Community is where you make it

Tag: religion

  • Canadian Podcasting Macho Church

    Ever have a few days when everything seems related? Call it convergence.

    While cruising by my regular blogs yesterday, I noticed that Church Marketing Sucks asks why men don’t like church. Short answer? It’s not macho.

    According to David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church, “today’s church culture favors, even expects, participation in intimate, nurturing behavior such as singing, hand-holding, sitting in circles and sharing feelings.”

    Booklist expands on Murrow’s recommendations.

    Murrow advocates injecting a strong shot of testosterone into the proceedings to restore the masculine spirit to the church. Churches need to provide a more challenging and confrontational approach to religion and spiritual issues instead of concentrating on more traditional — and female-oriented — calls for conformity, control, and ceremony.

    Sounds good; I can’t argue with Murrow. Promise Keepers has had great success filling sports arenas with Christian men worshiping in a distinctly “manly” way in “macho” surroundings. I must admit, I’ve never done the wave while waiting for church to start before. At PK events, the speaking is direct and focused on challenging men to live up to their roles in family, church, and society.

    Pastor Cavey

    So today, I cruise by Church Marketing Sucks again and read that The Meeting House has “purge Sundays” where they uninvite the pew sitters. Seriously, it’s get involved or get lost.

    Wow! If that isn’t taking a “challenging and confrontational approach” as recommended by Murrow, I don’t know what is. The Meeting House must drip in testosterone.

    Imagine my surprise on visiting their web site and reading, “Rather than come to start a new religion, Jesus himself was very clear that he came to call us into a new intimacy of relationship with the Creator of the universe.” What’s up with this “intimacy” and “relationship”? This isn’t the macho, confrontational stance I was expecting. Where’s the “I Want You” recruitment poster with God pointing His finger at me?

    To be fair, The Meeting House is also non-traditional in its treatment of women. Read its FAQ on women in church leadership positions. You might find other interesting answers regarding The Meeting House’s decidedly irreligious take on church.

    Looking for an explanation? Could it be that The Meeting House is in Canada?

    In all seriousness, The Meeting House looks interesting. I discovered a cache of sermon archives in MP3 format with PDF sermon notes and PowerPoint slides. After reading Cracking DaVinci’s Code, I’m interested to hear Pastor Cavey’s take on the issue.

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  • Terri Schiavo and the Pope

    I’ve been discussing with “AL” Terri’s and the pope’s deaths in the comments of a previous article. Go here to follow the discussion.

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  • Today’s Gen-Y 10 Commandments

    In keeping with the TNIV Bible meme, Teflon at MoltenThought rewrites the 10 Commandments in “today’s language.” Here’s a sample:

    10. If your neighbor’s got a fly crib or a pimped-out set of wheels, that’s they bidness, not yours.

    Go to MoltenThought to read all ten and their context.

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  • The Blogosphere — Cracking It Open To 1

    The blogosphere is exploding. Technorati is tracking 7,264,863 weblogs and 869,827,508 links. More than 14 million Americans have posted a comment on a blog. These are impressive numbers.

    Set Godin asks:

    My question, which I have no answer for, is what happens when the volume goes up to 11? When there is just too much noise? Does it all get filtered? Who filters?

    My answer: we’re a long way from cranking it up to 11. We’re just starting to crack it open to 1.

    We are taught that “polite” society doesn’t discuss politics or religion. It’s too easy to offend someone. So we don’t. We don’t talk religion. We don’t talk politics.

    As a result we don’t know what our neighbors think about Social Security reform. We don’t know what our co-workers think about the war on terrorism. We even don’t know what our friends at church think about abortion. We haven’t learned how to have a thoughtful discussion, express our ideas, and maybe learn something in the process. But somehow, we’re not offended by all this.

    Enter blogging. Millions of us are expressing our opinions on otherwise “taboo” issues. We’re writing about politics and religion. We’re learning a little more about each other. Sometimes, we’re just posting a recipe or two.

    But it’s barely a whisper. There are 6,420,384,256 people on this world. If there are 8 million blogs, that’s only one blog per 800 people. I’d say there’s room for more volume.

    Crank it up!

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    Brent Logan

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  • Just Showing Up

    Eighty percent of success is showing up. Just being there. Being “religious” about getting it done.

    According to Tod Bolsinger, showing up is next to godliness.

    Once we realize that our religious life is nothing but a humble response to God wherever we are, then we understand that God is always, always, always reaching out to us, calling us to him, inviting us to listen and learn from him. And godliness is nothing more than answering the call and showing up.

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  • Share the Dream

    In our nation’s capitol, on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

    On the day we celebrate King, read the speech. Listen to the speech. Resolve to do your part to end discrimination.

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  • The Rain Comes Down With A Pitter-Patter-Pit

    When the Asian tsunami struck, one of my pastors was in Australia. The massive devastation, the enormous loss of life, prompted some soul searching and resulted in her making five resolutions. Her third resolution was simply stated: obey God more. To illustrate the point, she referred to Jesus’ story of the wise and foolish builders.

    24Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

    Matt: 7:24-27 (NIV)

    When you obey God, a single set of principles governs your behavior and you become a whole, real whole person. You build on one rock.

    When you compartmentalize your life, you act differently around different people. You follow different rules depending on the circumstances. Rather than being one, real person, you are multiple, fake people. (It’s interesting how duplicitous is synonymous with fake.) You don’t build on one rock; you build on a bunch of little rocks. And what is sand, but a bunch of little rocks.

    I’ve heard this story explained many times, but this was the first time I’d heard building on the sand be described as being compartmentalized and fake. It spoke to me. Maybe it will speak to you, too.

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  • Missing Mission

    Do you have a personal mission statement? I don’t. I don’t even write New Year’s resolutions.

    I ask because I’m preparing to teach the teen lesson at church tomorrow. The materials I’m studying aim to enable the students to:

    1. Discern the value of living by well thought-out principles.
    2. Develop a mission statement that reflects their core values and goals.
    3. Encourage others to be guided by goals that have eternal outcomes.

    The second item and its associated activity caught my attention. If having a mission statement is worth my teaching, it should be worth my doing.

    I understand the general principles that direct my life. They are the same principles that guide other Christian’s lives. Is it sacrilegious to say that those Christian principles are not sufficient, that they should be supplemented with a personal mission statement? I hope not. After some thought, it appears there is benefit to a personal mission statement. A personal mission statement can consider my my specific skills and interests. I need not limit my goals to what I can accomplish now. Growth is possible.

    I’m not so naive to believe that possessing a personal mission statement will change my life. I’ve worked for various organizations having missions statements with limited impact on their day-to-day operations. The benefit of a mission statement is in its making, in its updating.

    Update: This evening, I visited Tod Bolsinger’s blog, “It Takes a Church…,” (about which I blogged yesterday) and clicked on his book, Show Time: Living Down Hypocrisy By Living Out The Faith. On the resulting Amazon.com page was a link to Hugh Hewitt’s book, In, But Not Of: A Guide to Christian Ambition. It’s relevance to my study topic is unmistakable. I was already planning on getting Hewitt’s book, Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World. It looks like another purchase is in order.

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  • Blog for Jesus

    Bottom line: There is no more effective, cost efficient, time efficient and growing way to communicate something as important as the truth of Christianity than through a whole hosts of pastors and teachers blogging. And, if Hugh [Hewitt] is correct, this is only the beginning of a whole ‘reformation.’

    Tod Bolsinger

    Tod Bolsinger, pastor and author, encourages other pastors to blog for Jesus.

    I hope he’s successful.

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