Category: hmm… thoughts

Yesterday in Sunday school I started off with a little devotional thought about the sabbath. I’m no legalist, and I don’t tend to believe that the Jewish laws of the Temple apply to Christians… so how do we or even should we use the sabbath.

This is what I told my class. If God did it, I think we should do it too. I don’t know how or when students will be able to do this… but I know that we all should do it.

Why? It’s my experience that when I don’t get regular rest from what I am doing, I go crazy. So since I don’t want to be known as a crazy person I take rest.

What do you mean by rest? Simple think about this… what do you call work? When you’ve got that figured out… don’t do that!

This week the people of our church have been providing transportation for Macomb County Rotating Emergency Shelter Team. (MCREST) Let me just say this, it has been incredible to see the helpers come out of the woodwork and pitch in.

Last week as I was trying to fill slots, one member of our church said to me, "This is the type of thing our church should be involved in." I couldn’t agree more. I believe you move an old church like ours in baby steps and this was exactly that a baby step in the right direction. Perhaps another succesful year or so and we will be ready to host.

I couldn’t be more proud of the people who have put aside their own "stuff" to help out. Their type of service to the Lord is much needed in our community and I look forward to witnessing more of it.

Let me state out front in case anyone is reading this: I am critiquing something I am seeing… not speaking against the emergent movement.

Over the past few weeks and months there has been a bunch of downright attacks directed at people in the emergent movement about such issues as "are you teaching universalism" and "are you validating practices of Eastern Mysticism."

Here is my frustration… very few answers ever come out of these guys! Someone will pop up and ask them a question in a public forum, or at a conference, they get all POed and think they are too good to answer any questions. [Read Tony’s blog entry]

Here’s what I don’t get…

1. This is a movement based on critical thinking of the evangelical community… why are they above the same scrutiny they have laid upon the church?
2. The questions being asked are foundational to biblical Christianity. These aren’t questions about methodology, they are about core theology… Is Jesus the only way to heaven? I think that is a question that is relevant to the conversation.
3. By not answering these questions, they are silently denying that they believe in biblical Christianity… which clearly isn’t true if you talk to them. I have read these guys, followed their stories, heard them speak, and met several of them… these guys are the real deal… I don’t get why they won’t simply say that they don’t believe in Universalism… it’s silly.
4. By claiming that no person represents "the emergent conversation" there is a fundamental denial of truth. There are voices out there that speak for emergent. Tony Jones recently said something along the lines of, "When you have a dinner conversation, you don’t elect a spokesperson." Get over it Tony, you speak for emergent. And so do Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, and your stuff is published by Mark Ostreicher.

All that to say, I just don’t get it. Why not deal with conflict and misunderstanding head up? Most of what these people are being accused of is silly. Emergent isn’t universalist or "liberalism remarketed" or whatever else hate driven fundamentalist are claiming out there. Those people are seeking to destroy emergent… mostly out of envy. They use pseudo-journalism and "clinton-like" tactics to twist words and make people say things they didn’t. [Too many to list!] What they are about is recognizing a major shift in American culture and helping the regular evangelical church address this need.

What I don’t get is that more needs to be said to critics than just "no one person speaks for us." Deal with conflict in a biblically mandated way. Address people head up first!

Yesterday, Megan and Paul went with me to Tractor Supply to buy some birdfeeders for our house. Did you know that they make these things in all sorts of shapes and sizes? I didn’t… and if these cool shaped ones weren’t so expensive we would have got one. (Yep, I’ve got a $10 limit on things like that!)

As Megan and I were filling and placing these in our backyard… I got to thinking about the church birdfeeders we saw at the store.

Isn’t that how people treat the church? I remember over the years I’ve heard people say that the reason you come to church is to get spiritually fed. Is that it? Is that why we have churches? To get food? To come to a place, sit on the stoop… and eat a meal?

I don’t think so. There is so much more to offer than mere spiritual food. A good church should be meeting so many more needs than spiritual nutrician. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge proponent of the idea that we should be teaching the Bible predominantly and that not doing that is sinful on the part of the leadership. But I also don’t think we should just worry about "stuffing people’s belly’s and sending them on their way." No no no no no no. There is so much more we can offer. And a wise leadership doesn’t see themselves as a birdfeeder…

"My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do…"

Remember that song as a kid? I do. Call me silly or whatever… but I am dumb enough to believe it. But as I look around the scope of my fellow friends in ministry I wonder if they have the same faith in the same BIG GOD that I do.

Here’s what I mean. I have friends who have no problem seeing how big and strong God is… but when it comes to "there’s nothing my God cannot do" they check out. They look at personality clashes… inevitable crisis… staff trouble… whatever… and these guys don’t rely on God, they don’t look at the mirror and see something about themselves they need to change… they simply check out. To a new ministry. Greener pastures. Bigger. Better. Same thing, different zip code. Some in turn check out of church. Some get tired and check out of ministry. Too many check into small god faith. They have itty bitty faith in a GREAT BIG GOD.

There is no excuse for this. There is no excuse for guys, good men and women in ministry, to be so petty and so selfish to check out of where they are at because of something they want or "feel" called to do. Again and again I look at that as a cop-out. The excuses sound like this… "I felt called to go to another ministry… and things with my boss weren’t working out." So the real problem is with a person… the "feeling called" was some convenient opportunity the enemy put in your way. Remember, a calling is something that comes externally not internally. You get called by the leaders of your church… not by a "burning in the bosom." This is what keeps you from feeling called to start a cult… it’s built in, Biblically founded, accountability.

Here’s the result in America. We have too many churches in some places and not enough in others. The American mentaility of church has become, sadly, like a franchise. Either you like your current ministry or location… or you plant a new one. What have we ended up with? You’ve got that scene from Shrek 2 when people run out of one Starbucks that is about to get crushed across the street into a new one. There are too many churches full of people ready and willing to run out of their old church into the new one across the street. And there are plenty of "called" ministry professionals who couldn’t play well with others in an existing ministry so they planted their own who will gladly accept any digruntled person from another church. Sure… those guys believe in a itty bitty god… but the have passion for it… they believe they are too good for the old churches who beleive in a GREAT BIG GOD… but since they view them as competition… they just call them rubish and discount their longstanding ministries as worthless. And these places grow like weeds! Why? Personality! So many itty bitty god believers aren’t looking for Jesus in their church experience… they are looking for someone exciting who will make them move and feel good RIGHT WHERE THEY ARE. Don’t want to grow? You know where to look.

But you know what? God really is GREAT BIG. In the end, these guys with exciting faith in an itty bitty god will be exposed. They are fakes. I love some of these guys… but they are leading people away from Jesus.

So… if you are thinking of checking out of your old boring church and checking into the new Starbucks church in your neighborhood… take the time to ask the people who are starting it… "Tell me how you came here? Where did you work last? Why aren’t you there now? Were you sent by the leaders of that place here to replicate it’s health.. or are you a boy who decided to take your ball and go play somewhere on your terms? What’s wrong with the other 25 good Bible beleiving churches in my town?"

Be wise. Make sure that they are leading you to the throne room of a GREAT BIG GOD and not an itty bitty one. Why ask these questions? You need to know… when I am not fun to be around, when this place won’t grow, when the going get’s tough… what type of person, what type of leadership is there at this place.

As for me… I prefer an old church with the intestinal fortitude to stand against the pressures of this world, to tanglibly meet needs, and to express faith in the GREAT BIG GOD for the long haul.

If there is a complaint against this generation of middle/high school students it is that they tend to be apathetic. Over and over again from teachers, administrators, and people in youth ministry I hear the lament, "Students today just don’t care about anything."

They are dead wrong. These students are passionate about some things, if you are seeing apathy, you just haven’t found out what they are passionate about.

Tribes of passion. That’s how I would describe today’s adolescents in general. Back even just 10 years ago you could walk on any high school campus and label kids. You’d have your goths, skaters, jocks, band geeks, nerds, 90120s, etc. You could categorize students pretty easily. With that knowledge you could figure out how to motivate whole globs of students at a time. Find the key and you can turn them on. That isn’t so today. Today’s adolescents form small niche` groups that display an extremely diverse economy of passions. You could have one tribe of girls that has a skater, a band geek, and snob, a punk, and a goth. What ties them together isn’t just exterior stuff… it is something deeper. So to motivate that tribe take a different type of key. Therefore, motivating that tribe is harder because… if you want to motivate an individual tribe you may need a whole set of keys. Teachers, administrators, and youth workers see this and go, "Holy cow… there is no way… I can’t do all of that!" and then they stop trying. They just looked at students as a locked door and walk away frustrated… then they call them apathetic.

The secret key to unlocking apathy. I have found today’s adolescents to be extremely motivated and focused on their passions. They tend to be so focused on what they want that whatever happens outside of that passion has little value. Or, more likely, they will devote as little attention to what they need to do so that they can fully enjoy what they want to do. This is why you have students who will practice for 6 hours to be the best at a Halo 2 level but will not open their books to do their homework. What is their passion? Being great at Halo 2. So they aren’t apathetic… in fact they are quite motivated and will forego everything to be the best at what they are passionate about. In other words, while extremely focused and passionate about somethings, adults are frustrated because the adolescents in their life seem apathetic about what the adults think is important when it isn’t in support about what the adolescent thinks is important.

So what is the magic key? In my experience, the key to motivating apathetic students is investment. In general, I have learned that if I invest extra time in a student… they will become motivated about what I am passionate about. To say that better, when the two of us start to share the same passion… when I have shown through my life that I am passionate about something and that I think it is worth my attention… we will begin to start sharing in that passion together. So if there are apathetic high school students that you want to see motivated… start investing your time in them. Learn what’s cool to them. But as time goes on… show them what’s cool in your world.

Singular Focused? I don’t want to oversimplify what I am saying. If you were to read that with a critical eye you’d say… "That McLane guy is a fake… he only wants to know about something so he can get you to do something… that’s manipulation and not motivation." That makes it sound so inauthentic when in fact it is completely authentic. In fact, the more honest I tend to be the better "results" I see. I don’t pretend to be into hunting to invest in a hunter. Or worse, I don’t pretend to like UM football so I can invest in a UM fan. Just like a hunter isn’t only into hunting… no adolescent is into a sole thing.

Here’s my example: Each Tuesday morning, a group of students walk through my back door at 6:15 AM. I can’t figure it out… but they keep coming back. We hang out, talk about life and stuff, and then do a simple Bible study. When I tell others about it they say, "How on earth could you get high schoolers to do that when I can’t even get ______ to take out the garbage?" (Trust me, this group probably whines about taking out the garbage too… they aren’t perfect.) The answer to that quandary is I have no idea how to get them to come because they want to be here… they are passionate about being here. The truth is, even though their coming here early in the morning probably makes me look good… I didn’t do much to start it. It just happened. We started it and I figured it would last a few weeks and fizzle out… but they kept coming. But it is the principle in action… sometimes when you invest a little into a tribe… you hit a button in the tribe and the tribe moves. Apathy doesn’t get up at 5:30 in the morning to go to a Bible study. But passion does.

Don’t sell this generation short. They really are an emergent tribe of world-changers.

Todd, over at Monday Morning Insight recently had a post about Ty Pennington and his show, Extreme Makeover… really just doing the job of the church. [Read the post]

As I thought about Todd’s post I thought… that is probably true of a lot of churches but it honestly isn’t true of my church. At Romeo, we may not be super fancy, we might not be the best church in our zip code, we may not be big and growing and exciting… but God is using us to extend his hands of hope and mercy in our community. I wish I could share all the things that we’ve done in the past 3 months for people… but that may violate some people’s privacy. But we’ve been reaching out like crazy and meeting tangible needs. We’ve helped people solve problems, we’ve helpled people who couldn’t help themselves, and we’ve put sweat behind our words.

So… while it would be nice for me to lament and shake my head in agreement to what Todd wrote… I think he just hasn’t seen US!

I was just checking out a catalogue for Christian books when it hit me. Probably 99% of the books on the market in the Christian genre could be labeled either self help or reference. Sure, there is a small section for Christian fiction, and a few pages for kids books… but the vast majority of the stuff for sale is geared towards help and advice.

Let’s look at the top #10 hard covers in the Christian section. Purpose Driven Life, Captivating, Wild at Heart, Your Best Life Now… on and on. All but 1 are self-help!

Pragmatism: A practical, matter-of-fact way of approaching or assessing situations or of solving problems.

It leaves me wondering, "Is this how people look at Christianity?" Are we to demean what Christ did for us to Dr. Phil style of salvation?

Jesus didn’t come to counsel you. Or help you have purpose. Or to Captivate you. Or to help you explore your inner man… or even to have your best life now. He said, "I have come that you might have life and have it to the full." John says he came to "seek and save the lost." But fix all your problems and help you pursue the American dream?

I wrestle with that thought. Did Jesus die merely so that I could be comfortable? Or is that just what we’ve reduced him to?

^"If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do. Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat." 2 Corinthians 5:13-14 (The Message)

Yesterday in Sunday school we were talking about sharing our faith. I went through the very basics, defined what we meant and didn’t mean by sharing our faith, why, etc. But the really profound part came after "my stuff" was done and we just talked about it practically.

I kept drilling down "why is this so hard?" I am certain everything thought I was just repeating myself over and over again. In a lot of ways, it was a question none of us could answer completely. I mean, we know that we are supposed to share our faith… most of us get it that much. But something holds us back.

For me, I worry too much about "what will my friends think of me?" Will they think that I am stupid.. or worse, crazy? This morning I was thinking about this passage. Paul is telling us to do whatever it takes to get the message across to people. If we need to be labeled as crazy, then so be it. Christ’s love for me is crazier. That got me thinking… yeah, Paul… that’s easy for your to say. Then I did a little more reading and realized it wasn’t easy for him to say that. I re-read Acts 26 for the first time in a long time. That shed new light and gave new depth for me when I think about "losing my mind" for Jesus.

Stupid faith… as the summer wound down this year I said something in a talk that I am still thinking about. I said something like "I want you all to recklessly, stupidly chase the dreams that God has for you. Pursue it like crazy." And I am still wondering to myself… do I have safe faith that could barely be called faith, or do I have blind and stupid faith that moves mountains?