Life Meets Doctrine

I had the privilege of spending yesterday wtih Jeff DeArment (a staff member for our church) attending the Leadership Summit simulcast.  Leadership Summit is an outreach of Willow Creek Association.  I am not a big fan of Willow Creek, but I have learned that I can learn from just about anybody.  Yesterday was a day of good, refreshing, encouraging training in the area of leadership.  Willow Creek is unashamedly Christian, and many of the message were laced with Scripture.  I left very grateful for the first day of the event.  Today is Day 02.  Here is the take away from Day 01.

#1 – Shorty, pithy axioms can actually be helpful in leadership.  Sometimes I get tired of short maxims.  They seem just a little removed from the urgency of today’s reality, the mess on my desk, or the decisions staring me in the face.  But Bill Hybel’s talk on the “high drama of decision-making” helped me realize where such maxims come from.  He outlined a 4-step process of decision-making that goes like this: (1) what does the Bible say about this decision?  (2) what do wise counselors say about this decision?  (3) what does my past pains or past gains or past experiences speak into this decision?  (4) how is the Holy Spirit prompting me concerning this decision?  I found this simple outline quite helpful.  Then he said that over years of experience and years of tracking through this process over and over again, things like axioms emerge.  They emerge out of the Scriptures and wise counsel and experience and prayer.  They don’t replace them, but they emerge out of them.  And I can use them.

#2 – God’s justice is beautiful.  The talk I was looking forward to most was Gary Haugen’s.  He is the President of International Justice Mission, and I had learned about him when I was reading Not For Sale (a phenomenal book, I might add).  Gary’s description of the justice of God being driven and motivated by the goodness of God was incredible.  The age old question of Why Does God Allow These Horrible Atrocities? – things like 2 million children being in forced prostitution, according to UNICEF – was answered quite differently.  Gary said the problem in that question is not God.  The problem is that God’s people have not shown up on the scene to show God’s goodness to those children, those women, those families in poverty or hunger.  God’s people have tasted God’s goodness; now God’s justice should drive them with relentless passion to take God’s goodness where injustice now exists.

I particularly found that this goes hand in hand with parts of Habakkuk and Amos.  Both of these prophets were given messages of God’s justice.  And it seems that God isn’t demanding justice because he is a stiff-necked, old codger in the sky who likes to get mad.  Instaed, God is demanding justice because he is good and loving.  It is true that God’s righteousness and God’s justice is meant for his glory, to display who He is – not just to alleviate humanity.  But part of God’s glory is the redeeming and renewing of humans…and the removal of injustice.  The most potent passage in my mind right now is Amos 5:21-24.  God reveals that he is hating the religious motions of the Israelites; instead he demands justice rolling down like a river!

And here is what I have to own, to take responsibility for.  Right now, God’s plan for removing injustice in our world…is…the church!  It is us!  One other talk yesterday – from Efrem Smith – said that, “Until Jesus comes back in full justice…it’s just us.”  May God give me the grace to break for 2 million children in forced prostitution.  May God give me the grace to lose my comfortable life for the sake of his name among slaves.  May God give me the grace to give so that others might live – those others who are at life and death moments around the world right now, those on the brink of starving, those who can’t find clean water, those who can’t get basic help, those without a mom or dad.  May God give me and my family the grace to love God’s justice.

And I want to do this with the Gospel of Jesus for the glory of Jesus and for the joy of all peoples.  The goal is not the end of injustice or the end of poverty or the end of hunger.  The goal is the glory of God through the end of injustice, the end of poverty, and the end of hunger.  That would be beautiful.  He would be beautiful.

#3 – The final take away from Day 01 is that a good old fashioned African-American preacher who loves Jesus is always the best way to end a day.  Thank you, Efrem Smith.

Off to Day 02.