Barnabas File

To extend Christmas a little longer, my wife and I attended the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at the Opry House on Saturday. The show was well done with great staging, music, and choreography. The finale was the adoration of the Christ Child with shepherds and Wise Men present. It was beautifully done but the show’s producers followed the typical approach of taking great liberty with Matthew’s account about the visitors from the east. Matthew’s gospel tells us about the coming of magi (probably Zoroastrian priests) to worship the Christ child. They were both astrologers and astronomers who connected happenings in the heavens to those on earth and vice versa. Given their interchange with a very troubled King Herod and the fact that they found the child and his family in a house, their visit would have been at least two years after Jesus’ birth, so they would not have been present at the manger. The interesting thing about this story is that Matthew includes it at all. The gospel writ...

James Cameron’s Avatar is THE blockbuster holiday film. I saw it in 3-D and wish that I could have seen it in the IMAX format. This is a beautiful, exhilarating film that invites the viewer to suspend his or her imagination and enjoy the ride. The invitation is easily accepted. The story is not new or unique. Although some reviewers have charged that Cameron plagiarized Dances with Wolves, his inspiration is more from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter, Warlord of Mars series (something that Cameron himself readily admits). Although the writer/director strives for a fresh take on colonialism and biodiversity, this is a swashbuckler about an outsider who becomes immersed in an alien culture and becomes its savior—a common theme in science fiction and fantasy. Cameron also introduces a love story but that too is standard for this genre. In the film, an avatar is a body controlled by a “driver” or human controller. The body itself is a cloned hybrid created by combining the DNA of the Na’...

Economic downturn, midlife crisis, or work of the Holy Spirit? Whatever the reason, seminaries are welcoming a new type of student to campus. This student comes with life experience, a background in a profession (such as business, education, law, or medicine), and a desire to make a difference in the world. Many of the students that I relate to at the Murfreesboro center of Central Baptist Theological Seminary fall into this category. They have families, jobs, and church responsibilities, but they are seeking something new for themselves and for the Kingdom of God. They have a vision that may not fit into the usual parameters of church-related ministry. Some want to be part of a ministry that does not exist already. This is a work of God's Spirit. This is happening at other seminaries as well. In a Religious News Service article , David Worley, director of admissions at Iliff School Theology in Denver says, “Our big push is recruiting folks who want to be social entrepreneurs and a...

We read in Ecclesiastes 12:12, “Be warned, my son,. . . of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.” I am not sure exactly what the writer was getting at here, but my initial response is to say “Amen” to the first part and “So?” to the second. Anyone who knows me realizes that I like to read. I have certain categories that particularly appeal to me, but I occasionally venture outside of those areas to consider other genres. The greatest gift that someone can give me is to recommend a book that has been especially meaningful to that person. I like to share books that I find interesting, helpful, formative, or instructive. At the top of my blog page, you will see a banner with “Ircel’s Recommendations.” If you follow that link to Amazon.com, you will find several categories. First is a list of books that I am reading right now. Some of these are in progress or may just be sitting on my shelf (or on my Kindle) waiting their turn. These have usually been recomm...

President George H. W. Bush (”41”) was widely criticized when he commented that he did not get the “vision” thing. For the last several decades, if you have read anything about personal or organizational development, you will realize that having a vision for yourself, your organization, or your church is mandatory. I don’t disagree with this idea, but vision is just the beginning. You can have a magnificent and compelling vision and fail in the pursuit of that vision! There are other things to consider—values, strategies, etc.—in building an effective organization or church but I affirm that the biggest challenge that a leader faces in the 21st century is obtaining resources. When I used the term, I am using it in a very broad sense. Resources include (but are not limited to) people, finances, spiritual insight, time, and technology. In fact, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between these four; they tend to blend into one another. For a church or church-related organization, ...

One of the classes I teach from time to time is titled “The Basics of Contemporary Christian Witness.” The scope of the course as taught at Central Seminary includes a study of the nature of salvation (especially as expressed in the Gospels), the missiology of the church through the ages, and an understanding of the missional church. One of the papers required of the students is a personal statement of their soteriology or doctrine of salvation. Students sometimes argue that there is certainly only one approach to salvation, but the history of the Christian faith shows otherwise. How and why we are saved by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has been interpreted in many ways in the history of the church. The doctrine has even led some Christian to persecute other Christians! Each of us brings his or her own perspective to this doctrine today. Because of our background, the teachings to which we have been exposed, our study of the Bible, and our life experiences, we each ...

We just returned from a Thanksgiving visit to our son and his family in the San Francisco area. Every time we visit I am struck by the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural nature of the population there. I realize, of course, that the same thing is happening on an accelerating scale across the country. When I go to a program at my grandchildren’s elementary school in Tennessee, the principal struggles to pronounce names that are Asian, Hispanic, and Indian. Churches in my little part of the world are only beginning to address this cultural diversity. Most of the time, the strategy is to create churches that are targeted to a specific racial, ethnic, or language group and translate the North American understanding of the gospel for that group. This ignores the fact that some things do not translate well! Often this strategy does not take into account the vast differences within a particular language group. The strategy also does not consider that we could learn something from dial...

I often get invitations on Facebook to join advocacy groups such as “Keep Christ in Christmas.” This year I have seriously considered setting up on that advocates “Let’s Not Start the Christmas Season until the Day after Thanksgiving.” There are some, including folks in my own family, who start putting up decorations the second week in November. Some have even already bought all of their presents! (Yes, it is hard to live with people like that.) I am sure that their efforts are driven by a love for the season (as well as personal industriousness), but I cannot say the same for the stores that start pushing Christmas decorations and gifts on Labor Day. I cannot believe that their enthusiasm is driven by good feelings about the “reason for the season.” There are two primary reasons that I will hold off on my decorations, Christmas music, and holiday observance until after Thanksgiving. First, I love Thanksgiving. I know that some consider this holiday a capitulation to “civil religion,” ...

You’ve heard the story of the blind men who encountered an elephant. Each touched only one part and then generalized about the nature of the beast based on this partial knowledge. They variously described it as a wall, snake, spear, tree, fan or rope, depending upon where they touched. Each developed his own metaphor based on the partial knowledge they had of the subject. Metaphors are powerful tools. In fact, researcher Andrew Ortony once commented, “Metaphors are necessary, not just nice.” Rightly used, metaphors are powerful tools for learning and change. Just as a picture is worth a thousand words, a metaphor can shift the way that a person perceives reality. We can see the power (and limitation) of metaphor when we select words to describe the church. Many churches describe themselves as “family.” This works most of the time, but some people have had very negative family experiences—broken relationships, abuse, isolation—that color how they see family. The idea of the church as an...

I can remember the day well. It was May 1970. The mover had packed up all of our worldly goods for the move from Fort Worth, Texas, to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I climbed into the station wagon (loaded down with clothes and other things we would need immediately). Rita (great with child) and our daughter, Sherry, stayed behind with friends. They would fly to Nashville later after I got the house set up with help from my parents. I made a loop around the campus and said farewell to Seminary Hill, not expecting to return anytime soon! I had earned my degree, been called to my first place of ministry, and could leave all that behind. After only a few months, I realized that my education was not over. I soon began to encounter situations in teaching, counseling, and administration that I had not anticipated. Seminary helped me to develop many skills I put into use immediately—planning, preaching, and research. At the same time, I quickly discovered that I needed help to be a more effective ...

You may be interested in this video by Joshua Cooper Ramo introducing his book

I just completed reading Joshua Cooper Ramo’s The Age of the Unthinkable. Ramo is the managing director of Kissinger Associates, a former editor of Time Magazine, and a China analyst. Ramo’s thesis is that we live in a “revolutionary age,” defined by problems (such as terrorism, financial crisis, global warming and the AIDS pandemic) whose complexity, unpredictability and interconnectedness increasingly defy our efforts at control. Taking a page from writers like Thomas Friedman and Malcolm Gladwell, he uses historical, contemporary, and personal vignettes to both illustrate the situation and to support his approach to dealing with the situation. So why does a person who is interested in “building up the Body of Christ” in the 21st century read a secular book like this? I picked up this book because it was recommended by Alan Roxburgh, one of the most creative thinkers I have encountered on the missional church and missional leadership. Roxburgh introduced me to the concept of “discont...

During a workshop today, participants began to question whether it was practical to take the time to initiate a new approach to leadership development in the church. Their concern was, “How can we attempt something new when we are dealing with basic survival in the church?” I shared my belief that a spirit of experimentation and innovation is key to the health of churches in the 21st century. We must move beyond maintenance to dreaming and planning for future opportunities. Afterward, I commented to one person that every church should have a Department of Research and Development. The church should always be trying new things. Of course, doing this is not easy. When things are going well in the church, people say, “Why bother to try something new?” When things are not going well, the response is, “We don’t have the time and resources to try something new.” Now I do not mean that we need a literal department with the name “Research and Development,” but every church should be stretching...

“Power to the people!” Sounds like something out of the 60s, doesn’t it? But that is the bottom line message of The Age of the Unthinkable by Joshua Cooper Ramo. As Ramo reflects on the rapidly changing and complex world in which we find ourselves, he encourages readers to consider the total picture and not to be distracted by one particular focus. He reminds us that problems that we face today—internationally, politically, or economic—rarely have one cause. Such problems may also be addressed in a number of ways and have multiple solutions. Most often, he contends, these solutions “bubble up” from creative, empowered individuals who join together in community to create change. Empowerment is not a new idea. When Luther and other Reformers embraced the priesthood of every believer (although interpreted in various ways), they opened the door to individual and corporate actions that would go in unexpected directions. In Ramo’s book, he points out that grassroots decision-making, whethe...

Bill Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest Divinity School, was a guest at our church over the weekend for a Baptist Heritage weekend. In a couple of the discussions and over lunch on Sunday, the postmodern question was interjected. Leonard ma de some comments to the effect that there are fewer metanarratives—grand, all-encompassing stories—that all Christians look to for meaning. In contrast, there are a number of stories that link us to God’s story. One of the key theological themes to emerge in the 20th century was contextual theology. The idea is that our context and our experiences shape how we talk about God. We see expressions of this in the emergence of black theology, liberation theology, feminist theology, and so on. If we consider this carefully, we realize that this makes sense. We each come to the biblical story with our own perspective, one that provides the lens of our understanding. This is not strictly a personal matter, however. Theology and community are necessarily conne...

Whenever I led an orientation for college students who were planning to spend ten weeks in mission service, I always added one thing to the list of responsibilities: “Be flexible.” No matter how much planning went into these projects, life often happened. Sometimes it set the stage for disaster, and other times it was an opportunity for the Spirit of God to work in a great way. The way it turned out often depended on the attitudes toward change of those involved. In The Age of the Unthinkable , Joshua Cooper Ramo presents the concept of flexibility early in the book. He points out that “you might have a dream of what you want to do . . . but unless you constantly refine that dream, constantly update it, your chances for success are limited.” To accomplish your dream, you must be adaptive or flexible and aware of the environment in which you live and work. This provides the basis for one of his key arguments—planners, policy makers, and leaders of all stripes must not only be flexible a...

The famous thinker Anonymous is reported to have said, “History repeats itself because no one listens the first time.” Someone commented recently that she appreciated my blog comments. My response was, “That’s because I am becoming a better listener.” Listening is an important life skill. It is one that a good leader will work to develop. Listening is a mandatory skill for a coach. I have been thinking recently that I have learned the most in my ministry when I have asked the right questions and listened carefully for the answers. When coaching skills such as listening and leadership are brought together, phenomenal things can happen. The area in which I am spending a good deal of my time these days is in leadership coaching. I have always been interested in the area of leadership, especially as it applies to the church and its various manifestations, but I have become more aware of the impact that effective coaching can have in the life of believers and their empowerment as leaders. T...

“Mashup” is not a term I use every day. It comes from the rap music genre where different types of music are mixed at varying speeds to develop a new piece of music. The process transforms two or more different things into a new creation. Several years ago, something similar happened when Japanese game creator Shigeru Miyamoto combined an accelerometer used for the deployment of automobile airbags with a video gaming system to produce the Wii. As Joshua Cooper Ramo notes in The Age of the Unthinkable , Miyamoto had “mashed up” two seemingly unrelated things to create something new. He explains, “Understanding mashup logic is . . . the first step toward a new, deep security in which our ideas match the world around us.” In so doing, we can recombine “our policies, dreams, and ideas . . . to release new and unexpected power.” Another term for this would be convergence. How do we combine various streams to produce some synergetic—more than the sum of its parts? I suggest that this is one ...

You learn a lot when you lead a conference, especially when you get good questions from the participants. I was leading a workshop on Discovering Disciple Development Coaching in Mississippi over the weekend. The concept I was presenting was that healthy people have the ability to discover the answers to their own problems—spiritual, relational, professional. What we need to do is provide a climate to help them discover those answers, plan how to implement those answers, and then hold them accountable. The question went something like this: “How will people in the church respond to this? They are used to coming to the church to receive direction and answers. How will they respond to the idea of finding their own answers?” As we processed this together, I suggested that believers do need biblical information and teaching, but they also need to learn how to make decisions for themselves. Jesus walked with his disciples, taught them and encouraged them, but when he was gone, they had to t...

You’re rummaging through your tool box, and you suddenly discover a brand new tool that does just what you want to do and in less time. So what do you do? Do you say, “Hey, I am used to my old tool, so I will just stick with it”? Or do you say, “Thank goodness, I have finally found something to make my life easier”? If you are smart, you use the new tool that you just found and save yourself some time and effort. Given the above scenario, you can understand why I am surprised when I find a minister who says with disdain, “I just don’t do the Internet. It’s not my thing.” I look at that person and think to myself, “Well, I guess you don’t use a cell phone, microwave, or electricity either, do you?” You may think that this is mean-spirited, but I have a difficult time understanding a person who does not use the tools available to him or her. If we are to deal with the challenges of the 21st century, we have to be ready to use the technologies that will make our ministries more effective....

Have you ever noticed that if you talk to the same people all the time, you rarely hear a new idea? Whether these folks are family, coworkers, church members, or fans of your athletic team, we tend to hang with those who think, act, and feel like we do. This is comfortable, but it does not promote a climate for change and growth. In a previous blog, I suggested several factors that have impacted all organizations, including churches, in the last couple of decades—fragmentation, customization, and decentralization. In this blog, I suggest one way to deal effectively with those influences—dialogue. How does dialogue differ from discussion or debate? David Bohm suggests an answer. Discussion comes from the same root word as percussion , so the sense communicated is “beating against something.” Dialogue , on the other hand, comes from the root word for “flowing together.” Both can promote learning but they begin from different perspectives. Discussion assumes that by pushing something hard...

In The Age of the Unthinkable , Joshua Cooper Ramo writes “My argument so far has been that . . . many of our best minds, blinded by optimism and confusion, are using out-of-date and unrealistic models of the world. This is why our uneasiness about resting our future in their hands is inevitable.” Although he is talking about foreign policy experts, I think we can apply this to other areas of human endeavor as well, including churches and religious institutions. New times call for new thinking. Whether we acknowledge it or not, everything really has changed in the 21st century. The changes have been coming for decades, but we are feeling their full influence and power now. Let me suggest several that have especially impacted churches. First, fragmentation. While there at least appeared to be unity in 20th century denominational structures and they certainly operated efficiently, most denominations today are divided over theological, moral, and practical concerns. Whether it is the way ...

“You love it or you hate it!” Well, maybe that is too strong a statement, but when it comes to digital media—especially social networking media--people tend to have strong feelings. Facebook is a good example. A friend recently commented on the fact that Facebook was a time wasting activity. People were always inviting him to play games, accept gifts, and sending him messages. It was more than he wanted. On the other hand, another person recently noted how she used Facebook to keep family and friends up-to-date on her husband’s recent surgery. To paraphrase her comment, “I just sat at the computer this morning with gratitude for our God who transcends time and space and for Facebook which has allowed almost instant access to so many friends.” The difference in attitudes, of course, is in how you chose to use the application. Games can be fun or addictive. You can spend so much time with Facebook friends that you neglect family and folks right in your home or community. This is a matter...

On two or three weekends a month in the fall and spring, the third floor of the middle education building at First Baptist Church, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, becomes a theological seminary. Like all good seminaries, there are lectures, discussions, papers, and community (including meals). In all honesty, I am not sure that the other components would be very effective without the last one. These students spend at much as 12 hours together on Friday night and all day Saturday, so they come to now each other as friends, colleagues, and follow pilgrims. When a team from the Association of Theological Schools made a site visit last May, they were particularly impressed by the sense of community that had developed among these students. Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kansas, has offered classes in Murfreesboro as part of its “teaching church seminary” emphasis since September 2005. This arrangement is the result of a commitment among three parties—the seminary, First Baptist, ...

I love my GPS unit, but I have discovered that I need to update it on a regular basis due to new construction and changes in the names of streets. I have learned that I can’t assume that what it says (it does speak) is always accurate. This reminds me of author Alan Roxburgh’s comment that our maps define our reality and his warning that maps are only representations of reality, they are not the real thing. They can help us but they can also mislead us. In The Age of the Unthinkable , Joshua Cooper Ramo observes that theorists come up with beautiful ideas, but when they have to deal with reality, they often shelve those ideas. As he notes, “When they [policy makers] finally do get their hands on real power, many foreign-affairs academics or economic masters are quick to leave their beautiful scholarly ideas behind.” Their ideas are wonderfully constructed, but they do not always work in the real world. My point in all this is to express appreciation for those who temper their theoretic...

Given my background with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, some readers of this blog may have been surprised by the comments I made in yesterday’s posting offering some unsolicited advice on the future of CBF. You may be thinking, “You didn’t say that when your paycheck came from a CBF state organization.” Well, actually, I did. Some of the suggestions I offered were articulated to administrative and planning groups. I also attempted to create an innovative and resilient environment in the organization I led so that we could be more responsive o the needs of individuals and congregations. I need to be clear on several points. First, organizations are created to serve a purpose. Whether for-profit, not-for-profit, or church-related, each organization was created to accomplish one or more tasks. For the Southern Baptist Convention, the initial task was to unite Baptists behind missions. Of course, the task may change over time. When an organization no longer serves the purpose for whic...

I was having lunch with a friend recently when he asked the question: “Does CBF have a future?” He knew that I had served as coordinator for the Tennessee Cooperative Baptist Fellowship for ten years. He was asking out of his own experience as a partner who works with CBF leadership on the state and national levels. He realized that, like many denominational groups, CBF is experiencing financial tightness. He also observed that the CBF movement seems to have plateaued. I wish that I were wise enough to answer his question, but I am not. I do think his observations contain some truth. In many ways, CBF is struggling through its adolescence and trying to make good decisions along the way. With some humility, I can offer some observations about how the CBF movement may regain its momentum. From my perspective, CBF will be a one generation phenomena if it does not do two things—relate to more churches and reach more people. CBF leadership may respond, “Well, that is what we are trying to d...

“Quite honestly, I don’t really trust anyone else to take care of this.” I have heard that comment in some form from pastoral leaders for years. I must admit that I can identify with it to some degree. I tend to be a perfectionist and that is not a good thing! Over the years, I have had to learn how to let go and give others a chance to succeed or fail. Sometimes it means cleaning up a mess, but I have found that it is worth the risk in the long run. The end result is often the birth of a competent, skilled leader. Church and denominational leaders say that they want more people to step up as volunteers and “shoulder part of the load.” We often say that we want young people to be more involved and to “do their part.” I have found, however, that our lack of trust and dearth of equipping skills often limit untried church members to roles with minimal responsibility and limited opportunities for initiative and creativity. Craig Groeschel, the founding and senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv, c...

“A sticky idea is understood, it’s remembered, and it changes something.” This is the basic idea behind Made to a Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. JFK’s “man on the moon in this decade” was such an idea. It was short, succinct, visual, and memorable. The question that the book attempts to answer is, “How do you get people to understand, remember, and act on your ideas?” According to the Heath brothers, sticky ideas have six traits in common. They term this the “SUCCESs model.” The components are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and stories. Simple idea messages state the core of the message clearly. One example they provide is the message that “Southwest will be THE low-fare airline.” For a Southwest employee, ff something does not contribute to that end, it is off-message. They point out that proverbs are good examples of lasting ways to communicate simple and profound ideas. Use the unexpected to grab hold attention. Surprise people but then hold them by generating int...