Barnabas File

When I was campus minister at a denominational college in east Tennessee, I often attended five or six associational meetings in October. Adding these to already busy schedule was not easy, but there were three good things about the assignment. First, I saw some beautiful fall foliage as I traveled the highways and roads of east Tennessee. Second, I got to meet some nice people and tell them about the students at their denominational school. Third, I heard some good preaching! The person (it was always a man, of course) doing the annual sermon always pulled out his best and delivered it with conviction. Those were good days in many ways. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the district judicatory that we call the Baptist association faces tough times today. If associations are going to survive, they must adopt a new paradigm that more effectively addresses the reality of the churches they serve. The association will become more effective when it becomes a regional rather than...

One of the best presentations at the Global Leadership Summit in August was by Andy Stanley. He talked about the “upside” of tension. Most of us see every challenge as a problem to be solved. Stanley suggested that some challenges are problems to be solved, while others are tensions to be managed. We must learn to recognize the difference. There will always be decisions to be made about ministries, use of time and use of resources. When we “resolve” some of these tensions, we often create a new tension. Occasionally, I will come across something that I wrote when I was a young minister with a young family. An ongoing concern during that time was having a healthy balance between time for ministry and time with family. Did I every resolve that tension? Of course not. I deal with it even to this day. This was not a problem to be solved but an ongoing choice to be made. There are some tensions we learn to live with. Although Stanley did not refer to scripture in his presentation, ...

Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to make a brief presentation about peer coaching to the deacon body of our church.   Last spring, we used Tony Stoltzfus’ peer coach training material to help eight participants develop skills to help each other grow.   Half of those continue to meet as peers for coaching.   We are planning to offer this training again in the coming weeks. I explained to the group that the basic concepts of life coaching overlap with what we seek to do in disciple development. Coaching is a complex process, but it basically involves four things.   First, coaching affirms a person’s ability to make changes in his or her life.   Second, coaching identifies a person’s strengths and areas for development.   Third, coaching helps a person set goals and plan action steps to reach those goals.   Finally, coaching provides accountability as a person seeks to achieve his or her goals. In the process of developing Christian d...

Theologian Marcus Borg is one of the most original thinkers of our time. His nonfiction books are popular and the writing generally accessible even to the non-technical reader. Borg branches out into a new type of writing in Putting Away Childish Things : A Tale of Modern Faith , a short novel that attempts to communicate some of his understanding of the nature of the Bible, revelation, and faith. The result is not completely satisfactory. The primary thrust of the novel seems to be that theologians are not only smart and articulate but also sexy and sophisticated. He tries to develop some tension by presenting characters going through times of decision—an attractive woman professor at a liberal arts college, an accomplished theologian at a prestigious divinity school (with whom the woman once had an affair), and a female college student facing a crisis of faith. Quite honestly, I wanted them to be interesting, but they didn’t really come alive. Most people who have read Borg or ot...