bent towards real change, listening to and speaking for those who have lost their voice. Love sees the image of God in everyone, including the neighbor that rubs us the wrong way or the enemy at work. Love constantly urges us, prods us, and calls us into maturity, which is the capacity to think outside of the self. It invites us to become the fullest expression of our own humanity. Love is not interested in force, but it is powerful. In fact love is more powerful than force because it always includes the human heart.

Jesus said, “Come, follow me.” He was calling us into an action. And that action was love. He was calling us into leadership by choosing followership, which was the hidden path to true leadership.  Followership is essentially the process of aligning our hearts to the way the universe already works, to His mission. And in doing so we become part of the solution.

I have been in many conversations over the years about small groups.  I remember my professor in college in 1994 telling me about a new concept called “small groups” and that we should pay attention.  And in many cases the conversation reveals a real difference in terms of what a small group really does.  Some are nothing more than Bible studies.  Others are social groups that meet for dinner and questions.  Some are actually churches that meet in homes.

So I wanted to get your understand on what you think small groups do in your church.  What is the real purpose?

I love Rick McKinley. If you haven’t heard him. You should. And you can. His podcast is exceptional at Imago Dei, and this audio session from Catalyst is a good start to really get an idea of the person his is. He’s also the pastor of Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz.

But if you listen to this session from Catalyst, he asks a really good question. Can we effectively do the “how to” if we don’t have the “want to”? And how many people do we know who truly have the want to if they were really honest?