If you woke up and the world had been transformed into a super-nerd dystopia where a demigod-Patton Oswalt forced you to choose only the best superhero to preserve from 100 years of American comics, you would choose Superman.

Sure, the more educated nerd-palate prefers a hero who is less of a boy-scout. (Batman is my pick.) After all, Superman is a little goody-goody. He ALWAYS does the right thing. He has the most complete set of powers: flight, x-ray vision, super strength, etc. He’s invincible, except for the whole kryptonite thing.

You would not tell demigod-Patton Oswalt that the ideal superhero for cultural preservation was Jesus Christ. Being honest, Jesus is actually a terrible superhero. Even if you give him the whole walking-on-water and miraculous healing thing, that doesn't give you much to work with when Lex Luthor decides to blow up the sun or Darkseid starts a zombie apocalypse. Apart from the Ascension, Jesus can't even fly. So there's nothing he can do about the whole exploding sun fiasco. And re: the zombie apocalypse? Can he go around healing the zombies? No, no no. That's not going to help. They will make more zombies. Someone has to stop Luthor and Darkseid. Someone needs to strap them to a meteor and toss them out into space. At least in the comic books, that will solve the problem.

Even if you narrow your scope to Biblical heroes Jesus isn't the coolest from a nerd’s point of view. Sampson is probably the best biblical hero. He's at least got super strength. I could see David having a spin-off giant killing mini-series that would connect with the right demographic. But Jesus never kills any giants. He doesn't bust open heads with a donkey's jaw-bone. When he gets the chance to do something big in front of a crowd, he just makes lunch. I guess he could open a catering business but that's not going to stop invading hoards of Philistines.

Most Christians are familiar with the Messianic expectation of the Hebrew people. It’s not that the Messiah for God's people wasn't supposed to be awesome. He was. Before Jesus showed up people were anticipating someone who could single-handedly take down the Roman empire. The Messiah was supposed to be “bad ass.”

The problem is, Jesus is not “bad ass.”

“What’s with the face paint?”

I got the question a dozen times from the men in my church. It was a Friday evening in spring. They stood around a fire, bemused and slightly nervous as I painted black and red stripes on their cheeks and noses.

“In some cultures,” I said, “the men carve a scar in their arm for every man they kill. Some high school guys put a notch in their belt for every girl they sleep with. I’m putting a stripe on your face for every child you have.” One color for children outside the womb, a different color for pre-borns.

Their expressions were not so nervous after that.

Most cultures worldwide practice rites-of-passage and coming of age rituals. The Bar Mitzvah. The Masai lion hunt. Poy Sang Long in Burma. The Hispanic Quinceañera. The Aboriginal walkabout. Sheijin Shiki in Japan. The Amish Rumspringa. A Native American vision quest. Vanuatu land diving. Hamar cow jumping. You get the point.

In America, though, the transition from child to adult is much more ambiguous. We recognize certain “rites,” such as a first shave, getting the driver’s license, our high school graduations, fraternity hazing, our “first” drink when we turn 21. But these are practiced inconsistently, and most are either not intentional or not edifying. Neither do they set up a boy’s journey into manhood as a particularly sacred or honorable thing.

As a result of growing up in American culture, with rituals the way they are (or aren’t), I now find myself married for almost five years, two months shy of my 30th birthday, expecting my first child in just over a month, working a full-time counseling job with benefits, and holding a masters degree. And most days I still feel like a kid. Put another way, I’ve worked hard to get where I am, but I still don’t feel like I fit in with other grown-up men.

What happened to me? What is happening to boys in our nation who are expected to become “manly” men? Boys like me are raised, hopefully with a father figure, then pushed out into the world with the anomalous directive, “Be a man.” We’re not told clearly when we’ll have achieved that goal. We’re told in the most general terms what being a man is—strong, decisive, godly, head of the household, breadwinner. Then we suddenly find ourselves as fathers responsible for teaching our boys how to be men and our daughters how to be women. But we’ve barely figured it out ourselves.

Enjoy this post from former Obama faith staffer Michael Wear. Be sure to also read Ur’s recent interview with Michael.

-Paul

Today, partnership—a simple, benign idea in general—is perhaps one of the most counter-cultural concepts in practice. Division and polarization are now common themes in our lives. This is certainly true in our nation’s Capitol, where our politics is too often characterized by seemingly institutionalized gridlock and partisanship that prevents action on the issues that matter most. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we know that this spirit is not just confined to Washington. In our culture, our media, even our relationships, we often find it easier to retreat to spaces that only reaffirm our existing beliefs, rather than sincerely seeking to understand the perspective of those with whom we may disagree.

I served the President during a time of great change and challenge in this country, but I left with a greater sense of optimism and hope for our future than when I began. Through my work at The White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, I learned about the incredible power and potential of partnership.

Here's the latest entry in the ongoing "Stupid Church Tricks" series, and it's a doozy of a youth outreach music video.

Totally oblivious? Utterly offensive? Epic incarnational ministry? What say you? While there's some serious doubt if this is even real, it's hard for me to paint this one as fake.

If real, my first inclination is to wonder exactly how disconnected a church has to be to let this make it from "hey, I have an idea!" to YouTube. But in fairness, they're trying...something.

Warning: it will get stuck in your head.

While looking for distracting music, I was confronted with destructive hatred.

I'm observing two distinct and unhelpful reactions to the apparent Jihadist terrorism that has struck my city. The first is the xenophobic, racial, and even religious hatred of my Muslim neighbors. The other is the willful ignorance of the religious connection to these terrorists acts—the blind assumption that all religions are created equal. Neither is good. Neither is truthful. And more importantly, neither is Christ-like.

It is obvious to the liberal mind that hatred of our Muslim neighbors is wrong. It is not obvious to the liberal mind that one can observe what is immoral in one religion without hating all of its people, being a racist, a bigot, or a backwards fundamentalist—a favorite straw man of our time. This is why the liberal mind (and the conservative mind, for that matter) must experience a change of mind. Christians must have Christian minds.

So how are we to think about our Muslim neighbors? About Islam? Even about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? 

Written before the Boston bombings, here is a sobering meditation on our death-celebrating culture. The sympathetic response to the Boston attacks from traditional U.S. adversaries including Cuba, Russia, and even the Taliban, offers an interesting recent angle on Kyle’s point.

-Paul

When I first learned about the tragic suicide of Rick Warren’s son, the bottom dropped out of my stomach. Memories of a friend who had taken his own life were yanked back to the front of my mind. I remembered the anger, the sorrow, the unanswered questions, even guilt that I felt. Even though the Warrens were strangers, I grieved with them. I felt connected to them through the common experience of suffering and a common hope in the Lord. I was encouraged by the outpouring of empathy for them I saw on Twitter and Facebook, forming a network of love around the Warren family.

But I soon learned that my feelings weren’t shared by everyone. Shortly after the tragedy, Rick Warren posted this on Facebook: “Grieving is hard. Grieving as public figures, harder. Grieving while haters celebrate your pain, hardest.” I was shocked. Who could these hate-mongers be? What kind of fringe lunatics would target a man as he mourned his son? A quick web search yielded a sickening reality. Angry bloggers and commenters were using the tragedy to attack Warren’s pastoral leadership, his view of marriage, his belief in a loving God, and more. What disturbed me even more was how mainstream some of these voices were.

I was equally shocked by the commentary surrounding the death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Her time in office may have been divisive, but while some news stories focused on her legacy, a large portion of the coverage zeroed in on activists rejoicing her death. These people waved signs reading “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead,” like triumphant victors in a parade. I’ve attended a few wakes, where friends and family gather over good food and drink to share stories and memories of the deceased, all in celebration of their life. But these images of wild dancing, flowing champagne, and crazed smiles reflected something different: a celebration of death that stemmed from hatred.

D.A. Carson is the author and editor of numerous books and commentaries. Since 1978, he has taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, currently serving as research professor of New Testament. Dr. Carson is also the co-founder of The Gospel Coalition. Dr. Carson was kind enough to stop by for some questions about The Gospel Coalition, Christian higher education, and his latest book, Jesus, the Son of God.

You recently released a book, Jesus, the Son of God. Why the emphasis on son-ship for pastors and theologians today?

The title “the Son of God” is one that is repeatedly applied to the Lord Jesus, so there is a perennial responsibility to understand it. There are two factors that make this responsibility more urgent at the present time. First, sometimes the world of biblical interpretation and the world of systematic theology do not mesh very well. In this instance, how do we move from the various uses of “Son of God” in the Bible to the meaning of “Son of God” in Trinitarian theology? There are important ways of making the connections, but not many Christians these days have thought them through. To restore such knowledge is a stabilizing thing, and an incentive to worship. Second, certain voices are suggesting that we can do away with “Son of God” and other familial terms in new translations for Muslim converts. In my view this is both bad linguistics and bad theology, and needs to be challenged.

You're one of the founders of the Gospel Coalition. As you approach the sixth year of its existence, what do you see as the future for the organization and for the "Young, Restless, Reformed" movement?

Every Sunday for the past few weeks, I have set my DVR to record the History Channel’s new miniseries The Bible. Chances are, you’ve been watching too—the first episode had 13.1 million viewers. After a lifetime of having to endure “artistic” retellings of biblical narratives, from “The Ten Commandments” to “Godspell,” I sat down to watch the first episode with reasonable trepidation.

But I was pleasantly surprised. True, the series neglected some fairly important stories (the life of Joseph comes to mind), but it also included insightful nuances that had me rechecking my own Bible, like when the angels blinded the crowd in Sodom to allow the escape of Lot and his family. As the series has progressed, the unfortunate divergences from the original text have increased. Still, it earnestly drives home the major points of the grand biblical story: the Fall, God’s covenant with Israel, Israel’s repeated rebellion and punishment, and the Messianic prophecies fulfilled in Jesus.

My own mixed reception is expressed in the more polarized attitudes of other viewers. Some find the series’ errors damning; others are willing to look past radical omissions for the sake of its evangelistic potential. But I’ve heard one common theme among Christian viewers of the series: all seem to watch it with one finger critically tracing key texts in Scripture. If only they did the same when confronting each other over the series’ merits.

Photo: Reuters / Osservatore Romano

In a meeting yesterday, newly minted Pope Francis met with Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew at the Vatican. It was the first time a Patriarch of Constantinople had attended a papal enthronement since the Great Schism of 1054.

While their double-pontiff hug doesn’t herald the healing of the divided Christian church (a prospect that seems impossible in any scenario short of the eschaton), it does highlight a surge in ecumenical hope that’s been encouraged by the new pope.

Francis has received unusually enthusiastic support from church leaders and organizations outside the RCC. Besides the Orthodox, protestant representatives of Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, and other denominations have expressed their pleasure at the new pontiff’s appointment. (Ur's covered this before.)

Evangelicals are relieved by his commitment to conservative doctrine, mainline/liberal Christians appreciate his devotion to social issues and emphasis on environmental stewardship, and everyone likes his posture of humility and pastoral focus. It seems that we all can find something to love in the new Vatican.

Punk-cabaret musician and incorrigible creative Amanda Palmer shared a powerful talk at this year’s TED conference on “The Art of Asking.” In her speech, Palmer talks about how simply asking fans for things that she needs has revolutionized her creative life. It’s overhauled how she makes and profits from her music.

By replacing a hard transactional model of exchange (I give you an album, you give me 14.99) with a soft, participatory one (I give you all my albums, you give me whatever it’s worth to you), she’s recaptured the old, community-oriented dynamic of music. Like a street busker, a pub performer, a local act at open mike night, you give Amanda what her music is worth to you.

Though she’s certainly not the first to implement a pay-what-you-want model (I think that was Radiohead’s In Rainbows, and heck, now it’s the entire point of Noisetrade), Palmer takes the strategy way farther than the checkout page. She asks for a piano to practice on while she’s touring, and a Twitter follower opens up her house in London. Homemade food, opening bands, couches to sleep on, you name it, she’s probably asked for it, taken someone up on it, shared and enjoyed it.

By doing this, she’s brought her audience up onto the stage, humanized them by allowing them to assign value to her work. And in this relational exchange, she sees them. Like the eight-foot bride in the beginning of her talk, she looks them in the eyes, hands them a flower, and (even in the abstraction of digitized commerce) gives them the chance to choose her.

As a musician, Palmer’s model threatens the foundation of the traditional record industry, which is built on outdated ways to create and distribute music. But it also cuts left, striking at the root of illegal downloading culture, by reorienting the relationship between artist and audience, between the “creators” and “consumers” of recordings. You don’t need to lurk around on some Swedish filesharing site to get her back catalog. You can go to her website. And download all of it. For free, if you want, free and theft-free. Or for $10, $40, or whatever it’s worth to you. She asks the central question—“how does a musician make a living?”—differently, and it is getting a powerful response.

“Ask and you shall…”

Of course, she’s not alone in asking for things. At the first glance, ministry culture frequently faces the opposite problem to that faced by the record industry. Rather than demanding our 14.99 for the “album,” we give our product away for free. But are we really that different?

No. I think that there’s a largely unspoken dynamic that is constantly evaluating what we’re able to get out of the people who walk through our doors.

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.

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.

This week the White House announced that Louie Giglio would offer the benediction at President Obama’s second inauguration. Giglio isn’t a stranger to Obama or official White House events. Last year he prayed with the President at the White House Easter Prayer Breakfast which I attended. At the time no one raised any objection to Giglio’s participation either in the media, or at the event which included those with more progressive views on the issue of gay rights.

That is no longer the case. It seems that after the inauguration committee announced Giglio’s role, the Center for American Progress Action Fund discovered a sermon by Giglio from the 1990s titled “In Search of a Standard--Christian Response to Homosexuality.” In the message Giglio identifies homosexual activity as “sin in the eyes of God, and it is sin in the word of God.” He warned that the movement to normalize homosexuality “is not a benevolent movement,” and added, “It is a movement to seize by any means necessary the feeling and the mood of the day, to point where the homosexual lifestyle become accepted as a norm in our society.” (The full sermon can he heard here.)

If you recall, President Obama provoked the anger of some gay rights advocates by selecting Rick Warren to pray at his first inaugural. Warren had supported Proposition 8 in California which sought to ban same-sex marriage in the state. By selecting Louie Giglio this time, some in Obama’s coalition of supports are saying he failed to learn from the backlash four years ago.

Following the terrible elementary shooting last month in Connecticut, Michael Cheshire wrote a blog post that attracted a lot of attention. He was incensed by the comments of a number of Christian leaders in the media. He wrote:

After watching an interview by a person speaking for our Christian religion, I was less than blessed. He subtly blamed the gays, iPods, computers, evolution, and the fact that God is not in our schools for the shooting in Connecticut. I was compelled to distance myself from him as quickly as possible. It’s a feeling I have had many times over the years when our so-called “religious leaders” make accusatory remarks about entire people groups.

Cheshire was not alone in his outrage and embarrassment. I often feel the same way about those who speak for our faith in the media. It seems that after any calamity, whether human or natural, there are Christian leaders on cable news offering an overly-simplistic, overly-spiritual, and overly-self-righteous explanation for the carnage. Cheshire compared these leaders with a “crazy uncle who makes ignorant comments.” They are often wrong and offensive, but they’re family.

Michael Cheshire’s critique expanded beyond the horror at Sandy Hook Elementary, however. He lamented that American Christianity has become “tainted with a lot of hate and politics.” In fact he titled his post, “They Think We’re a Hate Group, & They Might Be Right.” (This title was written by Cheshire himself and not the editors of Out of Ur.) Again, I resonate a great deal with what he wrote, particularly the general sentiment of frustration over the culture’s perception of Christian faith and the Church. So I do not wish for what follows to be interpreted as a counterpoint to Cheshire’s post, but rather as another angle from which to perceive what’s happening in the American Church.

Since the world is supposed to end today, I want to share some thoughts before we all go. First, let me establish a couple of my personal beliefs. I am a believer in Jesus Christ. I believe what the Bible teaches about homosexuality and the sanctity of life. Now let’s get to the unvarnished truth.

This may not go over well with some, but hey, at least we’ll have a conversation piece for our last day. After watching an interview by a person speaking for our Christian religion, I was less than blessed. He subtly blamed the gays, iPods, computers, evolution, and the fact that God is not in our schools for the shooting in Connecticut. I was compelled to distance myself from him as quickly as possible. It’s a feeling I have had many times over the years when our so-called “religious leaders” make accusatory remarks about entire people groups. What’s worse is as much as I want to distance myself from the remarks, I can’t because we are still tied by the Christian religion. I can’t because the people these leaders attack hear only their view of my God. And so, like an unwilling hostage in a cruel game, I catch the heat from those far from God because they assume I hold the same position.

Sure these leaders make a few decent points, but then follow it up with a very misguided missile of fault. When high profile leaders do things like this, I feel like I’m with a crazy uncle who makes ignorant comments while you’re helping him shop. You have to stand behind him and mouth, “I’m so sorry. He’s old and bit crazy. He means well.” So to my gay friends, scientists, iPhone users, and others he blamed for the HORRENDOUS killing spree by that mentally ill young man, I stand here mouthing a few words of apology to you. And while I’m at it, maybe I could talk to my own fellow Christ followers as well.

In honor of the beginning of the NFL season and because I have a bizarre need to compare things that are in no way similar to each other. I give you a list of Christian denominations and their corresponding NFL team.

Roman Catholic – Chicago Bears
They've been around since the beginning and their history is filled with both conquests and venerated saints like George Halas, Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers. However, in recent years they've often been on the defensive leading to middle of the road status. Finally, Mike Ditka is Pope John Paul II and Walter Payton is Mother Teresa.

Episcopalian/Anglican – Oakland Raiders
Historically, a rebellious group of upstarts from the insurgent AFL that has tamed over time as it's come to find more mainstream success. Still prone to bouts of rebellious behavior that come across more weird than iconoclastic in the modern context. You have a legion of hardcore fans that refuse to leave even if your behavior seems occasionally bizarre. Al Davis is King Henry VIII and John Madden is N.T. Wright.

Presbyterian – New York Giants
You continue to have success in spite of the fact that it's entirely unclear why you've been successful in the first place. You base a lot of your work on your ability to amount a worthwhile defense and the fact that your success must simply be preordained. You're led by an angry man who will become lovable in historical context (Tom Coughlin and John Calvin).

Recently North Point Community Church's senior pastor Andy Stanley preached a sermon about the theological tension that is needed to live in the Way of the Christian faith. (Listen at North Point's website. The controversial section begins about 24 minutes in.) Well known conservative commentator and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Al Mohler, took offense to Stanley's non-mention of the sin of homosexuality in the sermon. Stanley illustrated a story of a wife, husband and daughter in his church—where the husband cheated with another man who eventually became his partner—and the journey for each of the participants. The reality of this family's new tension-filled dynamic illustrated for Stanley the tension between grace and truth in the Christian faith.

Stanley spent the majority of the sermon fleshing out his understanding of this tension by highlighting Jesus' changing response to sin through his words and deeds in the Gospel stories. Should sin be forgiven, or should a person be held accountable? Should we act harshly or be kind? Point a finger or ignore? As Stanley stated:

"We're all tempted to want to resolve that tension. But if you resolve it, you give up something important. It's what drove people crazy about Jesus. But he was comfortable with it. He was able to minister through it. And we dare not walk away from it."

It should not be a surprise that Mohler took a hardline stand against Stanley's nuanced message of tension.

The Q gathering began on Tuesday in Washington DC with a video address from President Obama. As reported by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at Christianity Today, the President addressed the role of Christian faith in motivating the 700 leaders at the conference, and the work of Christ on the cross. Here's the video of his remarks:

Are you trying to develop a more hospitable, seeker-friendly atmosphere in your church? Here's the first step: Don't kidnap people at gunpoint.

A church in Pennsylvania is under investigation for taking a lesson about persecution too far. Glad Tidings Assembly of God arranged to have two men with real (unloaded) guns raid a youth group meeting. They covered the teens' heads, loaded them into a van, and took them to the pastor's house. The pastor was covered in blood and appeared to be tortured by the kidnappers. The entire scene was a stunt to teach the teens about persecution of Christians in other parts of the world.

Because at least some of the teens were unaware that the raid was a stunt, the church is being investigated for crimes against a minor--a second-degree felony that may result in up to 10 years in prison.

In January, Skye spoke at the Lumen conference at Mariners Church in California about the exodus of young people from our churches. Rather than focusing on the sociological data, he used his time to talk about how the way we understand the gospel may actually be inoculating young people to genuine faith.

When the church presents a less than biblical understanding of how to relate to God, it leaves young people with a powerless form of Christianity predicated on fear and control. When this way of life proves ineffective, they may abandon both their faith in Christ and the church. So, our first job is to get the gospel right. Check out the talk and the brief Q&A afterward. Much of the content is based on his book, WITH.

As I get around the country there is one question I hear from pastors more than any other: How do we reach young people? They don’t need research from Barna, Lifeway, Pew, and Gallup to tell them young people are leaving the church. They see it every Sunday as the congregation gets a little more gray.

But the evidence is mounting that reaching or retaining the young is going to take a lot more than new music styles or even a systematic rethinking of church leadership and organizational structures. There is the larger cultural matter of politics.

An eye-opening article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs by David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam titled “God and Caesar in America: Why Mixing Religion and Politics is Bad for Both,” is a must read for pastors. Using research among young adults, Putnam and Campbell ask why the next generation is increasingly identifying their religious affiliation as “none.” They conclude that politics is a significant reason. They write:

“The best evidence indicates that this dramatic generational shift is primarily in reaction to the religious right. And Millennials are even more sensitive to it, partly because many of them are liberal (especially on the touchstone issue of gay rights) and partly because they have only known a world in which religion and the right are intertwined.”

In this segment of an interview of David Kinnaman by Kevin Palau, Kinnaman discusses new research by the Barna Group revealing Americans are becoming increasingly indifferent toward religion. The implications for outreach and evangelism are profound, and it may result in churches requiring an entirely new approach. This is a must watch.

"I have the opportunity to hang out with a number of younger evangelical influencers, and sometimes it's breathtaking how little we think about, talk about, or seem concerned with personal evangelism."

-Jonathan Merritt quoted in "Outlooks on Outreach" in the Winter 2012 issue of Leadership Journal. Check out the quote in context by subscribing to LJ in the left column.

Merritt is on the staff of Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Georgia, and the author of the new book, A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars.

Normally, February is the dullest month in the sports calendar. The NFL season concluded with the Super Bowl. March Madness is not yet on the horizon. Pitchers and catchers haven't reported. And games in the interminably long basketball and hockey seasons feel meaningless.

But not this year. This February has been more exciting than ever, dominated by Linsanity, the phenomenon surrounding the improbable rise of New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin.

In his first six games in the starting lineup, Lin has been unstoppable. He scored more points than any other NBA player ever had in his first five starts. In his fifth game, Lin hit a game-winning three pointer with less than a second left on the clock. In his sixth start, he had a career-high thirteen assists. Six starts, six wins. It has been Linsane.

The Lin story is so compelling, not just because of the endless puns based on his name or what he has accomplished on the court, but also because of who he is as a person and the road he has traveled to get to this point.

Read Part 1.

This market-driven cycle of megachurches, conferences, and publishers results in an echo chamber where the same voices, espousing the same values, create an atmosphere where ministry success becomes equated with audience aggregation. (Thankfully there are outliers like the Epic Fail Conference and the Q Gathering that defy these trends by platforming important, non-celebrity voices.) But there’s a reason you won’t see a flashy conference for the house church movement. And there’s a reason a brilliant, godly, wise, 50-year-old pastor with a gift for communicating, carrying a timely message, and leading a church of 200 in Montana is highly unlikely to get a publishing contract. And even if he does, good luck getting the stage at a conference or any marketing energy from the publisher; their efforts will be poured into the handful of megachurch pastors in their lineup whose book sales pay their salaries. It is exceedingly difficult to break into the club without a large customer base (a.k.a. a megachurch).

Are the publishers evil for focusing on sales potential more than quality? Of course not. They’re businesses that have to sustain themselves. They are simply reacting to the realities of the market. But sometimes they fail to see how they also shape the market by their decisions. And am I saying all megachurch pastors’ books are subpar? Not at all. Some of them are my friends and I’ve deeply appreciated their writings (Dave Gibbons and Tim Keller immediately come to mind.) But we mustn’t be naive--the system is rigged to favor a writer/speaker’s market platform rather than his/her content, maturity, or message.

Last week Bob Hyatt wrote about the temptations created by the celebrity pastor culture we live in and the harm it causes to our souls. He's not the only one talking about the issue. Both Relevant Magazine and the Together for the Gospel conference are talking about it. The issue I’m referring to is celebrity pastors. Rachel Held Evans’ recent article in Relevant, “When Jesus Meets TMZ,” seeks to explain the rise of celebrity pastors within evangelicalism. (A panel at the T4G conference will address the same topic in April.) Evans’ article does a good job of outlining our corrupt human tendency to make our leaders into idols--a temptation evident from Christianity’s earliest days (see 1 Corinthians 3:21), and which has marked every era of the Church. Before Osteen, Warren, and Driscoll, there were Moody, Spurgeon, and Whitefield. Celebrity pastors are not new.

But what is new is the number of celebrity pastors and the speed with which they are being created/coronated. This is what Evans’ article doesn’t address. Every generation has had a handful of well known pastors, but why are there now so many? What explains the creation of an entire celebrity-class within the evangelical world?

There was an occasion in the 60s where a bunch of hippies surrounded the Pentagon and tried to exorcise the demons. It didn’t work. Despite their valiant effort, not much happened that day.

Nevertheless, I am one of those Christians who believes in angels and demons. But I think the traditional Christian understanding of these things needs a major makeover. Seems to me the Tempter comes in many forms, and is just as likely to don a three-piece-suit and wingtips as he is to have horns and a pitchfork. And perhaps the angels look more like the bums in the alley than the feathered white babies on Hallmark cards.

One of my favorite demon stories from the Bible is about a guy named “Legion.” As the story goes, Jesus is walking through an area near the sea of Galilee and meets a dude who is in chains, violently possessed by demons. When asked his name the fellow says, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” Jesus drives the demons from the man into a bunch of nearby pigs that charge into the water and die. And the man is free.

Newsflash…Young adults are leaving the church. Ok, it’s not really news to anyone familiar with church attendance trends. For generations we have seen young people raised within the church depart during their later teens and twenties. But most returned once they married and had children. It’s sometimes called the “driver’s license to marriage license hiatus.”

What is new is the mountain of recent research by respected groups like Barna, Lifeway, and Pew indicating young people who leave are no longer returning. The hiatus has become an exodus. Why? David Kinnaman at Barna outlines six reasons in his research. And others have pointed out that young people are waiting much longer to get married than in the past, thereby delaying the felt-need to return to church. (Al Mohler’s solution to declining church attendance is to convince young people to get married sooner despite the much higher rate of divorce among young marriages. Kinda like motivating people to get a physical by breaking their legs.)

Books and blogs are filled with recommendations about how to reverse the exodus of young adults, and I have no silver bullet solution to offer here. But I do want to explore one area I believe many churches have overlooked- vocation.

This video was produced by This Is Our City, a project of Christianity Today exploring how Christians are working for the flourishing of their cities. Here McKinley talks about the activism of Portland's culture and how the church can't just talk about activism, but vocation.

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

This past semester my students and I have been educating each other. I’ve been introducing them—at warp speed—to the major world religions. They’ve been candidly expressing their perspectives on faith, religious practice, and what any of that might have to do with their daily lives. In two previous posts, I summarized a few common themes—some surprising, some not—that emerged from their written reflections. Below I comment on the implications of their responses for those ministering to the enigmatic twenty-something.

Know why they’re coming.
Even though we know we shouldn’t, many of us still consider attendance a victory. If they show up at church, we think, it’s because they’re looking for something only the church can offer. Maybe. My students’ responses make me think we need to find out why people come to church. The reasons might surprise us.

For example, many of my students expressed an interest in having their children in church (or temple or synagogue), even though they themselves are not “believers” of any sort. For them, religious service and education are a great means of instilling a sense of tradition and a moral foundation in kids. In other words—and this is the important point—adults may not be attending our churches because they believe they’ll find something of value there for them. They may be attending only for their children’s sake. And not because they want their kids to come to saving faith in Jesus or learn to hear God speak; rather, they want them to be nice people, good citizens. And they figure church isn’t a bad place to start.

I visited a number of Asian countries in 2011 and was amazed at the dynamism and commitment of the young Jesus followers.

One network, in a country that I will not mention, stuck out to me as an outstanding example. They have started almost a thousand new communities, many of them multiplying into the second and third generation. And like many new movements in the non-Western world, a Sunday worship service as an evangelistic entry point for potential members, has not been part of their ministry portfolio. Which was the subject of my somewhat provocative post a few days ago, 9 Reasons NOT to plant a church in 2012.

So if they didn't start worship services, how did they start a replicating movement of Christian communities and how do they maintain such a high level of spiritual growth?

Of course it's hard and a little presumptuous to claim which elements of their ministry are the most important but . . . here are 11 practices that I think have contributed to their success:

"Church planting is the most effective form of evangelism under heaven," said C.Peter Wagner. I know he said that. I was there. I was a young [and good looking] Seminary student sitting in his classroom when he said it.

It was a welcomed idea, proven scientifically more effective than trying to expand older church structures. Back then, there was little argument against it and the idea was embraced by mission societies and church denominations who played it out in their strategies all through the 90's and also during the noughties when the thinking became mainstream rather than rebellious. I was part of that movement the whole time.

But now it's 2012 and while some young, enthusiastic people are out there planting churches like its 1997, others are focusing on launching more sustainable, more holistic, more measurably transformational Kingdom solutions.

One of the biggest trends in church planting that I observed in my recent 30+ country trek is the SHIFT AWAY FROM planting churches towards NOT planting a church at all but focusing on a wider range of transforming Kingdom activities. Some church planters are delaying the worship service piece of the pioneer missional ministry for as long as possible and sometimes indefinitely.

In a previous post, I described a few trends I noticed in responses of my students in a community college world religions course to prompts about the role of religion in their lives. In that post, I listed the responses that came as no surprise to me. Here I list a few recurring things I did find surprising.

Tradition and morality are valued more than belief.
Regardless of their religious background, a majority of my students expressed that they plan to take their own children to church (synagogue, temple, etc.) or have them attend religious education. This was true even of students who do not consider themselves religious. They liked the traditions, they said. Or they want their children to have a strong moral foundation. Or they want their children to be baptized or bar mitzvah. These students weren’t concerned, necessarily, that the content of the faith be true; it seems they simply want their kids to share memories and a heritage they themselves were raised with.

Let's be honest for a minute. Most churches expend the vast majority of their resources on weekend worship gatherings. It's when facilities are most utilized, when programming is most robust, when volunteers are most required, and what many pastors spend the majority of their time preparing for. This great emphasis on Sunday is often justified because it's when people gather to meet with God.

But new research released this week from Barna reveals that most churchgoers rarely experience God in worship services. While most people surveyed can recall a "real and personal connection" with God while at church (66%), they also reported that these connections are "rare." Among those who attend church every week, less than half (44%) say they experience God's presence. And one-third of those who have attended church report never feeling God's presence in a worship gathering.

Last semester I assigned the students in the community college World Religions course I teach a series of writing exercises that (I hoped) would help them personalize and internalize the subject matter we were reading about and discussing in class. There were four assignments total, one every four weeks or so. And each was a little more probing. My goal was simply to get these students from diverse religious backgrounds thinking about their experience with religion, assumptions about religious claims, how they understand the role religion plays in their lives.

The projects were enlightening for many of them. Several told me they’d never thought about these things before, and they’re glad they did. What I hadn’t expected was how enlightening their responses would be for me.

Discussions about why young folk leave the faith and how to get them back continue to generate a lot of heat. My observations here are anecdotal, not scientific. But I found it useful to reflect on the general trends that emerged from my students’ reports. They have a lot to say about this ever elusive demographic.

First some trends I did not find surprising.

Spiritual but not religious.
Consistent with the conventional wisdom about young people—and maybe even older people—in America, the vast majority of my students were quick to identify as spiritual—as believing in something out there bigger than themselves—but were hesitant to identify as religious.

Another year of conversation is coming to an end on Out of Ur. Thanks to all of our writers, contributors, and commenters. It's been a great year. Like many others, Urbanites were caught up in the controversy surrounding Rob Bell and his book Love Wins. But matters of church and state were also a frequent topic of debate. Women in leadership, same sex marriage, and Mark Driscoll also made a showing. (Sometimes I wonder what on Urth we'd talk about without Driscoll's bombastic opinions on YouTube.) More surprising this year was a series of posts about single pastors by Mark Almlie. Clearly it's an under-discussed topic.

Here's a look back at the most talked about posts from 2011.

Rob Bell: Universalist?
Folks are flipping out about Rob Bell's theology again. What's your take?
by Url Scaramanga

Are We Afraid of Single Pastors?
Where did the prejudice against single pastors come from, and how do we move past it?
by Mark Almlie

Ur Video: Driscoll on Mr. Moms
Should stay-at-home dads face church discipline?
by Url Scaramanga

'Tis the season for presents, and parties, and pageants, and...predictions. At the end of every year we often speculate about what the future will bring. What trends will gain momentum, and which have 'jumped the shark.'

Sam Rainer, president of Rainer Research, recently issued a list of 10 (unexpected) church trends that will surface by 2020. The last one caught my attention. Rainer believes the excitement around video-venue preaching will pass away like so many Milli-Vanilli cassette tapes. He writes:

The trend towards more transformational leadership will quell the popularity of video-venues in which a single teaching pastor is projected to multiple sites. The Internet and podcast boom brought with it a cultural wave of electronic teaching. While this trend has been positive — more sound teaching is readily available (for free) than ever before. Eventually, however, the wired generation will desire a more local, personal touch than the man-on-the-screen. By 2020, more campuses at multi-site churches will feature a campus pastor who teaches, and more people will seek out this type of local connection.

A few years ago I was walking through Woodfield Mall, the largest one in Illinois, just before Christmas. I was disappointed to see that Santa’s grotto, where children waited in line for a brief one-on-one consultation with Mr. Claus, had been transformed into an enormous promotional display for the upcoming movie, Happy Feet.

Apparently the mall’s managers were not bothered that Santa was difficult to see among the huge images of computer generated penguins, and clearly nobody was disturbed by the geographic discrepancy–penguins only live at the South Pole and Santa resides at the North Pole. Sadder to me was the absence of the enormous Christmas tree that had stood at the center of the mall since my childhood. It appeared that Santa had sold his season, and his soul, to Warner Brothers Studios. I was, however, comforted by the irony of the scene–the character that had commercialized Christmas a century ago had fallen victim to his own devices.

Christians have always had a strained relationship with Saint Nick. Although his origins are rooted deeply in church lore, his association with the secularization of Christmas has made him a persona non grata in many churches and Christian communities. But many of us forget that Christmas itself is a holiday of dubious origin. For example, the Puritans were stridently opposed to the celebration of Christmas. They could find no biblical support for the holiday, and they believed (correctly) that it was originally a pagan festival now masquerading as Christian one. This view was widely held in America throughout the 19th Century. In 1855, newspapers in New York reported that Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches would be closed on Christmas Day because “they do not accept the day as a Holy One.” And by the 1860s only 18 states officially recognized the holiday.

Last week the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by an evangelical church regarding the ban against churches using public schools in New York City. The court's refusal to hear the case allows a lower court ruling to stand which means 60 churches will soon need to find new places to gather for worship.

One of those churches is Trinity Grace Church Brooklyn led by pastor Caleb Clardy. He has written an article for This Is Our City, a project with Christianity Today. Clardy reflects on the court's decision, and how churches ought to respond to the ruling.

Most troubling to Clardy is the disregard for local officials' relationship with the church. He points out that two other groups, a basketball league and a farmers' market, also use the school property on Sunday mornings. His church has an excellent relationship with both groups as well as school officials. Clardy writes:

Our country was founded on the right of its citizenry to make free and informed decisions. Yet it seems that more and more decisions of conscience are being made for us by high-level policymakers and by judicial fiat. Is this what we actually want for our city, and our nation? If MS 51 can choose to host the basketball league and the farmers' market and the theatre troupe and the voting stations, why can't they choose to host the church as well? I haven't yet heard a compelling answer to that question.

What I find most interesting about Tony Jones’ thesis is the way it can explain far more than just the Emerging Church Movement. I think contemporary youth ministry may also help us understand the rise of the megachurch movement in the late 1970s and 80s (and perhaps other movements as well). The number of megachurches exploded in that time from just 10 in 1970 to over 500 by 1990, and most were led to mega status by baby-boomers with youth ministry backgrounds.

The whole notion of a youth culture really emerged after World War II. Television, Rock ‘n Roll, and the economic boom after the war resulted in a generation of young people with disposable income and the opportunity to express themselves in ways foreign to their Depression-generation parents. To reach this new breed of adolescents, first parachurch ministries and later churches started “youth ministries” that mimicked the styles and forms of the secular youth culture but with “safer” Christian content. Contemporary Christian music emerged, Jesus merchandise, and concerts. By the mid 60s, the church youth group became the preferred safe alternative to the popular youth scene marked by drugs and casual sex.

But what the young people engaged in these ministries learned indirectly was that the church should takes its cues from the secular culture; adopt the popular culture’s forms and simply fill those forms with Christian content. It was the youth groups of the 50s and 60s that formed the ecclesiology for the megachurches of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Bill Hybels may be the clearest example. His vision for Willow Creek emerged directly out of his experience leading a youth ministry in the suburbs of Chicago in the 70s.

Did the modern youth ministry movement create the Emerging Church? That’s the question Tony Jones addresses in a recent blog post. While presenting a paper at an academic conference, Jones fielded questions from professors of youth ministry primarily from evangelical colleges and seminaries.

Jones said to them, “You all have strong feelings about the emerging church movement, most of them negative. Well, you are directly responsible for the emerging church movement.”

He went on to describe how contemporary youth ministry shuns the “accoutrements of power (vestments, titles, special roles and rites). Instead, youth are encouraged to engage all of the practices of the community equally.” In other words, the rejection of structural authority and the focus on a flat structure of relational authority which has marked the Emerging Church Movement was learned in youth groups. Jones noted how many ECM leaders first had lengthy youth ministry experience within evangelical churches: Tim Keel, Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, Tim Condor, and Chris Seay.

To the youth ministry professors who may have a negative view of the Emerging Church, Jones said, “You taught them relational youth ministry, so what kind of churches did you expect them to plant?”

Read part 1

Finally, the chart shows that 85% of megachurch attenders are white. And I’m guessing that stat is probably equally true about megachurch leaders as congregations and leadership usually reflect one another. (Sorta the way owners resemble their pets.)

In 2008 the census bureau reported that whites will be a minority in the U.S. by 2042, eight years earlier than last predicted. And that date may accelerate once again depending on immigrant birthrates. And in some parts of the country the date will be much earlier. The point is, if most megachurches remain 85% white they will find a shrinking pool of potential members as the population becomes increasingly brown.

Am I predicting the demise of the megachurch movement? By no means. I think these large churches will continue, and we cannot lump all megachurches into the same category. Not all megas were started in 1980 by a baby-boomer in a growing white suburb. And many will navigate into the future with wisdom and skill.

But the cultural and demographic conditions that have fueled much of the megachurch movement, multiplication, and growth are changing. And whenever a new movement tries to leap from one generation to the next there are some who don’t clear the gap.

Megachurches are predominantly white, suburban, conservative congregations led by baby-boomer pastors. This is what an infographic about floating around the web lately has revealed. It's based on research compiled by Forbes, The Christian Post, and Leadership Network.

For the most part the stats look very positive for mega and gigachurches (yes, that is a term now being used). These massive congregations, unlike many other churches, are still growing. They're expanding staff, seeing increasing budgets and have an optimistic outlook.

But buried in the positive stats about megachurches may be signs of challenges ahead. Could a bubble be forming? And when it finally bursts will the mega-model be abandoned or severely reengineered? Are we seeing the maturation of the megachurch movement into a sustainable and long-term model for the American church? Or, like Wile E. Coyote, is the ground going to suddenly disappear under its feet? Let's look more closely at the numbers.

"Please, sir, may I have some different?" It's not "more" the average young guy wants today, it's different.

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo describes drug addiction as "wanting more," but guys today have what he calls arousal addiction, always "wanting something different." This never-ending stream of stimulation is behind the growing failure of males to connect with women socially or to succeed academically. They're dropping out of life.

Zimbardo cites excessive internet use, video gaming, and online porn as causes of this new addiction. By age 21, boys spend 10,000 hours gaming, two-thirds of that time in isolation. The average young man watches 50 porn clips per week.

"Boys' brains are being digitally rewired in a totally new way, for change, novelty, excitement, and constant arousal," Zimbardo says. "They're totally out of sync in traditional classes, which are analog, static, and interactively passive. And they're totally out of sync in relationships, which build gradually and subtly." This is creating a generation of young men who do not connect well in traditional teaching situations and who lack social skills especially with women.

The what-is-the-gospel discussion continues. The latest contribution to the conversation comes from the prolific New Testament professor Scot McKnight in his new book The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (Zondervan, 2011). In the preface, N.T. Wright suggests that McKnight is proposing a “revolution” in our understanding of the Good News. Whether the praise is overstated or not, McKnight’s work is a thoughtful and illuminating account of how the early church understood the gospel and its relationship to Jesus.

McKnight’s central critique is that contemporary evangelicals have reduced the gospel to the plan of salvation, or to the question of how an individual gets saved. McKnight is careful not to dismiss the importance of personal salvation or of justification by faith. But he contends that the plan of salvation is not the whole gospel, and that in equating the two, evangelicals have made a dangerous mistake.

McKnight writes that the gospel is “the salvation-unleashing Story of Jesus, Messiah-Lord-Son that brings to completion the Story of Israel as found in the Scriptures of the Old Testament.” McKnight starts with 1 Corinthians 15 to make his case, highlighting how the Good News includes, not only Christ’s saving work on the cross, but also the rest of the story: the Resurrection, the birth of the church, and the fact that we are moving forward to the “full consummation of the kingdom when God becomes all in all.”

Read part 1

3. Social action is a partner of evangelism. This, finally, is where Stott lands on the matter. He believes that social justice and evangelism “belong to each other and yet are independent of each other. Each stands on its own feet in its own right alongside the other. Neither is a means to the other, or even a manifestation of the other. For each is an end in itself.”

Here is where John Stott not only reveals his theological brilliance, but also his Christ-formed heart. He recognizes that forcing every facet of the Christian life to fit into a mission/evangelism framework is untenable, and insisting that social action somehow justify itself in relation to evangelism is to ask the wrong question. In other words, we are having the wrong debate. Rather than asking how justice fits into the mission of the church, we ought to be asking how justice fits into the life of every Christian. Stott goes on:

“The reason for our acceptance of social responsibility is not primarily in order to give the gospel either a visibility or a credibility it would otherwise lack, but rather simple, uncomplicated compassion. Love has no need to justify itself.”

For me, this is where the debates about social justice and the gospel go off track. Atonement-only advocates demand justice advocates justify their emphasis on social engagement at the expense of evangelism. And justice advocates demand atonement-only advocates justify their emphasis on evangelism rather than social engagement. But, using Stott’s logic, if evangelism or social activism is flowing from a heart of love and compassion, than neither must be justified. Love is it’s own justification.

Is social justice an essential part of the gospel? The question has been raging for decades, and in some circles the matter was settled long ago. But a new generation of evangelicals with a strong inclination toward social engagement is reviving the debate. But I'm increasingly convinced that we are framing the debate incorrectly, and missing the point as a result.

The latest example came last week when Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (my alma mater) hosted Jim Wallis and Al Mohler to debate the role of justice in the mission of the gospel. Wallis, the president and CEO of Sojourners, affirmed the centrality of social justice in the gospel, while Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said it was an implication of the gospel but not part of it.

Disagreeing with Mohler’s point of view, Wallis said, “If justice is only an implication, it can easily become optional and, especially in privileged churches, non-existent.” He cited the examples of “atonement-only” churches in America that were on the wrong side of the Civil Rights movement, and churches in South Africa that defended the apartheid regime.

In a post-debate blog post, Wallis wrote, “Conversely, churches that have been on the side of justice, such as black churches both in the United States and South Africa, were always the ones to say that justice was integral to the meaning of the gospel and not just an implication of it. That should tell us something,”

A reporter recently asked me, “As a Christian leader, does your faith have anything to say about Wall Street?” I said, “How much time do you have?”

Theologian Karl Barth said, “We have to read the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.” For too long we Christians have used our faith as a ticket out of this world rather than fuel to engage it.

In his parables, Jesus wasn’t offering pie-in-the-sky theology… he was talking about the real stuff of earth. He talks about wages, debt, widows and orphans, unjust business owners and bad politicians. In fact Woody Guthrie breaks it all down in his song “Jesus Christ.” The song ends with Woody singing, “This song was written in New York City. If Jesus were to preach what he preached in Galilee, they would lay him in his grave again.”

The more I read the Gospels, the more they seem to confront the very patterns of the world we live in. At one point Mary, pregnant with Jesus cries out: “God casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly… God fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty…”. You can’t help but think if she were alive in contemporary America some folks would try to accuse the Virgin Mother of being Marxist or promoting class warfare. But all through Scripture we see this–over 2000 verses about how God cares for the poor and most vulnerable.

What would Jesus say about Wall Street?

Catalyst 2011 has sent a powerful message of Christ-centered justice and mercy for what Jesus called “the least of these my brothers and sisters.” So the message this week has been, “Come all you poor and brokenhearted. Come all you children and orphans. Come all you wretched of the earth—shoeless ones, hopeless ones, dispossessed ones, and forgotten ones.” Today at Catalyst we heard amazing, heartening statistics about huge strides in combatting world poverty. But, surprisingly, I only heard one (indirect) reference to abortion. So “Come all you unborn?” Hum, I think so.

I’m not criticizing Catalyst because they can only promote so many wonderful causes in two days (and I’m amazed by all that good that’s been done in 48 hours). I’m concerned about a larger trend: in our celebration of justice and mercy, somebody forgot to invite the unborn. I’m not sure why, but here are a few possibilities:

The Catalyst Conference is later this week in Atlanta, and we'll have some reporting from the event here on Ur. But first a quick lesson in how to be a Christian hipster...a species commonly found roaming the arena at Catalyst.

Last week death was interrupted. Duane Buck was set for execution. His execution would have been the second last week and the eleventh this year in Texas alone… and two more executions are scheduled soon. When Presidential candidate Rick Perry celebrated his 234 executions as Texas governor in a recent debate, the audience roared in applause. As a Christian I found that deeply disturbing.

There is an incident in the Gospels where Jesus is asked about the death penalty.
Here’s the scene. A woman has been humiliated and dragged before the town, ready to be killed. Her execution was legal; her crime was a capital one. But just because it’s legal, doesn’t make it right.

Jesus interrupts the scene – with grace.

He tells all the men who are ready to kill the woman, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” And of course he reminds us all that if we have looked at someone with lust in our eyes we are adulterers. If we have called our neighbor a fool we are a murderer. You can hear the stones start to drop, as the men walk away.

“My parents were very religious when I was young. We went to church (or temple or whatever) every week. My parents never, or seldom, prayed or talked about faith at home. As I got older and things got busier, we started attending only at holidays. I do not consider myself religious today.”

This is a good summary of about 80 percent of the personal reflection essays my Intro to World Religions students handed in last week. I asked them to describe their experience with religion to date. I was surprised (and pleased) by their candor. I was surprised that their accounts were so similar. I was surprised, too, by how clear the correlation was between the importance of religion in the parents’ lives over time and the importance of religion in my students’ lives as they enter adulthood.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised. Like everyone else, I’ve heard all about the dismal attrition rates among Christian young people, who are active through their teen years only to leave the church--and very often the faith--when they head to college. And I think deep down we all suspect that parents play an important role in making sure their kids’ develop lasting faith. But I was surprised by how conscious my students--and not just Christian students, but Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist students--are about the role their parents play in their faith.

It seems everyone has an answer for the exodus of young people from the church. We're too homophobic, too irrelevant, too age-segmented, too boring, or too consumerist. But Scot McKnight's explanation goes far deeper. He thinks we have fundamentally misunderstood the gospel. His new book, The King Jesus Gospel, seeks to explain where we went off course, and then define the gospel that Jesus proclaimed. Here's a video preview of his book:

I was in Baghdad in March 2003, where I lived as a Christian and as a peacemaker during the “shock-and-awe” bombing. I spent time with families, volunteered in hospitals, and learned to sing “Amazing Grace”… in Arabic.

There is one image of the time in Baghdad that will never leave me. As the bombs fell from the sky and smoke filled the air, one of the doctors in the hospital held a little girl whose body was riddled with missile fragments. He threw his hands in the air and said, “This violence is for a world that has lost its imagination.” Then he looked square into my eyes, with tears pouring from his, and said, “Has your country lost its imagination?”

That doctor’s words have stayed with me.

In a country that is going bankrupt as it continues to spend $250,000 a minute on war, it is clear that it is time to re-imagine things. That doctor’s words have inspired a little something.

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of September 11, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, and I are teaming up. And we have rallied a bunch of other artists and storytellers to create a 90-minute variety show and multimedia presentation to raise questions about violence and militarism and share stories of reconciliation and grace.

We’re calling it “Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream.”

Prepare yourselves for the onslaught. Scot McKnight is venturing into the "What Is the Gospel?" war that's been waging between the Neo-Calvinists and...well, everyone else. McKnight's new book, due out later this month, is The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. We will have a full review of the book in due course, but a preview is worth our time.

McKnight is concerned that we have confused "Gospel" with "Plan of Salvation," and rather than being true evangelicals (a word rooted in the Greek euangelion meaning "good news" or "gospel"), contemporary Western Christians might be better identified as soterians because we have built our whole church culture around one thing- salvation, who is saved and who is damned.

While not disagreeing with the theology espoused by those on the Neo-Reformed side, and affirming the "Romans Road" presentation of salvation, McKnight says their error is calling this "the Gospel." Equating the plan of salvation with gospel means Jesus could not have preached the Good News. Only the Apostles, like Paul, who preached after Jesus' death and resurrection could possibly present this message. McKnight believes this is an error rooted in a false understanding of what the Gospel is.

For a preview of McKnight's perspective in The King Jesus Gospel, I highly recommend watching his 18min presentation from the Q Gathering in 2010. In this video he outlines the way we have confused various terms, and why Jesus did in fact preach the Gospel.

I choose to belong to a strange tribe. Goshen College, my alma mater, made national news last month when its board of directors decided that the “Star Spangled Banner” would not be played before athletic events.

As could be expected, the decision was met with confusion and contempt. Wasn’t this just another example of our traditional values being trampled by the unrelenting march of political correctness? What sort of ingrates object to our nation’s anthem, anyway? Fluffy-headed campus philosophers? Lazy latte-sipping liberals?

The decision not to play the national anthem reversed last year’s decision to play it for the first time in Goshen College’s 116-year history. That, too, caught the media’s attention.

It also caused widespread concern and confusion among the college’s students, professors, alumni, supporters and, yes, donors - many of whom felt like playing the anthem compromised the college’s Christian values.

Last week the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, gathered for its annual meeting in Phoenix. The media pounced when stats were released indicating SBC membership had shrunk for the fourth consecutive year. In addition (or should I say subtraction), the number of baptisms declined by over 17,000 in 2010 compared to 2009. This is the eighth drop in 10 years.

Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay, was honest about the statistics. "This is not a blip. This is a trend. And the trend is one of decline,” he said.

Read more from the report on the SBC.

The news about the SBC’s decline swirling around both the secular and Christian media only adds to the dismay in recent years. It seems like every time I logon there is a new report about the decline, decay, or demise of the church. The American church, and the evangelical branch in particular, seems infatuated with news of its own death almost as much as myths of its persecution. Perhaps we like these reports because they keep us in a perpetual state of crisis which fuels the theatrics long associated with our brand of Christianity.

A study released last week by the Duke University Medical Center finds that Mainline Protestants have larger brains, literally, than "born-again" Christians, Roman Catholics, or the religiously unaffiliated. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Templeton Foundation, discovered that "those identified as Protestant who did not have a religious conversion or born-again experience — more common among their evangelical brethren — had a bigger hippocampus."

What is the hippocampus, you may be asking? It is an area deep within the brain that regulates emotion and memory. A small or shrinking hippocamus is often associated with mental health disorders like depression, dementia, and Alzheimer's.

So why would those with born-again experiences have a smaller hippocampus? Some researches speculate it has to do with stress.

Read Part One of Skye Jethani's article, "The Post-American Church."

OBSERVATION TWO: The American Church still has a vital role to play as the global church rises.

In 2008, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria wrote the best-selling book The Post-American World from which I borrowed the title for this blog post. In his book Zakaria refuses to join the “America is in decline” bandwagon. Instead he uses the term “Post-American” to describe the emergence of new economic super-powers into the zone previously occupied by America alone. China and India are the two most obvious nations in this category with Brazil increasingly being added to the conversation. To paraphrase Zakaria’s argument, it’s not about the decline of the West, but rather the rise of the rest.

Like the doomsday prophets that have nothing positive to say about the American economy, there seem to be no shortage of doomsday prophets surrounding the American church. (Remember the “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America” released by James Dobson’s political group in 2008?) Reading too many of these dire predictions about the American church would lead one to believe that everyone under 30 has abandoned the faith, every pastor is a closeted bi-sexual, and Muslims are salivating at the chance to convert abandoned mega-churches into mosques.

Well, I hate to disappoint the “prophets” profiting from this fear-mongering, but the evidence suggests the American church is far from dead. Sure, we have problems and many of them are significant, but the Christian religion in America is actually more robust today than it was two centuries ago. (Only between 10 and 20 percent of Americans belonged to a church in 1776. See more here.) And the idea that the U.S. is just one generation behind the secular and Islamic forces influencing Europe is like comparing Lady Bird with Lady Gaga.

Earlier this month Billy Graham was admitted to the hospital. The 92 year old evangelist was later discharged, but the incident has sparked a number of reflections about the scope and impact of Graham's ministry. Lisa Miller wrote an article examining the disagreements and struggles between Graham's children about their father's legacy. And Stephen Prothero says Franklin Graham could learn a thing or two from his father about politics.

But what can we learn from Billy outside the realms of politics and evangelism? This video shows that Graham was also comfortable in the arena of pop culture. Here he casually spars with Woody Allan about sexual morality, religion, drugs, and the Bible. Not only is Graham charming and affirming of his host and the audience, but he remains tenaciously on-message.

I’m seated at the front of a university lecture hall with representatives of five other religious traditions. Listening intently to the brief descriptions of our faiths are seventy undergraduate and graduate students, many hailing from other countries. Two weeks later I’m attending a global theology conference at Wheaton College. Presenters describe the theological landscapes in their countries, and it is apparent how significantly these contexts are shaping how evangelical theology is articulated.

Many questions were asked in both of these settings. Good and challenging questions. One question I never heard raised: “Do you believe in hell?” Another one that didn’t come up: “What do you think about Rob Bell?”

I am being a bit snarky; surely Christians around the world ask questions about hell, judgment, eternity and… Rob Bell. However, it was unmistakably clear in both environments that the questions American Christians so passionately debate are not always asked by those who don’t share our cultural context.

When, as I recently read, a prominent Christian claims that the questions raised by Rob Bell and his critics are the questions being asked by Christians, I wonder which Christians we have in mind. I fear our debates sound myopic to those outside the American evangelical subculture. I wonder too whether our ignorance of the questions and concerns of the larger church—down the street and across the globe—limits our opportunities for robust fellowship and mission.

It can be daunting for those of us raised within American Evangelicalism to venture outside of our cultural comfort zone. Fortunately, Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom have written a collection of biographies that provides an excellent starting point. Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia (IVP, 2011) features the lives of seventeen Christians from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

A week ago I returned from a trip to Spain where I was speaking with a team of missionaries working in different regions of the country. Yes, I was suffering for the Lord on a Mediterranean beach. Apart from the breathtaking beauty of Peñíscola, Spain, I was blessed to share time with some spectacular people engaged in very good work.

When many Americans think about missionaries they picture a team of Western, Anglo, people doing evangelism and church planting among dark-skinned “natives.” Perhaps that image was true at one time, but it’s definitely not anymore. As someone has recently remarked, missions today is “from everywhere to everywhere.”

The team of missionaries I spoke with in Spain included people from the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and the Netherlands. And they were serving among Spaniards, Portuguese, Chinese, Moroccans, Latin Americans, and Arabs. In many cases they reported greater receptivity to the gospel among immigrant populations in Spain rather than among native Spaniards. It was a striking example of how globalization has radically “flattened” our planet.

And the nature of the ministries engaged by these workers was just as diverse as their passports. Some were planting churches, others had started a mission to rescue women from human trafficking, another team was doing marriage and family counseling, and others were helping immigrants from North Africa learn Spanish and find jobs. In other words, despite having a shared denominational background this team was not limited to a single missions playbook.

I came way from my time in Spain with two observations that may have some relevancy to the church on this side of “the pond.”

OBSERVATION ONE: The future leadership of the church belongs to “third culture” kids.

Matthew Paul Turner composed this essay a few years ago, but it seems relevant given that tomorrow is reportedly the end of the world.

"What was the highlight of the conference?" I asked another attendee. I wondered if it was Kevin Kelly, "senior maverick" at Wired Magazine, talking about technology and theology. Or maybe actor/director Mark Ruffalo talking about faith in Hollywood.

"I know it sounds strange," he replied, "but it was seeing the relationship the churches in Portland have with the city government." He went on to explain that he was from Atlanta--a city where nearly every city official is a church-going Christian. And yet the church in Atlanta doesn't have nearly as good a relationship with the city as in Portland. "It was very convicting," he confessed.

He was referring to the interview between Kevin Palau, president of the Luis Palau Association, and Portland Mayor Sam Adams--the first openly gay mayor of a major US city.

A poll conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service was released this week that finds more Americans (44 percent) believe Christian values are at odds with capitalism than believe they are compatible (36 percent). However, a closer look at the research did find some exceptions.

White evangelicals, for example, were more likely than other Christians or the general population to think positively about free-markets. 44 percent of them said that businesses unregulated by the government would still behave ethically. (So much for the doctrine of total depravity.) White evangelicals also believe religious leaders should speak out about social issues but not necessarily economic matters.

Minority Christians, in contrast, said church leaders should be speaking about both areas. Economic issue like home foreclosures were at the top of their list; 76 percent of minority Christians considered it important, while only 46 percent of the general population.

Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, said, "Minority Christians have a deep theological tradition of connecting faith and economic justice, and we see that link in the survey. Because minorities in the U.S. generally continue to have lower incomes than whites, economic issues are also more salient in these congregations."

Yesterday President Obama hosted the 2nd annual Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House. Here's a video with his remarks, and how the resurrection puts things in perspective.

In attendance were Tim Keller, Louie Giglio, Gabe Lyons, Kevin Palau, T.D. Jakes, Joel Hunter, Andy Stanley, Leith Anderson, and others. Read Sarah Pulliam Bailey's full report on the CT Politics blog.

Read Part 1 of “Redefining Radical.”

Consider who is celebrated in most churches. Typically it is the person who is engaged in “full time Christian work”--the pastor or missionary, or people who pursue social causes that result in a big and measurable impact. (Who isn’t talking about William Wilberforce these days?) Similarly, those who behave like pastors or missionaries periodically in their workplace, neighborhood, or perhaps on a short-term trip overseas are praised for these actions. But a church will rarely, if ever, celebrate a person’s “ordinary” life and work.

For example, Andy Crouch tells about a pastor he met in Boston. The pastor recounted the story of a woman in his congregation who was a lawyer for the Environmental Protection Agency. She played a vital role in the clean up of Boston Harbor--one of the most polluted waterways in the country. But the pastor said, “The only time we have ever recognized her in church was for her role in teaching second grade Sunday school. And of course we absolutely should celebrate Sunday school teachers, but why did we never celebrate her incredible contribution to our whole city as a Christian, taking care of God's creation?”

Here’s the problem--when we call people to radical Christian activism, we tend to define what qualifies as “radical” very narrowly. Radical is moving overseas to rescue orphans. Radical is not being an attorney for the EPA. Radical is leaving your medical practice to vaccinate refugees in Sudan. Radical is not taking care of young children at home in the suburbs. Radical is planting a church in Detroit. Radical is not working on an assembly line.

What we communicate, either explicitly or implicitly, by this call to radical activism is that experiencing the fullness of the Christian life depends upon one’s circumstances and actions. Sure, the man working on an assembly line for 50 years can be a faithful Christian, but he’s not going to experience the same sense of fulfillment and significance as the one who does something extreme--who cashes in his 401k and relocates to Madagascar to rescue slaves.

“How radical do I have to be?” the suburban mom asked. She had recently read a number of Christian books decrying the self-centered nature of much of the American church. The authors had apparently had enough of the consumer orientation of their congregations. As a remedy, each of the books calls readers to live a counter-cultural life of radical sacrifice and mission. The books, while inspiring, left this woman feeling “exhausted.”

“I totally agree with the their assessment of the church. We are too self- centered,” she explained. “But how radical is enough? Should I sell my house and car? It is wrong for my kids to be attending a private school? Do I need to move oversees and work with orphans? I want to really experience the Christian life, but now I’m wondering if that’s even possible here in the suburbs.” She was looking for my pastoral advice. What I told her is not what I would have said 5 years ago.

I agreed with her that consumer culture has impacted the way many Christians view their faith. As sociologist Christian Smith has remarked, many Americans view God as a combination divine butler and cosmic therapist. And the church is often seen as a dispenser of religious goods and services for the enjoyment of those who put money in the offering plate. My unease about Consumer Christianity reached a crescendo a few years ago, so I actually wrote a whole book about the epidemic.

But what exactly are we to do about consumer Christians? The solution I hear in many ministry settings, and the one I would have given 5 years ago, is to transform people from consumer Christians into activist Christians.

Imagine what would happen if a massive popular movement of ordinary Americans decided to voice their concern about military spending – by withholding $10.40 from their 1040 tax forms this year? A simple, small, symbolic, but concrete gesture of protest to the $200,000 dollars a minute being spent on militarism while programs that support life go bankrupt.

A few months ago I gathered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with hundreds and hundreds of church leaders to ponder such a thing, and to launch a little project called 1040 For Peace. Many of the folks in attendance were from the Anabaptist “peace church” tradition of Christianity. Mennonites and Brethren, like the Amish, come from the Anabaptist movement, tracing back to the radical reformation of the 16th century. They, along with the Quakers, are known for their commitment to peace, a simple way of life, and for their suspicion of power. They also have a history of war-tax resistance.

Money has power. And so withholding money has power too, especially when a bunch of people do it together. If one percent of U.S. taxpayers held back $10.40 as an act of respectful protest, that’s nearly 1.5 million folks. Movements are like snowballs, they start small but get big pretty fast (as we can see by recent events in Wisconsin and Egypt). And movements grow even faster in an age of Facebook. That's why even the Mennonites are using the internet these days, albeit with a fair amount of caution.
As Christians, we have a particularly subversive example when it comes to economic imagination: Jesus himself.

Urthlings,

This is your leader. Here are the links and videos you may have missed this week. Consume them and be disturbed. Live well and evangelize.

Url

Michelle Obama tells churches to eat better.
The First Lady marked the first anniversary of her “Let’s Move” children’s health initiative by visiting two Atlanta-area churches, including Andy Stanley’s North Point Church. She called upon churches to help kids eat healthier. Who’s going to tell the Baptists that pot lucks and pie socials are killing our kids?

Chick-fil-A is pro-Christian (and anti-gay?)
They didn’t invent the chicken, just the Christian chicken sandwich. As the unabashedly Christian fast food chain expands beyond the Bible belt, it’s conservative values and Biblical branding is stirring controversy. A major gay rights group has launched a campaign against Chick-fil-A for its support of an anti-gay marriage organization
[Related...at least in my dysfunctional mind...is this video. Warning, the song will stay in your head for days.]

Need to confess? There’s an app for that.
Last month Pope Benedict XVI blessed social networks. "I would like then to invite Christians, confidently and with an informed and responsible creativity, to join the network of relationships which the digital era has made possible.” Now the Vatican is even endorsing a smartphone app for making confession. Next up, using Paypal to buy indulgences.

Reverend Cedric Miller of Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in New Jersey has banned Facebook. He's ordered about 50 married church officials to delete their accounts or resign and has called on married people in his 1,100-member congregation to delete their Facebook accounts. The problem isn't productivity lost to Farmville—it's adultery.

Miller said 20 couples from his church have had marital problems in the last six months after a spouse reconnected with an old flame on Facebook. "What happens is someone from yesterday surfaces, it leads to conversations, and there have been physical meet-ups. The temptation is just too great."

According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 81% of its members have either used or been faced with evidence from social networking sites in divorce cases in the last five years, including Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

from Danielle Hartland on churchmarketingstinks.com

Still confused about what "missional" means? In this video Alan Hirsch helps define the term and what it means for how we operate in the world.

With a new church and a new documentary airing on TLC January 16 (Ted Haggard: Scandalous), Haggard is back in the media spotlight. In this clip from an interview with ABC News, Haggard shares his new thoughts about the evangelical church. Do you agree with his perspective?

If this video is not working correctly, you can view it here.

Urbanites...this is your leader. Here are the links you should be reading this week. Live long and proselytize. -Url, out.

Is the Constitution God-inspired?
Republicans took control of the House of Representatives yesterday, and their first official act was the public recitation of the Constitution. The ritual inspired some and disturbed others. "They are reading it like a sacred text," said New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler. "You are not supposed to worship your constitution. You are supposed to govern your government by it," he said.

As if reality TV wasn’t scary enough…
This spring the Discovery Channel is launching a new program in partnership with the Vatican called “The Exorcism Files.” It will uncover the Catholic Church’s investigations into demon possessions.

Study finds atheist are angry at God…really.
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that atheists and agnostics report more anger toward God in their lifetime than believers. How can they be angry at someone they don’t believe exists? Or is the anger why they refuse to believe he exists? Which came first…the toaster or the Eggo?

Well Urbanites, as another year draws to an end it's time to look back. Here are the most commented upon (a.k.a. the most argued about) post from the last 12 months. There plenty of politics in here covering the health care debate and Glenn Beck. Social justice continued to stir the passions, and it wouldn't be right to not have a bit of Mark Driscoll to add some spice to the list. Enjoy, and we'll see you on the flip side.

ONE
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.
by Gordon MacDonald

TWO
July 1, 2010
Be Careful What You Worship on July 4
Is national patriotism inconsistent with Christianity?
by Bob Hyatt

THREE
June 2, 2010
Ted Haggard: Back in the Saddle
Announces he’s starting a new church…after announcing he wasn’t.

Urthlings, this is your leader. Here are videos, articles, and blog posts you should be reading this week. Live long and proselytize.
Peace on Urth,
Url
Santa Executed
The war on Christmas just got ugly. The leaders at Repent Amarillo—a group describing themselves as “outside the box in terms of traditional American Christian practices”—have executed Santa Clause by firing squad. Despite his Christian roots, Santa was found guilty of idolatry, being a stumbling block, and inciting covetousness. My only question is, WWJD?

Save the Date
A woman in North Carolina believes Jesus will return on May 21, 2011 (which happens to also be Mr. T’s birthday). She’s even gone so far as to decorate her car to remind everyone to keep the day open.

(Read part 1)

In light of all the exciting movements addressing world hunger and peace, many with Christians in the forefront, I really believe Christian stores should be pioneers and innovators, rather than chameleons. Selling fair trade coffee is a good start. But we have a long way to go. I just saw an iPod shaped like a cross. Ugh.

Right after I left the bookstore with the military flags, I dropped by an old-school general store (I was in my Tennessee homeland). It was charming to see the vintage lunch-boxes and wooden games, but what struck me aside from the nostalgia was how relevant some of the item at the general store are today. There were books on sustainable living and permaculture, books on urban farming and guides for identifying edible plants. There were books and how-to kits on the Appalachian arts –woodcraft, beekeeping, canning, quilting and pottery – arts that are in danger of extinction. I’m not one to buy lots of stuff at Christmas, but man I was tempted.

I guess that’s also why it’s so fun to go to Amish country for gifts – they seem pure and innocent in contrast to the plastic clutter of the malls. No doubt there are great Christian stores like Ten Thousand Villages, committed to selling stuff that matters, and in ways that reflect the values of Jesus and the dignity of people. But we have a long way to go… and I say “we,” because most of these Christian bookstores sell my books, so my lament is not at them but with them. But I am convinced that if the Christian bookstores continue to go bankrupt, it will not be a matter of accounting but a matter of imagination.

I went into a Christian bookstore the other day and was surprised to see some of the most prominent display space given over to military flags for the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. These flags, and a vast assortment of Americana merchandise, were on sale for the holidays.

A part of me ached because I know how difficult it must be to run a little Christian bookstore these days. But I winced as I heard the manager fatalistically confess that he resorted to selling military merchandise to “make it.” It is a sad day when we sell our military banners next to Jesus’ enemy-loving cross to make it in a financial recession. (Before long we’ll be pushing posters of scantily-clad women accompanied by a verse from Song of Solomon).

It’s true that my Christian faith gives me a passion for peace and sets me at odds with militarism. But I think I’d feel a similar dissatisfaction if the last resort for economic survival at our bookstores was selling Home Depot or Wal-Mart gift cards. I just have higher hopes for a distinctive Christian witness in the world today, even in a recession… especially in a recession.

In yesterday's post Mark Regnerus reveals the failure of faith-based abstinence programs. I thought this cartoon from Roger Judd was an appropriate follow-up.

You can find more cartoon by Roger Judd in every issue of our free digital magazine, Catalyst Leadership.

"Our collective efforts to deter premarital sex are not that successful: 41 percent of churchgoing, conservative Protestant men's relationships become sexual within one month, barely lower than the national average of 48 percent. We expend so much energy to generate so little difference."

Excerpted from "Match-Making Ministry?" in the Fall 2010 issue of Leadership Journal. To read the full quote IN context be sure to subscribe to Leadership today by clicking on the LJ cover in the left column.

Mark Regnerus is associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford, 2007).

Urbanitos, this is your jefe. Here are videos, articles, and blog posts you should be reading this week. Live largo and proselytize.

Adios,

Url

Accountability stinks.
New research from the Barna Group concludes that only 5 percent of Christians are held accountable by their church for integrating biblical beliefs into their life. It seems most churches are all bark and no bite.

C’mon, Get Happy!
The American Sociological Review (ASR) has published research this month that finds people who frequently attend church or other places of worship are happier than those who attend less often.

The Hanukkah Song (no not that one)
Don’t know much about the other holiday this season? Well, check out this video by The Maccabeats. (Get it? Maccabees?)

Consider this the Ur version of TMZ. Last week Shane Claiborne attended a meeting at the White House with other Christian leaders to discuss the administration's fatherhood initiatives. The urban monastic leader is usually seen in a t-shirt and baggy cotton (or are they hemp?) pants. But for this special occasion Claiborne added a navy blue blazer to the ensemble. Looking sharp, Shane!

In Part 1 I shared my reasons for embarking on a one month Twitter experiment, as well as the parameters I set up for myself to help my stay on my goal of “tweeting for the sake of others.” In response to my first post, as well as critique of my original piece “Why I Don’t Tweet…Not That There’s Anything Wrong With It,” I had a number of folks argue that Twitter is really no different than blogging. Therefore, why am I so critical of Twitter and not blogs?

Fair question. So let’s begin there.

In the primitive ages of social media (circa 2003), sites like Blogger were incredibly popular. But a blog is a medium that says “Listen to me!” and it assumes that the blogger has something to say (at least something more substantive than 140 characters). But what happens when you really don’t have that much to say? In truth many early bloggers were attracted to the medium not because they wanted an outlet for their ideas, but because they were looking for social connection or just raw attention. This is the brilliance behind “micro-blogging” (aka Facebook and Twitter). Twitter and Facebook are not designed to say “Listen to me!” but rather “Look at me!” And as I shared in “Why I Don’t Tweet,” I think the desire to be noticed is rooted in our deep human insecurity and search for significance.

Are blogs also about being noticed? Sure, to a degree. But the better blogs are hopefully attracting attention because of their thoughtful content and helpful ideas. Good blogs serve their readers and not simply their writers. That’s the difference between “Listen to me!” and “Look at me!” The question I wanted to answer with the 30-Day Twitter Experiment was could I tweet in a way that served others? Could it be more than a “Look at me!” medium?

My answer after a month of tweeting is, yes. Twitter can be used well, it can serve others, and it can be a helpful tool. Here are a few forms of tweeting I found beneficial:

Urbanities, this is your leader. Below are videos, articles, and blog posts you should be reading this week. Live long and proselytize.

That is all,

Url

Should pastors give financial advice?
Bishop J.D. Jakes and Dr. DeForest B. Soaries were interviewed by CNN's Solidad O'Brien recently about that questions.

"Youth groups destroy children's lives."
So says David Fitch. Read his post on how youth ministry undercuts community and appeals to teens' worst desires.

Should your church have an artist-in-residence?
The Line, an Acts 29 church plant in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, has one. Read what happens when the arts are integrated into church planting at The Gospel Coalition's page.

Last November I wrote a blog post titled “Why I Don’t Tweet … Not That There’s Anything Wrong With It.” The spark for the post came from a brief interaction with Ed Stetzer about Twitter. A prolific tweeterer (is that a word?), he was shocked to learn I didn’t tweet and wanted to know why. So I put fingers to keyboard and articulated 10 reasons–some rooted in my understanding of faith and discipleship and others clearly tongue in cheek (like #8: “Ashton Kutcher”).

I got a lot of traffic out of that post. Some applauded my reasons for not tweeting, others pointed out holes in my logic. Some incorrectly interpreted my post as condemning those who tweet despite my title clearly stating the opposite. One response came from my friend, Chris Grant (@ChrisJGrant). He gave a presentation to a group of authors about the challenges facing writers in the rapidly shifting world of publishing. The first point of Chris’ talk was “Skye Jethani is right about Twitter. Now he should start tweeting.”

I listened to Chris’s argument in which he challenged me to try tweeting without slipping into the soul-eroding, self-obsessive tendencies I wrote about in my post. I was intrigued by our conversation. Could I engage a medium like Twitter and not succumb to its pitfalls? Had I written off tweeting too soon? Does it at least deserve a try?

I decided to accept Chris’ challenge. I would try tweeting for one month to determine if I could engage Twitter in a redemptive way that would not erode my soul, and then write a follow-up post about my experience. (Ironically, Chris is a marketer, so by accepting his advice I violated of my 7th reason for not tweeting: “I’m tired of obeying marketers.” The intersection of marketing and ministry still makes me dizzy and occasionally nauseous, but I respect Chris because he shares my distaste for unreflective Christian promotional efforts.)

Launching my 30 day Twitter experiment wasn’t as simple as registering and tweeting about my morning tea. I wanted to begin with certain safeguards in place and some clear guidelines for my use of Twitter. I needed boundaries to avoid slipping into the Twitter tendencies I wrote about in my “Why I Don’t Tweet” post. Here’s what I came up with:

Nearly everyone who attended the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, last month agreed that the testimony of the young North Korean woman was one of the emotional high points of the gathering.

Her story of sacrifice, anger, salvation, and courage must be seen by every church leader. Not only is she inspiring, but her story reveals the undeniable fact that Jesus Christ is building his church even in the most repressive and hostile places on earth.

Watch her full 9 minute testimony on the 12 Cities | 12 Conversations site.

New research released by the Barna Group indicates the Neo Reformed / New Calvinist movement may not be much of a movement after all. It turns out that the number of church leaders identifying themselves as Reformed has not changed in the last 10 years.

Read the full report from Barna.

David Kinnaman, Barna Group president, summarized the findings:

“There is no discernable evidence from this research that there is a Reformed shift among U.S. congregation leaders over the last decade. Whatever momentum surrounds Reformed churches and the related leaders, events and associations has not gone much outside traditional boundaries or affected the allegiances of most today’s church leaders. It is important to note that the influence of Reformed churches might also be measured through other metrics that are currently unavailable, such as the theological certainty of self-described adherents, their level of acceptance toward those who are not Calvinist, and the new methods Reformed leaders are using to market their views to their peers and to the public.”

Fundamentalism is characterized by:

A.) Insularity. There’s a mentality of insiders over against those who don’t believe.

B.) Distrust towards culture as a place where God is at work.

C.) An “us against them” mentality. Because of the previous two characteristics, fundamentalists typically reject open dialogue. Engagement with culture takes the shape of winning arguments and confrontation. As the insularity builds, there is less and less wiggle room to associate with other Christians who disagree. As a result, a certain form of arrogance tends to infect fundamentalism.

These are the marks of classic fundamentalism. For all the obvious reasons, these characteristics tend to set Christians over against our neighbors. Its dynamic works against a missionally engaged Christianity.

After looking at the video inserted below, I see some early signs that Neo- Calvinism (also called the Neo-Reformed movement) is on its way to becoming a fundamentalism even in its edgier forms. It’s a video with many inner contradictions at work, so its not clear. Nonetheless, I observed 4 things from the video. I put these observations in the form of questions because I’m really asking if what I’m seeing is accurate at this point. Your input is greatly appreciated.

First, the video...

I spent Tuesday in a room in San Diego with 400 pastors, academics and ministry practitioners. There’s no shortage of Christian conferences these days, but there seems to be something exceptional represented by these folks. You might get a sense of what I mean should you look closely at the diversity of the participants of the first Multi-ethnic Church Conference. But beyond the racial and ethnic makeup of the participants, it is the shared theological and practical interest in the non-homogeneous church that makes this conference unique.

Why did 400 people from around the country come to learn about a topic that is barely on the radar for much of American Christianity? I think the conference’s first three speakers each answered this question in their own way. I wonder, do any of these resonate with you?

Mark DeYmaz, pastor of Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas and author Ethnic Blends, gave a brief theological overview of the multi-ethnic church from Ephesians. In 2:11 Paul points out the massive and accepted separation between Gentiles and Jews. He goes on in chapter three to describe “the mystery made known to me by revelation.” And what is that mystery? That “through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body.” In other words, the most significant racial, ethnic and cultural divides have been bridged through the Gospel. My hunch is that many of this conference’s participants believe the emphasis on the Gospel’s reconciling power has been overlooked by too many of our churches.

There is a sinister trend gaining momentum in the days leading up to the mid-term elections. It is not initially obvious to many of us, but it has significant implications for the American church. The code language associated with this trend goes unnoticed by many majority-culture Christians despite how alienating it can be to our non-white brothers and sisters. It is a trend that both threatens devastating consequences to the unity of the church and presents powerful opportunities for Gospel witness to a cynical country.

Different code words summarize this trend: us, ours, mine—the possessive language many politicians and pundits use to describe the need to retake America. The aim of this trend is to identify the insiders and outsiders, those on the right and wrong side of American history. This language hearkens back to an ideal America when things were as they should be now.

Pamela Geller, an influential blogger and speaker and a major force behind the opposition to the so-called ground zero mosque, put some of these code words to work in a recent interview with The New York Times. “Growing up as the sort of tail end of the baby boomers, there was this feeling of invincibility in America…We were free. The good guys won. The good cop is on the beat. I certainly don’t get a sense of that anymore.”

Over the course of the last week, I’ve joined more than 4200 representatives from 198 nations to listen to dozens upon dozens upon many more dozens of speakers address many of the most challenging issues of our age. Here are a few lessons I learned along the way.

The Third Lausanne Congress on Global Evangelism should have been called The Lausanne Global Gathering. Many delegates were led to believe that we would have the opportunity to speak into the issues the church is facing. Using the word “delegate” to describe our involvement as well as the word “congress” suggested each of us would be given an opportunity to address issues as diverse as Scripture, poverty, AIDS, human trafficking, the shift of power taking place around the globe, and many more.

But the statements and papers issued at the Congress were written beforehand by a group of academics from around the world (many of whom I respect and appreciate very much!). For the first few days, I kept wondering, “When do we get to watch and participate in the exchange of ideas in a meaningful way outside of our assigned table groups?” Then I finally figured out the only outlets were the multiplex afternoon workshops where some of the academics would sit in and listen to the presenters and the very limited question and answer time with participants.

If you have not yet encountered Gabe Lyons, let me encourage you to do so because he is a person worth your time. As co-founder of Catalyst, founder of Q (a learning community dedicated to mobilizing Christians for the common good), co-author of the tart and challenging book UnChristian, a dedicated husband and father of three young children and only thirty-five, Lyons has already packed some significant achievements into his young life. Now comes his latest work, The Next Christians, an engaging and exceptionally well-written look at how the newest generation of Christians is making its mark for Christ.

Lyons’ builds his thesis on two foundational concepts. The first is that American society has fundamentally moved away from its theological and moral roots. Historically, our culture was dominated by a Judeo-Christian worldview and ethic but now it’s pluralistic, postmodern and post-christian. Over the last few decades the church has been displaced from a position of cultural prominence and pushed to the periphery. Thus, a new narrative, in many ways antithetical to traditional faith, is shaping significant elements of our society.

In the last two days of the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, we have heard the stories and seen irrefutable evidence of God's presence in the world. On Monday night we heard from an 18-year-old woman who fled North Korea with her family. She came to China where her father found Jesus Christ. She told about the hardships of being discovered and her parents' deportation back to North Korea. Her mother died, and her father was imprisoned.

After escaping a second time to China, her father decided to return to North Korea to take the gospel to his suffering countrymen. He was never heard from again. The young woman was adopted by a Chinese pastor's family, but she still had not come to believe in Christ herself. Understandably, as a teenager she was filled with grief and anger. But in a dream Christ came to her, made his love for her unambiguous, and promised to be her father. With tears she shared her determination to serve Christ for the rest of her life and, like her father, see Good News brought to North Korea.

The 5,000 delegates here in Cape Town cried with her. It was powerful and beautiful. One friend said the Congress could have ended at that moment and would have all been worth it.

On Tuesday the Congress focused on the issue of reconciliation and the movement of the gospel in the Middle East. In more than one session, we saw what many in our world believe is impossible--Palestinians and Israelis embracing, blessing, and calling one another "brother" or "sister."

Day Two of Catalyst began with the statement:
“It’s impossible to love people and avoid tension at the same time.”

Then, after an amazing spectacle, an audience participation exercise in percussion (think Blue Man Group with 13,000 people beating out the rhythms) and a spectacular demonstration of trampolinists reaching tremendous heights, twisting and flipping even while wearing skis and snowboards, and only after all that, did the speakers unpack the statement about tension.

The most noteworthy of them was Gabe Lyons, coauthor of unChristian and now his latest book, The Next Christians.

He explained that the next generation of Christians are engaging cultural tensions in a whole new way.

The results of a Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life survey have been widely reported this week. Pew asked 3,400 Americans 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity, and other world religions. The results were surprising. It turns out that on average atheists answered more questions correctly than evangelicals.

Average number of questions answered correctly, out of 32:

Atheist/agnostic: 20.9
Jewish: 20.5
Mormon: 20.3
White evangelical: 17.6
White Catholic: 16.0
White mainline Protestant: 15.8
Black Protestant: 13.4
Hispanic Catholic: 11.6

Pew has posted an online version of the survey. Take the quiz and see if you average better than other Americans.

On September 21-22, Steven Furtick preached for 24 hours for an online audience of thousands. The senior pastor of Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, focused his hermeneutic marathon on the topic of “audacious faith.” And it’s not a coincidence that audacious faith is also the theme of his new book, Sun Stand Still: What Happens When You Dare to Ask God for the Impossible, which debuted the same day.

In a report at The Christian Post Furtick initially stressed that the online preaching marathon was not a gimmick. “he acknowledged he wasn’t a TV preacher or ‘the LaBron James of pastors.’” But the report’s next paragraph says:

Responding to criticisms that he was merely "pimping" his book all day, Furtick admitted he was. But he said he was doing it because he truly believes the message – God's message – in the book will change people's lives.

One of the constant pleasures of studying Christian history is being reminded again and again that Qoheleth was right: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

American Christians have a complicated relationship with celebrities. On the one hand, we have a tendency to blame Hollywood and rock music for corrupting our youth. On the other, there are few things we like more than discovering that one of these entertainment insiders is a Believer. What could be more exciting than finding out we have a “secret agent” on the inside?

Well, it turns out this uneasy relationship with the famous is nothing new. In his Confessions (written around 397 AD), Augustine tells the story of a fellow named Victorinus, a notable Roman philosopher and rhetorician who becomes a Christian (Book 8, chapter 2). Victorinus was famous—so famous, in fact, that the Romans erected a statue of him in the Forum.

In late April 2010, more than 50 pastors crowded into a hotel conference room in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The event organizers, a small group of pastors from Chicagoland, were expecting 25 colleagues to turn out for the meeting. But when news got out about their visit, area pastors got excited. Scott Chapman, pastor of a multi-site church called The Chapel in Chicago's northern suburbs and president of the Christ Together network, shared with the Virginia pastors how Christ Together is helping churches across denominational and ethnic lines unite in service and evangelism to carry the gospel into their neighborhoods. He described a "sustained Christ awakening" that includes churches working together as the One Body of Christ to restore the reputation of Jesus in their area.

After the meeting, Scott Gifford, national director of Christ Together, attended two worship services that convinced him that this vision was taking root in Virginia.

The first was a Saturday night worship event in a predominately African-American Cornerstone Assembly of God in Hampton, Virginia. During the service, Pastor Gerard Duff preached from the Christ Together brochure.

In the final installment of Skye Jethani's interview with Jim Wallis and Mark Dever, they discuss the role of local congregations in God's mission of reconciliation. Dever and Wallis agree that Americans are too individualistic and that Scripture calls for a communal witness of God's power and love. The two leaders disagree, however, on whether or not evangelicals should partner with mainline liberal churches.

Tom Steers, founder and co-director of Asian American Ministries for The Navigators, recently wrote a guest opinion column for Christianity Today (July 7, 2010). The column is entitled, "Needed: More Monocultural Ministries". Mark DeYmaz, founding pastor of Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas, and a leader in the multi-ethnic church movement, has written a response to Steers' article. Read part one of DeYmaz's rebuttal.

In arguing for more monocultural ministries, Tom Steers reveals the all-too-common misunderstanding of generations past committed to the Homogeneous Unit Principle as a pragmatic tool for local church planting, growth, and development. It is long-past time to recognize, however, that there is a significant difference between the need for evangelism focused on specific ethnic groups (more is needed, I agree) and the New Testament’s expectation that following salvation believers are to walk, work, and worship God together as one - in and through the local church - for the sake of the gospel.

Monocultural evangelism then? Absolutely. More monocultural churches? I say, absolutely not. What we really need is more multiethnic churches that understand and practice the HUP in their own context by providing for evangelism and basic discipleship of first generation internationals for precisely the reason the Steers suggests.

Steers believes monocultural churches avoid the problem of unrealistically expecting that “each of these groups assimilate to one another or to multiethnic congregations—at the same time they are trying to assimilate into U.S. culture.” This problem, by the way, is not always rooted in one’s ethnicity; personality is also a factor that plays a role in how soon or slowly 1.0s (a common name for first-generation immigrants) desire to engage the greater body. In fact I address this very thing in my latest book, Ethnic Blends: Mixing Diversity Into Your Local Church. In promoting a model I call, “Graduated Inclusion,” multi-ethnic churches can and will apply the HUP strictly for the purpose of evangelism and initial discipleship while simultaneously providing for the needs of 1.5s, 2.0s and beyond, all from within one local church.

Being justified by Christ leads a person to engage acts of justice. And the Christian witness of justice leads more people to be justified. But Wallis and Dever continue to disagree about whether justice is an "implication" of the gospel or "integral" to it.

Tom Steers, founder and co-director of Asian American Ministries for The Navigators, recently wrote a guest opinion column for Christianity Today (July 7, 2010). The column is entitled, "Needed: More Monocultural Ministries".

In the opinion piece ("not necessarily representing the opinion of the publication," as CT makes clear in the footer), Steers argues that a multicultural society demands more monocultural ministries. In so doing, however, he does not clearly state what he means by use of the term, “ministry.” Consequently, I believe he a) confuses evangelism with local church development, b) wrongly exegetes Scripture in attempting to support his claim, and otherwise c) speaks from assumption in stating what advocates of the multi-ethnic church truly believe. With this in mind, the following blog entry respectfully, but critically, challenges Steers' thinking.

Steers writes:

“Some argue that since we are an increasingly multicultural society, our churches should become more multicultural. There is a certain logic to that. As long as there are people who want to be culturally and socially multicultural, or multiethnic, there also must be structures for them. Such ministries are crucial for healing America's racial and ethnic wounds. They potentially model the unbiased oneness that Jesus prayed for in John 17.”

Theologically informed “advocates” of the multi-ethnic church however (at least, none that I know) are not suggesting, as the author states, “since we are an increasingly multicultural society, (that) our churches should become more multicultural.”

The latest issue of our digital magazine, Catalyst Leadership, is now live. We going deeper into the controversy and questions surrounding justice and evangelism. It's a strong line-up of contributors from both Leadership journal and recent Catalyst conferences: Andy Stanley, Jim Wallis, Mark Dever, Bethany Hoang, Naomi Zacharias, Jim Belcher, Skye Jethani, Charles Colson, Shane Claiborne, and more.

Get your free subscription to Catalyst Leadership and join the conversation.

At the Q Conference last April in Chicago, Scot McKnight interviewed Brian McLaren about the "provocative ambiguity" in many of his writings. Does McLaren still affirm the classic creeds of the church as he stated in A Generous Orthodoxy, and why doesn't he plainly state whether or not he is a universalist?

Check out the video from the conference. Did McLaren put the questions about his beliefs to rest?

Q | Conversations on Being a Heretic from Q Ideas on Vimeo.

Is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, and welcoming the stranger "gospel ministry"? In part 3 of the conversation about justice and the gospel, Mark Dever and Jim Wallis disagree about what can and cannot be legitimately called a gospel ministry. What do you think? If the gospel is not verbally proclaimed are we doing gospel work?

Pick up the Summer issue of Leadership Journal to read more from Dever, Wallis, and others on the intersection of justice and evangelism.

The New York Times is reporting on new research that shows pastors appear to be struggling with health issues--both physical and psychological--more than other Americans. The article reports:

"Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could."

The article goes on to speculate on causes for the decline in clergy health. A key culprit: lack of boundaries. Pastors have an increasing number of expectations. Not only are they expected to function as CEOs for complex organizations, but also spiritual shepherds, teachers, and care-givers for large numbers of people.

One researcher from Duke University sums it up well: "These people tend to be driven by a sense of a duty to God to answer every call for help from anybody, and they are virtually called upon all the time, 24/7.”

In part two of the conversation between Mark Dever, Jim Wallis, and Skye Jethani, they talk about the judgment passage in Matthew 25. Was Jesus saying that our just and compassionate actions toward "the least of these" is central to our faith, or are they evidence of our faith? Is justice a gospel imperative or a gospel implication?

Pick up the Summer issue of Leadership Journal to read more from Dever, Wallis, and others on the intersection of justice and evangelism.

Ninety-five percent African American, five percent other. These are the demographics of the Chicago neighborhood where our three-month-old church has been planted. I am “other.” White. One hundred percent white. As the pastor of this young church plant, I have lost sleep over these percentages.

Most of the church planting models and examples I’ve been exposed to are very different from my current cross-cultural experience. In the recent past, the Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP) was viewed positively as the rationale for starting churches of demographically similar people. This principle states that it is easier for people to become Christians when they must cross few or no racial, linguistic, or class barriers. Ideally, then, these new churches were led by pastors whose culture, class, and skin color closely matched those of their flocks.

The HUP is seen less favorably these days, but it remains common for church planters to target culturally similar people. Categories such as cultural elites, the creative class, or young professionals may sound exotic but are often used to describe people most like the church planter.

Take the recent urban church-planting trend. Like me, many of these church-planters are not native to the city. So why are they leaving suburbia to start urban churches? In a recent blog post, Tim Keller identifies what I think is the primary motivation for many of these church plants:

“For the last twenty years, since 1990, American cities have experienced an amazing renaissance. People began moving back into cities in droves, and downtown/center cities began to regenerate at their cores.”

In other words, the children who grew up in homogeneous suburban churches are moving into America’s cities, followed closely by the next generation of church planters. The result? Young, urban, and homogeneous churches.

The summer issue of Leadership features an interview with Mark Dever and Jim Wallis about the role justice ought to have in our gospel ministry. Over the coming weeks we'll be posting video segments of the interview hosted by Leadership's managing editor, Skye Jethani. In part 1, Dever and Wallis focus on whether or not tackling racism is part of the church's call or a distraction from its core mission.

We want to hear your reaction. Which perspective do you believe aligns best with Scripture and the church's mission? Stay tuned for more video from the interview in the days ahead.

Last week Dr. Metzger wrote on Ur about the novelty of multi-ethnic efforts in the church today. He asked whether justice was really taking root in our hearts, or is it just a trend. In this follow-up post he exposes our general blindness to injustice by referencing Mark Driscoll's comments about the film Avatar. If you recall, earlier this year Driscoll called the James Cameron film "the most satanic movie I've ever seen." A video with his full rant against the film can be viewed below.

Some friends drew my attention to the YouTube post of Pastor Mark Driscoll’s sermon where he critiques the movie Avatar. I don’t know Pastor Driscoll, but I have watched the movie. There were two things that struck me about his remarks: his rightful concern for orthodoxy coupled with his desire for Christians to think critically about the worldviews that films present such as pagan spirituality; and his conviction that the movie attacks cultural progress.

Whether or not the director, James Cameron, intended to promote a pantheistic perspective (everything is God), I do concur with Driscoll that a pantheistic or monistic view of reality proves problematic for consideration of sin and evil—if we are one with the divine in our creaturely state, how can we be sinners? It also proves problematic for consideration of the need for a Savior—if we are ultimately one with God, why do we need a Savior to remove the separation? From a pantheistic or monistic perspective, separation is not moral or ontological; it is basically mental. According to this model, our sinful state is one of illusion. We fail to see things as they truly are, and we must cease living the lie and get in touch with our true selves which is not beyond us, but rather within us (what Driscoll refers to as the spark of divinity). I should also add that it is ultimately impossible to differentiate good from evil in a pantheistic or monistic framework: good and evil proceed from one ultimate reality, which is beyond good and evil.

So, I commend Pastor Driscoll for his biblical and theological convictions regarding pantheism. And yet I don’t find his brief statements on Avatar orthodox enough. Here I have in mind Pastor Driscoll’s statement that the movie attacks cultural progress.

This excerpt is taken from "Always Personal, Never Private" in the Summer issue of Leadership.

"When the status quo benefits you, your theology doesn't normally include changing the status quo. For most white, middle-class Christians, the world is working fine. So religion that includes social change doesn't matter. They want to leave things pretty much as they are."

Jim Wallis is the founder and editor of Sojourners, a magazine and community focused on the biblical call to social justice. To read the rest of the interview with Mark Dever and Jim Wallis in context, pick up the Summer 2010 issue of Leadership journal or subscribe by clicking on the cover in the left column.

You can learn a lot about Evangelical Christianity by going into a typical Christian bookstore in a shopping mall. You’ll find scores of how-to, self-help, and church growth books. I doubt you will find many books on reconciliation.

While the church definitely needs good, practical literature on helping individuals and churches grow, we must guard against replacing the gospel of reconciliation with a gospel primarily or exclusively focused on quantitative church growth. In fact, Dr. John M. Perkins prophetically confronted the Evangelical church as far back as 1982, saying that “We have substituted a gospel of church growth for a gospel of reconciliation” (See Perkins, With Justice for All, pp. 107-108). Perkins was speaking primarily of the need for churches to break down racial barriers between people of different ethnicities. With this in mind, it is a welcome sight to find churches like Willow Creek being intentional about welcoming diverse ethnicities (See “Can Megachurches Bridge the Racial Divide?” Time, January 11, 2010). There are vital signs of hope.

The gospel of reconciliation calls us out from affinity groupings based on cliques that intentionally or unintentionally exclude those who are different from us according to race, class, gender, generation, etc. Unfortunately, people don’t just shop in bookstores. Many people inside and outside the church in North America view the church as “a vendor of religious services and goods” (Hunsberger, in Missional Church, p. 84); they look for churches that will “sell” them the religious goods and services that they as individuals and as individual nuclear families want, not what they ultimately need relationally as citizens of God’s communal (and not commodity-) kingdom. We need to be expanded relationally, moved beyond hanging out simply with our “own kind of people,” moving toward being enriched by Jesus’ people from diverse backgrounds, and moving into the realization of God’s kingdom.

This excerpt is taken from "Always Personal, Never Private" in the Summer issue of Leadership.

"We have a special responsibility to make sure our brothers and sisters in Christ are cared for. Beyond that it is appropriate to care for the poor outside the church, but that is something for all humans made in the image of God to do, and Christians can certainly help. But the church isn't called to solve social ills."

Mark Dever is the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. To read the rest of the interview with Mark Dever and Jim Wallis in context, pick up the Summer 2010 issue of Leadership journal or subscribe by clicking on the cover in the left column.

The Portuguese issue of Playboy showing Jesus Christ among topless models.

“We did not see or approve the cover and pictorial in the July issue of Playboy Portugal…. It is a shocking breach of our standards.” -Theresa Hennessy, Vice President of public relations at Playboy Enterprises

(Wait. Playboy has standards? –Url Scaramanga)

How iPhones are changing religion.

“The future is very bright, but we have yet to get our mind around a world where some [people get] their whole religious experience through a device.” -Dudley Rose, the associate dean for ministry studies at Harvard University’s Divinity School

(Does this mean Steve Jobs is the digital pope? –Url Scaramanga)

The growing disenchantment with church growth strategies.

“I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong with the church growth principles we’ve developed . . . yet somehow they don’t seem to work.” - C. Peter Wagner, a leading spokesmen for the church-growth movement.

(Mr. Wagner, have you ever considered a career in politics? I also hear there are some vacancies at BP. –Url Scaramanga.)

The summer issue of Leadership is about a week away from mailboxes. The theme is "Beyond Bono: Doing justice God's way is more than a fad." In the last few years, there has been a dramatic rise in pop-cultural engagement with issues of justice and poverty. This trend is captured best by Bono--lead singer for U2. This video from a few years ago illustrates the celebrity-driven focus around justice.

But what about the rise of justice as an issue within the church? Can it be explained away by the visibility of stars like Bono, or is there something more going on? And what does it mean to move beyond emotion and guilt toward a biblical and theological foundation for our justice efforts? These topics and others are addressed in the summer issue of LJ. Some of the voices in the issue include:

John Ortberg on prophetic preaching
Bethany Hoang on the justice generation
Eugene Cho on the risks of getting personally involved in justice
Jim Wallis and Mark Dever debating the role of justice in the gospel
Mark Labberton on the cultural and theological roots of the trend

We'll be posting excerpts, quotes, and videos from the summer issue in the coming days. And if you haven't yet subscribed to get all the great content in each issue of Leadership, click on the cover on the left side of the screen for a special offer.

Earlier this week, Dave Travis from Leadership Network asked Skye Jethani a few questions regarding his objections to the Twitter poll they launched for THE NINES. In part 2, Travis answers questions about the same poll asked by Jethani.

Skye: You've noted that the Twitter poll has been really effective at generating more names of possible speakers for THE NINES. What other criteria do you use to select the speakers?

Good question and we get it a lot. To keep from rambling on too much, I gave an answer in May in response to our SAGE online conference. You can find that full answer here:

http://learnings.leadnet.org/2010/05/how-do-you-pick-the-speakers.html

I also answer why sometime speakers choose not to participate there.

But in summary, we ask for nominations from our staff, about 15 people. Most of those staff are based across the country and have some wide relational networks. Now many of those nominated comes from those we work with in our regular programs.

As I said in that post: “Most of the speakers have been a part of one of our Leadership Communities, Labs, or the like. Or we have known them forever through our history. So, if you have never been a part of one of our programs, it is hard for us to know you.”

In order to get a blend of speakers we do seek out some interesting stories from people that are friends of friends. And we try to mix people our clients have heard before with people that few have heard. If you were to go back and look at THE NINES last year, Aha! And SAGE this year, you would find that to be true.

I would just also say that we choose to platform people that we think have a story that needs to be told, particularly if they are an 'unknown' voice. We try to cast a wide net.

We ask a lot of people, and sometimes speakers choose not to participate and I cover that in that previous post.

And I will also say – we ask God to have people say “yes” that can help leaders expand and clarify their own leadership as a Christian leader. That means I can listen to someone that I disagree with and still learn something and gain clarity on my own leadership. There are some people on our list that I think I can learn from even though I may not like how they lead, their church, their views, or other assorted baggage they may bring with them.

I think most viewers and participants at any conference are very discerning about what to keep and what to throw out.

Skye: Given all of the shortcomings you and Todd have acknowledged about the Twitter poll, why have you decided it's worth keeping up?

I am the king of shortcomings and failures so people pointing them out really doesn’t hurt my feelings. (or feeling as some of my staff would say)

But like I said in a previous post, despite the fact of sending surveys to thousands of people after last year’s THE NINES asking for recommendations, we got back pitifully few names. And the ones we got were mostly people we had just had on THE NINES. The few that weren’t were people we had slated for future online conferences. So, bottom line, not a lot of new names.

Skye Jethani, managing editor of Leadership Journal, and Dave Travis, managing director of Leadership Network, have been talking about the controversy surrounding THE NINES' poll. Jethani thinks it was a mistake--a poorly communicated idea that has deteriorated into a popularity contest among church leaders. Travis says its been a helpful way to generate new ideas and speakers for THE NINES online video conference. They've decided to have an open dialogue about the issue. Dave Travis has started by asking a few questions about Skye Jethani's objections to the poll. Later this week we'll be posting Travis' response to Jethani's questions.

Dave Travis: Skye – you really didn’t like the list idea at all did you? What was your main issue?

Skye Jethani: Based on the explanation you and Todd gave, I understand the list was intended to build buzz for THE NINES and to do some trolling for new voices. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that motive. It’s the execution that’s worrisome. The open source list has no instruction, no context, no explanation for how to participate, and no details about how you intend to use it. Anyone visiting the page simply sees a list of a few hundred Christian leaders with “like” and “dislike” voting options next to his/her name and photo.

I believe very often “the medium is the message.” The message you intended was one of open participation; you wanted to let the audience have a role in nominating and selecting the speakers for THE NINES. That’s a fine thing. But the medium you chose, this Twitter poll, communicated something very different. It encourages the ranking of church leaders with a simple thumbs up or down. It’s one thing to “like” or “dislike” a person’s book, sermon, or theology. But this site communicated something more, something you did not intend. It asks visitors to “like” or “dislike” a person. In my view that crosses a line and encourages very unchristian values. Again, I know this was not the intention but that is the danger of using a new medium without much reflection. As Todd said, “From the time I saw the application until the page was posted was probably all of three minutes.” Those of us responsible for leading leaders in the church should exhibit more caution when presented with a new medium.

That’s good feedback. I know you have seen some of our thinking now but my guess is that you are still uncomfortable. I get that. Share with the readers some of that queasiness.

Both you and Todd have acknowledged the way the list can be misused and misunderstood. You did not intend for it to be a popularity contest, although that’s how many have seen it. You’ve recognized the problem with the application not allowing you to post instructions, directions, or guidelines for voting. You’ve regretted the “like” and “dislike” language. On your blog and on Out of Ur you’ve listed the numerous shortcomings of the format. So, my only question is--why keep it up? Sure, its generating buzz--and I’ve become an accomplice in that through my objection to the poll--but any positive input it’s provided can be cultivated by other means (which I’ll discuss in a minute). So why not take it down?

Yesterday, Skye Jethani wrote a post critical of how Leadership Network was driving publicity for THE NINES conference. The "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" poll raking Christian leaders struck him as distasteful and he asked his friends at Leadership Network to reconsider the site. Dave Travis, managing director of Leadership Network, spoke with Skye and explained their thinking behind the use of the "crowd source" poll. Travis has written a response to the objections on his blog, and we've excerpted a section here. Read Dave Travis' entire post at Learnings @ Leadership Network.

A few weeks ago a new web site technology went live that allows you to post a list to get opinions. Todd Rhodes (Leadership Network's digital guru) decided to try it to stir up some interest in THE NINES.

We seeded the list with 20-25 names and encouraged folks to add to the list.

We did this to get some suggestions on who we might need to invite to speak this year. We knew that via social media connections we would cast a much wider net to see who is suggested.

Now the site (http://twtpick.in/4k) has its limitations. That is how that service works.

It doesn’t allow you to put any explanatory text on the page.

It only allows the “like” or “dislike” which are unfortunate word choices. Our preference would have been different for word choice.

It does allow people to freely add people as suggested speakers though for lots of others to see. And we liked that.

It does mean you have to sign in with your twitter account so we can see who you like. It’s not an anonymous service.

Sometimes there is a good leader who is overexposed. They speak everywhere and they are good at it. There is a place for that and a place at THE NINES for that. I think some hit the “dislike” button because they have heard a person too many times.

In ancient Rome large audiences gathered in coliseums to be entertained by slaves and prisoners—including many Christians—fighting for their lives against wild beasts and one another. Their fate was often determined by the emperor who gauged the crowd’s pleasure or displeasure. If he displayed a thumbs up the victim was spared; a thumbs down meant he was put to death. Popularity became the measure of a person’s life.

For 2000 years the people of Christ have stood in opposition to this value. Paul wrote to remind the church that “we regard no one according to the flesh” (2 Cor 5:16). We do not measure a person’s value by the same standard as the world. Worth is not determined by popularity, beauty, or worldly success. It is this conviction that has motivated Christians to fight against slavery, seek justice for the orphans and widows, build hospitals and schools, preach the Good News to the poor, and value all people from the womb to the tomb.

For this reason I was both saddened and disturbed by the Leadership Network’s decision to run a Twitter-based popularity contest to determine the speakers for THE NINES conference in 2010. The feedback form seen here allows users to submit the name of a church leader. Twitter users are then able to give a thumbs up or down to each person. Ranking is then automatically determined by the ratio of positive to negative votes a leader receives. Adding a dash of arsenic to an already distasteful dish, the site allows you to see exactly who voted up or down for each leader.

Read part 1 of the interview.

How would describe some of the rewards of leading a multi-ethnic church to pastors who have spent their vocational lives within a homogeneous church?

For eighteen years prior to planting Mosaic I served homogeneous congregations. Like my friends and colleagues serving such churches today, I was blessed on numerous occasions to experience God working in and through me for his glory. Nevertheless, my wife and I have found an inimitable dimension of the Holy Spirit, a unique power and pleasure of God, that dwells in the midst of a diverse people seeking Christ as one. Through Mosaic we have ministered with and to so many people who are different from us, people who in one way or another have encouraged, challenged, or validated our calling beyond what we might have ever known had we stayed within the safe confines of the homogeneous church. In addition, visitors consistently tell us that they cannot stop crying during the service. In such moments they sense the Holy Spirit near, in ways they are not accustomed to.

Of course, we also face discouragement along the way. At times, we think, "Let's just go back to doing what is easy, what we know, in a church with people like us.” But at the end of the day we return to the roots of our calling, mindful that in pursuing the path of a peacemaker we are blessed to be called "the sons of God," (Matthew 5:9).

Mark DeYmaz is the founding pastor of Mosiac Church of Central Arkansas, author of Building a Healthy Multi-ethnic Church and co-founder of the Mosaix Network. Mark’s recently published second book, Ethnic Blends, addresses some of the unique challenges faced by multi-ethnic churches. Urthling, David Swanson, spoke with Mark about the theology and challenges of multi-ethnic ministry.

In the book you argue that the New Testament paradigm for the local church is one that exhibits ethnic and socio-economic diversity. In your years pastoring a multi-ethnic church, what has been the theology that most compels people to embrace this ideal for the local church?

While God's heart for the nations is evident from Genesis through Revelation, such a broad understanding is not enough to inform pastors concerning their approach to ministry. A closer examination of the New Testament, however, reveals a very precise theology upon which the multi-ethnic/economically diverse local church should be built, a biblical mandate that cannot be ignored. Namely,

Christ envisions the multi-ethnic church on the night before he dies (John 17:20-23), so that the world will know God's love and believe.

Luke describes the model at Antioch (Acts 11:19-26; 13:1ff.), the first mega, missional and multi-ethnic community of faith and the most influential church in the New Testament.

Paul prescribes unity and diversity for the local church in his letter to the Ephesians, where his theme is "the unity of the church for the sake of the Gospel."

40 years ago the Boeing 747 entered commercial service on route between New York and London. While the spectators marveled at the technological achievement—no one had seen 700,000 pounds of aluminum fly before—no one in the crowd realized that they were also witnessing a sociological revolution—no one except Juan Trippe. Trippe was president of PanAm, the first airline to purchase the massive new Boeing. The visionary businessman knew the huge plane would change air travel, but he predicted much more. Before the plane had even left the drawing board, Trippe said that the 747 would be “…a great weapon for peace, competing with intercontinental missiles for mankind’s destiny.”

His remarks may have been interpreted as hyperbole in 1970, but most now agree that the Boeing 747 has been a significant catalyst of globalization. The Jumbo Jet, as it was affectionately nicknamed, represented a huge increase in passenger capacity compared with earlier airliners which in turn lowered the cost of flying. As a result the 747 made long-range, intercontinental travel accessible to millions of people for the first time. To use Thomas Friedman’s phrase, the Jumbo Jet was instrumental in making the world flat.

On June 10, Leadership's managing editor Skye Jethani will be moderating a conversation at Saddleback Church on the future of the global church. The gathering is part of the 12 Cities | 12 Conversations tour in advance of the 3rd Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa, in October.

(You'll want to watch Rick Warren's video invitation for the psychedelic video effect of his shirt alone. Goodbye Hawaiian shirts. Hello Houston, we have a problem.)

Saddleback Conversation Video Invite from ConversationGatherings on Vimeo.

Even if you cannot attend the gathering you can still participate. Saddleback will be hosting a live video broadcast of the gathering on their website. Sign up for the event here. The panelists for the event include:

National unemployment hovers around 10 percent. There are a lot of hurting individuals and households in the country as a result, but few have reported on the impact on clergy. The Wall Street Journal has released an article on the sharp rise in unemployment among pastors and the very hard realities of being an out-of-work church leader.

Here are some sobering stats:

Unemployed pastors in 2005: 2,000
Unemployed pastors in 2007: 3,000
Unemployed pastors in 2009: 5,000

30 percent of church attendees report reducing their giving since November 2009.

What makes matters more challenging for unemployed pastors is that because churches are not required to pay unemployment taxes, laid-off church workers can't collect benefits offered to other workers. In addition, the church sector may be one of the last to begin hiring again as staffing decisions are directly linked to giving, and giving is linked to the unemployment rates within the congregation. In other words, the people in the pews need jobs before they'll be able to hire someone to fill the pulpit. Pastors looking for a job may be looking longer than other workers and without the cushion of an unemployment check.

The national debate (or is it an argument?) about immigration has provided a huge opportunity for churches to proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel to an anxious country. However, rather than responding with courage and grace, many of us have either kept silent or responded in fear, nervous about an unknown future. Three recent stories reveal the weight of this cultural moment and show why churches need to engage the issue with increased wisdom, mercy, and justice.

On April 23, Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed into law the broadest anti-illegal immigration legislation in the country. The legislation has been celebrated by some and strongly opposed by others, because it instructs police to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.

Also in April, Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James released a television ad that quickly propelled him from YouTube sensation to a guest on The O’Reilly Factor. The ad promises to administer driver’s license exams only in English. “This is Alabama, we speak English,” the candidate says. “If you want to live here, learn it.” James claims his ad is not about immigration, but many are wondering who the “you” in the ad is if not non-English speaking immigrants.

What a day. I woke at 4am this morning to catch a flight from Chicago to Washington DC. The purpose of the trip was to conduct an interview that we’ll feature in the summer issue of Leadership Journal (which hits mailboxes and screens in July). The focus of the issue is on the intersection of justice and evangelism. It’s going to be a fantastic issue with articles from Eugene Cho, Mark Labberton, Bethany Hoang, Jim Belcher, and others. But the main attraction is the interview I just wrapped at a coffee shop on Capitol Hill.

I spent two hours in conversation with Jim Wallis and Mark Dever on their understanding of the gospel, justice, and the local church. For those who don’t know Wallis and Dever and can’t grasp why having those two interacting on this issue is a big deal, let me fill you in.

Jim Wallis is the editor and founder of Sojourners—a magazine and community of evangelicals committed to social action. Wallis has been engaged in justice issues since the civil rights movement of the 60s, and proudly shares that he’s been arrested 22 times. He’s an outspoken critic of linking the church to either a politically conservative or liberal agenda, but has been an advocate for the poor, the unborn, the marginalized, and the oppressed. For decades he’s been reintroducing the justice teachings of the NT to Christians who’ve neglected them.

Mark Dever is pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church and one of the founders of the Together for the Gospel network. He’s big on Reformed theology and one of the visible leaders of the New Reformed movement that seems to be sprouting everywhere in the church. Dever has been a leading voice against expanding (and thereby losing) our definition of the gospel.

The Q gathering kicked off in Chicago today. 600 Christian leaders in the church, business, social sector, education, government, and the arts assembled at the Civic Opera House to hear some very stimulating talks and engage in more conversations themselves. One of the highlights from day one was Tim Keller.

Keller used his 18 minutes (all Q talks are 18, 9, or 3 minutes...there’s a predominately displayed countdown clock the audience can see to hold the speaker accountable...clearly not invented by a preacher) to talk about the polarization in the church between the “justification people” and the “justice people.”

As Keller describes them, the justification people are all about justification by faith alone. Only after being justified can a person live as he/she ought to live. While Keller was in full agreement with this doctrine, he said the unfortunate implication for many of the justification people is the belief that “we are mainly here to do evangelism” and they view “justice as a distraction.”

Following this blog, I figured the best way to rack up comments was to write about health care. So I thought I might explore one element of the recently enacted health-reform legislation that grabbed my attention as a prospective pastor. Though I worked for a short time on Capitol Hill, much of the far-reaching legislation eludes my understanding. We will be sorting out the implications of these reforms for years, if not decades. But one provision stands out as noteworthy, because it exposes a major social change with questionable merit. Until young adults turn 26, insurers are now required to let their parents retain them as dependents, no matter whether they have married or found gainful employment.

The move will benefit many of the 13.2 million Americans between the ages of 19 and 29 who currently do not have health insurance. According to the Commonwealth Fund, almost 30 percent of this age group foregoes health insurance for a variety of reasons. Students may continue from college to graduate school through at least their mid-20s. An unhealthy job market directs others into internships, residencies, or part-time positions that do not provide benefits. Youth (with its high risk-tolerance) convinces some to take their chances that no catastrophic illness will befall them.

This new insurance mandate matches the new social reality for 20-somethings who cannot or do not become independent adults when they turn 18, or even 21. According to the Brookings Institution, about 70 percent of 30-year-old adults in 1960 had married, started a family, and achieved financial independence. That figure had dropped below 40 percent by 2000. More young men and women are attending college, but the median number of years needed to complete a degree has risen from four to five since 1970. Men between the ages of 25 and 34 without college degrees earned less money in 2002 than did men from the same age group in 1975, when adjusted for inflation. But their 2002 peers who finished college and completed at least some graduate school earned more than both groups. So if you want to achieve economic independence in your 20s today, college and perhaps even graduate school has become something of a necessity.

The email provided a helpful link and instructed me to “Tell Glenn Beck: I’m a social justice Christian.” The blunt Fox News pundit had recently outed “social justice” as code language for socialism. According to Beck, should you uncover this sinister conspiracy at your church, the best course of action is to run “as fast as you can.” As Skye pointed out on this blog, the interesting thing about Beck’s claim is not its validity or his sanity but how “the church engages this issue of social justice and its role in the life and mission of God’s people.”

In the days following Beck’s rant, links were posted via Twitter and Facebook to articles and videos lampooning Beck’s character and claims. I was invited to join virtual groups to demonstrate my opposition to any version of Christianity that doesn’t claim social justice as a central tenant.

Why the stampede to distance ourselves from this talking head’s pontifications about social justice? I’d like to suggest two motivating factors—the tarnished public image of the American church and personal insecurities about our Christian identity—that, unfortunately, cannot sustain the actual pursuit of social justice.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.”

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?

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.

The title caught my eye: “Reverend reconciles sex and religion.” Was another church challenging married couples to make time for sexual intimacy for seven days straight? A pastor making headlines for an edgy sermon about the goodness of sex? A review of the latest book from a Christian relationship expert with new statistics about Christians’ sex lives?

Actually, the article was much less predictable than any of my guesses. The story’s focus, Debra Haffner, has the distinction of being both a reverend and a sexologist who believes her two professions “offer a unique insight into modern sexuality.” The Revered Haffner—who, by the way, won’t marry people who are virgins—thinks it necessary for “conservative religious leaders to reform their doctrines to fit modern times.” Such a shift includes focusing on the “quality of relationships” rather than on the morality of sexual practices.

As someone who falls within Haffner’s “conservative religious leader” category, it’s tempting to write her off. There’s little new in her claim that our sexual ethics need updating for a new day. Her reading of the Bible (“Genesis is full of affirmations of humans as sexual beings”) is certainly culturally bound and would likely confuse the Bible’s early interpreters. Frankly, it’s hard for me to take seriously any expert who doesn’t strongly consider the historic claims and traditions of the Church.

That’s why I also have trouble with much of the teaching and preaching about sexuality that originates closer to home.

If you want to rile up the evangelical masses, drag out dubious statistics about how many Christians fall away from the faith after high school. We fear for our youth, that they’ll rebel against what their parents and churches taught when they leave home and the youth group.

But what if we’re wrong? What if our particular fears about “emerging adulthood,” the period between the ages of 18 and 29, are unfounded? And what if the situation is actually worse than we imagine? The National Study of Youth and Religion provides us with a treasure trove of valuable information based on interviews with thousands of emerging American adults. Noted sociologist Christian Smith has teamed with Patricia Snell to analyze the data and publish Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, a follow up to the groundbreaking 2005 book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.

Young adults undergo intense transitions during these tumultuous years. And broader social forces have reshaped this expanding interim between adolescence and full adulthood. Emerging adults are delaying marriage, enrolling in college and graduate school in record numbers, hopping from career to career amid economic instability, and relying on financial support from their parents. Such trends have been well documented. Yet several myths about these adults’ spiritual lives persist.

Myth #1: Emerging adults serve out of concern for the common good.

College campuses are wallpapered with fliers promoting service opportunities. Churches send their youth on local and foreign mission projects. Political analysts credit youth volunteers and voters with helping to elect President Obama in 2008.

It’s mostly a mirage.

In October 2010 the Lausanne Movement will convene the Third Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa. In preparation for that gathering, Lausanne and Christianity Today are developing a "Global Conversation" around the issue to be discussed in Cape Town.

In February 2010 the Global Conversation tackles truth—and the reluctance of post-Christian societies in the West to trust claims of absolute truth. We asked residents of a secular university city whether there was anything they were still absolutely sure of. Their answers suggest bridges as well as barriers for dialogue between Christian and secular neighbors.

Read more about evangelism and relativism on the Global Conversations website.

Common Ground from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.

Ed Stetzer recently presented data to the attendees of the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta. Much of that data was shared in the Winter issue of Leadership journal. In this post, Ed Stetzer explores additional information that was, until now, only available to the attendees at Catalyst.

Change. It’s happening at such a pace it has become cliché.

Joel Barker is so 80’s. Yet Barker is still around. A self-described “futurist,” Baker popularized the term, “paradigm” to describe our behavior patterns. Our recent Lifeway Research findings inspired us to go back and consider one of his most famous warnings:

"You can and should shape your own future; because if you don't someone else surely will."

Influencing the future begins with assessing our current realities. Predictions of radical change are nothing new. Walt Disney made a nice living imagining the future since the mid-1900’s. Two futures are critical for the church to understand and embrace. Although our ability to control the future is questionable, our influence and response to the future is critical to our effectiveness in God’s mission.

The first future is “inside” the church.In most churches, Boomers will continue to be firmly in leadership.They will work longer and live longer (including pastors, staff, and lay leaders). As difficult as it seemed for previous generations to pass on leadership in the local church (still in process), Boomers may find it more difficult.

Boomers are the “better idea” generation. The technology revolution was spearheaded by Steve Jobs (born 1955) co-founder of Apple and Bill Gates founder of Microsoft (born 1955). The contemporary church movement led by Rick Warren (born 1954) and Bill Hybels (born 1951) inspired a generation of church leaders. Dissatisfied Boomers decided to “go west” to a new contemporary church world. Now, subsequent generations have gone in new directions—too numerous to list here. Things in the church change.

The difference between a fad and a movement is that a movement produces long term enduring change. A fad, on the other hand, feeds off something that already exists: a cultural awareness, a disenchantment, or even a novel idea and expands on it. Through media, publishing, and viral exchange, it becomes a sensation that sells books, creates a lot of activity, makes people feel something exciting—but in the end it doesn’t produce enough substance to sustain lasting change in history.

Often, in the midst of something new, we can not tell the difference. Whether it is a fad or a movement won’t be known for many years. I am sure many thought John Wesley and what was derisively called “Methodism” was just a fad. It turned out to change the landscape of protestant Christianity (especially in North America) for all time. Anyone who is an evangelical lives beneath its shadow to this day.

In the last 10 to 15 years there have been a few tidal waves of reaction to North American evangelical Christianity: Emerging Church and its founding Emergent Village, the Organic (or Simple or House) Church movement, and of course Missional Church. There has been a lot of blog commotion recently over their demise or decline of these expressions. In each case I suggest we are worrying too much.

Dave Travis, managing director of Leadership Network, offers his state of the church in America, based on recent research and his own observations looking through the "keyhole" of large churches.

Things That Are Changing

1. Multi-site churches. According to the book Multi-Site Roadtrip, an estimated 2,000 churches in America use the multi-site model. Travis: "If you're a large church, you're thinking multi-site."

2. Social media. According to the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds use social networking at least once a week. Senior pastors under 40 who are leading large churches all use social media. Travis: "This is a radical shift in how we understand leadership. Fifteen years ago, pastors were wondering how they could be less accessible. Today, younger pastors want more access."

3. Internet campuses. Turnkey solutions are being developed that make it cheap and accessible for all churches to incorporate an internet campus. Travis: "For some this will be a fad, but for others this is going to be a big part of their reaching strategy going forward."

4. Online giving. It's here, and it's growing. If churches want to encourage donations from people in the pews, they're going to have to provide more natural ways for them to give. Travis: "Younger leaders recognize that no one carries cash or checkbooks anymore."

With everyone writing obituaries for the Emerging Church movement, I feel the need to take a timeout to remember some positives about the movement. Although the Emerging Church has been mixed, and in many ways lost momentum and splintered, it was a significant part of my journey. Here are five things I loved about the Emerging Church.

1. On a personal level: My initial intro to the Emerging Church movement came in a seminar with (yes, believe it or not) Doug Pagitt and Mark Driscoll…together. At a low point in my life and faith, feeling burned and burned out, they talked about a postmodern (hey! remember that word??) approach to faith that was more about Jesus than institution; more about life in the way of Jesus that made a difference in the world, and less about getting people over the goal-line of decision and their rears into heaven. All of that resonated with me deeply.

I was working through all sorts of things that threatened to shipwreck me. But during that time books like Brian McLaren's The Church on the Other Side and More Ready Than You Realize, Len Sweet's Postmodern Pilgrims, an Origins conference with Erwin McManus (and many of his books), all of these kept my vision and heart for faith and the church from falling apart. And even though I now find myself pushing back against both Driscoll and Pagitt from my tiny speck of ground in the middle, I'm eternally grateful that at just the right time God allowed our paths to cross.

Shortly after the earthquake, Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church in Seattle) and James MacDonald (Harvest Bible Chapel near Chicago) were on a flight to Haiti. Driscoll has been updating his Twitter and Facebook accounts with both hopeful and horrific messages.

USA Today has just published the first news report about the pastors in Haiti and the terrible victimization of young girls that is now occurring. Driscoll gave this report:

We were downtown loading up our film crew. There were no police, no medics, to be seen by a huge park with hundreds of people camping out with no where else to go. There was a little cart with a red umbrella and a man selling cell phones and cigarettes -- and a few young girls.

"You want to buy loving?" the guy asked me. I said, "What in the world are you talking about?"

But there was another guy there, who claimed to be a translator for a relief agency, who was negotiating a price for a girl. I asked him what he was trying to do. He said, "Oh, she's a friend of mine. We're just trying to connect."

That's ridiculous. A young girl. A man 20 or 30 years older. I told him this was unacceptable. MacDonald confronted him, too. But there were no police and you could argue all you wanted but the girl took his money and they walked away."

As I write this, Christian relief agencies, denominations, churches, and parachurch ministries around the world are mobilizing to aid the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. But the call to alleviate suffering and rescue the oppressed is not only being answered in the wake of catastrophes. Over the last decade there has been a significant awakening to social justice issues among evangelicals. From Rick Warren’s PEACE plan to the efforts of Christian bands like Jars of Clay and Hillsong United, issues of justice and compassion have moved from a sideshow among evangelicals to the center stage.

Research conducted by LifeWay last year found that “Younger evangelical pastors are less likely to self-identify as conservative than older generations and more apt to view social justice as a gospel imperative.” Commenting on the findings, Ed Stetzer said, "I think ultimately that we are at a season right now where the issues of social justice are growing and a desire to integrate compassion and commission are clearly evident among younger evangelicals and evangelicals as a whole.”

Some are celebrating this movement as long overdue; the healing of an unfortunate rift in the church that occurred nearly a century ago by pitting social concern and justice against the preaching of repentance and salvation. The impact of the Modernist-Fundamentalist controversy shaped the direction of the American church for most of the 20th century by creating an “either/or” scenario. Either a church cared about social justice or it focused on saving souls.

The fact that orthodox, conservative, Bible-believing evangelicals are now showing great interest in matters of justice and compassion may indicate the aftershocks of that rift 100 years ago may finally be over. Or are they?

The organic church has been a frequent topic of discussion on this blog. And Leadership journal has featured articles and interviews from Alan Hirsch, Neil Cole, and Frank Viola. Like us, Mark Galli has an appreciation for the efforts and perspective of this movement. But what happens when the organic church starts to wilt? Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today, wrote the following article to encourage and caution the movement. The full text can be read on CT's website. Along with responses from Neil Cole and Frank Viola.

I love the work that Neil Cole is doing—and Alan Hirsch (The Forgotten Ways), Bob Roberts (Transformation: How Glocal Churches Transform Lives and the World), Frank Viola (Finding Organic Church), and many, many others.

In one form or another, they are champions of "organic church." The term is fluid, but it contains at least three ingredients: Frustration with the-church-as-we-know-it, a focus on people (vs. programs) and mission (vs. institutional maintenance), and a vision to transform the world.

As Neil Cole put it in his book Organic Church, "It is not enough to fill our churches; we must transform our world." He puts it similarly in his latest effort, Church 3.0. The book is ostensibly about how to shift from program-driven and clergy-led institutions to churches that are "relational, simple, intimate, and viral." Still, says Cole, "Changing the church is not the idea of this book … . The only reason to shift from Church 2.0 to Church 3.0 is to change the world."

I love the passion. And the prophetic word to institutionalism (believe me, I know the evils of institutionalism: I'm an Anglican!). And the vision to make Christ's love and grace known to the four corners of the planet.

What I worry about is the coming crash of organic church.

Biblical Literacy Reaches New Low
Why "John 3:16" being the top Google search isn't something to celebrate.
by Brian Lowery

The Body Broken for Who?
Theologian J. I. Packer on restricting the Lord's Supper
a Leadership interview

The Facebook Fast
The web creates connection but not community.
by Anne Jackson

Today's newspaper contained some great news. Nearly $9 million of federal stimulus money is flowing to Portland in the form of a grant to open a health care clinic for the poor in the middle of downtown. And the best part (at least in my mind) is that it's taking an old, abandoned Burger King and transforming it into a one-stop medical center helping Portland's poor, homeless, and mentally ill.

I love the idea of using a place that once dispensed artery-clogging Whoppers and French fries, sugar drinks, and all manner of other greasy, deep fried anti-nutrition (don't get me wrong, I love all of that stuff—too much, in fact), and turning it into a place that does exactly the opposite: dispenses health, medicine, help.

No doubt when you look at the building, you'll still be able to tell it was a Burger King because of its very distinctive design. And yet that building will be making a whole different kind of impact with its presence.

And all that made me think of Christmas.

This week leaders from throughout the world are meeting in Copenhagen to discuss the impact of global warming. The issue is still hotly debated in the US (pun intended), while polls in many other secular Western nations reveal wider agreement with the theory.

Best-selling author Michael Crichton became an outspoken skeptic of man-made global warming before his death in 2008. In this video Crichton uses his background in anthropology to explain why environmentalism is based more on religion than science. Do you agree? And how do you think the church ought to respond to the popular green movement?

The peaceful, neutrality-loving citizens of Switzerland voted last week to ban the construction of minarets in their country-a decision not welcomed by the country’s 400,000 Muslims. For those unfamiliar with Islamic architecture, minarets are the steeple-like towers attached to mosques from which the call to prayer is broadcast.

The referendum was not a matter of preserving the alpine skyline, and some are saying it shouldn’t be interpreted as a restriction upon religious freedom either. Rather it’s the latest battlefront in Western Europe between advocates of traditional European culture and the recent influx of non-European immigrants. This is from The Washington Post:

While many leaders in Switzerland’s government and churches opposed the ban, the measure won with a significant 57.5 percent of the vote.

But backers of the measure said from the outset they were not seeking to prevent Muslims from practicing their religion. The goal, they explained, was to prevent what they described as the growing political impact of Switzerland’s Muslim minority, which they said is symbolized by minarets pointing into the sky; women wearing full veils; and observance of sharia, a Koran-based legal system.

“The minaret is the power symbol of political Islam and sharia law,” Walter Wobman, a People’s Party member of parliament, told the Reuters news agency at a rally near Bern, the federal capital.

Is the backlash in relatively liberal Switzerland a glimpse of what may soon happen in the US?

Friend me on Facebook and we'll be tight, chums, bosom buddies, cohorts, partners, sidekicks, comrades, cronies, pals, I'll be like a brother from another mother...virtually. (We are talking about online community).

Check out my profile.

Last month a significant controversy arose around the book Deadly Viper Character Assassins: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite. The accusation made by numerous Christian leaders in the Asian-American community was that the book mocked Asian culture by utilizing stereotypes, failing to distinguish between different Asian cultures, and leveraging Asian culture as a marketing gimmick.

Soong-Chan Rah, a professor at North Park College, rallied many Asian-American Christians to address their concerns about Deadly Viper with the authors and with the publisher, Zondervan.

Thankfully, since the controversy arose, Soong Chan Rah, Eugene Cho, Kathy Khang, Chris Heuertz, Jud Wilhite, Mike Foster, and others have had a joint teleconference to discuss concerns about the book. Apologies were offered and a commitment to work together to move forward was reached. You can read a report and summary of these positive events on Prof. Rah’s blog.

Catalyst Voices - Dr. Joel Hunter, "Social Justice" from Catalyst on Vimeo.

NT Wright on Blogging/Social Media from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research and adviser to www.BuildingChurchLeaders.com, released new research on pastors, which will be published soon in our sister publication, Leadership:

Pastors still believe in the church
Almost all pastors--88 percent--strongly agree that "If I had a friend who wanted to make a difference, I would encourage him or her to do so through their church."

Pastors are investing in developing leaders--but the church may not be doing a good job at this

Jessica Jackley was in first grade when she became aware of how the poor were being presented to her. She saw ads for parachurch organizations and appeals for missions groups that featured photographs of impoverished children with distended bellies and flies in the eyes.

She realized even at that young age that those pictures made her feel bad, and they caused her and her friends to give money just to make the bad feelings go away.

As she got older and had more awareness of the pervasiveness of poverty, and gained firsthand experience working with the poor, she realized that appeals that provoke pity and guilt were not pointing in the right direction. To get people to respond simply to ease their own discomfort was actually counterproductive. Such appeals don't help the poor long-term; these appeals eventually just make people calloused and cynical or at the least able to view such presentations with very little impact.

Jackley learned that what the poor really needed was not pity, but something much more useful.

A few minutes into his talk on the church and the environment, Matthew Sleeth, MD called up a young man named David to share his story.

David recounted how he had recently suffered a grand mal seizure. After a trip to the emergency room, David received some devastating news: he had an inoperable tumor the size of a racket ball growing in his brain. He’s 27.

Everyone is for "justice," but as soon as anyone tries to make things more just, trouble follows. I came to this lab to hear from a panel of innovative activists who are working for justice.

Reggie McNeal, missional specialist for Leadership Network, spoke about his new book, Missional Renaissance (Wiley):

The statistics are grim. Rainer Research estimates that 70 percent of young people leave the church by age 22. Barna Group argues that the figure increases to 80 percent by age 30. The Southern Baptist Convention recently observed that growth in their churches is failing to keep up with the birth rate. Taken together, these findings suggest a startling fact: not only are we failing to attract younger worshipers, we're not holding on to the ones we have.

As executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary and a former youth pastor, Kara Powell has her eyes on the youth drop out trend. She is currently in the midst of a three-year College Transition Project, a study that involves over 400 youth group graduates and is focused on understanding how parents, churches, and youth ministries can set students on a trajectory of lifelong faith and service.

Where did the now popular age-segmented paradigm of youth ministry come from?

In the 1940s and post World War II, there was a real burst in parachurch organizations focused on ministry to teenagers and young adults, such as Young Life, InterVarsity, and Youth for Christ. In many ways, they led the way for the church in realizing that we need to focus on specialized discipleship and teaching for teenagers.

Why did the church adopt this age-segmented model of ministry?

Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, liked to say, "It's a sin to bore a kid with the gospel." So he developed some amazingly creative models of youth ministry that took root and bore fruit. I think a lot of churches saw the success of groups like Young Life and started thinking, If the parachurch folks are tailoring their ministry toward young people's interests, then we can—and probably should—too.

On my dad's side of the family, there were too many of us to fit in one room or around one table at family gatherings. So we adopted the two table system. The adult table had pleasant conversation, while the kids' table usually degenerated into a Jell-O snorting contest. Theoretically we were having the same meal; but we were having two very, very different experiences. That's what we've done in churches today.

I love rotten tomatoes. Not the produce—the website. RottenTomatoes.com is a movie ranking website that aggregates reviews from hundreds of journalists and movie reviewers, and then charts how “fresh” a film is based on the percentage of positive reviews. If a film only racks up 18 percent on the “Tomatometer,” I know it’s probably not worth my time or $20.

The collective wisdom of the masses may be a guide when selecting a movie, but what about when selecting a church? In a day when everything seems driven by polls, rankings, and consumer ratings, we shouldn’t be surprised that a new website has been created to rank churches based on customer—eh, congregational—feedback.

ChurchRater.com allows church seekers and members to rate and discuss their experiences at churches all across the country. It was created by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper—co-authors of Jim & Casper Go to Church. The popular book features conversations between Henderson, a pastor, and Casper, the atheist he paid to visit churches. Based on the success of the book, they’re now branching out by providing a service to both seekers and churches. But is ChurchRater.com just another slip down the slope of consumer Christianity?

The following is an excerpt from Scot McKnight's cover story in the summer issue of Leadership Journal. You can read the entire article at LeadershipJournal.net.

When I saw the title of Alan Mann's book, Atonement for a Sinless Society, I knew he was onto something. The intent of evangelism that focuses on preaching the law and God's holiness, wrapping those two elements into a vision of God's wrath and hell, is to stimulate a cry for salvation out of a sense of guilt over who we are and what we have done. This model still works for some. But it may not be the wisest model for iGens.

One of the most insightful elements of Mann's book is whether iGens feel guilt. For a person to feel guilty, that person must have a sense of morality. But morality requires a potent sense of what is right and wrong, and it needs a powerful sense of what is true and false. Contemporary culture does not provide the average iGen with a profound grasp of what is right and wrong apart from the conviction that assaulting the self is clearly wrong.

Yet deciding to stake one's life on Jesus and the cross requires a sense that we are wrong, that we need Jesus, and that his saving death and resurrection can become effective. Mann claims that iGens are neither moral nor amoral. Instead, because of trends like the self-esteem movement and the impact of relativism, he concludes that iGens are pre-moral. Mann suggests that they do not feel guilt as much as they feel shame for not achieving what they are designed to accomplish.

A year or so ago, when gas prices were over $4 per gallon here in Chicagoland, something remarkable happened: people started driving the speed limit. Despite the threat of traffic tickets, commuters regularly speed by 20 miles per hour or more on our highways. But for that few months, people cruised at a modest and efficient 55. One of my colleagues put it this way: “What the law has been unable to do, high gas prices did overnight.”

I guess there are times when the promise of saving money gives us just the boost we need to do the right thing.

More recently, the current economic hard times have given a couple of churches in Louisville, Kentucky, a good excuse to do something they might not have done otherwise. St. Paul Missionary Baptist church, a predominantly African-American church, and the mostly white Shively Heights Baptist Church have merged.

Here's an excerpt:

Much of the controversy is reckless, baseless, and plainly irrational. Some have called the speech an effort to recruit America's children into socialism. Others have argued that any presidential speech piped into classrooms is illegitimate. But a presidential speech to students is hardly unprecedented. This speech by this president has led to an unprecedented uproar.

At this level, the controversy is a national embarrassment. Conservatives must avoid jumping on every conspiracy theory and labeling every action by the Obama administration as sinister or socialist...

My life and worldview will never be the same after living seven years in Uganda. My wife and children, our mission team members, and I all made friends with and learned from people who were struggling out of poverty but still lived full of joy and hope.

Unfortunately, few Western Christians have the opportunity to learn from believers in other cultures. As a result, we impose our own perspective on Christians worldwide.

In The Next Evangelicalism, professor and pastor Soong-Chan Rah says the evangelical church has been held captive to Western-white power and must be released in the same way the early Christian church was released from Jewish ethnic control. Nearly 95 percent of Christian churches in America have more than 80 percent of one particular ethnic group. Most evangelical churches are white monoliths.

"Racism," he says, "is America's original sin." Our culture and economy were built on the backs of Native Americans and black slaves. But American individualism and consumerism keep Christians from understanding and confessing corporate sin.

According to Rah, today's "slavery issue" is immigration.

Last month we invited Urbanites to answer this question: What is Consumer Christianity? Your response has been surprising and creative. Some submitted definitions, others sent in pictures that made us laugh and grieve. A few even composed songs and lyrics. Thanks to everyone who participated.

We've selected some of the best entries for everyone to see and read--from Jesus bandages to God gum. And those who engaged will be receiving a free copy of Skye Jethani's book, The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity.

Keep reading to see the winning submissions.

Leszek Kolakowski, a Polish philosopher who weakened Marxism’s grip on Eastern Europe, recently died. Few, I suspect, knew who he was. I consider myself fortunate to have read some of Kolakowski, one book being his scintillating sketch of the history of ideas by probing the central idea of twenty-three thinkers. That book is called Why is there Something Rather than Nothing? My own reading of it impressed me again with the connection of philosophers with their world. From Socrates to Kierkegaard, philosophers are products of their day.

So are we. Which raises the profound problem of blinders when it comes to perceiving what is influencing us, and which raises the other profound problem of needing to understand our cultural blinders in order to break through them with the light of the gospel. Kolakowski’s chapters are short, and everything short when it comes to the history of ideas risks simplicities that mask nuance. I risk the same in what I am about to suggest: the current generation emerges out of a toxic combination of modernity and postmodernity.

In another context (the summer issue of Leadership Journal) I called the toxicity of the current generation a “self in a castle.” Modernity’s singular contribution to the history of ideas is individualism. David Bentley Hart gets this exactly right in his new rant against the flimsy ideas in new atheism when he writes:

“We live in an age whose chief value has been determined, by overwhelming consensus, to be the inviolable liberty of personal volition, the right to decide for ourselves what we shall believe, want, need, own, or serve” (Atheist Delusions, 21-22).

This article is from the Summer 2009 issue of Leadership Journal. You can read the entire article at Leadership's website.

When the willows sway in South Barrington, the evangelical world notices. So Willow Creek Community Church provoked headlines in 2006 when leaders said they would end Axis as everyone knew it. As recently as 2001, about 2,000 young adults had gathered on Saturday nights for alternative music and relevant teaching. But before temporarily closing in 2006, Axis attracted fewer than 400 twenty-somethings. How could a trend-setting ministry decline so severely in just five years?

Due in no small part to Willow's example, ministry leaders across the country once viewed separate, age-targeted services as the key to reaching a generation largely absent from the churches built by their Boomer parents. Little more than 10 years after Willow launched Axis in 1996, many of these once-prosperous twenty-something ministries have folded, spun off, or morphed. Leaders from these ministries have learned differing lessons from the experiment. Some are now advocating new messages for reaching the emerging generation. Others have changed their ministry's structure. Still more want better biblical preaching and radical discipleship. All have been provoked to think deeply about the nature and implications of the gospel and have seen their ministries leave lasting effects on the larger church.

Costly conformity

Only one thing surprised Dan Kimball about the Axis reorganization: it took 10 years. Kimball, who teaches and oversees the Sunday gatherings for Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California, has tracked many young adult ministries over the years. He estimates that 90 percent of worship services targeting a younger generation run into serious trouble after three years. One factor is the way these age-specific ministries isolate young people from the rest of the church.

A poll conducted by Time has revealed that The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart is the most trusted news anchor in America. He beat Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, and Katie Couric. Walter Cronkite, having just entered his grave, must already be turning over in it. Stewart won with 44 percent of the vote. Brian Williams came in a distant second with 29 percent. See the results here.

Like many others of my generation, I enjoy The Daily Show. I find Jon Stewart to be intelligent and his irreverence is often refreshing, if occasionally too snarky or foul for my palate. Still, I wonder what it says about my generation when we vote someone like Stewart to be the most trusted voice in American news—especially when The Daily Show makes no claim of being a reputable journalistic enterprise.

When Stewart appeared on CNN’s Crossfire in 2004, an argument ensued with Tucker Carlson about The Daily Show’s lack of journalistic rigor. Stewart responded, “I didn’t realize that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their queues on integrity…. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?”

Indeed—what is wrong with us?

From "Is the Era of Age Segregation Over?" an interview with Kara Powell in the current issue of Leadership.

"[The church] realized in the 1940s that we were not offering teens enough focused attention. So what did we do? We started offering them too much. All of a sudden churches had adult pastors and youth pastors, adult worship teams and youth worship teams, adult mission trips and youth mission trips. And there's a place for that. But we've ended up segregating--and I use that word intentionally--our kids from the rest of the church. Now we tend to think that we can outsource the care of our kids to designated experts, the youth and children's workers.... I think the future of youth ministry is intergenerational."

Kara Powell is the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary and a former youth pastor. To read the rest of her interview in context, pick up the Summer 09 issue of Leadership journal or subscribe by clicking on the cover in the left column.

Chris Seay is one of the featured speakers at the Story conference in October. Learn more and register for the event at www.storychicago.com.

The situations in Iran and North Korea continue to concern us and our government, but where is the most dangerous place in America?

New York City? Detroit? Baltimore? Chicago? Los Angeles?

Large cities such as these have received a lot of attention as havens of crime, disorder, and mayhem. Violent crimes and societal concerns seem common in our concrete jungles.

But what about cities like Irvine, California; Lake Forest, Illinois; Plano, Texas; and Ellicott City, Maryland?

Irvine, California, was given the title, "Safest City in America" (over 100,000 people) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on June 1, 2009. I would like to submit that suburbs just like this may actually be the most dangerous places in America.

I know this is little late, but for me, nothing illustrates the current state of the church's witness in regard to sexual issues in America better than the Ms. California/USA pageant episode a couple months ago. It was an embarrassing irruption of the Real that any follower of Christ has got to wince at (it's so embarrassing).

Here a woman prances before the media in a minuscule bikini (ironically designed by another ex-evangelical, Jessica Simpson), a woman who had ("sexually-enhancing") cosmetic surgery, who had been in a revealing photo shoot of some sort, and she is asked about her position on same sex unions. She responds by saying, "I think in my country, in my family, that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

The next day on the Today show, she said "I don't take back what I said." She added that she "had spoken from my heart, from my beliefs and for my God. It's not about being politically correct," she said. "For me, it's about being biblically correct." Using the "B" word - "biblical" - in front of the cameras makes her an evangelical stereotype. In the process she becomes a symbol of evangelicalism's lack of political (communal) credibility to witness to the gay/lesbian populations.

By saying what she said about gay unions moments after the swimsuit competition, Ms. California was basically telling the world, "We do the same things, but for gay people it's sin. Lust is good, objectifying my body is normal, the fulfillment of all desire is good." Then, on the other hand, she says to the gay and lesbian world, "But you can't do any of this, because you're different."

by Troy Jackson

Recently I needed to repair my car and chose a mechanic across the street from Kenwood Towne Center near Cincinnati. Typically, when a mall is too proud to call itself a mall, the shops are upscale, and Kenwood is no exception. So while my vehicle was repaired, I went to the mall for an overpriced cup of coffee.

My eye caught an unexpected store name. In bright pink letters across the entry was "Justice," with a heart dotting the "i" for good measure. Seeing no photos of Martin Luther King or Gandhi or Dorothy Day, I looked up again to make sure I had read the sign correctly. Then I noticed a banner below the sign, which simply said, "Limited Too is now Justice."

Even entering the store, I knew that my definition of justice had very little to do with the products peddled by "Justice."

But the rebranding of Limited Too is part of a larger social trend. Justice is hip, even in our churches. Over the past five years, church after church has made justice a more prominent part of their stated mission, objectives, and vision.

The Gospel Coalition (TGC) has been galvanizing many younger evangelicals to re-think their theology and practice. I applaud this new theological energy. But I wonder (given its moniker) whether TGC will be a force for coalition or expedition.

"Coalition" describes the coalescing of a group of people or nations in order to defend some boundary or prepare for war (think Pres. Bush's "coalition of the willing"). "Expedition," on the other hand, is the organizing of a group to prepare for an adventure into unknown territory. Will TGC be a coalition for hardening doctrinal lines to defend boundaries and/or launch an attack against those who don't agree with its take on Reformed theology? Or will TGC be a force for preparing missionaries (in doctrine and practice) to engage the unknown territories of post Christendom?

Let me be explicit that I value and have learned much from each of the TGC writers/thinkers/preachers, and that I do not disavow the Reformation. Nevertheless, I am concerned that TGC's approach is ill-suited to engage the cultural challenges of post-Christendom.

Here are five statements that encapsulate what I think TGC is implying in their work so far. If true, each of these positions will inhibit, if not prohibit, TGC from being a cause for Christ in the engagement of the new post Christendom cultures of the West.

I was a guest speaker at a church, waiting for my time to go up to the platform. That's when I saw something curious. The staff person responsible for coordinating the worship service was busy typing away on her laptop. Perhaps a last minute change to the PowerPoint, I thought. But as I walked behind her, I saw that she was consumed with typing a message on someone's Facebook wall. It felt out of place to me, given that she was the person responsible for leading God's people in worship but she seemed mentally someplace else.

I had a similar experience while visiting a Christian college. Sitting in the back of the classroom, I noticed that about a third of the students were surfing Facebook or MySpace while the professor was passionately teaching the New Testament. He probably assumed they were busy taking notes.

Editor's Note: When we received Greg Boyd's review of The American Patriot's Bible, we sent it to the folks at Thomas Nelson Publishers and asked them if they wanted to respond. The Bible's editor, Richard G. Lee sent us this reply.

Over the past several years it has been my privilege to work together with a wonderful group of scholars and editors developing The American Patriot's Bible. As the general editor of this title, I felt it was important to present a clear and accurate understanding of why The American Patriot's Bible came together as it did, and how it is to be used to enlighten the readers of the undeniable role that the Word of God has played in the formation and continuation of our great nation.

The American Patriot's Bible's clear purpose is to present the "strong cord" of the Bible's influence that runs through the fabric of our nation's past and present. Our great nation has not used the Bible to form some system of "nationalism" and "superior isolationism," but rather our founding fathers learned from its teachings the principles, values, and ethics of law, government and proper social order.

Does this mean that America has any more right to the Bible and its promises than any other nation? Not at all. When the Scripture teaches us, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord," (Psalm 33:12) that means any nation of people who will follow after Him would be blessed by Him. That truth is the reasoning behind sending American Christian missionaries around the world with the Gospel, so that other nations may know the God who has so richly blessed us.

This video was produced by Thomas Nelson, publisher of The American Patriot's Bible. Be sure to read Greg Boyd's scathing review of the Patriot's Bible, and stay tuned for a response from the editor.

A few excerpts from the video:

"For the first time ever, the history of America’s Christian heritage and the Holy Bible are woven together in a single volume."

"Its pages contain an accurate archive of America’s strong ties to the Holy Bible and the God of the Bible. It highlights people and events which demonstrate the godly qualities that make America what it is today.... It is the one Bible that shows how a light from above shaped our nation."

"If you love America and the Scriptures, you will treasure The American Patriot’s Bible."

Read part 1 of Greg Boyd's review of The Patriot's Bible.

It's perhaps not coincidental that the Patriot's Bible offers no commentary on any passages related to our instruction to love and do good to our enemies.

But the Revolutionary War is not by any means the only nationalistic violence celebrated in the Patriot's Bible. To the contrary, the glory of nationalistic violence permeates this Bible. For example, every book of the Bible opens with a montage of national monuments, symbols, stars and stripes, etc… which include, with few exceptions, images of armed soldiers, bombers and battleships. Most stunningly, each Gospel opens with a scene that includes soldiers struggling to raise a flag under the words "In God We Trust." All the subsequent books of the New Testament open with a montage that includes a flag waving behind the Statue of Liberty on one side and armed marching troops on the other. It's quite breathtaking - and I don't mean this in a good way.

Similarly, a very high percentage of the commentaries sprinkled throughout this Bible exalt American wars and their heroes. To give but one example, a comment in 2 Samuel about how "the mighty have fallen in the midst of battle" (2 Sam. 1:25) elicits a half page commentary entitled "Duty-Honor-Country." In it the commentators review a famous speech given by General Douglas MacArthur in which he claims that "[t]he solider, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training – sacrifice." In facing danger, MacArthur adds, the soldier "discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image."

The soldier on the field, prepared to die and kill for his country, apparently exemplifies the greatest act of religion and the best expression of what it is to be made in the image of God!

Published by Thomas Nelson Publishers, The American Patriot's Bible (henceforth Patriot's Bible) consists of hundreds of commentaries on various patriotic themes, ranging in length from one sentence to four pages, inserted at various points throughout the New King James Version of the Bible. Every special interest Bible imposes a certain agenda that to some degree colors the Word, but the Patriot's Bible takes this "coloring" to a whole new level. There's not a single commentary in this Bible that even attempts to shed light on what the biblical text actually means. To the contrary, the text of the Bible is used merely as an excuse to further the patriotic agenda of the commentators.

There are a multitude of problematic aspects to the Patriot's Bible, including the remarkable way it excludes from consideration almost every aspect of American history that could blemish the image of America or its heroes. For example, on the basis of Zechariah's prophecy that the Messiah would "speak peace to the nations" (Zech. 9:10) we are given a full page eulogy of Christopher Columbus that celebrates how God had destined this "devout Catholic" to bring the good news of salvation to an unreached people group. Absent from the commentary is any discussion of how he and his fellow pioneers deceived, maimed, raped and murdered a large number of these unreached people.

Yet, the selective retelling of American history found in the Patriot's Bible is not what concerns me the most. What disturbs me more is the way the commentators attempt to give their idealized version of American history divine authority by weaving it into the biblical narrative.

The central assumption that undergirds the Patriot's Bible is that America is, in a unique sense, a nation established, governed, blessed and protected by God. Throughout the Patriot's Bible, but especially in the Old Testament, an explicit parallel is drawn between Israel and America.

A political dissident is arrested for leading a movement that threatens the stability of a region. He is ambushed and apprehended by his enemies, detained without a public trail, and tortured by soldiers at the command of their political leaders. No, I'm not describing Kalid Sheikh Mohammad or any other detainee held at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I'm speaking of Jesus of Nazareth.

The fact that Christians draw their faith, life, and identity from a Messiah who was the victim of political torture seems ironic in light of new research by the Pew Forum that indicates 62 percent of white evangelicals believe torture of suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. The research shows that people who attend church regularly were more likely to rationalize torture than those who do not go to church.

How do we explain these findings? Are Christians being more influenced by Jack Bauer than Jesus Christ?

Lurking behind this passive support of government torture is a utilitarian ethic that believes the ends justify the means - torture is justifiable if the information attained will save innocent lives. But David Neff, editor of Christianity Today, points out a problem with this argument:

The CNN headline echoed hopeful reflection I've been hearing in churches: "Shaky economy forces Americans to rediscover community." Optimistic Christians suppose the community they will rediscover is a local church that demonstrates how putting your faith in markets or government is a fool's errand compared to the incomparable power that comes from knowing Jesus Christ the Lord.

But the article by John Blake qualified the stark headline. And by qualified, I mean the article proved the headline wrong. It turns out the economic collapse has forced Americans to watch more movies. Blake reported that Netflix profits have increased 45 percent since the beginning of 2009. Gross movie ticket sales have jumped nearly 20 percent.

The headline writer might have avoided this mistake by reading Robert Putnam's comments to Blake. Of course, Blake called the famous Harvard sociologist and author of Bowling Alone by his middle name, David, so you can understand the confusion. Putnam explained that economic crises do not ensure that people will come together.

"Almost everybody believes that during the [Great] Depression that everyone got cuddled up next to each other and said, 'We're all in this together,'" Putnam told CNN. "I'm not denying that some of that occurred, but what's more typical is that people hunker down and pull in."

If the Great Depression didn't promote community, at least World War II did. And during the decades of prosperity that followed, civic pride flourished. So did local churches.

"They had just been exposed to five years of war bond drives, scrap metal drives, and Boy Scouts asking people to give up rubber mats in their car for the war," Putnam explained. "They lived with a sustained notion of we're all in this together."

But while the American economy boomed, European nations were crippled by the second global conflict that century. So were their churches. The wars shook Europeans' confidence in public institutions. Organized religion did not escape their ire. And the churches have never fully regained that trust.

The following interview was excerpted from the latest issue of Catalyst Leadership--our new free digital magazine created in partnership with the Catalyst Conference. For instructions on reading the full text, see the note at the end.

Any church with a virtual campus in Second Life and an iPhone app used by thousands of people deserves the title "Innovative." The brain behind many of LifeChurch.tv's creative ventures is Bobby Gruenewald.

Bobby Gruenewald's journey into ministry was anything but typical. Like thousands of others, he started attending LifeChurch.tv ten years ago as the church experienced rapid growth. After a stint as a volunteer keyboardist, Gruenewald joined the staff in 2001 as the "computer guy" overseeing IT.

But Gruenewald's earlier career in start-up businesses and venture capital equipped him to help LifeChurch.tv as it moved toward a multiple site strategy. By 2003 the "computer guy" had become the "new campus development guy." Today, Gruenewald combines his entrepreneurial instincts and talent with technology as LifeChurch.tv's "Innovation Leader" - yes, that's his real title.

The editors of Leadership spoke with Gruenewald about the nature of adaptation in ministry, the risks of constant change, and why innovation has less to do with the resources available to a church and more to do with the mindset of leaders.

What is the danger of focusing on technology and innovation in ministry?
One of the biggest dangers for our team is focusing too much on what we do and overlooking why we do it. God was doing amazing things at our church long before we were using a lot of technology. We had 3000 people attending before we had a lick of video. That reminds us that technology isn't what fuels our ministry; it's simply a tool.

You can apply that same lesson to innovation. It's not about innovation for innovation's sake. We innovate because we're really passionate about seeing people connect with God. It becomes dangerous when you trust in how you're pursuing the mission rather than trusting in God.

How do you fight against that danger?
We make sure that every team member understands that technology is not the center of our ministry. We don't believe in change for the sake of change. Our goal is to reach people for Christ, and we're going to do everything short of sin to accomplish that.

Our partner at Shapevine.com, Lance Ford, interviews Mike Breen and Eddie Gibbs about the blessings and challenges of mission as the world moves beyond the familiar trappings of Western Christianity.

by John Ortberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the entire interview here.

Senior managing editor of our sister publication, Christianity Today, posted a response to iMonk's prophecies about the end of evangelicalism on the CT website Wednesday afternoon. Here's the first bit. You can read the rest there.

The Internet is abuzz with the latest prognostications about "the coming evangelical collapse." This is the substance of three blog posts over at Internet Monk (a.k.a. Michael Spencer), who predicts said collapse in ten years. When his thoughts got picked up and condensed by the Christian Science Monitor and then the Drudge Report - well, you can just imagine the electronic excitement.

The title of Spencer's posts spoils the ending; still, many of the details are interesting. I've made many of the same observations in this column. For example, Spencer writes, "Expect evangelicalism as a whole to look more and more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth-oriented megachurches that have defined success. The determination to follow in the methodological steps of numerically successful churches will be greater than ever. The result will be, in the main, a departure from doctrine to more and more emphasis on relevance, motivation and personal success." My only caveat here is to wonder if this is a future or present reality.

Finish here.

In the last 24 hours, USA Today and The Christian Science Monitor have both released less than cheery articles on the future of faith in America.

"The percentage of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation," reports Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today. "The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers - or falling off the faith map completely."

The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) found that, "despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990."

That means that religious people are not simply being redistributed from one religion or denomination to another, but that more and more people are abandoning all faith altogether.

What if your city never recovers from the current economic crisis? What if your entire region enters an irreversible long-term decline? Richard Florida dares to declare the downturn's winners and losers in his March cover story for The Atlantic. In his essay "How the Crash Will Reshape America," Florida incorporates insight from his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class.

Not surprising for anyone familiar with his earlier work, Florida believes that the big winners will be those burgeoning cities that have attracted a diverse class of sophisticated young professionals. So even though New York City has shed thousands of finance jobs, Florida believes the city's young talent will innovate and adapt. Detroit and other Rust Belt cities are unlikely to bounce back, even if the population loss is more like a slow bleed than a mass exodus.

But Florida doesn't just assess the economic effects on different regions of the country. He also observes how economic change will rearrange the relationship between cities, suburbs, and small towns. As I discussed last month, the brain drain in rural areas is making them a new mission field. Florida has little sympathy, because innovation depends on the best and brightest congregating together in dense, fast-paced cities. But Florida reserves his harshest analysis for the suburbs, the heartland of evangelical church growth in recent decades. He recommends that the federal government retract the tax incentives to homeownership that propelled suburban sprawl. In a post-industrial economy, Florida argues, the workforce cannot be tied down to mortgages. Mobility is the engine of competitive capitalism. In the megalopolis, Florida trusts.

This conversation got started with a short video of Shane Hipps at the National Pastors Convention discussing whether online community was really community. Scot McKnight posted his response a few days later. Earlier this week, Anne Jackson joined the discussion by asserting that what happens online is "connecting," not "community." Shane Hipps now returns to Out of Ur with his reflections.

Scott et. al, thanks for all your comments and push back. Always appreciated.

Clearly we're playing with semantics here. I don't say that dismissively. Semantics matter - sometimes more than other times. I'll let others judge whether it matters here. It may be that we agree after all.

First, my language in the video was less nuanced than it might have been in written form. That is my tendency in a spontaneous oral interview. I will try to be more precise here.

When I say that "virtual community" is not "community," that does not mean it has no value. As I indicated in the interview, I know that all kinds of deeply meaningful connections and interactions happen online all the time. I have experienced them myself. Some may want to call this "community." Fair enough. I just don't call it "community." That is not intended to dismiss or demean any one's experience online.

The following is an excerpt from chapter two of Skye Jethani's new book The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (Zondervan, 2009).

My brother and sister-in-law took me to a concert at the Hollywood Bowl while I was visiting Southern California recently. The renowned outdoor amphitheater is nestled into the hills of Hollywood creating a scenic environment for 18,000 people to enjoy an evening of music under the stars. As the sun was setting, the members of the orchestra began taking their seats in the white band shell. The sound of the musicians tuning their instruments was odd. Screeching strings echoed. Blasts came from the wind section. It was chaotic and unpleasant.

Finally, the conductor emerged from stage left. The audience erupted in applause as he took his position on the conductor's platform. He calmly raised his arms over his noisy orchestra. Silence. The time for tuning their instruments was over. After a few moments of quiet anticipation the conductor's arms moved and the soul-stirring music began.

Like an orchestra tuning their instruments, consumer Christianity is producing chaotic and unpleasant noise about God. The prevailing view of God as an alienated commodity has fueled endless pontificating about his ways and character. This noise reveals a failure of reverence toward the one who declared, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways?for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Rather than adding to the noise perhaps it is time for us to finally be silent, be still, and wait in quit anticipation for God to begin a new work. Leopold Stokowski, the composer who founded the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in 1945, once said, "A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence." Maybe God is waiting for us to be silent long enough so he may begin painting a new picture in our imaginations; to begin transforming our image of a manageable deity into one that can truly inspire.

Blogging. Facebook. Twitter. Those three things are practically my middle name. I've been called a "social media butterfly" over the last four years.

The question of "Can community happen online?" which has been the topic of conversation on this blog recently, has also been asked wherever I go. At conferences, at churches, and yes, even at the local cafe where by chance, a Facebook friend recognizes me. Sorry. I have to admit. I usually don't know who you are.

Shane Hipps has spoken. Scot McKnight has spoken. And now, it's my turn to add another view into this virtual world.

During my four years as the leader of a very thriving blog (FlowerDust.net), I've seen many incredible things happen. I've seen believers and unbelievers unite in generously donating close to $200,000 to social justice and poverty. I've seen people openly discuss taboo subjects: pornography, depression, anxiety, gay lifestyles, and theologically grey topics.

In some instances, these online conversations have translated into personal communication (by email, chats, or phone) and some have even turned into face-to-face meetings. The platforms of social media certainly give these personal interactions a "jump start" so to speak, because you do, in some regard, know bits and pieces of the other person's life.

But this is where it gets muddy for me. Is it community?

Given my experience living in both worlds, it may be surprising to hear, but I am beginning to lean on the side of no - what happens online is not community. Before you send me an army of frowning emoticons, please hear me out:

The following is an excerpt from Dave Gibbons' new book The Monkey and the Fish (Zondervan, 2009).

The church is called to be a third-culture community. Third culture is about the two purposes of life for every Christ follower: loving God and loving your neighbor.

Without question, there are a lot of effective strategies and fruitful ideas being used in the church and in ministry today. Third culture is not simply a strategy but the way we are to live. One may not be naturally third culture, but we are called to move toward this vision. It seems that more than ever the world is open to such leadership. I say this simply because we have experienced it in communities where we seriously pursued a third-culture lifestyle in diverse cultural contexts spanning several continents and saw how people gravitate toward this adaptive, liquid-type leader.

When my brother and I were teenagers, we were bottomless pits. We could consume massive quantities of food. My poor mom. She found really only one place she could take us that would satisfy us: the Royal Fork, an all-you-can-eat buffet where we ate for three to four hours at a sitting.

I can still picture the luscious spread. For my brother and me, nothing was more glorious than checking out every nook and cranny of that steamy buffet table and then consuming everything in sight. Buffets were our little heaven on earth. Nothing brings people together like good food!

Thanks for your video, Shane. Your point about not equating virtual community (grant me the term for the moment) with real community is one that needs to be heard. But, I'm not so sure it is this simple...

First, as a blogger who has what I have sometimes called the Jesus Creed "community," I do think there are some senses in which community is apt. For some, this is about the only "community" with Christians they can right now have. I honor that. For others it is therapeutic to dance, as it were, at a distance -- not the complete thing, of course, but still participating in some dimensions of community. And there is another dimension: there are clearly dimensions of fellowship at work in blog communities. Never the whole, but some. And that needs to be considered for what it really is.

But now something perhaps more significant: by shrinking community to embodied community I wonder if we have written "communion of the saints" (a community) off the map. Isn't there something eternal, something spiritual, and something profoundly true that all Christians of all ages and of all locations are in communion with one another?

We create media, and then media re-creates us. That's the message Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels (Zondervan, 2009) wanted pastors at NPC to hear in his interview on the main stage last night and in his seminars this morning. Shane's latest book is a journey into the hidden power of media--and a challenge to the standard line that the message stays the same even when the medium changes.

Skye and I sat down with Shane today to ask him a couple of questions that are of particular interest on the blogosphere: how is Internet-based community different from flesh-and-blood Christian community? And what happens to the gospel when it's translated into a digital medium such as Second Life?

You can look forward to a review of Shane's book, Flickering Pixels, in the next issue of Leadership.

On my bookshelf here at my Leadership office is a growing collection of books about intentional living--about new friars and new monastics and communes made up of multiple families under one roof. As with all such things, we wanted to get some perspective on the issue. So I spent an afternoon not long ago visiting with Jon Trott, a 30-year member of Jesus People USA (JPUSA) in Chicago. Since Jon has been living the communal life for three decades now, I asked him a few questions about life in community and for his perspective on the "new monasticism."

To hear more from Jon, check out the Winter 2009 issue of Leadership.

To download this episode of Audio Ur, click here.

by Dave Gibbons

It's just the beginning. With the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president we are seeing what many consider a dream fulfilled. Of course there are still conflicts, and there still is racism, prejudice, and stereotyping - including in the church. But it is a new day when the most powerful political person on the earth is black. This is a historic moment for the world to celebrate, but before we simply see this as a race issue, or even just a political party's victory, we need to see it through the lens of culture - or rather cultures.

"Third culture" is used to describe the fusion of multiple cultures, the art of adaptation and dialogue rather than dictation. It's about diplomacy over strong arm tactics, and the embrace of discomfort as part of the journey toward real community. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, to a White mother from Kansas with has Irish and English roots, and a father, from Kenya. He studied in Indonesia, Hawaii, California, New York, and Boston. His experience has both urban and surburban, he's engaged cities and villages, he been both rich and poor.

Instead of teasing you with a paragraph or two this week, let me tempt you instead with a table of contents. If you're not subscribed to the Out of Ur newsletter, here's what you're missing:

Currents
"Bible Society Supports Atheists' Ads"
(I think this is an exercise in reverse psychology.)

Editorial
"Redefining 'Pro-Life'"
(Skye Jethani wades knee-deep into troubled waters to ask the question, How are young evangelicals expanding the pro-life platform?)

Featured Article
"Lent and Leaky Vessels"
(Brandon O'Brien recommends a couple of novels for reading during Lent. Their both by Catholic writers and both a little depressing, but--let's be honest--that's sort of Brandon's style.)

If this buffet of media has whet your appetite, you can subscribe to the newsletter here. Seriously, it's free.

by Brian Lowery

Today, Friday, January 9, 2009 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America has officially become utterly and inexcusably biblically illiterate. Let me explain.

Each Friday, over on the Preaching Today blog, I write up a weekly pop culture roundup. It's a way to help preachers know what folks are watching, reading, listening to, and learning about. I list the top-five movies, the top-five books, the top-five albums, the top-five songs, and the top-five search items on that particular Friday morning - all with a bit of hyper-linked commentary.

Of all the material I gather for the roundup, I'm almost always most intrigued by the top-five search items. I go to Google Trends, find the day's date, and just like that, I know what people are obsessing over as they begin their Friday.

Today's top-five list was a bit unexpected:

1. John 3 16
2. Mary Lynn Rajskub
3. Windows 7 beta download
4. All inclusive vacations
5. Ana Ortiz

You read number one right. As Friday, January 9th, was just getting rolling, the top search item on Google was John 3:16. Why? Oddly, because of last night's BCS Championship football game between the Florida Gators and the Oklahoma Sooners. Florida's quarterback, Tim Tebow, came out to play the game with "John 3:16" written on his eye black ("John" under one eye," "3:16" under the other - hopefully in the right order).

I've been giving a lot of thought to the state of the church as we enter a new year. In these uncertain times we naturally look to reliable and wise voices to guide us through the fog. And who is more reliable and wise then yours truly? To help you plan ahead, I've compiled my list of the top five predictions to watch for in 2009.

The next BIG word: Post-Missional
There was a time when everything was "postmodern." Then we all "emerged." Now it's nearly impossible to find a ministry that isn't passionately "missional." But in 2009 I predict the truly innovative ministries will be "post-missional." No one will actually know what post-missional means but the word will become ubiquitous, finding its way into the subtitles of at least 34 percent of all ministry books published in 2009.

The next BIG outreach trend: The 30-Day Alcohol Challenge
A number of churches have gotten enormous attention for variations of the 30-Day Sex Challenge. These ministries have tried to attract the sexually charged unchurched by proclaiming that Christians have better sex and more of it. In this "more is more" philosophy of Christian liberty, I predict the next hot outreach trend will focus on alcohol as a way of deconstructing the church's teetotaling reputation. Pastors will challenge church member over 21 to drink everyday for a month - an expensive proposition for Lutherans who only drink imports.

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

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

Rick Warren's prayer for Barack Obama:

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

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

by David Swanson

An excerpt...

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

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

by Url Scaramanga & Andy Rowell

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

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

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

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

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

by Bob Hyatt

An excerpt:

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

To read the rest of this article you'll need to sign up for the free Out of Ur Newsletter which delivers exclusive editorial, news, and commentary to your inbox each week.

Dan,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With love and respect.
AH

Read Dan Kimball's original post here.

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

Tim Keller on Missional vs. Seeker Churches:

Tim Keller on being Missional vs. Evangelistic:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tony Jones, the former national coordinator of Emergent Village and the author of The New Christians, has articulated his beliefs about homosexuality on his blog. Jones, along with other Emergent leaders, has been questioned for years about his views on the debated cultural and doctrinal issue. Until now, Jones had always responded by saying he hadn't made up his mind on the question. "Homosexuality," he would say, "is one issue that I don't want to get wrong."

Well, it seems Jones has now made up his mind. The blog post, which can be read here, explains his journey with the issue from childhood. But Jones discloses that:

...all the time I could feel myself drifting toward acceptance that gay persons are fully human persons and should be afforded all of the cultural and ecclesial benefits that I am.

And:

I now believe that GLBTQ can live lives in accord with biblical Christianity (at least as much as any of us can!) and that their monogamy can and should be sanctioned and blessed by church and state.

(BTW, for those unfamiliar with the acronym GLBTQ it stands for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer or Questioning...depends on who you ask according to Wikipedia. And for those who are unfamiliar with the acronym BTW...are you kidding me?)

Clearly, Jones' statement is very carefully worded to convey his intent and nothing more. But for his critics and those suspicious of Emergent Village, this discloser will only add fuel to their fire. It should be noted that Jones no longer speaks on behalf of EV, and his remarks shouldn't be projected upon others within the Emergent conversation.

by Skye Jethani

Amazing. How else can you describe what happened last week when Barack Obama became the first African American elected President of the United States? However you voted, whatever your politics, the election reveals something about the progress of our society. As George W. Bush said the morning after the election, it "showed a watching world the vitality of America's democracy and the strides we have made toward a more perfect union."

Amid the reflections there have been numerous references to Martin Luther King Jr.'s pioneering civil rights movement and his "dream." One Chicago news commentator on election night said the day King delivered his famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial he could not have known that a two year old boy in Hawaii would become the fulfillment of his dream. That got me wondering - is Barack Obama really the fulfillment of King's dream?

To read the rest of this article you'll need to subscribe to the free Out of Ur Newsletter which delivers exclusive editorial, news, and commentary to your inbox each week.

You can get out of Ur, or you can get really out of Ur. For those desiring the latter, the Ur Newsletter is the resource for you. For a few years I’ve been sending out a free email newsletter on Fridays with highlights from this blog and other articles from around the Leadership media group. I’m happy to tell you that the Ur Newsletter has been completely redesigned with much more exclusive content you won’t be able to read on the blog (or anywhere else). Here’s what you can expect:

Url’s World…a brief commentary from yours truly (quips and tangents included) and links to interesting content from my digital cosmos.

Currents…the latest news from the intersection of ministry and culture. Sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, always fresh.

Editorial…reflections on current issues and events from the editorial team at Leadership including Marshall Shelley, Skye Jethani, and Brandon O’Brien.

Featured Post…a full length article exclusively for Ur Newsletter subscribers. (Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to comment and discuss these posts.)

Poll…a weekly poll inviting Urbanites to offer their feedback about a current event, theological issue, or ministry conundrum.

You can subscribe for the free Ur Newsletter here. Giddy up.

by John Ortberg

My son has a bumper sticker on his car that reads: "I poke badgers with spoons." Its significance is not self-evident to everybody who reads it, so let me tell you the story.

It comes from a British stand-up named Eddie Izzard. Eddie grew up in the church, and heard early on about the doctrine of original sin, but was a little fuzzy on the concept. He assumed that it meant that priests get tired of hearing the same old boring confessions time after time - greed, lust, gluttony, and lying to the tax man. Eddie thought the priests wanted to hear some truly original sins.

So he came up with something he figured no one had ever confessed before: "I poke badgers with spoons." My wife thought it was so funny that she had it printed on a bumper sticker and placed it on my son's car. Oddly enough, he sometimes fails to appreciate that his parents are two of the funniest people in the world. But he wanted the car. So he gets the sticker that goes with it.

Debates have raged for centuries now over the phrase "original sin," which of course doesn't actually show up in the Bible. Augustine argued that there is a fundamental flaw, a bentness, that gets passed on to every human being before they are even born. (He believed it was intrinsic to the sex act, which may be part of why he never had a little Augustine, Jr.--at least not legitimately.) The classic counter-argument was raised by Pelagius, who claimed that each human being was a blank slate, a morally neutral free agent who had a clean shot at maintaining perfect innocence. Pelagius clearly never had children.

The church came down, with a few caveats, on the side of Augustine and not Pelagius. But Eddie Izzard gets a shout out now and then. The Vatican recently published a list of sins (such as environmental transgressions) which, if not completely original, at least give an updated twist to the old seven deadlies.

Which brings me to the election...

We evangelical folk love conferences. We'll attend one across the country or host one in our spiffy new sanctuary--er, auditorium. Shoot, we'll even blog about a conference for those who couldn't make it. I've attended my fair share of these get-togethers, from California to Michigan, and blogged about them along the way. Perhaps that early American phenomenon--the frontier camp meeting--lingers in our memory and has found new expression at mega-churches and sports arenas around the country.

During my suburban ministry years, many of the conferences I attended were of the how-to variety. Think "This Old House" with Bob Villa, but substitute house with "small group," "sermon," or "assimilation plan" and Villa with (mostly) white pastors and theologians who write books.

This conference-going tendency must run in our evangelical genes, because the folks at my urban church also make these events a priority. Here's the difference: instead of learning how to improve their church, these city-dwellers are interested in improving their neighborhoods and city. The half-dozen people from our congregation who just returned from the Christian Community Development Association conference in Miami attended workshops that focused on bridging racial divides, homelessness prevention, and immigration issues.

The view of America from Manhattan was pretty bleak on the morning after November 2, 2004. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, typically a levelheaded observer of world affairs, watched America become "two nations under God."

"We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is," Friedman wrote about the "Christian fundamentalists" who helped propel President Bush to reelection against Sen. John Kerry. "Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?"

The view north of Chicago in Evanston, Illinois, was even more ominous. Northwestern University adjunct history professor Garry Wills declared November 2, 2004, "the day the enlightenment went out." No longer did America take after France, Britain, Germany, Italy or Spain. No, Bush's America harbored "fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity." In short, the new America shared more in common with Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Christian fundamentalists, still fuming over the embarrassment of the Scopes trial in 1925, had finally enacted a jihad Wills dubbed "Bryan's revenge." Now these Christians would be able to impose their irrational, bigoted opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Thinkers like Wills could only ask: "Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?"

by Skye Jethani

Many people feel that the greatest threat to Christianity today is postmodernity. Others zero in on relativism. Some believe the enemy is secular humanism. And others believe Islamic fascism is the boogey man. I disagree. In my view the greatest challenge facing the contemporary church is consumerism. By that I do not mean consumption. It's not wrong to consume things. In fact, as contingent beings we've been designed to consume for survival. The only human that doesn't consume is one that has reached room temperature, in which case they are now being consumed. (Do I hear "The Circle of Life" in the background?)

The consumerism I'm concerned with is the one that functions as a worldview. It forms the uncontested assumptions of our lives, and when it intersects our faith our perception of worship, mission, church, community, belief, and even God is fundamentally altered. These are all subject I tackle in my forthcoming book, The Divine Commodity (Zondervan, 2009).

One aspect of consumerism that is particularly powerful is branding. (Add to it commodification and alienation and you've got the unholy trinity of consumerism.) Douglas Atkins, author of The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers Into True Believers, says, "Brands are the new religion...They supply our modern metaphysics, imbuing the world with significance.... Brands function as complete meaning systems."

Without question one of the most potent brands in America today is Apple, and new research has shown that Apple has achieved the same impact on the human brain as religion.

You may have noticed that the blog has a slightly new look. The revised banner is a simple way for us to celebrate Out of Ur's third anniversary. In October 2005, Leadership embarked on a digital journey of conversation. Since then this blog has grown to become a meeting place for church leaders and a think tank for cultural missionaries.

But that was just the beginning.

The second reason for the new look is to symbolize changes that we're making to Out of Ur as it moves into its fourth year. We'll be unveiling those changes in style, format, and content in the days ahead, so stay tuned. For today we are happy to introduce a new slate of regular voices to the site. We hope you benefit from the wisdom of these Urthlings in the days ahead.

Url Scaramanga is the facilitator of Out or Ur and an adjunct professor of interdisciplinary pseudonymology at the College of Creative Writing in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin. He is the son of circus performers but left to pursue ministry. Url nearly earned a seminary degree but was "encouraged to seek another calling" after an unfortunate incident in hermeneutics class involving a pigeon. He retains a keen interest in issues of theology, culture, carnivals, and ministry, and believes blogging is the best use of his gifts for the church.

Dave Gibbons is the pastor of NewSong Church in Irvine, California. NewSong is a multi-ethnic church with locations in Irvine, Los Angeles, Northern Orange County, and Bangkok, Thailand. Gibbons is helping NewSong shift from a megachurch model to a church of smaller congregations called "verges." He first met Url one night in Bangkok.

Has the economy got you worried? When pundits are throwing around statements like, "The worst market since the Great Depression," it's natural to get concerned. But Andy Crouch has a different take. He's written a really insightful article for our friends at Books and Culture titled "Why I am Hopeful." Here's an excerpt:

I am not hopeful because I envision an easy way out of the current economic mess. We are entering into the Great Deleveraging, where an entire country of consumers will have to pare back their reliance on cheap mortgages and abundant credit cards. (Remember when your mailbox was stuffed with credit card offers? Seen any lately?) The national savings rate might even rise above 0% - yes, that is zero percent, the proportion Americans have been collectively saving for several years now. But that means that consumption, a major engine of our economy, will have to decline dramatically.

I am not hopeful because I have confidence in whoever will be elected president in 15 days. I have grave concerns, as a Christian and as a citizen, about both candidates and will in all likelihood vote for neither. (Not for the first time - in 2004 I wrote in Colin Powell.)

I am not hopeful because I think we are well prepared for what is ahead of us. We are not. We are a terrifyingly unserious people, our heads buzzing with trivia and noise. This is more true, if anything, of American Christians than the rest of our country. The stark contrast between what I experience among Christians anywhere else in the world - and not just the "Third World," because Canada and Germany and Britain and Singapore come to mind as quickly as Uganda and India - and American Christians is astonishing. We are preoccupied with fads intellectual, theological, technological, and sartorial. Vanishingly few of us have any serious discipline of silence, solitude, study, and fasting. We have, in the short run, very little to offer our culture, because we live in the short run.

I am not hopeful because I think life is going to get easier in America. I am hopeful because I think it is going to get harder, and in a very good way. And I am hopeful because I think this means my children and grandchildren will live in a deeply and truly better world than I would have thought possible a few years ago.

Read Crouch's entire article here.

Election time again and, once more, we face a big decision. No, not the decision about our vote. That one is big, but this one is even bigger. It's the decision about our integrity.

I watch in amazement as every four years, well-meaning Christians who are otherwise committed to values of truth and controlling our tongues descend into the pit of partisanship, smears, and tale-bearing. You know how it goes. You have genuine concerns about the other guy (or gal) and so, with few qualms, repeat whatever was told to you by someone in the parking lot or that you heard on the talk radio show or read on that extremely well fact-checked source, the Internet. Of course, all the stuff the other side is saying about your candidate? Yellow journalism and lies.

People who balked at the Left's mention of George Bush's alcoholism repeat at the drop of a hat Obama's admission of drug use in his younger days. And people who on any other day are likely to decry the sexism of American politics suddenly become concerned that Palin went back to work too quickly after giving birth and that she can't be both VP and a mother of a special-needs child.

We believe whatever our side says, refuse to even listen to the other side, and generally put critical thinking aside.

The Fall 2008 issue of Leadership contains a new feature: The Golden Canon book award. One of our finalists was Andy Crouch's Culture Making: Recovering our creative calling (IVP), the much-praised contribution to the ongoing conversation about the relationship between Christianity and culture. Here's a taste of Andy's prose, a tidbit to spark conversation.

The postures of the artist and the gardener have a lot in common. Both begin with contemplation, paying close attention to what is already there. The gardener looks carefully at the landscape; the existing plants, both flowers and weeds; the way the sun fall on the land. The artist regards her subject, her canvas, her paints with care to discern what she can make with them.

And then, after contemplation, the artist and the gardener both adopt a posture of purposeful work. They bring creativity and effort to their calling...They are creaturely creators, tending and shaping the world that original Creator made.

I wonder what we Christians are known for in the world outside our churches. Are we known as critics, consumers, copiers, condemners of culture? I'm afraid so. Why aren't we known as cultivators--people who tend and nourish what is best in human culture, who do the harsh and painstaking work to preserve the best of what people before us have done? Why aren't we known as creators--people who dare to think and do something that has never been thought or done before, something that makes the world more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful?

I've noticed a trend lately among Christian writers, thinkers, and leaders: they are framing their approach to faith as an alternative to left/right categories. Some stake out a via media between two poles, while others critique the very essence of the polarity altogether.

I'm not alone in noticing a growing third way sentiment. Scott McKnight's excellent Christianity Today article, "The Ironic Faith of Emergents", points to the same trend. He notes that McLaren and other emergent Christians offer him hope of a third way of faith - a faith without the strictures of neo-Fundamentalism that also avoids the loss of theological clarity.

I've also spotted third way thinking in the works of N.T. Wright (his approach to eschatology in Surprised by Hope comes to mind), Tim Keller (see his introduction to The Reason for God), and Tony Jones (The New Christians testifies that emerging types don't fit liberal or conservative molds). There's even a British magazine devoted to the Third Way.

Skye is offering a terrific play by play. Let me offer a word of commentary on one entry he mentioned.

One of the people I was most interested to meet at Catalyst was William Paul Young, the author of "The Shack," the self-published novel that was given a spectacular endorsement by Eugene Peterson, got amazing word-of-mouth distribution and rocked the publishing world, selling millions and sparking a heated blogosphere debate among Christians over whether the book is heretical in its depiction of God or whether it's a helpful and clarifying portrayal of God's three-in-one character.

Today Paul (he goes by his middle name) was interviewed on the main stage. At yesterday's Catalyst lab, Paul explained to a mostly supportive audience the origin of the novel. He said it was NOT written to make a statement about the Trinity. Instead, he said, it was written to be given to family members to help them better grasp issues of God and gender! To work through the pain of earthly fathers who are distant or absent during times of Great Sadness.

Oh, my, I thought. If anything is more volatile than the Trinity, issues of gender would be on a fairly short list of things guaranteed to be impossible to address without offending a whole lot of people. The intricacies of describing the Trinity will offend the theologically trained, but the suggesting God has gender issues will disturb just about everyone.

by David Swanson

As on any other Tuesday, my wife and I hosted our weekly small group on Election Day of 2004. A quick scan of the TV stations after the Bible study showed that we'd have to wait until the next day to learn the results. "Just pray that John Kerry doesn't win," said one of the members on his way out that November night. Over early morning coffee a few weeks later another church friend expressed his relief that George Bush would serve a second term as president.

More recently, after a pizza dinner with some volunteers from church, someone asked where Barak Obama's home was. Soon a small caravan was driving through Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood to see the house of what many of these volunteers hoped would be the next president. A few weeks later I watched one of our worship leaders tactfully cover her Obama t-shirt with a jacket before our Sunday service began.

What happened between 2004 and the current election season to account for this shift in the political sensibilities of our community? Maybe the political priorities of some folks have changed. Maybe churchgoers feel taken for granted by the "Grand Old Party." Or perhaps Americans, including those within the Evangelical tradition, are just ready for change.

Or maybe not. What changed was that between these two elections we moved from an established suburban church to a 6-year old-church plant in Chicago. And that, as they say, has made all the difference.

You can listen to every stump speech and read every position paper, but nothing compares to evaluating presidential candidates side-by-side during a debate. Their contrasting styles and views emerge in ways you hadn't noticed during the long primary season. The candidates practice their lines and prepare their strategies, but the format allows for precious moments of spontaneity and even humor. The best candidates deftly address issues in ways that lodge them in the public consciousness.

Perhaps the best example of this is President Reagan, who in 1984 famously said, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience." His 56-year-old opponent, Walter Mondale, could only look on in laughter.

The first debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama provided no such memorable moments. But it did highlight important distinctions between the Republican and Democratic candidates. Namely, McCain and Obama represent key differences between modern and postmodern cultures. Analyzing their debate through this lens reveals similarities to the church's own debates about how to respond to shifting cultures.

This election season, a group of about 30 pastors plans to challenge the IRS law that prohibits churches from endorsing a political candidate from the pulpit. As part of the "Pulpit Initiative," organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, many of these pastors chose to explicitly endorse one of the presidential candidates as part of his Sunday sermon yesterday.

The pastors say that the IRS regulation violates their First Amendment rights by permitting the government to restrict the free expression of religion. The government should have no authority to restrict what a pastor says from the pulpit to his or her congregation, they argue.

Minnesota pastor Gus Booth, who encouraged his congregation to vote for John McCain yesterday, says, "If we [pastors] can tell you what to do in the bedroom, we can certainly tell you what to do in the voting booth."

On the other side, supporters of the IRS code also appeal to the First Amendment saying the church should stay out of political affairs, and those that choose not to should lose their tax-exempt status.

Here's more from CNN.com:

Read more on this story at Christianity Today Online or at the National Public Radio website.

Do you agree with these pastors? Is such civil disobedience warranted?

Share this:

by Scot McKnight

Somewhere between 6pm and 8pm, Central Time, on November 4th, 2008, the eschatology of American evangelicals will become clear. If John McCain wins and the evangelical becomes delirious or confident that the Golden Days are about to arrive, that evangelical has an eschatology of politics. Or, alternatively, if Barack Obama wins and the evangelical becomes delirious or confident that the Golden Days are about to arrive, that evangelical too has an eschatology of politics. Or, we could turn each around, if a more Democrat oriented evangelical becomes depressed and hopeless because McCain wins, or if a Republican oriented evangelical becomes depressed or hopeless because Obama wins, those evangelicals are caught in an empire-shaped eschatology of politics.

Where is our hope? To be sure, I hope our country solves its international conflicts and I hope we resolve poverty and dissolve our educational problems and racism. But where does my hope turn when I think of war or poverty or education or racism? Does it focus on November 4? Does it gain its energy from thinking that if we get the right candidate elected our problems will be dissolved? If so, I submit that our eschatology has become empire-shaped, Constantinian, and political. And it doesn't matter to me if it is a right-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Republican wins, or a left-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Democrat wins. Each has a misguided eschatology.

Now before I take another step, it must be emphasized that I participate in the election; and I think it makes a difference which candidate wins; and I think from my own limited perspective one candidate is better than the other.

Late yesterday afternoon, I received a copy of The Green Bible (HarperOne), and I'm not sure what to make of it.

The Bible is "green" in composition, which I appreciate. Its pages are made of 10 percent post-consumer recycled paper, the words are printed with soy-based ink, and the binding is 100 percent cotton/linen. It is certainly a good-looking book (that marketing sleeve comes off). And it smells nice. I wouldn't mind if my bookshelves were lined with cotton covers.

But to put things in perspective, Thomas Nelson released a "green" Bible printed on recycled paper - the first of its kind - almost a year ago. So it's not the composition but the content of HarperOne's ecologically friendly canon that makes it unique.

Before they make it to Genesis, Green Bible readers encounter an impressive roll of contributors, each offering a sermon or article on some aspect of creation care: "Reading the Bible through a Green Lens" and "Knowing Our Place on Earth: Learning Environmental Responsibility from the Old Testament" for example. There's a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an introduction by Matthew Sleeth, poems by Francis of Assisi and Wendell Berry, and articles (mostly reprinted) by Brian McLaren, Barbara Brown Taylor, N. T. Wright, and the late Pope John Paul II, among others.

But what truly sets The Green Bible apart is that it's a "green-letter edition." It's akin to the New Testaments in which the words of Jesus are printed in red. Except in this case, "over a thousand references to the earth and caring for creation" appear in green ink. While there are certainly more instances besides the highlighted ones that would have applied, the editors tell us in the prefatory material, they have chosen only those "speaking directly to the project's core mission."

In this video, Doug Pagitt explains the relationships between the terms emerging, Emergent, and "emergence." It strikes me as trying to decide which layer of the Incredible Gobstopper is the actual Gobstopper. But you should decide for yourself.

--Url

by Url Scaramanga

"The emerging church will disappear." That is what my informant told me as we shared drinks at our clandestine watering hole. I felt like Luca Brasi being handed a dead fish wrapped in newspaper. The hit had been ordered?the emerging church's fate had been sealed. In my informant's mind, the death of the emerging church was a settled matter. I double-checked my surroundings for listening ears before whispering, "How can you be so sure?" The informant (who worked for a publisher) leaned forward and said their marketing plans included dropping the "Emerging Church" brand within two years.

Now comes word from recognized leaders and voices within the emerging church movement that the term has become so polluted that it is being dropped. Consider Dan Kimball. He wrote the book on the emerging church - literally. His 2003 book, The Emerging Church, reintroduced the term into the evangelical lexicon. In Kimball's blog post from last week he writes:

Although I am finding that the term [emerging church] has become so broad now and so confusing, it is very important to know that I am not by any means stopping being involved and pursuing the heart and mission of what the term "emerging church" originally meant. At least in how I was personally using it when I wrote the book 6 years ago.

"People cannot tell the difference between a conservative evangelical message and Rush Limbaugh, or a mainline Protestant message and Howard Dean. Because of the media, any news item related to a major social issue...is politicized in 24 hours. By the time I get up to preach about it on Sunday, it's been spun and polarized a hundred times over."

-Efrem Smith is pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis. Taken from "Does Your Preaching Touch Politics" in the Summer 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

Where I grew up in the South, the three big holidays on the church calendar were Christmas, Easter, and Fourth of July Sunday. Now I live near Chicago, where many churches let Independence Day slip by without a word from the pulpit. There are, no doubt, historical and theological reasons why Christians in one part of the country (or in one denomination or another) are more inclined to link the church to the state in its worship. But in my experience, people simply don't give the issue a lot of thought; they just do what they've always done.

That's why I'm excited to introduce the Church and Politics Quiz, a tool designed to help you uncover your assumptions and blind spots regarding the role of the church in politics. How should the church relate to the state - as chaplain or prophet? Is it appropriate to display flags in the sanctuary? In the spirit of the Hermeneutics Quiz from earlier this year, there are no right or wrong answers. Rather, we hope this tool will help you think critically about the church's role and responsibility in this historic election year.

Take the quiz here, and then come back to Out of Ur to post your results and comments.

Shifts happen all the time - shifts in economics, politics, theology, church, and culture. But we usually don't comprehend the full nature of the shift until much later. One subtle shift happened in Beijing last week. You may have missed it amid the pageantry of the Olympic opening ceremonies.

Many consider it an historic event for modern China to host the Olympic Games, and the show proved to be amazing. It was an experiential canvas of creativity few have ever seen before on such a scale: techno-utopian shows, creative and innovative artistry, massive numbers of participants synchronizing poetry through dance and song. The opening ceremony masterfully put the world on notice: a shift has occurred. Here's what I saw communicated:

1. China is increasingly more open to the "barbarians"
In one of the most beautiful sequences in the ceremony, the dancers displayed the Great Wall reflecting one of the most notable metaphors of China. It was a reminder to the world that barbarians weren't welcomed. Things have changed. The dancers transformed the walls of China into a bridge of flowers. Sure, the doors may still be closed in many respects--human rights and religious freedoms are still lagging in China--but there seems to be a growing openness in the culture. This is probably the result of many who have prayed and fueled the movement of the Holy Spirit.

"If there's anything I've learned from both conservatives and liberals, it's that you can have all the right political answers and still be mean. And nobody wants to listen to you if you're mean. One of the things we can do is learn to disagree well. I think there is a new conversation happening within evangelicalism in post-religious-right America that is much healthier. We can actually learn to disagree well."

-Shane Claiborne is a founding member of The Simple Way, a new monastic community in Philadelphia, and the co-author of Jesus for President. Taken from "Body Politic" in the Summer 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

I'm not Rick Warren's biggest fan. Don't get me wrong; I admire his godly character and zeal to claim this world for Christ. But I could live without the hokey acronyms and, especially, his "felt needs" approach to evangelism.

That said, I was impressed with Warren's hosting skills at the Saddleback Civil Forum on Saturday night. Warren is the only Christian leader in America who could pull off this event. Sen. Barack Obama wants to peel away more of the evangelical vote, and he trusts Warren not to play gotcha with him on the issues where he disagrees with evangelicals. Sen. John McCain needs to bolster his credibility with evangelicals, and he knows Warren harbors no long-standing vendetta against him for sometimes bucking conservative political orthodoxy.

"Too many Christians today are trying to improve on the gospel. The gospel is what it is: the Cross of Christ. Christians on both the political right and the left are downplaying the effects of the Fall, and instead buying into a secular myth of progress through market economics or socialism."

-Mark Dever is pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Taken from "Does Your Preaching Touch Politics?" in the Summer 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

There is another life beyond this one: a realm where one's role on earth is a distant memory, where inhabitants have new bodies and can fly anywhere they like. It sounds a bit like heaven. But it's not. It's cyberspace.

Second Life is - well, for the uninitiated, it is hard to explain. Some call it a game, but in reality it is ultimate virtuality: a virtual, 3D, online world that is continually created and updated by its residents. Originally introduced to the public in 2003 by the company Linden Lab, Second Life now boasts over a million members from around the world.

These members, 50,000 or more of whom are online and "in-world" at any given time, create their own names and "avatars" (virtual identities with infinite combinations of customizable human and nonhuman "looks") that can own merchandise and property (bought with real U.S. dollars) and interact with any anyone else in-world via Second Life chat or instant messenger. Residents can walk, fly, or teleport to various destinations, including lush beaches, raucous dance clubs, trendy restaurants, seedy strip joints, bustling malls - and churches.

I want to thank Chad Hall for taking the time to read the book and giving me some helpful feedback in his review. I also appreciate the opportunity to respond and will seek to do so graciously.

(Read Chad Hall's review here.)

First, the accusation that I am humble is scandalous. I have said some things over the years that I regret. Meditating on the fact that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, God shook me deeply. Today I am, as a friend says, a proud man pursuing humility by the grace of God. I appreciate Chad's insight that humility is knowing one's place in God's plan because I find it helpful and truthful.

Second, as a loving push back, I would say that my goal in the book was not to say anything new, but rather to say things that are timeless in timely ways. Admittedly, the person who graduated from seminary ten years ago and is now in ministry like Chad, might not resonate as deeply with Vintage Jesus as the twenty-something who is as lost as Dick Cheney in the woods - which was the primary audience I had in mind when I wrote. The feedback I am getting from younger, less theologically trained people is very encouraging and the sales of the book to young folks have remained strong by God's grace.

As writer, I am always thankful for reviewers who are thoughtful and evenhanded. I'm afraid that Chad Hall is neither.

(Read Chad Hall's review here.)

Firstly, I clearly do not write that the emergent movement is the exclusive purveyor of the reformation that is currently underway in Christianity. I make it clear in the pages that Mr. Hall cites that it is the gospel that is red-hot lava, bursting through the centuries of accoutrements that have been collected by the church. It would, indeed, be the height of arrogance to suggest that the emergent movement and the gospel are one-and-the-same, but I do no such thing. Instead, I write (and believe) that there are major, tectonic shifts taking place in the church, and the emergent movement is part of that landscape.

Next, to caricature my treatment of convention and traditional Christian worshippers as "crusty old Christians" is, of course, Mr. Hall's right, but it does not accurately reflect my feelings or my writing on the subject. I am frustrated by the reified theologies of the Protestant right and the reified bureaucracies of the Protestant left - and I make no bones about that - but I refer throughout the book to my own journey through those systems and with those people. Indeed, my parents are among those people.

If you'd asked me two years ago if I was part of the emerging church movement, I would have thought for a second and said, "Yes." When asked today, I pause for half a second before saying, "No." The New Christians and Vintage Jesus helped me clarify my journey from Yes to No.

I found one book insignificant and the other inflated.

Let's start with the insignificant. I admire Mark Driscoll for doing significant stuff. He's planted a thriving church in a place where it's tough to do ministry and helps lead one of the more successful church planting networks around (Acts 29). I cracked open Vintage Jesus anticipating something important. Based on the title, I expected Driscoll to pop the cork on an enduring theology that over time increases in flavor and potency. But the book was more flat Coke than fine wine.

I did not find Driscoll's book very interesting. About a third of the way through the book, my mind traveled back a decade to my first week of seminary. As a preaching newbie in need of guidance, I checked out an old, small book on preaching that started by saying something like, "If your sermons are not interesting, you're missing something because God is infinitely interesting." The notion that conversations about God should be interesting resurfaced as I read Vintage Jesus and caught myself muttering, "Yeah, yeah, yeah? so what?"

Last month the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. Some are predicting that the California ruling will open the door to gay marriage throughout the country. How should church leaders respond? Skye Jethani, managing editor of Leadership, recently spoke with Dan Kimball, pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California, about how his congregation is handling the controversial decision.

To download this episode of Audio Ur, click here.

P.S. For those wondering when Audio Ur will be on iTunes...we're working on it.

I've got a special treat for you to commemorate Independence Day - a preview of the summer issue of Leadership due out later this month. The issue focuses on the intersection of church ministry and politics (not an irrelevant subject this year). Here is a snippet featuring Charles Colson and Gregory Boyd debating the biblical basis for loving one's country:

Charles Colson: I don't think that you can simply forget the fact that we live in a kingdom and a state. Our job is to make the state as righteous and conformed to God's standards as possible. But you can love the Lord your God with your heart, mind, and soul and also love your country as a way of loving your neighbor.

Gregory Boyd: This is the fundamental difference between us. In your book you speak a lot about our dual commitments, our dual allegiances to God and country. I just don't know where in the New Testament you get that. I can't imagine Jesus or Paul saying such a thing. God tells us to obey the laws of the land and to pray for peace. Those are our two engagements. But I don't feel we have any kind of duty to love or defend our country.

As you can see, this issue is sure to spark some debate. Share your thoughts here, and look for more thought provoking discussion on Out of Ur in the coming weeks.

Regular readers of Out of Ur know that new words and phrases are often coined and disseminated on this blog. ("Church pirate" may be the most recent example thanks to Ed Young Jr.) We'd like to assemble an Out of Ur lexicon that records the definitions of these new words and phrases. This endeavor involves your help.

Send us your ideas for newly invented words that should be included in the Ur lexicon along with a definition and example of the word in use. Entries should follow a dictionary format. Here are two examples:

Pomosapian (n). A person so utterly entrenched in postmodernity they have totally lost touch with reality. They are often found at coffee shops and used book stores. "Bill thinks the law of gravity is a Euro-centric truth imposed upon indigenous peoples to prevent them from pursuing flight. He's a total pomosapian."

Calvinistas (n). Those who believe Calvin wasn't Calvinist enough and revel in belligerent theological discussions. They are easily diagnosed with an MRI scan because they completely lack a right hemisphere to thier brain. "When the Calvinistas arrived the pomosapians fled for their lives."

Entries may be nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, and may have more than one definition. You may submit as many words as you like. We'll be judging the entries based on creativity, originality, and hilarity. The words deemed to be most urthy (adj., that which is deemed worthy of Ur), will not be posted in the comments section. They will be published each week in the Out of Ur e-newsletter. (You may subscribe to the e-newsletter on the right.)

The person who submits the single entry judged to be the best by our editors will receive a free one-year subscription to Leadership journal. Good luck!

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It's official: I'm tuning out of Christian radio.

When some of the Christian radio stations in my area shifted their play lists from Southern gospel, country Christian and syndicated preaching, I took notice. I was thrilled to have airwave access to what I considered great Christian music. And I found myself tuning in more often.

But even my favorite stations have started losing me in recent months. What led me to reprogram my car radio and cancel my monthly $10 pledges? Three things.

First, I've noticed a growing level of - how shall I say this? - sappiness. Yeah, that's the word. It's not so much the music that's sappy (some of it is); it's the commentary, news stories, and contests that combine to present Christianity as synonymous with sentimentality. I live in a real world that's not always positive and encouraging, so Christian radio's steady diet of sugary spirituality doesn't promote sustaining faith.

A few weeks ago Skye Jethani had the opportunity to speak with Alan Hirsch about the definition of "missional." Hirsch expressed concern that the word was being redefined and its true meaning lost. This week Skye sat down with Dan Kimball, pastor of Vintage Faith Church and a regular contributor to Leadership and Out of Ur. Kimball had a slightly different take on the word, and he believes a more traditional, attractional, model of church can also be missional. This podcast jumps right into the conversation between Jethani and Kimball.

To download this episode of Audio Ur, click here.

In October 2007, Out of Ur posted what has now become a much read and much quoted commentary that we titled "Willow Creek Repents?" It was based on comments that Bill Hybels and Greg Hawkins, Willow Creek's executive pastor, presented at The Leadership Summit 2007, announcing the release of Reveal, a book emerging from an extensive study of Willow and other churches.

Earlier this month, Bill Hybels and Jim Mellado, president of the Willow Creek Association, posted a video on YouTube objecting to the "misinformation" published by Out of Ur and our sister publication Christianity Today regarding Reveal.

The week following the release of the video, I went to South Barrington to meet with leaders of Willow Creek to hear their concerns face to face, which was a very helpful experience. They shared with me new approaches to ministry prompted by Reveal that are in process and things they are not ready to have published. I will honor their trust. I certainly affirm the steps Willow is taking to more effectively turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ.

I do need to respond publicly to two items that were aired in the YouTube video.

A graduate professor of mine liked to say that every attempt to explain the Trinity is heresy - every metaphor overemphasizes either God's one-ness or his three-ness. In his bestselling novel, The Shack, William P. Young tries to explain the Trinity. You can see where this is going.

Now currently at number eleven in book sales at Amazon.com and number nine on the USA Today Top 50 Books list, The Shack began as the self-published debut novel of an unknown writer. It has sold like hotcakes: somewhere around 500,000 copies (depending on who you ask) in less than a year. However you feel about the book, the story of its success is remarkable; all the more so considering that the content is unashamedly Christian.

In his first post, David Fitch argued that all converts are not necessarily the same in terms of time and context, and that emerging/emergent, neo-monastic communities, and megachurches each minister in different contexts and, in some cases, with different purposes. In this post, David responds to a few of the many comments his post inspired.

From Leonard: If missional churches don't last for more than three years, then someone needs to rethink how they are planted, who is planting them, and exactly what their mission is. If churches are not making converts in this culture then we need to ask hard questions about boldness, methods, and not being distracted from the truth that brings grace.

DF: Leonard, I think we agree. I think it is the expectations placed upon missional planters from exterior sources that inhibit their success. We need to prepare missional church plant leaders to set entirely different expectations (including being bi-occupational, indeed self supporting). Your second point reverts back to my suggestion that converts take more time in post-Christendom.

From Mike h: 1) One of the beauties of the organic church is not how difficult it is, but how simple. I don't see how developing a complex megachurch is easier than starting an organic missional community. One difficulty may be getting the community large enough to support the "planter." Is that the goal?

2) The author states "The conversion of a post-Christendom "pagan," who has had little to no exposure to the language and story of Christ in Scripture, may require five years of relational immersion before a decision would even make sense." Would it take any less time for a megachurch to reach them than for a missional community?

The word "missional" is everywhere. But what does it mean? Is it another way of saying "seeker-focused" or "purpose-driven"? Not according to Alan Hirsch, author of The Forgotten Ways and The Shaping of Things to Come. In this edition of Audio Ur the insightful, yet soft-spoken, man from Down Under talks with Skye Jethani and Marshall Shelley about what it truly means to be a missional church.

To download this episode of Audio Ur, click here.

Last year at the Convergent Conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Mark Driscoll made the following remark:

And all the nonsense of emerging, and Emergent, and new monastic communities, and, you know, all of these various kinds of ridiculous conversations--I'll tell you as one on the inside, they don't have converts. The silly little myth, the naked emperor is this: they will tell you it's all about being in culture to reach lost people, and they're not.

I often hear this in places where I speak. It usually goes something like this: "We love missional theology, but does it work? How many converts have you had in your missional church?" Once again, the modernist drive to measure success raises its ugly head. Yet it does not offend me because these are important questions. I believe if we are not seeing people transformed by the gospel then "missional" in the end means very little.

So here is my response to Driscoll and others who question the evangelistic impact of missional churches:

What is an "evangelical"? According to almost 80 prominent pastors, theologians, and activists, the word "evangelical" has become "a term that, in recent years, has often been used politically, culturally, socially - and even as a marketing demographic."

The group signed and released a 19 page "Evangelical Manifesto" last week in Washington D.C. The goal of the document is to "reclaim the definition of what it means to be an Evangelical." They believe that theological, rather than political, principles should define evangelicalism, and they offer a strong rebuke to those who would equate the word with either end of the political spectrum. When evangelicalism is politically defined, they say, it makes Christians "useful idiots" for politicians and parties.

The manifesto's signers are a diverse bunch including Timothy George, dean, Beeson Divinity School; Os Guinness; Richard Mouw, president, Fuller Theological Seminary; David Neff, editor in chief of Christianity Today; and Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners magazine. Absent are some high profile Religious Right folks like James Dobson. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has written about why he won't sign the manifesto even though he agrees with 90 percent of its content.

One commentator has noted that the manifesto represents a divide between the "old-style populist evangelicals" (think Religious Right, Moral Majority, pro-life, anti-gay marriage) and what he calls the increasing ranks of "cosmopolitan evangelicals" (think global awareness, social justice, poverty, AIDS). He says this bunch (shall we call them Cosmo-Christians?) are "the new public face of the evangelical movement."

While following a relatively uninteresting trail of research recently (which I won't retrace here), I happened upon Synagogue 3000 (S3K). This consortium of rabbis and other Jewish leaders is committed to offering "challenging and promising alternatives to traditional synagogue structures." They call themselves "Jewish Emergents," and their understanding of their mission is, in some ways, very similar to that of the Christian Emergent movement.

They are concerned, for example, with communicating authentic faith in a postmodern idiom, which has compelled them to move worship beyond the synagogue. So, they are meeting in homes, bars, and coffee houses, among other places. They are resurrecting some ancient practices, such as worshiping in Hebrew, while ignoring others. And they are reconsidering the qualifications for participation and leadership.

There are also significant differences between Jewish Emergents and Christian Emergents, of course. Along with Synagogue 3000, Jewish Emergents seem more concerned with updating the style and format of Jewish observation and worship than with questioning or reformulating orthodox Jewish theology. Also, while the Jewish Emergents are eager to reconcile younger non-practicing Jews to the faith, they are not concerned with proselytizing.

"I think our generation is approaching ministry more as an art than a science. Since the Enlightenment, 'doing church' has been seen as a science, and it was seen as linear, organized, with clearcut leadership principles. Our generation doesn't see things that way anymore. We approach things more creatively, more organically."

-Dave Terpstra is teaching pastor of The Next Level Church in Denver. Taken from "Next & Level" in the Spring 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

Anybody but me notice that this is an election year? I have loved politics since I was a kid; one of my first and favorite books was a little Cold War classic called Being an American Can Be Fun.

But it's an odd thing. The church - where we're supposed to be fearless; where we're supposed to challenge people on sin, and be prophetic, and face martyrdom - the church is also the place where we're told, "Don't talk about politics!" Or at least we're told that in the kind of churches where I grew up. Other traditions are different. In the African-American church, for instance, for decades church was the one place where politics could be safely talked about; leaving a legacy that is reverberating pretty loudly this year.

Here's the problem: politics is an important sphere of human activity, and as such God is keenly interested in it. It was the Dutch theologian and politician (why don't we have more of those?) Abraham Kuyper who famously said, "There is not one inch of creation about which Jesus Christ does not say: ?This is mine!'"

However, as soon as human beings (including church leaders) start assuming they are in a position to pronounce God's political leanings, things get a little dicey.

Read part one of Craig Detweiler's post here.

Monsters movies are a tired, moribund, nearly dead genre. Roland Emmerich's 1998 Godzilla remake was horrible - all the effects, none of the joy. It had a traditional scenario, established stars, and extravagant set pieces. But the end result was a snooze. Where was the giddy thrill of discovery? The fear of what happens next?

Cloverfield goes back to the original Japanese source material to reinvent Godzilla. It has all the familiar notes: What is that thing? Where did it come from? No time to find out--RUN! The tension builds in traditional ways. Long quiet passages punctuated by panic. The rats in the subway tunnel run the same way. It offers a creature in the background you can't quite see.

But Cloverfield didn't just revive an old genre; it also uses the latest video camera technology, such as creepy night vision, in a raw and authentic way. The movie generated antipathy simply because of its shaky, handheld video style. It feels loose, informal, and spontaneous - it can also make you seasick. The style itself becomes a stumbling block. Plenty of viewers longed for Cloverfield's camera to settle down and conform to some pattern. But the chaos also means you can't be a passive observer. The audience is forced to participate.

Emergent churches are equally authentic, immediate, and lived. Their services feel unscripted, even though they may be planned. Like Cloverfield, they offer the illusion of spontaneity which is an art unto itself. The generation that embraces Cloverfield and emerging churches isn't interested in second or third order reflection. They live in the moment, treasuring direct and unmediated experiences.

If you hate Cloverfield (or don't even know what it is), then you probably loathe emerging Christians. If you like Cloverfield, you're likely to dig the emergent conversation. Both deliver on their grand promises in a novel way (that is decidedly not for everybody). But why does the film (and the emergent folks) inspire such antipathy? Why can't we appreciate the next generation's re-imagination of tired clich?s?

Movies offer a safe way to process our cultural anxiety. In monster movies we're presented with an opportunity to corral our fears. Zombies or UFOs or viruses wreak havoc for ninety minutes before order is inevitably restored. Cloverfield depicts a seemingly ordinary evening in New York City that is derailed by an unexpected and unexplained attack. Sound familiar? Cloverfield is a direct response to the fear unleashed by the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Eerie shots of panic in the streets remind us how vulnerable we felt. We follow shell-shocked New Yorkers crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in search of safety. The film doesn't offer any reasons for the monster's rampage. It is pure terror. Our way of life as we know it is vanishing, and nothing seems capable of stopping the assault.

For some, the emergent movement has become a monster to be dreaded and feared. Despite leaders' best efforts to explain their theology, rumors about the Emergent Village keep swirling in the blogosphere. A struggling, insecure church has identified emergent Christians as the new enemy. How a small band of smart, reasonably clean-cut ministers like Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt or Rob Bell could inspire so much fear is a tribute to the mania available on the Internet. To some evangelical watchdogs, public enemy number one has a goatee, an earring, and a dog-eared copy of Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian. How did this get so far out of hand?

In the introduction of their new book whose title says it all - Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be (Moody, 2008) - authors Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck offer yet another attempt at defining "emergent Christianity." I've included the full quotation below. Check it out and tell me whether you fit the bill.

After reading nearly five thousand pages of emerging-church literature, I have no doubt that the emerging church, while loosely defined and far from uniform, can be described and critiqued as a diverse, but recognizable, movement. You might be an emergent Christian: if you listen to U2, Moby, and Johnny Cash's Hurt (sometimes in church), use sermon illustrations from The Sopranos, drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings, and always use a Mac; if your reading list consists primarily of Stanley Hauerwas, Henri Nouwen, N. T. Wright, Stan Grenz, Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, Jim Wallis, Frederick Buechner, David Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, Nancy Murphy, John Frank, Walter Winks, and Lesslie Newbigin (not to mention McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, etc.) and your sparring partners include D. A. Carson, John Calvin, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Wayne Grudem;...

I'm sitting at the airport in Louisville, Kentucky, heading back home after spending two days with 5,000 theology freaks, and I mean that in mostly a good way. Together for the Gospel ("T4G" to the initiated) is the second gathering of the friends and fans of Al Mohler, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, C.J. Mahaney, and their very systematic theology (there are XVIII Articles in their doctrinal statement).

The first T4G event in 2006 drew over 3,000 of the "young, restless, and reformed" (Collin Hansen's nicely turned phrase and title of his new book). The event this year was so large it had to be held in Louisville's International Convention Center.

This year's feeding of the 5,000 was a series of addresses on theology, specifically Calvinist theology--yes, total depravity was the topic of an entire session, as was "The Curse Motif in the Atonement"--but, interestingly, traditional Reformed emphases of infant baptism, the covenant, and presbyterian polity were missing.

Let's make a couple of assumptions about a church leader who reads Jesus for President. First, he or she actually finishes the book despite the occasional punch in the gut. Second, that this same church leader agrees (on some level) with the premise that too much of our American church life has been shaped by our comfortable relationship with the state. If one accept both of these assumptions, what then?

While the book offers plenty of fodder for thought and conversation, it is not a how-to manual of subversive Kingdom living. Since most of us will not be leaving our churches to join a New Monastic community with Claiborne or Haw, what is our response? How do we serve and lead congregations that preserve Kingdom distinctiveness while demonstrating God's redemption to our neighbors?

One way to answer these questions is found in how Claiborne and Haw compose their book's last chapter: story telling. The authors claim, "Preserving the distinctiveness of the kingdom of God has always been the most important task for the church." And, "The only thing all Christians are called by the New Testament to imitate is Jesus' taking up his cross." Rather than tell us exactly how to do this, they've decided to show us in the final portion of the book.

The final session of Shift 2008 featured Dan Kimball, pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California, and regular contributor to Leadership and Out of Ur. Kimball shared some insights from this book, They Like Jesus But Not the Church.

He began with the good news - our culture is very interested in Jesus. He pulled a number of items from a bag: a Jesus bobble head figure, Jesus band-aids, a Jesus eraser, and then showed images from a Madonna concert where the queen of pop hung on a cross with scripture verses above to highlight the 12 million kids dying from Aids in Africa. Kimball says there is no doubt that people in our culture are curious about Jesus - and many find him very attractive.

Now the bad news - popular perceptions of the church and Christians are very different. Kimball showed a video of college students in his town describing Christians as judgmental, homophobic, and hypocritical. He humorously recounted the response of a girl at the health club when she discovered Dan was a pastor. She said, "Pastors are creepy" but admitted she didn't know any personally.

If there is one thing that everyone in youth ministry seems to be talking about it's how to keep students following Christ after high school. That's been a hot topic here at Shift, and this morning Kara Powell addressed the problem head on. As the executive director of the Center for Youth and Family Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, Powell knows the sobering statistics.

Her data reveals that 50% of high school students who had been deeply involved in a church's youth ministry will not be serving God 18 months after graduation. And that's not counting the many other high school students who are only going to church because their parents are forcing them. She also cited the LifeWay study that was highlighted on Ur last year.

Powell stood next to a table piled high with ministry books and resources. She asked, with so many resources available to us why are our students falling away at such alarming rates? Her thought: the more resources we have the less desperate and dependent upon God we feel. And we begin making "mindless, automatic decisions about our ministries." She called for an end to "autopilot" youth ministry, and for us to start asking hard questions about what we're doing.

For the third podcast recorded here at Shift, we sat down with Switchfoot band members Drew Shirley and Jerome Fontamillas.

In it, Drew and Jerome discuss the ways in which they've seen student culture change over the past 10 years, as well as how those changes have redefined their relationship and connection with their audience. They also share quite a bit about the starting place for the music they create, and the motivation for being in a band, recording and touring.

The second day of Shift 2008 ended with the Thursday Night Experiences, aimed at having the conference extend beyond just what happens in main sessions and breakouts.

To start the night, everybody began together in the main auditorium for a Q&A session with the band Switchfoot. The conversation covered everything from Switchfoot's "strategic touring" of good surf destinations, to the motivation and inspiration behind their music. Lead singer Jon Foreman and fellow band members discussed their desire to avoid the narrow labeling of sacred and secular, and instead create "music for thinking people," helping listeners question and think about the larger issues of life.

After Q&A, lead singer Jon Foreman played a short acoustic set of Switchfoot songs, as well as material from his new solo effort, and a new song written for the soundtrack of the upcoming Prince Caspian film.

We've got our second podcast from the conference. Mark Miller is an author and pastor at Life Church in Wheaton, Illinois. He's speaking at a breakout sesssion at SHIFT on the topic of "Engaging Students in Global Justice." In it, he discusses his own journey of discovering global justice being much more than a political issue; it's a deeply spiritual one. He also discussed the excitement about a new generation of students who are passionate about following the way of Jesus by serving the needs of the world. Click below to hear the podcast.

Kara Powell spoke during the final session at Shift this afternoon. Powell is the director of the Center for Youth and Family Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary. She began by bursting a pretty big bubble. Many churches have gotten involved in short term missions trips (STMs) that often involve a service project in a developing country. But are these trips making any real difference?

The research isn't encouraging. Powell shared about how those being served by North American church groups often feel demoralized by our service, and how many wished these churches would simply send the funds so they could do the work themselves. On the flip side, evidence suggests these trips are having a minimal impact on students as well. In an article she wrote called "If We Send Them, Will They Grow?" she concluded that students who go on STMs are not more likely to become long-term missionaries, and it doesn't impact their materialistic lifestyles.

Powell said a lot of our local and international efforts toward the poor are really a placebo effect. They make us feel better about ourselves, but they're not really impacting people the way we'd like to believe. What's the answer? She believes we need to shift from shallow service to "deep justice."

Darren Whitehead leads the student ministry of Willow Creek. He compared the church in our changing culture to his own experience as an immigrant (he's from Australia). Most immigrants suffer from "cultural freeze," he says. This is the tendency to maintain their old culture in the midst of the new one they find themselves in.

He says the church is doing the same thing. We're preserving church from the 1960s in a world that changing. He says this is really uncomfortable for newcomers. When someone comes into the church "it's sort of like walking in on two people making out. It's intimate and you feel kind of strange being there."

This has led to what Whitehead called an "epidemic of ineffectiveness." He cited numerous studies that all show huge numbers of students leaving the church after high school and never returning. He says, "The rate of change in the culture is far exceeding the rate of change in our youth ministries."

The second day of the conference began with Brian McLaren's breakout session, "Onramp to the Postmodern Conversation." This was designed to help newcomers to the issue understand the shift that is happening in the culture. He compared this change to a hurricane that assaulted Honduras a number of years ago. 100 inches of rain fell in one week. The country was devastated. When the rain stopped the landscape of the country had been changed.

In one case, a bridge that had spanned a river was now on dry land. The river's course had completely shifted. To the bridge's credit it was still standing; it was very well built, but it was totally useless. This, says McLaren, is what the modern church is facing. The modern church was very well built and designed for stability, but the ground is shifting and it's no longer as effective.

A similar storm is hitting the world today. Brian covered western history in about fifteen minutes, revealing paradigm shifts that have occurred in the past - including the one that gave us modernity about 500 years ago.

We are experiencing another prefect storm today, says McLaren.

I'm sitting in Willow Creek's auditorium as hundreds of youth leaders and students slowly make their way in. In a few minutes Shift 2008, Willow's student ministries 3-day conference, will begin. As previously mentioned, for the next few days Out of Ur will be hosting the online component of this conference. We'll do our best to summarize the ideas and questions raised by each speaker. Our hope is that those of you attending the conference will chime in with your comments about what you are experiencing during these three days. And for those of you watching from a distance, hopefully these posts will give you a taste of what is happening here in Barrington, Illinois.

UPDATE. Here are some video highlights from this session.

This morning's first speaker, Brian McLaren, just walked in and Charlie Hall is beginning to lead worship so I'll sign off for now. Check back in a couple of hours for a summary of the first session. Later today we'll be adding video highlights so keep checking in.

UPDATE. Read on for a summary of the first session...

I'm sitting at Ebenezer's - a coffee shop in Washington DC. That may not seem particularly remarkable, but this trendy meeting place represents the convergence of three social pillars - government, business, and church.

Ebenezer's is owned and operated by National Community Church. Often referred to as "The Theater Church," NCC meets at theaters located at three Metro stops around Washington. But the coffee shop serves as the church's headquarters. The upper floors are occupied by NCC's staff offices, and the basement of Ebenezer's is a multi-media venue where worship services are conducted as well as concerts.

The connection between the coffee shop and the church represents a growing trend of churches advancing their mission through for-profit businesses. Ebenezer's has been very successful for National Community Church. The business is thriving; it was even ranked among the city's best coffee shops. (Right now the place is quite busy.)

Mark Batterson, pastor of NCC, said the experiment with Ebenezer's has been so positive that they're considering expanding to other locations and even franchising the operation to help other churches launch coffee shops to function as "3rd places" and missional outposts.

A few months ago, while visiting a church out of state, I had a moment of crisis. Just before the sermon, the pastor stood to give the announcements. After wrapping up, he invited a young man in military uniform to stand. The young officer had grown up in this church and had just returned from his first tour in Iraq. The pastor thanked the congregation for their prayers for the soldier and his family. The congregation responded with enthusiastic applause. So far so good.

But then the pastor reminded the church of the dangerous and noble work America's soldiers were doing in Iraq. He said they were protecting our American freedoms and that we should be grateful for their sacrifice. The congregation stood to their feet and began clapping?and clapping?and clapping. I have never experienced a more enthusiastic and prolonged standing ovation on a Sunday morning in my life.

What would you have done? I sat.

After the service I admitted to my wife that I was uncertain what the right response was in that situation. The tenor of the pastor's remarks and the zeal of the congregation's response did not seem to reflect Christ's call to love our enemies. I wondered how a brother or sister in the Iraqi church, which has come under increasing persecution, would have felt about this Sunday morning display of patriotism. At the same time, I felt like a total jerk for sitting while the rest of the congregation demonstrated their gratitude to the military. This experience and the questions it raised came to mind several times while I read Jesus for President.

We are seeing more and more that the church has fallen in love with the state and that this love affair is killing the church's imagination. The powerful benefits and temptations of running the world's largest superpower have bent the church's identity. Having power at its fingertips, the church often finds "guiding the course of history" a more alluring goal than following the crucified Christ. Too often the patriotic values of pride and strength triumph over the spiritual virtues of humility, gentleness, and sacrificial love.

As you can tell, subtlety is not what Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw were aiming for when they co-wrote, Jesus for President. Apart from the provocative content - a mix of stories, biblical narrative, and political manifesto - even the look of the book provokes a reaction. The pages are filled with photography, artwork, doodles, and strange typesetting. Some will appreciate the book's creative format and others will find the style too different - not unlike the authors themselves.

For those unfamiliar with Claiborne and Haw, both are associated with what has been called the New Monasticism movement. Known for their emphasis on community, racial reconciliation, and peacemaking, many of these new monastics live and serve in what they call the "abandoned places of Empire."

In two weeks the Willow Creek Association is hosting a different kind of student ministries conference. Shift 2008 will address the cultural changes that are impacting the way we think about reaching the next generation. Out of Ur is excited to be hosting the online component of the conference.

From April 9 - 11, Ur contributors will be reporting live from South Barrington, Illinois, and moderating an online conversation based on what's presented at Shift. The lineup of speakers should give us plenty to talk about. They include: Brian McLaren, Shane Claiborne, Mark Yaconelli, Kara Powell, Dan Kimball, and many others.

If you'll be attending Shift, we hope Out of Ur will be a resource to further your learning. And if you not going to be at the conference, then check out this video for an idea of what Ur will be addressing in the weeks ahead.

In the early 1970s, conservative Protestants hit the streets to protest the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion. When they arrived with signs in hand, they discovered that Catholics had beaten them to the picket line. Since then, Catholics and evangelicals have found common cause in protecting the unborn.

Last week, Catholics and evangelicals found another issue on which they may someday join forces: saving the planet.

For months presidential hopeful Barack Obama has been trying to dispel rumors that he is a Muslim. The good news for the Illinois Senator is that virtually everyone in the country now knows he's a Christian. The bad news for Obama has been playing on YouTube and the cable news networks all week - video of his pastor condemning white America from the pulpit. The candidate's opponents have used his connection to the controversial pastor to question Obama's central message - that he can unite the country across racial and political lines.

Barack Obama has credited Reverend Jeremiah Wright for bringing him to faith in Christ. Wright has been his spiritual mentor for nearly 20 years, officiated at his wedding, and baptized his daughters. And until Friday, Wright had been serving as an advisor to the Obama presidential campaign. He left the campaign when his fiery statements from the pulpit brought too much heat on the senator. Some have called his remarks racist, un-American, and anti-Semitic. Barack Obama called them "completely unacceptable."

He told ABC News that Reverend Wright is like "an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with." And the candidate said Saturday, "I completely reject" the statements Wright made in those sermons.

Barack Obama's bestselling book, The Audacity of Hope, takes its title from one of Jeremiah Wright's sermons. We were surprised to discover the transcript of that message in our PreachingToday.com archives. We've posted the entire sermon for you to read here.

Many of you have requested a more formal review of Pagan Christianity, and I feel obliged to provide one. It should be said, however, that Out of Ur is not usually a place for reviews. We offer snippets and opinions and let you guys do the talking. However, this is an important topic, and it deserves a response (in the absence of a true review).

I appreciate it when a writer shows all his cards at the beginning of a book so I don't have to guess at his presuppositions. Frank Viola does just that in the opening line of his newly re-released Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (Barna, 2008). He starts like this: "Not long after I left the institutional church to begin gathering with Christians in New Testament fashion?" You can imagine the tone of the pages that follow.

Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, has a reputation for diving fearlessly into controversial issues. A visit to his Wikipedia page reveals his history of treading into cultural minefields and not leaving until every bomb has detonated. His penchant for pyrotechnics continues with his latest book, Culture Shift: Engaging Current Issues with Timeless Truth (Multnomah, 2008). Mohler addresses issues like faith and politics, morality and law, war and terror, homosexuality, and abortion - that's a lot of mines to detonate in 160 very small pages.

In a chapter entitled "Needed: An Exit Strategy from Public Schools," Mohler argues that "public schools are prime battlegrounds for cultural conflict." In Massachusetts, for example, children as young as seven years old have been assigned a book called King & King, in which a homosexual prince falls in love with another prince and, one assumes, lives happily ever after. Because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, educators insist that a homosexual lifestyle be presented in public schools as normal and, as a result, they affirm the districts' decision to require the book. Many Christians object to this sort of curriculum, but what can be done?