I just have to be right.  Whatever I do, whoever I’m talking to, and whatever place I am at in my life I will always take the side that I am on.  Who lives a lifestyle or believes a belief that they honestly believe to be wrong?  Nobody that I know.  They either do one of two things.  They either change their belief structure to fit their lifestyle or they change their lifestyle to fit their beliefs.  Very few sit in the middle and intentionally lives a life that is incongruent with their beliefs.  These people would be insane or sick.  We don’t know what to do with these people.  They are usually the ones that struggle with addictions, are extremely cocky or extremely depressed with no hope.

So a command like Paul gives to us to boast in our weakness, makes no sense for us.  How do I boast in my weakness?  Am I honestly supposed to admit that I am wrong or incapable of living out exactly what I believe?  That is dumb.  It’s much easier to justify a lifestyle with ignorance and refusing to think.  I do it all the time.  I do it with the water I purchase and the clothes I wear and the gas I guzzle and the food I eat and the pleasures I have and the electronics I use and the the way I treat my body.  I do all these things without thinking and convincing myself that there is nothing wrong with them.  I can do all these things and live guilt free as long as I push off any situations, people or relationships that are directly affected.  Every time I do one of these things I am telling myself that it is ok to do these things.  I’m not actually feeling bad or bummed out, I’m convinced that it’s fine.

I don’t want to be known as a guy that believes one thing and lives another.  So I change my beliefs.  I don’t want to be a guy who refuses to change his life because he can critically argue his way out of it.  The problem is though that I am extremely stubborn.  I refuse to be wrong.  So if I am living a certain way, I’m going to give you a hundred different reasons as to why it’s OK for me to live this way.  I need you to know that the way I’m living is the right way to live and that I wouldn’t live in a wrong way.

Boasting in my weakness seems stupid and pointless.  I will just boast when I am right and change or give the illusion of change when I am wrong.   What kind of pastor would I be if I was up there telling people that being truly human is one thing, but I’m another.  Where is the example in that?  What kind of pastor would I be if I admitted that I fail everyday in living out what I am encouraging them to live out?  What kind of pastor would I be saying “these are good things to do, but I won’t be joining you in doing them.”  This is a pastor who is weak and a bad example.  My guess is we probably need more of these kinds of pastors.

Looks like God left Sarnia and went somewhere else to outpour his Spirit. I guess I don’t mean God, I mean Todd Bentley. Instead of it being called the Sarnia Revival, it is called the Florida Outpouring. Just replace Sarnia with Florida in this post here and you’ll get a good understanding of where I’m coming from. I thought this was a great article on the subject, interviews with those inside and out of the event. Here are some other news clippings. Brings up some obvious problems with revivals like this especially about money, which I will get to.

Update: As opposed to offering news clippings, which I had up here before, I will direct you to some blog posts of people commenting on the matter, you can find the news clippings by googling.

Robby Mac’s Thoughts….Good Post(ht)

SynchroBlog: But is it Revival?

Healing Revival

Monday Morning Mentations

Church people #2

Straw Man Arguments

Welcome To Todd World

I am fascinated about how fast and good the designs/websites are that can go up for stuff like this. I wish I would have been on the ball and bought floridaoutpouring.com before they did. That would have been fun. Check out some of the links on here and how fast they get e-mail lists, blogs and tv schedules online.

I think one of the first things “revivals” like this should do is post their budget for all to see. This is how much money came in and this is how we are distributing it to those in need. Jesus talks about money more than any topic in his life because it is crucial to have a firm grasp on it (and not it on you) to live a Kingdom centered life. To hear stories about buckets full of money floating around and no one really knowing where its going breaks my heart. I would be a lot less skeptical about these things if money was an open topic and we knew where the funds were going and were assured it wasn’t just going into the organizers pockets and that they were actually being used like they should. The economic toll that events like these play on convinced souls is massive and it is just another way where the rich get richer and the poor, or middle class who are looking for “blessing” get poorer.

I wonder when the masses will learn that when you put a great entertainer in front of a large crowd who are all expecting something great, that something is going to happen. Wether it is great or not, everyone will think its great and then you’ll start a website, logo, brand and make lots of money all in the name of Jesus. You know the same Jesus who asks us to sell our posessions, take care of the poor, love our neighbour and pray in our closets.

UPDATE: I turned off and deleted most of the comments of this post, they were just becoming spammy and annoying.

Got talking about leaders again last night and it revisited the entire issue all over again. I never stop struggling with this issue and I don’t know why. Sometimes I think it’s because I’m power hungry and want to be in positions that were never meant to exist. Other times I keep revisiting it because I’m always thrown into positions of leadership and I want to make sure that I’m doing things right.

I find that we usually make the distinction between good and bad leaders by how they make decisions and control those that follow them. A good leader makes good decisions and controls the public, church or whoever else in a positive manor and a bad leader the opposite. That is always how we do it. The problem with this is that the basis of good and bad leadership is based on control, which I’m learning is usually a breeding ground for trouble. Why do we assume leaders are those that make decisions for other people? That’s the consensus I see in politics and in the church. We want to ‘vote’ or choose someone to be our leader that will make great decisions for us. Is it so we don’t have to? Is it so we have someone to blame when things go wrong? I’m starting to wonder if leadership in the Kingdom is to look drastically different then what we see elsewhere and usually from what we want.

A leader is one who leads not by making decisions that affects everyone whether they like it or not but one who lives a life that people follow. One position gives power and the other one gives responsibility. One position says that the leader can affect everyone and anyone by their decisions and the other one let’s their decisions speak for themselves. This could be a problem with our concepts of democracy. Really we are choosing someone to make decisions and change the world for us for a four year term. We aren’t looking for someone to model a right and worthy life. We’d rather them tell us what to do.

This is the kind of leader that I’d love to see in the church (and hey why not the country too). Not a leader who is voted into power and then gets to make decisions and steer the ship whatever way he likes. Not a leader who is so concerned with losing power that they have to fight to keep it. Not a leader who insists on his authority because people are starting to doubt him. Instead, a leader that simply lives like Jesus and people follow them because of it. A leader who leads by influence and not authority. A leader who doesn’t try to control all those around them but instead love them, be himself/herself and allow them to decide on their own if they will follow.

This is in response and addition to Dan posts on leadership. I have done a bit of writing on the ideas of authority over the past few years. I have grown a lot in my understanding of what it means and where I am in the spectrum. You can read all the posts I wrote on authority here. It’s odd to link back to posts I’ve written one or two years ago because I’ve changes so much. Yet there is still this underlying idea of what I think about leadership and authority and I think it is still quite prevalent. It’s funny though because I find myself slipping and being tempted constantly by the idea of power and leadership that I like to pull away from what I really think about it at times. I like when people follow me, listen to me and do what I think its best. I like when people read my blog and say that I made them think and challenged them to live differently. I like it because I like being in front and listened to as if I actually have something of value that they need and the only way they are going to get it is if I tell them.

In this sense, I can see how leadership needs to be redefined away from one individual passing something of value to another creating some sort of hierarchy which puts one in power and the other in powerlessness. However, I still think there is a place for leadership in the kingdom that can work. Miroslav Volf talks about the relationship between givers and receivers in his book Free of Charge and how almost always their relationship becomes skewed. He says that “many maintain that the act of giving puts the giver in a position of wealth and power, whereas the act of receiving puts a person in a position of poverty and weakness.” He goes on to say later than when this exchange is done in love “gifts neither establish the superiority of the giver, nor rigger rivalry between the giver and receiver.” I wonder if the relationship between a leader and a follower can follow this same pattern. Where leadership almost always comes in power, selfish influence and distorts the relationship that humans are to have with one another. Yet when done in love, maybe there is some redeemable factor of the relationship.

I don’t think I can throw out all ideas of leadership. There is something inside of it that still rings true with me. I think there can be a leader/follower relationship that is healthy and not degrading to either side. It needs to be reinvented, of course, but I don’t think it needs to be thrown out or looked past. I think this is where my language of influence starts coming in. I don’t mean influence as something used as a tool to convince people to follow, but I mean influence as a by-product of who you are. Influence can’t be sought after and achieved unselfishly. It should come unbeknownst and then I would consider that grounds for the beginnings of a true leader.

I still think there is room in the kingdom for leaders. I would like to think it fits in with all the other weird tensions. Everyone needs to understand and live in both sides. We have such a bad view of leadership that when we think of it we automatically think of harmful relationships or forceful dictators. I do believe though that there is a place for leaders because it’s their gift. There needs to be an entire new reworking on what this means or look like, and in most ways I have no idea. As I write this post the more I run Volf’s book through my head and I realize how close the relationship is between giving and receiving and leading and following and that it could be redeemable and there is a proper place for it.

The idea of authority has always been something that has continually been running through my head. I had a few authority figures that should never have been in authority positions and a few others that I’m glad were. I’ve wrote a few things on authority in the past when a good friend of mine was trying to figure out what it looked like to be under authority of someone who was demanding it, or if they should be under their authority at all. I think my definition of what authority looks like might be growing a bit. I’ve always has trouble with authority because it meant that possibly I would have to give up my way; of course my way always seems like the right way, or else it wouldn’t be the way I choose. To actually give up and go in a way that you don’t think is the right way is a very humbling experience.

Authority to me is not power. It is not something that can be hung over someone’s head or something that can be misused. Authority, in my understanding is not something that the person with authority chooses to have or not. Authority is something that can only be given to someone by the person who is going to be under that authority. Authority is a decision by the person under it, not by the person administering it. This is why I think authority is one of the most fundamental concepts that a Christian can hold. Christ has given us freedom, and we need to use that freedom to give him authority.

Authority is when I can trust someone more than myself. This is why it is so hard to actually be under authority. It is very hard for most people, including myself, if not impossible for me to trust someone else more than I trust myself. When I trust myself it is easy. I know everything about my decision from my point of view so of course mine makes the most sense every time. It is important though, for us as humans, as Christians to give authority to people in our lives. It is important for me to trust someone else more than I trust myself. This is how community works. The authority figures are not the ones who want power or who even want authority. Authority figures are those that have been given authority by the community that is under their authority. It is the recognition that the community trusts that person more than they trust themselves. No wonder so many church leadership structures are messed up. They are full of those that are demanding or have ‘worked their way up’ to the top. If the leaders in the church can’t be leaders outside of a title, they probably shouldn’t be there. You can tell the leaders in your community by looking for people that the community trusts more than themselves, not by how loud they are or their great ideas.

There are very few people in my life that I would give authority in my life, that I could actually trust more than myself. I think that number needs to increase. I hope to be humble enough that when the going gets tough I can trust these people more than I trust myself. It is only through authority that we can follow Christ. It is only through authority that we can live in community. It is only through authority that we can be humbled enough to admit that we aren’t the best in the world.

They say that ‘postmoderns’ don’t like authority. I think that I’m a prime example of that ideal. I felt this way before I even knew what the word postmodernity meant, or if it wasn’t even a real word. It’s kind of funny actually, I’m typing right now and postmodernity isn’t recognized as a word in Microsoft Word. I think I stopped liking authority as soon as I felt like authority was restricting what God called me to do. After a few instances of being told what not to do, I quickly shut down and didn’t like any sort of authoritative figure in my life.

I tried to run retreats for some youth in my hometown and I was told I was undermining other ministries by doing so. Myself along with the young adults started doing bible studies about inerrancy and biblical doctrines and I was told that I needed to stop because I am hurting people’s faith. I used to play music in bars with a few friends and I got looks and comments about how I should be in church instead. I didn’t encourage people to speak in tongues, in fact I had questions about it, and I was deemed not Pentecostal enough and anti-Spirit. It was amazing of some of the things that people in authority labelled me with. It wasn’t long before I simply couldn’t work along side of certain people anymore. Leaving for university was a good idea. It gave me space to think out the way I was heading and get away from people that did not encourage me to go further but only limited things I could do.

My experience with authority was great until it got uncomfortable for them. As soon as I started working outside of the confines of a certain church label I was brushed off. You would be surprised how many people care about their own church growth more than they do the kingdom. They will pull out phrases like ‘God gave me these people to shepherd and protect and save from leaving the flock’ to ‘you are undermining the ministry that God gave me and I don’t like it.’ The authority that I came under was more concerned with their own egos than they were the overall picture of God’s kingdom, and as soon as I stopped petting their ego I was useless to them. I have had to relearn how to come under authority. I could be a free-for-all forever and I needed to come under authority of people that were going to keep me in check for God’s Kingdom not theirs.

My experience with authority, and I’m speaking spiritual authority all throughout this post in my case, has greatly blurred the way I see authoritative structures. In some ways I think it helps me stay clear of those that are dangerous but it also sometimes causes me to miss some structure of authority in my own life. I’m beginning to understand it better, and its become easier and easier to come under authority of some people who I love and trust very much and I hope God continues to soften my heart and shape me to any authority he puts me under.

I share this, because I think a story like this is important for understanding power structures and the place they have in our life and my own. With this as a foundation it will help me understand better what lies ahead.