Without Thee, I Cannot Live: A Theology of Nominating Committees

Today I was praying for the Nominating Committee of our local association of Baptist churches and a thought or two came my way.  Do you know what a "nominating committee" is?  Basically they are the group in an organization responsible for getting other people to agree to fill voluntary positions and offices.  It's a rather thankless task to be sure.  On another level, however -- on a more spiritual level -- there is something else going on.  Something that I think we do well to ponder.

There is under-girding and thus birthing and sustaining the existence of such a thing as "nominating committees" in Christian circles a truth so central to our lives that it seems all other truths may just hang on it like ornaments on a tree.  It isn't the same thing which gives rise to "nominating committees" outside the Church (or at least it shouldn't be).  Outside it is this, "There are jobs which must be done and positions which must be filled; we need a group whose sole purpose is to berate, guilt, or sucker people into filling those posts."  No! In the Church it is another thing:

"Without Thee, I cannot live!"

Say again?

Consider:

"'Without Thee, I cannot live!' Whatever our small practice, belief, or experience may be, nothing can alter the plain fact that God, the Spirit of spirits, the Life-giving Life, has made or rather is making each person reading these words for Himself; and that our lives will not achieve stability until they are ruled by that truth." (E. Underhill)

Can the follower of Jesus doubt this? Without God, we are hopelessly lost are we not?  Is not our complete and utter dependence upon Him perhaps the uppermost reality governing our lives?

Sure, but what has that to do with "nominating committees"?

Well, only the truly loyal readers have made it this far in a post about "nominating committees" (which is really about God), so let me reward you with a parable:

A little girl goes to school.  Her lunchbox in hand having been lovingly prepared by her attentive and thoughtful mother.  At lunchtime, the girl devours the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, small bag of Cheetos, pickle spear, oatmeal cookie and juice box.  The banana, however, gets tossed into the garbage.  Same as always.  The girl isn't a fruit lover.

And this is a picture of us.  Saying we need God; saying in a voice of triumphant piety, "Without Thee, I cannot live!" Then proceeding to open the lunchbox of what God has prepared.  We pick through and consume what we desire and chuck the rest. We never stop to consider the far greater wisdom of a Parent who has prepared these things (all these things) for us.

So . . . "nominating committees"?

Ah, yes.  Here we are. Well, what exactly has God prepared for us?


1Co 12:7-19 ESV  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,  to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,  to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills . . . .  For the body does not consist of one member but of many.  If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.  And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?  But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.  If all were a single member, where would the body be?

And also . . . 

Eph 4:4-7 ESV  There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--  one Lord, one faith, one baptism,  one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.  But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

God has provided a Body.  The Church. And my point is simple (though I've certainly taken the scenic route to get here).  When we presume that we do not need the Body, when we arrogantly cut ourselves off from noses or fingers or kidneys,  when we foolishly set out to conquer the world as solitary ears or hair follicles or even as a covenanted coalition of knuckles,  then we (to brazenly mix metaphors) are chucking items from the lunchbox carefully and lovingly prepared by our Parent, the Father.  We may say "'Tis but a speckled banana," or (switching back) "merely an ear lobe" but in the act of chucking we are not simply saying, "I don't need bannanas or ear lobes or church planters or Christians who care about the homeless or ESL teachers or "black" churches or "white" churches or Pentecostals or Calvinists or __________ -- No, we are saying something far different. Something much more serious.  We are saying, "Without Thee, I will be just fine!" For when we reject what He, in infinite wisdom and love, has prepared, we reject Him.  But really, we are dead without Him. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, "Without Him, we cannot move an inch!"

So it is upon this foundational truth that all great Christian "nominating committees" through the ions of salvation history have been built.  Or, at least, should be.  Why? Because it is the noble task of the "nominating committee" to say to the Church (or to their little corner of it anyway),

"Everyone, this is Sam. He's a deacon down at XYZ Church. God has given him such and such gifts and experiences.  You need him and Sam needs you, and we'll all be richer, fuller, healthier and happier with him in the lunchbox."

Over and out.

5 Challenges for the Illinois Baptist State Association: #2 Giftedness

Sorry that I've kind of dropped the ball on posting on this topic. I had fully expected to have more time than I did during last week's travels. Anyway, let me get right back into it.

What I'm doing here is a series of posts that originate from a message I shared at the Illinois Baptist State Association last month to a number of the missionary leaders.  I'm sharing with you my 5 challenges to IBSA (our state-level association of Southern Baptists) that I believe represent something of what God is saying to us, especially in the wake of Cape Town 2010 -- the 3rd Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.  You can read challenge one here.  Now let's move on to the second:

2. Illinois Baptist State Association must create (in our individual minds, hearts and in our corporate ministry structures - including reporting systems, evaluation methods and more) new categorizations of value that transcend the smallness of finances, formal education, technology, and "measurable" results.

When I was at Cape Town 2010, I had the privilege of eating dinner one night with Ruth Ndaruhutse of Rwanda. Here's the story:

In the midst of my first full day at CT2010, I was wandering around the convention center looking for a place to eat my dinner. To be completely honest, it felt a bit like high school. I—young, relatively unknown, naturally shy, and easily intimidated—scanned a giant ballroom packed with Lausanne delegates. My eyes landed on a half-full table of Nigerians and one Rwandan, Ruth Ndaruhutse. I timidly took one of the empty seats at the table as Ruth was getting ready to leave. We exchanged a few pleasantries and then, to my delight, she settled back into her chair. Ruth sighed in a kind, motherly sort of way and began to tell me her story.

Ruth Ndaruhutse is Rwanda’s national coordinator for the Pan-African Christian Women Alliance. In the capital city of Kigali, she spends her days ministering to women who have been victimized in various ways by the genocidal massacre of 1994. She and her team take care of widows, orphans, rape victims, and others and teach skills that empower them to earn a living. She teaches them about forgiveness and reconciliation. She teaches them about Christ. In other words, she incarnates the Savior in a truly remarkable way.

Over dinner, Ruth took her time with me. Imparting to me what I’m certain was only a shred of her spiritual giftedness. She had persevered right on through the unspeakable tragedies of her country. She told me about the losses and the pain—unimaginable stories or cruelty and evil. I had to ask, ‘How, sister? How do you do it? How do you forgive?’ She replied with profound simplicity, ‘You cannot grieve for 15 years. You cannot stay in the past. You have to hope for the future —so, it’s like that. It’s like that.’

Ruth and so many others have helped me to see that one of the great lessons of Lausanne III is that, as taught in Ephesians, the Spirit of God has distributed the gifts of grace to each Christian in the whole Body of Christ (Eph. 4:7). Consequently, one of the keys to the pursuit of equilibrium in the Church is to recognize this global giftedness and our tremendous individual need of it. This requires the creation in our minds and hearts of new categorizations of value that transcend the smallness of finances, formal education, and technology. Fung challenged Christians to:

Think beyond just money terms. God’s resources are more than money. In the global family, as the body of Jesus Christ, many of us will bring different gifts. Some will bring and model faithfulness in the context of suffering; and some will model perseverance in the context of poverty and injustice; and some will model godly leadership in their context; and some will model critical theological and missiological reflection beyond the Western paradigm; and some will bring years of experience of commending the Lord Jesus Christ in the context of another world religion. And all of us will contribute together and we will bring a fuller understanding of what it means to be the whole Church bringing the whole Gospel to the whole world.[i]

The Cape Town Commitment states:

We urgently seek a new global partnership rooted in profound mutual love, mutual submission, and dramatic economic sharing without paternalism or unhealthy dependency within the Body of Christ across all continents. And we seek this not only as a demonstration of our unity in the gospel, but also for the sake of the name of Christ and the mission of God in all the world.[ii]

So this is the view of global equilibrium in the Church from the perspective of CT2010. It is a view that recognizes both the corporate richness of the body of Jesus Christ and the poverty of isolation. In it, there is no room for the participation in God’s mission of a fragmented and fighting Church—‘a divided Church has no message for a divided world’.[iii] We must humble ourselves to the reality of giftedness in Christian brothers and sisters that we did not expect to be rich by developing a more biblical understanding of what is valuable and by acknowledging our own personal poverty. And we must do this all for the sake of the gospel and Christ, our only center.

In IBSA, we must find practical ways to recognize, value, and utilize the diversity of gifts that exist throughout the body of Jesus Christ.  IBSA must recognize that we need people like Ruth. We must know that we are rich when she comes to the table and poor when she does not.

How do our current attitudes and structures in IBSA blind us to certain kinds of giftedness?  What do our current structures say about what we value? How can we change so as to not be cut off from so much of God's richness?

---

[i] Fung, ‘Partnership’.

[ii] The Lausanne Movement, ‘The Cape Town Commitment’.

[iii] The Lausanne Movement, ‘The Cape Town Commitment’.

5 Challenges for the Illinois Baptist State Association: #1 Diversity

Yesterday, I introduced a new series of posts that originate from a message I shared at the Illinois Baptist State Association last month to a number of the missionary leaders.  My plan is to present here, over the next several days, a series of 5 challenges to IBSA (our state-level association of Southern Baptists) that I believe represent something of what God is saying to us, especially in the wake of Cape Town 2010 -- the 3rd Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.  So, without further ado, here is challenge number 1:

1. Illinois Baptist State Association must intentionally and diligently seek to bring as much diversity to the table as possible.

Cape Town 2010 was one of the most significant gatherings of Christians the world has ever seen.  In terms of sheer breadth of representation, it was the most diverse gathering of Christ-followers in history.  More than 4,000 selected participants from nearly 200 nations represented practically every sphere of the Body of Christ.  This was accomplished as the fruit of a rigorous process of seeking to draw Christian leaders from every segment of the global Church.  A kind of selection grid was put in place to guide this process:

- 60% of participants were to be under the age of 50; 10% under 30
- 35% were to be women
- 10% were to come from the marketplace

Beyond this, strict quotas were enforced that ensured that the majority of participants really were from the majority world.  My own table group at Cape Town was a microcosm of the global Church.  Six people from six nations.  Four men. Two women.  Three over 50.  Three under.  One under 30.  The benefit of this diversity is perhaps hard to explain, but it was unmistakable.

I've mentioned before my encounters with a number of people there.  The richness, depth.  One of these individuals was a woman from Uganda, a nation now in turmoil.  Both of us young leaders.  Both intrigued by what God is doing among diasporas.  Even now, we are seeking God's will for our ongoing collaboration and partnership in mission.  Our meeting was providential.  God is only beginning to reveal to us his intentions in the long-term relationship that has been forged.  And yet, without this intentional will to represent the breadth of Christ's body, neither of us would have been there.

I compare this with an experience a close friend of mine shared recently.  He had been asked to go to a meeting within our Southern Baptist Convention.  The meeting was to be focused on missions strategy in the U.S. -- how do we plant more churches and reach more people groups?  My friend went to this meeting stunned to discover that his was one of only two black faces in the room.  Nearly everyone was a white American.  The impression he got was that the perspective of immigrant, non-white Christian leaders was not valued.

Is it?

Do we recognize that God has distributed his gifts throughout the body of Christ and that no one segment of it can truly know it all, do it all, or even dream it all?  Or is Illinois Baptist State Association rather dominated by white, American-born, males who are unaware of the richness in Christ's body that they are depriving themselves of?

A few years ago, the two Karen-speaking (Burma) churches in our state association were invited to perform at the state convention.  They sang and even did some baptisms.  It was great, but this isn't the same thing as truly bringing people to the table.  The leaders of these churches, who carry with them a depth of faith and richness of gifts and experiences that most of the rest of us do not, need to be recruited, mobilized, raised up, cultivated -- brought to the table.  Who God has made them to be must be leveraged for the sake of the to-big-for-any-one-of-us mission to which the Spirit has called us.

In our gatherings, committees, hiring practices, trainings and events, team, and more we must seek out this diversity.  If God has truly distributed the gifts of the Spirit all over the Body (and He has, Eph. 4), do our actions prove that we hunger for all of the gifts, experience, value, and richness that God has ordained?  If not, it is no wonder we experience such want in our mission endeavors, for we have cut ourselves off from God's supply -- the body of Christ.

Tongues Debate: Who won? James White v. David Bernard

Well, I found this to be an interesting debate.  Very interested to get your feedback.  Probably, as I, you don't find yourself in complete agreement with either.  But feel free to leave your comments below.

James White v. David Bernard

By the way, the fact that Bernard denies the Trinity is kind of an elephant in the room.  Seems to lend credence to the idea that tongues can be faked by non-Christians.