Occasio

Leading through Listening

Earlier this year I had an article published in the Journal of Student Ministries. The premise of "Leading through Listening" is that many of us in leadership work so hard at making decisions we forget to listen to those whom the decisions affect. In the article I suggest three good questions that should be asked of the groups we lead when visioning for the future. This piece is written with youth pastors in mind, but the three questions can apply to any church group. Here's a teaser:

As a youth ministry professional I have struggled most of my career with understanding the role of the Holy Spirit in church leadership.

On one hand, I believe that I should be the voice of God and speak to people on behalf of the Spirit. On the other hand, I believe that God’s Spirit is already present among people and that I should listen to them when I am leading.

Some youth leaders approach ministry as if God’s Spirit is already among God’s people; others approach it as if it is the youth minister who brings God’s Spirit to kids.

If we believe that we bring the Spirit to a youth group, then we’ll likely lead that group like a CEO—e.g., making all of the key decisions regarding activities, curriculum, programming, etc. But if we believe that God’s Spirit is already present and active in a youth group, we’ll learn to discern a vision for the ministry with teens, not for teens, by asking appropriate questions.

If you want to know what the three questions are, you can find the full article here.

Jennifer Knapp comes out in Christianity Today and on Larry King Live

In the late 1990s I spoke and Jennifer Knapp led music for a youth conference in Colorado. We even went white water river rafting together. She impressed me as a true artist, a passionate young women, a hard worker and a committed follower of Christ. She evidenced this in both music and life.

We still sing one of her praise songs in our congregation:

He's our Lord / He's our Lord / And we honor Him / With our praise
For He's so holy, righteous and true / To praise Him only is all that we can do

In April she did a number of interviews including one with Christianity Today in which she admitted her eight-year monogamous relationship with another woman. With the release of her new album, Letting Go, she has "come out" and began to discuss the interplay of her faith and sexuality. The decision to remain Christian and stay in a same-sex relationship has been difficult and not without serious soul searching and scriptural study. She says,

The Bible has literally saved my life. I find myself between a rock and a hard place—between the conservative evangelical who uses what most people refer to as the "clobber verses" to refer to this loving relationship as an abomination, while they're eating shellfish and wearing clothes of five different fabrics, and various other Scriptures we could argue about. I'm not capable of getting into the theological argument as to whether or not we should or shouldn't allow homosexuals within our church. There's a spirit that overrides that for me, and what I've been gravitating to in Christ and why I became a Christian in the first place.

Despite the attacks that have come, many hateful and unchristian, Jennifer has remained gracious, admitting that she is still trying to sort through what it means to be a Christian in any context. She hasn't turned her back on the early Christian music years and she doesn't condemn the church today. In speaking about the song "Inside" she says,

I don't want anyone to think the song is targeted at the church, or at the ways we find judgment cast upon us. It's a challenge to break free of that and to own who you really are. That's my heart's cry for anyone I've ever met. It's not on my agenda to convert the world to a religion, but to convert the world to compassion and grace. I've experienced that in my life through Christianity.
It's not like I left Christian music because Christian music was bad, or that I'm not participating in church because the church is evil. It's none of those things. For me, it's the journey that I'm on, trying to figure things about as best I can.

Here is the full article at Christianity Today.

Jennifer Knapp also did an interview with Larry King in an episode titled "Can You Be Christian and Gay?" Though Larry sensationalized the topic (as usual), Jennifer shows herself as a very articulate and thoughtful artist. Also on the show are Pastor Bob Botsford from San Diego, who says he's been praying for Jennifer's "return" to the church for years, and Ted Haggard, former president of the National Association for Evangelicals who was removed from ministry because of homosexual practices. All the participants make important and well accepted claims. In a surprise, Ted Haggard makes some amazingly compelling and sensitive statements. Check out the four-part interview below (thanks Dave Wainscott for posting these).