March 31, 2010
Don't Forget to Grieve
Why every worship service shouldn't be a "celebration."
I once attended a Good Friday service where the pastor encouraged us to look at Good Friday positively, to see the crucifixion through “Easter eyes.” To be honest, the bright lights and the upbeat music and mood felt to me like a missed opportunity. His intentions were good. He wanted to protect us from feeling defeated as we meditated on the death of Christ. But in doing so, he robbed us of exactly the feeling and experience that Good Friday is meant to give us.
Those of us who inhabit the sphere of “American Christianity” live in a world that doesn’t know when, how, or even why to grieve. For us, Christianity is about victory, it’s about feeling better about ourselves. It’s upbeat, inspiring, short, and peppy. I know one pastor of a large church who once asked his worship leaders not to play any songs written in a minor key. Too much of a downer.
Like all of us, I was hit hard by the events of September 2001. I was up early on the morning of the 11th for a meeting and was actually watching TV when the second plane smashed through the tower. I walked around the rest of the day numb and in shock. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t.
I went to services that weekend, hoping someone could help me with my grief, hoping that with the people of God I could feel what I needed to feel, process my questions and grief, and come to some resolution. But instead of mourning, instead of an honest admission that we have no idea why things like this happen, I was asked to salute the flag and sing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” What I needed was a church service. What I got was a pep rally. We needed to grieve. Instead we were told to feel better.
And we wonder why so many of us struggle with a persistent, low-level depression. Maybe, just maybe, it’s because when we should, we refuse to grieve. We hold in the tears, when they should come out. That emotion tends to leak out in other ways, at other times—some not nearly so appropriate or healthy as crying.
I’m absolutely amazed when I see television coverage of third-world countries, particularly the coverage of disasters. When I see the keening, wailing women, the men tearing their clothes from their bodies and even the hair from their heads in anguish, I realize how emotionally impoverished we stoics in America are. I realize that the grief and mourning which the Bible speaks highly of is completely missing from our vocabulary. We’ve lost the ability to grieve.
And with it, I think we’ve lost the ability to be truly joyful. Have you ever wondered how those who live in other cultures, even those who live lives of impoverishment can smile so broadly and celebrate so joyfully in the midst of their impoverishment? We watch our news in amazement as year after year, at times of victory or celebration, they fill the streets, dancing in joy, eyes bright. The closest to that we ever come is when our team wins the Series, or the Superbowl. And even that is a pale mockery of the joy that we know we should feel at times, but never seem to find. We wish we could dance the way that they dance, or feel the joy and excitement they seem to feel.
Take Easter, for example. Every year the pastor stands and does his or her best to project the words “Christ is risen!” And we half-heartedly answer, “He is risen indeed.” Usually we have to try it a couple of times to work up any enthusiasm at all.
And the reason we don’t feel the joy at Easter that we know we should feel is because we don’t feel the grief at Good Friday that we could. We enter our well-lit sanctuaries on Good Friday, sing some songs, hear a nice message about the crucifixion, and go out for dessert afterwards with our friends. We enter with smiles on our faces and leave the same way.
Good Friday ruined the first disciples’ weekend. Maybe we should allow it to ruin ours, as well. For them it felt like the end of the world. Maybe we could pretend, even for a day, that’s it’s the end of ours, too—that while what Jesus went through on our behalf is something to be celebrated, it’s also something to be mourned, to be anguished about, to grieve.
This Good Friday, allow the grief to seep deep down into your bones, into your bowels. Meditate on the wounds, the suffering, and the deep, deep love of Christ. Allow the tears to well up from the pit of your being, escape your eyes, and roll down your face. Let the sobs rock your body. Leave the Good Friday service in silence. Extend your mourning through the night and into Saturday. Leave the TV off. Wear black. Refuse to medicate, distract, or otherwise soothe yourself. Mourn. Grieve.
If you do this, as the sun rises on Sunday, you will finally know what Easter is all about.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 31, 2010 | Comments (26) | TrackBack
March 29, 2010
Narrative or Doctrine- What Should You Teach?
Walter Wangerin on the art of storytelling and why doctrine still matters.
Last weekend I attended Spark, a children's ministry conference near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The theme of the conference was "The Art of Storytelling." I think you'd be hard pressed to find a keynote speaker better suited to speak on that topic than Walter Wangerin. Pastor for 16 years in inner-city Chicago, father of four, grandfather of eight or so, and author of more than 40 books, Wangerin has lots of experience telling stories. And he's good at it—really good. In his two plenary sessions, he touched on a good many things that concern me—the role of the teacher, the power of stories, and the nature of the relationship between art and truth. What I appreciated most was his sense of balance.
You might expect (as I did) that when speaking to a room full of ministers, a person who makes his living telling stories would emphasize how story telling is superior to other forms of teaching, such as catechism or object lessons or memorizing facts. In fact, I've come to expect that perspective at ministry conferences in general. It's become very popular to claim that narrative is more important that systematic theology; after all (the argument goes) Jesus spoke in parables not doctrines, and the Gospels are narratives not bullet points. Fair enough. But Wangerin wanted to emphasize the relationship between story and doctrine, between the imagination and the intellect.
The value of story, for Wangerin, is that it allows people to experience the truth. You can tell someone, "Jesus loves you." That's a doctrine. But if you can tell a story that shows that Jesus loves me—maybe a parable like the Good Shepherd—in which I am invited to associate with a character that is receiving the love of Jesus, then I will experience the love of Jesus.
Wangerin used the example of Zaccheus in Luke's Gospel. Wangerin was a bit of an outcast as a child, he said, and so he associated with Zaccheus. When his Sunday school teacher told him the story, he got swept up in it; he felt like Jesus was looking at him, talking to him. But when it was over, his teacher asked him, "What does this story mean?" Then, he said, the story was no longer my story. It was just a moral lesson someone wanted him to learn.
As soon as she objectified it, the teacher took the story away from young Walt and put it back in the Bible where it became "just an illustration" from which we are supposed to learn something intellectual. This was a big point for Walter—we should avoid turning stories into illustrations. You can't dwell in an illustration. But you can dwell in a story. And the real power of a story is that it orders the universe for you. It shapes the imagination regarding what the world is really like.
What is unique about Wangerin, I think, is that he balances this emphasis on stories right away. In his 16 years as a pastor, Wangerin says he probably only told stories 20 percent of the time. The rest of the time he taught facts and doctrine and theology. But the stories were foundational; they were the context in which the facts became alive and significant. For example, the catechism class he led was two years long. For the first year, all he did every week was tell the great story—the metanarrative of the Scriptures. Beginning with creation and the fall, he told the story of Israel through the Old Testament, about God's covenants and his faithfulness. Then into the New Testament, he told the story of Jesus, of the New Covenant, of the work of the Apostles, and about the promise of reconciliation at the end of all things.
Then, in year two, he taught about the Trinity, about Incarnation and Resurrection, about eschatology and other essential doctrines. "Because we spent the whole first year in story," he said, "we could speak about doctrines as memories based on the stories." The stories provided context. Rather than simply memorizing the words, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth" (which they did) as a cold fact, they could say those words as they imagine God forming the earth out of nothing, the man out of dust, and then breathing life into Adam's nostrils. Wangerin was very clear on this point: stories don't give the intellect what it needs. But the intellect can't make sense of the facts without story.
The application of this balanced emphasis on story and doctrine as it relates to children is obvious. But I think it has broader application. The battle between the folks that just want to tell the stories of God and those that want to preach the doctrines of the faith will rage interminably, I imagine, unless we all recognize what Wangerin sees. And that is this: in Christ, God is calling us to participate in Christ's story of life, death, and resurrection. Paul makes this clear again and again (see Galatians 2:20, for example). Our imaginations must be transformed so that this narrative of death and resurrection becomes the story that makes sense of the universe for us. But embracing this narrative is not the end. Getting to know our God and Father also requires understanding (as much as we can) that he exists as unity in Trinity, that he became flesh and walked among us, and those sorts of things. These truths are derived from the story, but they go beyond it.
In the end, then, making disciples of children and adults alike is a matter of transforming both the imagination and the intellect. And that means starting with story.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 29, 2010 | Comments (6) | TrackBack
March 26, 2010
Ur Video: Why Church?
Do you share the sense that something isn't right with the church? Where are you taking your questions?
Last week Skye Jethani wrote a post about the "de-churched." It included information about a contest being hosted by 12 Cities | 12 Conversations inviting people to submit videos about why they're committed to Christ but questioning their commitment to the church.
Andrew Means sent in this video from a church leader's perspective. We are eager to hear your response.
Why I'm Disillusioned-Short from Andrew Means on Vimeo.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 26, 2010 | Comments (21) | TrackBack
March 24, 2010
Why I Don't Tweet...
... not that there's anything wrong with it.
Some months ago I sat down for breakfast with Ed Stetzer while we were both in Phoenix for a conference. Afterwards Ed “tweeted” about our meal together and commented that for some inexplicable reason “Skye isn’t on Twitter.” He gave me some playful grief about it on our drive to the conference, and since then others have asked why I don’t Tweet as well. So I decided it was time to finally show my cards.
First of all, I don’t believe Twitter is evil, wrong, or in any way immoral. And I’m not condemning my many friends who love to Tweet. But it’s not for me. Here are the top 10 reasons why I don’t use Twitter (not that there’s anything wrong with it).
ONE
My life really isn’t that interesting (and in most cases, neither is yours). Unless you are “The Most Interesting Man in the World” from the Dos Equis commercials, I really don’t care what you’re doing at any particular moment. Let’s be honest, most of life is mundane, ordinary, and routine. I’d rather keep the veil of mystery over my life so that outsiders can construct a far more fascinating picture of my existence with their imaginations.
TWO
I don’t like the taste of my own foot. Twitter enables otherwise intelligent people to communicate really foolish things to far too many people much too rapidly. In other words, it’s very easy to Tweet and regret. The first thought that comes to my mind is rarely the thought I want others to see. What can I say? I’m still a Christian under construction.
THREE
You cannot delete a Tweet. Last year ABC News anchor Terry Moran posted this Tweet: “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a ‘jackass’ for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.” Moran deleted the Tweet almost immediately when we discovered the President’s comment was intended to be off-the-record. It was too late. Thousands of people had already copied the post. ABC News has issued apologies and statements about the mishap. Twittering can take a moment, but the regret can last a lifetime.
FOUR
I don’t want to become a phantom. Lee Siegel in his book Against the Machine, discusses how we hide behind false, “phantom” identities on the internet. It’s a medium we think fosters immediacy and authenticity, but in truth it breeds shallowness. I already feel that with my time on Facebook with my so called “friends.” Twitter takes it to a degree I can’t stomach.
FIVE
I respect the written word too much to mutilate it. In the church we talk a lot about “gifting”-how we feel God has enabled us to bless others. I believe my gifts are centered around communication--speaking, teaching, writing, editing. It seems that our culture has lost respect for the written word and is continuing to lose its capacity to engage in meaningful communication. Twitter is to thoughtful communication what Skittles are to fine cuisine. Each has its place, but I’ll save my appetite for the filet mignon, thank you.
SIX
I don’t need another commitment in my life. To quote Bilbo Baggins, I feel like “too little butter spread over too much bread.” I already check email, Facebook, SkyeBox, Out of Ur, voicemail, snail mail, and a number of other websites with obsessive regularity. Frankly, I don’t want another one filling my mind or time.
SEVEN
I’m tired of obeying marketers. I've been urged to Tweet because of its "marketing potential." No offense to those in the marketing profession, but I’d like to know when we collectively decided to make marketers the high priests of our culture? We listen to them like prophets. Every marketer seems to be singing the praises of Twitter and social media. I’m sure they have a legitimate point, but if I did everything based on its marketing potential … well, it would be a sad existence.
EIGHT
Ashton Kutcher. Any community in which he is the most popular person probably isn’t for me. Enough said.
NINE
I suffer from “Terminal Uniqueness.” That’s what my mother calls it. Terminal Uniqueness (T.U.) is a condition that requires one to be immediately skeptical of any popular trend and always find a way to differentiate one’s self from whatever crowd is present at the moment. It is usually fatal.
TEN
I already have a witness. In the 2004 film Shall We Dance, one character had a really insightful bit of dialogue:
We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet … I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things … all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying, “Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.”
We all want our lives to matter, and we believe they only matter if they are noticed by someone. I wonder if this desire for a witness isn’t what fuels a lot of blogs, Facebook, and especially Twitter. We want someone, anyone, to take notice … to care about us … to watch us and by their attention communicate, “You matter. Your life counts.”
If this is one of the hidden motivations behind Twittering, and I think it is, we’re really talking about a spiritual hunger--one that I don’t believe can be satisfied online. Perhaps the most significant reason I don’t Tweet is because I already have a witness for my life--in fact, I have two.
First is my wife. As the quote above points out, our spouse is the person who commits to notice us--the good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things. Amanda has certainly been that for me. She even knows the stuff I would never, ever consider Tweeting about. Any amount of time I might spend on Twitter, as tiny as it may be, would be better spent fostering this connection with my only “witness” who has committed to the whole enchilada.
Second is, of course, God. Psalm 139 says it best:
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
I believe in God’s economy there is not a single thought, feeling, or moment that is lost. There is nothing that is unseen or unrecorded. As a writer the temptation is to record everything that I believe matters in a journal. We believe that things become real when they are external … on paper, published, posted, or preached. It’s actually been a discipline for me to not journal, but to instead trust that God is indeed with me and witnessing every thought and reflection. My ideas are not lost, and my life really does matter--not because someone read it, heard it, saw it, or Tweeted it, but because God is my witness.
p.s. On the advice of a friend I did register a Twitter account (@skye_jethani) so no one could pretend to be me on the site. I did post one Tweet: "You've become a follower of Skye Jethani. Now find out why I don't Tweet (link to this post)."
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 24, 2010 | Comments (46) | TrackBack
March 22, 2010
Jesus and the Health Care Bill
It may cost us a bit more, but our nation has taken a compassionate step in the right direction.
This morning—the day after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the health-care measure—I feel a sense of gladness. I am glad that millions of Americans, many of them children, will have access to health insurance. I am glad that people with pre-existing medical conditions can no longer be denied coverage by insurance companies. And I am also glad that some effort is being made to curtail rising medical expenses, and that certain special interest and business groups will be held to a greater accountability, and that the growing gap between the rich and the poor might be slowed.
I am glad not because I am a Democrat or a Republican but because I think that Jesus, who seemed to take great interest in health issues, is glad. Looking back on his life among people like us, he often acted as a healer. He seemed to delight in curing diseases, restoring disabled people to wholeness, and rewiring damaged minds. You cannot divorce these encounters from the rest of his public ministry. Health-care was in his frame of reference.
My favorite of the Jesus-healing stories is the one where a group of men rip open a roof and lower a friend into the presence of Jesus. I love how the Lord flexed with the moment and used the healing to offer people a vision of holistic health: physical and spiritual. I try to imagine the freshly healed man rolling up his mat and heading out the front door, walking unassisted for the first time in who knows how long.
Then, too, I wonder about all the people (apparently including religious leaders) who had crowded into that house and who’d made it impossible for the man in his original condition of paralysis to get to Jesus in a more conventional way—through the front door. How does it happen that people rationalized, that since they got there first, the suffering guy outside should be left to his own devices?
All of my life I have felt torn between those Christian friends of mine who believe whole-heartedly in healing as a centerpoint of their gospel and those who pray (sometimes benignly) for the health of friends but end up signaling their uncertainty by stating the conditional “if it be thy will.” Is there a third position that mediates between “it’s-always-his-will” and “it’s-probably-not-his-will”? Both extremes seem a tad foolish to me.
In my role as a pastor, there were many occasions when I laid my hands upon a sick person and prayed for healing. I confess that there were some times when I did it simply because it was my job. But in my heart I harbored doubt. Then there were other occasions when I felt a firm conviction about God’s desire and ability to heal, and my prayers were filled with fervor and a faith that affirmed that God could do anything.
Sometimes there seemed to be answers to those prayers of mine. People I prayed for (not necessarily in great numbers) did experience healing: not often of the instant type that Benny Hinn seems to highlight. But I have known people who found their way back from sickness and attributed it to my prayers and the prayers of others. This has not turned me into a so-called faith healer, but it has caused me, as I’ve grown older, to pray more boldly and expectantly when the opportunity has presented itself.
My readings of the life of Jesus convince me that our Lord wants people to be well. As described by the Gospel writers, he often seems disgusted by disease, offended by death. I love to read about those moments when even his better friends wanted to avoid sick people and when they paid more attention to the demands of a schedule than the needs of human beings. On such occasions Jesus would usually cut through the resistance and respond to the cries of someone who was blind or who had a child that was sick, even dying.
I love the moment in Acts 3, when Peter and John approach the Temple and spot a disabled man (from birth) begging. Earlier they wouldn’t have given him the time of day as they hurried on their way. But Jesus had rubbed off on them. Now they noticed the victim. And in this case they tried what they would have resisted trying in the past. They healed the man in the name of Jesus.
I imagine the dilemma of Peter and John as they stand there. I hear them asking how you call Jesus Lord and not ultimately inherit some of his compassion for those who are sick and diseased?
Frankly, that’s the question which has colored my own perspective on the current health-care debate in our country. Like so many others I have often been utterly confused by the arguments and the counter-arguments. I have shrunk from the ugliness of words used by extremists on both sides of the political and ideological divides. I have searched for those who reasoned out the issues with dignity and wisdom. Here and there, I have found them and appreciated them.
In the middle of it, I have come to some conclusions, these being some of them:
1. Any effort that is made to bring health benefits to more people (especially the weak, the poor, the children) is an effort with which I want to identify.
2. Anyone whose argument is based simply on the notion that we cannot afford making medical benefits available to more people does not get my ear. The fact is that our country—we the people—can afford it, even if it means that each of us surrenders a few more bucks that we would have spent on things for ourselves. We just have to conclude that compassion in the face of human need is a greater value than accumulating more stuff.
3. Any initiative that makes it possible for the common person to have the same access to medical science as the rich appear to have is one I want to hear about.
4. And any group that stands up on behalf of our physicians so that they do not have to fear frivolous lawsuits every time they make a diagnosis and propose a treatment is one I want to support.
Beyond the fellow who was lowered through the roof, there are three other people who experienced healing at the hand of Jesus who particularly interest me:
The woman, who for more than a dozen years, exhausted all of her resources trying to find someone to help her with her disease.
The man at the pool of Bethesda who had spent 38 years hoping for a medical miracle but had no one to assist him.
The demoniac of Gadera who epitomizes for me the worst depths to which a human being can sink. In the presence of Jesus he changes from this repulsive condition to one of dignity in which it is said, “he was sitting, clothed, and in his right mind.”
Tell me if this Jesus who sends a chronically ill woman home healed and at peace, who brings a man who has suffered for more than half of his life to wholeness, and who makes it possible for a man to return to his home and family would not be at least reasonably glad that our nation has taken a compassionate step in the right direction this week. I grant you: it may (I’m not sure of this) cost you and me a buck or two extra, but some other people are going to sleep a bit better in coming days, and for that I am glad.
A video summary of yesterday's events in the House of Representatives that captures the rhetoric and tension surrounding health care reform:
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 22, 2010 | Comments (102) | TrackBack
To Tweet, or not to Tweet?
Is Twitter worthy of a pastor's limited time? Here are 3 reasons for and against the medium.
I'm really excited to introduce you to a new Urthling. Jonathan Acuff is the author of the recent book from Zondervan, Stuff Christians Like and the founder of www.stuffchristianslike.net His humorous exploration of the church subculture is a perfect fit for Out of Ur. We're thrilled to welcome him as a regular contributor. His first post is intended to help those of you still debating whether or not Twitter is worth your time.
The other day I told a pastor friend of mine that it was weird that one of the few people he was following on Twitter had a photo of their bikini top for a profile picture.
There are a million different people to follow with a million different profile photos, so to have a bikini bust greet you every time you went to his profile on Twitter was bizarre. I’m not opposed to bikinis, I don’t live and die by its more tasteful cousin, the tankini, but it seemed like a Twitter fumble. He didn’t really know the bikini girl. He didn’t know how he had started following her and he quickly remedied the situation.
But not every Twitter donnybrook is that easy. Not every fiasco gets such a fast resolution when it comes to pastors and this toddler of a medium. (If you’ve never used Twitter, it’s a simple service that lets you write 140 character updates that people who follow you can read and respond to. Think of it as a nano blog.) The question becomes then, “How do you as a leader know if Twitter the right place for you to be?”
I’ve been thinking about that question ever since I started using Twitter to grow the blog I write, stuffchristianslike.net. And I’ve come up with three reasons pastors should be on Twitter and three reasons they shouldn’t.
3 Reasons You Should Be on Twitter
1. You’ve got something to say.
Ugh, what a boring way to start a list, but you would be shocked how many people skip this first, crucial step when it comes to Twitter. If you don’t have anything to say, then don’t feel compelled to tweet. Don’t give into peer pressure, don’t feel like you have to do it just because every other pastor is. I stayed off Twitter for a while because I felt like the sandwiches I ate weren’t that interesting to me, never mind other people. But when I felt like I had something to say I joined. If you’ve got something to say you should too.
2. You are missing considerable chunks of conversation with your community.
When my dad was a pastor in New England, he got involved in little league soccer. Part of the reason was that he had kids who loved soccer. But I think another part of the reason was that it kept him connected to real people in our town. People who would never come to church normally. The same can be true of Twitter. If you have the sense that people in your community are actively involved in Twitter than consider possibly jumping on yourself.
3. You’ve got a project that can benefit from the strength of Twitter.
My friend Matthew Paul Turner summed Twitter up for me, “It’s a community of doers.” By that he meant that if you’re on Twitter, if you regularly use it, then you tend to be prone to action. You’ll click a link, read a blog post, forward on an idea to someone else. It’s a community of people who do things. I found that out last November. With my blog and Twitter, we raised $30,000 in 18 hours to build a kindergarten in Vietnam. No print ads, no traditional marketing or fundraising. Blog posts and tweets was all we used. If you’ve got a project that needs lots of folks to get it accomplished, join Twitter.
3 Reasons You Should Not Be On Twitter
1. You’ve Got Lousy Boundaries in “Real Life”
If you don’t have good social awareness or relational boundaries in real, 3D life, the Internet is going to be a challenge. It’s kind of like guys who go away on business trips and feel like the rules on the road are different than the rules at home. Folks get crazy when they get online. It only takes a tiny spark of over sharing to start a slow burning emotional affair. If you have an inkling you might have some cracks in your armor, at the bare minimum identify some friends who love you enough to ask you tough questions.
2. You’re Going to be a Twitter Taker
It’s always a bummer when people introduce themselves to you by asking you for a favor. We’d never do that in real life. We’d never knock on someone’s door, barge in without even saying our first name and then say, “Hi, I’d like you to tell all your friends that they should trust me and give me their money.” But that happens all the time online. People tweet you and say, “Hey, please forward this or retweet this for me?” But you don’t know them, you don’t know they’re not perpetuating a scam, you don’t know anything. You do know however that you don’t want to be that person. (And I’m pretty sure he has a wispy mustache. Something to think about.)
3. You’ve Got Lousy Time Management Skills
Twitter is free, but it does cost us a lot. Every time you take 30 seconds to tweet, “Me and my kids are watching a movie, I love movie night” you lose a little bit of that day. We don’t know the consequences of constantly being connected. We don’t know what the small bites of space and time will cost us in the long run. There’s not a 50-year precedence to fall back on. So if you feel like you’re going to ignore the very real, very important people and projects that need you in order to be online updating your life, be careful.
I don’t know if Twitter is right for you. It’s still such a young medium that it’s hard to tell whom it’s right for. But in the last two years, it’s allowed me to stay connected to the community I’m part of online. In fact, more than 112,000 visits have come to stuffchristianslike.net, from Twitter. And with some good boundaries, a willingness to give instead of just take and the ability to not tweet every single thing that happens to me, I think I just might stay on Twitter. And maybe you should too. (If you do, follow me @prodigaljohn, I’ll never wear a bikini in my profile photo. Promise.)
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 22, 2010 | Comments (5) | TrackBack
March 18, 2010
Review: Brian McLaren's 'A New Kind of Christianity'
Has McLaren answered his critics or simply given them more ammunition?
Scot McKnight, a regular contributor to Ur, has written a review of Brian McLaren's latest book for Christianity Today. McLaren and his ideas have been the subject of much debate in recent years. Does A New Kind of Christianity pacify his critics or add more fuel to their fire? McKnight has a breakdown of the book's strengths and weaknesses, but in the end finds McLaren's perspective a rehash of established liberal theology.
A New Kind of Christianity shows us that Brian, though he is now thinking more systemically, has fallen for an old school of thought. I read this book carefully, and I found nothing new. It may be new for Brian, but it's a rehash of ideas that grew into fruition with Adolf von Harnack and now find iterations in folks like Harvey Cox and Marcus Borg. For me, Brian's new kind of Christianity is quite old. And the problem is that it's not old enough.
Read the full review at ChristianityToday.com.
You can also read Brian McLaren's response to Scot McKnight's review on his blog.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 18, 2010 | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 16, 2010
Who Are the De-Churched? (Part 1)
Some are leaving the church because they've received a false gospel. Others are leaving because they've found the real one.
In days gone by, missional efforts were focused on presenting and demonstrating the love of Christ to non-Christians. But in the 1980s a new term was coined to describe the growing number of North Americans without any significant church background. They were called the unchurched. Untold numbers of books were written about them. Ministry conferences discussed them. Church leaders orchestrated worship services to attract them.
The shift from “evangelizing non-Christians” to “reaching the unchurched” was perceived as benign at the time, but it represented an important shift in our understanding of mission. The church was no longer just a means by which Christ’s mission would advance in the world, it was also the end of that mission. The goal wasn’t simply to introduce the unchurched to Christ, but—as the term reveals—to engage them in a relationship with the institutional church. This paved the way for the ubiquitous (but flawed) belief today that “mission” is synonymous with “church growth.” (Another post for another day.)
Well, another new term is on the rise and gaining attention among evangelicals in North America. Those without a past relationship to the church are called unchurched, but there are many with significant past church involvement who are exiting. They are the de-churched.
Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church near Dallas, explains the de-churched phenomenon in this short video:
Essentially, Chandler attributes the exodus of young people to the proclamation (explicitly or implicitly) of a false gospel of “moralistic deism.” This understanding of the Christian life says that if you obey God’s rules he will bless you with what you desire. This represents a form of the prosperity gospel which saturates the Texas soil where Chandler pastors, but it’s also popular beyond the Deep South. (How many teens have been told that abstinence will be rewarded by God with great sex within marriage?)
The problem arises when God’s blessing doesn’t come—or doesn’t come in the form we want. Divorce, illness, poor grades, failed relationship—virtually any hardship has the potential to destroy one’s faith in Christ and the church that represents him. So, according to Chandler, people walk away. They enter the ranks of the de-churched.
I think Chandler is right—but only half.
There is another group within the de-churched population that has not held to a false gospel of morality, and they haven’t walked away from faith in Christ. These Christians have simply lost confidence in the institutional structures and programmatic trappings of the church. For them the institutional church is not an aid in their faith and mission. Rather it’s become a drain on time, resources, and energy. It feels like a black hole with a gravitation pull so strong that not even the light of the gospel can escape its organizational appetite.
As I’ve traveled and encountered de-churched Christians, including some friends, I’ve found they tend to fall into three categories. (These are generalizations, as all categories are, but they may prove helpful.)
1. The Relationally De-Churched
These Christians have come to recognize that human beings are the vessels of God’s Spirit and not organizations. They may have first engaged the institutional church because they longed for meaningful relationships with other followers of Christ. They may have joined a small group or found a tight network of friends through whom they lived out the “one another” commands in Scripture.
But over time it dawned on them—This small group is really my church. These are the people I am living out the gospel with. Why do we need the big institution? Ironically, a number of house churches have started as megachurch-spawned small groups—a trend even documented by Time magazine back in 2006 and currently seen in the “Organic Church” movement.
Ultimately the relationally de-churched leave the institution because the programs proved less effective at fostering faith and love than relationships with actual people. And the authenticity they crave and experience in their small group eclipses the relative shallowness of the wider church. Let’s face it—authenticity becomes more difficult the larger a group becomes. But it’s worth noting that these folks haven’t abandoned the church theologically, they’ve just redefined it apart from the 501c3 organization we culturally identity as a “church.”
2. The Missionally De-Churched
“If the church were doing the work God appointed it to do, there would be no parachurch organizations.” Have you heard that one before? It’s a popular defense I heard many times while serving with a campus ministry in college—and there is some truth to it despite the self-righteous cheekiness.
If the relationally de-churched abandon the institutional church because they desire authenticity, the missionally de-churched leave because they are die-hard activists. They are driven to see the world impacted by the gospel whether via evangelism, compassion, justice, or other facet of God’s restorative work. They may become frustrated that the institutional church spends enormous amounts of energy and resources maintaining itself rather than advancing the mission.
I’ve had a few friends deeply involved in such parachurch groups confess that “even though we don’t take communion or baptize, in every other regard the ministry functions as my church.”
3. The Transformationally De-Churched
Last spring we published an issue of Leadership Journal which included an article by John Burke, pastor of Gateway Church in Austin. Gateway is comprised of many recovering addicts, and as a result the church has incorporated a lot of recovery group values into its community—rigorous honesty, acceptance, dependency on God, and grace. But Gateway is an exception. Many churches give these values lip-service, but few are able to instill them into the culture.
In that same issue of Leadership, Matt Russell wrote about the year he spent interviewing de-churched people in his community. He wrote:
Most people left church not because they had a deep theological problem with something like the virgin birth or the resurrection of Christ. They left because people in the church have the tendency to be small and mean and couldn’t deal honestly with their own sins or the sin of others. As one man put it, “People in the church were more invested in the process of being right than in the process of being honest.”
Russell spent a lot of time with de-churched people in recovery from drugs, alcohol, sex addiction, eating disorders, and gambling. The level of healing and transformation many of them experienced in their recovery groups was far greater than what they ever knew in the church. I’ve spoken with a number of men who have experienced significant life transformation via a parachurch men’s ministry in my area. They’ve expressed to me “that this is what the church is supposed to be doing.” When deep life change happen outside the church, it can make you second guess the church’s vital role and, like Matt Russell’s interviewees, drop out altogether.
So, where does this leave us? On one side the de-churched are leaving because they’ve received a false gospel that made promises God has failed to fulfill. On the other side are deeply committed Christians who are finding more meaningful authenticity, mission, and transformation outside the institutional structures of the church. What is the church supposed to do?
That’s the question I’ll address in Part 2. Until then, you’ll want to check out this video about the “Why Church?” contest we’re holding as part of the 12 Cities 12 Conversations tour in partnership with the Lausanne Movement:
Answer "Why Church" and Go To NYC from ConversationGatherings on Vimeo.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 16, 2010 | Comments (37) | TrackBack
March 12, 2010
Worship with Muslims and Jews?
Bob Roberts calls for more interfaith dialogue without minimizing our Christian beliefs.
The pastor who coined the word “glocal” to describe his church’s approach to missions has led his Texas congregation to visit new territories: the synagogue and mosque down the street. In January, NorthWood Church in Keller, Texas, worshipped with Temple Shalom of Dallas and the Islamic Center of Irving in three services that highlighted the differences and similarities among the religions.
“The basis of coming together is not to minimize our beliefs but to hold onto our beliefs and make clear our beliefs,” Pastor Bob Roberts said. “But also it’s to say that the best of our beliefs calls us to get along with one another.”
After members of the three groups each visited the others’ worship services, Roberts and the leaders of the Jewish and Muslim congregations answered questions about their faiths.
Roberts, whose church has been described as “sort of Baptist,” expected criticism for the interfaith dialogue.
“The old conversation of interfaith basically said if we all agree on everything, then we can get along. So what we need to do is minimize our differences and only talk about what we do agree upon,” Roberts said. “But there’s a problem with that. If I’m going to be a committed Muslim, I can’t pick and choose which parts of the Quran I believe. Or a Jew, for the Torah. Because truth is truth. Truth is not relative. Multifaith says ‘we have differences.’ It says ‘I don’t want to try to be politically correct; I want to be honest about what I believe; I want to hold true to my faith. I want to build relationship on honesty.’”
Do you agree with Roberts? And should more churches be seeking alliances with neighboring congregations of other faiths while holding on to their doctrinal differences?
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 12, 2010 | Comments (35) | TrackBack
March 9, 2010
How Not to Talk about Justice
If you hear "social justice" at your church, Glenn Beck says "Run!" There is another option.
Back in January I wrote a post on “The Battle Lines Over Justice.” As more evangelicals are rediscovering the sections of the Bible that highlight God’s compassion for the broken and abused in this world, there is a fearful response by some that we will slide down the “slippery slope” of liberalism into a social gospel and evangelicals (particularly the younger breed) will abandon the cross of Christ. To prevent this repeat of history, some have their ear to the rail prepared to warn the faithful at the first hints of a justice train coming down the line.
I concluded that earlier post with this caution:
Is the stage being set for another church rift in the 21st century paralleling what happen 100 years ago? Are you feeling the tremors in your church of a conflict over the scope of the gospel and the proper role of social justice? And where are you turning for informed theological reflection on this subject? How we address this controversy, and not simply which side we land on, may impact the evangelical world for decades.
I’ve been trying to faithfully inform the members of my congregation about church history, the scope of the gospel (as it relates to their lives and all of creation), and what Scripture says about justice. I’ve been trying to offer informed theological reflection and create room for dialogue and understanding. In other words, I’ve been trying to avoid the name calling, paranoia, and finger-wagging rhetoric that too often accompanies the social justice issue in evangelical circles.
And then today I read that Glenn Beck, the conservative talk radio host and chalkboard wielding Fox New Channel star, begged Christians to “run as fast as you can” from their church if they encounter the words “social justice.”
Here’s the full quote:
I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes.
What is “social justice” a code word for, you may ask? According to Beck—Communism and Nazism.
I’m not in the least bit interested in debating the beliefs, methods, or sanity of Glenn Beck. But I am most interested in how the church engages this issue of social justice and its role in the life and mission of God’s people. And unfortunately the fear mongering evident in Beck’s statement is not unlike what I’ve heard from some Christians. What Beck demonstrates is how not to handle the tensions arising over justice.
But how should we handle it? I’d like to offer a more edifying alternative.
Today, March 9, I will be moderating a panel at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis to discuss—informatively, civilly, and biblically—the role of social justice among evangelicals. On the panel will be:
Dr. Bryan Chapell—president of Covenant Seminary and author of Christ Centered Preaching.
Darrin Patrick—lead pastor of The Journey and vice president of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network.
Doug Birdsall—executive vice president of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization.
Jim Belcher—pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (Newport Beach, CA) and author of Deep Church.
Dr. Wes Stafford—president of Compassion International.
This is one of 12 conversations being hosted in 12 cities in the coming months on this subject. I am hopeful that these conversations will not only inform the church about the proper role of justice in our mission, but also model for thousands of believers how to talk about the issue in a constructive and loving way. You can expect to hear more about this subject in the coming month both on Ur and in the pages of Leadership.
Until then, go to www.12cities12conversations.com to learn more.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 9, 2010 | Comments (50) | TrackBack
March 5, 2010
Ur Video: Greg Boyd on Hell
Can we know who is, and who is not, going to hell?
Our dive into damnation continues with Greg Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills Church. After explaining our human tendency toward poor self-assessment, and our need to be in a right relationship with God, Boyd says, "I don't know who's going to heaven and who's going to hell. It's not for me to judge.... I can't say, and I don't think anyone can say, that so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so, are or are not saved."
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 5, 2010 | Comments (45) | TrackBack
March 3, 2010
Holy Holograms!
Forget video preaching, holographic technology is coming to the church sooner than you think.
Clark, a media technology company that supplies churches, is pioneering holographic technology that can create a life-size, three dimensional projection of a preacher on a platform. Blogger Tony Morgan was given a preview at Clark’s offices near Atlanta. He writes, “Pricing is coming down quickly to the point that I won’t be surprised if we see this technology implemented in churches within the next 12 months.”
Morgan took a photo of himself standing beside the holographic preacher.
What do you think? Like Morgan do you “love these days we live in,” or bemoan the loss of incarnate ministry? If the technology was affordable, would you consider it for your ministry?
**UPDATE**
This week film critic Roger Ebert, who has been unable to speak since cancer surgery removed his throat in 2006, debuted his "new voice" on the Oprah show. The technology uses past recordings of Ebert's voice to construct a digital replication. Whatever he types is read aloud by the computer in a voice remarkably like his own.
The technology is still under development, but if combined with the holographic images being developed by Clark, this could be the solution to the succession dilemma facing many megachurches. Andy Stanley may well be the teaching pastor at North Point well into the 22nd century.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 3, 2010 | Comments (51) | TrackBack
March 1, 2010
Mark Driscoll: Avatar "Most Satanic Movie I've Ever Seen"
Is James Cameron's blockbuster film something the church should be fighting?
Move over Rob Bell--Mark Driscoll has a new nemesis: Avatar. The blockbuster movie has been condemned by the pugnacious preacher as "demonic paganism" for it's portrayal of a "false Jesus" and a "false heaven." Driscoll said, "That any Christian could watch that without seeing the overt demonism is beyond me." He also blasts Christianity Today's (Out of Ur's parent company) review of Avatar.
Our colleague at CT Movies, Mark Moring, has reported on Driscoll's rant against the film, and he's summarized responses from thoughtful Christian bloggers. You should check out his post.
Do you think Driscoll's characterization of the film is accurate, or is he guilty of poor cultural exegesis? Should we be warning Christians about the demonic power behind the blue animists on the fictional planet of Pandora, or is this just another example of Christians fighting the wrong battles?
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 1, 2010 | Comments (52) | TrackBack
Chris Seay: Don't Begin with Morality
What role should the proclamation of moral standards have in our evangelization?
In the current issue of our digizine, Catalyst Leadership, there is a video of Chris Seay talking about his ministry among transvestite prostitutes in Houston.
"If Jesus were in Houston, Texas, today this is where he would be," says Seay, "and his focus would not begin with morality."
Do you agree? Check out the full video and sign up for a free subscription at CatalystLeadershipDigital.com.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at March 1, 2010 | Comments (3) | TrackBack
