"Warning: If you treat your church like a business, you will treat other churches like your competition."

From Jared. I look forward to when he's famous so I can be one of the fawning lackeys in his entourage.

Some thoughts on the recent Evangelical Manifesto that so many are buzzing about right now . . .

Those who know me know I'm still quite keen on the "evangelical" label, not so much as a word itself but for what it still means and can continue to mean. I'm not ready to abandon it (like "fundamentalist," which was a justifiable abandonment, or what-have-you) simply because it has been loaded by the culture with the baggage of "fundamentalist" or because it has been carried as a flag by political-minded Christians keen on waging the so-called culture war. It's a good word, and it means something too important to give up. Evangel = gospel, and now, when more believers, pastors, and churches are dedicating themselves to gospel-driven renewal, is not the right time to ditch the word. It has the possibility to mean and communicate more now than it ever has, particularly if the Lord will grant us the revival many are praying for.

Os Guinness and others on the Manifesto's steering committee write in the Introduction:

For those who are Evangelicals, the deepest purpose of the Manifesto is a serious call to reform -- an urgent challenge to reaffirm Evangelical identity, to reform Evangelical behavior, to reposition Evangelicals in public life, and so rededicate ourselves to the high calling of being Evangelical followers of Jesus Christ.

Yes. Reform. Good.

What of the Manifesto itself?
For all of the drafters' insistence that it is not a reaction to media bias or political/moral culture wars -- Os Guinness tells USA Today, "Our problem is not mislabeling by the press or rebranding because we have a bad image" -- it is quite verbose on "the marketplace" and civic engagement.

The concerns as drafted are valid ones, good ones, and the exploration of them is incisive and important. These lines from the conclusion are laudable:

“Finally, we solemnly pledge that in a world of lies, hype, and spin, where truth is commonly dismissed and words suffer from severe inflation, we make this declaration in words that have been carefully chosen and weighed; words that, under God, we make our bond. People of the Good News, we desire not just to speak the Good News but to embody and be good news to our world and to our generation.”

Generally speaking, it's a fine and dandy resource. Taking a look at the ongoing accumulation of signatories reveals quite a few important leaders think so too.

However, I do believe the Manifesto is too long to be useful. I mean that seriously. There's nothing wrong with signing this thing, as far as I can see, but what will it do? Anyone remember This We Believe? A bunch of important people signed that too.

Evangelicalism won't be reformed by a long document full of distinctions signed by a who's who, particularly if that who's who thinks signing this thing is one of the most meaningful things they can do.

What we need is a merging of the groundswell of discontent among evangelical laity hungry for the gospel and a commitment by pastors and teachers and writers to center on the gospel. So long as the culture of therapy and politics and popular entertainment maintains its hold on the shaping of the gospel in the life of evangelicalism, signing a manifesto means nothing.

---

Joe Carter, who is a signatory, shares his thoughts here.
Justin Taylor summarizes the document here.

Last Sunday evening a fifty-something year old guy approached me after the Element service to express his thanks for the sermon. He was profusely appreciative and complimentary. Expounding on the greatness and the wonder of the glory of God in His wrath and His mercy from Habakkuk 3 had clearly resonated deeply with him.

I thanked him for his kindness and then shared with him that the message had occurred in spite of my weekly struggle with the temptation to offer something else.

We talked about that for a while, and another reason I gave for aiming high -- and by that, I mean in subject matter, not in quality of presentation, although obviously I don't try to suck either -- is that I don't want to leave the building in my car, get hit on the interstate and die, and have people be able to say, "His last message was on our inner potential to be awesome." Or whatever. I want to teach so that if any given message is my last, it can't be said that I went out failing to have preached the gospel, failing to have proclaimed the glory of God.

Why do we settle for less?
When we have in the endless fountain of Scripture "the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God" and "the unsearchable riches of Christ" why do we break even for one week from that stuff to preach the searchable riches of us? Why do we press pause on the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God in the amazing gospel of grace to press play on the Seven Steps to Being a Better Person?

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - John 13:34-35

These are words Jesus spoke to his disciples on the night before his torture and crucifixion. They amaze me. They cause me to bow in shame. They cause me to rejoice.

This passage has been simmering in me for quite some time. I have found it hard to tackle this core truth; this beautiful, beautiful diamond of a command that Jesus gave us his last night on earth pre-resurrection.

"By this all people will know that you are my disciples . . ." - by what? By the fact that we have love for one another. I like the way the ESV (and NASB too) render that last phrase: "if you have love for one another".

Do you know anyone who has love for you? I certainly hope so. I hope I'm not mangling this or reading too much into it - not all versions translate it that way - but I am caught by the subtle difference between "if you have love for one another" and "if you love one another". Someone can love you and never show it, can't they? Someone can say they love you, and not mean it. But if someone has love for you - the image I get is that they have love ready, available, on full display, kind of like a good meal, set out for you - now that's quite another thing.

But be that as it may, it is definitely quite another thing, quite a different thing, quite an amazing thing, to love our brothers and sisters in Christ so that all the world can see it. That's the beauty of the church. You see, loving people who are just like you is easy. But the church is diverse, different, full of many, many different kinds of people, spanning the globe and spanning history.

The love of Christ is the kind of love that can spring into full bloom between two people who's only similarity is that they are in Christ. When the world sees that, they know it's real. The love of Jesus, truly and freely given to our brothers and sisters in Christ, is the height of (to use a word very popular these days) authenticity.

It's absolutely beautiful.

And this is one reason I am afraid. Not just because the church is divided; God's love can span those divisions and has for millennia. But in our day, in this time, it seems our divisions are becoming more dumbed-down, and hence less hefty, and, therefore, far less excusable. It's one thing to respectfully divide from a brother over the weightier matters of doctrine. It's quite another to divide from him because he isn't as relevant as you are, or because you want to be called "Christian" and he wants to be called "Christ-follower", or because his suit irritates you, or . . . whatever. It's one thing to disagree on the meaning of communion, quite another to bash your brother because you think ministering to people's physical needs is primary and you're embarrassed because he wants to give them a Bible.

It's common to be embarrassed by our brothers and sisters in Christ, isn't it? It's so easy to have that thought slip into our minds: "They're doing it wrong. They're giving me a bad name." When, God help us, by our rejection of our brother, we give Christ a bad name. I've written around this subject recently, and continue to think on it with Christ's words in mind.

I read the passage at the top of this post and I want to sing and dance for joy, and I want to fall to the ground and hide from God's wrath. I'm no theologian, but I'm pretty sure that it means that Jesus wants us to have love for our Christian brothers and sisters. Full, unashamed, on-display, familial love. Not a love that sweeps aside true differences, but rather a love like that with which Christ loved, one that sharpens our brothers and sisters, speaks the truth in love, forgives, yields, shows mercy, gives others preference in honor, and stands beside them always.

"just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."

If there was ever someone who Jesus could be embarrassed of, it's me. It might be you too. Yet he loves me. And he loves you. And he wasn't too embarrassed to be seen with us. In fact, he humbled himself beyond all imagining to come dwell among us so we could kill him.

In light of that, the least I can do is follow his example and love you.


Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. - 1 John 4:7

Note: this was cross-posted at Out of the Bloo

From Ray Ortlund:

"As I pointed out in The Art of Political War, in political combat the aggressor usually prevails. Aggression is advantageous because politics is a war of position. Position is defined by images that stick. By striking first, you can define the issues and can define your adversary. Definition is the decisive move in all political wars. Other things being equal, whoever winds up on the defensive will generally be on the losing side."

-- David Horowitz, Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey

True in spiritual warfare too. Too many churches are not aggressive. They are not redefining what really matters. They accept the world's definitions and try to add in a little Christianity. They do not compel attention, even their own people's attention.

Are we aggressively redefining all of life according to God's good news for bad people through the finished work of Christ on the cross? Are we surprising people, beginning with our own churches? Are we getting people to think and rethink with new categories of gospel-thought? Or are we servicing the whiney, selfish American way of life with the greasy lubricants of religious self-reinforcement?

"The aggressor usually prevails."

We will soon start at Element a new series called Coffee Shop Theology, in which we're going to answer submitted questions and address submitted topics (similar to Mark Driscoll's recent "Ask Anything" series, although we had our idea before we knew about his). We received nearly 40 submissions, which our leadership team narrowed down to 13 options for voting.

Voting is open to the public. If you're reading this, this means you.

Go to www.elementnashville.org/coffeeshop and vote for the question/topic that most interests you. The top 8 vote getters will be messages in the Coffee Shop Theology series.

If you can figure out how, vote as often as you'd like for one topic or for several.

Go vote!

I don't know how many of you saw the original soundbites of Jeremiah Wright's controversial statements from the pulpit. In doing research on Black Liberation Theology, for a presentation for my church, I looked up the clips on youtube to see them for myself. I found some that Wright's church wanted me to see.

Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago has posted a little more context as a way of response. Here are much bigger clips from which the controversial sound bites came. They want us to see the context. I think it's worth watching. If you want to understand this sort of thinking, I'd encourage you to take the time.

I don't do this to disparage, but if we want to understand, then we should listen and pay attention. This is how Black Liberation Theology responds to the world and reads the Bible. What flows out of the pulpit, is the natural product of the theology.

America's Chickens - This is the sermon preached the Sunday after 9-11-01


It makes sense if you understand that Liberation Theology views history and social wrongs as the primary emphasis of Scripture. Liberation theology teaches that salvation history is the story of the oppressed vs. the oppressor. And God is on the side of the oppressed. Liberation theology teaches that capitalist countries such as the U.S. do what they do militarily to keep poor people poor, and the rich people rich.

And like the prophet Amos, Liberation Theologians believe they must pronounce judgement on the nations that perpetuate social injustice and violence against the oppressed.

God CURSE America - because the Gov't wages war on the oppressed

Here's another excellent post from Prodigal Jon over at Stuff Christians Like.

And may God have mercy on us.

Case in point, last night I heard an ad for a church that is giving away a car. They want you to take their church for a "test drive" so if you visit them you can register to win a new car. When I went to their website I saw they also offered a free continental breakfast on Sundays and an inflatable thing for kids to jump on.

I like advertising. It's my job and is the reason I am able to wear such comfortable socks, but stuff like this drives me a little crazy. And here's why, when it comes to advertising and sales, customers renew the way they first purchased. By that I mean, if a special sale is why you first bought your watch, then if that watch store ever wants to get you to buy again, they have to run a similar sale. Study after study has shown that we are creatures of habit. We repeat ourselves, so if you attract a big crowd with a car giveaway or hot new worship band or anything else, you create a relationship built on a reward not a redeemer. And when you try to take away that reward you'll lose a lot of your guests. Besides that, I think they missed some really great headlines for the car promotion:

1. Forget hot rods, come win a God rod.
2. If you liked the free car, you'll love not burning in hell in a fiery lake of sulfur for an eternity.
3. Come for the car, stay for the intimate relationship with a tender savior.
4. Drive home and to heaven when you visit this Sunday.

[Emphasis mine]

"We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints . . ." - Colossians 1:3-4

"Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor." - Romans 12:10

Hanging around the Christian blogosphere, as I've been doing, lo, these past five years - as a sometime writer for this here semi-known, partially famous, somewhat linked, gatorade-drinking, monkey-posting blog - can sometimes depress me. Two comments I saw recently on other blogs have helped solidify in my mind the reason why.

The first one started like this:

Just try telling someone your real problems when they ask and watch the glazed look of freeze-panic take over their face. The problem is most Christians don't want to know . . .

The second went like this:

Wow. Isn't it funny how "Christians" are always the first to pass judgement on people?

If I've seen this once I've seen it a thousand times. It's what I call "I've Identified the Problem and it's You" syndrome, or IITPAIY. Some blogs and comment threads are positively flooded with it.

Now, please hear me. What I'm not saying is that other Christians, or the church herself, are above criticism and correction. Some of the sites on the Christian blogosphere that I most read and most respect are sites that are calling, Biblically and with grace, for needed reformation in the church. There are prophetic voices out there that we would do well to heed.

But they aren't engaging in "I've Identified the Problem and it's You" talk. IITPAIY has certain key characteristics:

1. The person engaging in it is almost always a Christian him or herself. The overwhelming sense you get when reading their comments comes in two general flavors. The first is "Yes, I'm a Christian and it's embarrassing. Have you seen who I'm forced to associate with?". The second is "I'm an authentic Christian. Them . . . well, I'm not so sure about them."

2. Lots of generalizations: You will see accusations starting with "most Christians . . .", or "Christians always . . ." followed by something terrible Christians do or something important they don't do.. Of course, statistics aren't sited - the opinions are almost always based on anecdotal evidence.

3. The complaints are often petty and unfair: One of the examples above was in response to some (I thought) very gentle questioning of a blogger regarding her use of some mild, very mild actually, profanity/slang. The comments were also mild, and more in the form of questions: "Does 'effin' stand for what I think it stands for?" and "I'm older - what's 'pimp' mean?". A commenter jumped on the thread (and subsequently ended all conversation), engaged in some smack-down IITPAIY, and noted the famous judgmentalism and hypocrisy of Christians.

In the other instance sited, a person noted that most Christians don't want to hear your problems. Now, granted, pouring your life's burdens onto random people in the church hallway who asked how your day's going might, in fact, result in a less than satisfactory response. But if you can't find anyone at your church who will take time to listen to you, you may need to find another church. Churches are constantly trying to facilitate community, get you into small groups, invite you to speak with an encourager (I see people doing this every single week at my church), hook you up with accountability partners, set you up in the counseling center, etc. And, despite the famous, perceived stinginess of churches, many of them have active benevolence committees that will help you out materially. But they probably won't write you a check in the church hall; you'll need to make an appointment, go see them, and you will probably need to answer some questions as well. They have to make sure benevolence dollars are going to the most needy, and scam-artists swarm to benevolence committees. I've heard both complaints, you see. The first that "Christians don't care what's going on in my life" and - in response to some poor benevolence committee member trying to figure out how best to dole out the finite benevolence budget - "Boy, those Christians ask a lot of questions! How rude!" It's hard to get a win here . . .

4. Scare quotes: Don't get me started on the pervasive use of scare quotes around the word "Christian" by people with IITPAIY syndrome. You see, you might be bought with the blood of Christ, and making your way, in fits and starts but with definite progress, down the path of sanctification, but, frankly speaking, they just aren't that sure about you . . .

And that gets me to the real problem, no, heartbreak, that I have with this kind of talk. People with IITPAIY aren't rooting out the tares among the wheat. They are calling the wheat tares. What's forgotten is that we can choose our friends but we can't choose our family, and Christians are a family, whether we like it or not.

To live above with saints we love
O! That will be glory!

But to live below with saints we know.
Well, that's another story . . .

It breaks my heart because Christ died for the church, His Bride. And if someone is truly saved, they are part of the Bride and part of our family, even if they don't measure up to your definition of cool, even if they don't line up with your cultural tastes or ecclesiology,

Even if they say things sometimes that embarass you.

Even if they disappoint you.

There is a way to go, in grace, to specific people in your family and work out your problems.

But what Christ never gave us the option of doing was drawing our own lines in the sand to determine which of his children we'll call "brother" and which we won't.

. . . since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints . . .

I'm hosting a conversation on calling and vocation in relation to student ministry at Gospel-Driven Church. If you've got two cents' worth, please join the discussion.

(Comments are closed on this post. Leave your comments there. :-)

Oh my. This is good stuff.

Have you heard of the (controversial) blog Stuff White People Like?
It's spawned legions of imitators, but thanks to Brian Seay, I've now encountered the trenchant hilarity that is Stuff Christians Like.

Oh gracious, it is good.

I'm still perusing the archives, but my favorite so far is #43: Metrosexual Worship Leaders

Take a few minutes to read this.

Now, here's my question:
If you're creating a ginormous hullabaloo involving dropping thousands of Easter eggs from a helicopter, some of which contain coupons for free X-Box's and such, does it make much sense to get mad at parents for being materialistic and not focused on Jesus?

Just sayin'.

Related:
The Grinch Who Stole Easter

From N.T. Wright's great Maundy Thursday sermon:

And the events of Good Friday tells us something we urgently need to know about doing God in public. If it is the true God we are talking about – the God we see and know in Jesus Christ and him crucified – then we should expect that following him, speaking for him, and living out the life of his spirit, will sometimes make the crowds shout ‘Hosanna!’ and sometimes make them shout ‘Crucify!’

We are not in this business to court either popularity or martyrdom. When they come, like Kipling’s triumph and disaster, we should treat them, imposters as they are, just the same. Speaking and living for God in the public world will sometimes dovetail exactly with what the world inarticulately knows it wants and needs; sometimes it will cut straight across what everyone else is saying.

But those who have sat at table with their Lord, and have known him in the strange privacy of the breaking of the bread, will not waver the next day when they need to stand as a sign of contradiction in the market place, in the council chamber, or in the courtroom. This is a lesson, my friends, we are going to have to learn more and more in the days to come. Work hard, you who stand up to be counted as the Lord’s publicly recognised servants, work hard at the private disciplines, so that you will know where to stand and how to stand when everyone else thinks you’re blaspheming against the secular gods of the day.

That's (a bit) what it means when Jesus said he came not to bring peace, but a sword.

Incidentally, Surprised by Hope arrived at my home from Amazon yesterday, and it is awesome so far.

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

What on God's green earth is going on?

Aaron at the BHT writes:

I went to a church this past Sunday where the resurrection message was not preached. Anyone else find that odd? It is a fairly new church, that I guess, was using Easter to launch the new sermon series because they knew there would be lots of visitors.

It is odd -- ridiculous, also, and egregious and unconscionable -- but I fear it wasn't odd in the sense of "abnormal" for modern church life.

I listened to a church's Easter message yesterday that barely referenced the resurrection in the introduction, using it as a segue into the point of the message, which was about exploring God's possibilities for your life. None of the verses used referenced the resurrection.

One megachurch used Easter to kick off its "For Men Only" sermon series, titling the introductory message "The Ultimate Fighter." Apart from the debatable wisdom of making an entire series for one segment of the congregation (I guarantee you'll never see a series called "For Senior Citizens Only"), what is in the water that's turning Easter -- Easter!!! -- into just more of the same dog and pony show?

How do we get our Resurrection Day back?

From a New York Times interview with John Hagee:

NYT: Two years ago, you founded Christians United for Israel , an influential lobbying group that has won accolades from many Jewish leaders.

JH: I’m trying to do something beneficial for the state of Israel and the Jewish people. It’s the right thing to do. If you take the Jewish contribution away from Christianity, there would be no Christianity.

NYT: That’s a touching sentiment, but some are concerned that the Zionism of American evangelicals stems from self-interest. Isn’t your involvement in Israel based on a desire to speed the second coming of Jesus?

JH: Our support of Israel has nothing to do with any kind of “end times” Bible scenario.

HT: Glenn Lucke

“Eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour, and Sunday school is still the most segregated school of the week” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In his speech yesterday, Barack Obama referred to these words. At the time that Dr. King uttered them it was true. Is it still?

All this prologue (in the post below) brings me to the main story:

While in Nashville attending seminary, my wife and I were members at a small white church,Hickory Hollow Baptist Church. We had a nice building and a good location. A local black congregation, Simeon Baptist Church, was looking for a place to meet. They were a SBC church and their pastor was an employee at the Baptist Sunday School Board. Their pastor and our pastor really made a connection with each other. They asked if they could rent our building on Sundays. The proposal was that they would have Sunday School at 10:30, right when we were finishing SS and going to church, they would arrive and go to class right as we were leaving class. Then they had church at noon, right as we were leaving the sanctuary. So when we would be going out, they would be coming in.

It was then that I learned what had really happened. When their pastor approached our pastor about renting our space, our pastor asked if our churches could merge. Our pastor offered to resign, and their pastor would become the pastor of the combined group. (It was a sincere offer.) Simeon Baptist rejected it. They wanted their own identity. So our church approved the rental unanimously.

We were excited about it. Our two churches got a long wonderfully. We hired a pianist that happened to be one of their members. When our pastor was absent, their pastor would preach for us and vice versa. Our churches had fellowships together and joint outreach projects. Some of their members would attend our services and some of our members attended theirs. Their drumset got moved to the front of our sanctuary, and though we never used it, it sat there in all of it's gleaming red glory, silent, every Sunday morning. And we knew it was going to get loud when we left. :)

It was a great thing. One that both of our churches were happy with. Our sign out front had both churches listed. My only regret was the same as our pastor's, I wished we could worship together. But it was made clear to me from some of my friends in Simeon that they didn't want that. They wanted to maintain their own identity, and they didn't want to have to tone down their worship.

Somehow the editor/writer of the Nashville newspaper's religion section found out about our arrangement. He scheduled a day that he would attend both services and interview members of both churches. Both churches were so excited. We really felt like God was doing a wonderful thing, and that we had a mutually beneficial, God-glorifying relationship.

The reporter came. He saw. He interviewed. He left. He wrote.

Front page headline of the Religion section next week read,

"Segregated on Sunday"

We were crushed. The article emphasized the fact that though it was the 90's we were still segregated. It was a negative piece. And though the individuals interviewed had only positive things to say, the reporter managed to make it look like our attitude was that the black church was good enough to pay us rent, but not good enough to worship with us white folks.

It hurt the members of both churches. We were outraged. Some wrote letters to the editor.

It still hurts me. What I remember is that the white folks wanted to merge. But I also understood the concern of Simeon. Would it ever really be "their church"? I respected their choice to remain seperate. And I rejoiced in our relationship. But a reporter had to find the negative. He had to point out a racial divide where much had gone on to bring racial reconciliation at our church.

I suppose it's still like that. As I read Obama's words about how special he felt in his black church, I was reminded that for many blacks, their church is still a special place, and they want it to remain that way. Though Obama would want whites to be welcomed at his church (and I'm sure they are), he would never want it to cease to be a black church. So in that sense, I think the segregation on Sunday will continue for a long, long time.

Obama had some good points in his speech. The media does benefit from and look for racial conflict, and they just make it worse.

In his speech, Obama referred often to "the black community" and "the white community". Will that ever end? Will there ever be a time when we are an "American Community"? Will there ever be a time that to refer to "the black community" will be just as silly sounding as "the red headed community"?

Part of what I learned from my experience with Simeon & Hickory Hollow is that the answers aren't so simple. Blacks have a community, they have an identity, one forged in hardship in persecution. You can't just expect them to give that up. Though I do long for a day when we no longer use the word "them" in reference to any racial makeup.

I don't think Obama used Dr. King's words in quite the same way that Dr. King meant them. In Dr. King's day, white churches were keeping blacks out while preaching racial reconciliation. Dr. King was challenging white churches to practice what they preach. Reading Obama's excerpt from his first book that he quoted in this speech, it seems that Obama chose his church partly because it was segregated, not in spite of it. That it was by African-Americans for African-Americans was important to him. I respect that. But that's the reason for the "segregation".

But race is difficult. Obama's race is irrelevant to me. And I wish it were irrelevant to everyone. But to the black person his or her own race isn't irrelevant. It's who they are. And so we as a society and as churches seem to be embracing racial differences at the same time that we repudiate them. It's weird. It's schizophrenic. It's complicated. And pardon the pun, it's not a black and white issue. There's a lot of gray.

For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning.- Barack Obama on 3-18-08

You people know a lot. So what I share here may not be news to you. But I had some experiences in the great city of Nashville that illuminate the words above for me, so in case it helps, I'll share them here.

My wife and I lived there for four years. It was for me an exposure to the black community that I had never had before. I was brought up in a family where race was a non-issue. I had friends of different races growing up, and it was never an issue for me. But then...the bubble got shattered.

I moved to San Antonio, Texas in the 9th grade. And there weren't very many black people at my school. So they all ate at the same table. Together. As a small community. And not one white person ate with them. I hated that. "Why are they seperate?" I wondered.

I also noticed that many of the Mexicans who went to our school (this is not a racial aspersion, they were citizens of Mexico) all sat together. I managed to breach that bubble. I don't know how, but they let me sit with them. They became my friends, where I otherwise didn't have any. I'm still grateful to them for that. (That's how I learned dirty words in Spanish, but that story will never be told. :)

After graduation, I moved to Waco, TX to go to Baylor University. Talk about segregated. There was a part of Waco that was poor, and populated mostly by blacks. It made me sad. It made me start to wonder about the sorts of things that Obama talked about in his speech. Why with segregation gone, did poverty and segregation in practice still seem to exist?

After graduating from Baylor I moved to Nashville, TN. I had the priviledge of working in downtown Nashville at the Baptist Book Store. Oh, man was that awesome. I got to meet and build relationships with members, deacons and pastors of black churches. They were probably 50% of my customers. From some relationships that developed I grew to have a deep love and respect for the black church and the black community.

One thing I learned is that it's different. And I'm not talking about worship style. We all know that. The differences are far more profound. In the black church, there is a sense of community that I'm not sure that white folks can ever fully understand. There is a great deal of power and authority given to the officers of the church. The ushers, deacons, Pastor's aids, and associate pastors were so important to their churches. It was interesting to me that people with these offices often came to me looking for guidebooks. They wanted handbooks on "how to be an usher" or "pastor's aid" or whatever. These kind of questions never came from white churches.

There was a certain seriousness and formality that went along with these positions. So much that people wanted us to use their title when we entered their names into the computer. "Usher Jones" or "Deacon Smith" or the like. For a long time I didn't understand it.

I also didn't understand the pastor's aid. These are folks in the church who serve the pastor. Oh, man do I wish white churches had these folks. :) Sometimes they would pick up his dry cleaning, pick up his kids from school, and assist him in any and every way. Black preachers hardly ever came into the store alone. They almost always had an aid or an assistant with them. And it was a big deal.

I still didn't understand all this until I spent some time in a preaching class taught by a black professor who had the kindness to explain the black church to us ignorant white preacher boys.

You see, going all the way back to slavery, and even up through the 1960's blacks were kept out of society, the white man's world. The only place they had that was their own was church. And there safe within the walls of the black church, they could be honest. They could express anger about racism. They could support one another. They could ascend to some level of social recognition. This is part of the reason "church officers" are so important. For a long time this was all many blacks had, their positions in church.

I also came to learn that in the black community the pastor was important, real important. He was much more than the guy who preached on Sunday. He had a role that is far beyond that of the typical white pastor. He was community leader. Social advocate. I remember one of my black preacher friends saying to me that he had just come from an apartment complex where one of his church members was about to be thrown out for not paying rent. He told the landlord to give the member more time. He didn't ask, he told. Why? "Because I'm the pastor," he said to me. "Now when do you white preachers do things like that?" I'm not able to remember his exact words after that, but he explained that a black pastor has an authority in the community that extends far beyond the walls of the church.

Anybody else notice that the dudes most passionate about killing "church institution" aren't exactly institution-less? Their institution is just sexier. It has more buttons. It goes to 11.

This week Out of Ur shares:
They Love the Church but not the Institution
They Love the Church but not the Institution, Part 2

I get the contextualization thing. I'm down wit dat.
I get fluid culture, the need for translation, the move to missionalization.
I get all that.

I also get that way too many of the new "churches" are infantile exercises predicated on rebellion, pride, sectarianism, reverse pharisaism, and narcissism.

I think we could all do well to read the Eugene Peterson interview Spirituality for all the Wrong Reasons every flippin' week. Peterson (yeah, he's the Message guy) is one of those institutional dudes who's incredibly relevant without trying.
On the issue of the institutional church, Peterson says:

What other church is there besides institutional? There's nobody who doesn't have problems with the church, because there's sin in the church. But there's no other place to be a Christian except the church. There's sin in the local bank. There's sin in the grocery stores. I really don't understand this naive criticism of the institution. I really don't get it.

Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There's no life in the bark. It's dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows and grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it's prone to disease, dehydration, death.

So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn't last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it's prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism.

Read the whole thing.

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

Shaun Groves with a helpful distinction between Compassion International and other child sponsorship organizations like World Vision.

Just in case you ever wondered.

Read Shaun's elaborations (he is not critical of World Vision, etc., but he is an official Compassion spokesperson, so obviously he's not unbiased), but they boil down to:
1. Compassion works through local churches.
2. Compassion sponsorship goes to each, actual sponsored child, not into a pool to be divvied.
3. Compassion works on holistic child development (education, health, discipleship, etc.), while other organizations focus on community development (infrastructure, etc).

If you don't sponsor a child through Compassion International please think and pray about doing so.

Was reading on a pastor's blog last week about five "innovations" that will revolutionize the way we do church. (Exclamation points, insert trademark symbol, all caps, woo hoo.)
It was all stuff about technology. Hologram pastors, 3-D environments, etc. It struck me as ways to make the unreal seem less unreal. Virtual incarnational ministry is an oxymoron, I think.

So here are my suggestions for five "innovations" that will revolutionize the way we do church (exclamation points, insert trademark symbol, all caps, woo hoo):

1. Preach through books of the Bible.
2. Increase frequency of communion.
3. Train worship leaders in theology.
4. Spend more on missions than on new buildings.
5. Hire pastoral staff from within the congregation.

(Yes, this is really just an abridged rehash of an old post from GDC -- 11 Innovations for Your Church!)