From Frost and Hirsch…

Being Christlike is not only hard work, it is also a load of fun – you get to do what Jesus did and hang out with the interesting people. (p. 114)

I picked up where I left off in Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch’s The Shaping of Things to Come. They talk about “contextualizing the gospel message,” and how in a world filled with people who are seeking a spiritual reality, the attractional church has insisted on its cut-and-dried, pre-packaged answers. They call on the church in the time in which we now live to be incarnational in its approach to those who are not-yet-Christians (a term which I’m coming to appreciate more and more each day!).

Frost and Hirsch relate the great story of Monty Roberts, whose life was the loose basis for Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer. (That’s Monty in the picture.) Roberts is a man who has a natural affinity for the wild mustang horses of the Montana mountains. He comes from a long line of cowboys, guys who have been “breaking” those horses for generations. The accepted way to domesticate these magnificent animals has been to spend weeks imposing the cowboy’s will on them, even to the point of tying the horses’ legs to its neck.

Monty thought there must be a better way. Frost and Hirsch write:

Even as a young boy, Monty Roberts suspected that there had to be a better way to befriend these mustangs than to break their spirits so cruelly. Then, during his adolescence, while riding up in the Montana high country, he noticed that whenever a beast was separated from the herd and left to wander alone in the mountains it often became sick, even to the point of near-death. This got him to thinking. If these were such herd animals with such a powerful, innate instinct for connection with other creatures, then maybe that instinct could be used for taming them.

Monty Roberts demonstrates his “whispering” approach by

getting into the corral with the untamed mustang and staying as far away from the animal as possible, without leaving the enclosure. He also refuses to allow any eye contact between him and the horse. By moving slowly, but surely, away from the horse and by keeping his head averted from the animal’s gaze, Monty slowly draws the horse to himself.

Within an hour Monty usually has the horse saddled and carrying a rider. His secret?

These animals need contact with others so much, they would rather befriend their enemy than be left alone.

Sadly, even though Monty Roberts has shown the powerful effectiveness of his method of “listening” to the horses, most of the old cowboys discount his way and insist on doing things the way they’ve always done them. Frost and Hirsch compare this attitude with that of the typical church today…

we’ve been “breaking” sinners…for generations. Leave them to us. But the old method of crushing the spirits of seekers who don’t fit the conventional, stereotypical church testimony won’t be effective any longer. [They] are avoiding the church like the plague. It’s time for us to develop a spirituality of engagement with not-yet-Christians. This will involve true listening and genuine presence.

A couple of posts ago, I wondered if anyone has ever felt they got a new lease on life, a chance to start again, an opportunity to re-group, re-focus, and re-start.

Some of you know about some of the stressing and pressing difficulties we’ve been facing lately. Well, without going into too much detail, (or without counting the proverbial premature barnyard avians!) it appears that at least one of those difficulties has been resolved. It’s not a big deal in the big scheme of things, and it’s not nearly as significant as the issues some others are facing, but it is at least a good step.

Anyway, I’m looking at this time as one chance to get back to what counts. It’s not going to be easy. I may not know the way. But I feel as though William Wallace is pacing back and forth on that horse in front of me, and he’s saying…

Aye, fight and you may die, run and you’ll live – at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance…

It’s that “one chance” business that is both energizing and frightening at the same time.

Here’s the question I want to hear your feedback on…

What would you do if you had just one chance to start over where you are?

I’m talking about one of those rare moments where you can start again with all the experience, knowledge, skills, contacts, and other resources that you have now. (Most of you know I’m a pastor in a small, somewhat struggling church that desperately needs a transition/transformation. That will color your responses, but don’t limit them to that situation.)

It’s going to take a new look at the way I see things, my time, my spiritual disciplines, my relationships, my leadership, my organizing, my reading…everything. Tips, tools, whatever will be appreciated. I’m listening…

Thanks!

A couple of posts ago, I wondered if anyone has ever felt they got a new lease on life, a chance to start again, an opportunity to re-group, re-focus, and re-start.

Some of you know about some of the stressing and pressing difficulties we’ve been facing lately. Well, without going into too much detail, (or without counting the proverbial premature barnyard avians!) it appears that at least one of those difficulties has been resolved. It’s not a big deal in the big scheme of things, and it’s not nearly as significant as the issues some others are facing, but it is at least a good step.

Anyway, I’m looking at this time as one chance to get back to what counts. It’s not going to be easy. I may not know the way. But I feel as though William Wallace is pacing back and forth on that horse in front of me, and he’s saying…

Aye, fight and you may die, run and you’ll live – at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance…

It’s that “one chance” business that is both energizing and frightening at the same time.

Here’s the question I want to hear your feedback on…

What would you do if you had just one chance to start over where you are?

I’m talking about one of those rare moments where you can start again with all the experience, knowledge, skills, contacts, and other resources that you have now. (Most of you know I’m a pastor in a small, somewhat struggling church that desperately needs a transition/transformation. That will color your responses, but don’t limit them to that situation.)

It’s going to take a new look at the way I see things, my time, my spiritual disciplines, my relationships, my leadership, my organizing, my reading…everything. Tips, tools, whatever will be appreciated. I’m listening…

Thanks!

Dick Staub writes that although there is a widespread search for spiritual value in our culture, it is, in its usual forms, a mile wide and a centimeter deep…

More details – along with questions – on the way. Stay tuned…

I hope I never, ever hear anyone else say something stupid like, “You pastors just don’t know what the ‘real world’ is like!” I just hope I never, ever hear anyone say that again…thank you, and goodnight…

…they’re always watching! Watching to see how the “Big Kahuna” acts. How s/he leads. How s/he works. Pretty much how s/he does everything.

“Well,” you might retort, “we don’t have a Big Kahuna in my organization. We’re all part of the team.”

Uh huh…all the more reason to do what we ought to do in relation to our colleagues and peers.

The old adage is still pretty much true: “What you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

I was looking through my “Edit Posts” page, and I came across a bunch of those pesky “drafts” that I’d intended to blog over the past year or so. Some of them have been sitting there untended for so long that I may have forgotten exactly what I wanted to say about them. But I know they must have meant something at some time, so I’ll just do my version of everyone’s favorite Canadian’s famous “contextless links” ($1 to Jordon Cooper!)

How to build a good church website…

Blog writing tips (from whatsnextblog)

William Safire on “How to Read a Column”

Doc Searls’s good advice, wrapped up in a headline toast

Wagner and The Breakfast Club

Worship: Cool or Not?

In Search of Courage (John McCain, in Fast Company)

From Amiel’s Journal…

What comfort, what strength, what economy there is in order�material order, intellectual order, moral order. To know where one is going and what one wishes�this is order; to keep one’s word and one’s engagements�again order; to have everything ready under one’s hand, to be able to dispose of all one’s forces, and to have all one’s means of whatever kind under command�still order; to discipline one’s habits, one’s effort, one’s wishes; to organize one’s life, to distribute one’s time, to take the measure of one’s duties and make one’s rights respected; to employ one’s capital and resources, one’s talent and one’s chances profitably�all this belongs to and is included in the word order.

Order means light and peace, inward liberty and free command over one’s self; order is power. Aesthetic and moral beauty consist, the first in a true perception of order, and the second in submission to it, and in the realization of it, by, in, and around one’s self.

Order is man’s greatest need and his true well-being.