BLOG 3/26/15. PROVEN-NESS: PRIMARY QUALIFICATION FOR CHURCH LEADERSHIP

BLOG 326/15. PRIMARY QUALIFICATION FOR CHURCH LEADERSHIP: PROVEN-NESS.

I had arrived at my first experience of being a solo pastor in a small, de-spirited (maybe pitiful would be a better description), somewhat troubled Christian congregation. The church had called me because the presbytery told them that they needed a pastor. For myself, I had jumped through all of the ecclesiastical hoops of the Presbyterian tradition: college education, a divinity degree, formal ordination, etc. and had spend several years as denominational campus minister at a state university. None of that had prepared me for what I was to encounter in that church which was the ‘denominational franchise’ for the mill village community in that small city.

Being accustomed to the somewhat unhindered and purposeful dialogue with students which I had enjoyed in campus ministry, I sought to ‘connect’ with this new congregation by engaging them in some dialogue, discussing their Christian faith with them, finding out about their lives and daily experiences. I found a few marvelous followers of Jesus, with real servant spirits, … but for the most part it was pretty sterile. Many were also wary (suspicious?) of clergy, with whom they had some not-too-happy experiences—clergy were unreal to them. I also found that they had no flesh and blood models of what a vital, living Christian person even looked like. They chose leaders, not because of any spiritual qualification, but because that was what was needed to keep the institution functioning. Christian example had little to do with it.

And, face it: they didn’t understand me. They weren’t at all impressed that I had been to a seminary, nor did they care. They didn’t know what seminaries were all about—it was a different world from theirs. That was one more cultural separation between me and them. But the reality that caught my attention was that they had almost no living, breathing models of robust Christian faith whom they really admired. I on the other hand had grown up in a home where my own father was a beautiful, modest, self-effacing disciple, who as a practicing mechanical engineer, had come to Christ, and intentionally disciplined himself to be formed by the life and teachings of Jesus. He was always a model to me. He was authentic and convincing to the core in his Christian profession.

Paul, the apostle, could tell the Corinthian Christian folk to be imitators of him, as he was of Jesus Christ. He could tell the Philippian Christians: “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” God’s people need models of his New Humanity, his New Creation folk. They need to know how that produces those who are the incarnation of his own glory. And the fact that so many of the folk in that small congregation had no such models, and the awareness that they never discussed Christian faith with one another, gave me the clue that has been at the core of my life in the Christian community ever since: If these folk had no Christian models that they could imitate, or admire, or be formed by, … then by God’s grace I wanted to be at least one that would be that visible model before them. I would, by God’s grace, not only teach publicly, but one-on-one would model and coach these folk into their own Christian maturity. It wasn’t always without conflict. Yet, that in turn, resulted after a year or two of tough times, in the congregation making the determination that they would only choose their leadership on the basis of Paul’s own insistence that such leaders prove themselves by their maturity of knowledge, but by their practicing that faith in their very real daily lives. That principle ultimately produced a Christian community that has had incredible impact on the neighborhood, and in which untold scores of lives have been transformed. I am convinced that this is critical. It is ‘humanly possible’ to create a religious institution and get members, … but it requires patience and proven-ness and the empowering of God’s Spirit to create disciples who embody the life and teachings of Jesus. Only such should be even considered as leadership for the Christian community. (To be continued in next blog: What does that look like?)

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge