Transforming Church

The Posture of Birth

To anticipate God’s future and to frame our present in light of God’s work is to know existentially in our present the reality expressed in Revelation 21:5: “And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘see, I am making all things new.’”1 The posture of birth is the posture of a midwife; it sees its never ending work in the Christian assembly as that of delivering healthy and well the new things God is birthing through his body the church. This sort of posture anticipates pain and discomfort and the messiness of delivery and coaches through it. As midwives do in homes and delivery rooms, it reminds the body that giving birth is a healthy, normal and natural thing to do…and that the pain that comes in the midst of it is of the sort that does not last.

In my own ministry I state openly and regularly that God expects to give birth to new mission through us, to deeper discipleship and followership, to new disciples brought into our community, and to great hopefulness and trust. What I find anecdotally is that the stated expectation, the assertion of the posture, shifts the Christian community into a synergistic posture of expectation, watching and discernment.

Though there may be anxiety over changes and new things occurring in our congregational life, the simple conversation of “expecting” changes and modifies the nature of the anxiety from that of negative murmuring to that of positive excitement. These small communal shifts do something remarkable in community over time as well. In the end, the community of Christ is able to conceive and birth greater and greater amounts of mission and engagement with the world. In other words, the posture of birth in fact gives birth to a missional church.

The Posture of Engagement

In the Church shaped by Constantine ministry was outsourced to professionals. In Europe today where this model of ministry has run its course cathedrals are effectively empty at Mass except for priests and a handful of devoted people. For whatever reason, the Church and what it points to has lost its relevance and meaning. In contrast, a Church that connects meaning to people’s lives engenders engagement and passion. It adds value to life and gives purpose…and purpose more than anything else motivates people to commit and to engage.

Albert Winseman writes about a man named Mike, a family man, and engaged disciple of Jesus who meets in a men’s Bible study over his lunch hours and in the evening heads to church with his family for a family evening of discipleship. He also provides leadership for his church’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity. He is an engaged Christian. Winseman writes, “For Mike, his faith is the organizing principle of his life. ‘I wouldn’t consider myself a fanatic or anything like that, and I certainly don’t press my beliefs on others,’ he says. ‘It’s just that without my faith, my life wouldn’t be as meaningful.’”2

The posture of engagement in the church is a leadership posture that believes to its core that ministry in the church should never be done by the pastor. This is not an ethic of laziness. It is simply the insight that what St. Paul maintained is true. The church is alive and empowered by God with gifts for the edification of the body and the world (1 Corinthians 12). Pastor Lou Forney3 says that one of the most significant and powerful questions pastors can ask themselves in the church is, “What am I doing in ministry that someone else in this body can do as well or better?”

Part of the difficult shift that pastors who try and apprehend this posture have to make is that their success is not measured by how much ministry they get done in a given week or by how much their parishioners need them. Instead, the measuring stick is how much ministry can be given away to the priesthood of all believers so that they can find purpose and meaning in the body through their unique gifts and design.

At a deeper level, the posture of engagement understands that the goal of all of our work as servant leaders in Jesus’ church is the creation of people who live with a vision of Jesus and his resurrection ever before them, and who speak and enact that vision with the material of their lives. They create ecclesial environments where people grow naturally in faith and life and in expression of their God-given baptismal identities. They create environments where leaders beget leaders and the circle of participation grows and grows because there is always room for another to share who they are within the purpose and hope of the community.

This article in its entirety began with a look at leading in the new age. Part Two introduced the first two transformational postures in leading. This part has looked at postures three and four in leading, and the final part contains the conclusion and outcomes, and as a bonus, also the full bibliography.

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1 New Revised Standard Version Bible.
2 Albert L. Winseman, Growing and Engaged Church: How to Stop “Doing Church” and Start BEING the Church (New York: Gallup Press, 2007), 66.
3 Rev. Dr. Lou Forney is the Senior Pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Omaha, Nebraska.