The Rise of the Extrovert
“Babe Ruth was able to hit more homers than some entire teams combined because he played the game differently — he swung for the fences at every bat. Most players played ‘fundamental’ baseball — choke up on the bat, move the runner over, bunt, make contact… Before Ruth, no one swung for the fences.”
“I swing big, with everything I’ve got. I hit big or miss big. And every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” ..Babe Ruth, 1939
“In September 1982 the Lord said, ‘I will change the understanding and expression of Christianity in the whole earth in one generation.’ Not this movement, or that movement, but God Himself will do this.”
..Mike Bickle, 2009“And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and about three thousand souls were added to their number that day.”
..Acts 2.40–41, 70 A.D.
The Tipping Point
I love history. I read about events that changed peoples lives in the past with indelible and enduring impact and it helps me breathe again. It leads me out into greener pastures of thought and quenches the intrepid thirst this contemporary era creates in me. It helps me see the greater work of God: not only to understand His truth, but also to feel the weight, the hugeness, and proportion of it. It immerses me in scope and perspective. And it helps to rub out the stamp of mediocrity that our modern Christian culture seems to have left upon my soul. It gives me vision in the night. And what I see is that we are at a tipping point. A historically open moment when almost anything can happen, and when something certainly will.
We, the Church, are stuck. And what’s more, we all know it. It’s written on the face of our events and activities. Our tone betrays our knowledge of it. The very air we breathe whispers it. The church of our day is in a shrinking, withering state. We are retreating deeper and deeper into uncertainty, like a turtle retracting into its protective, cloistered shell when it senses imminent danger. In the same way people individually pull back from engaging when they are in times of distress, the modern church is in stasis. It’s a watershed moment. I say again, we are at a tipping point and we need a game-changer.
In 2006, an article in the Boston Globe recalled the Baseball’s glory days: “In a strategy that was revolutionary at the time, Babe Ruth held his bat at the end, without choking up, and swung hard, all the time, focusing on his follow-through. That philosophy appalled traditionalists, who had honed their tactics when home runs were still rare … Ruth was truly dominant; more important, though, he was a one-man tipping point who demonstrated that players could consistently hit for power.” Babe Ruth brought the game of baseball to a tipping point and changed the game.
Revolutionary leaders act in a way that awakens the world around them, propelling their unrelenting dream-of-more into the public eye while openly defying traditional, safe approaches. We see this again and again. Steve Jobs did this for the world of technology. I like to read about Jobs. I’m inspired by his thinking, his boldness, his life. Not because I think he’s a bright moral example, a pristine pillar of truth, or “such a great guy, dang it!”, but purely because he had the guts to think different in an expansive and sweeping way — in a time when the tide was drifting heavily in the opposite direction. In fact, everyone told him repeatedly to quit, to stop dreaming, to stop wasting his time, money, resources, and efforts on an impossible and unachievable dream. But he never did, not even for a moment. He tuned out such cautionary admonitions and instead gave expansive room to the innovative dream that was burning in his chest, never abandoning that vital fire that made him who he was. He dreamt big, then he acted. And the world of technology tipped.
One more. I loved reading Howard Schultz’s (CEO of Starbucks) two books about history of Starbucks for the same reasons. It could be argued that he single-handedly brought the European Café and coffee culture onto the western American scene. Because he thought way outside-the-box and so differently about something, then began visioneering and venturing out. Men like these, alongside Christian titans like Paul, Augustine, and Luther, are my heroes. Because they, everyone of them, rose above the surface of the stifling, status quo social and historical atmosphere of their lives and turned the tide. And here we stand again, you and I, on this side of an open moment in history, when the air is still. A moment when new wineskins are desperately needed and the climate is ripe, longing and calling, for change.
Who among us will rise to God’s call to think differently, to pick up the cross, and follow Him in an unusual and uncharacteristic way? To go boldly forward and dwell in this city on a hill and light the way into a new Kingdom culture?
Who will join with those early Apostolic men in “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17.6)? Because, let me be clear, that is what it’s going to take. Period. Full stop. Nothing else will do. It’s time we swing for the fences. That we put the bleachers in our sights. Isn’t it just possible that those truths that so changed the world once, could do it again?
“This is why it is said: ‘Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’” ..Ephesians 5.14
Swing for the Fences
For just a moment, think about it, rip away your distractions, sit quietly, take a step back, and recognize what is happening… and imagine. Imagine a Christian community rising like a live coal from tepidness into the heat and fire of biblical truth lived out. A vibrant Church radiating the power of the Spirit out into the world. A body that not only has solid, uncompromising biblical teaching in its very DNA, but a growing community within which this truth is rising to biblical proportions: impacting, touching, transforming people’s lives by the hundreds and thousands. Having a citywide influence for righteousness in a time when the Church has largely relinquished its status, allowed its light to be supplanted and extinguished by secular philosophies, and all-too-frequently vacated the community, social, and public scene. Imagine a body of believers so ablaze with the love and life of Christ, down into their bones and marrow, that the tide of what is cool, popular, and socially acceptable in a polis, city, or geographical area turns against wild and loose living towards clean, full, God-ignited lifestyles.
Just imagine… a Christian body so strong in Christ as to raise the tenor of spiritual living to the point that it usurps the secular seat of power with the influence, reality, and fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven enthroned, for all to see, in righteousness and recognition once again.
What you are imagining is the New Testament Church itself in all its glory! And if you can see this, it will change everything. It will transform how you read Scripture. It will lead you into new, deeper places in Christ. It will unveil things that only the Father can show you (Matthew 16.17). Things that angels long to look into (I Peter 1.12). It will lift you to new life and open your ears to — finally and forever — hear His call upon your life. It will leave you changed.
It will compel you to step up to the plate and extend your hand, pointing beyond the bases to the center-field bleachers, like “the Babe” did right before he hit his final home run in the 1932 World Series. And, like Isaiah did during his divine encounter with a holy God, you’ll cry out: “Put me in the game! Here I am, call me in!”
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” ..Isaiah 6.8
Rise Up, Oh Men of God
“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” ..Galatians 3.1–3
You see, these things really matter. The great need of our day is for some strong, spirit-anointed men to rise up and lead who are not shell-shocked by a little social involvement and hand-shaking. Men who are deeply motivated and moved by loving others and seeing God work in them as they are transformed into His likeness. God is looking for men that will stand up and say: “Yes, I’ll do whatever You want me to… I’m willing to get my hands in the mud!” Men that will be committed to lead and pastor. That, unlike the contemporary chocolate soldiers around them who melt when the heat is on, will stand firm with no compromise. The bottom line is that taking part in real spiritual leadership will turn you from a quiet introvert into a heavy-hitting extrovert as you see a passion for His glory develop and unfold in people’s lives. You will want more than casual, status quo involvement. Because when His heart is burning in yours, you’ll lead from right in the midst of people instead of standing off at a distance. Leading like this will bring with it a relational knowledge that cannot be produced by pure intellect or study alone. Real pastoring, like real worship and real discipleship and real giving, will change you. Spiritual leadership is not about convenience or comfort, it’s about giving until it hurts and then refilling so you can give more (2 Corinthians 12.15)!
I believe the Lord longs for us to engage like we never have before. To say, “Listen, we’re not just trying to ‘do church’ from some tiny, minuscule corner of the world! We’re not choking up on the bat hoping for a little bunt to keep things in play. We’re dreaming aloud that — by God’s power and might working through us — we will be enabled to take part in His sovereign plan to change the expression of the Church in our generation, during our lifetime! Because we see that the Church of our day is in need of a complete renovation and overhaul at the hands of biblical stewards, prophets, teachers, and leaders, and we are standing here with our hands open saying, ‘Use us, God. Here we are!’” And this is bigger than life, impossible from a human standpoint. But by now you must see it… people will never follow biblical truth in the fullness that God intends them to until they begin to understand and see the biblical proportions with which He intends to act. When God calls, He speaks in enormous, ground-breaking, life-changing ways. So again I say, let’s rise up and swing for the bleachers.
“They said to one another, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?’” ..Luke 24.32
