I weep for the Bride of Christ. I weep because my kids do a better job of this than most of the young 'leaders' in the church today.
In the Spanish epic El Poema de Mio Cid there is a line:
“¡Oh Dios, qué buen vasallo
si tuviese buen Señor!”
Translation: "God! What a good vassal, if only he had a good Lord."
And it is this line that I am horrifically remined of time and again as I look out across the current generation of young (under-25) leaders in the church. There are so many good followers of Christ, and so few good leaders. On a recent trip to El Salvador I spent the better part of a week meeting with national, regional and local leaders and was shocked, truly shocked at how poor the country is in its leadership. There are a few bright stars in the night sky, but most of the church is flailing about in the darkness, desperate for men to lead them. We visited somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen churches and without exception they yearned for discipleship and evangelism training, and PASTORAL LEADERSHIP. After surveying the wreckage that passes for leadership in the Church in El Salvador, I returned smugly home to my ministry among college students here, thinking how blessed we were in the church in America, only to discover an even worse tragedy; not only is there a desperate need for the same training and leadership, here exist as well the twin spirits of apathy and arrogance.
I am saddened that there is an entire generation of leaders growing up in our churches and schools who think they are soooo cool. Too cool. Many of them are arrogant enough to think they've got it all figured out. Others too apathetic to care. And still others who make the unfortunate mistake of rejecting the present to embrace a future they are ill-equipped to understand, articulate or justify. They're so invested in orthopraxy that they've forgotten orthodoxy completely. They're in such a rush to do good things they forget that it is only through long centuries of hard study by previous generations that they even have the slightest clue what 'good things' are.
I am saddened that they, the leaders, so quickly throw away "traditional" methods of education, like seminary, in favor of their own wisdom, usually gleaned from trolling the internet for quotes, surfing Wiki-pedia, and midnight discussions with peers over pizza. Wow. Now THAT'S what I call "being diligent." The hubris is as heart-breaking as it is spectacular. And many who read this won't even know what I just said. But rather than looking up 'hubris' and 'orthopraxy' in the dictionary they'll write it off as irrelevant because I'm too old-fashioned, or just plain too old. (The King James, BTW, of 2 Timothy 2:15, says, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." They believe instead that they can get closer to God, not by studying His word, but by "living it out." (What exactly they're living out, they wouldn't know because they haven't studied the book--indeed, don't know how to study it--which they're supposedly embracing more deeply, but hey, let's not go there.)
I am saddened because if I have to listen to one more ignorant fool raving about how important it is to get on with living the Christian life without taking the time to seriously consider what that means (and by 'seriously consider' I mean study deeply, not just read another Shane Clairborne or Donald Miller novel)... I just might vomit.
Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe in my desire to serve God and His people I have overreached. Maybe. Maybe the people I think of as leaders, aren't. Maybe I need to rethink my whole leadership paradigm. Maybe the people I see desiring influence in the kingdom of God are really just a bunch of pretenders. Or maybe they're just a lot more immature than I thought. I should know. I was a late bloomer myself. I piddled through college in a blazing five and a half years with a scorchin' hot 2.4 GPA. It wasn't until I had already been in ministry for a year that I fully realized that in order to be effective I had to get educated. I started in seminary at 28 years old.
Look. What I'm saying is pretty simple. If you think God is calling you to be a leader in the church (music/youth/children/pastoral/missions/etc.) and you haven't taken time to seriously consider your spiritual education, you're a joke. And the Bride of Christ deserves better than that, and God's word demands more from you. "Just Do It" was a greatNike slogan, but they left it up to YOU to define what IT is. That won't fly in the church. If you would be a shepherd of God's flock, a lead in Christ's bride, you have to be the one to define IT, and that requires more than most of you are giving. It requires formal education. It requires reading, STUDYING. The Apostle Paul understood that. He was educated. And apparently the Holy Spirit thought it was important enough to write down. Consider that the next time you open you Bible. Are you skimming though a chapter, or are you meking every effort, being diligent, studying so that you can lead effectively God's people.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed , accurately handling the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15
