Of holidays and complicated families

Do you have a complicated family? Jesus did.

The mother who miraculously conceived him, marveled at his interactions with the rabbis in the temple and watched him grow up to be an exemplary big brother still felt she knew what was better for her adult son.

The brothers who marveled at the fine wine poured from those six stone water jars at the wedding in Cana (jars they may well have helped fill with water earlier that day) still did not know what to do with their big brother’s unprecedented words and actions. The only category they could come up with was that Jesus had really “lost it!” The apostle John tells us Jesus’ brothers didn’t believe in him. (John 7:5)

While he was busy saving the world, Jesus’ own family members seemed to be trying to save him from himself. What irony. Mark records that his family “went out to seize him.” They were certain he was “out of his mind.” (Mark 3:21)

Even more painful for Jesus must have been the time his family tried to interrupt his teaching. That day, the crowd was so thick his family couldn’t get through to him. When Jesus heard his relatives were outside trying to get in, his response was to gesture to his listeners and say, “Here are my mother and brothers.” (Matt. 12:48-50)

Pain was written on his face when he said that. I am certain. Regret that his own family did not know what they were doing. “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” Jesus said. Could he have wanted anything more than for his brothers and mother to be part of this transcendent family from the start, rather than at the end when we find them all worshiping him in the upper room after his resurrection and ascension? (Acts 1:14)

For many of us, the holidays are complicated when those we love don’t know what to do with us. Making faith a priority just feels wrong to them. Our “strange” need for fellowship with other Christians and our desire to grow in God’s word seems like distorted reality to them. When some of us travel half-way around the world to minister the gospel, when others of us sacrifice to support those who go, those outside of Christ’s family can find no rational categories for such behavior.

As love sometimes compels those closest to us to oppose us, it is love that has the best chance of winning them over. Jesus demonstrated that love while dying on the cross as he gave his mother into John’s care. (John 19:26). I have to believe it was that consistency of Jesus’ love, combined with an unfaltering faithfulness to his calling, which finally won over his family.

What better hope is there, for those of us who find ourselves complicating the holidays among those we love?


© David G. Goodman
President, Entrust

The Halloween conundrum

Zombies, ghosts, witches, vampires and mutants cursed with supernatural powers; you’d expect primitive cultures to go there. So why, in striking contrast to Western society’s scientific rationalism, is every conceivable supernatural manifestation celebrated each year by educated people who are supposedly convinced otherwise? In fact, Hollywood produces a steady stream of paranormal themes because it sells; movie viewers can’t seem to get enough.

Why?

 Consider this analysis from BloomburgView:

“There’s a reason for the pull of the pagan. In the U.S., we’ve been vigorously scrubbing our schools and other public spaces of traces of monotheistic religion for many decades now. Such scrubbing leaves a vacuum. The great self-deception of modern life is that nothing will be pulled into that vacuum.”

Indeed.

Some might conclude such a vacuum exists because we humans are still early in our evolutionary process, but it seems more likely that God created us for a vital relationship with himself and, lacking that, we fill the void with crass imitations. This fascination with the supernatural is a form of age-old paganism in contemporary dress.

“But it’s all in fun,” some say. Perhaps. That very statement seems to reflect a desire to rationalize, somehow admitting we’re not entirely comfortable with this fixation. It is true, we do yearn for heroes, for some supernatural savior to rescue us from the hardships of this fallen world. Some would tell us that long ago mankind created a story of one such otherworldly figure who came to save us. The temptation exists to file that account with all the other superhero stories.

Jesus, unlike some ghost who leaves no footprint, fulfilled prophecies written centuries before and changed the course of history, with his own contemporaries documenting his impact. The question is, will we align ourselves with the current cultural worldview about supernatural forces, or will we accept Jesus as the real answer to our need for a supernatural savior?


© David G. Goodman
President, Entrust

How to be a critic people love

It seemed I was everyone’s target all evening … and not a single shot missed. I was the chair of that planning-committee-meeting-turned-nightmare many years ago. One member came to me privately after the meeting and bluntly told me I was blowing it because I was way too defensive. By then I was quite ready to start firing back, but I didn’t. Why? Because I had no doubt this man really cared for me. Not trying to win an argument or show me up, he, unlike any other person in the group, said this to me out of love.

I treasure my relationship with him because of what he told me that evening. Was it pleasant to receive his criticism? Not at all. But it was good … like swallowing the nastiest tasting medicine you can imagine, but a medicine which quiets your fever and gets you out of bed the next day.

When the Bible says “iron sharpens iron,” (Prov. 27:17), this is not license to take your blade and start slashing everyone near you. Far from a sword fight, the image is that of taking two knives and using them to sharpen each other. Sure the metal gets hot and the sparks fly, but the result for both is desirable because the intent is constructive.

To be a critic people love, cultivate a group of critics around you—people who are committed to you the way you are to them. People who are convinced you really want them to tell you the things you need to hear are the people who will also be able to hear your criticism of them when they most need it and love you for it.
The best critic is the not the one who is merely right, but rather the one who has earned the right to be heard in a way that changes things for the better. That only happens when the critic is someone you trust. Who do you trust more than that one you are already convinced loves you?

In short, the way to be a critic people love is to love them convincingly before there’s a need to criticize.

David G. Goodman
President, Entrust

We must improve our criticism

We need to get better at criticism. Much better. That is my criticism of the church.

I agree with secular best-selling management consultant and author Patrick Lencioni when he offers this critique in his book The Advantage: “Nowhere does this tendency toward artificial harmony show itself more than in mission-driven nonprofit organizations, most notably churches. People who work in those organizations tend to have a misguided idea that they cannot be frustrated or disagreeable with one another. What they’re doing is confusing being nice with being kind.”

Substitute the word “loving” for “kind” and I think he has it exactly right. Perhaps being loving is the church’s reaction to a culture of cynicism, but what Lencioni sees missing is direct constructive criticism.

Typically, we let our criticism swirl unchecked in our thoughts, brewing poison which often spills over into conversation with confidants and at some point boils into confrontation that can no longer be loving. That was not Paul’s intent when he told the Ephesians to be “speaking the truth in love,” resulting in a body of Christ that “builds itself up in love as each part does its work.” (Eph. 4:15-16)

We are to love each other enough to tell each other the sorts of things everyone needs to hear so as not to go on hurting ourselves and others. We need to do this readily, directly and measured by the standard of truth we hold in common – God’s word. To do that we must have previously established personal loving relationships with one another so the other person knows where we’re coming from and that we welcome the same sort of critique from them.

We need to constantly remind each other who we really are.

Scripture clearly tells us we have zero right or reason to deserve membership in God’s family. Underneath the façade, we are all sinners … failures at life. As we admit that, we gain God’s grace and the fellowship of other equally unworthy members worshiping together in our local churches. Is it not, then, absurd that we ever take offense when someone points to any of our shortcomings? How can we be so sensitive to criticism? Having gained entrance to this community of totally unworthy souls, we somehow feel the need to build a case for our own righteousness and worth to God and God’s people. It is as if we somehow decide we have no continuing, absolute need of God’s grace.

Yes, the church needs to get better at criticism – giving and receiving it – in love.

David G. Goodman
President, Entrust

When Sheep Bite

“If I could wish one thing for Christian leaders, it would be a thicker skin.”

That was some of the wisest counsel I ever received. It came early in my ministry.
Members of flocks might wish shepherds were more sensitive to their needs. But the reality is, when shepherds find their sheep can bite like wolves, they easily become too defensive to act in their own best interests, let alone that of their flocks. This is true not only of pastors, but Christian leaders of all sorts.

I wrote last month about our culture of cynicism. Christian leaders expect to be ridiculed outside the fold, but when it happens on the inside it can lead to alienation and burnout.

Scripture has much to say about cynicism. From the very beginning cynicism has been one of the adversary’s most effective tools. You can hear the mocking tone in the serpent’s question of Adam and Eve: “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” The serpent skillfully makes God’s command seem utterly ridiculous, leading the woman to caricature God’s command further by adding something God did not say, “neither shall you touch it.” (Gen. 3:1-3)

Cynicism reduces and reframes truth so we can more easily dismiss it and willfully go our own way. All of Adam and Eve’s subsequent sons and daughters have paid dearly for the serpent’s cynical bite into their innocence.

What can a leader do?

We must remember it was cynicism that hung a blameless savior on the cross, not realizing this “King of the Jews” could have stopped the process at any time. We who lead should not be taken aback when Christian ministry provokes echoes of that same cynicism.

We must not be surprised when cynicism surfaces within our own Christian circles. Our sheep, like us, are in process, are being transformed. Perhaps one of the most important lessons of the book of Acts is that sin, failure, rebuke and rebellion are the realities of the Christian church. God wants to use these things in the life of the church to help us all grow. Cynicism tries to shortcut that process and deny the truth.

In these times in which we live, Christian leaders must move counter to the tide. Proverbs warns repeatedly that anyone who takes on mockers “invites insults.” Mockers “resent correction, so they avoid the wise.” (Prov. 9:7, 15:12 NIV) It is part of a leader’s job to challenge a culture of cynicism and to take the guff for it. The leader must set the pace and nurture a mutually supportive atmosphere within the ministry by resisting the temptation to ridicule and mock. Humor is a powerful tool in a leader’s hands. A few wry words can reduce tension and ease the friction in the room. Yet that humor can easily be used at others’ expense.

In the words of one of the world’s greatest leaders, “When you talk, do not say harmful things, but say what people need – words that will help others become stronger. Then what you say will do good to those who listen to you.” (Eph. 4:29 NCV)

© David G. Goodman

President, Entrust

Challenging a culture of cynicism

The line for the Late Show with David Letterman wound completely around the block. Arriving early to stand in the cold with a horde of fans, I was accompanied by several Northwestern University students who wanted their pastor to join them in experiencing Letterman’s visit to Chicago. I was delighted at the invitation and a chance to spend time with some wonderful young men.

Decades later, I cannot tell you who was on the program that night, but I have a strong memory of something that happened as we stood in line. A group of enterprising evangelists started shouting into megaphones, calling on these Letterman fans to repent and avoid an eternity in hell.

My first response was to cringe, realizing my group of students had more in common with the embarrassing street preachers than with the captive audience standing in that line. Though we would have never taken such an approach, we couldn’t help feeling somewhat dismissed by this crowd of seasoned cynics — gathered to laugh at Letterman’s latest Top Ten mockery of any leader in the news — now laughing at the faith we held dear.

Cynicism may be contemporary society’s favorite tool to absolve itself of responsibility. Just as it is reassuring when your physician produces a label for what ails you (incomprehensible as it may be), the cynic gains a false sense of mastery over any issue simply by clothing it in absurdity and reducing it to manageable dimensions to be neatly filed away somewhere and perhaps never re-examined.

Return with me to that Letterman queue. Initially, I identified uncomfortably with those inept evangelists, but cynicism rushed to my rescue. I would never use such inept methodology. I effectively absolved myself of responsibility. A more Spirit-led response might have been to admire the evangelists’ courage in braving the abuse of Letterman fans. I could have challenged my young friends to come up with their own creative strategies to reach the particular subgroup of people standing in that line.

Our Western culture of cynicism makes church leadership in the U.S. increasingly difficult. I’m finding, to my great surprise, that most pastors in the majority world (outside North America) receive much more respect than pastors in the U.S. Consider how easily we mock the President (any president) of the United States, for example, saying things we would not dare utter if we ever had the opportunity to talk face to face.

In similar fashion, discussion about the pastor around the Sunday dinner table is often loaded with cynicism. Why? Pastors and church leaders challenge parishioners to change. Cynicism provides a way out of change — a response restating the issue, often humorously, and allowing for a sense of intellectual superiority before dismissing the issue out of hand. If we are honest, we must admit cynicism is quite often a cheap substitute for honest dialogue.

What should we do about our cynicism?

First, we can challenge ourselves and each other. When the laughter dies down, ask yourself or others in the group, “What issue am I (are we) trying to avoid with this cynicism?”

Next month: what does the Bible say about cynicism?

© David G. Goodman

President, Entrust

You, me and King Herod

King Herod was a lot like me. Maybe you, too.

Each of us is probably similar to each character in the Easter story (including Judas) in some way. I see too much of Herod in me.

Luke tells us the king was pleased when his adversary, Pilate, sent Jesus to him to be examined (Luke 23:6-12). Curious, he wanted to see Jesus do a miracle. With high church officials looking on, Herod asked Jesus all sorts of questions.

Lyricist Tim Rice imagines Herod’s cynicism well in Jesus Christ Superstar. Herod: “Jesus, you just won't believe / The hit you've made around here / You are all we talk about / You are the wonder of the year. / Prove to me that you're no fool / Walk across my swimming pool / Prove to me that you're divine / Change my water into wine.” 1

Scripture tells us Jesus would not dignify Herod’s questions with an answer which led to Herod committing the ultimate in mockery. After he and his court made a laughingstock of Jesus, Herod took a king’s costume (perhaps from his own closet) and with a misplaced air of entitlement, sent the King of Kings back to Pilate’s kangaroo court.

How do I see Herod in me?

Often I want Jesus to act according to my script — bring in the funding my ministry needs, provide the staff I want to recruit. In short, “walk across my swimming pool.” Sometimes, to my shame, I am more interested in his answering all sorts of questions from me than I am in letting him tell me what he wants me to know.

A subordinate staff member and I kidded around the other day about how he was “delegating up” by assigning tasks to me which I’d originally asked of him. How often do my prayers reflect me telling God (in great detail) how he should come through for me?

Herod’s failing was that he wanted Jesus on his own terms. While he had long been intrigued by Jesus’ teaching and miracles (Luke 9:9) Herod’s priority was control. He was more interested in managing his life and his kingdom than in learning what Jesus’ agenda might be.

Now I ask. Do you see any Herod in you?


David G. Goodman
President, Entrust

Change: The new constant

My head started spinning when my daughter-in-law posted an article on her Facebook page called Meet Generation Z: Forget Everything You Learned About Millennials. As a boomer I am still trying to understand Gens X and Y and now they tell me Gen Z is totally different!

My second thought (after reflecting on how much I don’t know about Gen Z) was, “Oh, the implications for the leaders we are training in other parts of the world!” Let me explain.

Sociologists tell us Western culture has accelerated since the mid-18th century. But consider the whiplash effect experienced by our brothers and sisters in the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, living in cultures seemingly bent on catching up in just a few decades. Change has rapidly become their new constant, a disrupting tsunami washing across all continents.

An African family of three generations could consist of functionally illiterate, almost Stone Age grandparents, a generation of professionals living in Paris and another generation somewhere between the two. In previous centuries, each generation adopted – wholesale – the values and livelihoods of their parents. Now succeeding generations, brought up in an accelerated context, develop values and priorities in distinct contrast to those of their parents. People groups that previously gave little thought to life beyond their local borders find themselves buffeted by cultural forces emanating from halfway around this shrinking world.

Fittingly, it was my daughter-in-law’s Facebook post which prompted me to try to get ready for Gen Z. (Does babysitting my grandchildren count?) As a child in Africa, it took two weeks for us to learn of the death of my own grandmother by way of a telegram relayed from continent to continent and handed off to a bicycle courier who made the day-long trip in hopes of a gratuity upon delivery. Things have changed.

Reflect for a moment on the complexity of equipping church leaders across such diverse generations. In cultures which defer to older generations, patriarchal church leaders understandably feel threatened by a sophisticated, more educated younger generation; they may have little idea how to mobilize, let alone evangelize, members of that seemingly strange generation. In cultures where women are not considered to be “of age” until they’re 40, highly capable young women hesitate to step out and lead other women.

This tsunami of generational change reminds me again that one size does not fit all when it comes to training church leaders. In order to equip leaders overseas, we must understand the extent of change impacting a given culture and work together to develop ministry tools to deal with change yet to come.


David G. Goodman
President, Entrust

A note about a mote

by David Goodman

Whatever chips and processors came standard with my brain, they sometimes become completely overwhelmed. Occasionally, the equivalent of the blue screen of death appears inside my head and I need to reboot.

Here’s an example. As the sun streams in through the window, I watch dust motes flying randomly about; my own private mini-universe contained in this single room, situated in just one neighborhood, within this particular town, located in Colorado, somehow clinging to this massive spinning globe which, if I could step back far enough, would appear as indistinguishable in the universe as those flying motes in my bedroom universe.

It boggles the mind. What infinite detail God created! And just as we cannot fully explore the outer reaches of all the aggregate universes out there, no microscope exists to fully explore the composition of those motes that flee before me as I sweep my hand through the sunbeam.
By now you may be tempted to reboot.

But wait.

King David’s microprocessors dealt with the same astounding data: “Why, God, do you give a hoot about me … about any of us down here?” (That’s the gist of Psalm 8). The wonder of it, for David, is that in the midst of this infinite complexity, we are not forgotten in some distant archive “in the cloud.” Rather it’s as if, front and center on God’s personal desktop, I am the focal point of his attention and love.

This is where you and I must derive our meaning and significance. Incredible as it may seem, you are not some insignificant piece of lint to be brushed off God’s cosmic monitor. You are an integral part of God’s plan for this world. Never forget that. Seek his best in everything you do and even a speck of dust in a sunbeam will lead you to say, “LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Psalm 8.

David G. Goodman
President, Entrust


From David's President's Perspective on the Entrust web page. To read more of David's President's Perspectives, go to www.entrust4.org/PP

Healing old “word wounds”

by David Goodman

“Sticks and stones,” the saying goes, “can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Wishful thinking, that! We hope children will believe it, but deep down we know better. Bones heal. Our spirit, our psyche, our lives can be broken and scarred for life by hurtful words. We all know people who have yet to heal from old “word wounds.”

How easily we parents can wound the ones we love most.

I remember an incident from my childhood in Africa. I was six. My father, a missionary, had a friendly bet with my dorm parent who was preparing lunch for a long trip we were about to take. Evidently Dad said I would not want mustard on my sandwich and she, based on her several months’ experience with me, was certain I would. She beamed at my father when I chose mustard. Later, as we ate our sandwiches, Dad expressed surprise at my choosing mustard. I could hear the disappointment in his voice. Looking back now, I imagine he wished he’d known me better, or perhaps wished he’d raised me to have better taste. All I knew then was I had disappointed my father. I can still feel the pain of that conversation.

Later, when my parents first visited me as a brand new pastor, I remember how I longed for some words of commendation from my father. Mom kept trying to make up for his lack, but that only served to underline the absence of affirmation from Dad. “Silence speaks loudly” and in such situations, we substitute words. What I “heard” from my father was, “David, I see nothing worth affirming here.” What a deep wound.

Years later, some wonderful Christian friends pushed me to raise the issue with my father. In one of the most difficult conversations I ever initiated, I told him how much it hurt that he rarely said he loved me or affirmed me. He immediately acknowledged, “Yes, Mom always tried to get me to do that more.” He went on to express regret and explain that his father rarely affirmed him and it had been difficult for him do so with me. In that moment I realized that he and I (and probably my grandfather as well) all shared the same wounds.

To my surprise, after that conversation, my father began taking the opportunity to affirm me and even say he loved me, multiple times! I can’t tell you how healing that was for me ... and him. He’d always loved me, but his own “word wounds” kept him from showing it and left him wounding me in unintended ways.

Perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned from my father was the power of exposing old “word wounds” so the Spirit of God can bring healing and even more importantly, so that we do not wound others as we, ourselves, have been wounded.

Some helpful scriptures about the power of our words:
   Prov. 12:18, 15:1, 15:4, 15:23, 16:24 and James 3:1-12.

David G. Goodman
President, Entrust


From David's President's Perspective on the Entrust web page. To read more of David's President's Perspectives, go to www.entrust4.org/PP