"Do you think I'm inferior because I don't profess Jesus Christ?"

So I came across this video on YouTube the other day, and I find it fascinating in relation to campus ministry. It is a 8-min clip of the Bill Maher show where they discuss Christianity (brought up from the "Jesus Camp" film).

There is a lot in it, like Bill Maher's question to the Christian on the show which gives the title of the post. But I put it up on this to discuss because I think the views expressed here are where the majority of our culture IS right now or is going. And I am sure we have all seen this on our campuses already (or maybe you haven't).

My question is, after watching this video (link below), how do we lovingly reach people with the gospel that believe these things?

John Burke Podcast Episode

Hey everyone, I found this podcast for church-planters the other day and saw that John Burke (the author/pastor of the book "No Perfect People" that David gave us all) has an episode talking a lot about reaching postmodern peeps. He talks a lot about some of the topics in the book as well I think. If you haven't had the chance to start reading the book this is a thought-provoking discussion. And if you are like me you dig listening to guys talk on stuff like this, maybe more than reading.

They say some REALLY interesting stuff about creating that "come as you are" mentality that applies well to our movements I think.

Anyway check it out. You gotta have iTunes to listen to it:

Click Here to link to iTunes to get it

SLICE Comments

I just took the SLICE survey last night, and was encouraged by the fact that national wants to continue to learn and understand its staff. What I shared at the end of my comments was that I would have loved to have seen more questions about how we understand and experience 'cultural' Campus Crusade, not just 'missional' Campus Crusade. By 'cultural' Campus Crusade, I mean what is 'caught' but not 'taught' to use someone else's cool phrase. Perhaps these sorts of things are even more important than how much we believe in Crusade's philosophy of evangelism, or how well our support situation is. I would say it's more important because these sorts of 'cultural' beliefs and expectations drive our week to week schedule, and our (the field staff) weekly schedules are what in essence 'produce' the results that our National and Regional teams are looking for.

For instance, I don't think any staff would say that they don't want to or do not believe in sharing their faith. However, I think one of many staff's cultural belief is that there are roles and responsibilities that come before evangelism. Because we are inundated with emails, evangelistic ideas, events, conferences, etc, and so many of us are doers and perfectionists (me for sure), it's extremely hard to filter and in a sense major on the majors. It seems our 'culture' does not want to admit that we can't do it all, and as a result we lose focus and intensity on what's most important in light of our calling--to apostolically minister to the whole campus through the evangelistic modes.

Going back to SLICE, it would seem to be so insightful for the Regional and National leaders to learn these 'cultural' beliefs and expectations, to begin having conversations and promoting dialogue that will begin to bridge what's 'taught' to what's 'caught.' Otherwise, I see the gap between those widening as more and more generation Y people, who are completely in tune with what's 'caught' and mostly disinterested in what's 'taught.'

I want to see our staff recruitment and retention levels rise significantly in the next 5 years. I believe this can happen as we simplify job expectations, boldly challenge people to the mission in an authentic way, and model a ministry lifestyle that flows out of intimacy with Christ, and a passion to see that those who have never heard do. I think our generation Y students want to give their lives to something other than themselves, but need to be captured by someone living courageously and passionately for Jesus.

That's all for now :)
Brian

CD/ACD Feedback Survey

Trying to summarize the many thoughts expressed on the CD/ACD Feedback Survey is a lot like trying to gather feathers during a wintdstorm. But my esteemed colleague, Holly Ashman has done so and so I would like to take a few minutes to reflect upon the things we’ve discovered and in short, summarize Holly’s summary.

First of all, I would like to express on behalf of the Staffed Campus Regional Team (that’s David, Holly and I) that we are so proud of you and the work you are doing. It’s easy in the day to day business of ministry to forget that we are involved in eternally significant, God-glorifying work. I want to remind you again that we see the value of the work you all are doing and eternity is changing because of your faithfulness in the mission. We really love you guys!

We are glad to learn that you guys seem to be enjoying and experiencing Jesus.

There were some serious common denominators in the area of challenges you guys are facing. It seems like as time goes on, complexity seems to grow like the ravenous beast it is. I remember when being a CD meant leading a ministry on campus – meeting with staff and student leaders and setting direction for the movement. Now we’re talking about WSN, ESM, Multiple Movements, financing the ministry and attending several conferences to help you to do each of these things better. Throw in any concept of a personal life, whether you have a family or are single, and we are talking about complexity to extraordinary degrees. It’s a good thing you guys are walking with Jesus! So looming large on our agenda will be to put our heads together about how to help you survive, love Jesus, love your families and even love your job in the midst of the chaos.

It’s fun to see the different things you all are doing to raise the $$$ for the region. We’ve got golf tournaments, fellowship dinners, desserts, luaus… It might be nice to share the wealth as it pertains to wealth.

Evangelism seems to be moving largely towards natural and body modes which is no huge surprise. Students are drawn to the process of evangelism rather than looking at it as an event and we have no problem with that at all. It is still true however that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God or as it’s been put by Keith Davies, all evangelism is relational and all evangelism requires initiative. The famous quote from St. Francis on this is “Share the gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.” I get the idea, but at some point Francis, you’ve got to open your mouth. This is always a tension.

To me, evangelism in the post-modern culture is helping folks see the beauty of the gospel. In modernity, it seemed to be more about just proclaiming the facts of the gospel. I think our job is to present the gospel in such a way that students are captivated by the beauty of it. But it’s still the gospel. People still are saved by God grace (how beautiful is that?!) and through faith. In our pluralistic culture, it is tempting to view the gospel as annoying or offensive and so rather than learning how to communicate it to this generation, we hope our lives will be radically different enough that people will ask us.

I think it’s mainly a swing of the pendulum towards service and that’s not entirely bad because it’s clear in scripture that we should show people love through action and so I am a big fan of the things we’ve been doing with Katrina relief because we are actually caring for people and we are in a position to demonstrate and articulate the beauty of the gospel in the process. You guys are probably more aware of this than I am. So we will keep talking about this. In short, the process of evangelism is happening on our campuses and in this we rejoice.

Another issue that seems common to our leaders is the difficulty in aligning and equipping students to really lead in movement launching ventures. I think the reality is that it’s a rare student that can minister as effectively as our staff and there’s that messy catalytic feel to the movements. One campus made mention of how they are seeing every student as a multiplier. “We have moved to a philosophy in Cru (and our other movements as they grow) that everyone is a Target Area Leader, we challenge all 2nd year students who are walking with Jesus to lead a target area with us. Wider net and lots fail, but they know we are not just a "club" on campus. It seems to weed out those who are excited for ministry and those who are no there.”
Yes, it’s messy, but that is a great example of broad sowing and cultural architecture.

As a whole, it seems our younger students are getting the idea of win, build and send, but there seems to be a suspicion of anything that smacks of corporate CCC. This is not new by the way. We rejoice at the faith steps all of you are involved in as you lead your students by your great example.

In summary of my summary of Holly’s Summary, I will copy and paste the 5 points that Holly came up with for us to chew on as a staffed campus team.

1. We need more think tank time with our local leaders on how to get the gospel out to this generation and how to lead a team to really create multiple movements. They need to share what they are learning and doing. 2. We need to somehow help them not feel so overwhelmed with their role/responsibilities. Each person has different giftings and different capacity, but we need to help them feel like they are doing their job well, and that it's not constantly overwhelming. 3. We need to think through more what rapid reproduction looks like with this generation of students. 4. We need to make sure LL's and their campuses are at healthy support. 5. We need to help students who are leading not feel burned out or overwhelmed in the ministry as well. This is not what God would want for our staff and students. It seems we have such a great task before us, we need to learn how to do only what we are called to do and leave the rest up to God

You’ve been great. Thanks for listening.

I’m out like “Life at Large,”

Mike

Meetings can be fun...

We just wrapped up our semester with evaluation of the Fall and planning for the Spring. One of the things that has really been great for us at Chico is calendaring the semester together, and putting on the calendar events that are key to building our movement--key socials, prayer days, etc. An unexpected suprise/benefit of this is the amount of ownership and excitement it fosters in the team. It does seem that ownership is one of the key ingredients in a succesful team, but is often hard to get the team owning the whole movement, as opposed to just their part. It seems like as we have done this type of semester calendaring together, the team has really felt bought in and owners of the whole, not just their part. I know that this is only one part of the equation, and certainly not meant to be the answer to anything, but it has really benefitted our staff and movement here at Chico.

--Brian

Leadership Insights from John Waidley's forward

Home > Church Leaders > Current Trends & Columns > Leader's Insight

Leader's Insight: When Leaders Implode
Ted Haggard, self-destruction, and the consequences we all suffer.
by Gordon MacDonald, Leadership editor at large

(Editor's note: What are Christian leaders to make of the spectacularly painful experience of watching Ted Haggard this past week? The president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of giga-church New Life Community in Colorado Springs, Colorado, gradually admitted to purchasing methamphetamines and the services of a male prostitute. We asked Leadership editor-at-large Gordon MacDonald to reflect on what we should learn from this episode.)

It is difficult beyond description to watch Ted Haggard's name and face dragged across the TV screen every hour on the news shows. But as my friend, Tony Campolo, said in an interview last week, when we spend our lives seizing the microphone to speak to the world of our opinions and judgments, we should not surprised when the system redirects its spotlight to us, justly or unjustly, in our bad moments.

We are still in the process of learning what has actually transpired over the past many months on the secret side of Ted's life. Sunday the leadership of New Life Church has announced that he has been asked to resign. His ministry at New Life Church and as leader of the National Association of Evangelicals is over.

I've spent more than a little time trying to understand how and why some men and women in all kinds of leadership get themselves into trouble, whether the issues be moral, financial, or the abuse of power and ego. I am no stranger to failure and public humiliation. From those terrible moments of twenty years ago in my own life I have come to believe that there is a deeper person in many of us who is not unlike an assassin. This deeper person (like a contentious board member) can be the source of attitudes and behaviors we normally stand against in our conscious being. But it seeks to destroy us and masses energies that—unrestrained—tempt us to do the very things we "believe against."

If you have been burned as deeply as I (and my loved ones) have, you never live a day without remembering that there is something within that, left unguarded, will go on the rampage. Wallace Hamilton once wrote, "Within each of us there is a herd of wild horses all wanting to run loose."

It seems to me that when people become leaders of outsized organizations and movements, when they become famous and their opinions are constantly sought by the media, we ought to begin to become cautious. The very drive that propels some leaders toward extraordinary levels of achievement is a drive that often keeps expanding even after reasonable goals and objectives have been achieved.

Like a river that breaks its levy, that drive often strays into areas of excitement and risk that can be dangerous and destructive. Sometimes the drive appears to be unstoppable.

This seems to have been the experience of the Older Testament David and his wandering eyes, Uzziah in his boredom, and Solomon with his insatiable hunger for wealth, wives, and horses. They seem to have been questing—addictively?—for more thrills or trying to meet deeper personal needs, and the normal ways that satisfy most people became inadequate for them.

What to watch for
When I see a leader who becomes stubborn and rigid, who is increasingly less compassionate toward his adversaries, increasingly tyrannical in his own organization, who rouses anger and arrogance in others, I wonder if he is not generating all of this heat because he is trying so hard to say "no" to something surging deep within his own soul.

Are his words and deeds not so much directed against an enemy "out there" as they are against a much more cunning enemy within his own soul. More than once I have visited with pastors who have spent hours immersed in pornography and then gone on to preach their most "spirit-filled" sermons against immorality a day or two later. It's a disconnect that boggles the rational mind.

No amount of accountability seems to be adequate to contain a person living with such inner conflict. Neither can it contain a person who needs continuous adrenalin highs to trump the highs of yesterday. Maybe this is one of the geniuses of Jesus: he knew when to stop, how to refuse the cocktail of privilege, fame, and applause that distorts one's ability to think wisely and to master self.

More than once we've seen the truth of a person's life come out, not all at once, but in a series of disclosures, each an admission of further culpability which had been denied just a day or two before. Perhaps inability to tell the full truth is a sign that one is actually lying to himself and cannot face the full truth of the behavior in his own soul.

But then all sin begins with lies told to oneself.

The cardinal lies of a failed leader? I give and give and give in this position; I deserve special privileges—perhaps even the privilege of living above the rules. Or, I have enough charm and enough smooth words that I can talk anything (even my innocence) into reality. Or, so much of my life is lived above the line of holiness that I can be excused this one little faux pas. Or, I have done so much for these people; now it's their time to do something for me—like forgiving me and giving a second chance.

I am heartbroken for Ted Haggard and his wife and family. I cannot imagine the torture they are living through at this very moment. Toppled from national esteem and regard in a matter of hours, they must adjust to wondering who their real friends are now. They have to be asking how these events—known by the world—will affect their children. Mrs. Haggard will not be able to go the local Wal-Mart without wondering who she may bump into when she turns into Aisle 3 (A reporter? A church member? A critic?). Both Haggards will face cameras every time they emerge from their home in the next few days until the media finds another person with whom to have its sport.

The travel, the connections, the interviews, the applause of the congregation, the organizational power, the perks and privileges, the honor: gone! The introit to people of position and power: gone! The opportunity to say an influential word each day into the lives of teachable younger people: gone! The certainty that God has anointed one for such a time as this: gone?

And what will grow each day is the numbing realization of regret and loss. In time they will be approached by people who will say in one way or another, "I used to trust you, but what you've done has made me very angry." "You've turned my son away from the gospel." "I thought I knew you, but I guess I didn't."

It will be a long time before either of the Haggards feel safe again. Suffering over this will last most of a lifetime even after some sort of restoration is rendered. How I wish this could all be lifted from them. Perhaps there will come a day down the pathway when there will be some kind of return to influence. But right now it is—or should be—a long way in the distance.

Prayer for the fallen and those they hurt
Among my prayers is that the leadership of New Life Church will not assume that "restoration" means getting Ted back into the pulpit as soon as possible. The worst thing in the world would be to raise his hopes that just because he models a contrite spirit he can return to public life in the near future. He, for his own sake, must take a long time to work through the causative factors in this situation. He will not resolve whatever is wrong in his own soul by going back to work.

He and his wife must set aside a long, long time to allow their personal relationship to heal. Forgiveness is a long healing, not a momentary one.

And there are those five children. Thinking of them makes me want to weep.

And then there are countless people in and beyond their church who must take a long time to figure out what all of this means. No, the worst things Ted's friends and overseers can do is to bring him back from this prematurely. The best thing they can do is ask him to retreat into silence with those he loves the most and listen—to God, to trusted elders.

Consequences WE must suffer
The statement issued by the NAE Executive Committee late Friday afternoon seems flat to me. It appears to have been written by savvy PR people who wanted to say all the nice and appropriate things which might mollify the media and cause no heartburn for the lawyers. The burden of the statement seems to be that the NAE is already on to the question of who the next leader will be.

The fact is that, all too often, we have seen the President of NAE on the news and talk shows speaking as the leader of so-called 33-million evangelicals. I'm not sure that most of us were polled as to whether or not we wanted Ted Haggard (or anyone) speaking for us. I know that last time I felt safe about anyone speaking for evangelicals as a whole was when Billy Graham talked on our behalf. But, as of late, an illusion was permitted to grow: that the NAE was a well-organized, highly networked movement of American evangelicals headed by Ted Haggard who, when he spoke, spoke for all of us.

Now, unfortunately, that voice has misspoken, and our movement has to live with the consequences.

I have a fairly poor batting average when it comes to predicting the future. But my own sense is that the NAE (as we know it) will probably not recover from this awful moment. Should it? Leaders of various NAE constituencies are likely to believe that their fortunes are better served by new and fresher alliances.

Ever since the beginning of the Bush administration, I have worried over the tendency of certain Evangelical personalities to go public every time they visited the White House or had a phone conference with an administration official. I know it has wonderful fund-raising capabilities. And I know the temptation to ego-expansion when one feels that he has the ear of the President. But the result is that we are now part of an evangelical movement that is greatly compromised—identified in the eyes of the public as deep in the hip pockets of the Republican party and administration. My own belief? Our movement has been used.

There are hints that the movement—once cobbled together by Billy Graham and Harold Ockenga—is beginning to fragment because it is more identified by a political agenda that seems to be failing and less identified by a commitment to Jesus and his kingdom. Like it or not, we are pictured as those who support war, torture, and a go-it-alone (bullying) posture in international relationships. Any of us who travel internationally have tasted the global hostility toward our government and the suspicion that our President's policies reflect the real tenants of Evangelical faith.

And I might add that there is considerable disillusionment on the part of many of our Christian brothers/sisters in other countries who are mystified as to where American evangelicals are in all of this. Our movement may have its Supreme Court appointments, but it may also have compromised its historic center of Biblical faith. Is it time to let the larger public know that some larger-than-life evangelical personalities with radio and TV shows do not speak for all of us?

And so I pray:

Lord and Father,

How sad you must be when you see the most powerful and the weakest of your children fall prey to the energy of sin and evil. There is nothing any one has ever done that we –each of us—is not capable of doing. So when we pray for our brother, Ted Haggard, we pray not out of pity or self-righteousness but with a humble spirit because we stand with him on level ground before the cross.

Father, give this man and his wife the gift of your grace. Protect them from the constant accusations of the evil one who will seek to deny them sleep, tempt them to talk too much to the public, arouse conflict between them as a couple and with their children. Send the right people into their lives who can provide the correct mixture of hope and healing love. Deliver them from people who will curry their favor by telling them things they should not hear. Restrain them from making poor judgments in their most fearful moments.

>Lord, be present to the leaders and people of the New Life Church. And to the NAE leadership which has to live with the side effects of this tragedy. And to people in the evangelical tradition who are wondering today who they can trust. What more can we pray for? You know all things. We so very little.

Amen.

Pastor and author Gordon MacDonald is chair of World Relief and editor-at-large of Leadership.

Ted Haggard and David's Recent Forward

After hearing confirmation that Ted Haggard was dismissed by his board, I googled around and found his bio. What was humbling to regard was the connections between what the author of the forward that David sent about becoming a leader 'of no reputation,' and what Haggard chose to include in his bio. It's humbling for me at least because so many of these same desires, to be noticed, to be respected in the secular world, to be knowledgable, are ripe inside of me. This is what is written on Ted's own bio page:

Pastor Ted Haggard is the president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the largest evangelical group in America. He is also founder and senior pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He formed and serves as the president of both the Association of Life-Giving Churches, a network of local churches, and worldprayerteam.org, the only real-time global prayer network.

Pastor Ted has been interviewed by Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw, Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews, and more. Time included Pastor Ted in their list of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America. Harper’s says, “No pastor in America holds more sway over the political direction of evangelicalism than does Pastor Ted.”

He graduated from Oral Roberts University in 1978 and has received two honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees. He served as the American Vice-President for World Missions for Jesus, a German missions organization, and served as an Associate Pastor at Bethany World Prayer Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which helped him plant New Life Church in 1985. Haggard and his wife, Gayle, have five children.

I am personally praying that God would restore Haggard and even more so that God would protect and provide his wife and children with safe people to grieve and be unconditionally loved by during this time.