Retrosynthetic Analysis

One of the areas where churches are known for wasting time is in strategic planning.  Churches often develop a "five-year plan", only to have it gather dust on a shelf and be supplanted within three years by a new five-year plan.

I believe that strategic planning is incredibly important.  However, my approach to strategic planning was shaped by the two areas of my secular expertise: synthetic organic chemistry and software development.

What each of those two areas have in common is that you begin with a vision of the finished product and then work backwards, step-by-step, until you have the basic building blocks you need to create the finished product.  In organic chemistry, this was called "retrosynthetic analysis."  You start with a target molecule that you're trying to make.  You draw it on a blackboard and ask: what would I need to make it?  You analyze it and think: "If I had compound B and compound C, I could make A."  But then you need to make B and C.  So you analyze them and say: "if I had D & E, I could make B, and if I had F & G, I could make C."  You then keep working backwards, sometimes for a couple of dozen steps or more, until you get to basic compounds whose synthesis is already known or (better yet) can be purchased from a supplier.

This is how I think strategically about my church.  One advantage of this method is that it forces you to have a specific vision about where your church could be.  And I encourage you to make this be a BIG vision.  So big that you can't (at first) imagine how you'd get there - the point of the process is to create a pathway you hadn't imagined before.

In churches, there isn't a single vision for your church - the vision is an amalgam of visions for different program areas.  You may have a vision for worship, a vision for children and youth, a vision for mission, etc.  Together they form a vision for the church.  Working backwards from a large vision is the best way to foresee the route to get there, the resources you'll need, and the intermediate phases you'll pass through.

Let's look at how this could work for church school.  Let's say you're in a very small church but your vision for church school is a weekly average of 80 children.

The first question is: what would you need for a church school of 80 kids per week?  The answer might be: 6 classrooms, 18 volunteer staff, and a 1/2-time Christian Education director.  Does your church have 6 classrooms?  Maybe you do, but 2 of them are rented out or being used for something else.  Know that someday you'll need them back.

Then you ask: what would you need to get to 80?  Now the point of this exercise is that you don't know.  So the question really is: at what point would you be confident that you'll get to 80?  The answer might be: "40 - if we get to 40, there'll be no way to stop us from getting to 80."

So then you run the same questions: what does 40 look like?  The answer might be 4 classrooms and a volunteer Sunday School superintendent. 

When would you know for sure you could get to 40?  Maybe the answer is 20.  What does 20 look like?  Maybe it's 3 classes run by the Christian Education Committee.  When would you know you could get to 20?  Maybe it's when you have 6.  What does 6 look like?  One class with a dynamic teacher.

How do you get to 6?  Start with one family.  How do you get one family to stay?  Perhaps by convincing them that you have a vision.  And know that one family isn't just one family, it's the foundation for your future.

What do you gain by working this way?  Now that you've worked backwards from where you want to be to where you are, you can look forward one step at a time.  At the size of having only one family with kids, you have a vision to encourage them to stay and help build something significant.  And you know you need to be looking for that one great teacher.

At 6 kids, you know you need to be thinking about laying the groundwork for a multi-class structure and looking for a person who might be a volunteer superintendent.  And when you finally recruit that superintendent, you can do so with a limited mission: to grow the church school from 40 to 80.  Knowing that it is a closed-end assignment can make it easier to find the right person - and easier to avoid the problem of having a position outgrow the person. Quite often I've found myself looking for a transitional person, not a permanent solution. 

When you get to 40 kids you know you need to get those rented classrooms back.  No long-term rental agreements on your space!  

Now do these steps work infallibly?  Of course not!  There will be many mid-course corrections along the way.  And notice that there are no timelines on this plan.  Each phase happens as it happens.  But it keeps you thinking big, it keeps you aware of the intermediate progress you're making, and it keeps you looking out for what you're going to need next.

This method helped me clarify the first steps I needed to take in jump-starting our Adult Education program, our Stewardship program, and our Mission work.  Some of the steps have seemed small, but I know they're actually more significant than my people realize.

Too many pastors have the attitude that all they need to do is help the church take a step forward and then see where it takes them.  My contention is that motion without vision is how you walk into walls.  There is no such thing as leadership without vision.

And notice that this method doesn't work with vague, amorphous visions.  If your vision for your church only goes as far as words like "warm and fuzzy", this won't help you get there (since "there" isn't defined).  But this is a way to realize big, hairy, specific visions for your congregation.  My vision (and I hold it very close to the vest) actually starts with my retirement.  I'm 50.  By Social Security standards, I expect to retire at 67.  I have a vision for what I'll be leaving in the hands of my successor.  I've had that vision since about a year after I started here six years ago.  It took a year to get the vision.  Will I be here until retirement?  Maybe, maybe not.  When the congregation cannot or will not advance toward that vision any more - that will be my signal to leave.  So I can't guarantee that I'll get there, but I know what "there" looks like.

If you start with a vision - even a big vision - and plan backwards from your vision to where you are, you can see that what you thought was impossible is actually doable.  And isn't that what faith is about?

A Brief Rant...

As Hurricane Irene approached, I checked the websites of four decent-sized Presbyterian churches in our area to see what decision they had reached regarding worship services on that Sunday.  To my surprise, two of the churches had no mention of Irene through the entire weekend - despite learning through other means that they, like most every church in our area, had cancelled services for the safety of our congregants and at the request of local authorities who did not want non-essential cars on the road.

In this day and age, there is no excuse for a stagnant, out of date website.  Almost everyone who visits our church looked us up online before visiting.  Your site should look as if it gets an update of some kind every single week.  Period.  I don't know what you think is more important than updating your site, but it isn't. /rant off

QR codes and social media

Churches all over the country are trying to figure how to use social media effectively.  I've been thinking about this for years, and I'm still in the process of refining my thoughts on it (and as soon as my thoughts coalesce, the world of social media changes anyway).

Anyway, we made one change starting last week: we added QR codes to the bulletin.  These ubiquitous blotchy squares are in our bulletin to do two things: one (pictured) takes people to our church's Facebook page so they can "like" the page.  This has a very direct purpose: to provide an avenue to maintain contact with people who are visiting the church but haven't given us their full contact information (they haven't filled out a visitor card).  It occurred to me that a Facebook "like" is a way for us to push information to someone without violating their core privacy.  If you like us on Facebook, we have your name - but we don't have your address or your phone number (unless you have no Facebook privacy settings enabled, in which case you shouldn't be worried about privacy anyway).

We used likify.net to create the QR code.  The nice thing about Likify is that is presents the user with a nice intermediate page that also maintains stats (and it's free).  I can tell you that last week, two people scanned this QR code during worship.  Not a huge number, but we'll see in the future if we begin capturing "likes" from people we might otherwise have lost contact with.

The other QR code we're using sends people to our Podcast page (fpce.podbean.com) where they can subscribe to my sermon audio feed.  Again, we're trying to attract people into a situation where we have continuing contact with them.  For straight QR codes, use the free QR code generator at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ - simply enter a URL and it produces a QR code image for download.


I can imagine a day when we won't print paper bulletins anymore.  Instead, the sanctuary will be adorned with posters displaying a QR code that takes you to an online location for the order of worship, and you'll follow along using your smartphone.  Someday we'll be asking people to turn their phones on for worship.

It seems to me that we're still stuck in the mode of trying to make social media correspond to what we do already.  I see churches using Facebook as nothing more than an email replacement.  We're not being very effective yet at seeing what social media does on its own merits.  If you want pure "push" contacts with your members, use email.  If you want pure "pull" contact, that's through your Web site.

But one thing I've come to realize is that Facebook sits at the intersection of our public and private lives.  As such, it is a relatively "safe" place for marketing - when someone "likes" your organization, they aren't revealing too much about themselves, and they control when they want to "disconnect" from your page.  We should be able to take advantage of that in connecting with people on matters of faith at a stage when they may not yet feel comfortable disclosing themselves fully to the church but want to stay connected.  When I send you an email I'm invading your space.  A Facebook page update pushes to your fans' newsfeeds, yet somehow I don't think it feels intrusive.  So we'll see how the QR code experiment goes.  If it goes well, we'll have found a way to entice people to connect who might otherwise have come and gone unnoticed.

Booming Summer

Well, maybe not booming, but I see far too many churches simply call it a year and pack it in for the summer.  My church used to do it as well.  From the second Sunday of June until the second Sunday of September, everything went into hibernation.  The theory was that "nobody comes" in the summer.  Of course they didn't.  There was hardly anything worth coming to.

When I looked around at what the fastest-growing churches do, I didn't see them packing it in.  Sure there might be some accommodations to a season when some families are on vacation, but they didn't just throw in the towel.  After all, what percentage of your families are actually on vacation at any given point in time?  I'll bet it's no more than 10% - not every family goes on vacation, most go for a week (not two or three), and they don't go at the same time.

A few years ago we adjusted our approach to summer - by treating it less like the "off-season".  We're a church, not a ski resort.  The result has been that we have cut our attendance dropoff in half.

The main change we made was NOT changing the time of morning worship.  We used to move our normal 11:00 worship to 10:00.  This created confusion among congregants, some of whom would come at the wrong time at the start and end of summer season.  It created confusion in our advertising, which now can just say "11:00" instead of having a summer season disclaimer.  The old-timers believed that in the summer, the earlier time allowed people to come to church before heading out to picnics or the beach.  Reality check: these days, if someone is heading to the beach, they aren't coming to church first, even if it's at 7:00 a.m.

The biggest mistake I see is churches that either eliminate or curtail their fellowship time after worship.  We don't cut it back in the least.  We have, on average, as many or more visiting families per Sunday in the summer as we do during the program year.  If that seems counter-intuitive, it's because you're used to the old traditional rhythms of the church year.  But think of it from the perspective of the visitor: when is the easiest time of year to add something to your family's schedule?  Summer.  The kids don't have homework.  Working parents aren't traveling as much for business.  The lesson here is that you always have to thinking of things from the perspective of the visitor.

This doesn't mean we haven't made concessions to summer.  We have soloists singing instead of a full choir - but we always have good music.  I'm not planning to take any Sundays off in the summer (though this is unusual; I usually take one).  But our coffee hour after worship is full-blown.  We have a lot of mission activities - and in the summer, people have more time to serve.

People will lower themselves to the level of negative expectations every time.  When we stopped assuming the summer would be dead time, it stopped being dead time.  So next year, as you plan for the summer, take steps to make your summer schedule look a little more like the rest of your year - and your attendance will as well.

Four Things You Can Do

Often pastors will complain that their lay leaders block various initiatives they have tried in order to spur growth.  However, the pastor of a church has a number of things that are generally under his or her direct control.  As summer approaches, here are four things to work on:

1.    Improve your bio on your Web site
Did you know that site statistics usually show that the single most visited page on a church’s web site is the pastor’s bio?  People are looking for a point of connection to the face of the organization – and that’s you.  Craft your bio with the idea that someone wants to decide whether you are worth listening to.  Do you have something in common with him/her?  Will you relate to them?  You need to be asking yourself: “when someone reads my bio, what kind of person will they imagine me to be?”  (And it better be the truth.  You need to be the person they expect to encounter.)

2.    Optimize your answering machine/voice mail

Even before a complete sentence is heard, your recorded message has already communicated more than you think about your church.  What image is conveyed by the voice you choose?  Is it an elderly voice?  If so, your church sounds old.  Is it the pastor’s voice?  If so, your church sounds small.  A younger voice on your outgoing message will give your church a better image.

3.    Critique your bulletin
How does your bulletin stack up as a publication?  Does it hold to professional standards of appearance and content?  Are there typos or uneven spaces?  Is there anything that an unchurched person would find confusing?  We include the words to such liturgical staples as the Lord’s Prayer and the Gloria Patri; we don’t presume that everyone in attendance knows these words.  Raise the standard for the appearance of your bulletin.  Find someone with experience in graphic arts to critique your use of fonts and images.  Don't be text-only: use clip art libraries to illustrate announcements, use sidebars, use callouts.  Make it interesting! 

I periodically ask my congregants (esp. as summer approaches) to leave bulletins in my box from other churches they visit when they are on vacation.  It serves as a reminder that they ought to seek the fellowship of the church even when on vacation, and the bulletins often give me ideas for things to do and ways to promote them.

4.    Critique your preaching
Let’s face it: nothing is more important than your preaching.  The most important standard to set for yourself is to almost never have a bad week.  The reason is simple: one of the “riskiest” things your congregants will ever do is invite a friend to church.  They will be very reluctant to do so unless they are very confident that the sermon and the music will be something they can brag about.  On a scale of 1-10, it is better to be a 7 or 8 every single week than to be a 5 sometimes and a 10 sometimes.

I listen to my own sermon every week.  If your church doesn’t record your sermons, buy a small recorder (I recommend the Zoom H2, about $120 on eBay) and put it in the pulpit.   I listen (via podcast) to 3-4 sermons every week from other preachers I admire.  Delivery determines whether your content will be heard.  No preacher is good enough that he/she can stop working on getting better.  My goal is to never be lower than a ‘7’ (rating myself from 1-10) and to average an ‘8’.  A great resource is Andy Stanley's Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication.  It will help you stay focused on crafting messages that stick.

When you fix up your house and yard, it often spurs your neighbors to follow suit.  As you rigorously demand quality from yourself and the things you control, the other ministries in your church will follow. 

If "Love Wins" ... Theology Loses

I finally broke down and bought Rob Bell's controversial book, "Love Wins".  Although I expected to vehemently disagree with him based on reviews of the book (and indeed this is the case), I was also expecting at least some measure of theological depth.  In this, I was sorely disappointed.

There was no discussion of Weiss or Schweitzer, of Bultmann or Moltmann, or even of Barth - instead, his book is a simplistic polemic that dishonors the eternal importance of the topic.  His primary mode of argument is to put forth a series of seemingly contradictory Scripture verses, cited without context, and then saying "which is it?" - I can imagine him sticking his tongue out and saying, "nyah, nyah, nyah" as he does so.

It's actually difficult to critique the book in depth, because there doesn't appear to be anything remotely resembling a systematic theology or consistent hermeneutic undergirding it.  He uses the seeming contradictions in accounts of the afterlife to his advantage, yet he does not apply the same methodology to his advocacy for social action in the here and now.  If I were to argue using his methodology, I could take a verse such as Jesus saying "the poor you will always have with you" and use it to debunk calls to social justice (and this certainly has been done time and again - but does he really want to be using the same, lame rhetorical method?)  Bell is employing "situational hermeneutics" (analogous to situational ethics).

His analysis of the Greek language in the NT is hopelessly flawed because he ignores one basic consistency of the Gospel: that in the various places where salvation is set against damnation, the language used is symmetric.  So if he wants to argue whether "aion" is eternal or for a period of time, or whether "eternal" should be thought of in linear time or as standing outside of time, he discards the symmetry of the word choices and manages to take symmetric words and arrive at an asymmetric outcome.  If heaven is forever, so is hell.  If hell is for a limited time, so is heaven.  He falsely sets forth uses of the word "all" as if it always refers to "all" of humanity, when it is fairly clear that "all" can also mean "all" of the elect.  He plays weak language games

He also bears the conceit of presenting ancient concepts as if he has either invented them or rediscovered them, such as his emphasis on the notion of heaven as coming to earth.  The Westminster Confession of Faith holds that our souls will be reunited with our bodies on the day of resurrection.  He's not the first person to notice that in Revelation 21, the new Jerusalem is coming down.  But his conceit is palpable in his desire to force God to conform to his own standards of love and mercy.

In the end, he simply fails to discuss the following topics:

1.  In our sinfulness, do we deserve salvation or damnation?
2.  Is our obedience to God even possible without either prevenient or efficacious grace?
3.  What is the role of divine justice, not just love, in shaping the eternal future of humanity?

It's a good thing that this is his 4th (or is it 5th?) book and that he has a following.  Otherwise this book probably never gets published.  In our society, fame gets your ideas aired (see Sheen, Charlie).

But it's not easy for me to be as angry about this book as I was when I first heard about it, because it really just poses the same questions that I hear from the 8th graders in my confirmation class, and at the same level of discourse (maybe lower).  They don't make me angry by asking; their questions are well-meaning, just naive.  The only difference between my 8th graders and Rob Bell, I suppose, is that the 8th graders are teachable.

Straws, Sitcoms, and Sermons

Last night I was eating out and ordered my usual Diet Coke.  The waitress gave me a straw, but when I tried to unwrap it I realized it was defective.  The machine that crimps the ends of the wrapper crimped the end of the straw, so one end was closed off, rendering it unusable.

Later I was watching a video of Andy Stanley delivering the closing teaching at Catalyst Atlanta in October, and he made a joke about preaching – at the expense of Presbyterians, of course.  He said: “if your [preaching style is] all about theology and no application … then you’re Presbyterian.”

Sadly, too often he’s right.  And then I thought about my defective straw.  In a sense, 95% of the straw was perfect – but the crimp at the end made the whole straw useless.  Perhaps the straw is a symbol of the function of worship.  People come to worship with parched souls, thirsty for God – and good worship with good preaching can serve as a straw, enabling them to connect their thirst with God's living water.

But I suppose that too many preachers are providing a defective straw.  If the message is dry, inaccessible, or irrelevant to everyday life, the straw is crimped at one end … and if the message is all pop psychology/pseudo-theology, it’s crimped at the other end.  Either way, a good working connection between the congregant and Christ doesn’t happen.

When we think about how to connect to the parishioner, too often we pay too much attention to our content and not enough attention to the method of delivering that content.  The most effective way to deliver content is to be in sync with how people are used to receiving content in today’s world, and that is constantly changing.

I remember attending a lecture over a decade ago by Rodger Nishioka, a Presbyterian seminary professor who is known for work in the area of multiple intelligences.  At the time, persons using the Web was not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today, yet he said that it was already impacting how sermons could be constructed.  He said that while sermons used to need to be designed with a smooth flow and seamless transitions, the Internet made people accustomed to “context switching” – clicking a link and jumping to an entirely new page.  Thus he said that you could now “hyperlink” in a sermon – make an abrupt jump from one context to another, as long as the listener could grasp the connection behind the jump.

That lecture caused me to continually be aware of how people receive information and design my sermons with that in mind.  For example, consider a sitcom.  It is actually 21 minutes long without commercials, presented in 3-4 blocks, the longest of which will be no more than 8-9 minutes.  After 8-9 minutes, people need a brief timeout (a mental commercial break) before proceeding. 

I’m very mindful of the 8-9 minute rule.  I try not to go more than 8-9 minutes without giving the people a brief mental break – repeat a point, make a quip – anything to allow the brain to relax for a minute and restart.

Another technique I borrow from television is what they call the “establishing shot.”  Ever notice how scenes often begin with a shot of an exterior – so you know where the next scene takes place?  Toward the end of a sermon, I often refer back to something I said earlier.  But if it was more than 8 minutes before, I preface it by saying, “Remember earlier when I talked about…” – that’s my “establishing shot.”  It gives them time to recall and refocus on what had been said before, preparing them to understand how that ties into what is coming next.

Speaking of tying things together, modern sitcom construction usually has at least 2 parallel stories that converge on a single point.  This is key to the modern sermon.  We read multiple Scripture lessons, but I don’t preach multiple lessons, I preach one lesson (usually the Gospel lesson).  And I preach one point from that lesson.

I don’t know where the old saw about “three points and a poem” came from, but that just doesn’t work.  What is effective these days is multiple illustrations of a single point.  There needs to be one “takeaway”, one central point.

Brandon Tartikoff, legendary programming executive with NBC in its heyday, used to require people pitching a TV show to sum it up in one sentence.  I vividly recall him talking about the pitch for The A-Team.  It went like this: “The Magnificent Seven, the Dirty Dozen, Mr. T drives the truck.”  Before we write a sermon, we need to be able to “pitch it” with a single, memorable sentence.  Your congregation can't get the point of your sermon if you write it without a clear and unequivocal understanding of the point you're trying to make.

So here’s my pitch for sermon writing: A good sermon is one point, multiple illustrations, familiar delivery.

I think that’s what I’ve discovered is the common link between the best preachers of today.

Why Landon Whitsitt Is Completely Wrong

Okay, I have to admit that until this morning, I didn't know who Landon Whitsitt is.  Then I found out that he's the vice-moderator of the General Assembly of the PCUSA (which explains why I had never paid attention) and he chimed in recently on the topic of church growth.

This is a link to his video.   All I can say is this: he's almost completely wrong.

His basic mistake is simple and egregious.  He sets up a so-called "straw man" argument by making presumptions about peoples' motives.  He asserts that church growth is basically about being concerned with "butts in the seats and cash in our offering plate."  Really?  Is that what church growth is about?  He doesn't seem to allow for the idea that some of us still believe that the gospel has real, concrete, eternal, salvific value to people and "every butt" is a person following Christ.  Period.  One of my pastoral role models, Andy Stanley, had this mission statement at North Point Community Church (one of the largest in the nation): to create a church that unchurched people love to attend.  For the money?  No.  Because he knows, as I know, as all Christians should know, that unchurched people need to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  Does Rev. Whitsitt not believe that?  Does Rev. Whitsitt know something about Pastor Stanley that we don't know?  Does he have some particular insight into his heart?  If not, he should stop casting aspersions.

Because if we want to throw unfounded accusations around, here's one I might lob in his direction: any pastor who isn't interested in church growth is lazy.  They aren't interested in growth because they don't want the extra work.  They don't want to run the extra programs, they don't want the extra meetings - they just want the status quo they can coast on until they retire.  My insulting aspersions may apply to some pastors, but they are no more generally valid than his.

The most pernicious allegation is that it's all about the cash.  It would be nice if he'd think two seconds before insulting his fellow ministers of the gospel.  Here are a couple of simple things that I think are "facts":

1.  The largest churches have grown significantly beyond the size at which their "profit" would be maximized.  Why?  Because they want to bring people to Christ, not maximize cash.

2.  Most of the pastors who have the leadership skill to run these organizations could be making far more personal cash doing something else.  A great communicator who can inspire people can be very successful in any industry.  On the other hand (another rash, insulting generalization here) a lot of pastors of smaller churches are probably making more money than they could doing something else.  And I am certain of this: a pastor who couldn't be making far more money doing something else probably doesn't have the skills to be a good pastor.  (I say the same for teachers.)


The bottom line is simple: when I see pastors who are interested in church growth, this is what I see - pastors who want to bring people to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I see pastors who want to fulfill the Great Commission.  I see pastors who could be coasting in their churches, instead working as hard as they can for the sake of others.

Finally, there is his elitist rant that when we have a thriving church, we probably reduced the gospel to the "lowest common denominator."  Lowest?  Really?  The funny thing is that, being a person with a science/math background, I know that the "lowest common denominator" is not even the proper term.  In math, we don't look for the lowest common denominator, we look for the greatest common denominator (also called the greatest common factor).  And the greatest common denominator of humankind is Jesus Christ.  Preach the gospel, leave the other stuff out of it, and your church just might grow.


So Mr. Vice-Moderator, if all you see when someone speaks of church growth is someone obsessed with butts in the seats and cash in the offering plate, the heart I question is yours, not theirs.  Stop assuming the worst about your sisters and brothers in Christ.  Oh, and by the way, tell Louisville to help us grow our churches.

Press Releases for Churches

Hey, I recently participated in creating a podcast with Chris Walker of www.evangelismcoach.org on the subject of using press releases to bolster your church's image and visibility in the community.  You hear the podcast by clicking here.

I hope you'll find it useful.  I had fun doing it.

(P.S.  Chris emailed me to say that someone actually picked it up from his twitter feed and posted it here.  As much as I use the Web for info, I'm always surprised when someone else does.)

Atlanta: Circles of Excellence and Passion City Church

In my last post I mentioned how impressed I was by this morning's preacher at Buckhead Church, Jamie Dickens.  As I tried (and mostly failed) to get more info about him, Google turned up this link about "the TED commandments."  As a huge fan of the TED conferences (they bring together the best minds in every field), this list caught my eye and it's must reading for any speaker.

This blog turned up in Google because the author wrote "As I type this Jamie Dickens is bringing the heat on the Buckhead Church stage" ... and he wrote this last year.  But then I noticed whose blog it was: Carlos Whittaker, a fantastic musician and worship leader.  I saw him perform at Catalyst West this year and bought his CD, "Ragamuffin Soul".

This made me think about how all of these people are connected.  Andy Stanley founded the Catalyst Conferences.  Buckhead Church basically sprang forth from 7|22, a singles-oriented ministry of North Point Church that was located in Buckhead.  The popularity of 7|22 demonstrated the viability of putting a North Point satellite campus there, and finally 7|22 went away.  The lead preacher at 7|22 was Louie Giglio, who also headlines the Passion Conferences.

Louie Giglio, less than two years ago, started Passion City Church.  They aren't even meeting every week, but tonight I visited there (more below).  He recruited Chris Tomlin to be his worship leader - who would've even thought that someone of that caliber would do this?  Furthermore, Chris was living with his family in Austin - he moved them to Atlanta to get this church going.

Tonight, there were about 2,000 people in worship.  Chris Tomlin was awesome, and then I saw that Christy Nockels (formerly of Watermark) was on stage with him.  Turns out that Christy moved her family from Nashville to be a founding family of Passion City.  And then you know who else was in the band?  Matt Redman!

So I started thinking: sure these superstars all know each other.  Excellence wants to be around excellence.  Those who excel are willing to take risks to support others who excel - because they know that excellence is a habit.  How many of us are holding ourselves back because we're choosing to associate with mediocrity?  We know that we don't want our children hanging out with kids who make lousy grades - neither should we.  And taking it a step further, could it be that this is one of the reasons why non-denominational churches are flourishing?  Because denominations certainly aren't hotbeds of excellence - but they are organizations of forced association.  But non-denominational churches don't have forced associations.  They can choose to only affiliate with the best and the brightest - the ones who are doing it right.

So maybe if we want to strive for excellence we need to do more than start within us; perhaps we need to start by choosing to place ourselves where excellence will surround us.

As for Passion City Church, they met in the Cobb Energy Centre, a 2,750 seat concert hall that was mostly full.  I arrived 10 minutes early and had to sit in the highest balcony.  The overall event was far, far too long (2 1/2 hours!) The music was, of course, great; how could it not be great with Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, and Christy Nockels!  The night began a few minutes late with Louie introducing himself and we read Revelation 4 in unison, leading into the opening song "Revelation Song" (Kari Jobe).  The rest of the set was "Holy is the Lord" (Chris Tomlin), "Expectation" (unreleased yet Chris Tomlin), "Where The Spirit of the Lord Is" (Chris Tomlin/Christy Nockels) and "A Mighty Fortress" (Christy Nockels).

Louie spoke for an hour.  This was just too long.  We were at the 2-hour mark when he finished, and then we still had a ways to go.  His talk was inspiring, but it made me think that he was used to the Passion Conferences, which target youth.  I don't necessarily need a message that is just about how special I am and about how God can do miracles.  It's a great reminder, but as a middle-aged adult I need a little more.  He had one memorable line for me: when God does something miraculously great in your life, would God be happier if it shocked you or if it didn't?  Shouldn't we expect God to be the God of miracles?

He then announced that they had signed a lease on a permanent worship location: a vacant former superstore of 135,000 square feet (!) that will take millions to renovate.  The capital campaign began tonight! :-) If you can see the yellow dot in the map they were showing on the right, that's the location of the new facility.

From a lot of the comments I heard around me, and given Louie's background as a speaker in parachurch settings, it seemed as if this was almost a parachurch-church.  There were church buses parked outside.  I heard people talk about their own churches, and it seemed that everyone knew the songs and already loved Chris Tomlin.  So I wonder if they're actually growing their base or taking it from other churches (but to be honest, if you're doing it better than someone else, if you give people better opportunities to connect with God, then they ought to leave their present churches and come to yours).

And my main takeaway is this: excellence wants to connect with excellence.  And excellence is what leads to going from startup to leasing 135,000 s.f. of space in two years.

Atlanta: Buckhead & North Point Churches

This morning I had a fantastic experience at Buckhead Church, one of the sister campuses to Andy Stanley's North Point Community Church.  Their facility is located in Tower Place, a business/retail complex in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood, so you don't drive up to a sprawling campus, you drive into what feels like the parking garage of an urban mall.  However, the "host team" volunteers are everywhere, helping you find your way.  Upon entering the church area, I was greeted - and greeted and greeted and greeted.  I loved it.  I also loved that the greeters are labeled as "Guest Services."  They make it very clear.  It's about welcoming the guests.

The auditorium seats 2,000, and seeing as this was the 9:00 a.m. service on a July Sunday, I wasn't expecting a very large crowd - yet there were probably 1,000-1,200 in attendance.  It was nicely attended without being crowded.

This weekend starts a three-week series called "More" - about how our "appetites" try to control us by constantly crying out for more - and these appetites can be for food, sex, material things, success, etc.  So the band launched the service with a stirring cover of "Satisfaction" (Rolling Stones).  It was rockin'!  The worship song set began with an upbeat version of the hymn "How Great Thou Art", followed by two top current worship songs, Our God (Chris Tomlin) and You Alone Can Rescue (Matt Redman).

After the offering and the obligatory title package, the message was brought by Jamie Dickens, who really brought it.  It was a slammin' sermon.  He even looks like a young Andy Stanley (down to wearing a blue dress shirt with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows over blue jeans).  I couldn't find out much about him, but he's an amazing talent and I doubt he's over 30.

As it turned out, he was preaching essentially the same sermon as would be preached at North Point later this morning by Clay Scroggins.

After worship I attended their "Next!" session - an orientation for people who've started to attend the church and are wondering "What next?"  They hold these once a month.  They showed a short video and distributed a 3-CD audio set that describes their mission and vision.  What really impressed me was the extent to which they were truly sharing their mission strategy with relative newcomers.

They talked about how everything was thought of with the metaphor of three parts of a house: the foyer, the living room, and the kitchen table.  "Foyer" experiences include things like worship.  In the foyer of your house, it's all about being welcoming.  "You don't abandon your values, but you're sensitive to theirs."  The "living room" environments are where people meet and get to know each other.  Service teams are examples of living room environments.  The "kitchen table" is where people become family.  These, of course, are small groups.  Overall, it was a great introduction to how they think and how they position themselves to be a church of influence.  And "Next!" is for people who haven't even considered membership yet.  (Next! is where you find out about membership classes.)

From there I made the 30-minute drive to the parent campus, North Point Community Church.  The first auditorium (now called the East auditorium) seats about 3,000.  When they outgrew it, they decided to build a second auditorium back-to-back (West) that seats about 2,000, rather than enlarge the main auditorium.  The message is video simulcast from the East aud to the West using a very cool technology that makes it feel more "live."  Despite it being a beautiful July Sunday, the East auditorium was standing room only! I meandered over to the West auditorium, which was about 2/3 full (I wanted to see the video system in action anyway).

I was late because of trying to find a seat, but caught the last worship song ("Cannons" by Phil Wickham). In keeping with the difference in campus styles, they didn't do "Satisfaction" here; instead, the thematic song was Carolina Liar's "Show Me What I'm Looking For."  The preacher here, Clay Scroggins, preached the same message as Jamie Dickens - same theme, same basic structure, same opening example - but in his own way.  Clay, for instance, was as folksy as Jamie was dynamic.  And I wonder if it was their personalities or the difference in audiences (Buckhead is much more singles-oriented, while NPCC is suburban families), but in discussing "appetites" that control us, Jamie spoke a lot more about sex than Clay.

The video system uses a cool technique of a large, high-def (but not 3D) static center shot that approximates the look of the "real" stage - including the fact that the preacher is "small" (life-size) - while the two side screens receive the same simultaneous angle shots that you see in the live auditorium.  The net effect (see right) is that it looks like what you would be seeing in the other auditorium.

Overall, though I liked North Point, I loved Buckhead Church.  And I'm pretty sure that when Andy Stanley is preaching at NPCC, they use the same video technology to simulcast him to Buckhead.  I could see going there every week, if I lived in Atlanta and had a different occupation.  Maybe that's what I'll do when I retire.

Atlanta: Saturday visits

First stop: FUSION Church, a startup of the Seventh Day Adventists.  Meeting at a rented facility called The Defoor Center, the worship space was simple and sparingly appointed.  They had a little pre-worship cafe setup, but it wasn't conducive to meeting people (and no one introduced themselves to me).  The space was set for about 75; perhaps 50 were in attendance.

The band was not the best; two men on guitars and a third playing a conga drum.  The opening set was Your Love Oh Lord (Third Day), Beautiful the Blood (Steve Fee), and All Because of Jesus (Casting Crowns).



The sermon was the start of a two-week series called "Dirty Gospel"; today's text was Mark 7:14-23 (Jesus being criticized for his disciples' unwashed hands).  The preacher was a guest who is not really a preacher; he was identified as a soon-to-be Ph.D., and it showed.  He was very didactic in his delivery.  I learned one thing about being interactive: it matters how you do it.  Usually I hear preachers become interactive by asking: "Are you tracking?" (if the answer is 'no', it's the preacher's fault, right?) or "How many of you ever..." (where there's no right or wrong answer).  This preacher asked factual questions such as: "the Pharisees were criticizing... what?" - things you would ask a student (who could get it wrong) but perhaps shouldn't ask a congregation (I was uncomfortable - and I knew the answers!)  The core message was that the holiness of God is evident in God's connection to the world, not God's separation from it.

They were very earnest, and I pray for their success, if for no other reason than the fact that there aren't too many contemporary ministries in the SDA denomination, and I fear that if this fails, they'll be reluctant to try too many more such experiments.

In the evening I visited the Perimeter Church.  They are large and polished.  Established in 1977 by the Presbyterian Church in America (a conservative denomination that does not ordain women to offices), they are attracting several thousand each weekend in worship.  As you might expect in the Atlanta suburbs, there wasn't much racial diversity.  However, the guest preacher was an African-American named Leonce Crump, who is planting a church for the PCA elsewhere in Atlanta.

Friendliness did not abound.  I arrived five minutes late thanks to an accident on I-85, and no one even handed me a bulletin.  There were perhaps 400 in worship.  However, the worship was extremely well-done.  When I saw the band, I was less than impressed - everyone looked to be under 25, and my experience with "church garage bands" has not been good.  But this band was fantastic.  The ensemble consisted of lead acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, drums, and piano (full grand, not electric).  The worship leader was identified in the bulletin as Laura Story Elvington, and she was excellent.  Whatever it was - good sound mixing, acoustics - they were as tight as any worship band I'd heard recently.  They were so good that when I got back to my room, on a hunch I Google'd her name (which I didn't recognize) only to learn that as "Laura Story" (http://www.laurastorymusic.com/) she is the songwriter who penned "Indescribable" - one of the most beloved worship songs of today, popularized by Chris Tomlin.  I had stumbled upon hearing an amazing worship leader by accident.

The opening songs were "All Because of Jesus" (Casting Crowns) and the hymn, "Blessed Assurance."  They had some concessions to liturgy, including a unison prayer of confession, which led into the song "Lift High" (Steve Fee).  The pastor then introduced a mission project for the church: the distribution of backpacks (provided by the church), one per family, with the expectation that the families will fill them with school supplies and return them for distribution to underprivileged children.  The video they made to encourage this featured, of course, an African-American child as the recipient of aid from this very white congregation.  I thought that was a bit too stereotypical.

For the offering the band played "How He Loves" (John Mark Mcmillan).  Leonce preached on Colossians 1:15-23.  He was totally expositional - verse by verse.  (Why is it that African-American preachers feel compelled to point out every time in the sermon where a black congregation would have shouted 'Amen!'?)  His sermon was entirely focused on the divinity of Christ.

They celebrated the Lord's Supper.  I was surprised that the pastor did not employ the words of institution, but simply prayed over the elements.  The distribution was interesting.  They use a "stacked cup."  Using the disposable communion cups, a tiny wafer is placed in the bottom cup.  Another cup is placed on top of it and filled with grape juice.  So you get both bread and cup at the same time.  You are supposed to disassemble it, partake of the bread yourself, then wait to consume the cup together.  The band then closed us out with "The Stand" (Hillsong United).  There wasn't a lot of fellowship visible, but it was a very satisfying worship service.

Visiting Churches: Atlanta

I'm in Atlanta on study leave for the purpose of visiting churches.  Why do I do this and which churches do I visit?

My professors in college used to say that it didn't matter what you studied; any subject could prepare you for success in the world because what you really need to learn is just two things: how to analyze a problem and how to communicate a solution.  So you could be an English major who becomes an investment banker or a history major who rises to be a CEO.

That's the approach I take when studying churches.  I'm not looking to blindly replicate what they do.  That's futile - their situation is not my situation.  At the same time, just as one can study Lincoln's decision to replace Gen. McClellan in the Civil War and learn from it, even though I'm not fighting wars and not leading cavalry, I can learn from observing the issues churches are facing (publicity, encouraging discipleship, lighting, sound, children's ministry) and try to discern how they've analyzed these problems and developed solutions.

How do I pick churches to visit?  I tend to visit only two types of churches: highly successful churches and startups.  Why?  Because I believe that these are the churches most likely to be actively engaged in problem solving.  Too many mainline churches are basically coasting.  They are not confronting their problems realistically or with any sense of urgency.

My weekend plans call for me to visit five churches; two on Saturday and three on Sunday.  My Saturday churches are FUSIONChurch, (http://www.fusionchurchatlanta.com/) a startup of the Seventh Day Adventists, and Perimeter Church (http://www.perimeter.org/) a congregation of the conservative Presbyterian Church in America that was founded in 1977 and now attracts over 2,000 families per weekend.

My Sunday morning visits will be to two of Andy Stanley's campuses: the parent North Point Community Church (www.northpoint.org) and Buckhead Church (www.buckheadchurch.org); I can't wait to see their high-def videocast of the preacher's message.  Sunday evening I will visit the high-powered startup: Passion City Church (http://www.passioncitychurch.com/).  This startup is the first time noted speaker Louie Giglio has tried to be the pastor of a church - and he recruited Chris Tomlin to be his worship leader.  They aren't even holding worship every week yet.  I can't wait to see it.

Stay tuned.

Catalyst West 2010: Wrapup

Well, it was great conference.  At the end of these gatherings I come away with a diverse array of sentiments: first, it is really exciting because I believe that I'm watching the future of the Christian Church in the U.S.A.  This conference (like its larger Atlanta counterpart) is attracting thousands of people between, say, the ages of 25-40 and grooming them to lead their churches boldly.  But it is also a little depressing to grasp the relative insignificance of my own ministry on the larger scale of things.  It's not that the people aren't important - after all, what is the church if the individual becomes insignificant? - but it's also natural to want to play a role in the movement as a whole.  Our church needs another zero on its numbers just to be on the team.

For my denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), what's clear is that we haven't even begun to do what it will take to stem the decline.  First and foremost is the development of leaders who have the core competencies that it takes to lead churches forward.  Our pastors often just don't have a clue.  Then we need to vault newer leaders into key positions and protect them from being marginalized by old-school leaders.  We're a denomination where moving a congregation to email puts you in the forefront, when most of the rest of our society is increasingly seeing email as passe.  We're a denomination that likes to do things one step at a time, which won't work if you're starting two steps behind the world. 

So I'm ever more convinced that the PCUSA denominational structure as it exists is toast.  Some of the congregations will thrive, more will continue to simply (barely) exist, and many will end their ministry ("fail" is the wrong word, just as our own death isn't failure - it's the end of our appointed time).  It will survive in name, but the various departments and agencies that we created for a different time will continue to be shut down.  And this is a good thing in the overall scheme of things.  The thriving congregations will drive the rebuilding of the denomination, and who knows what that will look like?  But I suspect that it will follow Andy Stanley's statement that our goal should be to do what only we can do.  Our presbyteries, synods, and G.A. should strive to do what only they can do.  If it can be done by congregations, it should be left to congregations.

The most important part of the conference was seeing the extent to which they are driven by social justice.  And it was fun to see them use the phrase so often that this entire conference would have been shunned by Glenn Beck.  A few good Web sites:

www.giftcardgiver.com - combines unused balances on gift cards and gives it to charity.  Who doesn't have a gift card with $2 left on it - too small to use but you don't want to throw it away?  Even better, maybe you have a gift card for a store you don't shop at?  Send it in!  10% of all gift cards are never used - but someone in need can use them.

www.adventconspiracy.org - inspire your congregation to spend less at Christmas, make it less commercial, make it about Christ, and then help the world.

www.potsc.org - "People of the Second Chance" - can we be people who learn to see that "broken is beautiful"?  Excellent videos available for download purchase.  Watch the one about the artist Stephanie.  It's intriguing.

www.drinkcoffeedogood.com - okay, if your church isn't serving Fair Trade Coffee yet (?!) then maybe this would motivate them.  These folks sell Rwandan coffee where all of the fair trade principles are observed (or exceeded), but the proceeds directly benefit particular villages that were ravaged by the Rwandan massacre.  Their stuff allows you to tell a particular story that might motivate people to make the switch away from exploitation coffee to something that benefits the people.

www.143million.org - 143 million is the number of orphans in the world.  Are there people in our churches who will prayerfully ask whether they are being called to adopt?  If only one family for every four churches in the U.S. would adopt a child, every American child in the nation's foster care system would have a family.

On to Catalyst West 2011: From talking to folks, it is clear that they will be moving from the Mariners Church venue, not because it isn't an awesome venue, but because they sold it out and will be looking for larger digs.  Having spent a fair amount of time attending conventions, and knowing their announced plan to stay in Orange County, Anaheim is the only reasonable destination.  There is everything from the Anaheim Convention Center to the Honda Center (home of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim hockey team).  A Catalyst team member told me that they are negotiating various locations next week (makes sense) and may move the date from April to February.  Since Easter is extremely late next year (April 24, 2011), this late April time doesn't work.  I think February would be fantastic, as I can imagine many of us taking a week off before Lent begins.

Catalyst West 2010: Day 2

The second day is off to a great start with Donald Miller, author of the classic memoir Blue Like Jazz, whose latest book is A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.  He started with a funny story about playing with a metronome in the band room in high school, and watching how people would subconsciously walk in step with the beat - so he could actually control their walking tempo.  He said that narrative controls us in a similarly unconscious way: that people become the character they play in the story they believe.  So what is a story?  He defines a "story" as "a character wants something and overcomes conflict to get it."  If our story is boring, maybe we need to want better stuff, and as leaders, we need to proclaim a better story.  He (bravely, for this audience) disclaimed the idea that God has a specific plan for everyone (for some, not all) - rather, "God gives you a big piece of butcher paper and a box of crayons."  He then said that he was taught that if you get stuck writing a story, just start asking "what if?" questions - "what if the character got married?" - and challenged us to ask "what if?" questions about our own lives ("what if we adopted a child?") that might help us realize that there's a beautiful story waiting for us to live it.  Teach your people to want good things - and understand that the natural next step in the story is conflict.

Next up was Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance, and author of the just-released book Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality.  Scott posits that we reach a "project plateau" after coming up with a great idea, and the temptation when we hit that plateau is to come up with a new idea before finishing the last one.  He gave a simple framework for dealing with the plateau: divide the project into increments of time (he recommends two weeks in most cases), enumerate milestones for each time increment, then devise tasks to achieve each milestone.  Pretty basic stuff but good, esp. for those who are lousy planners.  He also said that because of the never-ending stream of data inputs into our lives, we tend to develop a reactionary workflow, and that we should create "windows of non-stimulation" so we can focus on what's important rather than what's urgent.  Finally, he encouraged us to publicize our ideas so we become accountable to acting on them.

Just before lunch we were presented with a strong emphasis on adoption and helping children around the world.  A strong and emotional presentation was made by Kay Warren (Rick 's wife) and Wess Stafford of Compassion International.  We were encouraged to visit Catalyst's site: www.143million.org for encouragement.  Kay pointed out that if one family per every four churches were to adopt, we would take care of every child in the foster care system in the U.S.!  She said that adoption is not for everyone (she hasn't), but argued that we should prayerfully ask God whether adoption is for us, for how will we know the answer if we don't ask the question?

After lunch we were treated to a comedic routine by Michael Junior, who has a documentary coming out about taking his Christian comedy routine to prisons.  My favorite part of the routine was when he spoke about Christians who are "over-saved."  Yeah, we know them.  The kind of people who, if you ask them if they're thirsty, answer, "yes, for living water!"  See www.ComedyRLT.com.

We then had a nice musical interlude with performances by Zach Williams, worship leader at Community Grace Church in Brooklyn, and Mariah McManus (Erwin's daughter).

Erwin McManus was next up.  He recounted the story of how Mosaic developed their winning commercial for Doritos, and how many, many Christians criticized him for somehow betraying the gospel.  (I couldn't help but think that McManus' critics are among the "over-saved.")  McManus critiqued the church as unwittingly conveying the message that what people do during the week is meaningless; that unless they are engaged in ministry, their lives are meaningless.

Andy Stanley closed us up with a good talk about working to our strengths and delegating our weaknesses.  His key point is that our goal should be to only do what only we can do.  He pointed out that because we have authority over everything, we choose to exercise that authority even in areas that are not our core competencies.  (He reminded us that in the church world, if you're the best speaker in the organization, you become the leader of all of it - why does that even make sense?)  Andy said that stress is more often related to what we are doing, not how much we are doing.  He challenged us to always ask: what will I let  go of this year? - and he encouraged us to compose the ideal job description for the job we currently hold and then work toward it.

Great conference!

Catalyst West 2010: Day 1

Well, Day One of the full conference is here.  They never really tell us who is speaking when (I wonder if it's to make sure we don't skip out?) and today is going to be a LONG day.  The opening session is at 8:30, runs until 5:30 (with a lunch break) and then they've added an evening session with Louie Giglio speaking (I'm ambivalent about him) and Chris Tomlin leading worship (I love his music, so I'm excited about that).

Opening worship was vibrant and loud.  I love it.  The theme of the conference is "Unusual Tomorrow" - the core message seems to be that we are being summoned into a future that is designed by God.  The opening speaker is always Andy Stanley, who is a terrific speaker.  He begins by reminding us that as leaders "we deal in the currency of tomorrow."  He then warns us that our "picture of the future will never be bigger than what [we] think is possible."  He tells a story of possibility that stems from a visit he had made to the Roman Coliseum (if you subscribe to his sermon podcast from North Point church, you heard this story not long ago), where he talks about seeing a cross in the Emperor's entrance to the Coliseum - who would have ever imagined that Christianity would outlive the Roman Empire?  I liked these quotes: "The older you get - the more obstacles you face - life has a way of shrinking what you think is possible; the realities of today crush our dreams for tomorrow."

Eugene Cho, pastor of Quest Church in Seattle (www.SeattleQuest.org) spoke about a mission initiative of his to combat extreme global poverty.  Called One Day's Wages (www.onedayswages.org) they challenge people to give one day's pay to combat poverty - esp. among the 3 billion people who subsist on less than $2 per day.

He was followed by Charlene Li, author of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies who spoke about social media and the leadership style that it takes to embrace its power.  She spoke of how traditional leaders are often fearful of the power that shifts to the people of a "groundswell."  She proposes a new concept called Open Leadership: having the confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control, while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals.  She then gave examples of companies that have embraced the real potential of social media: creating open dialogue between company and customer to discover new ideas and build customer loyalty.

Lunch is being provided compliments of Chick-Fil-A, a company famous for embracing Christian principles and supporting Christian leadership.  There were some cool exhibitors: my favorite was www.giftcardgiver.com, which accepts gift cards with unused balances (don't we all have a gift card lying around with $2 left on it - not enough to use, but we won't throw it away) and combines them into usable amounts that are donated to local charities.

After lunch came Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.  Mark is a bit of a controversial figure, in that he claims the Calvinist label (rare for an evangelical) and preaches an extreme Calvinism that borders on determinism.  He was surprisingly engaging (I've seen some YouTube videos of him where he's pretty surly) and self-effacing.  His topic was "finishing well", referring to colleagues who had "blown up, burned out, or given up."  He reminded us that "ministry is not what you do for God, ministry is what God does for you, in you, and through you (sometimes in spite of you)."  He had a cute line about Jesus being the true "senior pastor" of the church, so the pressure is off of us.

Then came John Ortberg interviewing a legend, Dallas Willard.  Willard's main point was that the kingdom of God is now, and the Gospel is the Good News that it is possible for us to live in the kingdom now.  He said that the church too often taught that the Gospel was about proclaiming the minimum requirement for getting into heaven (which Willard said was like passing the written portion of the driving test).  He had a good line about how works were compatible with grace, that "grace is not opposed to action; grace is opposed to earning" (effort is action, "earning" is attitude).  On the subject of spiritual disciplines he said that there is a difference between trying to do something and training to do something.  Effort (trying) is no substitute for focused preparation.

The afternoon concluded with Reggie Joiner, a founder of ReThink and author of Think Orange: Imagine the Impact When Church and Family Collide....  Reggie used the parable of the prodigal son to say that the one thing that is the difference between being a leader/church that has influence or being one who does not, is the resolve to treat every prodigal the way a loving father would treat his son.  He put forth the following hypothetical: imagine if the first person the prodigal encountered upon returning home was his brother?  He said that "loving fathers throw parties, elder brothers throw fits."

After dinner, we were treated to some powerful worship led by Chris Tomlin, who led us in a number of his classic hits: "How Great Is Our God", "Your Grace Is Enough", and "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)."  Louie Giglio was the speaker, and though I haven't liked his DVDs, tonight he was really good (maybe because he was passionate without going all emo).  He spoke reflectively about how he is finally serving as a pastor of the startup Passion City Church in Atlanta (www.passioncitychurch.com).  His point was that church planters today think about what kind of church they are starting: a "seeker" church? A "missional" church?  Or even an "Acts 2" church?  Then he posed the question: what kind of church did the people in Acts 2 think they were starting?  They didn't (couldn't) know what an Acts 2 church was supposed to be?  So what did they have?  Louie said they had three things: they were witnesses to the power of the resurrection, they had the teachings of Jesus, and they had the presence of the Holy Spirit.  And what they had was all we need.

Well, a day that started with registration at 7:30 a.m. ended with the conclusion of worship at 9:15 p.m.  A long but energizing day.

Catalyst West 2010: Labs

I'm sitting in the Community Center of Mariners Church (www.marinerschurch.org), which is again the host site for Catalyst West.  It is a remarkably well-kept and elaborate campus, with an enormous student center, skateboard park, and assorted amenities.  I wish they would have scheduled the start of the day for something earlier than 10:30 a.m. (PDT), especially since the day won't conclude until 6:00 p.m. and we have two very full days coming, including an evening session tomorrow night.

First up will be worship with Aaron Keyes.  Aaron is the worship leader (www.aaronkeyes.com) at Grace Fellowship Church outside of Atlanta, and he likes to disciple young worship leaders.  He was pretty good, though I'm not a huge fan of the guitars/bass/drums ensemble that I associate with Southern rock; I prefer having a keyboard in the mix.  He also talked a little more than I am comfortable with, but his songs were good and he got the folks involved.  

Choosing the speakers to listen to today is difficult.  The conference itself is all plenary, no breakouts, but today we have to choose.  Gender is a factor in my choice, because the gender bias in evangelicalism is fairly evident in that there is almost no female leadership in the main conference, but there are a few today.

So I decided to see Susan Isaacs in the first breakout.  The audio from all of the sessions will be available, but I wanted to support the idea that female speakers can draw interest even at an evangelical conference.  She is an actress and comedienne (www.susanisaacs.net) who wrote a book entitled Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir.  Her talk was on writing your own spiritual memoir, which is different from a faith timeline, in that it is truly a memoir of your life which you then view through a faith lens.  She asked a really provocative opening question: "if you died without writing your memoir, what stories would the world be poorer for not knowing?"  She then led us in some interesting exercises and viewpoints that would help us compose such a memoir.  My reaction is that this would be a great summer seminar to have at my church, because seeing your own life story through the eyes of faith would make it easier for us to share our faith.

Next I'm watching Dan Kimball of Vintage Faith Church (www.vintagechurch.org) and he had one good quote to start but now he's annoying me.  His good quote was "Shepherds don't make sheep.  Sheep make sheep."  But his talk was centered on three things he thinks the church needs to be teaching more forcefully, and it devolved into a defense of the institutional church, a defense of "traditional" teaching on sexuality, and an admonition that we should be careful not to get so involved with professing the gospel by deeds of social justice that we forget proclaiming the gospel with words.  I was surprised at his explicit defense of the church's stance against LGBT persons because my experience of Catalyst has been that it shies away from the social issues stance of older evangelicals (in two years I haven't heard anything about abortion) out of respect for the diverse (and even mildly progressive) social views of younger evangelicals.  A real disappointment.

The last speaker in the breakout portion of the day is Margaret Feinberg.  I love her latest book, Scouting the Divine: My Search for God in Wine, Wool, and Wild Honey, which I discussed a couple of months ago here.  She uses actual experiences with shepherds (actually, a shepherdess), beekeeper, and vintner to gain insights into these oft-used Biblical metaphors.  She is a polished speaker, but it feels too polished - and she is basically speaking her book.  And I already read the book...

Yet to come is a final plenary session led by a person whose teachings haven't inspired me, John Ortberg.  He pleasantly surprised me.  Again, like so many speakers, he was really pushing the theme of his latest book, The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God's Best Version of You.  He's presently at Menlo Park Presbyterian, having gone there from Willow Creek.  I think being in a Presbyterian church has gotten to him; his speaking style feels a bit "old school."  He was basically pushing what sounds to me like a basic Reformed understanding of sanctification, though he never once used the word "sanctification."  My favorite quotes were "God is more concerned with you reaching your potential than you are" and a good reminder that somewhere along the way "grace got reduced to the forgiveness of sins"; John's core point was essentially that sanctification is also grace. He then reminded us that "spiritual growth is hand-crafted, not mass-produced" - that God, in the Bible, treats people very differently.  He called on churches not to treat spiritual growth as if they can just put people "on a Christian assembly line."  He scored points with many of us by asking: "how many of you can't stand journaling?" (I never keep a journal and don't understand why I should) and saying that spiritual practices are not the same as spiritual growth; after all, he pointed out, "if they measured spiritual growth by spiritual practices, who would win?  The Pharisees."

Day 1 of the full conference is next.

Blogging Catalyst West Coast

Well, I've just arrived in Irvine, CA for the Catalyst West Coast conference.  The "labs" sessions are tomorrow (Wed, April 21) and the full plenary sessions are Thursday and Friday.  Check back here for personal reflections on the presentations from a progressive, mainline, Reformed perspective.

In preparation for the conference I've been reading Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies; Charlene Li will be one of the speakers at the conference.  I'm looking forward to hearing her apply "groundswell" thinking to churches.  It has long been my feeling that churches struggle and struggle until they achieve a certain critical mass at the local level.  I've referred to this as becoming a "top of mind" church - being the church that everyone in the area - whether Christian or not, whether an attendee or not - mentions when someone asks about churches.  I think that's a micro-level variation of a "groundswell."

Check back starting tomorrow...

Rob Bell's Resurrection

Well, after shutting down his Nooma series, Rob Bell is back with a new film for Easter.  Entitled Resurrection, you can view it here, although I'm not sure for how long.  It is short (under 4 minutes) and features Rob who has clearly been green-screened onto a light-show type of background.

I'm not sure he's saying much new here, and I miss the intriguing visual backstories that were present in the Nooma films.  I hate to say it because his work has meant a lot to me (particularly his book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith) but it seems as if he's running out of fresh perspectives.  Perhaps with Shane Hipps taking much of the preaching load off of him at Mars Hill, Rob will be able to work on developing his theological work.  Personally, I think he needs to take his theological insights and go deeper with them.  He has a wonderful, novel way of expressing base-level faith, but eventually people need more depth.

The Emerging Civil War

Just as the mainline is catching up to the idea that there is something called the "Emerging Church", the so-called Emerging folks have been experiencing something akin to a civil war over defining the post-evangelical church.

On the one side are the Emergent folks, namely Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt (A Christianity Worth Believing).  On the other side are folks who originally identified as "Emerging" but who seem to believe that the Emergent Church movement has strayed too far from orthodoxy; the best known of these is Mark Driscoll.    Here are some decent links to read up on the argument: a noted blogger bids farewell to Emergent and Scot McKnight (author of The Blue Parakeet) calls out Brian McLaren.

What these "post-evangelicals" originally had in common was a dissatisfaction with the state of the evangelical church, which they saw as too fixated on the building of institutional megachurches, over-emphasizing salvation in the next life, lacking any real concern for the mission of Jesus to proclaim good news to the poor and the oppressed in this life.  Both retain a concern for serving the least among us.  But the central debate is about the core doctrines of Christianity.  The "Emergence Christianity" folks seem to be willing to put everything on the table doctrinally while the neo-Reformers (see The Gospel Coalition) want to retain the core doctrines of the church while rethinking how we "do" church.

It's an interesting battle.