Wrestling Part 2

In my last post I wrote about Cultural Relevance and the New thing God is wanting to do. I will continue that thought today.

One of the mistakes churches make in my opinion is trying to act too much like the world. Copying the Culture instead of crafting the culture. When Jesus came to this earth over 2000 years ago, he didn't fit in with the culture. As a matter of fact, he turned the religious culture on its head.

I believe that God is wanting to do the same today. Listen to this verse from Romans 12:2, "Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to it's level of immaturity, God brings out the best in you, develops well formed maturity in you."

As followers of Christ, we need to set the culture not reflect it. The difference between a thermometer and a thermostat is the perfect example. The thermostat's job, role and function is to set the temperature for the atmosphere around it. It defines how warm, cool, hot, cold, humid, dry the air or atmosphere will be around it. It has the power to change those things. The thermometer on the other hand, only reflects the temperature around it. It has no power to change anything and can only reflect what is already there.

For too long the church has acted like the thermometer when it has the power available to be a thermostat. We should set the culture around us, change it if it needs changed and define the culture according to God's Word. When all we do is reflect the atmosphere around us we are not using the power available to us.

My question for you today: Do you act more like a thermometer or a thermostat in your surroundings? What do you need to do to change the culture around you?

Wrestling

In my next few posts to the blog I am going to present you with some questiuons that I myself am wrestling with.

As a pastor, I spend a lot of time observing. Observing the culture and the people that make up the culture. I try to put myself in another's shoes. Try to identify with the way they feel and most importantly, I try to find out what is on God's heart for those I am observing.

A term that is overly used in society today is the phrase "Culturally Relevant." We ask ourselves different questions in regards to this subject; "Is the church culturally relevant?" "Is what we are planning on doing going to be relevant to the culture?" "How relevant is our programs?" "How relevant is our music?" "How relevant is the way we dress?" "How relevant is our teaching and sermons?"

But I think we need to change our mode of thinking. Pastor Matthew Barnett says this in regard to this subject. "The church should not be relevant, but revolutionary!" Being relevant means that we are trying to fit in to the culture but as a church we will always be one step behind. I think that being culturally relevant means that you are one step from being out dated.

The word of God in Isiah 43:19 says this: "See I am doing a new thing!" Notice it doesn't say I am going to copy what the world is doing and bring it into the church. It says a new thing.

I am not sure about you, but I need God to do a new thing in my life every day! I want Him to do a new thing in the church, in my family, in my marriage, in my kids, in my finances.... in every area of my life. I hope you do to.

Here is the key to the new thing. Perception. The verse goes on to say, "Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" or "Do you see it?" The key to the new thing that God is wanting to do in every area of your life is being able to see. Being able to perceive it.

My question for you today is this; What new thing do you want God to do in your life and when it comes will you see it?

Strong-Willed Leadership

I don't normally repost others articles but felt this was such a good article I wanted to post it in it's entirety. Interestingly enough, the book he mentions in the opening line, American Lion, is what I am currently reading.

Jon Meachem's Pulitzer-Prize-winning biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion, begins with a quintessential Jackson quote: "I was born for a storm, and calm does not suit me." (He includes another that is pure Teddy Roosevelt: "The darker the night, the bolder the lion.") He recounts how Jackson was beaten, scarred, and nearly killed as a fourteen year old boy for refusing to blacken the boots of a British officer.

A side note to Meachem's account is his insistence that Jackson's formidable will and mind were shaped in surprising degree by his faith. Jackson attended church services for three to four hours growing up. Public prayers in his Presbyterian church could last over twenty minutes; longer than many Presbyterian sermons nowadays. As a grown man, Jackson said he read three chapters of Scripture every day.

When reading this I thought of Jim Collins' famous description of the highest level of leadership. The truly transformational leaders differ in almost every imaginable respect except for two common denominators: they have a deep sense of humility, and an indomitable will. In church leadership, a good deal gets written about the importance and virtue of humility, but not nearly so much gets written about the need for an indomitable will.

We are a little distrustful of the whole notion of will in leaders. Willfulness comes pretty close to the essence of sin. And perhaps the highest prayer ever recorded is an expression of surrender: "Not my will, but yours be done."

However, there is a fundamental difference between a surrendered will and a weak will.

Jesus' surrendered his will. That meant he placed it in submission to his Father, to the mission his father gave him, and to the service of sacrificial love. But that did not mean he was weak-willed. To the contrary, it required a tremendous exertion of moral courage to defy power and authorities and influences that tugged on him from all sides trying to divert him from his calling.

An indomitable will is not the same as sheer stubbornness (being Swedish, this is something of an inherited trait.) Stubbornness lacks precisely the humility that makes learning possible, and gives conviction the flexibility needed to achieve ultimate goals. It is not egoism, which seeks to gain control for the gratification of the self.

At its heart, an indomitable will involves a sense of commitment; a binding of oneself to a task or a cause or a value so intensely that mere external forces are not allowed to sway or deter. At its best, in the words of Gerald May, it involves not willfulness but willingness—a giving of my will in the service of a greater mission.

So if you're involved in church leadership, ask yourself this question: How often have people close to you encouraged you to develop an indomitable will?

I have two main sources for this encouragement. One is a little group of old friends (or an old group of little friends) whom I've known far longer than I've worked at a church. Because they are not part of the church, they have no particular agenda other than wanting to call out the best in me. They are particularly situated to see where I am tempted to be discouraged or cave in to pressure rather than to persevere in the service of good. They strengthen my will.

The other source is God. When I am alone with him, the forces that drain my will are diminished of their strength. My choosing is both purified and strengthened. Amazingly, the One who demands the most surrender of my will is the One who wants and makes my will to be its strongest and best.

John Ortberg is editor at large of Leadership and pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California.