Pastor Barbie… One Year Later

Archive - Leadership RSS Feed

Pastor Barbie… One Year Later

April 13, 2011 in Community, Faith, Leadership, My Story with 0 Comments

One year ago today, I wrote a blog post called “Pastor Barbie & Pulpit Culture“. It was an analogy and observation of having grown up in church, where I was in my life and how thankful I was to have encountered Cross Point Church and the culture there. It ended up being the 3rd most popular post on my blog of 2010.

At that time, I had absolutely no idea that 5 months later I would actually be on staff at Cross Point and have the hands-on opportunity to help create and shape the very culture that impacted me so much when I first came to Cross Point in January of 2010.

I now get to talk to people every single week, sharing my story and about Cross Point’s very brave and courageous culture that has reshaped how I see the role of the church. More than that, I get to look in their eyes, see it connect and invest in and be a part of their story much in the same way others were for me a year ago. Looking back over the past year in that context is extremely humbling and I have nothing but gratitude for the journey.

That’s all I have to say today. I just wanted to share that and, if you haven’t read it before, give you a chance to read Pastor Barbie & Pulpit Culture.

Mentors, Models, Coaches & Friends

April 12, 2011 in Community, Friends, Leadership, Relationships with 12 Comments

I’ve spent a lot of time lately considering the close relationships I have in my life and how each one has impacted, influenced and shaped me. Talking about the importance of community, I recently heard Rick Warren say:

Mentors, models, coaches & friends. The quickest way to change your life is to change who you’re close to.

I don’t know where it originated, but I’ve often heard the following statement and believe it to be true:

Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.

This same theme is echoed in a more cautionary tone in the Bible:

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. – Proverbs 13:20

There’s a lot to be said about who you surround yourself with. What this particular Proverb is saying is that, to a great extent, we become amalgams comprised of the voices we ascribe worth to and give permission to speak into our lives. With that realization comes with it a great responsibility to steward our hearts on a relational level.

When you’re young and invincible, it’s easy to take for granted the life lessons and wisdom flying through the air like radio broadcasts, yours for the taking if you’re paying attention and dialed in to the correct frequency. But sadly, we spend many of our younger years scanning the dial in relational oblivion, often not realizing the long term effects of how we allow others to invest into the moments of our lives. The older I get, the more I’ve not only seen the need for all of those varied voices in my life, but the more I’ve felt the weight of not having them as life assumes different shapes, regularly handing me new and diverse challenges and opportunities to grow.

I also realize that the more I’ve become intentional about anything, the more I’ve seen that thing change. The more intentional I’ve gotten about investing in these kinds of relationships, the more I’ve seen my life take shape and bear fruit resulting from the investment of others. At the same time, the more I’ve embraced this perspective, the more I’ve found myself on the other side of the equation and filling these various roles in the lives of others.

I’m thankful for those who give big picture counsel, live the blueprints, shout ring-side blow-by-blow instructions and speak wisdom and truth into my life. It’s a combination of the presence and selfless investment of all these voices that are constantly shaping, developing and investing in me, pushing me forward to a better version of myself and speaking to the trajectory of my life as much as to the next step.

Do you actively engage the presence of mentors, models, coaches & friends in your life?

What It Isn’t

April 4, 2011 in Leadership, Personal Development with 7 Comments

A couple weeks ago at Cross Point, during his message about the dangers of Leaving God Out of marital relationships, Pete Wilson made the following statement:

If you constantly feel the need to tell your family you’re the spiritual leader of your house, you’re probably not.

BAM. Go ahead. Pick yourself up off the floor and read that again. I’ll wait.

I can relate to that statement in a very personal way that it wouldn’t be wise for me to go into right now. Just suffice it to say, I know that statement to be all too true.

But it’s not just about being a spiritual leader in your home, it applies to a lot of things.

If you constantly feel the need to tell people you’re…

an influencer…

an innovator…

a leader...

etc…

… you’re probably not.

The people I know who are truly influencing, innovating, leading, etc, are typically too busy actually influencing, innovating and leading to stop and identify themselves as such. Truth is, there is much more to being a leader, an influencer, et al than simply calling yourself one. The “be called a leader” line is long, while the “actually BE a leader” line is much shorter. A lot of people want the title, while far fewer are willing to commit to the work. The grind is the grand differentiator.

Along similar lines, lately I’ve been thinking about how there seems to be an unending litany of resources aiming to tell us what things ARE. Books, blogs and bold headlines shout from newsstands and our computer screens at every turn, touting the secrets of “what leadership is”, “the truth of innovation” or “flexing your influence”.

Far more rare are the cautionary, but equally vital, voices that whisper things like, “don’t do that”. In my experience, along with every lesson I have and am constantly learning about what something like leadership IS, comes with it other, often more subtle, less-obtrusive and easily glossed-over lessons about what it ISN’T.

Many love to bask in the glory of the win, but I want to hear more chronicles of lessons from the loss. Most opportunities to learn and grow don’t come from the win, anyway. They come from disappointment, confession and humility; from watching game tapes and going back to the drawing board. There is often more perspective, truth and wisdom to be gleaned from a loss than a win. As such, sometimes winning looks like losing.

Wins may exalt you, but losses shape you.

I need more of those voices in my life… balanced and seasoned voices from the sidelines, coaching me to embrace the reality of what something isn’t just as much as what it is…. voices from just outside the winner’s circle whose limping stride is a character receipt… voices that might still tremble when recounting their stories of recklessness, recovery and redemption… voices that exhort and refuse to let me settle for simply being called a leader without fully engaging my heart in what it means to actually lead.

Do you have any “what it isn’t” moments or voices in your life that have shaped you?

Pastor Barbie & Pulpit Culture

April 13, 2010 in Faith, Leadership, My Story with 55 Comments

I was asked by Wes to share my story with our community group Sunday night. It’s been awhile since I’ve done any sort of public speaking and although I think I stumbled through it a little, I feel it went pretty well.

After leaving, I sent a tweet saying “Blogging about my story is one thing, sharing it in front of 40 people in my community group is another. Grateful for this journey”. I got a reply from Makeda saying “you sharing your story so courageously is giving others permission to be courageous too so keep telling it.”

Have you ever been around someone who is always full of fear, and before you knew it you find yourself just feeling fearful out of the blue? What about someone who is just bursting at the seams with faith? I don’t care how discouraged you may be, you can’t be around that kind of person long without your faith being built. And what about courage? If you spend much time in the company of a courageous person it makes you feel brave and courageous.

Fear begets fear.

Faith begets faith.

Courage begets courage.

I’d like to introduce you to Pastor Barbie, however I have a feeling she needs no introduction. In fact, if you’re like me you have been well acquainted with Pastor Barbie for a very, very long time. I’m really not interested in discussing the theology of the Biblical justification or legitimacy of Barbie’s pastorate or whether or not she should wear make-up, cover her head when she prays or speak in tongues when non-believers are present in the service. Just flow with the metaphor here…

Pastor Barbie doesn’t cuss, gossip and covets neither her neighbor’s livestock nor flat-screen HD television. Pastor Barbie doesn’t speed, listen to secular music and never leaves home without her Bible. Pastor Barbie doesn’t struggle with porn, has never had an abortion and her husband, Co-Pastor Ken, is the first and only man she kissed, but not until they said “I do,” of course. Pastor Barbie doesn’t drink, chew or run with those who do. Pastor Barbie has never doubted, always trusted and rarely wondered.

In fact, she’s kind of… perfect. You know Pastor Barbie.

Pastor Barbie has never done ANYTHING wrong, let alone thought about it. She walks right, spits white and is a pristine model of salvation and shining beacon of the light of Jesus to every one of the perfect plastic people in her church. Except… *GASP*… the perfect plastic people in her church aren’t really perfect or plastic. In fact, they are very real, have very real struggles, fight very real battles each and every day and have doubts and questions. And there, ladies and gentlemen, is where we have a conflict.

You see, when Pastor Barbie’s congregation looks at her, they believe they see what faith should look like. But they are conflicted, so they struggle, wrestle and feel defeated, confident that something must be wrong with them because, after all, “if Pastor Barbie isn’t struggling, why am I?” There is a disconnect between what they see and what they feel, so they ignore what they feel and the great masquerade deepens in their quest to one day be as “spiritual” as Pastor Barbie.

I grew up in a “Pastor Barbie” setting where no one ever confessed or admitted to struggling with ANYTHING, especially anyone in any kind of leadership role. Never. Ever. This created an environment where we would jump through all kinds of religious hoops and be really good at “church”, but really suck at life.

“Pastor Barbie” churches present a pretense-soaked, dysfunctional and unrealistic PULPIT CULTURE that, in turn, creates and nurtures an equally, if not more so, pretense-soaked, dysfunctional and unrealistic PEW CULTURE.

I’ve been thinking about the whole pulpit culture/pew culture concept lately, and observing the huge difference between what I have spent much of my life accustomed to compared with what I am experiencing at Cross Point Church, where I now attend.

Prior to coming to Cross Point, I had never been part of a church where such a radical and courageous transparency was the norm and so much a part of that church’s DNA. Earlier this year, when speaking about Freedom From Sexual Sin, Pete Wilson stood in the pulpit and said “there is no other sin in my life that has made me feel more more shameful, more beat up and more destroyed than sexual sin. Nothing.”… and I about fell out of my seat. Are you kidding me?!?! I can count on one finger the times when I have heard a pastor be so real and vulnerable, and this was it. It really struck me and I couldn’t help but wonder, “why is this the exception?!?!”

In dramatic contrast to “Pastor Barbie” churches, Cross Point has created an honest, real-life and transformational PULPIT CULTURE which, in turn, creates and nurtures an equally, if not more so, honest, real-life and transformational PEW CULTURE.

The people you lead are a mirror and the PEW CULTURE at your church or organization is quite often a direct reflection of the PULPIT CULTURE shaped by the leadership.

There is something wildly contagious about the humbly transparent yet courageous spirit of a Pete Wilson… or a Justin Davis to so openly share the testimony about his affair and God’s redemption and restoration of his family… or a Blake Bergstrom being so boldly, unpredictably, uniquely and unashamedly “Blake”… that empowers people to embrace that same courage, step forward and say “here’s my story.” I’m not sure that Sheila, the former crackhead prostitute, would feel welcome at Pastor Barbie’s church.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they have created a PULPIT CULTURE that does not claim to be perfect, but is as close a reflection of what I believe to be the heart of the Father than anything I’ve ever encountered.

There is something about giving people permission to be broken that brings healing.

That. Rocks. Me.

…and it scares the hell out of the enemy of our souls!

I am so grateful to God for leading me to Cross Point and for the genuine community I have discovered there. I am encouraged by each limp that I see and seeing the scars is showing me hope. It is the fellowship of the redeemed, restored and redefined… and it is healing my heart. Cross Point truly is a place where “everybody’s welcome, nobody’s perfect and anything is possible”… and for the first time in my life, I truly believe that.

If you are a leader, what kind of PULPIT CULTURE are you creating and how do you see that reflected in the PEW CULTURE at your church?

If you’re not a leader, what kind of PEW CULTURE do you feel has been created as a result of the PULPIT CULTURE at your church?

The Mark Of Grace

March 29, 2010 in Faith, grace, Leadership with 10 Comments

This morning I came across this blog speaking of John Piper’s announcement that he is taking an 8-month leave of absence from ministry, which he announced this weekend at his home church, Bethlehem Baptist Church. As I watched the video of his announcement, I was stunned. Not shocked, but stunned by the grace with which Piper is walking out the call on his life, all the while consistently communicating the Gospel. It should not be a surprise, but Piper’s candor and transparency is such an exception to what we tend to see in this age of the personality-centric church culture.

“As I have stood back in recent months and looked at my own soul—my own sanctification, my own measures self-denial or self-serving—and my marriage and family and ministry patterns, I have felt an increasing need for a serious assessment—a kind of reality check in the light of God’s word. Am I living in the mindset and the pattern of life that Jesus calls for here in Mark 8:31-38, especially in relation to those I love most?

On the one hand, I love my Lord, my wife, my five children and their families first and foremost; and I love my work of preaching and writing and leading Bethlehem. I hope the Lord gives me at least five more years as the pastor for preaching and vision at Bethlehem.

But on the other hand, I see several species of pride in my soul that, while they may not rise to the level of disqualifying me for ministry, grieve me, and have taken a toll on my relationship with Noël and others who are dear to me. How do I apologize to you, not for a specific deed, but for ongoing character flaws, and their effects on everybody? I’ll say it now, and no doubt will say it again, I’m sorry. Since I don’t have just one deed to point to, I simply ask for a spirit of forgiveness; and I give you as much assurance as I can that I am not making peace, but war, with my own sins.” – John Piper

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the mark of grace on one’s life.

It is all relative, and I would not even begin to compare my story to John Piper’s, but I can certainly relate to the need to lay things down and walk away from something to reassess your heart, spirit and become more in tune with the things your heart is prone to. I am in the middle of that very thing right now and Piper’s leave of absence and the grace with which he communicates it have rocked my heart all over again today.

Here is Piper’s blog post about the leave of absence. You can read a transcript of his entire sermon, “The Son of man Must Suffer Many Things” here, or watch the entire sermon here.

I have seen and heard many “leaders” who would do well to take notes from Piper’s announcement and the posture of humility with which he approaches this particular season of his life. There are many much less-influential “leaders” looking out for their image, their reputation and their “brand”… but who is stepping back to look at their own soul and how that impacts and affects everything else? You don’t hear much about that these days.

This is powerful and I am praying for John Piper, his family, his church and all those who will now have an opportunity to see what it looks like to be a disciple of Christ through his obedience and sensitivity to God’s leading in his life.

God, give us the grace the hear You over all the noise, the wisdom to know when it is time to step away and the courage to trust You and actually do it.