Becoming the Haters

14 02 2012

Tuesday Re-mix - 

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  1 John 4:20

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.” Anne Lamott

I’m not sure I have anything truly creative to say about this…nothing new or fresh or amazingly profound.  I am just growing weary (that is diplomatic talk for “sick & tired”) of “churches” who take pride in talking about all the people they hate.  They hate Muslims, they hate homosexuals, they hate abortionists, they hate democrats, etc.  Then, when you dare to step in a little closer, it turns out they hate Methodists, and they hate Episcopalians and they hate Catholics and they hate Presbyterians, and they hate this flavor of Baptists or that flavor of Baptists, etc.  Then, if you dare to come in a little closer, it turns out they hate pretty much anyone who dares to disagree with them as well.  And that would include me, because I am truly fed up with them.

I would like to round them all up and stick them all on a deserted island somewhere and just rejoice as they inevitably turn their hatred toward each other and begin killing each other off.  Good riddance, I say.  I just do not like them at all.  In fact, sometimes I am sure that I hate them.  And I’m pretty sure God does too.

Do you see what just happened?  I see it often in conflict situations.  I sit down to talk with a party who is obviously a “player” in the conflict and is clearly one of the ones whose behavior is contributing to the firestorm.  With fire in every breath and venom dripping off the tongue, this person begins telling me about all the horrible behavior on the part of someone else–”the real culprit”.  He/she speaks of that other person’s rage and selfishness and lack of anything spiritual and hopes that I will join in the hating of that person.  But seeing it all from an objective place, it is obvious to me that this person has actually become the very person he/she is describing, displaying most of the exact same behavior of which he/she now complains.  It is sad.  It would be humorous, if not so sad.

It becomes even more preposterous when this person begins using God’s Word to condemn the behavior of the other person (much like I would use it to condemn the behavior of the “hate” churches).  It is a trap we all have fallen into from time to time…holding up scripture to justify our hating of someone else.  We use scripture to magnify the wrongness of their conduct.  The problem, of course, with that concept is that God’s Word is never as effective as a magnifying glass as it is when used as a mirror.  When we allow scripture to reflect back on us and our own heart and behavior, its real power is made manifest.  That is when the transforming nature of God’s Word really shows.  That is when conviction takes place.  That is when we get back to Jesus’ purpose and His vehicle for reaching this lost and broken world.

Hating people will never change them.  Using scripture to hate on others will never change the world.  Using scripture to reflect on myself, my heart, my actions and my relationships…that is the stuff of which revolutions are made.  That will change me.  And it will change the world.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Christian Accountability, Church Unity, conflict, the revolution

How Much Do You Trust Your People?

2 02 2012

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness…As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.  Matthew 10:1, 7-8

I have a ministry.  Well, it belongs to God, not to me…but you know what I mean.  I have been entrusted with an amazing ministry and an amazing message about unity among God’s people.  I know the feeling of ownership of a ministry.  I know the pressures of stewardship of such a message.  And I know the stress of placing the reputation, the very name, of that ministry into other people’s hands.  I know what it feels like to send other people out in the name of Christian Unity Ministries, placing them in control of our reputation, and having little or no control over how they will exercise that stewardship.

So I am more than just a little bit amazed at what Jesus does in sending out the twelve to perform miracles in His name.  There was no tutorial about casting out demons.  There was no dress rehearsal for any of them to practice raising the dead.  He just gave them the authority, gave them a few verses of instruction, and sent them out.  Surely they did not all take to this task naturally.  There had to have been some humorous “fails” (like the one at the foot of the mountain in Matthew 17:16…I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him).  Nevertheless, Jesus empowered them, authorized them, and sent them out to do His Father’s work, and he exercised virtually no control over how they did it.

Pastors, leaders, do you do the same with your people?  Do you see enough evidence of the Spirit in them to trust Him to lead them?  Do you trust your people to go out in the name of Christ (and in the name of your church) to do ministry?  Here is how Erwin McManus described this philosophy in his pastorate of Mosaic (from An Unstoppable Force): “I am often asked if we monitor people to insure their adherence [to their membership commitments to serve].  And the answer is no…It’s amazing how much people can accomplish if you’ll simply have confidence in them and call them out to give God the very best of their lives.”  I believe it is McManus who goes further to describe his role as pastor to be very much like lighting fuses in his people and waiting and watching for the Spirit in them to explode into ministry.  They just need to be called out and sent out.

If you are a pastor, I know there are aspects of that metaphor which make you terribly nervous.  As the one who will ultimately be held responsible for their ministry actions, you no doubt feel a need to control them…after all, you cannot have them embarrassing the church or putting the church at risk, can you?

As a church attorney, I know that is a legitimate concern.  I know there is the possibility that they will mess up royally, that they will bring humiliation and liability to the church as a result of their poor judgment or bad acts.  I know there must be some accountability, some level of control over them.  I know you cannot just turn them loose to go out and do good things in the world, to go out and become the ministers God is calling them to become.  That would be reckless and ill-conceived.  Of course you cannot do that…

…but Jesus did.

I’m just sayin’…

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Christian Accountability, Everyone's a Minister, leadership, missional, the revolution

Belonging, Believing and Being a Boomer

15 11 2011

Tuesday Re-mix -

I grow tropical plants in my backyard, specifically, plumeria and some hybiscus.  It is one of the wonderful “perks” of marrying into a Hawaiian family.  Mind you, I am no master gardner, which makes plumeria the perfect plant for me.  I can break off a limb, stick it in the ground, nurture it for a year or so, and it will take root and bloom just like all the other ones around it.  I just have to have some patience while I wait for the roots to grow.  That is the key…patience.

Besides being a gardener, I am also unashamedly a Baby Boomer.  Pretty much all the observations I have heard sociologists make about my generation are true about me as well, at least in some degree.  I was shaped by a cultural mindset that said anything is possible, that I can make a difference in the world, and that a common vision is critical to any “revolution”.  For my generation, the way this all translates into church is this: what I “believe” is of first and highest importance…if we don’t all “believe” the same central truths, our “revolution” will fail.  For my generation (and, by the way, for the generations which came before me as well), BELIEF comes first, followed by BELONGING to the church.  For us, without belief, there is no belonging.

So it is with great fear and trembling that I turn to Generation X and then to the Millenials, two generations who will lead the church sooner than any of us realize, and I begin to embrace their very different values and priorities when it comes to church.  These generations hold connection and community as much higher values than we Baby Boomers have.  These generations may well come to respect the concept of a “regenerate church membership”, but they will otherwise radically blur the nice, bright lines we have drawn around categories of “belonging” to church.  They will do this because, deeply rooted in their generational culture is the need to belong.  In short, for them, BELONGING will come first, even before BELIEVING.

For them, gathered worship services will be filled with friends who have come for the BELONGING, but are still trying to work out exactly what they BELIEVE.  They won’t be “members” in our traditional sense of the word, but they will be friends with whom we are developing a growing relationship and whom we are nuturing and to whom we are ministering.  They will be very much like my plumeria sticks which “belong” in my garden a long time before they actually start blooming.

I admit that this scares me a little.  I admit that I will continue to talk a lot about the importance of doctrine and believing and authority and truth, etc.  I will continue insisting that truth is not negotiable and that scripture teaches us to respect authority.  But I also admit this…I’m going to learn a thing or two from these younger generations about how to love the non-believers around me and how to engage them in relationship SO THAT they can see Jesus in me.  I am going to learn to invite them to “belong”, i.e., to find community here, even as they are still working out their beliefs.  I am going to learn something about loving my neighbor and, as Jesus might say, figuring out exactly who my neighbor really is.  I am going to learn to do church a little differently, at least in this particular regard…

…and I am going to LOVE this change!

How about you?

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Christian Accountability, Genuine Community, missional, The Church's Influence, the revolution

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