One of the perpetuating myths of the Christian faith is that our great hope is that when we die we will go to heaven.
Read that again in case you are wondering if I made a mistake. I didn’t.
One of the perpetuating myths of the Xn faith is that our great hope is that when we die we will go to heaven.
Heaven is not our
great hope. Heaven is not what we are all hanging out for.
You may well go to
heaven when you die and that’s all good, but heaven is not the end game. If
you’re anything like me then heaven is not even particularly good news – in
fact in the way its often caricatured it even sounds kinda boring…
What if I told you
that the end game of the Christian story is far more spectacular and beautiful
and wonderful than heaven could ever be?
You see Easter – this most central celebration of the Christian faith – is not about a man dying and going to heaven. Easter is about a man – God’s son – dying for the sins of the world and then rising again to life in a new body as the start of God’s plan for renewing and restoring all of his creation – for making this earth good again – for our resurrection to life again in a new body on a new earth.
In Revelation 21 The
Bible says that God is going to make all things new and our ultimate
destination is not ‘heaven’ whatever that may mean to you – but it is to live
with him on this earth in its restored form – without sin, sickness, poverty
and injustice – God is going to press re-set on creation – us included.
That is our great hope. And that is good news.
That there is a
God who loves us enough to find a way to restore our own brokenness and to give
us a second crack at life on his earth.
May you know that
God and his love over this Easter period.
A few weeks back I started to form up the shape of a book I would like to write around the place of the ‘bi-vocational’ pastor in the future of the church, as I sense it will become increasingly the norm for our communities. It will share some of my own learning – most of it accidental and only gleaned in hindsight.
I started by using Covid as an analogy for being forced into change – 3 weeks ago – before any serious changes – let alone church shut downs and pastors cutting their working hours. My question was ‘if we had known Covid-19 was coming would we have changed how we operate as a society?’
My hunch is probably not – because we usually wait for the effects of change to impact us before choosing to act. We are notoriously capable of looking away until we feel pain.
This is certainly true of us as the church. I was asked recently what shape I imagined the local church in Australia would take over the next 20-30 years – hardly a long time, but given our current rates of change still a significant enough period. I gave the same answer I gave when asked that question 20 years ago:
‘The big will get bigger, the small will get smaller and those in the messy middle will find it harder and harder to survive.’
I gave the same answer as 20 years previous because I have observed it happening in the time since I was first asked. Bigger churches are merging with (or taking over) smaller ones, smaller churches are sometimes calling it quits or joining with larger churches, while those who are neither big nor small are running harder and harder just to keep pace with what is required of them. Its exhausting just watching it all unfold.
Recent years have seen church life become more complex and difficult by the day no matter what size you are. Government compliance regulations for Not For Profit organisations have created a whole raft of administrative challenges for the church to engage with. It all takes time – and money – and lots of it. The Royal Commission into institutional abuse has exposed our failings and forced us to review our practices and develop new ways of operating that are safe, albeit onerous.
And while pastors are currently able to earn a fairly decent income thanks to the non reportable fringe benefits tax, it seems only a matter of time before this ‘benefit’ is removed (or surrendered?) and the ground shifts yet again, as churches are faced with significant pay increases as they are unable to provide the equivalent pre-tax wage – or pastors choose to live at a much more moderate level.
Add to this an aging boomer generation who faithfully bankrolled much of the previous era of church life and we find ourselves with an emerging generation who (we have conditioned to) think in terms of ‘user pays’ rather than regular, cheerful, sacrifical giving. It’s not that this new crew aren’t capable of generosity, but simply that they often prefer to target their giving to specific causes rather than contributing to the ‘family budget’ in the form of staff salaries and operational costs. Perhaps the church needs a ‘gofundme’ page?… Although I doubt these will exist in 30 years time either.
We are already facing an adminstrative squeeze and it is inevitable that this will flow over into a financial squeeze, requiring us to think more creatively about how we sustain ministry as churches.
The struggles we face are those that come from the ‘professionalisation’ of the pastoral vocation – struggles that wouldn’t have existed 50 years ago. In the 60’s and 70’s Pastors earned a very moderate stipend from a supportive and stable congregation who gave regularly, if not always joyfully, to the work of the church, but the pastoral role in that time was primarily a vocational one rather than the ‘career path’ it has now become for some. While the ‘calling’ may still be there, there is a much greater expectation that the role will be a full time, professional one and paid appropriately so that the pastor will be able to live at approximately the same standard of living as the congregation.
My strong hunch is that in this rapidly changing world the majority of what I will refer to as ‘neighbourhood churches’ – those of 60-150 people – will sooner or later go the way of the local hardware store when confronted with a monolith like Bunnings entering their territory. A small minority of these churches will find a way to survive and thrive against the odds, but most will be unable to compete with these franchised behemoths who enter cities and suburbs with seemingly limitless resources and launch an instant church complete with, full band and stunning social media library all within a few months.
Our culture, and to some extent the church itself, has raised a generation of consumers so we shouldn’t be surprised when our congregations behave in consumeristic ways. When faced with the choice of the small church with the struggling kids and youth groups and the barely passable music or the glitz, bright lights and amazing programs of the super-churches your average consumer already knows instinctively which way to jump.
That said, unless healthy ‘neighbourhood churches’ continue to exist as prophetic alternatives to a ‘bigger is better’ mindset, then I suggest that in the next 20-30 years we will see Western Christianity become so conflated with consumerism that we will lose any right to speak of the ‘good news of the Kingdom of God’ when the good news we are drowning in has more to do with our own affluence and aspirational lives that any priorities Jesus spoke of.
In coming years it is my prediction that countless smaller churches will ‘merge’ with larger churches as they drown in administrative overload and as they struggle to pay the wages of their staff and keep their buildings maintained. It will just be easier to shut up shop and collectively move to join with another larger group who have already got admin, legalities and finances under control.
A small number will will move into homes and find their community in that way, but most will choose the ‘services’ offered by a larger organisation.
If the neighbourhood churches are to have any kind of future then one of the re-thinks we need to begin doing is around the place of the ‘pastor’, or whoever the primary leader of the church turns out to be. Of students in theological seminaries in preparation for pastoral ministry, my hunch is that very few are considering that they will work in anything less than a ‘full time’ ministry situation. However full time paid roles are going to be much harder to come by in the years ahead and I would suggest now is the time to be considering how we can help our pastors be genuinely and effectively bi-vocational.
If we start to shift the thinking now then we will be ready for what lies ahead. That is a purely pragmatic and to some degree economic reason to pursue bi-vocational ministry but after 12 years of running a business and leading a church I would suggest there are multiple benefits that come from this approach to pastoring (none of which were apparent to me until I found myself actually in the space and experiencing it.)
The time to adjust the rudder is now – to begin pointing the ship in a different direction. It’s less a nuance and more a brutal paradigm shift for pastors. We have seen full time ministry as the goal for so long that it will challenge us to both release ourselves from that identity and release the leadership of the church from such a tight grip.
————-
I wrote that 3 weeks ago and now we are scrambling and wondering about the shape that the future will take. I believe we ought to think seriously about how we create a number of models of bi-vocational ministry that allow pastors to bring the benefits of the marketplace into the church while also creating an income stream that sees them not dependent on the financial capacity of the church.
How have you found yourself responding to the events of the last month?
I’d suggest our response is shaped by at least 4 factors
Our individual ‘psych makeup’
The information we are taking in and the sources we draw from
Our own life circumstances at this time
Our perception of God and how he operates.
If you are naturally anxious, have been listening indiscriminately to every scrap of news available, have just lost your job and your notion of God is shaped by ideas of vengeance and the like then chances are you are living in terror.
Only last night a friend shared a post from ‘breaking news’ apparently reporting that Putin had set 500 lions loose on the streets of Moscow. In crazy times crazy news becomes almost believable. Thankfully today we have Snopes to shout down the urban myths that previously would have started to sprout. Apparently Mark McGowan is secretly signing a deal with the bikie gangs to patrol the streets and round up anyone out and about without cause… I just made that up – so you won’t find it on Snopes…
So part of coping with this time is knowing who you are. Personally, I am guilty of ‘underplaying’ these types of crises and I am having to lift my own game to take it seriously. I tend not to get scared, but curious, maybe even a little bit excited at what may develop – and I don’t mean that in terms of how people suffer – but more in regards to how our world may change and what new challenges and opportunities we may have in front of us. That’s me. I’m also a little too much ‘she’ll be right’ for the current scenario so I am having to adjust appropriately.
So pay attention to your own psychological makeup. If (like me) you find it easy to be relaxed and a bit blase then you probably need to listen to good information and behave differently. If you’re a panicker then you probably need to sit with someone who can calm you down and assure you – the world will go on.
Then there’s our information sources. I have the benefit of an education that has taught me to listen, read and think critically. I’m a strong believer that newspapers are businesses that need to earn money and scary news sells better than calming news. Stats, horror stories and apocalyptic type news will always make more money than someone telling us that actually it will all be ok if we stay calm and follow the instructions.
I source information from lots of different places and try to filter it thru a ‘what have they got to gain from saying this?’ type of lens. If you’re a panicky person then you need to slow your news-watching and especially your facebook scrolling as that will only add to unnecessary fear. If you’re a little cynical then its time to let that go too. You don’t have to trust the newspapers, but at least source some consistently accurate information to help you understand the real situation.
Our life situation greatly impacts on how we deal with this crisis. If your job is shaky and your mortgage is large then you are probably worried – so you struggle to look away from the news as it impacts you significantly. Your challenge here is to not panic – do not press the panic button. You will be ok. Seriously – people have got thru way harder stuff.
We happen to be in a pretty good space in that our ‘earning season’ is almost over. We had a good year and we are headed into an expected (and longed for) slow down. We have had to cancel our trip to South Oz which is a bummer and I’m not looking forwards to a lockdown when it comes, but there are many in far worse situations
As for our perception of God… this is really important if we are people of faith. Some may well proclaim this an act of God. (I doubt it is.) Others will be confused by why God even would allow this to take place and then others know God – really know him and know that this is not his doing, but by staying close to him we find inner strength to keep going. My own perception of God begins with the conviction that God is good. If this isn’t true then I figure we are all screwed, but if God is good then I can trust him to help me in this time.
I’m very curious about how we can still ‘be church’, but with a highly digital element. I’m curious to see how the world changes and how people’s worldview gets disrupted in this time. But I have absolute confidence that in this time God has not looked away – he hasn’t called it quits on creation. He is as devastated as any of us at the tragedies that are taking place in his world.
So there’s just 4 lens thru which to consider your own responses and practice in light of where we are at.
What can you do?
Pray for our leaders – its a crappy thing to have to lead a country thru. They need our prayers for clarity and good discernment. And cut them a break. This is their first time doing this so if they get some stuff wrong don’t tear them apart. I am not Scomo fanboy, but him and his crew are genuinely giving it their best shot so seriously – SHUT UP with the nagging. If its so simple then go and do it yourself.
Look out for those we know who are vulnerable – the lonely, elderly, the poor – the people Jesus would see if he were here. Call someone or text them to see how they are going. Not rocket surgery… But often we don’t because we get inward focused.
Do the right thing – Right now I’m envisaging a total lockdown in the next month – right around the time the autumn swells hit our coast. its my absolute fave time of year. But if we are in lockdown then we will have to chose to miss those days. I will have to do the right thing and stay home. Oooooh… that is sooooo hard!
Get on board – if you’re a churchie, god botherer type then us pastor types want to encourage you to come to the party as we try new stuff and new ways to be church. It probably won’t be for ever, but along the way I think we will discover some valuable stuff that will reframe how we operate when we come back together… Let’s face it – you can’t go anywhere and you’ll probably be stuck at home surfing FB anyway so tune into the Sunday gig!
Anyway some reflections for those who are looking around for the panic button but also for these who still think it’s all a bit over top. The Corona virus is here to stay now, so best we figure out how to ‘do business’ with it around.
So apparently it’s ‘un-Australian’ to hoard toilet paper and anything else you can get your hands on that may later be in demand.
It’s un-Australian to fight in super-markets and abuse people in your quest to get there first.
It’s un-Australian to behave badly… Except I’ve seen the carnage. I’ve been to the shops and seen the empty shelves.
What if we’re kidding ourselves? What if its actually more us than we would ever want to admit?
What if we suck?
I’m serious. Could it be that we hold ourselves in a little too high esteem sometimes? Of course there are people out there doing the right thing, but their nationality has nothing to do with it.
I heard the other day an English commentator saying that they ‘pull together in hard times’ because that’s what it means to be British. Couldn’t we simply substitute British with Australian?… Brazilian? Spanish?… Don’t we all like to think that we all work together when it really matters?
Perception and reality are two different things though. We can tell ourselves a story and not live up to it.
Or we can turn the ship around and be the story we tell ourselves. But I’m banking on that being tricky without a vision of a world where others matter more than ourselves. When Jesus prayed ‘your kingdom come on earth as in heaven’ this is what he had in mind – and it has nothing to do with nationality.
When the music stops where will we all be? It’s an interesting question and I have to admit I’m curious to see how it all plays out for our churches when some level of normality is restored.
This week Corona concern levels have ramped right up to ‘crikey’ (or if you’re English ‘well I never…’) and we are all having to explore other ways of ‘doing church’. The last few days saw those of us in church leadership all scrambling to some degree, whether it was to create stay at home ‘livefeeds’, digital ‘zoom’ gatherings or simply devolving into smaller (and then even smaller still) communities.
We met as leaders on Thursday evening when gatherings of over 100 indoors were prohibited. There was no question that just because we were 80 or 90 we were ok to press on. We agreed to create house groups for people to meet in and to move ahead with our focus on the gospel of Mark led by our local people. Pretty easy really.
By Friday evening Scomo had declared a limit of 1 person per 4sqm making house groups trickier still. Men in the shed… women in the lounge-room, kids… umm.. on the verandah?… Or just go outside together and enjoy the autumn weather?…
It’s still doable.
But… being Corona compliant keeps getting trickier and with each new measure those prone to fear and anxiety felt their levels raise a notch. If we continue to follow suit then within a fortnight we will all be in lockdown and communicating online rather than in person. And I know there are some who advocating that we don’t leave home at all even now.
I’m not sure how long we will be in this new mode, but it seems we are being told to think of 6 months. That’s a long time for the world to be changed so radically. I realise those who die are the real victims of this virus, but I am really curious as to what impact it will have on the church landscape.
When the music stops will people want to come back to church? Is Naked Pastor’s cartoon too close to the bone?
Or maybe they will realise that they actually never left and their imagination of what church is will have been stretched and reshaped?
Will we pastors survive with our paid roles still intact. The Facebook video of Kevin Copeland crowing to his audience not to stop tithing feels obscene – as if this were the first thought on most people’s minds… I doubt anyone is thinking ‘I might lose my job – how are we going to tithe?’ (If you are then you’re in the wrong church.)
Many of us as pastors will be less visible than we normally are and those who see church as ‘fee for service’ will drop their ‘fee’ to accomodate the drop in service. I doubt we will all come thru this with our jobs intact.
What then?
Do we simply gather up those who have returned and soldier on? If we have 4 full time staff do we sack 2 or do we all drop to half time? Who can afford to do that?
We all know that once a habit gets broken its harder to re-start it. We have just planted a church in Yanchep – when I say ‘just’ its over 18 months old – but the bonds formed there aren’t as tough and fibrous as those we have after 10 years at Quinns. What will 6 months of disconnectedness mean for our people here?
Then there’s the question of what we pastors do with our time during this period. Do we keep crafting sermons to deliver online, do we call each person to see how they are going? Do we somehow ‘look busy’ because we can’t afford to be seen to be on a Netflix binge?
How do we as churches not become consumed with meetings and gatherings but instead ask how do we love, bless and serve the world we are a part of? Surely that has to form the centrepiece of whatever we do during this time?
I don’t have many answers to these questions, but I’m actually (apart from the death bit) a little excited to see how it all unfolds.
My only sense of what to do is that it starts with stillness and a quiet confidence that the church has been doing this stuff a long time. We don’t need to panic – not even a little. If lockdown hits us then perhaps we thank God for it and we use the experience to learn stillness and contemplation and perhaps in those moments, that evolve into hours we may encounter God in ways we never have before.
Yesterday my 17 year old son Sam challenged me to an arm wrestle. The last time he tried this he was 11 and it didn’t end well for him – no surprises there. This time he’s 17 and in pretty good shape so this one was going to be just a little harder. I won’t tell you who won, but I do want to think about this thing we call ‘old man strength’ because it’s a real thing.
Lately I’ve been doing some reflection on what the future holds, as we are currently in a role shift at church where our two younger guys will be leading QBC and Yanchep Church and Danelle and I will move back into support roles. I have been trying to imagine what I/we could do of real value over the next 20 years – which would take us through to 75. I kinda thought 75 might be a good age at which to begin to slow down and lower my expectations of myself – to cruise into port with the engines off.
Then I read Joshua ch 14 this morning and had that idea utterly trashed. I’ve been struggling with reading this book each morning – partly its contentious content (genocide) and partly that it’s plain boring. Reading about the division of land among tribes is right up there with studying the phone book.
But I stumbled on ch 14 early this morning, where Caleb comes to Joshua and says ‘Ok mate – so here we are a whole 45 years on from the promise Moses made to us about entering the land and settling there.
‘Remember?!’
How could Joshua forget a moment like that?
‘We went and checked out Canaan and came back convinced we could take it. Remember?…’
So this 85 year old is standing before his mate Joshua asking for what is due to him in that promise. And as I read that I had a mental image of him quietly moving into a beautiful, lush land and settling there with his clan and spending his final days in ease and comfort.
Hmmm… Not so.
Read on to hear how Caleb sees the world. Old man strength is about to reveal itself.
“So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.””
(Joshua 14:10-12 NIV)
The dude is 85…
85 years old and he’s ready to fight anyone who stands in his path.
In his view he is just as strong now as he was at 40 years old, and honestly there is no way he has the physical capacity he once had, but mentally and in terms of faith he’s a beast.
He’s not going to quietly plonk down in a little patch of paradise and sip lattes. He is going to drive out the Anakites – the giant like, warmongering tribe who engendered terror in the rest of Israel.
He has seen God at work before – many times. He has lived a life of faithfulness so at 85 he’s not scared – because he knows his God and he knows just what is possible when he is leading the way and when he follows him wholeheartedly.
So I feel like I’ve set the bar a bit low.
Quite seriously – this morning was one of those occasional personal revelations you get from God where he says ‘Listen up… Come on… Really? You think slowing down at 75 is gonna be it? You need to dream and plan for getting to 85 with energy to burn!’
We have been in vocational ministry now for 30 years and I am 55 years old. If this happens – that we get to live thru to 85 – then we are at the halfway point and maybe our best is yet to come.
Actually I have no doubt that is true, so as from now the bar has been re-set from ‘slowing down at 75’ to reaching 85 with courage, faith and passion to burn.
I was planning to surf thru to 70 and take a day at a time after that, but perhaps this needs adjusting too 🙂 I’ve never seen an 85 year old in the line up – not yet anyway…
Oh and who won that arm wrestle?.. if you’ve read this far you deserve to know… Let’s just say ‘old man strength is a real thing’…
Back in August 2018 Sam and I took off to the popular Philippine Island of Siargao on a surfing trip. It’s renown for its world class wave – ‘Cloud 9.’
So we flew via Cebu, landed, rented a scooter and made our way up the east coast to a tiny town (that shall remain nameless) where we were to spend 5 days. On arrival the surf was perfect and while Sam battled a flu I enjoyed some of the best waves I have ever had.
Food options were pretty limited, so if you left your evening meal until after 7 then you ran the risk of not eating at all – or having to scooter to the next village in the hope of finding a small roadside eatery still open.
One night when we had left it a little too late we made our way to the local burger joint – right at the back of town, hoping we could still get a feed. Lucky for us they were still open so we entered and asked for a menu.
‘I do burger’ the owner replied when we asked about menus.
‘What kinds of burger?’ I asked.
‘Burger,’ she replied.
‘Hamburger? Cheeseburger? Chick…’ I was trying to help.
‘Burger’ she said again. Clearly I wasnt understanding her.
I looked at Sam and smiled. He looked at me and said ‘I’m thinking… ummm… Burger!’
‘Yeah me too’ I said.
‘2 Burgers?’ she asked.
‘2 Burgers’.
We chuckled as she left and wondered what we had signed up for. I had memories of an evening in an Irish pub where Sam ordered a hamburger and literally got a neat patty between two slices of a bread roll. For $30 we had hoped for more…
It took all of 5 minutes for the waitress / owner / chef to whip up 2 burgers and bring them out to us. And bizarrely enough (because we did not see this coming at all) the Burgers were amazing! They were perfectly cooked, with salad and sauces and after a couple of bites we called her over to place another order.
‘Can we have another one each?’ I asked
‘Burger?’ She confirmed – as if there were other options.
‘Burger’ I confirmed.
And so we enjoyed two sensational burgers in a tiny little joint in the backside of nowhere. We left and laughed about the limited menu options at the burger house but it did remind me of one thing.
Sometimes you just need to do one thing well in life. Pick just one thing and excel at it. She had done this and the product was world class.
I sometime like to ponder that question ‘if I could only give my life to one thing, what would it be?’ It’s a sharpening question – one that helps you distill your sense of calling and vocation.
Currently I’m a retic bloke and a pastor and before that I’ve been a coach a director of a mission org and a Phys Ed teacher.
But if I could only pick one thing to do exceptionally well for the rest of my life… It would be…
How you answer that question brings focus and clarity to what you are doing now as well as asking why you are spending time in other areas.
I might get bored with one focus- but I do know that if I lasered my life’s activities with that kind of sharpness I just may do something extraordinary.
It took reading Damascus by Christos Tsoilkas to remind me yet again that my perception of the lives of biblical characters has been shaped more by the flannelgraph than any other media.
Yeah – even at 55 I still mentally envisage Jesus as he looked in the kids’ stories, David as a sweet young lad, Goliath as a terminator type figure and Samson as a brute.
The above flannelgraph of image is of Paul and Silas in one of the most spotlessly clean Roman prisons – a far cry from what was likely reality.
If you like your flannelgraph faith and don’t want it disturbed then best you stay away from this novel, because it shatters any shiny images of Paul and Silas singing happily in jail and replaces them with images of filth and brutality.
I discovered Damascus after listening to Tsoilkas on an ABC podcast, where he described his faith journey from Greek Orthodox to evangelical to atheist and self imposed exile because of his homosexuality. The Paul character he creates is one who struggles with his own sexuality and his worthiness before God – a firey and yet tortured believer who genuinely seeks God, but is also conscious of his own brokenness. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether his interpretation of Paul has any merit.
The story shifts time frames with every chapter, and gets narrated by numerous different people so you have to stay on your toes to follow what is happening. It hangs loosely around the biblical story, but also draws from the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, with Thomas cast as Jesus’ unbelieving twin brother.
Where Tsoilkas excels is in his graphic descriptions of the first century world. No other author has taken me there like he has. Even reading scripture itself has often felt one dimensional, but Tsoilkas captured the sheer depravity of the Roman world and placed it alongside the beautiful counter-cultural living of the church and their ever present anticipation that ‘he will come soon’.
Without giving it away (although the story ought not be a surprise) Tsoilkas leads us into the Roman world by introducing to various characters, both real and imaged.
He writes of Lydia and shows us her (imagined) conversion and the radical, underground expression of church she is welcomed into where there are no ‘slave or free, Jew or Greek’. She is astonished at this new community that has been created and she quickly becomes a devoted member. Her future in this new kingdom lies in rescuing the female babies being offered to Demeter and living in a cave on a hillside while she is taunted as a witch by those who come near her.
Another section is told from the perspective of Paul’s jailer and opens with a visceral description of a wild pagan ceremony where animals are killed and their blood is drunk in hope that the actions will reward Vrasas (the jailer) with the birth of a son rather than a daughter. The chapter goes on to show Vrasas’ puzzled relationship with Paul and we hear his internal monologue as he observes the way the Christians love one another.
I loved this book and found myself not wanting it to end. Tsoilkas said that he spent an entire year researching the first century world before he even put pen to paper and the result is spectacular. I hope I haven’t oversold it, but to me it was one of the richest and most engaging novels I have read in a long time. And to those who are likely to dismiss it as an abomination etc etc – just read it as a NOVEL – not as another paraphrase of scripture. Enjoy what you can and dismiss what bothers you.
This was how a conversation began between Sam and myself this week. He has been working with me for a couple of weeks and sometimes we get into conversations about the bigger things of life. This was one of those days. It began like this:
‘Hey dad – no offense… but your life looks so boring and tedious. I really wouldn’t want to finish up with a life like yours.’
I’ve learnt not to get immediately defensive (even) when someone – your own son – says that the things you are currently giving your life to appear droll and uninteresting.
‘Ok – what do you mean by that?’ I ask. I’m genuinely curious as to what he sees even if I do immediately want to smack him around the head at the same time.
I won’t try to put exact words in his mouth but the essence was that the predictability and routine nature of my simple suburban life was fairly abhorrent to him. He doesn’t ever want to find himself settled in a similar kind of existence where the adventure has been leeched out of life and replaced with a kind of lemming like conformity. (He has written his own take on this conversation on his own blog. He’s a fantastic writer so head over and get disturbed by him – but finish this first.)
‘Ok – so what are you hoping for?’ I asked, looking to dig deeper into what shape he was hoping his life would take.
He began to speak of freedom, adventure, spontaneity and the kind of unrestrained life that can be more easily envisioned when you have no ongoing responsibilities like kids… a job… a mortgage… friends… even a sense of calling
I heard where he was coming from because I remember offering a similar critique of my own father’s life at around the same age. I don’t remember the conversation going all that well. I was convinced he had ‘sold out’ to middle class conformity and if he truly believed the words of Jesus he would sell it all, give it to the poor and live a more Christlike kind of life.
Perhaps I was a tad idealistic. I was 18, I had just read the whole New Testament focussing on the ‘justice’ passages and I was convinced that all wealth was destructive and that we needed to rid ourselves of our allegiance to (and ownership) of wealth if we actually wanted to follow Jesus. I wanted dad to sell everything and give it away. The fact that I had nothing in my own bank account at the time may have helped me be bold.
As we chatted I asked him if he wanted to have kids. ‘Not any more – they tie you down’
‘No kidding…’ I said.
‘A house?’
‘Nope – a caravan would be fine’
‘A wife?’
‘Maybe…’
‘A job?’
‘Hmmm…maybe…’
One of the statements I have used consistently around my kids is that ‘life is a series of trade offs.‘ If you want ‘x’ you may not be able to have ‘y’, because that’s just how things work. You want complete autonomy and freedom? Then a stable job is tricky. You want a family? Then suddenly you lose the right to make all decisions based on your own desires – you now have at least 2 people in the mix if not more. Life is always going to be a series of trade offs.
It’s not hard to ‘unpick’ some of the things he was speaking of as hopes and ambitions – but I actually didn’t want to do that. In the conversation I found myself torn between wanting to justify my own way of life and wanting to critique his critique. Perhaps better just to reflect again on the life I now find myself living… Is it to any degree inspiring or is it just another typical suburban existence?
More the point am I living the life I am called to and created for?
There was a period in life when I used to have an email footer that was a quote from Helen Keller – ‘Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.’ I don’t think it was an accurate description of my life, but it was a statement I held up as an ideal – to live courageously and adventurously rather than just ‘existing’. It was how I wanted to live and to some degree it was a rudder for inspiring me to make some courageous and unconventional decisions. (That said, I doubt many would rate my life as highly adventurous.)
I remember at 26 my dream was to head off to the Philippines and serve as a sports missionary over there. The fires of adventure were burning so I quit my teaching job after just 4 years of work and then went to Bible college to get ready for this new venture. Along the way I met Danelle, an important and pivotal meeting with the Philippine mission leader fell thru, and then our church needed a youth pastor. Strangely I felt like I should apply for the job. Even more strangely they took me on… And so my life as a pastor began.
I think it was around 10 years of ‘pretending’ to be a pastor when I finally cottoned onto the fact that the ‘missionary’ calling was still deep and strong in my life. I never really gelled with the whole pastoring thing and my attention fell far more outside the church than in. It was during one of our weekly pastor’s meetings at Lesmurdie Baptist that I had a rather weird God encounter that served as a ‘reset’ for my vocation.
One of our pastors had invited a ‘prophetic’ dude (think ‘crazeeee’) to come and join us and to speak a prophetic word over each of us. He did the other two guys first and offered what I thought were fairly ‘horoscope’ like insights. So when he came to me I was just ready to get the whole thing over and done with. I believed in the prophetic, but I was also somewhat skeptical – especially of people who called themselves prophets. Then he prayed for me and as he spoke articulated an image that he had in his mind. ‘You’re standing on a beach and you’re looking out at the ocean where there is a mass of people and your focus is on the ones who are drowning – you don’t see the swimmers – they aren’t in your field of vision – but you do see the ones going under and that is where your heart is. This is who God made you to be.’
Well … he kinda floored me. I hadn’t expected anything helpful, let alone an insight that was both pointed and directive. I had been struggling with the whole ‘pastor’ role and what he had in effect done was reaffirm my sense of calling as a missionary. I resonated deeply with that image. From that day I have never looked back and while I have been leading a local suburban church for the last 11 years I always remind people that I am not primarily a pastor.
I tell that story because it was significant in re-orienting my life and as I prayed and reflected more I sensed that for some reason God was calling me to be a ‘missionary’ in middle class Australia.
‘Middle class Australia? Really?’ I sighed.
Can you think of a ‘people group’ less inspiring and un-sexy than middle class suburbanites? I couldn’t. I still can’t.
When I joined up with Forge back in 2003 it seemed everyone had a sub-culture of some sort they were seeking to connect with – think surfers, goths, gamers, gays etc, but the more I prayed and the longer I spent trying to sense who God was calling me to, the more I felt he was definitely sending us into the burbs to try and be the presence of Jesus there.
So we have been in the midst of suburban mission for the last 17 years, initially in Butler and then since June 2011 in Yanchep.
When we established ‘Upstream’ back in the Butler days it was with a vision of leading a community of people who would live in the culture but who would also live differently – prophetically – as followers of Jesus and representatives of the kingdom of God. We did our best at this, but I’m sure to some our lives simply looked like any other suburban life.
And right now – my life may also look very conformist. Yesterday as I spoke in church about how we manage wealth I said again that our lives ought to be distinctive, inspiring and maybe even confronting to those around us. To quote Mike Frost, we ought to live ‘questionable lives’, where people are puzzled at the way our lives are configured and arranged.
I’m not sure how good a job of that I am doing these days, and I am not about to try and spruik my self justifications on here. But my son’s comments have given me cause to reflect over the last few days – to consider again to what extent I am living in my vocation and calling and to what extent I have ‘gone native’. Am I no longer distinctive and just one of the crowd?
There is of course no easy answer to the question. But the challenge of constant reflection is a good one. It forces you back to asking why do we do what we do. Is it necessary to live n the house we do – to own the cars we do – to have a caravan sitting in our driveway unused for much of the year? How does our life speak of the inspiring and transformative goodness of God rather than the results of living a decent upwardly mobile life?
I’m still pondering the answers to those questions and I’m deeply conscious that my life has all the trimmings of a middle class existence that has gone to plan. I certainly don’t feel guilt for that, but the questions of ‘what next?’ are strong in my mind.
I don’t think I can write about my own life situation on here comfortably so if you want to know what I think then buy me a coffee 🙂
Back when I was a Phys Ed teacher I used to love coaching athletics and helping our runners work on improving their technique to be the best they could be. One area we worked especially hard on was baton changing, knowing that relay events are worth more at carnivals and that the key to winning is not simply in having the fastest runners but in having runners who will get the baton around the track the fastest. This means baton changes were practiced until we were utterly sick of them, because the fastest runners who can’t change batons simply don’t win relays, but good runners who never lose speed can often perform very well.
More recently I have been reflecting on baton changing in our church setting at QBC and YCC – a process we will implement intentionally over this year.
The last time I was involved in one of these I was the ‘young guy’ (37) and was being ‘handed the baton’ by Garth Wootton the senior pastor of Lesmurdie Baptist. It was the ‘pastor as CEO era’ and I was deemed to have more of the visonary/strategic gifts needed to lead a church, while Garth’s strengths were more in pastoral care and spiritual formation. Over a period of months our leadership mulled this shift around, Garth pointed them in the direction, led the process and then we made it happen. I took the ‘team leader’ role while he became the ‘associate’ and we hired a new youth pastor.
I was only in the role for 14 months before the church planting bug bit hard and I resigned to go and be a missionary in Butler – the move that started this blog. It wasn’t a ‘baton change’ without its challenges, but we were managing to work together very well before my sense of calling to Butler. There weren’t too many models to learn from back then, but the idea of having a ‘succession plan’ is a little more common these days, so we are hoping to do this well and get maximum benefit with minimum pain.
Late last year Steve McAlpine wrote this post outlining why he chose to hand on the senior pastor baton at his own church plant in Midland. I enjoyed reading it, but as I read, I realised my own reasons for making the shift are somewhat different – so let me add to the list.
Steve’s reasons are:
You Revisit But Don’t Resolve Bottlenecks
You Elevate Other Interests
Your Leaders Start Discussing It
It Worked!
Ed, (currently our youth pastor) asked me if I resonated with these reasons and I said ‘hmmmm… not so much’. We don’t really have ‘bottlenecks’ because we haven’t set a growth target. (But the absence of firm structures has also been a reason the church has stayed around the 70-80 mark). I haven’t been doing other things in preference and our leaders haven’t been hinting at change or trying to initiate it.
So why would we want to initiate a baton change at Quinns and Yanchep? Currently Danelle and I lead across both churches and we are employed for 3 days (2 days = me and 1 day = her). Here are my reflections:
1. You Are Ready for Change. In this post I was leading an exercise for another group of pastors when I experienced something myself that was prompting me to see new horizons and wide open spaces in which to ‘play’. It hasn’t come out of the blue though. There have been conversations between all of us about future directions, potential and hopes. It has been pointed this direction for a while, but with no one driving it. Lately I have felt it important to put some muscle to the change.
The unresolved question for Danelle and I was ‘who will we be when this happens’? Will we still lead the team but have two ‘campus pastors’, (to use contemporary lingo). Will we work alongside as co-leaders with equal authority and responsibility or will we work ‘under’ the guys as supporters and helpers. I haven’t been clear on this until recently. We are feeling it is time to let the others lead, carry the responsibility that goes with this and to support and empower them as they do this.
Structurally we will be ‘under’ their leadership, meaning they are the team leaders and we will be the co-workers. This feel right and good and I can honestly say I am looking forward to it. It also frees me to ‘look up’ and see what may be next for us.
2.You Should Just Consider Getting out of the Way – I have been conscious both men I work with are keen to lead teams and churches and this is where they are headed vocationally. If I continue in current form then I will stand in the way of them moving ahead – or they will need to leave the churches we are working in to find that opportunity elsewhere.
We have really good team dynamics / relationships and we enjoy working together so it would be a shame to forgo that. We are all committed to a longer term involvement in the local area so if the only glitch to that plan is an older guy who wants to hold onto the ‘top job’ then maybe it’s time to get out of the way.
I am also 55 and this seems like a good time to move rather than in another 5 years at 60. I have watched churches ‘age’ and appear to be unable to replenish with younger blood and I wonder to what extent this is a result of having an aging team of leaders. That’s a question / observation more than a definite conclusion.
3. You Lack Fresh Ideas – I have been feeling this in my leadership at Quinns moreso than Yanchep. We have been thru numerous iterations of this church over the 10 years we have been there. We have seen people come and go and the focus of the community change also. I’m sure I could ‘summon the energy’ to go again, but I feel a bit weary in this leadership and I haven’t felt this before..
Yeah we just signed up for another 5 year term, but it was always with a view to transitioning leadership, so maybe that will be the primary task. I am not dreaming like I once was of what the church could be, so that is a sign of something amiss.
4. You Are Dying Under the Weight – I feel like 70-80% of our leadership focus over the last two years has been over-run with administrative exercises – constitution, incorporation, policy and procedures. Yes – we have to work to change this and streamline the operations – and that is a work in progress, but I feel like it is ripping the heart out of me and many nights I have gone home livid and ready to quit.
I have said for over 25 years that my primary calling has always been ‘to communicate the Christian message to ordinary Australian people in ways they can understand’. An outflow of that has been to create communities of faith that resonate with the hearts of people who are largely from unchurched backgrounds.
This has been my reason for getting out of bed in the morning and my retic business serves that goal in various ways too. Lately I’ve been feeling the need to be across a bunch of stuff I have very little interest in or heart for. I
‘m sure someone who enjoys the higher level administration stuff would find joy in organising and systematising a church community to fit the government regs for an incorporated body. I regularly find myself in moments of frustration and disbelief at the red tape surrounding not for profit organisations and I can see a) we need to do this stuff b) It will stop me doing the stuff I am called to and good at. Again – something has to give.
5. The Church Would Benefit From New Leadership – Over the last 10 years I have distilled my job description to leading, teaching and meeting with blokes. The challenge with this is that in 2 days/week the area that suffers most is the ‘leading’. Teaching comes around regularly and can’t be dodged. I have regular commitments to people, so the ‘non urgent / important’ job of thinking ahead, implementing new plans, organising and focusing a team and all that goes with that ends up being done very intuitively rather than in a more focused way. We haven’t seen the church grow beyond the size of its current building and lately it has felt like the energy has been waning. I imagine part of that is because I am fading in my leadership capacity and Quinns needs a dedicated leader.
———————-
As well as these factors there is some opportunity to time this well as we have long service leave due and we will take it around April 2021 – 6 months out to travel and refresh. We could take it earlier, but we’d like to stick around while Sam completes year 12 🙂
So the plan is a gradual hand over of responsibilities and tasks over 2020 so that as 2021 begins we are supporters and the other guys are leading. Initially I was hesitant about letting go of my own position, but I’ve been aware lately of some people ‘staying too long’ and missing the cue to step aside. I think my cue is up and my focus is going to shift somewhat, even if we continue to live in the same area.
I’m not sure what the future holds beyond long service leave, but I guess that’s part of the adventure.
