Systems

There's a saying: "your system is perfectly designed for the results you are getting".

I look at churches that struggle for volunteers, while all the creative and resourceful duties at church belong to the professionals. "Your system ..."

I see churches that overmanage, requiring spiritual gift assessments and meeting with potential volunteers to counsel them on involvement, then they wonder why so few members initiate action. "Your system ...."

I see the vast majority of churches having as their most resource intensive activity being Sunday "worship", where the majority of the crowd sits in the pews being entertained. Then you have those who wonder why so many of the church members don't evangelize their neighbors or serve in some capacity in the community, why they don't seem to be growing in Christ. Essentially why they aren't "active" members of the church. Well, you teach passivity on Sunday. Your system is perfectly designed for the results you are getting.

Training Circles

Sorry not to be "around" much. I keep thinking of this site for one set of thoughts, but God has been clear that there are interconnections where I don't see them at the time. So I should have been posting here more, perhaps, but not seeing the connections.

In this journey to restore my own heart, see others restore theirs, to find more specifics on my calling, one theme has continuously resurfaced -- church. A few months ago, I tried to walk away from thinking so much about church and how it impedes people from walking in their calling, and how it could help, just to go and act. To move toward what I thought was more my calling, to help others find theirs.

Wasn't sure exactly how that looks. If you saw The Mask of Zorro you may remember the scene with the training circles. The circle started out large, but as the new Zorro was gaining skill, the circles shrank. "This is your world" the old Zorro said. And each new circle represented his world shrinking.

As you journey into calling, discovering your calling is like that. You get a general idea, and act in that. As you learn and experience, the circle shrinks. It's like knowing you want to teach, and in walking in that the circle shrinks and you discover you want to teach adults, then it shrinks again and you find you want to teach young adults, then college students, then it's teaching literature, and on it goes until you discover you want to teach 19th century English literature to seniors in their final semester. The circles shrink as you discover yourself.

All that to say that I wonder if I forced my circle to shrink around the wrong center. After trying to move away from "church" (see some of my posts around August), I wonder if I should have moved more away from "institutions" and more toward community. One key on this was the last few weeks (the 'distraction' that took some time from blogging) is working with some friends on "Redemptive Tribe" (I put the link there for those reading this a few weeks from now, but for now I believe the settings are still "private" while we build some content). This is a collaboration site for those "friends of Ransomed Heart interested in redemptive community". I'll probably write more on some of the thoughts it has stirred as we seed the site.

Is all this God drawing me back in a circle with the center he knows is my deeper desire?

So, how was your Thanksgiving?

Yesterday

Yesterday, I had coffee with another man.

"David" has an adult son and daughter. His son works for an internationally known ministry in North Carolina. Dave himself has worked for a number of Christian ministries over his career, mostly in community development and CD consulting, dealing with places in Africa and Asia mostly.

Dave, age 54, doesn't go to church anymore.

You see, Dave was active in church for years, but as he grew to know what God made in him, what made Dave unique in his father's eyes, he stepped toward that. But the churches he was a part of wanted to plug and play him in what they wanted to do. Dave has grown and matured and knows his part in the kingdom, but apparently that's a threat to local churches he just need someone to feel their predefined roles. Dave was even told "we know you don't like doing this, but you are good at it so it must be what you are to do here". It was killing his heart.

So he left.

Online, in ministry (I've volunteered with Ransomed Heart and The Noble Heart ministries) I've come across dozens of men like Dave. Men called by God in a direction that brings them in conflict with their churches. Some stay for their families' sake. Some stay as their ministry creates the church as a kind of mission field for them. Others leave.

The "church" was meant to equip. Somewhere along the way it placed itself in the place of God. If the church returns to equipping men, then the work done by the church will be the work the members are called to do. Not what some committee decides.

How to settle disputes

Core beliefs

I posted last week's "why some theology matters" to a social network site I'm helping to seed before we open it up to like-minded others to join. A friend Reggie posted a good reply, including this list of core beliefs that matter:

The Good Heart (Core)
The Larger Story
God's heart (The Prodigal, The Shack, etc.)
Warfare (there is an enemy)
The need for healing (the wound)
Uniqueness of our Calling
The value of Relationship
Hearing God (This does happen)

And actually within a couple of days I was rereading from John Eldredge's Walking With God the section entitled Not Every Gospel is Equal (page 164ff). He makes a similar point. Now, he spends most of his time undoing the damage done by "judge not lest ye be judged" mentality (in context, that is a statement about making right judgments), but in the end he has his three core points: the heart is central, intimacy with God is the goal, and restoration of the person matters.

If restoring heart is a goal, if it is the mission, then understanding your beliefs on the matters of the heart, God, and relationships are key. Understand that, then understand who your allies are, and what your mission is. If your heart matters, then who you allow close matters as well.

Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life.

See you next week!

Why some theology matters

I know I got on a theology kick this week, but let me bring it around.

Our belief in who God is, how he made us, and view of the relationship between God and us matters. It matters to how we view God, how we view ourselves, and how we interact with God. God created us as freewill creatures (I know, now I'm risking circular logic here). If we have freewill, our choices matter, and our views matter. They influence how we act and interact.

These things are worth debating, especially if a group is to be a long term community. How the community views these matters helps form what the community is, what it does, and how it relates. While a group that wants to be a redemptive community does not need to agree on all theology, I think it does need to agree on these fundamental points. Thus the need for discussion, even debate on these matters.

But of course, the individual needs to know their own viewpoints. This effects how one interacts with God and others. If I see all who don't know Christ as fundamentally depraved, that effects how I interact with them. However, if I see them as a worthy human in need of healing, wholeness and holiness, that causes me to act more gently and tenderly towards them.

And it is interesting that when two who profess Christ get together and differ on these matters, I think some of the most heated discussion can occur. It is because I think we put so much of our security into our view of our identity, and these matters get to the core of our identity. Let God or another shake it, and we become scared -- who are we if we aren't x? But letting go of false teaching on these matters and embracing the truth allows us to become more fully who we are.

I don't know how a person can become all that they are meant to be without the divine truth in these matters, nor do I believe a group can become community without a basic like-mindedness in these matters.