We Yell When We Are Out of Practice

We have two boys, seven and two. Our eldest is like most other seven year olds, I imagine. He is able to express a wide range of emotions but there is a limit on his ability to put to words to the more complex emotions. While he has grown these years he has gotten much better and more comfortable at talking about his feelings. However, there are still times when he grows so frustrated because he cannot come up with the words and so he yells. My wife and I try to work with him to calm down and talk about what he is feeling in order to get him to practice talking about what is going on in his head. 

In our minds, this practice is essential in order to be a functioning human being. You cannot be an adult and just yell when you are frustrated or angry. You cannot just shut down and not talk about things that are important to you.

And yet, this is a problem with out time. Adults are in social settings and not talking about religion and politics. That is we are a bunch of adults who are not practicing talking about the things that are important to us. 

No wonder we have adults yelling about politics on the television and adults yelling about religion on the street corner and adults who are so turned off by all this yelling that they shut off the news and don't engage in religion. Bottom line, we are people who are biologically adults but we are like seven year olds - yelling or shutting down when we don't know how to express ourselves.

For all that evangelism is made out to be, it really is just faith sharing. It is practicing talking about religion and the things that matter. As the saying goes, if we want people to stop yelling all the time and talk about the things that matter, then we have to being with our own selves. We have to "be the change." 

Church Leadership as Entrepreneurs vs. Artists

Church leadership is not outside the mainstream conversations about leadership in the world. And while there are many streams of conversation about leadership these days, there seems to be a few main rivers of conversation. One of those rivers is leader as Entrepreneur or leader as Artist. And these two metaphors are in tension within the Church.

Leader as Entrepreneur is a model that is very popular with those in the higher levels of Church leadership. There is a desire to raise up leaders who are visionaries, bold, decisive, and clear. These would be leaders that are innovative and have high energy to take on new challenges and markets. Part of what makes Church leader as Entrepreneur attractive is the underlying mindset of an entrepreneur is one of growth. Growing is the fuel of the entrepreneur. As the old saying goes, "if you're not growing you're dying." 

Leader as Artist is a model that is more popular with those entering the ministry or those still new in the calling. There is a desire to raise up leaders who are passionate, creative and focused on the purity of the call. These would be leaders that are worried about integrity and authenticity in order to remain true to the original call rather than bend to the will of new markets. Part of what make Church leader as Artist attractive is the mindset of an artist is one of creating something for the sake of creating it. Beauty is the fuel of the artist. As the old saying goes "Life imitates art." 

Ideally it would be great to have church leaders be entrepreneur artists (or creative entrepreneur as The Atlantic calls it), but that is a rare breed in current church leadership. While one model of leadership is fueled by growth, the other is fueled by "being". The entrepreneur creates in order to grow, the artist creates for the sake of creating. One sees creation as a means to an end the other sees creation as a end to itself. 

Want to know what leadership style is driving your local church? Take a look a the language that is used. Is is focused on growth or being. Are you doing things in order to get new members or are you doing things because they are worth doing? 

If you are not growing you're dying is not accurate when it comes to the Gospel. In order to grow you have to die. In order to made whole you have to be empty. In order to be made clean you have to get dirty. Sometimes growth is needed but growth for the sake of growth is not bringing beauty into the world. Mindless growth only brings weeds. 

Why are there so many different sacrifices in the Bible?

I have been told that God in the HS/OT is very bloodthirsty and perhaps no more so than when it comes to the temple sacrifices that are required for all sorts of things. Guilt offerings, sin offerings, thanksgiving offerings, atonement offerings, etc. all were some animal that was sacrificed. Additionally, it has been said to me the temple had a channel to direct the sacrificed animals blood out of the temple and that channel is larger than one might think it would be - insinuating that there was a lot of blood. 

It is easy to look at an ancient system of religion as recorded in the Bible and come to the conclusion that religions of the Bible are religions that adore a very violent God. I believe this is an uninformed reading of the culture of the time, and here is why.

Early civilization was one built on the idea of sacrificing things to the gods in order to make them happy. If you made the correct sacrifice, then god would be happy. However, this understanding of the gods is one that ultimately leads to loads of violence. Say you are a rancher and you have a productive herd, you might sacrifice an animal to say thank you to the gods. The next year your herd is plagued with sickness so you offer up a larger sacrifice in order to please the gods - notice the violence can quickly grow over time. The same is true if you have another good year. You offer up a sacrifice but it cannot be the same amount of sacrifice that you gave the first year because your herd has had two good years and has grown. So you give a larger sacrifice in order to show the gods you are very thankful and their generosity is not unnoticed by you. Again, even in good years the violence can quickly grow over time.

"Book of Leviticus Chapter 1-1 (Bible Illustrations by Sweet Media)" by Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing. 

However in the Bible there is an image of a God who says, "look I AM who I AM and nothing you do will affect that. As such I do not need sacrifices to keep me happy. However, humanity you seem addicted to these sacrifices so here is the deal. If you feel the need to sacrifice something then here are some very specific guidelines so that we can work on containing the violence you are addicted to. Every year on the day of atonement, you don't have to sacrifice more than you did in the past. Whatever the sin is, the offering is the same - you don't have to offer a larger sacrifice for larger sins. I cannot break your addiction to violence for you, but I can help you contain the violence and pain you inflict on creation."

And so yes, there is violence in the Bible, it is there because humans (not God) are addicted to violence. I am thankful for a religious tradition that, while often times forgotten, is a religion built on peace.