Barnabas File

While attending the Ancient Future Community Group Life Conference at Willow Creek, I had the opportunity to participate in a spiritual tradition that is both ancient and present (and hopefully will be future). Amy and Judge Reinhold led a breakout session on contemplative prayer, actually a presentation and demonstration of lectio divina or "sacred reading" of scripture that incorporates periods of silence to listen to what God might be saying to us through a text. This was not a new practice for me, but the testimony provided by this couple of the impact it had made on their small group (at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles) and their own lives was inspiring. The Bible has actually become the agenda of their small group. The simple truth of their presentation is that reading and meditating on the Bible can make a difference in people's lives. Many of us come from a tradition that says it values Scripture but that actually tends to ignore it. Episcopalians ...

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to hear a presentation by a couple who do mission work in a very challenging part of the world. There are perhaps a 100 believers in the people group with whom they work and no indigenous churches. They were very candid in saying that they did not have any "warm fuzzy" success stories to share, but they provided some great insights into the strategy they are using to reach people and plant churches in a difficult environment. Although they are working to develop relationships with people through a specific platform that will give entree into the society, their goal is developing house churches that are indigenous, organic, and reproducible. There was a good time of discussion in response to the question "What might not be reproducible?" in a church located in a non-western, resource poor area. We talked about how a perceived need for credentialed clergy, printed literature, and buildings could hamper church growth in thei...

I have always been interested in the way that organizations function. There is a new organizational phenomenon among us, one that I hesitate even to call an "organization." This is the decentralized structure exemplified by Napster, Wikipedia, or even the Internet itself. Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom have written a book entitled The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations that gives a very informal but insightful introduction to this type of structure. The key to this book is understanding the difference between a starfish and a spider. A spider has a head. If you cut it off, the spider dies. If you cut off a leg, it’s gone; it doesn’t grow back. A starfish does not have a head. If you cut off a leg, it will grow another one. If you cut it in half, you will have two starfish. A spider is a centralized system. A starfish is a decentralized system. In spider companies, power and knowledge are concentrated at the top. In starfish...

As I listened to a profile of General David H. Petraeus on NPR today, I was reminded again of how much I respect the men and women who were the military uniform of our country. I supposed this goes back to 1952 when Dwight Eisenhower ran for president on the Republican ticket and my parents, lifelong Democrats, voted for him. They felt that Eisenhower, as the supreme military commander in Europe during WW II, was a hero, a man of integrity who had proven himself in the service of his country. I have a great of respect for men like Colin Powell, Wes Clark, John McCain, Jimmy Carter, John Kennedy, and others who have held command and then continued to serve their country in other ways. I respect and honor the men and women who serve in our armed forces today. They have various motivations for their decisions to become part of the military, but they all place their lives on the line on behalf of other Americans. They endure hardship so that the rest of us can avoid it. I have worn the un...

My wife and I had the opportunity to share lunch this week with a young Christian couple who pursue their vocations in a southeast Asian country. Although the young man originally went there to do evangelistic work, they now operate a ministry center that provides outreach, fellowship, and skill training for people in the community. The husband pointed out that he had initially seen his ministry as reaching people for Christ and then introducing them into local churches so that they might be discipled and nurtured in the Christian faith. He was surprised and disappointed when he discovered that this second step was more difficult than he had anticipated! The local churches erected barriers (both cultural and theological) that were difficult for new believers to overcome. In many cases, these barriers were western in origin--practices, worship styles, and customs that were completely foreign to the indigenous culture. As a result, this young man is helping young believers as they form a...

A couple of weeks ago I attended an ordination service in east Tennessee. Loyd Allen, professor at McAfee School of Theology, brought the "charge" to the young woman who was being ordained. He presented some excellent comments, but one stuck in my mind. He said, "Love the church but don't worship the church." He reminded the candidate (and all of those present) that the full allegiance for the believer is to God alone. He was warning us that worship of the church can become an idol. We may accept the fact that we are to love our spouse, or our children, or our work, and not to worship any of those, but can we accept that warning when it comes to the church? Are there times when we really seem to be worshipping the church? I think we worship the church when we are not willing to acknowledge its failures. Failure is not bad, but if we do not learn from failure, we are missing an opportunity for growth. I think we worship the church when we allow church acti...

I spent the last three days attending the Leadership Summit of the Willow Creek Association at one of the several hundred satellite sites to which it is broadcast. This is my fourth time to attend--once at the South Barrington , Illinois, campus. I am sure that there will be some who will wonder why I attend this conference and ask "What can you learn from a flashy, seeker-oriented, mega-church?" Honestly, I believe that this is one of the best leadership conferences offered. The program planners bring in a diverse group of speakers from the church, management, and business. This year's roster included Carly Fiorina , former CEO of Hewlett-Packard; Marcus Buckingham, author and management consultant; Colin Powell, former Secretary of State; John Ortberg , pastor of Menlo Park (CA) Presbyterian Church; Richard Curtis, writer, film maker, and poverty activist; and Jimmy Carter, former President of the US. They are not afraid to bring folks to the platform who might present...

I just finished reading An Ordinary Man, the autobiography of Paul Rusesabagina. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, Rusesabagina is the focus of the movie Hotel Rwanda , the story of how one hotel manager saved over 1200 people during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. During 100 days, over one million people were killed in politically-motivated ethnic violence. Yes, that’s 1,000,000 people. Rusesabagina does not spare any details in describing the brutality and insanity of this genocide. The book is not only Rusesabagina’s life story, it is a brief history of the country of Rwanda, a discourse on good in the face of evil, and a political critique of those who allowed it to happen—Rwandans, the United Nations, the United States, and various European countries. This is a chilling and ultimately frustrating story, but it is a book that is hard to put down. We are left asking, “How could this have happened?’ We are also left with the message that it could happen again. An interesting t...

I continue to struggle with finding a good adjective to describe what kind of Baptist I am. It would be nice to have a brief, short-hand way to communicate what my commitments are. "Liberal" is not a bad term if one uses the dictionary meaning ("marked by generosity and openhandedness") but it has been used so much in a pejorative sense that I hesitate to embrace it. Many of us like to call ourselves "moderate" Baptists, but this tends to bring to mind the "lukewarm" church at Laodicea that the narrator wants to "spit out of his mouth"! I like the term "progressive," especially as it is defined by Fisher Humphreys in his book The Way We Were --informed, committed to women in ministry, concerned about the world's needs. Of course, at least one national Baptist convention has made this a part of its name, so the use of the term may be a bit confusing. Some have drawn the distinction between "conventional" and...

Someone once told me., "Planting new churches is not rocket science." Probably not, but that doesn't mean that it is easy. Perhaps church planting is closer to an art, something like planting an ornamental garden! The organization which I serve has blisters, sore muscles, and thorns to prove it. We have learned a great deal about starting new churches, in large part by making mistakes. We have had more failures than successes. I can tell you a lot of things one ought NOT to do in starting a new church, but I cannot guarantee that if you simply avoid these errors that you will succeed. We continue to try and to learn in the process. One thing I am learning is that the "high tech/high touch" principle is significant in starting a new church. The idea comes from John Naisbit's book Megatrends . Naisbit explained that in the emerging world people want to utilize technology to do their work and communicate, but they also desire healthy relationships. How does ...

These comments on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship/American Baptist joint worship service are a logical followup to my comments earlier about the Baptist family. Last night was the closing session of the CBF General Assembly in Washington, DC, and the opening session of the ABCUSA Biennial Meeting. The worship service was an opportunity to celebrate what brings us together as Baptists. The music styles were varied as befits our diversity. Church state separation was celebrated. Missions was emphasized. Rather than feature one person as the keynote speaker, we had the opportunity to hear from Roy Medley, general secretary of ABCUSA; Tyrone Pitts, general secretary of the Progressive National Baptist Convention; and Daniel Vestal, (executive) coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. These leaders shared their insights about the values that unite Baptists generally and the personal events that have brought them together as individuals. As Vestal said, "We need to get t...

We hear a lot about "dysfunctional families" today, but I have come to the conclusion that most families fit the description. In fact, most of the family stories we have in the Bible are about troubled families beginning with Adam and Eve and their sons and going on to Abraham and his sons, David and Absalom, Hosea and Gomer, and innumerable other families. In our own families, we live with the consequences of perceived favoritism, unwise choices, and "the roads not taken." Even so, we try to get the family together for special occasions and holidays to break bread together and celebrate our common heritage. When I consider our Baptist family, I see a lot of dysfunction. As Bill Leonard has said, Baptists were conceived in such a way that conflict is assured! The slavery issue was a key conflict that resulted in the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845 and created a major division in the Baptist family in our country. In recent days, the SBC co...

As long as I can remember, I have heard Baptists talk about "the autonomy of the local church." It is a tenet of faith for most of us. In an article published by Associated Baptist Press http://www.abpnews.com/www/2469.article.print , Beth Newman comments on this idea from the perspective of a recent Baptist World Alliance symposium. She observes that the most important statement to emerge from that meeting was, "We affirm that for Baptists the local church is wholly church but not the whole church." I may unpack this more in future postings, but this is an important concept. Although we celebrate the opportunity and responsibility of each local congregation to "discover and fulfill its God-given mission" (in CBF terms), we must not forget that each congregation is just one small part of the bigger picture that God is creating that is the Kingdom or Reign of God. Just like a massive mosaic made up of many colored tiles, all are necessary to make a coh...

Here's a report on my latest experience on the web. I have discovered Facebook. If you are not familiar with Facebook, it is an online site that facilitates social networking. Wikipedia defines a social network as "a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations," such as values, friends, kinship, etc. With Facebook, you can invite people to be your "friends" online. If they agree, you then have access to their friends list and can grow your network of friends. Of course, you can invite folks to join directly or browse established networks, but I have enjoyed "mining" other people's lists! It is a bit addictive. This discovery has resulted in some observations: First, our networks tend to overlap with one another. I started out with one colleague and pretty soon found myself in networks that involved young adults, those who work with young adults, former ca...

During the spring, our church provided a Sunday School emphasis called Leadership First. Fifteen church members were exposed to a 13 week study that provided (very) brief surveys of the Old and New Testaments, Baptist beliefs, Sunday School principles, age group training, and class observation and evaluation. Although the content was helpful, the opportunity for these leaders to spend time together, build community, and dream about the future of our church were probably the most important outcomes. The primary evaluation by the group was, "It was too short." For more information, go to Caleb's Cafe http://www.calebscafe.com and look for the "Leadership First" group.

Forgive me if I continue down memory lane in this posting, but we have been doing some cleaning and rearranging at our house, and I came across a paper I wrote when I was in college. OK, I haven't saved all the papers I wrote in college or seminary, but this is a very special paper to me. Let me set the context. In 1965, I was a senior at the University of Southern Mississippi, a public university. My major was history with a minor in religion and philosophy. At the time, there was not a single African-American student at the college. Our sister institution, Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi) had been integrated about two years earlier with the assistance of the Army. I was taking an ethics course with Robert Arrington, a young professor still working on his doctorate who was, to the best of my knowledge, not a Christian. When we were assigned a term paper, I asked Mr. Arrington if I could write a paper on "Christian Ethics and Racial Discrimination." He not...

I attended the memorial service today for Art Driscoll , a friend and mentor who helped me a great deal in my early days in collegiate ministry. Perhaps it was fitting that Art passed away on Memorial Day weekend. Art was a B-17 pilot in World War II, served as campus minister at the Universities of Oklahoma and Virginia, and worked for 20 years at National Student Ministries. He was in his early twenties when he entered the military. We forget how young these men were (my Dad was an "old man" in his unit since he was 28 when he was drafted!). Many of them left the senior prom and went right into basic training. They experienced conditions that most of us who served in subsequent conflicts did not have to endure. Their girl friends and wives heard from them only sporadically and had their own challenges to deal with at home. When they returned from the military, men like Art remade our society and had a significant impact on college ministry as they entered college wit...

My friend, Jerry Gaither, is a retired school administrator who has experienced all of the knocks and bruises that come from being a true "public servant." Some time ago, he shared with me a sheet he calls "An Administrator's Ethics Test." I think it serves as a good guide for any of us who are called to be stewards of other's resources. Here are Jerry's questions: Will I be violating board policy, the law, or the rights of others? Is it equitable? Can I sit down around a table and face all parties concerned at the same time? Does it promote wholesome relationships? Can I look in the mirror and feel good about myself? Is it explainable? In a clear and concise manner that the general public can understand it? (If you can't explain it to all concerned, it may be perceived as being unfair.) Will it leave me with a clear conscience? Will it make me proud? Will it stand the light of day--tomorrow, as well...

I like to read. At any particular time, I may be reading two or three books (some with more enthusiasm than others!). Over the past year, a number of the books I have been reading have been connected to the two seminary classes I have taught. Right now, the books I am working on are completely my choice. One that is going pretty fast is a new book by Oliver “Buzz” Thomas, a former Baptist Joint Committee staffer who now lives in east Tennessee. The book is 10 Things Your Minster Wants to Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs the Job). Thomas applies sound biblical scholarship to such issues as “What About Women?” “Other Religions” and “Why are We Here?” The thesis of the book is that your minister would tell you about these things if you trusted his/her ability to understand and interpret the Word of God and were willing to be challenged in your own faith! I was attracted to Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why because of author Bart Ehrman’s person...

OK, I admit it. I watch 24. Although I have watched it on and off for several seasons, this is the first year that I have seen every episode (sometimes by recorded delay). I know it has violence and some pretty unlikely plot twists (who would have thought that Bauer's father would be the greatest threat to our national security?) and I know that many Republicans are fans, but it challenges me as it puts our hero into situations where he has to make some difficult choices. And quite honestly, his moral compass is usually better than the elected leaders represented on the show. As I watched the last scene last night (I had recorded it earlier in the week), it became clear to me that here was a man who needed some grace in his life. He started the season willing to die voluntarily to save his country after being held prisoner by the Chinese for years, he found out that both his father and brother were traitors, he rediscovered his lost love only to see her in a near-catatonic sta...