Wednesday Link List

Try to have your link suggestions in by 8:00 PM EST Monday.

• What happens when Anabaptist convictions and Catholic worlds collide? An interview with Jesus For President co-author (with Shane Claiborne) Chris Haw on his latest, From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart.
  
• CNN did an exhaustive profile on the father/son relationship between Charles Stanley and Andy Stanley. (Skip the comments, though; no wonder media outlets are shutting down their religion blogs.)
• For those of you with high speed internet, Duke Taber has a collection of ten contemporary Christian Christmas songs — never thought I’d have to construct a phrase that way — to put you in the mood for 12/25.
• For pastors, worship leaders, and church leaders in general: A contrast between success and fruitfulness in ministry.
• Some Arminians don’t want to include open theists in their group because it gives credence to a Calvinist belief that Arminianism is part of a slippery slope toward… open theism. Roger Olson explains.
• At Daily Encouragement, we were recently informed that in some parts of Asia, the equivalent to “How Are You?” is “Did You Eat?” We have much to be thankful for.
• Carolyn Arends and her 14-year old son are on opposite sides of the table when it comes to creation theory, as are many Evangelicals.
• Now, see, if we were into sensationalism, we’d include a link to the one about the 80 year old priest who bit the ear off another clergyman.
• Or the one where Pat Robertson dismisses the whole David Petreaus scandal as something to be expected. (And here’s the word he used.)
• A church an hour east of Toronto, Canada is using a mobile app as a major part of its church growth strategy.
• Albert Mohler thought the election results were an “Evangelical Disaster,” but one author thinks maybe it was a good thing.
• Inside Perspective: What does it look like when the funeral protestors show up in your own home town? 
• When she’s not biographing Justin Beiber, Cathleen Falsani is following U2’s Bono to Georgetown University, where she summarizes the evening and includes a video of his full address.
  
• Mark D. Roberts referred to an author I remember reading, Ben Patterson who taught him to remember that our words should please God.
  
• Renown atheist Penn Jillette of magic team Penn and Teller has included the Bible in his list of six favorite books.  Of course he’s being cynical.
• This links takes you to the channel for articles by Anna Heydenrych, an author women will resonate with, whose column Coffee Break originates with Gateway, a South African Christian news portal.

Andy Stanley Reveals What’s In The Secret Sauce

As someone who has been around The Church for a long time, I’m really not in North Point Community Church’s target demographic. But at 2:00 PM on a Sunday, you’ll find me watching a streaming broadcast of their morning service. Two reasons. First, I think there’s something exciting going on in that Atlanta suburb and because the technology allows it, I want to be watching to cheer them on. Second, there’s stuff about what it means to trust God that I still don’t think I’ve got right and I need to be told again and in new ways.

Andy significant landed on my radar eight years ago. I was doing a church plant and wanted to access video teaching content from another church that the other church wasn’t ready to give out. “Have you heard of North Point?” I was asked. “North who?”

Just about any survey of megachurches in the past decade places North Point in the top five. In addition to their own satellites in the greater Atlanta area, North Point Ministries has strategic partner churches across the U.S., in Canada, and beyond.

Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love To Attend (Zondervan) is Andy’s message to pastors who want a behind-the-scenes look at the church and know how (and why) they do what they do.

The book comes at a time that many are concerned that the megachurches are setting the agenda for the church as a whole in the Western world. But the North Point staff have spent enough time doing seminars to know that their methodology is of interest to medium-sized and even small-sized church leadership.

The church is mission driven. The book explains how that mission drives their vision; how it drives everything that they do. The vision, in turn, drives their model. Their model drives their programming. And their programming is radically different from other churches you have been part of.

There’s no men’s or women’s ministry. Most of their giving to local needs goes to secular agencies. Events or services are termed “environments.”Their children’s curriculum targets key narratives and doesn’t try to cover the whole compendium of scripture. Women help take up the offering (and do lots of other things, too.) Non-Christians serve in various limited capacities. You have to — without exceptions — record a 3-4 minute testimony video to be baptized. They avoid the phrase, “The Bible says…” Officially, the music selections on Sunday are termed “singing,” not “worship.”

Some of you are feeling your blood pressure rise.

Andy admits there are no chapters and verses for these policies. But before you get up in arms, or say, “See, I told you so…” you should know that much careful thought and prayer have gone into creating the North Point distinctives.

This is a seeker-targeted church. In its present form, North Point is more ‘Willow Creek’ than Willow Creek. Too many people think that means ‘dumbed down.’ Not at all. What Andy calls “putting the cookies on the lower shelf” does not preclude solid, often exegetical Bible teaching. I would contend that in status quo churches across the western world, most people would find the level of personal challenge at North Point to be much greater than they are presently accustomed to. Jesus didn’t ‘dumb down’ anything. He challenged people in terms of spiritual disciplines and in their understanding how the Old Testament puzzle pieces fit together to reveal Him. Trust me, some of you — some of us — wouldn’t be able to keep up to the pace at North Point.

This is a hardcover book for pastors, church leadership, and church planters that is going to resonate with anyone drive by The Great Commission. It’s not for everyone. But it’s a book that every pastor, church leader and church planter needs to read. There’s also much in personal stories including a section at the beginning that defines the relationship between Andy and his father, Charles Stanley.

Highly recommended.

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Here’s a quotation from the book published today at C201

Christian Radio in Crisis

The names and faces are familiar as are the names of the various radio programs:

• Insight for Living – Chuck Swindoll
• Turning Point – David Jeremiah
• Thru The Bible – J. Vernon McGee
• Back to the Bible – Woodrow Kroll
• In Touch – Charles Stanley
• Grace to You – John MacArthur
• Love Worth Finding – Adrian Rogers
• Haven Today – Charles Morris
• Let My People Think – Ravi Zacharias
• Bible Answer Man – Hank Hanegraaff

Notice anything?   No, I mean besides the fact they’re all male.   (And all American.)  This is in every sense of the word, an “old boys network.”   Chip Ingram may still look young in his publicity shots, and James MacDonald may open with a cool David Crowder theme song, but exceptions aside, Christian radio is playing host to an older generation of radio preachers, which isn’t the generation they need to attract if the medium is to survive.

You may wish to suggest that maybe it’s just time for the medium to die off.   After all, look what YouTube has done to the hours people formerly spent watching broadcast, cable and satellite television.   The 42″ screen has unexpectedly lost ground to the 17″ monitor.    The plasma screen may be high definition, but the next generation would rather program their own visual channels, even if the images are jumpy, grainy or pixelating.

But is there an opportunity being lost?   Last time I checked, cars still come with FM radios.   It’s still the medium of choice if you’re caught in a traffic tie-up looking for an alternative route.   It’s still what you’ve got if the iPod battery fails or one of the earbuds isn’t working.   And it’s weather forecasts are still reasonably up-to-date and free-of-charge.

No, the problem isn’t with radio itself.  The problem is that a new generation of pastors doesn’t want to fuss with purchasing airtime and building that kind of media ministry.   Keeping the multi-site satellite link working weekly is enough technical challenge for one week.   The demographic they see on Sunday morning grew up with time shifting anyway.   They can PVR their favorite program and view it anytime; so they don’t need some guy on radio telling them, “Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow at 6:00 PM…”

I’ve never understood why an audio cassette version of the VCR never happened, but then I’ve never understood why for years, push-buttons allowed people to find AM and FM stations with pinpoint accuracy in their cars, while at home they had to slide a “dial” back and forth.   Even today, some digital tuners still offer frustrations unknown to driving with preset stations.

Furthermore, today’s younger pastors don’t want to start a branch of their ministry that might start bleeding red ink, which might lead to the type of on-air begging that has tainted the Christian radio medium.

No, radio just isn’t at the forefront for a new generation of Christians.   They know more about Francis Chan than Francis Shaeffer; they prefer Andy Stanley to Charles Stanley.    They download Rob Bell, discuss Greg Boyd’s take on the Gospel of Luke,  and work out to the latest Craig Groeschel sermon from Lifechurch.   They discuss the latest interview available at Drew Marshall’s website, debate the latest pronouncement from Mark Driscoll, and tell their friends about Pete Wilson’s sermon download page.

None of this is lost on Christian radio ministries.   Weekly podcasts from Focus on the Family, Greg Laurie and even John Piper rank among the top ten each week.   They’ve taken their content and propelled it forward into the new media.

Which brings us to the point of all this.   The proprietors of the new media need to make their content backward compatible.   All of this great, next-generation communication of the Good News, and so very little of it being heard over traditional broadcast frequencies.

Some visionary person needs to create a radio outlet for the vast number of sermon podcasts being created each week by younger leaders in a new era of multi-site, emerging, missional, or just plain newly-planted churches.   It’s time the computer-less, broadband-less, or those simply out-of-the-loop got to hear what some of us are already enjoying.    And personally, I think an older generation of Christ-followers would appreciate having some fresh new voices at the table.

The content is already recorded.    The radio stations already exist.   Let’s introduce the two to each other.   Before it’s too late for Christian radio.

Related post on this blog — A fictional story about Pastor Boone, who gets offered some free radio time and instead of just putting his church service on the radio…

Related post on this blog — My proposal to make Worship Network’s Sunday Setlists into a weekly Christian radio show.

Related post on this blog — This  links to a USAToday Religion story on how Christian radio is dealing with the new economic realities, attracting younger listeners, and keeping donations coming.

Related post at The Church Report — James Dobson and son Ryan Dobson are teaming up to launch a new radio ministry.

Appendix — Arbitron Podcast demographics worth knowing — and these go back to 2006! —

Robert Schuller Quadruples Broadcast Reach in Network Acquisitions

Tuesday, the Dallas Morning News reported the following deal with between Robert A. Schuller’s company and the network owned by Charles Stanley’s In Touch Ministries:

A Dallas private equity firm co-founded by Robert A. Schuller, the former televangelist from the Hour of Power, has acquired two media companies in Atlanta that nearly quadruple its reach to 50 million U.S. households.

ComStar Media said Monday that it’s buying FamilyNet Television and FamilyNet Radio for an undisclosed amount.

“It’s a pretty big leap,” said ComStar co-founder and chief executive Chris Wyatt, who is Schuller’s son-in-law. “No one knows who we are in Dallas, and we run two major television networks.”

Wyatt hopes to change that.

He projects that ComStar’s $5 million in revenue will at least double next year.

Wyatt and Schuller, who is chairman of ComStar, started the company late last year to buy distressed faith-based media companies. Its first fund has a target of $10 million, but the next fund will shoot for $50 million, Wyatt said.

In May, ComStar made its first acquisition, AmericanLife Television Network, which reaches 13 million households…  […continue reading here]

To learn more about Schuller’s new program, Everyday Life,  and American Life Network, click here.

Photo:  Scene from Everyday Life, ALN Network