The first ones were by Mike Breen – about the relationship b/t discipleship and the missional movement.  You can check out his thoughts in Part 1 and Part 2.  My reflection on these posts came out here.

The other post was by Ed Stetzer – a return to the whole “can mega churches be missional” debate. He still says they can, I still say they can’t.  But, as I’ve reflected more on this, here are the things that have become clearer to me, what I’ll call the “mega-problems” of mega-churches.

I think it needs to be acknowledged that the problem isn’t size in and of itself. Who would possibly be against a huge church of fully devoted follower of Jesus on mission with God?! Not this guy. But here’s the thing, those of us who have icky feelings in our stomachs about mega-chuches do so because they tend to be built on characteristics and practices that actually work against this vision.  Here’s a few that came to mind…

1) Consumer-Oriented Structures

Very often mega-churches are mega because they emphasize meeting the needs, or at least captivating the interest of religious consumers of all stripes.  This will strike many of us as unfortunate right off the bat, but to take it a step further, I would highlight the even greater harm that is done when church leaders come right out and acknowledge that they do this (even if they prefer different language), but believe it to be in the service of the Gospel.  Here, we have baptized a market-driven strategy that treats people like objects and leads them to believe that they, rather that God, are what is of ultimate significance.

2) Celebrity-Driven Culture

Mega-churches tend to be personality driven.  There is generally one (almost always male) leader who leads as if they were a CEO of an organization rather than as a humble servant.  These are people who reflect our culture’s desire and drive for upward mobility while leading a community whose character is to be predicated on its downward mobility – becoming less and less so that Jesus might become more and more.  This aspect of mega-church culture is perpetuated as we get lulled into believing the cultural lie that a bigger platform is always a good thing for the kingdom.  Sadly, in baptizing this mentality, we have failed to remember that we follow Jesus, who refused exactly this temptation.

3) Sunday-Cenricity

Mega-churches tend to put the vast majority of their time, attention, and resources into weekend services.  Nothing wrong with gathering.  Nothing wrong with gathering with hundreds, even thousands of other believers.  Very much something wrong (from a missional perspective) with these gatherings becoming the driving point of our ecclesiology and the aspect of community life that eats up huge amounts of resources.  It doesn’t matter how compellingly you preach or teach on “being missional;” so long as that message is coming through the medium of a context that engenders passive involvement, it is rendered useless.

4) Inward-Focused Financial Structures

Related to the point above, mega-churches tend to create financial structures that are designed to “keep the machine running,” thereby inhibiting a community’s ability to leverage financial resources that will benefit others – who may or may not ever be part of your church community.  Mega-churches require mega-staffs, mega-facilities, and mega-ministry budgets.  Once you have these things in place and people’s livelihoods become contingent on church growth, moving in a truly “missional direction,” becomes all but impossible.  If it does come, it will be at tremendous cost.

5) Seating over Sending

All of this works itself together to result in an ecclesiology that is more disposed to a focus on seating over sending.  And when I say sending, I mean sending – raising people up as mature disciples and skilled Kingdom leaders and releasing them… really releasing them.  Most of the “sending” that mega-churches do is about continuing to build their own little empire – multiple locations, video venues, franchises, etc.

I fully recognize that you can embody all of these characteristics and not be, by definition, a mega-church.  This is precisely my point – it’s not really about size, it’s about the ecclesial characteristics and underlying theology that creates and drives this sort of church system. So when I say mega-churches can’t be missional, what I really mean is you can’t continue to be a sunday-centric, celebrity-driven church that engenders a consumeristic attitude toward Christian faith by creating inward focused financial structures and building your own personal church-brand empire.  Continuing to be this sort of church while using missional language and encouraging people to serve others more does not a missional church make!

Am I off here?  Where’s the pushback?  What else would you add to this list?

Related posts:

1. Being Truly Missional
2. Transitioning Traditional Churches into Missional Ones
3. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Kingdom Citizens

Lots of voting took place here in the US the other day and both in person and virtually, I found myself engrossed in conversations surrounding, not the issues/people which were to be voted on, but the practice of voting itself.

I devoted a more focused post to this topic a couple years ago, but I wanted to add another thought that came up in the midst of these conversations.  To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s flat out and always wrong to vote.  I am saying that we do well to recognize exactly what democratic voting entails for those of us seeking to differentiate ourselves from others as citizens of another Kingdom.

One of the reasons Christians may choose to not vote is that we are first and foremost part of a community that roots its identity in what I would call an invitational politics.  That is to say, following Jesus, our fundamental political posture toward the world is to invite people into a way of seeing and engaging life that is rooted in the good news of God’s Kingdom.

The democratic process of voting, on the other hand, is anti-invitational.  It is (at best) 51% of a given population mandating that the other 49% conform to their particular political bents.

Therefore, if we are to vote in democratic elections, we must concede that we are participating in a political process which runs against the grain of God’s ultimate desire for us.

Jesus does not coerce or force people into his vision for the world.  He (and his disciples after him) live into that reality and invite others to experience it and do the same.  Like Jesus, we opt “to serve” others (and invite them to do the same) rather than “to be served” by voting our preferences so that others are compelled to obey.  Christians are those who are willing, in all matters and affairs to be counted among “the least” instead of using worldly power and influence to “lord it over” others.

There is a flawed logic at work in our dominant political vision.  It would have us believe that the future of the world and its peoples is in our hands and we therefore have a responsibility to vote to determine our future.  Sadly, this vision completely ignores the far greater reality held out to us in Scripture that God is in charge of the course of history and is at work in Christ to “bring everything under his control.”  Does this mean we just sit back and relax because God is in charge?  No!  Instead, the gospel of the Kingdom offers to us an alternative political reality and responsibilities.

In humility and weakness we die for that which is right before we ever dream of killing for it.  And we invite!

We speak with courage and boldness of the sovereignty of God and his righteousness.  And we invite!

We embody the truth we claim to believe – trusting that the truth itself and not our persuasiveness will win the day.  And we invite!

We run to the rescue of the poor and oppressed – we spend our lives on their behalf.  And we invite!

We invite, we invite, we invite!  And we pray to God that in the midst of our stumbling attempts to embody the sort of Kingdom reality held out to us in Scripture, that others see forgiveness, they see generosity, they see sacrificial living and a refusal to repay evil with evil and God draws them.  This is the sort of political reality and responsibility that God calls us in to as citizens of his Kingdom.

Looking forward to some discussion around this topic.  Let’s keep it civil and be open-minded with one another, eh?

Related posts:

1. Why I’m Not Voting
2. “Going to Church” Is Not A Reality I Want For My Daughter
3. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Missionary Leaders

And here’s something a few folks from Living Hope put together for our community.

Related posts:

1. Change Your Life – Change the Lives of Others
2. Relational Gift Giving Ideas

and others.

No related posts.

Your thoughts?

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1. Sex : Consumerism : Church

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

This economic crisis is a great heart-check for the Church.  Where… What… Who is our treasure?  What a fantastic opportunity for the Church to witness to the watching world – to, in the midst of economic fright and despair, to be MORE generous, MORE sacrificial, MORE giving; to not “conform to the pattern of this world,” but to put on display a hope and a joy that is no way threatened, but is rather emboldened in times such as these.

But I wonder… will we shine?  I fear that the extent to which the Church in the West has so wedded its identity with that of the American dream will make this very, very difficult.  Thankfully, we worship a God who desires to work miracles amongst a repentant people.

Related posts:

1. Missional Church and the Future of Theological Education: Follow Up
2. The GOCN, Ecclesia, and the Missional Church
3. Fuller and the Emerging Church

I received my Economic Stimulus Payment the other day and wondered what I would do with it.  As I thought and prayed, I decided to join the ranks of those who called the whole premise of the program into question.

Feel free to accuse me for oversimplifying things if you want, but bottom line, the whole point of the Economic Stimulus Payments that virtually everyone received this year, was singular, “The economy is hurting, so please go buy stuff.”

Sadly, this advice just doesn’t square with those of us who live in a new reality under the Kingship of a God who says, “a man’s life does not consists in the abundance of his possessions” or whose dream for people is to live lives of sacrifice, sharing, generosity, and stewardship.

God’s economics fly in the face of the dominant American addiction to consumerism illustrated perfectly both by the opening line of a recent credit card advertisement, “We are a nation of consumers….and there’s nothing wrong with that.” (ht: Grete), as well as our President’s advice to the country after the 9/11 attacks of, “Go shopping.”

So, 1/2 my check went to Geronime, a woman in Benin, Africa, a fruit vendor through Kiva – a group (you definitely need to check out) that makes micro-loans to “entrepeneurs in the developing world, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty,” and the other 1/2 went to pay down debt.  Guess I will just have to go without that gizmo, gadget, or do-dad that I probably needed sooooo badly.

Related posts:

1. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Kingdom Citizens

If this picture strikes you, please check out this brother’s post.

No related posts.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

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1. Missional Community in a Capitalistic Society
2. The Digital Story of the Nativity

I am not aware of many other people who, like David, are working to sort out the issues of the Church in (Midwest) Western culture from both academic and pastoral (he is also a bi-vocational pastor at a community named Life on the Vine) vantage points, which is why I give his writing so much credence. 

You can also check out the conversation in the comment section. 

Related posts:

1. David Ford – State of the Union
2. Northern Seminary & 3DM: Discipleship-Oriented Theological Education (Part 2)
3. What is Missional?

Related posts:

1. The Church Emerging and the Multi-Cultural Future of Western Christianity
2. Toward A Missional Vision of Theological Education: Cultural Pioneering
3. Cultural Gravity (Part 1)

September 25, 2007

ATMs: Automatic Tithing Machines

How can you pass the plate to people who don’t carry cash? You can’t. So
the next big wave may be the “Giving Kiosk” in your church’s lobby.

“A lot of people no longer carry cash or a checkbook,” says Marty
Baker, pastor of Stevens Creek Church in Augusta, Georgia. So he
installed two ATMs in 2005. The experiment has been a success.

During the first year, the kiosks processed over $100,000 in
donations at Stevens Creek. In 2006, that number increased to just over
$200,000, representing more than 25 percent of the church’s total
income. Even more impressive is the fact that giving as a whole
increased 18 percent since the ATMs were installed. “It’s a safe,
convenient way for people to donate to their church,” Baker notes, “and
it meets people where they are today.”

These positive returns encouraged Baker to launch SecureGive, a
for-profit company that produces and maintains several different
versions of the giving kiosks. “We knew that if this concept and
technology was so beneficial for our church, others could benefit from
it as well,” says Baker.

SecureGive currently operates in 25 churches around the country. One of them is
Family Church in West Monroe, Louisiana, where Terry Taylor is the
executive pastor. “We wanted to help those who were not giving to start
walking in obedience,” says Taylor. “We feel that is being achieved.”

Princeton Pike Church of God in Hamilton, Ohio, had featured online
giving for years, but the service was used consistently by only ten
families. The church engaged SecureGive in January and now has more
than 150 families contributing regularly through the giving kiosk.

The company points out an array of practical advantages. One example
is a decreased risk of embezzlement, since donated funds are
transferred directly into a church’s bank account, bypassing the
counting committee. And the kiosk documents satisfy Internal Revenue
Service regulations requiring taxpayers to present a written statement
from a bank or charitable organization when claiming a deduction on
their returns.

Phil Martin of the National Association of Church Business
Administrators says that Automated Tithing Machines might only be the
beginning. “Whether we’ll have an offering plate with a card reader one
day, who knows,” he said. “But we’re certainly not far from that.”

No related posts.

Just came across a good quote in David Fitch’s latest post on his blog.

Of course the only way we cannot give in to these powerful shaping forces of capitalism upon our identity and life, the only way we can escape allowing years of our lives being devoured by the black of hole of seeking capitalistic success, is to be part of a reordering reality, the worshiping community of God’s mission in the world. This is what the missional communities must seek to be.

I came across this just minutes after I had a conversation with my friend Shawn about the idea of using an attractional model of church and ministry in order to draw people in and then try to guide them towards missional life.

Here’s my deal…

If what it means to be the people of God is not merely about converting or even discipling people, but rather means being a communal change agent in the world – exposing darkness by being light – then we cannot use those cultural forces (such as consumerism and capitalism) which rub against what it mens to be a gospel people as tools for our labor. Instead, placing our faith in the “foolishness of God” and His ways, we must seek to live as a contrast society toward, as David Fitch said, “a reordering of reality.”

This is perhaps little comfort to Shawn and countless others just like him whose theology leads them to a missional understanding of the church, but whose churches operate out of a different sort of theology which leads to an attractional understanding of the church. However, this ought not dissuade us from pursuing a renewed vision.

Related posts:

1. Toward a Missional Vision of Theological Education: Community Rootedness
2. Childcare or Kingdom Community?
3. Missional Preaching Part 2: Preaching as the Proclamation of Biblical Truth