Who needs church (services) ?

Dallas Willard, author of books about Christian spiritual formation, writes, "We must flatly say that one of the greatest contemporary barriers to meaningful spiritual formation in Christlikeness is overconfidence in the spiritual efficacy of 'regular church services,' of whatever kind they may be. Though they are vital, they are not enough. It is that simple."

This drives pastors crazy because we know it's true.

Regular church services are most of what some churches do. Close to half of my week as a pastor is spent preparing for services. Most congregations structure their buildings around space for services. When we say that we're going to church, we're really talking about attending a service. If we cut back what we do as a church, the last thing we'd ever cut is our regular church service.

For a long time, many of us thought that the world needed better church services. We produced services with better music, drama, and practical sermons. We built our entire evangelistic strategies around getting people to come to our church services. It hasn't worked.

We have tried to build better services, but they still haven't come. In 1946, 67 per cent of Canadians regularly attended a place of worship. Today, that number is 20 per cent.

We are even losing evangelicals. In a 2003 survey, 59 per cent of evangelical Christians agreed with the statement, "I don't think you need to go to church to be a good Christian." A British Columbia former pastor defended himself on this blog against charges that he hates church. "I don't hate the church," he wrote. "I happen to think it has some inherent problems and is somewhat sociologically irrelevant. The music is horrible and the ministers speak too long, but I love the church. I do not know if I will ever attend church on a Sunday morning on a regular basis again."

It's not that church services are unimportant. They are, as Willard says, vital. The problem is that we may rely too much on one main service a week, and not on other practices that are at the heart of what it means to be the church. In the process, we are not attracting unbelievers, and are not having the impact that we could even among those who attend services.

I'm still thrilled when unbelievers attend church, but I've stopped making it my goal. "The Come-To-Us stance taken by the attractional church is unbiblical," write Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch in The Shaping of Things to Come. "It's not found in the Gospels or the Epistles. Jesus, Paul, the disciples, the early church leaders all had a Go-To-Them mentality." The church, they argue, should be missional, engaging the community outside the walls of our church building, including those who are never going to join the church.

Some question if we really have to choose between being missional and attractional. There's surely nothing wrong with being attractive to unbelievers. I've come to realize, though, that most people are not staying away from church because of the seating, parking, preaching, or music. We're not even on their radar. Perhaps our efforts will be better spent on equipping ourselves to be salt and light, living the gospel in our schools, homes, and workplaces, rather than hoping people will come to us.

The attractiveness of Christianity is ultimately not found in a church service. It's found in a group of people who are living the gospel. Churches can be more than a service. They can be alternate communities that exemplify the Kingdom of God and its values.

Part of the appeal of the early church must have been the way that slaves and masters, Jews and Gentiles, and men and women overcame social differences and worshiped together. One could only explain this kind of countercultural community of love and forgiveness by the gospel. You can explain good music and preaching lots of other ways, but there's no way to explain people who are living the gospel apart from the gospel.

Many churches are exploring how to move beyond a once-a-week event, and instead live as an alternate community shaped by the gospel. Thank God for that.

(thanks to Daryl)

When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces...

For winter’s rains and ruins are over,
And all the seasons of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

“Atalanta in Calydon” Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Case for Teaching the Bible

This interesting article with this interesting picture
comes at an interesting time.

dream

If you want to build a ship, don’t summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organize the work; rather, teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

safe

The main theme, the message of Christianity as I understand it is not that God would come to take away all of our fear, pain and suffering, but that He would fill those experiences with His presence, His assurances.


Every so often it’s good to remember how little we’re actually in charge of.

I’m safer in a boat with Jesus in the worst storm than anywhere else I could try to get to by myself.

harrASSed

everything in its place

So much for the incarnation

Hollywood is an inverted religion.

Like most, I watched bits and pieces of that great orgy of idolatry and self-worship, the Academy Awards.

What we call superstars are the gods and goddesses of our decadent time. Their church, fame, luxury, and immense, obscene wealth.

Al Gore was called in as the pastor of a more austere calling, environmentalism. "An Inconvenient Truth" was given an Oscar to show that Hollywood can take a spell from narcissism and ally itself with something a little more substantial than surgically crafted cleavage and insane self-obsession.

Al Gore is Hollywood's carbon pope.

We may not need popes much longer. The awards were barely over when one of the titans of big film, no less than James Cameron, he of the bloated budgets and blockbusters "Terminator" and "Titanic," two milestones in the history of Western Art, announces that he's about to release a documentary that will expose the last 2,000 years of Christianity as a feeble sham, explode the central mystery of the Christian faith, the resurrection, and while he's at it, prove even beyond the diligence of Dan Brown — book sales be upon him — that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene, died a natural death, and was buried with Mary to boot.

So much for the incarnation.

James, you see, has gone to an oldish story.

There's this tomb, see. Cue Angelina Jolie. And having watched enough "CSI" to bring himself up to speed, has gone all David Caruso on the bones, done the DNA, and, hey, presto, the central faith of the Western World, 2,000 years of belief and scholarship beyond even the reach of Céline Dion has, may I say it, hit an iceberg.

The world is wrong. Hollywood producer, archaeologist, Academy Award winner, king of the world James Cameron has unlocked the greatest mystery in the history of the world. Better than Geraldo at Al Capone's vault.

I expect the Vatican to apologize and close its doors within a week.

Haul down Notre Dame, board up Westminster, give over all the cathedrals and churches to Starbucks.

It was all a scam. If what Jim has on film is true — and he's a formidable ecclesiologist — Christianity is for dupes.

I have one or two minor questions... Do you think we'll see any documentaries of like attempt and equal impertinence from James Cameron on Muhammad or Islam?

To ask the question is to answer it. Hollywood is only daring with Christianity, and why does Hollywood, which worships only itself and money, feel so blithely free to mock, degrade, toy with, and abuse the sacred story of billions of people and offer to Gospels no more respect than they would the script for "Showgirls?"

Probably the answer to that question is that the minds which produced "Showgirls" are so radically vulgar and stimulated at core only by greed and the lust for cheap fame. That frame of mind will prostitute anything... the life of Christ, other people's religion for a stale press conference and a fresh buck.

It's that simple. It also explains Al Gore's Oscar. Having toppled one messiah, Hollywood wanted a more pliable one in the wings. For "The National," I'm Rex Murphy.

Pop Quiz Time...

YOU CAN'T LIE IN THIS QUIZ.
BE 100% TRUTHFUL ABOUT EVERY QUESTION.

LAST PERSON.

1. You hung out with?
Charissa

2. You texted?
Jeremy

3. You were in a car with?
Kay

4. Went to the movies with?
Kay

5. Went to the mall with?
um,...can't remember, I usually avoid them

6. You talked on the phone to?
My Mom

7. Made you laugh?
Ole

WOULD YOU RATHER...?

1. Pierce your nose or tongue?
nose, if I had to pick one

2. Be serious or be funny?
funny, but some would say I am serious all the time, its really just a cover

3. Drink whole or skimmed milk?
skim all the way baby!

4. Die in a fire or get shot..
please shoot me

5. Be a photographer for Sports Illustrated or Victoria Secret...
ummm, tough one, but I would have to go with Sports Illustrated, supermodels can't skate

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY...

1. Sun or moon?
I love the moon

2. Winter or Fall
Winter!!! for sure...the colder the better!

3. Left or right?
I lean to the left, if you know what I mean, but am decidedly right

4. Sunny or rainy?
sun definitely

6. Where do you live?
Richmond, British Columbia

7. How many kids do you want?
2, already got em

8. Do you want to get married?
um, already am...best decision I ever made!

9. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it?
I try to twirl, but I just end up slurping it

10. Have you ever eaten S.P.A.M?
yes

12. How many kinds of cereal are in your cabinet?
approximately 7

13. Do you cook?
no, my only domestic quality is that I live in a house!

14. Current mood?
tired, happy, motivated


IN THE LAST 48 HOURS HAVE YOU...

1. Kissed someone?
yes

2. Sang?
oh yeah, but we will keep that between us

3. Been hugged?
that too!

4. Missed someone?
I don't think so

5. Danced Crazy?
does in the car count?

6. Cried?
yes

7. Lied?
not that I can remember

8. Admired someone?
definitely, I am continually impressed by others

This is SICK and WRONG!!!