Barnabas File

Most of my early years in ministry were invested in college students on three campuses—Middle Tennessee State University, Mississippi State University, and Carson Newman College. I learned very soon that if you want to build an organization on student leadership, you have to work quickly.  They come in as freshman or transfer students and before you know it, they are gone!  You have to recognize potential and gifts in these young adults and find places for them to use those abilities while providing coaching and support.  And they are volunteers, so you have to know how to motivate and encourage them in meaningful ways. Even though most churches don’t have the kind of turnover that one experiences in a collegiate ministry (some may argue with me about that!), the challenges are similar: recognize a person’s potential, find a place for him or her to serve, support their service, and provide reinforcement and appreciation. With tighter budgets, many churches are ...

In a recent blog , Matthew May tells the story of Clarence “Kelly” Johnson who was given the job of creating the first United States jet plane in 180 days.  When Germany’s first jet fighter planes appeared in the skies over Europe in 1943, the U.S. War Department hired Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Johnson’s company, to do the job.  Lockheed’s chief engineer, Johnson ran the company’s Lockheed’s innovative Advanced Development Programs for nearly 45 years, from its inception in 1943 to 1975.   This division became known as the “skunk works” and operated under its own rules. The blog post is based on May’s book, The Laws of Subtraction , in which he defines subtraction as “removing anything excessive, confusing, wasteful, unnatural, hazardous, hard to use or ugly . . . or the discipline to refrain from adding it in the first place.”   The result is a more creative and productive workplace. Every church needs a “skunk works,” its own research and dev...

Remember when Detroit changed its automobile designs on an annual basis to encourage consumers to buy the latest thing off the production line?  This was a common marketing tool and other industries adopted this planned obsolescence approach as well to drive sales.   It continues today as we anticipate the next new thing from Apple! I was reminded of this tactic while talking to a pastor friend in another denomination.  He commented that his denomination had just thrown the next “big program” at the churches.  His experience was that practically every year the denomination found a new program that was going to ”turn the denomination around.”  My friend saw some good in several of these programs, but his concern was that the judicatory leaders did not give a new program time enough to take hold and be effective before changing to something else.  They were grasping at straws. Those of us who grew up as Baptists in the south identify with this...

George McGovern passed away on Sunday.  A minister’s son, McGovern flew bombers in World War Two, taught college, and served in b oth the House of Representatives and the Senate.  He is best known, however, as the Democratic Presidential candidate in 1972 who lost decisively to President Richard Nixon in one of the greatest landslides in history .  McGovern is said to have remarked , “ For many years, I wanted to run for the Presidency in the worst possible way – and last year I sure did." Less than two years later, Nixon resigned in disgrace, leaving a stain on the Presidency and a mixed legacy.   McGovern was an unabashed liberal and a vocal opponent to the war in Vietnam.  You might not agree with him, but you always knew where he stood. The same cannot be said about Nixon . There are at least two lessons here.  First, the electorate can make bad choices.  Two-thirds of Americans voted for Nixon in the popular vote and he carried ...

Newsweek, the venerable weekly news magazine, has announced that it will cease print publication with its December 31 issue.   Plans are to continue in a digital subscription format. I don’t know when I first starting reading Newsweek, but I do remember reading the thin-paper, black and white Newsweek International edition when I was stationed in Vietnam in the late 1960’s.  I was a subscriber for a number of years but cancelled (actually, I chose not to renew) when Jon Meacham left as editor and Tina Brown came on board.  I fully expected the print version to go under at some point. There are a number of reasons why a printed publication like Newsweek (and U.S. News and World Report which “bit the dust” earlier) has difficulty surviving in the digital age. Digital accessibility drives a 24/7 news cycle that provides all types of information—of various quality—instantaneously.  The weekly news magazines once argued that they could provide more in-depth c...

Throughout Christian history, individuals have discovered unmet needs and stepped forward to create new strategies to meet those needs.   Such efforts have given birth to m onastic orders, mission boards, parachurch ministries, and benevolence ministries that often stand alongside the church to reach and minister to human need.   In his blog , Lou Dubois notes that the same is true today of individuals who may not identify themselves as religious but who see need and find innovative ways to respond.  He refers to Rupert Scofield’s comment that “whether your mission is as ambitious as pulling millions of people out of poverty or as modest as feeding people in your neighborhood, now is the perfect time to get started. Social entrepreneurship has never been more needed, more valued and more achievable than it is today." This is certainly true in the faith community.  A number of individuals, especially young adults see the needs of the neighborhood, country, or...

There are few topics that have prompted more discussion and even open conflict in the church than worship, so I will admit that I am on dangerous ground when I comment on this subject.   Terms like “traditional,” “liturgical,” and “contemporary” are often used to describe worship but the definition of each is very subjective.   Every form of worship was new and innovative at one time whether Gregorian chant or gospel quartet.   Worship is very diverse, but whatever style is practiced by a church the most important aspect of worship is what it says about the worshippers’ relationship to God. A number of years ago John Claypool introduced me to Soren Kierkegaard’s ideas about worship.  Kierkegaard presented the concept that Christian worship was a drama. Although many churches of his day accepted that idea, Kierkegaard saw a variety of ways that churches practiced the various roles in the drama.  He observed that most often in worship, God was considered th...