Considering Introverts in Church Leadership

The next topic in Adam McHugh’s book, Introverts in the Church, is leadership. This was a painful one for him, I imagine, since he so often questioned his call as a result of his introversion and comparing himself to others. Lest some misunderstand, I’ll say this out front, he is saying that there are characteristics for good leadership that may be found in greater measure among introverts. He’s not saying leaders should be introverts.

I’m being self-conscious here for some have seen me as singing the praises of the introvert at the expense of the extrovert. That is not the point of McHugh’s book, not my blog posts. My point has been to better understand how introversion may affect church life. This includes how people tend to view introverts, the wounds some carry as a result, and how introverts participate in church life. I think churches have personalities, often rooted in the original formation of the church (DNA) as well as experience (nurture). Churches that are comprised of many introverts tend to be … introverted. How those churches view ministry will be different. Not better. Not worse. Different.

He begins with a story of one morning in the office. He and the Sr. Pastor came in at the same time. The Sr. Pastor was greeting all the staff, making talk small and large. He was quietly getting his horrible tasting coffee and slipping into his office where his copy of Calvin’s Institutes awaited him. Couldn’t get any more stereotypical than this, but it happens. As the pastor of a smaller church, the office is where I go to work. Were I the pastor of a larger church, I’d spend more time talking with staff as I made my way deeper into the bowls of my building to get to my office.

He then moves into a study, cited by Olsen Laney, which was repeated three times. All three times, both extroverts and introverts preferred extroverts as both their own ideal self and their ideal leader. Apparently, rather than being arrogant, introverts have serious self-esteem issues. They wish they were more extroverted (just as their extroverted friends long them to be).

At this point I wondered about our “shadow”, which is a part of Jung’s psychology but not often mentioned in discussion of personality type. This shouldn’t be taking as a sinful “shadow”, hiding in the darkness to deceive. But it is the “face” or personae we put on to function in the world for short periods of time. At least that is how I’m using it. I sometimes feel that way; that I have to be my opposite to fulfill some functions. That’s not wrong. It’s putting on your big boy pants and doing your job. It’s moving out of your comfort zone (the very thing some seem to think this series advocates against).

One of the wounds he points out is the general perception that introverts aren’t leaders and leaders aren’t introverts. For instance, he points to Richard Daft who cited numerous studies to arrive at his “Big Five personality dimensions”, one of which is …. extroversion. This can be seen as charisma, gregariousness, driven (better than dominance which he used) and “superstardom” or the person who seemingly excels at all they put their hand to.

Sadly, this has sifted down into the church. He notes the J. Oswald Sanders’ classic book Spiritual Leadership paints Paul as quite the extrovert because he had significant relationships with so many people. It shows up in expectations of congregations regarding pastors. You pretty much have to be awesome at everything (this is actually what team ministry is about whether the staff or the Session). There is little awareness that “we aren’t strong here, so we need a guy who is strong here, but we’ve got these things handled pretty well ourselves and he doesn’t need to be as strong.” This list would kill any mere mortal, and their marriages!

“Further, this model of leadership only validates the common, unbiblical expectation that pastors play the role of benefactor while everyone else in the congregation is beneficiary.”

I’ve known some great leaders who started great movements (no, I’m not dropping names). Some had great personal charisma. You wanted to be with them. Others, no so much. Or maybe they just didn’t like me or notice me. Yeah, I often wonder if people actually like me or just put up with me.

What happens when an organization, or church, depends on the personality of its central leader? Take away the leader and it falls apart. It may not cease to exist, but it shrinks and doesn’t know what to do because they’ve always just done what the “big guy” said. The church never learned to think biblically and implement biblical principles in leading. They either find another “big guy” or end up in ruins.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins explains that while charismatic leaders attract people, they tend to be “less effective at drawing people to the mission and values of the organization itself.” They are committed to the “man” not the mission. Paul’s friends were committed to the mission, not the man. They weren’t “Paul is so awesome”, but they were working with Paul to fulfill Jesus’ mission. That mission was clear. Great leaders aren’t about the short-term but the long-term.

Collins, in a book that is on my shelf but hasn’t been read yet, pushes back against the common understanding of leadership. His “Level 5” leaders are not charismatic but have “compelling modesty, are self-effacing and understated.” They are “more plow horse than show horse.” They also set up others for success.

There are people who are good at getting the job, and those who are good at doing the job. Sometimes they are one in the same. But I’ve seen too many people get hired who are ultimately lousy at doing the job, and people who are really good at the job struggle to get hired because they aren’t good at selling themselves (which is the opposite of Christian character, by the way). Humility, self-sacrifice and a commitment to something besides personal glory don’t show up well on a resume or that initial interview.

Collins isn’t alone. Drucker also notes that character matters more than charisma. Charisma creates an initial, unearned success that can make leaders inflexible and arrogant. They have figured it out, they think.

“Character in a leader is the quality that has the ability not only to draw others but also to maintain their loyalty. Character is more than personal integrity and ethical decision-making, though it certainly includes those elements. The central component of character is authenticity.”

McHugh mentions that leaders in the Scriptures were noted for character. Not perfection (they had plenty of imperfections). But they were “admirable and consistent”. This is true whether introverts or extroverts.

“True leadership is not cultivated in the limelight; it’s won in the trenches. Character is something that is built. Thus, the mark of godly leadership is not a magnetic personality; it is discipline, because discipline develops character.”

Back to business. I struggle with all the references to books on business, but I see this as revealing the glaring lack of work done in this within the church. So he draws on Peter Senge and The Fifth Discipline, which discusses the learning organization. It is one that includes “processes of reflection and evaluation into their organizational systems”. They don’t just do what they’ve always done but evaluate it. This means, McHugh notes, that people who listen and think before acting can be quite effective leaders. Introverts often have these qualities.

There is the blessing and the curse. I can tend to over-analyze. I can waste time going over conversations, meetings and decisions. I can’t just turn it off when I want to. The reason I was blogging this before 7 am is that I woke up early thinking about a few things. But decisions our Session makes are not impulsive and we are (I hope) implementing more reflection and evaluation in our processes.

Back to the Bible. He rightly notes that office is not something that is earned but rather a gift from God. The God who calls is also the God who equips. God does not call people based on personality type. He actually delights in reversing expectations. He chose Jacob, not firstborn Esau which was customary. He chose a disgraced former member of Pharaoh’s family to lead Israel out of bondage to Egypt. He chose the “runt” of the litter to displace big, handsome Saul as a king after His own heart. He put Jesus in the home of a humble carpenter in the backwoods of Galilee instead of a prominent family of Jerusalem.

So, some of the leaders God chooses and uses are introverts.

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Considering War Room

The divisional round of the NFL playoffs are over. In many ways the legacy of Bill Belichick was on display. The Patriots, led by Belichick took their division and won a bye week yet again, for a long streak of dominance among a division filled with the futility of other teams leading to frequent turnover. Once again the Patriots are in the AFC championship game. Either they are the Steelers will go to a record 9th Super Bowl.

The team the Patriots beat, the Texans, has a coaching staff stacked with former Patriots’ coaches and players (O’Brien, Crennel, Larry Izzo, and Mike Vrabel). The team the Steelers beat, the Chiefs, had former Patriots’ Director of Player Personnel Scott Pioli as their GM for 4 years. While the Chiefs struggled during his tenure, many of the key players for this team were acquired by Pioli.

Pioli is currently the assistant GM for the Atlanta Falcons who also won their division, got a bye week and defeated the Seahawks to advance to the NFC conference championship against the Packers. The Falcons’ GM is Pioli’s old friend from the Browns and Patriots (both under Belichick), Tom Dimitroff.

Half of the teams in the divisional round came from the same organizational roots!

This organization is the subject of Michael Holley’s book War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team. Holley spent a year with the team researching his earlier book, Patriot Reign. He wanted that book to be about Belichick. It has paid off for a growing number of books. Contrary to common opinion, Belichick isn’t self-absorbed and keeps wanting Holley to write not about him but about the organization.

In this book, Holley focuses on Belichick, Pioli and Dimitroff. He provides some biographical information, particularly as he introduces Piolo and Dimitroff, and traces their relationships, how they achieved great success together, and how they’ve been building teams since (when this was written, Pioli was still with the Chiefs).

There is plenty of interesting information about football as Holley retells how some key seasons unfolded. It covers some key drafts as well, bringing you into the process to better understand it. It isn’t just about successes. You see that in drafting disappointments Laurence Maroney and Chad Jackson, Belichick tuned out the scouts who were raising red flags. You discover Belichick is not the man you see or typically hear about, but that is rather is “stage personae”. Behind the scenes and to his friends he is seen as having a great sense of humor and caring about the people he works with, often providing them with advice.

Reading this book you get a better sense of why so many organizations flounder, or lack consistency. Their organizational games of musical chairs, approach to scouting, focus on the short-term instead of the long -term too, are here to see.

I think this book extends beyond football. There are some principles to appropriate for other organizations. While it is about football, it is about more than football. Success begins with people, identifying people with both skills and character. This is not simply players but the whole organization. Belichick, for instance, hired Pioli to a low level position and watched. He saw a guy driven to know more, do more. Pioli quickly rose as Belichick tested him and he passed those tests. Belichick largely develops staff from within instead of importing people from elsewhere. This way you know if they can actually do the job, not just interview well (a problem not just in football but in most organizations). Evaluating players is not just about skill, but character (the flaw in the Maroney and Jackson picks for instance). Players are not evaluated in the abstract, but in comparison to current members of the team. The idea is whether or not they make the team better in both the short-term and long-term.  The focus is not on “stars” but depth, spending your money so you can survive the attrition of an NFL season instead of floundering because a few key guys are hurt.

I don’t want to give it all away. I want you to read the book. It is interesting as well as informative. There is more here than just the “inside story” on some draft picks (though that is interesting too). There is organizational wisdom for those with ears to hear.

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Considering When the Word Leads Your Pastoral Search

I’ve been thinking about my next writing project. Okay, I’ve been thinking about it for about four years. I’ve begun to do some research; over my study leave I read When the Word Leads Your Pastoral Search.

Chris Brauns’ book is highly acclaimed, for good reason. It is an excellent book but I thought an insufficient book. Let me explain. The material he covers he does in generally excellent fashion. As someone who has searched for a call twice and has helped a number of churches find a new pastor, I thought he missed a number of issues important to the process of searching for a new pastor.

He does address key issues like unity (around the Word) in the search committee, the importance of prayer, the character of the pastor, evaluating preaching and interviewing. He keeps pointing us to the Word. His style is easy to read, and interesting. He uses some very good illustrations. In these areas it is a very helpful book. It should be read by those about to start searching for a pastor.

The bulk of the book seems to be evaluating the preaching of pastoral candidates. I’m not completely convinced of his “basic goal of preaching.” Much of what he says about preaching was learned from Haddon Robinson at Gordon-Conwell. I’m not saying that is bad (his was a good book). Brauns offers this as the basic goal: Truth nourishing God’s people. There are many good elements there. In preaching we speak Truth to people. We as shepherds are to nourish God’s people. We want to see them transformed by the truth.

But that strikes me as a tad reductionistic. Am I being nit-picky? Maybe. As I think of preaching using Frame’s triperspectivalism I think of worship and preaching as having three goals: exaltation of God, edification of God’s people, and evangelizing the lost. Early on he doesn’t sound very Christ/gospel-centered (I got redemptive historical preaching pounded into my head, and I need it pounded into my head). This is largely because of his focus on application (preaching a bullet). He rightly speaks of unction as well, though I’m not sure how you measure that in a recorded sermon. He didn’t really explain that but didn’t weigh it heavily in his evaluation form.

In the section on interviewing, which he compares to dating, he offers some excellent direction for committees. There were a few things that required unpacking. One was the area of leadership and a “right fit”. He didn’t bring us (earlier) through leadership style in trying to figure out who you are as a congregation. The type of leadership needed is an important part of that because there are many kinds of leaders.

This book helped me think more about the areas missing or glossed over in this book. I’m hoping that I can fill in that gap and supplement the many fine things that Brauns has said in this book.

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Considering Gospel Centered Leadership

Lay leaders are often very busy. They can often work long hours and have kids to raise. This can make on-going training difficult. This can be frustrating for the pastor, and the elders and other leaders. They often want to learn more but find the realities of life an obstacle.

“In any group of any size, a leader will emerge. Someone who takes initiative, assumes responsibility for the activity and direction of that group. … But in the end, I have a deep and enduring conviction that it is the gospel that should shape my attitude to and practice of leadership.”

Steve Timmis’ new book, Gospel Centered Leadership, is an answer to some of that frustration. It is a short book with short chapters on important subjects that encourage and challenged leaders new and old. He includes questions to help you think through the implications of the material. His fundamental position is that church leaders lead from an on-going faith and repentance. Apart from this, their hearts become hardened by sin and they will inevitably be unable to counsel, guide and direct the sheep.

Leadership doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in the context of Jesus as the Head of the Church. Gospel centered leaders submit to His authority and recognize that they are merely under-shepherds. It also happens in the context of culture. Each culture has definite ideas about leadership. The church will usually follow that style of leadership, but should repent of unbiblical notions of leadership within that culture. For instance, Korean churches in the US often have a more autocratic style of leadership then other churches in the U.S. This is not a problem as long as they don’t “lord it over” the people.

“In simple terms, headship is all about creating an environment in which those in our care are able to flourish and thrive.”

Christ rules through His Word, and thru fallible, sinful people. Timmis notes the numerous failures of biblical leaders. They all anticipated Christ in what they did right and in their failures. We will also fail at times. The gospel enables us to receive forgiveness, get back up again and keep leading. It keeps us humble regarding our skills and abilities, and confident in God’s love and provision to us in Christ. While he recognizes that all Christians should minister to others, he does hold that the office of elder is restricted to men.

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Considering Dangerous Calling

Books are written for a variety of reasons- some good, some bad and some neutral. They can be written because of a great love for something. They can be written to sound a warning.

Paul Tripp wrote Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry to sound a warning. As he has traveled the world and visited with many churches and their staff, he has seen some disturbing trends.

Joshua Harris compared this book to heart surgery. The main point is the gospel, which challenges the sinful status quo in our lives. God is more concerned with our holiness (and His glory) than we are. So God’s grace is often disruptive. This, reflecting that, is a disruptive book.

The initial premise is that pastoral  ministry presents some unique challenges. These challenges are destructive to ministry and ministers. The only solution is the gospel rigorously understood and applied on a consistent basis.

“You are constantly preaching to yourself some kind of gospel.”

As Tripp lays out some of the most common traps and snares, you will not recognize yourself in them all (I hope). But you should see some tendencies toward some of them. You should be able to identify with some of them (I’m always preparing, for instance). And when he ruthlessly goes after you, so to speak, it will be difficult to continue. Unless you keep sight of the gospel and recognize the goal is sanctification, and not condemnation.

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Considering the Pattern of Piety

In the third chapter of The Hole in Our Holiness, Kevin DeYoung looks at the pattern of piety found in Scripture. It is not enough to know we are called to holiness, but we also need to know what it looks like, and doesn’t look like.

Holiness means separation. That is the bottom line. God sets us apart from the rest of humanity in two ways. First, we are definitively set apart at justification. We are set apart as Gods’ people. So, every Christian is sanctified. But God continues to set us apart from the world morally. This is progressive sanctification. You don’t have one without the other. Both of these are a result of grace.. The first is an act of grace (one time event) and the second is a work of grace (a process) according to the Westminster Confession of Faith.

What Holiness is Not

It is not rule keeping. Holiness certainly includes obedience. People often get off course by thinking about non-biblical rules. We are set apart for God. We are to obey his law. Jesus was not too keen on the Pharisees for neglecting God’s law from man-made traditions. It is not about dancing, whether or not you drink a beer with dinner, or have the occasional cuss word slip out when you smash your thumb with a hammer. It is about gentleness, not getting drunk, and having lips used to edify and express gratitude.

“Holiness is more than middle class values. … checklist spirituality is highly selective.”

It is not generational imitation. Some people think it is having the standards and practices of an earlier generation. It could be the 1950’s in Amercia, Calvin’s Geneva or the Puritan’s England. This is what got the Amish in trouble. DeYoung notes that the 50’s may have had a better standards of sexual decency. But when it came to race relations, not so good. Just an example. We are trying to apply the timeless law in our time, not recreate another time.

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Considering Comprehensive Attraction

Yes, I’ve already reviewed The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller. I thought I would go back to something that I think is important. It is something that we tend not to learn easily. People tell us about, but the cultural pull can be so difficult to escape.

The quest for marriage, or the search for a marriage partner, must include developing your own relationship with Christ. Since our hearts are factories of idols (Calvin), we quickly make idols of marriage itself, or particular people.

We make an idol of marriage when we think we MUST be married. We sound like Rachel, who said she must have children or die (Gen. 30). We get angry with God because he hasn’t provided a spouse. Marriage won’t fix all your problems or address all your felt needs.

We can also fixate on particular people. We end up like all the men in There’s Something About Mary. We pursue a relationship in an unhealthy manner, rule out other relationships and harm other people who stand in our way. But that is extreme. Think of Jacob, who made an idol out of Rachel. He had to have her, and nobody else but her. Or John Newton whose journals reflect his constant temptation to make an idol out of his wife, Polly.

Without a deeply fulfilling relationship with Christ now, and hope in a perfect love relationship with him in the future, married Christians will put too much pressure on their marriage to fulfill them, and that will always create pathology in their lives.

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Considering The Transforming Community, Part 1

The topic of church discipline is a touchy one.  People tend to go to extremes.  They either try to discipline people for anything and everything, or they try to avoid ever doing it no matter how severe the sin.

My experience as a pastor has been mixed.  There have been times I’ve believed church discipline was required, but enough of the Session disagreed that we never pursued it.  I’m sure some of those times I may have been over-reacting since the people were attacking me.

I have been wanting to read The Transforming Community: The Practise of the Gospel in Church Discipline by Mark Lauterbach (that’s not a typo, but the British spelling of “practice”, I think) for a few years.  I finally picked it up.  I’m glad I did.  It is a great little book (so far, I’m only 1/2 done).  Mark sees church discipline as a part of how we live out the gospel and how God transforms us.  It is an essential function of church life- part of the church being the church.  Without it the church becomes a social club and lives are not really changed.  This was one of the issues I encountered.  Many in the church wanted it to be more of a chapel (nice service, not much else) rather than a place where the gospel was at work to make people more like Jesus (Romans 8), as Christ is formed in them (Galatians 6).

“… as the saving doctrine of Christ is the soul of the church, so does discipline serve as its sinews, through which the members of the body hold together…  all who desire to remove discipline or hinder its restoration- whether they do this deliberately or out of ignorance- are surely contributing to the ultimate dissolution of the church.”  John Calvin

Lauterbach rightly points to pride as one of the main problems in the church.  We  resist church discipline, thinking it unnecessary because we think more of ourselves than we ought.  We fail to recognize we are the biggest sinners we know (1 Timothy 1:15, as Paul uses the present tense).  If we are unwilling to face our sin, the gospel makes no progress in our lives.

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Considering Success

The final chapter of Total Church covers the idea of success.  After a few less than stellar chapters, they end the book with a home run.

Pastors and congregations often fall prey to false (idolatrous) views of success.  Those idolatrous views often assume control, OUR control over outcomes.  We do have control over our choices and decisions, but we can’t control how those turn out.  So they suggest three shifts in outlook.

First, from larger churches to more churches.  We often measure the success of a church by how large it is (or isn’t).  There are many factors that go into how large a church becomes (faithfulness to the gospel, or lack there of an important one).  They suggest we change our model to more churches- measuring growth in terms of starting new healthy gospel communities.  Yes, this could become an idolatrous numbers game too since we are sinners prone to pride.

But smaller churches (or many mulitplying small groups) provide an environment where we can obey God’s call to love one another in various ways throughout the New Testament.  Smaller communities are more likely to maintain gospel fidelity (greater accountability), as well as work out how the gospel has application to the various circumstances of the members.

Second, a shift in leadership from performance to enabling.  It is easy for pastors to get stuck in the performance trap, and many a congregation enables or demands it.  In a smaller community, the pastor’s flaws are more obvious because he is known better.  And you also see how the gospel is at work in him.  Biblically, the pastor’s role is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry.

Here is the rub, in many small churches it often falls to the pastor to do most ministry.  It can be difficult to find people to equip.  This is a challenge, but not an insurmountable one.

As someone in the midst of looking for a new call, I find many churches focused on performance rather than character.  Committees can want you to sell yourself rather than demonstrate character.  We need to rediscover the biblical qualifications for office- all but one is about character!

The third shift is from a theology of glory (success) to one of the cross (suffering).  I’ve been preaching this for years, and it is a tough sell.  But people want to see how to suffer/fail/lose well.  By well, I mean finding the grace to persevere and not be crushed by suffering and disappointment.  Luther took notice of what was happening in the Letters to the Corinthians.  Like the Corinthians, the church of Rome had embraced a theology of glory.  It was about power, success, honor and more.  The American church struggles with this as well today.  Paul preaches a theology of the cross, embracing suffering along with Christ.  The community is one that embraces broken people, instead of being image conscious.  It was where this mindset prospered in the early church that the church prospered.  They took in the orphans and elderly, and the gospel made great in-roads.  But when the shift to glory took place, the gospel was obscured.

Overall this is a very good, profitable book.  Not everything they say may “fit” every congregations situation.  But the overall focus they want people to embrace is a good one, and an overdue one.

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Considering Guitar and Second Fiddle

I have not played much guitar since the adoption.  Foolishly, I have kept it at home since I sometimes play at our Family Small Group.  But there just doesn’t seem to be much opportunity to play.  Can’t play when the kids are awake, and if they are asleep….

Well, last night I needed to play.  I needed some truth in my head, and that is a great time for me to ponder lyrics and try to draw near to God.  It’s been a long week, and I needed some of that time.  So I played after the kids went to bed, but before they usually drift off to sleep.  And I played this morning after they all went to Bible Study Fellowship.  Ah, if only my callouses weren’t so thin.  Then I would have played longer.  Here’s part of my “song list”:

Blessed Be Your Name, I Need Thee Every Hour (Jars of Clay version), O Worship the King (Passion verison), Here is Love, Beautiful, Scandalous Night, Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) [still learning this one], A Shield About Me, Guide Me, O Great Jehovah, Be Thou My Vision, From Depths of Woe I Raise to Thee.

Good for the soul.

In the quiet home this morning I read some more of In Christ Alone by Sinclair Ferguson.  Actually, I read some last night too.  I try to read 2 chapters a day and am moderately successful.  I finally finished Part V- A Life of Wisdom.  Great stuff in there about discernment and character.  The material I read this morning intersected with my sermon.  We focus on circumstances, but God focuses on character.  My choices flow out of my character so my choices have to be focused on how God transform my character (truth and trial).  The chapter in question was on contentment.  Character traits like this must be learned through experience, as we bring truth to bear on them.

“Christians must discover contentment the old-fashioned way: we must learn it. … It is commanded of us, but, paradoxically, it is created in us, not done by us.  It is not the product of a series of actions, but of a renewed and transformed character. … This seems a difficult principle  for Christians today to grasp.  Clear directives for Christian living are essential for us.  But, sadly, much of the heavily programmatic teaching in evangelicalism places such a premium on external doing and acheiving that character development is set at a discount.  We live in the most pragmatic society on earth (if anyone can ‘do it,’ we can).  It is painful to pride to discover that the Christian life is not rooted in what we can do, but in what we need done to us.” 

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The Curse of Open Theism

  

(This is the 2nd in a series on Open Theism)

 

The Curse of Open Theism

Genuine human freedom would be a morally neutral will.  I could freely choose from any number of options without any outside interference.  That identical set of circumstances may produce any number of choices. 

I say genuine human freedom is a myth because they fail to account for, or minimize, depravity and its effects on human freedom.  They ignore the Bible’s assessment that we are slaves to sin and enemies of God.  God’s Word declares that we do not possess genuine human freedom.  Their theological system is built to protect a philosophical idea we do not find in Scripture.

Jonathan Edwards called the will “the mind choosing”.  We choose, freely, according to our character.  Unfortunately, we are sinners.  We make our choices on the basis of our impure motives, desires and longings.  We are not morally neutral!

However, this assumption of genuine human freedom affects how Open Theists interpret some key Bible passages.  In Genesis 28 they believe that God actually learned that Abraham feared Him.  They use a “face value” model of interpretation.  They claim God had to learn this piece of information about Abraham by testing him.  This despite the fact they still claim God has full knowledge of the past and present.  If God has full knowledge of the present, He would have known that Abraham feared Him.  If we have genuine human freedom, this test is irrelevant.  God cannot base any of His future actions on Abraham’s fear and faithfulness because God does not know if Abraham will continue to fear God and be faithful in the future.  Tested again, Abraham could choose differently.

In his book God’s Lesser Glory, Bruce Ware does an excellent job examining these and other passages related to this discussion. He shows that a “face value” method of interpretation would strip God of His present and past knowledge (He had to see if Sodom and Gemorrah were really that bad).  It would also mean that God is not present everywhere at every moment (He had to go to Sodom and Gemorrah!).  They fail to test their interpretation of these passages against the clear teaching of Scripture elsewhere.  We do this because God cannot lie.  As a result, Scripture will not contradict itself.  The clear passages illumine the unclear passages.

So, part of the curse of Open Theism is that it is a slippery slope whereby God’s glory continues to decrease.  The same method of interpretation that robs us of God’s knowledge of the future robs us of other attributes of God.  We end up with a god more like ourselves, and less like the Savior, Redeemer and Defender we need.  They give us a god who could not know the Fall would happen, Jesus would die on the cross, Peter would deny Jesus three times (how’d he even know Peter would be questioned three times), that Hezekiah would live 15 more years (that is a whole lot of possible accidents, injuries, illnesses and possible assassination attempts), much less that you would exist in order to be adopted in Christ.  The Bible, and our faith, begins to unravel.

Bruce Ware also does an excellent job building the biblical case for God’s foreknowledge (in the Calvinistic sense).  In Isaiah 40-48, God declares that what separates Him for the numerous idols the people worshipped is the fact that He does declare the future.  He points to past prophecies that have come true.  He points to past prophecies that are about to come true.  He is specific about many of those.  In order for God to bring His purpose to completion, He must know and control the choices of a vast number of volitional beings.  The mystery is how He can do this “without violating the will of the creature” as the Westminster Confession of Faith asserts.  The claims of Open Theism that God does not know the future do not stand up to the teaching of Scripture.

The curse of Open Theism is not limited to theology proper.  It has a practical outworking in the lives of those who believe it (Bruce Ware is once again extremely helpful).  This is why Paul told Timothy “watch your life and doctrine closely”.  One area of concern is prayer. 

Proponents of Open Theism declare that prayer really matters.  They believe that prayer really matters only if we have genuine human freedom.  In prayer, our relationship with God is built.  We are able to share our feelings and desires.  In their view, foreknowledge would mean that our prayers do not change anything.

In Reformed Theology (summed up in the Westminster Confession of Faith) prayer has two primary purposes (at least).  God has not just ordained what will happen, but also how.  Some the instruments God uses to accomplish His will are the prayers of His people.  Our prayers matter, even in a theological system where God is in complete control. 

Prayer is also related to our adoption as God’s children.  We express our needs, longings and feelings to our Father who expresses His loving involvement with us by responding to our prayers.  One need not accept the views of Open Theism to have a prayer life that matters and builds one’s relationship with God.

Open Theism seems to forget that God knows everything past and present.  Our prayers are significant, in their opinion, because God learns something new.  But He knows what we think, feel and desire.  If God’s knowledge of the future makes prayer useless (as they claim), so would God’s complete knowledge of the present.  We don’t need to pray because God already knows. 

Their own argument backfires (as if the purpose of prayer were to inform God of something).  God will not learn something new which will cause Him to change His mind.  The point would rather seem to be integrity in our relationship with God and ourselves.  God seems to be letting us know our hearts better.  But they insist on using a human model for communication between God and man.  This is part of the same problem we saw before- making God in our image!

Their views once again slight God’s wisdom.  Why does God need our help to make decisions?  He certainly possesses more complete knowledge than we do, is wiser than us, and has much purer motives than us.  To believe that God’s decision making process is incomplete (like mine) without input from others does not make any sense.  It exalts my knowledge and wisdom, and minimizes God’s.  Compare their views with Isaiah 40:13-14.  No one is competent to be God’s counselor.  And God has no need of a counselor.  Open Theism again falls short of God’s glory as revealed in Scripture.

Beyond this, what happens when things turn out to be difficult?  Are we to surmise, as they do, that God was mistaken (since He couldn’t see the future)?  Our disappointment shifts from our circumstances to God’s character.  We depart from Paul’s conviction that God is at work in all our circumstances to make us like Jesus (however painful that might be).  We would be forced to believe that God is a good-hearted bungler who can’t be trusted to protect us.  As a result suffering has little or no meaning in Open Theism.  God’s plan can be ambushed either by Satan or your neighbor.  God’s glory is assaulted by Open Theism once again.  They reject the biblical teaching that God is absolutely in control and that God is absolutely good.  The Bible asserts both, not one at the expense of the other as Openness Theology does.  Once again it fails to measure up to the standard of Scripture.

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