banditsnomore

New Blog Site coming

2007-06-21T14:45:00.000-05:00

I'm in the process of transitioning my blog over to http://www.sequimur.com/banditsnomore. Check it out sometime. For the time being I'll try cross posting everything.

UMC Administrative Question

2006-07-31T18:19:00.000-05:00

Y'all have always been good to help me clear up thoughts that clog my mind concerning various and sundry matters of things United Methodist. Here's the latest. I earnestly desire your input, answers, and advice.

I have been suddenly struck with a concern that we United Methodists call our annual meeting of Clergy an "Executive Session." Without getting into whether or not clergy ought to be meeting generally aprt from laity in a presumably democratic, balanced lay-and-clergy church polity (which I think may be well justified on matters of character), I need help understanding this.

We are, presumably a church whose polity bends over nearly backwards to maintain a balance of leadership between laity and clergy. Yet, we call our "clergy-only" session an "executive session." Does not the use of the word "executive" carry the connotation of somehow being a step above or preferred, or higher in a hierarchy?

Just say no to "Executive" Session! Call it "Clergy Session," or tell me why not!

The Problem of Method

2006-07-31T15:32:00.000-05:00

Method isn't enough - full post at http://sequimur.com/banditsnomore/?p=478

Trouble?

2006-07-29T21:11:00.000-05:00

I had a few moments to spare this evening so I decided to check out the UM News site. I found a link to Annual Conference reports. Curious about what's happening elsewhere I decided to read a few.

The last line of each was the most depressing. Consider these examples:

"Membership stands at 230,500, down 6,807 from the previous year. Worship attendance stands at 122,691, down 1,115."

"Membership stands at 283,617, down 7,238 from the previous year. Worship attendance stands at 109,269, down 976 from the previous year."

"Membership stands at 321,970, down 4,302 from the previous year. Worship attendance stands at 156,865, down 4,536."

"Membership stands at 95,777, down 3,059 from the previous year. Worship attendance stands at 33,526, down 1,055."

" Membership in 2005 stands at 77,291, down 1,758 from 2004. Average worship attendance is 23,086, down 1,320 from 2004."

You get the idea.

Back when I was working on my last degree I served a church in California, so I thought I'd check the Cal Pac news. Covering southern California and beyond (to Hawaii & Guam), the Cal Pac AC includes many large, growing cities. A prime mission field, one would think. But the focus seemed to be on retirement. 22 clergy retired. 6 were ordained Elder. How can you reach a large, growing population when you retire so many workers relative to the number you take in?

Now it may be the case that these are good retirements for the Conference - along the lines of the preacher who says his church is "only a few funerals away from real growth potential."

Where's the urgency? Why are we content to "celebrate" this or that all the time? People are dying in the darkness and, as Keith Green used to say, "the church just can't fight because it's asleep in the light."

It's time to wake up.

Back from Camp

2006-07-22T21:29:00.000-05:00

I'm just back from my annual pilgimage to church camp. The past couple of times I've been I've worked Senior High camp.

I first went to camp at Lakeview in winter 1978. It was a "Midwinter" weekend event. I don't remember any details, but I think I liked it. That summer, and the next several summers I attended summer camp each year until I began college. I liked the fellowship of camp. I liked the people who were there. I didn't care for the content & lessons so much. In my memory it was more the gospel of diversity and pluralism than the gospel of Jesus. There seemed to be an assumption that all the kids there were already Christians.

Camp has improved immensely in the past 25 years. Though there is still great variety from camp to camp, district to district, and year to year, in my experience working camp the gospel of Jesus is regularly preached, invitations to receive Christ given (and responded to). While the organization could be improved (Texas conference camps are still run by the pastors and laity in the districts who do the work on the side), all in all, I think they are a positive experience for the kids. You can hear the messages and devotionals from our camp at http://tridistrictcamp.blogspot.com

Attendance at our camp was up this year. There were about 940 in the four camps together - 240 in our camp alone. Logistics were a little difficult: we had to go back and forth across the property to get to meeting rooms for small groups. Normally the exercise would be gladly accepted, but with the temperatures over 100 every day, it was pretty hard.

Preaching at the Old Home Church

2006-07-13T13:22:00.000-05:00

When people ask me where I'm from I have two standard answers. The first is, "Around." Since my dad was in the Navy (an itinerant profession) while I was growing up and I am in an itinerant profession, moving is a normal part of life. Five years is the longest I've ever lived anywhere. I'm from "around." My second answer is that my hometown is a small town in southern Illinois, even though I've never lived there (unless you count the few weeks I was there staying with relatives while my parents house-hunted in the D.C. area). Centralia is theonly town I've been going to all my life.

My grandparents, Floyd & Hazel Heyduck, married in September 1916. Floyd was a member of First Methodist Church, Hazel a member of Demaree Methodist down the road. Instead of fighting over which of their churches to join after marrying, they decided to go to a third church, First Christian (Disciples of Christ). Like Centralia is the only town I've been going to all my life, First Christian is the only church I've been going to all my life - though I've never been a member. It's the church we go to whenever we're in town for a Sunday. Some of my earliest memories of church anywhere are of my grandparent's 50th anniversary held at the church.

Since I've become a preacher, I've often dreamed of preaching in this old home church (though it's of a different denomination than my own). This year when I was sending in my reservation for the family reunion I included a note that if they needed a preacher that Sunday I'd be happy to help out. I knew they had an interim pastor and were in the midst of a long search for a full time pastor. I had no idea whether they'd be open to a United Methodist from Texas. They were. As it turned out it was a good thing also - their pastor was in the hospital over the weekend after emergency surgery.

My preaching was well-received in both services. There were even a few double dippers. All the people were gracious and friendly (including my relatives!). It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience for me. Here are a few things I noticed:

1. As I greeted peopel before the service many asked if I was "The Minister" for the day. I knew what they meant, but in light of the prominent display of their slogan, "Welcome to First Christian Church Where Every Believer is a Minister," I found it a little anomalous. While the church had some strong lay leadership (they have to survive long stretches without a full time pastor), I got the idea many in the pew didn't think of themselves as Ministers.

2. There were fewer young people than last time I was there. I could say this each time I attend. While there remain many committed people, the energy level seemed low, especially in the second (traditional) service. A quiet, slow-paced, contemplative worship service has value, but in our sleep deprived society it often fails to gain or hold the attention of younger folks.

3. FCC is having difficulty finding a full time pastor. Talking to the people, I got the idea they wanted a younger (at least under 60) pastor, full of energy and creativity. They want someone who preaches in an engaging style, not a manuscript reader. I know none of the dynamics of the DOC denomination, but it sure looks like there's a shortage of young, energetic pastors who want to go serve in a small, long-established church, in a small town with a declining economy. We who inhabit a pastor-appointing system sometimes complain. In the case of FCC, I can see how such a structure might be beneficial.

Hotel Reviews - Vacation report

2006-07-11T19:13:00.000-05:00

We're just back from our vacation trip to a family reunion in Illinois. Along the way we stayed at several hotels. Here are some comments on them:

1. The Super 8 in Geneseo, Illinois offered us a nice, spacious room. Travelling as a family of five, that's good (and rare) to find. Unfortunately, the sofa bed we paid extra money to get turned out to be broken, missing several springs the supports on one corner. We managed to get it to work by piling sofa cushions underneath, but it was less than optimal. On the negative side, the room also had a bit of smoke odor to it, though the front desk had told us it was a non-smoking room. Other non-smoking rooms had an identifying plate on the door - unlike our room. On the positive side, the hotel was quiet, had a friendly staff, and a nice indoor pool for the kids.

2. The Comfort Suites of O'Hare in Schiller Park (a suburb of Chicago) were quite nice. For only a tiny bit more than we'd paid in Geneseo, we got a much nicer suite. The room was very quiet (even with a major airport nearby and the heavy traffic associated with it). Note on price: I got a better price by calling the hotel directly than I did from the website. I was somewhat concerned about the security of our vehicle, but everything went fine. We were looking out the window (to the north) about 6:30 p.m., shortly after arrival, and noticed a convoy of helicopters. They were too far away to read any markings, but we figured the military must be up to something. Only later did we discover that the President had flown into town for his birthday.

3. Next we were at the Bell Tower Inn of Centralia, Illinois. We'd stayed there many times in the past since it serves as the headquarters for our family reunion. I think it was quieter than usual. Another improvement was the price - about $10 less per night than last time. On the down side, my daughter lamented the absence of plain glazed donuts at the breakfast. Sure looks like the best hotel in Centralia to me.

4. Our final hotel was the Super 8 in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. After driving over 300 miles through often torrential rains, it was nice to be able to park right outside our door (the only hotel in our travels this week that was true of) to unload our stuff. We especially appreciated the on-site laundry facilities where we could dry our rain-drenched clothes from the car-top carrier (the canvas model we have didn't repel much of the rain). The hotel doubled as a RV park, so there were plenty of people around. Unfortunately, one of our neighbors decided to pound on his door at 5 a.m. The breakfast was pretty sparse. One daughter again missed the plain glazed donuts. The other (somewhat easier to please), had a cinnamon roll and a sausage biscuit.

Definition of Insanity?

2006-07-06T07:31:00.000-05:00

North Korea says they will continue to test their missiles. (As poorly as they have been performing, can you blame them?) Israel and the Palestinians are escalating threats of violence. I'm sure Iran doesn't like all these other natiosn gobbling up press-time, so you can count on Amhadinejad doing or saying something very loudly in the next couple of days.

Don't all these folks realize that whoever isn't with us is against us? Haven't they taken the lesson of Iraq that we aren't going to play nice anymore?

Maybe bullying is not a necessarily effective way of fighting the war on terror and keeping rouge nations at bay. And, while we're here, what makes them rouge nations, anyway? That they won't play by our rules? Those of the United Nations? Seems to me we pick and choose just what international treaties and declarations we will adhere to ourselves.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.

An Eye for an Eye

2006-07-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

A week ago Hamas captured Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit. Now the Israelis are saying they'll assassinate the Palestinian Prime Minister if Shalit is not returned unharmed.

We moderns look at the OT "Eye for an Eye" and think "How barbaric!" Ignorant of history, we forget how much of an improvement it was over the normal way of doing things. If we were more self-aware we might even see it as an improvement over the current way of doing things. Once upon a time (and even today in some locales) if you put out my eye that justfied me in killing you. Or if you killed someone who belonged to me, then I was justified in wiping out your whole family or town. Offense was easily taken - and quickly echoed.

While one human is (in some sense) the same as another, a corporal is not the same as a prime minister. I suppose the Israelis are at the point of thinking they have no other point of leverage with the Palestinians. We all know the Palestinians have decided they have no point of leverage with the Israelis other than kidnapping and killing. Even so their threat sounds disproportionate.

People are wondering if a war is about to start. As far as I can tell they already have a war. Hamas speaks and acts like they are at war (though they don't have a modern military to fight it). Fatah is the party of peace - except for its factions like the Al Aqsa Martyrs who seem to compete with Hamas in violence.

Jesus' model went beyond even the restraint of "Eye for Eye." Jesus taught that his followers should respond with forgiveness and love. In the first centuries of the Christian movement many Christians did exactly that. The learned, however, that it didn't "work." While non-violent, forgiving love swayed a few of their oppressors, many still were tortured and put to death. Christians eventually learned that violence - even if restrained and altruistic (some say redemptive) "worked" better than Jesus' way.

I believe Jesus could have told them that. It was certainly true to his own experience that a loving and forgiving response to violence didn't "work." Our confusion isn't over whether it "works" or not, but whether the ends we pursue - self-defense, enforcement of our rights, truth and justice - are the proper ends to pursue and whether one can pursue them in such a manner.

The New Testament teaches that God is our defender. Can we trust him?

The New Testament teaches that God will bring truth and justice. Can we trust him?

But maybe we don't see it as an issue of trust. Maybe it's a matter of trying to help God. After all, we reason, God gave us brains and wants us to use them. We know the ends God desires - truth, justice, peace. We know the most effective means to get them - exertion of our power. (Actually, we know that direct intervention by God is the most effective, but God is too slow.) So we act like Sarah who "helped" fulfill God's promise of a son by offering Hagar to her husband.

Maybe God doesn't need our help. Maybe he just wants our trust and obedience.

An Aniversary (of a kind)

2006-06-22T14:48:00.000-05:00

The first day of Vacation Bible School started earlier than planned, last year. A little before 6 am we got a call that the Feed Store (our recently renovated youth building) was on fire. I rushed down to the church to see the fire department already at work. But it was too late. The building was totally destroyed. In the weeks ahead we learned that the fire was the work of an arsonist, mourned the loss of so much hard work, worked with the insurance company, and tried to figure out our next steps.We again find ourselves in the midst of Vacation Bible School. No fire this year. Instead, we are in the midst of great change. The slab where the Feed Store stood is on the way to becoming a basketball / volleyball court. While laying down the pavement for the court, we also had the adjacent parking lot redone. Here are a couple of photos. Note the two handicapped spots right up against the Fellowship Hall. Also note that traffic flow will now be one way - from Church St. (by the EMS building) up to the Fellowship Hall, and then left to an exit on Mt. Pleasant St.

Our new building for youth is The Filling Station. (Just as The Feed Store used to be a feed store, The Filling Station used to be a filling station. Both just happen to lend themselves to metaphorical interpretation.) Tim (and his whole family) along with the youth have been putting long hours into making it a home for the youth ministry. They're racing the clock to have it ready for an open house Thursday evening (after the VBS program & hot dog supper).

While the parking lot workers were in our vicinity, the trustees got them to go ahead an paint the stripes on the parking lot at Butcher Boy. The old ones were mighty faint. See how these look.

The work inside Butcher Boy continues also. Here are Mike, Charles and Paul taking a photo break.

American Church Crisis

2006-06-21T14:39:00.000-05:00

Outreach Magazine features an article on the crisis in the American church. Since their focus is evangelism and church growth, the crisis under consideration is the decline in church attendance across the country and a failure in every state but one (Hawaii) for church attendance to keep up with population growth. Here are their "Seven Startling Facts"

1. Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church—half of what the pollsters report.

This is old news. The root problem is that people lie - or fudge the facts. Pollsters ask, "Were you in church Sunday," and since they know the right answer is "Yes," they give it, even if it's been a week or two or ten since they were in church. The upside to this bad news is that we have plenty of prospects out there who, though they might be something else by excuse, aren't actually participating anywhere. Instead if asking, "What church are you a member of?" We need to learn to ask, "What church do you regularly attend?" Even better, since lots of people will see no difference between the questions, is to just invite people with no reference to where they go or don't go - unless you know them to be active somewhere.

2. American church attendance is steadily declining.

You know what this means, don't you? Not only are we failing to keep up with a growing population, but we're also not even keeping our own. Now it may be the case that in a denomination full of senior citizens, that saints being "promoted to glory" is the problem. I think the even greater problem is that when our churches have children (many small churches don't) we're doing a poor job of discipling them and keeping them.

3. Only one state is outpacing its population growth.

That's where Hawaii comes in. Texas is at only 18% of the population in attendance.

4. Mid-sized churches are shrinking; the smallest and largest churches are growing.

By their reckoning we're a mid-sized church. We're growing. But I can feel us fighting our way against the current.

5. Established churches—40 to 190 years old—are, on average, declining.

We're 150 next year. Established churches have a strong base of "We've never done it that way before" that stifles innovation. They also tend to have so many established networks of members that they know fewer non-Christians to invite. Again, we're fighting upstream.

6. The increase in churches is only 1/4 of what’s needed to keep up with population growth.

We need more new churches. Bishop Huie wants us to plant 10 new churches a year in the bounds of the Texas Conference. (The Chappell Hill community out near NTCC main campus might be a possible site in our mostly rural area.)

7. In 2050, the percentage of the U.S. population attending church will be almost half of what it was in 1990.

I'm not content to let this happen. If it were only about keep an institution going, I wouldn't mind so much. But Jesus died for these people! The bible tells us Jesus said, "No one comes to the Father apart from me." On the off chance Jesus actually said that, AND that he knew what he was talking about, we have a pile of work to do.

The View from 35,000

2006-06-21T06:23:00.000-05:00

We have reached our cruising altitude of 35,000 feet on our way to Newark Liberty International Airport. Though I have been flying since I was too young to know it, I still enjoy getting a window seat and watching the ground and clouds go by beneath us.

I didn’t get a window seat this time; my daughter did. I can see the distant landscape from here, though, and it is beautiful.

There is something peacefully freeing about seeing the earth from this far up. It is as if problems, difficulties, even disagreements are left way down there. The land rolls between densely developed cities, clearly delineated farmland, and rough, untamed wilderness. But from here, it all holds one thing in common. It is far from me.

Yet, distant as all that is, I am in a plane that has not a single empty seat. I am 35,000 feet above all the cares and concerns of my life, of the world, and still people, each with his or her own story, surround me.

Trusting the Bible

2006-06-19T14:44:00.000-05:00

Dr. David Foster (a pastor in Tennessee) has a good post listing 21 Reasons why he trusts the bible.

Butcher Boy video

2006-06-17T11:21:00.000-05:00

Our 149 year old congregation is on the northern side of main street. Bounded by the downtown businesses on the south, the Farmstead Museum on the west, the court house and jail on the east, our only growth potential was to the north. Earlier this year Oscar, the owner of the Butcher Boy grocery store across the street from the church, told us he planned to retire. He wondered if we had an interest in buying the property.

We'd been hoping for the opportunity for years. All of our parking is shared with other groups. Oscar had generously allowed us to use his lot, but there was no guarantee someone else movign in would have been so generous. We're also growing in numbers as God brings more people in. Our (old) fellowship hall is too small, and sometimes our educational space is cramped. Space sounded like a good thing to our leaders, so we have taken the plunge.

As a way to communicate with our people and other interested parties, I made a short video this week. You can watch it and get just a glimpse of what it looks like. Pray for us also - we need it.

Out of (our own) Control

2006-06-13T10:19:00.000-05:00

An old high school friend visited my church Sunday. He’s traveled extensively in the Muslim world over the past 10 years, and shared some of his experiences with the people. After his stories of spending time in jail in the UAE and extended visits with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, one of our people observed to me, “He sure is brave.”

Here’s another way to put it: “He has faith.”

Throughout life we’re faced with situations that we don’t know how to handle and for which we lack the resources. My normal tendency in these situations is to back off. I like to be in control. I like to be able to make things happen – not to be at the mercy of events.

But as Christians, we don’t believe in fate – an impersonal force or set of events. We believe in a God who loved us enough to give his only son for us. So we’re not at the mercy of events, we’re at the mercy of God.

I’ve felt the closest to God and my faith has grown the most on the occasions when I’ve set aside my urge for control – my urge to make things happen by having my own skills and resources lined up – and trusted God.

Throughout scripture and Christian history it’s been fairly normal for God’s people to get into situations they couldn’t handle. Sometimes they trusted God to provide – to make a way. Sometimes they winged it on their own (I think of the kings of Israel who repeatedly went to Assyria or Egypt for help instead of calling on God).

I pray for myself and for the churches I pastor that we might be in a place where we need God – and recognize it for what it is. I heard a comment about a month ago. Supposedly a Korean church leader said, “It’s amazing how much the churches of America accomplish without God.”

Now we could take offense at that. How dare he say such a thing! We have God as much as the Koreans! We read the bible and pray just like they do! (Well, maybe not the fasting and long hours and days of prayer, but we at least say a little prayer before meals & at our committee meetings.) I’d rather not take offense, however. I see much truth in it. We’ve been rich and successful for so long that we thing we’ve done it ourselves. Our self-confidence is so great that when a challenge comes along we look at our resources and abilities. Can we do it? If we have all our ducks in a row, we go for it. But if we don’t – if we don’t have the money or people, we just assume that the opportunity is not “of God.” We’ve gotten to the point where we don’t’ need God, all we need is good organization.

I believe our church is now in a place where we need God. Our building acquisition is beyond our own ability. Our calling to reach our community and win people to Christ is beyond us. We need God.

Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not. I think we’re right where God wants us.

What's the largest Turnip you've ever seen?

2006-06-08T07:37:00.000-05:00

The 2006 session of the Central Texas Annual Conference is now over. We concluded on a hot Wednesday afternoon in Waco.

Hot as it was outside, it remained fairly cool inside. the closest thing to dissension was a couple of representatives from smaller churches pleaded, during discusison of the budget, that we are straining smaller churches. Both mentioned the old addage that "you can't squeeze blood from a turnip."

Interestingly, though, earlier in the day, we heard a similar whine on behalf of the big churches. The new pension plan that has now been accepted by our conference, has the larger (more accurately, the higher paying) churches paying a far lower percentage on their salaries toward the overall pension than are the smaller (lower-paying) churches. The leadership of the Board of Pensions defended this by throwing out some utterly irrelevant stats about what a high percentage of the overall apportionments these big churches pay. Awwww, poor, poor, big churches....

The truth is, churches, no matter their size, pay a fairly eqivalent amount of apportionments as a percentage of their overall budgets. So, yes, churches that spend more money on themselves pay more apportionments.

I think that no matter what size your turnip is, the addage is likely still true. Perhaps we are beyond the time of pitting "big churches" against "little churches."

The Divine Conspiracy

2006-06-07T22:24:00.000-05:00

I've finally managed to upload the audio for the Divine Conspiracy sermon series (yes, I stole the title from Dallas Willard - but the content has nothing in common). This is my response to Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code.

In the first, The Mystery of Israel I suggest that Brown's biggest mistake is forgetting that Jesus was a Jew. We cannot understand Jesus unless we understand what God is up to in the Old Testament.

In the second, The Mystery of Jesus I examine the life and ministry of Jesus. Finding clues that point not only to the humanity of Jesus, but also to the notion that he is something more also, I suggest that the best response to the mystery of Jesus is what do what Philip told Nathanael, "Come and see."

In the third, The Mystery of Salvation I investigate the nature of salvation, through the Old and New Testaments. We see, contrary to much common belief, that it is much more than merely being forgiven or going to heaven when we die - MORE not less.

Each link will take you to a page where you'll have the choice of listening via streaming audio of downloading an mp3.

Truth or Inspiration?

2006-06-05T21:56:00.000-05:00

People like to hear stories of success and happiness. I’m ok, you’re ok. That’s part of the genius behind movements as diverse as the Chicken Soup series and Guideposts.

I was talking to a pastor friend tonight whose Annual Conference has just begun. Once again they announced that membership of the conference is up. They take great pride in the fact that almost alone in United Methodism, they’ve been growing for over 20 consecutive years.

Except it’s not a fact.

Sure the statistical reports speak of growth. But the growth isn’t real.

My friend told me of a fellow pastor who moved to a new congregation and found hundreds of numbers on the roll that he couldn’t even match with names. The logical (and Disciplinary) thing to do would be to correct the role via charge conference action. But his DS disallowed it. “We don’t do things like that in our conference. That’s too negative. We grow here.” [Paraphrase of a paraphrase, but the general idea]

So conference-wide growth isn’t real, but at least it’s inspirational. But maybe not. My friend says everyone knows the growth numbers are fictional. This growth regime is what John Kotter calls “happy talk,” a mechanism to derail and prevent change. We don’t need to change, after all, if we’re already doing a great job!

I think we’re better off engaging Creative Tension (Bill Fritz wrote the book on this). Set a goal – in this case a conference growing in membership. Then tell the truth about the distance from that goal. Let the distance you have to cover create tension that impels you forward. Truth inspires better than fiction. Fiction lulls us to sleep. We might feel good about ourselves, but that is the way of death.

2006 Episcopal Address

2006-06-03T13:10:00.000-05:00

Things are BIG in Texas. I’ve heard many times that the Texas Annual Conference is the largest in the denomination (it’s not – either in terms of membership or area covered). We have the largest churches (we surely have some large ones). We like to think we’re something special. Unlike those western and Yankee outposts of United Methodism, we’re still growing. Or so we think. But not any more.

In her Episcopal Address Monday, Bishop Huie told us that our worship attendance was down by a thousand last year. Corrections in three large churches combined to produce a hit of 7700 in membership. Worst of all, 45% of our churches had no one join by profession of faith. If you’re not familiar with UM terminology, “profession of faith” means that someone is making a first time commitment to Jesus. And we can’t even brag that “at least we’re not as bad as everyone else,” since the national rate is only 42%. Ouch.

Bishop Huie said this poor performance – she called it a “dismal failure of Christian discipleship” – was completely unacceptable. She called on everyone to repent – not just in the comfort of our hotel room, but then and there.

Additional points from her address:

2005 was a good year for giving. The TAC paid its full obligation to the general church. We hadn’t done that since 1972.

As bishop, she has observed that most churches ask for young pastors. The problem is, only 1 pastor in 20 is under 35. We have some serious recruiting to do. [We might also want to consider the long complicated road to being a pastor.]

The biggest thing we need to do if we’re going to turn the church around and get to the business of reaching people for Jesus is prayer.

Do They Really Mean It?

2006-06-03T12:58:00.000-05:00

The first night of Annual Conference (when we had a youth service) some folks (not youth) were passing out buttons. The buttons featured the United Methodist marketing slogan, “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors,” but added an additional line: “… No Exceptions.”

I don’t think they really mean it.

Do they really think it’s a good thing in all circumstances to have our hearts, minds, and doors open? I sure don’t.

It gets mighty hot in East Texas in the summer time. Not just hot, humid, too. In this climate air conditioning is a great blessing. In some parts of the country you can get by without air conditioning, but it’s tough here.

The downside of air conditioning is that it costs money. My wife said that our electric bill went up $50 last month because of the heat. Since we like both air conditioning and saving money, we try to insulate our house. We also try to keep the doors closed. While it’d be nice to be able to afford air conditioning the out doors, it’s not only really expensive; it’s also not very effective.

But maybe that’s not an exception for the Button People. Or maybe they’re only talking about church doors. Unfortunately, I find an exception there also.

Last summer an arsonist found a way into our youth building – and did what arsonists do. The building was a complete loss. Since many in the church had poured themselves into the renovation of the building over the previous couple of years, many hearts were broken. While the arsonist likely entered by breaking a window, we’ve not felt very welcoming toward other practitioners of the crime. We try to be pretty careful to not only keep our doors closed, but also locked, when no one is around.

But maybe the Button People don’t have a church building to protect, so that’s not an exception for them. I still have trouble believing they keep their hearts, minds and doors open to everything all the time. Minds open to atheism? Hearts open to hate and revenge? I doubt they would claim that. Of course, I don’t know the Button People personally, but I’m more inclined to attribute weak logic than poor character to them in this case.

Getting beat by the Lutherans

2006-05-23T14:50:00.000-05:00

While many of our Annual Conferences will be taking up resolutions opposing the war in Iraq, the Lutherans are taking the opposite approach. They are sending their own troops!

Driving through Waco this afternoon, I noticed a Lutheran Church, the specific name of which will remain withheld, had posted on its marquee "Support our troops." They've sent their own troops?

Ok, to be fair, they didn't specify that they were sending troops to iraq, so it is presumptuous of me to imply that the Lutherans were raising a military. But I cannot imagine a Christian group encouraging support for one Caesar's armies over those of another Caesar, so we are left with two options.

Either

1) The Lutherans are raising an army to be deployed somewhere

OR

2) The Lutherans are using militaristic methaphors to describe their commitment to spreading the gospel.

Either way, it seems that The United Methodist Church is being left in the dust.

Bishop's Book List

2006-05-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ve heard about the many changes happening throughout the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Bishop Janice Riggle Huie, our Episcopal leader, is not only providing energy, but also encouraging engagement with ideas from inside and outside the connection. I’d heard of a list of books for a while, but just recently requested a list.

Following are a couple of the books Bishop Huie has asked the cabinet to read:

Good to Great, Jim Collins
Good to Great and the Social Sector, Jim Collins
Holy Conversations

She has recently ordered the following books for herself:

The Life You Save May be Your Own, Paul Elie
Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, Howard Gardner & Emma Laskin
Crossing the Unknown Sea, David White
Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
How to Change the World, David Bornstein
Callings, William Placher
Leading Lives that Matter, Mark Schwehn & Dorothy Bass

Here are books she has recommended to Cokesbury for inclusion in their annual conference bookstore:

RADICAL HOSPITALITY
Radical Hospitality, Homan & Pratt (Paraclete Press)
Hospitality of the Heart, Marilyn Brown Oden (A-Peak Publishing)
Making Room; Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, Christine Pohl
Reaching Out; The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, Henri Nouwen
Where God Happens, Rowan Williams and Desmond Tutu

50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN
She Offered Them Christ: The Legacy of Women Preachers in Methodism, Paul Wesley Chilcothe
Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women, Paul Wesley Chilcote
Grace Sufficient: A History of Women in American Methodism, 1760-1939, Jean Miller Schmidt

OTHERS
Methodism: Empire of the Spirit, David Hempton, (Yale Press)
The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman
The Present Future, Reggie McNeal
The Art of Possibility Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander

Pension Quandry

2006-05-15T10:10:00.000-05:00

I would be happy to have some perspective on this. The Central Texas Conference, like many if not all Annual Conferences, will be establishing a new way of figuring clergy pensions for 2007. For more information about the new plan in general, please check the General Board of Pensions site.

Here is the way our conference Board of Pensions is proposing we fund it: each church will pay 12% of each clergy's compensation package, up to the DAC (Denominational Average Compensation), then an additional 5% on the entire compensation.

Thus, some churches will be paying a total of 17% of their clergy compensation towards pension. On the other hand, a church that pays its clergy $150,000 (and we have at least a couple who do) would pay only 9.2% total. For a specific example, the cost to our cabinet-level folk will be 11.3%.

Sure, in actual dollars the higher paying church is out quite a bit more money. As a percentage of its budget, though, the larger, higher-paying church will be spending far less than the smaller churches.

I ran the numbers provided by the Conference Office, and a flat rate of 14% across the board would adequately fund our conference's pension. In response to this suggestion, I was told that our largest two churches already pay 10% of the total apportioned budget of the CTC, and that this would be too much to put on them.

I wonder how many of the smaller churches, many of which are declining anyway, will be driven under by this new plan, which shifts more budgetary weight (as a percentage of budget) to them, rather than to the larger churches.

Selling Jesus

2006-05-13T10:27:00.000-05:00

I remember listening to Keith Green back in the early 80s. In those days I thought he was a better speaker than singer, though it was the latter he was best known for. I remember hearing him inveigh against "Jesus Junk," the sentimental mementos we fill our homes with. Well, Nathanael Blake seems to be on the same page as Green. Here are his final comments:

Treating Christianity as an industry, a business with a profit margin, has corrupted the church, and the crowning achievements of the CMI are at the core of the refuse pile. It’s time to end the token preaching to the choir, the coded religious messages, and the charging of money for events that supposedly exist to preach the gospel.

Get out. Those who want to create worship and devotional music, go back to where you belong, which isn’t arenas, festivals, and clubs, but churches. The rest of you, go out into the world; claiming Christianity and presenting Christian messages in your songs won’t prevent you from succeeding…if you have the necessary musical ability (U2, anyone?).
Quit pretending that Christianity is a brand name, because there will be Hell to pay for it, in the most literal sense. If Christianity is true, then there are lost souls dying and going to Hell all around us, while the church sits and sells Jesus to itself.

Go read the whole thing. I'm happy there are still some young trouble makers out there.

Friendly & Loving?

2006-05-10T15:25:00.000-05:00

We’re in the midst of some big changes. As of June 1 we’ll be part of the North District of the Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. The old Texarkana District will be history. Conference wide we’re seeing a huge shift in accountability structures. The Annual Conference will exist to equip local congregations (like ours) to fulfill our mission to reach people for Jesus. That’s a huge change from the ethos of the local church existing to support the general church.

At the closing worship service for the Texarkana District we heard one way this will work itself out. In her first year in the Texas Conference Bishop Huie visited all the churches, inquiring into their strengths and challenges. Can you guess what the most commonly reported strength was? “We’re a friendly loving church.” It sounds better than, “We’re an unfriendly hateful church,” doesn’t it? But the dirty little secret of our “friendly loving” churches is that they’re not fulfilling their God-given mission. Some are so self-absorbed in their friendly love that they want nothing to do with outsiders (I’ve pastored one of those churches before). Some settle for being loving by just being nice to people. When it comes to evangelism we either reduce it to “being nice” or we add the thought, “When people see that I’m a nice person they’ll come to believe good things about Jesus.”

I don’t know if outsiders think of our churches as “friendly and loving” or not, but the statistics have been consistent over many years: we’re not winning people to Christ. Many churches aren’t even maintaining their membership levels. Attendance is dropping. “Friendly and loving” may be nice, but it’s not fulfilling our primary mission (Remember – Jesus said, “Go make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” – That’s our mission).

Bishop Huie has noticed how many churches are happy to be friendly and loving while the people around them miss Jesus. Our preacher Sunday night, retiring Texarkana District Superintendent Howdy Dawson, reported that she told the cabinet, “If I hear one more church say, ‘We’re friendly and loving’ I think I’m going to puke.” Mighty strong language from a bishop. And just what we need to hear.

Howdy recognized the seriousness of the issue. He spoke of being a friendly loving pastor to friendly loving churches throughout his whole ministry. Everyone who knows Howdy knows he has a big heart. We like friendly and loving. But Howdy said that after listening to the bishop over the past couple of years he’s wondering if he hasn’t missed something – that by settling for being friendly and loving he’s missed out on leading his churches to reach people for Jesus.

Instead of being held accountable for being friendly and loving, we’re now going to have to give account for winning people to Christ. That’s going to cause some discomfort and conflict. We’re going to be roused from our sentimental apathy, complacency and comfort. Nice just won’t cut it anymore.

The bible says, “We love, because he [Jesus] first loved us.” That same book said that that same Jesus is the standard for our love. If we really love people we will tell them about Jesus. Though it’ll cost us, we won’t settle for having them think, “Those Methodists sure are nice.” Instead it’ll be, “That Jesus those Methodists exhibit sure looks interesting. I think I’d like to follow him too.”

Bi-Polar UM Ecclesiology

2006-05-02T15:01:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you’ve heard the joke, “How many United Methodists does it take to change a light bulb?” Sometimes the answer is, “Change? What do you mean, Change?” The other answer is, “About a hundred. You need to set up a study commission composed of equal representation from each Conference, Jurisdiction, Racial/ethnic group, every gender, etc. Give them a quadrennium or two and maybe something will happen.”

One of our current study commissions is looking into ordained ministry. If you’d like, you can read a news report of their latest gathering. What most struck my interest are the final comments.

The Rev. Grant Hagiya said the commission needs to explain the theological foundation behind current practices. He is superintendent of the Los Angeles District of the California-Pacific Annual Conference and a member of the ministry study commission.
"We think the church is confused because it's not presented to them in a way that's a practical understanding. If we can do that, we can provide a great service to the church," he said.
"We have a dual ecclesiology, Catholic in that we have bishops and elders, but Protestant in that we have deacons and local pastors," he said. "There's a healthy tension about this, but it also points to the practical ways we need to deal with polity."

Rev. Hagiya could go farther. Our Catholic ecclesiology also shows up in much of our sacramental thinking. The church is seen as the dispenser of grace. I think that’s a major reason for the outcry against the Ed Johnson decision. When Rev. Johnson denied membership to a practicing homosexual, some took it as akin to shutting the doors of grace to the man. Since grace comes through the church, closing the door of membership to him was equivalent to closing the doors of grace. Rev. Johnson’s supporters (I’ve read more from them than from Rev. Johnson himself) take a more Protestant point of view. While the church may be a place of grace, it has no monopoly on grace. Thus the statement, “You are not at the appropriate place for membership now” is not at all the same (from their point of view) as “No grace for you, bub, until you straighten yourself out.”
In this sense at least, we have come so far from Wesley’s position that our membership policies would be unrecognizable to him. Unrecognizable as Methodist, any way. He’d likely see in them a mirror of the Church of England of his day. In Wesley’s day it was remarkably easy to become a Methodist – just evidence a “desire to flee the wrath to come.” Getting in was easy. Staying in – that was the tough part. The old time Methodists used the General Rules as a sort of “epistemology of seriousness” to see if the evidence was real. If you weren’t living according to the Rules, then they’d judge you weren’t really interested in fleeing the wrath to come. Wesley practiced strict discipline with his people.
We gave up on strict discipline long ago. We’ve come to think discipline, rather than an expression of grace, is the antithesis thereof. Oh, we still play at discipline – one the one side we come down on the homosexuals, on the other, we condemn our Presidential and Vice Presidential United Methodists for their participation in war. Because we’ve given up being a disciplined people (who hate nothing but sin and love nothing but God), so many of our current attempts at discipline seem to unchristian pettiness to those in the opposite camps.
Our Catholic/Protestant bi-polarity doesn’t help us in this regard. Notice how Rev. Hagiya divides the territory. On the Catholic side: Bishops & Elders. On the Protestant side: Deacons & Local pastors. Where is the power in the church? Who makes the policy? Who makes the decisions? Sure looks like a power imbalance to me. Is there any wonder our “Catholic” side argues for a “Catholic” view of church membership?
But don’t think it’s easy for the bishops. While they may have the most power, they also experience the greatest conflict. In their (“Catholic”) position they have a duty to stand up for the unity, holiness and purity of the church. They are to lead the application of discipline in the church. But many don’t want to. Some don’t want to remove their homosexual friends from ministry. Who would want to remove a friend of any kind from ministry? Some want to have theological freedom akin to their peers who work in the university – to be able to rationalize key doctrines like the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection without consequence. But they can’t – their job is to uphold the doctrine and discipline.
While I think many things can and should be held in “healthy tension,” I’m afraid, contrary to Rev. Hagiya, the Catholic/Protestant divide within our ecclesiology isn’t one of them.

If jazz is blue, what color is U2?

2006-05-02T14:08:00.000-05:00

Just finished Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. It was a good read. Sometimes it was a great read, sometimes a less than satisfying read, so overall I'll settle with good.

For two reasons I really do recommend it to you, though.
1) it is written from the perspective of a person who, though he grew up in church, "gets" why so many people in our society do not want anything to do with "The Church."

2) it is a provocative account of Christian spirituality that is written entirely without Christianese. More than two decades after Steve Taylor's "I want to be a clone," this book finally follows through on translation. Not that others haven't done it before, but Miller does a fine job at talking things Christian without using language you would only know if you had never missed a VBS.

Another Kind of Immigration

2006-05-02T07:58:00.000-05:00

When Christians immigrate to America (or any other country), they not only have to learn a new language, but also a range of concepts that either have no role in the Kingdom of God or else are understood very differently. One such concept is “enemy.”

Those whose lives are shaped by following Jesus remember the Master talking about enemies. “If they hate me, they will hate you also,” he said. Jesus demonstrated that this hate was unidirectional, however. How else could it be when we also hear him say, “Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.” When we combine Jesus’ statements with what we see in his life, we get the idea that this enmity is a one-way affair. They hate us, we love them. They try to hurt us, we try to bless them. Their decision to stand as our enemies in no way forces us to take the same stance toward them.

But then we immigrate to a country that has enemies. Once we arrive we learn that our position has weakened. When we lived with our primary allegiance to Jesus, someone’s declaration of enmity did not compel us to make a similar declaration toward them. With our new dual citizenship (or have we been naturalized – given up our Kingdom citizenship?), we learn that the declaration of enmity does control us. Now when someone speaks enmity or acts as an enemy to us we are required to respond in kind.

Doubtless this relinquishing of control to those who would be our enemies makes sense in the logic of our new citizenship. Although we are allowed to trust in a god, this trust is not allowed to go very far. Instead of trusting in a god who commands us (often in ways contrary to our own desires), we get guns, bombs, tanks, planes, etc. Apparently, it is thought, these are more powerful than any god, and thus more worthy of our trust. When we read the bible we see Israel thinking similar thoughts. Unfortunately, we also see that it didn’t work very well.

Millions of people have come to America – in ways not in accord with America’s laws – looking for a better life. Many stubbornly refuse to assimilate and learn American language. Even as they work hard, participate in and contribute to their new communities, they retain their primary allegiance to their homeland. Who knows – maybe Christians can learn something from them.

Thoughts on Oil

2006-04-27T11:24:00.000-05:00

I’m going to join the crowd and comment on the rising price of oil and gasoline. Here are some random thoughts in no particular order:

I’d rather pay low prices than high.

I hear lots of complaints about the high prices. At the same time, I still see lots of low MPG vehicles on the road. The high prices have not significantly cut into demand yet.

From what I’ve seen, most of our elected officials want to make prices lower. Some seem to believe this can be done by legislative fiat. The PRC (other folks unelected officials) have tried this. While it makes buyers happy, it has the effect of keep demand high and creating supply problems. What has happened is that while the price for consumers has been held artificially low, someone still has to pay the asking price.

There are two ways to bring about lower prices: raise the supply or lower the demand. In our country the Republicans tend to favor the former, the Democrats the latter. Middle of the Roaders tend to say we need to do both.

Reducing dependence on the other countries for our oil supplies looks like a good thing from the point of view of national security. Several major Middle East producers - and nations beyond the Middle East like Nigeria and Venezuela - are politically unstable. As long as Mexico can’t (or won’t) get it’s economic act together and provide for its own population, it will face political instability also. On the other hand, it is good that poor countries have something of value to sell. As Christians, we should rejoice that they have something to jumpstart their economic growth. As Christians we should also lament that their wealth is all too often being sucked up by corrupt leaders and oligarchs.

Oil will only last so long. The current understanding of petrochemistry and the formation of oil tells us that oil is not a renewable resource. Once we burn it, it’s gone. (I’m not talking about biomass diesel, which is renewable). At some point in the future the currently available supply with be small enough relative to demand that we won’t be able to pay for it.

Burning hydrocarbons has bad side effects. If we reduce the burning, we’ll reduce our addition to the side effects.

Some point to mass transit as the solution to rising travel costs. I like mass transit when it goes where I want when I want at an affordable price. We Americans are strongly habituated against it, however. We’re also too spread out to make it feasible as a universal solution.

Exxon et al. sure are making some large profits. What are the mechanisms behind their profit margins? If they have control over profit margins (and I assume they have at least some control), then would I be wrong to say that either people are buying more from them than ever, or, that their profit margin is too high? What do they do with their profits (other than give truckloads of cash to Lee Raymond)? Are their shareholders profiting from this? If so, how does one become a shareholder?

When talking about money, John Wesley advised to “Save all you can.” He was speaking not merely of having a large and ever growing bank account, but of not spending. As those who learn from Wesley, we can apply this maxim by minimizing our driving, combining trips, and filling our cars with more than one person. While it isn’t always possible to do these things, I believe it’s possible more often than we do it now.

Where Are You From?

2006-04-24T14:02:00.000-05:00

“Where are you from?” That’s a standard question we ask each other when we meet new people. My two most common answers are, “Around,” and “A small town in southern Illinois, though I’ve never lived there.” Both are the consequences of growing up in a military family – and a desire to extend the conversation.

Geographically I’ve lived in California, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Japan, Korea, Maryland, Kentucky and Texas. In my formative years, however, it wasn’t so much the geography that mattered but the regular moving and the two types of culture I experienced. Being a military family, we spent some years living on base (in Japan & Korea). Though these were outposts of American culture, we daily experienced reminders that we weren’t in America: no English language TV, different money, and strange smells to name just a few. From my perspective as a child it was all a great adventure.

From the time we moved back to the US in 1972 until I finished high school, I lived in suburbia. After high school, I spent my next seven years in a third type of culture: academia. One of the best classes I took in those years was my mission anthropology course. Dr. Whiteman taught us that every culture shapes the way we live life, interact with God, and do church. My Annual Conference, being firmly committed to cross cultural ministry, considered my experience on military bases, American suburbia and academia and sent me to – small town East Texas! The closest I’d ever come to living in the country was when we lived in Hayama. In case you’re not up on your geography, that’s in Japan. It’s across the peninsula from Yokosuka. The emperor has a palace there (on the beach). It might have been a small town, but it wasn’t any closer to the culture of East Texas than any place else I’d lived.

While my experience hadn’t prepared me specifically for small town East Texas, the great diversity and constant moving of my childhood, combined with training in mission anthropology did keep me from culture shock. (It also helped a lot that my wife grew up in East Texas. It’s great to have an in-house informant.) I’ve lived enough places now that I’m pretty adaptable. I can see the benefits of most places.

Of late, there has been a renaissance movement both toward the (large) city and the small town – to the detriment of the suburb. As one raised in suburbia, I’m not always happy to have my (former) way of life impugned. Usually it’s condemned as an inauthentic way of life. If one wants authentic culture, the big city is the place to be. If one wants to have deep relationships and be closer to nature, the small town is the place to be. The suburbs fake culture with their housing developments, and fake nature with their large yards. While my experience has made me a cultural relativist in this particular fight, I’ve just run across a book by Dave Goetz that approaches the “problem of the suburbs” from a Christian point of view. His website posts 8 sets of “toxins” and the “practices” that overcome them. From my point of view, they will valuable to many of us, whether we’re in the suburbs or have the suburbs living in us.

Toxin 1 – “I am in control of my life”
Practice – The Prayer of Silence
Toxin 2 – “I am what I do and what I own”
Practice – The Journey through the Self
Toxin 3 – “I want my neighbor’s life”
Practice – Friendship with the poor
Toxin 4 – “My life should be easier than it is”
Practice – Accepting my cross with grace and patience
Toxin 5 – “I need to make a difference with my life”
Practice – Pursuing action, not results
Toxin 6 – “My church is the problem”
Practice – Staying put in your church
Toxin 7 – “What will this relationship do for me?”
Practice – Building deep friendships
Toxin 8 – “I need to get more done in less time”
Practice – Falling in love with a day

Whether these “toxins” are peculiar to suburbia or are more generally endemic to the current American ethos, my guess is that many of us have been negatively affected by at least some of them. If you’d like to explore how Goetz develops each of these, you can check out his website, or better, read his book, Death By Suburb.

Job Recruiting From Hell?

2006-04-19T08:45:00.000-05:00

When we hear about Job Fairs we think about bringing employers and job seekers together for mutual benefit. The former need workers, the latter need to make a living.

A group in Tehran is now sponsoring a different kind of job fair. They need suicide bombers to attack Israel. The Guardian reports:

Mohammad Samadi, a spokesman for the group, told the Guardian that striking at Israel was the priority of his recruitment drive. "The first target is Israel. For us, that is the battlefield," he said. "All the Jews are targets, whether military or civilian. It's our land and they are in the wrong place. It's their duty to pay attention to safety of their own families and move them away from the battlefield," he said.

“It’s our land.” That’s the Muslim idea that Muslims should always rule any land ever ruled by Muslims. Though a common idea in history (“What’s mine will always be mine”), is has always had the potential to cause war. If Christians and Muslims both thought this way today, we’d not only have violent conflict in the Middle East, but also in North Africa (which used to be “Christian” before the Muslim armies conquered it), the Iberian Peninsula, and other parts of Europe.
It doesn’t take much knowledge of history to know that peoples move, and boundaries and ideologies change. Some have noticed that we have a major people movement underway here in the US. As people movements go (think of the Huns, Mongols, Vandals and the European conquest of North America), this one appears fairly benign.
Back to Iran.
Mr. Samadi claims to have over 50,000 people (30% women) signed up to be suicide bombers. If recent Iranian history is any indication, they probably have children among that number also. It wasn’t long ago that current president Ahmadinejad was involved with thousands of Iranian children being used as mine sweepers during the Iran-Iraq war.
Samadi’s group is also recruiting in the Muslim Diaspora in Europe:

"Britain and other European countries have a lot of disaffected Muslims who are ready. We understand the suspicion with which Britain, America and other western countries regard their Muslim populations. We don't condemn them for this because we believe every Muslim has the potential to turn into a bomb against the west."

Because of my experience with Muslims, I don’t believe what he believes – that every Muslim is ready to turn into a bomb to kill people. Unfortunately, not everyone has an opportunity to meet non-Samadi-like Muslims. All they hear are the claims of Samadi and his co-belligerents in Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, etc. Also, unfortunately, there are a number of folks who think Samadi et al. are merely posing, and have no intent of acting on their stated beliefs – even with plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Forming Christian College Students

2006-04-14T09:14:00.000-05:00

Guy Williams writes today about United Methodist campus ministry. He says,

Many churches send students to the college and university campus assuming that they will be stepping away from the church and the Christian life for a brief time. The generation gap in many congregations alerts us to the fact that our assumptions (expectations?) are coming true. But they may not be stepping away for a brief time after all. What if they don’t return when we expect—say, after marriage, or at the latest, a child or two? A part of our call to faithful ministry on the campus frontier is to fulfill our congregational baptismal vow to support and uphold one another in our Christian walks.

Guy is the current chair of the Division of Campus Ministry here in the Texas Conference. It’s very encouraging to hear someone in that position speak so clearly.

In my undergrad days (at a UM school) I saw a number of people come to school as professing Christians, but before too long many appeared to be little more than practicing hedonists. If this is the pattern at a Christian school (and I haven’t seen evidence to show that things have changed much in 25 years), I wouldn’t be surprised if it were also the pattern at non-church-related schools. How does this happen?

It’s easy to blame academia. While our UM schools tend to have religion departments and chaplains, these frequently embody the scientific study of religion (either the dead thing we dissect or those archaic practices other people engage in). The central doctrines of Christianity – the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Resurrection – are treated from a Humean or Bultmannian point of view (impossible or mythological). It’s easy to say that it’s these and other acids of modernity that eat away the faith of college students.

While the current character of academia likely has some effect on the faith of students, I think there is a larger factor – a factor that we can’t blame on those other folks. I perceive that in our congregations we have either (a) adopted the Humean and Bultmannian positions – or their correlates – that faith has no substance, no connection to historic Christian doctrine, but is rather a personal (individual) expression of authenticity or trust (in something); or, (b) we’ve seen the naturalistic position and assumed that scholarship in our era must take that form; since we don’t want a naturalistic approach to the faith we evacuate it of intellectual substance. To put it bluntly, we’ve failed to love God with all our minds.

What might an alternative look like? Here are a few ideas.

We need to shepherd our kids through challenges to their faith so that their first experience of such challenges doesn't happen when they’re alone at college. This is very different from sheltering them from the “acids of modernity” (or postmodernity). Not only will this sharpen them for their encounter, it will also remove reasons for them to think the “old church back home” was simply ignorant, living in the medieval world.
We need to teach our people that there are reasons Christians believe and do what they do. It’s not just because Mom, the preacher or the Sunday School teacher say to do it. Our kids have the advantage today of being exposed to difference at an early age. Our Christian kids go to school and play with Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and non-theist kids. They are engulfed by a consumerist, hedonist culture. They are taught early on that violence and vulgarity are perfectly normal and acceptable. They need to be taught by the church what Christians do and believe and why Christians do and believe what they do. While they don’t need a foundationalistic account of Christianity, they need some account of the rationality of the faith.
We need to maintain relationships with our students. For this to help, we’ll have to do more than just send them a church newsletter or a scholarship. We’ll need to visit them on campus. We’ll need to find ways to enter into their academic world. We need to make sure they know that they never stand alone. If we wait to start this kind of relationship when they go off to college, it may not work well. We need to start now, while they’re in high school (and earlier grades!), to interact with what they’re learning, to help them contextualize it within a Christian worldview.

Even once we figure out what to do for our college students, it won’t be easy. As I tell my young people all the time, “When you go off to college you’ll be away from Mom & Dad and the church folks. You’ll have the freedom to be and do whatever you want. Now is the time to find your identity and security in Christ.” That freedom is a dangerous thing. At the same time it is necessary and good. As Guy observes, we’re going to have to pray.

2006-04-06T21:04:00.000-05:00

The New York Times had a story today about the "Gospel of Judas." As you can see from the story below, it is being sensationalized. I've interspersed the text with some of my own comments.

Note: This is not my field of expertise. I have no access to the original manuscript - and it wouldn't do any good if I did since I've never studied Coptic. My comments are based on general knowledge of biblical literature, history, and rhetoric.

Note also: Though called the Gospel of Judas, it was not written by Judas.

New York Times, April 6, 2006

‘Gospel of Judas’ Surfaces After 1,700 Years

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of what is known as the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years. The text gives new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the disciple who betrayed him, scholars reported today.

Already the assumption is that this is a historical document.

In this version, Jesus asked Judas, as a close friend, to sell him out to the authorities, telling Judas he will “exceed” the other disciples by doing so.

Though some theologians have hypothesized this, scholars who have studied the new-found text said, this is the first time an ancient document defends the idea.

What we'll likely see in the document is not "an ancient document defend[ing] the idea" but an ancient theologizing stating a hypothesis.

The discovery in the desert of Egypt of the leather-bound papyrus manuscript, and now its translation, was announced by the National Geographic Society at a news conference in Washington. The 26-page Judas text is said to be a copy in Coptic, made around A. D. 300, of the original Gospel of Judas, written in Greek the century before.

If it truly originated around 200 A.D. then it's pretty old. But keep in mind that the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John) are over a century earlier in origin. Mark was written as early as the mid 60s; John, likely the last written, was written by about 95. Coptic was the language of Egypt at the time. Still today the native Christians of Egypt are known as the Copts.

Terry Garcia, an executive vice president of the geographic society, said the manuscript, or codex, is considered by scholars and scientists to be the most significant ancient, nonbiblical text to be found in the past 60 years.

He means since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948.

“The codex has been authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian apocryphal literature,” Mr. Garcia said, citing extensive tests of radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and multispectral imaging and studies of the script and linguistic style. The ink, for example, was consistent with ink of that era, and there was no evidence of multiple rewriting.

Translation: the manuscript is really as old as they say. It is called "apocyphal" because that's the name for literature (from that period) whose form is similar to scripture but was not accepted by the church as canonical. Note: The vast majority of writings of the period were NOT accepted as canonical (i.e., included in the bible).

“This is absolutely typical of ancient Coptic manuscripts,” said Stephen Emmel, professor of Coptic studies at the University of Munster in Germany. “I am completely convinced.”

The authentication of the date is not only from the physical aspects of the manuscripts, but from the text and style.

The most revealing passages in the Judas manuscript begins, “The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he celebrated Passover.”

Apocryphal literature - particularly that originating with the Gnostics - typically offered "secret accounts" of events commonly known.

The account goes on to relate that Jesus refers to the other disciples, telling Judas “you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” By that, scholars familiar with Gnostic thinking said, Jesus meant that by helping him get rid of his physical flesh, Judas will act to liberate the true spiritual self or divine being within Jesus.

The Gnostics, like some variants of Greek philosophy, thought of the body as evil, inasmuch as it is part of the physical world. Note that this is very much in contrast to the Jewish view that sees the world as God's good creation. The Gnostics didn't care for the Jews & Jewish influence so it was common for them to throw out the OT. In the NT we don't see Jesus "liberated" from his body. We see him resurrected in a new kind of body, a new kind of physicality, not a denial or rejection of physicality.

With the film version of The Da Vinci Code coming out soon, it may also be worth noting that while that best seller presents the true message of Jesus as more in accord with Gnosticism than the canonical texts, it also claims that the real Jesus was more open to the "feminine." If you actually read the gnostic documents you'll find that's mostly hogwash. In one of them in fact, Jesus speaks of saving Mary by helping her become a man.

Unlike the accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the anonymous author of the Gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone among the 12 disciples understood the meaning of Jesus’ teachings and acceded to his will. In the diversity of early Christian thought, a group known as Gnostics believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came.

The Gnostics, like some currents in Greek thought and Hindiusim, thought in terms of reincarnation and the transmigration of souls. They thought our souls were divine, but fallen into this physical world they acquired bodies. "Gnostic" refers to knowledge. Note that Judas is credited here with scret knowledge.

Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics, said in a statement, “These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was.”

There was diversity in early Christianity - just like there is diversity in modern Christianity. I'm not of the opinion that everything that goes by the name Christian IS Christian.

The Gospel of Judas is only one of many texts discovered in the last 65 years, including the gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene and Philip, believed to be written by Gnostics.

These other gospels were also found in Egypt, at a place called Nag Hamadi.

The Gnostics’ beliefs were often viewed by bishops and early church leaders as unorthodox, and they were frequently denounced as heretics. The discoveries of Gnostic texts have shaken up Biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs and practices among early followers of Jesus.

This "shaken up" rhetoric is reminiscent of the Da Vinci Code. Diversity within Christianity (and movements along the edges) has long been recognized. Surely if the ancient leaders denounced the gnostics they had to have known about them. What is different now is that the value of orthodoxy is held by fewer people. If it's wrong to speak of truth in the realm of religion, then surely we can revel in this ancient diversity. We just mustn't pretend the idea is a new one from ancient Christianity.

As the findings have trickled down to churches and universities, they have produced a new generation of Christians who now regard the Bible not as the literal word of God, but as a product of historical and political forces that determined which texts should be included in the canon, and which edited out.

Not exactly. The final claim of this paragraph is really a variant of Nietzscheanism: "There is no such thing as truth, just power. If you see a truth claim, what you're really seeing is an assertion of power."

What might be meant by saying "the bible is the literal word of God?" When we read the bible we do come across portions where it appears that God is speaking directly. Other portions (the majority of the text) is not in the form of direct quotation of God. When NT characters refer to the OT (inside the text of the NT) it appears that they believed God was speaking through the human writers who produced scripture. Such a belief has been common in the church from the beginning. While some have adopted the Islamic view of the Koran to apply to Scripture - the notion that God literally dictated every word of the bible - most christian scholars deny such a view.

Another thing one might be thinking when one hears "literal word of God" is the notion that everything in the bible is to be taken literally. I don't think this position even makes sense (though many seem to hold it). In the NT we see many occasions where the OT is quoted and treated in a non-literal sense (if you need an example consider how Peter handled the quotation of Joel 2 in Acts 2).

For that reason, the discoveries have proved deeply troubling for many believers. The Gospel of Judas portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus, but as his most favored disciple and willing collaborator.

I can't think why I'd find the discoveries troubling. It's interesting to know what strange ideas some people had back then - and to see how they parallel some of the strange ideas people have today. But I'm not troubled in the least.

Scholars say that they have long been on the lookout for the Gospel of Judas because of a reference to what was probably an early version of it in a text called Against Heresies, written by Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, about the year 180.

Irenaeus was a hunter of heretics, and no friend of the Gnostics. He wrote, “They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.”

When we hear "hunter of heretics" we're made to think of someone with a big gun - or at least big piles of wood, a can of gasoline and a box of matches. As a bishop (overseer) of the church, Irenaeus had the job of watching out for his people. When he saw ideas coming down the road that might lead people astray, it was his job to point them out and warn the people. That's still the job of the pastor today (though performed too rarely in this age).

Karen L. King, a professor of the history of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, and an expert in Gnosticism who has not yet read the manuscript released today, said that the Gospel of Judas may well reflect the kinds of debates that arose in the second and third century among Christians.

“You can see how early Christians could say, if Jesus’s death was all part of God’s plan, then Judas’s betrayal was part of God’s plan,” said Ms. King, the author of several books on the Gospel of Mary. “So what does that make Judas? Is he the betrayer, or the facilitator of salvation, the guy who makes the crucifixion possible?”

Yes, people wonder about this issue. The canonical texts raise more questions than answers when it comes to Judas. Gnosticism, however, offers more than a new view of Judas. It offers a completely different view of salvation than we find in the canonical texts. So the salvation that he "facilitates" is a different salvation than that attested to in scripture.

At least one scholar said the new manuscript does not contain anything dramatic that would change or undermine traditional understanding of the Bible. James M. Robinson, a retired professor of Coptic studies at Claremont Graduate University, was the general editor of the English edition of the Nag Hammadi library, a collection of Gnostic documents discovered in Egypt in 1945.

Robinson is right.

“Correctly understood, there’s nothing undermining about the Gospel of Judas,” Mr. Robinson said in a telephone interview. He said that the New Testament gospels of John and Mark both contain passages that suggest that Jesus not only picked Judas to betray him, but actually encouraged Judas to hand him over to those he knew would crucify him.

I'm not sure how far I'd take this last statement. I'd certainly try to contextualize it differently.

Mr. Robinson’s book, “The Secrets of Judas: The Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and his Lost Gospel” (Harper San Francisco, April 2006), predicts the contents of the Gospel of Judas based on his knowledge of Gnostic and Coptic texts, even though he was not part of the team of researchers working on the document.

The Egyptian copy of the gospel was written on 13 sheets of papyrus, both front and back, and found in a multitude of brittle fragments.

Rudolphe Kasser, a Swiss scholar of Coptic studies, directed the team that reconstructed and translated the script. The effort, organized by the National Geographic, was supported by Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art, in Basel, Switzerland, and the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery, an American nonprofit organization for the application of technology in historical and scientific projects.

The entire 66-page codex also contains a text titled James (also known as First Apocalypse of James), a letter by Peter and a text of what scholars are provisionally calling Book of Allogenes.

Discovered in the 1970’s in a cavern near El Minya, Egypt, the document circulated for years among antiquities dealers in Egypt, then Europe and finally in the United States. It moldered in a safe-deposit box at a bank in Hicksville, N. Y., for 16 years before being bought in 2000 by a Zurich dealer, Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos. The manuscript was given the name Codex Tchacos.

When attempts to resell the codex failed, Ms. Nussberger-Tchacos turned it over to the Maecenas Foundation for conservation and translation.

Mr. Robinson said that an Egyptian antiquities dealer offered to sell him the document in 1983 for $3 million, but that he could not raise the money. He criticized the scholars now associated with the project, some of whom are his former students, because he said they violated an agreement made years ago by Coptic scholars that new discoveries should be made accessible to all qualified scholars.

$3 millions dollars. That's pretty sensational in itself. Sometimes it's worth while to ask who stands to profit from the publishing of ancient manuscripts. While not a decisive factor, it can be worth considering.

The manuscript will ultimately be returned to Egypt, where it was discovered, and housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

Ted Waitt, the founder and former chief executive of Gateway, said that his foundation, the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery, gave the National Geographic Society a grant of more than $1 million to restore and preserve the manuscript and make it available to the public.
“I didn’t know a whole lot until I got into this about the early days of Christianity. It was just extremely fascinating to me,” Mr. Waitt said in a telephone interview. He said he had no motivation other than being fascinated by the finding. He said that after the document was carbon dated and the ink tested, procedures his foundation paid for, he had no question about its authenticity. “You can potentially question the translation and the interpretation, he said, but you can’t fake something like this. It would be impossible.”

You're going to have to read a lot more than the Gospel of Judas to understand the era and its movements.

Sterile Traditions and Higher Education

2006-04-06T11:28:00.000-05:00

Terry Eastland recently wrote about the transformation of Davidson College. In the past couple of years the trustees have led the school from association with the Presbyterian Church (USA) to merely being an expression of the Reformed Tradition. While they are dropping the requirement that all the trustees be Christians (it’s been a few decades since all the faculty were required to be Christians), they are adding a chair in “Reformed Theology.” While some might see this as a step away from Christianity, Eastland says the trustees see the move as flowing distinctly from their conception of the Reformed Tradition.

While I am neither a Presbyterian not a participant in the Reformed Tradition (though I consider myself a friend of that tradition), I see parallels between Davidson’s situation and United Methodist higher education.

Since my own attendance at an institution of higher education that was United Methodist but not Christian, I have been wondering how we lost our colleges and universities. While my alma mater still claims its United Methodist affiliation, many others have left even the scent of affiliation in behind. USC and Syracuse were once Methodist schools. Perhaps they had left the church behind because of the secularizing forces of modern academia. If Eastland’s account of the happenings at Davidson is correct, another possibility appears.

At Davidson the trustees, not academics, led the change. Their very conception of what the church’s nature and purpose is identified as the cause.

Indeed, the trustees made clear their belief that the Reformed tradition actually provides the basis for their decisions. Writing in the Charlotte Observer, the college chaplain, the Reverend Robert Spach, declared that the Reformed tradition “in which we stand” is not one that “fears, excludes or belittles those who are different” but is “ecumenical in spirit,” the point being that ecumenism—a truth now more fully understood, apparently—compelled opening board membership to non-Christians. Spach envisioned the “pursuit of truth” by an ecumenical board: “We [Christians] tell others what we believe and also humbly...listen to [the] beliefs” of “people of other faiths”—and “perhaps” learn “from each other.” For Spach, an ecumenical board will be better able to pursue truth than an entirely Christian board.

When I hear “Reformed Tradition” it’s not ecumenism that comes to mind. I think instead of Calvin, Knox, the sovereignty of God, TULIP, common grace, etc. According to Spach, the “Reformed Tradition” seems indistinguishable from the ethos of modern academia: tolerance, constant seeking for truth, humility, and diversity. Surely these four virtues are unquestionably good (assuming, of course, that we know for sure what they are), but surely there is more to the Reformed – or Christian – Tradition than these modern platitudes? My search for institutions of higher education that are both United Methodist and Christian has led me to examine many University mission statements. Though many remain “affiliated” with the United Methodist Church – part of the Wesleyan Tradition – they tout an ethos indistinguishable from Davidson or completely secular schools.

And yet they see themselves as being faithful to the Wesleyan Tradition!

What Eastland’s article suggests is that it’s not the colleges that are to blame: they’re merely tools of academia and the church. Rather, it is the theological and ecclesiological traditions themselves that have become sterile. Not only do our institutions not produce new participants (“babies”), we actually think that reproduction is a bad thing. We don’t have the truth – well, maybe a little bit, but every other tradition out there has at least as much (maybe more). Why should our new children be Methodists? They can have everything out institutions offer – intelligence, courage, character and success – and sleep in on Sunday mornings.

Until we learn to see Christianity and the Methodist tradition as true – as worth reproducing (which is not the same as saying all other traditions are valueless), we will continue to lose not only our institutions, but also our next generation.

The Relevance of Feeling

2006-04-06T08:18:00.000-05:00

The opening sentence of the piece really captures it all:

Jurors are being asked to relive the raw emotion of Sept. 11, 2001, as prosecutors argue that Zacarias Moussaoui should be put to death for conspiring with the hijackers.

I caught a bit about this as I was headed out the door this morning that really got me thinking about the sentencing phaseof the trial.

The line I heard as I was leaving echoed the above; it went something like, "Presecutors will attempt to replay the emotion that overtook our nation in the days following September 11, 2001."

Should that really be the goal? I understand the prosecutors may be out to get as harsh a punishment as possible, but do we really want the sentence for a crime to be dependent upon the emotion evoked by its commission?

Immigration and the (Christian?) Nation State

2006-04-03T13:59:00.000-05:00

In his The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History, Philip Bobbitt writes about (among other things) the transition from the Nation State to the Market State. During the Nation State era – roughly from the mid-nineteenth century until now – the legitimating feature of the State has been the State’s ability to care for its citizens and make them prosperous. Bobbitt interprets the major wars of this period as the conflict between Fascism, Communism and Liberal Democracy as they struggled for to exemplify the best model for the Nation State. The era now comes to an end – so Bobbitt suggests – with Liberal Democracy in the ascendancy.

If Bobbitt’s assessment of the purpose of the Nation State is correct, it’s clear that not all States have done equally well at taking care of their citizens. If we apply this model to the current debate about immigration we might say that millions of people from south of the USA have decided that the USA does a better job providing for its people than do their Nation States of origin. If this is what they are thinking when they come to the USA – by any means possible – their decisions are clearly rational.

But what does the USA do about it?

If the job of the Nation State is to take care of its citizens, that care is made easier to the extent that those citizens can take care of themselves. In the past generation, however, some have come to think that if their lack of ability to care for themselves, i.e., meet their own needs, comes from outside themselves (society, the environment, etc.), then the Nation State needs to step in and take care of them. After all, that’s the purpose of the Nation State, right? If I get into debt, the Nation State should have bankruptcy laws in place to enable me to unload some of my debt. If I get sick and can’t afford treatment, I expect the Nation State to have policies and procedures (and cash!) in place to pay for my treatment.

Let’s put something else into the mix – the commands of Jesus. Jesus tells his followers to love their neighbors as themselves. Jesus says, “Follow me,” and proceeds to demonstrate care and concern for the poor and outcast. Given Jesus – and the biblical tradition for that matter – it’s not surprising that Christians think it a good thing to care for the people around them.

But is Christian “care” the same as the Nation State’s “care?” If we find that we are a Christian Nation (State), then one might think these “cares” are one and the same. However, we find that the USA is constitutionally prohibited from being a Christian Nation (State). (It’s another matter whether the “constitution” of Christianity allows room for the USA or any other State to be a “Christian” Nation State, but that’s not today’s topic.) While I can’t help but think that the American ideal of “care” has been significantly influenced by the Christian ideal of “care,” they ought to be thought of as different things.

Why?

Lacking time for a complete answer, here are a couple of ideas.

The Nation State’s practice of “care” is combined with the powers of the State to compel care. With the need for a large, impartial (and thus usually impersonal) system of care, the Nation State must compel funding. It gets expensive to care for so many – especially as the number of those needing care continues to rise. Most illegal immigrants are poor. As caring Americans, we assume poor people will have great need. If it is the Nation State’s job to care for these needy people, the Nation State will need our money to care for them. If the numbers of the needy rise uncontrollably, then we assume that the State’s need for our money will also rise uncontrollably. This kind of thinking can easily lead to the view that immigration – especially the unlimited immigration of needy people – is a huge problem for the rest of us.
The leaders of the Nation State are elected by the citizens of that Nation State, usually on the basis of the citizen’s judgment of how well those leaders are taking care of them. If the leaders of the Nation State take better care of people in other Nation States (i.e., produce more prosperity for them – think here of some of the complaints about out-sourcing), the citizens might think this a good thing, but may be more likely to elect other leaders, whom they perceive as more able to provide for their prosperity. In less verbose fashion, Nation States have borders. Intelligent Nation States know that what they do beyond their borders influences the prosperity of their own State, but they also know the extent of their power and greatest responsibility lie within their borders. It’s not surprising that once a Nation State attains Super Power status it is loath to help others join the club.
One reason I doubt there can be such a thing as a Christian Nation State is that Christian thinking about boundaries is very different from National thinking. Jesus commands us to make disciples of “every nation.” The relevant distinction for Christians, then, is not about nationality, but about disciple status – not “Are these folks from my nation,” but “Are these folks disciples (yet).” The disciple/not-yet-disciple boundary shapes our relationships with people. This boundary, however, is not a love/don’t-love boundary. If there were a Christian Nation State, and that State were at the top of the heap, i.e., were a Superpower, that State, inasmuch as it was Christian, would not aim to keep others down so as to maintain its status, but rather expend itself to bring others up.
If a Christian Nation State existed and were counted as a Superpower, and as a Christian Superpower sought to bring other Nations upward also, one would think the notion of Superpower would need modification. As it now stands, a Nation that is a Superpower is first one militarily and secondly economically. If it were possible for a Christian State to be at the top of the heap militarily – and still be a Christian State, it would seem odd to want to multiply the number of States with militaries as strong as its own. An argument to the contrary might analogize from the benefits of having an armed citizenry. The more paranoid argue that citizens need to be armed so they can resist their own government when it turns evil. The less paranoid argue that citizens need to be armed to discourage their evil neighbors from perpetrating violence against them. The resulting picture would be of in increasing number of Nation States armed to the teeth practicing a version of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). While some might think this an improvement, I don’t. (Yes, I know that stating my desires doesn’t count as a rational argument. In my experience fear and paranoia, while they can be effective motivators in the short term, they don’t work well or tend to the health of a society in the long term.) If we flip the prioritization for defining Superpowers, so that the economic replaces the military, perhaps that would work better from a Christian point of view. This hypothetical Christian Nation State would them aim not merely to make its own citizens prosperous, but also to find ways to help citizens of other Nations achieve prosperity as well. While this sounds exceedingly good and noble, the history of foreign aid over the past fifty years shows it to also be exceedingly difficult.

What does all this have to do with the question of immigration? The purpose of the Nation State is to take care of its citizens. The purpose of the church is to inhabit, exemplify and propagate the Kingdom of God. The Nation State looks to geographical boundaries to define its span of care. The Church looks to people in need to define its span of care.

The clear advantage of the Nation State’s care vis-à-vis the Church’s care is that the former is eminently more reasonable. We have limited resources. Clearly can’t do everything. We must take care of our own first, then, if there’s anything left, we’ll share with others. Very logical. But does it sound like Jesus?

Truth in the News?

2006-04-02T16:26:00.000-05:00

The former Soviet Union had two main newspapers - Pravda (Truth) and Izvestiya (News). I've heard that it used to be said, "There's no truth in the News, and no news in the Truth."

Reports of another study (there have been several over the past many years) on the healing power of prayer have been in the papers the past few days. Apparently they found no statistically significant support for the notion that prayer helps the healing process.

Can it be that there is more insight in a parody than in the reports themselves? Scott Ott writes:

Prayer Study: Humans Fail to Manipulate God

by Scott Ott

(2006-03-31) — A team of scientists today ended a 10-year study on the so-called “power of prayer” by concluding that God cannot be manipulated by humans, not even by scientists with a $2.4 million research grant.

The scientists also noted that their work was “sabotaged by religious zealots” secretly praying for study subjects who were supposed to receive no prayer.

The allegations came at a news conference where researchers announced their findings that intercessory prayer by two Roman Catholic religious communities and a group from the Missouri-based Unity church failed to produce better results for patients recovering from heart surgery.

“As it turns out, God was not impressed by our academic credentials, our substantial funding base, and our rigorous study protocols,” said lead researcher Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston. “I get the feeling we just spent 10 years looking through the wrong end of the telescope.”

While patients who knew they were the targets of the study’s intercessory prayer team actually had more post-operative complications, Dr. Benson admitted he failed to prevent friends and relatives from praying for the “no prayer” control group.

“It really burns me up that we worked so hard, only to be undermined by an anonymous army of intellectual weaklings on their knees,” he said.

Dr. Benson said he would now seek $10 million in grants to explore whether fire can be called down from heaven to kindle a pile of wood. The control group’s wood will be drenched in water to prevent combustion.

While scripture teaches us to pray - as an act of worship, as a way of living out a relationship with God and to cry out to God with our needs - scripture taken as a whole does not incline us to think prayer is a technology to manipulate God to get us what we want. We pray, not because prayer works, but because we belong to God.

Scientific Advancement?

2006-04-01T21:34:00.000-06:00

A while back I questioned the US investment in Afghanistan. After billions of dollars and many lives, they put one of their own on trial for becoming a Christian.

It may not be billions, but we – the citizens of Texas – are supporting a university professor who advocates the elimination of 90% of the human race. Dr. Eric Pianka of the University of Texas presented his case at a recent meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University. The link above is to the report of the event by Dr. Forrest Mims.

HT: Uncommon Descent.

Joining the Conversation on Immigration

2006-03-29T15:39:00.000-06:00

Enter the Rainbow (Andy Bryan) and Locusts and Honey (John the Methodist) are writing on the recent immigration debate here, here, and here.

Andy offers several scriptural texts that encourage loving attention to foreigners, a care rooted in Israel’s status in Egypt and the Christian status as foreigners in the world. Hebrews, instead of urging xenophobia enjoins philoxenia – love of strangers (usually translated “hospitality”) instead of fear of strangers.

He then claims:

This is one reason we should care about immigration in our country today. It should be important to us because it is important to God. This is why we cannot allow U.S. House Bill 4437 or U.S. Senate Bill 2454 to slam shut our border and harshly penalize our brothers and sisters sojourning in our land. Rather than chase foreigners home, we should welcome them with the radical hospitality that our faith calls for. In Christ, there is no Mexican, Sudanese, Belgian, or American, for all are one in Christ Jesus.

In his second post Andy summarizes what the relevant comments in the UM Social Principles (a good place for UMs to look) and comments:

The Social Principles of our denomination say, “The rights and privileges a society bestows upon or withholds from those who comprise it indicate the relative esteem in which that society holds particular persons and groups of persons.
“We affirm all persons as equally valuable in the sight of God. We therefore work toward societies in which each person’s value is recognized, maintained, and strengthened.”

Interpretation of this principle hinges in part on what is meant by “those who comprise [a society].” If “those who comprise” the United States are only legal citizens, then this principle does not apply to undocumented immigrants. But if the phrase, “those who comprise it” is an inclusive phrase that takes into consideration all people who are living in the society regardless of official status, then we must conclude that no consideration of legal status ought to be made when affirming a person’s inherent value in God’s eyes, and therefore in ours. We cannot accept policies that deny rights to a particular group of people and devalue them based solely on whether or not they have jumped through all the necessary hoops, themselves flawed, of becoming legal citizens.

Rights and privileges are bestowed by a system of laws. Citizenship is a right offered under certain conditions, and with citizenship comes other rights. Are the Social Principles suggesting that there should be no differentiation between citizens and non-citizens? From a US perspective, I don’t think that would work. From a Christian perspective, I think it’s irrelevant. As Andy notes, Christians are called to love and extend kindness to all. While some might infer that this means Christians must confer the status of citizenship on all who come into our land, we certainly don’t even think things work that way in our churches. While we show love and kindness to all the people around us, we do not unilaterally confer membership upon all we see. There is even an ongoing debate in United Methodism about standards and processes of membership.

John the Methodist recognizes the same issues as Andy, but comes down in a very different place. He says,

That dominant culture is being washed away in favor of a different one from Latin America. The new wave of immigrants have little to no desire to assimilate to the dominant culture. In fact, they are becoming the dominant culture. That bothers me because I like my culture and I don't want to see it go away. Many Americans agreed in the past, which is why immigration policies a century ago advocated assimilation, and largely succeeded. We made a deal with immigrants: you can come to our country, but you have to join our culture. As an independent polity, I think that we have inherent property rights to our own territory and can therefore require such bargains. No one has a right to come to our country anymore than anyone has a right to walk into your house and start living there.

But beyond our lovely culture being absorbed into a different one, we Americans also face a real political danger from massive immigration from Latin America. Healthy states are ones that are largely uniform. Although multiethnic societies can thrive, multicultural societies fail, almost without exception, such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (which don't exist anymore. Guess why). Multiple divergent cultures within one polity ultimately lead to Balkanization, a process exacerbated if those divergent cultures actually have different languages. If people can't even talk to each other easily, they have trouble forming a cohesive society…
So culturally and politically, let's do the smart thing: drive the illegal aliens out, keep them out, and wait a couple generations for the Mexican population here legally to be absorbed into our culture before resuming large-scale immigration from Mexico.

Clearly John’s perspective is more “Americanist” than Andy’s. I don’t know if he’s read Samuel Huntingdon’s Who Are We? But the points he brings up are discussed in great detail in that work.

Here’s my take.

First, both Andy and John need to tighten up their use of "we", "us", "our" language. Do these first person plural pronouns speak of us as Americans, Christians, Anglos, Caucasians? Is it our relation to a culture, a nation, a polity, a race or Jesus and his kingdom that most determine our action?

Surely “in Christ” cultural and ethnic variance is unimportant (which is why we United Methodists make no ethnic distinctions in our churches and ministries), but are we such a Christian nation that what is said about the church applies to the nation? As a non-Constantinian, I’d say not.

Second, with John, I’d say that traditional American culture is greatly weakened by a flood of immigrants who do not assimilate to American culture. But that semi-mythical American culture has first been weakened from other sources. It’s been weakened from within by the exaggeration of its traits of radical individualism and consumerism. It’s been weakened from without by the type of multiculturalism that insists that no culture is "right" - except the other guys.

This view is found not only in American culture, but in the church. When found in the church (which is all to easy to do), this view seems to say that Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, etc., are all right – but Christians, if they are right about anything (and not doing crusades or inquisitions), are only right about the platitudes that "everybody" agrees about anyway.

The USA is a sort of organism. As an organism, it, like all cultures, has a sort of immune system. Not only is the US immune system not working well, but it has also become common to think the mere having of an immune system to be a bad thing.

We have come to think this in the church also. If orthodoxy can be thought of as part of our immune system – something that defends “us” against “not us,” – orthodoxy is thought of as an evil. Openness – apparently to everything – is much better than orthodoxy (which is inherently narrow).

Does the US need an immune system? Only if it wants to continue to be the US. If we're happy becoming another Mexico/Guatemala/Colombia/etc. - which John the Methodist evidently doesn’t want to do (and which I'm not excited about either), then we'll have to do something.
I'm pessimistic that American Christians can be very helpful in this debate. A generation or two ago we decided to minimize the boundaries in our traditions. UMs in particular (I know them best) continue to fall apart because of this. “You're a Buddhist? Well sure, you can be a UM (bishop) too.” “You're an agnostic? Well sure, you can be a UM too.” “You deny the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Resurrection of Jesus? No problem - you not only can be one of us but we'll either make you a bishop or hire you to teach in our seminaries to train our pastors.”

These questions of identity are huge. Treating the answers dichotomously - EITHER we're completely open, to the point of having no boundaries, OR we're completely closed, to the point of killing those who are different (which seems to be the current approach)- will be a huge mistake. We need to develop some nuanced accounts of identity that are healthier and more productive. That’ll take more work than I can give to the topic today.

Quandry

2006-03-29T13:34:00.000-06:00

Why is it that publishing companies shell out bucks to pastors of mega-churches to write books in which they say "it isn't about numbers or buildings, it is about people;" yet the only reason these individuals are paid to write these books is that they have built huge buildings and attracted massive numbers of people?

Sunday message

2006-03-27T13:41:00.000-06:00

This past Sunday I began my message with a reference to the Jon Stewart interview on Crossfire. I offered to provide a link to watch this video, and have done so on my church's website. You can either click the heading of this port to go straight to that page, or ckick to go to our website, choose "From the Pastor." My sermon is also available there.

What do we do with sinners?

2006-03-22T11:20:00.000-06:00

Of course, "Sinners" is a Christian term - or at least a term with meaning circumscribed by particular religious traditions. Other terms, taken from other contexts might include: "Miscreant," "deviant," "criminal," "traitor."

In the nation formerly known as the USSR, people who were accused of "sinning" against the system were dealt with quite harshly. Depending on the whims of the leaders, they might be tortured, killed, sent to the Gulag, or put in an psyciatric hospital. While this last option might sound benevolent, it was nothing of the sort in actual soviet practice. You see, the doctors tried to cure their patients. Or at least that's that they called it. Massive doses of drugs. Electro-shock. Whatever it took to cure them of their sin. Sins like believing in democracy, freedom, God - all those were illnesses worthy of a soviet cure.

The Corner at National Review Online has been following the story of Abdul Rahman. They point to a story at CNN that the Afghans have come up with a possible out for Rahman: He's insane.

On Wednesday a state prosecutor said Rahman may be mentally unfit to stand trial, The Associated Press reports.

"We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn't talk like a normal person," The AP quoted prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari as saying.

Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination, according to the AP.

"Doctors must examine him," the AP quoted Baluch as saying. "If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped."
So Mr. Rahman has an out. Innocent by reason of insanity. What does that mean in Afghanistan? When someone in the US is declared "not guilty by reason of insanity" does that mean their life goes on as normal, as if whatever it was they did wasn't done? I think not.

What do they do with Rahman if he's declared insane? Will they do the "compassionate" thing and seek (i.e., enforce) his "healing?"

As a Christian, I understand that turning away from Jesus can be an expression of mental unhealth. But as a follower of Jesus most of the common courses of action are ruled out for me. I cannot torture them into health (that was the mistake of that benevolent institution known as the Spanish Inquisition). I can also not imprison them or kill them.

What does Jesus say to do to people - to sinners - who won't listen to reason? (I have Matthew 18 15-20 in mind.) He says, "Treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector." Does that sound brutal? After all, from the view point of holiness, those are the bad guys. But think a minute. How did Jesus treat pagans and tax collectors?

Once we look at Jesus - which is what his followers are supposed to do - we see our way clearly. Our role is to love sinners (the miscreants, deviants, criminals - those who depart from the faith). Our role is to treat them as we would any outsider - as those for whom Christ died, as those whom we are to love into the kingdom.

Where does Islam stand on this? I wouldn't be surprised if there are multiple traditions on this, partly depending on the weight given to certain Koranic passages (like, "There is no compulsion in religion") and certain passages in the Hadith, as well as other cultural traditions that have built up here and there over the centuries.

Of course, it may be the case that Afghanistan, an ostensible Muslim nation, ends up doing the Pushtun or Uzbek (or Afghani) thing instead of the Muslim thing. I know that's the case here in America (claimed by some to be a Christian - especially in the Muslim world - nation).

We'll see.

On not interferring with a Sovereign Nation

2006-03-22T08:01:00.000-06:00

Attention to Abdul Rahman’s case is spreading. The Germans are complaining. Even the Americans had something to say, though the description makes the protest sound rather tepid.

The Bush administration issued a subdued appeal Tuesday to Afghanistan to permit Rahman to practice his faith in the predominantly Muslim country. The State Department, however, did not urge the U.S. ally in the war against terrorism to terminate the trial. Officials said the Bush administration did not want to interfere with Afghanistan's sovereignty.

Ah, yes. Sovereignty. Wouldn’t want to interfere with that, now would we? Why is “interfering” with our ally’s trial of a man for conversion to Christianity a greater challenge to sovereignty than invading and overthrowing the government?

There is more than one theory of national sovereignty. While some might think all nations are sovereign by definition, the Rahman case in the larger context of Afghanistan illustrates that the current US leadership adheres to a different theory.

In our country, we describe our system as government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” We call it a democracy. We extrapolate from this to find sovereignty rooted in “the people.” Thus if a nation is a democracy, i.e., “of the people,” then it is a sovereign nation.

Under the Taliban, Afghanistan did not have a government “of the people.” It was not a democracy. Now that we have invaded and cast aside the Taliban (we have not yet cast them out), we have installed a democracy. Now Afghanistan has a government “of the people.” Now it is a democracy.

And that democratically elected, i.e., a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” has put a man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity. Surely we all know that Muslims make up a majority of the Afghan population. Surely we know that death to converts is a standard practice in other allied Muslim nations (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan). Ought we to be surprised when the majority – the operative power in a democracy – follows its conscience?

The AP article hints that there may be some division of opinion in Afghanistan.

The trial is believed to be the first of its kind in Afghanistan and highlights a struggle between religious conservatives and reformists over what shape Islam should take there four years after the ouster of the fundamentalist Taliban regime.

I’d like to see some evidence of this “struggle.” Are there voices in Afghanistan calling for Rahman’s release – and freedom to follow Jesus? The AP avoids specifics here.

At the very least, we Christians ought not to be surprised. The bible says, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” Just because we’ve been domesticated by a smiling Caesar, doesn’t mean the world is a safe place for Jesus people.

As Americans we ought not to be surprised either. Some of our founding fathers (James Madison comes to mind) warned us against the power of faction and absolute majorities. More recently our love for democratic theory may have been chastened by Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.”

Though we may not be surprised by the trial of Abdul Rahman, do we have to keep quiet about it? Do we have to keep paying for Afghanistan – with our money and with the lives of our people? If we were a Christian nation, our approach would be different (assuming, of course, that there is such a thing as a Christian nation). But, we’re not. So we keep propping up a nation because we believe the government of a sovereign (democratically elected) nation can do what ever it wants.

UPDATE: I see that there is a transcript of an interview with a State Department official at The Corner. Unfortunately the issue seems to be framed as one of Freedom of Religion. My guess is that Mr. Rahman's persecutors will think Freedom of Religion is one thing, and Freedom of Conversion from Islam is another thing altogether. If this is so, as long as we keep the subject on Freedom of Religion, we will be missing the point.

THIS is what we're fighting for?

2006-03-19T14:37:00.000-06:00

American soldiers have been in Afghanistan for 4 years. We've disposed of the oppressive Taliban government. Or at least the "Taliban" label.

Now Abdul Rahman is on trial for his life. His crime? He converted to Christianity 16 years ago. we know what the Taliban would say. Mullah "Queen of Hearts" Omar would say, "Off with his head." But now that the US has intervened and established a democratically elected government Judge "Queen of Hearts" Ansarullah Mawlavizada says, "Off with his head." Surely your powers of discernment are great enough to see the difference.

Back in the olden days - really olden - Plato wrote against democracy. He'd seen it degenerate and lead to Athen's destruction in the Peloponnesian Wars. He'd seen it restored just in time to kill his teacher Socrates. In Plato's assessment, in a democracy the appetites/desires of the masses went unchecked by any conception of the good. But at least they got to vote on it.

Now we have a US installed government in Afghanistan putting people on trial for converting to Christianity. How can we Americans protest? We got what we wanted - a democratic government.

We also now have a democratically elected government in Palestine. Surely they won't kill Christians will they? (Maybe they'll only kill Jews. - Think Martin Niemoller though). We're also installing a democratically elected government in Iraq. How will they handle Christians? Both Iraq and Afghanistan claim in their constitutions that nothing is allowed that contradicts Islam. If killing Christians is allowed under that standard in Afghanistan, how long until it's allowed in Iraq?

But then Mr. Rahman's crime is greater than just being a Christian. He converted from Islam to become one.

And this is what our people are giving their lives for? This is what we're spending billions of dollars for? Sure looks like a case of caveat emptor to me.

To see the details on the story you can check:
Fox News
Middle East Times
Forbes

An idea for a Seminary Curriculum

2006-03-18T18:13:00.000-06:00

An idea for a Seminary Curriculum

Engage with God. As long as seminary is just another degree producing experience, it’s perfectly understandable. But the Christian life is about walking in a love relationship with Jesus. As the seminary community experiences the love of God together, each participant will grow in practices of prayer, worship, submission, love, etc.

Engage with the Bible. This includes both an ability to figure out what the text means (yes, I know the ambiguity of that term and I’m happy with it) an ability to live it out, and to lead others to engage with it in similar ways.

Engage with the Christian tradition. By partaking of Christian history and theology, one will not only know and understand the basic content, but to do with the end of becoming a participant in both.

Engage with the Church. Each church has a culture and way of doing things. Leaders need to know how to discern and shape that culture as they lead the people in being and making disciples.

Engage with people. We all come to seminary with a variety of people skills. Some (often the extraverts) find it easy, while others find it hard work (some of us introverts). As Christian leaders our engagement with people will include listening to them, paying attention to them, conversing with them, connecting them with the church and with Jesus (and his resources).

Engage with culture. Every culture in history has had two conflicting propensities: to seek Jesus and to kill him. As Jesus’ followers we take up his mission of sharing (through word and embodiment) the Good News of the Kingdom and suffering the consequences.

After 6 months or a year of the basics, students will be separated into cohorts of ten or so, aiming for a balance in terms of personalities and spiritual gifts. These cohorts will then go through ministry experiences together. Three types of experience would be envisioned.
Experience in a long-established church. There are a bunch of churches out there that haven’t changed significantly in ages – except for decline in numbers and increase in age. How do you live out faithfulness in that context?
A cross cultural experience. Since seminaries are cross-cultural institutions, it’d be most useful to have two of these to increase the chances of the experience truly being cross cultural for all the students.
A six month immersion in the life and ministries of a growing church. What does it look like to reach people, draw them into the body and equip them for ministry? What models for ministry work in different kinds of context?
A final year church plant. In their last year of school the cohort will together plant a church, putting into practice everything they’ve learned. To keep one area from being saturated with church plants, the final year of class work would use TEE (Theological Education by Extension) model. After the year is up the cohort will be free to continue the church plant together, divide up and plant others, or take up posts in other congregations elsewhere.

What do you think?
What obvious things have I left out?
Are there any seminaries working this way today?

USEvangelism

2006-03-17T08:27:00.000-06:00

The United States is out of the World Baseball Classic. Did we make it further in the WBC than we did in Olympic hockey last month?

Well, at least hockey isn't an all-American, born and read here sport. So what abotu Basketball? Our guys couldn't manage any better than the bronze medal.

Baseball and basketball are AMERICAN sports. Abner Doubleday and James Naismith are ours, and the games both orignated here.

I am sure many Americans are looking at this latest loss on the world field of sport as a sign that our glorious nation isn't what it should be. (I hope there doesn't develop a loud cry that we pour more money into baseball and basketball)

I've got another way to look at it. Though baseball and basketball were both born in the US, we've done a fantastic job of exporting both sports. We've done so well, in fact, we don't even dominate international competition. Success is ours!

Transitional Church Stress

2006-03-15T15:20:00.000-06:00

I’ve just finished reading Kevin E. Martin’s The Myth of the 200 Barrier: How to Lead Through Transitional Growth. I’ll make other comments on the content of this book later. In this post, however, I’ll focus on what I found the most striking in how it fit my own church situation.

The church I pastor has hovered between 130 and 200 in average Sunday morning worship attendance since at least 1966. Some years are up, some down. My goal has been to get the average up to 200. Last year we almost made it – we averaged 198. It’s tough work – and there are so many variables that there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to keep it up. Martin’s book offers a theory of why this is.

Martin proposes two basic church models: the pastoral church and the program church. While there can be great variety within these models, the pastoral church is based on the work and abilities of the pastor. The upper limit of attendance in a pastoral church is about 165. An average attendance of about 225 is required to sustain a program church. Therein lies the problem. Our church is in the no-man’s land between these two numbers. Martin calls these churches “transitional churches.”

Martin lists four characteristics transitional churches share:

Transitional churches tend to be high-stress congregations for clergy. The expectations that the pastor’s role will be primarily relational in the smaller church, and the expectations that accompany programs in the large church, create this high stress.

Transitional churches tend to use up and burn out lay leaders. This size church has a shortage of real leaders. Therefore, the transitional size congregation tends to overuse its leaders and give them multiple jobs. This leads to high burnout.

Transitional churches tend to need new programs, staff, and facilities all at the same time. This leads to confusion and a sense of continual frustration as the leaders run to keep up.

Transitional congregations often experience tension and conflict as the congregation develops. Those who prefer the style of the smaller congregation often resent the changes. Those who want quality programs often find this resistance frustrating and irrational.

I see each of these at work in the church I serve. (1) I feel the stress of having to know everyone and what’s going on in their lives. I don’t think it’s as stressful for me as it would be for some people. I’m fairly good at learning and remembering names. The tougher part is finding time to jump start all the programs and ministries I think would benefit us.
(2) We need more leaders. We can usually recruit people to do something, but I want leaders – people who are passionate, energetic and creative, who won’t need micromanagement.
(3) We need new programs. At the very least we need to increase our outreach ministries, our junior high ministries, our Senior adult ministries (beyond mere fellowship), our recovery ministries and evangelism. Staff? We need a staff person who speaks Spanish to lead ministry with the increasing Hispanic population. Buildings – a blessing and a pain at the same time. Our hundred year old sanctuary is one of the most beautiful in NE Texas. It costs a fortune. We’ve spent so much money on it in the past 5 years we’ve had no resources left to work with our decaying educational building and fellowship hall, let alone build anything new.
(4) We’ve also experienced the tensions of transition. We lost a couple of highly involved families last year because we’re not changing fast enough. Others complain we’re changing too fast.

The easiest thing to do would be to drop back down to about 135. Of course, such a move would entail a rejection of the Great Commission. “It’s just for big churches,” I can imagine some people saying. The problem is, I’m not willing to do that. I’m not content with anything but leading this church to make disciples. Leading a larger church (judging by my experience in larger churches) looks easier than leading a church through this transition period. Obviously I have a lot of learning and growing to do.

One final comment: If you find your church in the transitional range, you might try out Martin’s book. Read it and share it with the leaders in your church. See what happens.

Please Don't Do It Here!

2006-03-14T20:33:00.000-06:00

If socialized medicine works well, it’s surely someplace other than here. I’ve been in big city hospitals and small town hospitals and never seen anything this bad.

Notorious Sinners & United Methodist Higher Education

2006-03-13T13:31:00.000-06:00

United Methodist schools attract all kinds of people. I remember that from my days at Southwestern University. We had the usual representation from mainstream Christian denominations: Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Catholics, Pentecostals & Charismatics, etc. We also had Jews, Muslims, Buddhists & atheists. Many were only nominally affiliated with religious institutions. The most common philosophy on campus was likely variant of hedonism.

Two of the perpetrators of last month’s Alabama church fires were students at Birmingham Southern College, a United Methodist institution. Some of his fellow students report that Russell DeBusk was a low-grade Satanist. I doubt that the Birmingham Southern administration knew anything about DeBusk’s religious leanings. I even doubt that he wrote “Satanist” as his “religious preference” on his application form.

I don’t know if we had any Satanists at Southwestern – the most I ever heard about it was a report from a campus security guy that he’d encountered some people performing a “Black Mass” in the Chapel late one night. He didn’t recount any evidence that the participants had any connection to the school, and his story seemed too sensationalistic to be credible.

Why would a Satanist (or Jew, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist) want to attend a United Methodist school? My guess is that it’s because they offer a good education. Birmingham Southern’s president describes their mission this way:
Our mission is to provide a liberal arts education of distinctive quality—one that challenges our students to think independently, to examine the arts and sciences aesthetically and critically, and to communicate clearly. We accomplish this mission through offering educational experiences that prepare students to be lifelong and participatory learners and leaders, to be active and successful in their careers and communities, and to be individuals who better understand and shape the world around them.
This mission statement looks a lot like the mission statements of other liberal arts schools. If my experience at Southwestern is indicative of the category, they likely do a fair job at achieving these goals.

But is there anything particularly Christian about such a mission? If there is, it’s in such coded language that I’d think a Satanist or an atheist would have trouble noticing it. In other words, if there were such a thing as a liberal arts school affiliated with a Satanist or Atheist group, their mission would likely be indistinguishable from the average UM school.

When United Methodist schools take their missional cue more from academia (especially an academia shaped by the convictions and values of modernity), gross public sins like burning down churches can only appear shocking. President Pollick observes:
“In response to the two students having been charged with arson of nine Alabama community churches, Birmingham-Southern College has suspended each student from the college and immediately banned them from campus awaiting further action by the authorities. The students, faculty and staff of our college are at once shocked and outraged, and we share the sorrow of our neighbors whose churches represent the heart and soul of their communities.
“These cruel and senseless acts of destruction have profoundly touched our college community. Where there once existed such a clear line between the harmless and playful and the harmful and cruel, we increasingly see young adults throughout our nation incapable of distinguishing between healthy and destructive conduct. Boundaries are all too often exceeded. The social use of alcohol moves easily and too frequently to dangerous irresponsibility. Innocent and healthy stages of interpersonal social encounters too frequently degrade to violent and personal acts of violation. We see symptoms of a culture of personal license so powerfully magnified in the actions of these young men.”
One of the advantages of the Christian tradition (and the United Methodist theological tradition when we remember we have one) is that we know people are sinners. We know not only that sinners sin, but that they work hard – even by sinning more (in this case, torching additional churches_ - to cover up their sin. We know this all too well, since it’s not just “those kind of people” – those subject to a “culture of personal license” who sin, but we ourselves.

What would happen if United Methodist institutions of higher learning would start taking sin seriously? Surely this would amount to more than a puritanical negativism (the bogeyman invoked by most moderns when the word “sin” appears on the scene). The Christian tradition declares not only that we are completely addicted to sin (we not only do it, but we do it willingly because we like it), but also that God has entered history in the person of his son Jesus Christ to do something about it. Some branches of the Christian tradition merely focus on the forgiveness of sin and the resulting life in heaven after death. That’s good. The United Methodist tradition, however, goes farther. We believe that the salvation Jesus offers ought to result in holiness. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and life together in the Body of Christ, we have all the resources we need to say ‘No” to sin and “Yes” to God.

What might this look like in a mission statement? Here’s a rough go of it:
This United Methodist University (TUMU) aims to:

Challenge you intellectually so you can love God with all your mind

Help you develop as a well-rounded person so you can love God with all your soul

Give you tools to navigate the economy as a productive citizen who both trusts God for provision and seeks to be a blessing for the people around you and be good stewards of the creation around you

Put you into relationships with people who are completely different from you so that you can learn how to love your neighbor as yourself

Seek to demonstrate the attractiveness of Jesus so that you will be inclined to follow him all of your days

Such a school would be open to all comers be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, or Satanists. Of course they’d make sure all students and their families were aware of the institutional mission – no bait and switch – so they could enter into the challenging environment with their eyes open. When a student sinned – bad enough to make the front page of the paper – the University would gather around that student, praying for him or her, and seeking to demonstrate Jesus’ love, forgiveness, and call to repentance. Some student/prisoners may resist this move, but if the University kept on demonstrating its love for student/sinners even through the long years of a prison sentence, perhaps some would get the idea.

Candy Lady, R.I.P.

2006-03-09T15:13:00.000-06:00

I had my post op visit yesterday in Houston (everything’s fine). When I arrived in town I called to let my wife know I had made the 250 mile trip without incident. After our initial greetings she told me she had gotten a call from the pastor of a church I used to pastor. Merle Knight had been murdered by her son.

Everyone loved Merle – probably because she loved everyone. My kids knew her as the Candy Lady because she always had a piece of candy for them. They liked to go to her house and visit – not only for the chance at a piece of candy, but to see her and her dog.

Merle was also an integral part of the ministry at Hooks FUMC. Whenever the children or youth were doing something, she was there to help. Her compassion for the kids in her neighborhood was also a spur to get others involved. I still remember her telling me about a young boy in the neighborhood who stopped to talk to her one day.

“How are you doing,” she asked the boy.
“I’m ok. My dad just moved out,” he replied.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You must be sad.”
“He’s not my real dad. He used to beat me al the time. I’m happy he’s gone.”
Merle’s heart was broken. I doubt this kind of story is unique to East Texas, but I’ve heard it too many times over the years.

We’ll all miss Merle. She made a difference in the lives of many.

Blast from the past

2006-03-08T10:10:00.000-06:00

I was looking for something to pick up and read a bit, and happened to notice my copy of Barth's Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, which I probably hadn't opened since seminary. I was pleased to find I had underlined sections while reading the book "back in the day," and turned to the chapter titled "Commnuity."

I found it eerily relevant today, considering Barth deleivered these lectures in the early 60s. He begins with an explanation of why he chooses "community" rather than "church." As some of us are just realizing now, in 2006, Barth noted then, in approximately the year I was born, that "Church" is heard and read too easily as "Christianity," as though the people of Jesus could be painted with one broad brush. Community carries the idea that "church" ought to. Was Barth treading on postmodern ground?

As he describes the community, he reaches the lines that inspired this entry:

The community does not speak with words alone. It speaks by the very fact of its existence in the world; by its characteristic attitude to world problems; and, moreover and especially, by its silent service to all the handicapped, weak, and needy in the world.

There is no denying that we do not speak with words alone. But, as I consider all that is going on around the world today, and especially since much of the world identifies the community of Jesus' people with the United States, I cannot help but wonder: what is our characteristic attitude to world problems? Are we, God's people, known for our silent service to the handicapped, the weak, and the needy?

Subsidize THIS

2006-03-07T10:57:00.000-06:00

I was privileged to be a part of the Central Texas Conference's Mission Ministries Team meeting this past Saturday. One of the main purposes of this annual meeting is to go over the budget requests for all the various minsitry groups within the conference.

I had been very apprehensive about attending this meeting. The CTC came up about $900K short on our apportionments for 2005, and we ahve not proven very good in the past at limit the growth of our budget. I fully expected to hear the same old head-in-the-sand mantra of "giving will be better this year; let's go ahead and plan to spend more!"

I must admit I was pleased to find out that most of the MMT was on the same page as myself. While there are many worthwhile programs and needs, it would be poor stewardship on our part to plan to spend more than we could reasonably expect to receive.

One discussion I got involved in was particularly interesting, and will be the subject of this post. Much of what we do as the CTC is pretty heavily subsidized. We set costs for events based on what we would like everyone to have to pay.

What I think we ought to do is price events in such a way that participation actually pays for them. As we set prices to actually cover expenses, we also build in some funding for those who demonstrate financial need.

I was told by one person that for a particular event that her group hosts each year, "Everyone pays full cost, and it still doesn't cover the costs." Perhaps we aren't all clear on what "full cost" means.

We have operating, within the CTC, at least two groups that use the model I am reccommending. Glen Lake, our camp, sets the price for a week of camp at a rate that looks high for a church camp, but a letter from a pastor earns the child with need a week at camp. CTCYM, our youth mission organization is structured the same way, and has run with a surplus for about a decade.

The new model for connectionalism will include many more programs that run on the money they bring in from participants rather than from apportioned funds.

What's next?

2006-03-03T14:28:00.000-06:00

In the past few days I have heard several different people talk about how they have gotten used to watching television shows without the commercials. Between buying boxed sets on DVD and the DVR/TiVO revolution, more and more people are skipping the commercials in favor of just watching the shows.

What do you suppose this trend will mean for the future of ad-driven programming? No doubt the producers of these shows are getting a cut from the dish/cable companies that sell the dvr machinery, and they are making good money off the dvd market, so what happens to advertisers?

Learning from North Point, part 8

2006-03-01T08:55:00.000-06:00

Learning from North Point, part 8

North Point’s fourth practice for effective ministry turns to the area of communication. “Teach Less for More” aims for simplicity in communication.

The North Point guys (the ones who write the book and speak on the recordings are all guys – Andy Stanley, Lane Jones and Reggie Joiner) remember their early days in church when they were inundated with information, so much information, in fact, that they didn’t know what to take out of it. Drawing from the previous practices – “Clarify the Win,” “Think Steps, Not Programs,” and “Narrow the Focus” – each ministry area identifies a short list of things that each group needs to know.

I remember my own early days as a Christian. I loved researching the End Times. I spent hours not only reading Revelation, Daniel, etc., but also Hal Lindsey, J. Dwight Pentecost and other dispensationalist authors. For a high schooler, I was well educated on the subject. But it didn’t do me or anyone else any good (unless you count the author’s book royalties). My model of the Christian life was very stunted: Being a Christian meant knowing lots of stuff (more than anyone else) about the end times (or the Bible). While model was more attractive than the major competitor I experienced – “God is nice. Be nice too” – I desperately needed a model that connected me with God and his Kingdom purposes.

Once you notice that Andy Stanley is Charles Stanley’s son, you might start thinking, “These guys are just a bunch of Baptists. What can we Methodists/Presbyterians/etc. learn from them?” For many years now, my estimation of the Methodist Mistake is that we tend to assume everyone is saved, and thus never talk about how to become a Christian, while the Baptist Mistake is tending to assume no one is a Christian and talk about nothing else. When the North Point folks talk about “Narrow the Focus” and “Teach Less for More” they’re not instantiating either Mistake. In other words, “Teach Less for More” is not “Get them saved and that’s all.”

Looking at each stage of life (which, of course, can be a gross over-simplification), they develop a short list of things people in that stage need to know. They refer to these in terms like, “6 things married couples need to know,” and “7 checkpoints for students.” A short list might give the impression their work will be quickly done. Taking the “7 Checkpoints for students” as an example, there is plenty of room to fill in years of communication, whether that communication be teaching or preaching. It is far more than a list of seven scriptures to memorize. Check the link and see for yourself.

As a church in the evangelical tradition, they clearly enunciate a high view of scripture. While they affirm that all scripture is equally inspired, they also say that not all scripture is equally important, nor are all parts are equally applicable to all age groups. This is nothing new, though I don’t hear it frequently articulated by many “bible-centered” churches.

How does this principle work itself out? They identify four steps.

Decide what to say – identify irreducible minimums. Build a curriculum around those principles. [Have you noticed that “principles” are really big these days? I can’t help but think the evangelical infatuation with “principles” is their particular manifestation of Lessing’s Ugly Ditch (i.e., real religion is found in the necessary truths of reason, not the accidental truths of history).] They recognize that people need more than this, but they emphasize a desire that people WILL definitely get some things really clearly.

Decide to say one thing at a time. Clear information on what to do with what you’re taught. Avoid information overload. [What about those of us who like to take up the biblical habit of saying more than one thing at a time? Is there no place for irony?]

Decide how to say it. Focus on how to communicate in a way that your audience can hear what you’re saying. Build a team to design communication. Spend time reducing what you’re saying to one statement. Examples: “Purity paves the way to intimacy.” “When we see as God sees, we’ll do as God says.”

Say it over and over again. Use repetition. Then say it again. It’s ok to use the same curriculum over and over again. Let people hear it in different ways – depending on their stage in life. Fight the urge to always say something new and original.

4 Questions for communicators to consider:

What do people need to know?

Why do they need to know it?

What do I want people to do?

Why do they need to do it?

If one adopts some variant of the first three practices, this fourth would seem to be the necessary communicator’s corollary. The traditional church will likely find this challenging for a number of reasons:
1. When it comes to Sunday School curriculum we tend not to look beyond the publisher. We either have a particular publisher that we’re supposed to use or simply one we’ve become accustomed to over the years. It takes a huge amount of work to know our audience, examine what they need to learn, and find or develop a curriculum that meets their needs and takes them to the desired goal.
2. Many people think of Sunday School as a holding time for kids and fellowship time for adults. While adults need fellowship and kids need some holding, if our teachers and leaders don’t have a vision of Sunday School as true discipleship training, it’s unlikely the students ever will.
3. As good Americans, we think that freedom of speech is a Christian virtue. We can’t tell our teachers what they should be teaching.
4. We preachers tend to pick preaching planning methods that may or may not be conducive to such narrow-minded teaching. We may have a string self-satisfaction in taking our people through the whole bible (either verse by verse or on a lectionary plan) or through the highlights of the whole of Christian doctrine, but they carry nothing home with them.

In the end, I find myself torn on this principle. On the one hand, it makes good sense. People seem to need a simple picture of what to do and how to do it. On the other, I’m an unreconstructed complexophile. I think complexity is more interesting and fulfilling than simplicity. Of course this might boil down to the fact that on the Myers-Briggs I’m an INTP.

Debating the Reformability of Islam

2006-02-28T22:24:00.000-06:00

If you’ve ever wondered about the “reformability” of Islam, Andy McCarthy and Mansoor Ijaz are debating over at Opinion Duel. McCarthy is taking the “no” position and Ijaz, an American Muslim, is taking the affirmative. Well, it’s sort of affirmative. Well, maybe not. Ijaz’s perspective – not surprising for a Muslim – is that Islam has no need of reform. What we need, he says, is not a better Islam but better Muslims.

McCarthy continually returns to the problem texts in the Koran (being a charitable fellow, he is staying away from the Hadith) – the ones that command killing and subjecting infidels. How, he asks, can a completely literal religion like Islam relativize these texts?

Evidently there are some within Islam – folks like bin Laden – who think relativizing these texts is exactly the problem. Instead of relegating these passages to the initial conditions of Islam (as Ijaz – and likely many other Muslims – suggests), he and his friends would like to make them current reality. In spite of dueling for several rounds, they don’t seem to be making much headway.

The question McCarthy might want to ask (not knowing him, I can’t speak for him), is something like: “What reasons, internal to Islam, might we offer bin Laden and crew to show them that their interpretation of Islam is wrong? In a similar way, what reasons, again internal to Islam, might be offered to show that your peaceful Islam is the correct interpretation?”

McCarthy is a Christian, and while rather well educated about Islam remains an outsider. By asking about reasons internal to Islam, he can put himself in a place to see how Muslims reason with each other. If the issue remains framed as a debate, McCarthy would win the debate if Ijaz fails to find some reasons internal to Islam to defeat the Wahhabist interpretation of bin Laden. Ijaz can win two ways. He can win weakly if he offers some reasons internal to Islam that are truly internal to Islam – that is, not hijacked from western modernism or liberalism – yet too weak or inconsequential to actually convince or refute bin Laden, et al.. Of course it’s possible bin Laden is a perverse fellow who refuses to be convinced by good reasons, so this would count as a win even if the position doesn’t win out in the long run. He can win strongly is he can offer some reasons under the same conditions that actually do convince bin Laden and his co-religionists. Obviously such a strong victory would go beyond the bounds of the current debate.

Learning from North Point - Summary to date

2006-02-27T16:52:00.000-06:00

Here are the posts thus far in my series, Learning from North Point:

Part 1 – Introduction
Part 2 – Mission Station vs. Church
Part 3 - Environments
Part 4 – “Using Means”
Part 5 – Clarify the Win
Part 6 – Think Steps, Not Programs
Part 7 – Narrow the Focus

I have at four more “practices of effective ministry” to comment on, and may through in some more material. If any of you have been “learning from North Point,” please share what you’ve learned.

Learning From North Point, part 7

2006-02-26T16:00:00.000-06:00

The third of North Point Community Church’s Seven Practices of Effective Ministry is “Narrow the Focus.” After we “Clarify the Win” – that is, after we identify that which we are trying to do so that we know that we have done it when we have done it, and begun to ‘Think Steps, Not Programs,” that is, after we identify the processes involved in achieving our desired telos, we will find ourselves with some pruning to do.

In previous posts in this thread, I have noted that North Point’s ministry strategy is highly teleological. They have an end in mind for their people. This complex end is described in their literature as, “Intimacy with God, Community with Insiders, and Influence with Outsiders.” They way I’ve talked about this in my own ministry context, is in terms of crossing three lines. The first line we cross as Christians is our commitment to God. When we cross this line, we become recipients of God’s grace through Jesus. This is the line some churches call “getting saved.” Though this is definitely a line worth crossing, it is not the stopping place. When they speak of this stage as “Intimacy with God,” North Point is clearly including more than a mere salvation experience, that punctiliar event that so many preachers urge us to walk the aisle for. “Intimacy” is much more than just being forgiven. It hints at an ongoing relationship of increasing depth, the kind the Psalmist alludes to in Psalm 25:14, “The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.”

The second logical step – though it is frequently the first temporally – is the commitment to a particular group of people. This is commonly called – and trivialized as – church membership. God is after more than our eternal destiny. God in concerned about our current locale. As we read in Ephesians 2, God’s goal is to break down the barriers between peoples (paradigmatically, those between Jews and Gentiles, by extension, whatever other barriers we find in our social worlds). As followers of Jesus, we find that it is our relationship with Him that defines our identity – not our race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, political affiliation, etc. In line with his aims since the call of Abraham, God has been working to call together a people who are his very own, his peculiar people. Within the common life of this people, the world can glimpse God’s reality, holiness, justice and mercy. Our commitment at this stage is always to a particular group of people – warts and all – not just to an idea of the church, or some theoretical, invisible entity.

The third commitment, which I usually call a commitment to joining God’s mission, North Point terms “Influence with outsiders.” In New Testament terms, we all start as outsiders. While one entered Israel by birth, the New Israel, the church, is composed of adopted, not natural children. God’s goal for us is more than spending eternity with him in heaven – or growing in intimacy with him here and now. God’s goal for us is more than joining a church – or growing in community with a particular set of fellow believers. God’s goal also includes incorporating us into his mission of drawing others in, of influencing others toward faith in Jesus.

North Point assumes that God’s mission includes taking people somewhere – at his point the picture become recursive as it reflects back on itself, much like Jesus’ command to “teach them to obey everything I have commanded you,” includes the teaching of obedience to that very command.

Because we fulfill God’s mission in the context of commitment to a particular group of people, we usually find that group immersed in their own history, whether a very short history, like NPCC, or a much longer history like Pittsburg FUMC. There is no escaping this history. Our choice is about what role this history plays in our ministry.

Perhaps the most common role for a history, particularly a ministry history, is to set the agenda for current activity. What we did in the past is what we do today. Do we need to know what to do next? All we need do is look at what we’ve done in the past. This is the arena in which we say things like “We’ve always done it this way,” or, “We’ve never done it that way before.” The advantage of this method is that we always know what to do. The disadvantage is that over time, there is a tendency for a disconnect to develop between what we do and why we do it. Once upon a time, churches had Sunday evening services. In the early 20th century these functioned as “seeker services,” less formal and more evangelistic events where non-Christians could come and hear the Gospel in a way that connected more with their needs and culture. After a generation or two, however, the function of the Sunday evening service changed. Now it was the “old timey service” – the service where we sang the songs of our childhood and remembered the good old days when the churches were full.

North Point’s third ministry practice, Narrow the Focus, comes into play at exactly this point. Once we have identified what we’re trying to do and the steps to make that happen in the lives of people, we will find many activities that have no connection to our mission, things we do simply because we’ve always done them. Narrow the Focus is thus a method of deciding what not to do. Narrow the Focus is not a claim that these activities are bad: they might be very good. The principle simply claims that insofar as they don’t contribute to the mission of the church, it is ok to stop doing them.

One example offered in the text is Vacation Bible School. NPCC doesn’t do VBS. Some of us – who inhabit churches where VBS is a cornerstone of summer activity – are shocked by the idea. How can a church that claims to be evangelistic fail to do VBS? VBS is our evangelism strategy – it’s how we reach the kids of the neighborhood. Or do we? The NPCC folks are not against VBS and no one hearing or reading their presentation should think that’s what they’re advocating. What they’ve pioneered is another way to reach children, a way that draws in their parents. Their method – Kidstuf – works throughout the whole school year, not just for a week in the summer. So instead of being committed to a program – VBS – NPCC has identified a telos, children growing in intimacy with God, community with insiders and influence with outsiders – and developed a step that works better in their setting with their audience.

Narrowing the Focus is one of the hardest practices for traditional, established churches, so many of which have their glory days in the past. We humans need emotional support. We thrive on good vibes. In a church that is not only not winning many to Christ, but also failing to win its own children or keep its members when they join, it can be very comforting to center on a set of activities that make us feel like we’re doing ok. Because our very existence is so often threatened, we hang on to ineffective strategies, structures and programs, long after we’ve forgotten their original purpose or they have ceased to be effective in fulfilling that purpose.

Women in the Bible

2006-02-26T14:55:00.000-06:00

One of the most helpful scholars I've seen writing on subject of women in the bible is Ben Witherington. (By "helpful" I don't mean those folks who say something like, "The bible says mean stuff about women. I don't like that it says mean stuff about women. Let's toss out those texts - or the whole thing.") In the past Witherington wrote Women in the Ministry of Jesus, Women and the Genesis of Christianity, and Women in the Earliest Churches. Now in the process of writing a commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, he advances his way of dealing with I Timothy 2:8-15, one of the classic difficult texts.

What's the difference?

2006-02-22T21:00:00.000-06:00

I spent seven hours today at the hospital with a family from my church. I just got home, and can report that all went well.

A few of us went to a late lunch while the family waited on the next doctor's visit. As one enters the cafeteria area, the first thing one sees is the large, centrally located Krispy Kreme case. Which made me wonder:

What's the difference, say, between a hospital cafeteria having a Krispy Kreme dispenser and a church having a bar?

Methodist Army of Davids?

2006-02-22T15:32:00.000-06:00

United Methodism operates as a top-down organization. Initiatives are supposed to flow out of places like New York, Nashville and the Council of Bishops. This is what “connectionalism” is often taken to mean. Initiatives flowing the other direction – from the local congregations, are often taken to be expressions of the heresy of “congregationalism.” Even renewal groups in the UMC – like the Confessing Movement – tend to assume top-down leadership. In each case, the commitment to top-down leadership seems to presuppose:

The greatest competence in each case is to be found in the official leaders

The common purpose of the organization is either not truly common, or not broadly shared enough to shape the actions of the participants

People at the lower levels in the organization cannot be trusted until they prove they are qualified to serve at higher levels

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds has a book due out in just over a week. His Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media , Big Government, and Other Goliaths, seems to offer a model of organizational leadership and change that might provide an alternative for United Methodists. [Note: I have not read the book, merely read a few reviews and Mr. Reynolds’s comments.] This alternative would presuppose:

United Methodists share a common understanding of the purpose and mission of the church.

All United Methodists have an essential contribution to make to the mission of the church – and this contribution is more than just giving money and doing what they’re told to do

The top-heavy leadership can be pared down with saved money used elsewhere.

In the midst of change United Methodism will need to decide the main locus of it’s “unitedness.” In the recent past, “unitedness” has been found in our Methods and Structures, while during this period we have had a laissez-faire approach to doctrine. The problem with this approach is that while we know what we’re supposed to do, we don’t know – or agree upon why. The longer we go with non-agreement on why we do something, the more the whats will fall by the wayside. Perhaps those of us interested in shifting the model – locating “unitedness” in doctrine and freedom in method, will find the “Army of Davids” model useful.

"Moderates" in "Religion"

2006-02-18T10:23:00.000-06:00

Mansoor Ijaz, an American-born Muslim from a Pakistani family writes about the failures of some of his fellow Muslims in the LA Times. He mentions two "truths," one directed at Muslims, one at the West.

The first truth is that most Muslim ideologues are hypocrites. What has Osama bin Laden done for the victims of the 2004 tsunami or the shattered families who lost everything in the Pakistani earthquake last year? He did not build one school, offer one loaf of bread or pay for one vaccination. And yet he, not the devout Muslim doctors from California and Iowa who repair broken limbs and lives in the snowy peaks of Kashmir, speaks the loudest for what Muslims allegedly stand for. He has succeeded in presenting himself as the defender of Islam's poor, and the Western media has taken his jihadist message all the way to the bank.

The hypocrisy only starts there. Muslims and Arabs have done pitifully little to help improve the capacity of the Palestinian people to be good neighbors to their Israeli brethren. Take the money spent by any Middle Eastern royal family at a London hotel or Geneva resort during one month and you could build enough schools and medical clinics to take care of 1,000 Palestinian children for a year. Yet rather than educate and feed Palestinian and Muslim children so they may learn to settle differences through dialogue and debate, instead of by throwing rocks and wearing bombs, the Muslim "haves" put on a few telethons to raise paltry sums for the "have nots" to alleviate the guilt over their palatial gilded cages.

It sounds to me like this Muslim has goals for the Middle East that would be worthwhile to all the inhabitants. The main thing I'd like to comment on is the second truth.

The second truth — one that the West needs to come to grips with — is that there is no such human persona as a "moderate Muslim." You either believe in the oneness of God or you don't. You either believe in the teachings of his prophet or you don't. You either learn those teachings and apply them to the circumstances of life in the country you have chosen to live in, or you shouldn't live there.

The "moderate" Muslim seems alot like some "moderate" Christians. Their beliefs tend to be more shaped by modernity than by the historic faith. Fitting in with modernity - usually that means a particular conception of naturalistic scientism and an emotivist account of morality. As a Christian who counts orthodoxy and orthopraxy as necessary and healthy for faith and life, I find that I have something in common with the "non-moderate" Muslim.

When it comes to particulars - what is it God has done, what God desires of us - we Christians and Muslims differ greatly. But we differ as Christians and Muslims, not just sharing commonalities as moderns.

Olympic Mess?

2006-02-17T11:49:00.000-06:00

Bode Miller is really unnerving some people. I was listening to talk radio this morning, as I often do, and caught the latest version of what I've been hearing snippets of for at least a week.

Bode Miller, an apparently pre-eminent skier for the U.S. Olympic team, talked in an interview about what skiing is like when he has been smoking pot. Allegedly, he was out drinking so late the night before one of his Olympic competitions it impeded his abilities on the slopes.

The host of the talk radio show was incensed that Mr. Miller doesn't take seriously the way he is representing the United States.

In an article in the Boston Herald today, Miller claims he could walk away from the sport any time. Apparently the lust for gold and fame has come and gone.

Miller makes some good points about how we have blown the importance of sport and of athletes in our society. I agree totally.

Disenfranchisement with the status quo does not excuse his behavior. If Bode Miller didn't intend to compete at the Olympics, perhaps he should have let someone else have his spot.

Would the "next best" have quenched our nationalist thirst for gold, or would we then be condemning Bode Miller for not being dedicated to his country.

Street Names and Reconciliation

2006-02-12T20:38:00.000-06:00

Late last year the local NAACP brought a request to the city council. They wanted the city to rename one of the major streets in town after Martin Luther King, Jr. The council seemed open to changing the name of a minor street somewhere in town, but spoke strongly against changing the major streets – Jefferson, Rusk, Mt. Pleasant, Quitman or Texas. Everyone spoke highly of Martin Luther King, Jr., but thought change was a bad idea. Business owners on theses streets spoke of the connection between their “identity” and the name of the street and the cost of replacing all their stationery and advertising. After several fractious meetings, the request was turned down.

Last month the NAACP decided to respond to the city fathers by asking all their members to do no shopping in Pittsburg – to go to the trouble of driving to neighboring cities.

As a lifelong nomad, I’ve never become strongly attached to street names. So in Pittsburg’s latest civil conflict I find myself without any strong opinions. I don’t care whether the street I live on or the streets by my place of work change name.

Our town – like some others in the country – has a neighborhood where most inhabitants are African American. Some might think, “If they want to name a street after Martin Luther King, Jr., let them change one of their streets.” That’s an entirely wrong, perspective, however. We are one town. However much we might think it from time to time, it’s not “us” and “them” – however we’d like to divvy it up.

Of course, there’s plenty of reason to not think we’re “us.” I’m a newcomer to town, so I don’t know all the details about the history of race relations. I’ve heard a story about how during integration, the law declared that the public swimming pool which had been “whites only” had to be integrated. Instead of doing that the folks in charge decided to fill it in with dirt. If the whites couldn’t swim by themselves, then no one would swim. Real smart move, wasn’t it?

If the rest of the city’s history has been anything like that, I can understand how some African American folks might be inclined to think they’re not wanted – that the city is against them.

Jesus came to tear down the wall dividing Jew & Gentile. That wall was mighty tall. It had been there a long time. Jesus tore it down. Why? Because his purpose was to join into one Body all who had faith in Him. We haven’t had that kind of reconciliation here in Pittsburg. We have lots of churches – almost all segregated. And too many are happy that way.

I’ve also noticed that most of the city’s leaders are church people. People who claim Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And yet we’re content to ignore Jesus’ wishes. I must be missing something.

What about the street? Again, I don’t think a street is a big deal. But in our case I can’t help but think that it’s a symbol of our greater love for “the way things have always been” than for Jesus and his agenda.

Help, please

2006-02-01T17:19:00.000-06:00

Question for the cyber-world out there: What is the difference between a deist and a theist? Don't just tell me; give me sources!

A Campus Group is "Too Christian"

2006-01-29T18:32:00.000-06:00

A Christian group on a campus in England has been suspended for acting in accord with its principles. The Birmingham Christian Union has this strange idea that membership should be limited to Christians.

The North Alabama Conference Decreases Districts

2006-01-29T14:17:00.000-06:00

The North Alabama Conference has now voted to decrease the number of districts from 12 to 8, following the same pattern as the Texas Conference, though taking it just a step further. Their Bishop, William Willimon, comments on their changes here.

New Church Director - Job Opening

2006-01-29T14:13:00.001-06:00

Here's an announcement from the Texas Annual Conference. Note: I am NOT inside the loop on this hiring process, just a concerned by-stander.

January 27, 2006

The Texas Annual Conference is seeking a Director of New Church Development to
work in the new Office of Congregational Excellence.

A complete job description follows.
Resumes and salary expectations should be sent by February 21, 2006, to Dr.
Karen S. Dorris, 3900 Lexington Blvd., Missouri City, Texas, 77459, or
kdorris@hswdistrict.org.

Director of New Church Development
Texas Annual Conference

Primary focus of the position: Director of New Church Development will work with
the Director of the Center for Congregational Excellence to resource local
churches and districts for the purpose of implementing the conference priority
of starting new churches.

Primary task: Resource districts and local churches in the task of starting new
congregations which are vibrant, growing. And reflect the population of the
Texas Annual Confrence

Results of Director's work:

+ Create a culture of new church development across the annual conference

+ In partnership with the Director of Congregational Excellence and district
superintendents develop, implement, resource and coordinate a process/system for
New Church Development.

Identify and prioritize sites for 10-15 new church/satellites each year.
Develop criteria for churches that should be encouraged to do a new church start
or satellite.
Align and coordinate resources for new church starts and satellites.
In consultation with the bishop, cabinet, director of congregational excellence,
and director of clergy excellence, identify, recruit and equip clergy to do a
new church start or satellite.
Establish the criteria and policies used in assessment to determine continuing
support and termination of a new church start or satellite.

System Results: To work with Bishop, Director Congregational Excellence, staff,
Coference Council (by whatever name it shall be called) and district
superintendents to align the system to achieve the following Conference
outcomes.
+ Increased number of trained clergy prepared to provide spiritual leadership
for a new church start or satellite.
+ Increased number of churches starting a new church or satellite.
+ Increased number of healthy, growing new churches and satellites.
+ Lowering of average age of congregation.
+ Congregational demographics better aligned with neighborhoods.

Supervision and Accountability
The Director of New Church Development will be directly responsible to
the Director of the Center for Congregational Excellence.

Leadership Qualities and Characteristics
+ A healthy relationship with God: understands, knows and celebrates the power
of the gospel of Jesus Christ to bring healing and wholeness, forgiveness and
reconciliation plus justice and peace to the lives of individuals,
congregations,and their respective communities.
+ A maturing spirituality: maintains a disciplined spiritual life, desires to
be a lifelong learner, maintains healthy boundaries and is accountable for one's
work and actions.
+ Integrity: external behavior is aligned with internal Christian beliefs and
healthy relationship with God.
+ A caring heart: a servant leader who cultivates the gifts of the spirit and
empowers others to claim their call.
+ Flexible: implements changes in personal job description and work patterns,
the work of staff or in staff personnel as the needs of the local
churches, districts and/or conference change.
+ Developed evidences and/or history of relating positively to diverse persons,
cultures, languages and economic groups.

Skills and Competencies
+ Visioning and implementation skills: the ability to identify and articulate
the vision plus the assessment and administrative skills to make the vision
become reality.
+ Procamation skills: possesses and articulates a working knowledge of
biblical faith; demonstrates the ability to communicate and apply the gospel of
Jesus Christ in culturally relevant ways to the diverse population groups of the
Texas Annual Conference
+ Relational Skills: ability to listen, develop working teams, equip persons
for ministry and manage conflict in ways that lead to healthy resolution.
+ Self Care Skills: possesses the time management skills that lead to a healthy
balance between work, relationship, and self-care responsibilities.
+ Demonstrated administrative, management, and supervisory skills.
+ Demonstrated knowledge of new church start models and necessary demographic
information, and demonstrated skills in the training and supervision of new
church start pastors and congregations.

Salary Negotiable

New Church Director - Job Opening

2006-01-29T14:13:00.000-06:00

Here's an announcement from the Texas Annual Conference. Note: I am NOT inside the loop on this hiring process, just a concerned by-stander.

January 27, 2006

The Texas Annual Conference is seeking a Director of New Church Development to
work in the new Office of Congregational Excellence.

A complete job description follows.
Resumes and salary expectations should be sent by February 21, 2006, to Dr.
Karen S. Dorris, 3900 Lexington Blvd., Missouri City, Texas, 77459, or
kdorris@hswdistrict.org.

Director of New Church Development
Texas Annual Conference

Primary focus of the position: Director of New Church Development will work with
the Director of the Center for Congregational Excellence to resource local
churches and districts for the purpose of implementing the conference priority
of starting new churches.

Primary task: Resource districts and local churches in the task of starting new
congregations which are vibrant, growing. And reflect the population of the
Texas Annual Confrence

Results of Director's work:

+ Create a culture of new church development across the annual conference

+ In partnership with the Director of Congregational Excellence and district
superintendents develop, implement, resource and coordinate a process/system for
New Church Development.

Identify and prioritize sites for 10-15 new church/satellites each year.
Develop criteria for churches that should be encouraged to do a new church start
or satellite.
Align and coordinate resources for new church starts and satellites.
In consultation with the bishop, cabinet, director of congregational excellence,
and director of clergy excellence, identify, recruit and equip clergy to do a
new church start or satellite.
Establish the criteria and policies used in assessment to determine continuing
support and termination of a new church start or satellite.

System Results: To work with Bishop, Director Congregational Excellence, staff,
Coference Council (by whatever name it shall be called) and district
superintendents to align the system to achieve the following Conference
outcomes.
+ Increased number of trained clergy prepared to provide spiritual leadership
for a new church start or satellite.
+ Increased number of churches starting a new church or satellite.
+ Increased number of healthy, growing new churches and satellites.
+ Lowering of average age of congregation.
+ Congregational demographics better aligned with neighborhoods.

Supervision and Accountability
The Director of New Church Development will be directly responsible to
the Director of the Center for Congregational Excellence.

Leadership Qualities and Characteristics
+ A healthy relationship with God: understands, knows and celebrates the power
of the gospel of Jesus Christ to bring healing and wholeness, forgiveness and
reconciliation plus justice and peace to the lives of individuals,
congregations,and their respective communities.
+ A maturing spirituality: maintains a disciplined spiritual life, desires to
be a lifelong learner, maintains healthy boundaries and is accountable for one's
work and actions.
+ Integrity: external behavior is aligned with internal Christian beliefs and
healthy relationship with God.
+ A caring heart: a servant leader who cultivates the gifts of the spirit and
empowers others to claim their call.
+ Flexible: implements changes in personal job description and work patterns,
the work of staff or in staff personnel as the needs of the local
churches, districts and/or conference change.
+ Developed evidences and/or history of relating positively to diverse persons,
cultures, languages and economic groups.

Skills and Competencies
+ Visioning and implementation skills: the ability to identify and articulate
the vision plus the assessment and administrative skills to make the vision
become reality.
+ Procamation skills: possesses and articulates a working knowledge of
biblical faith; demonstrates the ability to communicate and apply the gospel of
Jesus Christ in culturally relevant ways to the diverse population groups of the
Texas Annual Conference
+ Relational Skills: ability to listen, develop working teams, equip persons
for ministry and manage conflict in ways that lead to healthy resolution.
+ Self Care Skills: possesses the time management skills that lead to a healthy
balance between work, relationship, and self-care responsibilities.
+ Demonstrated administrative, management, and supervisory skills.
+ Demonstrated knowledge of new church start models and necessary demographic
information, and demonstrated skills in the training and supervision of new
church start pastors and congregations.

Salary Negotiable

Learning from North Point, part 6

2006-01-26T15:01:00.000-06:00

I’ve had a bit of a hiatus from this series, but here we go again.

The second of the “Seven Practices for Effective Ministry” is Think Steps, Not Programs. More than any of the other practices they mention, this one highlights the teleological focus of their ministry model. Not only are they as a church going somewhere, but they also believe their ministry exists to help people “go” somewhere, or better, a related set of “somewheres.” As they aim to help people enter into and grow in an intimate relationship with God, grow into their fellowship with the body, or enter into ministry, they always want to make it easy for people to identify and take whatever might be the “next step” to get them where they’re going.

We could understand this using a cartographic metaphor. Let’s suppose you’re in Mt. Pleasant and you want to get to Dallas. If you’re Bo Pilgrim you can take the simple step of hopping on your corporate jet and flying to Dallas. For most of us, it’s a little more complicated. We have a journey to take. To get to Dallas, we’ll first have to pass through Winfield, Mount Vernon, Sulphur Springs, Greenville, and Rockwall (and quite a few other points in between). Saying we want to go to Dallas is an illustration of the first practice: Clarify the Win. We’re saying Dallas is the place we want to end up. If we can get there – or help our people get there – we will have “won” – or accomplished that which we were trying to accomplish. If we want to get people to Dallas, we first have to get them to Winfield, then to Mount Vernon, etc.

Let’s try an example of a destination: Our youth pastor today said that he’d like to get more parental involvement in youth ministry. In this case, picking up the cartographic imagery, he’s “gotten a parent to Dallas” when that parent has become active in youth ministry. If he is “thinking steps, not programs,” what he’ll do is first identify where the parents are now, and figure out what a logical next step is, if he wants them to end up in “Dallas” – to gain a vision for involvement in youth ministry. There are some cases where simply telling people that “Dallas” is a good place to go is sufficient. My guess, however, based on years of trying to get church people involved in ministry, is that that method doesn’t work with most people. Instead, we have to get them to Winfield first. Our “thinking steps” then, will lead us to identify what counts as “Winfield” in relation to where they now stand and the objective of involvement in ministry.

But how are we traveling? Are we walking? Driving? Catching the bus? Or will Scotty just beam us up?

It’s possible that some might contest the whole teleological view of ministry. We’ve done away with teleology in so many areas of our lives; another won’t be a big deal. I’m convinced, however, that we are attempting to accomplish something in the lives of people through our ministry. Paul spoke about “presenting everyone perfect in Christ.” Obviously Paul didn’t think this was a solo project on his part, or a result of the merely human effort he and his colleagues exerted. But he did sense a responsibility to obey God to make a difference in the lives of people. He also sensed that his goal was not some telos (end) in the people themselves, but an end of conformity to Christ.

The advantage of the teleological approach, is you have somewhere to go and (perhaps) can know when you get there.

The disadvantage of the teleological approach is that you have somewhere to go, can fail to get there, and know that you’ve failed to get there. That can be mighty depressing. If we’re operating on the basis of program – mere activity – we can feel pretty good about ourselves even if we never get anywhere.

For myself, I prefer going somewhere.

Can the UMC learn a lesson from a Women's Basketball program?

2006-01-24T07:43:00.000-06:00

Days after registering her mind-boggling 900th win as a college coach, Pat Summitt faced not just defeat, but a crushing defeat. The #1 ranked Lady Vols fell to the #2 Duke Blue Devils 75-53. To hear Summitt talk, it wasn't that close.

But I think the United Methodist Church could stand to learn something from this woman and the program she has built. Reacting to the loss, Summitt said, "Losing's one thing, losing the way we lost is something quite different. It's unacceptable in this program. So we will learn from it."

The Conference of which I am a clergy member, the Central Texas Conference, boasts some thirty-plus years of consecutive numerical membership growth. However, we have, for at least that long, been decreasing as a percentage of the population within our bounds.

Put the latter way, we should find this unacceptable and learn from it. Generally, however, we have patted ourselves on the back that we "aren't like all those Conferences that have been losing membership." (notice the siimlarity to that story in Luke where someone thanks God that he isn't like someone else?)

Or is numerical gain and societal loss acceptable.

Pat Summitt for Bishop in the SouthCentral Jurisdiction in '08!

Reformability of Islam?

2006-01-23T07:52:00.000-06:00

Earlier in the month Hugh Hewitt interviewed Father Joseph Fessio on the topic of what Pope Benedict XVI has said about Islam. Here's what Fessio said:

Well, the thesis that was proposed by this scholar was that Islam can enter into the modern world if the Koran is reinterpreted by taking the specific legislation, and going back to the principles, and then adapting it to our times, especially with the dignity that we ascribe to women, which has come through Christianity, of course. And immediately, the Holy Father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said well, there's a fundamental problem with that, because he said in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism's completely different, that God has worked through His creatures. And so, it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark. He's used His human creatures, and inspired them to speak His word to the world, and therefore by establishing a Church in which he gives authority to His followers to carry on the tradition and interpret it, there's an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations. I was...I mean, Hugh, I wish I could say it as clearly and as beautifully as he did, but that's why he's Pope and I'm not, okay? That's one of the reasons. One of others, but his seeing that distinction when the Koran, which is seen as something dropped out of Heaven, which cannot be adapted or applied, even, and the Bible, which is a word of God that comes through a human community, it was stunning.

Spengler, at Asia Times notes that the Pope's position "refute[s] the fundamental premise of US policy" [i.e., that Islam is capable of reform and need not be violent toward outsiders]. Today at Townhall, Diana West comments on how little anyone has taken up what the pope said.

My take on the reformability of Islam vis-a-vis Fessio's report of the pope's comments, is that while Islam may not have reforming logic built into its tradition - and may have non-reforming logic at its core, change in tradition is driven by more than internal logic. As a tradition interacts with other traditions (something Islam has been doing from Day 1 - Mohammed was not well-received in Mecca when he began), opportunities for change come about.

Alasdair MacIntyre's three works After Virtue, Whose Justice? Which Rationality and Three Rival Verions of Moral Enquiry have developed the notion of a tradition as

[A]n argument extended through time in which certain fundamental agreements are defined and redefined in terms of two kinds of conflict: those with critics and enemies external to the tradition who reject all or at least key parts of those fundamental agreements, and those internal, interpretative debates through which the meaning and rationale of the fundamental agreements come to be expressed and by whose progress a tradition is constituted.

A wide variety of scholars (including myself) have used this concept of a "tradition" in our effort to defend Christianity against the acids of modernity. Interestingly, Muslim scholars interested in reform are also turning to MacIntyre. One example is an extended review of Whose Justice? Which Rationality? at the al-Islam website. A different kind of use is found in Samira Haj's essay on Muhammad ibn 'Abdul Wahhab [sign-in codes required] (we Westerners know him as the founder of the strict sect of Islam defended by Osama bin Laden and the traditionalists in Saudi Arabia). Clearly there are - and have been at least since the death of Mohammed - "interpretive debates" going on within Islam. There have also always been external conflicts - and not merely the warlike version of jihad we hear so much about. Therefore the conditions certainly exist for change to happen within Islam - even, I would suggest, change that can be seen by outsiders as "reform."

Do we now see any signs of reform? As a non-Muslim, the best I can go on is my reading and my interaction with individual Muslims. A few years ago when I was living in Houston, I had a time of dialogue with some Muslims. They came to my Sunday School class and spoke about Islam and I visited their Mosque and talked about Christianity. They are participants in the Islamic sub-tradition led by Fethullah Gulen. If we in the West are looking for a "reformed" version of Islam, Gulen's certainly fits the bill.

Is Gulen faithful to the internal logic of Islam? He and his followers certainly think he is. I'd guess that folks like Presdident Ahmadinejad, OBL, & Moqtada Al Sadr might not think so, but as the pope notes - Islam has no central authority. With no central authority - and a widely divergent history of interpretation - a deductive approach to the "internal logic of Islam" seems to be a capitulation to the loudest speakers. Instead, the variety we see - the interpretive debates internal to the Muslim community - suggests that an inductive approach - attentive to what we actually see in variants of Islam - is the best approach for identifying the "internal logic of Islam." If we use the inductive approach, the opportunity for reform is as large as Muslims want it to be.

QB gets it right

2006-01-18T10:36:00.000-06:00

Big Ben gets it. In an article for espn.com, Michael Smith writes about the relationship that has developed between Jerome Bettis and Ben Roethlisberger.

Bettis, 10 years Ben's senior, has become a mentor for the young quarterback. Of Bettis Roethlisberger says, There's many times, and I know this sounds crazy, people wear those bracelets that say, 'What Would Jesus Do?' There's times when I think, 'How would Jerome handle this?'"

It doesn't sound crazy at all, Ben; that's how the world works. We all need to have people after whom we can model our lives. While I don't know Jerome Bettis well, it seems you've chosen well.

This week I will be preaching on Thomas. Yes, for some of you, that is "doubting" Thomas. Jesus word's to Thomas were "Jesus said, "So, you believe because you've seen with your own eyes. Even better blessings are in store for those who believe without seeing."(John 20:29, The Message)

I contend one of the main things John intends to convey in that passage is that most of us don't get to see Jesus himself, but will have to rely on what we can gain from other people.

"You may be the only picture of Jesus some ever see," they say. We all need someone whose example we can follow; someone at least two steps ahead of us who can ehlp us keep going. Ben Roethlisberger gets it.

Texas Conference Appointments

2006-01-17T07:46:00.000-06:00

For the past several years (as far back as I can remember, that is), if you wanted to know which preachers were moving where you either had to get in the gossip line or wait until close to Annual Conference when they were announced.

That's why I was surprised when I went to the Conference website today. The front page story: "Bishop Announces Key Appointments." I suppose these appointments are being announced to help build momentum for the big changes coming our way. With the appointments of Karen Dorris and Rich Goodrich to Conference staff positions, it looks like at least 4 of the current 12 District Superintendents are accounted for (if you haven't been following Texas Conference events, we're realigning from 12 districts to 9 - and won't need 12 DSs), since Howdy Dawson (my DS in Texarkana) is retiring, and I believe Keith Whitaker (Lufkin District) has served for the period allowed by the Discipline.

I'm also hoping that this early announcement is a sign of greater transparency in the Annual Conference. While it is good to keep some things secret, we seem to have gone overboard. Keep praying for our progress in becoming the Annual Conference God wants us to be.

UPDATE: Bishop Will Willimon blogs about realigning districts in his North Alabama Conference. Clearly the Texas Conference isn't the only one making changes to reach more people and build stronger churches.

Future Job Opportunities

2006-01-12T09:13:00.000-06:00

U.S. News and World Report, quoted at Yahoo, has this to say about entering the clergy as a great job opportunity:

Want the satisfaction of doing good? You'll routinely play a significant role in major life events such as birth, marriage, crisis, and death. Plus this career offers status, normally modest work hours, and often good salaries. You needn't necessarily have unquestioned faith in God. I've spoken with a number of clergy who have deep questions about the nature and even existence of a Supreme Being.

The best thing about it is you don't have to believe much of anything and get paid to be nice! I can't believe they forget to mention pastors only work one day a week!

C.H. Spurgeon said, "If there's anything else you can do, don't preach."

Pastoring is not just another "helping professions." Though we deal with the intellectual elements of the faith, the thing we need most is a deep trust in God. When churches undermine what you do and work their best to run you off (no - this is not a description of my current church, but I have been there before and seen many other pastors in similar places), or, when you live in a culture that at best privatizes and at worst persecutes your living out your faith, you stop thinking about it as a "good job."

Though it is a job (I don't sit around and do nothing), it's about a call from God, not about looking for good job opportunities.

Learning from North Point, part 5

2006-01-11T15:32:00.000-06:00

North Point’s first “Practice for Effective Ministry” is to Clarify the Win. As sports fans, they think of sports metaphors, in this case their primary imagery comes from baseball. In baseball it’s easy to tell if you’re winning: Do you have more runs than the other team? While recognizing that the church is a more complex enterprise than a sport, they remain convinced that being able to discern a win is essential to making progress (to winning, we might say).

If we don’t like the idea of “winning” at church, how can restate the principle? How about this: When we set out to do something, how do we know that we have accomplished the thing we set out to do? Put this way, two questions will constantly come to mind: What are we trying to do? How are we going to do it?

Perhaps we are disinclined to want to apply this much analysis to what we do in church. After all, church is all about faith and love. On the other hand, when Scripture talks about loving God, it includes loving God with “all our mind.” Could it be that part of loving God with our minds includes thinking about what we’re doing & how we do it?

In the typical traditional church, one decides what to do by looking at what one has always done. If we follow that scheme, then a “win” is simply doing what we’ve done in the past. From what I see, especially in the area of Christian education, that method doesn’t work and its not working is having disastrous consequences for the church.

I am intentional in speaking of Christian education, not worship. In worship our aim is to honor God. I suppose that one could have a “win” in worship, but God is the only one in a position to identify the “win.” Of course if instead of worship we mean a “worship service,” in which our object is not the honoring of God but the education of the people, that’s a different matter. Since my preaching is communication directed at people, it is conceivable that one could define a “win” in preaching, though in my experience some of my “non-wins” have been used by God to bless people.

In Christian education, however, our goal is to influence people. We can often identify whether any given attempt at influence has worked. Again, this is difficult since people are complex and the notion of influence itself is complex. [I’m sure the NPCC people would hate me. They like to make everything simple and everywhere I look I see complexity.] People don’t always let on that they’re being influenced, sometimes because they’re hiding it, sometimes because they don’t yet have the self-understanding or vocabulary to discern it.

Do you get the idea why so many preachers and churches settle for measuring numbers? It’s so much simpler that way!

In spite of the complexity, we need to “clarify the win” for two reasons. The first reason is morale. Ministry is hard work. The biggest reward for ministry is seeing lives changed. If what we’re doing is not, as far as we can tell, leading to changed lives, then we might think we need to change course. For example, if my youth ministry is centered on teaching kids to juggle in hopes they might learn more about Jesus, I might be able to figure out whether I’m “winning” or not. If no kids are involved in juggling for Christ, I’m not winning. If the Jugglers for Christ are not coming to faith and growing in it, I’m not winning. If “coming to Christ” and “growing in Him” are too complex and mysterious to discern, and in the majority of cases cannot be humanly discerned at all, then I’ll likely be depressed all the time.

A second reason to “clarify the win” is that the “wins” we’re clarifying are truly good for the people involved and for the church as a whole. If I continually pour my heart into an after-school ministry with an objective of helping children come to Jesus, and all they do is run wild and try to kill each other, I am missing out on the fulfillment of an important objective. Surely I will need to find some other activity to use my resources (time, money, personnel) on to achieve my purposes. Perhaps we can see this as the rough equivalent of what Jesus described as “shaking the dust off our feet.” We each have a finite amount of resources. We cannot do everything. As good stewards it seems wise to identify (1) what we ought to do, and, (2) how we ought to do it, to (3) achieve our mission.

Jesus said, “Make disciples of all nations.” If all around us churches are shrinking – in both membership and attendance – while the surrounding population is growing, then surely our making of disciples is less than optimal. “We’re going for quality, not quantity,” some might say. Demeaning quantity sounds pretty spiritual – and we all want quality. But is a faith that fails to reproduce itself best described as “quality” or “sterility?” The discipleship Jesus instigated was more than an internal change; it impelled people outward in to a dangerous world. Those early disciples seemed rather interested in quantity also. Check out the numbers in Book of Acts sometime. “3000 were added to the church…” “People were added daily….” These weren’t numbers for numbers’ sake – they were counting actual people becoming followers of Jesus. As far as I can tell, the growth of the church in those days wasn’t just something the disciples thought up on their own. It was Spirit-inspired from beginning to end

I see here the practice “clarifying the win” – whether we call it that or the more verbose and less picturesque (though perhaps less offensive to our sensibilities), “figuring out whether we have actually done the thing we set out to do” – is a rational process, though not entirely rational. We’ll begin in prayer, end in prayer, and bathe the whole enterprise in prayer. We’ll recognize that in our actions to influence people toward Christ we’ll be partnering with God. His agency is primary, ours secondary. In some places being secondary might not count for much, but because God loves us enough to invite us to join in what He’s doing, our action can make an eternal difference in someone’s life.

Maybe it is just me....

2006-01-10T11:36:00.000-06:00

If I am in my car in the evening, I often listen to Tony Snow on the radio. Last night was just such a night. Like many other "conservative" talk radio shows, the topic was the "spying on us" scandal that has pervaded the news lately. Mr. Snow said something to the effect that he had no problem with the President doing whatever he had to do to protect us from Terror.

Really?

I find it ironic that alleged "conservatives" are perfectly willing to cede President Bush free reign on domestic eavesdropping in the name of national security. It is ironic because whenever a "liberal" brings up the slightest infringement on, say, gun control, there is a cacophonous cry from talk radio throwing up Ben Franklin's "Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither"

Or is it okay to sacrifice freedom when "your guy" is in the White House?

Learning from North Point, part 4

2006-01-09T11:36:00.000-06:00

North Point and many other prominent Christians (John Maxwell, Bill Hybels, etc.) look to the secular world to learn about leadership. They find examples in business, politics and the military. The North Point book, 7 Practices of Effective Ministry, is rooted in a baseball metaphor. The thought is that the church is organization, and that although it may be different from other organizations in numerous ways, the likeness is sufficient for us to find models of organization and organizational leadership in effective organizations around us. If this thought it wrong, we might as well toss the book and move on to other things. I do recognize some challenges, however.

The biggest is whether we can do this and remain Christian? Or is it a defeat for the church, evidence that we’ve succumbed to the secular world? [If you want the short answer, skip to the final paragraph] Perhaps, some might suggest, we ought to just leave the particulars up to God. After all, the Christian faith is about mysteries – and mysteries cannot be understood, only experienced.

In the late 18th century William Carey, an English Baptist, observed that many people around the world had no way of hearing the good news of Jesus. At the same time he observed that Jesus had commanded the disciples to “make disciples of all nations.” Nothing controversial there – or so we think. In Carey’s day, however, there was a strong conviction that if God wanted the “heathen” to come to faith He’d do it Himself. It was presumptuous to think humans could have a role in such a work. Perhaps the first Apostles had such a command, but we today – especially not a lowly shoemaker like Carey – are not apostles. Responding to such non-missional attitudes, Carey wrote a short booklet, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.

The idiom of “using means” isn’t commonly used today. In the history of missions that follow, “using means” amounted to (a) identifying the need, (b) thinking about how to meet it, and (c) doing something about it. In Carey’s case, he observed people in India who did not know about Jesus. Consulting the New Testament model of Paul’s missionary journeys, Carey decided that the way to meet this need would be for someone to go to India and share the gospel with the people. Acting on this theory, Carey moved his family to India and spent his life translating the bible and presenting the gospel to the people of India.

Most churches today at least tacitly accept Carey’s argument. They send missionaries to the ends of the earth as a reasoned act of obedience to Jesus’ command to make disciples. Of course it might be argued that this is just an expression of what Max Weber called the “routinization of charisma,” the rationalizing of an enterprise after the founder leaves the scene. Jesus has left the scene, his (charismatic) apostles are also long gone. We don’t have the Spirit the same we they did, so we need to depend on “using means” to accomplish what they did through “charisma” alone.

In what follows, I’m going to try to make a case for learning from non-church organizations and leaders. My case (much abbreviated) will have two prongs, one defensive the other offensive.

Is it a defeat for the church to look to the secular world to learn leadership? I think it can be, but it need not be. First, I confess that in my preaching and teaching I maintain a conviction that the Fall and the sin that comes from it are very real. Sin has infected every dimension of our lives. Because of sin we experience four broken relationships that encompass all of life. Sin alienates us from God, from each other, from ourselves and from Creation. All humans experience this brokenness in variety of ways. Because sin and its effects pervade all of life, this brokenness infiltrates not only our lives, but also our institutions, ranging from the family to the business to the State. As I read church history I even notice that the church – God’s own people – has, as an organization, incorporated this brokenness into its very life.

Second, learning from the world around us is nothing new for Christians. Very early on the church looked to Caesar and his empire as they organized the church. After the church was legalized they looked to Caesar’s methods of hierarchy and command and control and often brought them wholesale into the church. Many of our churches are still based on that top-down management style of so-called benevolent paternalism that Caesar claimed. So in the first case, the choice appears not to be whether we learn from the world but whether we continue learning from the world or simply baptize what our forebears in the faith learned centuries ago as the true organizational principles. We look at the Amish and wonder why they choose 17th century technology as the proper model. We rarely look at ourselves and wonder why 4th or 12th or 18th century organizational styles and leadership practices are the way to go. [After all, many still think the best musical styles for Christians originated centuries ago, and that anything devised since is a perversion. Others think that if Latin was good enough for a millennium of church life, it’s still good enough for today. I’ve even heard ignorant folk suggest that since the KJV was good enough for Jesus, surely it’s good enough for us.] Perhaps in each case of learning fro the world the church is simply applying the Augustinian principle of “plundering the Egyptians.”

Surely we can make mistakes. We don’t have to look far in church history to find occasions when the church copied a destructive model or learned a leadership style that deviated from the teachings of Jesus. When we spend more effort looking at the world than looking at Jesus, we will likely err.

Might it be that we get our ends (the “What”) from Jesus and the means (the “Hows”) from the world? Picking up the example from Carey and his recovery of the Great Commission, we might say that the “What” – “Make Disciples of all nations” – is provided by Jesus. In fact, the world would really rather we simply mind our own business and not both making disciples. Be tolerant, live and let live, they tell us. We could then adapt some means (methods) – some “Hows” – from the world. These might include Sunday school classes, bible translations, Evangelistic meetings, books and tracts, TV and radio broadcasts, material inducement (bribes), bait and switch (“Having problems in life? Want to take care of all your problems and become prosperous along the way? Come join our church!”), or force (“If you become a follower of Jesus we won’t kill you/raise your taxes, etc.”).

Well maybe that strategy doesn’t work so well after all. While the first few methods seem fairly harmless, the latter strike us as antithetical to the character of Jesus. So while we may legitimately (so it appears) take some methods from the world, we cannot do so indiscriminately. At the same time, I believe that not only will the ends we pursue be drawn from Jesus, but also the foundational methods we rely on to achieve them. The first of these methods is fairly easily understood but strongly resists the routinizing we prefer in our search for principles. Jesus’ first method of pursuing his ends was to seek the Father and then obey him. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? A second method, however, one that seems to have resulted from the first is suffering. Through obedience to the Father his pursuit of our salvation led to his death on the cross. Over and over again throughout scripture – from Jesus’ own “Take up your cross and follow me” – the message is that the suffering of the righteous is, strangely enough, God’s way of winning the world.

How does this help us in our quest to discern first, if we can learn from the world, and, secondly, how we can learn from it? Here’s a suggestion. Whatever we adopt from the world must fit within the story of Jesus, a story of the Son of God motivated by love, who came to live as one of us, listened to and obeyed the Father at every turn, and suffered and died for the sins of the world. If what we learn fits with that story, then were doing ok. It maybe that the church will, on occasion, adopt a practice that seems to fit the story of Jesus. Later, however, as the church does what it has learned from the world, it comes to be seen that the method doesn’t fit with the way of Jesus. At that point the church – if healthy (listening and obeying, that is) – will repent and drop the method. I realize this is vastly oversimplified. Not only do we have methods, but we have methods of doing methods ad infinitum. At no time will the church be able to sit back and relax, thinking its work of discernment is done.

Consideration of the story of Jesus leads to the final defensive point I’ll make and also to my offensive case. Remember my claim that sin causes brokenness in four kinds of relationships? Likewise, the salvation Jesus brings offers healing and deliverance in each of these areas. Jesus died and rose not merely so I could have a renewed and restored relationship with God, but also such relationships with others, myself and all of creation. Because salvation – like sin – goes beyond the individual, the sacred-secular dichotomy is not as absolute as we sometimes think. Partly because some Christians work in the world (in my church the vast majority of members are employed outside the church), Christians have infiltrated the secular. While on occasion this might work to the detriment of the Christian, surely sometimes it works to the benefit of the secular – of the organizations in which they find themselves. It is also possible that on occasion a non-Christian may – knowingly or unknowingly – be attracted to Jesus and learn from Him. His ways do, after all, depict how life is best to be lived. So when we learn from the world, we are not learning from institutions that are completely free of grace or the work of God.

At the least, I hope my defensive case has inclined you to believe that learning from the world (or, more accurately, from non-church institutions) need not be an evil. What about the positive case? Just because it need not be bad, ought we to do it? My offensive case will be much briefer.

Let’s pick up the story of Jesus again, this time looking backwards to the beginning – the very beginning. In the beginning God created some humans. He put them in a perfect environment and appointed them stewards over creation. This work – this ruling over creation – is a significant aspect, I believe, of their being created in God’s image. As beings created in the image of God, humans were made with creativity. God delighted not only in creating things, but in creating mini-creators. Though our powers are immensely less than God’s – no creation ex nihilo for us – our creativity is still a significant part of us. The advent of sin did not remove our creativity but warped it, leading us to habitually use it in harmful and destructive ways. We don’t have to look far – either in history or in the world around us – to see the death and destruction wrought by human creativity. This creativity is creativity not submitted to God and his purposes. But need it be that way?

John Wesley claimed that because of the Atonement – the work of Jesus – we do not live in a state of nature, a state devoid of grace. Because of God’s Prevenient G race not all human creativity echoes death. Some, in fact, hauntingly points us to God. Even more, as people turn to Jesus and begin to experience his salvation, their creative powers are employed in new ways, ways directly subservient to God. I propose that our learning of leadership fits within these parameters. As we “use means” in the leadership of our churches – that is (a) identify problems; (b) think of solutions; (c) pursue those solutions – we are using our God-given and Jesus-redeemed creativity. While God can create from nothing, we can’t we can only use the materials we find at hand, in this case, non-church organizational practices. As a sculptor fashions a statue from a piece of marble, we fashion a practice from the materials we find in the world around us. Instead of chisels and hammers we use prayer, study, fasting, and other spiritual disciplines, but it is creativity nonetheless.

So – may we learn from the world? Yes – but it’s hard work to do it well. But most things in life that are worth while are that way.

Paul's First Online Movie

2006-01-08T22:12:00.000-06:00

For those who don't know, my son Paul is taking video tech at high school this year. He doesn't limit his creativity to what he does at school. His first online movie is The Curse of the Living Dead. It's pretty large (5 mb) so you'll either need a broadband connection or lots of patience. If you like the movie send him some comments at heyduckbandit08 "at" yahoo "dot" com. (Replace the "at" & the "dot" with the appropriate symbols.)

Sunday Sermon - Attitude

2006-01-08T21:56:00.000-06:00

I'm starting a series on Virtues & Vices. Today I spoke about Attitude from Colossians 3:17. You can listen here.

A Brief comment for Future Development

2006-01-06T12:21:00.000-06:00

Those who speak of "The State" as univocal are mistaken. Not only is "The State" - or even "The Modern State" an entity that changes through time, it is also an entity that changes from place to place.

One of the things that determines the nature of "The State" is the existence, nature and health of the intermediate social institutions that stand between them and the individuals of the society. Though modernity is, in theory, atomistic and individualistic, this is only in theory. We see the outworkings of that theory in American life, but in spite of the theory intermediate institutions (the family, churches, clubs, etc.) continue to exist.

Learning from North Point, part 3

2006-01-05T15:31:00.000-06:00

The next thing I want to bring up can best be approach by considering again NPCC’s mission statement: “The mission of North Point is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. We accomplish this by creating irresistible environments led by skilled staff and volunteers”

The unique part of this mission statement, and a feature that permeates everything they do is the focus on “environments.” I’ll have more to say about them later. The goal to “lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ” is quite ordinary. It is the function equivalent of the United Methodist mission statement – “To make disciples of Jesus Christ, “ – and other mega-churches (I think of Willow Creek’s mission: “To turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ.”). In the past when I’ve concocted mission statements for churches I’ve always used some variant of the Great Commission, just like these other folks. Sure seems like the biblical approach, doesn’t it? But is it enough? Over the past couple of years I’ve started to think that it’s not.

The first problem, is that it’s highly individualistic. We’re about reaching individuals and helping them grow in Christ. Surely we are individuals, and surely we individuals need to enter a growing relationship with Jesus, but what about our other relationships?

The second thing I wonder about is the tendency to instrumentalize everything. That is, for every X that we do, we expect some Y to happen. We’re told that we need to have goals. Furthermore, we’re told that these goals need to be measurable. We can measure the number of people in our “environments.” But can we measure everything else? Can we measure “relationship?” I’m just not convinced that we can quantify and measure everything God wants us to do.

In spite of these reservations I’m still attracted to what NPCC and others are doing and to the making of mission statements. Too often in our traditional churches our de facto mission statements (regardless of what we put on the letterhead) is some variant of, “Our mission is to do what we’ve always done and to keep all the members happy.” I am very much attracted to the notion of asking WHY we do what we do. Now if we start asking WHY, we’ll soon find out that some of the things we’re doing aren’t done for any discernible reason and that others that we think we’re doing to accomplish X, really either accomplish Y or do absolutely nothing but expend money and get people tired.

We need to learn from NPCC that a mission needs to be clearly articulated, broadly communicated, commonly shared and consistently followed. Having a real mission statement is serious business because not only does the statement tell us what we do, it also tells us what we don’t do. When that kind of thinking comes into the traditional church where each of the “things we’ve always done” has its own constituency, change will be required. And we all know that change brings pain. The normal function of pain is to tell us to stop doing what we’re doing. You put your hand on the stovetop. You feel heat. You pull your hand off so you won’t get burned.

But there’s also a saying, “No pain, no gain.” What’s the difference? In the latter situation we have to go beyond the instinctual level and be able to identify some Good Thing that will not happen unless we work through the pain. We will never be educated unless we go through the pain of homework and long hours (and years) of study and work. We will never get a paycheck unless we go through the pain of getting up in the morning and going to work. We will never reach people who are not now followers of Christ unless we go through the pain of spending time with them, learning their “language” and how to express the Gospel in ways they understand, and sacrificing our comfort for their sake.

My guess is that our mission is something like, “Together we will exhibit the reality of the Kingdom of God so that people will be attracted to Jesus.” There is a measure of the quantifiable there. We do count people. Have you ever seen the Home Alone movies? Those are stories about a family that doesn’t count well and ends up leaving a person (their young son) out. We count because we don’t want to leave people out.

There’s also an element of the impossible in this conception of our mission. How do we exhibit the Kingdom of God? Well, it’s mostly by letting the Holy Spirit live in us and through us. As we together live a life that is unintelligible apart from the reality of God, the world will have reason to ask questions. The world understands excellence. The world understands growth. The world understands growing market share. The world understands proselytizing. The world doesn’t understand unconditional love and radical trust in and obedience to God. There’s just too much self-denial involved.

Though the idea of “exhibiting the Kingdom of God” isn’t quantifiable, we do need some way of identifying whether we’re actually doing it or not. More on that in future posts.

Learning from North Point, part 2

2006-01-05T09:34:00.000-06:00

Learning from North Point part 2

North Point Community Church was one of the churches that generated publicity last month by not “having church” on Christmas day. They have at least three reasons for this position, two explicit, the other implicit.

First, they want to “create margin” in the lives of their people. Here’s what they say in The 7 Practices of Effective Ministry:

“Another example of calendaring margin is the unheard-of decision by our elders to cancel services on the Sunday following Christmas [so 2005 when Christmas fell n a Sunday is not the issue]. On that Sunday we simply shut down. We do this for two reasons: first, as a thank-you to the thousands of volunteers it takes to run a Sunday morning here; and second, to protect the quality of our product. So many of our volunteers travel on that weekend that we find it difficult to maintain the level of excellence to which we are accustomed. But by scheduling this closure and announcing it to everyone, we are able to take a potentially negative situation and turn it into a positive one.” (p. 177)

Ok, they provide their first two reasons there – a relief to their workers (their normal Sunday morning ministry requires over 1500 people), and a desire to maintain “the quality of our [their] product.” What is that product? It’s their Sunday morning Foyer environment. They want the people to come to be drawn to Christ, and they’re convinced quality will bring more people (or drive away fewer) than a slip-shod product. Here’s where the third and implicit reason for closing Christmas day comes in. Sunday morning is not about what the traditional church thinks of as church. It’s about evangelism – reaching people for Christ. How many of our traditional, liturgically correct churches schedule our evangelistic events, our seeker services on days our culture identifies as “family time holidays?”

But how many of our traditional, liturgically correct churches schedule any evangelistic or seeker events? How many of us exert huge effort to create and offer environments where non-church people can come and hear the message of Jesus focused on their hearing and learning style – instead of the hearing and learning styles of the insiders? As Mike Slaughter of Ginghamsburg UMC in Ohio has said, [I paraphrase] “I want to overcome all the barriers in communicating the gospel so that the people know they are offended – by the gospel itself and not by my style.” That seems to be what NPCC is about.

Therefore we need to nuance our claim that NPCC did not “have church” on Christmas day. If by “have church” we mean a event whose primary purpose is to unite all the members of the church worshiping God, then no, they didn’t “have church.” But they don’t “have church” any other Sunday either. NPCC is not organized to “have church” like our traditional churches. They’re a mission outpost, a missionary station in the middle of secular culture. They seem to be thinking along the lines of English missionary C.T. Studd, “Some want to live within the sound of a church or chapel bell, but I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”

So we traditional churches are “doing church” while NPCC (and some other groups) are “doing evangelism.” Which is more biblical? I have to think that having a desire to reach people for Christ as part of your lifeblood is sure biblical. The Book of Acts tells us of the early churches who were “adding to their number daily.” What? Not only at the invitation time on Sunday? It sure looks like NPCC has something we need. .” In their focus on evangelism the NPCC folks seem a lot more like the early Methodists than our current batch. Of course the early Methodists didn’t constitute a church, but more of what we today would call a “Parachurch” organization. John Wesley remained a member of the Church of England all his days. So maybe, although the name of the organization is North Point Community Church it’s not really a church after all.

Or then again, we might need to rethink our definition of church.

More Methodist Change

2006-01-05T08:52:00.000-06:00

It looks like the Texas Conference isn't the only one doing some major change. Bishop Will Willimon tells a little of the change they're instigating in North Alabama, including, like Texas, a reduction in the number of districts. I wonder, though, how this kind of "big change" from above will influence local congregations.

Learning from North Point, part 1

2006-01-04T16:56:00.000-06:00

Back in 2001 I flew to Atlanta for John Maxwell’s Catalyst Conference, held at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta. I didn’t know much about NPCC before I arrived, but found my experience there quite impressive. Here’s a short list of what impressed me:

Clean Restrooms. It sounds like a minor detail but when a church can maintain clean restrooms while hosting a conference with several thousand people that tells me something about the commitment level of their people. The whole facility was staffed continuously while we were there, not only maintaining cleanliness, but to be available to help out in any way needed. Clearly this was a high commitment church.

The children’s ministry. NPCC is one of those churches that segregates by age. (I’ll comment on that practice elsewhere.) Their Sunday morning children’s ministry is a high energy ministry to children and parents. Parents are not allowed to drop off their children: they must attend with them. This is a great idea – and another sign of a high commitment church. (It also looks like it’d be tough to transfer what they do to a small church in a small town.)

The simplicity of their model of ministry. Their mission statement – “The mission of North Point is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. We accomplish this by creating irresistible environments led by skilled staff and volunteers” – doesn’t look like anything special. It’s the way they envision it that drew me in. Using the metaphor of a home (our primary “environment” – a key concept in NPCC thinking), they talk about moving from the “Foyer” to the “Living Room” to the “Kitchen.”

Of the Foyer they say: “It’s the place in your home that serves as the welcome area for guests and new friends. It’s the first step, and it’s often your only chance to make your guests feel comfortable enough to return.” They have Foyer-type environments for each level of their ministry: adults (the Sunday morning service), children (Kidstuf), youth (Rush Hour) and singles (7:22). Anonymity is possible in the Foyer environment – it’s designed for checking things out.

Beyond the Foyer is the Living Room. “When guests arrive and are welcomed into your home, you invite them into the living room. Everyone finds a comfortable place to sit, and the interaction begins. At North Point Community Church, this is where you connect with people like yourself. Smaller and more interactive than the foyer environment, these gatherings offer genuine opportunity to begin friendships...just like the living room in your home.” People start interacting face to face in the Living Room and begin to build trust as they grow with God. Again, there are Living Room environments for each age group.

Finally, at the greatest level of intimacy is the Kitchen. “This is where lasting friendships are made. And that’s the kind of environment we are striving for in our small groups. Small groups are where people meet regularly for Bible study and prayer, and commit to accountability, friendship and support. They are the safe place to open your heart, share your life, and ask the tough questions.” In these small group environments, again there are separate groups for different age levels, each person is able to grow in their intimacy with God and find the support they need to live as faithful followers of Jesus.

Their success in reaching people. Their objective is to reach unchurched people, not just to shuffle sheep. In their short time of existence (about 10 years) they’ve clearly done that.

NPCC puts on several conferences a year (check their site for details). They also put out a variety of resources from those who want to learn about how they do what they do. They’ve put out 7 Practices of Effective Ministry, a book that explores the practices that shape what they do. If you’d like to find out what they have to say, the simplest way is to go to their site and download the mp3 version of the discussion. I find the material quite useful – and challenging at the same time. In several future posts I will discuss my take on what they have to say and how we might apply it in our old small town church.

SCANDAL!

2006-01-04T11:42:00.000-06:00

Sit down and try to imagine this: network television is about to misrepresent the Christian faith!

I know it is hard to believe, but let it sink in for a moment. As if many of our denominations are not scandal and corruption riden enough, now NBC is piling on with the new series "The Book of Daniel."

The American Family Association is so concerned they want us to email NBC and contact our local affiliates. The AFA would like us all to join them in telling NBC that this show is not what we consider a favorable presentation of Jesus or the Christian faith.

While I see their (the AFA's) point, and am deeply saddened by such a portrayal, I am even more saddened by the truth that we as an allegedly Christian Church have given the world so much fodder for shows like this!

When Do We Measure?

2006-01-01T22:56:00.000-06:00

Some Christmas travelers have to contend with snow and ice. Not us. Our weather this past week has nearly perfect. Lows ranged from the upper 30s to low 50s, while the highs went from the 60s to upper 70s. According to the meteorologists it’ll be that way for the next week. Great weather. That’s what they say when they do the forecast: “A beautiful weekend!”

But that’s only if you judge by the single day in isolation. If you look at the long string of nice days taken together you no longer see “beautiful weather.” You see a drought. If measured the quality of the weather in relation to our desperate need for rain, a rain-soaked Friday through Sunday would be “A beautiful weekend.”

I wonder if this principle works in other areas also.

A month or so ago we learned of the huge profits the oil companies were making. Now, apart from other questions (like who actually profited from these profits), is it worth asking how we measure the equitability of a company’s profits? Do we measure them in the space of an hour? A day? A quarter? A year? A decade? Over the past several years I’ve read some literature on investing. I don’t count myself very knowledgeable, but I remember seeing one principle mentioned over and over. Invest for the long term. If you invest for the long term, it’s said, you cover for the short term volatility of the market. So maybe the oil companies go through fat periods and lean periods. Over what time span do you measure to decide fairness? Or whether you want to invest in them yourself?

Surely the long term view doesn’t always work. Think of food. If I’m starving now and will be for the next 60 days – but have the prospect for endless steak dinners after that – it won’t do me much good. As a living being, my sustenance must be measured more regularly.

What about the Christian life? What about a church? We look for progress in both. In both Scripture (think Jesus’ great successes before his arrest and crucifixion) and Christian history we see instances of apparent failure followed by ultimate victory. When do we measure?

“Leave it all to God. Don’t judge.” Judging is mighty close to measuring, isn’t it? Why do we measure? In most cases it’s so we know what to do. I measure my son’s feet before I buy him new shoes. I measure my hunger and how much money I have before I place my order at the restaurant. I judge – there’s that word – my student’s ability in the subject I’m teaching so I know what to teach next (and whether a subject has been adequately covered or needs more attention).

So – when do we measure – when do we judge? In general, I think we need to consider more broadly then we tend to do. Is the forecast for sunny weather this weekend good news or bad news? It depends on the needs for rain. Is the Endless Pasta at Olive Garden a good idea? It depends on my overall health. if I’m trying to lose or maintain my weight and have no prospects for exercise in the near future I’d guess not. One of my youth comes up and says, “I want to beat those kids into the asphalt.” Do I count this success or failure? Well, since the kid I’m thinking of what have beaten the kids without a qualm a month ago and know he’s only talking about it, I’ll call that progress.

A Case for Temporary Beauty

2006-01-01T15:30:00.000-06:00

Our church sanctuary is a fine example of what I’d call permanent art. Constructed in 1904-1905, ours is the most beautiful sanctuary in town, and, I’m told, one of the most beautiful in NE Texas. I know it looks mighty nice. I also know that it costs heaps of money to maintain and will continue to do so from here on out. That’s the way old buildings are. Just before I arrived the church spent about $700k renovating the building. This past year we spend $49k on the stained glass windows and $34k on the roof. We’re just about done spending $185 rebuilding the pipe organ. The good news – it’s almost over. The bad? We still owe about $250k on the renovation loan and someday we’ll have to figure out how to stabilize the foundation. In the meantime, the expenses of our beauty most likely crimp our ability to expand ministry and meet other obligations.

But beauty is better than ugliness, right? Beauty honors God the Creator, right? I’ve heard this kind of protest against some of the newer churches that worship in plain looking buildings – or even in giant boxes. No beauty – just functionality. And after 25-50 years they just look dingy and are ready for replacement.

But are permanent (relatively) beauty and ugliness the only alternatives? I’d like to propose what I’ll call “temporary beauty.” We already do this to a certain extent. On the exterior, temporary beauty is called landscaping. It will include planting trees and flowers, arranging rocks and other inanimate objects in a way that is attractive. On the interior we occasionally make use of banners and wall hangings (not too many at our place – they’re not needed).

I see two big advantages to temporary beauty. First, being temporary, maintenance costs are lower. Second, and more importantly, more people can be involved. If we rely on the architecture alone for our beauty, it was done 100 years ago. We don’t need any more. But if – in addition to the architecture – we also have banners, wall coverings, paintings, sculptures and the like, these can be continually replenished by a vats number of people offering their gifts to the Lord.

I’m curious what others think. Leave me a comment and let me know.

Is "Gen-X" really rising?

2005-12-27T11:37:00.000-06:00

Andrew Thompson has a bone to pick with the megachurches that cancelled services on Christmas Day this year. To be fair to Rev. Thompson, he is not alone. Much of the mainline media and many in the mainline denominations have really stressed over this phenomenon.

I admit I, too, was at first upset with said churches. I seem to have pretty much gotten over it.

Since we "gen-xers" cringe so quickly at the "We've never done it that way before" attitude portrayed by the established; I have been practicing catching myself with the same attitude. Isn't hypocrisy fun?

Disdain for "megachurches" doing things differently seems to cut across generational boundaries. Here the lines are more fairly drawn at one's connection with the established church.

Under the title of "Gen-X Rising" Rev. Thompson takes an establishment angle of attack on a decided non-traditional method of dealing with Christmas Day falling on a Sunday.

Is Gen-X really rising, or is it falling into the same habits and patterns of the generations gone before it?

Christmas Fire

2005-12-25T17:03:00.000-06:00

We had some ice here a couple of weeks ago. Driving home in it, my windshield wipers froze to the glass. Feeling rather resourceful, I warmed a handtowel in the oven to melt the ice. Sadly, my resourcefulness did not include remembering to remove the towel from the oven.

We had just begun to open presents today when someone said, I think something is burning. I explained that I had just turned on the oven, and that was probably the smell.

When we saw smoke rising from the oven, we realized something else must be going on. I grabbed some tongs and removed the barely burning towel, and dropped it in the sink, and the crisis was averted.

Can someone lend me some nueron-connectors?

Christmas Blessings

2005-12-24T23:19:00.000-06:00

I realize my last post (written between Christmas Eve services) wasn’t very Christmasy. So here we go.

Merry Christmas to you all! May you truly experience God’s gift of Jesus as a gift to you, receiving Him in his fullness – even if you don’t fully grasp what you’re getting yourself into.

Bobbitt (Market State) & Galston (Liberal Pluralist State)

2005-12-24T21:07:00.000-06:00

Since I have a short attention span, I tend to read several books at the same time. I just finished William A. Galston’s Liberal Pluralism. The liberalism he defends is the classical liberalism that lies behind both the “conservative” and “liberal” political movements in the contemporary US. The key features of Galston’s liberal state are:
1. A recognition of a plurality of goods, many incommensurable with each other. In plain English, that means that Joe and Mary think each other nuts for counting as good what they count as good.
2. A move beyond modern reductive individualism. Thus the plurality of goods are not merely pursued by individuals, but by families and groups.
3. A development of Isaiah Berlin’s concept of negative liberty (freedom from restraint) combined with what Galston calls “expressive liberty,” the freedom to do what is most fulfilling (as defined by the individual or the group. The liberal state seeks to maximize its accommodation of the number of goods sought by its citizens, requiring a fairly minimal account of the common good.
4. One of the liberal state’s main jobs is to provide the space for individuals and groups to pursue their vision of the good. Necessarily there will be some restraint put on those pursuits, particularly keeping open what Galston calls the “possibility of exit.” While the state will allow groups (including families), to order their own lives, even in controversial and apparently unfree ways, there will be occasions when a person will want to leave that way of life. The group may not provide a way out, but the liberal state will.

As to providing space, Galston notes that the current situation of the US is for the sate to grow in so many areas that an increasing number of associations find themselves entangled in its operations, and hence less free.

That’s the gist of the first book in today’s post. Read the whole thing.

The second book is Philip Bobbitt’s Shield of Achilles. It’s a long, difficult book, so I’m just going to mention one point. Bobbitt traces the transitions in the nature of the State (in the West) since the 15th century. Since 1990, we’re seeing the transition from the Nation State (defined by its pursuit of the welfare of its citizens, thus also known as the Welfare State) to the Market State (defined by a goal of maximizing opportunities for its citizens).

If we bring Galston and Bobbitt together, we see that the Nation State (tended) to proclaim a set of goods – a maximal conception of the common good, while the Market State (which we do not yet fully have) recognizes a plurality of goods. Galston’s political vision, therefore, is a vision for the Market State, not the Nation State.

If were to ask which president best characterized the Market State ethos who comes to mind? Perhaps George W. Bush with his “ownership society?” Certainly. But it is also enlightening to consider that Galston worked on domestic policy for the Clinton administration – the very administration that pursued NAFTA and many societal reforms sometimes associated with Republicans. The evidence (admittedly my presentation is pretty scanty) indicates that Bobbitt’s “Market State” or the “Liberal State” as envisioned by Galston – is something beyond the mere Democrat – Republican divide.

Confidence Games

2005-12-21T11:04:00.000-06:00

“Now don’t tell anyone. Keep it confidential.” In my business I hear that all the time. In many cases my gift of absentmindedness helps me keep things confidential. But there are other occasions – perhaps even the majority – where keeping information confidential is downright unhealthy.

As a pastor I sometimes hear – second or third hand – that something is going on in congregation. Group X is unhappy with Y, Joe & Mary Blow are fixing to have a divorce, the John & Suzy Doe are having financial problems, etc. But don’t say a word. We want to keep it confidential.

Now when it comes to youth ministry, this stuff is easier since youth are often more teachable than their elders. When a youth comes and offers to tell me something if I’ll “keep it confidential” the best response is, “I’ll use my wisdom to decide if I can keep it confidential or not.” In many cases, what they need is someone to stand beside them as they open up to their parents or someone else. Usually they need help and my just getting the information won’t do them any good. I need to connect them with a source of help. In such situations I never go behind their backs but always try to be up front about the healthfulness of opening up.

Of course, sharing information with parents isn’t always wise. In my years of ministry I’ve seen too many instances of an informed parent thinking the solution is to beat the child. In those cases keeping the information confidential is essential – but it’s still helpful to find places for them to be non-confidential.

So what about the adults who are suffering from confidence games?

The Bible says two things that directly apply to this. First, “Bear one another’s burdens.” If we’re to bear these burdens we must know what they are. Second, “Speak the truth in love.” It’s not easy to get to the place where we can dispense with confidence games. We’ve all been hurt by people blabbing about our sufferings in ways that were anything but loving. We need to build up love within the body so that we can have trusting relationships where it becomes safe to speak the truth.

Context

2005-12-20T11:58:00.000-06:00

As I walked into my office this morning, I heard what sounded like opening chords of a Christmas carol. I didn't remember having left music playing, so I quickly began to wonder where the music might be coming from.

It didn't take me long to realize that what I had heard as chords was, in fact, a tune played by the brakes of a truck the next road over.

Though I laughed out loud at myself for the misunderstanding, I am rather glad I am enough in the Christmas spirit to have heard a carol in the brakes of a truck!

Watching our Words

2005-12-19T16:15:00.000-06:00

Global warming, yea or nay? While politicians seem to argue about its reality more than any other group, we common folk have been known to joke about it. When we have exceptionally cold weather (like at one of Al Gore’s conferences a couple years ago) we point at it and say, “Hey look! More global warming!” Just recently I saw an article that global warming would cause the (north) polar ice caps to melt, which would release more fresh water into the Atlantic, which in turn would affect the Gulf Stream in such a way, that Europe would become much colder. Have you ever seen a study more ready-made for jokes: “Global warming leads to global cooling.”

Personally, I think it’s a language problem.

Instead of talking about “global warming” we should talk about “human induced climate change.” Although I must confess that I’m not a scientist and have taken no courses in meteorology, I do know enough to recognize our atmosphere (the place weather happens) as a complex system. A small tweak in one place can produce large (unpredictable) changes elsewhere in the system. That’s known as the “Butterfly Effect.”

If we change the discussion from “global warming” to “human induced climate change” then a much broader amount of data comes into the picture for us ordinary folks.

Christmas Sanity

2005-12-18T20:21:00.000-06:00

One of the reasons I’ve heard offered by some of the mega-churches not having worship services is so the staff can have some family time. I understand the desire for family time. During my years of pastoring I have often wondered about our talk about Christmas as a time for family when I had to spend most of Christmas Eve working. (For that matter, I jokingly wish for more secular holidays celebrated at the end of the week rather than on Mondays. I’m jealous of those folks that get 3 day weekends.) I see a few things in tension here that may be worth looking at more closely.

First, Christianity is less about family than we tend to make it out to be. If Christianity was all about family, it would have never moved beyond the bounds of Judaism. The early Christian community – especially in the ministry of Paul – was all about going beyond bloodlines, ethnicity and culture.

Family was relativised even in the ministry of Jesus. One time when Jesus was teaching his family came to pick him up – and put him away. They thought he’d gone off the deep end. Jesus’ response? “Who is my mother, my brother and my sister? Whoever does the will of God.” Sure, there are the commands for husbands and wives to love each other, for children to obey their parents, etc. But the relationships with other believers appear to create new semi-familial structures in the early church.

Second, we too easily reduce “church” to what we do on Sunday morning. If “church,” from a biblical point of view, describes the people of God and their ongoing shared love relationship with God, then surely there are ways to do/be church other than what we traditionally do on Sunday mornings. Now if all we’re doing is sitting around our own living rooms celebrating materialism (even materialism “in Jesus’ name), I think we’re missing out. But if we join with other believers at Christmas, celebrate the birth of Jesus – and give Him gifts appropriate to his status as our Lord and Savior – that’s something different.

Third, the idea of taking Christmas Sunday off for family time hints at an important observation. As leaders we easily think that church is something we make happen. We not only aim to do the all important work of helping people get off the road to Hell and on to the road to Heaven, but we want to do all we do with “excellence.” (Just check how many church mission, vision and value statements mention that word – “excellence.”) I know by experience that “excellence” is tiring. It’s hard work. Too often it requires we sacrifice our families – and the people close to us – so the stranger can get our best. As I read scripture, however, I see a life better described as “sane” than “excellent.” Sanity is a way of talking about the health Jesus offers. Do you remember Acts 4:12? Those interested in arguing for soteriological exclusivism point to this text as claiming salvation is found only in Jesus. Certainly a biblical case can be made for that. But do we remember the context? Peter’s not talking to the San Hedrin about how people get saved: he’s talking about how people get healed. The point is this: We need to find saner ways to do church year-round, not just at Christmas (actually it’s even narrower – in the years Christmas falls on a Sunday).

Have yourselves a Merry, Sane, and Birthday of Jesus!

O.M.G. (Oh My Galileo)

2005-12-14T08:49:00.000-06:00

Don’t you hate it when people make all sorts of religious claims that they can’t back up? Do you wonder, even marvel on occasion about how many people have made radical change in their lives on the basis of some alleged “truth”?

It is the modern way, after all, to base our lives entirely on claims that can be proven. This is why we have learned to trust in science rather than God.
*(editorial adjustment - I am not intending to villify science or scientists here, but rather want to challenge the pulpit from whence American Culture would have science be the preacher)

Houston, we have a problem.

This week’s Journal of the American Medical Association reports a Harvard study that concluded that “a high intake of foods such as cereals, fruits and vegetables did not lower colon cancer risk.” Why, we have known for years that a diet high in fiber would reduce the risk of colon cancer! How did we know this? Scientists told us.

Oh My Galileo! What are we to do? Perhaps last year’s science did not have the last word on how we ought to live.

Neither did last year’s religion. In fact, there is a sense in which the last word on how we ought to live was uttered nearly 2000 years ago by Jesus when he said “Go thou and do likewise.”

Then again, there is a sense in which we have to keep on re wording that for other people to hear. Or, even better, perhaps if we were actually to “go and do likewise,” the debate between science and religion might actually become interesting rather than bitter.

The Second Coming of Jesus

2005-12-11T16:00:00.000-06:00

Here's my message for the second Sunday of Advant, What Next? I understood the end times pretty well when I was a teenager - when I read mostly dispensationalist literature: Lindsey, Walvoord, Pentecost, etc. Then I read the bible for myself - and in context. In this message I discuss the connection between the "First" and "Second" comings of Jesus and how we can be prepared.

First Week of Advent

2005-12-10T22:08:00.000-06:00

My old podcoast provider was situated in Florida and has been having problems since Hurricane Wilma. I've finally gotten my first advent message, Why Advent? online and available for you to enjoy in mp3 format.

Divvying People Up

2005-12-08T16:47:00.000-06:00

A few days ago I argued that the need for church planting is greater than we usually think. A sub-section of that argument, was a claim that our common ways of grouping people "White folks," "Black folks," etc., are not very useful in our quest to understand people. Tell me someone's race - or ethnicity, and you don't tell me a whole lot.

But we still think this way - locally and globally.

The Lebanese Political Journal has a useful post on how we Americans think of the Middle East, particularly on our simplistic equation between "Middle Eastern" = "Muslim" = "Arab", and even more, how we seem to assume all Arabs are the same. Read the post at the Lebanese Political Journal for a full discussion. The short summary? They're not all alike - not even close. If we're ever going to understand the Middle East and its peoples and act wisely toward them, we'll need to learn about the differences.

It Takes Time, Start Now

2005-12-08T15:33:00.000-06:00

At prayer meeting the other meeting a lady mentioned visiting her grandchildren in the Big City. One of the grandchildren is into hockey (not the biggest sport in Texas), so she went to watch one of his games. In the rink next to the one where he was playing, she saw 4 year olds out learning hockey. We start them mighty young, don’t we?

Have you heard of the Dads out there who want their sons to become the next great quarterback or pitcher? They start drilling them while they’re in preschool, never letting up. That’s how Tiger Woods got where he is, so we think that’s the way to go.

Study after study tells us it’s the same with education. If we want our kids to be well educated, we need to start while they’re young. We need to read to them, talk to them, and interact with them so they will become curious about the world around them and start picking up the tools to explore it. Educators lament that they don’t have the money to start the programs to pick up the kids whose parents have dropped the ball on this. Now education is different from hockey, quarterbacking and golf. Though many can become skilled in these sports, it seems much easier for the multitudes to become proficient in their educations.

What about our relationship with God? Are parents so determined for their kids to grow up living in and exhibiting the love of God that they start them early on the road of being a disciple of Jesus? What’s the difference?

One key difference is in the role of exemplars. Quarterbacks emulate Peyton Manning. Golfers want to be the next Tiger Woods. In education, we are surrounded (on TV) by doctors, lawyers, and scientists (not all mad), modeling a life of learning. But who do we look at for a model of discipleship?

Surely we have many local models – the experienced saints in our local congregations – who have been long-time followers of Jesus, who have learned much of the “obedience of the faith,” and whose lives are models of holiness. Or do we? I see at least three problems in this area: First, many modern Christians eschew the discipline that comes with following Jesus. We have many long tenured members, but they’re often more known for being crotchety than for being holy. Second, because of our misunderstanding of the nature of humility, we’re loath to lift up the didactic and attractive role of holiness. Third, out notion of holiness is too tame. Our athletic kids want to grow up to be like Peyton Manning & Roger Clemens – not a water boy or a bat girl. As long as our public example of the Christian life is nothing more than going to church on Sunday, attending meetings, and not being as bad as so and so, why would anyone want to do it?

In the bible the Christian life – the life of holiness – is a life of following Jesus. It’s dangerous – it’s not for nothing Jesus tells us to take up our cross. They’re conflict involved. Real loss – and real victory – awaits us. What we do in response to Jesus can make an eternal difference in the lives of the people around us.

Parents – keep your eyes open for the next Lydia, Paul, Phillip or Priscilla. Show them to your kids. Tell your children, “See what they’re doing? It takes a lifetime of discipleship to get to that level. Let’s start now!”