theFormed.life

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How are churches are structured and governed? Kevin Rackman and Tom Nelson join our host, Bill Gorman, bringing their extensive experience in church planting, architecture, and governance to the conversation. They explore the significance of accountability, the role of national denominations, the complexities of power dynamics, and the importance of checks and balances in church and business leadership. Join us as we uncover the practical wisdom and principles that can guide churches and organizations in their governance and leadership roles. 

THREE KEY TAKEAWAYS:

1. Importance of Accountability and Checks and Balances: The application of checks and balances helps prevent abuse of power and promotes virtuous leadership. This concept is not limited to the church context but is part of God's design for all organizations.
2. Character and Virtue-based Leadership: Biblical guidance in the Old and New Testaments stress the importance of leaders' character and moral virtues in ensuring the flourishing of the church. The process of selecting elders involves collaboration and input from various stakeholders, and the role of elders is primarily governance-oriented rather than day-to-day operational management.
3. Adaptation and Application of Biblical Principles: While the apostles did not directly address the institutional structures and challenges currently faced by church leaders, their ethical vision, principles, and wisdom can be extrapolated and adapted to contemporary church governance. Understanding the historical and cultural context of biblical writings helps in discerning timeless wisdom applicable to church leadership structures today.

#ChurchGovernance #LeadershipStructure #AccountabilityMatters #ChecksAndBalances #GoodGovernance #ChurchLeadership #OrganizationalGovernance #EthicalLeadership #BoardResponsibilities #FlourishingChurches

GUEST BIO: 

Kevin Rauckman is the owner of, and financial consultant for, Rauckman Advisors, LLC, where he has worked since November 2017. Rauckman was previously a financial advisor for MoBank (formerly Bank of Kansas City). Prior to joining the Bank of Kansas City, Rauckman served as the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Garmin Ltd. from January 1999 until December 2014, and he was named CFO of the Year by the Kansas City Business Journal in 2008. Rauckman received a B.S. in Business Administration and an MBA degree in Finance from the University of Kansas. He serves as a board member and the audit committee chairman of JE Dunn Construction Group; a board member and the nomination/governance committee chairman of MGP Ingredients, Inc.; and a member of the board of CrossFirst Bank since 2018. He is currently chairman of the elder board at Christ Community. 

Tom Nelson is the Lead Senior Pastor of Christ Community Church and founded the church over 30 years ago. He also serves as president of Made to Flourish, a network that seeks to empower pastors to lead churches that produce human flourishing for the common good. Tom is the author of Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work, Economics of Neighborly Love: Investing in Your Community’s Compassion and Capacity, and The Flourishing Pastor: Recovering the Lost Art of Shepherd Leadership. Tom speaks regularly on faith, work, and economics around the country. Tom has served on the board of regents of Trinity International University and is also a council member of The Gospel Coalition. Tom graduated with a master’s of theology degree from Dallas Theological Seminary and received his doctorate of ministry degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Tom and his wife, Liz, have two grown children and live in Leawood, Kansas. 

QUOTES:

"...there are checks and balances on the board...those checks and balances don't guarantee virtue but they encourage virtue...congregationalism isn't perfect, but it's really, really good on that point of check and balance on power, boundaries, accountability and order."

— Tom Nelson 

"...throughout church history and present that there are different ecclesial structures or structures of churches, and they appeal to certain scriptural texts for validation. I think that's good. It shows there's not just one size fits all. There's diversity and that's really good. Each one has its strengths and maybe weaknesses. That's just the nature of an imperfect world and imperfect structure."

— Tom Nelson

"On a governance structure...the assumption is there's transparency, there's fairness, there's love, all these character pieces, you're hospitable...But the assumption is people are going to treat others fairly  if there is a challenge, or a problem along the way. Structure or governance helps combat that. [which is] why this is so important in the life of any institution."

— Kevin Rauckman

RESOURCES:
Christ Community’s Position Papers
Flourishing and Leadership
A Biblical Theology of Male and Female

KEYWORDS:

church planting, architecture, accountability, national movement, doctrine, ordination, clergy, mistakes, experience, good structures, human nature, checks and balances, power, abuse, democratic understanding, insight, context, house church, Paul's writings, Ephesus, wisdom tradition, common grace, Old Testament, leadership, governance, New Testament era, ethical vision, principles, conversation, Enron, stake, oversight, financial piece, mission, vision, values, bylaws, responsibilities, board, elders, selection process, congregationalism, nominating committee, misconception, role of an elder, pastors, operational details, governance standpoint, regular updates, economic actors, virtues, spiritual formation, character cultivation, biblical text

CHAPTERS:

[00:01:30] Discussing governance in organizations.

[00:05:33] Enron's example highlights the importance of oversight.

[00:06:50] Tim Mackie on complexity of biblical context.

[00:12:32] Diversity in ecclesial structures is beneficial.

[00:15:05] Financial world requires integrity; similarities in organizations.

[00:17:59] Exploring biblical principles in today's diverse churches.

[00:20:43] Bylaws, board, checks, balances, accountability, power.

[00:25:51] Collaborative effort in selecting church elders.

[00:28:06] Kevin leads as the Elder chair.

[00:30:34] Responsibilities of board members.

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Today's episode is a thought-provoking conversation on homosexuality with special guest, Greg Coles. We explore the theological aspects and cultural beliefs that influence the way marriage, singleness, and LGBTQ+ issues are discussed in the church. Greg shares his insights on the biblical understanding of singleness, challenging churches that prioritize marriage and exclude unmarried individuals from fully participating in the family of God. We delve into the contentious topic of same-sex sexual expression in the context of Romans 1, exploring different interpretations and arguments surrounding it. Join us as we navigate these complex discussions with grace and seek to bridge the gap between differing views within the church. Stay tuned for an enlightening and respectful dialogue on homosexuality, theology, and the radical love of Jesus.

THREE KEY TAKEAWAYS:

The three key takeaways from this episode of theFormed.life are:

1. Reconsidering Singleness: There is a need for a more nuanced and biblical approach to understanding and valuing singleness. Often churches that prioritize marriage and overlook the biblical understanding of singleness, isolate the members of the Body that need a life of singleness.

2. Different Interpretations on Same-Sex Sexual Expression:  It is a challenge to reconcile our cultural context with open and respectful discussions on the topic of affirming and non-affirming interpretations of the Bible's passages related to same-sex sexual expression and practice.

3. The Church as Family: Churches can better support LGBTQ individuals both structurally and on an individual level by encouraging our congregants to view the church as a family and provide meaningful community for all members, regardless of their sexual orientation. The family of God should be equally open to all who profess Christ rather than prioritizing the individual family units.

#theFormedlife #PodcastEpisode #Homosexuality #GregColes #TheologicalAspects #CulturalBeliefs #Singleness #ChurchTeachings #Marriage #LGBTQinfaith

GUEST BIO: 

Gregory Coles is a tangle of identities: born in upstate New York, raised on the Indonesian island of Java, and now working as a freelance author and scholar in Idaho's Treasure Valley. He holds a PhD in English from Penn State and has been in love with language since age 8, when he started learning his older brother’s SAT vocabulary words and reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Greg’s fiction and expository writing have been published by Penguin Random House and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. His academic research on rhetorics of marginality (how language works in society for disadvantaged groups) has appeared in College English and Rhetorica and in an edited collection from Cambridge University Press. His first book, Single, Gay, Christian: A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity, was a 2017 Foreword INDIES Award Finalist. His newest book is No Longer Strangers: Finding Belonging in a World of Alienation.

QUOTES:

"The context in which we would turn toward the same sex as well as many contexts in which we would turn toward the opposite sex outside of God's vision for that expression those would all be places where we take sex, this really good created thing, and we make it into something that is no longer about the pursuit of the creator and turns it into something that's about ourselves."

— Greg Coles

"I think a lot of our church structures still assume that people ought to be kind of funneled into marriage, that singleness is more like the purgatorial, you know, waiting zone where the losers hang out until they get their act together, which seems to miss something of the biblical understanding of singleness."

— Greg Coles

"And yet despite having all that, my experience in conversation with many people is that they don't actually really experience their churches as family or as a deeply meaningful community. That lots of churches are still mostly centered around the nuclear family unit, as if to say, like, church is the thing that we do where we all get together and you are equipped as a family unit to then go out and have your own family."

— Greg Coles 

RESOURCES:

The Center For Faith, Sexuality, and Gender

Greg Coles 

KEYWORDS:
theological aspects, cultural beliefs, marriage, singleness, church, biblical understanding, presumption, elders, disqualification, Jesus, apostle Paul, nuanced approach, valuing singleness, viselet, number 3, Romans, same-sex sexual expression, affirming, non-affirming, side A, side B, creation, engagement with sexuality, vices, judgment, Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender, website, pastoral papers, video series, recommended books, memoirs, theology, church and community, "Still Time to Care" by Greg Johnson, X Game movement, LGBTQ individuals, individual person, structural piece, church conceives, living out family concept, traditional family structure, New Testament, meaningful community, nuclear family unit, family of God, theological understanding, same-sex attraction, inherently sinful, structural level, individual level, second-class citizens, encounter with Jesus, fruitful conversation, sexual ethics, Jesus side, falling in love with Jesus, intended meaning, assumptions, logic within the text, lust, turning in on oneself, God's vision for sexual expression, male and female, covenant of marriage, Genesis 1 and 2, image of God, contemporary views.

CHAPTERS:

[00:02:49] Humans worship creation instead of God.

[00:05:59] Two sides: affirming and non-affirming interpretations.

[00:08:34] Romans includes intense passage on same-sex behavior.

[00:13:51] Argument: Women exchanging natural relations for unnatural ones.

[00:18:49] Passage discusses caution in interpreting text, addresses same-sex sexual expression concerns.

[00:20:41] Broadens the argument on sexual behavior. 

[00:24:26] Marriage symbolizes the fullness of God's image.

[00:27:56] The importance of reflecting God's vision.

[00:31:23] Churches can support LGBTQ individuals but may not be inclusive overall.

[00:36:27] Missed opportunity to discuss marriage and singleness.

[00:40:16] Importance of LGBTQ+ inclusion within church families.

[00:44:43] "How can I connect with my LGBTQ+ friend?"

[00:46:16] Jesus wrecks lives but it's worth it.

[00:49:02] The Center for Faith, Sexuality and Gender offers various resources.

[00:52:58] Grateful for the love and resources shared.

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