IMAGINE AS A CHILD YOUR DAD ASKING YOU to clean the garage, after a number of years of walking through it with you, and giving you a broom. Even a cool power washer. Would it be right to be upset with him if a day or week later the garage remained a mess? If you couldn’t get your bike out or couldn’t find a toy?
Well, it’s been nearly 2000 years since Jesus Christ declared "I have come to set fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze!" (Luke 12:49) Would He have declared this without providing every means for it to be fulfilled? He showed us how. He gave us the tools. He sent His Holy Spirit (Power Washer). Let that sink in. The world remains a mess.
Who’s that on?
WITH DEEP REGARD for diocesan and parish offices, if you were privy to private conversations behind closed doors among some of the most dynamic, Kingdom-building leaders in the Church today, you’d hear them say their movements were literally born from negligence, indifference, or outright animosity in and from those offices. Many would say they continue in spite of those offices. Duly note, according to their rightful, canonical, baptismal appointing and anointing.
ACCORDINGLY, THERE ARE A MULTITUDE of solid, faith-filled, gifted, eager disciples of Jesus Christ on the sidelines. For any desiring fire on this earth, there’s the leaven. But they've been marginalized. Deeply partaking of the Sacraments, but little more. Accordingly, the world is tripping over the low bar set by the Church. Accordingly, like the little old Wendy's lady, too many have been looking to the Church and asking, "Where's the beef?"
THE TURN: LET'S RESIST BEING CRITICAL. Like it or not, by Christ’s intent, diocese and parish are you and me. Doctrine aside, the institution will always be imperfect because God entrusted it to imperfect humanity. That’s you and me. Any consideration or critique of "diocesan" or "parish" is a consideration of us. Beholding our current reality in the mirror is not about wallowing in where we are; it's about humble, prayerful, earnest consideration of where the Almighty God has appointed and anointed us to be.
WHERE TO BEGIN: EVERY SUCCESSFUL ENDEAVOR HAS ITS MEASURE OF SUCCESS. Whether that be business, sports, academics, or anything else. Without a clear measure of success any undertaking is absurd. Would you entrust your loved ones to a “surgeon” whose definition of success was periodically winning at the game “Operation”? So it is with faith.
WHAT IS THAT MEASURE? Look at a Cross. Note this truth proclaimed by all the saints and successful movements throughout history: The vertical beam of ever-deepening encounter with Jesus Christ (discipleship) holds up the horizontal beam of multiplication. Without the vertical, there is no horizontal. Jesus' emphasis on the fruit-bearing measure of our Christian faith is pervasive. If our diocesan and parish programs and activities are not bearing fruit, which flows from genuine life in Jesus Christ, not only will what we have be taken away, it will result in a very different kind of “blaze.” (John 15)
Thus, the measure of successful Christianity, whether personal or institutional, is “Cross Metrics.” If we're authentically going deeper, we (individuals and institutions) can not help but proclaim the Gospel. To be “church” (ecclesia), which literally means, “called out.” We Gather in order to Go. Because it's the air in our lungs. The blood in our veins. We can do no other. To whom shall we go? (John 6:68) We can not help but sacrificially seek the good of every soul. Not just in programs. Or limited times and places. As a way of life. In everything we do. Is that happening? Are those who attend church on any given Sunday even aware of that measure? Are they being formed? Are we multiplying? Regardless of diocese and parish, are we about it? Are we disciples of Jesus Christ, or just program junkies?
If programs are not evidently about the real, healing, transforming, sanctifying, Kingdom-building power of Jesus Christ, revealed particularly in our marriages and families -- they’re merely inoculating an already emaciated and disbelieving world against the hope of real salvation. In this world and the next. They’re merely reinforcing the conviction: Why bother?
WE LABOR AND PRAY for a day diocesan and parish leaders (us) more fully recognize the arrows of "ecclesia" pointing outward -- to individual souls, marriages, and families overflowing to the world (in that order). Soon may it be that everyone who encounters any diocesan or parish leaders (us) encounter Jesus Christ. Not just a moment. An invitation to a way of life. Where Kingdom-building gifts are ennobled to evangelize and disciple every single person entrusted to us. That streams of living water flowing from the very side of our Savior, into the earliest community and stretching across time, move through us to claim all into everlasting Eternity.
In 2013 as Secretariat Leader for Evangelization and Parish Life for the Diocese of Toledo I developed a vision and plan for Kingdom-building revival through our particular diocese and parishes. God had other plans (a difficult but great story that may one day be told) but here was that very compelling vision that is still very viable.
