Britt Merrick was giving a talk recently and it was put into the Catalyst Leader online magazine. This is such a great talk about what I believe to be basic to leadership. Britt talks about how we should stop trying to lead and start trying to love. He believes that loving God and being intimate with God must be the first thing. We need to stop doing doing, doing and get in the face of God. He talks about John who was reclining on Jesus’ chest. John wanted to be close to Jesus more than anything else and so he pressed in and got intimate. This priority of intimacy led to the longest ministry and the greatest revelation. When they tried to boil John it didn’t work! John was concerned primarily about intimacy with God and leaders must also be concerned primarily with intimacy.
What would it look like to be intimate with God? As a leader what would it look like to have a non-negotiable of intimacy with God? To have time set aside as the leader to be intimate with God? That you were paid to be intimate with God (hours in your work week dedicated to intimacy)? What if we had a seminary that valued that? We have a seminary that requires 40 hours a week of coursework and an internship. We must also eat and so we must work. Does our seminary value intimacy? Do we have a fundamental lack of intimacy and does that explain the horrible statistics in our culture for pastors?
Dibbs.
ReplyDeleteNate,
ReplyDeleteYou raise some legitimate questions stemming from the video. Our seminary (some professors more than others) does value intimacy, yet the trap that the academy falls into is that of focusing too intently on academic standards rather than “intimate standards.” Part of this is born out of necessity—the seminary has to abide by certain regulations and ultimately “give us a grade” for our “study” of God. What I have learned over the course of the past year in numerous ways is that I would much rather get a B in a class and know I am closer to God’s heart and will for my life, than to concern myself too much so with meeting arbitrary man made grading systems. This tension is not easy though. This all is not to say that I do not value academic learning. I (and I’m sure you) would not be in seminary if I did not. The tools of Biblical exegesis and pastoral counseling (just to name a couple) are helpful, but should not be the goal of seminary. The goal of ministry “training” should indeed be modeling a radical love and passion for the one who gave His all for us.
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ReplyDeleteThis post is not for a grade:
ReplyDeleteI (as would a majority of current NT scholars) would disagree with Merrick's assertion that Revelation was written by the same John who laid on Jesus' chest.
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