FAQ: should i pay an allowance for chores?

Teaching children responsibility is a primary task for parents. The question of whether or not an allowance should be paid for completing chores requires parents to consider training in two areas simultaneously: responsibility for work and responsibility for money. I don’t think that there’s necessarily one right answer to the question of whether completion of chores should be tied to monetary reward or not, but I can tell you how we handled the issue and why.

We decided not to tie allowance to chores. We set clear expectations for what the kids were responsible for (unloading the dishwasher, doing their laundry, etc) and then we held them to the list. If a chore was not completed in a timely or thorough manner, we gave another deadline along with an additional chore. The longer noncompliance occurred, the more unsavory the additional chores became. It was a pretty effective strategy that almost never went beyond about two rounds. Let’s just say no one wanted to clean the baseboards. Ever. (I just asked my youngest what his least favorite chore was, and he fired off “baseboards” before I even finished the question.)

Allowance was something we just gave. It was given in an amount appropriate to their age, increasing as they got older, and going away once they were old enough to earn money by working outside our home (babysitting, lawn-mowing). Allowance, and any other savings, was used at their discretion to purchase wants. We committed to cover their needs. If a child needed a new pair of shoes, I would spend enough to cover the need – store brand sneaks. The child could contribute the difference in price if they wanted a nicer pair. We saw allowance as an opportunity for them to learn self-control and the difference between needs and wants. But we didn’t treat it as compensation.

We did offer to pay for certain jobs that wouldn’t be categorized as everyday chores. If a child needed extra money, if the job was something we would hire someone to do, or something we didn’t have time to do ourselves, we would offer the chance to earn. Each time we had house guests, my oldest daughter cleaned the guest room to earn money for a trip she was taking. I was so sad when she met her goal because the job fell back to me again, and I have a bad attitude. I keep leaving travel brochures on her pillow.

Why We Work

At an event this week I had the privilege of meeting Pastor Tom Nelson, a man who has devoted quite a bit of time to examining the relationship between faith and work. He articulated a principle that I hadn’t been able to put words around, a framework for how the believer should think about the work he or she does. He said that work ought not to be primarily about compensation but about contribution. As those whose work is ultimately done for the glory of God, we ask, “How much can I contribute?” before we concern ourselves with “How much will I receive?” Think how differently the world would function if everyone regarded work through this lens.

This is why in our home we didn’t tie allowance (compensation) to chores (work). Instead, we explained to the kids that their contributions to the upkeep of domestic order were absolutely essential. We were not merely trying to train them to obey or to be responsible, we actually needed them to share the burden of work for our family to flourish. It was not an overstatement. The Bible study I lead requires me to be gone twenty six weeknights of the year. I also travel occasionally for speaking. Jeff and I explained to the kids that they were acting as ministry partners by keeping the house in order when I couldn’t be there. It materially lightens my load (and Jeff’s) when everyone does their part. Rather than resent their responsibilities, the kids came to see them as a source of the best kind of self-esteem: They knew their contributions were both needful and deeply valued.

And we lived happily ever after in a spotless house where no one ever complained about chores or spent money frivolously.

Okay, not exactly. But we did manage to keep the focus on contribution rather than compensation. We’re in the thick of writing college essays these days. It’s been encouraging to read my almost-adult children put into words their hopes for their future careers: “I want to make a difference teaching science.” “I want to help make green energy a viable option.” I certainly hope my kids will end up with jobs that pay a fair wage, but more than that, I hope they will end up with jobs that allow them to contribute joyfully, working as unto the Lord. To that end, we have tried to make our home a place of joyful contribution, perhaps not joyful in the moment – when the cloth is on the baseboard and the knees are bent – but joyful in the final analysis, knowing that every good effort matters. And every worker is a treasured child.

related post:

stuff, satisfaction, and the suburban child

advice to writers: get a “freditorial” team

Prov 11:14 …in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

Blogging is not for the faint of heart -- anyone who has ever read blog comments is aware of this. As a writer, my hope is always to be read and understood. This doesn’t mean that I expect my readers to always agree with me, but that their agreement or disagreement would be formed based on an accurate reading of my message. Because of this, I never post without the help of my “freditors” – my friend editors who offer feedback as co-laborers in my writing ministry. The more trusted eyes I can get on a post before it goes up, the more assured I can be that it communicates what I intend with as few errors as possible.

So, when other writers ask me for writing advice, I don’t offer style tips or opinions on the Oxford comma (clearly, it’s awesome),I start with this: Get a freditorial team and use it consistently. What kinds of freditors have proven the most useful? Here’s who I have on my team:

The Casual Reader

I need this person to read the post like the average person will read it. I’m not looking for much other than how it hit them – what were their overall impressions and take-aways from the piece? Did they understand what they read? It helps if the Casual Reader is familiar with what other bloggers are writing about.

The Writer

This person critiques me on mechanics, style and word choice. She helps me reorganize my arguments when they don’t flow. She is a gorgeous writer herself, and she will call me out if I forget to pair clarity with artistry. She says things like “There’s a rhythm problem in this sentence.” I love that.

The Theology Police

This person checks to make sure I’m not a heretic. Sometimes the smallest word choice makes the difference between truth and error, and one set of eyes won’t always catch the nuance. I don’t have formal theological training, so I don’t need to be convinced of my need for the Theology Police. I tend to think that even if I did have formal training I’d still want this layer of help. I never want to place beautiful words around faulty thinking.

The Devil’s Advocate

This is the person I can rely on to nitpick. She drives me crazy, but it’s the good kind of crazy. She reads looking for controversy or holes in my logic. She’s basically like a rational blog commenter who gets to see an early draft. She says things like, “You can’t possibly do justice to this topic in 750 words.”  She also says things like, “Did you write this mad? I don’t think you should write mad.” Which usually makes me mad. But she’s right.

The Man

If I need a perspective from the other gender, The Man helps me out. And even though we’ve been married for over 20 years, he never complains. But sometimes The Man needs to be a man I’m not married to. Since Jeff helps me process my thoughts so much before they turn into writing, I may need a fresh set of male ears to hear them once they turn into a post. The Man helps me avoid unintentionally communicating gender stereotypes. He also helps me write in a voice both men and women can hear.

The  Doppelganger

This person thinks like me. She cares about the same topics I do and thinks about them extensively. (She's actually much smarter than me. She's like me, smarter.) I send her my drafts to make sure I’ve represented my thoughts and positions accurately. Sometimes I can get so close to a topic that I get sucked into the small points without clearly articulating the big ones. The Doppelganger makes sure I have not assumed anything as general knowledge and helps me keep the main point the main point.

The Specialist

The Specialist provides help on an as-needed basis. If I am writing about worship music, I send the post to a worship leader. If I’m writing to pastors, I ask a couple of pastors to read. I once sent a post to a person of another religion to make sure I hadn’t misrepresented his beliefs in a point I had made. I recognize I’m a prisoner of my own experience to a certain extent. The Specialist helps me write balanced content.

I know, that’s a big team. But I don’t use every freditor on every post - a few posts go to the whole team, most go to some combination, all go to at least one. One freditor may fill more than one role, depending on the piece. But nothing goes up on my blog with zero frediting.

When you read a post on a major platform, it has probably been critiqued by a team of editors before it posts. When you read a personal blog, this may not be the case. The larger a person’s platform, the less likely it is that they are just typing out their thoughts and hitting “post” when they’re done. But I don’t think writers should wait for a big platform to begin seeking more eyes on their drafts. The last thing a blogger wants is to write a post with a gaping error or miscommunication in it, only to find out too late that her words have brought down a hailstorm of justified criticism.

All bloggers learn to expect critique – that’s part of the double-edged privilege of having a platform. Critique doesn’t bother me, but my own poor editing or unintended lack of clarity do. Personally, I’d rather avoid having my post’s limitations exposed by anonymous commenters after it goes live. I’d much rather do due diligence by consulting the input of people I respect and trust before I post anything in the first place. Then, when critique comes, I’m able to remind myself that my words were weighed. There’s peace in knowing that the people who know me best have my back.

So, my best writing advice is this: Let iron sharpen iron. If you blog, build a freditorial team. Through both affirmation and correction, they will hone your writing, helping you communicate with precision and integrity. A writer can ask for no truer friends than those.

three female ghosts that haunt the church

I will never forget the first time I met my pastor. Our family had been at the church for two years before a meeting with another staff member threw me into his path. The first words out of his mouth were, “Jen Wilkin. You’ve been hiding from me!” A giant grin on his face, he draped me in a friendly hug, and then proceeded to ask me about the people and things I cared about. He kept eye contact. He reflected back what I was saying. I was completely thrown off. I don’t remember what books were on his desk or what artwork hung on the walls, but I left his office that day with a critical piece of insight: this room is not haunted.

He was right—I had been hiding. Coming off several years of “part-time” ministry at our previous church, my husband, Jeff, and I were weary and in no hurry to know and be known by the staff at our new church. But as a woman with leadership background, I had other hesitations as well. Any woman in ministry can tell you that you never know when you’re walking into a haunted house.

If you’re a male staff member at a church, I ask you to consider a ghost story of sorts. I don’t think for a minute that you hate women. I know there are valid reasons to take a measured approach to how you interact with us in ministry settings. I absolutely want you to be wise, but I don’t want you to be haunted. Three female ghosts haunt most churches, and I want you to recognize them so you can banish them from yours.

These three ghosts glide into staff meetings where key decisions are made. They hover in classrooms where theology is taught. They linger in prayer rooms where the weakest among us give voice to hurt. They strike fear into the hearts of both men and women, and worse, they breathe fear into the interactions between them. Their every intent is to cripple the ability of men and women to minister to and with one another.

Though you may not always be aware these ghosts are hovering, the women you interact with in ministry frequently are. I hear ghost stories almost on a weekly basis in the e-mails I receive from blog readers.

The three female ghosts that haunt us are the Usurper, the Temptress, and the Child.

1. The Usurper

This ghost gains permission to haunt when women are seen as authority thieves. Men who have been taught that women are looking for a way to take what has been given to them are particularly susceptible to the fear this ghost can instill. If this is your ghost, you may behave in the following ways when you interact with a woman, particularly a strong one:

• You find her thoughts or opinions vaguely threatening, even when she chooses soft words to express them.
• You speculate that her husband is probably a weak man (or that her singleness is due to her strong personality).
• You feel low-level concern that if you give an inch she will take a mile.
• You avoid including her in meetings where you think a strong female perspective might rock the boat or ruin the masculine vibe.
• You perceive her education level, hair length, or career path as potential red flags that she might want to control you in some way.
• Your conversations with her feel like sparring matches rather than mutually respectful dialogue. You hesitate to ask questions, and you tend to hear her questions as veiled challenges rather than honest inquiry.
• You silently question if her comfort in conversing with men may be a sign of disregard for gender roles.

2. The Temptress

This ghost gains permission to haunt when a concern for avoiding temptation or being above reproach morphs into a fear of women as sexual predators. Sometimes this ghost takes up residence because of a public leader’s moral failure, either within the church or within the broader Christian subculture. If this is your ghost, you may behave in the following ways when you interact with a woman, particularly an attractive one:

• You go out of your way to ensure your behavior communicates nothing too emotionally approachable or empathetic for fear you’ll be misunderstood to be flirting.
• You avoid prolonged eye contact.
• You silently question whether her outfit was chosen to draw your attention to her figure.
• You listen with heightened attention for innuendo in her words or gestures.
• You bring your colleague or assistant to every meeting with her, even if the meeting setting leaves no room to be misconstrued.
• You hesitate to offer physical contact of any kind, even (especially?) if she is in crisis.
• You consciously limit the length of your interactions with her for fear she might think you overly familiar.
• You feel compelled to include “safe” or formal phrasing in all your written and verbal interactions with her (“Tell your husband I said hello!” or “Many blessings on your ministry and family”).
• You Cc a colleague (or her spouse) on all correspondence.
• You silently question if her comfort in conversing with men may be a sign of sexual availability.

3. The Child

This ghost gains permission to haunt when women are seen as emotionally or intellectually weaker than men. If this is your ghost, you may behave in the following ways when you interact with a woman, particularly a younger one:

• You speak to her in simpler terms than you might use with a man of the same age.
• Your vocal tone modulates into “pastor voice” when you address her.
• In your responses to her, you tend to address her emotions rather than her thoughts.
• You view meetings with her as times where you have much insight to offer her but little insight to gain from her. You take few notes, or none at all.
• You dismiss her when she disagrees, because she “probably doesn’t see the big picture.”
• You feel constrained to smile beatifically and wear a “listening face” during your interactions with her.
• You direct her to resources less scholarly than those you might recommend to a man.

These three ghosts don’t just haunt men; they haunt women as well, shaping our choice of words, tone, dress, and demeanor. When fear governs our interactions, both genders drift into role-playing that subverts our ability to interact as equals. In the un-haunted church where love trumps fear, women are viewed (and view themselves) as allies rather than antagonists, sisters rather than seductresses, co-laborers rather than children.

Surely Jesus models this church for us in how he relates to the role-challenging boldness of Mary of Bethany, the fragrant alabaster offering of a repentant seductress, the childlike faith of a woman with an issue of blood. We might have advised him to err on the side of caution with these women. Yet even when women appeared to fit a clear stereotype, he responded without fear. If we consistently err on the side of caution, it’s worth noting that we consistently err.

Do some women usurp authority? Yes. Do some seduce? Yes. Do some lack emotional or intellectual maturity? Yes. And so do some men. But we must move from a paradigm of wariness to one of trust, trading the labels of usurper, temptress, child for those of ally, sister, co-laborer. Only then will men and women share the burden and privilege of ministry as they were intended.

My most recent meeting with my pastor stands out in my memory as well. He’s often taken the time to speak affirming words about my ministry or gifting. On this occasion, he spoke words I needed to hear more than I realized: “Jen, I’m not afraid of you.” Offered not as a challenge or a reprimand, but as a firm and empathetic assurance. Those are the words that invite women in the church to flourish. Those are the words that put ghosts to flight. 

are you an isolationist or a curator?

As a Bible study teacher I encounter two extremes when the question of studying the Bible is raised. First is the “isolationist”, the person who believes all she needs is personal Bible study to grow in Godly wisdom. She doesn’t need hand-holding from a teacher or theologian – she just needs a journal, a pen, her Bible and the Holy Spirit. She sees any effort to systematize her reading of Scripture as an attempt to conform the wisdom of God to the wisdom of man, thereby distorting what was already pure and sufficient. In her zeal to elevate the importance of God’s Word, she misinterprets the idea of Sola Scriptura to mean that no teaching outside of Scripture is necessary for her understanding.

At the other extreme is the “curator”, the person who, for all intents and purposes, believes she can’t navigate Scripture on her own at all. She finds the Bible largely incomprehensible or boring, preferring the study of doctrine (through teaching, books, podcast or topical studies) to the study of Scripture itself, substituting learning what others say about the Bible for actually learning the Bible. While she may never have consciously intended to devalue personal study of Scripture, over time she grows increasingly content to be a curator of opinions about a Book she does not read, effectively operating under her own credo of Sola Doctrina.

Most of us fall somewhere between these two extremes, but it is important to ask ourselves honestly which of them we lean toward: are we more of an isolationist or a curator? Isolationist Bible study holds as much potential danger to our spiritual health as a curator approach. The isolationist must humbly acknowledge her own intellectual limits, confessing her need for the help of those with the grace-granted gift of teaching. The curator must humbly acknowledge her overdependence on the intellect and gifting of others, confessing her tendency to use study of doctrine as a substitute for study of Scripture. Both extremes must acknowledge the very real presence and danger of false doctrine. Lacking an outside perspective, the isolationist can unwittingly invent her own false doctrine. Lacking first-hand knowledge of Scripture, the curator can fail to discern the difference between true and false teaching, choosing whatever position appeals to her the most.

If you gravitate toward Bible-only study you may need to remind yourself to allocate some time for doctrine. God gifts the church with teachers for the purpose of pointing us to truth in the context of community. Isolationism discounts the Bible’s assertion that we are members of one body, each part needing the other.

If you gravitate toward doctrine-only study, you may need to reclaim time for personal study of the Bible. God commands you to love Him with all of your mind, not just with someone else’s mind. Curatorship chooses the fallible words of man over the eternal, unchanging, inerrant Word of the Lord.

So, work to find parity between these two extremes. Make an honest appraisal of your current tendency toward either isolationism or curatorship. Acknowledge how pride might be influencing whichever end of the spectrum you are drawn to. And seek to strike a balance between the treasure of personal study and the gift of sound instruction. We need to know how to study the Bible on our own, and we need to put that knowledge into practice. But we also need the insights of those God has gifted to teach us. Personal study sharpens our awareness of the strengths and limitations of our teachers. Sound teaching sharpens our awareness of our own strengths and limitations as students. Both are needed for a Christ-follower to grow in wisdom. Both in balance are worthy of our time.

the church needs men and women to be friends

Recently a friend started a discussion thread by asking the question, “Can men and women be friends?” She was asking, essentially, if sexual attraction is a deal-breaker when it comes to male-female friendships. Immediately the thread filled with horror stories about male-female relationships that started as friendships and ended as train wrecks.

I know these stories as well. I’ve had a front row seat to several of them - in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in churches - so I’m not insensitive to the cautionary tale they have to tell. They remind me, though, of the labor-and-delivery stories I heard when I was pregnant with my first child. As soon as the bump became visible, women began freely volunteering their uterovaginal horror stories, everyone from friends to total strangers in the grocery store. I’m sure these stories were true, but do you know what stories I never heard? The positive ones. My perception of the risk became skewed by my fear. Four positive delivery experiences later I viewed those stories differently.

red flags and risk

Part of the problem with asking the question, “Can men and women be friends?” is nailing down which men and which women (married? single?) and what kind of friendship is in view. The question often leads us to assume intimate friendship is what is being suggested – hanging out alone together, sharing your deepest hopes and fears. And no, that’s not a good idea. If you’re single it leads to a lot of weirdness about where the relationship is headed, and if you’re married, you should reserve intimate friendship for your spouse. But we need not rule out male-female friendship built on mutual respect and affinity, cultivated within appropriate boundaries. If we do, we set a course charted by fear rather than by trust.

Sexual attraction is a valid red flag to raise when we consider male-female friendships, and it should never be dismissed lightly. But it does not justify declaring all such friendships impossible. All relationships involve risk of hurt, loss or sin, but we still enter into them because we believe what will be gained is greater than what we might risk. 

Marriage is risky – your spouse might prove unfaithful or cruel.

Parenthood is risky – your child might grow up to hate you or harm others.

Same-gender friendship is risky – your friend might betray you or let you down.

Work relationships are risky – your subordinate might embezzle from the company.

Business relationships are risky – your auto mechanic might overcharge you.

Church relationships are risky – your pastor might turn out to be an abuser, or just a jerk.

Yet we still enter into these relationships. We do not remove them wholesale from the list of possibilities because they involve risk. We enter in because we believe the rewards of the relationship outweigh the risk. We decide to go with trust instead of fear.

serving side by side

Like labor and delivery stories, the lust and infidelity stories of men and women who crossed a friendship boundary play and replay in our consciousness. But we seldom hear repeated the stories of male-female friendships that worked. I don’t think that’s because they don’t exist. In the church, even telling someone that you have a friend of the other gender can raise eyebrows. We have grown positively phobic about friendship between men and women, and this is bad for the church. It implies that we can only see each other as potential sex partners rather than as people. But the consequences of this phobic thinking are the most tragic part: When we fear each other we will avoid interacting with one another. Discussions that desperately need the perspectives of both men and women cease to occur. (Hint: most discussions desperately need the perspectives of both men and women, particularly in the church.)

Yet almost no one in the church is bold enough to say these friendships matter. We fear the age-old problem of "If I say X, will I unintentionally encourage Y?" So in the church we rarely tell divorced parents that they can still be good parents because we're afraid we'll encourage divorce. We rarely tell young people that loss of sexual purity is something that can be overcome because we're afraid we'll encourage promiscuity. We rarely tell moms who work outside the home we value them because we're afraid we’ll communicate we don’t value the home. And so on. We are so concerned that people will misunderstand what we mean by “appropriate male-female friendships” that we do not speak of them at all.  Just as divorced parents and young people and working moms pay a price for our fearful silence, there is a price for our fearful silence on male-female friendships as well: The church is robbed of the beauty of men and women serving side by side as they were intended.

not can but must

What bothers me most about the question, “Can men and women be friends?” is that even if I answer it in the affirmative I have not done justice to the issue. Yes, they can be friends, but more than that, they must be friends. Appropriate forms of friendship – those in which we see each other as people rather than potential sex partners – must exist between men and women, especially in the church. How else can we truly refer to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ? Jesus extended deep, personal friendship to both men and women. We are not him, so following his example requires wisdom and discernment about our own propensity to sin as well as that of others. But his example is worth following, brothers and sisters, even if it involves risk.

"For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother." - Mark 3:35

on suicide, gratitude and compassion

The past few weeks have brought headlines that ask us to grapple with our deepest hurts and fears. Among them was news of the death of Robin Williams.

Christians can be clumsy when it comes to deciphering mental health issues. A thousand voices rushed to weigh in on the selfishness of suicide. Some mused on how a death like Williams’ illustrated the emptiness of life apart from a relationship with God. Those who expressed sorrow over his death were scolded for their blind adoration of celebrity, and even called racist or provincial for grieving a headline less grievous than others that vied for our emotional capacity last week.

But I openly admit that it hit me hard.

Maybe that’s because my former pastor (the one whose message led my son to Christ) put a gun to his head.

Maybe that’s because I helped my dear friend clean out the apartment where his father answered hopelessness with finality.

Maybe it’s because depression and mental illness know my family.

The sentiment that best captured the way I felt about Williams’ death (and the response of others to it) was expressed by my cousin Amy on Facebook. She said simply:

“For those of you who judge suicide, feel grateful.”

Yes, grateful. Because if you are able to sit comfortably in judgment on it you cannot have sat next to its casket and recognized its face as that of someone you loved. Only someone able to hold suicide at arm’s length could write and post some of the things that were written this past week. We are so quick to process tragedy out loud and online. I wonder if a few decades from now we will have learned a more measured approach to broadcasting our thoughts.

Those who know suicide also feel grateful, though for different reasons. We feel grateful for the time we had and for the memories we hold. We feel grateful for the irreplaceable contributions those we have lost made to our lives and to the world. And we feel grateful for the solace of shared understanding among the community of those who know that suicide is not simple, that it invalidates neither the gift of a person’s life nor the love we felt for them.

We buried Amy’s brother, my cousin, in the frozen ground of February. He was not a coward. He was not selfish. He was brave and giving, brash, bright and beloved. He was a gift.

At the very least, anyone who has ever known the lightness of heart a Robin Williams monologue could infuse ought to find room to grieve his loss. If laughter is the best medicine, Robin Williams was an exceptional doctor. As with all the best medicines, we learned to our sorrow that the cost was dear. If you choose to judge him, please have the courage of your convictions never to laugh again at another of his brilliant contributions. We have all laughed at his expense, whether we knew it or not.

So forgive me if I mourn him. I cannot keep his story at arm’s length, and my guess is that many people you know cannot either. They have been fighting for their breath this week, avoiding the evening news, quietly coaching themselves to do the next thing and to cling to whatever healing they have found. So if you don’t know suicide as they do, be grateful. And let your gratitude prompt you to pray for the comfort of those who mourn. Those are words which we can never speak too hastily, and which we will never have cause to regret.

should i leave my church?

I blogged over at The Village Church blog this week about whether unity in the church should be preserved at all costs. I'm often asked what would constitute a good reason for leaving a church, so this post is an attempt to clarify how each of us might think through that question. I hope you find it helpful:

If you’ve ever experienced disunity in a church, you know how upsetting it can be. Not many of us enjoy conflict in general, so the thought of conflict within the body of believers is particularly uncomfortable. But conflict happens, just as it does in any committed relationship. Christians are exhorted to be known by their unity even in their diversity, but does that mean we never raise a concern? How can we know if an issue is worth fighting for? Is there ever a time to break unity for the sake of integrity?

Every member of the body of believers possesses a set of beliefs that can be divided into three categories: essentials, convictions and preferences. Understanding how these relate to unity can help us know whether to speak up or to remain silent, whether to break fellowship or to stay put...

{Read the rest of the post here}

a holiday parable

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't.” 
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

On the first day of November I looked out my front window and saw my neighbor stringing LED lights over every inch of his shrubs. If you’re thinking November 1 is a little early for Christmas lights, you’re exactly right. My neighbor is Hindu, and as I later discovered, the lights were being strung in celebration of Diwali, the five-day Hindu festival of lights.

For the next week and a half, every time we passed each other on the way to get the newspaper, he greeted me with a loud “Happy Diwali!” This was bewildering. Not wanting to offend, I replied “Happy Holidays!” the first several times, but after awhile I honestly didn’t know what to say. Was he trying to make a point? I was pretty sure he knew I was a Christian.

Then came the afternoon I bumped into him outside our neighborhood coffee shop. We exchanged greetings (“Happy Diwali!” “Ummm…yeah, you too.”), and then I asked him what coffee drink he liked to order. He glanced toward the store.

“It turns out I’m not ordering anything after all.”

“Really? Why not?”

He pointed at the words “Happy Holidays” painted across the storefront windows. “What a cop-out. This place is not getting my business.”

Now I was really confused. Did my neighbor expect a store that did business with people of all backgrounds to hang a “Happy Diwali” sign in its window? Just what kind of holiday was Diwali? It must be a pretty mean-spirited one if you can’t patronize stores that don’t specifically acknowledge its occurrence. I went home and looked it up online: “Diwali is a five-day celebration of brotherhood, involving firecrackers, lights, the wearing of new clothes and the exchanging of gifts and sweets.” What did any of that have to do with boycotting businesses? It didn’t sound mean-spirited at all.

During the five days of Diwali, my neighbor did indeed wear new clothes – tee shirts with different messages about the true meaning of Diwali and its rightful place on the calendar. There were yard signs to let us all know what times his temple would be holding services. And the twinkle lights? Think Vegas.

Here’s the weirdest part: for eleven months out of the year you’d never know a nice guy like him could be so oblivious to other peoples’ beliefs. I wanted to gently sit him down and read him the parable of the Good Samaritan – I wanted him to see that being a good neighbor involves treating others with respectful care, even if their beliefs are not yours.

But I don’t think he’d get it – after all, he’s not a Christian.

*********************************

All parables have a message. Can you guess the message of mine? Click {here} if you need a bit of help. To my Christian brothers and sisters, a very Merry Christmas. To my neighbors of every persuasion, the happiest of holiday seasons.

choose hospitality

On November 6, 2010 I tweeted the Most Regrettable Tweet of my mediocre social media career. In anticipation of the holiday season, I decided to weigh in on hospitality. The tweet was a flawless blend of selective memory and self-righteousness, designed to heap condemnation on the heads of my followers under the guise of offering wise counsel. It was a verbal “selfie” snapped from my best angle, positioned to make me look very, very good. Let’s have a look at it, shall we?

Note the double-whammy: if your house isn’t orderly on a daily basis, you will withhold hospitality from others and set a bad example for your children. Moms everywhere, be encouraged!

Three years later, I still cringe remembering that tweet, mainly because I have failed to live up to it repeatedly ever since. I presume my house was clean on November 6, 2010, but it has rarely been so in recent months. Even as I type, I am looking out across a disordered landscape of scattered laundry, schoolbooks, dusty baseboards and chipped paint. That tweet neglected to mention what my house looked like when my children were small, how I would hide clutter in the dryer when guests came, how hard I found it just to get dinner on the table for my own family, much less for someone else’s. So I regret that I proposed to moms a standard to which I could not hold myself.

But more importantly, I regret that tweet because I have come to recognize that the standard it proposed is flawed. It revealed my own lack of understanding about the nature and purpose of hospitality. In my self-righteous desire to offer advice, I had confused hospitality with its evil twin, entertaining. The two ideas could not be more different.

entertaining versus hospitality: what’s the difference?

Entertaining involves setting the perfect tablescape after an exhaustive search on Pinterest. It chooses a menu that will impress, and then frets its way through each stage of preparation. It requires every throw pillow to be in place, every cobweb to be eradicated, every child to be neat and orderly. It plans extra time to don the perfect outfit before the first guest touches the doorbell on the seasonally decorated doorstep. And should any element of the plan fall short, entertaining perceives the entire evening to have been tainted. Entertaining focuses attention on self.

Hospitality involves setting a table that makes everyone feel comfortable. It chooses a menu that allows face time with guests instead of being chained to the cook top. It picks up the house to make things pleasant, but doesn’t feel the need to conceal evidences of everyday life. It sometimes sits down to dinner with flour in its hair. It allows the gathering to be shaped by the quality of the conversation rather than the cuisine. Hospitality shows interest in the thoughts, feelings, pursuits and preferences of its guests. It is good at asking questions and listening intently to answers. Hospitality focuses attention on others.

Entertaining is always thinking about the next course. Hospitality burns the rolls because it was listening to a story.

Entertaining obsesses over what went wrong. Hospitality savors what was shared.

Entertaining, exhausted, says “It was nothing, really!” Hospitality thinks it was nothing. Really.

Entertaining seeks to impress. Hospitality seeks to bless.

But the two practices can look so similar. Two people can set the same beautiful tablescape and serve the same gourmet meal, one with a motive to impress, the other with a motive to bless. How can we know the difference? Only the second of the two would invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind to pull up a chair and sip from the stemware. Our motives are revealed not just in how we set our tables, but in who we invite to join us at the feast. Entertaining invites those whom it will enjoy. Hospitality takes all comers.

why be hospitable?

Hospitality is about many things, but it is not about keeping a perpetually orderly home. So, forgive me, Twitterverse, for my deplorable tweet. I could not have been more wrong. And may I have a do-over?

Orderly house or not, hospitality throws wide the doors. It offers itself expecting nothing in return. It keeps no record of its service, counts no cost, craves no thanks. It is nothing less than the joyous, habitual offering of those who recall a gracious table set before them in the presence of their enemies, of those who look forward to a glorious table yet to come.

It is a means by which we imitate our infinitely hospitable God.

So, three years later, here is my advice to myself as the holiday season begins: Forgo the empty pleasure of entertaining. Serve instead the high-heaped feast of hospitality, even as it has been served to you.

on whales and worship lyrics

Two different incidents are swirling around in my head right now. The first involves a killer whale and Josh Groban. The second involves a discussion in my home group, where we are reading Bonhoeffer’s “Life Together”. The discussion centered around this quote concerning worship through corporate singing:

“All devotion, all attention should be concentrated upon the Word in the hymn…the music is completely the servant of the Word {Scripture}. It elucidates the Word in its mystery.”

We asked each other, is this true of church music today? Can we say of modern worship songs that the music serves the words of Scripture? Or do the words of our worship songs serve the music? Can we say that we, the worshippers love the words more than the melodies? How can we tell?

Which brings me to that killer whale incident. I’m going to confess something completely humiliating here: I absolutely love “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban. On a trip to Sea World a few years back, we watched a Shamu Show choreographed to that song. Every time Josh hit the chorus, Shamu would erupt out of the water, launching his trainer thirty feet into the air off the tip of his snout. Raising him up. To more than he could be.

Tears. Streaming. Down. My. Face.

So, let’s just take a look at those gorgeous, impactful lyrics:

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;

You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;

I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;

You raise me up... To more than I can be.

I mean, just revel in that. That’s some powerful stuff - powerfully cheesy. But between the soaring instrumentation and the velvet voice (and the orca) I sort of lost track of that. Do you think I’m pathetic? Try it yourself - just Google the lyrics to your favorite song. Try reading them without melody and instrumentation. Do they move you? Are they memorable? Do they even make sense?

With a pop song, who cares? There’s not a lot at stake if a music-less read-through of the lyrics reveals that the message is a little ridiculous. But with worship music, the stakes are higher. I believe this is what Bonhoeffer wants us to understand. Himself a musician, he would have known what every musician, every writer of movie scores, every marketer, every Shamu choreographer can tell you: Music has the power to move us in and of itself.

the powerful pull of music

Imagine the Harry Potter movies with no themed score running behind the scenes. The musical score alone, existing independently from words or images, would stir our emotions. Combined with them, the effect magnifies. Even a movie as well-written as Harry Potter would feel dull and flat without a soundtrack.

Bonhoeffer’s point is simple: When the words serve the music, we gratify self. When the music serves the words, we glorify God. In a culture that consumes music on an unprecedented scale, the church faces an uphill battle to maintain the high ground that the music must serve the words. Ten years ago, contemporary worship songs were plagued with the “I-Me-My-Mines”, every line filled with the knowledge of man. We have come some distance since then, praise God, with a shift back toward lyrics that extol the character of God. But we have further still to go.

If I supplied you with a copy of the lyrics to the 6500 hymns of Charles Wesley, two things would happen to you as you read it. First, you would be deeply moved by the truths the lyrics contained, whether you knew the melodies associated with them or not. Second, you would know your Bible better. Could the same be said if you read through the lyrics of our modern worship offerings?

Wesley composed his hymns during a time in church history when the music served the words, or more precisely, the Word. We live in a time when music, church or otherwise, serves our personal taste, and where lyrics are often an afterthought. Combine this with rampant Bible illiteracy, and we find congregational Shamu shows so glutted on the wealth in their melodies that they ignore the poverty in their lyrics. A worship song is “anointed” if it moves us deeply, whether the words communicate anything coherent or not. Don’t make me give you a sloppy wet example.

preparing heart and head

What Bonhoeffer and Wesley would say to us is that church music must do more than move the emotions: it must feed the understanding. In doing so, it accomplishes its purpose of preparing our hearts and minds for the pinnacle of the worship service, the proclamation of the Word. We wrongly believe that the worship set should fill our hearts and the sermon should fill our heads. Corporate worship should enliven both heart and head, preparing us for a sermon which does both as well.

So, to my fellow worshippers, let's consider together whether our adoration is given to music or through music. And to those worship leaders composing church music today, God bless you – you endure enormous pressure to create "worship experiences". Consider Bonhoeffer’s message: whether your gifting runs toward hymnody or poetry, write lyrics that teach so much truth they can stand on their own. And then set them to music that magnifies their beauty. We, your congregants are slaves to our personal tastes. Teach us to crave corporately the better thing - the Word rendered luminous by song, confessed by a thousand tongues.

of summer's lease and sabbath-song

Last night, as if on cue, the cicadas began their summer serenade. I love their mechanical, monotonous, lullaby-like whirring, welling up at dusk on a heat-laden summer evening. From my childhood it has been a sound bound tightly to all that is summer – a chorus signifying the return of stillness, an invocation to rest, rest, rest.

After nine months of school, activities and friends, the four Wilkin kids are once again fully present in our home. Our summer will be marked by some travel (cousins who need to enjoy our company), some learning (good books to be read, good recipes to try), and some household chores that never seem to get done during the school year (it cannot be an accident that the number of dirty windows in my home divides neatly by four). But the highest item on our summer agenda, and the one we all look forward to the most, is rest. There will be time to listen to the cicadas.

Here is a remarkable thing about the Christian faith: we have a God who commands us to rest. Our God commands us to hold still, to cease from labor, to actively enter into repose – not merely as a means to regain our strength, but as an act of worship.

The gods of other religions and the god of self, these demand ceaseless toil. To please these gods, worshippers work incessantly at the business of self-denial, approval-seeking, pilgrimage - repeated rites that strive to prove the worth of the supplicant and earn the favor of the deity.

Those who seek the approval of lesser gods commit themselves to a course of utter exhaustion.

But not the Christian. In our obedient observance of rest, the work of our Savior is understood most clearly. We rest not as an attempt to earn his approval, but as an assent that his approval has already been earned in the sun-going-down, Sabbath-initiating work of Christ on the cross. Christ worked that we may rest. He, in a gathering dusk, exhaling the first note of a blood-bought chorus of infinite rest.

The God who grants us soul-repose commands our worship in the form of bodily rest. As with all worship, the worshipper is blessed in his obedience. He finds himself restored and ready to resume the effort of tilling his corner of the garden once again. More importantly, he finds himself reminded that both the garden and the one who tills are contingent and derived, depending every moment on the sustaining breath of the Creator. He is thereby mercifully relieved of his idolatrous, exhaustion-breeding belief that the work of his hands upholds the universe in part or in whole.

This is a good and timely reminder for our family.

Nothing obstructs our ability to fulfill the Great Command like exhaustion.  In the daily busyness of life-as-usual, the love of many grows cold. But the rest the Lord ordains for His people is a communal rest, a rest that places them in company with one another, hands emptied of labor, minds emptied of cares. Because emptied hands can deal the next round of spades, or make a dandelion chain, or pass around the popsicles. And emptied minds can join in the conversation bubbling up from the back of the minivan.

Love grows warm once again in the emptied spaces of rest. We remember our love for the One who sustains us, we recall our love for the ones who surround us. Worshipful rest is that which renews our love for God and for others. It is the rest that restores our souls.

Summer is, for our family, a time when the worship of work gives way to the worship of rest. We will not fill these precious days with more ways to be distracted, exhausted and pulled in a thousand directions. The evensong of the cicadas invites us to join in the worship of loving God and each other with renewed intent, awash with gratitude that our souls find rest in the finished work of Christ.

Well did Shakespeare observe that “summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” Before we know it, the season of work will return to claim its laborers. So we will heed the invocation of the cicadas to rest, rest, rest – knowing that our rest here is as vital as it is brief, longing for that future rest when our Sabbath-song of worship, once raised, will redouble and reverberate across eternity.

the complementarian woman: permitted or pursued?

I recently had an exchange with a young church planter who wanted my thoughts on how to address the needs of women within his church. He told me it was clear to him what women were permitted to do from a doctrinal standpoint, but that he was not comfortable that his responsibility to women ended with simply identifying that list.

I asked him to think about that word – “permit”. It is a word women in complementarian settings hear with some frequency, and how our male leaders use it shapes our ability to contribute to church life. The challenge for any pastor would be to consider whether he is crafting a church culture that permits women to serve or one that pursues women to serve. Because a culture of permission will not ensure complementarity functions as it should.

Consider the analogy of marriage. Most pastors would counsel a young husband that he must pursue his wife to keep their union strong – that he must make a study of her needs and wants, that he must celebrate her strengths and find ways to leverage them for the good of their marriage. They would warn against the dangers of passivity. I submit that a similar awareness is necessary on the part of male leadership in complementarian churches. A culture of permission can communicate passivity and dismissiveness to our women. They long to be pursued.

The negative implications of a culture of permission become clear if we overlay them onto other areas of ministry. Imagine if we swapped the language of pursuit for the language of permission in our church bulletins:

“If you need community, you are permitted to join a community group.”
“If you battle addiction, you are permitted to go to Celebrate Recovery.”
“If you are interested in serving, you are permitted to serve in the nursery.”

Now consider if we applied the language of pursuit to the way we speak about women’s roles. We would have to alter our speaking – and our thinking – rather dramatically.

• It is one thing to say women are permitted to be deacons, and quite another to actively seek out and install women in that role.
• It is one thing to say women are permitted to pray in the assembly or give announcements, and quite another to ensure that they are given a voice on the platform.
• It is one thing to say that women are permitted to teach women, and quite another to deliberately cultivate and celebrate their teaching gifts. 

I am not certain when it became common to speak of permitting rather than pursuing women to serve, but I admit that it grieves me. Yes, there is that well-worn verse in 1 Timothy, but it seems a shame to let one occurrence of a term dominate our language and practice. It may be that permission vocabulary persists because of the unfortunate woman-as-usurper stereotype that sometimes underlies complementarian thought.

And I can’t help but reflect on how far removed that vocabulary is from the words of Adam at the creation of Eve: “This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Adam’s words are a hymn of thanksgiving, a joyful acknowledgment that one has arrived whose contributions will bring vital and necessary completeness to the Imago Dei. It is a hymn intoned not in the language of permission but in the language of pursuit.

How sweet a thing when a woman of apparent ministry gifting elicits from male leadership not “Oh, no”, but “At last!” God help complementarians if we spend our energies fastidiously chalking the boundaries of a racecourse we never urge or equip our women to run. I have to think that egalitarians would grow quieter in their critiques if we could point to more women within our ranks who convincingly demonstrate equal, complementary value in our churches.

Women who flourish in ministry can point to not just female leaders who affirmed them but to male leaders who championed and cultivated them. That has certainly been my story. Glenn Smith asked me to shepherd and teach women even before I knew the depth of my desire to do so. John Bisagno affirmed and mentored me when I had no idea what I was doing. Mark Hartman taught me the beauty of a well-run ministry. Matt Chandler and Collin Hansen gave me a voice. And every day for twenty years, Jeff Wilkin has spoken unmitigated blessing and encouragement to me. Would that all women in the church could know such grace. 

So here is the suggestion that I offered to that young church planter: Do you desire to leverage the equal complementary value of women in your church? Don't give us a chance to ask permission. Get out ahead of us. You approach us with what you intend to empower us to do. End the culture of permission and you will dispel the stigma of submission. We are not usurpers, we are the possessors of every capacity you lack and the celebrators of every capacity you possess.

Brothers, don't permit us. Pursue us. 


See Thabiti Anyabwile’s insightful thoughts on this subject in a series of four posts found here and here and here and here.