Forgiving Myself

I think I may have forgiven myself for my responsibility in the car accident involving youth from our church. It's hard to tell for sure, because there wasn't one magical moment when all of a sudden I felt the burden of my guilt float off of my shoulders. But there have been many moments when I've noticed the weight of the load decrease. And I can say now that I'm in a place in the forgiving process in which my burden feels light.

I got to this place of feeling forgiven by being witness to God's reconciliation. Here's how, through Holy Spirit's inspiration, I've seen Jesus reconciling the world to his Father:

First, at the scene of the accident I saw God protecting and caring for us. In the moans coming from the boys in the back seat, Holy Spirit dwelling within them cried out in sighs too deep for words, "Abba! Help us!". A few firefighters and paramedics said that having seen the two cars in the nature of the t-bone collision they were surprised the consequences of life were not much worse. God sustained the structure of my little 1990 Corolla against a 45 MPH impact of a Suburban. God acted through the woman who hit us, manifested in her compassion and concern for our well being. She took off her white glove in -25 degree windchill to help stop one of the boys' bleeding. God acted through the stranger, our good Samaritan, who stopped and offered for us to sit and stay warm in his vehicle. God acted through the police and paramedics who arrived on scene at the blink of an eye. I was so overwhelmed by their care that I thanked the officer when he gave me a citation. God acted through the boys and their parents who remained calm and helped the professionals do their work. Already God was busy reconciling a broken scene of humanity.

The next morning -- before I went to bed -- God spoke to me saying, "seek first my reigning and repent before my congregation." So I did just that, and I saw God's kingdom emerge from the hearts of people I see on a daily basis. Their words of forgiveness, love, and grace began to lift my burden. I knew then that my ministry could continue in partnership with all of them, free from an unspoken elephant of suspicion lurking every time youth are entrusted into my care. God reconciled me in my relationship to the boys and their parents. The depth of their faith was evident in their quickness to forgive. Once I was finally able to speak to the boy who sat behind me and suffered the worst injuries, I asked for his forgiveness and received it from him. Then I felt Jesus opening my own heart to forgive myself.

Last week I wondered how I could forgive myself, and the answer I found is that I can't. What I can do is seek first God's kingdom and it's righteousness, and all the care of my concerns will be granted to me by God. I saw God reigning in the world all around me. I was invited to see Holy Spirit gifting people to follow Jesus in his mission to reconcile the world to his Father.

Forgiveness came to me through God's reconciliation. When I spoke to the boy with the severe injuries, what lifted my burden even more so than his words of forgiveness, was his genuine enthusiasm when I offered to visit him at his house each week to tutor him in the confirmation classes he will miss. In his excitement to spend time together I knew we were in the right relationship of God's righteousness. Shortly after that, word came to me that one of the disciples in our church was organizing a letter writing campaign to the city aldermen and county officials to change the traffic light at the intersection of the accident so that it will be a standard, solid light at all times. It is a dangerous intersection when the light is blinking -- even with fatal accidents in the past. St. Stephen the Martyr is the church in the world participating in Jesus' mission by the power of Holy Spirit to reconcile all things (from relationships to traffic patterns) to our Father.

And finally, I thank you for showering me with emails, cards, phone calls, and even unexpected gifts. You wouldn't leave me alone long enough for me to wallow and beat myself up emotionally. You kept my eyes open to seeking first God's reign. So, I think that I have forgiven myself thanks to all of you, because I am looking forward with excitement to partnering in ministry again; I am looking forward to the future God has in store for us.

Seeking Forgiveness

Last Saturday night, I was in a car accident. Everyone involved will heal from their injuries. We all can see God's hand protecting us in this tragic experience. But I'm still keeping my eyes open for what God continues to do in our midst after the accident. Indeed, we all feel Holy Spirit's gifts of healing and comfort. Yet as these gifts unfold, I'm thirsting for forgiveness.

You see, I made a judgment error on the road that night. With four boys from our church in my car, I proceeded through an intersection after stopping at a blinking red light, not seeing any cross traffic coming for a while. I didn't realize until after we all climbed out of the car that the cross street only had a blinking yellow. For my mistake, the boys under my care paid the price in the form of bruises, soreness, and broken bones.

I woke up early the next morning to attend both worship services. I wanted to tell the congregation myself about the accident. This isn't something I wanted people to hear through the grape vine. I thought my presence -- though slow and awkward -- would reassure the church that we will be o.k. And more importantly, I wanted to ask for forgiveness. These boys are sons of the congregation; we are all bound together in love as a church family who raises up disciples. My mistake affected everyone who partners with me in ministry, who entrusts the safety of their children to me, who respects me as a responsible leader. So I confessed my sin to the congregation and apologized.

Before I could step away from the microphone, I was already hearing people say, "We forgive you." Following worship, more people than I can count came up to me one by one to express forgiveness, love, grace, and encouragement. Then over the course of the next two days I visited the boys and their parents. They too, were quick to forgive and shared their concern for my well being -- physically and spiritually.

Some people have said to me that I didn't need to apologize to the congregation. But I did. While it's nice to hear people's understanding that accidents happen and as long as everyone will be o.k. then everything else isn't as important, still that's not the same as forgiveness. Only by owning my responsibility and asking for forgiveness could the church be the church. By living in the community of reconciliation, we witness the presence of our risen messiah reconciling all things to his Father. That's the community called and gifted by Holy Spirit, not the spirit of "all's well that ends well."

So as I lay on my couch resting my sore back for the next few days, I see God's reign breaking in all around me through the ministry of the baptized at St. Stephen the Martyr. They have been given the office of the keys, and they're happy to unlock heaven here on earth. My prayer is that I can learn from them, that I can come to forgive myself.

I don't know how to forgive myself. Everytime I receive absolution for my sin from one of the boys and their parents, my heart turns ever more toward forgiving myself. But there is one boy I haven't been able to speak with directly. He's the one who was sitting behind me and suffered the worst injuries. Maybe after I am able to ask him for forgiveness I'll be able to forgive myself. Maybe it will just take me time. Or maybe being surrounded by Jesus' body, broken and given for the sake of the world, will lead me to forgive myself.

If you have any helpful suggestions for self-forgiveness, I'm all ears.

Transforming Leaders

In part of my work in contributing to the design of new leadership trainig for the ELCA, one of my colleagues from the transformingchurch.com network -- Ron Lee -- posed a question to direct our visioning: "we can't speak of transforming leaders until we answer the question, "transformed to be and do what"?"

Here's my response:

To "transform" leaders, I think, can be thought of by the two parts of the word 'transform'. The base root is 'form': to build, to mold, to shape. This process is personal, spiritual, theological, relational, and vocational. At the same time, the prefix 'trans' indicates that there is a border to cross in this formation. Transforming leaders isn't just a grafting on of new information and skills to a form already there. It is a birthing of a new form.

May I suggest that transformation is a dying and rising process?

We die to ourselves, to our false sense of limitations, to a lathargic spiritual discipline, to our cancer of thinking church can exist w/o its mission in the world or the cancer of equating it's mission w/ social justice causes or the cancer of equating it's mission with an urge to build tribal huts; we die to seeing people in our congregations as means to an end for keeping an institution on life support, to the vocational discernment of care-giver or social worker.

We rise to a new form, to God's possibilities beyond false limitations and God's opportunities within our true limitedness, to a joyfully disciplined spirituality, to a clear vision and passion for the mission of the church to participate in Jesus' work of reconciling all things to God, to seeing people in our congregations as the church in the world, to the vocational discernment of community architecture that builds disciples who make disciples.

So we're transforming leaders to BE what exactly? To be people who recognize the gifts and limitations Holy Spirit has placed upon them to be this kind of border-crossing trail blazers.

We're transforming leaders to DO what exactly? To build bridges along our blazed trails for the church to cross the great divide between the death of a dying institution and the new life of the people movement sparked by Jesus' empty tomb.

The question, then, becomes what kind of bridges do we need to build along our blazed trails?

• A bridge from the world's story to the story of God's reconciling work in the the living Jesus.
  
• A bridge from a member who seeks "to meet my spiritual needs" to a disciple who yearns to witness the resurrection in my daily life and to make disciples of Jesus.
  
• A bridge from a congregational culture of myopic naval gazing to a culture of vision to be the church in the world.
  
• A bridge from a pastor as hand-holder to a pastor as equipper of disciples to make disciples.
  
• A bridge from committee door stops to an empowering organizational structure.
  
• A bridge from passionless worship to Spirit-ful worship.
  
• A bridge from paying our dues to generosity from abundance.
  
• A bridge from asking God to bless us to asking to get involved in what God is blessing.
  
• A bridge from evangelisim as invitation and welcome to evangelism as serving our neighbor and telling them the good news of Jesus.
  
• A bridge from technology as entertainment to technology as communication.
  
• A bridge from disciples feeling isolated in the midst of church members to disciples feeling nurtured and networked in the midst of fellow disciples.

The offer we're extending to leaders is to become trail blazing bridge builders for a future church in a rapidly changing wilderness beyond our current borders. We're blazing new trails not so we can go off on our own where we see Jesus going, but always and only for the purpose of leading our fellow pilgrims down the same path.

What other bridges do you see that leaders need to build?

Virgin Womb of Theotokoi

There's something about Mary . . .

How are Christians to understand the mother of the Messiah? On the one hand, there is the Roman Catholic view complete with a doctrine of immaculate conception and pushing the boundaries of 2000 years of the church's articulation of how God's salvation works. On the other hand, there is a Protestant backlash that wants to ignore her completely except to cast a young lady for her character in the annual Christmas pageant.

Are modern minds expected to buy into concepts like an immaculate conception or even a virgin birth? I admit that through my training in various hermeneutics of criticism that I could give or take the doctrine of the virgin birth. I see no reason Jesus couldn't be the Messiah if Joseph and Mary got it on prior to their marriage. Yet I also see no reason to reject 2000 years of tradition out right just to satisfy the limited minds of modernity.

So what are we to do about Mary? Continuing along the lines of the previous article about birthing church leaders, I'd like to suggest that we understand Mary as a model for the church. (This isn't my idea; it is an ancient patristic theme.) If the church is the womb from which leaders for discipleship are born, then make no mistake about it, that womb is of a virgin.

There's a lot of people and a lot of literature out there that want the church to get in bed with the powers of the world in order to train leaders. They say that if the church could just be more like Starbucks, Google, the U.S. Miliatry, Disney and so on, then we'd see a re-energized church with a growing membership and influence in our society. That may be true. But it may also forfeit our identity as church in the process. Now, I'm not saying we can't learn from various leadership models in our society. I am saying that we can do so without prostituting the church's identity granted her in the marriage covenant with God. We can learn from our culture without inviting it into our bed.

We need to pay less attention to how Donald Trump determines the winner of the next "Apprentice", and pay more attention to the story of God's work of salvation through Jesus. The good news of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension forms our identity. To paraphrase St. Ireneaus, Jesus sanctifies our birth and abolishes our death. Through baptism God invites us to participate in this story, to be characters in its plot.

We were conceived as Jesus' disciples in our baptism. And like his, ours was a virginal conception consumated by God's presence in the womb. Holy Spirit calls, gathers, and empowers people into discipleship. The church shares the same role in birthing disciples as Mary did in birthing our Messiah. We are theotokoi -- God-bearers.

The irony concerning Jesus' virgin birth is that modern minds interpret the doctrine as a lame attempt to assert Jesus' divinity, yet Ireneaus insisted on this doctrine as a way to prove Jesus's humanity, his creatureliness and worldliness, against gnostic heresy. In the thesis "On Apostolic Preaching" Ireneaus writes, "if one does not accept His birth from a Virgin, how can he accept His resurrection from the dead? . . . if He was not born, neither did He die; and if He did not die, neither was He raised from the dead; and if He was not raised from the dead, death is not conquered nor its kingdom destroyed; and if death is not conquered, how are we to ascend to life, having fallen under death from the beginning?" (John Behr's translation. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1997. pp 64-65.)

This same ironic twist concerning Jesus' virgin birth has also defiled our understanding of baptism and our expectations for receiving new adult disciples into a congregation. We assert God's role to the point that we forget divine grace works through human creatureliness participating in Jesus' story for the sake of the world. Certainly, disciples are born of a virgin's womb, but the church's role in birthing leaders is not passive. We are active theotokoi. If we neglect our call to form communities of radical discipleship, then the church will be marginalized in the world the same way Protestantism has relegated Mary to her once-yearly token pageant appearance.

Therefore, we must ask ourselves what our congregations would look like if we took Jesus' story with the utmost seriousness for our lives. Leadership of theotokoi looks a lot different than any model of leadership known to the world. We know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among us. Theotokoi leadership is humane yet not of humanity. It is a creaturely leadership yet not of creation. It is worldly yet not of the world. It is for us, but not of our standards, credentials, or expectations. Rather when Holy Spirit calls, gathers, and empowers us in the virgin womb of the church, we join with Mary in witnessing God's saving activity in our world:

Our soul magnifies the Lord, and our spirit rejoices in God our Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servants.

Surely, from now on all generations will call us blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for us,

and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

He has scattered the proud in the thought of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

Birthing Church Leaders

I've discovered the answer to the age old question, "Are leaders born or made?" They're born ... but not biologically. Rather, leaders are born by the formation of their community.

This is not the same as saying leaders are made. Yes, we can learn certain leadership skills, but to make leaders implies that I could take any person, teach him the magic skills, and presto . . . we have a leader. Take situation 'x' and apply skill 'y' and 99.9% of the time we could get the desired outcome. Yet, anyone who's ever been in a leadership position knows it's not that simple.

Uncertainty and pain are involved. Birthing pains to be specific. The pain of a community looking in the mirror and wondering who those strangers are staring back at us. When did we lose our hips? Will our cheeks ever return to their normal size? How much longer can we stand morning sickness? Get this baby out of us now!

In an ancient church writing called "The Letter of the Martyrs of Lyons" (c. 177) the author likens the church to a mother. In her womb Christians were equipped to face martyrdom, which was seen as one's final birth into the fullness of heaven. Those who denied their faith to avoid martyrdom were considered "stillborn." But amazingly the witness of a martyr could restore the stillborns into the mother's womb in which they learned to confess the Lord.

A doctor named Alexander who loved to preach in Lyons attended the tribunal of accused Christians before he himself was accused. There he pantomimed the behavior of a woman giving birth. When Christians who had previously denied their faith saw his actions, they began confessing Christ again.

Congregations take on this mothering dynamic of birthing leaders to witness Jesus. Going into it we're often afraid of the prospective pain. We wonder to ourselves, "Why would we want to put our bodies through that torture?" It would be much easier to wait around for a charismatic leader to waltz in and make all our troubles go away. But such heroic endings are fantasies found only in fairy tales.

Congregations who want to discern the joyfully surprising in-breaking of God's reign need to birth our own leaders for the church's mission. Conception takes place in baptism. In the sacrament of water, we are flooded with Jesus' call to follow him in the community of his disciples. An exchange of promises accompanies this call: to bring the new disciple to worship, to teach her to read scripture, in short to make her a disciple who practices her faith (is there any other kind?).

Here's where it starts to get painful. To keep this promise to the newly baptized, each disciple in the community has to take his own call seriously -- Jesus' radical call to pick up one's cross and follow him. This is the process of gestation prior to birthing a leader in the church. During this developmental period congregations continuously re-examine basic questions to guide our life together such as:

• What is church?
• How can we be church more faithfully?
• Why does being that visionary church matter to us? to our neighbors? to God?
• What does worship, education, and service look like in such a church?

Congregations who constantly wrestle with such questions are forming disciples in utero. As we use our collective imaginations we look in the mirror and say to ourselves, "Stretch marks? Who cares? The joy that awaits us in birthing new leaders is well worth minor scarring." Congregations adapt their body shape and appearance as the next generation of leaders grows inside us. There's anxiety. There's fear. There's drastic mood swings and manipulative cravings. But we get through it together, because we anticipate the joy of birthing the next generation of disciples.

Some are born ready to lead through their witness. Others are stillborn, not ready to confess their faith through their decisions and actions. God does not abandon these least fortunate, so neither does their mother give up on them. Rather, the community continues to hold them accountable by restoring them to the womb until the time comes when they are prepared to confess Jesus as Lord in the face of all obstacles.

The process which congregations traditionally call "confirmation" should be questioned in light of the church's role as mother. What loving and responsible mother would give birth then leave her baby to raise itself? Sadly, this is the misconceived paradigm of confirmation held by most congregations. We tell confirmands that they are now adults in the congregation, but we fail to tell them what it means to be an adult disciple.

Our typical understanding of what it means to be an adult comes from a secular view stemming from the Enlightenment's emphasis on autonomy. In society, adults are people who are capable of leaving home to fend for themselves. But in the church, there is no such thing as a disciple with such capabilities. To be a disciple of Jesus means to participate in the mission of his gathered community and to be held accountable by the church.

Being confirmed into church-adulthood doesn't mean a young disciple is now free not to practice her faith if she so chooses. Rather, now that she is an adult in the church she is to be held directly accountable. If she does not witness to the Lord by practicing her faith actively, then she is a stillborn who is returned to the mother's womb by faithful witnesses.

How this is done exactly is through continuous formation. Confirmation, or more accurately "birthing", is not done only in grades 7 through 9. Birthing a disciple occurs from his baptism until his death. Stillborns are not abandoned to their misappropriated freedom. Parents, mentors, and peers hold them accountable to continuous discipleship formation through worship, education, and service. Each of us at times are born faithful witnesses to Jesus, and at other times each of us are stillborn -- neglecting our call. The life of discipleship, therefore, is one of continuously re-entering our mother's womb, re-gestating, and re-birthing.

Giving birth to a new leader is a messy and chaotic ordeal. Fluids gush out and stain the hands that long to weclome her. At various times during the deliviery, both the mother and the newborn scream and cry. We can never predict what the new leader will look like when we first hold her in our arms. Her leadership challenges the church to remain open to new possibilities. Welcoming a newborn leader into the world means our lives are changed forever in unimaginable ways. And so we accept the immense responsibility of motherhood, as we stare into her eyes and beam with joy.