Extract from Peter M. Danilchick, Thy Will Be Done: Strategic Leadership, Planning, and Management for Christians, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2016, pp. 151-158
The Lord said to the exiles in Babylon: “I know the plans I have for you . . . to give you a future and a hope.”[1] Five centuries later, Jesus Christ fulfilled these plans, becoming the future and hope not only of Israel, but of the entire world.
Jesus spoke many times to his disciples about the plans that he had for them. He emphasized three times that they would bear fruit, and even “much fruit,” as Israel had not.[2] In addition, Jesus prayed that they would be one, even “perfectly one,” in order that all would know that they had been sent by him.[3] These two aspects of Christian ministry, namely, fruitfulness and oneness, are at the core of what it means to be a leader in the Church or anywhere else. They are also at the core of what we call strategic planning.
If our plan, as successors to the disciples of Jesus, is to be fruitful and at one with others, should we expect this to just “happen,” or is something more required of us? Solomon advises: “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”[4] We might say that we are committed to God, meaning that we have faith in him. But proof of that commitment, that resolution, must be shown in our work, in our fruitfulness. Unfortunately, the temptation to become forgetful, undisciplined, and lazy often frustrates even the best of resolutions. This axiom is especially true when we are making the commitment to work together in community.
We must have a disciplined way of making plans if we are to ensure that our actions are in accordance with God’s will and purpose, and to assist us in the commitment of our work to the Lord. There is a direct connection between this planning and our desire to follow the principles laid out earlier on finding God’s will for oneself, fearing God, walking in his ways, loving and serving him, and keeping his commandments. Solomon emphasizes the need for congruence between the plans of man and the will of God: “A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”[5]
It is admittedly difficult for us to discover and strive to do the will of God within ourselves. Within a community this task becomes much harder, since many people are involved, and each of them are at different stages of their lives. The temptation for such a group is to set low expectations to avoid disappointment. But if we are servants of the King, nothing less than the best should satisfy us. Attaining the kingdom is not easy, for it requires repentance as Jesus preached after his baptism by John.[6] Further, great effort is required, for as Jesus explains: “The law and the prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and every one enters it violently.”[7] St John Chrysostom states that those who enter it are the ones “who approach it with earnestness of mind.”[8]
Nor is “becoming one” an easy task, as Church history shows. In the very early days of the Church, all “were together and had all things in common.”[9] In the early days of any venture, the community is in a honeymoon period and all is well. Tensions arose within the Church when difficult issues surfaced, such as the conversion of the Gentiles and whether or not they should be obliged to follow the Mosaic law[10] In this case a peaceful solution emerged, but not without blunt and personal criticism of St Peter by St Paul.[11] Sometimes there were breaks in relationships. Differences between Barnabas and Paul over whether to take John Mark on a missionary journey resulted in “sharp contention, so that they separated from each other.”[12] However, reconciliation did finally occur, as evidenced by St Paul’s request to the Colossians to receive John Mark.[13] In a community, even one with a common faith, it is never easy to agree on what to do in any particular situation and to be one, as Jesus desired us to be.
St Paul documented other problems afflicting the oneness of the Christian community. His first letter to the Christians in Corinth describes a textbook case of how those who are “called to be saints” can quarrel and, overwhelmed by party spirit, become afflicted with “jealousy and strife.”[14] In addition, St Paul addresses problems within the community such as immorality, arrogance, settling internal disputes by appealing to civil courts, disorder in the church arising from the practice of speaking in tongues, and questioning the resurrection of Christ. We recall that St Paul established the church at Corinth over a period of eighteen months, and thus understandably felt a special ownership and kinship with that church.[15] The implication for us is that we, as a community, must care about the community and feel a proprietary interest in it. When we remain on the outside looking in, nothing positive will occur.
What does St Paul do, when he hears about the problems afflicting the church that he founded? He immediately draws their attention to the fact that they are called to be holy—indeed, they are already “sanctified in Christ Jesus,” not as mere individuals but “together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord.”[16] He establishes and confirms the foundation of their community. He emphasizes that they lack nothing, for they were given “the grace of God” and “in every way . . . enriched in [Christ Jesus] with all speech and all knowledge.”[17] He calls them back to the initial vision and continuing foundation of their faith and life together.
St Paul then proceeds to appeal to them to cease their divisions and refuse to be guided by the ways of the world, such as arrogance, toleration of immorality, and lawsuits, but rather by the cross of Christ. He considers the particular ways in which the Corinthians have departed from the “foundation . . . which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”[18] The difficulties that afflict them are those of disunity and disorder, the former brought on by party spirit and the latter by perceived differences in spiritual gifts. Even today we may have differences in party spirit from one church to another, or between ministries within a single church, such as bishops versus priests versus laity.
The healing of these wounds in the body of Christ comes about only through our continual bearing of the cross of Christ in service to one another in love and harmony. St Paul declares, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”[19]
Although we are one, we are different by design. St Paul reminds us, as members of the body of Christ, that there are differences in function: “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues.”[20] He explains in Ephesians that these functions serve “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ . . . from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love.”[21] St Paul likens his own work to that of a builder, and compares the flock in Corinth to God’s building. He is constantly thinking about the people for whom he is responsible rather than about his own authority.
We might expect the words of the great apostle to sting the people of Corinth to such a degree that they would never repeat the same mistakes. However, they were slow learners. St Paul first spent eighteen months establishing the church, and then, hearing about their difficulties, wrote his first and second letters. (In fact, St Paul mentions a letter sent even before the one we know as the first).[22] In between these letters, St Paul visited Corinth again.[23] Clearly, the Corinthians needed significant guidance—and indeed scolding—on a repeated basis. St Clement of Rome intervened in Corinth once again some forty years later, over “a schism in the Corinthian Church [provoked by] the same factious spirit that Paul had encountered there.”[24]
After these letters, we read little if anything about the church in Corinth in the post-apostolic writings.[25] A letter attributed to St Clement has been interpreted as indicating the healing of the Corinthian schism.[26] In any event, “by AD 170, the Christians of Corinth regarded I Clement as Scripture.”[27] We hope this footnote indicates a happy ending for the church there.
Are there lessons for us to learn from the difficulty encountered by the church at Corinth, and the obvious frustration and pain experienced by St Paul? In many ways, the environment in Corinth was not dissimilar to that of today: industrial, wealthy, diverse, and influenced by pagan practices and a general lack of morals. One biblical commentator concludes that “the parallels between this first-century Corinth and the great cities of the modern world give St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians an exceptional relevance for modern Christians.”[28] Given the outside environment, what was the basic cause of the issues troubling the church in Corinth? St Paul begins his first letter with an emphasis on unity in Jesus Christ, and then proceeds to analyze the various differences in attitudes and behavior.
The fundamental text is: “I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”[29] St John Chrysostom, in his homily on this passage, declares that the implications of “united” go beyond our everyday understanding of the word. (As noted earlier, the King James translation uses “perfectly joined together” instead of “united.”)
St John explains: “Since there is such a thing as agreement in words, and that hearty, not however on all subjects, therefore he added this, ‘That ye may be perfected together.’ For he that is united in one thing, but in another dissents, is no longer ‘perfected,’ nor fitted in to complete accordance. There is also such a thing as harmony of opinions, where there is not yet harmony of sentiment; for instance, when having the same faith we are not joined together in love: for thus, in opinions we are one, (for we think the same things) but in sentiment not so. And such was the case at that time; this person choosing one [leader], and that, another. For this reason he saith it is necessary to agree both in ‘mind’ and in ‘judgment.’ For it was not from any difference in faith that the schisms arose, but from the division of their judgment through human contentiousness.”[30]
How, then, do we “perfectly join together”? How can we hope to succeed in doing this when even the great apostle had such difficulty, despite his many exhortations and prayers? We must begin with the foundation of the Church as the body of Christ. According to Fr Georges Florovsky, “The early church was not just a volunteer association for ‘religious’ purposes. It was rather the New Society, even the New Humanity. . . the true City of God, in the process of construction.”[31] The building of any structure needs to be undertaken carefully, with discipline and prudence, and laid upon a strong foundation. The walls must be able to withstand the pressures of wind and rain, and the roof capable of protecting the inhabitants within. In the case of building a community of people, of course, the problems and difficulties are far more intense and extensive, as reflected in St Paul’s letters to the early Christian communities.
Some 500 years before St Paul, a young servant (“cup-bearer”) to the King of Persia set forth on a project that must have seemed to many to be doomed from the start.[32] His name was Nehemiah. He had heard of the destruction of the walls and gates of Jerusalem by fire.[33] Nehemiah broke down weeping, and with prayer and fasting implored the Lord God that he might be able to rebuild those walls. Following that fervent prayer, he obtained permission from the king to go to Jerusalem with introductory letters to provincial governors to secure safe passage and supplies. Accompanied by a few others, he inspected the gates and walls. He then assembled the “Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest that were to do the work.”[34] When he told them of “the trouble we are in” and invited them to “build the wall of Jerusalem,” they replied, “Let us rise up and build.”[35] And they did.
Nehemiah did not leave the construction up to chance, but organized some forty families and groups of neighbors to undertake various pieces of the project. The construction did not come without external opposition from rivals, who ridiculed the effort and threatened violence. Nehemiah recognized the threat, and organized protection of the workers and the people. However, difficulties still arose internally, with accusations of incipient poverty because of the financial demands of the officials. Nehemiah convened an assembly and convinced the officials to convert the mortgages into outright gifts, thereby averting the crisis.
In our current lexicon, Nehemiah was a strategic planner. He had a vision that was founded upon his love for the people,
as shown by his mourning for the depths to which Jerusalem had fallen. His
values were his fear of and faith in God. He had a well-defined mission to accomplish. He knew what he needed, from
beginning to end, to accomplish his objectives. He involved many people,
from the king and governors to the nobles, officials, leaders, and families
that performed the work. He recognized the threats from outside as well as the issues arising
from within. In the end he accomplished his task: “So the wall was finished on
the twenty-fifth day of the month of Elul, in fifty-two days.”[36]
[1] Jer 29.11.
[2] Jn 15.5, 8, 16.
[3] Jn 17.22.
[4] Prov 16.3.
[5] Prov 16.9. See the prologue to this book for additional background.
[6] Mk 1.15.
[7] Lk 16.16.
[8] St John Chrysostom, Homily 37.4 on Matthew (NPNF1 10:240).
[9] Acts 2.44.
[10] Acts 15.
[11] Gal 2.11–14.
[12] Acts 15.39.
[13] Col 4.10.
[14] 1 Cor 3.3.
[15] Acts 18.1, 11.
[16] 1 Cor 1.2.
[17] 1 Cor 1.4–5.
[18] 1 Cor 3.11.
[19] 1 Cor 12.12–13.
[20] 1 Cor 12.28.
[21] Eph 4.12, 16.
[22] 1 Cor 5.9.
[23] 2 Cor 2.1; Acts 20.3; cf. Roy Bowen Ward, “Paul and Corinth – His Visits and His Letters,” Restoration Quarterly, 3.4 (1959), 158-168.
[24] Richardson, Early Fathers, 34.
[25] I could not find anything in the available English translations, but it would be most useful to follow church development through the second century in Corinth.
[26] Veselin Kesich Formation and Struggles: The Church AD 33–450; Part One: The Birth of the Church AD 33–200 (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007), 122.
[27] Ibid, 125.
[28] Richard Kugelman, “The First Letter to the Corinthians,” Jerome Biblical Commentary, 255.
[29] 1 Cor 1.10.
[30] St John Chrysostom, Homily 3.2 on 1 Corinthians (NPNF1 12:11).
[31] Georges Florovsky, “The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church,” Christianity and Culture (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1974), 132.
[32] Robert North, “The Chronicler,” Jerome Biblical Commentary, 434.
[33] Neh 1.3.
[34] Neh 2.16.
[35] Neh 2.17–18.
[36] Neh 6.15.