A "WOW" Moment!

I had a "Wow" moment this morning. In order to get to that let me take you back to...oh.... the beginning of this week. We have had a lot of rain here over the past few weeks. Now, if you are in the southern parts of the States, please do not take that as a snub to you. But we have. We keep getting these huge gully washers. You in the south know what those are. Heavy deluges of sheet after sheet of rain. Needless to say, my grass has grown over those days. Problem? Well, the timing of my week has been mismatching the available moments to drag out the mower and actually cut that lush blanket of green stuff that needed to be brought under control.

So...(getting to the "wow")....I woke this morning knowing that again I would have no time to cut it this evening and knowing that tomorrow was pretty much shot and that of course Sunday is not the day of mowing but the day of musing. That leaves Monday...NO, I am taking a van load of kids to camp! So....I had the idea of seeing if my eldest child could handle the responsibility of mowing the lawn.

Caleb is now 10 and will be 11 in January. He is a responsible boy, but is he able to handle the job? I have him drag out the mower. We go through the pre-mow checklist. Gas? Check. Oil? Check. Primed? Check. What is that thing under the mower called that actually cuts the grass? "Blade, Dad." Ok, Check. What happens if you get your foot under the mower? ...you get the idea. This is serious business. Life or death in the power of a 10 year old! I gave the lecture on watching out for rocks and to not get cute while mowing. He pulls the cord, it cranks, I lecture on cutting the tall stuff and doing a good job. He takes off and as far as I know, has done a great job.

WOW!

Where has the time gone? When did my firstborn child become tall enough, strong enough, and even decisive enough to be able to handle such a job? It has been happening everyday for the past 10 years. (Pause while I grab a kleenex.)

Where is this all going? In reality, I don't know. I mean, yes, I know what I want to say here, but what is next in his life, for him as a growing young man? I don't know. That is somewhat scary, yet I have a responsibility to teach, live, and just simply allow him to expand as he is ready. Problem is....I don't want him to be ready. I want him to stay little, controllable, maintainable, and even dependent upon me. I don't want to let the rope out and let him step out, and sometimes mess up.

But the beauty of God's Word states that I have to train him and teach him, why? Because one day he will be most likely having the same conversation with his son or daughter that my father had with me. Not just about mowers, but about life, and about making wise decisions and even how to handle failures and mistakes.

I need to teach him the joy of doing it God's way and the pain that comes in trying a wrong way. I have to warn him, but in the end, I have to remember that there will be a day when I won't be there to grab him or choose for him. What then? Will he choose wisely? I hope so. I hope that there will be many more "wow" moments where I am able to see the growth, maturity, and power of God working in him.

One thing that comes to my mind in all of this is that I can't stop leading and living the kind of life before him that shows how important God is and how involved God wants to be. I want to show him, not just tell him, how wonderful God is and how special it is to be called a child of God. That it really is a "WOW" thing to be in the will and arms of a gracious, loving God.

Oh,and another thing....Now I have someone else to mow the lawn!

Open Source Churches

J. R. Kerr, the singles/teaching pastor at Park Community Church in Chicago, IL, recently wrote an article in Leadership Journal. The title of his article was "Open Source Activists." The motivation behind his article is to demonstrate how leadership styles need to change to reflect the changes in how people process and interact with information.

Open Source tools like YouTube and Wikipedia give the average person on the street the ability to create and give input where before that person would be forced to simply observe or only interact with a limited audience.

J. R. Kerr challenges the way our churches today use leadership and specifically a top-down mentality. The pastor becomes the focal point and without his input and direction, people are left powerless to perform their tasks and accomplish their ministries.

He put it this way, I was supposed to have some degree of control over every part of the church, supposed to have the answer to whatever problem arose. One day, I had a string of meetings that kept me from my office most of the day. Upon my return I met five people whose jobs had come to a halt because they needed me. They all had the information and the skills necessary to do their work, but they lacked the authority—the necessary space—to lead. This kind of organizational environment expects leaders to know and control virtually everything in the life of the community.

Mr. Kerr's big push is that leadership in churches today needs to relinquish control and allow others to be involved in the creative and development process of ministry within the church. He argues that people today want to be heard and have a voice in the development of ideas and even the shaping of vision for that assembly.

Kerr holds that nothing within our churches should be considered off limits or untouchable if it is felt to be an obstacle to success.

J. R. Kerr's final paragraph helps summarize his view. This new generation sees themselves and their potential differently. They don't require titles and positions to influence the culture. This is a generation of social activists, artists, and leaders who intend to accomplish great things for the kingdom of God. Our responsibility is to make space for them, and that requires thinking differently about how we lead.

Read the article if you find time and I am going to react more in my next blog. It is a challenge to us as "leaders" to make sure that we are truly leading in a way that is Biblical, effective, relevant, and going somewhere. Are we leading or just being control freaks? Are we enabling or just micromanaging? Are we shepherding or butchering our flock? We are to be leaders so how should we lead?

Kerr is pressing an issue here. Is he right or reactionary? Is he on target or misguided? Is it situational, personality, or is it overarching?

Understanding the Times

I guess for the past few days I have been very aware of some of the issues going on in our political and social spheres. Of course this impacts us. As believers we need to be aware of the times and aware of what is influencing the thinking of our neighbors and even our fellow church attendees.

I have been reading through the Chronicles lately. Yeah, I know... But as I have been working, more like plowing, through the lists of names and chronologies, and David's mighty men, I was struck with some verses in 1 Chronicles 12.

And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment. Of Zebulun, such as went forth to battle, expert in war, with all instruments of war, fifty thousand, which could keep rank: they were not of double heart.
1 Chronicles 12:32-33

Notice those words, understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.

I especially love the next verse, they were not of double heart.

These men, simply leaders of their people, no mention of names, but they new the times in which they lived. Their hearts were not duplicitous.

Obviously (but perhaps not to some) the context is that of establishing David as king after the death of Saul. David did not just assume the support of the people. They had loved Saul, been loyal to Saul, had followed him even at great peril to their own lives. They had established Saul as king. Now, here is David. Some had run immediately to crown him. Saul's descendants had been obviously less forth coming. But we find it took nearly eight years before all of Israel rallied around David.

But these men, these ones who understood the times and had hearts ready for submission saw in David the leader that needed to rule, the one that God had ordained.

Where am I going with this? I see so many times the need for our people today to be ones who "understand the times" in which we live. We have our systems of loyalty and yet we have become more stubborn in areas that perhaps God is ready to move on or allow for a new direction.

I look at people following man and they become disillusioned with the person instead of beholding where they are in time and events of life. Pastors rise for the occasion and if we are not careful we begin to grow more enamored with the charisma or the personality of that man instead of allowing the greatness of God to work through him.

We can grow enamored with a stand on some issue because it meant something different in the 60's and 70's but today that position is mute because either the medium has changed or the association surrounding it has changed. However, we will still refuse to have any connotation or context associating our lives to it because of a previous need to stand firm against something that resembled it in the past.

I know I am speaking in vague terms, but of course, I have things in my mind that I see as being a totally different issue today than it was 20-30 years ago. If we don't start understanding the times in which we live and get our hearts in tune with the current trends and directions our people are facing, we are going to continue to prove to our audiences that the Bible is irrelevant and insufficient to deal with 21st Century living. How sad that is!

Saul is dead! David is ready to assume the throne. Let's move on already. Come out of hiding, accept the vision and leadership God has given us and let's go face the enemy in power and with God's present, ordained, and appropriate strategies. Remember, David was a man after God's own heart. He was not going to lead them contrary to God's vision and leading, but it would be different than how Saul led them. Have understanding appropriate for the day in which you live.

Understanding the times and like we find in Esther, "for such a time as this." It's time for some things to change in order to reveal the changeless truth of God's Word to a different world from the one we went to sleep in last night and the one we woke up to today.