The Strategically Small Church: Small is the new Mega

Less than 1% of the total number of churches in the U.S. are what are considered mega-churches, yet in book after book, conference after conference, it is those churches and their leaders who are setting the agenda and the criteria for what constitutes success in ministry.

It can be disheartening for smaller churches faced with the impossible task of trying to keep up when the larger ‘successes’ seem to dictate the programming one needs to have, and even the language used to discuss it.

Brandon J. Obrien, an editor at large for Leadership magazine is figuratively spitting into the wind of conventional wisdom with his new book, The Strategically Small Church.

…If we could just silence the experts for a few hours, we might have the time and imagination to begin thinking about our ministries in a new way.  (p. 156)

He gives example after example of small(er) churches which are able to excel in areas such as authenticity, flexibility, training and equipping; not to mention the growing awareness that new priority needs to be placed on inter-generational ministry, something small churches do well.

But probably his best illustration is one of the two only non-church oriented ones he uses: The example of a small west coast newspaper who are gaining readers at a time that print newspaper readership is in rapid decline by simply refusing to publish anything unless their ‘take’ on the story is unique or nobody else is covering it.

This provides a metaphor for how he perceives American churches are tripping over themselves trying to duplicate services, because the perception is that these programs (and, one assumes, attendant staff members) are the measure of success in ministry.

As I finished the book this morning, I couldn’t help but think of next week’s Catalyst Conference in Atlanta.   A quick look at the list of speakers who come from the world of vocational pastoral ministry bears out O’Brien’s hypotheses.   All of the primary speakers represent the largest U.S. churches, and the same is true for tw0-thirds of the breakout group speakers.

An inspiring group of key speakers?   I’m sure they are, but how do you take what you’ve heard and apply it when you’re back home in your church of 100 members?

O’Brien also — and I wish he had fleshed this out a little more — hints that the mega-church pastors and leaders know that the current model has its flaws.     While some things, like worship and drama, happen with great efficiency and excellence in the larger congregations, the lack of inter-generational contact may signal some long-term problems for those who have never learned to integrate with the larger body.

Though it’s not in the text, I love these words from the back cover blurb:  “Blessed are the small.”    Indeed.

The Strategically Small Church is published by Bethany House; 168 pages; $15.99 U.S.

Other excerpts from the book on my other blogs:

Comparing the small church to the small retail store versus the giant big-box store at Christian Book Shop Talk.  (Brandon’s other non-church metaphor.)

A quotation from Bonhoeffer on the pressures placed on the church by “big vision” leaders at Christianity 201.  (Not limited to big church pastors, but also including those with big church aspirations.)

Wednesday Link List

Another mid-week pause to look at some reading I did this week.

• Our upper and lower comic selections this week are some Christian themes found at the daily newspaper comic, Pardon My Planet.  (Click the individual images…)
  
• Here’s a controversial youth ministry concept:  Killing off the youth group as a separate entity within the larger church.   Links to video.
  
• In the wake of the whole Glenn Beck thing, Parchment and Pen dusts off the classic question, Are Mormons Christians?
• Even back in Augustine’s day, the church wrestled with the issue of celebrity conversions, and you may be surprised by his conclusion.
• Here’s a trade review (for bookstore people) of a little 300-word title for kids and parents titled Our Home is Like a Little Church, a local-church publishing project that got picked up for national distribution.
  
• If you found late-night TV Bible teacher Gene Scott quirky, you’re gonna see a similarity in these video clips from corporal punishment advocate Mike Pearl.
• Another HT to Zach at Vitamin Z:  What constitutes “regular” church attendance?   This is a real issue both for families and for church leaders.    Here’s a comment from a pastor at one of Mark Driscoll’s satellite campuses.
• Speaking of Mr. D., here’s a sometimes heated 12-minute discussion between him, Mark Dever and James MacDonald on the whole wisdom of multi-site churches.
• Zac Hicks looks at the lack of spiritual warfare themes in modern worship in a piece on Why the Devil Hates “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”
• Pete Wilson introduces Stephanie, who is willing to step out and share her story in a five-minute video, highlighting how so many of us have a need for approval.
  
• On the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of RZIM, Ravi Zacharias appoints Rick Pease as the new president of the apologetics ministry organization.   Link opens direct to an mp3 file of their radio broadcast.
  
• Yes, as a matter of fact some people have updated Bishop Eddie Long’s Wikipedia page.
  
• Was it atheists and agnostics or Evangelicals who scored the highest on the ABC News response to the Pew Forum religious knowledge test?  Watch the video or read the story.
  

The Tranquility Prayer: Spiritual Wisdom from Planet Trid

A re-post from September of last year…

It was a dream that I woke from remembering it vividly.

I was living on Planet Trid, very similar to ours in many ways. I was an activist, an angry activist pushing for every type of change, from major social change to why the clothing store never stocked enough of the statistically verifiable most common sizes.

I wrote letters. I left messages. And they even had blogging on Trid, and not to be outdone, I had a dozen of them; venting each day on a variety of topics that were the target of my latest frustration. I would be attacking the government for a flaw in its tax plan on blog one, while on blog two chastising a local restaurant for having seating capacity for 200 but only a dozen parking spaces.

Ranting had become a lifestyle. It was hard to change this pattern because, for one thing, I was always right. Not that everybody else was dead wrong, they just didn’t have my wisdom. How could I see these anomalies, I could I know so many better ways of doing things, and how could I be aware of so much injustice without commenting?

Then some of the Tridians came to me and had the nerve to suggest that it was I who wasn’t getting it.

“Nonsense;” I replied; “Yes, some things are good; but some could be better; others are on the threshold of being great. What’s wrong with a little concrete criticism? What’s wrong with a little objective commentary?”

“We have a something here;” the Tridians informed me; “It’s called The Tranquility Prayer, and it goes like this:

“God give me the peace and tranquility to realize that I can’t reform or renovate everything; the insight into those situations and structures that are actually pliable; and the discernment to know which is which.”

I paused and thought about the wisdom that one sentence contained. You can’t fix everything; certainly not all at once. And where I came from, only one man ever lived about whom it might be said he truly, totally revolutionized the world.

It was time to relax and experience the tranquility about which the Tridians spoke instead of trying to force my suggestions or my agenda on their lifestyle.  Their little one-sentence saying had much wisdom.

“Alright then;” I said; “We need to get that sentence on some plaques, and maybe some posters and bookmarks and greetings cards, and then after that we need to…”

---

^{(NIV) Phil 4:11} I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹²I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

Top 98 Blogs: Somebody’s Idea of “Best” Isn’t Mine

I suppose if you want to draw a lot of traffic to your blog, all you have to do is notify a number of the hottest blogs that they have been “selected” to appear on a list of the Top 98 Christian Blogs, and then watch as they mention your site and engage the question; Why 98 and not 100?

That’s what the people at Christian Counseling Degree did — nope, it’s not going to be linked here; they’re getting enough traffic — last week.   I’ve actually seen their list before, and I’m not 100% sure that they even bothered to do an update.

John Saddington wrote:

We’ve written a few times about lists like these and how it’s pretty subjective at times. We’ve come to the conclusion is that, in general, our audience is mature enough to handle these types of lists and see them for what they are: Lists.

To save you some time looking…

• A couple of these blogs have totally lost their way in terms of faith focus… they’re great blogs and they’re written by Christians, but the similarity between them and the rest of the list ends there
• A couple of them haven’t posted anything new in six months; instead of being “top” blogs, I would call them “dormant” blogs.
• The list is very strongly biased toward blogs with a bent toward Reformed theology; it doesn’t stand up to the test of being a true list of the top Christian blogs, because Christianity is so much wider than a single denomination.

Okay, so now you’re curious.   Fine.  Go ahead and read the list, but read it at John’s Church Crunch blog.   I still refuse to give in.

When you have a minute, check out this blog’s blogroll.  There’s a site section called “Oh, Oh, The Places You’ll Go;” which is a mixture of various websites;  but then further down the page is a list of just blogs called “A Sampling of My Weekly Blog Stops.”   If you hover your mouse over each one, you’ll see that some of them comprise a wide range of doctrinal perspectives, including a Quaker, Charismatic, Catholic, Wesleyan; and writers in the U.K., Australia, South Africa supplementing the usual suspects in Canada and the U.S.

Recommendations are welcomed — I’ll bookmark them and follow them for a few weeks — and if you find a dormant blog on the list, let me know.   (I know one of the cartoon blogs fits that category, but his perspective was unusual and I’m hoping he’ll be back.)

BONUS ITEM:

The list Kent Shaffer posts annually is also a little skewed doctrinally — perhaps Calvinists just blog all day while the rest of me is out saving the world — but is much more scientific.   Click the image below to see the entire list.

RELATED POSTS:

The above reference to Reformers reminded me about another group that does a lot of talking, Christian academics.   Here’s my concerns with that group, as expressed in January, 2009.

The predominance of Reformers and “New” Calvinists in the Christian blogosphere may represent the kind of necessity that exists when you’re spearheading a change in direction or starting a new movement.   I see that happening in so many ways, as I wrote just a month ago, in August, 2010.

Frontline Ministry

I was going to just casually include this in one of the Wednesday link lists here, but I realized it needed a longer setup.

Tony Miano has a blog, The Lawman Chronicles, which gets its name from the years Tony spent in law enforcement, which I’ve been reading for a long time.   He does a lot of street preaching, and seems to strongly subscribe to the Ray Comfort school of evangelism, sometimes referred to as “The Law and The Gospel” approach to what is termed “soul winning.”

Now right away, I know there are people reading this who I have immediately alienated because that whole methodology is about 180-degrees different from what you believe in.   But you know, I think you need to give the dozen or so minutes it takes to watch the related video because I think we all need to see ministry on the frontlines.

I’m not doing this blog post today because I necessarily agree that this is the best approach, or that everybody should be called to evangelism, or that other methodologies are not as good.   Nor do I do this solely so that we can sit on the sidelines and critique the process like Statler and Waldorf, the two guys in the upper balcony on The Muppet Show.

I admire guys like Tony.   They are doing something, something they believe in with great passion, while other people are doing nothing.   In fact, I would want to disqualify anyone from commenting on this unless they have shared a verbal witness with at least one person in the past fortnight.

Of course, where we might differ is what constitutes “sharing a verbal witness.”    For some, like William Booth, that meant putting a uniform to distinguish himself from the surrounding culture; to take his turf with him so that everyone was meeting him on his turf.    Then, a step or two down from that type of identification there are contemporary street preachers like Tony.   And then there’s people who prefer “witness lite.”

The trouble with “witness lite” is that it’s often neither Biblio-centric or Christo-centric.    It neither draws directly on the source (the Word) nor the object (the Savior) of its intent.

I don’t necessarily agree with “The Law and the Gospel” approach as an all-purpose template.   It seems very formulaic.   Eric, the guy in the video in this link, is coming from a Roman Catholic background, and I think there are ways of identifying and connecting with that personal history and ‘tweaking’ the approach accordingly.

But again, if you’re reading this and you’re not doing anything, you’ve got to have something to fall back on.   The “Roman Road;” the “Four Spiritual Laws;” the “Bridge Illustration;” etc., are all examples of materials you want to always have, at least figuratively, in your back pocket.  Scripture tells us to always be prepared to give a response for the hope that we have.

I also realize that someone will want to note that the video linked here documents a somewhat artificial example of one-to-one street ministry, since Eric was fully aware of the camera; fully aware that he was being filmed.   I thought about that in the first three or four minutes, but I’m not sure it really distorted or affected his responses.   I do question the presence of cameras on this type of outing, though I suppose if this serves as a model for others, it has some validity.

It doesn’t always though.   Some of the other videos of this ilk include some rather tense exchanges involving street preaching to larger crowds.   Occasionally, someone versed in less confrontational approaches will question whether or not this more traditional approach conveys Christian love and compassion.    Sadly, it’s at that point some polarization takes place with the street preachers suggesting the post-modern Christians are “false converts.”

Knowing many genuinely-converted, Spirit-indwelled Christ-followers on both sides of this divide, I can say honestly that at this point it becomes a battle that nobody will win.    The “Law and Gospel” people feel that more modern approaches neither produce an acknowledgment of sin nor do they convey the essence of the hope of the gospel.    The new “Missional” believers are committed to outreach, but know too many statistics proving that guilt and fear produce short-term decisions but not long-term disciples; and showing that many a hasty conversion just doesn’t ‘stick’ over time.

What is the solution?

I don’t believe in formulas or templates.   I believe you should know a basic plan for conveying the essence of the following: (a) that we are sinners in need of forgiveness; (b) that such forgiveness is offered in Christ’s work on Calvary; and (c) how a person avails themselves of this forgiveness and moves, as the older Bibles put it, “from death to life.”   But it should be unique to your personality and flexible to the situation you’re in.   Jesus healed one blind man in an instant, but with another, it was a more tentative, two-step process.

But not everybody has the gift of “closing the sale.”   You may be a major influence in someone’s life, but it may be God’s choice that someone else is the chosen instrument to help that person “cross the line of faith.”   Bill Hybels devotes a chapter — and a moving example — to this in Just Walk Across The Room; and Mark Mittelberg and Lee Strobel bring no less than 42 different examples of varying forms of witness in The Unexpected Adventure.

My bias is a little toward Hybels, Strobel and Mittelberg; but I raise this whole topic today because I think you’ve really got to watch the video and look at the other things people are doing; not to armchair quarterback their approach or critique them, but to allow it to inspire you to do more.

The video in question is linked here at Tony’s blog, and also embedded in the comments section of this very post.   But if you link to Tony’s blog, take some time to click over to other posts and get a feel for what he is doing, because the major take-away from all this is that he is, in fact, doing.

You can also click through from the video itself (see comments) or from this direct video link to more than two dozen other videos the group that filmed this have posted at YouTube.

Related post on this blog:  Considering Deborah Drapper (May 15, 2009)

Post-War Missional Christians

So let’s pretend that you go to a megachurch in a large urban area.   Oh wait, that’s not a ‘pretend’ for many of you.   Now let’s pretend that your church is one of the really “hot” churches in town; you’ve got a great children’s, youth and college and career program, and nobody would consider missing a Sunday service if at all possible.

But let’s pretend that if you were to take a drive and head about an hour — at least an hour — out of town,  where there were people in a small town or village who simply didn’t have the same exposure to an urban church like yours.   And let’s pretend that you took some other people with you, and also took some of the passion and excitement you had about your faith.

Maybe your end product would look different than the kind of “road show” that the man pictured at left was part of.   Russell Wilkinson lived in a different era to be sure, but his weekly trips to the little town of Mount Albert were no small adventure.  It was a long, long drive northeast from the city of Toronto; especially on the rare occasions where they picked up children and teens there, drove them to a special service in Toronto, drove them home to Mount Albert and then drove back again.   In a post-war time before freeways or even good roads.

I like that they (a) identified a group of people who were unable to connect with the church ministry programs going on in the city, and (b) did something about it.   The term “missional” may not have existed back then, but this was classic “missional” thinking.    I am sure that their willingness to do this also had some measurable impact on the parents of the youth they got to know.

They didn’t just absorb all the great music and teaching that went on at their big-city church, but they shared the gospel of Jesus Christ out of the overflow of all they had received.

I still have the trumpet in the picture.   Until today, I’ve always thought of it as a musical instrument, but it was an instrument of ministry, too.

What are you doing this fall to connect people with Jesus?

Perry Noble’s Top Ten Personal Growth Questions

This blog mixes original and reprint items.   Often my head is filled with several days worth of post ideas, and then on other weeks, I sometimes find myself “mining” the Alltop Christianity pages in search of something that is of lasting value.   Something a little less “wood, hay and stubble” and a little more “gold, silver and precious stones.”    This piece from Perry Noble definitely meets that criterion.

#1 – Am I reading my Bible for information or transformation?  (James 1:22-25)

#2 – Am I allowing people or circumstances to steal the joy that Jesus promised to me?  (John 10:10)

#3 – Is there anything in my life that God is consistently dealing with that I am trying to ignore?  (Ezekiel 14:1-5)

#4 – Who are the people in my life that God has placed around me for the purpose of me sharing Christ with them and/or inviting them to church?  (II Corinthians 5:16-21)

#5 – Is there anyone I need to apologize to?  (Ephesians 4:25:27)

#6 – Is there anyone I need to forgive? (Ephesians 4:32)

#7 – Is there a sin I need to confess to others and ask for help? (James 5:16)

#8 – Am I fully utilizing the gifts and abilities that God has blessed me with…or am I simply choosing to waste my life?  (I Peter 4:10)

#9 – Do I know more lines from the movies [or popular songs] that I love than verse from the Bible that I read? (Psalm 119:11)

#10 – Is there anything going on in my life privately that, if it became public, would cause me and/or the body of Christ to be embarrassed? (I John 1:9, James 5:16)

The Congregation as Seen by the Worship Leader

This is something my wife came up with a few days ago.   Have you ever wondered what the congregation looks like when you’re standing at the front leading?   Fortunately, the ones you notice most are people really entering into worship; but if you look more carefully, it probably looks like this:

Wednesday Link List

The links are back!   Here are some highlights of my past seven days online…

• The upper picture is another classic entry from the classic photo site, Shorpy.com; which I’ve mildly colorized.    It’s an auditorium in Ocean City, NJ set up for a revival meeting sometime in the time period 1900 – 1910.   Click here or  on the image all the way through for a full size image.  (It’s my computer desktop this week!)
• Donald Miller explains why, for now, the movie based on the Thomas Nelson book Blue Like Jazz isn’t happening.
• Elsewhere in film production, City on a Hill, the people who brought you the Alpha-Course-alternative known as H20 have brought Kyle Idleman back to host  a new series titled Not a Fan.
• Bill Mounce wades into the subject of accuracy in Bible translations in the first of a weekly series.
  
• Randy Morgan gives you an inside peek into the world of pastors, and how and why the whole guest speaker thing occasionally happens.
• Okay, that fun, but maybe it was a little superficial; so do this instead:  Click on Randy’s home page, and scroll back to September 13th and then check out his five-part series on his visit to the local AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) chapter.   Long, but worth it, especially if you have family or personal history with AA.
• 

  Link list links

  Preparing for the upcoming Eighth Letter conference in Toronto, Matt at the blog, The Church of No People, delivers his pressing message for the church in North America.

• It’s 7-pages long, but Christianity Today gets into depth on the church’s relationship with sex offenders.
• CNN boldly goes into a full scientific explanation for what happened when Moses parted the Red Sea.
• A repost of a classic poem asks the question What would He say, if He should come today?    Also at Christianity 201, the Love Chapter from I Corinthians rewritten for kids; and something borrowed from David Hayward, aka Naked Pastor.
  
• Following in the tradition of Russell D. Moore — who this week deals with a tough dilemma — and inspired by the Desiring God video series, Randy Alcorn is inviting questions at Ask Randy; but the deadline is today, Wednesday the 22nd.
  
• Zach at Take Your Vitamin Z linked this week to this New York Times article which is self explanatory:  Deciding Not To Screen for Down Syndrome.
  
• Seen something online you think should be here next week?   Try to get to me by noon on Tuesday.
  
• Well…choosing a cartoon for this week’s list was no contest after Abraham Piper reminded all of us of this classic:  Solomon’s ideal woman as reflected in Song of Solomon interpreted literally; just as it appeared all those years ago at The Wittenburg Door.

What Practicing Spiritual Disciplines Has in Common With Practicing the Piano

An excellent post today from Chaplain Mike over at the Internet Monk blog:

Let’s say I’m in a room with three adults, all seated at pianos. I want to find out their ability to play the instrument. I ask them all to play “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” The first has trouble. The keyboard is unfamiliar. She stumbles around and finally finds a few notes that resemble the simple tune. The second and third pick out the notes right away.

Then I ask them to play a four-part hymn from a hymnal. I hand each the same book. Once again, the first struggles, stopping with each chord and passing note to look at her hands, then back up at the music. She finally gives up. The second plays the notes as written. The third also plays the tune, but enhances the hymn with additional chords and rhythmic patterns.

Finally, I turn to these three friends and say, “OK, for your final challenge, I would like to hear you play Bach’s “Goldberg Variations.” The first laughs. She barely knows who Bach is, and has never heard of this particular piece. The second has heard of it, but has no idea how to play it. The third pauses, sets her hands on the keyboard, and begins playing the opening aria.

All three of these friends have a relationship with the piano. One is an obvious beginner, still trying to grasp the basics. The second is a competent pianist. She can read music and play from a book. The third is much farther advanced. There is no hesitation about picking out simple tunes. Not only can she read and play from a score, she has the ability to improvise and explore a song’s possibilities. And she has obviously studied and mastered classic pieces of the repertoire. In fact, she can play complex works on the spot, upon request! They all “know” the piano. Only one has the capacity to make music at any given moment, solely from the resources that lie within her.

The goal of spiritual formation is to be a person that would do what Jesus would do, say what Jesus would say, think and feel what Jesus would think and feel, at the moment when it is required—the moment of crisis or need or opportunity. As Dallas Willard so helpfully reminds us, the question “What would Jesus do?” is not enough. Instead, we must be driven beyond that query to ask, “Why would Jesus do what he would do?” and, “How can I live and walk in relationship with God as Jesus did, so that I too might do as he would?”“

…you’re a third of the way through the article…don’t stop now…keep reading…

In Canada, The Mission Field Starts at Home

I’m kinda off schedule today and this post, and possibly tomorrow’s, are a little late appearing.

Part of this is due to a two hour conversation I had last night with the man who hired me for the only local church position I have ever held.  (All my other jobs have been with parachurch organizations, or related to Christian publishing.)  It was the first time in about two years we’ve talked; probably the longest stretch we’ve had without contact.

I have more take-aways from that call — my former boss is very knowledgeable on church-related things — than I list here, but one thing that struck me is how fragile the local church is in Canada.    A consequence of this is that because things are so tenuous here, there are very great disparities between regions, even within the same province.  And the French-language church in Quebec is a story unto itself with many different dynamics.

I’ve long known about the Canadian “Bible Belt” in Western Canada, and a mini-version of it in Western Ontario; but I didn’t know the degree of contrast between, for example, Windsor, Ontario and Oshawa, Ontario.

I didn’t realize the degree to which the church is in decline in parts of Canada while seemingly growing in other parts.  He told me a story of a church plant which mailed out 80,000 advertising pieces and failed to attract one single person to the launch service.

All this comes just days after Outreach Magazine released another one of its lists of the Top 100 Churches in the United States.   Why don’t we have a list like that here?

My former boss suggested that among people who study the church, there is really no interest because, as one U.S. scholar put it, “The church is non-existent in Canada.”    When I asked the editor of a Canadian Christian periodical about the possibility of doing a top Church list here — even a top ten list — he e-mailed back saying, essentially, “What’s the point?”

I wrote him back saying,

As I looked at the U.S. data, I realized how little I know about Canada. I’m aware of two or three mega churches here in Ontario; I know the Alliance has some large churches in Alberta; I think there’s something Hillsong-related in Winnipeg and perhaps a large Pentecostal church or two in Vancouver; but I’m realizing how totally ignorant I am about my own country.

I thought perhaps knowing who the top ten are — at least — might be interesting. I can’t begin to guess who they are; let alone name the church, city and pastor. I’ll bet most Canadians know more about NorthPoint and Willow Creek and Lifechurch than they do about… whoever they are up here.

I’d just like to counterbalance the U.S. data I’m bombarded with.

But then I get a call reminding me of the other side of the story, that there are far too many small, hurting, struggling, hanging-by-a-thread churches in Canada; and with them a lot of frustrated, discouraged, burned-out, ready-to-give-up pastors.  The rate of attrition is high and climbing.

While sending out missionaries to third world countries is important, I think Canadian Christians need to be aware of the needs here at home.   It’s so easy to get swept up in U.S. Evangelical culture and just assume that we’re an extension of that.

We’re only, at best, very distantly related.

This link to a story on the new Top 100 list points out that there are actually more “gigachurches” (i.e. over 10,000 in attendance) in the U.S. than the survey reports, because some churches don’t want to be part of the annual study.    One explanation:  “Some churches don’t want to negatively affect other churches.”

For statistical information on Canadian churches, consider checking out the Churchmap Canada pages at Outreach Canada.

A Rather Unique Explanation of ’666′

I’d forgotten about this particular post at this blog until an e-mail last night jogged my memory.    I’ve made some changes to it in order to insert a longer excerpt from the original blog…

Remember those people in the late ’60s who declared that VISA and MASTERCARD credit cards were “the mark of the beast?”   Well, what if they were somewhat right?

Actually, the cards were called by other names back then.   VISA was “Chargex” here in Canada, “BankAmericard” in the U.S. and went by other names elsewhere.  Meanwhile, MASTERCARD went by the now awkward-sounding name “Mastercharge.”

Some Christians (okay, mostly evangelicals) declared this was the beginning of the end when it came to interpreting the “666″ mark in Revelation, but were strangely silent decades later when debit cards were introduced.   I’ve never understood what made the difference and the resultant silence on ATM cards.

I remember Pat Robertson commenting that the mark on the hand and forehead were symbolic.   The hand represents the work of man and the forehead represents the thoughts of man; the result being an anti-Christ figure who wants to control both.

Online, I ran into Tim Jamz.  In a post on March 28th, 2008, he suggested that “the mark of the beast” isn’t the number 666.   It’s numbers, period.    Our preoccupation with them.   Our can’t live without them.  Commenting in another forum, Tim said, “Our focus on our own contrived systems of analysis, and the reliance on these systems, separates us from our Creator.”

The road he takes to get to there, an examination of themes occurring in both Genesis and Revelation is going to seem murky to some readers, but you should read it anyway.  Here’s the highlight:

The “Mark of the Beast” is 666, right? Technically, it is “six-hundred, three-score, and six,” according to the King James Version of the Bible. Well, a friend I hung out with many moons ago … brought this up; it’s stuck with me ever since, and the more I think about it, it really makes sense.

The Book of Revelation, where the Mark is referenced, was written during the reign of the Roman Empire, in a region, which was primarily ruled by Rome. Naturally, the original text, and the number written to mean the “Mark of the Beast” would have been written in the Roman language… enter: Roman Numerals. We’ve all learned these in grade school, and most television shows and other “scholarly” works use them to denote dates, et al.

If you write out the number 666 in Roman Numerals, it comes out: DCLXVI. (500+ 100+ 50+ 10+ 5+ 1= 666) That’s right, one of each Roman Number, in descending order. So, it could be surmised that “numbers,” in general, are the Mark of the Beast. Before you exorcise your computer, think about this.

Modern civilizations are wholly dependent on numbers; for currency, for architecture, for science…. EVERYTHING! Everything except God, that is. Our quest for knowledge between good and evil… our ultimate desire and preconception that our minds are able to make determinations in general… these are what separate us from simple existence, and one-ness with the Creator.

I found the conclusion resonated more than the premise, but make your own decision.   To go directly to that post, titled ‘Lost in Translation,’ use this link.

What Canadian Gideons Have in Common With The Catholic Church

Rocky Raccoon checked into his room
Only to find Gideon’s Bible.
-The Beatles

Most of the attention of religious media was focused this week on Pope Benedict XIV’s visit to the U.K., and the oddity of his interaction with a female Anglican cleric, something not permitted within his Roman Catholic world.

So I was surprised to open the online pages of Christian Week today and discover that, within Canada at least, the hotel/hospital/prison Bible people, The Gideons, are in fact officially all men.

Who knew the two organizations shared the similarity of such a patriarchal view of things?

The article begins,

CALGARY, AB—At one of the most significant conventions in Canadian Gideon history, members voting at the Bible distribution ministry’s annual gathering narrowly defeated a wide-ranging set of changes to the agency’s general operating bylaws.

“We lost by 50 votes out of about 2,700,” laments national president Brad Kennedy. “Our members voted 64.5 per cent in favour, but we needed a two-thirds majority.”

If the vote had gone the other way, full membership in The Gideons International in Canada would no longer be restricted to business and professional men, and the agency would be able to distribute a wider variety of Bible versions.

Sadly, the issue of Bible translations — the part of the story I am as a keenly interested in — wasn’t brought up again in the story.   Right now, Canadian Gideons use the NASB (New American Standard Version) which is considered very accurate but not easy to read.   It’s mostly used in Bible Colleges in Seminaries as a reference point or benchmark for checking other translations.

Back to the larger issue…

Women in the organization currently serve under a secondary “auxiliary” status, many exceeding the organization’s official mandate:

For at least the past year, Kennedy and the agency’s national cabinet have been pushing hard to bring Canadian Gideon bylaws in line with some of its current practices and a more culturally relevant model of ministry.

The Gideons face a serious demographic challenge: Nearly half of its members are older than 70, and another 25 per cent are over 60. Only three per cent of members are younger than 40. The average age of a Canadian Gideon is just under 70 years old, compared with 41 back in 1961. The agency is trying to adapt to attract more youthful members.

Indeed, some of the proposed changes have already been incorporated at the local level. Women are serving alongside men in many distribution projects in ways not technically allowable by the existing bylaws. And many active members would not technically qualify as professionals. “We’re trying to correct something that’s lost its relevance in our culture today,” explains Kennedy.

But the history of the organization — unlike the Full Gospel Businessman’s Association, which in most locations is a 50-50 partnership between men and women — is still officially male-dominated:

“A strong component of the Gideon brand is its recognition as a Christian business man’s organization. Unfortunately, if you change from that core value, while you may continue under the banner of Gideons, it will be in name only. It will not be reflective of the Gideon membership worldwide.”

– International Gideons president Perrin T. Prescott in a letter to Canadian Gideons

In other words, the international body is saying if you stop serving Big Macs according to the company recipe, you can’t really call yourself a MacDonald’s restaurant.

My opinion?

Being stuck in the 1940′s culturally and demographically is going to cause a die-off of the organization at a time it is still needed.   In terms of leadership tactics, and in terms of mission, this is an epic fail.

Continue reading Doug Koop’s full article at Christian Week.

Related article:  That other bastion of male headship — the Southern Baptists — caught our attention here exactly two years ago, when the publishing company of female Bible teacher Beth Moore banned distribution of a magazine featuring women pastors.

Related story in USAToday Religion:  An Arizona priest is excommunicated for participating in the ordination of a female priest; although he is now a United Church of Christ minister.

Suppose I Were To Tell You…

I hesitated to write this.   Just three short weeks ago, I wrote about confession in general, and the website PostSecret in particular.    While it would have been more simple to devote that space to a discussion about why it is that we have this need to vent or get something off our chests, I wrote instead about the fact that this type of confession doesn’t really go anywhere beyond confession itself.   It lacks what we experience in a liturgical church service following the confession of sin:  The assurance of pardon.

Why am I returning to this subject?

Because this week blogger Mandy Thompson (who just this week, in the link list, we referred to as not that Mandy Thompson) offered her readers an opportunity to comment (in this case, confess)  anonymously beginning with the phrase, “What if I Told You…”

While this sort of thing may not be your preferred brand of reading — perhaps you consider it prurient or voyeuristic — I think that every once in awhile something of this nature bears reading; in this case for two very particular reasons.

First of all, these were Christian readers responding to the opportunity, not readers from among the general population.   In fact, a very noticeable percentage of them were pastors’ wives or pastors; something very reminiscent of Anne Jackson’s books, and her current Permission to Speak Freely book tie-in website.   Apparently, clergy families are in desperate need for an Ann Landers or Dear Abby page on which to bare their deepest hurts.

As we are all from time to time.

Secondly however, and this is why I’m linking to this today; at what I’m sure was  great personal emotional exhaustion, Mandy took the time to answer each and every response.   That’s with the number of comments closing in on 200.

What if I told you I’m impressed?

This is the blogosphere at its best.   When someone tells you that blogs are a waste of time, let them see what’s happening at MandyThompson.com, and then don’t miss some of her post-mail-avalanche comments that follow more recently.

If you’re a blogger, do you see what you do as a ministry?  Are there times someone left a comment that resulted in you taking on the role of counselor?  If you’re a reader, have you ever had a blog writer that you really connected with and received help from?    For either category, have you ever continued the dialog off-the-blog?

Efrem Smith on Making Your Faith Jump

In a largely autobiographical story, Efrem Smith encourages his readers to stretch their faith and, in the words of the cover title, Jump Into A Life of Further and Higher.

Smith is a pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church, and is an African American.   While I’d never heard of the denomination, I also realized while reading this how little I’ve read by non-white authors.   Most of the authors in that demographic I am aware of tend to be either very conservative or very Charismatic/Pentecostal.

So while I wasn’t sure that Smith’s faith message was particularly unique — there are, after all, hundreds of Christian living titles published annually — I was rather impressed by his perspective on the often-segregated Evangelical Church in the U.S.A., and by his use of quotations from the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

King, he states, often spoke using the term “beloved.”  Smith sees our goal as a series of multiple ‘jumps’ which will lead us into (a) beloved self, (b) beloved church, and (c) beloved world.

An interesting observation about King’s crusade is made in a quotation from King himself:

From the beginning a basic philosophy guided the movement.  This guiding principle has since been referred to as non-violent resistance, noncooperation or passive resistance.  But in the early days of the protest none of these expressions were mentioned, the phrase most often heard was “Christian love.”   …It was Jesus of Nazareth that stirred the Negroes to protest with the creative weapon of love.

- from A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Smith knows what it’s like to attend an all-black church (and school) and what it’s like to be a distinct minority in a church (or school).   In a chapter that should be considered by people in youth ministry, he explores hip-hop culture as it has been approached both in worship services in his church and in outreach.

My only regret is that the book seemed rather short.   Perhaps some of this some of this shortage is made up for by a sample of the introduction and first chapter of You Are God’s Plan A by Dwight Robertson.

I wish Efrem Smith had written more.   Right now his own life is in transition, moving from a pastorate in the midwest to the Pacific district office of his denomination.   On the basis of Jump, I would certainly look forward to reading his next book.

Watch a one-minute book trailer for this book.  (Unless you’re bothered by a fear of heights.  Then skip this one.)