The loss of some friends

Today I'm reading (still have about seven books to go) and writing for my project (still have the book reports and a twenty page paper to do).  I guess this is where I find out if I can actually integrate all of this research into work and family life.  I'm having a hard time focusing though, because I've had a heavy heart recently.

Two weeks ago, a friend and LAMP mentor named Jim Benton passed away.  This week, another good friend from the Light of Life Rescue Mission in Pittsburgh named Tom Lazar passed away suddenly.  Tom was a great encourager to me (he actually commented on this blog several times).  Last Sunday Tom met with about 11 people from the North Way Worship Cafe to work on developing our strategic partnership with Light of Life.  I'm really feeling the loss of both of these amazing men who were inspirations to me.  I know it sounds cheesy to say, but it reminds me of how fragile life really is.  These men were inspirations to me because they were such solid followers of Christ, and they were living out their callings in life.  I will miss them tremendously, and I can't imagine the tremendous loss that their families must be experiencing knowing the type of men they were.  Let's remember to keep their families in our prayers.

New BGU DMin Video... check it out!

Go to http://bgu.edu and check out the video that is posted there about the DMin program (it should pop up right on the home page of the website). It has about nine minutes of footage from my class in Seattle, and I think it will give a great overview of what I experienced.

I'm back!

After many hours of overnight travel I've arrived back in the Burgh.  My family and I are reunited, and now I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone.  This class was the experience of a lifetime.

Thanks to everyone who prayed and supported me while I was in Seattle.  I appreciate you!

BGU Journal - 1/22/09

The end is in sight!  I really love this course work at BGU, but I am ready to be home in Pittsburgh with my family and friends.  I'm sensing that everyone here is feeling this same way.  This has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but we're ready to begin implementing all that we have learned.

I was talking to Randy White today, explaining that I feel like I now have a "tool kit" for urban ministry in Pittsburgh.  Throughout the course of these past two weeks I've learned about many different ministry models for urban and complex environments.  So much of what I have learned is directly applicable to LAMP and North Way.

This morning, we were asked to pick out three main ideas that we are taking back with us to our ministry contexts.  My three were:  Live intelligently (Skip Li's advice), love Pittsburgh (Ray Bakke's advice), and embrace change (Ken Fong's advice).  I think all of these ideas will help me tremendously when I return to Pittsburgh.

Our morning lecturer was Tim Svoboda, who served as a YWAM missionary to India for almost 30 years, and who more recently has served as the director of YWAM outreach efforts in the San Francisco bay area.  He gave us a great history of missions work in India since the mid-1970s, and also an overview of the complexities of ministry in inner city San Francisco since he began serving there two years ago.  He presented a "ministry wheel" model that I think could successfully be implemented in Pittsburgh.  In his model (which he effectively used to decentralize YWAM's efforts in India), macroleaders provide enthusiastic leadership for microleaders of certain aspects of city development.  Macroleaders serve as cheerleaders and coaches for microleaders in areas such as:  street kids, elderly, migrant workers, handicapped, arts, education, prostitutes, sports, middle class, unemployed, university students, hindus, drug addicts, homeless, business, government, Muslims, prisoners, family, media, church, suicide, or the poor.  In this model, microleaders are empowered to implement effective ministry models at the grass roots level.  The microleaders become powerful in this model.  He has a passion for implementing models of urban mission through pains, problems, peoples, powers, and potentials.  He reminded us to engage the urban trinity:  police, pastors, and politicians.

Wynn Griffin then spoke to us about the importance of engaging the dissertation process at BGU.  I should begin thinking about my problem statement right now, and the research bridge that I will take in early 2010 will help to launch me into the dissertation process of this program.  BGU hopes that I will be able to publish my dissertation project into a book that is widely read.  BGU has the connections to make this happen!

Gwyn Dewey and Lowell Bakke then guided the class through a research process called appreciative inquiry.  Basically, this process helps to provide solutions to problems in cities by asking the right questions (and finding common ground) of influential people who are "brought to the table" in cities that are in need of transformation.  We practiced the appreciative inquiry process on one another, and we were presented with examples of how this process has been successful in cities around the world (Manila, Phillipines was one example).  The process involves deciding, discovering, dreaming, designing, and delivering.

Even though many of us are anxious to return to our homes, I was still appreciative of the information that I learned today.  I love to learn about new cultures, and Tim Svoboda provided an excellent overview of front line ministry in India and San Francisco.  I was privileged to learn from a person with that much experience!  As I mentioned earlier, the ministry wheel model already has the wheels in my brain turning about organizational systems that could be implemented back in Pittsburgh.  I have been searching for an effective way to organize North Way's local outreach efforts, and this provides a great framework for something like that.

The overview of the dissertation process was also extremely helpful.  I have a great deal of reading and writing to do before I get to that point.  The important thing, though, is that all of my class work should potentially tie into the topics that I'll be working on for my dissertation.  BGU really wants to work with me to publish my work as a book that could impact many other people who are interested in impacting young people in the world.

BGU Journal - 1/21/09

Two weeks is a LONG time to be away from my family!  I'm so thankful that my wife is a hero, and I'm also thankful for the prayers and support that I have felt from my friends.  I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Despite the difficulties involved in life away from home, this Overture I class in Seattle has been a life changing experience.

This morning Grace Barnes talked to us about balancing our lives while we're working on a doctorate degree.  Balance is not really a good word to use, because it makes it seem that we have to make room in our lives to juggle another major commitment.  Instead, she asked us to integrate.  Achieving balance is not possible, but we can integrate.  As an example of this, I should connect what I'm learning, researching, and writing into everything I'm doing with LAMP and North Way.  This way it just integrates into what I'm already doing, and my work will benefit as well.  I also need to find good mentors in Pittsburgh who will help me along the way.  Mind mapping is another helpful tool in staying on top of this amount of work.  It's a process where I take the time to focus on using my right brain to think creatively about my work.  Finally, I could try different reading and scanning styles to process through all of the information I'll be reading (at least 150 books are required for these DMin classes).

Judi Melton then talked to us about the importance of our personal learning community.  All of my assignments, including these journal entries, should be written to people who know me.  BGU requires students to involve their family members, friends, and colleagues so that the innovative work can have a broader impact in the kingdom of God.

Ken Fong then lectured about organizational leadership.  He believes that all organizations are constantly changing.  Organizations, including churches, that are static are actually dying a slow death.  All organizations are either experiencing a slow death or deep change.  He then shared a seven step process that all organizations can apply to help deal with deep change.  It involves leadership (is there sufficient leadership to initiate and manage desired organizational change?), opportunity (what opportunities and challenges are facing us today?), vision (given who we are today, what do we see ourselves becoming in the future?), energy (do we have sufficient energy / motivation to take advantage of our challenges and opportunities, while moving toward our future?), planning (how will we develop goal oriented strategies on both organizational and individual levels that will most effectively enable us to realize our future?), partnering (with whom do we need to partner organizationally and individually in order to effectively carry out our strategy and how should we best develop these partnerships?), and leadership (is there sufficient leadership to sustain desired organizational change?).  He finished with a quote from Raymond Rood, "The future belongs to those who are willing to assess their current reality, envision what they believe will happen, and then take responsibility for translating their vision into a new reality."

In the afternoon, Dave Pollard and Wes Johnson talked about spiritual formation.  Pollard described spiritual formation in terms of longing, listening, knowing, and celebrating.  He referred to Dallas Willard's argument that spiritual formation is character formation.  Johnson led us through a process of transformational prayer and biblical meditation.  We basically studied some scriptures and spent some time in them to apply their meaning to our hearts.  It required a certain level of silence, which is not something I am used to.  I am more of an "active" learner, so silence and meditation on scripture are not practices that I spend a whole lot of time doing.  I'm hoping to learn how to rest quietly in the Lord more often.

As I reflect on this day, I learned that I need to take more time to focus on the spiritual discipline of being quiet and resting in God.  Also, I can work with LAMP kids to focus on being more contemplative when much of their lives are based on distraction (music, video games, TV, movies, internet, etc.).

I was able to connect the organizational leadership principles to both North Way and LAMP.  With North Way, I gained a new appreciation for the way that Pastor Jay and the executive team have navigated through change over the past couple of years or so.  Although it has been a rough road at times, they were not afraid to take risks and lead the organization in a new direction to overcome the forces of change in Pittsburgh.  With LAMP, I am learning that I need to continue to lead and cast vision well to navigate through the various changes that we have encountered and will continue to encounter as we move forward.  We can never land in a place where we are comfortable with the status quo (especially since we have children on a waiting list for a mentor).  

BGU Journal - 1/20/09

We watched Barack Obama's inauguration to start the day.  After that, Ron Ruthruff, one of the directors of New Horizon ministries that we visited last week, lectured for about an hour.  This was one of the highlights of this class for me because I am so interested in outreach to youth at risk in Pittsburgh.

One of the big passions of Ron's life has been to advocate for troubled adolescents at the government and policy level.  His big thing is that these are just kids, even though most policies impacting them are formed for adults.  Adolescents are stuck in the middle, between childhood and adulthood, rural and urban, and between being kids of color and being white.  Because of the way cities are set up, kids all over the country (including rural areas) are listening to hip hop music and playing violent video games.  For the first time, young people are living in a world where the future is more fascinating to them than the past.  This comes as a result of modern culture.   Young people are more cross-cultural than adults, and they often know more that we do!  

We need to provide culturally appropriate services for children, biologically, psychologically, socially, developmentally, and physically.  Also, ministry models for youth at risk (and he would argue that all youth are at risk) need to leave room for failure.  Young people have been asked to "grow up" even though they are not really developmentally prepared for adulthood.  If young people are obsessed with the future, they know more than we do, and they are obsessed with individuality, then the questions stands:  How do we set up mentoring relationships for these kids that takes these issues into consideration?

Young black men in America are six to eight times more likely to be shot and killed than young white men.  One in three African American young men in America are either incarcerated, on probation, or have a criminal record even though only 10% of Americans are black men.  The question is, what are the major societal processes at work that lead to black men being disproportionately incarcerated or killed?  Many leaders are disappointed that black rappers or athletes don't stand up more often to make a positive impact in this culture, but many of them are young men themselves (not capable of understanding the appropriate roles that they were designed to play in society).

In America, one in four girls are sexually abused as children.  One in eight boys are sexually abused as children (this number is mostly lower because boys are more afraid to talk about this than girls).  Sexual abuse creates trauma for young people, which is more or less traumatic depending on how young they were when they were abused.  Kids are also traumatized by other events they see in their lives, and they are only able to become functional adults if they have "anchors" in their lives.  Anchors are the support network that help to guide adolescents through difficult years and traumatic experiences.  Anchors are relatives, schools, churches, programs, mentors, etc.  When children don't have enough anchors in their lives, they become troubled adults.    The worst ages for trauma are 2, 12, and 18.

Cognitively, the older a person is, the better they cope.  Children become extremely desensitized to violence and sexuality if they experience it commonly at a young age.  Morally, children begin to develop discrepancies between those who have power and those who don't if they are subjected to trauma at a young age.  This often leads to rebellion against authority in adolescents who have experienced trauma.  Adults who work with troubled adolescents need to teach them the answers to questions like, "What is life, who's in charge, who do I form alliances with, and who are life's protagonists and antagonists?"  Adolescents need help navigating through all of this.  Children develop identities from right and what is.  Adolescents develop identities from what's wrong and what is not.  This is a gateway to rebellion.

Adolescents form identity based on two ideas:  personal fable (nobody understands me or the world I live in like me) and imaginary audience (the entire world is watching every move I make).  Again, young people can navigate through all kinds of troubles when they are given the right kind of anchors.  This is why mentoring is so crucial!

In the late morning several people lectured about the missional and practicing approaches to church.  How can churches be incarnational and missional?  Our role as a church is to announce, demonstrate, and embody the good news of Jesus Christ.  Many churches seem to have different callings within the body of Christ.  Relationships are the key, and in many cases, people feel like they need to belong before they believe.  Churches love to create bounded sets, where people know who is in and who is out.  For instance, a church with a bounded set won't allow people to smoke, or drink, or dress a certain way.  In contrast, in churches with a centered set everybody is welcome and considered to be moving toward a relationship with Jesus.

When people belong to a faith community before they believe, it creates a mess.  What do you do with a gay couple, people who are living together, or Muslims who are seeking?  Some pastors prefer to have the mess of the centered set because the mess of the bounded set is even more difficult to navigate through.  In the bounded set, people take their struggles and problems underground so that nobody talks about them and they are eventually manifested in a major way at a later date (such as a pastor secretly having an extramarital affair for a number of years).

Pastors can decide to grow a church "big" rather than grow a "big" church.  This is done through connections, conversations, and collaborations.  Followers of Jesus serve in three realms:  personal, local, and global.  The goal for Christians is spiritual transformation into Christ's likeness for the sake of the world.  Our spiritual disciplines empower us to go out into the world with what God gives us.  If you depend on the offering plate to grow missional dreams, it may not happen.  Churches should also seek partnership.

Many pastors are more concerned about the view of insiders that outsiders.  This is wrong!  People rate their pastors just like movies or restaurants.  This is wrong!  In many churches, over 80% of the resources go toward creating a show, or program, that draws people to the church.  This is wrong!  When people get bored with a church, they just leave and go to another competing church with a better show.  This is wrong!

Churches are becoming a business, or professional religion.  They are developing beliefism, which is the worship of right beliefs (also known as our beliefs).  In America, we have generated a culture of professional Christians.  There is really not much of a foundation of professional ministry in the Bible, it's just something we've come up with.  The truth business leads to the morality business.

Paradigms in society are very powerful.  Christians should learn about which paradigms they are operating in, and they should also seek to understand uncertainty and randomness (something our modern version of Christianity seems to be against).  As a solution, people in the church should start talking with each other once again.  It is alright for Christians to engage people who do not believe as we do.  We can search for common ground upon which to base our relationships.  Churches should be practicing churches:  personally, locally, and globally.  We can practice personally by noticing people, praying for people, talking to people, and listening to people.  People won't understand local or global perspectives until they understand personal perspectives.

In the afternoon we toured a Four Square church that has several different multicultural churches operating within it, including English, Iranian, Spanish, and Korean.  It was an interesting glimpse into a model of diversity in the Kingdom of God that is not usually implemented in homogenous churches around the country. We also discovered how this church is partnering with their local community through the police department, nonprofit organizations, and city hall.  BGU values diversity and partnerships, and today I was able to see examples of these ideals in progress.

As I was experiencing these ideas today, two things seemed applicable to me:  LAMP, and the externally focused church movement at North Way.  LAMP is critical because we are working as mentors to so many African American and at risk young people in the city of Pittsburgh.  The externally focused church initiative is critical because it provides a framework for mobilizing the body of Christ in a strategic manner in areas all over Pittsburgh and around the world.  Christians are called by God to engage culture, and influence the world.

Also, one of the questions that interests me is, "How can North Way become a more diverse community?"  I would like to be able to do this intentionally, perhaps through future multisite efforts in Pittsburgh.  Even if we are unable to utilize our multisite strategies to become a more diverse congregation, would it be possible for us to use our new space for other international communities to hold services in our facilities at different times of the day on Saturday or Sunday?

BGU Journal - 1/19/09

It was kind of nice to be back in the class setting after a couple days away.  Brad Smith facilitated the an early discussion about the importance of Martin Luther King, Jr. day.  We also took turns sharing with the group what this day, or more specifically this man, meant to us.  It was a very unique discussion considering the diversity of the people in the room.

Brad Smith lectured about theology, which he defined as the "scientific" study of God.  People can study God from a detached perspective, so the term has lost much of its meaning.  BGU is interesting in submitting to God, and trying to understand Him in relevant ways.  The intent of the author is very important when studying the Bible, and the understanding of God is superintended by the Holy Spirit.  God wants to know us by incarnation, the Bible, tradition, and general revelation.  Systematic theology is important, but it has also produced many varying forms of cultural Christianity (U.S. Christianity featuring individuality and Sunday morning programs is one example).  BGU valued Biblical theology instead of one particular type of systematic theology.  Consistency with scripture is important.  

Other cultures and major religions are becoming more open to Christianity.  This is true, in part, because of some of the impact of globalization.  Hinduism, for example, may not exist in 100 years because of its strong relationship with classism.  Globalization does not sync with classism.  When the other world religions become more Christian over time and the people are searching for answers, will the church have trained leaders who are prepared to take this on?  Global theology is interesting, and Christians will need to know what common language can be found and what things are not negotiable (like Jesus dying on the cross for our sins).  Through this missional lens, Christians will need to bring back the great commission with the first commission.  The first commission is from Genesis where man is made to rule the earth in Eden.  That is how we are still designed, even though we live in a fallen world.  We are garden creatures, but we have been kicked out.  We know from Revelation that God will restore His creation.  The great commission in Matthew is still important, but it cannot be disconnected from the first commission in Genesis.

The key to all of this is stewardship, which is taking care of something that belongs to someone else.  Smith pointed out that we were created to work as stewards of the Earth.  We chose to rebel not because we doubted God's power, but we were (and are) skeptical/cynical about God's goodness.  God's creation is now corrupt and we have reduced power and purity as stewards (a concept he called futility).  Three of the most difficult areas of our stewardship are power, money, and human sexuality, yet Christians are the only ones who can ultimately steward these areas as intended by God.  Four ways to approach power, money, and human sexuality are piety (avoid them), consumerism (claim them as my right), pragmatic (use them as resources to achieve results, or stewardship (reclaim them for their original purpose).  Too many Christians have taken a piety, consumerism, or pragmatic approach to these issues, and not enough Christians have sought to be good stewards in these areas.

According to Smith, we are created to be in "business."  He said, "Business for stewardship and mission sees its purpose is to serve the needs of society - both locally and cross-culturally - in a way that transforms economies, societies, cultures and people's connection to God.  It does it in a way that sustains itself with profits, but the goal is not profit, but healthy stewardship of power, money, influence, resources, people, products, and knowledge for God's purposes.  When Christians detach themselves from the "business" of the world, it creates much pain and confusion.  Reclaiming the original purpose of business is part of our stewardship."

Humans were made for working, being in community, making decisions, reproducing, and worshiping.  The world becomes dysfunctional if we fail to do even one of these things.  The Tower of Babel is one good example of this.  They worked, they were in community, they made decisions, they reproduced, but they forgot one thing:  worship God!  Every human was made for these five things, so we cannot disconnect the first commission from the second commission.  We're supposed to have a stewardship theology.  It's not complicated, just reorienting.  

Neal Johnson, the dean of the business school at BGU, then spoke more about a theology of work.  The common theme so far is that Christians cannot detach from the business world.  There needs to be a dialogue between the pew and the pulpit, and a clear connection between Sunday and Monday.  Transformation in communities will not begin without involving the business world.  A secular/sacred divide has been perpetuated by the church.  What a person does on Monday should be as holy as what they do on Sunday.  Decision making in business should be informed by scripture.  God wants us to come alongside people in business.  Living the gospel happens 24/7, and pastors should see themselves as equippers of this.  People can live out their callings in the business world.  They do not have to become a pastor or missionary to become some kind of better Christian.

Jack Van Hartsfelt, a BGU board member and businessman, then lectured about the role of the business world in  partnering with churches for community projects.  He showed a video of a church renovation project he led as a businessman that took two weekends and involved over 800 volunteers.  He stressed the importance of coming alongside people who are already out there doing big things, with the mindset of equipping them with resources and visionary leadership.

Lowell Bakke then lectured about the local church and a theology of work.  He defined theology of work as the calling of God in the lives of people.  He shared about his brothers, Ray and Dennis, and the differences in their callings.  Ray has been successful in missions in life, and Dennis has been successful in business (he's a billionaire).  Both have felt equally called by God to their areas of impact.  The church should pay more attention to equipping people who have the calling for business.  Lowell Bakke asked, "What is your church's priority?  Is it to attract people from the community to the church?  Or, is it to send people from the church to invest in the community?  Is Sunday more important for our church than the other six days of the week?"  Church programs can actually lead people away from their callings in the world sometimes.  Maybe when 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work in church programs, it's because the other 80% of the people are out in the world potentially making a difference where the people in need are.

After lunch Brad Smith showed us a feature film called "Power Trip."  The story was about Dennis Bakke's company, AES, who tried to solve the electricity problem in the country of Georgia.  It was an amazing story about how corporations can make a very positive or negative impact in the world.  It emphasized the need for Christians to empower and equip people in business for the sake of gains in the kingdom.

My first analysis of all of this is that it seems to make sense, but it's going to take me a while to process through it all.  I hope to develop more of a theology of work, but that is difficult to do working in a full time ministry environment. 

One of the most tangible things I can do when I get back to Pittsburgh is to start valuing business and government leaders more in light of the unique position God has called them to.  In fact, over time I would hope that I'll be able to encourage people more effectively to understand their worth and influence in the world as it relates to God's purposes.  Also, as a mentor I would like to help my mentees to understand a theology of work that enables them to effectively develop a calling.

Application