Violence in the M.E. – Let’s Make a Movie Part 2 – Responding to the Polite Push-backs

In my previous post, I suggested that Christians make a documentary “Open-Letter” style movie to Muslims in the Middle East in an effort to seek forgiveness, reconciliation and peacemaking.

Like many blogs, there are a number of hits but only a few comments. The ones I receive are generally positive (which I am grateful for) and the push backs that I get are usually from my friends in the form of emails or conversations (which I am grateful for as well). But it does make it a bit more challenging to facilitate conversation here so I asked permission to share a few thoughts in response to the push backs. I hope I communicate them clearly and fairly.

The first is “Let the Arab world take care of itself …. In fact, whenever America (or the West) gets involved, we’ve added further hurt and done more damage.”

This is problematic for me on a number of levels.
[Read more…]

Responding to the Violence in the Middle East – Let’s Make a Movie

Between the busyness of the ministry fall launch, my thoughts have been pre-occupied by the violence in the Middle East in response to the offensive YouTube movie The Innocence of Muslims.

Today, I find myself reading news of the violence in Pakistan that is said to be in response to this film and now it’s almost two since weeks since the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others in the American Consulate in Benghazi and I find myself wondering what should/could be down about this.

Every time I see an angry demonstration in the Middle East, I think the following things:
[Read more…]

Church Programs – “Is This Stuff Really Worth It?”

Intended Primary Audience – Church ministry types, vocational, non-, bi-, and all who labor for the Kingdom.

As church staffs, ministries and calendars are gearing up for the respective fall launches and kick-offs, just about every September I ask myself in exhaustion something similar to what so many other ministry-types ask, “Is this stuff really worth it?”

There’s the mad rush to find volunteers, the countless emails, the meetings, the copier that gets jammed, the complaints, the apathy, and the overly-excited folks which leaves you wondering if you can deliver up to their high expectations, therefore making them future complaints.  It’s ridiculous to say out loud, there’s the fear of punishment with shame (“This is not only your job, but your calling“), and so many do not vocalize this until they have their foot out the door.

You hear a lot of complaining about “programs.” That word has been the whipping “individual” (this blog is politically correct) for missionals, emergents, neo-reformed, youth ministry types, and anyone disenchanted or overworked in the Church.  We say things like we should be more about people than programs. And it’s easy to agree with a statement like that.  We talk about over-programming. We talk about Purpose Driven Church (Purpose not programs!). We talk about Simple Church (Simpler Programs!)  We say Jesus didn’t have any programs but we create dozens of them based on a pattern of ministry.  (Groups of 12, pairs, inner circles of 4 and then there’s Acts 2, Pauline models, etc).

If we look at most church websites, we see a variety of ministries, “programs” with descriptions that some times promise more than a presidential candidate. “Come to Thirst/Fountain/Oasis/The Well ;) and the Bible will finally make sense to you!” (For the record, I teach a ministry called Oasis so know I’m poking fun of myself too.)

Be fair though, if you click on a church website and don’t see any ministries, you might assume that they are not doing much outside of their Sunday morning worship service.  And frankly, for most, I’d say that’s a fair assumption.

Like it or not,
Small groups is a program.
Simple Church is a program.
Churches meeting in bars, living rooms, coffee shops, abandoned dealerships in the heart of the city offering presence-centered incarnational redemption to the community, is a program.

I like a lot of these things – One of my main responsibilities is supporting small groups, I liked the Simple Church concepts that Rainer and Geiger helped us work through, I like pub church gatherings and value incarnational ministry.

But we have to admit, some of this is quite semanticical (that’s a word right?).  And while we generally mean the same thing – all these things are programs because we are dealing with numbers of people.  And groups of people need organization.  They need a dedicated time and place needs to be organized. Volunteers need to be found (we do rightfully criticize if everything is professionally run), but that means these volunteers need to be vetted and if they work with children, they need background checks, and it there are not enough, there needs to be a rotation schedule, which requires a spreadsheet, database and an email chain. Curriculum, worship elements, service opportunities, refreshments, I could go on and on but in some form or another, this is a program. Especially if you do this with any type of regularity.

The problem with programs is that they tend to take a life of their own. They tend to become a ministry monster, gobbling up attenders, volunteers, the staff, resources, and time. It can be a very hungry and insatiable creature. When it becomes untamable, we fight back and look to pull the plug, resolving that programs are a terrible idea and we should avoid them.

Those who are faithful to their local church can feel overwhelmed and taken for granted by the needs of the program. Those who are new to a church or on the fringes can have an “impersonal” experience because of the program. Regardless of where one is coming from, often many will express, “This place is fake – it doesn’t care about people – only about _____ (the blank is filled with “numbers” or “money” or “being known as the cool church”, etc. ).

The one thing that every program has is people. If ministry is not centered on people than its doomed to be “successful” in any Kingdom sense – we all know this. But “programs” can be a beautiful experience of the Christian faith IF …

… they are truly Christ-centered. However the purpose is stated, if it’s more about following Jesus than “keeping the kids happy” or “giving adults a break from the stress of life”, it will have long term life-giving Christian potential.

… there is opportunity for authentic Christian community. Not just Christians socializing and mingling with other Christians, we’re talking sharing in the experience and mission of the gospel message together.

… there is commitment from all aspects. Anytime the commitment pendulum swings too much to one side for too long, resentment builds and the ministry lags.

It’s so important that we ask ourselves why are we doing what we are doing. Especially during the craziness of launching the fall “programs.” Lives have changed and more can. It’s good that we are seeing that we can do better. It’s good that we are critiquing (hopefully ourselves too). And in some ways, it’s good that we are hustling hard to get done what needs to be done.

One of the lessons that I am learning in the large church model is there are so many different types of people and we need many different types of churches of all sizes and methodologies. Regardless of what context we find ourselves in, what we do matters to each other.

It’s essential that we ask the questions regarding sustainability, mission effectiveness and make paradigm changing decisions but if we are waiting for the perfect ministry model, we’re going to not only find our that our ministries struggling but we will also squander our God-given callings and opportunities.

Are church programs worth it? Well, depending on how you unpack that – yes.

Wishing all those laboring a Christ-filled year.

On Being Out of Youth Ministry For a Year

If you have been around, you may have heard me say that I miss being in vocational youth ministry. This was the first year I haven’t been on a youth retreat or a student mission trip or planned a fundraiser or the ten thousand other things youth pastors do. Some of these things I’ve literally done regularly throughout the last 12 years of my life.

Of course, I miss the students but I promise not to get overly romantic about missing all the aspects of youth ministry. For instance, I don’t miss the fundraisers. Not because I’m embarrassed by raising money for important needs but because I refuse to believe that there are so many grandparents celebrating milestone birthdays on the mornings of our car washes.

If I’m being honest, I’m grateful for having this season off. With the arrival of our third and moving to a new community without our family and the supportive friends we had in NJ, it’s been a good thing to not have a mission trip, retreats and various weekend activities. It’s not just being away for those weekends but also the time in preparation, in meetings, in the gearing up – whoever thinks a mission trip consists of a that week has never led one.

Like everybody, I’m still busy – it’s a different type these days. But I do get to be home more at night and have more weekends free. Which has helped us connect with the relationships we were fortunate enough to have prior to moving here and the new ones we are creating.

It’s good for me to feel the honestly of missing so many things in youth ministry. It was a special and important time in my life. Also, it was very beneficial and here are some of the ways how:

Teaching. If you can teach high school and/or middle school students, you can teach just about anyone. I mean that. These kids are smart, they can be tough, they can be short on attention, respect, and can be apathetic to content that is not being graded and may not seem practical. Crafting messages that have been based on Scripture, that are relevant and beneficial to their lives, interesting enough to sustain attention, prophetic enough to challenge, and encouraging enough to proclaim that there is a God who exists and loves us has been the task I’ve been tackling for years. Every teacher knows there never really is a finished product but my current preparing/delivering has certainly been shaped by youth ministry. In teaching in different adult ministry contexts throughout this past year, one of the few things that I have knowingly changed has simply been asking myself, “Who is the audience?” Different starting point, very similar methodology.

So what’s the lesson here? If you suck at teaching students, there may be a place for you in adult ministry? Not really. However, it does seem that working with students really helps in all aspects of communication.

Relational Connection – Youth ministry taught me the difference between being a talking head and the indispensable qualities of being a pastor of young people. Most of us have heard the Howard Hendricks line, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I was never really impressed with the line, probably because I hadn’t met Hendricks (or that he didn’t know to care about me ;) but everyone who cares about the people they are leading discovers some form of this maxim eventually.  The other thing I learned was while you cannot be all things to all people (even if you consider yourself to be a “people person”)

You cannot relate to everyone, there is no such thing as a “universal personality.” It is impossible to learn every caveat of pop-culture and counter-culture. Part of the reason is due to the way counter-culture works – it’s intentionally exclusive.

So what’s the lesson here? If you can identify with a 14 year old girl obsessed with Twilight, you can connect with anyone? Not at all, simply celebrate all the people in your sphere of influence and build healthy Christian relationships.

Working With Dedicated Volunteers – These volunteers are the difference between the church as a serving body and a professionally pastorally run organization. They work together for sure but when volunteers are not supported by ministry staff and if ministry staff don’t have reliable volunteers, well, not only does the unity of the church suffer but very little execution of ministry and capacity for mission happens.

I’ve been preparing to do the training for our women’s Bible study tomorrow. A lot had gone into the vision of the year long before I was asked to help with the training. There’s a lot of depth to this ministry and there are a lot of people it utilizes. In fact, tomorrow there are separate training sessions for morning and evening respectively. Throughout the year they will be leading their women’s small groups through the book of Acts and I’ve been told that many of them have been leading for years and years and they do much, much more than teach.

There’s a lot of talk about “equipping and releasing” people for ministry and what qualifies as “discipleship” and what is dismissed as a Christian hobby. Dedication to the leading of the Holy Spirit from all is essential.

What’s the lesson here? Ministry involves people, time, training, and empowering others to serve. Regardless of the size of the church, there are a lot of moving parts, consider yourself blessed to play whatever role you are asked.

That last one comes natural for most youth pastors. Many don’t see the fruit of their labor for years.

I’m not going to suggest that everyone should go through youth ministry. For many reasons, I don’t think that’s true and among them is that it seems to limit how God uses people. But I do find myself extremely grateful for all the blessings of having served in youth ministry – the relationships, the memories, and how the experience continues to shape my heart and work today.

It will be interesting to reflect on how I continue to look back on this season. To the reader, feel free to share your insights on youth ministry or your respective past experiences – thanks for reading.

“Is Your Life Better Than It Was 4 Years Ago?” – Reflecting on Our Presidential Elections Post 2

It’s quite the question because it assumes so much context. As far as campaigns go, it seems to be powerful. As far as taking an honest look at it, it’s a bit audacious. They mean to ask it rhetorically as it obviously assumes that all of us ought to answer uniformly with a loud and emphatic “No!”

But what if after thinking about it, you find yourself having to answer “Yes” thereby negating the rhetorical nature of the question? Among the problems with the question is that it’s pre-loaded with arrogance and it assumes that the President has more [Read more…]

A Labor Day Reflection

Having just celebrated our daughter’s first birthday with family and dear friends on Saturday, we took it easy on Labor Day. We had a full house this weekend with my family and Susan’s parents in town but as we said our good byes, turned off the tv and put the kids down for bed, we all got a chance to catch our breath and reflect a little.

It was about a year ago that we moved to Massachusetts and I started serving at Grace Chapel. It’s been a great beginning for me and though I feel a bit overwhelmed by all the things that need to get done for the launch of the new ministry year, I am excited for [Read more…]

Reflecting on our Presidential Elections Post 1 – The Post-Conversation

Our Presidential election campaigns are the main subjects of conversations, both in person and in social media. The Republican National Convention just wrapped up and now the Democratic National Convention is about to begin. I’m going out on the limb here but I’m predicting that there’s going to be a lot of trash-talk and things are going to get even uglier on both sides (and all sides).

In past posts, I generally insist that as people who have passionate convictions, we still need to come together and dialogue. There is so much great potential in sitting down with another and discussing our differences and our similarities. It’s not just that we [Read more…]

Is Irrepressible Optimism Really The Most Important Thing For a Leader? #wcagls

Well, for those who have read the previous posts on the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, I’m still mediating on the content and this is part of process for me – so thanks for coming back. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the line about leadership and optimism that Condoleezza Rice said:

“The single greatest need of a leader is irrepressible optimism.”

It’s a great sound byte. Instantly, all the note-takers dove their heads to write it down and so many on Twitter said, “Yes a great line under 140 characters!” – hashtag #wcals

Then this was reiterated later when Condi sarcastically said, “No one wants to follow a sour puss.”

All true, no one likes to follow a cranky pessimist. Optimism is important. “Irrepressible” is a great adjective for it and of all the presenters to articulate this, Condi was the perfect one. That said, in thinking about it, I think it comes up a little short and I’d like to point out a few things from my Gen-X perspective.

First, contrary to popular belief, Gen-Xers & Millennials understand optimism. In fact, many have stocked up on it only to have it [Read more…]

I Have 2 Questions After Listening to Condoleezza Rice’s Powerful Message at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit – Post 2 #wcagls

One of the highlights of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit was Condoleezza Rice. Her words and presence were powerful and I kept hearing how she connected with so many watching.

When I first saw her on the schedule, I thought a couple things: “Wow, they got Rice.” Then I wondered about the motives, “Hmm, is this just Willow showing off [Read more…]

The Willow Creek Leadership Summit Post 1 – After 20 Years, Willow Is Growing On Me

Grace Chapel was a host site for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit that took place August 9-10. They’ve been part of this for a number of years and it’s a great development opportunity for our staff, our attenders and many pastors and lay people in the Greater Boston area. I kept hearing how people were really looking forward to the Summit and by the time it rolled around, I found myself getting excited about it too. But as I was sitting in our sanctuary, I couldn’t help but reflect on my evolving impressions of Willow Creek.

I remember one night back in high school my dad and I were watching tv and a feature on Willow Creek came on one of those Nightline or 20/20 shows. I remembered thinking a church that looked more like a theater was a great idea, incorporating drama was cool and Hybels came off looking much better than most evangelicals/televangelists tend to do – I was interested. Willow was huge by then but in the early 90’s, it was just coming on the national scene (or at least on my personal radar). They became the thing but like all big things, there was a flip side.  It was half-way through being an undergrad that I could no longer handle the term “seeker-sensitive” and about where I got off the WC/Hybels boat. Between the celebritism of Hybels/Ortberg, the hype created by the countless other churches that were now Willow-like, the Association and a couple of friends I knew from college who had various experiences there, I got “Willowed-Out.”

Then I got John-Maxwelled-out and read Hybel’s Courageous Leadership, went to a couple a simulcasts of the Leadership Summits and while I enjoyed parts/aspects of them, I couldn’t really do any more. During my first few years of ministry, I was leery of just about everything. There was the Purpose-Driven Life books, resources, calendar, mugs, coasters ,and … ;) There was also the Prayer of Jabez merch line, the Left Behind series was the fundamentalist Hunger Games. I avoided the CBD Catalog the way I avoid mall on weekends.

Now some of this was where I was personally, some of it was the sub-culture, some of it was bad marketing but I identified Willow as a part of all that. I’m not sure I knew enough to take issue with Willow and while it would take some time to learn this language, I would now say “they” represented the attractional model that so many churches wanted to imitate and my feeling was, “That’s great for them, you/we are not them …”

That started to shift for me a few years ago when I attended a Summit in Wyckoff (thanks for hosting Cornerstone). Then even more so, I started paying attention to WC when they put out their Reveal series as I found myself appreciating their humility and was very interested in their findings. The Post-Christian culture caught up with them and their insights are helpful to the North American Church as a whole. It’s been since the Reveal series that I’ve been most interested in the Summit and again, I found myself excited for this year.

Bill led off with a long, semi-self-depracacting story of him grilling the Thanksgiving turkey and accidentally leaving the grill on for 7 weeks. This opening illustration served as a fairly accurate microcosm for the rest of his presentation. He incorporates great story-telling features (context, the problem, the proposed solution, complication, suspense, etc.) reveals his strengths (all leaders have some), his weaknesses (all leaders have some), he’s both relatable and unrelateable but he’s being himself so that’s good, and then finally offers a conclusion that is both satisfying, humorous, and for the most part, insightful. I think it’s fair to say that’s how the remainder of his hour went and I was happy to listen.

I found myself warming up to Bill, talents, faults, humor, wisdom and all. Scattered between his main points were context fillers like when he admitted that Willow Creek is finally using Alpha and that the tongue-and-cheek reason they hadn’t before was because they hadn’t created it – so they didn’t use it. I don’t know how Alpha people felt about that, I thought it was funny, a bit sad, but revealing.

I also loved the story of the guy who lived so close to Willow Creek that he lost his cat on the church property and told Bill that he mistakingly thought it was a community college campus. I’m not exactly sure why Bill decided to include these points in his message, I don’t believe they were birthed out of any false sense of humility. Instead, I think this is very consistent with the background context of the Reveal study (and I speculate that this story actually happened quite some time ago). It’s the perfect illustration for the short-comings of a strictly attractional model and the need for the church to be missional – the community simply doesn’t care to know who you are – you might as well be a local community college.

Hybels spoke for at least an hour (no countdown clock like Q Ideas ;), shared Willow’s plan of succession with candor and openness (not specifics but the process), gave a couple of his classic leadership insights and themes (like his 6X6 plan) and got the Summit off to a solid start.

I’ll mention more later but I did love the diversity of the presenters, ethnically and the different organizational sectors they represented. While Willow is not the most natural environment for me, I did appreciate so much of what they’ve been doing and couldn’t help but think how much this ministry has grown on me these last few years. Grateful that our church could be a part of this, hoping to post more soon.

If you are interested in attending the Summit next year and live near Lexington, MA – join us – the date is August 8-9, 2013.  In the meantime, you can learn more at http://www.willowcreek.com/events/leadership