Leave your church? Yeah, he really said it.

OK, so before I get into A New Kind of Christianity, I had to write about this. Yesterday I ran across this story (this is a summary and includes some audio) about Glenn Beck thanks to Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed. In a nutshell he is arguing that churches which practice "social" or "economic" justice are covers for communism and nazism.  I know, I could not believe it either.  I am hoping that there is more to this.  I have only the little clip on the link above.  I want to believe the best in Mr. Beck, however, it is a bit disheartening when people like him choose to set aside the Bible for their political gains.

Jesus cared deeply for the poor, the dispossessed, and the broken. The scriptures are very clear about the role of justice and how it so closely connects to the heart of God. Let us look at but one verse, Micah 6:8: "He has told you, O man, what is good; what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

Simple question, "what does God require of us"? Answer: DO JUSTICE. Friends, the heart of God is just and he is seeking to bring about justice.  This is why Jesus himself had to die on the cross, so that justice could be done. Read the Psalms and you will find that justice is a key theme. Read the gospels and you will find that justice is a key theme.  Justice is a core principle in the economy of God.

We tack on terms like "social" or "economic" and then try to run away from our responsibility.  No. Justice is required of us. Finally, I would recommend reading Leviticus 25 and then tell me that God does not care about justice. Justice is not a cover for communism or nazism.  Justice is the response of a grateful people who have been transformed by a resurrected savior.

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A New Kind of Christianity

I have been reading Brian McLaren's newest book, A New Kind of Christianity.  It has totally engaged me.  My mind is wrestling through the challenges that he has laid out.  I am about half way through the text and I am very frustrated that he end-noted instead of foot-noted, I have a callous now from marking my place at the end-notes (OK not really, but you get my point). I am going to write ten more posts on the book and in each one I am going to interact with the question that McLaren proposes.

Here's your chance to look into the future:

• What is the overarching story line of the Bible?


• How should the Bible be understood?


• Is God violent?


• Who is Jesus and why is he important?


• What is the gospel?


• What  do we do about the church?


• Can we find a way to address human sexuality without fighting about it?


• Can we find a better way of viewing the future?


• How should the followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?


• How can we translate our quest into action?

These will be my next ten posts.  I hope that you will interact in the comments and that we can have a good and lively conversation about what McLaren is bringing to the table.

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YOUR preacher is DEAD.

[caption id="attachment_737" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Holograph (left), Tony Morgan (right)"]

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Is the title a little extreme? Probably.  But, that's the point. Yesterday Tony Morgan sported some new technology on his website.  It's the same kind of technology that we saw on CNN during the presidential coverage, that's right, holograms. Tony believes that this technology will be coming down in price such that it will become a regular in churches in the next year.

I think that this is a sad commentary on the state of discipleship in the church today.  We already have pastors of "multi-site" churches preaching via video screen because they are unwilling or incapable of training others up.  This takes it to the next level.  I can see the sales pitch coming now, "Imagine having Rob Bell or John Piper preaching at your church EVERY Sunday for the low, low price of..."

I am an early adopter of technology.  I am also a believer in the necessary availability of the preacher to connect with his people.  One of my mentors said, "The most important part of the sermon is the slow walk after the service out of the sanctuary." Why?  It is because in those few moments you are able to engage with the people God has entrusted you with. You are able to field questions, talk more deeply, or just hear an encouraging word. Let's see a holograph do that!

It seems to me with this technology, as with many others, the question is not "can we" but "should we."  What say you? Should you replace your preached with a holograph?

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The Most Demonic Movie EVER! Really?

When I opened up my RSS reader yesterday and saw Out of Ur's article on Pastor Mark Driscoll's comments on Avatar, I was intrigued.  I clicked. I watched. I was amazed. I was sitting with my wife and my jaw dropped and she began wondering if I had lock jaw on the off chance that I did not get my tetanus updates. The reality is that I was surprised by comments like this coming from a person who holds tightly to a Reformed perspective of doctrine (which I am coming to learn does not equate to a Reformed worldview, I am so naïve!)

First, let me say a few things to set the stage for my concerns.

1. I enjoy Pastor Mark and am thankful for the role he plays in the Christian world.


2. I agree with Pastor Mark's assessment that Na'avi of Avatar practice pantheism.


3. I agree with Pastor Mark's assessment that pantheism is an incorrect worldview.


4. I agree with Pastor Mark that the film is promoting a worldview that does not jive with the Biblical worldview.


5. I agree with Pastor Mark that the film does not portray an exact representation of Jesus.


6. My guess is that Pastor Mark went down a rabbit trail in his sermon on this one and did not think it through.

I want to make it clear: I agree with much of what Pastor Mark says in the clip.

However, I do struggle with some of Pastor Mark's comments.  I will briefly outline them here. First, I struggle with the way that Pastor Mark has chosen to set Christ against culture, the Reformed position is Christ transforms culture.  I think that he has made an inappropriate good/bad split.  Avatar in his mind is "all bad".  I am not sure that this is true.  There are some helpful metaphors in the film.  One example is the character of Grace Augustine.  She promotes a gracious approach to the "fearsome" Na'avi as opposed to a law driven approach.  This seems awfully familiar to the grace that Augustine espoused. Coincidence? Maybe. A second example is one of the things that Pastor Mark argues against as a "false incarnation". I thought the film did a nice job representing the incarnation.  Here we have an incarnated being learning and becoming part of a culture and community that is not his own after leaving the relative ease of his previous life. Is it perfect or ideal? No. It is not written from a Biblical worldview.  Is it a bridge to the subversive and radical life of Jesus? Yes.

I also struggle with the way that Pastor Mark portrays Genesis 1:27-28.  He says that the Biblical teaching is "progress" and that we are not to remain "primitive".  The problem is that this is not nuanced enough.  The Biblical mandate requires us to steward, tend , and care for the creation of the Creator.  This means that we are not to support strip mining, clear cutting, and the destruction of the creation.  We are to care for it and tend it.  Are we to create culture and progress? Yes.  However, we are to do so in such a way that honors God's creation which he deemed good as opposed to seeing the creation as a hindrance or an inconvenience to our way of life.

Jumping off this point, is another one.  Pastor Mark says that humanity does not have the "divine spark".  That's simply not true. We are created in the image of God.  All of us are image bearers.  We are radically and completely corrupted by sin from the start. None of us are innocent.  None of us are able to save ourselves. We need our sovereign God to graciously redeem us according to his plan. Yet every person in Hell is still a human created in the image of God.

At the beginning of the clip Pastor Mark is talking about consumerism and the world system. The funny thing is that Avatar agrees with him.  Consumerism is the driving force behind the humans destroying the Na'avi.  The consumerism drives them to destroy the creation and the culture of these beings. I am concerned that Pastor Mark is burning bridges to the gospel as opposed to building them.

Another struggle I have with Pastor Mark's assessment is that he seems to be communicating from his politics as opposed to the Bible.  The charges that he levies against Avatar could be very easily levied against The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings.  But, we "know" that these author's were Christians and so we are OK with their metaphors.  I mean seriously, Jesus is represented by a lion who lives out a false resurrection and a false incarnation. Narnia has witches and talking beasts.  But, we all know that these are metaphors, illustrations of something else.  Can we not build a bridge from the metaphors present in Avatar? I think we can and I think we should.

Avatar is not the most demonic movie ever (I would say the Exorcist is).  It is an opportunity for the Christian world to speak to a world that desperately needs Jesus with metaphors and images that will make sense to them.

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The Law of Stickiness

Have you ever felt as though what you say does not matter? I have this experience often. Many nights I come home and flop on the couch and wonder why I ever speak.  It is as if nobody is listening.  Then I read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and the "Law of Stickiness"that he has identified.  Gladwell shares the story of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues and how both shows were developed in such a way that their messages would stick.  I think that this might be my problem. I do not often think about how to make my message sticky.

Gladwell's "Law of the Few" says you need the right people.  The "Law of Stickiness" says you need the right message. Gladwell reasonably states that if Paul Revere were telling people about a sale at his silver shop the Massachusetts countryside would not have been mobilized, there was something sticky about "THE REDCOATS ARE COMING!"

I think that this is critical for the church today.  We lament that people are leaving the church.  We lament the shrinking number of people trusting Christ.  We decry the youth for checking out by the time they hit Middle School. Our researchers point to all kinds of reasons for these realities from the postmodern shift to divorce rates.  It is not very often that we evaluate our message.

Somehow we have turned the stickiest message in history into a sheet of ice.

The gospel is sticky.  The Apostle Paul puts it this way, "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor 1:22-24)"  The message that has been entrusted to us is one that causes a reaction, a response.  Unfortunately we have lost our communicative creativity and it has lost its stick.

The question we must ask ourselves as followers of Jesus is how do we get our "sticky" back? I think that we get our sticky back the same way that Jesus and Paul did.  They spoke the language of the people.  Jesus told short stories that got inside people's heads. Paul understood the people he spoke to and bridged the gospel to their contexts.  They used the right words.

What are the right words for us today?  What is the language that the 21st century citizen of the United States speaks? I think that those around me speak in the language fo guilt ridden narcissism.  The metaphors exist in film and popular music. This is the context we are speaking into.

In the midst of this how do we make our message stick? I think that the message will stick if we can become creative in our communication to create parables based in the metaphors of this generation's context.  We must not give over the metaphors and continue to speak a slippery message.

Jesus message is subversive.  It cuts to the quick.  It is by nature sticky.  We have tamed it, we have set aside our imaginations, and as a result we have made it slick.  I pray for a return to creativity, a return to cultural engagement, and a return to subversive preaching of the sticky gospel.

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Law of the Few

I have recently finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. I was very impressed with the book and it has given me much to think about.  Gladwell discusses epidemics and relates epidemiology to social movements.  I am going to post a few of my reflections and I how think the ideas in the text relate to the local church because as we consider how to transform the world around us we need to be aware of these truths.

The first concept is "The Law of the Few" (30-88). The Law of the Few simply means that it does not take a large number of people to tip an epidemic. What you need to create a radical transformation is the right person.  There are three kinds of people that can create a tipping point (in church language: the moment a ministry becomes a movement). The first kind of person is a "Connector".  A Connector is someone who moves in and out of many different social groups. Not only this they are able to connect the people in those groups to one another. There was a student at Illinois State University named Brad who was in my Bible study for a couple of years.  Brad knew everyone.  He did not just know names but he knew something about everybody.  Almost every week Brad would talk about entering into a new realm of friends.  It was incredible!

When a Connector catches a passion for something she is able to spread it fast into many different communities.  We must identify the Connectors in our midst so that we can equip them to take the gospel message into their sphere of influence.  When this happens a movement begins.  People from many different backgrounds begin to interact and catch a similar passion and the movement grows.

The second kind of person is a "Maven".  Maven's are the kind of people who know everything and they genuinely like to help you. A Maven is someone that people trust and turn to for advice.  These are the people who correct Consumer Reports.  When a Maven speaks you do what they say because you know they are right and that they have the done the research.

Imagine a Maven who comes to faith in Christ.  When they go back to the people with whom they have relationships their testimony will have great power.  It's because those in their sphere of influence will respond to what they have to say.  If Jesus works for the Maven, then Jesus will work for me. The power and influence would be incredible. However, they typically have smaller networks than a Connector.

The third person is the Salesman.  A Salesman is the kind of person who gets results.  They are larger than life personalities and they are able to win you over at "hello".  You know the kind of person that I am talking about.  You are their best friend instantly.  Salesmen have huge networks of shallow relationships.  In spite of the shallow relationships they are highly effective at spreading an idea because people seemingly "can't help but respond" to what they have to say.

A friend of mine named Darin is a Salesman.  He said that everyone he ever met was his friend.  People love to say yes Darin.  It's amazing to watch him have conversations with people.  Within ten minutes they would trust Darin to care for their child (slight exaggeration, but you get my point)! People like Darin can tip a ministry into a movement.  These are people who get tagged with "the gift of evangelism".

In your community can you identify the Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen?  If your community is going to become a movement you need must be able to do this.  To do this requires you as a leader to be have a great interest in every single person in your ministry.

Simply put movements explode because of the Law of the Few.

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Pressure Points

There are few things in life that frustrate me more than watching other parents do things that hinder their child's spiritual growth. This may sound arrogant to you, it probably is.  I am not a perfect parent, not even close.  I get frustrated with my kids and I even yell at the little darlings every once in a while.  I think over the last eight years (that's how old our oldest is) I have asked for forgiveness more times than I can count (but that's another issue for another post). This post is about pressure. Overbearing pressure does exactly this, it hinders spiritual growth.

I see parents all over the place putting undue and unrealistic pressure on children. This pressure broadens a relational rift between parents and children that naturally occurs at this age.  This is many times seen in the context of education.  Today more and more kids are pushed into AP classes.  These classes are taught at a very high level and are preparatory classes to test for college credits.  I took AP classes in High School but I had a Mom who understood that these classes were designed too teach me how to think and do research and that I would most likely not get an A. Her concern was that I simply worked hard and did my best.

I think that the disconnect has entered in because it seems that a B is not good enough anymore.  That an A is required fare to prove that a kid is "working hard".  These grades have become the ultimate driving force in a parent's life. They punish their child for a B in a college level course that they themselves would have no chance to pass. Students are then punished for doing well enough.  Their punishment is often times limiting their involvement in social interactions. This limit is applied to the their faith community too.  The youth group is seen as a "privilege" that can be taken away.

Please hear me, I am not saying that we should not push our children to excellence.  I am not saying that we should not encourage them to take on academic or athletic challenges.

I am saying that we need to help them bring balance to their lives.  If we push them to be all consumed with their academics or their athletics then we are clearly communicating something.  We are communicating that these are the things around which life revolves.  The center of life is your ability to "achieve".

I have this sad image in my head of many parents standing before the God, whom they love, asking why their child is not spending eternity with them.  Jesus' face turns grim and says, "My brothers and sisters you taught them that a grade was better than me.  You taught them that a grade was better than my people.  You taught them to set me and my people aside to study and get a B+ instead of a B.  You taught them that "the now" matters more than their eternity did. You taught them to love themselves over me.  You taught them to love being apart from me and now what you have taught them has come to fruition."

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