Digital Nazarene

A Nazarene Wrestling with Digitally Expressing the Great Commission

Tag: culture

  • Wolf Ministry

    Wolf Ministry

    I was on a call, and the image of a wolf pack came to mind. I’ve been fond of wolves for years, and so learned a lot of information about them. One of the lessons is wolf leadership.

    Leading the Pack

    We often get caught up in the alpha, beta, omega (1st, 2nd, 3rd) order of pack leadership without understanding how that actually plays out in wolf pack functions.

    The Alphas may be the leaders of the pack, but that doesn’t mean they always lead. Depending on the situation and the skills or instincts required for navigating the situation, the leadership of the pack will change. This is a temporary change, and doesn’t impact the entirety of pack hierarchy (or at least it usually doesn’t).

    One of the big ones I read about was breaking ground after a fresh snowfall, in particular a deep one that is at wolf shoulder or higher depth. There will be one wolf that will break the path for the rest of the pack. Generally, it’s because it’s wider than the others, so that every other wolf can easily follow the path. Sometimes it’s hunting, and it might even be based upon which prey is being hunted.

    To my understanding, it is neither by gender nor by overall pack hierarchy, but which individual is best suited to lead off.

    From Pack to Ministry

    In an ideal ministry context, the same would happen. The best person for teens, youth, children, women, men, would lead. Yet, often people look to the organizational leader (the pastor or pastors) to lead. I get it. When we have one of those leaders in place, we want their approval and assurance that we’re doing it right.

    As a pastor, however, I can say that there are certain areas that I have no clue how to lead. Putting me (or expecting me) in charge is not setting the ministry up for success. Yes, a pastor or a person experienced in that ministry might have input, that doesn’t mean they should or could lead.

    Sometimes that input might seem to be saying that the leader in question is not doing a good job. Yet, it is often a matter of expectations, and the reality that different people have different expectations and different understandings of success.

    Responsible Hierarchy

    We’ve all heard of (and perhaps experienced) micromanaging. This is the concept of a person above in the organizational (loosely defined) hierarchy that is very specific directions and will hover over or closely watch a person to make sure that each step is done to the upper-hierarchical person’s expectation.

    Often that comes with that “upper” person’s perspective that nobody can do it like they can, and as a consequence it is always a failure.

    No one functions well in that environment. Even the “upper” person ends up not functioning well because they are so focused on those “below” them that their responsibilities get missed.

    Yet, in ministry, far too many people want a micromanaging pastor/leader, but they really don’t.

    Responsible Feedback

    As I’m writing this, I see a gap in my own leadership, and that is feedback. All to often, feedback is perceived and experienced as confrontational, rather than what it should be, matching expectations.

    I wonder if the pursuit of the “roadmap” of some ministry emphasis is because there is no mechanism of nor expectation for feedback.

    There are those ministry leaders that don’t really want feedback (which is an issue, for sure). There are those ministry leaders that want feedback for every little thing (also an issue).

    Too Corporate for Church

    I suspect that there will be some person that will push back against formalized feedback because it’s too much like how a corporation functions. Yet, what if it’s just a conversation over coffee or food? What if it’s just a question, “How do you think [this ministry] is doing?” There is an equally important question, “how can I/we better support you?”

    The second question is often more scary for leaders than one might suppose. It actually means the leader (or questioner) might have some action items when receiving the answer, and might even have to change.

    Consequences

    I recently read a friend’s post on a situation where they felt deeply hurt because of differing perspectives of how a particular ministry functioned in a particular church setting. As a consequence, they left that church, and (it seems) the church as a whole for at least a time.

    I, too, have been hurt by people in the church. I, too, have been hurt by leaders in the church. In most cases, including those I’ve personally witnessed with others, it is how feedback is delivered and received that drives the engine.

    Probably half the time, it’s actually how the leader delivers feedback, and how they receive their feedback from those to whom they are giving feedback. Actually, it might be more than half.

    I am not saying those leaders were wrong in toto, what I am saying is that expectations were not managed, measured, or even attempted to be agreed upon. That is a leadership issue.

    At Least

    “At least I’m serving.”

    “At least someone is willing to serve.”

    Yes, to both statements. Also, ugh. These two statements are the reality at a lot of church, from small to large. Someone fills a role because they are willing, not because they’re the best at it. Sometimes that person can go rogue, too, which puts an additional burden.

    But the reality is that churches often have to make that choice of the only person versus not being filled. With so many expectations put on churches that have neither the finances nor the people to do so much, the churches end up putting the only person in, even if it’s a bad fit.

    Honestly, I’m wrestling with this one. How should this effect my ministry at my church or the religious org I’m part of? I don’t know. I do know that people take roles because their will not always because they’re able.

  • Therapeutic

    The church and therapy do not always go together. I am not one of those who believes that therapy and faith necessarily conflict, though they can because of harm and/or misunderstanding. Sometimes therapy is needed within the context of church, and vice-versa.

    This is not a knock against therapy. I’ve been in therapy. Probably could use it again. I believe that there is a need for therapy, inside and outside of the church.

    I do wonder, however, if the church is hiding something about therapy. There is no question that the church has been both the community for the non-normative and has not been the community for the non-normative.

    Therapy Defaults

    What I’ve been thinking about, though, is that too often in the church there are two default regarding therapy: “we have the Bible” and faith, so therapy is unneeded; or “we have the Bible” with all the answers, thus therapy is anti-Biblical or anti-God.

    While I understand why some Christians might feel that way, I’m wondering if we’ve created a nascent monster with this perspective.

    What if the default church perspective of therapy is bad, ends up producing a whole bunch of people who don’t see the problem, thus don’t want to deal with the fix?

    One of the biggest aspects of holiness and sanctification (across traditions) is change. In particular, being changed by God. What if it is not just “the sins” that we don’t want to address, but ourselves?

    What if those who don’t want to change through therapy are also those who don’t want to change through the power of the Holy Spirit? I do believe therapy and holiness/sanctification can happen in harmony, or affect different aspects of our lives.

    I wonder if we Protestants (in particular) become so obsessed with Original Sin, that we are unable to look at humanity and change without the lens. Actually, I don’t wonder.

    Paul’s Issue

    1For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want—instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.

    Romans 7:15–20 NET

    There is a needle that needs to be threaded. While Paul might have had a struggle with a particular sin, and identified such as a sin, that doesn’t mean that the presumed predilection toward sin is all that is involved.

    Anyone whose done any sort of therapy should be able to look at Paul’s words and see the similarity to issues or trains of thought that are often dealt with through therapy. This does not challenge the Bible, it’s authority, nor sin. That’s an oversimplification of sin and therapy.

    Desire

    There’s the old joke:
    How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?
    None! The lightbulb has to want to change itself.

    Yes, it’s a bad joke. However, as a pastor, a therapy client, and a person seeing therapy to help people, there is a lot of truth to this.

    Paul wants to change. His take is that God will use his (Paul’s) weakness for God’s glory. We actually don’t hear much more about it (yes, we do hear some more about it). However, too many Christians take Paul’s revealed message from God and turn it into doctrine on therapy…which it isn’t.

    Do people really think that if Paul had another tool to not suffer from his desire to sin that he wouldn’t do it? I would hope not. Paul didn’t, however, have that tool. We do.

    To change, however, takes more than a baptism. It takes a decision. It takes a willingness to utilize all the tools available. It takes a decision to face the pain and decisions that got one to that point, and to deal with it.

    Choosing Healing

    There is a theologian (who I won’t name because his name, understandably, riles up a bunch of people, who were they to read his name would through me under the bus) who makes an interesting argument that we have to agree from our brains to our cells (yes, I know brains are made of cells, but you know what I mean) to be healed.

    I think he makes a good point, and has some good thinking behind it. While I don’t agree with it completely, on the other hand, I’ve had too many conversations where, “I did it again. I’m trying to be better.”

    Then you unpack it, and it’s “trying” while using only one’s will power to course correct, which doesn’t work very well. In AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and CR (Celebrate Recovery), there is an understanding that we don’t do it well on our own. AA, CR and even secular programs all have a community, system, and overseer (higher power, Jesus Christ, science) that girds the programs.

    In other words, a lot of people who say they want change really mean they want the change without the pain, discipline, or realization required for the real change. Hey, New Year’s Resolutions are the perennial poster child of this.

    Consumerism = Therapy

    There is a strong belief that consumerism has battered at the church and its foundations of accountability and transformation. This is more particularly about congregants. This is not to blame congregants. The wider culture is consumeristic. What if, however, the true danger of consumerism isn’t buying unneeded cruft, but what consumerism has really become…a drug or a therapy.

    This is not about some stereotype of some rich white female talking about “shopping therapy.” This is about people being inundated with messaging about a problem (real or imagined) that can be fixed by a product. I’ll take an easy one.

    When HD TV first game out there were gushing reviews of being able to see things is such clarity. Now we have 4K (and soon 8K) televisions whose selling point will be, now you can see things in greater clarity! Why change the pitch when it works? And, it will work.

    When I was a child, I remember the great shows on animals, especially David Attenborough’s stuff. Would HD improved the images I saw? Yes, would it have fundamentally changed what I’d gained from watching those shows? No. Clarity was never the issue, but it became one.

    Christians Should Know the Plot

    For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires.

    Romans 7:7–8 NET

    Consumerism is, to a great extent, a continuation of this same thinking, but Christians have missed the plot, though they’ll often be glad to point this out when it comes to sin.

    I bring consumerism into this because I think this may be what kills off much of the church. People have been trained (even in the church) to expect quick fixes and the newest thing will fix what the older thing couldn’t. People church hop as part of this.

    I have started to wonder if people leave a church because they don’t really want to be seen or change. I know that that statement will cause some angst. It causes me some.

    True church community requires humility, vulnerability, genuineness, and love. I know people say that they want that, but do they? They get challenged on a particular issue or they’re asked uncomfortable questions and now the church they were at is no longer for them.

    I don’t know how to recover this because I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced the full expression of church community. It’s not very American, at least from what I can tell. I’m not sure we can get back to something most of us probably have fully experienced. And that’s sad.

  • Mystery Lost

    Mystery Lost

    We are not stewards of certainty. We are pilgrims of mystery.

    Preston Ulmer

    Being within the “evangelical” realm of Christianity, I have long been in a church culture that promulgates certainty. It would be nice if that certainty was just about Jesus.

    It also amazes me that much of “evangelical” culture rails against the Enlightenment, but uses Enlightenment practices and thought processes to prove itself and the faith.

    Over time (and not much of it, either), other things were introduced into the “evangelical pantheon”. Sex, evolution, science (in general), and politics. Certain practices within the wider tradition of Christianity were considered questionable, dangerous, or heretical. This despite many of the reformers who themselves had practices that now are under fire by those who claim to step in their chosen reformer’s footsteps..

    Certainty Kills

    I was reading Friendship Beyond Belief: How I Learned to Love and Listen to Doubters by Preston Ulmer in the January/February 2026 issue (it’s Loving and Listening to Doubters online), and he caught my attention with…

    …most of us have not been prepared to embrace a faith that stays committed in the face of uncertainty. Instead, we’ve been told that the stronger our certainty, the stronger our faith. Ironically, that kind of faith can become ossified and brittle and often looks to the rest of the world like close-mindedness or stubbornness.

    Preston Ulmer

    This put something I’ve been wrestling with as a pastor, particularly in my current calling. Certainty eliminates mystery. Certainty kills mystery. What’s wrong with a bit of mystery?

    Mysterious Call

    I have long had a sympathy for the mysterious aspect of Christianity. I find comfort in the truth that I do not know it all. I hold many things with firmly, and yet hold them flexibly.

    In the Church of the Nazarene, the Eucharist (e.g., Communion, Holy Supper, etc.) is only done once per month. Even as I say that, some churches do it more often, some hold to the Manual minimum of once a quarter.

    My early church experience was Anglican then Lutheran, and I still struggle with once per month, and I’ve been part of the Church of the Nazarene longer than either of the other two traditions (or both put together). John Wesley’s calling the Eucharist a “means of grace” struck me as affirming that the Eucharist is a mystery.

    Discussions within the denomination include too often weakens the power (and I think aligns with a memorialist perspective). Then there are those of us who are on the more spiritual (real) presence or further still to consubstantiation.

    It gets particularly interesting as the denomination, as a whole, is reaching back in to is Wesleyan identity. With the Wesleys (John and Charles) being Anglican (Church of England) clergy, the symbolic is losing sway, and the mystery is regaining ground.

    Mystery As Welcoming

    There are three strands of Christianity that are growing in the West: Assemblies of God (Charismatics), Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox. All 3 have participative experience as part of their worship expressions. Yes, Charismatic is distinctly different from Roman Catholic and Easter Orthodox. And I am basing this on anecdotal evidence rather than statistics.

    All 3 also have a high mystery content. Yes, again, the charismatics are different than the other two.

    I think that the mystery is attractive to many younger people (not just me), because in the era of science and computers we seek something that transcends data points. Some people find that in nature (with or without God). Some people find that in music (again, with or without God).

    I am not certain of a lot of things. I don’t know if this makes me a bad pastor. I’m sure for some it does. I don’t know if this makes me an even worse Christian. I’m sure it does for some.

    I find the mysterious helpful. In a book from my childhood

    At last she stood up, gazing across the lake; she could not see its farther shore. “It is so large,” she said.
    Luthe rose to stand beside her. “No, not so large,” he said, “but it is a private sort of lake, and hard to see. Even for me.” He was quiet a moment, looking across the water. “I think perhaps the reason I stay in this particular uninhabited valley of all the uninhabited valleys in the Hills is that it comforts me by reminding me of things I cannot do. I cannot see the farther shore of the Lake of Dreams.”

    Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword

    I think I’d be okay, like Luthe, in a place like that. In some ways I am. Other areas, I grant, I’m no different than anyone else.

    Americans (the US ones) want their surety. And, yet, in their desire for surety, they still desire the unknowable.

    Perhaps…just perhaps…we might be willing to once again live in the mystery that is walking with God.

  • Our Walls, God’s Movement

    Our Walls, God’s Movement

    Look and see what God is doing, and join him in His work. If Christians around the world were to suddenly renounce their personal agendas, their life goals and their aspirations, and begin responding in radical obedience to everything God showed them. The world would be turned upside down.

    Henry Blackaby

    I love this quote that I recently heard.

    There is, however, something very scary in it, and it is how it challenges all our traditions and interpretations.

    It isn’t just the “bricks and mortar” that is being challenged. Even digital is challenged by this.

    In digital, we are very aware of platforms. The platforms shape the means and method of the message. They do not change the message.

    Walls of Bits and Bytes

    We, self-included, cannot sit within our digital four walls. We must spread out from Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X (f.k.a., Twitter), Twitch, and whatever other digital platforms we’re on.

    Even it digital, people have already formed walls. Yes, they are only made of bits and bytes, yet, they are becoming rigid, too.

    In some ways, walls are good. In the digital realm, it can be easy to bust through digital walls, but should we? What makes a platform valuable to you? What makes a platform valuable to the people you are trying to reach?

    Walls and Culture

    This is where the four walls mindset/framework actually breaks down. The four walls of a physical local church are symbolic of the culture of the church. The four walls can be porous, rather than solid. The four walls could be so solid that nothing new gets in and everything (and everyone) become petrified.

    Digital may well have the same issues. Digital, it seems, tends to be more porous, but the platforms themselves lead to a development of a culture that is often is impossible for the unenculturated to break into.

    Oddly, that seems to be almost celebrated in digital spheres. Granted, comparing the sheer numbers in digital spheres to the normal local physical church (even the mega ones), it can seem that the digital is more open culturally. Appearances can be deceiving.

    Digital Culture Warning

    We in the digital space often point to the physical realm as the epitome of locked culture, while not recognizing our own.

    I am guilty.

    Digital isn’t for everyone, nor does all digital meet everyone where they are at.

    Those advanced in their digital realms do recognize that. I just wonder, however, if we are looking far enough ahead to see a potential issue.

    TikTok Culture Goes Where

    If it remains banned/blocked in the US, what will happen to its people? There is a culture on TikTok (neither supporting nor opposing, just stating).

    The culture developed on TikTok. Much of the culture was shaped by the nature of the platform (short form video), the algorithm of the platform, and the social interaction. The TikTok culture is unique.

    Its US users, now de-homed, will go where, exactly? They might try Instagram or Facebook, but probably not. YouTube and its shorts? Maybe. Perhaps old Vines or other short form platforms will return. Perhaps someone will be successful in creating a Mastodon or BlueSky iteration/server that will be successful (this is my hope).

    De-Homed Culture

    I don’t know much, if anything, about how a refugee really adapts to a new culture. Yes, I’ve heard stories (including from refugees). Yet, there is always something much deeper in that.

    Like physical refugees, TikTok-ers didn’t want to move. TikTok-ers are looking for the next place to be.

    Many people are looking for the next place to be. It isn’t just TikTok-ers. It’s refugees from other nations. People who feel disconnected from a culture they perceive as not theirs.

    God’s moving there.