Considering what we’ve heard recently about megachurches creating satellite campuses that receive the message from the senior pastor on the main [...]]]> Dave Black warns us today against the cult of the speaker. (With permission I’ve extracted the relevant portion as a post at JesusParadigm.com since Dave’s blog doesn’t allow linking to a specific post.)

Considering what we’ve heard recently about megachurches creating satellite campuses that receive the message from the senior pastor on the main campus via video. It’s not my intent here to point to any particular speaker as an example of being a celebrity preacher or of participating the cult of the speaker. Those of us without the temptation of multi-site ministry or television opportunities can be just as much tempted to pride, arrogance, or any of the myriad of other temptations that come with celebrity.

Dave’s post brought to my mind a concern I’ve had with many churches. I was a member of one church that had somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of the average Sunday attendance in the lay speaker program. That’s a wonderful thing. But how often did any of these lay speakers speak? Not very frequently.

Now as we were constantly reminded in lay speaking classes, preaching on Sunday is not the only place in which we could serve. But in the same way I would remind pastors that preaching on Sunday is not the only way they can serve their congregations.

This was brought forcefully to mind a few years back when I invited a pastor to speak at a conference. He eventually had to back out because an emergency came up that kept him out of his pulpit for one week. He told me that he had a covenant with the congregation to be in the pulpit 50 out of 52 Sundays.

While I commend that pastor for being faithful to his word and for putting his beliefs into practice, I don’t think having “the pastor” or “the senior pastor” speak every Sunday is necessarily a good thing. It’s possible that other people in the congregation have something valid to contribute as well. But much more importantly, if we don’t learn to speak about the gospel in church, where will we learn?

If we want lay speakers (speaking “Methodist”) to learn how to speak, where could it be better to do this than at their home congregation? I know there are concerns about the quality of the preaching and the theological/doctrinal accuracy of the message. But one of the things a pastor could do would be to spend the time he or she might spend in sermon preparation helping a lay speaker prepare a sermon.

Then what about the substantial number of members of any church who are neither called nor equipped to present a sermon? There are many varieties of sharing, including testimonies. We have this kind of thing in the church from time to time, but why is it so rare?

I recall testimonies about the ministries of the church given over a period of four weeks. These were excellent. They gave me a better idea of what certain church ministries were accomplishing. It was great to hear from the people involved.

Recently we had a youth Sunday. We have one of those a year. Why is it just once a year? The young man who brought the message did an excellent job. I could stand to hear him more often.

We have many members who feel very inadequate to talk about their faith. Does not the example set by the Sunday service suggest that it requires a trained professional to present the Christian message? Does that example not encourage people to think that what they need to refer their friends and acquaintances to the pastor if they are to have a conversation about faith?

At my home church (First UMC, Pensacola), we are blessed with an excellent pastoral staff. I very much appreciate their ministry in preaching. But I wonder just how much that ministry might be expanded if more time were spent training members of the congregation to share in everything from a one minute testimony to a full sermon.

We often wonder why people tend to become pew sitters rather than becoming active. But isn’t the example of Sunday morning a suggestion that this is precisely the proper role for the “ordinary” church member? I think it’s worth considering.

Now my experience amongst Methodists is that most will just shrug their shoulders about worship on Saturday. They get a little more tense about soul sleep.

I have encountered a few Methodists who are like the one in the [...]]]> As an ex-SDA who is now Methodist, I just have to share this video:

Now my experience amongst Methodists is that most will just shrug their shoulders about worship on Saturday. They get a little more tense about soul sleep.

I have encountered a few Methodists who are like the one in the video, generally those who really have no idea what SDAs believe.

On the other hand, I’ve gotten some very interesting reactions from SDAs who discover I’m ex-SDA and now Methodist. At one meeting where I had brought one of our Energion authors who is SDA, I was cornered by someone at the book table afterward who said he simply couldn’t understand how one could ever have doctrinal disagreements with the SDA church. Take it from me—it’s really quite easty! It’s only fair to point out that our hosts at that church were embarrassed and apologized to me for his behavior, though I actually didn’t mind.

(HT: Spectrum)

Via another young pastor, Geoffrey Lentz, who is doing wonderful things at [...]]]> There are many days when the United Methodist Church discourages me, and I wrote a post yesterday with that sort of feeling. But there are two things that regularly encourage me: Encountering vital small congregations, and meeting some of our young pastors.

Via another young pastor, Geoffrey Lentz, who is doing wonderful things at First United Methodist Church and especially with our ICON service, I met one of these young pastors through my publishing work–be warned that I’m going to push his book in this post just a bit–Darren McClellan. His book is Out of This World: An Assessment of Christian Community, and in it he evaluates a church congregation through interviews, and then looks at some suggestions to improve the way in which we handle such things. It’s a slightly edited version of his Princeton Doctor of Ministry dissertation.

It’s with our paid/team imprint EnerPower Press, because it was submitted as a simple dissertation printing. Had it been submitted for traditional publishing, I might well have decided not to take it due to the size of the potential audience. In terms of quality, the manuscript need have no apologies (nor the author).

I’m not going to comment extensively on this, as it’s hardly my field, but in it, Darren starts with a view of discipleship derived from both Bonhoeffer and Wesley, and then allows the anonymous church members to express themselves on how this worked in their church. He then gives some specific ideas for reform in the church, and finally addresses suggestions to churches, to new pastors, to district superintendents, and to bishops. This may be a bit ambitious, but such directness is needed to prevent what Darren calls “vocational homicide.” That’s a strong term, no doubt, but my observation is that there are many people in the church who are guilty of that charge.

For my United Methodist readers, and any others interested, I’m going to put this book on sale for direct purchase. I see that the Amazon.com price today is $18.99. I’m going to put it at $18 shipped via Energion Direct. I’ll leave the sale price up for two weeks. I have some on the shelf here ready to ship.

At the same time, bloggers who are interested in reviewing it can e-mail to request a free review copy. The only requirement is that you do review it. There’s no requirement as to how you review it, but if you receive a free copy, I want to see your review. Oh, and the government wants you to note that you received a free copy.

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, that’s a big collection of topics, but I think they’re connected. John Meunier links to an excellent post by Dan Dick, which you should read before you read this one. The topic here is the conference dashboards in United Methodist annual conferences, such as this one for the North [...]]]>

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, that’s a big collection of topics, but I think they’re connected. John Meunier links to an excellent post by Dan Dick, which you should read before you read this one. The topic here is the conference dashboards in United Methodist annual conferences, such as this one for the North Alabama Conference.

I do have substantial problems with the church dashboard, including a great deal of the way in which the statistics are presented. I also am concerned about numerical measures of success in the church. It’s quite possible to build up numbers and be missing the mission and ministry of the church, and the proclamation of the gospel message. Some people will leave a church that is aiming for full commitment and discipleship. At the same time, as Dan Dick pointed out, some people’s professed disdain for such numbers is the result of laziness. But all of this has been thoroughly discussed amongst the Methodist blogs.

It seems to me, however, that the use of these numbers on conference dashboards is just a symptom of a certain retreat from personal responsibility. I don’t mean by this that our United Methodist bishops are off trying to avoid hard decisions. Rather, we are systematically trying to codify and quantify so much of human behavior and organizational policy that not only can avoid taking personal responsibility; they must.

For example, in my district, the district superintendent has 53 churches for which he is responsible, and the conference as a whole has more that 600 pastors, for which our bishop is responsible. Each year, pastoral appointments are made by the bishop, with the advice of the cabinet and many people in the churches, for those 600 churches. I think the temptation is going to be very strong to put some kind of simplified set of numbers on performance. The more details you have to consider, the harder it is to make a choice.

What I wonder is how often a bishop could get by with ignoring the numbers because, let’s say, one pastor is making better disciples, even if his numbers (for some reason) didn’t look as good. Could the popular pastor with the watered-down message be overlooked in favor of the pastor with the harder message of sacrifice and service? I recognize here that the pastor with the good numbers may be an effective disciple maker. I know some pastors in that category. The pastor with the bad numbers may be either lazy, or much more likely simply too beat up by parishioners, the system, and the unrealistic expectations we have for pastors that he is, in fact, performing badly.

But can the leadership determine this with accuracy in all (or nearly all) cases? Would they be willing to send the less popular pastor to a larger church?

It seems to me that collecting statistics is valuable, though I think someone well qualified in analyzing data should rework the conference display. I sense a few cases of deceptive use of numbers. Most importantly, the numbers are not related to the nature of the existing church body and the community in which it is located. All of that requires personal knowledge such as cannot be collected remotely.

But what if such information was collected and available? Would our leadership be willing to act against popular pressure? I see this as a common problem in leadership, at least in the United States today. We have a problem making a decision and standing up for it. Of course, in employment situations, the decisive leader may well have to present statistics as evidence in court in order to justify a decision.

That’s one reason for “zero tolerance” policies in so many cases. “Zero tolerance” means that people in leadership don’t have to make responsible, nuanced decisions. But “zero tolerance” is just the extreme case of avoiding responsibility. Putting it all on a set of numbers is another one. It’s a trend I don’t like, even though I recognize it as a response to the other extreme–a complete lack of accountability. (I have tremendous respect for Bishop Willimon, for example, whose dashboard I linked as an example. Yet I’m still not happy with it.)

I ramble because I don’t know a solution, other than to say we need leaders to take responsibility, and we need to make sure we know who is responsible for what, so they can be accountable. I also think we need to bring leadership closer to the local church so that each person in leadership is responsible for a reasonable number of people and churches. That would allow individuals to seek out all those nuances that back up the numbers.

I don’t know the solution, and since I am neither a pastor nor a church administrator, and have avoided most church committees, I am probably the wrong person to propose one. What I do believe is that, though structural changes can help, the answer doesn’t lie in precisely how the church is organized. There are congregational style churches that are just as dysfunctional as any Methodist church whose bishop sent the “wrong” pastor.

What we do need is a change of our personal culture, from that of an organization that must maintain itself to one of gospel driven discipleship.

Related articles

• What does a pastor do? (johnmeunier.wordpress.com)
• Dashboard pros and cons (johnmeunier.wordpress.com)
• Pastors, Shepherds and Leadership (churchblogmatics.wordpress.com)
• Our Pastor is Lazy (jevlir.com – a short story)

Image by unca_cthulhu via Flickr

Jason Byassee explains why he voted to allow up to 2/3 of seminary credits to be taken online in his United Methodist conference (HT: Joel Watts).

Readers of this blog will already be aware that I believe it’s inevitable that the majority of education is delivered by virtual [...]]]>

Image by unca_cthulhu via Flickr

Jason Byassee explains why he voted to allow up to 2/3 of seminary credits to be taken online in his United Methodist conference (HT: Joel Watts).

Readers of this blog will already be aware that I believe it’s inevitable that the majority of education is delivered by virtual means. Not only that, I think this is a good thing. I think it will make it possible to deliver a higher quality education. There is always resistance to new technology, because it takes away from our old standard ways of doing things. But instead of fighting such technology, which is still just a tool, we need to find ways to use it to make things work better.

I think our current concept of a university, a college, and a seminary are doomed. But that doesn’t mean that there is nothing good in those concepts. There are experiences that do need to be carried out together. But those classroom lectures with hundreds of students ignoring the professor can be replaced by more efficient means, and we can spend our money, and the precious time of quality teachers on the most important things.

For example, I recall preparing lessons for my later classes while occupying a seat in a class on Daniel and Revelation, and then getting a comfortable ‘A’ in the course. I could have learned more by spending those hours online. Could the professor have done better? Absolutely. But he also had to deal with about 50 students, so detailed discussion of all points involving all of us would have been impossible.

On the other hand I would not want to exchange my time studying Greek exegesis with Dr. Sakae Kubo for anything else. There we had half a dozen serious students, and we made that time with an expert count.

Dr. Byassee comments on hands-on education, such as learning how to take the hand of a dying person. There’s where I think even seminary fails. I have talked to many seminary graduates who are uncomfortable praying with a member of their congregation when they graduate. They have to become comfortable as they pastor. Here the local church needs to be involved. I wonder why a young person, especially one contemplating full-time ministry, would be allowed to get through their youth in church without learning how to pray with one another.

I’d think strong local church involvement plus a good online program with additional time spent in person at a seminary (weekends, weeks, months, sabbatical years) would be a good formula. All of those elements should be lifelong, and not just during a time of preparation.

In my view, social media and virtual education will only hurt us if we don’t learn how to make the best of the resources available.

Related articles

• The State Of Virtual Education (nihiliest.wordpress.com)
• Update: Online MDivs now more flexible – GBHEM quick to change recent ruling (hackingchristianity.net)
• Online MDivs in dispute – GBHEM’s new guidelines (hackingchristianity.net)

From Pensapedia.com / Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License v. 2.5

The description of the ICON service at my home church, First United Methodist Church in Pensacola, FL, states that the service is:

This worship service just celebrated its second anniversary, and I was happy today [...]]]>

From Pensapedia.com / Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License v. 2.5

The description of the ICON service at my home church, First United Methodist Church in Pensacola, FL, states that the service is:

• Cutting Edge
• Tradition Rich
• Art Embracing
• Christ Centered

This worship service just celebrated its second anniversary, and I was happy today to see that the sanctuary was largely filled. It has been both amazing and gratifying to me to watch the success of this particular worship service as it has been the entry point to church fellowship for a large number of people, especially young couples. I must confess that I often feel a bit old attending.

Today associate minister at First UMC, Geoffrey Lentz, preached on cutting edge. He noted the things that make people think the service is cutting edge–large, high-definition screens, state of the art sound, and the embrace of social media. But he said that wasn’t what makes it really cutting edge. The one genuinely new thing under the sun, with due apologies to Qoheleth, is Jesus Christ. He told us that the most cutting edge thing we could possibly do is to follow Jesus Christ.

Now I like many of the elements of worship in ICON. I think many of those elements, and the way they are blended, has helped make the service successful. But if you had asked me before this service why I think First UMC is growing, I would tell you it is because the pastors are preaching the gospel and making every effort to put it in practice. If you attend First UMC, you’re going to hear a gospel message.

I don’t say this to belittle any other accomplishments. I just don’t think those are the key things. Large, high-definition screens showing well-produced videos can help bring people into the room. Well-done contemporary music can catch their attention. But if the message behind those things is not Jesus Christ and him crucified, there will be nothing to keep people in church. And if you don’t get there, you also don’t get them into ministry, and I would say that if one doesn’t get into ministry (or more directly stated mission), then one hasn’t really brought that person to Christ.

I was glad to hear Geoffrey make that point. While I have just argued that the worship service is worship, even though everything we do is to be worship, I also believe that a major test of the success of a worship service is whether or not it gets us engaged in those acts of service–and worship–that are to go on all week.

Related articles

• Who is Jesus Christ? A Meditation on the Gospel of the Second Sunday of the Year (adw.org)

I don’t find this all that hard to understand. I personally have been enjoying more reading of the eastern church fathers, and have found much good material in the theology and liturgy of the Orthodox churches.

Chron – Houston and Texas News reports on some churches in that area which are [...]]]> … are increasing.

I don’t find this all that hard to understand. I personally have been enjoying more reading of the eastern church fathers, and have found much good material in the theology and liturgy of the Orthodox churches.

Chron – Houston and Texas News reports on some churches in that area which are largely made up of converts and are often pastored by converts to that tradition. People come, amongst other reasons, because they are looking for stability. When the church changes as fast as the culture, one can easily wonder just what the church is for.

While I am attracted to some of the theology, I can’t say that I am much attracted to the ecclesiology or the church structure. In fact, I find even the structure of the United Methodist Church a bit annoying. At the same time, I think I see similar ideas and attitudes in action in the ICON service at my home church, First United Methodist Church in Pensacola. Many people wondered about the traditional elements of the liturgy. There’s a tendency in many of our churches in this area toward worship services that are just contemporary. Would people want a service with the more traditional elements?

The answer appears to be “yes.” Most of the new members of the church are coming in through that service. People are attending who haven’t attended church in years. People love the service. It combines technology, contemporary music and a traditional structure for the liturgy.

I do like this liturgy that tends to provide stability, but perhaps we could do even more if we recovered the counter-cultural nature of the Christian message and really became God’s upside-down kingdom.