Winter is here!

Well, you see the winterland that we are living through! Yesterday we got about 8 inches of snow and this is what our house looks like tonight. Since Seattle rarely gets this kind of weather, they have maybe two snow trucks for a city of 3 million! So, the fire's is stoked and we are enjoying the season.

In Granada, Spain

One of the great stories in global missions is the phenomenal growth of missionaries from Latin America. There are now more than 8,000 missionaries from Latin America -- many of them are going to very difficult places -- what one of my colleagues calls the "church forsaken places" of the world.

Last week I was in Granada, Spain with nearly 2,000 Latin American mission and church leaders. They are seeking to mobilize even more people as well as work on how to be even more effective in their efforts.

The city of Granada at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains is quite a symbolic place to have an event like this. It was one of the last remaining strongholds during the Islamic invasions in the Middle Ages. The famous Alhambra Palace (pictured) remains as a beautiful and important reminder. In addition, the Catholic Cathedral there is where the Spanish King Ferdanand and Isabela were married and gave their official approval to Columbus to take the Gospel to the Americas (and to search for trade routes).

Enrique and his wife Angela are examples of these Latin American missionaries (for security reasons I am not using their real names). They are in their late thirties with three children aged 12, 9 and 7. They are from Costa Rica but they have lived in North Africa for three years now. The language has been difficult for them to learn, but they are adapting fairly well into the Arab culture. Their integration into the culture has made them increasingly effective in their outreach for the Gospel. Latin culture and Arab culture are amazingly similar in a variety of different ways, especially in their relational style.

"God has called us to these people," says Enrique, his broad and warm smile overcoming his broken English. "Though it was a bit hard at first to find our place, we now feel much more at home."

When I asked what the main challenges are that the family faces in their evangelism work, Enrique does not hesitate. "Learning how to work together with the rest of the believers," he states. "There are many opportunities we have to do things in the community and make a statement by our unity, but we have much work to do to build trust among ourselves. Often, I feel like we are spending too much time reconciling things with my brothers and sisters in Christ so that we could not spend more time building connections with my Muslim friends."

That is what I was doing in Granada, Spain among these key leaders -- learning and encouraging them in their desire for partnering. In many ways, I am just providing applause on the sidelines as they are taking partnering principles and best practices identified by many of us around the world and contextualizing it, translating it, making it theirs. It is an exciting opportunity.

It's Not Just About Ted -- It's About All of Us

Reflecting again on Ted, I found a website well worth refering. It is Scot McKnight's "Jesus Creed" blogsite (www.JesusCreed.org). Among many other titles, Scot is the author of the award winning book, The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (Paraclete, 2004). Here's what he had to say about Ted that I thought tracked with our comments from last week about Ted. He probably said it a bit better than I.

As Christians we should stand in line with the offer of grace. We believe in forgiveness for sin. It will be easy to be tempted to take shots at Ted Haggard, but we have to be careful. Here is a man who has failed and our hope is for repentance, restoration, and reconciliation. It is easier sometimes for us to trumpet the grace of Jesus for the sinfully-marginalized and excluded, than it is for us in our day to apply the same grace to the fallen. In my assessment, this point is where we must dwell: in praying for the grace of God to heal this man, his family, and the church in which he served.

And I wonder what we can learn from yet another moral collapse of an evangelical leader.

What is perhaps saddest is that this has gone on for a long time in his life. I’m not sure making more or new accountability structures for leaders is the place to start, though I’m quite sure we will all begin to think about this more.

But, what I find here is what I want to call the evangelical environment. In evangelicalism, and the charismatic stream in which Ted Haggard swims, sin is bad and sin by leaders is real bad. This leads to a complex of features that creates a serious problem:

1. Christians, and not just pastors, do not feel free to disclose sins to anyone;
2. Christians, including pastors, sin and sin all the time;
3. Christians, including pastors, in evangelicalism do not have a mechanism of confession;
4. Christians and pastors, because of the environment of condemnation of sin and the absence of a mechanism of confession, bottle up their sins, hide their sins, and create around themselves an apparent purity and a reality of unconfessed/unadmitted sin.
5. When Christians do confess, and it is often only after getting caught, they are eaten alive by fellow evangelicals — thus leading some to deeper levels of secrecy and deceit.

What we saw with Haggard is not just about leaders; it is about all of us.

Thus, a proposal, and I can only suggest it and hope that some evangelical leaders will catch the same vision — some at the national and international leadership level: evangelicals need to work hard at creating an environment of honesty. It is dishonest to the human condition to pretend that Christians don’t sin; but as long as we are afraid to confess to one another we will continue to create an unrealistic and hypocritical environment.

To do this, we need to begin at the local church level of learning to utter honesty with one another, to confess sins, privately as much as possible, to mentors who are spiritually sensitive. I believe if confession becomes a safe environment — and exposure of what is confessed in private must be treated as a serious offense — that an entirely new environment can be created in which time will bring out the sins of Christians in such a way that it is both recognized and simultaneously dealt with responsibly so that ongoing growth and periodic healing and restoration can take place.

'Nuff said. Thanks Scot.

What is Relevant Church?

I've seen churches named Relevant; books trying to outline what a relevant presence might be; even one of my favorite magazines is named Relevant. But what does it mean to "do" relevant church.

How do we move "church" from being only just a noun into the more action-oriented verb it should also be. How do we as followers of Christ make gathering in His name a relevant "happening" instead of the boring event some experience?

Perhaps part of these answers could be an environment where our %&#@ can be cleaned. I have this vision of church being a place where I feel comfortable bringing my %&#@ openly; sharing those issues and coming out refreshed and clean (or at least cleaner). Not through guilt manipulation but through honest interaction with others I can trust. Some have said that this is the purpose of small groups in the church, but it is rarely the case (in my experience).

Instead, church is often a place where you have to hide your %&#@ from others. That is why it is so difficult for people to deal with their "dark places" (as Ted Haggard described them).

I just think it is time to set a context, an environment to minister to those folks within our circles (and be ministered to as well). We know enough about the needs of our friends. And what do they mostly need? The same thing we do -- friendship, support and prayer. we are all dependent on the things that only Jesus can bring. We want the things that, in the words of my pastor,"have been stolen from us." Joy, peace, love, empathy, etc..

Most of us are disillusioned, yet that is rooted in the illusions we have had -- about life, about love, about leaders, about church. In many ways, disillusionment is a good thing. Can we challenge each other to address things in a relevant way? By the way, the relevant way is usually, if not always, the authentic way.

"We decide which is right and which is an illusion."
-- Nights in White Satin, The Moody Blues.

Ted Haggard

I've been waiting to say some things about the Ted Haggard situation. Every time I have thought about it that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach arose. There are so many things that I need to unpack to be able to deal with this. I have probably been impacted by this more than I even know. I feel sad, angry, disappointed, wounded, disheartened, discouraged (where's the Thesaurus program when you need it!).

You see, I consider Ted Haggard my friend. We have known each other for over ten years, and along with a colleague, I helped recruit him in the mid-1990s to be involved in a then semi-fledging National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). (I worked for NAE for ten years from 1986 through 1996 and still serve on their Board of Directors.) Eventually Ted was named President (certainly not because of me!).

Though I would not describe our relationship as very close, he was, in many ways, a powerful mentor to me. I almost always left interacting with him feeling uplifted, both spiritually and emotionally by his positive spirit. In addition, he was a major instrument that God used to deal with the jadednees and overcynacism with which I left Washington, DC. He also raised the NAE to new heights of significance during his short 3-year tenure as President.

So, he admitted on Sunday to being "guilty of sexual immorality." He stated in an apology to his church in Colorado that there's a part of his life that is "so repulsive and dark" that he has "been warring against it for all of my adult life." Read Ted's entire statement at: http://www.newlifechurch.org/TedHaggardStatement.pdf

I have to say that I have been deeply impressed by his response. With the exception of an initial denial (and he's likely been in denial on this for a long season so it is not surprising), his admission, remorse and apparent repentence is really quite astounding. He could have just done what a lot of high-profile people have done lately and admitted himself into a rehab center!!

Ted stated that "I am a deceiver and a liar," but the fact is we all have those tendencies. We all have dark places that we war against. The real question is how do we deal with these? And, most importantly, what do we do when we fail and lose a battle or two.

I am so thankful (and so should we all be) that when I fail my sins are not dealt with as publicly as Ted's were. I am not confronted in a car with my wife and kids by media representatives asking about my struggles and failures.

Sure, as a leader of a large church (New Life) and a national organization, he needs to place himself in situations where these things just cannot happen. It's called accountability. It's called authentic relationship with people you can't fool. But it is one of the more difficult things to do. It looks like Ted has now done this.

The challenge is that, sadly, the church is probably one of the easiest places to be able to get away with behaviors like deception and lying -- especially for leaders. It is probably most easiest within leadership structures like independent, pastor-led churches (which is not to say that these aren't appropriate).

I will continue to pray for Ted, Gayle and their five children. The fact is that sometimes God steps in and calms the storm with a mere wave of His hand. Other times when that just doesn't happen (or doesn't happen immediately), He still is in the boat with us. I'm pleased to know that Jesus is in the boat with Ted and Gayle.