What Willow Creek's REVEAL reveals

A lot of blogging is going on around Willow Creek's discovery about itself through a survey it has conducted around "how successful they are in accomplishing their purpose of making fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ." Bill Hybels indicated that the results were disturbing as they discovered that after 30 years they were doing something fundamentally wrong.

However, they have come up with a plan to respond to a whole new set of "needs" of those who self-identify themselves as "fully devoted followers" which focuses on believers to become "self-feeders" earlier on in their spiritual journey. Hybels and the staff at Willow are talking about having "personal trainers" to coach people to custom design ways in which people can mature spiritually.

I wonder how long it is going to be before Willow realizes that perpetuating an individualized, need-focused, consumer-driven spirituality is just another facet of the "seeker-driven" model which sees spirituality as a need to be met? Spirituality is not just another commodity, rather it is being in a Spirit-led relationship with Jesus Christ within a Spirit-led community that permeates every aspect of our lives and demonstrates what it is to be human under the rule of God. It has more to do with developing the spiritual sensitivities of discerning -- seeing and hearing where God is active in the world, and being an obedient people participating with God in God's redemptive mission of reconciling human beings to himself and recreating the earth. This involves a process rather than the working of another plan.

A Fundamental Question for Shaping Our Leadership Imagination

For me a fundamental question shaping the way, I think, we ought to think about pastoral leadership is:

"What is God doing in our world and how can we lead a people to be formed by what God is doing? How can we lead a people to see what God is doing, to hear what God is saying, and to courageously respond to participating with God in God's redemptive mission?"

To be pastoral leaders who shape communities to be spiritual in this way I believe is a fundamental question for shaping our leadership imaginations. This is to understand that it is not about our agendas in leading the people we have been entrusted to us, nor about offering religious services for the spiritual consumer, rather it is about guiding a community to demonstrate in the world what it means to be a people who live out their lives under the rule of God.

Making Space for the Gospel in the World

Recently I came across an article by Todd Hiestand entitled, The Gospel and the God-Forsaken, which gives focus to the challenge of being missional in the suburbs. He raises a unique distinction for understanding what differentiates missional churches from churches operating within the Christendom paradigm.

It is a distinction between being sent and those that go. Basically, churches that have a mindset of “going” see themselves as separate from the world and in order to share the Gospel they make forays into the world to “do mission” and then retreat “back to the safety of separation” (Hiestand, http://www.allelon.org/articles/article.cfm?id=385). Many of us live out our Christian faith in this way. We interpret Jesus’ command in Matthew 28: 18) of go into the world as making disciples as a command to set everything aside and go, with the result that we charge into the world, only to retreat once again to be refreshed. This cycle of going and retreating keeps us from being not only “of the world,” but it also keeps us from “being in the world” as well.

In many ways this represents a monastic paradigm in which we separate ourselves from the world; even in our reaching out we exude a separateness. And so we wonder why we struggle with making space for the Gospel in the world.

In taking note of how Jesus became one of us and engaged the culture, we see that an incarnational approach calls for us to be in the world. Just as Jesus was sent by the Father to be in the world carrying out God’s redemptive mission, so too we as Christ’s community in the world, called to continue in the ministry of Christ, we are a community that is sent into the world, rather than a community that goes into the world. The difference is staggering.

The realization that we are sent is the realization that we have been placed in the world in order to make space for the Gospel. By the way we live, relate to one another, carry out our business, we are sign, foretaste, and demonstration of the presence of God’s rule in the world. As a sent community in the world, we live out an alternate reality to the way the world is used to living.

What might this look like? I propose that we are called to walk among our neighbors – those God has placed us beside in our contexts – to walk with them, alongside of them, supporting and encouraging them in their growth and development as human beings by engaging them in the way Jesus would. We engage our neighbors with the realization that it is not our efforts that make space for the Gospel, but as we are open to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit, it is the Spirit who sends us as persons and communities to engage our world. We are sent to love the people who we are with in the world as Christ loves them, to seek their well-being, to offer ourselves, as imperfect as we are, to be of use to God so that they might be made whole.

In an attitude of sentness, we make space for the Gospel in the lives of our neighbors, as we make space for them in our lives. As we make room for others in our lives, we do not come to them with our agendas, but we are open to the agenda that God has for us in coming alongside of them in our encounter. As we make room for others in our lives – our lives in being open and yielded to the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit has opportunity to touch the lives of our neighbors and draw them to himself. In an attitude of sentness we remain in the world and the Spirit is present in our relationships making space for the Gospel. It is when we go and retreat that we are more apt to grieve the Spirit and create barriers for our neighbors to experience the reality of the Gospel in Jesus Christ.

Being Led by the Spirit

Many of us view the ministry we are involved in as a response to the call of God upon our lives. It is a call that was not shaped by us, but God prompting us in ways - through circumstances, through an inner compulsion, or even a sensing of God speaking with clarity to us - that made clear to us that our lives were to be devoted to God's mission in the world.

Yet, somewhere along the way we get comfortable with our calling and we begin to control and shape the way we enact our calling. We may still feel we are led by the Spirit, but much of our leading is now also under our own direction.

I am discovering - through re-reading of the birth narratives of Jesus - that being led by the Spirit is something that is very uncomfortable, very much outside the boundaries of our control. Though the Spirit comforts us, the leading of the Spirit is very uncomfortable - and I guess that is the way I would rather have it. You see, when I start shaping my own destiny, I seem to go off in directions that have more to do with me, rather than participating in what God is up to in the world.

Both Mary and Joseph in hearing the news that the child developing in Mary was of the Spirit made both Mary and Joseph very uncomfortable - they had no context for which to gain understanding (many of us who called ourselves learned, still have no context for what they came to accept.) What the Spirit of God expressed to them was indeed uncomfortable, though as they were comforted by the Spirit their hearts leaped with joy - being in wonderment about what God was doing to bring about the salvation of his human creation.

And so I ask myself - do I want to live into my calling in ways that are comfortable to me? Or do I want to discover what God intends for the calling God has placed upon my life by daring to heed the Spirit, no matter how uncomfortable it is for me? I am beginning to discover the courage to engage in the latter. It is the Spirit of God, who comforts me (cf. John 14) as the Spirit leads me - because without the Spirit I would be unable to go beyond my comfort zones. As the Spirit takes me into different kind of ministry contexts, I am unsure why I am even there - but in yielding to the Spirit, I begin to see and hear what God is doing in the world to which I am being invited to participate. And to think that I would be oblivious to all this if I remained in ministry bounded by what I am able to control and be comfortable in.

Being led by the Spirit is perhaps the most uncomfortable thing in my life - but I am re-discovering this to be the way I desire to live out my life and ministry.

Church: Communities of People Surfacing to do Gospel in the World

This past weekend I participated in a convocation sponsored by the Center for Parish Development. The theme of the weekend focused on "Led by the Spirit, Learning to be Church" and the presenter was Thomas R. Hawkins. The next few blogs will highlight some of the learnings I gained from this time together.

One of the sentences that took hold of my imagination was -- "pockets of people surfacing to do Gospel in the world." This grew out of the conversation we were having as a group on "Fellowship." Fellowship is more than hanging out together, chatting, drinking coffee and having a good time together -- though it involves those things, it is actually a partnership with one another as we partner together in Christ Jesus and through him we partner together with God in God's mission -- the enacting of the Gospel of the kingdom or reign of God.

As the community of Christ in the world we find that we are actually communities -- we exist in all kinds of geographic places, all kinds of ethnic contexts, urban, rural, rurban, suburban, etc, in all kinds of socioeconomic settings -- though we are one community (we are one in Christ), we live and have our being in every imaginable setting.

So what is our identity in these settings? How are we salt and light in these settings?

The image that is a helpful one for me is seeing ourselves as "pockets of people (or pockets of communities) surfacing to do Gospel in the world."

We are groupings of people, gathered communities, who live not for ourselves, but to actively reveal the present activity of God in the world -- as we consciously participate with God in fulfilling God's redemptive purpose in the world. And as we live in such a way, we pepper the neighborhoods, towns and cities we are in with visible and concrete actions of the Gospel -- we become communities of people who live out life in places where love, peace, and joy have been shoved into a corner. As "pockets of people" we surface in all kinds of ways -- through relational encounters -- in which we bring the realities of Gospel, the presence of Christ and the Spirit into every situation.

And as a result -- we bring light and life -- not as a program -- but just through our living -- so that others can enter into life as well.

Journeying Can Be Scary At Times

Recently, I turned down a ministry opportunity that I had been hoping would shape the next phase of my life and ministry. It has been a process that has taken almost one year -- and to come to the realization that this would not be a moving forward for me, but a stepping back made this decision all the harder. It was a position that offered a modicum of financial security, but one thing I have come to realize in the past year is that life is not about financial security. Sometimes I hate being a "dreamer" -- and this year has been a year of dreaming what life yielded completely into the hands of God can be.

I admit it is scary at times -- this place of trusting God for my future. I don't understand it at times, and so I am sure others do not understand this at all. I don't have clarity about what my future looks like, no more 3, 5, 10 year plan, but there is also a peace. It is a peace that comes from sensing that I am in am journey in which God is leading me, a way of being in which I, as best I can, am following after Jesus Christ. I find that it is God's peace that encourages me to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and to be open to participate with the ongoing redemptive mission of God in the world through the opportunities he is presently opening to me. And so, I continue to develop my eyes to see where God is working and ears to hear what God is saying so that I can somehow participate in what God is doing -- I am open to that.

Last week I came across a poem I wrote in February 2006 which expressed the reason for my embarking on this adventure of leaving one position and taking a "sabbatical" to explore a new direction for life and ministry. Here it is:

Life!

Full of passion, full of purpose

Embracing, involving all that I am

Focused, directed, seeking

Everything that I have been called to be.

Can life be lived within a box?

A quart of soil to bed my roots?

Windowless walls to set my gaze?

Folded flaps to hide the stars?

Can lilies of the field flourish in garden plots?

Can sparrows be held in fenced in yards?

Roots matted, tangled in potted soil

Seek soil that enables limitless reach

Life, hindered, constrained, boxed in

Seeks horizons that are beyond the sun

Life

That I am created, called to live

Seeks first the horizonless, limitless

Reign of God.

by Roland G. Kuhl

Copyright 2007

Walking into the Unknown

This past year has been one filled with differing thoughts and emotions as I ventured out in faith from my position at Northern Seminary. Throughout this whole time I know it has been the right decision for me for this phase of my life -- there are many names that people give to such a journey such as moving from success to significance, rediscovering oneself at the midpoint of one's life, even mid-life crisis. This journey is one of discovery, but also one that ventures out embracing fear of the unknown -- not so much in where God is leading, but in wondering if I am hearing clearly enough and whether I have the courage to follow.

There are times when I sense that I am trusting God in the journey and I know beyond a doubt that the direction of my life and the meeting of the needs of my family is fully in God's hands -- and I am at peace. At other times I am filled with questions, with doubt, wondering am I discerning the direction clearly, am I being irresponsible in regard to caring for my family, especially as it relates to financial concerns.

No matter what kind of day I find that I am strengthened when I refocus on on seeking first God's kingdom, realizing that there is no other place for me to be (Matthew 6:33). When I am overwhelmed with doubt, it is refocusing on God and God's leading -- remembering the signposts in my life where God has clearly indicated that I am following in the way he is leading -- that I rediscover the peace that is beyond all understanding.

Life and ministry are meant to be an adventure and as long as I walk with God, with Jesus Christ, with an openness to the Spirit, my walking, though unknown to me as to where I am headed, is not unknown to God.

I encourage all of us as followers of Jesus Christ to discover the peace of not taking control of our own destinies, but to rely on walking with Christ, even if it is through the "valley of the shadow of death" (Psalm 23).

Peace,
Roland

Being a Servant Community

This past week I was up in Vancouver Canada interviewing for a position and they had asked me to make a presentation on the following topic: The Future of the Missional Church: Its Potentials in the Multicultural Setting of Canada. One of the things I stated was that the church, either in Canada or the United States, has no future unless it becomes missional.

I really believe that. Though there is a lot to be reflected upon, I offered two implications for the church in Canada -- one was the necessity for the church to be a servant community in culture. We recognize that as church we have become marginalized in the present postmodern culture and no longer have a place of privilege wherein we can speak in such a way that the culture will listen. As with leadership, even though we know we are called to be servants, we still want to maintain some control, so to the church, even though it is marginalized, we still want to be regarded as somehow relevant in society.

That isn't going happen -- at least not in the way we think. I think the only calling that makes sense for us as the sent Christian community is for us to be servant community. This has two aspects to it. One, we serve the world by demonstrating what life is like under the reign of God in order to display another narrative amongst all other narratives in order to enable the narratives of other cultures to see themselves truthfully. Hauerwas stated something like this in talking about how the church is called to serve the world. It is as the church lives out its Story as the sent community, participating with God in the fulfilling of God's mission, that a different Story is revealed that stands in contrast to all other stories. This contrasting Story acts as a mirror to help cultures see the limitations within their stories for being whole communities.

Actually that is the result of our serving. As we enter into dialogue with other cultures, other people, as we live amongst them incarnationally, living in relation to them in the rhythm of our Story, we serve them as our neighbor, loving them, caring for them, encouraging them, being Christ in their midst -- in this way our servanthood actions reveal not only our love for them, but what is also revealed is our Story.

However, we serve in another way as well. Here I am indebted to Ray Anderson. Our service is not primarily to the world, but to God, whose mission is enacted in the world to draw all humanity into a reconciled relationship with God. As we serve God, we place ourselves at God's disposal as a community for God to use us in any way God sees fit to draw humanity, cultures unto himself. We exercise our servanthood by discerning the particular engagements God is calling us to -- to which we respond in engaging people, cultures in these ways -- no matter how far out of our comfort zones these actions are. We do this because we serve the Father and the Father's mission of reconciling the world to himself through Jesus Christ.

Therefore, rather than trying to make something of ourselves as communities of Christ in the world, we are called to be servant communities, just as Jesus came to serve.