Come or welcome?

As someone comes to our house, this is what welcomes them in the late Spring. Anyone that comes just has to receive what is already given to them. No one has to invoke the beautiful setting that blesses them upon arrival. The laurels did not have to be invited to bless you and me, they just had to be received as they welcome us.

I have always been curious at some of the theology in contemporary praise and worship music. This is not to say there is some interesting theology in some of the old hymns too, but the singing in the mainstream churches does not have the same fervor that it does in evangelical churches where the congregation is more "into" the singing as an active part of worship.

To me, this makes it more concerning when theology may be a little off because the worshiper is more likely to take into his or her soul the words of the songs. By taking in slightly flawed theology the worshiper may be reinforcing in their soul patterns of thought that can negatively affect their understanding of God and subsequently the quality of their experience with God.

Here are some recent examples:
"God, I am chasing after You" - we don't chase after God. He is not hiding or running from us. Rather, He pursues us. It would be more correct to sing, "God I am ready to be caught."

"Let justice and praise become my embrace" - no, justice is the focus of our carnal mind. Our flesh desires fairness. Grace is the way Kingdom dwellers make sense of things. God is just but He took care of the justice for us. "Grace and praise become my embrace."

"Let you face shine on us" - The Gospel is about Christ in us, the hope of glory. "On" is a more external view of God's favor given to us for our benefit. He wants His "face" to shine in or through us so that others see Him when they see us for His benefit.

And finally, "Come Lord Jesus come" - God sent Jesus to us before we even knew we needed Him (prevenient Grace). He needs no invite. It is His initiative that claims us. Our response to His initiative is to receive or welcome Him who has already come.

I know that many of you think I am just splitting hairs because I am a word nerd. However, I am sold out to the fact that how we make sense of our self and God goes a long way to determine, not our salvation, but the quality of our experience and witness as a Kingdom dweller.

Our nature influences us in ways that are legalistic and at odds with God's view of us. We need to sing into our souls our thankfulness for His Sovereign Grace, His initiatives on our behalf, and our role as ambassadors, not club members with amenities based on our dues.

"I have moved past religion"

Several times I have had friends respond to something I post with the words, "I have moved past religion." My response is always, "so have I." While we may have come to the same conclusion, it means something very different for us. My friends have concluded that religion as they know it is really not relevant or rational and pursuing it is somewhat a waste of time, while I have concluded that my relationship with Jesus is not about religion and is worth everything. Here is one way to look at this difference.

Many acorns fall from an oak tree, but only a few become an oak tree. I am totally amazed that all acorns do not become a tree, given they have the same opportunity, and even more amazed that I have no idea why the acorn that becomes a tree is the one that does. Basically, I am at a loss for explanation. However, i am fully aware of the truth that many acorns die and just absorb into the soil, never to produce more life while some acorns die as an acorn only to become a greater life, a tree that is way more than an acorn. I can trust that some acorns are selected to become trees leaving many others to die forever. I may not like that all acorns do not become trees but I am very thankful that some do, realizing that some power way beyond me makes that choice.

It doesn't seem that the acorn that lives on to become a tree does anything different than the other acorns. There is no special trick or work that the acorn can choose to become a tree. Acorns do not choose where they fall, whether they get destroyed by squirrels or the elements of nature. Many acorns have the same opportunity to become a tree, but some do and some don't. Further, the acorn doesn't really have to figure out how to become a tree. The acorn just does what's natural to it once the seed dies and the tree begins.

So, how should the acorn that becomes a tree feel. Should the acorn resent the power that selected it to become a tree and left others out, or should it be grateful it was selected? Acorn "religion" would be the attempt for acorns to pursue the power that can make them a tree and win its favor. But this is futile because acorns are somewhat powerless to win favor with the Power that makes them a tree.  

I have the same trust when it comes to life and death. I can trust that some power exist that makes a way for me to die and become an even greater life, while many others will die and receive no new life. But I have no way to explain it. I happen to believe that this power is God and the way I am transformed to a greater life rather than die to any greater life is by the work of God on my behalf. God has only one plan to convert me who has no potential on my own to produce a greater life. He sent His son Jesus to die and become this greater life so that when I receive this Jesus, I receive this power. Should I then resent the source of the Power or be thankful this Power made a way for me to live the greater life?

Thus, human "religion" is a similarly futile activity. God does not transform a person to a greater life because the person finds a way to gain favor with God, but by simply receiving in faith that he or she has been selected by God for this greater life and living in thanksgiving to God that He was gracious to select him or her. Once selected, there is no special work the person has to conjure up to become a "tree', but rather just play out the new life that came when the "acorn" seed died.

So, I am in agreement with my friends to move past religion. However, I can wish that God has selected them and that they don't know it yet. Moving past religion is a good first step, but it needs to be followed by receiving the new life of an oak tree bursting on the scene in their own life.

I am glad God is God and I am not .......

What makes a trial a trial?

The Christian faith has a lot to say about trials and how to make sense of them. A popular example is the verse in James "Brother, count in all joy when you meet trials of various kinds." Pastors, teachers, and theologians tell us these kinds of things with some expectation that hearing and knowing this makes us deal with "trials" in productive ways. Yet, if you listen to Christians discuss their lives, it is NOT the norm to hear joy expressed. Trials seem to be more of a struggle than a joy.

So, how can we have so much emphasis on the Christian response to "trials," but we have so little Christian response to "trials"?

I'll offer a few thoughts and as you would expect, these will be consistent with my theme that much of what we believe about the Kingdom of God is not really appropriated in the lives of Christians. The stealth effect of human nature on believers is an ever present influence. The notion that human nature is an exchange based imperative provides some insight in understanding "trials".  For instance, I recently asked a group of Christian men, "what makes a trial a trial?" After a large pregnant pause, the following thoughts started trickling out in response. "Its when something hurts us." "Its when something happens that sets us back." "Its when we lose something we need or want." I am sure this list can go on and on but will have the same central theme - I have done things with an expectation to receive from others or create a desired situation and now my actions are not being rewarded in the way I wish. These could be intentional acts of others, such as breaking a relationship, or an unintentional thing, such as becoming ill or injured or the death of a friend or family.

The fact is, a trial is only a trial when we are making sense of things through our human nature and not our Kingdom mind, which makes sense of things in a different way. The Kingdom mind understands things this way - God has taken care of all my soul's needs by redeeming me and so my response to experiences in the world is just faithfulness to my redemption. In other words as life events disappoint our nature's wants, we don't feel the anger, frustration, and fear that exchange would produce, but we feel thankfulness that these events are not what determines our soul's well-being.

Let me use a popular model from human psychology to further explain this. Although we are spiritual, we are still human and thus we are not void of psychology (thoughts, feelings, and choices). The Emotion Regulation model explains things this way -

An event happens which produces a felt emotion. We then either suppress that emotion or act on in in ways we think are appropriate. The type of response is what we call coping. Most often we construct a response that we and others feel are consistent with what we believe. 

This is often what Christians and non-Christians both do, and the difference between them is simply how people evaluate the response. This is one reason the world believes Christianity is nothing really different or special but just a particular coping mechanism, nothing more. However, God tells us to "count it joy" not to cope with it well (it being "trial"). So there must be something more we are missing.

Yes there is. The Emotion Regulation model has another key point. The model suggests that we can reappraise the event and not even have the same felt emotion. In other words we can think about the event that occurs in our lives in a way that we do not even feel the fear, disappointment, etc. from a "trial." The question is what drives the reappraisal mechanism. The humanist would propose something like the power of positive thinking, whereas God would point us to our Kingdom mind described above.

The power of positive thinking is still subject to social exchange and must convince us that we can make exchanges work in our favor if we just keep trying. The problem is the source of the power. Is the exchange mechanisms in our life trustworthy? Are they capable of delivering?

The Kingdom mind reminds us that God has provided for me all of His Heavenly provisions, independent of the event. So, why are we seeing the event unfavorably? In fact unfavorable events actually tune us in more to our heavenly privilege and less on the earthly rights. This is actually what "repentance" means. Reappraisal produces joy INSTEAD of the typical felt emotions. That is why "we can count it all joy." The power of positive thinking is suspect. We cannot depend on the world around us to reward us the way we want all the time. The power of reappraisal using our Kingdom mind is underwritten by the power of the resurrection.

The Christian life is not just a better coping mechanism than other human strategies for coping, it is a renewed mind that transforms felt emotions in a way that a 'trial" is not really a "trial", but an opportunity to receive in faith the privileges and provisions of the Heavenlies. There's the joy!!

Certainly worth pondering .....

You can read more about this in

found @ http://www.amazon.com/Stuck-Stinkin-Thinkin-Divine-Alternative/dp/1494266237/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429022806&sr=8-1&keywords=stuck+in+stinkin+thinkin+caldwell

Easter - a time for reappraisal

Easter is a well celebrated holiday, right there with Christmas in terms of church attendance and social holiday. Of course, most people know the story of Easter, the cross and the resurrection. Many know the resurrected Jesus and His power unto salvation. We know a lot about the Easter story, but it is helpful if we reflect on Easter as His Story and maybe even rethink a lot about ourselves in doing so.

I heard a sermon this morning at an Easter sunrise service on top of Glassy Mountain in a beautiful, quaint little chapel. I will have to say that the lure of going was the beauty of the surroundings. I wasn't expecting much from the service except that the choral group from North Greenville University is always a blessing.

Much to my surprise, a lady pastor from a mainstream denomination delivered one of the most impressive messages on Easter that i have ever heard. The sermon text was Isaiah 62:4, "No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married."  You might be thinking as I was, what a strange passage for Easter.

This word from God through Isiah focuses on names, especially the name that God has for us in contrast with the name others may have for us or worse yet, the name we have for ourself. God says thru His prophet, no longer are you alone, rejected, forsaken. You are now Hephzibah, which means the one in whom I delight. And then he says (using land as a reference to us, His people) we are Beulah, which means beautiful. He goes even further and compares His delight and our beauty in his eyes to that of a groom, watching his bride come down the aisle. God is reminding us that this is who we are, this is how we are viewed by Him.

Easter is the celebration of the work of redemption, the transforming power to take us from an ugly, desolate, deserted existence to a child in whom a Holy King of the universe knocks Himself out over. Whose face glows beyond imagination in His pursuit of us as His bride.

That is the message of Easter, the transforming power of Grace .... for me ..... and for you .... 

WE ARE NO LONGER DESOLATE

Revisiting Leadership

Leadership is probably the most discussed and least understood concept in our society today. We throw the word around primarily in the desires we have for people in authority in government, business, families, teams, and so forth. The key debate centers on the notion of whether leaders are born or made - is effective leadership based on traits of a person or what they learn to do.

The main reason there are so many views on leadership, so much effort to produce it, and still such a crisis in the lack of it is the misconceptions we have about it. One issue is that people confuse position with leadership. The fact is that all people in authority are not leaders and all leaders are not people in authority. So we need to dismiss that aspect in understanding who is and who is not a leader.

Another major issue is that leaders influence, but not all influence is leadership. A salesman influences another person to buy his product, but the salesman did not exercise leadership. Parents influence what their children eat but are not necessarily leading them to better health. Much influence is exchange based, using incentives or coercion, and is not considered leadership.

The study of leadership across the past 30 years focuses on the idea that an individual leads when he/she inspires others to commit to a goal whose outcome benefits them and others in mutual ways. The key words here are "inspire" and "mutual". To inspire someone is to effect their motivation by appealing to their intrinsic factors versus their extrinsic ones. Intrinsic factors of motivation are the benefits an individual receives from inside their own soul based on a behavior. These internal benefits are usually purpose, meaning, and enjoyment. Extrinsic are supplied by the individual's external environment, such as money, praise, and punishment. Mutual refers to outcomes that benefit the individual as a member of a larger group. This benefit requires individuals to commit to something beyond themselves, leaving self interest mainly out of their motivation.

Basically, what leadership involves is for the leader to emotionally take the goal pursuit of a group on his/her shoulders and move them all forward. The leader is taking others to a new and better place, not focusing on making the status quo right, but making the future bright. This requires that the leader have vision, or can see a future that is not yet. The leader must have a passion, not as much for the vision but for the benefit of the vision to the followers. For example, R E Lee didn't have a passion for Succession or slavery, but he had a passion for his fellow Virginians and there ultimate welfare. For someone to lead he/she must have the emotional courage to see opportunities in the midst of uncertainty and push through obstacles as if they were not there. The leader does not just think about the journey, the leader lives the journey.

Given that these are true about and fundamental to leadership, are there characteristics of individuals that contribute to the likelihood one will be effective at leading? My understanding of the study of leadership and my own experience finds that there are stable, embedded traits that must be present in individuals and some traits that cannot be present. First those traits that cannot. An individual cannot lead and be dogmatic. One who is constrained by whether situations are black and white cannot see possibilities well. An individual cannot be a blame avoider. Leaders must take responsibility for their own actions or they will be hesitant to act when circumstances look formidable. leaders cannot be more afraid of making a mistake than concerned about missing an opportunity.

Leaders must have a high EQ (emotional intelligence). This ability allows the leader to empathize with the followers emotions as well as regulate his/her own emotions. The regulation of emotions allows the leader to effectively reappraise situations to relieve negative felt emotions rather than suppressing them creating stress and burnout. Leaders must have energy for the journey. Leaders must have a high need for autonomy given that often they are having to act before others have caught up. Most importantly, leaders must be primarily intrinsically motivated. If they are to be missional, they must be purpose driven. Many people, who have authority positions, may be successful managers but lack leadership because they are primarily driven by the external rewards of success, such as financial gain, power, and status.

Often people confuse traits of a leader with leadership style. Characteristics, such as need for control and extraversion/introversion, determine the way someone leads, not whether they can lead. Leadership style can impact effectiveness of leadership depending on the situation. However, when assessing whether an individual has qualities of a leader, style should not be considered. Confusing the two is a common mistake of people who select and assess others for leadership.

There is much more to this question of leadership than what is shared here, but hopefully this provides a framework for those interested in leadership to do some pondering .....  

Much Ado about the wrong conflict

The recent hullabaloo about the religious protection legislation in Indiana and Arkansas has kinda irritated me. Not because I am a bigoted intolerant chap (which I am not), but because it is an iconic example of the war between government and the market that no one will talk about, even leaders of major businesses. There is obvious the ongoing conflict between cultural trends and Christians' desire to influence society with an "ethic" that is aligned with Biblical values. This is not my concern here. This has been going on for hundreds of years and most likely will continue.

The concern I have as a business scholar is with how society and its surrogate, the government, is so willing to use cultural trends to demand that businesses make certain choices that should be driven by market forces. The current uproar is not new to this concern, just illustrative. Here is the point, markets become less effective at delivering goods and services to society when society, through its instrument the government, interferes and manipulates markets instead of allowing the market forces to determine what happens.

This started years ago with labor markets. The civil rights movement had a valid role in delivering voting rights and public practice discrimination. It is when it moved into employment practices that it began to distort the forces of labor markets. In other words when the government begin to tell businesses who they should hire, who they should promote, how they should pay, what benefits they should offer, etc., the labor markets ceased to influence employment practices to reflect how laborers themselves would support or not certain businesses based on their practices. Businesses then became burdened with regulations and costs that made them less competitive in economic arena.

I recognize the government has a role in regulating markets to the degree that markets would cease being a market, such as price fixing and monopolies. However, when government moves into telling a business who their customers can and should be, then the market becomes dysfunctional and ceases to influence business practices that should exist for the purposes of fulfilling the desires of the capitalists via its customers.

Let me note that the voices we hear from business in favor of the government's role in protecting cultural values are from public companies, not private ones. This is a big difference. the executives of public companies are not owners. Ownership is diffused and distal in terms of identifying the business with personal values and mission. Public companies are more interested in abdicating practices to public opinion because of their concern for the effects of public image on economic success. Private companies, such as Chic-fil-a are very different. They generally are an extension of the owners' personal values and mission and desire to reflect in their business the views and desires of the capitalists. Whereas the management of a public company has little need to reconcile sales and profit issues with personal values of the capitalists, private companies do. Market forces should determine the degree a private business chooses to serve a customer or not based on their on personal values and the effect that has on their own economics. This is NOT the role of government and other surrogates of society.

This is what should be debated, not the cultural value conflict. That has its own field of debate that focuses on society's overall well being, justice, etc. I wish for once one of these governors would turn the debate to the real issue and quit getting hijacked by the public discourse on tolerance that is not the point of the legislation.  

OK, I'll quit pondering now, but maybe you can start .....