December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas, Urbanites.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 24, 2008 | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 22, 2008

Rick Warren at Obama's Inaugural

Unless you've been hibernating (which isn't a bad idea given the economy and weather lately), you know that President-elect Barack Obama has asked Rick Warren to pray at his inauguration. The news networks (apparently needing something controversial to fill up their 24 hour broadcast schedules) have been buzzing about Warren's stance against gay marriage.

The more liberal among Obama's supporters have voiced their anger over his choice of Rick Warren, but it's been hard to find an evangelical on television upset with Warren's close ties with Obama. You may recall that Warren hosted both McCain and Obama at his church during the campaign for a "civil forum" to discuss important issues. The megachurch pastor was widely praised for his balanced and helpful approach to the event.

Rick Warren's prayer for Barack Obama:

I'd like to know what you think about Rick Warren's presence at Obama's inaugural. Is Warren following in the tradition of Billy Graham, or is he succumbing to the lure of political power? And do you think Obama will be positively influenced by Warren, or is he using Warren's star-power among evangelicals to score political points?

I've included a couple of videos of both Obama and Warren discussing their relationship.

Barack Obama explains why he picked Rick Warren:

Rick Warren explains his opposition to gay marriage:

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 22, 2008 | Comments (27) | TrackBack

December 19, 2008

Urban Exile: Will Compassion Survive This Season?

by David Swanson

An excerpt...

For all of our recent talk of being missional, these days of economic uncertainty may prove to be an important test. Serving and giving from a position of security is one thing; generosity to the poor despite a precarious financial position is something else. The days ahead will provide plenty of opportunities to welcome the migrant worker, advocate for the day laborer, feed the homeless, and house the unemployed single mother. Competing for our attention will be the powerful impulse to protect our own kingdoms and budgets. As Christmas approaches, should the coming of the Son of God fill us with the shepherd’s joy or Herod’s dread.

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Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 19, 2008 | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 18, 2008

Advent...the Conspiracy

Our friends at Advent Conspiracy have produced a truly thought provoking video for this season. Is your church participating in this campaign? I'd love to hear about your experiences. If not, how would people react in your church if you showed this video?

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 18, 2008 | Comments (14) | TrackBack

December 16, 2008

Missional vs. Attractional: Debating the Data

by Url Scaramanga & Andy Rowell

The debate continues. For the last two weeks, opinions have been fast and furious on the definition and validity of "missional" churches. It all began with Dan Kimball's post about his missional misgivings. He observed that many of the larger, attractional churches being criticized by pro-missional people were actually doing a pretty good job of reaching non-Christians.

While there may be attractional megachurches reaching into our post-Christian culture, others contend that the effectiveness of these churches, as a whole, is in decline. Alan Hirsch and David Fitch both responded by arguing that North America is sliding toward uber-secularism. In such an environment attractional churches will lose traction, and more indigenous missional expressions of church are advantageous.

Scot McKnight, scholar/theologian/blogger/and Urthling, jumped into the debate to ask for data - hard research to back up Hirsch's claim that the attractional model "has appeal to a shrinking segment of the population."

Andy Rowell has hit the books to chime in with some research. Here's what he's found:

There are not stats about "attractional" or "missional" churches but there are some statistics about the number of people "converting" through megachurches. First, note that only 21.5 percent of Americans do not claim a Christian affiliation, according to the 2004 GSS; (20.8 according to the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey). Far less would claim that they had never before attended a church. Therefore, it is difficult to find true "new converts." Most are "switchers."
See American Piety 2005

Second, Thumma and Travis, authors of Beyond Megachurch Myths, point out that about half of the megachurches they surveyed in 2005 claimed that more than 20 percent of their new members are new converts. Here's an extended quote by Thumma and Travis about additional studies on this question.

Eiesland reported that that Southern Baptist megachurch she studied had equal number of persons joining through "baptism" and "transfer of membership" in one year of the megachurch's growth. Thumma and Petersen's investigation of very large Evangelical Lutheran (ELCA) churches showed that a third of the new members were youth and adult conversions, a third transferred from other Lutheran churches, and a third came from a denomination outside the Lutheran tradition. Thumma's study of a charismatic nondenominational megachurch showed that 27 percent claimed to be new Christians since coming to the megachurch, but only 7 percent stated that they grew up without a church or in a non-Christian faith.

The books with quantitative data are clear that there are winners and losers with regard to church growth. But Alan Hirsch is not quite right when he comments that,

But I do believe that it squares with all the research (and the anecdotal evidence) across the West about the receding influence of the church and declining church attendance. Can you really dispute that? We are all heading Europe's way, and that's not a pretty picture. To my mind at least (sick or not) this is indisputable.

Stanley Presser and Mark Chaves write in "Is Religious Service Attendance Declining?":

"Yet, existing evidence does not definitively establish whether attendance at religious services declined in American society from the 1950s to the present. We examine the trend in religious service attendance between 1990 and 2006. Evidence from several sources converges on the same answer: weekly attendance at religious services has been stable since 1990. However one reads the evidence about trends between World War II and 1990, the recent past has been a time of stability."

Rodney Stark says, "Church attendance has held rock steady, except for the entirely understandable decline in Catholic attendance" after Vatican II relaxed its rules about attending Mass.

One final factcheck from the comments about missional vs. attractional churches. David Fitch writes,

"In addition, the mega churches are largely a failure in the places of post Christendom (let's just define these as places that for instance are pro-gay/pro abortion/anti-Christian establishment in public legislation such as Northeast states or Ontario Canada)."

Thumma and Travis write,

"In terms of state concentration, California leads the number of megachurches with 178, Texas follows with 157, Florida is next with 85, and then Georgia with 73. These are followed by Illinois, Tennessee, Ohio, and Michigan, each of which has 40-some megachurches. In the past five years, there has been significant growth in the number of these churches in the Northeast and Mid Central states. We have found no megachurches in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, South Dakota, or Wyoming. Interestingly, even these states have churches of one thousand or more attendees in a typical weekend. We believe it is only a matter of time until every state has a congregation of megachurch size. With a few exceptions, we estimate that there is a megachurch within a ninety-minute drive of 80 percent of the population in America."

They list four megachurches in Ontario in
Hartford Institute for Religious Research Database of Megachurches in the U.S.

60% of Americans declare religion "very important" compared to 30% of Canadians.
See The Pew Global Attitudes Project,"

Thanks, Andy, for the numbers and research. Of course, there is the perennial problem of defining who is really "unchurched" and what constitutes "conversion growth" when no one seems to use the same definitions. Also, it should be noted that other research has found a steady decline in church attendance. Outreach Magazine's 2006 report, "American Church in Crisis" has looked at the same numbers very differently:

Olson explains that while church attendance numbers have stayed about the same from 1990 to 2004, the U.S. population has grown by 18.1% - more than 48 million people. "So even though the number of attendees is the same, our churches are not keeping up with population growth," he says.

Also worth adding is recent research by Lifeway showing the exodus of young adults from the church even in highly churched parts of the country. As a percentage of the population, the number of people attending church is declining. If we are advancing the mission, it's not enough to keep up with population growth. And many places are not even successfully converting the youth raised within the church.

So, who's right? Are attractional megachurch losing effectiveness or are they a light in an otherwise stagnant American church? Should we become more attractional or more missional? Or is that an unfair differentiation? Urbanites, I leave it to you to continue the conversation...respectfully.

Url

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 16, 2008 | Comments (32) | TrackBack

December 12, 2008

A Win-Win on Same-Sex Marriage

by Bob Hyatt

An excerpt:

...the state needs to get out of the "marriage" business. It should recognize that as long as it uses that term and continues to privilege certain types of relationships over others this issue is going to divide us as a nation and is only going to become more and more contentious. We need to move towards the system used in many European countries, where the state issues nothing but civil unions to anyone who wants them, and those who desire it may seek a marriage from the church. When I pastored in the Netherlands, couples got a civil union certificate at the courthouse and then had a marriage ceremony at the church. This division largely negated the culture war aspect, and allowed those churches who objected to same sex marriage on biblical grounds not only to opt out, but to be able to continue to teach their biblical view of marriage unchallenged by the state....

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Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 12, 2008 | Comments (36) | TrackBack

December 11, 2008

Alan Hirsch Responds to Kimball's "Missional Misgivings"

Dan,

As someone who comes out clearly for the missional reframing of church, I do share some concerns about reproduction (fruitfulness). Anyone concerned with Jesus' commission should be.

The comments so far are excellent and so I will just add a few more.

* I certainly don't believe that attractional is not working. What I have said is that it has appeal to a shrinking segment of the population, and that persistence with a church growth style, attractionalism, is in the long run a counsel of despair. Are you suggesting that we simply stay with what we have got? Surely not bro?

* If we persist with our standard measurements for mission, we will miss the point. The issue is what idea of church is more faithful to the Scriptures. Genuine fruitfulness, surely, cannot simply be measured by numbers but by 'making disciples.' How does one measure that? By all accounts, current churches are made up largely of admirers of Jesus but few genuine disciples/followers - this is not a biblical idea of fruitfulness!

* Besides, the early church would not measure up to the current metrics!! If Rodney Stark is right, there were only 25,000 believers by year 100AD. Not exactly mind boggling church growth. Some attractional churches are larger.

* If we stick with the prevailing measures, we will miss the level of incarnational engagement with quantitative measures alone. How do we measure that? Incarnation takes time and loving presence (witness) among a people. Working with post-Christian folks ain't easy because we have lost our credibility and have to work darn hard to regain it. I think there is much work to do here.

The only other thing I will say is that we as believers, live by a vision of what can be...we cannot allow ourselves to be constrained by pragmatics alone. Vision precludes that and is driven by holy discontent to see a greater manifestation of the Kingdom.

With love and respect.
AH

Read Dan Kimball's original post here.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 11, 2008 | Comments (27) | TrackBack

December 10, 2008

Mission and Recession

by Skye Jethani

The financial talking heads are attributing the current economic crisis to a number of things: lack of regulatory oversight, bad mortgage lending practices, and globalized market structures. But some of the more plainspoken pundits sum up the mess in a single word: Debt.

Simply put, for too long people have been spending more than they have. We have been purchasing homes we cannot afford, saving less than we should, and racking up debt at an unprecedented rate. The average American currently has a negative savings rate and over $8000 in credit card debt. As Dave Ramsey says, we are not "acting our wage." On a national level, we have been importing more than we export and borrowing money from foreign governments to make up the difference.The picture is not pretty. We've made the foundation of our economy consumer spending rather than manufacturing, saving, or production. All that debt simply cannot hold the weight of the economy over time, and now we're starting to see the system crumble.

How does this apply to ministry? Well, most American churches have based their mission on the assumption of affluence. That doesn't mean every church is living large. Rather, it means that our churches expect people to give their surplus time and money to fuel Christ's mission. But what happens if there is no surplus? What if people can't give more time or money? Like our economy, has our church built its mission on a foundation of sand rather than stone?

Here's one way to think about it. The average week of a working age adult includes at least 40 hours on the job, and 40 hours to maintain the family, home, and health (think shopping, meals, bathing, and dentist appointments). These 80 hours represent a person's "core time." (I'm not including 56 hours of sleep-unless like us you've got a baby at home, in which case it's less.)

That leaves most people with about 32 hours each week of "leisure time." Most churches are trying to motivate people to turn off the TV for three or four of these leisure hours to spend on mission. The most valuable and celebrated members are those who give eight, ten, or even twenty hours of leisure time to the church.

But by predicating the mission on leisure time of members, most churches are making two mistakes. First, if leisure time ever shrinks the church will find its mission severely affected. We may be facing that situation as the recession deepens. Just ask pastors in parts of the country where unemployment has accelerated. People who could previously spend multiple hours each week in church programming are now holding down part-time jobs, job hunting, spending more time at home cooking rather than eating out, or taking classes to train for new careers. Some retirees, who are often the most available and celebrated volunteers at churches, are now having to return to work.

We look at these cases and think it's tragic-good churches and ministries are suffering because the economy is taking away people's leisure time. But we forget that most Christians throughout history have not had the leisure time enjoyed by modern Americans. It makes you wonder, how did the mission of Christ get anywhere before the institution of the 40 hour work week, electric refrigeration, or the automobile? (Consider how much time people spent simply gathering and preparing food three generations ago.)

The second, and more critical, mistake is the way basing our mission on leisure-time devalues members without expendable hours. I'm thinking of mothers with the 24/7 job of caring for young children, single-parent households, laborers working multiple jobs to stay afloat, or those in the "sandwich generation" using their leisure hours to care for aging parents. Do we write these members off because they do not have leisure time to dedicate to the church's programs and ministry teams? Do they get a pass on the Great Commission?

Leisure-time based mission explains the 20/80 rule seen in most churches: 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. Many pastors lament this statistic, but I don't believe the 80 percent who are not engaged in the church institution are all lazy Consumer Christians. (Some, yes, but not all.) More likely, the 20 percent who are heavily involved simply have the most leisure time to spare.

But consider the larger picture. A church with 100 adults would be considered truly remarkable if 40 members each give 5 hours per week of leisure time to the institution's mission. That would be double what most churches experience, and many pastors would be thrilled to see similar stats in their congregation. But even this would represent less than 2 percent of the church members' total available time. Is this being missional (however you define the word)? Is that loving God will all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength?

There is an alternative.

Economists are asking what would happen if we built our economy on production, savings, and manufacturing rather than spending and debt. Pastors should be asking what would happen if we built our mission on people's core time rather than leisure time. What if we could tap into the 80+ hours people spend every week on the job, with their families, and engaging in life's ordinary responsibilities? Of course, this would require a fundamental shift in the way we think about mission and institution. Here are a few implications:

1. It would mean helping people see the missional dignity of ordinary work; communicating that their jobs matter to Christ and his kingdom, not just what happens within the walls of the church.

2. It would mean elevating the role of family and household relationships as vehicles for spiritual growth and missional engagement. Yes, raising children and caring for aging parents honors God and advances his kingdom just as, if not more, than institutional church programs.

3. It would mean not extracting people from their lives and communities to engage in church programming or committees unless absolutely necessary, but equipping them to live in communion with Christ within the context he has placed them.

4. It would shift the focus of Sunday worship away from mission and outreach to a time of celebration and encouragement for Christians who are engaged in mission the other six days of the week.

5. It would mean deploying church leaders outside the institution to engage members in their native contexts; mentoring and coaching on their turf rather than ours.

6. It would mean a radical adjustment in what the church celebrates-not institutional expansion or programmatic growth, but stories of ordinary people incarnating Christ at home, at work, at school?everywhere life happens.

A church built upon people's core time rather than leisure time will not only maximize its missional impact, but it will also be far less susceptible to the unstable foundations of our debt-based economy. It would mean fewer churches fearing economic recession because they've build their missional strategy on the foundation of ordinary life rather than institutional programs, buildings, and staffs.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 10, 2008 | Comments (18) | TrackBack

December 8, 2008

Tim Keller Weighs in on Missional Debate

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, has offered his two cents on the missional v. attractional conversation. You can find his comments on David Fitch's blog. I've also included a few videos in which Keller discusses his understanding of "missional" in more detail.

Tim Keller on Missional vs. Seeker Churches:

Tim Keller on being Missional vs. Evangelistic:

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 8, 2008 | Comments (5) | TrackBack

December 5, 2008

Defining "Missional"

Everyone's debating what exactly being "missional" means. There are a number of really interesting articles floating around the web on the subject, and Alan Hirsch includes his definition in the latest issue of Leadership. Here's Michael Frost (co-author of The Shaping of Things to Come and ReJesus with Alan Hirsch) with his definition:

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 5, 2008 | Comments (11) | TrackBack

The Brokenness Behind Nicea

by Scot McKnight

Whether we heard it first in Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, in a Church history class, or in a book, most of us were probably surprised by the political machinations behind The Nicene Creed. I first heard about it from theologian Harold O.J. ("Joe") Brown. More than once I've told my audiences that Constantine should have kept his nose out of the Church's business, that there was too much political unity in mind, and that some of those theologians were anything but noble. It seems most everyone agrees with me. But there it is - the faith we all confess - debated and drafted up in extraordinary lines by ordinary human beings who were embroiled in more than exegesis and theology.

Most explanations I've heard try to hide the obvious: "Constantine's impact was actually minimal," or "that's the way they did things back then." Perhaps we need to ask what folks would like to have happened. If we had our wishes, The Nicene Creed would have been drafted by theologians without spot or wrinkle, men (and women) in whom their was no guile, church leaders who resisted every attempt to grasp power, and political leaders who know the difference between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of the world to come. In other words, we'd prefer The Nicene Creed to have been drafted by God Incarnate.

Wishful thinking.

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Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 5, 2008 | Comments (8) | TrackBack

December 4, 2008

Megachurch Misinformation

by Andy Rowell

There are no studies that compare "seeker sensitive" megachurches to small "missional" churches, but I think Dan Kimball is right to question the self-described "missional" advocate who declares that "younger people in the city will not be drawn to larger, attractional churches dominated by preaching and music."

The evidence shows that more and more people are attending large churches. Duke sociologist Mark Chaves writes, "In every denomination on which we have data, people are increasingly concentrated in the very largest churches, and this is true for small and large denominations, for conservative and liberal denominations, for growing and declining denominations. This trend began rather abruptly in the 1970s, with no sign of tapering off."

Furthermore, the 1,250 megachurches in the US in 2007 show remarkable strength across a range of indicators, according to Hartford Seminary sociologist Scott Thumma and Dave Travis's Beyond Megachurch Myths. Thumma and Travis take seriously the stereotypes of megachurches as impersonal, selfish, shallow, homogenous, individualistic and dying but they do not find the accusations match the data.

Even Baylor sociologist Rodney Stark's What Americans Really Believe lauds the strengths of megachurches as compared to small churches. "Those who belong to megachurches display as high a level of personal commitment as do those who attend small congregations" (p.48). This is significant because some of Stark's earlier work claimed growth dilutes commitment. In 2000, he declared, "Congregational size is inversely related to the average level of member commitment . . . In all instances, rates of participation decline with congregational size, and the sharpest declines occur when congregations exceed 50 members."

Furthermore, the Willow Creek Reveal (2007) and Follow Me (2008) books, which some were led to believe denounced the seeker megachurch model, provide zero data about how different sizes of churches fared on their surveys. We have no idea whether small or large churches like Willow report more or less "stalled" or "dissatisfied" people than others.

But megachurches are not the only ones thriving. Many new churches are being planted, and many of those would describe themselves as having a "missional" mindset. David Olson reports that in the fourteen diverse denominations he studied, all the denominations that were growing were planting lots of churches; specifically all those denominations planting at least one new church per year for every one hundred existing churches continued to grow. The denominations also range between a 52 and 88 percent survival rate in new churches. First year attendance ranges between 44 and 145 (Olson, 149). In 13 out of 14 denominations, new churches are growing steadily (Olson, 150). The point is that though megachurches are continuing to thrive, new churches (often "missional") are also a very effective part of the American church.

I suppose one could do a survey of a number of self-described "missional" churches and "seeker sensitive" megachurches and see where they rank on a battery of criteria: adult baptisms, attendance growth, as well as the core Christian beliefs, practices, and virtues. Then one could do a study five years later and try to discern the "effectiveness" of "missional" versus "seeker sensitive" approaches. But even if we did such a study, most pastors would rightfully stick to what they perceive as "working" in their own community. Perhaps that is the key insight that powers both missional and seeker sensitive churches: Churches should adapt their forms to reach the people in their community (while retaining faithfulness to Jesus).

The missional church prides itself on church planting and reviving declining churches, while megachurches often are involved in church planting today and hope to share their resources to encourage other churches. It seems to me both groups are watching and hoping to learn from one another.

What should you do?
(1) Survey your own church and see what your leadership team and congregation thinks of the results. Church consultants and denominational officials provide this service. I would urge church leaders to tailor the survey to what they want to know. If the results seem too complicated, it is not a good survey. You want to know things like "2 out of 10 people strongly agree with the statement 'I am struggling with an addiction'" or "7 out of 10 people strongly agree with the statement 'I would not ask an outsider to a worship service at our church because they would dislike it.'"

(2) Keep listening for qualitative data (i.e. eyewitness accounts) from people like Dan. A number of books provide interesting snapshots of what's happening. On missional and emerging church plants: Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger's Emerging Churches (2005) and Tony Jones's The New Christians (2008); on conservative Reformed churches: Collin Hansen's Young, Restless, Reformed (2008); on alive mainline churches: Diana Butler Bass's Christianity for the Rest of Us (2006); on alive conservative churches: Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson's Comeback Churches (2007); on megachurches: Thumma and Travis's Beyond Megachurch Myths (2007); and on the views of young outsiders towards Christians: David Kinnaman's UnChristian (2007).

All of us want "more and better disciples of Jesus" (a phrase I first heard from Brian McLaren). In the Church of England, they are talking about a "mixed economy" of "fresh expressions" of church being a good thing--in other words different churches will reach different people. I am hopeful about both missional and megachurch expressions of church.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 4, 2008 | Comments (21) | TrackBack

December 2, 2008

Dan Kimball's Missional Misgivings

I hope I am wrong. For the past few years, I have been observing, listening, and asking questions about the missional movement. I have a suspicion that the missional model has not yet proven itself beyond the level of theory. Again, I hope I am wrong.

We all agree with the theory of being a community of God that defines and organizes itself around the purpose of being an agent of God's mission in the world. But the missional conversation often goes a step further by dismissing the "attractional" model of church as ineffective. Some say that creating better programs, preaching, and worship services so people "come to us" isn't going to cut it anymore. But here's my dilemma - I see no evidence to verify this claim.

Not long ago I was on a panel with other church leaders in a large city. One missional advocate in the group stated that younger people in the city will not be drawn to larger, attractional churches dominated by preaching and music. What this leader failed to recognize, however, was that young people were coming to an architecturally cool megachurch in the city - in droves. Its worship services drew thousands with pop/rock music and solid preaching. The church estimates half the young people were not Christians before attending.

Conversely, some from our staff recently visited a self-described missional church. It was 35 people. That alone is not a problem. But the church had been missional for ten years, and it hadn't grown, multiplied, or planted any other churches in a city of several million people. That was a problem.

Another outspoken advocate of the house church model sees it as more missional and congruent with the early church. But his church has the same problem. After fifteen years it hasn't multiplied. It's a wonderful community that serves the homeless, but there's no evidence of non-Christians beginning to follow Jesus. In the same city several megachurches are seeing conversions and disciples matured.

I realize missional evangelism takes a long time, and these churches are often working in difficult soil. We can't expect growth overnight.

But given their unproven track records, these missional churches should be slow to criticize the attractional churches that are making a measurable impact. No, I am not a numbers person. I am not enamored by how many come forward at an altar call. In fact, I am a bit skeptical. But I am passionate about Jesus-centered disciples being made. And surprisingly, I find in many large, attractional churches, they are.

Yes, people are attracted by the music, preaching, or children's programs, but there may be more to these large churches than simply the programming. There are also people being the body of Christ in their communities. When these disciples build relationships with non-Christians, the evidence of the Spirit in their lives is attractive. The existence of programs and buildings does not mean mature disciples are not a significant reason why these churches grow.

There are so many who don't understand the joy of Kingdom living here on earth and the future joy of eternal life. This joy motivates me missionally, but I also cannot forget the horrors of hell. This creates a sense of urgency in me that pushes me past missional theory to see what God is actually doing in churches - large and small, attractional and missional. Where are disciples actually being grown? What is actually working?

I hope there are examples of fruitful missional churches that I haven't encountered yet. I hope my perception based on my interaction with the missional movement is wrong. But for now, I would rather be part of a Christ-centered megachurch full of programs where people are coming to know Jesus as Savior, than part of a church of any size where they are not.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 2, 2008 | Comments (56) | TrackBack

December 1, 2008

Cartoon: Image is Everything

This image reminds me of something James Twitchell writes in Shopping for God:

"Megachurches concentrate on what makes the brand powerful: growth. What you sell is the perception that whatever it is that you are selling is in demand."

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at December 1, 2008 | Comments (5) | TrackBack