The American church has been getting a lot of press lately. It seems that every day I read another study about the everyday American's disenchantment with the church. I really don't think that this reporting is intended to be malicious towards the church in any way, but it's still bad news for us. For example:
A new study from the Barna Group says that 88% of American adults list their religious faith as being "very important" in their lives. That's a big number, but check out some of the other big numbers from that study:
-45% say they'd be willing to try a new church
-75% say that they believe God is connecting with people in different ways than he used to, and 64% are "completely open to carrying out and pursuing [their] faith in an environment or structure that differs from that of a typical church."
-71% say they are more likely to develop their beliefs and faith on their own, rather than accepting the beliefs of any particular church on the face.
That's a staggering number of people who are unhappy, distrustful, or at the very least, apathetic in regards to the current face of the church in America. Keep in mind that a lot of these people are already in our churches - we're not just talking about non-churchgoers here! It's obvious that a major change is necessary in the church if we are to remain relevant to the culture that we are a part of. (PS - doing nothing is not anoption! The Bible clearly calls believers to live in community with each other!) To tell the truth, I think that need for change has been obvious for many years now, as these trends are decades old. So the question then becomes: "what do we do about it?" A lot of churches in recent years have adopted the idea that if people aren't attending their church, it's because the quality and diversity of their programming is sub par. For that reason, they've chased bigger and better spaces to worship in, a wide variety of weekday offerings, and greater name recognition. Now, I'll be honest - there's nothing wrong with any of those things. I believe that it is important for our churches to pursue excellence in our worship and other offerings, and the church is in a unique position to offer a lot of opportunities to our communities that can not be found in other places. Having said that...
Check out this quote from a recent U.S. News and World Report article on rebranding campaigns in mainstream denominations:
"Study after study has shown that religions that grow are the ones that are hard-core in some way. They have something that differs sharply from the culture in which they operate," says Boston University's [Steven] Prothero. "That's the problem with mainline Protestantism: It's not different enough from mainstream America."
There it is folks. Now obviously, this is a quote from one person, but it's an idea that resonates very strongly with me and has been on my heart for a while now - the "bigger and better" mentality is not going to reach the folks we're trying to reach, because it too closely mirrors the rest of our culture. As Christians, we are called to be in the world, but not of the world, which means we need to set ourselves apart as different. I think that this idea applies to not only our actual beliefs, but also the way we approach business, family, finances, and church! Our churches need to be striving to create a place that is counter-intuitive to the current culture, a place where people can take refuge from the world, in a way, and focus solely on God.
Now for my own confession: I'm guilty. I often find myself in this mentality, and to be honest, I don't know what the solution to this issue is. I do know that this is a problem that needs to move to the forefront of discussion in our churches, because the people we're trying to reach are not finding the kind of community that Jesus called us to. Let's start a discussion, and let's find out what it will take to move church from where it is now to a place where we can be more relevant to the world we exist in.
One of my lesser known hobbies/passions is minimalistic living & travel. I'm the guy who goes on vacation for a week with nothing but a small duffel bag and still comes home with stuff I didn't use. I've been interested in the small house movement for some time now, and Jay Shafer of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company has been at the center of that movement since the beginning. Having spent a significant amount of time on the Tumbleweed site checking out the plans and pictures over the years, I was more than a little excited to find out that Jay was personally bringing a brand new Tumbleweed Fencl on tour across the country. I was even more excited when I realized that one of the stops was 15 minutes from my house! I was lucky enough to go down tonight and see the Fencl, and I have a few pictures and thoughts to share with all of you: The Fencl is about 125 square feet (which by Tumbleweed standards would be a "mid sized" home). There were about 15 tiny house enthusiasts there tonight to see the house. Jay hung out inside and answered just about any question you could think of about his houses and company. It was a real pleasure to meet him and some of the other folks from the Columbus area interested in these homes.
The Fencl has a sleeping loft at one end of the house. A lot of the Tumbleweed houses have full length lofts, but I think I like this design better, as it makes the great room (where we're all standing) feel really roomy. There's a double ladder to get up to the loft, which holds a full size mattress comfortably.
Here's a shot of the kitchen. It features a small fridge and a double burner stove. There's also a sink off to the right. The bathroom is to the left. There's a small heater in the great room which easily heats the entire house (Jay has reported in the past that he can heat his house for an entire year for less than $200) Another thing that this picture illustrates (if only a little bit) is the abundant storage space. For being such a small house, the Fencl has a ton of closet and shelf space.
To wrap this one up for anybody who's still with me... call me crazy (many people have), but I've always thought I could live in this type of house, and tonight definitely confirmed that. When you go small, the quality can be really excellent, and to be honest, I think all of my stuff would fit in here (except for the large instruments, of course... some other kind of storage would need to be arranged for that gear) I'm not sure if I'd want one quite this small, but I could definitely do less than 500 square feet. The simplicity would be freeing, I think.
Maybe someday... for now, I'm just glad to say I finally got to see one in person! So what do you think?
This post is part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set List project. Check out more set lists here!
Centerpoint Church 6/7/09
Opening Set:
-Forever - G to A - (Chris Tomlin)
-Mighty To Save - A - (Reuben Morgan, Ben Fielding)
-He Knows My Name - E - (Tommy Walker)
Closing Song:
-God Of Wonders - G - (Marc Byrd, Steve Hindalong)
Yesterday got off to an interesting start. We found out late Saturday night that the pastor of one of our sister churches had been admitted to the hospital. Since we had a guest preacher yesterday, Dave ended up going down to Gahanna to fill their pulpit. Not a huge deal, just a change we weren't expecting. We also had a whole variety of technical issues in rehearsal... nothing we couldn't fix/overcome, just a lot of little things we couldn't have planned for.
In any case, once we got to service-time, everything ran very smoothly and we had a great morning!
Musically, we kept it pretty simple this week. We're headed into a lot of different and challenging services for the summer, so I decided to go with standards today. The band played very well this morning.
We had Jon Fulton preaching this morning on "Functional Design" - the "why" of Genesis and creation, rather than the "how". Jon is a member of our congregation who is studying for ministry right now and needed to preach to fulfill a class requirement. I thought he did a great job and put a different spin on some of these topics. Great job, Jon!
As I've mentioned in my recent set lists, we just finished a series on 1 Peter. The whole series was great, but there's one particular passage from a couple of weeks ago that has really been working on me:
"But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander."
-1 Peter 3:15-16
This is such a great picture of evangelism, but how often do we miss it in the evangelism culture of our churches? As I read it, Peter has two instructions for us here:
1.) ALWAYS be ready to talk about our faith
and
2.) Do it in a respectful, non offensive way.
It seems to me that most Christians are fully engaged in one or the other of these two points. Many folks are ready to talk about their faith any time, day or night, with anybody. The problem is that they don't approach it in a respectful way. In their eagerness to share the "reason for their hope", they offend the very people they are sharing with! On the flip side are folks who are utterly concerned with the "gentleness and respect" that Peter speaks of, but find themselves unable or unwilling to share their faith because of it.
In truth, Peter calls us to do BOTH. We are to be constantly ready to answer for the hope that we have in Christ, and we are to give that answer in a sensible, informed, respectful way. In my opinion, what Peter is telling us here is that we should be dialoguing with the world around us about our faith. What a different culture of evangelism we could create within the church if Christians and churches everywhere started taking this approach! An evangelism culture that seeks to dialogue with others about our faith, a culture that desires openness and honesty and sharing of beliefs... I strongly believe that such a shift would not only improve Christianity's relationship with the rest of the world, but in the process expand our mission field in a way we can only imagine right now.
God, please help us to be Christians that are always ready with an answer, and respectful in the way we give it.
50 different worship leaders have already posted their set lists on Fred Mckinnon's blog. Check it out!
Centerpoint Church 5/2/09
Opening Set
-Everlasting God - A - (Lincoln Brewster Arrangement)
-Strong Tower - C - (Kutless)
-Amazed - D - (Jared Anderson)
Closing Song
-How Great Is Our God - A - (Chris Tomlin)
I'm a little late posting my recap, and, as this week is going to be rather insane, I'll keep it short.
We wrapped up our "Dare I Hope" study of First Peter yesterday. Dave's message was great... talking about "Dare I Hope to Stand Strong in This World?". It was a full service (in more ways than one!), as we had two baby dedications and one baptism this week. These are always very special days for our church, and yesterday was quite a celebration!
Musically, we had some ups and downs this week. We had planned to play "My Hope" (an old David Crowder Band song) as a pre-service this week, but ended up having to scrap it in rehearsal. It just wasn't hitting with the band. That's only the second time I've ever had to "pull the plug" on a tune in rehearsal, so our track record is still pretty darn good, but it's still not something I like to have to do. In the end it ended up being okay, as the service ran long even without it. We also had a little bit of trouble with "Strong Tower" (it's been a LONG time since we did it), but it went fine during the service.
Overall, it was a very joyous, fairly smooth morning at Centerpoint. We're gearing up for what promises to be a pretty wild summer, too!
|
