Consulting, Coaching & Chatter

Yesterday morning I was in my hotel’s breakfast nook with Trevor from Cambodia. Sitting at the next table was Glenn and Bob (not his real name). Bob was the only non-Christian among us and he and Glenn were having a typical “Geek” conversation about TYPO3 (the website content management system that was the focus of the conference we were all attending).

The conversation between Trevor and I ran it’s typical course, at least for me. We’re both of the school that the Western Church is largely ineffective, if not unfaithful, and that even the emergent movement has left its first love. The conversation was animated as we dismantled many of the church’s sacred cows and noted that little the Western Church actually does or practices has any biblical basis (weekly worship, buildings, preaching, pulpits, pews, altars, professional clergy, etc.). Then we began to speak of those instances where we saw the church being the embodied Jesus. We spoke of developing nation churches as well as those churches in the West where prayer and discipleship was actually practiced. And finally, we both shared personal stories of where we’d seen Jesus at work in our lives.

Did I say it was an animated conversation? We had a grand time together, moments that make new friends especially wonderful and it’s entirely possible that those around us couldn’t help but overhearing little snatches of the conversation. In the end we all headed for the last day of the conference together.

Later that day, I ran into Glenn in the hallway of the Irving Bible Church where the TYPO3 Conference was being held. It turns out that he had just returned from dropping Bob off at the airport. He stopped me and said he’d had an interesting conversation with Bob on the drive. It turns out that Bob, our non-Christian friend, had overheard Trevor and I talking candidly about the church, about Christianity, and about Jesus. Bob admitted that his view of the Christian faith was, shall we say, unsavory and that he’d grown up having no use for any of it, including this Jesus. But he’d heard something in a different light that morning and he asked Glenn to “Tell me more about this Jesus dude.”

The point is, what do you talk about when you’re out in public? You never really know who’s eavesdropping and you don’t know the affect your conversation may have on those around you. And so, here’s a couple of tips I’ve picked up as a “hitchhiker” along the way.

1. Keeps Acts 1:8 in mind. You’re called to be a witness wherever you go. There are lots of things you can talk about, but not everything is worth a whole conversation. If your God talk doesn’t well up from within you naturally, it’s time to invest more of your time in Bible reading, prayer, personal worship, encouraging others in the faith, and other spiritual habits.
2. If you’re going to engage in “God talk,” have the integrity to be authentic. This isn’t an invitation to slam the church or the faith, but it is an invitation to be honest about your faith. If you’re wrestling with doubts, don’t put on the air of having it all together. If you’re looking for something more, don’t be afraid to say so.
3. Don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good. If butter won’t melt in your mouth, get thee to a nunnery or a monastery whichever suits you best. The Western Church is in dire need of disciples who are “real” and have lived a “real” life. Trevor and I laughed like hyenas and although we weren’t particularly profane, we sure as heck weren’t holier-than-anyone else. Having fun is not a sin. Either is smiling, laughing, and even carrying on some.
4. And finally, expect God to do things with you, through you, and around you. Many Christians walk through life without keeping their eyes open for what God’s doing all around them. They don’t expect God to be busy intervening in their lives, let alone the lives of “innocent” bystanders. Keep your eyes open, both the ones in your head and the ones in your spirit. You may be surprised at what’s really going on around you.

I’ve been in one of my too busy to think jags for the past month or so, so blog posting has been in the back seat. Today, I’m in Dallas, Texas at the TYPO3 conference sponsored by the Web-Empowered Church (the 21st Century Strategies website and the Net Results websites are both TYPO3 sites), so blogging isn’t on the front burner either. So, I was having a conversation with Glenn Kelley, the head dude at Vine Hosting (who hosts our website – did I mention I’ve entered geek-world 2009?) and he suggested that during slow times like this that I should post some of my former writings. Once upon a time when I was a local pastor, I used to write a weekly column based on questions readers asked about “God, the church, the world, and everything.” I wrote weekly for seven years and produced over 350 columns that answered all sorts of questions, some better, some not. And so, now and again, I’ll be posting some of these columns. Because it’s a far stretch from church planting, coaching, consulting, transformation, or leadership training, I’ve created a new category called “Conversation Starters.” For those looking for something to talk about in small groups, these columns (posts) could be used to launch conversations. Or not. The good news is that if these posts aren’t your cuppa tea, then you can take a look at posts from other categories.

So, with that said, here’s the first conversation starter: Is God Politically Correct? I wrote this back just after the Politically Correct Bedtime Stories was published and a conversation in an adult Sunday school class prompted questions.

Is God Politically Correct?

This week’s question comes from an ongoing discussion in my adult Sunday School class that I teach: “Is God P.C.?”

For those out of the loop, P.C. means Politically Correct. Political Correctness is an attempt to politely and correctly “label” people, places, gender, etc. (for the ultimate on P.C. read James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Stories fairy tales, bedtime stories, and holiday stories). It began with the de-genderizing of non-gender specific tasks, careers, and objects. Thus, we have utility covers instead of man-hole covers, fire-fighters instead of firemen, and so on. It had good intentions, especially in a society that still pays women some 30% less for many of the same tasks as men. But there are those who believe it’s a “little out of control” today which really means they’ve been pushed from their comfortability zone.

But is God P.C.?

Finding evidence for this question is a bit tough, since clearly the Bible was written primarily, if not exclusively, by men in a culture that was both patriarchical and ethnocentric. However, if we look at the accounts of how God relates with others we might pick up some clues.

First, the creation accounts (Genesis 1 and 2). How does God relate to the differing genders? In Genesis 1.26-27 when God creates the humans it was done with an eye towards equality: “Let us make adam [Hebrew, literally humans, non-gender specific] in our image, according to our likeness; so God created adam in the image of God, thus God created them; male and female God created them.” Both male and female were created in the same image the image of God. Score one for P.C. proponents.

When God became Emmanuel, literally “God with us,” in Jesus Christ, we have the best images of how God related to the differing genders. In instance after instance Jesus treats the women around him as equal heirs to the realm of God, quite unlike his male contemporaries. Jesus speaks with them and spends time with them (John 4; Luke 10.38ff), he defends them when they are wrongfully oppressed (John 8; Matthew 26), and he chose women as those to whom he first appeared following his resurrection (Matthew 28; John 20). Score two.

Okay, God may see and treat men and women as equals in this world, but what about the different nationalities?

Even in the Old Testament, at least from the beginning, there was some equality between the nations. In Genesis 10 (often called the table of nations) we see the nations coming from the single patriarch and matriarch Noah and Mrs. Noah. Abraham and his kin were supposed to be a blessing to all the nations (Genesis 22.18). And God bestows blessings on nations outside of Judaism (Genesis 17.20; Isaiah 19.25). Score three.

But the real lack of ethnocentricity of God is seen in the letters of Paul to the Galatians and to the Romans. Both books are full of texts that show God’s impartiality to all persons, regardless of their ethnicity: “God shows no partiality” (Romans 2.11); “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). Four points.

In scripture we are all called to insure we keep from hindering anyone’s entrance to the realm of God. Indeed, we are warned not to cause any to stumble (Matthew 17.1-2) and unfortunately language is one of our prime trip-wires for offense.

Is God Politically Correct? God has gone to great lengths to invite all into a caring relationship and seems to find each person special. Since God would not hinder any from paradise, we have to conclude, yes, God is Politically Correct.

I checked and it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve blogged. Those who follow this closely (both of you J) might have wondered if I’d fallen off the face of the planet or if I had suddenly got really, really busy. I’ll claim the latter, though sometimes it feels like the former. The bad news, I suppose, is that the near future doesn’t look much better. I’ve still got too many jobs and not enough hours to do them in.

But in the midst of my personal craziness, I’ve compiled a list of things I really need to write about. For instance, I finally got around to outlining and submitting a book proposal for Why Your Small Groups Don’t Change Lives … And What To Do About It. The first chapter can be found in the next two issues of Net Results magazine (the May–June, 2009 and July–August 2009 issues). I need to write the missing steps to living the one-anothers, AKA Getting Past “I’m sorry.” There’s something about first-time church visitors feeling like they’re wearing a sombrero on their birthday at a Mexican restaurant while the all the patrons stare at them and sing “Happy Birthday” that is demanding my attention. And I’ve got what seems to be about a dozen more calling out to me. All in my spare time.

However, in an earlier comment, a reader asked if I had thoughts about tracking everyone who attends worship, specifically how to do that. I’ll address the how in a moment, but before I do I want to address the why.

Attendance tracking is, admittedly, a pain. This is true in small churches where the charter members who have been there since sand refuse to fill out those “silly cards” because “everyone” knows if they’re there or not. And it’s a pain in very large churches where a couple thousand cards get filled in each week – and that’s a LOT of paperwork to have to deal with.

The typical “solution” for both ends of the scale has been to try to get the visitors and guests to sign the registration pads, or cards, or whatever. If the church leadership are sharp, they’ll recognize that the power of suggestion when everyone else is filling out a “prayer and communication” card helps get guests to surrender their contact information. Convincing “everyone” to fill out those cards can be daunting, but the increase in getting first-time guest’s to give up their contact info is generally worth it.

I’ve said enough about follow-up in previous posts, in Net Results, in the On Track E-zine that I should hardly have to say anything. But for those who may have missed it, the research still says that a guest has more than an 85 percent chance of returning if the pastor visits within twenty-four hours of their initial visit – and the percent drops like a rock with each passing day. So, obviously, the first reason for gathering attendance tracking records is to connect with first time and returning guests.

I want to add an additional word about follow-up for those of you who lead larger churches. The reality appears to be that the larger the church, the less likely there is an effective follow-up practice. Clearly, the larger the church the more work follow-up becomes. In fact, it can seem overwhelming and I suppose that’s why so few large churches do much more than dash off the mail-merge “We’re so glad you joined us this week, your presence made all the difference” (as if!). I wonder if church leaders think their guest are as naïve as they treat them? Do they not think the guest is singularly unimpressed by the impersonal and less-than-welcoming welcome letter? And of course, from that point on the guest will receive unsolicited advertising for the church’s upcoming events.

I’m curious, though. How did these churches get that large? In most cases it was because the lead pastor was serious about follow-up and helping newcomers connect. They did the work of reaching out. But when the church gets “large” that becomes a thing of the past because the pastor is, truly, too busy “running a church” to do follow-up on his/her own. And so, it appears that in most cases, the onus of connecting is shifted from the church’s list of responsibility to that of the guest. If a guest wants to be a part of the church, they’ll have to do the connecting on their own. I suppose the presumed trade off is that the large church now offers really great programming and that’s so attractive that guests will jump at the chance to get involved. Hmm. I wonder if that’s one of the many reasons large churches discover they’re “leaking” participants. They come in the front door, fail to really connect, and then make their way back out via the revolving door.

Guest tracking is a pain. Did I mention that? It’s work. An active, healthy church “should” see between a 3–5 percent visitor count (three to five first time visitors for every hundred in attendance). In a church of 1000 AWA, that means thirty to fifty new folks on any given week. That’s simply too much for any individual, but a follow-up team of ten could handle that in about an hour on Sunday afternoon. Yes, the larger the church, the larger the follow-up team you’ll need. Plus you’ll probably want to want to work a database for tracking returning guests for further follow-up (your follow-up process should walk a guest from first visit to a discipleship or ministry group).

But what about tracking all your members? Is there value in that? The fact is, there shouldn’t be, but sadly for many churches, there probably is. In an effective, healthy church, 100 percent of the church’s leadership (from board members to committee chairs to Sunday school teachers) would be expected to be in a small group. Because of their example, the membership at large, would be involved in small groups as well. These small groups would be more than just a Bible study, but would be close-knit communities of faith who took care of each other. If someone “missed” a weekly get together, the group would know why or they’d find out.

However, the fact is, most churches are neither effective nor healthy. The church that has over 50 percent of their participants in small groups is a rarity, and those who have over 70 percent in small groups are writing books about how they’re doing it. And so, tracking membership can have significant advantages. For one, if your congregation has a pastoral visitation team, knowing when someone has missed a week or two could trigger a pastoral call (not by the lead pastor, however). There are dozens of shepherding programs that have been designed for congregations just like that. Most of them are borne of great ideas that should work, but in unhealthy or ineffective churches it can be difficult to recruit the requisite number of servant volunteers to get the job done. That’s not to say don’t take it on, but if you want to launch a membership visitation program, know that there are likely underlying issues that (1) makes the program attractive and (2) makes it difficult to implement.

Nonetheless, the solution to the dilemma of membership follow-up is to launch and sustain an effective small group ministry, a feat that you’ll not launch overnight. And until my book on small groups is out, you’ll want to lean on Larry Osborne’s Sticky Church and smallgroups.com for information on how to create effective and multiply a network of small groups (unless you’re up for inviting me to your place to do some training).

On the other hand, if you’re committed to launching an all-membership tracking program, using the prayer and communication cards each week and literally training your congregation to fill them out is one of the only really effective ways of getting the information (if you have an alternative working model, please let me know).