Thoughts for the day
At a lunch fellowship with a small group of distinguished leaders, I shared about the challenges facing the global church.
When I finished, Dr Joseph Castleberry, president of Northwest University, asked, “Have you written this somewhere?”
I smiled and replied, “No, I believe in oral tradition”.
Well, Joseph my friend, this one’s for you - and I hope it might benefit some others as well.
On the wider canvas of leadership, I see five meta-challenges facing the global church. They alter the landscape of church leadership and demands an inspired response.
The first challenge is the challenge of CULTURE.
My concern is not so much culture per se, but conformity to the culture. Worldliness is widespread in the global church. Secular worldview and core values result in humanistic materialism, biblical compromise and spiritual consumerism.
If our cultural lens do not conform to the sacred Scriptures, and we develop cultural blindness, we are in serious trouble indeed.
The second challenge is the challenge of THE NEXT GENERATION.
In an alarming wake-up call, Ken Ham highlights in his book ‘Already Gone’ that if you look around the church in America today, two-thirds of the young people who are in church have already left in their hearts; and soon they will be gone for good.
For far too long, the spiritual foundation of our young people have been neglected. And we are now witnessing the deconstructionism of their faith. A biblical rootlessness that atrophies their faith and an emptiness of soul that deadens it. Without discipling the next generation, we might win the battle today, but would lose the war tomorrow.
The third challenge is the challenge of LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION.
John C. Maxwell said, “A leader's lasting value is measured by succession”.
But transitions are complex and hard. What is critically needed is not just leadership development, but leader formation with a focus on developing the leader from the inside out. While having strong, visionary leaders is important, what we really need in our generation is healthy leaders.
The fourth challenge we face is SOCIETAL IMPACT.
The cultural narratives in many parts of the postmodern world depict the church as irrelevant.
The church fails to marshal a united coherent voice in the public square; so as to offer coherent answers to the empty questions of the world, and to faithfully point them to the ultimate reality, ultimate truth and ultimate significance rooted in the Gospel of Christ.
And the fifth challenge is that of GLOBAL TSUNAMIS.
A perfect storm is coming and the church is not prepared for it. Busy with our lives and our church activities, we ignore larger issues like poverty, injustice, financial meltdowns and loss of jobs, as well as wars, natural disasters and a pandemic that together surface great human needs.
We are not meant to live in a sociological cocoon, comfortable in our Christian ghetto. We cannot ignore the global realities that comes upon us in a fragile world.
My point is we live in a very destabilized world, with very real needs, and we cannot be like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand.
What then is the answer? What's the response? More about that in the next TFYD!
Have a blessed pilgrimage ahead!
Rev Edmund Chan