By Mark A. Taylor
Names and faces of people I know flash through my mind as I read Henri Nouwen’s book In the Name of Jesus. At first this seems OK to me. After all, his subtitle is Reflections on Christian Leadership, and he himself critiques attitudes and actions of Christian leaders today.
And even though he writes from a context wholly separate from our Restoration Movement fellowship, his insights seem written for us.
For example, one of his observations reminds me of schisms that have characterized our “unity movement” the large divides recorded in history books, as well as the hundreds of unrecorded broken relationships in colleges and churches and other ministries.
Nouwen writes, “Dealing with burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness, because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject.”
I remember how often division in our ranks has been justified with protests about doctrine or theology, when a root issue was simply pride.
But Nouwen also points me to the contemporary scene. I think about the external measures of success we use to evaluate ministry these days the “wow” factor so many demand from church programming, in smaller congregations as well as megachurches.
But “Jesus refused to be a stunt man,” Nouwen writes. He decries the tendency of church leaders, especially ministers, to believe they must do it all by themselves. And he bemoans the bent toward “stardom and individual heroism” so many leaders today display.
His words remind me of the grief and frustration I’ve heard from Christian church ministers, some of them writing in Christian Standard, who worry and weaken under the pressure to perform.
To compensate, many try to exercise power: hierarchical power, psychological power, or spiritual power. But Nouwen points us to the ministry of Jesus, “who did not cling to power but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.”
I remember a score of Christian leaders, volunteer and paid, who have inflated their authority, manipulated outcomes, or forced their opinion on others. They behaved more like an army general or corporate CEO than our servant leader Lord.
So many of these people should read Nouwen’s book. You know some of them. You may be one of them. But long before I’m finished with it, I know whom this book was really written for.
It was written for me. For I, too, have claimed principle when the biggest offense was to my ego. I too have sought to influence instead of serve, to perform instead of love, to depend on my position instead of my relationship to Christ.
Nouwen’s book, read by tens of thousands, no doubt has much to say to our movement as well. But his calls to vulnerability, contemplation, and humility challenge no one more than me. It’s a short book, read quickly, that I may ponder the rest of my life.
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