The View from the West Mesa

A major discussion point in my faith community recently has been the concept of female elders. Not the actuality of female elders mind you, just the concept. Given my previous post on the proper roles of men and women, we need to ask what the purpose of elders is. Elders, rightly understood, are not institutional functionaries. This is clear because an institution is not what God is after. They are instead, sages of the People of God; mature, disciplined, faithful followers of God who grasp the faith as it was intended and can pass it along to younger generations. To do this job, elders form a deliberative and guiding body for the People of God – not a church. As such, elders pray, meditate on Scripture, contemplate what they know of God and His purposes, and provide guidance and correction collectively and individually to the People of God. To pass on the faith – or for the purpose of maturing believers – elders counsel, advise, teach, and preach with an eye toward forming the compl...

Let’s review what God is up to and how the church fits his purposes. By church, we too often mean an institution even if we consciously make a distinction between organizations and organisms. We are familiar with the Episcopal Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Church of Christ. We have a penchant of arguing over the arguing over the rules for these institutions so that we get “it” right. Unfortunately, this isn’t the point of church. We confuse ourselves by using a Biblical term for a modern manifestation. When God said He would build His church, He meant something more along the lines of “I will call my people out of the nations.” He wasn’t building a “church,” but crafting a people of His own. This people are intended to be a reflection of the originally intended economy – humans who live in the character of their Creator. This is the big disconnect – we want to build churches but God is after a people. Our doctrinal arguments arise often from two primary areas – 1) rule...

Recently I stumbled upon a presentation by the organizational leadership training office of a major entertainment corporation. The point of the presentation was essentially how to get all your employees on board with operational priorities and standards. The priorities of the corporation were presented as: Safety Courtesy Show Efficiency The presenters went to great lengths to make it clear that these were not a list of values (there’s nothing here about human life, or integrity, or anything similar), but were a decision making tool.  These are not just a list of random items, but are given in order so that the higher something is on the list, the more inviolable it is. For instance, courtesy is the second on the list and the corporation always wants to be courteous to its customers – unless safety is involved. If someone is in danger of being hurt, it is acceptable to be reasonably discourteous to a customer. Otherwise, courtesy is more important than efficiency in doing one...