Christian Leadership
"A Christian leader is not a leader because they announced a new idea and tries to convince others of its worth; he is a leader because he faces the world with eyes full of expectation, with expertise to take away the veil that covers it hidden potential. Christian leadership is called ministry precisely to express that in the service of others new life can be brought about. It is this service which gives eyes to see the flower breaking through the cracks in the street, ears to hear a word of forgiveness muted by hatred and hostility, and hands to feel new life under the cover of death and destruction."
"Leadership therefor is not called Christian because it is permeated with optimism against all the odds of life, but because it it grounded in the historic Christ-event which is understood as a definitive breach in the deterministic chain of human trial and error, and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light on the other side of darkness."
Taken and adapted from The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen
Email Etiquette
The circles that a minister lives in are circles with people who have good intentions but things that are more sentimental than Christian. When I read the gospel and the parables of Jesus I am almost certain that not one parable would qualify to be published in the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series. Jesus just is not that sentimental. There are times when Jesus tells a man to let someone else bury his father and Jesus tells another man to not say goodbye to family before following Jesus.
Christians are notorious for sending sentimental emails to one another. Feel good stories that have either:
- A message about seizing the day.
- Supporting the military.
- A story of every day "miracles"
- A narrative of how someone acted "Christlike", which generally means they acted really nice.
I am willing to bet that very few ministers read these emails any more. In fact if "FWD" is in the subject line, it moves down my 'to read list' near the bottom.
And so, in an attempt to share with my brothers and sisters in Christ a way to approach emailing so that we are no longer viewed as "those people who forward feel good stories", here is some email etiquette to consider.
It comes from the 99% blog.
I do not want to take care of people...
When I was a kid, my parents took in my paternal grandmother and my maternal grandfather to live with us when their spouses died. My mother and father taught me a number of things from what family might look like as well as what care looks like.
Recently I heard a sermon from FUMC Hurst, and one of the lines in it struck home for me in how I understand my parents motivation for taking in my grandparents. My mother and father did not want anyone taking care of their parents. It is not that that my parents did not love their parents, rather it is that they did not find (at the time) a place that would care for their parents. The places they found were equipped to take care of my grandparents, but not care for them.
As I listen to our culture, we are really good at taking care of people. We feed the hungry rather well, but we are not good at addressing the root causes of hunger. We take care of the hungry, but we are not really caring for them. We are really good at taking care of kids and getting them to become expert test takers, but caring for their overall development is something we are not very good at. We take care of our physical selves but do not care for spirits.
Perhaps in a culture in which basic altruism and the profit sector can take care of people the Church can begin to take up the slack and care for people. What would it look like if the Church pushed to reconsider the way in which the food subsidies program works in the USA? What if the Church worked to be a voice in the holistic development of children so schools allowed spiritual development as well as football development?
What would it look like if we, the Church of Jesus Christ, began to take seriously the call to care for people in a culture that believes taking care of people is good enough?.
Recently I heard a sermon from FUMC Hurst, and one of the lines in it struck home for me in how I understand my parents motivation for taking in my grandparents. My mother and father did not want anyone taking care of their parents. It is not that that my parents did not love their parents, rather it is that they did not find (at the time) a place that would care for their parents. The places they found were equipped to take care of my grandparents, but not care for them.
As I listen to our culture, we are really good at taking care of people. We feed the hungry rather well, but we are not good at addressing the root causes of hunger. We take care of the hungry, but we are not really caring for them. We are really good at taking care of kids and getting them to become expert test takers, but caring for their overall development is something we are not very good at. We take care of our physical selves but do not care for spirits.
Perhaps in a culture in which basic altruism and the profit sector can take care of people the Church can begin to take up the slack and care for people. What would it look like if the Church pushed to reconsider the way in which the food subsidies program works in the USA? What if the Church worked to be a voice in the holistic development of children so schools allowed spiritual development as well as football development?
What would it look like if we, the Church of Jesus Christ, began to take seriously the call to care for people in a culture that believes taking care of people is good enough?.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.