In the last year or so, my son David, President of the Barna Group and author of the best-selling book unChristian, said to me, “Dad, it seems like Micah 6:8 has become the key verse of my generation.”

It reads: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Indeed, the last decade has seen a flurry of books on the “missional” church, some of the more notable being:

The Church of Irresistible Influence, Robert Lewis

The Externally Focused Church, Eric Swanson and Rick Rusaw

The Present Future and Missional Renaissance, Reggie McNeal

Seek the Peace of the City, Eldin Villafane

The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch

The Hole in Our Gospel, Richard Stearns

Let Justice Roll Down, John Perkins

The Irresistible Revolution and Jesus for President, Shane Claiborne

Not to be overlooked, of course, are the multiple and sometimes controversial writings of Jim Wallis of Sojourners.

President Bush joined the movement by establishing the White House Council on Faith-based and Community Initiatives, based on the well-known but often underrated fact that faith-based organizations actually help people, often in more significant ways than non-faith based non-profits and government agencies.

As a result of President Bush’s faith-based initiatives, thirty-seven states established governor’s councils on faith-based and community initiatives, and most recently, here in Arizona, our Department of Economic Security (DES) has embraced an extraordinary department -wide effort to work with the faith community.

In my experience, however, conservative, evangelical churches have been slow to recognizing the opportunities. When I became Chairman of Governor Napolitano’s Council on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, I was stunned by the relative absence of the influence of local Christ-centered, Bible-believing churches. Thankfully, this is changing.

A little Bible and theology

The focus of ministry in the evangelical world has been to bring people to Christ, to disciple them in the teachings of the Bible, and to obey the Great Commission to reach the nations with the Gospel.

Mainline, liberal churches, on the other hand, have stood by the “social gospel,” the belief that the primary purpose of the local church is to help the helpless, to make a difference in the lives of the poor and economically oppressed, and to be a voice for social justice,

Evangelicals have generally rejected the idea of the social gospel, because it’s been associated with liberal churches who hold a less literal and orthodox view of the Bible and generally embrace left-leaning political and social causes.

Recently, for example, radio and television personality Glenn Beck warned people about “social justice.” Regrettably, he told his listeners to search the mission statements of their churches for the term “social justice,” and if they find it, to leave their church immediately.

Whatever we call it–the social gospel, or social justice–helping the poor and justice for the oppressed are important biblical themes. The Hebrew term for righteousness, for example, may be closer in meaning to the English word “justice.” In the Bible, righteousness is not just a matter of personal holiness, but turning the wrong-ness of the world into right-ness. This is inherent in the Lord’s prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”

I like to define the kingdom of God, simply, as everything-that’s- wrong-made-right. Every time a teenager says, “That’s not fair,” or an older person cries out about what’s wrong at work, or a wife sobs because her husband is unfaithful, it’s an appeal for God’s kingdom to come. Without a lick of religion, everyone knows when there’s something about our world that should be different, that should be changed.

For me, this isn’t just the social gospel. It’s the other side of the Gospel. Most Bible-believing Christians stand firm on this essential element of the Gospel in John 3:16, “For God For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

We cannot, however, set aside the Gospel as it’s given in Luke 4:16-19,

16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Two things about this passage are important for our concerns in this article: (1) Faith-based ministry is anchored in the phrase “the Spirit of the Lord is on me.” Those of us who follow Christ aren’t just called to be good people who do good things. It’s that and so much more. We have the transforming power of God’s presence to make an immediate and eternal difference in people lives. We Christians believe that people-in-need need love and practical help. But that’s not all they need. They need transformation.

In another place Jesus said, ” ‘Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive” (John 7:38-39). In other words, we have the life-giving power of God’s Spirit in us and on us, not for us, but for others.

Ministry Ideas That Work

Every year at Word of Grace, our calendar included a Heart for the World month (global outreach) and a Heart for Others month (local outreach). My goal during our world missions focus was to raise awareness of global challenges for the church and especially to get people to give financial support monthly to a specific missionary or project.

Our church gave 10% of our general fund offering to outreach, but we felt that let people off the hook. They just gave to the church and didn’t have to think about the Great Commission. So we asked them to pledge to give a sacrificial amount, over and above their tithe, to get them engaged personally in missions and to supplement the large amount we were already giving from our general fund.

We rolled out our Heart for the World each year in the spring. In the fall, we focused on local outreach. We set aside the three or four weeks just before Thanksgiving, because that’s when people naturally think in terms of helping the poor.

My goal during Heart for Others was simply to get as many people in our church as possible to give several hours of volunteer work in the community, not on a single day, but as their schedules allowed. We also required every small group to take on some kind of community project together–and to invite friends and neighbors to join them. We believed that people who wouldn’t go to church would agree to help out in the community, and as a result hear the gospel preached without words.

To help our folks connect, we presented videos each week of local organizations working in our community, and the last week of the focus, we invited representatives from dozens of human service agencies to set up tables and provide information about their work in a grand ministry fair on our main plaza.

Through the years, thousands of our people gave thousands of hours of community service to both faith-based and non-faith-based organizations. It was our way to sow kingdom seeds everywhere people were hurting in our city, and we became known as a church that cares.

I told our people, Share your faith when you have an mistakably clear opportunity to do that, but don’t go out there with a pocket full of God-pamphlets looking for every little chance to convert people to Christ.

One other element of our local outreach strategy is important to mention. Just about every church tries to create it’s own local outreach ministries, like a food pantry, or prison work. We did that to some degree, but not much. Our goal was to come alongside organizations already doing the work who (1) needed volunteers and (2) knew what they were doing!

So we didn’t just do our thing. We loved and helped what other people were already doing in our communities.

That’s what Wendy’s wants you to believe about their burgers. I guess they want you to think their fast food isn’t junk food. As opposed to other vendors of artificial fare (McD’s, Jack, BK, Bell Taco and the Colonel), Wendy’s serves real food.

I have to confess: I’ve eaten at all these unreal places … and liked it. Some of my favorites are enchiritos with extra beef and cheese and the McD’s Big-n-Tasty. I’m a donut fan, too. I have a hankering for unhealthy food that is, however, becoming a thing of the past, because most of my life is past, and I have a climbing cholesterol count.

Sometimes you just don’t know what’s real, and you eat it anyway.

Maybe Wendy’s ad campaign is an attempt to sell their fast food to the younger generation that’s especially sensitive to what’s not real.

Sadly, for a good many of them, the church is a leader in not-being-real.

I just finished reading Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Julien Smith. It’s about how “the Internet has changed the way we do business–especially when it comes to marketing. Consumer environments are short on trust and populated by consumers who are cynical, savvy, and informed.”

Smith writes:

One thing that distinguishes certain people as trust agents is the simple defining question of whether a specific community sees them as “one of us.” In his early career at Microsoft, Robert Scobel blogged about the good–but more important, the bad–Microsoft products at the time. When he shared his take on why Internet Explorer wasn’t as good as Firefox, we (his audience of readers) felt that Scoble represented One of Us. We could believe what he said, because he was a member of our community, talked like us, spent time where we spent time, and seemed to be genuine and honest with us (italics mine). This characteristic extends to every trust agent we identify throughout the book…. Trust agents are at the center of wide, powerful networks. They make building relationships a priority because it’s a human thing to do–long before any actual business requires transacting.

I read Trust Agents because I need to understand better how to use the web and social networks. You see, I don’t have a “real” church anymore, only a virtual one, and a primary challenge in our increasingly unreal digital world (some might call it the matrix) is how to be real, how to be human, how to be real human.

People in my church used to tell me that: “Gary, you are so human.”

I’d reply, “I don’t know what else to be. Why would you say that? Are other pastors you know not human?”

Yeah, that’s the implication. The church, it seems, given its structure and common practices, creates an artificial and superficial community and culture. Although in recent years local churches have pushed for more small group experiences for people in the pews, the pews remain everyone’s primary church experience. In other words, a public speaker teaches and motivates neat rows of decently dressed, passive people. Nobody’s totally real.

In some places, people want truth. Concepts. Bible teaching. Not a lot of stories, little or no emotional stuff, and certainly a pastor who doesn’t talk too much about his personal life.

In contrast, read the Bible. More than anything else, it’s narrative. Yes, there are great didactic sections in scripture, like Romans or portions of the Pentateuch, but most of it is about God’s people living out their faith in the milieu of human life.

Into that human caldron, God sent his Son, fully human. He is a high priest, we are told, who feels everything we feel: happiness, joy, family and friendship, betrayal, temptation, sorrow and pain.

Read, too, about the apostle Paul. He was one honest, self-effacing, authentic dude. In the context of his face-saving culture, Paul’s self-disclosures– about his angst, his anger, his depression and doubts –is nothing short of remarkable. When I read Paul, I think he was the pioneer of recovery ministry!

What about Jesus? In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, in Jesus’ first conversation with potential disciples, the first question they ask him is: Where do you live? Without hesitation, Jesus replied, “Come and see.”

No, Jesus wasn’t a phantom: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1).

Jesus was so “down-to-earth,” so human, the religious community couldn’t believe he was the Son of God. So they crucified him for blasphemy.

I like to tease people with this question: Is God human?

Um … well … no. “God is not a man …” (Numbers 23:19). He is spirit, and we must worship him in spirit and in truth.

But … well … yes. God is not a man, but he sent his son in the form of human flesh, and when Jesus rose from the dead, witnesses saw his real human body. That same body ascended into heaven, and there is no indication in the Bible that Jesus, at some point, shed his humanity. In sending his Son, God became flesh, and when Jesus went to the Father, he brought his humanity into the Godhead.

Jesus was Immanuel, God with us. To use the words of Trust Agents, “one of us.”

A few years ago I had absolutely the worst falling out with my little brother. Ever. I can’t remember when I’ve been so angry. On a Saturday. I had to preach that night. My message: managing your anger.

That night I stood there in front our congregation feeling like a fool. How could I talk about anger management when I was living one of the angriest days of my life?

It crossed my mind: I know. I’ll just change the subject. Preach on something else. Tell them God changed my message at the last minute, and I’m just being obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit. That works well in a charismatic church, you know.

But I decided I’d stick to the theme. First, though, I had to tell the church about my day. About how I was out of control. About how I have no business teaching about anger management because of my unholy heart.

I couldn’t have designed a better introduction. You could hear a pin drop, and as I preached what the Bible says about anger, I could feel everyone’s intense attention.

At the end of the service, we celebrated the Lord’s Table. It was in the plan. To come to Jesus with our sin. Our anger. Our pain. To let his broken body heal our broken hearts. I wept when we did that. Three times. In each of our three weekend service. My heart was healed and changed, and my relationship with my brother was restored. It was one of our most powerful weekends ever.

You know when it’s real.

No, you can’t bring every sin into the pulpit. A Christian leader can’t be totally honest about everything with everyone, but you better be totally honest with a few people you can trust, and you can be totally honest about being totally honest with someone.

It’s how we are transformed: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).

Not too long ago somebody wrote me on FaceBook, “You and Word of Grace, were a huge part of the beginning of our marriage. You have touched my life in a unique way. You are a gifted speaker, of course. However, the open, honest nature in which you discuss your own flaws is what really impacted me. You lead by example, and you’re real. That’s why I hope you continue to spread “Jesus + Nothing” around the world, especially in places where younger generations can hear you. Younger generations want genuine leaders. Everyone in the room knows that the pastor has problems too, but very few pastors can be real enough from the pulpit to show those weaknesses and flaws.”

People know when you are real.

We were flying high. Our church had grown every year for over twenty years, and our attendance average topped 4500. On Easter, we’d minister to 8,000.

That was early in this decade. I was in my early fifties, and we began talking about a ten year transition plan, including things like debt reduction, completing our campus master plan, developing young leaders, and generally moving the church away from its dependence on me

Seven years later our carefully crafted strategy for the future looked like the game plan of football team losing by twenty-four points at half time. Several of our best young leaders left, and for myriad reasons (no moral failures or financial improprieties, thank God!), our attendance began to decline. I was exhausted, close to burnout. So in the summer of 2006—several years sooner than we had planned, I submitted a senior pastor transition plan to our Board. The new guy, Terry Crist, became our co-pastor in the fall of 2007, senior pastor January 1, 2008.

The pain of it…

I could not bend the attendance curve back up. All the studies show that a church like ours needed new leadership. I didn’t have the energy I had in my forties, either. Somewhere I heard that, as you get older, you soften. Become more gentle. More flexible. Um, maybe I’m the exception, but as I’ve gotten older my old soccer knees–and my emotions–are less elastic.

I bet you haven’t heard this Bible passage: “This is the rule the Levites must follow: They must begin serving in the Tabernacle at the age of twenty-five, and they must retire at the age of fifty. After retirement they may assist their fellow Levites by serving as guards at the Tabernacle, but they may not officiate in the service. This is how you must assign duties to the Levites” (Numbers 8:24-26, NLT)

In 2007, I “celebrated” twenty-five years as the Senior Pastor of our church, and if anyone tells you it’s easy to let go, don’t believe it. I loved the place. The people. The energy. The changed lives.

And can I be honest? I loved what the megachurch did for my self-image. As a younger man, I never dreamed of leading a significant ministry, but we were just in the right place at the right time. It was a beautiful blend of grace and obedience. Now, though, I realize how much Word of Grace has defined my life, and the thought of living without her, my beloved church, made me feel naked.

I was on an emotional roller coaster. Hope up. Angst down. No more staff meetings! Up. Personal income? Down? Yet in the fog of change, one thing was clear: God was calling for new leadership at our church, and he wanted me to do something else.

One part of me clutched obsessively to the past. Another longed for the future. Henri Nouen writes about how “the old country … has become a part of your very bones. Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country. That requires the death of what has become so precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise.”

Reading books by Nouen and people like him—and having a professional coach and a spiritual director have been lifelines for me. It kept telling myself: If I’m not healthy, the transition won’t be healthy. If I crash and burn, it’ll a start a wildfire in the church.” For me, the challenge was to stay steady and faithful in a time in my life when, inside, I felt unsteady and uncertain.

Paul wrote famously: “I I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Bet you don’t know what’s in the next verse: “Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.” Godly, honest friends are essential, especially when you feel pain.

The plan of it…

In the summer of 2006, I submitted to our Board a “transition resolution,” including a plan for my future and a request to search for a co-pastor who would become the lead pastor of Word of Grace. The “resolution” kicked things into motion. Slow motion. Large organizations are more like aircraft carriers than skateboards. Our Board set up a search process that would, unlike many other churches, involve my input. We decided early on that we would not be “old pastor out, new pastor in.” We believed there should be a “passing of the mantle.” Sometimes, I think, our churches are generally corporate and democratic when, in fact, in the Bible they were generally theocratic. Not that checks and balances and accountability and large teams are bad things! Yet many churches downplay the call and anointing of God on the lives of his pastors and leaders and see them more as “employees.”

Yes, our formal search process included a specially-selected committee and “help wanted” notices in magazines and on-line, but we also stayed open to the informal side of the process, recognizing that as we searched and prayed, God might bring someone to us we weren’t exactly looking for. And he did.

A long-time acquaintance of mine, Terry Crist, senior pastor of CitiChurch, a multi-site church in Scottsdale, heard we were in transition and shared with me that he had some interest in the position. That initial conversation developed into a prayerful, nine-month, intense interaction between the senior leadership teams of the two congregations. It culminated in a unanimous decision of our Governing Board to become one church in two locations under one vision. Unlike many churches, we did not have congregational vote for the new pastor.

We announced the “merger” first to our leadership teams, then to our leadership communities, and finally to our respective congregations in the weekend services. We used our websites to keep people updated, too, and we assembled a transition team of people from both churches, including “outsiders” like Jim Tomberlin, who led the multi-site effort at Willow Creek in Chicago and is now serving great churches across the country as they adopt a multi-site approach to ministry.

How is everything going to work out? We don’t know! But everyone in key positions of leadership is committed to what we believe is the clear direction of God. Both Terry and worked intensely together–and with our teams–to make this transition happen well and, more importantly, to lead and disciple the people in our care through our season of extraordinary change and opportunity.

As for me, I’ve put a boulder in my brain: I will do everything I can to get out of the way and to make Terry successful. I’m a leader. That’s the upside of being a control freak. So I learned about dying daily. The beauty of this, as Paul says, is that when death works in us, like Jesus, it releases life to others, like Terry.

Right after we agreed that Terry would become our new senior pastor, I happened to watch a Larry King Live program about Elvis Presley. Interviewing Priscilla Presley at Graceland, the Presley home and estate, Larry King asked her, “Do you feel Elvis’ presence here in this home?”

“Oh, yes!” she replied. “In every room.” Elvis is buried right there, in the garden, too.

It was a spiritual moment. God spoke to me: Elvis needs to leave the building.

My good friend and colleague Cal Jernigan, Senior Pastor of Central Christian Church probably the second largest church in Arizona, told our Board that a key to their successful transition, which took place over a couple years, was the affirmation and blessing of the outgoing senior pastor, Roy Lawson.

This is the narrow gate. The broader gate, maybe the easier way, would have been for me to step aside entirely, like an outgoing president and his cabinet, and just let the new guy take over. Amazingly, however, Terry has asked me to be available to him. To help him as needed. He recognizes that I’m not just an employee, but that I’ve invested my life in this ministry and that I have deep relationships with so many people.

The church will support us financially for several years, and Terry has graciously invited me to speak a number of times since I left. Word of Grace (now City of Grace) continues to be my “home” church, where my wife and I attend on the few weekends I’m not speaking somewhere else. It’s where we send out tithes and offerings, too.

The fundamental question is not: Why did you leave your church? It’s: How did you leave your church. What you do in a leadership transition strategically is never as important as what you do personally. As a good friend of mine has said, “You can’t always plan for what happens, but you can always prepare. So I’ve committed myself to do everything I can to help and to get out of the way, so my successor Terry Crist can be successful.

My legacy will be Terry’s success.

It’s been two years, now, since I stepped aside. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Bless him. And bless Terry and Judith. They’ve done an extraordinary job leading our church into a new, God-ordained future, and they’ve done right through the middle of the shadowy valley of a dreadful economy.

RANDOM

In my last e-news I wrote about Hollywood’s blatant hypocrisy. How about Hollywood personalities as a helpful guide for your spiritual life:

“I’m still very sexual, but I’m sexual in a much more energetic, spiritual sense, which is deeper and more fun.”

~ Dana Delaney of “Desperate Housewives”

What the …. ???

I just finished a book on the military history of Afghanistan, from Alexander the Great to the war against the Taliban.  The author, Stephen Tanner quotes another historian of Central Asia, Olaf Caroe, who wrote:

A leader arises, great enough to gather men around him and make them forget their personal factiousness for one crowded hour of glory.  He dies, and with him dies his inspiration.  In the absence of the man who commanded trust, tribal jealousies are reasserted, everything that was gained falls away.”

Tanner adds, “His words could be applied to nearly every stage of Afghan history.”

… and to nearly every season of church leadership.

“Leadership is influence,” John Maxwell likes to say.  Some  believe the axiom originates in Oswald Sanders’ Spiritual Leadership.  In any case, it’s a fact:  When it comes to the success of any organization, leadership is everything.  Just ask the Arizona Cardinals, who are saying goodbye to Kurt Warner, their beloved all-pro, Hall-of-Fame-bound quarterback.

Leadership is the ability to call everyone around you out of the prisons of their own personal agendas into a higher purpose.  Leaders cast vision.  They see future possibilities that aren’t locked in the present moment, and they help those with a lesser perspective to see a  bigger picture and, indeed, to realize that all of us are better for embracing the big picture together.

Paul the apostle put it this way:  “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder” (1 Corinthians 3:10).  The Greek term translated “expert builder” is the word from which we get our English word “architect.”  An archangel is an overarching angel, an angel over other angels.  An architekton (Greek) is a presiding builder, a head builder, a superintendent.  He or she is someone who must understand the big plan and get all the “subs” to work together to make that plan happen, to complete the building.

When we built our 2000 seat worship center in the late 90s, I remember standing there in the dusty din.  As construction equipment roared, howled and screeched, as dozens of workers scurried about the site, I thought to myself, “All this started in my head: All these people working. Everything this building represents.  The thousands of people who gave millions of dollars to reach our destiny.”

Ok, for those of you who are spiritually anal, it started with God. I understand that.  But I also know that God uses people who have the capacity to see the big picture.

One of the Greek terms for “elder” in the New Testament is episkopos.  We use a  telescope to see objects at a distance (Greek: telios, the end).  A telescope has the end in view.  We use a microscope to see what can’t be seen with the naked eye.  An “episcope” is someone who sees over, or oversees, a supervisor, someone with super vision.

That’s a leader, someone “great enough to gather men around him and make them forget the personal factiousness for one crowded hour of glory.”

People ask me all the time, So how’s it feel to be retired.

I’m not retired! I just not the Senior Pastor of Word of Grace, but I am comfortably busy, sometime even uncomfortably busy. My biggest challenge, it seems, is that I don’t have “people.” I used to have “people,” but now I’m surviving with a Blackberry. I’m detailed about some things, but admin stuff is often too much for my A.D.D. Last year, I scheduled myself to preach in two different churches on the same Sunday. And I was working on both messages at the same time, and I didn’t realize my stupid error until the middle of the week before I was supposed to preach. Oh, brother. So with humility and shame I had to tell one of the pastors I couldn’t speak for him. I haven’t heard a word from him since.

Yes, I am preaching often (see my speaking schedule below). Yet most of time during the week is spent talking with and building networks of other leaders. Most notably, I put together (with the help of a great team) our second annual Summit for pastors of very large and influential churches in the Valley. This year, of the thirty of so largest churches in Phoenix, twenty of the senior pastors joined us for three days getting to know one another better, talking about best practices and greatest challenges of ministry, and praying for one another. To give you an idea of the scope of this event, here is a list of the pastors who participated, including this year key leaders from Flagstaff, Prescott and Tucson.

• Al Ells, Leaders that Last
• Cal Jernigan, Central Christian
• Scott Ridout and Chad Moore, Sun Valley
• Dan Stefan, Pure Heart
• Darryl DelHousaye, Phoenix Seminary
• David Sharpes, Crossroads Nazarene
• Don Wilson, Christ Church of the Valley
• Glen Elliot, Pantano Christian Church, Tucson
• Greg Rohlinger, Parkway
• Jamie Rasmussen, Scottsdale Bible
• Jim Dorman, Christ’s Church of Flagstaff
• John Lind, Arizona Christian Foundation
• Juan Ramos, Love International
• Lee Wiggins, Heights Church, Prescott
• Les Hughey, Highlands Church, Scottsdale
• Linn Winters, Cornerstone, Gilbert
• Mike Maiden, Church for the Nations, Phx
• Scott Jones, New Life, Peoria
• Terry Crist, City of Grace, Mesa and Scottsdale
• Walt Kallestad, Church of Joy

This year we also invited Guy and Terri Chadwick and Hal and Cheryl Sacks, key prayer leaders in the Valley, to join us, to cover our retreat in prayer. They, in turn, invited the prayer leaders from the participating churches to come and pray with them. Our Summit was extraordinary.

“This is the  most difficult time in my life.”

That’s how Tempe AZ Mayor Hugh Hallman (http://www.hughhallman.com) introduced himself to a small group of pastors and church leaders last week.

His face was drawn.  Sad.  In the hour or so we were together, it was difficult for him to smile.

Having called a meeting for prayer and support from the Christian community, he shared right from his heart:  “This is the most difficult time of my life,” he began. “The pressure.  The heat.  The level of hate over relatively insignificant issues has made has made civic leadership an almost impossible task.  There is virtually no helpful discussion of issues.  Instead, people feel obligated to undermine one another’s character.”

He referred to the current climate of political polarization as “corrosive vilification.”

It’s everywhere.  In the church, too, where people are more often bound by an angry spirit of entitlement than by a Christ-like attitude.

My fine successor at Word of Grace (now City of Grace) Terry Crist shared with me a series of emails he received from a long-time member of the Scottsdale campus.  The first began:  “My mother and I walked out [of church] today and most likely won’t return, unless we here [sic] of an abrupt and complete policy change.”  What follows in the email is so angry, so arrogant, so judgmental.  When Pastor Terry responded wisely, graciously, his antagonist was even more rude.

It’s not just that we disagree.  No, we have to demonize one another.

Mayor Hallman grieved, “There’s no helpful public discussion and debate.  Instead, people threaten me.  Intimidate and threaten one another.  Sometimes the pressure is obscene.  What we need is civility.  Charity and mercy, to help solve our difficult problems.”

“Our opponents are not our enemies,” he said.

Ben Feller of the Associated Press wrote last week, “Trying to bury a year of polarization, President Barack Obama on Thursday escalated his appeal for politicians and voters alike to settle differences without tearing each other apart. His plea: ‘Let’s start thinking of each other as Americans first.’ ”

Careful now!  I put an Obama quote in here just to trouble some of you.  So how does it make you feel?  Angry?  Or prayerful and gracious, like Jesus?  “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

I believe that, now more than ever, the world needs the church to be the people of God, like Jesus, full of truth and grace.  People who know what they believe and where they stand, but who have the depth of character to speak the truth in love.

I believe, too, that Christian leaders must renounce the spirit of the world and be role models of truth and grace.  We have to teach people how to be biblical in their believe systems and Christ-like in their responses to the world around them.  As I heard someone say years ago, we have to come against the things that come against us with an opposite spirit.

Talk about these scriptures with your friends:

James 1:19-20  My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

Colossians 4:6  Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5   For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

James 1:19-20 in The Message is incredible:

Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.