Tech Support Evangelism

Evangelism these days looks more like tech support.

Helping people get connected with Jesus in a time of “stay at home orders” looks like helping people get internet access. Inviting people to church looks like “Liking” and “Sharing” social media posts or creating “Watch Parties.” Sharing the love of God with a neighbor looks like helping them create a Facebook profile or walking them through joining a Zoom meeting.

As the Easter Season continues, the call to share the abundant life of Christ with the world is a call to help those who may not be “tech savvy” become so. Buying someone an electronic device is the equivalent of driving them to church these days. Having reliable access to the internet is a social justice issue now more than ever. The skillset to navigate online content is a spiritual gift. 

One of the things we have done at Manchester UMC is divvy up our list of phone numbers among our Stephen Ministers, the entire database, and they have been calling each and every person connected to the church. For some, who are very well connected, these calls have been a really wonderful “extra” point of connection. For others, those who are not online, these phone calls have been a Godsend, the only way they have felt connected to the church at all.

So take a minute and ask yourself: Who do you know who needs some “tech support?” Who do you know who may be feeling disconnected right now? We are beginning our sixth week of a “stay at home order” in St. Louis County. Although there is some talk of a plan to relieve the order, it is likely it will not happen for quite some time. Who can you reach out to this week to get them connected to the life of the church, and thereby connected to the resurrection life of Jesus?

In the “Season of Weirdness,” evangelism looks like tech support. Our mission is to make a difference for Christ by transforming church and community, and a specific way each of us can “transform the church” is by helping others get online to get connected.

There Is More Than One Way

The other day my friend Valerie asked me, “Can I come to your church?”

I replied, “Yes! Of course!”

And then her face lit up and she said, “I never realized there was another way to do it!”

The “it” she was referring to was the sacrament of Holy Communion. We had just had pre-opening night Communion on stage together with many of the cast of “Jesus Christ Superstar.” It was a wonderful, holy moment. And it was different from what she had experienced before.

Valerie had grown up in one particular tradition, and thought that there was pretty much only that one way that “counted.” And of course it is deeper than just how you do Holy Communion. The antecedent of the pronoun “it” in Valerie’s statement truly refers to the church in general. Her observation is profound, and the church needs to listen hard.

Yes, there is more than one way to do church.

How many people grew up being told that there is only one way to do it? Or how many were told, “Well, there may be other ways, but there’s only one right way?” Or how many of us grew up maybe not being told that explicitly, but at least were never encouraged to seek other ways of being in relationship with God?

I believe that people long for meaning. And some stuff that is very meaningful to me is not going to be the slightest bit meaningful to you, and vice versa. And that’s okay. It’s not that my way is “right” and yours is “wrong,” it’s just that my way is meaningful to me and yours is meaningful to you. Unless, of course, someone’s way does harm to another - then that’s not okay. That way is wrong and it needs to be challenged.

When it comes to our relationship with the divine, our religion, who am I to say that the meaning you have discovered in your way is not right, just because it doesn’t work for me?

Is not God capable of relating to people in whatever way God chooses? Or would I dare to suggest a limit on God’s capacity to interact with the world? (Spoiler: No, I would not.)

And so listen up, Church. Listen to my friend Valerie. She wants to know that there are other ways to do it. She wants to discover her own unique relationship with God, not be told what it has to look like. She wants a relationship with God that means something to her, not necessarily the one any of the rest of us would find meaningful. And of course, she’s not the only one.

So, we have to quit insisting that one, narrowly defined, rigidly constructed way of being the church is the only way to do it. Our systems and structures have to be flexible enough to offer connection and community for a diverse collection of people, such that each one of us finds opportunities to encounter God in our midst.

There is more than one way to encounter God. There is more than one way to follow Jesus.

There is more than one way to be the Church.

When Doctrine Hinders Mission

A woman called me a couple days ago. From the sound of her voice I would guess she is an older woman; she said she had attended worship, and she had a question for me about the congregation.

“What does your congregation believe about homosexuality?” she asked.

Earlier in my career, I would have hemmed and hawed a bit, trying awkwardly to figure out where she was coming from with her question. Was she “friend” or “foe?” Was I about to be the target of a homophobic lecture again? Was she going to unfairly associate me with the “official” denominational stance and chastise me for being so unjust?

But the time for hemming and hawing has long past, so I just answered her question honestly.

“I can’t speak for the entire congregation,” I said. “Some people here would like full inclusion of all people, and some think being gay should disqualify you from getting married. It’s a pretty diverse group. But as for me personally, I’m on the ‘full inclusion’ side of things. Meaning, I do not believe a person’s sexual orientation should disqualify them from getting married, or from getting ordained for that matter. And I know that there are quite a few who are on that same page.”

Her response made me smile. “Good,” she said. “I just couldn’t be a part of a church who didn’t include all people. I’ll be back!”

Our mission, church people, is non-negotiable. It is a given that our mission is to make disciples, meaning reaching out to offer people a relationship with God through Jesus as a part of a Spirit-filled congregation. And what is it that those disciples do once made? No less than “transform the world.” However you phrase it, our mission is to help people become followers of Jesus who are changing the world for God’s sake.

And so we talk about “the mission field,” which is a rather impersonal and businesslike way to describe the people I named above. We have other operational words like “unchurched” and “target demographic,” which are also helpful in encouraging us to forget that there are real actual people living real actual lives with whom we are called to live in real actual community. Nevertheless, whatever term you use, we are talking about people who are not a part of a church, for a variety of reasons.

Of that group, the overwhelming majority does not believe that being gay should disqualify you from getting married, not to mention impact how you are treated in the world in general. This isn’t my opinion; poll after poll backs this up. Or said another way, most “unchurched” people are like the woman who called me this week: they simply could not possibly be a part of a church that did not include all people.

So let me say this as clearly as I can. Pastors, congregations, and denominations who are opposed to marriage equality and who do not ordain people who are gay are stumbling blocks to the mission of the church. When the doctrine of the church excludes people based on sexual orientation, it makes it more difficult to accomplish the task given us by God.

Yes, it may very well be that people already in the church are opposed to fully inclusive marriage and ordination, but that isn’t the point, is it? The point is, the people we are supposed to be reaching are not.

I know the counter-arguments. “We would be condoning sin, and we just can’t do that” is one of the most common. The reasoning is this: Yes, all people are sinners, and all are welcome in the church. But we are supposed to stop our sinful ways and live like God wants us to. If we welcome and marry same-sex couples, we are not only not stopping the sin, we are approving of it.

There are a lot of people who believe this, and they are not hateful, they are not homophobic, they are loving and faithful and all that.

(To be sure, there are a lot of Christians who are absolutely hateful and homophobic, but I’m not talking about them today. Nor by the way am I addressing the “Scriptural authority” argument, as I have before.)

Thus for many the issue becomes the visibility of the perceived sin. For many Christians, a same-sex couple is an unavoidably visible representation of what they believe to be a sin, and they just can’t get around it. Of course, it is naive to believe that EVERY sinner stops sinning when they find Jesus, but for most of us you can’t really see it.

And so, the mission of the church is hindered. An enormous stumbling block is placed between thousands of people and a life-giving relationship with God, simply because some Christians are confronted with the evidence of one specific act that they believe to be a sin, and they can’t handle it.

For those of us who do not believe being gay is a sin, this is infuriating. I know how much my relationship with God has meant in my life, and I want more than anything else to share that with others. It makes me angry when something gets in the way of that happening, and it is embarrassing that what is getting in the way also happens to be the official doctrine of my denomination.

How many people are there in close proximity of our church building who are just like the woman who called me this week? Hundreds, no doubt. Thousands, probably. People are seeking a connection with the divine, a connection that fully embraces the whole self, all that makes a person a person, including one’s sexual orientation.

And yet many are never going to seek that divine connection as a part of a church, simply because the church’s mission is being compromised by the church’s doctrine.

But … some will. One did this week, in fact. And when she called, I was honest with her. And she said, “I’ll be back!” Thanks be to God.

The Ecclesial Ethics of Google Ads

Technology advances faster than ethics. We are often confronted with the reality of being able to do something thanks to a technological achievement without being given sufficient time to consider whether or not we should. And though there are examples with significant social impact, there are smaller instances that are worth considering.

For example: Should a congregation purchase a Google ad? We are able to, but should we?

A congregation can pay Google to bump their website to the top of the list when someone searches for a church in a particular area. And since Google is the place almost everyone goes to find stuff in general, it is going to be the place we go to find a church, also. So I move into town, I’m looking for a church, I just google “churches in such-and-such” and take a look at the list. Top of the list hits tend to get more attention, so a congregation can pay Google to get that extra attention.

So…

- Is it good evangelism, a wise use of congregational resources?

- Is it bad ecclesiology, infusing an attitude of competition into the church’s mission in the world?

- Is it actually bad practice, since there are many who intentionally skip the “paid for” hits in a Google search?

- Is it an act of hospitality in that it makes it that much easier for a newcomer to find the “front door” of the congregation?

- Is it an unjust practice that favors large, wealthy congregations over small, struggling ones?

I’d love to read your thoughts. It may not even be that big of a deal, but it’s something I’m thinking about this morning, so I thought I’d put it out there.

What do you think about a congregation purchasing Google ads?

Neither Young Nor Old

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28, NRSV).

And if I could edit the Bible (wouldn’t we all like to do THAT from time to time?), I would add “there is no longer young or old.” Though we cannot edit Scripture, it is clear to me that the idea I would insert is indeed present, if not explicitly stated.

In “earthly” terms, we talk about old people and young people all the time. The church’s latest institutional lament is how we are aging, soon to be dying off, and in desperate need of young people who will save the church.

My practical response to this lament is, That’s an awful lot of pressure to put on “young people,” and a pretty ineffective invitational strategy, anyway. “Hey there, young person! Come and be a part of this church, we are starting to panic about whether or not we will survive as an institution and we just know that you are going to be our salvation!” Um … no thanks.

My theological response to this lament is, In the Church there is no longer young or old, for all are one in Christ Jesus. It makes me a bit uncomfortable, as an old person, to surrender any evangelical capacity I might have to the younger generations. Why should I be allowed to yield my missional responsibility, just because I’m not in the designated demographic?

The church is a multi-generational body, and the truth is that all who follow Jesus, no matter what age, must faithfully pattern our lives in discipleship, including reaching out to invite others to be a part of the abundant life made known in Christ Jesus and made manifest in the church.

It is true that we old folks need the younger ones; it is equally true that the younger folks need us old fogies. This is not an either-or proposition, for “all are one in Christ Jesus.” 

Do I Know You?

Yesterday morning, I said something in the sermon that I didn't write. Luckily, I said it during first service so that I could keep it in for the next two.

I outline my sermons, but sometimes I write out specific sentences or phrases, especially what I call the "hook," or a kind of tag line that is intended for people to take home with them to remember the message.

This week's hook was, "Jesus is your friend so you can be a friend to others."

I know, kind of generic, not very catchy, pretty lame actually. But (thank you Lord) that's not what came out of my mouth.

What I said was, "No, I don't know you. But I do know Jesus. And because I know Jesus, I know you."

The set up went like this:

The Bible describes "regular old" friendship using the Greek word philia, which we usually translate "love." There's nothing at all inherently wrong with philia. Growing as a disciple of Jesus, however, requires us to move from philia to agape, divine love. Jesus said, 'There is no greater love (agape) than to lay down one's life for one's friends (philos).' (tangent: English is sometimes inadequate to convey the fuller meanings of ancient texts, so we need to take great care as we read them.)

To move from philia to agape, then, is to be willing to lay down your life for another. For whom would you lay down your life?

Here I paused and sort of scanned the room. I asked again, "For whom would you be willing to lay down your life?"

Many of us think of somebody in our family or a dear friend when confronted with that question, which is wonderful. But what Jesus asks of his followers is to lay down our lives for complete strangers, people we've never met before. After all, that's what he did. (Remember "Where is your mother? Where are your brothers, Jesus?")

The radical call of Christian friendship is to lay down our lives for complete strangers. That is an idea so counterintuitive in our fearful and distrusting world that we have a really, really hard time making any relevant sense of it.

And so I asked people to greet strangers throughout their week with as much joy and enthusiasm as they would greet a dear friend whom they had not seen in weeks. Smile at them and shake their hand and express your sincere happiness at seeing them! Act toward them as you would your very best friend.

Then, after the awkwardness passes, and they ask you, "Do I know you?" you just smile and respond, "No, I don't know you. But I know Jesus. And because I know Jesus, I know you!"

As soon as I said it, I thought it was kind of corny, and wondered where exactly it had come from. After all, that's where I had planned to say, "Remember that Jesus is your friend so you can be a friend to others." But there was also a sense of the power of that simple idea. I don't know if others in the room sensed it, but I certainly did. It was a moment in which all of us shared in a word from God, a simple truth that challenged all of us to a deeper commitment to Christ. And I do mean all of us; I felt the challenge myself.

As I've written before, the church does not have a problem with programming or facilities, lack of sufficiently catchy mission statements, or even worship style or preaching as much as it has a profoundly impoverished Christology. One of the ways that shows up is the alarming frequency with which "church people" only hang out with other "church people." Yes, friends love each other and thats just fine - but there is more to being a follower of Jesus than loving on the people you already know.

"Our church is friendly." Great. That's super. So is every church, when you ask them. Now, what else is it? There's a difference between being friendly and being a Christian friend.

So, "church people," inventory your week this week and keep track of how many interactions you have with other "church people." Then if you need to do some breaking free, do it. Put yourself in places out and about (coffee shop, grocery store, hair salon, restaurant) where you have opportunities to meet and talk with strangers who haven't yet become friends. And greet them as if they are already your very best friend you haven't seen in ages.

Then, after you freak them out a little bit, you could pay for their coffee or put your groceries down to help them carry out theirs or give them a 50% tip or bus your own table and ask them to sit down and rest while you do or ... do something that backs up your words. Something you would think of doing for your best friend. Something you would deeply desire to do for someone you love.

Then, if they ask, invite them to come to worship with you. And if that door doesn't open, try again next week! Whatever happens next, you will have made a friend for Christ's sake.

No, I don't really know you. But I do know Jesus. That makes me your friend.

Can I Get a Witness?

One of the last things Jesus says to his disciples just before he ascends to heaven is, “You will be my witnesses…” (Acts 1:8). What is a witness?

Sometimes we carry a perception that “witnessing” must by definition involve publically telling an emotional story to a group about how the speaker was living a horrible life and turned 180 degrees around after accepting Christ. The experience is quite cathartic; there are almost always tears, uplifted hands, and “Thank you Jesus”-es.

This is indeed a way that witnessing can happen, but by no means the only way. In fact, sometimes our misperception (that this way is the only way) prevents us from witnessing ourselves. Since not many people have the kind of dramatic, emotional life stories that tend to define the caricature of witnessing, we might fall into the trap of thinking we cannot be witnesses ourselves.

We may even think our own testimony unworthy, after hearing an especially touching story. “Well,” we might think, “my life isn’t all that bad. Surely anything I have to say about my relationship with God would be pretty pathetic compared to his.” We therefore minimize how God has been and continues to be active in our lives in a myriad of ways.

The thing is, if you say you are a Christian, you ARE a witness. For Jesus’ disciples, “witness” is the default mode of living. Everything you say, everything you do, every conversation you have, every purchase you make, the kind of house you live in, the kind of car you drive, the amount of time you spend with your kids, the attitude you assume toward your co-workers or classmates, etc. – everything that you are gives testimony about Jesus.

More specifically, everything that you do/say/are gives testimony to who you think Jesus is. Remember, testimony is neutral; in that it can say something negatively just as much as something affirmatively. So for example, if you treat a person with contempt, that says something about who you think Jesus is to those who are watching you. And that wouldn’t be a good thing.

Conversely, knowing Jesus to be loving, compassionate, forgiving, and just, our actions and words and being should testify to that knowledge. Christians ARE Jesus’ witnesses, in our families, in our churches, in our communities, and “to the ends of the earth.”

Crowds, Disciples, and Pharisees, Oh My!

In the Gospels, there are groups of people who seem to represent different facets of Jesus’ ministry. I resist categorization, and try to avoid labeling people. But for the sake of conversation, here are a few.

LABELS:
There are “crowds.” The crowd is the generic. There’s nothing particularly bad or particularly good about the crowd. Jesus teaches the crowds, and feeds them. The crowds come to see healing miracles. The crowd is kind of the nameless backdrop for the action.

From the crowd come “disciples.” Men and women who choose to follow Jesus step out of the crowd and become students and adherents of his teachings. Disciples pattern their lives after Jesus’ life. Jesus has special relationships with them, and many of them are named. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus come to mind, for example.

From the disciples Jesus calls the 12 “apostles.” The twelve have a particular mission in Jesus’ ministry, and he appoints them to various tasks. In some cases they are imbued with divine power for miraculous healing. They comprise a kind of “inner circle” of disciples, and their names are listed specifically.

Two other groups are present throughout the story, one of which is a target of Jesus’ anger, and one of which evokes particular compassion.

The “scribes and Pharisees” are the purveyors of hypocrisy and corruption, and incur Jesus’ condemnation on several occasions. They are the powerful minority in Jerusalem, who unjustly control both religious and civil life for all the people. They are propped up by the might of the Roman Empire, which has granted them limited temporal control of the people to the local authorities, until such time as their armies are needed.

And then there are the “outcasts,” the people that no one else cares about. They are people whom the “crowd” shuns, people at the outer margins of the social structure. It seems as though Jesus has a particular compassion for this group of people, often reaching out to an outcast in spite of the criticism it frequently invokes. Healing people with leprosy, sharing a meal with “tax collectors and sinners,” or defending a woman caught in adultery all illuminate Jesus’ special compassion for outcasts.

MOVEMENT:
Sometimes people move from group to group, and most often this movement is from a group to become a “disciple” – an outcast named Mary Magdalene, a Pharisee named Jairus. Maybe a crowd member even becomes an apostle – like Bartholomew (what did he ever do?). Sometimes even an outcast becomes an apostle, like Matthew the tax collector. But rarely does anyone move the other direction. It might be argued that Judas was the noteworthy exception.

The movement we witness most of the time then, is from “farther away from Jesus” in the direction of “closer to Jesus.”

If we think about evangelism as “something that our lives, as disciple of Jesus Christ, exude as a way of being vehicles of God's love-filled grace” (Adam Gordon), then the goal of evangelism must be people moving closer to Jesus. How much of what the church does is effectively working toward that goal? What are we sharing with the “crowd” that will help us move closer to Jesus? How are we in ministry with the “outcasts” so that justice and mercy will come to bear? What are we saying to the “scribes and Pharisees” of our day that will challenge and illuminate God’s will?

IT’S ME, O LORD:
Of course, the question that precedes ALL of those is, “How am I myself moving ever closer to Jesus?” It’s all too easy to label someone as an “outcast” and think that we privileged Christians need to get her moving closer to Jesus. To tell the truth, there have been many people I have known that may have been labeled “outcast” by someone who have helped me move closer to Jesus than I can describe.

Furthermore, it is all too easy to stand in the “crowd” and consider myself a “disciple,” or even an “apostle” called by God to a particular mission. This condition is perhaps even more pervasive, and quite insidious in contemporary Christianity. Our congregations are filled with gigantic crowds of self-professed disciples. And remember, there’s nothing wrong with being in the “crowd;” Jesus loves the crowd, too! But it’s not discipleship.

I need to remind myself always that Jesus is the one doing the inviting, and I’m just acting as his ambassador. And at the same time, I must stay open to receive from others the Christian invitation to a life of grace myself. Evangelism is relationship, relationship is invitational, invitation is mutually shared among all.

Evangelism and Invitation

Here’s my newsfeed article for the week:

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)

Jesus invited. He called out to people and asked them to follow him. He went to people in their “natural habitat” and asked them to enter into a new life, a life in relationship with God. Jesus did not wait for people to discover him, he went directly to people and extended the invitation personally.

There is a beautiful worship song called The Summons that asks, “Will you come and follow me if I but call your name? Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same? Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known, will let my life be grown in you and you in me?”

Have you ever asked yourself how you would respond to Jesus if this very minute he walked into the room where you are and invited you to follow him? Would you go? Would you politely offer him a Dr. Pepper and try to make small talk? Would you phone 911 and announce an intruder in your
home?

Take your self-examination a step further: How are you allowing the invitational attitude of Jesus shape your own discipleship? When is the last time you
invited someone to attend worship with you? How long has it been since you talked about your faith with a friend in a casual conversation? When is the last time you shared the love of Christ with a stranger?

Invitation is a multi-layered concept. We are invited by Christ to follow, and following Christ includes inviting others, as well. Invitation is one of the facets of discipleship, and one that we need continual encouragement to undertake. To be like Jesus, we ought not simply wait for people to come, but go out into the “natural habitat” and invite people in.

Inviting people to church is different from inviting people to God. Ultimately, it is the latter emphasis that is our priority. Inviting people to church is simply a means by which we invite them to God. However, it is much easier for us to invite people to church than to invite them to God. And anyway, if we will invite them to church, maybe we could trust God to do the rest!

Jesus invited – And so should we.

Btw, it is also posted here.

The more I think about invitation, the more perplexed I become. Here’s my question:

When did we decide to substitute “invitation” for “evangelism”?

These words are not synonyms, and yet many of us treat them as though they were. Inviting someone to church is only one way to do evangelism. Synonymizing (I made that word up) these two words gets us into trouble, and leads us to believe that we’re bad at evangelism, a self-deprecating belief that only feeds into the downward trend many congregations, conferences, and denominations are feeling these days.

The truth is, we are very, very good at evangelism, and we don’t even know it. The problem is that we don’t recognize the things we do as evangelism, because we operate under the false assumption that getting someone to come to church with you is the only way to evangelize. Well, getting someone to church is not the goal of evangelism – getting someone to God is!

Most definitions of evangelism include proclamation of the Gospel, and many mention that this is done with zeal, a word that we do not use often enough in everyday conversation, I believe. So, anytime you energetically share the Gospel you are doing evangelism. That could be offering forgiveness to someone who has hurt you, giving grace to someone in need, loving someone without condition, or providing hope in a situation that is otherwise hopeless. It could also be inviting someone to church.

No church should have an “Evangelism Team,” because every single member of the community should be doing evangelism. There might be a “Publicity Team” whose job is to get the word out about church events. There might be a “Hospitality Team” whose job is to welcome guests and visitors when they arrive. But every single aspect of what a congregation does should be evangelism – sharing the Gospel.

When the ministry of evangelism is relegated to one team, it too quickly becomes all and only about invitation. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with invitation, of course, but as I said earlier, that’s only one part of evangelism. And then, with an “evangelism team,” now operating functionally as an “inviting team,” it is all too easy for church members to shirk the responsibility of evangelism, reasoning that it is “someone else’s job.”

I wrote in the newsfeed article above that “invitation is one of the facets of discipleship.” Discipleship is inherently about evangelism; it would be very hard to think of one without the other. But invitation is only one piece of the whole. It may be a piece that the church is generally pretty bad at, but I cannot go from there all the way to saying that we’re bad at evangelism altogether.

We’re not. We’re good at grace. We’re good at love. We’re good at inclusiveness. We’re good at Christian friendship. (We could be better, I know. I said good, not perfect.) The point being, if we can affirm the good evangelism going on through our congregations, we may feel a bit better about ourselves. Then that spirit will bubble up and out from within the congregation and be inherently attractive to many, many people.



And here’s a random thought that doesn’t quite fit in above -
An attitude of invitation would assume that people will love it, and therefore inviting people to it would be no big deal. It would just happen. But invitation is like the squiggly line in your eye fluid, you can see it but once you focus on it – it drifts away. I think we need to stress out less about invitation and really strive to create churches that people simply cannot stay away from.

A Topic on Many Minds

Here's more on the topic of new communication in old churches.

The problem that I see with ... a ton of churches, including my own) is that they don’t dive in. They try to dip their toes in the water and hope they catch a fish. A fisherman gets dirty, gets wet and smells. I love to fish ... but I know that when I fish, I don’t wear my best clothes and I don’t expect to cast once and catch a bass on the first throw. You have to have patience. You have to be committed. You have to think like a fish.

(snip)

My prayer, heart’s desire and encouragement/challenge to you is to WRESTLE with Bill Seaver’s quote: “Simply using the new tools with the old mindset won’t bring about the marketing change you need and want.”

Experimenting with new communication gadgets and expecting great wonderful things to happen without really changing the fundamental way you think about communication is like slapping a screen on your sanctuary wall and expecting great wonderful things without really changing the way you think about worship. It's gimmickry, shallow, and not authentic.

If you sincerely want to learn a new language for the sake of conveying the Gospel, as with learning any new language, the best way is immersion. Dive in!

Communicating the Gospel - Ministers' School Next Week!

I've been thinking about Missouri Ministers' School this week, because it is coming up next week and I am the Dean of the school this year. Here's what I've been thinking:

It's all communication, isn't it?

When it comes to church, we don't have a product or service to sell to consumers. We're in communications. We have a message, and are supposed to deliver it.

The message is none other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God can communicate however God chooses to, and one of those ways is to entrust the message to the church. I'm not one to say that the church is the only way that communication happens, though I know there are those who believe so. Rather, I would say maybe that the church is the most significant way. Certainly it can be said that within the church lies the potential for being the most powerful way that message is communicated.

All of which compels the question, "Is the church communicating the Gospel as effectively as we possibly can to those who need to hear it most?"

And along with that, knowing that there are a myriad of means of communication available in the world today, we have to ask the question, "How are individual congregations collaborating with one another to ensure that the communication of the Gospel is a true multi-media event?"

Face it, no single congregation is going to be able to effectively utilize more than a few media. Unless you are a big church with big resources, you probably specialize in two or three. Like maybe Church A has a great choir and a really wonderful mission program. And Church B down the road has a wonderful Sunday morning hospitality program and a killer band. Why should Church A fret about not having a great band, when they should be able to cooperate with Church B in conveying the Gospel through that particular medium? Why should Church B start from scratch in developing a mission program, when Church A could help them out with that one?

Now, I'm not saying that individual congregations should adopt and attitude of "Oh, well" about the things they don't do particularly well. Far from it - I am a pastor serving with Bish Schnay-Z, after all, and I'm all about the 5 Practices being in balance. What I am trying to say is that churches, and especially churches within a connectional system, should understand the ministry of the whole as being a cooperative endeavor, not rugged individualism.

We have a message to share - and the "we" in that sentence is all of us who say we are followers of Christ Jesus, not just me or my congregation or my denomination. The whole body of Christ participates together in conveying the Gospel, which makes it possible to convey in a myriad of ways. The old axiom is true: We can do more together than we could ever do alone.

Whatever the medium - personal visit, worship experience, faith formation event, mission trip, service opportunity, newsletter, newspaper, bulletin, poster, pamphlet, sign, snail mail, website, email, blog, newsfeed, text message, internet social networking group, (and who knows what else) - the Gospel message just begs to be delivered. However, these various media will obviously impact the message itself. No one would ever claim that a text message could mean the same as a personal visit, for example.

Considering how the media we use may impact the message we have to share is going to be a part of next week's Missouri Ministers' School, of which I am the Dean this year. Sometimes I think that we either embrace or avoid new communications technology without taking due time to consider it's impact on the message. I hope next week will give us a little bit of that time.

The church should neither embrace nor avoid a means of communication, just because it is new. We are entrusted with the Gospel, and we ought to do all that we can (all of us together) to share that message with all God's children.

It is all about communication, after all.

Identity versus Activity?

I’m reading Paul Borden’s “Direct Hit.”

At the same time, I am reading Phyllis Tickle’s “The Great Emergence.”

As a result, my brain is splitting in two.

As much power, depth, and theological complexity as there is from Phyllis Tickle, there is that much over-simplification, repetition, and business jargon from Paul Borden. I get the idea that Borden took a book on how to run a business and changed a few words around to make it sound more like a church book. I get the idea that Tickle is sharing wisdom about the identity of the Church that may very well have global implications.

I think the reason I have so much trouble with Borden, who I know is a very popular author and speaker in church leadership right now, is that his main thing is to take a single verse of Scripture – Matthew 28:19 – and turn it into the church’s business plan. For him, “make disciples” is the ecclesial equivalent of “sell as much as you can of product X.” Everything else that he writes comes from that premise. At least that’s how I see it.

Businesses sell as much as they can of product X in order to make a profit; churches make disciples in order to change our communities and our world. But can we really say that Christian discipleship is just a means to an end like that? I have always thought of discipleship as an individual’s identity upon accepting Christ into their life, not as a set of activities we do in order to attain a goal.

I understand that people like the idea of boiling life down to a series of action items we undertake in order to advance toward an objective (or hit a bull’s eye, if you prefer). The only problem with that is life itself; it happens to be a lot messier than that. Skubalon happens. And when we are exclusively task-oriented, spending all of our time talking about what the church does, we flounder when we find that we can’t do it.

It would be much better to talk about who the church is, to understand our identity as fully as we can. That way, when the messiness of normal life intrudes upon us, we can weather it and even flourish, secure in our identity as the church. When we define a church by what it does, we set it up for decline and eventual death, because there will be times when it cannot do what we have decided it should be doing.

Businesses define themselves by what they do. Starbucks sells coffee. Everything Starbucks does is geared toward selling coffee. If the coffee crop failed one year and there was no coffee available to sell (a horrifying thought, I know), the very identity of Starbucks would vanish. There is no way Starbucks can be faithful to being Starbucks minus the ability to sell coffee.

If churches define themselves by what they do, their identity is at risk when that activity is no longer possible, for whatever reason. So for example if a church is defined by worshiping a certain way, the identity of the church is threatened when it is no longer feasible to worship that way. Or if a church is defined by a particular mission focus, when that mission focus becomes impossible the very identity of the church is at risk.

If, on the other hand, a church would spend as much time praying and thinking together about identity as we tend to do now about activity, a new worship style or a different mission focus would be a very natural thing. Change in the church would be much easier to facilitate as a result, because activities would be almost interchangeable, and no threat at all to the core identity of the church.

Borden is all about change, and I like that. But he is clear about neither what we are changing from nor what he thinks we should change into. And I think that’s because all he has to base his thoughts on is that one-verse business plan – to make disciples. Making disciples very important for the church; it is what happens when a church is clear about its identity. But making disciples is not the church’s identity in and of itself.

In Matthew, Jesus says, “By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”

What the tree is is a fig tree. What the tree does is bear figs. The fig tree does not have to attend seminars on how to bear figs. New figs are the natural consequence of being a fig tree.

I simply think the church is overly anxious about what the church does and is not asking enough questions about who the church is. And ironically, if we were more certain about who the church is, a lot of the anxiety about what the church does would go away.

And even more ironically, if we were more certain about who the church is, that would be attractive to more and more people who may want to become a part of it, thus helping with the initial cause of all this anxiety in the first place!

P.S. This is one of my favorite topics, apparently.

Hip - Contemporary - Evangelical = Apparently Not

My stomach hurts. In an article at STLtoday.com, I read this sentence.

Set in a field amongst the St. Charles sprawl, Morning Star Church is part of the United Methodist Church, but it looks and feels more like a hip, contemporary evangelical congregation.

The underlying assumption? That a United Methodist Church couldn't possibly be "hip, contemporary," or "evangelical." It's as if the very idea that a mainline church could be doing something like Morning Star is doing in their worship services was just too mind-boggling for the writer to comprehend.

If you read the whole article, you'll see that it is about a really cool practice they have at Morning Star UMC. People are encouraged to send text messages to the church's cell phone during the sermon. These messages are screened and sent within seconds to the preacher's laptop computer. Mike then reads the questions and addresses some of them in his message. LOVE IT! Completely cool idea!

What makes my stomach hurt is the surprise expressed by the article - as in, "Y'all aren't going to believe this, but this is happening in a United Methodist congregation! Crazy, huh?" Since when is it so shocking that Methodists are evangelical? Arghh!

Is there anyone reading this who is still unconvinced that the public image of the mainline church is very seriously damaged? There are thousands and thousands of people who wouldn't even think of a denominational church as a place where their spiritual thirst might be quenched - not because of any animosity, but just because of simple ambivalence. It's not that they hate the church, it's just that they don't really care about it.

And without seeing the irony, it seems to many of us that the mainline is still doing battle to "win people" into their congregation. I can't even count how many times I've heard someone use the expression "win people for Christ." "Win people"? What? Evangelism isn't a fight anymore. We are not battling for people's souls; their souls are just fine, thank you. It's not really a fight when nobody is fighting against you, it's just a tantrum. You can't "fight against" ambivalence because people who are ambivalent ... um ... are ambivalent! This, incidentally, is another reason that my stomach hurts.

Morningstar UMC's innovations are exciting and definitely will help to convey the gospel in a language in which it can be heard. And in doing so they stand firmly in the Wesleyan evangelical tradition of "becoming more vile" in order to communicate the love and grace of God through Jesus Christ. (That's how John Wesley described the innovation of preaching on the street in his day, btw.)

I long for the day when the fact that a United Methodist Congregation is doing such creative, cool stuff does not result in "Crazy, huh?" but rather "There they go again!"


(btw - if you read the article, be sure to peruse the comments that people have left. There are some pretty interesting critiques of the practice that are worth reading.)

One True Church?

The conversation seems to be going something like this:

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF): Only the Roman Catholic church is a church, the rest of y'all are not really churches.

Protestants (P): Say what, now?

CDF: Don't get all upset, we are just articulating our official doctrines.

P: Yeah, we understand that. That's not the point. The point is the official doctrines you are articulating are arrogant, demeaning, unreasonable, and unscriptural.

CDF: No, no, no - you must have misunderstood the situation here. All we are trying to do is clear up a few questions that came up after Vatican II. That's all.

P: Actually, we're pretty sure that we understand you perfectly well. And thank you for nodding in our direction with that cute little "ecclesial communities" quip. It makes us feel oh so special.

CDF: Maybe you missed the part about how important ecumenical dialogue is to us...?

P: No, we read that, too. And as long as you define "ecumenical dialogue" to mean "convince everyone to join us because we are right and they are wrong," we're not really all that interested!

Anyway, that's how I'm interpreting things. Really, I don't think this document will have any impact on the people in the pews. I don't think this document will affect the good things that truly progressive, ecumenically minded congregations are doing together in the world. And of course this document is not going to have any bearing whatsoever upon ultimate concerns such as the realization of the reign of God on earth.

I worry more about the impact of this document on the unchurched/dechurched/non-Christian/seekers/whatever group of people, because it provides yet one more reason to not look for ultimate meaning in life from within the church. Why would I want to participate in that kind of "my pop is bigger than your pop" bickering? How is that going to make my life better?

Christians are called to be evangelists, and the self-centered attitudes expressed in this document are one of the biggest stumbling blocks to accopmlishing that task.

Here's a summary of the document.
Here's a news story about it.
Here's a thoughtful commentary in response.
Here's a hopeful article on the topic.

cross-posted here