Three Temptations of Jesus - Relevancy, Spectacular, Powerful

Henri Nouwen writes in his book In the Name of Jesus there are three temptations Jesus faces in the desert with Satan. He frames them as:

Photo by Darius Soodmand on Unsplash

• Relevancy - turning stones into bread
• Spectacular - leaping off the temple
• Powerful - bowing to satan

Why is being spectacular a temptation? Nouwen writes about "after six years of training and formation, I was considered well equipped to preach, administer the sacraments, counsel, and run a parish. I was made to feel like a man sent on a long, long hike with a huge backpack containing all the things necessary to help the people I would meet on the road."

As he walked on this road, he discovered ht "did not have the power to draw thousands of people" and "could not make many conversations" or "were not as popular with the youth, the young adults or the elderly." Despite these truths, he still felt like he should have been able to do it all and do it successfully.

Many clergy feel that we have to be spectacular in order to grow the church. We are told to preach the best sermons each week, visit every person at home, respond to each crisis with care, speak truth to power, maintain boundaries and uphold a spiritual life while developing vibrant children's ministry and keep those graduating youth involved in the church. And if the church is not growing then we are failing.

So pastors and churches are tempted to do something spectacular that grabs the attention of people for a while. Of course when people respond to the spectacular there is the temptation to keep on doing the spectacular, so we do. One day our spectacular comes to an end and we crash. The pastor and church feel dejected and because numbers drop and people do not show up. When this happens clergy and churches grow in anxiety and fear of death.

The spectacular is tempting because it works to draw people in, but often the spectacular points people to elevate the the pastor or Church and overlook Jesus. The humble pastor and humble church are neither relevant or spectacular but are often called ineffective or bad thus adding pressure to fall into the temptation.

The Absurd Leadership of Jesus

Stated by Albert Einstein (not pictured)

Jesus is a unique person who did things differently. Christians identify Jesus as the perfect Love of God incarnate, so surely what he does is something we should imitate. The ever illusive search for best leadership practices leads some to consider if Jesus had any leadership practices that may be helpful. I am not the first to engage in this practice, there are many others who have done this. However, let me offer just a few leadership tactics from Jesus for your consideration.

1. Communication is key. So, do not speak directly but speak in parables where your followers do not understand you. This way you can ensure maximum confusion and misunderstanding on what the mission of the cause is. 
2. Get the right people on the bus. Be sure they will abandon and disavow ever being a part of the movement. 
3. Put Judas in charge of the money. The person you may have the most reason to distrust and the one person who garners the most suspicion of the group, yes put that person in charge of the money.
4. Build an organization around an idea that no one wants. Picking up your cross and following the Crucified One does not test well in focus groups.   
5. Mentoring is invaluable. Be sure to locate the leader wearing camel's hair and eating locus by the river. Ask that one to mentor you.

The absurd leadership of Jesus is something not often discussed in leadership circles. But Jesus was not always the best leader by today's standards. If a leader today did much of what Jesus did then we may call into question the sanity of that leader. 

Jesus is much more complicated that just a list of "best practices," and to reduce Jesus to such a thing belittles the mission of his life, death and resurrection. Additionally, church leaders who look to Jesus for their leadership model may be on the wrong end of the institutional/organizational goals and values.

There are many leadership teachers out there who all teach a fine model of leadership: Jim Collins, Seth Godin, John C. Maxwell, Gretchen Rubin and whoever is currently on the best seller lists. All of these leadership styles sell because they are are reasonable and sensible. 

Jesus is absurd. Which may be why he has to call us.

Narrow Evangelism Contributes to Church Irrelevancy

The United Methodist Church is, like many organizations, trying to figure out how to connect with young and new people. The emphasis on evangelism is good, but evangelism has become narrow and that is problematic. I believe that the narrowing of evangelism contributes to church irrelevancy. 

Evangelism is a word that has taken a beating the past decade or so. Where I live, Evangelism is often associated with a particular type of American voter. However, Evangelism means Good News, and Good News is not bound to one political party. Over the years, the Church has used the word Evangelism to describe a narrow and set of practices, namely the spreading of the Gospel to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. In my lived experience, spreading the Gospel means to make new disciples and thus grow the church. This is not bad, but it is a narrow understanding of what the Gospel is and, in turn, what Evangelism looks like. 

This is problematic because when we over focus on a narrow expression of evangelism, then we overlook the other vital practices of evangelism. If we are busy making new disciples then we will have less time to grieve with current disciples or even visit the home bound or fight for justice. While not all of these actions will make new disciples, they are all acts of evangelism. They are all acts of bringing Good News to the ends of the earth. Narrowing evangelism to focus on the new overlooks the current and the past. 

Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash

Imagine you are a doctor in a hospital and the hospital has invested a lot of resources into birthing new babies. This is a wonderful task to be sure, however there are other forms of treatment and healing that fall within the mission of the hospital. Imagine that as a doctor you are gifted in burn victim recovery. Your gifts are also important and also needed, because people get burned. The problem, from the hospital's perspective, is that they are not set up too well for burn victims only baby delivery. In fact, it might even be seen as a waste of time and resources because burn victims take a long recovery and many of them are not fully recovered. The hospital has set up their funding model and their structure of leadership training and development is based upon how many new babies are born. Those gifted with treating burn victims get discouraged and leave the hospital. The hospital gets the reputation of having a narrow area of concern, new births, that people do not go to the hospital who need to.

At what point does the hospital cease being a hospital and is now a birthing unit?

The Church is called to make disciples to be certain, however becoming a new disciple is not the only Good News of God in Christ Jesus. Good News is as much for the non-disciple as it is for the disciple of Jesus. Doing the work of evangelism is not limited to making new disciples.

Like hospitals, churches have a charge to keep that is multifaceted. And just as we would not expect a hospital to narrowly understand health care, we ought not expect churches to narrowly understand evangelism.