{"id":3689,"date":"2015-01-21T22:26:28","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T22:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=3689"},"modified":"2015-01-21T22:30:25","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T22:30:25","slug":"power-drain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/power-drain\/","title":{"rendered":"Power Drain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GaladrielsGlade98\"<\/a>The infamous \u201cthey\u201d need to start teaching entire seminary courses on power.\u00a0\u00a0 It seems to me that Jesus\u2014who had\u00a0all power and authority, used it for others, and did not abuse it\u2014could\u00a0have zapped all those religious hypocrites with a single command. The image that comes to my mind is a Tolkien-created Elven princess who was tempted to take the ring of power and become an “all-powerful” domineering goddess, crying out\u00a0“all shall love me and despair”. Whether man or elf, we\u2019re tempted to use power for our own purposes. But in \u201cMaking Room for Leadership,<\/em>\u201d Dr. Morse shows how all power isn\u2019t bad but rather amoral; it\u2019s the way in which we leverage power that has moral implications. \u00a0Because it is so often misused, Christians can paint with too broad a brush and perceive all power as corrupt and contrary to being a Christ follower. [1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Power struggles within the church, involving professed \u201cbrothers and sisters in Christ,\u201d have worn me thin. Perhaps that\u2019s why this book strikes so close to home for me. I\u2019ve often seen power used negatively in the church. I\u2019ve seen condescension and judgmentalism from self-styled experts<\/strong>. I\u2019ve seen people use their moral authority and self-declared impeccable character<\/strong> to claim the high ground during a conflict, regardless of the significant hurt they caused to others. I\u2019ve seen those in authority simply leverage their role<\/strong>, taking sides for the sake of expediency contrary to godly advice that supported a more difficult but spiritually formative path. I\u2019ve seen a board become so insular, so blind to their own culpability in a matter that they refused outside, godly, unbiased direction (Culture<\/strong>).[2]<\/a> That\u2019s four recent negative uses of social power I\u2019ve witnessed; all four drain the life out of the church, diminish our kingdom impact and were personally dispiriting.<\/p>\n

Power may be neutral, but the use of power is either positive or negative; life-giving or deadly. We Christ followers desperately need good examples of power, and teaching that provides the tools to exercise our own power for good. God made us in His image and gave us rule and dominion in this world (Gen. 1:26-27). Power isn\u2019t to be avoided\u2014it\u2019s to be invested in such a way that it draws others into community, instead of pushing people away.<\/p>\n

Dr. Morse shared stories of powerful and powerless people. The lesson is clear\u2014the powerful must learn to share their power, giving voice to those without a voice, and lifting up the powerless. The example of Jesus, Simon, and the sinner woman was used to demonstrate how Jesus used his social power positively, how Simon used it negatively and how the sinner woman\u2014who was initially without social power\u2014was changed. \u201cJesus used his social power to restore the woman\u2019s identity. He acknowledged her and empowered her by elevating her status above Simon\u2019s. In front of the crowd, the holy man made the sinner woman holy. The woman with no power and no right to influence risked everything to thank Jesus for giving her hope. She gained the social power to change her status in the community.\u201d<\/em>[3]<\/a> Using power to lift people up, to give them hope, to encourage their faith is truly our calling and the right use of power.<\/p>\n

Recently, during our church\u2019s annual meeting, I reflected back about the most meaningful day of the year in 2014. It was within a couple weeks of my return from Cape Town. We had a church picnic on a beautiful fall Sunday. It was a classic church picnic with horseshoe toss, three-legged races, water balloons, potato sack races\u2014lots of fun for everyone. It followed a Sunday service where I dedicated five babies to God; families had declared their love for Christ and desire to raise their children to follow Him. It was life-giving day. Most meaningful for me was how we set up our portable baptistery outside and I baptized two people in it. Both shared amazing testimonies. A young man was saved from a hidden life of alcoholism and nearly losing his family. Hannah, my youngest daughter, had just finished serving the Lord for the summer in Myanmar and Cambodia; her baptism was her declaration to all that she wholly belonged to the Lord. I baptized her with tears of joy in my eyes.<\/p>\n

That day was powerful and life-giving; the entire church was encouraged. That\u2019s my takeaway from \u201cMaking Room for Leadership.\u201d Power properly used in Christian community is totally life-giving; wrongly used it only drains. How many of us pastors, elders, deacons, ministry leaders have been depleted\u2014entering into long seasons of lifeless ministry\u2014because of the misuse of power? We need to simply stop our navel-gazing, look to Jesus, and follow his example of exercising power in life-giving ways.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> MaryKate Morse, Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space and Influence<\/em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2008), 40.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, 43-47.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid, 56.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The infamous \u201cthey\u201d need to start teaching entire seminary courses on power.\u00a0\u00a0 It seems to me that Jesus\u2014who had\u00a0all power and authority, used it for others, and did not abuse it\u2014could\u00a0have zapped all those religious hypocrites with a single command. The image that comes to my mind is a Tolkien-created Elven princess who was tempted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,587],"class_list":["post-3689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-morse","tag-social-power","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3689"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3698,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions\/3698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}