9/11 was a weird day for me. I was a sophomore in high school at the time, and as soon as I heard that a plane had crashed into the first tower, I distinctly remember thinking to myself, Oh God, I hope it wasn’t Arabs. I’m three-fourths Palestinian and at times have a distinctly Arab cast to me. My last name is Rishmawy. Admittedly it was a selfish thought, but I just didn’t see that going well for me in high school. And I was right.

That afternoon in football practice, upon discovering that I was of Arab descent—a “Palestilian” according to one educated linguist on the team—a teammate of mine took it upon himself to spear me in the back. Twice. For those of you who’ve never played, that sort of thing hurts. Thankfully, my coach caught on quickly and put an end to that. Still, for the next few years I was lovingly called “dune-coon,” “sand-n****r,” “Taliban,” “Osama,” and so on by a good chunk of my teammates and friends. And yes, I do mean lovingly. It was wrong, and I don’t really get it, but for some reason racial slurs were a way of bonding in the locker room. Still, it grated on me at times.

As frustrating and awkward as being an Arab high-schooler in post–9/11 America could be at times, given garden-variety prejudices, fears, and ignorance, none of those slurs frustrated me as much as what some of my well-meaning, evangelical brothers and sisters ignorantly implied: that I and my entire ethnic heritage were an unfortunate mistake—Abraham’s mistake to be exact.

Anatomy of a mistake: Ishmael the Arab

The first time I was struck by that thought, I was working the front counter at a gym in college. At the time, plenty of the regulars knew I was a Christian and a number were Christians themselves, so we’d chat sometimes about faith, life, and the Bible. In one such front-counter chat, the subject of the end times and the Middle East conflict came up and my lovely, kindhearted brother said something to the effect of, “If it weren’t for Abraham’s mistake with Ishmael, this whole business could have been avoided.” I’d like to say that was the only time I’d heard something in that vein, but it wasn’t. In fact, you can hear the same thing implied at churches on Sundays, in Bible studies, and on second-rate Bible and prophecy blogs.

People are everywhere. You know what I mean? I can’t seem to get away from them. Take downtown Portland for instance. Downtown Portland is full of them. It is like walking through an anthill or living inside a pinball machine. Bodies everywhere.

Most of the bodies don’t even know I am there. They are content with the companionship of their agenda or their handheld mobile device, so I return the favor.

Okay, here’s the deal. I don’t even remember his name. Truth be told, I don’t think I ever took the time to learn his name. This is just the beginning of my sickness… I mean… well, more on that later.

I was downtown. It was maybe 8:30pm on a Thursday evening. I had managed to find street parking (score!) just a few blocks away from Jake’s Grill on Tenth Street (not to be confused with Jake’s Famous Crawfish, which is up on Twelfth). I was hurrying to meet my friend Wilson.

It was a lovely evening, warm, and the streets were hopping. I was on my cell phone chatting with an old roommate from college named James. We hadn’t spoken in years and we were getting caught up. I passed the culinary school and came to the corner just across from Jake’s. The grill is situated on the Northwest corner of the old Governor Hotel, a beautiful landmark just ten blocks from the Willamette River. As I strode onto the sidewalk, I could see Wilson through the window. I waved with my free hand and prepared to enter the brass and glass doorway.

Before I could reach the handle a tall figure suddenly blocked my path. He was a few inches taller than me with scraggly blonde hair and a soiled red flannel. His hand was extended and his eyes were pleading.

“Hold on a second,” I said to James.

“What do you want?” I asked tersely but politely to the gangly man.
“Do you have a dollar?” he replied.
“A what?”
“A dollar.”
“What do you want a dollar for?”
“I’m hungry.”

Phil sings the theme song by impersonating Yoda. London opens it's first church for atheists. And what do Tim Tebow, the Southern Baptists, and The Boy Scouts have in common?

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When people encounter new things, their first tendency is to fit them into existing categories. If truth be told, most of us shy away from strange and unusual things that don’t fit our expectations. It reminds me of a Northerner who ate his first tamale by peeling down the husk and eating it like a banana. I saw another try to actually eat the corn husk with a knife and fork! If we don’t know better, we’ll draw wrong conclusions about the true nature of things based on personal experiences or cultural norms.

The Bible portrays the church as something strange and unusual. But many Christians approach the local church in ways that conform more to the patterns of the world than to the pattern of God’s Word. Like mad scientists piecing together a monster from countless incompatible pieces without a clear pattern or guiding principle, too many Christians today have re-created the church after their own imaginations, according to their own likes and dislikes. Clustered around this mutant creature falsely called “church,” proponents propagate four common myths that help keep the beast alive—four untruths that have become so accepted by many evangelicals that they believe them without question. But the time has come to refute the myths and slay the monster, replacing it with a corporate body reflecting marks and works of authenticity and created according to God’s image for the church.

Myth 1: The church is merely a human organization

Though comprised of humans, the church itself is not merely a human organization. Jesus Christ is the head of the church, and the church is mystically his spiritual and physical body on earth (Eph. 1:22–23; 5:23; Col. 1:18). While we may distinguish the spiritual and physical aspects of the church, we must never separate them. Too often evangelicals have divorced the spiritual, heavenly, invisible, and eternal church from its physical, earthly, visible, historical manifestation. The result has been to treat local, visible churches as merely human organizations rather than as unique conduits through which God works his heavenly, spiritual purposes in history. Such dichotomizing has allowed Christians to treat their churches as they treat other human organizations—like a political party or a club.

In the world’s political realm, if we don’t like what our party stands for or if we lose confidence in its candidates, we just run against them, vote them out, or change the platform. If things get too bad, we can join another party or start our own. But in 1 Corinthians 3:3–4, Paul reprimands the church for taking sides and forming parties.

Neither should we treat the church like a club, with members who direct the organization according to the will of the majority. These Latin words are engraved in the Minnesota state capitol building: VOX POPULI, VOX DEI—“The Voice of the People Is the Voice of God.” Many Christians act like the church should be run by majority rule. However, after Israel demanded a king “like all the nations” to rule over them (1 Sam. 8:20), God told his prophet Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king” (8:22). By listening to the voice of the people, Israel ended up with just what they asked for: a king like the nations’ rather than a king of God’s own choosing. In the case of King Saul, the voice of the people was not the voice of God.

There is something supernatural about the church. It’s made up of people who have otherwise nothing in common. It’s not united by political constitutions, common interest, or corporate bylaws. It’s united by the Spirit of God around the person and work of Jesus Christ pursuing a common mission in the world.

Gallup’s latest State of the States research is in. There are no real surprises here for religion analysts, with Bible Belt states ranking highest in religious engagement, and the top corners of the U.S. (New England and Cascadia) ranking lowest. (If that ever changes, trust us...we’ll tell you.) But as you glance through this research, consider what the statistics aren’t showing you.

For Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport’s video analysis, click here.

These numbers are familiar, with only minor changes from recent years. But the bird’s eye view they give us can make it easy to miss their impact on ministry.

As an example, my native state (Oregon) is tied with Rhode Island for fifth least religious state, which sounds about right. But having lived in multiple settings across the state, I’ve seen ministry dynamics change dramatically after a drive of only a few miles.

As well, while few Oregonians identify as “very religious,” if you changed the term to “very spiritual,” the numbers would go through the roof. Sure, our spiritual culture is vastly different from, say, suburban Illinois, but it exists, and it is not always as hostile to the church as stereotypes would tell us.

The numbers are useful, but they don’t tell the whole story. So, I want to hear from you.

It’s a potluck podcast! Skye talks about his “top secret” meeting in Washington DC and his trip to the Naval Academy before the gang takes a whirlwind tour through Christian rollerskating, fruitcake in the Ozarks, Valentine’s Day, Pope news and TV preachers. Phil wraps it up with his worst summary song ever. Seriously.

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Face it, folks: the beard is back in a big way. Along with celebrities, bike messengers, and your local barista, pastors are no exception to the glories of facial hair.

The ministry beard has a long and glorious history among preachers, theologians, and everyday men of the cloth. A skilled observer can identify nuances of theology, polity, and diet from a pastor's beard. Now you can too! A carefully groomed beard can make a powerful spiritual statement, and we’re here to interpret for you.

Here’s a handy taxonomy to help you identify ministry beards in their natural habitats. (We apologize for the omission of ladies from this list.)

Please copy and share this handy guide with any other beard-spotters who would benefit from it.

As many of you have heard, Native activist and theologian Richard Twiss died suddenly last Saturday. Twiss was a powerful leader, a challenging theologian, a pastor at heart, and one of the best men I’ve ever met.

Others closer to Richard have reflected on his contributions to indigenous peoples and to the church. If you’re not familiar with his life or work, you need to do some catch up—it’s well worth your time.

I knew him, but only as a dot in his peripheral vision: first as a pimply college student introduced to him in passing at a Portland university; then as a face in the crowd during speeches and community workshops; later as a handshake and a few jokes at a conference coffee station; finally, as a name in his email inbox asking him to tell his story for Leadership’s pastoral audience. Another email I sent (an hour before he collapsed in Washington, DC) asked for advice on how to connect pastors with their local Native communities in sensitive and empowering ways. I’m genuinely grieved that that message will never receive his reply.

Central to Richard’s life and ministry was the drive to walk in the path of Jesus as a proud and faithful Native man. He challenged the institutional church with his bold and joyful worship of triune Creator through his traditional dances and ceremonies, and with his sharp theology that refused to allow the “cowboys” to co-opt the gospel. He had a vision of a Christ-sprung justice that joyfully drummed down racial barriers. He was bold in speaking the truth, often blending cultural confrontation with a dark, hilarious sense of humor that lightened a room while twitching the truth just a little deeper into our ribs.

But there is so much left to do. The global church, for all its strides forward, is crippled by ignorance, by remnants of colonial folly and oppression that cling to the gospel and poison its truth in the mouths of indigenous peoples on every continent. Richard was right—the gospel we preach is far too often that “the old is gone, all things must become white.”

Phil and Skye talk about Super Bowl commercials and pastors behaving poorly in Applebee’s. Then they’re joined by author/researcher David Kinnaman for a fascinating discussion about Christians and their views on religious freedom in America. Finally, Phil summarizes with a song. It doesn’t go so well.

David Kinnaman is the president and majority owner of Barna Group. He is the author of the bestselling books, You Lost Me and unChristian.

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One of the best discussions I’ve had in a long time happened on Facebook over the weekend. It was a discussion about the ‘dreaded’ issue of Christianity, the church, and LGBTQ sexual relations. The discussion started with my statement which was something like:

To the question, “What is your position on LGBTQ?” I think the best answer (in these times) is “we have no position” The question itself misses the point of any other answer? Agree?

To which I got good fruitful pushback from all sides. I was “abnegating!” I was doing the equivalent of “standing aside and being silent during the civil rights movement.” “There is no neutral on this!” some said. From this discussion, I came away with four points that need clarifying as to how/why someone would say “I have no position.” These four points push us as Christians (no matter what sexual issues we are involved in at this time) toward a new posture regarding alternative sexualities that opens doors for mission and God’s Kingdom to break in.

1) TO DECLARE A “POSITION” (PUBLICLY) FORECLOSES THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION.

By taking a non-position to this question, we are not feigning neutrality. We are refusing to either single out a particular person’s sexual brokenness as an issue above others, or act like there is no sexual brokenness at all in any of us. Instead, our position is that we are ALL in some way or another sexually broken and moving toward maturity in Christ, and this means that we all submit our brokenness to the healing and reconciling work of Christ in the context of Christian community?

When we take “positions,” we buy into anti-relational dynamics which thwart God’s Kingdom We see people as categories rather than individuals. Conceptualizing distances us from the people Christ loves. By refusing to make an aprior judgment against anyone, we are in essence saying the only prejudgment is that we are all sexually broken and we come seeking redemption. And if you are sexually whole and have no need for redemption, you are blessed. But we who are broken come as real people in real situations to submit together to what God is doing in and among us. This to me is the opening of space for God’s Kingdom to break in on any issue.

2) TO DECLARE A POSITION (PUBLICLY) REINFORCES SEXUALITY AS AN IDENTITY MARKER.

This week’s podcast discusses a new opera about the last days of, um, Walt Disney, plus the surprising number of Americans who believe God influences the outcomes of sporting events. An atheist mom in Texas asks Christians to keep their religion to themselves, and, what’s this – a prominent gay rights activist and Chick-fil-A have become best friends?!? Is it a sign of the apocalypse?!? Phil, Skye, and Christian also share their favorite books from the last year.

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I grew up in a conservative home, as a preacher's kid, the oldest of eight children. I was raised to be "pro-life." In my family that meant vehemently opposing abortion in all forms.

I walked the picket lines outside our local women's clinic every year as a child, carrying a sign that read, "Abortion Kills Children." Every time someone would drive by, roll down their windows and scream obscenities or flip us off, we felt like martyrs.

Those picketing days were the same Sunday every year. The church would be packed for the sermon on the sanctity of life. We'd all get fired up, go hold our signs, sing some hymns, then exchange stories of persecution over pizza. Afterwards, we'd retreat back to our safe, Christian homes. The message I received during this time (not in my own home, but around Christendom in general) was how evil those women who got abortions were. They were selfish . . . under the control of Satan . . . all liberals . . . they hated God . . . they were ushering in the destruction of America.

It might sound as if I'm disappointed with those chapters of my early life. Perhaps that's part of it, but I realize that was just my culture. The real sadness I have is this:

It wasn't until I was 23 that I actually met someone who'd had an abortion.