Barnabas File

When I was involved in collegiate ministry, one of the growing challenges was ministry with commuter students, especially those attending community colleges.     They were clearly different from the residential students with whom we usually engaged.     Commuter students lived at home, came to campus to take classes, then jumped back into the car to go home or to a part-time job.     Their lives were more connected to the cities and towns where they grew up than to the college campus.     One person wrote about this as “Ministry on an Escalator” with the students being the ones moving rapidly from one place to another. Often I think of that terminology when I see an escalator, but I now see churches on that apparatus rather than individual college students.  An escalator moves the passenger from one place to another without any effort on the part of the individual.  Things are changing around the person but he or she i...

Rapidly changing situations call for agile leadership.     Pinnacle Leadership Associates is partnering with Central Seminary (Shawnee, KS) to respond to the needs of church leadership during the COVID-19 crisis.  It is an example of what social entrepreneur Michel Gelobter calls “agile development.” The key words in this model are Build–Measure–Learn. Those three words capture the iterative nature of agile development. Gelobter says, “They are the way we make the product or service we are offering and how we test our hypotheses about the best ways to make it effective.” How does this work in the Central/Pinnacle partnership?  Pinnacle planned to respond to the COVID-19 crisis by gathering Pinnacle Associates and clergy leaders online for several weeks to identify and share emerging church practices.  Central received a grant in 2019 from the Lilly Endowment to launch a  Thriving Congregations initiative to respond to the reali...

“[Do]   not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day [of Christ] approaching.” -- Hebrews 10:25 (NIV)   In recent days the threat of COVID-19 has prohibited most of our churches from following this apostolic directive.  For the sake of the health of our communities, we are unable to meet in our traditional places of worship.  This time has been replaced creatively by pastors, church staff, and lay leaders by using Facebook live, Zoom, and other platforms to stream worship services from sanctuaries, pastors’ homes, and even from the outdoors.   We talk about and practice the concept of the gathered and scattered church--the church gathers for worship, prayer, and study, then scatters to the community to serve.  In both situations, we are the church, whether we are assembled in one place or in our homes, schools, or businesses.  ...

“As a faithful member of the Presbyterian Church, USA, you know the importance of community.”     This was the opening sentence of a letter I received from Presbyterian World Mission last month.     I smiled when I read this because (although “I have friends who are Presbyterians” as the old line goes) I have always belonged to a Baptist church.     Of course, the reason I was on their mailing list was that my wife and I provided some financial support several years ago to the daughter of friends who was working with migrants in the Southwest under a Presbyterian program.    I suppose the assumption of the letter’s composer was that you have to be part of the Presbyterian ”tribe” to support their missions program. Not true. Although I love my Baptist tribe (most days), I have found it refreshing to work across tribal lines with those of other faiths.  In my work with Pinnacle Leadership Associates, I am currently doing projects wi...

The life and accomplishments of the saint we call Patrick have certainly been embellished and enhanced by early hagiography and centuries of veneration.    Historians assume that some acts attributed to Patrick were either done by others or are simply good stories that have become part of his legend.    In death, Patrick is undoubtedly a much larger presence that he was in actual life.    This is true with so many religious and historical figures.    They may have been decisive, even heroic, figures but we can no longer separate the person from the legend. Not only is Patrick an iconic figure, he has also become linked with what we know call Celtic Christianity.    Thomas Cahill’s book  How the Irish Saved Civilization  introduced the rich tradition of the Celtic and specifically Irish contributions to a mass audience.    George Hunter drew on similar ideas for  The Celtic Way of Evangelism.    J...

This week many will celebrate the life of Saint Patrick of Ireland with green shamrocks, green clothing, green beer, and even green rivers.    The day has become a time to celebrate the mythos of Eire, the Emerald Isle, and to party, but we can also take advantage of the day to take a second look at Patrick the churchman and his legacy. As one might expect, much of the story of Patrick is shrouded in myth. The accepted story is that he was kidnapped from Britain by Irish raiders when he was 16 and taken to Ireland where he was a slave for six years.  He eventually escaped and returned to his family, but he took vows with the Church and returned to his place of enslavement as a missionary.  He is credited with converting the island to the Christian faith.   By the seventh century, he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. The genius of Patrick seems to have been his ability to contextualize the faith in order to win converts. ...

“What are the implications of settling for less than the best?”     This the question that corporate CEO Blake Brown must ask of himself and his company in Mark Miller’s latest book on organizational leadership.    The theme of this volume is execution, with the author arguing that “greatness hinges on execution.” There is a lot of good information in this book.  The mantra throughout is, “What does it take to  win every day ?”  The key actions are identified as pursue mastery, own the numbers, and help others win. These are illustrated both in the strategy followed by Tom, the coach of the football team of which Blake’s son is a player, and their application to Blake’s company. There are some observations here that challenge any enterprise to become better in execution, but several can be applied to the church. First, “Improvement is possible, but progress requires change.”  Many church members will affirm the need f...

Dr. Molly Marshall My association with Central Seminary began while I was Coordinator of Tennessee Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.     The seminary offered an “alumni by choice” certificate to invite those who had attended other seminaries to show their support and I readily signed on.     Due to our previous contacts through campus ministry activities, I was pleased when Molly Marshall became the president.     She was a popular speaker both in Baptist Collegiate Ministry events in Tennessee and on campuses where I served. My more official relationship with seminary began in 2005 when I became the volunteer site coordinator for Central’s teaching church site at First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro.  (By the way, I now teach a Bible study class each week in the room we used for a seminary classroom.)  As I have continued to relate to CBTS in various ways, I have observed and benefitted from the effective leadership of Dr. Marsha...

We lead busy lives.  Often the important loses out to the urgent.  Important things are those that reflect our personal, emotional, professional, and spiritual values.  They become our “north star” to guide our lives.  The urgent is often what happens when we don’t attend to the important.  As Christians, we seek clarity about those things that are essential for our growth as disciples. When someone says to me, “I don’t feel that I am growing as a Christian. My life seems to be going nowhere.”  My response is, “Are you practicing the things that are important to you, the things that give your life meaning and purpose?  How’s your prayer life?  Your devotional reading?  Your fellowship with other believers?”  Often, my friend is neglecting those basic practices of life and the results are clear. This has been a challenge for believers since the time of Christ.  How d...