An Emerging Profession: Resisting the maintenance of Spectacle

***This blog entry is bit dated. I was asked to contribute to a conversation on leadership and the emerging church. I thought of this post in light of the recent news about the allegations surrounding Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth in Atlanta/Lithonia, Ga. I believe the cult of personality/celebrity is a dangerous environment to be in as a spiritual leader. Pastor that have large platforms need to be more careful when entering into this strange American cultural practice. I believe it is wrought with peril and unncessary suffering.***

I received an email some days ago asking me to contribute to a great conversation about church leadership in 21st-century North America.  This conversation is being facilitated by Drew Ditzel.  He’s studying @ Columbia Theological Seminary.  As a part of his studies he’s investigating leadership and the emerging church.  There will be seven emerging  church bloggers that will be contributing to this conversation.  I look forward to chatting with folks on this very important issue.  

As one who comes from the world of black Pentecostalism and the Word of Faith/Charismatic storefront the image of pastor as CEO is gaining wide currency.  An example of this would be popular pastor Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, GA just outside of Atlanta.  He, along with many other prominent ministers, have been under fire recently for affluent lifestyles that are largely supported from the coffers/finances of their non-profit ministries.  I’m not here to debate the ethics of Long’s particular case.  I’m interested in something he said in a recent interview regarding his affluent lifestyle being largely supported by his church.  It appears Congress has gotten into the mix by interrogating and investigating the finances of prominent ministers.  Bishop Long will be one of many preachers that will be under Congress’ scrutiny.

In defense of his affluence Bishop Long says, “ ”We’re not just a church, we’re an international corporation.”  Long proclaims with confidence that he is a CEO of a multi-national non-profit ministry.  And like any other CEO of a large corporation he should be well compensated.  His use of the image of CEO and corporation I find to be interesting.  I have respect for Long’s ministry.  I refuse to join the cacophony of voices throwing broad and sweeping condemnations towards his ministry.  Anybody that has truly done ministry knows that ministry can be a complex reality.  A mixed bag of good and bad. 

The use of CEO/coporation to describe the pastor and church seems to be the controlling metaphors or images by which the community and its leadership is seen.  The pastor is CEO and members of the community are corporate workers and donors.  The non-profit ministry itself being a corporation just like any other corporation.  In the book Missional Church, edited by Darrell Guder, the image of pastor as CEO running a multinational corporation is put within in a larger historical context.

“The nature of leadership is thus transformed into the management of an organization shaped to meet the spiritual needs of consumers and maximize market penetration for numerical growth. Schools of management now replace medical and law schools as the professional model shaping seminary leadership training.”(p. 198)

One of the things embraced within the postmodern is the realization that we do theology from some place.  Our place is within the political economy of democratic liberal capitalism.  We live in a Market culture where just about all human interaction is seen through the lens of commerce and exchange.  The language of the multi-national corporation guides the understanding and structure of many in Christ’s body.  This is not necessarily a judgment but an observation that Market culture dictates our understanding of church leadership and the mission of the church in God’s world.  Pastor is CEO.  Church is multi-national corporation.  For the most part this reality seems to be a very practical thing given the world in which we live.  But there is a danger, I believe, in uncritically embracing these images of controlling and directing our understanding of leadership and community. 

I believe leadership in the emerging church will not uncritically accept these metaphors and images of leadership and community.  Largely because uncritically embracing Market language and image into the church’s mission can easily make it difficult to see one’s complicity with the negative pathologies of Free Market fundamentalism.  I would hope that leadership in the emerging church would be able to deconstruct the bad habits of free market fundamentalism by at least being able to resist habits, beliefs, and practices that make it difficult to see one’s complicity with structures of injustice.  As Jacques Derrida once taught us: deconstruction is justice.  In deconstruction, leadership is able to be honest about the finite nature of humans building these institutions and communities.  The very real human tendency to create structures/communities/institutions that maintain injustice among neighbors.  That they are just as easy to get caught up in practices and beliefs that make if difficult to discern one’s complicity with injustice. 

One such habit that needs to be resisted is the ‘maintenance of spectacle’.  I can see emerging church leaders positioned by theological humility, focus on peace-making, reconciliation, and forgiveness as a way to resist the maintenance of spectacle in their respective congregation.  What is spectacle?

Tomorrow.

Trying To Contact Me?

Having a bit of difficulty changing my phone service. If you need to contact me for the next couple of days email me.

Hopes for Big Tent Christianity

September 8-9 is Big Tent Christianity right up the road from us in Raleigh, NC. There will be some great panel discussions and I’m sure challening/inspiring side conversations. Friends connecting again that haven’t seen each other in a while. There will be a wide array of Christian bodies and traditions represented. Everything from Storefront Pentecostals (like myself) to Mainline Protestants to Catholics. This will be an opportunity for us to practice the hospitality we see exemplified by Jesus. I’m pretty sure popular issues of the day will be debated, discussed, and side-lined (e.g. sexuality, race, poverty, et al.).

I’m schedule to be a panelist on the discussion about Justice. Not sure what I’ll say yet. I’m sure I’ll be throwing racial justice into the mix along with justice issues related to doing ministry in the margins. We’ll see. I grow weary of talking about race. The only cure I’ve managed to see for racism is friendship. Everything else is coerced diversity and tokenism.

My passion these days is doing ministry in the margins. I’m learning how to see Jesus at work in the forgotten places in my community. Here is where I’m finding my calling to live justly. I’ll talk more about that at Big Tent Christianity.

My hopes?

1. Big Tent Christianity will be one more prophetic catalyst in bringing about North American Christianity’s shift from an absolutist religion to an embodiedment of the life of God we find in Jesus. What does that look like? I hope that Big Tent Christianity will help give us some starting clues.

2. Big Tent Christianity will help Christians find friendships of virtue centered around a more minimalist understanding of Christianity (Love God, Love Neighbor). A Christian minimalism set within the context of a wider range of issues than the normal left-right issues that carry the day.

3. Big Tent Christianity will challenge, deconstruct, and provide theological/ecclesial re-toolings to reconstruct my (our?) understanding of God, how God works in the world, and how God expects us to participate in this redemptive work.

Here are the hopes/expectations of others (synchroblog) for Big Tent Christianity.

Missional Prayer: Ephesians 1:3-10

This week my hub church, New Harvest Ministry, finished a long journey through the Hebrew prophets. Next week we begin a prayerful conversation on the apostle Paul’s epistle/letter to the Jesus-community in Ephesus, Ephesians. Prayers are forming as I meditate on the text:

Blessed and Holy Father of Jesus

Heaven and Earth meet in your Son. Brought together in peace are they. In Christ we walk in heavenly places holy and blameless before You, our neighbours, and our enemies. We live and play in a world before and after this present world. May we not continue as slaves to this world. But let us walk in our forgiveness that You have lavished upon us. We thank you that the mystery of Your will has been made known, the bringing together of all things in peace. A new world without end. Amen.

Missional Prayer: Wisdom from Teresa of Avila

The continual word to our faith community for several weeks has been pray, pray, pray! I found this great quote from Teresa of Avila in Benedict Groeschel’s book The Journey Toward God:

“I certainly pity those who serve the Lord at their own cost, because for those who practice prayer the Lord Himself pays the cost, since through their little labor He gives them delight so that with the help of this delight they might suffer trials.” p 36

I’m learning of this delight as we continue the journey deeper into God. Prayer is becoming the breath that sustains us in mission.

Missional Prayer: Spirit limricks

This past Monday friends gathered for Intercessory prayer. We normally start with lectio divina or praying the scriptures together. We have been praying the Gospel of John. Doing lectio divina in a Pentecostal context can be very explosive, in a good way. The verses we prayed were John 1:29-34. What jumped from the page was a limrick:

The work reveals the Son
The Spirit remains
When the work is being done

Missional Prayer: Joining up with the Tabernacled Logos (Word)

For the past several weeks Mission House has teamed up with New Harvest Ministry to do Intercessory prayer in our community. Before each session we do the ancient Christian practice of lectio divina or praying the scriptures. We have been praying thru the Gospel of John. We are still in chapter 1. I hope to journal shareable reflections as we progress in praying John together. One thought from the prologue i’d like to share: John 1:1-14 “Every neighborhood has a Logos calling us to join a specific mission of creative redemption and to incarnate or tabernacle the Divine intent.”

TransFORM this week!

This week I’ll be hanging out with some interesting folks at the Transform East Coast Gathering in D.C.. I’m anticipating great conversation and missional imaginings taking place with missional practioners from around the country.

Peter Rollins has an interesting thought on the expense of this gathering. 

I’ll be speaking at the gathering on Saturday morning. My talk will be introductory thoughts on being missional, kingdom, and being born ‘again’/above/anew.

Readings

I have been reading and reflecting on a couple of things.

1. Just received a copy of The Teaching of the 12 by Tony Jones. This should be a great conversation partner with the missional community I am a part of, Mission House.

2. People of the Spirit by Graham Twelftree. An illuminating text on St Luke’s understanding of the church’s mission.

3. Gospel of Luke. Right now Mission House is in Ch. 4. We are learning that the gospel call us to continue what Jesus began ‘to teach and do.’

4. Hebrew Prophets. We are finishing up Elijah-Elisha now. I’m reading the prophets with a small community in Cooleemee, NC, New Harvest Ministry. Just as Elisha inherits the mantle of Elijah when he ascends we have inherited the mantle of Jesus after his Ascencion.

Blogging from my Blackberry

Just downloaded wordpress app for my Blackberry. This is alright. Not sure how difficult it will be to post links with this.