Leaning Forward

iOS 63

We've turned the download of iOS 7 to our iPads and iPhones into a family joke. It may just as well be class room time too. There's a learning curve with iOS 7, activating the latest enhancements. Its been funny because syncing iOS 7 with iOS 63 has been a test. OK, for the uninformed, it's the age thing again. There's a good chance the techie stuff of iOS 7 has eclipsed the capacity of this 63 year old mind to update. Oops. System overload!

Harriet and I both enjoy our technical gadgets. We had laptops early on, iPods when they were first released, iPhones on the front edge of that new wrinkle, and iPads when we could work them into our Excel spread sheet. She has a fast, big screen laptop and I'm working on a MAC BOOK as I write. We end days on NOOK e-readers, set the security system and house lights with our iPhones, and shop using Pay Pal @ eBay and Amazon. So for 60+ seasoned citizens, we're pretty connected. We both do FaceBook and Twitter, understand Instagram technology, and do Face Time when we're not playing Words with Friends or scrolling Pinterest. Hubba, hubba. 

But, this 63 year old internal operating system often runs into software difficulties. I mean, the new digital world moves at the speed of thought and iOS 63 is still trying to memorize forty seven personal pass words and pin numbers. Keeping up often pushes me to the limit. And, it's more than a humorous rant about memory, power sources, real-time, or living in la la land. This iOS 63 thing may be the reason so many churches are flat-lined. It is very possible that iOS 63 (or higher, as the case may be), may have a hard time syncing with iOS 2013.

We've assumed plateaued or declining churches have lost their spiritual passion and love for the communities around them. This may be true in many cases. However, in many others, the congregation is, instead, robbed of energy. Younger people have abandoned the declining neighborhoods surrounding the church and everything about it has aged. The facility and ministry plan have a retro look, not because it is trendy but because its actually dated. Updating the church is like iOS 63 trying to sync with iOS 7. It is a very steep learning curve that requires patience, passion, and at times, purposeful assistance. If church re-vitalization is on the agenda these days, then the syncing process will need greater attention.

It's not primarily a preference issue, either, the natural tension that exists when the young and old discuss just about anything. There was a time when the more youthful ideas deferred to the older out of respect and submission. Post-modernism set much of that old world aside and the emergence of the millennial cohort, the largest age grouping now, changed everything. No, updating the internal organization and the metrics of mission today is more a matter of language. 

Leonard Sweet's Carpe Manana goes to this point quite well. Released in 2001, its got some age on it. But, it casts the challenge of keeping up with the times in terms of two colliding cultures---immigrants and natives. Immigrants are basically alien to this new digital world and must learn it. There's a sync problem here, the one I, as a total senior citizen, must navigate often. Natives are home-boys to the connected, on-line world. They move in it automatically. Like my six year old grandson John Lewis Carpenter, working remotes and iPad games and surfing the net are things he can do blind-folded. 

At the same time, keeping up isn't a judgment about which is best. To say I'm an immigrant isn't a slam or a negative value assessment of my generational cohort. Nor does being a native make one especially enlightened or more spiritual. We are what we are, and it is what it is. But, clearly, congregations that have done this syncing process with the times are typically more effective in reaching their communities.

Faith is freah and vibrant, an expression of life, and life more abundant. This life is a recurring them in Scripture, and especially in the teaching and ministry of Jesus. In the Old Testament God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, "Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it?" (Isaiah 43:19). It is very important for His church to mimic Issachar, who "understood the times and knew what Israel should do" (1 Chronicles 12:32). That is difficult, perhaps impossible, if the world surrounding the church is speaking "native" and the church is still talking "immigrant". God's church is assigned to the world around us right now. Surely, we can be in this world without being of it.

Bring on iOS 8, 13, or 25. iOs 63 can sync to it.

It's awesome, but it isn't church

The neighbor was a little pre-occupied when I invited him to church. He was loading his trunk with fishing gear, coolers, and lunch boxes for a Sunday outing at his favorite fishing hole. He said, "Thanks, but no thanks. I can go to church on the lake as good as I can a building. And, it does me more good." Ouch!

It was a scenario we've repeated many times over the past ten years. He expects me to invite him and I've gotten accustomed to his usual reply. The discussion has moved beyond the perfunctory chit-chat a couple of times, but usually bogs down quickly in our different concepts of church. Yes, you can and should worship the Father in any life circumstance, and yes, a boat is a fine place to stand amazed in His presence, the author and creator of fishing holes, beautiful lakes, and quiet mornings.

Personally, there are times when I need to be away from people, noise, the ebb and flow of daily busy-ness, and the to-do list for times in personal reflection, devotion, Bible study, and prayer. Lakeside, beach view, mountaintop, back porch, Summerall Chapel, Pretty Place, the Battery---all the locales of spiritual renewal are special elements of a multi-faceted personal devotional life. Like my neighbor and his fishing hole, they are indispensable times of spiritual nourishment, necessary to cut it in these hectic, fast-paced days. But, they are not church.

Something unique happens when two or three of us gather, the special blessing of his presence. When the the body assembles and the people of God worship, learn, serve, witness, and fellowship together, He is with us in mysterious way.  Our alone times may  anchor us to Him in private devotion, prayer, even worship. But, our together times connect us to other believers in Him so that we can be enriched, encouraged, refreshed, and prepared for deployment when our gathering times disperse.

My neighbor chugs a few cold ones, contemplates life, drowns a few worms, and gets off the treadmill for a few hours. It is enriching is a solitary way. But, there is a missing dimension to his life, regardless of his enlightened, unplugged attitude. His is a pop spirituality of "me". He misses the body connections of "we".

So, it's Sunday. Some of us will work, the new 24/7 truth about life. Others will escape the fast-lane with our family, or the solitude of a few hours or minutes alone. They are all noble and worthy pursuits. But, they're not church.

And, as troubled as it is, it is what I need this day.

 

 

The Citadel $

In 1967 life took a turn in the Holmes household. Several friends and I broke with some family traditions to begin knob year at the Citadel. My dad and younger brother, The Chester and Michael Holmes, are both Furman grads. My friend Charles Ingram was from a long time Clemson family. So, we were the black sheep in our respective families. Bulldogs and Citadel blue all the way.

Back then our greatest football rivalry was the Furman University Paladins. It was the annual end of the year grudge match that defined success/failure in the campaign, regardless of the win/loss record. So, back in those days we all made an annual wager of $1 on the game. The picture above is of the Citadel $ and the letter that Charlie Ingram sent The Chester in 1989 to transfer ownership to the winner. In moves and years The Citadel $ got misplaced and hasn't been updated in a while.

So, times change, the rivalry is still strong, but not as swash-buckling as then. But, it will be renewed again tonight as the Dogs and Paladins face off at 6:00 p.m. at Johnson Hagood Stadium. Still, when I ran across it Thursday I decided to revive the internal rivalry, try to update the annual scores, and get The Citadel $ back in play.

So, that's the history lesson for this Saturday. Have a great one. Hope your team wins. Go Dogs!!!

It's not just a basketball goal

Connecting with the local community is a test for many churches. Ours is no exception. The world around us is young, mobile, basically anonymous, and changing rapidly. Yes, we are commissioned to engage this close population. It is our mission field, the people group next door. But, even with an aggressive heart to engage the community, there are always barriers. Some of them are about us, others are about them. In either event, the burden of shaping and even changing these perceptions is on us. It's the light and salt thing at a corporate level. We have to look like light to them, and taste like salt.

It looks like a basketball goal, I know. But, it's more. The post and a broken backboard had been there for a long time but were of little use. So, a while back we added a goal and net. That very day young people from our community started playing pick-up in the parking lot. It became an afternoon and evening ritual, ten to twenty, sometimes more, on church property for informal street ball. Every day we got to know them and let them know they are welcome. Soon, one of our deacons started opening the family life center every other Friday night for neighborhood ball. One Friday night a few weeks ago 70 people came from the apartments around us to play basketball---men, wives, and children. Our deacon, Gary Connor, leads them in prayer and supervises game rotations and self-officiating. This year Gary and a  group of volunteers are ramping the Friday night thing up a notch, forming neighborhood leagues. I'm still saying "WOW" at their heart for the community.

So, it's not just a basketball goal. It's a welcome mat without the sentiment, what we pray is action and not mere words, an expression of willingness to connect to the changing world across and up the street. In a clear and visible way the basketball goal tore down one of the fences that made our campus off-limits to the people who live around us. Now, that property line wasn't a real fence or barrier but was more perceived and perhaps related to the stereo-types people have about baptist churches in the South. It was there, nonetheless, and we discovered that a hoop and net were the early stages of tearing that wall down. 

It wasn't the first move into the community, mind you. That was prayer walking often in the past ten years. Other engagements included adopting the A.C. Corcoran Elementary School, opening our facility to three HOA groups, a homeless ministry, loan of our family life center and gym to the city recreation department when the local community center was under renovation, several seasonal events for the community, symphonies, sewing groups, and many more. This isn't "touch us" time. We've barely made a single stride in bridging our disconnect to the place Jesus entrusted to our spiritual influence. But, we've learned that on occasion something as simple as a basketball goal can express "welcome" as clearly as anything else.

Our attitude is often that the perceptions of others is their problem and not ours. We seem to have adopted the cultural mantra "get over it" when we acknowledge the cynicism others have about the Christian church. Scripture, of course, addresses how we are to live in front of unbelivers. The salt and light references of Jesus were more than metaphors, certainly a model of shaping perceptions. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus was challenging stereo-types of religious people with the standards of the Kingdom. The "you have heard it said" and "But I say to you..." exchanges were a shift in perception between Pharisaic legalism and the reign of grace. Peter wrote, more specifically, "Conduct yourselves honorable among the Gentiles so that in the case where they speak against you as those who do what is evil, by observing your good works, glorify God on the day of visitation" (1 Peter 2:12). Jesus and Scripture assign the responsibility for shaping and changing perceptions to His people.

And, sometimes, it may just take a basketball goal to do it. You see it's not just a basketball goal.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gated communities

One critic said that churches may be the most exclusive gated communities in post-modern culture. It's hard to imagine a faith community with the name of Christ closed to the world that it was commissioned to engage. Still, while the label stings, it may represent why so many people are cynical about the church, and why so many unchurched people yawn when they drive by.

Well, yes, there's perception and reality, and at times they are miles apart. Public perception is often shaped by people outside the established traditional church and their characterizations, sometimes based on nothing more than personal bias, are most often less than complimentary. While many of the unchurched are actually indifferent to the church, a good many de-churched individuals, that is, people who were involved in church life at some point, and who no longer participate, actually hype the negative stereotypes of mean-spirited, narrow minded, homo-phobic people hiding out in their enclaves of faith.

In many instances traditional congregations are (1) organized around a rural model, (2) comprised of an older membership, (3) and tend to be smaller. There's often less energy, innovation, and awareness of community demographics. Leadership is centered in family hierarchies and there's little awareness of congregational values and strengths. Sometimes they are in survival mode. As a result, reaching into the local community may be a secondary or tertiary priority. So, the gate may be a passive interaction with the neighbors because they have no means to assimilate them into the life of the comatose church.   

Still, sinful behaviors can erect gates and even walls around a local church as well. Prideful arrogance, bias in every manifestation, prejudice, and racial separation create disconnects that defy any tag line or veneer the church may put forward. This may help explain why 15 SBC churches close every week, 90% of them closing in communities with growing populations. One church deacon told a consultant the church was closing because their population had declined. Actually, the population had grown. Yes, it had changed instead, and the church had decided not to reach the new residents around them. Somewhere in a changing world they had lost the mind of Christ. Racial sin was their gate.

Gates and walls were a significant theme in the New Testament. Jesus taught many lessons about knowing our neighbor, ministry to the Samaritans, and taking the Good News to the nations, the ethnos. He also declared that His house would be a house of prayer for "all nations" (Mark 11:17). In Acts Peter was given a vision so that the Gospel could be preached to the Gentiles. Paul wrote, "For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility" (Ephesians 2:14).  He also wrote, "There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). Surely, loving our neighbor as our self is enough Scriptural instruction to tear down any walls, fences, barriers, or gates that may separate His church from the communities to which He has commissioned us.

Removing gates is a spiritual discipline. They're only around the church because they are in our hearts. So, putting out welcome mats or warm fuzzy tag lines on the sign is like the proverbial lipstick on a pig. The unchurched and de-churched may have little spiritual discernment. But, they do have street smarts and can detect bogus appeal in a minute. As in all things, this change must be action and not words, genuine engagement and not pretense, the mission of Christ motivated by the heart of Christ implemented by the mind of Christ purposed for the glory of Christ. 

Anything short of that will just be erecting another wall---insincerity. And the gated community will stay gated.  

When the numbers don't add up

Many Americans are sick of numbers. The government is always tossing numbers at us to either impress us with the great job they're doing or scare the daylights out of us so we'll be willing to pay more. At any rate, culture has become cynical, maybe even allergic, to the bean counting stuff. I mean, the church growth movement died a very quiet death, RIP, and how many people we have in Sunday School each week isn't the first question asked at pastor's conferences anymore. For the most part.

Worse, leaders, not any of us Baptist clergy types, of course, use unsubstantiated stats to help us rally support or defray criticism. So, on occasions, rarely I'm sure in our churches, the axiom printed above is true. We can spin statistics to say whatever we want them to say. Shoot, you could also say that 51.207% of all statistics are not made up on the spot, leaving the impression that a majority of stats used are totally accurate. Still, there are plenty of suspicions about the use of statistics. Sometimes their overuse produces negative reactions that hinder rather than facilitate any forward progress or movement.

How can a church assess the local community without volumes of demographics or pages of statistical analysis? Surely there are more personal, hands-on methods to measure the pulse of the neighborhood. Notebooks and files of charts and graphs have useful information, no doubt. At the same time, they are mere paper, what a polling or survey group has compiled, usually census data arranged for more specific use. There's often little feel to them, numerical equivalents without life. 

Several activities can put some flesh and bones on the discovery process.

[1] Prayer walk the community. This will familiarize you with geographical layout of the neighborhood, traffic patters, location of strategic community places, and give you a first-glance look at the area around you. You may even meet some people in the process of praying for them.

[2] Volunteer with the nearest school in your community. The children in your area attend the elementary, middle, and high schools close to you. Every school needs dependable volunteers to assist in the class rooms, cafeteria, office, print shops, library, and other specialty areas. You can learn a lot about your community by helping those in the educational system. 

[3] Pay attention to the school bus stops in your community. On the way to work, or while you're prayer walking the streets, make note of the number of youngsters, and their ages, who are waiting to ride school buses each morning. The youth and vitality of the community will rest in how many students live, play, and attend school there.

[4] Visit the local community center or recreational facility. You will be able to sense the heartbeat of your area by observing little league ball games, family rituals, any other sports events, specialized training, crime watch groups, or anything that draws the people together throughout the year. If there isn't one, maybe there should be.

[5] Go to the nearest Wal-Mart Store on Friday night. Commerce is a reflection of every thriving community. They local big box store may give you some feel for the people who shop nearby. It's an interesting evening of people watching if nothing else. I mean, the People of Wal-Mart is a phenomenon in itself. But, in this visit, don't let the extremes misinform you. Look at the people, the products in the store, and parking lot patterns, and you'll learn a lot about your community.

There are many ways to get the feel for the world around us. Opening our eyes is certainly a start. Compiling demographics and statistics works in some places. In others there may need to be more personal observation and analysis. There are biblical precedents for just paying attention to our surroundings as a means of engaging the people in it.

Throughout the Book of Acts Dr. Luke wrote about the travels and missionary work of the apostles, including much of the minsitry of Paul. In each city they spoke to the inhabitants based on their observations. In one example, Paul went to Athens. His spirit was troubled because he "saw that the city was full of idols" (Acts 17:16). When he preached at the Areopagus he said, "Men of Athens, I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar which was inscribed: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD" (Acts 17:22-23). His ministry to them was based on his observations of their city. You see, looking around is a good way to know the world around us. 

Sometimes the numbers don't add up. That's when we just need to open our eyes.      

Priorities for now

The icon stage left may define, at least in some measure, the missional challenge that has the contemporary church off point. It depicts three usually accepted priorities of the local church:  UPREACH, INREACH, AND OUTREACH.

Like all of our other strategies regarding the mission of the church these three are open to debate, discussion, quibbling, smirks, question marks, and loads of circular rhetoric. They first scrolled across my screen back in the 1980's when I was scratching my head to discover some mission traction in my first church. It seemed reasonable enough to me, and our small, rural church went after them with some passion. 

As the guy down the street says, that was then, this is now. The priority formula that helped a small rural church find some mission focus may not pack the same punch in the new millennium, especially in this culture. It seems that UPREACH, INREACH, and OUTREACH, in that particular hierarchy, has created hundreds, maybe thousands, of self-absorbed churches. I mean, promoting INREACH to point number two in a culture that specializes in me-ology may just indulge the church on itself to the point that it can't even stagger into OUTREACH mode. In fact, I would suggest that the un-holy trinity of church life is now INREACH, INREACH, and INREACH, to the exclusion of any meaningful UPRREACH, and only incidental, friend-related OUTREACH.

Get real! If UPREACH IS about abiding in Christ, personal discipleship, corporate and personal worship, living obediently in His care, the church in America is getting bad marks. If OUTREACH is about evangelism, service, ministry, mission, baptisms, church growth, influencing the marketplace, public policy, or moral indicators, the outcomes are equally unimpressive. If INREACH equals gospel bubbles, discussion groups, therapy sessions, nice club houses, or building caring communities, then the grading moves up a notch. We're good at the dynamics of INREACH. Let's all hold hands and sing "The Family of God" in the round. Amen, and amen. 

The point? UPREACH, INREACH, AND OUTREACH is a flawed concept, on more than one level. First, there is no formula for effective church. If there had been one, the Lord Jesus would have given it to us, or the Holy Spirit would have revealed it to the writers of the New Testament. I mean, surely God wasn't playing "Name that Tune" with the church in the hopes we'd discover the secret of effective ministry. Give me a break! Second, effective mission is to some degree contextual. So, the triple threat may be expressed one way here and another way there. Third, UPREACH, INREACH, and OUTREACH, are circular and not linear movements. In a reversal of sorts, healthy churches are those with effective UPREACH AND OUTREACH.  

The strategy for times like these may actually be UPREACH, UPREACH, and UPREACH, a radical emphasis on worship, personal discipleship, and the disciplines of abiding in Christ. Jesus said, "Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me" (John 15:4). INREACH should be a natural outcome of being mutually attached to the same vine, with OUTREACH as in fruit production as a result. 

Today's church is self-centered because we're basically obsessive compulsive about the INREACH functions. Some churches sacrifice UPREACH and OUTREACH, even doctrinal integrity, for the sake of congregational unity. And, we ought to know by now that human unity is but a pretense of meaningful INREACH. To keep people together for the sake of nothing is doesn't equate with unity in any biblical sense. So, the mechanics of INREACH, as virtuous as strong fellowship can be, may not be a measure of strong inner union. If that unity isn't in Christ, you know, UPREACH, and doesn't propel us to share that Good News with others, like in OUTREACH, it isn't much more than a bunch of people watching a good movie together.

UPREACH, UPREACH, UPREACH is about Christ. When Christ is lifted up, He will draw us and all men to Himself. It's the priority for now.

Hey, church! Let's open our eyes!!!

There's a song. It isn't an old hymn standard or a selection from the contemporary Christian genre. It's a James Taylor/Don Grolnick tune with a haunting premise, "That Lonesome Road". It's about being on that lonesome road because of burned bridges. It poses a group of rhetorical questions about how being on that "lonesome road" happened. Taylor released it in the 1981 album "Daddy Loves His Work". You can catch Taylor's You Tube version here.

The entire song evokes deep reflection. One verse is particularly profound. "If I had stopped to listen once or twice. If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes. If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart. I'd not be on this road tonight". The line, "If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes" crashes on me with mega weight. As we ponder and think through the condition of the American church these days there's a lot of open mouths and closed eyes. What is more, if we look around, stop some of the verbiage, and practice the theological discipline of discernment, the answers are not as perplexing as we'd like to make them. Hey church! We must open our eyes!!!

So, churches are closing at the rate of 15 per week, 85% are plateaued or declining, all the measured demographics are trending downward, including baptisms, and we're all running our mouths---deliberating, debating, deciphering, declaiming, and all the other buzz words of the fortress church. Everybody has an opinion about the times, including me. But, all the lip-service demonstrates a head in the sand ignorance of simply connecting the biblical dots. It's not rocket surgery, church. Lets open our eyes and observe the obvious.

Think about the harvest. Jesus said it was plentiful (see Luke 10:2). He told them to pray for workers in the harvest fields. So, OBVIOUS FACT 1 is that there must be a need for workers to be deployed to the fields. Paul wrote about the harvest in two or three places too. He wrote, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth"
(1 Corinthians 3:6). We love to debate this one too, whether it's a about harvest or about spiritual maturity. Get a life! OBVIOUS FACT 2 is that only God can make any- thing grow in either case. Now, connect the dots.

If the harvest is plentiful, and only God can make a harvest, and we're to pray for workers in the harvest field, there must be a conclusion. What is it? The reason for dismal numbers, not that numbers are always the definitive story, must be that (1) we're not going to the fields, (2) we're not sowing seed, or (3) for some reason in the mystery of His ways God is not producing a harvest just now.

A month or so ago a few of us had dinner with Henry and Marilyn BLackaby before he spoke to the LifeWorks Charleston quarterly event. We join many other believers in rejoicing in Dr. Blackaby's ministry over the years and his safe return after a heart episode last Friday, and heart surgery as soon as possible. Anyway, in the course of the conversation he related his belief that the next world revival would come from the business community and not the church. He said he was convicted God could not trust the church with revival today. Truly, our record of making disciples isn't all that impressive. All of these declines could be His way of getting our attention.

The three scenarios are not good, no matter how you spin them. And, it doesn't take pie charts and mission-speak to explain the dismal state of the church. His church is either disobedient, or He is providentially withholding the harvest in pronouncing His displeasure and judgment. In either case, all the talk is just cheap. Like the Taylor song, maybe it's time for us to close our mouths and open our eyes. Truth is staring us in the face and we're too busy talking to see it. The world is in trouble, Jesus is still the answer, and we're so taken with our slick analysis and prophetic rhetoric we've forgotten to show them the one that can change everything.

Our life-song may just be a sorrowful lament, pondering "if I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes".

 

Unplug

 

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines over you.
Isaiah 60:1

Get up. Unplug. Go to church. Worship. Learn. Grow.

Put on the veg

Saturday occurs once a week on the calender. The all new 24/7 world does the Saturday thing on different days. So, a few of us are off today, and others experience Saturday on another day. The thing is, we should all "sabbath" at some point.

So, whatever your Saturday, recreate.  Recuperate. Chill. Veg. Refresh. Re-energize. Stop and smell the coffee. Get off the treadmill. NOW!