Snuggling In

The language of “snowflakes”, as used to describe disoriented and disillusioned young people, has always struck me as unhelpful and unfair. When a generation feels that many of the props or foundations that once provided security and hope have been kicked out from under them it is unsurprising that levels of anxiety are high. The message has been loud and clear that you can be anything you want to be, that the only important thing is to be yourself, that you can self-ID (and that is only and exclusively a positive thing), but the experience is that meaningful work is harder to come by, relationships of depth have been replaced with internet-enabled short term flings, youth-debt levels are massive and family structures and role models have been systematically demolished for many.

We shouldn’t be surprised at backlashes. It is entirely understandable if people search for meaning in rage, activism. Valuing comfort and safety when we are scared, confused, manipulated and feeling the world is stacked against us is only to be expected. If people want insulation from hard reality through safe spaces and trigger warnings is that not relateable? If they seek safety in in-crowds or escapism into fantasy, can we not sympathise?

I suspect the coronavirus is going to make all of us who wouldn’t have thought of ourselves in the snowflake category a lot more sympathetic in the months to come. If we thought that we were more psychologically resilient to global instability, it only takes a few extra props and foundations to be removed from our lives to find that we were only marginally more secure than vulnerable teens. This dawning of reality, however unpleasant, just possibly might have some positive affects:

1. It might make us more sympathetic to the heart cries of people we have previously thought just need to pull themselves together and learn to be a bit more resilient

2. It might make us realise that the mechanisms we use to bolster our sense of safety aren’t as worthy of our trust as we have always imagined them to be. When we base our lives on brittle foundations it only takes a strong enough blow for them to crumble

I am very sympathetic to people who want comfort and safety when the world is falling to pieces. My question is about where that comfort and safety are found, and it isn’t in safe spaces and trigger warnings. Those are just a well-meaning but inadequate attempt to insulate from distress or an exit ramp into living in denial.

The real safe place is that the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and they are safe (Proverbs 18:10). When God exiled most of his Old Testament people from Jerusalem to Babylon, some of those who managed to remain in Jerusalem started to consider themselves safe. They said “this city is a protective iron pot and we are the meat” - the elites, the ones who endured, secure in our iron-walled city (Ezekiel 11). God responds by saying not only that he will throw them out of it, but that his presence and protection are actually with the exiles, destitute, insecure and far from home. The veneer of safety was not going to save the smug Jerusalem elites. Only the presence of God was going to do that.

How can we experience the name of the Lord being a strong tower that provides safety in these terrible times? Far too early this morning my young son crawled into my bed, pulled my arms around him, murmured “nice and warm” and snuggled his whole length against me as closely as he could. In my half-asleep state I was thinking that is a good picture of what God wants us to do. Jesus told his disciples to remain in him, and thereby in the love of the Father, so that his joy may be in them and their joy may be complete. He says the way to do that is by his word remaining in us. We dig his word as deeply into our lives and hearts as we can, we thereby remain in him and we are thereby safe in him and in his joy. And the joy of the Lord is our strength.

Its easy to think this isn’t a practical answer to all the insecurities we are facing. That a practical answer involves figuring out how we can have a job, continue to get food, not get sick from the virus. Surely those are the important questions, not how to be secure in God? These things are indeed extremely important. But they are not ultimately important. Nor are we actually in control of them. Romans 14:17 says that the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. That is, there are greater desires and greater security even than things our bodies need to live. And those things are righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The first Christians threw away all their desire for comfort even when they were being killed because of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. People are beheaded around the world today rather than renounce Jesus - because of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Our lives adorn the gospel when we are captivated by the Kingdom of God - righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

And it is properly comforting. Not that life is not massively disoriented and disorienting, but because we are ultimately safe. We are comforted in trouble, not just by the absence of it. True comfort is a by-product of secure faith and fixing on the glory of Jesus. Don’t think this is just a platitude. If you’ve read my last couple of blogs you know how much I am feeling disoriented and in need of real, practical, genuine comfort right now. A very wise friend reminded me as I am writing this, that the critical thing for Marcus, as a person and as a leader, is not that I have to be in a good place, super-strong Marcus, a mighty leader for people to hang on to. The vital thing is that we can be weak hangers-on to a super-strong saviour and, maybe, encourage others to do it together.

How can we maintain ourselves in this? I think it is a matter of snuggling in. Of reminding ourselves daily in scripture, prayer and worship of the mighty fortress that is our God, of committing our ways to him, of counting ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus, of being real and honest with God about our fears, and of learning to trust his grace, mercy and provision. The rubber really hits the road when we ask the question “is God actually going to care for me, really?" Or do I have to sort that out for myself with him as some kind of immaterial sky-fairy for some additional emotional security?” My need - all our need - is for confidence in the Lord that is not surface-deep. His sovereignty over the big and small has not changed. He is completely in control of world-changing viruses and of all the events of my small life, and of the way the large-scale global stuff affects the small-scale personal stuff.

A good start would be to use the virus as a spur to dig deep into one of the gospels. To meet Jesus again there. To turn everything we discover about him into worship. Maybe to take some of the great prayers in the New Testament and pray them. Perhaps memorise them. Basic things like this are what press the reality of God deep into our lives by communicating his reality relentlessly to ourselves and others. Times like this reinforce how critical it is that we do not have a small, powerless God.

Is it OK for a leader to not be OK?

Imagine a toxic waste barrel. You know, the kind you see in cartoons - yellow with a big nuclear symbol on it. Now imagine that barrel is you as a leader. Many in your congregation believe you are a great place to unload their toxicity - their doubts about God, their marriage problems, their unemployment, their gripes about the church. Gradually leaders’ toxicity levels rise. And, of course, they don’t have anyone to offload the toxicity on to (except spouses). Unlike social services or counselling professions, for example, most Christian leaders do not have professional supervision as a matter of course, one main aim of which is to have someone objective who can detox us without it transferring the toxins to them.

I reckon there is good evidence that many Christian leaders take about 15 years for our toxic buckets to get filled to the brim. At which point any new toxicity is likely to produce an overspill or an explosion. Let another criticism arrive in our inbox, let alone several simultaneous marriage crises, plus crises in our own lives and nobody copes. But we have to keep smiling and not admit it because we have carefully constructed an image of being unflappable and infinitely resourceful to the needs of others. It is said that ministers don’t drop out of Christian work because they have forgotten how to preach but because they have forgotten how to be human.

I have to confess to feeling something akin to shell-shock at the speed my life has changed with the pandemic. Within two weeks everything I was planning has been stripped away, as has my routine, to be replaced with providing Daddy School for a demanding and anxious 5 year old who can’t be left to get on with anything on his own for more than 3 minutes. I have to say that my emotions are absolutely reeling. I am experiencing an incomprehension about how I feel (don’t know from one day to the next) and how it is appropriate for me to feel. And how other people expect me as a leader to feel, or what is appropriate to express.

My guess is that I not at all alone, but I am part of that set of Christian ministers who feel we are probably expected to be strong, resilient and spiritually dynamic when in fact we are feeling as weak, vulnerable, isolated and worried as anyone else. Just that we can’t admit that we are feeling it. So here is my confession - I am feeling it.

I wonder if, in the stripping back, the Lord is providing some unique opportunities at this time for Christians - and especially leaders - to pare right back to just praying and getting into the Word of God, without many distractions that normally pile in on us. I wonder if there are chances to learn to lean into God in wholly fresh ways that simply aren’t possible when I think there are other things to lean on - idols like my own psychological togetherness or ability to control my comings and goings. I wonder if there might be opportunities to become a better and more positive encourager in ways that are not possible while I am feeling completely sorted or presenting as omnicompetent? Maybe allowing myself to be vulnerable and human as opposed to platform-preacher-teacher-guy will actually make me more human and take away long-held veneers of Christian leader professionalism. Maybe.

But lurking at the back of the mind is whether people want Christian leaders who are weak and vulnerable. Or do we only want leaders who are strong and able? Do people really want to follow or employ leaders who have a deep walk with the Lord, are able to teach the scriptures and encourage a community in prayer, or ones who promise answers, perpetually unflappable and invulnerable - more Terminator than human? I really hope it is the first, even though it is only now that I am starting to realise how frequently I present as the second.

(Promising the undeliverable is a very real danger for Christian leaders from the point of being interviewed for positions with impossible job descriptions onwards, claiming that we can deliver in order to be appointed; and then being trapped by having presented a fantasy version of ourselves, into either wearing a mask or disappointing everyone).

Secretly, I suspect many leaders don’t want 2 Corinthians 12 to be true - boasting in our weakness and inadequacy, Paul being given a thorn in the flesh to stop him being conceited, and to learn that God’s grace is sufficient.

That’s the thing - God’s grace is sufficient for us. But we are going to have to learn that in whole new ways in which our self is stripped away. But then, maybe, 2 Corinthians 1 might come with greater reality - that we are able to comfort others with the comfort we have received from the Lord. If I am impervious, I scarcely need to receive comfort from him. How then can I comfort others if they think I float serenely through life and pandemics with perfect emotional equilibrium and answers for all their questions and needs? I might be able to train them in skills, but not model how to be a disciple in bad times as well as good, or when I don’t know the answers. If the current situation is teaching me anything it is that the total tonnage of things I don’t know the answer to can sink a battleship.

What do we do with these existential issues? A wise friend said to me earlier today that trying to look at the abnormal through a normal lens doesn’t work. These are extraordinary times when the normal doesn’t work. But extraordinary times end, a new normal emerges and we evaluate and go forward from there. I agree with the idea. Trying to plan how to feel, or even what to do, according to our normal principles when the world is literally changing by the hour is impossible and doomed to failure. We are, in the over-used phrase, in unprecedented times and by next week everything will have changed again.

But in another sense we are not in unprecedented times. The times are simply revealing to us how precarious life is all of the time, but usually masked or slightly ameliorated by our systems. And they are revealing how we should live with life’s precariousness all of the time: leaning in to God, trusting his grace only, not my cleverness or insulating mechanisms, praying. What do we want to model to people? That by being strong and competent like us that they too can survive these times? Or that by owning our weakness and vulnerability we might better learn to cast ourselves on a mighty, trustworthy God?

Another friend likes to say that leaders have to be the chief repenters. Otherwise how is anyone else going to see it being modelled and know how to do repent? The same is surely true about being weak and vulnerable. If we are, but pretend we are not for the sake of a veneer of security, how is anyone meant to be helped to seek God by that?

If this does one thing for me, I pray it will be to make me impress the gospel into my heart as relentlessly and deeply as I possibly can, and to make me pray. It is possible that we come out of this period as scarred and vulnerable, but also having grown in trust, waiting on the Lord and in depth. No longer apparently unflappable but shallow, but rather self-evidently broken yet full of grace, the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the consolation that only comes from knowing Him.

When I said “my foot is slipping,” your love, O Lord, supported me.
When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul
Psalm 94:18-19

The Heart of Biblical, Spiritual Leadership

As I write this I am looking forward to a week of training junior church leaders at Living Leadership's Formation Trainees Conference.

You don't have to look far in the Bible to find teaching about godly leadership, about godly and ungodly leaders, instruction on leadership for leaders and for churches. There are role models and examples a-plenty and lots of images of leaders: hardworking farmer, athlete, soldier, builder, fool, guide, under-shepherd, labourer, workman, servant (and scum of the earth!). Plenty of teaching to help us understand the spiritual gift of leadership (Romans 12:8).

My favourite verses to begin exploring what the Bible says about leadership in Jesus' church are Philippians 1:25-26:

“Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again you will glory abundantly in Christ Jesus on account of me.”

— Phil 1:25-26

What would the imprisoned apostle tell a church he would most like to achieve with them on his release and return? Them making progress in the faith and having joy in God so that they are full of delight in the glory of Christ. This is similar to Peter's description of the persecuted Christians in 1 Peter 1. They were full of "joy inexpressible and full of glory" because they were receiving the goal of their faith, the salvation of their souls. It isn't hard to see why a church is effective for God if they are all bursting with joy in Jesus. And it isn't hard to see why a church isn't effective if it isn't.

Of course it begs the question of how to work with people for their progress and joy. What might that look like in practice. Here are a few suggestions:

• Helping people to delight themselves in the Lord. Helping them love God, love the Son of God, love the Holy Spirit, and to give expression to their love. Leadership is making worshippers
• Helping them love the Word of God. Which flows from leaders doing so and not coming to the Bible merely as professionals to help others
• Helping people appreciate the benefits of Christ. Adoption, forgiveness of sins, a home in heaven, entrance into God’s family, freedom from guilt and the curse of the Law, the gift of the Spirit, a new heart, new desires, a Heavenly Father, a great high priest through whom we have redemption. And on. And on!
• Helping people see the glory of God in the gospel of his grace. Romans 5 says we reign in life by receiving of his grace and the gift of eternal life. Helping them know how to receive and seek God for his grace with them. James 4:6 says "God gives more grace". 
• Loving people at all times and do them good, especially those in difficulty and distress
• Having ambitions for where God might take people. Showing them some of what is possible in the Lord if they live and act in faith, especially in world mission
• Helping others pray. Praying with them. Showing them how we pray. Telling them what we pray for them

8 Principles to Help You Lead Through Change

In times of change godly leaders are the key factor in leading for the positive and minimising the negative impact on the flock. Therefore the key question is: what do leaders need to bring to the table to build trust and confidence in new direction or a new initiative?

Here are a few principles:

• Leaders help the flock with their core motivations - aligning them to Christ and Christ's purposes through teaching, encouragement and godly role modelling
• Leaders clarify future challenges and needs with gospel vision
• Leaders care for the flock when uncertainty comes. We need to be able to express how change will affect people positively and negatively so they know we will help them when they feel weak and afraid
• Leaders communicate clearly in order to help the flock embrace godly opportunity. People respond to concrete vision not vague vision
• Leaders build team and gather resources for the task ahead, focusing people with our enthusiasm and joy in God
• Leaders smooth transition with wisdom and the affection of Christ
• Leaders expect to absorb angst with prayerfulness, compassion and kindness. In doing so we minimise future distress and disturbance
• Leaders help the flock celebrate successes and mourn failures constructively

Leaders are always sensitive to the people they have and what goals and timescales for future change are realistic. We cannot change what we do not have the level of trust to change. In addition we cannot change things in Christ-centred ways unless the church shares a Christ-centred, disciple-making view of its purpose. We lead change in order that he is better magnified through the church making disciples. If that purpose is not central we will simply default to running everyone's favourite things.

Diaries, Wisdom and Spiritual Healthiness

If you are a pastor or some other kind of Christian leader would you say that you drive your schedule or that your schedule drives you? How much control do you exercise over external demands and expectations?

Furthermore, what does your schedule do for you? Does it function to facilitate organisation and activity or Sabbath, spiritual life and wisdom? If you are anything like me you tend to use it for the former rather than the latter. It is very telling that my diary organises my meetings and appointments rather than my spiritual life. I don’t know many people who use it for both, or indeed for spiritual life.

Our diaries describe our normalised patterns of life. And and normal patterns or habits reveal what’s most important to us. Its worth looking carefully at our diary to see what it reveals about our spiritual walk with God. How can we use them to help us live lives of quality and depth rather than massive running around.

Our diaries might show we are really good at organisation. Many pastors juggle a huge number of difference commitments and people with amazing multitasking skills. But what would a diary look like that schedule enough space for praying, worshipping and seeking God? What would a diary look like that is being used well to produce a spiritual life of quality? As the Bible says, like a tree planted by streams of water whose roots go very deep?

Most pastors I know work up to the limit of their capacity pretty much all the time. They believe - rightly - that it is good to work hard for the Lord in the service of the gospel. But many struggle with the sheer subjectivity that plagues so much of the work. It is very difficult in pastoral ministry to know when you have done enough or to evaluate whether it is good or bad work. The frequent answer is simply to do more hoping that means it is better. This leads to living at the outside limit of capacity, with no margins, all the time. Of course it only takes an unexpected pastoral crisis or two to push us over the edge.

I’ve read a few books recently about Getting Things Done time management principles. They all work with the idea that working efficiently frees up more time, reducing exhaustion and providing space. The trouble of Getting Things Done material for pastors is that it assumes there is a finite workload that can simply be managed better. If we perceive there to be an infinite workload - or at least an impossibly large one - so that no amount of efficient working will ever free up time then there is no incentive to work efficiently. Any time freed up will always immediately get refilled. The demand perpetually exceeds supply and eliminating the truly unnecessary is difficult because there is always a real person on the other end of it.

I think the answer is to use the diary to demarcate the spiritual input part of our lives before we put in other things. To prioritise life with God before meetings and to normalise sabbath, prayerfulness and worship. And space for thinking. Wisdom is a by-product of seeking the Lord with faith and fear. And seeking the Lord is a product of deliberately making space to do so.

We get spiritual input from one of 5 places:

1. Directly from God
2. Care that we do for ourselves or in small groups of friends
3. Within our church or ministry environment
4. From wider networks, for example at conferences
5. From specialist pastoral carers

What is your mechanism or system for ensuring you are getting appropriate spiritual input in each of these areas (or at least 1-4)? What is your lifestyle in each? How do you use your diary for each? Or what is stopping you and what will you do about it? Note that number 4 alone will not sustain you if 1-3 aren’t working for you.

Over the weekend I spent a few hours with a man who builds networks for pastoring pastors in Latin America. For him the key was accountable groups of friends who deliberately, intentionally pastor each other. I wish everyone in pastoral ministry would have a group like that. But whether you choose that method or some other, we all need some accountable system for maintaining spiritual vitality whether it one to one, in a small group or some wider context. Without it eventually running out of steam is practically inevitable and with it goes our discipleship, wisdom, worship and the ability to do the job. When our discipleship dries up we can’t fulfill our pastoral calling either.

Ministry can be so busy that there are potentially an uncontrollably large number of inputs into our lives. And it is so people-oriented that a large number of those inputs lead to situations that remain open loops rather than leading to closure. Allow an ever increasing number of inputs and open loops and life eventually overwhelms us. We start to run just to stay standing still and eventually we can’t sustain it any more. Our diaries can be a critical tool for a wise, God-directed life if we use them to help us be proactive, not reactive, about our life-choices and spiritual-life-choices.