Empowering and Exploiting

I recently finished reading a book that has stirred my mind and heart more than any book I've read in a long time. It's called "The House Church Book" by Wolfgang Simson, and there is so much in this book that I disagree with, and yet so much that I love and that strongly challenges me. I'll be posting a review of it in a couple of weeks, but I wanted to blog through it a bit. I'll start by posting this table that you'll find on page 125 if you pick up the book.

How to Empower Others	How to Exploit Others
allow them to function	give them functions
believe in them	make them believe in you
delegate authority	require submission
further God's plan for them	make them part of your plans
invest in them	use them
love them, and say so	love the task more than the people
give them what you have	take what they have to give
discuss with them	preach at them
freely spend time with them	require appointments
give them the keys now	make them wait until you retire
serve them	let them serve you
praise them	accept their praise of you
transfer masterhood	demonstrate masterhood

This lays out so clearly what I was trying to put into words when I blogged about Life-Giving Leaders. The column on the left is what I aspire to--being someone who empowers others for the task to which God has called them. Take some time, look at the list, and see where you fall. Are you an Empowerer or Exploiter?

God in Search of Friends

Yesterday, I blogged about the aims of ministry. My friend’s good insight on building a fan base or a following spurred me to think about the reasons we minister and the endgame we’re pursuing with people. I thought the distinction between fans and followers was a good one, but I wanted to add a third—friends. Ministry ought to be about making deep, lasting friendships that are rooted in Christ Jesus.

This morning I was laying in my bed after feeding Ezekiel his bottle, pondering this idea from God’s perspective. One way to look at the Bible is to see it as the story of God in search of friends. His first friends (Adam & Eve) betrayed him, and almost nobody after them wanted anything to do with God. There were a few rare occasions (Enoch being the most faithful), but for the most part, God was friendless.

God’s relationship with Israel is most often couched in the verbiage of a marriage. (Check out the book of Hosea for the most vivid illustration of this.) God is the groom and Israel is the bride. They have a marriage ceremony on Mt. Sinai, complete with vows and “I dos”. Of course the marriage goes south quickly, and only seems to get worse as the story moves from Exodus to Malachi.

But then Jesus comes along and calls twelve disciples to his side. (Get it? 12 disciples = 12 tribes of Israel.) He remakes Israel around himself, and in three years accomplishes what his father had been trying to do for 1500—he finds friends. Jesus brought these twelve guys on a journey from curious onlookers (fans) to disciples (followers) to friends. And even though they were all about to abandon him or deny him or betray him, at the Last Supper he tenderly names them “friends”.

In order to find friends, God had to become like us. He had to take on flesh and blood and experience life (and death) from our perspective. The only way for him to find friends on earth was to live on earth. Jesus accomplished the relational purpose of God by making friends with Peter, James, John and all the rest.

The funny thing about God’s pursuit of friends is that he isn’t lonely! He is Three-In-One: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God exists in eternal community within himself. God’s search for friends isn’t driven by his need for us, but rather by our need for him. He knows we need him, and not just as a distant deity but as a close, personal friend. And he wants to be your friend. Really, he does. The Creator became a creature, not because he was lonely, but because the world he created was, so to speak, dying of loneliness; and his presence, his closeness, was the only thing that could save it.

Jesus wants you to be more than a follower, he wants you to be his friend. He wants you to know him, and he wants you to open up to him. There is an admirable nobility to just being a good servant of God, but if all God wanted was servants he wouldn’t have created us with the capacity to love and betray. God wants more than servants. He wants communities of people that love him and love each other. God is in search of friends. Has he found one in you?

Fans, Followers, and Friends

A friend of mine recently made a great comment about ministry and it's temptations. He said, "Do you want fans, or do you want followers?" Fans or followers. Do you want people who like you or who will go where you go and do what you do?

One of the strongest temptations of the preacher is to develop a fan base, like we were a baseball team or some kind of branded product. Fans cheer you on. They give you affirmation and stroke your ego. They subscribe to podcasts, download sermons, and read blogs. They buy your books and do your small group materials. But they don't know you and you don't know them. There is no relationship.

So rather than trying to build a fan base, we, as ministers, should try to build a group of followers. We should be out in front, leading the pack and calling them forward. We should be casting a vision for people, giving them a compelling story to find themselves in. Followers will help us accomplish our goals. They will do what we do and go where we go, and in the process the kingdom of God will be advanced.

But will it? Is having followers the endgame of ministry? Is that what we should be about? Is the kingdom of God advanced by leading a group of people toward the accomplishment of certain goals or the realization of a specific vision?

When my friend made his insight, I thought it was good, but it didn't come to rest on my soul the way certain truths do. There was more to the story, I thought. But I couldn't articulate it until the words of Jesus shot like lightning through my mind.

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15)

I think the real distinction is not between fans and followers, but between fans, followers, and friends. Jesus called his disciples his friends twelve hours before they all abandoned, denied, or betrayed him (which he knew would happen). They were more than fans and more than followers. They had become his friends. People he loved. People with faces and families that he wanted the best for.

Jesus didn't call Andrew and Peter, James and John and the rest out of their previous occupations in hopes of building a fan base or a following. No, his hope was that these guys would become his friends. The endgame of ministry is not to have a bunch of fans or followers, but to have a group of friends for whom you would die, and who would die for you. You could have 100,000 podcast subscribers and a vibrant ministry, but if you're alone at the top then you have failed. If you haven't made any friends as a minister, then you haven't ministered.

Stop trying to build a fan base and stop trying to gain a following. Start making friends--real friends who know you on a soul-level. Fans find new favorites and followers get weary of being anonymous. Friends will go with you and be with you because they love you and you love them. They'll stick by your side because you know each other.

Which would you rather have: 40,000 fans, 4,000 followers, or 4 good friends?

Perfect! ...Or Not

Last night I watched Armando Galarraga (of my favorite team, the Detroit Tigers) pitch a perfect game. And then I didn't.

For those who don't know baseball, a perfect game is when the pitcher retires all 27 batters in order. That means he doesn't allow a hit or a walk, and his team makes no errors in the field. Last night, Armando Galarraga retired 26 Cleveland Indians in order, and then this happened.



The replays confirm that Donald, the Indians' batter, was out. Had umpire Jim Joyce made the correct call, Armando Galarraga would have pitched the first perfect game in Detroit Tigers' franchise history.

As a lifelong Tiger fan, this was one of those moments you can only hope will happen while you're alive, much less while you're watching. (I live in Columbus and can only watch the Tigers when they play the Indians.) I had come home early from a date with my wife because a freak thunderstorm had blown over town, replete with funnel clouds. We didn't think it was right to be away from the kids during the storm, so we came home, looked at the radar, and then turned on the game. I saw Austin Jackson's incredible catch to record the first out in the ninth, running toward the deepest part of the park and snagging the ball Willie Mays' style on a dead sprint. That's when I knew Armando would get it.

But then he didn't. To his credit, Jim Joyce apologized to Galarraga after seeing a replay after the game. He feels awful, and now his spotless career as a big league ump is forever marred. I hope we Tiger fans can forgive him.

Galarraga handled the whole affair with class and dignity. He smiled immediately after the blown call, didn't let it get into his head, and immediately retired the next batter for, what I call, the first 28 out perfect game in the history of baseball. He knows he threw a perfect game. We all do. And no bad call on the 27th out can steal that from him.

Forgiveness is at the forefront of my mind, and has been for several weeks now. Maybe it sounds trite to you, but I forgive Jim Joyce. The Tigers' needed this perfect game--it would have been the first in their long and storied history. Detroit needed this perfect game. The city is hurting and now they feel like they're cursed. As a Tiger fan and someone born and raised in Detroit's minor league city of Toledo, I forgive you Jim Joyce. You're a good ump who made one bad call. And no matter what the record books say, we all know it was a perfect game. Armando Galarraga just got one extra out to prove it.

Straight Line Down

Last Thursday I took a look at one of the "Rapture" passages, Matthew 24:36-41. Today I'd like to go back to a passage I've already discussed on this blog, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Here's the text:

13Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage each other with these words.

Those who hold to Rapture Eschatology see here undeniable evidence that the Rapture will happen. What else could “we…will be caught up…in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” possibly mean? For many, this is the clearest teaching of the Rapture we have in the Bible.

But there are three questions that stand out. First, what is this passage really about? Second, what is the physical path that Jesus will take when he returns? Third, where exactly will we be with the Lord forever? Let’s examine each of these questions in turn.

To answer the first question, we must look back at verse 13, where Paul tells us why he is writing everything he writes in this paragraph. “We do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep.” The Thessalonian Christians became alarmed when their brothers and sisters began to pass away. Jesus had, after all, promised them eternal life. Paul’s solution to this conundrum was to look at Jesus and see that, just as he had died and risen again, so we will die and rise again. The resurrection of our bodies is our hope through death. This passage is first and foremost about what happens to dead Christians when Jesus returns and why those who are alive can have hope for them. This passage is about resurrection.

To answer the second question we have to look more closely at verse 16. “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven….” Paul’s picture of Creation was vastly different from our own because he lived before the time of Galileo, Newton, space flight, and the Hubble telescope. He understood heaven to rest directly above the earth, so when he says Jesus comes down from heaven that means the only place for him to go is the earth. There is no mention of Jesus taking any other path. He moves in a straight line down from heaven to earth. There is no indication from the text that he stops halfway, calls all true believers to himself, then turns around and goes back into heaven.

The answer to the third question begins with an examination of verse 17. “We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with [the resurrected Christians] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” The question of where we spend eternity with Jesus has, according to this verse, two options. We either meet Jesus as he is coming down to earth and escort him down, or we meet him halfway and stay there. Again, nothing about this text says that he turns around and goes back up to heaven. We either meet him as he is coming or we meet him halfway—meaning we either spend eternity on earth or in the air. The one place that is not an option, according to this passage, is heaven.

Our understanding of this passage is colored by our misunderstanding of eternity. Only if we bring an American folk-lore picture of eternity and heaven to this passage can we interpret a Rapture here. The key to reading this passage aright is fixing our picture of heaven. If Revelation 21 and 22 are the definitive biblical teaching on eternity, then we will not be in heaven or in the air. We will be here, on the recreated and renewed earth, living with the Trinity in the New Jerusalem. (And if you want to go really deep, look at how John talks about the New Jerusalem and how other NT authors talk about the Church. This will blow your mind.) When we trade in our pseudo-Christian, American folk-lore picture of eternity for a biblical one, then this passage in 1 Thessalonians 4 will come into clear view.

There is so much more that could be said about this passage, but for now we can know, 1) this text is primarily about resurrection, 2) Jesus travels in a straight line down from heaven to earth when he returns, and 3) we spend eternity with the Trinity here on the new earth. Finding the Rapture here is a bit like finding an F# in a rainbow. There is no Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.