LEADERSHIP - some random thoughts...

Leadership: Unquestionably a vital topic for all to explore and learn about... And when studied faddishly, often causing much in the way of delusional thought and grandiose behavior. In my heart, I find that I am really wary of those who would self-describe themselves as a "leader." It seems right to me that if anyone is to be referred to as a "leader" it should be done only by others (always received with some sense of incredulity), than to confidently come to that conclusion on their own. Our motivation for leadership ought always from a strong sense of calling and faithfulness, rather than cold desire for influence. Inescapably, leadership always involves the use of some form of power. Because at the heart of leadership is the ability to influence the behavior of others. The brutal and troubling reality of being a leader, is that the entire dynamic of "leadership" is laced inextricably with a tricky thing called "power." Power is always and ever, an unstable and potentially corruptive elixir that is monumentally difficult to exercise and contain. As a rule, in everyday life when called upon to verbally influence, I think it best to live out of the context: "This is what I think," rather than confidently asserting "this is what you must do." There are perhaps, some appropriate exceptions to this axiom, but I don't think too many... To speak out, through our life: "This is what I think," appropriately assumes that people care what you think; and if they care what they think, then they've experienced something about your character that has favorably gotten their attention - and that thing is usually "good." It draws others in, rather than drives others to - for whatever reason. Yet at the same time, those who speak out of their lives according to what they think, are often cautiously circumspect about what they think they know; and how what they think they know should be applied to those around them (see: The Noetic Affects of Sin). To me Leadership is: "The faithful, passionate, commitment to one's giftedness and calling." I realize this may not appear to apply for those who work in the business world, but as a presuppositionalist, I believe that it does. Even in the business world, if you don't have the right people in the right place, exercising their natural abilities and skill-set with an overt sense of "calling," then they are probably in the wrong place and not serving well the agency they are working for. Ideally, I think all employers want those employees, who when they do their work, do it, as if it were not work because they find it so fulling; and in a certain sense, effortless because of their natural abilities and passions. These people rarely need to be managed or supervised. Leadership ought always be ontological and not merely epistemology in its application and this particularly true for the Christian community. The thought occurs to me that when it comes to the kind of Leadership exercised in much of the church and institutions of Higher Learning; as it relates to the praxis of Biblical knowledge and Theological understanding - educationally... ...Christian Leadership who instruct and teach ought to be able to have the kind of thoughtful, measured and probing conversations found around a French Cafe table, rather than the self-assured, positivist and forceful lectures pounded over the podium of a German lecture hall. (still in process!)

POP CULTURE OBSERVATIONS

"Disconnected? " Not AWAYS A Bad Thing...

We've come along way from primal drum beat messaging, puffy smoke signals, skinny telegraph wires and poles, privacy compromised (phone) party lines and environmentally unfriendly Styrofoam cups tied together with kite string... when it comes to communicating with each other. Clearly... how, and how much, we communicate with each other has changed enormously in just the last 20 years.

Just a generation or so ago, leaving High School and going to college usually involved separating ourself from family and friends; and then learning to live in a dorm with only a pay phone at the end of the hallway to stay in touch. Everybody knew what it meant to call "collect." Creative types would call home, let it ring three times, then our parents would call back thereby saving us a dime. Sometimes we had to wait in line during lengthy phone calls. We might even have to find a phone on a different floor, while our roommate broke up with his girlfriend. Regardless, that was usually the sole source of communication and that kind of communication happened ONLY when there was something fairly important to talk about. Almost NEVER were those phones used to call friends from home and/or from other colleges. It was just too awkward and inconvenient.

With some exceptions, most of us were cut-off from our past and thrust into those particular social dynamics that forced us to initiate and build new (life-long) relationships, that in turn, usually led to exponential leaps in personal growth. This stemmed largely from the ability to leave behind unhealthy relationships and drop former unflattering or undesirable ways that we were identified by our peers, accrued while in High School. With that kind of communication isolation we could, in fact, kind of "reinvent" ourself without anyone reminding us that we were stepping out of the line of the established mores of social conformity. And often, when we went home for Christmas break... most of our friends noticed an immediate difference in how we matured - personally, socially, intellectually and even spiritually.

I have to wonder the potential negative affects of ALWAYS being connected to not only our present, but also to those myriad relationships from our past. Today, not only do more students drive to other campuses of their former High School friends, they also do the following: Call daily, or weekly from cell phones (all most all students have one), text hourly or even minutely from them as well. And from their computers? Engage in Instant Messaging, Chatrooms, join online communities like Facebook and Myspace, create their own personal Websites and develop Blogs for online publishing. High School and College life is now a monolithic loosely integrated whole, staggering forward and backwards in microscopic mini-steps. It would seem the ability to observe in one another the exponential leaps has faded...

To be sure there are many relationships acquired in High School - particularly family ones, that are necessary to prize, keep and maintain. I am not suggesting, therefore, that the above forms of technology are bad in and of themselves and that we cut off all relationships experienced while in High School... I just wonder how much dead, stultifying weight, those technologies help to produce in leaving, what needs to be left in the past... in the past - not only memories but perhaps some "relationships" as well. Because in High School, one of the clear social axioms is: Your Past Is Ever Before You and Your Future Lies In Your Past. In other words, your social community there, rarely permits you to break out of whatever definition of "who you are," that has been devised for you.

With all of that explicit technological "connectedness," that students have today, and the implicit accountability that comes from it; I fear that it works as a cumbersome drag - keeping "Who they Were in the Past, To What They Are in the Present" unnecessarily. In a sense, the past is never the past, its always the present. Just something to think about

#3 You Shall Not Misuse The Lord's Name

Deuteronomy 5:11

"You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God,
for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."

When I first sat down to consider what I might need to say about the third commandment, my initial thought that anything I might have to say about it would be insufferably obvious. Most conservative believers that I know read this commandment and think only one thing: That to "take the Lord's name in vain," simply means to use the term "G** D***".

Upon further review, that's not the simple case... its just another bad and typical example of "hermeneutical reductionism." Not and never a good thing...

While the thrust of this commandment gets at how many use the Lord's name to leverage power and influence through oath making, clearly the wider application for all of us is "incarnational." That is to say, that it's not only how we might use his name to convince other's in our determination to fulfill our purpose and intention- or whatever "verbal contract;" we have established. (And by the way, anytime spoken language is used, a verbal contract of some nature is established - even if only ONE person is involved.) It also has to do with how His name is associated with us in terms of what we say and do. To be a "Christian" and to wantonly sin openly, and often, is to abuse the Lord's name before the eyes of the world. If we say "yes" to Christ (and to be Christian) and "no" to the world. Then let our "yes" be truly "yes" and our "no" be truly no. Otherwise, we misconstrue to those who are watching the true nature of God.

J.I. Packer, in his recently published book: The Ten Commandments: provides for us three categories by which we can thing about the Third Commandment

• Irreverence: Cursing God When Bad Things Happen To Us, Such As Job and His Wife's Admonition to "Curse God and Die.
  
• Bad Language: Using God and His Name to "Damn" Other's i.e. channeling or invoking a deity to achieve a selfish end.
• Promise-Keeping: Using God to Assure Other's, That We Intend to Keep Our Oath's, Vows, and Promises.
  

"The godly man will make promises cautiously,
but keep them conscientiously once they are made,
knowing irresponsibility and unreliability here
are great and grievous sins."

Author Unknown

#2 "You Shall Not Make For Yourself An Idol"

Thirty years ago, literally speaking, this commandment would have been regarded as almost nonsensical. Our modernist ideological construct would not have permitted most of us to believe that people would actually create or purchase an actual "idol' with which to worship. That was something that primitive, animistic and uncivilized people did - who lived in far-off and mysterious lands. Now those people are here... and they are no longer "primitive and uncivilized." They are well educated. They are family doctors, corporate business people, civil and chemical engineers and they have penetrated the very heartland of our country.

I recall a number of years ago, as a Youth Minister, having an activity at one of the homes of an Indian family. One of our Youth Interns, while walking about the house, noticed an interesting statuette (a animal figure I believe) on a shelf; and she picked it up and began to show it to a number of our students who had gathered in the room before we started our activity. One of the parents happened to walk in to the room and asked her to please put it back, because as she said in broken English: "they are of our god's that we worship." This Indian woman's husband was a doctor in our small town, midwestern community.

It seems to me that at issue here are a number of important points to consider (I think): 1. Our culture is truly more "poly-thiestic" and "pluralistic" than ever before in our history - again largely because of the kind of immigration encouraged by things like the educational system, and even more so the globalistic economy. 2. The increasing presence and saturation of "foreign gods," and the emphasis and insistence of our cultures new and prevailing virtue called "tolerance," has often encouraged a kind of "syncretism." The playing field for all religious meta narratives has been unceremoniously leveled. Generally, they placed with equal weight, within the market place of ideas, and offered as an ideological buffet. The cultural mindset is that people are free to take or leave whatever doesn't really suit them personally and privately.


Implications for those of us who are Christian are enormous for the following reasons: 1. We have to overcome mis-perceptions of what "Christianity" really is - even, and particularly among those of us who are indigenous to this culture. 2. We can no longer assume Biblical knowledge and a respect for it. 3. Instead of the gospel being the transference of knowledge about who and what Jesus was, it must now, more than ever be the genuine "incarnational presence of Christ" among them - through us... 4. We gotta let go the "proof text" approach. 5. A new commitment to intellectual honesty. 5. The Churches historic missional connection with "westernization" permitted us initially to ride the coattails that came along with "progress," science and technology and the credibility that came along with them. Today, the West and historic westernization is under attack and because of Church's association with it... so is the Church. 6. More unity and collaboration among various denominations (still developing these latter thoughts...)

Commandment # 1 - "You Shall Have No Other gods Before Me"

Deuteronomy 5:7

Strikingly, the initial thing about this Commandment is how utterly unique this command would have been in a primitive culture that was incredibly polytheistic as well as syncretistic. It must have sounded REALLY strange to the Israelites within the Canaanite culture, that of all things, Yahweh would demand their singular fidelity. It would have appeared to them in fact as almost atheistic. And given the prevailing view of gods as being indigenous as well, down right dangerous.

There is no getting around it that the Christian God demands that we be exclusive over and against all other manifestations of any other gods in the world in which we live. For more on this, its worth reading: Four Views of Salvation in a Pluralistic World (Zondervan 1996) where the authors lay out this argument within a contemporary context. Additional studies involving the emerging phenomena of 'Post-Modernism" would also be very helpful as well! Jamie Smith's popular book: "Who's Afraid of Post-Modernism" is a good start.

The real issue for the Christian who buys into the exclusive demand of the 1st Commandment has to do with how this is perceived within our current contemporary culture. In particular, the ability to travel, internet search engines, the visual media and the phenomena of globalism has raised substantially, the intermingling of a myriad of global cultures. Some might find it fascinating, for example, that an increasing number of work environments are providing accommodation's to those who wish/need to worship at their office site.

The USA is post-Christian not only because of the culture's rejection of the Christian meta narrative; but also due to the emergence of, and embracing of, other meta narratives introduced from throughout the world. None of this is about to go away any time soon... if for nothing else, other than that globalism will not permit it to go away.

The ideological dynamic of our world is no different today than it was in the ancient history of Israel; and as it was in the Mediterranean Basin in the toxicity that it presents to other worldviews themselves. Therefore, I think its crucial to remember that those of us who claim an exclusivist position will often be perceived as: Insensitive, Against Diversity, Elitist, Arrogant, Uninformed, Uneducated, Non-Affirming, Naive, Simpleminded and Bigoted/Prejudiced. And some of us will be summarily dismissed, censored and even disciplined (within the work place etc.) because of the perception of "intolerance."

Our trajectory by which we engage our pluralistic, mult-cultural and poly-theistic culture must change. We can no long afford any traditional assumptions on this issue. Instead of confidently and exclusively, declaring from the front - to those who do not know God, we must carefully merge in from the side and walk alongside as we authentically live life with them. Let the power of the authenticity of our faith - the "in Christ" presence that the Apostle Paul talks so much about, to be a primary means by which we share the gospel.