Update on my ministry

Dear friends,

I’m writing to update you on what I’m doing, and to ask for your help in doing it.

Last October I began functionally leading CTI Music Ministries as our Executive Vice President during a transition period after our president moved on from the organization. In February of this year, our Board of Directors officially named me as CTI’s Executive Director.

I first became involved with CTI in 2000 as a missions team leader, serving in that volunteer capacity for two years before returning to work in private business. In April of 2004, I moved to Willmar, Minnesota to join the fulltime staff of CTI as the Program Director – a position I held until the transition that began last fall.

My work on the program side of our ministry (as both a participant and the director) has kindled in me a passion to see Christ more fully formed in the lives of those who follow him, and to see his Church fully embrace and live out his commission to “train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life” (Matt. 28:19, MSG).

Over the last year, I’ve led CTI through a re-visioning process that has been centered on defining how we as an organization will seek to live out this great commission. Through this process, we have refined our ministry focus with respect to two specific groups of people: those to whom we go, and those whom we send.

It is now our highest aim to “make disciples of all nations” by developing Christian leadership and character in young musicians, training them in servanthood, awareness, and the active sharing of their faith, and mobilizing them in partnership with the church and other established Christian organizations worldwide to support mission and ministry through the impact of music.

I am now building a team of people who will commit to supporting me as I lead CTI in pursuit of this vision, and I would like to invite you to be a part of this team. I’m specifically seeking partners who will support me through regular financial contributions to CTI. My goal is to raise $10,000 in ministry support per year.

There is an exciting reason to contribute to CTI right now: two of our local supporters have stepped forward with offers to match donations made in response to this letter. If you are able to respond to this request,

your first contribution in support of my ministry will be worth three times the value of your gift.

If you are able to contribute, please visit www.ctimusic.org/donate and click “support a team member.”

I would ask you to consider establishing a monthly gift of $15 or more through our secure online site, which allows you to schedule recurring donations with great flexibility. You can also make one-time gifts online.

I’m also seeking people who will pray specifically that God would give me the wisdom, inspiration, vision and courage I need daily to lead this organization. If you would like to commit to being such a person, please let me know, and I’ll keep you informed with specific prayer requests from time to time.

If you’re interested in learning more about CTI, visit our website at www.ctimusic.org. You can also find us on facebook (facebook.com/ctimusic) for pictures, videos, and real-time stories from the field which illustrate the ongoing process of training those we meet, far and near, in this way of life… and discovering along the way that we too are being trained as we work out what it means to live our lives in service to our Lord.

Thanks for your consideration, and may you enjoy God’s blessings this holiday season!

-Chris

P.S. - In non-CTI news, I got married last month! Pictures at facebook.com/careed

Of aprons and crowns

"If you approach the world with the apron of a servant, then you are allowed to go places that you can't go if you approach it with the crown of a king."

-Jon Foreman, lead singer of Switchfoot, as quoted in the Nov-Dec '09 issue of Relevant

wow.

Other life and leadership lessons Foreman offers in the same article:

"I try to remind myself that I am here to serve people. If they want to take what I said and use it then that's an honor and if they don't then it's not my responsibility."

"You can't control what other people are going to do, you can't control what's going to happen, but you can control the way you approach a situation. That's one of the things on one can take from you."

"Ultimately, it comes back to the idea to whom much is given, much is required. That can either be a nail in the coffin, like 'How can I approach anything?' Or you can say 'It's only by the grace of God I am here and whatever He wants to do from here on out is His business"

"I have had moments in my life where I've been naive enough to think I'm going to change the world. And it's a really incredible feeling, the day you discover that's never going to be the case. So I think, ultimately, alongside of that has to be the corollary of truly trusting in the God of the Heavens. It this deity formed the stars and the space and actually cares about me, then as I abandon myself to Him,. there's a hope greater than some form of hope I'm going to drum up within myself."

Influence plus Intention

(why we must develop Christian leadership and character in young musicians)

At the end of May, the year-long stateside ministry program I direct came to a close, and we transitioned to our summer international ministry program.  39 young people will be trained and sent out to share the love of Christ through music and stories of how God has worked in their lives.  They will support worldwide efforts to make disciples of all nations by serving our ministry partners - modeling the example of Jesus, who did not come to be served, but to serve.  And they will do so under the leadership of their peers: 14 other young musicians who have recently completed a year in our fulltime program.

This peer leadership model works because of the principle of influence.  Our fulltimers have spent the past nine months as touring bands, strengthening Christians in places where they gather and bringing the light of Jesus to places where He may not be known.  They have done what our summer team members are just now arriving to do.  Accordingly, they have a great deal of influence in the lives of the young musicians who they are now training and sending out.

But for this influence to become leadership, it must be combined with one other principle: 

Intention.

Leadership is far more than influence alone.  Leadership must involve using that influence to help others achieve a common goal with a focus and competency they would not otherwise be capable of.

Without intention, influence is merely a power trip.  We can influence people without purpose, just for the sake of exerting power and feeling superior.  I can use my position and authority to “make” people see it my way, but that’s not leadership.  And my actions and attitudes might be influenced by strong personalities around me, but that doesn’t mean they are leading me.

Intention is what separates leadership from mere influence.  Influence only gives us the opportunity to be heard.  Intention means using that opportunity to deliver a message worth hearing.  Intention says “This is where I’m going.  This is where my focus is.  This is what I’m trying to accomplish.”  Leadership adds “come with me, and let’s accomplish it together.”

The choices we make about how to use our influence will define our leadership.

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the story of three servants who had been entrusted with some property by their master.  Two of them were intentional about what they did with that property, and so increased their master’s profit.  The third was not intentional with what had been entrusted to him.  He therefore did nothing to increase his master’s holdings. 

When we think about the concept of stewardship, we tend to think of money and possessions first.  But what about opportunities?  What about the influence God has given us?  Aren’t these also resources over which we should exhibit good stewardship?

This world is full of young people who have influence over their peers.  Unfortunately, it does not seem to be full of others who will disciple them and help them to intentionally use that influence to impact their generation.

This is why I am passionate about developing Christian leadership and character in young musicians.  I have been given influence over this community of young people.  And I know that the world will be impacted by what I choose to leverage that influence towards.

The Master has entrusted each of us with some of His most precious treasure:  influence in the lives of others.  Will we be intentional in how we use it to lead them?  If so, we can count on hearing these words from the master:  “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!”  (Matthew 25:23)

Full Circle: The Church and Completeness of Purpose

For those of you who never clicked through to the discussion "what is church?" on Jeff Goins' blog, here's how I responded to his question:

I envision "the church" as the localized fellowships of Jesus-followers around the world who come together for the purpose of forming each other in the image of Christ, equipping each other for ministry and evangelism, and then returning to the world to live out those values in practical reality.

I'm not keen on the idea that church is the place to "do" this ministry and evangelism... I think of it more as the context in which we equip and encourage each other to these ends. But the church only fulfills its divinely ordained purpose - to "train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life" according to Matt 28:19 (msg) - when it scatters and intersects with all humanity so that it might bring the light of Jesus there.

Coming together is important. But unless it is coupled with a subsequent going out, the church is incomplete in its purpose.

What is Church?

I'm inclined to believe that while the people who make up the church may be imperfect, that when we come together in genuine community (whatever that looks like), there is something perfectly beautiful about that, which, I believe, pleases God.
-jeff goins

My friend Jeff is hosting a blog discussion centered around the question: What is "Church"? You are invited to contribute to the discussion on his blog.

The absurdity of selfishness

As I shut off the lights in my house and headed to bed this evening, I was, for reasons I don't understand, overwhelmed by an uncommon sense of gratitude for what I have. I felt strangely free, not to compare my situation in life to anyone else's... to judge what I had or had not by some aggregate of what others have... but for a brief miraculous moment, to see everything as a blessing... a gift from God.

For that moment... for the first time that I can recall... I could have truly rejoiced in seeing God take everything away...because in that moment I was struck by the absurdity of selfishness... in striving to hold onto things that won't last, and aren't even mine to begin with. It's like trying to capture the awe of a sunset or vanishing cloud or a rainbow in a photograph.

Does God get angry about my ingratitude, or does He instead weep for me, for all the bounty of life that I fail to experience? Whose is the loss when I fail to recognize blessings in my life?

I realized for one moment tonight that the tragedy doesn't take place when the blessings end or pass. The sun sets, the clouds change, the rainbow vanishes. The tragedy is in trying to preserve them and, in so doing, missing the fact that they were ever there to begin with.

To be a witness...

You may have either (1) read elsewhere on this blog, or (2) tolerated my incessant ranting in person about my belief that we, as Christians, often tend to focus on the externals of being a living witness as though evangelism were some sort of a formula by which, as long as the net result in our lives is greater than the average level of morality in society, we're doing it right and people will come to know the Lord.

As usual, there are many people out there who have expressed this point much more succinctly, artistically, and with a more hopeful outlook than I have been able to.

I have come across such an expression recently... two sentences that I can really grasp... that help me remember and communicate this concept:

To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.

-Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard
as quoted by Madeline L'Engle in Walking on Water

L'Engle adds to this thought the following quote from turn-of-the-(19th)-century Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, who observes:

Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.