"Man on a Swing"

Ministering with Young Adults

2011-03-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

The following is an excellent post from Lou Jander's "Dr. J's Ponderings". I would provide a link, but to my knowledge, it is simply an enews newsletter,
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Young Adults and the Church
As I look around our church, around the community, and even around other churches, I keep wondering about the young adult population, a segment that continues to grow and not necessarily in church participation. A few weeks ago a number of members and I attended a workshop put on by Lutheran Hour Ministries, Equipping to Share, a fine workshop for the basics of being an everyday, anywhere witness for Jesus. There were about 35 people in attendance. I don’t have the best “gage” of age these days, but a quick count of those in the room rendered about five under the age of 50. Wonder how that plays out in most of our churches on Sunday morning…just the adults please…five young adults under 50 of those adults in attendance. Just pondering!

This all leads me to something that has been an interest and passion for the past 16 years (that’s how long it’s been since I was a “young adult”): young adults in the church. In some reading I was doing recently, I wrote down some notes that speak to young adults in the church. So here they are:

Young Adults Talk About Church Involvement
Church leaders often seek ways to keep young adults involved during the transitions of young adulthood.
The following comments are taken from young adults who answered the question: “Based on your experience, what suggestions would you offer to churches for effectiveness in ministry to young adults after college graduation or at the time of entering the workforce?”

Don't ignore us. There doesn't seem to be any place for us after the college group unless it's helping with the teen group (and a lot do that in my church).
I think having a small group to mentor and help us with our concerns and spiritual challenges would be helpful. Help us connect with the other generations in the congregation. We can learn a lot from people who are 5 to 50 years older than we are.
Churches need to let young adults know they are important to the church. Provide a structure for them; listen to them to see what they are looking for. Churches will automatically become more effective with young adult ministry if they show through their actions (providing structure, belonging, and leadership) that young adults are a priority.
The time right after graduation is such a scary time of making decisions, finding your spouse, finding your place in your career, finding a place to live, and so on. The church should be one place that young adults find guidance!
Maybe churches could identify local companies and businesses that have hired recent college graduates. Then, reach out to those who are struggling to live on their own for the first time. Offer financial seminars, social gatherings to meet others, and provide fellowship opportunities. But most importantly, get them involved. Not just in youth and children's ministries, include community outreach. Our generation wants to help, to serve, and to get involved!
Have a group that college/career age individuals can attend. Important aspects of this group would be active community involvement and a concentration on discipleship and evangelism. We also need to associate with older adults for discipleship.
Find out where we are in our careers, on our spiritual journeys, in our relationships, and where we want to be. Identify people in the church who are willing to mentor us. Invite us to be part of a ministry or encourage, empower, and support us as we begin one. We still have things to learn! We can add valuable components to the church such as creativity, energy, and an adventurous spirit.

Information about young adults often paints them with a broad brush and can be disheartening. These comments from young adults with connections to the church remind us that many are committed to living the Christian lifestyle. Our challenge is to mentor, encourage, and support them as they seek direction for their lives. These comments extend an invitation for adults to share life with them. What actions can and will you take?

CHANGE AND TRANSITION IN RE-BIRTHING MISSIONAL COMMUNITIES

2010-04-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

The slide show below from Jonathan Taylor gives some good pointers on moving through change and tradition in urban communities. Click on the arrows to change slides.

Session 5 - Transitioning Historic Churches and Birthing New Faith Communities

View more presentations from Jonathan Taylor.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY IN MINISTRY?

2010-04-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

Geoff Surratt has recently published a book entitled “Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing.” In an interview about the book, (Click here for interview)Surratt listed ten things he would do differently if he were starting over again in ministry:

1. Preparing others to do the work of the ministry rather than trying to do most of the ministry myself.

2. Finding the right balance between family and ministry

3. Focusing on having an outstanding weekend worship experience

4. Creating compelling environments for children's ministry

5. Emphasizing integrity rather than just talent in developing new leaders

6. Being willing to move the church if it wasn't in the right location for the mission of that local congregation

7. Finding God's unique expression of ministry rather than closely copying what another successful church is doing

8. Always working for reconciliation in conflict rather than defaulting to discipline

9. Avoiding any conflict of interest when pursuing any business opportunities outside of the church

10. Building healthy teams rather than getting bogged down with endless committees

Makes sense to me.

A BLESSED EASTER SEASON TO ALL

2010-04-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

May God bless each of you during this holy season with the joyous promise of life and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Because He lives, we live and have hope for this life and the life to come.

THE ART OF GOVERNANCE

2010-03-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

A Book Review of Dan Hotchkiss’ Governance and Ministry

Books on governance and structure for Christian congregations will often present a “how-to” plan for a certain set of by-laws and governing documents or a theory of governance borrowed from the business world but not quite tested in congregations. Dan Hotchkiss in his book, Governance and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership (Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2009), manages to combine missional theology, organizational know-how and practical experience into a volume that will be of help to both parish leaders and congregational consultants. It is a book that is written by a man who knows what he is talking about through his work with a multitude of congregations over many years. He seems, at times, to anticipate your questions, and his chapters are full of both wisdom and caveats for congregations of all sizes.

Hotchkiss recognizes from the beginning that “organized religion” is an oxymoron, yet our revolutionary faith must be set forth in an ordered way. He calls governance an art to be practiced rather than simply a skill to be learned. “Leaders must continually balance the conserving function of an institution with the expectation of disruptive, change-inducing creativity that comes when individuals peek past the temple veil and catch fresh visions of the Holy.”

The book does not offer a particular model of governance and structure. Indeed, the author contends that there is no one right way to organize a congregation, but he does offer a framework in which congregations can make choices within the general concepts of governance (setting direction, values, plans) and ministry (the day-to-day practical work of the congregation.)

Theory is set forth in terms that are easily understood by the average person. More importantly, theory is applied in practical ways that will be of help to any congregation. Hotchkiss declares that when it comes to governance, size does, indeed, matter, and he makes it clear that most of the observations in the book apply to congregations in the “pastoral” size range (50-150 in worship), but he displays a knowledge of large congregations, and especially “family size” congregations (50 or less in worship) that I have seldom found elsewhere. Any pastor serving a small congregation and thinking about restructuring needs to read this book! Small congregations just can’t be governed in the same way as mid-sized congregations, but they can distinguish governance and ministry roles for the sake of God’s mission.

Again and again, practical guidance is the forte of this book in chapters that deal with such subjects as…

Effective Evaluation of pastor, staff and board.
Budgeting for mission in difficult times.
Board covenants and norms.
Dealing with conflict.
Money and mission.

The book is a good read for both congregational leaders and congregational consultants.

How to Evaluate Pastor and Staff

2010-02-14T09:43:00.000-08:00

When I was District President I would frequently get calls from congregational leaders asking for help in evaluating their pastor. Often, but not always, that would be a sign of conflict that demanded conflict resolution rather than help with evaluation. And when evaluation was done, it was often done in retrospect against standards and goals that were not discussed or agreed upon at the beginning of the evaluation period.

Dan Hotchkiss, in his book Governance and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership, (Herndon, VA, Alban Institute, 2009), gives certain principles for effective evaluation.

Effective evaluation of the pastor or other staff members is …

Scheduled: Evaluation takes place by the calendar, not in response to problems.
Mutual: Everyone gives and receives feedback.
Goal-centered: Previously established goals are the basis for evaluation.
Individual: “Am I meeting the expected standard for my job?” “How am I contributing to our goals?”
Collective: “What progress have we made towards our goals?” “How do we need to adjust our course?” “How are we fulfilling our vision for this particular program area?”
Backward looking: “What did I accomplish?” “How well did we do?”
Forward looking: “How can I improve?” “What should we do differently next time?”

The key, of course, to any effective evaluation is the ability to set both personal and congregational goals. A staff member cannot be evaluated unless there is a clear and realistic understanding of what that staff member is expected to do, and that depends, to a large extent, upon what the congregation sees as its mission.

Some good advice on setting personal performance plans and goals may be found on the “mindtools” website. (Click Here)

A Missional Church Can Exist in Any Size or Situation

2009-11-10T07:27:00.001-08:00

Dr. Lou Jander, Texas District, LCMS, shared this article on his weekly email recently. It was written by Rev. Phil Stevenson of the Wesleyan Church and published on the Expanding Wave newsletter. It shows that an a missional church can exist in any situation and with any size congregation.

Last month I was in West Virginia with my partner in ministry, Jim Dunn. We were presenting a seminar entitled "The Intentional Missional Church." The host of this event shared with us that we would be holding the training at Three Mile Wesleyan Church. "This church," he explained, "is located in a holler."

Honestly, I was both intrigued and concerned about this prospect. I had never been in a holler. I wasn't even sure what a holler was. And any connotation I had of a holler was not overly positive. Images of feuds and folk not welcoming of outsiders played themselves out in my vivid imagination. Riding with our host on roads that crawled deeper into the wooded hills did nothing to abate my mental picture. What I discovered, however, was anything but what I had created in my imagination.

A holler is a small valley that has only one way in and one way out. The Three Mile Church was located at the 'head' of the holler. The head is about as far back as you can get in a holler. It is located on a very small piece of property. To call it postage stamp size would be much too generous. It is here Pastor Billy Burdette has been ministering for over 10 years. It is here I discovered a missional church. It is here God taught me lessons of faith, vision and effectiveness. Here are the discoveries:

It's not your location that limits you, it's the limits you put on your location. I could think of all kinds of reasons a church should not be effective in such an obscure location. There is not much drive-by traffic in a holler.
Needs are everywhere; if you notice them you can meet them. Three Mile had just completed the construction of a gym/family life center. It has a fully furnished kitchen, with an impressive eating area. Why did they build such a facility at the Head of the Holler? Pastor Billy shared that there was no place for people to gather. No place for folks to have anniversary parties, wedding receptions, family reunions, etc. It was meeting needs. It was a community center.
Quality is in the little things. What I saw, they did with quality. They had motion-activated hand towel dispensers. They had flat screens in each Sunday School Room upstairs. The equipment in the Kitchen was excellent.
Clarity of mission brings focus to ministry. Pastor Billy knows that young people need to be reached. They have chosen to focus on teens and younger. This is reflected in their new gym/family life center. It is reflected in their programming. They run a midweek kid's ministry that has, at times, connected with over 100 kids. They feed dozens. Their youth program runs over 30 people.
A leader who has a heart for God and a passion for people will be effective. Pastor Billy is bi-vocational. This could be an excuse for not doing what is necessary to reach his community. He doesn't allow that. He wants to make his God known. He loves people. This causes him to do whatever it takes to connect the two.
Missional matters. Being missional is simply looking outside of ourselves to see the community that surrounds us. Three Mile Church is missional because it is driven by the community needs, not congregational wants.

The next time you find yourself bemoaning your location; the next time you discover yourself thinking there are no more people to reach; the next time you believe missional is too postmodern for you; the next time you believe you are too small to do things with quality; I want you to take a moment and consider the church at the head of the holler.

Is Your Church Externally Focused?

2009-11-02T06:55:00.000-08:00

4 Characteristics of an Externally Focused Church:

1. Externally focused churches are convinced that good deeds and good news can't and shouldn't be separated. Just as it takes two wings to lift an airplane off the ground, so externally focused churches couple good news with good deeds to make an impact in their communities. The good news explains the purpose of the good deeds.
2. They see themselves as vital to the health and well-being of their communities. They believe that their communities, with all of their aspirations and challenges, cannot be truly healthy without the church's involvement. It is only when the church is mixed into the very life and conversation of the city that it can be an effective force for change.
3. They believe that ministering and serving are the normal expressions of Christian living. Even more, they believe that Christians grow best when they are serving and giving themselves away to others. They are convinced that Christians can learn through good instruction, but they really cannot grow if they remain uninvolved in ministry and service.
4. Externally focused churches are evangelistically effective. People are looking for places of authenticity where the walk matches the talk, where faith is making a difference.

— Excerpted from “The Externally Focused Church” by Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson

Evangelism Today -- Asking the Right Questions

2009-09-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

Many churches are still using evangelism methods that reflect a Christendom culture of the twentieth century. Years ago I was trained in the Kennedy “Evangelism Explosion” technique that centered around a key question asked after building a trusting relationship: “If you were to die today, could you say for sure that you would go to heaven?” The standard response to that question was “Well, I hope so. I’ve tried to be good.” Or, “I don’t know if anyone can say that for sure.” To which the evangelist would reply “Well, I’ve got good news for you.” and then proceed with a grace based presentation of the gospel.

As time went on, I saw a change in the respondent’s answers. Faithful Christians still answered “Yes,” but an increasing number of people would simply say, “To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought much about it.”

Research commissioned by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Church now backs up my observation. (See chart below)
People’s spiritual concerns seem no longer to be focused on the traditional concepts of sin and death, heaven and hell. Instead, they seem more focused on this life and finding meaning and purpose in their daily existence. (See chart below)It is easy to complain about “Whatever happened to sin?’ or declare this a shift to self-centered consumer society, but the truth is that “How can I find more meaning and purpose in my life?” remain relational and missional issues, and the good news we have to offer lies in our relationship with Christ and our participation in His mission in this world.

An old tool in the sin/heaven approach was something called “The Four Spiritual Laws,” an evangelism tool used for years, but not very effective today. Not long ago, someone devised a new tool called “The Big Story” that is based on the relational/missional model. Take a look at part one and part two below.

These are not the final answer, but they mark a step along the way to asking the right questions for a new time.
Addendum: A new tool getting good reviews in Reformed circles is the EvangeCube. It is graphically intriguing, but is basically the old "four laws" approach. Compare this approach with the ones you have just watched. Which do you think would be more effective among unchurched people that you know?

Leaders and Managers

2009-04-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

One of the distinctions that many people seem to miss is the important distinction between a leader and a manager. The key, I suppose, is that leaders deal with people, while managers deal with projects. Often a person is chosen to lead because he or she has the ability to “get the job done.” Expect that person to be a good manager. A leader will first help everyone see what the job is that must be done, then inspire the people to use heir gifts to accomplish the job.

I ran across the brief, simple video below that is full of short quotes and wonderful ideas about the qualities of leadership. It’s worth taking a few minutes to watch.

Easter "Wordle"

2009-04-10T06:57:00.000-07:00

"Wordle"s are word cloud pictures computer generated from any text according to a formula weighted by the number of times a word is used in a text. You can create your own Wordle at http://www.wordle.net (click here).

At Christmas I did a Wordle of Luke 2 and discovered that it was filled with the ordinary: place names, people’s names, the story of God coming down into ordinary life.

I thought I would do the same for Easter, and the result is the Wordle above of Matthew 28:1-10. Not many names and places this time. The big word was a human condition—“afraid.” That was followed by “Jesus” and “tomb”. (an empty one) And the next were calls to missionary action: “see” “go” and “tell”.

In this time of many fears, the message clear: He is risen. The tomb is empty. Now SEE … GO … TELL.

Who is Fighting the "Worship Wars"?

2009-04-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

One of my “Christmas books” that I am just getting to finish was a recent paperback by Gary Nelson entitled Borderland Churches: A Congregation’s Introduction to Missional Living.
The book is about missional living on the congregational level, about the church engaging the culture that surrounds it in the borderland between faith and unbelief. For the church to live out its mission in the borderlands, we will have to understand that the mission field isn’t over there, it’s in our back yard. Borderland ministries, to be faithfully relevant, must move from a “come to” (attractional) understanding to a “go to” (incarnational) one. Borderland ministry requires a great deal of willingness to embrace radical change. But to those of us who preach change, he warns this call to change is not mere tinkering. True change, he points out moves beyond the superficial, beyond simply changing the style of music, to changing attitudes and presuppositions. He particularly speaks to the time and effort those of us in established denominations have spent in fighting the “worship wars”…

Learning to sing in this strange time has little to do with choruses or hymns. The cosmetic worship changes of the last decades of church life, while at times helpful, have also proven distracting. The desire to be more appealing and relevant in the rhythms of our worship to those who live in the borderlands is genuine. For some churches, altering our songs of worship was the beginning of a journey toward relevance and impact. However, the worship wars of the last two decades of the twentieth century were moments of trivial pursuit. They placed simplistic and shallow characteristics on people outside the influence of the church, making it sound too often as if borderland people were simply sitting at home on Sunday waiting for us as the church to change our worship. If it only changed, they would come. If we seek to engage people in meaningful dialog, we must engage them at deeper ;levels. Borderland people are not superficial. They are unlikely to be drawn into our world by the simple alteration of our music. Your next-door neighbor is not likely to be asking why you do not sing choruses. People searching spiritually are not agonizing over the hardness of our pews. Many of them are simply living in the sincere belief that they have found a much more meaningful way to live their lives on Sunday, let alone Monday and beyond. The song we must learn to sing is much more profound than a chorus or a hymn. It is about attitudes and presuppositions. It is about atmosphere where we offer genuine community and authentic relationships. The song seeks to answer the question of what it means to be the church relevantly in this context and these times. Trapped in our memories, we only hinder the sense of urgency required to initiate change. P. 17

Exponential Change and Luther's Catechism

2009-03-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

Attached below is what I think is the latest edition of the “Did You Know 3.0” video. I say I think it is the latest edition because it deals with exponential change, and by the time it is published it is out of date.

The video ends with the question, ”What does this mean?” Keep it in mind as you watch the video. You will enjoy it. If nothing else, it will give you some sermon illustrations or interesting facts to share with your friends.

What does this mean? The answer to that is a complex one. For some it means the world is going crazy. For others, it means we live in an exciting time of change and cultural revolution. I lean towards the latter, though sometimes fear the former. Leadership Network recently published a chart of how people adopt change.

In a time of exponential change, the wave of change moves faster. Perhaps most of us –even the early adapters – never catch up. By the time the smartest people have figured out what is happening in the economy, the culture, the church, it has already happened and something new is on its way. Long range planning as we used to know it, must take on a different face. More time is spent in preparing than planning--preparing through establishing our core values, our mission, our giftedness that will enable us to serve, witness and re-form ourselves as God’s people in the steady stream of change.

Beyond that, “What does this mean?” strikes my Lutheran mind as a typical Lutheran catechetical question that is always answered within the gracious will and work of God in Jesus Christ. And so, facing the future of change, one says with Luther …

Thy will be done.
What does this mean?: The good and gracious will of God is done, indeed, without our prayers, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also.

Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
What does this mean? The kingdom of God comes, indeed, without our prayers, but we pray in this petition that it may come among us also.

Oh, yes … “This is most certainly true.”

Reggie McNeal: Missional Renaissance -- A Review

2009-03-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

Reggie McNeal’s latest book is certain to become a primary resource for those who want to learn and to teach others about the missional church movement. It is a “must read” for anyone interested in the direction of ministry in the twenty-first century.

If you know Reggie or have heard him speak, you know that he is a gifted communicator, able not only to convey complex ideas in a “down-home” style, but also capable of anticipating the audience’s questions and objections, even the ones they are sometimes afraid to ask.

McNeal had three goals in writing the book. CLICK HERE or on the picture below to hear them in his own words.

McNeal’s first goal was to set forth the language and definition of the missional church. Those not familiar with the missional church movement will find in this book a clear, practical, Biblical, understandable statement of what it means to be “missional”. They will also find someone who understands their fear of change, anticipates their questions, and gives practical guidance for taking a step at a time. Those who are already well read in the subject will find not a lot of new concepts. McNeal builds on the work of people like Bosch, Guder, Newbigin, Hunsberger, Frost and Hirsch and others, but he does it with a style that is his own and that brings new clarity to what may be already familiar ideas. He recognizes that the “missional renaissance” has as much to do with ecclesiology as it does missiology, and he addresses both with integrity.
His second goal was to set forth a clear path and compass settings for the missional journey. This he does by outlining three missional shifts:

Missional Shift 1: From an Internal to an External Focus

Shifting from a "member culture" to a "missionary culture."
Refocusing and reallocating resources (prayer, people, calendar/time, finances, facilities, and technology) for missional impact. This is really about stewardship, although he doesn’t use the word.

Missional Shift 2: From Program Development to People Development

“Are people better off for being part of this church, or are they just tireder and poorer?”
Seeing the world as the shaping ground for spiritual formation, not the inside of the church.
Moving from mass standardization of programs to mass customization of discipleship.
"The missional church assumes that service to others is the first step, not some latter expression of spirituality."

Missional Shift 3: From Church-Based to Kingdom-Based Leadership
The leader must deal with…

Paradigm issues (How the leader sees the world)
Microskill development (Competencies the leader needs)
Resource management (What the leader has to work with)
Personal Growth (The leader as a person.)

His final goal was to establish a score card for measuring progress on the missional journey. His inclusion of suggested metrics to assess missional faithfulness and vitality is something that s missing in most other books on the missional church. Those metrics make a unique contribution to the literature. For years we have measured our faithfulness and vitality in terms of growth of attendance, budget, programs, What happens if we measure vitality in terms of the growth of people, service, prayer, outreach? McNeal would have us move from measuring how we are doing church to how we are blessing our communities.

Get a copy of this book and read it. It is a good one.

Internet Evangelism

2009-03-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

God has given his church a wonderful gift in the internet, and slowly we are beginning to learn to use it. But change comes hard for the church, and often our use of the internet follows the same rules we have been using with print media for several years, and our audience continues to be confined to an exclusive audience of those within the church, or even our own congregation.

I look at a lot of church web sites and a growing number of Facebook groups, and I continue to observe how many say things like “This group is designed to provide information and discussion for members and friends of St. John’s-by-the-gas-station Church.” The web site or Facebook group is full of announcements, inside chatter, and pictures of the latest Youth Group car wash,

Increasingly, however, some are using the internet as a means of outreach to their community. Their websites are inclusive, rather than exclusive. They meet people where they are, rather than fitting them into the program and schedule of the church. They invite people to share their needs, their prayer requests, their questions. And they reach out to help these people in word and deed with the love and mercy of Christ.

A web site called “Internet Evangelism Day” has assembled a broad array of resources for congregations looking to use the internet in outreach and is setting April 26 as “Internet Evangelism Day,” Watch the video below, and then check out the web site (CLICK HERE)

A good place for any congregation to start is with an assessment of its web site. The movement to a blog or to Facebook or Twitter shifts the approach from a standardized message on a fixed platform to a more customized approach to individuals. Another avenue being explored by some, including my own denomination, is outreach through Second Life, the virtual world community. Second Life enables one to actually plant a congregation and hold worship services in this virtual world. See the video below for an example. As it stands now, Second Life has (in my opinion) a rather demanding learning curve and an aura of mystery that limits it from really taking off. As the developers work to make it more user-friendly, it will become a fertile field for outreach.

Preach the Gospel!

2009-03-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

A talented young Evangelical preacher recently posted an entry on his blog with some good points for preaching to today’s audience, but his basic model also caused me some concern. He says…
"Here is the model: Make people feel like they need an answer to a question. Then take them to God's Word to answer the question. And tell them why it is important to do what we just talked about. And then you close by saying, "Wouldn't it be great if everybody did that?" And that's it. It is a journey. You take people from somewhere to somewhere."

Here’s what I like about the model:

+ It starts with people, not with a text. Fredrich Buechner was right when he said that the truth of a sermon is already there before the preacher opens his lips. It is there in the hearts and the lives of those who have come to hear the preacher speak. It is there in the couple who had an argument on the way to church. It is there in the old man who has a spot of egg on his tie and does not know it. It is there in the single parent who wonders if she will always be alone. …. The truth is there in the people. Find a need and speak to it. (The need, of course, may be found in a text. I’m not opposed to lectionary preaching.)
+ It looks to the Word for guidance. It is not just the stating of pious opinion, but a declaration of God’s Word.
+ It ends with a celebration of what might be in the power of Christ. It has a goal. It expects something to happen.

What concerns me is that one could easily follow this model and never preach the gospel, the Good News of God’s action in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that is the power and the motivation for a renewed life. The model above seems to be saying tell them…

+ Here’s the problem
+ Here’s the answer to the problem
+ Here’s what you need to do about it
+ Wouldn’t it be great if everybody did it

The gospel message is “Here’s what God has done about your basic problem and what that means for you as you address the issues of life.” The gospel is the means and the motivation that brings people “from somewhere to somewhere,” and it begins not with a journey, but with an action of God carried out by His grace in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now perhaps the good brother meant all that, but I have heard too many sermons through the years that would fit his model and yet preach nothing but the Law, giving us the “Five Biblical Keys to Marital Happiness,” or What the Bible says about Money.” Telling me why it is important to follow certain principles, and then pointing to how good my life will be if I follow them, doesn’t always work – as any parent will tell you. Lasting motivation comes from the knowledge of a loving God who can pick me up, turn me around, and walk with me every step of the way. Preach the gospel!!

Church Membership Continues Decline

2009-02-27T21:39:00.000-08:00

The 77th annual edition of the Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches shows a continuing decline in membership among the largest denominations in North America. What was unusual about this report was the decline reported for the first time in the Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist denominations.

According to the 2009 Yearbook, among the 25 largest churches in the U.S., four are growing: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (up 1.63 percent to 5,873,408; the Assemblies of God (up 0.96 percent to 2,863,265); Jehovah's Witnesses (up 2.12 percent to 1,092,169); and the Church of God of Cleveland, Tenn. (up 2.04 percent to 1,053,642).

Churches listed in the Yearbook as experiencing the highest rate of membership loss are the United Church of Christ (down 6.01 percent), the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (down 3.01 percent), the Presbyterian Church (USA) (down 2.79 percent), the Episcopal Church (down 1.76 percent), the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (down 1.44 percent) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (down 1.35 percent),

It is also interesting that several church groups indicate "no change" in membership. My experience as a judicatory leader is that when people have good news they always send in reports; when they have bad news, they report nothing. So, the picture is probably more bleak than reported.

For a more complete report CLICK HERE

Statistics are interesting, but they do not always "speak for themselves." They do not always tell us why things are happening or what should be done about them. Questions arise:

Do we need different metrics for what a faithful, missional congregation looks like?
Are those metrics things that happen inside the church or outside the church?
Is outreach always rewarded with intake? How should the fruit of outreach be measured?
How is "membership" measured?
Is the old breed of members being replaced by a new, smaller, but more focused breed of members, or is the old breed just dying out?

You can probably think of many more.

Economic Crisis Provides Missional Challenges and Opportunities

2009-02-23T11:20:00.000-08:00

While many Chinese linguists now challenge the old saying that the Chinese character for “crisis” (weijei) can mean both danger and opportunity, the truth remains that crisis times can bring both challenges and opportunities for those who know how to “redeem the time.” Two items came across my screen today that point out how the economic crisis can be both a challenge and a missional opportunity for congregations.

First was an article on CNN.COM entitled “Heading to Church for Money Advice” (CLICK HERE) that highlights a number of churches reaching out to their communities through budgeting and debt management programs. People are beginning to see that they are imprisoned by debt, and that financial management pays dividends in relationships, not just money. Churches are using the crisis not only to teach stewardship principles, but to reach out to their communities in a caring way.

The second was a summary of a survey done by the Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF) of large churches in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Here are several observations from the feedback received:

1. The economic downturn . . . as one pastor noted . . . presents itself as both an opportunity and a threat! The opportunities for many churches to initiate new ministries and/or expand ministries already in place are coming from the need to respond to the people within their own communities. Some of the programs that are being utilized are, Financial Peace University, support groups for unemployed, food banks, etc. The economic downturn has also become a threat as ministry budgets attempt to adequately fund staff, benefits and diverse ministry programs.

2. 4th quarter giving in 2008 showed that (this was after the economic downturn) . . .
a. 43% of churches experienced slight decline
b. 29% remained unchanged
c. 18% indicated giving increased as a response

3. Pastors consistently identified that members attend worship less frequently now versus a few years ago. The definition of “regular attendance” is shifting in the minds of worshipers.

4. In spite of the enormous ministry challenges and the rapid rate of cultural changes, when asked about how they were personally feeling, pastors most frequently selected very positive feelings. For example, they were excited about the future, focused, thirsty to learn, etc. However . . .
a. One third of the pastors with churches worshiping 1000+ identified themselves as being overwhelmed.
b. All of the respondents that noted that they had been “wounded by conflict” were in churches with less than 800 in worship.

5. The survey also showed that most large churches are growing slightly, have plateaued or are declining slightly in worship attendance. Only a few churches identified rapid growth in the last few years.

6. A “few” pastors identified working to develop a missional or incarnational focus to ministry instead of an earlier program or attractional ministry model.

One only hopes that these times of crisis will provide opportunity for more than a “few” to move towards an incarnational approach to mission and reach out to both members and community with ministries that will help address both immediate physical needs and long-term issues of personal stewardship and financial management.

Finding resources in financial training that are both fiscally and theologically sound can be a challenge in itself.

One of the Resources mentioned consistently as both an outreach tool and a stewardship tool is Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. (Click Here for video and info). Church leaders would want to carefully examine his theological and political views before giving wholesale endorsement to his program.

Another group doing similar work is Crown Financial Ministries. See video below. Once again, the whole “theology of glory” approach (If you obey God, He will bless you.) is evident to Lutherans and other theologians of the cross. The key would be in sifting through the wheat and the chaff, but the idea of touching the community with a ministry of financial and relational healing is one that can begin to lead a congregation outside its walls with an incarnational approach to genuine needs.

Who We Are: HD from Crown Financial Ministries on Vimeo.
Lutherans may want to investigate some programs prepared by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, including a downloadable one called “Your Values, Your Choices, Your Money,” (CLICK HERE) that could be used in your congregation. Others could be planned in conjunction with your judicatory stewardship office, your District Lutheran Church Extension Fund Vice President, or your local Thrivent representative.

Perils of the Mid-Sized Church

2009-02-16T19:37:00.000-08:00

It seems to me that many more books and article are written about the challenges of the small church and of the large church than of the mid-sized church (100 – 300 average worship attendance.) It’s about time we recognized the unique struggles of the mid-sized church in the following areas:

Priorities
Pastoring
Programming
Personnel
Participation
Procedures
Property

Mid-sized congregations are torn between the competing priorities associated with small and large congregations. In smaller congregations, relationships are the highest priority. In large congregations, performance is the key to ministry success. Members of mid-sized congregations expect both relationships and performance as priorities!
Members of mid-sized congregations often want the same kind of pastoral attention typical of pastors and members in smaller congregations. The increasing demands on a pastor’s time, however, makes this an impossible expectation to meet! In larger congregations, members expect to know their pastors through large gatherings like worship services, weddings, funerals, and newsletter articles. Discomfort comes for a mid-sized congregation, when members want the best of both worlds.
Mid-size congregations demand more programming and ministries than smaller congregations. As a result, leadership needs to grow.
Congregations struggle with the personnel changes necessary to move from a heavy reliance on lay volunteers, typical of smaller congregations, to great numbers of paid part- and full-time staff who assist members to accomplish ministry.
At mid-size, tension often builds around participation issues. People begin to pick and choose the church events and activities they want to attend, rather than participating in every event hosted by the congregation. This often causes concern among long-time members when they don’t see the faces of everyone at each congregational gathering.
Procedure questions arise at mid-size! Unless a congregation’s organizational skeleton changes appropriately, competing expectations of control and involvement arise. Members of smaller congregations expect their high involvement to give them strong ownership and control of decision-making procedures. Members of larger congregations expect to delegate a great deal of authority to the senior pastor, staff and elected church council members. At mid-size, members tend to want “both a participatory democracy and a representative democracy.”
Property issues create new tension at mid-size. In small congregations, members expect people to treat the church building as they would care for their own home. In large congregations, the church building is seen as a public institution where many people gather and maintenance costs are high. Mid-size congregations operate with both expectations!

Adapted from: Christian Education and Evangelism for the 21st Century, Fall 2000 (No online link)

The View from the Balcony

2009-02-10T16:51:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, when I first was elected District President, I used the image of a person on a balcony to describe the work of the “episkopos” (literally, “over-seer,” “super-visor”). While the action in the church took place on the dance floor of the local congregation, it was necessary that someone see the big picture of the entire “dance.”

This week, while at the Gettysburg Seminary library, I picked up a copy of Pathway to Renewal: Practical Steps for Congregations, by Daniel P. Smith and Mary K. Sellon (Alban Institute, 2008) [Click Here for reference] and see that they use the same image for what they call the “Balcony Team”. The Balcony Team plays an important role in the process of missional renewal. In a congregation a balcony team:

keeps a big picture view of the congregation and its journey through renewal
helps the congregations leaders continually reflect on how their congregational life can contribute to achieving its vision
encourages and supports leaders in making needed changes
monitors the congregational “temperature,” (satisfaction, conflict) keeping the board apprised of the impact of renewal efforts on the congregation.
keeps the vision before the congregation and monitors the actions against the adopted values

The concept is this: If you go to a dance and spend the entire evening on the dance floor, you’re aware of only what happens in your immediate vicinity. You focus your energy on dancing—and on not colliding with the people next to you. At the end of the evening you might come home thinking, “What a great dance! Tons of people, wonderful music.” If you’d gone up to the balcony, you would have seen something different. All the people were clustered at the far end of the hall away from the band, many sat on the sidelines, and most danced only when the music was fast. By viewing the proceedings from the balcony you’d come away with a very different perspective of how the evening went.

I remember working conferences with Shelby Andress from Search Institute, where she would appoint certain people to be “village philosophers”. They would simply wander around during the day and then report to the group from time to time on what they saw happening in the big picture.

Call it what you may, the point is that there needs to be a group that looks at the broad perspective of how the renewal effort is going in the congregation as a whole, how it might be improved, and what people are not being reached. They are the bearers of God’s vision and the trustees of God’s values. This could be the church council or the board of elders, but the idea of an independent “balcony team” may be even better.

Bob Dylan, will.i.am, and the Nature of Change

2009-02-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

Of all the commercials on the 2009 Super Bowl, the one that impressed me (and many media commentators) most was this one…

What struck me about the commercial was how well it portrayed the cyclical nature of generations. As I said in the previous post,: The more things change, the more they stay the same –and yet, are different.

If you have never read any of the work of Strauss and Howe on generational cycles, you should do so. Or at least get a summary from this Wikipedia article (CLICK HERE) and then explore their web sites (CLICK HERE.)

Strauss and Howe define a generation as “a group of people who share a common experience--a social moment of spiritual awakening or secular crisis--during the formative phase of their life, usually youth or young adulthood.” This usually is a period of about twenty years, although the defining point is common experience, not number of years.

They see cycles consisting of four phases and, hence, four generational cycles:

Civic Generation – populated by ”Heroes” whose formative years were in a time of Crisis.
Adaptive Generation – populated by “Artists” whose formative years were in a time of High.
Idealist Generation – Populated by “Prophets” whose formative years were in a time of Awakening.
Reactive Generation – Populated by “Nomads” whose formative years were in a time of unraveling.

The significance of this for those in ministry: First, in every congregation we have Heroes, Artists, Prophets, and Nomads, who represent each of these generations. In fact, in most congregations, we have people from six generations. (See chart below. It includes another division: Those “native born” in a digital world as opposed to those who are “immigrants” in that world.)

Second, while each generation is unique, they have characteristics in common with some of the older generations before them.

Third, In the course of a long life, a person will live through a cycle of crisis, high, awakening, and unraveling – perhaps through parts of even more than one cycle – and because of his or her generational experience, will have a role to play at each stage of the cycle.

Finally, it all seems to say something in favor of intergenerational ministry. There are blessings we can bring to one another if we take the time to understand one another. It is too easy to think that nothing of significance ever happened before we were born or that one generation is greater than another generation. The Body of Christ is enriched by us all, whether we sing the song of Sinatra, Dylan, or will.i.am.
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For additional posts on generational issues, click on "generations" in the labels box at the the end of this post.

"The Times" It Is a-Changin'

2009-01-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

This week the Christian Science Monitor became one of the first major daily newspapers to announce that it was abandoning publication of its daily print edition and going exclusively to an online daily format with publication of a print edition on weekends only. People may be consuming more information than ever before, but they are doing it on their laptops, their iPhones, or their Kindles.

The disappearance of print newspapers is only part of the issue. By and large, newspapers have not done a good job of moving to the online medium. They look like newspapers online, in many cases simply replicating their print edition on a web site. (For more on the Christian Science Monitor and an NPR audio, CLICK HERE.)

Churches are beginning to learn the same lessons and make the same mistakes. More and more congregations are going to online communication and e-newsletters. In many cases it is more in an effort to save money, than to communicate more effectively or to expand the readership base as a missional effort. (Church Councils are persuaded by the “bottom line”.) When the move is made, they often make the same mistakes as newspapers. The online e-news is simply the print edition duplicated online. It generally makes little use of links, blogs or interactive elements. It also tends to follow the same publication schedule as the old newsletter, sending longs blocks of information on a monthly basis instead of short bites in real time.

Why not suggest to your judicatory office a workshop on online newsletters and communication! The times they are a-changin’. ---- Which brings me to an “aside”: As one who lived through the changes of the late 60’s, it’s interesting to listen to Bob Dylan’s song again (click video below) and realize how similar, and yet different, these times are from those.

The K.I.S.S. Principle: Keep it Simple (and Spiritual)

2009-01-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

My father used to like reading the old Rube Goldberg cartoons that showed simple tasks being done in the most complex ways. Perhaps it was because my father was raised in a mechanical, industrial society.

As we move into a digital society with its binary foundation, we seem to be rediscovering the beauty of simplicity. The fancy fonts of a decade ago give way to the functional print of the new millennium. The “boom boxes” of the 80’s with all their knobs and buttons and equalizer switches are replaced by the simple, intuitive design of the iPod. The homepage of Google with its uncluttered design replaces pull-down menus and pop-up guides.

The same may be true for congregations that seek to be in mission in the 21st century. Functional simplicity, authenticity and missional focus are the key words for today’s congregations. The KISS principle, in this case, “Keep it Simple and Spiritual” seems to be the theme of the day. The idea of “Simple Church” sees a radical expression in the new monastic movements and house church movements, but the KISS principle applies to more traditional congregations as well. Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger spelled it out a couple of years ago in a book entitled Simple Church. They describe a process consisting of four key values:

Clarity: Do leaders and members understand the purpose and mission for which we exist ?
Movement: What is the process for developing disciples ?
Alignment: Are all your programs in line with and supportive of your purpose and mission?
Focus: Are you willing to stop doing things that do not fit your mission? Do new programs fit your mission?

It all boils down to what Stephen R. Covey set forth as a management principle: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” That means keeping everyone focused on the main thing and sometimes getting rid of that which is not the main thing.

Check the video below and then CLICK HERE for more resources.

Change is Good ... You Go First!

2009-01-17T20:39:00.000-08:00

That’s the title of a delightful little book from a company called Simple Truths that publishes books that look like children’s books, but have great simple truths for leaders in any organization. (Click here for more information.)

If you want some good tips on leading change in an organization presented in a novel way, watch the short, but interesting, video by clicking here.

If you want a well presented animated preview of the book, a "virtual book", click here.

Enjoy!

Making the Most of Short Term Mission Trips

2009-01-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

Short term mission trips have become a means of creating mission awareness, building a mission donor base, strengthening outreach commitments of congregations and inspiring personal witness and spiritual growth. They have particular appeal for younger generations that prefer hands on participation, but are popular among Christians of all ages.

These mission trips have also come under criticism in some circles as being “feel good vacations” or one-sided expressions of Western “superiority” – “We have come to help you!”

A new resource from Christianity Today called “Round Trip” may be helpful in working with short term mission groups as they prepare for their experience. It is a 14 week time of preparation focused around five study periods plus practical planning sessions. The approach may be summarized in this quote from the leader’s guide:

"In fact, while the term “missions” can be valuable, it is potentially misleading. If we think that “missions” means that we possess something—whether superior knowledge of the gospel, finances, or skills—that those we are visiting do not have, we are likely to do more harm than good. Most short-term mission trips go to places where the church is already thriving, with a powerful gospel witness and many local skills and resources. Even where the church may not yet exist, God has gone ahead of us to prepare the way in every culture. The term “missions” can be helpful if it reminds us that we are going to join God’s mission, and God’s people already on a mission, in the place we will visit for a short time. It’s important that we prepare our group’s hearts and minds to recognize signs that God is already at work where we are going."

Watch the video clip below and then, if interested, check for additional resources by clicking HERE.

How the Internet is (Can Be) Changing the Way We Do Church

2009-01-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

In an article for the Alban Institute, Andrea Unseem examines the latest Internet innovations and how they are changing the landscape of religion and congregational life today. (Click here for full article.)

The article came to mind following some events this week:

A friend reminded me that most congregations continue to plan communications based on a written culture when we are in a digital age.
A church worker in my local circuit sent me an email about a blog post I had told the circuit about. “Thanks. I didn’t know how to comment online. It’s the first time I’ve been on a blog.”
As a consultant with congregations in stewardship and mission, I find some leaders (mostly younger ones) want everything online and in electronic format, while others (mostly older ones) still want hard copies and printed manuals.
Some of the young people who do a great job on congregational web sites express frustration that they can’t seem to move the congregation beyond Web 1.0 (information sharing) to Web 2.0 (social networking).

Unseem says that experiences like this are part of a culture clash in which congregations are having debates—Should we be online? Do social networking sites have anything to offer?—that individuals in the wider society have already resolved.

The essential challenge for congregations is this: In a digital world where community is possible online, what is the relevance of a brick-and-mortar congregation? The Internet’s success springs from a powerful longing for community—the very same force that drives congregations.
... The good news here, says Heidi Campbell (Texas A&M), is that congregational life and online life are not competing in a zero-sum game. If people go online to connect with other believers or deepen their faith, this activity does not mean a net loss for the congregation that those individuals might have turned to had the Internet not been available.

A friend, who is pastor of a mission-focused church in our district, recently wrote, “I’m fascinated with the thought of the church becoming a hub of spiritual transformation that builds networks of vibrant Christian community in our neighborhoods. I like the wonderful contrast between the old picture of the “net-work” the disciples left to follow Jesus and the new concept of network. The Verizon commercials about one being connected to the many could be the new picture of the church. I see Gospel in those commercials.” What Unseem and Campbell are saying is that this new network can take many forms that now reach beyond the brick and mortar barriers of our old concept of the church.

... “People are looking for relationships,” says Campbell. “They’re looking for places where they can care about people and feel cared for. They want a sense of connection, and not just on a Sunday. They want a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week connection to other people. They want an intimate community where they can be transparent with others and others can be transparent with them.”

The article is a thoughtful reflection, and goes on to explore some practical ways to make it work in your congregation; read the article in its entirety.

Navigators, Map Makers and Map Readers -- Part One

2009-01-05T18:34:00.000-08:00

Eddie Gibbs, in his book, Leadership Next, wrote “The church needs navigators tuned to the voice of God, not map readers.” As I read that, I looked up at the old Japanese sextant that serves as a bookend on top of one of my bookcases. I’ve had it so long, I don’t remember how I got it or where it came from – probably a hand-me-down relic from WWII. Of course my very young friends, raised in an age of GPS and satellite navigation, don’t even know what it is. And when I explain how it is used by sighting the sun or stars and measuring the angle of ascent against the horizon, they recognize the skill and, sometimes, the “luck” involved. But such is the challenge and the “romance” of navigation.

The difference between a navigator and a map reader is this: Map readers are good at finding their way around in a known world. All you need is a compass and a plotting tool to find your way from one known point to another on a map of the known universe. Navigators, on the other hand, are able to explore the unknown. They do not need fixed points and compass. They rely on the heavens. They look upward for guidance, not down at a map.

Len Hjalmarson in his review of Gibbs’ book, writes: “Map readers, and navigators, are actually two different kinds of people (See Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese?) While it is possible to make map readers into navigators, it is not easy, and some will never make the transition. Map readers as leaders make good managers; navigators as leaders are explorers. Map readers love predictability; navigators enjoy complexity. Map readers are impatient with process; navigators enjoy the journey. Map-reading is a lonely vocation; navigators value company.”

At a recent meeting of our local circuit we talked about the difficulty of getting the members of our congregations to think in missional terms and to understand that we are moving into a time of great unknowns for our culture, our economy and our church. The truth is that we have lots of map readers who are good at finding their way around in the known world that used to be. Those people are important, for they are good managers. But we need more navigators—pastors and lay leaders who can look to the heavens and lead the way into the unknown. We also need something else that Gibbs does not mention. We need map makers. Map makers are people who can take the vision and direction pointed by the navigator and turn it into a practical pathway that others can follow. They make new maps for a newly discovered land.

In my experience, about 5% of the people are navigators. They see things others do not see and point directions for the new world in which we find ourselves. These people need community. They need to share ideas. And because they are navigators, they usually find one another out there in the unknown hanging around the blogs and the bookstores. You will find them on the links of places like Friend of Missional and Allelon. (See my link list) Another 15% are map makers. They are able to take the ideas they learn from listening to or reading the navigators and make practical application through the creation of a program or ministry that is able to transform the unique ministry they serve. These people need process, ideas and resources. The other 80% are map readers. They listen to the ideas of the navigators and then say, “Give me a map to get to this new land.” They want programs, study guides, schedules, ten steps to transformation. Both map makers and map readers are often well served by groups like Alban Institute and Center for Parish Development. (See my link list)

An example from my own denomination, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, is the Ablaze! Movement. (See my link list.) Ablaze is intended to be a “movement,” not a “program.”

Ablaze! is not a program or a campaign. It began as a mission vision with the hope of starting a mission movement. Each participating congregation, group, mission society, partner church, individual, etc. is challenged to pray about its own particular situation and the part of the mission endeavor it can impact and to design its own strategy to contribute to reaching 100 million people. LCMS World Mission is asking the church to develop mission models that work and can be shared with others. Ablaze! is not an answer…it’s an invitation!

“Visions” and “movements” are led by Navigators. “Strategies” are designed by Map makers to make the vision work in their situations. But often the big demand is for tactics, programs, and models that can be used by Map readers, and so at the end of an Ablaze! presentation, or listed on the FAQ website there will be the question, “How do I order one of those Ablaze! T-shirts?”.

The truth is that the church needs all three types of people. If we were all navigators, we would constantly explore new directions, but never establish settlements in the new worlds we have discovered. The navigator has probably not fully accomplished his task until the most entrenched map readers are ready to order T-shirts with a map of the new world.

But there is another sense in which “we need navigators tuned to God’s voice.” In Part Two we’ll take a further look at what that means.

Navigators, Map Makers and Map Readers -- Part Two: Magnetic Declination

2009-01-05T18:28:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen a map or nautical chart with the warning: “Not for navigational purposes!”? There are many reasons for that warning. There are lots of church programs and “how to” books upon which I would like to put that stamp. It doesn’t mean that the program does not work or that following the steps will not help your church grow. What it does mean is that they will not necessarily get you where God wants you to go or do it the way God wants you to do it.

One of the things that good map readers understand is that you can’t always trust every map. A navigator knows how to find true North by sighting off the star Polaris, but a map reader using a compass has to take into consideration something called “magnetic declination,” which is the variation between true North and magnetic North, a factor that varies according to your location on the globe. A good map will include a symbol of magnetic deviation (see picture), but some maps, while they look good and may appear to work well in a short distance, are truly “Not for navigational purposes.”

Too many pastors and lay leaders pick up programs (maps) that sound exciting and pragmatic, but are not fit for navigation because they are based on faulty navigation points. Or to put it in plain English, too many churches use programs that sound exciting and may even bring results without really checking on the theology behind them. If a book is a bestseller or a program is used by the church down the street, “Maybe we should use it here.”

Not every pastor has the skill and vision to be a navigator or map maker in the new missionary age in the sense of pointing the new directions for the church in the 21st century. But every pastor should have the skill to check those new directions and maps against the fixed navigational points of God’s Word.

In an earlier post (Twitter: The Gospel in 140 Characters or Less) I observed how many different theologies of salvation one could convey in 140 characters. I am a strong proponent of a missional church and of an emerging missional theology and ecclesiology, but even an emerging theology has certain fixed points. For Lutherans they remain Grace alone, Faith alone, Christ alone, Scripture alone. The “Twitter” experiment was, in my opinion, an example of how “open source theology” can produce maps “Not for navigational purposes.”

So, Eddie Gibbs is right, “The church needs navigators tuned to the voice of God, not map readers.” The church needs navigators to lead us into a new missionary age and it needs pastors and lay leaders who also have enough navigational skills to make sure we are on the right course.

Navigators, Map Makers and Map Readers -- Part Three: St. Brendan

2009-01-05T18:23:00.000-08:00

My friends know I have a liking for what I consider to be great missional saints of old, most of whom my friends consider to be obscure pilgrims along the pathway of church history. All this talk about navigators and map makers brings to mind the great Irish saint, St. Brendan, often known as “Brendan the Navigator” or “Brendan the Bold”.

When I was a kid growing up in Staten Island, New York, there would occasionally (around Columbus Day) be an argument among my ethnic neighbors about who really discovered America. Few gave that honor to Columbus. The Italians claimed it was Giovanni da Verrazzano, who at least was the first to sail into New York harbor, supposedly on April 17, 1524. The Irish, on the other hand, claimed that it was St. Brendan, who a thousand years earlier (c. 540), had first laid foot on American soil, and that Columbus himself relied upon accounts of Brendan’s voyage.

Perhaps because the Italians significantly outnumbered the Irish in my neighborhood, or perhaps because of historical accuracy, the Italians won the argument, even to the point of naming the great bridge across the Narrows the “Verrazzano – Narrows Bridge”.

But St. Brendan still captures my imagination as one of the great navigators and missionaries of old. To sail the great Atlantic in a small boat with sixty pilgrims was an act of faith and a life of vulnerability. To be a navigator is to journey in a life of vulnerability, always trusting that the fixed points will be there and the journey will be guided. But many navigators have also found the truth of Alan Roxburgh’s statement “that what happens in vulnerability is where God’s future shows up.”

St. Brendan the Navigator understood his calling to walk in vulnerability, and he left us this prayer:

Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home? Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea?

Shall I put myself wholly at your mercy, without silver, without a horse, without fame, without honour? Shall I throw myself wholly upon You, without sword or shield, without food and drink, without a bed to lie on? Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Your yoke?

Shall I pour out my heart to You, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness, tears streaming down my cheeks? Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land?

Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict? Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean? O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?

O Christ, will You help on the wild waves?

Ten Reasons to Plant a New Church

2009-01-05T07:59:00.000-08:00

One of the books I have been recommending lately, especially to my friends in judicatories, is David T. Olson’s The American Church in Crisis. It is a book filled with data, analysis and useful charts, as well as practical hints for changing the status quo.

While the missional church movement often concentrates on changing the culture of existing congregations, it is important for congregations, and especially judicatories, to be concerned about planting new congregations. ( For some challenges of renewing existing congregations see an earlier post on “Jumping the Missional Sigmoid Curve.”)

Following are ten reasons to plant a church, according to Olson. Do you agree with them?

1. New churches lower the age profile of the American church, increase its multiethnicity, and better position the whole church for future changes.

2. New churches provide synergistic benefits to established churches. Research shows that denominations that plant many strong churches have more healthy, growing, established churches than those who plant few churches.

3. The continued growth of new churches will extend up to 40 years after their start. The growth that occurs in years 10 to 40 is critical for creating a strong base of churches for the future.

4. New churches provide a channel to express the energy and ideas of passionate, innovative young pastors. Church planting encourages the development of the gifts of ministry and leadership. Denominations that plant few churches unintentionally focus on training pastors in stabilizing gifts. A denomination needs both stabilizing and expansionist gifts to be both healthy and growing.

5. New churches are the research and development unit of God’s kingdom. New churches create most of the current models and visions for healthy life. Healthy cultural adaptations and theological vitality occur more often in a denomination that excels at church planting, because the ferment of new ideas and ministry solutions is more robust.

6. New churches are the test laboratory for lay leadership development. Because top lay leadership positions are usually already filled in the parent church, new churches provide a new group of emerging lay leaders the opportunity to grow and develop as primary leaders. In new church plants that do well, most lay members report that being part of the beginning of the new church was one of the defining spiritual events in their life.

7. New churches are historically the best method for reaching each emerging new generation. While many established churches have the ability to connect with the younger cohort, each generation also seems to need their own new type of churches that speak the gospel with their own cultural values and communications style.

8. New churches are the only truly effective means to reach the growing ethnic populations coming to America. Every people group needs to hear the gospel in a way that makes sense to their culture. It is difficult for established churches to become diverse. Church planting can effectively create both ethnic-specific and multiethnic congregations.

9. New churches are more effective than established churches at conversion growth. Studies show that new churches have three to four times the conversion rate per attendee than established churches.

10. Because the large majority of Americans do not attend a local church, many more new churches are needed. In 2005, 17.5% of Americans attended a local church on any given Sunday. Seventy-seven percent of Americans do not have a consistent connection with a Christian church.

A Prayer for the New Year

2009-01-01T06:12:00.000-08:00

John Greenleaf Whittier’s hymn, “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” makes a fitting prayer for the New Year. Listen to this arrangement by the Westminster Abbey choir and congregation.

Whittier was an American Quaker who wrote this hymn as part of a poem in 1872. It is usually set to the British hymn tune, Repton, and has become one of the more popular hymns in the UK.

As we enter a chaotic year of economic, political, and military turmoil around the world, Whittier’s hymn, perhaps influenced by his Quaker values, ask for the inner calm and openness to hear the still voice of God in the midst of the turmoil.

A stanza that is often omitted, but one that is important for us who are moved to mission, is this one:

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.

Many arrangements can be found for this hymn, including one from the soundtrack of the 2007 movie, Atonement, but the congregational one seemed most appropriate. Nevertheless, here’s an interesting one played on a rope carillon.

Blessed New Year!

2009: Year of the Missional "Reboot"?

2008-12-30T14:27:00.000-08:00

Futurist Marian Salzman appeared on CNN this morning with some great insights into trends we can expect in 2009. One that caught my attention was the following:

It will be the year of the “reboot”. You know how when your computer just won’t respond to regular commands or nothing else seems to work, all you can do is reboot and start all over again? Well, Salzman observes that many of the segments of our society: education, economics, politics, etc. are at a point where none of the old programs seem to work and what is needed is a reboot, a totally new look at how we do things and what approach we will use for the future.

I thought the same could easily be said for the church. So much of what we have done in the past under the Christendom model just does not seem to work anymore. What’s needed is a missional reboot, a new look at how we do things and what approach we will use for the future. The direction that reboot will take is something we address in this blog all the time. The question is how stuck do some congregations need to get before they realize it is either reboot or crash?

Check the full CNN interview below, and if you want more on the practical task of "rebooting" a church for mission, check the excellent article from Alban Institute on "The Messy Work of Renewal." (Click here)

Jumping the Missional Sigmoid Curve

2008-12-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

Way back in 1994, Peter Drucker wrote a piece for the old Net Fax network on “Jumping the Sigmoid Curve.” (Click here for download It seems things last forever in cyberspace!)

Drucker pointed out that one of the more useful tools in understanding the natural life cycle of a product, an organization, a church or even a relationship is the sigmoid or S curve. The secret to constant growth is to start a new S curve before the first one ends and the right place to start the second curve is at point A when there is the time, energy and resources to get the new curve through its initial stages before the first curve plateaus and declines.

Most organizations, of course, do not begin a new cycle until point B. The reason is that at point A everything seems to be going fine, so why change things. Another reason is that change may initially produce a drop during a time of learning and acceptance, as shown in the shaded area, and so change is filled with anxiety.

As I speak to congregations about becoming missional churches, I often point out that churches go through this same life cycle of mission. I’ve made up a little chart using a fishing analogy.

When a congregation first starts out, it is focused around being “fishers of people,” and built upon the Great Commission. As time goes on, however, attention shifts from fishing to maintaining the shed. The congregation still knows where the fishing tackle is and still pulls it out for regular “evangelism” activities, but the energy of the congregation is on keeping the shed in good repair and those within it comfortable. Finally, a congregation may reach a stage where most of its energy is focused on maintenance and finance and structure and serving the needs of those within the shed. The bones of mission are dragged out a couple of times a year for a sermon or two, but they are not part of the fabric of the congregation.

Another illustration I use is this one. When a congregation starts out, it has mission and vision in the driver’s seat, but as time goes on, finance and structure move to the front and mission and vision take a back seat.

How long does the cycle take? For some congregations it takes only ten years, for others much longer. An expert in mission planting once said that the best place to plant a new church is not necessarily a new community or a growing community, but a community where all the churches are at least 35 years old. By that time most congregations have reached the peak of the sigmoid curve.

Where is your congregation on the sigmoid curve? Where are you in your own ministry? I found that every seven or eight years I had to do something significant to jump start my ministry like starting my doctoral program or taking a sabbatical. And every year I need to commit to regular reading and workshops and continuing education. Congregations need to do the same thing. How will you jump the missional sigmoid curve in 2009? Where will you begin? (Hint: Start with theology, not programs. What you need to do is change the culture of your congregation from an establishment culture to a missional culture. Your “culture” is like the default setting on your computer. A particular program may change the default while that program is being used, but unless the default (culture) is changed, you go right back to the default when the program is ended. Culture change starts by examining your theology and ecclesiology.) Who will help you change? Gather a group of like minded people and seek out a mentor for yourself.

Christmas Afterthoughts: The Wait is Over

2008-12-26T20:27:00.000-08:00

One of the changes that comes from moving from parish ministry to judicatory or consulting ministry is that one gets to listen to other people preach on a regular basis. During this Christmas week I’ve been blessed to hear some fine sermons. One was by Pastor Tom Clocker, guest proclaimer at Holy Nativity Lutheran Church in Arbutus, Maryland, on Christmas Eve. (Click here for Holy Nativity) Pastor Clocker skillfully painted the word picture of a waiting room in the labor and delivery section of an old hospital where friends and relatives had gathered to welcome the birth of a long awaited child. All of the emotions were there: hope, anxiety, dreams. But this waiting room was filled with Old Testament personalities: Adam and Eve, Abraham, David, Moses, and others. And each of them shared the same longings, anxieties, hopes, and shortcomings as those of us who had gathered at Holy Nativity on this Christmas Eve. And then the Good News was proclaimed to all of us: The wait is over! The Child is born! All the longings, anxieties, hopes, and shortcomings have been addressed for them, for us, and for those to come.

It brought to mind a poem I also read this week. The poem is by Todd Hiestand and entitled “The Wait is Over”. (Click here for a slideshow presentation of Hiestand’s poem.)

Immanuel.
God is with us.
Wait.
Stop.
Listen again…
Immanuel.
God is with us.
God. Is. With. Us.
Wait.
God is with you.
Sure.
But God is with me?
Yes.
Really?
Yes.
You don’t need to come to Jesus.
He’s has come to you.
He has pursued you.
Loves you.
Yes, you.
The wait is over.

Another fine sermon I heard was by Pastor Martin Schultheis at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Catonsville, MD, (click here) on the Sunday before Christmas. Pastor Schultheis preached on the OT lesson for Advent 4, Year B, 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16, a portion of which is as follows:

7:1 Now when the king was settled in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 the king said to the prophet Nathan, "See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent." 3 Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you." 4 But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan: 5 Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? 6 I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. 7 Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" 8 Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: … the LORD will make you a house. 16 Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.

Pastor Schultheis connected with the busyness of our culture getting ready for Christmas. All the emphasis is on what WE are doing as we shop, bake, visit, prepare. Even in the church, we may think of our Christmas celebration as something we do for God. The truth is that Christmas is about what God does for us, not what we do for Him. When David wanted to build a house for God, God said, “Have I ever asked, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” Instead, He tells Nathan to tell David that God will make a house for David – not a house of cedar, but a house and a kingdom that shall be sure forever. At Christmas God still is the giver, the doer, the servant. Christmas is not what we make it, but what He has made it. It is a gift from God, and a gift that shall last into eternity.

The following video gives a similar message:

The Christmas Gospel in a "Peanut" Shell

2008-12-22T17:18:00.000-08:00

Charles Schulz,raised in the Lutheran Church and later active in the Church of God (Anderson), often had his "Peanuts" characters speak a gospel witness. This Linus monologue needs no comment.
Blessed Christmas to all!

Luke 2 as a "Wordle"

2008-12-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

"Wordle"s are word cloud pictures computer generated from any text according to a formula weighted by the number of times a word is used in a text. You can create your own Wordle at http://www.wordle.net (click here).
Just for fun I ran the Christmas story,Luke 2:1-12 (KJV), through the Wordle generator and got the "word cloud" you see in this post. What impressed me about it was how non-theological the whole thing appeared. No big words like redemption, reconciliation, expiation, justification, or even incarnation. Yet the whole message is the mystery of the incarnation--God coming down into a real world filled with place names, people's names, fear, joy, taxation, government, poverty, childbirth.
Kelly Fryer, in her book, Reclaiming the "L" Word, ("L" for Lutheran) tells a story in which a professor goes to the chalkboard, draws a big arrow pointing straight down, and says, "If you want to know what it is to be a Christian, and especially to be Lutheran, you better remember this: God comes down! God always comes down. He comes down whether we are rich or poor, white or Black, healthy or ill. God comes down because we cannot come up to Him." That' s what happened at Christmas. God came down into this Wordle -- or World-- because we could not come up.

Consumerism, Credit (credo) Crisis, and the Church

2008-12-18T09:34:00.000-08:00

I ran across this picture a couple of days ago. A collage of prosperity and poverty created in the 1940’s and upon which someone has superimposed “2008”. It says much about race and class and economic theory and a host of other issues that are foundational, cyclical, yet seldom in the forefront of our consciousness. But an economic downturn and a credit crisis can bring some of those issues to the forefront of our thought and make them cry out for examination.

One of those issues is that of “consumerism.” Consumerism is the theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is economically beneficial. On a personal level, consumerism is the equation of personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions.

Many critics reduce consumerism to the individual pursuit of material comfort that inevitably leads to spiritual bankruptcy. In this time of economic recession, especially as it coincides with the Christmas shopping season, the Christian media and many sermons are full of moralistic pronouncements that denounce a society for its wickedness, and prophesy its downfall. A few, however, go beyond condemnation to help us understand how the church might respond to a society whose faith in consumerism has been shaken.

The reality is that consumerism is not simply about individual greed, but has played a foundational role in a culture that values liberty and democracy and has made it a part of “The American Way of Life”. Gary Cross, in his book, An All-Consuming Century: Why Commercial-
ism Won in Modern America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, points out that consumerism gave concrete shape to liberty by providing various means for personal expression. It fostered democracy by enabling diverse groups to share in the ownership and use of goods. What is consumed is not only material goods, but personal identity independent of the old world social and class constraints on what persons could enter the cultural mainstream. But Cross also notes that it has done this at the cost of other values. The satisfaction of immediate needs may replace the desire to search for higher goals. Immediate satisfaction takes the place of constraint. The need to fulfill my need makes the need of community secondary and undermines long-lasting commitments. We risk losing key virtues that stabilize and promote social life: care for others, compromise, friendship, responsibility to the past, and a felt obligation for the future.

America’s faith in consumerism has been shaken by the twofold developments of environmentalism and recession. The god of Mammon has not only failed many, but it has corrupted our environment and shown its evil head in new ways never envisioned by even the strongest proponents of consumerism and unfettered capitalism. Adam Hamilton, in an article, “Faith, Hope, and the Credit Crisis,” (click here for full article) points out that “credit” is a word that is a part of the language of faith. It comes from the Latin credere—to believe or to trust. The present active form of this word—credo, “I believe”—opens the Apostle’s Creed. In the case of credit, belief or trust is placed in the borrower and his or her willingness and ability to repay. Our current economic crisis is in part about misplaced trust or faith between debtors and lenders.

Hamilton observes that neither the $700 billion bailout package, nor a Federal Reserve interest rate cut, nor presidential calls for calm seem to adequately speak to the underlying issues that precipitated this crisis of faith. This is a moment when the Bible and people of faith have both the timely word that can calm fears, the most accurate assessment of what fundamentally led to the current economic debacle, and the demonstration of hope and concern from a reconciling community.

The opportunity is there for the church to speak once again to society about those values which bring true meaning, purpose, and identity to life. But our message must not simply be one of condemnation, but of demonstration. A group called “The Advent Conspiracy” puts forth a message directed primarily at Christians, but which also communicates to non-Christians. (See video)

A key message of the video is that Jesus gave himself relationally, incarnationally, with time, space, and presence. During this difficult economic time, the church has opportunity to reach out as Jesus did: relationally, incarnationally, with time, space, and presence to those who feel abandoned by the god of Mammon – the homeless, the unemployed, the hungry, and those who feel worthless because they are worth less. (Click on the post “The Year of the Grasshopper” on my “Consecrated Stewards “ blog for more thoughts.) Certainly this is done through the contributions we make to charitable groups, but even more effectively when the local church and the individual Christian reaches out not just financially, but relationally, incarnationally, with time, space, and presence to those who feel abandoned.

And the witness to be given in these times is not simply one of condemnation and repentance. There is a witness of God’s redeeming grace that gives true joy and meaning to life. Fellow Lutheran, Art Simon, in his book, How Much is Enough? Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2003) shows that when the church is faithful to the mission of Christ it produces personal and social well-being that far surpasses the gains of consumerism. The call away from consumerism is not a call to dour asceticism, but rather an invitation to joy, an invitation to celebrate, as Simon says, God’s extravagant grace.
Simon also points repeatedly to the social and community dimensions of Christian living, dimensions of life ignored by consumerism. Christian life is lived outward, which means that it is directed to others in acts of sharing, encouragement, and mutual upbuilding. “Power used selfishly is power corrupted. Ability wasted is power corrupted. But opportunity to do good, received as a trust from God and exercised to help others, is power ennobled” (p. 100).

The church, in these difficult times, has opportunity to do good, received as a trust from God and exercised to help others. And in that exercise, it becomes power ennobled, for it becomes an instrument of the gospel to bring the good news to the poor – who finally realize how poor they are, regardless of their bank accounts.

+++ For additional resources on stewardship and consumerism, including art, worship resources, articles, study guides, see Baylor University Center for Christian Ethics. (Click Here)

O Come, Emmanuel! Rejoice and Reach Out

2008-12-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

A blessed Advent season to all! As you listen to the ancient hymn below, sung in contemporary style, consider the fact that God in His nature is a missional God who comes into the world to be Emmanuel, “God with us.” Once again He comes to us in this Advent season, and once again He sends us to a world waiting for the good news He still brings. “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to thee, O Israel!”

Twitter: The Gospel in 140 Characters or Less

2008-11-29T07:36:00.000-08:00

A few moths ago, a blogger named Brian Baute put forth what he claimed to be the first “Tweet the Gospel” challenge. The idea was to share the gospel message within the confines of the 140 character (That’s characters, not words!) limit of Twitter. In case you are not familiar with Twitter, here is a brief video that will tell you in plain English all you probably want to know about this mini-blog application that has been one of the hottest applications on the net. (Which may mean it is already old news.)

Brian Baute’s idea was to challenge his readers to sharpen their writing skills to set forth the gospel message within the 140 character limit. You can check out some of the responses on Brian’s blog (Click Here) or share some of your own as a comment to this post. In checking Brian’ s responses I was struck by how many different theologies of salvation can be set forth in 140 characters. (Maybe that’s the Lutheran in me. Even in an emergent theology there must be some norms.) I also came to the conclusion that the Bible itself had some pretty good “Tweets” in 140 or less including John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (127)

I’m probably not one who will sign on to Twitter. First, I don’t even keep my cell phone on all the time, let alone feel the need to be in constant contact with my network of friends to ask “What are you doing now?”. Secondly, I really have to work hard to communicate in bites of 140 characters or less. Like a lot of new technology, Twitter may be in today and out tomorrow, but the network theory and emergence theory behind it is something that the church will have to reckon with and make use of in the days to come. Twitter is part of the “Web 2.0” phenomenon that you need to understand if you want to comprehend the emerging “Convergence Culture” that I talk about in other posts. Simply put, when computers first came on the scene, they were productivity machines, replacing other tools like typewriters, adding machines, filing cabinets, telephone directories, etc. With the popularity of the graphic interface and the World Wide Web, we entered Web 1.0, where computers became information machines using applications such as Google and Mapquest to connect us to specific web sites. Web 2.0 refers to the use of computers as the basis of a social network of wikis, blogs and social applications such as Facebook and MySpace as well as a new generation of business and information applications such as Wikipedia, Skype, Craigslist, and del.icio.us which are collaborative, social networks of information sharing and relationships. If you want a short, mindboggling introduction to all of this, check the following video entitled “The Machine is Us/ing Us”. .The implication of network theory and emergence theory for the church is a little too much to be contained in 140 characters, so that will have to wait for another post. In the meantime, ”Tweet” away. Can you communicate the gospel in 140 characters or less? Give it a try.

Missional Church Q & A

2008-11-29T07:26:00.000-08:00

A friend in the Texas District, LCMS, Dr. Lou Jander, recently posted a Missional Q & A that is worth sharing. It is printed below. Check out his Missional Voyage blog for other good posts.

Q. What is the difference between a missional church and a church with a mission program?
A. A church with a mission program usually sees mission as one activity alongside many activities of the church – Christian education, worship, acts of service, hospitality and other programs. A missional church focuses all of its activities around its participation in God’s mission in the world. That means, it trains people for discipleship and witness; it worships and practices mutual support before the watching world. A church with a mission sends others to witness on its behalf. A missional church understands that the congregation itself is sent by God to proclaim and to be a sign of the reign of God. Just as God sent Jesus, now Jesus sends the church (Jn..20:21).

Q. Is “missional” a real word?
A. Yes. It may not be in every dictionary. But the Oxford English Dictionary says the word has been around for almost 100 years. Missional is an adjective that describes the way in which we do all of our activities, rather than identifying any one particular activity. Within the last few years, it has come into more common use. To be missional is to align all of the program, function and activities of the church around the mission of God in the world.

Q. Does being a missional church mean starting a lot of new activities? People in our congregation are already so busy.
A. A missional church does not necessarily do more outreach activities. In fact, a missional church may do fewer things better. To be a missional church means to discern how this particular congregation’s calling is aligned with God’s mission in the world. To be a missional church means to orient all of the life of the church around God’s mission.

Blessed Thanksgiving

2008-11-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

The song below says it well! God has given us all good things. Most of all the gift of His love in Jesus Christ His Son.

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving!

Art Scherer

Redefining "Normal"

2008-11-23T16:54:00.000-08:00

This week as I stood in a boarding line at the airport, a businessman from Chicago engaged me in conversation about the economic crisis and the possibility of an automakers’ bailout. After sharing our mutual concern for a few minutes, he said, “Well, I hope things get back to normal soon.” To which I replied, “I wonder if we will ever again see ‘normal’ as we used to know it. I think we are in the process of redefining what “normal” is. Nobody really knows what that will look like, and so we keep throwing old arguments at new problems and using old models to predict a new future.”

It brought to mind an oft-used quote from Peter Drucker:

"Every few hundred years in western history, there occurs a sharp transition. Within a few short decades, society re-arranges itself: its worldview, its basic values, its society and political structure, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world. And the people born then cannot imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. We are currently living in just such a transformation."

And then another, by way of warning, from Eric Hoffer:

"In the times of rapid change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

How is the church to respond in this time of change? The Missional Church Project of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is an attempt to help judicatories rethink the direction of the church. Some thoughts are set forth below. (Click here for full article)

“Out of this rapidly changing cultural context and declining church context has emerged what has come to be known as the missional church movement. The missional church movement takes seriously the need to recover the stories of our faith that we find in scripture. Rather than succumbing to the old problem of “theology divides, mission unites”, the missional church movement realizes that any healthy mission is theologically grounded. Belief and behavior cannot be separated. Theology and mission cannot be bifurcated. They are always linked, whether we can see that or not.

The missional church movement takes seriously the sociology of the massive culture shift we are undergoing. A cultural earthquake has rocked the very foundations of our society, and we find ourselves with more questions than answers. The missional church does not quickly discard the questions, or jump on easy answers. It wrestles with each question seriously, in light of scripture and prayer, looking for the new thing that God is doing in our midst.

The missional church movement realizes that we are no longer chaplains to a Christian culture. We must be a missionary people in our own land. Every congregation needs to be cross-cultural missionaries to its own community. We must move from the mindset that the church is a provider of religious services to Christian consumers to the shaper of an apostolic people on a mission to a fallen world. “

The Church and Starbucks

2008-11-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me a video link that touched off some thoughts linking the church and Starbucks:

FIRST, the video link: It’s called “What if Starbucks marketed itself like the church?”
It’s an amusing, but biting, satirical look at how our efforts at “hospitality” (evangelism) may be seen by outsiders. A young couple enters “Starbucks,” simply looking for the refreshment of a “cup of coffee” and is bombarded by a medley of self-serving, corporate-centered tactics. It’s worth watching and discussing on many levels. You may see yourself or your congregation there.

SECOND, it made me pull out my copy of Leonard Sweet’s “The Gospel According to Starbuck’s” once again and read on page 15 how he thinks the word “evangelism,” which has its root in “good news,” has been sullied by its practice in our own nation and our own time. Sweet writes:

“The church has taught evangelism as a meeting of two antagonists—one righteous and right, the other dead wrong. The point of evangelism, according to this school of thought, is to win an argument. Evangelism has also been taught as a spiritual sales pitch, more nuanced perhaps than a religious argument but still relying on high pressure and ultimately committed to closing the deal. And if not an argument or a sales pitch, the gospel is neutered or reduced to an objective, nonrelational exercise in logic. The strategy is to convince others, not to appeal to them.”

Watch the video again for reinforcement of the idea.

Sweet continues:
“Somehow the church lost touch with the meaning of good news. And why wouldn’t Christians lose touch with the heart of the gospel? I’ve never met anyone who was energized by cliché one-liners and subcultural kitsch. But offer people a meaningful, earth-changing mission and then just try to hold them back! The Jesus example of meaning and passion over duty and obligation moves people. Starbucks understands his, and so should the church.”

Sweet’s own model for the church and for evangelism in a postmodern age is his “EPIC” model. It’s a model he probably spells out more fully in his book, “Postmodern Pilgrims,” but which he repeats again here:

• It is Experiential.
• It is Participatory.
• It is Image-rich.
• It is Connective.

THIRD, I remembered an old article in Christianity Today, still available (Click Here)
Entitled “Starbucks Spirituality,” that tells the story of Daniel Hill and his ministry to GenXers at Starbucks. Hill and others describe the approaches (mostly in harmony with Sweet’s “EPIC formula) they find are necessary to reach the current generation and the postmodern mindset.

FOURTH: One of the reasons Starbucks thrived is that it set out to be a lifestyle, not a coffee shop, a life house more than a coffee house. It recognized that people need “third places” in which to thrive, places which are not your office and not your home. Those third places are places where conversation, community and interaction take place. Interestingly enough, Starbucks began to run into trouble when it expanded its business so fast and in so many venues (kiosks, vending machines, airports, etc.) that it ceased to be a “third place” and just a seller of coffee. People discovered they could get their coffee cheaper at Seven-Eleven.
The church needs to be reminded of the importance of “third places” in people’s lives. Clearly the church itself can be such a “third place,” and it is for many. Time and again, when I ask people what they like about their congregation, they say “This is my Christian family. This is the place where I come for love and support and service and growth.”
But the church must recognize that there are other “third places” – like Starbucks or even the corner pub – where the church might be part of the conversation. Perhaps the current generation can show us the way.

And FINALLY: As a Lutheran who is both missional and confessional (I think the two go hand-in-hand.), I find the Experiential, Participatory, Image-rich, Connective (EPIC) formula to be stylistically valuable, but potentially weak in substance. The message one could take is that the approach should work regardless of the “product”, whether that product be coffee or the gospel of Jesus Christ. That doesn’t mean we can’t learn from it, or Starbucks! We need to be in dialog with the culture, but that dialog must always be a prophetic dialog and prophetic dialog ultimately moves beyond a relational formula to a prophetic certainty of “Thus says the Lord.”. At the moment I can’t find the source for the quote below, but it describes “prophetic dialog”.

“Mission must by all means be dialogical, since it is nothing else finally than the participation in the dialogical nature of the triune, missionary God. But it must be prophetic as well, since, at bottom, there can be no real dialogue when truth is not expressed and clearly articulated.”

The challenge, I suppose, is to express prophetic truth in an Experiential, Participatory, Image-rich, Connective way. Classic deconstructive, relativistic Postmodernism has had trouble linking those two strands. So has the kind of Modernism described in Sweet’s first quote above. Perhaps in the emerging constructive, collaborative, dialogical Convergence Culture described in other postings, it may be possible. There the primary role may be neither that of a polemicist, apologist, or even a relationship starter, but the role of a witness. A witness may be both “EPIC” and prophetic..

A Missional Thought on Luther's Birthday -- Nov. 10

2008-11-10T20:50:00.000-08:00

“We live on earth only so that we should be a help to other people. Otherwise, it would be best if God would strangle us and let us die as soon as we were baptized and had begun to believe. For this reason, however, he lets us live that we may bring other people also to faith as he has done for us. ... This is part of being a priest, being God’s messenger and having his command to proclaim his Word.”
Luther (Sermons on First Peter, First edition) 1523

If You Build It, Will They Come?

2008-11-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

Not necessarily! Just today I passed a large, local mainline church that had a sign on the lawn advertising its “Capital Renovation Program” with the subtitle “Providing a more welcoming and accessible facility,” What it said to me—and I may be misjudging-- is that the church members were getting older and thought it might be a good idea to install elevators in their three-story educational facility and expand the gathering place to replace a rather small and drafty narthex. Will this help them reach out into their community or even attract new people to their church? Who knows!

On the other hand, building programs can provide opportunity for a congregation to reexamine its missional philosophy, vision and strategy. For more on this. See the post “ Building Programs as Missional Opportunities” on my Consecrated Stewards blog. (Click Here)

Current Directions in Missional Thought

2008-11-09T17:19:00.000-08:00

People will often ask where the current theology and practice of mission is heading. My answer always needs to be prefaced with the caveat that any description of the mission scene is of necessity a “current” description. Perhaps that is because the missional movement characterizes itself as “emerging”. Hence, the “man on a swing” remains a workable illustration after all these years.

Two of the leading threads in contemporary church thought are characterized by the words “emerging – or – emergent” and “missional.”

Dan Kimball, a leader in the emerging church conversation has recently written: “The term “emerging church” now means so many different things depending on who you are asking. So it all depends on what stream of the emerging church we are talking about. For me, the term means churches that are being missional in our emerging culture. That part of the conversation certainly seems to be gaining steam and interest from churches of all types. So I really hope the missional outward thinking is something that grows stronger and lasts. But what that looks like may be constantly changing as culture changes. But I hope we keep gaining a passion for being sent by Jesus into the world. I hope that stream of the emerging church grows and lasts.” (Click here for article.)

Mark Driscoll, a conservative Evangelical emerging church leader with a Reformed theology, helps pin down the streams of the emerging church movement in the following brief video:(Click here for video.)

In effect, he describes (from his own theological basis) four primary groups that are participating in the emerging church “conversation” (a word sometimes preferred to “movement”):

1. Relevant Traditionals – These are congregations that hold a traditional theology, including a rather traditional ecclesiology, missiology and concept of evangelism, but seek to upgrade their forms and practices to make them more appealing to the emerging culture (usually defined as the postmodern culture) or the new generation. In effect, this describes many of our congregations and judicatories that are trying to reach a new world, but may not have fully examined what that really means in terms of theology, ecclesiology and missiology. It is easy to tack the word “missional” onto what we have always been doing and think that we are doing something new because the music is different , the robes are a different color, or a new program is being used.

2. House Church Evangelicals – These are people who often hold a fairly moderate theology, but whose ecclesiology is characterized by small group “house church” gatherings which they claim to be the New Testament model of the church in the world. This is sometimes called the “Organic Church” movement (in contrast to the “institutional church.”) This group also includes a branch of a New Monastic “Community approach. What is interesting to note is that in spite of the anti-institutional stance of this stream of thought, most adherents belong to some network or association of house churches.
Click Here for New Testament Reformation Fellowship
Click Here for Organic Church
Click Here for New Monasticism

3. The “Emergent Church” – These call themselves “A node in the web of the emerging church” (Click here for "Emergent Village) but they have been a very influential node, and in spite of the similar, if not confusing, name, they are a very distinct group. The group set out to relate Jesus Christ to the emerging generation (at the time it was “Gen X”) and the emerging culture (at the time it was postmodernism). It has become the most liberal stream in the emerging conversation, sometimes questioning not only ecclesiology but atonement, original sin, the normative function of scripture, the exclusivity of Christ, etc. The problem with the emergent group – a problem they themselves are beginning to recognize – is that they may have confused actualization of the Gospel in the culture with accommodation to the culture. (Mark Sayers) The emergent movement may have tied itself too closely with postmodernism and with Gen X in the same way that Church Growth tied itself too closely with Modernism and the Boomers. (See later section.) Indeed, most of the emerging church conversation has been tied to classic postmodernism, which is characteristically deconstructive in nature and fails to recognize the constructive and collaborative worldview that is now emerging into what M. Rex Miller calls the “Convergence” worldview.

Miller and others hold that at least three worldviews currently exist side-by-side in our culture:

“Modern” Worldview:
• Prevalent from 1500 to 1950 or later
• Still held by many in the “Builder” and “Silent” generations (and many others)
• Linked to print based media
• Logical, linear, reasoned
• “I think” – “Prove it.”
• Doctrinal, systematic, apologetic, absolutes
• Hymns for content “truth”

“Postmodern” Worldview:
• Emerging in the 1950’s and prevalent today
• Held by many of the “Boomers” and some generations following
• Linked to visual based media
• Experiential
• “I feel”
• Pluralistic, relativistic, deconstructive, individualistic – “non-traditional” “contemporary”
• Programatic -- highly crafted -- designer labels
• Songs for praise “contemporary”
• Megachurch quality and anonymity

“Convergence” Worldview:
• Present and developing
• Generation X and Generation Y (Millennials)
• Linked to digital media
• Relational
• “I choose to believe”
• Constructive, collaborative, pluralistic
• Room for the ancient traditions in new contexts – Open to orthodoxy and “vintage faith”
• Seek authenticity, truth, community – may be from many sources, but will commit to a community.
• Could be virtual community
• Songs of truth and praise “real”

I think it is important to understand these three worldviews if we are to understand the direction of mission in contemporary culture. Church Growth (see below) was tied to the scientific and sociological practices of Modernism. The Emergents may have accommodated to postmodernism. The next group, the missional movement, is not tied to a particular worldview. In fact, its roots may be in the “vintage faith” of pre-modern culture, but it can clearly flourish in the constructive Convergent Culture that is emerging in our society.

4. Missional Church Movement -- The Missional Church movement is mostly a shift in thinking. Its theological basis, for Lutherans, at least, is not the command of the Great Commission, but God’s gracious action of justification in Jesus Christ. That action of God is the story of the Missio Dei, which means the mission or “sending” of God in which God is both the subject and the object of the sending. Missio Dei was popularized by Hartenstein and Vicedom in the 1950’s and 1960’s. It tapped into the trinitarian emphasis of Barth and others in the 1930's and moved the thinking beyond the ecclesiocentrism and individualism of the time. The emphasis was put on God's mission rather than ours - we participate with the Triune God in what he is doing. Bill Danker’s hymn says it well:

The sending, Lord, flows from Thy yearning heart;
Thou. Lord the Sender; Thou the Sent One art;
And of Thy mission makest us a part.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

The Missional Church is not simply a sending church. It is a sent church. Its focus is the world and preparing people to be the church in the world. Its ecclesiology is shaped by its missiology rather than its missiology supporting its ecclesiology. It is in practice, therefore, incarnational rather than attractional. In harmony with Luther’s concept of Christian vocation and with good stewardship principles, it takes a holistic approach to the world and God’s place in it rather than a dualistic approach of sacred and secular. Its proponents advocate an “apostolic” rather than a “hierarchical” leadership style in which the gifts of all are used. Lutherans would probably state that as a renewal of the priesthood of the baptized, while maintaining the importance of the office of the public ministry, and see the two linked in a missional understanding of the divine call.

JR Woodward gives a practical picture of what the Missional Church looks like:

* Not simply how many people come to our church services, but how many people our church serves.
* Not simply how many people attend our ministry, but how many people have we equipped for ministry.
* Not simply how many people minister inside the church, but how many minister outside the church.
* Not simply helping people become more whole themselves, but helping people bring more wholeness to their world. (i.e. justice, healing, relief)
* Not simply how many ministries we start, but how many ministries we help.
* Not simply how many unbelievers we bring into the community of faith, but how many ‘believers' we help experience healthy community.
* Not simply working through our past hurts, but working alongside the Spirit toward wholeness.
* Not simply counting the resources that God gives us to steward, but counting how many good stewards are we developing for the sake of the world.
* Not simply how we are connecting with our culture but how we are engaging our culture.
* Not simply how much peace we bring to individuals, but how much peace we bring to our world.
* Not simply how effective we are with our mission, but how faithful we are to our God.
* Not simply how unified our local church is, but how unified is "the church" in our neighborhood, city and world?
* Not simply how much we immerse ourselves in the text, but how faithfully we live in the story of God.
* Not simply being concerned about how our country is doing, but being concern for the welfare of other countries.
* Not simply how many people we bring into the kingdom, but how much of the kingdom we bring to the earth.

For more resources on the Missional Church you need to check an outstanding resource that just came out this week, JR Woodward has written “A Primer on the Missional Church” (CLICK HERE) DO NOT SKIP THIS ONE.

Many more links may be found by investigating the “Friends of Missional” site on my links listing.

If you have some time and want more depth, check this video conversation with Craig VanGelder, professor of congregational mission at Luther Seminary, St. Paul. (Click here for video)

What may need to wait for another posting is how a specifically Lutheran and confessional approach to theology might apply to missional thought and contribute to the missional conversation.

MISSIONAL CHURCH AND CHURCH GROWTH

Another picture of the Missional Church may be gained by contrasting it with the Church Growth Movement. It still surprises me at times how much energy we waste arguing about “Church Growth.” Reggie McNeal and others declared years ago that the Church Growth Movement was dead, yet when I mention that at workshops, I always find that it is still alive in the minds of its supporters or detractors. The Church Growth Movement is dead because our worldview has changed. It was born at the cusp of the transition from Modernism to Postmodernism and combines elements of each, though mostly Modernism.

Here’s how Gailynn Van Rheenen (Click here for full article) compares Church Growth with the Missional Church. The one change I would make is that I believe the Missional Church really reflects more of what I have called a “Convergence Culture” than “classic” Postmodernism. (Note the holistic and convergence attributes.) Another note that may be recognized by those who have begun to read the new books on Luther and mission is how closely Luther’s theology of mission (theocentric, Missio Dei, Trinitarian, centered on justification, focused on the Kingdom—not the church, not depended on organizational structure, not confined to a particular culture, connected to vocation, etc.) parallels much of the “Missional” column below.

For some good video clips on the contrast between Church Growth or Seeker-Church and Missional click on:

Mark Driscoll Part One : Click Here

Mark Discoll, Part Two: Click Here

Tim Keller: Click Here

In summary, the direction of contemporary missional thought is always “emerging,” but what seems to be emerging is a clear focus on missional theology and ecclesiology. The enduring stream of the “emerging church” conversation is the Missional Church stream. Kimball’s opening comments hold true: “That part of the conversation certainly seems to be gaining steam and interest from churches of all types. So I really hope the missional outward thinking is something that grows stronger and lasts. But what that looks like may be constantly changing as culture changes. But I hope we keep gaining a passion for being sent by Jesus into the world. I hope that stream of the emerging church grows and lasts.”

Semper Reformanda, Part 2: "Deja vu all over again."

2008-11-01T19:52:00.000-07:00

The story of the Reformation is a story that once again is becoming very current, because it was set during the collapse of one world and the birth of a new.

The Middle Ages, the Age of Belief, was drawing to a close, and the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, was born. It was a time of political and social upheaval, where the calm synthesis of one age was erupting into multiple streams of thought and practice, and a new way forward under Modernity was embraced that seemed to give stability to the world.

Now here it is -- in the words of Yogi Berra -- “Déjà vu all over again.” We seem to stand once again between the collapse of one world and the birth of a new. It is a time of social, political, economic, scientific and religious upheaval as the Age of Modernity draws to a close and, indeed, the Age of Postmodernity (which never had a clear positive identity to begin with – except that it was “post” – like my man between two swings) may also be drawing to a close. What will give stability to the new world is hard to say. Perhaps it will be the “Convergence Culture” described by M. Rex Miller that can forge a new brand of politics and economics out of old ideas and new challenges, and in the world of religion leaves room for the “vintage faith” to interact with the fluid culture that surrounds it.

One thing is clear, however. In times of such upheaval – and there have been many in the Church, the Reformation being one – the Church has always shifted from an emphasis on “religion” and its traditions to a return to the Word and to the central tenet of the Word, that we live by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And on the foundation of that formal and material principle (in the backpack of my “man on the swing”) the Church finds new life and renewal of mission in every age.

Statistics, Statistics, Statistics !!!

2008-10-31T21:06:00.000-07:00

An excellent source of free statistical study of religious trends may be found on the web site of the Association of Religion Data Archives. (Click Here) Denominational profiles, interactive maps, census data, religious affiliation by zip code, and many other features are available.

A note to fellow Lutherans: Increasingly one finds LCMS and WELS grouped among "evangelical protestants" and ELCA grouped among "mainline protestants." This sometimes splits the Lutheran population in data charts unless specific "Lutheran" segments are given.

Semper Reformanda: "Forever Building; Always Decaying; Always being Restored"

2008-10-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

With the celebration of another Reformation Day, I am reminded of the words of T.S. Eliot in his poem, "The Rock":

And the Church must be forever building,
And always decaying,
And always being restored.

David T. Olson, in his fine new book, The American Church in Crisis (Zondervan, 2008), comments: "Always decaying" indicates that every organic entity diminishes and decays over time. In fact, in the biological world, decay is often necessary for new life to appear. "Forever building" depicts the pattern of creative initiatives that promote life and vitality. Building may be unplanned or strategic, and that choice will usually determine the level of its influence and its longevity. "Always being restored" describes a spiritual and supernatural act of God. Restoration takes place when God acts through the power of the gospel story and the movement of the Holy Spirit, breathing new life into His church.

Admit it: "I Am Not Cool"

2008-10-28T08:13:00.000-07:00

One of the things that happens in a time of paradigm shift and rapid change is that the older generation must often learn from the younger generation as opposed to the "traditional" learning of "Fiddler on the Roof". Earl Creps in his book Reverse Mentoring:Learning from Unexpected Sources, writes:

"Mainly, I've learned to be OK with the fact that I am not cool. Also, my young friends have taught me that Boomers trying to be cool are doomed to failure. But I've also observed that cool has the shelf life of the average ripe tomato. That means it erodes very quickly for all of us. My wife Janet and I love the moment when we get to tell an audience of Millennials that their younger brothers and sisters already see them as hopelessly obsolete, that in fact they will grow up to be us--only sooner.

In a backwards way, then, the decay of cool is what we all have in common; it's a kind of glue if we think about it the right way."

Click HERE for a feature article and interview with Creps.

Shift Happens

2008-10-26T18:13:00.000-07:00

Those interested in the missional impact of cultural change and the rate of change will want to view and perhaps download an information packed Power Point entitled "Shift Happens" from a web site named Slide Share. ( Type "Shift Happens" in the search box) Did you know, for example, that ...

+ China will soon be the number one English speaking country in the world.
+ 1 of 8 couples married last year met on the internet.
+ Half of what a technical college student learns in the first year of studies may be outdated by the time of the third year.
+ A week's worth of The New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.

Check it out!

More on Generations

2008-10-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Charlie Mueller's latest "Just Watching" newsletter, available by clicking on the Wheat Ridge web site . In his own practical, down-to-earth way, Charlie points to the challenges that have always existed in communication between the generations and offers some great resources for congregations seeking to bridge the generational gaps. It's an article worth reading.

Multi-Generational Ministry

2008-09-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

“To niche or not to niche?’ That is the question asked by many church planters and by congregations seeking to expand their mission outreach. The early days of the church growth movement tended to lean towards homogeneous ministries and niche outreach, but people like Mark Deymaz (Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church, Jossey-Bass, 2007) claim that in the 21st century homogenous churches will increasingly struggle with credibility in proclaiming a message of God’s love for all people from an environment in which a love for all people cannot otherwise be observed. Deymaz points to the ability of the early church to embrace generational and cultural diversity as one of its strengths and, indeed, a Biblical mandate.

Amy Hanson offers a downloadable resource on Leadership Network ( www.leadnet.org ) “Breaking Down the Age Barriers: How Churches are becoming Intentionally Intergenerational” that can help congregations address one aspect of diversity. Many congregations today serve five generations of people. She urges congregations to give attention to…

• Creating natural ways for the generations to come together.
• Honoring older adults by asking them to tell their stories.
• Educating the congregation on the value of intergenerational ministry.
• Finding ways to make the worship service multi-generational.
• Encouraging affinity groups, rather than age groups, as a way for people to connect. This may be one of the key actions a congregation can take. Groups that are designed around a mutual interest rather than age can become a place for people of various generations to connect.
• Hosting strategic intergenerational events.
• Matching young people with older adults in mentoring relationships. This works both ways, Teenagers may help seniors with computer skills. Seniors may help young couples with plumbing and home repair issues.

Pat Springle in “Communicating with the Postmodern Generation” ( Download at www.leadnet.org ) says “The key to connecting at cross-generational ministry is humility.” Anger and arrogance turn off both the old and the young. Brad Bell (www.thewellcommunity.org ) says. “The older generation won’t listen to arrogant, young goateed pastors who are angry at the traditional church. They can’t respect us because we are attacking an institution that has meant a lot to them. When we say or imply that the traditional church is broken and irrelevant, we lose those men and women who have come to us to be built up in their faith. In our arrogance we cut off any connection with them and drive them away. But it’s not just a problem with the older people. If we’re arrogant, the younger generation writes us off as fake. So to the young, arrogance appears fake, and to the old, arrogance makes us punks.” THE KEY TO CONNECTING IN A CROSS-GENERATIONAL MINISTRY IS HUMILITY. Indeed, perhaps the key to a cross-generational ministry is the cross itself and a theology of the cross that stands at the center of our mission approach.

Reaching People under 40 while Keeping People Over 60

2008-09-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

That’s the title of a book by Edward H. Hammett and James R. Pierce (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2007) that many congregations will find helpful. Hammett is part of George Bullard’s Columbia Partnership (http://www.thecolumbiapartnership.org/ ) and Pierce works with him in seminars and workshops.

As I work with congregations, I always tell them that what is needed for effective ministry in the 21st century is not a quick fix program, but a culture shift in the way a congregation thinks of itself and the world around it. (Recommended reading: Robert Lewis and Wayne Cordeiro, Culture Shift: Transforming Your Church from the Inside Out, John Wiley & Sons, 2005) A congregation’s culture is “The way we do things around here.” It springs from the congregation’s worldview, which is “What we believe around here.” It is the “default setting” for everything it does. A program may change the default setting for a time, but once the program is finished, the congregation goes back to the default setting of business as usual.

Changing the congregation’s culture doesn’t occur overnight or without conflict. Tom Friedman in his new best-seller, Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How it Can Renew America, made an interesting comment: “There has never been a revolution where no one got hurt.” America On Line recently published a list of “Memorable Companies that have Vanished”
( http://money.aol.com/special/companies-that-have-vanished) They included companies lost in the “retail revolution” like F.W. Woolworth and Montgomery Ward; those lost in the transportation revolution like TWA, Pan Am, and Eastern. As I write, there is a financial revolution going on that is shaking the foundations of our capital system. Who thought Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG would have fallen in one week? Someone probably did, but no one listened.

Hammett and Pierce make it clear that the church, too, is going through a revolutionary time that requires examination of the church’s culture in relation to God’s mission to the world. The key question the authors ask is “ Where does a person’s need for personal comfort end and a person’s commitment to the costliness of the gospel begin?” Sometimes in a revolutionary time we may need to lose in order that the Kingdom may gain. The authors write: “I love the church, but we church people are killing many of our churches to preserve our comfort. My challenge for you: Are you trying to preserve the church for yourself and your generation, or are you trying to do church in a way that reaches out to a new generation?”

Don’t expect a comprehensive theology of mission from this book, and if you are Lutheran, as I am, you will need to look beyond the obvious Baptist illustrations and theological talk, But do expect a good overview of generational differences and a fair briefing on societal change. The focus of the book is on creating a church culture that can be a “win-win” for all generations and for the Kingdom of God. The strength of the book is that it emphasizes the need for cultural change and not simply programmatic change, yet through some marvelous stories, insightful discussion questions, and practical examples, it speaks to those who also think in programmatic terms.