Dr. James Emery White

The Best and Brightest

Friday, May 25, 2012

A recent article from The Atlantic was titled, “Why Do Our Best and Brightest End Up in Silicon Valley and Not D.C.?” It was an interview with Bill Maris, managing partner of Google Ventures, the “height of tech uber-coolness” and the place where “the world’s best and brightest come hoping not only for money, but also validation as a truly cutting edge concern.”

The direction of the interview was intriguing: America’s wunderkinds once looked to politics to make a difference with their lives, but now they head to Google Ventures for start-up money. Why is that? And further, why don’t existing Silicon Valley leaders apply their innovation skills and “tech-hipness” to help solve public policy problems in obvious need of fresh thinking?

After making the usual observations about government being “slow and complicated,” Maris gets to the heart of the issue. It’s not about the money. It’s about making a difference and doing something important. “I find this path I’m on to be a particularly leveraged way. Commercial enterprises, when they’re successful, tend to make big impacts in a way that non-profits sometimes have a more difficult time doing.”

It is difficult to argue with this assessment. Sadly, many automatically leap to the same conclusion when it comes to the church.

Every August, I meet with all of the summer interns at our church to talk about their experience. These are sharp young men and women. They are leaders in their high schools and colleges, serving as valedictorians and student government presidents, team captains and newspaper editors.

I ask them what they have learned from the summer, and one answer I can count on hearing is a fresh appreciation of the church as a place worthy of a life fully spent; the church as a place where someone could make a difference with their one and only life – maybe even the biggest possible difference; the church as the hope of the world.

This is real news to them. They live in a world where anyone who wants to give their life away in service have a difficult time thinking beyond the model of Tom’s shoes, U2’s Bono as a musician-ambassador, or Teach for America. Or even worse, they actually equate the difference Apple has made in the world with their heart’s cry of making a difference with their life, as if the iPad is akin to ending homelessness.

I always seize this moment. I unashamedly challenge them to hold on to that thought and be open to God leading them to give their vocational lives to the church.

I tell them that they aren’t going to hear the church championed as a place to invest their life in many quarters, so I ask them to let me pitch the vision for it hard and fast.

And then I do.

At the very least, I remind them to never forget the unique nature and role of the church; that no matter what good they might do through the marketplace – and God certainly calls many, if not most, to that endeavor – don’t ever let it become a substitute for taking up at least some role in the church.

We’ve made the marketplace and money, technology and science, everything.

But it isn’t. And there is one thing in particular it isn’t.

As I wrote in Christ Among the Dragons, a company is not the body of Christ instituted as the hope of the world by Jesus Himself, chronicled breathtakingly by Luke through the book of Acts, and shaped in thinking and practice by the apostle Paul through letter after letter now captured in the New Testament.

A marketplace venture which offers itself on the New York Stock Exchange is not the entity which is so expansive with energy that even the gates of hell cannot withstand its onslaught.

An assembly of employees in cubicles working for end-of-year stock options and bonuses is not the gathering of saints bristling with the power of spiritual gifts as they mobilize to provide justice for the oppressed, service to the widow and the orphan, and compassion for the poor.

No technological breakthrough, no matter how much it adds to the quality of human life, can hold a candle to altering someone’s eternal destiny.

Yes, our culture needs people living out their faith with enormous missional intent in the context of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, Warner Brothers and NBC, Harvard and Oxford. And many expressions of the church can be maddeningly constricting to anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to move the chains down the field and score through more than a running game. Few are more aware of the dysfunctional nature of many churches than I am.

But I am tired of those who dismiss the church as if anyone with something substantive to offer, an intellect that can truly compete, a talent that can make something of itself, would be slumming to consider it vocationally.

Here’s the truth.

Nothing compares to the church. No business, no investment, no enterprise, no activity. It's the heart of God's plan, and the hope of the world. It's the most dynamic, active, vibrant, forceful movement on the planet. It is the one thing we will give our lives to that will live on long after we are gone - and not just for a generation or two, but for all of eternity.

So do I challenge everyone to consider giving themselves to the church, and at the very least, become an active participant?

Of course.

Why should the best and the brightest waste their one and only life?

James Emery White

Sources

“Why Do Our Best and Brightest End Up in Silicon Valley and Not D.C.?,” David Ewing Duncan, The Atlantic, May 2012. Read online.

James Emery White, “And What Do You Do?,” ChurchandCulture.org. Read online.

James Emery White, Christ Among the Dragons (InterVarsity Press).

Editor’s Note

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president. His newly released book is A Traveler's Guide to the Kingdom: Journeying through the Christian Life (InterVarsity Press). To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, log-on to www.churchandculture.org, where you can post your comments on this blog, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world. Follow Dr. White on twitter @JamesEmeryWhite.

Moral Failure (Before a Watching World)

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

There have been few things more damaging to the church’s witness than how it has handled moral failure among its leaders. Not simply that there has been moral failure – that is damaging enough – but how it is then handled by the church. Too many times it has simply added to the pain and disdain. Whether pedophiles, serial adulterers, or those who misuse church authority and discipline, headlines and blogs are filled with understood outrage and indignation over not simply the acts, but the church’s response.

So why do so many churches bungle moral failure among leaders? For some, it’s true ignorance. They honestly don’t know what is best to do, never received training or mentoring, and are having to make it up as they go. One of the most common “mentoring” phone calls I receive from younger pastors is how to deal with moral failure when it hits their leadership team.

But we have to be less generous to what may be the most common reason for mishandling a moral failure: churches and individuals are trying to self-protect, even at the expense of victims.

They are trying to protect giving, support, attendance, and reputation. But lost in that “protection” are those in the future who might be abused by a serial pedophile, spouses that will see their marriage ripped apart by a habitual adulterer, and an ever growing number of church attenders who will be hurt by the ongoing spiritual abuse of leaders who seem to be given over to pride and anger.

So how should a church handle moral failure?

Here is a 10-step strategy forged over 25 years of ministry that I have often shared with younger leaders that will protect the abused, both confront and, if they allow it, care for the offender, and ensure the church’s integrity:

1. Determine whether this is something that should be reported immediately to the authorities. For example, ANY situation where a child has been sexually or physically abused should be reported to the police at once. If it is a matter that does not involve the authorities, and they simply flee your church upon being revealed, do not in any way enable them to simply go to another church and continue their sin against others. You may be limited as to what you can do, but do what you can to prevent them from being one of those who go from church-to-church, fleeing discipline and accountability, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.

2. Reflect on how the immorality surfaced. Were they discovered, or did they come forward on their own? This is your first sign as to whether there is true repentance at hand. A situation where someone confesses, and repents, because they were “caught” after months or years of “covering up” is very different than someone who comes forward on their own out of conviction.

3. Is their failure habitual, or a seeming one-time offense? There is a significant difference between, say, a serial adulterer as opposed to a “one-night-stand” affair. In other words, was the offense an anomaly in light of a steadfast track record over a long period of time, or is this a repeat offender?

4. Was this offense of a completely disqualifying nature for their ministry role, or are they restorable? In my judgment, someone who is unfaithful to their spouse one time in the context of years of commitment, can be restored. A serial offender cannot (or perhaps more to the point, should not). I would also argue that any offense against a child is grounds for permanent removal from any type of ministry with children. That is a “one-strike-and-you’re-out” offense.

5. If the person shows the kind of authentic repentance that seeks restoration, then resolve to have any and all discipline be restorative and not punitive. Too many churches have discipline that is meant to punish, not redeem and restore. The main purpose of church discipline is to drive the unrepentant toward repentance. If repentance is there, then move into restoration.

6. During restoration, it is usually wise to remove the person from any and all public platforms and leadership positions. If kept in employment, it should behind-the-scenes and free of spiritual responsibility.

7. The time of restoration depends on many things, including the kind of counseling that may be required. For matters of sexual immorality involving another person, I would suggest six months minimum, but perhaps one year maximum.

8. Communicate the situation to those who need to know. This is delicate, as there are many innocent parties involved who may not wish the details to be divulged (e.g., the family of the child so abused, the wife of the unfaithful spouse). There is also the family of the offender who, in most situations, are also victims (you do not want to unnecessarily embarrass the daughter of an adulterous man removed from ministry). I would advise to share details with the relevant circle of that person’s influence and ministry. This means that the wider the influence and ministry, the more people have to be told. If it was a small group leader, that person’s small group should know, and perhaps other small group leaders in that ministry, but not necessarily the church as a whole. Of course, there are certain individuals and offenses that warrant an announcement to the entire church body and, perhaps, to the rest of the watching world.

As far as the details of the offense itself, be direct and truthful, but not salacious. I certainly wouldn’t share anything that caters to the prurient. Also, in fairness to the person at hand, if it wasn’t sexual, don’t use language that suggests it was. The term “moral failure” will always intimate sexual matters to the average person, so if it was financial or some other matter, find other language that is more to the point. But the bottom line is appropriate disclosure to the appropriate people.

9. If they are able to be restored due to the nature of the offense and their repentance, then they should be fully restored with joy and celebration as a Kingdom victory. This is as important for the watching world as how we deal with the sin on the front-end. Grace is our secret weapon against the world’s value system, and it shouldn’t be cheapened in our giving any more than our receiving.

10. Those who have fallen, and then restored, should be received into the community as such. There should be no “scarlet letter” on their chest from that point forward. (*Again, matters related to child abuse are a different matter, as I would never suggest allowing them back into that particular ministry again, regardless of the restoration).

It goes without saying that not only is this list far from exhaustive, but every situation is unique and will require great prayer, counsel, wisdom and discernment. But hopefully this will serve as a helpful set of guidelines. And if you have some that are of value to add, please share those in the comments section of the blog. You may not need them now, but make no mistake – there will be moral failure in the church. It will happen within your leadership, and the world will be watching.

The key is what they will see.

James Emery White

Sources

For additional counsel on this and related matters, see James Emery White, What They Didn’t Teach You In Seminary (Baker).

Editor’s Note

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, N.C., and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president. His newly released book is A Traveler's Guide to the Kingdom: Journeying through the Christian Life (InterVarsity Press). To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, log on to www.churchandculture.org, where you can post your comments on this blog, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world. Follow Dr. White on Twitter @JamesEmeryWhite.

The 'R' Word

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Nutella is a chocolatey hazelnut spread that you can buy at the grocery store next to things like peanut butter or jelly. It would be difficult to confuse it with anything but what it is – a high-calorie, but great-tasting, spread.

Yet Ferrero, the company that manufactures Nutella, settled a $3 million lawsuit filed last February by a San Diego mom who believed Nutella was a great dietary choice for her four-year-old daughter. Claiming the company’s advertising was misleading, she sued.

It’s hard to know where to begin.

Nutella didn’t make her buy this, much less eat it.

Any adult, and certainly a mother caring for a four-year-old, should read the label before feeding anything to a child.

Yes, false advertising should be criminalized, but sometimes I think so should a lack of common sense.

But Nutella is not alone. McDonald’s was sued by someone who was shocked (shocked!) that chicken McNuggets and frosty shakes were fattening. While thrown out, a man in Brazil did win $17,500 because he gained 65 pounds over 12 years by eating Big Macs.

(What, exactly, did he think was going to happen?)

This is all part of a wider victim mentality that puts the blame for anything and everything in our life on to someone or something else.

Fat? Blame McDonalds, not the fact I went through the drive-thru 30 times last year, much less that I didn’t read any nutrition labels (or failed to exercise).

Debt? Blame the ease of credit cards and no-interest financing, not my lack of financial planning or buying sprees.

Children out of control? It’s obviously the school system, along with the media. The neighbors on our street aren’t that great, either. It’s certainly not my parenting!

Let’s face it. The ultimate obscenity, the most profane word in the English vocabulary, the one personal epithet that cannot be hurled, is the “R” word.

“Responsible.”

This cultural default mode bleeds over into moral and spiritual matters as well. Despite the fact that the Bible reminds us that to say we have no sin is to live in self-deception (1 John 1:8), we refuse to claim responsibility for the state of our character, much less our souls.

This is why the Christian divorce rate is not markedly different than those who are not professing Christians.

This is why young Christian singles have sex before marriage at about the same rate as those who are also single but not Christian (80 percent).

This is why as many as one out of every four Christians have lived with a member of the opposite sex without being married.

This is why Christians rank as high, if not higher, than any other group in regard to viewing pornography. Why should we be living any differently than anyone else in the world when we are not answerable for our lives?

It’s been a three-stage fall.

First, we understood that we were sinners.

Then we convinced ourselves that we were only mistakers.

Now we are obsessed with the idea of being little more than victims.

The spiritual dilemma is that until we return to an understanding of being sinners, fully accountable to a holy God, we will never be able to drink from the well of forgiveness. Namely because we will never imagine needing to. But only when our thirst is slaked by grace can we move forward into a life that has been truly redeemed and restored. Because grace, unless cheapened beyond recognition and value, demands one thing:

Taking responsibility.

James Emery White

Sources

“Nutella is Not Broccoli,” Rebecca Stropoli, The Exchange, Friday, April 27, 2012. Read online.

Ron Sider, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005).

“Why young Christians aren’t waiting anymore,” John Blake, CNN, September 27, 2011. Read online.

“(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It,” Tyler Charles, Relevant, September/October 2011. Read online.

Editor’s Note

'Remain at Your Posts and Do Your Duty'

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

On Saturday, April 21, Charles Wendell Colson died. On Wednesday of this week, I attended his memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

I hope you know who I am talking about. He rose from the streets of Boston to the heights of political power as Nixon’s chief counsel. He then went to prison in the aftermath of Watergate. But a strange thing happened along the way to prison: Chuck Colson became a follower of Christ. The next 40 years of his life would be spent as one of the world’s most pivotal Christian leaders as well as influential champions for prison ministry. His books sold in the millions, and his influence ran far and wide. As he wrote in Loving God, “I had surely known the heights and depths of life: from power, wealth, prestige, and an office next to the president of the United States to the confining walls of a dreary prison. But along the way I had made the most important discovery anyone can make.”

I haven’t written about Chuck’s death before now for personal reasons. First, I was on a speaking tour in England when the news came my way. But more importantly, there was much for me to process.

Chuck was far more than an acquaintance. He was a dear friend and mentor, and we went through much together.

We first met as a result of his gracious enthusiasm for my book, Serious Times. From that came correspondence, and then some shared conferencing and speaking. Then he was among those who reached out to me to become the president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (he was on the board), a role I eventually accepted.

Chuck and I forged a fast and intimate relationship as we strategized together to extend not only the Great Commission, but the cultural commission inherent within it. We would spend hours talking about bringing a Christian worldview to bear on all of life and culture. We shared the same passion that to change the world, we had to change the church; and to change the church, we had to change its leaders.

Our relationship was not always smooth.

My time as seminary president immediately was faced with budget deficits, faculty opposition, frustration over governance issues, and a board that had the same vocabulary for its vision, but not always the same dictionary. Chuck and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder through it all. He was my staunchest advocate.

But then, due to some significant disagreements about where it was best for me to establish my residency (I felt strongly that I needed to stay in Charlotte, which was already the location of its second largest and fastest-growing GCTS campus; many on the board wanted me to relocate to Massachusetts), I felt compelled to resign and return to my previous role as a pastor. The reasons are not important to divulge; suffice it to say that moving to Boston would not, I was convinced, have been wise.

When I resigned, Chuck was unhappy with me. Actually, that is putting it mildly. We were close enough that he could, and did, read me the riot act. Those who knew him know that he remained every bit the Marine he had been in his youth, and still carried some of the residue of his Nixon hatchet-man days (While in the White House, he once wrote in an internal memo, “I would walk over my grandmother for Richard Nixon.”). Few people could be more blunt, direct and forceful than Chuck.

In his defense, he was more personally hurt by my resignation than most people realized – more than even I did at the time. He felt that a part of his legacy and hopes were tied up with me and that role. When I resigned, despite several phone calls and meetings trying to convince me not to, he felt a strong sense of loss and kingdom setback. It wasn’t, of course, true. The role was important, but not decisive. What was certain is that I wasn’t that important. Regardless, that is how he felt at the time. For my part, I felt frustrated that he didn’t see the larger picture of my life (and my family’s life), and how strongly I felt about making my best investment through the local church. As much as Chuck understood the centrality of the local church, he never granted her the culture-making role I felt Scripture cast and that had captivated my heart.

He later apologized for his reaction, particularly for his words and emotions on the day I announced my decision, and we reconciled fully. While a Marine, Chuck was a tender-hearted follower of Christ who was easily moved by the Holy Spirit. He still wished that I had stayed on as president of Gordon-Conwell, but admitted he understood my reasons and allowed for the possibility of our joint dreams and passions being carried out through the local church I led, and that good and important things could come of the writing and speaking God continued to afford my life.

In truth, there were things we both could have handled better.

That is already more than I have ever written on my Gordon-Conwell saga, and obviously leaves out many, many things. The point is that to the end of his days, Chuck was a good and close friend. We respected each other, were loyal to each other, and were joined at the hip in our convictions and passions and aims.

All to say, I loved Chuck Colson, and I am a better man for our time together.

And I will miss him very much.

We all will.

He stood for biblical truth in a day that seems more concerned with being accepted by culture than prophetically confronting it with a wisdom and compelling apologetic and influence.

He was relentless in reminding us younger leaders to surround ourselves with counsel and accountability, and he fleshed it out by finishing well without scandal throughout his days as a Christian statesman.

As bold and confident as he appeared, he was a large-hearted man with a truly humble spirit, transparently forged in prison as only prison can. With every controversial stand on various social issues, he gained respect and credibility by spending time in the prisons from which he came, witnessing to inmates with relentless compassion.

Those of us invited to his memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington wore buttons that held some of Chuck’s lasting words to us all:

“Remain at your posts and do your duty."

He certainly did.

And his legacy with my life is that I will always aim to do the same. Maybe not at the post he envisioned for me, or even the post I might envision for myself – his own life was a testament that such things are difficult to forecast -- but always answering the call to duty that brought us together.

James Emery White

Sources

Charles Colson, Loving God.

On Chuck’s life, see Jonathan Aitken, Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed.

Editor’s Note

About Dr. James Emery White

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina; President of Serious Times, a ministry which explores the intersection of faith and culture (www.serioustimes.org); and ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture on the Charlotte campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Dr. White holds the B.S., M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees, along with additional work at Vanderbilt University and Oxford University. He is the author of over a dozen books.

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