Professionals, Metrics and Calvinism
A while back Stepchild posted about M's who do not belong on the field. I took it not as an indictment of certain people, but as a warning of behaviors and attitudes to be aware of. His description of the Professional caught my attention because I recognized in his critique a tendency to which I am particularly susceptible.
In my former life I was a UNIX systems administrator. My experience taught me to be both flexible and task-oriented - the successful administrator is able to have several medium- to long-term projects simmering on the back burner constantly, working on each when opportunity arises, yet is able to drop everything to respond to an emergency.
The problem I have found is that I have tended to approach ministry at my church the same way. I have projects in mind constantly, so that at any time I have several things I could be doing. I can be flexible enough to adjust my schedule as real ministry needs arise, but my focus remains fixed on projects because of one thing: metrics.
I have an insatiable need to get things done. To be able to cross something off my list and say, "Done!" In fact, I measure my effectiveness by it. When I am "accomplishing" things, I feel I'm doing well, because that's how my effectiveness as a sysadmin was measured. But... as a minister of the Gospel (in some way), what have I really accomplished?
The need for metrics is not reserved to former techies. Pastors and M's do it too, in the form of counting filled pews, or baptisms, or VBS participants, or mission trips taken. It's the need for metrics, in my mind, that drives legalism ancient and modern. The Pharisees made up a bunch of rules precisely to measure their effectiveness. In some ways, we Baptists do the same thing. We all do.
So... not to throw any stones or anything, but is this why some of the more, um, metrics-oriented leaders in the SBC are so vehemently opposed to the idea that God chooses His elect? (full disclosure: I am not a Calvinist. Calvin got more than a couple things wrong. But predestination he got right.) The common rhetoric one hears is that Calvinism stifles missions. There's anecdotal evidence to support the assertion: some Calvinist churches don't do missions at all. But there's such a strong history of Calvinist missions and missionaries (remember the Great Awakening? All those guys were Calvinists) that the stereotype falls apart.
What is plain to me is that the people who say such things cannot imagine why they would be missional themselves if the whole thing were up to God's sovereign choice anyway. Their concept of salvation is wrapped up in the idea of something we do, which is, by the way, why they get caught up in regulating the things other Christians do.
I believe in predesination because I believe God to be sovereign in every way. It is my faith in His sovereignty that is leading me to follow His Great Commission to go to the nations. He is my Adonai, my master and lord. But because He is sovereign, I also have the grace to not worry about metrics. It's not up to me to get the job done. Salvation is His alone - I just go.
In my former life I was a UNIX systems administrator. My experience taught me to be both flexible and task-oriented - the successful administrator is able to have several medium- to long-term projects simmering on the back burner constantly, working on each when opportunity arises, yet is able to drop everything to respond to an emergency.
The problem I have found is that I have tended to approach ministry at my church the same way. I have projects in mind constantly, so that at any time I have several things I could be doing. I can be flexible enough to adjust my schedule as real ministry needs arise, but my focus remains fixed on projects because of one thing: metrics.
I have an insatiable need to get things done. To be able to cross something off my list and say, "Done!" In fact, I measure my effectiveness by it. When I am "accomplishing" things, I feel I'm doing well, because that's how my effectiveness as a sysadmin was measured. But... as a minister of the Gospel (in some way), what have I really accomplished?
The need for metrics is not reserved to former techies. Pastors and M's do it too, in the form of counting filled pews, or baptisms, or VBS participants, or mission trips taken. It's the need for metrics, in my mind, that drives legalism ancient and modern. The Pharisees made up a bunch of rules precisely to measure their effectiveness. In some ways, we Baptists do the same thing. We all do.
So... not to throw any stones or anything, but is this why some of the more, um, metrics-oriented leaders in the SBC are so vehemently opposed to the idea that God chooses His elect? (full disclosure: I am not a Calvinist. Calvin got more than a couple things wrong. But predestination he got right.) The common rhetoric one hears is that Calvinism stifles missions. There's anecdotal evidence to support the assertion: some Calvinist churches don't do missions at all. But there's such a strong history of Calvinist missions and missionaries (remember the Great Awakening? All those guys were Calvinists) that the stereotype falls apart.
What is plain to me is that the people who say such things cannot imagine why they would be missional themselves if the whole thing were up to God's sovereign choice anyway. Their concept of salvation is wrapped up in the idea of something we do, which is, by the way, why they get caught up in regulating the things other Christians do.
I believe in predesination because I believe God to be sovereign in every way. It is my faith in His sovereignty that is leading me to follow His Great Commission to go to the nations. He is my Adonai, my master and lord. But because He is sovereign, I also have the grace to not worry about metrics. It's not up to me to get the job done. Salvation is His alone - I just go.
posted by Publius | 3:31 PM
10 Comments:
Publius,
I think you touch on something that deserves even more discussion: If God does the saving and church planting (I believe that He does), how do we measure our "performance" (for lack of a better word) in ministry and church planting? Can/should/ we measure it? If not, how can and organization like the IMB manage its personnel? If so, what is the standard? On my blog, I posted about "Obedience as Strategy." The difficult part comes when you try to measure obedience.
Thanks for your post. How about a deal: I won't call you a "Calvinist" as long as you don't call me one!
Deal. I'm not much for labels anyway.
I read your "Obedience as Strategy." It seems one aspect of your dilemma is that obedience is a working out of your relationship with the One who called you, not necessarily the ones who are paying your salary. Now I would hope that the two are never in much conflict, but it's not that simple, is it? I mean, I don't know what kind of direction you work under, but in my experience organizations give clear, workable goals. Maintain this practice. Produce that many widgets. The Holy Spirit, in my life anyway, doesn't work that way. I don't get a sense during prayer that I need to share the Gospel with 7 people in the next week, so that I can cross it off my list and say, "Done!" Come to think of it, God's goals are both intangible and eternal. "Pray without ceasing." "Love your neighbor."
And so it's easy enough to say our first priority is to obey God. But God's demands on our lives can be so... ephemeral, that it's a hard case to make that we cannot be faithful both to God's leadership and to our earthly vocation.
I've been turning over the idea of metrics. My wife is stumped too. Of course, we aren't yet where you are.
Do y'all do any kind of regular evaluations? Do you discuss personal and organizational goals? I worked for a consulting firm once that had evaluations every six months. The first part of each eval focused on the company's goals and expectations for the employee, what they wanted us to accomplish. It was usually something definite, but not measurable. Learn this skill set. Get better at that. The second half of the evaluation was for the employee to talk about his own career goals. Things to improve on, or experience to gain. I wanted to learn this over the last six months, and I did that during such and such. It was a good system, for technical people anyway. I wonder if something like that could be effective for IMB personnel?
Actually, our team does something very similar. We do evaluate things regularly (We give nearly everything we do a "shelf-life.") We usually try to set the standard at the beginning of a project based on what we feel God is leading us to do. Then we decide on a timeline, and measure our progress. If that particular project isn't working out for us, we either change it or scrap it and try something different.
At the team level, that's great. At the Board level, however, things like "success" and "progress" tend to be defined for us.
Publius,
I agree with your thinking. Us task-oriented folk always figure out a way to measure "our progress" in God's kingdom. One measure that we use (because we do evaluate and are accountable) is: How are our first generation disciples maturing? Are they reproducing? This measure keeps me humble if I am honest about it.
I think we need accountability, so I am for some type of evaluation process but for the purpose of: Recognition when we are off course; Correction to get back on track; and Encouragement to apply what we learned from that experience (don't keep making the same mistakes).
While God is sovereign, we are responsible to obey His clear commands, and the leading of His Spirit in our lives. Otherwise we cannot claim to have a love relationship with Him. We cannot justify our complacency and disobedience with His sovereignty.
This whole calvinism vs. arminianism thing is just another example of paradoxical truth from Scripture that our human logic cannot deal with, and should not try to systematically explain.
Okay, so I'm reading back through the comments to help get my thoughts in order, and all I can think of is Office Space and "flair." How much flair is enough? Is twenty pieces enough? "No, we just want you to express yourself... but fifteen pieces isn't enough."
We're in the same bind, aren't we? What we really want is for each GCC to be working out of a sense of personal accountability to God, out of a profound sense of obedience. The problem is not when we look at our own lives and ask, "Am I really being obedient here?" but when we look at our neighbor/coworker and ask, "Is he really being obedient? Shouldn't he be doing more?"
Stepchild, from what you said, it seems we can stay away from that kind of thinking by maintaining close accountability relationships with our peers in the field, but how do we do that with stateside leadership? How do you justify only having three pieces of flair to someone who doesn't know you or your situation?
Mr. T, thanks for your words. I look forward to the accountability you're talking about, especially coming with no real idea of what to "do." We've had a running discussion in my praise band about effective worship, and whether 'tis better to prepare better musically (more rehearsal, whatnot), ensuring higher quality music on Sunday, or to prepare better spiritually, so that we lead worship in a better spirit on Sunday. I'm of the camp that says worship is primarily a spiritual act: it doesn't matter how technical correct (or incorrect) your music is, it only matters if the leader and the worshippers are in the spirit of submission and humility befitting worship. Not that we don't prepare and rehearse, obviously. But it's not like our great music can make worship "happen" on its own.
I guess what I'm getting at is, would you say that missions is an essentially spiritual activity, and if so, how do you measure Spirit? We are given to discern it, but that's hard to do from a distance.
Publius,
Our spiritual activity should eventually produce some type of visible outcome. Not everyone will respond, we won't see it every time, and it may take a long time. But the people around us should be changed by our love and obedience to the Lord. Spiritual activity expresses itself in the physical world. There are tangible actions that should come out of our relationship with Jesus. I think the main one for mission is "making disciples". I don't believe we can call ourselves missional unless we are attempting to lead people to follow Christ. That means sharing our life in a transparent way (even the flaws), being real so that they can know Him for real. That happens through the process of relationship, not a one-time event.
Going back to accountability and measuring progress... one way to do that is by observing how our disciples are doing (from being) in their walk with the Lord, and are they making disciples, starting small groups, or new churches? Teaching, praise through music, etc. are expressions of worship. God uses these expressions to draw people to Himself. But these spiritual activities are the means, not the end. Being missional or church planting are means, not the end. The end is knowing Him in all of His glory. If our activity is not directing us and others toward knowing Him, none of it matters anyway. I've had to give myself a big fat zero plenty of times.
"If our activity is not directing us and others toward knowing Him, none of it matters anyway."
Wow. That's strong stuff, man. Sometimes I forget, in all my pontificating, that the time is short. We need to be authentic and real, of course, but also proclaiming the Gospel of Christ like there's no tomorrow. Because for the person we're talking to, or for all of us for that matter, there might not be a tomorrow.
Makes me wonder why I'm wasting all this time blogging when I could be out evangelizing. ;)
mr.t wrote:
"Our spiritual activity should eventually produce some type of visible outcome."
And:
"...the people around us should be changed by our love and obedience to the Lord."
I'm not sure I agree. Putting it this way makes it sound as though we should measure our ministries by their outcome, results, or "what works." I'm not a fan of a utilitarian faith. Sometimes we do things just because. Other times, we do things because we have been told to do them. So our motivation for missions and the outcome of missions should be obedience, not results.
I'm glad to hear you say (write? type?) that, stepchild. I've been editing part two of "Subversive Church" because I'm having trouble expressing that idea: that the measure of our faithfulness to the call is not found in physical, tangible results. God's score card is different, or maybe his priorities are just different. It seems to me, reading both Scripture and accounts of faithful believers and martyrs of the past, that God is glorified not only by success but also by failure. That is, when His people, out of obedience to their Lord, do the right thing and fail, He is glorified. He is glorified when we proclaim Christ and are killed for it. He is glorified when we are imprisoned and persecuted. He is somehow glorified when the people we're ministering to don't get what we're trying to show them, and we work for years to no visible effect.
I don't think that is to say that we shouldn't try for tangible results, but that we shouldn't put our faith in them or measure our faith by them.
Doesn't this remind you of the age-old debate over material blessing? Health-and-wealth types will tell you riches are a sign of God's blessing, but history is littered with faithful poor people. It seems Jesus was more concerned with the attitude we had toward our wealth, not with whether we had it, though he did say it was especially hard for people with a lot of wealth to have the right attitude.
The thing about money is, making money is easy, if that's all you really care about. And packing pews is easy, too, if that's all you really care about. Which is why, Mr. T, I like your suggestion that we measure our "success" by the fruits of our disciples, however many of them there are.
Stepchild and Publius,
I hear what you are saying and agree to a certain extent. Our obedience should be the measure and we are to be faithful no matter what the outcome.
However, Jesus tells us:
"By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples" (Jn. 15:8). I know that many make a distinction between fruit and results ... fruit being the character of Jesus, or "fruits of the Spirit". But I think fruit also speaks about measurable harvest as well. Jesus said: "But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." (Mt. 13:23) The point is that there will be visible results if we are living in loving obedience. There will be fruits of the Spirit and there will be harvest. May take a while, may not be much, but eventually because of God's faithfulness (and ours) it will happen. Sometimes we don't persevere long enough to witness it.
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