Leadership roots

It is a matter of history that much of the development of Britain came from the Roman Church.  Early into the second millennium these Islands became a vassal of the Holy Roman Church.   A vassal is a nation who are allowed to conduct themselves with their own character and tradition yet be firmly under the control of the powerful force over them.  An example was in Jesus time when the Romans were in the lands.  The nation kept its general modus operandi, yet, it was under the iron fist of Rome.  A basic bible course would speak of the 'pax romana' the 'Roman peace' that occurred because of their presence but it was always under the threat of being nailed to a tree for defying their statutes.

The influence of the Holy Roman Church however was not all negative.  Britain developed in many ways and the foundations of what Rome called 'greatness' was sown into the culture, character and practices of the nation.  Make no mistake, the reason we are in the position we are in on a global scale is founded on the influence of Rome!  In the construction of a nation there were obvious problems.  Because Rome was a form of Godliness but nullified by ritual and sacrament, God was unable to work through people.  This led to The Dark Ages and these times were horrific for the common man. It was at this time that leadership developed.  It primarily developed in the Monarchy and churches.  It is no coincidence that after the Reformation, incredible leaps of progress were experienced (and still are) because people were incrementally becoming more free to contribute and the overarching influence of Rome was opposed.  God can work through people now the oppression of the Church was lifted.

Leadership works by replicating the way someone leads.  If Henry the Eighth, for example, wanted a subordinate rank of leaders, he would bestow upon them his powers.  This means that Henry would replicate his leadership to others.  They would then do likewise, bestowing their powers to others.  In the dark Ages the only form of societal rank anyone would get was by being part of the dynasties of influence in the land.  That, or be connected to The Holy Roman Church. Of course you always have the 'peasants' who aspired to become, not because of personal sense of achievement and notoriety, but the way you rose through society directly affected personal wealth and the ability to eat, drink and live securely.  So rising in status, profile and notoriety was encouraged and it was how society worked.  It is in this system we find a present day problem in the way people lead, especially in Church.

Britain's interaction with the Holy Roman Church has dictated a way to lead and practice leadership.  To examine this we need to expose the mindset of the Papal role.  The Pope is the 'papa,' the Father of Roman Catholics.  The fundamental confusion is over the following text:

¹³ When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

 ¹⁴ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

   ¹⁵ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

 ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

 ¹⁷ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter,^[a] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades^[b] will not overcome it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be^[c] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be^[d] loosed in heaven.” ²⁰ Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Catholics see Peter rise from among the disciples and see him as leader. They take the above passage to mean that Jesus was saying on the man, Peter, Jesus will build his church.  Except... Jesus was saying that 'based upon the revelation of this truth, Peter, I will build my church.'  So if a man has been bestowed the type of leadership Jesus has over people then all authority, power and glory has been passed on!  The Papal succession then, assumes it has the ability to work beyond the Bible, and assumes authority over people and even nations.  It is what leadership means that is still strongly prevalent in our western cultures.  Through the history of Britian, through Popes, Kings and Nobility these elements have become institutional givens in our society of leadership:

• authority over people
• superiority
• elitism
• rank
• 'protect the realm'
• the right to dispense justice
• the right to create legislation
• the right to be right without question

Leadership has authority but it is among people not over people.  Jesus was clear about this to the sons of thunder in Mark 10.  Brothers and sisters are not superior or inferior, have no rank or elitism.. we are family!  The new 'protect the realm' is when 'vision' is 'my way or the highway.'  To be clear:  these qualities have been central to the development of the nation for in industry, to get people to produce.  But the church is not about production it is about being.  Today our Monarchy dispenses its will through Parliament and you and I unquestionably carry out this will!  Think about it.... since school it has been taught and we practice things that came from where?

All the countries that have subsequently been invaded by, discovered by, or whose constitution has been replicated on Britain, are all affected by this scourge of church leadership.  There are degrees by which westerners work in the way described above and common sense says that we cant be dictators.  While some do dictate, many are wanting to find a way where we can be family, abide in Christ and even be salt and light to this world.  My hope is the insight into how we lead can inform us and allow us to identify what it is in our leadership practice that makes us do what we do.  The problem is that all the above attributes of leadership directly appeal to the flesh in such a powerful way, the Christian will fight tooth and nail to protect it.

The problem with our sinful condition is that we replicate the pride that was found in the heart of Lucifer.  Our flesh is yet unredeemed and it wars against the Christian's redeemed spirit, the battlefield being the mind. In our flesh we want to be in charge, superior, elite, the decision maker, the one to set the pace, cadence and attributes of other's comings and goings.  We want to control, make the rules, be over. Every Christian on planet earth is either on a journey to realising this, knows this and it isn't as important as 'leading' or is doing everything possible in partnership with God to live opposite to this. 

The good news is that people can lead and this be less a problem.  However, to eliminate all the things that support this problem in leadership we need to address the environment of leadership in church.  This is a vast subject and involves de-constructing the special halls, special titles, special rituals that even the forward thinking warehouse churches have.  Then the difficult part is truly hating that which will strive to be over, superior, ranked etc over others.  Choosing to be servants of others as a lifestyle means living opposite to the lust of the flesh for power and the culture of the nation we live in.  Turning this around, I believe, is a key to God's future for the western world.  If we cannot live beyond self, we will sentence our children and theirs to a downward spiral of a disintegrating empire.  

Not on my shift!

' Core investment' and the church 2

In the first part of this blog I outlined the biblical position that Paul the Apostle (and all the Apostles taught the same) and Jesus both stated that the old thing, the done thing and just anything (ODA) leads to wrong practice.  And what we do in this world always leads to processes and conclusions.  God wants us to grow, transform and thrive and thus be different in this dark world.  Now here is a problem to this plan:-

Many churches today have leaders who are core invested into the done thing rather than God's plan for his people. It is difficult for Christians who feel they must lead because like the first century Christians, they asses the environment they are born into and repeat the generalities around 'church.'  However, the practices constitute part of a change that is taking place over hundreds of years. The Reformation was a change in Theology and the last hundred years rise in the work of the Spirit is a restoration despite the outrageous excesses and abuses we see. What was never reformed from the Roman Catholic Church was their practices.  Good people with good theology are enjoying the working of the Spirit but in a context that was of the old ways (thanks to Constantine's standardising Christianity to the old practices).

So people experience a measure of 'blessing' because some elements of God's will and purpose are in situ. However, it's a little like Manchester United turning up with Chelsea at a cinema. The players run around the seats trying to score yet it is a nonsense.  The teams are there, the football is played, much is in place and we can say for sure, 'A football match is in play.' But while this is outworked in a cinema, we all know it does not lead to the purpose, a competitive game of football.   In the same way, God's people meet together, God is praised, the wine and bread are there, the word is preached.... it has all the elements of Church!  However, it isn't effectively outworking the purposes of God.  It can't, because while we are doing things to outwork our faith, we are not 'being'  who we are.  We keep doing church when we are, intrinsically, church! So if we are the genuine article, why do we set about doing things that underline, qualify, re-iterate, complicate this fact?

So many are core invested in doing church and this hinders being church. God wants his people to be core invested in their brothers and sisters because we are all in Christ.  It is my challenge to today's Christians communities to examine this reasonable call to reform church practice.  There are no badges, profiles, status or hall of fame.  It's about being who you are, and just that.  You can't just start a biblical house group either.  We all need to let all the 'doing' blee out of us.  It's hard but God will lead you in this.  'Being' is freedom, joy, peace, love... much more rooted in Christ that some of the things we do to produce these things.  If you conclude that this can't be right because 'what's in it for me?' That is exactly what 'doing' church does! It makes you invest in IT instead of investing in HIM. Many hold these two in tension.  Being what you are makes you invest in HIM then, by default you invest in HIS... your brothers and sisters!  There nothing more beautiful and amazing on the planet than people prioritising the 'inchrist-ness' of each other and valuing, celebrating 'family.'  Place a 'doing' mentality in the middle of this and we revert to 'task.'  Let me be clear, there is 'task,' 'function' and 'works' in our faith.  But without being the church together and being met by our brothers and sisters, works are done by people who are not contrasting the world.

 "Hey Christian, I can hear your words and see your good works but YOU are not changed!"

BEING changed is what changes this world.

Most of us defaulted into doing church and there's nothing wrong with the smaller biblical home groups meeting monthly, say, to have the big praise parties, communal prayer or an event.  Having practised what God wants for ekklesia, we can enjoy a life together doing all sorts of things to celebrate our faith, but lets not define these things as church/ekklesia.

I challenge the communities of Christians in the UK to meet to fully debate this issue in brotherly love and unity in Christ.  Just please be prayerful that your objections to part 1 and 2 of this article are because of my error in scripture / outlook  and not because you feel offended.  My motives for bringing this to your notice is not to question motives or cast aspersions.  It is mainly to appeal to the reasonable conclusions that when the church do what the word of God says, God's power can explode through this foolish, weak and pathetic vision of 'church.'  Let us not forget that a naked, bleeding, battered body nailed to a tree looks foolish, weak and pathetic yet Salvation itself lies here.

feel free to pass this on and explore these observations which are rooted in the New Testament.

Blessings,

Gary Ward
Brother.

The church and 'Core investment' 1

Our core investment is a way of describing what you are committing your time, resource, finance etc to.  Obviously you wouldn't be doing this if you were not somehow utterly convinced (to the core) that it is a valid pursuit. For many Christians their core investment comes from a clear leading from the Lord and most are happy to say it is their 'calling.'

Lets park the core investment of the individual for a moment. Most Christians believe that the meet in a prepared hall, have leaders to preside over the meeting and preach the word of God after singing songs, taking an offering and sharing bread and wine,  is generally church. (give or take a few testimonies, drama, psalm reading etc etc).  However contemporary or not defines how progressive you are but essentially the same basic elements. The form of church then, seems a constant.  We must also include the Roman Catholics here because however skewed their Theology, add the smells, bells and extra sacrament around 'church pie,'  it's still the same elements of practice. We are going to see why this matters shortly.

In the Old Testament God wanted people to core invested into the practice of meeting together to symbolically because all that was tangible about God was symbolic.  That means while people could experience their Lord, the mechanism where he would really save them and really live within to outwork his purposes was impossible until Jesus completed his work at Calvary. So faith and practice was being core invested in meeting in special places, observing the priesthood, singing, listening to the leaders, carrying out prescribed acts etc.  This would have created a shared sense of community, a shared sense of purpose, a oneness like much of the church experiences(and in doing so feels blessed). However, this is not God's purpose for the church age.

Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension meant the Holy Spirit could come and live in us.  Previously there was no way of having our sin-state dealt with. Now we can live a life of repentance and God really lives in us.  With this in view, there is no need to symbolise or ritualise God in any way.  Paul the Apostle warns the Galatians about doing the 'old thing' and 1 Corinthians warns about doing 'the done thing' and it is just common sense that you cant just do anything. But in some ways, we can't blame the first Christians for defaulting to what they knew, or doing the thing they saw around them.  The Jews were in error for thinking they needed to distinctify their origins but mostly the first Christians looked around them and did what they had learned from an early age.  Their culture was full of Greek wisdom in practice.  This was man's reasoning and conclusions from the thoughts of men.  It led to a logic in leadership and practices that honoured the celebrity of the age - the orator, philosopher, the sage.  So they defaulted to that and Paul corrected them, clearly pointing out in the first 4 chapters why they do this.

So what do you do when your entire background and upbringing is based on the plan of man's reasoning and wisdom?  Perhaps it would be good to find what God's plan is?  In order to both avoid the old thing, the done thing and just plain anything (Old/Done/Any), the Apostles all taught to meet as described in 1 Corinthians.  The net result of this is meeting in a non-O/D/A environment with the basics of what would foster 'family.'  So the bare bones of the New Testament church practice of meeting in homes with a meal, leaders but not hierarchy and open and equal sharing was taught by all the Apostles.  But when all said and done, the point of this more what would come of interacting as brothers and sisters rather than the form in which the meet.  Because of the completed work of Christ, it was more about not doing the O/D/A and facilitating our spirit filled life.  A cursory view of the scriptures will show that our purpose of being saved is to do with the Spirit's work and leading within us as we interact with our brothers and sisters. if you like, the only contract we have as Christians is to outwork our common 'inchristness' as brothers and sisters.

It is  matter of fact that whichever way up this lands, Jesus did tell his disciples at the Last Supper that whenever you meet together , THIS DO in remembrance of me.  So no surprise that Jesus puts forward the idea to the Apostles that meeting as discussed is the way church should be done.

In terms of 'core investment'  I wanted to outline my reasoning for part 2, which is the next post on this blog.