Simply Bizarre

This is simply bizarre. A church in Tampa, which calls itself Relevant Church (what, was Cool Church already taken?) has decided to put this challenge out to its members!

Here's my questions:
>> What about people who have past trauma involving sex, like rape or abuse? Is this going to minister to them?
>> What does this look like for the senior's ministry? Or the youth ministry?
>> Would you actually go to this church? How awkward would that be!



To me, this is clearly an attempt to spike web traffic. It's the same tricks youth ministry used 15 years ago, and now those youth ministers are "senior" pastors. It's classic bait and switch.

Dang...

To quote Brent (Corner Gas): "There's a new low."

Lent 10

Saturday's lent reading gives this quote, the author's prayer during a crises in vocation, education and calling,

"I cannot believe that you intend the best years of my life as a disciple of jesus Christ to be experienced between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one. I cannot accept that I have peaked in my experience of you and the church and that I am to spend the rest of my life going through the motions. I cannot accept this."

I really hate the way the worldly trait of youth worship has seeped into the church. High school is should only be the best years of your life if you are in high school. In the world, youth is worshipped as the thing we wish we all were. There are very few television shows with old heroes. I have heard people brag about high school sports endeavors ten years removed from high school - like they have been living memories for a decade. When does it stop?

In the church, we have also succumbed to this "memory living" as student ministries are living front edge of the gospel and many, many adults are content to ride their pew into eternity. As a leader, I really hope that we can figure out how to break through the numbness that so many churched adults live in and bring people back to that first love for Christ - that which they (at least 85% of them) first experienced as a teenager.

May we live more fully everyday.

Lent 9

Today Tim Keel talks about his expereinces in growing frustrated with being in youth ministry in a time when games where the most important part of the agenda and churched kids were entertained as much as possible in order to distract them from the evil (and fun) ways of the world.

Tim does what most young frustrated leaders do - seminary. Yet at seminary he experiences much of the same frustrations, as the institutions are forced to demand requirments that support the institution or else we'll dive into a version of Christianity that has deregulated leadership (and we all know what happens when we don't standardize...taking tongue out of check...).

Anyways - seminary is frustrating for most young leaders as their living in a holding pattern that seems to never end. I understand that and I think today's application would have to be to encourage some young leaders to act on their frustrations and put their energy to work in the kingdom of God - rather than just staying up late and complaining.

BE THE CHURCH!

Lent 4

When I was in high school my family was involved in starting a Saturday night service at our church. We were not following any models or had any idea what was going on other than we were full on Sunday mornings and Saturday night services were culturally acceptable because of the dominant Catholic influence in northern Ontario. My dad told stories. To the children officially, but anyone who has been in church with a decent story teller knows that the adults are all listening in, very interested.

Then our church spilt. It was so ugly it was funny. One of those 'God told us so you can't argue' deals.

In less than a year my dad went from storyteller to chair of the elder board. It was so beautiful it was funny. One of those 'what just happened?' deals.

After reading Intuitive Leadership tonight I thought of that history of mine and remarked to my invisible sidekick (a la Craig Ferguson) that, perhaps, it is genius to have great storytellers in leadership positions in a church. Mysteriously, storytellers have this quality of Jesus that many regular people do not have. The ability to transform communities through the telling of stories.

I wonder what would happen if, when considering people for leadership positions in the church, we considered their storytelling skills. What would happen if the key leaders were all storytellers?

To bring life with words.

Just like God.

Thank God for storytelling leaders.

Lent 3

Today I read the introduction of Tim Keel's Intuitive Leadership. I think one of the hardest part of this lent journal will be not reading ahead. It's a real discipline to refrain from reading books that I am interested in. Instead I need to spen my time reading my books for PESM, which I will be posting a bunch of my reading on here someday.

In teh introduction fo Keel's book he expressed the need in the postmodern world to go "beyond pragmatism." I think this is such a wonderful little package to express the massive shift happening in many churches. At Toccoa Falls, Doug White used to teach us that 'pragmatism is not the panacea.' This means that just becuase something works, does not mean it should be done. For a long time churches, especially evangelical churches have used pragmatism to justify practices that are harmful to the gospel. This is recognizable when people say, "Whatever it takes to get them in the door, right?" My answer is no. It's not alright to do whatever it takes to get them in the door. It's not.

That, I believe it one of the fundamental struggles for people engaging in ministry in a postmodern world. It's not about models and programs that work for me. Instead I would like to see what the real live gospel looks like lived in the context that I find myself in.

RCA Church Conference

Lent Blog

This year I am going to blog through my growth of lent. In our high school community called Driven (even though Marko says don't be Driven anymore...lol) we begin lent every year with an observation of Ash Wednesday. The students remark to me that they really like doing things that are tactile (not in those words) because it really helps them understand and experience truth, instead of just being taught about it. Each year on Ash Wednesday the seniors apply the ashes to all the other students and leaders while saying a blessing over them. It is such a powerful thing to see ninth grade students kneeling before a senior while they are receive the ashes. Perhaps even moreso when watching the adult leaders submit themselves to the seniors. For me, it's a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God, where no one is better than anyone else, we simply play the parts of God's story that he lets us.


So this year for lent I am going to be reading through a new book I bought with a Christmas gift card, Intuitive Leadership by Tim Keel. Tim is the founding pastor of Jacob's Well, an emerging church in Kansas City. Each day I am going to blog an interaction with what I read, or some other thoughts that are inspired by the little pieces (5-6) pages that I read.

Happy Lenting.

Leadership Tip

From Sam Chand on a Leadership Network podcast.

Your vision statement should be able to fit on a tee shirt. It should also be designed so that others can understand it.

And - about 10% of the church is there to bring you grief, pain and increase your prayer life. They are joy suckers. A key leadersh ip question is 'how many of these people can you handle?' (If you can handle 2,000 of them, then you can lead a 20,000 person church.)

Pastors are in constant pain. We play with pain, like a football player. There is a high cost to be where we are at and to do what we do. This is often overlooked for people looking from the outside. This is why healthy pastoring is so important.

Also - these are really important questions, but it doesn't matter to joe visitor to your church on a Sunday. Which makes them hard to spend time on.

Church Architecture

Since I can't spell the title word I know I'm going to get a bunch of hits from people who can't spell either. So, welcome. I just thought I'd post this picture.

You can see more at Cool Hunter.

Chickified Church Dudes

Bennett, Intentional Disciplemaking

So, I was required to read Bennett's Intentioal Disciplemaking for this year's mentoring course at PESM. It was okay, kind of a holiness adaptation of Coleman's Master Plan, which I suggest you memorize.

I'm not going to give any quotes except this one:

"Spiritual generations are God's strategy for reaching the world. Any plan that ignores the natural process of parenting through successive generations is doomed to fail because it cirumvents God's design for maturity. Furthermore, failure to pass on the truths of the faith to another generation is a mark of immaturity in the church." (29)

As a pastor to young people I could not agree more. If the church is not willing to pass the faith on to younger generations it anathematizes itself. This, I believe, will be the mark of the boomer generation on the western church. Boomers are the first generation of Christians who have thought it was their right to have the kind of church that they desired. For me, this isn't a blame issue as much as it is a heart issue. The boomers, who usually don't listen to those younger than themselves, need to hear the prophetic calling of the young. The young people in America today are desperately searching for God - and can't find enough Christian adults to help them find Him.

Mike King has also blogged on this, after a recent research study showed

"that most Christian adults strongly agree that their own faith development was shaped by adults in their lives during their youth. And yet, less than half of this same group believes that they have a responsibility to nurture the emerging generation of Christian young people."

How can this be? How can the current adult generation allow themselves to fade into history letting themselves be known as the generation who thought passing on the faith was important - BUT DIDN'T DO IT!

Right next to my door I have a two-page article called "That Sucking Sound you Hear" by Tim Elmore. I frequently use materials from Tim's organization, Growing Leaders, to train young people. I reccommend you read it in order to understand why we are in the hole that we are in, and Tim's suggested ways out. I keep the article next to my door so that every time I leave my office I remember the current task of church leaders and I remember to fight to stop the sucking.

The emerging generation is rocking about 4% adhereance to evangelical Christianity. I don't blame them for even a second. Instead I get them excited about the opportunity to ignite a revival among their generation - the generation that isn't getting this whole faith just handed to them. God loves to use generations to fulfill his mission; thankfully, He doesn't depend on them.

Postmodern Christians?

How can you be postmodern and be a Christian?

Short answer...you can't. Long answer...you can't not.

There are some tenets of postmodernism that simply run contrary to the gospel. The biggest of these is what is known as the death of the metanarrative. The metanarrative is the one over-arching story which gives meaning to all humanity. For Christians, this story is the gospel, as recorded in the Bible. For a person to say that there are many stories which give meaning to all humanity they would need to deny historical orthodoxy. The story does have many expressions, but there is only on mediator between God and man, His Son, Jesus Christ.

Sidebar: it is just as easy to find problems with a modernist worldview that would make it impossible to be a modern christian. i won't argue those here because this part of the discussion is useless beyond preamble in this context.

At the same time, however, there are several characteristics of postmodernism that Christians can embrace. George Cladis, in his book, Leading the Team Based Church (an obscure resource for postmodern thought...) gives 9 characteristics of postmodernism that Christians can embrace, and, perhaps, become thereby more effective. I will interact with these here:

1. Creation is an organism rather than a machine: In the modern era there has been a lot of effort put into controlling nature. It's exciting to us that we can predict earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes. It's even more exciting that we are developing scientific means by which we can eliminate these natural disasters, or at least make them happen in ways and places that are less destructive to our societies. We wanted to set up a hierarchy where nature was under man and at mankind's disposal. In postmodernism, nature is seen in a relational way. The reason that those natural occurrences are disasters must have something to do with our relationships with nature. Putting New Orleans below sea level was an economic decision - it was worth the risk for the monetary benefit. The levees were built so more sea faring vessels could port there and it became a disaster when they didn't work. Could it be that the natural disaster is really the way that we have let things other than relationships dictate our involvement with the natural world? This is an advantage of postmodern thought.

2. Hierarchical structures are reduced: In a postmodern culture there is a lot of value in innovation. New discoveries excite people. In a church that is stuck in hierarchy, all the new ideas are the ones thought of, or approved by, the highest level of leadership. Thus, innovation is stifled. Further, hierarchical structures deny the gospel as they resist the greatest becoming the least and the highest serving the lowest. In short...hierarchy can quickly kill the gospel; the gospel is flat.

3. Authority is based on trust: Remarkably, years and years of education do not make better pastors. I love that we think this is a new discovery! Look at the disciples, they were not the most highly educated folks - but they had massive amounts of authority in the beginning to the early church (and still do today). I really don't care what position you hold, I'm not following you if I don't trust you. I want leaders that lead from their hearts, not from their degrees and training. I want leaders who lead from their convictions, not from the latest business or leadership book they've written. Tell me the truth, show me empathy, expose the kinks in your armor or else you'll find your leading nobody to a land that no longer exists.

4. Effective Leadership is Visionary: In the modern world managers motivate through job descritpions and threats with a paycheck. There was a position description and units of production were delineated, with monetary rewards and consequences. In the postmodern world money is not enough and threats are poor motivation. Motivation must come from vision and heart potential. Leaders must help people see the importance of their work. Church leaders, then, must respond to the prophetic voice that God has placed within them and cast a vision of the future that is hopeful (and therefore attractive) and help people contribute towards that vision.

5. Life and work are spiritually rooted: In the modern world, your life was what happened outside of work. Today, in the age of Ralph Nader and Coupland's J-pod and Microserfs work is your life. In the same way, a job is no longer secular and life is sacred; rather, all becomes spiritual and people seek the sacred. I don't think argument is even required here. Instead, I think Christians in postmodernity have opportunities for christian spirituality in the workplace. Discussion groups, lunch gatherings, book groups are all effective ways to engage the spiritual people around you. People want God...if you know where he is you could at least share that information!

6. Structures are smaller; networks are bigger: While some would think that this shows the leftist tendencies of postmodernism, I think, again, it's more of a small business/organization leadership principle. A great example of this takes place in the youth ministry here at SACC. Over the past couple years we have employed former prostitutes in Calcutta, sent $17,000 to fight world hunger, bought 3 goats and 24 chickens for a family in Peru, freed fetish slaves in Ghana, brought joy to a soldier in Iraq and got active in Compton (including 22 salivations), Pasadena, New Orleans, Vancouver and San Francisco. We are a regular old youth ministry in Albany that has a network that extends our influence worldwide while remaining very lean, organizationally, here.

Further, postmoderns have a general distrust of bureaucracies and favor extremely broad networks. This is influencing the way denominations have to operate. There is less and less volunteer submission to denominational authorities because they 'don't know us.' This is even evident, I believe, in a local mega-church pastor's public comments that his church no longer 'needs' the denomination. While this pastor cries out the evils of postmodernism, he reveals his own temptations against denominational leaderhsip, revealing a postmodern influence in his own life.

7. Innovation is rewarded: The best ideas come from the trenches. A general in an air-conditioned office has no idea about the efficiency of a shovel. In the postmodern world, the general who knows how to listen and adapt will be the most effective. We no longer need people to convince us of the vision, we need leaders who can detect the vision put within the priesthood of the believers, and call it out for us. we need leaders who can name the vision that we already have!

This is especially interesting to me considering the emergent church. In the past success or failure has been based on church survivorship, or, even better, growth. That was when we all were asking, "What does church look like?" Now, at least in my denomination, leaders are wanting to ask, "What could church look like?" The problem comes, however when the two questions are answered with the same metrics. In the former question we value success, perfection, achievement of a model. In the latter, we value, exploration, experimentation and have to live with the reality of a failed experiment. If Edison were trying to invent a light bulb in the modern church his program would have been shut down after so many failures. In the postmodern church, his explorations would have been celebrated regardless of success.

8. Work follows gifts, and gifts are used collaboratively: In the modern world the work of Christianity was done out of a sense of duty and obligation. Today, we have an opportunity to enable people to consider their gifts and talents and help them to find themselves contributing to the gospel in ways that they can see God using them best. No longer do we need to enlist megapeople to a megaprogram. In a relational network era, we can avoid needing people to fill spots and instead create ministries that match people.

9. Mainline church domination has ended: This is one effect of the seeker-sensitive/purpose driven model. While those are great in and of themselves, they have widely been received as the only way to 'do' church (Even the fact that we have a saying like 'do church' is alarming). Further, this is a wild westernization of postmodern theory. Mainline churches are now historical centers all over Europe and we are quickly heading the same way in the new world. I think this is wildly sad because it is happening for, I perceive, two reasons. First, mainline loyalty is over and done with. If I were to move to another city, I would not ask, "Where is there a ________ church?" I would, instead, ask, "Where is there a meaningful church?" People are no longer dividing themselves theologically and denominations are just not getting this as they continue to argue over there distinctives. Secondly, this is happening because of what sociologists call the circulation of the saints. Churches with older people and older leadership are having a killer time relating to the young and so the young are leaving to go to the church that has meaning for them. Yet, nobody is calling out these young people for being lazy. I will! I think the mainline church (heck any stagnant church) can grow if the young people roll up their sleeves and do the work that it will take to turn the tide. I desperately pray that the young will stop letting the boomers do all the work for them and that they would act like the church of today. Youth pastors always say that the youth are the church of today, not just tomorrow. I say that if the church of today (youth) don't start taking responsibility and involving themselves then they will quickly turn into the church of nothing happening. If you are a young person stop being so satisfied with your life - CHANGE EVERYTHING!! Today the postmoderns are crying for collaborative leadership - mainline denominations are best equipped with old folks with resources to make this happen.


May God be faithful!

Addendum: This post took me two weeks to write. Comment!!

Podcasting

Up until now Kainos has largely been an underground alt worship community - we have had no advertising of any kind. At least in part because we wanted to see what happenned...

Now, this is going to be our first wave of advertising and generating buzz. I think I am breaking the first rule of buzz creation, since I just told you what I was doing....but if you know a principle and knowingly violate it, that's not breaking the rules, that's good tactics. I learned that watching the Unit last night.

Each week Jason, our resident guru of digitailia, produces a podcast on itunes. If you have itunes you can search in podcasts for Kainos, or you can go to Kainos' website and subscribe there. If you don't have itunes, then you can just go to the website, or via the title link, and listen to a feed in internet explorere there.

Thanks y'all - hope you like it. Comment if you do, comment if you have any problems...

Worship Journal 5

I’ve been reading the Tozer book. He sure has some strong things to say about worship. It’s kind of interesting to see someone saying the things he said, back when he said them. I appreciate his assessment of the leaders of the church and a consideration of their influence in leadership according to their passion in prayer and worship. I hate when church leaders pray and it lacks any passion.

Someone also mentioned to me this week that he sees a lot of children worship happening in our culture. I thought he was right on with that thought. A lot of people with kids are worshipping (ordering their lives to ascribe supreme worth) to their children. I wonder how Tozer would speak into this phenomenon. I’d love to see his reaction to hearing that a church is family-centered instead of Christ-centered!!

Planting Missional Churches 3

The third chapter of Stetzer's book is the token chapter on biblical basis. These chapters in every textbook drive me crazy. It's like every person has a biblical basis for their own slant on whatever. It's like treating the Bible like a horoscope.

That being said, this chapter isn't horrible, but it's not the kind of subject matter you wake your wife up to discuss. Here's some quotes of interest:

p.38 "Until the late eighteenth century, most Protestant Christians believed that Jesus' commisions applied only to those disciples who actually heard his words."

VOTE!

Mars Hill Church in Seattle is putting their sermon topic selection in the hands of bloggers in pajamas. You can vote up to 10 times per day and get a question put into the series.

Of course, I put one in and would love to have some of your votes!

See my question here

Let's see what we can do!!

Planting Missional Churches 2

Chapter 2 of Stetzer's book is on Redeveloping a Missional Mind-set for North America. I loved it from the get-go because he admitted that there is a great big country right about USAmerica. The one that most consumer oriented Christian writers ignore because there's just not enough Christians there to support the Christian merchandise machine. Not that that's a sore point with me...

The chapter begins with some horrible math and misuse of statistices (as do most) but then settles down into a valid assessment of the influence of madern rationalism on Christianity in the western world. To the point that, in my estimation, Modern Western Christianity has become more modern and western than it is Christian.

Here's some great quotes:

p.19 "The end of Christendom allows the church to recognize that the gospel is distinct from Western culture."

p.22 "Instead of engaging in missional thinking, churches tend to fall back on one of two positions...an appeal to tradition of an appeal to technique. Neither is the response of a missional congregation."

p.24 "The church absorbed in technique is convinced that it's missional - that it's techniques actually are actually expressions of misison, while they are actually methods that replace missional thinking."

p.29 "Most church planters start the church in their head and not in their community."

A great and accuarate warning for the western church that pastors must put some thought to.

Everything is Spiritual

So, Rob Bell has just released the website for his everything is spiritual tour. That's the one where the lady from zondervan told me I could just go down to Los Angeles to see him, that'd be my closest venue (Great west coast geography...). Hi snew tour, The Gods Aren't Angry is coming to Portland (much, much closer) but would cost me $45 to take my wife. I'm sure it goes to a good cause, but it's just not gonna happen, especially in a blog world. Last week I got to learn from Len Sweet and he talked about how people are going to pay for content less and less - what they'll pay for is a relationship. That's exactly why I don't need to pay $45 to hear something first hand - I can get info for free from blogs!

!Viva la revolucion!

2 clappings songs, no handshakes

Worship Evangelism

I really love Sally Morganthaller (sp?). I've always had a funny feeling about her contending for worship evangelism. Her book was put into much practice in the youth ministry I now lead, and "successfully" so (quotes indicate success according to formerly chosen metrics, of which I disagree).






She now has gotten out of the worship industry and published a really wild article through a little ministry in Idaho. Here's a taste:

No sad songs. No angry songs. Songs about desperation, but none about despair. Worship for the perfect. The already arrived. The good-looking, inoffensive, and nice. No wonder the unchurched aren't interested.

Read the rest here.