Barnabas File

If we have learned anything from the last two years of pandemic, it is that leadership emerges in response to need and sometimes it is manifested unexpectedly.  Churches and other organizations that have adapted to the challenges of COVID-19 have done so by encouraging and empowering emergent leaders.   I have long been a fan of the leadership model presented by James Kouzes and Barry Posner in their book The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations.   I encourage you to learn more about their model, but one element is essential if your organization is to meet the still undefined challenges of 2022--“Enable Others to Act.”  This is done through fostering collaboration, strengthening others, and creating a climate of trust.  How do we do that? By developing a culture that embodies these actions.   In a recent webinar, Kouzes asked these strategic questions about creating such a culture:   Does every leader have a coach? Does every leader have a pers

The season has wrapped on Hawkeye , a Disney+ plus series featuring Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), the most human of the Avengers.    The character has come a long way from an uncredited cameo role in Thor (2011) and an enslaved lackey for Loki in The Avengers (2012).  He evolved into a key member of the team and my favorite (next to Steve Rogers—Captain America).   In the series, Barton is coming off a tough patch.  He lost his family for five years in the blip (half of all the life in the universe destroyed) and became a vigilante assassin known as the Ronin during that time.  He rejoined the Avengers to bring all of humanity back but lost his best friend Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) in the process.   As the series opens, his family has been back for a year, and he has taken his three children on a Christmas jaunt to New York City (where they see Rogers , a musical version of the Avengers which is wildly satiric).  In addition to trying to reconnect with his family and overcome hi

When I grow up, I want to be like Barbara Brown Taylor.     I long ago realized that Taylor is one of the finest Christian writers of our time but reading Holy Envy:    Finding God in the Faith of Others reminded me of the humility and inquisitiveness that makes her work engaging.   This book recounts not only Taylor’s experience of teaching world religions to undergraduate students in a liberal arts college, but her own growing understanding of what it means to learn from other faiths, embrace truths that enrich one’s own spiritual journey, and wonder how far “holy envy” can be indulged without becoming covetous!  Simply put, holy envy is discovering that another’s faith tradition may provide something that is missing in one’s own.   Early in the book, Taylor quotes the late Krister Stendahl’s three rules of religious engagement:   When trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies. Don’t compare your best to their worst. Lea

I t’s probably happened to you.     You’re at Walmart or the grocery store.     You see a person you think you know from church.     He or she comes over and makes sure of who you are (because you are probably still wearing a mask in public).     They ask how you are doing, then immediately start telling you about the church they are attending now: “It’s so friendly.     The pastor really preaches from the Bible.     I love my Sunday school class.”    You politely mumble something like, “I’m glad that you are happy there” and move on as quickly as possible.   There will be more moments like this especially if you are staff minister or active in the life of your congregation.  Those who have moved on will want to take the time to let you know that they are much happier since they left your church.   Please don’t get me wrong.  If a person has come to the point where they no longer feel they are or can be really engaged, finding another fellowship is probably the best thing they can do. 

“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste” --Paul Romer, economist, Stanford University Despite the pandemic and all of it unexpected consequences, this is a time of opportunity for the church.  Our weaknesses are clearer than ever, but our strengths have risen to the surface.  Changes that we knew were on the horizon are now right in front of us.  Choices that we thought we could put off for several years are now call for immediate action.  Every church is going to have to ask itself some tough questions to identify priorities, ministry realities, and action plans in the coming days.  When I work with individual coaching clients, I often find that they are having to make difficult choices.  They are motivated and capable people, but they have their limitations.  They can only do so much and sometimes the choices about how to use their time and talents are difficult to make. In these coaching situations, I sometimes suggest the client ask herself or himself these questions: Is this someth

One of the challenges of Advent is keeping the events and persons fresh and relevant.     There is a tendency to come up with some basic ideas and become stuck there.    In an effort to get some new perspective, I have been reading Adam Hamilton’s book The Journey in recent days. He combines biblical reflection, observations about the places mentioned, and some preaching imagination to bring new insights to Mary, Joseph, and others in these familiar stories.   As he writes about Mary’s visit to Elizabeth (which probably lasted several months), Hamilton identifies the mentor and protégé relationship that was established between the two women. It is one worth unpacking.   First, when Mary finds herself miraculously pregnant, she must have thought of her kinswoman Elizabeth who also had been unexpectedly blessed.  Through the family grapevine, Mary learned that elderly, revered woman was expecting.  Although their circumstances were different, Mary identified enough with Elizabeth to see