Barnabas File

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We have heard this phrase from Matthew 7 since we were toddlers, so why don’t ministerial search committees practice it? Although I am no longer in a judicatory role, I still receive contacts from ministers who are seeking new places of service and calls from search committees asking for references on prospective ministers. Inevitably, I will run into a person who has been seriously “courted” by a committee and ask the person for an update. Too often the response is, “I never heard from them again.” We can learn something from the secular world here. Most businesses who interview prospective employees will usually give them an immediate “yes” or “no” or a date by which a decision will be made. It would seem to me that church committees could do the same. When you are asking a man or woman to uproot their lives and perhaps their families to take on a new ministry, you at least owe the person the consideration of some resolution to...

When I travel, I like to listen to audio books. On the recent trip to Charlotte for the CBF General Assembly, I had the opportunity to listen to two and both were very informative. Despite its provocative title, Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni is a business fable about “shedding the three fears that sabotage client loyalty.” Although written from the perspective of a business consultant, the lessons can apply to any number of fields including coaching. The author suggests that “naked service” requires that the provider be vulnerable. This means being willing to be humble, selfless, and transparent for the sake of the client. To do this, the provider must overcome three fears—a fear of losing business, a fear of being embarrassed, and a fear of feeling inferior. Lencioni has several lessons for coaches. First, coaches should be willing to ask dumb questions. It may be that these are questions that the client is afraid to ask himself/herself. Second, tell the “kind truth.” This me...

One of the first people I saw at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Charlotte greeted me with, “Didn’t you use to be somebody?” Well, I was and I am. In fact, everybody at the General Assembly was somebody to friends and colleagues they encountered. The General Assembly is your typical “meet and greet” denominational meeting where you catch up with friends with a brief handshake or hug, chat for a few minutes before moving on, engage in a 15 to 20 minute conversation about what’s happening in your respective lives, or share a meal together. These are opportunities to share joys, troubles, words of encouragement, and assurances of prayer. Of course, this type of interaction has some dangerous moments. You might run into the chair of that search committee that never called you back (embarrassing for that person) or misidentify someone you should know. I only had one serious experience of the latter this year. When you don’t recognize someone right off, it is usually safe to ask, “...

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship meeting in Charlotte was a positive, encouraging meeting, but there was an undercurrent of change. Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal alluded to this in at least two ways during his address to the Friday morning business session. First, he acknowledged that the CBF movement, as it approaches its 20th year, must consider new ways of cooperation and mutual support. This reflects the selection of the “2012 Task Force” to study the organization’s missional and organizational future. Second, he recognized Christy McMillan Goodwin, the new moderator of the Fellowship. Goodwin, 38, is associate pastor at Oakland Baptist Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina. She attended the initial gathering that led to formation of the CBF as an 18-year-old student at Furman University. She will be the first leader of the organization whose entire adult life has been lived after the Southern Baptist Convention controversy that birthed the movement. There is a future f...

The Southern Baptist Convention met in Orlando last week and adopted sweeping changes in the way that cooperative mission endeavors will be funded in the future. Once committed to clarifying theological identity, the SBC is now trying to halt its decline in baptisms and church membership. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship meets in Charlotte, NC, this week to begin celebrating its 20th anniversary as a movement/organization/quasi-denomination (choose your preferred term). CBF will be considering ways to sharpen its focus while dealing with declining revenues. Such is the challenge for large national denominational organizations at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Membership, finances, cooperation, and mission priorities are concerns. A reporter interviewed Bill Leonard, retiring dean of the divinity school at Wake Forest University, after the SBC meeting. Leonard said the decline that all denominations are facing is part of the changing nature of American religious...

Take a trip with me. Think back to when you were five or six years old. What was your “working image” of God? As best I can remember, I thought of God as an old guy with a long white beard and a white robe sitting on a throne looking down on the earth like a benevolent father figure. Now, we could continue this exercise on to ages 12, 18, 30, and so forth. In each situation, I would have a different idea of God and, I imagine, so would you. Did God change? No, but our perception of God did. This is the issue that Brian McLaren addresses in A new Kind of Christianity as he considers the varied images of God found in the Bible—creator, avenger, lover, friend, shepherd, etc. Did God change? No, but the understanding of God’s followers did over time as they encountered new challenges, opportunities, and failures. Their perceptions and understanding changed as they encountered life. What does this say to contemporary Christians? McLaren says, “If we can look back and see the process un...

For years we have talked about the uniqueness of every individual and the fact that “God has wired us up” in a certain way. As a result, we have made efforts in the church to help individual believers discover their gifts, passions, and personality types in order to serve more effectively. Is this true for the church as well? Several years ago I heard Marcus Buckingham speak at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Buckingham is the author of several ground-breaking books including First, Break All the Rules and Now Discover Your Strengths . While he was with the Gallup Organization, he helped develop the Strengths-Based approach to management. The basic idea is that we should spend more time using the abilities we already have than trying to improve upon our deficits or weaknesses. Out that conference came the idea that this may be the best approach for churches to pursue as well. Contrary to the Natural Church Development approach of discovering where your church falls short (“whe...

How do we call out the best in church leaders to meet the challenges of the 21st century? The Global Leadership Summit, an annual conference of the Willow Creek Association, attempts to address this challenge. The main sessions will be held at the South Barrington, Illinois, campus of Willow Creek Community Church and telecast live to 225 locations across North America on August 5-6, 2010. The Summit features outstanding speakers from the church, academia, the workplace, and the non-profit sector. For the first time this year, Central Baptist Theological Seminary offers an opportunity for participants to process the ideas and innovations of the Global Leadership Summit as part of a collegial group. Ircel Harrison, director of the Murfreesboro Center, will teach “Ministry Praxis: Global Leadership Summit 2010” (MP506e) during fall semester. Students will attend the Summit either at Willow Creek or one of the satellite broadcasts of their choice on August 5-6 and then participate in ...

An interesting thing strikes me about the early church. Much of what they did was in very public places such as the city square, the marketplace, and the Temple. Early Christians did not have buildings, so they were out among the people, interacting in the everyday flow of life. This same type of involvement is needed today by those of us who are believers. If we hope for our churches to become more missional, we need to get outside the walls and get to know our communities. I had lunch with some friends in another city this week, and they decided to take me to (what we call in middle Tennessee) a “meat and three” restaurant. While we were eating, one of my friends commented, “These folks are very different from those who come to our church on any given Sunday.” This was very perceptive. He noted that most of the people who attended their church were of a particular social and economic class; there was not a lot of diversity. The realization provided insight about their particular ...

The great writer Anonymous said, "History repeats itself because no one listens the first time.” I was reminded of this after reading an article in our local paper about public dissent at a recent county commission meeting considering the approval of the construction of an Islamic mosque. Although some present based their protest on lack of proper public notice related to prior zoning approval, a number openly opposed  the building because it would be built by an Islamic group. The pastor of a local megachurch commented, “"We have a duty to investigate anyone under the banner of Islam.” This takes the protest in a whole new direction. We have forgotten that many people came to this country to escape a religious climate marked by distrust and oppression. In the colonies, Baptists were often persecuted because they did not want to support an established church. They were labeled as dissenters, anarchists, and heretics because of this stand. Fortunately, Baptist leaders lik...

Often we fail to act because we may know our ultimate goal, but we have not mapped out all the steps that will get us there. We understand and appreciate the need for our church to become more missional, but we can’t articulate the plan that will get us there. We become bogged in the details. The good news is that we don’t need a well-thought-out plan to start the journey. It is more important just to do something! Small steps can lead to great strides. Last year Jessica Jackley, co-founder of KIVA.org , a micro-investment program, spoke at Willow Creek Association’s Leadership Summit. In her interview with Jim Mellado, President of the WCA, she said, “Don’t be afraid to start small.” KIVA’s founders didn’t apologize for starting with just seven entrepreneurs. Jackley pointed out that you can talk all you want about an idea, but once you begin and actually do something—even if it’s small—people respond to you differently. The best way to create big change is to have the patience and ...

A friend who raises funds for a theological institution has repeatedly pointed out to me the importance of relationships—whether you are dealing with individuals or foundations. “The best way to get funding from a foundation,” he says, “is to know someone on the inside.” The same is true if you want to move a church toward being missional. You must build relationships and develop trust within the congregation, even if you are already on the inside. This can happen in several ways: A priority is to find a champion. If you are the pastor or a staff member, the champion may be you. If you are not, seek to share the vision with the pastor or another ministerial staff member. This person will be part of staff discussions and will also be aware of the resources in the congregation—people, finances, facilities, equipment—that can be assets in the missional journey. Second, you should not only make this a matter of prayer but seek opportunities to ask others in the church to pray for ope...

Some people seem to be a little tired of the term “missional church” and dismiss it as just another phrase tossed around by those who are unhappy with the way that their church functions. This is a bit unfair. The idea that the church does not HAVE a mission but IS the mission of God in this world is a transforming concept. My concern lies elsewhere with those who assume that the only way to have a missional church is to disassemble the old church and start from scratch. Many of the most popular books on the missional church make this assumption and provide numerous examples of those who have just left the established church and started something new. Their approach is that “it’s broke, so don’t waste your time trying to fix it.” There is a place for such efforts, but I firmly believe that those of us who have cast our lot with the traditional church can work within its systems to help it become more missional. How can a church become more missional without casting off everything t...

Some of the most creative work coming out of the Southern Baptist “shop” these days has been the product of the work of Ed Stetzer, the Director of Lifeway Research and Lifeway's Missiologist in Residence. Because of his creativity, Stetzer has sometimes found himself at odds with some of the “old heads” in the convention. In a recent article in Christianity Today , however, Stetzer has compromised his objectivity. The article, titled “Life in Those Old Bones” carries the subtitle “If you're interested in doing mission, there could hardly be a better tool than denominations.” He attempts to present the case that denominations have a great future in fulfilling the Great Commission, but his examples are highly qualified and tend to be contradictory. The denominations he values look more like those of the past than those of the future. For example, he suggests that newer efforts at cooperation between congregations (such as Willow Creek Association and the Acts 29 Network) “c...

How does your church come up with new ideas or at least find new applications for old ideas? Is there some pocket or space for creativity in your congregation? In A New Kind of Christianity , Brian McLaren suggests a new for “free trade zones” and “research and development departments” where Christian leaders can experiment, create, and learn new ways of doing church. In such settings, both established and emerging leaders can come together to address issues and needs with fresh eyes and open minds. Of course, this is more easily said than done and requires at least one “champion” in the system to get the ball rolling. I have had the opportunity to be part of a group for the past two years that attempts to do this. When the minister of Christian formation at our church put together the Christian Formation Team, I am not sure that he knew what he was getting into! This group of five church members (plus the minister of Christian formation) took seriously the challenge to find new wa...

Growing up as a Baptist in the south, “dinner on the grounds” was practically the third ordinance of the church after Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In fact, most of us considered Baptist potlucks as a continuation of the Lord’s Supper. How wrong we were because we usually confined our table fellowship to those like ourselves. Jesus practiced a different standard both in those he selected as dinner partners and in the institution of the Lord’s Supper (or communion). The final biblical image of the church presented by Curtiss Paul DeYoung in Coming Together in the 21st Century: The Bible’s Message in an Age of Diversity , is table fellowship. Jesus was notorious for inviting anyone to the table where he was eating, whether he was the host or someone else was (Mark 2:15-16 and Luke 15:2, for example). DeYoung points out that “Jesus even shared a table with Judas, who was preparing to betray him in a few hours.” From a theological perspective, Jesus even saw table fellowship as a sign...

One of the major challenges facing most churches today is that members really do not know each other. They have little in common in their daily lives or in the church. They no longer live in proximity with one another and cross paths daily. Many people commute long distances to work and may even commute to their church on the weekend. When they come to worship, they often participate as spectators in a service led by others and then leave as quickly as possible. There is no community cohesion in daily life or in the church. In Coming Together in the 21st Century: The Bible’s Message in an Age of Diversity , Curtiss Paul DeYoung provides the biblical image of the church as koinonia , the Greek word for “fellowship,” “participation,” or “communion.” He writes, “The biblical image of koinonia epitomizes a quality of fellowship that encourages participation and togetherness linked in a common cause.” He uses the church at Jerusalem (Acts 2:44-47; 4:32-35) as an example of the church fun...

One of the most powerful images of the church that Curtis Paul DeYoung highlights in Coming Together in the 21st Century: The Bible’s Message in an Age of Diversity , is the church as the household of God. The phrase is found in 1 Peter 4:17, Galatians 6:10, and Ephesians 2:19. In Ephesians 2:19-20, we read: Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. “Household of God” may be a more powerful image than “family of God” for believers. The home was the center of life in Jesus’ day. Very often the economic as well as the social lives of family members were centered in the home as family members had particular responsibilities in a family business. Roles were understood and responsibilities were accepted. Everyone had a place in the household and a contribution to make. This is a great exampl...

What is your image of “community”? One of the recurring themes I address in this blog is the nature of community, especially as embodied within the church. Not only is true community at the heart of the Christian life (and our Trinitarian theology), but healthy community is necessary for all human growth and spiritual development. In Coming Together in the 21st Century: The Bible’s Message in an Age of Diversity, Curtiss Paul DeYoung provides several images of community found in the Bible. One of these is “contrast community.” Although I first heard this phrase used in regard to the missional church, DeYoung points out that the concept is first introduced in the Hebrew Bible to describe God’s desire for the nation of Israel. They were intended to offer an alternative or contrast to the ways of other nations. He writes, “The laws given in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuternomy emphasized social justice and human relations. . . . The contrast community implies that for community to flour...

American Christianity is in the midst of a transition that began sometime in the latter part of the 20th century. One of the most articulate (and entertaining) analysts of this transition is Bill J. Leonard, former Dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School. Leonard was asked to share some remarks with a gathering of moderate Baptists at Callaway Gardens, Georgia, in late April. His topic was, “What Have We Learned in the Past 20 Years?” You can access a video of his presentation here . I was particularly interested in Dr. Leonard’s comments about the various ways that Christians are finding to work together in the 21st century. He commented, “Denominations now join mega-church, emerging church and local church identities as one of multiple options for shaping American religious organizations.” Denominations were once the major players in joining individual congregations in cooperative efforts, but they are only one a number of alternatives available. Many formal and informal...