Hey friends. I apologize again for my long hiatus. My terrible catch 22 is that I love it when people read my blog. But once you have drawn a legion of faithful readers, it becomes quite stressful to make sure that you are constantly satisfying their need for enlightenment and entertainment.
Sadly, because Cortney and I have started "getting a life" down here in Texas, we are busier than we used to be, and my blogposts will likely be less frequent than the glory days of living in my mother's basement. Don't think for a moment that I am debating "killing" the blog, but just know that checking it every morning with baited breath is likely to leave you disappointed more often than not. If any of y'all* are tech savvy enough to have your computer notify you when I post new material, I'm thinking that would be a good route for you to go.
But anyway. I want to talk about Steward Leadership.** I know that by now we have all heard of the idea of servant leadership. And I am not saying in any way that servant leadership is not an accurate view of what we are called to do as Christians in leadership. I just want to take this idea a little bit further and consider "stewardship" to be the particular kind of service we render when we are leading.
Stewardship, as we probably know, is the idea of being temporarily entrusted with something that is not yours, so that you can take care of it for the owner. Jesus references this idea when he tells the story of the men entrusted with the gold talents. They are supposed to put the money to good use so that the master will have more when he returns. Only slightly less well known is J.R.R. Tolkien's example of Lord Denathor acting as Steward of Gondor. The king is away (for generations) but whenever he returns, he will find his realm safely managed. Other examples could include house-sitting or baby sitting.
As Christians we use this idea in many different contexts. Usually you hear it coming up in regards to money. Sometimes I poke fun at Christian sub-culture but I'm not going to do that here. I think that talking about stewardship in these ways is entirely appropriate. But now I want to shift our thinking a little bit and consider leadership as a form of stewardship.
When you are a leader you are entrusted (by someone) with something that is not yours. It's easy to understand this when we are in a business setting. A CEO is entrusted with people's jobs, stock values, and the health of the company. But more often people are entrusted with less concrete assets. Coaches are entrusted with the development of their players, the management of the game, and everything that the season entails. Teachers are entrusted with the learning of students (who are not their own children), and project managers are entrusted with other people's time. A lot of the time leaders are entrusted with "soft" resources, but that doesn't make them any less real. Leaders and followers are connected by a contract, whether it is spoken or unspoken, and they both have roles to fulfill.
The reason I like talking about this in terms of stewardship is because stewardship immediately brings two things to the forefront.
1) Humility
2) Accountability
Stewards are taking care of things that aren't theirs. If you don't know what it means to be humbled by stewardship, I'd like to invite you to imagine a scenario in which you are trusted with something way over your head. Imagine that somebody put you in charge of a fortune 500 company, and you had to figure out how to manage millions and millions of dollars, or else thousands of people would lose their job. Imagine that you have been trusted with the role of general, and millions of lives hang in the balance every time you make a decision. People will die no matter what you choose, but people will question "was it worth it?" Now think a little more realistically, what if a good friend of yours was sick and dying, and he asked you to take care of his family when he was gone.
Are you humbled yet?
Accountability means that you will answer to the people who trust you. House sitting would be a lot easier if the owners never came home. You could let the plants die and let the dog pee all over the rug. You don't care, it's not your house and no one will know. But the owners will come back. People can lose their jobs or their lives, children can have their soccer season ruined, school projects might get a D-, ministries can flounder, and people can have really burnt hot-dogs if you are the one watching the grille. And you are prepared to look at the disgust on their faces when they bite into the hot-dog that YOU so carelessly burned? I'm not...and to think that I trusted you.
*Texas speak
**This was a term I came up with last week. I was pretty sure that I was going to be the next paradigm shifting Christian author but some other guy beat me to it last year. So, read "the Steward Leader" and pretend I wrote it. That will make me feel better about missing yet another opportunity to write a book due to poor timing/lack of talent/lack of initiative.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
But for the Grace of God...
After coming back from Christmas break, I have begun reading the book "Prodigal God" which is what we were discussing at the student development retreat. I feel like this book will be shaping the things that I think and write about for a while.
I question some of the authors assumptions, because he claims to have a very great understanding of the inner workings of the heart of everyone in the parable even though some of them are only mentioned for a few sentences. But that's fine. If he wants to say he can read minds of fictional characters from the ancient near east, he's free to do so.
He does make a few really really good points while he's at it though. One of the things he mentions is that it is impossible to truly forgive others when you think that you are better than them.
If I think to myself that the sins of others are the types of things that I would never ever do, that I am not even capable of such sins, that I am so morally superior that I couldn't be guilty of the same kinds of things that my fellow man is guilty of, then it looks like not only will I be rather short on forgiveness, but also I don't really understand the Gospel.
There are lots of sins that there is no way I would commit...now. However, who knows how I could change over time given enough pressure and temptation. The only thing protecting me from falling deeper into sin* is undeserved grace.
Think of it this way. Some people don’t have jobs because they are lazy bums. But that is probably not the biggest reason for unemployment. Sometimes businesses shut down or downsize, people get laid off, and other places aren’t hiring. In our current recession it’s easier to visualize this. But lets take it a step further and remember the great depression. Unemployment was 25% and those who had jobs were wondering if theirs was going to be the next company that went under.
Let’s pretend that the company you work for is still doing ok, but a lot of your friends have been losing their jobs and some of them have been losing their homes. In such uncertain times you realize that you might not have a job next week, but you are very thankful that you have one now. You might be one bad fiscal year from the breadline and two years from living under an overpass. But right now you are safe and secure, because your boss says that everything is ok, and you are going to be taken care of.
If that were the case, would you look down on people who didn’t have a job? Would you call them lazy? Would you think that they were uneducated misfits who were just living off the government because they had a stupid sense of entitlement? Or would you have empathy, because if things had shaken down a little bit differently, that could have been you?
But for the Grace of God, there go I.
An understanding of the Gospel, and the ability to receive true forgiveness stems from our understanding of our own depravity. I may not have committed sin “X” and hopefully I never will, but if circumstances change drastically (and they can) who knows what I would be capable of doing? Maybe I would even commit that sin I swore I never would commit.
Armed with that knowledge, let us forgive whole heartedly without a feeling of condescending superiority. Let us forgive as ones who have been forgiven, and who will need more forgiveness in the future. At let us forgive as ones who realize that God and circumstances, undeserved Grace, are the only things that separate us from the sins that we so despise.
*And the only thing saving me when I do fall into it
I question some of the authors assumptions, because he claims to have a very great understanding of the inner workings of the heart of everyone in the parable even though some of them are only mentioned for a few sentences. But that's fine. If he wants to say he can read minds of fictional characters from the ancient near east, he's free to do so.
He does make a few really really good points while he's at it though. One of the things he mentions is that it is impossible to truly forgive others when you think that you are better than them.
If I think to myself that the sins of others are the types of things that I would never ever do, that I am not even capable of such sins, that I am so morally superior that I couldn't be guilty of the same kinds of things that my fellow man is guilty of, then it looks like not only will I be rather short on forgiveness, but also I don't really understand the Gospel.
There are lots of sins that there is no way I would commit...now. However, who knows how I could change over time given enough pressure and temptation. The only thing protecting me from falling deeper into sin* is undeserved grace.
Think of it this way. Some people don’t have jobs because they are lazy bums. But that is probably not the biggest reason for unemployment. Sometimes businesses shut down or downsize, people get laid off, and other places aren’t hiring. In our current recession it’s easier to visualize this. But lets take it a step further and remember the great depression. Unemployment was 25% and those who had jobs were wondering if theirs was going to be the next company that went under.
Let’s pretend that the company you work for is still doing ok, but a lot of your friends have been losing their jobs and some of them have been losing their homes. In such uncertain times you realize that you might not have a job next week, but you are very thankful that you have one now. You might be one bad fiscal year from the breadline and two years from living under an overpass. But right now you are safe and secure, because your boss says that everything is ok, and you are going to be taken care of.
If that were the case, would you look down on people who didn’t have a job? Would you call them lazy? Would you think that they were uneducated misfits who were just living off the government because they had a stupid sense of entitlement? Or would you have empathy, because if things had shaken down a little bit differently, that could have been you?
But for the Grace of God, there go I.
An understanding of the Gospel, and the ability to receive true forgiveness stems from our understanding of our own depravity. I may not have committed sin “X” and hopefully I never will, but if circumstances change drastically (and they can) who knows what I would be capable of doing? Maybe I would even commit that sin I swore I never would commit.
Armed with that knowledge, let us forgive whole heartedly without a feeling of condescending superiority. Let us forgive as ones who have been forgiven, and who will need more forgiveness in the future. At let us forgive as ones who realize that God and circumstances, undeserved Grace, are the only things that separate us from the sins that we so despise.
*And the only thing saving me when I do fall into it
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