April 2024 featured Article
Clarity Matters
My wife and I were sitting at the breakfast table of a pastors’ retreat bed and breakfast enjoying the East Tennessee sunrise through the large wall of windows. As we enjoyed a homemade breakfast and the silence of no children running through the house, we couldn’t help but notice the older couple next to us didn’t exactly have a Southern twang in their speech. In fact, it was quite the opposite as a very intriguing Australian accent became evident.
But soon our intrigue turned into nosiness when I heard them talking about their experience at an American football game the previous weekend. And not just any football game, but a University of Tennessee football game. As we began to talk and I began to ask questions about what they thought about it, the couple shared how confused they were at first.
“The first thing we wanted to do is buy a team shirt,” the wife explained. “So, we went to the store on campus and looked through rack after rack of shirts. We must have looked very confused because an employee soon asked if we needed help.”
“I told her we did need help because we couldn’t find the shirts that we were allowed to buy. This worker looked at me like I was crazy and asked why I said that. So, I held up a shirt and said, ‘Look! All of these shirts are for the volunteers to wear, and we aren’t volunteering at the game, we are just attending it!’”
I busted out laughing and our new friends did, too.
The worker would go on to explain to this couple that the University of Tennessee’s sports teams are known as the “Volunteers,” named after “The Volunteer State” and after Davy Crockett and his Volunteer Army that traveled to Texas to fight at the Alamo. But as wide-spread and assumed as that knowledge is to those from the Tennessee culture, or even the nation-wide college football culture, it wasn’t clear at all to someone who had never been exposed to it and whose background was not the same as everyone else’s. The word on the shirt meant something completely different to someone who didn’t have the historical knowledge or hadn’t previously been exposed to it in their culture.
Habakkuk 2:2 says, “ Then the Lord replied: ‘Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald[b] may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.’”
Clarity matters.
Our family of churches – the Missionary Church – finds itself in a similar situation as I was at breakfast that morning. Just as I assumed anyone attending a Tennessee football game would obviously know what “Volunteers” meant, not pausing to consider how unique to my culture it was, there are naturally parts of any organization’s culture that becomes assumed but is foreign to those who aren’t as familiar with the past. The passage of time, a new generation of leadership, and multiplication of new leaders and churches have all combined to usher in an era where what we once assumed was clear and obvious to all in the Missionary Church may not be as clear as we thought.
For example, when you hear the word “church,” your mind likely and naturally envisions a Sunday service in a building with pews or rows of chairs and with programs at the building throughout the week. But is this what it really is? And is this what someone not from your background naturally assumes?
When we think of our processes for identifying and credentialing leaders or adopting and starting new churches, do the words and documents that describe these processes mean the same thing to someone coming from an outside culture as they do to those who have been here all along?
Is the way that one region understands how things “should” be done the same way that another region understands how things “should” be done?
Why does the Missionary Church exist, and what is our vision for where God is taking us? Would your answer be the same as someone who hasn’t been in your church or your region or even in the denomination at all for very long?
What is a missionary, and what do they do? Is your answer based on past memories of missionaries showing slide shows at your church, whereas someone who didn’t have that experience might assume something very different?
Without clarity, we can quickly find ourselves with misalignment at best and disunity at worst as every region or every church or every individual interprets these kinds of things through the lens of their own cultural experience rather than through the clarity of definition.
But what a great opportunity! With clarity comes unity of purpose and mission. For my new Australian friends, once they had clarity about what a Volunteer was, they were able to join in the cheers for the home team, sing the school songs with 100,000 people, and wear the shirt with pride rather than confusion. As we perpetually work to bring and refine clarity, we will have more people truly on the home team unified together for a shared mission and vision.
Our leadership teams are embarking on a clarifying journey that will allow us to move forward together with unity and harmony -- to make “plain” the vision that God has given us. And when we have that clarity more prominently in view, we will be able to run even further and stronger than ever. The point is not necessarily to look for ways to change what currently is, but rather to ensure we are clear about what “it” really is.
Will you pray for our leadership teams as we seek to bring clarity, unity, and alignment to areas of the Missionary Church that we may assume have clarity but that we find could benefit from greater definition? And will you take a moment to prayerfully consider this within your own local church and ask the Lord to give you and your congregation clarity that makes the vision plain for all to run with?
Because truly, clarity matters!