John Burke
18 August, 2008 - About John Burke
Lead pastor at Gateway Community Church John Burke and his congregation are dedicated to helping un-churched people become a unified community of growing Christ-followers no matter what their background or past. He is the author of the book No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come-as-You-Are Culture. Burke is also the founder and president of the Emergent Leadership Initiative a collaboration of progressive like-minded churches partnering together to provide the foundation for a church planting movement aimed at reaching postmodern America.
"If we say we have no sin we are only fooling ourselves." (1 John 1:8 NLT)
It's fairly common for kids to pretend they are someone else. And it's acceptable if kids pretend because they are still forming their identities. But the goal is to learn to be yourself by the time you are an adult. Unfortunately few adults seem to be comfortable enough with themselves not to pretend.
Our generation longs for something authentic. They are searching for "the real thing" though they don't really know what "the real thing" is. Because this generation has endured so much "me-ism" and letdown from those they were supposed to follow and trust they want to see a genuine faith that works for less-than-perfect people before they are willing to trust. They want to know this God-thing is more than talk talk talk. They desperately want permission to be who they are with the hope of becoming more.
They aren't willing to pretend because hypocrisy repulses them. Most have yet to realize that every person is a hypocrite to some degree-the only question is whether we realize it and are honest about it.
It Starts with Authenticity
When we launched Gateway Community Church in 1998 the first service was enti
The religious leaders of Jesus' day were so focused on the traditions they had formed around the heart of God's message that they were neglecting the things most on God's heart.
That September morning in the delivery room of our new church I told our newborn congregation that these stories are a warning against inauthentic incongruent living. Jesus is basically saying Lose the religious pretense; it's destructive to authentic faith. Shed the mask of hypocrisy you hide behind. I want honest authentic people-not hypocrites who pretend to be something they're not. I asked the congregation a question at the end of the message: "Can we be this kind of a church? The kind where people don't have to pretend? Where we can be ourselves and stop pretending we're more or less than what we are right now? That's the only way we can help each other grow to be all God intended us to be. If we can't do this we're just playing church!"
Authenticity is hard work. It always works from the inside out. It begins with the inner life of the leader being authentic with God. It manifests itself in personal vulnerability before others as an intimate connection with God displaces the fear of transparency. This opens for others a view into an authentic spiritual life of a real human-not a religious salesperson. Finally it becomes em
