Thursday, May 25, 2017

WHAT IS A MINISTRY OF DISTINCTION?

What is a ministry of distinction? Distinction is defined as "a marking off or distinguishing asdifferent".  In today's climate and culture of church it important for local assemblies to identify and promote their "distinction".  We are aware the Lord Jesus gives to his disciples "the great commission" which will establish the kingdom of God in the earth and delegate the church as the only legal authority to implement that mission.

Creating a "counter-culture" is the mission of the church in order to provide for fallen man an alternative choice for eternity.  Each local assembly is then charged with marshaling forces to promote, promulgate and produce the life of the kingdom in the earth!  Our current generation is far removed from the formation of moral, social and ethical standards our parents and grandparents embodied.  Today's sight and sound generation is enamored with a anti-authority, anti-God and anti-church mentality that demands immediate gratification and visual stimulation to satisfy their social media overload.

As the church becomes younger and less religious; our ministry underwent strong consideration as to our relationship, relevance and long term strategy to win "this generation".  How could we hold fast to our fundamental pentecostal tenets and infuse them with a contemporary message of hope, love and transformation and package it to a disinterested culture?  Our answer?  Create a "BLUE WATER" ministry that would have a three dimensional and relational appeal to this generation, repackage our fundamentalism in a practical application to life and celebrate our diverse ecumenical heritage with bold presentation. Blue Water is a real, relevant and relational ministry.

Blue Water is our response to probing questions of relevance, connection, community and fulfilling the great commission in the 21st century.  We have no allusions that this is a "one size fits all" ministry methodology; but is our answer to celebrate difference in a traditional denomination and walk out our apostolic mandate to become the "new face of COGIC" building a ministry model of exceptional member service, ministry professionalism and living in the law of difference.

Our ministry philosophy will provide a backstop for young professionals seeking relationship with Christ but not with the circus they call "church".  Blue Water ministry blurs the lines of traditional church from practical empowerment through dynamic preaching and teaching and relevant worship.  Blue Water has both a academic and marketplace proof source in the context of transforming organizations. Our application is purely ministerial and relational to those we seek to encourage, inspire and inform as we build a transformational enterprise in a disinterested culture.

Welcome to MLB MINISTRIES...a BLUE WATER MINISTRY!  Jump in, the water is BLUE!

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

ONE (DIVIDED) NATION

One (Divided) Nation

The Presidential elections of 2016 have confirmed that our nation, though purported to be “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,”  is, in fact, one divided nation under God. Politics, ideologies, philosophies, and theologies along with numerous ism’s, classes and schism’s have eroded human civility and simple kindness.  

I intentionally muted my voice during the election tumult so my words wouldn't be reactionary, emotional or misinterpreted. The well being of my beloved community is at stake. If it were best for me to be silent, if my words weren’t helpful in the socio-political discourse, then, as my mother taught me, “If you have noting good to say, say nothing.”     

I kept my political preferences under wraps and out of the public square. I value friendships I’ve experienced, relationships I am deeply vested in, and friendly, diverse fellowships with which I associate. I know good people and professing Christians have expressed their socio-political views which are, in some cases, starkly different than my own. Now that we have a President, whether or not of our preference, it is certain we have a fractured and divided nation. Vicious campaigning, accompanied by personality degrading and overall vitriol, expands the fissure of the inane and insane.

This national schizophrenia is symptomatic by expressed ideology, selective demography and nationalistic philosophy. Those spitting out political proclamations from progressive, conservative, liberal, independent or pragmatic camps must grapple with the unforgiving reality that life is complicated. We are not alone in the world. Life is not lived in campaign slogans, but in neighborhoods. Foreigners are my next door neighbors and ‘those people’ are our co-workers, siblings, firefighters, police officers and military personnel. They have families - immigrants who forged a new world for their posterity against threats and realities of genocide, religious persecution, and the unquenched thirst for freedom which gives them human rights to the pursuit of life and liberty. 

Metaphorically, the divided nation played its election song in sharps and flats. Our democratic process should and must reflect the fusion of its spotted history, troubling present, and optimistic but uncertain future. We’ve denied the sensibilities endowed to us by our creator, and chose to allow personalities to take precedent over policies. We insulted the framers of the constitution by ignoring our origins and commitment to be a global refuge for the huddled masses. Our way of life is a gift as much as it is a responsibility. There are many nations who are not so privileged. Our diversity makes us a superpower. We’ve belittled the diversity of our great nation by giving our darker angles a bull horn to promulgate a separatist doctrine, a doctrine that will be defied by global despots and tyrants who turn on their own people. Our Christian faith teaches that it was an outsider (Samaritan) who gave assistance to the traveler who fell among thieves. The incited seeds of resentment have been sown among social classes. Race, origin and gender politick-ing with alleged foreign interference, alternative facts, fake news, name calling and shame gaming has made our electorate skeptical of any truth. Neither side, neither candidate represented the best of our nation, and yes, ashamedly and admittedly, we've all been bamboozled.

America hasn't achieved a post racial mentality in its post modern era. We’ve failed to lift concern above clamor. Our bright city on the hill is on life support. Our new president and his former contender shoulder equal blame for executing the political nuclear option on the country both claim to love. These well heeled, mutually flawed individuals will survive the war they fiercely contended in; however, the stain on our national profile, the death of our national and moral soul, and the impact on our collective psyche is incalculable. 

The campaign has been like watching mom and dad get a divorce and drag the kids into the fight to choose sides without either recognizing the painful impact on the family! Winning at any cost is very costly. We’ve not turned a new page in personal politics; we’ve written a new book on viciousness.  We've started a new chapter on dirty dealing and unrelenting despicableness for the sake of victory. Principles vanished in the face of politics, friendships faded in the glare of yard signs, and churches conflated religion and rule of law. Thus, we seem to be irreparably conflicted and defined by our political iconography.

Who wins? Not the nation that had lofty ideas of a “republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and JUSTICE FOR ALL?”  We've decided, instead, through an election whose voice was louder, whose campaign was better, but not whose lives matter. Elections have consequences. We will live with the irreversible outcomes of this election, while praying for the success of this administration and the restoration of our beloved community.


Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The Very Reverend Matthew L. Brown, Th.D.
March 15, 2017


Overseeing vs. Looking Out
The Role of the Post Modernist Overseer in The Lord's Church

The word "overseer" (Gk. episkopos [ejpivskopo"]) is used a limited number of times in the New Testament, but it has significant implications for a proper understanding of leadership in the church. The Urban Dictionary defines "looking out" as being cool. Additional cultural derivatives de-escalate into derisions meaning to "look out for oneself".  Thus, the plight of the role of the post modernist overseer in the Lord's Church. Amid a reformational flurry of ordinations, consecrations, pastoral appointments, and episcopal and apostolic elevations, there is a dearth of qualified servant leaders available to fulfill the doctrinal, ecclesiastical and ecclesiological mandate of stewarding emerging clerics. The present cultural wars, observed in the church, disconnect religious leadership and congregational membership in the most irreparable manner and have negative impact on the spiritual health of the church, deteriorating rooted theology and confusing celebrated worship, while marring the experience of Christ in their respective communities. The disconnect between episcopates and pastors exists in the absence of active overseers whom, by cultural coercion, seek to look out for themselves instead of overseeing the flock of God.

The Acts of the Apostles provides rudimentary education on the biblical expectation of the overseer. The noun episkopos can be interpreted as overseer, guardian, bishop. While I contend the title is more of a task than a position in the church, its meaning in post modernity within our ethnic culture is woefully misrepresented.  Titles and tasks, or tasks and titles (as it should be), are strangely interwoven and yet diametrically opposite in practical demonstration. Paul's charge to the church in his farewell was to remind the church leaders, or elders, to take primary leadership as the pastor among the other elders in the local church.  James fulfilled the role of overseer in the church at Jerusalem (Acts 15:13-21). His responsibility, as is every overseer's, is to watch out over the flock and nurture them to a healthy existence.  The task of the overseer can only be accomplished satisfactorily if the overseer first "take heed to themselves."  Paul's full impartation  and subsequent commission is to provide self-care in conjunction with congregational care for the whole flock. The task includes feeding them the word of God and committing or rendering their lives in protection of the flock from ravening wolves. The title of overseers suggest that the task has been performed with critical approval of practical guidance and government of the flock. The Apostle Paul greets the bishops and overseers in his epistle to the church at Philippi (1:1), recognizing their general leadership responsibilities (bishops) and recognized positions of service (deacons or elders) before it came to be described as a specific office recognized by some Christian traditions. 

The kerfuffle of task and title since the designation of specific offices within the church has migrated to our present dilemma. To what point is an overseer eager to serve without compensation, renumeration, over exaggerated visibility, or reputation? The prerequisite of such servant is the willingness to serve as a bridge between the bishop and the pastor in order to advance the kingdom of God in their respective communities. The overseer must manage the dynamic tension which exist between serving and ruling. Bishop Eric Garnes poignantly ascribes the overseer as the second chariot.  The appointment of such needed "middle managers" is necessary for the construction and efficiency of the bishop's ecclesiology. The relationship among the overseer and bishop in our cultural modernity requires full execution and implementation of authority and submission. Both tasks, which define each title, must reside in the office to which they have been so appointed. Looking out for oneself without overseeing the task at hand has created a disjunctive within our religious order. Costuming and title bearing seems to be replacing authentic leadership and sacrificial service, leaving our emerging clerics desperate for resourcing and developmental leadership. The overseer must provide, at the middle manager level, best practices to advance ministry, scholarly contributions to knowledge, and creative strategies for pastors and ministry leaders who desire to fulfill their pastoral mandate. Overseers must lay the organizational and commercial  ground work for the pastor's success to free the bishop to minister, to Pastor the pastor, and foment the vision of the work in that community.

The role of the post modernist overseer is to blatantly reject the tenets of the emerging church, rebuff the notion of ascension without merit or portfolio, and defend the organic call of servant leadership. Overseers are not closet despots awaiting the demise of their leader, nor should they be opportunist who serve at the convenience of their life schedule or designated hobby.  Overseers must resist temptation to attention addiction and seek not to serve to fill an emotional deficit created from some other life disappointment.  The task is too vast, the need is too great, the resources are too scarce, and the training too long to invest in persons who revel in the business of the holiness hustle, and not the compulsion of kingdom ministry.  Looking out for one's self diminishes the sovereignty of God percolating your gifts for future assignment. We serve to serve, not to be seen or rewarded for our personal ambition. The internal struggle, which feeds overseers to outshine their bishops, is typical of those who seek material success without being significantly missional. Bishops, beware of the functional overseer who values the platform you provide more than the relationship you extend. Elisha's words and works were missional. Gehazi's  service to the prophet was marginal and material, fueled by self ambition. This servant's service culminated in the transfer of a disease rather than the anointing from his mentor.  He voided his candidacy to extend prophetic service to others because you can't transfer to others what has not transformed you.

The biblical, moral and ethical qualifications require righteous parity in each aspect of the overseer's life. The personal, public and professional life of the Servant's server is to be above reproach. Self care, family care and public fidelity to spouse and family shields them from unwarranted attacks of the enemy who attempts to thwart the objective of the kingdom as expressed in the life of the church.  New comers to salvation and ministry, or spiritually undeveloped volunteers need not apply to this privileged position. It takes time to learn scripture,  build one's reputation, create healthy relationships within ministry and establish the trust of one's leader.  The overseer's priority to serve effectively must always be larger than one's platform on which to serve. The privilege of the task is greater than the costume of the title.  

Our nation is experiencing unprecedented change. Cultural shifts are voluminous while technological advances have catapulted us into uncharted seas of relationship and meaning. The servant's role, more specifically, the role of the post modernist overseer, must cling with clenched fist to the purity of service, fidelity of leadership, passion of spirit and selflessness of task to the service by privilege and not obligation. Pouring water on the hands of the prophet gives us the distinction of overseeing the flock without looking out for ourselves.