Church shifting...

Church shift?

If your church ain't doing this...then get shifting....

"We need to change the way church is done in this country. We need to shift -- and it's a complete shift from the way church is done now," he explains. "We don't just sit behind the walls outside and condemn the people in the mainstream and say, well this country is bad and this country is going down."

The Ukrainian pastor encourages church members to get out of their pews and out of the building in order to "engage the culture and try to win back the values that have made America great."

A Moral Case Against Big Government: How Government Shapes the Character, Vision, and Virtue of Citizens

Nothing about evangelism here. And yet...

Read this Heritage paper. It is important.

The moral nature of governing and the moral implications for society of the nature, size, and scope of government are inescapable. The case for limited government will therefore inevitably need to take these moral considerations into account. A government that understands its main responsibility to be that of administering judgment in terms of justice will play an essential, and essentially limited, role in sustaining a healthy society. A good but limited government will both exercise the authority it is competent to wield—i.e., the power to use legitimate force to defend right—and provide conditions of justice in which local associations can exercise the authority that rightly belongs to them.

The moral case for good but limited government rests on the competency of other institutions to provide for the needs of citizens and to cultivate the virtues necessary to fulfill the moral obligations that sustain a free society. Not only can the fundamental institutions of family and religious congregations, as well as other communities of civil society, provide more personal, humanizing, holistic, and compassionate care, but they can better engender the trust and responsibility required for citizens to fulfill their moral obligations to each other.

Families and churches, as well as such other institutions as schools, businesses, sports teams, community orchestras, professional organizations, neighborhood watch committees, and faith-based and other nonprofit groups, bind their members not to abstract laws, but to other people. They are premised not on individual autonomy, but on the authority of knowledgeable and competent parents, pastors, teachers, coaches, conductors, and other leaders with the power to discipline. They motivate not solely by fear but by trust, and they are united not only by their opposition to unjust interference, but also by substantial positive goals, commitments, and convictions that they share in common.

It is therefore the responsibility of a modern nation-state that desires to bind its "many" into "one" to limit its power and its purse, leaving primary responsibility for moral formation in the hands of local moral communities. Only these associations and institutions can foster true justice and compassion for those in need—a fact that makes them essential for the cultivation of virtuous citizens and the prevention of governmental tyranny.

Lucrative Jesus

Goodness, this hurts. Bad. And have you read my latest column on this kind of a subject yet?

With nearly 87 percent of Americans identifying themselves as Christians, experts said, religion has become a lucrative part of American popular culture.

The influence of evangelicals is everywhere in today's society, according to Alan Wolfe, a sociologist at Boston College, but that is because evangelicals are being influenced by popular culture, not the other way around.

"I see them not as shapers of American culture, I see popular culture shaping them," Wolfe said. "Evangelicals are different from fundamentalists who reject popular culture because they think it is corrupt. Evangelicals don't want to reject the world, they want to persuade others to the way of Jesus and engage other people in their religion. Embracing popular culture has allowed them to do that."

Stop stereotyping evangelicals

Great column in the WashPost:

Let's stop stereotyping evangelicals

By Joseph Loconte and Michael Cromartie

Yet it is dishonest to disparage the massive civic and democratic contribution of evangelicals by invoking the excesses of a tiny few. As we recall from the Gospels, even Jesus had a few disciples who, after encountering some critics, wanted to call down fire from heaven to dispose of them. Jesus disabused them of that impulse. The overwhelming majority of evangelicals have dispensed with it as well. Maybe it's time more of their critics did the same.

Rick Warren and Greg Boyd on Charlie Rose

Two insightful mega-church pastors with some provocative ideas about the direction of the church. Good stuff, even if you might have your disagreements.

Fresh basics

Christianity Today asked pastors about "fresh basics for the local church." Here is some of what they found:

"As in every age," says John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, "the greatest challenge … will be to treasure above all goods and kindred and this mortal life that Jesus revealed with infallibility, perspicuity, and sufficiency in the propositions of the written Word of God, the Bible."

Will Willimon, United Methodist bishop of North Alabama, sees a similar timeless need: "The greatest challenge facing the local church in the next 50 years is the same one that we've never quite met in our last 50 (or 2,000) years: To enable our congregation to be half as interesting as Jesus!"

Joshua Harris, the young pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, notes that he preaches to people who "are influenced by [pluralism] more than they realize."

Dale Burke, pastor of First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton, California, believes that "a shrinking percentage of the culture even cares about what we have to say." The challenge is to engage them without compromising the core message and its power. He believes the church must "lead with love," "not with the slickness of the presentation but with the sweetness of acts of grace and kindness."

Mark Dever, pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., believes a pluralistic culture will turn increasingly intolerant of Christian faith. Our challenge will be faithfulness to the gospel "when it is seen as anywhere from criminally intolerant hate speech to [merely] unpopular."

John Sommerville of City Church in Minneapolis is anxious for churches to engage the culture in ministries of mercy as well as proclamation.

John Huffman from St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California, notes that consumerism affects not only the people we try to reach, but also the very nature of what we consider a "successful" church—which he's not sure is really so successful.

Michael Horton, a minister with the United Reform Churches who teaches at Westminster Seminary California wonders whether churches can regain their confidence in the "ordinary ministry of Word and sacrament."

Robert Lewis of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle both see ministry to men as the future's key challenge. Lewis considers men "the lost gender," while Driscoll highlights a crying need for proclaiming a manly Jesus, lest "increasingly impotent churches [become] filled with mere handfuls of nice church boys standing around drinking decaf while the world goes to hell."

A fifty year history of evangelicalism...

Mark Noll has some interesting and provocative insight in this CT article. Agree wholeheartedly or not, it is thought-provoking:

During the first half of the 20th century, the stress had shifted toward preserving traditions. At the middle of the 20th century, evangelicals began to move back toward a balance.

But have evangelicals today moved too far? Has an overemphasis on preserving tradition been replaced by an overemphasis on connecting to the culture? For such supremely important questions, it is, of course, too early for a historical assessment. When the balance shifts too strongly to one without the other, it is merely sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. But an evangelical resurgence that balances traditional faith and cultural relevance sounds a trumpet of salvation to the world.

Should we fret people leaving our church? Maybe yes, maybe no...

Closing the "back door" of the church is something that church growth pundits think we should be thinking about on a constant basis. There are some things we can do to keep people "with us" as this article attests. But, even Jesus had this problem...

Jesus, too, had a "revolving back door" in his ministry...Reach out to them, apologizing when needed, offering clarification and love when this is what's called for. But remember that when Jesus, God's Word made flesh, preached the gospel on this earth, most of his hearers did not accept his message. Some accused him of having a demon. One of his key leaders even betrayed him.

Jesus knew that God's kingdom would not expand by "pleasing all of the people all of the time." Instead the Kingdom expands as the relative minority of people who hear the gospel, live it, and in turn, give it away. Our task is to keep scattering the seed.

Jesus leaders - what pastors were meant to be

Jim Martin, pastor of Crestview Church of Christ in Waco, Texas:

Many people are cynical about the church. That’s not news. There are many reasons for this cynicism. Some are cynical because of a basic mistrust of the people leading these churches. Some feel burned after learning a leader was living an immoral lifestyle. Others have been burned by placing their confidence in some church leader only to be severely disappointed due to displays of anger, ego, manipulation, etc. In contrast to these experiences, many people today would find genuine Jesus leaders to be quite refreshing.

• We are at our best when we practice what we preach.
  
  
• We are at our best when Jesus – rather than our own ego – is front and center.
  

Rest of article here.

Hmmm...Why men don't much like church

David Murrow highlights 10 things that men therefore fear about church:

1. Being outshone by women who thrive in the feminine climate.
2. Singing in public (look around next time the singing starts at the difference in engagement between men and women).
3. Having to check their minds at the door, not being able to ask questions or use their brains.
4. That the church will brain washing their boys into becoming sissies.
5. Having to become a super husband, their wives love Jesus who is already perfect so how can we compete with that?
6. Church is synonymous with homosexuality – from images in the media off the effeminate portrayal of clergy to sex abuse scandals and then we make man hug, sing and hold hands…
7. Getting less sex – church to them is portrayed as promoting a Victorian attitude towards sex and many Non-Christian men suspect that Christian mates get little sex as a result.
8. Having to get dressed up at the weekends – men like to be scruffy and not sure churches really allow that.
9. Men appreciate excellence and don’t expect to find it in a church.
10. There’s already an alpha male in residence called the pastor/minister/vicar – fears that he will never be able to use his own talents in any way that could possibly outshine the dominant male.