April 18, 2007

Wanting our marginalized status back

“Nevertheless, as the church became aware of its increasingly marginalized status, vision triumphed—and with it, prophetic rhetoric” (Ian Stackhouse, The Gospel-Driven Church, p 29).

In our attempt to be relevant, contemporary, and practical, we have lost things very important to the church: integrity, true relevance, and our prophetic voice.  We trade numerical growth for true prophetic relevancy.  We hate being marginalized, so we desperately seek whatever means to not be marginalized, to be noted, to be in the main stream, to be recognized.  Stackhouse is so right on in stating that from the church’s true marginalized status, when it accepts this role, “vision” triumphs and the church regains its “prophetic rhetoric.”  The church’s rhetoric stops being a means to an end, a means of recruiting, of votes, or budget-building, of numbers, of power, of control.  Big does not necessarily lead to influence.  And, of course, small does not either.  But when numbers are important and political influence a chief goal (usually in the guise of conserving the parts of our culture that will maintain the church’s central role and place and seeking to expunge the parts that weaken, or reduce the church’s and its leadership’s power-status and place in controlling people’s lives), the prophetic voice of the church—of the pulpit and our discipled-lives—is diminished.

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June 3, 2006

Worshiping alone in a crowd

We can see this phenomenon of making private need paramount in the increasing number of people who make it known that the forms of life in a particular congregation are no longer enough for them.  As a result, they seek another congregation that will satisfy their needs.  To them, it is vividly clear that the public gathering of the people of God has a single, primary purpose: meeting the private, personal needs of each individual member.  Contemporary forms of public worship manifests the same dynamics.  The vast majority of new songs sung repeatedly by the assemble crowd on a Sunday morning are about private, emotive experiences the individual wants to have with God in the midst of a crowd [Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk in The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach A Changing World, 2006, 68].

Oh, how far off the mark we have become in regards to our worship, our gathering together as bodies of Christ (i.e., local congregations).  We miss the purpose and place of this grand event.  This is the first time in a “church growth” book or book on missional church life that I have read that even remotely hints that we have wrongly followed our therapeutic culture with our worship.  I have felt (yes, felt!) for over twenty years that every Sunday is just another group therapy counseling session—the only difference from the real thing is we don’t get to actually express how we feel to the group leader (i.e., the pastor, worship leader, preacher).  These important times of gathering together have been primarily introspective in nature, Sunday after Sunday.  The only rare occasion we are made to think outside ourselves and outside our church body is during the missionary moments.  (And, even those moments are rarely about the immediate mission fields of our own communities, but of those “over there” in some foreign land.)  Roxburgh and Romanuk have it right: We are [my words now] private worshippers seeking to feel better (therapeutically) about our private sphere lives all the while we are in the public setting of worship.  Worshiping alone in the midst of a crowd.  When I read this portion of their book, I was reminded of Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.  In this potent book, Putnam argues that we have increasingly become disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and, even our democratic structures.  His book is a warning that our “stock of social capital,” that is, the fabric that keeps us connected with each other, has diminished, and as a result, our lives and the communities we (should be) interdependent upon have become impoverished.  We once “bowled in leagues” but now we bowl alone.  Putnam writes:

Television, two-career families, suburban sprawl, generational changes in values--these and other changes in American society have meant that fewer and fewer of us find that the League of Women Voters, or the United Way, or the Shriners, or the monthly bridge club, or even a Sunday picnic with friends fits the way we have come to live.  Our growing social-capital deficit threatens educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax collection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our health and happiness.

Private sphere Christianity and especially private sphere worship harms us in ways almost incalculable.  I am not opposed to private worship—there are plenty of texts to support such moments with God.  But, Sunday morning (or whenever the church body, local congregations meet) there is no text I can find in all of Scripture to support our current worshipping milieu where we are to worship alone in a crowd of fellow believers.

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May 5, 2006

Defining leader in the church—old or older way?

“Through much of he twentieth century the dominant images and metaphors used to describe and define the nature of leadership in the church have been borrowed and carried over from other arenas such as business, without much critical reflection.  Indeed, much of the discussion apparently assumed that leadership in the church is the same as in most other areas of life and work.”

“A common, uncritical assumption is that because leader is used with congregations and other organizations, the characteristics and skills are pretty much the same for them all.”

“It is no longer situated in a small, agrarian community or emerging merchant town of the sixteenth century, when the dominant modern models of congregational life were formed.”

“Today, in discussion about the nature of church leadership, there is little theological wrestling with the questions of how to form or socialize a people into an alternative community.  On the contrary, there is growing emphasis on how to help seekers feel they belong in a congregation without any expectation or demands on their lives.”

“Today leaders talk about the need to create a safe, non-threatening, low threshold of belonging in order to draw people into the church.”

[Quotes from The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach A Changing World by Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk].

So much of what passes for books on Church growth and church mission, even on discipleship and church leadership is, to be kind, really just mass marketing, consumeric, and trendy masked in Christian-ese and Bible proof texts.  Rare is the book produced that gets us back to Biblical basics (i.e., NT principles and emphasis); rarer still when that book moves us away from “strategies” to reinforce, renew, reestablish the same old patterns and practices and moves us toward the role and responsibilities of God’s mission through His Church as portrayed by the New Testament writers.  I have been very much impressed by Roxburgh and Romanuk’s The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach A Changing World.  When I hit the pages that contained the quotes and references printed above, I thought I had found heaven.  They articulate what I have been thinking, writing about, and praying for the last 20 years.  I appreciate that they are begging the question—what kind of people should church leaders be forming through their leadership.  They write:

Wayne Meeks and others have noted that what shaped the imagination of these people and their leadership was the drive to “resocialization into an alternative community.” 

And then quote Church Historian Alan Krieder:

“Conversion, which had made Christians into distinct people—resident aliens—now was something that made people ordinary, not resident aliens but simply residents.”

We are in need of church leaders with the skills and biblical passion to help congregations to become, not just residents, but resident aliens who provide and provoke an alternative community that is in the world, but not of the world.  Like Howard Snyder's Radical Renewal: The Problem of Wineskins, first printed back in the 80's, Roxburgh and Romanuk’s The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach A Changing World seeks to help the church to remember the older ways.

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April 24, 2006

The Missional Leader and some first impressions

“…discontinuous change is much more disturbing and difficult.  Unlike the continuous form, it creates a situation that requires something different from and more potent than the normal habits and skills that were so useful during a stable period of continuous change.  Congregations do not do well with this unexpected, dramatic change; they need entirely different skills and capacities from those that have service them well in the past” [Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk in The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach A Changing World, p 57-58].

I have been so unimpressed with much I have read on this so-called emergent and emerging church (including anything smacking of contemporary church growth); and, books on missional churches have been as well unimpressive.  Same ol’. Same ‘ol.  Just trendy stuff and approaches wrapped in postmodern (hyper-modern, really just modernity gone wild) language.  Although still somewhat skeptical of the down-play given to the place of Scripture, I have been impressed (there I said it) with Roxburgh and Romanuk’s book on the Missional Leader.  I am a third of the way through and have appreciated the analysis of their church leadership approach to change and how various congregations fit within the continuous-discontinuous change mode.  I like the honesty.  The star statement comes on page 54, although it had already been hinted at on almost every page thus far:

“Decisions must be made and action taken that no longer fit an established paradigm.”

Of course this book on Church Leadership is coming from guys who aren’t doing church, they advise, consult, and critique churches and church leaders.  Doesn’t mean what they are saying isn’t right (and so far, I am 90% in agreement—thus far, all good excepting the low view of Scripture and the eschewing of strategic planning—for another Thought), just its easier to consult than do.  But I digress.  In my reading thus far: First we must face up to it—we make changes and respond to change (or instability) in ways that find its basis in protecting the current structures, authorities, and dare I say jobs (i.e., position and place).  The book, The Missional Leader, stresses that we cannot simply make changes and do church the way we have always done it, or even to attempt to try harder.  The social and cultural contexts have vastly changed from what the older church structures were built upon.  Something else must emerge (oh, man I can’t believe I wrote that!).  A different type of church must emerge in order to compete with the changes surrounding the church—and that doesn’t mean just being trendy or mod.  And the direction we face—we can’t think that serving up religious goods and services is the call of the Church.  We continue to think it’s our job to create something the unchurched (or even the churched from a competing church) will desire and come get, as if potential members of the congregation are consumers and we are selling a product.  (Some continue to think we are, and some church growth gurus still portray church growth in such terms—but they are dead wrong, unregenerately wrong.)  And thus far in the book I have appreciated the idea of imaging a new future for God’s people (within a congregation), and allowing the Word, the sacraments, and our worship be more formative in helping the congregation imagine that new future.  What the authors paint is scary for pastors and congregational leaders.

Some might be interested in my paper on Ministerial Training, Ministerial Training & (Post)Modernity: Institution-Based Ministerial Training Creates Concrete (Post)Modern Experiences for Students >>

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March 31, 2006

Urban youth need more from us than hip-hop church

Standing on the sidewalks of the city's largest low-income housing complex, a group of cocky young men chided the elderly woman walking past them on the way to church. "Ya gonna hoot and holler in the pews today, sister?" one said. "Hold on to you pocketbook, cuz the preacher man ain't lettin' you out 'til you help pay for his new car!" added another. "Say a prayer for me," heckled yet another. All laughed at their prowess and fearlessness to ridicule the sacred symbols of religion. Most had only darkened the doors of the church when their moms forced them to go as young boys. None planned on returning.

The urban centers are hardly lacking for churches. In fact, four separate congregations circle the perimeter of this housing complex. But none of the four reach out to the subsidized residents, and certainly not to these bad-mouthing kids. Instead, the congregants come from outside the neighborhood and the pastor lives in the suburbs and rarely comes downtown except for church services. Despite the proximity, it's as if the two worlds never meet [by Jimmy Dorrell in "The Call to the City: Have We Lost Our Urban Youth?," posted on GospelCom.net].

I have read and been paying attention to what the Emergent Church and Emerging Church leadership has been saying, writing, and critiquing over the past few years.  Although appreciating the emphasis on connecting un-connected populations to Christ, the Church, and Christianity, most of the appeal seems focused on yuppies, city-suburbanites, the 20-30-40Somthings, and those with expendable cash.  I haven’t taken a poll or done my demographics, but the new trendy emphasis on outreach, evangelism, contemporary-church-experience seems awfully white and/or upwardly mobile in its framework, language, and consequences.  I have been paying attending to each successive new (trendy, up-to-date, contemporary) version of church-growth (the movements) for the past twenty years.  Each seems more wrapped around the growing suburban, upward-mobile populations than, say, the growing urban populations.  The current GospelCom.net posted essay asking, “Have we lost our urban youth?,” struck me as such an appropriate question to ask the “contemporary church.”  I appreciate Dorrell’s essay for its pointed comments regarding our neglect and the call to recover a passion for the new populations of urban youth who are Christ-less and churchless—and growing more so.  Yet this population of urban youth is surrounded by new social and cultural dynamics that (which the essay does slightly touch on) present new challenges for those who, even, want to reach out to them—high dropout rates, cultural and social attitudes of nihilism, entitlement-centered, high unemployment and unemployability, more often father-less than not, and connected to crime (whether personally, someone in the family, or peer-groups).  I personally believe that church-style and worship-style is irrelevant to these youth; even “speaking their language” (you know, the language of the streets) is not the factor that will ultimately make the difference.  I’d even say that the age of the pastor or elders or church leaders do not matter either.  What will matter is if the church is willing to reconnect of the vulnerabilities, undue the multiple barriers, and redeem the broken social aspects that are compound among the urban youth populations.  It is not just about singing relevant urban-language-filled Christian songs, or offering hip-hop style worship services, or slanging the gospel.  Even a hip youth pastor won’t do the trick without addressing the needs and barriers that are rampant among the youth.  We need to see addressing joblessness, unemployment, and unemployability as spiritual as getting these youth into the pew.  We need to understand that dealing with dropout and GED is as important as “straight-talking” about drugs.  The passion Dorrell calls for must be met with socially impacting “ministries” relevant (not just to style or language, which mimics the very cultural milieu and habits that have brought the youth to the condition they are in anyway, but) to the youth’s actual needs.  A commend Dorrell’s essay to you as a start, but it's time for more than changing styles and using street language.  And heaven help us if we think being “postmodern” will win and redeem America’s urban youth population.  Dorrell's essay>>

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March 23, 2006

God hanging on the gallows

One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows.  Roll call.  SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony.  Three victims in chains— and one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.

            The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual.  To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter.  The head of the camp read the verdict.  All eyes were on the child.  He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips.  The gallows threw its shadow over him.

            This time the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner.  Three SS replaced him.

            The three victims mounted together onto the chairs.

            The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.

            “Long live liberty!” cried the two adults.

            But the child was silent.

            “Where is God?  Where is He?” someone behind me asked.

            At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over.

            Total silence throughout the camp.  On the horizon, the sun was setting.

            “Bare your heads!” yelled the head of the camp.  His voice was raucous.  We were weeping.

            “Cover your heads!”

Then the march past began.  The two adults were no longer alive.  Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged.  But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive…

            For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes.  And we had to look him full in the face.  He was still alive when I passed in front of him.  His tongue was red, his eyes were not yet glazed. 

            Behind me, I heard the same man asking:

            “Where is God now?”

            And I heard a voice within me answer him:

            “Where is He?  Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows…”

 

[Excerpt from Night by Elie Wiesel in Jon Pahl’s book Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces: Putting God in Place (2003), p 36.]

Pahl excerpts this piece from Wiesel’s book, Night, a powerful narrative of living through the Holocaust.  What struck me was how the narrative (this little story) made me ponder where we, now, think God is showing up.  Of course, as good evangelicals (and, yes, I am still one) we know God can’t be seen (at least according to texts like John 1:18).  So we piously eschew the idea of seeing God “in person” anywhere.  But that’s not what is being asked when we say, “Where if anywhere, is God?” (as Pahl puts it).  Of course, this is a metaphorical question or idea.  So when we ask the question Where is God? we are not asking something about God, but something about ourselves.  The short account from Night made me think: where we see God is where we show our emotions, give our time, and place our commitments.  If we see God in a cardboard box over a street sewer vent, keeping warm from the night’s cold, we do something about homelessness.  If we see God hanging out on the street corner, spray painting graffiti on a store façade, we fight for programs to change lives.  If we see God hunched over on a hidden park bench smoking a crack pipe, we develop soup kitchens and halfway houses and drug rehab-centers.  If we see God, baby in toe standing in line for free bread and clothing, we develop self-sufficiency programs to break the cycle of poverty.  Maybe we’d have more Christian community action if Christians would stop limiting where they see or can see God.

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March 14, 2006

Put the money where the results are

“So much for the money.  The raging debate in student-aid circles today is whether money is the worst of the barriers facing the poor.  ‘No,’ says James Heckman, a professor at the University of Chicago and a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics.  Among well-prepared students, he finds that the poor enroll at almost the same rate as the rich.  For those who can't raise enough for tuition, targeted grants would be ideal.  But to prepare and motivate larger numbers of poor kids, the most effective "college prep" may be enrichment courses for infants and toddlers.  The research is proving it, Heckman says.  Schools (and testing) play only a minor role in raising test scores.  Stimulating tots produces more successful and smart adults” [Jane Bryant Quinn in “New Math for College Costs” (Newsweek, March 13, 2006)].

Everywhere I go, it seems that I read or hear of mounting evidence or from authors referring to the growing evidence that the best way to raise “student test scores” and produce more college bound students and turn out more productive adults is to invest in children ages 1-5 (i.e., preschoolers).  And, when the discussion turns toward the poor, there seems to be a univocal voice among researchers that investing in preschool literacy does more for them (the poor) than any other resource the government or private sector can provide.  In an essay from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota, the research shows that early childhood development (especially among the children from low-income and poor families) equals economic development.  The writer concludes, “It is time for Minnesota to put its money where the return is: Prepare our disadvantaged children for a successful education and the opportunity for personal achievement.”  This could be said of every state.  (Connecticut, are you listening!)  Quinn, the essayist above, concludes that our federal legislators are not that interested in the research of people like James Heckman, “but governors are.”  (As well they should be.)  If we want to make long-sighted, cost effective change among rural and urban poor, we need to invest upfront in children, especially pre-school children.  “No Child Left Behind” is a good slogan, but the real teeth in such a government policy should result in more investment in children ages 1-5, especially poor children.  (Stop decreasing Head Start!)  As the above thought concludes, “Stimulating tots produces more successful and smart adults.” 

For the Federal Reserve essay >> "Early childhood development = economic development" by Rob Grunewald and Art Rolnick

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March 2, 2006

Screwtape plugs The DaVinci Code

This is so true: the unbeliever or disbeliever really just finds in the storyline what he or she wants to believe anyway.  We like Jesus, but keep him safe, and politically correct before his time, and make sure the Savior of the world is like us.  As long as His message is a good one of love and peace and respect, but keep away those nasty things like Holy Divinity, sin, and judgment.  Heaven knows we don’t need to dwell on those tough (and hopefully not true) aspects of “invented” Christianity.  It has momentary impact, however.  But, it produces nothing in the end that unbelievers already are willing to accept and affirm.  As for the book, The DaVinci Code, after the movie and some hype, it will slip away into the large pile of untruths that fill our libraries.  But I can’t wait to see the movie…I know how to enjoy fiction and imaginary tales…

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February 15, 2006

The agenda-driven life

“Calvin DeWitt, professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leading evangelical supporter of various environmental causes, called the NAE statement "a retreat and a defeat." He predicted "negative consequences for the ability of evangelicals to influence the White House, unfortunately and sadly." Should influencing the White House be the primary or even a major objective for evangelicals, or should their goal be to please God?

“A better objective would be to follow another statement made not by a committee but by a single individual who claims ownership of His church and requires obedience to all who would follow Him: "Go and make disciples of all nations." (Matthew 28:19) Jesus also called on His disciples - then and now - "to obey everything I have commanded you." A quick look does not reveal those teachings as having anything to do with global warming or the environment. Rather, He calls individuals to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison and pray for those who persecute them. Evangelicals should pursue these higher virtues instead of settling for the lower life of politics” [Cal Thomas, “The agenda-driven life,” in Townhall.com (Feb 13, 2006)].

I certainly hope there are some evangelical Christians involved with environmental issues.  And some, I hope, are lobbying politicians for legislation that is reasonable and actually helps protect our environment.  But this is crazy.  Now evangelicals are seeking to be known as “green.”  Don’t they know the verdict is not out on whether there really is a man-made global warming, let alone if we can gauge how much, or whether it is something we (man) can stop?  (Read Michael Crichton’s State of Fear that exposes the weak, but agenda-driven green movement’s argument and its manipulating the evidence for global warming.)  I think I am mostly bothered because there are other “causes” which are clearly a need and clearly presented in Scripture.  I am speaking specifically about the issues of poverty.  Where is the same outcry and desire to end poverty right here in America?  Let’s see a call “Call to Action” from these same 86 evangelicals to end poverty.  I guess its not sexy enough of an issue, especially since it is in their own backyard (see my Margin on the NIMBY principle).  Let’s see these 86 signers of the green evangelical magna carta call on the President to fight the war on poverty right here in the United States.  Plead with him, lobby him to restore full funding to Community Services Block Grant program, the primary Federal instrument that has as a mission and purpose “to alleviate the causes and conditions of poverty.”

A New York Time's essay also highlights some of the concerns other evangelical have on the evangelical switch to green (selected paragraphs):

“Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying ‘millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors’.”

“Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller ‘The Purpose-Driven Life’.”

“’For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority,’ the statement said. ‘Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians.  But now we have seen and heard enough’.”

“Some of the nation's most high-profile evangelical leaders, however, have tried to derail such action. Twenty-two of them signed a letter in January declaring, ‘Global warming is not a consensus issue.’  Among the signers were Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; and Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.”

“E. Calvin Beisner, associate professor of historical theology at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., helped organize the opposition into a group called the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance.  He said Tuesday that ‘the science is not settled’ on whether global warming was actually a problem or even that human beings were causing it.  And he said that the solutions advocated by global warming opponents would only cause the cost of energy to rise, with the burden falling most heavily on the poor” [“Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative,” by Laurie Goodstien in the NY Times (February 8, 2006)].

Well, my goodness.  Haven’t they seen enough of poverty?  Haven’t they heard enough?  Isn’t the Bible full of agenda regarding the Christian community’s responsibility to the poor?  This climate thing is still an unknown.  But, what is known is that people are poor and Christians are supposed to do something about it...no need for research on this issue.

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February 10, 2006

Models of ministry, defining job descriptions and measuring success

“For earlier generations, the ideal minister was the evangelist who was measured by his success in persuading large numbers of people to become Christians.  Some were traveling revivalists, and countless others worked in local congregations where they were appointed for evangelistic purposes.  In the second era, congregational expectations for ministers shifted from outreach to nurturing the congregation and responding to the needs of individuals.  In this era, ministers learned the techniques of the therapist and placed considerable value on pastoral care and counseling.  Their task was to meet the ever-increasing perceived needs of the people in the congregation.  In the present era, the minister is ultimately measured by the ability to organize, build, and manage a complex organization.  Congregations continue to assume that the minister will maintain the traditional roles of marrying and burying, but they believe that the ultimate goal of the minister is to take the congregation to a new level of growth.  The minister must be both an effective communicator and an administrator.  In a competitive religious marketplace, the task of the minister is to ensure that the congregation maintains its place among religious consumers.  Often search committees no longer look for someone who conforms to one of these models.  Instead they seek someone who is a combination of, for instance, Jay Leno, Lee Iacocca, and Dr. Phil [James W. Thompson in Pastoral Ministry according to Paul: A Biblical Vision (Baker 2006), 8-9].

Wow.  Everything but a biblical understanding of the role of the minister, pastor, shepherd of the flock.  Immediately I connected with what Thompson was driving at in his new book.  I have read, over the past twenty-five years, countless books on pastoral ministry, church ministry, and the expected role and duties (requirements) of the pastor.  I have not seen many that actually struggles from a theological (what does the Bible actually say?) or an exegetical (what does the text actually say?) point of view.  Thompson puts the discussion of Pastoral Ministry (at least according to Paul) within a theological and biblical framework.  When I read the above words, my heart was saddened: we have traded the patterns of this work with its marketplace values pressed upon pastoral (and church) praxis at the expense (really the replacement) of a Scriptural basis for pastoral ministry.  I agree with those who have recently said, we’ve invented much of what we call church and church life and experience—so a little return to Scripture is a good thing.  I anticipate good things from Thompson’s book.  I am getting closer to wanting to actually throw my hat back into the Pastoral ring.  Scary thought—for the church!  Sorry, Dr, Phil I will not be.  More biblical work needs to be done on measuring success biblically--something I hope to tackle in the future.

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January 12, 2006

‘Disneyfication’ of life and the life of the church as exemplar

“This kind of development is what David Lyon calls ‘Disneyfication,’ what ‘diminishes human life through trivializing it, or making involvement within it appear less than fully serious.’  It is a fearful idolatry and the immediate judgment that is being visited upon us is that our culture has become shallow, cheap, and vulgar.  And far from challenging this emptiness and futility, evangelical churches have too often been its exemplars, as I shall argue in a later chapter, pitching their ‘product’ to ‘consumers’ and emptying themselves of every vestige of spiritual gravitas as f striving for a serious faith were a failing of great magnitude and one to be avoided at all costs” [David F. Wells in  Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World (2005), p 47]

I should be talking about something more positive on my daughter’s birthday, but then again, she has turned into a teenager today.  I am hoping that she will be a better teenager and less sophomoric than the Senators I am watching on TV showboating to their voter-base and baser instincts…and it makes me think of our culture which is very much like a teenager…anyway…Reading David Wells book, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, isn’t quite like a breath of fresh air.  It is more lot a ton of bricks falling.  He hits the nail right on the head—Church as exemplar of our culture.  Being creative and seeking how to “sell our product” to the unchurched consumer are not the same things.  I have often thought the community at large and the unchurches don’t take us as very serious, because we aren’t—we do not show them serious, we show them entertainment, happy theme park, disneyfaith.  I remember reading Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, and learning that Sesame Street didn’t work as well as they had originally thought—preparing kids for school.  The big problem: school, once they were there, didn’t look or sound or feel like the Sesame Street TV show.  I have often wondered: Life doesn’t look like or feel like or sound like church-life or worship, and maybe that’s why our faith doesn’t penetrate into society.  People don’t live at Disneyland: they might work or play there, but they don’t live there.  It is for escape, forgetting, for fun, a pause in life, not for developing life.  No wonder we have it so awfully wrong within our church-life and worship habits.

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January 10, 2006

The words we use

“When it was virtues which were being pursued, and good character was the desired end, then the words used in [popular advice] manuals were typically citizenship, duty, democracy, work, building, golden deeds, outdoor life, conquest, honor, reputation, morals, manners, integrity, and above all, manhood.  As the shift to focusing life around personality occurred, the language in these manuals also changed.  Now, words the most commonly used were fascinating, stunning, attractive, magnetic, glowing, masterful, creative, dominant, forceful.  It was a shift away from the older moral concern with personal restraint and sacrifice to the new concern with self-realization and self-expression.  It was a shift away from one’s inner moral fabric and toward how one felt or how one appeared to others.  Now, it was becoming important to express one’s uniqueness, to stand out in the crowd, and to know how to use one’s personality as one navigated through life’s stormy channels or came upon its opportunities.  This ‘shift from character to personality,’ wrote Philip Cushman, ‘reflected a profound change in the cultural terrain of the era.  The self was in process of being configured into a radically different shape’” [Referred to by David F. Wells in his book, Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World (2005), p 50].

We can almost tell how old a person is, or more so, how mature a person is by the words they use.  We know repeated “No” means babyish; “mine” toddler; “my ri