Of Stalin, Church Leaders and Revolution

Today is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Liberation Movement of Mongolia.  This was the revolution which took place prior to the Socialist Revolution of 1921, in which the Mongolian people became Independent of the Qing Empire of China. It was actually an odd and sort of “in-between” time in Mongolian history, which makes it somewhat controversial. So much so that this year’s  Parliament made it  a “one-time” holiday (to celebrate the 100 year anniversary).  Whatever the politics behind it, I’m grateful for a day, and with the Christmas parties over and the New Year’s Holiday upon us, even a week of slow and loose schedules.  This is a good week (and a good time of the year!) to think, write and plan.

Since leadership training is now one of my main tasks, the “why”, “how”, “what” of leadership, and more particularly church leadership, has been large on my personal radar. Article reading, journal writing, teaching weekly classes with our own leadership training program and some recent life encounters has afforded opportunity for this important subject to be at the top of all my lists.

The men behind the 1911 National Liberation Movement ended up failing in their attempts to lead Mongolia (as evidenced by reverting back to Chinese rule and the subsequent Socialist revolution a little over a decade later).  While movements and parties and revolutions can not be simplified to one hinge on which success and failure turn, I am fairly sure that revolutionary failure has much to do with a leadership gap.  I’m relatively certain (this is a blog and not a research dissertation - so, again, things are much more complicated. However...) that many, if not most, if not all movements, revolutions and organizations only rise to the level of the type of leadership they contain. I will leave the defense or rebuttal of that statement to someone who has done the research on the subject.  However, in light of this, I would like to make one simple observation.

John Maxwell defines leadership as “influence. Nothing more. Nothing less.” While I’m not a Maxwell fanboy, I do agree with that definition.  The real question is what kind of influence is being exerted on people? I haven’t finalized my thinking on this yet, but I’m beginning to come to a conclusion that there are essentially two kinds of influence (leadership).  One is that of power and control.  The second is that of example and service.  Revolutions and Liberation Movements tend to have “for the people” rhetoric, but inevitably leadership practice is still more about influence by control than influence by example and service.

I’m fairly certain that influence by service and example was first introduced by Jesus, which is why it’s truly unique and revolutionary.

“But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

(Matthew 20:25-28 ESV)

This kind of leadership is flat out weird.  Who does this? Some Mongolian friends told me one time that the leader of their “Christian” organization once boasted that he “leads like Stalin”, as if this is a good thing.  Stalin was a power/control influencer, not a servant/example influencer. Yet, this naive leader believed this to be the “right way” to lead. The problem is that he is not alone in his leadership opinions. While not every one would put it into such crass terms, the fact is that the world still leads with power and control and the church has embraced this worldly leadership style of “lording it over”.  I believe this is a huge issue for the church around the world and it needs to face with courage and a heart of repentance.

Westerners are often culturally more subtle than my Mongolian friends.  We tend to be less straightforward with our declarations.  However, we’ve all seen it for sure in others.  If we’re honest, we’ve seen it in ourselves. Oh, we have the civility to not say “I will lead like Stalin” - but the “Stalin-like” tendencies come out when those we influence don’t respond to us the way we like.  When the church board or business partners or employees or our children don’t do or act the way we think they should, the human bent is to “lead like Stalin”. It’s so easy to resort to power, control and manipulation rather than seeking to understand, serve, shepherd and influence by example.

In 1911, Mongolia moved from one form of “Stalin-like” leadership to another form of “Stalin-like” leadership to actually being led by Stalin (at least in a vicarious sense - if not directly).  Today it's still the leadership model of this country and in the Mongolian church.  Obedience. Control. Power. They learned the model from Stalin. They continue to practice this model because of what they learn from the church of the West. From us. From me.

I repent.

In 2012, I dream that there will be another revolution in Mongolia (and in my own heart and lifestyle).  I dream there will be a leadership revolution.  I pray that the leaders of the Church in Mongolia will learn to shepherd like Jesus.  Serve like Jesus. Lay down their lives like Jesus.

I pray they will learn this not merely from words and teaching.  I pray they will learn this from the example they see in me.

So for 2012, may God give grace, not to lead ... but to serve and to lay down my life.  I am convinced that’s the kind of influence which will lead to a revolution of which there will be no controversy celebrating in about a million years.

And I look forward to that more than this week’s days of relative leisure.

Friday Photos: Happy 17th

The hi-light of this week? That would be Cori Faith's 17th birthday.

We had a great time celebrating with her (and Jonathan on Skype!)

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake was divine.

 

Cori is becoming a lovely young lady and we couldn't be more proud of her (even amidst the craziness ... but she comes by that honestly).

Happy Birthday, Cori!

 

Friday Photos: Christmas Decorating in UB

This week's Friday Photo(s) are shots of us decorating our apartment for Christmas.  It was tough ... because we're not so used to doing Christmas decorating without Jonathan around. Granted, his job was usually to sit on the couch and watch football while we put the tree up (he'd put up a few choice ornaments, as well...), but we sure do miss him.

While it was no replacement for Jonathan, this year we invited two Mongolian friends (Onon and Haliuna) over to help put up the tree and put on the decorations.  We ended up having a great time eating together, listening to Christmas music and "decking the halls" ... or in our case "the hall" ... since we really only have one.

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The Discipline of Death

Yesterday I turned 44.  I informed Renee’ that I’m currently half way to 88 (as if she’s not way better at math than I am).  It’s an odd way to view age, I suppose, but now as a true “middle-aged” man, it’s just a realistic way of facing truth.  I’m not at all under the delusion that my “best years are behind me,” nor do I have any desire to “return to my youth.”  I’m quite content to be where I am. However, nearly every year, my birthday tends to begin a season of personal reflection that lasts until January. My wife told me I could probably blame my Dad for that.  She may be right.  I learned a lot about personal introspection from him.

I read these words this morning:

“Sometimes violent, sometimes gradual, paradigm crashes create an opportunity for God to take me off road, awakening me to mission by crucifying aspects of my culture, leadership and spirituality that, unbeknownst to me, need to die”

From “Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders” by Earl Creps

Mission is about following Jesus into the world, and this act of following is ultimately about death. The Bonhoefferian word regarding Jesus’ invitation to come and die is indeed the reality of taking the Cross to the unreached, the least reached and the unengaged peoples of the earth. Out of death comes life. But only out of death. Missional leaders through out the ages (circa: Augustine, Martin Luther, Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, CT Studd, and the list goes on) make the same appeal.

This sort of apparently morose spirituality is generally unpopular.  It’s not happy-sounding or optimistic at all.  It’s not befitting to our American sense of well being and fairness.  Death is not really a part of our everyday experience.  When we face death, the corpse is dressed up in his best suit, has her hair done and is wearing makeup.  “Doesn’t she look beautiful?”  “It looks just like him.”  Really now?

I’d never seen dead people outside of a funeral home until moving to Ulaanbaatar. Since being here, we (and our children) have seen corpses several times.  A man coming out of a store just falling over like a cold stone. Maybe he had a heart attack? I never really knew for sure. His heart was no longer beating.  We’ve seen several instances of people lying dead in the street after being hit by a car.  Mongolian tradition (I don’t know if this comes from Shamanism or Buddhism) requires that a corpse lay where it fell for a certain period of time. Uncovered. Bare. Dead and exposed to the elements and available for all to see. It has something to do with giving the spirit time to properly depart from the body. It’s just one more evidence of death’s cruel reality.

There are other places in the world where death is even more in your face and life has even less value than here.  Places where open mass graves are not an unusual thing and where guns and bombs and disease are as everyday as a loaf of bread or a carton of milk, and death is a part of life.  Children of the world are generally not protected from it’s harsh reality in the same way suburban American children tend to be.

The Cross of Jesus makes more sense when it is considered in the matter-of-fact way most of the world views death. The Cross takes on more meaning than a gold chain or an ornamental stone in a graveyard.  It was a very tangible instrument of torture and death that Jesus demanded we take up in order to follow him.

Here’s what I’m rediscovering that this means as an overseas worker.

Unless there is a personal laying aside of my preferences and my opinions and my will for my sake, this thing called “mission” is never going to work.  Team will not work, mission will not work.  Nothing will work. Mission cannot be just be me trying to accomplish my vision and my plans and my goals and my direction for the sake of my own glory.  So this is why Creps book starts with the “Off-road” “discipline of death.”  It’s why Jesus said no one who comes after Him will be able to come after him without a Cross. His Cross. Jesus bids us come and die. Its’s the reality. It’s the way … and there’s no other way.  Death can be violent and death can be gradual. Either way, the paradigm shifts which must take place in our lives will equate to death of a way of life. Or a Dream. Or a goal.  Or an agenda. The death of these kinds of things is not easy.  It’s painful.  It’s agonizingly painful, because it’s personal. But that’s the call to “come and die.”

Mission and the cross are inseparable and not to be ignored.  Too much of our “mission talk” in America is about glory.  It’s about making sure that our prayer letters are full of glowing stories of all the Saints from all the world marching into the glorious Kingdom of God because you gave and I went. That’s mostly rubbish. It doesn’t look like that right now. It will. But it’s all quite messy at the moment. Frankly, if you hear so much “glory talk” from most fields, you can be fairly certain that the truth is being stretched - at least a little.  Personal pain and death to self has to take place before anything “glorious” is going to happen.  Young dreamy-eyed grad students want to work overseas in the world of “missions” … raise the Banner,“for the Kingdom” … and little do they know what they’re heading into. I was there once. That was the triumphalistic closing of all my correspondence. At 44 years old the greeting “for the Kingdom” has changed simply to “Grace.” Please don’t get upset. I’m still very much about the kingdom of Jesus. I am. It’s my highest value and what I aim live the next 44 years for, whether in Mongolia or anywhere else in the world our Commander asks me to go.  However, it’s not going to happen without an enormous amount of grace. Overflowing, burgeoning floods of grace … because fruit will only be born when the seed goes into the ground and dies. (John 12:24.  Always John 12:24.)

There’s not another option.

Painting Smoke: The Cross-Cultural Learning Curve

I have the following conversation with random Mongolians at least once a day:

Random Mongolian: “How long have you been in Mongolia?”

Me: “Working on five years now”

RM: “Oh really? You speak Mongolian so well”

Me: “Thanks … some days are better than others”

The “Me” inside of my head: “I hope I properly understood that conversation”

Most Mongolians are very gracious to foreigners when it comes to language learning.  A haltering, poorly accented “Sain bain uu” (the basic greeting here) will warrant lavish praise for great efforts at language study, at least from most Mongolians.  I think this is because in the past, others have come into Mongolia and never bothered to learn their language. On the other hand, maybe it’s because Mongolians know exactly how difficult their language is to master (at least for English-speaking Americans over the age of 35).  Either way, I take all encouragement for what it’s worth, and just know in my heart I really don’t speak that well, at all.

I say this, not because of a small vocabulary or a lack of understanding on how to properly put together complex sentences.  Although, I still do need to work on those complex sentences, it’s a much deeper issue than vocabulary, grammar and syntax.

The greatest need, culturally speaking, for the worker in Mongolia is to understand the Mongolian heart.  Language learning is only a very small part of a process that is much longer and deeper than two years of study (which happened three years ago) could ever accomplish.  Having started a second term here, I can say it definitely takes more than a term. I’m fairly certain it’ll take more than two terms. It’s perhaps a lifetime of work. This is a perspective of culture learning I’m choosing to take, and would encourage anyone in ministry to take a similar approach, as well.

All ministry deals with culture in some way, shape or form.  There’s always a need for something more than a superficial understanding of the culture in which we serve, where ever that may be.  When pastoring in the US, I had a huge advantage. I understood how Americans work and think, because I was one of them. I had some learning to do to understand the culture of Franklin, TN, but the learning curve was a natural, easy bend in the road.  I’m writing this from a train in the middle of the Gobi desert.  I can look out my window and see the train engine taking the slow, gentle curve that will eventually take me home to Ulaanbaatar. You have to go with the curve or you derail, but it’s doable and doesn’t take a terrible amount of effort. Some work. Some study. But not a lot. Not really.

The learning curve when crossing a culture, particularly one that’s as different from my own as Mongolian culture happens to be, is nothing like this train ride through the gentle curves of the Gobi Desert.  It’s be more like a crazy winding road through the Alps.

I’ve talked about this before, but I’ve found it critical to embrace the fact that I may not and often times will not understand what’s going on around me here.  This has reached something of a crisis point for me.  Misunderstandings abound and I must be the first one to admit the hard reality: I may very well be the one who is missing the point. I need to learn more. I need to find a way to understand better. This involves way more than verb endings and complex sentences. This is about the enormous complexity of working with people who will never think in the same ways that I think.  Their culture is vastly different from my own.

I’ve heard “cross-cultural ministry experts” (many of whom are better classified “short-term missions experts” who have never really lived in a culture outside of their own for more than two weeks) quote the overused adage “It’s not right. It’s not wrong. It’s just different,” as if that’s all it takes to understand cultural differences. The fact is, it’s an incredibly simplistic and trivial way to look at things.  There are many issues which are “wrong” in every culture. Some things that are right. There are many occasions for an appropriate value judgement. However, value judgement is not possible after only a few hours or a few days. Sometimes it’s years and decades. Cultural evaluation and understanding is so much more complex than a cliche.

I’ve taken this perspective for two reasons:

1. It has everything to do with my own arrogance. I must die daily. I’m typically able to hide pride from folks well enough to not seem like a tool. Usually. However, I also know that my fallen flesh will sometimes rise up and say, “I know this language.  I understand what’s going on here.  I mean, when teams form the States come to visit they think I’m a fluent, buutz-eating, airag-drinking Mongolian.  And besides … random-monoglian-on-the-train just told me how awesome I am at speaking the language. There’s absolutely no way I could be the one not understanding what’s happening here. The Mongolian worker who is now offended by me is the one who misunderstood. It’s not my issue.”

I might be able to get away with that attitude in Franklin, TN (but arrogance is arrogance, no matter where you work - so I don’t recommend it). A different approach is required here.  My assumption from now on is that I am the one who is misunderstanding.  I am the one who will take the position of learner, and thus make my way a little further up this narrow curve.  It’s my issue, not theirs. I’m the outsider, not them.  They will forever know WAY more about themselves than I ever can.

I need this perspective to stay in a place humility.  My language will never be that awesome.

2. Most importantly, I need this attitude for the sake of the Gospel.  The Gospel is paramount.  There is nothing more important.  To keep the Gospel pure and contextual, nothing can be assumed, other than the reality that there’s a high likelihood I’m being misunderstood. This requires me to work even harder at making sure I am communicating the truths of God, Man, Sin, Christ, Repentance and Faith in ways that are clear, simple, Biblical and meaningful.  Words are important. When crossing a culture words and meanings can sometimes be as elusive as the smoke coming from the engine of this train … and as difficult understand as it would be to paint the smoke on a canvas. Understanding shifts, and what I thought to be the appropriate meaning for one word, ends up being quite inappropriate.

One of our Mongolian friends is trying to teach me to say, “It would be cool to ___.”  The issue is that what I fill in for ___ is not the same thing she fills in for ___ .  8 out of 10 times, I say the wrong thing and sound silly.  She told me, “Until you learn this better, only use this phrase with us. Please don’t say it to other people.” I appreciate my friend’s kindness in saving me from grave embarrassment and deep humiliation.

Grace, God, man, sin, repentance and faith are infinitely more important than “It would be cool to ___.”  For the Gospel to be rightly explained, we have to use vocabulary that is both true to the Bible and understandable to the hearers. Words must have meaning. There’s no “balance” to strike here. Both of these things must be true. We have to get it right.

My deep concern when it comes to cross-cultural work is that in our sanctimonious rush to “get results,” we’re not getting it right. We’re not taking the time to navigate the learning curve, and assume far too much.

How can you pray for those working in cross-cultural ministry? Pray that we are patient enough to navigate the treacherous, yet necessary, learning curves required to walk in Jesus-like humility and to communicate the Gospel with cultural and Biblical clarity.

Some assistance when it comes to making complex sentences would not be refused.

 

The train which goes from Zamyn-Uud to Ulaanbaatar on which this article was written...