Read an Excerpt
Vital
Churches Changing Communities and the World
By Jorge Acevedo Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2012 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4267-6985-6
CHAPTER 1
Spiritual Pastoral Leadership
So, my child, draw your strength from the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Take the things you heard me say in front of many other witnesses and pass them on to faithful people who are also capable of teaching others. 2 Timothy 2:1-2
Throughout biblical history when God wanted to get something done, he would raise up a woman or man who was charged with a God-honoring assignment. Abram and Sarai obeyed God when they left their people and land to begin a nation whose mission was to bless other nations (Genesis 12). Moses had a rap sheet and was a renegade living on the run. He was tending sheep on the "back forty" when God called him to lead a mass exodus of God's people from the tyranny of Pharaoh's Egypt "to a good and broad land" (Exodus 3:8). The last of Jesse's boys, David, was set aside as the next king of Israel while the first king, Saul, was still sitting on the throne (1 Samuel 16). When God wants something done, God taps someone on the shoulder and says, "I've got a job for you!"
Pastors of highly vital congregations live, lead, coach, and set vision in accountable community.
Now these men and women were typically a mixed bag of saints and sinners. They were earthy saints or, as one of my pastor friends, Jamie Stilson says, they were "ugly leaders." Joseph was too immature to handle the dream God had for his life. Ruth could be accused of being co-dependent in her relationship with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Solomon with his 700 wives and 300 concubines would likely have been diagnosed as a sex addict in the 21st century. Timothy wrestled with insecurity as he struggled with claiming his identity as a leader in the early church. God tapped ordinary people to do extraordinary work.
And the job God calls these women and men to do is always a God-sized assignment. It's always a big and daunting job.
"Build an ark!"
"Kill a giant!"
"Have a baby when you're a virgin!"
"Carry a cross!"
"Plant a community of Jesus followers where his name is not known!"
These were no small assignments. When the job gets done, everyone will know that it had to have been God who accomplished it. No human being could ever accomplish the job without huge amounts of divine intervention.
Paul, the great missionary, knew this reality personally. He was a killer of the church who, by the grace of God, turned into a pillar of the church. Paul called himself "the biggest sinner of all" (1 Timothy 1:15). In one of his most important teachings, he describes the kind of people God calls to do his bidding.
Look at your situation when you were called, brothers and sisters! By ordinary human standards not many were wise, not many were powerful, not many were from the upper class. But God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise. God chose what the world considers weak to shame the strong. And God chose what the world considers low-class and low-life—what is considered to be nothing—to reduce what is considered to be something to nothing. So no human being can brag in God's presence. It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus. He became wisdom from God for us. This means that he made us righteous and holy, and he delivered us. This is consistent with what was written: "The one who brags should brag in the Lord!" (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)
Leadership in God's kingdom has always been a daunting task accomplished by less than likely people.
So when the movement of Jesus went viral from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), God assigned men and women like Paul, Silas, Peter, Barnabas, Philip, and Lydia, with establishing missionary outposts called "churches." Then these apostolic leaders raised up, equipped, and trained "pastors" or "elders" to oversee these fledging communities of faith. You see this mentoring relationship beautifully illustrated in Paul, the mentor, investing in Timothy, the young pastor in Ephesus.
In the New Testament, pastors had a shepherding role. Peter, the impetuous one (remember he walked on water and cut off a slave's ear) turned radical apostle of Jesus, explained how to be good shepherds.
Like shepherds, tend the flock of God among you. Watch over it. Don't shepherd because you must, but do it voluntarily for God. Don't shepherd greedily, but do it eagerly. Don't shepherd by ruling over those entrusted to your care, but become examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive an unfading crown of glory. (1 Peter 5:2-4)
Peter expected these leaders to lead with great care for the flock, knowing that some day they would stand before the Chief Shepherd. Being a pastor never has been a haphazard vocation. It is holy work to lead and care for the people of God.
That's why pastors then, as now, were charged with a dual task of watching over themselves as well as welcoming being watched over. They are flip sides of the same coin. Pastors had to take responsibility for their own lives as well as invite others to watch over them.
One of my life verses is 1 Timothy 4:16a where Paul writes: "Keep a close watch on yourself and on your teaching" (NLT). I love the way the Common English Bible translates this verse: "Focus on working on your own development." The elder leader, Paul, encouraged the younger pastor, Timothy, to keep an eagle eye over his own life. Paul understood that pastors needed to take responsibility for their own development as followers of Jesus and leaders in the church.
But pastors were not left alone in their assignment of shepherding congregations. Isolation was not an option for first-century pastors. Though the exact polity is hard to trace in the book of Acts and New Testament letters, there was clearly a web of accountable relationships for first-century pastors. They were watched over. Listen to Paul's admonition to Titus about his ministry of teaching: "As for you, promote the kind of living that reflects right teaching" (Titus 2:1, NLT).
Clearly, Paul had relational entree into Titus' life and ministry. This kind of oversight in the early church is woven throughout the book of Acts. Ordinary, earthy women and men were called by an amazing God to lead in a Kingdom assignment. The jobs were always overwhelming. They seldom felt up to it, but this seems to be the way of our remarkable God.
TURBO-CHARGING OUR WESLEYAN TRADITION
I was not born a Methodist. Somehow in the mystery of how God's sovereignty and human free will work, I landed in a United Methodist congregation in the summer of 1978, shortly after graduating from high school. I knew quickly that I was "at home." Pine Castle United Methodist Church was a vibrant, vital congregation with a heart for the lost both locally and globally. They loved the poor and marginalized. Small groups were places of rich community and spiritual growth. Sunday worship included heartfelt, transcendent worship and practical, biblical preaching. I was stretched, challenged, comforted, and healed in that church.
Only years later at Asbury College (now Asbury University) as a Bible major did I begin to learn why my local church behaved the way it did. My pastor and our leaders were thorough followers of Jesus in the Wesleyan tradition. They had figured out ways to contemporize, or as I like to say, "turbocharge," the principles and practices of the early Methodist movement. The movement led by John Wesley in England in the 1700s informed our life together as a congregation.
Thirty-four years after first walking into that United Methodist congregation, I find that the message and the methodology of the early Methodists still meet the deep needs of our world in the 21st century. In fact, the bond is even stronger. Our unique commitment to hold personal piety and social holiness together resonates with the desire that many in our world have to make a real, lasting difference.
At a Jurisdictional Conference of The United Methodist Church, retiring Bishop William Willimon gave the opening sermon, "Come Holy Spirit." Using Acts 1 and the drawing of lots for the replacement of Judas as his text, Bishop Willimon told us that was "the first Jurisdictional Conference." Then he reminded us, as we gathered to elect new Bishops, that The United Methodist Church believes two things to its core. First, Jesus is Lord. And second, preachers need to be watched! That's why they elect overseers. John Wesley believed preachers needed to be watched too.
So it is not surprising that our United Methodist polity includes Episcopal supervision of clergy. This is directly connected to our Wesleyan heritage. We pastors need to be nurtured and shepherded and watched over ... with love and grace! Of course, to hold in faithful tension our past and our future has never been easy. Even now, for example, across the United Methodist connection, we are thinking and praying about the nature and length of clergy appointments. The recent Towers Watson research has confirmed that vital congregations are often associated with longer appointments. But whatever your situation, sisters and brothers in pastoral leadership, I would encourage you to treat every new appointment, especially as senior or lead pastor, as though you are going to be in that place for a significant period of time. These are seeds you can plant, indeed must plant, regardless of the circumstances of the eventual harvest.
In my sixteen plus years at Grace Church, I have been asked to move. I've had to wrestle with new ministry opportunities that would give me more prominence and more money. I've stayed because I always sensed that God had more to do at Grace Church, and I wanted to be part of it. I've never regretted staying put!
I am indebted to my friend Jim Harnish, Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida, for his insights about John Wesley's relationship with a Methodist preacher named John Trembath. Reverend Trembath was a gifted pastor who was not being faithful in his disciplines of reading and daily devotions. Over a 17-year period, John Wesley confronted him in several letters, asserting that his preaching was not getting better because he "read so little" and that he could never be a "deep preacher" without meditation and daily prayer. John Wesley's now famous advice is as appropriate and necessary as it was 250 years ago.
O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not; what is tedious at first will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way: else you will be a trifler all your days.... Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross, and be a Christian altogether. Then will all the children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you.
Wow! Wesley seemed to be on top of his preachers' reading and devotional habits. I find it intriguing that with all John Wesley had to oversee, he spent considerable energy and effort to correct one Methodist preacher. Early Methodists not only believed that preachers needed to be watched but built systems of accountability for it to happen.
One of the hallmarks of the early Methodist movement was this emphasis on mutual accountability. This gave watching over oneself and being watched over "bite and not just bark." Both clergy and laity in the early Methodist movement were passionately committed to being in healthy, holy, and accountable relationships. In the early Methodist system of mutual accountability, questions were asked about the condition of one's spiritual life. The "bands" were the most intimate, same-gender accountability groups of the Methodist movement. These five questions were asked of every member at every meeting:
• What known sins have you committed since our last meeting?
• What temptations have you met with?
• How were you delivered?
• What have you thought, said, or done, of which you doubt whether it be sin or not?
• Have you nothing you desire to keep secret?
This was the "new normal" for the early Methodists. There was nothing abstract or super-spiritual about living into this kind of accountability.
ON THE ROAD TO VITALITY
I believe there are two essential and inseparable commitments that every pastor and every congregation have to say grace over if they are going to be vital: faithfulness and fruitfulness. Here we are talking specifically about pastoral leaders, but the same holds true for lay leaders. Effective church leaders will help each member and prospective member to develop lives that are ever more faithful and fruitful.
Faithfulness
If we United Methodists are going to reclaim our dynamism as a movement in the 21st century, we will, as I have said, have to learn to turbo-charge our tradition. According to the Towers Watson research, 85 percent of our U.S. churches are not currently highly vital. In order to help more United Methodist congregations move toward greater vitality, we need clergy who are living richly and deeply in Christian community and who live lives of serious self-awareness and self-discipline.
Eugene Peterson was asked, "As pastor, what is your essential role?" He responded that his task was to show "how the Bible got lived."
I needed to be a witness to people in my congregation that everything in the Bible is livable and to try to avoid abstractions about big truths, big doctrines. I wanted to know how these ideas got lived in the immediate circumstances of people's lives at work, in the town, and in the family. The role of the pastor is to embody the gospel. And of course to get it embodied, which you can only do with individuals, not in the abstract.
John Ortberg's friend told him that his primary job as a pastor is to "experience deep contentment and joy and confidence in your everyday life with God." Ortberg came to realize that "if that's not the main thing—if it's not mostly being rooted in God, then passion actually become a dangerous thing, because then I'll be tempted to try to fake it, to substitute contrived emotion or manipulation for it."
What is the most important lesson I have learned leading one church for sixteen years? The single most important thing I lead is not my church, but my life! No one else will lead my life for me. I have to do this myself but within the amazing gift of Christian community. It takes tenacious intentionality to lead your life well.
I was surprised and dismayed to read about a study of 1,050 pastors which revealed that 72 percent of those pastors only read the Bible when they were preparing for sermons and lessons. Just 26 percent of the pastors in the study said that they "regularly had personal devotions and felt that they were adequately fed spiritually." This speaks to the spiritual emptiness of many clergy.
I am susceptible to the same weaknesses and failures as everyone else. So I have built into my life multiple ways to hold myself accountable. I meet every other week with a "coach" via the Internet who keeps me accountable for my life. Craig Robertson, who I mentioned in the Introduction, is an amazing Christ-following businessperson who passionately loves Jesus and the local church. Frankly, Craig wades out into my junk and challenges me to live more passionately for God and faithfully to the mission of Jesus.
I have been part of a covenant group that has met twice a year for more than 20 years and a city pastor's group that has met for more than 16 years. I participate in two men's small groups at Grace Church, as well as a recovery study. My wife Cheryl and I have taken marriage classes, and we have been in therapy to assist us. I tell you these things about my own life in order to emphasize both how important and how challenging it is to live our lives well, as Christians and as pastors.
Knowing my own need for others to help me live well, I have also built that support into the way we work together as a staff at Grace. We have three church campuses and a holistic ministry center, the Grace Community Center. We have four appointed clergy, two elders, and two local pastors. As the Lead Pastor, oversee the other three pastors. In order for our relationships to stay healthy and holy, we meet either together or individually for at least eight hours a month. Weekly, I meet with each of them for one hour for what we call "coaching." They bring to our time a completed accountability sheet. It has two main questions with a series of additional probing questions.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Vital by Jorge Acevedo. Copyright © 2012 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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