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  • November 30, 1999

Archives For November 30, 1999

Ambition for good: something to applaud or something to confess?

Charles Kiser —  November 1, 2011 — 9 Comments
  1. an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment: Too much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.

I’m an ambitious person. For whatever reason, I’m driven to succeed. I want to be the best. And not for my own fame or notoriety (primarily) – if I can succeed in church planting and justice work, it will mean that lots of people will be helped and blessed. I want to do well in helping others do well.

Here’s my question for dialogue: is this mentality something to applaud or something to confess?

Many would probably applaud it – what’s not to like about seeking excellence, especially for the benefit of others?

Yet I think there’s something dangerous, insidious and subversive in this kind of ambition, particularly because it can hide behind good deeds.

Ambition for doing good has the potential to be selfishness and pride dressed in holy clothing.

I say this because I know my own heart.

Church planting – a good, people-blessing enterprise – has at times been an idol I’ve put my hope in rather than God. At times I have secretly hoped it would put me on the map, make me a big deal, build my kingdom. (Writing that for all to see helps me to realize how silly it is.)

Paul similarly described some who preached the gospel – a good thing – as doing so out of “selfish ambition” – because they wanted to get him into trouble. (Philippians 2:17).

Elsewhere, when Paul talks about being “ambitious to preach” himself with a noble motive (Romans 15:20, TNIV) – he doesn’t use the same word/idea he did in Philippians 2. Translators decided that “ambition” was the best way to render it. I’m not sure it is, given the way our culture defines the word – as the pursuit of achievement or distinction for oneself. The American brand of ambition seems to be inherently selfish.

So what do we do with ambition for good things? Can ambition be redeemed in the kingdom? 

The words of Jesus come to mind: “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:32-33)

Here’s my paraphrase of what Jesus is saying in the terms of this conversation about ambition: Make God your number one ambition. The pagans are ambitious about everything else – food, clothes, careers. But not you. If you seek after God and make it your primary ambition to know him and love him, everything else – food, clothes and careers – will fall into place.

Perhaps there is room in the kingdom for ambition to do good, but only insofar as that ambition is judged, measured and held in check by a primary ambition to know and love God.

What do you think? Please join the dialogue!

In Dependence, Discipleship, Spiritual Formation
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What motivates people to read the Bible?

Charles Kiser —  October 11, 2011 — 2 Comments

Guilt. Obligation. A sense of duty. A feeling within that it’s just what Christians are supposed to do. Curiosity. Desperation. Guidance.

All of these answers surfaced in response to this question in our Community Gathering conversation on Sunday.

I attended a Christian liberal arts university where students were encouraged to read through the entire Bible in a year. As incentive for staying the course, those who completed their reading were offered a free steak dinner at the President’s house.

I know the intentions for this approach were noble. The leaders of the University hoped that by reading the vast content of the Bible, students would know more about God and would grow in their relationship with God.

I’m afraid, however, that there are unintended consequences to such an approach to the Bible. I know because I fell victim to them.

Though I never took the President up on his offer, I did decide to read through the Bible the year after I graduated. I bought a One Year Bible, which has daily readings from the Old and New Testament, and decided to make my way through it.

By the summertime, I had fallen about a month behind. I felt terrible about it. I was reminded of my shortcomings every day when I read the dates that accompanied the daily readings in the One Year Bible.

So on my summer vacation (in Destin, Florida!) I spent most of the time trying to catch up. I had to stay the course. I didn’t want to be a failure at Bible reading. I must have read hundreds of chapters of Scripture that week.

Here’s the thing: I don’t recall connecting to God in a significant way during that week. I can’t remember anything about it except that I was so caught up in catching up.

What this revealed to me is that it’s possible to read the Bible and yet miss the God of the Bible.

I was caught up in a paradigm for Bible reading that revolved around completion, information, and volume.

The side effects were:

  • guilt
  • failure
  • boredom
  • setting up those who read the most Bible as an elite class of people
  • and most significantly, missing God.

Jesus critiqued a similar impulse in the religious leaders of his day when he pointed out that they went to the Scriptures to find eternal life but missed that the Scriptures testified about Jesus and thus refused to receive eternal life from him (John 5:39-40). They read the Bible but missed the God of the Bible.

In the John 5 story, Jesus simultaneously points to a different paradigm for Bible reading, one that revolves instead around connection, relationship, communication, and interaction. The Bible serves as a witness that introduces us to God. The Bible is a conversation piece through which we interact with God.

What would it look like to read the Bible in such a paradigm?

  • We’d read less. But we’d read enough to get the gist of a story, text or thought, but no so much that we weren’t able to slow down and listen to God through it. Certainly there are seasons where it’s necessary to read a greater volume of Scripture (e.g., seminary), but even then it’s critical to translate the learning into conversation with God.
  • We’d attend to “heart tugs”. We’d pay attention to verses or phrases that prick our hearts, convict us, comfort us, or challenge us and we’d reflect on them in silence.
  • We’d interact with God about it. We would spend most of our time in dialogue with God about what we’re reading – listening for how we need to grow and change, or sitting peacefully in his presence with the knowledge of who he is.
  • We’d return to those Scriptures again and again. There’s no need to return to passages we’ve read in the completion paradigm – because we’ve completed them! But in a connection paradigm, we can return to them again and again with God to let him form us and shape us.

Dallas Willard says:

Do not try to read a great deal [of Scripture] at once. As Madam Guyon wisely counsels, ‘If you read quickly, it will benefit you little. You will be like a bee that merely skims the surface of the flower. Instead, in this new way of reading with prayer, you must become as the bee who penetrates into the depths of the flower. You plunge deeply within to remove its deepest nectar.’ …It is better in one year to have 10 good verses transferred into the substance of our lives than to have every word of the Bible flash before our eyes.

This kind of Bible reading is far from boring or guilt-inducing. Encountering God through Scripture will keep you coming back again and again.

How does this analysis compare to your own experiences? What motivates you to read the Bible?

In Discipleship, Prayer, Spiritual Formation
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The Deep Ground

Charles Kiser —  October 4, 2011 — 3 Comments

I had an insightful conversation recently with Randy Harris about the spiritual life.

Randy, giving credit to the work of Martin Laird in Into the Silent Land, described three postures of discipleship.

“The first operates from up here,” Randy said, moving his hand up by his head. “Here we work out of our brilliance, out of our giftedness, out of our understandings.”

I suspect that most young people (twentysomethings down) take this posture in life and discipleship. Perhaps this suspicion is rooted in my own admission that I’ve lived most of my life out of this posture – and, as you’ll see, it’s nothing to be proud of.

“The second [posture] operates from here,” moving his hand back and forth further down by his chest. “Here we work out of a keen awareness of our own brokenness, our limitations, our struggles and turmoil.”

In the past few years habitual patterns of sin (like anger, pride and lust) moved me to this posture of discipleship. It reminds me of the words of a graduate school professor who said that we twentysomething seminarians needed a few more years of struggling with sin so that we could recognize the depth of humanity’s brokenness (and our own).

“There’s a third way that operates from here, ” Randy said as he moved his hand down by his waist in the chair he was sitting in. “We hardly have language to describe this place. So few find it. It is the deep ground of God.”

“What exactly is this deep ground?” I asked.

“It’s God. It’s God in us. It’s your true self. It’s the Holy Spirit. It’s silence. It’s the place where you stare down your brokenness in silence and tell it to back off. It’s the Center.”

He’s right – I’m not sure even how to describe it. But I think it’s the place where we discover God. Where we encounter God. And after the encounter, where we sit in deep peace.

I’ve only touched the edge of the deep ground’s garment in my life – if that.

The key, Randy says, is to find the deep ground of God in contemplation (silence) and then begin to live out of it in every moment of our daily lives. That journey lasts a lifetime.

Laird adds that “union with God not something we are trying to acquire; God is already the ground of our being.” The real issue in finding the deep ground is to realize that “we live, move and have our being in God” – that we, in fact, are already rooted in the deep ground, though not consciously aware of it.

The extent to which we realize we are rooted is God is the extent to which we live out of the deep ground. Such realization is the work of contemplation and silence.

I’m eager to find this deep ground. It’s exciting to think that the deep ground is as deep as God is big, and that I can spend the rest of my life exploring it.

What about you? In what ways do you identify with these three postures of discipleship? Which posture are you currently living out of?

In Dependence, Discipleship, Life Change, Prayer, Spiritual Formation
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Hitting the Sweet Spot in Discipleship

Charles Kiser —  September 27, 2011 — 3 Comments

Mike Breen and Steve Cockram, in their book Building a Discipling Culture, describe two fundamental elements of the way Jesus made disciples.

1. Invitation. Jesus was inviting and supportive of his followers. They knew he loved them. They knew he believed in him. He affirms and blesses Peter when Peter acknowledges that he is the Messiah.

2. Challenge. Jesus does not expect that his disciples will stay where they are. He expects them to grow. He calls them out on their B.S. He challenges them. He loves them too much to allow them to stay the same. Jesus calls Peter out – saying “Get behind me Satan!” – when Peter attempts to rebuke him about submitting to death at the hands of religious and political leaders.

Both of these elements are essential to leadership. Breen and Cockram submit that discipleship is subverted when one or both is missing.

Invitation without challenge produces a cruise-ship, chaplain culture. Sin and brokenness hang around without confrontation. Participants fail to make deeper commitments to spiritual growth. “Come just as you are (and stay there).”

Challenge without invitation produces a stressful, discouraging culture. “What we’re doing is not good enough!” “We need to do more!” Participants begin to wonder if the people leading see them as anything more than a means to accomplish an end.

Lack of both invitation and challenge produces apathy. “Who cares? We don’t.”

The sweet spot in leadership and discipleship is a combination of both invitation and challenge. 3DM calls this “Empowered Culture.” “God loves you and so do I” is heard right alongside “God wants more from us; he is calling us deeper.”

It’s a culture in which the role of prophet (challenge) and pastor (invitation) co-exist together in unity.

From Building a Discipling Culture by Breen and Cockram, p. 12

Moment of confession. About two years into our church planting work with Storyline, I realized the culture we had created was High Invitation / Low Challenge – the “Chaplaincy Quadrant.”

In an effort to reach out to our broader community in a non-judgmental way, we avoided most talk of commitment and challenge. Those who seemed particularly interested we invited deeper into community and leadership, but even then without a foundation from which to challenge and “hold their feet to the fire” of spiritual growth. We lacked any sort of communal sense of covenant. We failed to develop a way for participants even to give permission to be challenged in their walk with Jesus.

My leadership coaching was also mostly invitation and seldom challenge. If I could sum up my coaching posture: “Whatever you want to do, I’ll support you and equip you in it. If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine, too.”

The results: We began to spin our wheels in mission. A relatively small number of people were actively living out the lifestyle of Jesus. Some not-yet Christians in our community stalled out in their journey toward Jesus. Hospitality and justice work began to sputter.

These results set us on a journey to learn how to form a culture that had a place for both invitation and challenge. We’re now moving – even if gradually – from the cozy culture to the empowered culture. Our newly developed communal lifestyle and coaching groups are the best examples of our movement in this direction.

My coaching posture is evolving into: “What is God saying to you? What are you going to do about it? Go do it!” And if necessary: “Why haven’t you done it?” Breen and Cockram describe it as an environment of “high accountability and low control.”

It’s often assumed that a “Culture of Grace” is devoid of challenge. Such an assumption is a seed of the consumer-Christianity mess in which we find ourselves.  Paul says “we work out our salvation with fear and trembling as God works in us” (Philippians 2:12-13) and that “the grace of God teaches us to say ‘no’ to ungodliness….” (Titus 2:12). Grace is inherently challenging. The grace of God challenges us to respond to it, not in ways that seek to earn favor with God, but in ways that honor the gift that has been given.

What about you? Which quadrant best describes your church culture? Your leadership?

In Discipleship
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Coaching for Discipleship

Charles Kiser —  September 6, 2011 — Leave a comment

Storyline’s first Coaching Group had its initial meeting last Wednesday night.

This Coaching Group represents an evolution in my approach to discipleship and leadership development within our community.

I used to wonder how to describe myself and the work I do with Storyline (see here for an old blog post about Church Starter vs. Spiritual Guide). Now I’ve really come to see myself as a coach for mission and the spiritual life.

After receiving training through Mission Alive’s Coaching Labs, I began coaching individual ministry leaders or small ministry leader teams within Storyline. My coaching was largely skill-based and focused on a particular ministry task – like leading a house church. Once a quarter we would host a Leader Forum for all the leaders to get together and enjoy each other’s company (usually 8-12 people).

It became clear over time, however, that my ministry coaching was missing two important elements: 1) an emphasis on the whole person, namely character development and spiritual formation in addition to skills; and 2) the relational synergy that existed in our Forum sessions with 8-12 people.

Enter 3DM (3 Dimensional Ministries). It was about this time that I began reading about a structure developed by 3DM most often called a Huddle. It is their basic vehicle for life-on-life discipleship: a group of 3-8 people, called together by a leader, who share life together regularly for a season and practice a set of tools for following Jesus called LifeShapes. Essentially, the Huddle leader serves as a coach who helps group members listen to God and act on what they’re hearing.

The LifeShapes integrate skill and character development and are portable enough to be remembered and shared by anyone. That is, in fact, 3DM’s hope: that Huddle participants are formed so deeply by their experiences that they themselves go on to gather a group of 3-8 people around them to coach in following Jesus.

The Huddle is a proven vehicle for discipleship and leadership development. It was a basic building block of a European church planting movement through which, in one 3-year period, 725 churches were planted (you can read more about that here).

I suppose the heart of what excites me most about the Huddle concept is that it feels like “Jesus style” discipleship – highly relational, extremely non-programmatic. At the end of the day, that’s what I want to do with my life – to help people experience what I’m convinced is the best way out there to live, the way of Jesus.

Mike Breen, the leader of 3DM, says you can build a church and not have disciples. But if you make disciples, you’ll always get the church. Sign me up. That’s the kind of church planting I want to do.

So after a season of prayer, I invited 8 people (some ministry leaders, some committed disciples – all Partners in Mission with Storyline) to walk with me in a Coaching Group, our language for a Huddle. We’ll walk together for the next year and see what God does. Pray for me as I pour myself into these eight people as a coach and a disciple. Pray for my Coaching Group friends, that this will be a rich season of spiritual growth and connection to God for them.

If you’re interested to read more about Huddles, I’d encourage you to pick up a copy of the book Building a Discipling Culture, by Mike Breen and Steve Cockram. Incidentally, the 2nd Edition, with 60% new content, is being released as an e-book TODAY.

Next week I’ll share more about what I’m learning about Jesus’ twofold approach to discipleship – invitation and challenge.

In Discipleship, Leadership, Storyline
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