Vocal Minority ...

It is hard to over state the power of disruption.  Carrying a train of thought out to a logical conclusion, particularly if it is a new idea, or new way of examining an old subject, is difficult to accomplish in the best of conditions.  But just let a heckler decide to interrupt the proceedings and the progress comes to a crashing halt.  Worse yet, even if order can be restored, it becomes almost impossible to pick up where you left off, forcing either a repeat of the entire concept or the danger in skipping important points on the way to the conclusion.  It only takes a minority of one, to destroy the efforts of many, just one vocal minority.

I was reminded this week watching the news coverage of some of the home-town meetings on the topic of the upcoming Health Care reform efforts, how effective this method is in killing any real progress.  Not only does any point get lost in the shouting, a perception emerges that the loudest point must be the one shared by the most people.  Even though this is hardly ever true, the phrase “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” comes to mind.  In this case, the associated attention that gets centered on the hecklers becomes the prevailing perception of the feelings at the meeting.  Again false, but perception is a hard thing to kill.

I guess it would be O.K., if this sort of thing only occurred in political circles, on political topics where public interest were at stake.  Unfortunately this is not the only venue where these tactics are employed successfully.  I learned from personal experience they can be deployed in church.  Our local church “Central SDA” in Orlando Florida was suffering from an aging population, declining membership, and associated decline in revenue.  Since I was not terribly busy at the time, I decided to write a detailed strategy document on how to turn our trends around.  It was a 35 page fully illustrated strategy document that was embraced by the Pastor, Head Elder, and Head Deacon right away.  The full church board and Ministry leaders then embraced it, and it was recommended for general adoption at a general church business meeting.  I was unaware that these meetings even existed, but nonetheless presented my fully developed PowerPoint presentation as I would have at any of my other board-room style presentations to the general membership of the church.

I have done this kind of thing throughout my career at many client companies.  I was happy this time that my personal business skills could be used in a religious setting to help my local church out.  I know enough how to divert questions and interruptions until the end of my presentations.  But then came the Q&A, and the heckling commenced.  Now I don’t mind at all competing ideas, or arguments over the relevance or effectiveness of a recommendation that I make.  I believe that ideas improve when debated, or discussed from differing perspectives.  I have always had highly diverse executives reporting to me that I believe has increased the quality of the tasks we set out to accomplish.  I assumed this would be no different.  After all this is my “church family”.  I am donating my time, skills, and expenses.  These people are supposed to love me and each other right?  Aaaa … but thank you for playing.

It was not that my ideas were debated for being effective or for relevance.  It was my character under assault.  Somehow an older member of the church who has never even spoken to me, decided I was doing this for selfish reasons – as if I was going to receive a percentage of the increase in our revenues as a church.  I was not, never even entered my mind.  Another member decided my entire document was an apostacy and that I was a blasphemer.  By the way, this member was only in attendance to dispute my document, he never actually attended church here in over 3 years.  And of course, he had never met me, or even talked to me prior to the evening of this presentation.  The spiritual basis for his claims of my evil was based in my call for “tolerance” of the styles of worship that the vast majority of people prefer in the U.S.  (i.e. we should not condemn others simply because we do not care for their style of music, style of worship, etc.).  I was stunned.

In retrospect it is easy to see that the singular personal attacks I endured (without fighting back as I believe this is no venue for it), were from only a very vocal minority.  There were in point of fact only 5 members who decided I was Satan incarnate for my efforts to grow our church.  They had no competing set of ideas.  They only wanted to have total control, without any clue or plan of what to do with it.  Suggesting otherwise by anyone, would have resulted in the same vitriol.  The other 90 people in attendance were far more accepting.  In fact, the vote to approve the plan was over 95% positive.  Despite this, and despite my personal attempts to speak with the disgruntled, the nay’s were undeterred in their efforts to poison what our entire church purposed to do.  Had I been in one of the companies I have managed, I would fired the negativity folks immediately.  There is no room for those determined to see a business fail rather than embrace change in the business world.  But this was God’s house.  He wants everyone, even the stubborn ones, even the wrong ones, even the mean ones, even me …

Heckler’s can destroy the progress of communication.  But nay-sayers can only poison & delay the work, when the work is for the Lord they cannot kill it completely.  Our church grew by over 75 new members in a single year, almost doubling our prior year’s regular attendance.  Our revenues increased, we started new ministries to serve the community, our aging population, and our youth.  We opened a Spanish language ministry still in existence today.  We remodeled and renovated some areas of the church.  In short we grew.  But at each church business meeting, a vocal minority would speak out and criticize our efforts to feed the homeless (“they are nothing but pan-handlers anyway begging for money for drugs and their million dollar homes” … an actual quote by the female head of one of our key ministries for the poor if you can believe that).  They would criticize our music.  Though during the service, even our DVD based music performances would get hearty Amen’s from the congregation – where most of the members loved what we did.

It was really only about the same 5 people who hated everything.  They would not leave the church to find another one, as this would mean admitting defeat to them.  Instead they plotted a take-over.  Here is where the disconnects are so large they hard to comprehend.  I took a leadership role in our church only to help it grow, and because I was the only one who could at the start.  I had no intentions of remaining in charge, nor any desire to remain as a leader.  I served because I felt I must.  But I was eager to put another person in my place and allow me the rest of the lack of the limelight.  But the vocal minority had no idea I thought this way.  Because they craved power, they assumed I must as well.  Had they known I was eager to give it away they could have plotted better than they did.

They moved after covertly gathering intelligence they believed they could use against me.  The information they had was illegally taken, incomplete, and therefore mistaken.  But it mattered not.  I could see what they were doing, and I could see further they were positioning me to fight back and cause the church to split.  But I would not.  Instead I resigned quietly, and cleared my name and reputation with the pastor, and with our conference who had now been called in on what they believed was a scandal.  It really was not.  My quiet enemies acted on incomplete accounting information gathered before month end, without the full set of data.  Auditors established I did nothing wrong and in fact were impressed by how well we had managed our finances.  The conference president and our pastor backed me completely in this.  Yet I was resigning quietly to avoid positioning the church for a split.

I failed.  In one of our last board meetings with me still in office, I was ambushed by one of the five with this mis-information.  His hatred for me was so obvious, and so determined, and so pointed, that he literally turned the entire board angry with him.  Regardless of my actions, the church was positioned to split anyway.  Now the vocal minority set about attempting to paint perceptions as reality, and gain support among the members.  But they failed.  Those that saw what happened to me, realized that I had only ever told the truth.  Those that had been deceived by the hateful minority became genuinely sorry they ever even thought that way, and have since become some of my closest friends.  The church lost 3 of the 5 members that determined to take control.  And again, even though in reality the church did not actually split, the level of noise associated with all this, and the loudness of the vocal minority made it feel as though it had split.

It is always easier to criticize than to create.  It is always easier to tear-down than to build-up.  When I look around me at what goes on in our country, and unfortunately even in the walls of our church, I fear that the vocal minority is drowning out the message of the more tolerant and sane majority.  I have lived through a most unpleasant experience caused by so few, along with the silence of so many.  Had the majority been as vocal as the minority, there would have been no conflict.  But silence amounts to passive consent.  And if we remain silent too long in the face of vocal insanity, we reap the actions of the insane.  I think better to speak out, and speak up in love, and let love have a voice again …

Cut and Run Christians ...

You can’t share what you don’t know.  There are those who believe that a Christian should run from persecution, live out in the wilderness, avoid conflict, and be wary of the world.  Some extremists have been known to literally bury cans of food in the Smokey Mountains and in caves, in preparation for a coming ‘time of trouble’ where rampant persecution of Christian will be the norm.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it reflects the same failures Israel chose to go through with the blessings and knowledge they had received.  When Abraham’s personal search for meaning led him to feet of our God, he established a relationship with God that was to last for centuries.  Through Abraham the entire world would be blest.  Abraham’s descendents were blessed in part because they continued to choose to serve Abrahams God, but also for the sake of their patriarch Abraham himself.  And what did the children of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob do with all this knowledge of God?  What did they do with all the blessings he showered on them?  They turned their focus inward.  Instead of being a light for the rest of the world to see, instead of sharing what they were given, they built walls to separate themselves from those who hungered for meaning around them. 

Yes, one could argue that all through Biblical times there were a faithful few who did do as God commanded, and thus we have the incredible witness of our Bible heroes.  But imagine the length, breadth, and depth of the potential witness on history if the ENTIRE Jewish nation had been faithful to God, and acted outwardly to save those they feared, rather than run from them.  Perhaps the world would have been full of results like Jonah had.  Jonah (after spending a little quality time in the fish’s belly) went as he was commanded to Nineveh and warned the people there.  Instead of the reaction he expected (them calling him crazy, maybe even hurting him) – the people repented, and the city was spared.  Jonah was one man.  What if an entire nation were faithful to this calling?

Our somewhat paranoid brethren forget one of the first mandates of the gospel – to share it.  But back to the opening statement of this blog – you can’t share what you don’t know.  If the good news of the salvation of man has not been made personal for you, unique to you, meaningful to you, REAL to you – then you have nothing to share.  If you have not felt forgiveness; if you have not experienced unconditional love; if you have not witnessed changes happening within your character from the mercy of a power beyond your own understanding – what do you really know about the gospel?  There is no compelling reason to share something that is really only a theory.  Those who hunger for meaning and surround you everyday are not looking for mere education – they are looking for a real impact on their day-to-day lives.  They are searching for what only Christ can offer them, yet I find all too often we are silent in the face of their need.

Those who would choose to run, rather than to witness, take ignorance to entirely new level.  Exactly what is to be preserved from the action of running from opposition to God?  Your life, your wealth, your peace of mind?  Seems to me running means you’re giving up your wealth – so that will be forfeited.  Your peace of mind seems quite in jeopardy if you are required to flee due to your fear.  So is it merely your earthly survival you are so intent on maintaining?  My question, is why?  What is so good about life here that you would abandon the reason for living it (to share the truth of God with those you love), and seek solitude and isolation in a cave just to exist a few more days? 

Even if the interpretation of prophesy that leads to a belief in widespread and horrific persecution of Christians in the last days is true and something you fear, your sort of missing the point.  The warning message was not given to inspire fear but joy.  It means the end of all evil is near.  It means it will not be long before we can live close to our God unencumbered with our inclinations to choose and do evil.  This is wonderful news.  It is meant for us to understand the URGENCY of the message and faith we share; not to turn from our trust in God and start taking measures into our own hands to merely preserve our earthly existence.  Think of the absolute stupidity of trusting in your own strength to preserve your life.  You think burying cans of food in the ground is going to keep you from going hungry – when you cannot even control where you will be at the end of time.  Do you really think ANY effort you can take to prepare cannot be quickly and completely obliterated by an all-seeing enemy bent on your destruction if not for the intervention of God on your behalf?  This kind of looking inward for comfort is truly dumb.  If God be for you, who can be against you.  If persecution is to come, then God alone can be your shield and your protection, or you will die.

As time is running out on this world, eager anticipation of the next one begins.  But this eagerness can be quickly supplanted by fear in those who do not understand what is coming, or the benevolent nature of our God, and the catastrophic effect evil has had on the world.  In short, if you are not waiting to meet a personal friend and a personal God, you are probably not so eager for this world to come to an end.  If you have not discovered yet that each evil choice you make ultimately hurts you, hurts those you love, and hurts God – then you may not be quite ready to give up evil yet.  The clock ticking does not really change anything about the true nature of good or of evil, but it does place a limit on the time to gain the knowledge of these things.

Don’t get me wrong, when God directs you to flee, you flee.  But when God is searching for someone to STAND for Him, will you already be in the car, half way to the Smokies?  The gospel is something that screams within us to get out.  It is a light too bright to hide in our darkness.  It not only illuminates our own pathways but sheds light on those around us, even if we are reluctant to let it.  There is no hiding the effect of the gospel within us.  Unless we have only ever embraced the gospel as mere theory, a collection ‘moral’ philosophies and good ‘ideas’, the power of the gospel will be undeniable.  The results mandate our action.

We do NOT witness in order to be saved by God.  Just like we do not do ANY good act in order to be saved.  But because we are saved, and have experienced God within us, we are powerless to contain ourselves in this regard.  The Spirit that lives within us drives us to serve.  When we let God have control of us, His goodness overwhelms us, and pours out through us even when we least expect it.  It becomes too important to us.  Once having sampled the goodness of God, we are compelled to share it with others.  There may come a time when those around us refuse to hear our words any longer.  They may scream at us to shut up, and say no more.  There may come a time when evil has full domination of those who have chosen it.  But that time is not yet, and not now.  And when that time comes, I hope there are those who still have the courage to meet it, and have not chosen to flee all too early…

Speaking Out ...

You can’t share what you don’t know.  Christians sometimes feel conflicted about the whole concept of witnessing to others.  Some feel it is their ‘responsibility’ to save others.  Some fear condemnation or ridicule from a public declaration they believe in a Savior God of any kind.  Some believe that other Christian zealots have so polluted the real image of Christ, that to bring up His name at all is just going to invoke a negative reaction.  Others think that a simple life of example is enough witness.  Do we owe God something?  Are we commanded to save, or just to preach, or simply to share what we know?  What is our responsibility?

Unfortunately this topic often degenerates into a discussion of maintaining a set of subjective Christian ‘standards’.  Those who do not share the collective mind-set are strongly encouraged to take-in the ‘truth’ or be subject to eternal condemnation.  Witnessing is turned into an exercise of judgment and condemnation of the unsaved rather than an effort to spare them.  This entire outlook is based on an arrogant and therefore evil philosophy that humans have ‘anything’ to do with the saving of souls.  ONLY Christ saves the human soul.  No human is capable of accomplishing that.  We are not commanded in the Bible anywhere to ‘save’ others, only Christ can do that.  Our role is defined better is just a bit.

Then consider the case of those who fear ridicule of their peers who do not have any faith, or perhaps have been so badly damaged by Christian zealots that negativity is the only response to any mention of faith.  Preaching to these non-believers is not likely to have any substantial positive outcome.  If your peers otherwise like you, they may tolerate your lecture – if not, it will be quickly discarded, and you will likely be avoided like the black plague.  The fear of this outcome keeps many Christians silent on all matters of faith.  They artfully avoid any situation that might cause them to have to either publically declare for Christ, or deny Him as Peter did.

The problem with looking at witnessing in either of these contexts is that it completely misses the point.  Again, you cannot share what you do not know.  Have you experienced the saving grace of the Savior in your own life, or have you just heard about it the lives of others.  Do you know what it means to be forgiven, or is this something for the less fortunate?  When God causes you to realize your plight, seek His assistance, recognize your weakness, and allow His transforming power to alter the course of your life – what real affect does it have on you?  Having experienced these things, witnessing is not a chore.  Witnessing is not some random command Christ gave us before returning to Heaven to prepare it for us.  Witness is as automatic as breathing.  You cannot share what you do not know.  But you cannot contain what God does in you, through you, and for you.  When the light burns bright within you, it WILL light the darkness all around.

It is not your job to start the fire, that is up to God.  It is not your job, to shape the minds of others, that is up to God.  All you can do, is share what you have seen, what you have heard, what you have witnessed in your OWN life.  This is all that is relevant to anyone you know.  Pointing others in the direction of the source of the changes is your role.  You are NOT God.  You do not save, nor judge, nor condemn.  You speak out, and your language will betray the thoughts of your soul.  Once having been seriously touched by the finger of God, you will be powerless to avoid witnessing, and you have no desire to avoid it.  How could you not share the most wonderful experience known to man on this planet earth? 

The words you need to say, will not be your own.  The words will be provided by God when the time occurs.  But you cannot share what you do not know.  God is real.  Belief in Him will change you.  If you profess a belief in God, be prepared to see your life become changed.  Your patience will increase.  Your love will increase.  Your less than perfect habits will begin to change.  God is real.  When He makes a promise to save you, He does not break it.  If you accept God, He WILL enter your life and heart.  He will begin to make changes, as many as you learn to allow.  He never forces Himself on you, but patiently calls you to repentance and then to reform.  If God presented you a list of all the things that were ‘wrong’ with your life, your behavior, and your thinking all at once – you would commit suicide quickly.  The reason the evil ones cry for the rocks to fall on them at the appearance of God in the clouds on His return, is the all-at-once realization of how evil they are, and how perfect is the Lord.  Evil is unable to stand in the presence of such holiness.

This is why Moses was not permitted to look on God’s face while he was up on Mount Sinai getting the Ten Commandments.  God was not being shy in the mountains, He was careful to protect Moses from the full view of perfection while Moses suffered under the condition of sin, an otherwise terminal disease.  God showed Moses only what he was capable of seeing without a total collapse under the burdens and guilt of his condition.  Even the brief glimpse of our Lord, causes Moses’ hair to become white as snow, and left him with a visible glow of light radiating from him.  Just being in the presence of the Lord caused Moses to become a-glow with the light of the Lord, quite literally.  God has not changed.  Being in His presence has not changed.

When you spend time in the presence of the Lord, in private study, in church or fellowship with like believers, in your secret prayers, in a concert that glorifies His name – a light is ignited in you.  When the Spirit of the Lord sees fit to amplify that light, you cannot help but become wholly consumed by it.  It overflows your life.  It alters your speech and makes the illiterate become the most articulate yet simple and clear in sharing the pure truth of God.  Those dulled by the effects of sin, spend time at the feet of their Lord obtaining the forgiveness that truly forgives and makes changed in their very soul.  At this experience, no one can keep silent.  We are driven to share, driven to point others to the source of all good in our own experience.  Being in the presence of our God now has the same effect on us as it did on Moses – we carry a light into the world.

Have you ever met a genuine Christian before?  You know what I’m talking about; a person who you just KNOW is a true humble servant of God.  A real prayer warrior.  A real genuine believer.  You know how you were able to see these characteristics through the veil of sin that covers us all?  It is because that person’s connection with God is so strong the light shines through the darkness and reaches your perceptions.  It is not because that person is some sort of Saint.  They struggle just like you do with the evil that infects this world.  It is not their glory you see, it is the reflection of the Light of the Lord you see shining through them.  You can pay these people no real compliments as they would be the first to decry their own righteousness.  They above others know there is no good thing within them.  The goodness you see comes from the source of all Good, and is simply reflected through them because they allowed it to occur.  You can do the same.

What Moses accomplished for God is not some ancient history lesson for the Jewish people.  It is a current provocative challenge to those who follow God today.  Are you willing, as Moses was, to allow God to control your life’s direction?  Are you willing to allow God to choose your destiny for you, to send you where He will, to have you do what He chooses for you, and to work His power through your fraility?  If so, you may well be on your way to being this generation’s Moses.  And there need not be just one.  God has room for a nation of those with faith stronger than Abraham, dedication like that of Daniel, leadership like that of Moses, wisdom like that told of Solomon.  The Bible is full of flawed, frail, human beings, who struggled – failed – and were forgiven.  They accomplished so much not because they were special, but because they were willing.  Are you willing?  Are you ready for the ride of your life?  God waits only to hear you simply say yes …   Then watch the witnessing begin.  You will share what He leads you to understand, it is impossible to hide the light in darkness …

Making A Difference ...

There is no greater feeling of loss than a feeling of being useless.  One word can encapsulate such an insult; far worse than demeaning your looks, or denigrating your intelligence, to be referred to as useless reduces the meaning in life to absolute zero.  Everyone seeks a level of self importance, derived from being relied upon, or just needed in some way; in short we all want to feel like our lives make a difference.  But do they?

A thousand years ago a man lived in what is now referred to as Italy.  He had a family.  He had a wife, kids, maybe even a dog or cat or two.  What do we know about him?  Nothing.  Then did his life have meaning, did he make a difference?  And if not, are we any different?  Won’t someone looking back at us after a thousand more years of this earth’s history know nothing about us, and perhaps determine our existence was meaningless.  We look that way at our 1000 year gone Italian man.  How are we any more significant than he was?  No, this is not an exercise in depression, it is a challenge to determine real meaning.

The man who lived a thousand years ago may have invented a tomato sauce we use in pasta to this day, though his name is lost in the years that follow.  His recipe may be a staple in our diets without recognition, reward, or notice.  Fact is we have no way of knowing how large a contribution he made on our world.  His anonymity does not reduce what he may have done, only our recognition of who was behind it.  Let’s face it, not too many people devote their lives to memorizing historical references of people making contributions to society.  Oh sure, we remember the real ‘stand outs’ but the countless schmoe’s who live their lives in relative obscurity, even when they do something semi-grand are less remembered if at all.  So does it take ‘greatness’ and name-recall to achieve making a difference?

When Christ walked this earth, His life was filled with countless acts of charity.  Not for fame, not for reward, not for recognition – simply because He wanted to live this way.  He simply chose to serve others throughout His entire life.  He did not have to.  He was certainly worthy of being served, not doing the serving.  The Bible is full of stories of people whose lives were touched by Christ in deep and personal ways.  But you’re just reading the tip-of-the-iceberg in these accounts.  33 years of service, and probably thousands of personal encounters.  Entire villages healed of disease.  And still He lived performing simple acts of random kindness for those He came across.  His teaching did not prevent Him from serving.  And even without the grandeur of the plan of salvation, His simple life of service turned the world upside down.

Our problem is we look at the wrong things as being important.  We focus on our own fame, when we consider whether our life has had meaning (even if we limit our view of fame to those who know us).  We look to leave behind some sort of legacy that will substantiate our lives.  We look for greatness.  We should be looking the other direction.  We should look to a series of small unnoticed acts of service to others.  Not to find yet another way of becoming famous for it, but simply because we chose to live that way.  The value and impact on the world you leave behind you is directly proportionate for what you do for others – anonymously.  Christ had no need to go around performing service to trumpet His name among the people.  He did not heal someone and tell them to go out and brag about it for Him.  No, often He told them to keep it a secret.  He did not want fame to interfere with His mission.  Think about it, God on earth, who lives a life specifically designed to avoid attention.

Where we seek notoriety, Christ sought humility.  We must find a way to give, and keep it to ourselves.  Let the giving we do reflect our life choice not our desire to seek fame.  Give the homeless man a dollar or two and tell no-one.  He knows what you did.  You know it.  God knows it.  It’s enough.  Donate to that family in church you heard about that has suffered a devastation, and do it quietly so no-one even knows you did it.  Get yourself, out of your thinking, focus on the needs you can meet.  There should be no guilt in charity.  Do not give because you feel like your ‘evil’ if you don’t.  Give because you want to give.  Give because you make a conscience choice to be a person who gives without wanting notice.  No “thank-you’s” expected.  Forget your charity as quickly as you perform it, and look for another way to give.

This is the recipe for living a life that makes a difference.  And the beauty of this recipe is that it does not require great wealth.  You do not have to have an IQ of 180 to participate.  Tiny young children are eligible to take part, old folks in a managed-care facility can still do this.  You’re not limited by your location or your circumstances only by your character.  Fellow prisoners need your kindness.  Fellow nursing home neighbors need your kindness.  Fellow Ghetto gang-bangers are not immune to kindness.  Nor are the extremely rich and powerful.  Anyone can avoid feelings of being useless, or hopeless, by simply living a life dedicated to kindness to others.  Disinterested benevolence is a reflection of the image of God while He walked this earth.

So is my 1000 year old Italian man a renaissance artist?  Is he really famous and I may be just hiding his identity?  Does he even exist?  Does it matter?  You are who I am talking about.  It’s your life that will be measured in your eyes.  It’s your life that will be remembered by those who love you.  The impact of your life will not be determined by how much money you acquired, how large a company you built, not even by how many people you knew, or how many friends you have.  The impact of your life will be measured in the love you show. 

To make a difference, be different.  Be someone who chooses to love widely.  Don’t restrict your love to your significant other, or to your family, and closest confidants – spread your love and your kindness widely, and quietly.  Be a ninja donor to those in need.  Become someone who makes a difference, rather than being the same person who merely is looking for a series of actions to be remembered by.  This is the core of the issue – become different, and you will make a difference.  Following the crowds in apathy, or hostility, is the common course – to love is the uncommon.  And when love is at the core of “who” you are, your life will turn this world completely upside down once again.