Archive for the ‘Church Follies’ Category
Does This Describe the State of Your Church?
Monday, March 8th, 2010Jesus Lovers: A New Breed
Friday, October 9th, 2009
Two early morning tweets caught my attention today:
Tweet #1
Tweet #2
Now, what do these tweets tells us? These are two men (the Tims) whom I respect and while these statements may have been made “on the fly,” I think there’s wisdom (or is it twisdom?) packed into both.
First off, Tim is addressing the conservative media darling, Glenn Beck, directly. If you’re not familiar with Beck, the gist of his arguments end with Glenn calling those who disagree with him “an idiot” or some derivative thereof. This is what Tim is a addressing and I think he’s spot on. I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly “all ears” after someone insults my intelligence. Maybe it’s just me.
Secondly, we have another Tim addressing the tendency for right-leaning Christians to demonize (yes, demonize) President Obama. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize recently and, apparently, there are some vocal believers in Jesus who believe this will summon the end-of-days. I fail to see the connection. But Tim says what a lot of us are thinking: “Please, dear Lord, let the loonies stay at home with this one. We don’t need another PR nightmare!” I hear the sting of embarrassment in Tim’s words and I’m right there with him.
What do both of these statements tell us? They tell us that Christ lovers and sick and tired of being pegged. We’re weary for being known as the “people who hate gays.” We’re weary of being known for what we’re against instead of what we’re for. We’re weary of being pegged as one particular political party, for sure, to the point where younger believers are picking the opposite party just to make a statement.
We’ve made the mistake of making the main thing (Jesus) not the main thing while making not the main thing (anything but Jesus) the main thing. A new breed seems to be rising that tells the world: “I am with Jesus. Identify me that way. Nothing else.”
So Tims, my hat goes off to you. Brilliant. Keep challenging the status quo. Keep letting the unpredictable Spirit breathe through you. Keep thinking differently.
Do You Ever Feel Like an Outsider at Church?
Saturday, July 18th, 2009This interview with Kem Meyer should be required viewing for all church staff, everywhere. Kem is straight crushin’ it!
(Mega thanks to Terrance Crawford!)
Are Reproducing Muslims the Enemy?
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009I caught this video on Facebook today:
Then I posted this comment:
Then someone responded to what I wrote:
Aside from being a hokey video (complete with dramatic, movie voice-over guy), I found it to be incredibly offensive. Offensive in the way that I can’t comprehend the type of Gospel the producers of this video had in mind when they created this piece of propaganda. I can’t imagine this being the message of Jesus towards people of the Islamic religion.
I could say more–a lot more–but I want to hear what you think. Thoughts?
How is it Possible to Be This Awful?
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009If this wasn’t so incredibly painful to watch, I might be offended. You figure out why.
In the Ghetto…
Monday, May 4th, 2009You’ve seen ‘em. You know you have. I have too.
Christianized products. They’re eveywhere:
- Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt > “A-bread-crumb & Fish” t-shirt
- YouTube > GodTube (before the founders of the site had enough sense to rename their site to “Tangle”)
- KIIS-brand radio stations > KLOVE
We Christians love to take services, products, and slogans and twist them into a nice, neat, “Christianized” parody. It’s almost as if the creators of these parodies feel like they can legitimize whatever it is they’re interested in only if they can affix as many Bible verses to it as possible. I know the intentions are good, but sometimes the outcome of these well-intentions are particularly heinous:
I came across a blog post by Maurilio Amorim that I really enjoyed. It talks about the need for us Christians to create a “ghetto” in which we feel comfortable to hang out in. It’s almost like we need to create an alternate universe in which to exist to make life bearable. Is this the life that Christians have been called to?
The Christian Ghetto is a place where you go to hang out with your Christian friends, fill up a website with Christian pictures and Christian videos of lots of happy people, loud preaching and youth camp promos. There’s not much witnessing and shedding of light in the ghetto since everyone is already convinced and the place is way too bright as is.
I understand the need for closed networks within several difference facets of ministry. For example, in managing small groups who need to connect in privacy or resourcing ministries that deal with evangelistic strategies where an open discussion in Facebook, would undermine their effectives.
So should the Church abandon social media altogether? Absolutely not. The church should redeem it . Christians are already there in millions strong among their unchurched friends. Instead of trying to pull your people out of Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Orkut or whatever the social media du jour is, your church should develop tools to engage, inspire and create dialog within these networks. We should resource our people with tools for integration and not segregation. We should take our Christian content into every part of the web we’re allowed to go. Go where the darkness is and shed light.
I say let’s break up the Christian Ghetto mindset we Christians tend to have and lets become more intentional in our social media outreach.
What do you think? Where do you see the “Christian Ghetto” mindset at work?
What Year Was It?
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009What year is this quote referring to?
Religious activity is at a peak, as measured by attendance & offerings. However, religion has absolutely no positive impact on the moral & ethical ills of society, but rather only seems to exacerbate them.
Answer with your selection in the comments box. I’ll post the answer tomorrow afternoon. The person who gets the closest will win a free Deviant T-shirt!
The correct answer is: 793-753 B.C.! This period of time was when Jeroboam II was king in Israel. This period can be found in 2 Kings 14:23-29 in the Old Testament.
That makes Tom Pohl our winner! @Billy_Johnson was close too, so we’ll give him a shirt as well! Direct Message me on Twitter your address and T-shirt size and we’ll ship it out to you ASAP.
This was hands down the best conversation we’ve ever had on BeDeviant.com. Thanks to everyone who played!
You Know What They Say About Assuming…
Monday, March 16th, 2009
I had this idea for a project after a class I took last quarter. The project calls for someone to go to a church service and write down every assumption that they have. Approach the service as if they’ve just arrived on Earth from a foreign planet and their first order of business is to attend your church.
I wrote down some assumptions from the service that my wife and I attended this past weekend. Here’s a few:
- People like to sing.
- We know what day of the week church services are.
- That we know how/why to pray.
- We know what the Bible is.
- We know what to put in offering baskets or even what the offering baskets are.
- Who know who God/the Prophets/Jesus is or are.
- People like listening to one person speak for 40-50 minutes.
- We know what a Pharisee is and who Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are.
- We know what the Old/New Testament is.
- We know what the Gospel is.
All of us operate under a certain set of assumptions in our everyday lives. We have to, otherwise we would never be able to make it out of our driveway. But some of these things we assume that people coming to church already know are powerful assumptions that aren’t always true. We may “assume” the very people we are trying to reach right out the front door.
Always ask the question: “What does this assumption say about the people who are here?”
Do you have any assumptions to add to the list?
How Much is Too Much?
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
I’ve dropped the UNFOLLOW hammer on Twitter a lot recently. Why? I posted a tweet the other day that read:
I have found that “regular” people are a whole lot more fun to follow on Twitter than the “big names.” Am I the only one?
I think I have found my answer, and the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” Turns out, I’m not the only one. I’ve un-followed three of the bigger names in the Christian community in the past few weeks because, frankly, they’ve been obnoxious:
Buy my book. Buy my CD. Read my blog. Come to my tour. Watch me do this. Watch me do that. Look at what so-and-so said about me. They are mean. Aren’t I great? Whoops, I mean, “Isn’t God great?”.com
I read their blogs and it’s more of the same. To be fair, I participate in the above at some level (although the only book I’ve written was for a third grade English assignment), but hopefully I am contributing something more to the social media communities Im involved in than just, “LOOK. AT. ME. Please!“
So my question is “How much self-exposure/promotion is too much?” I understand that part of the joy of social media is letting people know what’s going on in your life. I also understand that people are excited about what they are doing and what they’re producing. I do, I get that. But does there come a point where it crosses over from being self-disclosure and into self-exposure?
When do we cross the line from transparency over to voyeurism? Most of the un-following I’ve done is because these people have shared too much with me and the venue in which they have shared it is inappropriate. In the words of Michael Scott: TMI, Pam. TMI.
This Makes Me Mad.
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009You know what bugs me?
Lint traps.
You know what really bugs me?
Anti-intellectualism.
If you don’t know what that means, I trust that you’ve heard it at play:
“Jesus didn’t go to seminary, why should I?”
“Seminary? More like cemetery! (Followed by snickering)”
“The disciples didn’t have degrees.”
“Me? Oh I just like to keep it simple. No fancy schooling for me.”
It drives me crazy. And I hear it all the time. It’s very subtle, but it’s out there.
It’s bad logic for so many reasons (Jesus, just like any Jewish boy in the first century, would have had extensive schooling; Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, was one of the most educated men on the planet; Luke, who wrote Luke-Acts, was a doctor, etc.), but most of all it’s profoundly prideful. Not to mention it segregates and divides those who have done the hard work of formal seminary education (like me, for instance).
Bottom line: If school is for you, awesome. I got nothin’ but love for you. If school is not for you, realize that God does call some people to get a formal education. Sorry.
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