• Moody: It’s time to wake up

    Moody_Bible_Institute_logoI’m aghast at the reality that my alma mater continues to stray from its stated mission and goal. Here’s a quote from its website:

    Moody is driven by the belief that people committed to living and declaring the Word of God can actually change the world. Beginning with our founder, D.L. Moody, generations of Christ-followers at Moody have committed themselves to learning the Bible and sharing it with the world.

    This is a great goal. It’s a goal that brought me to Moody as a wide-eyed idealistic 18-year old kid. And it’s a goal that kept me going back despite every obstacle until graduation as a 25 year old. And yet, in 2009, they continue to want that statement to only be true for men.

    With hundreds of millions of people to reach for Jesus Christ today why does a place like Moody add to their doctrinal statement a position limiting who they will train to reach those people? Why limit their impact by 50%? Why water down the talent pool of candidates by 50%? If the goal is to train people for ministry… why make a value judgement to only train men for pastoral work? They are not a denomination. They are not a church. They are a training school who serves both. And plenty of alumni work in all types of churches, conservative and liberal alike.

    Two thoughts and a call to action for alumni:

    1. Moody offers a fantastic education. I am the leader I am today, largely, because of the men and women who invested in me on the undergraduate level. I know some people’s undergrad experience was lame, mine was not. Moody does not offer a wimpy undergrad. It does a pretty adequate job of preparing its graduates to serve in pastoral ministry without requiring a degree at the next level. It’s a unique place and I would love to continue to recommend it as a place to get training for ministry.

    2. Moody started as a school to train women for ministry in the local church. While the school bears a man’s name, it was started by a woman named Emma Dryer. Moody was one of the first colleges in Illinois to admit women. It’s first students were women. It wouldn’t have gotten started at all if it had been a place just to train men! Moody’s school was always progressive school when it came to women in ministry. But that changed! Somewhere along the way it became more important to please conservative donors than it was to simply prepare all who wanted the training for ministry. During my time as a student the undergrad school took a major academic swing towards the conservative right, ousting most of the Bible and theology department who encouraged students to think progressively, and issued a statement on women in ministry. (Roughly in 2000)

    Call to action for alumni: If you are like me, you love MBI but weary of the policy which limits who can study what, who can come to certain conferences, and who can serve where, based on gender alone. You need to do something about it. You need to email the new president, Paul Nyquist. You need to let their conferences know that you will not plan on attending until all are welcome to attend as a full attendee and not just a spouse who can come to parts. Let them know you will not send students their way until they deal with this. Ask them to take you off the mailing list soliciting donations until they address this. Blog about it. Talk about it on their alumni Facebook page. Call into Moody Radio and bring it up. Talk about it with staff and employees that you know. Moody does a pretty good job keeping this policy under wraps. If we want it to change we need to let the public know that the policy exists and that a minority of alumni would like to see the school open its doors to men and women alike for all majors.

    Make them live out this statement, “Moody is driven by the belief that people committed to living and declaring the Word of God can actually change the world.” There is too much work to do just to rely on training 50% of the population. To make this vision a reality, it’ll take everybody.

    Agree with me? Disagree with me? I welcome all feedback.

  • Nine Things I Love on 09.09.09

    090909

    I’m not into numerology, at all. But I’m smart enough to know that this is the only time in my lifetime the calendar will read straight nines.  With nine being the operative number of the day here are nine things I’m in love with.

    1. Simple routines. Every day, every week basically looks the same.

    2. Mega-family time. This has been a big change in our lives. At least once a week we all do something together. It’s not always big, but it’s a big deal and I’m pumped about it.

    3. The job lottery. More than a year into my time at YS and I still get fired up and think… I work there? For real?

    4. Church peeps. You can’t sell this short. We dig our church peeps. I love feeling like I need to step it up to keep up with their faithfulness.

    5. Riding the trolley. (relates to #1) That simple discipline has taken so much stress out of our lives. Big ups to SDMTS.

    6. Vietnamese food. This is the next craze to sweep across the nation.  I’m a big fan of the noodle soup, pho. (pronounced “fu.” Yes, like half of the f-word.) Best food on the planet.

    7. iPhone. I know something will replace it as the coolest device in my world. But it is an amazing tool for me. I can now go on vacation laptop free.

    8. Nikon D60. I never thought I’d really love photography. I am no artist, but thanks to this little camera I can now take pictures that don’t suck.

    9. My baby’s mama. Seriously, Kristen is a rock star. 12+ years of marriage and she’s still my best friend. She still laughs (politely) at my jokes and likes my crazy dreams.

  • Encourage One Another

  • Buy the Harbor Worship CD

    hchwHere on the blog I’ve talked early and often about our church, Harbor Mid-City. One of the things that we like most is the expression of arts in weekly services. In the last year I can’t think of a time when we’ve had a musical solo. But in that time we’ve had spoken word performed, rap performed, and an artists representation of the message. These are amazing wrinkles to worship. Very cool.

    The role of our worship leader is unique. (Based on my observation– not something anyone has ever told me.) It’s a role which I love in view of the rock star worship leader model we see so prevalent in the Evangelical church. First, Matt Cromwell’s job in leading worship is to elevate the rest of the group above himself. He simply won’t take the spotlight. No lead guitar. His mic isn’t louder than the rest. He’s rarely the visual leader of the service. Second, he facilitates the people of the church writing the lyrics for the songs we sing as a congregation.

    It’s that second thing that I want to point you to today. Matt and the worship team have put together a CD of the songs we sing at church… and I think you should check it out. Head over to CD Baby or iTunes, sample some tracks, and consider supporting Harbor’s worship team by purchasing a song or their entire album. If I could suggest one track, Trial By Fire. Yeah, I like that one a lot. You need that one.

  • Notre Dame Recap

    Heading into the big game at the Big House (the only week I cheer against Michigan football) the Fighting Irish looked pretty solid. Lots of offense, lots of defense, and an entire 4th quarter played by 2nd and 3rd stringers.

    I found this video on YouTube. Also pretty solid:

  • Little Italy Farmers Market

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    Yesterday, the family spent some time down in Little Italy at their Mercato. It was super fun for mom and dad– the kids just kind of put up with it and were placatted by free samples. (Paul’s love language is food.)

    Here’s an exceprt from Kristen’s review over at Beyond the Zoo:

    Not just a food market, the Mercato offers something for everyone. I was initially side-tracked by a display of locally made jewelry. With a little help from my family I refocused and let my nose guide me to the heart of the market, the food. Never able to turn a blind eye to food, our kids loosened up when offered samples of juicy softball-sized peaches. It should be noted that the Little Italy Mercato is a great location for selecting locally caught seafood, as well. One unusual sample my husband could not resist was live sea urchin. He’s still alive after trying this spiny wonder! He said it was tasty with the texture of an overripe peach with a hint of brine flavor.

    read the rest

  • Open System Health Care

    new-medical-distribution-systemI don’t know about you, but I’m growing a little tired of the lack of progress and new ideas coming forth for health care reform. I wonder if instead of making private citizens scream at their elected officials we could get those causing the problem to scream, instead? Here’s how.

    Instead of reforming health insurance (which is what we mean today by “health care reform“) what if we reform the industries at the root of the problem? What if the government opens up distribution channels to the raw supplies so you can buy the stuff you need on the open market?

    Let’s say you need a new knee. The doctor says, “I could buy the part and it’ll cost you $2500 or here are the specs on what you need, you may be able to find the exact same part cheaper.” (Take away the fancy titles, this is not unlike going to get a new muffler!) The doctor gives you the specs for the item you need, and you go to Amazon.com and price the part you need for the operation. Amazon.com works directly with the manufacturer in Warsaw, Indiana to carry the most commor specs and carries them in stock. Based on the laws of supply and demand, you are able to go to Amazon.com and buy the exact part you need for $800. A week later it is delivered to your house and you take it with you to your surgery.

    Same thing works for medical equipment. The current system will not allow you to go to Walmart.com to rent a wheel chair that you need after your surgery. Instead, your doctor calls the local medical equipment distributor and they rent you a wheel chair for $500 that they’ve rented 25 times already but paid $322 for from the sales rep. Under the new system, since you can now work directly with the manufacturer, you go to their website and buy the thing for $280 or you go to Craigslist and pick one up for $50.

    Naysayers will toss out this right away… “what about drugs? You can’t open up the drug market!” You actually can open this up as well. Your doctor could provide you with a unique code which grants you a certain prescribed drug. You make that purchase online and cut out the middle man, it’s delivered to your door. For drugs that are abused, have it delivered to the doctors office. Since the office won’t be meeting with endless drug reps and DMEs they should have plenty of time to sign for stuff from FedEx.

    This really isn’t that complicated. It just opens the system up. Currently, everything you have delivered to you in the health care system is based on a closed distribution model. You have no ability to determine what the manufacturer made the item for, what the mark up was when they sold it to the distributor, what the sales rep made when he sold it to the hospital, nor what the hospital paid for the item. You only know what they are charging you for on the itemized bill. And you know that it is all negotiable because that’s what Medicaire, insurance companies, and private individuals do. So you may see that the hospital billed $5500 for the replacement knee but because it’s a closed system you have no way of knowing that the manufacturer in Indiana made it (at a profit to themselves) for $600. Consequently, the closed system is bloated with mark-up. It’s a closed capitalist system.

    We’ve done this same thing in almost every industry. Why not do this to health care?

  • NYWC is Gonna Be Fun

    National Youth Workers Convention

    I’ve been so busy working on spreading the word about National Youth Workers Convention that I’ve literally forgotten to post about three exciting things I’m a part of in all 3 cities.

    1. The FUN team is back and better than ever! Last year was YS’s first serious forray into social media during a live event. We didn’t really know what it should look like and we did some stuff great and not-so-great at others. This year I have a great team of volunteers in each city and we’ll be focusing on bringing together some fun live elements, some relections, and some video.

    2. Social Networks, Video, and Your Ministry. I’ll be leading a grande lab with my co-worker and flipping video genius, Ian Robertson. If you want to learn how to mix social media skills with the power of video in your ministry… I will dare say this will be valuable for you. We really are going to show you how to use cheap cameras, cheap editing software, and great ideas into video magic for your group. Sure, we have high end “pro” toys we could show of. But true skill is using what you have to make something great.

    3. Teens and Technology fishbowl. I’m not really “teaching” this one, but in all three cities I’ll be facilitating a fishbowl conversation around this important topic. I have no real idea where it’ll go and that’s the joy of a fishbowl. But it will be fun to see what the problems are that are out there and come up with some solutions.

    If you’re on the bubble about coming this year, I just want to encourage you to make it happen. Unlike any other time in convention history… participants will be shaping the conversation of the convention. And that conversation will just be beginning at NYWC… more on that later.

  • 3 Positive Effects of Recession on the Church

    3-positive-of-recession

    Nearly every day I encounter someone who tells me their churches budget was cut, people at their church are about to lose their jobs, or otherwise their church is encountering hard financial times.

    That’s not purely a bad thing. Here are three positive things that a lack of money bring to a church.

    1. A gut check for the staff. If you’ve worked in a church you know that there are people who are on staff because they are absolutely convinced God wants them there and there are people who are there because its a job. When budgets get slashed, programs get cut, and necessary and unnecessary stuff gets trimmed to cut costs… each staff member has to examine herself and ask, “Why am I here? Do I really want to be here?” Some will double down their efforts and some will check out. Both are positive for the church going forward.

    2. A gut church for the parishoners. Along the same lines the people who attend the church have to face the same choice. When their beloved program is dismantled because of a lack of funding they have to ask themselves, “Am I here for that program, or am I here because this is where God wants me?” When they see a staff member lose benefits or their job or even their house, they re-examine their financial priorites automatically. “Am I being faithful to God with my money? Am I being a good steward of what I earn?” This is a positive outcome!

    3. A gut check for the dreamers. I can’t help but think of the mid-2000’s boom in church growth. With the last coughs of the Field of Dreams model [If you build it, they will come… and give!] of church growth, congregations built massive additions, added satellite campuses, and even reached out to buy up struggling churches. For the most part this was done during good times and using credit. Now those churches see double digit decreases in giving and are stuck in a catch-22 scenario. Admit they were wrong to buy on credit and sell property or trim programs and staff to try to ride out the dip. This is a positive outcome for the church, even if it means they go bankrupt. The healthy and faithful congregations will make it. The ones who depended on their own talents will fail.

    A bonus positive: A side effect of the extended recession is that I am seeing a massive wave of volunteerism in the church. As churches trim their budgets and people in the pews realize that they need to step up, the church as a whole is seeing an increase in volunteers in key church leadership positions.

  • Think Social Media is a Fad?

    I snort when I hear that question. Typically, it’s blurted out by old media types who see the boom in social media as a hiccup in their returns. That’s when I just smile and nod… and eat them for breakfast. I’ve heard the same thing from pastors. Well, ministry over the internet isn’t real ministry. While my blog doesn’t take an offering… the post you are reading right now will be read by more people than 99% of sermons in America.

    The way messages (marketing, religion, news) are received is changing. Are you adapting? Or are you investing in something that no one pays attention to?