Discipleship and Christian Ethics Pt 2 w/ Dr. Dennis Hollinger

Welcome to the GC Podcast. This year, we’re centering on Kingdom Culture and exploring how it transforms ministry and equips leaders for kingdom living. Through conversations with Grace Communion Seminary professors and a few other guests, we’ll explore how their teachings equip ministry leaders to embody kingdom values.

This is the GC Podcast, where we help you grow into the healthiest ministry leader you can be. Sharing practical insights and best practices from the context of Grace Communion International Churches. Here’s your host, Cara Garrity.

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Cara: Hello friends, and welcome to this next episode of GC Podcast. This podcast is devoted to exploring best ministry practices in context of Grace Communion International churches.

I’m your host, Cara Garrity, and today we continue with our ethics miniseries with our guest, Dr. Dennis Hollinger. Today we’re going to be exploring the connection, the integration, the dynamic between Christian ethics and the life of a disciple, of discipleship. And so, I really appreciate you joining us again today, Dr. Hollinger. And we are looking forward to learning from you again.

Dennis: Thank you so much, Cara. It’s a joy to again be with you, and with your listeners.

Cara: Absolutely. So, from our first conversation, one of the things that I took away is, especially when you outline this as actions and character or aspects of ethics, is I can’t help but think about that’s, well, the shaping of our character, our actions is part of the life of a disciple, right? And that process of discipleship.

And so, I’m curious. Does Christian ethics have to do with the daily living, the day-to-day of being a disciple of Jesus?

[00:01:56] Dennis: That’s such a significant, important question. Thank you, Cara. Maybe it’s helpful if I start with just defining what we mean by discipleship. What is a disciple?

Jesus in the Great Commission said, “Go, or as you go, disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” And then a great promise, of course, comes at the end. “And lo, I am with you always till the end of the world.”

And so, the Great Commission is not to go out and make converts. It’s to make disciples. What is a disciple? I think a disciple, we understand it best, is a person who has come to Christ through faith in Christ, who’s experienced salvation and redemption in Christ, and as a result now is called to follow Christ in all arenas of life.

That means to follow Christ in our relationships, in our business if we’re in the business world, in our communities, in our churches, in our ministries, whatever we’re called to. And so, I think that when we think about a disciple a disciple is one who follows Christ. And that of course impacts the way we live.

[00:03:19] Cara: Yes, thank you. I think that is a great place to start. And can you give us some maybe examples of what this might look like in the day-to-day life of the disciple?

[00:03:32] Dennis: Yeah. I like to think of our Christian living or being a disciple as having three components, what I call the head, the heart, and the hands. And I wrote a book on about this some years ago, really, called Head, Heart, and Hands: Bringing Together Christian Thought, Passion, and Action. It’s interesting that there are a lot of Christians and there are a lot of Christian movements or denominations that accentuate one of these over the other, sometimes almost to the exclusion of others.

And let me just unpack that for us. There are some Christians who are primarily people of the head. What is discipleship for them? Well, it’s simply knowing if I have enough knowledge of the Bible, enough knowledge of Christian doctrines and theology, then I’ll be good disciple of Christ. So, when they go to a church, what do they go to church for? It’s to fill their minds. The head.

And then there are others that are primarily people of the heart. And these are people when they think about the Christian life and discipleship, think of their emotions and their will, their inner self. And a good Christian, a good disciple is one whose heart is experiencing the reality of God.

And oftentimes it’s best exemplified by, I’m moved in some way inwardly. So, these people, when they go to church, they want worship and they want sermons that move their heart, not their heads, but their heart, their inner self.

And then you have the hands people and these are the folks who say, no, the Christian life, being a disciple, is about doing in the world. And you have two components of this in a sense, two varieties of the hands Christians. You have those who emphasize the proclamation of the gospel, and you have others who say though our actions are really about our social ministries, our caring for the poor, our ministries, and actions of justice in the world.

Now what I contend is that all three of these are vitally important and they all go together. And so, the head is important. How we think is part of being a disciple. And so, our understanding of scripture, our understanding of theology, our Christian worldview is vital to being a disciple and it’s vital to Christian ethics and particularly as we talked about in the first episode.

The heart component is vitally important. We’re to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. The inner self needs to be shaped if we’re going to be a disciple and if we’re going to live the Christian ethical life.

And then the hands are vitally important. We are to be doers of the word, and that involves, I think, both the proclamation of the gospel, but also involves our ministries of service, our ministries of care, our ministries of justice in the midst of a hurting world.

And the way I like to think about this, Cara, is that they each actually impact the others. We don’t get our theology, our heads straight just by mind alone. I think our hearts and even our actions in the world help shape our thinking. And our heart, we don’t get our hearts right, just by attending to our emotions, our inner self. Our thinking shapes that. Our actions shape that.

And our hands likewise are shaped by our head and our heart. So, I like to think of all three of these coming humming together to form what is a disciple. And all three of these then are vital in Christian ethics. Christian ethics isn’t just about my hands and what I do. It incorporates that to be sure, but it’s also good to reflect what I believe, what I fill my mind with. It’s going to also reflect my heart, my inner self, and that inner union with Christ and with the Holy Spirit.

[00:07:47] Cara: Thank you. Thank you. Yes. And I, again, I think that this is, I don’t want to say the word model, but maybe an approach where we’re being invited into kind of this broader perspective, more holistic approach to discipleship, and Christian ethics has to do with that. And having that — the threefold, the head, heart, and hands — I think is a really helpful thing to even just keep in mind.

Dennis: Yeah.

Cara: As we’re living, and being, shaped as disciples. And so, one of the things in GCI that is really important for us in terms of ministry practice is the idea of healthy church rhythms and the development of healthy leadership.

[00:08:34] Dennis: Yeah.

[00:08:35] Cara: And so, when we think about, ministry practices and the primary audience of our podcast today are people who are involved in ministry participation leadership in their local church contexts. So, how does this relationship between ethics and discipleship that incorporates head, hearts, and hands, how does it inform the development of a healthy ministry leader specifically?

[00:09:01] Dennis: Yeah, that, that’s so vital today, Cara. I’m glad you’re raising this. I think we have to understand. People follow leaders.

Leadership is vital, not just in the church, but in the corporate world and the business world and the political world, in all arenas of life. Leadership is vital because people by nature follow leaders. It is interesting, if you go way back in history and the philosopher Aristotle, one of the first things he talked about in political leadership was character.

Why? Aristotle who was a pagan philosopher — this is not a Christian — said it’s important, because leaders shape the tone of a society, of a country, of a government, if you will. And this is so vital in the church. I think we know that in recent years we’ve had some very sad stories of leaders who failed in leadership, who failed in leadership over ethics.

And a lot of times, and this goes back to our last podcast where we talked about money, sex, and power. These are some of the greatest abuses of power and leadership. The abuse of money, the abuse of sex, the abuse of power, and we’ve had lots of those abuses. And so, I think what we recognize here is if the church is to be healthy in all arenas the leadership needs to be healthy as well.

And that gets back to Christian ethics and discipleship. Then, I think for example, of a passage like 1 Timothy 3, where we have a list of the characteristics of church leaders. Let me just read that, because I think it’s important for all of us to hear this, that leadership isn’t just about charisma; leadership isn’t just about my capabilities of helping a group of people achieve their mission, what they’ve set out as their stated mission. Leadership is also about my character, and my actions, which as we pointed out the last time, is really at the heart of ethics. And what we’re saying here today is also very much part of leadership.

Let me just read, if I may, Cara, the passage of 1 Timothy 3:1–10, please.

Here’s a trustworthy saying. Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness. Not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome. Not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. For if anyone doesn’t know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s ….

And then the next couple verses, 8–10, go on to describe deacons, a second level of leadership in the church. They’re to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine and not pursuing dishonest gain. They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience.

And so, what I find so fascinating in this passage in Timothy about leadership, it’s not just about our beliefs. It’s not just that we’ve got our doctrines down pat. It’s in. And it’s not just that we’re having our devotions regularly and praying regularly, it’s also our character and our actions that reflect the reality of Christ in our lives.

And that I think is so vital for a healthy church today. Healthy leadership is so important, so that in specific churches, when you are choosing leaders in the church, not just pastors, but other lay leaders as well; yes, they must be committed to the theology and the statements that you have as a church. But they all … you also need to look at what kind of people are they, what kind of respect have they garnered in the church, in their community, in their world. I think that’s so vital today, if the church is really to maintain faithfulness.

[00:14:03] Cara: Yes. Thank you. And again, I feel really compelled by naming that it’s more than just maybe … we can tend towards what do we believe? Or what are our competencies and things like that. Those are pieces of the puzzle. But to really bring things all together — head, hearts, hands — who are we in character and action, I think really invites and challenges us, right, into a deeper, more meaningful space.

And so, I’m just wondering as we look to wrap up this episode, what would you say to our listeners who are maybe wanting to become more intentional in this aspect of this leadership formation? Where do you start with this more holistic intentional approach?

[00:14:57] Dennis: I think we have a tendency to want to do it alone. And one of the things I would say is we really do need each other. If we’re going to have head, heart, and hands together, it’s not just my own journey, it’s our journey together. And I think a sense of accountability with others is vitally important.

And I’ll just give this story kind of in closing that may be helpful. This past summer I was invited to do a series of lectures in Nigeria on corruption and Christian ethics. And I did this in two different cities, a whole different series, eight different lectures in each series.

It was business leaders. It was some political leaders. It was church leaders. It was some people in the medicine field. And unfortunately, in this country of Nigeria, there is a great deal of corruption, an incredible amount of corruption. And one of the things I discerned while I was there and talking to folks is, it’s found its way into the church.

There are people who get leadership, positions, by paying bribes. And all kinds of stories of corruption that I heard, not just in politics, and not just out in the business and corporate world, but in the church as well. And one of the things that we talked about together is that if we are to be a healthy church, we need to start with healthy leadership, and the corruption needs to be done away with in the life of the church.

And a large part of that comes back to accountability. We’re accountable to each other, and ultimately, of course, we’re accountable to Christ. And so, when you ask the question, what can we do to achieve this? Obviously, it starts with me. It starts with my own relationship with Christ. It’s my head, heart, and hands coming together.

But then I think it’s that accountability, and we put good structures of accountability in place. I think one of the great dangers is when we have one person making all the decisions alone and we put all the power in this one person. That of course in societies is what leads to a totalitarian dictatorship. But you can have the same thing in the church, and that’s why we need each other in this journey together.

[00:17:23] Cara: Thank you so much. I really think that what you’ve named is so important — doing it together in community. And, if we come back to even what we discussed in the previous episode, what are the things that we learn for from creation for God’s good purposes.

And he did make us in his image, and he’s a relational God. And so, I think that is really, really important. And especially when I think about our leaders, it can be tempting to do it alone, right?

Dennis. Yeah.

Cara: Because we’re meant to be leading. But as we grow and we pursue that, to do that with one another.

And the other thing that I wanted to highlight is that you said structures. And I think that’s really key too. And I want to encourage our listeners that it’s not just, while we’re willy-nilly accountable to one another, right?

Dennis: Yeah, exactly.

Cara: But how do we put structures in place? How are we thoughtful about that?

And for our listeners, one of the things that we also emphasize in GCI in terms of ministry practices is being team-based.

Dennis: Yeah.

Cara: And so, I really want to encourage you all who are building your teams, who are wanting to take this journey of growing in your healthy leadership and what that means for head, hands, and heart, what Christian ethics looks like as you lead, to do so in the context of your team, other people who have surrounded you and support you. Mentors is another thing that we really emphasize.

[00:18:55] Dennis: That’s great. I’m so glad to hear that, Cara, that’s so important.

[00:18:58] Cara: Yes. Yes, I think so too. So, I, I encourage you guys to continue to pursue this in relationship with one another.

Thank you so much for that final word, Dr. Hollinger, of, I think both encouragement and also, what’s the word that I want to look for, almost that invitation and challenge? Maybe I know I’ve said that a lot, but into how do we take our next steps together and grow in this aspect of our healthy leadership. So, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us again.

You guys stay tuned for episode three, where we’re going to be exploring Christian ethics and ministry practice, and some of those practical pieces of what it means to participate in ministry with Christian ethical posture. So, thank you so much. We are looking forward to hearing from you in the next episode. And until next time y’all keep on living and sharing the gospel.

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Thanks for listening to the GC Podcast. We hope this episode inspired and equipped you to lead with health and purpose. We would love to hear from you. If you have a suggestion on a topic or if there’s someone who you think we should interview, please email us at info@gci.org.