Christian Leaders Lead Bodily

The main task of being Christian leaders is to handle the truth, speak the truth, live in the truth, and follow the Truth (Jn. 14:6). Christian leaders should hate illusion and pseudo-comfort. Real leaders don’t live in denial and deny what is true. In The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2012), Albert Mohler notes:

The leader faces the facts, and this means that the facts must be determined and known. The leader must know the organization as it is, know its needs as they are, and face the world as it actually exists. The conscious denial of reality is a central danger of leadership, and the leader must defend against this temptation…The leader must be unafraid of data and facts, and he must surround himself with people who know the information he needs and will give it to him. (p. 61)

Unfortunately, I have met many Christian leaders who welcome illusion, enjoy pseudo-comfort, deny the world as it actually exists, and turn away people who know the information they need.

I despise and disgust positional leaders who are indeed losers. They are losers because they who are in leading positions are supposed to lead and empower others but they become their stumbling block. They are losers because they are supposed to be called to bless others but they neglect their callings and the callings of others. They are losers because their stubbornness, stupidity, and spiritual slothfulness minimize the (spiritual and physical) size of the body of Christ that is made up of different individuals who are entrusted with varieties of spiritual gifts to build up this body (Eph. 4:11-12).

The doctrine of incarnation is fleshy and messy. In the midst of messiness, we get a glimpse of God’s revelation. No one expects to find God’s revelation in bodily form. But all the fullness of his deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9). The truth of incarnation exposes any human speculation of who God is and what he is supposed to be like. Whoever has seen the incarnate God has seen God the Father (Jn. 14:8-9). It destroys human fantasy. It deconstructs our construction of the Towel of Babel. We can’t reach up to God. On the contrary, he reaches down to us. He reveals himself to us as it is. It is what it is. To affirm what is is an incarnational thinking through which we may get a glimpse of God’s presence, revelation, and glory.

In Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), Eugene H. Peterson writes:

Popular forms of spirituality tend to avoid history, at least in its messier aspects, as subject matter and context for nurturing the soul…

History is bounded by birth and new birth, by the virgin birth of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus—life, life, and more life. But between those two life-giving moments there is also death, death, and more death. When we are born we find ourselves in a world in which death and dying are major preoccupations; when we are born again it is still the same world. History consists of what happens in this world. History is the accounting we make of the human endeavor. More often than not it is an accounting of the mess we make of things: brutality, war, famine, hate, quarrelling, exploitation. History deals with what happens, what has happened, what is happening and what will happen. It means dealing with a world where things rarely turn out the way we think they should…Something is wrong here, dreadfully wrong. We feel it in our bones. The most conspicuous event in history that arouses within us this spontaneous sense of violation, of outrageous sacrilege, is the suffering and death of Jesus, a suffering and death in which eventually we will all find ourselves involved whether we like it or not. History. (pp. 133-134)

 
Christian leaders are historical, not ahistorical.

Christian leaders nurture the souls of others in bodily form.

The Conviction to Lead

I haven’t read books on leadership for a while. They usually talk about the same thing. Albert Mohler’s book, The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2012), is not so different either. But he approaches the topic from a convictional perspective: Christian beliefs. That makes the book a bit different then.

Leaders must lead with deep and passionate beliefs. “Put simply, a conviction is a belief of which we are thoroughly convinced. I don’t mean that we are merely persuaded that something is true, but rather that we are convinced this truth is essential and life-changing. We live out of this truth and are willing to die for it” (p. 22). Paul said, “Because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thess. 1:5). Accompanied by the power of the Spirit, Paul preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to the church of God in Thessalonica with full conviction.

The Spirit persuades us to respond to the gospel; we are also persuaded by a messenger who preaches the preached word with full conviction. Nowadays, we often hear no conviction in pulpit. What we hear is god-talk. God-talk is external to what we say and do; however, conviction is inherent in our words and deeds. We lead and speak with conviction. “Without conviction, nothing really matters, and nothing of significance is passed on. I believe that leadership is all about putting the right beliefs into action, and knowing, on the basis of convictions, what those right beliefs and actions are” (p. 26).

Without conviction, we are like those who talk and act like “a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6).

Jayber on Pilgrimage

“If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line—starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King’s Highway past appropriately named dangers, toils, and snares, and finally cross the River of Death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circle or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led—make of that what you will.”

--Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2000), p. 133.

Face to Face

In Family Vocation: God’s Calling in Marriage, Parenting, and Childhood (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), Gene Edward Veith Jr. and Mary J. Moerbe write:

A man and a woman become one flesh. In doing so, they engender a child, who is made from that flesh and who is part of the fleshly union that constitutes the family. The Bible uses ‘one flesh’ to describe both sex (1 Cor. 6:16) and marriage (Matt. 19:5-6). In God’s design, the two amount to the same thing. So then Children ‘share in flesh and blood’ with their parents (Heb. 2:14). (p. 104)

A man and a woman become one flesh and a child springs from that flesh. The union of a man and a woman within marriage is a fleshly connection. The birth of a child is a fleshly extension of the one-flesh union. A child begins with God’s gracious giving and results in a life-long reliance on God’s daily bread. The calling of God is very fleshly, for our Lord is the Lord of incarnation. He became flesh and dwelled among us (Jn. 1:14). He anticipated messiness before becoming flesh; he entered into messiness by being flesh; he handled messiness in flesh.

It is a great anticipation to see you face to face in flesh.

My Reorientation Letter 2013

My Reorientation Letter 2013

My 2011 Sabbatical Year

The year of 2011 was my unexpected sabbatical year. I didn’t plan to have such a year. I just thought that it was a right time for me to stop serving at my previous pastorate and plan for what might come in the future. As I get older, I realize that there is no such thing as perfect timing. The best of time and the worst of time often occur at the same time. Indeed, both are usually mingled together as one knot. It is just a matter of how I handle myself in such a time. The sabbatical year was a period of time for me to do serious reflection on theology, ministry, life, and people. Generally speaking, I am often positive about the life of disorientation. God is with his people in creation, exile, and redemption. The pattern of orientation-disorientation-reorientation has stayed with me since I learned it from Walter Brueggemann when I was in college. Of course, I learned it through his writings, not in person.

This threefold orientation has given me a theological perspective in life. No one can stay in one particular orientation for too long. There is a cycle. This rhythmic cycle has a sanctifying function that we are being purified or purged from being so attached to the old self. Before we realize that we are too stubbornly fixed with what we know and have, he puts us off balance through various means. That’s God’s foreknowledge. Disorientation is such a time that puts us off balance. The cycle of disorientation is usually unproductive in a secular sense; however, it is productive in a spiritual sense. It is a “useless” period in people’s mind. But my belief is that a tree can only grow tall by being “useless.” If it is too useful, it is being cut off by someone. The cycle of disorientation is usually stationary. When a snake changes its skin in mutation, it doesn’t move but remains stationary. Transformation usually occurs in the cycle of disorientation. David wrote many psalms to articulate his longings toward God in the wilderness. He couldn’t write those psalms in palace. It is a slow work because it is a soul work. I think Eugene Peterson calls it Soul Craft.

I am positive about the stage of disorientation because reorientation will follow after. There is no resurrection if there is no crucifixion. It will come. But God determines its timing. His timing is beautiful (Eccl. 3:11). Beautiful can be understood as good or appropriate. His timing is always appropriate in his plan in which I am in, or I am graciously invited to participate in. Ecclesiastes 3:11 is my theological conviction; it is my knowledge of God; it is my understanding of time.

The 2011 sabbatical year has become a special year in my life. It is special because it offered me a broad space to search. Searching is a spiritual act. “Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him” (Ps. 105:4, NLT). To the Judean exiles in Babylon, Jeremiah sent them a letter from Jerusalem:

For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile (Jer. 29:10-14, NLT).

Searching, seeking, and finding are all covenantal languages. They are covenantal because they are grounded in his promise. His promise functions as an anchor in the cycle of the threefold orientation. From one orientation to another, his promise still clings to us: I will bring you back.

Hope Thinking

Jürgen Moltmann’s Theology of Hope has carried me through day after day. “It is through faith that man finds the path of true life, but it is only hope that keeps him on that path.”[1] I encountered Christ through faith. In faith, his righteousness has been imputed to me. He is my justification. Hope has kept me on the path of sanctification. God is the God of hope (see Rom. 15:13) who is not beyond me or above me, but before me. The resurrection of the crucified Christ becomes a transforming power for me to anticipate the coming of the kingdom of God. It opens up for new possibilities because his resurrection triumphed over the ultimate impossible—death. John Goldingay says that “It is unwise to think about hoping until you know there is a basis for it. It is difficult to face up to hopelessness until you know there might be an answer to it, a way of facing it.”[2] Christ’s resurrection is the basis of hope. Moltmann’s idea of hope is not only grounded in the resurrection of the crucified Christ, but also the cross of the risen Lord. Hope without the cross is a form of human-constructed utopia. Moltmann writes:

 

Hope alone is to be called ‘realistic’, because it alone takes seriously the possibilities with which all reality is fraught. It does not take things as they happen to stand or to lie, but as progressing, moving things with possibilities of change…Hope makes us ready to bear the ‘cross of the present’. It can hold to what is dead, and hope for the unexpected.[3]

It is this kind of theological thinking that has helped me theologize my journey. I hope for the unexpected without neglecting the present; I face up the present reality without losing hope. It helps me sail adventurously along with the leading of the Spirit—“the wind blows wherever it wants…” (Jn. 3:8, NLT). During my sabbatical year, I realized that I didn’t have any existing thoughts to help me move forward and solve puzzles in my mind. I turned to Moltmann’s hope thinking. In return, his hope thinking has given me a new horizon to see things. I am thankful for this hope thinking in my faith.

Hope Lam, Fort Wayne, Indiana

We won’t stay in this city in a long run. But I believe this place is and will be a special place because my daughter would say, “I was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana.” Someone would then ask, “Why were you born there?” She’d say, “Because my heavenly Father called my dad to pursue a doctoral degree in theology there. That’s why. And that’s why I talk like a theologian.”

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[1] Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), p. 20.

[2] John Goldingay, Walk On: Life, Loss, Trust, and Other Realities (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), p. 83.

[3] Moltmann, Theology of Hope, pp. 25, 31.

不可或缺的教會

這本書比我想像中的好。第二部分的內容「不可或缺的教會怎樣關上後門」已值回書價。若教會不想持續流失基督徒，特別是年輕的一代（書中特別針對18至22歳的青年），必須留意四個重點：簡化：正確的結構；深化：正確的內容；期望：正確的態度和倍增：正確的行動。作者對這四點有很好的論述，我特別喜歡「簡化」和「深化」這兩章。

在探討教會缺乏深度教導問題上，作者寫到：「超過一半從教會流失（52%）離開教會，是因為對教會的宗教、倫理或政治信念有不同意見或感到不確定。這個問題至少有部分可以直接歸因於教會膚淺的聖經教導和講道。一個脫離教會的人表示他以前的教會的教義教導只是『零碎的基督教』」（頁147）。