davidfitch on July 30 2009

The Seven Indispensable Virtues of a Missional Leader

Recently, in a meeting of pastors, we asked what qualities were essential for leadership in our church (and church plants from out of our church). By ‘leadership’ we mean all leaders in all the varied extended places of ministry surrounding Life on the Vine (not just pastors). Now there are many good guides on this topic already. There are for instance Al Roxburgh’s and Alan Hirsch’s. There is Richard Rohr’s The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective which J R Woodward uses in his assessment work (along with other things). I recommend them all. Here’s some distilled thoughts on “what leadership qualities we at Life on the Vine need to look for/mentor in our leaders for the tasks of leading a missional community?”

A Few Preamble Remarks

These qualities are not traits. They are more like virtues. Yet implied here is these virtues can be learned. They are skills that can be practiced and acquired over a time of apprenticeship and experience. Indeed, all of us as participants in God’s Mission should be growing in these virtues unto eternity.

Implied here as well is that we are seeking to nurture a specific kind of leadership for missional community. This kind of leadership will not necessarily place a high value (or at least the highest value) on an entrepreneurial-style leadership where often one strong leader sets forth the program, garners the resources, sets a vision, and then “sells” everyone else to follow. I contend that leading missional communities requires something more, something different (although some of the entrepreneurial skills will no doubt be needed in the group).

These virtues are to be found all over the New Testament as missional communities came into being. Some of the ‘virtues’ on this ‘list’ will be found in the classic character lists of the pastoral epistles (1 Tim 3, Titus 1; cf. 2 Tim 3:10-11). Others will appear in the fruits of the Spirit listed in Gal 5:16f. Others still might be illustrated in the life (and parables) of Jesus. Still others of these virtues might appear as gifts given to us by the Spirit in say 1 Cor 12. In all these cases, these ‘indispensable’ virtues (as I am calling them) are qualities evidenced in one’s life, yet implied is that they too develop (as for example the word ‘fruit’ implies) through exercise (1 Tim 6:11,12) and out one’s submission to God and dependence upon the Holy Spirit. They develop only as they are enlivened (1 Tim 1:6), empowered and blessed by the Spirit

With this preamble I offer the following seven virtues as virtues I have to continually “practice” in the Spirit. I have found them indispensable to leader in a missional community.

1.) Faith: (1 Cor 12:9) Faith is in virtually all the lists mentioned above. One leading amidst a missional community must be able to walk in faith step by step – day by day, month to month (Gal 5:25). And when certain things don’t happen… she must be able to pray through it – spending long times of prayer giving his/her efforts unto the Lord believing that He is at work for His purposes, in His timing. BTW I think depression comes often in missional leaders and it is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you move through it – talking it out – asking, “what dreams is God asking me to give up?” “what delusions of grandeur must I relieve myself of in order to see Him at work in this place.” It is this moving through that requires faith.
Hand in hand with the skill of faith is courage – the courage to obey and follow Christ’s leading which comes from discerning the situation (the next virtue). Nurturing/leading a missional community is often so counter cultural, so adverse to the ways we have been habitualized by society/family/school/career/money that it will take courage to step out and go against everything your instincts are telling you.

2.) Discernment: (Rom 12:1-2; Phil 1:9-10) One leading amidst a missional community will require discernment in immense proportions. It is the skill to be able to look at circumstances and ask ‘what is God doing?’ and then lead the discussion on ‘how do we respond?’ “What is God asking of us today knowing this too might change?” Such discernment comes only from a place of worship and prayer (Rom 12:1).

3.) Presence: One leading amidst a missional community must have a certain peacefulness, an “at-homeness” in his/her body. I call it “presence” and it is most often visible in the way he/she embodies “peace,” “gentleness,” and integrity of soul (Gal 5:22, 1 Tim 3:3; Eph 4:1-2). There should be no ceaseless striving for recognition. Yet there should be a certain gentle gravitas that says, “I’m here” willing to do what God requires of me. This presence is recognizable a.) when being criticized – the person does not seek to defend him/her self, b.) when preaching – there’s no personal agenda and c.) when ministering to someone in need – he/she listens in such a penetrating manner that his/her presence is felt apart from any words spoken. It is this presence (that bears witness to a trust-filled relationship with God) that can lead others into where God is taking us.

4.) Patience: I believe patience (Gal 5:22; 2 Tim 3:10; Eph 4:2) is essential to everything missional. It is what makes possible discernment and waiting upon what God is doing. Because of this, one leading amidst a missional community must regularly practice patience (best done through submission of all things unto God through prayer). We are in a time-line world driven by corporate projections, growth charts. But missional community is a different world. Mission work requires of us a daily gentle patience necessary to avoid the expedient that always builds church on the foundations of sinking sand.
Hand in hand with patience, is the ability to forgive, forebear one another’s failings and sin. If you cannot forgive people, if you cannot forbear with failings, you will not be capable of patience. Such forgiveness is never efficient in business terms, but it trans forms the very character of a community to reach into the world’s hurts with the gospel.

5.) Resourcefulness: (1 Tim 3:3-4) The missional leader must be a capable manager that avoids both the love of money as well as being flippant about it (1 Tim 6:6-10). We must know how to live simply and within/beneath our means. We must be able to manage our families toward these blessed goals as well as our community. We must be able to sustain ourselves financially for the long term in a way that does not compromise our leadership in the community i.e. make our livelihood so dependent upon our community that we cannot risk taking it somewhere God is calling because it might hurt us financially. We often are in situations where we must navigate bi-vocationality which if not done smartly(resourcefully), can take down many a missional leader.  This takes a large measure of the first virtue faith.

6.) Humility (2 Tim 2:24-25; Phil 2; Eph 4:2) For those leading missional communities, we live in a post-positional (position of power) world where we cannot assume respect or authority. Authority comes through humble service, integrity, presence, the sharing of wisdom and the speaking of truth in love. All of this makes humility essential. We do not lead as in the world via a healthy hubris and the authority of a bestowed (credentialed) expertise (Mark 10:42-45). We lead by walking humbly, depending on the Spirit to do the work of persuading and drawing people to Himself. God uses this kind of humility (of the kind of Christ in Phil 2) to shake the foundations of people’s lives and call them to a new way -when it is incarnated in our lives and our relationships

7.) Love: (Gal 5:22; 1 Cor 13) One leading amidst a missional community must have love for the unlovable. This is cultivated -not natural – learned by submitting each difficult encounter to the work of the Holy Spirit. I have been chastised for my despising of the suburban lifestyle. I have had to learn to love the suburbs and all its people if I am ever to minister the gospel. We learn how to love when we practice forgiving others out of the forgiveness and reconciliation in our own lives bred there through Jesus Christ by the Spirit. The Spirit then gives us a heart of love for the unlovable. This love eventually melts the hearts of the broken angry violent hurting souls around us.

Each of these virtues has a alternative vice: Rejecting Faith for example leads to a maddening controlling leadership. Rejecting discernment leads to a time-line driven calculated Leadership.And we could go on.  All of these virtues are a continual work of God by the Spirit through regular practice in dependence upon the Holy Spirit. The question is, not do we have all of this Christ-ly character now, but are we disposed towards them in the everyday practice of walking missionally among a people? Out of these wonderful virtues of life in the Spirit – which only comes through practice in the lives of people – God works to shape and nurture Mission in the world.

This is just my first response to the pastors’ question: What leadership dispositions are we seeking to mentor our leaders into for the tasks of leading a missional community? What vices are we seeking to avoid. I am sure I have missed some. What others would you add to the list?

Filed under Missional Leadership 15 Comments

davidfitch on July 19 2009

I’m in Canada – for a week – relaxing.

huron-shore

Thanks to my church,

my seminary,

and everyone else,

who makes it possible to get away like this,

with Rae and Max for a week.

Filed under Uncategorized 2 Comments

davidfitch on July 13 2009

The Witness of the Church to the Gay/Lesbian Peoples – Miss California U S A and the Politics of Sexual Redemption

images I know this is little late, but for me, nothing illustrates better the current state of the church’s witness in regard to sexual issues in America, than the Ms. California/USA pageant episode a couple months ago. It was an embarrassing irruption of the Real that any follower of Christ has got to wince at and just turn away (it’s so embarrassing). Here a woman prances before the media in a miniscule bikini (ironically designed by another ex-evangelical Jessica Simpson), she was a woman who had (‘sexually-enhancing’) cosmetic surgery (we found out), who had been in revealing photoshoot of some sort, and she is asked about her position on same sex unions. She responds by saying the words “…I think in my country, in my family, that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.” The next day on the Today show she said “I don’t take back what I said.” She added that she “had spoken from my heart, from my beliefs and for my God.” “It’s not about being politically correct,” she said. “For me, it’s about being biblically correct.” Regardless of her own church allegiances, she says the “B” word in front of the cameras, “biblical,” labeling her an evangelical sterotype. In the process she becomes a symbol of the problem of political (communal) credibility evangelicals lack to be able to witness at all to the gay/lesbian populations.

To me this Ms California episode is an irruption of the Real (in a Zizekian sense) for us evangelicals. It reveals the horror of who we are in the eyes of the gay/lesbian peoples. For she is a symbol for how we project onto gays/lesbians our (evangelicalism’s) own sexual sin thereby making ourselves feel better. By saying what she said about gay unions, moments after the swimsuit competition, she was basically telling the world  “we do the same things, but for gay people it’s sin.” We have duplicity personified as Miss California says “lust is good, objectifying my body is normal, the fulfillment of all desire is good” on the one hand, and then with the other says to the gay and lesbian world, “but you can’t do any of this – because you’re different you are not allowed.” In the process she becomes a glaring symbol of how by pointing out someone else’s sin, we can ignore the empty cheap frivolity of our own sexual lives and still feel better about ourselves. We do not need to fess up that our own sexual habits are so badly skewed, our desires so poorly oriented. We can keep on ignoring the emptiness of our own sexual sanctification by displacing our lack of “enjoyment” onto “the others,” the gay and lesbian people. This too often has become the nature of our witess in society. As such, I believe such an episode reveals the inner contradiction of our own sexual life and politics as evangelicals. And the gay world just looks on with a snicker.

I believe the gay, lesbian, bi and transsexual groups pose the defining test case of the decade for the witness of the church in the new post Christendom contexts of N America. And we (I am speaking about us evangelicals here) are failing miserably. Each time another senator who supports Focus of the Family or Promisekeepers, or another fallen pastor goes on Larry King revealing the emptiness of our sexual formation, it only gets worse. As I said way back here, , the broader evangelical church of my heritage has, generally speaking, not been the kind of people capable of speaking (any kind of) truth into the sexual lives of anyone – nevermind the gay/lesbian community. We have been a community of disordered sexuality. We have been hitherto incapable (theologically) of embodying the sexual redemption made possible in the resurrection through Jesus Christ. We have no space to speak on these issues to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual communities. And until we get our own communities to line up with the sexual redemption in Christ, to the gay community we look like empty judgmental duplicitous fools who see everyone else as thieves stealing away our enjoyment.

We need to ask “what kind of people should we be in order to welcome gay and lesbian people into the redemptive and healing salvation of God in Christ for sexuality?” In my opinion, in the average evangelical church, we date and marry much like the rest of society where an unexamined sexualized attraction is a guiding factor. We teach that lust before marriage is bad, yet lust after marriage is good (implicitly). In our practice of salvation, there is no formation of desire to be integrated and developed into a narrative of self-giving love and commitment to mutuality, self giving and procreation over time in marriage. All of this leaves us asking gay and lesbian people to not do something (consummate all desire as created and good) that we are encouraging heterosexuals to do for the exact same reasons. Without a communal witness of love and redemptive sexual healing, our words are empty. And so the typical evangelical church, when they meet gay communities in their  midst, engage in protest of same sex marriage, or institute some kind of legsilative action. In so doing we reveal our fear for our children and our insecurity in our own sexual formation practices within our church communities. It leaves us impotent as a missional witness for the gospel in the gay and lesbian communities.

As a start, I believe we need to become the kind of community that

a.) does not indulge hyper romanticist notions of sexuality that objectifies sexual attraction as the basis of heterosexual marriage,

b.) quits disembodying sexuality in the way we do whenever we make the Bible into moral propositions that should be enforced instead of a narrative world to be shaped and directed towards so as to live into.

c.) worships in a way that would order desires towards God away from narcissism (instead of feel-good pep-rallies), for any other kind of worship cannot hope to train us out of our narcissistic obsessions with sex.

d.) stops acting like heterosexual marriage and sex itself is absolutely essential for a fulfilling Christian life. Indeed we should elevate celibacy/singleness as a vocation in the process testifying that sexual drive, as well as all desire needs to be sub-ordered to God’s purpose and Mission for anything remotely fulfilling to take place in our lives.

e.) loves and nurtures the hurting souls and the bruised lost ones who seriously desire to be shown another way but are too consumed at this moment to see anything else.

Life on the Vine makes marriage a process of spiritual (and desire) formation. It is in submission to the community and calls each marriage into submission to Christ’s mission. We have just begun some good discussion groups about the various issues revolving around sex, gender and singledom. I think if we just start talking about our sexual formation, a major hurdle will be passed.

As I said above, the gay, lesbian, bi and transsexual groups pose the defining test case of the decade for the witness of the church in the new post Christendom contexts of N America. Missional thinkers practicioners must engage and lead on this issue. There are no more hurting people groups in N. America which at the same time remain (or have the perception that they are) ostracized from the church. (The homeless for instance may be hurting but are not as ostracized from the church). Speaking to the gay issue in the church takes courage – the easiest thing to do is to avoid speaking about it publicly. This is because, if you speak, you end up being pegged as either “judgmental” or “compassionate.” Since no one wants to land on the “judgmental” side, the overwhelming temptation is to err on the compassionate side. Yet, the church needs both. The defining character of the church as it works out its moral discernments is “speaking truth in love.” This is how we grow according to Eph 4. This is how we inhabit the truth over time. Unfortunately this kind of speech is regularly missing in the churches. It’s either one or the other.

This is why the Bridging the Gap Synchroblog begun by Wendy Ritter several weeks ago was such a pleasant surprise. I read many of the entries. I urge others to do so. I found the conversation excellent. I really felt it went beyond the judgment-versus compassion deadlock. There were several posts I could not agree with. But I gained a new sense of what is happening in this discussion, a starting point of love and compassion from all sides that is rare but so necessary if we the church shall be witnesses in these communities. I wish I would have gotten in on it but the above represents where I would start.

I’ve assumed alot of things in this rant, including stuff in moral theology (hoping it was just intuitive). Sorry! For those who need to know, I do not affirm gay/lesbian sexual practice as normative for the Christian church. This makes communal embodied incarnational witness to our gay neighbors all the more indispensible. There’s no way I could clarify all my positions concerning gay, lesbian sexuality etc.. So I welcome questions and discussion. (Although I’m heading off to vacation Thursday).

Filed under Justice,Missional 21 Comments

davidfitch on July 7 2009

Book Clubs For The Homeless – On The Relational Nature of God’s Justice

book-clubs

For years, ever since The Great Giveaway, I have argued for a cautious stance towards National politics as the means for accomplishing justice. Such a focus distracts/seduces us away from the church’s task of embodying the justice of Christ (the Kingdom of God) in the world. For my arguments, you can read here and here for instance. I argue that local relationships, both as a church community together under His reign and in our relationships (political and otherwise) in the neighborhood community, are the means that God uses to bring justice into the world. Then, from this stance, we can engage/come alongside national efforts. All of this explains why I find this idea about “book clubs with the homeless” so compelling. It is an example of where I think the church should put its efforts.

So let me articulate my position one more time, and then illustrate it via these book clubs.

1.) GOD’S JUSTICE IS RELATIONAL: There is something intensely relational about the justice of God inaugurated in the Kingdom of God that has come into the world through Jesus Christ. James Dunn in his book The Justice of God puts it this way, “In Hebrew thought righteousness is a concept of relation. In Hebrew thought righteousness is something one has precisely in one’s relationships as a social being. That is to say, righteousness is not something which an individual has on his or her own, independent of anyone else – as could be the case with the Greco-Roman concept.” (p.33) Dunn draws on the prophets (Ezekiel 18:5-9; Isaiah 58:3-7; Amos 5:21-24; Micah 3) to describe how being in a right relationship with God vertically was inseparable from being in right relationship with one another in the Hebrew OT context (p.38-39). Such a justice then cannot easily be bureaucratized. It is deeply relational. The fact that these book clubs enable such relationships that go beyond the giving and distributing of funds/food etc. is powerful. It puts those who participate into a unique relationship with each other that is not defined by those who are giving to those who have not.
2.) RECONCILIATION IS AT THE HEART OF GOSPEL JUSTICE: Reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel (2 Cor 5: 17-19). This kind of justice is the outworking of the forgiveness that we receive in Christ. In being forgiven we forgive. Reconciliation, the restoration of social wholeness, transforms everything. I have seen this in my limited ministry with the poor. In every victimized person, in every person who is now ostracized in society – there is (in my experience always) a long string of broken relationships that have unwound into a tragic mess. They need help, they need mercy, and they need physical deliverance. But the chains must be broken and this comes through blessing them with the forgiveness and love made possible in Christ Jesus (John 20:23). In order to get to this place with the poor or anyone for that matter, there must first be a relationship of love and hospitality, of knowing the other. Forgiveness, reconciliation touches every area of our lives. Reading books together of any kind can lead to relationships that share experiences of/or in  need of the power of reconciliation in Christ. This is another reason why I like the book club with the homeless.
3.) THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT DO THIS JUSTICE: The government by its nature is bureaucratic. The government by definition (separation of church and state) is excluded from being the carrier of the forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ. This does not mean government is bad. It is a preservatory institution incapable of redemptive justice. But we can strategically come alongside government programs and provide the reconciliatory powers of the cross when we are allowed and when it makes sense. We should nonetheless be wary of being distracted to thinking the powers of government can bring justice. We can massively distribute physical relief but we cannot bring relational justice. This takes the church, the local church being engaged with just a few persons. This is why I again like the book clubs. They are small – 5 people according to the article. They are intensely relational.

At Life on the Vine we don’t have many opportunities in our community to minister like this – although we have had several intensely relational engagements with the poor, some of which were astounding examples of the justice of God breaking out. By and large however, we have to travel to help the homeless. It is difficult then to do this kind of relational life with the homeless we engage with. Yet we’re looking at a few “missional community” church plants where a ministry to the poor like this is more viable. I can see this kind of place – a book club with the homeless – as a wonderful missional way to engage the poor. How bout you, any more ideas like this? Let’s stoke our communities into the transformational relational social engagement made possible in the life we have in Christ.

Filed under Justice 5 Comments