Leadership — Clayfire Curator

When ‘Call the Pastor!’ Doesn’t Cut It

by Eric Herron | September 20, 2011

With global weather disasters, regional famines, and local terrorist atrocities, we live in an age during which religious cooperation has become more a necessity than a nicety.

One gets the feeling that our age is more heavily laden with bad news and trouble than previous eras. Certainly, this is untrue. But it is true that we have never been so connected, and in this connectedness – through email, Twitter, Facebook, Google, the ease and speed of travel, etc. – the Japanese are able grieve for terror victims in New York, while New Yorkers lament for tsunami victims in Japan. I’m pretty sure this has not happened before our time. The downside? This proliferation of information has turned our blissful ignorance to horrific awareness. It’s allowed us access to the pain of others, whether we want to or not.

Our horrific awareness begs for some spiritual relief. If we were only speaking of a 19th century American frontier settlement tragedy, spiritual relief would be a no-brainer. “Call the pastor!” someone would shout. The clergyman from the local church – situated in the center of town and some flavor of Christian - would preside where presiding was necessary and intercede when the people could no longer pray for themselves in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Today it’s a different story. No longer is spiritual disaster response solved with a single call to the local pastor. After all, there might be Hindus trapped in that building. It’s possible there are Muslims with homes underwater and relatives lost just off-shore. The mayhem of airplane hijackers takes the plane down even with Zen-Buddhists in coach.

The pressing question raised by our interconnectedness is: How do address deep spiritual needs when a diversity of faiths are represented in the fray?

Taking a step back, there is actually a question that logically precedes this one. It is the question ‘why?’ Why figure it out? Why do the hard work when even some of the greatest leaders of our time shun the opportunity?

I can think of several reasons why it is healthy, helpful, and spiritually responsible (from the Christian perspective) to figure out how to pray and worship together with those holding different beliefs, especially in times of trial:

God made everyone. As far as I can tell, we are all descended from Adam. Whether one takes this literally, or as myth (in the truest sense of the term), we are taught that all are persons are created by God. This basic fact lays a foundation for all other reasons.

We are similar. Each person is unique. True. Unique personalities. Unique opinions and points of view. Unique cultural biases and religious practices. Also, true: Everyone is the same. Everyone loves. Everyone hates. Each person has to do something with that sense (or lack of sense) of the spiritual they perceive. Though our conclusions vary, as children of the same Parent, our common humanity should outweigh our disparate preferences. This is why early on, the Spirit expanded the bounds of the Church beyond Jewish believers in Jesus. God’s chosen people would have to share God, whether they liked it or not.

We need each other. Our similarities include our needs. At any moment, we may find ourselves in need. At any moment, there is someone that can meet that need. Whether we are thirsty, hungry, lonely, fearful, saddened, perplexed, in shock, desperate, beaten down, abused, abandoned… relief has been pre-programmed into the scheme of the universe. That relief is called “you.” Sure, God parted the Red Sea, but Moses had to stretch out his hand. Someone (likely not a Christian) needs your hand – and the rest of what’s connected to it. And you just may need that non-Christian hand yourself one day.

Worship is witness. It might seem uncouth to raise evangelism when talking about interfaith cooperation. Must be my Baptist roots coming to the surface. Uncouth or not, my faith tradition says “faith unaccompanied by action is dead.” If I’m to bring my faith to the table with those of other religions, I must do more than quote scripture. I must do more than recite doctrine. I must do. Possible actions include more options than feeding the hungry and quenching the thirsty, though these are quite en vogue. I should also be asking God to act on behalf of others – whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist for that matter. Does anything speak more of my love (and God’s) for another than the prayer sincerely, humbly, and indiscriminately offered – with and in the presence of others? Especially when that prayer is answered, for real.

Can you come up with some more reasons why we ought to worship and pray with those of other faiths?

Image © iStockphoto

Categories: Leadership

Leadership Lessons From the Netflix Queue

by Guest Blogger | September 16, 2011

This post was written by Darren Fink.

One evening, perusing the “thriller” genre on Netflix lead me to the title, Frozen. Understanding that my family – who enjoys comedies – would be back from their trip to Texas in three days, I persuaded myself to watch this movie, a movie that promised to make my body come alive with suspense-filled adrenaline. The promise of suspense won the night and I was soon being taken into this adventure of Joe (best friend #1), Dan (best Friend #2), and Parker (best friend #2′s girlfriend, at a ski resort.

The financially challenged students coerce Parker to flirt with the chair lift operator to give them access to the lift. She is successful and the character development begins. Joe is immensely upset that Parker is taking all his buddy time away from Dan. Parker slowly, over the course of the day, begins to pick up on this aggression toward her coming from Joe. Dan, who plays the role of leader, attempts to be “Switzerland” during the whole day to keep both parties satisfied.

The resort is beginning to close down. The students persuade the same lift operator to let them do one more run. Through a series of random and quick events the operator is called away from his station and the chairs are eventually shut down along with the entire resort, which is not scheduled to reopen for five days. The students’ conversation on the halted chair slowly goes from annoyance to pure terror at their situation.

The aspect of this tale that made the biggest impression on me was the fact that the student’s did NOT band together in their crisis. Instead, the friction between their personalities – which was small at the beginning of the film – caused them to bicker even more as the day went on. Each tried in their own way to escape into their private world to console themselves: the girlfriend reached for a cigarette, Joe actively recited the phone number of a girl he met on the slopes. Everyone attempted to keep themselves individually sane until Dan notices the start of severe frostbite on Parker’s face. The crisis then spins into a new level of chaos, causing Dan to jump from the elevated chair in an attempt to save his crew. Impending doom ensues as there are broken legs, tourniquets, and an issue with a wolf pack.

Pause.

How many times as a leader do you see this situation play out? You are among a group of phenomenal individuals that are passionate about connecting people with God. However, sometimes the Joe’s and Parker’s personalities in the group begin to grind on each other. As a leader, like Dan, you attempt to smooth over the situation and keep the group moving forward toward the common goal.

As Director of Art and Technology at my church, I once had a volunteer that did not respond well to criticism. When a church member with a perfectionist personality tried to give weekly advice to my volunteer, I had to provide encouragement to calm this individual. For the most part, this kept everyone overlooking differences and we had great worship services where guests were able to meet with God. This approach kept everyone in their own world and sane until a crisis came along to magnify the problem. My volunteer was having problems at work that were threatening his job. The complaints about getting weekly critiques became louder, the encouragement no longer consoled, and I ended up losing this particular volunteer.

Replay.

The turning point of the movie was actually when Dan was no longer in the position of leadership. This threw the group into a greater crisis but also allowed them to speak openly about each other. Once feelings were out in the open, forgiveness took place in order to close the gap that was hindering the teamwork of the group. The group began to function as one instead of as three separate parts.

Pause.

As a leader, I’m now inclined to ask myself: Am I fostering an environment where people can be vulnerable with each other? How vulnerable should I be as a leader with my team? Am I allowing an atmosphere where it is okay to be a recovering sinner? Are the members of the group worried about the team or themselves?

Image © iStockphoto

Darren Fink’s great, great grand-dad was a poor and illiterate man in Germany who was once asked to pick his family name. That man drew a picture of a finch (Finke) to communicate his idea. Like his great, great grand-dad, Darren has always had a passion to communicate concepts through other means besides talking and writing. As the director of Art and Technology at Christ Community Church, in Murphysboro, Illinois, it’s Darren’s job to ensure that God’s message is presented visually to compliment the spoken message.

Darren and his wife Margie are currently fostering four children.

Categories: Leadership

Locating Music and Expanding Our Musicality

by Guest Blogger | September 2, 2011

This post was written by Tracy Howe Wispelwey.

My friends in Burundi approached their local worship team and asked if they would start to incorporate traditional Burundi drumming and song into the music being used in liturgy. Burundi has a rich tradition of drumming and song. However, that expression never found its way into liturgy as colonialism physically overtook the great lakes region of East Africa and colonial ideology wove Western culture into Christianity. Moreover, indigenous and native cultural expression was systematically extinguished as the violence of colonialism permeated physically, culturally and spiritually. Now there are many who cringe to find the top ten CCLI songs being sung in a small village in East Africa, because it points to a continuing dominance of Western cultural export, as well as a decline of native expression and the stifling of promising, new and unique voices. There are many in Africa (and in the West) who long for a restoration of indigenous and unique expression throughout Christianity, but especially where colonialism perpetuated/s creativity’s destruction.

However, the young people in the worship band simply loved to play guitar. They countered that being pressured to use instruments and sounds they did not want to use would be to wield the same kind of colonial methods that the older generations lament. Many liturgists and pastors I know in the United States resonate with this – there is a desire to move beyond commodified music, to explore the depth of many different traditions of music and song in liturgy. Yet, there are also reasons a song becomes mass-produced – many might honestly cling to it, but that connection is incorrectly codified and distributed as normative for everyone. Is there a way to use and share music without letting our call to creativity atrophy in our communities?

I love global connectivity, and the fact that a song can travel like worldwide sonic wildfire these days. But something is wrong when there are just a few sonic fountains, or if current economic privilege allows a single culture to dominate the global distribution of worship and liturgical resources.

I offer two suggestions. First, we can locate our music and songs. To know the fullness of a person’s story deepens the testimony of her or his life. Can you culturally and historically locate all of the songs you use in worship gatherings? Can you give a song new depth by offering your community a reason for why it will be sung in your context? African-American spirituals continue to inspire myriad Christian traditions, and are enjoyed outside of faith communities in part because the songs evoke the strength, perseverance and hope of very specific people in a very specific place and time. Locating music reminds us that we are part of a global community and it connects us to legacy and history beyond our lifetimes. I also hope it reminds us of the power and longevity a song holds, and therefore the tremendous call and responsibility we possess to continue writing and creating!

Second, we can expand and enrich our musicality. I am both a songwriter and composer. The genre I work in is electroacoustic composition, which gathers field recordings (the sounds of life, a city, nature) and uses them like instruments in the composition of a particular piece. Recalling the young worship band in Burundi that wants to play the popular Christian music on guitars – what if we expand our musicality to include the sounds and textures of their community as well? Can we actively expand our musicality as a spiritual practice in our own spaces? Regardless of where we gather – Can we really know and listen to the songs we sing, the music we play, and then open our ears to the breath of our neighbors and the sounds of the cities in which we live?

Ultimately, we are listening for the Holy Spirit to reveal the fullness of beauty and life, and fully knowing and hearing our songs and music is often a great place we can start.

Image © iStockphoto

Tracy Howe Wispelwey’s creative identity is The Restoration Project under which she has released multiple albums and toured to many places. She is also founder of Restoration Village, a nonprofit that seeks to facilitate and nurture creative partnership, and a member of la Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamericana through which she is working with others to build a network of theologian-artists and liturgists resourcing communities of faith. She and her husband live in Cambridge, MA.

Like The Restoration Project on Facebook and follow Tracy on Twitter.

Categories: Leadership

Fair Trade Worship

by Eric Herron | July 22, 2011

Ten Thousand Villages – one the world’s oldest and largest fair trade organizations – describes itself as a group that

… markets handcrafted products made by artisans from more than 130 artisan groups in 38 countries… [and] has spent more than 60 years cultivating long-term buying relationships in which artisans receive a fair price for their work and consumers have access to unique gifts, accessories and home decor from around the world.” (from their website)

There is a fundamental market imbalance in the global economy today. So-called “developed” countries – often called “the West” – have the capital and governmental structures in place enabling independent businesses to survive and even thrive. In contrast, artisans and entrepreneurs from “developing” countries (such as most of those who dwell in the the Southern hemisphere) possess limited governmental and financial resources, and therefore hold little to no bargaining power in the global marketplace. As a result, business owners in the developing world are often treated unfairly, especially when it comes to the price paid for their goods by others who come from more privileged markets.

Similarly, there is a fundamental imbalance in the economics of the global Church today. The “goods” are indigenous worship forms “produced” by unique cultures and traditions around the world. Just as with coffee or chocolate or crafts, which have real value, yet are devalued in the global market-place – the songs or prayers or rituals from the developing world hold real spiritual value, yet are devalued in the global worship “economy.” The devaluing of these worship forms ends up thwarting the true communion of the saints worldwide.

How has this happened? As with unfair trade in the business sense, unfair trade in the worship sense is perpetuated by real and imagined Western dominance over less powerful, less prominent world cultures.

The attitude of superiority in the West comes to life when, from the pulpit, the only mention of developing countries is in terms of aid – money, food, and supplies gathered up from the privileged “us” and sent away to the distant and invisible “them.” Why is it that so rarely the ministry is reversed, deriving from poor “them” to the privileged “us”? It is not because “they” have no means or spiritual authority to minister to “us.”

For instance, why don’t we ever hear the reading of an edifying letter written by a local pastor in religiously oppressed China? Why aren’t we connecting with our geographically distant fellow saints through sharing written prayers, composed out of the hearts of Bolivian believers? Where, in our Western churches is the recitation of unique creeds, the belief statements of sisters and brothers from different mothers? (But sharing the same Mother!)

Think about this: When was the last time you switched on your local Christian radio station and heard an indigenous song from the Dinka of Sudan? You haven’t. This is because the capitalization and subsequent standardization of worship forms in the West has limited the kinds of worship expressions to which we all have easy access.

The fair trading of worship forms, across cultures and beyond imagined borders, could only lead to greater awareness of the deep unity we share through common faith in Jesus, despite the global diversity of our cultural worship expression.

Personally, I’d like just once to discover a local church website – from Des Moines, or Baltimore, or Orlando, or Lincoln, or Sacramento – that righteously brags on its “about” page that

… our local church worships with indigenous forms created by artists from more than 130 other local churches in 38 countries… and has spent more than 60 years cultivating long-term relationships in which artists receive fair acknowledgment for their work and worshipers have access to unique songs, prayers, and rituals from around the world.

The result of Fair Trading in the economic marketplace is long-lasting, sustainable relationships between small producers and global consumers.

The result of Fairly Traded worship among the global communion of the saints is long-lasting, sustainable faith that – like the Trinity whom we worship – demonstrates simultaneous unity and diversity, reflecting life and light to a world that is crumbling under dissension, disunity, and false hope.

Fair Trade logo messed with by Eric Herron.

Categories: Leadership

What Kind of Artist-Leader Are You?

by Eric Herron | July 14, 2011

Moving into this week and the theme of “Artist as Pastor” I made the personal assumption that an artist always has a particular spiritual function in the body of Christ. This idea is implied by Blaine Hogan in the post which inspired this whole exploration.

Prior to reading Hogan’s thoughts, I’ve often thought of the artist not in the role of Pastor, but in the role of Prophet. The more I mull over this topic, the more I am convinced that the Artist role in the church is neither. Or, rather, the Artist role is both, and more.

APEPT is an acronym that Alan Hirsch uses to describe the fivefold ministry of the saints in Ephesians chapter 4. It stands for: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor/Shepherd, Teacher. (It has been renamed APEST subsequent to the publishing of The Forgotten Ways.)

Hirsch concludes that these leader roles build upon one another. Apostle is foundational. An indication of its importance is that it always comes first in New Testament ministry lists. According to Alan, it is important because the apostolic role “creates the primary field of New Testament ministry.” (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, Brazos Press, 2006, 158.)

Think about it. An apostle (‘sent one’) is the first to visit an unreached people or neglected cultural group, introducing the idea of Jesus. With this introduction, a spiritual milieu is created into which the prophet can speak. The apostle has partnered with the Spirit to establish “the covenant community” (local church). The nature of this new community is then shaped by the prophet who calls the covenant people to deep faithfulness. Authentic and deep faithfulness is the fertile plain for the planting of evangelistic seeds. The evangelist makes the specific call to relationship with Jesus through the gospel. Without the prior work of apostle and prophet, the evangelist’s work is harder if not complete vanity. Next, as individuals hear God’s call through the evangelist, they are ready to be shepherded through a continuing process of discipleship. This is where the pastor role comes into play. Finally, the teacher gives explicit instruction in Christlikeness to disciples in process. (Go here for an excerpt of Hirsch’s book on APEPT/APEST, 169 ff.)

The local church needs all of these roles. They are all necessary and each builds upon the other. Leave one out and a vital aspect of the covenant community of God lags or is absent altogether.

This in mind, which would you say is the primary function of the artist? Apostle? Prophet? Evangelist? Pastor? Teacher? I am newly inclined to say that all of these are viable and realistic options.

What I’m saying is, the term Artist ought to be hyphenated in the realm of church leadership. Artist is not a synonym for Pastor. Artist is not a substitute term for Prophet. Artist belongs paired with one or more New Testament leader roles based on the individual artist’s spiritual gifts and calling. Then, the hyphenate “Artist” creatively modifies the leader role with which it is paired.

So, what might these Artist-hyphenates look like?

The Apostle-Artist: Creates art that develops an environment, which is open to spiritual dialogue, not necessarily dialogue of an explicitly Christian kind. Think missionary who spends several years learning-sharing culture in a foreign land before ever cracking a Bible with people.

The Prophet-Artist: Creates art that challenges the status-quo and re-envisions reality in kingdom of God terms. Think Old Testament prophet who’s job it was to “nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” See Walter Bruggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination (Fortress Press, 1978), 13.

The Evangelist-Artist: Creates art that explicitly articulates the gospel or tells of the kingdom. DON’T think kitschy bumper-stickers and graphic pamphlets.

The Pastor-Artist: Creates art that has a shepherding effect. Think liturgical art that nurtures disciples who gather for worship. Also, think non-liturgical art that somehow encourages the spiritual direction of followers of Christ, regardless of the venue in which it is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched.

The Teacher-Artist: Creates art that provides specific training in Christ-likeness. Think Jesus with his parabolic tales and Rob Bell’s Nooma videos.

If you disagree with these hyphenated options for artistic roles in the church, I’d love to hear your response along with an alternative theory. If you agree, what I’d really like to know is: Which one are you?

Which New Testament leader role modifies your existence as an artist?

Categories: Leadership