Implementing What's Best Next, Part 3

This is the third of three posts on how I've implemented What's Best Next, by Matthew Perman. The first post can be found here. The second post is here. 

This post is long overdue. I've been busy and, as much as I've wanted to write it, it hasn't been what's best next. I've also realized how hard it is to quantify the impact of WBN on my ministry both at home and at Bethany Community Church. Even reading over this post again, it doesn't capture everything I'd like it to say. I knew it would be that way and so I've delayed writing the post.

But I'm glad it's taken awhile. At a pastors' retreat, I shared some of the things I had learned and implemented from WBN. One of my friends asked a penetrating question that had lurked in the back of my mind and disturbed me to hear articulated: "You've been doing this for 4-5 weeks. Do you really think this can last?" I answered honestly, "I don't know. I sure hope so."

I'm writing this post six months after reading WBN and the answer is, so far, yes. Sure, I haven't been faithful to keep up with everything I've wanted to do. Some things I stopped doing for a few weeks then started doing again. But at this point, I think I can say with confidence that most of the changes I have made are going to be long-lasting.

Knowing I won't be able to communicate the full impact of WBN, here are a few examples of its impact on my ministry.

Seeing the Day in Terms of People

The system I implemented after going through WBN—and the heart change that occurred while reading it—helped me see people in a new way. As people come into my study or call me on the phone, there is a greater joy in these encounters (formerly referred to as "interruptions"). There was a dangerous heart attitude I struggled with my entire ministry and this change has been a welcome one for both me and those who minister with me. (If you're wondering if I ever viewed you as an interruption, the answer is of course not! I'm talking about other people.)

Joy in Not Getting Everything Done

I'm also taking greater joy in not getting things done. Perman is right in arguing our joy must not come from accomplishing things on a list. Good days for me in the past were defined by accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish. Bad days were days where things were left on the list. I think I'm doing better at defining a good day as one in which I'm faithful to do what God would have me do with joy.

Keeping Track of Projects and Action Steps

My ability to track projects and make progress on various ministry initiatives has increased significantly. The practical suggestions in WBN and GTD (Getting Things Done) are bearing some fun fruit in my ministry (and my home). Initiatives that stalled for months are progressing in God-glorifying ways.

Email 

For years, I hated emails. They sat and sat in an inbox with little hope of leaving until the project they referenced was completed. And the moment the inbox was emptied, a flood of new emails replaced the crop that had just departed.

The process Perman lays out to deal with "stuff" is the single most helpful practical counsel I have ever received for dealing with administrative issues.

Staff

WBN provided me with a template to help encourage our staff. First, it contained tools I could hand to them to help with areas they might be struggling with in their ministries. For example, if a staff person struggled to stay on top of projects, WBN had some helpful suggestions. Or, if a staff member struggled with how to delegate responsibilities, I could direct them to another chapter from WBN. It's a great coaching tool and, to paraphrase Paul, I could entrust what I'd learned to faithful people who could help others also.

It also provided me with a system where I could track my care for them. It's frustrating if a person in an area of leadership forgets a commitment they made to you or fails to do a task essential for you to accomplish your job. An ineffective leader can be a frustrating bottleneck in an organization.

Finally, it helped me track how to care for them. Instead of a special need they had becoming a task on a long list that gets lost in the shuffle of paper on my desk, their need became a special project. The project became something my attention was focused onto weekly. That's been helpful.

Family

WBN also helped me shepherd my family more effectively. There were so many areas in which I had said, "Someday I really need to think about how to address that issue." Putting all those issues into projects and thinking through the next steps and understanding my need to be faithful to do that which has been most important is going to yield fruit into eternity in my kids' lives.

In fact, just this last week, I began to train my children in implementing parts of WBN in their own lives. We're not six months into the process yet, but Whitney has noticed a remarkable improvement in the kids' ability to be faithful in doing what they are supposed to be doing.

Schedule

Pastor Ritch summarized WBN this way: "Go to bed early, then get up at 5 A.M." He was kidding, but not entirely. Much unfaithfulness in my schedule comes from poor decisions made late at night and early in the morning. I fail to get the rest I need and the start on my day that would make it more productive. This is the area I'm still struggling with the most. I know I need to get 7 hours of sleep but that still seems so unattainable. But, by God's grace, I'm getting closer.

This process of "getting closer" is a theme for much of what I'm implementing with WBN. I haven't arrived, but the book helped me understand targets for which to shoot and tools to help me aim more effectively. It's not an exaggeration for me to say that no other book impacted the practical side of my ministry more than WBN.  I highly commend it to you.

The Cause-Cure Fallacy

In a recent e-mail exchange with my best friend, I had occasion to talk about what I call the "cause-cure fallacy." I think I've touched on it before on this blog, but it's worth revisiting.

The fallacy, in a nutshell, arises when some controversial practice--like the exclusion of some people from access to social goods made available to others--is justified by appeal to social problems that the practice may actually help to cause. The controversial practice is touted as the solution--or at least the most fitting thing to do given the problem. But any kind of thoughtful investigation will show that there is good reason to think this proposed "cure" is actually making the problem worse.

Consider, as an example, some of the ideas on education espoused by the namesake of the building I'm in right now. Murray Hall, home of the Oklahoma State University Philosophy Department and several other departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, is named after Alfalfa Bill Murray--who presided over Oklahoma's Constitutional Convention, served as Oklahoma's first Speaker of the House, and was governor during the Great Depression.

Murray, like many white politicians in his day, was a racist. In Murray's case, he wasn't just a racist in private. He spearheaded efforts to make sure Oklahoma was a Jim Crow state. And at one point during a speech at Oklahoma's Constitutional Convention, he argued forcefully against providing higher education to blacks.

On what basis did he make his case for excluding blacks from higher ed? Here's a snippet of what he said:

He must be taught in the line of his own sphere, as porters, bootblacks and barbers and many lines of agriculture, horticulture and mechanics in which he is an adept, but it is an entirely false notion that the negro can rise to the equal of a white man in the professions or become an equal citizen to grapple with public questions…

Murray's claim that this is "an entirely false notion" is, of course, an entirely false notion. But he got away with asserting this falsehood. I'm sure most of privileged white people in his audience nodded the heads in blithe agreement--and would happily point to the rarity of accomplished black professionals, the relatively fewer displays of high academic achievement, etc., as evidence that what Murray said was true.

But, of course, we all know that intellectual excellence is cultivated through education. If you systematically provide fewer educational opportunities to a class of people, they're likely to show less aptitude for law and medicine and scholarly research, and more aptitude as "porters, bootblacks and barbers." If you use this fact--which we know to be an effect of being denied educational access--as a justification for denying it, you are guilty of the cause-cure fallacy.

I should point out that in this case we know that Murray was dead wrong. We know that when afforded the same educational opportunities, blacks and whites are equally capable of achieving intellectual excellence.

Did Murray know this, too? Was he just in denial about it? I can't say. But that's not the problem with Murray's thinking. Or, perhaps better: His thinking would be problematic whether or not he knew. The problem with Murray's thinking is that anyone who reflects on the matter can see that such an exclusionary educational policy could be the cause of the difference in intellectual achievement that's observed. And because the exclusionary policy could be the cause of the difference, you can't appeal to the difference as a justification for the exclusionary policy.

Put more broadly, you commit the cause-cure fallacy any time you justify a controversial practice based on considerations that, reasonably, could be caused by that practice.

Consider the following example, which has some relevance to the recent conflicts in Ferguson, MO. Suppose you want to justify a militarized style of policing, in which outsiders to a community patrol its streets in military gear, maintain their distance from the community they patrol, are quick to draw their weapons as a way of enforcing their authority, and routinely shoot to kill when they feel threatened. And suppose you justify this approach on the grounds that the people in the community show little respect for the law.

Here's the problem: If a community finds itself in an antagonistic relationship with law enforcement, that tends to generate an attitude of hostility towards the agents of the law. Respect for the law predictably erodes under such conditions. Militarized policing by outsiders without deep community ties thus could be an important contributing cause of eroded respect for the law. As such, such eroded respect can't be invoked as a reason for militarized policing tactics. To do so is to fall prey to the cause-cure fallacy.

Or here's another example. Conservative opponents of same-sex marriage like to point to the promiscuity of the gay community. They talk about the "gay lifestyle" as if acting on same-sex attraction were essentially bound up with a kind of sexual free-for-all which disdains sexual constraints. Many conservatives point to this "licentiousness" as a reason why same-sex relationships should continue to be stigmatized and same-sex marriage withheld.

The problem, again, is that being systematically stigmatized and denied access to marriage could readily explain why there is so much more promiscuity and impermanence in the gay community. Denied access to society’s primary tool for encouraging and supporting monogamy, the gay subculture is understandably less monogamous. Furthermore, since society has historically declared that homosexual intimacy is sinful regardless of how it is expressed, conservative norms entail that a faithfully monogamous gay relationship is just as much a “sin” as promiscuity and casual sex. Since lesbians and gays see no place for themselves within a society ruled by such norms (those norms lay out no legitimate expression of their sexuality), they predictably end up adrift in a marginalized space outside the scope of those norms--a situation that can readily lead to a collapse of sexual restraints.

Add to that the depression and sense of uprootedness that comes with social rejection, and the way in which superficial and self-destructive pleasure-seeking often follows on the heels of such depression, and you can see why it is reasonable to suppose that stigmatization of gay sex and exclusion from the chief social model of responsible sexuality (marriage) could be major causes for the promiscuity and "licentiousness" of the gay community. To justify such stigmatization and exclusion based on these phenomena is therefore fallacious.

As these examples hopefully indicate, the cause-cure fallacy is a real issue. It's a pattern of thinking that rears its head again and again--and it seems to function especially in contexts where privileged groups seek to preserve their privilege and justify the continued marginalization of others. They point to the effects of marginalization as if they were some essential problem with marginalized people, and invoke those effects as a justification for continuing to marginalize.

Insofar as this sort of thinking obscures and even seeks to vindicate social injustice, it's important to call it out. The first step to defusing its power is to become aware of it, and to pass that awareness on.

What Victoria Osteen Got Right

Victoria Osteen, wife of mega-church prosperity-gospel preacher Joel Osteen, got some attention recently for a poorly-worded bit of theology, delivered (with a benign smile and a cheerleader attitude) to a stadium-sized church and countless television viewers.

Her words were spliced onto a brief clip from the Cosby Show to generate a video meme that went the rounds of social media, garnering a couple of million views. In case you haven't seen it, here it is:






When I saw the video, I chuckled and moved on. But then, yesterday, I read a piece by Dwight Welch, a progressive pastor here in Oklahoma, that inspired me to stop and reflect a bit on the content of Victoria Osteen's words. Here, again, is what she said:

I just want to encourage everyone of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God – I mean, that’s one way to look at it – we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we’re happy.So I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?

Dwight Welch rightly notes that many of Victoria Osteen's critics seem to be operating with a view of happiness that--contrary to Aristotle's view--severs happiness from morality, the "good life" from the life of goodness. He asks, "If God is not to be found in the good of life, then how is it salvific that we relate to such a reality?" In articulating what he appreciates about Victoria Osteen's claim, he puts the point as follows:

She connects God and humanity and the good together.  Instead of  doing something for God’s sake, as if God is a wrathful parent, demanding obedience, we are being told that in doing and engaging the good, worship, in all that we do which furthers human well being and flourishing, we are in fact honoring God.

Now, from a broadly Christian perspective, there clearly is room to criticize what Victoria Osteen has to say. By putting the focus squarely on our own happiness--by framing good works and worship as a means to personal happiness--her words suggest that we should prioritize ourselves. Doing good is relegated to an instrumental strategy for self-gratification. Worshiping God sounds like it's to be valued in the way we value a decadent meal.

But Dwight Welch's invocation of Aristotle suggests an alternative way of understanding her words--a way that may or may not be what she had in mind, but which deserves a response more thoughtful that dismissal-by-Cosby-clip.

For Aristotle, virtue is the essence of happiness. That's not to say that you can be happy while you're starving, so long as you're a good person. Aristotle thinks we need to have basic needs met as a precondition for happiness. But once those conditions are met, the path to happiness isn't found through self-indulgence or accumulating wealth. It's found through self-actualization. It's found by becoming a good example of a human being. And for him, virtues such as generosity and temperance and courage and wisdom are all parts of that process of becoming a fully actualized human being. The truly happy people are those who, by cultivating their character, come to find pleasure in what is genuinely good.

Within a Christian context, true happiness is found when you love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and you love your neighbor as yourself. Rather than there being a division between personal fulfillment and being a good person, the two are intimately bound together. The greedy business tycoon who steps all over others might experience ephemeral pleasures, but not true life satisfaction--not true happiness. That is reserved for those who live a life of love made possible by giving themselves over to the loving source of life.

Here's what I think Victoria Osteen gets right: When you worship and obey God, you aren't doing it for God. Doing it for God's sake makes no sense, because the infinite creator of the universe doesn't need anything from us in order to be fulfilled. God doesn't need to be glorified by us, as if God is somehow diminished by failing to be properly fawned over. If there is a need here, it's our need. We can't be fully actualized human beings if our priorities are wrong. And to get our priorities right, we need to recognize the inherent value in things, and then let our priorities be shaped by that.

If Christian theology is even remotely true, then this means we should value God above all other things--not because God is a wrathful parent or a vain megalomaniac demanding sycophantic obedience, but because we cannot love anything in proportion to its inherent worth if we do not first love that which is the infinite source of all inherent worth. And if Christian theology is true, this also means that our capacity to love has its origins in God and is nurtured to the extent that we open ourselves up to God and make ourselves into instruments through which God's love can work in the world.

If worship is about anything, it is about such orienting of the self towards the ultimate good and the source of all goodness--so that we become better people and more fulfilled people, more full of love and more full of joy. In that sense, glorifying God has merely instrumental value: it's purpose is not to make God feel better about Himself, but to transform us and lift us up. Worshiping God is essential to getting our priorities in order.

I am not saying here, by the way, that atheists are therefore incapable of having their priorities in order. Many atheists orient themselves towards the good, the inherently valuable, in a way that amounts to what theists are doing when they orient their lives around God. And I've seen theists who claim to put God above all things but whose understanding of God is shaped by their own prejudices in such a way that they have lifted up an idol of their own making and made it into the supreme object of their devotion. If there is a God--as I believe--then I've met atheists who worship God but don't call it that, and theists who don't worship God even though they claim to. On this front, the debate over God's existence is not so much a debate over what a life lived well looks like, but a debate over how to understand such a life and unpack the metaphysics behind it.

On Christian metaphysics, Victoria Osteen is exactly right when she says we don't worship and glorify God for God's sake. We do it for our own. God needs nothing from us, least of all our worship. But if we think God is worthy of worship, then failing to worship God displays a disorder in our value system that will compromise our ability to love others and find joy in life. And if God is the infinite source of value, then connecting with God in worship becomes a way of communing with the good, of letting it enter into us, in a self-actualizing way.

What Victoria Osteen gets wrong is this: It is one thing to recognize that our self-actualization--our moral character and happiness--depend upon putting God first. It is something else to put our own self-actualization first. When we do that, we are likely to get confused about what will really fulfill us--and we might walk away with the confused notion that life is about material comfort and security, or something equally superficial.

"The Identical" — movie review

Movie: The Identical

Length: 107 min

Rated: PG

Starring: Amanda Crew, Ashley Judd, Seth Green, Ray Liotta, Joe Pantoliano, Blake Rayne
Director: Dustin Marcellino

I was offered screening tickets on this movie, which will be released tomorrow, September 5, 2014. The trailer looked iffy, to a jaded and oft-blackened eye. Was this going to be yet another by-the-numbers parody of fundamentalist Christians, written by people who neither personally know nor like any actual Christians? Would the son be all deep and conflicted and "I just gotta follow my dream, Daddy!", and would the father be all "Then roast in Hell, demon-child, with that Hellish rock and roll of yours!"? The trailer sure looked like it could be.

Boy, I'm glad we didn't see that movie.  Oh, sorry — should have said "spoiler alert."

At any rate, despite the trailer, "The Identical" had possibilities, and it had "Date Night" written all over it, so the missus and I escaped to the showing. We were both braced but, as usual, set ourselves to maintain open minds.

The opening scenes were a very strong frame-setter, taking us back to the Great Depression in black and white footage. We are introduced to a couple (the Hemsleys) trying to make a living in a jobless economy, and eventually dealing with the birth of twin boys. Enter pastor Reece Wade (Ray Liotta) and his wife Louise (Ashey Judd), conducting a "revival" in the area. Father attends, and is struck by an idea by inspiration.

Now, here is a typical juncture that touches on my slightly conflicted feelings about the movie. The first words from this southern preacher are very clearly about God's love for people of all races. Whew, one obvious and well-traveled stereotype dodged. Then the preacher slides aside to share personally about his and his wife's disappointment in a recent miscarriage, frustrating their desire to have a child. They're both in tears, and he asks all there to pray for them.

You see? It's a sweet moment, in itself: human, personal. Pastor and wife are treated like multi-dimensional human beings, and likable ones at that. That's very much in the "plus"-column, and at variance from the usual "all-Fundamentalists-are-shallow-hypocritical-hateful-cartoonish-racists" script.

And yet, there's not the least preaching of the Gospel per se, despite the "revival" setting. Not a whiff.

More on that later.

Regardless, this plants an idea with the twins' dad, which eventually is accepted by their mom: give one of the twins to pastor and wife to raise. The Wades are reluctant at first, and they actually try to give money to the destitute Hemsleys to help them (— another welcome step aside from the stereotypical portrayal of all pastors as greedy takers). In the end, the Wades accept the boy, and the Hemsleys conduct a fake funeral to explain the twin's absence.

This becomes the frame for a sort of "What if Elvis Presley's stillborn identical twin had lived, and had been raised by different parents?" story. Drexel, the boy raised by his birth parents, becomes a famously successful rock singer, whose style and look and trajectory is very like Presley — down to concerts, TV spots and corny movies.

And what of the other twin, Ryan? There are pleasantly authentic scenes of Pastor Wade trying to get little Ryan to memorize his Bible (only singing the verses works for him), and attend church. Again, the parents are sympathetic and likable, but no specific Gospel is preached. One never really finds out what Ryan believes. (In fact, one never finds out a great deal of what the preacher-father believes.) Ryan tries Bible school, but he doesn't feel "the call." What Ryan does feel is love for rock and roll. He goes to a "speakeasy," sings, and eventually (post-military-stint) finds a career doing concerts, playing unknown twin brother Drexel's music. Ryan looks and sounds so much like Drexel that, in fact, that he is billed as... wait for it... "The Identical."

Both twins are played by newcomer Blake Rayne. He's adequate and plenty likable, and one isn't surprised to learn that he won an Elvis impersonator competition.

So, what'd we think of the movie?

We liked it, basically. And we recommend it. It really is a "family-friendly" movie. There isn't a bad word or salacious syllable or image in it. We chuckled a number of times.

While we never really learn what Ryan thinks about Jesus or the Gospel, he does love and appreciate his parents who raised him, and they love him. To the end, Liotta and wife are sympathetic characters, and virtually every stereotype is dodged. The only truly odd thing about them is that Liotta's character ages dramatically — but his wife stays pretty much the same.

Yet, as characters, they are easy to sympathize with. Usually it is obvious that the screenwriters viscerally hate what they think Christians are in general, and what they think clergy are in particular. In this case, none of that could be found here.

The Identical won't make the starry annals of all-time great moviemaking, but it is fun and pleasant. There are a number of genuine laughs. Loved the presence of Seth Green and Joe Pantoliano, both of whom are a lot of fun and clearly had a good time with their roles.

The survey I was given after the screening asked questions along the lines of whether I'd recommend taking church groups or in other ways making the movie a church activity. My answer was no. I was astonished to learn that pastors have developed some sort of teaching to parallel the movie. I don't see it as having any very particular Gospel or Biblical tie-in whatever.

That said, it would make for a pleasant family watch, with a very 50s feel. After that, you could discuss what was missing (HEL-LO! THE GOSPEL), and the fact that for all his obvious love for his son, Dad seemed a lot more concerned that Ryan feel "the call," and a lot less concerned that he have saving faith in Christ.

Final word: worst possible reading. This has been a charitable review. However, the advertising really stresses the follow your dreams theme, and injects the notion that if God is in your dreams, nothing can stand against them. This, thankfully, is not as heavy-handedly preached in the movie. I don't even recall Ryan making that connection once... and that's a good thing.

While non-Christians apparently love that message, I think the promoters are unwise to stress it insofar as they want to reach out to Christians. Because that idea is in fact peddled today as a substitute for the Gospel, and it bears no resemblance. The Gospel is about my ruin in sin, my alienation from God, and the truly amazing work of God in Jesus Christ to reconcile sinners to Himself. None of that is in the movie. That the Christians are likable, real people is a refreshing change in a movie, and that's worth something.

But it isn't the Gospel.

Here's how it works in the aftermath of a sad but not-entirely-surprising fall

I'm here to help you.

1. If a man becomes a celebrity-pastor too hastily; and if he publicly and doggedly displays and defends traits that, if unaddressed, will (A) ruin him and (B) harm those he should be serving and (C) set a horrible example for those emulating him, it's wrong to say anything about any of that equally publicly.
2. If men who should know better promote this celebrity pastor and his ministry, thus effectively giving cover to his besetting sins, it's wrong to warn of possible dire consequences, let alone express concern for the ministries of the worthy men who enable him.
3. If the man does indeed crash and burn, it is wrong to say anything about it other than what a tragedy it is and how you hope he feels better soon. Specifically, it is wrong to mention that it was completely predictable, wrong to note that it could have been prevented, wrong to lament that those who had the man's ear evidently did not effectively issue corrective warnings — and really, really wrong even to hint that you yourself had tried to say something in a timely manner, and that it might have helped if those now dabbing their eyes with tissues had joined in when it might have counted for something, and express the hope that they might reassess how they approach such things.

Because if those people admitted their error and really did reform, things like this might not happen so often, ministries might be saved and saints protected, and fundamental needed systemic change might occur... which, come to think of it, would be a really great thing...

But anyway:

You're welcome.