Barnabas File

In the spring of 1970 I got on a plane in Nashville to return to Fort Worth after an interview for a position as director of Baptist student ministries at Middle Tennessee State University. I was in my last year of seminary with a wife, small daughter, and a baby on the way.  I had a good visit in Murfreesboro and was impressed by Glenn Yarbrough, the state director of student work for Tennessee, who had invited me to consider the position, and the local committee.  As I boarded the plane, I recognized Charles Roselle, the director of National Student Ministries at the Baptist Sunday School Board.  I had met Charlie once, so I went over and reintroduced myself and asked if I could sit with him. Charlie was not only the director of NSM, but he was the former director of student work in Tennessee (and I could not imagine that I would hold that Tennessee position one day!).  On the way back to Love Field, I “bent his ear” and learned what I could about MTSU and stu...

A couple of weeks ago, my wife, our daughter, and I were returning from the memorial service for a friend in east Tennessee.   Stephanie, our daughter, was providing our music from Pandora on her iPhone.   A song came up that I had probably heard before, but the words suddenly got my attention.   “A Strange Way to Save the World” is written from Joseph’s perspective and points out the incongruity of the birth of the Savior in Bethlehem.   Joseph voices his wonder at the strange way that God has chosen to work.   Imagine, God was placing the plan for the salvation of the world in the hands of a teenage girl and a village craftsman! The song reminds me that our God works in unusual and paradoxical ways more times than we imagine.  So many of us are obsessed with planning and control that we rarely leave time and space for God to intervene in our lives.  Is this because we do not really believe that God might break through the ordinary, mundane...

A friend recently shared with me a book written about 20 years ago by Henri Nouwen entitled In the Name of Jesus:  Reflections on Christian Leadership .  Nouwen was one of the most prolific and popular spiritual writers of the latter 20 th century.  He wrote more than 40 books and taught at Notre Dame, as well as at Yale and Harvard. For the 10 years before his death in 1996, he was part of the L Arche Daybreak community in Toronto, sharing life with people with developmental disabilities. After his move to this community, Nouwen was asked to address a group of clergy on the subject of leadership.  This little book contains the material he presented as part of that assignment.  The underlying theme for Nouwen was the lessons he had learned in moving from a high-profile academic setting to a chaplaincy role among “the least of these.” Using the biblical passages on the temptation of Christ (Matthew 4:1-11)  and Peter’s call to be a shepherd of ...

I caught the end of an interview with a Tennessee Titans player prior to the game with the New Orleans Saints today.  The interviewer had just asked some question about statistics.  The player’s reply went something like this:  “Look, the Packers are last in defense, but they are 12-0.  Those who are depending on statistics won’t be playing after December.”  In other words, the numbers we often count don’t always determine who is best at the game. When it comes to the church, we spend a lot of time on statistics—How many were in worship?  What were the contributions?  Are we meeting budget?  These can serve as measures of a church’s progress, but the real danger comes in letting these statistics be the sole determining factors in the choices we make as the people of God.    Too often we are called on to make decisions that protect the “bottom line”—decisions based on what is expedient rather than what is faithful to the missi...

I readily admit that I am a fan of Star Trek.  The original series started when I was in Vietnam, so I was not even aware of it until it had been on the air for a season.  When our children were young, we were regular viewers of Trek reruns in the afternoons after I picked them up from school.  Needless to say, my consciousness has been affected (warped?) by favorite characters and quotes. One quote that has stayed with me was one that Science Officer Spock often told Captain Kirk when the challenge was the greatest:  “There are always options, Captain.”  Although there is a certain optimism in this statement, we must acknowledge that not all options are positive.   For the most part we do have choices whatever our circumstances.  Viktor Frankl, the survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, said that he made two choices during his imprisonment—he would do his best to survive and to learn from the experience.  He did not have a choice abou...

Although the church is not a business, there are valuable resources from the business world that can be very helpful to those who lead churches, judicatories, or faith-based organizations.   I welcome the insights of people like Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins, Seth Godin, Daniel Pink, and others who provide information and ideas that give us a new perspective on what we are doing as believers.   Of course, any writer, speaker, or leader—secular or sacred—needs to meet the tests of soundness and integrity but people like these often provide us with “best practices” that challenge us to do more.   They call us to do not just the minimum but to be better. Christians are called to do more than the bare minimum in their lives and kingdom service.  The little book of James is a valuable resource as we consider the criteria by which our lives and ministry should be evaluated.  In James 1:22-25, we find these words: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so de...

According to a person who has the opportunity to observe what is going on in theological education across the country, there are an increasing number of students in graduate theological education who haven’t grown up in the church, so they need spiritual formation while in seminary.  I don’t question the need, but I question the premise that those who HAVE grown up in congregations have been spiritually formed.  This is an unwarranted assumption.  Some have and some haven’t. I spent almost thirty years working with college and university students.  Many came from strong church backgrounds.  They were regular participants in worship services, youth programs, and summer camping programs.  Many were healthy, growing believers, but many had much to unlearn.  Although most of these young adults had sat through hours of Bible study, they did not know how to study the Bible for themselves.  They knew what their pastor or youth minister believe...

This past Friday night Dr. Sally Holt, who teaches Christian ethics at Central Baptist Theological Seminary Tennessee, arranged for her class in Murfreesboro to meet for dinner with a rabbi who teaches at a local university and the imam of the local mosque. Her purpose was to simply engage everyone in a time of informal dialogue in a non-threatening setting.   She was kind enough to invite me to participate.   The discussion touched on a number of topics, and I came away with many ideas, but two things particularly stimulated my thinking. First, the imam provided a good insight for our students who will serve local congregations.  He pointed out that their situation is very different from that of ministers just a few years ago.  At one point when a pastor stepped into the pulpit on Sunday morning,  there was a pretty good chance that the congregation was rather homogenous—they probably were born and raised in the local area, most were of the same ethnicit...

I was in a meeting several years ago with a person who called himself a “thought leader.”  Supposedly, a thought leader is someone who has innovative ideas that offer a new or unusual perspective in a situation. This person may well have fit that description, but I still am not sure I fully understand the concept. In his new book Growing Agile Leaders , Bob Dale introduced me to the idea of a “thought partner.”  This is a concept that I can understand.  Although in many ways a thought partner serves as a coach for a person, he or she may also slip into the roles of mentor or consultant from time to time. Dale points out that the thought partner not only provides the optimism, encouragement, and feedback of the coach, but he or she has a certain level of expertise or experience that “offsets blind spots and knowledge gaps.”  He suggests that this may also be a prophetic or even mystical role. Coaches always walk a fine line between coaching and consultin...