Hardship

I recently finished a biography on Roger Williams entitled, Roger Williams: Creation of the American Soul. Williams was a Puritan who lived during the tumultuous times of the early to mid-17^th century in both England and the American colonies. I also recently listened to a biographical sermon, by John Piper, on Paul Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress. These two men were contemporaries. Williams moved to the colonies in America and went on to become the progenitor of the Separation of Church and State and the author of numerous books. He was thrown out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for believing in religious liberty in spite of the fact that he was a Calvinist like everyone else. Bunyan remained in England, became a pastor, and went through the roller coaster ride of Cromwell’s rule and the reintroduction of the monarchy after Charles I was beheaded. He was imprisoned for twelve years because he refused to give up preaching Baptist doctrine, during which he wrote his auto biography entitled Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners and he started writing Pilgrims Progress.

What struck me about these two men were the incredible hardships they faced to live out their Christian faith. Bunyan pastored his church from prison for twelve years. Williams lost everything he had. Religious freedom as we know it, didn’t really exist. You could lose your head for not showing allegiance to the Book of Common Prayer in England. You could lose your livelihood, or be murdered, for believing in religious liberty in early New England.

 

Both the book and the message were quite convicting. Today in America, Christianity is practiced with relative ease. We deal with budgets and buildings, constitutions and contemporary music, name changes, vision statements, and web sites. These are all important subjects at our church right now. I’ve spent an enormous amount of time talking about them in various churches. But the fact that we can even give energy to these matters is because of the religious freedom we have in this country. It’s not the same elsewhere. 

Today, Christians all over the globe are being killed and persecuted for their belief in Christ. The hardships they experience are incalculable. We debate the changing of our constitution. They debate angry mobs intent on killing them. We get wounded over perceived personal slights on the part of another person. They are physically wounded just for being a Christian. The following is a true story of how one Christian community in an unnamed country decided to address the hardship of persecution:

“So what do we do when the police come to take our lives?” asked a young man and his wife during a meeting in … 2010. An older man answered from his own experience, “Well, this is what I say when this happens to me. I tell them, ‘You are not taking my life. I am giving my life for you, and I hope you will come to know my Lord Jesus Christ so that we can be together in heaven some day.’” The young men and women in the room nodded their heads in agreement and said, “Okay, that is what we’ll say."

 

What kind of faith creates that kind of response? What do they believe about God to have the courage to stand up for truth like that, while at the same time accepting the hardship, and possible death, that goes with it? The Psalmist gives us the answer: “You are good and what you do is good. Teach me your decrees” (Ps 119:68). And again, “Our God is in heaven, he does whatever pleases him” (Ps 115:3). God has a purpose for you, and for me. That may involve deep pain and suffering or it may not. But we know that in his absolute sovereignty he is infinitely good, so we accept what comes our way with all the confusion, mystery, and pain that accompanies it. Perhaps those I’ve identified in this blog understood one more thing necessary to deal with hardship! On the cross Jesus was unjustly condemned to death as part of God the Father’s plan to redeem us to himself. We deserved the cross. Jesus did not. We deserve hell. Jesus came from heaven to save us from it. So while we may not understand all the hardship in our lives, we know that God is not immune to it, having experienced it himself in the person of Jesus. So we take comfort and continue to live in faith despite the hardship realizing that God, in his sovereign will, allows it.

A Confession about Confession

I’ll confess, confessing is hard. But I was struck by the recent confession of a well known Christian leader. The scenario is all too familiar. The leader, a male, was involved in a number of inappropriate relationships with younger females. Just stating it like that makes it seem sterile and impersonal. The women involved were often young or naïve when the activity was occuring, or weren’t heard when they voiced complaints, or they just didn’t know what to do with it all, but then discovered or created a web-site to air their concerns. In this case, the nationally known leader was removed from his position and sent out a letter confessing his sin and asking forgiveness. The confession went something like this, “I admit that I was involved in holding hands, touching feet, and hair and blah blah blah. Etc etc etc.”

That another man fell into sin as a result of sexual impropriety doesn’t surprise me. It sobers me. It makes me afraid that I’ll do the same thing someday, maybe without even being sensitive to it. Certainly these guys are smart, well educated, and often spiritually sensitive men, at least at some point in their lives. But something happens. Frankly, its not the purpose of this post to suggest possibilities. What I want to simply note is the content of the confession.

Confession is more than simply stating the facts. It’s acknowledged remorse and regret not for the inconvenience of the act or the humiliation of the act but for the ugliness and downright evil of the act itself. Confession doesn’t say, “Well, I held hands and touched feet and hair but it wasn’t sexual.” Baloney! Who’s he trying to kid? Confession would say, “While my actions didn’t include intercourse, they included many activities that were sexual in nature and thus damaging to the women involved as well as to my ministry. Furthrmore, the fact that I didn’t see that reality, while involving myself in those activities, is as great a cause for alarm as the activities themselves. I’m getting help and have sought to reconcile with all involved. I am deeply ashamed of my insensitivity and behavior and will step aside indefinitely so that I am no longer a hinderance to the work of God.” That’s confession.

So, in short, confession isn’t “I made a mistake” or “I goofed” or “I did this or that but it wasn’t really that bad” or “I took the money but really didn’t steal it” or “I mistated the facts but it wasn’t intended to be a lie.” Confession owns up to what was done wrong within tactfully appropriate bounds. It’s that simple and that straight forward. May God help us all to become more sensitive to our actions. But when we do fail, may God help us to actually admit it, and confess it, rather than explain it away.

I Grew Up in Hawaii

Not really. I grew up in Michigan. But as a I leader I came of age in Hawaii. I’m in Hawaii right now. It’s Jan’s favorite place on earth. We were driving up to the north shore of Oahu, it was raining so hard it was difficult to see and she wistfully says, “Oh, I could live here.” I’m thinking, “Hey girlfriend, if this was New York, we’d be in a blizzard. I just want to get where we’re going safe.” That’s my reference right now. Snow.

At any rate, I worked here for 2 ½ years at a church. Flew back and forth to Oahu. Things at the church didn’t turn out as planned and some of it was our/my fault. It was that difficult experience that allowed me to grow up as a leader. Here’s some things I’ve learned:

•Don’t worry about transitioning people if it’s the right thing to do, either from a job or off the staff entirely. It’s probably in the best interest of all involved especially if people are burned out or in the wrong position to begin with.

•As a leader, I am a steward of the gifts of the people I/God bring/s on my team. To fail to address real issues in their lives, or to fail to serve or help a team member when they really need help, is to fail in that stewardship. (One of our staff graciously this to me)

•Make the hard organizational decisions regardless of what happens. My failure to push organizational, structural, leadership and constitutional issues at the church created conflict that could have easily been avoidable.

•Put standards and policy in place for your team before you are forced to by your mistakes. I was forced to. It was my fault. Lesson learned. We have lots of really good standards and policies that govern our team and protect our staff and the churches we work with so that we can serve others unencumbered. Policy that is an anchor around your neck to fulfill your organizational vision is bad. Policy that allows you to accomplish it is really good.

•Take care of little things like job descriptions and performance reviews.

•Don’t hire people who aren’t on board with the vision, values, and mission of the team.

•Reconcile with those you are at odds with even if others won’t own their stuff. This is mission critical.

•If you know something won’t work, don’t let a team member, or anyone else for that matter, force you to go in that direction. Just say, “Hey, I think we are going on a different direction on this one and I’m going to have to make some choices.”  

In the long run, the conflict generated by that experience has been what’s catapulted our team forward. I reconciled with the other staff guy involved, and he has taken a part of our team to another level. I shudder to think what would have happened had he left in anger or I just fired him outright in frustration.

Hawaii is a great place to grow up. Aloha.