Module 1, 2, & 3: Class Notes

Here are my unedited notes from class today at MTSO, with Dr. Welborn (Happy Reading!): 

DMIN 901

Continuity and Change

The Methodist Theological School in Ohio

Summer Semester 2010

L. L. Welborn, Visiting Professor

Discover point of correlation between my point of ministry and ministry of first century Christians.

Ekklesia is formal name for voting place in community – when Paul uses as ‘church’, is making comparison.

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Module 1 –

Sociological – insight into the social realities that helped to shape the NT can make the NT intelligible, but more importantly, applicable.

Paul uses this model himself. (1 Cor 1:26) These are the same three decisions Aristotle uses in his divisions in the Greek city in his politics. Wise = educated. Powerful = wealth (dynatoi). Nobly-born = birth. So in Corinth, some were, some weren’t – not many, but a few. Paul is making a social description of the Christian community – not individuals, but the group. That makes is sociological.

Celsus – anti-Christian writer, late first century. Ho alethes logos (the true story) he wrote. Was destroyed by Christian, but have large portions retained by Origen in his contra-Celsus. Celsus: “These Christians are all just a bunch of washer-women/day-laborers/mule-drivers.”

We’re dependent on survival of sources. The interests that shaped our sources weren’t always seeking to give us the information we now want. Speaking about God’s activity, HS, instead of describing sociological nature of groups.

We ask: how do we obtain information about the social circumstances of the early Christians from the religious expressions in our sources? There are very few explicit social statements. Mostly Paul is proclaiming, exhorting, poetic, etc.

How do we recover social reality, including practice of ministry, from these religious texts?

What is a sociological statement? It seeks to describe and ultimately explain interpersonal behaviour with reference to those characteristics that transcend the personal.

Implies that a sociological question is less concerned with what is individual, more concerned with what is general.

Sociological questions are less concerned with singular conditions of specific situation than with structural relationships that apply to several situations.

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Three-fold method, for NT, but also applicable to my analysis of my context.

1) constructive – concerned with interpretation of those texts which have explicit (even if pre-scientific) sociological content. Gather all texts of that nature. (ie Church history documents)

2) analytical – seeks to infer the underlying the social reality from kerygmatic, ethical, ritualistic religious expressions

3) comparative – considers text and other evidence that come from the environment of early Christian groups – what’s happening alongside text. We can figure out what is unique about Christian group. Highlights similarities, but differences.

Constructive: a few NT statements with explicit sociological content. Acts 4:32-37. Is it idealism? Romanticized? Sure.

Every statement has to be subjected to three tests: (Example: Acts 13:1)

            Reliability – Do we know if Manaen was a member of the court? Luke as name-dropper. Points out lots of wealthy folks, of status. Gives information to us about what a later generation believed was possible.

            Validity – What can we infer from reliable evidence. Manaen would have lost status/power because of Herod’s exile. He at one time belonged to upper class.

            Representativeness – not the biography of Manaen, but the question of whether on the basis of Luke’s statement, we can refer anything about Christian teachers generally. Does Luke mention status because he was only one with background? Or other reason? If others, this is representative statement.

We get information about content, and who reported content.

Analytical – most fascinating? Focusing on unusual helps us look at background, usual. Ie Acts 11:26: We infer that before this, weren’t called Christians, weren’t seen as totally separate from Jews. We also look for events that recur. Ie Mark: Jesus comes into ‘region’ of a city, not polis itself. Early Jesus movement isn’t a city movement, but countryside. Conflict: exposes to view the structures which are ordinarily hidden – like a lightening flash. In most cases, entire groups are parties to conflicts, not just individuals, who might be spark plugs. Extraordinary lights up terrain of ordinary. Ie 1 Corinthians 8 & 10. We may also draw inferences from articulated norms. Social rules by which we live in groups. Primitive Christian norms come to us by explicit direction (Thou shalt not: Laws/commandments) or implicit by regularly exhibited behaviour. Ethical/judicial norms. Non-observance is punished. 1 Cor. 5. Didache. Norms come to us in ethical conflict. Inferences from symbols.

Symbols in our religious life are the result of a metaphorical process. Images in daily life transferred to spiritual themes. Image/object or object/image. Ie “Body of Christ.” Fostering sense of community over individuality. Ebionites – “the poor” – not social condition, but radical/totally dependence on God.

Poetic symbols. Parables. Rural persons. Parables compress normal experiences into penetrating scenes of social life.

Mythical symbols – don’t open window directly on social reality, but making something ‘other’ their scene. Like actions of gods, angels, or demons. Ie Symbol of possession by demons: intensification of earthly oppression.

Relationship between mythological and sociological that is most important to us.

Comparative – Christianity has parallels in pagan and Jewish sources.

As pastors, we have to move beyond descriptive to prescriptive. Sometimes have to go against the grain!

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Module 2 – Types of Leaders

Question between Paul and other leaders: who was an apostle?

Factor: Means of financial support. Who is worthy of it? Who can gather it? What are the marks of a true leader?

Commissioning speeches of Jesus, of 12, of 70. Didache (not a true prophet if ask for more than one night’s supply.)

Two types of Christians leadership had emerged in early Gentile mission.

* Itinerant charismatics. Legitimizes themselves ‘vertically’ by appealing to relationship with God. A “divine charisma.”

* Community organizer. Invests himself/herself completely in new group of people and derives legitimacy from that group. (Paul: you are my letter of recommendation.)

Jesus’ first followers are best described as a renewal movement. (So is Pharisaism, Essenes.) Presuppose small-town Galilean milieu. Confidence of charismatic itinerants in finding support has a religious basis.

When Jesus movement leaves Galilee, can’t count on legitimacy of Jewish piety (as instructed by Jesus), apostles need additional legitimization.  (2 Cor. 3:1) Letters of recommendation from Jerusalem. (1 Cor. 9) Rights of apostle, which Paul is not claiming. Gives his arguments more weight?

Jews in Diaspora. World into which Jesus movement is born. “Foxes have holes…Son of Man has no place to lay head.” Eating food out of field – hungry!

1 Cor. 1:12

Corinth and other colonies are stable and booming economically.

Romans 16:23 Duovir (Magistrate) then aedile (city treasurer).

Charismatic begging is not received well in big cities. The cynic philosophers did this, the ancient ‘hippies’, and it didn’t go well! Patron-client relationship. Patronage. The glue that held the Roman economy together.

Transition from begging into patron-client relationship. Apollos, a charismatic.

Paul: 1 Cor. 1:17 “not with eloquent wisdom” – not like Apollos.

18:1-3 Not tent-maker but set-designer! Paul removes himself from both systems – not a beggar, but not part of patronage system either. Wealthy Corinthians don’t understand it. How could Paul refuse their gift?! They saw it as a system of friendship/love. Paul is rejecting friendship. Eloquent wisdom = patronage, Apollos. Not Paul! Not corrupt the gospel, emphasis on messy cross of Jesus.

Others are arguing that Paul is not living by means of gospel as commanded. Jewish Christian apostles seeing him as not obeying – he’s evading requirement of charismatic poverty – he doesn’t trust God enough to supply all needs. They argue Paul is not free, but a slave of his work.

Paul is trying to show that charismatic poverty in context of Corinth is no longer functional, just a privilege, that can be let go. Paul has to reinterpret the words of Jesus to do so. He can relinquish it, and boast of it, that it’s a necessity that God has laid upon him. Renouncing the privilege keeps in spirit, if not letter, of Jesus’ commands. Charismatics need secondary legitimization.

2 Cor. 11:4 Someone is preaching a different Jesus to you. Different spirit, different gospel. Paul doesn’t say what he means by this. (But must not emphasize the cross like Paul does.)

Biblical historians are reluctant to think that theology influences/determines social factors, but in this case, how does say, Apollos’ Christology work? Wisdom Christology?

Book: The Opponents of Paul in 2 Cor.

10:7 – Greek: tis – someone – saying that, implying that Paul does not belong to Christ, or at least so confident that he/someone does belong to Christ. From Apollos’ point of view, Paul’s gospel looks like a needless impoverishment of the gospel. Where has the pride/joy/confidence gone? Style of leadership corresponds with his Christology. Did Apollos’ way appeal particularly to more elite, and Paul’s emphasis on cross appeal more to lower classes?

Paul’s understanding of who he believed God had revealed God’s self to be. 2 Cor. 13:3-4 – Christ, crucified in weakness, is the place where God’s power is revealed to be.

Paul, the Fool of Christ. Paul is the fool, like in theatre. (1 Cor. 3:18) Aesop the slave, Socrates the stone maker.

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Module 3 – Models of the Church

Are models from society informing church?

1) Households as basic units – oikos/okia Prisca/Aquilla, Philemon, household of Stephanos, Lydia, Philippian jailor, Crispus.  (Don Barker, book on households, containing 30+ people)

(Aristotle describes this in Politics)

Paul’s adaptation had implications, both for internal structure, and group as it relates to larger society. Paul inserts Christian movement into existing structure of relationships. Head of household does business at home, but provides some privacy, intimacy. Paul puts himself in role of some members of the household.

Tensions:

- But also creates potential for emergence of factions. Do factions represent different households? Also conflicts over distribution of household. Head of household had such absolute power. Hierarchical structure. Complicates with church. Maintenance of hierarchy is considered as essential by society. Neither male or female, slave free, etc: what does that do to household that baptized in Christ none of that goes? Women, slaves, get chance or inclination to new identity.

- Does everyone in household really share belief to same degree?

- But advantages of intimacy, etc.

2) Voluntary association - the club, the guild, the cultic association. We know a lot about them because of inscriptions of rules and regulations that have survived. Household would host club, become basis of cultic association. It is voluntary. It is a social organization. To outsiders, church must look like this. Celsus draws parallel: what is going on is secret, uncontrolled, and therefore, is a seed-bed of immorality and social unrest. Because clubs provided wining, dining, and sexualizing J Unlike household, free decision, not birth, determined membership. Relationships other than blood/kinship were important. Had a place for common meals and cultic rituals, like church. Depended to some extent on patronage of wealthy individuals.

Differences with church: Entry into church requires baptism/conversion. Difference in motivation or needs. Christian groups are for salvation and righteousness. Ecclesia is more socially inclusive than clubs and guilds. No clubs were cross-racial. More homogenous ethnically. Paul did not consciously model on clubs – no similar terminology.

3) Democratic Voting Assembly (ekklesia)  - Closest parallel to Gal. 3:28 is pseudo-Aristotle tract “De Mundo.” Also 1 Cor. 12:13, which is not neither/nor but both/and. Decisions are made, debate occurs, and future is determined.

4) Not included is synagogue – ekklesia is group apart from synagogue. Different. 

Leadership Training with Gil Rendle

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend a learning/training day with Gil Rendle, part of a training for leaders as United Methodists in most of New York State prepare to become one annual conference instead of four this July. I found Rendle's presentation to be very thought-provoking, churning thoughts not only on what we will do as a new annual conference, but what we do/can do in my local church.

Here are some notes and my comments mixed, hope you can decipher!:

Rendle notes that our UM membership has been declining for 40 years. We've been in the wilderness for 40 years, but in the wilderness, God can bring about change. We can manage incremental change - we can handle that because we can control it. But deep change - we can't control deep change, and deep change is what we need.

He talked about Friedman and family systems and the idea that "we've grossly overrated the power of information to change people with no motivation to change." That's pretty applicable in all areas of life, don't you think? I can't help but think of my favorite line from Tracy Chapman's "Change" - "If everything you think you know makes your life unbearable, would you change?" What is our motivation for changing the way we do church?

He points to CEUs as one system that was implemented to 'fix people' - 'If we only had better leaders' - just make them get more education, and the churches will be fixed... He says, "I was not trained to make disciples, I was trained to make members," of his own training for ministry, noting how we're set up to fail at our own mission of disciple-making.

He says that when "things are getting out of control, the natural response is to make more rules." But good leadership is: Not about doing things right, but about doing right things. I think we've particularly been struggling with this in my local church - are we trying to do things right or do right things?

Management satisfies. Leadership (well done appropriately) dissatisfies. That’s how you affect change. Unless we are dissatisfying, church will not change.

North American Hospitality: Fix things up just the way we like them, invite people in, and are happy until they want to change the channel. That's not biblical hospitality, radical hospitality.

Technical work – known solutions to known problems.

Adaptive work – can’t do technical. You don’t more to action. You move to learning. Have to learn to act. Deep work.

He said, "Who are we? What are we supposed to do? We think we already know the answer. But we know who we were, not who we are." In my first congregation, we once did a project as part of our stewardship campaign that asked people to identify the 'visionaries' within the congregation. To name people. And the congregation did - but it named mostly people who had died in the past years. They knew who they were in the past, but not their current identity.

Rendle says we are asked for leadership, but only rewarded for management in our systems. After all, asking the ‘why’ questions translates into a longer meeting! Whenever the system doesn’t know what to do, it does what it knows.

"Pastoral mode is one of our default modes – tries to manage everyone’s feelings, care for everyone." This is a big one for me personally. I have a very hard time not trying to make sure everyone is getting along and feeling ok. It's hard to say: I'm sorry you're not with the change that is taking place," and then just move on. I'm learning! Rendle notes that not all the Israelites make the journey out of the wilderness.

Church metaphor we love/live by (but is obviously bad): We have to learn how to build a new prison, using the bricks from the old prison, without losing any of the prisoners.

How do we prepare leaders for congregations we haven’t yet met, when we still require conformity of leaders?

The system get whatever it measures. How much, how many, how often measures. In absence of measures, get the same as before, or chaos. Have to measure something, but we’re using faulty measures. At the same time, you can't just have no measures. If you don't like the ones in place, alright, then what *do* you want to be measured on?

Our stated desired outcome: Improved relationship with Christ, enabling change in the world.

But: If you can’t measure output, you’ll measure input. (i.e. "I worked x hours." Not bragging. Just trying to show what we put *in* to system since we don’t know what we're getting out. And we feel we've never gotten enough inputs.)

Long established organizations have 2 missions: Public – what you say you do. Private – what you actually work on. The Private is always the satisfaction of the strongest constituent voices. School: Public – educate children. Private – satisfy parents, teachers, administrators. Students don’t make list.

Church: Public – making disciples. Private – satisfy clergy, congregations, interest groups. Disciples don’t make list.

Was: Whether clergy and congregations were happy.

Takes us from output position, buts us into input positions. We’re expendable resources. Can’t be deployed for our satisfaction but for the church’s mission.

When a system doesn’t know what went wrong, it wants to know who went wrong.

If you go at your work at a technical level, you might get all your tasks done, but it won’t matter.

When a paradigm shifts, everything has to go back to zero. Look for the purpose sentence in Discipline, and stop reading.

District Resource Day: Lovett Weems

Last week, I attended another district resource day, this time with Lovett Weems as the guest speaker. You've probably heard of Weems around the connection because of his work with the Council of Bishops on the State of the Church Report and his work on Young Clergy in the UMC. I really enjoyed his presentation, which focused on "Congregational Leadership in the Wesleyan Spirit." Weems lectures in a warm and conversational style, and doesn't seem to take himself too seriously!

My notes:
He started by talking about how a concern or issue is raised in the church, which is addressed by a certain response - a 'form' that encompasses the concern. Over time, the concern changes, but the church holds onto the form that no longer fits. We don't need the right answers, but the right questions:

1) Who are we? Churches can be renewed out of their own history - not by clinging to history, but by remembering what made church thrive, live, grow, risk, etc. It is important for leaders to really know the history of their congregations. Pastors should lead with grace before judgment - "I am so proud to be your pastor because _______."

2) What is our mission? For what purpose has God raised up the UMC, or a particular UMC? Mission statements are to often in 'be' language instead of 'do' language. The mission is everything. Everything a church does should answer the "so that" question. We do this _________ SO THAT _________ (mission is fulfilled.) We have a bulletin so that ________. We have a choir, ushers, so that ___________. We worship so that _____________.

3) Who are the people? Weems answered this for us with some 'categories': a) Metropolitan population centers (used to be rural, this has changed.) b) Diverse racial population. Pay attention to professions of faith category for people of color. c) Younger people. Our members, as we well know, are much older than the age of the population as a whole. d) Poor people. Hello! e) Fewer married households. Only 25% of people are in two parent married families with children. More people are unmarried than married. Stop focusing so much on "young families." That's a smaller category than we think!

4) Who are our neighbors? What are their needs? Who are the people God has given to us? How have or haven't we changed as the community has changed. The longer a church exists, the less connected it is to the community. Becomes turned in rather than turned out. "The parish is my world," instead of "the world is my parish." No one encourages leaders to go out into the community, but want to know instead how you are taking care of those already in the congregation. When communities change, congregations have options, but usually choose just one - stay the same! Weems called this "vigorous inertia." How apt! In other contexts, businesses, refusing to change would cause you to lose your job. Mission Audit Question: If your church closed today, who would miss it other than its members??

5) Given our identity/context, what is God's vision? Quote from Scott Cormode(?): "Leadership is helping God's people take the next faithful step."

Part Two: "Leading Lasting Change in the Church"

We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are, but people experience change as loss, and as a judgment on the past.

But... not changing says that "how things are" is synomymous with God's ultimate will. So there has to be change.

Step 1: Help define reality. You need a common understanding of the situation you're in. Peter Senge: "Nothing is more limiting to a group than the inability to talk about the truth." People remember 20% of what they're told, but 80% of what they discover themselves.

Step 2: Reframe/refocus specific interests in light of the whole. Help people see their special interests through the lense of the big picture, rather than seeing the big picture only through the lense of their special interests. But don't devalue special interests, or people will cling to them lal the more tightly.

Step 3: Seek continuity and change. Macro, meso, micro culture, basic shared assumptions, stated values, artifacts and your own views are all part of the church culture - not just one stream of influence that is the 'right' way.

Step 4: Advance the plot of your congregation's story. Leaders function in making a bridge between a congregation's past and a congregation's future. Mission (can last for a while): what we exist to do, leads through congregational identity, internal congregational context, and external congregational context to the Vision (is more short term): Given the mission and context, what is God's vision for our near future?

District Resource Day: Bill Easum

In the interest of me actually blogging something, since I just am totally uninspired to write lately, I'm posting my basically unedited notes from today's District Resource Day with Bill Easum. The topic was “Leading Turnaround on the Road to Mission.” I read a little of Easum at Drew, but haven't read much else. We had some interesting conversation - lots of questions asked. Some things I thought he was right about, some I just thought I'd heard too much before, and some I really disagreed with him on. I guess that's a pretty typical breakdown though, isn't it? (My apologies for the parts of the notes that won't make sense without the corresponding hand out. I'll try to blog better soon ;) )


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Where is Jesus going?

Way, Way, Beyond Emmaus

Where is everyone going?

* Away from spiritual centers
* Away from religious professionals
* Out into the world, away from the institution

Faithfulness – not survival, hanging on, but doing whatever is necessary to be on the road to mission with Jesus. If a church isn’t making disciples it is unfaithful and it doesn’t have a right to exist. A Hospice is not a church.

Institutional survival can never be goal.

Do you spend 80% of time going to them?

A dying church takes 11 years to turn around, but we still move every 3-4 years.

Stuck or Unstuck Churches: Concerned with the Roof, or Concerned with Jesus. Have to lose people in stuck church before you can turn it around. Stuck churches are clergy killers.

The building has nothing to do with being the church. Going to church/being the church.

Not mentioning Jesus enough – focused on God. “My God is not Oprah’s God.” Specifying which God – “God of Abraham,” etc.

Christians ought to be able to move from one building to another without any difficulty, and without being tethered to a building. The building is the place where the church meets, not the church.

Generation: Place more important than relationship, vise versa.

System:

Some are – who is in control? (1)

- There must be more than this (2)

- Why are we here? (3)

- How can we do it better? (These two are healthier) (4)

(Think, Law, Feel, Grace)

Key people in your church:

- Deciders/controllers

- Doers

- Ignored (stuck church ignores ignored, unstuck focuses on ignored)

- Dreamers

- Leaders

Sphere 1 – Egypt

Sphere 2 – Wilderness: Some doers become dreamers. More confusion. More controllers will try to control. Fan discontent, spend time with dreamers.

Sphere 3 – Permission-giving, decentralized. Is it inviting? Is it growing? Is it sending? Three questions applied to everything. Mission, Vision, Values. Develop leaders and systems. Pastor spends most of time either in community, being visible, or growing leaders within the church. Difference between Wesley and Whitfield – Whitfield didn’t leave system to survive him, Wesley did.

Sphere 4 – can’t stay here for long.

How do you unfreeze a system?

- Anything that destabilizes the status quo, destabilize the story, allow leaders to do something new

1) A Solid Community of Faith – Spiritual Leadership. Highly committed spiritual leaders who put mission before personal interest, attempt ministries that don’t necessarily involve them. “Pray for it and pay for it.” (Pastoral leadership.) Functions around trust. Disciples would follow Jesus anywhere. No major on-going conflict. (You take something to the board, and you’re praying that so and so isn’t there.) Desire to connect with the world.

2) Biblically Sound and Culturally Relevant DNA – if we do this, will it make more disciples of Jesus Christ? Not “warehousing Christians.”

3) Indigenous Worship – “doesn’t need a bulletin.” Can’t grow a church by great preachers. Safe place to hear dangerous gospel, not a dangerous place to hear a safe gospel. Easiest way to grow church and to get in trouble. No announcements! Concerts: big, extravagant, etc.

4) Mobilizing the Laity to be God’s People in the World – identify, recruit, discern, equip, deploy, coach

5) Redemptive Missional Opportunities

6) Organizing Around the DNA

7) Hire Servants, Not Professionals

8) Place and Space as Metaphors

9) Radical Generosity

An emerging crisis – we are short on leaders. On the other hand, the roles of leaders is changing dramatically from/to – solo leader/team-based leader, top down/permission giving, given authority/earned authority

People coming in to church are at best skeptical, at worst angry. Are you hospitable or hostile?

from Bishop Willimon: Empowering a New Generation of Leaders

Just read this post at Bishop Willimon's blog, which concludes:

"[This] story is far from unique. This is what happens when we really focus ourselves upon the priority of a new generation of Christians. I’m recommending that next year our entire Annual Conference be focused upon the single priority of empowering a new generation, that any reports be made exclusively by those under forty, and that every church send lay delegates who are all under forty. [New, young leaders] are in every congregation. We must notice them, nurture them, and empower them for God to use them in giving our church a future. By God’s grace, we will!"

What do you think of the Bishop's proposal? I like the concreteness of the plan - very specific things that will be done to empower young people, young new leaders. But I'm undecided. What would your session of annual conference look like if all or most of the lay delegates were under 40? What would it feel like if presentations were made only by those under 40? How active is the under 40 crowd in your conference sessions already?

My own annual conference, like many, I'm sure, tries hard to support young people. Every year, for example, thanks to Bishop Violet Fisher, we take an offering to support our youth attending the NEJ Mission of Peace. This year, we have two young women going to Zimbabwe, at a cost of $4500/person. The conference gave over $8000 in a love offering for their trip, virtually completing the fundraising efforts for these young people, which is a huge gift. The bishop has a policy of always having a young person seated with her on the dais during sessions, and she usually takes time to personally speak about each of them, since she has come to know most of them personally. Our conference secretary makes sure young people are part of his team taking minutes and following the action of conference. We actually consistently elect at least some young people to General and Jurisdictional Conference. These are just a few of the little ways our conference tries to nurture young people. But for every positive, there is vast room for growth, and more intentional behavior. We have many young members of conference, but still a small segment overall. Many churches still seem unaware of the conference youth ministry programs, despite our annual presentation of what we do. We've been working hard to get the word out about what we do. And, our Young Adult Ministries have been virtually nonexistent in the conference. We're working on that, and I'm excited about some possibilities, but it hasn't been given much attention or support in the past.

How do we best empower a new generation? What would be your strategy for going about that? What do you think of Bishop Willimon's proposals?

Review: American Gangster

Last weekend my mother and I went to see American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. We made the mistake of going to see it at the theatres at Garden State Plaza, which is a HUGE mall in Northern New Jersey. I've been there before, during the day on a weekday and late at night for an after-store hours movie, but I've never gone on a Saturday at what was apparently the start of the shopping season. It was a zoo, an absolute zoo. But, nevertheless, we made it to the movie, a packed early afternoon showing.

The film is really excellent. I try never to give away major plot points in my reviews, but if you don't want any details, it's probably best to stop reading now. Washington and Crowe are both excellent actors. They're such personalities that they never seem to completely disappear into their parts, but maybe that's something that can't be helped giving their celebrity status. But Washington in particular has such a charisma about him that it is hard to dislike him in any role, whether he plays the 'good guy' or the 'bad guy'.

That charisma is exactly what the film's subject has: Frank Lucas, huge figure in the drug industry in Harlem in the 1970s. Throughout the movie, we see again and again the repugnant, violent, unethical behavior that Lucas displays. And yet, you can't help but be rooting for him a bit. After seeing the movie, I read several interviews and articles about Lucas, and this likability seems to be a common theme - judges who sentenced him, cops who pursued him, journalists who wrote about him - they all seem to end up liking Lucas. Lucas is never particularly contrite about his actions. In fact, he's probably best described as a little wistful about his glory days. He has this charisma.

Charisma is an interesting quality, characteristic, that some people seem to possess, regardless of their moral standing. You don't have to be a 'good' person to be charismatic. Thinking about charisma got me thinking about church leadership and charisma. Are growing churches led by leaders with a certain amount of charisma? I guess that's pretty off topic to the movie review, but my mind always seems to go there! Jesus certainly had a quality of charisma that shines even through texts 2000 years old. He had more than charisma, but he had that too. Have you ever known people you just loved being around, other qualities aside?

The film isn't a 'message' movie - it doesn't paint exact pictures for you of conclusions you should draw, but there are certainly subtle points made - underlying commentary on drugs and their impact, issues of race and racism, the Vietnam war and military personnel. Frank Lucas flew under the radar of law enforcement for so long because no one believed a black man could be in his position of power - do you cheer on the 'achievement' of Lucas, breaking racial barriers of the illegal variety? Questions come up about the military and drug use, and some characters in the movie don't want questions to be asked because of how bad it will make things look, regardless of how things are. These are all quiet themes in the storyline.