FAQ
I've been asked some good questions of late about me and my journey, and so I thought I'd share my reflections and responses to those questions.
What is a passage or verse in the Bible that you consider foundational for you? Why?
If I were to pick one verse, it’s probably Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (ESV). This verse is an ever-poignant reminder that following Jesus isn’t just going through some motions that look spiritual. For that’s exactly what Micah was chastising the Israelites about—their hollow religion, their meaningless sacrifices. Christ-following is about action driven by the values of God. It’s about the formation of Christ’s character in a person. It’s about the submitted pursuit intimacy with God—a relationship with God, not just information about God.
Are there any ministry experiences you've had outside of the church that have impacted you or your view of ministry in the church?
My short-term mission trip to Africa became a major event influencing my view of the church. When I left for Africa, I thought the western church was a blessing to the world. When I got there, I saw first hand what the west had exported to the third world over the last couple of centuries. We were intentionally and unintentionally creating a culture of addicts hooked on western money, western medicine, western religion, western leadership, western products, and western culture. And that’s happening even in missions. We presumed to know what the native churches and their leaders needed. We presumed to understand the dynamics of life and ministry in the third world. We presumed that we were there to bless them and teach them a thing or two. (Even writing this, I cringe and must pause for a moment of confession for my pride and arrogance.)
Not only was I wrong, I was grieved by what I witnessed, both in me and in the people I met. Since then I’ve been haunted by this question: what would a Zambian church look like and feel like when it was no longer a mission but an authentic local church, an indigenous expression of the Gospel?
The churches my wife and I experienced there in Zambia felt more like under-funded reproductions of a 1950s, American, English-hymn-singing, Sunday-best-wearing church. It was as though we stepped out of a time machine and the only thing different was the color of people’s skin. It was weird. It was sad. And if we had that kind of disconnect, I can only imagine what a local, non-believing Zambian must have thought.
In my study of missions in seminary, it became clear to me that while American and European missionaries tried to bring Jesus to the peoples of Africa, they often brought Him wrapped in western culture. They either consciously or subconsciously equated Christ-following with western civilization. It is a classic example of the self-serving bias--naturally genuine disciples would look and act and talk like me, the missionary, the Christ-follower.
I don’t think that’s right. Paul didn’t tell the Romans, Corinthians, or the Ephesians to become Jews. He didn’t make everyone learn Hebrew. No, he told everybody that they had a new identity and a new cultural allegiance, and that was to the Kingdom. Christians since the Reformation have thought that the Word of God should be accessible to anyone regardless of what language they speak because the Kingdom of God does not belong to any one culture or time. As a result, this idea of cultural adaptation is a noticeable distinction between Islam and Christianity. Muslims have one language for their scriptures and one culture for their adherents.
So back to my question: what would a Zambian church look like when it’s an authentic local church? When the gospel takes hold in a new culture, the response should fit that culture. In the case of the Zambian church, I think we should expect more Zambians in Zambian attire worshipping with Zambian-styled music sung in at least Swahili if not Bemba or Nyanja—the dominant local languages—for starters.
Now your question asked about an impact on my view of ministry in the church, and here it is: What should a church in your city in 2015 look and feel like as an indigenous expression of the Gospel? Should it try to reproduce a 1990s or 1950s or 1900s church with its worship and dress, its programs and structures? Or should we think like missionaries, like the sent people that God has called us to be, and figure out what Gospel people look like today and what they might look like tomorrow? My preference is to do the latter and learn from our history so that we don’t make the same mistakes in our own mission work.
Not only was I wrong, I was grieved by what I witnessed, both in me and in the people I met. Since then I’ve been haunted by this question: what would a Zambian church look like and feel like when it was no longer a mission but an authentic local church, an indigenous expression of the Gospel?
The churches my wife and I experienced there in Zambia felt more like under-funded reproductions of a 1950s, American, English-hymn-singing, Sunday-best-wearing church. It was as though we stepped out of a time machine and the only thing different was the color of people’s skin. It was weird. It was sad. And if we had that kind of disconnect, I can only imagine what a local, non-believing Zambian must have thought.
In my study of missions in seminary, it became clear to me that while American and European missionaries tried to bring Jesus to the peoples of Africa, they often brought Him wrapped in western culture. They either consciously or subconsciously equated Christ-following with western civilization. It is a classic example of the self-serving bias--naturally genuine disciples would look and act and talk like me, the missionary, the Christ-follower.
I don’t think that’s right. Paul didn’t tell the Romans, Corinthians, or the Ephesians to become Jews. He didn’t make everyone learn Hebrew. No, he told everybody that they had a new identity and a new cultural allegiance, and that was to the Kingdom. Christians since the Reformation have thought that the Word of God should be accessible to anyone regardless of what language they speak because the Kingdom of God does not belong to any one culture or time. As a result, this idea of cultural adaptation is a noticeable distinction between Islam and Christianity. Muslims have one language for their scriptures and one culture for their adherents.
So back to my question: what would a Zambian church look like when it’s an authentic local church? When the gospel takes hold in a new culture, the response should fit that culture. In the case of the Zambian church, I think we should expect more Zambians in Zambian attire worshipping with Zambian-styled music sung in at least Swahili if not Bemba or Nyanja—the dominant local languages—for starters.
Now your question asked about an impact on my view of ministry in the church, and here it is: What should a church in your city in 2015 look and feel like as an indigenous expression of the Gospel? Should it try to reproduce a 1990s or 1950s or 1900s church with its worship and dress, its programs and structures? Or should we think like missionaries, like the sent people that God has called us to be, and figure out what Gospel people look like today and what they might look like tomorrow? My preference is to do the latter and learn from our history so that we don’t make the same mistakes in our own mission work.
What do you feel is the greatest challenge facing our culture today? And how should the church of Jesus Christ meet it?
Many things are going awry in American culture. Sexuality has become a god. Marriage has become confused. Entitlement and greed abound. Injustices plague the headlines. But is this anything new? I don’t think so. I’m not a culture war guy, but if there ever was a culture war, it was lost at the Fall. Since then man has continually chosen to oppose God in every time and culture (cf. Rom 1:18-32). So American culture will continue to raise up false gods and suffer from futile thinking and darkened hearts.
What I think is new and hence the greatest challenge facing American culture today is inability of God’s people to be God’s people—to serve as salt and light, to speak truth and redemption into the culture—without being in a position of privilege or power in the culture. Since the 4th century when Christianity transitioned from a persecuted minority to the religion of the Roman Empire, Christians have enjoyed incredible status and influence in western civilization. For centuries Christendom ruled over kings and queens. Even after the Reformation, Christian ethics and values shaped the ethos and governments of western nations. So when it came to correcting social ills and restoring righteousness, the church could rally its political power and influence and thereby right the wrongs.
In western Europe, that’s already changed, and now it’s changing in America. Mainstream denominations are rapidly dying out. The façade of nominal Christianity that seemed the birthright of every American is being sloughed off—which I think is a good thing. So now when Christians clamor about one wrong or another, their calls for change and righteousness ring inane because they assume that they still have that power and because they demonstrate a stark shortage in the compassion and kindness of their Savior. Moreover, the culture has seen enough of the hypocrisy in what Christians clamor over and what they choose to ignore that they’ve become deaf and indifferent.
The church, the people of God, needs to rediscover life as a minority—humble and utterly dependent on God’s provision. To return to being salt and light, to being redemptive ambassadors, the church needs to get back to doing good—loving our enemies, taking care of one another, looking after the marginalized (cf. Rom 12:9-21; 1 Thess 5:12). Doing good, and especially after being persecuted for doing good, the church will begin to re-credential her voice to call men and women away from the ways of darkness and into the ways of light, and more importantly, to the Light Himself (cf. 1 Pet 2:15, 19-25).
What I think is new and hence the greatest challenge facing American culture today is inability of God’s people to be God’s people—to serve as salt and light, to speak truth and redemption into the culture—without being in a position of privilege or power in the culture. Since the 4th century when Christianity transitioned from a persecuted minority to the religion of the Roman Empire, Christians have enjoyed incredible status and influence in western civilization. For centuries Christendom ruled over kings and queens. Even after the Reformation, Christian ethics and values shaped the ethos and governments of western nations. So when it came to correcting social ills and restoring righteousness, the church could rally its political power and influence and thereby right the wrongs.
In western Europe, that’s already changed, and now it’s changing in America. Mainstream denominations are rapidly dying out. The façade of nominal Christianity that seemed the birthright of every American is being sloughed off—which I think is a good thing. So now when Christians clamor about one wrong or another, their calls for change and righteousness ring inane because they assume that they still have that power and because they demonstrate a stark shortage in the compassion and kindness of their Savior. Moreover, the culture has seen enough of the hypocrisy in what Christians clamor over and what they choose to ignore that they’ve become deaf and indifferent.
The church, the people of God, needs to rediscover life as a minority—humble and utterly dependent on God’s provision. To return to being salt and light, to being redemptive ambassadors, the church needs to get back to doing good—loving our enemies, taking care of one another, looking after the marginalized (cf. Rom 12:9-21; 1 Thess 5:12). Doing good, and especially after being persecuted for doing good, the church will begin to re-credential her voice to call men and women away from the ways of darkness and into the ways of light, and more importantly, to the Light Himself (cf. 1 Pet 2:15, 19-25).
Describe what the term “servant leadership” means to you. How should it be lived out in the church?
Servant leadership is leadership that functions to serve others. See, I think spiritual gifts have a dark side, a side seen when the flesh corrupts it. For the gift of leadership, the dark side is the sense of self-importance and its resulting self-centeredness that can take root in a leader. When leading is about what a person can do for his- or herself—the privileges, the perks, the status—that is the dark side. But when leaders lead to release and empower others, when they equip, make decisions, give direction, and evaluate the results for the sake of another, that’s servant leadership.
In the church, servant leadership is often interpreted as not being a big personality, as being conflict averse, as giving people their way. I think that’s bogus. I think those misperceptions undercut the blessings God intends with the gift of leadership. There’s nothing wrong with a big personality unless it is used to abuse people and feed the individual’s ego. Rather, a big personality can enable a greater exercise of influence. Likewise, avoiding conflict does a disservice to the body and to the mission. In contrast, healthy conflict is a trademark of high-performance teams—in fact it’s a growth engine for those teams. Decision-making, too, is a gift to the body. To let everyone have their way is anarchy. Servant leadership carries the weighty responsibility for discernment and the accountability for bad calls.
Nevertheless, servant leadership in the church is marked by humility, by accountability, and by submission. Humility is a leader not thinking him- or herself better than those being lead. The leader is a sinner saved by grace and gifted by grace—same as everyone else.
Second, servant leadership takes responsibility for those they lead. So when an elder criticized several of my staff over his perception of their decisions, I stepped in front of the bullet. I said if he didn’t like how they were operating, then he needed to investigate what instructions they had been given from their boss (me) and start there.
Lastly, servant leaders submit to the authorities God places over them. No one is without an authority over them. Sometimes that authority comes from an individual, a supervisor. Sometimes it comes from a community of fellow leaders. Regardless, a trademark of servant leadership is a willingness and desire to submit to that authority. It doesn’t mean that a difference of opinion is not expressed, but when a decision is made, that decision is honored. So as an Executive Pastor, my opinions and ideas differed from my lead pastor and elders from time to time, but at the end of the day, I submitted to the authority God had given them and executed on their decisions.
In the church, servant leadership is often interpreted as not being a big personality, as being conflict averse, as giving people their way. I think that’s bogus. I think those misperceptions undercut the blessings God intends with the gift of leadership. There’s nothing wrong with a big personality unless it is used to abuse people and feed the individual’s ego. Rather, a big personality can enable a greater exercise of influence. Likewise, avoiding conflict does a disservice to the body and to the mission. In contrast, healthy conflict is a trademark of high-performance teams—in fact it’s a growth engine for those teams. Decision-making, too, is a gift to the body. To let everyone have their way is anarchy. Servant leadership carries the weighty responsibility for discernment and the accountability for bad calls.
Nevertheless, servant leadership in the church is marked by humility, by accountability, and by submission. Humility is a leader not thinking him- or herself better than those being lead. The leader is a sinner saved by grace and gifted by grace—same as everyone else.
Second, servant leadership takes responsibility for those they lead. So when an elder criticized several of my staff over his perception of their decisions, I stepped in front of the bullet. I said if he didn’t like how they were operating, then he needed to investigate what instructions they had been given from their boss (me) and start there.
Lastly, servant leaders submit to the authorities God places over them. No one is without an authority over them. Sometimes that authority comes from an individual, a supervisor. Sometimes it comes from a community of fellow leaders. Regardless, a trademark of servant leadership is a willingness and desire to submit to that authority. It doesn’t mean that a difference of opinion is not expressed, but when a decision is made, that decision is honored. So as an Executive Pastor, my opinions and ideas differed from my lead pastor and elders from time to time, but at the end of the day, I submitted to the authority God had given them and executed on their decisions.
Arrange the following in order of importance for a church and explain why: (a) evangelism of the un-churched; (b) teaching and discipleship of current members; (c) counseling; (d) development of lay leadership; (e) fellowship and recreation; and (f) missions.
My order from greatest to least is as follows:
I put evangelism first because Jesus came not for the convinced but to reach the unconvinced. My observation is that if a church fails to sink their teeth into the mission of God, it becomes inward-focused. It becomes a country club rather than a mission agency and a lighthouse. Moreover, the voices of the convinced, their preferences and opinions, are always heard—they are our default voices because we are all insiders. But the outsiders, the folks who are “too damaged” to go to church, the folks who have walked away from God because of their experience with His people and His church—their voices are seldom where decisions are made because, well, they’re outsiders. So we have to speak for them, and we have to put a priority on connecting with them.
I put leadership development second because if the church is going to whole-heartedly pursue making disciples and not settle for pew-warmers, it needs leaders to do that. It needs people to influence others into new ways of thinking and living and feeling. It needs leaders to mobilize people to comfort the afflicted, and it needs leaders to afflict the comfortable, to challenge them to fuller devotion to Christ. Leaders are God’s gift to the body to unlock the other gifts and mobilize God’s people for God’s mission.
Teaching and discipleship and missions were third and fourth, but I was really tempted to put them on the same line. People who cross the line of faith have a long road ahead of them. Nobody crosses over and is instantaneously perfect. Rather we struggle with sin, the flesh, and the devil until the day we die. We have ways of thinking and living that we have to unlearn. We have new life and new identities for which we need training. But any such learning that doesn’t translate into greater participation in God’s mission should be suspect. I dare say that learning without participation is theological consumerism. Sadly much of the “discipleship” over the last couple of centuries has left us with an abundance of theologically-obese couch potatoes.
Next came counseling. I’m not sure if there’s more psychological or relational dysfunction now than there was 1000 years ago. But I do know this: we are becoming increasingly aware of the depths and complexities of our brokenness and depravity. And sometimes it takes more time and expertise than a mentor or small group or even a pastor can provide to help someone come out of the darkness. Sometimes it takes a lot of trained, professional help—and even medication—to make the journey. So in a world where professional help is largely un- or anti-Christian, the church may need to marshal resources serve the community with biblical, Christian counseling.
Fellowship and recreation, depending on your definitions of these terms, come naturally to people. If the church is going to be involved here, these initiatives need to be clearly tied to the mission of making disciples.
- Evangelism of the un-churched
- Development of lay leadership
- Teaching and discipleship of current members
- Missions
- Counseling
- Fellowship and recreation
I put evangelism first because Jesus came not for the convinced but to reach the unconvinced. My observation is that if a church fails to sink their teeth into the mission of God, it becomes inward-focused. It becomes a country club rather than a mission agency and a lighthouse. Moreover, the voices of the convinced, their preferences and opinions, are always heard—they are our default voices because we are all insiders. But the outsiders, the folks who are “too damaged” to go to church, the folks who have walked away from God because of their experience with His people and His church—their voices are seldom where decisions are made because, well, they’re outsiders. So we have to speak for them, and we have to put a priority on connecting with them.
I put leadership development second because if the church is going to whole-heartedly pursue making disciples and not settle for pew-warmers, it needs leaders to do that. It needs people to influence others into new ways of thinking and living and feeling. It needs leaders to mobilize people to comfort the afflicted, and it needs leaders to afflict the comfortable, to challenge them to fuller devotion to Christ. Leaders are God’s gift to the body to unlock the other gifts and mobilize God’s people for God’s mission.
Teaching and discipleship and missions were third and fourth, but I was really tempted to put them on the same line. People who cross the line of faith have a long road ahead of them. Nobody crosses over and is instantaneously perfect. Rather we struggle with sin, the flesh, and the devil until the day we die. We have ways of thinking and living that we have to unlearn. We have new life and new identities for which we need training. But any such learning that doesn’t translate into greater participation in God’s mission should be suspect. I dare say that learning without participation is theological consumerism. Sadly much of the “discipleship” over the last couple of centuries has left us with an abundance of theologically-obese couch potatoes.
Next came counseling. I’m not sure if there’s more psychological or relational dysfunction now than there was 1000 years ago. But I do know this: we are becoming increasingly aware of the depths and complexities of our brokenness and depravity. And sometimes it takes more time and expertise than a mentor or small group or even a pastor can provide to help someone come out of the darkness. Sometimes it takes a lot of trained, professional help—and even medication—to make the journey. So in a world where professional help is largely un- or anti-Christian, the church may need to marshal resources serve the community with biblical, Christian counseling.
Fellowship and recreation, depending on your definitions of these terms, come naturally to people. If the church is going to be involved here, these initiatives need to be clearly tied to the mission of making disciples.
