Associated Baptist Press
February 13, 2009 · (09-20)
David Wilkinson, Executive Director
Robert Marus, Managing Editor/Washington Bureau Chief
Bob Allen, Senior Writer
In this issue
Baptist, Orthodox leaders hold groundbreaking conference in Europe (438 words)
Relying on pastors for everything limits ministry, speaker says (530 words)
Kay Warren: Following Christ means being 'seriously disturbed' (449 words)
It takes a village to renew community and build healthy society (844 words)
Assyrian Christians appeal to White House for autonomy in Iraq (357 words)
Opinion: Christian ethical values and government emergency spending (716 words)
Baptist, Orthodox leaders hold groundbreaking conference in Europe
By Bob Allen
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (ABP) -- European Baptist and Orthodox scholars convened Feb. 8-11 in talks aimed to promote understanding between two Christian groups often at odds over issues like proselytizing and the separation of church and state.
The International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic, was host for the "Christian Mission in Orthodox Context" colloquium. The seminary co-sponsored the event with the Orthodox faculty of St. Clement of Ohrid University in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Planners called the meeting, spearheaded by Parush Parushev, academic dean at IBTS and a Bulgarian, a major initiative for both institutions.
"We are delighted at the developing cooperation between ourselves and St Clement of Ohrid University in Sofia," said IBTS Rector Keith Jones. "It complements the partnership we have had for the past decade with the Orthodox Academy at Vilemov in Moravia on the theology of creation care."
The aim of the colloquium, attended by more than 30 participants from Orthodox, Baptist, free evangelical and Pentecostal traditions, was to discuss points of tension and opportunities for enriching Christian witness in secularized European contexts with a majority Orthodox religious presence.
"Much of the difficulties and the challenges faced by the baptistic faith communities in the interactions with Orthodox religious communities and the governments of culturally Orthodox countries arise from misunderstandings related to the Orthodox notion of canonical territories (and largely of Orthodox canon law), evangelical emphases on religious freedom and the nature of religious proselytism," said a web page announcing the event.
Other papers discussed social ministries, shared spiritual roots of Russian Baptists and Russian Orthodox and writings of the famed Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
A press release termed the event "highly successful." At an informal social event on the final night, Jones and Orthodox professor Emil Trajchev exchanged gifts as a sign of the continuing partnership.
Internationally, the Baptist World Alliance has held preliminary discussions with the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, but a formal dialogue has not yet been inaugurated. Baptist and Orthodox scholars and church leaders have begun to make such connections in local contexts, however.
Baptist leaders in Russia recently applauded the election of Metropolitan Kirill as primate of the Russian Orthodox Church as "a clear vote for openness and dialogue." Leaders of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists said Kirill, who directed the church's ecumenical relations for 20 years, fully supported the dialogue and fraternity with Russia's Protestants started by his predecessor, Patriarch Alexei II, who died in December.
In visits to Russia and the Republic of Georgia in 2008, BWA General Secretary Neville Callam asked Orthodox representatives for cooperation in facing secularism and ministry to the poor and marginalized.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Relying on pastors for everything limits ministry, speaker says
By Marv Knox
WACO, Texas (ABP) -- A church that depends upon its pastor for ministry fails both the pastor and the laypeople, ministry strategist Alan Nelson recently told participants at The Next Big Idea conference at Baylor University.
A litany of woes afflict the local church in America, noted Nelson, former executive editor of Rev magazine and founder of KidLead, a leadership training program for children age 10 to 13. He is author of Me to We, a book on equipping laity for ministry.
On any given weekend, only 20 percent of Americans attend church, and that percentage is expected to be cut in half by 2050, Nelson said. Less than 15 percent of U.S. churches are growing, and less than 1 percent are growing because of evangelism.
"We have no reason to believe these trends will turn around," he lamented. "We're seeing a significant macro-exiting of the local church." On the local level, the pastor, staff and the "faithful few" are overworked, and as outreach become more difficult, spiritual maturity is lacking.
The cause is what Nelson calls "Pastor-Centric Ministry Syndrome" -- extreme dependence upon pastors to do the work of the church.
The solution is for pastors to focus on equipping church members to do ministry, he said. To illustrate, he reported that in healthy churches, 93 percent of members are "mobilized in some form of ministry service," while the number drops to 11 percent in unhealthy congregations.
"The Bible teaches ministry in context of togetherness," with pastors and laity serving alongside each other, he said.
Scripture shows Moses, Jesus and Paul all trained others to minister and delegated significant responsibility to them, he added.
"Jesus knew that if he got sucked into the minutiae of ministry, he could not do God's will," Nelson said, pointing to the numerous times Jesus either pulled away, leaving responsibilities to the disciples, or hand-picked Peter, James and John for mentoring.
Unfortunately, the church drifted away from shared ministry to pastor-centered ministry, Nelson said. One reason is economics -- churches structure their staff sizes proportionate to their congregational size, so that they can afford to pay ministers to do their ministry for them, he insisted.
Another reason is social and psychological, he added, noting: "Ministry feeds the ego. We [pastors] think, 'No one can provide the quality of care we do.' So, we give in to unrealistic expectations and unhealthy co-dependence between pastor and congregation."
Fortunately, recent church trends have tilted toward equipping laity for ministry, he said. Reasons range from the complexity of ministry; to the strong desire for laypeople to serve others; to the rise of education and information, which empowers laity to take on ministry that earlier generations would not have attempted.
Benefits of the trend include lay "ownership" of the church's responsibilities, increased use of spiritual gifts, and "the synergistic effect builds unity and momentum, diminishing criticism and consumerism," he said.
For this to work in a church, not only must the pastor embrace the value of equipping laity, but a "partner" must join with the pastor to advocate the value in the church, he said. A plan for implementing the equipping system can be found at www.churchvolunteercentral.com, he said.
Marv Knox is editor of the Texas Baptist Standard.
Kay Warren: Following Christ means being 'seriously disturbed'
By Ken Camp
WACO, Texas (ABP) -- Becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ means being willing to say "yes" unconditionally to God, knowing he likely will lead his followers into uncomfortable places, Kay Warren recently told a conference at Baylor University. For Warren, it meant becoming a global advocate for people with HIV/AIDS, for orphans and for other marginalized and vulnerable groups.
Her husband, Rick, is pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of The Purpose Driven Life.
Accepting Christ's invitation to deny self, take up a cross and follow him means being "dangerously surrendered, seriously disturbed and gloriously ruined," she told The Next Big Idea conference, an event sponsored by Baylor's School of Social Work, Truett Theological Seminary and the Leadership Network.
Warren told participants both at a conference plenary session and workshop how she became "seriously disturbed" a few years ago by reading an article about AIDS in Africa.
"The article said there were 12 million children in Africa orphaned by AIDS. And I couldn't name a single one of them. There were 33 million people with AIDS. And I couldn't name a single person who was HIV-positive," she said.
"It rocked my world. It was a pivotal moment when I said 'yes' to God, and he broke my heart. It turned my life upside-down." That kind of "signpost moment" happens when a Christian becomes "so broken by brokenness, so disturbed, that you feel like you can't live with it another second," Warren explained.
Discipleship also means allowing Christ to "gloriously ruin" one of his followers for the normal life he or she knew before, she added. Warren explained that, for her, it meant transformation from "a suburban mom with a minivan" to an outspoken advocate for HIV-positive people worldwide.
"The pursuit of the American dream in and of itself will ruin you. Pursuit of health, wealth and happiness will ruin you. And so will following Christ. If you're going to be ruined, why not be ruined for something that matters -- something that lasts?" she asked.
Being "gloriously ruined" means following the example of Christ to "take on pain that isn't our own," she said. In Warren's case, one of the first and most memorable examples involved an encounter with an HIV-positive woman who was living -- and dying -- under a tree because she had been expelled from her village.
"Nothing in my faith had prepared me to talk to a dying, homeless woman living under a tree," she said. "Nobody should have to die alone."
Being a disciple of Christ means doing what Jesus did -- "making the invisible God visible" and caring for "the least, the last and the lost," Warren said.
Ken Camp is managing editor of the Texas Baptist Standard.
It takes a village to renew community and build healthy society
By Ken Camp
WACO, Texas (ABP) -- On a corner lot in Shreveport, La., where dealers once sold drugs, flowers bloom and vegetables grow in a community garden. More significantly, a sense of community has blossomed in the Allendale neighborhood after neighbors recaptured an ancient idea -- the village. Mack McCarter, a Disciples of Christ minister, returned to his hometown in northern Louisiana about 15 years ago after 18 years serving churches in Texas. He wanted to see if he could help renew community, one neighborhood at a time.
He did, and in the distressed neighborhoods where residents have adopted his approach to community renewal, crime has dropped more than 40 percent.
McCarter, founder of Community Renewal International, recently presented his systematic approach to neighborhood renewal at The Next Big Idea Conference, an event at Baylor University sponsored by Baylor's School of Social Work , Truett Theological Seminary and the Leadership Network.
When he was still serving a church in the Texas Panhandle, McCarter began to think about community renewal by asking five questions:
· What kind of world does God want?
· What kind of society makes possible that kind of world?
· What kind of people makes possible that kind of society?
· What kind of environment makes possible that kind of person?
· What do we have to do to make that kind of environment possible?
The first question was the easiest, he decided. God wants a world where people love their neighbors as they love themselves. But in a society where many people don't even know their neighbors, answers to the other questions proved more elusive. "People are disconnected, and that disconnection has opened the door to massive dysfunction," McCarter said.
The kind of "others-centered" person who can nurture a loving society must be both competent and compassionate, he decided.
"Competent people have the willingness and ability to access and appropriate resources outside themselves which enable them to grow -- skillfully, socially, spiritually, physically, intellectually and emotionally," he said. "Compassionate people live a lifestyle devoted to seeking the good of others as one seeks his or her own good."
He began to study social systems, trying to discover what kind of society would make possible a world where people love their neighbors. Philosopher Elton Trueblood, historian Arnold Toynbee and social analyst Lewis Mumford shaped his understanding of how and why civilizations develop, decline and ultimately collapse.
As he studied the varied ways people have built civilizing structures, he discovered only one societal model has endured for millennia.
"Only the village has never failed," he concluded.
McCarter sees the village as a caring community built on a foundation of mutually enhancing relationships. Once the relational foundation is in place, members of the village make sure other needs are met, such as safety, housing, meaningful work, health care and education.
With his theoretical paradigm for community renewal in place, McCarter set developing structures to turn theory into reality. He began by going into one Shreveport neighborhood, looking for people who were willing to make friends with people in their block.
"I figured out of 300,000 people in Shreveport/Bossier City, about 1,000 want to hurt other people. The rest care about other people. But society won't be saved by individual random acts of kindness. The key is connecting caring people," he said.
McCarter began connecting the willing by enlisting them in his "We Care Renewal Team." Members of the team -- who now number 39,000 in Shreveport/Bossier city -- agree simply to identify themselves as caring people who want to develop friendships with their neighbors.
Community Renewal also designates Haven Houses -- a private residence inhabited by a block leader who agrees to spend one hour a week, three weeks a month intentionally getting to know people and connecting them with each other through events such as block parties.
Finally, Community Renewal has developed Friendship Houses, also called "Internal Care Units," in high-crime areas.
"We move in missionaries who live in these Friendship Houses. They go there to serve and win the trust of their neighbors, starting with children and youth," McCarter explained.
The Friendship Houses serve as community centers where after-school tutoring programs, adult education classes and other programs are made available. In time, they also become places where neighbors care for each other's needs.
From Shreveport/Bossier City, the community-renewal program has been replicated in 20 other cities around the United States, as well as an international pilot project in Camaroon.
The Pew Partnership for Civic Change gave McCarter's community-renewal model its "Solution for America" designation, and the White House Conference on Community Renewal cited it as a "Best Practice Model." Community Renewal International received the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative Award from the Manhattan Institute.
While Community Renewal leaders appreciate the national attention, they particularly value the opinions of people who have seen them up-close for years. The organization's website includes an endorsement by Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator: "I applaud what you are doing and the pillars you stand on. There is now peace and quiet in areas that were once No-Man's-Land, and that's refreshing."
Ken Camp is managing editor of the Texas Baptist Standard.
Assyrian Christians appeal to White House for autonomy in Iraq
By Bob Allen
WASHINGTON (ABP) -- A Middle Eastern ethnic umbrella organization has written President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden asking them to push for an autonomous region for Assyrian Christians in Iraq.
The Assyrian Universal Alliance released letters Feb. 10 appealing to Obama and Biden to urge Iraq to establish a self-administered region in ancestral Assyrian lands under jurisdiction of Iraq's central government.
Calro Ganjeh, secretary of the alliance's Americas region, said the action is needed save Iraq's dwindling Assyrian population from extinction.
Though predominantly a Muslim country, Iraq is home to one of the oldest Christian communions in the world. More than a million Chaldean Christians are thought to have fled sectarian violence in the country that followed by the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Dozens of Christians in the Iraqi city of Mosul died in a string of murders last fall, apparently because of their ethnic identity, amid a power struggle between minority Kurds and Sunni Muslims in provincial elections.
The letters to Obama and Biden said the situation in northern Iraq, the heart of Assyrian ancestral lands, "points to alarming deterioration of our nation's status."
"With so many Assyrians having fled Iraq, the very survival of the Assyrian nation hangs in the balance," Ganjeh wrote. "Our numbers are dwindling and our communities are being shattered. Should this continue, the world will witness the demise of one of its most ancient and historically significant nations."
Formed in 1968, the Assyrian Universal Alliance brings together various Assyrian national federations and organizations around the world. It exists to inform the world about the plight of ethnic Assyrians and promote safety and rights of Assyrian peoples wherever they live.
Ganjeh said an Assyrian region would encourage refugees and internally displaced Assyrians to return to Iraq.
Assyrians, also known as Chaldean Christians or Chaldo-Assyrians, date their community to the first century. The group includes both Eastern-rite Catholics who recognize the pope's authority and an independent church. Christians were offered protection under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but since his overthrow have been subjected to persecution by fundamentalist Muslims who say all Christians should either leave Iraq or be killed.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Opinion: Christian ethical values and government emergency spending
By David Gushee
(ABP) -- Every major public-policy decision involves arguments about facts, interests, and values. All three have been on display in the fierce debate over the massive $789 billion economic stimulus plan that, as of this writing, was about to head to the president.
Facts. Policymakers operate on the basis of some reading of the facts relevant to the legislation they are considering, as well as the likely realities consequent upon acting or not acting in various ways. In the case of this massive spending bill, a great majority of our leaders agree on the factual claim that our economic problems are sufficiently grave that major governmental intervention is needed. They don't agree on other factual claims related to what kinds of spending will produce the most effective economic stimulus in the shortest period of time. But enough of them agreed on a variety of options to get a plan passed.
Christian ethics has no special insight to offer on such factual claims, and must defer to those with particular expertise in these matters. Of course, no one operating at the highest levels of leadership in Washington has ever seen anything quite like this, so everyone is improvising.
Interests. Realism requires the recognition that every legislator comes to the table acutely self-interested, especially in their own re-election and rise in the political firmament. Every constituent of every legislator is also self-interested, as are leaders of every level of government, as are businesses and their leaders, as is every human being and human group. This means that there is always the temptation to cut loose the purse strings of government so that everyone -- or at least everyone who knows how to work the system -- gets their share of the pork.
Christian ethics can offer to public discussion the rich, sobering resources of our tradition related to the pervasiveness of sinful self-interest and the obligation to move beyond selfishness toward the common good. We can attempt to hold policymakers accountable for bridling rank self-interestedness -- and especially for barring favoritism directed toward the wealthiest, most powerful, and best connected.
Values. There are many value-laden issues related to this spending bill, as there are related to most important policy decisions. I think that reflection on these values is where Christian ethics can make its main contribution.
Consider the moral principle of intergenerational moral responsibility. Opponents of the current bill strongly resisted the massive borrowing involved. It is indeed true that a government that has been running major budget deficits and building a massive stockpile of debt is now about to add $800 billion more to the pile. That can only be described as a highly dubious move in terms of the responsibility of one generation of Americans to those that will follow. It can only be justified as essentially a national emergency measure. Once the economy gets back on its feet, this bill must be followed up by a level of government fiscal responsibility not seen in a long time.
Another relevant moral principle is care for the most vulnerable. It is a basic biblical principle that the least of these, the most powerless, needy, and vulnerable, are of great concern to God and must be of great concern to God's people. This means that we have to scrutinize this spending bill for provisions it makes to employ the unemployed, give health care to those without it, keep people in their homes and reduce the tax burden on those who can least afford to carry it.
A final principle to consider is subsidiarity. This is a theme in Catholic ethics (it goes under other names in other ethical traditions) that emphasizes protecting and preserving the distinctive role, freedom and responsibility of the various actors in society. It is especially concerned about protecting individuals, families and local entities from having their functions taken over by higher-level organizations such as national governments. Subsidiarity recognizes the dangers of collectivism (and especially totalitarianism) and seeks to set limits on state intervention in the family, church, locality and economy.
A major question to consider in all economic legislation is whether it serves and strengthens other, "lower" sectors of society or instead takes over their functions in ways that would violate the principle of subsidiarity. The jury is out on this one right now.
David Gushee is distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment