Barnabas File

Megachurches have developed several new patterns of cooperation. As writer John Dart explains in his article in The Christian Century: “[M]ost supersized churches want the freedom to customize their programs and avoid bureaucratic delays. . . . Megachurch leaders find resources for adult education, youth programs and for hiring an experienced and successful pastor ‘without ever needing a denomination or seminary, board of missions or other baggage of hierarchical institutional structures.’” (The quote is from Scott Thumma of Hartford Seminary.) This approach presents a challenge to the survival of denominations, mission boards, and seminaries, and the responses from those entities vary. Although some of these institutions label the strategy of the megachurches as a fasting fad, others realize that it is part of a new way of doing church that will be with us for many years to come. Seminaries are especially challenged to come up with new ways to partner with these megachurches....

America’s megachurches have it all—huge crowds, upbeat music, huge TV screens, and high profile guests, and dynamic speakers. This is an approach that reaches thousands, perhaps millions, of people every week. I am always a bit amused when I hear mainline clergy decry the success of this approach because those of us who consider ourselves mainliners were there first. The roots of the megachurch movement can be found in the methods embraced by mainstream churches, especially through their student and collegiate ministries, to reach youth and young adults beginning in the 1970’s. In response to the emerging counter culture and the growing Jesus Revolution, those of us involved in ministry were ready to try new and creative methods to reach and involve a younger generation. A prime example was Mission ‘70, a conference held in Atlanta on December 28-31, 1969. The initial idea was birthed by several denominational leaders including Lloyd Householder, Glendon McCullough, and Jesse Fletc...

What does it take to be a leader? We talk a lot about leadership and ways to develop ourselves as leaders, but the real essence of leadership often eludes us. Otto Scharmer, one of the authors of Presence:Human Purpose and the Field of the Future , provides a description of leadership that is at once clear and threatening: The definition of leadership can be traced back to the word’s root—the Indo-European word root of leadership is “Leith.” The literal translation of this word is “to go forth across the threshold” or, in a different translation, “to die.” In this context, “to die,” means that you let go of the world that is known to you and go forth into another world that you may not be sure exists. This other world only comes into being after you step forth into this nothingness. Leadership is the ability to cross that threshold. The challenge you meet in the process is the challenge of fear, the fear to let your old self, you old identities, your old context, die in order to more...

In his article “Going Mega” in the current issue of The Christian Century , John Dart reports some figures from the United Methodist Church. He states that the UMC’s overall membership dropped 1.01 percent in 2008, its largest annual decline in decades. He goes on to explain that UMC churches with 3000 or more adherents increased their membership during this period by 1.9 percent, while congregations with 100 or fewer members reported a 2.25 percent decline that same year. Dart argues that this shows, “Larger churches tend to weather economic downturns better.” No, it doesn’t. It simply shows that bigger churches are growing while smaller congregations are declining. This can be due to a number of factors, but part of it is certainly related to demographics. The smaller churches in most denominations are made up primarily of older adults who tend to die off! These smaller churches are not replenishing their numbers with young adults with school age children. Our church runs 450 to...

I love the church—all sizes, types, etc. I love the church when it is hard to love it. I even have an unusual fascination with the megachurch. I am a fan of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. Although the megachurch is not for everyone, the folks at Willow Creek know how to do it well. There are several things I like about them. They involve women in leadership roles, they seek to be multiethnic, they embrace social action, and they are open about their failures (for example, AXIS, the attempt to reach young adults that was something of an embarrassment). Each megachurch is different, of course, but I think that those of us who are more traditional in our approach to church tend to look down our noses at our mega brothers and sisters. In so doing, we may be missing an important learning opportunity. In light of that, I found the article “Going Mega” by John Dart in the current issue of Christian Century very interesting and informative. Dart draws on recent...

Last Friday evening, I was watching Eureka on the SyFy Channel (a guilty pleasure). Due to some wormhole phenomena, a scientist from 1947 had been transported to 2010. As he looked around the town, he commented, “I am a little disappointed that there are no flying cars.” The lesson—innovation is tough and predicting the future is a gamble. As we think about the future and try to plan for it, the future seems to have a mind of its own and is rarely cooperative. Therefore, we end up with computers on every desk when no one ever thought that was needed, telephones that play music and videos, GPS devices in our cars that seek to rule our lives, and the Internet! These common aspects of our daily lives were not on anyone’s list of future innovations thirty years ago. Thinking about the future is just plain hard. Being an innovative leader who tries to prepare his or her organization for the future is like banging one’s head against a wall. Economist Otto Scharmer said in an interview: ...

During the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Charlotte in June, participants were invited to an early morning session on “Heightening the Role of Women in Leadership.” The conversation was initiated by a group of women and men who have been meeting for several months to encourage and nurture increased opportunities for women in leadership roles in all areas of Baptist life. The facilitators reported some encouraging statistics including the fact that ordained women made up one-third of the chaplains/pastoral counselors endorsed by CBF this year and that six percent of senior pastors in Baptist churches are women. This is not to say that the numbers are satisfactory, but the trends are encouraging. As we moved into small groups and brainstormed ways to encourage churches to provide more leadership opportunities for women, the ideas flowed freely. Our group suggested such actions as inviting a panel of women in ministry to talk to the congregation about their calling...

One of the key criticisms that Geoff Loftus offers of Dwight Eisenhower’s leadership in Lead Like Ike is the way that he handled (or failed to handle) Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery, the highest ranking British commander in Operation Overlord. Immensely popular with the British public, Montgomery consistently over promised and under produced. He was the architect of the disastrous Operation Market Garden plan, but Eisenhower authorized the effort and took blame for its failure. Montgomery, left of Eisenhower (center) Although Loftus acknowledges that Eisenhower was willing to put up with Montgomery in order to accomplish his mission of defeating Germany through an allied effort, I believe that he understands the necessity of keeping Montgomery on as the face of Allied cooperation (and the enormous pressure that Winston Churchill provided as Monty’s advocate). Eisenhower was forced to play the hand he was dealt and hope for some good luck along the way. Toward the end of th...

Churches and seminaries continue to seek new models to prepare men and women for ministry in the life of the church. Both are acknowledging the necessity to adapt to a changing situation. Many churches are calling out their own members to leadership roles but recognize the need for quality theological education. Seminaries realize that fewer students are willing to relocate to pursue preparation for ministry, especially those already involved in church leadership and those who have experienced a call to ministry at mid-life. The situation calls for new delivery models. A new example is The Potter's House, the Dallas megachurch led by Bishop T.D. Jakes. The church is expanding its mission statement to include collaboration with Palmer Theological Seminary. The Pennsylvania seminary has started a Master of Theological Studies program that will be mostly online, but will have students spending a week every other term at the Potter's House, getting practical experience under Jake...

Over the last couple of decades, there has been a number of management books published under the general title “Leadership Lessons of . . . (add any name—Attila the Hun, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln).” Some are more successful than others. Lead Like Ike is one of the best. Geoff Loftus takes a look at the historical record of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s leadership of the Allied military organization that launched the invasion of France and led to the unconditional surrender of Germany and draws ten strategic lessons for organizational leaders. Initially, a military campaign as metaphor for business strategy seems a bit whimsical and irreverent--for example, “battlefields” become “markets,” “enemies” become “competitors,” and “general officers” become “executives.” The author makes a good case, however, that Eisenhower tended to think of himself as a corporate CEO, counting the cost of both lives and materiel and how to justify those expenditures to his stockholders, the American and Br...

The story is told that Brooks Hays, the legendary congressman and Baptist layman from Arkansas, was walking along the street with a friend one day when he was accosted by a rather antagonistic woman who wanted to “straighten him out” on an issue. Hays listened quietly for a few minutes and then said to the woman, “You may very well be right.” After he and his friend left the woman and walked a few steps, Hays said under his breath, “And you may very well be wrong.” I am reminded of this when I consider how difficult it is to have discussion about substantive and possibly volatile issues in a congregation. I attended a workshop on “Building Capacity for Congregational Dialogue” led by David Odom at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in June. Odom provided some good suggestions about facilitating discussion about difficult issues in the congregation. As I think back, though, I am forced to consider why we so often balk at open discussion in congregational settings. Sev...

I was once in a group where we were asked to identify a book that had made a significant difference in our lives. When I mentioned Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird , one person in the group laughed. I assumed then, and still do, that the person had never read the book nor understood its importance to a generation of people born and raised in a region where racism was common. The book was published 50 years ago—July 11, 1960—and has never gone out of print. Lee won a Pulitzer Prize and the book became an Academy Award-winning film, but she never wrote another book. Even so, the story of young Scout Finch and her father, Atticus, has helped many to reconsider racism both then and now. I read the book as a college freshman attending a segregated university in the South. I did four years of college on a campus where the only African-Americans were custodians and service personnel. It was a time of racial unrest and outright conflict. As a young Christian who was struggling with how t...

Several weeks ago, a friend shared a question with me and made this comment: “For a while in my life, I simply journeyed--walking by faith but not asking a lot of questions. However, as I get older there is tremendous value in asking the difficult questions. This new journey-- although it has more rocks-- has been a deepening faith experience.” These are brave words. Nobody likes questions, especially when the questioner is challenging conventional beliefs and pushing us to reexamine our boundaries. As I have been reading Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith and discussing it with a group of friends, I have found myself uncomfortable with both the questions and some of his responses. One of these has to do with the final judgment. The traditional approach to the final judgment of God, usually seen as one of the functions of the Risen Christ, is that it will be a time to settle up accounts with humankind. This is the point when...