Abandoned Megachurches circa 2026

The interior of an abandoned church is seen on September 5, 2013 in Detroit, Michigan. From the Huffington Post, May 2015.

This weekend I heard part of a story that made me shudder. A megachurch. Mortgage-free. An issue arises. A split. People leave. Now there’s a mortgage. The future not as assured as it once was.

I very sincerely hope and pray that this one has a happy ending; that its best days are ahead. But it got us talking last night at dinner about the prophets of doom who predict there are going to be a long list of abandoned megachurches in North America at some point in the future. The ones who say that it’s only the personality of the founding pastor that is drawing the crowds. The experts who tell us that the move is going to be to smaller community churches and home fellowships. I hope they’re all wrong.

I mean it; well at least partly wrong. For all the negative articles in books, magazines and blogs about the downside to mass market worship, I think the specter of dozens of abandoned churches like the one in our picture above is far worse. You can take hundred-year-old churches now and turn them into trendy restaurants or antique shops, but unless a municipality arts group or a community college wants the space, it’s harder to do that with a 3,000 seat auditorium. Any decommissioned church is a sad story, but with today’s gigantic facilities, the buyers are fewer.

The scene is not totally far-fetched. Wikipedia lists 22 abandoned major shopping malls in the U.S. The internet abounds with photojournalism studies of dead malls. (That last link has literally hundreds of abandoned retail properties.) Ironically, the ideal location for megachurches and malls is identical: In suburbia at the intersection of two freeways.

The term sometimes used is Architectural Corpses. While some believe that churches which have sketchy theology are just a house of cards waiting to collapse, nobody wants to think that the congregation taught weekly by their favorite preacher would ever succumb to such a fate.

Three years ago Wade Burleson wrote:

…The pendulum is swinging back toward churches creating loose organizational structures in order to facilitate a wider array of ministries. For the next few decades, those evangelical churches that will continue to grow in numbers and Kingdom influence are those churches that spend less on facilities, learn how to worship in multiple venues and at various times, and focus more on building a network of effective small groups that collectively do missions both locally and globally. The climate and culture of the evangelical church has changed. Any church that focuses on large in-house productions, massive buildings, and ministries more conducive to “come and receive” instead of “go and give” is in for a surprise.

Let’s call it the Evangelical Fiscal Cliff.

Churches that have borrowed to build massive facilities are behind the proverbial eight ball. They must continue to focus on sustaining and maintaining the organization (utilities, repairs, staffing, and publicity to bring people into the high dollar facilities for “special events”), instead of empowering people to do the work of the ministry away from the buildings…

Most of the other articles on this topic simply use the subject as a means of attacking the doctrine of popular American pastors and churches.

In terms of church culture trends, Wade is probably correct, but an interesting thing happened here in Canada many, many years ago. They simply stopped building new shopping malls. This created a supply/demand equilibrium, and while some have indeed closed, and others are reconfigured as parts of outdoor power centers, many of the ones that remained are continuing to thrive, as evidenced by packed parking lots.

So in some respects, I know the future is going to contain a few forsaken megachurch buildings, but in general, I hope American Christianity can prove the doomsayers wrong.

The website abandoned.photos said this church was designed to seat 10,000 but provided no further annotation.

Finally, I couldn’t help but pull this photo out of the files. I am sure that in its former days the members of this cathedral could never have imagined this, but what re-purposing of today’s churches exceeds our imagination? It’s sobering to consider.

The above is taken from a Wall Street Journal article about European Cathedrals being sold off, this one in Holland was re-purposed as a skateboard park.

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Related:

• Steve Taylor 1985 song, “This Disco Used to be a Cute Cathedral”

 

Wednesday Link List

I found this at the comics blog, Comics Curmudgeon with this caption:
Hmm, Dennis’s teacher takes him aside after class, as if to gently correct him privately, but makes sure to do it while the other children are still in earshot, so that they can snicker at his ignorance! I’d say the menace has become the menaced, except that Dennis managed to get a Sunday School lesson to linger on nudity and shame, so maybe he’s playing a much deeper game here.

 

Featured Links

Your Church’s Management Culture – Thom Schultz looks at five models, the Family Run church, the Celebrity Centered church, the Deacon Possessed church (I loved that title), the Team Oriented church and the Democracy Weighted church. “Every congregation–and each ministry within it–takes on a style of governance that shapes its work and effectiveness…Sometimes a church’s structure becomes its very focus. People become devoted to the system, rather than to God.”

Navigating a Major Staff Departure – After 16 years of working together, Andy Stanley was so concerned with his friend Joel Thomas’ decision-making conundrum that Andy didn’t initially communicate that he didn’t want Joel to leave. And Joel broke all the rules of disclosure, bringing Andy into the discussion from day one. A 19-minute leadership podcast on what Andy calls Open-Handed staffing.

What Some Christians Think About Christians in Other Tribes – As listicles go, this collection of 10 Myths will make you think. Sample: “Interpretations differ because one party respects the Bible less… [T]his myth rests on the very shaky assumption that respect for Scripture always leads to correct interpretation and application of scripture. Too bad scripture itself doesn’t back this assumption! Apollos fervently respected the Old Testament and teachings of John the Baptist. But his own sermons were off-base enough for Priscilla and Aquila to pull him aside and give him a crash course in the gospel of Jesus.”

Preaching Christologically – Encouraged to “preach Christ in every sermon” hands go up at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with objections to the idealism of this approach because, “my sermon text is focused on a particular doctrinal truth” or “my sermon text is focused on a moral truth and not on Christ” or “my sermon text is focused on a moral truth” or “every sermon begins to sound the same.” The response to these situations is found in something published in 1801.

Confessional Accounts and the Women (and Men) Who Write Them – This precis of an article from The Hedgehog Review begins with Augustine’s Confessions and moves to modern times: “..But now …confessional literature is a consumer product and (usually) female writers are the commodifiers and the commodified… If their work has anything in common, it’s a mixture of self-consciousness and shamelessness… I too have seen Serious Literary Types raise an eyebrow at first-person narrative essays by women as though it was, by definition, evidence of vanity and triviality. When sold or produced as a genre, Women’s Confessional Literature can be a cynical enterprise that capitalizes on voyeurism.”

Parenting with Perspective – Baker Books author Emily Wierenga: “My friend tells me about a family from her neighborhood whose house burnt down in a fire – and they weren’t able to make it upstairs in time to reach their four oldest kids. Four boys. Now in heaven. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever heard. I just weep and weep. Some things are too much and this feels like one of them. No mother should have to outlive one of her children, let alone four … I want to cling to every single one of my children’s moments, good and bad, long and short, messy and smudged with kisses, because I’m never going to look back and miss that Mommy Time.”

Looking Further Down the Worship Road – Songwriter and producer Brenton Brown: “At least two significant challenges face us as worship leaders. The first is that often we become so engaged in the immediate worship needs that we delay beginning the process of developing the leaders around us. Saying ‘yes’ to developing leaders at certain points will mean saying ‘no’ to other ministry opportunities. There will always be need, but if we are to be effective in serving people in worship we need to break out of the survivalist mentality and plan for the long-haul. The second challenge that faces us, more often than not, is our artistic/perfectionist temperaments which seem to rear up at any hint of a possible drop in standards.”

Making Multi-Faith Mandatory in Medicine – Under new guidelines issued this month by the National Health Service in the UK, hospitals would be required to provide atheist chaplains. ““Chaplains already show no discrimination in dealing with patients whatever their background or belief. Providing atheist chaplains is an exercise in pointless political correctness. Taxpayers’ money should not be spent on this misguided attempt to comply with the perceived demands of equality laws, when they are already met by existing services.”

L’Arche Founder Wins Templeton Prize – Americans could be forgiven for not knowing Jean Vanier (or how to pronounce his French name) but are probably more aware of Henri Nouwen who joined L’Arche, the organization Vanier founded, after a career as a Catholic seminary professor. L’Arche, founded over 50 years ago became “an international network of communities for mentally disabled people” and last week it was announced that Vanier has “won the 2015 Templeton Prize worth $1.7 million for affirming life’s spiritual dimension.” Vanier has 22 books currently in print (in English) including the popular From Brokenness to Community and the 10th anniversary edition of Becoming Human and is known for affirming the dignity of developmentally challenged adults.

Rolling in the Deeps – Why anyone would go to the trouble of crafting a religious sculpture and then placing it out of sight underwater is anyone’s guess, though in this collection of five such placements we’re told that two of them were: “placed underwater by local officials to help discourage fishing techniques that use explosives. Since fisherman know the statues are down there, they don’t use dynamite.”

One for the Road – The artist currently known as Prince has covered a 2005 song by Christian artist Nicole Nordeman. Her reaction.

Short Takes

• Pope Francis leaves the door open to a shorter term, though what might really cut it short is his craving for pizza.
• Hadn’t heard this classic song, The Ninety and Nine, since I was a kid. Listen to a cover by Andrew Peterson. 
• And now, time for Extreme Makeover, Church Edition. (Mauve is so 1985…)
  
• Lacey Sturm, I Am They, Shonlock and Blanca are among the guests at Creation 2015 Northeast, though surely the record for most appearances at this festival surely belongs to The Donut Man.
• The connection to Justin Bieber focuses extra attention on The City Church and its pastor Judah Smith.

We end with long-time favorite cartoonist John McPherson:

Wednesday Link List

Summertime and the linkin’ is easy…Our biggest collection ever with 40 bullets!

• The major story this week was that the Church of England voted to end centuries of discrimination and will now consecrate women as bishops.
• Beyond the Titus and Timothy texts, there are other qualities that make for a great elder.
• Story of the Week: She spent her whole life within a few yards of her parents, growing up aboard a YWAM ship. And then she left for college.
• Over the years, many articles have been written on how to be the Christian wife of an unbelieving husband; but I’ve never seen it done as a catechism.
• 

  Read the list here or at PARSE, the blog of Leadership Journal (click this image)

  As you leave to “do church” each week, your residential neighbors probably stay home. That’s the subject of both a music album and a series of documentary videos. Check out The Desert Blooms Project.
• Churches and pastors wanting to share compassion in the middle of the border crisis have been told they aren’t welcome. (More at this story, also.)
• Analogy Avenue: Do we want to attract spiritual seekers, or are we looking for people to join the family? Lessons from the discomfort zone. (Complete with belly dancing!)
• Pew Research has been busy documenting the destruction of church property and facilities by governments. Worst offenders: Russia, China and Tajikistan.
• A story in pictures: Faith Chapel Christian Center in Birmingham, AL opened the door to a multi-purpose center. The Bridge has everything you want in a community recreation facility, with programming to match.
• Essay of the Week: The two types of people you meet when it’s time for worship.
• What’s in a name? This essay examines the various manifestations of what we generally term Reformed or Calvinist theology.
• The December movie, Exodus: Gods and Kings (aka the Christian Bale Moses movie) has a short trailer posted online.
• You already knew this, but to repeat, crafting a sermon and drafting a book are quite different.
• Essay of the Week: For gospel-centered preachers, it’s not necessary to go on a Where’s Waldo? quest to force Jesus to turn up in every text.
• Is social justice truly mandated for the Christ follower, or does it take place organically?
• Baptist ethicists counter the idea that a sexual revolution is taking place among Christian youth…
• …In another Russell Moore-related link, what do you do when a man in your church has confessed his adultery to God, but never told his wife? (7-minute podcast.)
• Defining ‘pastor’ and knowing what a church should expect from the pulpit and what the pulpit should expect from the church.
• Not surprisingly, the Wild Goose Festival 2014 had its detractors.
• Wow! People are really sensitive when you take their religious symbols and use them to sell blankets.
• A former Jehovah’s Witness returns to the denom’s HQ for a tour of the Watchtower Building in New York.
• The question everyone in ministry is asking this week: Does your church look like a beauty salon?
• From the UK, a metric look at church metrics. (The trick is transitioning between sizes.)…
• …while in the States, a look at how small(er) church pastors live in the tension between ministry and management.
• Jonathan Merritt accurately notes some of the tension points in Christian publishing over responding to the gay issue.
• Get Religion looks at the death, by his own hand, of a Dallas pastor, and also at the manner in which it was reported locally.
• After they fill in a welcome card, how does your church follow up with visitors?
• This week the Church of England also voted to relax the requirements for clergy dress.
• Here’s a future book topic, Sandra Stanley on a parenting methodology she calls constant conversations. (Part one of a multi-part series.)
• If your family has trouble choosing among several mealtime prayers you use, now you can always roll the die.
• Short but profound: Many of our miscommunications lie in the ambiguity when words have two meanings…
• …and more on the undermining of the meaning of “friend.” (No, it’s not about Facebook.)
• So if we can extrapolate from this story, it’s not the 98% of clergy that are the problem, it’s the 2% that make headlines.
• Sometimes a disclaimer needed: In a Sunday sermon at North Point, a recreation facility was recommended. Players compete with micro-chipped golf balls, but checking the website, alcohol is a big part of the party packages.
• Binding Satan: Do not attempt this at home.
• Okay. I don’t have a specific link, but there sure was a lot of buzz online about this book.
• Sermon of the Week: This one has Babel, Pentecost, European travel and several funny moments.
• I have no comment: The Jesus Scarecrow.
• The Pope continues to meet with American televangelists, but everyone was talking about the photo-story where James Robison gets a papal high five…
• …Finally, you can now own the same red sock the Pope wears. (They ship from Paris. How do I know this?)

While not curating the internet, Paul Wilkinson blogs at Thinking Out Loud and C201.

Wednesday Link List

Welcome to another installment of random links from Thinking Out Loud.  If you’ve been on summer holidays, the list has become the victim of a corporate takeover. We’re now at Out of Ur on Wednesdays, the blog of Leadership Journal, a division of Christianity Today. We’ve asked our Chicago-based new bosses to aim for 8:00 AM EDT !!

Check the list also for an explanation as to the above Church photo, aka “Fruitcake as building material.” 

• A subject I’ll click on every time: Greg Laurie on why is the United States seemingly absent in Biblical prophecy.
• So what about that verse about those with unruly children being unfit for leadership? Douglas Wilson kicks off a series wondering what happened to that qualification.
• Is there a hierarchy within the Trinity? Michael Patton suggests there is an order similar to the order in which we usually recite the parts of the Godhead.
• The Archbishop of Canterbury: Speaking in tongues? Yes. A personal conversion experience is necessary? No. Following Christ? It’s like getting measles. (Links like this? Priceless.)
• A CNN Religion writer suggests that as with everything else, there are six denominations of atheists.
• Coming in October to a theater near (some of) you: Watch the trailer for I’m In Love With a Church Girl.
• Readers at Real Clear Religion sent in another crop of 33 pictures of ugly churches. (We like #5 subtitled ‘Fruitcake as building material.’)
• Clergy lag behind military, teachers, and doctors in Pew survey list of most-respected professions; and this was a survey of churchgoers!
• Prime Minister David Cameron wants the default on UK home internet connections to block pornography unless the customer requests it.
• Women’s Department: A youthful group of women get together in Talking Taboo, a frank discussion about faith featuring a huge list of contributors.
• Bigger, better, louder, faster… in ministry we often want more when the model of scripture suggests maybe we need less of more.
• A song by J.J. Heller is featured in a 30-second tourism commercial for Queensland, Australia.
• Following a great family tragedy, pastor Rick Warren returns to the pulpit of Saddleback Church this weekend for the first time since March.
• Have you heard of churches wherein when the senior pastor resigns, every staff member tenders their resignation? One writer doesn’t like this idea.
• Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is due to make a rare crusade appearance August 9th in Buffalo, New York.
• Sometimes those eBooks you get for a $1 (or less) are books that were never edited for grammar or spelling.
• The podcast On Pop Theology looks at modesty culture, purity culture, and why Christian dating advice isn’t so good. (Coarse language.)
• Somewhat related: Catholic bulletin announcement — “Dignity & Decorum: Please try not to wear beach shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Thank you.” But the temp is in the 80s at the 7:30 service.
• While missing the stats, here’s another article about college students exiting non-denominational Evangelicalism for ‘high’ liturgical churches.
• Ancient Art Department: You can blame the Egyptian god Bes for how the Devil got his looks.
• Also at the BBC Culture page: They’re building an ark in Long Island, though this one won’t touch water.
• I thought it would be cool to include a Spanish link. Too bad I don’t speak Spanish. Still it’s nice to know these blogs are there, like this one dealing with apologetics, worldviews, moral relativism and ministry to postmoderns. (Maybe I understand the language more than I realize.)
• American Interest Department: What US cities are ‘saintly’ and which ones are ‘sinful?’ You might be surprised.
• A blogger thinks we spent too much time in church facing the front of the room, and not enough time facing one another.

Finally, since Out of Ur is borrowing from us today, we thought we’d return the favor with a link to this post:

Twentyonehundred Productions is the InterVarsity multi-media team. They post an infographic like this each week on their Facebook page.  Normally, that would be the end of things here, but since historically, the Wednesday Link List began or ended with a cartoon, I couldn’t resist stealing borrowing one more graphic from them…

Wednesday Link List

Let there be links.

In a week that is overshadowed by developments at The Vatican it’s hard to find other religious news stories, but we tried.

• Two Afghan children that Shane Claiborne met a few weeks ago were killed by NATO troops.
  
• N.T. Wright comes at an old issue in a new way, and offers his reasons why women should be in pastoral ministry. 
• An Australian TV outlet does a 14-minute exposé of Hillsong Church with a particular axe to grind concerning the church’s tax free status.
  
• Is the way forward in church planting that the pastors will have other jobs; be bi-vocational?  Well, yes and no.
• Francis Chan talks to Canadian interviewer Moira Brown about leaving his church and starting up again in Northern California. (This is a part two of two-part interview; 15 minutes each.)
  
• Want more transparency in the church? How about this Belgian church constructed in 2011 out of transparent steel?
  
• And a church that treated its former pastors like trash held a service of apology and reconciliation.
  
• If you tell people you don’t smoke because your body is “a temple,” then you need to know that in 2013, sitting is the new smoking.
• A new digital edition of “the quad” the four books of Mormon scriptures includes some editorial changes reflecting “shifting official view on issues like polygamy, the Church’s history of racism, and the historicity of LDS scripture.”
• It’s not too late to send a gift: Benny Hinn and former wife Suzanne were scheduled to be remarried last week. And since that link was older — but detailed — the answer is yes, it happened.
• Mark Burnett tells Inside TV that “weird things” happened as they filmed The Bible miniseries. You’ll like the snake handler’s report.
• Have trouble starting a spiritual conversation? Start by asking questions. 
• “Teenage girls aging out of foster care and/or orphanages are known as the highest ‘at risk’ group in our nation. It’s estimated that a teenage girl on the streets will be approached within 48 hours by a pimp…” Read the stats and one city’s game plan.
  
• Christian rapper Lecrae is performing along side his mainstream music counterparts at SXSW, the South by Southwest festival… 
• …And Canadian Christian rapper Manafest is writing a book.
  
• Found a great devotional site this week… Here’s a piece about following Jesus versus walking ahead of Him…
• …And the updated list of the Top 200 Calvinist Christian blogs is now online; or at least one person’s version of it.
  
• The offbeat  ‘gay worship band’ story got way too much coverage last week which is why I would never link to it.
  
• Here’s how Religion News Service was handicapping the race to be Pope on the weekend. Even though this final four may be old news by the time you read this, I left it here for comparison (if RNS keeps it online). 
• A greater concern for the cardinals during a conclave week is if it goes into overtime and finds them running out of clean laundry.
  
• Graham Kendrick has greatly reconstructed an old hymn into something new; check out Oh The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.
• People from five religious ‘tribes’ will try to convert Catalina an atheist — who looks slightly like Tina Fey — on the latest contest from The Drew Marshall Show titled Soul Survivor.

 

The Schuller Family: For Greater Contrast, Skip a Generation

See info below re. these pictures

This blog has already been both a news source and sounding board for the continuing drama at the Crystal Cathedral that I am in two minds about this particular blog post.

However, Nicole Santacruz at the L.A. Times has written such a definitive article — even after it seems so much has already been written — that I cannot help but link to it here, and also respond to it.

The article begins not with the juxtaposition of Robert H. and Robert A., but skips a generation and looks at the contrast — and perhaps a few similarities — between Cathedral Founder Robert H. and grandson Bobby, who pastors The Gathering, just a few miles down the road.

The third-generation Schuller hopes to do what the landmark — and now bankrupt — Crystal Cathedral has apparently failed to: evolve with the times.

Bobby’s church, The Gathering, takes a low-key approach to worship. Sunday’s services aren’t in an opulent church. Young band members open the service, and it’s intimate — people don paper name tags and shake hands. All of these elements represent a “post-boomer” style of worship popular with 20- to 40-year-old Christians, said Richard Flory, a sociologist of religion at USC.

But the article goes beyond mere color commentary; here’s a take on the big glass church in Garden Grove:

“They are totally outdated,” Flory said. “They are so committed to a plot of land and a building, and they’ve got a problem.”

And this look at the annual “Glory of Christmas” pageant:

The Christmas production would begin to signify a culture of extravagance within the church: More than a dozen angels in white chiffon flew overhead, professional singers replaced volunteers, and live camels and donkeys took the stage.   (Emphasis added.)

And this interesting sidebar, a revelation about a production few of us had heard of:

[I]n 2005, Carol Schuller Milner, the third Schuller daughter, produced a multimillion-dollar pageant called “Creation,” which was poorly attended and never staged again.

Robert A.’s daughter provides some good insight:

“When you have a dynamic where faith, fame and family are all involved, it becomes difficult to prioritize faith,” she said. “Instead it becomes part of this mixture of family dynamics and fame dynamics.”

And the article also raises another issue, one being dealt with by multiplied numbers of churches:

“I think it’s true that any congregation has to figure out how its style of ministry affects more than one generation.” said Wes Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary for the Reformed Church in America, the denomination to which the Crystal Cathedral belongs. “You see evidence of that in Bobby’s service.”

Bobby, who’s now 29, gets the last word:

Bobby Schuller is an innovator like his grandfather, but the way he delivers his message of Christianity is drastically different. The stereotypical church, he said, is about a perfect building filled with perfect people, music and a perfect preacher.

“In other words, it’s not like life,” he said…

…Volunteers set up for the service each Sunday and take down the chairs and tables that afternoon. When the work is done, they all go out for pizza. More than 90% of church funds go toward social justice issues such as homelessness and domestic violence.

“Our goal is to make big Christians, not big churches,” he said.

There’s more to the L.A. Times article.   I’ve excerpted a few sections here only because many of you don’t take the time to click the link, but hoping you will, here is the story link again.

Recent coverage here of the Crystal Cathedral saga:

• October 19, 2010 (recent bankruptcy)
• December 9, 2009 (Robert A.’s new network)
• November 30, 2009 (Everyday Life TV Show announced)
• May 1, 2009 (this one has links to earlier posts)

…and also…

• Wednesday Link List from a few days ago, with the link to a very recent, unscheduled TV interview Robert A. did with 100 Huntley St.

About the photos:   I decided we needed a different kind of photo of the big glass temple, and in searching for an arial photo, came across this one from Google Earth that had been posted at the site Sacred Destinations, and decided to take a chance on the copyrighted photo as well.  (If it’s not there, I lost that battle!)   I got to visit the original Garden Grove Community Church in 1979, and then my wife and I did the larger facility in 1989.  There are additional photos and story at that website.

Wednesday Link List

The long hot summer is just about over, and the kids are back in school.    Time for a look at the pages that grabbed my attention this week, with a little help from our friend (at right) the links lynx.

• First of all, there’s a live event online tomorrow (Thursday September 9th) night:  A Night of Worship, streaming live from North Point Community Church at 7:30 PM Eastern, 6:30 PM Central.   To watch at home you need enough bandwidth to capture the live feed, and this website.
• When Chad Holtz isn’t busy pastoring a rural Methodist church, he’s busy confronting evil at the local Islamic Center.  Sort of.
  
• Greg at the blog, Lost in the Clouds posts an edgy response to the Christianity Today cover story Hipster Christianity by Brent McCracken based on his book of the same name.   Greg says “I’m sorry, but all of this is adding up to a sorry picture of our tour guide through the world of Hipster Christianity…”   I think he struck a nerve.
  
• Students at Belmont University are being handed cash to make a difference.    Donald Miller explains the $20 giveaway; but I wonder what they’d do if — after the manner of Matthew 25 — one of the students simply handed back $40?
• Carlos Whitaker doesn’t want attendees at the Catalyst Conference to be singing the songs he chooses, so he asks his readers to report the song titles they are connecting with at their churches.   So far, over 125 replies.
• Frank Turk, who probably doesn’t write a lot of music reviews, joins a number of bloggers who are noticing what can only be termed a “modern hymnwriter,” Matthew Smith.
  
• Andrew Jones lists five major game changers that revolutionized who he is today.  People in ministry, don’t miss this one.
  
• Thom Turner knows that baptism can be a divisive subject, but suggests there’s room for diversity even within denominations and possibly within local churches as well.
  
• If you missed the blog tour — actually it was more like a progressive dinner — for Anne Jackson’s Permission to Speak Freely (Thomas Nelson), you can still catch all seven excerpts by following the links, starting here.  Anne’s honesty will resonate with anyone dealing with various types of pain.
  
• Brian, a regular reader of this blog, invites you to join him and others in a week of prayer for Beja people — nomadic camel herders — of Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea.   Read more here.
  
• Our video link this week is a worship song you may not know by Willow Creek’s Aaron Niequist, simply titled Changed.
  
• U.S. Fundamentalist nutcase Terry Jones is determined to burn copies of the Quran on September 11th — I doubt even the U.S. President could stop this guy — so as of Tuesday night officials announced plans to quell access to his property through an identification checkpoint, so fewer people can see him do it.
  
• John Stackhouse has no problem with street preaching, but that’s usually in commercial areas, right?  What happens when the preachers invade a residential street?  That, he says, is going too far.
• Anglicans in Nova Scotia, not content with the annual “blessing of the pets” service, are having a “blessing of the techs” service for laptops, cellphones and mobile devices.
  
• This may be your church, or at least your church sign:  Grace Methodist Episcopal in New York, circa 1922; from Shorpy.com; a classic photograph site.  Middle picture is from the Gospel Mission in Georgetown, circa 1920; final picture is a storefront church from the “Black Belt” of Chicago in 1941 and where deciding where you’re going to eat after church isn’t an issue with the lunch wagon next door.   Click through any of the pictures to see the images in super-giant size.
  

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You Knew We Were a Christian Country, So Why Did You Move Here?

There was something in the USAToday story I wasn’t fully grasping:

By Stephen Brown, Religion News Service
GENEVA — The Swiss Council of Religions, which includes Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders, has issued a statement rejecting a call for a nationwide ban on the construction of minarets at mosques. Some Swiss groups want to ban minarets out of fear of Europe’s growing Muslim population.

“For the members of a religious community, religious buildings are not only places to gather but also a symbol of their faith and an expression of their reverence for God. For many Muslims, therefore, mosques need to have minarets,” the council said in a 5-page statement issued Wednesday.

“The prohibition of minarets would injure these people in their dignity and their basic right to practice their religion,” the council warned.

The move to ban the construction of minarets was submitted in July 2008 with just under 115,000 signatures, and will be decided in a national referendum on Nov. 29.

If passed, the measure would amend the country’s Federal Constitution to include a new article stating that, “The construction of minarets is prohibited.”

…”Everyone has the right in this country to live their faith visibly, freely and in a community within the framework of the public order,” it [the Council of Religions] stated. “This also includes the construction of places of worship that are typical for their respective religions.”

~~read the entire article, with reader comments, here.

So I e-mailed someone who lives there, who I’ll let remain anonymous.   This provides more backstory, the section in italics (added) really holds the key:

Right now it’s not illegal to build a minaret. However, like trying to build anything in Switzerland, there’s a TON of red tape!  There are already 4 or 5. However there is one political party that collected over 100,000 signatures against building them, enough to send it to a referendum.

Their argument is that minarets are not mentioned at all in the Koran, and that they are more a political symbol of conquest than they are of religious freedom. They also question why these people have fled places where they are not allowed to practice their religion, so why didn’t they go somewhere that is mostly Muslim, instead of coming to Switzerland? In Switzerland there are only two recognized religions, Christianity (Protestant and Catholic) and Jewish, other religions have the freedom to practice and the meet, but they are not recognized by the state.

They are also concerned about Muslims asking for changes in other areas, like what is taught at school. Bible reading used to be normal in Swiss schools, since it is considered a Christian country, but the Muslims are fighting it, and now it has all but disappeared. I guess the idea is, they chose to be here knowing it was predominantly Protestant (the church is state run), it’s not fair that they want to change it now to suit them. I’m not saying I agree with all of that, but that’s the stance of the party that is fighting against the building of the minarets.

Not to mention that a sunrise call to worship would never get past the noise laws here; or the architectural laws for that matter…they are REALLY picky about the style you build here…we were afraid they wouldn’t accept the siding on our house!

So what happens when people of faith groups which are foreign to a particular piece of geography decide to move there?   Do they do so with the express intention of changing the religious climate there?   Increasing tolerance?   Warming the local population up to greater cultural and political influence and involvement?

Obviously the question that forms the title of this post is moot in some respects.   It’s possible that some people of other faith groups move into areas specifically because they are dominated by Christians.

But that brings us to something else altogether:

How is this different from the Christian Missionary movement?   Do we not also go into countries which are dominated by other faiths to proclaim the message of Christianity?   Do we not erect places of worship in those countries with our symbol (the cross) clearly visible on the exterior of these buildings?   Do we not seek to build bridges into the larger community so that these people have a day-to-day, living, breathing experience of what Christ-followers look like?

We tend to see this issue from our Christian point of view, forgetting that whatever freedoms apply to us have to apply to all.   But obviously here there is another factor at work, to which I added italics in the second quotation — “they are more a political symbol of conquest than they are of religious freedom.” One campaign initiator (watch the video link below) believes the desire to build minarets is a desire to “change the social order.”

But who decides this?

And does a referendum somewhat defeat the purpose?   Will voters grasp the larger issues or will they simply maintain the status quo?

You can almost feel the tension here on the other side of the Atlantic.

Pictures:

Upper:  This is the picture that accompanied the USAToday story, juxtaposing the minaret with a Protestant church steeple.   From this angle, neither seems much different than the other.
Lower:  This picture shows minarets towering over a local skyline.   Are voters picturing the upper picture or the lower one?

Learn more:

Our contact in Switzerland recommended this website, where we found this video story.

Scene and Herd: Life Around the Blogosphere

Here are some random things that caught my attention this week.   If you have a must-see post you want to contribute, feel free to add a comment with the appropriate link.

• The visual blog Churchy Design has moved to its new home at Tumblr.   It’s not entirely about church architecture, but more related to just about anything concerned with  “…how designers within the big-C Church are using their aesthetic sensibilities to communicate, illustrate, critique, expose, and explore matters of their faith.”

• Want to settle all that worship music tension at the place you call church?  Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger suggest six guiding principles in a Christianity Today article, Here We Are To Worship.  “The best array of worship forms will illustrate that the church is both embedded in culture, speaking through its constantly changing forms, and also a countercultural community, one that represents transcendent values and truths that confront culture’s fallenness.”
• In one of his best posts ever, earlier this week Jon Acuff  at Stuff Christians Like looked at the Evangelical cultural oddity we know as The Husband and Wife Ministry Team.   “My wife isn’t a big bun fan, but from what I can remember, the two hairstyle options for the wife in the Husband & Wife Ministry Team are either buns or a beehive with the thickness and girth of a car radiator.”
• It’s been two years now since the Interstate 35 bridge collapse in Minnesota, but a  post of John Piper explaining it to his daughter is still hanging in the air, especially the air around blogger Bill Kinnon.   Piper: ”  God did not do anything wrong. God always does what is wise. And you and I know that God could have held up that bridge with one hand…with his pinky. Which means that God had a purpose for not holding up that bridge, knowing all that would happen, and he is infinitely wise in all that he wills.” What role does God play when things like that happen.   Darryl Dash keeps the discussion going this week at Dashhouse.com.
• From our totally-outside-the-box department, comes a link to, of all things, The New Humanist blog with their predictable poke at all major religions in the form of a card game called God Trumps.   You’ll want to click on the individual cards to read them in detail.   You’ll find set one here and set two here.  The weapon of choice for JWs is listed as “foot in door”, while for Anglicans it’s “tutting loudly”. For the Catholics – “the Pope mobile”, Born Again Christians have “televangelists” and “threats of hell fire” …. gulp – did someone say hell fire? [HT: Mark Randall at Pragmatic-Eclectic from whence the quotation comes.]
• Keep your eyes posted on Windblown Media — the people who brought us The Shack — for a new novel, Bo’s Café, authored by Bruce McNicol, Bill Thrall and John Lynch.   Advance publicity describes it as “… a model for all who struggle with unresolved problems and a performance-based life. Those who desire a fuller, more authentic way of living will find this journey of healing a restorative exploration of God’s unbridled grace.” Street date: September 1st.
• Finally, if you can handle another John Piper disaster-related story, it seems the the ECLA, a Lutheran denomination, is joining many Anglicans  in a softened stance towards homosexuality.   But as they met in Minneapolis, a tornado roared through.   Piper — and he was probably not alone — suggested that God may be trying to tell them something.  He blogged, “the tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin.” But another pastor in the same town, Greg Boyd, just doesn’t see God working that way. “I have an alternative interpretation of tornado behavior to offer. They have nothing to do with how pro-gay or how sinful people are and everything to do with where people happen to live.” and “…there are over 400 distinct passages encompassing over 3,000 verses in the Bible that address issues related to poverty…  In light of this, wouldn’t you assume that if God was going to send warnings and/or inflict punishment with tornados he’d strike some of the many American churches and denominations that condone, if not Christianize, greed and apathy toward the poor?”

Truly Different Kinds of Churches

Check out this photo essay featuring 20 of the world’s most unusual churches, architecturally speaking.   (You might enjoy some of the other collections at this site, Village of Joy.)  The indication is that this is part one with more to follow.   Thanks to Trevin Wax for pointing this out.    Of course, today, the phrase “unusual church” usually refers to things other than building design.   Don’t believe me?   Try a Google search for the phrase, “a different kind of church.” Anyway, back to the photo collection, here’s a sample pic to give you the idea: