My Leadership Book Is...

 

Needed: Pastors as Spiritual Directors

Detroit

What is a "pastor?" Eugene Peterson says a pastor is, essentially, a spiritual director. One who guides and leads his flock into the life of God's kingdom. A pastor is not to be understood as a CEO, religious shop-keeper, Bible expositor, apostolic entrepreneur, or counselor.

One book that has shaped my understanding of "pastor" is Eugene Peterson's The Contemplative Pastor. I've read this book at least three times. I place it on my Top Ten Best Books Ever Read list.

Today my attention is again drawn to Peterson via Scot McKnight's revisiting of him here.

Adjectives that would describe a pastor include: "unbusy," "subversive," and "apocalyptic." We don't see that in a lot of pastors. Peterson has said:

“If you listen to a Solzhenitsyn or Bishop Tutu, or university students from Africa or South America, they don’t see a Christian land. They see something almost the reverse of a Christian land. … They see a lot of greed and arrogance. And they see a Christian community that has almost none of the virtues of the biblical Christian community, which have to do with a sacrificial life and conspicuous love. Rather, they see indulgence in feelings and emotions, and an avaricious quest for gratification.”

Uh-huh.

As George Barna discovered, ongoing spiritual formation into Christlikeness is almost nonexistent in the American church. McKnight writes: 

"The assumption was that the reception of correct doctrine by people who sat “under the Word” would automatically create the expression of correct, Christ-following lives. “Preach the Word in season and out…” “Preach the whole counsel of God!” It was as if the Great Commission was “Preach the Word” not “Make disciples of all nations.” The church-at-large had become horribly ingrown and self-seeking."

McKnight once attended a Q&A session with Peterson in New York City. He writes:

"Peterson and his wife, Jan, were the main guests of Gabe Lyons’ Q-ideas sessions in New York City. Through the generosity of good friends, I was able to attend. I was struck by the attendance of many young, enthusiastic leaders who affirmed the steadfast vision that Eugene offered for the pastor. I was one of the older attendees. Peterson has weathered the storm of much contentious push-back on his vision of pastor, but his gracious, persistent voice is still strong and magnetic, kind and discerning. Eugene is now the pastors’ pastor."

Though I've never met him, Eugene is certainly one of my pastors.

See:

The Calling of a Pastor

Counsel to the Pastors of America

Real Pastors are Servant Leaders

"Church" As a Colony of Heaven In a Country of Death

The Pastor: A Memoir, by EHP

The Absurdity of Christianity Without the Resurrection

 

                           (Redeemer sanctuary, awaiting Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday)

Perhaps, one day, someone will invent a car without an engine. But, at least for now, and far into the foreseeable future, if it doesn't have an engine that converts energy into motion, then it's not a car.

The same goes for the resurrection of Jesus. Liberal Christianity has invented a religion without a historical resurrection. For a description of how this has happened, see Tim Keller, Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter, chapter 1. 

Keller writes:

"Liberal Christianity has taught that it doesn’t matter whether these events in the story of Jesus’s life actually happened. All that matters is that Christians be good, ethical people who love others and make the world a better place. This is an effort to create a non-historical faith, one that isn’t grounded in what God has actually done in history, but only in what we do and how we live. Liberal Christianity even tries to read itself back into history as the original, true Christianity. It claims that the original Jesus was simply a human teacher of justice and love.

...This narrative, however, is not actually an updated version of Christianity. Rather, it is the creation of a different religion altogether...

...The stark difference between liberal Christianity and the original faith was put famously by H. Richard Niebuhr. He described liberalism thus: 

“A God without wrath 

brought men without sin 

into a Kingdom without judgment 

through the ministrations of 

Christ without a Cross.” 

And, he could have added, "without a resurrection." (pp. 3-4. I have read, over the decades, several liberal theologians who have created alternative religions and called it 'Christianity'.)

If it does not have the historical resurrection, then it's not Christianity. The apostle Paul knew this, as he wrote, in 1 Corinthians 15:13 ff.

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 

14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless 

and so is your faith. 

15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, 

for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. 

But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 

16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 

17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; 

you are still in your sins. 

18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 

19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, 

we are of all people most to be pitied.

Keller quotes a poem by John Updike, to illustrate the absurdity of Christianity  without the resurrection.

Make no mistake: 

if He rose at all 

It was as His body; 

If the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the 

molecule reknit, 

the amino acids rekindle, 

the Church will fall. 

It was not as the flowers, 

each soft spring recurrent; 

it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and 

fuddled eyes of the 

eleven apostles; 

it was as His flesh; ours. 

The same hinged thumbs and toes, 

the same valved heart 

that—pierced—died, withered, paused, 

and then regathered 

out of enduring Might 

new strength to enclose. 

Let us not mock God with metaphor, 

analogy, sidestepping, transcendence, 

making of the event a parable, a sign 

painted in the faded 

credulity of earlier ages: 

let us walk through the door. 

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché 

not a stone in a story, 

but the vast rock of materiality that in 

the slow grinding of 

time will eclipse for each of us 

the wide light of day. 

And if we have an angel at the tomb, 

make it a real angel, 

weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, 

vivid with hair, 

opaque in the dawn light, 

robed in real linen 

spun on a definite loom. 

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, 

for our own convenience, 

our own sense of beauty, 

lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, 

we are embarrassed by the miracle, 

and crushed by remonstrance.

Keller, Hope in Times of Fear (pp. 4-5)

In the Culture Wars, Our Job Is to Be Faithful

 

Robert P. George is one of my intellectual heroes (author; Prof. of Law, Princeton). Here is an interview with George, on the spiritual and intellectual battles we are fighting against deeply entrenched woke-ism (which he calls a fundamentalist and increasingly militant pseudo-religion) and secular progressive ideology. (For an excellent article on wokeism as religion, see "Wokeness and the New Religious Establishment.")

George closes the interview by quoting Richard John Neuhaus, as a reminder of the perspective we must keep.

“Remember, our job is to be faithful—ever faithful—standing boldly and fighting for what’s right; the victory will surely come, but its timing and terms are not up to us. The victory will come in God’s time and on his terms. We must stick to doing our job, and not try to do His. We are merely His instruments. So, however dark things may seem, never yield to despair. Leave the timing and terms of the victory to God. Be faithful—ever faithful.”

As Mother Teresa said,

How to Fail Well

 

(Monroe County)

We all fail. I have. I will.

How we handle our failures depends on our self-image. A healthy self-image allows us to fail well. An entitlement attitude causes us to fail poorly.

John Townsend writes:

"You need to learn to fail in healthy and redemptive ways, because fail you will. People with a healthy and accurate self-image don’t have a big problem with failure." (Townsend, The Entitlement Cure: Finding Success in Doing Hard Things the Right Way, p. 132)

Here, writes Townsend, is how failure is handled by someone with a healthy self-image. 

1. They experience disappointment.

2. They lean on God. "I need God's help and wisdom in this."

3. They find support. They talk with friends who have healthy self-images.

4. They learn. "What was my contribution to the problem? What do I need to change?"

5. They adapt. "It's time to swing the bat again and try things a different way."

"That’s how it should work when we fail. Since failure, and even repeated failure, is simply a given in life, then over and over again we go through these five steps, and each next time we fail well and at a higher level." (Ib., pp. 132-133)

The entitled person struggles to fail well. Townsend says they have two self-images, an external one, and an internal one. Then external image appears confident, even arrogant. The internal self-image of the entitled person is insecure and afraid. 

"Above all," writes Townsend, they are "risk-averse." "The entitled person is deathly afraid of taking a risk and failing... So he postures about his specialness, but he never gets anywhere because he remains frozen in his ability to take normal risks that everyone has to endure to get anywhere. His internal self-image says, “I can’t do this and I can’t try.”: (Ib., p. 133) 

Townsend counsels the following to help the entitlement person.

1. Understand that you are loved by God, not because of your competence, but because you are God's child. God loves you, by grace, not performance, success, or failure.

2. Try new things. No one does them well at first. As you struggle, even fail, keep the first point before you; viz., God loves you.

3. Practice, learn, get advice, fail, and adapt.

4. "Gradually, you begin doing things better. Now the self-image says, "I am loved, and I am competent."

Townsend concludes,

"This is what works. Love precedes confidence, but confidence can’t exist outside of failure and adaptation. When your self-image aligns with what is real and true about you — in other words, how God sees and experiences you— it works for you and not against you." (Ib., pp. 134-135)

Have You Been Hurt By the Church?

(Tree, in my back yard)

(I periodically re-post this to keep it in play.) 

I have hurt people.

I have been hurt by people.

I have met people who talk of being hurt by the church. Here are some things I think about this.

1. If you are a follower of Christ, then you are the church. You have been placed within the community, not as an outsider. You are one of the church's body parts. (See 1 Cor. 12:12-27) It is important to remember this in relation to what follows below. 

2. Some people who say they have been hurt by the church never give church leadership an opportunity to respond to their pain. They just leave. Some of them go and tell others, "I left that church because they hurt me." Some post this on social media. If you have been hurt, don't do that. That is unloving.

3. Never leave a church family because someone hurt you, unless you first try to correct the problem. Go to your pastor and share with them your situation. If that doesn't help, try this. If you choose not to do this, do not announce to the world that you've been hurt, because you never gave others a chance to listen and respond. That is not loving, and is a way of hurting back (vengeance).

4. Pay no attention to rumors, gossip, or slander. Be a person who follows this biblical counsel: "If you have something against someone, go to them." (Matthew 18:15)

5. Some who leave form a group, centered on the common denominator of being hurt by a church. This is a "hurt by the church" support group. If these people are Christians, they are forming another local church. This is because "church" is people, and wherever two or more Christians are gathered, that's "church." If they did not deal with their hurt properly, then eventually they will bring this to their new group. Then, the same thing will happen all over again (they will get hurt by someone in this group, leave, talk to others about it, etc.) Note also: healthy support groups not only share hurts, they provide solutions. A "hurt by the church" support group, if it is loving, should discern how it can help the church.

6. No church family is perfect. If you see something wrong in your church family, address it. And remember, you are not perfect or "above" others.  If you are part of any community it won't be long before you upset someone in that community. Search your own self and see whatever responsibility you may have. ("Search me O God, and know my heart. See if there is any wicked way in me." This applies to non-Christians, the non-religious, you name it, because hurting others, unfortunately, is part of the human condition. Just try to imagine, e.g., the number of people we have met with who were raised by atheist parents who hurt them.)

7. It is easier to tear down than build up. Anyone with a sledge hammer can demolish; it takes skill to construct. Your responsibility is to edify, not complain and destroy. Beware of coming off as the righteous one who stands in judgment of other church people.

8. Distinguish between being hurt by unkindness, and feeling hurt because someone does not affirm your particular theological beliefs, or your tastes. See here. If you do not affirm something I believe, I am not to respond to you by telling others how much you hurt me. To disagree is not to hurt; to be disagreed with is not to be hurt. But, sadly, some take it that way, probably because of unhealed wounds in their heart. (See, e.g., Jonathan Haidt on the American culture of "microaggressions," "safetyism," and the need to be "coddled.")

9. Jesus said "Blessed are the peacemakers." Be one.

10. You have been given a ministry of reconciliation. Do it.

11. Our real battle is not against flesh and blood. Therefore, if it has flesh and blood, don't battle against it.

12. Sadly, some churches are toxic and abusive. Some Christians unknowingly get in these churches. If this is you, you can attempt to address it with leadership. Leave if you are not listened to, and corrections are not made. If it is a toxic church, the likelihood of this happening is slim. In some cases it might be best not to bring this to leadership, but just get out, because in the process you could get abused even more. Do not abuse in return, but pray for them. (For information on what a toxic church is, read this, or this.)

13. Some Christians get hurt by anything. These are unhealed hurting people who will leave church after church after church. They have a spirit of victimhood and, sadly, live off it. They bring their problems into whatever becomes the next church they go to. Every pastor has seen this.

14. Never post on social media your grievances about some particular church you were part of. Such behavior is destructive, immature, and not reconciling or peacemaking. If you have done this, contact leadership and ask for their forgiveness.

15. When you feel hurt by someone in the church, this can be an occasion for growth. It is mostly in darkness that faith is tested and strengthened. Read this book, and this book, to see how this is possible.

16. Finally, in my thirty years at Redeemer, I know I have said and done things that have hurt others. When I discover this, I am saddened. If you have been hurt by me and want to talk with me, please contact me - johnpiippo@msn.com.   

One time I confessed to the entire church, asking forgiveness for something harsh I said in a sermon. (Thank you to those who forgave me!) I am so grateful for those who have loved me enough to come to me personally and share any grievance they may have against me. This has served to deepen our understanding of one another, and strengthen our friendship. I thank God for you! 

It Is Irrational and Unloving to Affirm All Beliefs

(I'm reposting this for someone.)

I was asked the question, "Would a Muslim be welcome in your church?"

My answer was, "Yes!"

And Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists are welcome, too.

I welcome all of them, as Jesus does the same. I would love to have them come. (I have had atheists come to Redeemer, who are mostly students who have been in my MCCC philosophy classes. A few of them have converted from atheism to theism, and then to Christianity.)

I say yes and amen to loving and welcoming all kinds of people.

Does this mean I affirm all the beliefs of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists? Of course not. No one can logically (coherently) affirm contradictory beliefs. Consider, for example, the following three mutually exclusive beliefs.

1) God does not exist (atheism, and Buddhism)
2) There are 330,000,000 gods (Hinduism).
3) There is only one God (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

It is not possible to say "true" to these three beliefs, held simultaneously.

What about John Lennon's song "Imagine?" It's one of the more non-affirming, exclusionary songs I've heard. "I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will be as one." But..   this imaginary "oneness" involves the eradication of religion - "and no religion too." Am I just imagining, or am I being marginalized? (Ask four billion religious people.)

 To believe something is, ipso facto, to deny many things. Beliefs, by nature, embrace and exclude. No one can affirm all the various beliefs [truth-claims] of the world's religions.

Going further, No one person affirms all the beliefs of any other person. The fact that I, or you, do not affirm the beliefs of someone else should not be shocking. Anyone who claims to affirm someone else's entire belief system is to be dismissed as unbelievable.

I had a philosophy student who believed The earth is flat. I liked him, but did not affirm his belief. Because his belief was wrong. ("Right and wrong" lie outside science, and and find their place in the arenas of philosophy and religion. See, e.g., atheist Stephen Jay Gould's "NOMA" principle.)

In the Jesus worldview, I welcome and love all people. I do not (because it cannot be done, epistemically) affirm all the beliefs of people. It is irrational to expect that I should do so. 

It is not unloving to say, "I think you are wrong about that." It is unloving, because untruthful, to treat people as if our different beliefs are harmonious.

(See "Welcoming and Sometimes Disaffirming." I just want to keep this ball in play.)

Thank You to Pastors Who Chaplained Me

La Jolla, California

Anyone want to be a pastor? If so, begin by reading Eugene Peterson's The Pastor. It will knock the "mega" right out of you.

I've been in many mega-meetings, and heard inspiring preaching and teaching. These speakers, in my life, have come and gone. If I've been influenced or affected,  it's more by their ideas and, of course, God speaking through them, to me. 

Far more significant in my life are the handful of pastors who flesh-and-blood-and-spirit flat-out shepherded me. If you are reading this now, you know who you are. You met with me, counseled me, prayed for me, prayed with me, one-on-one mentored me, put up with me, saw something in me, invested in me, performed my wedding, dialogued with me, argued with me, reasoned with me, entrusted me with responsibility, taught me, spoke into my life, had time for me, allowed me to call you at any time, interrupted your life for me, had me often in your home, guided me, influenced me, and loved me.

To the few of you: you are the only real pastors that I've known.

I thank God for you, and that you chaplained me.

See Mark Galli's excellent "Why We Need More 'Chaplains' and Fewer Leaders." I loved it. Here are some highlights.

• "The chaplain prays for people in distress, administers sacraments to those in need, leads worship for those desperate for God."
• The pastor-as-chaplain is at the beck and call of those who are hurting for God. He's not his own man. She is not her own woman.
• You won't mistake a pastor-chaplain for an entrepreneurial leader or a catalyst for growth. "No, the chaplain is unmistakably a servant."
• Our secular, capitalistic culture has seduced pastors into wanting to be mega-leaders and entrepreneurs. This is the pastor as successful business leader.
• Contrary to the successful business leader, Our Lord, Jesus, the Original Pastor, spent time and energy on healing hurting souls.
• At one point in Pastor Jesus's ministry he actually lost disciples. (See John 6:66)
• In Mark 10:42-45 we read: "Jesus called them to him and said to them, 'You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles like to be seen as "leaders," "entrepreneurs," "catalysts for growth," and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many'." (With slight paraphrase)
• So where in the world did we get the idea of "pastor" as anything but a "curer of souls?"
• Pastoral soul-healing has many dimensions.
• A pastor is "first and foremost a chaplain - [which] is fundamentally about the healing of souls—helping men and women, boys and girls, to become right with God, and therefore, right with others."

Shame & Guilt - Some Notes & Resources

(Trees at Redeemer)

What Is the Difference Between Guilt and Shame? How can we experience freedom from shame? Here are the notes and resources I presented in a seminar about this.

1. Shame Is Different than Guilt.

2. Shame and Guilt are emotions.

Shame expresses itself in thoughts like I am not enough; There is something wrong with me; or I don't matter.

Shame "is born out of a sense of “there being something wrong” with me or of “not being enough,” and therefore exudes the aroma of being unable or powerless to change one’s condition or circumstances." (Thompson, Kindle Locations 277-279)

Shame often has to do with a "lessening" of our worth and capacity. This lessening is deeper than a conclusion one logically arrives at. It is an emotion, a feeling, that one cannot be reasoned out of. Thompson says shame's essence precedes language; it seems to be woven into a person's DNA.

Shame says I am wrong. Guilt says something I have done is wrong. Shame refers to our being and worth; guilt is about morality. Shame is debilitating. Guilt is a rescue. A healthy, integrated person has a moral conscience that responds to right and wrong. 

The emotion of guilt, when given by God, is a good thing. We want, e.g., a person to feel guilty (show remorse) if they have hurt someone. "Guilt," writes Paul Tournier, can become "a friend because it leads to the experience of God's grace." (See Tournier, Guilt and Grace: A Psychological Study.)

3. Consequences of Shame

Psychiatrist Curt Thompson writes:

Shame is not just a consequence of something our first parents did in the Garden of Eden. It is the emotional weapon that evil uses to (1) corrupt our relationships with God and each other, and (2) disintegrate any and all gifts of vocational vision and creativity.

These gifts include any area of endeavor that promotes goodness, beauty and joy in and for the lives of others, whether that be teaching our first graders, loving our spouse well, managing forests, conducting healing prayer services, creating a new medical technology, offering psychotherapy or composing symphonies. Shame is a primary means to prevent us from using the gifts we have been given.

- Thompson MD, Curt. The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves (p. 13). 

4. Three Sources of Crippling Shame

5. One of the Hallmarks of shame is Judgment

Judgment refers to "the spirit of condemnation or condescension with which we analyze or critique something, whether ourselves or someone or something else. I may say to myself, I should have done better at that assignment. What is crucial is the emotional tone that undergirds those words." (Curt Thompson, Kindle Locations 335-337)

6. Shamed People Shame People

The act of being judgmental towards other people is rooted in self-judgment. Thompson writes:

"As I often tell patients, “Shamed people shame people.” Long before we are criticizing others, the source of that criticism has been planted, fertilized and grown in our own lives, directed at ourselves, and often in ways we are mostly unaware of.

Suffice to say that our self-judgment, that tendency to tell ourselves that we are not enough—not thin enough, not smart enough, not funny enough, not . . . enough—is the nidus [origin] out of which grows our judgment of others, not least being our judgment of God. The problem is that we have constructed a sophisticated lattice of blindness around this behavior, which disallows our awareness of it." (Kindle Locations 348-352)

7. Shamed People Don't Experience Grace

Grace, as C.S. Lewis understood it, is the Christian distinctive. By it, shame is overcome.

FREEDOM FROM SHAME

1 – TAKE EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE

2 Cor. 10:5 - We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 

As a follower of Jesus, your status is "in Christ."

You are a God-created, soulish, embodied, "in Christ" person. This means there are some things you are not.

You are not what you do. To define yourself by what you do is to live on a spiritual and emotional roller coaster that is a function of your accomplishments. Your identity does not depend on what you have accomplished. Your productivity does not define you. 

Your worth is not the same as your usefulness. (From Henri Nouwen)

You are not what you have. Do not define yourself by your stuff. Because when you lose any of it you will slip into the identityless darkness.

You are not what other people think of you. If people think well of you, say thank you. If people think ill of you, pray for them. But do not go up and down and in and out on the basis of others' affirmation and disaffirmation. Refuse to let other people define you.

YOU ARE WHAT GOD THINKS OF YOU. Period. Case closed. Colossians 1:27 says: To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

When you understand this in your heart, three things happen.

1.          You are set free from the punishing of the hierarchical honor-shame systems of your surrounding culture.

2.          You are free from the striving that happens on the ladder of the honor-shame hierarchy.

3.          You are free to love others.

2 – EXPERIENCE GOD’S GRACE

Grace, as C.S. Lewis understood it, is the Christian distinctive. By it, shame is overcome.

3 – SPEND MUCH TIME WITH GOD

4 – BE PART OF A GRACE-FILLED SMALL GROUP

5 – ASSEMBLE TOGETHER ON SUNDAY MORNINGS

SOME RESOURCES

For more on freedom from shame, see Lewis Smedes's excellent Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don't Deserve. This is one of the best books I have ever read!

Check out Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves.  

Marriage Counselors Don't Take Sides

                                     (Wedding reception at Redeemer)

Over the years Linda and I have told several maritally challenged husbands and wives, "We are not on your side." And added: "We are not on your spouse's side, either." We do tell the couple this: ather: "We are siding with your marriage and (if they have children) family."

Sometimes this is not good news for the marital partners. They want us to take their side in the war. But we can't take sides if we're going to save the marriage.

At this point a percentage of couples stop meeting with us. We are not their counselor any longer.

Most (not all) struggling marriages have systemic problems that both husband and wife are responsible for, even if one of them looks more like a victim than the other. "Both of you," we tell them, "are 100% responsible for your marital situation." 

For there to be success (= marital restoration, renewal, and transformation) the individual husband must look to God and then be searched out himself, taking responsibility for problems he brings to the marriage. The wife must do the same, to herself. if this happens (we've seen it!) then the chances of saving their marriage increase significantly.