Year: 2014

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

How do you feel about being evaluated or evaluating someone else? I imagine many of us are uncomfortable with both. Maybe we’ve had a painful evaluation at work or in the church. Perhaps a little humor will help—here are quotes from actual employee evaluations (the employees probably failed to see the humor!):

• Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.
• Slipped into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t watching.
• She brings a lot of joy when she leaves the room.
• Some drink from the fountain of knowledge—he only gargled.
• If brains were taxed, he’d get a rebate.
• Gates are down; lights are flashing; but the train isn’t coming.

Though evaluations within the church might seem at odds with respecting and loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, it’s our responsibility as leaders to appropriately evaluate those we are called to lead. Why? Because through processes of discernment, which include evaluation, we respond to what the Spirit is doing in the lives of those we lead. We acknowledge how they have been gifted (and not gifted), and observe their level of maturity (the presence in their lives of the fruit of the Spirit and wisdom—see Galatians 5:22-25 and 1 Timothy 3:6). With this understanding, we then work to provide clear and accessible “pathways” into opportunities where they are enabled to use their gifts to share in Jesus’ mission, through the church, to the world.

A lack of evaluation has, at times, led to appointing people to the wrong ministry roles. It also has contributed to a lack of intentionality in developing new leaders. Perhaps worse, failure to evaluate has led to a lack of discerning the rich variety of the Spirit’s gifting, evidenced by “yellow-pencil,” assembly-line approaches to developing leaders.

By pointing out these deficits, I’m not suggesting that all we did in the past was of the “yellow-pencil,” cloning ourselves variety. I was blessed to work under leaders who recognized that my gifts and skills were quite different than theirs. One pastor saw that I was a better speaker than he was and gave me more preaching assignments than he gave himself. Another saw that I had more administrative talent than he did and helped me get more involved in that area. I recall him saying to me, “Nobody likes paperwork, but you know how to get it done!” I have fond memories of all the people who supervised me as a ministerial trainee, assistant pastor and associate pastor.

It delights me that we‘re now taking a more comprehensive approach to leader selection and development. In the U.S. we’re now using a comprehensive system that includes assessments to help employed pastor and church planter candidates confirm that their calling, gifting and experience is a good fit for their prospective ministry role. These assessments are conducted by leaders who have been appropriately trained.

I encourage our pastors to have in place within their congregations a process for identifying and developing new leaders (assistant pastors, ministry leaders, etc.). I know there often is pressure to recruit people to fill ministry slots, but it’s usually best to leave slots unfilled than to force-fit the proverbial “square peg into a round hole.” Developing leaders takes time and focused care that includes appropriate evaluation.

I recall that in one church I attended, a musically-challenged elder was appointed to lead the choir. It wasn’t a matter of not having gifted and qualified people to serve in that role, it was just a bad discernment-appointment process. The results were disastrous.

As one author put it, “What the Lord anoints, the church appoints.” I like that, because it reminds us that raising up new leaders is about spiritual discernment (Who has the Lord anointed, and how?), and about investing time and other resources to develop those individuals, leading to appointing them to roles within the church that are consistent with their divine calling. I’m grateful to see that many of our established leaders are investing time and other resources in this way. A wonderful example is our U.S. Intern Program directed by Jeff McSwain (you can read about that program at www.gci.org/internprogram).

As we follow the Holy Spirit’s lead in developing leaders, it’s important to remember that leadership within the church is not limited to a special, professional class. Christ’s ministry, including roles of leadership, is to be shared by all of his followers in accordance with the way the Spirit fosters in them both gifts and fruits. My deep thanks to all who serve, and special thanks to those called to lead who understand that a big part of that calling is to identify, equip, mentor and then release other leaders. That is the way of Jesus, and I’m delighted it’s becoming our way more and more.

It’s vital to the joy and health of each congregation that its members participate in mission with Jesus–most as ministry workers, some as ministry leaders. Every member and thus every congregation is like the vine to the branch, organically connected to and dependent upon Christ for its life (see John 15). As a living organism, the church’s concern should not be, “What do we want to do?” but rather, “What is Christ doing and how may we get involved?” The difference may seem subtle, but it’s critical.

I pray that we all work together to follow where Jesus leads, doing what Jesus does, and bringing with us others whom the Spirit is calling to active participation.

On mission with Jesus and with you,

Joseph Tkach

P.S. For some helpful resources on our website related to developing leaders, go to http://www.gci.org/content/competency-multiplying-leaders-ministries-and-churches.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Ask 20 ministers from multiple denominations to define grace and you’ll likely get many different definitions, along with some lively discussion! Ask several GCI ministers and you’ll likely get some variety, but there will be a common core of understanding. One thing is for sure, in GCI we’ve stopped trying to force-fit grace into a framework of legalism. Thank God!

Grace defies simplistic, one-size-fits-all definitions. It’s too profound for that, which is why the Bible reminds us that God’s grace is an inexhaustible topic—one worthy of a lifetime of study. That’s why Peter admonished Christians to “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). The more I read, study, think and write about grace, the more I find my understanding expanding.

Google grace on your computer and you’ll uncover multiple definitions. Probably the best-known is this one: “Grace is God’s unmerited favor or pardon.” A. W. Tozer defined it this way: “Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits on the undeserving.” Dutch-Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof defined grace as, “The unmerited operation of God in the heart of man, effected through the agency of the Holy Spirit.” I find the following definition from Karl Barth to be particularly profound (though as often is the case with Barth, it must be carefully read to get the full impact):

Who really knows what grace is until he has seen it at work here: as the grace which is for man when, because man is wholly and utterly a sinner before God, it can only be against him, and when in fact, even while it is for him, it is also a plaintiff and judge against him, showing him to be incapable of satisfying either God or himself? ….What takes place in this work of inconceivable mercy is, therefore, the free over-ruling of God. It is not an arbitrary overlooking and ignoring, not an artificial bridging, covering-over or hiding. It is a real closing of the breach, gulf, and abyss between God and us, for which we are responsible. At the very point where we refuse and fail, offending and provoking God, making ourselves impossible before him and in that way missing our destiny, treading under foot our dignity, forfeiting our right, losing our salvation and hopelessly compromising our creaturely being—at that very point God himself intervenes as man (Church Dogmatics, Vol. 4.1: The Doctrine of Reconciliation).

I like Barth’s expression, “inconceivable mercy.” It refers to what God, in Christ, through the Spirit, has done and is doing to write within us a new law that emancipates us from sin as well as death. Paul put it this way: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans 8:2).

The Greek word charis, usually translated “grace” in the New Testament, has multiple shades of meaning, referring to something that affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness, goodwill, loving-kindness, favor or gratitude. Scripture tells us that grace is ours by God’s initiative alone. In Christ, through the Spirit, the Father’s will for us is perfectly fulfilled. God’s grace takes us by surprise because nothing that we can do and nothing that we are earns grace. We are predestined and elected in Christ, the Lord and Savior of the whole world. The story of our lives begins and ends with God’s unfathomable, amazing grace.

When I hear or read world news, I wonder why God bothers with us at all. Our brutality, cruelty, bigotry, hypocrisy and greed boggles the mind. But God knows there is another way to live, and his purpose is to share that life with us. He loves us far too much to allow the final result of life—any life—to be determined by our own behavior. In the sovereignty of God’s grace, evil has no future. Christ is making all things new. The new heavens and earth will be established!

God’s plan is to remake us into the image of his Son as we receive his grace by our repentance and faith in him. God even enables that response—one that, by the Spirit, grows deeper throughout our lives, as Paul noted:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified (Romans 8:29-30).

After observing what God is doing in our lives by grace, Paul proclaimed confidently that, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). God is not finished with any of us—he alone is the author and finisher of our salvation and he knows how to complete the story that he has begun writing in our lives. In Ephesians 2:10, Paul proclaimed that, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” The Greek word here for “handiwork” is pōiema, from which we get the word “poem.” By his grace, God is writing the story of our lives—we’re a divinely written ballad, sonnet (or in some cases, a haiku!), full of ups and downs and twisting plot turns. Because of God’s grace, we look forward with hope and confidence to how the story will end.

With love in Jesus’ name,

Joseph Tkach

P.S. I recently participated in a GCI conference in Montegrotto, Italy, attended by about 110 of our Italian brothers and sisters. During the conference we ordained Francesco Bernard, pastor of the GCI congregation in the Puglia/Bari region named Acquaviva Dele Fonti (Living Water of the Well). Here is a picture, with James Henderson, GCI missions director for Europe, leading the ordination prayer.

During the conference we also re-commissioned several ministry leaders who serve GCI’s churches in Turin, Milan, Ferrara, Rome, Sardinia, Catania and Palermo, Italy (see the picture below). Our thanks and congratulations to all these servants of our God of grace.