Our Summer Church-Visit Holidays: The Pattern

We wanted to hear Rob Bell in person. The first time we travelled to Grand Rapids he was away, but we went back again to have the complete experience. Not long after, Rob was gone from Mars Hill Bible Church over his view of hell, among other things.

I had some history visiting Willow Creek to hear Bill Hybels, but my wife had not. We went several times to South Barrington to hear him. Last year, in the wake of #MeToo, Hybels was no longer at Willow nor were the people he had chosen as successors.

I had been captivated listening to James MacDonald’s preaching on radio while driving to work every morning. The first time we drove there we didn’t know that Elgin was just a new Harvest Bible Chapel campus so James wasn’t there. The second time we drove to Rolling Meadows and he was at Elgin. So technically, I’ve never heard him in person. This week he took — or was placed on — an indefinite leave of absence over issues involving money and control.

The moral of the story is we need to stop visiting churches…

…Actually, the moral of the story is something my father taught me several decades ago: Don’t invest your confidence or admiration in an individual preacher; they will invariably let you down at some point. The megachurches are always the biggest blips on our radar and many of them got there due to the charisma of a key personality.

Many of these Bible teachers are great communicators with a style that local church pastors may try to emulate though not always successfully. Often however, the character strength by which they are able to get up and speak to thousands of people each weekend also masks a character weakness in terms of how they handle that power and responsibility…

…There are a couple of churches I would still like to visit to hear the lead pastors speak in person, instead of on a small window of my computer screen. In the wake of all that’s transpired, I’m thinking it might be best not to. 

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Sidebar: Both Hybels and MacDonald ministered in the area of greater Chicagoland called the ‘Northwest Suburbs.’ I wonder what the impact is there on both Christians and non-Christians alike in the wake of watching the fallout from leadership crises at two of the largest churches in the area. I can imagine doubters and skeptics saying, ‘See; I told you it was all a sham.’

While these two churches will continue to serve their congregations, no doubt some disillusioned people will take a step away from church, at least for a season. It may also be the case the smaller, local churches are left to pick up former members at Harvest and Willow who want to escape the megachurch environment.

The people — and pastors — in this part of Chicago really need our prayers.

End of the Line for Mars Hill

The headline at Christianity Today said it all:

Here’s reaction from people you know, along with random comments from people you don’t on blogs, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that were posted in the hours immediately following the announcement:

Zach Hoag: In my opinion, this was the only right decision for a church organization with such a troubled history. It will allow for a truly new start, free from the arrogant defense of the old institution, and for the deep healing process to commence. 

Stephan Deliramich: This is crazy and sad. I appreciate Driscoll and have mixed feelings about his resignation, however this is such a lesson to all of us. A church cannot be built around one person unless that person is Jesus.

Warren Throckmorton: If anything has become clear over the last year, it is that the church was all about buildings and organization.

Rachel Held Evans: My heart breaks for those brothers and sisters from Seattle feeling wounded, exhausted, and disillusioned by the unraveling of their church. Even unhealthy churches have faithful, godly people working in them. I hope everyone will take the time they need to heal after this, and that the relationships that were truly life-giving will be preserved. Unfortunately, churches built around a pastor tend to rise and fall with that pastor. I hope the entire evangelical community will learn from this and re-prioritize accountability, character, respect for women and the marginalized, and I sincerely hope Mark Driscoll finds the help he needs…

Christopher Preston: Sad… But not so surprising… The pitfalls of building a church on personality rather than Christ?

Jim West: This is the major theological problem with megachurches: they have no idea what missionary minded churches are.  They do not distribute, they collect.  Rather than planting churches in various locations, they collect people like property and then boast of their multiple campuses and tens of thousands of members.  If megachurches understood Christianity they would plant churches and not establish satellites.  But whenever wealth comes the way of the greedy and controlling, it is only natural that they try to get as much of it as they can.  That is why Mars Hill has died: greed killed it. 

John Paul Ortiz: I’m actually sad to hear of Mars Hill’s demise. For all the people who now have to go church hopping, people now unemployed, hurt. etc.

Jacey Davidson: The mega-church/multi-site model is unsustainable as is it built upon certain gifted individuals that can’t help but assume inappropriate amounts of power and influence. God’s church is all about decentralization. The priesthood of all believers is a critical reformation doctrine. Multi-site is a relatively new invention of man and doesn’t seem to fit the biblical model of church government. It is pseudo-Presbyterian but lacks the proper accountability channels. 

Matthew Wagner: Pray for Mars Hill and the 14000 Christians that called it home. Sad to see the church closing its doors. 

Spiritual Sounding Board: I’ve seen discussion [about] new “Mars Hill” churches. If these pastors failed to stand up to Driscoll and say he was unfit, they are unfit to lead. 

Drew Fanning: [referencing CT headline above] Describing a church as a human’s possession and using words like “empire” will have a terrible impact on Mars Hill’s congregation. We as christian contributors to social media, news, and even culture have to be so careful how we use any terminology. And more so than worry about the buildings Mars Hill owned, we should be worrying about the people that filled them.

Wenatchee The Hatchet:  In ten years Mark Driscoll managed to become pretty much everything he preached against from the pulpit circa 2000-2004.  How and why this happened may be explored and unpacked later on.  Whether the individual churches that have been constituents of Mars Hill can survive remains to be seen.  A number of them may and we’ll just have to see.  

Brian Shepard: Sucks hearing that Mars Hill Church is officially done.. but will be praying that from this ending, this moment also marks a new beginning. 

Bill Kinnon: If you need to shut it down mere weeks after the “founder” quits, was it ever really a church at all?

John Piper: Mars Hill Church will cease to be a single multisite church. May each congregation flourish in Christ!  

Click the image at the top of the article to read the details at Christianity Today.

 

Mark Driscoll Resigns

From Huffington Post to Christianity Today, the story of Mark Driscoll’s resignation as pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle was becoming fairly common knowledge by Wednesday afternoon. Religion News Service (RNS) reported:

Mark Driscoll, the larger-than-life megachurch pastor who has been accused of plagiarism, bullying and an unhealthy ego that alienated his most devoted followers, resigned from his Seattle church Tuesday (Oct. 14), according to a document obtained by RNS.

..continue reading here..

Elsewhere on their site, RNS included the full text of the resignation letter:

By God’s grace I have pastored Mars Hill Church for 18 years. Today, also by God’s grace, and with the full support of my wife Grace, I resign my position as a pastor and elder of Mars Hill. I do so with profound sadness, but also with complete peace…

…I readily acknowledge I am an imperfect messenger of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many things I have confessed and repented of, privately and publicly, as you are well aware. Specifically, I have confessed to past pride, anger and a domineering spirit…

…Prior to and during this process there have been no charges of criminal activity, immorality or heresy, any of which could clearly be grounds for disqualification from pastoral ministry. Other issues, such as aspects of my personality and leadership style, have proven to be divisive within the Mars Hill context, and I do not want to be the source of anything that might detract from our church’s mission to lead people to a personal and growing relationship with Jesus Christ…

…read the full text here…

With respect to his role as a Christian author, the story began with charges of plagiarism earlier in the year which ended with the LifeWay chain banning his books completely, but this issue led to a host of other allegations concerning the management of the Seattle multi-site churches.

For many years a leading voice among the “Young, Restless and Reformed” movement, Driscoll had books published with Tyndale, Crossway, Zondervan and Thomas Nelson.  He is a co-founder of the Acts 29 network of New Calvinism churches as well as The Gospel Coalition. At its peak Mars Hill had 15 branches in five states with total attendance of 13,000.

A Wikipedia page devoted to him gives much space to the controversies which began around 2012 but seemed to increase exponentially into 2014. 

What will Mark do now? He is only 43 years old, like the rest of us, much of his story has yet to be written.

Wednesday Link List

The Wednesday List Lynx still prowls the office here after dark.

Welcome to this week’s link list to those of you who didn’t already have it automatically download to their phone.

• T.D. Jakes has two syndicated television projects in development, one a daily show, the other a weekly.
• At age 14, she was taken from her family and given to an ISIS commander as a bride. Then she and a friend escaped.
• It’s called Lateral leadership, defined as “leading your peers, those you serve alongside but don’t report to, and they don’t report to you either.”
• Pope Francis shook things up last week by performing weddings for couples who had been previously living together, some of whom had children.
• Hillsong made the New York Times, complete with a quotation from the Rev. Dr. Albert Mohler Jr. that they water down the gospel…
• …But one church planter thinks the move by churches back into cities like NYC is somewhat selective when it comes to neighborhoods.
• A few like-minded linkers this week noted this upcoming theology cruise to the Eastern Carribean. Beats a seminary classroom, I suppose. Maybe you were predestined to see this.
• I hope my editor approves this link: Introducing grassroots pastors, “a growing population of Christians—especially young Christians—called and trained for ministry, but, for one reason or another, not in a formal church role.”
• What if instead of suppressing belief in God, the 1960s had brought God into the foreground?
• The death of controversial pastor turned politician Rev. Ian Paisley elicits stories from The New York Times and UK Christian media.
• Let’s talk about a Rob Bell book before it’s released; nobody’s ever done that before. The book, coauthored by wife Kristen deals with egalitarian marriage.
• Your mileage may vary: See if you agree with this assessment after the lyrics of modern worship songs are placed under the microscope.
• Maintaining a distinct identity: What distinguished the early Christian community from their surrounding neighbors?
• A Georgia pastor who delivered what he considered an ‘educational’ message about the middle east temporarily had his YouTube account suspended.
• Planning weekend services: Living between the tension of following the template or starting from scratch.
• The hometown mainstream media continue their coverage of things at Mars Hill Seattle.
• Church Profile of the Week: A look at Christ Redeemer Episcopal in Milwaukee, where community trumps dogma, and former Evangelicals discover Anglican worship.
• Benjamin Corey responds to the trolls: “…if your goal is to help introduce people to Jesus, you’re actually achieving the opposite of your stated goal. …you’re actively harming the efforts of those of us who are purposeful and attempt to use extreme care with how we communicate the message of Jesus.”…
• …Taking that to the next level, a guide to having crucial conversations.
• You’ve seen books like All the Men of the Bible and All the Miracles of the Bible. This blog post looks at all the suicides of the Bible.
• Patriarchy and clergy libraries: Hey, pastor; take a minute to scan your shelves and compute the male-female balance of writers on your shelves.
• A Brazilian soccer star is trying to bring visibility in that country regarding the plight of Saeed Abedini, imprisoned in Iran for two years.
• Three book reviews, including Marketing Like Jesus and a revival of the True Love Waits movement.
• An atypical story of domestic abuse: When the husband is physically injured.
• Often voiced: Christian Bible study resources for women tend to be too feeling-based.
• Pope Francis has suggested that the conflicts we’re seeing around the world are like puzzle pieces combining to form the picture of a third world war. (My paraphrase.)
• American Pastors looking for a pay raise might want to relocate to The South. (According to the study, they should also avoid Canada.)
• Mathematics Department: Unpacking Baptist attrition rates.
• James MacDonald apologized on the weekend for a church disciplinary action against three former elders that was excessive.
• When Hollywood got it right: Eight reasonably positive portrayals of Christians on broadcast television.
• I think in many respects, the blog platform tumblr is a mission field, so I greatly admire people doing ministry there.
• When it comes to understanding the Christian publishing market in Canada there’s one guy you might want to know.
• Song of the Week: Unspoken’s Start A Fire. (Thanks, Diane.)
• Advertising by a faith-based preschool is refused by Groupon.
• Cartoonist David Hayward’s cartoons can make your head explode.
• Worship Leader Trauma Center: Dealing with your church’s OPH problem.
• After its first hiatus in eleven years, The Drew Marshall Show Canada’s “most listened-to spiritual talk program” returns to the air on Saturday. Join listeners from around the world live between 1:00 and 5:00 EDT.
• Calminianism: Harmonizing predestination and free will with God’s sovereignty.
• A cross symbol on the helmets of a college football team meant to memorialize a former player and a former equipment manager violate the United States Constitution. Excerpt: “These young men were simply trying to do a good deed. They were standing up for their fallen teammates. It’s really too bad the university could not stand up for the team.”
• Journalistic curiosity: Calling last Thursday “9/11’s Bar Mitzvah.”
• Not serious: Peter Enns guests at Huffington with 10 Signs You Take The Bible Too Literally. (And guests at Reddit today (9/17) at 3:00 EST.)
• The Gaithers Claim Another Victim: The founder of the Christian rock band Starfield turns bluegrass.
• Did you get your free U2 album? Did you want to get the new U2 album? Some people were unwilling recipients. At Rolling Stone, a track-by-track guide to all eleven songs.
• Prosperity Gospel? Yes, people still teach that. If I’m not wealthy, I must be doing something wrong.
• Finally, this may or may not be a true story: A church decides to shut down its ministry to focus on the success of its coffee shop. (Website name is a clue.)

My wife makes these. I didn’t have a closing photo this week, so I thought you’d enjoy seeing the puppets in an international mood.

Paul Wilkinson failed to find a suitable Christian media link related to tomorrow’s historic separation vote in Scotland, but you can read him the rest of the week at Thinking Out Loud or devotionally at Christianity 201.

Wednesday Link List

From DailyEncouragement.net — “…It is a camp for displaced Christian refugees in Iraq (Click to enlarge). Note the English writing on the center tent proclaiming in a very dark place, ‘Jesus Is The Light Of The World’.”

This week we celebrate the ellipsis, its utility as connective device, and its overuse. In other words, many of this week’s links were related.

• In the wake of Robin Williams’ death, enumerating various suicide-related issues that clergy will face.
• From either a conservative or orthodox perspective, Gungor keeps digging the hole deeper.
• Essay of the Week: Honestly, I wondered when someone would do a comparison between Mars Hill Grand Rapids and Mars Hill Seattle…
• …Another I’d like to read would be a comparison of two men who were upfront about their faith while selling fried chicken, KFC’s Colonel Harland Sanders and Truett Cathy. The latter, founder of Chick-fil-A passed away on Monday at age 93.
• Persecution: It took a New York Times columnist to say this.
• Perspective: Your weekend worship environment may not be a physical building in Ethiopia; it might involve having a service under a tree…
• …But perhaps many of us put too much emphasis on having a church building.
• I’m surprised we don’t hear more about this August story about 1,400 children being raped and trafficked.
• Just as I have to pick and choose what gets in this list, a popular Christian news site defends their story choices.
• Preaching: “There has been a natural disaster of extraordinary proportions in a nation whose sinfulness is well known. Do you stand up Sunday morning and declare that God has divinely judged that nation?”
• Youth Ministry: Five ways to make sure they hear your message…
• … which was written by a recently displaced Mars Hill pastor whose work visa is now voided, which means leaving the country…
• …while at GoFundMe, people are donating to three other displaced MH staffers.
• Time Travel (1): A 1,500 year-old document that was holed up in a university library references the Last Supper and manna from heaven…
• Time Travel (2): Imagine attending a Puritan worship service. “…the shuffling of the congregation as they settle down to listen comfortably to a lengthy sermon, while the minister adjusted the hour-glass.”
• Sabbath on Steroids: Every seven weeks this Prince Edward Island church basically shuts down all programming…
• …Meanwhile, on Canada’s opposite coast, a church’s annual report includes a page at the end for you to write your own story. (Opens a 40-page .pdf file)
• Two high-profile U.S. missionaries survived Ebola, but the disease has taken four national pastors in the Assemblies of God denomination alone.
• Ann Voskamp tells the kids why they should wait: “Your naked body deserves the honor of being shared only with someone who is covenanted to never stop loving your naked soul.” …
• …On the other hand, when the wedding date is set, should a Christian sign a prenup? Sample: “…a prenup is a bad indicator that not everything is being relinquished for the sake of this marriage.” …
• …Or a girl’s father could just start early on in the relationship asking the guy these twelve questions.
• Tomorrow (9/11) night, Trinity Broadcasting Network unveils its new Chicago studio with an open house…
• …Also in the windy city, a local church’s use of social media has caught some mainstream media attention.
• Last week’s Happy Rant Podcast got our family talking about chewing tobacco to the glory of God.
• A Lutheran mobile ministry is half church, half food truck.
• Sadly, there’s no such thing as “a good divorce.”
• A second Essay of the Week: Save those church bulletins. They might end up in a museum somewhere as artifacts of 20th Century church culture.
• Worship Leaders’ Corner: Five tips for those times you’re working without the band.
• Victoria Osteen stands by her words. Well, sort of. Sample: “Every Lakewood member knows what I was talking about…”  Membership has its privileges…
• …to which the Rev. Dr. Albert Mohler, Jr. replies, “America deserves the Osteens…”
• …Meanwhile, hubby Joel announces Joel Osteen Radio, broadcasting 24/7 on SiriusXM.
• Gladys Knight (sans Pips) released a gospel album yesterday. (Be sure to click through to hear the song.)
• Jamie the Very Worst Email Responder recently deleted her inbox, and thinks you should, too.
• A well known Jewish charity is nominating Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for a Nobel Peace Prize for his support of Israel.
• A video link for the tweens and teens at your house.
• Finally, across the pond, a man who volunteers his services to umpire an interdenominational cricket match is disqualified because he is not “theologically neutral.“

Each week we scour the web for stories of interest to Leadership Journal readers, however several of our “usual suspects” have put up pay-walls or added pop-ups that can only be described as obnoxious. The goal is to deliver news and opinion pieces with a minimum of interruption and solicitation. Suggestions are always welcomed, you can contact me on Twitter, or at Thinking Out Loud before 6 PM EST Mondays.

Paul Wilkinson is considered Canada’s foremost authority on writing a Wednesday Link List, and he doesn’t just say that because he writes his own footer for this weekly piece.

From theologygrams.wordpress.com, a site I suspect we’ll be visiting many times in the future

Dear Mark Driscoll

Out of all the rhetoric bouncing around online this week about Mark Driscoll, Ron Wheeler, part of the Mars Hill story from early days, is probably the most poignant. Two-thirds of the way through, it builds to this crescendo:

You can’t preach Jesus and curse people.

You can’t preach Jesus and threaten people.

You can’t preach Jesus and be sexually vulgar.

You can’t preach Jesus and denigrate women.

You can’t preach Jesus and then shun people.

You can’t preach Jesus and give rich people special privileges.

You can’t preach Jesus and steal people’s material

You can’t preach Jesus and cheat your way onto bestseller lists.

You can’t preach Jesus and then force your people to not compete with you in spreading the gospel.

You can’t preach Jesus and then force people to either stay silent or not be paid.

You can’t preach Jesus and seek to become the “greatest of these”.

You just can’t. You see that right?

This is not the only voice asking for Mark’s resignation. There are many. If Mark Driscoll has any other options at this point, I can’t imagine what they are.

Read the whole letter, posted here.

UPDATE (August 8; 11:50 AM) — via Warren Throckmorton: “In a stunning move, the Acts 29 Network leadership has removed network co-founder and Mars Hill Church lead pastor Mark Driscoll from the organization’s membership…”  Click here to read.   Sample of the Acts 29 letter:

…Ample time has been given for repentance, change, and restitution, with none forthcoming. We now have to take another course of action.

Based on the totality of the circumstances, we are now asking you to please step down from ministry for an extended time and seek help. Consequently, we also feel that we have no alternative but to remove you and Mars Hill from membership in Acts 29. Because you are the founder of Acts 29 and a member, we are naturally associated with you and feel that this association discredits the network and is a major distraction.

We tell you this out of love for you, Mars Hill, Acts 29, and most significantly, the cause of Christ, and we would be irresponsible and deeply unloving not to do so in a clear and unequivocal manner…

 

Picketing a Place of Worship

A bunch of people plan to carry signs in a demonstration outside a Belleville, Washington church on Sunday morning. That’s hardly news. Heck, Fred Phelps was doing that for years.

But there’s more at stake with this one. The little protest has already garnered some mainstream media interest, and it hasn’t even happened yet.

The whys and hows of this story are complicated, and unless you’ve been following this for some time, it’s rather hard to catch you up. Suffice it to say that the volcano involving Mars Hill, the church co-founded and led by Mark Driscoll has been waiting to erupt for several years, though really the church culture is causing something more resembling imploding than exploding.

Social media has played a major role in getting the story told. I’m fairly certain Jesus didn’t have blogging in mind when he said this, but even if the context is different, the words, as Luke records them, certainly fit: “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.“ (12:2,3)

One blogger has suggested that Driscoll really only has two options, to really repent (i.e. not the repentance seen in a recent half hour video) or to resign. Perhaps. He could also wait; i.e. try to ride out the storm.

With all the Christian movie-making that’s been happening lately, I would be very surprised if a movie about Driscoll’s life to date is not already in the works.

The point I want to make here is that that this Sunday a small protest will take place in the upper left corner of the U.S., but it is one that has repercussions in a much larger arena. Whatever single issue the demonstrators think it’s about, it raises visibility on so many other issues about Driscoll and Mars Hill.

It’s about church structure, secrecy, accountability, finances, hiring, firings, spiritual abuse, and how each of these things impacted the lives of countless families over the years. It’s about the overtones of everything from the role of women, to plagiarism, to how the authority structure in some Calvinist settings mitigates against truth and transparency.

Like I said, it’s the stuff that movies are made of, though perhaps only those who are ecclesiology nerds or theology nerds would buy the tickets.

But it impacts your church, and my church, and the church our children will inherit.

 

Wednesday Link List

With lots of people doing summer things this week, I thought we’d tinker with the format while nobody’s looking. ANYTHING YOU CLICK will take you to PARSE, the blog of Leadership Journal, the Link List’s owner.  But first, we take you to Monday’s edition of the comic Pearls Before Swine (click image to link).

• This could be a model for other cities: You’ve heard of business incubators, now a ministry incubator and network hub is opening in an iconic location in Canada’s capital.
• He’s a Christian comedian with an Evangelical focus, and yes, Nazareth is his real name.

I usually bury the video links near the bottom, but this week uncovered two clips I wanted to give more prominence.

• I have a pet peeve about so much American Christian music being guitar-based and Nashville-rooted, so this synth-based piece, You Brought Me Back to Life put a smile on my face. (Read why Citizens and Zach Bolen landed on my radar.)
• On YouTube he goes by DavidWesley, and relatively speaking, we’re practically next door neighbors. This original song, performed acapella is titled Real Life Offering, and is one of many…
• …of course if your tastes run to something more like rap, watch for Tedashii.

Church leadership stuff:

• This one takes you to an 11-minute video that suggests that the moral failure of pastors is linked to relaxing our standards as we grow accustomed to the darkness of the dominant culture.
• If it was just a matter of expository or topical preaching it would be easy. Unfortunately, there are at least eighteen other variants.
• Conference crashing: In a 4-minute video, Aubrey Malphurs offers eight reasons why lay people aren’t getting involved.
• Pulpit Plagiarism: At least one reporter has been taking notes.
• A UK church has been forced to remove signage telling non-believers they will burn in hell, after a complaint that the wording constitutes hate speech.

Essay(s)-of-the-Week:

• No, it’s not about translations: Four Modern Versions of the Bible that are Ruining The Bible.
• An economist looks at psychology. No specific link here, you’ll have to jump into this ongoing series at the New Zealand blog Blessed Economist, called What is a Person? It began May 26th and grows more complex and more interesting with each new post.
• While reading some updated stats on the Korean church in North America, I discovered a link to a three-part series on the unique challenges when doing pre-marital counseling with Asian-American Christians.
• A Christian response to a New York Times article advocating that cohabitation is better marriage preparation than courtship.
• If we’re going to teach our daughters modesty, let’s be doing it for all the right reasons.
• It’s not really essay-length, but David Murray has a blog post just for your kids.

The wider religious world:

• The Vatican’s rules aren’t stopping a number of women priests from having themselves ordained anyway.
• The founder may be gone, but the spirit of Westboro Baptist Church is alive and well…
• …However, Phelps’ grandson does a radio interview reflecting on leaving the church and thereby somewhat leaving the family. (Click audio link for May 31st)
• The U.S. Navy says the phrase “Atheist Chaplain” is an oxymoron and rejected a Humanist Association-backed candidate for the second time.
• Like every other human on the planet, Pope Francis needs to take a summer break.
• Mormonism isn’t getting in the way of the guys in Red Yeti pursuing rock ‘n roll success.
• A colonel in a Russian security service is sentenced to 3.5 years for stealing a priceless Gutenberg bible.
• Quick read: Many of the journalists who cover family issues have no children.
• Infographic: The rise of secularism in U.S. religion.
• You might not recognize some names in the Wild Goose Festival lineup of musicians and speakers.

Worth reading:

• I often wonder how it is that people will write things not knowing their lives are going to be suddenly taken, such as this blog post by a Virginia teen a few weeks before his death.
• It’s one of those “Ten Things” articles about VBS, but this checklist includes VBS things you never considered.
• There’s not a lot of substance to this first post, but veteran Christian blogger Andrew Jones aka Tall Skinny Kiwi is back online after a year’s absence.
• In the markets where they have survived, Christian bookstores are offering a surrogate church experience for millennials.
• “Everyone should see a counselor from time to time.” Even your kids.

Be afraid; be very afraid:

• Online and in Christian bookstores, October marks Thomas Nelson’s release of The Duck Commander Bible.
• I’m not sure that a large outdoor billboard promoting your church’s children’s ministry should include a quotation from Adoph Hitler.
• This 2011 video turned up on a few Twitter accounts over the weekend: Al Mohler affirming that “New Calvinism” is the only way.
• Scalpers were asking $850 for tickets to Joel Osteen at Yankee Stadium.
• A hip-hop church in North Carolina has a Saturday service at 5:30, but “Happy Hour” starts at 5:00. (See image below!)
• I see a blood moon rising. I see trouble on the way.
• Finally, if you collect classic obscure and crazy laws, here are ten church related statutes.

So how do you like your links? Categorized or free-range? Leave a comment!

 

My Kind of Worship Music (and How I Heard About It)

I don’t actually follow every news story that is making the rounds. I pick and choose. So the tectonic activity taking place among the staff and elders of Mars Hill Seattle (i.e. Mark Driscoll’s home base) is on my radar, though I’m not tracking it closely.

Nonetheless, Warren Throckmorton had an article on Friday about the church losing a popular worship director, Zach Bolen.  I clicked the video clip of his band Citzens, and have to say that as a keyboard player, this type of sound is like water to a thirsty man. (Or maybe I just borrowed a similar metaphor from the song.)  Too much of American Christian music is guitar-based, Nashville-rooted and all sounds the same. Well, IMHO anyway.

There’s a great endorsement from the UK Christian music magazine Crossrhythms (which figures because the sound is more aligned with European Christian music):

Clearly Citizens have a bright future ahead of them. As Breathecast commented, “Musically, Citizens have created a patented type of indie rock that flutters with the electronic beat of Switchfoot, yet shimmers with the emotional intensity of Hillsong United. Above all, Bolen sings with a sense of honest gravitas; it is as if leading worship is more than just a day job. Rather, he sings with a deep-seated passion that can only come from a man who knows grace.”

Enjoy!

The video which formerly appeared with this article no longer exists…we have substituted another.

Wednesday Link List

Clicking anything below will re-direct you to PARSE, the blog of Leadership Journal who snapped up the rights to this weekly aggregation of linkage before Salem Communications could even submit a bid. From PARSE, click again on the story you want to read.

• Don’t question your leader. That’s the message this week in several Mars Hill-related (Mark Driscoll) stories like this one…
• …and a number of Lampo-related (Dave Ramsey) stories like this one
• This one is suitable for framing: 25 Bloggers summed up in a single sentence.
• Last Friday, CT documented church demolitions in China with photographs of officials removing the crosses from churches.
• Justin Welby became the first Archbishop of Canterbury to host a live call-in program, but same-sex marriage questions took up 20 minutes of the hour.
• Essay of the Week: Jen Hatmaker writes about parenting troubled teens.  (You might also enjoy the article’s prequel.)
• A recent book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer challenges the idea that he was an assassin that is sometimes used to justify redemptive violence.
• After the passing of Maya Angelou, many Christian writers hand-picked quotations to join the general tributes; but in this clip, her faith was more pluralistic.
• Even as confused Left Behind followers are thinking the “new” movie is actually the fourth in the old series, the trailer for the remake of the first movie is now out introducing Nicolas Cage in the lead role.
• Must read: Proverbs for people who use social media.
• With over 500 comments, here are some reader suggestions on what an all-Fundamentalist TV station lineup might look like.
• This week we decided to ‘love on’ our friends at the Dictionary of Christianese who examine the phrase ‘love on.’
• Did Fred Phelps have a late-in-life change-of-heart on some issues?
• If there’s a modern worship song that’s unique to your congregation but deserves a wider audience, let the writer know about the Sing It Sunday song contest.
• Should church staff be allowed to start new ministries nearby existing ones? Will they take parishioners with them? A look at non-compete contracts.
• A Christian author feels that Franklin Graham’s desire for leaders to stand up on moral issues is based on a false understanding of God’s holiness.
• A former student of Bill Gothard’s ministry now believes the entire ministry should be shut down.
• Your mileage may vary, but this writer thinks the reason we go to church is not sermon and not worship.
• A 29-year old woman describes her bi-vocation as a Catholic teacher and a tattoo artist, “the best of both worlds.”
• …Meanwhile the creators of the Jesus Tattoo advertisement lost their lawsuit over a rejected ad in a school publication.
• If you know someone who faces discouragement in ministry, this story is for them. (It’s also a reminder that results don’t happen overnight.)
• Jefferson Bethke has a new “spoken word” album. (That was the genre that launched Word Records all those years ago.)
• Faced with a “No Prayer” edict at their graduation, these students simply ignored it.
• One in four Canadians belong to the “nones,” but they are surprisingly religious.
• WLWJS or What Language Would Jesus Speak? The Pope and Israel’s Prime Minister squared off over this recently, and a BBC reporter gets two paragraphs in, but then can’t resist asking if Jesus existed at all.
• If you’re a religion writer, you can write about anybody’s faith, but articles about witches are still off-limits.
• From earlier last month, the video of the 20-ton boulder that just missed a Boston area church.
• Among Brad Lomenick’s latest list of young influencers, was Ben Houston, lead pastor at Hillsong’s Los Angeles location.
• Here are some thoughts for those of you who want to get your church to have a Bible study culture.
• Do not do this: Top 5 worship leader fails.
• Starting July 2nd, Churches in Canada need to be careful about sending unsolicited email, as new anti-spam legislation carries fines up to $10M.
• Here’s the teaser: Holiness, toothbrushes, sex and cars.
• Stewardship Department: Is it time to pray about your cable bill?
• It may be an innocent kid ministry song to you, but to Christians in communist China in 1972, it formed a secret code.
• If you need to brainwash your congregation to tithe more, you could take some tips from this guy.
• Classic video: Check out how this church performs How Great Thou Art.
• More recent video: Malcolm Gladwell spoke at Saddleback in March. Gotta catch up on that, but it’s 66 minutes long.
• Finally, after linking last week to Skye Jethani’s piece about long sermons, we’re wondering if a concentration of Sunday morning services ever show up on Wind Map.

So that’s this week’s list. We didn’t even steal anything from iMonk or Rachel H.E. Tune in next week; same bat time, same bat channel; or visit during the author during the week at Thinking Out Loud, C201, or Twitter.

Hitler’s Pants after the assassination attempt. Some feel that surviving the event only empowered him more. Source: Rare Historical Photos