Wednesday, December 21, 2005

The Abolition of the Laity

I seldom recommend books to people. There are a couple of reasons I don't: 1) Books are usually not that great, and 2) Even if I think a book is great, I don't presume what is great to me will be great to others. However, today I want to compel anyone keenly interested in the Church to read The Abolition of the Laity (Whose US title is unfortunately The Other Six Days) by R. Paul Stevens. This book is an amazing call for the people of God (laos) to be the Church. The bifurcation of God's people as "lay" and "clergy" has damaged the church, its mission and more importantly the Kingdom of God. Stevens presents a compelling theological vision of a church filled with all of God's people doing the work of the ministry.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Merry Christmas!












This is our Christmas Picture (umm I mean...Holiday Picture) for the year. We had a dusting of snow early in December, so we were fortunate to have this unprecedented shot. Snow is forecast for Christmas day here, however, Crystal and I will probably be golfing in Alabama that day.

Monday, December 12, 2005

The Fully Online Church

Today during one of our discussions, a fully online church was discovered. One can join this church, be baptized in it, and take communion -- ALL ONLINE! It claims to have over 7,000 members. Go to www.alphachurch.org to find out more.

Question? Can real community happen on the internet? Is a fully online church, really a church?

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Houston Trip

The picture to the left is a picture (a little fuzzy) of our group with Joel and Victoria Osteen at Lakewood Church. During our visit to Houston, coordinated by Jim Jackson (pastor of Chapelwood UMC) and his staff, we visited a church of about nine which meets in a bar, a house church, Lakewood Church with 30,000, and everything inbetween. We had a tremendous time seeing how "church" is done so many different ways in the same metro area. Below I have listed the churches we visited along with a brief synopsis about why these churches are worth learning from.
Ecclesia
A very cool "emergent" type church with an emphasis on the arts. The church uses an old church building, but the building is actually considered an art gallery and coffee shop. During worship they provide paint and canvases to those who wish to paint.
Second Baptist
Pastor Ed Young has served this church for over 30 years. With three campuses, and dreams for bigger and better things, it is a mega-mega church southern style. The church is in the process of raising 87 million dollars for expansion on all three of their campuses. They also have a deal with AMC movie theaters to open franchise churches in communities all over Texas, and possibly throughout the country. Ed Young wants Second Baptist to be the Chick-fil-a of churches -- but open on Sunday.
Gateway Community Church
This church, planted in a Texas suburb about 10 years ago is not unlike many large Willow Creek modeled churches, however, they have successfully navigated the loss of their founding pastor because of a moral failure. By dealing with things openly and fairly, they have been able to grow in spite of the unfortunate way they lost their primary leader.
Church Planters
We had the awesome opportunity to meet five different United Methodist church planters who have had varying degrees of success. Jim Leggett (Grace Fellowship), Paul Clines (Parkway), Ken Munn (Faith Quest), Ken Wurlein (Faithbridge), and Chris Voltz. Jim, Paul and Ken Wurlein have all had phenomenal success in their church planting, many of them with adapted models of Willow Creek and Saddleback with their own special emphases. Ken Munn's church plant is newer, and has struggled some. Chris shared with us the difficulty of experiencing a church plant which was not successful.
Main Street Crossing
This innovative church meets in a bar/coffee shop in Tomball, TX. The pastor is a former SBC pastor who believes the traditional church is failing to reach too many people, so he works full time as the manager of Main Street Crossing as he pastors. They currently have around nine-12 people as a part of this unique church community, though hundreds frequent the bar a coffee shop each week.
Harbor Church
This church, led by Jim and Betty Herrington (Jim co-authored the book Leading Congregational Change) is a radical departure from traditional church. Located in a somewhat rough area of Houston, it seeks to build relationships with persons who would never come to a church building, and are assimilated into a house church. Many of the people they reach are "street kids" who make their living off the street. Jim and Betty have been taking people into their home for years, as they have led this church. Their website has some great resources -- I especially love the song sheet maker.
Lakewood Church
This church, currently the largest in the US, is led by Joel and Victoria Osteen (see picture above). Several years ago Joel's dad passed away and he was unwillingly thrust into following him. The growth of the church, and Joel's influence has been phenomenal. Though I personally have some issues with the basic "power of positive thinking" message which seems to be gospel at Lakewood, we were all impressed by Joel's humility and graciousness. We received a copy Your Best Life Now devotional readings which I do not recommend, unless you believe your best life comes from within in you, and not from God.
St. John's Downtown (UMC)
This church, led by Rudi and Juanita Rasmus has been one of the fastest growing churches in United Methodism. Rudi was sent to a dying, downtown church with just a handful of elderly, white women. Just over ten years later the church is a thriving inner city congregation which is taking social action seriously. They are actually beginning a capital campaign for their church to bill an affordable housing community. Interestingly Rudy has not completed his seminary education (though a very smart, and sharp person), and is a Local Pastor within the UM system. It is, to say the least, a phenomenal story.

Grace Presbyterian Church
We visited this large Presbyterian Church right before the pastor's first Sunday as the lone Senior Pastor of the church. The Pastor, Doug Ferguson, had been one of the co-pastor of a large Presbyterian church in Southern California. His co-pastor there was John Ortberg. Dr. Ferguson's transition to Grace PC was unique because he was following a pastor who had been at Grace for over 30 years. Even more unique is that he and the pastor served together for three months during a transiton period. This is unique to Presbyterian churches which normally have interim pastors for 1-2 years between pastors.

Spring Branch Church of the Nazarene

This church in transition faced a difficult challenge when the Texas DOT forced them to sell their property near a major Interstate. Luckily they were being paid many of millions of dollars for their land. Scott Rainey, the pastor, is leading this church through a major transition which includes a new campus, and plans for multiple campuses around Houston.



Jorge Acevedo

Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure of learning from Jorge Acevedo, the pastor of Grace Church (Grace United Methodist Church) in Cape Coral, FL. Unfortunately we were not in Cape Coral, but in Wilmore where it has been below freezing for a week straight. Jorge worked with Dick Wills (the author of Waking to God's Dream), until he was appointed to Grace. In nine and a half years since his arrival the church has grown from 300 to over 2000 in worship attendance. In his presentation he shared seven principles he believes have helped him lead his church: 1) Be honest your about your current reality, 2) Picture a preferred future, 3) Practice the genius of the "and" not the tyranny of the "or" 4) Trust your gut, 5) Discern what your job will be in the church before other decide it for you, 6) Determine what hills are worth dying on, 7) Don't stop in Jerusalem, remember we are also called to Judea, Samaria, and into the ends of the earth.

One of the interesting discussions we had was about vision, or picturing a preferred future. Jorge stated that vision comes through a leader, and is not best done through a collective process within the church. We then asked, would the vision for the church been different if you had gone to a different church? He answered no, because the vision is born inside of the leader, and when shared with a church will (hopefully) awaken the same vision inside of the church people. What do you think? Is vision given by God into the leader, or does it come from God through a process where leaders and followers come and discern/receive the vision together?

Saraland United Methodist Church