November 30, 2009
Scrutinizing Church Leadership
Why are so many church structures predicated on distrust?
Last week I came across one of those news articles that makes you wonder if we’re all just flying upside down. This headline comes from the UK Telegraph: ”Council sets up scrutiny panel - to scrutinize its scrutiny panels”
A spokesperson from the Wealden District Council said a working party was established in July to oversee the decisions of its three existing scrutiny panels and to “scrutinize the Council’s scrutiny arrangements.” It sounds to me like the citizens of Wealden District are the ones getting scrutted…but I digress. The article continues:
Mark Wallace, from the Taxpayers Alliance, said: “Whilst it may be well-intentioned the council appear to have wrapped themselves up in knots and ended up in an absurd situation. By all means they should review their procedures but there’s no reason why a separate committee to scrutinize the scrutiny panel should be any better than the original body itself…. Local residents would probably prefer they were asked how the council was run instead of adding this extra layer of bureaucracy.”
If my interest were primarily political this article would be raw meat for those who believe government is wasteful, bloated, and inept beyond redemption. But my interests are not primarily political but ecclesiastical. This wonderfully tongue-twisting article offers the opportunity to question how many of our churches are organized and governed.
We like to make cracks about the inefficiency of church committees almost as much as Fox News likes to ridicule congressional sub-committees. But committees have their place-both in church and congress. The creation of an “extra layer of bureaucracy” in Wealden to scrutinize the three existing scrutiny panels reveals a value that permeates governments and churches alike-distrust.
The separation of powers was a principle of wisdom embedded into our Constitution by its framers, and it was born out of the abuse of power evident in monarchs over the centuries. The checks and balances embedded into our form of government was predicated on distrust-the fear that power will be abused and those with it will run amok. But when “checks and balances” is taken to an absurd degree the result is scrutiny panels for scrutiny panels for scrutiny panels.
Unfortunately the same fear permeates many church governing structures. We worry that a pastor, a board, a staff, a committee will amass too much power and that abuse will surely result. To keep power in check, some churches construct numerous committees, panels, teams, policies, processes, bi-laws, and clauses to ensure power is diffused and its implementation scrutinized.
But at what cost?
Do all of these fear-based structures end up hindering the mission of God’s people by creating stable but ultimately unresponsive church bureaucracies? Do they inhibit the nimble (what is now called “missional”) engagement of the church with its community? And do we occupy people on so many boards that they have little time left to engage the world outside the church institution? And might these unending layers stifle new ideas in a black hole of church oversight committees.
To be fair church history has no shortages of stories of abuse, and it only takes one wayward pastor to leave a lingering distrust of power in a congregation for decades. Structures of distrust are usually born out of the pain from earlier mistakes. And there have been occasions when I have been very thankful for the structures of oversight within my own church and denomination that have prevented or limited abuse. As long as people are sinful we will need structures that protect us from the damaging power of their sin.
But should our structures be predicated primarily on the sinfulness of our leaders, built on the premise that abuse is inevitable, the same way secular government or business structures are? Or should they be predicated on trust that God’s Spirit is at work in and through our leaders? Is there anything that ought to distinguish leadership in the church from that of leadership among unregenerate communities?
Let me just come out and say it: Church structures predicated on distrust are pervasive because we adhere to a system that selects church leaders based on quantifiable performance rather than evidence of godly character.
In Paul’s pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus, his instructions regarding church leadership is focused on getting the right people on the bus-to use contemporary language. He says to appoint leaders who are undeniably godly, mature, and proven, in good standing with everyone, and trustworthy. In other words, find leaders filled with God and put your trust in them. When we find ourselves trusting church systems and structures it’s probably a sign that we don’t trust our leaders.
Perhaps if godliness, character, and evidence of the Spirit’s fruit were the prerequisites for leadership in more of our churches, rather than performance and quantitative output, we’d need fewer committees and oversight panels to sniff out abuse and corruption. Committees and structures are not beyond redemption. As I stated earlier, they do have a useful purpose in the church. They can be very beneficial if predicated not on a fearful distrust of leaders, but as an aid to equip and empower church members to “do the work of ministry.” Until that day, let the scrutinizing continue.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 30, 2009 | Comments (14) | TrackBack
November 25, 2009
The Hansen Report: A Thanksgiving Meditation
More often than not, I struggle to stay focused during prayer, so it helps me to follow the pattern of biblical examples, especially the Lord’s Prayer taught by Jesus (Matt. 6:9–13). After each line I pause to praise God for some element of his character and bring specific requests to the Lord. It’s natural at Thanksgiving to praise God for providing our daily bread. But this aspect of the Lord’s Prayer almost always brings to attention material goods I thought I needed but realized I could live without. So as I thank God for providing for my family, he reminds me of my neighbors’ needs.
There is no greater act of thanksgiving than returning to God the honor and glory due his name. In Psalm 96, the psalmist highlights the privilege and purpose of worship by focusing on the public proclamation of God’s sovereign glory to all the nations. This psalm reminds me that God’s people worship in public view of their neighbors. We worship God as we tell these neighbors about God’s salvation (96:2) and his marvelous works (96:3). Indeed, we have a responsibility to declare among the nations, “The LORD reigns!” (96:10)
Idolatry is another prominent theme in Psalm 96. The psalmist declares, “All the gods of the peoples are worthless idols” (96:5). But the God of Israel made the heavens, the seas, the fields, and the forests, and he reigns over them still today (96:11–12). When this psalm was composed, worshipers brought their offerings into the temple courts (96:8). Today we sing praises to the Son of God who offered himself as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Yet we must also remember God as Creator. The one true God was not made by human hands; he existed even before time began. If we don’t vigilantly examine our lives, idols will steal the worship that God alone deserves.
Finally, Psalm 96 impresses on me the reality of God’s impending judgment. He created the world, and he exercises the right to judge it (96:13). This judgment certainly incites a measure of fear as we consider that God will lay all things bare (Heb. 4:13). But we also worship the God who will vindicate his name on behalf of his people. We can rest in the hope that God will one day right all wrongs. We need not fear anyone who can merely kill the body. Rather, we fear the one destroys the body and soul in hell (Matt. 10:28). Pastors in particular know this fear, because we will be judged with greater strictness (James 3:1). But even our fear may lead to thanksgiving, because reverent fear protects us from idolizing praise or fearing reproach.
One word sticks out in 1 Chronicles 29:1–20: willingly. The repetition reminds me that God desires for me to worship him with a whole heart, not merely out of obligation. And worship offered freely takes the shape of rejoicing. As the older of two sons, I inherited a strong sense of responsibility, which makes it easy for me to fall into routines and neglect their original, higher purpose. So I need to frequently ask God for a heart that longs to worship and rejoice in him.
This passage also displays the progression of praise. David cannot contain himself as he tries to describe God. To God belong greatness, power, glory, victory, and majesty (1 Chron. 29:11). Indeed, everything in heaven and earth belongs to the Creator God. When I recognize this, I am more likely to be generous with my time and talents. This also strikes at the heart of pride. After praising God for these traits, King David asks, “Who am I?” (1 Chron. 29:14). Even God’s chosen people, including the king of Israel, are mere strangers, sojourners, and shadows (1 Chron. 29:15). We should be comforted to know that we owe everything to God. He demands everything from us, but he gives us far beyond anything we can ask or imagine. This is great cause for thanksgiving in prayer.
One word that sticks out in Revelation 4–5 is worthy. The Lord God is worthy of praise because he created all things (Rev. 4:11). There is continuity, then, between this passage and the praise offered by David and the assembly in 1 Chronicles 29. But we see a new dimension of worthiness emerge in Revelation 5. John weeps because he sees no one worthy to open the scrolls. Then an elder comforts him: “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scrolls and its seven seals” (Rev. 5:5).
The Lion who is the Root is actually a Lamb “standing, as though it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). The Lamb has conquered through death; he is worthy of praise and thanksgiving precisely because he has been slain (Rev. 5:9). His blood sacrifice has ransomed people for God from around the world. Not only that, but these people have become priests who reign in God’s kingdom on the earth. How can we respond except with awe? This passage makes beautiful music by pulling together such a diverse collection of biblical motifs. And it leads us to give thanks and long for a day when we will sing a song of praise to this God forevermore.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 25, 2009 | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 24, 2009
Ur Video: NT Wright on Blogging
The Bishop of Durham compares the danger of social media to "cultural masturbation."
NT Wright on Blogging/Social Media from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 24, 2009 | Comments (9) | TrackBack
November 23, 2009
One in Christ or Coffee?
The danger of replacing Communion with a coffee bar.
It's very difficult for many contemporary Christians to recognize how much we have been shaped by the consumer culture in which we live—it is in the air we breathe and the water (or coffee) we drink.
Consider that in many churches the coffee bar has displaced the Lord's Table as the place where real community happens. Due in part to the neutralizing of sacred space that has been popular since the 1980s, churches began removing or deemphasizing the Lord's Table and introducing coffee bars. Without doubt the desire has been to build community by offering people a culturally familiar setting to engage one another. But we must ask: What formative message does a coffee bar convey?
A coffee bar mostly carries the values of our culture. We've come to expect coffee bars to offer a number of choices to meet our desires (decaf, tea, hot chocolate), and the setting is one of leisure and comfort. We usually gather in affinity groups. We sip the beverages not because we're thirsty but because we're conditioned to want them.
By contrast, what does the Lord's Table convey? It is a symbol of sacrificial love that breaks down cultural divisions and barriers of affinity. It reminds us that life is about being chosen by the Lord for interpersonal communion rather than choosing to consume stuff, and it reminds us we are called to take up our cross rather than seek personal comfort.
Both the coffee bar and Lord's Table affirm community, but the kind of community they affirm differs significantly. Churches with coffee bars may have to work harder to ensure they are fostering community around the values of Christ rather than casual consumerism.
At the same time, there is no guarantee that a church that prominently displays the Lord's Table and forgoes coffee will automatically model unity, pastoral care, or break down cultural and generational cliques. It's particularly hard when we engage the Lord's Table privately or solely with our friends and loved ones.
A congregation I served restructured its space to celebrate Communion with greater intentionality. One Sunday after the sermon, the congregation proceeded to the fellowship hall to celebrate the Lord's Supper around large, circular tables. We were encouraged to intentionally sit with people with whom we didn't normally associate and to share with those at our table what the Lord's sacrifice meant to us personally. After each person shared, everyone was to break bread from the loaf provided and dip it into the Communion cup at the table. This process was to continue until everyone had shared.
One woman came to me several weeks later and said that this had been the most meaningful celebration of Communion she had ever experienced. She was grateful the church had restructured its space to move us beyond our comfort zones of associating simply with the people we already knew.
In this example space, and how we utilized it, became a medium for communicating the values of the gospel and deconstructing the values of our consumer culture.
Read the full article at LeadershipJournal.net
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 23, 2009 | Comments (19) | TrackBack
November 19, 2009
Angry Preachers or Gospel Musicians?
What types of witnesses are our churches forming?
There wasn’t much that could have distracted me on the way to the train station on a recent Saturday evening. After two days at an outdoor music festival—in the rain one day and under the blazing sun the next—I wanted nothing more than to return to our apartment for a long shower and some blessed quiet. Lollapalooza was a blast, a great opportunity to see some new bands and observe Chicago’s diverse youth culture. I might have stayed for the day’s final acts, but I’m a pastor and my ringing ears and tired legs needed a good night’s sleep before Sunday morning.
Before I’d walked even a block from the festival, I bumped into a small crowd whose attention was fixed on two men speaking loudly to the bedraggled onlookers. One held a handmade sign that read—I kid you not— “TURN OR BURN!” He spoke into a bullhorn, warning the young people of God’s coming judgment and listing in vivid detail the sins that would lead them to an eternity burning in hell. The other man held an open Bible and vigorously debated anyone who disagreed with his companion’s portrayal of God.
For the past two days, I’d watched these young people pursue beauty and friendship and community. Groups of sunburned 20somethings had made their way from one stage to the next, avoiding mud puddles and speaking with awe in their voices about their favorite musical experiences of the weekend. And now, as they left the safety of the festival grounds, they were immediately confronted with Jesus. Or at least two of Jesus’ representatives.
A few in the crowd poked fun and tried to fluster the preachers. What really caught my attention, though, what overruled my fatigue, was another response. Despite this generation’s reputation as cynical and sarcastic, many of the young wore visible sadness on their faces. Some pleaded with Bullhorn Man for a different portrayal of Jesus. A few people asked Bible Man if his God had any love for them. One young man was on the edge of tears as he tried to convince the men to lower their voices, to show kindness in their words about Jesus.
Ten minutes of this street theatre was enough and, quenching my desire to punch Bullhorn Man and Bible Man, I continued toward the train. As I often do after encountering this version of Christian witness, I angrily questioned why these men did what they did. How could they possibly think their language and posture was helpful? Is this what Jesus had in mind when he felt compassion for the harassed and helpless crowds—sheep without a shepherd—and asked his disciples to pray for more workers for the harvest? My irritation only increased as I thought about how the irreligious and marginalized of his day were attracted to Jesus. Whether or not they would have accepted his easy yoke, certainly these festival goers would have been intrigued by the alternative life Jesus proclaimed and demonstrated.
Here’s the thing: Bullhorn Man and Bible Man don’t exist in a vacuum. Their theology and evangelistic practice comes from somewhere. My guess? These men belong to a church that believes salvation from Hell is the primary motivation for a relationship with God and views direct confrontation as the most effective evangelism. What appears to me a gross distortion of the Gospel and an incredibly ineffective means of proclaiming that Gospel are to these men natural responses to the preaching and community life of their church. Their spiritual formation, like mine, has been significantly shaped by their Christian community.
What types of witnesses are our churches forming? What public representation of Jesus do we create through our preaching, worship, liturgy, service, and fellowship? While I seriously doubt members of our church are shouting through bullhorns and waving homemade signs, can I rest assured that we are living as captivating and confident witnesses in Chicago to the Gospel of Jesus?
As I descended the stairs to the train platform, I was greeted by more music. Two men had set up a keyboard and an electric drum and were entertaining the waiting passengers, many of whom had just come from the festival. The musicians played skillfully and sang a Gospel song with the unambiguous refrain, “In the Lord I put my trust.” Here the small audience of festival goers smiled and clapped generously, their obvious appreciation for the musicians a total contrast to the emotions elicited by the street preachers. “Those guys were really good,” I heard one passenger say once we boarded the train. “Yeah,” replied his companion, “They told me they write all of their songs.” The crowd had engaged Bullhorn Man in anger and distress, while the Gospel musicians provoked conversation out of admiration.
If the street preachers were formed by a certain church culture, so too were these musicians. The dramatic differences in the Jesus they witnessed to were a sobering reminder to me of the public ramifications of our theology and practice. Does our preaching and worship lead to fearful confrontation or creative engagement? Are our churches forming angry street preachers or skillful Gospel musicians?
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 19, 2009 | Comments (42) | TrackBack
November 18, 2009
Ur Video: Perry Noble on Responding to Critics
"Out love, out live, and out fruit."
How should you and your church respond to critics? Perry Noble has some experience with the subject and some wisdom to share.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 18, 2009 | Comments (11) | TrackBack
November 17, 2009
Preaching for the Nod
It's easy it is to “speak prophetically” when you know it's what people want to hear.
Every once in a while I find myself preaching for the nod. That’s when we try to hard wire a bit of ego-stroke into a Sunday morning message. We do it a lot, and it’s so easy—insert that small comment, that little aside, or even that main point that we know will appeal to the sensibilities of certain listeners. You know, the left-leaning (or right leaning) political comment. The doctrinal aside that scratches the itch of that person so prone to give up the "Amen" or the vigorous head nod.
Preaching for the nod has less to do with what we see in the biblical text and more to do with what we want people to see in us. And there lies the danger.
The most God-centered, John Piper-esque sermon or community-centered dialogical discussion can be completely me-centered if my intention is to get certain people to tell me, “Good words today, Pastor!” If my intention is to get certain people to see me as sufficiently hip and relevant (or standing against the tide of culture), or progressive (or appropriately conservative), or doctrinally adventurous (or steadfastly orthodox), then I have traded the proclamation of God's Word for the proclamation of myself, regardless of how I dress it up.
And all for that little nod.
Man, it's like a drug—the rush of agreement, of assent, of affirmation. Many of us would sell our souls for it. And some of us do.
And the problem is not only how easy it is, but how right it feels.
When I pastored in the Netherlands in the late 1990s, one of the big issues in our church was that the senior pastor didn't give a “gospel invitation” every week, as some of the old hands in the church wanted him to. I totally agreed with the pastor that good, text-based and God-centered proclamation was preaching the Gospel, even if there wasn't an invitation shoe-horned into and behind every message.
But it was easy for me to include that little gospel invite on those weeks, every couple of months, when I was preaching. It was a total win-win. I told myself I was preaching the gospel (a good thing, right?), some of the people got to hear what they wanted, and I got affirmation from a notoriously hard-to-please group within our church. Hey, "whether from good motives or bad," right?
The problem was, sermon prep began to be less and less about hearing from God and more about crafting statements of appeasement. It's not like I didn't mean those invitations, but...insert a slippery slope metaphor here.
In fact, I still feel myself slipping at times.
I pastor a church that holds its Sunday gathering in a pub. So, we see a different kind of folk than your average First Baptist or Second Methodist. Burned by “church,” usually more politically and socially liberal, they often come—just like everyone else—evaluating all the words spoken and sung, looking for reasons why they might or might not "fit" with our community.
And it's so easy to slip from speaking in a way that is accessible to those we are trying to love into our community and instead speak in a way that is attractive to them. You know, making sure they understand that, yes, it's church, but we're not like those churches.
We have a broad spectrum of political and religious views in our community—Republicans and Democrats and socialists and libertarians, people who come from evangelical and mainline backgrounds or no church background at all. It's something I love about Evergreen. But I have found myself, in our short history, throwing in the occasional anti-Bush comment. Or taking a poke at Joel Osteen. And if I am honest (and I'm trying to be), my motives are usually more about being seen as progressive—a Christian but not like those Christians. But more and more I'm recognizing just how misguided that is. How cheap and easy it is to “speak prophetically” when you know it's what people love and want to hear.
And if there's anything I don't want to be as a pastor, it's cheap or easy.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 17, 2009 | Comments (17) | TrackBack
November 13, 2009
The Future of Church Facilities
To build or not to build? Sign-up to ask your questions during our live webinar.
Until recently, churches responded to growing attendance by building larger facilities. But the faltering economy makes raising large sums for building projects harder to accomplish. And combined with the aversion of younger churchgoers to the bigger-is-better ministry philosophy, these tight-money days are demanding imaginative alternatives. For some churches, the question has become, "Should we build at all?"
"We have told many clients in the last couple years, 'You're not ready to build, because you aren't sure what your ministry is,'" said Ed Bahler of the Aspen Group, a church design firm. "So what once took a few weeks has become a six- to twelve-month process: determining what their vision is and what they really need to do that ministry." The firm now focuses on guiding church leaders through the vision process.
"People ask us what ministry will look like in ten years—with the impact of technology and the desire to attract younger people driving many of the choices they make today," Bahler said.
"For some of these churches, the answer is not a new building. They can't afford it, and it won't accomplish their true purpose. It may be renovation of older sanctuaries, or holding services on multiple sites and venues."
And for those who do build, it may be a very different building.
Instead of a larger worship center, one church built an additional, smaller worship space complete with stained glass, as an additional venue. Their study before building showed the Catholic backgrounds of many potential attenders created a desire for a church that feels like "church."
That's also a common desire among younger people, partly in reaction to the big-box multi-purpose warehouse-church decades.
Does this mean goodbye to the cafegymitorium? Perhaps. And perhaps, too, to the giant fundraising thermometer-tote board in the lobby.
Ed Bahler and Bill Couchenour, presidents of two independent church design and construction companies and co-founders of the Cornerstone Knowledge Network, have decades of hands-on experience when it comes to creating effective ministry space. Skye Jethani will be interviewing Bahler and Couchenour about what church leaders should do before they decide to build or renovate their facilities. Sign up for the live webinar on November 17th.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 13, 2009 | Comments (6) | TrackBack
November 12, 2009
Separated at Birth?
Church leaders and their celebrity twins.
A few days ago, Drew Dyck (managing editor of BuildingChurchLeaders.com) sent an email to Skye Jethani (managing editor of Leadership Journal) asking to borrow a book by Dave Ferguson. Drew parenthetically commented that Ferguson looked like Edward Norton the actor. That got the ball rolling.
With the help of Drew Dyck, Tim Avery, and others, Skye created a post on his blog of church leaders and their celebrity lookalikes. It was so well received that I decided to post some of the more popular images here. Of course I'm always open to more. Send me your ideas.
Tim Allen and Joel Osteen
Patrick Stewart and Tim Keller
Bob Ross and Philip Yancey
Woody Allen and Shane Claiborne
Tom Brokaw and Will Willimon
Edward Norton and Dave Ferguson
Richard Schiff and N.T. Wright
Check out more church leaders and their celebrity twins.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 12, 2009 | Comments (14) | TrackBack
November 11, 2009
What Clergy Do Not Need
For the sake of clergy self-care, let's stop talking about clergy self-care.
I do not think clergy need more lectures about self-care.
It seems that at every ordination or installation service I attend there is a charge given about clergy self care. One minister stands up and tells another minister that they know they are about to work themselves to death, so resist the temptation. “Take your day off…set boundaries…don’t try to be all things to all people.” All this is done in front of an audience of lay people who are supposed to be impressed that we clergy would need such a lecture. It has become a cliché, and seems to have trumped prophecy, theology and the love of Jesus.
To lay people it seems strange, since they work hard themselves. Should they raise this, they will be treated to a lecture from these same overworked clergy about how they, in bravely trying to take better care of themselves, are “modeling” appropriate self-care for the laity. Such talk is condescending to the laity, tedious to listen to at ordinations and most of all, unsuccessful in changing clergy behavior.
I would personally like to declare a moratorium on all clergy self-care conversations, in the interests of clergy self-care.
I have a theory about why clergy talk about self-care so much, and it has to do with a real need. I suspect that we preach to one another about self-care because we see a lot of sad and unhealthy pastors out there, or we have been there ourselves at one time or another. There is a need for care.
But ultimately, the notion of self-care does not work because we don’t have in us what is required. Self-care is the Band-Aid we put on spiritual exhaustion, dark nights of the soul, and the disappointment of consecutive losing seasons in a long ministry. It seems odd that as Christians, we would tell one another that the answer to such woes lies in ourselves, and in our own will power and our own resolutions to do better. We take a spiritual problem that affects a community and give it an individualistic and therapeutic answer.
My hunch, based upon my own experience in times when I have not taken care of myself, is that what I was missing was not within me already. I was lacking something, but it was not something that a lecture in self-care would fix.
We desperately need community as pastors. We need deep friendships with others who understand this odd and wondrous calling, and where we can tell one another the truth. We need to remind one another of the God who cares for us all, whether we overeat, make too many appointments or plow through our day off. We need one another’s care, in the company of friends, and over time. Most of all we need Jesus. And none of that can happen in a lecture.
Check out Lillian Daniel's article, "I'm With the Band: The kingdom of God is like a punk rock wedding," from Leadership Journal.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 11, 2009 | Comments (15) | TrackBack
November 9, 2009
Twitter Theology
What do tweets reveal about what pastors really value?
Social media like Facebook and Twitter have received an abundance of critique, not the least of which is that social media users are self-absorbed. But I wonder if we might turn answers on Twitter to the question “What are you doing?” or on Facebook’s status update into an opportunity for self-examination. It might even be an opportunity for Twitter and Facebook users to examine not just what they are doing but how it aligns with our mission.
I’ve spent some time observing pastors who tweet or regularly update their status on Facebook, and I’m far from convinced it’s simply self-absorption or an attempt by little people to make themselves famous. But these updates do reveal what is uppermost on the mind. But let me begin with a confession: I use these social media tools to draw folks to my blog and to the concerns I have there. In addition, on Facebook I have a good time with my “Friends” discussing sports or the news.
And I’m not alone. The idea of both Facebook and Twitter is to share with friends – real friends and not just cyberfriends – what you are doing. We all know that this can slip into silliness with tweets like: “Having a chocolate macchiato latte, double shot espresso with a raspberry scone” But we should also admit that tweets can be a valuable communication form. And another thing is clear—Twitter and Facebook are here to stay. Over time the craziness will wear off and the abilities of social media will become more clear.
Still, there are observations to make about what we see from pastor tweets. Over time I’ve noticed that many pastors tweet links to business people and leadership gurus, Seth Godin being the most common. We discover plenty of emphasis on news items, especially controversial ones. Pastors often became “green” in the recent Iranian student revolution. Pastors tweet a lot about sports. There seems to be a near obsession in pastor tweets with terms like “creativity” and “innovation,” and a corresponding neglect of our great tradition or our heritage in the Church.
Pastors tweet quotes from their reading, and inform us of what they are reading. Sunday tweets tend to be gratitude tweets. We also regularly discover who is meeting with whom (and the “whom” is always a notch above the “who”), or where someone is traveling. We hear about accomplishments but almost never any failures or disappointments, making the Twitter world largely a happy face community.
I have seen some gospel in Facebook updates – some tweets about Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection, but very few about how Israel’s story came to its goal in Jesus. Very few, in fact, about the Old Testament at all. There is some theological orientation. Even if it is hard to reduce theology to 140 characters, the limit of a normal tweet, it can be done and it has been done well. The issue is how infrequently pastors and religious leaders provide such theological orientation and how often they link us to such concerns. Oddly, there is an absence of short prayers for others or ejaculatory prayers for God’s help in a tough situation. In fact there are almost no prayers at all.
So, let me ask pastors who tweet and who update their status a few simple questions: What do your updates tell us about what you are doing? About what is uppermost on your mind? About what is most important to you? It is time to take stock. Perhaps you are like me—using social media to draw the attention and time of others to something else. But where are we leading these folks? What do our links reveal about what is most important to us? About what is uppermost on our minds?
Twitter and Facebook offer us an opportunity for self-examination. I know they have for me.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 9, 2009 | Comments (19) | TrackBack
November 5, 2009
Video Venues and Multi-Sites: Can We Please Move On?
We've got more important matters to discuss.
May I vent for a moment? If I stumble onto another blog, article, or conference advertisement for anything having to do with video venues or multi-site models of church growth, I just might lose it. Everywhere I look within our odd little subculture these days I’m barraged by debates and diatribes about the glorious merits or awful shortcomings of venues and sites. On one side are proponents who seem to believe that only really good sliced bread can compete with their innovative ministry models for the title of “greatest thing ever.” Opposing these trendsetters are Marshall McLuhan’s disciples, those who fear the Good News message has been distorted by an unholy medium.
To be clear, I understand the nuanced distinctions between multiple sites and multiple video screens. I get that there are theological concerns embedded within this conversation that bring out the passionate sides of characteristically composed people. To be honest, I’ve followed this debate with some interest and could earnestly argue my own position about these ministry models. But I don’t want to. In fact, at this point I’d rather talk about almost anything else. Here’s why:
1. It simply doesn’t matter to most of us. A well known pastor and early adopter of video venues and the multi-site model recently wrote on his blog that, “What was initially considered a wacky idea has become the new normal…” Really? The norm for American churches is multiple campuses with preaching beamed in from the mother ship? I doubt this pastor or other multi-site proponents mean to overlook the vast majority of small and medium-sized churches for whom multi sites and video venues make no sense. But the message some of these smaller churches are hearing is about significance and effectiveness. Want to make a difference for Jesus in 2009? You’d better launch a new campus, or at least broadcast the sermon to the fellowship hall for those who want doughnuts and coffee with their preaching.
2. It’s embarrassing. Have we stopped to think about what this debate sounds like to those who don’t share our Christian faith and Evangelical zeal? The conversation is no longer a private one among family members when “multi-site church” has its own Wikipedia entry. Those who don’t share our commitments are nonetheless privy to our silly quibbles and regrettable blog comments. Again, I realize the importance of these issues and the theological repercussions of seemingly pragmatic decisions. But a survey of our corner of the blogosphere would lead you to believe that this is one of the most significant issues facing the church right now. I’m not sure that’s the case, and it leads to my next reason we ought to redirect our attention.
3. It’s not very important. If we survey Christian history we can quickly distinguish the arguments that were worth having. Justification by grace through faith? Really important. The number of angels who can fit on a pin’s head? Not so important. There is no shortage of significant issues for our contemporary churches to address. Are the efficacies of multi-site and video venue models of church among those issues? If so, they must be towards the bottom of the list.
I can think of a few things I’d prefer that we were talking about. How about articulating a theology that addresses the plight of millions of uninsured Americans? What about expressing the intrinsic worth of the undocumented immigrants who live in the shadows of our multi-site churches but never enter to see our impressive hi-def video preachers. What about a global conversation about ways the Majority World can influence evangelism in our increasingly post-Christian nation? One day someone will look back at our movement in the early 2000s and judge our priorities. I doubt they will find our current infatuation with sites and venues will all that important.
So how about a breather? For a small percentage of churches, the issues associated with launching a new site or venue are critical to their mission. But can we stop pretending like these questions are so significant to the rest of us? I’m going to trust that those churches in the position to launch new campuses and install video projectors are doing so with theological clarity and Holy Spirit-led conviction. And I’m also going to trust that those of us for whom this conversation is largely irrelevant are going to wrestle with our own questions and challenges—those things that have Gospel importance within our contexts.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 5, 2009 | Comments (23) | TrackBack
November 4, 2009
Not a Christian, But a Christ-Follower?
The downside of trying to re-brand your Christian identity.
Anyone can understand the desire for an alternative to the word “Christian.” There are plenty of “Christians” I’d rather not be associated with. I’d much prefer to maintain my relationship with Jesus while making clear to others I am not in relationship to Pat Robertson or Jack Spong.
Lisa Miller, true to form as an excellent religion journalist, has brought attention to efforts to follow Jesus without calling oneself a “Christian.” Non-Christian Christ-followers even seem to have some scripture on their side. The first name of the Jesus movement in the book of Acts is “followers of the Way.” There are plenty of other fully-biblical alternatives: disciples, apostles, friends of God. Apparently the movement has legs: more than 900 Facebook groups call themselves some variant of “follower of Jesus.”
There’s some sleight of hand here. Imagine a banker in the current financial crisis objecting when you name her job description. “I’m not a banker, I’m a cashier.” You would be unimpressed. Or a Major League Baseball player seeking distance from the steroid scandal this way: “No no no, I’m not a baseball player, I’m a second baseman.” It’s as if my alma mater, Davidson College, disgraced itself in some horrible way. When people cluck their tongues at me, I cleverly respond: “Not me, I’m innocent, I’m not from Davidson, I’m just a Wildcat.” I’d be fooling no one. So too with these non-Christian Christians.
More importantly, Christians believe our baptism is not just a set of beliefs. One could come up with some new way to follow Abraham Lincoln or Ayn Rand and give it a brand new title. But Christianity joins us to a body of other believers. This biblical description of the “body” is so basic to the faith it’s almost not a metaphor: a new member is healthy tissue grafted onto a wound. The loss of a member is like the tearing away of flesh. Christ himself is our head, and we belong to one another. The very word “religion” has the same root as the word “ligament.” We are quite physically bound to one another.
This is especially important to reassert when we are tempted to say we’re with the head, but not the other parts of the body. We are all tempted to pick and choose our fellows, buffet-style. “I’m with Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa, but not the Southern Baptists.” No! We’re part of this body, with all its dazzling glory and all its tragic flaws, and cannot claim the former without the latter. Further, we are responsible for those parts presently misbehaving, and for its misdeeds through time—if we want credit for its virtues.
This is the part that really irks me the most on eschewing “Christian.” It’s as though we get off scot-free for historical Christian sins (the crusades, racism, you name it) by just calling ourselves something else. Christians believe there is a way to forgiveness and purity—but it passes through confession, restoration, and repaired relationship. The much more costly way to disassociate from those who have done ill in Christ’s name is to set about loving as fanatically as they hated.
It is striking just how popular Jesus still is. It still seems to make sense to love Jesus while hating the church. This view assumes Jesus popped into history fully formed as though from the head of Zeus, with no history, no people, no story. But Jesus is a Jew. And the effort to uproot Jesus from the church makes as much sense as loving someone’s head, but not their body; or admiring Thomas Jefferson and sneering at the Constitution. Jesus is the foundation and cornerstone and head of the church. Without the people Jesus comes from, without the people Jesus births into the world, there is no Jesus. The people Jesus births into the world are called “Christian.”
More power to the people looking for alternative biblical descriptions of Christians. We can all use those—they awaken our imagination to fresh evocations of our faith. But the choice of one such term need not—can not—excise another.
Those who disagree are still members of this family. They can’t disown me anymore than I can them. Weekly we have family reunions in buildings, big and small, all over the world. And I sure hope they’ll join the rest of us at one of them from time to time. The rest of us aren’t complete without them.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 4, 2009 | Comments (56) | TrackBack
November 3, 2009
Ur Video: The Prosperity Gospel
Christianity Today International, Out of Ur's publisher, and The Lausanne Movement, a worldwide movement of evangelical Christian leaders, present The Global Conversation: a year-long series of essays, short films, and photo essays about issues facing the church worldwide. These videos highlight topics to be addressed at the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization being held in Cape Town, South Africa, in October 2010.
In November the Global Conversation focuses on the prosperity gospel—the teaching that true Christian faith results in material wealth and physical well-being. While it has its roots in America, it has found fertile soil on other continents as well. To accompany the lead article in Christianity Today by Ghanaian scholar Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, director Nathan Clarke went to Ghana to explore the forms the prosperity gospel takes in that West African nation.
The Prosperity Gospel from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 3, 2009 | Comments (16) | TrackBack
November 2, 2009
Catalyst, Liturgy, and Innovation
What liturgical church leaders and the Catalyst Conference can learn from each other.
According to data from the National Congregations Study (2006-2007), 38% of people in the United States associate themselves with liturgical churches (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, etc.); while 46% associate themselves with free churches (Baptist, Pentecostal, non-denominational, etc.). The 14% of people associated with Methodist and Reformed/Presbyterian churches sit atop this watershed—some sliding down the liturgical slope, others down the free church slope. Liturgical churches emphasize historical and global continuity in their worship services; whereas the term “free church” is related to the relative autonomy of individual congregations. Almost every heated discussion about the church tends to divide along these liturgical / free church lines.
Liturgical clergy see their role as being a faithful steward of historic Christianity. This consists especially of serving the Lord’s Supper and preaching. Free church pastors tend to see their role as equipping their congregations for evangelism and social justice. Because of their different understandings of their roles, it is not surprising that free church pastors are open to insights gleaned from megachurches, church planters, and business leaders; while liturgical church clergy see these sources as consumeristic, arrogant, and hopelessly misguided.
Nowhere is free church innovation more plainly seen than at The Catalyst Conference attended by 13,000 people October 8-9 outside Atlanta, Georgia. The Catalyst Conference is “specifically focused on leaders under the age of 40.” Its podcast tagline is “what’s next in the church.”
At Catalyst, the “free” in free churches was big and bold. The speakers were free from using notes when they spoke. The worship leaders were free to play songs they had written. Five of the seven pastors had planted a church: Andy Stanley, Rob Bell, Francis Chan, Chuck Swindoll, and Louie Giglio. Similarly, Jessica Jackley, Priscilla Shirer, and Dave Ramsey founded their organizations. Malcolm Gladwell is a best-selling author. What they had in common was the ability to communicate. The churches and organizations they lead had partially developed out of their effectiveness in communication.
The strength of the Catalyst Conference is also the strength of the Free Church tradition—the willingness to experiment with ways of reaching people—the unchurched and the poor—with the goodness of the gospel. Paul writes, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Cor 9:23). Scratch the surface of a Christian who is an “innovator” or “leader” and you have underneath a person with a passion to reach people with the good news.
High Church (An Anglican priest presides over the liturgy)
What liturgical church clergy can learn from the Catalyst Conference is to impress on their people that they are missionaries for Christ—“communicators”—the biblical word is “witnesses.” Of course, they need not learn it from Catalyst. The Roman Catholic Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium (1964) says, “Since, like Paul the Apostle, the bishop is debtor to all men, let him be ready to preach the Gospel to all, and to urge his faithful to apostolic and missionary activity.”
Hijinks (Catalyst emcee Lanny Donoho entertains the crowd)
The weakness of Catalyst is also the weakness of the Free Church tradition. Authenticity, vulnerability, spontaneity, and extemporaneous communication characterized the Catalyst speakers. Almost all of the speakers walked around and used few if any notes when they spoke. Some were able to pull this off with obvious preparation and memorization. Others resorted to off-the-cuff stream-of-consciousness rambling. The former was powerful. The latter produced cringes by people in the audience for the socially inappropriate and theologically problematic comments that slipped out.
This is symptomatic of the free church tradition. Some contemporary worship songs, church plants, and megachurches are spectacularly effective. Others spectacularly self-destruct. Untethered to a hierarchy or narrow role of guarding the tradition, there is extreme pressure on the leader. At the Catalyst Conference, speaker after speaker with massive churches and best-selling books talked about the toll their “success” had taken on their family and themselves. They emphasized the need for systems of support and accountability. A frequent comment from the stage was “Remember that it is all about Jesus.” What is fascinating is that these admonitions are central for liturgical church clergy. Because it is good to have colleagues and not to have the responsibility to make it all up as one goes along, liturgical clergy participate in a larger denominational structure. Because there is peace and health that comes from rooting the pastoral task in the finished work of Christ, they celebrate the Lord’s Supper weekly. Catalyst leaders need not be “free” (that is, “lost”) from the insights of the rich liturgical church tradition on pastoral spiritual, physical and social health. The Catalyst Conference can catalyze liturgical church clergy and free church leaders to learn from each other rather than dismiss each other.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at November 2, 2009 | Comments (27) | TrackBack
