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.

How Should Church Leaders Spend Their Time?

I listened for a little while last night to a Christian preacher on the radio.  He made the comment that studying and sermon preparation are extremely important to pastors... so important that people should not bother pastors during the week because they are simply being selfish and cutting into the pastor's study time.  This particular pastor said that he spends at least 24 hours in his office studying for his sermons every week.  He is a very good communicator, and one can tell that he spends a lot of time preparing to preach from the Bible. I can appreciate some good, undistracted study time (I have to force myself to do that sometimes while working on a doctorate degree).  However, this preacher's comments didn't sit well with me.  For some reason there is a mindset out there that church leaders should be sitting at a desk Monday through Friday to be effective.  There is a mindset that church leaders should be sheltered or protected from being with people because that requires too much relational capacity.  For some reason there is a mindset at churches that the Christian experience is about Sunday mornings, and that everything that happens during the week is simply planning for programs and preaching at a building.

I believe that church leaders should spend very little time sitting at their desks doing emails or studying.  Instead they should be out and about visiting with people, both people who go to their church and people who are not Christians.  Church leaders should be expected to have a lot of relational capacity... we shouldn't be guarded from being with people.  I believe theology is hashed out in context, on the streets and in people's homes and at their jobs.  Those are the places that Christian leaders should be spending their time.  The Christian life is not only played out on Sunday mornings.  The Christian life is every day, all day, in messy, complex environments.

I was thinking to myself how absurd that pastor's comments were in light of my experiences as a church leader over the last three or four days.  On Sunday evening one of the kids from my neighorhood was arrested.  His mom and brothers were very upset, so Julie and I dropped what we were doing (mostly resting after church in the morning and mentoring in the afternoon) and we went over to their house in Homewood to see how we could support the family.  Julie ministered to the mom and helped to calm her down while I did my best to try to deescalate two of the brothers (15 and 17 years old) who wanted to go fight the boys who they thought had been responsible for getting their brother arrested.  I spent time with those boys for a couple hours on Monday morning and most of Monday evening (we had them over for dinner).  So much for the study time I had set aside for Monday evening... I instead spent that time with my young friend who was released from the youth detention center that afternoon.  We talked about the next steps in his case, and how I could support him at his court hearing.  After the kids from the neighborhood left on Monday night, I received a call that one of our LAMP families was in desperate need and I would have to change the plans I had for early Tuesday morning in order to engage and support them in their situation.  They were on the brink of being homeless, so we offered for them to stay at our house if needed. I think we may have bought them some more time, and we're working on helping them get into stable housing.  Still, I spent Tuesday morning in their living room supporting the LAMP mentee and his mother.  Tuesday night it was very cold and snowing outside, but many kids still wanted to go to our weekly Tuesday night basketball league at the YMCA in Homewood.  So I drove around all over the place picking up kids who had the farthest walk to get to the Y.  In spite of the weather tons of kids showed up to play basketball, eat pizza, pray together, and hear the gospel message.  "Church" was happening on a cold Tuesday night in Homewood at a basketball gym... and I didn't even have to study in my office for 26 hours to prepare!

I am not trying to point at my life and say that I have everything all figured out about how to be a church leader.  There are many different roles in the Church.  I just play one small part.  However, I do believe strongly that Christian leaders should be out in the world, not just on Sunday morning, mixing it up relationally with all kinds of people (not just other Christians or people who go to our churches).  Church leaders, especially urban church leaders, should treat their cities and neighborhoods like a parish.  We should head out of our offices and into the streets, homes, hospitals, schools, and businesses in our area.  "Church" happens throughout the week, too.  We should not turn our spirituality on and off, or over progam ourselves for Sunday morning experiences so that we don't have time throughout the week to doing anything other than prepare for sermons or plan program activity.