The Authentic Witness of the Officer Christian

Military Professions
· The leadership imperatives have not changed: Competence and Character manifested in presence, decisions, and actions (from Iraq research)
· The practice of the military professional: repetitive exercise of discretionary judgments amid a complex and uncertain operating environment
o For the strategic leader, most such judgments are highly visible and of high moral content (i.e., they influence directly the lives of many other humans – troops, families, enemies)
o For the strategic leader most such judgments will, of necessity, be communicated publicly and thus under broad scrutiny; leadership by presence is limited
· Thus, the leader’s daily practice must consistently be one of “professional excellence,” clearly reflecting both the leader’s military competence and moral character:
o Competence - Do the discretionary judgments you announce move the organization’s ethos to match its ethic, both in what is done (effectiveness) and in how it is done (rightly, with moral excellence)?
o Character - Do your leadership actions, verbal and non-verbal, consistently reflect integrity with the profession’s ethic; have you assumed and announced the role of moral exemplar as part of your leadership within the profession?

Under Your Christian Calling - The Imperative to Be a Witness
· “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)
· “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1:22-25 (ESV)
o Notice that these passages do not allow closet Christians, those who hide their faith; nor do they indicate a preferred form of witness…

The Authentic Witness of the Officer Christian (Pt 1)

This will begin a series in which I share one of the best short articles on military Christian wsitnessing I have read. There is great wisdom contained in it by a godly man, named Dr. Don Snider. Let me know your thoughts.

The Authentic Witness of the Officer Christian
By Don M. Snider, PhD

It is simply not the case that, in an environment of persistent cultural wars as exists in America, every well-intentioned attempt to witness to your faith as an Officer Christian will be successful or even well received. There are real, substantive challenges to be overcome if you are to be so well integrated in your personal approach to witness that the Kingdom is advanced while your professional standing is undiminished.

Thus, the Challenge:

Your challenge is to create an understanding and practice by which, as an Officer-Christian, you can meet the challenge of integrating authentically your witness as a Christian with your responsibilities under Oath as a strategic leader within one of America’s military professions.

Mastering the Context (Bennis, On Becoming a Leader)
· Dual callings, God and Country
· Compartmentalization of roles prohibited Biblically; your faith is to be, and will be, known by all
· Officer-Christians within military professions are free to witness appropriately to their faith
· Ethics of the dual callings are mostly compatible, even reinforcing
· Increased secularization in America, including within the military; even some overt hostility toward Officer Christians from secularists, legalists, and atheists as part of the ongoing cultural wars

The Peace of Wild Things

But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds. ~Ps. 73: 28




The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Mirror At The Grand Canyon

Piper got me thinking the other day when I heard him say:

Nobody takes a mirror to the Grand Canyon. I mean a person wouldn't stand before the Grand Canyon and admire themselves as they view the magnitude of the Creation before them.

Stand on the edge of Magnificance and forget yourself!

Do you think there will be mirrors in Heaven?

'Til They Come Home. . .

Pray protection and thanks.

Your Only Authority

Andy Stanley argues in this clip that moral leadership is THE foundation of our influence in people's lives. Continuing, he says, "When people see a gap between what we say and what we do, it erodes our moral authority and our influence in their lives." I agree with him. Watch the short vignette at Catalyst and let me know what you think. Have you ever served under a leader that continuously created such a "gap" that you had to jump often. How do we prevent asking our followers to "jump the gap" that we create in the ways that we practically lead? How do you ensure the "gap" is minimized?

Go to the above link and click on the article entitled, "Video: Your Only Authority" to learn a powerful truth that may translate to functional wisdom.

Little Leaders

Little Leader
by Louie Giglio

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
Psalm 8:1

Little leaders are what we need.

As a result of the Fall, we all have a deadly preoccupation with ourselves. We are self-aware, self-focused, self-conscious, self-made, self-protecting, self-promoting, self-centered and selfish. Conversion to Christ is nothing less than getting over ourselves. That's why there is more than a subtle change that happens at the foot of the Cross. A death takes place there. Christianity is not about self-help but rather self-death. New life begins when we each abandon "me" and fall on the mercy of a God who loves us in spite of ourselves and a Christ who gave Himself in our place. In that moment, we embrace freedom from the perpetual doom of the flesh and take up the cause of living solely for the One who freed us. Such is the way of the Savior, who calls any who would be a recipient of new life to "deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me" (see Matt. 16:24).

Yet from my experience, self does not go quietly. Instead, it stubbornly rears its head and demands its way, looking for any opportunity to stand in the limelight and receive the glory. If left unchecked, self will stand in the light of God and somehow try to take credit for it.

Recently, I was stunned by a photograph in USA Today of what astronomers say is the perfect spiral galaxy. Taken with the help of a new telescope on the Big Island of Hawaii, the photo shows a breathtaking shot of a galaxy named NGC 628—slightly smaller than our Milky Way (it contains only a paltry 100 billion stars) and, get this, 30 million light-years away. Funny, the whole point of the accompanying article was our great achievement of taking such a great photograph with our two-week-old telescope. Aren't we great? Hmmm. Seems like all the wrong pronouns! Granted, we have done well to photograph anything 30 million light-years away, but let's get the point straight: God's hand put every one of those stars in place. An appropriate caption for this photo would have been, "Can you believe God made this stuff with His own hands?"

The psalmist writes:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? (Ps. 8:3-4).

Notice all the pronouns. Your heavens. Your fingers. You set in place. Get it? God is far from small. In fact, it's safe to say our self-limitation has never fully allowed us to think of Him as He is. Given His incomprehensible immensity, the fact that He is mindful of us at all is amazing!

So if you want a quick glimpse into how small you are as a leader, take note of which pronouns consume you: "His," "He" and "Yours"; or "I," "me" and "mine." Little leaders use "He" a lot. The big ones use "me."

A stage is a dangerous place to be, because a stage, by definition, is a raised platform. Stages are built so that little people can be seen more easily by larger audiences. The lights are bright. The sound is big. Yet if we are not careful, those of us who lead can allow the stage to succeed, making more of us than we really are.

It's not that we are nobodies. We're created a little lower than angels and are crowned with glory and honor—made in His image (see Ps. 8:5). We get to rule over all He has made. But we've only to look up to be resized in an instant. [don't Sailors intuitively know this while at sea?]

Rather than absorb the light that shines on leaders, we must continually reflect it back to God. One night my wife, Shelley, and I were flying home to Waco from Houston in a small twin-engine plane. Every time I looked out the window, I saw a massive searchlight moving rapidly across the ground below. At first I thought a police helicopter was tracking some criminals, but after an hour the light was still there. Finally I spoke up, wondering aloud what could be going on. The pilot, ever so confident, informed me that the moon (which was full at the time and pretty much right there, if I’d only looked up) was shining on the plane, reflecting a huge circle of light onto the ground.

I felt like an idiot! Embarrassed and a little humiliated, I went back to minding my own business. Then it hit me! Eager to get even, I remarked that actually the moon was not shining on the plane. Rather, the sun was shining on the moon (hah!), and the light of the sun was reflecting off the moon onto the plane. Thus the sunlight was making the huge searchlight on the ground. Brilliant!

Well, as far as leaders go, we need more little moons. Shine a light on them if you will, but you'll only see a greater reflection of His glory in all those around them.

"O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" (Ps. 8:1).