Weekend Link List

Weekend List Lynx

Lots of stuff that can’t wait until Wednesday!

• This one is must reading. Matthew Paul Turner asks former Mars Hill Bible Church pastor Shane Hipps all the questions I would have asked about the church, hell, Love Wins and the man he succeeded at MHBC, Rob Bell.
  

  “This is one of the biggest misunderstandings.  Rob doesn’t have a position or a concept of hell, he is an artist exploring possibilities and making unexpected connections, not a theologian plotting out a system.  In other words there is nothing to agree or disagree with.  It’s like saying I disagree with that song or that painting.”

  Read more at MPT’s blog.

• CT’s story of the week concerns gay students at Christian colleges. That’s not a typo.
  

  “Leaders at Christian colleges and universities around the country told Christianity Today their schools are rethinking the way they address the needs of [same sex attracted] students on campus.”

  Read more at Christianity Today.

• If you’ve been around the church for any length of time, you might remember “visitation” by pastors and church elders. These days, you’re more likely to get a house call from your doctor.  David Fitch’s guest author Ty Grigg thinks you might not have anybody drop in these days:
  

  “It is not a cultural norm to have neighbors or even friends over to our homes for dinner.  If we want to be with people, we go out.  The restaurant has replaced the space that home once occupied in society.  Typically, for younger generations (40’s and under), a visit will be at a coffee shop or to grab lunch.  In our suburban isolation, the home is too much of an intimate, sacred space for most non-family members to enter.”

  Read more at Reclaiming the Mission.

Other links:

• Canadian readers will remember a national pre-Christmas story involving the theft of $2M worth of toys from a Salvation Army warehouse in Toronto. Here’s a follow-up on how the organization is working to protect itself by having a solid ‘whistle-blower’ policy. 
• Want a taste of that theological educational experience you missed? RegentRadio.com, the internet broadcasting arm of Regent College, frequently offers free lectures by its professors. Currently it’s wrapping up a twelve-part series with Gordon Fee on the Holy Spirit in Pauline Theology with a new lecture available each day.
  
• We linked to this about six months ago, but it’s worth a revisit. Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed links to a 9-minute video where an orthodox priest explains various theories of atonement.
• Sarnia is a Canadian city across the river from Port Huron, MI.  Pastor Kevin Rodgers blogs at Orphan Age and reminds us how a shared meal is a great way to build community.
• USA Today religion editor Cathy Lynn Grossman looks at the larger religious issues in Monday’s Presidential inauguration ceremony.
• A New Jersey substitute teacher is fired for giving a student his personal Bible as a gift after the student kept asking where the saying, “the last shall be first” came from.
  
• New blogs we’re watching this week — okay new to us:
  • Our Rising Sound – Kyle Campos
  • Christian By Association – Nikki Weatherford
  • Modern Reject – Nicole Cottrel
• Talk about California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day: Our closing shot this week is from a Facebook page dedicated to books. The picture combines two of my favorite passions: a day at the beach and reading.
  

Giving Your Church What They Prefer Over What They Need

Matt Marino is an Episcopal Priest who spent 17 years with Young Life.  He dares to pose a question that’s being heard more and more recently,

What’s so uncool about cool churches?

[This is a teaser, you are strongly advised to click the link above and read the whole article, which has so far attracted over 100 comments.]

…They ask for more and more, and we give it to them. And more and more the power of God is substituted for market-driven experience. In an effort to give people something “attractive” and “relevant” we embraced novel new methods in youth ministry, that 20 years later are having a powerful shaping effect on the entire church. Here are the marks of being market-driven; Which are hallmarks of your ministry?

1. Segregation. We bought into the idea that youth should be segregated from the family and the rest of the church. It started with youth rooms, and then we moved to “youth services.” We ghettoized our children! (After all, we are cooler than the older people in “big church”. And parents? Who wants their parents in their youth group?) …
2. Big = effective. Big is (by definition) program driven: Less personal, lower commitment; a cultural and social thing as much as a spiritual thing...
3. More programs attended = stronger disciples. The inventors of this idea, Willow Creek, in suburban Chicago, publicly repudiated this several years ago. They discovered that there was no correlation between the number of meetings attended and people’s spiritual maturity...
4. Christian replacementism. We developed a Christian version of everything the world offers: Christian bands, novels, schools, soccer leagues, t-shirts. We created the perfect Christian bubble.
5. Cultural “relevance” over transformation.We imitated our culture’s most successful gathering places in an effort to be “relevant.” Reflect on the Sunday “experience” at most Big-box churches:ure.
   • Concert hall (worship)
   • Comedy club (sermon)
   • Coffee house (foyer)
6. Professionalization. If we do know an unbeliever, we don’t need to share Christ with them, we have pastors to do that. We invite them to something… to an “inviter” event… we invite them to our “Christian” subcult
7. “McDonald’s-ization” vs. Contextualization:  It is no longer our own vision and passion. We purchase it as a package from today’s biggest going mega-church. It is almost like a “franchise fee” from Saddleback or The Resurgence.
8. Attractional over missional. When our greatest value is butts in pews we embrace attractional models. Rather than embrace Paul’s Ephesians 4 model in which ministry gifts are given by God to “equip the saints” we have developed a top-down hierarchy aimed at filling buildings. This leaves us with Sunday “church” an experience for the unchurched, with God-centered worship of the Almighty relegated to the periphery and leading of the body of Christ to greater spiritual power and sanctification to untrained small group leaders.

continue reading the whole article here.

As I prepared this, I thought of point number eight in light of my ‘online’ church home, North Point. There are only two worship songs, and further worship is relegated to Thursday nights every other month. But even those nights simply mirror what happens on Sunday morning, which is itself an extension of the youth ministry model.

Some youth are not happen with the state of the church, and are seeking an entirely different model, as we wrote last week.  Other teens and twenty-somethings are simply leaving, as we noted two weeks ago. So there are issues that need to be addressed as to the sustainability of the present models within student ministry; but also larger implications for an entire assembly or congregation.

Among the comments at Matt’s article:

• Being hip isn’t the problem you’re addressing, its the lack of content which plagues both cool (too much focus on preference for entertainment) and uncool (to much focus on preference for tradition)
• What matters isn’t what the preacher wears, whether there is coffee, whether there is a rock band or an orchestra or just a piano, is the FRUIT.
• “Guitar Praise — Just Like Guitar Hero, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
  “Praise Ponies — Just Like My Little Pony, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
  “Testamints — Just like Altoids, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
  “Christian Chirp — Just like Twitter, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
  “GodTube — Just like YouTube, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
  “Seek & Find” — Just like Google Search, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
  “Johnny Hammer — Just like Justin Beiber, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
• Your biggest draw, which is providing a loving community where all kids can belong, is completely lost when your church preaches a bigoted message on homosexuality.
• We assemble to worship, serve, please and praise God. It’s all about HIM! Not us. Smoke machines, guitars, pianos, lasers, and flashing lights? Why? Does this please God? Is it what he’s asked for? Or is it a ploy to bring more bodies in? Hey, I am all for trying to get more souls in the pews, but let’s do it in a way that doesn’t put make-up on God.
• A good church cannot be determined by its “style” of worship. What is important? Shouldn’t a church be judged by things like its theology, its teaching, its mission, the fellowship and growth of its people, whether people come to God and become closer to God?

When Rejection is Perpetual

About a year ago I wrote a post about the fact that when it comes to how things appear on the socioeconomic ladder, my wife and I refuse to play the status game. We know that we’re excluded from certain social circles because we don’t drive the same cars, go to the same stage productions, or take our holidays in the same vacation hot spots.

But I also know that sometimes we’re excluded simply because we see the world differently, or hold views on church, or worship, or social justice which are different than everybody else. Have opinions. Will share.

Today, however, I want to write about another situation that can develop which is more systemic, and can affect people at all vertical levels and across horizontal spectra.

I’m talking about the situation that can develop where someone is an outsider.

Outsiders don’t experience overt rejection; they simply exist outside of defined groups. I understand this one best where it comes to blogging. Despite the growth of Thinking Out Loud over the past four years, I don’t fit neatly into the many Christian blog clusters out there, and would safely say that I am probably considered a bit of an outsider.

I sense it sometimes when I’m in proximity of established groups and subgroups; and I think that, because of our human longing to be accepted and to socialize, there are people for whom it matters more who experience marginalization more acutely.

A few weeks ago I attended an event where I noticed four couples gathered together who are a very well-defined group. Other people dance around them, so to speak, hoping to find a point of entry on the circle, and certainly their attempts at contact are not rebuffed,  but at the end of the day it’s always the same eight people. It’s a younger demographic than my own, but I’ll bet there are people who would love to be part of this micro-community, but would consider themselves outsiders where that group is concerned.

You can be an outsider in a ministry organization or in a community of Christian leaders; you can be in vocational ministry in a denomination but be considered an outsider; you can be a member of your church choir but exist somewhat on the periphery.

The difference between outright rejection and being an outsider is, to use the case of the church choir member as an example, you’re actually on the inside of the group, and yet your membership is almost secondary to being part of the nucleus of the group. You’re in because you met certain standards — you passed the audition — but you’re also in because you did not meet standards that would have constituted rejection. Instead, the exclusion is more subtle.

It’s like the Cheers TV show theme song. Outsiders score points for the first part of the chorus (“everybody knows your name”) but not the second (“and they’re always glad you came”) part of the chorus.

Now let me be very clear: Some people choose to be outsiders, and that’s a different situation altogether.

But those who consider themselves Christ-followers should try to smash down the walls of ‘outsider-ness’ at every opportunity. The questions that need to be asked are:

(a) Who is living out life on the periphery of sub-groups in our church that wish they could be more in the center of those group? and
(b) What are we doing as a church to facilitate more inclusion in various social clusters in our church?

VBS = Free Child Care

When Jon Acuff first published Stuff Christians Like (the book), part of the appeal was that a huge percentage of the material wasn’t available on the blog.  But lately he’s been posting some of the best nuggets from the book online, like this one about Using Vacation Bible School as free babysitting. Here’s the intro:

Denomination, schomenation, when our kids are out of school for the summer and we’ve suddenly got to fill eight weeks of time with activities, we Christians like to put aside our denominational differences and bounce our kids like Ping-Pong balls around the country to different Vacation Bible School programs…

Since some people read SCL just for the comments, and because this post was so timely, here’s a look at what some people said, in the order they appear among the 70-or-so responses currently posted:

• My daughter made this statement about one church (she was 9 at the time): “I liked the snow cones, but a mean fat lady yelled at me for turning around in my seat. A boy pushed me and wanted to beat me up. They lost my color page and I didn’t get to bring it home. All the kids were SCREAMING (emphasis hers). I like regular church better than Jesus’s summer school. Overall I don’t think the snow cones were worth it.”
• VBS is so culturalized down here that the local agnostics community group advertised ours in their … publication under “reliable, free childcare; 9 AM – 1 PM, June 4-8 at Meadow Baptist Church”
• If you are using one of the pre-packaged VBS curriculum available for sale and your VBS is towards the end of the summer, a lot of children have been through it two or three times already. … Churches scramble to schedule their VBS right after school ends so their curriculum doesn’t seem stale.
• VBS, how we parents love Thee. From the years of Psalty, to the Olympic themes every four years, from Flannelgraph to PowerPoint, you have embraced our children in your sticky-sweet, glittery bosom without fail.  The only flaw is when our turn is up to ‘volunteer’, then your vengeance is great to behold!
• I’ll admit that we fall into the lame category of dropping off our kids at another church’s VBS. I might should mention that we’re the “pastor’s family” of the church who doesn’t do VBS – gasp, shock and could even be accused of going to hell for that considering there are approximately 218 “SKY” banners outside every church in our area. So we have two things against us: we are “the church who doesn’t do VBS” and we are “the drop off parents”. We totally drop the kids off and run in hopes that nobody will be able to identify us. And then we go have a date night. But please don’t tell.
• It’s very common around here, and I think the mega-churches stagger their VBS weeks intentionally so that hoppers can be at their church. NO ONE wants to be the church that schedules the same week as MegaBaptist.Com-they not only have a bounce house, but a water slide, a ferris wheel, and probably a circus on the back lawn.
• Free VBS? Our church charges $40 PER CHILD! With a $100 cap per family. VBS ain’t what it used to be…
• I love the fact that people who never attend church use our VBS as free babysitting. May be the only interaction we have with them all year. Maybe in the Bible Belt everyone is associated with a church, but that’s not the case here. And yes, when my kids were little, I used another church’s VBS for babysitting while we moved into a new home.
• When we moved to a new town, my mom put us in every VBS she could find so that we’d meet new people and she could get settled in the house without us underfoot.  I think I got saved 3 times that summer…
• My church runs adult VBS congruently with the kids. At first I thought I would just sneak out, but after being caught I actually ENJOYED the adult VBS. Plus there is excellent food involved for the adults. So we learn while the kids learn. Who would have thought it?

Since I went the distance and stole borrowed comments as well as the story theme today, it seemed only fair to CLOSE comments here and encourage you to add yours to the discussion at Stuff Christians Like.

Wednesday Link List – Saturday Edition

Weekend List Lynx

The link list bucket is overflowing and needs to be emptied a few days early…

• We’ll start out serious. Here’s a scorecard, so to speak, of how your persecuted brothers and sisters in other parts of the world made out over the holidays.  “Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions…”  Read. Pray.
  
• Stuff Fundies Like has a Sunday School curriculum done in the style of the Westminster Catechism. If you grew up in church this is a must-read, must-forward.
  
• Another Baptist church dumps the NIV in favor of the Baptist-owned HCSB translation.  If it turns out that the majority of SBC churches switch to the Holman-published HCSB, then this whole affair was undermined by a massive conflict of interest.
• Mars Hill’s Shane Hipps reflects on the departure of Rob Bell.  “I was aware of something stirring in him for some time.  While I wasn’t surprised, I was full of grief and joy.”
• Because the people need to know, here’s Justin Bieber’s take on the subject of church attendance.  “…I focus more on praying and talking to Him. I don’t have to go to church.”
• And in the same vein, here’s rapper Jefferson Bethke’s rap, Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus.  “Religion’s like spraying perfume on a casket.”
• And going for the three-peat on this subject, here’s Matt Hafer’s take on why “good enough for church” just isn’t good enough.”People, without saying it out loud, seem to think that God exists in about 4 places.The church building…,funerals,hospitals, sporting events…”
• Did you sponsor a child through Compassion or a similar organization?  For those who need motivation, here’s ten reasons to write your child.
  
• For all the young moms and new moms in the audience: How does a mother in a large family create some time for God in the course of a day? Alyssa gives a great answer.
  
• In one of the longest articles I’ve ever seen on Christianity Today online, Duanne Litfin writes about clothing; in particular, what we wear to church.  “…[W]e should not conclude too quickly that because God looks on the heart, what we wear to church doesn’t matter.”
• Also at CT, an interview with David Crowder on the occasion of the band’s retirement after sixteen years, and David’s move to Atlanta. “There’s just so much life has passed among us, and the depth is really deep relationship feeling, friendship.”
• The Wall Street Journal sits up and takes notice when Christian media company Salem Web Network surpasses one million Facebook friends. Be sure to read the last paragraph; you may interact with this corporation more than you realize.
• And speaking of corporate culture, Shaun In The City thinks churches should rethink the concept of competition in ministry.  “In the end you end up with dozens (even hundreds & thousands) of organizations with similar missions, visions, and goals that are not only not speaking, but are often downright combative.  They miss collaborative opportunities and so much more because of this faulty way of thinking.”
• Also on the topic of church, here’s a megachurch in Nigeria with a major staff shakeup involving the resignation of 200 pastors.
  
• In an election year, we have to forgive our U.S. friends for forgetting that the rest of the world still exists. So we tend to ignore American politics here to balance things out, but this article accurately identifies the issues that the election brings to church in 2012.
  
• Thanks this week for link leads goes to Todd Rhoades.

Eight Things To Look For In A “Real” Church

It’s less like a train station and more like the pub in Cheers.

In yesterday’s link list, I included David Fitch’s piece “Eight Things You Should Notice At a Missional Sunday Gathering” from the blog Reclaiming The Mission.   I can’t think of anything better today than to amplify the ideas contained in this excellent article.

As someone who has had their work ripped from their blog and reposted in a variety of different forms, I want to make it clear that I’m paraphrasing, extrapolating and putting my own spin on David’s text.   You are therefore strongly urged to read the original blog post.    Also, he is claiming these as features of missional churches.   I am suggesting that he’s touched on something that goes far beyond that church definition.

1. Team Leadership, i.e. not autocratic.   At the end, people leave having heard the sound of many voices.  What’s often termed “a plurality of leadership.”  This can include invisible leadership.   If there is a senior pastor, he or she is often in the background, or mingling among the ‘common folk.’
2. If there’s a script for the service, it’s written in pencil on the back of an index card.   In other words, there is flexibility and flex time (they’re different) built into the service planning.   There can be a commitment to excellence, but some of the best worship will take place in moments that are fragile or even tentative.   There’s room for the Holy Spirit to break in through people who have a variety of giftings, and also through people who we may not consider gifted at all.  There’s every attempt to create visitor-friendly environments, but not to necessarily control those environments.
   
3. There is ample evidence that the people gathered together are in community with one another.   This happens naturally, not with name tags or photo directories.    It’s less like a train station and more like the pub in Cheers. Connection to the larger world takes place in mid-week situations, though there are many openings for those people to be assimilated into the community.
4. You see similarity to the diversity of the early church, where there was neither Jew nor Greek (ethnicity), male nor female (gender), slave nor free (status), etc.   This doesn’t mean that these people exist in sub-groups or cliques, but there is full integration, perhaps even in small groups if they exist.
   
5. Warmth, friendliness and caring are communicated naturally.   There are no greeters at the door because everyone knows to give a welcome to someone walking in; they want to do this.   No time is spent “passing the peace” or shaking hands because everyone has already connected with the people sitting near them before the worship has begun.
6. The true service and indeed the life of the congregation kicks into high gear when it ends.  The real ministry takes place after the last speaker has finished.   A day after reading David’s article, I read about a dream someone had where the pastor said, “And now we’ll begin our time of worship;” and at that moment the ushers flung open the doors and the people filed into the streets.    (Wish I could find the link.)
7. The service is interactive.   Fitch talks about having the chairs arranged in a circle instead of in rows.   That’s just part of it.   There is the expectancy that everyone has something to contribute, and some of those contributions may be spoken words to everyone else.   Everyone gives.   Everyone receives.   Think of a Pentecostal or Charismatic service but without the “forms” or “attachments” present there when someone has a word in tongues or a word of prophecy.
8. Fitch’s eighth point is ethnic diversity which I’ve already included in number 4.   I’d simply add this:  No one is left out.   The ‘flavor’ of the church’s programs reflects the people who are actually present; furthermore they play a part in the development of those activities or ministries.   Also — and this is often the tough one — the diversity should be reflected in staff and leadership positions, too.
   

Once again, don’t miss the original post at Reclaiming The Mission.

Life Among The Lutherans: Garrison Keillor

“…So our family celebrated [the fourth of July], a day in one group of people split off from another group of people — it seemed like a happy thing to us — and we kept right on splitting off — we believed in the value of a good snit and walking out, slamming the door and never speaking to those people again.  Better yet, never speaking to them in the first place.  We were Sanctified Brethren, we believed that God had bestowed his truth on us and nobody else, and if you number had ever gotten above 12, we’d have found some way to break off with the others and form a new and purer group.  A church of, say, 3 people.  Two to procreate and one to watch and make sure they didn’t do it in an unscriptural way.”

Garrison Keillor is an American humorist, author and the force behind “A Prairie Home Companion,” a permanent fixture of Saturday evenings in many U.S. homes as it broadcasts live, for two hours, on National Public Radio.   The show is a mix of music, poetry and radio drama, culminating with the monologue, which always begins, “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown.”

“…now even ice fishing, in all its sanity and silence, has been blighted by the curse of this century which is communications.  Never before have we learned so much we didn’t need to know from people we don’t like and can’t get rid of in media that has only one purpose, to sell, sell, sell, and which has been steadily encroaching and circling and crowding out whatever peace and quiet is left in the cosmos…”

Much of his writing has to do with life in middle America.  On the one hand, he laments the passing of simpler times, while on the other hand he highlights the ability of some communities to preserve a sense of that simpler past.

“…Our public reputations depend on the opinions of the uninformed.  Each one of us is a book reviewed by critics who only read the chapter headings and the jacket flap.  We’re all a mystery.  We should all respect each other on that basis.”

Life Among the Lutherans is a collection of those monologues, going back as far as 1983, and featuring the particular essays that deal with the religious side of life in this fictitious Minnesota town.  When you consider that most of them do contain some mention the equally fictitious Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, narrowing it down to 28 stories must have represented a rather difficult editing process.  The book is appropriately published by Augsburg, a leading Lutheran publishing house.

“The organ is the enemy of worship, as most Christians know.  Scripture says, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’  This is not the organist’s philosophy.  Organists despise stillness.  They’re sitting there with the organ equivalent of a 300 hp Ferrari and they want to put the pedal to the metal and make that baby fly.”

In the preface, Keillor admits he did not grow up as a Lutheran.   But he understands the people intimately, and he understands the role that the church(es) play in a small town.    We only hear of one other church in town, the Roman Catholic parish, Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility.

“…It’s not easy being a minister and preaching to your own family — sometimes it gives a Lutheran pastor real respect for the rule of celibacy over across town.  Preach on forgiveness and forbearance to a congregation that includes one woman with whom you’ve had some arguments you’d rather not remember, including one that isn’t over yet.”

Truth be told, the book deals in the superficialities of church life.   But that said, once you get past the meandering plots and colorful characterizations, the book is actually rich in deep theology.   People live and breathe and act the way they do because they are acting on certain beliefs and convictions.   Keillor confronts issues and ideas which, in a pluralistic, politically correct, mostly secular society, simply never come up in normal conversation.

“…The people divided over the question ‘will we recognize each other in Heaven or will our spiritual forms not have our earthly features?’  The clergy fought this out for two years, some arguing ‘Yes, of course we’ll know grandma there, and she will know us — the family was meant to be eternal,’ and other people saying ‘No, we will go on to a finer and better life there and if you think your face is anything God would allow in a place of perfect bliss, then you ought to take another look.’”

But Keillor doesn’t always celebrate this particular church culture.   Every page consists of material that could represent hours and hours on an analyst’s couch.   In the second to last chapter, there is an outpouring of angst greater than the sum of the previous chapters, wherein Keillor seems to regret a religiously repressive past that made him lack adventure or lack confidence or lack certain kinds of experiences.    However, much of this may simply consist of looking at growing up in the mid-20th century through a 21st century lens.

“The honest truth is that most of these young people marry because they desperately want to have sex and be normal nice people…so two people sense each other’s interest and availability, and powerful forces come into play…and the mothers of the two of them exert their influence.   A candidate is brought in for inspection and goes home, and afterward the mother says, ‘Well, I thought he was nice.’  And the way she says, ‘I thought he was nice’ communicates the fact that the boy is a dolt, about as bright as a mud fence, and none of this has much to do with honesty.   It’s more about sheer hope — that if you love somebody, or try to, and try to do the right thing, somehow it’ll all work out over the long haul.   And you set out down the highway of marriage, trying to ignore the many vehicles you see overturned in the ditch.“

Why is that some of the most tormented people seem to produce the most innovative and quirky humor?   With Christmas fast approaching, Life Among The Lutherans is a natural gift idea for someone who, like Keillor, enjoys some sentimental reminiscing.    But it should also be read by a younger generation, if only to see what they escaped.   Unless they happen to currently reside in Lake Wobegon, that is.

“Christmas is a holy day that the early church fathers invented because they were in competition with the Roman religion.  One thing Christianity lacked was a big feast and the Romans had one toward the end of December, Saturnalia, so the Christians established Christmas, sort of like one chain putting up a store right near its competitor.  It doesn’t have so much to do with Jesus as it does with business, and it’s been a big hit;  the number of people celebrating Saturnalia and offering sacrifices to the gods has really diminished.”