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Tag: learning

I Am Not the Expert in the Room

June 3, 2020 /


The old dictionary Merriam-Webster defines racism as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” If you are like me, no matter how many times I read that definition, I still don’t understand what it is. And it certainly does not help me to see it in the community around me. As hard as it is to define with words, I have learned this about racism: Racism always has a better explanation.

This is what I mean, sometimes I have listened to the news and said these things myself:

  • It was not police brutality; he was resisting arrest. He should have done what the officer told him to do.
  • He may have been jogging, but he was also trespassing on a construction site.
  • When a police officer pulls a young black man over, and the first question he asks is, “what are you doing on this side of town?” It’s not racism, its just an officer wanting to ask something other than “Where are you headed to in such a hurry tonight?”
  • When a cashier accuses a man she just rang up of not paying for items as he walks out of the store, it is only a simple mistake.
  • She didn’t call the police because he was black, he made threatening motions.
  • It looked like a gun.
  • He was running away.
  • When a young dies in the back of a police van because he was not strapped in correctly, it is only a tragic accident.
  • She made a threatening motion.
  • When I feel the urge to cross to the other side of the street because a black man is coming toward me, I say I am just being careful.

This is of the muddy mess of racism that we must wade into. Sometimes the explanation is the explanation; often it is not. How do we know? I have learned that I can’t know. I have also learned that African Americans have lived under the weight of racism for so long they often intuitively know the difference. What this means for me is that I must put aside what I think I know and my explanations and be willing to listen. I must trust that my African American (or Hispanic, or Native American)  friend sees, hears, and knows better than I. I am not the expert in the room.

Blessings,
Stephen

 

Today’s resource I want to share is the book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby. Tisby challenges the church to see how we have often participated in and supported the systems to maintain racist ideas and practices. Tisby does more than shine light into darkness, he also helps us plot a path forward. In addition to the book, there is also a podcast episode on Fuller Theological Seminary’s Conversing with Mark Labberton, Episode 51 – Jemar Tisby on Race and the American Church I would also highly recommend.

Starting a New Adventure

April 22, 2016 /

Dear Friends,

I am excited to share with you that I have entered a new phase of life and ministry. I am now officially an onine Doctor of Ministry student at Asbury Theological Seminary in the Activating Missional Communities program, while still serving as pastor at Hope. This new journey means a lot of things, not the least of which, is that my Kindle and I are becoming close and personal friends.

As individuals hear about my taking this step the first question is often, “Why?” While the answer is somewhat complex I wanted to take a moment to share with you some of my thoughts, largely taken from my program application.

The purpose of studying, at this time in my ministry, is about increased potential and opportunity. As a leader, as I grow the church grows. Maybe not necessarily numerically but certainly in ways that matter. From my perspective, working toward a D. Min. is a unique opportunity to learn and grow from some of the greatest leaders in the church and bring their wisdom into our particular situation at Hope. Studying in this type of program is also an opportunity for me to exponentially increase my knowledge in ways not so easily done through self-study.

One particular area of leadership growth and development I am particularly interested in is the area of discipleship. When I was in seminary Dr. David Holdren, who was then a General Superintendent, spoke with the Wesleyan students. On a white board, he drew out for us a system of discipleship he had just learned about that used a baseball diamond. As he described this baseball-based model, he said that all of us needed to develop a model of discipleship. At the time, I did not fully understand his advice, but I have always remembered those words of counsel.
Years later I read the book Home Run Life by Kevin Myers and realized this was the model Dr. Holdren was showing to us. I have also read other books explaining a particular pastor’s model for discipleship. I have been struck by the realization, if you boil them all down, they are really all about the same. This realization regarding each of these models brought me back to the words of advice from Dr. Holdren when I was in seminary.

I feel one of the greatest challenges for the church is in the area of discipleship. Our current answer to the question of whether we are effectively developing wholly devoted followers of Christ is a poor one. As I have been processing this reality, I have been working to formulate an effective system for our particular context. Much work remains, but I believe such a system:

  • needs to be self-assessing. The church no longer has the authority, if it ever did, to say to a person you are a spiritual infant (even though you have been in the church for 40 years).
  • while self-assessing, must naturally lead people to movement and growth. There is no condemnation for where a person is at. What is important is not where a person is at. What is important is that they are moving.
  • must take into account the realities of church membership/attendance. A “committed” church member may realistically only attend 50-75% of the time.
  • must take into account, even if a person attends 100% of the time, Sunday morning is not enough.
  • must go to where people are at. Church attendance is not a natural choice for the spiritual “nones.” John Wesley would go in the early morning hours and stand on the coal piles outside the coal mines and preach to the miners before they would go down into the mines each day. Where are the coal piles today? Every day people walk into darkness. How do we give them light to take with them, even if they are not followers of Jesus?
  • must make use of, build on, and find fresh expressions of the disciplines and traditions of the past 2,000 years of Christendom.
  • must make room for the Spirit to work in people’s lives on the Spirit’s timeline.
  • must be Kingdom centered. God is not a respecter of people, cultures or nations.
  • must be full of grace and truth.
  • must challenge people to, as Richard Stearns says, to “go nuclear.” In generations past missionaries would load their belongings into a coffin knowing they were never coming home. Today hundreds of thousands of people applied to be the first humans to travel to Mars, knowing it will be a one-way journey. Are we calling and challenging people to do great things for God, even things as crazy as traveling to Mars?
  • must scale up and scale down. Will it guide people as effectively in their spiritual growth in a church of two as a church of 100,000?
  • must empower others to lead and reproduce.

In the process of implementing such a system, we have many amazing resources available to us today to help us connect with each other and grow together. These include, but are certainly not limited to podcasting, webinars, blogging, and various social media platforms.

Along this journey I will be sharing in this blog insights I am learning and questions I am pondering. I encourage you to interact and share your thoughts. Some of the things I may share may be controversial or push some buttons. I don’t promise to even completely agree with everything I post. This will be a learning opportunity for all of us to be stretched and grow and I welcome  the chance to process these concepts with all of you. I know that I have much to learn.

Blessings,
Stephen

You too can teach!

May 26, 2015 /

Walking off with the stop

It has been said that if you read three books on any topic you will become enough of an expert to teach that topic. I know the academics out there are cringing right now. Mostly because they don’t want to admit is that it is true. It also illustrates something. The path to a successful launch of a new direction, skill or initiative in life may be a lot closer than you think.

What do you want to achieve in the next year? What new skill do you want to learn? Who would you like to help? Can you find three books/resources on the topic and commit to studying them and apply what you learn? You might be surprised what can happen in a year.

For me, a couple of my goals this year are to continue to refine my skills as a preacher and to learn the skills of being a life coach so as to apply that knowledge to the arena of personal discipleship. How am I going about it? My first step for both areas includes the selection of three books on each topic that I am going to read and seek to apply to my situation.

What about you?

Share your dream in the comments or on Facebook. We can keep each other accountable to achieve something new.

Pastor Stephen

What God Originates

June 9, 2014 /

Dear Friends,

Having a clear vision and sense of direction from God does not eliminate the times of waiting in our lives. It will not keep us away from the desert moments when our soul will need to be converted once again to be ready for what lays ahead.

Andy Stanley’s fifth building block (and you thought I had forgotten about these . . . didn’t you?) is:

Building Block #5: What God originates, He orchestrates.

WaitingPaul’s vision to preach to the gentiles was clear, but he spent three years in the desert preparing. Moses’ vision to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt was clear, but he needed to spend forty years tending sheep in the desert before he was ready to lead the people. Joseph’s (the first one, not the father of Jesus) vision to lead his family was obvious, that the journey there would take him through slavery and an Egyptian prison was not. So it is for us. We must be willing to allow God’s timing to be God’s timing, no matter how much we may wish his timing looked a lot more like our timing. “Waiting time is not wasted time for anyone whose heart God has placed a vision. Difficult time. Painful time. Frustrating time. But not wasted time” (49).

“If the Old and New Testament teach us anything, they teach us that nothing is too difficult for God . . . When God puts something in your heart to do, he goes to work behind the scenes to ensure that it happens. In the meantime, we are to remain faithful to him and focused on the vision. You are not responsible for figuring out how to pull off God’s vision for your life. You are responsible to do what you know to do, what you can do. And then you must wait . . . If it is a just a good idea, you have to make it happen. When God gives you a vision, there’s a sense in which you stand back and watch it happen. The challenge is that sometimes you stand back for a long time” (56-57).

Staying and keeping focused on our vision keeps us focused on God as we are reminded that the only way this vision will be fulfilled is if God acts and orchestrates.

Blessings,
Stephen

===

Quotations taken from:
Stanley, Andy. Visioneering. Sisters, Or: Multnomah Publishers, 2005.

 

Are we there yet?

June 2, 2014 /

Dear Friends,

The question, “Are we there yet?” has become the stuff of legends. No family vacation could ever be considered complete without the chorus rising from the bowels of the passenger compartment: A place where reason and tranquility will never be found. On a recent road trip the following conversation took place in our car:

Child: “Are we there yet?”
Me: “Are we still driving?”
Child: “Yes.”
Me: “Then we are not there yet.”
(One minute thirteen second pause)
Child: “Are we there yet?”
Me: turns on radio . . . loud

I would bang my head on the steering wheel, but that would probably cause the airbag to deploy. If you have never had the pleasure of this yourself this video will be an inspiration to you:

Are we there yet?

“Are we there yet?” is not just a question asked on during moments of too much family closeness. It is a question we all ask in our spiritual lives.

Having a clear vision and clear call does not eliminate the times in the dessert, the times of preparation. Maxie Dunham, former President of Asbury Theological Seminary is quoted by David McKenna (another former President) as saying, “Whether we experience the desert as a geophysical fact is not important. That we experience it as the reality of being along with ourselves and God — questioning, clarifying, testing, committing, and cleansing — is absolutely necessary” (59). Being in the desert is an “Are we there yet?” moment.

When we read of Saul’s (later called Paul) conversion we tend to focus on the events occurring on the Damascus Road. We miss the other conversion; the conversion which took place in the desert.

Paul’s professional and academic credentials to preach were without question. The call and mission of his life was clear. Jesus said to the prophet Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name” (Acts 9:15-16, NIV). Even so Paul was sent to the desert for three years.

Read what Paul wrote to the people of Galatia about his call and his conversion:

“But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with [Peter] and stayed with him fifteen days” (Galatians 1:15-18, NIV).

“It took three years for [Paul] to reverse all systems, crucify all past desires, and let his mind become the mind of Christ” (McKenna 59).

Have you been to the desert? Where is God still working on you? Where do you find yourself asking “Are we there yet?” The truth is, as much as we may wish it to be otherwise, the answer may likely be “no.”

Blessings,
Stephen

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McKenna, David L.. Christ-centered leadership: the incarnational difference. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013. Prin

 

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