Being Lead

What I'm Reading Today: Exodus 32-34

From the time I was in middle school, I have been a leader of some sort. In 5^th grade, I was elected to my first public office: secretary of my class. Ever since then I've held a leadership position of some sort.

When I first started leading groups, I had a very narrow definition of what a good leader was. I thought a good leader was someone who laid out his or her agenda for the people, got the people on board, and then enacted that agenda. All of the emphasis was placed upon me to be clever and take folks where I thought they should be lead. In other words, leading was all about ME.

That model of leadership worked for a while. By the time I reached my early thirties, however, I realized that such a model of leadership would no longer work for me. As my faith grew and my life experiences accumulated, I realized that while I often thought I knew what was best for myself and the group – the reality was that I didn't. There had been so many times in my life when I was more concerned about stubbornly holding on to MY agenda than I was about meeting the needs of others.

My control issues were so great that I mistakenly assumed "letting go" – or being flexible– meant that I was abdicating my responsibility as a leader. So I held on tighter to my agenda.

It wasn't until I entered parish ministry in my mid-thirties that I began to realize that there was only one way I felt called to lead. That way was predicated on being flexible and allowing myself – and the community's I serve – the ability to follow God's leading and not just my own.

On my good days those things are relatively compatible. On other days, however, my leading is more reflective of my ego and agenda than it is God's. The goal that I have established for myself, however, is to continue to grow in my ability to get out of the way as much as possible and let God lead in and through me.

Because of my lifetime struggle to understand what it means to lead, I can relate to Moses' frustration with the challenges of God leading. In today's reading, for instance, Moses cried out: "Look, you tell me, 'Lead this people,' but you don't let me know whom you're going to send with me. You tell me, 'I know you well and you are special to me.' If I am so special to you, let me in on your plans!"

So many times in my life and ministry over these past eleven years, I found myself crying out the same thing. "Let me know what's going on!" In retrospect, I am often God didn't. For the places where God has led me and the community's I served have been beautiful places that I would have probably never chosen to go on my own – since the journey initially would have looked too scary and too difficult.

So how about you? How do you do with this notion of responding to God's call even though you have no idea exactly where that call will take you?

Til next time …

Sabbath

What I'm Reading Today: Exodus 28-31

As Mike and I approach the start of our second decade together next month (we met November 29, 2001 – but who's counting?), I have thought a lot about those things that make me a good partner and those things where I have room to grow.

I am pretty good, for instance, about giving Mike space when he needs it. I am also very good about communicating what's going on with me (maybe too good, he might say). My sense is that he appreciates those things on most days.

I do have areas where I definitely need to improve. While I'm good about communicating what's going on with me, for instance, I often forget to include time for Mike to share what's going on for him. And my biggest deficit is that I don't make enough time for us to be together. As someone who's prone to being a workaholic, I have trouble setting boundaries and making sure that we get our time together on a semi-regular basis.

Why is time together so important?

It's because that time together helps you stay in rhythm with each another. That time together doesn't have to be an official "date", or a big event. It can simply be intentionally going to the store together or taking the dogs for a walk together. Over our years together I've found it's not important what you do; it's most important that you make time to do it together as you try to keep your relationship connected and alive.

In many ways, that is the same point God was trying to communicate to Moses and the Israelites in today's passage when the issue of the Sabbath came up. Lots of folks think about the importance of Sabbath being of its benefits on the individual entity (i.e. it's a time of rest for a person, or it's something you observe as a gift to God). I don't to think of it that way. I see the Sabbath as a time that benefits the relationship (or connection) between God and an individual. If you don't intentionally spend time together on a regular basis, you WILL begin to drift apart.

As we head into the weekend – a weekend that contains their Sabbath time for many people – I would encourage you to think about your Sabbath in relational ways. How will you approach your Sabbath this week in order to help you grow in your understanding and experience of God?

PS. I'm making the long drive to Atascadero for a UCC Association meeting tomorrow so I won't be able to write. I'll hope to see you back here on Monday morning.

Til next time …

Removing the Distance

What I'm Reading Today: Exodus 24-27

When I first discovered the emerging/emergent ways of being within the Christian movement, there was a huge rush for me initially. I felt that rush because the emerging/emergent Christian communities expressed many of the visions I had held for years that went against much the traditional church was teaching – particularly when it came to ways of being community.

You see for centuries, most institutional Christian churches acted as if there were levels – or layers – in the community that stood between individuals and God. Most Protestants would say that it's only Roman Catholics that have such levels or layers. That is completely untrue. The truth is we Protestants have just as many levels. Instead of calling our levels "popes" and "bishops" we call ours things like "councils" and "committees". Each of these entities function for the same purpose; they were created in order to control or manage things.

Now don't get me wrong. I understand there is a certain degree of control or management that needs to exist in order for a group of people to function as a community. Light bills, for instance, have to be paid – so we need finance committee to empower someone to write a check. Sadly, however, in many faith communities these practical needs have been used to justify the creation of other mechanism so that other areas of the life of the community are being controlled to unhealthy degrees. This has had an unfortunate consequence. It has made many of the lay people in our faith communities feel completely disempowered. Eventually, they get tired of putting up with other people's efforts to control them, and they walk away. Then we wonder why our churches are declining?!

I was frustrated with today's reading because it seemed to feed into this process of disempowerment. We were told, for instance, that God said to Moses: "Climb the mountain to God, you and Aaron, Nadab, Abihus, and seventy of the elders of Israel. They will worship from a distance; only Moses will approach God. The rest are not to come close. And the people are not to climb on the mountain at all."

Talk about disempowerment!

I suppose some would say this was one of those practical moments where it was most effective for Moses to commune with God in a way where there were as few distractions as possible. That's why the leaders and people were told to stand off at a distance.

Even if that's the case, I think as people of faith we are called to be honest with such assumptions and challenge them when people tell us to remove ourselves. For the last thing I believe we want these days are faith communities whose purpose is to put a distance between God and the people. Faith communities should be all about drawing people in to a direct experience of God – a TRANSFORMATIVE experience of God.

Today I would encourage to examine your life for areas where you have been content to allow distance to exist between yourself and God – areas when you've allowed others to mediate or negotiate the presence of the Divine for you. If you find such areas, challenge yourself to be open to taking a different approach. Take the risk of encountering God in new places and in new ways!

Til next time …

Digging Below the Surface

What I'm Reading Today: Exodus 21-23

Over the last several years lots of folks ask me why they should bother reading the rules contained in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament. "After all," they suggest, "they are culturally bound pronouncements that don't make any sense within the context of our time and our culture."

On one level, there is some truth to that assessment. On another level, however, such an approach misses an important point.

Let me use an example from my teaching days to help spell out why I think reading such passages has value.

As some of you know, I taught English and Social Studies in a juvenile detention center for six years. Because it was an extremely dangerous environment, we had to be very strict (and explicit) in spelling out our expectations of the students. One of the most basic rules was that a student couldn't get out of his or her chair without permission. On the surface, this may sound excessive– but the rule was necessary because the students could have easily acted out against each other if they were able to move around freely in the classroom. In other words, the purpose of the rule was to ensure the students' safety.

One day we had the fire alarm go off. Most students instinctively figured out that they needed to stand up and get in line in order to make it to a place of safety. There was one student, however, that didn't get in line. When I asked him why, he said: "The rules say 'Don't get up without permission'. You didn't give me permission to stand up so I'm staying seated!"

It was a great example of someone learning the rules, but entirely missing the point of those same rules. It was a reminder for me to spend some time with the students helping them understand some of the reasoning behind the rules.

There are lots of religious fundamentalists who make that same mistake when they read the scriptures. They become so obsessed with the literal expression of a rule back in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament that they entirely forget to ask why that rule was communicated in that particular time and place. If we dig below the surface and ask ourselves that question, we begin to move away from a rigid and moralistic approach to our faith – toward a living and breathing application of the principles of our faith that can guide us no matter in what age we live.

Today I would invite you to examine those rules that you've decided to live your life by. Are there some of them where you've become so focused on the rule itself, that you've lost sight of the underlying principles and perhaps become somewhat rigid and inflexible?

Til next time …