Charles

Some of us remember reading and using Olan Hendrix’s classic Management For The Christian Worker. He has had over fifty years of ministry experience with church and para-church organizations. He has learned over those years of ministry that one of the key ingredients to accomplishing a mission is to have effective leaders in place. You need leaders doing the things that make them effective, and not doing those things that can distract from their leadership. For an organization, including the church, to be effective, the leaders need to have a plan with measurable goals and divisions of labor within the body.

At our 2003 conference on Christian schools, co-sponsored by Christian Schools International, Christian Education and Publications invited Olan Hendrix to be a keynote speaker on this topic. Governance was at the top of the list for many schools surveyed on their school’s greatest challenge. The Three Dimensions of Leadership contains much helpful information that can be transferable to the local church.

In our seminars on strategic planning, CEP has emphasized that planning is not unspiritual and certainly not unbiblical. God himself is the master planner and history is the unfolding of the consummation of his master plan. Nor does planning excuse the leadership from the responsibility of much prayer and homework. As Hendrix reminds, planning, done biblically, does not mean depending less on the Lord but rather knowing what he expects of us in serving his purpose in the church.

Hendrix writes, “Leadership without management is fluff. Management without leadership is mechanical.” That statement sets the stage for discussing the what, why, and how of leadership. Hendrix also relates leadership to management because the two, while inseparable, are different.

I am so glad that our Westminster Confession of Faith speaks to the sufficiency of Scripture. We can, by God’s common grace, glean some helpful and practical advice on leadership and management from the area of general revelation. Although the Scripture is not a management textbook, it is a book that reflects the outstanding traits of good leaders while warning us of characteristics that cause much ill through the history of God’s people. Not all problems in organizations (particularly churches) are spiritual in nature. Some result from simply not doing commonsense things in planning, budgeting, organizing and training the people.

The church and most Christian schools are governed by volunteers, which require a different approach from paid staff. There are some practical points we need to remember when working with those volunteers. This book includes several. Hendrix continues to learn better ways to accomplish a mission. I appreciate that about him. In this book he reflects his appreciation for the work of John Craver. He has learned from Craver how to take the concepts of governance and apply it to Christian schools, other Christian ministries, and churches. Following the Craver governance model, Hendrix reminds us of the need for the board to be clear regarding its own work, to resist the temptation to micro-manage, and how to relate to the organization’s staff in a way that enables them to evaluate the results or ends of the organization’s mission.

I have and am presently serving on several boards where applying some of Hendrix’s principles and concepts have proven to be most helpful in keeping the ministry and mission clearly in focus. Asking and answering the question, “how are we doing regarding our mission” is a key to effective leadership and management. Elders, deacons, Christian school boards, and other ministries will find much to glean from these154 pages. This would be a good study guide on what we call strategic faith planning.

We find ourselves caught in the peril of the pendulum often times. We easily move from one extreme to another. A conversation with a staff member this morning reminded me of that. He was asked to recommend resources to help a congregation move from a more traditional worship style to a willingness to use more contemporary expressions of worship.

Quentin Schultze is a name familiar to us for his expertise in communication and technology. We have also appreciated his commitment to the church and his obvious desire to be a churchman. His book could meet some real needs with people who are struggling with questions such as: Is it possible to use technology in worship in a manner that actually enables us to worship God in an acceptable manner? If so, should we do so?

Schultze is probably one of the most balanced writers I have read on this subject. He certainly defends the usage of technology in worship while cautioning about the overuse or abuse of technology, which merely degrades worship. Worship has to be biblical to be acceptable but that does not mean that we have to worship just as we have always done. But there may be justifiable reasons to do things differently in order to help today’s worshipers experience God’s presence in fresh and understandable ways.

Schultze says, “Using presentational technologies wisely in worship requires sound judgment about thorny issues that predate current equipment and contemporary worship styles.” He further writes, “As caretakers of worship we need to be involved in planning a wide range of aesthetic, musical, technical, and leadership talents-all under the authority of the pastor and other spiritual leaders. Giving worship over to one or another expert-whether a technician or a theologian or even a specialist in liturgy-will not serve the congregation well.” As he says that, he cautions a church to move forward with new technologies slowly. Taking things more slowly gives a congregation a chance to reflect on the new practices and to adjust to the changes. Wise counsel!

While I appreciate and recommend this book, I especially liked two chapters: “Corporate Worship and Technology” and “Avoiding Quick-Fix Techniques.” Jesus was a master technician when it came to knowing how to communicate and teach his message. He used a wide variety of techniques and methodologies. The Bible, our regulative guide in worship, gives us a certain amount of leeway and creativity to use in worship. That should not frighten us with all the possibilities, nor should it give us unlimited freedom.

Schultze concludes: “Although we sometimes overestimate the value of new technologies in worship, we had better not underestimate their potential as well.” No matter where you or your church may come down on the use of technology, I believe it would be a valuable exercise to read and discuss Schultze’s book with local leadership.

In the last copy of Equip for Ministry, we reviewed George Barna’s powerful book, Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions. In that book he explained how important it was to teach children from the very beginning about a Christian worldview. He explained that the topic is being by-passed in the training and discipleship process. He further explained that parents, Sunday school teachers, and other adult leaders who should be teaching this to the children do not understand it for themselves. Hence, the church’s challenge is to help its adults know how to develop a self-conscious world and life view and then pass it on to the children of covenant families.

The question is asked, how do we do that? While earlier books have some very useful and concrete examples, additional help is needed. We talk about a Christian world and life view and some of us try to teach that but we can only reach so many. This takes the complicated topic of Christian philosophy and presents it in a sound practical way.

Lacking a biblical world and life view, we find ourselves doing things that are not good. As a matter of fact, even defining right and wrong are dependent on a solidly biblical worldview. Most people are conditioned to build their lives and lifestyles around the idea of whatever means the most to them. They build their worldview around what results in the best experience and makes them the happiest. Instead of knowing how to apply their hearts unto wisdom, they suffer devastating results.

In Think Like Jesus, Barna stresses the necessity of having a self-conscious worldview. He also demonstrates how our daily lives are influenced by our worldview. Part two of the book reveals seven key questions, which are ingredients to developing a biblical worldview. Barna develops each one in its own chapter. Questions include-does God really exist? What is the character and nature of God? How and why was the world created? What is truth?

The last part of the book examines how the church can help with development of a biblical worldview. Barna describes how to work with and apply the biblical worldview on a daily basis and the last chapter focuses on transformation. Discipleship (which includes a world and life view) must lead to transformation, or it has not accomplished its purpose. Not only must we be able to answer questions about the Bible or catechism, etc., we must know how to apply those truths to our lives and how to teach our children to do the same. Not until real transformation of life takes place, can we believe that discipleship is being done.

You will benefit from reading this and you will also find value in using this as a text for adult study group for youth workers using it with their young people. What Barna deals with in this book is the bottom line of what kingdom discipleship is really all about.

Here is a book that I have wanted to bring to your attention. It deals with one of my favorite topics, epistemology. The first chapter in my forthcoming book on Kingdom Disciples, also examines how we know what we know and believe and why. I include Longing to Know as one of the five books for further reading and understanding of this foundational topic. Esther Lightcap Meek is an excellent thinker who expresses herself clearly in her writings. She has been an effective teacher at Covenant Theological Seminary on the topic of this book.

You may or may not be familiar with the philosopher Michael Polanyi. He started out as a scientist but moved to philosophy when he realized that the objective knowledge sought after by the scientist is not possible. Even “objective truth” can only be known subjectively; hence, scientists bold claim of complete objectivity does not really exist. While Meek does not write exhaustively on this topic of knowing, she does state her case quite clearly that knowledge is personal knowledge. She writes about knowing her car mechanic and likening that to knowing God. Throughout the book, Meek underscores her motif that “knowing about our knowing undergirds our hope.”

This is a timely book because, as we have pointed out to our readers, the postmodernists’ reaction to modernism is over the claim that we can know things objectively and with certainty. We can know objective truth, but once we say, “we know, ” we admit that our knowing involves personal knowledge. We relate to that as a Christian because we know that truth and knowledge, revealed to us by God, must be personally known and embraced in order to transform us into kingdom disciples.

Meek says upfront that she wants this book to be read like a personal meditation not a textbook. She has succeeded in writing a textbook that reads like a meditation. I followed her suggestion on how to read this book and found it to be a good procedure.

Longing to Know will not only personally benefit you in understanding the process of knowing, but will also be a help if you have opportunity to talk with people who are shaped more by the world’s ideas and opinions than biblical truth.

One paragraph gives a good flavor for the tenor of the entire book: “A realistic sense of ourselves of our capacities as knowers, restores hope. Greater significance, responsibility, and even freedom are to be felt as we accurately sense and extend our fit with the world. We have learned that there is a human, bodily rooted, future-oriented, truth-loving way of knowing. We’ve learned to recognize how it feels from the inside. We’ve learned to appreciate our strategic situatedness that opens the world to us. We’ve learned to access the real by cultivating our rootedness in it.”

I believe the author is successful in driving home her point that our focus is not to have certainty, in the sense of Enlightenment philosophy, but to have confidence in knowing God based on his knowledge which he shares with us. I look forward to further books by this author.

I always find Robert Webber’s writings to be relevant, thought-provoking, and stimulating whether he is writing about history, worship, or in this case, discipleship.

I have to tell you a personal incident regarding this book. On the day I was preparing to send my manuscript on Kingdom Discipleship to the publisher, I received a copy of this new book. As I started reading it, I found myself unable to put it down, so I held my manuscript for another day, read this book, and then wrote a brief summary as an appendix to my manuscript. I believe it is that important.

This book is a sequel to his earlier book, Ancient-Future Faith. My upfront criticism, which is not severe, reflects my commitment to reformed theology. I believe we toss around the term evangelism too loosely and often at risk is misunderstanding what the great commission of Jesus is really all about. (See the “In Case You’re Asked” article in the March/April Equip for Ministry.) I do not see the distinction between evangelism and discipleship because they are part of the whole process. Evangelism is actually part of the educational process of the great commission.

Having said that, I am encouraged by this book. It reminds me that at CEP we are focusing on the extremely important topic of kingdom disciple making. The book begins with a report, including conclusions of the International Consultation on Discipleship held in September 1999. Some 450 leaders from fifty-four countries and nearly ninety fellowships and denominations gathered in Eastbourne, England for that meeting.

There, many expressed concerns that far too many converts to Christianity have and are falling away, that there has been church growth without church depth, and many converts have been living a worldly lifestyle. They concluded there was a failure in the disciple making process. Something needed to be done to promote more effective and genuine life change.

Building on that conference and conclusion, Webber has written a helpful book of good, solid, rich, workable suggestions. CE&P suggests in order to produce kingdom disciples we need: information and formation leading to transformation of life and thought. Webber follows a similar pattern, using different terminology. We suggest that to make kingdom disciples, we must understand the Word (theology from world and life view) and then we need to understand the world in order to communicate God’s truth clearly. Webber likewise has two main parts to this book. The first part of the book is “The Process of Christian Formation” and the second part deals with “Cultural and Theological Reflection.” The last part includes four helpful appendixes which further develop the author’s thoughts.

In part one, Webber deals with the command to make disciples. Chapters follow on evangelism (conversion), discipleship, spiritual formation, and Christian vocation. He gives some helpful historical information in part one. He is clear in reminding us that the entire process of making disciples is done within community. It is not an isolated event.

The book, as Webber states, focuses on two main themes; how to do ministry and not get bogged down with programs, and how to turn converts into disciples. We must ask those same questions. Presbyterian and Reformed churches emphasize the beginning of the discipleship process with baptism of God’s covenant children, which Webber includes. But he tends to start the process at a later point when someone makes a profession of faith in Christ or instruction leading up to that event. Webber makes good use of history to compare and contrast our world today to help us understand how the process of disciple making should unfold. You will appreciate his usage of “rites of passage” from church history to further understand the process.

In the section on evangelism, Webber has some interesting and helpful descriptions of how people are converted to Christ in a postmodern world. He uses church history to emphasize the importance of developing relationships out of which the Gospel can be more effectively communicated and then lead to a more permanent relationship within the church community.

I also found some of his discussion questions to be thought provoking and helpful. His chapter on discipleship is probably the highlight of the book. I particularly appreciated how he emphasized church family, worship, and preaching as part of the process.

This is a book worth having, reading, and studying. If you share our concern about more effective disciple making, this book will be an asset. I agree with the publisher’s assessment that this book will appeal to both “emerging evangelicals as well as traditional church leaders.” Webber is unusually gifted to reach such a broad audience.