Author Archives: Jay Matthew Barnes

Francis Chan: How Not to Make Disciples

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I just watched a great video in which Francis Chan explains part of the reason why more of us who follow Jesus aren’t making disciples:

SOURCE: The Verge Network

Duck Dynasty: A Missional Response

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Duck Dynasty

via A and E

Here are my two cents regarding the Duck Dynasty situation.  Specifically, how can this whole fiasco be approached from a missional perspective?

Appetizer

First of all, there are some things I like about Phil Robertson, the patriarch of Duck Dynasty.  In no particular order:

  • He played football back in the day.  In fact, he was the starter in front of Terry Bradshaw in college!
  • The man loves his family!  This can be seen in the way that family forms a part of his life and his Duck Dynasty business.  Kudos!
  • Phil loves Jesus.  And his family does too.  Here’s proof: the Duck Dynasty appearance on I Am Second.
  • And, as pictured here, Phil has an amazing beard and so do all the other Duck Dynasty dudes!  Ever since my dad introduced me to ZZ Top, I’ve been obsessed with beards.  That’s why I love having one myself!

Main Dish

Despite all that I like about Phil, I wasn’t too keen on his comments in a recent interview with the magazine GQ.  Just to be clear, I believe that homosexual acts are not within the parameters set by God in the Bible.  The clearest place to see this, in my opinion, is Romans 1.18-31.  There Paul says that because of our rebelliousness, God gave us over to our lusts.  And we have pursued them like crazy!  But none of that was what God wanted; it was us giving into our own lusts.  So, don’t get anything twisted — I think the Bible states that homosexual acts are outside of God’s design for human behavior.

But the Bible is even clearer about something else.  Click here and read 1 Corinthians 5.9-13.  Actually click that link and read the text for yourself before continuing.  I can wait.

I want to present a few comments below.

v.9 — I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people–

  • Alright!  So right from the get-go Paul is giving me carte blanche to distance myself from people who engage in sex acts that are outside of God’s original design.  Got it.

v.10 — not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters.  In that case you would have to leave this world.

  • Hold on Paul!  So you are saying that you aren’t telling us not to associate with people who are sinners?  Why not?  You imply that if we want to associate only with “holy” people then we’d have to leave this world.  Well, isn’t that the goal anyway…”I’ll Fly Away”?

v.11 — But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler.  Do not even eat with such people.

  • Paul, I’m confused.  Why would you not want us associating with a follower of Jesus (i.e., a brother or sister) who persists in behavior that doesn’t bring God glory?  You go so far as to say that we should break fellowship with them!  Are you crazy?  They’re family.  Shouldn’t we break fellowship with all those unsaved sinners and eat with the saved ones instead?

vv.12-13 — What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?  Are you not to judge those inside?  God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

  • I think I understand you now Paul.  You’re saying that we shouldn’t judge those on the outside by our standards of behavior because they have yet to submit to them, right?  Why would folks who don’t follow Jesus give a rip about how best to follow him?  I think I’m getting it now Paul.  We followers of Jesus are to hold one another accountable, always with grace and always in love, and we’re to leave all the judgment of those who don’t follow Jesus yet to God.  Cool!  You convinced me!

Back to reality now — I’m not sure how, but Christians, myself included, have missed this passage for centuries.  Paul really couldn’t be clearer here.  It’s not our duty as followers of Jesus to go around pointing out bad behavior everywhere we see it.  Let’s get real simple here: That’s not what Jesus did, that’s not what Paul wrote about, so why are we doing it?

To make matters worse, this judgmental attitude is killing our ability to be a witness in our world.  We must develop the habits of Jesus, you know, the guy who was known as “friend of sinners.”  Why is this important?

  1. It’s not natural.  Apparently human nature dictates that we group ourselves together according to beliefs, external features, etc. and then judge those with different beliefs, different external features, etc.  This is the world of the flesh, to use biblical language.  However, if we’re to be people who are born of the Spirit, then we need to live counter to our flesh, since what the Spirit desires is almost always contrary to what the flesh desires (Galatians 5.17).  So we’ve got to stop judging those on the outside!
  2. It’s not fair.  Like I mentioned briefly already, it’s not fair to judge someone according to a standard that they haven’t submitted to.  Of course people who make movies are going to violate Christian morals.  Of course people are going to be dishonest with their money.  Of course people are going to fill their sexual dance card in the way that pleases them the most.  Now if these same people follow Jesus, then we can have a different conversation, in grace and love, of course.  But until then, we need to take Paul’s advice and leave their judgment to God alone!
  3. It’s not missional.  Here’s the real kicker: judging people who don’t follow Jesus yet is not helping us fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28.19-20) at all.  In fact, it’s doing just the opposite.  Want proof?  A 2007 survey found that 87% of young, non-Christians found followers of Jesus to be judgmental.  Wanna guess what their top descriptor of us was?  You got it — judgmental.  How are we going to reach the mission field called America if almost everyone out there thinks that we’re judgmental?  I’m not sure, but I know this: It’s going to be hard.  Friends, we must stop judging people who don’t follow Jesus if we want to see them come to the life-giving salvation that we’ve experienced.

Dessert

So I think that Phil Robertson was wrong for judging the behavior of those who do not follow Jesus yet.  Phil has every right to say what he wants, that’s free speech.  But A&E has every right to suspend him too, that’s their right as an employer.

I recently heard someone whom I greatly respect say the following: “I will flippantly refer to the sin of hatred and bigotry toward gay people; but I will never be flippant about the sin of homosexual acts.”  You can see in the way this man thinks that he has a missional heart.  He longs to see the love of Jesus invade everyone’s life and wants to remove unnecessary walls in order to do so.

The largest “unnecessary wall” that we must remove is our judgment on those who do not yet follow Jesus.  “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

What do you think?  Am I way off base?  Let me know in the comments below (but keep it civil)!

The Ghost of Church Future: Part Two (Consumerism)

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My wife, parents, and I recently watched a stage production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  As I watched it I couldn’t help but imagine what the ghosts of church past (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three), present (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three), and future (Part One) might say to those of us who follow Jesus.  This week we’ll look at what the future holds.

Consumerism

So, as we’ve seen in previous posts in this series, those who live lives authentically marked by faith in Jesus are a declining species.  One response could be to go all in with regard to American culture.  We, as the Church, could attempt to absolutely immerse ourselves into the consumerism around us, attempting to redeem it and use it for the kingdom of God.

I first encountered this idea in Alan Hirsch’s book The Forgotten Ways.  Here’s how he introduced it:

We try to redeem the rhythms and structures of consumerism as Pete Ward suggests in his excellent book on missional ecclesiology.  He advises that, rather than reject or denounce consumerism, we should see it as an oppportunity for the church to rediscover her missional and redemptive nature.  He maintains that in consumerism there is a massive search going on, and that the church cannot miss out on meaningfully communicating from within this context.  He suggests, therefore that the church must radically reorganize around consumerist principles but maintain its missional edge. (Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 111-112).

The book from Pete Ward that Hirsch is referring to is called Liquid Church.  While there is much to like about Ward’s ideas in this book, such as the church being a flexible network instead of a rigid structure, the idea of trying to redeem consumerism seems entirely too risky.  I love the way that Hirsch responds to Ward’s idea: “However, my warning is that if we are going to sup with the devil, we had better have a very long spoon, because we are dealing with a deeply entrenched alternative religious system to which Jesus’s disciples need to model an alternative reality” (The Forgotten Ways, 112).

In fact, some of the missional writers, thinkers, and practitioners argue that being a consumer runs counter to what it means to be a follower of Jesus in the first place.  For instance, Hugh Halter, in And: The Gathered and Scattered Church, says this: “A disciple is not a consumer and a consumer is not a disciple!” (emphasis original, 75).  Halter’s argument is that at its base consumerism is just selfishness in a different package; and Jesus explicitly calls people away from only looking out for number one.

So why will going all in with consumerism not work as a model moving forward?

  1. At its core, consumerism is selfish. — Consumerism has been defined as the attempt to acquire as many goods and services as possible at the lowest prices possible.  Vance Packard’s pioneering work on consumerism called Waste Makers highlights the truth that all this selfishness and consumption is ultimately harmful in many ways.  I think it’s pretty clear that we as followers of Jesus should avoid such things!  We’re already tempted to view God like a cosmic vending machine, and going all in with consumerism would make that tendency even worse!
  2. Consumerism will push the church to maintain the professionalization of ministry. — In 2 Corinthians 5 Paul says that we’re all ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation.  But if we really want to imbibe consumerism then folks are going to demand that those who have the most training and skill at ministry be the ones to do it, ignoring the fact that God has given gifts to all of the church for the common good, not just some of it (1 Corinthians 11-13)!  Again, we’re already having issues in the church with folks sitting on the sidelines; why would we want to make that problem more prominent?
  3. It will simply be too expensive. — In the end, how could the church afford to be an entity totally defined by consumerism?  We’d be competing against Bud Light, the NFL, reality TV, and Hollywood.  We don’t have the resources to compete in that market!  We barely have the resources to maintain our paltry budgets now!  The cost of competing against the big boys of consumerism is simply too high, which makes this idea for addressing America as a mission field completely untenable.

What do you think?  Is it possible for the church to redeem consumerism?  If so, why?  If not, why?  Let me know below.

The Ghost of Church Future: Part One (Continued Decline)

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My wife, parents, and I recently watched a stage production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  As I watched it I couldn’t help but imagine what the ghosts of church past (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three), present (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three), and future might say to those of us who follow Jesus.  This week we’ll look at what the future holds.

decline

geralt / Pixabay

A Continued Decline

For quite some time now the church, as we know it, has been in decline.  Numerous studies and surveys support this statement (David Olson’s book The American Church in Crisis and John Dickerson’s book The Great Evangelical Recession provide a ton of evidence).

What do we do?  I think there are three primary options: 1) keep doing what we’ve always done; 2) try to baptize American individualism, consumerism, and materialism; or 3) go down the missional-incarnational path.

This post will focus on the first option — more of the same.

If we keep doing what we’ve always done, what will be the results?

Famously, it has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again but always expecting different results (attributed to Albert Einstein).  And while this may be “the most overused cliche of all time,” it does help us think about why following the same strategies in the church won’t work going forward.

So, what have we been doing that we could keep doing (even though it most likely wouldn’t work)?

  1. Follow the Attractional Model — “If you build it, he will come.”  This is probably the most-often quoted line from the movie Field of Dreams and it serves to illustrate the attractional model like no other string of words can!  The thought is that if we have slick weekend services, engaging sermons, awesome music, fun programs for kids, thought-provoking adult classes, and great small groups, then people will just show up at the campuses of our churches to partake of all these things.  The research, however, is showing that this model isn’t working.  People simply are not coming to churches anymore, at least not like they once did.  Our buildings, programs, and services just aren’t all that attractive to the wider American culture these days.  So, if we continue with this model, then we will have shrinking congregations, which will lead to church buildings being abandoned (and possibly being transformed into homes, libraries, or nightclubs).
  2.  Limit Discipleship to the Classroom — Almost always when talking to Christians about discipleship they seem to think that it is a program, a ministry, or an event that the church should host and facilitate.  In my experience this has been true of folks everywhere throughout America, from Los Angeles to Atlanta.  There are some shining examples of leaders and churches who don’t view discipleship this way, but my educated guess would be that most American Christians think of it as a cognitive-based learning experience.  The simple truth is that this method of discipleship doesn’t work.  It has helped lead to 66% of Americans being what George Barna calls “casual Christians.”  That’s an astonishing number!  And if we continue doing discipleship this way, that number isn’t going to change in the positive direction.
  3. Protect the Christian Bubble — I was thinking the other day about how many friends I have who do not know Jesus yet.  The number is really pretty low.  Why?  Because I’m pretty consistently encouraged to completely inundate myself into the Christian subculture.  When I do so all my friends are Christians, my closest family members are all Christians, and all my neighbors are Christians.  Then I start reading Christians books, listening to Christian music, going to Christian websites, and even freshening my breath with Christian mints!  This cloistering-off of American Christians into our own little bubble has created a ton of unintentional problems.  If you’ve ever tried to share your faith with someone you know what I’m talking about.  Folks say that Christians are hypocrites, that we’re judgmental, and that we’re by and large detached from reality.  Our Christian bubble helped create space for these descriptions to come to fruition.  So if we protect our bubble going forward, then we’ll continue to erode our potential impact with folks who do not yet know Jesus.

To put it simply, the future of the church is pretty bleak if we keep going like we’ve been going!

Do you agree?  Let me know in the comments below.

Creating Missional Alignment

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Creating Alignment

Hans / Pixabay

I read an interesting post on Fast Company’s website today called “Popularity Means Nothing–The Missing Step to Startup Success.”  In the article Bhavin Parikh and Aaron Schwartz make a convincing claim that alignemnt is a key factor for success.  They share five ways of creating alignment.  In this post I’d like to apply these ideas to creating missional alignment in a Christian community.

  1. Set Your Vision — Parikh and Schwartz begin by saying that a company should be able to say why it exists in one sentence.  I believe that a Christian community should be able to as well.  Why does your community meet?  What are y’all about?  Here’s an example: “Together, we want to connect with God, foster authentic community, and serve our neighbors.”  Pretty simple to write…but the challenge would be aligning all you do around that one statement.  Doing so would necessitate saying “no” to things that fall outside of the vision!
  2. Define Your Values — In order for a company to succeed, the people working there need to be able to make decisions.  How do they do that?  One way is by having clearly-defined values that help folks choose what might be best.  The same thing holds true for a missional community.  The community needs some core values or it will begin to drift from its vision.  Those values might look something like this: Inclusivity, diversity, honesty, sharing, incarnation, and proclamation.  Thus, when push comes to shove, any member of your community can call to mind your core values and make a decision in support of them!
  3. Identify your BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) — Parikh and Schwartz label the BHAG as a goal 1-3 years out on the horizon that should be a stretch.  It’s important to have a BHAG because it lets everyone know what is the company is driving toward.  This can absolutely apply to a missional community.  But a word of warning: many of us followers of Jesus will make a way-too out of reach BHAG.  For instance, we might make it a goal that within the next three years we’ll eradicate homelessness in our neighborhood.  This is just ludicrous!  A better goal is more specific, measurable, and do-able (though a stretch).  So perhaps something like this: We will multiply our missional community three times in the next three years.  That’s a big goal that will help create alignment!
  4. Set Department Goals — Having a clear and inspiring BHAG is good but by setting department goals actual progress toward the BHAG can be tracked.  So, for a missional community that might look like this: We’ll have more people at our communal worship times, we’ll have 85% involvement in intentional communities, and we’ll average 2 hours of community service a person a month.  If those goals are met, alignment will be forged and progress toward the BHAG (multiplying) will come!
  5. Track Key Metrics — Measuring stuff is important.  Duh.  But what we measure might be even more important than the measuring itself.  Parikh and Schwartz write: “At the end, though, you need to make sure that the metrics you track and the targets you pursue on a daily basis will help you hit your BHAG and thus fulfill your greater vision.”  Thus, for a business to succeed it needs to track the right things well.  How does this apply to a missional community?  We need to track some stuff.  Traditionally Christians in the West have tracked butts, buildings, and budgets (AKA attendance, physical space, and money).  And while each of these things is important, so are intentional community involvement and community service.  It’s been said that what you measure tends to grow and this is, for the most part, true.  Why?  Because the things we measure are things that we pay attention to and celebrate publically.  Thus, we could possibly see significant positive change if we paid attention to and celebrated publicly intentional community and service!

Doing these five things can certainly build alignment into a missional community.  If we did each of them better, then  it would create a greater buy-in from everyone, thus helping us fulfill the Greatest Commandment and the Great Commission!

What do you think?  What other sorts of things might create missioanl alingment?

Advent: Jesus Is Coming, Brother!

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geralt / Pixabay

Advent is a time when you anticipate the first coming of Jesus.  It gives us the chance to slow down and reflect on what the Incarnation means.  Jesus moved into our neighborhood, as Alan Hirsch, author the great book The Forgotten Ways, always says, and Advent gives us space to re-imagine our lives in light of this truth.  Advent is the time of year in which we allow ourselves to be moved by the unexpected mix of the divine and the human.

Advent is also the time to pick up your dog’s poo on a Sunday morning.

This is exactly what I was doing this morning when a man walked by.  We made eye contact, the man and I, and he said to me, “Jesus is coming, brother!”  I was taken aback by what this guy said!  After all, I had been hoping for an uneventful, morning stroll.  But this random man changed all that.

I need to set the scene a little better.  This man who said “Jesus is coming, brother!” sounded a lot like Hulk Hogan!  Some of you know exactly what I mean.  For those of you who don’t, check out this video:

“Jesus is coming, brother!”

This guys words are very appropriate: Jesus is coming.  This is what we celebrate at Advent!

But he is also coming again — his second Advent is yet to come.  And when Jesus comes again he’ll make all things new!  That’s good news!  There’s a bunch of stuff in my life that needs to be made new!  How about you?

So this Advent season, spend some time meditating on what it means for us that Jesus came, that he is the Incarnate One.  But also think about what it means in your life that Jesus’ second Advent is on its way.

Have you given Jesus’ second Advent much thought during Christmastime before?  Let me know in the comments below!

The Ghost of Church Present: Part Three (A Missional Response)

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My wife, parents, and I recently watched a stage production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  As I watched it I couldn’t help but imagine what the ghosts of church past, present, and future might say to those of us who follow Jesus.  Last week I looked into the revelations from the ghost of church past (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three).  And this week we’ll hear from the ghost of church present (here’s Part One and Part Two).

A Missional Response

So the ghost of Christmas present showed us that the US is a mission field in need of fresh encounters with the gospel and that many of our churches are not responding to this reality all that well.  There are some, however, who are.

Here’s one such example: Adullam in Denver, Colorado.

A missional congregation in Denver

From Adullam’s Website

Adullam’s lead pastor is Hugh Halter, the author of Tangible Kingdom.  In his book Hugh tells the story of how God helped reignite the missional fire in him and how he and his ministry partner Matt Smay, along with their families, reluctantly planted a church in Denver.  In this post I want to explore how Hugh and Matt have led Adullam to be a community with a missional impulse.  (The source for all the material below is either my memory of reading Tangible Kingdom or the “About Adullam” page on their site.)

  • Missional Vision — Here’s Adullam’s vision statement: “Adullam is a congregational network of incarnational communities that are apprenticing kingdom people” (form the “About Adullam” page).  So, their centering values all lean toward being missional and away from being attractional.
  • Discipleship is the Engine — Did you note the word “apprenticing” in Adullam’s vision statement?  This is their code word for “discipleship.”  The purpose in shying away from the word “discipleship” is, in my estimation, because it is too churchy and has come to mean something (classroom-style, cognitive learning) that it doesn’t mean in the New Testament (learning from a respected person by living life together).  Thus, Adullam is saying that apprenticeship is the engine that drives them into their mission field.  Without it, there’s no evangelism, no growth, no conversions, no leadership development, etc.
  • Focus on Being the Church — You probably also noted that Adullam’s vision statement doesn’t use the word “church.”  This had to be intentional!  Instead we find the words “congregation” and “incarnational communities” and “people.”  Their focus is clearly not to become a place for people to come and receive spiritual goods and services (which is how I define our attractional understanding of “church”) and is instead on being the church.
  • Praxis, Praxis, Praxis! — Adullam also says that their explicit goal is to make the kingdom of God tangible.  By this, as you can read in Tangible Kingdom, Hugh means living out the good news in the lives of people.  This means serving, having fun, and, yes, talking about God too.  But it means all those things, not just the last one!  Thus, the people at Adullam are trained to and expected to express their love for God and their neighbors in real-life, real-world ways.
  • Symptoms of an Apprentice — Furthermore, Adullam spells out very clearly what the life of an apprentice of the kingdom looks like: 1) They’ll be involved in inclusive community; 2) They’ll experience communion with God (together, in smaller communities, and as individuals); and 3) They’ll be on mission for God in Denver.
  • Incarnation – You may have also noticed how much Adullam uses the word “incarnation.”  Their informed belief is that “the best environment for the kingdom to appear tangible is in the context of an incarnational community” (form the “About Adullam” page).  By “incarnation” they mean being Jesus in their own communities — in essence, enfleshing the gospel of the kingdom of God where the live, work, and play.  This is a missional way of thinking that stands in direct opposition to the attractional mindset that says “If we build it, then they will come.”
  • Discouraging Consumerism — Being a consumer Christian (meaning a follower of Jesus who just wants to be fed with as little effort as possible, whether on purpose or subconsciously) would be really hard at Adullam.  They don’t always meet together.  The purpose of their times of gathering is to be a blessing to the kids and for their various missional communities to connect.  In fact, Adullam is so serious about discouraging consumerism that they provide links to other churches in the Denver area where folks might find a better fit.  That is revolutionary!

Adullam is just one example among many that are out there.  Now, in fact, there are even missional networks that help congregation figure out how to get on mission together.  A few of these networks are Missio Alliance, Verge, Forge America, and Acts 29.  Now is a great time to start being more missional!  What are we waiting for?!?

Do you know of some more missional responses the reality of the American mission field?  Let me know in the comments!

 

Dealing with Failure

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“Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.”

This famous quote is from “The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived” or, as he’s better known, Ted Williams.  What he’s referring to, of course, is that if you get a hit 30% of the times you come to bat in baseball, then you’re a good player.

But think about that for a minute.  Ted Williams, widely considered one of the best, if not the best, hitter in baseball history got hits 34.4% percent of the time.  But the flipside of that stat is that he didn’t get a hit 65.6% of the time.  That’s a ton!

Ted Williams failed to get a hit almost two thirds of the times he went up to hit as a professional baseball player.  Francis Vincent, a former commissioner of baseball, said it best: “Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure.”  So the secret to Ted Williams’ success, and that of any baseball player, was that he learned how to get past failing so that he could be his best during his next at bat.

Here’s the point: Are we able to do that?  As people, as leaders, as followers of Jesus, as missionaries in our neighborhoods, can we fail, learn from it, putting it behind us and trying again?  And how do we do this well?

Jesus taught his disciples how to fail.  Read Jesus’ words from Luke 10:10-11: “But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, ‘The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’”

Here’s the backstory: Jesus wanted to give some of his followers a task, so he trained up 72 of them to enter cities that he was planning to go to later.  They were supposed to do the same kinds of things that they had seen Jesus do, namely healing the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God.  But Jesus knew that they wouldn’t be welcomed everywhere they went, so he prepared them for failure.  He told them to put the failure in the rear view mirror and move on.

Jesus’ words are true but so very hard to live out.  At least they are hard for me to live out.  When I fail at something it hurts me.  Maybe it’s because I secretly serve an idol of perfection.  Or maybe its because when I fail at something I interpret it very personally.  Either way, it’s hard for me to move on.

But how can we wipe off the dust of failure and continue following Jesus wherever he leads?

  1. Acknowledge the failure quickly.  It doesn’t do anyone any good at all to let failure fester.  We need to admit that we have failed so that we can begin to heal.  Why hide it?
  2. Apologize and mean it.  If it is your fault that you failed, apologize.  If your failure hurt anyone else, apologize.  If you think your failure hurt no one, then admit it in your journal, on facebook, on your blog, wherever.  We must take responsibility for our failures!
  3. Take time to process feelings.  When you fail you might get bombarded by a series of strong emotions.  You’ll probably be angry, nervous, scared, and frustrated.  Or you might be glad that you failed at something because what was on the other side of success looked pretty daunting.  Whatever it is you are feeling, well, feel it.  Give yourself time (but not too much time!) to experience what you are going through and be honest with yourself and those close to you.
  4. Learn from the failure.  What good would failure be if it didn’t teach us well?  So when we fail we need to take stock and learn from it.  Perhaps there’s some way to prevent the same failure from happening again?  In order to find that out, you’re must learn from it.  Or perhaps God is using your failure to teach you one thing or another, like reliance on him, patience, and humility?
  5. Get moving.  There’s no better road to mediocrity and boredom than wallowing in failure.  Instead you have the chance to work through steps #1-4 and then to take the huge leap of faith into the great unknown.  To put it differently, we can’t follow Jesus well if we stay put and mope.

How have you learned from failure?  Let me know in the comments below!

Little Broken Promises

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I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good husband.  I do most of the big things right and I avoid almost all of the big things that I’m supposed to.  I spend time trying to speak my wife’s love language.  I love with abandon and invest like crazy.  I try to put her interests before my own (Philippians 2.3-4).  Usually, I’m pretty good at this whole husband thing.

Usually.

chefkeem / Pixabay

But I have a persistent problem, a easily-repeated blunder.  I make little promises and then don’t keep them.  Example: We finish dinner and I say, “I’ll do the dishes before I go to bed.”  Then, the next morning, the dishes are still in the sink (like they were this morning).  That’s a little broken promise.

Here’s a doozy from this week: Our dog, who is awesome by the way, is getting old and she needs to have checkups at the vet pretty regularly.  Three weeks ago I said that I would take care of it.  I finally did it…after weeks of saying I would!  The time between the little promise and completion was just full of me breaking that promise day after day.

You may be thinking something like this: Meh, this isn’t a big deal; it is a LITTLE broken promise.  It’s not like you broke your wedding vows or something.  And, you’d be right…objectively speaking.

But subjectively speaking we’re dealing with a different deal altogether.  Each time I break a little promise it erodes my credibility with my wife a little bit.  Rebuilding that trust invariably takes up WAY more time than it would have taken to just fulfill the promise.

And keeping little promises is a sign of respect.  When I actually keep one of these promises it says to Alida that she’s important enough for me to remember what I said and to actually do it.

Luckily for me I have a loving and forgiving spouse.  She gives me the time and space I need to figure things like this out.  But I shouldn’t take advantage of Alida’s patience about this.  I should be more intentional about keeping all my promises, whether big or small.

Here are some pieces of advice (mostly for me):

  1. Make fewer promises.  There’s no point in promising to do things as often as I do.  Maybe if I was more consistent in doing things in the first place I wouldn’t feel the need to make promises.
  2. Accept help if needed or wanted.    A common mistake that I make in these situations is not accepting help that is offered.  If I did, then I wouldn’t need to do whatever it was that I end up make a promise about (e.g., the dishes).  So, if I need help or would rather do something else, when my wife offers to help I should take her up on it.
  3. Keep track of promises made.  I’m not sure exactly how I could do this, practically speaking.  Maybe I could write my little promises down and put them in a prominent place (like on the screen of my laptop).  But an issue for me is that I simply forget.  So I need to facilitate some memory helpers.
  4. Apologize and start at #1 again.  I’m a human so I am going to mess this one up.  When I do I should give a real apology, fully owning my mistake and the pain it caused.  Then I should start back and #1.  Hopefully, over time, I’ll have to do #4 less and less.

Do you have a problem with keeping little promises too?  Let me know in the comments below.

The Ghost of Church Present: Part Two

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My wife, parents, and I recently watched a stage production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  As I watched it I couldn’t help but imagine what the ghosts of church past, present, and future might say to those of us who follow Jesus.  Last week I looked into the revelations from the ghost of church past (see the links at the end of this post).  And this week we’ll hear from the ghost of church present (here’s Part One).

Nemo / Pixabay

A Non-Missional Response

The ghost of church present already revealed that the U.S. is a mission field.  So, how has the church responded?

By and large, the church hasn’t responded all that well.  Here are two statistics that I originally saw in Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay:

  • “Roughly half of all churches in America did not add one new person through conversion growth last year.” (Lost in America by Tom Clegg and Warren Bird, page 27)
  • “In America, it takes the combined effort of eighty-five Christians working over an entire year to produce one convert.” (Lost in America, page 29)

I think we need to let those stats sink in for a minutes and not rush past them.

First, half of the churches in the US don’t see any conversions in a year.  There should be some disclaimers, of course.  Many of these churches are small, rural, and in Christianized communities.  But not all of them.  And of the half that did have new converts, I wonder how many of those are really just biological growth, that is, the children of Christian parents.  Are we reaching out into our communities to the unchurched, dechurched, and antichurch?

Second, it takes 85 people working for 365 days to lead one person to Christ!  Firstly, this paints a funny picture.  It’s hard not to imagine a large and cumbersome committee of stodgy Christians trying to work together to save one soul!  Secondly, and more to the point, this isn’t saying that 85 people intentionally worked together for the conversion of one person.  The researchers simply took the total number of believers and divided them by the total number of new converts in a given year.  Thus we are left with the rather shocking fact that the vast majority of us are not actively engaged in making new disciples.

Here’s the point: there’s a massive mission field right outside the walls of our comfortable church.  Right. Outside. The. Walls.  And we aren’t responding.

Well, that’s actually not true.  We are doing some things.

  • We’re preaching sermons.  This is a good thing.  In the New Testament we see a repeated call for folks to proclaim the good news.  So, yay us!  Often we preach sermons that challenge our people to be a witness where the live, work, and play.  Again, yay us!
  • We’re running programs.  We have courses on evangelism that we either create ourselves or buy from an expert.  We have programs like Alpha, which are awesome!  People have come to know Jesus as savior through Alpha and programs like it for decades now.
  • We’re supporting explicitly missional efforts.  A few of our churches are realizing that we’re not doing a great job, so a few of us start funding missionaries who work right here in the US.  It could be through church planting or through an organization like InterVarsity, but some of us are investing in missional efforts.
  • We’re actually engaged in missional activity ourselves.  I use the “we” in that statement very loosely.  Why?  Because my guess is that so very few of us, myself included, live missionally on a day-to-day basis.  In fact, many of us are so insulated by our Christian sub-culture that we may have to try really, really hard just to have contact with a person who does not know Jesus yet.  But there are a few rogues out there living like Jesus did.

The truth is that the statistics show that what we’re doing isn’t really working.  Why not?  Well, in my humble opinion we’ve focused too much on preaching and programs and not enough of funding missional efforts and being missional ourselves.  Our hearts are right but our actions are a bit skewed.

What do you think?  How do you see the church responding to the reality that America is a mission field?

 

The Ghost of Church Past (Part One, Part Two, Part Three)