Committed Action (part two)
Imagine the impact on the United States if Christians here were known – first of all — for being people of action.
When you read the New Testament, you see Jesus in action much of the time. So much so that when he drew away for prayer, reflection, and rest—it was noteworthy. But, most sermons today give the impression that solitude, reflection, and “waiting on God” are the central features of the lifestyle of a mature Christian.
Yet, in scripture, you see the twelve in motion.
The seventy-two are anything but stagnant. You don’t
find them sitting, waiting, and praying for God to do what God has called them to do.
In the diaspora [Acts 8], Christians went everywhere presencing and presenting the gospel, performing signs and wonders out in society [Rom 15:19]. Sick are healed, lepers cleansed, poor cared for, lame restored, oppressed freed, hypocrites exposed, adulteress rescued, greedy challenged…
The early Church was so effective that it was accused of “turning the world upside down”. [Act 17:6]
When you look at our society, don’t you think it needs to be flipped on its head?
Don’t you see it exalting that which is ruining it?
Do you see it denigrating the values and practices that would strengthen it?
Do you notice it sprinting to its demise?
When the Church values security over adventure, ideation over action, and reflection over courage, society goes to hell in a fast hurry.
The Christian life is one of action, risk-taking, trusting God and leaping into the fray.
In Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas are strengthening and encouraging the disciples, saying: “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”
Paul’s invitation to Timothy: “Join me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” Funny, I don’t remember hearing that when I was accepted to Seminary.
When we are content to pray and wait for God to do what God has called the Church to do in society… it doesn’t get done.
Consider how the passification and cerebralization of contemporary Christianity has contributed to the scarcity of young adults in our churches.
Pastor, will you restore a biblical view of our obligation to engage, rescue, and redeem our neighbors and neighborhoods? [2 Cor 5:16-21]
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” [Eph 2:10]
“…let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” [Mt 5:16]
“Live such good lives among the pagans that … they may see your good deeds and glorify God…” [1 Peter 2:12]
Tick. Tock.
Committed Action (part one)
Imagine the impact on the United States if Christians here were known – first of all — for being people of action.
If we were regarded as people who leap when there’s an opportunity to help others.
People who jump at the chance to undermine injustice?
Those who are swift to relieve suffering?
What if Christians were known for bravery?
For generosity.
And for personal integrity in doing the kinds of things Jesus did?
What if we were vigilant in our intolerance of hypocrisy, dishonesty, and favoritism—especially in ourselves, and then, in society as a whole?
And, what if, winsome, courageous, and humble—our way of living invited the entire community to be like this, more and more?
What then?
Christianity, for many, has been boiled down to an intellectual acceptance of religious premises. It’s been reduced to a fairly flimsy apprehension of select promises—while we disregard many other promises that deal with obedience, sacrifice, and judgment.
What’s become of the confidence of the early church that Christ – through us – will change the very fabric of society? “…if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors…” [2 Cor 5:17-20a]
What has become of our embodying the hope of the world? “…God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” [Col 1:27b]
Or, being the light of the world? “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” [Mt 5:14-16].
Or just being light? “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.” [Lk 11:33]
Maybe it’s that the Protestant Reformation was so intertwined with the Renaissance that we’ve become transfixed on defining the Christian faith intellectually, cerebrally, and propositionally.
What if we committed to be the change Christ promised to make in the world?
Coaching Distinctions #13
Repentance that lasts a lifetime (part three)
For several installments, we’ve been considering the motivation that is common to human beings—to look good, feel good, be right, and be in control—yet largely goes unexamined. Then, contemplating what to do about it, we’ve been examining repentance.
Repentance that sticks.
In my coaching practice, not uncommonly our focus turns to patterns in the pastor’s leadership or relational style that undermine his or her effectiveness. I call this: “getting in your own way”. All of us, from time to time, behave in ways we regret.
Some of these behaviors become habitual, keeping the leader in Groundhog Day—repeating the pattern in one church after another.
The antidote is sorrow unto repentance.
And, that’s easier said than done. When you examine the impact your selfishness, preferences for control, irresponsibility, perfectionism, or irritability has on those close to you, it can open you up. Once opened up, you can allow yourself to be impaled by the horrible effects of your sin.
You’d think it’d just about kill you.
Funny thing is, the opposite is true.
As Paul notes in 2 Cor 7:11 godly sorrow produces concern, longing, earnestness, and indignation. And, it also produces the eagerness to set things right and a readiness to see justice done. Your heart is changed. Because it is, you are changed, too.
The result is freedom for you and the possibility of new intimacy with those you’ve harmed.
Hard to believe, but true.
Now, some of you have no trouble ruminating on just how awful you are… like a well-worn path across the schoolyard, you relive your errors and with ferocity you abuse and debase yourself.
Forgiveness?
Never! You say you don’t deserve it! You say you’re just that awful.
I say no.
You’re not especially awful, you’re just arrogant.
Arrogant.
You’re so certain you’re the special case. The one person beyond forgiveness, cleansing, restoration. The blood of Christ, you think, is insufficient to cover you, your sin. You discount the remarkable provision of Heaven rather than embrace the truth that you, special little you, are an ordinary sinner.
Not special.
And not at all remarkable in your unworthiness. You’re just as unworthy as everyone else.
Of course you’re unworthy.
That’s exactly the point of the atonement: God paid it all.
So, my invitation is to allow yourself be run through with the sharp sword of the sadness, pain and loss you’ve caused others.
Freedom waits on the other side.
Coaching Distinctions #12
Repentance that lasts a lifetime (part two)
Buried in the archaic curiosity of the King James translation is a gem: “…godly sorrow worketh repentance … not to be repented of…”. [2 Cor 7:10]
Repentance that sticks.
Consider that when God sorrows, it’s not the self-serving, feeling-sorry-for-myself kind of sorrow that leads to death. God sorrows for others.
There’s the key to deep and lasting repentance: you must enter into the suffering of others. In this case, the suffering your sinfulness has caused those around you: your spouse, your family, your coworkers, your friends.
A decade ago I was in a workshop participating in exercises and discussions designed to help me see my impact on those I claim to love. Like most everyone I know, I’d made a practice of overlooking how my preference to look good, feel good, be right, and be in control had affected those closest to me. There was so much frustration and sadness and hurt and resignation that I just didn’t see.
Didn’t want to see.
Until… one particularly powerful exercise about the value of life.
In an instant I saw myself as an analyst, with lab coat and clipboard, standing on the sidelines of my own life, carefully studying its complexities. Once I understood, I’d lay down my clipboard and lab coat, walk off the sidelines and into “the game” of life.
Trouble is, while I’m on the sidelines, I’m not in the game.
And, without me, people I love were suffering.
Most poignant, when our kids hit adolescence, the game-changers came with such ferocity and velocity that – for years – I couldn’t figure it out. So… I stayed out of the game. Annie, essentially, parented all six kids through the turbulence and discontinuous change of their adolescence– alone.
In the awful hours that followed, I drank deeply from the cup of their suffering.
Slowly, thoroughly I considered each child and what it would’ve been like for them to traverse the stormy uncertainties from child to adult without their dad… without my love, assurance, encouragement, tenderness, confidence, collaboration, sensitivity, and wisdom.
Not that I’d actually gone anywhere. I’d mastered the art of being present without being present.
Then, I imagined what it must have been like, instead, to get a steady diet of my disappointments, judgments, distance, comparisons with my [idealized] recollections of my own adolescence, demands, and ever-present distraction.
I chose to enter into the loneliness, confusion, isolation, frustration, loss, sorrow, fear, perplexity, discouragement, de-valuing, and opposition they likely experienced because of the way I’d chosen to be.
I let myself feel everything.
Deeply. Influentially. Unrelentingly. Sickeningly.
It broke me.
It devastated me.
It undid me.
THANK GOD!
Coaching Distinctions #11
Repentance that Lasts a Lifetime (part one)
I thank God for the gift of repentance. For the provision in the atonement, of forgiveness, cleansing, and restoration of relationship when I do. What’s troubled me, though, is how often I seem to be “returning to the well”: asking forgiveness over and over again for the same things.
What about you?
Since “repentance” means to turn and walk the other way, why is it that we so often turn back?
Why do we repent of our repentance?
I get that I’m fallen. Human. Frail. All that. And I get that Christ lives in me [Col 1:27]. That God has given me everything I need for life and godliness [2 Pt 1:3].
So, what of all this repenting and turning back and repenting again?
What does it take for repentance to stick?
Long ago, when I was a devoted “King James Christian”, 2 Corinthians 7:10 caught my attention. “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” Godly sorrow produces repentance we don’t repent of. Repentance that sticks!
So, what kind of sorrow is “godly”? How does God sorrow that is so different than the “sorrow of the world”?
When the “world” sorrows, it sorrows for itself. It is sorry it got caught. It is sorry for its loss. It is sorry things didn’t turn out better. Sorry there are prices to be paid because of its poor choices. Sad that it behaved the way it did. Poor decisions produced outcomes it didn’t intend or choose.
That’s why worldly sorrow leads to death.
It is self-consumed.
Consider how differently God sorrows. As mentioned last time, when God sorrows, it is for us. Why did Jesus weep at the tomb? He was impaled by the grief of Mary and those who loved her and Lazarus [Jn 11:35].
As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, he contemplates the difficulty that’s about to befall its residents, and he weeps for them [Lk19:41-44]. God’s concern is not himself but others.
And, I think, that’s the key.
Repentance that sticks emerges from truly and deeply and honestly and gut-wrenchingly sorrowing for others.
In particular, for those our sinfulness has hurt.
This kind of repentance requires that we drink deeply from the cup of their suffering. The suffering we have brought on, whether intended or not.
It is slow, awful work to honestly consider the impact of our selfishness on others. To climb into their skin and feel the pain we’ve caused them.
Yes, it’s horrible.
And, life-giving.
The Formidable Four (part four)
When someone behaves in ways that don’t seem to make sense it’s usually due to one of the “formidable four” motivators: looking good, feeling good, being right, or, today’s focus: being in control.
The older I get the more sure I am that it is impossible to control anyone … other than myself.
And, controlling myself is a full-time job.
Ironic that we invest so much energy and effort trying to control that which is most uncontrollable: another human being.
Don’t believe me?
Try raising a child.
You may eventually soothe your bellowing newborn, but not before dozens of attempts to quiet her went unheeded.
Teenagers? We had six… at one time. Honestly, I don’t know if any of us were under control at all during those chaotic years.
Undaunted by the reality that we can’t control our kids, co-workers, congregation, or spouse, we continually employ strategies in an attempt to do just that.
The beleaguered clerk who, after being humiliated at work, comes home and browbeats her spouse.
A teen who, feeling powerless to communicate effectively with his parents, steals the car and runs away from home.
The spouse of the rapidly-ascending politician who suddenly comes down with a mysterious illness and can no longer make public appearances.
An elder who, being confronted, deftly pivots and attacks the semantics or logic of the person raising the concern.
The denominational executive, discouraged by the anemia in the churches under her influence, who travels from one seminar to the next hoping something will happen to stem the tide of attendance and financial declines.
A minister who pretends not to see troubling immorality among church officials, hoping it will all take care of itself.
These control strategies have enormous prices attached to them. Prices are extracted from the perpetrator and those connected to him. When I’m with a coaching client who’s operating out of the formidable four, we explore the impact on those closest to the client.
What prices are your loved-ones, co-workers, congregants paying?
What do you think it’s like to be in relationship with you?
The key is to drill down far enough until the client has embraced – both mentally and emotionally – the devastation caused others. This is slow, painful work.
To be impacted by the pain one’s control strategies have caused others is central to repentance.
The Apostle Paul noted: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation…but worldly sorrow brings death.” [2 Cor 7:10] See, worldly sorrow is sorrow for myself.
But when God sorrows, God sorrows for us. [Lk 19:41] So, to truly repent from our commitments to the formidable four, the pathway runs straight into the suffering we cause others.
From this place, repentance lasts a lifetime
Coaching Distinctions # 9
The Formidable Four (part three)
Whatever we do, we do for a reason. Since we’re not crazy, there is always a reason behind our actions.
Every action.
When our behaviors are perplexing, it’s almost always because we’re unaware of our true motivations in the moment.
One of the most pernicious motivators is being right.
If you’ve ever sat with a couple heading for divorce, you’ve seen this. Each spouse has reached conclusions about their mate’s limitations, motivations, character defects, and willingness to change. Over time, they’ve found ample evidence to support these judgments — solidifying their commitment to what they’ve decided is true.
And, they’ve ignored many dozens of data points that disagree with this thesis.
As you labor to referee reconciliation you quickly discover they’re not having one conversation but two. Each lobbing evidence to support how right they are about how wrong their spouse is. The energy that each spouse invests to defend the “rightness” of their position is only overshadowed by the devastation that’s wrought on their relationship.
To be proven right is the “booby prize” in any conflict.
The desire to be right is a powerful motivator all across life. A pastor had developed the practice of predicting who was about to leave his church, trouble that would be erupting on his staff, and problems his ministry would soon be encountering. His track record was excellent: just about every departure, difficulty, and hardship he predicted did happened. Despite the devastation these events brought, he took solace in the clarity with which he’d anticipated them.
Crazy, I thought.
Why not labor to prevent these things from occurring? As we worked together, he developed strategies to undermine the problematic scenarios before they happened. And yet, before he gave himself to thwart these troubles he first gave up being right about their inevitability… and his ability to predict the future.
When being right will not serve you or them, my invitation is to give up being right about it.
The drive to be right is a lot like living with tunnel vision: you’re predisposed to notice what confirms your assumptions, and you’ll likely miss most everything that contradicts them. This undermines creativity, closes down opportunities, and locks you into outcomes that you may really not want.
I listen to political talk radio. There are several radio personalities that I like. They say what I think, promote what I believe is best for the country, and oppose practices I think are weakening us as a society. It’s easy to listen to them.
Also, as a discipline, I listen to the radio station on the other side of the political spectrum. I listen for what I can agree with and what I can consider that’s new to me. It is rigorous to listen not to be proven right, but to discover what I don’t know.
So, where in your life are you locked into being “right” about someone or something?
What if you gave up the preference to be right, and trusted God to surprise you with something new?
Coaching Distinctions # 8
The Formidable Four (part two)
It’s true. You never do anything for no reason.
So, whether you’re coaching yourself or someone else, it’s helpful to dig to discover what actually motivated apparently incomprehensible behavior. Four basic motivations are often at the root of such actions. I call them the formidable four.
Looking good.
Feeling good.
Being right.
Being in control.
We’ll examine the second one today.
Have you noticed society’s growing intolerance of anything difficult, painful, challenging, or distressing?
The desire to feel good and to avoid feeling bad are enormously influential in American culture and, sadly, in the Church today. It influences contemporary theology.
The ridiculous notion that ‘God’s great aim is to make you happy’ has helped undermine our stamina as people of faith. When distress occurs, we no longer interpret it as a normal feature of faithfully following Christ [Act 14:22, Phil 1:29, I Pt 2:21]. Rather, we consider it evidence that something’s gone wrong. Gravely wrong.
Consequently, we prioritize the deliverance from suffering over the development of our souls.
The result? An anemic witness and a society gone awry.
Feeling good quiets pastors when it’s time to forcefully confront a sinning member—particularly when she wields enormous power or money.
Feeling good keeps denominational leaders moving incompetent ministers from parish to parish—instead of directly challenging his dysfunction.
Feeling good invites elders to ignore a series of relatively mild, but troubling, ethical breaches—because to take decisive action might be misinterpreted.
Feeling good confines a senior pastor to the seclusion of her study rather than mix it up with church members who are unhappy or unpredictable.
Feeling good beckons Christians to ignore the impact of their self-centeredness on those God’s called them to influence.
Our Enemy, knowing this vulnerability, loves to pile on. When I’m facing opposition in one area of ministry, trouble will often beset another. Before long, the wheels have come off in a third area of life, then a fourth and a fifth. As the challenges mount, determination can evaporate into discouragement and morph into despondency.
To shield myself from additional difficulty, I can begin to withdraw from life.
My life.
This creates a vacuum. When I am absent from my own life, mayhem takes over. Since I’m not present, those who are accustomed to my participation try to make sense of my absence. Since they don’t see me, they make stuff up. And the rumors start. In time, the congregation’s confidence in the pastor’s leadership is so eroded that there’s no coming back.
When you catch yourself withdrawing from your life or ministry, my invitation is to trust God and leap back into the middle of your life.
Amazingly, you’ll usually find God there waiting for you.
Coaching Distinctions # 7
The Formidable Four (part one)
Last time, I suggested that no matter how astonishing, everything you do, at some level, made sense, at the time you did it. Almost always, in situations like this, you were motivated by one or more of the formidable four.
I once worked for a clinically-diagnosable narcissist. This psychological malady renders a person unable to recognize anything that disagrees with the favorable fantasy they hold of themselves.
One needn’t be a narcissist, though, to succumb to the first formidable foe: looking good.
Every one of us prefers to look good—particularly in the eyes of the people we decide are important to us. Those whose childhood was particularly punitive when a disappointment occurred will relate more closely to the motivation to avoid looking bad.
As kids, many of us made innumerable blunders when taken over by one or the other of these motivators.
Remember your first crush?
If you’re like me, you made a million mindless moves to appear as smooth and slick as your favorite Hollywood hero. In the decades since, our heroes may have changed, yet we’re still vulnerable to the desire to appear in as favorable a light as possible. Sometimes, even more favorable than possible.
Not long ago, I helped a pastor work through a difficult situation. He’d been caught preaching other ministers’ material, failing to fully credit his sources. As we unpacked Ralf’s failure he discovered he’d long felt inadequate as a rhetorician. He’d come to believe the swelling numbers in his congregation needed better sermons than he could bring. So, he “juiced” his messages by plagiarizing others.
For a brief season early in my business career, I enjoyed fairly stunning success. Near the pinnacle, I was flown by corporate jet to New York to receive some accolade for the performance of the business unit I ran. The return flight was so turbulent I expected to lose my lunch—literally—at any moment. Facing me, just inches from my knees was the Chairman of our parent company’s board. Rather than admit my intense distress, I tried to ride it out— barely avoiding a career-limiting disaster. Had my greatest fear been realized, the potential damage would’ve been far greater than the brief humiliation of admitting my weakness.
Ministers are particularly vulnerable to looking good.
It seems many congregations would prefer to follow an idealized image of a minister rather than an actual human being who, like every bible character, is flawed, needing the Savior. So, rather than model what it means follow Jesus amidst struggle and disappointment, ministers hide their scars, failings, and vulnerabilities from an adoring, albeit intolerant, church.
Detrich Bonhoeffer commented on this in Life Together: “The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship…So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.”
The tragic result, too often, is the eventual revelation of gross immorality, which mushroomed in the damp darkness created by the collusion of minister and congregation—both desiring to look good.
Coaching Distinctions # 6
Prices and Payoffs
Crazy people do things for no reason.
For the rest of us, there is always a reason for whatever we do. You might not like it, but it’s true.
We prefer to imagine that “something just came over me” when I chewed out the State Trooper while pulled over for speeding. Or, we claim innocence when we’re caught doing something impulsive and out of character: “I have no idea” where that came from!”
Here’s the thing, since you’re not nuts, you actually had a reason for doing what you did. True, you’re likely unaware of your motivations. I’m inviting you to consider that, if you’ll look honestly, you’ll be able to uncover why you behaved as you did.
When coaching a client who’s in some kind of trouble, one helpful practice is to examine the prices (costs) and payoffs (benefits) of the choices that contributed to the mess. It sounds something like this:
What prices are you paying, because of the choice you made?
What prices are being paid by the people on the other side of this difficulty?
What payoffs, or benefits, do you receive by making this decision?
It’s this third question that stumps most folks. The assumptive answer is “nothing”. So, I remind my client that they’re not certifiable, and to dig deeper. You see, no matter how incomprehensible your choices now seem to be, they made sense to you at the time. Inevitably, the client will discover that there was rationality behind the action.
Over the years I’ve learned that at some level, every decision made sense at the time to the person who made it. How it made sense is worth investigating.
Even more helpful is what comes next.
We collaborate to identify the beliefs that lay beneath that logic. For example, a pastor I’m coaching might realize that she distrusts an elder, and afraid of being manipulated like in her last pastorate, she’s unwittingly locked in a conflict she didn’t know was there.
Such a belief can be articulated this way: this [situation, person, experience] reminds me of that [something troubling from the past], so, I reacted as if I was in the same situation.
Problem is, this isn’t that and when I’m living in the present as if it’s essentially what happened before, I behave in ways that undermine my effectiveness now. What might surprise you is that this recurring drama plays itself out all the time.
You do it, too.
It’s also common to be unaware that you’re motivated by of these four powerful desires:
- To look good
- To feel good
- To be right
- To be in control
More on this next time.
