Catalytic Thoughts on Christian Leadership

This past week I attended Catalyst Conference. It was a leadership conference for young, Christian leaders. CEO’s, business leaders, evangelists, non-profit presidents, authors and pastors came together and delivered a nine session, two-day event with the emphasis being “Coming Together.”

In the midst of the conference I found myself experiencing great joy, excitement, hope and encouragement for the future of the church while listening to business-minded people such as Tim Collins, author of Good to Great, Seth Godin, author of Tribes, and financial guru Dave Ramsey. The problem I had with the conference, however, was with the pastors. All the pastors were emerging church leaders who’s church were multi-thousand in number and predominately Caucasian. As a matter of fact, all the pastors were Caucasian males except one: She was African American. Despite the demographic being extremely lopsided, it was the violent overtones and segregating comments within their messages that bothered me the most.

Franklin Graham told us that if we do not evangelize to a person and he/she dies then his/her blood is on our hands. One musician, Aaron Keyes, in the middle of his set announced that if we lift our hands to the Lord then that will pull down heaven’s army and will deliver swords to all who praise the Lord to help fight evil (apparently this is why we sing). What broke my heart is that people agree with this mentality.

For whatever reason, an ambiguous Christology exists within mainstream Christianity. Apparently, Jesus Christ is at war. Armies are forming every single day and recruiters are going out into the unknown trying desperately to sign you up for one team or another. All you have to do is enslave your soul to the master and you are enrolled. And for every soul not enrolled, the blood of that soul is on your hands.

(I promise you church history shows that for 1800 years we attempted to kill in the name of Christ. THIS METHOD DOES NOT WORK. I subscribe to another thought. I believe that God is alive and is redeeming this world not through hate but through love. I believe we as Christ-confessors play a part in this redemption process. God invites us to join in this work and we get to help further God's Kingdom with faith, hope and love.)

At least, this was the message that was received by me while attending the conference. I have to admit I became extremely suspect. Why were future leaders being pumped with this rhetoric?

Popular communicator and pastor, Stephen Furtick stood in the pulpit and announced that we as leaders are standing in the midst of a promise and a payoff. The payoff for him was his 3500 member church. He also told us that it was appropriate for him to address us despite being 28 years old because while the world was partying, drinking and having sex God was preparing the way for him. This arrogant comment would have rolled off my back but he followed that up by telling a story of how he single-handedly saved African American athletes from evil ways. He referenced the rapture and renounced anyone who was a “crack-smoking lesbian.” Needless to say, I was not impressed with him.

Craig Groeschel, pastor of Life Church, addressed the crowd and told a story of “rainbows,
poems, and queer things like that.”

The day following the conference, 200 college and seminary students met at McAfee School of Theology to debrief and discuss what we learned. As I sat and listened to undergraduates from around the country attempt to articulate their emotional high from the conference, I began to hear a theme percolate throughout the room: The conference was flawless.

This did not sit well with me because I feared the undergraduates in the room may have fallen prey to emotionalism. That is, unquestionable loyalty to that which was being presented as truth. At this point, I raised my hand and offered these thoughts:
As future Christian leaders, I believe it is our obligation to discern what is being portrayed. We should be about the business of constantly probing, critiquing, questioning, juxtaposing, prying and inquiring the theology being taught and the manner in which it is conveyed. We cannot afford to assume that which is being said about Christianity is absolute or divine. For instance, any time a Christian communicator (spokesperson for God) stands in the pulpit and segregates the congregation by referencing non-Christians as African Americans and “crack-smoking lesbians” or announces that rainbows and poems are “queer” then we have substituted our understanding of God’s loving message for all people for a cheap laugh and a memorable moment. We are called to be better than that. Our constant critical awareness generates a necessary humility that Christian leaders must maintain. We are students for life.

We as communicators must be held to higher standard. We cannot segregate a postmodern audience. We cannot draw humor from other people’s real life, unfortunate circumstances. The time has come for us as leaders to embrace the differences in people and love them without judging them. Calling people out for sins in their life as an object for a joke is shameful and completely unnecessary. This behavior does little to promote the unconditional love of Jesus and a lot to showcase just how narrow-minded and unloving Christ-confessors can be.

The future leaders of the church must carry with her/him tolerance, forgiveness and unconditional love. We must tolerate people’s lives and actions. We must constantly be about the business of forgiving ourselves and others as well as seeking forgiveness from God. We cannot cast guilt of any kind. We must never judge but instead love all people unconditionally.

Gabe Lyons in his controversial book UnChristian says that the 21 century sees Christians as too hypocritical, political, conservative and judgmental. As long as we promote segregation then this stigma will never go away. If you want to be a Christian leader and a committed follower of Christ, then I suggest you embrace the fact that people are different in this world and that is ok. Jesus walked this earth and loved the Pharisees as well as the sinners, the Scribes as well as the diseased, the temple rulers as well as the disenfranchised, the Jews as well as the Gentiles, the men as well as the women and the rich as well as the poor.

I know I only want to follow the Christian leader who stops segregating groups of people and starts expressing unending love and joy to all people no matter race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or social status.

As a Christian leader, I want to be seen as someone who shows/shares Christ’s love to/with everyone – no exceptions. We have no right to judge.

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