Barnabas File

We are living in a time when innovation is no longer an option.     Whether you are involved in business, the service sector, or the church, you must learn to be innovative or accept the path of decline, irrelevancy, and death.       While I encourage leaders to get people with different personalities and perspectives together to come up with solutions, The Innovation Code takes this a step further.  Authors Jeff and Staney DeGraff argue, ”When it comes to any innovation initiative . . .  disharmony is crucial. The only way to create new hybrid solutions is to clash.”     If we are going to be innovative, we have to embrace difference and learn from it.  They challenge their readers to “do things that make you feel uncomfortable.  Talk to people with whom you have nothing in common. Remember that the ideal solutions to the most complicated problems will never involve just one mode of thinking.”   ...

Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying, “Change is the only constant in life.     One’s ability to adapt to those changes will determine your success in life.” Few of us like change or, perhaps it is more accurate to say, “We don’t like being changed.”     I certainly don’t relish change, but I have found it to be a great motivator even if it is sometimes difficult to accept and endure.     First, change is painful.  It forces us to change our patterns of doing things, often getting outside of our comfort zone. Some of this is psychological--going against our personality type--but it can be emotional as well.  Losing a loved one or a job causes real pain.  Missing an opportunity hurts.  Seeing the failure of something in which you have invested time and energy is hard to take.   Second, change is normal.  The world is not static.  People are certainly not predictable.   As so...

The cry, “I didn’t learn that in seminary,” seems to be heard even more often these days.     Few of us had the opportunity to learn how to use technology, do virtual pastoral care, or deal with the widespread grief during a pandemic.    Even so, theological educators have realized for years that there is just so much that an institution can cram into a degree program for students with different interests, abilities, and experiences.   A couple of years ago, The Association of Theological Schools did research on the topic of what alumni wished that they had learned in seminary.  It is the basis of  a recent article  by Judith C.P. Lin and Deborah H. C. Gin which gives insights about the emerging learning needs that graduates express once they are in full-time ministry roles.  For example, Master of Divinity recipients serving congregations listed their top three “wish-learned” items as administration, leadership, and finance.  ...

Although Bible commentators suggest that Luke was probably writing his gospel for a Gentile audience, the first chapter of the gospel links directly with the Hebrew Bible and prophecy.  Zechariah and Elizabeth are a righteous couple from priestly lineage who represent the best of that tradition.  There is a bit of humor in Zechariah’s encounter with the Angel Gabriel, his voice being silenced due to his doubt, and an older couple finding themselves pregnant, but the task they receive is serious--they will give birth to and nurture the new Elijah, forerunner of the Messiah.   Elizabeth and her husband represent several things that we should take seriously as we consider the role of senior adults in the church today.   First, they represent communal memory.  They remind us from where we have come. Senior adults today provide link to the rich heritage of faith not only of the Hebrew tradition but now the 20 centuries of Christian faith and practice. ...

Leadership means different things to different people in the church.     In recent years, the model of strong pastoral leadership has taken root in churches of various denominations (or none).     This model emphasizes the role of a visionary leader who creates a church or comes to a church with his (although sometimes, her) vision of where God wants the church to go.     Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.    Sometimes it works for a while and then everything falls apart when the pastor/leader leaves the scene.   When I was taking a class with Alan Roxburgh, a missional theologian, he said something to this effect:  “The Spirit of God is present among the people of God and will provide the way forward.”  This approach recognizes, first,  that the church is made of people with different gifts--including the pastor, the ministerial staff, and every single disciple in that church--who have something unique ...

As a good Baptist, I didn’t have anything to do with religious images growing up.  We had no images in our place of worship, not even a cross.  I think we were afraid that we might violate the “graven image” commandment (Exodus 20:4, KJV).     When I was a student at Southwestern Seminary, I had missions class in a large, ornate room next to  the Chapel.  During our time in Fort Worth, we would take visitors downtown to a storefront building to see a display of wax figures depicting DaVinci’s Last Supper.  Only later was I told that a wealthy benefactor had commissioned this as a gift to the seminary to be displayed in that large room adjacent to the Chapel.  It was meant to attract visitors to the seminary; however, the more conservative brethren in Texas objected to these “graven images” so they went into the exile downtown. (If this story is apocryphal, someone please correct me.)   I think Jesus and the ...

When I was studying missional theology several years ago, I was introduced to the term “discontinuous change.”  In an article in 1993, William Pullen described it in this way: “ Discontinuous change  occurs in response to an abrupt event in the environment - a strategic shock - for which there is no organizational precedent.  Discontinuous  means the event is not continuous with the past or current direction of the organization.”    The COVID-19 pandemic certainly illustrates such a paradigm shifting event, but many of the changes engendered by this event were already on the horizon.  Especially for the church, the pandemic is simply accelerating what was going to happen anyway.  We have jumped forward in time and been forced to deal with conditions that were already emerging,   This reality came up in a conversation with a pastor recently.  In his situation, he has seen that worship is no longer the “front door” to ...

“There is a time   for everything,   and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, . . . a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” -- Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 4, NIV   During these days of pandemic, much of what we consider normal and routine has changed.  We are no longer able or willing to pursue life in the ways we always have.  A heart-wrenching challenge for family members has been their separation from loved ones who have been hospitalized.  Many are denied physical access to those who are dying due to concern about the COVID-19 infection.     Mourning has also been a challenging in a time of social distancing and mask-wearing.  More families have opted for simple graveside services with family and close friends, giving up on a memorial service or hoping to have a fitting service later.   These are als...