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From the National Post:
Garage sells for $135,000, no house attached
A two-car garage in an upscale Toronto neighbourhood -- no house, just the garage -- has sold for $135,000, the price of a small bungalow in other parts of the country.
While trolling the book area of Costco one day, I noticed The Human Factor and bought it on impulse. It's the best accidental discovery I've made since I found The Art of Innovation in a similar way a couple of years ago.
This is the sort of book that had all kinds of potential to be boring but ended up being brilliant. Kim Vicente writes of the widening chasm between people and technology, and makes a good case for why this is a problem. He also offers some pretty good solutions.
Consider something that he identifies as a consequence, in part, of badly designed soft technology (something many of us wouldn't consider a type of technology) - work schedules that push medical workers way beyond appropriate limits:
The bombshell is was that human error in medicine was conservatively estimated to account for between 44,000 and 98,000 preventable hospital deaths in the United States alone...If the preventable mortality rate were the same in commercial aviation as it is in health care, then a wide-body jet-aircraft accident with no survivors would occur once every day or two.
We don't let pilots work long hours, yet medical residents often work more than 30 hours in a row, 120 hours a week. This is only one of many examples of technology - some soft, and some hard - that doesn't work.
Vicente might as well have been talking about the church and our emerging culture when he said this:
The important fourth part of this developmental cycle is the transitional instability that results as new technologies and social structures arise and are overthrown. This fluid phase is a transitory no-man's land: the traditional way of thinking has lost its appeal and is leading to social chaos, but a new way of thinking that can lead to social progress has yet to appear on the horizon (sound familiar?). And just when you think things are at their worst and society is totally out of control, real advances are likely to take place...The result is just what Wright would predict: we're experiencing some big-time, nasty, transitional instability in the technological world - technology is wreaking havoc all around us. But until a new and better way of thinking crystallizes and takes hold, we'll keep on resorting to familiar but outdated ideas, because they used to work and they're all we have in our conceptual tool box. And given the lessons of history, things will have to get really bad before we let go of those old ways of thinking. All the signs tell me that we've now reached that point of intolerable but fertile transitional instability.
I have lots to read before I finish, but I'm liking what I'm reading so far. I like books that not only add information but also create new categories of thought, and (as he says) help build that conceptual toolbox. This is turning out to be one of those books.
Christina painting pottery at All Fired Up. What girls will do for their birthday parties. (I'm guessing that boys, ceramics, and birthday parties don't go so well together.)
My daughter is expecting six girls for a sleepover at our house tonight. What were we thinking?
A couple of you have reminded me that I should read The Search to Belong by Joe Myers. Until I buy my own, or Ed lends me his copy, I'm going to have to settle for Jordon's review. Jordon writes:
Much of The Search to Belong is based on the work of Edward T. Hall. Hall identified four types of social space: public, social, personal, and intimate. Building on Hall's research on the four spaces, Myers suggests that far too much time and energy has been directed on promoting intimate space as the ideal. Churches and organizations need to stop equating intimacy with significance and more efforts need to spent appreciating the value of public space, and promoting opportunities for social and personal space.This runs counter to the conventional wisdom of most churches which see small groups as the way to church growth and a solution that is right for everyone in the church.
Is there a role for the big gathering? Myers seems to think so. More to come when I finally get to read this book.
When I asked the question the other day about big gatherings, Brian told me I'm putting my job on the line. If the church stops putting all its energy into the big gatherings that feature the pastor as the main event, what good is a pastor?
I think this is a great question. The dominant story for me this past year has been the one in which Jesus told a couple of brothers, fishermen, to follow him. They dropped their nets (their livelihood) and followed him. Jesus did the same with a tax collector, who no doubt was making pretty good money. What if Jesus turned to a pastor like me and said, "Leave the paycheck and the church and follow me"? Would I? I hope that question answers itself.
How much better off would we be if every pastor got off the professional track and stopped worrying about the paycheck.
I think there will always be a role for a different kind of pastor, though. In the early days of the church, there were no Sunday services as we know them now. People met in living rooms, in circles rather than in rows, and yet some were still supported financially for the work they did in ministry. They had to get creative sometimes and find supplemental income elsewhere, but some were evidently paid a bit more for the type of work they did (1 Timothy 5:17). It wasn't a career track, but we all have to eat. It's not bad to be paid by a church, but it can never become the driving force behind what you do.
Today, I hope churches will look around at the money they're spending on buildings and big meetings and begin to ask some serious questions. I hope pastors like me will be the biggest questioners, even if it costs them. Maybe churches will continue with the big meetings, maybe not, maybe less often. But they at least have to ask the question.
I also hope a new type of pastor begins to emerge, one who is less the institutional maintenance person and more of what Reggie McNeal calls an apostolic leader, one whose core competency isn't working within the church, but "outside the church in the world that is not part of the church culture"; one who is less involved with satisfying the internal needs of the institution, but is focused on taking the kingdom beyond the walls and meetings of the church.
I just ordered something from Dell in the States. Because it's being exported to Canada, I had to answer the following question:
Will the product(s) be used in connection with weapons of mass destruction, i.e. nuclear applications, missile technology, or chemical or biological weapons purposes?
A lot of the modern church's efforts center around Sunday big-group gatherings (Sunday services), featuring music, preaching, and programs for the entire family.
Others see more intimate gatherings as being more effective. They meet in homes, and still do a lot of the same things (encourage, teach, pray, read the Word, share the sacraments), but in a less institutional way. I'm talking about the whole house church movement.
Some try to by a hybrid. They retain the big gatherings, but emphasize what happens in the house churches.
I've become more convinced that big group gatherings aren't enough. You need what happens in a more intimate setting. The problem with retaining the big Sunday gathering, though, is that it inevitably overshadows and displaces the more intimate gatherings in almost every example I can think of.
I have some honest questions, but not necessarily the answers:
If doing church in a big gathering is less effective than doing church in smaller gatherings, why do we spend so much of our resources on the big gathering?What do the big gatherings do that the small ones can't?
If you believe the small gatherings are more effective than the big ones, why keep having the big ones?
Update: Bill says it well in the comments section:
Here's what I wanted to know: Could a small (20) group of people do church? If that size group could do everything a church was supposed to be doing, without programs or buildings or big gatherings then why add those things?
This is the big question for me. Why the million dollar rooms that are used an hour a week? Why the 40% or more of staff time to pull off an event that isn't as effective as one that takes place in a living room? It doesn't hurt to ask.
I've been reading Bill Jensen's Simplicity Survival Handbook. It's not exactly heavy reading, but it's worthwhile. It's the last place I would have expected to find an insight into the task of a preacher. I've been finding this true in my journey lately. Preaching isn't primarily about conveying information but about provoking conversations:
Never “present.”
Always provoke conversations.While you cannot ignore the standard measures of your success – smile-sheet scores, or delivering new information, or reinforcing whatever your boss wants to say – they have little to do with the true effectiveness of your presentation.
Your true success is measured by changes in the conversation. Good presentations cause dialogue in the room, in the moment. Great presentations change the conversation afterwards.
That’s when people change their decisions, priorities, and actions. So the real measure of your effectiveness is how people’s conversations were changed by what you said and did. If your definition of success includes “What will people talk about after my presentation, that they weren’t talking about before?” you will find yourself doing less “presenting” and more interactive provoking of conversations.
My goal: to become a contumacious provocateur.
Found through Sandy: a Netflix-type service for Canada called Movies for Me has finally launched. I'm about to sign up for the free trial.
Update: In the end, I choked at the price and the brevity (two weeks) of the trial. I don't spend that much on movie rentals. I'm curious to hear from anyone who tries the service, though.
Update 2: Evidently, there are a lot of companies that offer this service in Canada, which can only mean that their marketing has been ineffective to date.
Last night, I overheard Christina (age 9 as of tomorrow) talk to Josiah (age 4) about, well, everything spiritual. She was giving him her theology of heaven (did a good job, actually), on how to live is Christ but to die is gain, about what Jesus did for us, and so on.
Some of her theology sounded strangely Baptist (probably a little too much focus on the afterlife and not enough on now, for instance) but there was no question that she felt it important to have this "spiritual conversation" with Josiah.
Last night, she prayed with Josiah as he committed to follow Jesus. She could hardly get to sleep after.
I have no idea what happened (Josiah's only 4 and there's great danger in overestimating or underestimating what might have happened), but all I know is that I witnessed something beautiful. The faith of a child absolutely blows me away.
So far Homer's visited Brazil, Canada, and, tonight, the United Kingdom. Tonight's episode was good, with some good quips. When Homer got stuck in a roundabout, he said, "I'm getting out of this the way Americans do - unilaterally!"
But what can you take from a character who told the Queen that Americans aren't like England's other children, "like that goody two-shoes Canada, who's never had a girlfriend. I'm just saying..."
Lots of good stuff happened today. The day started badly: the dog stepped in my coffee. She's old and blind, so it's not her fault, but she ruined a perfectly good cup of coffee.
I preached okay, but not as well as I had hoped. After the service, I met all sorts of people I'd never met before. They've been coming out for two years and up. There are all kinds of people who are connected to others but who have never met me. I was excited to hear some of their stories.
Then, today, I came home and read this from Brian:
I'm at the point where the church either needs to "die" or be reborn into what God had in mind. "This" can't be it.
I'm excited to read this. He blames me, but I just passed on what someone else passed on to me. Now we're both infectious. (Brian, if you haven't read The Present Future, you really should!)
My brother called me contumacious today - someone who stubbornly refuses to conform or obey. (He should know. We both come from the same stock. Hello, Grandad!) Somebody should start a blog by that name. Not a bad badge to wear, if only for the right reasons.
Update: I had a better day than this pastor.
Some of you bloggers out there: Do you ever feel that if you posted on how sunsets are beautiful or babies are nice, somebody would argue with you?
I've never deleted a comment yet, except for comment spam. That's all about to change.
Feel free to disagree with anything I write, but if I sense that you're getting abusive or argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, your comment will be pruned.
Don't worry, I still welcome disagreement. I just don't have time for silly debates or personal attacks. In case you're wondering, only 1 or 2 have abused the comments section. Most of you don't have to worry at all.
Very cool images from the Hubble (worth the time it takes to load)
It's nice to see them playing hockey tonight the way that God intended: outdoors at a temperature of 20 degrees below Celsius, 28 below including the wind chill factor.
Our vacuum cleaner bit the dust last night, so I took that as a sign that I should buy a Roomba. For the same price as a regular vacuum cleaner, the Roomba vacuums automatically. Charge the battery, put it down, select the size of the room, and leave. Presto! A vacuumed room.
We're just auditioning it. But to my mind, what's not to like? Even if it isn't 100% perfect, there's something to be said for vacuuming more often, less well. It is strange that I have this but I don't have a dishwasher.
One problem: my friends are going to tease me mercilessly. I have yet to find a gadget that I don't like. I'm still looking for the robotic duster.
Update: Charlene was skeptical, but she's starting to like the little guy. Yes, we're already treating it as a member of the family.
The discussion on Stop the Fellowship, I want off has re-confirmed for me that I don't want to be part of a discussion that lines up two positions like British soldiers in red suits and allows people to start firing at one another.
When you start with the presupposition that the other side is wrong, of course you don't have to listen and of course you can be rude, because after all, you're right. That attitude troubles me.
Posture is so important. I'd like to be a truth seeker, not a truth defender (or a defender of my own position).
Someone asked Erwin McManus last week, "All this stuff you're saying is fine, but what do you do if you come from a conservative church?" Erwin replied, "If it were me, I would try to move them from being conservative to being Biblical." Same goes for liberal and all other labels.
That's the posture I'm looking for. When I find a discussion on an issue that starts there and not at our own perfect positions which are so obviously better than the other side's, sign me up.
The gender issue rages on every time I bring it up. That's okay. I appreciate the challenge, and many (not all) contribute something worthwhile. Some comments don't, but I expect that as well. (I thought about deleting one, but it speaks for itself - I'll leave it there.)
It seems to me that there are going to be lots of issues that come up, and we had better find a way to talk about them intelligently rather than yell the other side down. Coming issues include mode of baptism (do we accept those who were baptized as believers by other modes?), baptism and membership, the inclusive language debate, ordination, and issues surrounding the emerging church (new forms of church life). One of the biggest issues is how much diversity we will allow on these and other issues. Will we be defined by our center (Jesus) or around any number of boundary issues?
My main problem with the Fellowship's direction hasn't been its proposed position. I disagree with it, but I'm okay with not getting my way. My main problem is that we don't seem to know how to engage the issue openly without assuming that our position is right. Shouting down the other side is not a smart plan of action. We can't afford to let the shrill voices dictate the terms of the debate.
I read about the grace shown at the Evangelical Theological Society on a much tougher issue and thought, "I'd like some of that." I grew up somehow believing that if you were right, nothing else mattered. The love chapter - 1 Corinthians 13 - should clear up that belief.
I've been thinking about how we could do better. My ideas mostly center around dialogue - hearing the other side, critiquing one another, and - this is important - finding common ground. It seems to me, for instance, that there is much common ground to be found in this whole gender issue with a bit of work. That way we could be very clear on the points of disagreement rather than just slamming the other side. This is a no-brainer for me, since I respect both sides and think that the sane voices - which seem to be outnumbered, I'm afraid - are convincing on both sides. Could we not work together to try to learn from one another? Why are we afraid to do this?
Most of all, I despair for how political we make this. We talk about votes, and when we don't get our way, trying again next year. A vote creates winners and losers, and that's never a good thing. There's got to be a better way.
I'm saddened, not because I'm being called narrow-minded or unfair. I'll sleep well tonight despite that. I'm saddened because we haven't yet shown that we're even willing to listen to one another. If and when we ever do listen to one another, offering and accepting critique and finding common ground, it will be a lot easier to accept the outcome. I'll have at least felt that we were known as his followers by the love that we've shown.
From the Toronto Star - Delhi man faces child-porn charges:
A man spotted by police driving naked from the waist down with a laptop computer on the passenger seat is facing numerous child pornography charges.On Wednesday at 5 a.m., Toronto police found a driver going the wrong way on a one-way street in a residential area.
On the screen of the laptop computer was an image of a young girl performing a sex act on an older man.
The laptop had a wireless adapter card (known as a WI-FI card) allowing the accused to access the Internet through any insecure wireless Internet signal (known as War Driving).
One more reason to set encryption in your wi-fi network as high as you possibly can.
From the Holy Observer:
VENTURA, CA – Preliminary findings of a study released here in early November by the Barna Research Group shows evidence of an alarming lack of caution on the part of evangelicals who surf the Web..."We plan to publish the entire study on the Internet," Barna said. "That way, we can rest assured that a healthy majority of evangelicals will take it seriously."
Just added this site to my bookmarks.
Blogs, or Web logs, are all the rage in some quarters. We're told that blogs will evolve into a unique source of information and are sure to become the future of journalism. Well, hardly. Two things are happening to prevent such a future: The first is wholesale abandonment of blog sites, and the second is the casual co-opting of the blog universe by Big Media...According to the survey of bloggers, over half of them are not updating any more. And more than 25 percent of all new blogs are what the researchers call "one-day wonders." Meanwhile, the abandonment rate appears to be eating into well-established blogs: Over 132,000 blogs are abandoned after a year of constant updating...
Perseus thinks that most blogs have an audience of about 12 readers. Leaflets posted on the corkboard at Albertsons attract a larger readership than many blogs. Some people must feel the futility.
It's too soon to write the obituary for blogs. I do think they'll eventually pass on, but surprisingly, I'm optimistic that they'll be replaced by something even better. For now, I'll just enjoy and not worry about the trends.
I finally received an e-mail on the whole Fellowship gender issue from a conservative pastor, announcing the formation of the Coalition of Conservative Baptists in the Fellowship - a sub-denomination of sorts. It's full of language like tragic fiasco, taking a stand for the truth, slippery slope of liberalism and feminism. To those who disagree, it says "[It] is not a theological concept. It is, to us, sin...Leave us as a Fellowship in peace." It promises to resurrect the issue at next year's Convention.
Sadly, this view has more support than you might think in our Fellowship. If there's one positive thing about the e-mail I received, it's that it's so over the top that it might drive people into a more moderate position. Or maybe not. I just don't have the time anymore.
Rick Warren is a nominee for Fast Company's Fast 50 competition? Well, he is pretty fast, I'll give him that.
I don't know if you've been following the implosion of Conrad Black's business world this week. I suspect that it's being followed more carefully in Canada than elsewhere.
These words from Tuesday's Financial Post haunt me, because they are true of so many, but I never want them said of me:
To those who prefer to remember Mr. Black for his dizzying rise to prominence, his departure from the executive suite seems ignominious. But to those who've known him for years, it's not altogether surprising.
I'm home this week, taking a week of vacation. After a year of not-so-steady work, my combination bathroom project and Coke shrine is finally nearing completion.
It's nice to be home and to be doing something different this week.
Here's some of what I won:
5 hours of cleaning services$25 Rebel Chop House certificate (bought for $13)
Homemade lasagna, date squares, apple pie, and baked chocolate goodies (note to self: don't bid while hungry next year)
Gingerbread house kit
Not a bad night. When will the cleaning service arrive?
This has turned out to be one of my favorite events of the year. Christina's school runs a Dream Auction every year. They offer fantastic stuff, and I usually try to bid on a number of great items. This year I'm also one of the auctioneers. Between bidding and receiving bids, I feel like a stock broker.
You can bid too. Check out the catalog (PDF format) and get in on the action. Phone the numbers provided, or if you're long distance e-mail me and I'll bid on your behalf. The auction is tonight and tomorrow from 7 to 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Found through Steve McMillan:
Petty people are ugly people. They are people who have lost their vision. They are people who have turned their eyes away from what matters and focused, instead, on what doesn't matter. The result is that the rest of us are immobilized by their obsession with the insignificant.It is time to rid the church of pettiness. It is time the church refused to be victimized by petty people. It is time the church stopped ignoring pettiness. It is time the church quit pretending that pettiness doesn't matter. Pettiness has become a serious disease in the Church of Jesus Christ — a disease which continues to result in terminal cases of discord, disruption, and destruction. Petty people are dangerous people because they appear to be only a nuisance instead of what they really are — a health hazard. (Mike Yaconelli in The Wittenburg Door, December 1984/January 1985)
From Time Magazine - In Search of the Spiritual:
Are Canadians losing their faith? No, according to a new poll. But they are finding it in surprising places
Last week, I thought we had settled on a 35mm SLR camera. I was wrong. I love SLRs, but the one we bought wasn't that user-friendly when it came to manual settings. We also realized that the size and fragility of the plastic body were going to be big issues. I really didn't want to cart the camera around to the Royal Winter Fair on Saturday.
Today, we went to Henry's and shopped around. I went with the Pentax Optio 550 in mind, and that's exactly what we got (at a much better price than listed in the PC Magazine article). The quality is incredible, and the immediate gratification factor, and the savings on film processing, are also pretty big factors. It allows a lot of manual settings, so we'll still be able to play around with some of the advanced settings.
Now, I think I'll have to start a fotoblog!
Watched Whale Rider tonight. It's a fascinating film set in New Zealand. I had previously decided not to move to New Zealand because of all the blasted hobbits, but everything I see tells me that I ought to reconsider.
Whale Rider is one of those movies you catch the first time, but you wouldn't mind watching twice.
Ed paid me an interesting compliment today. He said that the guy who preached today (me) came across as the same guy that blogs here. I think he meant that as a good thing: maybe a bit more open, transparent. I hope so.
Not only him (or her - not sure), but also the champion pigeon of the Royal Winter Fair. It's not every day that you get to meet a champion pigeon. I was a little intimidated. I also saw a 1,100-pound pumpkin. Now there's a pumpkin pie waiting to happen.
All in all, a fun but tiring day.
I spent the afternoon and evening attending a Promise Keepers thing down the road. I went for two main reasons: (a) I got in free (pastor's perk - yes, I'm cheap) and (b) Erwin McManus is there.
Tonight I realized how much I love Erwin McManus. I love almost everything that he says. I also really appreciate Robin Mark as a worship leader. But I also realized there's no possible way that I can sit through another day at a Christian conference. Anybody else ever feel that way? I just don't have it in me. So I seized my divine moment and left.
Here's my change of plans. Christina loves the Royal Winter Fair, which ends this weekend, and Charlene has been complaining that we haven't spent enough time together lately. Tomorrow I'm going to surprise them and take them there instead. (Good thing Christina doesn't read this blog.) It seems funny to be going to a Promise Keepers thing at the expense of my family anyway.
After all, I can always order the CDs of Erwin.
Never thought I'd see the day that I'd trade Erwin for a bunch of farm animals. Oh yeah, and my family. That's the point.
Bene needs $150 to keep his blog going. Go and help if you're able.
...but I have my theories.
Right down the road from the birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, I dropped our old APS camera one too many times. May it rest in peace.
This finally gave me the excuse to go looking for a new camera. We really couldn't decide what we wanted. We wanted a digital SLR, but could we justify getting something like the Canon Digital Rebel? (A very nice piece of gadgetry, to be sure.)
John Dvorak made the decision easier for us:
Should a consumer buy one of these professional gems? Maybe not, until things slow down a little. I don't see a long life—meaning a minimum of five years of happy ownership—for any camera made today. A Nikon F-series film camera was a long-term investment, but you'll want a new digital camera in two years no matter what you buy. That said, with these irresistible cameras, you could take thousands of great pictures while you're waiting for the next generation. It's really a matter of how much you can afford to spend, and spend, and spend.
It looks like we might be going with a fairly basic 35mm SLR camera. I really want a digital one, but you really can't go wrong with 35mm SLR. Except for those nasty film strips, which I hate.
George asked a great question today:
Darryl, could you boil down in a nutshell what it is you think Christ's Church should be doing in the world today. Just in our own little (or big) local church.I'm just curious. I haven't been to your church yet but am looking forward to attending in the near future and I look forward to meeting you.
I have been reading your blog for some time and am grateful for how it has enlightened me to all the different views that are out there with respect to the Church, and how it is we can be effective in our world today.
I personally want to be part of a church that desires to be used by God to bring the Good News of the Gospel to a world that so desperately needs to hear it. A church that does not compromise on God's truth as He has revealed it in His Word.
You post a lot of different clips from articles, comment on them and solicit responses.
I could be wrong, and please correct me if I am, but I don't really know from reading your blog what it is that you believe the church should be doing to reach out to the world. How should we do that? What methods should we employ that would receive God's blessing and really make a difference for Christ? I'm just curious what your view is on that.
George is basically asking, "Darryl, would you please stop deconstructing the church and tell us what you stand for?" He said it a lot nicer than that, but it's an entirely fair question.
To answer it is to share part of my journey. When I criticize things, it's often because I've tried them and found them wanting. You name it, I've probably tried it. At times in my ministry, I've probably made every mistake I speak against.
In short, I've been a program director. I've bought into the church growth stuff. I've preached messages that I would now consider to be shallow. I've probably made every mistake out there. I'm probably still making more than a few.
But here's where I am today.
I don't think it matters if your modern, postmodern, emerging, big, or small. It's not at all about any of these things.
I think it is, in part, about being broken. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that we're all broken. The ones that God seems to use most powerfully are those who have learned they're broken, and have stopped pretending. I long to be part of a church that knows it's broken and messy, and isn't pretending.
It's also not about methods. You can use programs and methods, but they're not the point. I've found programs generally unhelpful in my ministry because then I start to rely on them instead of God. They often keep me busy and make me feel like something is happening when it isn't. But programs aren't wrong in themselves.
It is largely about the feel of the place. Ron Martioa calls this leak. You quickly sense the ethos, the culture, the feel of the group. I long for a group that isn't perfect but that seems to be giving off the right kind of energy - caring, honest, real, dependent. Hard to describe but easy to sense.
Some of us (including me) have got the Gospel wrong. It's not about building churches or about a truncated view that gets people past a certain point and they're in the Kingdom. It's about following God, together, with all of our lives. It's about dying to self, being captivated by the things that interest God. It's about following God together, no matter where he leads and what it costs, with our messy lives.
When this happens, we will be outward focused, and we'll have something powerful to offer the world.
I could say much more, but this is a start. I see what's happening around the world, and I'm a little jealous because we're not experiencing the vitality that many non-Western churches are. I want that, but I've often found that it's people like me who have gotten in the way.
Books like Morph, An Unstoppable Force, Making Sense of the Church, and The Present Future help flesh this out for me.
Bill Easum asked a question today on a discussion list I subscribe to: "Well, all of this banter on this subject is good, but when reality sets in most if not all of us are in a church and if we threw them all away, another set of sins would emerge. So, the real question is what are we going to do about it?" That question humbles me because I'm not sure I'll do any better. But this is where I am, right now, on my continuing journey. I welcome your thoughts.
Steve posted this in response to what I said about Saddleback. I agree wholeheartedly:
I say let's start off by offering a little more grace. Warren is Kingdom co-worker who is making a huge impact in his corner of the world and trying to do it world-wide. It's way too easy to be cynical about style, acronyms and programs.I'm all for talking about post-modern, emerging, churches, and yet I've yet to hear of one that is making such a huge kingdom impact as Saddleback and to be honest when the Kingdom is spreading it often seems to happen in way that make me uncomfortable, but it also makes me thankful.
I find myself sometimes slipping into cynicism, and I don't like it. There's something to be said for honesty and expressing concerns, but it can easily slip into an unhealthy attitude. Meantime, God is using people that don't fit the categories of what we'd choose ourselves. Walking that line is sometimes harder than it looks.
Well said, Steve.
Rick Warren announces his new vision:
This weekend, I will begin teaching the most important series of messages we've ever taught in 23 years here at Saddleback church. We believe it is part of the beginning of a Spiritual Awakening, a Global Movement, a New Reformation.During the five weekends of November, we'lll teach five messages on the P.E.A.C.E. plan: a strategy to have every small group in our church, and then tens of thousands of small groups in other churches, become engaged in solving the five biggest problems in the world: Spiritual Lostness, Lack of Godly Leaders, Poverty, Disease, and Lack of Education...
The bottom line is that we intend to reinvent mission strategy in the 21st century. As I stated, this will be a new Reformation. The First Reformation returned us to the message of the original church. It was a reformation of doctrine - what the church BELIEVES. This Second Reformation will return us to the mission of the original church. It will be a reformation of purpose- what the church DOES in the world.
Wow - does this ever bring up a lot of issues. Are programs the solution? How can we avoid exporting the North American culture of the church (a culture that comes complete with acronyms)? Are top-down solutions viable? Is this what the Spirit is saying to the churches?
Much to applaud, yet much still to think about.
Update: Thanks to all (really) who rebuked me for my cynicism. I think I've figured out what bothers me: I tend to be suspicious of things that are packaged. That being said, I'll try to continue to ask questions without being quite so cynical.
A post in which I finally admit that I don't have a clue:
To use another metaphor, I sometimes feel like I've got one foot in the saddle of a horse that's about to keel over, and another foot in the saddle of a horse that's just getting started. The only problem is, I don't know where the second horse is going. But at some point, I've got to choose: go with the one that's dying or not? The answer's pretty obvious, but I still find myself with one foot in the saddle of something that sure looks like it's dying. (By this, I mean the North American church.)
Easum says, "Does preaching really belong in worship? In the New Testament time, preaching was to the pagans, while worship was done in private [small groups/house churches]."
Not a bad question.
Hurray! I've been accepted into the Gordon-Conwell D.Min. program, The Preacher and the Message. I'm excited, although I must admit that the thought "What am I getting myself into?" briefly flickered across my mind.
Absolutely no short term memory. Once his kids figure this out he doesn't stand a chance.
I'm finished my first read of The Church in Emerging Culture. It's been a long time since I've found myself so engaged with a book. My only complaint is that I feel like an intellectual lightweight compared to the five contributors. That's not their fault, though.
Each of the views made me cheer at times, and most of them made me frustrated too. At times, I thought that they talked past one another. The two questions were, "Should the message change?" and "Should the methods change?" leading to four possible positions (unchanging message and methods, changing message and unchanging methods, unchanging message and changing methods, and changing message and methods). The contributors never really came to a common definition of method and message. Before arguing on whether the message should change, for example, it helps to define what the message is. They also sometimes presented false dichotomies (e.g. choosing between the person of Christ and the message of Christ).
Several times throughout the book, I recognized errors that I've made, and continue to make, in my praxis. More significantly, I discovered unquestioned presuppositions I've held which turn out to be unhelpful, if not wrong. I learned something useful from each of the perspectives, and while my choice of the four alternatives remains the same, I think I'm more aware of where my approach falls down and the others have something to offer. What's more, I like the best of the positions I think are wrong than the worst of the position I think is right. (At times, I feel ashamed by those who hold the same position I do, yet seem to get it so obviously wrong.)
Thanks to Len Sweet and the contributors for a great book. I hope this is only the start of the discussion.
My copy of The Present Future is supposed to arrive tomorrow. I just finished reading a review, and it looks like the book I intended to write on being a dying church, only, of course, much better. Some quotes:
A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith. (p.4)The culture does not want the powerless God of the modern church. (p.6)
The North American church culture is not spiritual enough to reach our culture. (p.27)
The first Reformation was about freeing the church. The new Reformation is about freeing God�s people from the church (the institution). (chapter 3)
The historic Reformation distinguished Christians one from the other. The current Reformation is distinguishing followers of Jesus from religious people. (chapter 3)
He even says that �we have a church in North America that is more secular than the culture� (p. 59). Ouch. And here's what somebody calls the most important statement in the book: "Many people outside of the church are more spiritually passionate and enthusiastic about God than many church members" (p.60).
The review goes on to say that the first third of the book (the diagnosis) is more helpful than the last two-thirds (the prescription). I can't wait to find out for myself.
This book, along with the rest of The Church in Emerging Culture, is no doubt going to stretch my mind in new directions this week. I'm kind of looking forward to it.
One of the most frustrating parts of reading some books is that positions are set up and attacked, and you're left wondering, "Was that really fair?" This is called the straw man fallacy, and it's used all the time, in books as well as blogs, for that matter.
It's a lot harder to do this when those who hold positions you're attacking are in the room, or will be leaving comments on your blog. My favorite sessions on the gender issue, for example, have taken place at the Evangelical Theology Society in which the leading thinkers on both sides have to answer to each other. It keeps them honest. Some of them get a little carried away sometimes - no doubt unintentionally - without this accountability.
That's why I'm enjoying The Church in Emerging Culture so much. Leonard Sweet edits and provides an incredibly insightful introduction, while five people much smarter than me go at it. The others are allowed to comment midstream in what each of them gets to say, so you don't get away with much. There is so much to absorb in this book that I am going to have to read it more than once.
If you have views - and I know you do - on the church and how it should relate to these times, then you really do need to wrestle with this book. Whether you're in the "don't change a thing" camp that believes change is compromise, the church growth camp, or in the emerging church camp, trying to rediscover Christianity for a new age, you'll be challenged by interacting with those who hold the same and different views as you do within these pages.
One more thing: I wish I were smarter, at least as smart as any one of the contributors to this book.
More and more, we're being asked to live with technology that is technically reliable, because it was created to fit our knowledge of the physical world, but that is so complex or so counterintuitive that it's actually unusable by most human beings. Even in the relatively benign context of everyday tasks, this pattern is already creating dysfunctional effects. It leads to human error, anger and frustration; we've all felt our blood pressure rise when we're lost in the labyrinth of options offered by automated phone message systems or when we're trying to guess which light switch corresponds to the lights we want to turn on or off.Eventually these inefficiencies, errors and maddenly complex situations give way to alienation and in the long run this leads to an even more severe double whammy: a failure to exploit the potential of both people and technology.
I didn't even know about the field of human factors engineering yesterday, but The Human Factor is fascinating reading, and it's addressing some issues that affect all of us in fairly significant ways. I'm glad I picked up a copy.
"Some of the greatest discoveries...consist mainly in the clearing away of psychological roadblocks which obstruct the approach to reality; which is why, post factum, they appear so obvious." (Arthur Koestler)
This seems to be one of the key tasks in the emerging church today.
"Important stuff Youth Specialties believes (a.k.a., Statement of Faith)" by Mike Yaconelli:
...We know there's other important stuff out there…actually, a lot of other stuff: theology, doctrine, homosexuality, abortion, war, the second coming, prophecy, music, discipleship, appearance, serving, worship, tattoos, dancing, drinking, traditions, smoking, language, baptism, moral issues and…well, like we said, lots of stuff.All that stuff is important, and certainly people should try to figure out what to believe about all those things, but that's exactly the point. We believe that if the "biggies" are sorted out, then all the other stuff will eventually fall into place too. It might not fall into the same place as the brother or sister next to you, but that's what makes the kingdom of God so interesting. Right?
Update: There seem to be two approaches to spirituality. One is defined by the center (Jesus). Augustine said, "Love God and do as you please." The other is more focused on the boundaries: what you believe on every issue, how you behave.
It's not that the first group doesn't care about the issues; it's just that the issues aren't their focus.
When I finished my last university course, there was a long time that I kept thinking I should be doing homework. It just becomes part of the routine.
I'm home tonight, and I have nothing on my agenda. You know you're living a sad, sad life when you keep thinking, "There must be a denominational battle I'm supposed to be fighting right now."
Breathe, Darryl, breathe. Sanity will return shortly.
Jordon Cooper has said that blogging about church is boring. If that's true, then the only thing worse would be a week's worth of posting about church and denominational politics.
All that to say that I'm not sorry I posted on the past week's events - I'm more sorry I lived through them - but I'm moving on. So thanks for your patience and support, and I promise I will blog about something a little more real soon.
Leith Anderson and Erwin McManus on "The Call" in Leadership Journal:
Anderson: My primary identity is, I'm me and I'm a Christian. It's not, I'm a pastor. I've never had a "sense of call" to the pastorate. I was raised in a pastor's home, and I've just tried to make wise choices with the gifts and opportunties God provides...McManus: I agree...Focusing the call to "full-time Christian work" really reduces the life of every other believer in two ways: (1) if they don't have "a call experience," it abdicates them from any responsibility to have a conversation with God about their life's work, because if you're not called to vocational ministry, then you can do anything you want. And (2) it demeans any other vocation as secondary in God's eyes.
Thank you for leading our denomination. It's not an easy job, and I don't envy you.
I'm writing today as a critic, but as a friendly one. Over the past year, I've come to understand Jesus' call to discipleship - to give up our lives and die to ourselves - as applicable not just to individuals, but to churches and denominations as well. Programs and goals sure aren't serving our churches and denominations well. Most institutions have a built-in survival instinct, and it's my thesis that this survival instinct is the very thing that gets in the way of following Jesus as we should.
I'd suggest a few things. First, we should admit we're not doing well. We're not growing, we're not having much of an influence on society, and, a lot of times, we're not seeing lives transformed from the inside out within our churches. This is a harsh reality, and I don't blame you for this, but it seems to be true.
It could just be that we're focused on the wrong things. I've heard a lot about the various programs and audacious goals we've set for ourselves. I've sat through the endless debates on secondary theological issues. Could it be that our main problem is not what we believe or what we plan, but what we care about? Perhaps recapturing our concern for the oppressed, presenting good headlines (that's what the Gospel literally means) instead of bad ones to the world is what it's all about. We seldom talk about love, yet that seems to be the core of what Jesus talked about.
I don't write this out of naive idealism. I'm just concerned that we've settled for something far below what God offers, and we don't even know it. God honors brokenness, and it may be a good time to acknowledge our brokenness before him. He just may want to use us again, not when we get our acts together, but when we stop trying to pull ourselves together and instead offer ourselves to him.
Thank you. I'm praying for you.
...smart individuals always do things better than dumb organizations. And so if we can empower the smart individuals and organizations to move things forward -- especially if they can do it in a way that respects all the constituencies without kowtowing to them, but just respect them -- then everything works better. Our jobs are better, our companies are more productive, the products that get made are the products that should be made, and everything just turns out for the best.
I love Lark News:
"This [offer] couldn't have come at a better time," says Jacob Helsinki, pastor of Mach 4 Baptist Church in Lemon Grove, Wash. His church has sold much of the "visual space" in their facility to advertisers, including the bathroom stalls to Burger King, the rim of the collection plates to Hewlett-Packard and the backs of pews to JollyTime popcorn. "We were facing real cutbacks for our youth programs, and these companies were more than happy to step in and bridge the gap, financially speaking."
Rachel pointed me to this site tonight. It's just what I needed to read.
Just as some people cannot see the forest for the trees, I believe most sinners cannot see Jesus for the Christians. And I believe most Christians cannot see Jesus for the "church".Jesus said if He is lifted up then He will draw all men to Himself. Instead, we lift up religion and draw all men into an institution.
After five hundred years of walking with God, Noah found grace and then began to build an ark. So let us learn to do nothing apart from this amazing grace. It is better to wait five hundred years for grace than to work for five minutes without it.
The vote's over, and it failed by the slimmest of margins. It needed two-thirds support, and it got 64.7% support.
Even worse, the Council's chair confused the issue a little by stating that their position would allow female elders and pastors, just not senior pastors.
The worst news is that the group that's in favor seems hell bent on bringing this up until they succeed. I just don't have the time.
I'm discouraged - not by the discussion, not by the chair's mistake. I'm discouraged that we seem determined to self-destruct if that's what it takes.
It might take a few days to remind myself why I do what I do. It sure has nothing to do with what's transpired over the past few days.
The vote at our Fellowship convention takes place today. I have no idea how it will go. I've always doubted that they will get enough support (two-thirds) to pass the by-law, but now I'm not so sure. Here's the motion they will attempt to pass:
In the New Testament, the office of pastor/elder/overseer is gender specific. Therefore, in Fellowship Baptist churches, this office is for qualified men recognized by the local church for oversight of the doctrine and practice of the church.
At first glance, this looks like a vote on the gender issue. It's really not. It's actually a vote on whether or not we want to exclude churches that hold a different view on the gender issue. As I've said before (let's not go over all the arguments again), I just can't see why it makes sense to be so exclusive on this issue.
I'm still not sure what the fallout from the first vote will be. Our leadership team is great. We met last night. While discouraged, they showed real character following a pretty disappointing vote.
The vote on Sunday reflected a lot of things. It partly reflected theological concern, which I not only welcome but encourage. But it also reflected much more unhealthy things as well - issues of structure and issues of heart - and these will have to be dealt with if Richview is going to thrive, or even survive, long term.
But then again, it's all about being a dying church full of people who have died to themselves, isn't it? It's not about us, and the Kingdom is much larger.
Still, I'd appreciate your thoughts and prayers today. I'll let you know what happens.
It could be my introversion and my desire to write coming out, but this description of a typical day in the life of Eugene Peterson sounds great:
Eugene is not retired. He is in his early '70s and carries on a rigorous day. He is up at 6:00 am and plugs in the coffee. He goes down to the lake and does a morning ritual of Mikvah, a ritual purification bath taken by Jews. He returns and brings Jan a cup of coffee and then to his office for prayer. About 7:30 he takes a walk (about a mile) to retrieve the local morning paper. Breakfast. About 8:30-9:00 am he goes to his office to write until about 1:00. Lunch. Then a "liturgical nap." After the nap he takes another walk (about 2 miles). He returns to the study to finish the day's work and then the evening meal around 7:00 pm followed by ev
