Where have the men gone?

Why does the church culture seem to be dominated by women and unmanly men? (I know this is not totally true, but admit it -- by and large across the church, these are the percentages.)

This blog post is excellent and thought-provoking. Well worth reading.

Unique Contribution

Well, I had my conversation with Terry last week. (This is the guy who is in a three-year coaching relationship with Central's program staff. Check out Terry Walling's Leadership Breakthru pages -- great stuff!) The conversation was both easier and more profound than I expected.

The most significant comment Terry made to me went something like this: He said, Jeff, you've reached the stage in life where you no longer have to prove what you can do. From here on out, there are many things that you can do -- more than you'll ever finish. From here on out, the question is rather what you should do.

This was a revelation to me, though I have been pushing up against this question for a long time. As we talked I started to feel a freedom. Just because I am capable of something, that doesn't mean I should do it -- even if it is something that needs to be done.

Now, according to Terry, my work is to begin to figure out what my "unique contribution" is. The exact means toward this goal is to develop a statement that defines my role, my passion, my function, in such a way that I can use the statement as a tool to help me decide whether to take on a new project or a new assignment.

This certainly doesn't mean that if I'm not passionate about taking out the garbage, someone else will have to do it. Some things you just do because they're your responsibility and you love the people you live and/or work with. So I will continue to take out the garbage and a thousand other things. But when it comes to the big stuff, I'm excited to have a filter that helps me decide where to put my effort.

I'll keep you posted.

Pastorates

I have commented many times in the past on this blog about my excitement about pastorates. For newer readers or those who, like me, forget stuff -- a pastorate is a mid-sized group of Jesus-followers who meet in a home for fellowship, worship, scripture, sacraments, and common work in mission and evangelism. In short, it's much like a house church but is rooted within the life of a larger congregation. The model (and the name) comes most recently from Holy Trinity Brompton, the Anglican church in London that is best known for starting the Alpha Course.

Mid-sized in this case means a group of about 25-35 people, which might seem large. I constantly tell potential leaders whose eyes widen at that number to stop counting the chairs in their house. So many of us think that crowding is a bad thing -- but if you've ever been part of a worship gathering in a home, you know that if everyone has a chair, it's pretty awkward -- but if you've got people sitting on the stairs, the window ledge, the living room floor, and the arms of the couch, it creates a kind of energy that can be exciting!

The reason I'm so excited about pastorates is two-fold. First, I have always been passionate about wanting the church to live up to its calling to be God's redemptive agent in the world (see Romans 8) -- in short, to live in intimate connection with Jesus through his Spirit, to care for its participants, and to overflow in love for all creation in tangible ways. As I have worked in traditional congregations, I have rarely seen any indications that the church can live in this way. Every time I've seen the church approach this level of mission and community life and spiritual vibrancy, it has been in home-based, home-sized groupings of some kind. I long for the church to become what Paul describes in Ephesians 3:10 -- God's vehicle to proclaim his many-splendored wisdom to the spiritual powers and authorities.

The second reason I'm excited about pastorates is that Central Lutheran, the church where I have served as an associate pastor for close to nine years, is putting a ton of energy and effort into creating pastorates within our congregation. I have been advocating this change for five years, and right now we are seeing it happen. As we have prayed and talked and read scripture and studied for the last three or four years, trying to "discern God's design for the body of Central" this is the door that God has opened.

Our hope is that within three to five years we will have dozens of pastorates meeting in homes, studying God's word, worshiping and sharing in the sacraments, and giving themselves away in some kind of tangible mission together. Newcomers to the church will be encouraged to participate in pastorates. Pastorates will give birth to new pastorates as leaders are trained and equipped through a natural, relational mentoring process. These communities will provide relationships across generations, much like an extended family.

Rest assured that you'll see more in the coming days on this blog about pastorates. Right now Central's pastors have been meeting with the first round of potential leaders, and it is so fun to see how God's Spirit has been preparing these conversations, laying groundwork in people's lives to prepare them for a leadership role.

If you are a praying person, I encourage you to pray for this adventure. Pray especially for these potential leaders, for their training and the people who will be led to participate in this fledgling round of pastorates that will form. Undoubtedly we will make many mistakes, but as the Bible reminds us, "Love covers a multitude of sins." We will certainly need that! I can't imagine moving forward with these pastorates if we weren't utterly convinced God is leading in this direction. Thanks for your prayers!

Alpha Sunday

This Sunday, January 22nd, will be "Alpha Sunday" at Central. I have the privilege of preaching, and much of the traditional sermon time will be given to testimonies -- some live, some on video -- of people from Central whose lives have been changed as Jesus met them in the Alpha Course.

In addition we'll have a table in Central's lobby where people can sign up for Alpha. We haven't had a large group go through Alpha since the fall of 2009, so many people at Central have never had the opportunity to try Alpha. We'll also be encouraging people to plug in as volunteers in a variety of roles.

Also, (and this is exciting) we'll be promoting our Alpha Philippines trip coming up in just a couple months. We're sending a small team to the central Philippines to do a "GAT" -- Global Alpha Training -- to train and equip church leaders in the Philippines to lead Alpha. I believe God is going to do great things through this trip, both for the churches in the Philippines, and for Central!

If you're in the Elk River, MN area, come to Central this Sunday! If you've never done Alpha, this is a great opportunity to find out more. If you're not in the local area, you can still check out Alpha -- there are Alpha courses meeting all over the world. Check this page out to find an Alpha course near you.

Community with accountability

For years at Central we've been using this phrase: "Community with accountability." So often churches try to be Nice Places and we think (mistakenly) that this means never holding people accountable, never talking about the hard things. Not true. So for the last several years Central has been making strides -- first among the staff, then working out into relationships within the congregation -- to live in community, bearing each others burdens, caring for one another, being part of each other's lives. And we've tried to do this with accountability, so that each person who is part of that community recognizes that our own actions and attitudes impact others.

It's a good way to live.

It's good even on days like today when I'm faced with more accountability than I would like.

You see, two things are hitting me in the brain and the heart this morning. First, this is Friday, and I have been trying for several months now to take Fridays as a sabbath day, a day of rest. Today isn't going to be one. There are just too many "have-to's" on my list today, and that is the quickest way to wreck a sabbath day. Oh, I'll take some rest time here and there -- a couple hours -- but it's not going to be the sabbath practice I have set as a goal and really come to love. So I know there are people who will call me to task for this. In fact, anticipating the way this week was going, my wife has already asked me when I'm going to get some rest time. She's asked this several times. Community with accountability.

The second thing that is on my brain and my heart this morning is a conversation I had with Terry several weeks ago. Terry is a coach we've brought in to work with our staff at Central. He's good stuff, even if he is a Dodgers fan. He knows how to comfort and encourage, and he also knows how to ask the hard questions. So just before Christmas he asked me if I had to give up everything on my plate work-wise except one thing, what would I choose? He gently pointed out that I have way too many plates spinning, that this is a sure recipe for burnout, and that when I'm trying to keep so many projects in the air I won't do any of them well. (My assignment prior to this phone call was to come up with a list of three goals for 2012. Terry read my goals and pointed out that I had included three numbered paragraphs, but in those paragraphs I had eight goals. Ouch.) So my assignment these last weeks has been to think about -- not necessarily make any drastic decisions -- what I would do if I could only do one thing.

In some ways I think it would be a relief to only be doing eight things.

I am supposed to talk to Terry again on Monday. I haven't come up with any solutions -- just trying to keep the plates spinning. I'm not sure I'm going to like the accountability end of our conversation.

The trouble is, most of what I do I really, really love. And I think it's really, really important. And if I don't do it, it won't get done. Then there are other things that other people think are really important, and I kind of think so as well, so I'm doing them because ... well, because I think I should. Then there are the things I'm doing just because they sound like fun, and then I get into the middle of them and realize that I'm not at all excited about them because I'm just too overcommitted, and I wish I could back out but I really can't.

Any of this sound familiar? I don't think I'm alone here.

What's the answer? Not sure. Hopefully I'll figure it out in the next 48 hours, or else maybe Terry can clear that up for me on Monday.

How to boost your energy level

I follow Michael Hyatt's blog, and today he posted an excellent list. So often we live down in the dumps when we really don't need to. Click here to read more.

Buechner

In college I acquired a book called Wishful Thinking by Frederich Buechner (pronounced beek-ner). It was a wonderful and amazing theological dictionary. It included many prosaic gems like this one:

“It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.”

I love it.