Re-imagining Success

David Phillips offers the following as some gauges of success in ministry. Read more here

1. The number of cigarette buts in the church parking lot.
2. The number of adoptions people in the church have made from local foster care.
3. The number of pictures on the church wall of unwed mothers holding their newborn babies in their arms for the first time.
4. The number of classes for special needs children and adults
5. The number of former convicted felons serving in the church
6. The number of phone calls from community leaders asking the church’s advice
7. The number of meetings that take place somewhere besides the church building
8. The number of organizations using the church building
9. The number of days the pastor doesn’t spend time in the church office but in the community
10. The number of emergency finance meetings that take place to reroute money to community ministry
11. The amount of dollars saved by the local schools because the church has painted the walls
12. The number of people serving in the community during the church’s normal worship hours
13. The number of non-religious-school professors worshiping with you
14. The number of people wearing good, free clothes that used to belong to members of the church
15. The number of times the church band has played family-friendly music in the local coffee shop
16. The number of people who have gotten better because of free health clinic you operate
17. The number of people in new jobs thanks to the free job training center you opened
18. The number of micro-loans given by members in your church
19. The number of churches your church planted in a 10 mile radius of your own church

Got any more?

Mission for the Real World

Last night I met with one of our 'reimagine' stream churches to consult and help them think thru 'where to from here?'

When I get in those environments there is a part of me that wants to inspire people to dream big and attempt crazy things in the hope that we will connect with those currently out of our reach.

There is another part of me that knows that no matter what great plans we dream up and what schemes we invent, life is much more complicated and messy.

Its easy to walk away from a meeting 'charged up' and ready to roll. Its another to actually get on with the mission that pervades our life and our everyday experience.

These days I find myself leaning much more towards encouraging people to live their ordinary lives, but to do with purpose and to do inspired by the spirit. I have a feeling that if churches were full of these kinds of people then maybe that would be enough.

Of course if you want to develop a new and exciting project then go right ahead. I am all for courageous pioneering and adventurous faith, but just make sure it isn't a substitute for the rigors of living every day as a missionary and being faithful in the circles in which God has already placed you.

As John Butler sings 'the grass may be greener, but its just as hard to mow...'

It is This Thursday Night!

What Do We Measure

Canadian blogger Leighton Tebay asks a great question - how do we measure the effectiveness of the church:

"Now imagine a school that measured how much people enjoyed the classes, how great the day care was, how inspiring the teacher was, the levels of enrolment and the amount of funding they had but only passively cared about the success of their graduates in the workplace. That my friends describes most of the church in North America today."

He has more to say here. Well worth a read...

Onward Christian Soldiers?

Back in 1988 Tony Campolo wrote a book entitled 'We Have Met The Enemy and They Are Partly Right'. It was an overview of many different faiths and worldviews, acknowledging that there is truth in them and that we can learn from them... however, they were considered 'the enemy'...

These days I can't help wondering if he would use a different title.

I'm sure Campolo would agree that other people - whatever they believe - are not 'the enemy', but his title belies an understanding of faith that was in existence 20 years ago, but today would be considered dodgy at best and abhorrent at worst.

The notion of non-Christians as the enemy - while rarely verbalised - was a point of view that had some currency in the later part of the 20th C. That old favourite hymn 'Onward Christian Soldiers' never took that tack, but I remember singing it as a teenager and somehow feeling that we were the good people taking on all those evil people who didn't believe the same things about Jesus and the Bible as we did.

As a result evangelism was often combative and confrontational as we sought to win people to Christ and out of the clutches of the devil. It was serious business and along the way we had to be careful not to let ourselves get corrupted in the process.

And here we are now in the much enlightened 21st C and few of us would see our non-Christian friends as the enemy. In fact even using the term 'non-Christian' can be considered offensive these days.

As we move to a different place in our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world I find myself wondering has it been a healthy shift?

There's no question non-christians are not the enemy, but in our attempts to reach the world have we lost our distinctiveness as the people of God?

Good evangelism joins faithfulness to the Bible and the gospel with a genuine engagement in the culture we are a part of.

Have we got the balance right?

Have you got the balance?

I write this on a day when my 7 year old daughter came home from playing with one of her Indian friends bearing a red dot on her forehead, courtesy of the mother. As we left she asked if I 'minded' that she had received this mark. She told me it was a symbol of good health.

Hmmm... should I mind?...

Mark Sayers is Back on line

Yes, he is back on line with his usual amazing mix of brilliant insights into pop culture as well as a depth of insight into the issues of our faith and church culture!

Here is a taste of a great article that is on his site today -

As I travel around speaking about faith and popular culture. I often find myself cornered after my sessions by small groups of frustrated young women in their twenties. The women want me to explain to them why young men seem to be dropping off the church radar. They are very often quite passionate in their belief that there are no ‘eligible’ men around. The women who have managed to snare a partner often struggle to understand or communicate with their male companions.

Firstly a couple of things need to be noted. Male participation in the church in the West is on a massive decline. The second thing to remember is that this opinion from women that men are ‘dropping of the radar’ is not just held by women inside the church. I recently watched an interview with a demographics expert who discovered that this is one of the main questions that women are asking about our culture. It seems that we are in a crisis of masculinity.

For me this is a huge issue to which little time and effort has been given. However some clues can be found in the various models of masculinity that are communicated to young men through the new media environment. Here some of the main models that I have observed of heterosexual masculinity that young men are being exposed to and imitating at the moment. You have heard of metrosexuals; now meet some of the other models of masculinity that young men are being exposed to.

RAGEASEXUALS
Rageasexuals are a group of young males who can be defined by a sense of read it all here

The challenge of reimagining

Having been involved in the leadership of new churches as well as those that have been around for many decades, I have observed there is a big difference between imagining and reimagining. Reimagine assumes that we are working in an established church and are going through the process of thinking through the issues of how the church came to where it is and finding a new direction for the future. But with that process of reimagining comes all the baggage of history, traditions, and experience both good and bad. There is a temptation to think that the easy way out is to start with a fresh slate and imagine a whole new way of being church without anything to hold up the process. Reimagining the church is a huge challenge but I am convinced it is not impossible. When Jesus said to Peter "upon this rock I will build my church", he added that "whatever you lock on earth will be locked in heaven, and whatever you open on earth will be opened in heaven". I have a feeling that we have been given a key to unlock some doors and allow the winds of change (I think I'm mixing my metaphors a bit) to come in and refresh the church.