Wednesday Link List

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Wednesday List Lynx — two, actually

Time for another round of Christian blog and news links for the whole family. In the past we would often begin and end here with cartoons, but the whole question of fair use gets muddy sometimes, especially when humor meets illustration. I’ve studied the permissions statements of some of these and can’t reconcile what I read with what seems to be ubiquitous online. So we decided to run one, since it’s been awhile. Click the image to visit Reverend Run’s site.

• The question many reading this may face: Should a Christian go for counseling with a secular therapist?
• Essay of the week: The New Music Business, or Why I am No Longer Friends With Derek Webb.  No, it’s not what you think.
• Social justice and religious freedom: The ten worst countries in the world when it comes to persecuted for Christian belief. The list and a video.
• Meanwhile in the relative Christian security of the U.S., lists are published of the top five churches using social media best. 
• A ministry leader affirms all the good things he learned from Willow Creek, while at the same time confessing to the sin of methodolatry.
  
• What to say when someone is suffering. Your theodicy is probably determined by your theology. And that affects how you answer the “why” questions that will never fully go away.
• At the risk of continuing yesterday’s theme here ad infinitum check out Wade Burleson’s How To Kiss Calvinism Goodbye.
• Most of us have heard of Mormon baptisms for the dead, but in the first half of LDS history, baptisms for health were more common.
  
• Looking to give a book to a non-Christian friend, neighbor, relative or co-worker, but sure which one to give? Lots of good ideas can be found at Books for Evangelism.
• Lest someone think we have a vendetta against James MacDonald, we’ll bury this story in the middle of the link list: A popular teacher is dismissed from a Harvest day school for questioning the authenticity of church camp conversions.
• Taking their cue from U.S. federal politics, the Southern Baptist Convention yesterday re-elected their first black president, Rev. Fred Luter. Church Curmudgeon tweeted: “Houston, it will take much prayer and fasting to cast out this denom.”
  
• What if you have a calling to local church ministry, but also an understanding that you’re not quite ready? Here are eight tips on what to do in the meantime.
  
• Your Bible translation dollars at work: A Bible for Texans. “Don’t y’all not know that y’all are the temple of God?” 
• But in North Texas, another high school graduation speech is cut short for its references to God and faith.
  
• Okay, serious translation issues: How the ESV managed to change two words to singular case while every other translation had the words plural.
• The Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church of America have jointly produced Lift Up Your Hearts,  a brand new hymnbook with over 800 entries. Wait a minute; what’s a hymnbook?
• I’ll let this one introduce itself: “I love Al Mohler. I love 99% of his articles. I didn’t love his 2013 Summer Reading List. What a litany of bloodshed, suffering, death, and destruction! I’d hate to see the Winter Reading List.” Then he offers some alternatives.
  
• Here’s some reading for any woman considering the transition from SAHM to working mother. It’s sometimes a decision of career vs. tentmaking.
• And now Queen Elizabeth is being dragged into the gay marriage debate.
  
• Enough with the Sunday morning announcements already: Here are seven alternatives for your church to consider. Some people won’t like #5, though.
• For the church webmaster — and everyone else — to consider: Is your church website attractional or missional? This article could revolutionize your online presence.
• From our Folk Theology corner: Twenty theological urban legends. You may be guilty of accepting a few of these yourself.
• Sometimes worship leaders find themselves faced with a very popular worship song that people want to sing that they happen not to personally like.
  
• Don’t like the priest or rector touching the communion bread or wafer? Maybe he should get a Purity Communion Solutions Host Dispenser. And yes, it’s an older video, but the item is still available.
• One year after we first mentioned it, Cardiphonia is still offering entire album downloads for $1, or even less.
  
• Just in time for summer at a church near you: Why VBS Scarred Me As a Kid.  Is that scarred or scared? Guess it’s all the same.

Don’t forget to get your link suggestions in by 6:00 PM, Mondays, EST; and as always, for breaking links, you can follow me on Twitter. Look for @PaulW1lk1nson (change the letter i to a number 1).

James MacDonald Preaches about Money on Easter Sunday

A reader posted a comment to an October blog post here about debt issues at Harvest Bible Chapel.  She claimed that instead of the standard Easter sermon, James MacDonald spoke about money and fiances. Huh? What the finance was he thinking?

At first, I didn’t want to believe what she wrote. But as I write this on Monday night, I’m listening to the Easter Sunday sermon at the main campus of Harvest Bible Chapel. I can see myself having brought a coworker or neighbor to the service, and I am squirming more and more with each of the 46-minutes.

Okay, so he spins the story of Judas to fit. Even that would be an offbeat theme for Easter Sunday morning.  I’m not sure how long it’s going to be online, but if you can, watch the it at this link even if you only see the first ten minutes. (Sermon notes .pdf was at this one.) Anyway, I’ll let my reader tell it:

I’d attended an Easter service at Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows yesterday and am so disgusted and disillusioned with Pastor James I will never attend Harvest again.  Instead of celebrating the Risen Christ on Easter, he started a new series on MONEY, stating that, for those who think he can’t start a new series on Easter about money, “WATCH ME!!” The man’s arrogance knows no bounds.

I’ve attended Harvest on and off for ten years or so and have found many things that I don’t like or agree with over that time, but this was the final straw. I even brought a friend with me, and there were surely many other guests as well, all there to listen to his latest pontifications about MONEY, on Easter, no less! No communion, no gospel, no Jesus per se. There was some “apology” about his having taught about money at Harvest for 25 years but now he’s come to find out what he’s taught was wrong and asked for grace; my first thought was how am I to know that what he is going to teach NOW is correct?! Oh, that’s right, he put up pictures of Francis Chan, Dave Ramsey and other Christians wise about money and, since he is important and well known enough to have had one-on-one conversations with them and others of their ilk, apparently now is well versed in being a good steward.

How is it that the MacDonalds are “wealthy” when Jesus didn’t even have a place to lay his head? How is it that he speaks of wonderful vacations while asking for our tithes and offerings and I haven’t been able to afford a vacation in years?

I received a phone call tonight from a friend who used to attend there … saying that she had found out Pastor James talked about tithing…on EASTER!…and that she was also told of how desperate the financial situation at Harvest really is. Perhaps this is why Pastor James felt it necessary to talk about money on such a sacred day. All it took was a Google search to find out how bad the situation is. And to think he stood up there shaming me and others about our credit card debt…on Easter, no less. Did God put this on his heart to discuss on the day we celebrate His Son as our Risen Savior?! Did the elders approve this?!

Best of luck with your megachurch, Pastor, but my soul is not being fed while you’re too busy expanding your own kingdom.

..And to think I get upset if one of the worship pieces isn’t totally on the Easter theme.  A serious lapse in judgment, don’t you think?

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Update 4/4/13

Basically what you’re seeing in the comments section is four possible responses:

• Supportive (objectively) — People who feel J. MacD. was within his rights to preach this topic on Easter Sunday because it was a legitimate message even for “Holy Week.”
• Supportive (subjectively) — People who rally around J.MacD. as their pastor or shepherd and want to defend him.
• Opposed (subjectively) — People who choose to criticize J. MacD. on whatever grounds or based on whatever leadership criteria, or choose to examine this particular topic in light of other information about James and/or HBC.
  
• Opposed (objectively) — People who — regardless of whether or not they liked the message — feel the topic was inappropriate for Easter Sunday.

It was the two objective types of comment we were hoping to have heard from here.

Harvest Bible Chapel Debt Crisis: The Real Elephant In The Room?

I’ve had three people send me the link to a website that purports to show that James MacDonald, Harvest Bible Chapel and Walk in The Word are deeply in debt in a situation similar to that which brought down the Crystal Cathedral; a site titled, The Elephant’s Debt after MacDonald’s two Elephant Room video conferences. However, a quick scan of Alltop blogs and search engine blog searches would seem to indicate not all bloggers are taking the bait on this one.

Perhaps people don’t find MacDonald all that interesting. I found that out with the Crystal Cathedral story; search engines sent everybody here because the dominant generation of Christian bloggers didn’t have Robert Schuller on their radar. Perhaps MacDonald’s influence is even more regional.

Furthermore, I often wonder what motivates people to put up this type of exposé websites. The documentation is thorough; they definitely did their homework. And they do address the question. And I’m all for encouraging churches and ministry organizations to operate frugally and within their means; not like some giant corporation. To be sure, financial stewardship matters to God; it’s a virtue He regards highly. And when any church goes down, it tends to take a lot of innocent people down with it; trusting people; people of weaker faith.

Although I grew up in Toronto’s Peoples Church when it was Canada’s only megachurch — before the term existed — the first U.S. megachurch I connected with was Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel in Santa Ana, California. Spending time there on five different occasions and getting to know some of their people, it was apparent that Chuck Smith was all for spending money when the money was already there. There is no greater joy than for a new facility or expansion to open completely paid for.

What a sex scandal cannot do to destroy a church, a financial crisis can. (No accident this subject comes a day after a book review dealing with the spiritual warfare we fight against unseen forces.)

Today’s pastors are in a rush to build bigger and better. To go multi-site. To add new media. To host conferences. We’ve been corrupted by the way the world does things and how success is measured; and I didn’t use the word “we’ve” there by accident. Certainly, if this road is full of pitfalls, it is important to put up a giant “danger sign” and warn others traveling the same road.

But I wish that authors Scott Bryant and Ryan Mahoney had ended The Elephant’s Debt website with a call to prayer, because that’s what needed here more than anything.

Here again is the link to The Elephant’s Debt. Each page ends with a link to successive pages. You be the judge on this one.

And here is what one reader sent as a possible response that was recently posted by the elders board of Harvest Bible Chapel.

Isaiah 30 (NLT) verse 21 is the theme verse for Walk in the Word.

¹⁹ O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem,
you will weep no more.
He will be gracious if you ask for help.
He will surely respond to the sound of your cries.
²⁰ Though the Lord gave you adversity for food
and suffering for drink,
he will still be with you to teach you.
You will see your teacher with your own eyes.
²¹ Your own ears will hear him.
Right behind you a voice will say,
“This is the way you should go,”
whether to the right or to the left.
²² Then you will destroy all your silver idols
and your precious gold images.
You will throw them out like filthy rags,
saying to them, “Good riddance!”

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UPDATE: Be sure to read the comments section for more…

Wednesday Link List

Insert your own introduction here.

• Another Christian leader is brought down by a sex scandal. Not to be flippant, but we could probably do a weekly link list just on stories like this one.
• Or this one.
• Rob Bell is doing a January conference in LA for 50 pastors to spend two 12-hour days learning to improve their writing craft. (With a break for surfing.) (No, not internet surfing.) If that’s you, find out more about CraftLab.
• I like this piece about making a faith-identification with people in the broader community, and then deciding if you and they want to get into a faith discussion.
• In England they count as deaths, and more than a quarter of all deaths there are due to abortions.
• In another link to The Christian post, a megachurch pastor questions the hype when his fellow megachurch pastors describe every Sunday as “super” or “biggest” or “best.”  Actually the one he used was “megamonster.” He thinks the hype is unsustainable.
• The New Zealand Herald thinks Christianity is losing its world dominance, but one blogger doesn’t think we should accept that conclusion.
• A reporter for the LA Times — who is looking to gauge success solely from the Billboard charts –  seems to think that Christian rock music is making a comeback.
• An American currently living in Canada finds her present location gives here a fresh perspective on U.S. election issues.
• So author Janette Oke wrote eight “Love Comes Softly” books, but when they got made into DVDs they added two prequels. 8 + 2 = 10, right? So when you buy the 10-disc box set why is there an 11th empty slot in the packaging? Answer: It’s for this one.
• Here’s a new church video clip on the subject of insecurity. (Reminder, you have to buy these; they aren’t expensive; don’t stream them live during your service.)
• Earlier in the summer,  James MacDonald & Co. boarded a bus for the 40-city Vertical Church tour. Here’s a video recap.
• Memorized any Bible verses lately? A Canadian author once put this list together of 50 verses you should know by heart.
• Drew Marshall had Bob Smietana as a guest this week. The Tennessee writer is an expert on snake-handling churches, but because newspapers are now denying access to their files, we can’t read his landmark article. Here’s a summary. as well as a version written originally for USAToday.
• You’re trying to participate in an outdoor mass in Poland, but it’s so crowded the only place to stand is at the door of a sex shop.  Personally, I hate when that happens.
• And while we’re on that subject, a hotel in Europe has replaced the Gideon Bibles with copies of 50 Shades of Gray. Author Shannon Ethridge takes a look at sexual fantasies in The Fantasy Fallacy. reviewed here.

James MacDonald’s Holiness Test

In fairness, this is not meant to cover the entire range of what it means to be holy; rather, this was just one part of one of several points on Tuesday’s broadcast of Walk in the Word.  But the questions are worthy of your consideration:

1. When was the last time you made a crude joke or laughed at one? 
2. When was the last time you sat through a sexual scene on television, probably between unmarried people, without turning it off, maybe completely undisturbed? 
3. [Guys, especially] Do your eyes look over someone attractive in a way that would make them uncomfortable if they knew or if they noticed? 
4. Are there dirty words in your vocabulary which link you to the world and not to Christ? 
5. Do you read books that tell stories of immorality and rationalize your enjoyment of them? 
6. Do you go places where the sexual atmosphere is thick and not feel deeply troubled? 
7. Are you even now, maybe this past week, struggling with an attraction or a relationship with a person not your spouse, or if you’re single, someone who’s not a Christian? 
8. Do people sense the freedom to be off-color around you?  Do they have the impression that you will tolerate it? 
9. How do your convictions about appropriate entertainment differ from someone you know who doesn’t know Christ? 
10. What do you do that you would not do if Jesus Christ were visually present with you?

One Less Elephant in the Room

Just desserts in my opinion.

A certain discernment ministry dude who has a certain discernment radio ministry thing apparently paid his $99 registration fee to attend The Elephant Room at the mother ship in Rolling Meadows, IL only to arrive and find out his registration had been revoked.

He blogs the experience, but I really, really don’t want to include the link to this guy — first time I’ve ever done this — so I’m copying and pasting without it:

Today, I traveled to Rowling Meadows, Illinois to attend James MacDonald’s Elephant Room 2 conversations. Upon entering the event venue I was met by a security guard and Jim Rowan, an elder at Harvest Bible Chapel and was promptly told that my entrance to the Elephant Room had been revoked and that I had to immediately leave the premises or I would be arrested for trespassing.

This is truly ODD, because the Purpose Statement of the Elephant Room states:

The Elephant Room is more than an event. It is the outgrowth of an idea. The idea that the best way forward for the followers of Jesus lies not in crouching behind walls of disagreement but in conversation among all kinds of leaders about what the scriptures actually teach. We must insist on the biblical Gospel, right doctrine and practice but not isolate ourselves from relationship even with those who believe much differently.

So, I ask the very logical question how is threatening to arrest me if I didn’t leave the premises of the Elephant Room an example of NOT “crouching behind walls of disagreement”?

Seems to me that the Elephant in the Room is the fact that the ONLY voices that James MacDonald and company are willing to hear are those that agree with them.

…First of all let me say that I do not automatically endorse everything that James MacD. does.  I love the forthright style of ministry he projects on the radio and I’ve visited his church in two locations in northwest Chicago, but I’m equally convinced that back in his elementary school days, he was the schoolyard bully. Sorry. That’s just my opinion, and last I checked, I’m entitled to it. Maybe this little bit of conference theater is just what happens when two bull-headed personalities clash.

However, I’m going to side with Harvest Bible Chapel and The Elephant Room on this one.  The particular Discernment Dude in question is trouble with a capital T.  A ticking time bomb in an event like MacDonald’s one-day live broadcast conference.  A person whose spirit runs counter to the spirit of the event.

You may not agree with J. MacD. on countless issues, but the motivation for this event is simple enough that even a child can understand it, and James MacDonald paid a fairly high price to forge ahead with it against criticism from various sides. I’m sure all the pastors and leaders in the audience had varying opinions on things, but I’m betting they were more aligned with the day’s central purpose than the one — and only one as far as we know — who was refused admission.

The MacDonald/Driscoll event was complex enough as it was.  There simply didn’t need to be one more elephant in the room.

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HT: FBC Jax Watchdog, a blog we link to at this one, but one which, as far as The Elephant Room is concerned, disagrees with its presenters, disagrees with the denominational heads who permitted their pastors conference to link with the event; but seem to think nothing of siding with Discernment Dude on this one. The politics of hatred can get really complicated at times.  I think everyone involved in reporting this conference sidebar — absolutely everyone — missed the whole point of The Elephant Room.

Wednesday Link List

The linkology lecture resumes; with this week’s being more diversionary than anything else…

• Pete Wilson has now posted the full 20-minute interview he did with Heaven is For Real authors Todd and Colton Burpo.  The full interview was played in all services on Sunday as part one of the church’s 3-week Glimpse series.
  
• The Christian Post reports that rapture prophet Harold Camping was heading home from hospital on Monday after suffering a mild stroke.  (HT: Bene)
  
• Christianity Today returns, a year later, to talk with Adam Young, aka Owl City, but the musician’s excessive shyness forces an email interview.
• Michael Krahn looks at the “me, myself and I” individualism in modern worship music, but also cautions about over-correcting.
• Southern Baptists are facing declining numbers, especially in an area near and dear to their faith: Baptisms are at lowest numbers since the 1950s.
  
• Ron Edmondson offers seven ways to get the most out of your overall experience of church life.
• There were a couple of pieces at Christianity 201 this week that I was quite pleased with, though they’re too long to run here.  One was a Christian counselor discussing what it means to put something “on the altar.”   The other was a piece by Rooms author James Rubart remixing the story of the Prodigal Son.
• J. Lee Grady looks at baby Storm, the Toronto child whose parents want to raise him/her as an individual without specific gender; and the resulting confusion that creates.
  
• James MacDonald says that the congregational form of church government is from Satan.  Yes, he really said that last week.  The firestorm resulted in this response on Monday.  Is it tongue in cheek?  (In tomorrow’s Our Journey devotional, readers will discover that MacDonald believes that we should pray to God and not to Jesus.  I read the paragraph three times to make sure, and that after getting a phone call on it.)
  
• An unusual request for a minister to receive:  We want you to marry us, but just don’t mention God.  Should he do the wedding?
  
• Her-meneutics writer Karen Swallow Prior thinks that when congressman Anthony Weiner says that texting isn’t adultery, he’s actually illustrating the mind-body dualism known as Gnosticism.
  
• Yes, heaven is for real, but didn’t we already know that?  Greg Thornbury is worried about the weight being placed on an extra-Biblical account.
  
• Time for a couple of video links.  This one is from 2007 and was filmed using all the latest technology.  (HT: J-Walk)
  
• Unless you have pre-schoolers at home, or have no sense of musical integrity, you’ll need a strong stomach for this one, but Darrell at Stuff Fundies Like has uncovered The Potato Chip Song, a bus ministry song on YouTube.  Maybe you should read the article first.
  
• And this fits right in:  If your church sends out postcards or notes when you miss Sunday worship, perhaps there’s more to those notes than what you see.
• Our cartoon this week is from Mick Mooney at the blog Searching For Grace; a new comic with only eleven strips so far.

Elephant Room Conference: The DVD

If you missed the Woodstock music festival in 1969, you had to wait a full year for the movie; but just weeks after James MacDonald convened the Elephant Room one day seminar which was simulcast to two dozen cities, the DVD is already available for purchase, so we decided to jump in and bought one for ourselves and a couple of extras.

The phrase, “the elephant in the room” is used to denote the thing that is hovering over a discussion, but is never mentioned.   The idea here is that pastors have things they wrestle with that are discussed backstage when they meet up at major events, but are never shared with a larger audience.  The goal was to bring those subjects into open discussion.

The seven pastors were MacDonald, Mark Driscoll, Greg Laurie, Perry Noble, David Platt, Mark Chandler and Steven Furtick who was cast as a bit of a newcomer to this “big league” group.  Actually, Furtick came across very well, presenting some very timely insights into the subjects, and the very nature of the debates themselves.  Topics included:

• Building numerically versus building depth
• Responding to culture
• Compassion and social justice
• Unity and discernment
• The multi-site church trend
• Money issues
• Loving the doctrine of the gospel but not sharing the gospel

An eighth session dealt with questions that had been texted in during the conference and was actually the most interesting in many ways. 

Over the past few years we’ve seen a growing interest in ecclesiology — the study of what constitutes ‘church’ –  among what would have been traditionally called “the laity.”  Books that would have formerly been written for the exclusive reading of pastors and church staff are now being purchased and discussed by the widest range of Evangelicals, many of whom are forging ahead with startups of home churches or alternative churches.  In a sense, the things the pastors discuss quietly backstage at conferences are being discussed in church lobbies, living rooms and over kitchen tables back home. This DVD set, and the topics it discusses are thereby of interest to everyone.

But it’s not the major takeaway from watching the seminar.

What is most striking is the camaraderie that exists between the pastors themselves.  While they do disagree on some minor points, there is a genuine agreement on the things that matter; what Driscoll well-defines as the difference between national borders (which wars are fought over) and state borders (for which wars are not fought.) 

There were some highlights and lowlights in the video.  One highlight was the overall production quality.  Another was the way they kept the discussion moving, with a moderator and two rotating key opponents followed by a more open forum that allowed the other four pastors to contribute.   Another highlight was seeing that with issues such as multi-site — so much on the minds of people as changes take place quickly — the pastors themselves do not undertake moves lightly, but truly agonize over the ramifications of growth.   A lowlight — and it really has to be said — is the way James MacDonald dominates every discussion, rolling over everyone else like a freight train at times.  I guess it was his party, so he got to call the tune.

I do love the concept, however.  This was a great series of conversations and I would hope that either MacDonald’s crew, or somebody else, would put something like this together this time next year, perhaps with a different mix of pastors and church leaders.  Rather than attempting to describe it further, you can watch a few sample clips here and here. 

What we call church really matters, and you don’t have to be among the ‘professional’ clergy to care.

Read another review of the conference here.

Link here to an index Trevin Wax provided of participants who live-blogged the event.

James MacDonald on the Royal Wedding

Yes, I know it was ten days ago and it’s now old news, but this intense April 29th post at James MacDonald’s blog is somewhat buried among some unrelated video clips posted the same day…

A Royal Wedding?

I got up early with my wife to watch the Royal Wedding of William and Kate. I did this because such things are important to my wife and I love her dearly. We have fond memories of Charles/Dianna’s wedding and like good Canadians by birth remember where we were back in 1981 for that memorable event. Some reflections:  

1) I pray for the new royal couple and ask that the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ would alter their natural course and that through faith they would come alive in a personal way to the forgiveness of sin, and the word of God and the hope of eternal life; simply that they would be saved.

2) I am thankful for the impact of regenerate Anglicans like John Stott and J.I. Packer whose ministries have impacted my life and faith for 3 decades.

3) I am grieved by the religious pomp, contrived ceremony and minimal passing gospel references in the service we and in the end, two billion others witnessed. The mumbling singing and distant glare of the couple themselves during the minister’s obligatory rambling grieved my heart deeply, knowing that this is the only church experience most watching will have this year. And will it do anything other than remind the masses why they do not church?

4) The Anglican community, deeply divided around the world over the authority of God’s word and an orthodox gospel was on display in this wedding seen by as many as 2 billion people. The service was only marginally different than a catholic mass. Reminding us that Anglicanism traces its history not to the heart cries of the reformation: Soli Fide, Sola Scriptura, Sola Christus, but to the convenience of an earthly King who wanted to remain religious while indulging himself in disobedience and unbelief.

5) I was grieved further by the seeming inability of genuine Christians to be offended at what we witnessed. Is the gospel adorned by an openly fornicating couple, forced into church by obligation, led in prayer by resurrection denying-Green Peace-ministers who care more about carbon footprints and unity at the expense of truth than fidelity to the revealed word of God and the gospel? (if you doubt it, Google Arch Bishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London)

I wish the ‘royal couple’ well and pray that they will find in their impossible task and the fleeting favor of humanity an occasion to search out the One whom to know by faith, is life eternal and who rules over a kingdom that will never end.

Thankful for King Jesus!

Living on Borrowed Vision

I want to raise a discussion topic here, and to do so, I’m going to appear to come out hittin’ fairly hard.  However, at no point in this am I trying to be presumptuous or judgmental.  I’m just bringing a topic to the forefront so that we can kick it around and see where it takes us.  I’m not suggesting for a minute that the story described here is necessarily a bad idea; in fact, time may prove otherwise…

…Over two years ago, when the movie Fireproof was releasing, I was really impressed not so much with the film’s quality, but with the idea that the movie — and others — were birthed out of a local church.  (The credits were a high point for just that reason.)

On 1/30/09 I wrote:

The movie Fireproof, for the most part, never played in theaters in Canada, so this week’s video release was our first look at the film.   Once again, the people at Sherwood Church delivered an amazing production.   This is the work of one local church. Where were these people when I was forced to view tacky Christian flicks as a kid?

…and a few weeks later on 2/15/09, I wrote

Watching the movies Facing the Giants and Fireproof have convinced me that even little churches can do big things.   Can you imagine the first time someone there said, “Why don’t we make a movie?”   Not everyone can make movies like Sherwood Church, but it costs nothing to dream big dreams, to brainstorm, to introduce possibilities; to empower individual church members with input into the local church’s ‘big picture;’  or input into choosing its destination.  Then comes the harder, next step: To designate one as its radical agenda for the balance of the year.

A few months later, USAToday did this profile of Sherwood Baptist Church, which noted:

Sherwood Baptist Church… is so successful in its movie making ministry that it now coaches others.

“Movies are the stained-glass windows of the 21st century, the place to tell the Gospel story to people who may not read a Bible,” says Michael Catt, senior pastor of Sherwood in Albany, Ga.

The idea is simple.  Sherwood is saying to other churches, ‘If we can do this as a local church, you can do this.’  Or words to that effect.

There’s nothing wrong with catching someone else’s vision.  Hundreds of pastors noted what Bill Hybels was doing at Willow Creek and saw the wisdom of incorporating many of his ideas into their local church situation.  The result is the Willow Creek Association, a sort of non-denomination networking pastors with similar vision, hosting conferences and connecting churches with resources.

Larry Norman once said, “Christianity is in an imitative mode.”  I think he was speaking from the idea of wanting to create music that was different from anything the world had to offer.  But many singers picked up guitars and imitated Larry Norman resulting in the contemporary Christian music or CCM movement, which later birthed today’s modern worship movement.  While we all long for fresh vision, “the sincerest form of flattery” is one way of recognizing that God is using someone else’s vision in ways we can learn from and adapt.

So why did the story that follows grate on me a little bit?

Elgin mega-church hires Hollywood director

ELGIN — In 2002, members of a megachurch in Albany, Ga., felt that God was calling them to make a movie.

With a budget of just $20,000 — less than what big-name Hollywood flicks spend for lunches — Sherwood Baptist Church made a film about a crooked used-car salesman undergoing a moral crisis.

Named “Flywheel,” it was directed, starred in and co-written by Alex Kendrick, one of the church’s pastors. Unpaid members of the church did most of the other acting and crew work. The film was released in 2003, played in only a few theaters, and made just $37,000 at the box office, though it later would go on to sell 300,000 DVDs.

In 2006, Sherwood Baptist again released a movie, this time about a high school football coach facing a midlife crisis. Riding on the popularity a year before of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” it was distributed by a major studio, played in 441 theaters and took in $10 million, or about 1,000 times what the church spent making it.

In 2008, the Georgia church made a film about a firefighter with a failing marriage. Named “Fireproof,” it became the top-grossing independent movie of any type that year, grossing $33 million. Church officials claim that the movie’s message about strengthening one’s relationships “has saved a million marriages.” Sherwood will release its fourth film, a police/family drama named “Courageous,” in theaters all over the country on Sept. 30.

Feeling God’s call to move in the same direction, the Elgin-based megachurch Harvest Bible Chapel has hired a Hollywood director, Dallas Jenkins, as its media director, bought a TV studio/sound stage in Aurora and given Jenkins the assignment of making a series of “faith-based movies” for theatrical and DVD release over the coming years.

Jenkins said he expects Harvest’s leaders to decide on a topic and a budget for the first film within the next two months and start filming by late 2011 or early 2012…

…When Harvest’s pastor, Rev. James McDonald, got the idea of following Sherwood Baptist into the movie ministry, McDonald thought of Dallas Jenkins.

“James and my dad are friends,” Jenkins explains. “He came out to Los Angeles to have dinner with me and explained what he had in mind. I thought maybe I would come back to Illinois a couple times a year to work on these projects. But he asked me to go to work for Harvest full time. I had never expected to come back to the Midwest.”…

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I don’t know why I have conflicting and contradictory thoughts about this.  But here are some possibilities.

1. The Sherwood Baptist story seems so organic.  The films sprang up from within, so to speak.  To hire a director and purchase a suburban Chicago sound stage seems contrary to the spirit of the Sherwood story.
2. God is already doing great things through Harvest Bible Chapel, Harvest Bible Fellowship and Walk in the Word.  I know that in the heart of every man — and every great Christian leader — there is desire to “enlarge their territory,” but I hope HBC doesn’t spread themselves out too thin.
3. I keep wondering if the Sherwood story — despite their willingness to pass on their expertise — is something special that God did through a particular congregation which, unlike the Willow Creek example used earlier, isn’t particularly meant to be copied or perhaps isn’t really particularly copyable.

So don’t try to answer the question as to whether Harvest Bible Chapel should do this, because apparently — and hopefully through prayer and Godly advice — they’re already off and running.  I guess the discussion question is: When is a ministry vision transferable to other churches and locations, and when do we simply come alongside to support those to whom God gave the original vision without feeling the need to directly imitate the success that God gave to someone else? 

Today’s bonus item: A preview of the forthcoming Sherwood movie Courageous…