A Great Celebration

I had an amazing time celebrating one year at North Way East End yesterday. We had nearly 300 people taking part in all of the festivities. All of the glory belongs to God who is doing a great work in the East End of the city of Pittsburgh. Much thanks to everyone who served yesterday, and also to everyone who supported the launch of the church over the past year. I am blessed to be a part of such an incredible church family, and privileged to lead people who are so passionate about following Jesus.

Celebrating One Year at North Way East End

Our leaders at North Way East End are preparing for a big one year anniversary celebration. We will begin by worshiping at 10am at 5941 Penn Ave in East Liberty as we ordinarily do. During the service we'll be reflecting on all that God has done this past year, and I'll be preaching live so that I can tell our church's story and cast vision for this upcoming year. It all culminates with a block party in the East End ministry center after church. We also have a small group connect this coming Sunday, so there will be a lot going on. Whether you've been regularly attending North Way East End, or if you've never had the opportunity to experience our church community, I invite everyone to join us for this Sunday's special time together. I'm sure it will be a memorable experience!

Creative Leadership

This weekend the American nation turns its attention to celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the his greatest attributes was his creativity in response to complex social issues. He understood that passivity and violence were both ineffective responses to the deep rooted problems in our culture. He was always thinking about and implementing innovative responses within a population that mostly focused on simplistic responses to complex problems. In the struggle for civil rights, many people were either arming themselves and turning to violence or they were being passive by either letting people dominate them or standing idly on the sidelines and watching things play out. Sadly, many Christian leaders chose either violence or passivity during that struggle. Dr. King said, "A mere condemnation of violence is empty without understanding the daily violence that our society inflicts upon many of its members. The violence of poverty and humiliation hurts as intensely as the violence of the club. This is a situation that calls for statesmanship and creative leadership."

Dr. King is such an inspiration to me because God has called me to be a leader who stands up and does something about the violence in my city. I am thankful that there are other leaders who God is calling to do the same thing and join in the struggle to bring about God's shalom community in Pittsburgh and in cities around the world. The violence in my city is not a simple issue that can be broken down into right versus left, the law versus the criminals, or bad guys against good guys. Systemic brokenness in my city has contributed greatly to the violence of poverty and humiliation. In learning from Dr. King, I dedicate much of my time as a leader to thinking about and implementing creative solutions to complex urban and cultural problems. Responding to violence with violence is wrong, and responding to pain and brokenness passively by standing on the sidelines is wrong. My heart has broken for the violence in my city. I have great hopes for the transformation that God is bringing about through leading a church in the city, by leading a mentoring program involving some of Pittsburgh's most vulnerable youth population, and by mobilizing thousands of people at my church to begin to reconcile with one another across racial, socioeconomic, cultural, neighborhood, and religious boundaries. My hope is that God will continue to open up my eyes to creative leadership and grow me as a leader in a society that desperately needs innovative responses to complex issues.

Obsessing Over the Failures of Other People

Much has been made over the past couple of days about Lance Armstrong's public apology for cheating at cycling. In his moment of public disgrace, I am reminded that people spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about and even obsessing over other people's behavior and failures. As humans, we find comfort and escape in the drama and problems of other people. That's why news, reality TV, and movies are so popular. We focus on other people's issues in order to numb ourselves to our own difficulties in life. Sadly, not much is different in the Christian community in America. When Christian leaders make mistakes, our society jumps all over them. Other Christians are sometimes the most guilty perpetrators of kicking people while they're down. And this is not true simply of Christian leaders. Many people who call themselves Christians spend a lot of time and energy pointing out flaws in other Christians.

All of us who follow Jesus are called to high standards of living counter-culturally in authentic and loving community with one another. Our responses to sin and brokenness in our world should not look exactly like those in our culture who do not follow Jesus. We are set apart by God, and our community should look much different than the world's values of gossiping and obsessing over the mistakes of others. Dietrich Bonhoeffer suggest that "By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live in a dream world even for a few weeks and to abandon ourselves to those blissful experiences and exalted moods that sweep over us... Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the common life, is not the one who sins still a person with whom I stand under the word of Christ? Will not another Christian's sin be an occasion for me to ever anew to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Jesus Christ? Therefore, will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me because it so thoroughly teaches me that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and deed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ? The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting." - Life Together

Yes, people sin. That is not going to change in this present evil age as sin and brokenness have entered into the human condition. As followers of Jesus, we should not accept sin. We should ever be listening to God in terms of rooting sinful habits out of our lives. There are times when God might ask us to gracefully point out sin in another brother or sister in Christ. Beyond that, we should not be spending so much time pointing out other people's flaws and sins. We should not be living in an alternative reality where we lose ourselves in other people's messes while neglecting our daily mission to advance the kingdom of God. God has too much for us to do in terms of advancing his mission to redeem the world than for us to be spending so much time worrying about other people. Let's keep our focus on Christ.

What Can Today's Christian Leaders Learn from Dr. Martin Luther King?

Christian leaders can learn so much from the leadership style of Dr. Martin Luther King. He was a brilliant man with deep passion and conviction. I love to study his methods because he was so effective, and obviously God had an anointing on his life to transform the hearts of a nation and the world. The following are a few leadership perspectives that modern Christian leaders can learn from:

1. Dr. King led by example. He asked the people he was leading to take risks and do hard things, and then he would go out and take those risks and do those hard things. He didn't do things for people, he did things with people by empowering his followers to take ownership of the struggle against discrimination.

2. Dr. King used both words and works. He may very well have been the best verbal communicator of all time, but his leadership became even more powerful when he stood with his people by leading boycotts, going to jail, and standing arm and arm with people in the streets. Combining words with actions leads to the type of authenticity that can only be earned the hard way.

3. Dr. King embraced downward mobility. He had little regard for his own life. He could have stayed up north once he earned his doctorate degree from seminary, but instead he chose to move south with his family directly into what he and his wife knew from the start would be an intense and costly fight for the civil rights of African Americans living in the south. He knew that he might be killed for doing what was right, and he kept going anyway. He thrived in the midst of suffering, and he understood that leadership with integrity comes with a cost.

4. Dr. King had a profound sense of the context in which he was leading. He had a very broad worldview, he sought to understand all of the different perspectives on various issues in different parts of the nation, and his end goal in leading with nonviolent resistance was to bring about transformation for all of the people involved (not just the folks he was trying to lead out of oppression, but also the oppressors). He had a knack for stepping into the moment.

5. Dr. King innovated. He applied nonviolent strategies that he had read about and tailored those strategies to the unique context of the fight for civil rights in the United States. He consistently created new approaches to complex circumstances based on limited resources and a domination system that was stacked against him.

I'll stop there, although I could probably describe hundreds of different leadership strategies that today's Christian leaders could learn from the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. Imagine the transformation that could occur through churches today if leaders simply had the courage to lead by example, utilize words and works, embrace downward mobility, contextualize according to unique circumstances, and innovate new approaches to complex problems in the world.

MLK and Nonviolence

Over the past several months I have been reading a lot about how Christians can respond to violence and oppression in our world. We all live in a present evil age, the "now, but not yet" era of the kingdom of God. As such, we experience the pain that comes with experiencing violence in a broken world. The Powers that Be by Walter Wink really opened my eyes to a powerful Christian response to violence in our world... nonviolent resistance. Jesus was against both passive and violent responses to oppression and domination. Jesus introduced a third way, the path of nonviolent resistance.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one example of a follower of Jesus who studied and implemented the path of nonviolent resistance in response to domination systems. He said, "The way of acquiescence leads to moral and spiritual suicide. The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But the way of nonviolence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community."

I am still learning a lot about how to respond to violence and domination systems in our modern world. I am thankful for the leaders who have gone before me who have shown the way. And, I am looking forward to celebrating Dr. King's life at North Way East End on MLK day from noon to 4pm. God is continuing to transform my heart, and God is doing a great work at North Way East End in terms of reconciling people across racial, economic, and cultural barriers.

Downward Mobility and Advancing the Kingdom of God

The past few weeks have been tough. I won't go into details, but I have noticed that the enemy is really going after me to try to take me off track from participating in God's mission. I know that God is victorious in all things, that God wins, and that good triumphs over evil. Still, that does not mean that this life is supposed to be easy or comfortable. That is especially true knowing God has called me to the front lines as a pastor in a complex urban environment.

Advancing the kingdom of God is messy business. Jesus modeled this as the ultra religious leaders and the political leaders of his day decided to crucify him for living and speaking such a subversive yet hope filled gospel message. Jesus rolled up his sleeves and entered into the human condition so that we might all find eternal life through his life, death, and resurrection. Most of Jesus' closest friends, his disciples, suffered tremendously while they lived before dying violently at the hands of human beings who rejected them. In the first 300 years of the Christian church, the time when it grew the fastest throughout the past 2,000 years, the followers of Jesus experienced tremendous persecution and suffering. Many followers of Jesus were martyred under Roman rule. Only when the Roman emperor Constantine endorsed Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire did the early Christians experience relief from the persecution. Unfortunately, Christianity began to decline when it was married to the powerful systems of the Roman Empire (political, economic, etc.).

In looking back over 2,000 years of Christian history, we see that Christianity often declines when it becomes too closely associated with popularity, comfort, and power. On the flip side, we see that Christianity thrives among marginalized people groups, when it is a subversive gospel message. This is true today. 100 years ago, 80% of the world's Christians lived in the west (Europe and North America). Today, only 20% of the world's Christians reside in the west. 80% of today's Christians live in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Christianity is growing the fastest among marginalized people groups who often experience tremendous persecution because of their faith in Jesus. Most of Europe is already considered post-Christian, and America is well on its way to being a post-Christian nation. Could this be because western Christians have tried to marry a life of comfort, prosperity, power, and upward mobility with a gospel of Jesus Christ that was intended to be subversive and counterculture?

These concepts remind me that if I'm experiencing suffering or discomfort related to radically following Jesus Christ, then I must be doing what God is asking of me in terms of advancing his mission to redeem the world.  God has set me apart to reach cities, to reach people who are often marginalized by mainstream society, and to live in authentic Christian community while radically loving my neighbors. This is why I am so wary of top-down, success oriented leadership styles being infused into Christian churches in America. The prosperity, or wealth and health, doctrine that has infiltrated many churches is heresy, plain and simple. The kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. It's not about producing programs or results. The kingdom of God is about following Jesus into the arms of hurting people in a broken world. We experience God's grace as it pools in low places. Mysteriously, God's love shines most powerfully through us when we take the focus off our own personal or corporate success, and God works through us to fulfill his mission to the lost through our downward mobility. There is great victory in Christ when we die to our selves. I get to experience the joy of victory in Christ when I enter fully into the difficult things that God requires of me on a daily basis.

Equipping Mentors

Tomorrow morning I have the opportunity to do something that I absolutely love. I get to train at least 50 new mentors who will be building relationships with kids from all over the city of Pittsburgh. I love to equip and empower new mentors because I have experienced first hand the dramatic transformation that happens in the lives of both adults and youth through the process of establishing mentoring relationships.

During the training we'll be talking about the basics of building effective one to one relationships with kids, best practices of communication (speaking and listening), common fears and barriers to mentoring relationships, and eight different perspectives on transformational mentoring. I'll be mixing in different case studies, group discussions, exercises, and video examples. It's going to be a lot of fun!

Living in God's Grand Adventure

I recently spent some time looking through photos of my mentoring adventures, and I was kind of surprised about how many times my two daughters popped up in the photos. By choosing to live in the inner city neighborhood where I also work at leading a mentoring program, I have intentionally brought my family along as a meaningful part of the adventure of life. My calling is not a special solo mission for daddy. My daughters are learning how to live in God's mission to reach others on a daily basis. The gospel message of Jesus Christ is real to them on a daily basis because we all live it out together. I am excited to see what God does in their own lives as they grow into the callings that God has for them.

It's impossible to be effective at advancing the kingdom of God from a safe distance. The best ministry happens through hands on experiences and authentic relationship building. I'm happy that my daughters are learning these things from a young age. Our family loves living in God's mission together.

Everyday Church

It is so important for Christian leaders to mobilize followers of Jesus to build authentic relationships with people who are not following Jesus. In a post-Christian culture, people want to know if you are the real deal or not. Hypocritical Christianity, as always, will not cut it when it comes to advancing the kingdom of God. This is especially true in a society that is increasingly hostile toward Christianity.

I read a good book recently. In Everyday Church: Gospel Communities on Missions, authors Tim Chester and Steve Timmis point out that, "We need to do church and mission in the context of everyday life. We can no longer think of church as a meeting on a Sunday morning. We must think of church as a community of people who share life, ordinary life. And we cannot think of mission as an event that takes place in an ecclesiastical building. Of course, there will always be a role for special events, but the bedrock of mission will be ordinary life. Mission must be done primarily in the context of everyday life."

My goal as a pastor is to mobilize the church I lead to build meaningful relationships with all kinds of different people. We can't afford to live in a comfortable Christian bubble, spending most of our time with people who believe as we do. We must engage culture and intentionally build relationships across cultural boundaries and belief systems.

January at North Way East End

Please pray for everything that is going on at North Way East End during this month of January. Many people were deeply impacted by the gospel message of Jesus Christ this past year, and we are expecting full services in the Kelly Strayhorn this month as church attendance is generally at its highest in January. Our leadership team will be working hard to build meaningful relationships with everyone that God brings us, and we'll also be reaching out to our neighbors in meaningful ways. Our externally focused service team will be meeting to see how we can continue to mobilize 100% of our congregation to serve others outside the walls of the church. We'll be meeting with the North Way Orphan Care and Justice teams to join in God's mission to lovingly serve hurting people in our city and around the world. We are an intentionally diverse and missional church, so of course we'll be fully celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And, at the end of the month on January 27th our congregation will be celebrating our one year anniversary! We'll be celebrating with live teaching, a block party (of course), special worship music, and tons more. It's going to be an incredible experience! So, join with us if you're in the city of Pittsburgh and you're looking for a place to worship God and experience meaningful Christian community. We worship at 5947 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206 every Sunday morning at 10am, and we seek to live out our faith in Jesus every day of the week in our neighborhoods, at work, and with our family and friends.

Spiritual Disciplines

This morning the lead pastor at North Way Christian Community, Scott Stevens, challenged the church staff to pray about which spiritual disciplines God might be calling each of us to embrace this year. The spiritual disciplines are crucial for drawing close to God. Here are the disciplines that I'll be praying through to see what God has in store for me this year: solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, sacrifice, study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, and submission. I am thankful for the challenge to be more disciplined from the lead pastor I serve with at North Way. My ongoing goal in life is to continue to draw closer to the Lord so that I might be more effective at God's mission to lead others to him.

Happy New Year

I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I'm looking forward to seeing what God does in 2013. The McCabe family had an incredible 2012! Kyra and Sierra are enjoying school at Pittsburgh Linden. We went on many daddy-daughter dates to places all over the city of Pittsburgh. The city is a great place to raise a family. Julie and I celebrated 14 years of marriage. Our highlight of the year was probably a trip we took to Lake Chautauqua, New York. Julie is such an incredible wife... I'm so thankful for her every day! Our family took fun trips to New York City and Florida last year. Another cool experience was our visit to Seattle for my graduation from Bakke Graduate University. I officially became Dr. Bryan last June!

In terms of ministry, God just blessed us like crazy last year. We launched a new church in January called North Way East End, and God has impacted hundreds of lives through cross-cultural worship, biblical messages, authentic community, and missional community outreach. Hundreds more children were mentored by people at North Way through the LAMP program. Several of my LAMP mentees turned 18 years old this past year... hard to believe! In Homewood, God continues to bring about transformation. By living in Homewood, God has opened up many doors for us to be able to love our neighbors in tangible ways. We've had many new friends drop by for dinner. It was also another tough year in terms of navigating through the violence in our neighborhood, but God has grown me in tremendous ways by allowing me to enter into others' pain. I continue to pray for God's shalom in my neighborhood.

There are many more things I could celebrate from 2012, but I'm focusing now on what God is going to do in 2013. God has put together a strong foundation in me personally, in my family, and in the ministry that he has called us to. We are hoping to build on that strong foundation in 2013 to see lives changed forever in powerful ways... our own lives and the lives of people with whom God has called our family to minister. I can't wait!