Consumer Church and Eikons

I used to think that consumerism could exist with the church as a means to sharing the gospel. Then I thought about how it didn't belong, but struggled to put my finger on why. I would say things like, "The way you win someone is the way you keep them." but I'm beginning to think this is even not a real answer.

In my mind I'm trying not to be some reactionary guy who declares the sky is falling. No one listens to that guy for more than a few minutes and they listen for all the wrong reasons. I don't want to come across as some purist who can't see gray between the black and white or who doesn't see his own faults in the midst of his critique.

But I am landing in a place where I'm able to articulate in a new way something I've felt for several years now. Consumerism is taints the gospel at it's core.

Consumerism is de-humanizing because it allows individuals to feed on the idea that they are at the mercy of others, who freely take that authority from them.

In this sense consumerism is anti-gospel. The gospel demands that you take up your cross and follow, to find your true identity as eikons of God. It simply can not be delegated, or done by someone else. You can not give this responsibility to someone else. your pastor, friends, family, husband, wife, or kids can't do this for you.

If this is the case then churches who feed the consumeristic tendencies of the people within their community they are in fact subverting the gospel by taking the power, authority and responsibility for being an eikon from the very people they are trying to help.

Consumerism by it's very nature works against individuals from becoming fully human. because it keeps them from the identity that is rightly theirs.

What will you tell others?

Think about a situation in your past where you took a risk. Where you laid out a plan for change, or new initiative and it didn't work. What story do you tell about it today?

If you fail at the current risky project you are facing, what story will you tell?

Who's fault is it that it didn't work?

The story you tell about why the project failed tells a lot about you and how responsible you are for your life. It tells about how you see yourself related to the rest of the world. Do you see yourself as a victim? Do you see yourself at fault? Do you take responsibility for your actions as they are connected to others?


We've all met the youth guy who can do no wrong, who's story unfolds telling how he has never had a pastor who that knew what he were doing. We've meet the pastor who's never served a congregation who could keep up with their ideas. We've met the new guy to the church plant core team who was burned by every single church they have ever attended and is so glad they found you, because you "get it". We tell a lot of stories.

What kind of stories do you tell?

What kind of stories will you tell?

The art of being a whole human being is taking responsibility for your life. Of refusing to be a consumer who can no longer meet their own needs, or the needs of others.

Fonts

This is pretty funny.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Inside the Mind: Blog Review

Dan Mayes reviews Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors.

He likes it and thinks it will be helpful for the church. Go to Dan's site and read what he says. The book comes out in January.

Here's the link.

Bevan on Spiderman 3

Bevan's a new friend who is also part of the eikon community. He loves movies. Today he writes a personal letter to Spiderman 3. Feeling the need to get his feelings off his chest. Freakin hilarious. Read it here.

My personal favorite part:

The problem is that I ended up pretty much liking Black Spiderman about 1000x better than normal Spiderman. Let’s review the major “evil” choices that “evil” Spiderman took:

1. He was mean to his landlord. This seems like fair play to me, that dude was always yelling at him. And while we’re on the topic, why does Spiderman have rent concerns? Doesn’t his inability to make even a small financial arrangement with the New York for his living conditions hinder his ability to fight crime effectively? Isn’t Spiderman just hurting New York due to his love of personal poverty?
2. He jazz danced down Broadway. Don’t even get me started with that damn scene.
3. He ate too many cookies from the landlord’s daughter. Was never quite sure while this was “evil”, she seemed to enjoy the whole thing.
4. He exposed a fraud whose lies endangered their mutual employer. The movie never even touches that it is a just thing to right a wrong, it only deals with emotions. “Oh, you hurt my feelings because you exposed me for the fraud that I am.” Batman wouldn’t deal with that crap.
5. He told whiny Harry the truth about his a-hole dad. Seemed like fair-play to me, the kid needed to know the truth. Especially since enabling his lie made him your mortal enemy and endangered your crime-fighting operation.
6. He was mean to Mary Jane by jazz dancing (again?!?) at her jazz club. This is the Mary Jane who brutally broke his heart by acting like she had an affair with his best friend. Seemed necessarily cathartic to me. She is a selfish girl who can’t sing well. She ain’t the Queen of Sheeba.

Yo Gabba Gabba meets Jimmy Eat World

This is fun, and a bit trippy actually. Zach the drummer for Jimmy Eat World blogs here. I don't know Zach, but we have some mutual friends I think. One day maybe I'll be able to share a beverage with him and he can tell me what it's like to fly through the sky on the back of a house pet.

Jimmy Eat World-Beautiful Day-Yo Gabba Gabba

Women Pastors in the news

Did you see this?

Link

Such a rich quote

Peter Block writes books for business and civic leaders. There's something for us all to learn. I love this little gem.

"We are fascinated with our leaders. We speak endlessly, both in the public conversation and privately, about the rise and fall of leaders. The agenda this sustains is that leaders are cause and all others are effect. That all that counts is what leaders do. That leaders are the leverage point for building a better community. They are foreground while citizens, followers, players, and anyone else not in a leadership position is background. This is a deeply patriarchal agenda, and it is this love of leaders that limits our capacity to create an alternative future. It proposes that the only real accountability in the world is at the top. They are the only ones worth talking about.”
Peter Block, pg 41 Community: The Structure of Belonging

People are starting to catch on

Something I've been saying for years, and something I hope our eikon embodies.
Link

I suppose they are catching on at least a little. After reading further the "Don't go to church ,be the church" thing appears as just another program to go to church by going to church and serving instead consuming.

A step in the right direction. but falls way short of such a good slogan.

Don't go to church, be the church.

maybe i should have trademarked that puppy 8 years ago when I started using it.

hmmm

Weddings and Church Use

Brant over at Kamp Krusty was on the air for his radio show and had some interesting conversations.

My favorites:

Caller: Well, I'm on staff at our church, and there's a good reason we charge $500 for people to use the building for a wedding.

Me: That's what the church charges members who've actually paid for the building over the years?

Caller: Yes. It's really expensive to run the power and clean up and everything.

Me: Of course it is. So if the pastor wants to have a "Let's Celebrate Our Grads!" night in the sanctuary, do you have to pay $500?

Caller: Well, no, because that would be an official church function.

Me: Okay, I'm just curious: Joining members of your church in holy matrimony in front of witnesses and God isn't an official thing?

Caller: No, that's an extra thing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Next caller: I can speak for our church. If we DIDN'T charge, we'd have people lined up, wanting to use the place every Saturday for years.

Me: But if they're people who are members, and paid for the building, and it's their's, too, shouldn't it be free and celebrated and --

Caller: It would be too crazy if you just let people do that.

Me: But if they paid for it to start with --

Caller: You have to charge a fee to discourage people from using it.

Link

I wrote this 60 seconds ago...

I wrote this 60 seconds ago while brainstorming a Table of Contents for a book proposal. Chances are it's a paraphrase of someone else... but i like it. I'll have to see if I stole it. (The subtitle for my freshly brainstormed book is "Leadership beyond Influence"

Here's what I wrote.

If I could give you one gift it would be the freedom to be you. The person God had in mind when he created you. Not the person attempting to be the leader described in the last book you read, or the latest video teaching, podcast or conference speaker.

Discovering your voice in a context that demands you be all things to all people… which in turn makes you nothing for all people. Empty inside, isolated, alone and burned out.

God’s call is real. While greatest gift I could give you is to be yourself, the greatest gift you can give you church, your family and others is you as well.

(not) making it happen

I was invited to guest blog over at the Youth Specialties site a few weeks ago and I thought I'd go ahead and post what I wrote here too.

I got off the phone this morning with John, a youth pastor, who will leave his church in 20 days because of the church’s financial situation. He’s built a big youth ministry with lots of kids and very few volunteers. “The church isn’t interested in working with teens,” he tells me. John is truly heart-broken for the kids and is reaching out to me to see if I can help the church in some way after he leaves. He doesn’t want to see it all fall apart and he knows it will after he leaves.

I didn’t tell him this. It’s probably for the best.

You see, somewhere along the way we youth pastors bought into a lie. We believe our job is to make things happen, to build programs, to attract youth all in the name of ministry, or building the kingdom. We bought into the idea that our job, our ministry is to make things go. We believe that somehow, our success or failure as a pastor is dependent upon our ability to motivate people to follow through and implement our plans and our dreams in the name of vision. In fact, we in the church are infatuated with visionaries who make it happen. The lie is pervasive these days.

Chances are this is a small reason why you love being a youth pastor. You have ideas, and you get to inspire and envision people to produce your programs. Chances are you are evaluated by how efficiently you bring others on board with your vision and how well you produce the goals and objectives you declared.

But this is a deeply flawed understanding of leadership and is destructive for church staff, and those within the church as well. This is a flawed perspective because it has unintended consequences. This kind of thinking is highly colonial and creates a level of isolation, entitlement and passivity that enables congregations to abdicate their responsibility to the leaders, who often gladly take it.

The leaders become strangers and distant from the people they are called to lead in this environment. In extreme cases people can become cogs in the details of a leaders mechanistic plans. Service is reduced to volunteer positions that must be filled.

It’s important for you to understand something.

You aren’t called to make things happen in your church.

Oh, you may be paid to make things happen, but it’s not God calling you to plan, lead and pull off all that unsustainable stuff. It’s not God calling you build it all, or convince others to build your vision either.

You will always have more ideas, more dreams, more hopes, more plans than your church should pull off in your ministry. You will always see more than can be done right now. You must learn to live with this tension.

* Your job as a leader isn’t to make plans and then have others buy into them.
* The role of a leader is to declare the mission, and create an environment in which people can dream and live into it.
* By making things happen you are robbing people from the God given responsibility they have to children in your church.

The difference is in the level of commitment of the people you lead. Take John for instance. John created a lot of great experiences, but the people within his church weren’t committed to it outside of a paycheck to a staff member. When John leaves in 20 days, his ministry will crumble and it will be a beautiful thing for his church. Because it will force them to make a decision about how engaged they will be for teens.

I know what you are thinking. His church won’t step up. They will lose kids.
Could be. It’s pretty common.

This is the commentary on how well we lead in the church though, not so much on the church itself. The people of the church are being faithful to how they were led. They are living out their ministry teens the way it’s been expected of them.

How many of our churches are this way and how many churches would lose people if the staff stopped making things happen? There is an entire culture of leadership within the church rising up based on this faulty understanding of leadership.

You see, not only is top-down leadership often manipulative, colonial and patriarchal, but it’s also reactive. It only creates more of the same problems that it’s trying to solve.

Whereas leadership that declares the mission and then cultivates an environment within which it can happen is restorative. It produces energy, not hype. It confronts people, and forces accountability. The kind of leadership creates accountability, without directly calling for it.

So is this the end of visionary leadership? Absolutely not. It is simply a change in the way churches approach the role of staff and the way the mission blooms within your church. There’s a difference between helping your community imagine a world beyond their currently reality (vision) and convincing them to live it your way.

What kind of leader are you? Do you feel the need to make things happen? Have you always been this way? If not, what taught you that this was the right way?

Or do you cultivate an environment in which people can engage deeply, or superficially? An environment where you let go of the implementation to the people of your church?

Sad and Funny Videos Part 4

This is old school. You've probably seen this. But I can't have a Sad and Funny Videos without adding this. We've all done something like this actually. So I suppose it makes it more Funny than Sad.

Writing and Music

I wish there was a way to include a soundtrack with books. I write to music. It not only sets a backdrop for typing words on a screen, but it provides a rhythm and attitude influencing what I write and put words together.

I wish there was a way for you to hear what I hear, while you read what I wrote.

Perhaps it would be in the margins.

Chapter 12 - (gnarles barkely- going on) etc.

I was tempted to put a playlist at the beginning of the TOC.
But the truth is, you need to hear your own music with the words. Frankly, I hope that you hear your own meaning with the words as well. At least to some extent. Because my meaning is superior to your, of course. I mean, if you are going to read my book and listen to Jessica Simpson, well... I just can't imagine such a thing.

Greenspan

I never had the patience to listen to Greenspan all those times he has appeared before Congress. Frankly, I'm not a numbers guy and I get lost with the economic jargon very quickly. But it's very interesting to listen to him here. Where he is invited to share his opinion on the current economy. Frankly, I would love to see more of him. There are few people in the world who understand the global and US economy like this man does.

Another Quote for the day

Bill Easum:

Small churches are usually small because of their small, petty attitude. That attitude can be negative, it can be elitist, it can be mean-spirited, or it can be just plain content with the status quo. But I have never found a small church that has been small for many years to be a healthy environment. (I’m afraid I just made some institutional folks unhappy.) My experience has been if the church is faithful to the Gospel it grows—period. I could say the same thing about a house church or small group. I base this on the Book of Acts—it is about the growth of Christianity and suggests to me that God wants the church to grow and spread. Read the story—it goes progressively from addition, to multitudes, to myriads of growth.

What do you think?

Read it in context here.

Inside the Mind: Blog Endorsement

So the great John Frye, author, pastor and gifted teacher has written the first ever blog post (on a blog other than this one) about my new book Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors. The book comes out in January, but here's a part that stood out to me.

The genius of Mark’s book is his ability to go beneath the surface and locate and express the (often deadly) assumptions at work in senior pastors, parents of teens, potential youth pastors and whole congregations–assumptions that swirl around this thing called youth ministry.

Mark presents a vision for healthy youth ministry that seeks the spiritual formation not just of teens, but families; not just of departments in the church, but whole congregations. The rinky-dink view of youth ministry as “Christian” fun-and-games to keep teens from sinning is forever gone.

Thanks John!
Link

Quote for the day

Those at the edge, ironically, always hold the secret for the conversion of every age and culture. They always hold the projected and denied parts of our soul.

Only as the People of God receive the stranger and the leper, those who don’t play our game, do we discover not only the hidden and hated parts of our own souls, but the Lord Jesus himself.

In letting go, we make room for the Other. The Church is always converted when the outcasts are reinvited into the temple.

—Richard Rohr, Radical Grace

(thanks to Zach)

Cheese what?

Yesterday the boys were with me in the car and we were listening to Prairie Home Companion on the radio. They love that show.

So today at lunch they start (mis)quoting it.

Jaden: (singing) I love Cheese Curds, Cheese Curds, I love Cheese Curds!
Zach: Would you like a cheese cookie?
Jaden: (still singing) Cheese Turds Cheese Turds Cheese Turds.
Me: Son, it's not cheese Turds, it's cheese curds.
Zach: Cheese Turds are what happens after you eat cheese curds.
(laughter by all)

My son knows his basic biology.
I love these moments.

sad and funny videos part 3

Look into my eyes.

Fun and Sad Videos Part 2

It does seem to have a live band! It has that going for it. This video is more funny than sad.

Mega churches on decline?

Money quote:

Experts see more troubling concerns than slowing growth: No measurable inroads on overall church attendance and signs that many churchgoers are spectators, not driving toward a deeper faith.

"You can create a church that's big, but is still not transforming people. Without transformation, the Christian message is not advanced," says Ed Stetzer, head of Lifeway Research in Nashville, which did the Outreach study.

The unchurched remain untouched. While the number of people who say they attend at least once a week hovers around 30% year after year, the number who say they "never" go to church climbs.

The tally of "Nevers" varies from 16% in Gallup surveys to 22% in the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, to 32% in an Ellison Research survey this year. The new "Nevers" come from the pool of people who once attended monthly or a few times a year.

Many slide away from church to find other answers to their spiritual quest or another church where the preaching or music or family programs better suit their style.

"The megachurch story is not really about growth, it's about shifting allegiances. People want to feel good about who they already are," says Philip Goff, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis. "If church is too challenging or not entertaining, they'll move on."

What do you think?
Here's the link.

I laughed... a lot

Funny

Sad and Funny Videos Part 1

I'm starting a new series named, sad and funny videos. Here's my first installment. Enjoy.



Yes it's for real.

Like playing hockey against Slovkian women

And I thought Oakland got thumped last night.
Slovakia's women's ice hockey team scored 82 goals on Bulgaria. There's only 60 minutes in the event.

Perhaps there's a new term for drumming. It will be my Threepete.
:Last night, it was as if the Oakland Raiders were playing hockey against Slovakian women."
Link

the wonderous, dangerous, messy, uncontrollable, subversive, holy and painful way of Jesus.

At the heart of eikon is the desire to create new culture, or better said, to join God in creating a new culture in the world.

There are those who resist the idea, or any manifestation of a new culture as a threat to all that they hold dear. These folks reject any line of thinking that does not fit their more traditionalist view of how the world works. Black and white, in and out, their way or the highway. These folks are interesting in maintaining culture. In their mind, everything is at stake and the world will literally collapse if change happens. Never underestimate the ferocity of a traditionalist in the face of change. There is a difference between embracing your history and refusing to embrace the future.

Others are interested in sucking the marrow from culture. They live to consume whatever the culture hands them, without a second thought. New technology, new services, new gimmicks, new, new new new, what the culture is selling, these moderns are buying. interested in consuming culture. We are all in this to some extent. In the church, the next best church wins. The next shiny flashy hip, cool church grows the fastest and is declared the success. There's nothing wrong with technology or new things. It's only a problem when it's done without a critical mind about it's implications upon oneself, and the world.

My hope is that eikon will be a community interested in creating culture. Rejecting polarized views on religion and politics, but embracing truth and the kingdom within both sides of the spectrum. Not in some kind of elitest way as one who is more informed, whether it be the academic thinker, or the bohemian evironmentalist, but in attempts at humility and love. That the least of these would be loved. That neighbors would be known, that the hurting would receive compassion and that the broken would be made whole in Christ.

This means that the traditional blueprint for what it means to be church in the traditionalist or modern sense, or be christian for that matter, must be consistantly undermined by a stark reality of the the reality of the kingdom come.

This is not a consumable version of church. It pushes aside complacency and forces participation. It rejects comfort and often imposes the opposite.

It is however the wonderous, dangerous, messy, uncontrollable, subversive, holy and painful way of Jesus. To create a culture is to take up your cross and their nothing status quo, or consumable about the cross.

i laughed a lot

To quote Brant,

"This video again demonstrates a Kamp Krusty postulate: There's a fine line between "touching and inspiring" and "this will haunt me the remainder of my days."

Periodicals and Church Leaders

Ok, so I'm working with a PR person from Zondervan. I began to wonder, what magazines, e-zines etc do you read as a church leader?

Rove and Stewart

Just so good.

Palin was good- This is getting fun

So good that it jolted awake the democrats. It's interesting to read more here.

Here's the part that stood out to me.

From and Obama aid: $8 million raised since Palin's speech from over 130,000 donors - on pace to hit $10 million by the time John McCain hits the stage tonight.

The Palin pick energized Republicans...... and has given a jolt to Democrats, too. (The RNC has raised $1m since Palin's speech.)

Point of Clarity: Palin was good as in making it interesting. But same ol politics. spin spin spin.

Fantasy Football

My starting line up for Game one 2008.

David Garrard - QB
Roy Williams - WR
Santonio Holmles - WR
Brian Westbrook - RB
Frank Gore - RB
Marcedes Lewis TE
Reggie Bush - RB
Josh Brown - K
Baltimore - Defense

Bench
Greg Jennings
Roddy White
Jon Kitna
Felix Jones
Donald Driver
Derrick Mason

Celebrity and position

Zach is quoting Andrew who is quoting Mark DeMoss.

Here’s an interesting excerpt from a post from Steven Waldman, the editor-in-chief of Belief.net:

Mark DeMoss, former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell and now a leading Christian public relations executive, is hoping that Palin turns out well but has been shocked and worried by the reflexive Christian embrace of her.

“Too many evangelicals and religious conservative are too preoccupied with values and faith and pay no attention to competence. We don’t apply this approach to anything else in life, including choosing a pastor.” Imagine, he said, if a church was searching for a pastor and the leadership was brought a candidate with great values but little experience. “They’ve been a pastor for two years at a church with 150 people but he shares our values, so we hired him to be pastor of our 5,000 person church? It wouldn’t happen! We don’t say, ‘He shares our values, so let’s hire him.’ That’s absurd. Yet we apply that to choosing presidents. It blows my mind.”

Does anyone else remember Promise Keepers full on embrace and ordination of this guy at several of their stadium events?

Faith, Disbelief, and @$%holes

Warning: If you are easily offend by the use of "cusswords" then don't read any further. Below is an fairly accurate example of a real conversation I had today.

I met Susie today at a coffee shop while talking to my old friend Jon. Susie heard me talking about eikon and thought I was talking about an old club downtown. Sitting, separated by 5 or 6 feet of space we started a conversation across the coffee shop. We talked a bit about the old teen club ikon, that was downtown in the 80's and then we started talking about eikon, the community we are living into in these days.

Susie told us about being raised Hindu in Tulsa and then we dove into a discussion about faith, religion etc.

Here's a few quotes as I remember them from our conversation.
Susie: "In Hinduism, Islam and Christianity there are fundamentalist. In every religion there are a couple thousand assholes who ruin it all."
Jon:"I'm an asshole."
Susie laughs.
me: "Me too. Maybe if you declare yourself an asshole in advance it somehow keeps the asshole factor down and keeps you from being a fundamentalist?"

Susie: "My father taught me that faith is the suspension of disbelief. I think he's right. People who watch movies are having faith in movies. They choose to suspend disbelief and have faith in what they are watching."
Jon: "Yeah, like reality TV. All those people play a role. But we still watch it. It's faith in the show in some way."

We talked for 30 minutes about faith, Jesus, arranged marriage, and my family.
I look forward to more conversations with Jon and Susie.

Quote: Chesterton

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land."
-G.K. Chesterton

Sprint just a little longer

I'm Spring customer and I'm often having to apologize to my friends for all the dropped calls when I hit dead zones around town. I'm on my third Sprint phone and will be moving to a new carrier in November. (I hope. It's what I want for my birthday.) Anyway, it seems my phone is officially dead and I don't want to re up with Sprint.
Does anyone have an old Sprint phone lying around the house that they'd be willing to send me? I'd be happy to reimburse you for the shipping! And I can send it back when I'm done.

Thanks!

Diddy on McCain

Check this out. P. Diddy on McCain's choice for VP.

Link

Thanks to Bob Hyatt