Kingdom Come!

My good friend LA Joiner sent this link by Robert Hartzell to his/our clan.  And Robert hits on all cylinders.  But brings up a lot of thoughts and questions…  Spiritual fathering is an interesting topic.  Something many groups are hot about.

So I want to have a limited go at it…

Spiritual fathering is not necessarily :

• A “relationship” that can be recruited.  Perhaps the very word “relationship” is totally overused and therefore begins to lose meaning.  We have a relationship with our bank, our doctor (who might remember our name, or not; [he did read the chart before he came in the room]), our employer, our paperboy, our next-door neighbor, our spouse and Dr. Phil.  Relationship describes a sense of “connection” that exists on some level for a period of time.  (My bank advertises itself as “The Relationship People.”  Right.) 

Like any genuine relationship, spiritual fathering is multifaceted - emotional, spiritual and physical.  There is an emotional bond between spiritual parents and those they father.  It is either the result of “spiritual birthing” (when someone leads someone to the Lord and disciples them to maturity) or “spiritual adoption” (when someone chooses - or are chosen by - a spiritual “parent”).  It seems to me that there is a great deal of confusion about the “fathering” connection.

My friend Henry Orombi, current Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, told me he hardly knew his father.  Henry grew up in a polygamist household as the youngest son of his father’s third wife.  He was a “son” but basically had no “relationship” to his father.  I think Henry said he was one of seventeen children.  He was one of a group who bore the bloodline and the image and even the DNA of his father, but he had no quality relationship with him. He said to me that he grew up never really knowing his father although they lived on the same compound.

Spiritually I believe this happens also.  I know groups and networks of churches who claim the same DNA, but who have people on their roster of “sons” just as names and ministries.  No real “relationship,” or heart-felt (opps, subjective!) sense of connectedness.

Can we confuse pastoring with fathering?  Are they the same thing?  What about “apostolic fathers” - in the 21^st century sense - what is their role?

• Any overbearing authoritative male relationship.  Just because someone critiques your life, your motives and your choices, and just because he “hits it” so often that it’s scary doesn’t mean he’s you spiritual father.  Just because he’s a powerful, controlling and opinionated church leader does not qualify him as your spiritual father.
• About big names and religious politics.  Often people like to give you their pedigree to impress and give credence to their words or ministry.  (I guess they feel it’s like they’re selling a horse and they want you to know that there is a derby winner in their bloodline. They might look like a nag, but there’s a Seattle Slew in there somewhere.)  And of course they have biblical precedence for doing this - the whole generational Abraham, Isaac and Jacob concept.  It’s not about big-guys, big-names, big-ministries needing to father little guys.  Little guys can and should be fathers, too.  And pedigrees are not really that impottant.  It is the relationship after all.
• The cure-all relationship.  There are other relationships in the church.  In our recent NoBrand Retreat, we spend time discussing the need for every man to have three levels of masculine relationships: father (elder) relationships, peer (brother) relationships and disciple (son) relationships.  All are necessary for a balanced and dynamic spiritual life.  When we only have one level, we get unbalanced and do not mature beyond a certain level.

Spiritual Fathering should be:

• Both spiritual and emotional.  It is a “felt” bond between father and child.  It is genuine because it is spiritual.
• On-going.  But with varying levels and dependencies.  
• Fulfilling and challenging.  Not debilitating and overbearing. Spiritual fathers are not about controlling another person or using them for their own agenda.  True spiritual fathers are not about co-opting their “children’s” dreams, visions or spiritual gifts for their own use.  They’re not about what can I get from this peron, but much more about what can I give to this person in order for them to experience their own fulfillment and place in God’s Big Story…
• A validating and confirming relationship that sets the course for your life.  I am blessed that I know who my spiritual father actually is.  So here’s my linage (filled with spiritual Seattle Slews and Seabiscuits):
  • My spiritual father - Jimmy Smith
    • He is retiring next month as associate pastor at New Covenant Church in Valdosta.  He was the youth guy at Northside Baptist in Valdosta when I was in college and God invaded my life…
    • Jimmy awakened vision and passion in me and set me on a course of seeking and knowing God…
    • Jimmy affirmed me as a “man of God” - though young, untried and ignorant…
  • My discipler - Joe Glenn Smith
    • He is different form my father.  He took me to another level in maturity.  I worked for him, pastored storefront/cell church with him and learned from him as I served him…
    • Joe Glenn taught me discipline me through discipleship.  Phyllis and I were with him and his family almost every day.  We did things together - some spiritual, many not.  We traveled together.  We had time together - laughing and crying.  He taught me how to dig into the Word and how to hear the Spirit..
  • My pastor/apostle - LA Joiner
    • We’ve walked together for years through think and thin…
    • LA has taught me grace, commitment and transparency…
    • LA affirmed me in ministry and released me into an expanding ministry…
• A vision-enhancing relationship.
  • I think a true fathering relationship is chaordic in nature… Chaordic is a word invented by Dee Hock, former CEO of Visa.  He says this:
    • Chaordic… Any self-organizing, self governing, adaptive, nonlinear, complex organism, organization, community or system, whether physical, biological or social, the behavior of which harmoniously blends characteristics of both chaos and order…

Leader presumes follower. Follower presumes choice.  One who is coerced to the purposes, objectives, or preferences of another is not a follower in any true sense of the word, but an object of manipulation.  Nor is the relationship materially altered if both parties voluntarily accept the dominance of one by the other. A true leader cannot be bound to lead.  A true follower cannot be bound to follow.  The moment they are bound they are no longer leader or follower. If the behavior of either is compelled, whether by force, economic necessity, or contractual arrangement, the relationship is altered to one of superior/subordinate, manager/employee, master/servant, or owner/slave. All such relationships are materially different from leader/follower.

This has gotten too long.  More later…

This week is going to be a busy one…

Last night Phyllis and I accompanied our good friends Todd and Mary Claire to the Red Door, a cool rock venue for younger people.  Yep, we stuck out like fat old folks.  Or at least I did!  But it was a cool time looking at a new “tribe” — the music heads!  This includes those guys who get off on doing music.  (And there are a lot of them!)  The music was loud but these young people are committed to the music and last night the crowd - as well as the bands - were Christian.

Also, we had coffee at Martelli’s coffee shop before entering the world of the Red Door.  Great new place around the corner from the Globe office.  Sorta.

We have dinner tonight with a group of contemporaries - our age and similar background.  Although most are rather disenfranchised by the church - a littel hurt; a little sad; a little angry.  They’ve seen it all, been through it all (including the Brownsville Revival) but are rather soured on the whole system.  It’s always interesting and fun to laugh and poke fun at each other.  And then read the Bible and pray!

Tomorrow night we do Globe’s IGM.  This has been such a cool and diverse group.  Having a blast!

Valentine’s night, we’re keeping Josh and Diana’s 6-month-old Clara so they can have a date!  Hey!  Phyllis and I will be together for our 35th Valentine’s Day, so we can date later!

Sunday Phyllis and I leave for Michigan!  I know!  Cold, cold Michigan.  Ken sent me an email saying they’d gotten like 14″ over a 24 hour period.  Phyllis is afraid we’ll freeze!  I keep telling her the houses have heat and they expect cold weather so they know how to prepare!  We’ll do fine - but we’re taking our wooly socks!

I’ll teach at IGO’s Institute for World Ministry in Kalamazoo Monday night and Tuesday night.  then my good friend Ken Cline will pick us up and we’ll be in Saginaw at New Life Christian Fellowship on Saturday and Sunday.  They’ve even put a photo of us on their website!  How’s that for not being ashamed of a relationship!  Yikes!  I’m excited about all the teaching and training.  The school in Kalamazoo is brand new - beginning in January - and is a sister to our IGM.  Ken is a true spiritual son and I look forward to being with he and Joan and their family for a few days.  I’ll also get to hang out with pastor Larry Starke, too.  Some of my very favorite people.

Next month, I’m going to Scotland with Bob Hill.  This is in prep for the Scotland BootCamp in June.

There’s an interesting article in the LA Times about a community experiment…

Last night Phyllis and I went to the $1 Theater to see August Rush.  What an interesting movie!  And wow! Robin Williams is just a character out of Dickens!  It started out really dark and gloomy but left you smiling at the end with a real sense of triumph!

Thursday night after a long day in the office, we tried to watch Eli Stone on tv in the midst of a terrible storm that kept knocking the DirecTV off air.  This is another cry for the supernatural in everyday life.  Eli is a lawyer who has bigger then life visions (referred to by one character as “auditory hallucinations…”) that propel him into redemptive situations.  (Personally, I’m a little freaked out that you can find all this info at Wikipedia since it only aired Thursday.  It’s kinda freaky that something like a tv show can already be in the encyclopedia, huh?  Or is this just me?)
 

I see Eli Stone and August Rush as deep heart-cries for a supernatural relationship with a supernatural God!  Eli’s a prophet, seeing beyond what is seen and August (the kid in the movie takes the name August Rush) hears the music! 

I sense that on one hand the hype and showmanship that surrounds much of the Church’s supernatural is a genuine turn-off for much of a whole generation.  While the linear logic of the A+B=C approach is a turn-off for the rest.  We’ve put the God of Creation in a theological and epistemological box: hype and show on one hand and cause-and-effect formulas on the other.

But the hunger for genuine interaction with God is there.  Can I say this out-loud?  The two greatest heart-longings combine in the cry for a dynamic relationship with a supernatural God shared in a covenant community.  There I said it!  So where can we find it?  Or where can we create it?

I’ve ordered Tom Wright’s new book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.  Wright is one of my modern heroes.  He’s the Anglican Bishop of Durham , but a real nice, very personable guy.  I was in a small conference with him in England a few Julys ago and enjoyed several meals with him.  He challenges me to rethink how I read the Bible and how I live my life.  Scot McKnight is doing the book chapter by chapter even though it’s not in release yet.  And he’s saying it on par with C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, and making it required reading in his Jesus of Nazareth course where he teaches.

Tomorrow’s Super Bowl Sunday and I’m so out of it I hardly know who’s playing.  I have heard that the Patriots are undefeated and have a killer QB.  I’ll try to catch it.  Last year Doug and I were returning from Nicaragua on Super Bowl Sunday and we were scrambling to catch some of it in the Atlanta airport between flights.

Also, this week is Mardi Gras – a big thing in our part of the world (Pensacola, Mobile and New Orleans .)  A lot of time they refer to it as Fat Tuesday, I guess just to keep folks from getting it confused with the New Orleans gig.  I’m not sure how any of it actually affects Phyllis and me.  We’re over here in sleepy little Lillian Alabama miles and miles from downtown Pensacola, Mobile or New Orleans .

The Globe IGM continues weekly with around 20 students.  This week they are choosing an unreached people group (UPG) for their research paper.  So far it’s been a lively group with good interaction.  Then on Thursday, those who can will meet together for Pathways and coffee.  Pathways is the abbreviated Perspectives course we use as the core of our class.

And my new friend skateboarder David Reasbeck has this awesome new video.  Watch it here.  What a guy.  I’ll actually be in Scotland next month for a few days with Bob Hill getting ready for BootCamp.

I’m processing through so much.

My New Revelation…  (I figure that I get about one great, new revelation every year.  Maybe one; maybe none!)  But 2007’s nugget revelation is this:  Biblically, God gathers to send, and sends to gather.  This is the pattern of the whole NT.  Gathered to send; sent to gather.

And in this framework of gathering and sending, I keep thinking of the historical context of “orders” and “sodalities.”  I remember reading sometime back How the Irish Saved Civilization and the role that monasteries and mendicant orders played in the preservation of culture and the message of Jesus.  (This book got lost in a flood in Cyprus, so I can’t go back and reread it!)  And I read Ralph Winter’s keystone piece on Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission and his references to the Roman military structure of the monastic orders.

And I keep reading, praying and meditating regarding the leap from apostolic Christianity and missional church-planting to bishop-rule and church-maintenance. 
Apostles are the “sent ones.”  Sent with the Gospel.  Apostles sent to gather Believers into - not so much a structure for protection, control and restraint - a koinonia of empowerment, healing and release.  Sent to gather; gathered to send.

But in my mind, I see this empowering apostolic missional model of empowerment evolving - for whatever reasons - into the Middle Ages Church that is basically a hierarchy of command and control.  Maybe control comes out of fear.  Probably does.  When things begin to shift and we lose the balance, we move toward control as a counter-balance.  I see it in my own life.  In my own ministry.

When concern about image, perception, precedent, continuity and success set in, we set up standards that must be followed.  We become concerned about who speaks for whom.  And how we can keep things tidy and “decent and in order.”  We decide what is right and what is wrong; good or bad; relevant or trivial; damaging or constructive.  Or someone does.  Isn’t that the role of leadership?

The biblical model of “church” is very relational. 

Of course, there’s Jesus and His followers: the multitudes, the seventy (or seventy-two depending on the translation), the twelve, then the inner circle of Peter, James and John, then obviously a special relationship with John.  Jesus spend time with every level of these concentric circles of relationships.  Different amounts of time and different levels of connectedness and intimacy.  And then, of course, He sends them out to do what they’d seen Him do.  And to be what He was in their own unique way.

Then you see Paul and his spiritual sons (Timothy, Titus, etc.) begetting other spiritual sons and daughters who beget others. This is the first century Church.  You see it.  Relational.  Unlike the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke, where you find a physical genealogy, these guys traced a spiritual genealogy of discipleship and relationship.  (Hence, “apostolic succession,” but that’s another story altogether…)

But then the growth of the church and the great inclusions of Constantine - whatever his motive! - change everything.  The enemies of relationship: success and status; position and power. And over a bunch of years, problems, indulgences, corruption and graft, you see the emergence of the monastic orders as preservers of Gospel and mission.

More later…