Fostering Transformation by Buildingchurchleaders.com

One of the online resources I use is buildingchurchleaders.com- a branch of Christianity Today. Two weeks ago they featured a compendium of articles on transformation from well-known authors: Paul David Tripp, Gordon McDonald, Peter Scazzero, Kevin Miller, Ed McManus, and John Ortberg. These authors span the ministry and theological spectrum- from the traditional church to the emerging church. The buildingchurchleaders’ resources are easily accessible online and available for a very low price- usually about $14.95 USC for approximately 26 pages of material. Their resources are well-suited for group discussion. This reviewer has reviewed individual books by most of the authors in the compendium “Fostering Transformation”, so finding their insights together in this form seemed fortuitous. Each article is 2-3 pages long, and intended for small group settings. A quote from each of the authors will give a taste of the value of this particular resource packet:

1.      The Heart is the Target by Paul David Tripp: “People and situations don’t make us say what we say, though we tend to blame them…We speak and act the way we do because of what is in our hearts…Any agenda for change must focus on the thoughts and desires of our hearts” (pg. 3).

2.      Signs of a Transformed Christian by Gordon McDonald: “In the transformed Christian, his or her eye is on what others have ignored. You see him/her lifting the fallen one, elevating the insignificant one. What an incredible example s/he is to exploitive and arrogant people who walk through every day dividing and diminishing people all around them. The transforming Christ-follower knows his/her natural human tendency and seeks God’s power to replace it with another tendency: redeeming, healing love” (pg. 7).

3.      Emotional and Spiritual Health by Peter Scazzero: “You can’t be spiritually mature without being emotionally mature…It’s about being transformed from the inside out…For example, how does your past impact who you are in the present?…How do you deal with loss?…How do you set limits?…How do you show love?” (pp. 8-10).

4.      Conversations that Transform by Kevin Miller: “One day reading Mark 8, I noticed that when Jesus talks to people He mostly asks questions…Following this model I am trying to ask more questions of the people I pastor…Two of my favorites are (1) “What do you like about the person you’re becoming? What do you not like?” (2) “When was a time you felt most alive?” …If I ask questions like these, and then listen, spiritual gifts emerge and hope pushes up through parched soil” (pg. 11).

5.      Deepening Disciples by Gordon McDonald: We are called to grow deep people. This means “we’re not reluctant to open up our own lives with our disciples; we know how to bring out the best in others; we believe in their present and future identity- seeing what they might become and endeavoring to deepen them by teaching, illustrating, and testing,” like Jesus did with His disciples (pp. 15-16).

6.      A Look at the Discipleship Cycle by Erwin McManus. “Since post-modernism, as the society around us declined, so did the emotional health, relationships, morality and overall well-being of everyone inside and outside the church…So how do we begin to reclaim the power of making fully-functioning disciples out of seriously flawed people? …A person who is emotionally broken tends to see others only for the support they can provide. The greater the brokenness, the less a person contributes to the relationship and the more they demand. Emotional wholeness is seen in what you can contribute to others with a supportive community, gratitude, integrity, and a servant heart” (pp. 17, 18).

7.      What Sanctification is Not by John Ortberg: “What is Jesus calling me to die to if I’m going to live? …The death I’m called to is the death of the lesser, petty, meaner self so that a nobler, more joyful self might come to life. We die to our sinful self to bring to a mortal end those dynamics in us that keep sin alive. Failure to grasp this has often been tragic. People in churches sometimes pursue what might be called ‘wrongful death’ approaches” (pp. 20-21).

There are discussion questions attached to each of these articles. Generically, in terms of the issue of Fostering Transformation, where are you personally in that discipleship cycle? And, using the definitions described in the articles, what is the ethos of your church? What do you want it to be?

Reviewed by M.L. Codman-Wilson, Ph.D., 7/25/12

Pursuing God’s Will Together, A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups by Ruth Haley Barton, IVP, 2012

Ruth Haley Barton has written a very helpful book “to provide practical guidelines for leaders and leadership teams who want to enter more deeply into the process of corporate discernment as a way of life in leadership” (p. 12). She says: “Discernment is the capacity to recognize and respond to the presence and activity of God- both in the ordinary moments and in the larger decisions of our lives…Spiritual discernment is the ability to distinguish or discriminate between good (that which is of God and draws us closer to God) and evil (that which is not of God and draws us away from God).” It involves moving “beyond reliance on human thinking and strategizing to a place of deep listening and response to the Spirit of God within and among us” (pp. 10-11).

Her insights from the Biblical story in John 9 illustrate what works against spiritual discernment in religious communities: The disciples use the misfortune of the man who has been born blind “as an opportunity for theological and philosophical discussion- ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents?’ There was no love, no compassion for this man’s situation, no concern for his well-being. Instead, they turned him into an object lesson…The disciples were caught in…structural alignedness, imbedded in the belief system they adhered to…Jesus responded by saying ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This man was born blind so the works of God could be revealed in and through his life’…One of the first lessons we learn about discernment, from Jesus anyways, is that it will always tend towards concrete expressions of love with real people rather than theoretical conversations about theology and philosophy” (p. 21-23). The man’s neighbors couldn’t acknowledge the miracle…because “their cognitive filters which helped them categorize and make sense of reality… prevented them from “seeing” anything new or allowing any new data into their consciousness…We only see what we’re ready to see, expect to see, and even desire to see and we’re more stuck when we’re with others who share the same paradigm. How desperately we need practices, experiences, and questions that help us get outside our paradigms so we can “see” old realties new ways…Paradigms, systems of thought, rigidly held categories, and unquestioning loyalty systems …have a powerful tendency to filter out any new information, including anything new God might be doing. They can filter out God himself!”(pp.24-25).

Two of her important parameters of a spiritual community of discernment are (1) that each person in the leadership team is working consciously on his/her own spiritual formation and (2) the art of conflict transformation.  On point one she says: “Discernment begins when we’re in touch with our blindness and are willing to cry out from that place “my Teacher I want to see”…The most important prerequisite for discernment at the leadership level is that everyone on the leadership group is on an intentional journey from spiritual blindness to spiritual vision” (pp.30- 31).   “Corporate discernment begins with attending to the spiritual formation of each individual leader”(p. 37). This involves “each leader living by the Rule of Life” (pg. 114). That practice includes fixed hour prayer (establishes designated times where we stop and consciously engage God through scripture and meditation) (p. 116), praying the great prayers of the church, and practicing the spiritual disciplines. “Some groups may get stuck when they discover that while the individuals involved are intelligent Christians they do not have the spiritual practices in place that enable them to stay open to God in the context of a discernment process with others” (p. 38). Some of those practices include the discipline of silence and solitude “to give God complete access to our souls” (pg. 39); the discipline of engaging the scriptures for spiritual transformation, i.e., “finding ourselves in the story in a way that helps us make sense of our lives and helps us know God’s guidance for the next steps”; the discipline of prayer, particularly prayers of quiet trust (Psalm 131), the prayer for indifference (to anything but God’s will) and the prayer of wisdom…(“Indifference is an important requisite to wisdom -  When we can become indifferent to our need to be seen as wise in the eyes of others, then we’re ready to received wisdom from God”) (p. 43), and the discipline of knowing and self-examination - (“Many people have been so shaped by work environments that are competitive, harsh, and punitive that they function in self-protective ways. When they become part of a spiritual community in which individuals are expected to take responsibility for their mistakes, face their own character issues, and confess their sin to one another in a way that foster deeper levels of transformation, they honestly don’t have the skills or spiritual capacity to do it…Discernment requires that first of all, they are able to discern matters of their own heart” (p. 45).

She describes conflict transformation as “the commitment to engage conflict in a way that changes our lives for the better and deepens our unity in Christ” (p.104). She says: “Conflict transformation begins as we affirm Jesus’ presence to be with us, and find ways to be open to his presence. We need to frame our conversation in terms of seeking to find the demand of Christian love in this situation; we need to commit ourselves to remain open to God and to the other person when everything in us wants to shut down;…we commit to direct face to face communication rather than resorting to triangulation and speaking behind each other’s backs (Mt. 18:15).  If one on one communication doesn’t bring the needed resolution, we are committed to involving an objective third party who is trusted by each person involved (especially if there are power dynamics involved)” (p.146).

Barton also makes the helpful distinction between working as a team and working as a spiritual community. “God calls us to a Christian community made up of people who gather around the transforming presence of Christ so they can do the will of God (Mk 3:34-35). This is different from a team “which assembles around a task and is bound together by a commitment to that task. Spiritual community gathers around the person of Christ present with us through the Holy Spirit. We are unified by our commitment to be transformed in Christ’s presence for the work of the Holy Spirit so we can discern and do the will of God as we are guided by the Spirit (pp. 76, 77).  In areas of discernment this involves “creating space for the Spirit -after discussing a particular agenda item, take time to listen to God in silence to see if God’s Spirit brings to mind a scripture that might provide needed guidance and perspective. Then assemble the group to share these scriptures (p. 120), listen to people’s positive or negative feelings about a possible course of action and then act on the corporate discernment of God’s will. 

“Developing a genuine spiritual community also requires that people articulate “the set of values that they seek to live with integrity. It involves individuals sharing the core values that are part of the core identity of the community, including scriptures that are particularly important to the community” (p.92).  And it involves a “commitment to love- not as an emotion but as a set of attitudes, behavior, and concrete actions, i.e, taking time to listen to one another, to demonstrate kindness in word and deed, to pray for one another when together or apart, and to practice confession. Practicing confession “builds trust love and accountability in our personal life. We may need to ask God to guide us in noticing the inner wounds, character deficiencies, or sin patterns that cause or tempt us to bad behavior. Confession is personal (between God and me and sometimes a trusted friend or confessor); it is interpersonal (with a person or persons I have offended) and it is corporate (in the context of community and our prayer together). It is the interplay between those three that keep confession healthy and productive. Healthy functioning in community is dependent not only on our growing self-awareness but also our ability to take responsibility for the quality our action by acknowledging and confessing sin” (pp.144-145).

Barton advocates a written covenant for the community. “It provides a way for the group to claim shared ownership for their behavior because it contains detailed guidelines that help the group function together. Spiritual community is so tender and fragile that it requires some protective structure on order for it to survive. When we are tempted to revert to old, unredeemed patterns our covenant can call us back to our best intentions” (pp. 153, 154).  Barton’s entire book is calling Christians back to God’s model of Christian community.

                                                                                Reviewed by M.L. Codman-Wilson               7/19/12

Book Review: Batterson Circle Maker

Mark Batterson’s book, The Circle Maker, is replete with Biblical and contemporary examples to illustrate his main thesis about prayer:  “The size of prayers depends on the size of our God, and if God knows no limits, than neither should we.  Our prayers exist outside of the 4 space, time dimensions He created. We should pray that way. God asked Moses, Is there a limit to my power? With God it’s never an issue of ‘Can he?’ Only a question of ‘Will he?’ And while you don’t always know if he will, you know that he can. And because you know he can, you can pray with holy confidence” (pp.72-73).

Using the Biblical story of the fall of Jericho, Batterson says ““after 7 days of circling Jericho, God delivered on a 400 year old promise… The Israelites didn’t conquer Jericho because of a brilliant military strategy or brute force. They learned how to let the Lord fight their battles for them. Drawing prayer circles is far more powerful than any battering ram…You need to circle the goals God wants you to go after, the promises the Holy Spirit has conceived in your spirit and the dreams God want you to pursue. And once you spell Jericho, you need to circle it in prayer. Then you need to keep circling, until the walls come tumbling down” (pp. 21,28-29). 

With this thesis Batterson asks the reader significant application questions throughout the book:

“What is your Jericho?”  (pg. 21)

“When was the last time you found yourself flat on your face before the Almighty?

When was the last time you cut off your circulation kneeling before the Lord?

When was the last time you pulled an all-nighter in prayer? There are higher heights and deeper depths in prayer and God wants to take you there. In the Jericho story, God speaks in the past tense, not the future tense. He doesn’t say, ‘I will deliver.’ He says ‘I have delivered Jericho into your hands.’ The significance is this: the battle was won before the battle ever begun. God had already given them the city, all they had to do was circle it” [and follow His instructions] (pp. 34, 37).

“Is there some dream that God wants to resurrect? Is there some promise you need to reclaim? Is there some miracle you need to start believing for again?...“Elijah climbed to the top of Mt Carmel, fell on his face and prayed for rain. Six times he told his servant to look towards the sea, but there was no rain. And this is when most of us give up. We stop praying because we can’t see any tangible difference with our eyes. We allow our circumstances to get between God and us instead of putting God between us and our circumstances…It’s easy to give up on dream, miracles, and promises. We lose heart, lose patience, lost faith” (pp. 86-87).

But Batterson refuses to allow small faith to be the determiner of the normal Christian life.  In the story of Martha and Jesus when Lazarus died, Batterson describes first level and second level faith. “Martha said to Jesus after her brother died, Lord if you had been here, our brother wouldn’t have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you want. The little phrase, even now, is still circled in my Bible. Even when God is 4 days late, it seems like too soon to give up…Martha’s first statement is first degree faith, that’s preventative faith...But Martha’s phrase even now is second degree faith- resurrection faith. It a faith that refuses to put periods at the end of disappointment; it is a faith that believes that God can reverse the irreversible” (pp. 89-90). 

In Batterson’s argument for such second level faith, he makes other important comments:

1.On neuroimaging: “Neuroimaging has shown that as we age, the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from the imaginative right brain to the logical left brain. And this neurological tendency creates a grave danger. At some point most of us stop living out of imagination and start living out of memory. Instead of creating the future, we start repeating the past…As we age, either imagination overtakes memory, or memory overtakes imagination. Imagination is the road less taken, but it is the pathway of prayer. Prayer and imagination are directly proportional. The more you pray, the bigger your imagination becomes because the Holy Spirit super-sizes it with God-sized dreams. One litmus test of spiritual maturity is whether your dreams are getting bigger or smaller…The older you get, the more faith you should have because you’ve experienced more of God’s faithfulness. And it‘s God’s faithfulness that increases our faith and enlarges our dreams…The death of a dream is often a subtle form of idolatry. We lose faith in the God that gave us the big dream and settle for a small dream we can accomplish without his help. And the God who is able to do immeasurably more than all our right brain can imagine, is supplanted by a god who fits within the logical restraints within our left brain. Nothing honors God more than a big dream that is way beyond our ability to accomplish. Why? Because there is no way we can take credit for it. And nothing is better for our spiritual development because it keeps us on our knees in raw dependence on God” (pp.41-43).

2. On the skies raining quail: “The Israelites were parked in the desert of Paren, a region about 50 miles inland from the Mediterranean Sea, and 50 mi west of the Dead Sea. The significance is this: quails tend to live by the sea. If it wasn’t for a supernatural west wind, they never would have made it that far. So this is a meteorological miracle. This was not just a miraculous west wind. The clouds burst and rained quail from the sky. Scripture says, ‘the quail were 2 cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction.”  Based on the Hebrew system of measurement, a day’s walk is approximately 15 miles in any direction. This was an area 10 times larger than the nation’s capital. But the quail were piled up 3 feet deep as well. It rained something in the neighborhood of 105 million quail. God doesn't just provide in dramatic fashion; God provides in dramatic proportion…When God enters the equation, his output always exceeds your input” (pp.52-55).

3. On church budgets: One $42,000 gift was given to Batterson’s church ‘because you have vision beyond your resources.’ “Those four words, ‘vision beyond your resources,’ have become a mantra at NCC. We refuse to let our budget determine our vision. That left-brained approach is a wrong-brained approach because it’s based on our limited resources, rather than on God’s unlimited resources. Faith is allowing your God-given vision to determine your budget. That certainly doesn’t mean that you spend beyond your means, and accumulate a huge debt load. It does mean that you take a step of faith when God gives you a vision, because you trust that the One who gave you the vision is going to make provision. And for the record, if the vision is from God, it will most certainly be beyond your means” (pp. 60-61).

4. On praying the Bible: “Our most powerful prayers are hyperlinked to the promises of God. When you know you are praying the promises of God, you can pray with holy confidence…All God’s promises have been transferred to us via Jesus Christ.  All these promises must be interpreted intelligently and applied properly, but there are moments when the Spirit of God will quicken your spirit to claim a promise that was originally given to someone else. So while we must be careful not to blindly claim promises that don’t belong to us, our greatest failures are not to claim the promises we should circle.” (pp. 92, 93). “Reading is the way you get through the Bible. Prayer is the way you get the Bible through you. As you pray, the Holy Spirit will quicken certain promises to your spirit. These promises of God will become your promises. Then you need to circle those promises both figuratively and literally…There is nothing God wants to do more than prove his power by keeping his promises. But, we doubt God because we doubt ourselves. We don’t ask God to extend his hand, because we don’t know his heart…When Elijah prayed for rain, he sent a servant to look toward to the sea. Why? Because he expected an answer. He didn’t just pray: he acted on his expectations by looking towards the sea.  One reason why none of us ever get an answer to our prayers is because we just pray. You can’t just pray like Elijah; you have to act like Elijah. You can’t just pray; you have to look to the sea” (pp. 94, 95, 100, 114).

Because of these insights and the many stories that support them, The Circle Maker is a book worth reading.  However, though I am an ardent advocate of the intercession ministry, I did have one main red flag in the book. It came at the end when Batterson listed the 115 goals he has circled in prayer on his life goal list.  For an expanding readership, who are now following his books and model, that seems to smack of the kind of flesh-based, self-effort and manipulation he decries.  Making such a list public will invite people to step up and answer those goals just because they believe in him.  A far better model would be to use George Mueller’s advice and leave those needs and goals with God and not broadcast them, so that when they are met, it will be because God made it happen. In Batterson’s own words: “Nothing honors God more than a big dream that is way beyond our ability to accomplish. Why? Because there is no way we can take credit for it. And nothing is better for our spiritual development because it keeps us on our knees in raw dependence on God” (pg. 43).  It seems he forgot his own advice at the end.

                                                                        Reviewed by Dr. M.L. Codman-Wilson        7/14/12

Book Review David Benner’s Spirituality and the Awakening Self, Brazos Press, 2012

 Benner’s new book, Spirituality and the Awakening Self, will be of interest primarily to those who are pursuing a more in-depth psychological understanding of the developmental stages of self.  The book is academically very astute and incorporates much of the key thinking of developmental psychologists.   But it borders on the weighty, dense, technical side and is not in the usual style of the current genre of laymen-friendly spiritual formation books.   Nonetheless, there are important insights to the developmental process in a Christian’s life.  These will be particularly important for counselors, spiritual coaches and supervisors of those in ministry to understand.  Some of the insights are excerpted below.

                                                                                    Reviewed by M.L.Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 7/4/12

“Awakening has been called awareness. The issue is there is an intermediate world between our self and the world. That intermediate world contains our prejudices and prejudgments through which we view our experiences of everything beyond us.  Here we see the world through the labels we give things and the categories into which we jam them. But experiencing the world through categorization, bias and prejudgment is not experiencing things as they actually are. It is experiencing our thoughts about the world rather than directly experiencing the world. This distance keeps us out of touch with reality and unaware” (p. 4).

Mapping the unfolding self involves understanding the great chain of being – matter, life, mind, soul and spirit.  “Spirit is dynamic, energizing, vitalizing and enriching. Like fire, wind and spirit it ignites, moves and animates us. It gives us the energy to live life to the full.  But it also always calls us beyond our self, orienting us toward a self-transcendent reference point.  Soul pulls us down and into our experiencing, encouraging us to find meaning there; spirit points us beyond ourselves and toward our Source and our destiny, toward the place where we most deeply belong” (p. 21).

[Understanding the chain of being is part of the big picture map of reality.]  “Big picture maps…make us aware of developmental possibilities that are virtually impossible to see from the small, cramped places out of which we typically live our lives. If we listen with our heart and spirit, not simply with our mind, we might sense a longing to live in these larger places that lie beyond our present horizons.  If indeed all of life is flowing in a direction that returns us to our Source, something within us calls us beyond our small self and the limited perspective it offers of life and the cosmos.  That something is Spirit calling to spirit” (pp.31-32).

“Unlike either physical growth or the early stages of the inner self’s maturation that we see in childhood and adolescence, adult maturation does not come easily or automatically…it is far from the default option…Rather than resolving the developmental blocks at the root of our psychological distress and then getting on with the journey toward health and maturity, we often simply want to eliminate the symptoms and reduce the distress…This profoundly limits the possibilities of growth and development” (pp.37-38).

Benner combines thinking from various developmental psychologists with these existential questions:

“Dimensions of Development                                                 Existential Question

            Self                                                                                          Who am I?

            Values                                                                                     What is important to me?

            Moral                                                                                       How should I choose?

            Interpersonal                                                                           How should I relate to others?

            Spiritual                                                                                   What is of ultimate concern?

Dimensions of Development                                                  Existential Question

            Needs                                                                                      What do I need to be well?

            Kinesthetic                                                                              How do I indwell my body?

            Emotional                                                                                How do I feel?

            Aesthetic                                                                                 What do I find attractive?

            Cognitive                                                                                What am I aware of?

            Ego                                                                                          How do I wish to appear?

            Faith                                                                                        Whom and how do I trust?

Faith, for example forms part of spiritual development, as do values and morality.  Similarly, needs and aesthetics form part of values development, and ego, faith, kinesthetic and aesthetics form part of self-development” (pp.41-42).  “Growth on any of the lines of development involves expansion of boundaries …We begin to see ourselves and the world differently because we become aware of things that were previously beyond awareness…Each stage introduces a larger perspective and a larger self. The 5 dimensions of development are: faith, moral, cognitive, interpersonal and ego…They are often at varying degrees of…development.” (pp. 51, 55, 56.) [He graphs an adult woman who had excelled in cognitive development with lesser equal levels of moral, faith and ego development but greatly lacking in interpersonal development. p. 56].

“Transformation affects our identity by changing our identifications and attachments (attachment, i.e., to our ill health, our opinions or beliefs, our accomplishments, reputation, possessions, or past).  It is a reorganization of personality that results in a changed way of being in the world..the furniture of our inner self is being radically rearranged….These shifts in consciousness are the central dynamic of the transformational journey into God…All growth, healing and transformation are mediated by this outpouring of the divine Self.  Our part is to respond in faith – a ‘yes’ of openness, acceptance and gratitude to the Spirit of God who dwells within” (pp. 61, 59, 63-64).

Benner deals with transformation in  terms of 4 stages of the self:

            The body-centered self – the body as source of pleasure of pain, which includes the public self – how I am seen from an external perspective (by others). This introduces self-consciousness and a performance orientation and a “preoccupation with being the self that I think will earn me the love, esteem and others reinforcements that appear to lie in the hands of others” (pp.94-95).

            The mind-centered self – I am my thoughts, my beliefs – this includes developing language to communicate my thoughts and feelings and judgments, using my imagination for creativity and play and developing a communal self (pp.105-119).

            The soul centered self – He defines soul as “our meaning-making part; it is how we reflect on ourselves.  This also includes my shadow – “embracing my disowned parts which we keep locked up in the cellar of our conscious” and recognizing the many part of myself that pull in different directions” (pp. 128-131).

            The spirit centered self – which calls us up and out toward that which transcends us and the circumstances of our life, beyond the particulars of our own small and often cramped lives” (p. 137).  “At all times the Spirit is inviting us to be more than we are by calling our attention to that which lies beyond the boundary of our present senses of self…Consent to the invitation of the Spirit to become more than I presently am always involves letting go of something safe and secure before I have a firm grasp of anything to replace it” (pp. 156, 158). 

“Spiritual practices that contribute to transformation are those that offer opportunities to practice openness, surrender and willingness” (p. 162).  They always involve a contemplative dimension and a communal context.

“Contemplative stillness…allows us to notice our preoccupations and identifications and set them aside in an act of self-surrender” (p. 164). 

“Transformation is about my alignment with God and my alignment with all that God has created and is making new…It is about me becoming a better conduit for the life of God, which is primarily manifested in terms of love” (p. 208).