April 30, 2009

Church Lessons from HGTV

by Dave Gibbons

I was sick in bed, my poor wife by my side, during a class reunion weekend in South Carolina this past weekend. I usually make sure I get the remote control quickly in hand, so I can steer the programming toward the exercising of my mind: ESPN and Fox Sports are two of my top choices. But my wife beat me to the coveted piece of gadgetry in our hotel room. So I spent the day watching or hearing HGTV design shows. I had nausea when they started, but after awhile watching design shows, I told my wife it was getting worse.

Really I did like some of the shows, like Color Splash by this cool Asian guy with tats on his arm. But the take away after a saturation of design tips and styles were some thoughts on how design is a reflection of us, how we see ourselves, and who we want to become.

Have you ever wondered what your church space says about you and God? We often pick our cars based upon our personalities. (Is that why we get so offended when someone cuts us off? In the Middle East and Asia, this happens every two seconds. They don't seem to care.)

We can look at our homes and see what type of people we are by the way we arrange furniture, paint or don't paint walls, the type of art we have, what we use as our focal point for guests to see, the rooms that we care about usually get more resource dollars.

How about the church? The truth about design is that it reflects values, perspectives, priorities and beliefs. Design is also a good way to define the reality of your heart. When many of the early missional movements began, the focus was on resourcing the people in optimum settings of growth with tools to enable them. The focus in these movements isn't physical structures as much as it is human beings.

Again, questions may lead us to answers. Instead of just giving a few thoughts on what I believe about space perhaps some questions may guide us to a reality that we didn't know existed. It may be different depending upon the culture we live in. We may soon discover as we ponder these questions, termites have been quietly eating away the very values we said our buildings were built with and some fissures have appeared in that firm foundation.

Here are some questions that can help define reality:

? Do people mostly refer to your building as the "church?"
? What does the design of our space tell us about where and how we see the maximum growth happening?
? What does the allocation of the dollars you spend on your space indicate about your priorities? Is it where you want it to be? How does this jive with movements historically?
? How does the Internet reshape your values towards space, especially since the emerging generation doesn't see a difference between their on-line and off-line life?
? When people look at the design focal points of your facility, what do they feel you focus upon? Is this where you want the primary focus to be?
? What creative space around you - outside the walls of the facility you rent or own - can you use for free or very low costs?
? Do you need pastoral offices?
? Can we show better stewardship in how we share space with our people?
? Do you have a room for innovation? In the past, people created "WAR rooms". I think it may be time for some new metaphors as well. How about rooms for Creativity, Innovation, Research, Design and Development? Can you think of new rooms or spaces that would clearly articulate what you value?
? Are you reduplicating what Disney can do better? Is it necessary?
? Do the spaces in your church represent a passion for a Volunteer Revolution? How?
? What parking space do you park in at your facility? Where is it?
? What building or space are we to focus on designing anyway?

There was an incredible statistic an entrepreneurial kingdom-minded friend, Bernard Moon, sent me. Did you see it? Here it is: The church spends an average of $347,000 per baptism.

Okay, I know souls are priceless. But this number begs for us to look at how we may have gone down a road we didn't really want to take. Nike spends $100 per customer for what they call customer acquisition costs. What do you spend to see a life radically transformed?

Flip the Script
What if we turned this thing around and understood the primary buildings we are called to build are the living temples walking around us? What would happen if we put as much emphasis in actually equipping our people with customized assessments, close mentoring, residencies, tools, and other experiences that may not be captured primarily inside a weekend experience or a large group setting or one space?

Maybe it's time we do a hard assessment of what we've already designed and let an outsider or a group of them come in, people who aren't Christians and ask them as they walk around your facility what does your space say about your values. You may be surprised at how your design really does define what you believe.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 30, 2009 | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 27, 2009

John Ortberg: Snapshots of Religious Life

by John Ortberg

Snapshot: The recently released American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) indicates that faith is going down across the board. The number of people who identify themselves as Christian has decreased by 11 percent in a generation. The single fastest-growing category when it comes to religious affiliation is "None," which grew from 8 percent to 15 percent since 1990.

The "Nones" are the single biggest group in the state of Vermont, at 34 percent of the state's population. And "None" was the only religious category to grow in all 50 states.
One of the other fastest growing categories is "Don't Know/confused." (You can supply your own mainline humor here. In fact, the "two-party system" of evangelical versus mainline Christianity that I grew up with is collapsing. In an ironic return to Reformation language, in the United States "evangelical" will soon be synonymous with "Protestant.")

Barry Kosmin, who co-authored the survey, commented that more than ever before "people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, ?I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself.'" He said that faith is increasingly treated as a fashion statement that serves as a vehicle for self-expression rather than a transcendent commitment which demands costly devotion.

One respondent to a version of the story in USA Today said: "None of my friends believe in God. When the subject of religion comes up around the table, we all just mock it. It's a source of ridicule." 27 percent of Americans do not even expect a religious funeral at their death. The survey doesn't indicate how many are hoping to skip death altogether.

Snapshot: In the entertainment section of The San Francisco Chronicle recently, someone asked Mick LaSalle, the movie critic, what kind of movie will never be re-made. He answered by pointing to films like Going My Way, and forties films that starred Bing Crosby as a young parish priest. Religion is simply no longer accepted as part of the national fabric, he said. The one kind of movie that is most unlikely to be re-made today is one that assumes faith as a kind of national backdrop.

Snapshot: I was talking to some young church leaders recently about how, twenty years ago, if someone wanted to look for a model of what an effective church might look like in the future, they would generally go to a place like Willow Creek or Saddleback. But these younger leaders said it was no longer apparent where they should go to see what church might look like in another twenty years.

Snapshot: Tom Klegg and Warren Bird noted that if the unchurched population in the US were its own nation, it would be the fifth most populated nation on the planet, after China, the former Soviet Union, India, and Brazil.

Snapshot: A religion reporter for the LA Times wrote an article, and later a book, describing how he lost his faith in the process of covering his beat. He said that article brought in exponentially more positive emails than anything else he'd ever written.

All of which leads me to ask: Are we witnessing the process of secularization here in America similar to what Europe experienced in the middle of the twentieth century?

It's not a matter of new evidence being introduced that makes the message of Jesus less likely to be true. What makes a living faith cease to be a live option is much more subtle and complex. It often has more to do with cultural shifts and attitudes that move gradually over time until a tipping point suddenly reveals them.

The question is not one of Kingdom Anxiety. The Kingdom of God has been doing very well, and will continue to flourish no matter the ebbs of flows from one century and continent to another. Phillip Jenkins has aptly chronicled how the explosion of the church in our day has shifted East and South.

He has also, in his most recent fascinating book, chronicled how Christianity was deeply rooted in much of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa for over 800 years, only to die out over centuries.

I hope what we are witnessing in the United States is not such a trend. I don't have any magic answers if it is. But it's a good thing to lift our heads up out of our own churches and projects, and look around the neighborhood.

By the way, if you're involved in helping to lead a church, and you wonder whether giving it the best you have to offer matters - it does.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 27, 2009 | Comments (36) | TrackBack

April 25, 2009

Tackling the Sex Trade: Live from Catalyst

Friday morning's opening session began with a powerful music video that told the story of a thirteen-year-old girl from the Philippines named Constance. The video was based on a true story and told how Constance was sold by her father into sex slavery for $9. The man who bought her used her as a star on his website. I didn't catch all the lyrics, but the video sent a powerful message about the pervasive effects of sex trafficking - a man paying the subscription fee for a porn site in his suburban home may be propagating the sale and purchase of human beings for sex.

Following the video was a short panel discussion with three women who are on the front lines of the war against the sex trade. Jeannie Mai is a television host who recently spent two weeks ministering in the red light district of Bangkok, Thailand. She was joined by Naomi Zacharias (daughter of Ravi Zacharias) of Wellspring International and Bethany Hoang from International Justice Mission.

Bethany presented some staggering information. Sex trafficking currently enslaves 27 million people, more than were affected by the trans-Atlantic enslavement of Africans through the 19th century. That makes human trafficking the third largest black market today, after guns and drugs. In light of these overwhelming numbers, Bethany insisted that we must lead with hope. We have to believe that "the church truly is the answer to this problem, that the body of Christ can bring down this whole operation."

So what can we do? Jeannie encouraged us to pray. "Passionately pray and God begins to open doors to opportunities you didn't know existed in your area." Bethany reinforced the message that small efforts can make a huge difference. She told the story of a church of about 80 members that had been saving money to build their first facility. Then they heard that a huge need in the Philippines was for aftercare facility for women coming out of sex trafficking. In response, they decided they didn't need a building and gave their whole building fund to finance the after care facility. A church of any size can make an enormous difference, if it's willing to get involved.

Naomi Zacharias made what I thought was perhaps the most poignant observation. "Sexuality is something the church is still really intimidated by," she said, "so talking about sex trafficking is very uncomfortable." On the one hand, we don't really know how to respond to people involved in the sex trade. One prostitute in Mumbai asked Naomi, "If I walked into your church, would they see me as a woman or would they see me as a prostitute?" Naomi hesitated, and the woman added, "They want me to leave, but they never want to let me forget what I was."
On the other hand, and in light of our recent conversations about addictions, I wonder how the problem of Christian porn addiction perpetuates these challenges. Beyond the problem of funding the sex trade (by paying for porn), I wonder how many of us would be uncomfortable ministering to women escaping sex slavery, because we too have our own struggles with sexual sin. If a pastor struggles with a porn addiction, can he honestly tell a recovering prostitute that he can lead her to the life God wants for her?

The conversation that began here today would be a great one to continue. Have any of you been involved in ministries that target the sex trade? If so, tell us how we can get involved.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 25, 2009 | Comments (6) | TrackBack

April 24, 2009

Rick Warren's Graduated Gospel: Live at Catalyst West

Marshall Shelley

My son is a gymnast, so I've had to learn about "difficulty factor." That means a judge gives a gymnast better scores for harder routines. For instance, if your dismount from the high bar involves a double back flip with a twist, your difficulty factor, and thus your potential score, is greater than if your dismount is merely a single flip with no twist.

Today's sessions at Catalyst West never used the term, but "difficulty factor" was the common theme as speakers described the various levels of response to the gospel. The question they did NOT address was how the Judge will evaluate the lives of people who attempt the various levels of difficulty.

Craig Groeschel, pastor of LifeChurch.tv, for instance, talked about "Line 3 believers."

By his categorization, those who step up to line one, "believe in the gospel enough to benefit from it." They're involved with the gospel because they like the church, the community, the sense of forgiveness and purpose and meaning that it gives them.

Others step up to line two and "believe in the gospel enough to contribute comfortably."

These are the believers who give a modest amount of time and money in service, but aren't about to give to the point of discomfort.

Those who reach line three "believe in the gospel enough to sacrifice their lives for it." Groeschel described his turnabout in how he presents the gospel. He said he's no longer satisfied with presenting just the "safe gospel," that offers benefits but no cost. Now he's challenging people to a dangerous life of following Jesus no matter where it leads.

Rick Warren spoke right before Groeschel and touched on the same theme. Warren itemized the increasingly demanding invitations that the Gospels present to would-be disciples, from "Come and see" (non-threatening) to "continue in me" to "If you love me, you are my disciple" to "If you eat my body and drink my blood, you are my disciple" (which cost him lots of followers) to "Take up your cross daily and follow me" (being willing to die for the cause)."

He said, "Some congregations are great ?come and see' churches, but they never develop disciples who are willing to die. Others churches focus on ?come and die' and have serious disciples, but they never bring anyone to Christ. We've got to reach people all along the range of commitment."

These graduated levels of intensity and costliness are all part of the gospel. Now the question is how to present them all to a congregation of people at various places on the spectrum.

And, of course, the biggest question of all: does the Judge's score depend upon the degree of difficulty?

Posted by Marshall Shelley at April 24, 2009 | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Andy Stanley: Live (and Uncertain) at Catalyst West

Marshall Shelley

Ever faced a leadership decision, and didn't feel you had all the information you needed to decide? For instance, to hire or not to hire? To discipline or extend more grace?

Andy Stanley opened the Catalyst West conference with the best leadership talk I've ever heard from him. He clearly connected with the 3,200 attenders by describing the inescapable fact of life for leaders: you have to lead even when you don't know for certain what to do.

Or, as Andy reframed the issue: "uncertainty is why we need leaders." "God gets more out of chaos than out of wrinkle-free days." If every situation were clear, no leadership would be needed. "Uncertainty underscores the need for leadership. Uncertainty is the arena in which leadership is recognized." For leaders, "Uncertainty is job security!" The crowd laughed. Nervously.

Those of us who've followed Andy for a while recognize this theme as one that he first explored in 2003 in an article in Leadership ("The Uncertain Leader") and in his book The Next Generation Leader. But Andy has continued to develop his thoughts nicely since then. And with the current economy, the awareness of uncertainty has, uh, certainly been heightened.

When you're uncertain, Andy told the assembled leaders, focus on two elements:

Those elements are clarity and flexibility. Then he unpacked those concepts.

Clarity means focusing on your original calling. What's the essence of your ministry? That can and should remain crystal clear even amid confusing circumstances. Andy's biblical reference was Joshua clearly telling the Israelites to pack their provisions and organize themselves to approach the Jordan River even though he was uncertain exactyly what would happen when they got there.

Flexibility means knowing the difference between your vision and your plans. Don't mistake your plans for your vision. Your plans can and must change frequently. But the vision remains the same. Are you an evangelist? Keep presenting the gospel even as your methods change. Are you a disciple maker? Keep developing converts into well-grounded followers of Jesus even as the starting points and the pressing applications change.

"Be confident even in uncertainty," Andy said. "Admit that you don't know the future, but you can confidently follow what God has told you to do."

Andy was spot-on in reading the times, reading the audience, and reading the need of the moment.

Andy also provided a synopsis (and a great example or two) of clarity amid uncertainty in his article in the new digizine Catalyst Leadership which you can find at www.CatalystLeadershipDigital.com

And now, I'm not certain how to end this post, but it's clear I must.

Posted by Marshall Shelley at April 24, 2009 | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 22, 2009

Live from Catalyst West and...

by Brandon O'Brien

Today Marshall Shelley and I were at Mariner's Church in Irvine, California, for the pregame show of the first ever Catalyst West Coast conference. Led by Erwin McManus and the rest of the Mosaic team, the Origins Labs (as they were called) were an opportunity for some smaller group, interactive sessions on topics related to engaging culture, reaching the hard to reach, and other perennial challenges. Catalyst West begins in earnest tomorrow, and you'll here more from us about that then.

Erwin used the opening session to explore a familiar story from Acts. For Erwin, Acts 17:16ff provides a framework for understanding the church's spheres of influence. In Athens, Paul first speaks "in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks." This is the "first space," where the church reaches religious people. Paul also speaks "in the marketplace day by day." Our marketplace is where we work, eat, and play. This "second space" is where we reach people most like us. Finally, Paul was invited to speak "to a meeting of the Areopagus." This, Erwin said, is the "third space." This is where you're reaching the world. Jesus thrives in third space.

Thursday will also be the day of unveiling for a new publication produced jointly by Leadership and Catalyst, the Catalyst Leadership digizine. This hybrid publication will (we hope) provide a blend of the very best of Leadership and the Catalyst experience. You can read it here.

When you've had a chance to read the digizine, come back here and let us know what you think.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 22, 2009 | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Anne Jackson: Battling Porn Addiction

Last week, blogger and author Anne Jackson stopped by the Out of Ur offices. Anne runs the popular blog FlowerDust.net and recently published Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic with Zondervan.

Anne began struggling with an Internet porn addiction at a young age. To help us with our ongoing conversation about dealing with addictions, Anne spoke to Skye and Brandon about her journey and what the church can do to help others in her situation.

Anne Jackson on Battling Porn Addiction from Url Scaramanga on Vimeo.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 22, 2009 | Comments (11) | TrackBack

April 20, 2009

Urban Exile: The Silence of the Lambs

by David Swanson

Stephen Colbert doesn't know his own race. The host of The Colbert Report, a satirical television news program on Comedy Central, claims to be colorblind, unable to discern his skin color. "People tell me I'm white," he said during one episode, "because I own a lot of Jimmy Buffet albums." The colorblind approach to race and racism makes for amusing television but is the height of na?vet? in real life. Yet for many churches this seems to be the preferred method of talking - or not talking - about all things related to race.

The beauty and peril of our diverse culture is impossible to miss. A quick snapshot reveals a president who shares a heritage with both Kenya and Kansas, a New York Post cartoon of a dead chimpanzee that stirs up memories of racist stereotypes, and teenage pop star Miley Cyrus photographed pulling back her eyes in an attempt to "look Asian." Stephen Colbert isn't the only TV personality who finds comedy in this racially charged atmosphere. Michael Scott, the hilariously insensitive manager of The Office, manages to repeatedly offend each of his diverse staff - no one is safe from his absurd stereotypes. A more nuanced primetime treatment of race can be seen on Lost where the island's castaways epitomize the global, ethnic, and class diversity and divisions of our day. In a society increasingly conscious of race and ethnicity, the silence of our churches grows more notable by the day.

Whatever the reason for our silence when it comes to race, the result is the same: increasing irrelevance in a culture schooled in diversity. How strange this must seem to a nation whose multi-ethnic population will soon eliminate any one racial majority. What does our ambivalence say when ethnic and class injustice appear in our neighborhoods or local news? The ability to speak to a generation raised within this milieu is compromised by our ongoing silence. In a culture that laughs at buffoons like Stephen Colbert and Michael Scott and sympathizes with the fantastically diverse cast of Lost, our silence may be the loudest voice of all.

With so much media and entertainment chatter around issues of race and racism, why do our churches struggle to join the conversation? (To be clear, there are churches - many African American congregations among them - whose contributions to racial awareness and justice have been many. I'm writing here about the mostly white churches of the evangelical tradition; churches that, in my experience, say very little about these issues.) It can't be that we don't care about issues of justice. The faithful care for the unborn has more recently been joined by an active concern for those suffering from extreme poverty and the AIDS pandemic. "Too heavenly minded to be any earthly good," is an accusation that rings hollow for most of us. So why the ambivalence about race and the ongoing racism experienced by many Americans?

For some the answer may simply be fear. Those of us who are white may be particularly afraid that in our attempts to talk about race we'll accidentally say something ignorant or even racist. This is the dilemma of Alec Baldwin's character in the sitcom 30 Rock, who asks what ethnicity to call his Puerto Rican girlfriend.

"Puerto Rican," she replies.

"No," replies Baldwin, "I know you can say that but what do I call you?"

Silly perhaps, but can you relate to his angst? This anxiety is heightened for preachers and teachers who often say nothing at all rather than risk an unintentionally offensive comment. To a culture that expects a level of sensitivity and nuance about issues of race and ethnicity, our cautious silence looks a lot like indifference.

While it's appropriate to approach these matters with care, it's also not rocket science. Personal experience and our diverse culture provide us plenty of opportunities to move past fear and begin engaging issues of race. For example, it was recently reported that in my city of Chicago a person of color is twice as likely as a white person to be stopped by the police. The same study showed that of all those stopped, white people were twice as likely to have actually committed a crime. When citing this grim statistic in a recent sermon I paused and asked, "White folks, do you understand what this is saying? Apparently we're committing the most crimes in this city, we're just not getting caught!" Our multi-racial congregation laughed at my lame joke, grateful for a moment of levity after another reminder of our city's inequities.

In addition to fear, our silence might be traced to our relationships. Without diverse friendships how can we expect to understand the individual and systemic racism that many experience? While serving at a suburban church, an African American friend would sarcastically joke about how often the police pulled him over in our mostly-white town. His crime? DWB: driving while black. Without this man's friendship I wouldn't have realized how he experienced our seemingly idyllic and peaceful town. In the weeks before Halloween a couple years ago, one of the homes in this same suburban town featured a dummy hanging from a tree. While I doubt it was the intention, to many it was a horribly accurate depiction of a lynching. Surely this family would have thought twice about their Halloween decor if they had friends whose personal histories of slavery and oppression were known to them. Perhaps some of us simply need to make friends whose lives and stories look different than our own.

But of all the reasons our churches must begin acknowledging racism, none is more significant than the good message we bear. The gospel we preach is, after all, one of reconciliation. And while it is right to focus on humanity's reconciliation to God, we have too long neglected the radical implications of the cross on divisions of race, ethnicity, and class. Our silence regarding racism is a distressing blow to the gospel we claim as the world's ultimate hope. But that same gospel, along with all of its sweeping repercussions, is the only true reconciliation for those affected by the sins of racism. This is not the time for silence.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 20, 2009 | Comments (13) | TrackBack

April 16, 2009

Skye Jethani: The Daisy Cutter Doctrine

Today over twenty blogs are participating in a book tour for Skye Jethani's The Divine Commodity. The fact that Jethani is a card-carrying Urthling is why we felt the Ur audience should participate in the blog tour as well. Below is an excerpt from Chapter 9 of The Divine Commodity where Jethani addresses the assumption that Christ's enormous mission is best accomplished by equally enormous strategies, and how this mindset is rooted in consumer sensibilities. A longer excerpt from the book is also featured in the spring issue of Leadership.

In the coming days we will be announcing a contest in which 50 Urbanites can win a free copy of Jethani's book. Until then, you can click here for a list of the other 23 blogs participating in The Divine Commodity tour today.

Book Excerpt:
The pattern is predictable. A few thousand young church leaders gather at a warm climate resort for two and a half days to have a "life changing ministry experience." They shuffle into the hotel's main ballroom, bags of complementary goodies in hand, where their internal organs are realigned by the worship band's bass-thumping remix of How Great Thou Art. After which the marquee speaker will fire up the audience with a call to "change the world for Christ," "impact a generation with the Gospel," or "spark a revival in the church." Throughout the stump speech, the presenter will wax eloquent about the fate he or she foresees for the new generation of church leaders in the audience. "Your generation will do what mine could not." "You will be the generation to change the world." Convinced of their manifest destiny, the twenty-somethings will head off to breakout sessions where they will learn the skills to impact the world - usually from other twenty-somethings.

I say the pattern is predictable because I've been to a fair number of ministry conferences and I've led my share of breakout sessions, and like most church leaders I've gotten use to hearing the drumbeat of revolution. I call it the Daisy Cutter Doctrine: "Change the world through massive cultural upheaval and high-impact tactics."

Daisy Cutter is the nickname of the largest non-nuclear bomb in the military's arsenal. In our age of laser guided "smart" bombs, the Daisy Cutter isn't dropped to destroy targets anymore but to intimidate the enemy. When impact is more important than precision, there's nothing better than a 15,000 pound daisy cutter for the mission.

Likewise, the Daisy Cutter Doctrine is an approach to mission that values high-impact and visibility above all else. This explains why most presenters at ministry conferences are leaders of big churches. Their ministry's size is valued, and in some cases envied, by those in attendance who have come to learn how they too can ignite their full potential for maximum missional impact.

The shock and awe approach to mission is extremely appealing to people shaped by consumerism. It taps into our consumer-oriented desire for big impact and feeds the assumption that large equals legit. The psychological appeal is never explicit but always present: by making a huge impact you can convince the world of God's legitimacy as well as your own. That is an enticing promise particularly for younger leaders, many of whom have yet to establish their legitimacy and may have latent feelings of inadequacy.

But there is a less incriminating reason why we are attracted to the Daisy Cutter Doctrine - a big mission seems to logically demand a big strategy. Jesus has given his students an enormous task, "go and make disciples of all nations?." It's a mission that matches the scope of his own cosmic agenda.

When Christians with a consumer consciousness try to wrap their imaginations around such a large undertaking, they will automatically think about products or corporations that have impacted the world and emulate the same methodologies. So we ask, how does Coca-Cola impact the world? How does Disney impact the world? How does Starbucks impact the world? And we forget to ask the only question that really matters: How does Jesus impact the world?

We have incorrectly made the scale of our methods conform to the scale of our mission. We have assumed that the magnitude of the ends should be proportional to the magnitude of the means. And in the process we've revealed how captivated our imaginations really are to consumerism. Gregory Boyd points out the error: "We are to transform the world. That's the call. But the way you do it from a kingdom perspective is very different from the way you do it from the world's perspective."

Failure to understand this has scarred the church throughout history. For example, through much of its history the church in Europe employed conventional (worldly) means to advance its spiritual mission. This resulted in the gospel being spread by the sword. We now look back at the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the slaughter of native peoples in the Americas mournfully. Centuries removed from those atrocities we wonder - how could people do such things in the name of Christ? Did they not see how inconsistent those methods were with the ways of Jesus? At the time, of course, they did not.

Today we consider ourselves more enlightened, but are we? We may not use the sword to advance the church's mission anymore, but the sword is no longer the conventional instrument of power and influence. Today the church emulates the methods of corporations and business, and most of us never pause and ask whether such tactics are consistent with the ways of Christ. Like the Crusaders, we seem content to leave such judgments for future generations whose vision will be sharpened by history.

The Daisy Cutter Doctrine has plagued the church for centuries. We've fallen into the conventional thinking that a big mission calls for big tactics. But, as Boyd said, the ways of the world differ from the ways of the kingdom. In the economy of God's kingdom, big does not beget big. It's precisely the opposite. The overwhelming message of Jesus life and teaching is that small begets big. Consider God's plan to redeem creation (big) is achieved through his incarnation as an impoverished baby (small). Jesus feeds thousands on a hillside (big) with just a few fish and loaves (small). Christ seeks to make disciples of all nations (big) and he starts with a handful of fishermen (small). Even David defeated Goliath (big) with a few stones (small).

All of this affirms the counter-intuitive nature of God's kingdom. The wisdom of God will not be grasped by those captivated by conventionality; it requires a far larger imagination. As Paul writes: "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?...God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God."

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 16, 2009 | Comments (14) | TrackBack

April 14, 2009

Craig Gross: Church in the Chicken Ranch

by Url

The Spring '09 issue of Leadership journal should be arriving in mailboxes this week. The issue is called "UNHOOKED: Finding Release from Vices and Addictions." We editors searched for ministers who were tackling addiction head on, whether in their churches or in parachurch ministries. And we're pleased with the final product.

Our lead interview in this issue is with Craig Gross, founder of XXXChurch.com and, more recently, the Strip Church in Las Vegas. In the video below, Craig talks a little bit about the mission of the Strip Church and what it means to take the gospel into the darkness.

If you like what you see here, you can read the full-length interview in Leadership. Click here to subscribe.

Craig Gross on Ministry in Sin City from Url Scaramanga on Vimeo.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 14, 2009 | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 13, 2009

Sermon Prep Survey

By Url

Our friends over at PreachingToday.com are doing a little research. They're eager to know how sermon preparation differs from one generation to the next--in particular, how do folks under 35 and over 35 approach their sermon prep?

So they've created a survey. It's straight--click some boxes and type in a few names. I just took it, and it only took me 3 or 4 minutes, tops. Plus at the end, there's a little something special for those of you who complete the survey.

Click here to take the survey.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 13, 2009 | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 9, 2009

Q & A: Rick Warren

Sarah Pulliam at Christianity Today has just posted her interview with Rick Warren. He talks about the controversy surrounding his invocation at President Obama's inauguration, the uproar over his support of Proposition 8 in California banning same-sex marriage, and the thousands being baptized at his church. Here's an excerpt:

I know a lot has been happening recently at your church. Just a few weeks ago, you baptized 800 in one day.

I was in the water for over five hours. I had webbed feet. It had to be a record. You know, it says in Acts that at the day of Pentecost, 3,000 were baptized and added to the church that day. We had 2,400 added to the church that day. The world belongs to Saddleback. When we started Saddleback, it was a white suburban church. We speak 65 different languages. It's the United Nations. I baptized an Egyptian General; I baptized probably 50 or 60 nationalities.

After you posted an invitation to the baptism and membership, some bloggers criticized the promotion. In the promotion, you said new members could have their photo with Pastor Rick and get a free one-year subscription to The Purpose Driven Connection. Why did you advertise the event that way?

In the first place, I think every person should take a picture with the pastor who baptizes them. That's a memento, that's a spiritual hallmark. That's not anything new. It wasn't like, oh, this is something we've never done that's going to attract people. In the past 10 years, Saddleback has baptized over 20,000 new believers. We are, without a doubt, the most evangelistic church in America. There are churches that are bigger than Saddleback, but there are no churches that reach more people for Christ than Saddleback. There are no churches that send as many people into the missions field. There's not a church that has sent 8,000 people into the missions field.

Read the entire interview here.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 9, 2009 | Comments (20) | TrackBack

April 7, 2009

The Wrong Boogeyman (Part 2)

How do we account for the dramatic doubling of the number of secular Americans over the last 18 years? And what are we to do about the exodus of young people from the church? These are important questions, and uncovering the causes may prove critical as we seek to develop a remedy. Al Mohler discusses these issues in his March 19 blog post based on an article in The Wall Street Journal by W. Bradford Wilcox which Mohler wholeheartedly endorses.

In part one, I discussed Wilcox's belief that increased dependency on government programs for education, healthcare, and retirement is fueling secularism and keeping people from the doors of the church. But Wilcox and Mohler don't see the government as the only culprit for the church's decline - they also point to single adults. Wilcox writes:

The most powerful force driving religious participation down is the nation's recent retreat from marriage?. Nothing brings women and especially men into the pews like marriage and parenthood, as they seek out the religious, moral and social support provided by a congregation upon starting a family of their own. But because growing numbers of young adults are now postponing or avoiding marriage and childbearing, they are also much less likely to end up in church on any given Sunday.

Mohler affirms this perspective in his blog post:

Adulthood is meant for adult responsibilities, and for the vast majority of young people that will mean marriage and parenthood. The extension of adolescence into the twenties (maybe now even the thirties) is highly correlated with the rise of secularism and with lower rates of church attendance.

First, let me outline where I agree with Mohler and Wilcox.

(1) There is no question that the average age of marriage in the U.S. has risen significantly in the last thirty years - from 22 in 1980 to about 28 today. More people are single and remain so for longer than ever before. (2) I also agree that our consumer culture has fostered the prolonging of adolescence and the delayed onset of adulthood. (This is brilliantly documented in Benjamin Barber's book Consumed, and less brilliantly discussed in chapter 6 of my book, The Divine Commodity.) This may be a factor leading to prolonged singleness, although it's certainly not the only factor given the large number of people who are not single by choice.

(3) I also agree that most churches are structured around the assumption of the Western nuclear family. Therefore, married couples with children are the most likely to engage the church, and single adults (or other non-nuclear family households) are less likely to connect with a congregation. Therefore, I agree that singleness is very likely a reason church attendance is declining.

It appears that Mohler and I agree on the diagnosis, but we part ways on the treatment.

In another blog post from January 24, 2005, Mohler discusses the delay of marriage as a symptom of a self-absorbed culture, but then he advocates marriage as the prescribed solution. He writes:

The experiences of marriage and raising children are important parts of learning the adult experience and finding one's way into the deep responsibilities and incalculable rewards of genuine adulthood.

From reading Mohler's numerous posts about singleness and delayed marriage, he appears to be saying that if immature, selfish, and lazy young adults (and many of us are) would just get married and have kids they'd be forced to "grow up." Unfortunately, my experience has proven the opposite. I've seen too many young families torn apart (both Christian and non) because a husband or wife proved to lack the maturity required for a stable marriage. Simply walking the aisle, saying the vows, and sharing a bed and bank account did not magically bring maturity. If marriage really is the prescribed avenue for maturity, as some have been promoting, then shouldn't the church be advocating more teen marriages?

The problem is confusing a symptom for a cause. Delaying marriage (for some) is a symptom of a culture that has made us immature and self-absorbed. But pushing these immature adults into marriage is only masking a symptom and may result in an even more devastating problem - a sharp increase in the divorce rate and more broken families. In my opinion encouraging immature young adults to marry does not honor the sanctity of marriage, but erodes it.

Addressing the real causes of immaturity and selfishness in our culture requires more than pushing young people down the aisle and into maternity wards. It means prophetically speaking about the consumer values that have formed us to think that the satisfaction of personal desire and immediate gratification are of paramount importance. And those are issues which transcend any political party's platform.

The second point of disagreement involves the church's missional strategy. Mohler and Wilcox suggest that the church should be advocating traditional, and early, marriage as a way of boosting church attendance. Wilcox even says that churches "would have about six million more regularly attending young adults if today's young men and women started families at the rate they did three decades ago."

But when did marriage become a prerequisite of the Christian life? Didn't the Apostle Paul proclaim the blessings of singleness and command believers to remain in the condition in which Christ first called them, whether single, married, circumcised, uncircumcised, or a slave? (See 1 Cor 7.) Paul seems to dismiss marital status as critical to mission and discipleship. While I believe in the blessing of marriage, and God has certainly used marriage in my life as an instrument of growth, I'm not ready to prescribe it as essential to the American church's mission.

I don't believe our core problem is the increasing number of single adults, but rather a church built upon the gospel of marriage and family rather than the gospel of Christ. If a church is too focused on the family, it risks alienating more than half of the households in the U.S. that are not traditional nuclear families. At some point we must adjust to the reality of our mission field rather than denounce it for not meeting our ideals.

Those who see singleness as an obstacle to the church's mission find themselves in a classic Constantinian trap. They see the culture becoming increasingly post-Christian, and they fear the church cannot survive or its mission advance in the new environment, therefore they strive to reverse the perceived causes. Rather than calling the church to adjust its strategy to the new realities of its mission field, they expect the mission field to adjust to the church's old methods of mission. It seems the real boogeyman isn't to be found in our secular culture- he's comfortably at home in the church itself.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 7, 2009 | Comments (38) | TrackBack

April 6, 2009

Join Us at Catalyst West Coast

Leadership editors Marshall Shelley and Brandon O’Brien, as well as yours truly, will be attending the Catalyst West Coast event April 22-24, and we’d love to connect with a few Urbanites. If you’re planning to be there, give us a shout with your contact info at LJeditor@christianitytoday.com. If you can't find the coin to get to California, you can read updates from the conference right here on Out of Ur.

This is the first time Catalyst has ventured to the West Coast. Speakers will include Andy Stanley, Francis Chan, Craig Groeschel, Erwin McManus, Catherine Rohr, and Guy Kawasaki. Learn more about Catalyst West Coast and register here.

Catalyst West Coast will also feature two debuts. First, on April 22, the new network committed to innovation in outreach (currently under the Origins Project name) will be officially named and launched. The network currently includes Dan Kimball*, Dave Gibbons*, Erwin McManus, Eric Bryant*, Scot McKnight, Josh Fox, John Park, Mark Batterson, Margaret Feinberg, Naeem Fazal, Rick McKinley*, and Leadership’s managing editor Skye Jethani.

The other debut will be a completely new resource developed in partnership with Catalyst and Leadership journal. I can’t share the details now except to say that we are very excited about it, and that this new resource will take both Leadership and Catalyst where they have never gone before. Stay tuned.

*Leadership contributing editor

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 6, 2009 | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 3, 2009

Discovering and Escaping Liturgy

by Dan Kimball

For years I served on the staff of a megachurch with a very contemporary style of worship. We had a state-of-the-art sound system, large video projection screens, pop-rock music, and a sophisticated lighting system. The worship services were programmed to the minute: predetermined transitions, upbeat intro songs, announcements backed with PowerPoint slides, sermons crafted with felt-need application points, and abundant video clips.

The church was growing as several thousand people connected with the presentations each week. But at the same time the church was thriving with one generation, I began to notice that younger adults were not engaging as well as their parents. So I began listening to these young people to discover why they were not resonating with this way of doing church.

I repeatedly heard that they were longing for something less "programmed." At the same time, I began hearing questions about "liturgy," a word I'd never heard before. I was not raised in the church, and my only church experiences at the time had been at an organ-led Baptist church and the megachurch where I was on staff. Even in seminary, I had never been taught about liturgy (literally, the "work of the people") or ancient forms of worship. And ministry conferences I attended only seemed concerned with the newest, cutting-edge trends.

One young man left our church to become part of a small Orthodox congregation. I was curious enough that I decided to visit. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. From the quietness and sense of history to the use of incense and chanting - I was intrigued.

All of this led me to study the history of worship. I was suddenly made aware of the myriad ways the church has worshipped throughout history, and I decided to experiment with some of these forms in the young adult ministry I led. It sounds clich? now, but we started by darkening the room and lighting candles and incense. We began singing some hymns and the Doxology. We also recited readings and prayers from The Book of Common Prayer. One of the elders at the church was concerned. He asked me, "Are you going Roman Catholic on us?"

The older generation may have been confused, but the younger adults found the changes refreshing. All they had known in church was pop bands and video screens. The introduction of ancient practices helped them feel grounded and rooted to something bigger than themselves.

Then I spoke at a conference about our rediscovery of liturgy and tradition. The room was packed - by that time liturgy had become a very hot topic. During my presentation, a leader raised his hand and commented in a very disappointed tone.

"I don't understand," he said. "You're telling us that young adults are drawn to liturgy and ancient worship forms, but I serve at a liturgical church and our young people want to get away from liturgy and traditions. They think it's boring. I came to this conference to learn new ideas from contemporary churches. I want to move forward, not back."

I realized that worship trends among the young were complicated. Those raised in contemporary churches found practicing liturgy and following the church calendar refreshing and meaningful. But some who had grown up in traditional and liturgical churches saw these same practices as lifeless or routine. They were eager to incorporate more contemporary forms. One group wanted to rediscover the past, and the other was trying to escape it.

Several years later I worked with a team of young people to plant a new church. We decided that it would not help our goal of reaching the lost if our worship pretended it was stuck in A.D. 800. But we also did not want to dismiss the rich history and depth of ancient practices. So on any given Sunday our young congregation sings a mix of contemporary choruses and traditional hymns. We now celebrate Advent each year with candles, responsive readings, and benedictions. We draw from liturgical elements in ancient worship and prayer books. But we also display modern art, project videos, and use a variety of 21st century worship elements.

We have found that the goal shouldn't be to maintain the past or to always be on the cutting edge. Our goal is to worship in a way that represents our community to God and God to our community. That means contextualizing worship for today, but not forgetting the family of God throughout history to which we belong.

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 3, 2009 | Comments (15) | TrackBack

April 2, 2009

Ur Video: Shane Hipps on Medium and Message

Posted by UrL Scaramanga at April 2, 2009 | Comments (4) | TrackBack