Yesterday I audaciously suggested that simple prohibitions aren’t working. As much as I want to resist the notion- after all, the bible straightforwardly tells us not to do certain things- I must resist it, because the same bible that tells us not to do certain things also tells us that telling us not to do certain things isn’t enough. In fact, Paul drives home the point that absolute laws (“Thou shalt not…”) can actually create trouble for us. Continue Reading…
Archive - Christianity
RSS Feed
Looking for Solutions
Humbling. It’s all I can say. Tisha and I finally reached the point where we found ourselves standing at the bookstore…together…looking for books to help us assist our kids for the gargantuan leap from tweens to teens. That means talks about puberty, sex, and etc. Perfect. Just perfect.
Our first child is nearly there. Sadly, I know she hears things at school, and on the bus to school, that are generating tons of Continue Reading…
2010 Lessons…More on church growth
God, not human ingenuity, grows a church numerically and spiritually after Jesus.
I’ve read about and experienced all sorts of evangelism “techniques.” I’ve tried a lot of them. Many of them weren’t worth the effort. They were rife with gimmickry, marketing tools, and lines only a salesman could appreciate. Ever seen the salesperson at the mall kiosk who interrupts your brisk walk to Foot Locker because he/she notices your hands are dry and cracked? Yeah, you Continue Reading…
2010 Lessons – A Minister’s Job…
A minister’s job isn’t to grow or save a church.
The sooner ministers realize this, and the sooner that elders and church leaders understand this, the better off the church will be. The sooner we quit abusing Jesus’ parables about kingdom growth for the purpose of giving us incentives to “grow” the church, maybe we’ll quit acting like salesmen on late night infomercials. Those guys drive a lot of us nuts, and if we’ll listen to those outside the church, we might find that our gospel sales pitches aren’t doing much for them, either.
Ministers who believe that it is incumbent upon themselves to grow a church may not realize they are putting themselves in God’s place. After all, God is the one who gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). Sure, we plant and water, but God gives the growth.
I am terrible with plants. Last Summer, I built planter boxes for our front porch, bought a few plants, planted them and watered them. Guess what happened to them? They died. I planted and watered them, but I could not give them life or sustain their lives.
Here’s the perfect segue into our concern for saving churches. It is not our job to save churches, either. Last year, Dan Bouchelle, a talented pulpit minister for a healthy, growing church in Amarillo, stepped away from the pulpit to run an organization involved in church planting. On his blog, Confessions of a Former Preacher, he began to share with his readers why. On May 15, he offered this post. It apparently stirred up a lot of controversy, but I’m inclined to believe much of it was because what he stated was true, and it was something that some of us don’t want to believe. Read it, though. I think it’s worth the time. He lays out a real framework for thinking about churches that makes sense.
Shortly thereafter I, too, stepped away from the pulpit. It was not for all the same reasons, but I stepped away nonetheless. It was somewhat symbolic for me. In stepping away from the pulpit, I saw myself as actually surrendering to God, giving him the reins that he deserves. He could now use me as he saw fit. He didn’t need me to micromanage his church, grow it, or save it.
I believe the misconceptions about growing and salvaging churches revolve around the business model we’ve incorporated in America for churches. They operate as 501C3 non-profit organizations with operating budgets and all the politics that goes with them. Programs are often slashed, not because the don’t work, but rather because churches don’t possess the operating expenses to sustain them. Something is wrong.
Still, God used experiences, blogs, and truth to show me how off-base I was. Thankfully, I got the picture. I learned the lesson.
Stupid Bumper Stickers
Dumb Bumper Sticker
I will continue to look, but I won’t hold my breath. Look for what, you ask? I will continue to look for a person who’s been compelled to change because of a bumper sticker! I have been searching for years, but haven’t found one person who’s ever admitted to having been swayed to a pro-life position, to believe in God, or to change their political affiliation because a bumper sticker was so powerfully moving that they couldn’t but change. Despite the futility of my search, I know they will continue to be printed and placed on bumpers, the back of windows, or, as was the case for me today, passed out in a local WalMart.
I was torn yesterday morning. We’d been purchasing our fruit and vegetables at a local grocery store, but I was short on time. Heading back to campus, WalMart was right on the way. I let convenience reign, when I knew I should have forgone convenience for something more enduring (That’s another subject, though.). So I went to WalMart.
Inside I crossed paths with a man I’d met before. In fact, he is a part of my Christian fellowship, but not a member of our particular congregation. He hands me a religio-political bumper sticker. I’m not even an Obama fan and it ticked me off. The thought that a dumb bumper sticker like the one he handed me might, at all, be persuasive is simply absurd to me. It smacked of everything that I’ve grown weary of over the years. To be brutally frank, I was embarrassed- both for him and for the fact that this is what things have come to.
Last year, I read Lord Save Us From Your Followers by Dan Merchant. It was an insightful look into how people perceive professed Christians. Part of Merchant’s project was to stick a bunch of bumper stickers onto a white jump suite and ask New Yorkers questions about Jesus and Christians. He found that a good number of people, several of whom were atheists, had a favorable opinion about Jesus, but an unfavorable opinion about today’s Christians. There seems to be a growing disparity between the modern Christian and the First Century Savior. His book probes into why. He’s also produced a DVD that is probably worth watching. I haven’t seen it, though.
Merchant had more than a few things to suggest about “bumper sticker” evangelism. It’s not conversational, at all. Nor is it really affective. In fact, it tends to be rather offensive. But the book spoke to me because of my growing disgust for an approach that demeans more than discusses, that markets more than it moves.
I mean really, is this what we’ve come down to? Walking around WalMart passing out religio-political bumper stickers? Lord save us from your followers? These days I can’t help but agree!
