“People are longing to rediscover true community.

We have had enough of loneliness, independence, and competition.”

Jean Vanier

For so many of us today accomplishment, praise, and power are failing to address the deepest longings of our heart. Others admire and even envy our performance, nearly flawless, but inside there is deep and echoing hollowness – an emptiness. Many of our successes are resulting in a sense of disappointment, confusion, and even loneliness. The race of success has become a treadmill of performance that is not doling out the prizes that seemed so assured and inevitable when we started. There must be something more, something else...

I have come across a number of people this summer who will be facilitating an Emerging Journey group in the fall. Many of these men and women have just finished going through the process in their church and, because of its significance in their life, they signed up to be a facilitator of a group for the fall. It is quite an honor to share in their journeys in a small way and hear of the ways God's Spirit has gotten their attention over the past year. So many different stories are expressed...all reflecting a hunger to live more faithfully and truthfully in Jesus name. My attention was grabbed this morning by one such person who put some of her experiences down in writing earlier in June. In particular it was her question from last fall that grabbed me. She asked herself:

"Isn't there more to living than this--this busy, overcommitted, over scheduled, relationships-on-the-backburner kind of life?" 

I was reading this morning in Richard Foster's excellent book, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home (HarperCollins, 1992) and came across this comparison from Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). Bernard writes,

“If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal.  For a canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus communicates, without loss to itself, its superabundant water.  In the Church at the present day, we have many canals, few reservoirs." (Foster, 168)

I thought that Bernard's contrast between canals and reservoirs from almost 1000 years ago might provide an opportunity to prayerfully reflect upon the pace and priorities of our life and ministry: 

• How do you think Bernard of Clairaux’s observation of “having many canals” but “few reservoirs” applies to today’s North American church? Applies to your life?

• What do you suppose are the implications for the person that is determined to be a reservoir?  How would this determination affect our pace and relationships, our priorities and prayers?

• Read and meditate upon Psalm 46 with an openness to the Spirit's invitations in your life...

Blessings along the way...

One of the joys of June is hosting the facilitator training retreats in various parts of the continent. A unique collection of pastors, church staff, and lay people gather in a peer learning environment in order to be prepared to facilitate an Emerging Journey or an Equipping Experience group in their local church context. In one form or another each of these men and women have been grabbed by the Apostle Paul's deep concern--"but we must grow up...in every way into Christ" (Ephesians 4:14-16). They find themselves asking the question, how can we walk together with others in a way that will help them grow up in every way into Christ...? 

Over the past couple facilitator training retreats in Calgary, AB (Centre Street Church) and in Dyer, IN (Faith Church) I have been reminded of the Apostle Paul's words to the believers in Thessalonica,

A unique group of people gathered last month to celebrate Dr. J. Robert Clinton’s legacy and influence in their lives. During this occasion, Clinton addressed the group with a talk entitled “Finishing Well or Testing My Legacy.”  He returned to some themes and observations very familiar to the group. Leadership is difficult. Very few leaders finish their race well, that is, with a maturity, commitment, faithfulness, humility and “zeal for Jesus”. God’s enabling presence is the essential ingredient for successful leadership. Spiritual leadership can make a real difference. 

As Clinton reflected upon those who had finished well he underscored the importance of “passing on values to insure a legacy.” The lesson he drew out of his study was that modeling and sharing values is the strongest way a leader can pass on his or her values to the next generation. He then unpacked for the group six personal values, i.e. underlying assumptions about how he perceives leadership and practices it....

I was doing some reading yesterday afternoon and came across a prayer from Walter Brueggemann. I thought I would share it with you all. I couldn't help but think of Sam Gamgee's question to Frodo in The Lord of the Rings -- "What sort of tale have we fallen into?" The prayer/poem is entitled "Swept to Big Purposes" and it invites us to consider yet again the nature of God's calling in our lives. Listen for the words of the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2...

One of the central surprises within the biblical testimony is the way Jesus’ life expresses God’s power and authority. In many ways, Jesus turns all 1^st century understandings of authority on their head. The “but not so with you” (Luke 22:26) of his teaching and his life offended many and shocked everyone. Most who were looking for a messiah in 1^st century Israel were expecting God’s power to be expressed in unmistakably commanding terms, the sort of power that would overtly overturn empires, and establish once-and-for-all justice with Israel’s vindication and restoration. But Jesus’ life and ministry offered a radically alternative vision of God’s authority. In particular, his death and resurrection would express power in a profoundly new and influential way – the way of the suffering servant, the way of the cross. In a recent book entitled To Change The World sociologist James Davison Hunter writes of Jesus,

“Everything about his life, his teaching, and his death was a demonstration of a different kind of power—not just in relation to the spiritual realm and not just in relation to the ruling political authorities, but in the ordinary social dynamics of everyday life. It operated in complete obedience to God the Father, it repudiated the symbolic trappings of elitism, it manifested compassion concretely out of a calling and vocation, and it served the good of all and not just the good of the community of faith. In short, in contrast to the kingdoms of this world, his kingdom manifests the power to bless, unburden, serve, heal, mend, restore, and liberate.

“What follows is clear: as ones who accept his invitation into his kingdom, Christians must follow him.”[1]

Hunter summarizes Jesus use of social power with four characteristics:

We face tremendous pressure in our lives today to be simply spectators of thisJesus.  But faithful living has never been a spectator sport.  Over 150 years ago Danish Christian thinker Søren Kierkegaard emphasized this by drawing a contrast between being an admirer and being an imitator. He wrote:

What, then, is the difference between an admirer and an imitator?  An imitator is or strives to be what he admires, and an admirer keeps himself personally detached, consciously or unconsciously does not discover that what is admired involves a claim upon him to be or at least to strive to be what is admired.[i]

We can become too self-satisfied in our admiration of Jesus and thereby keep his claim or demand upon our lives at a safe distance.  But Jesus is seeking something far different than mere admirers or knowledgeable spectators.  Jesus calls us to appreciate who he is to such an extent that we seek to imitate him day-in-day-out.  It requires getting out of the stands and onto the field to follow him...

I was doing some reading this afternoon and I came across a story that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. So I thought I would share it with you and let it do some stirring in your mind and heart. 

There once was an old monk, wise and holy, who lived in a monastery set far back in the woods. In addition to being wise and holy, the monk was also considered to be somewhat scattered as he would often go wandering off into the woods and not return when he was expected. His neglect of meals troubled the prior, his neglect of community prayer scandalized some of the brothers, and his neglect of visitors who had come to see him irritated the guest master.

And so it was that one day, after being reminded that he had visitors coming mid-afternoon, the old monk headed off into the woods and did not return in time for his guests’ arrival...

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On a recent trip to Cincinnati I was enjoying a good cup of coffee and a good conversation with Vic Gordon, a good friend who pastors Kenwood Baptist Church.  We were discussing how hard it is at times to gain trust, and how rewarding a relationship can become on the other side of the things that may cause a season of initial suspicion.

As we were talking in the local Starbucks, in walked David Hansen, the former pastor of Vic’s church.  David is a tall drink of water, and looks like a smart professor.  Vic called him over to join us, knowing David would add some spice to the conversation.  David is also the sort of person you can’t help but like when you first encounter him—warm hand shake, an honest smile, and a wittiness that confirmed you could have some good laughter at the table.

Vic began to explain a little about who I was, why we were spending some time together and what I do through the ministry of VantagePoint3....

Jesus' personal way with others always offers an alternative to our culture's dominant ways of relating. He lived out his mission by forming and developing a learning community of disciples. He had many other options available to him, but he chose to live out his purposes by being with his followers, life upon life. What does that look like today? Developing others in Jesus' name, amidst our relentlessly impersonal culture, requires that we intentionally prioritize nurturing a culture of meaningful relationships over the many other tasks of our church community....

This morning I was reminded again of Soren Kierkegaard’s phrase “to need God is man’s highest perfection.” First time I heard these words I was sitting in a summer class up at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C.  Somewhere midway through a morning lecture, Dr. James Houston got off his notes and began to reflect more personally on a life of prayer. And in the midst of his delightful ramblings and musings he said: “The greatest privilege we can have in the spiritual life is to have a sense of need.” I was immediately struck by how much sense these strange words were making of my experience of adult faith and formation.

As many of you enter into this season of Lent in which we prepare for Good Friday remembrance and Easter celebration these words of Kierkegaard are worth meditating upon. I have placed them within the larger context. After addressing the way his nineteenth century Danish community was throwing around the phrase “to be contented with the grace of God”, Kierkegaard launches into this exploration of need and its crucial dynamic in a person’s relationship with God. He writes, 

So we are six months away from a unique retreat we host in Banff, Alberta. From Sept. 30-Oct. 2, 2011 we will join together for this leadership development & spiritual formation retreat in the beautiful Canadian Rockies. Always a highlight of our VP3 calendar, The Enriching Retreat is a time of shared reflection and discussion, pause and prayer in which we gather around this central leadership question, “What is required of us in order to develop others as leaders in Jesus’ name amidst the unique challenges of our contexts?”

For so many of us the Spirit is inviting us to move beyond the work of leading to the work of developing others as leaders. For others of us we are needing time to slow down and to reflect upon what the Lord is up to in our context and in our person. All of this is offered in an absolutely breath taking setting. We hope you will consider joining for this opportunity. Randy and I are prayerfully looking forward to the conversation that develops at this year's retreat. Click here for details...

...in a culture in which there is an enormous attention to leadership, it is essential that we take a long hard look at what is previous and foundational to leadership, namely, "followership" -- following Jesus (Mark 1:17)

Eugene Peterson

I was re-reading some of our Equipping Experience curriculum this morning and I was again reminded of how much Jesus challenges our dominant understandings and practices of life and leadership today. Jesus' words in the Upper Room, “but not so with you…I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:24-27) continue to echo through our communities. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann tells us that prophets in the Scriptures offered an alternative portrait of life that criticized the way people were living as well as energized them to a new way of living.[1] In this Upper Room encounter, Jesus criticized all prevailing notions of status and power and authority. And in this encounter, Jesus energized his disciples with a new vision of authority and influence...

For the past eleven years the ministry of VantagePoint3 has been inviting people to discover more deeply who God is, who they are and what God desires to do through their lives. The ministry has seen more than 7,000 persons go through one or more of our processes, which have helped deepen and empower them in the context of their local community.

We have been affirmed by our Board to take "another step" in our development...

On the walls and columns of a grey stoned sanctuary hung twelve to fifteen prints of Rembrandt’s painting Return of the Prodigal Son.  The audience was a mix of parents and grandparents and nuns and pastors and students.  We were all gathered in a Beverly Hills’ Anglican church to hear writer/speaker Henri Nouwen speak on his book The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming (Image Books, 1994).  That afternoon in 1995, Nouwen beautifully wove together his own life story with...

We just wanted to drop an announcement or reminder of our upcoming Facilitator Training Retreats for 2011-12. In order to implement The Emerging Journey, one or more people from a local church or organization attend one of our Facilitator Training Retreats. It is one of our absolutely favorite things we do each year. A wonderful collection of…

After Randy and I hosted our webinar yesterday on "Igniting Adult Believers: A Life Story Approach" I was reminded, yet again, of a high school math experience that has become a sort of parable for me. One of the blessings of 10th grade geometry was that the answers to the odd numbered questions could be found in the back of the book. So I always found the homework much more pleasant on those evenings when the odd questions had been assigned. I didn't have to wrestle as hard with the questions if I knew already what the correct answer was. On those dreaded evenings when the even numbers were assigned, my confidence was often shattered. I wasn't such a math phenom when I didn't have the ease and security of ‘the back of the book.’ My illusions were shattered.

For a significant portion of the church one wonders whether or not we attempt to live our Christian life, as it were, from "the back of the book". We grow up in the church...

I was recently forwarded an excellent twenty-minute video on the power of vulnerability. I highly recommend spending some time considering what social researcher Brene Brown has discovered in the whole realm of human connection. With both humor and sincerity she drew me into some real thinking and wondering and praying. Vulnerability plays such a necessary role in the leadership work of...

Over the past couple weeks I have been in both the Calgary area and the Chicago area hosting Facilitator Training Retreats for Emerging Journey facilitators. They are now half-way through facilitating the eight month spiritual formation & discipleship process in their church and have lots to share about how their groups are going and what they are anticipating as they finish up the process. It has been a rich time.

The themes of community and friendship have particularly struck me over the course of these facilitator trainings. It is quite a challenge to live out the biblical vision of "a life together" given the conditions we live in today. One of the concrete ways...

From time to time, we will be hosting webinars to provide church leaders a place to prayerfully reflect upon how they are investing in the growth and maturity of their adult believers. There are so many challenges today within our local church culture that frustrate our efforts to help people "grow up... into Christ" (Ephesians 4:15). In the midst of all the demands of church ministry we want to assist in keeping the ongoing development and discipleship of adult believers on the front burner. We hope these web-based seminars will sharpen our attention to some of the key elements of intentionally walking alongside others in Jesus' name. Join us this February 10th...

As the New Year begins I find myself returning to certain thoughts that have lingered with me over the past year. Jesus' personal way with others has dominated much of my wonderings. His way of life always offers an alternative to our culture's dominant ways of relating. Jesus lived out his mission by forming and developing a learning community of disciples. He had many other options available to him, but he chose to live out his purposes by being with his followers, life upon life. What does this mean for us today?

Developing others in Jesus' name...

"Is it possible for people to miss their lives in the same way one misses a plane?" Walker Percy asks this question in his novel The Second Coming. With his character Will Barrett--a lonely widower, recently retired from a very successful business career—Percy confronts us with a person who has confused all the activity of his life for genuine movement or growth. Such a confusion has led...

Along a 210-Freeway morning commute to Pasadena, California in the spring of 1996, a seed was planted which would grow into the work of VANTAGEPOINT3. As Randy Reese sat in Los Angeles traffic on his way to Fuller Seminary that spring morning, he considered the legacies of Charles Simeon (1759-1836) and Henrietta Mears (1890-1963). Both people had brought significant depth and renewal to the Church by paying careful attention to the leadership development of others. While pondering their lives that morning, Randy’s heart was grabbed by the Apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:10...

I came across a question today from a few weeks back: "Where is there breathing space in your life?" And my mind ended up thinking about Anne Morrow Lindbergh's little book Gift from the Sea. Amidst the seemingly endless distractions of our lives, she asks, how do we remain attentive to that which matters most? She offers no easy answers, but instead suggests that we find some sort of alternate rhythm of life from the one our culture offers. Over the Christmas holidays...

So Kay, Emily, Randy and I took a few VP3 team pictures yesterday for this year's Christmas card. It was an enjoyable and harmless process, for the most part. After getting back to the office and batting around our opinions on which one would be "the chosen picture," I found myself thankful yet again for our team. It reminded me of one of the quotes that is in Stage 2 of our Equipping Experience process. Professor Eddie Gibbs of Fuller Seminary states, "Leadership is about connecting, not controlling." He continues, 

We can live so unreflectively nowadays, always hoping to “get by” with what we already know. Yet if life experience teaches us anything along the way, it is that we still have so much more to learn if we are to flourish as people. We will not be able to “get by” without a good bit more learning. In this sense, life is always preparation for more life.

I can recall as a young adult wrestling with the first major disappointment of my life...

We approach this Thanksgiving week grateful for the many people and churches we get to work with across Canada and the U.S. We are reminded of the way God so creatively weaves together our deep concerns and passions and efforts into a holy shape. God is always up to something good, in ways far beyond our imaginations. So this week...

Oliver Wendell Holmes(1841 -1935) said, "I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my very life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." This quote comes to mind when I think of Jean Vanier, Canadian philosopher and Catholic social innovator. He is truly a wise man. After finishing a doctorate in moral philosophy he invited two men with Down's syndrome to leave the institution and live with him in 1964. This act began what would become the L'Arche movement, an international organization "dedicated to the creation and growth of homes, programs, and support networks with people who have intellectual disabilities." His words and life of kindness and community offer...

The assumption that runs throughout Scripture is that God is up to something good in this world, in our communities, and in our lives. Our primary burden or task is to pay attention to what God is already up to, and then secondarily, to participate in what He is up to. Our Stage 2 process of The Emerging Journey is, in essence, a narrative exercise in using one’s life as a case study for what God has been up to in our lives. It is an extended exercise in paying attention.

The Spiritual Formation Retreats of the past two weekends, one in Olympia, WA and the other in Crestline, CA afforded me an opportunity to reflect and converse with a number of Emerging Journey participants around this simple poem, “Fire.”  It is often very simple images that can cause us to think or re-think where we find ourselves. Amidst all the stuff of life—demands and tasks, relationships and expectations, intentions and decisions, etc—we often need perspective. This poem provided many a window into their pace and their work and their attentiveness in life.  

I was recently reminded of the importance of the work we do here at VP3 while re-reading a short column by Pastor Gordon MacDonald entitled “Leader’s Insight: So Many Infant Christians” (October 1, 2007, christianitytoday.com).  MacDonald’s thoughts flow from his musings upon a quote by Martin Thorton, which begins this article. Thorton observes,

“A walloping great congregation is fine and fun, but what most communities really need is a couple saints. The tragedy is that they may well be there in embryo, waiting to be discovered, waiting for sound training, waiting to be emancipated from the cult of the mediocre.”  

A friend sent a video clip this week that has got me thinking. It introduces a fairly recent book on leadership entitled Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (HarperBusiness, 2010).  Co-author Liz Wiseman was interviewed at a recent conference in which she summarized the findings of the research that is reflected in the book.  At the core is the distinction between two kinds of leaders: (1) multipliers and (2) diminishers.

We had our weekly team meeting this morning. it was good to be together and wrestle through some of things that are on our plate as an organization. Each Tuesday meeting we begin with a short devotional sort of time. This morning we let James Autry's poem "The Resurrection" center our conversation and prayer.

One of the gifts of the past couple months has been our move of offices. We had been on the look out for a more suitable office space when Sioux Falls Seminary invited us to utilize some space they had available.

Genesis 3. Adam and Eve have just eaten of the tree from which God had forbid them to eat. The story goes on to say that their “eyes were opened” and they became “ashamed of their nakedness.” Then Adam and Eve hear God walking in the Garden and immediately they hide among the trees, “away from the presence of the Lord God.” God responds by calling out to Adam, “Where are you?”

Philosopher Martin Buber tells a Jewish story in which an imprisoned rabbi is asked by a guard the meaning of this question. The guard asks, “How are we to understand that God, the all-knowing, said to Adam: ‘Where are you?’” The rabbi says to the guard,

“So what’s defining you nowadays?”

Each fall Emerging Journey groups come upon a discussion of this question in Session 5: Paying Attention to Character. We each answer this question not so much by filling-in-the-blank on a piece of paper, but by living it out with our lives. For it is amidst the demands of the everyday that we reflect a working definition of who we are. Much, if not most, of the time we are not conscious of our working definition. It operates below the surface of our thoughts and intentions, our priorities and relationships.

 Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen insightfully points out that we typically live out an answer to this question in one of three ways:

We thought we would begin to more regularly capture some of the thoughts, concerns, and activities of our life together as the VantagePoint3 community. May our blog conversation serve to be a deepening and igniting influence among an extended community of people who seek a more relational approach to life and ministry today…

It has been over ten years ago now that Randy and I traveled to Eastbourne, England for the International Consultation on Discipleship. We continue to be gripped by our recollection of John Stott’s keynote words that Fall 1999 on the state of the Church. Stott remarked,