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“We are looking for a new pastor.” These are words I have heard too often in the past several years. During a pastoral transition, there is often heightened anxiety because change is on the horizon. This is a great time for churches to look inwardly for ways they can become a place that is best suited for a new pastor. 

Yet most of the emphasis in the interim is usually placed on who the new pastor will be. Search committees are formed, opinions are expressed regarding desired pastoral qualities, and pastoral fit is discerned. Ultimately, congregations create a pastoral mold that defines what the perfect pastor will look like. Sometimes I wonder if Jesus would be a viable candidate for the open position. 

It is important that the candidate has certain abilities and attributes. But if we exclude persons from our searches who do not have all the gifts on our checklist – highly educated, challenging preacher (just not too challenging), and administratively efficient – we could miss out on the most important gift necessary for a church to thrive in our culture today: leadership.

Leaders do not fit any one mold. They have many gifts, just not usually the same as pastoral gifts. In fact, true leaders often find pastoral positions unattractive because they do not thrive in places that have fixed boundaries of expectations. 

Leaders may have a gift of prophecy rather than preaching excellence. They may lack the pastoral educational requirements but may bring a wealth of workplace knowledge and experience. They may have a clear vision of outreach that may push against the congregation’s long-standing means of evangelism. In fact, many characteristics of a leader are outside of our pastoral expectations.  Consequently, leaders are quickly dismissed from our pastoral search. 

But I believe that leaders are exactly what our churches today need. Leaders usually have relational skills, adaptability, and a sense of humility that can only come from being called by God. Leaders also work at change organically by influencing and encouraging people to move towards God’s agenda and purposes. They see where God is already at work and lead people to those places. These attributes cannot be defined by a set list of pastoral characteristics but are vital to the health of the church. Unfortunately, people who have great pastoral gifting often do not have leadership gifting. 

Valuing leadership gifting over pastoral gifting will probably cause the walls of many of our churches to quake a bit and make for a bumpy ride for a while. However, a good leader navigates the bumps in the road by adapting to the environment and modeling the vision, thus encouraging the congregation to come alongside and be partners in God’s mission. 

You may be asking, “Where are these leaders to be found?” Good news! They are already in our midst. They are found in businesses, classrooms, medical services, and farms – just look around. They are already in our churches, waiting to be tapped on the shoulder. They may not even be aware of it yet – they need to be called out. God is raising up leaders – let’s call them out!

Years and years ago, when I was in seminary, my mission professor said, “If everything is mission, then nothing is mission.” Mission, according to the late South African missiologist, David Bosch, is “crossing frontiers in the form of a servant.”  As Leadership Minister in California, I am often asked, how can the Conference be more missional?

My answer, to be honest, may be difficult to accept.  Mosaic Conference is not particularly missional.  The congregations of the Mosaic Conference are not overly missional.  It falls to disciples – followers of Jesus Christ – to be fully missional.  

Disciples are not just folks who have aced the church membership class.  Disciples are people who have found a grateful heart because of the God who has redeemed them in Christ and who live with both a stubborn loyalty to Christian community and an unfettered love for their neighbors.  They worship God with exuberance and lead with big hearts and sometimes big mouths. They challenge one another to do justice in the world through the power of the Holy Spirit.  

So how can Mosaic Conference engage in missional behavior?

First, recruit.  The primary missional environment of any church group is to be a talent scout for leaders, now and for the future.  Engage with people in our churches to see if they have a craving for the Reign of God. As a Leadership Minister, I am called to encourage – a “Barnabas” – credentialed servants of my assigned churches, but I am also on the lookout for women and men with an appetite for disciple making.  

Second, equip. Providing learning environments for disciple making is central to the life of a conference.  Formal settings, such as schools, and informal settings, like mentoring, are important dimensions to this equipping process.   Setting up internships that explore the possibility of call and taking risks on persons from the margins, who might otherwise not hear God’s call on their life, is critical.  

Once upon a time, a smart-aleck teenage son of an alcoholic, less than a year into his walk with Jesus, was given an opportunity to serve in the small, urban church where he first met Christ.  At first, he did not do what was assigned to him very well, but this small congregation championed his spiritual growth, and provided resources at every turn.  Forty-six years later, my life has been a terrific privilege of walking with God and serving the church.  

Third, deploy.  This is a possibly controversial step, but it is also incredibly important.  Disciple-making does not just fall from the sky.  We must invite people to enter spaces where they can thrive.  In the post-COVID, post-Christendom church that is emerging, women will be critical carriers of the gospel and important disciple makers.  They don’t need to fight the battles of my generation:  should a woman “lead?”  They need to be deployed into environments where their gifts, skills, and calling to make disciples flourish.  Yes, that means the Conference might become more directive.  Is that such a bad thing?

Fourth, support.  Support is not just financial, but also includes undergirding disciple makers with spiritual habits and practices that incarnate courage to make disciples.  Support is the encouragement that says, “Yes. You should!  Yes. You can!  Yes.  You will!”  

One important caveat:  support is not protecting from failure.  To allow people to experience the powerful pedagogy of failing…and trying again…is one of the best ways to support people.

Recruit. Equip. Deploy. Support.  This is how Mosaic Conference acts in missional ways in the environment of this new season.

I’ve been wondering lately why Jesus had to die on a cross for our sins.  

Recently I came across a story that I had written in 1989 in reflection of my time serving in Tanzania.  The story was about a survey that Mennonite missionaries had just completed with elders of many of the tribes around the villages where we lived.  The subject of the survey was how ancient historical beliefs and culture viewed blood and sacrifice and how this tied into Old Testament teachings.

The stories gathered from the tribes told many things about how they viewed the blood sacrifice. Blood sacrifices were valued for many reasons: to offer healing to their village, for reconciliation and peace with another tribe, as an offering to their god, to right a wrong, etc.  We wondered where this belief in blood and sacrifice came from, especially since these practices have been happening long before Christ was introduced to the region.

We began to imagine that perhaps this need for a blood sacrifice as atonement is written by God onto human hearts.  Afterall, how did Abel know that his sacrifice of an animal would be most pleasing to God?  It isn’t recorded that God told anyone at that time to do this. Was it written on his heart?

When the missionary group told the tribal elders biblical stories (such as Numbers 25 and II Samuel 24 and the need for a blood sacrifice to stop a plague), the elders fully understood.  One tribe even believed that they were descendants of the Israelites because of their great herds of cattle and the need to sacrifice the best of their herd for an atonement.

The Old Testament need for a blood sacrifice is explained very well in Hebrews 9:22, “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (NIV).  

The scripture goes on to state that repeating the same sacrifices year after year can’t be the solution, as the blood of bulls and goats can’t get rid of sin.  Earlier in Hebrews, it says that this will only make you outwardly clean.  

Enter Jesus Christ. Hebrews 9:14 says the blood of Christ will cleanse our whole lives, inside and out, from acts that lead to death. And, Christ only needed to be sacrificed once to to take away our sins forever (Hebrews 9:28) Through this, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:10, NIV)

We sometimes wonder why the church in parts of Africa is growing so quickly.  Could it be because they have this understanding of the need to die for an atonement written on their hearts from the ancient days and that Jesus Christ fulfills that need, once and for all?  

Thank you, Jesus, for loving us enough to die for us.