Video review: Institutions vs Collaboration, by Clay Shirky.

Take a moment to watch the video clip. The context is technology, but consider the principles. Now apply the concept of collaboration to the church. Have we placed too much confidence in institutionalized church to fulfill our mandate? I believe the time is now for believers of all walks of life to make their contribution felt. We cannot abdicate our responsibility to the professionals employed by institutions to get the job done.

Leadership is about stewardship; stewardship of affluence, and stewardship of influence. I urge you, don’t just read blogs and quietly disagree: Engage, debate, influence. You can make a difference.

Video by: TED Ideas Worth Spreading| Language: English | Running time: 20:46 | Produced by: TED Conferences, LLC July, 2005 | Speaker/s: Clay Shirky

Many times over the last few years my attention has been drawn to Luke and The Parable of the Shrewd Manager, as the New International Version calls it. Other versions refer to this passage as The Parable of the Unjust Steward.

“Man is surely stark raving mad,” Michel de Montaigne said. “He can’t make a worm, but he makes gods by the dozen.” I imagine that we’re all aware of the subtlety and insidiousness of idolatry, yet how many times, in how many ways, do we set idols before God?

Business can sometimes be that to me. Not that business is wrong, irredeemable. No – simply, it needs always to be kept in its place, always and fully consecrated to God.

I believe for the time being it is my calling to be ‘in business’. I love it. At the same time it’s exciting and repetitive, challenging and easy, there are successes and there are bitter disappointments, people exceed expectations, people fail dismally.

For the vast majority of Christians too, business must be their calling. It must be so economically; the church as we know it could not sustain so large a staff. And it must be so spiritually; the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ must be taken into the market place.

The church incorporate may not be able to access places and people its individuals can; I know this is true because most people I come into contact with in the discharge of my duties seem not to have set foot in a church in many years – some never, apparently.

Jesus, CEO
But are the unchurched impacted in some way, affected somehow, by churchgoers? Probably not – 89% of regular churchgoers in the United States of America live their lives exactly the same as their non-churchgoing colleagues, this according to a Gallup poll conducted more than 20 years ago.

Just in case you’re wondering, I don’t suppose this suggests that the ‘world’, as represented by Americans, lives its life according to Biblical principles, but rather that the alternate case is true. This statistic suggests that only 11% of regular churchgoers in the US, in some way big or small, take the church of Jesus Christ into the highways and byways of day-to-day life.

Indeed, in many ways, corporate America is invading the church. A December 2005 edition of The Economist runs an interesting article on churches as businesses, entitled “Jesus, CEO.”

It goes on to describe how America’s most successful churches are modelling themselves on business. “There’s no shortage of criticism of these fast-growing churches,” the article states. “One is that they represent the Disneyfication of religion. Forget about the agony and ecstasy of faith. [These churches] are said to serve up nothing more challenging than Christianity Lite – a bland and sanitised creed that is about as dramatic as the average shopping mall.”

One conclusion the article reaches is that these churches have “result[ed] in a wash: Rather than making America more Christian, the mega-churches have simply succeeded in making Christianity more American.”

And with all due respect to The Economist, it even despairs at the future of these mega-churches, and the imminent clashes between the religious leadership and the management team. A management team? Yes, these churches have CEOs, COOs, and soon CTOs. Wonder who gets the job of Chairman?

“Where in God’s name is the church?” the authors ask. Really. Business should burn as chaff before the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, his bride. Yet we have invited it in. One reason, I believe, is found in the parable of the shrewd manager.

Introspection finds a lack
Luke recounts this story: “Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg – I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

“‘A hundred barrels of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’

“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A hundred bags of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’

“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?”

The Message puts a contemporary slant on this thought: “Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way – but for what is right – using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.”

“On constant alert.”

“Looking for angles.”

“Surviving by my wits.”

Jesus says that the people of this world are doing these things, and that we, the children of light, need to act in the same way – act shrewdly, using every adversity to stimulate creative survival!

Sometimes I’d rather crawl into a corner and wait for adversity to go away; that arrogant colleague, that ungrateful employee.

Shrewd is a funny word; it sounds bad but it really isn’t. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines shrewd as ’showing astute powers of judgement; clever and judicious’, whilst Roget’s reckons that ‘cunning’, ‘intelligent’, and ‘knowing’ are its synonyms.

Poor Titus Andronicus! For forty years he led Rome’s armies against the Goths, giving up twenty-one sons in the process. He returns triumphantly to Rome, where he passes up election as Caesar, in favor of Saturninus. Titus is, after all, a soldier, not a politician. Yet, soon after this change in political power Titus’ efforts in battle are reduced to nought, his life and family destroyed. In the end, a murderer, he is murdered.

I have always felt Titus should have known better, should have shown more foresight, should have been shrewder. But he wasn’t; I feel let down by him in a way. My sensibilities are affronted by Shakespeare; this Titus – in many ways I can be like him. Toiling away loyally for the caesar, year after year, day and night, at others’ expense – God’s Kingdom, the church, my family – always distracted, always thinking about the business; only to start all over again when there’s a change of guard.

Read the beginning of Exodus to see how easily a lifetime’s effort can be brought to nothing.

It’s as if the church has had an introspective, a looking inside, and found lack. It sees a lot more innovation, creativity, living by one’s wits, outside of it, in the business world. It’s as if shrewdness needs to be imported into the church. It’s exactly as Jesus says, “The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.”

God owns innovation and creativity; wouldn’t it be great if we tapped into it and started making a Kingdom difference in our workplaces?

All stewards
How do we set things straight, restore order, make it right, act shrewdly? In the context of the parable we’d be showing astute powers of judgement to believe two things for sure: First, we are all stewards of someone else’s property; and second, we are all going to have to give an account, because there will be an end to all things here on earth for each one of us.

Asterius of Amasea said, “There is one fictitious and false conception prevalent among men, which multiplies their transgressions, and diminishes the good which we ought, all of us, to do. And this false conceptions, that all that we have to enjoy in this life we possess as lords and masters. And on account of this notion we do fiercely fight and war and contend for it and protect it to the uttermost as a precious possession.

“Now the truth of the matter is not so, but quite otherwise. For none of those things which we have received is our own, nor do we as absolute possessors and lords dwell in this life as in a house of our own; but as sojourners, and strangers, and wanderers, and when we do not expect it, we are led whither we would not go. And when it seems good to the Lord we are deprived of the possession of our wealth.

“Wherefore the enjoyment of this perishable life is very liable to change. He who is today glorious, is tomorrow an object of pity, eliciting compassion and help. He who is now prosperous and flourishing in wealth, suddenly finds himself poor, without even bread to support life.

“Know then, that each one of you is an administrator of what belongs to another; cast off then the pride of authority, and put on the humility and prudence of a steward, accountable for his acts. Be always waiting for your Lord, to whom with fear you must render a strict account. For you are a sojourner who ahs received the privilege of only a temporary and fleeting use of the things in your possession.”

We are all stewards of God’s resources, that is sure, but in which economy? Is there a choice? Here’s a problem that I face, and quite frankly, you face as well, whether we recognise it or not. The Bible makes no distinction between the sacred and the secular. Where, in a biblical economy, do we discover the boundary between the world and the church? Where, in the Old Testament or New, do we read about things that fall outside of God’s care, influence, or control?

We do read, in Colossians, “For by [Christ] all things were created: Things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

In Psalms the Lord declares, “The world is mine, and all that is in it.”

Again, in Acts we read, “For in [God], we live and move and have our being.”

All this debate about sacred and secular is moot. There is no distinction in God’s order; any supposed disctinction is a creation of man.

Therefore, it must be to the extent that I live a separate, segregated life, I am in error. It is not as if I can put God on this side and business on that side. It is not as if God is confined to Sundays, whilst the business world runs unchecked in my life the other six days of the week.

A monk, Brother Lawrence, in his book, The Practice of the Presence of God says it well: “Our sanctification does not depend as much on changing our activities as it does on doing them for God rather than for ourselves.”

Which way should it be then? Should churches become business, or should our office colleagues feel the Kingdom of God is near as we pass by?

Two economic systems war constantly within us, in our minds, in our hearts, and in our wallets. On the one hand, there is the economy of buying and selling; on the other, the economy of giving and receiving.

I imagine that most people think only of money when considering their stewardship. What about the other legal tender in God’s economy of giving and receiving? What about our time, our attitudes, our deeds, our words, what we watch, and what we choose to listen to?

We all have twenty-four hours a day, both rich and poor alike. No one has more, no one has less. We all control our own attitudes, both rich and poor alike. And with our deeds and words, we all choose to whether to build up or break down.

This parable shows us that God values our shrewd use of His resources. We are God’s managers. As God’s managers then, we are all, one day, to give an account of our management, our stewardship.

David asks the Lord in Psalms, “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath. Selah.”

Although we know we must give an account of our stewardship, we don’t quite know when. “It becomes us then to live as creatures of a day, awaiting the signal for our departure,” Asterius says.

It’s a sight to behold: When stewardship is wrested away and given to another. In business recently, we won a major account away from a competitor, for which I am most grateful to the Lord. There’s a time allotted to us to steward this account, hopefully as shrewdly as possible.

Again in business, after many years of successful service, a management shuffle has seen a few of us potentially marginalised. What to do? Jesus tells me: “Use every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival.”

Looking around you, with your senses quickened, you will notice that daily, now one, now another, we receive and lose stewardships. May it be that our consciences approve of those taken away. May we not be given to say, “I never knew its true value until it was gone. I wish I had done more with it.”

Jesus says that to the shrewd manager of God’s resources more will be added. And finally, having presented a good account of our stewardships, we’ll be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

We, you and me, are stewards of God’s resources at this time. But, are we shrewd managers?

A recent article in The Examiner: Is Christianity Becoming a Crime in America asks: “Are you willing to go to prison for your faith?”

“This would be a bizarre question to ask of any average American who considers themselves to be a Christian, but not so for those living somewhere other than the US. In a world that cries for tolerance and equality, Christianity is becoming the new minority. And while you sit comfortably in your easy chair nestled in the safety of a perceived freedom, do not be so naive to think you are the lucky one.”