Credit: Pahala Basuki
This daily post is designed to help you live into our New Room Society covenant of practicing daily prayer together. Below is this week’s theme and daily practice.
Week 12: Transparency
What is a “transparent” church leader? What are the benefits, what are the limits, and how can each of those be determined?
“Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.”
Mother Teresa
There’s a lot of conflict in the church around the ideas of transparency, confession, and authenticity.
Something is transparent when you can see through it. Perhaps it follows that a transparent person is someone you can see inside of; you can clearly see what their inner life looks like.
That could be good or bad, right?
To hold up the idea of transparency in church leaders without carefully considering some of the implications could be theologically risky.
For example, James 5:16 says confession should be our common practice. But imagine a pastor confessing in the pulpit that he committed adultery in his heart every day. How does that sound in the ears of the people listening? The women, the children, his wife? Does that kind of transparency serve God or build up the church?
There are clearly boundaries and rules, but what are they? And how can you be spiritually formed in a way that allows transparency a good and right place within your living, teaching, and practice?
Sunday: The Shyness of the Holy Spirit
Biblical scholar Frederick Dale Bruner, co-author of The Holy Spirit: Shy Member of the Trinity writes that the Holy Spirit doesn’t call attention to itself, but points always toward Christ.
How can the idea of pointing to or clarifying the image and work of God help you make determinations about when transparency is good and right?