Search results for: “good news”

The God of My Neighborhood
We want to change the world!

We want our church to reach this whole community!

God is the God of this city!

[The crowd raises to its feet and cheers as the band begins to play…]

These are guaranteed anthems to bring a church to its feet.

But I’m left wondering if our ecclesiology is a little too big?

“It looks like your eyes were bigger than your stomach.” That’s what my mom used to say when I put too much food on my plate at dinner.

And I think that’s the strategic error of many churches.

I know it’s the strategic error of most believers.

Most churches mission statements tell the people the goal is to reach the world… and when we aim at that we get nearly nothing because it’s too big.

Isn’t our job to love our neighbors as ourselves and put God first? (Mark 12:28-31)

Isn’t my job, then, to love my neighbors? Like the ones who live next door? Or down the block? Or maybe as far as around the corner? Isn’t that why God, in His infinite wisdom, placed me in my neighborhood?

Yes, it is. That is the business God has clearly called you to. He has called you to be good news to your neighborhood.

Every other type of ministry you do is secondary to that. To take it a step further… every other ministry you have which gets in the way of what Jesus calls the second most important command, is unnecessary. Until you can love your neighbors as yourself you have no business doing anything else. (Yeah, including those who work in churches. I’m looking at you.)

Step 1: Get to know your neighbors

Loving your neighbors isn’t hard. You were created in Christ Jesus to do it. It takes no training. And it takes no special skills. This is what you need to do.
- Get to know your neighbors names. If your yard touches theirs get to know their names. If they are across the street they are your neighbors, too. Each neighborhood is a bit different. But just start with the people immediately around your residence.
- When you see them… stop and say hello. Talk to your neighbors. These are people God foreknew you to know. You don’t need an agenda, just be friendly.
- Keep your eyes open and your ears open. When you can see they need help, do what you can.
- When you need help, ask your neighbors. Sometimes exhibiting some dependency is the perfect open door to getting to know someone.
- Over time, learn to depend on one another. Maybe your neighbor is a little older and you have a snow blower. Start shoveling the walk. When you go out of town, ask them to pick up the mail.
As you do this process, the Holy Spirit will begin to reveal to you next steps. Maybe it’ll be to host a neighborhood BBQ? Or maybe it’ll be to help find a lost dog? It could be any number of things… but it probably isn’t to invite them to church or to give them a flyer. God didn’t ask you to bring people to hear the Gospel at your church. He empowered you to bring the Gospel to your neighbors through your love for them.

What are you waiting for? The power of the Gospel will prevail when you set out to be Good News in your neighborhood.
November 27, 2010
Random Acts of Culture

OK, so this is clearly a staged deal and not a great flash mob. Two things cue you off. 1. The buttons. 2. There have never been that many people in a Macy’s, ever.

That said, it’s pretty awesome. That’s taking the good news to the people my friends.

I’d like to see them pull a random act of culture off at an Eagles game.

p.s. Big ups to them for great marketing. 6 million views on YouTube. Well played.

November 24, 2010
Cultural Engagement Strategy
Photo by Stuart Boreham via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Have you ever opened your eyes underwater? You know, without goggles?

All of the underwater world is a blur. Sure, you can see stuff but you can only see things nearby and its nothing like what you see on a National Geographic special.

Then someone hands you a set of goggles and you go back underwater. It’s an entirely different experience. If you are shallow enough and the water is clear, you can see the bottom. You can see fish and rocks and plant life.

The difference is quick and obvious.

This is the same experience I feel that most people in full-time church ministry go through. They are underwater in the culture they live in without goggles on.

Most churches are failing to reach the culture because they lack a strategy to engage the culture they live in.

The staff needs goggles so they can actually see what is happening, not just 5 feet in front of their face and fuzzy, but all the way to the bottom!

Any ministry professional can do the math. Add up the amount of people who are actually attending the churches in their community, divide it by the population and you can see that the Gospel is not winning. In most communities you’ll find less than 10% of the population goes to any church more than once a month. In the most reached communities you’ll find about 30%. (Go ahead, spend the 30 minutes to do so with your zip code if you don’t believe me.)

That’s an F for the church. The church is underwater in the culture it is supposed to thrive in. Jesus calls us to reach the whole world (100%) with the message of the Gospel and we’re at 3%-30%. Not awesome.

It’s no wonder why…
- Christian colleges and seminaries focus little on engaging culture. I’ve visited a fair number of them and most of their students describe their campuses as a bubble. (Meaning they don’t engage the community around them very well.)
- Churches are notoriously insulated from culture.
- Churches tend to hire people who have spent the vast majority of their adult life either in a Christian college, a seminary, or the local church. All places which are notoriously bad at engaging with culture.
The result is an “us vs. them” mentality. It’s a simpletons philosophy of cultural engagement.

And it isn’t working.

I once visited a church that had the following truism painted in big letters on the wall of their foyer. “Through you we have access to every single person in our community.”

That is true. But if we aren’t teaching people how to engage with those people in a meaningful way it’s empty access.

I believe that people working at churches across the country and around the world are good people. They are in ministry because they want to reach people with the Good News of Jesus Christ. (e.g. The right reason for being in ministry.)

I believe that the vast majority of people who are frustrated in their ministry calling are frustrated because they feel stuck… a ministry life isn’t what they thought it was… and that frustration will be eased if they stop focusing their time on running programs for people who come to church and start focusing their time on reaching people who don’t come to church.

5 Steps to Creating a Cultural Engagement Strategy for Your Church
1. (observe) Lock your church staff out of the office for a week and each of them visit 10 parishioners at their places of work. (More on this idea)
2. (engage) Implement 3 of these 10 ways your church can be good news to the closest public school to your church office.
3. (engage) Implement 3 of these 10 ways your church can be good news to the neighborhood your church building is in.
4. (strategy) Schedule a 2 day off-site retreat with your entire staff and leadership team to share what you’ve learned in items 1-3, and create a strategy which continues to foster engagement between members of the church and the community the church ministers in. (Cover my travel and I will facilitate this retreat for free, if your church will commit to doing items 1-3 beforehand.)
5. (implementation) Take whatever steps are necessary to become a church wholly focused (Maybe possessed is the right word?) on meaningfully engaging the needs of your churches immediate area for the sake of the Gospel prevailing.
Before people will hear Good News you have to become a church which is Good News.
November 3, 2010
Leading Your Church to Reflect its Neighborhood
It’s been more than 40 years since Martin Luther King, Jr. quipped, “Eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week.”

If we are honest with ourselves– churches are nearly as divided today as they were 40 years ago. We call it culture and we call it personal preference. But the truth of the matter is that we just don’t want to rock the boat. (We like the comfort, staff members like their paychecks.)

So we allow racism, sexism, and a lack of cultural diversity to run rampant in our congregations.

It’s time those of us called to lead, lead our churches into a new paradigm.

And it starts with a sober assessment of where our congregations are at.

Simple measurement tool

Make a written observation the demographics of your congregation this Sunday morning. (Age, marital status, socio-economic status, race, gender) Then compare what you observe at your church against what the data set of your churches zip code as provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.
- Does your congregation reflect its neighborhoods demographics?
- Does your church staff reflect the demographics of the zip code?
- If there is a disconnect, is your church leadership making serious, active efforts to close the divide?
Cutting to the chase: While most evangelical congregations don’t have white, middle class theology. They predominantly attract white, middle class congregations. And it’s scary how many church staffs are filled with white, middle class males. (Go ahead, look at the staff pages of 10 of your favorite churches.) That disconnect you observe should lead you to make changes!

Changing your behavior: If you are like me, a child of the 1980s, you were raised in a dogma of multiculturalism.

From kindergarten I was taught that all the cultures in my community have value, deserve equal rights, and should be given access to the same things I am given access to as a member of the dominant culture. That value may have been taught to me from a secular perspective, but I believe it also reflects a biblical perspective on how Christians are to live in society as well!

If you want to express that same value on Sunday morning you need to take some steps (maybe radical ones) towards that value.

In other words– Maybe you need to change churches? Maybe you need to stop funding something that doesn’t reflect your values and start funding a congregation that does? Maybe you need to lead the way and stop waiting for church leadership to lead you?

Personal testimony– This is what I’ve done. For the past 2+ years my family has been a part of a congregation that works hard to reflect its neighborhood. At times, it is simply beautiful and at other times it is wholly awkward. But it’s been a radical transformation for my walk with Jesus. So, know that I’m not just pushing an idealism, I’m encouraging you to participate in something that I’m finding tremendous joy in.

If you are a church leader who is taking a serious look at bridging the divide between the Sunday morning demographic you have today and the one you’d like to see in 12 months, may I suggest some action steps?

5 Radical Steps Towards Becoming a Congregation which Reflects its Neighborhood
1. Hire staff members that reflect the demographics of your zip code. (Race, gender, marital status, age)
2. Require all paid staff, from the janitor to the senior pastor, to live within the zip code of your congregation. (Give them a few months to move, make it financially possible, remove staff members who won’t move within 12 months.) Take it a step further by requiring all board officers to do the same.
3. If you live outside of the neighborhood, lead the way by moving into the community your church is trying to reach. Don’t contribute to the disconnect– lead the way!
4. Get involved in neighborhood issues. Lead the way on issues of justice, advocate for the poor, let your congregation be a voice in the community. (Here’s 10 suggestions for your church to be good news to the neighborhood)
5. Adopt a local public school. The local schools are the access point to the people your church is called to reach. Get involved, not as an agent of adversary, but as a community partner. (Here’s 10 suggestions for your church to be good news to the local schools)
Is this a magic growth formula? Of course not. But as you take these steps you will earn the trust of a community who has learned to ignore you. When you care about what they care about and when you reflect who they are, you will be amazed at the social currency this will earn your congregation.

I recognize that these steps may seem extreme. (And I’m certain someone will tell me that firing staff for this is unbiblical) But that’s the nature of leadership, isn’t it? Sometimes God asks you to push past what you are comfortable with or what feels right to do what is right. Remember the rich young man in Matthew 19? He asked Jesus how he might enter the Kingdom of God, but he left disappointed because the cost was too high.

The reality is that if those in leadership don’t take radical positions so that their actions reflect their theology, the church will never change.

We simply cannot survive as a viable faith if we continue to act as agents of discrimination on Sunday morning. The church cannot be the most segregated place in our culture. It is time that the church take a good, hard look at who they are in their community and make some radical changes.

It’ll never get any easier or cheaper to do so than it is today.
October 10, 2010
Rules for Public Transportation
We are a one car household. Fortunately for us, we live in a city where you can get away with having just one car because we have a decent public transportation system.

Our transportation system, San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, also has a policy that permits bikes. This allows me the daily privilege of riding my bike to the trolley station, than taking my bike on the trolley with me, than riding the rest of the way to work.

But riding public transportation definitely has some rules. Social norms that make the experience much more pleasant.
1. Always wear headphones. Even if your headphones don’t connect to anything but your pocket, always wear headphones.
2. Don’t stare. Look at your phone, look out the window, or stare at the floor. Just don’t look at anyone unless you want to talk. Making eye contact is an invitation to conversation.
3. Don’t eat. It may seem like an efficient thing to do. But you never know when you’ll see something gross, smell something really gross, or have the awkward opportunity to eat in front of someone who clearly hasn’t eaten recently. Just don’t eat.
4. Help people who are obviously lost. This is the joy of living in a tourist town. I never mind helping someone who is genuinely lost. They all have “the lost look.” example: My home station is San Diego State University. The funny part about helping people from there is that they have to really listen to understand why I am telling them to go a certain way. If they are going downtown it might make sense to go two stops further away downtown and transfer to a different trolley line. When you look on the map it looks further and the wrong direction. (It is) But it is actually significantly faster because the other line goes directly where they want to go with fewer transfers. Riding the trolley isn’t like driving. You want the fastest route, not the shortest.
5. Be aware of what is going on. I’ve taken public transportation both in San Diego and Chicago frequently enough to know that there are sometimes dangers to be avoided. The general rule of thumb is, “If it feels bad, it probably is bad.” The good news in San Diego is that they have closed circuit cameras everywhere. If something did happen (I’ve never seen anything truly bad happen) there is a good chance it got caught on camera.
6. Discretely take pictures or video to giggle at later. Oh, I know this is probably a social faux pax to mention. But I have seen it all on the trolley and sometimes people don’t believe me.
7. If you ride regularly get to know your riding partners. The funny thing about this is that you “know” people but you might not know their names. But you know that one person gets on at this stop and reads a book every day. And another gets on and always sits near you. Or one lady is always in a hurry but is claustrophobic so won’t ride the first elevator because it is too full. You may not “know” these people, but regular riding partners will make you feel more secure.
8. Know your schedule. If you ride for a while you get a sixth sense about when your bus or trolley runs. I know if I leave my house at 7:58 I have a good chance of catching an earlier trolley. Or if I don’t leave right at 5:00 PM from work, I might as well hang out another 10 minutes.
9. Keep smiling. Sometimes the trolley drives me nuts. But any time I’m a little delayed or stressed out by a minor inconvenience (like a person dying on the trolley and delaying it 2 hours) I just remember that I don’t have the expense of a second car and I’m not sitting in traffic thinking about my next oil change. Taking public transportation has limited stress in my life– and for that, it’s awesome!
October 9, 2010
Of BluRay and Websites

It’s been a fun week.

It’s been a crazy productive week. Not only in my work life, but also in some fun stuff at home.

Our garden continues to bring us joy as well as an over-abundance of fresh produce. And the recent egg recall has only solidified our desire to get a few chickens and produce our own eggs. With almost a full season of success under our belts we are also looking for opportunities to expand the garden. I have two spots in mind, one in our yard that our landlord/neighbor had strawberries in, and our other neighbor has an abandoned lot with some old garden plots in it that we’d love to sharecrop with.

We moved our CSA pick-up from the North Park farmers market to the Little Italy Mercato. No judgement on one farmers market over the other, I’m just excited that I get to go now since the pick-up is on Saturday.

Yesterday, I pulled out our massive yellow tomato plants. They were producing 5-6 pounds of tomatoes per week and we just couldn’t keep up with them. So I’ve turned off that factory and we’re repairing that area of the garden for another summer planting of something less invasive. (It was nearly 20 feet tall!) I harvested one last batch of tomatoes and we have them laying in the sun today… sun dried yellow tomatoes!

The kids have about 2 weeks left of summer break. We are slowly coming around to the idea that this means we need to start school shopping. The good news, it’s pretty easy at a school where everyone wears uniforms! But, every still needs new shorts, shirts, shoes, and backpacks.

Kristen is officially in the second trimester with baby #3. She’s feeling a lot better as morning sickness subsides. We’re still in denial that we are going to need to buy all that baby stuff again. And my head kind of explodes when I realize that our Passat isn’t going to work with 3 kids. That said, we’re totally jazzed about this baby. Big surprise to us, but we’re going to enjoy it!

Last weekend we upgraded our DVD player to a BluRay player. By upgraded I mean that our 1999 DVD player finally stopped working and we didn’t have a way to watch movies for a few months. We watched our first BluRay movie the other day… it’s amazing! Plus, it works seamlessly with Netflix online. (We already used the Wii for this)

Since I’m being random, another early marriage purchase that just died is our toaster. Since we haven’t bought or looked at toasters since 1997… we both giggled that you can now get toasters that double as egg cookers. We might just have to do that. It’s a whole new world!

In web news, I’ve been very productive. I re-skinned Kristen’s blog last week. And I also totally designed and launched a site last weekend that I’m very excited about. On top of that, we’ve reactivated Beyond the Zoo. It’s funny looking at the stats of BTZ. Even though we haven’t put much up on the site it still gets great traffic from Google. (50+ visitors per day, not bad!)

August 22, 2010
3 Ways to Celebrate My Birthday
Erin & I celebrate our shared birthday last year at Lucha Libre Taco Shop, June 2nd 2009

So, today I turn 34. Dang I am old. Here’s how long I’m going to lament about getting older. (One mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi.)

That’s enough self-pity. I feel better now.

Now back to being bossy.

I’m not much of a birthday guy. I like other people’s birthdays. I love my children’s birthdays. But I don’t really get into my birthday. Maybe I have daddy issues? Maybe I am not over getting a Grover birthday cake when I was 5 when I really wanted a Cookie Monster cake? Or maybe I’m just socially awkward? Who cares… let’s talk about what you can do for me on my birthday.

Three ways that you can celebrate my birthday which will make me smile.
1. Do something, anything, to impact your community for Jesus. Bring a can to your church. Here are 10 more ideas.
2. Give to my Haiti fund. $5, $10, $20. If you aren’t able to go please make it a bit easier for Kristen, Erin, and I to be Good News in Port-au-Prince this July. We’ve raised about $750 of the $2500 we need.
3. Meet me at Triple Crown Pub tonight at 7. A dive bar is a weird place to ask you to show up, I know. Here’s the fun bit. Every penny of profit for whatever you order will go to the Haiti Fund. That’s right boys-n-girls. The Triple Crown by be a dive bar– but the owner has a big heart and is willing to make it easy for you to give.
June 2, 2010
Bring a Can to Church Day

Photo by CarbonNYC via Flickr (Creative Commons)

I want to encourage you to do a little civil disobedience within your church congregation.

Start bringing and leaving a canned food item to your church every time you go. Have every person in your family do it, too. Don’t make a spectacle of it. Just leave your cans in the foyer on the floor or on the counter in the bathroom. Sunday morning worship? Leave a can. Mom goes back later for a meeting? Leave a can. Your son goes for youth group? Leave a can.

Don’t ask permission. Just do it. The Bible tells you it is OK.

Eventually, someone on the church staff is going to say… “What’s up with all of these cans? And what do we do with them?”

I’ll tell you what they will do. Someone will put the cans in a box. And it’ll just sit there.

Imagine if 20% of your congregation got in the habit of doing this? Instant food pantry. It’s not a program. It’s dealing with a problem. Who keeps leaving all of these cans here!

See, I think you’ll join me in the understanding that a house of God should also be a place of refuge for the hungry. As we linger in this recession I can guarantee you there are hungry among every single congregation.

And my experience in working in churches for nearly a decade– every single one of them had random people who drop by every single day looking for food or money. And in nearly 10 years I can think of only a couple of times we had food on hand to give them.

Almost every time people come to the church looking for help and are turned away. This isn’t exactly Good News in the neighborhood, is it?

I believe God has hard-wired us in the knowledge that if we need help or need a place to run to, the church is there.

Sadly most congregations in America have gotten lazy. They think an annual clothing drive or food donation to a local pantry is the right answer.

“Ding-dong.” Every day the bell rings at the church. People come to them who are hungry. Don’t you want your church to be a place that gives them food? Wouldn’t you want your music pastor to overhear the secretary start to explain to someone that the church doesn’t keep food at the church but makes an annual donation to the food pantry in town… and says, “Wait a minute. The janitor found these cans. You can have them.”

Bam! Instant food program. The church didn’t spend a dollar. They didn’t have a meeting to discuss it. They didn’t hire a staff member to start it. It’s just a box (or closet) full of cans people mysteriously left at church.

Bring a can to church. Every time. Every person.

Problem solved.

May 27, 2010
Why Christianity Works

On my trip up the West Coast we’ve been meeting with youth workers in a variety of settings and a wide variety of types of youth ministries. And in those conversations we talk about what’s going on in their ministry, what they are teaching, what’s working, and what isn’t.

Now, youth workers love people. And they don’t just want to talk about themselves– so invariably they in turn ask me the same types of questions.

Here is one thing that has stimulated our high schoolers thoughts lately. This video actually covers the last month of our teaching in just 3 minutes.

A funny sidenote. As I’ve talked about before, our high school ministry is working hard to not just talk about Good News but to literally be good news to the students in our ministry. All of our core kids have limited church background. And every week God reveals a new way we need to be good news in order for the gospel to be Good News in their lives.

So, last week we taught the third portion of this video– that Jesus came to make a way to restore our hearts as well as the world around us.

In our small group time I gave an example from my own life about what it would look like if the Gospel penetrated into the way I think about being a dad compared to the way that I was brought up. A few of my students were really tracking with that because there is something within them that wants to be better fathers to their future kids than they’ve experienced.

As one of my kids got it, he blurted out “It’s good that God sent Jesus so we could be part of making things better. If he had just left us in that other mess, that’d be bulls**t.”

I kind of laughed when he said it. As a churchified person I was a little uncomfortable with how he put it. But I was also appreciative that God had just illuminated a deep truth about Himself in this young mans heart. I looked at him with a big grin… “I think that’s good, too. God’s no bullsh**ter. That’s why we call it Good News.”

April 29, 2010
Church vs. Government
Christians make strange political bedfellows

Have you noticed that a lot of Christians are exhibiting a hatred for our government?

I just don’t get it.

For those who are mad about the latest government program… (yesterday it was social security, today it is health care, tomorrow it will be something else.)

Just some friendly reminders
- Anger isn’t the answer, it just make you look silly.
- Agreeing with everything isn’t an option, we live in a pluralistic democratic society.
- Living in denial of the situation we live in isn’t an option.
- Pointing back to founding fathers of the nation is silly, they are dead.
- Separating from society isn’t a biblical option.
- Moving to Canada isn’t an option, they don’t want you.
What is an option?
- Changing your attitude.
- Being a part of the solution.
- Loving your neighbor.
- Caring for your neighborhood and proving it with your actions.
- Being hospitable to people you don’t know.
- Stop waiting for your church to start a program.
- Putting the needs of others above the needs of yourself.
If you are Good News to your community you have to live like it.

If you aren’t willing to be Good News to your community, than shut up and let the government do what you aren’t willing to do.

Doing nothing tangible and also complaining about the government doing a bad job at your job… let’s just say that’s not “Good News.”
March 30, 2010

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