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We need evangelized: 3 things that show it

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evangelized rodents

Every day, I need evangelized. Like Paul said of Abraham, the faithful friend of God:

“He did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20-21).

I am also not wavering. But I need to be strengthened. I need to be fully persuaded that God has the power to do what he promises. This strengthening and persuasion happens every day.

To be honest, we, as a church, need to keep the spark of evangelism stoked among us and through us or we might “waver through unbelief” like Paul fears the Romans might waver (or why bring up Abraham, right?). If Paul looked over our church, he might be writing a letter to our leaders and to all of us when he saw the kinds of things we do rather than persuading people that God has the power to do what he promises through Jesus Christ.

Here are three things we tend to do these days that show we need evangelized — no judgment, just things to think and talk about.

We manage lovelessness

This week, all sorts of people are going to bring out the four horsemen in their relationships at home, in your cell and with the leaders. We are going to be tempted to manage the symptoms of their lovelessness rather than teach a better way. Rather than reconcile after our teaching causes conflict, we will be tempted to keep things calm by not confronting the life-sucking lack of love and keeping our mouths shut. We try to manage the lovelessness. This managing rarely succeeds and the territory of the loveless expands rather than stays in the boundaries we set. Basically, we spawn a dysfunctional family like that from which many of us came.

The dysfunction is easy to see when we elevate new leaders (and we often do that, don’t we?!). The loveless test them. We have four relatively new pastors, new Cell Leader Coordinators, new Leadership Team members, and new Cell Leaders. Many tell me similar stories about people who are covenant members  and so have already agreed to love their leaders, build the church, give money, follow the Map, etc., etc. and yet cause an argument in every meeting they attend, or refuse to attend the meeting because they are hurt or mad. The temptation is to manage their lovelessness rather than insist on reconciliation in honor of Jesus.

We need evangelized. We can’t love unless we are attached to the mother/father love of Jesus.

Ahem. Beat Pittsburgh and Lancaster (but not Dallas!)

We stick with principled theology without the motivation of the Holy Spirit.

In our case this “principle-based” theology is often a breed of Protestantism that has an “imperial gaze.” What I mean is, almost all of us grew up in a church that was fully a part of Eurocentric/American thinking. [Consider Migrations of the Holy]. A common way we think about what is right, therefore, can be subsumed under the heading “perfecting democracy” or “giving a voice to the voiceless.” Many people think goodness is mainly about distributing the limited “pie” of social power, power we think we have or power we think we need in order to get by. The church is still seen as part of the imperial system and not actually an expression of the alternative to that system, an expression of the “voiceless” Jesus. Basically, our theology can lean into being an accommodated, if idealistic, element of America Inc. [Consider The Economy of Desire]

You can see this theology among us when we try to act in solidarity with people we have stereotyped by singing their music or by appropriating their culture in some way, even when they are not part of our community and not consulted. The imperial gaze roams the earth looking for people to conform to its superiority, looking for experiences it has not yet consumed, and looking for people it has not yet exploited. Solidarity with people we know and love is elemental to the gospel. (We had a Dia de los Muertos observance last week complete with Aztec dancers — the leader of the troupe being part of our church!). But learning someone’s culture for the sake of novelty or faux inclusion is not the gospel. Perfecting democracy and advancing human rights is not the gospel. Speaking up for people who are oppressed is certainly an expression of Jesus followers who love others. But such speaking does not save people, Jesus does that.

We need evangelized. We can’t be free of our self-interest and grasping for power unless we are empowered by the Holy Spirit and humbly submitted to obeying God’s call.

We acclimate to the inflexibilities of an established community.

I know this is all sounding negative, but I suppose some people in Rome thought that what Paul wrote to them was negative, too. Many of us are more committed to nothing being negative than we are to a practical life in Christ — we might even be “devoted” to our anxiety! Thus a great number of us might not be able to take any of the spiritual risks that mark a person who trusts God — or we might theoretically approve of “risk” (see the previous point) but leave the risk-taking to the “risk department.” Thus we have trouble adapting to our changing neighborhoods. We can’t imagine investing in the future of our mission. Some don’t listen to the possibilities of a troubled marriage. We might never invite people to our meetings because we predetermine how difficult that might be for them and never even find out what they really think about us. We end up, basically, living behind the walls of our “settlement” and are no longer an expansive, journeying tribe of pioneers.

We have been able to see this trait among us this year as we have disrupted the homeostasis so much! On the one hand, we have weathered the self-imposed storm well. We added new pastors, new leaders, changed my role around, planted a new congregation and are now contemplating new buildings! Amazing! All these things would cause any organization to stumble around like they just entered the dark living room after shutting off the bathroom light in the middle of the night.  On the other hand, we lost 50 people, we did not meet our financial goal (yet), and we ran into how stuck some of are individually and how slow to change our system can be. And, like I said, every time we tried to do something new, we encountered conflict (see point one). Such problems are to be expected, but they certainly present a challenging way to grow! Change brings out the best and worst in people.

We need evangelized. We can’t evangelize, can’t confront the long-term intricacies of transformation unless we know we are eternal and have a living relationship with God.

Life is hard. Being truly alive in Christ is even harder, it seems. We feel anxious about our lives. We react with avoidance of suffering and frantic acquisition of comfort. We need evangelized! So Jesus says about all the things he told he disciples the night before he went to the cross:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

And Peter, who totally choked on his huge anxiety when Jesus was being tried and executed, wrote:

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

And Paul, who wrote such challenging things to the Romans, ended his letter with:

“I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another…”

He did not think they were wavering.

“…Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:14-16).

He knew they needed as much persuasion as they could get because life is hard. And being truly alive in Christ is even harder, it seems.

My second act — and a love note to Circle of Hope

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Tonight Scott Hatch and I reminisced about when we met. I had called the number I found in his zine, Burnt Toast. It was on the zine rack in Tower Books on South Street where I hung out a lot. He said, “Sure. Come over.” Scott Clinton rumbled down the stairs at some point while I was in their living room and I met him for the first time, too. I was in the middle of a big risk: planting a new church based on a new movement of God’s Spirit in my life. Those guys ended up taking a risk to join in, too, and they are still doing it. (Tonight we also remembered how Scott was responsible for the six cop cars that met me one night on Tenth St. But that’s another story).

I have enjoyed being the pastor for the Brethren in Christ of Philadelphia/Circle of Hope Center City/Broad and Washington/1125 S. Broad so far. There have been a few tough times; but if you ask me how it has felt, I’ll tell you it has been fun. Not all pastors get to say that. Thanks everyone.

I have enjoyed teaching every week, leading a cell, being on a PM Team, beginning and leading mission teams and compassion teams, even finding buildings and rehabbing them. I liked being available for emergencies and counseling, answering the door and the phone for strangers and figuring out where money was going to come from. Being the congregation’s pastor is varied and joyous if that’s what God gives you to do. When I saw the Instagram of Rachel blessing Jeffy and Toni’s new house on Saturday morning, I thought, “Yes! That’s what a pastor gets to do.” I couldn’t go because I was elsewhere, but it felt right to see her there being a blessing like pastors get to be.

I will get further opportunities to do the acts of love and truth that have led me, but not just like I have been doing for so long. Now is the time for a second act. We are taking a new risk together and this month brings it all to a head. Most of the time when a founding pastor makes a move it is “out to pasture!” Or a younger king deposes him. Or, like in some corporate dynasty, he moves into a ceremonial role to preserve his sense of power. We are trying something different. We are more like a tribe that sticks together, and continues to develop. So I am changing. It seems natural.

Late last year we had an inspiration and we have been letting it mature all this year. So far, it looks like our risky Map is going to lead us where we thought it would. As far as our staff goes, we shook things up. We took Nate to lead the new Hub and installed Ben as a new pastor in Pennsauken. I could feel the excitement at the Love Feast in New Jersey last week. And the team in the Hub has already proven indispensable. Now we are going to unleash Rachel as pastor on S. Broad and maybe even see how we are going to multiply that creative, resourceful congregation again.

That means soon I am out of the job I’ve had for nineteen years (well, it is not exactly the same job I had in 1996!). What are we going to do with me? Some people have wondered why I am retiring! Some have wondered why they are ending my job before my term is up. I tell them, “I am not done. I am still part of the team. What I am going to do is what I have been doing more and more. The leaders, are just recognizing what God has done and are moving with it.” The 2015 Map says I “will mentor leaders, speak to vision, generally oversee the Leadership Team, provide spiritual direction, give relevant training and teach among the whole church.” As this year has unfolded and I have begun to take on that new role as Rachel takes on hers, my new/old assignment seems to be more than enough to take up my time and imagination. Some see it as an honor, an elevation into a CEO role. I see it more as one of my favorite spiritual examples, Francis of Assisi, might see it. Like he called his order the “little brothers,” I want to become smaller. Some of that means I want to become more focused, I want to lead more from below, more one on one. That seems right to me.

Someone noticed that Rachel was speaking more often now and wondered when I was going to get to do it! They felt bad for me, since it seemed to them like speaking is what I do. I will be speaking, but that has never been my first calling or my great love. I want to lead people to Jesus and help create an environment where people are safe to become their true selves and members of a living incarnation of Jesus, the church. I am still going to get to do that. I am grateful that I have been called into a unique opportunity to use my gifts and experience, and use them among the people I love in the region to which I am called. It will strain me to change, of course, but I expect the suffering to be sweet.

There is more to all this change than I am jotting down. I am just feeling full and eager, so it is spilling over into print. Circle of Hope is great – not just the idea of it, but the people of it.  I love you. I want to be a part of you as God has developed me. I am glad for the opportunity to help us develop. Thanks for making that possible.

It is the second act — what do we do now?

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It is true that Terry Gilliam stole the title “imaginarium” from us and applied it to his devilish movie. The five people who knew about that movie before I just told you may have had trouble taking our “rolling Council” meeting seriously. Nevertheless, the others had a very visionary Imaginarium in February. Recently we have simply answered this question when we meet: “What is God telling us?” What moved the group in February was pondering what it takes to be what we have imagined and what it takes to lead it. We are implementing the vision of our “second act.” Things are loosening up, changing, and growing. What do we do now?

Here are five things that God seems to be saying to us about moving into what is next for Circle of Hope. It is amazing that all this good thinking happened in one hour!

Our “second act” is like when the kids are in high school and we get a miracle baby.

  • It has disturbed the homeostasis. Some of us have to get used to imagining ourselves as parents when we were already settled into our post-reproduction phase.
  • Our system has become pretty secure. It is good to have it disrupted because it needs to be disrupted to expand. Further leaders need to emerge. Pastors need to turn to equipping others and to not being overly in charge.
  • If we follow God’s lead through this change we will win the battle we are in. But there is a remote possibility that we won’t have the faith or follow the vision. We are taking the risk to meet the challenge even though we may prefer avoiding failure rather than risking success.

Many of us are at the tipping point when our attitudes change and we think we can sway something.

  • We have stokeable imaginations. We can get fired up. This is a good trait.
  • What we are talking about becoming in this year’s Map takes prayer. If we are praying all the time, we can see it God’s way and we can be it God’s way.
  • Some of us have felt overwhelmed — like we were foster parents to a giant baby called Circle of Hope. It was like the baby was foisted upon us and we were not exactly ready to parent. We fell in love with the baby and we decided to raise it. Now that we are raising it, it feels like our baby.

One of the main calls to the Leadership Team is to pick up the load. Be responsible.

  • To be responsible probably means a change in how many of us see ourselves. We can’t lead if our faith is locked inside “personal salvation” boundaries — that means faith is something I get for myself and it mainly lives in me. We’re talking about having faith that is about others and about the cause, not locked up in our own survival, preference or good feelings.
  • One of us gave an analogy of this based on how they have changed their gardening practices. In the past their garden was not very thought out. They planted what was given to them or went with half-price plants at the end of the season. This year they have already been germinating seeds under the grow lights in expectation of spring. We need to be the kind of people who foster spiritual seedlings, not just wait for people to find us, not just think of ourselves as afterthoughts or leftovers, and not mess around with “whatever” until the season for planting has passed.
  • To pick up the load means being active as opposed to passive. We can be a movement or a monument (or even a mausoleum if we don’t watch it).

It is tempting to wait and see what is happening, like you’re watching someone else’s show.

  • What? You never saw Disney’s Hercules, either?

    It doesn’t matter if we switch around our leaders and do inventive structural changes if the church is not moved by the Spirit. If there is no movement there is nothing to steer.

  • One of us said. “If I say it, I’m more motivated.” They meant they need to talk about what they are doing because that helps them own it. For instance, people sometimes don’t want to say “I love you.” They don’t want to say it until they absolutely mean it. Some of us, even the leaders, don’t want to say, “I’m going with the ‘second act.'” They are waiting, doubtful.

Our best stuff is in the wings ready to move on stage.

  • We need to stoke what is coming. We have spent three months doing that. We switched our pastors around and founded “the hub” at 13th and Walnut. A new picture is taking shape. We deployed new local site supervisors. We refocused all our pastors more on making deeper and further disciples and less on administration of their locales. We began to refocus Rachel on being the BW Development Pastor. Our Compassion Core Team took up the challenge of getting us ALL out there in compassionate service.
  • We are meeting new people who want to be responsible. They want to build an army for the spiritual battle of our time.
  • A new proverb seems to be developing: The new person is a role you did not know you needed.
  • We even started to catch up with our sharing goals in March.

It is an exciting time to be a circle of hope in Philadelphia. There is certainly no shortage of hopelessness to fill with a bright future! It is exciting to be Circle of Hope, the people of God, too! We are filled with possibilities and we have the vision and leadership to make them happen.

 

Patrick had nerve — redux

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St_-Patrick2Why aren’t we spiritual ancestors of St. Patrick more like St. Patrick? Unlike him,

  • we are often stuck on a treadmill of trying harder at things that aren’t working.
  • we keep looking for answers to questions that no longer need to be answered.
  • we get stuck in endless either/or arguments when the dichotomies were false to begin with
  • we undermine the leaders we so desperately need to help us off our treadmill and out of our arguing

We need the kind of nerve Patrick had.

Some of what I am thinking comes right out of Edwin Friedman’s book Failure of Nerve (which our cell leader coordinators have been reading). But St. Patrick (387-461). demonstrated how to be a healthy and effective leader long before systems theory gurus discovered what he already knew. Whether it is a family, a cell, a church or a business, a person who lives out of their true self makes a good leader. Friedman thinks knowledgeable people can become this “differentiated” person, and some can. But, for most of us, we need Jesus at the heart of the process to have a prayer of becoming so mature and useful.

Right now most systems we encounter are stuck in a morass of anxiety and ineffectiveness: the schools, License and Inspections, the Water Department, to name a few, but also some families, some communal households, quite a few cells, and some compassion teams. Why don’t we have more leaders like Patrick in these places? Why aren’t Christians in the United States, in general, more like Patrick – building defiant fires on hills and daring the powers-that-be to oppose Jesus? How did St. Patrick’s Day become famous for being a day when people get drunk? Could it be a failure of nerve?

It could be. Someone has to get free. Someone has to go first. Someone has to risk realizing their imagination.

Patrick got free. He was a barely-Christian teenager when has was captured by Irish slavers. While he was stuck on his hillside tending sheep for “the man” in the wilderness of Foclut, he did not conform, he turned to prayer. Eventually he had a vision that told him to escape. He writes that he heard a voice tell him,

“Come and see, your ship is waiting for you.”

After running for his life across the whole island he made his way on to a ship departing for France where he perfected his faith. Is the Spirit calling you?

Patrick went first. Restored to his family in Britain, perhaps he could have taken his place in their upper-class life and helped rebuild and protect his homeland. But he was not content to stay on the treadmill. He writes,

“I had a vision in my dreams of a man who seemed to come from Ireland. His name was Victoricius, and he carried countless letters, one of which he handed over to me. I read aloud where it began: ‘The Voice of the Irish.’ And as I began to read these words, I seemed to hear the voice of the same men who lived beside the forest of Foclut . . . and they cried out as with one voice, ‘We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.’ I was deeply moved in heart and I could read no further, so I awoke.”

He went to Ireland and immediately began having success in leading people to a knowledge and faith in Jesus. There is undoubtedly a circumstance in which you are called to be that person. But can you still be moved?        

Patrick risked realizing his imagination. He wrote,

“Daily I expect murder, fraud or captivity, but I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God almighty who rules everywhere.”

It seems like he almost delighted in taking risks for the gospel. He wrote,

“I must take this decision disregarding risks involved and make known the gifts of God and his everlasting consolation. Neither must we fear any such risk in faithfully preaching God’s name boldly in every place, so that even after my death, a spiritual legacy may be left for my brethren and my children.”

The famous prayer attributed to him called “the breastplate” is all about gaining nerve in the face of threats.

drunk st. patricksIn a famous letter, amazingly still preserved from the 5th century, Patrick takes a stand against a great enemy with which he was very familiar: slavery. A British tyrant, Coroticus, had carried off some of Patrick’s converts into slavery. Patrick, now a bishop, excommunicated him and told him to repent and free them, writing:

“Ravenous wolves have gulped down the Lord’s own flock which was flourishing in Ireland and the whole church cries out and laments for its sons and daughters.”

That’s nerve.

Being one’s true self and trusting God in the midst of a world that is always difficult often makes one a leader, it at least allows us to influence people by being the presence of Jesus and offering an alternative to the destruction happening. Patrick did not think he was particularly qualified to be such a person. Despite his success, as an older man he writes,

“I still blush and fear more than anything to have my lack of learning brought out into the open. For I am unable to explain my mind to learned people.”

Nevertheless, he gives thanks to God,

“who stirred up me, a fool, from the midst of those who are considered wise and learned in the practice of the law as well as persuasive in their speech and in every other way and ahead of these others, inspired me who is so despised by the world.”

So many in the world get drunk on St. Patrick’s Day! It started last Friday in my UPenn neighborhood. Is staying drunk in various ways an attempt to avoid looking at one’s lack of nerve? So many more don’t get drunk and don’t even know today is a special day honoring a special man. They are so consumed by the slavery of whatever dominates them that it is hard for them to even visualize an alternative: drunkenness or holiness. They need a leader; they at least need a person with some nerve. Someone has to get free. Someone has to go first. Someone has to risk realizing their imagination.

Acceptance: Fast or furious? Quakers and Puritans keep arguing.

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I’ve seen the trailer for Fast and Furious 7 so many times it has taught me lessons. Like this one: Before the big stunt, one of the team mates does not understand what is going on and refuses to drive his car into a parachute jump (not kidding). Vin Diesel has a plan for this acrophobic team mate, since everyone knew he would be too afraid to do this crazy thing. Most of the team is fast at getting out of the plane; this one hold out is furious when they get him out, too. That’s the church. Some people are good at “wild,” some are less so, but we still figure out how to jump from the same plane in our hot cars. Right?

Well, maybe the church is not exactly like that. But our team is a lot like other teams. For instance, the other night at the BW Stakeholders meeting there was a brief interchange between a couple of the good people present. Their back-and-forth was another in a long line of similar conversations stretching back to the beginning of the country, even the beginning of the church! One of us said something like, “The Holy Spirit should run a cell, not some person or program.” Another of us answered back something like, “I just joined a cell that is very structured and I find it comforting.” One was ready to jump and one wondered about the plan.

Prophecy and order

Prophecy vs. order is always the balancing act of the church (I still recommend this book by one of my professors). Some people are always ready to jump — even think jumping is holy. Other people want to know the plan and think jumping all the time leads to destruction. They sometimes don’t like each other.

These days people think being one way or the other is just a matter of one’s “bias” or one’s “personality” or even “preference.” People have generally decided to not decide things in the name of tolerance. But I think there is an important issue that each growing person of faith can and should decide.

  • Is having a consistent order to things (which can quickly become law) numbing my faith?
  • Is having the freedom to follow the Spirit in every circumstance (which can quickly become selfish) undermining the community?
  • Is there really a contest between the individual and the community, between freedom and covenant?

There usually is a contest, but should there be?

I was surprised, for some reason, that we were having that kind of argument at the stakeholders meeting. I should not have been surprised since the church has been sorting out these relationships since the beginning. Especially in the American church, prophecy vs. order has been a constant place for arguing. For instance, at the last General Conference of the BIC I wound up on the outs with some people when I questioned the leadership — their reactions to me were not unusual. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1600s New England, the Puritans had similar reactions when Quakers landed in Boston to preach their radical new faith. The Puritans, who had been so rebellious in England, were now in the place of protecting an order they had built in the new world from someone even further out than they were. Bernard Bailyn describes the two sides very well — you can see how the descendants of the arguers are still with us!

Quakerism had emerged as the ultimate descent from rational, Biblicist, clerical Protestantism into subjective, anticlerical, nonscriptural, millennialism that threatened the basic institutions of civilized life – church, family and social hierarchy—that they were struggling to preserve. [The Quakers] challenged such fundamentals as the sanctity of Scripture, the principles of predestination and original sin, and the propriety of religious “ordinances”: the sacraments, scripted orders of worship, structured preaching, and the formalities of prayer.

Among the church plantings popping up in the Philly region these days this divide is still being played out. The Presbyterians inherit the role of the Puritans, hang on to over-rational faith and resist women and other people who traditionally don’t have power – especially “enthusiasts” who undermine the Bible with their feelings. On the other hand are Pentecostals who, like the original Quakers, trust their personal experience and bravely attempt to get everyone into their own version of it — all in the name of following the Spirit and applying the Bible.

Isn’t there a middle?

I am aligned with the “Anabaptists,” the kind of Christians who were also kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for being disorderly and just plain wrong. But I try to force myself into the middle, when it comes to prophecy and order, somewhere between Pentecostal and Presbyterian. For one reason, I think every version of Christianity usually has some brilliance to it. We are all one in Christ. But I also have more practical reasons and scriptural reasons, as well.

The Apostle Paul was confronted with this dividing point when he was writing to young churches. In chapters 14 and 15 of Romans he does a brilliant job of forcing himself into the middle by telling everyone to accept one another like Jesus accepts them — not because they are right or have rights, but because of Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 9 he charts middle ground by telling everyone to become like everyone for the sake of the mission — not merely because of empathy or tolerance, but because of Jesus. Paul puts himself firmly in the freedom/prophecy/filled-with-the-Spirit camp. But he uses his freedom to firmly protect those who don’t feel it. There is no point in having freedom if one uses it to win a point or to dominate everyone else. Freedom is for love. At this point some people among the BIC might think I eat meat sacrificed Philadelphia idols. That doesn’t mean I need to chew it in their face all the time. We all need to stick together in Jesus. Some people in our cells need enough structure to help them feel safe enough to grow – their cell leader can provide it without writing a new set of commandments for them.

Even when Paul is very frustrated by the people who are turning the Galatians back toward the Jewish law, he is generous: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. …If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other”(Galatians 4:14-15). He keeps his eye on the prize, “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible” (1 Cor 9:19).

The leader of the plane jump probably needs to be “fast.” That will undoubtedly make some team mate “furious” about all this jumping. The leader needs to consider that certain valuable members of the team are not just like him. The point isn’t feeling unfettered or secure; the point is being in love and following Jesus. Some people will always be in love and follow Jesus in a more orderly way, some will be wilder. That’s how it is. Regardless of our differences or even liking one another, we can all be one with Jesus and grow toward having generous hearts. We can recognize who we are and who someone else is — and see all of us in the light of Christ.

Seafaring: a key discipline for success

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I have been slowly plowing through a very well-written book: The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America–The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 by Bernard Bailyn. Maybe I am one of the last people in the U.S. who think “history” does not mean, “What I did last summer.” Regardless, I keep finding new applications for the stories of the brave and often odd people who first settled the European colonies in the United States — what they did to each other and to the people they invaded, usually in the name of God.

When I began to prepare for teaching the cell leaders last Saturday I was in the middle of reading about the famous Pilgrims. I realized that Christians, in general, and their leaders, in particular, would do well to develop a spiritual discipline that every Pilgrim had to develop. We Christians are a “seafaring” people.

The Pilgrims were radical Christians but they were normal people. Their several month voyage to North America in a small, leaky boat was amazingly brave. Most people I know are in a small, leaky boat, in one way or another right now —  I know Circle of Hope fits that description! But even if I were not connected to that vessel, I would still have the leaky boat named Rod to deal with. Yet God calls me to set out for parts unknown. I need to become seafaring even if I am not completely seaworthy. (Good metaphor for us, right?)

You know you are gaining the spiritual discipline I call “seafaring” when you are unafraid of vast waters, you are adventurous, and you can procure a ship.

I am not sure any sane person is totally unafraid of vast waters. But a Jesus follower cannot be led by Jesus if they are not drawn to the ocean of eternity and brave enough to wade in. That impulse caused the Pilgrims to load their families (little Hannah!) on disreputable boats and sail for some place they thought might finally be a place where they could live their faith in peace. I don’t totally agree with their theology, but I admire their fearlessness.

To be seafaring, it also helps to be adventurous. I am not sure  a sense of adventure is totally necessary to travelling with Jesus. Some good Christians are going to either stay in the hold the whole journey or be seasick the whole time — that’s not preferable, but it has to be OK. But it will help if you love sea air, will climb up and furl the sails, are on deck to help in a storm and love scanning the horizon for the next destination to come into view. To follow Jesus, one needs to like travelling because He’s going somewhere.

One of the least appreciated factors in being seafaring is usually the most necessary — one can procure a ship. The Pilgrims had a very difficult time getting the funds to hire one. Some families had to wait nine years to be reunited before their handlers considered them worthy of space on a ship! Our church has spent no little effort trying to find a places to live in Philadelphia so we understand how hard the practical necessity of getting a vessel. I recently learned that the “stampeders” who made the daring trip to the Klondike in Canada to mine for gold also had to be seafaring. Part of their difficult journey included building a boat to get up the river to gold fields. While there were commercial sawmills operating, the cost of milled lumber was beyond the means of most. The majority were forced to resort to milling their own lumber by hand. This involved laying a log on a scaffold and then sawing the log lengthwise using a whipsaw. This was such a hard, two-man job that many close partnerships fell apart in frustration and exhaustion — and the end result was often pretty leaky! Jesus followers in general, but certainly their leaders, understand the frustrations that come with trying to get somewhere that is hard to get to. Lord help us build the boat and stay afloat.

Circle of Hope miraculously floats and gets places. The danger inherent in that success is that fearless, adventurous, skillful people, like the survivors who invaded of North America were, are prone to thinking that their courage and power made them great. It is surprising how often people start out with God and then ten years down the road of their holy experiment are much more like their home territory’s power structure than they imagined. Most people are seafaring in the Spirit until they get somewhere; then they revert to thinking they’ve got it together or are in charge of keeping it together. Meanwhile, Jesus is looking over his shoulder wondering why they stopped following.

I led a little exercise in the meeting and had people rank themselves on a scale of one to ten in relation to the basic traits of being seafaring: unafraid of vast waters, adventurous, can build a ship. (Try it!). Then I dared them to stand when their number was called. I don’t remember any ones or twos. But we had a healthy representation all along the rest of the spectrum. There are a lot of different kind of people on our boat — I think that makes it a good ship if Jesus is the captain. I think Jesus wants us all to get there together. Some of us will always be more daring than others and a few of us will always be the ones who lead us to build our vessels. But we all need to develop a taste for sea air and need to enjoy the wonder of being saved, no matter what is over the horizon in that vast sea.

Paean to partners

Building community, , , , , , , , ,

Someone sabotaged our computer. We discovered what they did right before we wanted to do a few things for the meeting last night. Three of us were huddled in front of it lamenting, offering ineffectual suggestions and generally having some mutual anxiety — and that just before we were to lead an evening centered on “not worrying!”

Now that everything worked out fine-if-not-perfectly, I look back fondly on the scene – back on how our strange little partnership in the gospel was revealed in that moment. We were anxious about something only Jesus could get us together to be anxious about. Each of us had travelled a long distance geographically and culturally to become important in a new kingdom and tribe. I like it when I notice that blessing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about being partners lately and feeling thankful. I think my feeling is a lot like what Paul felt about the Philippians when he started a letter to them with: “I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:4). From the first day of Circle of Hope until now, I have had such amazing partners, beginning with my wife and family and then one person after another who Jesus drew together to form our incendiary community of faith: partners in building community, making disciples, showing compassion, doing business, inventing administration, weathering crises, sharing money and standing together in problems a lot worse than a sabotaged computer! What a blessing!

I have been especially thankful for the partnership of my fellow pastors along the way. Gerry Davis, Joe Snell, Mike Major, Tim Bathurst, and Bryan Robinson added their gifts and moved on.  Then there are the seven who serve as Pastor right now who rose up from among us and have given their love and service for years. You might not know that the average tenure of a pastor in the United States is about four years. Most of our pastors get started in the ranks as cell leaders. By the time they become a pastor in one of our congregations, they’ve probably already served for four years! A secret to our survival and remarkable success in building the body of Christ in a relatively-hostile territory is our long-lived pastor partnership.

ben rachelBen White and Rachel Sensenig are good examples of emerging pastors. They both have experimental roles in the church that we wanted pastors to fill. Ben is the Development Pastor attached to Broad and Washington. He has been inventing ways to connect with new people groups and develop the congregation’s capacity to grow. In the process, he is developing himself! Rachel is the Administrative Pastor who works for the whole church: our network of congregations, cells and teams. Her role has grown dramatically as we have figured out how to be who we are. She has helped us figure that out, often doing things administratively and learning new sides of leadership that don’t fit naturally with her gifts in the process. They are important, much-loved partners.

I am on a team of four pastors who lead the four congregations. I think next year we will be even more of a team as we lean into being one church in four or more locations rather than four congregations networked as a church. Our partnership is crucial to the health of our community. It is not so much that everyone needs to be led around a lot, but the gravity of our love and unity, as well as our diversity in age, experience and background is a great engine for what we hope the whole church will be.

jonny kristinLast week Jonny Rashid of Broad and Dauphin was lobbying to get an Egyptian flag on the rack that displays the countries where our covenant members were born. He thinks citizenship should count as well as birthplace. He has opinions. He has energy. He has a young family and a young congregation. He is forthright, dogged and faithful: a great partner.

nate jenNate Hulfish of Marlton and Crescent reluctantly stayed home from the intentional retreat last weekend because he was also recovering from his wife’s epic wisdom teeth extraction. I also think he kind of wanted to be at the Collingswood Book Fair because he has been meeting as many people as possible – even acting contrary to his introversion to do so! He is an articulate teacher, a determined learner, malleable and ambitious: a great partner.

joshu and banjoJoshua Grace of Frankford and Norris is one-of-a-kind. He has grown up in Circle of Hope and channels our way of life in an always-on-the-edge kind of way. He is an interesting mix of being hidden away with off-the-grid musicians and being popular with famous people across the country. He’s a force. He has passions. He is loyal, imaginative and longsuffering: a great partner.

gwen 12-25-07Gwen White is the most random pastor. We finally named her a “teaching pastor” and gave her a token sum to honor what she had been giving for free for years. This past weekend she showed her stuff well when she led our retreat. I am not sure she even had to prepare too much to be that helpful.  She is self-giving, insightful, a determined builder and wonderfully rebellious against what should not be messing up her “dear one,” Jesus.

A paean is a song of praise or triumph. It implies, to me, enthusiastic Greeks dancing around in a celebration and then settling down as one of their great orators offers a poem that sums up what everyone is excited about so we could remember it twenty-five hundred years later. Nobody on this list cares much about getting summed up for history – they’re hardly done yet, for one thing! But they are such great partners, (as you probably are if you got to the end of this), they deserve a paean.

From here to there: The right people in the right seats on the bus

Building community, Leadership, , ,
No, not the next t-shirt

First of all, are there any wrong people on the Lord’s bus?

The answer is emphatically “NO!”

We’re all Bozos on this bus. God is not accepting us because we eradicated all of our bozo-like attributes. Much the contrary: “one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people” (Romans 5:18), bozos included — even those who don’t admit what a clown they are. “All people” includes anyone reading this. So don’t worry, you are the right person on the bus.

I wanted to start there, since this bus analogy could take the wrong off ramp rather easily. We have been talking about how to apply one idea from Jim Collins to our dialogue about how to get down the road as a church. When Collins talks about deploying leaders and staffing strategically, he talks about getting the right people  on the bus and getting them into the right seats. He’s one of the business gurus that everyone listens to — partly because he comes up with good metaphors to help us get his points. Since Circle of Hope is a unique family business, in our own way, we listen to business gurus who might have some good ideas for us.

The idea we’re listening to has to do with how to lead and how to staff for meeting the goals God gives us: We get somewhere when we have the right people on the bus and get them in the right seats. Here’s the idea:

You are a bus driver. The bus (your church, in this case) needs to go further and it’s your job to get it going. You have to decide where you’re being led, how you’re going to get there, and who’s going to lead the expedition.

Most people assume that great bus drivers (read: pastors and other church leaders, including cell leaders) immediately start the journey by announcing to the people on the bus where the bus is going—by setting a new, improved direction (something like we do when we publish our yearly Map).

In fact, good strategists do not start with where but with who. They start by getting the right people on the leadership bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline—first the people, then the direction—no matter how dire the circumstances. If Jesus is not doing this when he chooses his first disciples, I don’t know what he is doing. He told them, “I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.”

Here is an example from Collins’ business research. When David Maxwell became the bus driver (CEO) of Fannie Mae in 1981, the company was losing $1 million every business day, with $56 billion worth of mortgage loans underwater. The board desperately wanted to know what Maxwell was going to do to rescue the company. Maxwell responded to the what question the same way that all good bus drivers who want to get somewhere respond. He told them, “That’s the wrong first question. To decide where to drive the bus before you have the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus, is absolutely the wrong approach.” He was a great bus driver for ten years. As you might know, his successors almost drove the bus off a cliff.

When it comes to getting started on getting somewhere next, we need to understand three simple truths:

First, if you begin with who, you can more easily adapt to a fast-changing world. If people get on your bus because of where they think it’s going, you’ll be in trouble when you get ten miles down the road and discover that you need to change direction because the world has changed. But if people board the bus principally because of all the other great people on the bus and, of course, because of the One person riding with all of us, you’ll be much faster and smarter at responding to changing conditions. Like Jesus says, “Good trees bear good fruit” wherever they are planted.

Second, if you have the right people on your bus, you don’t need to worry about motivating them. The right people are self-motivated. They want to do it. It is fun to do it with them. Nothing beats being part of a team that expects to produce great results. Like Jesus says: “I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things.” It will be an “abundant life.”

And third, if you have the wrong people on the bus, nothing else matters. You may be headed in the right direction, but you still won’t achieve greatness. Great vision with apathetic or preoccupied people still produces mediocre results. Like Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Great Christians are bozos moved by Jesus; they discover what they have been given and find the best way to give it. Their passion makes them transforming transformers.

So why get all corporate-sounding about Circle of Hope?

1) We have a lot of leaders and we want them to be happy and passionate

We deploy a lot of leaders to drive our rather large bus. They have a lot of space to be creative and everyone is personally responsible for the success of our ‘business” in all its permutations. At least that is how we set it all up to work.

As we think about staffing and as we engage people who don’t get paid for serving (the precious “volunteer” – or as one might name them: “the people who have a life in Christ”) we sometimes run into the complaint that we are not providing “career level” staff position or well-delimited volunteer positions, so we don’t get the people we need to lead.

I wonder what people are talking about. Do people really just give what they are paid for? We are relying on more than that. Will our staff really reduce their “job” down to something that is commensurate with their pay? Will volunteers really prioritize the paying side of their time and be left with not time to serve our cause in Christ? The fear that people might do such things seems like a negative view of people! —  are they doomed to be that subordinate and “slavish?” I don’t think so. On the contrary, I think we have found a lot of people who are called — the kind of people who would make tents to be able to be an apostle. It’s true, we want to pay our staff well and we aren’t looking for people who only work and never rest; but we know leading and serving with passion is also rest for our souls, not just a job.

2) We want to make sure people are in the right seats on the bus.

I think we are amazing. The fact that we survive, adapt, inspire, serve, grow and make new disciples is great. I’m happy. We have done well and we are doing well.

However, basic to our goal is also to make many new disciples and grow in number and capacity for transformation. It is hard to be satisfied in the middle of a burgeoning mission field! Our main “product” is new faith and deeper capacity to cause transformation. We don’t want to grow for growth’s sake, but we didn’t get called to be a Circle of Hope to end up as an island of faith in a post-Christian world! Our bus door is open.

The quality and discipline of our leaders (paid and not) are the keys to getting from here to there. We want to get the right leaders in the right seats: hiring who we need to hire and training and encouraging the many more servants who give their lives to follow Jesus. Being in the wrong seat wears people down; being where you belong makes momentum happen. When people are exercising their gifts, their passion revs up the bus; when they are feeding the institution because they are dutiful or kind, things get stale. When we’re well-deployed we don’t need to be tightly managed or constantly fired up; we are self-motivated by our inner drive to fulfill our calling, make a difference and be our part of creating something great.

We obviously want to create something great. We did it — and we are doing it all the time. What now? Change is on the horizon. The world certainly does not stay still! We need to do what it takes to keep doing the best we can with what we’ve been given. When we map this year, let’s expand our vision, ask the right questions and even have any healthy conflicts we need to have in order to express who we are and imagine the possibilities in store. Like Jesus says, “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.”

Shave off some workweek hours that could be better used elsewhere

Leadership, The Mission, , ,

We want to get a lot done. Not only are we responsible workers doing good things at our money-making jobs, we have a family business to tend, now that Jesus has called us into the Kingdom of God! Our limited time is organized around the big project of redemption that comes with being our true selves in Christ; our daily jobs, our human family requirements and our sense of mission are all defined by the good work we are assigned by our Leader. We all need to be adept time managers, since the time is short and the days are evil. The people called out to lead the church have a big challenge when it comes to managing the workweek, so this is especially for them.

clock eyeThe pastors are always struggling with managing time, as are all the church’s leaders, since their project is so large and the demands are so variable. So we often appreciate advice from people who give advice on these things. One of the blogs we often run into is by Michael Hyatt, former Chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and a Sunday school teacher in Nashville. I decided to re-do one of his posts today to offer some basic help with managing time so we can feel less breathless about the big things we want to do together. Here we go:

Are there ten hours of unnecessary work sucking the life out of your week? Here are seven suggestions Michael Hyatt thinks might work for you if you applied a little thought and effort. How can we shave off some workweek hours that could be better used elsewhere?

1. Limit the time you spend online.

The web is probably most people’s #1 time suck. We can mindlessly surf from one page to another with no clear objective in mind. Before we know it, we can eat up several hours a day. The key is to put a fence around this activity and limit our time online. Set a timer if you have to. This is also true for email. Unless you are in a customer service position where you have to be “always-on,” you should check email no more than two or three times a day. What’s more, don’t get anything pushed to your phone so it doesn’t push you around unless that is the essence of what you do. Turn off the ringers and bells or just turn off the phone until it is time to check up on everyone!

2. Touch email messages once and only once.

Email is great for group projects (like building an authentic church), but how many times do you read the same email message over and over again? The information hasn’t changed — reading it again is probably just procrastinating. Try making a personal rule: I will only read each message once then take the appropriate action: do, delegate, defer, file or delete it. Hyatt describes these in more detail in another post.

3. Follow the two-minute rule.

Keep a short “to do list” (never longer than about thirty items) because you do everything you can do immediately. If you need to make a phone call, rather than entering it on your to-do list, just make the call. If you can complete an action in less than two minutes, just go ahead and do it. Why wait? This “bias toward action” will reduce your workload.

When we don’t do things promptly, we end up generating even more work for ourselves and others. The longer a project sits, the longer it takes to overcome inertia and get it moving again. The key is to define the very next action and do it. We don’t have to complete the whole project, just take the next action.

4. Rebel against low-impact meetings.

Don’t create them or attend them. It seems like we have too many meetings when the meeting organizer isn’t prepared, the meeting objective isn’t defined, or we can’t really affect the outcome one way or the other. Every meeting should have a written objective and a written agenda. If we don’t have these two minimal items, how do we know when the meeting is over? When the meeting is done we should feel energized and assigned, not worn out.

5. Schedule time to get work done.

This is crucial. As the saying goes, “nature abhors a vacuum.” If you don’t take control of your calendar, someone else (or something else)will. You can’t spend all your time in meetings or being available for “emergencies” and still get your projects finished. Instead, you need to make appointments with yourself and be unavailable to whoever else would like to schedule your time. Go ahead and put the work time in your calendar. Then, when someone asks for something, you can legitimately say, “No, I’m sorry, that won’t work. I already have a commitment.” And you do—to yourself!

6. Cultivate the habit of non-finishing.

Not every project we start is worth finishing. Sometimes we get into it and realize, “This is a waste of time.” Fine, then give yourself permission to quit. Try this with reading. Most books are not worth finishing – many could be cut in half and we wouldn’t miss a thing. Many articles are summarized at the end and that’s all we need – or read the subheadings! The key is to read as long as you are interested and then stop. There are too many great things to read to be spending time bogged down in the merely good ones. And remember that project I mentioned that was languishing undone on the to-do list? How about declaring it dead and starting it over right? Or just leave it to someone else.

7. Engage in a weekly review and preview.

Part of the reason our lives get out of control is because we don’t plan — or, for Jesus followers, we don’t pray. Hyatt says: “Once a week, we have to come up for air. Or—to change the metaphor—you have to take the plane up to 30,000 feet, so we can see the big picture.” We know that we have to do better than that! We have to develop a deliberate habit of prayer to breathe or see at all! We want to pray without ceasing! But the rule he is shooting for with his work schedule makes practical sense. He says: “I review my notes from the previous week and look ahead to my calendar. I have written elsewhere on this topic, so I won’t repeat myself here.” We need to review and reschedule as a rule, but following rules without the Ruler enlivening them is a delusional waste of time.

If we are responsible for many people and the work of the kingdom of God, it will take some good time management skills. The jobs we do for money and career focus will need to stay in productive boundaries and the mission we are on together as the people of God will need to stay on track. We will create less anxiety for ourselves and be able to handle the anxiety of others if we scale down our hours to a manageable level by cutting out the wasted motion and developing a few good habits.

The despised leader: Why be one?

Building community, Leadership, ,

Jesus “was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity.” Why wouldn’t you be the very same?

The Lord pointedly told his disciples that they would be treated like he was treated if they tried to disrupt the perverse homeostasis of sin and destruction in the world. Why are we so appalled when it happens?

The prophet Isaiah revealed that the Messiah would be a suffering servant, not a mighty, political King who would save the family business. The Savior will not appear in his glorious might until the end of days — until that time he appears in his glorious weakness, undoing the sin of the world with suffering love. We’re still fighting with Him about this.

Do we think being despised is just too hard?

It is no wonder we fight Him. Who really wants to be like Jesus? It always get us into trouble. Being dishonored like Jesus was and is dishonored is the regular experience of anyone who tries to lead sinners into redemption, or just tries to lead anybody into something better. If you are a Christian and don’t hide it, you are too holy. If you try to improve the neighborhood, you are too pushy. If you are a woman leader, you are too womany. If you are a man leader, you aren’t man enough. If you are a Christian leader, you aren’t spiritual enough or don’t love people well enough. It is no wonder people are scared to lead, even among this circle of hope, where we try to make it plain that the people love their leader into greatness, not vice versa.

To hear some people tell it, leaders get into leadership because they are mostly narcissistic, power-hungry dominators who just want to satisfy their hunger and enjoy being number one. Those kind of leaders are definitely out there, but I don’t meet them in our church too often. Most of our leaders respond to a call when others note their obvious gifts. We tell them we need them to use their gifts to help us to live into our ambitious vision. We usually have to talk people into leading. That’s OK, because we don’t need too many leaders, just enough. They are like an enzyme that keeps our digestion going; we’re the stomach receiving the bread of life.

Leadership everywhere  is tough

Maybe more so, people might not be clamoring to lead because being a leader in our whole society is very difficult right now. In many ways leaders are despised, at least subconsciously. School teachers will tell you stories about that from their classrooms full of anxious, unruly kids in schools overseen by anxious, demanding, random bosses. Small business owners talk about strangely entitled entry level workers. Listen to the memories of the Occupy movement and how their leaders derailed it. The Atlantic Conference of the BIC can’t even find a person who will be their bishop! Everywhere you try to be a leader you get nailed by people who are just one way and don’t listen to others, you’re hounded by people who have a self-interested point to push, or you’re surrounded by people who are so anxious and disoriented that they have a tough time being led!

Let’s face it, intelligent people do not always clamor to get into leadership because they are leery of being despised, being isolated and perpetually dealing with conflict. They look around at the world and say, “I don’t know if I have the stuff to deal with that!” Some of us can’t even have a healthy conflict with a toddler, much less have one with a sinful adult! We can’t stand being despised while our child is screaming in time out, much less can we risk experiencing whatever an adult might do to us.

But we really need people to take the risk

Laying out the way. Art by Erik Johansson

Even if it is hard, whether it is in our families or in our neighborhoods, in the church or in our whole society, we need people who risk going first, who are a trustworthy presence, who take the lead. Some of us need to be a leader all the time, because we have the God-given calling and gifts to do it. You know you are — you are called and people follow. Thank you. We need you.

But we only need enough of those gifted, called leaders. Most of us just need to be ready when we are called on to supply some leadership and not be afraid to face the inevitable issues of going somewhere everyone needs to go and asking us to follow. In the process, we are going to fear that people will be mad at us, since someone will inevitably be mad. Especially if you want to go God’s way, people will oppose you like they opposed your Lord.

That’s the rub; we need to be ready to be despised. Since you know leading is hard and invites conflict, and since people are all-too-ready to tell you to back off, and since it seems impolite, if not illegal, to question anyone’s direction, what would possess you to stick your neck out and get us from here to there? Leading can be painfully isolating. Leading often makes one feel like they are not one of the gang. If you actually cause trouble by leading, someone will despise you. So why do it?

Reasons to take the risk

For one thing, it is very satisfying to follow Jesus. It is deeply satisfying to rally people to trust God. When you obey the Lord’s call to step out in trust, it feels like you are really living. Plus, standing up against the forces of evil is a lot better than the enemy running all over your people, that’s for sure. If any of those phrases rang a bell in you, thanks for letting it. You’re probably a cell leader or a team leader, already. You’re probably leading a healthy family, office or crew. We need more people like you who will be empowered by the Spirit to take their stand for Jesus in a difficult world and build a vibrant, authentic church, the alternative to it’s deadly power.

Jesus reveals the secret of how to take that stand. Being scorned and refusing to compete to be king of the world is the way to eternal life. Humbly doing what needs to be done, going first, taking the direction that needs to be taken and asking people to come along is following Jesus. For some of us, that is a full-time job. For all of us, that is everyday life. Like Paul wrote: God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. Because boasting before God is what makes us despised in eternity. Gaining the whole world at the loss of our true selves is the greatest loss of all.

If you are leading all the time, follow your Leader; it is the best you can do. Your trust in God is better than any technique you will apply or any power you will exercise. For all of us, in a leadership position or not, we need to stop cooperating with what holds us back. Let’s talk each other out of reacting fearfully or avoidantly when we might be despised — or mocked, or ignored, or isolated. Our lowliness and anxiety-bucking obedience is what makes us so appreciated in heaven. Let’s not allows the feelings we might have about ourselves or the ill-feelings others seem to have about us make us withdraw and isolate when we are called to go somewhere better and take people with us.

Remember, no matter who despises you, (even when you despise yourself!), you will never be stolen from the kingdom of grace in which you live. The corruption of your heart is restrained by the influence of the Holy Spirit. The world is passing by under your feet and cannot hold you in its chains. The enemies of God have been bound and cannot permanently harm you. Even if you are despised by yourself and humanity, in Christ you are the beloved of God.