Church

Review: Praying For Your Pastor

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Praying for your Pastor

Praying For Your Pastor, Eddie Byun (foreword by Chip Ingram). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016.

Summary: A practical guide both advocating for the importance of prayer for our pastors and offering a practical rubric in the form of the acronym PRAYERS.

“I often tell my congregation, “Your prayer support is my life support.” Someone who has been rescued from drowning or is recovering from a serious injury like a gunshot wound may need to be put on life support for a period of time. The injured person doesn’t have the strength to keep going by himself, so he needs the help of something outside of himself in order to allow his body to rest and to be strengthened to health again. In many ways, the pastor is under a wide range of attacks from the enemy. The attacks may come in various forms, such as gossip, criticism, slander, sickness, or even threats. There are days when your pastor feels emotionally burned out, physically exhausted, and spiritually weak. She feels she just can’t go on. These experiences are far too common and come far too frequently. These are the times when pastors need the life support of our prayers to keep them going. You may not know the struggles your pastors face today, but you can know that your prayers will make a difference in their lives” (pp. 22-23).

So writes pastor Eddie Byun in what is both an impassioned plea and practical guide to pray for our pastors. Throughout this book Byun uses both statistics and personal stories to describe the challenges pastors face that leads to so many dropping out of the ministry. He believes that one of the most important things churches can do is to mobilize teams of people to pray for their pastors.

Byun goes on to provide a simple rubric around the acronym PRAYERS to guide those praying for pastors. Each chapter in the book is organized around one letter in the acronym:

  • Protection: Against temptation, evil, and the enemy and praying through the armor of God (Ephesians 6:14-17).
  • Rest: For physical, emotional, and spiritual rest, for unhurried times with the Lord, against burnout and for times of refreshing.
  • Anointing: For growing intimacy with the Lord, greater consecration, and for power to be released in your pastor’s life and ministry.
  • Yielded heart: Daily transformation by the gospel, obedience out of love and gratitude for the cross, trust and obedience, growth in treasuring Christ.
  • Effectiveness: Wisdom, increased fruitfulness in life and ministry, in people being saved and discipled, and faithfulness to the end.
  • Righteousness and integrity: A strong foundation in one’s life, that all that one does is motivated out of love and honor for Christ.
  • Strong marriages and families: protection of marriage and family, support in the church to encourage pastor in marriage and family life, and strong discipleship of children with parents who live their faith.

Each chapter fleshes out these themes, provides discussion questions, prayer points, and action plans one may take to form and guide a prayer team. Reading this book challenged me with regard to how much (or little) I pray for my pastor and reminded me of the challenging character of his work as well as how thankful I am for him, and other pastors I’ve known who faithfully shepherd God’s flock.

It also reminded me again how important it is for all of us in ministry to have prayer teams. I am blessed with ten people who have committed to pray for me daily and I truly believe they have been instrumental in God’s work through the ministry in which I engage. Byun, in his concluding chapter quotes Deuteronomy 4:7 which says, “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?” He observes that while God is always present, there is a special way he is present to people when we pray for them. I know I need this, and I know those who pastor our churches need this. Byun’s book makes this case and shows us how we may get started.

Review: The Post-Racial Church

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The Post Racial Church

The Post-Racial Church, Kenneth A. Mathews & M. Sydney Park. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2011.

Summary: A survey of the teaching of the Bible that concludes that racial reconciliation and multi-ethnic Christian communities are integral to the message of the gospel.

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States marked both how far the nation had come and the work yet to be done to come to terms with the issues of race in our society. The election just past underscored that there is a significant journey yet to occur in the life of an evangelical church that split radically along racial lines in its choice of candidates.

Might it be that the church is listening more to political discourse than to the teaching of its scriptures which serve as its rule of faith and practice (at least in theory). For those who wish to redress that balance, this is a good introductory survey written by a multi-ethnic pair of authors, a Caucasian male (Mathews) and a Korean-American female (Park). What these authors do is survey the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation showing successively that God is the creator of diverse peoples (Babel was God’s way of saving diverse nations from themselves by dispersing them), that God chose a particular people to bless all peoples, that even then, inter-marriage did occur (just look at the lineage on the human side of Jesus), that Jesus’ ministry was one that cared for the prodigal, that held up the Samaritan and that anticipated the gospel to the nations. From there the authors show how the gospel preached was one of reconciliation not only to God but between Jew and Gentile. The confrontation between Paul and Peter confirms that the ideal was table fellowship, not just some “spiritual” reconciliation but real hospitality. All this anticipates the worship of the Lamb by every tribe, race, people, and tongue.

Along the way the authors dispel the flawed treatments of scripture used to justify racial separation such as the “mark of Cain” and the “curse of Ham.” They deal with the question of intermarriage, and the flawed construct–even from a biblical point of view–of race. They uphold the ideal of multi-ethnic worship in multi-ethnic churches while not insisting every church must be this way. They talk of Christ’s self-sacrificing work, and how this calls for similar servanthood in entering into the hard work of reconciliation.Toward the end of the book, M. Sydney Park shares her own narrative, which reflects a conversion not only to Christ, but from her own racism that was a product of the racism she experienced as a Korean-American.

The book includes “Thought Provokers” at the end of each chapter that encourage readers and groups to apply the chapter content to their lives and congregations. This makes the book a good resource for ministry teams, leadership teams or others within a church who are asking how their church might reflect the multi-ethnic people of God which the gospel both heralds and creates. The combination of biblical content, challenge, and space to consider makes this an ideal resource for those taking the first, perhaps uncertain, steps toward trying to think and act biblically around questions of race and ethnicity.

Review: Future of our Faith

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Future of Our Faith

Future of Our Faith, Ronald J. Sider and Ben Lowe. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016.

Summary: Two activist evangelical leaders forty years apart pose critical questions for each other about issues facing the church, with responses from the other.

It often seems, as I follow social media, that there are at least two simultaneous conversations going on within generations of the evangelical community. There are those of my age in the boomer generation who are critically concerned about the future of the church–will it carry on in doctrinal,  missional, and lifestyle integrity in the face of winds of culture. Likewise, younger Christians of my son’s generation are asking questions about the legacy of my generation in terms of environmental degradation, seemingly unloving treatment of LGBT people, a different kind of political engagement where the church is not captive to political parties, and more.

It seems rare that we have this conversation across generations, more often just within generational cohorts. And the danger is that we become more divided from “them” rather than learning from, collaborating with, and blessing each other. And so we add to the fault lines of social class, gender, ethnicity, and doctrinal differences that divide the church the fault line of generation.

Ronald J. Sider and Ben Lowe are separated by forty years in age, but share common commitments to social action arising from a deeply rooted evangelical faith. And they set out in this book to have conversations with each other around the issues that often seem to separate generations in the church. After an introduction discussing the importance of the conversation, each writer contributed four chapters raising questions for the other, followed by the other’s response. Woven into the chapters were “sidebar” contributions from other evangelical leaders. The contents of the discussion are as follows:

1. Why This Conversation
Part 1: Ron Sider’s Chapters (with Ben Lowe’s Responses)
2. Will You Remember Evangelism?
3. Will You Reaffirm Truth as You Learn from Postmodernism?
4. Will You Keep Your Marriage Vows Better Than My Generation?
5. Will You Lead the Church to a Better Stance on Homosexuality?
Part 2: Ben Lowe’s Chapters (with Ron Sider’s Responses)
6. Will We Live More Like Jesus?
7. Will We Renew Our Political Witness?
8. Will We Reconcile Our Divisions Better?
9. Will We Recover Our Responsibility for God’s Creation?
Conclusion: Jesus at the Center

What worked about this is that the questions of each do represent some of the issues each generation is concerned with. For example, while concerns for justice and social issues reflect ways millenials are “walking the talk” Sider raises a concern about whether “the talk” is being muted. Lowe raises issues about political witness, acknowledging both the political captivity he sees in elder generations, and the disengagement of his own generation, at times. There is a humility about the questions each asks, acknowledging the failures or struggles of each generation, rather than how one is better than another.

What also works is that these two are both leaders in thoughtful, socially progressive evangelicalism. Ben’s organization, Young Evangelicals for Climate Action arose out of Sider’s Evangelicals for Social Action, and their environmental wing, the Evangelical Environmental Network. It was clear that both of them deeply respected the other. And that led to a conversation with a high level of agreement between the two, while articulating some generational perspectives.

Some may have wished for more sparks between the two. The willingness, particularly of Sider, to acknowledge generational failures and the sincere hope that Ben’s generation get it better tended to defuse whatever sparks there might be. And this may offer a model for similar conversations of the kind of humility that leads to shared understanding and mutual support across generations. At the same time, I found myself wishing for at least one chapter from each where they just didn’t see eye to eye and modeled working that through. That would have been valuable.

The questions at the end of each chapter are quite helpful for inter-generational discussions, which I hope this book would provoke. I would say that the sidebars just seemed a distraction and really did not add to what these two leaders, both men of deep spiritual character coupled with strong track records of deeds done in the church and in social advocacy, had to offer. These are conversations every inter-generational church needs to have and these two have given us a great starting place.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

 

Review: Redeeming Sex

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Redeeming SexRedeeming Sex, Debra Hirsch. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015

Summary: Hirsch explores how the church ought engage society around issues of sexuality, discussing the connection of spirituality and sexuality, the nature of gender, orientation and our sexuality, and how the church holds in tension the image of God in people and the ethics of various sexual expressions.

We are in a paradoxical place where sexuality is both one of the easiest and hardest things to talk about, particularly in the church. There is lots of conversation, even argument, and yet often we struggle to talk deeply and thoughtfully and redemptively about one of the most basic aspects of what it means to be human. Debra Hirsch writes this book out of a life of dealing with these questions stretching back to her own experiences with lesbian relationships before coming to faith, to her work in pastoral ministry with her husband, caring for people with sexual histories, varying orientations and gender identities.

The book consists of three parts. The first explores the connection between sexuality and spirituality, and particularly our deep and basic longing for relationship. She opens this section asking provocatively, “Imagine if heaven was like endless orgasm” (p. 22). She goes on to explore how our sexuality is actually a signpost of how we were made for deep, intimate relationship with God. She sets out a distinction between genital sexuality and social sexuality–between physical sexual expression and the broader expression of our sexuality in all our relationships. She explores our fearfulness to talk about this basic and powerful part of our humanness and concludes this section by exploring the sexuality of the incarnate Jesus.

The second section explores the nature of our sexuality and what we are learning about orientation and gender identity. She deals honestly with the struggles we have to integrate following Christ and dealing with sexual desire (quoting, for example, one young man who asked, “I have accepted Jesus into my heart but how do I get him into my penis?”[p. 71]). She particularly observes that orientation and gender identity are not binary entities but much more of a continuum and discusses with stark candor the journeys of LGBT people who come to faith and whose orientation and identity do not “change”. She works through the biblical issues around sexuality, respecting those who reach various conclusions while affirming what would for many be a traditional understanding, with a non-traditional approach of “leading with embrace rather than theology”.

The third part of the book begins from this point and lays out an approach to meeting people in ministry that focuses first on the image of God in all persons and only secondarily around issues of sinfulness, that seeks to center on following and moving closer to Jesus, and builds communities that seeking to be welcoming and mutually transforming (rather than affirming). She believes that we need to welcome people in all their wholeness but that no community can affirm all the things people are or do. Rather, a community committed to growing closer to Christ together is mutually transformative.

Such community is messy. Where some may want to focus immediately on issues of orientation and identity, it may be that growing closer to Christ might entail other things first. Likewise, others may object that some choose celibacy or even embrace a heterosexual relationship after having identified as same sex attracted. What Hirsch contends for is that the redemption of our sexuality can only come with the redemption of our spiritual relationship as we experience the rich and costly grace of Christ. For that reason, she articulates an approach that leads with grace, embrace and affirmation of the image of God in all people, and that believes in the power of Jesus to lead people into all he intends for them. At the close of the book she comments on this observation by her husband:

” ‘You really are pushing grace to just about as far as you can take it.’ Which of course raises the question, How far does grace go? And at the end of the day that really is one of the fundamental questions we are all wrestling with” (p 208).

Whether you agree or not with how far Hirsch pushes grace, you will find that this book poses the questions and deals frankly the realities we must all wrestle with if we, as the church, are not to “duck and cover” in addressing the matters of spirituality and sexuality in our day.

Review: Searching for Sunday

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Searching for SundaySearching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans. Nashville: Nelson Books, 2015.

Summary: As the subtitle suggests, this is a narrative of the author’s struggle between loving and leaving the Church, only to find her loved renewed through the sacramental practices that she sees at the heart of the Church’s life.

True confessions. I’ve had a like-dislike affair (love-hate is too strong) with the writing of Rachel Held Evans. Ever since I first encountered her blog posts, I have admired the freshness, authenticity and downright beauty that I find in her writing. What I’ve always dis-liked was that the central thread of her writing was the public critique of and increasing disaffection with the evangelicalism in which she grew up.

At the core of this is simply our different responses to the pain we’ve experienced in our church experiences. I guess I’ve always felt that my relationship with the church was much like marriage–it could be rocky as well as glorious at times, but opting out just wasn’t an option. I’ve only ever left a local congregation because of moves, and even then sought their counsel and left with their blessing. Yet I’ve struggled with forms of legalism, cultural captivities, unholy political alliances, what I thought was the wrongful subjection of women, and just good old-fashioned church conflict. Memories of some of these things still hurt. I wanted to leave sometimes, but I never did.

Perhaps what I really don’t like is the exposure of my own self-righteousness in all this and the questions this raises. Am I really just jealous that I didn’t have the courage or authenticity to do what she did? As a fellow blogger, am I simply jealous of her success?

All that and more was swirling about as I sat down with this book. Could I even give her a fair reading? And what happened is that I got surprised by a narrative of someone who has not given up on church for many of the same reasons that hold for me; who has hung in there and found a kind of resurrection in her relationship with the church and her Lord. And in all this, she reminded me of all the gospel beauties that have held me true to this faith over half a century.

The book is organized both around a narrative loving, leaving, and finding the church, and around the seven sacraments of the Episcopal church where she presently worships, that have served as the road back to church for her. She summarizes her renewed embrace of the church in these terms:

“…Sunday morning sneaks up on us — like dawn, like resurrection, like the sun that rises a ribbon at a time. We expect a trumpet and a triumphant entry, but as always, God surprises us by showing up in ordinary things: in bread, in wine, in water, in words, in sickness, in healing, in death, in a manger of hay, in a mother’s womb, in an empty tomb. Church isn’t some community you join or some place you arrive. Church is what happens when someone taps you on the shoulder and whispers in your ear, Pay attention, this is holy ground, God is here.” (p. 258)

Along the way, I found places where I both agree and disagree with her. I am with her in her criticism of many of the cultural and political captivities of evangelicalism (and I hope that she will become increasingly aware of similar dangers in the mainline churches). I would affirm her critique of dogmatism and legalism, but would also hope that she could come to the place of Dorothy Sayers who wrote that “the dogma is the drama”, which in fact I think she is affirming in her love of the practices of the church, which in fact are rooted in creed and dogma. I would agree that we have badly transgressed against LGBT persons and missed the ways LGBT sisters and brothers may be gifts to the church. Yet I find her critique and affirmation so unqualified that it does not address the question of the discipleship of our sexuality for all followers of Christ, no matter what our orientation or sense of gender identity.

Yet there is so much of value here. For one, Evans’ narrative gives voice to and reflects the narratives of many young men and women who have distanced themselves from church. Whatever we think of the reasons and beliefs, if we don’t take these things on board, particularly if we lead churches or ministries, then we are heartless shepherds! Slick and trendy programs won’t address this alienation. And that leads to the second value to be found here, that there is a deep longing for the church to be the church; a community of people loving God and each other whole-heartedly and living and proclaiming the gospel of the grace and truth found in Christ in word and sacrament.

As you can tell, I haven’t become an unqualified fan. Rather, I’ve discovered someone who loves many of the same things I love, who has challenged and enlarged my thinking, and while we are each on unique journeys from different places, we are both on a journey toward the Sunday of resurrection. May God keep and form us both for that day!

Review: Protege’: Developing Your Next Generation of Church Leaders

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ProtegeIt would be an understatement to say that there is a super-abundance of leadership books in both Christian and general publishing. One wonders if it reflects a perception that there is a dearth of the real thing in our churches and culture, or that if it exists, it is often done very badly. So the question is, what separates Steve Saccone’s book (co-authored with his wife Cheri Saccone) from all the rest?

Very briefly, it is that it is more description, than prescription, of the work Saccone has done in developing leadership through his Protege’ Program, a two year leadership development program. This book is an attempt, without being a program manual, to distill the basic contours of his work.

Saccone begins with the question of what kind of culture leaders are to embody and establish. For him, these are kingdom cultures, cultures that reflect the character of Jesus lived out in churches, organizations, and entrepreneurial efforts.  This leads him to focus on five critical elements in his work:

1. Character. What is most striking here is that Saccone identifies four deadly sins that can bring down emerging leaders: envy expressed in imitating others rather than embracing one’s own unique call, self-reliance that emphasizes performance over a life of prayer producing fruit from the inside out, foolishness expressed in over-confidence rather than the seeking of wisdom, and greed which reveals itself in a spirit of entitlement. It is good that Saccone begins here, I think. I’ve seen few leaders really fail for lack of skill. For most, it comes down to questions of character.

2. Relationships. Here Saccone focuses on three tensions in relational leadership: overcommitment versus underdelivering on commitments, avoiding or evoking conflict, and overattaching versus detaching. There was much that was helpful here concerning learning to say no versus letting your yes be yes. His diagnostics for each of these tensions are very helpful to see where one falls.

3. Communication. This was a section that had some intriguing ideas of learning through everything from TED talks to poetry slams about effective communication in 21st century culture. He describes Learning Labs where he challenges people to give five minute talks (Five Good Minutes) and to practice improvisation.

4. Mission. To start, he sees mission not as something we do but something that flows from our relationship with Christ expressed through the uniqueness of each person in the context of local communities of believers in mission. He calls for several shifts in evangelism: 1) From inattentiveness to attentiveness, 2) From monologue to dialogue, 3) From invasion to invitation, 4) From individual conversion to communal conversion, and 5) From temporal understanding to eternal awakening. These last two call for a bit more explanation. Communal conversion is not whole communities coming to faith but the recognition that the community in which one comes to faith crucially shapes one’s life. Eternal awakenings happen when converts connect their lives to the big eternal questions addressed by the gospel–how the gospel lastingly changes everything.

5. Entrepreneurial leadership. His last section focuses on the quality of risk-taking and developing cultures where there is a freedom to fail, where the ultimate value isn’t control and where they develop new structures to unleash the gifts and creativity of those they lead.

Throughout, Saccone provides numerous examples and personal stories of how he works these ideas out in practice. At the conclusion of each chapter are ideas for mentors, and a mentor tip (not always directly related to the chapter content).

The only thing I might make more explicit in this book is that a crucial work of mentors is to help proteges become protege’ developers themselves.  Young leaders need to be coached to reflect on their own developmental process and to learn from it how they might in turn develop the next generation of proteges.

What Saccone has given us is a kingdom-oriented, character shaped, and missionally driven account of leadership development that offers, not a program, but a vision for the essential elements of any serious effort at protege’ development.