• Leave me alone

    Photo by Ian Burt via Flick (Creative Commons)

    Maybe I want to be in debt, eat crappy food, and watch endless hours of mind-numbing television?

    Has it ever crossed your mind that the reasons I do this are because I want to? And maybe, just maybe,  don’t want to be fixed?

    Maybe it’s not about addiction? Maybe it’s not some sort of freudian cover-up to deal with the pain of childhood lost? And maybe it’s not because I’m avoiding handling my responsibilities.

    Thank you Dr. Phil. Thank you Suze Orman. Thank you Dave Ramsey.

    Yeah– I’ve heard about the book. Yeah– I’ve heard about your website.

    But no thank you.

    A fix it culture

    Rooted in our DNA as Americans is an innate desire and need to fix things. We find our identity by making broken things better. It is a source of great pride. People who fix things are heroes. People who need fixing are zeroes.

    We hunt out things that aren’t right and apply a solid dose of American stick-to-it-tiveness to the situation so that it falls in line with a level of social acceptability.

    We love Dr. Phil.

    And Maury Povich, Jerry Springer, Judge Joe Brown, Oprah Winfrey, and we used to love Phil Donohue.

    We feed off of Biggest Loser. Before that we giggled at Richard Simmons, while thinking he was a hero at the same time.

    A show like This Old House or Flip this House are as addicting as crack cocaine.

    We text in our favorite underdog to American Idol or Dancing with the Stars.

    Then a few years later we cry along with fallen heroes on Celebrity Rehab.

    Fix me, baby. Fix me.

    Why?

    Because we have an innate desire to fix people.

    And yet we never ask the question… “Would you like to be fixed?” Or “Can we humiliate you on national television so people can be entertained?”

    At the end of the day, deep in our DNA, we don’t care if someone wants the help nor do we take the time to understand how they could best use our help.

    We’re too busy fixing symptoms and not causes.

  • No more country clubs

    Photo by Elliot Brown via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Quick facts

    Cumulatively, the American church is likely the largest private land owner in the country. Most zip codes contain at least one house of worship. In my zip code alone there are more than 30. In many communities around our nation the church occupies some of the prettiest property in town. It’s square footage competes with all other public buildings in girth and consumption of natural resources.

    Cumulatively, the American church is likely one of the largest private employers in the country. Each of those congregations in my zip code employ at least one individual. But when you include secretaries, janitors, and associates, the number goes up. Nationwide hundreds of thousands of people are employed by churches.

    And yet…

    • Churches pay no property taxes
    • Most church staff do not pay full payroll taxes.

    Think about the fiscal crisis your state is going through… not taxing churches and their staff comes at a pretty high cost, right?

    Why is that so?

    Have you ever thought about it? Why don’t churches pay property taxes? And why are clergy taxed differently than other types of employees?

    The best I can tell there are two main reasons for this:

    1. In the last 70 years, there has been an increasing desire to keep church and state separate. The Supreme Court has, again and again, affirmed a desire to not sniff around in the churches business too much. Collecting property and payroll taxes would probably require audits which the federal government wants no part of.
    2. Historically, there was an understanding that the local church was the primary provider of social programs. It didn’t make sense to tax the entity taking care of the sick, feeding the poor, and often providing meeting space for the community.

    (More on this from the L.A. Times)

    Closed to non-members

    If I were to walk to the front door of most churches in our country today and pull the handle of the door I’d find it locked. (And not because it’s a holiday, it’s locked nearly every day. Even if unlocked I don’t have access to use the space.) I’ll quickly be told it is private property.

    The simple truth is that the church is one of the largest private land owners and largest private employers, but it is generally closed to the public. The possibility of its existence is financed by 100% of the community whereas the benefits of the property, staff, and resources, are functionally only available to the 5% or so who attend.

    For years I’ve heard the local church referred to as a country club and scoffed. But largely, it is true.

    The public is not welcome.

    My dream for the church

    It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I will watch the speeches. (And make my kids watch them, too.) I will remember the effects of his ministry. And I will be inspired by the quotes on Twitter.

    More importantly, I am empowered by Dr. King’s message to keep dreaming.

    When I close my eyes these are the things I dream about:

    Photo by Brian Hawkins via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    One day, the churches facilities will embrace the implications of its tax status. It will be a place truly separate from the world because it serves the world. So separate that people coming into her doors will wonder if they are in an alternate reality. I dream of a church who flings it’s doors open to the public Monday – Saturday from 6:00 AM until 10:00 PM. It’s a place the poor are served. A place the sick go for healing prayers. A place the elderly use as a resource. A place high school volleyball teams practice. A place kids go for tutoring. A place of civic debate. A place the arts are celebrated. A place local business people use for meetings. And a place where people go to find out how they can serve their fellow neighbors.

    One day, the churches staff will see themselves as employees of the community. The skills Paul talks about in Titus 1 & 1 Timothy 3 will be used not just to run programs attended by the faithful but cast upon the community for the common good of all people. Sure, there will be sacramental duties performed by the staff. But they will be kept in focus by the needs of the community. The pastor will see himself as not just the pastor of the people who come on Sunday morning, but as the pastor of the community he’s been called to serve. (Using “he” in an inclusive mode, my egalitarian friends.)

    The church will no longer be dictated by fears of lawsuits. They will rise above the desire to protect its assets in realization that the assets came from and belong to the community in the first place. The church will no longer be stricken by a separation of church and state because it is too busy embracing the needs of the state’s citizens. You want to sue us? Then sue us because we have made our property open to all. You want to close our doors? Then you are closing the doors on the place of refuge for refugees and the place of stability for those lacking the stability of a family. Let our good works be our best defense.

    The church will be a physical manifestation of the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit. The church will be a continuation of the ministry of Jesus. It will be a place every person can both be served and serve in the fullness of their spiritual gifts.

    What will we see than? We will see Jesus at work. We will see the irresistible draw of our Savior on the hearts of the community. The church will cease being a place for the 5%-10% on the fringes and regain its place as the centerpiece of our communities. We will see that the church will be the waypoint when giving directions to people around town. We will see that the community will look at offering tax breaks to churches and clergy will be a bargain and a burden its people happily bear for the greater good of the community.

    This won’t wallow in a social gospel. Instead it will embrace that the Gospel is social. It’ll be the embrace that the Gospel isn’t just about renewing of our hearts but also a renewing of our community.

    Let the religious among us be skeptics of what can happen when we embrace our role in society. In the meantime, when we step into these things, we will see today’s skeptics give their hearts to Jesus when they finally see the Gospel alive with their very own eyes.

  • Being Good News

    Today’s video post is a synopsis of about 10 conversations I’ve had in the last 60 days. All of them get to the question, “Adam, something has changed inside of you. I like it sometimes and I don’t like it sometimes, what is it?”

    One thing I’ve learned to get comfortable with in the last 10 years of ministry is people asking me hard questions, diving into my motivations, and even offering critical responses. I can handle it. I am not intimidated by it. In fact, questions like this actually encourage me.

  • The Vindication of Steve Fisher

    The Vindication of Steve Fisher

    If you aren’t familiar with the head coach Steve Fisher at San Diego State you should be. In fact, if you aren’t familiar with his 19-0 Aztecs, you aren’t a fan of college basketball.

    Yesterday was the perfect example of why they are so good. They traveled to New Mexico to play in an arena called “The Pit.” It’s a notorious place to play. They were down early- the starters were plagued by whistle-happy refs. With three of the starting five on the bench, the Aztecs roared back on a furious run which ultimately held on at New Mexico. The simple fact is that they have 8 legitimate starters in a league where most teams have 3. They get stronger as the game wears on and eventually own their opponents.

    Is this team as good as the Fab 5? Probably not. We will ultimately find out in March. Before that they are hungry for a conference title, then trying to repeat as conference tournament champions.

    If you get the chance, watch a home game on TV. (I’d say go to the game but I think all of the tickets are now gone!) What you will see will rival anything you will see at any of the big programs in the country. It’s loud, it’s festive, it’s fun. And it’s starting to look like an impossible place to play.

  • Danger: Texting While Walking in Front of Fountains at the Mall

    This hit close to home for me. While I’m doing much better about texting while driving; texting while walking in malls is still a big problem for me.

  • Putting your worst foot forward

    Photo by Kevin Trotman via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Which of these introductions garners the most trust to you?

    • Hello, my name is Adam McLane. Thank you for inviting me here today. As an expert in my field, I look forward to sharing with you this morning 7 insights which will revolutionize ________.
    • Hi. I’m Adam. I guess you’ve invited me here this morning because you’ve tried everything and looked around and found the one guy in the world who has tried more ways to _________ than you have. Well, I guess a broken clock is right twice a day. Let’s get started.

    Chances are you like the first one a little better. The first introduction would cause you to reach into your bag and fish out a pen and some paper. But the question isn’t who would you like better or who would give you the most stuff to write down, it’s which introduction garners the most trust?

    An experts role is to teach 5 things in an outline, collect his check, and move on to the next place. But a teacher creates questions inside which spurs on your own thoughts and solutions to the problems you are facing.

    I have a tendency to trust the second introduction a lot more. I might not write down as much stuff… but that second introduction will cause me to lean in. Something about that humility tells me he has something to say.

    It tells me that this person isn’t just rolling out their presentation… but they are probably going to take me somewhere I need to go. They are going to help me recognize that while I’ve failed in the past I can keep trying and searching for the answers I need.

    And they aren’t going to lie to me and tell me that success is just 5 bullet points away. I already have mountains of notebooks filled with outlines on things that didn’t work. The second person is going to share the truth that the journey to success is paved with many pitfalls and traps along the way.

    I can trust that person.

    I think this is one subtle way the world has changed.

    • Expert = distrust
    • Humble guru = trust

    We laugh at the irrelevance of the person who stands on the street corner proclaiming into a bullhorn that he has all the answers to life. Turn or burn, that’s all you need to do. Stop fornicating and you’ll be fine.

    Let’s face it… it’s a stupid way to communicate. But it’s not unlike what we do in our churches. We hide behind our degrees, we point to our bookshelf, we hide from tough questions and real ministry by filling our schedule with meetings, and we gather as a staff to celebrate how awesome we are. But in the quiet moments, sharing coffee with a friend, we are no more faithful or have the answers than the person sitting in the pew behind us.

    Trust me, but how?

    I think most of us were raised in a time when we were told to always put our best foot forward. So we do that.

    But times have changed. We can no go faster and further with people in building trust when we start by putting our worst foot forward.

    “My name is ___________. I’m no better than you. I don’t have all the answers.”

    Go ahead, repeat it out loud until it feels natural. It just might lead to something unbelievable.

  • Do Good Ideas

    Last night I was riding my bike home and my head was full of ideas. I actually pulled over, whipped out my iPhone, and jotted 3 of them down so I wouldn’t lose them.

    That lead me to post on Twitter: “I really wish I had 4-5 people to sit around with regularly and share ideas. I could actually meet almost every day.”

    That tweet launched a conversation about if such a group was really plausible.

    Here’s what I’m thinking. This is completely open for discussion. So leave a comment if you have ideas or feedback.

    And yes, I’m pretty serious about this.

    Good ideas cohort

    • It’d be a group of people who care about investing in an idea enough to see it through.
    • It’d need to be a group of people somehow vocationally tied to youth ministry, but the ideas shared wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with youth ministry.
    • There’d be a $500 buy-in per person, so everyone would have a dog in the fight. (We’d hold the money in an escrow account.)
    • Annually, we’d fund one idea with our seed money. Other than that no one would profit from the cohort.
    • Everyone in the group would sign a non-disclosure agreement as well as some sort of an agreement that ideas shared would belong to the person presenting them.
    • Everyone would get the opportunity to share their idea (quickly) each time we met. If nothing less, this cohort would teach you how to pitch an idea for action.
    • We’d commit to a one-year cohort for the purpose of sharing ideas, learning from one another, etc. If the group wanted to keep going beyond that, it’d be up to them. (But they’d have to put up $500 annually)
    • We’d have something like a private Ning group to regularly share concepts, ideas.
    • We’d meet quarterly online via some form of video conference.
    • We’d meet annually for 2 days somewhere. Location would depend on the people in the group.
    • This would be an all-for-one and one-for-all type of thing. No one would have more power in the group than another.
    • Ideally this would be entrepreneurial. The idea of somehow donating the money to a charity doesn’t give me a lot of energy. Instead, I’d like to see the measurement of the idea be “what’s the best idea” as opposed to some other measurement.
    • Seems like 10 people would be about the maximum per cohort. But I can see doing an East Coast and West Coast version.
    • The reality is that $5000 (group of 10) isn’t a lot of money. But it could be the seed money an idea needs to get going. And who knows from there?
    • Ultimately, this would be informal enough to be fun yet formal enough that everyone would agree to take it seriously.

    Good ideas friend group

    As I thought about this more. I like the idea of the cohort a ton. But I would also love to have a group of Southern California friends to get together with much more often in a way more informal way. To maybe share ideas, bounce around solutions to complex problems facing the church today, and generally just be friends brought together by a common thread of wanting to see change happening and perhaps having one slice of the pie at their disposal to see change happen.

    Thoughts? Ideas? Refinements? Just crazy enough to be for you?

  • L’agenda

    The longer I walk with Jesus the more complicated my life seems to get.

    Kids, ministry, job, dreams, bills, skills, personality flaws, responsibilities… the list is endless. Life is complicated. Scary. Confusing. Worrysome.

    At the same time, the longer I live the more simple the application of God’s Word gets.

    When things seem really complex and over my head I am reminded of how Jesus spoke into the complexities of a “religious life.”

    One day Jesus was talking with a group of religious people. And, as religious people are known to do, they all carried a specific agendas. They wanted to know if Jesus was on their team. As they sat around testing Jesus on his belief on the issues of the day they were flustered by his ability to respond with Option C on an Option A or B test time and time again.

    They were upset with him because he had taken the things that divided people… agendas with teams, financing, factions, and power… and given simple answers with a new agenda.

    So they put their heads together and nominated the biggest religious expert in the room to trap Jesus. This question was the 1st Century equivalent of, “If God is a good God, why do bad things happen in the world to good people?”

    Here’s the agenda-laden trap:

    Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

    Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

    Matthew 22:34-40

    Baffling simplicity.

    L’agenda

    Jesus’ agenda for your life is quite simple. As we see above, all of a God-pleasing life flows from those two bullet points:

    1. Love God with everything.
    2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

    A popular phrase in Evangelical circles, full of agenda, has repackaged Jesus’ words and simplified it too far by saying we are called to “Love God, Love People.” But I think Jesus is smarter than they are. And his agenda rings clear enough for me.

    Jesus’ agenda for my life is to love him with everything I’ve got. (From my skills, to my personality, to my family, to my vocation… everything) And the action of that agenda is to love my neighbors as myself. (You know, the people I live near, see in my daily life. Neighbors implies really close to me, and is specific to a group of people I’m to have regular casual contact with. It’s the people on my block, not the people in the pews or in my youth group.)

    All of God’s word is to be applied through that lens. Jesus sets the agenda.

    When I study Scripture I’m left to ask myself, “How is God calling me to love him?” and “How can I love my neighbors as myself because of this teaching?”

    It’s personal and communal– but not religious

    Anyone who knows me knows that I have a deep love for the church. In the same passage of Matthew 22 and other places in the Gospels, Jesus refers to his relationship with the church as his bride. To disrespect the church is de facto disrespecting Jesus. (If you said you loved me but disrespected my wife… I’d punch you in the face. What kind of husband wouldn’t?)

    I’d prefer not to get punched by Jesus for disrespecting his bride.

    At the same time, I wonder if many churches have made the agenda about them? There’s nothing more annoying than a selfish bride. Sure, there is love there… but there are a lot of strings attached to that love.

    Other churches are defined by their size… hardly a respectful description for a bride. We’d politely say things like, “She must be a good cook.” Right?

    Other Christians are defined by the political bedfellows they keep. Their agenda is confused with the issues of the day. Their leaders espouse vocal support of things like a right to own a gun while all the world desperately needs of them is to embrace their right to love their neighbor.

    Still others are defined by their application of Revelation 2-3. They look at Jesus’ proclamations of judgement and they say… “Wait a minute. Jesus isn’t judging First Baptist of San Diego any different that he is judging San Diego Church of the Nazarene or even the Diocese of San Diego… Jesus loves and judges us by where we live in community, not where we individually gather to worship.” And those churches are defined by the agenda of neighbors loving neighbors, churches loving churches, and sharing in the great love of their Savior in the L’agenda.

    My prayer today for the bride of Christ is that we would be a people defined by our world-changing L’agenda for our neighbors and not the trappings of a religious life.

  • Sick Puppies – Maybe

    When the generations prophets cry for change you have to ask yourself:

    Am I a catalyst for the change they are calling for or am I the object the catalysts are fighting against?

  • What have you done for me lately?

    A year ago the earth shook and the world changed.

    Billions were given.

    Tens of thousands have gone to help.

    Yet not much has changed.

    • The poor suffered.
    • The rich got richer.
    • More people died needlessly.
    • The UN has effectively lied, spending money studying and asking questions while accomplishing little.
    • And America sleeps in their comfy beds tonight feeling like they did something because they texted a donation to the Red Cross.

    We’re left now with more questions than answers.

    1. If the international aid organizations aren’t going to do something, who is?
    2. People are stealing aid given while government pockets are filled with bribes, who will prosecute perpetrators when the government is the worst offender?
    3. How can we help this country get back on its feet while at the same time lessening dependencies on the outside world?
    4. When will the colonial view on international missions be put away and replaced with working alongside of Haitians to build housing for people in tent cities, advocates standing for justice, and training of teachers, city planners, and tradespeople begin?
    5. Where is the army of Sean Penn-like camp managers?
    6. Who will hold accountable those who make empty promises?

    The answer to all of these questions is you. The cameras will shine on Haiti today. And you will feel sorry for what is going on.

    Don’t.

    Our Haitian brothers and sisters don’t ask for your pity today.

    But they are asking for you to help them in ways that answer the questions I’ve posed above.

    Know that the media elite will leave tomorrow; having satisfied their ratings and your curiosity, they will board private jets tomorrow and go back to New York, while children still sleep on muddy cardboard beds.

    1.5 million people are asking the question, “Who is helping us?”

    The answer is you.

    Turn off the TV and do something.