The ministry of the Word and prayer. In the busyness of pastoral life these two tasks can fall off the radar. In the rush to professionalise the ministry and ensure that we are great leaders who maintain focus, build churches, streamline processes, create memorable online content, and structure teams, we will often neglect the primary focus: The ministry of the Word and prayer.

The Sins of Commission
It’s hard not to go online in any Christian setting these days and not see a litany of sins that pastors commit.
In fact there is a whole industry built around these matters, which often expose every sordid detail of sexual sin, or financial sin or other type of relational sin.
And some of it is pretty grubby. And most of it is disqualifying.  It’s not hard to find it. And it’s not hard to find commentary about it. These sins of “commission” are up front and lamented. They anger and hurt many people.
And I’ve also written around these matters, especially in the more grey areas of abusive leaders – the “rough sheep” spoken about in Ezekiel 34, which I also believe to be disqualifying of pastors.  There are plenty of temptations out there that we can succumb to.
But it struck me reading my Bible this morning of another set of sins, this time not of “commission” – the stuff that is being done that should not be done -, but of “omission” – the stuff that ought to be done that is not being done. And there are two sins of omission that are are just as tempting.
Now at this point many a pastor is rolling their eyes and sighing “Tell me about it!’  The work of pastoring churches is complex and the tasks never seem to be finished. There are lots of sins of omission sitting in your Macbook’s in-tray.
And if you are of certain personality types, then your own frailties and psychology (and sometimes laziness) will ensure that some tasks that ought to get done don’t.
And also, what you don’t need at this time is probably a church member telling you what you should be doing that you are not. If anything kills the will to live – or at least kills the will to serve in church – it’s church members who are hypercritical of their pastors.
Ok, sure keep your pastor to account as a congregation. But make sure that you are not calling them to a level of busyness or task-oriented work that you don’t commit to yourself.  The fact is one of the pastor’s primary roles is to keep you to account!
The Sins of Omission
So, what are these sins of omission that we can be tempted into?  What’s the stuff pastors need to do that they might be drawn away from on a regular basis, or at least to push to the side and allow to wither through neglect?
Well, as I said, in my Bible readings this morning, I read 1 Samuel 12, the farewell address of the prophet Samuel to the people of Israel after they have chosen a king.
And after recounting Israel’s history (a common feature of farewell addresses in the Old Testament), he calls on the LORD to call out the wickedness of the nation for asking for a king when they already have one in the LORD.
But then, when the people are sufficiently sorrowful for their asking of a king, he assures them that if they follow the LORD all will be right with them.  And then he says this:
Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and right way. (1 Samuel 12:23).
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All ecosystems are in need of renewal and revival. Christian ecosystems especially.  And I believe a marker of both renewal and revival is a brave commitment to flush out the toxins within a system whatever the personal cost to you, or the relational ties to others. We need to heed the words of 1Peter 5.

Arcissist NOT Narcissist
I received a lot of feedback concerning my recent post on the difference between  what I now term”‘arcissists” and “narcissists”.
There were a few minor quibbles over why we have such a therapeutic culture, and a concern that the term “narcissist” is overused (hint: it is!). But the term “arcissist? Well it seems to fit the presenting issues I am talking about.
Okay, so the bloke (and it’s usually a bloke) might not be full blown narcissist, but he’s got a nasty habit of shredding and bullying anyone in his orbit who dares to challenge him. Or even if they don’t dare to challenge him.
The “arcissist” has a keen radar on everyone else’s issues, and very little on their own. They will pick and pick at your supposed sinfulness, but their rampant bad behaviour? They are – as I have heard it said – just being a little bit grumpy.
And there is a reason for that. In fact there are a number of reasons. The first reason of course is the lack of emotional intelligence in the arcissist themselves. Or perhaps – in theological terms – the presence of ongoing sin that hardens them and deceives them as to their true behaviour.
Arcissistic Ecosystems
But the arcissist is not the primary problem. “What?” I hear you say!, “How can that be?”  Simply this: Bullying leaders would not be able to do what they do unless they are at the centre of an ecosystem that at the very least permits their behaviour by turning a blind eye, or encourages it by being the gatekeeper against all criticism.
In other words the arcissist needs an ecosystem in order to first survive and then to thrive. The behaviour and the overlooking of it by others, is reinforcing.
In all ecosystems there are macro and micro participants that keep the system going. So naturally this is also the case in the arcissistic ecosystem. Let’s unpack the macro participants today and see what the wider issues are, and we will look at the micro participants in the next post.
Macro: The Culture “Out There”
Throughout history the primary problem in churches has been the infestation of “out there”  values “in here”. In other words the conformity to the world that infects the church. And it’s true of the arcissistic ecosystem as well.
When it comes to church ecosystems the wider culture has too often been allowed to set the tone. Now in a sense this has always been an issue for the church, and it presents in different ways at different times in history.
But in our current time, with its celebrity focus, and its oft-uncritical default commitment to impressiveness over integrity,  and its desire to “get stuff done”, this problem has ramped up. All sorts of arcisissts are not only excused, but feted by church ecosystems. And it is having consequences.
When we see the secular world  give oxygen to self-purposing, self-focussed and selfish behaviours, then it stands to reason that the water from that ecosystem will leak into the church pond. Especially without good Biblical critique.
We have seen this in the recent past with examples such as Mark Driscoll’s increasing volatility and platform rants. His church put up with it because it aped the wider culture’s commitment to the apex leader who “gets things done”. He also held all of the cultural, if not formal, power within the ecosystem, making it almost impossible, or at least very costly, to bring about change.
That we keep coming around to this arcissistic  issue tells us that, unlike 3 John, in which the apostle calls out the toxic leadership of “Diotrophes, who likes to be first”, indicates we have not figured out how to solve it.
With failing attendances, weak leaders, and unclear direction, the modern day Diotrophes is, by contrast, seen as a strong decisive leader (and certainly thinks of himself as one, and is adulated as such by his followers).
But the fruit is so often bitter. The result is so often that other people are hurt and damaged in the process. The ends do not justify the means. It’s hard to see how we get to such leadership from following Christ. But hey, here we are!
Macro: The Culture “In Here”
Of course, just as Jerusalem at its worst back in the days of its idolatrous kings was not such much destroyed from without, as much as hollowed out from within, so too the church ecosystem. Arcissism, where it exists in wider church structures such as denominations, is too often tolerated – and often rewarded – by a system whose aim is to ensure its own survival first and foremost.
Church denominations have to examine themselves, and realise that their own structures may not only be implicitly encouraging such types of leaders, but that they may then be going out of their way to protect such leaders when they behave poorly (again).
There’s a myth that the likes of Driscoll got away with it – and continues to do so – because there are insufficient structures and leadership dynamics to stop him. He’s the biggest player in the house, the house that he himself built.
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As we watch the Western world burn down around itself with leader after leader who demands obedience, refuses to heed wise counsel that refutes their shibboleths, and who punishes those who call out the problems early, we need a church leadership that lives differently. A church leadership whose vision of Jesus is so big and so all encompassing, that the baubles of approval from bad leadership are not enticing enough to take it off track. 

Untrustworthy Leaders
We’ve been around long enough now to know that bad leadership is everywhere. Untrustworthy leadership.  The church, it seems, is often – sadly – just as culpable as the world.  In fact more culpable. Equipped with the very tools to deal with toxicity, bullying, private ungodliness masked with public piety, we pull our punches.
We are proving to be just as untrustworthy as the world when it comes to calling out bad leadership.
And with the very person of Jesus – who time and time again had to call out his disciples for having a worldly view of leadership – we seem stuck in the rut of bad, untrustworthy leadership. Or at least we seem unable to call it out early .
And the church is getting sick of it. And more to the point, getting sick of having to open an email or read a Christian journal that calls it out for the church. My own experience is that it isn’t until the sheep are bleating loud enough to the point of embarrassment that anything is ever done.
And even then. Even then. I’ve spent a lot of hours recently on Zoom with a group that is looking at taking on a leader who has been publicly shown to be unqualified to lead God’s people time and time again. Three hours to be exact on Zoom. Three hours across the world at a time of the morning I’d rather be chilling in the early quiet with a hot brew.
And no matter what evidence I presented, I’ve been implored for more. Several times. I’ve been asked to show evidence from other people’s private emails (which I won’t do). At the end I simply said “Even if someone were to rise from the dead, you wouldn’t believe.” Cheeky I know, but come on people!
How Bad Leadership Thrives
Journalist Bari Weiss, – once of The New York Times, but who left due to its had leadership that failed to call out the personal abuse and anti-Semitism she was experiencing from other staff -, nails it in an article republished in The Times.
Speaking about how she was hounded at a dinner party earlier this year when she mentioned that Joe Biden might be losing it and not fit for the role of president, she states that she was publicly called out for it. But privately? That was a different matter.
Privately everyone was acknowledging what they could not – would not – acknowledge publicly. Why? She states:
A Democratic insider put it more bluntly when I asked him what had taken so long: “Proximity to power, privilege, prestige. That’s the currency. And people fiercely protect their access. They put self-preservation over principle.”
That’s it right there. And sadly I’ve seen it in church leadership way too often. Which seems incredible, yes? Here we are as the people of God with the absolutely mind-blowing privilege of proximity everyday to the most powerful person – the Lord Jesus – access to the throne of grace as Hebrews reminds us
Clear that tells us that we don’t believe our own theology as much as we say we do. When God is big in our eyes other people are not too big, nor are they too small. They are human-sized. And that means for their sake and the sake of others you should tell the truth.
In two significant occasions in which I have called out poor leadership – and it cost me my job on one of those occasions – the leadership found every way they could to excuse the sinful behaviour of the person at the top, and in both cases the story was “But he gets things done”, and “We need to show that person more grace”.
So there’s a pattern to these conversations and an armoury of theological reasons that the world is not equipped with. Which means – ironically – the church can keep hold of poor leaders longer than the world can! And – sadly – so often does.
What does this leave us like? It leaves us craven and submitting to poor leadership for the sake of a few glittering baubles of approval. Approval from someone who we actually fear would step all over us if we were to demur.
We can say from the stage all we like about grace-renewal leadership, but if behind the scenes we are formed by fear and insecurities, then no amount of public declarations will atone for it.
And why do followers of such leaders allow this to happen? Knowingly? Because after you have watched him (and it’s most often a him), do over the people you once worked with who called it out, why would he not do it to you?
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Here we are in a society paralysed by the fears, anxieties and ennui of a culture that promised so much, yet has delivered so little. And here we are in churches that are in decline census after census, and which we will pull almost any lever we can find to ensure that the earthquake does not level us to the ground. Maybe, just maybe, God will rebuild something from the rubble.

There’s a religious earthquake coming. You can tell. The first rumblings were a few years ago. Despite the obvious decline in the number of people ticking a religion on the census data, something is shifting.
I’m living in Christchurch, New Zealand, at the moment, and the Anglican cathedral in the centre of town is still a tottering heap, it’s reconstruction still not underway following the dreadful earthquake here a dozen years ago.
In a sense it’s like a metaphor. The secular rumblings of society blew out to a full scale seismic collapse of Christianity in the West. So much fell down. All that was left was for the Four Horsemen of the Atheist Apocalypse, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett to kick over the final traces of religion with their invective, their wit and their intelligence.
In a century or so, modern men and women (if there are even such categories allowed in a century or so), will have forgotten what it was even like to oppose religion, never mind adhere to it. True, the occasional piece of rubble might wend its way to the surface, but merely to be gawked at and put in a museum, with a warning that it might not be safe for kids.
Yet here we are. Two of those four horsemen have, sadly, died (Dennett most recently, and Hitchens most famously), while Dawkins and Harris are dragging their now-lame charges off to the knacker’s yard. More glue anyone?
Dawkins is saying more loudly what he’s been saying since 2007 – that he’s a cultural Christian. And Harris? Well I’ll leave you to interpret the “atheist/not atheist” of his own website when plugging his new book “Waking Up” (notice how he can’t even find a title without stealing a deeply biblical metaphor):

My hope is that Waking Up will help readers see the nature of their own minds in a new light. A rational approach to spirituality seems to be what is missing from secularism and from the lives of most of the people I meet. The purpose of this book is to offer readers a clear view of the problem, along with some tools to help them solve it for themselves.

To which I would say, “Wake up Sam!” You’re playing with language you don’t own. You’re a squatter on a property for which you are not paying rent. Have the decency to evict yourself or start putting some greenbacks in the hands of the landlord. Or the Lord of the land, whichever nomenclature you prefer.
Far from a collapse following an earthquake, it’s a bit more like this:
“Hey we’re back!”
But lest we get too cocky, let’s just pause to think about what we want to have back. What do we need to leave in the rubble heap and what do we need to rebuild.
That dilemma crossed my mind as I read The Times today, and James Marriott’s piece:
Millennials are Bending the Knee to Religion:
Two which I would say “Duh!” Where have you been the past five years James? Probably in the offices of The Times of London, that’s where. The kind of place that has an alternate social imaginary, a way of looking at the world myopically: containing slightly warmed over preconceptions that came with a First at Cambridge, along with a healthy dose of skepticism birthed in a lifestyle that would be too challenged if God were on the table.
But hey, it’s a start, right?
Marriott’s newfound starry-eyed acceptance that while Boomers and X-ers were throwing it away in spades, Millennials have found religion all over again.
It’s as if those ungrateful brats couldn’t just thank us for giving them a world in which they are permitted – nay, required – to indulge themselves in every experience possible with no exceptions and no guilt (consent being required of course), but with absolutely no meaning and purpose attached to it all. Why couldn’t they just take the gifts, repurpose them for their own bodily orifices, and turn their back on the Giver?
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Poor leaders with too much time and too much money on their hands who have no idea how to reach a current lost generation, and no idea how to train their people to live in the Babylon of our big cities, and disciple them beyond an events-based ministry, won’t last. Not that they see it yet themselves. Or if they do they may be thinking like King Hezekiah, that at least it will be peace in their time. These are not leaders who are prepared for wartime. They are peacetime leaders.

The Need For Futureproof Leaders
In my new book Futureproof: How to Live for Jesus in a Culture That Keeps on Changing, I outline the manner in which the seismic shifts in the West are putting pressure on the church as well as the wider culture. And I point out how the church is equipped to deal with these pressures and changes in a way that the world is not. It is Jesus’ church after all.
But there’s a missing component in it, or at least something that I did not emphasise in the book, and that’s the topic of futureproof leadership – the types of leaders that the church is going to need as it goes forward.
Now that’s not to say that my book isn’t applicable to leaders in the church, as I run plenty of seminars for church leaders on the topic. However, it seems to me that the type of leader that the church will need going forward into the “away game” era of Christianity in the West is going to have to be different than in the “home game” era.
Futureproof Leaders Will Know Themselves
The biggest problem facing leadership in my theological tribe is the sheer lack of insight many current leaders have about their poor behaviour and problematic personalities. Too many leaders have low IQs, are insecure, insensitive and unwilling to think that they might need to change. They haven’t done the hard yards of personal self-examination.
But if you get to year fifteen of your ministry and you grumble about the fact that you can’t find good staff who stay for any length of time, then the problem might be you!
I say that off the back of some fairly unhelpful – and downright ungodly – examples of leadership within my own theological orb and experience over the past few years. Indeed the worst leadership examples I have seen, the most insecure and those displaying ungodly attitudes and behaviour, have been within my own tribe. At times it’s been shocking to hear the sheer self-interest and desperate deception being undertaken by terrible leaders whose main agenda is to self-justify and save their own position.
And as someone who has blown the whistle in a very public way in one such case, I have ended up being a person to whom many others who have fallen victim to such ungodly leaders, wend their weary way with equally familiar tales of woe. There’s nothing new or surprising about bad leadership stories. Nothing original.
Of course that’s not to say that such bad leadership is not to be found elsewhere and in other theological structures, and that I just haven’t seen or experienced it because I’m not familiar with other tribes. But it is to say this: the theologically reformed tribe to which I belong can often pride itself on its theological acumen, and not only on the acumen of their theology, but the safety that such acumen brings.
There’s often an implicit – sometimes explicit – understanding and it goes like this:
Now of course there’s some truth to that. Theology shapes practice. And it shapes your heart. But don’t underestimate your hard heart. And don’t underestimate your determination to use your good theology to justify your poor practise. I’ve heard the word “gospel” put in front of so many other words in order to shut down argument, reject correction, and control communities, that I’ve become suspicious of it being used. It’s become the tip of an iceberg that has sunk many a church community ship.
It’s simply not the case that once the North Star of theological orthodoxy is lined up, then the rest will pretty much sort itself out.
So you think your latent psychology, your upbringing, your unspoken expectations, your sinful assumptions, your subterranean drives, the types of people you can work with; all of that will follow in the train of your theological orthodoxy? Not true!
As I have experienced, and as I have heard from dozens of leaders and ex-leaders who have fallen under the wheels of the most theologically orthodox and ardent leaders they have ever known, yet who were at the same time, graceless, insecure, self-interested, greedy and vain, good theology is not enough.
Clearly it’s not enough. Character is so central. And two of the best preachers I have ever heard on an ongoing basis were completely lacking on godly character. Yet somehow their preaching gave them a hall-pass – for a time at least – among those who considered that the good (the public platform) somehow outweighed the bad (the private personality).
How we could ever come to that conclusion given how the God of the Bible constantly warns that he knows the heart, and that he will expose what is done in secret, is kinda beyond me. Yet we have done. And we continue to do.
The sheer shock people express at the huge gap between how they have been treated by a leader, and the leader’s platform or public ministry which ticks all of the theological boxes, is all too common. The questions are always the same: How did this person get into this senior leadership role? How did his or her peers turn a blind eye to allow this to happen? Why, if this person is supposed to be so godly and servant-oriented, are they so ungodly and so greedy for gain?
Now of course this has always been a risk for the church since Diatrophes in 3 John, who “likes to be first”. But from where I am sitting, it’s become an increasing problem. And at a time that the church can hardly afford it.
Futureproof Leaders Will Be Junkyard Dogs
But here’s the good news, I’m starting to meet a generation of leaderships – futureproof leaders – who won’t put up with these flabby vestiges of late Western Christianity. They’re realising that they’re going to have to be braver than many Christian leaders in the recent past.
Futureproof leaders in the churches that flourish will be more junkyard dog than thoroughbred. They won’t be waiting for the conditions to be right to go into leadership.
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Yet one day it will be us that is dead, and not others. And on days like today, when the young, beautiful, gifted and good meet an early death, we should not draw comfort from this, or even let it pass us by, but we should reflect on it. And of course, we should also reflect on the hope for those of us who have, in the words of Hebrews 12, set our hearts, minds and bodies to run the race of the gospel with the endurance Christ gives us. 

A Race Cut Short
Like so many recreational runners around the world – not to mention the elites – I felt numb this morning reading of the death of marathon world record holder, Kelvin Kiptum. I still can’t believe it.
We all went onto social media, and read the reports and shared our grief. The tweets on X, the Facebook shares, the sports pages, the online forum LetsRun.
When you’re struggling to get your marathon under three hours, it’s insane to think about the pace required to take another hour off that again. And that’s what Kiptum had been planning to do, with his expected April tilt at sub-two hours on the fast Rotterdam course.
The Kenyan superstar died after crashing his car whilst driving late at night in his home country. His coach died with him. And all of this just five days after his 2023 Chicago marathon time of 2:00:35 was ratified by World Athletics, and announced by none other than that superstar from a previous age, the head of World Athletics, Lord Sebastian Coe himself.
Kiptum was 24. He had run three marathons – won them all and had announced himself as the next big thing, after the GOAT – Eliud Kipchoge. His three marathons are three of the seven fastest times in history.
Both he and Kipchoge were both provisionally chosen for the Kenyan Olympics team for Paris later this year. But alas, that Gold/Silver showdown is not to be.
No doubt there will be a moment’s silence at the start of the race, as the beautiful, gifted and good of the road pay their acknowledgements to someone who was destined to be a superstar. He was cut short of the finish line in life.
Often marathoners feel it is tragic if they pull out of a marathon during the race due to injury or illness or not getting to their goal pace at the right time. But this puts all of that into perspective.
Our Destiny
But of course, even raising the idea of our destiny brings in the sobering truth that there is no way to determine that for ourselves. Whatever we say about us, or whatever anyone else says about us, our destiny – because it’s in the future – is out of our hands.
Kiptum trained for insane distances each week – far more than other conventional athletes. Even more than Kipchoge. The worst that could be said about his 200-250km weeks was that he would burnt out early or get badly injured. He was reaching for the sun, and the heat would melt his Icarus-liked winged feet. He would break before he got old.
We didn’t predict that he would die before he got old.
But in a sense, whatever we think our destiny is in the short term – greatness in sport, or achievement or adventure or pleasure, our destiny is death. Like Kiptum we are all destined to die.
The Bible tells us that it is destined for humans to die once and then face judgement (Hebrews 9:27), the grave takes us all. And it takes us so often by surprise.
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The communal life of Jesus’s followers described in the Bible comforts and challenges us. It comforts those who feel lonely and isolated and without social capital because it shows that deep connectedness is more than possible in Christ. And it challenges the current culture’s self-satisfied, self-actualized philosophy—in which anything or anyone that doesn’t fit our preconceived ideas about personal flourishing is passed on to the thrift shop—because it tells us that following Jesus pretty much has to involve other people, including people who are very different to ourselves.
Self-Control for Christian Community
Paul’s letter to Titus gives us a great example of doing relationally rich life together as God’s people. Paul’s instructions to Titus were designed to pull the Cretan Christians back from the selfishness of the society around them. For those who had decided to follow Christ, a new way of living was required. In fact, a new “self” was required—one that was shaped by the needs of others, not just one’s own desires. One that enabled and enriched community life.
Paul wanted Titus to teach “sound doctrine” (2:1), but this was no dry theology; it was practical. Self-control and selflessness were to be at the heart of the church:

Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. (Titus 2:2 –6)

Older men, older women, younger women and younger men: the common requirement for all four groups of people that Titus had to disciple was the quality of self-control. (In the case of the older women, Paul uses the word “reverent” instead, but follows it up with “not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine,” which sounds like self-control to me; it’s a prohibition against uncontrolled drinking and an uncontrolled tongue.) The term “self-controlled” appears again in verse 12. It’s also used in the list of attributes to be held by an elder in Titus 1:8.

The loss of our jobs opens our eyes again to the fact that God is that something, that someone better. Or at least we have the chance to believe that’s true, or refuse to believe that’s true and become bitter. If our default is to see God’s role as merely to give us something better than we have lost, then we have miss the point of God! Here’s the test. What if, in losing our jobs, God has pushed us back onto relying on him more? What if, instead of getting what we think we want we have our wants exposed and changed?

Something Better?
I was lamenting on the phone with a friend yesterday about the loss of both of our jobs this year.
The frustration was real, especially for him as he’s subsequently missed out on a couple of roles that would have suited him well. And here we are coming up to Christmas and he still has no job after four or five months. I’ve got a lot more social capital than he, so things seem to be slotting together well for me. Not so for him
So we chatted for a while, processing the last few months. And we kinda made this comment as we chatted, talking through the pressure and uncertainty that losing your job puts you through.
“Well if God has taken that away then he has something better for us, that’s what we have to believe.”
And on the surface, or for an instant, we affirmed that for each other. But then something kicked in – for both of us. And I like to think it was the gospel that kicked in! For we realised, pretty much at the same time as we said it, that that is not strictly true. Or at least it may not be strictly true.
The truth could be far more complex than that. Both of us liked our jobs and believed we were good at them, and they satisfied a certain number of criteria in our lives. But that does not mean that God has some better job for us in the future than those jobs were for us in the past. It doesn’t mean that’s there a more rewarding role with more financial and experiential rewards than what we just left behind.
That simply isn’t the case. It could be that for both of us we’ve peaked – at least in terms of work. I hope not, but it could be. Those roles could be the best ones we have ever had and will ever have going forward. That’s just the case. To say that God has something better for us – workwise at least – is not something we can say with any deep assertion.
And that’s why our conversation then took a different turn. A different, deeper and richer turn. I said to my friend in response to our initial assertion:
“Actually that’s not quite right. What we need to take from this is this: not that God HAS something better for us, but that God IS that something better.”
And as I said it, I think we both got it. I think we kinda knew it, but hadn’t articulated it.
You see, that’s the central point of what it means to be a Christian. And that’s the central point of the Christmas season. Not that God gives us stuff. Not that God gives us the job we want. Not that God gives us a better job than the one we had before. But that God gives us God! God is the something better. And if we just allow him to show us that, even in the tough times, it will make all of the difference.
Let’s define it even more sharply. God is not something better, he is SOMEONE better. God doesn’t desire to simply give us created stuff, he desires to share himself – the Creator – with us.
Perhaps the loss of our jobs is an opportunity for God to show us that he is that something better that we are craving. And to lose sight of that in a time such as this is to lose a great opportunity to grow into what God wants us to be. In fact the loss of anything is such an opportunity, hard though that may be to hear.
And that’s a whole different ball game. I came away from our conversation in a better frame of mind. Our chat steered us away from the roles we had lost, and the imagined roles we wish we could have, or possibly might have if everything lands perfectly,.
The conversation was steered onto what it might be that God is doing in our lives as we go through this season, ahd how he is showing us, in what seems a painful way, how he himself is the better thing that we seek.
Our Idolatrous Hearts
And here’s the guts of that: God is shaping and refining us away from a constant, almost magnetic, pull towards the good gifts that he gives us and towards the constant, majestic pull of God towards himself. For anything less will ultimately end up as idolatry.
That’s the heart of idolatry after all, as Romans 1 tells us – craving and worshipping the things that the Giver gives us rather than the Giver himself.
The loss of our jobs opens our eyes again to the fact that God is that something, that someone better. Or at least we have the chance to believe that’s true, or refuse to believe that’s true and become bitter. If our default is to see God’s role as merely to give us something better than we have lost, then we have miss the point of God!
Here’s the test. What if, in losing our jobs, God has pushed us back onto relying on him more? What if, instead of getting what we think we want we have our wants exposed and changed? What if, instead of the temptation to seek our identity in a work role, God removes that from us in order to deepen our identity in him? Is God allowed to do that?
And what if this situation opened our eyes to the fact that we may have been cruising a little bit, relying on the things of this age – good and proper though they are – and not leaning more steadfastly on him? Is God allowed to do that?
What if, ironically, our ministry roles were taken away from us to ensure that we found our worth in the God we declare, not the job that declares his worth?
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If the chief end of you is you – then there can be no telos beyond that. Sure a conservative vision of what that looks like may fit your framework a whole lot more snugly and neatly than a progressive vision, but really, who is to say? Who can challenge you on that? That’s why, as those who challenged the surrogacy issue among conservative gay men found out, the progressives and conservatives are on the same page.

Pink Elephants
You know the funny little trick: “Quick! Don’t think about pink elephants!”
And suddenly, a herd of pachyderm of a particular colour palette are all that you can think about. Try as you might you cannot block them out, loud and incessant as they are with all of their florid trumpeting and vaguely violet stampeding. out of your.
Go on, give it a try: Think of pink elephants and then try not to. You know that you want to.
But, if you will allow me, now that pink elephants are firmly lodged in your grey matter, let’s keep the idea of them the boil. Let’s talk about the pink elephants of conservative politics and their alignment with Christian conservatives, (and I’m nailing my own colours to the mast here).
It’s been a good year or so for conservative Christians in terms of the air cover being provided to them by a whole range of secular conservatives, including a raft of what I will call “Pink Elephants”, namely politically conservative types (in the USA the Republican Party’s animal symbol is an elephant), who nevertheless have cherry-picked the Sexular Age, albeit it’s more modest – indeed conservative expressions.
And this is something picked up by the excellent Bethel McGrew, who has just written a timely article on the matter, in which she highlights what is going to be a growing divide among a group that for a brief moment has made for strange bedfellows – gay conservatives and conservative, orthodox Christians. You can read her article here, and I’ll refer to it more later on.
But here’s the context: Christians are finding that the likes of public intellect and author Douglas Murray (English so not technically an elephant), who is a gay man, goes in to bat for freedoms that Christians need, while all the time mocking the more outlandish expressions of the progressive “woke” framework in texts like his excellent The Madness of Crowds.
Indeed at the recent conservative ARC think-tank conference in London, Murray was one of the stars. Many Christians sat listening to him with rapt attention. He has much to say that is good and wise, and above all, sensible, in an age that has seemingly lost its sensibilities.
Meanwhile over there in Pink Elephant land itself, the likes of Dave Rubin, a gay married man with twins born through surrogacy, has been making an ass out of the Donkeys on the far left of the Democrats. I love listening to Rubin, he’s got an ease of style and a skewering sense of right and wrong (well, to a point).
Both men – along with the formidable Jewish journalist, Bari Weiss, a lesbian woman who is also married and has children with her partner, have bravely gone in to bat against all sorts of critical theory nonsense, as well as the chilling of free speech and freedom of association.
And these people, are championed by Christians who often find that their own faith is Kryptonite in the public square – a case of “But of course you’d say that, you’re one of those backward believers” and the like. It’s very hard to get a voice in a secular setting if you come with a Christian megaphone. The shibboleths and the rules of engagement are against you from the start. So to have such secular, conservative public credibility in your corner (and by credibility I mean non-heterosexual credibility) when debating the crazies, seems almost too good to be true.
When Pink Elephants Go Rogue
But here’s the problem. Pink Elephants are starting to go rogue. And they’re going rogue over the one thing that – you guessed it – sets secular conservatism apart from Christian orthodoxy. While acknowledging transcendence, secular conservative is primarily fuelled by the immanent frame of the “this is all there is” campaign that secular progressives assume, and upon which they are building a case for an earth-bound utopia.
There is a coming split among secular conservatives and orthodox Christians, and it simply be another battle around the same old, same old; The Sexular Age, only this time in the politically conservative camp.
McGrew’s article reports on a growing feud among conservatives in the USA, in which several orthodox Christians in the herd called out the pinkness of the elephant, and challenged the sexual framework that was underwriting cultural conservatives who celebrated the surrogacy births of gay men. And as you read her article, you realise that that got pretty hot pretty quick on all of the socials.
A celebration of the goodness of a surrogacy pregnancy was shot down by a conservative Christian in the mix who asked why we are celebrating this at all.
As I said, read the article to get the full context, but in considering the stoush, McGrew posits this excellent query: Should all conservatives, in the post same-sex-marriage age across the West, simply leave that issue behind and get on with creating a better society according to newly minted conservative values?
Should they, according to the vision of all elephants – be they pink or grey – simply shrug their shoulders before putting those wrinkly shoulders to the wheel and then, working together, try to shift society with the cultural materials that are still permitted to us by the progressives?
Is gay marriage a real thing that we should just hold a hand up to and make a secondary issue for the conservative vision? Or is it, in the words of Douglas Wilson (who I here quote approvingly), a case of same-sex-mirage?
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Here’s the thing about narcissists and weak leadership: they assume upon your silence. And that simply makes you complicit in the problem. A passive compliance to be sure. But the result is just the same. Weak leaders save their own skins in the end – at least for a time – and glibly allow other people to be churned up by the narcissist or toxic leader. That’s ultimately what makes them dangerous. People’s lives get wrecked. People’s spiritual lives get shipwrecked. And some people’s lives get ended, all because of weak leadership. And we see it time and time again in churches.

Weak Leadership
Time and time again we see bad leadership decisions made by weak leaders. And the church – and parachurch organisations attached to the church -, are sadly some of the worst offenders.
And the worst repeat offenders. Not simply the same leaders in the same places making the same mistakes. But other leaders in other organiations, knowing all of this, making those mistakes as well. It’s as if such weak leaders have never read books such as Chuck de Groat’s “When Narcissism Comes to Church“, or “Something’s Not Right” by Wade Mullen, or “A Church Called Tov” by Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer. Maybe they haven’t. That would be too “leadershippy” of them.
As I wrote about during my expose of The Crowded House abuses by Steve Timmis:
A national review is a good place to start. But if all it does is sweep the house clean, pare it down to order, then it will have failed. That’s all a legalistic process can do. It will simply prep the house for even greater problems.  Do the leaders have the stomach to go the really dark, honest, self revealing places that they have learned to avoid over the past two decades? That will take a seismic shift in their collective will.
Narcissistic Systems
And that’s the problem with a narcissistic leader. He (and it usually though not exclusively is a he, especially in churches), creates and sustains a narcissistic system. That’s what empowers him. And often this involves some sort family system dynamic to make up for some sort of lack of his own in the past.
You know the way that plays out: “Hey we’re all in this together!” Until of course, you’re not, and you’re cut, and the water closes over you like the Titanic slipping under the icy Atlantic waters. Maybe you’ll get the odd awkward phone call, but it’s clear that no one wants to talk about the one thing that you want to address with them. It’s as if it never happened. It’s as if you never happened. You don’t matter. That’s what makes it so painful.
As my wife observes, it’s the secondary trauma of not being believed, or having the issue diminished that is sometimes even more painful than the initial wound. As she says “Imagine a mother hearing her son say that her husband is abusing him, and the mother not believing her son.” That secondary trauma embeds the primary trauma to an even deeper level.
Granted, not everyone in such toxic systems is a narcissist, but these people only stay within that system long-term, because they play a part in feeding the narcissistic dynamic. Oh they may do it unwittingly, but let’s face it, we don’t know the true self within ourself, lurking below with all of its foibles. This systemic problem gives rise to the enablers, the deniers, the insecure, and those who think that by staying and doing a great job they are something ameliorating, rather than exacerbating and prolonging the problem.
And that’s where weak leadership comes into the mix. If the narcissist is leader in all but name, and often they are, they will gather a firewall of respectability around them, by forming a facade, a leadership facade made up of weak leaders who will bend to their will. It’s the psychological and spiritual equivalent of money laundering. “Legit in five years.” All of that stuff.
Their primary concern is that if someone should come onto the scene and run a white glove over the furniture surface that there will be no tell-tale grubbiness on show. “Hey, I’m accountable to my board, nothing to see here!” and all that nonsense.
So the problem is not the narcissist per se, the problem is the weak leadership that refuses to deal with the problem . Which is why weak leadership makes for dangerous leadership. Why dangerous? Surely those weak leaders under the thrall of a narcissist are just as much victims that churn out of the mince-meat maker?
Well only partly. Here’s how they are a danger:
A Danger to the Institution
How does it go? “Deep painful change or slow painful death.” You don’t get to choose whether you have pain or not, merely the type of pain you are willing to accept.
And in my recent experience, weak leaders will kick the can of pain down the road for as long as possible before they ever gird their loins, take a deep breath and take some immediate and necessary pain.
And why is it necessary? Slow painful death of course.
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