Sallman's Head of Christ

Have you ever seen this painting? When I recently saw an article about its origins in Christian History magazine, it caught my eye. When I was a little boy, my parents gave me a children’s Bible with pictures in it, including this one of Jesus.

My earliest memories of thoughts about the Lord always included this image of Him in my mind. When I prayed, I would often imagine this was the person that I was talking to. To me, this is what He looked like, this was the “real” Jesus.

I must admit, though, that it created a bit of a conflict in my young mind when I heard preachers say that truly devout Christians should not wear a beard or have long hair like those hippies that were beginning to pop up everywhere outside my church world in the sixties and early seventies. The picture in my Bible seemed to prove that Jesus was an exception to some of their hard and fast rules.

Processing that apparent contradiction was the first of many steps in my life-long journey to understand and believe the things God's Word says about Him, even at the expense of some things I had been told about Him by some very well meaning, Christ-loving people. An important part of that dynamic was coming to realize there might be a difference between some things I had been told about the Bible and things the Bible actually said, that is to say, between some things I thought were in the Bible and those that really were in the Bible...!

As I have traveled around the world, I have been amazed to discover how many Christians are walking down a similar pathway. For some, the journey began when they came to understand that the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit is just as real and available now as it was 2,000 years ago, in spite of the fact that they had been taught that miracles simply do not happen today. For others, it started when they discovered there were many sincere, devoted followers of Jesus who were quite happily a part of denominations they had always been taught to view with distrust, suspicion, or even disdain. For still more, the turning point came when they realized there were people who really did know and love God, but who had never been baptized with the formula they had been taught was necessary for salvation. And on and on the list could go...

Embarking on such a search for truth can be a very difficult thing to do, especially if your study of Scripture leads you to different conclusions than those held by some of the godliest people you have ever known. This is particularly true if you come to disagree on certain points with the very people who led you to the Lord, or first taught you about Him, or were instrumental in helping you step out in faith to pursue your destiny, and yet, Jesus calls each of us to be willing to do this very thing,

"32 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. 34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn “ ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ 37 “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 10:32-39, NIV)

As they would say in the Czech Republic, where Teresa and I have often been privileged to minister, “That is strong coffee...!” I am so glad Christ promised in that last sentence to reward us with vibrant, true spiritual life if following Him ever costs us friendships we hold dear. Thankfully, God created humans with the ability to form relationships and He places a very high value on them. He does not lightly call us to sever them, but works very hard to redeem them, even to the point of promising to save all our “house” if we place our faith in Jesus.

Allowing God to take you places you have never been, places far beyond where anyone around you has ever been, can not only be costly on a relational level, but it can also be spiritually dangerous unless you sail such uncharted seas with the Bible in in your hand as a compass. The infallible Word of God will never lead you away from God or His truth, but will always take you deeper in your knowledge of Him. As we follow on to know the Lord more fully, let’s be like the Berean Christians who heard the Apostle Paul preach and “...received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)

Let the walls come down!

Here is a link to a great article in the New York Times about a black minister and an Hispanic minister who are working to overcome the new racial divide between Afro-Americans and Hispanics. (Note: You may have to register on the New York Time's website in order to view the article, but it is free.)

Hybels on leadership styles

On the BuildingChurchLeader's website, there is a great article by Bill Hybels taken from the Winter 1998 copy of Leadership Journal magazine where he identifies different leadership styles and the situations where they are most effective. He cites Certain Trumpets by Gary Wills when he writes,

Wills describes the enormous impact of great leaders whose particular leadership style meshed perfectly with a certain need in society.

For example, when people are being oppressed and want to break free from that yoke, the situation calls for a radical, transforming leader.

In a complex, pluralistic democracy, with thousands of constituencies that must be drawn together to form a government, a political or electoral leader is necessary.

In war time, a military style of leadership works best.

During an ideologically intense social struggle, an intellectual leader might fit the bill.

Wills effectively argues that there are many different styles of leadership, and certain styles fit certain leadership needs better than others.

Hybels then lays out the following ten different leadership styles he has identified with comments about how each functions most effectively:

1. Visionary leader
2. Directional leader
3. Strategic leader
4. Managing leader
5. Motivational leader
6. Shepherding leader
7. Team-building leader
8. Entrepreneurial leader
9. Re-engineering leader
10. Bridge-building leader

He concludes, "Whatever your style, recognize it, celebrate it, and step up to the plate and lead."

Preaching and personality

In his article entitled, "How Sermon Writing Can Harm Your Soul: Facing up to the preacher's peculiar impurity" on Preachingtoday.com, Lee Eclov refers to Phillip Brook's classic statement, "Preaching is truth passed through personality," then goes on to write,

Anything true and beautiful passing through my personality is liable to become impure. No doubt about that! My sinful attitudes and my foolish pride can stick to God's word like bacteria on fresh fruit.

But there is also something impure about preaching where truth has not passed through personality. I suppose that every sermon inevitably carries the personality of the preacher, but I'm here to tell you that there are sermons where truth has not passed through this preacher's personality. And such sermons were impure. They may be true, but they're not actually sermons.

Recently, I was reminded again of the fact that God deliberately inspired four different Gospels to place in the New Testament canon precisely because different people would be reached by different portrayals of the same Savior. May God help us all to allow the Word to be made flesh again through our unique, individual lives before it comes out of our lips...!

Assessing character

In her guest column for leadershipjournal.net dealing with how to assess character, Angie Ward states, "Here's another thing about character: It is revealed not in skills, but in community." She describes how a church leader she knew was never willing to become involved in a small group at the church where he served. After leaving that post for another, he later succumbed to multiple addictions and has since left the ministry entirely.

One of the "rules of thumb" that I have developed in my own heart and mind since coming to Hillcrest Church as Senior Pastor is to make a mental note anytime someone in our leadership seems lukewarm about a particular individual taking on some new role in the life of our church. Sometimes, the leader's reluctance is simply the consequence of a difference in personality or leadership style, or the lingering effects of a past interpersonal conflict, or "turf battle," but, more often than not, it has turned out to be a warning sign of a more significant issue. As leaders, we do well to remember that our team members often interact with people in our congregation in far different contexts than we do, and they know things about them that we do not.

As a husband, I long ago learned to take very seriously my wife's hesitation regarding certain people, particularly other women! Teresa is a very warm, loving person, so any time she is clearly unimpressed or turned off by someone's manner or skeptical about their character, I immediately take her feelings as a warning straight from the heart of God. We just celebrated twenty-one years of marriage last week, and in all that time, I don't think she has ever "missed" it once!

In the same way, I am learning to rely more heavily on the other members of my ministry team to "see" things in people that I may not. Hillary Clinton has famously said, "It takes a village to raise a child." I am coming to the conclusion that, "It takes a team to know a person!"

God is Back...!

CBS ran a piece on their website yesterday saying that a Baylor survey concluded that 82% of Americans are Christians, but that they are expressing their faith in very different ways than 40 or 70 years ago. While Barna's book, "Revolution," portrays Americans as increasingly withdrawn from traditional church, Baylor's survey said half of all Americans attend church at least once a month and describe themselves as "Bible believing." I wonder if those Barna portrays have really stopped attending church altogether, or if they just attend less frequently as part of their highly individualized approach to Christian faith.

I was also struck by the fact that half of our nation's population does not believe the Bible is authoritative. Communicating Christ effectively to them requires far more than just "repackaging" our communication style to make it more media rich. My experience as a resident missionary in France centered around touching this very kind of person and I quickly learned one very important lesson - convincing a total non believer of the truth of the Gospel is only accomplished via a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. The good news is, God wants to touch people far more than we do and He will work powerfully in their hearts if we will commit ourselves to communicating His message to them!