Consulting, Coaching & Chatter

Today I’m beginning the last leg of three weeks on the road. It’s been an interesting journey that almost transcends history.

It began almost three weeks ago at the 2009 TYPO3 Conference in Dallas. There, we talked about and learned more about internet ministry, particularly using a Content Management System to create websites that don’t just sizzle, but facilitate real ministry. It was a look at the future.

Next came Exponential 2009 where I was one of the presenters (thanks to Bill Easum for the opportunity). Exponential is the nation’s largest church planting conference. I had the good fortune to rub shoulders with Alan Hirsch, Francis Chan, Ed Stetzer, Tom Clegg, and Neil Cole – all heroes of my faith journey. Since I’ve planted a couple of churches in my day, I found it both exciting and depressing to hear what’s going on in the church planting world (more on why it depressed me in a future post).

Next, it was off to Chicago and the NACCC Minister’s Convocation on the Mundelein Seminary campus (NACCC = National Association of Congregational Christian Churches). I was asked to lead a retreat on the “E” word. It was a beautiful setting and gratifying to know that there’s rising interest in relevant evangelism practices in the Congregational Church.

And so, now I’m on my way to New York where I’ll lead a training/overview on the house church movement to United Methodist clergy who are interested in doing something completely different. That will be gentle look into our past.
Future, Present, and Past. It’s where the church is.

As I take a few minutes to reflect on my journey, I’m heartened by the men and women whose eyes lit up as we talk about ministry practices that can speak to the present and future generations. But my joy is tempered by the reality that has so clearly presented itself by so many of the leaders I’ve rubbed shoulders with these last three weeks. There is a resignation in the eyes, defeat in their minds, and hopelessness in the spirits of far too many of our church leaders. They’ve heard the spiel of the pundants and the promise of their programs for too long and have seen so little change. They’ve tried a little bit of this and a little bit of that. They’ve gone to mega church conferences, micro retreats, and denominational convocations that roll out more hype than a used car sales commercial, but leave with little substance. And so, largely, they’ve given up and are mostly going through the motions.

Who’s to blame them? Most – though certainly not all – got into ministry to change lives through Jesus Christ. But let’s be really, really honest. Most of the members of most of our churches are pretty much the same people they’ve been for decades. They may know more about the Bible and they may know more about God, but their primary spiritual relationship is with the the church rather than with Jesus – with the bride rather than groom.

And so, I continue my journey … physically, mentally, and spiritually. I’m biblically grounded enough to know God’s in charge and the Spirit can do great and awesome things. And I’m a student of history enough to know that just because they can, they’ve seldom moved upon a culture to change the hearts of the adherents, choosing to move on to receptive fields (currently in China, India, SE Asia, Northern Africa, and Latin America). Historically the change, if there is to be one, comes from those who are willing and able to emerge from the culture and rise above it. That won’t come from programs, but from life changes – and until our eyes light up, there will be precious few of those.

Glenn Kelley at www.churchmedic.com found a great 60 second video on how to train fleas in three days. It’s a great video and I’ve embedded it here as well. Take a look and then scroll down for more.

I’ve often quipped that if a church tries something new in worship it’s called innovation. If it does it the next week it’s viewed with suspicion. If it does the third week, it’s called tradition. Weeks, days, same difference. The church, by and large, has been stuck within the lid for over fifty years. In the 1950s the church shifted gears from a wartime church to a family church lodged inextricably in Modernity. “Everyone” went to church, and anyone who missed this week knew they were “supposed” to be in church. This way of doing and being church seemed to “work” for a couple of decades – long enough for it to become well intrenched as tradition. The problem is, these traditions became indistinguishable from our cherished beliefs. Preaching to the converted was the norm (the New Testament models “preaching” as something done for the non-believers … the church’s mode of teaching came from “dialogue”). Songs from the Reformation era, with a few Fanny Crosby songs aded to the mix became the “sacred” and all other music types were deemed secular and out of sorts with the church.

Leap … boink. Leap … boink. Leap … boink. And when the lid came off beginning in the mid-sixties, there was no escaping it. In the words of Stephen King in The Dark Tower, the world had “moved on” but the church at large did not.

What wil it take for the church to figure out how to communicate the Gospel with the Culture it has alienated? The evangelism course I’m teaching for the Missouri School of Religion is dealing with that very topic tonight. And Tom Bandy and I are dealing with a related topic (Worship Wars) on our call-in radio show Church Talk on Wednesday. I think one of the keys is listening and respect. We don’t have to like the culture we find ourselves in (though most “Christians” have accomodated themselves within it pretty thoroughly), but we’d better understand it and be able to relate to it … like Paul did on Mars Hill (Acts 17) … and not spend a lot of energy bad mouthing it … again, check out Paul’s response to the idolatry of the Athenians – oh wait, he didn’t respond to their “heathen” ways. Instead, he related and respected the culture well enough to be able to converse about it … and he didn’t say one negative word about the “idols” (input your own word in the quotes … tattoos, piercings, alternative lifestyles, etc.). But the folks in Athens wanted to “hear more.” When was the last time people in our culture asked to “hear more” from the church?

Leap … boink? Or will we jump just a little higher to reach our neighbors?