The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus’ Path of Power in a Church that Has Abandoned It

by Jamin Goggin

We are often blind to our weakness and vulnerability because our hearts turn God into an idol, into something we can use to generate the life we desire.

To become a true community, we have to embrace the way of Jesus in the truth of our weakness and neediness.

In Jesus we see that others are not “things” to protect ourselves against, but people to give ourselves to in love. Jesus’ mission entails self-giving to undeserving people, and we are those undeserving people. As we receive his gift of himself, we find that we are not simply called to follow him, but to live within his life.

But the reason we ignore deep community is the very reason we need it—because we believe we can find power on our own.

“The story of our salvation stands radically over and against the philosophy of upward mobility. The great paradox which Scripture reveals to us is that real and total freedom is only found through downward mobility. The Word of God came down to us and lived among us as a slave. The divine way is indeed the downward way.”

Rather than using them as gifts given by God for his glory, I used them to gain more power.

I tried to self-will growth in my life and in the lives of others rather than abiding in the way of Christ. I was pursuing significance, influence, and position.

Success in a profession largely comes down to my work ethic, talent, and confidence, because success is defined by my productivity and power.

A vocation is a calling—a gift, a grace, and an invitation. My calling is not based on my résumé, my abilities, or my power. It is based solely upon the résumé, ability, and power of the One who calls me.

Just when I felt it was my time to make a name for myself, God invited me to hide.

We can cultivate relationships with the outsider, with the person who doesn’t think I’m important. So I think somehow we have to find ways to cultivate a sense of nobodyness.

The way of the dragon is fixated on the spectacular, obsessed with recognition and validation, intoxicated by fame and power. The way of the Lamb is committed to worship, pursues God in the ordinary, and is faithful in hiddenness. The dragon devours and dominates, while the Lamb humbly and sacrificially serves.

First, the way of the dragon . . . The pastor uses the church as a platform for personal fame, fortune, and influence.8 The pastor views ministry as an arena of performance, where some win and some lose. The pastor uses the people of the church as tools to accomplish their big dreams. The pastor relegates prayer and care, the heart of pastoral work, to “lower-level” staff because they don’t have time to waste. The pastor views other pastors primarily as competition.

Second, the way of the Lamb . . . The pastor gives their life for the sake of the church, regardless of what they gain. The pastor views ministry as an arena of love and service, not winning and losing. The pastor embraces their congregation as people to know and love, not tools to use for other ends. The pastor views prayer and care as the centerpiece of their work, rather than an interruption.

The pastor views other pastors not as competition, but as fellow shepherds on the journey whom they need for encouragement and wisdom, and wh...

more of a leader or a teacher. That’s not really my gifting.” But shepherding isn’t one option among many for the pastor. It is the heart of the vocation. The primary tasks of the pastor are not determined by personal interests or affinities. We can’t reduce the vocation to what excites us most or what we feel we excel in. The pastoral vocation is a call to embrace our weakness, not to actualize our abilities.

Jesus invites pastors into his way of shepherding. In his way, power is found in weakness, and power is expressed in love. We don’t shepherd faithfully by simply observing his behavior in the Gospels and trying our best to copy his act, but by participating in this way by the Holy Spirit.

We need to look for those who have embraced their weakness and depend upon God’s power. We need to look for those who sacrificially love.

power. A toxic leader is someone who maintains power and significance by manipulating followers through their own fundamental drive to be powerful and significant.

Power, ambition, jealousy, and pride are all bait for those who seek to influence the people of God.6

Leadership in the kingdom has always been servant leadership.

I’m sorry to say this, but much of what we call Christian is not a manifestation of the supernatural life of God in our

souls; much of what we call Christian is really just human.

It is a great temptation to put on a performance. By the way, this is one of the things that crushes pastors, the idea

that every Sunday they have to put on a performance.

Christ claims that without him we can do nothing. We want to win. Christ offers the cross. We want to do big things. Christ waits for us to be faithful with little things.

The goal is not generating a great and powerful ministry, but becoming weighty people who serve like Jesus.

Counterfeit wisdom is fast food for the soul. It is easy to find, cheap to get, and never fulfills its promise to satisfy you. We are all tempted by counterfeit wisdom.

Many of us seem ready for Jesus to save us, as long as this saving has little to do with how we engage everyday life. We are tempted to tack Jesus onto things we are doing, while at the same time we are desperately afraid that he will undermine them. We can try to use Jesus to obtain power, but we are often less interested in the cross he bears.

Therefore, there is no silver-bullet leadership strategy in the kingdom of God. There is only wisdom in love through abiding in Christ. This wisdom in love is by faith, and as such, it is an embrace of our weakness and Christ’s strength.

their divorce from the church isn’t the result of direct conflict or pain, but it’s a slow and undefined drift. These people remain committed to growing in Christ, and many, in fact, leave in order to do “big things for the kingdom.” The church just doesn’t seem necessary to accomplish their spiritual goals.

But the church is a different sort of venture, on a different sort of mission, with a different power system up and running. People reject the church because they have failed to grasp what it is.

This exemplifies the subtle temptation to turn the traditions of Christian practice into devices at our disposal—tools to make things happen.

rituals of the church are an essential means by which the church presents herself to the way, participates in the way, and ultimately proclaims the way.

This means that through our ongoing participation in the way of the cross, Christ is continuing to put to shame the powers and principalities of darkness. His work on the cross continues forward by the work of his Spirit through the cruciform church.

God rescued the Israelites not by creating an alternate route, but by calling them through the same body of water that would ultimately kill Pharaoh and his army. The Israelites had to journey through the water of death in order to journey toward the promised land.

Just as the Israelites passed through the water of death on their way toward the promised land, Christians enter the water of death in baptism that we “might walk in newness of life.”

Even in our praise we are called to participate in the way of the cross.

Whether in praise or lament, our worship of God in the wilderness is a proclamation of his power. We are the people who cry out to God in lament, praise, petition, joy, and fear from our hearts, that we might journey in truth with the God who has rescued us from death and leads us in life.

So we come to the Communion Table desperately in need of food and drink. We present ourselves to God as those who are weak. At the Communion Table we acknowledge that it is in Jesus’ death that we have life, and it is in weakness that we find power.

At the table, we all come equally; and at the table, the power structures of the world collapse. As much as we tend to reject this

idea, we do not come to this table only as individuals, but as members of a family, as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Communion is the meal of those who are enemies of the way from below; believers who trust in the bread from heaven rather than the bread of Egypt.

Having been saved from a land of sin and death, and now headed to the promised land, we too are in need of a Word from God. We need to hear from him.

The powers and principalities can manipulate any of the rituals of the church while we still practice them in the wilderness.

The sermon can be used to prop up the idol of personality, where the crucified Christ is not preached, but instead the pastor is glorified. Baptism can be used as a means of control and self-congratulatory growth for the church, where baptisms are tallied because they look nice on our ministry scorecard, and individual members bask in the feeling that big things are happening. We can sing songs, take Communion, and sit under beautiful preaching while harboring the world in our hearts. These aren’t just minor missteps in our style or approach, but debilitating distortions of the rituals of Christ’s family. Cross-shaped endeavors are not merely to be done, but to be done Jesus’ way.

First, we must be watchful over our own hearts.

Second, we must remain watchful over our particular community.

The church that does have eyes to see and ears to hear is the church that walks in the triumph of God.

Each Sunday we participate in an exodus of the soul: repenting of the worldliness within and walking through the wilderness into the ways of the kingdom.