December 29, 2006

The Top 10 Posts of 2006

These ten blog posts were not chosen by Leadership's editors, but by the thousands of visitors to Out of Ur every month. Thanks for contributing to the conversation this year. In order of popularity, here's a look back at the most visited and commented upon posts from ?06.

1.
Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question
Finding a pastoral response.
The couple approached me immediately after the service. This was their first time visiting, and they really enjoyed the service, they said, but they had one question. You can guess what the question was about: not transubstantiation, not speaking in tongues, not inerrancy or eschatology, but where our church stood on homosexuality. Read more.

2.
The Haggard Truth
Gordon McDonald on soul assassins and the future of evangelicalism.
It is difficult beyond description to watch Ted Haggard's name and face dragged across the TV screen every hour on the news shows. But as my friend, Tony Campolo said in an interview last week, when we spend our lives seizing the microphone to speak to the world of our opinions and judgments, we should not surprised when the system redirects its spotlight to us, justly or unjustly, in our bad moments. Read more.

3.
Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question (Part 4)
McLaren's response.
I read with interest - and some pain - the first few days' worth of responses to my article. I thought that some readers would be interested in a few of my responses to their responses. Read more.

4.
Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question (Part 3)
A prologue and rant by Mark Driscoll.
Before I begin my rant, let me first defend myself. First, the guy who was among the first to share the gospel with me was a gay guy who was a friend. Second, I planted a church in my 20s in one of America's least churched cities where the gay pride parade is much bigger than the march for Jesus. Third, my church is filled with people struggling with same sex attraction and gay couples do attend and we tell them about the transforming power of Jesus. Read more.

5.
Your Own Personal Jesus
Is the language of "a personal relationship" biblical?
So how does one have a personal relationship with someone you can't talk to, share a glass of wine with, or even email? We need to do some fundamental reflection on the whole notion of having a "personal relationship" with Jesus Christ. Read more.

6.
Nudity in Church
Is it art or obscenity?
I got a call Sunday morning as I was driving to our worship gathering. A friend informed me that the coffeehouse our church worshiped in had new artwork displayed including a number of nude drawings. He asked what we should do? No one taught me how to handle this in seminary. Read more.

7.
Is Emergent the New Christian Left (Part 2)
Tony Jones takes on Chuck Colson and "true truth".
Colson has had a burr under his saddle about the emerging church for some time - for instance, in his last column he equated the emerging church with namby-pamby praise music (as he was bemoaning how many Christian radio stations are dropping his daily commentaries). Read more.

8.
Word for Word
What is driving pastors to plagiarize?
In recent years I've been alarmed by how frequently I'm hearing reports of pastors plagiarizing sermons. Clearly, the internet has contributed to the problem. Sermons in both written and audio form are quickly accessible, and the temptation to plagiarize is easier than ever before to indulge. In this regard the sin differs little from the epidemic of internet pornography. Read more.

9.
The Greatest Show on Earth
Sunday morning should be the most entertaining time of the week.
For far too long the church has been lazy?that's right?LAZY. We have sat back on our butt and done nothing, asking God to "do it all" while claiming to be "led by the Spirit." And then people walk into our boring, lifeless, and predictable services and we give "God all the glory," or all the blame! Read more.

10.
Pastoral Ambition
Does success chip away at our souls?
Something has happened in the past thirty or so years that has shifted our pastoral ethic from one of faithfulness to one of productivity and success. I believe this has stirred the fires of ambition. Given the nature of our American culture, this doesn't surprise me. It also doesn't surprise me that the battle with ambition will be a ferocious one, for the tendency toward self-absorption plagues every one of us. Read more.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 29, 2006 | Comments (6)

December 26, 2006

70 Effective Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards

Making a resolution for 2007? Before you do, check out the resolutions of one of America's most celebrated pastors. Eric Reed shares with us Jonathan Edwards' effective resolutions.

Jonathan Edwards was a serious man. Even at 19, the young man who would become a leading figure in the First Great Awakening took his faith seriously. In several sittings over a one-year period, Edwards drafted 70 resolutions by which he governed his life and ministry.

For such a young man, he wrote a life's code that was amazingly well-rounded. He addressed personal spiritual growth and physical temperance, and matters of attitude, behavior, and relationship. Edwards wanted to live as if he had "already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell torments."

He pledged that he would "never speak anything but the pure and simple verity." "Let there be something of benevolence in all that I speak." In a pledge that he would speak evil of no one, Edwards added the caveat, "except I have some particular good call for it."

Some might say Edwards was too serious. Although not in the Resolutions, his pledge to spend 13 hours a day in the study of Scripture isolated him from his congregation, and indulged his solitary nature and his tendency to melancholy. Some in his congregation complained about his absence from their daily lives - they were accustomed to the regular rounds of most parsons - but they could not complain about his moral integrity or his commitment to the pulpit. Edwards reviewed his code of ethics weekly, and subjected himself to rigorous spiritual examination.

His commitment "towards making, maintaining, establishing, and preserving peace" was ultimately tested when, after 23 years of ministry among them, Edwards was terminated by his congregation on account of a nasty doctrinal disagreement.

One of the most devout pastors in American history, and one of our greatest theologians, was canned. Even so, he stayed on and filled the pulpit, until the church called a replacement.

Edwards later took the pulpit of a tiny frontier church. He pastored there six years, a productive period for Edwards the writer, until he was called as president of Princeton University.

Edwards served but six months, felled by a smallpox vaccination at age 54.

Let's consider a few of the resolutions that guided Edward's ministry:

Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God's help, I do humbly intreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to His will, for Christ's sake.

Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration.

Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.

Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

Resolved, To be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality.

Resolved, To maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

Resolved, Never to do any thing, which if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise Him for, or to think any way the more meanly of Him.

Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

Resolved, To strive to my utmost every week to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher excercise of grace, than I was the week before.

Resolved, To ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better.

Resolved, Frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism, which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this twelfth day of January, 1722-3.

Resolved, Never hence-forward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God's.

Resolved, I will act so as I think I shall judge would have been best, and most prudent, when I come into the future world.

Resolved, Never to give over, nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

Resolved, After afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them, what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 26, 2006 | Comments (9)

December 22, 2006

Product Placement in the Pews—Part 2

The Wharton School of Business has posted an article on their online journal, Knowledge@Wharton, about the growing trend of marketing products through churches. In part 2 of the article we hear from some critics of linking business practices and ministry including Jim Collins, author of the business best-seller Good to Great.

The overlap between commerce and Christianity also leaves some churches vulnerable to purely commercial marketing, says Moore, director of the American Studies program at Cornell University. "When you have churches thinking along business lines, receptiveness to sales pitches is just the direction that things go." Megachurches are particularly vulnerable because they are so intent on growth. "Religious organizations actively seeking to grow and expand - raise money, reach new members - do things that are as much secular as religious," Moore notes. "When you have megachurches with huge auditoriums, and lots of stores and schools and gymnasiums inside, it begins to look less and less like a religious place."

Growth is key to megachurch success because large, enthusiastic congregations are what megachurches "sell" to potential members, according to James Twitchell, author of the forthcoming Shopping for God: How Christianity Went from In Your Heart to In Your Face.

The first thing you hear at a megachurch these days "is how many new members they have. Churches used to be politely non-competitive," says Twitchell, professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida. But since so many megachurches are now independent or quasi-independent of centralized denominations, they aggressively compete with other churches for members. Maintaining rapid growth is tough, and when churches falter, that's when corporations spot an entryway, Twitchell adds. "Advertisers can go to the heart of your mission - in the case of megachurches, that's evangelism - and underwrite it."

Even business guru Jim Collins, best-selling author of Good to Great and Built to Last, has an opinion on the topic. Growth for the sake of growth is potentially destructive, warns Collins, who spoke this summer to a megachurch leadership conference about his new publication applying Good to Great concepts to "social sector" organizations like churches. The key question for churches, he says, is, "Do they have the discipline to say 'no' to any resources that will drive them away from their fundamental mission?"

For some churches, using corporate sponsorships might be a great opportunity; for others it might lead them astray, Collins suggests. "It would be too broad a brush to say it's all good or bad for churches, just as it's too broad to say debt is all good or bad for companies. Churches need clarity to decide what's right for their financing."
But why is it many feel, instinctively, that the market and the church should inhabit distinct spheres? The Constitution mandates the separation of church and state, but the relationship between church and commerce is largely unregulated.

One answer may lie in the gospels themselves, where Jesus spoke frequently about the dangers of wealth, warning that "you cannot serve both God and mammon." More dramatically, he overturned the tables of businessmen inside the Jewish temple and drove them out with a whip, saying "Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise."

To some Christian critics, the analogy could not be more direct. Isn't having Chrysler or Chevrolet vehicles parked in the foyer of a church "a little too much like putting the tables back inside the temple?" asks Skye Jethani, associate editor of Leadership, a journal for church pastors published by Christianity Today.

The dangers of commerce intruding -- or being invited -- into churches are "infinite" from a religious point of view, says Jethani, who is one of two pastors at an "accessibly-sized" congregation of 400 in Wheaton, Ill. "Christianity comes to be viewed, not as submission to Christ and love of your neighbor, but an identity like any other, defined by what you buy, who you vote for, what entertainment you consume. Becoming so cozy with the methodology of business completely warps the message of the New Testament."

Ad experts like Twitchell, however, predict that advertising will increasingly appear "inside the frame" of church experience. Look next for corporate sponsorship advertisements in church bulletins or on walls and windows of church buildings, he says. Yet Caldwell, head of the massive Windsor Village church in Houston, cautions that churches should be thoughtful about when to partner with corporations. "At the end of the day, we don't want the church to become a prostitute of business."

You can find the full version of "Product Placement in the Pews" at the Knowledge@Wharton website.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 22, 2006 | Comments (13)

December 20, 2006

Product Placement in the Pews

A reoccurring issue on Out of Ur has been the effort of secular corporations to market to and through the church. But Leadership hasn't been the only one to notice the trend. The Wharton School of Business recently published an article outlining why companies are adding churches to their marketing strategies. Wharton's online journal, Knowledge@Wharton, was kind enough to allow us to repost the article for church leaders to discuss.

Church pastors last year had a chance to win a free trip to London and $1,000 cash - if they mentioned Disney's film "The Chronicles of Narnia" in their sermons. Chrysler, hoping to target affluent African Americans with its new luxury SUV, is currently sponsoring a Patti LaBelle gospel music tour through African-American megachurches nationwide.

Advertising has begun to seep into churches, and the phenomenon shows no signs of slowing down, say academic, religious and marketing experts. Among the wave of early adopters: the Republican Party, which successfully sold its platform to church-goers in the 2000 and 2004 elections; Hollywood, which discovered the economic power of faith when Mel Gibson's church-marketed film "The Passion of the Christ" became a blockbuster; and publishing, with Rick Warren's best-selling The Purpose-Driven Life, heavily marketed by a Christian publishing house.

Megachurches offer a particularly tantalizing opportunity for those intent on network or "word-of-mouth" marketing, a strategy that capitalizes on social relationships to spread product information and influence purchasing, according to Wharton marketing professor Patti Williams. "Megachurch members are drawn together by a strong common bond. Networks that exist naturally facilitate word-of-mouth marketing, because people tend to share information with those they are close to," she says.

Pastors make "great connectors," adds Wharton marketing professor Christophe Van den Bulte, "because they reach a large audience once a week, and their words carry extra weight." But the real potential for word-of-mouth marketing, he notes, lies in megachurches' micro social networks.

In order to create the intimate feel of fellowship in the midst of massive congregations, megachurches channel members into small groups. The affiliation groups can be based on any commonality, such as church-going neighbors, widowers, teens with divorced parents, home-schooling mothers and everything in between. In a weekly prayer group, says Van den Bulte, "you have the reinforcement of a dense social network. It's one thing to have a pastor saying something on screen, but it's a real turbocharger if you have a small group discussing it as well."

There is no doubt that megachurches - defined as churches with weekly attendances of over 2,000 people - offer advertisers some huge enticements. They reach more than seven million people every Sunday morning, an aggregation of potential consumers that secular advertisers have ignored until recently, according to Scott Thumma, an expert on megachurches at the Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn.

Christian companies have long marketed through churches, but Thumma agrees that mainstream marketers are beginning to catch on. Every week now he fields calls from companies who want to buy access to his database of megachurches. (His list, though publicly available, is not for sale.) "For a long time, companies marketed to the ideal of American culture, which didn't have anything to do with Christianity or religion," he adds. But marketers paying more attention to cultural subgroups see that "conservative Christians represent a very large group, and if they want to appeal to them, they have to go directly to the source."

Outreach Media Group, a Christian marketing firm founded in 1996 to help churches reach potential members, receives "repeated requests from organizations wishing to get their message to pastors and churches," according to its website. While the firm was helping churches market to the unchurched, outside companies realized the process could be reverse engineered to reach pastors and church members. Though the majority of Outreach clients are companies selling faith-related products - like church insurance policies or donor management software - the list also includes Disney, DaimlerChrysler and other secular corporations.

Outreach's sermoncentral.com was the group that sponsored last year's sweepstakes offering $1,000 and a London trip to the lucky pastor who submitted proof of mentioning Disney's "Narnia" movie in a sermon. And as part of its promotion of New Line Cinema's 2006 church-targeted movie, "The Nativity Story," sermoncentral.com offers free sermons, PowerPoint presentations and outreach ideas based on the film. The website also allows pastors to sign up for free screenings of the film in 45 cities.

The Narnia sermon sweepstakes, first reported last December by the Philadelphia Inquirer, gave rise to the new term "sermo-mercial" - along with concerns expressed by blogging Christians that the pulpit was now open for product placement.

While the Narnia example struck many as crass commercialism, however, the concept of harnessing sermons for sales was not new. The engine driving the runaway sales of The Purpose-Driven Life was the "40 Days of Purpose" campaign, in which author Rick Warren signed up 1,200 churches to devote six sermons to the content of the book, while church members read a chapter every day for 40 days, says Stielstra, who was senior marketing director at Christian publisher Zondervan when it published the book.

"That simple process created an army of 400,000 customer evangelists whose word-of-mouth recommendations sold 18 million copies in 18 months without a national advertising campaign," Stielstra says. His 2005 book, Pyromarketing: The Four-Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them for Life, describes how non-religious companies can use similar sales campaigns.

Part 2 of "Product Placement in the Pews" will be posted soon for discussion. You may also read the entire article at the Knowledge@Wharton website.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 20, 2006 | Comments (23)

December 18, 2006

The Greatest Show on Earth

Last December, David Fitch challenged the popular trend known as "Experiential Worship." Fitch said, "?we can no longer be naive that a ?religious experience,' like the one sought in a rock concert worship service, provides immediate access to God." And Shane Hipps has asked us to think more critically about using technology in worship. This week, we welcome a new contributor to Out of Ur. Perry Noble is the Senior Pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina. He not only endorses the use of technology to create experiential worship services, Noble believes Sunday morning should be the most entertaining experience people have all week.

From time to time we will have a church leader call NewSpring wanting to know what in the world we are doing to reach so many people. I have had this conversation with many people, and I have seen many walk away either discouraged or disappointed because I did not give them a magic formula. The bottom line is that if a church wants to impact a community it takes work.

For far too long the church has been lazy?that's right?LAZY. We have sat back on our butt and done nothing, asking God to "do it all" while claiming to be "led by the Spirit." And then people walk into our boring, lifeless, and predictable services and we give "God all the glory," or all the blame!

One of the things I have realized from reading Scripture is that Jesus was far from boring. He created experiences for His followers - experiences that they never forgot, and the church should be doing the same.

Today I sat in a room for two hours as our creative team talked about the next several Sundays. We spent 10-15 minutes just discussing how to conclude the sermon for one service this month. We are serious about Sundays and the experience that is created for people coming in our doors.

I have heard pastors say that our process leaves no room for the Holy Spirit and that we are not open. Quite frankly if someone ever says that to my face I will have to be restrained from punching him in the throat! I am sick and tired of pastors and church leaders blaming their laziness and lack of preparation on the Holy Spirit! One of the things we have discovered at NewSpring is that the Holy Spirit is always at work - even during sessions where ideas are brainstormed and well thought out.

If someone attends NewSpring, we give them this promise - we take church seriously. Everything you see is done with a purpose. We are serious about Jesus and serious about as many people as possible meeting Him. Therefore, we are willing to do all that we can to reach people!

It is our desire not to merely have a church service, but to create an experience through song, video, messages, and any other tools the Holy Spirit might place in front of us. Sure, we've been accused of entertaining people, but I would much rather entertain people than bore them. Jesus didn't mind creating experiences, and His church shouldn't either.

We are serious about making Jesus' name famous, and that just can't happen when church is boring. I believe a boring church is a sin! So, we are going to always do all we can to make sure that when a person attends our church on Sunday that it is one of the best hours of their week. I believe people should look forward more to church than 24, Lost, or American Idol.

Those successful television shows put hard work and effort into their programming and it shows! Maybe if the church was as serious as Hollywood we would be reaching people. Hollywood has discovered something that the church runs away from - it takes work to create an experience that people will remember.

I have told people not to miss one single Sunday in December because our team has put together some stuff that we know God is going to use to impact thousands of lives. We care about Jesus, we care about His church, and we will always do our best to make sure people's hour on Sunday is not wasted but meaningful. Now I am off to catch my flight. Our video crew is on the way to a place where we will be working to create an experience for our Christmas services.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 18, 2006 | Comments (84)

December 14, 2006

Nudity in Church 2: The Wrap-Up

On Sunday morning Pastor Dan Kimball of Vintage Faith Church arrived at the coffeehouse where his congregation worships to discover three of the three hundred sketches decorating the space were nude drawings. After debating the nature of art, holiness, and the church's responsibility, Dan had to make a decision - flash the flesh or lose the nudes? Dan's first post outlined the nature of his deliberations. Here is the rest of the story.

The nude drawings were very tastefully done, classical and artistic, it was not erotica. But we took them down. I felt keeping them up would cause more questions than it was worth. Additionally, there was no time to warn parents about the nudes on the walls of the coffeehouse before our worship gathering.

I found the artist of the nudes and explained why we were taking them down. She was totally understanding. Each of the nude drawings had art on the other side of the paper, so we flipped the pages over and used what was on the other side instead.

It was an interesting decision to think through. You may conclude that I am a legalist for taking the art down. Maybe you think I am too conservative. Or, you may think the fact that we wrestled with the decision at all means we are far too liberal. As I said before, they don't teach you how to handle these types of things in seminary. So we must learn as we go.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 14, 2006 | Comments (34) | TrackBack

December 13, 2006

Out of Context: Randall Hasper

"We modern, well-educated, pastoral Dr. Phils may, if not careful, begin to think our answers are more important than God's Word or God's presence. But we must remember that we are servants of Christ in the ministry of healing damaged hearts, not religious answering machines."

-Randall Hasper is pastor of Paseo del Rey Church in Chula Vista, California
Taken from "Domestic Disputes" in the Fall 2006 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 13, 2006 | Comments (5) | TrackBack

December 11, 2006

Nudity in Church

One of the most famous churches in the world, the Sistine Chapel in Rome, was originally decorated with dozens of nude figures on the ceiling. Painted by Michelangelo, the chapel is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Western art. However, a later Pope was uncomfortable with the nudity and hired another artist to paint loincloths over Michelangelo's nudes. For centuries people have debated the pope's actions. Was he advancing holiness or desecrating art? Not long ago Pastor Dan Kimball from Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California, faced a similar decision.

I got a call Sunday morning as I was driving to our worship gathering. A friend informed me that the coffeehouse our church worshiped in had new artwork displayed including a number of nude drawings. He asked what we should do? No one taught me how to handle this in seminary.

We recently opened the coffeehouse as phase one of our building plan. We are using it for worship until we develop a business plan that allows us to open the coffeehouse to the neighborhood every day like a normal coffee shop. The mission of the coffeehouse is to be a place where those outside the church can meet us, develop friendships, and hear and experience the gospel in a variety of ways.

The coffeehouse has an art theme that changes every 6 to 8 weeks. We recently asked people from inside and outside the church to submit art from their sketchbooks. Our art team strung cords all around the room like a spider web, and the artwork was fastened to the cords. A local tattoo artist submitted beautiful tattoo sketches. Another artist created landscapes. But among the three hundred sketches submitted were three nudes.

There were two female nudes and one male. The male nude was drawn from the torso down, so there was definitely a focal point on that one. The females were both half body and full body drawings, and very realistic looking. So, we stood there and had quite a fun discussion about what to do. It raised some really interesting questions such as:

1) What defines art?
2) What should be hung in a coffeehouse that is part of a church?
3) Michelangelo painted and sculpted nudes. Would we hang a Michelangelo in the coffee house?
4) What art is considered "holy" or "unholy"?
5) What about violence in art? Of course no one would object to a crucifixion piece being hung. So, why not another violent scene from the Bible? Would we hang that up?

We stood there in front of the nudes and debated for a while. How will parents react? This isn't a museum where you might take your children and expect to see nudity in classical art. One person was arguing that the nudes should be left up. They believed the church should redeem the beauty of art and teach that the human body should not always be seen sexually.

After a long discussion, I had to make the final decision.

Before revealing Dan Kimball's decision, let us know what you would have done. What factors would you have considered in making the decision? And how would you answer the questions raised by Dan and his leaders? In a few days we'll post the rest of the story.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 11, 2006 | Comments (92) | TrackBack

December 7, 2006

What's In a (Church) Name?

Gordon MacDonald told us a while back that the church he serves was considering changing its name. It has finally happened. His account of a 180-year-old congregation's year-long wrestling with its identity is amusing and instructive. Read on.

About a year ago I filled some of this space with comments about changing a church's name. At the time our New England congregation (Baptist in background) was thinking about exchanging its 180-year-old name for something more adaptable to the times. I invited comment from all my readers. And all four of you wrote to me. (Just fooling). Actually, there were a significant number of responses.

Many e-mails were thoughtful and gave evidence that people had done their homework and accumulated useful insight about how and why a church's public moniker ought to be reappraised occasionally and sometimes changed. One or two respondents trumped me by writing that if I prayed more, Jesus would provide the name since it is his church.

A name is important. It can say something about who you are or who you want to be.

There are name-changes throughout the Scriptures. Jesus renamed Simon Peter in order to map out his journey to maturity. The early church called Joseph of Cyprus Barnabas because he was a fountainhead of encouragement. And Saul of Tarsus became Paul in order to contextualize himself in the Greek-speaking world.

I'm one who believes a church name ought to arouse curiosity, reflect congregational character, or provide some sense of meaning as to why a church or organization exists. My opinion? First Baptist Church doesn't cut it any longer. And most of our people agreed - some enthusiastically; others with a compliant shrug of the shoulders.

Our people studied church names and the stories of name changes all across the country. Some stories they collected ended well; others reflected the anguish a congregation can go through when a few become determined to fight change of any kind. Here in this church we're New Englanders, the people who didn't go west many decades ago when Horace Greeley suggested it. Those who did embrace change left us and moved to California. We who stayed behind continued to love our stained-glass windows, our pipe organs, and our hard wooden pews. Why should it surprise you, then, that name changes come hard?

It was a big day when our leaders unanimously affirmed their desire to go for a change. It was an even bigger day when we identified a name that every one liked. It just popped up in conversation. I'm not sure that any of us remember who had the idea. Jesus, perhaps! When we first heard it, we raised holy hands and said in concert, "That's it!" And we stopped looking. The name we picked was CenterPoint Church. It grabbed us, and it offered a meaning that we quickly embraced.

Not so the entire congregation. Admittedly, there were some strugglers out there. And we waited, month after month, for the last 20 percent of our people to jump aboard. Convincing the first 80 percent was easy. The last 20 percent, however, were harder to persuade.

If we'd gone for a 51 percent majority on the new name, adopting it would have been a slam-dunk. Even 66 percent would have been an easy sale. But, being the masochists that we are, our leaders decided that we shouldn't change the name unless 80 percent of the folks said "Ah-yup!"

The night of the big business meeting came. The name change was item number four on the agenda. The first three items, leaders reasoned, were simple, rubber-stamp matters that could be disposed of quickly. But there were three or four Baptist saints who left their rubber stamps at home and kept us all going for two and one-half hours before item four got to the floor. Result? Several advocates of the name-change, younger family people, left to get their children home to bed. Most of them didn't think their votes would be needed.

When the vote was taken three and one-half hours into the meeting, we fell six votes short of the required 80 percent. Soul-searching time for leaders! The next evening we voted 18-to-16 (something like that) not to sulk, to be gracious, and to back off for a while.

Fortunately, the name-change issue didn't die. And some months later people rose up (a biblical term) and said to our leaders, "Let us go around another time." And we did. During the time between the votes I met a number of times with opponents of the name-change initiative. We talked, drank coffee, and did a little laughing. Much opposition vaporized. Not all, but enough that when the vote was taken a second time, it passed. Not by a lot, understand, but far enough beyond the 80 percent mark that everyone knew we could become CenterPoint Church with joy and confidence. Forty-eight hours later a new sign was on the front of the church. CenterPoint Church. And in small letters below: established 1818. We had our new name and a reminder that we've been around for a long time.

CenterPoint: what does it mean to us? It says that Jesus is at the center point of our lives together. And it says that we like being a church at the center point of our city where we want to make a difference in community life in the name of Jesus. And, finally, center point reminds us that each of us are "center points" of loving and serving influence wherever we work, live and pursue community involvement.

You can build an entire church mission around that name and those three meanings. And that is exactly what we're trying to do.

Better this wonderful name - CenterPoint - than the one an Old Testament mother gave her son: Ichabod, meaning, "The glory has departed from Israel."

So now you know the rest of the story. And you know that even in New England, an old church can find a new name, a fresh vision, and a confidence that there is a wonderful future.

Pastor and author Gordon MacDonald is chair of World Relief and editor-at-large of Leadership.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 7, 2006 | Comments (27) | TrackBack

December 5, 2006

Missional Bricks and Mortar

A few years ago churches that were serious about their work were "purpose-driven." Today those same churches might call themselves "missional." The upcoming winter issue of Leadership will ask what exactly it means to be missional. David Fitch is a regular contributor to Out of Ur, pastor of Life on the Vine, a missional community in Long Grove, Illinois, and the author of The Great Giveaway. In this post Fitch asks if owning a building is contrary to missional church values.

Is buying a building always contra being missional? Upon first instinct, the answer would be yes. Certainly missional gatherings would hesitate to invest in a traditional church building. But are there times when inhabiting a building might itself be incarnational according to missional logic?

One positive thing about the end of modernity is that truth cannot be held captive by the rational, the strictly representational, or the logocentric. It must be embodied. So we who live in these times naturally resist any attempts to strip truth of its embodiment. Missional living, we say, must be incarnational.

But if truth is to be embodied, if we are not going to be limited to only words, then we must embody ourselves as a physical presence in the community. This might include inhabiting a building.

I am sure many, perhaps the majority, of missional communities will gravitate towards meeting in homes. But if embodiment in a community requires this community to see us, watch our way of life, see they way we welcome and engage the hurting, recognize God in our architecture, our meals, our artwork and worship, then there might be times when we should take residence in a place that is visible to the community. I know this goes against all missional thinking, so I am just asking, at what point does a building become incarnational?

I understand the resistance of missional churches to own buildings. They are cumbersome, require resourses, and often push the church into an attractional mentality as opposed to a missional/incarnational one where the church is dispersed into the world. This is all good. But I argue that there are times and places (not all times and all places) where buildings, sanctuaries, and physical architecture might be the very expression of such an incarnational community. In other words, part of incarnation might be the very brick and mortar of the sacred space we gather in. A building could exemplify and point all who would see it toward the reality of God.

There might be therefore, a stage in the development of some missional communities when a building makes sense. Some of our best examples of missional communities have made investments in buildings (like Solomon's Porch and Jacob's Well). In order to be missional we might need buildings, particularly buildings that resist the impression that Christ is another thing for distribution at a Walmart. Not a big box church, but a building where artists render the theology of our life together upon its space. We might need a building to feed the poor, to give sanctuary to the victimized. We might need a physical space that wipes the blank stare off modern people's eyes to see a reoriented world under the Lordship of Christ.

To all those who meet in houses, I am sure all of this can be done in a home gathering. It is possible that art, meal, architecture, and furniture can embody the incarnational Christ in a living room. But sometimes it might be ok to devote a building for this purpose. Not a grandiose big box where the sign of the cross is not visible. Not a monstrous and expensive edifice that dwarfs and disfigures the surrounding community with corporate pretense. But a church inhabiting the community which visibly embodies the life of Christ in our midst. I think sometimes (not all the times, and it requires discernment) such a building is incarnational.

Consider all of the dying vestiges of a past church life in the cities where His Body once lived but somehow died or moved on. Many city neighborhoods desperately need a visible witness of the new life made possible in Christ. As long as the missional incarnational DNA remains, I believe these old buildings might be the very places for a re-incarnation of the gospel.

Our congregation started in an abandoned church building after the previous church closed. We filled it with art, camped out on its property, and now seek to engage the community from its launching pad. It provides the base for the Presense in the bland suburbs. In the midst of the urban landscape, and especially the suburbs, there may be times when such old buildings provide the basis for a uniqiue physical presense? What do you think?

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 5, 2006 | Comments (20) | TrackBack

December 1, 2006

AIDS Activism Makes Strange Bedfellows

This morning I attended a prayer breakfast in my town for World AIDS Day. Despite the blizzard conditions, leaders from local churches, schools, and relief organizations gathered for the event. More than a few people remarked about the odd group. My table had three evangelical pastors, a newspaper reporter, and a board member from an organization led by a gay man. Across from us were Roman Catholic nuns in their habits, Wheaton College students, and leaders of the gay community.

The two main speakers represented the polarity of the group. Ruth Bell Olsson is the leader of the HIV/AIDS ministry at Mars Hill Church near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ruth comes with solidly evangelical credentials, and she also happens to be Pastor Rob Bell's sister. The second speaker was Dan Pallotta, founder of AIDSRides and Breast Cancer Walks. Pallotta's passion for AIDS awareness stems from his own experience as a gay man in Los Angeles watching many in his community die from the disease.

In a time when cultural divisions are as distinct as blue and red, the coming together of liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and gays, was refreshing - at least to me. But not everyone is happy about the emerging connection between evangelicals and those outside the conservative camp. Rick Warren, for example, has taken flak for inviting pro-choice Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) to Saddleback to speak at the HIV/AIDS summit today. Saddleback responded to the critics:

"We do not expect all participants in the Summit discussion to agree with all of our Evangelical beliefs. However, the HIV/AIDS pandemic cannot be fought by Evangelicals alone. It will take the cooperation of all ? government, business, NGOs and the church. That is the purpose of this Summit."

[Read more about Senator Obama's remarks and Saddleback's AIDS Summit here]

I applaud Rick Warren, Saddleback, and those in my own town who are defying cultural divisions in order to tackle the issue of AIDS locally and globally. I am amazed when Christians refuse to participate in the fight against the pandemic because others in the trenches don't agree with them politically or theologically. 8,000 people die everyday from AIDS. Eight thousand! As a friend reminded me this morning, for the church to sit on the sidelines is tantamount to a New York firefighter refusing to enter the burning World Trade Center because another firefighter voted for Hillary.

Anyone who has been to the front lines of the AIDS battle knows it is not simply a political, moral, social, or theological issue. AIDS is a human issue. My first encounter with AIDS was in college. A young man with HIV came to our state university to talk about being a Christian with the disease. He had contracted the virus from a blood transfusion, not through sexual contact. I suppose that made him more acceptable in Christian circles. But he challenged the Christians on campus to reach out to everyone affected by HIV/AIDS, including gays and lesbians.

While in seminary, I served as a hospice chaplain visiting dying patients in the poorer neighborhoods of Chicago. That was the first time I saw the devastating final stages of AIDS mingled with the dehumanizing effects of poverty. I sat with one woman, a mother in her forties, as she cried about her children. She feared they would be lost to gangs after she died. Her emaciated hand clasped mine with meager strength as I prayed for her.

Last year I had a similar experience, but on the other side of the world. In a tiny village outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I held another mother's hand as she wept for her children. Her husband had died of AIDS just weeks earlier, and now she was in the final stages - confined to her dirt and grass hut. Her four-year-old daughter (the same age as my little girl) was being held by my friend. "I know my mommy will be the next to die," she said.

The tiny village, in which every adult had AIDS, was organized by missionaries. The Christians cared for the suffering, sought desperately to acquire drugs to slow the progression of the disease, and ran an orphanage for the abandoned children. They also held funerals, sometimes multiple services a day, and cremated the bodies of the parents as the children watched.

Whether it's a neighborhood just minutes from my home or a village half a world away, AIDS is destroying lives and families everywhere. As followers of Jesus Christ, our participation in this battle is a test of our claim to be "pro-life." To quote Saddleback's statement again, to truly be pro-life "means far more than opposing abortion. It also means doing everything in our power to keep people alive, so they might respond to the grace of Jesus Christ. Sometimes that means working with people you disagree with. With AIDS killing 8,000 people a day, saving lives is more important to us than political alignment." Amen.

Posted by Skye Jethani at December 1, 2006 | Comments (33)