Pages from a Church-Planter’s Diary

Review: Why Would Anyone Go to Church? A Young Community’s Quest to Reclaim Church for Good by Kevin Makins (Baker Books, 2020)

Kevin Makins has assembled the story of planting Eucharist Church in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada so vividly, that there were times I felt I could actually smell the buildings and hear the floors creaking in a succession of five inner city locations.  Eucharist Church is located in the urban core of a city that is now part of what is called the GTHA — the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area — and the book is packed with insights and practical lessons for anyone who wants to do ministry in the inner-city. Learn more from the publisher about the book at this link. Follow Kevin on Twitter at this link.

As I mentioned here just days ago, the period post-2000 brought a bounty of church growth books and no end of people making the attempt to create alternative church experiences that would make it past the critical five-year mark. It had been a long time since I’d looked at this particular book genre, but after some superficial email exchanges with Kevin about book publishing and distribution, something drew me to ask the publicist if any print copies were still available.

I’m so glad I did.

Why Would Anyone Go to Church? arrived on a Tuesday, but I didn’t pick it up until Friday. Before suppertime on Saturday I had consumed its 192 pages. The chapters are somewhat equal parts story and teaching and the story also resonated because my youngest son now lives in Hamilton, where he’s involved with two very different churches in the urban core so it was somewhat easier to picture the environs where the story takes place.

The story is told with generous amounts of humility. That the church has existed in five different locations in ten years offers one indication how it would be hard to proceed otherwise. But Kevin and his wife Meg also demonstrated great resolve and self-awareness as to what projects to accept and which ones to pass, as various opportunities arose. Their giftedness for such a church as this is evident, even if a ‘professional’ team of church planting experts didn’t agree.

Eucharist Church clearly lacks the homogeneity you see in the sprawling suburban churches conveniently located at the intersection of two freeways with a massive parking lot for Becky and her husband to park their van and take their well-dressed 2.4 children to a very age-specific Christian education program tailored just for them.

Rather it’s a mix.

Kevin writes,

Part of our family is toddling. They help us not to take ourselves too seriously.

Part of our family is married. They practice love together for the sake of the community.

Part of our family is single. They strengthen the bonds of friendship.

Part of our family is contemplative. They model how to listen.

Part of our family is faith-filled. They urge us to keep hope alive.

Part of our family is doubting. They remind us that skepticism has its place.

Part of our family has immigrated. They carry in their bodies and culture a different side of the Imago Dei.

Part of our family is queer. They remind us that God is found uniquely among those who don’t fit neatly into our societal boxes.

Part of our family is building its career. They teach us about the importance of work and hustle.

Part of our family is retired. They remind us that there is life after work.

That list just scratches the surface.

It includes people who technically speaking, don’t actually come, at least to weekend services. It includes people who only show up after their latest relationship has crumbled, stop at the church for a reset, and return when the next relationship has collapsed.

The cycle of any given year might include a children’s ministry for which no children show up. Or a Sunday service where everyone stretches out on the pews and shuts their eyes and snoring is absolutely permitted.  Or perhaps a Sunday where, instead of a longer sermon, everybody just shouts out the name of the denomination or type of church they came from, and the list becomes quite lengthy.

It includes potluck dinners which are almost sacramental in nature, a statement I make in this context realizing it could be the subject of a whole other book.

Finally, it includes laughter; it includes tears. Sometimes a lot of tears.

This is church in the margins, the type of church I truly believe Jesus would choose to attend over the mall-like complex in suburbia; and this is a book about a team of people who were willing to risk and willing to get their hands dirty to make it happen.

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I used an excerpt from the book last week at Christianity 201. I won’t say this is a typical passage, as I had to choose something devotional for C201, but I wanted to create further awareness of the book. You can read that section at this link.

To recommend a book like this and just continue to go on with Christian life as usual isn’t possible. I have the good fortune of being married to someone who herself demonstrated a great heart for people on the fringes and now serves a church that could hardly be called upscale. Before we got married, I spent several winters doing street ministry in nearby Toronto. Maybe that’s why I get this book.

You don’t need to travel to Africa to go to the mission field. My guess is there’s one not far from where you live.

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A copy of Why Would Anyone Go to Church? was generously rushed to me by Graf-Martin Communications – Providing Integrating Marketing in Canada.

Additional media:

• Interview with The 700 Club Canada
• Podcast interview with Jonathan Puddle (one of Kevin’s favorite interviews)
• Interview with Context-TV
• Book Trailer

Noisy Night. Chaotic Night. All is Alarm. All is Fright.

Rob Lacey was an actor and street performer in England who performed in inner-city London and Manchester, and wrote a book called The Street Bible which was a kind of “highlights reel” of all 66 Biblical books and later became published in America as The Word on The Street. Before passing away all too soon he also wrote a more complete free-style paraphrase of a harmonization of the synoptic gospels that was published in both countries as The Liberator.

Because my wife had taken the time to type out the text for a Christmas Eve service we did, I wanted to include them here for all to read. She made some minor edits to it, and the poem is of other origin, which I can’t trace right now. Remember, this was written for inner-city youth in urban centers in the UK and makes no pretense to be an actual translation.

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So how’d it happen? Baby Jesus. The Liberator? You ready for this?

I’ll tell you: his mum, Mary, is engaged to Joe. They’d not had sex yet, but – weird! She’s pregnant! Courtesy of the Holy Spirit.

Focus on Joe. A good guy, trying to do the right thing and he’s desperate to keep this news quiet. The locals would come down so hard on her. He’s working out how best to deliver the “sorry, but it’s off” speech – without the gossip grapevine crashing from overload.

He’s smashing the billiard balls of his best options around his brain, well into the early hours. Finally he drops off and God downloads a dream: An angel saying:

“Joe Davidson, don’t you chicken out of making Mary your wife. I’ll tell you why. ‘Cause it’s the Holy Spirit’s baby. She’ll have a boy, and you’ll put the name Jesus down on the birth certificate. Why “Jesus”? ‘Cause it means Liberator and that’s what he’s going to do for all his people…. liberate them from all the mess they’ve gotten themselves into.”

Joe wakes up and, yes, realizes it was all a dream. But he follows his Angel Orders to the letter and the wedding’s back on as soon as the baby’s born. Joe makes sure the birth certificate reads, “First name: Jesus.”

Meanwhile, in the depths of the Roman Empire, he-who-must-be-obeyed, Augustus Caesar, announces the Big Count. Caesar, the Big Cheeser, wants accurate population stats across the empire. Everyone is expected to trek back to their hometown for the registration.

So Joe Davidson sets off on the 130 km trip down the map, crosses the border and arrives in Bethlehem, Davidstown, in the south. He takes his fiancee Mary, who’s pregnant and showing. Three, four, maybe five days later they arrive and realize someone else is about to cross a border and arrive in Bethlehem.

Crisis! Her waters break! “No vacancy” signs in every B&B window. Decision. Mary has a ‘home birth’ in a livestock shed. She wraps strips of cloth round the baby and uses an animal feeding trough as a cot.

Noisy night, chaotic night
All is alarm, all is fright
Rounded virgin, now mother to child
Wholly infant, so other, so wild
Awake at an unearthly hour
Awake at an unearthly hour

Pull back to the fields outside the overpacked town, focus in on a local Sheep Security Team sitting through their night shift.

One of God’s angels turns up, with brilliant supernatural special FX packing the fields with God’s radiance. The guys are scared stupid.

The angel delivers his standard, “Don’t panic” line then hits them with, “I’ve got great news, great news to bring a smile to every shape of face on the planet. Mark the date in your diaries. Today over in Davidstown there’s a new baby born. Not just any baby – The Baby! The Boss, Liberator God himself, turning up for you in baby shape. You’ll know which baby – he’ll be wrapped up snug and lying in a feeding trough that’s caked with old animal grub.”

Cued to make their entrance on the last line of the breaking news, the whole angel choir turn up and blast out the song:

“Celebrate! Elevate! And on planet Earth, serenity. In your earthly home, shalom for all who have known God’s smile.”

Once the angel choir scoots back up the Heavenly HQ, the Sheep Security Team come out with, “Let’s check it out”. “Yeah, let’s hit the town.” “Search the whole of Bethlehem for this baby.” “God’s put us in the picture – let’s go!”

They leg it and, sure enough, they track down Mary and Joe, then find the baby in his makeshift cot. The next days they fill the pubs with echoes of what they’d been told about this baby. The public pulse is breakneck pace as “Liberator Talk” bounces round the walls of the town. The reactions range from amazed to – well, amazed.

The Sheep Security Team go back to work, talking up God for letting them in on the whole adventure.

And Mary’s reaction? She’s quietly storing away all of this in a safe place in her heart, bringing memories out when ever she has some space to wonder.

Doing My Evangelisitic Duty

This Yonge Street Mission fundraising album’s cover shot sees the street in warmer days than described in today’s article. See today’s footnote for a song from the L.P.

“A bunch of us are going downtown on Saturday night to hand out tracts? Wanna join us?”

The invitation seems so straight forward. I was a Christian youth leader and I should really not try to avoid these evangelistic opportunities. It was the 1980s and tracts were still considered a viable form of outreach. Plus, it was downtown Toronto and I was committed to urban ministry. I’d also been spending a lot of time preaching to the choir; it would be good to do some genuine outreach.

And so, on Saturday night at 10:00 PM, there I was, one of two lone figures standing on the corner of Yonge (pronounced young) and Dundas in the bitter cold. Looking several blocks north, the time/temperature sign flashed minus 20° and that was -20 Celsius, not -20 Fahrenheit. And yet somehow it was snowing. Usually in weather that cold you don’t get snowfall. Furthermore, it was downtown, so when the snow stopped falling from the sky it would start blowing from the office tower roofs.

Probably well over half of the passersby refused to take a tract. Some would take one and drop it a few feet up or down the street, but others, including those who had refused, would see the bright colors on the front and bend down to pick them up.

When it got too cold one of us would go to the Yonge Street Mission to warm up and someone else would take their place. Rob was a young Christian with zeal for Christ and a desire to get into conversations with people. Craig knew his Bible well, but was distracted by the prostitutes who used Ford Drugs as a base. (I think we were standing on their corner.) “I have a ministry to beautiful women;” was how he described it.

They weren’t that beautiful. They were career hookers; a plight made more pathetic by attempts to wear something skimpy on a freezing cold night. It was the only time in my life I really had direct contact with people who ply that trade, and they looked like the years of working the sex industry and doing drugs had taken its toll.

I should not have been out there.

I’m not saying that because of the weather, although this was a stage in my life when simply looking at the ice cube in a soda would mean catching a cold. I mean that I wish I knew then what I know now. (And will say that someday about what I’m writing now.)

I didn’t know the basics of apologetics. There’s no training course or prerequisite for buying some packages of tracts and launching out into the downtown core of a major city. I didn’t consider that you reason differently with a pseudo-intellectual than you do with a guy working on his doctorate in philosophy.  I didn’t know the basic objections people have to Christianity and how to respond to each. For that matter, I didn’t know my Bible all that well.

We also weren’t trained in the dynamics of people who frequent urban centers. The runaways. The psychotics. The addicts. The homeless. The wounded. We didn’t know what to say or what not to say. How to diffuse an argument. What to do when people asked us for money.

We also had no follow-up plan. I do remember some of the tracts being rubber-stamped with a phone number, or maybe it was an address. But I can’t remember — and this totally embarrassing to admit — who it was we claimed to represent, aside from Jesus. I know in one case it was a church, but one night the tracts were stamped with a different church, and we also encouraged people to go to the Yonge Street Mission to warm up or continue a conversation.

If someone had asked to be prayed for we might have been helpful, but if they said they wanted to accept Christ right then and there, you could probably knock us over with a feather. (Okay, we were better equipped than that, but it was a potential weakness which I had remedied in my own life one or two years after.) We weren’t trained to see the question behind the question, or know when they were sincere or when they were just baiting us.

It was a lot of zeal, a lot of desire, a lot of commitment (in view of the weather); but not a whole lot of anything else. We just showed up and went to work, oblivious to any other ministries working in the downtown or even the fact that our ‘spot’ on that corner actually belonged to the ladies of the evening.

So…good memory or bad memory?

It was part of my personal spiritual development. There are aspects of it that I can say I would do all over again, but certainly not without training, a better battle plan, and greater accountability. We’ll never know in this life what the fruit of that ministry was, but I think in the long run it was better to do something than to do nothing.

 

Realities of Urban Ministry

My wife was one of three women who started a weekly dinner in a rundown motel that many people called home. The organization later morphed into something a little different from their original focus, but continues to serve the same community, including some of the same people.

by Ruth Wilkinson (circa 2008)

We found out tonight at Dinner that [our project] had been “announced from the pulpit” at a local church. Which — once I’d clarified that it was announced and not denounced — is very cool. It’s created some interest in people who attend that church, which I’ve always pigeonholed as very conservative. So, with my stereotype in mind, I’m wondering what they’ll think of the whole thing.

One of the team is going to organize a meeting at her house for those church-folks who are interested so we can give them an idea of what ‘we do’.

I’m tempted to tell horror stories and see if it scares them off. But I won’t.

This motel unit was home to one of the many people we simply called “our friends.” The front window is broken, the door only locks from the outside (with a padlock) and whatever carpeting or tiles ever existed on the floor had long vanished leaving only plywood.

But I will say this:

• If you can’t sit down for dinner with 30 people, without having someone say the blessing,

• If you can’t share a meal with someone who may or not be drunk,

• Someone who may or may not be mentally ill,

• Someone who may or may not be lying to you,

• If you can’t have a conversation with someone who is smoking without making faces and waving the smoke away,

• If you can’t hear someone use the F word as a verb and an adjective and a noun and an adverb, possibly all in the same sentence, without cringing,

• If you can’t laugh at a genuinely funny crude joke, and good naturedly rebuff a truly offensive one,

• If you can’t hug someone who may or may not have Hepatitis C or AIDS,

This may not be the place for you.

(But I hope it is.)

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

Guest Post: Carlo Raponi — Sudden Urgency

Carlo Raponi is Evangelism Outreach Director with Kawartha Youth Unlimited, a Youth for Christ chapter in Peterborough, a city about 75 minutes northeast of Toronto, Canada. This is his second time at Thinking Out Loud.

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There is not a day that I can remember where I’ve woken up alone in the world. Literally. I have no memory of any day of my life where I spent a whole day without ever encountering a single person. I think that if this ever happened it would carry with it a strange unfamiliar feeling that only gets seen in post-apocalyptic horror films. Instead, I, like all of us, am surrounded by people every day.

Most of the people we see are people we don’t know, many are people that we do; and some we only get to see on occasion. However they are all people that come into our spheres of influence. They are people with whom we have a chance to share the message of Jesus. Some of these encounters afford us time to develop His narrative slowly; other encounters require a faster and more succinct explanation of His hope. Either way, they all pass before us with a ‘best before’ date invisibly stamped upon them.

Last weekend one of the youth that attends The Bridge Youth Center told me that she’s moved to Toronto. She was only in town to deal with some court issues and then she would be returning back to the city. She is a girl that I have known for a few years now. When she first began coming in to the youth center she was a walking terror. Loud, boisterous and with a stubbornness that seemed incorrigible…she reminded me a little of myself. Perhaps that’s why we connected so well. But now she would be leaving, possibly for good. And so I apologized to her.

She asked me why I needed to apologize and I told her that in the years we have known each other I have approached the subject of our need for Jesus and who He is, but I never sat her down and REALLY challenged her. The ‘time’ never seemed right or the ’occasion’ didn’t present itself. There always seemed to be a reason that trumped the moment. Now she was leaving and I felt that I had done her wrong by not introducing her to the greatest thing she could ever possess – a relationship with the one who could change everything she knew about everything she knows.

I told her about a friend who’s younger brother had asked him the awkward question. He asked if he thought that the young brother would go to hell for not believing in Jesus. When the awkward reply came out as a ‘yes’ the younger brother’s response was, “…then if you love me, why haven’t you sat me down to tell me about Jesus?”

I told her that I owed her an apology because I wasn’t intentional enough to prove that I care by sharing this truth with her. The conversation that ensued was beautiful and honest, on both our behalves. It ended with her making a promise to find a church that she likes and to attend it 3 times. After that she could do as she pleases. With a smile she made me a pinky-promised that turned into a weird handshake of sorts (then I took this picture of it for proof).

Now I must entrust her faith into the hands of God and the actions of others who I hope will do a better and more proactive job than I did. But I won’t forget this lesson. People pass in front of us every day. We’re surrounded by people all the time. There is a reason for this.

 ~ Carlo Raponi

 

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Previously at Thinking out Loud: Three Conversations and a Wedding (March 2012)

The Other Side of the Megachurch Equation

While we love to celebrate all the good things that are taking place in some of the larger churches here in North America, on Tuesday night I had a brief conversation with a pastor whose church represents the other half of the megachurch equation.

His church is located in a rural area that has not seen any growth in many decades. Urban sprawl from nearby towns is still decades away, if it happens at all. Many in the surrounding farms have retired; they winter in Florida; health keeps them from going to church; and many have lost interest in organized religion or religion in general.

If any young families have located to the area, they are more likely to drive to a nearby church which, although nowhere near the definition of megachurch, picks up young families like your vacuum picks up dust and dirt.

This pastor’s church however stands in contrast. The last time I visited — about six years ago — there was no sound system.  I don’t think they had a photocopier in the office, either. Nearly two centuries of tradition doesn’t draw a crowd. He remarked that the congregation is aging, as is he. Ceding the church to a next generation pastor and next generation people really only works in urban centers. The Michael Frost stories can only be replicated in so many locations; I’m guessing about one in a hundred has the right combination of facility, leadership and potential parishioners; just as lightning only strikes in certain random places.

The difference here is that the pastor was real not abstract; he was standing directly next to me, and I know a handful of families — albeit all older families — who attend this church. I can imagine how it feels to think that sometime in the not so distant future this church, which once played host to decades of different types of ministry to children, teens, young adults and mature adults, will be converted to a community center, or a bingo hall, or an antiques shop, or someone’s house or be razed altogether. Or maybe I can’t imagine how it feels to know that a place where generations met with God faces being decommissioned.

Other than the Roman Catholic Church and certain Episcopalians, the parish system — whereby you attend the church in your immediate community —  is dead. In a link story yesterday, we reported that at least 600,000 Americans do a ninety minute church commute. That’s an hour and a half  in metric time. People who chauffeur their kids to soccer and skating and cello lessons have no qualms about driving a longer distance to get their kids into a good midweek program at a church with a solid Christian Education department.

Of course, that’s not the whole story. There is also the general decline in church attendance. The entry of North America into a post-Christian era. The effect of shift work on church attendance. The effects of health on older members. The growth of the megachurches is not entirely always transfer growth, but it is a transfer of potential members to the house of worship where critical mass has been attained, where a crowd draws a crowd.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Wednesday Link List

This week’s links include:

• A project that Church Relevance linked to last week, The Refuge OKC (as opposed to OC) a group of people sent to live in an interact with downtown Oklahoma City.
• A very focused blog reflecting a Christian surgeon’s perspective on the subject of sleep.  Surrendered Sleep is must-reading for those struggling with insomnia. 
• A news story concerning 12-year old Christian girl in Pakistan is found with burned pages of the Quran, which constitutes blasphemy and is punishable by death.
• A book review of Out of the Comfort Zone, the authorized biography of Ray Comfort, apologist and evangelist and partner-in-crime with Kirk Cameron. 
• A ratings report on American Bible Challenge, a new Bible knowledge show on The Game Show Network (GSN) hosted by Jeff Foxworthy.
• A publishing industry story on author Dee Henderson who returns to Christian bookstore shelves in October after a long absence. 
• A consideration that begins with the similarity between introverts in the church and people who go to monasteries.
  
• A rather sad but very accurate satire from SFL on the nature of scandal in the fundamentalist movement, Church Sex Scandal Bingo.
• A second link involving Church Relevance, this one an original piece about the need for generalists in a specialist world.
  
• A new music artist that Brad Lomenick linked to last week, Ryan Edgar, complete with 30-second previews of several songs.
  
• A not-so-new music band that specialized in heavy metal turns up at Christianity 201 singing a ballad about Jesus’ crucifixion.
• A link first seen on Challies.com for Scott Fillmer’s excellent Five Reasons We Should Still Read The Book of Leviticus Today.
• A second steal from Challies — sorry, Tim — is this unnamed individual who finds a unique way to protest a Joel Osteen appearance. ¹
  
• A book trailer for Steven Furtick’s second title — reviewed here last week — Greater: Dream Bigger, Start Smaller, Ignite Gods Vision For Your Life.
• A church website for people who complain that church websites are only about maps and service times. The location is there if you look hard. ²
  
• A song — I Believe — from the musical The Book of Mormon which showed up on our radar after the LDS feature on NBC’s Rock Center. ³
  

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¹ Be sure to click the link inside to the .pdf of the actual pamphlet he created. I wonder how other preachers and evangelists would fare if their language was under the microscope in this manner?

² It could be argued that this website exists only for the convenience of the people in the church’s local community, but ‘online church hopping’ is becoming a global phenomenon. True the address is actually there in plain sight, but the usual maps and directions escaped me after ten minutes of searching. If I had just moved to the area…

³ This link is valid until after the next show is broadcast, probably tomorrow (Aug 30). There are versions of the song elsewhere on YouTube but this one had the lyrics.

Conversations with a Street Preacher

Nathan Colquhoun is one of the original Canadian Christian bloggers, going back to the Fall of 2004.  He lives in Sarnia, Ontario which is the Canadian city opposite Port Huron, Michigan; so we’re talking the extreme western end of the province of Ontario, and a few hours north of Detroit.  While he works in urban ministry in downtown Sarnia with the Free Methodist denomination, he is more widely known for organizing a number of conferences that have drawn people from across Canada and the U.S.

The interesting thing about the exchange he had with a downtown street preacher, is that both parties were willing to engage in writing; which permits us a window into the conversation.  I’ll just leave the intro there, and let you pick up the rest in context…

• Introduction: What To Do with Street Preachers in Downtown Sarnia
• Asking Them To Leave: Conversation With a Street Preacher Part 1
• Relationship over Preaching: My First Response to the Street Preacher Part 2
• Conversation with a Street Preacher: Part 3 And If I Can Accept The Trinity, Why Not Anything Else?
• Conversation with a Street Preacher: Part 4