ecclesiological musing...

after the funky little christmas morning service at [p]ilgrim church i talked with [b]ill spencer, [p]ilgrim's pastor of encouragement and resident provocateur, about this and that. he mentioned that e. kerr, a student of his and a friend of mine, had recently left his position at a local church because he finally grew weary of the autocratic, patriarchal style of the congregation's lead pastor. the revelation that one of our most innovative christian minds left the area for pennsylvania, really pissed me off. thus, i continued the conversation by mentioning the inverse relationship i have observed between shared leadership and growth.*

bill quickly agreed with my (admittedly) ad hoc assessment. he said that on a number of occasions people have left their congregation because he refused to be the sole, spectacular leader who provided most of the teaching, imposed his vision and designed/adapted/employed the institution to fulfill his vision. there is little question that bill has the ability to be the type of leader these people want, for he speaks incredibly well, his enthusiasm is infectious and he's even written a number of books. however, he thinks that exchanging [p]ilgrim's shared leadership structure for a sole, autocratic leader would be foolish.

as i reflect on our conversation, i am left with a couple of questions:

1. why do the masses long to be led by a single individual?


2. why are those who are called and equipped to be pastors attracted to this model?

a. what psychological needs does such a position fulfill?

b. should their attraction be attributed to tradition or a particular understanding of mission?


3. is it possible for shared leadership structures to overcome the inversion i have observed?

a. if the answer is yes, what are the steps to such success?

b. if the answer is no, are leaders of shared leadership congregations being to some degree unfaithful to Christ's commission?


if you have any responses or thoughts you would like to share, please do so. moreover, please note that these ecclesiological musings are not a harangue against or an accusation of the congregational model or other traditional forms of church. i'm just trying to understand the ever-evolving ecclesiology of the non-institutional church.


*a shared leadership structure seems to lead to less numerical growth. i haven't done any rigorous study in this area, but i suspect that shared ecclesiastical leadership leads to a diverse understanding of mission, a theology that is shaded with a bit more ambiguity and a composite, as opposed to a unitary, vision. since numerical growth is not my sole focus, i think this is a good thing. however, if i were more narrowly focused on saving souls or evangelizing in the traditional sense, i'd probably rethink our shared leadership structure.

musing...

if you're anything like me, and i think you are, you slog through most of your mornings. you wake up a few minutes later than you wanted to, mutter a greeting to God and whine about the shower running colder than expected. you sort recycling, pay bills and struggle over whether to do the dishes or "let them soak." then you grab a mug of coffee, slather butter on toast and get in the car only to drive to work in a catatonic daze.

but every once in a while, the morning is enchanted. you are overwhelmed with gratitude for the person you love, the God you serve and even the warm kona coffee sitting in your hand. for a few moments, which you suspect are fleeting, the edges on the world are smooth and the pieces fit together. in that moment, that kairos time, your eyes brim with tears and you passionately thank God for everything up to and including the air you breathe.

memorandum from captain random:

8:34 a.m. - this past weekend, while watching the Godfather I & II for the umpteenth time (III never happened), i realized why i love these movies so much. i share the same insular, overprotective tendencies towards mia familia. this tendency has led me to alienate a number of my beloved cousin's potential suitors from the family by gently, yet firmly, telling them that "you will never be a part of this family." moreover, i am utterly reticent to invite anyone i do not trust over to the family compound and have threatened others with enforced foreign exile. i would say that these tendencies have weakened over the years, but the opposite would be nearer to the truth. so you cafones better walk carefully in regards to the family.

9:55 a.m. - the cardinals began the offseason by looking for a top tier starter, a corner outfielder with a power bat, a right-handed set-up man, a situational lefty and an adequate second baseman. however, as we stand on the verge of january here’s how things have crapped out.

starting pitcher: we lost a bidding war for a.j. burnett, which i was quite alright with until we decided to recall sidney ponson from the maryland penal league. now, instead of having a flamethrowing, albeit it severely overpaid, top of the rotation starter we have a un-anorexic, alcoholic #5 starter who will follow a whiny little mediocre bitch of a #4 starter in our rotation.

corner outfielder: we lost out on giles, who apparently likes the san diego sun more than winning and our cheap-arse, revenue rich, slimy republican owners are unwilling to take on the payroll that an edmonds for ramirez swap would require. thus, we should have simply resigned reggie sanders for two years at five million per and waited to pick another corner outfielder out of the mid-season swag bag. instead, we signed juan encarnacion for a longer contract and more money than it would have cost us to retain reggie (who we let go to the mother-e.o.e.ing royals!) and are going to settle with a barely adequate platoon of a taguchi and j. rod in left field. although the encarnacion signing looks adequate if you consider his numbers from last year, chances are excellent that he’s going to suffer a serious reversion to the mean this season and, horror of horrors, make us wish we had tino e.o.e.ing martinez playing right field by seasons end.

right hand set up man: we let the crazy, but effective, tavarez go and replaced him with an overpaid, injury prone, ex-castoff braden looper. did i mention that looper gives up more HRs than almost any reliever in the league? this deal made little sense.

lefty specialist: we swapped mediocrity for mediocrity by replacing ray “burger” king with ricardo Rincon.

second base: we let grudz()*&*&^k go to the e.o.e.ing royals because we were not willing to pay him an extra million a year. instead we are going to let AAA quality luna to serve as our anchor 5 - 6 days a week. i’m just guessing here, but i’d bet that we have five middle infielders in AA or AAA that could serve just as effectively as luna.

i know that jocketty has fielded a quality team time and again and i think that he is biding his time to see what trade bait is dangled around the all-star break. however, i fail to see why our e.o.e.ing owners, who turned a fat profit off of last year’s sentimentality-fueled revenue stream and are going to make millions more off of busch III this year, have decided to run the cardinals like a mid-market team. As I’ve said before, the cardinals are an aging team whose window to win is quickly closing. we can’t expect players like ponson, luna and encarnacion to lead us to a title.

the only upside to all of this is that the cubs have had yet another incredibly futile off-season. their deals for howry and eyre made little to no sense and they are now on the verge of trading mark prior, who at 25 has one of the best arms in the game, for an aging, and perhaps steroid depleted, shortstop. let us pray that hendry and his henchmen make the latter trade.

11:44 a.m. – after years of pleading and haranguing, God has finally provided lightway with a writer’s review for his most critically acclaimed work: the Bible. here’s a couple of quotes to whet your appetite.

question: “tell us something about yourself.”

i have been around foreve and a day. I love talking and listening to people. i will one day
come back and jusge the earth.

question: “how will your readers benefit from this work?”

i hope people will come to faith and start believing in me and that do i desire a relationship with them. i also hope for those who have made a comitment will be strengthened and will go and in my name and share this awesom news with the whole word.

question: “any additional thoughts?”

its a good read, my best bit is when i made the whole world in seven days.

3:18 p.m. - this morning, as kellie and i scurried to get out of the door, i could not find my keys. within three seconds, which is about how long it takes me to search each of my four pockets, i slid into a full out e.o.e.-fit. i rampaged through the house, slamming doors and cursing up a storm, while kellie willfully disengaged herself from my stupidity. losing my keys is one of the rather minute things that can put me on the precipice of the apocalypse. what apocalyptic minutiae do you struggle with? do tell.

4:29 p.m. - salsa shark. call me juvenile, but i still love kevin smith. i'm planning on seeing the passion of the clerks opening weekend. i hope that kevin, my hebrew study buddy, will join me.

a pilgrim christmas

on christmas morning kellie and i had the opportunity to worship with our friends at pilgrim church in beverly. if you haven't attended pilgrim church, it's almost impossible to describe. the congregation is the most diverse assortment of about 50 pentecostals, presbyterians, world magazine subscribers, christian century writers, fundamentalists, yuppies, hippies, haitians and welfare recipients that you would ever want to meet.

after we sang an off-key classic carol, but before we sang a hastily improvised negro spiritual, we sang an upbeat contemporary worship song that included the line, "lord, let your spirit fill this place." as we sang the line, i was overwhelmed by the avatars of the Spirit that stumbled in for Christmas worship. there was a wild-eyed woman from gloucester crossing who would later - in the quirky congregational response time that is quintessentially "pilgrim" - extol the sermonic abilities of robert schuller, a prayer ministry leader who earlier in the year pissed me off to no end by pinning the tragedies of katrina on "the homosexual convention organizers," and a former witch who, along with her husband, provides accompaniment and tries to provide healing for those who have suffered all forms of religious abuse.

it was at this moment, when i realized that absolutely no-one in this former butcher shop cum church building fit within any sane reckoning of the status quo, that i finally felt in tune with the spirit of Christmas. in his first moments on earth, god chose to incarnate his beauty, goodness and truth to an unlikely contingent of scummy shepherds and persian astrologers. fortunately, as i saw on christmas morning, god still chooses to associate with and run amok among the most unlikely collections of bedraggled and bemused sinners and saints. i was honored to worship christ's incarnation with pilgrim church and am looking forward to continuing to partner with them as we incarnate and await the consummation of christ's kingdom.

at this point i had planned to preach about how we should set aside our insular, consumer-driven "celebrations" of christmas so that we can dedicate the day to incarnating god's beauty, goodness and truth among the people christ would prefer to associate with. but i best get back to work. the christian consumers of the world need me.