denominations

I have been an American Baptist since seminary in the mid 70's. I am committed to the Baptist understanding of the church in what I would call, its best expressions. At the same time, I have little hope for the denomination... for any of the denominations.

Here's a fun video made about the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America but with a few changes in text it certainly could apply to the ABC or to any other current denomination.



We spend soooo much time fighting over issues, writing reports, and forming committees, all the while forgetting to do real ministry or even to take prophetic stands. I worry that none of the mainline churches will make it through the next century.

I don't have any more hope for the fundamentalists, evangelicals, or megachurch movements. They spend too much time and energy on what they perceive to be hot sins and fighting against positive changes in culture, often dress the gospel in the dress of self-help, and in any cases have bought int the most pernicious parts of the current culture - faith as a consumer product, that I don't expect they will make it through the century either.

A few years ago I had hope for the emerging church. I saw a bunch of fearless, committed, young men and women struggling with post modern questions while at the same time being committed to hands on mission in their contexts. They were neither conservatives nor liberals, but had by-passed those energy wasting battles. And they were starting little churches, mostly in urban neighborhoods, and getting on with the work of the church. Unfortunately, the movement seems to have taken a serious turn to the right. Most of the true post-moderns have given up on any institutional expressions of faith. Like many young adults, they seem to have been a bit impatient and overly optimistic about their little movement. It didn't change the world and they got frustrated and gave up or the realities of institutional life were too much. In the meantime, the face of the emerging church has been co-opted by the mega-church movement who treat it as one more franchise through which they can sell a old fashioned conservative gospel. Add some tables, get a bit artsy fartsy, play some techno in the background and maybe even have some litanies from the 12th century church and images of celtic crosses and you can catch a few college students and get them saved and teach them about the evils of homosexuality, women's rights, abortion, etc. It ain't the same movement, friends.

I want to have hope. I am still committed to the institution of the "church," indeed, I don't think it is possible to be a follower of Jesus outside of a community of faith worshiping, serving, and struggling together. I want to have hope... more later.

its been a while

it's been a while since I've posted something faith related... too much politics and way too much music gear stuff.

so here is a quick one

C Wess Daniels has started a good discussion regarding a typology for the emerging church. It has been a good discussion there.

churches?

I have been a pastor in three churches for a total of about 29 years but I still wouldn't say that I really understand churches. Why one grows and another doesn't, why one seems to thrive while another struggles, why people choose to attend one over another... It puzzles me. Plus, every church is different. They do things differently. They understand their ministry differently. The members wear the tasks of keeping a church going in different ways. All of that adds up to a surprise whenever we experience another community of faith so one thing that I look forward to when we travel is visiting other churches.

Few have surprised me more than the one we attended a few weeks ago. I found the church via google - did a search for emerging churches in that city - and it seemed a reasonable choice that I would likely find positive.

There were about 350-400 people in the worship service. I would guess that about 60% of the folk present were past retirement age. There were very few 40-50 somethings and a lot of younger adults and small children. The younger children seemed to feel very much at home and didn't feel constrained as they moved around the worship center during the service and made a good bit of noise. It was a typical 70's style architecture and there was a large screen in the front. Dress was conservative.

Now for the surprises... A number of people recognized us as visitors and greeted us warmly both before worship and during the greeting time about 1/2 through the service. Almost every one of them (including one of the pastors) asked what church we belong to. I'm curious as to why we stood out so and more curious at the question that every person asked. I don't know if tey were looking for common ground or it they were testing us.

When we entered the room, I couldn't see any instruments and there was no background music going on. I didn't give it much thought though. I looked through the printed bulletin and didn't recognize the titles of most of the songs to be sung. So I opened the hymnal and was surprised to see the music was written in shape notes. I still hadn't put things together. There were no instruments. The service began with a video advertising the National Day of Prayer... Then a song leader went to the front, played a single note on a pitch pipe and began to sing. The congregation joined in, in parts. For one song, the novelty (to me) was nice. By the 3rd song, I was deadly bored. Communion followed... it was done in the pews and frankly was the least moving communion I've ever experienced. The preacher had a warm and engaging style and did a nice job of exegesis on the scripture, but he didn't ever really get to application (and there were lots of doors opened for that to happen). The sound was poor and it was very difficult to hear the folk upfront other than the preacher (who wore a lapel microphone).

It was one of those churches that I couldn't understand at all. It flew in the face of everything my gut tells me about churches. If I lived in that town, I would certainly never attend there again and couldn't understand why anyone who wasn't a serious shape note singing fan would... but the space was pretty full and it seemed as if the folk there were committed to that community of faith.

So what did I learn? I still don't understand churches. And don't trust everything google tells you.

what might the church be?

I came across this article by Keith Drury, an adjunct professor at Indiana Wesleyan University and writer via Jason Clark's blog... and it is worth posting the whole thing here.

My students

The Coming Wave in the church

A get to spend my day to day life with the next generation coming along in the church. I see every day hints at what the church might become in the future. I have my ideas about what they’ll do in and to the church, but I’m not sharing that here. Instead I’ll just list 25 prominent characteristics of my students here and let you connect the dots. I’m interested in what you’ll say. If these characteristics hold true for them after college, how do you think this “Coming Wave” will affect the church? (See disclaimers below)

My Students

- From larger churches, yet value smaller ones. The last study we did showed our [ministry] students came larger churches—the median home church was 700. Yet they really value smaller churches. We’ll see if they value them enough to actually work in one. Or what they means about how they’ll approach their work in larger ones
- Model of a minister is a youth pastor. They are products of youth pastors. Senior pastors and solo pastors seem like District Superintendents to them—something they might some day do but not on their radar at all yet.
- Prophetic rhetoric—they are unsatisfied. They think there is something wrong with the church—something really wrong that needs fixed.
- Expect lots of structure. They “never went out to play” on their own. They were taken on play dates, to organized sports, to dance lessons, to clubs after school. They expect directions and instructions and supervision and help. When they are told “there is no syllabus or assignments in the church” it terrifies them. They don’t seek a job “where the pastor leaves me alone” but want plenty of structure and mentoring.
- Denominations are good. While they don’t like denominationalism they like denominations and are far more “loyal” than earlier generations. They like the general church even more than districts. If headquarters leaders can hold on for another decade they’ll be in the sweet!
- Suspicious of all-the-answers approach. They despise cocky know-it-all answers and believe people who have all the answers are faking it or have not thought through things deeply enough. They are open to “other answers” besides the ones that are recited by everyone today.
- Value orthopraxy—especially right attitudes. A right answer given with a wrong attitude is suspicious to them. Attitudes and treatment of others is more important than right answers. They would have hated the Pharisees of Jesus day—people generally correct in their doctrine but wrong in their attitudes. To them, “Heresy is an attitude.”
- Holistic—everything is spiritual. Integration is their lifestyle. They pray about everything: baseball, sex, kissing, and light bulbs. A U2 concert can be worship to them as easy as prayer meeting.
- Assume evangelical church is the mainline. They have never known a time when evangelicals were the minority. They assume we are the mainline church.
- “Journey conversion.” They were raised in youth groups that expected them to be saved but offered them dozens of times for commitments and recommitments and they assume that conversion is a journey more than an event. Their approach to evangelism is thus helping others on that journey step by step.
- Value social action—worldwide. They value green, helping the poor, supplying food for the hungry, caring for those with AIDS, acting on behalf of sexual slavery and whatever else Bono says are the acts that a “real Christian” should be doing.
- “Organic.” They like simple things, authentic stuff, being real and they expect everyone to confess their sins even publicly on their blog. To hide a sin is a bigger sin than the sin itself. And they don’t like fancy—many complain about super-super video streams running behind the choruses and call for a simple white screen—they think lots of boomer worship is fake and almost all bands are too showy. Some even argue that the band should be in the back of the church.
- Self-centered entitlement. They have always gotten what they wanted and seldom paid for it. They use parental money or borrowed money for life. They have parent-supplied cell phones and cars and swipe their cards for $3.00 coffees at the coffee shop daily. They expect stuff to come to them out of life and are thus slow to express gratefulness. If a boomer shells out $40 for pizzas to treat them they will wander over to the pizzas, glance over the selection then ask, “None with sausage?”
- Assume a staff ministry. They not only expect to serve with a church staff they expect to have a staff. In my sophomore class when I assign them to develop a church program to promote one-to-one mentoring, they often assume they’ll have a staff to do the work! Really!
- Minor concern for evangelism. They have a tiny bit of concern for the lost. Mostly their “evangelistic” concern is a pre-evangelism concern for how the world views loud Christians who noisily scold the world for things. They’re embarrassed by the past scolding activism of the church and think the church has more confessing to do to the world than visa versa.
- Kindness is a central virtue. Thus being unkind is a cardinal sin.
- IMHO approach. The shorthand web language represents their approach to propositionalism— “In My Humble Opinion.” They consider other approaches to be arrogant.
- Hard workers—especially in groups. I have never seen more hard workers than this crop of students, especially when they are doing a project in a group. They will work all night if they are working with each other to produce a collaborative project.
- Leisurely approach to getting started in life. Most expect to get settled in life and ease into life by age 30. My denomination’s ordination system (college plus two years of service then ordination) is designed for my generation not theirs. They feel rushed by such a system and many want to settle their calling by age 30 or so.
- Despise self-promotion or bragging. The single best way to make them dismiss you is to say anything that appears to be bragging or self-promoting. You can’t even mention your “books in the lobby” or they will totally reject you as a self-promoter clown. Humility is not a virtue—it is the required minimum.
- Tolerant. The Boomer’s attempts to fight their tendency to toleration failed. It is a central characteristic of their generation.
- Tremendous idealism and naivety. They really believe they can make the world a better place and can remake the church into what Christ wanted it to be. They are shocked to discover that people in the church can sometimes be critical, argumentative and divisive. “It isn’t right—why is this?” They expect a time of prayer will solve most all problems and if people are right with God they wouldn’t act this way.
- See the church “doing life together.” Their idea church is a collection of people who like each other and “do life together” something on the pattern of F*R*I*E*N*D*S.
- Woefully trained in “life skills.” Many have never learned how to balance a checkbook or file their income taxes or make a budget. When they get their first apartment off campus they are shocked to discover that they have to pay for water. “Water??? Why would I have to pay for water?
- Not afraid of holiness. While many of their parents have hidden the term under the bushel they are keenly interested in the call to holiness and many really think it is possible to become a “fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ.”

To the degree that these observations are accurate, they say a great deal about the shape of the Church in coming years. Of course, the sample of students are limited to those who would attend that particular school... What do you all think?